Whitney Houston

TOTP 20 JAN 1994

Posted on January 24, 2023 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/xjWm0OSA6iE

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

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

*checks internet*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/ZFT5ZVUsPIw

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

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

https://youtu.be/Pp_OMu3top0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001h88r/top-of-the-pops-20011994

TOTP 23 DEC 1993

Posted on December 17, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s nearly Christmas. Well, yes that’s hardly news I know but I’m talking about Christmas twenty-nine years ago as per the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule which has arrived at the festive period in 1993. I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham at the time and so if I watched this episode then I would have done so in the knowledge that the following day was perhaps the busiest of the whole retail year. Given my experience of Christmas Eve in the Rochdale store the previous year, I wouldn’t have been looking forward to it. You could say there was a distinct lack of festive cheer from the punters or to put it another way, they tore lumps out of us. Rude, aggressive and if we told them that we’d sold out of Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits on cassette (we had), they reacted as if we’d told their three year old child that Father Christmas didn’t exist. As such, I wasn’t looking forward much to the 24th December. I wonder which songs were in the charts that I might have been flogging to Christmas stressed customers?

We start with a song that would reach its chart peak the following year which is why I associate “Come Baby Come” by K7 with 1994 rather than 1993. The last time this was on TOTP in the Breakers section, I commented on how its lyrics were full of innuendo so I was expecting a very risqué studio performance full of explicit, sexually charged dance moves. However, whilst Mr K7 (real name Louis Sharpe) and his three backing singers/dancers are next level slick, I didn’t notice too many moves that would have had the TOTP producers panicking. Bizarrely though, at one point the main man pulls out one that appears to be replicating him washing his armpits in the shower with his microphone substituting for a bar of soap! He then follows it up with a Jarvis Cocker Michael Jackson baiting bum waft – not sure if that qualifies as explicit or just plain silly. “Come Baby Come” would peak at No 3 in the UK.

https://youtu.be/v5QlvbrJyIo

The Bee Gees are up to No 4 with “For Whom The Bell Tolls” giving them their highest chart placing since their No 1 “You Win Again” in 1987. The song’s title references the phrase originally written by metaphysical poet John Donne and the novel by Ernest Hemingway but there was another band that beat the Gibb brothers to using it to name a song by nearly a decade. I have to admit to not having a clue that this track even existed before now but exist it does and it comes from one of the biggest rock bands ever. Metallica (for it is they) recorded a track called “For Whom The Bell Tolls” for their second album “Ride The Lightning” in 1984. In the name of musical exploration, I listened to it earlier and guess what? It did absolutely nothing for me! Lots of crunching rock guitar and strangulated vocals does not make yours truly a happy boy. Apparently the song is a huge fan favourite but seeing as I’m not a Metallica fan, that influences me as much as Rishi Sunak telling me that he cares about the working class (ooh, bit of politics there as Ben Elton used to say).

Anyway, the rather surprising success of the Bee Gees song meant that the group now had a UK Top 5 single in four consecutive decades (the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s) – that’s approaching Cliff Richard levels of chart achievement. They would even bag themselves two more before the decade was out. Quite remarkable.

Now here’s a curious but rather charming Christmas tune. This seemed to come out of nowhere just as the big day approached but maybe it was released too late to make any real impression on the Top 40. Certainly its chart peak of No 37 seems to reflect that. Or maybe it was just too out of leftfield for the mainstream Christmas market with its non traditional shoppers for whom the festive season is the only time they would venture into a record shop all year looking for Cliff Richard or that nice Elton John and Kiki Dee song or even the Bee Gees. It was unlikely their shopping list included the record by Saint Etienne and the bloke from The Charlatans.

I’d forgotten that “I Was Born On Christmas Day” was actually just one song from a four track EP called (rather bluntly) “Xmas 93” but it was the only one to feature the now national treasure that is Tim Burgess. The other tracks included a Billy Fury cover and two instrumentals none of which I’ve ever heard as the lead song was presumably the only one played.

As Christmas tunes go, it’s an odd one but pretty groovy. Mostly devoid of the usual festive music baubles (sleigh bells, references to Santa Claus, snow, trees, presents etc), it instead has a driving house beat and an unusual melody. In fact, apart from its title which is sung on repeat in the coda, there’s very little to distinguish it’s a Christmas song. The lyrics seem to be about someone missing their absent partner throughout the course of the year awaiting their return at Christmas and thinking of everything that has happened in the world they left behind whilst away.

Tim Burgess and Sarah Cracknell have definite chemistry up there on stage, holding hands, draping a shared feather boa around each other’s shoulders…is there even a little kiss between them at one point? Well, the lyrics do refer to a Tim and Sarah tying the knot!

As host Mark Franklin says in his intro, 1993 had been a great year for Saint Etienne with a Top 10 album (“So Tough”) and their highest ever charting single (to that point) in “You’re In A Bad Way”. The Charlatans on the other hand failed to release any material but would return in 1994 with their own Top 10 album “Up To Our Hips” and the excellent single “Can’t Get Out Of Bed”. As for “I Was Born In Christmas Day”, you don’t hear it that often on the radio despite its obvious time slot each year. Incidentally, neither Tim nor Sarah were actually born on Christmas Day though Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley was. Other rock/pop stars born on the 25th December include Annie Lennox, Dido and Shane MacGowan whilst Lemmy came into the world on Christmas Eve.

https://youtu.be/7bkD035IpzI

One of the nastiest things about 1993 (amongst many) was the breakthrough success of the revolting Shabba Ranks. After a rereleased “Mr Loverman” took him to No 3, there was a small procession of follow up singles in its wake of which “Family Affair” was the third. Pretty much a remake of the Sly And The Family Stone classic with some rapping and toasting over the top (including inevitably a few shouts of ‘Shabba!’), this was from the soundtrack to the Addams Family Values film. I’d quite enjoyed the silly but likeable “Addams Groove” by Hammer from the original 1991 The Addams Family film but this was just horrible. It featured Patra, Terri and Monica (I’ve no idea) and made No 18 in the charts but I’m glad to say I don’t remember it at all – I’ve never seen any of the Addams Family films either. Shabba Ranks would only have one more UK Top 40 hit after this. Good riddance to his homophobic ass!

https://youtu.be/uByYfM2AcfI

Dina Carroll now with “The Perfect Year”, a single that perfectly encapsulates her annus mirabilis. One of the comments most made by people commenting on the Twitter hashtag #TOTP during the 1993 repeats has been “Whatever happened to Dina Carroll?” and it’s a fair question. After this single, we didn’t hear any new material from her for nearly three years. When it did arrive, it was successful but just not anywhere near as much as her earlier stuff. Debut album “So Close” went four times platinum. By comparison, the follow up “Only Human” sold a quarter of that; not insubstantial by any measure but a definite decline. Why did it take so long for that sophomore album to appear? Well, she suffered from burn out after that initial runaway success and took a break from touring and recording and when she returned she walked into a contract mess. The guy who signed her for A&M had left for Mercury Records but his new label weren’t keen on him taking Dina with him initially. By the time it was all resolved and Dina’s first single on Mercury appeared (“Escaping”), it was 1996!

Her new label seemed unsure what to do with her – was she a slick, soul balladeer or a club diva? Or both? She’d successfully straddled both camps with her eclectic debut album but somehow Mercury didn’t seem reassured by that. A third album was never released and a case of otosclerosis (hereditary bone disease of the ear) was clearly not helpful for a recording artist. As the millennium dawned, Dina just seemed to disappear. A Best Of album fulfilled her contractual obligations to Mercury in 2001 and her only release since then was 2016’s “We Bring The Party” with the Dig Band.

Meanwhile, back in 1993, Dina became the only British female artist to have two simultaneous Top 10 hits during the whole of the decade. In the week 12th to 18th December, “Don’t Be A Stranger” was at No 8 whilst “The Perfect Year” was at No 10. I think I’m right in saying A&M had deleted the former to make way for the latter so we had loads of the No 10 but hardly any of the No 8. Funny the things you remember isn’t it?

https://youtu.be/STvZNiPbNB4

Even though this is officially the Christmas chart, there are still room for a couple of Breakers. One though is utterly dreadful and the other is last year’s Christmas No 1! Yes, despite being the best selling single in the UK of 1992, it’s back in the Top 40 twelve months on. I refer, of course, to Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You”. Now remember that the charts were a different beast back then to the one that functions (sort of) these days. You couldn’t just get a song (any song) into the charts via a concerted social media campaign by coercing people into streaming it loads. It had to be officially released which means that “I Will Always Love You”, despite its ubiquity over the last twelve months, must have been rereleased. Why would that have happened? Well, it was all to do with the VHS of The Bodyguard coming out in November of this year.

This was such a big marketing event back then that it presumably made perfect sense to record label Arista to give the soundtrack and the most famous single from it another promotional push. As a result, “I Will Always Love You” managed a peak of No 25 the second time around. Of course, this wasn’t an entirely new phenomenon. In 1985, both “Last Christmas” by Wham! and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid returned to the charts after being the festive No 2 and No 1 respectively the year before. Even so though, it did feel like overkill.

Now to that second and abhorrent Breaker. Probably long forgotten as the other novelty record in the chart of Christmas 1993, overshadowed by the spotted, pink dickhead at No 1 but the combination of Hulk Hogan and Green Jellÿ doing a cover of “I’m The Leader Of The Gang” is potentially even more heinous than the blobby one’s effort, given what we now know about Gary Glitter. Hulk Hogan had been a wrestling star throughout the 80s with his 1988 WWF match with Andre the Giant holding the record for the highest TV audience for wrestling ever. In 1993, Hogan broke away from WWF to sign for rival federation WCW which maybe is the reason for this single release? Bit of promotion for WCW? After all, the WWF Superstars had bagged themselves two UK hit singles in the past twelve months so…

Green Jellÿ had achieved the same chart feat with two hits of their own in 1993 with “Three Little Pigs” and “Anarchy In The UK” and it was they that Hogan was paired with to deliver this execrable record. I mean, it’s literally unlistenable. Who the hell bought enough copies to take it to No 25?

The penultimate tune before we get to the Christmas No 1 comes from EYC. This lot of chancers were put together to take the US by storm but did diddly squat over there. They did, however, gain moderate chart success both here and in Australia. Debut hit “Feelin’ Alright” reached No 16 but listening to it back now, it just sounds like a lot of horrible shouting. Maybe I’m just too middle aged to be able to engage with this sort of stuff now but I probably felt the same about it nearly thirty years ago.

They were the first act to win the Best Roadshow Act award at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party but that sounds like an award that was designed purely for them to win – a bit like the award I got from my works 5-a-side team for Most Improved Player (a back handed compliment if there ever was one). They also picked up six UK Top 40 singles during their brief career so I fear we may not have seen the last of them by a long chalk.

“So this is Christmas and what have you done?” sang John Lennon and in 1993 this line rang truer than ever for it was indeed Christmas and what the British public had done was to make Mr Blobby the festive chart topper. How on earth could we have let this happen?! I’d foolishly believed that the “Mr Blobby” single had peaked too early after being No 1 two weeks ago but the deposed chart topper somehow rallied and regained the crown just in time to be announced as the Christmas No 1. How often did that sort of chart trajectory occur? Apparently “She Loves You” by The Beatles was No 1 for four weeks in 1963 before dropping down for a whole seven weeks and then miraculously returning to the top for a further two weeks. The Fab Four then knocked themselves off the pinnacle with “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. So not without precedent but that was The f*****g Beatles we’re talking about not some tit in a pink latex suit! Aaaarrrgh!!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
2	Bee Gees	For Whom The Bell Tolls	Nah
3	Saint Etienne and Tim Burgess	I Was Born On Christmas Day	Probably should have but no
4	Shabba Ranks with Patra, Terri and Monica	Family Affair	Never happening
5	Dina Carroll	The Perfect Year	Nope
6	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	Not the first nor second time
7	Hulk Hogan and Green Jellÿ	I’m The Leader Of The Gang	As if
8	EYC	Feeling’ Alright	No
9	Mr Blobby	Mr Blobby	Did I bollocks!

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/m001g4xh/top-of-the-pops-23121993

TOTP 04 NOV 1993

Posted on November 13, 2022 by 80stastic

Finally it’s that time of the year. No, not bonfire night that was upon us in 1993 but that cherished but fleeting period that us synchronists look forward to – when the BBC4 TOTP repeats and the present day month match. November 1993 meet November 2022. We can watch these old shows safe in the knowledge that the tunes featured were from almost exactly 29 years ago. Indeed, when the second TOTP was aired on the Friday just gone they synchronised to the very day – 11th November. Perfect! I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s trawl through the 4th November show to see what fireworks and bangers await…

We start with the first of two Scottish electronic dance bands featured tonight (what were the chances eh?). I speculated in a previous post about why The Time Frequency felt the need to include the definite article in their name. Reading up on them some more, it seems founding band member Jon Campbell was in an 70s synth band called Thru The Fire and when they broke up, he kept the initials of the name as a template for his next project. Well, that’s what Wikipedia tells me but it seems a bit of a lame reason to me. Anyway, after scoring a Top 20 hit earlier in the year with “The Power Zone EP”, the decision was taken to rerelease their debut single “Real Love” which had missed the charts the previous year. A remix was made of it and it was shoved back out into the market under the title of “Real Love ‘93” – there was very little imagination around in record label offices when it came to naming rereleases it seems. Lacking in imagination they may have been but their business case was sound and the rerelease became the band’s biggest ever hit when it peaked at No 8. To me though, it sounded like the poor relation to “Insanity” by Oceanic.

https://youtu.be/2LFM8cZWvCQ

The performance here with the two dancers dressed in full metal robot outfits brought back memories of a rather cheesy but somehow endearing chart hit from 1985…

https://youtu.be/Xfoxz6aBNsI

Next a song that I would have thought was a much bigger hit than it was. However, its chart peak of No 7 doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m talking about “Hero” by Mariah Carey which was the second single taken from her “Music Box” album. We sold loads of this over Christmas ‘93 when I was working in the Our Price in Altrincham, Cheshire and if you check out the single’s chart run, it backs up my claim. It just wouldn’t go away. Yes, it only had three weeks inside the Top 10 but it had another seven where it ricocheted around the Top 20 between positions 18 and 11. It actually stood solid for three consecutive weeks at No 18 before going back up the charts. It reversed its decline in sales another time during its chart life to move back into the Top 10 having fallen out of it the previous week. These were not normal chart manoeuvres. It eventually fell out of the Top 40 around mid January ‘94. Why was it so durable? It could be that ballad at Christmas time always being a winner theory in action again. Maybe it was to do with the lyrics about self-belief, inner courage and finding the hero within oneself that struck a chord with record buyers.

Its durability would lead to longevity. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, Mariah re-recorded the track as a medley with a song from her “Glitter” album called “Never Too Far” and released it as a charity single. In 2008, the X Factor finalists covered the song to raise funds for the Help For Heroes and Royal British Legion charities. It would become a sales phenomenon selling 100,000 copies in its first day of release and becoming the best selling single of that year. They performed the track with Mariah in one of the live shows.

Proper rock legends next though their list of UK chart hit singles up to this point belied that status. Not counting their collaboration with Run-D.M.C. on 1986’s “Walk This Way”, “Cryin’” was only the fifth ever Top 40 hit for Aerosmith up to that point in time. It was, however, their third hit on the bounce (all from the “Get A Grip”) album). “Livin’ On The Edge” (like ex-Home Secretary Priti Patel, the band had a habit of dropping their ‘g’s at the end of words) had made No 19 and “Eat The Rich” No 34 earlier in the year. “Cryin’” would be the biggest of all three when it peaked at No 17 over here though it was more successful in the rest of Europe going Top 10 just about everywhere and even topping the charts in Norway.

This was the band in proper power ballad mode but with that bit of Aerosmith cheek thrown in for good measure. Or as Steven Tyler described it:

“It was country – we just Aerosmith’d it.”
“The 20 Songs That Can Represent The Career Of Aerosmith”. Society of Rock. Retrieved May 23, 2022.

I have a distinct memory of a young Zoë Ball, early in her TV career, interviewing Tyler on some music programme about how to be a rock music fan (or something) and her finishing the piece by wandering off camera singing “Cryin’” whilst performing the Chuck Berry duck walk though her version of it made her just look like she was constipated.

Though the TOTP producers have pulled off a coup here by having the band in the studio, it means we don’t get to see the award winning video that promoted the single. Featuring a sixteen years old Alicia Silverstone plus pre fame Stephen Dorff (Backbeat) and Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost), it won three MTV video awards in 1994.

As host Tony Dortie says, 1993 saw loads of solo female artists break through with the likes of Dina Carroll, Gabrielle and Michelle Gayle all having big chart hits. Add to that list Pauline Henry. Late of The Chimes parish but now striking out on her own, her cover of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Making Love” (note the ‘g’ in making Aerosmith and Priti Patel!) was her second and biggest hit when it peaked at No 12. Just about as far removed from The Chimes’ soulful take on U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” as it could be, Pauline really belted out this raucous rock standard. Fair play to her by the way for daring to take on the mighty vocals of Paul Rodgers – if it was a football match, it would certainly go to extra time.

Sadly for Pauline, her single success didn’t translate into album sales and her debut LP staggered to a high of No 45. A second album of more cover versions resulted in two minor hit singles before Pauline decided on a change of career and studied for a Bachelor of Law degree and a masters in Intellectual Law Property.

After dicking about with the Breakers feature for a couple of weeks, the section is now firmly re-established by the TOTP producers with five acts in it this week. We start with a collaboration between Faith No More and Boo–Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (that’s the second time I’ve had to type a rap act’s name in that format this post!). “Another Body Murdered” was a track from the soundtrack to the film Judgement Night, a crime thriller starring Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jnr and (joy oh joy for us synchronists again!) Stephen Dorff. The soundtrack followed an idea by Cypress Hill manager Happy Walters that each track should pair a rock artist with a rap act. Alongside the Faith No More Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (third time!) meet up, there was Teenage Fan Club and De La Soul and Living Color and Run-D.M.C. (fourth time!!) to name but two. Critical reaction to the premise has been mixed. Some saw it as laying the groundwork for bands such as Korn and Limp Bizkit to thrive (was that a good thing?) whilst others saw it as jumping on the Anthrax/Public Enemy collaboration “Bring The Noise” bandwagon. I have to say judging by the twenty-five seconds of “Another Body Murdered” we get here, I’m unlikely to search out the soundtrack album though that meeting of Teenage Fan Club / De La Soul does sound interesting.

Just to prove Tony Dortie’s point about UK female solo artists in 1993, here’s another one and like Pauline Henry before her, she had a solid CV behind her already. Juliet Roberts first came to chart prominence ten years prior with Funk Masters’ Top 10 hit “Its Over” before she became the vocalist for Smooth jazzers Working Week. Critical acclaim but little commercial success led her to move on finding work as a session singer for the likes of Cathy Dennis and rather improbably Breathe before taking the plunge on her own. Having breached the Top 30 with her hit “Caught In The Middle” earlier in the year, she was back with another tilt at it with “Free Love”. It would attain a similar chart peak of No 25.

Sadly for Juliet, also like Pauline Henry, a collection of middling hit singles didn’t convert into a hit album and her debut effort “Natural Thing” could only manage a high of No 65. Her last chart entry came as vocalist on David Morales’s “Needin U II” in 2001, a title that makes Aerosmith and Priti Patel look like linguistic experts.

By late 1993, Soul II Soul had reached the point in their career where diminishing returns were starting to set in. “Club Classics Vol. One” and the track “Back To Life” especially had made the band global superstars but four and a half years on their commercial fortunes, though by no means flatlining, were not what they were as the 80s ended and the 90s began. The remedy? A Best Of album of course and so it was that “Volume IV The Classic Singles 88-93” was put together and released for the Christmas market. I actually liked the fact that they continued with the ‘Volume’ theme even though this wasn’t a studio album and included tracks that had already been part of the previous volumes. Except this one. “Wish” was a brand new track recorded to promote the collection as was the established trend (see also contemporary chart peer “Please Forgive Me” by Bryan Adams). The album sold well enough going to No 10 in the charts but subsequent releases failed to reverse the sales drift.

As for “Wish” itself, I’m no Soul II Soul expert but it seemed to me to promise a lot but deliver little or as a rather posh sounding woman I heard on Radio 4 recently delightfully put it whilst describing Liz Truss, it was ‘all fart and no shit’.

Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston on the same show?! One year on from the sales phenomenon that was her cover of “I Will Always Love You” comes the final single released by her from The Bodyguard soundtrack. “Queen Of The Night” was the fifth track taken from it recorded by Whitney (though seventh including other artists) and it stood alone from the other four in its sound. With three of those four being big ballads and the other a cover of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”, there was space for something different and “Queen Of The Night” was. Or was it? A few critics at the time cited its similarities to En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” and Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat” with its hard rock guitars and Whitney’s growly vocals though personally I think it just about stands up on its own legs.

The video is pretty much the performance of the song in the actual film – the scene where Whitney’s character has to be rescued by Kevin Costner when the security arrangements at her gig are shown to be lacking and a riot breaks out. The Bodyguard film generally gets slated as being substandard with Costner especially being highlighted for a wooden performance but I always quite liked it and thought Whitney gives a decent and convincing turn but then if she couldn’t play a pop star diva then what character could she play?

“Queen Of The Night” peaked at No 14. We wouldn’t see Whitney in the charts again for two years when she would return with songs from another soundtrack for a film in which she starred, Waiting To Exhale.

The final Breaker comes from Culture Beat who are straight into the Top 10 with “Got To Get It”. I’ve shared this anecdote before but I’m going to use it again – well, if Culture Beat can recycle their No 1 single “Mr Vain” and just blatantly release it as the official follow up as if it’s a brand new song then I’m certainly allowed to use a story twice! I was in the last days of working at the Our Price in Stockport when this single came out. On the day of release, a young girl came up to the counter and asked for the single by Culture Beat. As “Mr Vain” had still been selling and had only just dropped out of the Top 40 the other week, I thought I’d better check which one she meant and so asked her “Got To Get It?”. Her reply? “I just really like it”. Lovely stuff.

It’s time for the second of those two Scottish electronic bands now as The Shamen are in the studio with “The SOS EP (Comin’ On)”. This was the sixth single released from their “Boss Drum” album that had been out for nearly fourteen months by this point. Those singles attained the following chart peaks:

6 – 1 – 4 – 5 – 18 – 14

Not too shabby you’d have to say. This was peak era Shamen. They were never as big again with only four more Top 40 hits throughout the entire decade none of which got higher than No 15. I have to say I don’t remember “Comin’ On” (they must have attended that Aerosmith songwriting class) but it sounds better than I was expecting. Sort of starts out a bit like The Prodigy and then spins into an infectious dance anthem but with a pop song structure. By the way, what had happened to Colin Angus’s hair. Were those long tresses real or extensions?

A conversation between Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow* sometime in early Autumn 1993:

*with massive apologies to anyone reading this who is Scottish

JB: Marty my man! How’s it hanging?

MP: Jazzie! Och, aye, no bad ye ken. How urr ye?

JB: You know me man. A happy face, a thumpin’ bass, for a lovin’ race!

MP: Aye.

JB: Marti man. You look down. What gives fella?

MP: We hae nae got a record oot for Yule. Oor label ur nipping us tae sort it oot.

JB: No worries man. Put a Best Of album out.

MP: Crakin’ yin! Och hing oan, whit aboot a single tae promote it?

JB: Just knock a new track out one afternoon. That’s what we did. Any old shite will do.

MP: Aye Jimmy!

It could have happened like that! Anyway, the Wets Best Of was called “End Of Part One: Their Greatest Hits” and was a big seller over Christmas ‘93 originally peaking at No 4. The following year, the band did a Bryan Adams and were at No 1 for fifteen weeks with “Love Is All Around”. To cash in, their label Mercury added it to the album and rereleased it at which point it returned to the charts straight to No 1. As for that new track, “Shed A Tear” was duly shoved out to promote it. I have zero recall of it but it sounds like it possibly was recorded in an afternoon with band’s collective thumbs up their bums and minds in neutral. It peaked at No 22.

Watching the performance here, the front three Wets (including Marti) all have ponytails whilst the keyboard player looks like he’s trying to grow his hair to catch up but his naturally curly locks are hampering his endeavour. Drummer Tommy Cunningham looked the same as he ever did and continues to do so to this day. Maybe it’s a drummer thing – Blur’s Dave Rowntree has similarly always maintained the same look.

Meatloaf still bestrides the charts like a colossus with the epic rock ballad “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. As with my Culture Beat anecdote, I’ve told this story before but the big guy’s at No 1 for weeks yet so I’m having to resort to recycling. My mate Robin has a friend who is a musician who has toured with the likes of Westlife. His own band was booked to play at the wedding of one John Hartson, the ex-professional footballer and now pundit. His best man was one of my footballing heroes, ex-Chelsea striker Kerry Dixon. Apparently the drinks flowed and everybody over indulged…including the groom. So pissed was Hartson that when Robin’s friend’s band finished their set, Hartson asked them to play one more song, especially for his new wife. The song Hartson chose to dedicate to her was Meatloaf’s “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad” the lyrics of which include:

I want you, I need you, there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you

Now don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Jim Steinman
Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad lyrics © Carlin America Inc, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Oh…my…God.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Time Frequency	Real Love ’93	Never happening
2	Mariah Carey	Hero	Nah
3	Aerosmith	Cryin’	Nope
4	Pauline Henry	Feel Like Making Love	I did not
5	Faith No More / Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.	Another Body Murdered	No
6	Juliet Roberts	Free Love	Negative
7	Soul II Soul	Wish	Definitely not
8	Whitney Houston	Queen Of The Night	It’s a no
9	Culture Beat	Got To Get It	I didn’t unlike that young girl I served
10	The Shamen	The SOS EP (Comin’ On)	Like it, didn’t buy it
11	Wert Wet Wet	Shed A Tear	No. not a patch on their earlier work
12	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001dzyf/top-of-the-pops-04111993

TOTP 29 JUL 1993

Posted on September 24, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s late July 1993 and the BBC’s musical output has gone stale. The seismic changes of the TOTP ‘year zero’ revamp happened twenty-two months ago and many are no longer with us most obviously the majority of the slew of new presenters that were introduced. In fact, the only two remaining are Mark Franklin and Tony Dortie who have been presenting solo on alternate weeks since October 1992. The show’s audience has plateaued at a level of 6.5 million which was less than it was attracting pre the revamp.

Meanwhile, over at Radio 1, whilst it seems like the ‘Smashie And Nicey’ image propagated by the likes of Simon Bates, Dave Lee Travis and Gary Davies will carry on forever, change is a-comin’. The era of Matthew Bannister as controller of Radio 1 is nearly upon us and he will action a root and branch transformation that will strip away the old, rotting wood. The culture of change would prove to be contagious. Within months, TOTP would also change head producer and the incoming Ric Blaxill would reverse most of the ‘year zero’ changes. For now though, it was the calm before the storm. Let’s see who was afloat before the sea of change appeared over the horizon…

We start with an act that was having some success under the current regime but who would flourish under the new. “Unforgiven” was D:Ream’s third of four consecutive Top 40 hits in 1993 though none would get any higher than No 19. Solid but not spectacular. Come early 1994 though they would go off like a rocket with the re-release of “Things Can Only Get Better” soaring to No 1.

Like most people I’m guessing, I don’t remember “Unforgiven” but on listening back to it, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s OK. A bit more grit to it than their most famous tune, the most impressive part of it is the bridge into the chorus which Peter Cunnah almost growls – quite the feat in a dance record. Linda Perry from 4 Non Blondes seems to have started a trend for tall hat wearing given the millinery of one of the backing singers. Where will it all end? Well, I’ll tell you where it won’t end – with me making the almost obligatory reference to Professor Brian Cox on keyboards…oh shit.

“Unforgiven” peaked at No 29.

“Show Me Love” by Robin S was not just one of the biggest dance tunes of 1993 but of the whole decade and beyond. How do you follow a hit line that? Easy! Just release virtually the same song again but change its title. “Luv 4 Luv” is “Show Me Love”, not just sonically but linguistically with the same three syllable title and chorus but with a slight change of spelling. Money for old rope? This was, to reference the film maker Stanley Kubrick, money for pieces of string too short to be useful*. Even Tony Dortie can’t resist a jibe by stating tongue-in-cheek that it’s “nothing like her first single”.

*Kubrick was a massive hoarder and when his family were sorting through his estate after his death, they found a box labelled ‘pieces of string too short to be useful’. His archives now reside at the London College of Communication .

Amazingly, enough people bought the single to send it to No 11 in the UK charts. I don’t get this. Presumably if a punter liked it enough to buy “Luv 4 Luv” then said punter must have felt the same about “Show Me Love” and also bought that so essentially you have the same record twice. Surely there can’t have been people who only bought “Luv 4 Luv”?! “I wasn’t bothered about “Show Me Love” but this new one by Robin S is great and I must have it”…said no-one ever.

When Freddie Mercury died in November 1991, Queen’s most iconic song “Bohemian Rhapsody” was rereleased and almost inevitably became that year’s Xmas No 1. Four months later, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness took place at Wembley Stadium with the remaining members of Queen all involved. Such was Freddie’s popularity though, there was still a clamour for his recordings and so the band’s label raided his back catalogue as a solo artist. For a name as big as Freddie’s, there wasn’t actually that much solo work to raid. He only recorded two studio albums (and one of those was the “Barcelona” collaboration with Montserrat Caballé) plus the standalone single “The Great Pretender”, a couple of tracks for the Dave Clark musical Time and “Love Kills” from Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. That didn’t stop Parlophone coming up with the unimaginatively titled “The Freddie Mercury Album” compilation in 1992 which included elements of all those recording projects. That album had already seen the release of “In My Defence” from Time and a rerelease for the aforementioned “The Great Pretender” which had both charted.

What came next though, nearly two years after Freddie’s death, was a surprise. A posthumous No1 record with a single that had stumbled to a peak of No 50 when originally released eight years prior? How did that happen? Well, it was all down to a team of remixers called The No More Brothers who took the track “Living On My Own” which had been on Freddie’s 1985 solo debut album “Mr Bad Guy” and that 1992 compilation and turned it into a dance hit. A chart topper all over Europe including the UK, it was a sales sensation. Me though, I didn’t get it. I hadn’t been aware of the 1985 original but this 1993 version didn’t make me want to seek it out. It just sounded so bland and I hated the lines ‘Dee do de de, Dee do de de, I don’t have no time for no monkey business”. What?! Written down, the first part looks like a script for a Harry Enfield’s The Scousers sketch whilst the monkey business bit was just hackneyed. How was this a No 1 record? The video is the same one used for the 1985 release and uses footage of Freddie’s 39th birthday party in Munich where he recorded the “Mr Bad Guy” album.

The general perception amongst the fanbase of Manic Street Preachers is that their second album “Gold Against The Soul” is also their worst. There is also an agreed opinion that the one stand out track on it is “La Tristesse Durera” which was released as its second single. I disagree on both counts. I love this album and though “La Tristesse Durera” is a fabulous track, it’s not my favourite from it. That honour switches between “Roses In The Hospital” and “Life Becoming A Landslide” on a regular basis.

Actually, I need to correct myself here and give the song its full title which is “La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)”. No brackets, no points. I make this clarification not just for the sake of accuracy nor to be a pedant but to highlight a peculiar oddity about the track that has a tie in with another song I love that has brackets in the title. For some reason, when released in the US, the the song’s title was changed to “Scream To Sigh (La Tristesse Durera)”. Why? I have no idea but nearly a decade earlier, The Icicle Works’ single “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” had its title changed to “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)” for the US market. What was it about US record labels and brackets and the word ‘scream’?

As for the performance here, would there have been outrage at Nicky Wire wearing a dress? There shouldn’t have been. It’s not as if we hadn’t seen it before. There was Bowie on the cover of his “The Man Who Sold The World” album and that bloke from Mud who wore one on the actual show.

“La Tristesse Durera (Whisper To A Scream)” peaked at No 22.

“Live from the Dominion Theatre in London’s West End…” Don’t get too excited it’s just Craig McLachlan in a revival of Grease the Musical and I have to say that, based on this short clip of “You’re The One That I Want” he doesn’t seem too convincing as Danny Zuko. Maybe it’s his curly hair, or his average singing voice or maybe it’s just that he’s not John Travolta which is not his fault of course. Debbie Gibson on the other hand belts it out and wears that iconic leather outfit well.

As Tony Dortie says, the cast included Shane Richie who played the role of Kenickie but as for him being “very funny” – if he performed anything like he did when on 3–2–1 in 1987…Perhaps he should have changed his name to Shame Richie…

Five Breakers again this week (bastards!) starting with Juliet Roberts and “Caught In The Middle”. I had no idea at the time but this wasn’t Juliet’s first Top 40 record – she was the vocalist on “It’s Over” by Funk Masters way back in 1983. She then joined smooth jazzers Working Week whose single “I Thought I’d Never See You Again” I quite liked though nobody else seemed to much when it peaked at No 80. Fast forward eight years and Juliet finally had a hit in her own right.

There’s a couple of parallels between Juliet and Shara Nelson who was on the show the other week. Both were having success under their own names after supplying the vocals for other artists (Shara sang on Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy”) and both were on the Cooltempo label. Also like Shara, Juliet’s solo career seemed to peter out rather. “Caught In The Middle” made No 24 though a David Morales remix the following year peaked ten places higher. A couple more Top 20 singles followed before the decade was out but that didn’t translate into album sales with her debut long player “Natural Thing” only making No 65. She continues to be in demand as a backing singer though.

The first of two huge stars now who are experiencing a drop off in singles sales as their latest offerings fail to tempt UK record buyers. After her last single “That’s The Way Love Goes” went to No 2 over here, Janet Jackson might have expected the follow up to perform similarly. It didn’t. “If” was the second single from her “Janet” album which I thought was meant to be a more smooth, sensual sounding soul record but this single could have been on the more strident previous album “Rhythm Nation 1814” with its hard beats and rock guitar riff. Yes, the lyrics aligned with the album’s sexual theme touching on fantasy and voyeurism but sonically it was nothing like the previous single.

The video plays on the voyeurism subject with scenes involving touch screen monitors and web cams, seemingly jumping on the bandwagon of Sliver, the erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone that was popular at the time. Maybe the racy video worked against the single’s commercial potential – was it too racy for anything other than a short Breaker spot on TOTP? Whatever the reason, “If” only made it to No 14 in the UK.

Oh crap! It’s “River Of Dreams” by Billy Joel. Now I like Billy and some of his back catalogue (especially the earlier stuff) is great. Even his last album prior to this (“Storm Front”) had some good singles on it. This track though rivalled “Uptown Girl” for sheer, undiluted awfulness. The title track off his only studio album of the 90s and the last to be comprised of pop songs*, it was and remains shockingly bad.

*His 2001 set “Fantasies & Delusions” contained only classical compositions.

Not everyone agreed with my assessment though. It was a huge global hit and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for 1994 losing out to, by coincidence, the next artist to feature on the Breakers. Why couldn’t I stand it? It was just so twee and I hated that harmonised intro that goes “In the middle of the…I go walking in the…”. I think ultimately though it reminds me of a time when I wasn’t that happy at work but that’s for a post in the near future.

Long after I’d finished working in record shops and stopped listening to Radio 1, I found myself at the radio home for the newly middle aged and listening to Terry Wogan’s breakfast show and he used to play this constantly. It nearly broke me.

“River Of Dreams” peaked at No 3.

Now to that second artist (alongside Janet Jackson) suffering an unexpected downturn in sales of their latest single and also the winner of that 1994 Grammy for Record of the Year. “Run To You” was the fourth single released by Whitney Houston from The Bodyguard soundtrack and was basically a retread of the third single “I Have Nothing” in that they were both towering ballads executed with precision by Whitney over a shiny production. So similar were they that Natalie Cole performed a medley of them at the 1993 Academy Awards (I’m guessing Whitney was indisposed).

Presumably due to the fact that the so many people already had the song due to buying the soundtrack album, “Run To You” failed to work itself into a sprint up the charts peaking at No 15 in the UK and No 31 in the US.

The video looks a bit crap by today’s high CGI standards with Whitney running against a backdrop of clouds although maybe it was a homage to the film of the aforementioned Grease when Danny and Sandy’s car takes off into the sky and they fly off into the clouds?

Neither “Run To You” nor Janet Jackson’s “If” were shown in full on TOTP which you maybe wouldn’t have expected for two such huge names.

Another huge name who had already had her video shown in full on the show is the final Breaker this week. Madonna is up to No 7 with “Rain” from her “Erotica” album. The tickets Tony Dortie refers to are for the two concert dates in September that Madonna played at Wembley Stadium as part of her The Girlie Show world tour.

“Rain” ended the first act of the show and was interspersed with “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” by The Temptations and “Singin’ In The Rain”. Want to hear it? Here you go but having sat through the whole thing myself, I must warn you that you won’t get these 9 minutes and 48 seconds of your life back…

Back in the studio we find Dannii Minogue performing her rendition of Melba Moore’s “This Is It”. You know I said earlier about Juliet Roberts being an in demand backing singer after her solo career ended? Well, she must have been moonlighting back in 1993 as she provided backing vocals on Dannii’s previous single to “This Is It” which was called “Love’s On Every Corner”.

Twenty years after she had a hit with “This Is It”, the track supplied the title for a Best Of Dannii album which included a duet with sister Kylie of the ABBA standard “The Winner Takes It All” – I wonder which of the two of them that was then?

“This Is It” peaked at No 10.

https://youtu.be/2BkYJ5g8kE4

There’s only one Bee Gees song I remember from 1993 and it ain’t this one. “For Whom The Bell Tolls” was a surprise Top 5 hit over Xmas that year that just seemed to keep on selling even when you thought it must have run out of steam. “Paying The Price Of Love” though? Nah, I’ve got nothing. Their previous hit to this had been the shameless rewrite of “Chain Reaction” that was “Secret Love” in 1991. Did this one sound like any of their other songs? A slight hint of “You Win Again” maybe? Maybe not.

Barry Gibbs’ falsetto here is quite remarkable. That’s not a compliment though – a better descriptor would be ridiculous. I know it works somehow on most of their back catalogue especially their disco era peak but taken in isolation it’s quite mad. If he turned up on a talent show like The Voice for example and did that, would the judges turn around or would they look at each other and break out into a fit of uncontrollable giggling? What if they did turn around and then saw his mane of hair?! I can only really think of Barry Gibb and Queen’s Brian May that have always maintained the same hairstyle throughout their careers. Honourable mentions should also go to Rod Stewart and Paul Weller for sustaining comedy haircuts but they have tweaked them down the years.

“Paying The Price Of Love” peaked at No 23.

You can’t really argue with Tony Dortie’s assessment that Take That were “simply the biggest pop band in the UK” at this time as “Pray” notches up a third week at No 1. The boys are back in the studio this week and what I’m noticing from this performance is the clear division of hairstyles between them (and yes, I know I seem to be obsessed with pop star barnets yet again this week). Mark, Howard and Robbie all have that classic mid 90s long at the the sides curtains style while Jason and Gary have a more classic crew cut. I think I know which has aged the better.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	D:Ream	Unforgiven	Nope
2	Robin S	Luv 4 Luv	Never
3	Freddie Mercury	Living On My Own	I did not
4	Manic Street Preachers	La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)	Not the single but I had the album
5	Craig McLachlan and Debbie Gibson	You’re The One That I Want	No
6	Juliet Roberts	Caught In the Middle	Negative
7	Janet Jackson	If	Nah
8	Billy Joel	River Of Dreams	Hell no!
9	Whitney Houston	Run To You	No thanks
10	Madonna	Rain	It’s a no
11	Dannii Minogue	This Is It	No it isn’t
12	Bee Gees	Paying The Price Of Love	I didn’t pay the price
13	Take That	Pray	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/m001c948/top-of-the-pops-29071993

TOTP 22 APR 1993

Posted on August 4, 2022 by 80stastic

Ever broken an arm or a leg? I once had a hairline fracture of my forearm when somebody pushed me down the stairs at school. I had a plaster cast on it and everything. My injury however was nothing compared to what happened to Arsenal footballer Steve Morrow four days before this TOTP aired. The unfortunate Belfast born utility man managed to break his arm after a game had finished! He’d just scored the winning goal in the League Cup final versus Sheffield Wednesday and in the jubilant celebrations afterwards his captain Tony Adams tried to carry him on his shoulders. Adams slipped, Morrow fell and fractured his arm so badly he needed oxygen and was rushed to hospital. He missed the rest of the season.

That got me thinking of accidents that had befallen pop stars. There’s been a few. For a start, there’s the nicest man in rock Dave Grohl who fell off stage during a Foo Fighters gig in Sweden. He famously finished the gig after the medics patched him up and played the rest of the tour sat down in a chair. Or how about Jessie J who fell off stage whilst rehearsing in 2011, broke her foot and required a bone transplant. Then there’s the youngest Hanson brother who broke his collarbone and cracked three ribs and his scapula when he came off his motorcycle in 2019. Possibly most famously, Ed Sheeran broke his right wrist and left elbow after coming off his bike in 2017. Ed was hardcore though and went to the pub after the accident before giving into the pain in the early hours and undertaking a trip to A&E. I wonder if any of the acts on tonight’s TOTP have any broken limbs stories…

We start with something that I not only don’t remember but that I couldn’t really conceive of happening. Voice Of The Beehive and Jimmy Somerville anyone? So what was this all about? Well, it was a project by the record label Food Records to support the charity Shelter’s ‘Putting Our House In Order’ homeless initiative. Not only did they get Jimmy and VOTB together, they got various other artists (many as duets) to perform versions of “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. The recordings were put on four separate singles sorted by musical genre – pop, rock, alternative and dance. I’m not going to list them all here but there’s a few intriguing ones like New Model Army and Tom Jones…

How about Cud and Sandie Shaw…

Surely the oddest though must be Hawkwind and Samantha Fox….

Bizarre doesn’t quite cover it. Anyway, there were some more obvious takes on the song mainly on the rock CD with the likes of Thunder and Little Angels doing their bit for charity but it was Voice Of The Beehive and Jimmy Somerville that were chosen to promote the project on TOTP and there’s a bit to unpack here:

I quite like it
Why does Jimmy sing his opening verses in such a low register?
Jimmy’s T-shirt is right. Shabba Ranks is a bigot
Why was Woody not on the drums?
I have no information on whether any of the people on stage have ever broken any bones

All formats of the single included a live version of “Gimme Shelter” by The Stones to keep on the right side of chart eligibility rules enabling it to get to No 23. It was officially credited to Various Artists and each format had the same catalogue number meaning it counted as one record sale whichever version you bought.

The Bodyguard cash cow was still going strong in April 1993. Not only had the film being doing the business at the box office but the soundtrack album was No 1 around the world and there seemed to be a single lifted from it permanently in the charts. “I Have Nothing” was the fourth such single and the third by Whitney Houston (the other coming courtesy of Lisa Stansfield). In truth, it could have come from any of Whitney’s albums up to this point as it was a classic power ballad the type of which she had made a number of times previously. I’m thinking “All The Man That I Need”, “One Moment In Time”, “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” etc. I mean she did it very well and could knock these out in her sleep but it was all a bit Whitney by numbers for me. She also seemed to have a penchant for songs with ‘I’ in the title. There was “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, “I Will Always Love You” (obvs), “I’m Your Baby Tonight” – she even did a version of “I Know Him So Well”. All those ‘I’s put me in mind of when Dr Who regenerated from Peter Davison to Colin Baker…

The single went to No 3 in the UK and No 4 in the US where, due to the stagnant nature of their chart, her previous two singles were still selling and it meant she became the first artist since 1991 when their chart compiling software changed to have three songs in the Top 11 chart positions.

The video follows the format of “I Will Always Love You” and is basically a trailer for the film with lots of clips of it all thrown together around Whitney performing to camera. Not content with this power ballad, the next release was also one (and also from the soundtrack album) with “Run To You” being released in June.

It’s a third consecutive appearance on the show for New Order with “Regret” next. After the Baywatch incident then the official promo video, they are finally in the TOTP studio. Despite the live vocal policy in place on the show at this time, this isn’t a shambles of a performance as with “Blue Monday” ten years earlier. It all feels pretty slick although Hooky’s unique bass playing technique and stance never looked slick. It’s as if it weighs a ton and he stretching every sinew to keep it off the ground. He might not have broken it in an accident but as @TOTPFacts says:

Peter Hook's back must be absolutely fucked. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 29, 2022

Talking of guitars, it feels quite odd to see Bernard Sumner with one in his hands. Now I’m no Eric Clapton and am just a bit of a chord strummer but it looks like his fingers never change from that one chord shape (‘C’ if I’m not mistaken or derivatives of it). Was there really just one chord in the song? And they used to take the piss out of Status Quo!

https://youtu.be/AwiNFgjljv4

We swoop over to America next for a live satellite performance of the country’s No 1 record. You’ll probably know the song but not the group. How come? Well, “Freak Me” is the track in question and it will go to No 1 here as well but not for another five years and it won’t be sung by the people we see here but by some chancers called Another Level. Yep, them. Dane Bowers and his mob. Anyway, that’s way down the line. For the moment it’s all about Silk… or rather it’s not as their version of this Keith Sweat written and produced song never even made the Top 40 over here despite this performance.

Slik were from Atlanta, Georgia and had given themselves some truly terrible nicknames. There was Tim ‘Timzo’ Cameron, Gary ‘Big G’ Glenn, Gary ‘Lil G’ Jenkins and my favourite Jonathan ‘John-John’ Rasboro. The lyrics to their big hit are…well kind of explicit and leave the listener in no doubt as to what they are singing about. For example:

Let me lick you up and down till you say stop, let me play with your body baby, make you real hot

Then there’s:

I love the taste of whipped cream, spread it on, don’t be mean

Blimey!

Meanwhile back in the TOTP studio we find Sub Sub featuring Melanie Williams and their big hit tune “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)”. Melanie’s come with a big, zebra print floppy hat that she didn’t wear last time. Maybe it was meant to be in keeping with the tune’s retro disco feel?

It’s suddenly struck me that Sub Sub were a bit like Deee-Lite. One huge, crossover dance anthem then pretty much nothing in terms of further chart success. I know that’s not strictly true in that Deee-Lite had one minor hit single after “Groove Is In The Heart” before all you chart enthusiasts get on to me but you get my drift.

Mick Jones (he of the Man Utd score update story the other week) has informed me that when Melanie Williams was in her previous band called Temper Temper, she did a PA at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester and was absolutely lovely with all the male members of staff under her spell. Thought I’d pass that on. By the way, I have no info on whether she’s ever broken her arm or leg but there is a Melanie Williams serious injury solicitor based in Fitzrovia, London but that’s probably not the same person is it?

There’s four Breakers again this week starting with a band who I genuinely never realised had more than one hit in this country. Aussie rockers Midnight Oil had a huge global hit in the late 80s with “Beds Are Burning” and although they continued to have success back home, they did zip in the UK until this track – “Truganini” -made our Top 30. As with “Beds Are Burning” which was about the territorial rights of native Australians, the song carried a political message (a debate over the future of the Australian monarchy) whilst name checking Truganini who was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman and one of the last native speakers of the Tasmanian language.

The track came from their album “Earth And Sun and Moon” which is nearly exactly the same title of an album my very own country music loving Dad made a few years back. He included ‘the stars’ in his title though.

You wouldn’t have believed that I worked in a busy record shop at this time as here’s yet another song I don’t remember. What was I doing whilst I was there? Listening to football on the radio if the Mick Jones story is anything to go by.

Anyway, this is a bit weird as after Midnight Oil, we get another song about indigenous people. “Power Of American Natives” was by Dance 2 Trance and was a big club hit that broke through to the mainstream chart. It’s all a bit techno (don’t tell The Bluebells!) and frenetic for me but incredibly there’s another (tenuous) link with Midnight Oil as the album this was taken from also has the word ‘moon’ in its title (“Moon Spirits”). OK, you got me. I’m filling desperately here.

“Power Of American Natives” peaked at No 25.

https://youtu.be/WrPb3tfmt40

Despite some considerable album sales, Sting (the solo artist) had never really made many inroads on the singles chart. In the early 90s though, he was finally doing something about that. After just three Top 40 hits in the entire previous decade, by April 1993 he was already up to five. “Seven Days” was the third on the spin if you include “”It’s Probably Me”, his collaboration with Eric Clapton from the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack.

This was the second single from his well received “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album and would peak at No 25. It’s quite a nice tune but the lyrics seemed very familiar. And then it struck me. He’s rewritten “Can’t Stand Losing You”. I mean not exactly but there’s a theme of violence arising from a failed relationship in both. In The Police tune the threat comes from a brother who’s gonna kill the protagonist and “he’s six feet ten”. In “Seven Days” it’s from a love rival who’s…yep…”over six feet ten”. I see you Sting! To try and throw us off the scent he’s added in a breakdown of the week Craig David style and then actually goes off into “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” at the end with the exact lyrics included. Didn’t he do that on another of his solo songs as well?

*thinks for a bit*

Yes he did! Right at the end of “Love Is The Seventh Wave” he slips in a line from “Every Breath You Take” and then…and I love it when the artists on the show are in sync with the theme of the post…he changes the lyrics and sings “every cake you bake, every leg you break”. Excellent! Nice one Sting!

“Seven Days” peaked at No 25.

Now when I think of D:Ream (which isn’t often) I think of 1994 not 1993. 1994 was the year they had a No 1 with “Things Can Only Get Better” or perhaps even 1997 when that song was used as the official anthem for Labour’s successful General Election campaign. But 1993? I had nothing down for that. I’m completely wrong though as here is Peter Cunnah in the charts with “U R The Best Thing”. I thought that came out after “Things Can Only Get Better”. It turns out it did but that was a re-release. Hang on, a rerelease when it had already been a hit earlier? How did that work? Well, simple really. The 1993 single only made it to No 19. After their No 1 in early 1994, a Perfecto remix was put out and it went to No 4. Seems sometimes they did know what they were doing these record labels.

It turns out that D:Ream we’re all about rereleases. This was already the second time “U R The Best Thing” had been out as it was initially released in 1992 when it limped to No 72 in the charts. The ‘94 version made it a trio of releases for the track. Not to be outdone, “Things Can Only Get Better” racked up four goes at the chart. It had already been a hit earlier in ‘93 (it can’t have made it into the show) when it peaked at No 24. Then came that No 1 a year later, a No 19 placing in ‘97 due to the election and then a final release in 2014 (not sure why) when it peaked at No 66. Phew!

Oh and in an interview in the Belfast Telegraph last year, Cunnah said that he’d broken his foot once but that was it and he’d been injury free for most of his life. The things you can find out online!

I’m kind of surprised that the next artist got granted a full performance slot on the show rather than a place in the Breakers. Not because I don’t think they were any good (I always liked them) but because they seemed to be going through a difficult, experimental phase that wasn’t bringing in the big hits. Deacon Blue’s last six singles had resulted in just one Top 10 hit with all but one of the rest not cracking the Top 20. Now you could argue in their defence that they were more of an album band than a singles one but even their album sales were in decline. Their current album at this time (“Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”) wasn’t a disaster commercially but it certainly sold less than all its predecessors.

“Only Tender Love” was the latest single taken from it to try and boost its fortunes but I don’t think it was ever up to the task. It’s a bit overwrought and laboured and the band’s performance here doesn’t help as they seem to be taking it all far too seriously. Where had the band that had whooped it up on “Real Gone Kid” gone?

“Only Tender Love” made it to No 22 whilst one final single from the album peaked one place higher. A Greatest Hits album appeared the following year and actually went to No 1 which made the relative failures of their singles even less fathomable.

https://youtu.be/Hxw_Ft9Mu1o

Tony Dortie is giving it the big ‘un in the intro to the penultimate act on tonight’s show and why not? After all she had recently signed a recording contract with Virgin worth between $32 and $50 million. It made her the world’s highest paid recording artist at the time. I talk of Janet Jackson of course who had fulfilled her obligations to A&M which left her free to sign to Virgin. I recall there being a big fuss about all of this at the time which only heightened the expectations of her first material with her new record company. “That’s The Way Love Goes” didn’t disappoint Virgin as it went to No 1 in the US for eight weeks. Not a bad initial return on their investment. To date it holds the record for the most weeks at the top of the charts for any single released by a member of the Jackson family. It fell one place short of repeating that chart position in the UK.

The track had a much smoother R&B feel to it than some of the harder sounds from her last album “Rhythm Nation 1814” like “Miss You Much”, “Black Cat” and the title track. The lead single reflected the more sensual nature of parent album “Janet”. Just in case anybody was still in any doubt of Janet’s new direction, then the picture on the back cover of her naked from the waist up with her breasts cupped from an unseen man’s hands from behind her surely made it clear.

As with much of Janet’s work, the track was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and featured that sample from “Impeach The President” by The Honey Drippers that I mentioned in the last post. As for injuries resulting in broken limbs, I’m not aware of anything in particular relating to Janet but there was of course that Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction incident in 2004 otherwise known as ‘nipplegate’.

It’s the last of four weeks at No 1 for The Bluebells with “Young At Heart”. It’s as if the band knew the game was up and have decided to go out with a bang as they’re all dressed in white top hats and tails. The set is like a scene from a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film complete with cane wielding dancers.

Although a Singles Collection album was released to cash in on the renewed interest in the band, nothing else from their back catalogue was rereleased which I think demonstrates the band’s relaxed attitude to their unexpected second go at pop success. As much as I would have loved to see “I’m Falling” and “Cath” back in the charts, I think it was the right decision to literally make it a one off exercise.

The band still perform sporadically at specific events including supporting Edwyn Collins at a 2009 Glasgow gig.

https://youtu.be/5dXGU_51-kY

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Voice Of The Beehive and Jimmy Somerville	Gimme Shelter	I didn’t
2	Whitney Houston	I Have Nothing	Nope
3	New Order	Regret	I regret that I did not
4	Silk	Freak Me	Never happening
5	Sub Sub featuring Melanie Williams	Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)	See 3 above
6	Midnight Oil	Truganini	No
7	Dance 2 Trance	Power Of American Natives	Not my bag at all
8	Sting	Seven Days	Nah
9	D:Ream	U R The Best Thing	Negative
10	Deacon Blue	Only Tender Love	No but I have that ’94 Greatest Hits album with it on
11	Janet Jackson	That’s The Way Love Goes	Didn’t do much for me
12	The Bluebells	Young At Heart	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/m0019mbq/top-of-the-pops-22041993

TOTP 18 FEB 1993

Posted on June 27, 2022 by 80stastic

I write this as the 2022 Glastonbury festival has just taken place the previous weekend which garnered large viewing figures and reviews a plenty off the back of some massive performances by the likes of Billie Eilish (I didn’t get it) and Paul McCartney (marvellous stuff). It got me thinking about what the festival was like back in the day. Now, I have to fess up straight away that I’ve never actually been to Glastonbury – the myriad bands and music you could see and listen to was appealing but the thought of all that scuzziness was less so. So my recollections of it are all based on radio, TV and press coverage.

Thinking back to the 80s, I don’t remember much being made of it at all in the media, probably because it wasn’t broadcast live until 1994 when Channel 4’s 4 Goes To Glastonbury programming made it available to the masses at home. If I think about say, 1983, when I was first becoming obsessed with pop music, I don’t recall it appearing on my radar at all. A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that the big acts that year were UB40, Marillion, King Sunny Ade and his African Bests and, rather implausibly New York singer-songwriter Melanie who once had a hit with a cover of “Ruby Tuesday”. Hmm. It didn’t cater for my admittedly chart-centric tastes at the time and that would continue for a couple of years although the line up would become progressively more of a broad church as the decade worn on. By the end of the 80s, I was just finishing being a Poly student and was aware that some of my peers were going to Glastonbury but a jaunt to Somerset was never high on my list of Summer priorities somehow.

By the mid 90s, I was working in record retail and therefore much more aware of Glastonbury as just about everyone I ever worked with seemed to have either been or was planning to go. The TV coverage was much bigger with the BBC taking over from Channel 4 and so we all got to see those iconic sets from the likes of Radiohead, The Prodigy and Massive Attack. But what of 1993? That is the year we are up to in these BBC4 TOTP repeats after all. Well, at least a couple of tonight’s acts appeared at the festival that year but the headliners included The Black Crowes, The Kinks (replacing Red Hot Chili Peppers), Suede and The Orb.

Before we get into the nitty gritty , I should note that we have skipped the 11 February edition of the show as it featured the now taboo Rolf Harris doing his version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”. Incidentally, Harris was also on the bill at Glastonbury that year.

Right, that’s enough preamble. Let’s blog! We start with a rather incongruous and improbable five second message from Sting and Take That from New York saying that their both on the show later. Erm…OK. Cheers for that guys. The first performing act tonight are Stereo MC’s with a single that seems destined to forever remain in the shadow of previous hits “Connected” and “Step It Up” despite being a hit of a comparable size. “Ground Level” was the third release from the band’s “Connected” album and although it’s a decent track, it lacks the immediacy and urgency of its two predecessors.

Such was the visual impact of the spectacle that is/was frontman Rob Birch, I’d almost completely forgotten that they had three female singers complementing him but they are very much to the fore in this performance. For all of them though, their time in the spotlight was coming to and end. There would be one more hit single pulled from “Connected” and then nothing for eight long years until follow up album “Deep Down & Dirty” appeared.

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? Yes, their only appearance thus far

https://youtu.be/D8zFNomLTKg

1993 was a massive year for Whitney Houston as she released multiple singles from The Bodyguard soundtrack. Her cover of “I’m Every Woman” by Chaka Khan was the second of those and would peak at No 4 both here and in the US. Although the chart topping reign of “I Will Always Love You” was brought to an end in the UK by *spoiler alert* 2 Unlimited, over the pond it remained No 1 even while “I’m Every Woman” ascended and then descended the charts.

Chaka Khan features in the video and even receives a shout out from Whitney on the record at the track’s coda. Chaka’s original was a hit twice; first in 1979 when it reached No 11 and a decade later when a remix of it peaked at No 8. Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon once admitted that he initially misheard the song’s lyric as ‘climb every woman’ – the dirty dog!

Played Glastonbury? No but the video features TLC who played this year’s festival

Not seen in our charts for nearly two years, 1993 brought us the return of Lenny Kravitz with his new album and title track single “Are You Gonna Go My Way”. Whilst his last hit was the almost sweet sounding “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”, this was a full on, all out rocking scorcher of a song fuelled by a heavy guitar riff and powered by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix. This really was the point when the Hendrix comparisons were out in force. I couldn’t tell if they were valid or not on account of not being a big Jimi fan. I don’t think I could hear him…

…an argument that’s kind of nonsense sure but it makes for a good scene in the movie. Anyway, all I knew was that Lenny looked every inch the rock god up there on stage and he was killing it. I’m not sure that I fully appreciated the track at the time but it’s a belter. It peaked at No 4 here instantly making it his biggest UK hit at the time but curiously it was released as an airplay only single in the US meaning it didn’t qualify for the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Apparently this was a common practice back then in America to increase album sales as buying the parent album was the only way to get that groovy tune you’d heard on the radio. What was it about though? Here’s Lenny himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Lenny Kravitz explains "Are You Gonna Go My Way?: "I thought the subject matter was really interesting, because it's coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ… So basically, 'Are you gonna go my way?' meaning 'my way of love.'" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 17, 2022

I liked these two reply tweets to this explanation…

Ephesians – Chapter 5 – Verse 23
— 🎨 ∟ ∪ ∨ 🎶 (@fkaPLuv) June 17, 2022

By the way, I’m currently watching Lenny’s daughter Zoë starring in the TV series of High Fidelity which is based on the book by Nick Hornby and the film starring John Cusack and Zoë’s mother Lisa Bonet. It’s pretty good too. In it, Zoë’s character Rob is involved with a young, up and coming Scottish rock star who, in the story, has just bagged himself a slot at Glastonbury. I love it when a blog post comes together!

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? Yes and again in 1999

https://youtu.be/5WTWqApTqgI

My god! TOTP were really pushing this latest Sting tune! After last week’s studio appearance he’s back just seven days later with another full performance of “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” this time live from New York. Thankfully he’s lost the ridiculous Witchfinder General outfit from the previous week but maybe he should have kept it – at least it might have livened up this dreary run through. This was a classic example of why these live by satellite link ups were ultimately disappointing. Look at the setting for it. I don’t know exactly where he is but Sting is singing against a back drop of literally a brick wall. I’m guessing it might be a rehearsal room or sometimes it was an empty theatre venue neither of which worked for me.

I’ve told my Sting tale before haven’t I? The one about how a friend of my mate Robin, who was a guitar player who toured with some major artists, was at a dinner party at Sting’s house and in the middle of the dinner the host made all the guests stop eating and go and watch a documentary…about Sting.

“If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” peaked at No 14.

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No. One and only appearance in 1997

https://youtu.be/hoRRq6grPk0

There’s three Breakers on this show starting with REM and “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”. I think I’m right in saying that despite the popularity of parent album “Automatic For The People” (a No 1 and seven times platinum seller in the UK alone) and despite all three singles released from it to this point making the Top 20, TOTP never featured any of them for more than the few allotted seconds in the Breakers section. A travesty really.

One of the lighter tunes on the album, there’s quite a lot to unpack about this one. Firstly, what the hell is Michael Stipe singing about? Indeed, I could just rephrase that question as ‘What is Michael Stipe singing?’ as the lyrics in the chorus topped a 2010 poll as the most misheard lyric ever. The official words in the chorus are ‘Call me when you try to wake her’ although that doesn’t seem to scan right to me. It is commonly misheard as ‘Calling Jamaica’ or ‘Only Jah waker’ and even ‘Call me Tom Baker’! OK, that’s the line sorted but what is the song about exactly? Well, as you would expect there’s various theories to be found online ranging from a couple being in rehab to a homeless woman sleeping in a phone box to a gambling addiction and finally, inevitably about drugs. Even the band themselves aren’t sure with bass player Mike Mills on record as saying “Half the song is about somebody trying to get in touch with someone who can sleep on his floor. The other half – you’re on your own”.

The song’s opening and title borrows heavily from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” made famous by The Tokens in the 60s and Tight Fit in the 80s. Apparently REM paid for the rights to use the song and part of the deal was that they had to record their own version of it. They duly did and it appears as an extra track on the single.

According to Wikipedia, despite the song’s popularity, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” is one of a very few songs the band has never played live. Is that right? It seems an odd decision. Is it a technical thing that it’s hard to reproduce out of the studio environment? Maybe Michael Stipe himself doesn’t know what the words are that he should be singing?

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No in 1999 and finally in 2003

There’s a few comparisons I think between REM and the next Breaker artist Metallica. Not sonically but in terms of career trajectory and intense scrutiny from fans about their songs and their meanings. Both bands had been around for years and been very successful but both, it seems to me, went to another level globally with the release of an album quite some time into their career. For REM it was seventh album “Out Of Time” (though a case could also be made for their sixth and major label debut “Green” I guess) and in the case of Metallica, their eponymously titled fifth also known as ‘the black album’. Again I’m sure hard rock fans could argue that earlier albums were also seminal but I’m talking purely sales and “Metallica” sold three times as many copies as any of its predecessors.

In terms of fathoming what their songs were about , as with “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” before it, Metallica’s “Sad But True” had lots of fans dissecting the lyrics. Many theories can be found online and many concern the same subjects as REM’s tune – addiction and drugs – but also the concept of religion and the duality of good and evil. It’s pretty heavy stuff but then three members of the band were going through divorces at the time of its writing and recording so…

Predictably, “Sad But True” did little for me. It’s those crunching guitars and the shouted vocals that always put me off. The single peaked at No 20 in the UK charts.

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No. Only appearance came in 2014

Did someone mention “Ruby Tuesday” earlier? Well, yes it was me (obviously). It turns out that Melanie would not be the only artist to take on The Rolling Stones classic. If you were to place a bet on somebody doing a cover around this time then Rod Stewart would surely have been the bookies favourite. In recent years he’s carved out a new career for himself of interpreting classic standards via his “Great American Songbook” series but even back in the day, Rod wasn’t averse to a cover version. Just look at some of the singles he’d released leading up to 1993:

“Downtown Train” by Tom Waits
“It Takes Two” by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston
“Broken Arrow” by Robbie Robertson
“You Are Everything” by The Stylistics
“Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)” by Tom Waits (again!)

Plus he’d done a version of “Your Song” for the Elton John / Bernie Taupin tribute album “Two Rooms”. Then, in early 1993, came the “Lead Vocalist” album. This was an odd release which seemed to have been cobbled together by record company Warners just to cash in on the fact that Rod had just been given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent BRITS. The album was a mixture of five newly recorded covers and a random collection of material from Rod’s past including tracks from The Faces and his solo career. Those covers included the aforementioned “Tom Traubert’s Blues”, “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks and of course “Ruby Tuesday”.

Let’s be fair, Rod’s version is horrible. Mechanical of sound and cynical of conception, it has none of the charm of The Rolling Stones original nor the emotion of Melanie’s cover.

Look I don’t mind the odd bit of Rod but there’s an awful lot of crud in his back catalogue as well and this one certainly deserves that description. He would return to covers later in the decade with his album “When We Were The New Boys” which included his take on “Cigarettes And Alcohol” by Oasis and “Rocks” by Primal Scream. Dear God!

https://youtu.be/g4SlcBFbiJI

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No, Rod’s only appearance came in 2002

We swing back over to New York now for a performance by Take That with what surely must be one of their least remembered songs. After the dynamic fun of “Could It Be Magic”, “Why Can’t I Wake Up With You” was a turgid, lifeless affair and I can’t understand why they would have gone with this as a choice of next single. Was this a one off release or was it from the album?

*checks Take That discography*

Huh. Well, it was on “Take That And Party” (surely one of the worst album titles ever by the way?) but it wasn’t the version released as a single. Here’s the album version which is a bit of a weepy ballad:

The single version was eventually included on the sophomore album “Everything Changes” and it’s had a dance back beat applied with an annoying, repetitive bleep noise in the mix. Apparently, the lyrics were changed as well but frankly who cares?! We’re they already trying to look for a mature audience less than a year after finally getting some proper chart action and were therefore pushing the whole Gary Barlow as talented singer-songwriter schtick? I thought this was completely yawn inducing. Bore off!

By the way, their live by satellite performance here is as underwhelming as Sting’s with the lads performing against a backdrop of some draped material and a smoke machine. What was the point? Then again I wasn’t a teenage girl desperate for a look at my heroes. Maybe the idea of them being ‘live’ as it were was more appealing than the video?

Played Glastonbury? As if

https://youtu.be/1LwKuaCcw54

Ah well now, this is timely. The hero of this year’s Glastonbury is on the show! The 90s however weren’t peak era Paul McCartney. He didn’t manage one Top 10 single and the three albums he released that decade are hardly amongst his most cherished by fans. “Off The Ground” was the first of those three and, as host Mark Franklin states, had given him a chart entry in “Hope Of Deliverance” but it was all very underwhelming. The follow up was “C’Mon People” which I don’t recall at all, possibly because it didn’t even make the Top 40 despite this TOTP performance. Was it meant to be some sort of anthem of unity? It’s all a bit drab sounding to me. Interesting how they’ve staged Macca’s performance here with members of the studio audience crowding around him and his piano. It’s a bit “All You Need Is Love” isn’t it?

Those audience members in shot seem unsure what to do with themselves. It’s a difficult tune to dance to though the guy in the sleeveless denim jacket gives it a go. He’s got his thumbs inside his waistline at one point. He needs to go some to beat these guys dancing with Mud though…

Seeing some of the reaction on social media to Macca’s Glastonbury set list made me wonder what would have happened if he’d included “C’Mon People” in it. A Twitter meltdown I’m guessing and possibly the breaking of the internet.

Played Glastonbury? Played it? He rocked it on Saturday night. Amazing. Oh and he also performed there in 2004

In 1993? No

Finally a new No 1 but careful what you wish for as Whitney is toppled by one of the most annoying chart toppers of the whole decade. Widely (and perhaps rightly) pilloried for its lack of lyrics (“No no, no nuh no no, no nuh no no, no no there’s no lyrics”) 2 Unlimited’s “No Limit” also had an inane hook that lent itself to many a moronic football chant. I think my favourite was for former Bolton Wanderers forward Mixu Paatelainen. You can work out how it went for yourselves easy enough.

Supposedly there was a controversy over this week’s chart as to who was actually No 1 – Take That or 2 Unlimited – so close were the sales but I don’t remember any such stories in the press and certainly nothing to rival the Deee-Lite vs Steve Miller Band battle of 1990.

Played Glastonbury? Ha! Ha! Never!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MC’s	Ground Level	Nah
2	Whitney Houston	I’m Every Woman	I did not
3	Lenny Kravitz	Are You Gonna Go My Way	No but it’s a good tune
4	Sting	If I Ever Lose My Faith In You	Nope
5	REM	The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite	No but I had the album it was from Automatic For The People
6	Metallica	Sad But True	Happy to say no and that’s the truth
7	Rod Stewart	Ruby Tuesday	Never happening
8	Take That	Why Can’t I Wake Up With You?	Hell no!
9	Paul McCartney	C’Mon People	No
10	2 Unlimited	No Limit	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/m0018b84/top-of-the-pops-18021993

TOTP 04 FEB 1993

Posted on June 23, 2022 by 80stastic

We enter the month of February in our review of 1993 here at TOTP Rewind and the Top 40 has now jettisoned all those Xmas rush singles – with one notable exception – that were clogging up the chart. There are eleven new entries this week and seven climbers and yet, looking at the running order for this TOTP, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the charts were in a state of inertia as so many of these songs have already either been on the show recently or are re-releases of old hits.

Look at the show’s opener for example. “How Can I Love You More” had been a Top 40 hit for M People as recently as November 1991 when it peaked at No 29. So why had it been made available again? Well, although they’d had racked up four Top 40 singles from their debut album “Northern Soul”, none of them had got higher than No 29. The band had been out on tour to promote the album and “How Can I Love You More” had been a live favourite. So it came to pass that record label Deconstruction decided that should be the track to be given another tilt at the charts. DJ Sasha was approached to give the song a club sheen and bingo! The band’s first Top 10 hit.

So how different was the Sasha remix to the original cut? Well it wasn’t quite as stark as the difference between the original version of Cornershop’s “Brimful Of Asha” and the Norman Cook remix but you could certainly hear it. The 1991 release has an electronic backing that reminds me of “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League whereas the 1993 version sounds like it has a lot more going on in the mix with some shuffling rhythms that make it sound like it had a faster tempo. I think I actually prefer the remix to my surprise.

1993 would be the year that M People became a really big deal. Following “How Can I Love You More” into the Top 10 came “One Night On Heaven” (No 6), “Moving On Up” (No 2) and “Don’t Look Any Further” (No 9) whilst their “Elegant Slumming” album would rise to No 2.

Here’s another! This is a third time on the show for Duran Duran and their “Ordinary World” single. So well received was the song that it got nominated for an Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. It would lose out to another song that, coincidentally, was on this very same show – “If I Ever Lose My Faith” by Sting. In his book Duran Duran: the unauthorised biography, Steve Malins tells the story that at this very TOTP, Duran’s guitarist Warren Cuccurullo (he replaced Andy Taylor) was chatting to Sting and the ex – The Police frontman admitted that he didn’t want to go on after Duran as “Ordinary World” was such a beautiful song. Given Sting’s ginormous ego, that was quite the compliment.

Cuccurullo is an interesting character. He toured and recorded with Frank Zappa before forming synth-pop, MTV favourites Missing Persons in the early 80s. He was recruited (eventually) by Duran Duran after previous incumbent Taylor approached his ex Missing Persons band members about working with him as he started on his solo career. Alerted to the possibility that Taylor would be leaving Duran, Cuccurollo contacted the Birmingham superstars about replacing their want away guitarist. By 1993 he was a permanent member of the band and, according to Malins, he had a voracious sexual appetite and would host ‘Privacy’ parties in his hotel room when the band were touring which basically sounded like orgies. Blimey! What would Princess Diana have said?!

“Ordinary World” peaked at No 6 in the UK and No 3 in the US.

https://youtu.be/44Yb9Bz17ns

And yet another song that we’ve already seen on the show before! And like Duran Duran it’s their third time on! I struggled to say anything about “Heaven Is” by Def Leppard the previous two times so God knows what I’m supposed to say about a third appearance! Well, again like the Duran boys, this showing did nothing to improve their ultimate chart placing as both acts were at their peaks in this week.

Anything else? Well, in the last post I mentioned how lead singer Joe Elliott hated the video for this single so I thought I’d see if I could spot why. I’m not sure I can as the video is by far the best thing about the single. Essentially it’s just a straight performance promo with some special effects thrown in for good measure but it’s done pretty well. It reminds me of the video for INXS’s “Need You Tonight”. I particularly liked the scene with the guitar strings morphing into one of those string art pictures. You know those ones where you can form a curve by layering loads of strings closely together at an angle? We did one in woodwork when I was at school. I made a plane I think. Erm…sorry…got a bit distracted there. Anyway, not quite sure why Joe Elliott hated it so much. Maybe he didn’t like the way his hair looked in it. To be fair, who would want their hair to look like Joe Elliott’s?

It’s a third song on the trot that’s been on the show recently and guess what? Just like Duran Duran and Def Leppard before them, it was at its peak chart position this week. This is just weird now. Unlike those two bands though, in the case of The Beloved, the No 8 peak of “Sweet Harmony” would prove to be their highest ever Top 40 placing.

https://youtu.be/mZ4rjCXF2GM

Watching this performance I’m struck by two things about lead singer Jon Marsh. Firstly his singing is pretty awful here. In fact, in the verses he’s hardly singing at all, it’s more sort of speaking rhythmically. Secondly, I’d been trying to work out who he looks like and I think I’ve worked it out – ex footballer and now pundit Dean Ashton…

Finally a new song! Not only that but there’s a great little link between it and the artist immediately previous. Rapination were two Italian producers who also went by the name The Rapino Brothers. It’s not them that provide the connection to The Beloved though. No, that would be the vocalist for their “Love Me In The Right Way” single who was, of course, Kym Mazelle. Kym was one of the people name checked by The Beloved on their “Hello” hit of 1990 alongside the likes of Billy Corkhill and Vince Hilaire…

Excellent track that. Anyway, fast forward three years and Kym is working with these Italian dudes – I’m guessing that’s them on stage with her here on drums and (gulp) keytar. I have to say I don’t recall this track at all but it sounds very generic Italian House so not a lot there for me.

The single made it to No 22 (and yes, another hit at its chart peak this week) whilst The Rapino Brothers went on to work with Kylie Minogue and Primal Scream. By the way does the name Rapino instantly make anybody else think of this?

It’s time for some Breakers next starting with another rerelease! As with The Cult last week, we have another 80s band promoting a Greatest Hits collection with the re-issue of their most famous song. I refer to Ultravox although in truth, that Greatest Hits album was actually entitled “If I Was: The Very Best Of Midge Ure And Ultravox”. Released by Chrysalis, it did what it said on the tin. It was “Vienna” though that was chosen to plug the album and what else can I write about this track that hasn’t already been written? Infamously kept off the No 1 spot when originally released in 1981 by Joe Dolce’s execrable single “Shaddap You Face”, it has gone down as a synth pop classic, an epic of the genre.

Oh, here’s something I bet nobody has ever written about it before. When it was a hit in ‘81, I was a 12 year old schoolboy and a lad called Neil used to hit me hard on the arm singing “this means nothing to me” as he did. Four years later and he was still at it giving me a wrap on the knuckles while singing “Hit That Perfect Beat” by Bronski Beat. Maybe Neil had been influenced by Clockwork Orange in his hobby of putting violence to music?

Back to “Vienna” though and the year before this rerelease, the song had been re-recorded by original band member Billy Currie who had got together a new line up of Ultravox. Currie was the only original band member and the vocals were supplied by one Tony Fennell. Released as “Vienna ‘92”, it sank like a stone. I mean, it’s not terrible but it just seems so pointless. Fennell does a pretty good impression of Midge Ure whilst the synths are a bit more strident and there’s an obtrusive funky guitar in there but all I can think is ‘why?’

The 1993 rerelease made No 13 whilst the Very Best Of album went Top 10. By the way, in another link with Sting, four years on A&M repeated Chysallis’ trick of merging two Best Ofs into one when they released “The Very Best Of Sting And The Police”.

What fresh hell is this?! Tom Jones sings The Beatles?! As well as being Tom’s first hit of the 90s, his treatment of “All You Need Is Love” was a charity record, raising money for Childline, the foundation set up by Esther Rantzen. And now that joker card has been played, I can’t really criticise it can I? Well, yes I can. It really doesn’t suit Tom’s gruff Welsh vocal chords and the song choice was less than inspired. Nothing wrong with the sentiment of course which strikes the right note but wasn’t a previous Childline charity single also a Beatles cover?

*checks online*

Yes, the Wet Wet Wet single “With A Little Help From My Friends” was for Childline. It was a double A-side with Billy Bragg covering another Beatles track in “She’s Leaving Home”. Look, I hope Tom made lots of money for the charity (the single peaked at No 19) but this was/is horrible.

At last another brand new song and it comes courtesy of Extreme with their latest single “Tragic Comic”. I know that this came from the band’s triple album “III Sides To Every Story” but I couldn’t tell you how it goes. Let’s have a listen…

…hmm. Vaguely familiar but it’s like a piss weak version of their previous hit “Hole Hearted” in that its got that acoustic sound but the tune isn’t really up to it. It would prove to be the band’s final UK Top 40 entry when it peaked at No 15.

Now I remember the name of this next act but I couldn’t have told you how their tune went. It turns out that Gloworm actually tried to create a new genre of dance music combining house with gospel. The first result of this hybrid experiment was “I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” but to me it sounds like one of the first crossover house tunes – “Love Can’t Turn Around” by Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk. Maybe that would have been a compliment to Gloworm but I always hated that song.

The performance here with all jungle staging and costumes gives the whole thing a look of the stage version of The Lion King. Surely some sort of nightclub setting would have been better for such a tune?

“I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” peaked at No 20.

https://youtu.be/q6vMna8mCUo

And so to the already much mentioned in this post artist Sting who brings us probably one of his better known solo songs “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You”. This was the lead single from his “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album that would become, I think, his best selling solo LP. You see, despite all his success with The Police and his undoubted star profile, Sting’s solo stats aren’t the best. Up to this point in his career, his highest charting single was “Russians” which made No 12 in 1985. In fact, he’d had more singles fail to make the Top 40 than ones that did. His last album “The Soul Cages” had only given him one hit and the album before that (“…Nothing Like The Sun”) had generated none at all although one its singles (“Englishman In New York”) belatedly provided one when remixed by Ben Liebrand at the start of the decade. Given all of this, I wonder what was expected of his latest single?

I’ll tell you what wasn’t expected – that Sting would turn up at the TOTP studio dressed like Vincent Price in Witchfinder General. What was he thinking?! Actually all of his band have got hats on. The guitarist has one that has a heavy Windy Miller from Camberwick Green vibe. Then there’s the set. Is it meant to like like the inside of a church to make a link with the word ‘faith’ in the song’s title? Maybe so what with all those candles and flaming torches but Sting’s outfit makes the whole thing seem quite menacing and, dare I say it, even satanic. Most odd.

What about the song you ask? Oh, well I always thought it was OK if a little slow and pedestrian like. Get this though. It starts with a flattened fifth chord. So? Well a flattened fifth is a tri-tone and was banned by the church as being the devil’s music! A-ha! I was right in my use of the word ‘satanic’! The single was a medium sized hit peaking at a respectable No 14 making it, at the time, Sting’s second biggest hit ever.

And still Whitney Houston is No 1 with “I Will Always Love You”! Fear not though as this is the last TOTP repeat that we will see with it still on top of the charts. However that doesn’t mean it’s the last we’ll see of Whitney herself in this year as on that very next episode she’s back with the follow up, her cover of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”. In fact, in 1993 Whitney had five hit singles (if you include “I Will Always Love You”). Never mind being ‘every woman’, she was more ‘ever present woman’.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	How Can I Love You More	No but I think my wife may have had the album
2	Duran Duran	Ordinary World	Good song but not a purchase it seems
3	Def Leppard	Heaven Is	…not having to listen to this. No
4	The Beloved	Sweet Harmony	No
5	Rapination featuring Kym Mazelle	Love Me In The Right Way	Nope
6	Ultravox	Vienna	No but I have it on an Ultravox Best Of (not the one mentioned in the post)
7	Tom Jones	All You Need Is Love	Not even for charity!
8	Extreme	Tragic Comic	Nah
9	Gloworm	I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)	Nope
10	Sting	If I Ever Lose My Faith In You	It’s another no
11	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018b82/top-of-the-pops-04021993

TOTP 28 JAN 1993

Posted on June 17, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re already just about through the first month of 1993 at TOTP Rewind and what we’ve seen on the show has done little to assuage my fears about how bad this year’s charts were going to be. It’s been a load of cover versions and old singles rereleased so far and the No 1 hasn’t yet changed since Xmas. There’s been the odd moment of interest like Apache Indian and the return of Duran Duran with decent new material but generally it’s been a bit of a slog already. Come on TOTP producers, give me something stimulating this week please!

It’s not a good start at all. 2 Unlimited amassed fourteen UK chart hits but how many of them could you name other than “No Limit”? OK if you’re an avid watcher of the BBC4 TOTP repeats you might be able to come up with some other titles but I’ve written about this lot every time they’ve featured on the show in the past eighteen months and I’m struggling. They’d had four consecutive big hits from their “Get Ready!” album up to this point but this was the track that defined them and why? Because it was insanely catchy. Like proper designed to make you demented catchy. And how did they do that? They just repeated the most basic two letter word in the English language over and over. It was as simple (or moronic some might say) as that. Well, they did throw in the line ‘techno, techno, techno, techno’ to spice it up a bit as well to be fair to them.

The simplicity of the track didn’t avert us from buying it in buckets all around Europe where it was No 1 just about everywhere. It was especially big over here topping the charts for five weeks and being the UK’s fourth best selling single of the year. I think I’ll leave it there for now. Another five weeks worth of appearances on the show means having to dredge up a lot of words about this one and unlike 2 Unlimited, I have my limits.

If 2 Unlimited had very few lyrics then this next tune had hardly any at all as we get that face morphing video from U.S.U.R.A. again to soundtrack the 40 – 11 chart rundown. “Open Your Mind” was the name of the track and judging by some of the online comments I’ve found after this TOTP repeat went out, there’s still a lot of retro love out there for this rave tune. It reminds me of that Lil Louis track “French Kiss” but without the creepy sex noises. Who were they though? Well, they were an electronic dance group from Italy (obviously) who released a number of singles throughout the 90s but “Open Your Mind” was their standout hit. Indeed it was a hit all over again in 1997 when an updated remix came out.

And that name? Apparently it was inspired by that of one of the group’s mothers who was called Ursula. So why did they decide to make it look like an acronym? Just B.I.Z.A.R.R.E.

It’s a hat trick of dance hits to start the show as West End featuring Sybil are back in the studio with “The Love I Lost” and the differences between them all just serve to highlight what a multi-faceted beast ‘dance music’ is/was. This slick reworking of the old Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes classic was completely removed from the relentless, in your face beats of 2 Unlimited and the repetitive techno house rhythms U.S.U.R.A. but then I guess a slice of Philly soul disco (albeit remade for the 90s) was never going to sound like either of them. Somehow though there was room for all of them in the Top 10 at the same time – the world of dance was a broad church in 1993. I was working in Rochdale at the time this was a hit and from my very limited knowledge of nightclubs in the town (I went to one once), I can imagine that it would have gone down pretty well with the local punters.

The original was a UK No 21 hit in 1974 whilst the 1993 version went all the way to No 3.

https://youtu.be/CxDfSEJaqaA

The failure in their very early career of Take That to set the charts alight – none of their first three singles got higher than No 38 – is probably not that well remembered now. Similarly lost in the annals of pop history is that their chart rivals East 17 also went through an existential crisis early doors. Having announced themselves to UK pop fans with a Top 10 debut single “House Of Love”, they made the obvious next move of rush releasing a follow up in the form of the similar sounding “Gold”. Obvious isn’t always sensible though and the single struggled to a peak of No 28. Alarm bells rang at record label London Records and apparently there were rumours of the band being dropped unless another major hit single could be pulled out of the fire sharpish. Main songwriter Tony Mortimer would prove with “Deep” that he was more than up to the task.

Whereas the band’s first two hits had been high tempo, high energy stompers with juddering dance beats, “Deep” was nothing of the sort. It had a smooth, mellow funk groove that oozed out of your radio’s speaker. It was almost inconceivable that this was the same band that had been responsible for those first two hits. Apparently it was released on the sly as a promo to clubs initially under the pseudonym Levi and Friends. The reaction from clubbers was enough to warrant a full and official East 17 release. Its Top 5 chart placing was convinced London to let the band stay another day and their future was assured.

OK, that’s the song’s back story taken care of but we need to address this performance. First of all there’s the set. Here’s the band’s Terry Coldwell courtesy of @TOTPFacts on that subject:

Terry Coldwell: "No one told us what the set was gonna be or anything like that… We'd got this cool track and they'd placed us at the bottom of a swimming pool. It was so random." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 10, 2022

I have to take issue with Terry’s choice of the word ‘random’ here. It wasn’t actually random at all. Your song was called “Deep” so the TOTP producers put you in a set made up to look like a swimming pool. And what do swimming pools have Terry? Yep, a deep end. Now, a lame joke it may have been but random? No. Quite why there is a shark tied to the side of said swimming pool wall though remains a mystery. Then there’s the lady on the steps drinking a cocktail. Why is she there? To mine the operatic female vocal effect that appears halfway through the song? Maybe except she doesn’t really do that does she? Oh, is she meant to look like a mermaid? Again, bit of a mixed metaphor there then. Finally, why is John Hendy mooching around in the background with a bass guitar instead of joining in with the rest of the band on their really quite impressive dance moves? Maybe he had a poorly knee. Bless.

The album chart feature is back and this week is showcasing Dina Carroll’s “So Close” long player. The choice of track from it that Dina performs is curious though. On the face of it, “Don’t Be A Stranger” looks like a perfect choice seeing as it was the biggest selling single to be taken from the album. It’s just that it wasn’t released as a single until October. There would be two other singles taken from the album before then. Indeed, the first of those, “This Time”, would come out just a couple of weeks after this TOTP performance so why didn’t she perform that track? Unless…”Don’t Be A Stranger” was meant to be the next single but they kept it back on purpose for the Xmas market? Whatever the truth of the matter, “Don’t Be A Stranger” was a decent ballad and Dina performed it well. It would rise to No 3 in the singles chart when it was finally released nine months later

https://youtu.be/bK1cQAyxmC0

It’s the Breakers next which include two songs we’ve already seen on the show before starting with “Heaven Is” by Def Leppard. The fourth single from their “Adrenalize” album, it had apparently been around for years before it was finally recorded. Parts of it had been taken from “Hysteria” single “Armageddon It” according to band member Phil Collen. I don’t think that’s much of an endorsement to be honest Phil. A recycled version of a song whose lyrics include the line “Yeah, but are you gettin’ it? (Armageddon it!)”? Why not just get Beavis and Butthead to write your lyrics and be done with it? Utter nonsense. It peaked at No 13 (somehow) oh and singer Joe Elliott hated the video.

What’s this? The Cult’s 1985 hit “She Sells Sanctuary” back in the charts in 1993? What was going on?! Well, it’s a simple enough explanation. To fill a three year gap between studio albums, a Greatest Hits album entitled “Pure Cult: For Rockets, Ravers, Lovers And Sinners” was released and the band’s best known song was rereleased to promote it. Except it actually went by the title of “She Sells Sanctuary MCMXCIII” I believe and it’s…f******g horrible! What have they done to this stellar track?! I’ll tell you what – added some ridiculous bongos to it! Why? Just WHY?

Alright, I’m calming down. Back in 1985, this was the tune that got us all onto the dance floor in The Barn, my nightclub of choice in Worcester during my youth. I testified on the raised dance floor many a time to this track. And then…The Barn got taken over by new management and changed its name to the wankiest ever – Images On Glass – and changed its DJ who would not play anything even slightly goth or indie and The Cult were taken off the playlist. Instead we had to put up with the likes of Luther Vandross and Alexander O’Neal and the hippest tune they would play would be “Sanctify Yourself” by Simple Minds. It was a grim time.

Meanwhile in 1993, the remix of “She Sells Sanctuary” matched the chart peak of the original release when it made it to No 15. The “Pure Cult” Greatest Hits album – perhaps surprisingly – went to No 1.

It’s a third rock band on the spin as we get the latest single by Bon Jovi. The second single from their “Keep The Faith” album, “Bed Of Roses” would peak at a rather disappointing No 13. Now I’ve admitted in the past to my Bon Jovi weaknesses but this one always seemed like a bit of a duffer to me. A bit laborious, a bit obvious and not their finest hour at all to my ears but there seems to be a lot of online love out there for the track. For me though it was possibly the weakest of the singles from the album trailing far behind “In These Arms”, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” and the epic “Dry County”.

Apparently Jon Bon Jovi refused to shoot the mountain top scenes in the video having already been filmed at the top of a canyon for the “Blaze Of Glory” single from Young Guns II. He sent his band mates Richie Sambora and David Bryan instead. Rumour has it that, in reply to his instruction, they both said “I’ll Be There For You”. I’ll get me coat.

The re-emergence of Duran Duran is still in full effect. The “Ordinary World” single is rocketing up the charts and therefore qualifies as a Breaker this week. The video plays on the wedding theme of the album’s cover (despite officially having an eponymous title, it is also known as ‘the wedding album’) depicting a bride on her wedding day with the band as guests.

There’s a couple of things that always struck me about the video. Firstly, what was the deal with the elongated bow/sash thing that makes the bride’s wedding dress look like it has wings. Nick Rhodes has a fiddle with the accessory later on in the video when he’s setting up a photo shoot (of course he would play the photographer!). Secondly, the guy she’s marrying is punching so far above his weight he’s in danger of being knocked out in the first round. Despite those reservations and Simon Le Bon’s dodgy barnet, the whole thing just about hangs together OK.

I’m putting this out there right from the get go – I don’t like Lulu. I don’t like her voice, I always hated her most famous song “Shout” and I get the impression she’s not very nice. I know she’s carved out a career of huge longevity for herself and is one of just two performers (the other being Cliff Richard) to have performed on TOTP in every decade that the show was broadcast but I just don’t warm to her. There’s an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks (I think) where Dale Winton voiced his hatred of Lulu by saying he’d happily dance on her grave! You don’t get more savage takedowns than that.

Anyway, in 1993, she tried to resurrect her pop career. She’d only managed one hit in the 80s (a rerelease of “Shout”) so she returned with some material that had clearly been written to be contemporary and update her sound. “Independence” was the song that she chose to relaunch herself with and it was a slick, soul/dance number that drew inevitable comparisons with Lisa Stansfield. It all seemed very cynical to me. A carefully designed strategy to make Lulu still sound relevant. It did nothing for me.

The single made No 11 which I’m guessing would have been seen as a decent return for all that plotting but the album of the same name bombed and furnished her with only one further minor chart hit, a duet with Bobby Womack. Undaunted, Lulu regrouped and reappeared later in the year on a No 1 hit no less when she guested on Take That’s cover of Dan Hartman’s “Relight My Fire” prompting much gossip about which of the lads she was shagging. Now that really was something for the tabloids to ‘shout’ about.

Whitney Houston is still No 1. Apparently the original choice for the big song from The Bodyguard film was Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” but it had already been used heavily in the previous year’s Fried Green Tomatoes so that idea was ditched.

The main driver behind the decision to go with “I Will Always Love You” was Kevin Costner who made the case that the plot of the film hinged on Whitney’s character singing an a cappella version of it. In fact, Costner’s influence was also felt over Houston being cast in the role. So sure was he of her suitability was he that he convinced the studio to delay recording for a year until she was available. This was on the back of his Dances With Wolves film winning an Oscar in 1991 so his stock was very high. Not even that run in with her Madgesty on In Bed With Madonna could dent his halo.

Right at the end of the show there’s what can only be described as a Sting in the tail. Actually, it was more of a Sting trailer as host Tony Dortie bigs up the ex frontman of The Police being on the show next week. To do this there’s a compilation of three of his previous hits (“All This Time”, “The Soul Cages” and “An Englishman In New York”) to work the watching TV audience up into a frenzy. This was all very strange. Had this ever been done for anyone else? Was Sting still such a big name at this time? These were Kevin Costner levels of influence!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	No Limit	God no!
2	U.S.U.R.A.	Open Your Mind	Not for me thanks
3	West End featuring Sybil	The Love I Lost	I did not
4	East 17	Deep	No but my wife had the Walthamstow album
5	Dina Carroll	Don’t Be A Stranger	No
6	Def Leppard	Heaven Is	…not having to listen to this. No!
7	The Cult	She Sells Sanctuary	Not this horrible remix but I must have the original on something
8	Bon Jovi	Bed Of Roses	No but I had a promo copy of the album
9	Duran Duran	Ordinary World	Good song but not a purchase it seems
10	Lulu	Independence	Away with you!
11	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	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/m00183dv/top-of-the-pops-28011993

TOTP 21 JAN 1993

Posted on June 15, 2022 by 80stastic

There’s a new president in the White House as the day before this TOTP aired, Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd POTUS. I can’t really think about Clinton without this coming to mind…

And then this of course…

Politicians lying. Fast forward thirty odd years and literally nothing has changed. If anything, it’s got worse. And that’ll do for the intro this time. I’ve done a few lengthy ones lately so I’m due a more succinct start to a post.

We start the show with yet another 70s disco revival. After Boney M and their recent megamix single and Greatest Hits album returned them to the charts for the first time in well over a decade, now strode Sister Sledge straight into the Top 10. What was going on?

The last time we saw the sisters in the UK charts was eight years previous with a No 1 hit that was, for me, one of the worst hits of…well…ever. I refer of course to the execrable “Frankie”, a song so bad that it didn’t just stink the place out but dissolved its foundations with its foul stench. After that inexplicable chart topper, nothing, zip, nada. And then this comeback with a remix of 1979 hit and their signature tune “We Are Family”. Entitled the ‘Sure Is Pure Remix’, this is was to promote, like the aforementioned Boney M, a Greatest Hits compilation simply called “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge 1973-93”. Well, I guess you couldn’t blame their record label for wanting a piece of the retro action but this wasn’t the first time that there’d been a Sister Sledge revival. Back in 1984, Chic remixes of “Lost In Music” and “We Are Family” had graced the Top 40 to the tune of Nos 4 and 33 respectively yet here they were back again for another go. It seems you really can’t keep a good tune down and “We Are Family” is a good tune no doubt. The 1993 version peaked at No 5 and inevitably led to a follow up which was a re-release of, yes of course, “Lost In Music”. A bit less obviously there was a final rerelease of their 1984 hit “Thinking Of You” which would give the group their third hit single of the year.

As for the performance here, the first thing that I noticed is that there’s only three of the group on stage immediately rendering untrue the lyrics “I got all my sisters with me”. I’ve tried to work out who is there and who is missing. Kathy is definitely doing the lead vocals and I think that’s Kim and Debbie up there with her meaning it’s Joni who was missing (I think). Was it Joni who did most of the singing on “Frankie”? Sadly Joni passed away in 2017 but the group is still going via the family’s next generation as the sisters’ kids are now involved. Their website welcomes visitors with the intro:

Welcome ”FAM”, to the official Sister Sledge website! Keep it real, keep it “SLEDGENDARY®”!

They’ve copyrighted the word ‘sledgendary’. Excellent!

https://youtu.be/FXCh52YR9l8

It’s the 40-11 chart rundown next over the top of the video for Faith No More’s cover of “Easy” by the Commodores or “I’m Easy” as they have inexplicably taken it upon themselves to retitle it. The band are on record as saying that even though their version is very faithful, the video featuring some transvestites shows that they were ‘up to something’ in their decision to record it and that it was all very tongue in cheek. Was it the case then that they were trying to subvert and expose the mechanisms of the music industry by releasing the song and were in fact some sort of US version of The KLF?! I’m not sure I get nor am buying this.

“I’m Easy” peaked at No 3 in the UK but was only a minor hit in the US where it stuck at No 58. Cultural differences and all that.

Here’s a thing. I would never have thought that there was a connection between UK blue eyed soul merchants Go West and US West Coast rapper 2Pac but there is and it’s this song called “What You Won’t Do For Love”. Nothing to do with Meatloaf and his similar sounding single that would be the year’s best seller, this was actually a cover version (another one) of a 1978 track written by US singer-song writer Bobby Caldwell.

The 2Pac connection is courtesy of it being sampled for posthumous single “Do For Love” whist Go West recorded it for their “Indian Summer” album.

Peter Cox and Richard Drummie were on a bit of a roll come 1993. This was their third Top 20 hit on the bounce after “King Of Wishful Thinking” and “Faithful”. Who could have predicted that when the hits had dried up in the late 80s? I’m surprised it was a hit though as the duo’s version is a real plodder and sounds lumpen next to the original. To be honest I’m more drawn to their backing band than the song. There’s a sax player who looks like Eric Catchpole from Lovejoy and a guy on keyboards who resembles Just Good Friends actor and “Dancing With The Captain” hitmaker Paul Nicholas.

Go West saw out 1993 with two more UK hits both taken from their Best Of collection “Aces And Kings”. Their cover (another one!) of “The Tracks Of My Tears” by The Miracles reached No 16 whilst a re-release of debut hit “We Close Our Eyes” just scraped in at No 40. The band gave never returned to the UK charts since.

https://youtu.be/ipLKucGoT9Y

Snap! are waiting on the next stage to perform their hit “Exterminate!”. They were really keen on the use of exclamation marks weren’t they? I say ‘they’ but this seems to be mostly being promoted as a Niki Haris single if the on screen graphics and host Mark Franklin’s intro are anything to go by. She has had quite the career though. As well as her time with Snap!, she’s toured extensively with Madonna and collaborated with the likes of Anita Baker, Prince, Ray Charles, Tom Jones and Luther Vandross to name but a few. That Billie Holiday tribute thing that Franklin mentions though, well I struggled to find much online about that at all. Was it a film, TV special, album, concert? I found a listing on the BFI database but only scant details about it. Did it ever happen? Maybe it was exterminated? I’ll get me coat.

Yay the Breakers! This is where I have to comment on a load of songs some of which we may only ever get to see/hear for 30 seconds or so. Seems like a good deal. We start with a song for Bill Clinton – “Dogs Of Lust” by The The. Just as I have previously posted about XTC and Prefab Sprout, The The really don’t get the commercial success their catalogue deserves. Not in terms of the charts anyway and with TOTP being a show predominantly based around the Top 40, we rarely got to see them on our screens. I say ‘them’ but I mean Matt Johnson as the band really are basically a vehicle for his creativity.

This single was his first chart hit since 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation” and only his third ever at the time. It feels wrong to say that “Dogs Of Lust” was typical The The fare as if the word ‘typical’ could ever be applied to Matt Johnson but it was in the respect that it was as uncompromising, startling and in your face a track as everything he does always is. The opening harmonica riff which becomes a repeating refrain is reminiscent of the theme tune from The Old Grey Whistle Test and came courtesy of everyone’s favourite in demand collaborator Johnny Marr.

The track was the lead single from the album “Dusk” which, in a chart statistic that seeks to undermine my earlier claims about lack of commercial success, peaked at No 2. It produced three hit singles in all though none were bigger than “Dogs Of Lust” and its No 25 chart high.

Matt’s next two albums achieved very modest sales and he busied himself with creating film soundtracks as the new millennium dawned though he has recently released a No live album of his comeback gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

I’d totally forgotten that there was a fourth single release from Del Amitri’s “Change Everything” album despite it being the second biggest of the lot with a chart peak of No 20. The title of this one is almost a single by The Jam (“When You’re Young”) and very nearly a Bucks Fizz hit (“When We Were Young”) but “When You Were Young” it was and a pleasant little ditty it was too if a little formulaic.

There had been a gap of five months or so since their last single “Just Like A Man” but that was a marketing strategy decision apparently as “When You Were Young” was kept back to avoid the Xmas rush. I think the plan worked.

Alice In Chains? To quote Roy Chubby Brown, “Who The F**k Is Alice?”. Well, they were one of those grunge bands of course that were meant to flood the UK music scene in the wake of Nirvana but which never really materialised. “Would?” was actually from the soundtrack to the film Singles which I loved but which my friend Robin who I saw it with hated. In essence, it was your basic romantic comedy/ drama but set in Seattle against the backdrop of the grunge movement. Following the love lives of two couples and one single person, its soundtrack featured big grunge hitters like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and of course Alice In Chains as well as alternative rockers like Paul Westerberg and The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m pretty sure I even gave it a play on the shop stereo of the Rochdale Our Price I was working in. “Would?” is a heavy sound that wouldn’t normally have floated my boat but then I had liked “Alive” by Pearl Jam so maybe my tastes were changing back then.

Alice In Chains would rack up a string of minor hits in the UK during the 90s though none as big as “Would?” which peaked at No 19. They also had songs feature on two other films, Arnie’s Last Action Hero and slacker comedy Clerks. Oh, and the reason Robin hated Singles? There’s a character called Steve in it who is a town planner but who used to be a DJ. In a scene in his flat with new girlfriend Linda, they’re perusing his record collection and the vinyl is in PVC sleeves. Even his punk records. This disgusted Robin so much he barely paid any attention to the rest of the film.

A lot of the dance anthems that have featured on these TOTP repeats have failed to ring any bells with me but I do recall “Open Your Mind” by U.S.U.R.A. This piece of Italian techno sampled “New Gold Dream (81–82–83–84)” by Simple Minds and was a dance smash around Europe including over here where it peaked at No 7. I even recall that it was on the very hip Deconstruction Records label because it had that generic red and yellow single cover with a band looping a ‘d’ and ‘c’ together.

The face morphing video caused a bit of a stir not for its effects – it was no “Black And White” – but because of the faces chosen which included Joe McCarthy, Benito Mussolini, Richard Nixon, Ian Paisley, Ronald Reagan, Josef Stalin, Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse. Interestingly no Bill Clinton though.

Now to a very underrated band with a song that’s actually a bit of a banger in a very understated way. The Beloved had come to popular attention in late ‘89/early ‘90 with the hit singles “The Sun Rising” and “Hello” and an album “Happiness” which gained positive reviews for its fusion of house and pop music. Fast forward three years and the band had been through a seismic shift with founding member Steve Waddington having left the fold. Remaining original member Jon Marsh replaced him with his wife Helena. Nothing like keeping it in the family eh?

This new line up returned in 1993 with “Sweet Harmony” the lead single from new album “Conscience”. It was still that combination of dance beats and a pop structure on which they’d made their name but this time that sound had been refined right down to the most precise of details. This was so slick that it worked as a club anthem and as a great pop song as substantiated by its Top 10 chart placing. Clearly the TOTP producers didn’t quite know what to do with this genre bending hit as exemplified by that classic default strategy of flooding the stage with dry ice.

However, it wasn’t their appearance on the show that everyone was talking about but rather the single’s accompanying promo video. You know, the nudity one. Yes, the staging of a naked Jon Marsh surrounded by similarly nude women (infamously including then unknown but future TV presenter Tess Daly) was meant to promote the idea of human unity but instead got the likes of the aforementioned Mary Whitehouse outraged at the indecency.

There were at least two people who did like it though…

What was it this week with acts who felt the need to turn their names into faux acronyms. After U.S.U.R.A. earlier, we now have T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Didn’t these people realise I’d be writing a blog thirty years later and have to type this nonsense out?!

After being a Breaker last week, this Clivillés and Cole project were in the studio seven days on to perform “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”. Yes, that’s TV’s Michelle Visage up there with the Nosferatu talons and she’s giving me some heavy PM Dawn / “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” vibes with her rapping style.

Taken from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, it was already at its No 17 peak which was 13 places lower than the chart high achieved by a Ben Liebrand remix of the Bill Withers original back in 1988.

Now I knew there were at least two singles taken from Def Leppard’s “Adrenalize” album in the odious “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man” but I had no idea that it had gifted the world six! “Heaven Is” was the fourth of those and lead singer Joe Elliott is on record as saying the song was ‘more Queen than Queen’ and that the backing vocals sounded like The Beach Boys. Hmm. Let’s have another listen then…

*3 minutes 37 seconds later*

…nah, that’s just the same old Def Leppard shite.

“Heaven Is” peaked at No 13.

Is this week eight at the top for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You”? I’m losing count now. I’m also running out of things to say about it so instead, here’s Dolly Parton’s original…

…and Whitney’s version for comparison…

*So which is best?

*It’s Dolly. Obviously.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sister Sledge	We Are Family (Sure Is Pure Remix)	Nope
2	Faith No More	I’m Easy	No
3	Go West	What You Won’t Do For Love	I did not
4	Snap!	Exterminate!	Nah
5	The The	Dogs Of Lust	No but I maybe should have
6	Del Amitri	When You Were Young	Not the single but it’s on my Best Of of theirs that I have
7	Alice In Chains	Would?	Negative
8	U.S.U.R.A.	Open Your Mind	Remembered it, didn’t buy it
9	The Beloved	Sweet Harmony	See 5 above
10	T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.	It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day	And no
11	Def Leppard	Heaven Is	Not this – no!
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	She’ll never beat Dolly for me

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/m00183ds/top-of-the-pops-21011993

TOTP 14 JAN 1993

Posted on June 10, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s mid January 1993 and I’m pissed off. The night before this TOTP aired, my beloved Chelsea had lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. That result combined with losing to Crystal Palace in the League Cup the week before effectively ended our season at the halfway stage. Bloody Hell! This was in the days before rolling coverage and every game being on TV. I tuned into Sportsnight to find out the result and it just came up on the screen. No highlights, no post match interviews, no report from the ground just the presenter reading out the result. Brutal. Anyway, as such, I was in a bad mood at work in the Our Price store in Rochdale the next day. I wonder if I sold any of the singles on this TOTP that day?

Well I certainly remember this tune as shifting a fair few copies. West End featuring Sybil and “The Love I Lost” seemed to strike a chord with record buyers that maybe few of us saw coming. Or perhaps we really should have. Let’s examine the evidence…

Firstly, Sybil was a known singer with a small but healthy track record of recent hits. In 1989 she’d bagged herself two chart entries with cover versions of Bacharach and David songs “Don’t Make Me Over” and “Walk On By” which peaked at No 19 and No 6 respectively. Ah yes, that’s the next piece of evidence- cover versions. The charts were full of cover versions around this time so why not jump on the bandwagon? Thirdly, this wasn’t just any cover version. The original was by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and what usually happened to Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes cover versions historically? Yep, they were massive hits. The Communards take on “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was the biggest selling single of 1986 whilst Simply Red’s 1989 cover of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” went to No 2. Fourthly, it was produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman who knew a thing or two about hit records. Or was it? Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Producer Eddie Gordon: "I was West End, solely… The reason you won't find my name on the record is because Pete Waterman and Mike Stock decided that due to the success of [the track] they would now be West End, until I threatened to sue them." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 10, 2022

There’s more…

"… They then sent a fax around to the UK's major labels' A & R departments to say that I played no part in the recording process, to try and stop West End from being hired as remixers." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 10, 2022

And finally…

"Tony Dortie introduced the act on TV with, 'and the man behind West End is Eddie Gordon', after another PWL employee at the rehearsal told Tony what Waterman was up to." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 10, 2022

Wow! What a tangled web we weave! Sybil didn’t care though and used the success of “The Love I Lost” (it made No 3) to give her career a shot in the arm and bagged herself a Top 5 follow up single in “When I’m Good And Ready” and a Top 20 album in “Good ‘N’ Ready”. Two more singles were released from it but in a remarkable case of bad luck, both peaked at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41.

Oh, here we go. A sure sign that Take That were now officially a big deal is the fact that they’ve done a little to camera piece from Germany explaining why they can’t be in the TOTP studio to perform “Could It Be Magic”. They were now that established! Although it only lasts a few seconds, it’s interesting to note that the only band member not to speak is Robbie Williams who I would have guessed would have been all over this especially as it’s him on lead vocals on the single. Maybe he wasn’t very well, poor thing.

As I recall there was a lot of praise for Take That’s treatment of this Barry Manilow track at the time in terms of turning it from the original ballad into an up tempo disco stomper. What I didn’t know then was that Donna Summer had already performed that transformation in 1976 and had a huge hit on the US dance chart with it (in the UK it barely grazed the Top 40).

https://youtu.be/m6EhtE77a6c

Donna’s version isn’t quite as frenetic as Take That’s and takes a good minute or so to warm up but once it gets going, you can hear that the teen sensations couldn’t claim to have come up with the original concept. I mean, what they did with it was pretty good and all and even won them a BRIT for Best British Single but original? No.

“Could It Be Magic” peaked at No 3 for Take That.

Shanice?! She never had another hit other than “I Love Your Smile”. I know because I checked for my review of 1992 so why is she back on TOTP in 1993? Oh, it’s the US charts feature and she’s having a big hit with “Saving Forever For You” over there. I see. The single ultimately peaked at No 4 across the pond but we were harder to please here in the UK and it stalled outside the Top 40 despite this TOTP appearance.

As host Tony Dortie says, the song is from the soundtrack to hit 90s US teen drama Beverly Hills 90210. My wife used to watch this on a Saturday morning after I had hauled my sorry ass onto the early morning bus to Rochdale for work. Despite saying nothing to us about our lives, it was popular in the UK as well making the lead actors like Jason Priestley and Luke Perry major stars. It ran for ten years and was reactivated in 2018.

I have no recall of the music featured in the show though and a glance at the track listing of the soundtrack album released in 1992 doesn’t help – I don’t know any of the songs on it. “Saving Forever For You” was however written by prolific songwriter Diane Warren who has been responsible for some of the biggest US hits over the last 30 years or so including nine No 1s so it had pedigree though that clearly cut no ice with the UK record buying public. It sounds a bit like “Miss You Like Crazy” by Natalie Cole which Warren didn’t write but which she probably could have.

Shanice’s performance here throws up a few questions. Why has she turned up wearing multi coloured dungarees like a Play School presenter, why was she sat down for the majority of the song and what was the deal with the lone floral arrangement behind her?

The next studio performance looks and sounds chaotic but not in a good way. Pop Will Eat Itself had, possibly against the odds, racked up a steady flow of Top 40 hits since the late 80s with their brand of sample driven indie rock that the music press decided should be called ‘grebo’. I say it was unlikely not because they weren’t any good – “Def. Con. One” and “X Y and Zee” are great records – but they always seemed to be swimming against the tide of what was chart popular. They were outliers in their sound and image. Yes, the other members of that Stourbridge triumvirate had also managed to achieve chart hits but certainly in the case of The Wonder Stuff, that seemed to have come about because of a deliberate decision to go for a more commercial sound (“Size Of Cow” etc).

PWEI still seemed really out there to me and this is ably demonstrated in their performance for “Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!”. This was all over the place and, let’s be fair, the vocals were hardly on point. One of the band has turned up with hair like Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Mad Hatter whilst the other fella looks like Wee Willy Winkie but with dreadlocks instead of a hat. I suppose what I’m saying is that I just wasn’t feeling this one. Other punters did though sending it to No 9 (NINE!) in the charts making it their biggest ever hit though I’m putting that down to a slack sales period following Xmas and a loyal fanbase.

https://youtu.be/tWU6FKJV5ns

After playing Arrested Development’s “Revolution” in the Breakers the other week, TOTP have flipped to the other song in the double A-side single this week as we get “Mr. Wendal” this time around in a live by satellite performance from Atlanta, Georgia. I always liked this and actually preferred it to “People Everyday”. An insightful piece on the status of being homeless, it had a vibrancy to it and an undoubted groove as well.

This performance reflects the record with a high stepping, high kicking, star jumping backing singer, a guy spinning some tunes whilst…erm…constantly sitting down and an old fella (Mr. Wendal?) sat in a rocking chair cleaning a pair of shoes! OK, maybe it didn’t reflect the energy of the track completely but if you’re going to listen to a pop song about homelessness, wouldn’t you prefer it to be this over “Another Day In Paradise”?

“Mr. Wendal” peaked at No 4.

I didn’t know the source material for this next song until I checked it out the other week and I have to say listening to the Marianne Faithfull original was hardly a road to Damascus moment. I guess Sunscreem should be given credit for attempting to turn “Broken English” into a dance anthem but for me it never quite gets going and then all of a sudden it’s over. The repeated lyric ‘What are you fighting for?’ lent itself to the repetitive beat of a house banger but all the jumping around by singer Lucia Holm and the addition of two podium dancers and a key change can’t sell it to me.

Sunscreem’s version of “Broken English” peaked at No 13.

https://youtu.be/qsGHVv5ZN0A

Here come this week’s Breakers starting with those funky divas En Vogue and their latest single “Give It Up, Turn It Loose”. Now, if I was on Popmaster on Radio 2 and got through to the 3 in 10 challenge, I reckon I could do it if Ken Bruce asked me for three hit singles by En Vogue. However, this wouldn’t have been one. This must have totally passed me by back in the day. Listening to it now, the first word that comes to mind is ‘smooth’. These girls knew how to put a soul vibe together.

Being the fourth single from the album hampered its chart chances but “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” still managed a respectable peak of No 22. Oh, I would have gone for “Hold On”, “My Lovin’ ( You’re Never Gonna Get It)” and “Free Your Mind” on 3 in 10 by the way.

Now I was pretty sure that of the singles released from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, all but one of them were by Whitney Houston with the anomaly being Lisa Stansfield. If I’m right in this assumption (which according to Wikipedia I am), how do you explain T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. and their Bill Withers’ inspired hit “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”? Well, I’m reliant on Wikipedia again here which tells me that this lot were a Clivillés and Cole (of C+C Music Factory) project featuring one Michelle Visage on lead vocals. Yes, that Michelle Visage of Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Big Brother and Ru Paul’s Drag Race fame. Also part of the ensemble was a singer called Octavia, a name which, if you’re reading this and are my age, should be giving you some heavy Pipkins vibes right now.

Anyway, this track was definitely on The Bodyguard soundtrack, though I don’t remember it as being at all. All I think of when I think of that album is Whitney Houston and power ballads. I certainly don’t think of T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. whom I’ve learned to dislike immensely on account of what a pain in the arse it is to type out their name.

“It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day” peaked at No 17.

Now I do remember this next one. In 1986, you couldn’t escape Peter Gabriel. His “So” album was a No 1 around the world propelled to success by the single “Sledgehammer” and that video. It would be another six years before the follow up album “Us” appeared. In the intervening years, there’d been just a film soundtrack album (“Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ”) and a Best Of compilation “Shaking The Tree”. What would his new material sound like? Well, if “Steam” was anything to go by, it was exactly the same as the old material.

The second single from the album, this was “Sledgehammer Pt II”. Not that this was a bad thing, it was just that I think we were expecting something more from a creative like Gabriel. Not only did “Steam” sound like “Sledgehammer”, it looked like it too as the accompanying video was directed by Stephen R Johnson who had made the promos for “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time”. It would win a Grammy for Best Music video, the second consecutive triumph for a Peter Gabriel video after “Digging The Dirt” the previous year. The motion capture technology for the water sequences was used again in the video for TLC’s “Waterfalls” video a couple of years later which again generated awards a plenty. As engaging as the “Steam” promo is, it does make Gabriel come across as a creepy sex pest in places.

Despite a chart high of No 10, we never got to see any more of the video on TOTP other than this glimpse in the Breakers which seems kind of odd and must have pissed off Gabriel and Johnson. So successful was the single in Canada that it knocked Whitney Houston off the No 1 spot which must have taken some doing. Just one more thing on this song, if you mash up “Steam” and “Sledgehammer” you just about get the title of a great single of the 80s which should have been huge but which missed the charts altogether…

Of the twelve songs featured in tonight’s show, half of them are cover versions. Here’s another one now and this one might just be the strangest of the lot. The reason given by Faith No More as to why they covered “Easy” by the Commodores was that they wanted to wrong foot some of the traditional rock crowd coming to see their gigs. Originally recorded to be a B-side to their “Be Aggressive” single, their label decided to make the release a double A-side instead. It was a good decision as the cover got all the airplay and made the single a No 3 hit. So far so straightforward. Where’s the strangeness in that then? OK well, firstly the track was retitled as “I’m Easy” but…only in Europe. What was that all about? Secondly, they did it absolutely straight, almost a carbon copy of the original even down to the Lionel Richie “oooh!” sound after the middle eight. Why bother? Whet was the point of that? Finally, given its similarity to the original, why were punters buying in their droves? Did they not know the original at all? Did they think it was a Faith Mo More song? I just didn’t get it.

The single went all the way to No 3 in the UK at a stroke easily becoming their biggest hit. It wasn’t on the initial pressings of the band’s “Angel Dust” album but given the single’s success it was rereleased with the track included. Obviously.

Now here was a song that certainly wasn’t a cover. By 1993, popular opinion decreed that Duran Duran were dead in the water. A pop group from the 80s that had elicited far more screams from their adoring fans than favourable reviews from the music press at their peak daring to think they could still be relevant in the 90s? On yer bikes lads! They had started the new decade with an underperforming album in “Liberty” that seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. ‘Look guys, you had a good run now do one will you’ seemed to be the perceived wisdom. Maybe another band would have indeed done one but Duran Duran weren’t any other band. Like U2, whatever you think of them, their longevity deserves some credit.

And so it came to pass that “Ordinary World” would be the catalyst for a revival of fortunes that was a pivotal moment, a turning point in their career. Widely recognised as their best ever tune, it was such a mature sound that record buyers seemed to forget any prejudice they may have been holding against the band and bought it in huge quantities. Written about the death of a friend, Simon Le Bon’s notoriously (ooh see what I did there?) oblique lyrics were never stronger than on display here. It was a masterpiece of composition. It went to No 6, the band’s highest chart peak since “A View To A Kill” eight years before.

The band had lost two core members back in 1985/86 in the Taylors Andy and Roger but the three remaining originals were now joined by guitarist Warren Cuccurullo on a permanent basis and his guitar sound on the record would prove to be instrumental in its success. The album sold well – 100,000 units shifted in the UK and 1 million in the US. Two more singles were released and charted with “Come Undone” an especially good follow up. Their positive reviews was short lived though as their next album “Thank You”, their covers project, was panned and has been described by dissenting music press columnists as one of the worst albums of all time.

Back in 1993 though, I recall that the album “Duran Duran” (aka “The Wedding album”) came out in the February and we had a customer in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working come in and ask to reserve the vinyl version for her super fan husband (along with the cassette and CD formats). We were a small store and didn’t stock vinyl so to ensure we had a copy in stock on the day of release, we had to order it one week in advance. The customer was adamant that it was imperative that her hubby got his hands on all available formats on the big day so I promised I would sort it for her/him. And I did. The vinyl came in on time but unfortunately neither the woman nor her husband did…ever. We were left with a vinyl copy we couldn’t display. Bloody Durannies! The song itself though was a beauty and I’m surprised it didn’t hit Top 3 at least.

As for their performance on TOTP, Simon Le Bon’s notoriously (ooh I did it again!) shonky vocals just about stand up in that there’s no flat note incident as per their Live Aid appearance but he seems to be struggling a bit in the fade out. Still, as Tony Dortie says, it was nice to see them back and in such good form.

It’s seven weeks at No 1 for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You” with the single achieving enough sales to be confirmed as the biggest selling single by a female solo artist ever at the time. She was toppled in the UK of that title by Cher whose 1998 single “Believe” sold 1.79 million copies. I’m not sure if that record still stands. I don’t understand the charts now which seem to allow anything to be a chart entry if it gets enough streams. I think Kate Bush might be No 1 this week with “Running Up That Hill” due to its use in the finale of Netflix horror drama series Stranger Things. It’s a crazy world we live in these days.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	West End featuring Sybil	The Love I Lost	Nope
2	Take That	Could It Be Magic	Nah
3	Shanice	Saving Forever For You	Did anybody?
4	Pop Will Eat Itself	Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!	I did not
5	Arrested Development	Mr. Wendal	No but my wife had the album
6	Sunscreem	Broken English	Did nothing for me
7	En Vogue	Give It Up, Turn It Loose	No
8	T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.	It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day	Negative
9	Peter Gabriel	Steam	It was OK but I was never going to buy it
10	Faith No More	I’m Easy	No – didn’t get this at all
11	Duran Duran	Ordinary World	Not the single but I have it on something I’m sure
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0017wty/top-of-the-pops-14011993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 20 JAN 1994

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TOTP 23 DEC 1993

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TOTP 04 NOV 1993

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TOTP 29 JUL 1993

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TOTP 22 APR 1993

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TOTP 18 FEB 1993

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TOTP 04 FEB 1993

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TOTP 28 JAN 1993

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TOTP 21 JAN 1993

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TOTP 14 JAN 1993

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