Wedding Present

TOTP 17 DEC 1992

Posted on May 27, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s only a week until Xmas 30 (!) years ago and I’m working my arse off in Our Price, Rochdale doing long days and serving even longer queues of customers as the panic of not getting all your shopping done sets in. I’m enjoying it though as the team at the shop were great. Everyone was hard working and got on with each other. That bonhomie amongst the staff was needed though when it came to dealing with the public, especially on Xmas Eve when many of the punters who entered the store that day were manic and had no time for any basic manners or civility. In short, they slaughtered us. Many an exchange went like this:

Me: I’m sorry but we’ve sold out of Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits on cassette madam.

Customer: You f******g what?! You’ve ruined my daughter’s Xmas you have!

Something like that anyway. No doubt I would have sold some of the singles showcased on this final regular TOTP before Xmas…

N.B. I’m not reviewing the Xmas day episode. It’s too long and most of the acts on there have already featured in previous posts.

We start with The Shamen who are getting in the Xmas party spirit by dressing up as characters from Alice In Wonderland. Eh? Why? Where are the Santa hats and Xmas jumpers? If they really wanted to go down a literary route, surely Dickens’ A Christmas Carol would have been the way to go? Scrooge in his bedclothes, ghosts, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley and his chains….hey, they could have even called themselves Jacob and the Marley Chain. OK, the last bit is a crap idea but surely no worse than what they actually came up with. Again I ask, why? Oh, hang on. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts might have the answer…

Given the book's long association with psychedelics – Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" et al – I think we can guess why The Shamen decided to dress up as characters from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 20, 2022

Ah well possibly I guess. An overindulgence of some illegal substances might explain why Mr C is dressed as the Knave of Clubs. Surely it’s the Knave of Hearts (who stole some tarts)? As for the song itself, “Phorever People” sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” part II but then, why re-invent the wheel when the first one is spinning so well? The four singles taken from their “Boss Drum” album achieved the following chart peaks:

6 – 1 – 4 – 5

Pretty impressive stuff. That run of success helped earned the band the Smash Hits Best New Act award for 1992. Quite an achievement for a band that had been in existence since 1985.

A quick word on the presenters tonight. One is regular Tony Dortie but the other is rising BBC star Mr Blobby. This character achieved the seemingly impossible feat of being more annoying than Noel Edmonds despite the latter being responsible for Blobby’s rise to fame on Noel’s House Party. How on earth was the Blobby phenomenon allowed to happen?!

A third appearance on the show next for the video to “Deeper And Deeper” by Madonna. This became Madge’s first single to fail to make the Top 5 in this country since 1987’s “The Look Of Love”. None of the subsequent three singles released from the “Erotica” album managed to outdo “Deeper And Deeper” although they all went Top 10. It was a mixed bag of a time for Madonna. Her profile was as notorious as ever thanks to her X-rated coffee table book Sex and yet her album “Erotica” only sold half as many copies as its predecessor “Like A Prayer”. Nowhere was this dichotomy witnessed more succinctly than in the fact that Madonna’s managed to be simultaneously the most and least fanciable female at that Smash Hits poll winners party.

The people who started the early 90s trend for dance versions of pop standards have returned to the scene of the crime to remind us all that they were the original culprits. I speak of East Side Beat who kicked this ghastly movement off in 1991 with a cover of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”. In their wake came acts like Undercover, Rage and KWS but this Italian duo were back to remind us they were alive and kicking with their version of…erm…”Alive And Kicking” by Simple Minds. You’ll remember that this 1985 track had only recently been back in the Top 40 promoting the Scottish stadium rockers Best Of album. Was that in the thinking behind East Side Beat’s choice of song to cover? The fact that it had been reinforced in the minds of pop fans just a short time ago and had proved to retain its popularity? Could they jump on the bandwagon of its promotion and marketing campaign? Or was it all just one big happy coincidence?

Whatever the truth of the matter, their song choice worked. A Top 40 hit meant a TOTP appearance and there’s a lot to unpack about this particular performance. We start with the intro to it by Tony Dortie who, not for the first time I may add, uses the description drum ‘n’ bass erroneously. WTAF?! How is some naff Eurodance in any way, shape or form anything to do with drum ‘n’ bass?! By Goldie’s teeth!! I think Tony has retrospectively admitted he had no idea what he was talking about during some of his links but that just begs the the question why go there at all?!

Secondly, what was going on with the backing dancers? They appear to be wearing Italian club football shirts but were seemingly not allowed to wear any shorts with them. Hmm. All a bit dubious. Hang on. Is football the reason that East Side Beat chose “Alive And Kicking” to cover? Wasn’t that the song that soundtracked the advertising campaign for the launch of Sky’s coverage of the inaugural season of the Premier League? Yes it was…

Again I say hmm. Thirdly, and I’m really not wishing to get into racial stereotyping here but the lead singer must be the least stylish Italian ever!

East Side Beat’s cover of “Alive And Kicking” peaked at No 26.

Now I can’t find a clip of this live by satellite performance from Miami by Gloria Estefan so if you’re reading this after the episode has fallen off iPlayer, you’ll have to take my word for it but there’s something off about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it for ages but I think it’s the way the backing musicians have set up so they’re not actually facing the same way as Gloria as she performs. It’s quite off putting once you’ve noticed it, like they’re part of a different performance altogether but where somehow the two parallel worlds have collided like an episode of Star Trek. Talking of which, in what universe was it appropriate to add a bit of a 2 Unlimited keyboard riff to a Latino pop medley?

The “Miami Hit Mix” peaked at No 8.

The running order for this TOTP has now taken us from cover version to megamix and back to cover version in the space of three records. The second cover of the night comes from The Lemonheads whose version of Simon & Garfunkel ‘s “Mrs Robinson” was a Breaker last week. This week however, they’re in the studio and their performance has a definite Nirvana / Smells Like Teen Spirit vibe to it. Just looking at them, they look incongruous and like they don’t really belong on TOTP. Too counterculture, too anti-establishment, too slacker? Too tall in the case of Evan Dando. He looks enormous here. Apparently he’s 6ft 3” and he looks every bit of it bestriding the stage in his red duffle coat. Well, bestriding it until he attempts an abortive forward roll. Presumably that was supposed to put the watching audience on alert that something unexpected might happen and that there was an element of chaos at play as per that Nirvana performance. He even tells us audibly by singing “you don’t know what’s gonna happen next” at one point. What does happen is that he breaks into an impression of Morrissey. I mean it’s unmistakably Mozza – Dando has been known to boast about how great his impression of him is – but isn’t that just copying what Kurt Cobain did when he was on the show? I mean Cobain’s impression was terrible and Dando’s is clearly better but where’s the originality? Furthermore, isn’t Evan’s oversized coat derivative of the Nirvana lead singer’s fashion style? Too harsh? Maybe. Perhaps Evan should have stuck with his Beatles head wobble impression instead of branching out into Mozza territory.

One final thing. At the start of the performance, he shouts over to the bass player “louder man!”. Those instruments weren’t actually plugged in surely?

To the Breakers and guess what? We begin with the aforementioned Nirvana! Just like Guns N’ Roses before them the other week, here was a band still releasing tracks as singles from an album that was well over a year old. “In Bloom” was the fourth such single taken from “Nevermind” and there is a school of thought (championed by Courtney Love no less) that this should have been the lead single from the album on the basis that it’s a much better song than “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. For what it’s worth, I think she’s right. She also once said that “Hungry Like The Wolf” is the best song ever written so she knows her stuff. Ahem.

The Ed Sullivan Show pastiche video works pretty well as it remains faithful to the source material and it’s that element of realism that completes the humour of Nirvana as clean cut boys à la those lovable moptops.

“In Bloom” peaked at No 28.

OK. Just when you think the bottom of the barrel can’t be scraped any harder…We really did witness some truly ghastly acts in the UK charts during 1992. Wrestlers (WWF Superstars) strippers (The Chippendales), two acts peddling singles based on computer games (Tetris and Ambassadors Of Funk) and now this. After Shut Up And Dance delivered “Raving I’m Raving” based on “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn earlier in the year, now came “We Are Raving – The Anthem” by Slipstreem. Using Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” as its blueprint, this load of arse juice was an abysmal idea that sounded even worse. Who were these berks and why didn’t Rod but an injunction out to stop this atrocity? After all, it’s what Marc Cohn did. I’ve got no words left for this type of garbage. Next!

As well as being remembered for some terrifyingly dreadful chart hits, 1992 will also rightly be recalled as the year of The Wedding Present “Hit Parade” project. Twelve singles in one calendar year and all made the Top 40 meaning that they equalled Elvis Presley’s 1957 record. Except their achievement was better as they wrote all their songs whereas Elvis’s were written for him. They did however do some cover versions for the B-sides including for the final release “No Christmas” which had Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” on the flip and a fine version it is too.

The highest chart position attained by any of the “Hit Parade” singles was No 10 while the lowest was No 26. It still stands up as quite the achievement I think.

Now working in a shop in Rochdale at this time, I lived in hope that the next artist might pop in one day as she grew up there from the age of 11. Sadly, the day Lisa Stansfield glided into the store was my day off! FFS!

Anyway, there was much hope that her latest single “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” was going to be a huge seller coming as it did from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. It was certainly a decent sized hit peaking as it did at No 10 but there was genuine belief that it could have been a Top 3 contender. I have to say it seemed a bit lacklustre to me. Maybe it was overshadowed by all those Whitney Houston power ballads that packed out the rest of the album. Lisa’s track was the only one to be released as a single from the soundtrack that wasn’t by Whitney so I guess she deserves some kudos for that.

Do you think that Lisa was having a bad hair day when this performance was recorded? How else do you explain her decision to wear a cat burglar’s hat otherwise?

Now I’m not sure why the TOTP producers chose to show this next video instead of the official promo for “Heal The World” by Michael Jackson. It’s a concert clip from the Dangerous World Tour. I’ve put in some footage from the Bucharest date below but I don’t know if that’s the one shown on the programme. It’s looks like Jacko’s wearing the same jacket in both so I’ll go with that. The five UK dates had already been and gone so it can’t have been to increase ticket sales and in any case, wouldn’t all the gigs have sold out almost immediately anyway?

I guess if anyone had the best shot of beating Whitney to the Xmas No 1 it was Michael Jackson. Possibly the most famous person on the planet and with a huge, goodwill to all ballad, it seemed like a decent shout. And yet I never felt like he would actually do it. Maybe that was purely based on what we were selling in the Rochdale store but I just never doubted it would be a Houston Xmas chart topper. For once, I was right.

It’s a second medley on the show tonight. After Gloria Estefan earlier, here come Boney M. Ever wondered why they were called Boney M? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

Frank Farian named Boney M after Boney, an Aussie TV drama about a half-aboriginal detective called Bonaparte. The series featured a white actor badly “]
blacked-up in the title role, and was a bit of a joke in Germany. https://t.co/qXtEsd7L4w #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 20, 2022

I remember Boney! It used to be on Sunday afternoons on ITV in the Midlands where I grew up. When it came on, me and my brother used to say (in a very un-PC way) “first he was fatty, then he was skinny, now he’s Boney”. We thought we were hilarious!

Their 1992 “Megamix” was the third such single released by the band – or whatever assembled line up passed for the band at that time – in the last four years. This was by far the biggest hit though peaking at No 7.

It’s still there, it will be the Xmas No 1 and it will continue to occupy top spot in the charts for weeks to come. Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was a sales phenomenon. It was on the way to being just the second single in the last six years to reach one million sales in the UK. It would end up selling over 1,550,000 copies. The Bodyguard film wasn’t even released in the UK until Boxing Day. Presumably that gave it a second wind sales wise (as if it needed it).

Mr Blobby is back to say goodbye just before the credits roll. One year later he would be on the show again, this time with the Xmas No 1 crown. What a time to be alive!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	Phorever People	Nope
2	Madonna	Deeper And Deeper	No
3	East Side Beat	Alive And Kicking	Never!
4	Gloria Estefan	Miami Hit Mix	Nope
5	The Lemonheads	Mrs Robinson	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Nirvana	In Bloom	Ditto
7	Slipstreem	We Are Raving – The Anthem	NOOO!
8	The Wedding Present	No Christmas	No but I have their version of Step Into Christmas on something
9	Lisa Stansfield	Someday (I’m Coming Back)	I did not
10	Michael Jackson	Heal The World	No but I had a promo copy of HIStory with it on
11	Boney M	Megamix	No but my wife’s first ever album purchase was Nightflight To Venus
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	No but god knows how many I sold that Christmas

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/m0017ftn/top-of-the-pops-17121992

TOTP 15 OCT 1992

Posted on April 13, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s mid October in 1992 here at TOTP Rewind and something very odd is happening to the UK singles charts which seems to have been infiltrated by a string of acts that have very little to do with music. Now if you haven’t been enjoying these TOTP repeats on BBC4, you may want to argue they could apply to most of the Top 40 occupants but I’m talking about a very specific form of chart interloper. These were entities that have no genuine musical connection nor talent but are just spin offs from another form of ‘entertainment’. Who am I talking about? Well, here’s an example; “Tetris” by Dr Spin, a track based on the theme tune to a computer game. Ah yes but that’s just one song you may say. You’d be wrong. In a week or two there will be another computer game based hit by an act calling themselves Ambassadors Of Funk (oh the irony) entitled “Supermarioland”. OK, so there was a mini craze for computer game inspired novelty hits. So what? It’s hardly the sound that ate the world. True but that’s not the end of it. Soon our eyes and ears will have to cope with the sight and sound of an all male stripping troupe gyrating up the charts as The Chippendales make their musical bow. Not to be outdone in the manliness stakes, the WWF Superstars will soon be pile-driving their way into Top 5 with their “Slamjam” single.

Where was all this coming from? Well, one influence may have been ITV’s new Saturday teatime show Gladiators that had just premiered the weekend before this TOTP aired. Remember that? Where members of the public tried to outdo the programme’s ‘gladiators’ in a series of physical challenges called things like Swingshot, Joust and Pole-Axe? It was presented by Ulrika Jonsson and John ‘Awooga’ Fashanu and made stars of the ‘gladiators’ like Jet, Hunter and Wolf. It was quite the ratings sensation for a while. Although there was no spin off single from the show until 1996 (an horrendous cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Boys Are Back In Town”) it was certainly part of the cultural landscape. Unfortunately we will be seeing two of these cultural giants in tonight’s TOTP.

We start though with Sunscreem who I was amazed to find had eight Top 40 hits. I have to admit that I couldn’t have named any of them without looking at their discography. I do remember them being around at this time and that they were a dance act but their material seemed to have passed me by. Listening to this track “Perfect Motion”, they’re a lot more accessible than I would have imagined, a hybrid of dance floor bpm and pop. They sort of remind me a little of New Order – certainly the single’s title sounds like a New Order track. Image wise, singer Lucia Holm was a sort of grunge version of Yazz. Hmm. Yazz does New Order? Is that really the comparison that I’m looking for?

Now what’s going on here? Pan’s People on TOTP in 1992? According to host Mark Franklin it was part of a retrospective strategy to celebrate the show’s forthcoming 1500th edition by revisiting highlights from its past. Pan’s People are dancing to “(They Long To Be) Close To You” by The Carpenters which was a No 6 hit in the UK in 1970. Mark though tells us it’s from 30 years ago to the day in 1972. I’ve checked the official charts database and can’t see anything on there to confirm that the song was in the charts then. According to the next-episode website there was no TOTP broadcast on that day so what gives? Surely the producers haven’t just made it up to fit with a neat narrative?

Pan’s People were the dance troupe that I remember from my first memories of the show which include Mud performing “Tiger Feet”. At some point they changed to Legs & Co and then Zoo was it? When were Ruby Flipper then? It doesn’t matter I suppose. Pan’s People’s performance isn’t too un-PC I guess. I’m sure there are some right howlers in the archives though.

Meanwhile back in the studio in 1992 we find Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown once more with their hit single “I’m Gonna Get You”. There’s two things that sprang to my attention whilst watching this back. Firstly, what was the deal with the keyboards made to look like swings? It’s literally the worst look for a musical instrument since the key-tar. Secondly, the different coloured alternate backdrops remind me of something but I can’t put my finger on it. It’ll come to me….oh God. I’ve got it. It’s Naked Attraction that weird dating show on Channel 4! The very last thing I want to put my finger on! It’s the multi coloured booths that the naked contestants stand in which reveal their bodies from the feet up! Not that I watch it myself you understand but I’ve seen it on Gogglebox. Honest!

“I’m Gonna Get You” peaked at No3.

From Naked Attraction to “Erotica” by Madonna. What a segue! Was this the peak of Madge’s controversy? She’d already incurred the wrath of the Vatican three years earlier with her “Like A Prayer” video and its imagery of the Ku Klux Klan’s burning crosses but now she was back with a three pronged attack on society’s moral standards according to some commentators (Mary Whitehouse must have had something to say about it all). Firstly there was the “Erotica” single with its S&M undertones which sees Madonna assuming the pseudonym of Mistress Dita and its MTV banned video (presumably the version shown on TOTP was heavily edited). Then there was a whole album called “Erotica” with its themes of fantasy, desire and pleasure. Lastly, and this was the real moral majority baiting clincher, there was the ‘coffee table’ book Sex. Has there ever been such a misnomer? Well, apparently not as it has sold 1.5 million copies and is the biggest and fastest selling coffee table book of all time. This was a 128 page spiral bound tome that featured images of nudity, simulations of sexual acts, bondage etc. It came in a sealed bag presumably to stop casual browsers seeing what all the fuss was about. I remember being in WH Smith around this time and some curious teenagers asking the poor sales assistant to open the seal so they could peruse the contents. Happily, she refused to do so.

As for the song “Erotica”, was it really that different to “Justify My Love” from two years prior? I’m not so sure. Maybe Madge was just taking continuing that theme to its logical conclusion? Where could you go with it other than to illicit more outrage? I have to admit I wasn’t that convinced.

“Erotica” the single peaked at No 3.

I may not have been convinced by Madonna’s latest offering but it was wholly preferable to the next act as we arrive at the first of these chart outliers that I mentioned before. I speak of Doctor Spin and the Game Boy influenced track “Tetris”. Now, there had been computer games when I was growing up in the 70s but despite amazing the pre-teenage me, they were incredibly basic. I had a Binatone console…

Ah, happy memories. By 1992, things had advanced dramatically but I had never gone back to the world of gaming after my 70s foray. Consequently, when Our Price for whom I was working started selling them in the early 90s I was a bit lost. I was in the Rochdale store at this time and we were stocking a Nintendo and Sega range. I recall there being a big deal about the latter’s release of the follow up to Sonic the Hedgehog. The release date was specifically shifted to a Tuesday so the marketing for it could be framed as Sonic 2sday which was the 24th November. That marketing budget by the way was $10 million and it worked generating 1 million sales in the US and 750,000 in the UK in a day selling out everywhere.

All of this helped establish gaming as not just a legitimate leisure pursuit but as one of the fastest growing. The cash-in spin-off was inevitable I guess and so it came to pass that Andrew Lloyd Webber exploited the gap in the market with this heinous load of nonsense. Who bought this? “Tetris” peaked at No 6 which presumably was the average age of the punter who purchased it.

We move seamlessly (not even a voice over intro) onto the next stage where Boyz II Men are patiently awaiting their cue. What on earth must they have been thinking about British taste watching Doctor Spin on before them?! They here to perform “End Of The Road” of course and, given its popularity back in the day, I was surprised to see very little love for it out there in Twitter land. Look at this guy for example:

Horrific. The auditory equivalent of rabies.
— Peter (@DasJarg) April 8, 2022

Wow! If that’s what he thought of Boys II Men I wonder what he made of Doctor Spin?! As for me, I didn’t doubt these guys could sing but their staging and image was bizarre. They’ve got the prop of a streetlight which I guess references the origins of doo-wop which was clearly an influence on the band but why are they all wearing baseball caps, jackets and jeans?! It’s ludicrous. Also, why has one of them got a walking stick? Did he have a genuine leg injury or was it an affectation Mick Hucknall style? Boyz II Men – crazy name, crazy guys!

Four Breakers now starting with a cover version which is surely one of the most pointless and also most forgotten in musical history. It had been nearly two years since The Farm had been riding a wave of popularity off the back of two huge hit singles in “Groovy Train” and “All Together Now”. Debut album “Spartacus” had risen swiftly to the top of the charts. However, subsequent singles releases had been minor hits and by the time they were releasing new material from second album “Love See No Colour”, those minor hits had turned into flops. The title track and follow up single “Rising Sun” had both missed the Top 40 altogether so what do you do when in need of a hit to reverse your chart fortunes? We all know the answer to this by now. Their choice of cover version was decidedly odd. Choosing The Human League’s classic No 1 “Don’t You Want Me” seemed frought with issues not the least being that Phil and co’s version was so definitive that anything that came after it was destined to be seen as inferior. That applied to the video as well as the song so what The Farm served up as their promo looked ghastly. Some sort of karaoke bar setting with sing-a-long lyrics on screen and a cameo by well known alcoholic George Best? My God. What were they thinking?!

The cover version trick worked though and returned the band to the Top 20 and paved the way for a rerelease of the “Love See No Colour” single which made No 35. However, it proved to be a false dawn and their only two subsequent chart entries were with reissues of “All Together Now”.

I’ve seen many a band come and go, many a musical genre rise and fall in the course of these TOTP reviews but one constant has been AC/DC. Racking up hits whatever else was going on in the charts, they never seemed to go out of fashion. They are back in our Top 40 courtesy of a live version of “Highway To Hell” which was to promote their live album called…erm… “AC/DC Live”. I’m guessing this was released to plug the five year gap that would follow the release of 1990’s “The Razors Edge” album and its follow up “Ballbreaker” which didn’t arrive until 1995. I remember that “AC/DC Live” was a double album and the slip case for the cassette version was a bugger to get back on without tearing it after taking it off. That, and that the single made No 14, are all I have to say about this AC/DC release.

The Wedding Present’s single for this month was a number called “Sticky” which I don’t remember at all but then they did release 12 singles in 1992 as part of their “Hit Parade” project so I’m not going to give myself a kicking over that.

The clip of the video we see here has a bit of a Twin Peaks vibe to it with a bloke in the desert telling the listener to get out using a speeded up animation effect before a devil figure wrestles with someone in a white room with a black and white chequered floor. Very weird. The single peaked at No 17, the second consecutive single to do so in their attempt to equal Elvis Presley’s record for the most hit singles in one year.

The final Breaker comes from The Orb. After the genre breaking ‘chess’ performance on the show for the last single “Blue Room” that apparently had a major effect on Robbie Williams and his view on how to make music, they’re back with standalone single “Assassin”. I have to say this does/did little for me but then I was never a bpm fiend. The video reminds me of one that a group of students on my course made way back in the mid 80s at Sunderland Polytechnic. We all had to write, film and edit a small film as part of the module. My group’s was called “Wet Dream” but it was not what you’re thinking and nothing approaching similar to Madonna’s “”Erotica” promo! One of the other groups ran out of time so in the end just filmed some of them sat down and added some visual effects over the top to a soundtrack of Jean Michel Jarre. I didn’t think much of it at the time but I think I prefer it to The Orb’s video.

“Assassin” peaked at a No 12.

The return of Bon Jovi next. It had been four years since their last album “New Jersey” and the musical landscape had changed almost beyond recognition. Added to that, the band were facing some existential demons after taking a deliberate hiatus during which Jon Bon Jovi wrote a film soundtrack and Richie Sambora a solo album. Jon is on record as saying that “We’d been kicked in the teeth by Nirvana but we didn’t pay attention to that. We got rid of the clichés, wrote some socially conscious lyrics and got a haircut. I didn’t do a grunge thing and I didn’t do a rap thing but I knew I couldn’t rewrite “Livin’ On A Prayer” again so I didn’t try. And it paid off”.

It was true. “Keep The Faith” the single and the album were no attempt to jump on the Nirvana bandwagon but nor were they more of the poodle rock on which they’d made their name. For a start it was (and remains) the longest album they’d ever recorded clocking in at 66 minutes. The album version of the title track is nearly 6 minutes long itself though it was edited down for radio. Now I’m not suggesting that longer means a more mature sound necessarily but neither were they looking for the quick thrill opening of something like “Born To Be My Baby”.

The album would spawn six hit singles and go to No 1 in the UK and No 5 in the US. Incredibly they released the last single from it (“Dry County”) nearly 16 months to the day since the album came out. It was, in short, a monster.

Jon Bon Jovi seems to be channelling his inner Davy Jones from The Monkees in this performance with his maracas action. I had a promo copy of the album through work at one point but I’ve no idea what happened to it. You can’t really say the same of Bon Jovi.

Tasmin Archer is at No 1 for the first week of two with “Sleeping Satellite”. It really was a magnificent achievement for a debut single especially when you consider that major, established acts like Madonna and Bon Jovi had new material out at the time. Written about the moon landing and the Apollo missions of the 60s and early 70s, it must be the best (and only) song to reference space hardware since Kirsty MacColl had a hit with Billy Bragg’s “New England” in 1985. Do you hear it played on the radio these days? Maybe on the retro stations like Absolute 90s. Whether it is or not, there will always be a part of 1992 that belongs to Tasmin Archer.

And finally Cyril (one for you Esther Rantzen fans), there was an epilogue to this show where we got a glimpse (possibly unwanted) of an act on next week’s show and it’s the second of those cultural chart outliers. We are ‘treated’ to a few seconds of the new single by The Chippendales “Give Me Your Body” plus a personal invitation from one of them to join them on the show next week. You have been warned.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sunscreem	Perfect Motion	Nope
2	The Carpenters	(They Long To Be) Close To You	No but everyone has a Carpenters Greatest Hits album don’t they?
3	Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown	I’m Gonna Get You	No
4	Madonna	Erotica	No, I wasn’t convinced
5	Doctor Spin	Tetris	Sod off!
6	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	I didn’t think it was the auditory equivalent of rabies but I didn’t buy it either
7	The Farm	Don’t You Want Me	No, no I didn’t want you
8	AC/DC	Highway To Hell	Not my thing
9	The Wedding Present	Sticky	Nah
10	The Orb	Assassin	See 8 above
11	Bon Jovi	Keep The Faith	Not the single but I had that promo album for a while
12	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Good song but 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/m001648v/top-of-the-pops-15101992

TOTP 16 JUL 1992

Posted on March 11, 2022 by 80stastic

Right – before I get into this can I just say that the BBC4 schedule for these TOTP repeats has been relentless of late. It’s been two shows every Friday for weeks now meaning lots of content needing to be created by this blogger. Can’t the BBC slip in an impromptu Proms or something to give me a blow?! Having checked the forthcoming schedule I can see there is no abatement pending at least until the end of the month. Thanks very much BBC4.

In keeping with last week, there is only one presenter again this week; the fresh faced Mark Franklin. Unlike last week there’s been a tweak to the format which sees Franklin appear on our screens straight away rather than being a disembodied voice announcing the first act and he then proceeds to go straight into a rundown of the Top 10! It seems to be a nod back to how the show used to begin in the 70s and early 80s with a chart countdown soundtracked by “Whole Lotta Love” before we saw any of the acts.

After that we’re into the music and we start with Wet Wet Wet who, like many an artist this year, seem to be having an unexpected revival of fortunes. “Lip Service” is their third Top 40 hit in succession after chart topper “Goodnight Girl” and follow up “More Than Love”. It’s also the fifth and final track to be released as a single from their “High On The Happy Side” album. I always quite liked this – it sort of frothed and bubbled away until the hook of the chorus brought it to the boil. Marti Pellow has turned up for this performance dressed as a poker playing gunfighter from the Wild West (minus a ten gallon hat) or is it as a member of Showaddywaddy?

The band would not release another studio album for three years so they filled the gap with their first Best Of compilation (“End Of Part One: Their Greatest Hits”) and a live set (“Live At The Royal Albert Hall”). Then came that single in the Summer of ‘94 but that’s a while off yet.

“Lip Service” peaked at No 15.

Our first glimpse of Madonna in 1992 came via her single “This Used To Be My Playground” which was from the film she was currently starring in A League Of Their Own. I say ‘starring’ in but hers was actually quite a secondary role in this account of the US women’s baseball league that was founded in 1943 to keep the sport in the public eye during WWII. I really am rather fond of this film with some great performances from Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Lori Petty as the three major protagonists. One of those guilty pleasure films that I’ll watch if I stumble across while channel flipping. Madonna’s name was all over the promotion campaign for the film but as I say, her character isn’t one of the principal leads.

As for the song itself, it’s a bit of an outlier coming as it did in between* the provocative “Justify My Love” and the outright society baiting “Erotica” project. Very much a stand-alone single – contractual issues meant it couldn’t even be included on the film’s soundtrack – it’s an accomplished ballad but one which I have to admit I always found to be quite dull.

*I’m not counting the “Immaculate Collection” inspired re-releases of “Holiday” and “Crazy For You” in ‘91.

The video concept of a man flicking through a photo album, the pages of which have Madonna singing in various different settings, was not as original as it was made out to be. Boy George’s video for his “To Be Reborn” single of five years earlier had a very similar look. Indeed, in his autobiography George said he was furious when he first saw Madonna’s promo and renamed it “This Used To Be My Video”. He had a point – Madonna’s video is a direct rip off…

‘Furious’ may not have been the exact word George used to express his anger at the steal. Here’s TOTP presenter Tony Dortie:

#totp Bumped into Boy George not long after that Playground @Madonna song came out he had some very choice words about it consisting (insert multiple 4 letter words of your own choice)
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

“This Used To Be My Playground” peaked at No 3.

Next up are The Wedding Present though you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Altern-8 given the hazmat suits and masks that the band are wearing. What was all that about? Well, apparently the outfits were from the promo video for the single “Flying Saucer” but while watching it back, I discovered something else that interested me far more. There’s a bit where there a close up of David Gedge that just shows his eyes and nose and I swear that could be me back then. Hell, it could be me now! Well, maybe.

Anyway, this was the latest in their year long odyssey to release a new single every month in ‘92. “Flying Saucer” was the seventh of such singles and would peak at No 22, the fourth lowest performing of the twelve released. I quite liked this one. Some crunchy indie guitar licks and Gedge’s usual idiosyncratic vocals made for a winning combination. I’m not sure that the band achieved whatever it was they were trying to with this performance though unless it was actually meant to be a send up of Altern-8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNrzXyVl8DA

Fresh from his appearance on the last ever Wogan the other week, Jason Donovan was back in the Top 40 however implausible that may have seemed in the middle of 1992. A few things had changed since his last hit though. Firstly, he had successfully sued The Face magazine for libel after he argued that the publication had implied he was a hypocrite for lying about his sexuality after suggesting he may be gay. Secondly, he had left the Stock, Aitken and Waterman family and switched labels from PWL to Polydor.

His first album for his new masters was “All Around The World” (incidentally it shared its name with a single by one of Polydor’s most famous acts The Jam) with its lead single being “Mission Of Love”. This is a truly dreadful song. It would struggle not to come last at The Eurovision Song Contest. Actually, it would struggle not to come last in A Song For Europe. I’m amazed it got to even No 26 in our charts. Polydor we’re clearly not impressed and getting cold feet about the album. In an amazing lack of faith in their charge, they licensed some of his previous hits and shoved them on the album to beef up its sales potential. In total they added six old tracks, four from his previous albums and two from the Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat cast recording. Donovan was less than impressed and when the album stiffed, he and Polydor inevitably parted ways. The era of Jason Donovan the pop star was just about over.

Ah shit! It’s time for another wretched track. Why is it that the offensiveness of a song seems to work in direct correlation to how popular it is? “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus became the first ever single to achieve triple platinum sales in Australia and spent five weeks at the top of the US Country charts before crossing over into the mainstream and peaking at No 4 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was a hit all across the world and yet was also voted No 2 in a VH1 poll of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs. The same TV network voted it in at No 87 in their 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s poll. Has there ever been a more schizophrenic hit? There are people who despise it for popularising line dancing whilst there is also a faction who credit it with breathing life into a genre of music that was dying on its arse amongst younger audiences. It’s a basket case of song. Whatever you make of it though (and it’s almost a novelty song for me), it certainly made an impression on 1992.

Cyrus is of course the father of Miley Cyrus who rose to fame as Disney character Hannah Montana and then as a pop star under her own name. Her bio on Wikipedia is absolutely massive. I was literally scrolling for about thirty seconds just to get to the bottom and I didn’t read a word of it.

“Achy Breaky Heart” was a No 3 hit in the UK which probably means we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

If Jason Donovan’s time as a pop star was coming to an end then the next act were just getting into gear as a mainstream chart stars. The Shamen had turned tragedy into triumph when they managed to carry on despite the death of band member Will Sinnott and rack up a huge hit with a Beatmasters remix of “Pro>gen” as “Move Any Mountain” in the Summer of ‘91. Fast forward a year and they were ready to take it to the next level with an album full of hit singles. That album was “Boss Drum” and the first hit from it was “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”.

With rapper Mr. C now a full time member and the face of the band, an all out charge at the charts was ready to go. All they had to do now was get their tunes out there and they began with this No 6 hit. Another crucial addition was vocalist Jhelisa Anderson who’s contribution helped make the new sound of The Shamen.

The performance here is interesting in that that the staging of it is surely what The Wedding Present should have done instead of those hazmat suits. It’s got a goddam flying saucer prop! WTF? Did Gedge and co not see this in rehearsal and think ‘oh yeah, that’s what we should have done’. It’s sort of like the Madonna/Boy George thing but in reverse. Oh I give up trying to make sense of it all!

Just two Breakers again this week starting with that old rascal Morrissey. Surely one of his more memorable song titles, “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” was the second single from his “Your Arsenal” album although it hadn’t actually been released at this point. When it did arrive at the end of July, I was still working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester and I asked our Assistant Manager Pete if he’d heard “Your Arsenal” yet to which he replied that he had no interest in listening to Morrissey’s arse! To be fair to Pete, Mozza was not his cup of tea at all. As for me, I quite liked it with its robust, glam inspired guitar (well it was produced by David Bowie’s mate Mick Ronson). “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” peaked at No 19.

The second Breaker hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit for a couple of years and indeed only had four all told. Was (Not Was) really should have had more. If Jason Donovan could have sixteen chart hits than surely to goodness these Detroit musical boundary pushers deserved a bigger haul.

I’d first come across Was (Not Was) in 1983 when “Out Come The Freaks” narrowly missed the UK Top 40 but nearly 10 years later, despite some excellent tunes, they were still mostly known for 1987 hit “Walk The Dinosaur”. They were still deemed worthy of a Best Of chart compilation by record company Polygram and “Hello Dad…I’m In Jail” was released this year. To promote it, two tracks were released as singles. A cover of INXS’s “Listen Like Thieves” seemed like an overtly commercial decision not in keeping with the band’s previous back catalogue and it was ultimately proven to be misjudged as the single stalled at No 58.

The second single released to promote the album was a different case altogether. Now I never knew this until now but “Shake Your Head” was actually an early Was (Not Was) song from 1982 that had quite an interesting back story. It always featured the vocals of Ozzy Osbourne (who re-recorded them for the ‘92 remix by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley) but a pre-fame Madonna had also laid down some vocals for the track that were ultimately not used by the band. As possibly the most famous woman on the planet ten years on, the band approached Madonna for permission to use her original contribution but she refused (surely she didn’t hold a grudge, not Madge) so they asked actress Kim Basinger to sing on it instead. They didn’t miss Madonna at all as “Shake Your Head” provided the band with the biggest UK hit of their career when it peaked at No 4.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find Sophie B. Hawkins though you wouldn’t know it as there is no introduction for her at all. We go straight from the end of the Breakers to a camera shot of her and her rather large backing band on stage. Not even a voiceover segue from Mark Franklin. Bit odd. “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” is up to No 16 by this point and Sophie gives a pretty good performance of it here. If she watched it back afterwards though, she may have been alarmed at her achingly stylish ripped jeans. As well as the tears around the knee area, she also seemed to have a big, gaping crotch hole which the TOTP cameraman managed to find in a rather salacious camera angle late on. I hope Bob Geldof wasn’t in the studio that night after his ‘I’m just going to look at you’ comment the other week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5vlNjvfBds

Jimmy Nail has hit the proverbial on the head and is at No 1 within 2 weeks of “Ain’t No Doubt” being released. How did this happen? Since his days in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Jimmy’s lost a lot of weight and grown his hair longer but he still isn’t what you would describe as your standard looking pop star.

Nail has crafted a career out of being a professional Geordie to the point where he was used as a tool in Anglo American relations. What am I talking about? Well, my friend Robin (the one who hates every Elton John song ever) is partial to golfing holidays in America. He usually goes with some mates who are proud Geordies and keen to promote the cultural significance of The Toon. When in a bar one holiday, the woman serving them was struggling with their accents and was curious as to where they were from in the UK. When their answer of Newcastle brought a shrug of non recognition, Robin’s mates tried to explain their home by mentioning famous people associated with the city. I think the list went like this:

Ant & Dec
Spender
Alan Shearer

When the Premier League’s all time top goal scorer failed to make her understand, it prompted howls of disbelief:

“Yer dinna nar Sheara? Clive man! She dinna nar Sheara!”

“DINNA NAR SHEARA?!” etc etc…

In the end it was Cheryl Cole who was the celebrity that the woman behind the bar knew, presumably from her stint on the US version of The X Factor. Quite why they thought throwing the name of Jimmy Nail’s TV series Spender in the mix would do the trick I do not know.

In another tweak to the show’s format, the closing song video has been reintroduced. Up until this point, the ‘year zero’ revamp shows had finished on the No 1 single. They’ve gone for a big name to relaunch this in Prince (and the New Power Generation) who are back with new single “Sexy MF”. I say back but a Prince was so prolific it seemed like he’d never been away as he always had new material out. “Sexy MF” was the first single from the album “Love Symbol” or to give it its true title ‘unpronounceable symbol’ as depicted on the cover art of the album.

Now we all know what the ‘MF’ in the title referred to (no Mark Franklin not your name) so the single had to be heavily edited to allow radio airplay. So concerned were record company Warners that they released it in the UK as a double A-side with the more palatable track “Strollin’” but nobody played that. Interestingly, though a big No 4 hit over here, it only made No 66 in the US. Maybe it was that airplay issue.

Of course, any mention of “Sexy MF” has to prompt another viewing of this:

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Lip Service	No but my wife had the album
2	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	Nah
3	The Wedding Present	Flying Saucer	No
4	Jason Donovan	Mission Of Love	Hell no!
5	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	Double Hell no!
6	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
7	Morrissey	You’re The One For Me Fatty	Negative
8	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought that Best Of album it wads promoting
9	Sophie B. Hawkins	Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover	It’s a no
10	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	That’s another no
11	Prince and the New Power Generation	Sexy MF	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/m0014zvq/top-of-the-pops-16071992

TOTP 14 MAY 1992

Posted on February 22, 2022 by 80stastic

In the last post, as it featured Curiosity aka Curiosity Killed The Cat, I tried to fit in a few feline themed comments. Well, guess what? My research tells me that immediately after this TOTP was broadcast, we saw the last ever appearance on Eastenders of Ethel’s dog Willy on our screens before he retired. Sadly for Willy, his retirement was short lived as he passed away just two weeks into it. All of this means I can use dear old Willy as an excuse for a dog themed post. Be prepared for lots of ‘the dog’s bollocks’, ‘canine cahoonas’, ‘every dog has its day’ etc.

We start tonight with the follow up to one of the year’s biggest hits. “Stay” by Shakespear’s Sister spent eight weeks at No 1 and although the duo’s next single also went Top 10, you very rarely hear it on the radio these days such was the ubiquity of its predecessor. It’s not as if ”I Don’t Care” doesn’t have its merits either. A pop song that really bounces along yet is quirky enough to elevate it above the bog standard. I’m not wavered by accusations of sounding a bit too like “Don’t Get Me Wrong” by The Pretenders (it does) as it’s got enough of a bark (oh, here we go!) to make itself heard in its own right. In fact, it’s even got a highfalutin intellectual element to it. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

The spoken bit in "I Don't Care" is "Hornpipe", a poem by Dame Edith Sitwell. It's one of a series of studies in word-rhythms and onomatopoeia, designed to be read to musical accompaniment, and first performed in 1922: https://t.co/NbsjZbDuCz #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 18, 2022

The performance here continues with the theme of Detroit and Fahey being oppositional to each other. They couldn’t be more contrasting with Marcella all sharp, angular haircut and tight control of her guitar and Siobahn… well I’m not sure what look she was going for but I’m guessing it wasn’t the one in my head which was as Aunt Sally after a night on the grog with her pal Worzel Gummidge.

“I Don’t Care” peaked at No 7.

If it’s 1992 then it must be time for another chart hit by The Wedding Present. Of the twelve “Hit Parade” singles released by the band in this calendar year, “Come Play With Me” would be the highest charting when it made it to No 10. My memory of working in a record shop whilst this project played out was that there was huge punter demand initially but that fans got fed up of it eventually, trying to track down these limited release singles or pre-ordering them every month, sometimes having to put down a deposit. This is just about borne out by the arc of the chart peaks achieved by each release:

26-20-14-14-10-16-22-19-17-17-23-25

OK, it’s not a perfect parabola but I think there’s a definite peak about half way through followed by a tailing off as the year comes to a close.

There’s no studio appearance this time presumably because the band were on tour as host Claudia Simon references so it’s the video instead. It strikes me that both the promo and indeed the song are almost The Wedding Present doing their best Beautiful South impression. No? Just me then. This was my peak The Wedding Present era. Not because I was one of those hardy souls trying to purchase every one of those limited edition singles but because this was the time I most resembled David Gedge. I was just about to be 24, I was lean and my hair didn’t have a wisp of grey in it. I may have even had something approaching cheekbones. These days…well let’s just say I have not been unaffected by the travails of middle age! Even in dog years I’d now be considered a senior.

Next a band who had been absent for the whole of 1991. Del Amitri had presumably spent the previous year recording new material and “Always The Last To Know” was the first of it that we got to hear. The lead single from their third album “Everything Changes”, this sounded to me like a distinct attempt to write a hit single and they pulled it off perfectly. A Rolling Stones-esque opening riff led into a well executed pop song that was perfect for daytime radio about the realisation that your partner has been unfaithful. Supposedly it’s one of author Stephen King’s favourite ever songs – “It’s so goddamn sad” he told Rolling Stone magazine. I wouldn’t say I was in total agreement with King – it’s not one of my favourite ever songs – but I liked it enough to buy the single. I’d liked most of their stuff that I’d heard before without ever being compelled to purchase any of it but I caved on this one.

The album would prove to be the band’s most successful going all the way to No 2 and generating four Top 40 singles of which “Always The Last To Know” was the biggest peaking at No 13. And that huge, sheepskin jacket that Justin Currie is wearing under hot studio lights? Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

"In a desperate attempt to keep me fit, we got some nurse to come out and give me an injection in the arse – some vitamins which didn’t do any good whatsoever… So I ended up with that stupid sheepskin thing because I was really freezing and sweating." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 18, 2022

If I think of the year 1992 in terms of the Top 40 singles chart, this next song always comes to mind. It wasn’t always like that. The first time I ever heard the name Kris Kross was when some young lad came up to the counter and asked if we had anything by them in stock. I thought he meant “Sailing” and “Arthur’s Theme” hitmaker Christopher Cross. This lad must have been listening to the US charts where Kris Kross were tearing it up. Their debut single “Jump” would be No 1 there for eight weeks.

Of course, there are two things that have to be mentioned when discussing Kris Kross – their ages and their jeans. Chris ‘Mac Daddy’ Kelly and Chris ‘Daddy Mac’ Smith were only 13 years of age when they had their biggest success after being discovered by record producer Jermaine Dupri in a shopping mall. Dupri wrote “Jump” for the duo which would go on to be the fastest selling single in the US for 15 years. Inevitably it would crossover to the UK market where we were unable to resist its Jackson 5 bass line and high speed raps.

We also seemed unable to resist their penchant for wearing their jeans back to front. In some cases literally. The duo were scheduled to do a PA at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester just up the road from where I worked in the Market Street store and the manager there couldn’t stop the staff from wearing their jeans Kris Kross style. My recollection is that they never turned up to the PA for some reason but I could be wrong. They called their fashion style ‘totally krossed out’ which was also the name of their debut album that topped the US charts and went four times platinum. We were only focussed on the single here though which was bought in enough quantities to send it to No 2. The album by contrast peaked at No 31.

As is often the case with child stars who found fame and celebrity so early in their lives, the Kris Kross story ended in tragedy when Chris Kelly died in 2013 at the age of just 34 after an extensive history of drug abuse.

Just a slight pause before the next act to make an observation about the staging of the show tonight. The hosts for this one are Mark Franklin and Claudia Simon but you’d be forgiven for that fact having passed you by. After we see the pair on screen after the Shakespear’s Sister performance at the top of the programme introducing the Top 10 countdown, apart from a brief glimpse of Mark as he introduces the Breakers, we only see them again at the end of the show (and even then as images on TV screens). All their segues have been voice overs and as for the link between Del Amitri and Kris Kross…there wasn’t one! Nothing. Just the camera sliding over from one stage to the other. What was that all about?

They’re still not on screen as we head into the next song which is “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” by En Vogue. The video for this won an MTV Video Music Award for best choreography. I’m not sure if that relates to the group’s moves or those of the featured dancers one of whom appears to be in full on gimp clobber but which Wikipedia informs me is actually a zentai suit and are often used for video special effects. Talking of which, I quite like the fact that at one point in the video the group are shown against just a blue background. I’m sure today that would be a green screen with all sorts of imagery going in behind them as they strutted their stuff.

“My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” peaked at No 4 in the UK.

Some Disney schmaltz now and our very first sighting of a singer who would come to dominate / blight (delete as appropriate) the UK charts throughout the 90s. For their 30th animated film, Disney chose the 1756 fairy tale Beauty And The Beast by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont as its source material. To promote the film, they decided to release the title track from the soundtrack as a single. Not the actual track from the soundtrack featuring the vocals of Angela ‘Murder She Wrote’ Lansbury though. No, they wanted it re-recorded for a pop audience and so settled on Canadian balladeer Celine Dion. Unsure though that she was well known enough globally to promote the song, they roped in Peabo Bryson to record it as a duet. Peabo of course is the go to guy for male/female duets. You may recall his ghastly 1983 No 2 hit “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” with Roberta Flack but he’s also collaborated with Natalie Cole and Minnie Riperton amongst others.

As the performance begins, Celine walks on stage against a backdrop showing a motif of the film. It’s not the Celine that we would get used to seeing as the decade progressed and her hits stacked up though. That massive 80s style hair! Eventually Peabo ambles on to join in but the whole thing is so anodyne that the performance has to be propped up with some video clips from the film.

Within two years Celine would be at No 1 with some proper dog shit called “Think Twice” whilst Peabo would score another Disney hit later in 1992 with “A Whole New World” from Aladdin which was, yes you guessed it, a duet with Regina Belle.

“Beauty And The Beast” peaked at No 9 in the UK and won an Academy Award for Best Song.

Three Breakers this week starting with a song that seemed to receive praise and criticism in equal measure. For some, “Everything About You” by Ugly Kid Joe was the missing link between the dumb ass joy of hair metal and the nihilism of grunge rock. For others, it was just a joke record, an opinion reinforced by its inclusion in the goofball comedy Wayne’s World. And me? I just accepted it as the knockabout fun I perceived it to be and didn’t mind it.

These Californian rockers took their name from spoofing LA glam band Pretty Boy Floyd (see what they did there?) and the inspiration for “Everything About You” from their friend Farrell T. Smith’s cynical take on life – we all know someone like that don’t we? The single was a Top 10 hit in the US but an even bigger hit over here where it went Top 3. Often thought of as a one hit wonder, they actually had a second hit the following year when their cover of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle” was a UK No 7. Hang on, “Cat’s In The Cradle”? How’s that helping with my dog theme for this post? What’s that? There’s a sheepdog in the video for “Everything About You”? Oh well, that’s OK then.

I have a memory that at the time, the only other Ugly Kid Joe product that you could buy in addition to the single was an EP called “As Ugly As They Wanna Be”. Now I seem to remember that “Everything About You” wasn’t included in its six tracks causing some disappointment to punters but Wikipedia tells me it was. Yet when I checked the EP out on Spotify it isn’t included. ‘Goofy’ or what?

Saint Etienne were achingly trendy back in 1992 it seemed to me, at least with a lot of the Our Price colleagues I worked with but being fashionable hadn’t yet translated into chart success. Even record label Heavenly weren’t overly convinced of their charges commercial potential; so much so that when the band argued for their track “People Get Real” to be their next single release, they refused without there being a much more commercial track to go with it as a double A-side.

Undaunted, the band came up with “Join Our Club”, a song written to highlight how commercially viable they could be. To that end they referenced contemporary hits in the lyrics like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and some classics like Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘bout A Thing” (itself soon to be a current hit courtesy of Incognito). The result was a joyous anthem perfect for the forthcoming Summer.

The single rose to a high of No 21 in the charts becoming at a single stroke their biggest hit to date at that time.

The final Breaker is one of those ‘story’ songs’ from Richard Marx. I know at least one person for whom “Hazard” is a guilty pleasure not to be widely publicly acknowledged. Marx had a shit load of huge hits (or a huge load of shit hits if you prefer) in America but in the UK, he was barking up the wrong tree (nice). His only significant chart success over here came in 1989 with “Right Here Waiting”. The chances of him bagging a huge, chart munching hit single as the 90s we’re getting under way seemed remote at best. Factor in it being about the disappearance of a young woman with the main suspect being the singer of the song and well…Ladbrokes would have struggled to work out the odds. And yet…here he was back in our Top 40 and on TOTP.

There’s no denying it, “Hazard” is a weird song and even Marx himself wasn’t convinced – he only recorded it to disprove his wife’s conviction that it would be a hit. His wife (actress Cynthia Rhodes) was right and bizarrely, after years of ignoring his music that the US lapped up, it was a bigger hit here (No 3) than over the pond (No 9). In its wake came a trickle of middling to minor hits but nothing ever came close to replicating “Hazard”.

Marx does seem to be a decent sort though. In 2016, he helped Korean Air flight attendants pacify an unruly passenger and then took on Piers Morgan in a Twitter spat over his soft interviewing of then US President Donald Trump.

Back in the studio we find Ce Ce Peniston giving an ‘exclusive’ performance of her new single “Keep On Walkin’”. I really don’t have much to say about this one. I certainly don’t remember it – surely Ce Ce is pretty much just remembered for “Finally” – and it sounds like an unremarkable pop/dance/RnB number. Indeed, so unremarkable is it that the TOTP production team felt the need to intercut Ce Ce’s turn here with snatches of the official promo… which is just Ce Ce performing the song. Yes, the video mirrors what we are actually witnessing in the studio. What was the point of that? She’s even wearing a similar style jacket in both, only the colour is different.

“Keep On Walkin’” peaked at No 20 in the UK and was a No 1 on the US Dance chart.

We arrive at the current UK chart topper via another sound only presenter segue and a panoramic camera angle. Right Said Fred have been deposed to be replaced by…KWS? Who were these guys? Well, they were a dance act from Nottingham who got lucky with their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s 1979 hit “Please Don’t Go”. It was one of those hits that came from out of nowhere, a real club tune that went mainstream. They got into the Top 40 on limited airplay let alone any TV appearances before rising almost unnoticed to the top of the charts in just three weeks. At that point, we finally got to see them as TOTP had to give the No 1 act its rightful exposure. They have that feel of an act who have been performing at Butlins who suddenly find themselves plucked from obscurity and thrust into stardom. They can’t believe their luck.

“Please Don’t Go” is one of those songs that feels immediately familiar even if you don’t know who made the original. That’s how it felt to me anyway the first time I heard KWS’s version. Did I know that it was originally performed by KC at the time? Not sure I did. I definitely knew their unlikely 1983 No 1 “Give It Up” and “That’s The Way (I Like It)” from Dead Or Alive’s hi-energy cover from the following year but I must have also heard “Please Don’t Go” at some point without properly registering it as a KC tune. Apparently there were some legal issues surrounding a German act who had released their own version at the same time but we’ve got a few weeks of KWS at No 1 so that story can wait for another post.

And that’s that. All the dog poo has been scooped up and it’s time to put it in the bin. OK. That’s unfair. Not all the acts on tonight’s show were excrement – I bought at least one of them – but I need to bring this dog theme to an end somehow.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shakespear’s Sister	I Don’t Care	Nope
2	The Wedding Present	Come Play With Me	No
3	Del Amitri	Always The Last To Know	Yes – this is in my singles box
4	Kriss Kross	Jump	Fun but not purchase worthy
5	En Vogue	My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)	Yes this is in the singles box and well though I think my wife actually bought it
6	Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson	Beauty And The Beast	Never happening
7	Ugly Kid Joe	Everything About You	See 4 above
8	Saint Etienne	Join Our Club	Negative
9	Richard Marx	Hazard	Nah
10	Ce Ce Pension	Keep On Walkin’	I’d rather take out dog for a walk in the pissing wind
11	KWS	Please Don’t Go	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/m0014j5t/top-of-the-pops-14051992

TOTP 12 MAR 1992

Posted on February 3, 2022 by 80stastic

In recent years the calling of a general election has been a relentlessly regular occurrence. Between 2015 and 2019 the country had to go through this process three times. Back in 1992, we hadn’t had one for five years but the day before this TOTP aired, sitting Prime Minister John Major announced that there would be a General Election in April.

Whilst I would no doubt have taken notice of this statement, I would have been more focussed on my imminent trip down to London. Yes, despite being permanently skint living in Manchester on a record shop worker’s wages, I had somehow managed to squirrel away enough money for a trip to the capital.

I was staying with my friend Robin and he’d got us tickets to go and see my beloved Chelsea play. See, there’s the proof above. As ever with Chelsea in those days I came away disappointed:

Those Chelsea tickets weren’t the only tickets Robin got for us that weekend. His sister is an actress and was appearing in a play that weekend so along we popped. I can’t remember exactly what it was about but my main recollection was that it was decidedly weird. When Robin reminded me of this event recently we had a strange WhatsApp conversation which went like this:

Robin: Remember seeing The Fall with Right Said Fred?

Me (incredulous): Absolutely nothing. The Fall supported by Right Said Fred?!

Robin: No we watched a play called “ The Fall”, only 8 people were in the audience and one was the ‘Freddie with porn star hair.

So there you have it. A weekend of footballing disappointment and a close encounter with a genuine pop star (sort of). Right Said Fred aren’t on this particular TOTP but are on in two week’s time. Damn the gods of synchronicity!

Suppose I’d better get in with the music then and tonight’s opening act are Gun with “Steal Your Fire”. In keeping with the major political announcement of the day before, presenter Tony Dortie keeps it topical with a reference to the contents of Norman Lamont’s briefcase. I’m guessing as Lamont was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, this would have been to do with interest rates (I’m certainly not going anywhere near that Julian Clary reference!) though I doubt at the time I was following the Exchange Rate Mechanism that closely. Now I’d quite liked this lot with their hits “Better Days” and “Shame On You”, the latter of which I’d even bought. By 1992 though, I’d completely lost track of them. I remember second album “Gallus” coming out and the cover of it but I’m not sure it was ever played in the Our Price I worked in (there wasn’t much of a rock fraternity amongst the staff) so I’m not familiar with it at all, not even this single. Having listened to it back though, it seems that Gun were, like Margaret Thatcher before them, ‘not for turning’ when it came to their musical direction. “Steal Your Fire” stuck rigidly to the formula.

The single peaked at No 24 which at that point was the band’s biggest chart hit but their peak would come in the Summer of ‘94 when they took their cover of Cameo’s “Word Up” into the Top 10.

One of the stories of the 1992 Top 40 was the blatant (and amusing) attempt by The Wedding Present to manipulate them. Yes, decades before the charts were hijacked by the X Factor and social media galvanised campaigns to artificially create hits, David Gedge and co were already at it.

Their cunning plan was to match Elvis Presley’s chart record of having twelve Top 30 hits in one calendar year, something The King had achieved in 1957. To do this, they released a limited edition single every single month in 1992. The limited stock quantities (only 10,000 were pressed for the UK and 5,000 for the rest of the world) created a frenzy amongst their fan base and crucially a brief but significant sales spike each month propelling every single into the Top 30 for one week before dropping like a stone once copies were exhausted. A genius ruse from Gedge! Meanwhile back in the record shops it was causing carnage as desperate fans tried to ensure they didn’t miss out. Even our shop which was a two trading floor city centre store would only get a handful of the singles which fans wanted to pre-order. That’s fine but woe betide the staff on release day if the system went wrong and all copies were sold before those pre-orders were picked up. Like I said, carnage.

The TOTP appearances that this practice created for the band – they were on the show four times in 1992 – only added to the chaos. Here’s Gedge himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

"…. So you’re on Top Of the Pops the Thursday after and the record was unavailable. It was a bit of a charade, really. I think we turned them down once and lied – 'Our bass player’s got a poorly arm' or something.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 28, 2022

For the record, “Three” was neatly the third of these monthly single releases despite Gedge’s confusing jumper with the number four on it (oh you little scampi Dave!). They weren’t just called ‘One’ to ‘Twelve’ though. “Three” peaked at No 14.

Tony Dortie’s nicked one of my phrases! I’m sure I referred to a ‘rave conveyor belt’ in a recent post. Tony is using it in reference to the next act who are Toxic Two performing their one and only hit “Rave Generator”. Now I know I say this a lot and in my defence we are talking about tunes from 30 years ago but I genuinely did not know of the existence of this until just this moment. It seems to be a mash up of “French Kiss” by Lil Louis and “Pacific State” by 808 State.

As there are hardly any lyrics in it (there’s a sample of someone saying ‘How do you feel now?’) the show has the perennial problem of how to stage the performance of it. They’ve gone for some zoom in zoom out camera trickery, some overlaid special effects and a panoramic view of the studio audience to try and create the impression that we are witnessing a rave in full flow. Oh and those dancers in leotards who look like they’re doing a yoga class on speed. Were people really dancing like that in clubs around this time?

There’s a noise in “Rave Generator” that reminds me of the blast sound from a Blake’s 7 ray gun. Maybe it was the same sound. After all, the aforementioned 808 State used sound library clips. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

Like "Pacific State" by 808 State, it also makes use of the sound library on the E-mu Systems Emulator II (an early sampler) – specifically the loon sound on disk #22, "Wind Chimes/Birds/ Stream". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 28, 2022

“Rave Generator” peaked at No 13.

The grunge bandwagon rolls in with Nirvana’s follow up to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Now it’s never occurred to me before and so I must have missed this story at the time but there was some controversy around “Come As You Are” and it wasn’t to do with Kurt Cobain’s lyrics about guns. No, it was to do with the fact that the song bore very strong similarities to the track “Eighties” by Killing Joke. And it does. Now I’ve made the connection I can’t unhear it. Apparently Killing Joke considered legal action against Nirvana but sacked it off as a bad idea after Cobain’s suicide in 1994. Or maybe it was because there’s a case to be made that Killing Joke weren’t innocent of plagiarism themselves and that they based their song on a Damned track called “Life Goes On”. Maybe they didn’t want to draw too much attention to that with a high profile law suit.

At the time though, if I’d have been asked about similarities between “Come As You Are” and another song I’d have replied ‘Yes, it sounds like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” only less frenetic’.

Cobain’s hometown was a place called Aberdeen, Washington but the story I draw your attention to isn’t that there’s somewhere with the same name as Scotland’s Granite City in America but that the sign welcoming you to Aberdeen includes the line ‘Come As You Are’.

“Come As You Are” peaked at No 9.

Who’s next? Clivilles & Cole? Who were they then? Well, they were the guys behind C+C Music Factory of course ( C+C geddit?) but for some reason they felt the need to release this single – “A Deeper Love” – under their own names. I’m not sure what the criteria was for that decision. Was it because “A Deeper Love” was a change in musical direction and therefore wouldn’t have sat comfortably under the C+C Music Factory name? My dance head credentials are really good enough to make that assessment. Sure, I can tell that “Things That Make you Go Hmmm…” was of a much more popper flavour than “A Deeper Love” but was it really that different from “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”? I’m sure someone out there could tell me ‘Of course it is and here’s why…’. Anyway Clivilles & Cole it was (although co-host Claudia Simon confusingly refers to them as just C+C) and singer Deborah Cooper was chosen to front it. The only other track that Clivilles & Cole released under their own names was this cover of U2’s “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” who was the flipside to “A Deeper Love”.

The performance here includes the return of the bubble machine that we saw when Manic Street Preachers were on the show the other week. There you have it then. In the world of TOTP 1992, there was seemingly little difference between house anthems and alternative rock.

“A Deeper Love” peaked at No 15.

It’s the video for Eric Clapton‘s “Tears In Heaven” next. I went into the back story of this one in the last post so I don’t propose to go through it all again now not least because it’s already well known to most people.

However, what I didn’t say was that the track was co-written with one Will Jennings who also wrote “Up Where We Belong” for the soundtrack to An Officer And A Gentleman which was sung by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. Joe of course was in the Breakers section last week alongside Clapton. Yeah, this little bit of pop trivia really should have gone in last week’s post shouldn’t it. Once again I curse the gods of synchronicity! Jennings also wrote “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic which gave Celine Dion a huge No 1 hit. Maybe any more references to Will Jennings are best left alone then.

“Tears In Heaven” peaked at No 5 in the Uk and No 2 in the US.

The Exclusive performance this week comes from Annie Lennox who is embarking on a solo career after her and Dave Stewart decided to put Eurythmics on an indefinite hiatus. Striking out on her own would prove to be a very successful decision for Annie with debut album “Diva” going four times platinum in the UK. In hindsight it seems ridiculous to imagine anything other than further success for Lennox but I can’t recall whether that was the general perception at the time. Surely Annie herself must have experienced some self doubt given that she had spent the last 15 years working with Dave Stewart? If she did have any nerves about being on stage alone, Annie certainly conquers them in this performance. The closing “You don’t know how I feel” line is delivered with real conviction.

If she did then the chart performance of debut single “Why” must have settled her nerves. A soulful ballad with a hint of gospel with existential dilemma lyrics, it was a hit all around Europe including the UK where it peaked at No 5. Some critics described it as her attempt to write her own version of “My Way”. I’m not sure about that though the first person lyrics give it a very personal touch.

Annie would score a total of eight hit singles throughout the 90s including four Top Tenners.

The Breakers are a bit weird this week. There’s only two of them and they’ve both already been on the show as performances via satellite. U2 were on the 27 Feb show that we missed due to the Adrian Rose issue whilst Mr. Big were only on last week. Were they not actually in the Top 40 when we saw those satellite performances and therefore they’ve been allocated as Breakers because now they are? Seems a bit rum to me.

Anyway, it’s Mr. Big up first with their drippy ballad “To Be With You”. This is the official promo video as opposed to that satellite performance and it’s as dreary as the song. It’s just the band sat around in a railroad car performing the track. Halfway through it changes from black and white to colour. That’s it. Now when I was a student at Poly, we had to make a video as part of one of the course’s modules and one of the visual effects that we used was switching from black and white to colour. It may have even been my idea. However, we were just a bunch of clueless 18 year olds messing about not a professional video director. Surely whoever was for this promo could have come up with something better than this? Very poor.

And so to the twice aforementioned U2. Now there seems to be three different videos for “One”. TOTP shows the version directed by Mark Pellington which has a buffalo running in a field (an image that would be reused for the cover of their second greatest hits album “Best Of 1990 – 2000”). A second video directed by the band’s long time official photographer Anton Corbijn depicted the band in drag and featured Bono’s father Robert Hewson. The video was pulled after the band announced that royalties from the single would go to AIDS charities and they were worried that the drag theme might link AIDS to the gay community in a negative way. Finally a third video was shot by Rattle And Hum director Phil Joanou which was basically Bono sat at a table in a club smoking and drinking interspersed with footage of the gang performing the song.

I have to say that “One” is up there as one of my favourite U2 songs and is certainly my fave from the “Achtung Baby” album. I even performed my own version of it at my guitar class many years ago. Thankfully I don’t think any recordings of it exist. The lyrics resonate with the line ‘We’re one but we’re not the same’ pithily conveying the notion that humanity has to get along for the world to survive. It should surely have been a bigger hit than its No 7 chart peak. Its legacy though has outlasted that commercial peak and it regularly features in various ‘the greatest song of all time’ polls.

Shakespear’s Sister remain at No 1 with “Stay” and this week we get to see its famous video. Inspired by the 50s American independent sci fi film Cat-Women Of The Moon, it depicts Marcella Detroit at the bedside of her comatose lover willing him to regain consciousness before Siobahn Fahey appears as some sort of grim reaper/ angel of death figure come to take him to the after life. A physical fight between Detroit and Fahey ensues (a metaphor for the man’s struggle between life and death presumably) in which the former wins out and her lover awakes. I think it’s the demonic look on Fahey’s face that makes the video so memorable.

As with the video for “November Rain” by Gun N’ Roses last week, this promo was also lampooned by French and Saunders, just as Baddiel and Newman had done.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Gun	Steal Your Fire	Nah
2	The Wedding Present	Three	Even working in a record shop couldn’t secure me a copy
3	Toxic Two	Rave Generator	Hell no!
4	Nirvana	Come As You Are	No
5	Clivilles & Cole	A Deeper Love	Not for me thanks
6	Eric Clapton	Tears In Heaven	Nope
7	Annie Lennox	Why	No but my wife had the album
8	Mr. Big	To Be With You	Negative
9	U2	One	No but I had the album
10	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	I didn’t

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/m0013vgd/top-of-the-pops-12031992

TOTP 27 SEP 1990

Posted on March 12, 2021 by 80stastic

Hello there – if it’s some (very) early 90s musical nostalgia you’re after, you have arrived at your destination. We are just about three quarters of the way through these TOTP repeats from 1990 and we see out September in the company of host Anthea Turner. Wait! Come back! I won’t mention her again…except for this. In the week where Piers Morgan stormed off the set of GMB and ultimately left the show, let us remember that Anthea also had an ITV breakfast show incident. No, not Piers slamming her for breaching lockdown rules; hers occurred back in the mid 90s when she was co-hosting GMTV with Eamon Holmes. So bad was their working relationship that Holmes issued an ‘its me or her’ ultimatum to GMTV management which resulted in Anthea being sacked. I can’t stand either of them to be honest so enough of all that and on with the music….

…and we start with Monie Love and her single “It’s A Shame (My Sister)”. A Breaker last week, Monie has made sufficient strides up the charts this week to merit a studio performance this time around and she’s invited everybody she knows to get up on stage with her. I’m guessing that’s actually R’n’B vocal outfit True Image who are credited on the record alongside Monie. It’s not all those people on screen that’s caught my attention though but the top that Monie is wearing or more specifically the logo on it. What is that? My best guess is that it’s the badge of American basketball team the Chicago Bulls. Whilst trying to confirm it, I came upon this little nugget online:

If you turn the Chicago bulls logo upside down it’s a robot having sex with a crab pic.twitter.com/KGfsqyr3Ml
— Chaos Agent 1 June 2nd! (@DenizCamp) September 14, 2019

OH. MY. GOD.

Monie’s debut album “Down To Earth” included a track called “Swiney Swiney” which was a protest against the eating of pork and included the lyrics ‘High blood pressure, blame it on the swine’. As far as I can tell she has never written a song highlighting the fate of that poor crab.

Back on less carnal and more sensible ground now as we get the latest Depeche Mode single “World In My Eyes”. This was the fourth and final single to be lifted from the “Violator” album and you have to say that alongside “Personal Jesus”, “Enjoy The Silence” and “Policy Of Truth”, that quartet of tracks must be one of the best group of singles taken from one album, quality and consistency wise.

Did I say ‘less carnal’? It seems I was wrong as when researching the meaning behind the song, the theories I found online were overwhelmingly of the opinion that it was about the sexual act. Here are just a few of the more printable ones:

‘Very erotic song, and it moves me in more ways than one.’

‘It’s a sex song.’

‘This really is one of the most erotic songs out there. It’s so addicting.’

And finally…

‘I always thought it was about showing someone your “world” eg, your outlook on life, your personality, everything, by having sex with them….in a good way.’

Well…erm…ahem. “World In My Eyes” ~~climaxed~~…PEAKED I meant peaked at No 17.

Right, please can we move away from all the salacious stuff?! Who’s next? Londonbeat? They’re pretty safe and inoffensive surely?! “I’ve Been Thinking About You” is on its way to a high of No 2. Many of the music press reviews of the song stated that they detected a Fine Young Cannibals influence in its sound production. I can hear that but it was no real surprise as band members Jimmy Helms, George Chandler & Jimmy Chambers all sang backing vocals on the FYC tracks “Good Thing”, “Tell Me What” and “It’s OK (It’s Alright)” from their “The Raw and the Cooked” album. In a bizarre coincidence there is a song in this TOTP that was produced by Andy Cox and David Steele of FYC but it wasn’t this one. No, they handled production duties for “It’s A Shame (My Sister) by Monie Love at the top of the show.

Oh OK, I’d been waiting for this one to come up (and see me). Why? Well, this is the performance where back in 1990 I could have sworn that was me up there fronting The Wedding Present. I seem to have one of those faces you see. I spent three years at polytechnic being called Dan after my resemblance to the actor Dan Ackroyd. In current times, rather more unfortunately, I have been likened to football manager Sam Allardyce. Back in the early 90s though, I did look like David Gedge and the lookalike factor is no more on display than it is in this clip. I swear that people who had never made the connection before, when seeing this footage, have said ‘but…that was you up there wasn’t it?’. There was just something about the way Gedge smiled and his dark floppy hair that once seen by people who knew me could not be unseen. Nowadays of course, never mind me not looking like Gedge anymore, Gedge himself no longer looks like Gedge. He’s more ‘gadge’ than Gedge. I once spent an uncomfortable evening in a pub in Manchester with Mark E Smith’s sister saying how much I looked like Gedge, what a sex god (her words not mine) he was and asking me to sing some Wedding Present tunes for her.

Watching this clip back is reminding me how old I’ve become – it’s a bit depressing. Anyway, back to the music and “Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)” was one one of the tracks on their “3 Songs EP”* which would make No 25 in the UK charts. I’m guessing it was a ploy by their new record label RCA to maintain the band’s profile in between the album releases of “Bizarro” in 1989 and “Seamonsters” in 1991. Come 1992 and you wouldn’t be able to move for Wedding Present product as they embarked upon their project of releasing 12 x 7″ singles in one year. Each single was limited to a pressing of 10,000 copies which all reached the Top 30 thereby equalling Elvis Presley’s record for the most UK Top 30 hits in one year – those dastardly major labels with their cynical marketing strategies!

I love this performance and not just for the lookalike reasons. The false ending is great, Gedge’s knowing smile is a winner and this, which was spotted by an eagle-eyed viewer:

Oh https://t.co/A6iEFZ9bjr
— David Gedge (@weddingpresent) March 5, 2021

*What was it with the functional titles of EPs back in 1990? Deacon Blue were also in the charts at the same time as The Wedding Present with their “Four Bacharach & David Songs EP”.

Whatever you think of The Cure, you can’t deny their longevity nor how prolific they are/were. By this point in their career, they had already recorded 8 studio albums in 10 years and this single, “Never Enough” was already their 15th Top 40 hit. This one though wasn’t from a studio album but a remix album called rather obviously “Mixed Up” and featured extended mixes of some of their previous hits. I really remember this track being played a lot in store when I started with Our Price the following month. I really liked “Never Enough” and its creeping, unnerving sound and Robert Smith’s manic, tortured, imploring vocals.

The video does rather seem to be a retread of the claustrophobia theme of their promo for 1985 single “Close To Me” though which would duplicate “Never Enough”s No 13 chart peak when released as the follow up single in remix form.

Status Quo had released some right old crap during the 80s. I’m thinking “In The Army Now”, “Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)” and an excruciating cover of the Dion standard “The Wanderer”. If we thought that was bad though, stand back as here’s 90s Quo declaring ‘Hold my pint’. Yes, to mark the 25th anniversary of the meeting of Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi at a Butlins holiday camp (it’s hardly when Lennon met McCartney is it?), they decided to release “The Anniversary Waltz – Part One” which was basically their take on the whole Jive Bunny phenomenon. Within the medley of old 50s hits shoe horned together were Chuck Berry’s “No Particular Place To Go”, Dave Edmund’s “I Hear You Knocking” and unbelievably, “The Wanderer” by Dion – again. This embarrassing crud-fest somehow convinced enough punters to buy it that it rose all the way to No 2 in the charts! Not satisfied with fleecing people once, the band followed it up with “The Anniversary Waltz – Part Two”. Talk about money for old rope. Just unforgivable.

By the mid 90s, they had defaulted to releasing cover versions as their modus operandi most notably Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” and The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun”. Even Radio 1 decided enough was enough and refused to playlist “Fun, Fun, Fun” leading to a public and rancorous dispute with the band. All of this and I haven’t even got started with “Come On You Reds”, their 1994 No 1 single with Manchester United. Bah!

From some right old tosh to something bang up to date (in 1990) with the dance hit “Fascinating Rhythm” by Bass-O-Matic. I’ve always found this track very intriguing – it just has that something ‘other’ about it which made it stand out from the rest of the dance tunes that took residence in the Top 40 throughout 1990. However, by most accounts, the album it came from, “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Bass”, wasn’t anything like the single and a bit of a let down if you were a punter expecting an album full of similar blinding anthems.

“Fascinating Rhythm” peaked at No 9 and was their only Top 40 hit. Founding member WIlliam Orbit would of course go on to be a legendary producer working with everyone from All Saints to U2 but most famously with Madonna on her “Ray Of Light” album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zomA9spRNcU

After just two weeks at the top, Steve Miller Band has been toppled by the almighty power ballad that was “Show Me Heaven” by Maria McKee. Despite only achieving two chart hits in her varied music career (the other came in 1993 courtesy of the No 35 hit “I’m Gonna Soothe You”), Maria still has had quite an impact on the UK charts. How so? Well, she wrote Feargal Sharkey’s 1985 No 1 “A Good Heart” and was also the subject matter of his follow up single “You Little Thief” which was written by her former lover Benmont Tench as a riposte to “A Good Heart”. Not only that, she was also the inspiration behind Deacon Blue’s Top 10 hit of 1988 “Real Gone Kid” which was penned by Ricky Ross after seeing McKee’s wild, on stage antics during a gig with her former band Lone Justice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5G6_z7Ze8

The play out video is “Taste” by Ride. Yes, after some proper indie heroes earlier in the show in the form of The Wedding Present, we got another lot before the half hour was up. Ride were from Oxford and were associated with the ‘shoegazing’ scene that was characterised by guitar distortion, feedback, ethereal vocals and the gig etiquette of the bands who stood motionless during live performances in a detached, introspective state with their heads down and not acknowledging the audience.

“Taste” was one of four tracks on the “Fall EP” (what another EP?!) and is actually pretty melodic to my ears rather than harsh and distorted as befitting the scene. The band’s profile and success escalated quickly and tours of Japan, Australia and America widened their appeal. This led to their commercial zenith in 1992 when their single “Leave Them All Behind” made the Top 10 whilst parent album “Going Blank Again” went Top 5. My favourite tune of theirs also came from that album; the sublime “”Twisterella”.

Sadly for Ride, they found themselves out of step with the cultural shift that BritPop brought and they split in 1996 before reforming in 2014. Oh and just when I thought I had gotten away without any more filth in this post, @TOTPFacts reminded us all of this lovely image*:

If you have trouble telling 1990-period Mark Gardener and Tim Burgess apart: Mark is on the left in this photo and Tim is on the right. Or is it the other way round? #TOTP pic.twitter.com/kaYA7r5HAf
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 5, 2021

*That’s a stick of rock by the way!

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YDQ0q2WBA

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Monie Love	It’s A Shame (My Sister)	Nope
2	Depeche Mode	World In My Eyes	I did not
3	Londonbeat	I’ve Been Thinking About You	But I didn’t think about buying this
4	The Wedding Present	Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)	No but I should have
5	The Cure	Never Enough	No but I’ve got it on a Greatest Hits CD of theirs
6	Status Quo	The Anniversary Waltz (Part One)	Sod off
7	Bass-O-Matic	Fascinating Rhythm	Could have but didn’t
8	Maria McKee	Show Me Heaven	Nah
9	Ride	Taste	No

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000st49/top-of-the-pops-27091990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 15 FEB 1990

Posted on November 3, 2020 by 80stastic

OK, we’ve just had Valentine’s Day in 1990 but much more important than that is the fact that four days prior to this TOTP broadcast, the world saw Nelson Mandela released from incarceration after 27 years. A world changing event of immense political importance…or so you would have thought. I clearly recall there being complaints from viewers to the BBC about their coverage of this historic event interrupting their enjoyment of Antiques Roadshow! Some simple research of the internet confirmed that they received 500 (!) such complaints! If that wasn’t bad enough, 23 years later, they received about 850 complaints about the extent of its coverage of Mandela’s death, including its decision to interrupt a repeat of sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys on BBC1 to bring viewers news of his death. Mrs. Fucking. Brown’s Boys.

Anyway, enough of world events, back to the music and tonight’s show is hosted by Anthea Turner who has just got married to her manager and ex- Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell. Peter, of course, went out with fellow Radio 1 DJ Janice Long between ’84 and’85. It was a complicated web of relationships at Radio 1 back in the day. Anthea has ditched all that rock chick, back combed hair (for the wedding presumably) and the first act she introduces tonight are Black Box with “I Don’t Know Anybody Else”. This was the follow up to their huge No 1 “Ride On Time” which was the best selling single in the UK of the previous year so this track had a lot to live up to. Despite early encouraging signs (it crashed into this week’s chart as the highest new entry at No 5), it ultimately fell short of emulating its predecessor when it peaked at just one place higher the following week.

It always sounded like a pound shop version of “Ride On Time” to me – looks / sounds the same but isn’t quite as good. My overriding memory of this track though relates to a visit to see my girlfriend around this time whilst we were geographically separated (I was in Worcester and she in Hull). I’d saved up my dole money and traversed north to stay with her for a few days. One night, we ventured out into town and ended up in a bar called The Mint who were having a music quiz night. Fancying my chances, we entered and found ourselves in a tie break situation for first place. The winner was to be decided by the team that was the first to spot a current chart hit but played backwards. To my elation then (and shame now) I was first up off my seat to correctly identify Black Box and “I Don’t Know Anybody Else”. We won a cheap bottle of bubbly but in the bleak, unemployed Winter of 1990 it felt like gold.

Oh blimey it’s Cher again with her “Just Like Jesse James” video. On reflection, this is just Cher doing her version of Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” (indeed Jon Bon Jovi himself would come as close as dammit to covering his band’s own song for his almost identical solo hit “Blaze Of Glory” later in the year). This isn’t that surprising given that “Just Like Jesse James” was co-written by Desmond Childs who was responsible for the Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer”, “Bad Medicine” and “Born To Be My Baby”. By pure coincidence (or was it?), he also wrote “How Can We Be Lovers?” for Michael Bolton who will make his TOTP debut later in the show (gulp!).

This was Cher’s first hit of the 90s in the UK but she wouldn’t stop there. Oh no – she released 21 further singles over the course of the decade resulting in 16 Top 40 hits of which 6 went Top 10 and 3 were No 1s (if you include a charity single she featured on in “Love Can Build a Bridge”). Say what you like about her, she could spin a modicum of musical talent an awful long way.

After, Eric Clapton contributed guitar to Phil Collins current hit “I Wish It Would Rain Down” the other week, Phil returns the favour now by supplying the drums on Clapton’s new single “Bad Love”. Now this always sounded like Clapton had just re-written “Layla” to me and guess what? He had! Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Eric Clapton on "Bad Love": "Warner Bros wanted another 'Layla'. I thought, 'Well, if you sit down and write a song in a formatted way, it's not so hard. You think, 'What was 'Layla?' comprised of? A fiery intro modulated into the first verse & chorus with a riff around it" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 30, 2020

It really is a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of a record with the bridge part of it basically stolen from “Badge” by Cream which Clapton also wrote of course. Apparently that was the idea of one Mick Jones – no not the lead guitarist with The Clash but the one from AOR dinosaurs Foreigner (boo!). For all its calculated and knowing composition, I didn’t mind it – at least Clapton was just stealing from himself and wasn’t trying to jump on the latest bandwagon. An Italo House Clapton anyone?

“Bad Love” peaked at No 25.

Despite the proliferation of dance tunes that seemed to dominate the charts (and therefore TOTP as well) around this time, we’ve actually seen some undeniably indie bands feature on the show in recent weeks as well. We’ve had peroxide blonde Brummies Birdland and psychedelic doomsters The House Of Love on the same show previously and now we get one of the biggest names of all indiedom in The Wedding Present. Now my mate Robin had been well into this lot back in Poly but I hadn’t really got on board in the same way. I knew their single “Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?” from a couple of years before which had just missed the Top 40 and also “Kennedy” their bona fide chart hit from ’89 and of course the iconic sleeve for their indie label debut album “George Best” but that was probably about it.

This single “Brassneck” was taken from their first major label album release “Bizarro” (albeit in a beefed up production form compared to the album version) and was a shot across the bows of the then prevalent mainstream chart music. Uncompromising is the word I would use and that can also certainly be applied to main man David Gedge’s performance of the song here. No cheeky grins and jumping about from the Gedge here. His look of disinterest is almost defiant. Apparently it wasn’t deliberately conceived but more rather grew organically. Here’s Dave himself with the story during an interview with https://gedgesongs.wordpress.com:

“I was just following an old tradition established by some of my heroes… those punk bands who didn’t take Top Of The Pops seriously and who took the mickey out of the whole ‘miming’ thing. I started doing it during the TV rehearsals, fully expecting a producer or director to tell me to stop messing about but no one did. So with each run-through it became a little more… extreme, ha, ha”.

Some 10 months or so on from this broadcast I was working at Our Price In Manchester and went out for a drink after work with some colleagues (possibly in the pre-IRA bomb version of Sinclair’s Oyster Bar or maybe the Old Wellington for the Manc pedants out there) and our table was joined by a woman who turned out to be one of Mark E Smith’s sisters. She turned to me and asked me to sing some Wedding Present songs as I was the spitting image of David Gedge! And it turned out I was back then…well sort of. She also told me that Gedge was a ‘sex god’ to use her phrase which immediately turned my complexion bright red. There’s a clip of The Wedding Present doing a cover of “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” on TOTP where I swear it’s me up there doing the vocals. Obviously the middle aged me doesn’t look like him now of course (to be fair Gedge doesn’t look like Gedge anymore) but as a skinny 22 year old I could pass for him. In my 80s blog I revealed how I spent three years being called ‘Dan’ at Sunderland Poly due to my resemblance to the actor Dan Ackroyd so Dave Gedge was a step up! Sadly I look more like Sam Allardyce these days. Bah!

“Brassneck” peaked at No 24.

Talking of cover versions, here’s Rod Stewart doing his best to murder the Tom Waits track “Downtown Train”. Rod included his version on his 1989 “Best Of” album and it just sounds so sanitised compared to Tom’s original. Stewart somehow manages to purge all the earthiness from the song.

Not content with ruining one Waits composition he repeated the crime again two years later when he covered Tom Traubert’s Blues”. You know what, I do like some Rod Stewart stuff – “The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)” for example is fabulous – but he’s also done a lot of crap and I get the impression that he’s not that nice a character either.

“Downtown Train” peaked at No 10 over here and No 3 in the US.

‘Sybil!!!!’ When the singer Sybil (full name Sybil Lynch) was in the charts I never made any connection (subconscious or other wise) with Basil Fawlty’s wife but every time I hear her name mentioned now I can’t get the Fawlty Towers character so superbly played by Prunella Scales out of my head!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onrhrq1k4yE

Sybil the singer’s cover of “Walk On By” peaked at No 6 but she would continue to release cover versions in her later career including treatments of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day”, Al Greens’s “So Tired Of Being Alone” and Carole King’s “It’s Too Late”. None of them made the UK Top 40. Despite her reliance on other artists for the majority of her hits, she went on to work in education, at one point teaching lyric & songwriting composition and creative writing. Who said ‘I know nothing’?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65q1ZykHDE0

Stand well back! The career of Depeche Mode is about to rocket into the stratosphere! In March 1990, the band released their “Violator” album and their world was never the same again. It went triple platinum in the US selling 3 million copies and propelled the band into playing gigs in huge super size stadiums – an estimated 1.2 million fans across the planet saw the World Violation Tour. Such was the extent of Mode mania in the US that when the band held an in-store autograph signing at Wherehouse Entertainment in Los Angeles to promote the album, some 20,000 fans turned up with a near riot ensuing. Not that the band had been small fry by anyone’s description before then but this was next level stuff.

“Enjoy The Silence” was the second single to be taken from the album (following the excellent “Personal Jesus” ) and I’m going to say that it is perhaps the band’s most well respected and important of their career. It won Best British Single at the 1991 BRIT Awards and went Top 10 both in the US and here. Indeed, it was the first time the band had visited the UK Top 10 since “Master And Servant” six years previously. In a Q Magazine interview in 2008, Dave Gahan said of the track:

“It really made the album cross over into another cosmos. It had been a constant climb over the previous 10 years, but I don’t think we were prepared for what was about to come. The album was a worldwide success and suddenly these huge royalty checks started coming in and you were able to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted – the velvet rope was always open.“

It really is an excellent song and the iconic video with its King Midas imagery (a man who has everything but just wants a quiet place to sit down) cements its reputation. Songwriter Martin Gore seemed to like songs that included the word ‘silence’ as much as Sybil liked cover versions – they had a 1982 hit song with “Leave in Silence” of course.

Oh bloody hell! It’s Michael Bolton! And you know what this means…my Michael Bolton story! OK, I’ve told this one before in my 80s TOTP blog when a certain Kenny G* featured on the show but here it is again. In 1993, I went to see Michael Bolton in concert! Oh God, even just typing the words out looks wrong! There are mitigating circumstances I swear!

I was working in Our Price at the time and was on a works’ night out that ended up at a nightclub where I was well and truly off my tits. A guy I worked with called Andy was also there. Andy loved his mainstream pop music and was quite a character. He named his car Jason after Jason Donovan and just about shoved me out of the way one day so he could get to serve Barbara Knox (Corrie’s Rita Fairclough) in the shop. He also loved Michael Bolton and asked me, whilst I was under the influence in the nightclub, if I would go with him to see the poodle haired one in concert in Sheffield. And I said yes. Now remember, I was blotto – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Andy bought the tickets the next day before I could back out and so I found myself travelling to Sheffield a few weeks later to see Michael Bolton. I seem to have blacked out anything that I witnessed that evening from my memory but my impression is that Andy enjoyed it rather more than I did. Still, it’s a good story.

*And what has this to do with Kenny G? Well, Kenny was the support act. Yes, just when I though it couldn’t be any more of a surreal experience, it turned out that ‘the G man’ (as Bolton referred to him) was on the same bill!

For the purposes of factual acknowledgement, “How Am I Supposed To Live with Out You” was Bolton’s first (and biggest) UK hit peaking at No3. It was a US No 1 despite the fact that Laura Branigan (of “Gloria” fame) had already had a Top 20 hit with it in 1983.

The Stranglers‘ run of 80s chart hits had started to peter out by the middle of the decade and so to arrest that trend they used the old cover trick to beef up their profile by releasing a version of “All Day And All Of The Night” by The Kinks. It worked, returning them to the Top 10 in ’88 for the first time in five years.

Needing another fillip to start the new decade they repeated the exercise by releasing “96 Tears” which had been a US No 1 in 1966 for ? and the Mysterians. Nothing to do with Captain Scarlet (that was the Mysterions), they were a garage rock band from Michigan but you could be forgiven that “96 Tears” was a Stranglers original so easily does it fit their trademark sound. The distinctive organ riff that runs thorughout puts me in mind of those Oldham baggy stars Inspiral Carpets and guess what they also did a version of it…

Back to The Stranglers and their version would peak at No 17 and they would enjoy a brief renaissance in 1991 when their “Greatest Hits 1977–1990” collection album went all the way to No 4 in the album charts off the back of a successful TV ad campaign.

Sinéad O’Connor is still at No 1 with “Nothing Compares 2 U”. It’s the third of four weeks at the top spot and if the UK record buying audience hadn’t tired of it already, it seems the TOTP producers were starting to. We get just over two minutes of the song in this clip. The single sold three and a half million copies worldwide and was the second biggest selling single in the UK in 1990. That’s how you do a cover version Rod Stewart!

We close with “Steamy Windows” by Tina Turner. The third single from her “Foreign Affair” album, it peaked at No 13 in the UK.

The song was written by blues rock guitarist Tony Joe White who wrote “Polk Salad Annie” famously recorded by Elvis Presley. Tony was one of those artists that would get played during one of our specialist music mornings when when I worked for Our Price. You were only allowed to play music of a certain genre like easy listening, jazz or blues. Here’s his version of the track which I think I prefer to Tina’s histrionic take on it…

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDh-AATO9Ng

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Black Box	I Don’t Know Anybody Else	It helped win me a bottle of bubbly but I didn’t celebrate by buying the single – no
2	Cher	Just Like Jesse James	No – phew!
3	Eric Clapton	Bad Love	Nah
4	The Wedding Present	Brassneck	I may have looked like Gedge but I didn’t feel the need to buy his single
5	Rod Stewart	Downtown Train	God no
6	Sybil	Walk On By	No
7	Depeche Mode	Enjoy The Silence	It seems I did enjoy the silence as it’s not in my singles collection. WTF?
8	Michael Bolton	How Am I Supposed To Live Without You	Quite easily Michael…oh except I saw you in concert. Oh God the shame!
9	The Stranglers	96 Tears	It’s a no
10	Sinéad O’Connor	Nothing Compares 2 U	Don’t think so
11	Tina Turner	Steamy Windows	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000nwtc/top-of-the-pops-15021990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 17 DEC 1992

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TOTP 15 OCT 1992

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TOTP 16 JUL 1992

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TOTP 14 MAY 1992

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TOTP 12 MAR 1992

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TOTP 27 SEP 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 15 FEB 1990

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Some bedtime reading?