Wet Wet Wet

TOTP 15 AUG 1997

We’ve lost another month to the Puff Daddy/P Diddy issue as “I’ll Be Missing You”, having spent three weeks at No 1 and then slipping a place to No 2 to accommodate Oasis for seven days, went back to the top of the charts for another three weeks! Bloody hell! Who did we miss? Nobody I was that bothered about to be honest – I’m actually very relieved to have missed reviewing Gary Barlow, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys and Peter Andre. Maybe Paul Weller and Morrissey would have been interesting but hey ho!

We pick the TOTP story back up in the middle of August and this one is actually quite an important episode. Not for the artists on it who are quite underwhelming but because this was the week that the decision was taken (presumably by new executive producer Chris Cowey) to do away with any sort of theme music at all. From early February 1995 we’d had the Vince Clarke composition “Red Hot Pop” which had replaced “Now Get Out Of That” by Tony Gibber which had ushered in the ‘Year Zero’ revamp. Prior to that, the show had been soundtracked by Paul Hardcastle’s “The Wizard” stretching back to 1986. Come 15th August 1997, we had nothing except an intro from the host – Denise van Outen this week – and then the opening of the first song played under the titles.

Said first song is “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks. Yeah, that one. Meredith was one of a number of female solo artists in the 90s who would be known for one hit and one hit only (see also Alannah Myles, Paula Cole, Donna Lewis) but what a hit it was – No 2 in the US and No 6 over here. Co-written with songwriter Shelly Peiken who was frustrated at having had album cuts for the past 10 years but never a huge hit single, her vexation spilled over into the lyrics of “Bitch” and a worldwide smash was born. It nearly never happened though as her record label Capitol baulked at some of the lyrics and the song’s title. One of those unsure about the song’s potential was producer Geza X who expressed concern that the lyrics might have a negative effect on its chances of commercial success. That’s infamous punk producer Geza X who produced the Dead Kennedys classic “Too Drunk To Fuck”! Unbelievable!

Despite those misgivings, it was released and the rest is history. Its success would lead to a spate of covers and parodies including this one by Australian comedian Chris Franklin and yes, it’s as bad as you might be imagining.

As with Michael Jackson the other week, I think it’s the final TOTP appearance that I’ll have to comment on in my blog (which I’m calling time on at the end of the 1999 repeats) by Wet Wet Wet. And what a crummy way to go out – with a version of one of the most recorded songs in the history of popular music. Why were they covering “Yesterday” by The Beatles? Was it just to ensure a hit? Unlikely. The first phase of their career might have been winding down but was it in need of a reviving, shot-in-the-arm smash? No, it was just another case of the band having recorded a 60s song for the soundtrack of a film. Panic not though. This wasn’t a repeat of their 15 week spell at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” from Four Weddings And A Funeral. Their version of “Yesterday” was taken from the soundtrack to Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie and would peak at No 4. Despite how many times the song has been covered, its chart statistics aren’t that impressive. Famously never released by the Fab Four as a single whilst they were together, it was taken into the charts by Matt Monro and Marianne Faithfull in 1965 within a month of each other with ‘The Man with the Golden Voice’ winning out with a high of No 8 compared to Marianne’s No 36. Ray Charles would have a go at making it a hit two years later but he wouldn’t crack the Top 40. In 1976, The Beatles original was finally released and it scampered up the charts to match Matt Monro’s placing. 21 years later Wet Wet Wet, whether deserved or not, would have the biggest UK hit with it. So was their version any good? Well, I think Marti Pellow’s voice suited the song well enough but it’s a fairly unremarkable take on it and the pedal steel guitar interlude is particularly incongruous. On the plus side, Marti’s lost his peroxide blonde hair at last. So, farewell Wet Wet Wet. There was some good stuff, some not so good stuff and some downright annoying stuff but it was undoubtedly a chart life well lived.

No, Olive weren’t a classic one hit wonder (a No 1 record then nothing) but could I have told you what their other hit was without checking? Absolutely not. Turns out it was called “Outlaw” and, for what it’s worth, having listened back to it, I much prefer it to “You’re Not Alone”. Why? I guess because it sounds like a proper song rather than a dance track. Although it retains a shifting, skittering drum ‘n’ bass backbeat, it’s got a defined structure to it – there’s a genuine song in there. I could imagine it reconfigured in a pure pop style and it would work.

In an act that seemed to confirm their pop sensibilities, Olive would release a cover version of one of the classic pop songs of the 70s when they chose 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” as the lead single from their second album “Trickle”. It wouldn’t reverse their chart fortunes but there remains a lot of love online for Olive. It seems they remain ‘not alone’.

There’s three female solo artists on tonight’s show starting with Mary J Blige who is enjoying her biggest ever UK chart hit* with “Everything”. Based around “You Are Everything” by The Stylistics, it was written and produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis – of course it was. It was a good vehicle for Blige’s vocals though I’m still surprised that it was as big a hit as it was with it peaking at No 6. With her huge, tinted wrap-a-round glasses and long hair, Mary seems to have modelled her look on ex-Dutch international footballer Edgar Davids but that can’t have been the case surely?

*She would also have a No 4 hit in 1999 with a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “As” but that was a duet with George Michael

“You Are Everything” was also a hit for Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross in the early 80s but my research tells me that there was another version of it that was never actually released but was surely one of the oddest collaborations in pop history. There are only snippets of the track that have been leaked online but I give you heavy metal band Judas Priest doing a cover of a soul song produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman…

Judging by what I’d read about this one beforehand, I wasn’t expecting much but it was actually better than predicted. The Wildhearts had established themselves as a consistent chart band and by this point in the decade had amassed seven consecutive Top 40 hits (though none bigger than No 14). Hit number eight came courtesy of the lead single from their fourth studio album “Endless, Nameless” entitled “Anthem”. Having made their name with a brand of melodic rock, 1997 saw them spurn that for an industrial rock style that was more about distortion and feedback than riffs and hooks. The album was not well received by their fanbase and it failed to make the Top 40 of the album chart. The band’s lead vocalist Ginger though has proclaimed it as his favourite Wildhearts album and retrospectively, it has come to be seen as a strong rock statement.

As for “Anthem”, as I said, I had feared the worst, a grungey mess akin to *Nirvana’s infamous TOTP appearance in 1991 when Kurt Cobain sang live on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” deliberately badly. However, despite vocal duties being undertaken not by regular singer Ginger but by bassist Danny McCormack, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it’s a heavy sound but far from a noise. It does get a bit repetitive towards the end with the constant chanting of its chorus but I wasn’t completely put off. One person who was far from put off was the topless guy in the studio audience who was having it large down the front. Do you think he was a superfan? There’s always one and he was probably it. He’s probably approaching his 50s now. I wonder if he’s kept the faith?

*The title “Endless, Nameless” is also that of a Nirvana song apparently

I think I was expecting the next turn to be an out and out diva house artist but that’s possibly because I was confusing Robyn with Robin S though, in my defence, they both had hits with songs called “Show Me Love”. This wasn’t the American singer Ms S though but Swedish singer Robin Miriam Carlsson (aka Robyn) who would rack up eight UK Top 40 hits over a 13 year period including a No 1. I don’t know/remember any of them I have to say. That run started with “Do You Know (What It Takes)” and, having listened to it, my impression is that this was a blueprint for the sound that would make Britney Spears a global superstar. It’s not a surprising reaction on my behalf when I tell you that the co-writer and producer of the track was one Max Martin* who would go on to write “…Baby One More Time”. So, given all of this, maybe we should be asking ourselves why Robyn didn’t become Britney Spears before Britney did? She had the looks and the sound after all. On reflection though, given what would happen to the ‘Princess of Pop’, maybe Robyn was quite happy with the pop career she had?

*Martin would go on to write/co-write an incredible 27 Billboard No 1s including Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” and Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” so he clearly knew what he was doing when it came to penning hits for female pop stars!

Our third female solo artist on the show tonight is Kym Mazelle who despite not having a large collection of huge hits, does have a huge reputation – not for nothing is she known as ‘The First Lady of House Music’. Having worked with the likes of Dr.Robert of The Blow Monkeys, house legend Marshall Jefferson, Norman Cook, Soul II Soul and Jocelyn Brown, here she was stepping out on her own with her version of Candi Staton’s “Young Hearts Run Free” from the soundtrack to Romeo + Juliet. It’s a fairly faithful cover of the disco classic albeit with a nod towards the genre on which Kym made her name which makes me wonder why the film’s director Baz Luhrmann didn’t just use the original* in his film?

*Staton’s version was eventually rereleased in 1999 when it made No 29.

Despite all that she achieved in her long career, I have to say that the first thing I think of when I hear her name is this song in which she gets a name check…

We’re stuck with this Top 20 countdown business and we’re onto our third person doing the voiceover for it after Jayne Middlemiss and some random anonymous bloke. This week’s it’s Mark Goodier and he will keep the gig for the next five years.

The first No 1 that Goodier has to announce comes from Will Smith and it’s yet another song from a film and yet another hit that is based around a sample of an older song. “Men In Black” was, of course, from the movie of the same name and was the second chart topper this year to be built around Patrice Rushen’s “Forget Me Nots” following George Michael’s “Fastlove” in April. What were the chances?! It was also the second UK No 1 for Smith though the first hit (of any size) under his own name – “Boom! Shake The Room” was as The Fresh Prince with DJ Jazzy Jeff.

With the film a box office smash, its theme tune was almost assured massive hit status and so it proved to be with it topping charts around the world (though curiously not in America where it wasn’t given a physical release). It was the UK’s sixth best selling single of 1997 and would kick off a string of chart successes in this country for Smith up to 2005. As for me, it was one of those songs that you could appreciate for what it was but after one or two listens it became rather annoying. The appearance mid-video here of a superimposed Smith apologising to the TOTP viewers for not being there in person is similarly irritating but I’m sure executive producer Chris Cowey would have been pleased with himself for the coup.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Meredith Brooks	Bitch	No
2	Wet Wet Wet	Yesterday	I did not
3	Olive	Outlaw	Nope
4	Mary J. Blige	Everything	Nah
5	The Wildhearts	Anthem	Negative
6	Robyn	Do You Know (What It Takes)	Another no
5	Kym Mazelle	Young Hearts Run Free	Didn’t happen
8	Will Smith	Men In Black	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/m0028x68/top-of-the-pops-15081997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 13 JUN 1997

Posted on March 12 by 80stastic

There seems to be some uncertainty about quite when Chris Cowey’s tenure in charge of TOTP started. I thought it was from last week’s show (I took that info from the TOTP Archive website) but a reader of my blog has informed me that it was officially from this week. In my defence, I’ve never suggested that I’m some sort of authority on the show, curating its history as it were – just someone who used to watch it and who’s writing about it and the songs it featured but for what it’s worth, apologies if I get some dates wrong. Anyway, Cowey is playing around with the format a bit already, trying a few new tweaks out to see if they might have some legs to them. That’s ‘legs’ literally in the case of the first tweak which comes right at the start of this show as he has presenter Jo Whiley, the ‘Queen of Cool herself’ according to last weeks host Jayne Middlemiss (yeah, I’m really not sure about that either), dramatically kick over a huge No 1 figure and proclaim that TOTP is still Number One. I get that it’s a gesture, a statement of intent maybe to reassure us all that there’s still life in the old show yet and had it been one of the Spice Girls then it might have been spectacular but a high kicking Jo Whiley? Hmm. I’m not convinced but sadly there’s more ‘action’ to come from Jo later in the show…

We start with Rosie Gaines who is onto her third consecutive appearance on the show promoting her hit “Closer Than Close”. To try and shake up the format, this is a live performance and I have to say that Rosie gives one of the most memorable live vocals I’ve ever witnessed on TOTP. However, it lives in the memory for all the wrong reasons as it’s completely horrible. I mean ‘why didn’t someone stop her’ horrible as she is goes way over the top. There’s some Cleo Laine style jazz scatting to start with before she encourages the studio audience to chant the song back to her. After that she settles down a bit and does some actual singing before she suddenly breaks out into an impression of Shaggy (the (the Jamaican-American singer not Scooby Doo’s mate) in a deep register. She follows this with some more free styling again giving the subtitles guy a hell of a task to decipher what she’s banging on about before delivering the dubious lyric “funk it off on me”. And then….and then she just starts screaming mid-song; literally wailing like a banshee. It’s an horrific noise. We’re then back to scatting before inviting the studio audience to get in on this nonsense again by shouting the word ‘close’ over and over. Finally, she indulges in what appears to be primal scream therapy and mercifully brings the performance’ to an end with some grunting sounds. It’s unspeakably bad. Jo Whiley describes Rosie as “hugely talented” afterwards. You’re not even (closer than) close to the truth there Jo.

Sticking with Jo, she follows up her high kicking action with something a bit more sedate though she warns us to brace ourselves for it anyway. Quite why hitting a symbol with a drumstick of the drum kit of Wet Wet Wet’s Tommy Cunningham was deemed worthy of a warning I don’t know. It’s all very underwhelming, not unlike “Strange”, the latest hit by Clydebank’s favourite sons. This one was only on a couple of weeks back as an ‘exclusive’ and it’s back on the show again as it has entered the charts, only at No 13 though which would be its peak. As I said about it previously, I think their sound was getting a bit tired by this point and they were starting to run out of steam. To be fair to them, they had long since outlasted some of the other bands that had made their chart debuts in 1987 alongside them like Johnny Hates Jazz, Curiosity Killed The Cat and Living In A Box.

Marti Pellow still has his peroxide blonde hair which I suggested previously might be a cry for help similar to when Robbie Williams infamously went into meltdown mode when attending Glastonbury after leaving Take That. The Wets vocalist would leave the band within two years to deal with his own alcohol and drug addictions and he does seem to be sweating a lot in this performance. It could be the heat of the studio lights of course but it is quite noticeable…

I’m starting to think a lot of these performances weren’t all filmed at the same time with Jo Whiley in the studio. Clearly the Wet Wet Wet one was because of her interaction with their drummer but the others are prefaced by abrupt cutaways and post faced by cutbacks to Jo rather than a long, corridor shot back to our host. Was this new or had it been happening for a while? We see it in operation for the next artist who is En Vogue and their single “Whatever”. Jo says in her intro that “it’s the return after maternity leave of the ‘funky divas’ themselves” so presumably one of the group had just given birth but what’s noticeable isn’t an addition to the group family but the fact they’d lost a member since their last hit “Don’t Let Go (Love)” as Dawn Robinson had left the band in the April. The remaining trio re-recorded some of the tracks from parent album “EV3” but Robinson’s backing vocals remained on “Whatever”.

I’ve said many times that R&B isn’t really my bag but that when it comes down to it, En Vogue would be my group of choice for that genre. “Whatever” wouldn’t be my go to song from them but it’s still a strong track with a “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” vibe. The hits would dry up eventually as the new millennium arrived but En Vogue are still an ongoing entity, currently back up to the full complement of four members though Dawn Robinson, despite rejoining a couple of times over the years, is not back in the fold.

Next to a song that was previously on the show as an exclusive three weeks prior but was now back on the show having finally been released and having entered the charts at No 11. Yet again though, the artist in question – Skunk Anansie – are not in the studio with Jo Whiley as we just get a rerun of that initial appearance. It’s worth another look though as “Brazen (Weep)” is a great rock track that has contains enough idiosyncrasies of the band’s sound to make my description of it as merely ‘rock’ look inadequate. It would become Skunk Anansie’s highest peaking chart hit when it debuted at No 11.

Whiley name checks the band individually at the end of the clip including, of course, vocalist Skin (real name Deborah Dyer). Despite being an unusual nickname (given to her on account of her skinny frame), it’s not unique as there is another singer from a band called Skin though the reason why he’s called that is rather obvious. Does the name Grahame Skinner ring any bells? No? Maybe watch this then…

Chris Cowey is trying his best to pull the wool over our eyes about what is actually going on here. In the next link, he has our host positioned in the middle of a studio audience who have been instructed to face one way as if towards an off camera stage awaiting the next artist whilst Whiley looks directly into an overhead camera to introduce said artist. Guess what though? The next act aren’t in the studio and it’s just another recycled clip from a previous performance. What a swizz! Doubling down on the swizz is the fact that it’s Eternal and Bebe Winans with “I Wanna Be The Only One” again for the third consecutive week! The ex-chart topper was holding at No 2 to justify another appearance and *spoiler alert* it would get a fourth and final outing in the following week’s show! As such, I’m leaving it there for this one.

Now, whilst I know there was a second Jon Bon Jovi solo album following his soundtrack to the film Young Guns II, I could not have told you when it was released nor what it sounded like. The answer to both my queries is supplied on this TOTP as Millie Bobby Brown’s father-in-law (as I believe he’s known these days) is here with the lead single from said sophomore album. “Midnight In Chelsea” was co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics who accompanies Jon on stage here and was taken from “Destination Anywhere” both of which were sizeable hits in the UK peaking at Nos 4 and 2 in our charts respectively. Conversely, although he was busy writing big hits for other artists like Shakespears Sister, Texas and Jon Bon Jovi post Eurythmics, Stewart’s own projects like The Spiritual Cowboys and his solo album “Greetings From The Gutter” failed to light up the charts.

Having read up on “Midnight In Chelsea” before re-listening to it, I’m a little bit underwhelmed as I was expecting something quite different to the sound he and his band made their name on (literally). Some critics described it as being funk/rock and having shuffling, hip-hop drum loops in it. However, it doesn’t sound like he’d strayed too far from the tree sonically to me. I think I can hear said drum loops but in the end I don’t think he would have been converting any fans of Roni Size or someone of that ilk with it. That’s not to say it wasn’t without merit. It’s got a nice ‘sha-la-la-la’ hook ( maybe Jon or Dave had been listening to Monaco’s “What Do You Want From Me” when writing it) but of more interest to me is the lyric “Ah, maybe it was just a dream, Manchester nil, Chelsea three, football fans and players scream”. What?! I’ve checked and can’t find those lines in the official lyrics anywhere online so was Jon ad-libbing about my beloved Chelsea? We had just won the FA Cup the month before but we didn’t beat either City or United in the final and this was the a close season so no other games would have been played at this time. I wonder what prompted him to sing those lines?

I find that infinitely more intriguing than wondering why Jo Whiley was banging on about Jon having waxed his chest in her intro. Was that a story in the news back then? ‘Hairy rock star waxes chest’? Maybe men waxing and shaving every bit of body hair wasn’t so ubiquitous as it seems to be today when you can now buy specific shavers for very specific body areas if you know what I mean. Body hair sculpting I believe it’s called. Erm…anyway, I reckon that was another performance that could have been recorded separately as it’s yet more cutaway and cutback shots to and from the presenter. Maybe the artists were all there and it was Jo who was absent and recorded her segues in isolation? But then there’s the Wet Wet Wet interaction…oh I don’t know!

Now this is a funk rock act! The first and only video of the show now (which allows for a rolling chart rundown of the Nos 20 – 11) comes from Red Hot Chili Peppers and their version of “Love Rollercoaster” by Ohio Players. A US No 1 in 1976, it was covered by The Peppers to be included on the soundtrack to the film Beavis And Butt–Head Do America. You may recall that this animated pair had a hit with Cher a couple of years previous to this when “I Got You Babe” was released from their comedy album “The Beavis And Butt-Head Experience”. I’ve never seen their film and, if I’m honest, could only take their TV series in very small doses viewing it as vastly inferior to the likes of The Simpsons or Family Guy.

The video depicts the band as cartoon characters on, yep, a rollercoaster alongside clips from the film. I don’t find that or the track very engaging I have to say though it would end up being their second biggest UK hit after “By The Way” and “Dani California”.

Cowey’s ‘Operation Hoodwink’ is still going on and, indeed, is upping its game as the false shot gets even tighter as he tries to create the impression that Hanson are really in the studio when in fact it’s just another previous performance recycled. By my reckoning, Jo Whiley was only in the same studio at the same time with one band. Was this a scheduling issue or a budget cut or what? Anyway, this week’s (and last week’s) chart topper…

One of my abiding memories of this song was that our then six year old goddaughter loved “MMMBop” and so we bought it for her along with a Barbie Walkman for her to play it on that she’s been wanting for ages. Plugged in with the brothers Hanson in her ears, she would wander round her house shouting “PARDON?” every time anyone tried to talk to her. Although six was possibly the average age of people who bought the record and I couldn’t stand it aged 29 back then, in retrospect, it is a marvellously constructed pop song in that traditional way that say “The One And Only” by Chesney Hawkes is. Don’t tell anyone I said that though. Oh.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rosie Gaines	Closer Than Close	No
2	Wet Wet Wet	Strange	Nah
3	En Vogue	Whatever	Nope
4	Skunk Anansie	Brazen (Weep)	No but it’s good
5	Eternal and Bebe Winan	I Wanna Be The Only One	Yes for my wife
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Midnight In Chelsea	I did not
7	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Love Rollercoaster	Negative
8	Hanson	MMMBop	Yes for my goddaughter

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/m0028nyg/top-of-the-pops-13061997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 30 MAY 1997

Posted on March 7 by 80stastic

We have arrived at a metaphorical line in the sand episode with these TOTP repeats as we say goodbye to the ‘golden mic’ slot whereby hosting duties were undertaken not by Radio 1 DJs but by pop stars and celebrities from the worlds of comedy, sport and showbiz. Introduced by new executive producer Ric Blaxill in March 1994, the very first incumbents were Take That’s Robbie Williams and Mark Owen heralding in a huge list of non-traditional presenters from Suggs to Skunk Anansie’s Skin and from Dennis Pennis to Gina G. Some choices really worked like the cast of The Fast Show, some really didn’t – Keith Allen as alter ego ‘Keithski’ was just plain annoying. Whether you liked it or not, at least it was an attempt to shake the format up after the ultimate failure of the ‘Year Zero’ revamp. The final ‘golden mic’ hosts are the Spice Girls which, given their profile at this time, was definitely a case of going out at the top. I have to say that, on balance, I was a fan of this particular invention and I’m not convinced that the regular roster of hosts, introduced by incoming executive producer Chris Cowey, that followed (including Jamie Theakston, Zoe Ball and Kate Thornton) will be any sort of improvement but maybe I’ll be proved wrong.

Anyway, we start with Wet Wet Wet and the time of their first incarnation was nearly at an end. It had been a good run – their debut single and hit “Wishing I Was Lucky” had been released just over ten years prior to this point and their subsequent run of 23 Top 40 singles included three No 1s. Even when their career was supposedly in the doldrums – that period between the second and third albums with the 90s in its infancy – they still only had one single that could be considered a flop (“Put The Light On” stalled at No 56 in 1991). Even then, their next release was “Goodnight Girl” which topped the charts. Having said all that, the signs were there that their conveyor belt of success was starting to slow down – three of their last four singles (including this one “Strange”) failed to go Top 10. For me, their sound had become just too safe by this point. “Strange” was perfect daytime radio fodder with its easy on the ear sound and prominent brass parts but ‘fodder’ was the significant word in that description; it was ‘filler’ not ‘killer’.

As well as sonic stagnation, the band was facing internal struggles. After the tour to support the “10” album, drummer Tommy Cunningham left over a dispute about songwriting royalties feeling he was frozen out of what had always been a four way split. Meanwhile, Marti Pellow was in the middle of fighting his alcohol and drug addictions and would also leave the band in 1999. I wonder if his peroxide blonde haircut seen in this performance was a cry for help similar to the style Robbie Williams sported at Glastonbury after leaving Take That where he was clearly under the influence of something stronger than a few light ales. As for the Wets, there was one final hit in the 90s – a cover of “Yesterday” for some reason – and that would be it for seven years until they reunited for a Greatest Hits album. They are currently touring but with bassist Graeme Clark the only* original member in the line up.

*Guitarist Graeme Duffin is also still with the band having been a touring member since the early days. He was previously reluctant to do any promotional work with the other four members partly on account of his suffering from a stammer.

Next a band who were following a similar career trajectory to our opening act but that’s about all they had in common – I’m clearly not saying Faith No More were anything like Wet Wet Wet! However, both bands were approaching hiatuses that would last for years, both were experiencing line up changes (guitarist Dean Menta had recently been fired and replaced by Jon Hudson) and both had recently released albums which seemed to demonstrate a downturn in creativity. In the case of the San Francisco rockers, their optimistically titled “Album Of The Year” proved to be anything but with reviews in the press ranging from lukewarm at best to downright caustic (if funny). Look at this:

“ ‘Album Of The Year’ leaves one feeling like waking up and finding last night’s used condom – sure, the ride was fun while it lasted but what remains is just plain icky. And you definitely don’t want it in your CD player.”

Stomberg, Jeremy. “Faith No More: Album of the Year: Pitchfork Review”. Pitchfork.

Heh and indeed eeeyeww! Anyway, the one track that did get a bit of love from the critics was lead single “Ashes To Ashes”. Absolutely nothing to do with the Bowie classic, it was a described as a “moody rocker” though I think I’d probably go with ‘doom-laden’ rather than ‘moody’. Apparently, the rumour from Ground Control was that this was more like the classic Faith No More sound but as I could only name you three of their tracks (and one of them isn’t actually theirs), I don’t feel qualified to make any sort of judgement.

As Mrs Merton would say, “It’s Hooky and the boys!”. Yes, I’d forgotten this but Monaco, Peter Hook’s side project band away from New Order, had a second hit besides the excellent “What Do You Want From Me” called “Sweet Lips” which made a respectable No 18 in the charts. However, it wasn’t Hooky and the boys in this performance but Pottsy and the boys with Hooky nowhere to be seen. Nobody seems to know why he wasn’t there but I liked the response on X from @DonOftheDead80 who said “He was playing Hooky”. Heh. Anyway, to counter his absence, we get Hooky’s parts in the song covered by the promo video which is intercut with my old Our Price colleague Pottsy doing his thing in the studio. It’s a clunky device but I guess it just about works. As for the song, it’s got much more of a dance vibe to it than its predecessor so did it counter the criticism that the band were just a pop version of New Order? Maybe but for me, it’s nowhere near as strong a single as their debut though it pisses over most of its Top 40 peers which was just as well as it was also the band’s final Top 40 hit. A third single from their debut album “Music For Pleasure” was released but it peaked at No 55. A second album just called “Monaco” was rejected by Polydor though it was eventually released on Papillon Records but lead single “I’ve Got A Feeling” was withdrawn due to sample clearance issues and a second track “See-Saw” only received a limited 12” single release. Relations between Pottsy and Hooky deteriorated to the point of the band splitting but the duo are together again performing as Peter Hook & The Light.

Right, who’s this? Oh, it’s that Rosie Gaines. Who? Yeah, I’d forgotten about her as well but she was a member of Prince’s New Power Generation and duetted with the diminutive one on “Diamonds And Pearls”. Her solo hit “Closer Than Close” is widely regarded by those who know as a club classic and an absolute banger in the cannon of house music. It goes without saying that I’m not one of those in the know. The title track of her album that was released in 1995 became a No 4 hit two years later when it was remixed after bootlegs circulating in the club scene had created an underground buzz. An official release on Big Bang Records saw it crossover into the mainstream. Wikipedia tells me that it got categorised as part of the ‘speed garage’ scene to which my response was “the what?”. Wikipedia, of course, can answer my question and tells me that the genre was characterised by a four-to-the-floor rhythm, breakbeats, warped bass lines and time-stretched vocals. Yeah, I’m still clueless. All I know is that “Closer Than Close” does next to nothing for me and I particularly did not enjoy it when Rosie does some scatting at the end.

It’s “Time To Say Goodbye” – no, not literally – it isn’t a very short, truncated episode of the show but Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman with their No 2 hit. With the crossover appeal it had (non-traditional record shop visitors were buying it), a prolonged stay on the chart was inevitable and it duly spent five weeks inside the Top 10 and eleven on the Top 40 aided by some heavy airplay on Radio 2.

The cover of the single includes the tagline ‘A Tribute To Henry Maske’ which I didn’t notice at the time I would have been selling it in the Our Price store in Stockport so who was/is Henry Maske? Well, he was a five times German boxing champion and one of the country’s most popular sporting figures. Fair enough but what did he have to do with “Time To Say Goodbye”? Good question. The track was performed by Andrea and Sarah at the start of Maske’s last professional fight in 1996 (Brightman had already performed another song at one of Maske’s earlier fights) and it was also played at the end to mark Maske’s exit. The track didn’t bring him any luck as he lost that final bout – the only loss of his professional career. I guess it would have at least been a poignant soundtrack for the boxer much as it was when played at the end of my hometown football club Worcester City’s final match at their St George’s Lane ground that I mentioned in my last post. Of course, there is another goodbye song that can still bring tears to the eyes if the comments on YouTube about this clip are anything to go by. Seriously, check them out…

Now, here’s a thing. This is yer actual George Michael actually in the TOTP studio for the first time since 1986 when he performed “Where Did Your Heart Go?” as part of Wham! Bizarrely though, he isn’t performing but rather has a little stilted chat with Geri Halliwell before introducing the video for “Waltz Away Dreaming”, a track written by himself and one Toby Bourke and performed by the pair as a duet. This must be one of the least remembered George Michael hits not least because it didn’t feature on any of his albums (it eventually made it onto his “Ladies & Gentlemen” Best Of but inexplicably just the cassette version). I can barely recall it and I worked in a record shop and I still couldn’t have told you how it went. As for Toby Bourke, he was/is an Irish songwriter and the first artist signed to the independent record label Aegean that George founded after his split from Sony. Their track was dedicated to George’s Mum who had died in the February of 1997. Right, that’s all the facts out of the way – I’d better listen to the thing now…

…hmm…well, the video is giving me Narnia vibes which I don’t think suits the tone of the song which is meant to be a beautiful ballad but I found it meandering and rather soporific. It just doesn’t go anywhere rather like George’s record label which folded soon after and whose roster of artists included Trigger, Primitiva and Bassey Walker. Anyone? No, me neither. However, it was the first European record label to adopt the Liquid Audio secure electronic music delivery system which allowed music streaming and music downloads. Have that Spotify!

Although extensively used in classical music, there aren’t many pop songs that feature the word ‘waltz’ in its title. “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)”? Does that count? Oh, hang on. Hers another by that rascal Malcolm McLaren…

After nearly four years and five Top 5 placings, Eternal are finally No 1 in the singles chart with “I Wanna Be The Only One”. It was a prophetic song title as it was the group’s only chart topper and it was only in pole position for a solitary week. Still, a No 1 record is a No 1 record and not every artist can claim to have had one. This gospel-inflected, joyous pop/soul track was always more likely to do the trick for the girls than one of their more melancholy efforts like previous single “Don’t You Love Me” or their mid-tempo dance tracks like “Save Our Love” as it was another one of those songs that would cut a swathe through people’s perceptions and reach the mainstream. It was and remains a fun track. Aided on vocals by BeBe Winans (of the extended musical Winans family) it was perfect for Summer playlists and was in step with the upbeat, good feeling that the General Election result had ushered in.

I’m pretty sure that I witnessed the announcement that Eternal were No 1 in person as it was made in Albert Square, Manchester where a mini Radio 1 Roadshow was taking place. It was on a Sunday and I think that as the chart countdown got to the No 1 position, Eternal were introduced on stage to perform their hit. Yes, I’m sure that happened and I haven’t made it up. Sadly, I’d given up on my diary a few weeks before so there isn’t any confirmation of events written down. This commercial peak for Eternal was over pretty quickly. Parent album “Before The Rain” had only been out for six months before a Greatest Hits package was released for the Christmas sales rush which seemed a bit odd. Maybe it was a contractual obligation thing. Said album was a hit but within two years, their last eponymously titled album made just as a duo by the Bennett sisters was a flop. The group split soon with the inevitable reunion rumours resurfacing most recently in 2023 with the four members from the original line up but Louise Redknapp and Kéllé Bryan pulled out over the Bennetts’ refusal to appear at LGBTQ Pride events.

The play out video is “I Have Peace” by Strike. Unsurprisingly, I don’t recall this one at all – my only memory of this lot is their 1995 No 4 hit “U Sure Do” though apparently they did have three minor hits after that and before this one. Wikipedia tells me that “I Have Peace” contains a sample of Level 42’s “Leaving Me Now”. Really? Let me have a listen…

…oh yeah – there’s it is. That tinkling piano part. It’s not an obvious steal for a dance track but it just about works. Despite it being their last UK chart hit, they would continue for another ten years supporting the likes of the Backstreet Boys, Jocelyn Brown and in a nice, full circle ending to the show, the Spice Girls.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Strange	Nah
2	Faith No More	Ashes To Ashes	I did not
3	Monaco	Sweet Lips	I bough their first single but not this one
4	Rosie Gaines	Closer Than Close	No
5	Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman	Time To Say Goodbye	Nope
6	George Michael and Toby Bourke	Waltz Away Dreaming	Negative
7	Eternal featuring BeBe Winans	I Wanna Be The Only One	I did but for my wife who liked it
8	Strike	I Have Peace	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/m0028dyz/top-of-the-pops-30051997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 21 MAR 1997

Posted on February 12 by 80stastic

How was your life going in March 1997 (assuming you’re old enough to have any memories of 28 years ago)? If you were Tony Blair, you’d just received an endorsement as the next leader of the country by none other than traditional Tory supporters The Sun. Surely sitting Prime Minister John Major must have known the game was up then. If you were me (and I was), then you were stressed out at work and planning a trip to China. Those two things weren’t related – I was stressed at work as the manager of the Our Price where I worked had left a few weeks before and I was effectively acting manager by default whilst the recruitment process for a replacement was taking an age. I’d reluctantly agreed to put my hat in the ring at the behest of my colleagues (better the devil you know and all that) and we were about to introduce a new electronic stock control system which required a lot of preparation work. On top of that we had a new member of staff who was ruffling a few feathers in the team and apparently, according to my diary, one day a member of the public got stabbed in the shopping precinct where the store was located and I had to ring an ambulance, the police and try and patch him up. I have no recall of this at all so I’m either a complete fantasist or I’ve blocked out the memory of it.

That wasn’t the end of my stress though. One Saturday after work, a few of us went for a drink at a local pub and I took the pack of weekly memos with me as I planned to read them on the Sunday at home as I hadn’t had time at work. The memos were delivered to every store in a blue plastic pouch (‘the blue bag’) containing all the relevant information we needed for the next week including stock prices, charts and promotion details. As I sat down in the pub, I put them on the ledge above a radiator behind me so that they were in view of everyone and wouldn’t be forgotten at the end of the evening. What I hadn’t accounted for was the fact that there was a gap behind the radiator and between the seating and the blue bag slipped down the gap seamlessly once I let go of it. Disaster! Try as we might, we couldn’t retrieve it (and we spent the whole evening trying!) despite fashioning various apparatus using string and hooks (maybe even a coat hanger at one point) to pick it up. Either we gave up or the pub closed and I left memo less. I had to send someone to the Manchester store on Monday morning to photocopy theirs (this was the pre-digital age). As far as I knew, the memos would stay there until the pub had a refit, a time capsule from 1997. Almost 20 years later and long after I’d left Our Price, I went back to the pub and it had indeed had a refit so the memos would have been found (and binned) presumably. I resisted the temptation to ask the bar staff if they could check their lost and found for them!

As for China, my old school friend and best man at my wedding Rob was living and studying in Beijing so I’d arranged with his brother to fly out to visit him in the May. I had to get visas and inoculations and all that sort of thing sorted so there was a lot going on around this time. I’m sure I’ll get onto what went down in China in the next few posts.

Anyway, back to the month of March and if you were Kylie Minogue at that time, then you were hosting this edition of TOTP and had invested in a rather unflattering new, messy, plum coloured hairstyle. I think this was her ‘indie Kylie’ phase when she would collaborate with the likes of James Dean Bradfield of the Manics (he co-wrote her “Some Kind Of Bliss” single of this year) so I’m guessing that a new phase meant a new image. Definitely not having a style remodel was opening act Lisa Stansfield who was still very much attached to her brand of smooth R&B soul/dance that she’d made her name on. By 1997, she was onto her fourth solo album but after releasing the previous three in a four year period, it had been four years since album number three “So Natural”. Lisa had carved out a nice little sideline for herself though in recording songs for soundtrack albums – her contributions to The Bodyguard and Indecent Proposal had given her two Top 10 hits. In addition to that, she’d been back there earlier this year when remix team the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels looked to Lisa’s back catalogue to come up with “People Hold On (The Bootleg Mixes)”. However, taking a holistic approach to Lisa’s career up to this point, it’s surprisingly yet undeniably a case of diminishing returns as sales of her albums from “Affection” onwards decreased. Of course, that’s a very statistical approach – Lisa’s albums were still selling well but the UK figures were as follows:

Affection – 900,000 (triple platinum)
Real Love – 600,000 (double platinum)
So Natural – 300,000 (platinum)
Lisa Stansfield – 100,000 (gold)

It’s a definite downwards trend but I guess it’s all relative. Anyway, “The Real Thing” was the lead single from that last eponymous album and, for me, was typical Lisa fare which was fair enough but didn’t show much musical progression. On the other hand, if it ain’t broke and all that. It would return Stansfield to the Top 10 with a song that wasn’t from a film for the first time since 1991’s “Change” though she did feature on the “Five Live EP” alongside Queen and George Michael that would make No 1 off the back of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. However, “The Real Thing” would also be the last time a single of hers would be so high in the charts. I sometimes wonder if Lisa gets the credit she deserves though. You rarely hear her referred to when it comes to naming the UK’s most renowned female singers do you?

Ooh now, might this be a bit awkward? Kylie has to introduce one of her exes as INXS are the second artist on tonight. Ah, it was probably alright – Kylie and Michael Hutchence stopped seeing each other in 1991 so I’m guessing both parties might have moved on. Hutchence certainly had – by 1997 he was two years into a relationship with Paula Yates and they had had a daughter together. However, the relationship was intense and played out under a media spotlight and against a bitter custody battle with Yates’s ex-husband Bob Geldof over the three daughters they had together. Within eight months of this TOTP appearance, Hutchence would be dead, having committed suicide in a Sydney hotel room aged just 37. I remember thinking on hearing the news that “Suicide Blonde” would surely never be played on the radio ever again though it subsequently was resurrected after an appropriate amount of time had passed. One song that was cut in the wake of the news was “So Long Suicide” from the Duran Duran set of the gig they played on the night of Hutchence’s death. The band had already recorded a track about their friend called “Michael, You’ve Got A Lot To Answer For” that featured on their “Medazzaland” album that was released a month before his death.

As for INXS, they would carry on intermittently for the next 15 years with various guest singers including Terence Trent D’Arby at one point and then a permanent vocalist in J.D. Fortune who was recruited via reality television show Rock Star: INXS. Returning to this TOTP performance, I think this would have been their last time on the show in person not only because of Hutchence’s subsequent death but also because “Elegantly Wasted” was their final UK Top 40 hit. The title track of their tenth studio album, it sounded much like everything else they’d ever recorded since the “Kick” album. The winning formula of that record had helped the band become global success and saw Hutchence depicted as a rock god. Fast forward a decade and it was a sound that was starting to feel, if not worn out, then definitely not fresh. As with Lisa Stansfield earlier, it had been a case of diminishing returns for sales of INXS albums since the high point of “Kick” and “Elegantly Wasted” wasn’t about to reverse that trend. It was a sad end to the band’s glory days which had coincided with my time as a student at Sunderland Poly and my early years of marriage and living in Manchester. Thanks for the memories. RIP Michael.

Sometimes I look down the running order for these TOTP repeats and think to myself “what on earth do I have to say about this one?” – “Love Guaranteed” by Damage undoubtedly falls into that category. Needless to say I don’t remember it at all and listening to it in the present day, it made as much impression on me as a feather on a set of scales. It was just more of that one-paced, pedestrian R&B /pop hybrid that was popular back then. What’s that? What about Christopher Lee in the video? What about him? Plot wise, I think he’s meant to be in control of some sort of time portal but he looks as bored with the whole thing as I feel about it. Other than that, he does bugger all except stand around and stare down the lens of the camera. What? It’s the way that he stares though? Ah well, you’ve got me there.

As Kylie says in her intro to the next artist, the Aussies had taken over this particular episode of TOTP what with INXS, Kylie herself of course and now Gina G. Yes, lest we forget, the UK’s 1996 Eurovision entrant was actually Australian*. Despite trailing in eight place on the big night, “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” had gone on to become a No 1 single. More surprising than that though was that Gina managed to sustain a pop career for another year or so and rack up four more hits. “Fresh” was the third of those and also the title track from her debut album. I don’t remember the song at all (for the record it was another ridiculously catchy, disco inflected Eurodance number) but I do recall the album – not for its music but for its dreadful cover art. It looked so amateurish and like it had been designed on the back of a beer mat down the pub. Gina is covered in chocolate icing (hmm…) holding a microphone attached to a stand with the microphone plugged into a socket on a wall. The room it’s set in is all in purple for some reason and Gina’s name and the album title look like they’ve been chucked on randomly at an angle rather than positioned with any resemblance of judgement. Then there’s Gina’s hair which looks like Crystal Tipps from 70s cartoon Crystal Tipps And Alistair. Is that some sort of air blower in the foreground (that might explain Gina’s hair) or is it an amp? You can’t tell because the whole thing has some sort of grainy tint to it that makes it look out of focus. The whole thing is an ugly mess. It was shot by renowned and award winning photographer David LaChapelle whose style has been described as “hyper-real and slyly subversive” – yeah, whatever. Regardless of what it looked like, the album continued her run of success by peaking at No 12 and achieving silver status in the UK in recognition of 60,000 sales.

*This theme was continued in 1997 as the UK entrant was Katrina And The Waves whose lead singer was Katrina Leskanich, an American but well be seeing them in these TOTP repeats soon enough.

Now, this is the song of the night so far for me. The Divine Comedy are probably not everybody’s cup of tea – was ‘wimp rock’ the term that some hack came up with to label them with? – but I’ve always quite liked them. After becoming genuine pop stars with chart hits the previous year, the band didn’t rest on their laurels and released their fifth album “A Short Album About Love” just nine months after their last “Casanova”. Despite containing three hit singles, it hadn’t sold that well so a change of tack was required. Rather than a complete change of sound, a different approach was deemed necessary and that was to record their next album at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire with an orchestra (but no audience). The plan worked in that the album made No 13 in the charts though I think I’m right in saying it was sold at a reduced price on account of only consisting of seven tracks so that may have helped its sales. It also produced another hit single in “Everybody Knows (Except You)” which was another ballad (of sorts) following on from previous hit “Frog Princess” though it was a much more…what’s the word?…agile?…unconventional?…love song but tuneful as hell. As for the performance, there was a lot of talk online about main man Neil Hannon’s cheek bones and beard. They are quite impressive though never really having had cheekbones or been able to grow a beard properly myself, I’m no expert.

By 1997, Wet Wet Wet had been having hits for a whole decade and to commemorate that anniversary, they released an album called “10”. Ironically, they wouldn’t release an album at all in the next ten years after their band splintered due to disputes over royalty payments and Marti Pellow’s hiatus to address his drugs and alcohol addictions. For the moment though, it seemed like business as usual as the band continued to churn out the hits. The phrase ‘business as usual’ could not only be applied to the band’s chart consistency but also to their sound. Lead single “If I Never See You Again” was yet more of their sophisti-pop, blue eyed soul style that they had honed over the years. I’d enjoyed their early hits but ten years in and – a bit like INXS earlier – it had all become a bit stale and predictable. Proving my point, the band’s final hit of the 90s would be with the most predictable cover version they could have chosen, the most covered song in history – “Yesterday” by The Beatles. With that and the whole “Love Is All Around” extended episode, “If I Never See You Again” might well have been the words on the lips of many a disgruntled music fan in 1997.

What’s that? Do I fancy a quick win? What do you mean? “Isn’t It A Wonder” by Boyzone has been on TOTP before on the 8 November 1996 show when it was premiered as an album track from their “A Different Beat” album? So I could just add a link to my review of that episode and I wouldn’t have to listen to/think about/ comment on it a second time? Right then…

TOTP 08 NOV 1996

The Spice Girls are holding at No 1 with the double A-side single “Mama / Who Do You Think You Are” off the back of Comic Relief day that happened the previous week. This time we get a performance of “Mama” and the girls have got some kids on stage with them to make the song even more sickly than it already was. I wonder who the kids were? Competition winners? They’ll be in their mid-30s now – you feel old now don’t you? I’m not sure that Mel B’s outfit was appropriate with her sitting next to that young lad. Still, it’ll have given him a good story to tell for the rest of his life.

The play out video is…wait…what? “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt?! But…but…they weren’t No 1 anymore and were at No 4 in the charts this week. They’d already been on three weeks in the trot whilst they’d topped the charts and yet they were back on again? Why? Well, this was all to do with the new appearance rules that had been brought in following the departure of Ric Blaxill as executive producer when songs no longer had to be new entries nor climbing the charts to be given a slot on the show. If you were going down the Top 40 you might yet get the call to appear one more time. Kylie says that “Don’t Speak” was the biggest selling single of the year to this point in an attempt to legitimise its video being given another showing but it seems a bit of a hollow reason to me. If this was the show’s new direction, I wasn’t sure about where we were heading.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Lisa Stansfield	The Real Thing	Negative
2	INXS	Elegantly Wasted	Nah
3	Damage	Love Guaranteed	As if
4	Gina G	Fresh	Nope
5	The Divine Comedy	Everybody Knows (Except You)	No but I had their Best Of with it on
6	Wet Wet Wet	If I Never See You Again	No
7	Boyzone	Isn’t It A Wonder	Never
8	Spice Girls	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	I did not
9	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	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/m0027pnn/top-of-the-pops-21031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 MAR 1996

Posted on June 26, 2024 by 80stastic

On the Monday following the broadcast of this TOTP, John Squire released a statement confirming that he had left the Stone Roses. As that date was 1st April, maybe some thought it was an April Fool’s joke but in reality, the writing had been on the wall for some time. The band were in disarray after a number of damaging events – the lukewarm reception to the almost mythical sophomore album “Second Coming”, the departure of Reni and the cancellation of their Glastonbury appearance the year before and the poor reviews for the shows they did play with much of the criticism surrounding the state of Ian Brown’s voice. The Stone Roses would be dissolved by Brown and Mani just a few short months later. Squire would move in to his next project very quickly with The Seahorses claiming a Top 3 hit with their debut release “Love Is The Law” in late April.

Also moving on to something new was the Our Price store in Stockport where I was working. I’m pretty sure it was around this time that we switched over from the old (and antiquated) master bag stock control system to the Virgin ELVIS technology. I think it stood for Electronic Virgin Information System and was quite the advancement from what preceded it. This was a computerised system that would give you daily figures (as opposed to a manual count) for every item that was sold in store meaning that you had much better sales information on which to make reorder decisions about the all important chart titles. Setting it up though was quite an undertaking as everything in the shop needed a barcode attaching to it and scanning into the system. Not only that but the tills had to be changed as well and the staff trained in how to use them. It was quite the transition and required a team of ELVIS trainers to guide us through it and for the store to be shut to the public at some points while the hardware was installed. I wonder which tunes we might have played in the shop stereo to soundtrack our endeavours…

I don’t think “I Need A Lover Tonight” by Ken Doh would have been my first choice. Who the hell was this guy, where had he come from and what did he want? Well, my answers would be that he was a pound shop Haddaway, I don’t know nor care and that he wanted a hit record which he got when this Italian House track from the “Nakasaki” EP went to No 7.

Presumably the whole thing was inspired by the wrestler Kendo Nagasaki who was popular in the 70s. His real name was Peter Thornley who kept up the pretence of his Japanese samurai wrestling character by never being seen without his mask and doing interviews via a representative. A similarly mute approach by Ken Doh would have been appreciated. Ken Doh? I’d rather have Mad Donna…

The curious footnote to pop history that is Bis have themselves an actual, proper chart hit with “Kandy Pop” from “The Secret Vampire Soundtrack” EP after their debut TOTP appearance the other week as the first unsigned *band in the show’s history.

*This wasn’t quite the truth as they were on Glasgow’s Chemikal Underground label

Up to No 25 by this point, it’s a curious song that sounds like an outlier compared to its chart contemporaries back then. Sort of ahead of its time you might say in that it has a new millennium feel to it to my ears. Of course, I might be talking bollocks here; I often do. Here’s evidence of that as my earlier description of them as a musical footnote isn’t really true. Yes, they only had two minor UK Top 40 hits but that doesn’t really tell the whole Bis story. As Alphaville once sang, the band were big in Japan, have released six studio albums, fourteen EPs, seventeen singles, had their music used in The Powerpuff Girls TV series and film and, despite a few years hiatus, are still a going concern today. They haven’t quite made it to the top result if you google Bis though being behind the Bank for International Settlements.

Themes from TV shows as hits in the pop charts, whilst not a weekly occurrence, weren’t unheard of either. There’s “The Theme From M*A*S*H” / “Suicide Is Painless”, Ennis Morricone’s “Chi Mai” from The Life And Times Of David Lloyd George and “I’ll Be There For You” by The Rembrandts from Friends to name but three. However, “The X Files” by Mark Snow felt different to all of the above. Maybe because it was from a sci-fi show and therefore the sound of it was…what?…spooky…eerie…sinister….that its success seemed somehow out of left field. I couldn’t quite imagine people buying it, taking it home and then listening to it. They must have as it went to No 2 in the charts and stayed there for three weeks but it seemed an unlikely activity. Or maybe they weren’t listening to it but bought it as a keepsake or souvenir of the show they loved. In the pre-digital age, access to your favourite show wasn’t as easy to come by. Sure, you could record the episodes off the TV to a VHS tape for repeated viewing or wait until the official videos came out and buy them (and many people did) but all that required effort. Or was it being played in the clubs as a come down tune as the morning dawned and the ravers tried to get themselves together to make the journey home? I guess the truth is out there (ahem) as to the real reason people took to buying this single in such quantities but it probably isn’t anything to do with an alien plot to take over the earth.

The X–Files TV series was first aired in the UK on Sky in January 1994 (Rishi Sunak wouldn’t have known about it then) before being picked up by BBC2 in the September. By March 1996, it was an established phenomenon with the characters of Mulder and Scully imprinted on the national psyche (just ask Catatonia). I watched it occasionally rather than religiously but always enjoyed what I saw. Mark Snow’s theme tune though? I couldn’t imagine feeling the need to listen to (an albeit enhanced) four minute version of it let alone purchase it. Such was the interest in The X–Files and its theme tune though that inevitably other parties saw the opportunity to cash in on it. In a future TOTP repeat, we’ll see DJ Dado with an Italian House version of the song but I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, it was all about Mark Snow and his hit record which by making it to No 2, equalled the chart high of the last instrumental TV theme tune to be a mega smash that being “Crockett’s Theme” by Jan Hammer from Miami Vice in 1987.

When I were a lad, the utterance “ooh-arr” usually meant just one thing – The Wurzels were on TV again. Yes, the Scrumpy and Western band who gave us “The Combine Harvester” and “I Am A Cider Drinker” never seemed to be far from our screens in that long hot summer of 1976. Fast forward twenty years and that phrase (with just a little bit of a spelling tweak) would be adopted for a much higher and nobler use than that of a novelty record – the UK’s Eurovision Song Contest entry! Gina G was the singer chosen to represent us in 1996 despite the fact that she is Australian (the following year we had Katrina And The Waves whose titular Katrina is American also) and although she would finish 8th despite being a pre-tournament favourite with the bookies, her song “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” would become a No 1 record. This would make it the first Eurovision song to top the UK charts since “A Little Peace” by Nicole in 1982 and the first UK entrant not to win Eurovision but become a No 1 since “Congratulations” by Cliff Richard in 1968. Phew! How did this happen then? Well, the Song For Europe people had shown a willingness to depart from the more traditional Eurovision sound with the previous year’s “Love City Groove” track and though that rap experiment failed in terms of winning the contest, it proved that you could go bold without being derided. Hence the following year, another musical direction was chosen that wasn’t a natural fit with Eurovision but which was certainly popular – Eurodance. “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” nailed that sound but added something to make it stand out – an infectious, brain cell kidnapping, almighty hook of a chorus that was simple to the point of nearly being dumb but with a sexual overtone. It was sort of like a more knowing, elder sister of “Saturday Night” by Whigfield really.

Given that the single would stay in the Top 10 for ten consecutive weeks (including seven at either No1, No 2 or No 3) and given that Eurovision wasn’t until the 18th May and this TOTP was still in March, I think I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll be seeing a lot more of Gina G in the forthcoming weeks but to add some symmetry to the post, it should be noted that The Wurzels recorded their own version of “Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit” in 2002 (with the “Ooh Aah” restyled as “Ooh Arr” obviously) from their album “Never Mind The Bullocks, Here’s The Wurzels”. Marvellous!

Just like that other Britpop band Menswear at this time, Cast decided that their fourth single release would be a ballad. Whereas “Being Brave” felt ever so slightly of being contrived and that it had everything thrown at it in the production, “Walkaway” sounded more organic to me. As I said in a recent post, I think Menswear just about pulled it off with their slowie but Cast’s attempt at balladry seemed more natural and effortless. Wistful, contemplative, melancholic yet melodic, it really stood out.

Being chosen to soundtrack a BBC montage to draw a line under England’s semi-final defeat to Germany in Euro 96 didn’t harm the song’s life cycle either. Whoever was putting those vignettes together was clearly a Britpop fan after Shed Seven had been used twice before earlier in the competition. “Walkaway” was an inspired choice though. The devastation the nation felt after Gareth Southgate missed that penalty needed to be acknowledged and assuaged and Cast’s track was just right. The band themselves were away on tour in the US whilst all the fervour and excitement surrounding the tournament was going on and so missed their moment of national recognition. It might just be their most well known tune though not their highest charting hit. That honour would be bestowed on their next release, the non-album single “Flying” which indeed the band were. One thing though; shouldn’t it have been called “Walk Away” not “Walkaway”.

I should have probably mentioned that this is the last show to be hosted by Mark Goodier. He’d made his TOTP debut back in 1988 and although I’ve been quite disparaging about him in the past on this blog, I can appreciate that he was a safe pair of hands. His hair in this episode is very Louis Balfour of The Fast Show’s ‘Jazz Club’. Nice! Also coming to an end were PJ & Duncan. No, sadly they hadn’t decided to stop making music yet but rather that they would now be releasing records under their own names rather than their Byker Grove characters. On reflection, it’s a wonder that the change hadn’t happened much earlier. After all, they had been gone from the CBBC drama for three years by this point. Whatever the reason and circumstances behind the change of moniker, you could see the direction the pair were heading in the direct to camera piece at the top of the show where they inform us that they will be performing on the show tonight from an aircraft hangar at Heathrow Airport on their way to Japan. This presenting lark did seem to come naturally to them. The track they are promoting is the fourth and final single lifted from their “Top Katz” album and it’s a cover of the old Monkees hit “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” except the duo have renamed it as purely “Stepping Stone”. Well, at least they were showing some respect for the correct spelling.

I say the old Monkees hit but the song has been covered by many artists including, as Mark Goodier states in his intro, The Sex Pistols but the list also includes Paul Revere & The Raiders and scouse baggy types The Farm. Like most I would guess though, the version I first knew was that Monkees one as it was on a Greatest Hits tape I had when I was only about 10. Back then I was more familiar with them than The Beatles for example due to the repeats of their TV shows that the BBC would air during those aforementioned long summer holidays. As for PJ & Duncan’s version, it’s predictably naff with the first few seconds sounding like a knock off of “Everybody In The Place” by The Prodigy (more of whom later).

How do you define Dubstar? Even the music press at the time struggled. Look at this list of other artists that they were compared to by various publications:

Portishead
Pet Shop Boys
St Etienne
Billie Ray Martin
Deacon Blue (?!)

Well, if those guys in the know couldn’t decide, what chance do I have? For the record, surveying that list, my first inclination was towards Portishead but on reflection maybe St Etienne is a better choice. Or maybe we should dispense with all such comparisons and judge them on their own merits? Yes, that seems like a better way of doing it. I shall proceed on that basis. “Stars” was a rerelease of their debut single which had peaked at No 40 in 1995 but was given a second chance after the success of “Not So Manic Now” and deservedly so. It’s an affecting, almost beautiful song bestowed with a touch of stardust by the celestial vocals of Sarah Blackwood. Deceptively slight and also substantial at the same time, it rightly became the band’s biggest hit when it peaked at No 15 second time around. There you go. No comparisons to anybody else in that assessment. As for the performance here, Sarah’s commitment to hardly moving is almost Chris Lowe-esque…Oh bugger.

There is a point where I really couldn’t be bothered with Wet Wet Wet anymore. When they burst into the charts in 1987 from seemingly nowhere with a clutch of great pop tunes (albeit with some bits of them pinched from the work of others), I genuinely liked them. Even when they tried to make that jump from pop star to mature artist too quickly with second album “Holding Back The River” I thought they were still OK and then their renaissance under third album “High On The Happy Side” was well deserved as it was a solid pop album. So why and when did my interest wane? It seems obvious now but it was “Love Is All Around”. I didn’t hate it like everyone else seems to be in a rush to say they did these days but after that level of success I guess I maybe thought they didn’t deserve my attention any more. Not that they would have known or cared about my onrushing indifference but still. I know “Julia Says” was the follow up single but after that I couldn’t really tell you what they released. As such, I have zero memory of “Morning” but Wikipedia tells me that it was fifth and final single taken from the “Picture This” album and it peaked at No 16.

Having listened to it back, it wouldn’t be out of place on a Radio 2 playlist today but was this really what the kids wanted back then? I wonder how many albums that “huge record deal” they’d just signed according to Mark Goodier was for? They only managed to release one more before the end of the 90s plus a second Greatest Hits in 2004 for their label Mercury. To be fair to them, drummer Tommy Cunningham left the group for a while over royalty payments and then Marti Pellow had to take time out to deal with his addiction problems. The band are just about still together though seem to be a three piece these days with only Graeme Clark and previously publicity shy guitarist Graeme Duffin remaining from the original combo with former Liberty X member Kevin Simm on lead vocals.

To the new No 1 and what a seismic record it was. Everything about “Firestarter” by The Prodigy screamed headlines whether they were about its sound, Keith Flint, that video and, of course, a show of moral outrage by some of the tabloids. Watching the promo back further the first time possibly since 1996 and it strikes me that it would be hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t around then why it was so shocking but somehow it was. Why was it? Well, it was 28 years ago and in those intervening years, we will have witnessed a lot of shit and maybe we have become desensitised to images that we would have once found shocking or disturbing. Perhaps, if our first view of the video was via this TOTP and that first view came after a very mellow song by those nice Wet Wet Wet boys…well, it would have been a bit of a shock and certainly quite a contrast. Then there’s the fact that it’s all shot in black and white (due to the band blowing most of the budget on an aborted first attempt) and set in a disused London Underground tunnel adding to the sense that we were watching something very sinister. We were still three years away from the black and white ‘footage’ style cinema of The Blair Witch Project but revisiting the “Firestarter” promo through the prism of that film somehow makes the viewing even more unsettling. Then there’s Keith Flint whose performance provoked such a reaction from viewers and the press. The tics and twitches that he constantly shows us gave the impression of someone who was, if not deranged, definitely experiencing some sort of mental breakdown. His Soo Catwoman influenced hairstyle only added to the sense of the unhinged. And then there’s the sound of “Firestarter”…oh hang on, you know what? It’s going to be No 1 for the next two TOTP repeats so I think I’ll leave it smouldering there for now…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Ken Doh	I Need A Lover Tonight	Never
2	Bis	Kandy Pop	Negative
3	Mark Snow	The X Files	No
4	Gina G	Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit	Nope
5	Cast	Walkaway	How did I walkaway from this one? No it seems
6	PJ & Duncan	Stepping Stone	As if
7	Dubstar	Stars	Didn’t but should have
8	Wet Wet Wet	Morning	Nah
9	The Prodigy	Firestarter	See 8 above

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002053x/top-of-the-pops-28031996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 SEP 1995

Posted on March 8, 2024 by 80stastic

The last couple of shows have been very poor quality-wise for me – too many anonymous or fly-by-night dance acts and, in the case of one particular standards drop (on many levels) a loathsome novelty record. Well, tonight’s episode sees a definite upturn in the calibre of tunes but…there’s also a tendency for very established acts and mainly those of a rock persuasion. Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Meatloaf are all on the show tonight as are Wet Wet Wet and Simply Red. Was this what the kids wanted from the UK’s most watched music programme? Or did they want to see and hear more from the Britpop scene that was dominating the musical landscape? Well, it would seem that the TOTP producers were aware of the need to strike a balance. The show had always been structured around the Top 40 singles chart so that needed to be reflected and so, in the case of Simply Red for example, they were always going to be featured as this week’s No 1 record. However, there are also what could be considered Britpop artists on tonight so you can’t say that the genre wasn’t represented.

In a further effort to promote TOTP as being on trend, the chosen presenters this week are Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. The pair presented The Evening Session on Radio 1 together from 1993 to 1997 with its emphasis on indie and non mainstream music. Indeed, Lamacq seemed to me like the natural successor in waiting to John Peel whilst Whiley…hmm…well, I never really warmed to Jo Whiley. I didn’t think she had much credibility somehow. She seemed to me like she’d just found herself in the right place at the right time and got to where she was rather fortuitously. That’s probably completely unfair of me and I find myself on very dangerous ground by highlighting my misgivings about the female member of the presenting duo but I can assure you I have no such agenda. I just didn’t buy into Jo’s “I love all of this music” persona. In later years, she moved to Radio 2 and seemed as comfortable introducing the likes of Billy Joel as Billy Joe Armstrong (of Green Day fame). I’ve never found her convincing when she’s hosted at the Glastonbury Festival either. However, her work highlighting the struggles of her sister Frances, who has learning difficulties and diabetes, during the COVID pandemic and the need for her and anybody of a similar status to be a priority to be vaccinated led to the shaping of government policy. I had to reassess my opinion on Jo and I find myself being much more disposed to her these days.

Anyway, we start with one of those Britpoppers in Cast. I quite liked this lot, having seen John Power’s original band The La’s live twice, I guess I was always going to. I dutifully bought their debut single “Finetime” and I’m surprised I didn’t buy the follow up “Alright” which was just as good. Jangly, 60s influenced pop with a 90s twist – yep, sign me up. Although it only reached No 13 in the charts, it was enough of a hit to maintain the band’s momentum and ushered in a run of six successive Top 10 singles. As with Supergrass before them, clearly being a Britpop band and having a hit called “Alright” was a more than ‘alright’ strategy for continuing success.

I love the energy and style of drummer Keith O’Neill in this performance which I don’t think we’d seen the like of in the TOTP studio since Talk Talk’s Lee Harriss powered his way through “Life’s What You Make It” a decade earlier. One final thing, I’m pretty sure the lads in Cast didn’t pronounce their band name as ‘Carst’ Jo Whiley!

A marked strand of the whole Britpop movement was the concept of a band that was fronted by a distinctive female singer. I’m thinking Sleeper, Elastica and Echobelly. Add to that list Garbage. The TOTP caption said that the singer was from Edinburgh with the rest of the band from Madison, US. Whilst that is factually correct, to me it illustrated a laziness on the part of the researchers. That singer was Shirley Manson who had started her musical career as backing vocalist and keyboard player in the marvellous but mostly ignored Scottish rockers Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. The band’s label decided that Shirley had star quality and wanted to launch her as a solo artist. A side project under the name of Angelfish fronted by Manson was put into action and one of their videos came to the attention of the three members of Garbage (one of whom was Butch Vig who had produced Nirvana’s iconic “Nevermind” album). An invitation was sent by Garbage to audition for their band and despite initial reactions not being especially positive, Shirley got the gig. Debut single “Vow” received airplay from the aforementioned John Peel and tonight’s co-host Steve Lamacq (which explains why he introduced them as “the excellent Garbage”). The limited release of “Vow” meant that it wasn’t a big commercial hit but by the time of third single “Only Happy When It Rains”, the momentum of and buzz about the band was enough to propel it into the UK Top 40.

Whilst I liked and appreciated those other indie bands that had women lead singers, Garbage’s sound was much more rock and somehow bigger than their contemporaries to me. I guess that was always going to be the case bearing in mind that Nirvana connection. This track was a great example of the band’s style which would bring them huge success and a long career. Their debut eponymous album would sell 4 million copies worldwide and go double platinum here in the UK propelled by subsequent hit singles “Queer”, “Stupid Girl” and “Milk”. The pink, feather boa adorned Mike stand in this performance is presumably a nod to the album’s cover artwork. The band are still going strong with their most recent album released in 2021 whilst they also announced their first tour for five years with dates confirmed for later this year.

The most interesting thing about this next song by Wet Wet Wet is what Jo Whiley points out in her intro – that its video shows us that Marti Pellow has had his hair radically recut. Gone are the luscious long locks that he’s been sporting since about 1992 and that were certainly still in place for previous single “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now”, replaced by a much shorter (some might say sensible) style. And once you’ve taken that on board, you can effectively switch off watching the rest of the video as the song is soporific. “Somewhere Somehow” sounds to me like a slowed down version of their 1988 hit “Temptation” with a country tinge added to it. Pellow adds a “Love Is All Around” -esque ‘Hey!’ shout into it during the middle eight to try and liven it up but nothing could shake awake this snore fest. Not sure what the woman wandering around with Angel wings attached to her was all about but it probably wasn’t the best idea for her to be walking near a cliff edge – what if a gust of wind had got under those wings!

Was this a new section on the show? The ‘Acoustic Exclusive’ slot or had it just been made up for The Pretenders? After the success of their last studio album “Last Of The Independents” which had given the band their first UK Top 10 single for eight years in “Stand By You”, their record company Warners clearly wanted to keep the band’s profile raised. Rather than waiting for the next studio album to be delivered (which wouldn’t be for another five years), a live, televised performance showcasing the band in acoustic mode formed their next release. Recorded at the Jacob Street Studios in London and accompanied by the Duke Quartet, “The Isle Of View” album was clearly based on the MTV Unplugged concept which was popular in the 90s and featured artists such as Eric Clapton and Nirvana. Its title was a pun on the words ‘I Love You’, a practice no doubt inspired by the film This Is Spinal Tap. You know that bit where the band claim they once played a jazz/blues festival on the Isle Of Lucy? No such place existed and it was a play on words of the title of the US 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy starring Lucille Ball. Apparently, fans of the film didn’t initially pick up on the joke and I didn’t pick up on the reference when my mate Robin bought me a T-shirt with ‘Isle Of Lucy’ emblazoned on it and I love that film! Bah!

Chrissie Hynde performs “Kid” for this TOTP which would end up being released as a single retitled as “Kid ‘95 live” though it would only make No 73 in the charts. The acoustic version is a revelation which lays bare how amazing Chrissie’s voice is (as if it needed pointing out any further). The verse almost sounds like “Unchained Melody” done in this way. Not sure what her red evening gloves were all about though.

It wasn’t the first time that “Kid” had been performed in a stripped back style though. Check out this from Everything But The Girl from 1985…

The pursuit of ever more unusual locations for Bon Jovi to perform on TOTP continues. After Niagara Falls for “Always” and an American Football stadium for “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night”, we get a runway at an airport in Dallas for “Something For The Pain”. I’m not sure I’m buying Jo Whiley’s explanation as to how this came about – they were just about to get on a plane when the phone call came in from TOTP – as this looks very staged to me – they’ve even got TOTP logos handy for display.

However, watching this back, it wasn’t the location that struck me as odd as much as the very un -Bon Jovi looking bass player they had performing with them. Who the heck was that guy?! Well, I think his name is Hugh McDonald and he was the replacement for Alec John Such who left the band in 1994 after not taking too kindly to his bass playing being criticised by Jon Bon Jovi supposedly. McDonald would tour and record with the band for 21 years before finally being made an official member in 2016. That’s quite the probationary period! Such sadly died in 2022 from a heart attack aged 70. As for the song, it was a pretty standard Jovi composition – a jaunty, little rock number that they probably could have knocked out waiting for that plane to take off.

Is this another new slot? An ‘exclusive performance’? Not just an ‘exclusive’ and certainly not a ‘satellite performance’ but an ‘exclusive performance’. What gives? Well, it appears to be something created bespoke for the next artist who are TLC. According to Jo Whiley, the TOTP family had been waiting for a long time to get the trio on the show (was this their first time in the studio then?) and fortunately they must have been in the country. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a hit single that was rising in the charts to justify an appearance according to TOTP law, so the show producers shoehorned them in anyway, I’m guessing. To give TLC something to perform, a “Hits Medley” was dreamed up comprising “Creep” / “Waterfalls” / “Diggin’ On You” the last of which hadn’t actually been released and wouldn’t be until October. This makes me wonder why they didn’t just perform the final track as an ‘exclusive’ preview of said single? Why the need for a medley? It all seems a bit odd. Nothing wrong with the tracks or performance of course, just that the thinking behind them didn’t seem in alignment with the show’s traditional concept of reflecting what was popular in the UK singles charts. I guess though that the show had changed over the years (and we’d seen plenty in the 90s what with the ‘year zero’ reset and the replacement of Stanley Appel with Ric Blaxill as the show’s executive producer). Maybe this was just another one.

In the whole cannon of Britpop bands, there was perhaps none more Britpop than Menswear. For those who denigrated the movement, they were such an easy target. “They’re not a real band are they?” or “They’re a music press construct” or ultimately “Who do they think they are?”. I get all that and yet I still liked them and this single – “Stardust” – is a banger!

In some ways, they were like the Britpop equivalent of Spandau Ballet. A band who emerged out of a short lived, uniquely British music movement and who were the pin up boys and face of said movement. Gary Kemp is on record as saying that the New Romantics needed a group to rally around that were theirs rather than clinging to Bowie and Roxy Music and Spandau were in the right place at the right time. Menswear kind of performed a similar role – where Spandau were talked about because of their cultish wardrobe in their early days (all kilts, highland sashes and deer stalker hats) so Menswear took inspiration from their name and went for an image influenced by the classic mod look. Melody Maker ran a cover story that labelled them as “the best-dressed new band in Britain”. Indeed, check out Jo Whiley’s sartorial comments in her intro.

Then there’s the bidding war parallels. Spandau became hugely sought after by record labels after a highly publicised early gig aboard the cruiser HMS Belfast. Fifteen years later, Menswear played their debut gig at a club called Smashing on Regent Street which kick started a ruck amongst labels desperate to sign the next big thing. They eventually signed with London Records on an unheard of contract offering the band 18.5% gross revenues. They then signed a publishing deal worth £500,000 despite only having a repertoire of seven songs at the time. However, where the two bands diverge is that Spandau managed to adapt and outgrow the New Romantic scene once it had run out of steam to become bona fide, mainstream pop stars whereas Menswear couldn’t escape the Britpop tag after that movement petered out and they imploded with band infighting and a second album that was only released in Japan. They literally just came to a full stop.

Back in 1995 though, they were where it was at for all the groovy, young Britpoppers. I wasn’t particularly young at the time (I was 27) and had never been groovy but I could still appreciate “Stardust” for the tune it was. It fair gallops along driven by Matt Everett’s on point drumming with Johnny Dean’s affected vocals being punctuated by lots of “ba, ba baaas’ backing vocals. Yes, the piano outro could be accused of plagiarism from “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones but I didn’t care. The aforementioned Dean trod a thin line between swagger and being a dick in this performance with his dramatic, angular posing but I think he just gets away with it. Even The Who-like set destroying nonsense at the end didn’t put me off nor Dean’s silly styling out of having to omit the word ‘fucker’ from the lyrics – at least it gave Jo Whiley a nice line in her intro describing them as “groovy little muckers”. I’m definitely warming to her you know.

From groovy muckers to legends of rock (Steve Lamacq’s words not mine). Def Leppard seemed to be following in the career footsteps of Bon Jovi who were on earlier. The New Jersey outfit had come to a crossroads and decided a new direction was needed. Drawing a line under what had gone before, (including sacking their bass player) they released a Best Of album in 1994 called “Crossroads” (geddit?) before releasing an album that was supposedly darker in its themes than what had gone before but which was critically acclaimed in “These Days”.

Def Leppard were similarly assessing their options. Without an album of new material since “Adrenalize” in 1992, they found themselves in a dark place. Divorce, ill health, arrests for spousal abuse and assault and the death of guitarist Steve Clark meant the band were intent on writing some songs that were more from personal experience and mature than their standard “Let’s Get Rocked” rubbish. Also like The Jovi, they had a line up change following Clark’s passing with the addition of new guitarist Vivian Campbell. Perhaps more significantly though, sixth studio album “Slang” would be the first since 1980 without the involvement of producer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange.

Before that though, they put down their own marker to delineate their career in Greatest Hits collection “Vault”. To promote it was a new song, a rock ballad called “When Love And Hate Collide”. Possibly not renowned for their slow songs, they had a hit with at least one to my knowledge – “Love Bites” in 1988. However, this new track seemed more epic. It sounds like it was written to order for a blockbuster movie. In fact, it sounds like a template for Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” which was written for the sci-if disaster film Armageddon.

I always quite liked the name of that Best Of – “Vault” sort of implied that there were sacred treasures inside though whether that meaning should apply to Def Leppard’s back catalogue rather depends on your opinion of the band I guess. My mate Steve who’s from Bolton swears that they were huge there in the 80s. Hmm. There’s a show on Sky Arts called Guy Garvey: From The Vaults which is a veritable treasure trove of fabulous musical clips taken from the archives of shows like The Tube, Razzmatazz, So It Goes and Tiswas. Based around a specific year and curated by Garvey, it’s a little gem of a programme and if the word ‘vault’ is good enough for Guy Garvey, it’s good enough for me.

Simply Red are this week’s new No 1 with “Fairground” which knocks Shaggy off the top spot after just one week. It remains the band’s only chart topping single to date. My first impressions on hearing it went along the lines of “Hang on, he’s just nicked that beat from “Give It Up” by The Goodmen. What a swizz!” OK, I maybe didn’t say ‘swizz’ but my point remains. It seemed to me like Hucknall was just jumping on the dance bandwagon in an attempt to remain relevant. After all, it had been four years since the last album, the all conquering “Stars”. However, lots of people didn’t seem to mind the sample and bought it in enough quantities for it to spend four weeks at the chart summit. At least we don’t get that clip with him wearing his PVC outfit like we got last week. Whoever advised him to don that costume really weren’t ’good men’ and should have told him to ‘give it up’.

The play out video is “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” by Meatloaf. After the gargantuan success of the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” album and “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” single, delivering a follow up was always going to be an almost impossible task. “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” was no flop but it couldn’t hope to match the sales of its predecessor. Like Def Leppard before him, the Meat also had a change of producer and some may argue that was the reason for not being able to replicate the success of “Bat Out Of Hell II”. Meatloaf without Jim Steinman was like Ant without Dec (or the other way round as happened in 2018) – it just wasn’t right.

Having said all that, “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” sounded right out of the Steinman playbook. Epic sounding rock ballad, huge production, paradoxical title – all the ingredients associated with the legendary writer and producer were there. And yet, it didn’t perform as well commercially. I mean, a UK No 2 was damn good going for a guy who had been nowhere near the top of the charts for years pre- “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” but in America it only got to No 13. A sizeable hit sure but nowhere near being a No 1 record. It was a similar story with the album. Big sales but dwarfed by those of its predecessor.

In an unlikely turn of events I’m going to reference Spandau Ballet again in a post about pop music in 1995. Having made a connection between them and Menswear earlier, I’m jumping the shark now and relating them to Meatloaf. Gary Kemp said in a 2000 BBC documentary about the band that nobody else could play their songs and that you could get a new guitarist or singer even but really people just wanted to see the five original members performing on stage. Maybe it was a similar theme with Meatloaf and Steinman? That the former’s audience mostly wanted him and Steinman together?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cast	Alright	No but easily could have
2	Garbage	Only Happy When It Rains	See 1 above
3	Wet Wet Wet	Somewhere Somehow	No
4	The Pretenders	Kid ‘95 live	Nope
5	Bon Jovi	Something For The Pain	I did not
6	TLC	Hits Medley	N/A
7	Menswear	Stardust	Call the police! Where’s my copy of this?!
8	Def Leppard	When Love And Hate Collide	Nah
9	Simply Red	Fairground	Never
10	Meatloaf	I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)	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/m001wkgl/top-of-the-pops-28091995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 15 JUN 1995

Posted on November 28, 2023 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

Chart peak: No 7

Now album? Yes – Now 31

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

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

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

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

Chart peak: No 1

Now album? Yes – Now 31

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

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

Chart peak: No 2

Now album? Yes – Now 32

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

Chart peak: No 23

Now album? No

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

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

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

Chart peak: No 4

Now album? Yes – Now 31

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

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

Chart peak: No 28

Now album? No

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

Chart peak: No 12

Now album? Yes – Now 31

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

Chart peak: No 1

Now album? No

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

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

Chart peak: No 3

Now album? No

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

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001snq0/top-of-the-pops-15061995

TOTP 20 APR 1995

Posted on November 2, 2023 by 80stastic

Those big BBC changes keep on coming in 1995. The day after this TOTP aired, both Bruno Brookes and Steve Wright presented their final shows on Radio 1. Brookes, of course, had hosted his last TOTP just the other week; Wright hadn’t been near the corporation’s flagship pop music show for years. Dear old Uncle Steve probably felt hard done by having been shunted from his natural habitat of Radio 1 afternoons to the Breakfast Show by new controller Matthew Bannister in the January of the previous year. The new time slot hadn’t worked out and the Monday after Wright’s departure, the era of Chris Evans commenced.

Whatever your opinion of Mr Evans, there’s no denying he created some noise around himself and his show. The first time I became aware of him was in 1992 when he presented a Sunday afternoon show on Radio 1 called Too Much Gravy and he genuinely sounded like a breath of fresh air. He had a feature where he asked listeners to suggest songs that were really long and really short in length as I recall. Later that year he would break into TV with The Big Breakfast and his fame (some may say infamy) was assured. Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush would follow (made by Evans’ own production company) before the call came from Matthew Bannister to renew his relationship with Radio 1. His breakfast show would add 600,000 new listeners possibly due to the controversy it created with innuendo-laden features and the regular questioning of a female member of his team called Holly Samos about her sex life. Over the next couple of years, Evans would become one of the biggest celebrities around aided by the rise of ‘lad culture’ and his Channel 4 show TFI Friday. This post isn’t about blowing smoke up Chris Evans’ arse though so on with the music and we start with Pato Banton and Ranking Roger and their duet “Bubbling Hot”.

Now, if like me you’re wondering why this sounds so familiar even though you weren’t aware that it even existed until it was featured on these TOTP repeats, then here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why:

“Bubbling Hot” pinches a melody from Dave & Ansel Collins’s classic 1971 track “Double Barrel”: https://t.co/p5kVXVuuC9 #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 27, 2023

Roger, of course, is probably best known for his time as a member of The Beat though there is much more to his musical legacy including a band who never had a UK Top 40 hit though they did achieve some success in America. General Public were kind of a punk /ska supergroup comprising a line up of ex-members of The Specials, The Clash, Dexys Midnight Runners and the aforementioned The Beat’s Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger. Though ignored at home, three of their songs would make it into film soundtracks resulting in hits on the US charts. The John Hughes pictures Weird Science, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off plus the Alicia Silverstone starring Clueless all feature General Public tracks of which this is probably my favourite:

Wakeling and Roger reactivated General Public in 1995 and would score another US hit from another film soundtrack (this time Threesome) with a version of the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There”. Sadly, Ranking Roger died of cancer in 2019 aged just 56.

Next up we have *checks notes* ah yes, some Eurodance. Of course we do. You couldn’t sodding avoid this soulless genre back then. Corona are this week’s exponent of the genre’s paucity of passion with their single “Baby Baby”. There are few if any redeeming features on display here. Even the singer isn’t the actual singer. Echoing Black Box’s vocalist deception, the woman fronting the whole sham here – Olga Maria de Souza – was just that, a front. The voice on the track belongs to someone called Jenny B. In fact, despite being the public face of the act throughout the 90s and beyond, Souza didn’t actually lay down her own vocals on any Corona recording until 2005! We’re talking Boris Johnson levels of building a career based on nothing but smoke and mirrors here. “Baby Baby” would somehow become a No 5 hit. The more I hear, the less I understand.

A genuinely arresting song now that would make you stop in your tracks the first time you heard it. Portishead had firmly been announced by the music press as the movement leaders of trip hop by this point though this wasn’t an image that the band themselves wished to promote. After “Glory Box” had made them bona fide Top 40 stars earlier in the year, a rerelease of their debut single “Sour Times” was deemed sensible and what a sound decision it proved to be.

After making No 57 in August of 1994, it would peak at No 13 second time around. Many a descriptor has been used to identify Portishead’s sound in general but on this track in particular, words like ‘haunting’, ‘melancholy’ and ‘cinematic’ are certainly not wide of the mark. That last one certainly rings true. “Sour Times” features a speeded up sample from a track from film composer Lalo Schifrin’s album “More Mission: Impossible”. Not only that but the video features footage from a short film made by the band themselves! I had no idea such a thing existed! Said film is called To Kill A Dead Man and a still from it formed the cover of their “Dummy” album. The theme from the film was an extra track on the CD single of “Sour Times” and gives off some serious 60s spy film vibes…

Of course, Portishead weren’t the first band to make their own feature film. ABC came out with Mantrap in 1983 and, like To Kill A Dead Man, it was a spy caper and had its own theme tune called “Theme From Mantrap”.

After that rather spine tingling interlude, we’re back to the cruddy, generic dance music. I say generic but there was something that set Real McCoy apart from their peers and that was that for some reason their particular brand of Eurodance crossed over to America. They had two No 3 hits over there with “Another Night” and “Run Away” not though with this one, “Love & Devotion”. Yes, I know the TOTP caption says “3rd UK hit and 2nd US Top 20 hit” but as far as I can tell, this isn’t true. This track wasn’t released as a single in America.

Anyway, so what was it about the Real McCoy version of Eurodance that succeeded over the pond where the genre generally didn’t prove to be popular? I think I may have said in a previous post whilst commenting on another of their hits that there seemed to be more of a classic pop song structure to their output than some of their contemporaries so was that a factor? Bizarrely, in the case of “Love & Devotion”, I could probably understand if that had been a major hit in the US (it wasn’t released there remember) as it has more than a passing resemblance to Ace Of Base whose Euro-infused cod reggae sound provided them with a No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. I’ll say it again, the more I hear the less I understand.

When it comes to songs from films, Portishead, despite having their own short film to their name, had some way to go to catch the soundtrack master Bryan Adams. The Groover From Vancouver’ first had one of his songs featured in a film in 1983 when “Heaven” appeared in the largely unknown A Night In Heaven and by 2002 he had written a whole soundtrack album by himself for the animated western Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron but it was the 90s when he bestrode the genre mammoth like. Starting with that Robin Hood song, he followed it up by being part of a trio with Sting and Rod Stewart on “All For Love” from The Three Musketeers and then came “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” from Don Juan DeMarco. Yet another ballad (all his film songs seemed to be of the love variety), the flamenco guitar gave it a differential to the others but for me it was always a bit of a damp squib. Sorry Bry but I’ve never really loved this song. Not one bit.

It’s the ‘album’ slot now but as is commonwith this feature, what we actually get is a very long preview of the artist’s next single. Wet Wet Wet’s latest album “Picture This” (as the TOTP caption says) was No 1 and had already sold 340,000 copies (it would go on to shift 900,000 units) so I guess it made sense to have the top selling artist on the show. The track they perform here is “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now” which would end up being their next single when it was released in June. It’s an accomplished, well produced pop song but a little to formulaic and obvious for me. It would peak at No 7 when finally released.

If the track itself didn’t really intrigue me, I was struck by something about the performance of it, namely that bass player Graeme Clark and keyboardist Neil Mitchell have swapped places and instruments. Was that just some sort of band in joke or did they perhaps want to have a laugh by messing with the usual set up? Neither looks convincing in their new role. Neil hardly moves his fingers at all along the bass neck whilst Graeme literally bashes around on the keys like he was Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones. It got me thinking though about other occasions in the show’s history where a classic band line up has been subverted. Later in the year we would get the classic Oasis performance of “Roll With It” when Noel and Liam exchanged places and didn’t Jimmy Somerville and Sarah Jane Morris mine each other’s vocal parts when performing “Don’t Leave Me This Way”? I think they did. Must be something about songs that begin with the word ‘Don’t’.

Ah, it’s Björk. Always a difficult review for me. I used to think I didn’t like Björk because she can’t sing. Then I came to the realisation that she can sing but I just don’t like her voice. Then I surprised myself when rewatching these BBC4 TOTP repeats by actually appreciating and even liking some of her material like “Venus As A Boy” and “Big Time Sensuality”. So how do I approach and revisit “Army Of Me”, the lead single of her second album “Post”? Well, I’m afraid this one doesn’t work for me. Too menacing, brooding and industrial sounding for my delicate pop sensibilities. However, even I couldn’t resist the charms of her version of “It’s Oh So Quiet” when she scored a massive hit with it over the Xmas period.

Björk is back on the show in a future repeat alongside Skunk Anansie to perform a remix of “Army Of Me”. Maybe I’ll like that version better. By the way, this was yet another song that featured on a film soundtrack – the big screen adaptation of the comic book character Tank Girl. The collection of songs was assembled by Courtney Love and included tracks by her own band Hole (of course) and the aforementioned Portishead. This is fast turning into a film soundtrack special!

Or is it a Eurovision special? With the song contest just three weeks away, the BBC was ramping up its promotion of the annual event. The UK’s official entry Love City Groove will be along shortly but right now it’s an act that came third to them in the selection competition A Song For Europe. Deuce had already had a No 11 hit with “Call It Love” earlier in the year but their Eurovision attempt “I Need You” would go one better giving them their biggest ever hit. Having listened back to this rather nasty slice of Eurodance, I can understand why it didn’t win. Deuce were like a second rate Steps prototype and nobody needed that in their lives.

Despite being well beaten at A Song For Europe by Love City Groove, Deuce did pip their victors in one chart battle – they made it to the Top 10 first. Whilst the rappers were at No 17 this week, Deuce went straight in at No 10. LCG would eventually supersede that feat by peaking at No 7 after Eurovision had aired.

Take That remain at No 1 for a third week with “Back For Good”. The black and white video of the band mooching about in the rain in slow motion in front of some classic American cars became almost iconic, perhaps because it was the last to feature Robbie Williams in the band’s first incarnation. A still from it would form the cover for their 2005 Best Of “Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection”.

And so to Love City Groove. Tacked onto the end of the show as an additional tenth track (most shows of this period had featured nine), this looked like a clear case of hype building for Eurovision by the BBC. I guess in this week in particular they could make the case that its inclusion was merited as it was the highest climber on the chart leaping from No 26 to No 17. My guess is that this won’t be the last TOTP appearance for “Love City Groove”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Pato Banton and Ranking Roger	Bubbling Hot	Nah
2	Corona	Baby Baby	NO!
3	Portishead	Sour Times	No but my wife had the album
4	Real McCoy	Love & Devotion	Negative
5	Bryan Adams	Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?	Nope
6	Wet Wet Wet	Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now	I did not
7	Björk	Army Of Me	It’s a no
8	Deuce	I Need You	But I don’t need you or your record
9	Take That	Back For Good	No but my wife did
10	Love City Groove	Love City Groove	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/m001rrzj/top-of-the-pops-20041995

TOTP 23 MAR 1995

Posted on October 17, 2023 by 80stastic

Ah crap! It’s been a good run but it’s finally come to an end. Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is back hosting TOTP! He says later in this show that he hasn’t been on presenting duties since the previous October. I haven’t checked to see if that’s true but regardless, I’d have gladly never seen the w****r anchoring the show again. He always seemed to me to treat it as his own personal promotional vehicle, making it all about him with his annoying, cryptic one liners and ridiculous tailoring.

He starts off by saying that there’s no public flogging on tonight’s show. What?! Was this something to do with the sentencing of Eric Cantona for his kung fu style assault of a Crystal Palace fan which took place on the very same day this TOTP went out? Eric got 14 days in prison pending an appeal which he subsequently won and saw his sentence reduced to 120 hours of community service. So, not exactly a public flogging then Simon.

With the first example of Mayo’s inane drivel dispensed with, it’s time for the opening act who is Sean Maguire. He was the ex-EastEnders and Grange Hill actor who had decided that he was wasting his time with all that TV work and what the world really needed was to bear witness to his singing talents while he ‘testified’* on stage. So far, he’d made a decent stab at the transformation with a couple of middling sized hits the previous year and now he was back with his third single “Suddenly”. Nothing to do with the Billy Ocean hit of the same name, this was just more pop-by-numbers stuff designed to appeal to the teen market with an instrumental break written in to allow for the obligatory dance routine to be included. I mean, it’s a catchy little ditty but it’s hardly a pop music masterpiece. Even so, it had more longevity than Sean’s fashion gimmick which saw him with a top tied around his waist even though he was wearing a jacket over his singlet. Why did he need the jacket if he was too warm to wear the top? This didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it was de rigueur fashion accessorising in 1995? We’ll certainly see more examples of it later on in the show.

Mayo really is a prick. In his second intro, he makes a reference to Peter Tatchell, the human and gay rights campaigner when announcing Tin Tin Out as the next artist. Why? Well, I think that he was referring to a current news story about Tatchell’s involvement with the direct action group OutRage! who ran a campaign to out 20 MPs who publicly supported anti-gay legislation whilst secretly living gay personal lives. One such MP was Sir James Kilfedder who died of a heart attack three days before this TOTP was broadcast just as the Belfast Telegraph ran a story that he was one of the politicians targeted. A sensitive story you would think. Not to Mayo. That’s source material for a cheap line while he presents a pop music programme. Tin Tin Out? Geddit? Like I said, a prick.

Anyway, back to the music and Tin Tin Out were an electronic music duo who mixed hits for some of the biggest names like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys but they also had a sideline in hits under their own name. “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” was their second such hit peaking at No 14. A version of the Bacharach and David song that Sandie Shaw took to the top of the charts in 1964, it was a cover in the loosest sense of the word. Basically they took the song’s distinctive melody, added a house beat to it and roped in vocalist Vanessa Contenay-Quinones of the duo Espiritu to sing (rather badly here I would add) the song’s title repeatedly. It sounds horrible to my ears. Perhaps to offset this infernal racket, there are four half naked backing dancers (with their tops tied around their waists as per Sean Maguire) making the female members of the audience react as if it were The Chippendales they were watching.

Tin Tin Out would find further success later in the decade with covers of The Sundays (“Here’s Where The Story Ends”) and Edie Brickell (“What I Am”). The latter was with ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton which was released on the same day as Gerri Halliwell’s “Lift Me Up” causing a chart battle to see who would be No 1. In the end, Ginger won out over Baby.

By the way, if I wanted a cover of “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” – which I did apparently in 1983 as I bought this single – then there’s always this…

I may have succumbed to some ropey old synth pop version of a 60s classic in 1983 but there was no way I was falling for this next load of old tosh twelve years later. I know we’ve seen many an act bag themselves a huge hit and basically just repeat the song with a few tweaks for the follow up over the years but this by Rednex really was scandalous. After the horror that was their No 1 single “Cotton Eye Joe”, they almost literally put out the same record again for their next one. As a result, “Old Pop In An Oak” was every bit as dreadful as its predecessor. Despite not making the Top 10, enough poor saps bought it in sufficient quantities to send it to No 12. What the hell happened people?!

In 1993, Duran Duran pulled off the seemingly impossible by escaping the from the box the public had put them in labelled ‘They used to be famous in the 80s’ and coming up with a hit single that put them back into the Top 10 for the first time in four years with “Ordinary World”. Not only that but its parent album was a million seller in the US and went gold in the UK. They were back and had momentum on their side. What they did with that momentum was tantamount to commercial and artistic suicide. Whose idea was it to record an album of cover versions? Or perhaps the question should be ‘whose idea was it to record an album of those cover versions?’.

Take the lead single from the “Thank You” album for example. Wasn’t Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” seen as sacrosanct at the time? What were they boys thinking? However, the phrase ‘at the time’ really should have been in italics for it has been covered by many an artist since and I don’t remember the same amount of cries of heresy as were reserved for the Duran boys? Indeed, just three months after this, Kirsty MacColl released her own version with Evan Dando of The Lemonheads to promote her Best Of album “Galore” and I’m pretty sure there weren’t any cries of “Heresy!” from anyone. By 1997, just about every big name in the music business had covered it (sort of). A BBC promotional video to showcase their musical diversity featuring the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Bono, Heather Small, Brett Anderson of Suede, Tom Jones, Gabrielle, Evan Dando (again!) and perhaps most memorably Dr John (“such a poyfick day”) was absolutely fêted by the public; so much so that it was released as a single and went to No 1 for three weeks. All of this leads me to believe that it was more about who was doing the cover version and it was a case of everybody else = good, Duran Duran = bad.

Or maybe it wasn’t even about this track? After all, Lou Reed is on record as saying the Duran version was the best recording of any of his songs. Was it the other covers on “Thank You” that offended so? Taking on songs by Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop was ill judged but to navigate “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel and Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” was clinically insane. The readers of Q magazine were so incensed that in a 2006 poll, they voted “Thank You” the worst album of all time. So was it that bad? Well, I’ve often found myself on the wrong side of popular opinion and I did buy a couple of Duran Duran albums in the 80s but on the whole, even I would say it was a not a clever career move. As so it proved. After the critical backlash “Thank You” received, the band floundered. Follow up album “Medazzaland” didn’t even get released in Europe with the record buying public seemingly only interested in their past glories – a Best Of collection called “Greatest” made No 4 when released in 1998. It would take a reunion of the classic line up in 2004 to return them towards the top of the charts when the “Astronaut” album made No 3.

Talking of the classic line up, that’s Roger Taylor on drums in this TOTP performance which took me by surprise as he hadn’t had anything to do with the band since leaving in 1986. Apparently he played on three tracks for the “Thank You” album and appeared in the video for “Perfect Day”. Meanwhile, bassist John Taylor seems to have taken leave of his fashion senses – a checked shirt matched with stripey trousers?!

Next a band who in many ways replaced Duran Duran in the affections of the teen market as the boys from Birmingham’s popularity dwindled in the late 80s. Wet Wet Wet were on a commercial high come the mid 90s. They’d had that single in 1994 at No 1 for fifteen weeks and now were back with a new hit in the Top 10. Of course, also like Duran Duran, they’d suffered their own decline in approval around 1989-1991 but that was all behind them now.

Following the biggest selling single of the year though was no easy task and “Julia Says” predictably couldn’t get anywhere near the sales of “Love Is All Around”. A high of No 3 was nothing to be sniffed at though even if the track itself wasn’t their strongest by a mile and it did help propel parent album “Picture This” to No 1 and a million sales. The hits kept coming until the end of the decade when Marti Pellow left the band to deal with his addiction issues. Wet Wet Wet are still a going concern but only just. Graeme Clark is the only remaining member of the original four piece line up though they have just announced a co-headlining tour with perennials of the nostalgia circuit Go West.

A case next of an appearance on TOTP not helping the sales of a single. “Original” by Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday was a new entry on the chart this week at No 18 but it would fall to No 35 seven days later despite the exposure of this performance. To be fair, the sound of the track didn’t exactly lend itself to a turn on TV. Its dark, dubby rhythms allied to Halliday’s almost deadpan vocals weren’t a perfect match for the medium of TV. Not that it isn’t a good track – it is but it acts almost as a visual downer in amongst the scream-inducing likes of Sean Maguire and Wet Wet Wet. Yes, there are some shrieks from the studio audience at times during “Original” but I get the impression they were falsely manufactured by the prompting of a floor manager.

Leftfield were, of course, influential production team Neil Barnes and Paul Daley who’d already had a hit under their own steam when they collaborated with John Lydon on the hypnotic “Open Up” in 1994. Toni Halliday was the lead singer with shoe gazing / dance beat hybrid Curve who’d had a handful of minor hit singles and two moderately successful albums to this point but whose legacy was to open the doors for the likes of Garbage to stride through. The album “Original” came from was the Mercury Prize nominated “Leftism” which is widely regarded as a milestone moment in dance music. Listening to this track now, it sounds very like Portishead to me whose album “Dummy” beat “Leftism” to the aforementioned Mercury Prize in 1995.

Next another band who like Wet Wet Wet are trying to follow up the biggest hit of their career. East 17 may not have had the best selling single of the year like the Wets but they did have the Christmas No 1 with all the sales that brings with it. Surely they couldn’t bag another chart topper with their next release? The short answer is no they couldn’t but they did keep their record of consecutive Top 10 hits going with “Let It Rain” taking the tally to five.

After the balladry of “Stay Another Day”, it was back to the sound on which they made their name – a hard-hitting, quick house beats dance floor-filler with a shouty yet catchy chorus. Its intro has Tony Mortimer going all Prince-like in “Let’s Go Crazy” mode, preaching from the pulpit before the beats hit about corridors of creation and colliding comets. Actually, he sounds a bit like Gary Clail of On-U Sound fame.

I’d have to say that apart from that intro, it’s not one of their most memorable tunes, not quite the banger it wants to be. Talking of which, Terry Coldwell (the bloke in the singlet on the left in this performance and only remaining original member still with the group) was in the news recently when he participated in a Counties Radio competition where presenter Justin Dealey would ask people in the street to sing a song and if he judged it good enough, he would buy them a hot dog as a reward. Snappily entitled ‘Sing a banger for a banger’, Coldwell rocked up and sang “Stay Another Day” but was denied his prize on account of sounding too authentic!

Mayo’s back with his crappy jokes now as he name checks the boxer Chris Eubank. As far as I understand it, by saying that Chris’s favourite song was “Hypnotised” by Simple Minds, he was referring to the fact that Eubank had recently lost his WBO super middleweight title to Steve Collins who had employed a guru to help him prepare mentally for the fight leading the press to believe that Collins was hypnotised for the bout. As Eubanks entered the ring before the fight, Collins sat in his corner motionless with headphones on, giving more credence to the rumour. None of this backstory makes Mayo’s quip funny though. Look mate, you’re just there to introduce the acts not perform a stand up routine. Just do your job.

Anyway, this was the second and last single from the “Good News From The Next World” album and it wasn’t very good. Not only was it completely soporific but I’m sure they’d used that bridge part before in a previous hit. In short, poor on quality and lethargic of effort. Must do better.

By the way, what was going on with guitarist Charlie Burchill?! Back in 1984, I’d desperately coveted his look but he just looks weird here. Horrible hair and a jacket that looks like he’d borrowed it from a pearly king. And I thought John Taylor’s wardrobe was suss.

The Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton has, rather predictably, brought an end to Celine Dion’s run at No 1 and to quote Captain Sensible’s 1982 hit “Wot”, ain’t I glad. Beware though. This respite will only last a week before a new menace takes residence in the top spot…

Just before the credits roll, there’s a plug for the BBC’s A Song for Europe show to pick this year’s UK Eurovision entry. It seemed quite an elongated process. There was a Top of the Pops Song for Europe Special show that Mayo mentions where each of the competing songs was showcased but that wasn’t the point where the winner was chosen. No, there was another programme a week later where that decision was made by a public vote. Each artist also had a celebrity champion advocating for them. Some of the entrants were well known – Londonbeat for example (who sounded dreadful in the clip at the end of this TOTP) plus recent chart stars Deuce and Samantha Fox fronting Sox. The rest of them I have no idea about except the actual winner of course who were Love City Groove who trounced everybody with over 140,000 votes. The artist placed second got 81,000 by comparison. Things didn’t work out for Love City Groove on the big day but that’s a story for another post.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sean Maguire	Suddenly	As if
2	Tin Tin Out featuring Espiritu	Always (Something There To Remind Me)	No
3	Rednex	Old Pop In An Oak	Hell no!
4	Duran Duran	Perfect Day	Nope
5	Wet Wet Wet	Julia Says	Nah
6	Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday	Original	No but my wife might have had the album I think
7	East 17	Let It Rain	Negative
8	Simple Minds	Hypnotised	I did not
9	Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	Not even for charity

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/m001rb00/top-of-the-pops-23031995

TOTP 09 MAR 1995

Posted on October 11, 2023 by 80stastic

We’re well into March 1995 with these TOTP repeats and I’m pretty sure that work wise back then, I was firmly ensconced back at the Our Price store in Stockport following the closure of the shop in Market Street, Manchester. I say ‘back’ as I’d spent a couple of months there in the Autumn of 1993. It hadn’t gone well and I’d been glad to get out of there but now I was on my way back after spending the whole of 1994 in Manchester. I would spend the next four years there. It had its ups and downs but on the whole it would turn out to be a much better experience.

Right at the start of my time there, an album by the first artist on tonight’s show was released which would stay with me until the present day. Its lead single would provide the band with their biggest commercial success but it would also prove to be completely divisive in terms of its appeal. Some may even argue that it did them more harm than good in terms of credibility. The Boo Radleys had been in existence since 1988 but were largely unknown to the great British public despite their 1993 album “Giant Steps” being voted album of the year by NME readers. All that was to change in 1995 with the release of their fourth album “Wake Up!” and its lead single “Wake Up Boo!”. Beloved of breakfast DJs up and down the land (especially Radio 1’s Chris Evans who had a jingle made for his show based on it), it’s an almost perfect example of the bright, bouncy, exuberant pop song. It was impossible to ignore so in your face was it as it dragged you kicking and screaming from your bed and demanded that you face the new day in front of you. It was everywhere and yet that ubiquity worked against it. Some people couldn’t (and still to this day can’t) stand it. Perhaps for the existing fanbase it felt like a betrayal and that the band had sold out and for the wider general public, was it that the track was just a bit too much for the innate misery of the national identity?

For my part, I liked the way it raced along and combined some lush harmonising with perky brass parts. However, it wasn’t that No 9 hit which made me invest in the album. I much preferred the follow up single “Find The Answer Within” which, having been the catalyst for me to purchase “Wake Up!”, led me to other gems within its twelve tracks like “Twinside” and “Wilder”. I stand by the album and still listen to it nearly 30 years later. For once, I was in sync with the rest of the record buying public as it went to No 1 and briefly The Boo Radleys were the bomb.

Inevitably though, they got shoved in the box labelled Britpop despite rejecting such associations (did anybody ever admit to being a Britpop band?) and as the movement floundered so did their commercial fortunes. Subsequent album “C’mon Kids” was perceived as a deliberate attempt to dismantle their pop star / hitmaker status (an accusation the band deny) but it is certainly true that the sound of it was less commercial than its predecessor. The writing was on the wall by the release of their sixth studio album “Kingsize” in 1998 which peaked at No 62 in the charts and they disbanded not long after. Almost miraculously, they resurfaced in 2022 with new material though without chief songwriter Martin Carr within their ranks.

And back to the crap. I really am sick of these brainless Eurodance hits. I mean 2 Unlimited pushed me to my limits (ahem) but at least their songs were originals. Applying the Eurodance formula to existing songs was really taking the piss. Presumably the perpetrators of this musical crime did it to extend the shelf life of the genre in case the punters were tiring of it? We had already strayed into this area with the likes of Rage covering Bryan Adams in 1992 and more recently the Hi-NRG treatment of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” by Nicki French but this next act would take it to another level. Clock would…erm…clock up thirteen UK Top 40 hits in total of which at least half were cover versions starting with this – Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F”. The original made No 2 in 1985 and was, of course, from the soundtrack to the film Beverly Hills Cop and was an instrumental track. The 1995 version though had a rapper and female vocalist tacked onto it in the way of that established Eurodance model. Now I was never much of a fan of the original – in fact I found it quite annoying – but this…THIS! Well, it was every shade of shit. Why did anybody need this in their life?! Apparently lots of people did as it went Top 10 in the UK. To be fair, I could also have lived without the original having ever existed either. Its appearance in the chart meant there were two 90s danced up cover versions of 80s instrumental hits in the Top 10 concurrently alongside Perfecto Allstarz and “Reach Up (Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag)”.

As for the performance here, presumably the dancers in police uniforms and the CHiPs style motorcycle that tonight’s host Mark Goodier rather ludicrously sits astride in his intro are to tie in with the Eddie Murphy film but it’s all rather unnecessary and silly. And why was the rapper dressed as a circus ringmaster? If we thought this was bad though, it was literally a musical masterpiece compared to what Crazy Frog inflicted on us ten years later.

It’s another dance tune next (of course it is) but this one’s a definite upgrade on Clock. Bucketheads was a side project by Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez, one half of the classic house music Masters at Work production team. Taking Chicago’s “Streetplayer” as his source material Kenny came up with “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind)”, a fusion of house, disco and funk that had been causing a stir in nightclubs for six months before it got a proper release on the Positiva label. That buzz would translate into sales sending it to No 5 in the UK charts.

You know, I’ve always dismissed Chicago as that band who produced all those sickly ballads like “If You Leave Me Now,” “You’re the Inspiration,” “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and “Hard Habit To Break” which were, to my ears, all essentially the same song. However, there is so much more to them than I ever realised. They’ve been going for 55 years, have released 26 studio albums, sold 100 million records, have been inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and have a list of band members past and present that would rival The Fall. Then there’s the music. They’ve tried everything from jazz-rock to funk to soul to those adult contemporary hits. There’s even a documentary about them called The Last Band On Stage – apparently they were pretty much the last artist to play a live gig on the planet as Covid shut the world down in March 2020.

Anyway, back to Bucketheads and the video shown here was directed by one Guy Ritchie three years before he became famous for Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. As for the name Bucketheads, was it anything to do with the satirical political candidate Lord Buckethead who stood in the 1987 and 1992 General Elections? The film maker Todd Durham created the character in 1984 for the sci-fi comedy film Hyperspace and when he claimed ownership of Buckethead following the 2017 General Election, the character was renamed as Count Binface by the comedian Jonathan Harvey who was the current incumbent. I guess the idea just fell into his mind.

Enough with the dance tunes! Give us something else! Well, you couldn’t get more of a contrast from Clock and Bucketheads than the moment Radiohead transformed from shoe-gazing one hit wonders into colossal, stadium-filling art rockers. After the indie disco favourite “Creep” had gone Top 10 in 1983, Radiohead had come under pressure from EMI to repeat the trick. What they did instead was so much more than just another isolated crossover hit. Sophomore album “The Bends” would come to be seen as a game-changer, redefining the parameters of rock music and it wasn’t hard to understand why. Compared to the likes of Oasis (whose lad rock charms I had been easily swayed by), it was a much more layered, complex and involved record. The first time I heard it played on the shop stereo, I knew I was listening to something special, something that demanded more exploration, something…well…just more. It was one of the few albums that I’ve ever bought that I felt I had little choice in. It had to be purchased. As with The Boo Radleys earlier, “The Bends” is an album that has stayed with me ever since and which has not diminished over the years.

There’s another reason for linking Radiohead and The Boo Radleys (I do love a bit of synchronicity) and that’s in the Charles Bukowski T-shirt Thom Yorke is wearing. The American writer and poet had died exactly one year ago to the day that this TOTP was broadcast which presumably was why Thom was wearing the T-shirt. So what’s this got to do with The Boo Radleys? Well, their album “Wake Up” has a track on it called “Charles Bukowski Is Dead”. Sometimes this shit just writes itself.

Anyway, “High And Dry” was the second single from “The Bends” (after “My Iron Lung” in the Autumn of 1994) and was a double A-side with “Planet Telex” (the opening song on the album) and its almost achingly beautiful. Originally recorded as a demo in 1993 and almost incredulously dismissed as being too Rod Stewart (!), it has been described as being responsible for the careers of the likes of Coldplay and Travis. I’ll leave you to decide if that’s a good thing or not.

One more thing, they say a song’s quality can be judged by its ability to be covered in a style that is completely different to its original form. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Radiohead as done by ABC. Who needs AI?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Having an artist do an ‘exclusive’ performance of a single yet to be released only to have them back on the show the following week once it’s entered the charts isn’t working for me. Take Faith No More for example. They were on just last week performing “Digging The Grave” and I struggled to find anything to say about it then. Now I’ve got to go through exactly the same torment again this week? They could have at least shown the video to give me something different to go at.

Look, I’ve got nothing so not for the first time I’m going to leave it to Beavis and Butthead…”They just look and sound like everyone else”.

Genuine music icon time now as the venerable Stevie Wonder is on the show. Now while I can totally appreciate why TOTP Executive Producer Ric Blaxill would have jumped at the chance to get such a legendary name on the show, it really does feel like a case of shoehorning going on here. Yes, Stevie had an album due out (“Conversation Peace”) but it wasn’t actually available in the shops for another two weeks. The lead single from it (“For Your Love”) had peaked and was going down the charts so he couldn’t really perform that. The solution was to get Stevie to sing a track from the album called “Tomorrow Robins Will Sing” (it would eventually be released as the second single).

Now I love Stevie’s 60s, 70s and early 80s stuff as much as the next person but most of his material from “I Just Called To Say I Love You” onwards was of variable quality at best. I have to say that the song performed here really wasn’t up to much. A reggae flavoured number that saw Stevie unwisely indulge in some sort of faux rapping in the verses. And here’s my point. Yes, he is a legendary name and yes it was an exclusive to have him in the studio in person (his last performance appearance was in 1974 promoting “Living For The City”) but was there really that much buzz and anticipation about a new Stevie Wonder album in 1995? I’m not sure. “Conversation Peace” did go Top 10 in the UK but it’s hardly regarded as a classic is it?

In amongst the proliferation of R&B artists that the 90s gave us, I always feel that Des’ree gets overlooked somewhat. I’m not sure why as she has the sales/streams and awards to not be but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that of her six UK Top 40 hits, three of them were courtesy of the same song. “You Gotta Be” was first released in April 1994 peaking at No 20. So why the rerelease nearly a whole year later? It was down to its stellar performance in America where it made No 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. And why was it a hit over there? Well, because it was used to soundtrack an advertising campaign for the ABC network magazine programme Good Morning America thereby raising its profile significantly. The UK rerelease saw the single peak at No 14 but it was its third outing in 1999 when it gained its biggest success with it finally made the Top 10. That final release was again due to its use in an advert, this time to promote the Ford Focus car. “You Gotta Be” also won an Ivor Novello for Best Contemporary Song whilst Des’ree herself won a BRIT Award for Best Female Solo Artist. Outperforming all three of those releases though was her 1998 single “Life” which got to No 8 despite it including a lyric that was voted the worst ever in a pop song in a 2007 BBC poll. You know the one – where Des’ree sings that she doesn’t want to see a ghost and would rather have a piece of toast? Yeah, that one. She also duetted with Terence Trent D’Arby on his 1993 hit single “Delicate”.

So why do I think she’s over looked? Well, she never had a massive selling album, at least not in the UK though her 1994 collection “I Ain’t Movin'” sold a million copies in the US. I also think the two years between that release and her debut “Mind Adventures” and its attendant hit single “Feel So High” in 1992 meant she lost a bit of momentum. In that time, the likes of Gabrielle, Dina Carroll appeared on the scene to step into her vacant shoes. Hell, even EastEnders actress Michelle Gayle got in on the act. Did Des’ree just get crowded out of that particular musical genre? Actually, listening back to “You Gotta Be”, it does have more than a hint of Gabrielle’s “Dreams” to it. Did Des’ree see which way the wind was blowing and decide to follow suit?

One person who didn’t overlook Des’ree was my wife who is a primary school teacher. When she was teaching a music unit one year, she decided that there wasn’t enough R&B / soul music represented on the module and so added “You Gotta Be” to it. Apparently her class loved the song and would sing along to it when she found a video on YouTube with the lyrics included. I’m not sure how many pupils my wife had in her class but I’m guessing it wasn’t as many as Des’ree had in a world record breaking event for charity in 2008 when she led 600,000 children in singing the same song simultaneously at the O2 Arena. The song was, of course, “You Gotta Be”.

Now, was it too soon for the return of Wet Wet Wet after their fifteen week stint at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” the previous year? In fact, how do you follow up a hit that big? Is it even possible to achieve such sales with consecutive releases? Erm, no is the short answer though “Julia Says” was no flop either peaking at No 3. Trailing the band’s fourth studio album “Picture This” (though “Love Is All Around” was tacked onto it as the last track), it seemed a rather safe choice by Marti and the gang to be honest. Despite being melodic and tuneful, it was hardly breaking any new ground. The exact opposite in fact as I’m sure I can detect traces of “Strawberry Fields Forever” era Beatles in there at one point. Still Pellow sells it well to the delight of the screaming studio audience (as Mark Goodier says, the band always got a good reaction whenever they were on TOTP).

Ah yes, those fans. I have a memory of Wet Wet Wet fans being a bit of a pain when “Julia Says” came out, a bit precious about when exactly would it be available in the shop to buy. Not Numanoid levels of annoying – Gary Numan’s fans were always ringing up and arguing the toss about release dates – but still the wrong side of polite I would say. They, at least, far from having had enough of Wet Wet Wet, couldn’t get enough of them.

Celine Dion is not finished with the No 1 spot yet as she clocks up a sixth week there with “Think Twice”. In desperation of having to say something about this song yet again, I decided to have a gander at the lyrics. Written by Andy Hill and ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield (who also wrote “The Land Of Make Believe” for Bucks Fizz), the words are really not very good. Like, at all. Rhyming ‘dice’ with ‘twice’? I took a guitar class a few years back and we were tasked with writing a song of our own to perform in front of everyone else. I came up with some crap based around life as a board game which included a lyric about rolling the dice. I was almost embarrassed to sing it. Celine clearly had no such qualms.

“Think Twice” also includes these lines:

Babe, I know it ain’t easy when your soul cries out for higher ground
‘Cause when you’re halfway up, you’re always halfway down
Writer/s: Andrew Gerard Hill, Peter John Sinfield
Publisher: Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

What was the inspiration for that? The Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme?! Thankfully, we’ve only one more week of this crud to go.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	Wake Up Boo!	No the single but I bought the album
2	Clock	Axel F	NO!
3	Bucketheads	The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind)	Nope
4	Radiohead	High And Dry / Planet Telex	See 1 above
5	Faith No More	Digging The Grave	I did not
6	Stevie Wonder	Tomorrow Robins Will Sing	Negative
7	Des’ree	You Gotta Be	Nah
8	Wet Wet Wet	Julia Says	No
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	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/m001r3g6/top-of-the-pops-09031995

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 15 AUG 1997

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TOTP 13 JUN 1997

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TOTP 30 MAY 1997

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TOTP 21 MAR 1997

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TOTP 28 MAR 1996

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TOTP 28 SEP 1995

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TOTP 15 JUN 1995

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TOTP 20 APR 1995

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TOTP 23 MAR 1995

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TOTP 09 MAR 1995

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