TOTP Rewind – the 90s | My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 18 MAY 1995

Posted on November 15, 2023 by 80stastic

We have a new presenter tonight as Lisa I’Anson makes her TOTP debut. Lisa was the new weekday host of Radio 1’s lunchtime show and presumably was given an opportunity on the BBC’s flagship music programme to raise her profile and promote her appointment. Lisa stayed in that slot until 1996 when she shifted to the weekend lunchtime show. However, her tenure at Radio 1 came to an end in the aftermath of a no show for her…erm…show in August 1998 after a night out in Ibiza where Radio 1 had decamped to for its annual Summer jaunt. The writing was on the wall and she left the station six months later. After the shenanigans Chris Evans had put the Radio 1 management through just a few years earlier including demands for extra holiday and Fridays off and a 17 hour bender that only ended 2 hours before he was due on air, they were always going to come down hard on subsequent misdemeanours. It was a different story over at Talksport though where Breakfast Show presenter Alan Brazil was sacked in 2004 for missing a show only to be reinstated three weeks later.

For now though, Lisa was a fully paid up part of the Radio 1 gang and loving her first TOTP appearance even allowing herself a quick “Hello Mum” to camera before she introduces tonight’s opening artist who is Billie Ray Martin with “Your Loving Arms”. When I first started working for Our Price in the Autumn of 1990, all the hipper members of staff loved Electribe 101. Their album “Electribal Memories” could always be found near the store’s CD player so often was it played. I was never really onboard with the whole thing though probably because I wasn’t one of the hipper members of staff. Anyway, Electribe 101 drifted towards a break up but singer Billie Ray Martin’s vocal talents meant she was never going to just be allowed to disappear without trace and so at the very end of October 1994, her debut solo single “Your Loving Arms” was released. Hang on…October 1994 you say? But we’re in May 1995…what gives? Well, it’s yet another case of a minor dance hit single being rereleased a few months later and becoming a major one. This was all the rage around about now. Think Strike’s “U Sure Do” and “Dreamer” by Livin’ Joy and now this one. Its original chart peak of No 38 was completely eclipsed second time around when it went to No 6. How and why did this keep happening? Were the rereleases remixed by happening DJs or was it just a case of there being a lot of money sloshing around in record labels marketing budgets so giving a record another go was always an option? I’m not sure but “Your Loving Arms” was sleek, stylish and fronted by an artist who was also both of those things so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to us that it became a big hit eventually. Sadly for Billie, she would never have such success again though she did manage two No 29 follow ups from her album “Deadline For My Memories” though the album itself failed to shift in huge quantities.

Now this performance here, what were the angels all about? I’ve checked the lyrics to the track out and can’t see any tie in. Admittedly, their wings are impressive but it all seems rather disconnected and over the top. Billie herself is rather static due to the length of the train her dress has. All a bit odd but I probably accepted it as completely normal back then. Billie Ray Martin’s career choice meant that she continued the timeline of singers called Billie. Before her came Billie Holiday, Billie Jo Spears and she was followed by Billie Eilish and…erm…well Billie!

Celine Dion is back in the studio for another crack at propelling “Only One Road” up the charts “Think Twice” style. It’s yet another power ballad (of course it is, did she ever record anything that wasn’t?) but I would wager that it’s not one that is easily remembered compared to “My Heart Will Go On”, the aforementioned “Think Twice” or even her cover of Jennifer Rush’s “The Power Of Love”. It sounds like it could be from a Disney film which was indeed a road Celine had traveled before when she recorded the theme song to Beauty And The Beast with Peabo Bryson. Whatever you think of her music (and that’s not much in my book), let’s wish her well battling against the neurological condition stiff-person syndrome that she was diagnosed with last year.

Wait, what?! Ali Campbell had a solo career? Yes he did and irony of ironies, he did it whilst he was still a member of UB40 so presumably with the band’s blessing? Given what happened between the two parties subsequently, it strikes me now as a peculiar state of affairs. Was it an authorised project to fill the four year gap between the UB40 albums “Promises And Lies” and “Guns In The Ghetto”? Whatever the reasons behind the endeavour, Ali found himself riding high in the charts with a song called “That Look In Your Eye” and an album called “Big Love”. I don’t remember the single at all which seems quite a slight thing with some very reedy singing on it from both Ali and his duet partner, one Pamela Starks who very little seems to be known about. I can find reference to a Pamela Starks who is a casting director and worked on the Prince film Sign ‘o’ the Times but they can’t be the same people can they? From casting for a music legend to singing a twee little number with the bloke from UB40? It seems an unlikely journey.

Campbell would squeeze out two further solo hit singles, both of which were covers – a version of “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah” by Jimmy Cliff and another duet, this time with his daughter Kibibi on “Somethin’ Stupid” as made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. Blimey! Come back Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne – all is forgiven.

Next, the first of two iconic songs in the show beginning with “Yes” by McAlmont & Butler. What a track this is! An instant stone cold classic. The huge Phil Spector-esque wall of sound, the joyously uplifting chorus, Bernard’s immense guitar work and David’s stunning vocals. Not just one of the songs of the year but of the decade too. If there were any doubts about the ex-Suede guitarist’s career potential, they were surely blown away by this track. As for McAlmont, I’d certainly had no idea who he was before this but once you’d heard that voice, you would never forget him.

Despite working in a record shop and selling loads of this single during the week, remarkably, I hadn’t actually heard “Yes” once. This was corrected in some style when I met up with some old Polytechnic friends in Chester at the weekend. My friend Robin had bought “Yes” and brought it with him and insisted on playing it to the group continuously on the first night. When the track had finished and the next track on the CD single began, Robin would shake his head, say “uh-uh” and restart “Yes”. This went on for some time but although people in the group were getting a bit fed up, it certainly resolved my issue of not having heard the track up to that point.

As good as this TOTP performance is, you really have to see their appearance on Later…with Jools Holland to appreciate the true majesty of the song. Bernard wigging out with his guitar, David and his extraordinary vocal range and even more extraordinarily long fingers that gave him an otherworldly quality; it’s quite astonishing and a clip I keep returning to after all these years. The duo will return to the TOTP studio on the next show so I’ll have more to say about them then.

It’s that song from the Guinness advert next. “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado was the music that soundtracked said advert called Anticipation which you may remember as featuring the guy doing weird dancing whilst waiting for his pint to settle. What you may not be aware of (as I wasn’t until now) is that the campaign started a lawsuit battle. British director Mehdi Norowzian launched the litigation against advertising agency Arks claiming that the company had based Anticipation on a short film called Joy that he had presented to Arks as part of a show reel whilst trying to secure employment with them. Arks did offer Norowzian a job, that of directing an advert for their client Guinness based around Joy and its distinctive jump editing sequence. When Norowzian turned them down as he wanted to do something completely different, Arks went ahead and made the advert without him. Norowzian lost his legal battle and had to pay £200,000 in legal costs. Here are both Anticipation and Joy so you can compare them. I definitely prefer Joy.

wait for it…

The guy in the advert is called Joe McKinney and he spent two years making personal appearances around Europe promoting Guinness. Sound like a dream job? Not for Joe. That lifestyle became too much for him and he gave up alcohol in 1997. He did go on to have a successful acting career but he did not take part in the Guinness 250th anniversary celebrations in 2009.

Next a man who’s singing a song that sounds like it could be Elton John’s latest single followed by…yep Elton John and his latest single. Joshua Kadison is the young pretender in this scenario with his single “Jessie” which has been stuck at No 20 for three weeks (this appearance would push it up to a peak of No 15).

It’s a nice enough song I guess though it does try to be Elton’s “Daniel” a bit too much I think. The irony here is that Kadison sounds more like Elton here than Elton does himself these days…

And so to the man himself. Elton John wasn’t quite as prolific in the 90s as he had been in the 70s and 80s but he was still churning out albums on a pretty regular basis. After 1992’s “The One”, “1993’s “Duets” and 1994’s “The Lion King” soundtrack came “Made In England”. When I think of Elton’s output this decade, what comes to mind first are ballads, mostly of the mawkish variety. The title track of this, his 24th studio album, was nothing of the kind though being a jaunty, upbeat, classic pop song with a singalong chorus.

By the end of 1996 though, it was back to the ballads with a collection called simply “Love Songs”. It included two tracks from the “Made In England” album the song titles of which were all just one word apart from the title track. This performance was from the British ambassador’s residence in Paris. I guess Elton was trying to be humorous.

Time for that second iconic song of the evening. There can’t be many people who aren’t aware of “Common People” by Pulp. Instantly recognisable and perhaps one of the songs most linked with Britpop (whether they liked it or not), it remains the band’s calling card. After years of swimming in the shallow waters of indie-dom followed by breakthrough bona fide chart hits from their “His ‘n’ Hers” album, with “Common People”, their success and fame exploded. Jarvis assumed national treasure status (only increased by his Michael Jackson protest at the BRITS) and sales of their “Different Class” album went through the roof (four times platinum in the UK). In the end it just took one song to cut through to the masses to enable all of this and “Common People” was the perfect vehicle even down to its title.

Written about a real life encounter Cocker had with a Greek art student at Saint Martins College who wanted to move to Hackney and rough it with ‘the common people’, it has become completely entrenched in the national consciousness even transcending the world of pop music to wider cultural realms. Look at this for example…

Such is the song’s legend that it even warranted an hour long BBC3 documentary in 2006. Sadly the film makers failed to locate the Greek art student who inspired the track though the Athens Voice newspaper suggested the wife of a former finance minister and daughter of a wealthy Greek businessman. In 2012, in true Lambert Simnel style, a woman called Katerina Kana came forward stating that the song is about her though Jarvis has not commented on her claim. “Common People” was voted the nation’s favourite Britpop song in a BBC Radio 6 Music poll in 2014 whilst that accolade was repeated the following year in a Rolling Stone magazine poll.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Never reluctant to shoot itself in its collective foot, the good old British public decided that it really couldn’t live without a shonky cover version of a song so well known it had been No 1 in our charts just five years earlier. It’s not quite the national leave of senses that Mr. Blobby was but it’s up there.

I’ve never watched the TV series Soldier Soldier that made pop stars out of actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn but enough people did that when their characters performed a version of “Unchained Melody” in an episode broadcast in November 1994, it started a desire amongst the show’s fans to own a copy of it that only one man could satiate. Step forward the scourge of the charts Simon Cowell to give us Robson & Jerome. Never one to miss out on a sales opportunity regardless of its artistic merit, Cowell pursued the two actors to record an official release of “Unchained Melody” to such an extent that Green threatened him with legal action to stop the harassment. He eventually relented though and the single was released on May 8th.

What happened next was nothing short of a phenomenon. First week sales of 300,000 easily took it to the No 1 position but incredibly it outstripped even that the following week with 470,000 units shifted; the biggest one week sales of a record since Band Aid in 1984. At one point it was selling 10 times more than the No 2 record “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado and more than the rest of the Top 10 combined. It would become the UK’s biggest selling single of 1995. I distinctly recall the beginnings of its sales story. The morning it was released, we kept being asked for it in the Our Price store I was working in but so under the radar had it been that the buying team at Head Office hadn’t bought in any copies for the chain initially meaning none of the company’s shops had it in stock. Trying to be proactive, we placed our own order for some copies just to meet local demand before Head Office cottoned on to what was happening and placed a massive order for the whole chain. All of this proved that retailers should never underestimate how suggestible the public are to the power of a popular TV show.

Right, I’m nearly done. Just the play out track to go and it may not be an iconic song but it’s certainly by a legendary artist. Despite being dead for 14 years by this point, Bob Marley’s back catalogue kept being raided for ever more releases and chart entries. “Keep On Moving” came from a compilation album called “Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On” which was kind of a continuation of the 1984 Best Of “Legend”. I don’t recall this single at all but it did make No 17 in the UK charts. Right, I’m out. See ya!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Billie Ray Martin	Your Loving Arms	No
2	Celine Dion	Only One Road	Negative
3	Ali Campbell	That Look In Your Eye	I did not
4	McAlmont & Butler	Yes	YES!!!
5	Perez ‘Prez’ Prado	Guaglione	Nah
6	Joshua Kadison	Jessie	Nope
7	Elton John	Made In England	It’s a no
8	Pulp	Common People	Not but I had the ‘Different Class’ album
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	Are you kidding?!
10	Bob Marley	Keep On Moving	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/m001s8tg/top-of-the-pops-18051995

TOTP 11 MAY 1995

Posted on November 11, 2023 by 80stastic

We’ve arrived in May of 1995 here at TOTP Rewind and we know what happens in May – finals. The day before this TOTP aired, Arsenal lost the European Cup Winners Cup Final to Real Zaragoza when Nayim famously lobbed Seaman (ahem) from the halfway line and a week later Everton would upset the odds to triumph over Manchester United in the FA Cup final (more of that later). And then there was the annual music final. This year’s Eurovision Song Contest took place on the Saturday following this TOTP (more of that later). Before any of that though, I bring bad news – tonight’s host is Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo. Expect a procession of oblique and unfunny references to news stories of the time that Simon thinks make him sound clever but which in fact make him look like a prick.

We begin with Supergrass and their second UK Top 40 hit “Lenny”. One of the names that always comes up when Britpop is mentioned, Gaz, Mick and Danny also suffered from being associated with one song in particular despite achieving fourteen Top 40 hits including six inside the Top 10 and two No 2s. That song is, of course, “Alright” which will be along in a few weeks on these TOTP repeats. So damaged were they by its notoriety that when I saw them live in York in 2003, they didn’t include it in the set list which seemed a bit churlish if I’m honest. For now though, they were just trying to follow up their Top 20 hit “Mansize Rooster” from the year before and did so ably with “Lenny” which made it to No 10. A muscular, driving guitar heavy track with a galloping drum backing, it’s a thrilling if short ride – we get just over two minutes worth in this performance.

Visually, I was struck by the band’s three person guitar/bass/drums set up which immediately put me in mind of that other famous UK trio The Jam. Paul Weller would never have sported Gaz Coombes’ lamb chop sideburns though. He went in for those carefully shaped side strands of hair grown from the head rather than the face that curled into a point. Very modish and a look my Weller obsessed brother would sport for years. Anyway, as I said, Supergrass will be back soon enough smoking a fag and putting it out whilst keeping their teeth nice and clean whether they like it or not.

The first Simon Mayo ‘gag’ is here – something about Rugby Union administrators. I can’t be bothered to research what he was blathering on about but fortunately here’s @TOTPFacts so I don’t have to:

Simon Mayo's rugby union quip was presumably a reference to the furore over England captaIn Will Carling being demoted after referring to the sport's administrators as "57 old farts". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 3, 2023

Hysterical work from Mayo there. The second act tonight is Montell Jordan who is the latest (or perhaps he was the original?) to use that nah-ner-ner-nah-nah-ner-ner- nah-nah hook that also featured in MN8’s recent hit “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” and would pop up again on Peter Andre’s “Flava” a year later. “This Is How We Do It” was the first R&B release on the legendary Def Jam label and was No 1 in the US for seven weeks. It didn’t do quite as well over here peaking at No 11.

Instead of being a basketball player (he really was 6’8”), Montell chose a career in music and rather cannily came up with a tune that he himself describes as a “universal idea”. Said idea was that the chorus could apply to doing an unspecified activity by an unspecified group in an unspecified location thereby meaning the song could be adopted by anyone for any project or endeavour. As such, “This Is How We Do It” has been used in numerous films and TV shows such as Glee, The Nutty Professor, 8 Mile, Pitch Perfect 2 and Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Montell would have further hits both here and in the US though none as big as his debut hit albeit that “Let’s Ride”, his collaboration with Master P and Slikk The Shocker (no idea) made it to No 2 over the pond.

And so to the first ‘final’ reference of the night. The 1995 FA Cup final was contested by Manchester United and massive underdogs Everton. The previous year they had completed the league and cup double by beating my beloved Chelsea 4-0 in a rain soaked day at Wembley. This season though hadn’t quite gone to plan. Unfashionable Blackburn Rovers would pip them to the league title and they would lose the cup final 1-0 to Everton to finish the season trophy less for the first time in six years. I watched the cup final in a pub in Chester as a group of us were having a Poly reunion there. It was an unpleasant experience as the pub seemed to be full of horrible racist Everton fans spoiling for a fight and going around asking people who they supported. When one of them approached my mate Robin he defused the situation by replying “Carlisle United”* which totally wrong footed the thug. Just as well he wasn’t as well versed about Carlisle as Eric Morecambe:

“What news of Carlisle?”

49 seconds of joy…#PeterCushing joins Eric,Ern and Ann, in the court of King Arthur…👑

What a legend..#HammerHorror #StarWars #DrWho #LaurelAndHardy #SherlockHolmes #StillBringingSunshine 👓🌞♥️#SaturdaySpecial #ChequesInThePost #PassItOn 👈🏻 pic.twitter.com/fsa1IY8o4L
— The Morecambe & Wise Archive 👓🌞♥️ (@eric_ernie_col) February 19, 2022

*Robin does actually support Carlisle United by the way

Anyway, as it was the cup final, back in the 90s that still meant cup final songs. United’s was officially credited to Manchester United 1995 Football Squad featuring Stryker and was called “We’re Gonna Do It Again”. Unlike last year’s execrable effort with Status Quo*, this time they went rap-tastic with this Stryker character. I’d never heard of him before and nobody else has heard from him since it seems. The fact that United lost the cup final meant that there would not only be no repeat of last season’s glory on the pitch but also the chance of another No 1 record was gone as well with “We’re Gonna Do It Again” peaking at No 6.

*Having said that, the bit that goes “again, again, again” does remind me of Quo’s “Down, Down”.

Next something that goes beyond even the realms of novelty offered up by the genre of the football song. How the hell did jazz scatting get into the charts?! Scatman John was John Larkin, a jazz pianist from LA who suffered from a stutter which had blighted his childhood but which he found didn’t hamper him from scat singing – the art of vocal improvisation to turn the voice into an instrument. Now I can’t really be doing with jazz of the freeform kind and don’t understand at all the appeal of an artist like Dame Cleo Laine so just adding some house beats and a bit of rapping to jazz scatting was never, ever going to win me over. What a racket!

I wasn’t alone in my opinion. My aforementioned friend Robin did a nice send up of Scatman John on that weekend in Chester I mentioned but then I was once on holiday in New York with him where there was nearly a jazz incident. We were over there for my wife’s 30th birthday with him and our friend Susan. On the Sunday afternoon, we’d walked for miles after doing a helicopter tour of the Manhattan skyline and were in need of sustenance and a rest for our feet. After deliberating for ages about which diner or bar to go in, we finally decided on one but as we entered the chosen establishment, Robin came to an abrupt halt and said “We can’t go in there! They’re playing live jazz!”. As a consequence, we all turned around and walked out again. Even allowing for my own mistrust of jazz, the other three of us were none too impressed by Robin’s musical proclivities that day. Another group of people who disagreed with him were the record buying public who took Scatman John (the scat Gareth Gates) and his tune “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” to their hearts and made it a No 3 hit, despite the fact that he looks like a Chuckle Brother at the ambassador’s reception in this performance.

Who are this lot? Blessid Union Of Souls? Nope, I’ve got nothing. Their only UK hit was “I Believe” which went Top 10 in America but only made No 29 over here. Listening to it, I’m surprised it wasn’t a bigger hit. A piano led ballad with a pleasant melody and some social conscience lyrics, it reminds me of “You” by Ten Sharp. Ah yes, those lyrics. Obviously the ‘N’ word is not sung during this performance by vocalist Eliot Sloan though it’s clear that’s what the word is. Sickeningly, that word was used by one of those Everton fans I mentioned earlier in that pub in Chester whilst he was shouting about Paul Ince. All very horrible. One of the few times in my life when it made me root for Manchester United.

The second band inextricably associated with Britpop on the show tonight are Shed Seven. Having broken into the charts in 1994 with three Top 40 singles and their gold selling album “Change Giver”, 1995 saw them release just one new song – “Where Have You Been Tonight?”. The first single off sophomore album “A Maximum High”, this was the sound of a band preparing to enter the peak period of their commercial success. I’d have to say though that this track in particular didn’t quite get them there. It’s not a poor song per se but compared to what came after it, well it was a bit underwhelming and in my mind, remains a somewhat forgotten Shed Seven single. The fact that the album didn’t come out for nearly another year perhaps adds to my perception. It almost feels like a stand-alone single.

By the time “A Maximum High” appeared, Britpop, lad culture and Euro 96 were happening and Shed Seven entered Shed Heaven hits wise – no artist had more Top 40 hits in 1996 than the five the York indie rockers racked up. The BBC’s Euro 96 coverage used two of them to soundtrack some England montage pieces as the national team progressed through the tournament. It was a heady mix and a case of being in the right place at the right time for the band. They might not now where they had been tonight but they had a good idea where they were going.

The second of the ‘final’ themed songs on the show tonight now with the inevitable appearance of the UK’s Eurovision Song Contest entry. With the competition final just two days away, there was no way that Love City Groove would not have been given one last promotional push via TOTP. Whilst this may have helped propel the song “Love City Groove” up the UK charts, it had no effect on the band’s appeal at Eurovision where they trailed in a disappointing tenth place. “The experiment has failed” Terry Wogan infamously quipped. Also failing was any prospect of a career post-Eurovision for the band. Subsequent single releases failed to break the UK Top 40 and even that fail safe plan of a cover version (Fatback Band’s “I Found Lovin’”) couldn’t reverse their fortunes and the group split for good in 1996. A small part of the UK’s Eurovision history will always belong to those people who sang (and rapped) about the the sun shining in the morning though.

Here comes Celine Dion who’s attempting to follow up a huge, big ballad with…yep…a huge, big ballad. “Think Twice” topped the UK charts for seven weeks having taken an eternity to get there and would end the year as the fifth best selling single in the UK. Following that was always going to be a big ask and “Only One Road” didn’t despite the decent showing of a No 8 peak. It’s all very formulaic and power-ballad-by- numbers which Celine can do in her sleep but which was always more likely to induce zzzzs than ££££s.

The staging of this one is slightly odd. It would appear that the TOTP floor managers have shepherded every studio audience member in grey or pastel coloured clothing to stand at the front of the circle around Celine thereby making her blood red top standout even more than it does naturally. The effect resembles that scene from Schindler’s List with the little girl in the red coat during the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto. Comparing the holocaust with a pop music TV show feels offensive but I guess it does serve to demonstrate the power of that scene and its sustained effect upon me given that it can be brought to mind by even the most banal of incidents.

And so to the No 1 and it’s a third consecutive single to debut at No 1 after Take That and Oasis in recent weeks. At the time, this was only the second occurrence of such a sequence but by the end of the decade, a record going in at No 1 had become a weekly event. Widespread first week discounting by the major labels whereby CD singles were £1.99 instead of £3.99 and the cassette version 99p rather than £2.29 was the major reason behind this with punters cottoning on pretty quick to the strategy and creating huge sales in the first seven days before tailing off immediately in subsequent weeks. Was this the point when that practice started? I can’t remember for sure. Nor can I recall the exact time when record companies started to allow new releases to be delivered to stores ahead of their official release date rather than on the day they came out but I think that was maybe also a factor in driving sales with new singles hitting the ground running from 9.00 am Monday morning.

Whether these factors were in play with making Livin’ Joy the No 1 artist with “Dreamer” or not we’ll never know but No 1 they are despite this single having already been a Top 20 hit the previous Summer. After trundling along the bottom reaches of the Top 100 at the end of 1994, it suddenly crashed back into the top spot when rereleased the following May. I was never a fan of Italo House so the track didn’t do much for me. Nor did I care much for “Show Me Love” by Robin S to which it was compared so it really was a personal non-starter but its legacy is substantiated by those Best Of polls where it regularly turns up in the 90s dance varieties.

The play out track is “Can’t Stand Losing You” by The Police and when I initially saw this on the running order, I assumed it was to plug sister show TOTP2. I was wrong for this was a legitimate chart record despite it having already been a No 2 hit in 1979. How? Because this was a live version. There had never been a live album by The Police though it had been mooted twice before; once in 1982 to plug the gap between “Ghost In The Machine” and “Synchronicity” and again in 1984 after the Synchronicity tour but it was shelved in place of the 1986 “Every Breath You Take: The Singles” Best Of album. A live album finally arrived in 1995 and it was called…”Live!”. Well, it did what it said on the tin I suppose. “Can’t Stand Losing You” was chosen to promote it and made No 27 on the charts – not bad for a ‘live’ single. The original is a classic Police track which I remember my brother having I think (or maybe he taped it off the radio). The lyrics about a teenager committing suicide after losing his girlfriend are entrenched in my brain. It was kept off the top spot by “I Don’t Like Mondays by Boomtown Rats, another song with some pretty dark lyrics.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Supergrass	Lenny	No but we had the album ‘I Should Coco’ with it on
2	Montell Jordan	This Is How We Do It	No
3	Manchester United 1995 Football Squad featuring Stryker	We’re Gonna Do It Again	As if
4	Scatman John	Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)	What do you think?!
5	Blessid Union Of Souls	I Believe	Nope
6	Shed Seven	Where Have You Been Tonight?	No but I had a live album called ‘Where Have You Been Tonight?’ with it on.
7	Love City Groove	Love City Groove	I did not
8	Celine Dion	Only One Road	Never happening
9	Livin’ Joy	Dreamer	Nah
10	The Police	Can’t Stand Losing You (Live)	Negative

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/m001s1j2/top-of-the-pops-11051995

TOTP 04 MAY 1995

Posted on November 10, 2023 by 80stastic

These BBC4 repeats are coming thick and fast now after taking the Summer off and I’m getting behind. I need to whip through this post in double quick time just to keep up. Who’s on tonight’s show that I could skim over briefly?

*checks running order*

Hmm. Well, four of the songs on tonight have been on the show before so maybe they’re contenders for a short write up. Of the newbies, I can’t believe I’ll have much to say about Runrig or Joshua Kadison but let’s see.

It’s another ‘golden mic’ host tonight who is Whigfield of “Saturday Night” fame. Having watched the whole show from start to finish, I have to say that her presenting skills aren’t the best. She seems to get tongue tied on occasion and lose track of what she’s meant to be saying. Still, she certainly had more to offer than last week’s host Chris Evans in other areas if you know what I mean. Erm…anyway, the first artist she introduces are The Wildhearts who were only just on seven days ago performing “I Wanna Go Where The People Go”. Indeed, only Take That as the No 1 and that Weezer video as the play out track separate them from their last appearance.

As it’s another studio performance, this really does seem like a prime candidate for as few words as I can get away with. OK let’s go with the fact that lead singer Ginger looks ever so slightly John Lennon-esque here with his shades, shaggy hair and psychedelic design shirt and talking of John Lennon lookalikes…I once went to the Frog And Bucket comedy club in Manchester as part of a staff night out. The compère realised we were on a works outing and so asked us who we were. When we replied “Our Price”, he immediately came back with “there’s always someone in a group of people who work in a record shop who looks like John Lennon” and we all turned to our colleague Mike who did indeed resemble John Lennon with his glasses and hairstyle. How we laughed. Except Mike.

If you closed your eyes whilst listening to this next artist, you would be forgiven for thinking it was Elton John in the studio performing his latest single. Joshua Kadison looked nothing like Elton though he had radically changed his appearance recently. How do I know this? Well, because he (or more likely his record label) had been peddling his song “Jessie” for over a year by this point trying to make it a hit in the UK after achieving that status in the US way back in 1993. This was the third time the single had made a tilt at our Top 40 after peaking at Nos 48 and 69 in 1994. The promotion for those releases (including the official video) had Joshua in full on Curtis Stigers mode with shoulder length hair and clean shaven. Fast forward to May 1995 and he’d lopped off the locks and grown some facial hair. Like some sort of Samson in reverse, the image change worked and “Jessie” finally gained entry to the UK Top 40. Though not a runaway hit, it was a consistent performer peaking at No 15 but also staying solid at No 20 for three consecutive weeks.

“Jessie” would prove to be the peak of commercial success for Joshua (at least in the UK). A follow up single called “Beautiful In My Eyes” was a minor hit and his albums never really took off in terms of actual sales. He would carry on releasing material via his own website but his music career went quiet in 2012 and his only recent public appearance came in 2020 via a YouTube video in support of Black Lives Matter.

Paul Weller had been always been a part of my life due to the devotion to him by my Jam mad elder brother. By 1995, he was also becoming a part of the lives of people who maybe hadn’t been a disciple of The Jam and The Style Council but were discovering him for the first time due to the rise of Britpop. Named by many a band involved in that movement as being a huge influence, Weller was declared in vogue again though his army of loyal fans would claim he never went out of fashion. I think it was around this time that he also became associated with the title ‘The Godfather Of Britpop’ though I think that there were a few names in the hat for that particular accolade. Ray Davies of The Kinks, Steve Marriott of Small Faces, XTC’s Andy Partridge and even Adam Ant have all been mentioned in that conversation alongside Weller.

One label that certainly was allocated to him around now was that of ‘Dadrock’ but what was it? The most basic definition seemed to be any music that your Dad might have listened to in their youth. That, of course, gave the phrase the flexibility to be applied to fathers of all generations including future ones. Apparently, Sun 41 and Blink 182 are now considered to be ‘Dadrock’! A more sensible take seems to be that it refers to rock songs performed by elder statesmen of the genre in an earnest style. That, admittedly broad, definition could certainly include Weller’s “The Changingman”. Now I thought this was the lead single from Paul’s album “Stanley Road” but his discography informs me that it was in fact the second after “Out Of The Sinking” though I think my confusion may be due to the fact that “Out Of The Sinking” was rereleased as the final single from it in March 1996. It’s a decent song no doubt with a strident guitar riff which Weller admits was borrowed from ELO’s “10538 Overture”. The similarities can’t be denied.

Apparently the Labour Party wanted to use it alongside D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” for their 1997 General Election campaign but Weller refused despite his previous ties to the party dating back to his support for the Red Wedge movement in the 80s. I’m sure I read somewhere that he doesn’t even bother to vote at all these days which seems a sad state of affairs for someone once seen as an ‘angry young man’. “The Changingman” indeed.

Now here’s a rarity – a record I don’t remember from the nineties but which I do know from the noughties. Even more unlikely is that I prefer the noughties version. “Freak Like Me” was a No 1 for Sugababes in 2002 and deservedly so when it combined Adina Howard’s 1995 original with “Are “Friends” Electric?” by Gary Numan and Tubeway Army. The brainchild of producer Richard X, it was a genius idea, brilliantly executed. Adina’s version must have something to it to have supplied the source material for such a perfect mashup but it doesn’t really do it for me at all on its own. Apparently, UK audiences agreed with me as it only made No 33 over here but was a No 2 hit in America. Adina would replicate that chart position in the UK the following year though when she joined forces with Warren G for a version of “What’s Love Got To Do With It” made famous by Tina Turner. Don’t remember that either – Adina’s version not Tina’s obviously.

Now for that second act that I didn’t think I’d have much to say about. Somebody at TOTP must have really loved Runrig as they seem to be on the show a lot for a Gaelic rock band. It turns out that this song – “An Ubhal As Airde (The Highest Apple)” – was used to soundtrack an advert for Carlsberg Lager and that’s why it was in the charts. It had originally been recorded in 1987 for the album “The Cutter And The Clan”. I have to say I don’t remember the song nor the advert.

Watching this performance, it’s hard to think of a more tedious turn in the show’s history. Hardly anybody on stage moves and I can’t decide if they all look petrified or bored out of their brains. You know what? That’ll do for this one.

From a snooze fest to a wheeze attack or rather a Weezer attack. It’s that Happy Days video for “Buddy Holly” again. Just as Happy Days ran for much longer than my childhood memory informs me it did (1974-84 and 255 episodes), so Weezer’s career has racked up so many more miles than I would have guessed. In my head, they completely disappeared after “Buddy Holly” and its parent eponymous debut album. However, despite a five year gap between their second and third albums, they have continued to record and release material prolifically since then with fifteen studio albums to their name. They even had a Top 10 hit in 2005 with the Wheatus-like “Beverly Hills”.

Of course, Weezer’s track isn’t the only song to feature Buddy Holly in its title. Mike Berry had a hit in 1961 called “Tribute To Buddy Holly” but I don’t know that at all. The one that is prominent in my mind is by Alvin Stardust whose 1984 No 7 hit “I Feel Like Buddy Holly” was written by Mike Batt of Wombles fame. The lyrics include these lines:

… Well, I feel like Buddy Holly ’cause it’s raining in my heart
All the sad songs take me back to you now that we are apart
Now I know how Paul McCartney felt when he got up to say:
I wish it was yesterday
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Mike Batt
I Feel Like Buddy Holl lyrics © Dramatico Music Publishing Ltd

Yeah, that’s fine Mike except Paul McCartney doesn’t sing (or say) “I wish it was yesterday” in the Beatles classic does he? “I believe in yesterday”? Certainly. “I long for yesterday”? Indeed. “I wish it was yesterday”? Not once.

It’s another of those tracks that have been on the show before next…or is it? True, we did see Björk perform “Army Of Me” just the other week but this time she’s doing a remixed version of it alongside Skunk Anansie in a new slot TOTP called ‘Exclusive Mix’. This beefed up take on it sounds infinitely better to me than the radio edit and Skin looks genuinely disturbing as she looks down the camera lens into the living rooms of the nation. This mix was the third track on the second CD single and it really rips it up (and remember, I’m not a massive Björk fan). Skunk Anansie were relatively unknown at this point having only officially released one single which failed to make the UK Top 40. It wouldn’t be until “Weak” hit the charts early the following year that their profile raised dramatically.

It’s that event that crops up on TOTP (very) occasionally now, a performance of a single that never made the Top 40. The TV series Crocodile Shoes ushered in the third movement of Jimmy Nail’s pop career. Firstly, we had his 1985 cover of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” which made No 3. A seven year gap was surprisingly and spectacularly ended by his No 1 single “Ain’t No Doubt” (she’s lyin’) before the Crocodile Shoes project with its attendant album and single arrived in late 1994. That album gave Nail two hit singles; the rather mournful title track and the excellent “Cowboy Dreams” supplied by Paddy McAloon who recorded his own version of the song with his band Prefab Sprout on the “Gunman And Other Stories” album.

This third single – “Calling Out Your Name” – would only make it to No 65 and is nowhere near as strong as its predecessor to my ears. A decent enough song but a bit of a plodder. Jimmy took its lack of success in his stride though. In an unusual spurt of activity, he would be back before the end of the year with another album and hit single in “Big River” and just twelve months later he would unleash “Crocodile Shoes II” on us. There ain’t no doubt (ahem) that we’ll be seeing more of Jimmy on these TOTP repeats before too long.

And so to the new No 1. There was never, ever any way that Oasis wouldn’t get there with this release – their sixth single “Some Might Say”. The buzz around them was too big by then, almost unstoppable. They were the biggest band in Britain and it seemed only right and proper somehow that they had a No 1 under their belt to cement that status. Now, some might say that the fact that it came via one of their more prosaic singles besmirched that achievement rather but that didn’t matter to me much at the time even though I knew that it wasn’t even the best track on the CD single. For their part, the band’s (or rather Noel and Liam’s) swagger was now in full ascendancy – witness their cocky message to camera at the top of the show. Such was Noel’s belief in himself and his songs and his perception of his standing in the band that he presumably had felt no compunction about forcing drummer Tony McCarroll out of the band since their last TOTP appearance just the other week. Alan White was now in possession of the drum sticks and he would remain there until 2004. This appearance on TOTP came just a day after he had joined the band.

I duly bought “Some Might Say” and at the time took no notice of its frankly bizarre front cover. Set in a disused railway station with a man (sleeve designer Brian Cannon’s father) stomping up the platform with a sink / wheelbarrow full of fish and a homeless man with a sign reading ‘education please’ and a man pouring a watering can over a woman’s head. I’d never noticed before but watering can man is Noel and you can spy Liam on the bridge waving. All of these seemingly unlinked images were actually visual representations of the songs lyrics. Check these out:

‘Cause I’ve been standing at the station
In need of education in the rain
You made no preparation
For my reputation once again
The sink is full of fishes
She’s got dirty dishes on the brain
It was overflowing gently
But it’s all elementary my friend
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Noel Gallagher
Some Might Say lyrics © Oasis Music

See? Yeah, it’s probably not as clever as Noel thought it would be when he requested that Cannon’s sleeve make reference to all the track’s lyrics but it kind of hangs together well enough I think. The single would only stay at No 1 for a solitary week but certainly in the Our Price I was working at in Stockport, it would continue to sell steadily and would stay in the Top 100 for 83 weeks between 1995 and 1998.

I might not remember that Carlsberg advert featuring Runrig’s song but nobody who was around in 1995 can fail to recall the advert that tonight’s closing track was used in surely? That weird dancing man one for Guinness? Yeah, this…

The track used for it was “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado which was recorded way back in 1958. Prez was a Cuban bandleader, pianist, composer and arranger who popularised the mambo sound in the 1950s with hits such as “Mambo No. 5” (yes that one covered by Lou Bega in 1999) and a cover of Louiguy’s “Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)” (yes that one that Modern Romance covered in 1982). Its use by the Guinness marketing team would eventually lead to an official release of the song as a single that would go to No 2 in the UK and No 1 in Ireland (obviously). I couldn’t really be doing with either the song or the advert to be honest though I can appreciate the charms of a perfectly poured pint of Guinness occasionally.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Wildhearts	I Wanna Go Where The People Go	No
2	Joshua Kadison	Jessie	I did not
3	Paul Weller	The Changingman	No but I had the Stanley Road album with it on
4	Adina Howard	Freak Like Me	Nope
5	Runrig	An Ubhal As Airde (The Highest Apple)	Negative
6	Weezer	Buddy Holly	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	Björk / Skunk Anansie	Army Of Me	Nah
8	Jimmy Nail	Calling Out Your Name	Never happened
9	Oasis	Some Might Say	YES!
10	Perez ‘Prez’ Prado	Guaglione	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/m001s1hy/top-of-the-pops-04051995

TOTP 27 APR 1995

Posted on November 7, 2023 by 80stastic

This post is dedicated in its entirety to Pete Garner who passed away recently. Known to many as the original bass player with The Stone Roses, I got to know Pete in the mid 90s when I worked with him at Our Price the record retailer. He was the sweetest, soundest, funniest person you could ever hope to meet. I learned so much about life from him. RIP Pete.

In my review of the previous show, I spent some time discussing the rise of Chris Evans as he was about to start his two year stint on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. In order to promote their new boy, the BBC have got him in to host TOTP straight off the bat. Evans wasn’t the only debut happening around this time. Three days before this show broadcast, Channel 4 aired the first episode of one of the best sit coms ever in Father Ted. A week later, the channel was at it again but this time with a show from across the pond with the ratings sensation Friends. It’s a sobering realisation that two of the stars from those shows are no longer with us. Father Ted himself Dermot Morgan would pass away less than three years on from here whilst Matthew Perry who played Chandler Bing in Friends sadly died just a week or so ago. Back in 1995 though, I’m guessing that Chris Evans would be full to the brim of brio as he brings his presenting style to TOTP. Let’s see how he did…

He starts off in a fairly uncontroversial manner with a lame set up about the studio lights not working before a short intro for opening act MN8. After just missing out on the top spot with debut single “I’ve Got A Little Something For You”, this lot of R&B wannabes were hot news. They consolidated on that success with follow up “If You Only Let Me In” which was a No 6 hit. Quite different in style from its predecessor, it had a much more pure pop boyband vibe that would become ubiquitous as the decade progressed and the throng of such acts became ever larger. I mean, it’s actually one of the better examples of that sound; well constructed with plenty of hooks though it also seems to have been written with one eye on accommodating the obligatory dance moves for the three guys in the band playing second fiddle to the singer. Still, it was probably a sensible choice at that point in their career; a catchy tune to maintain their chart presence and guarantee airplay. For the moment, MN8 were playing the game well.

Whilst MN8 were in the ascendancy, another boyband were desperately trying to stay afloat in some choppy teenage audience waters. Let Loose were trying to do exactly the opposite of what their band name suggested; they didn’t want to be let loose in a sea of faded boybands but rather wanted to be tied steadfastly to the chart dock. This single – “Best Of Me” – did indeed act as a decent life belt giving them a Top 10 hit though I can’t work out why as it’s as dull as dishwasher. The verses sound like a Bread song (they would record an actual Bread song in “Make It With You” the following year) whilst the chorus goes a bit “See The Day” by Dee C. Lee complete with added string section. And why on earth is there a double necked guitar on show here? Let Loose? More like obtuse.

If MN8 were playing the R&B pop stars game well, then here’s Bobby Brown to show them that “Two Can Play That Game”. In the segue into this one, Chris Evans starts reverting to type and his ‘lads mags’ persona by banging on about a naked Pamela Anderson and Liz Hurley bouncing up and down on a space hopper. What? Bobby Brown, of course, had a few image problems of his own with a list of charges against him including drink driving, defaulting on child care payments and battery of his wife Whitney Houston. If his personal life was chaotic and full of misdemeanours, in 1995 his career was at a high point. “Two Can Play That Game” gave him his biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 3.

Evans completely lays bare his ‘lad culture’ credentials once more by referring to an upcoming performance by Oasis as being his “personal heroes”. Before that though we have yet another appearance for our Eurovision entry Love City Groove. I make this their third time on the show with the song contest still two weeks away. What with plugging the BBC’s coverage of Eurovision and the showcasing of Radio 1’s Breakfast Show host, TOTP was in danger of becoming just a promotional tool for the corporation’s output rather than a platform for the most popular music of the day.

As for “Love City Groove”, it still stands up and out I think in the long history of UK Eurovision acts. It didn’t completely convince the watching panels on the night of the contest finishing 10th out of 23 countries receiving 76 points, almost half the amount the winners Secret Garden from Norway did with their song “Nocturne”. That victory seemed to give credence to the idea that Eurovision was ready for a different musical genre to take centre stage over the more traditional acts witnessed down the years. Sadly for the UK, that genre was haunting, violin led and almost instrumental rather than sing -a-long rap. Bugger!

It’s time for “the best song around” now as endorsed by Chris Evans in his intro for Oasis. On reflection, it wasn’t even the best song on the CD single – that honour goes to “Acquiesce” in my opinion. However, “Some Might Say” was certainly better than most residents of the Top 40 and, as expected, gave the band their first of eight No 1 singles. At the time, I was in agreement with Evans and loved this though I’m not sure it stands up as well through the perspective of 28 years distance. Back then though, I didn’t care that, just as “Cigarettes And Alcohol” had done, it had more than a whiff of a T-Rex riff about it. Nor did I care that the lyrics weren’t the best (rhyming ‘fishes’ with ‘dirty dishes’ indeed!). I didn’t even mind Liam’s pronunciation of ‘Shine’ as “Sh-i-iiine”. To me it sounded…well…powerful I guess. Powerful and hopeful that something different might be about to happen.

This was pretty much the last public appearance of drummer Tony McCarroll with the band. The next time they appeared on TOTP, his replacement Alan White was on the drummer’s stool. McCarroll being buried alive by the rest of the band in the “Live Forever” video probably should have given us all a big clue as to his impending fate.

Creation boss Alan McGee had wanted to release the track as a double A-side with the aforementioned “Acquiesce” but Noel Gallagher stood firm saying the latter was the B-side. Legend has it that the conversation went something like this:

McGee: “Acquiesce” is too good. Knock something average out for the B-side.

Noel: Sorry Alan but I don’t write shit songs.

As for the performance here, Liam seems to have perfected his motionless, thousand yard stare act by this point while the rest of the band (Noel excepted) look like they can’t quite comprehend how they got here from where they started. By the way, Liam’s Manchester City coat would not have been seen as bandwagon jumping. At the time City were not the winning machine they are today; that would have been their rivals United.

The third boyband on tonight now and the second trying to follow up a No 2 hit single. Like MN8 before them, Boyzone had gone as close as possible to a chart topper without actually getting one with previous single “Love Me For A Reason” but, despite that success, a lot must have been riding on their next release in terms of their potential longevity. A bunch of pretty Irish boys getting a Christmas hit with a cover of a well known sloppy ballad was one thing but repeating the trick with a composition of their own? Well, that was another matter.

As it turned out, “Key To My Life” was also the key to the band’s consolidation. A very encouraging chart peak of No 3 would surely have given the group confidence that they could compete with Take That (especially when, a few weeks later, the departure of Robbie Williams would cause the future of the band to be put in doubt). A saccharine drenched ballad, it seems to me that “Key To My Life” is a largely forgotten Boyzone single despite its strategic importance to their career.

Watching this performance back, I’m struck by how washed out the group look with all those grey colours and pastel shades on display in their outfits. Their stylist should have been given the keys to a better wardrobe.

It’s another studio appearance by Tina Arena performing her hit “Chains” now. Her song was universally seen as being about being trapped in a relationship that was no longer working though Tina herself attributes its meaning to her trying to escape from her past as a child star when she was dubbed ‘Tiny Tina” aged 8 on a talent show. Fast forward over 40 years and a modern day restriction that Tina struggled with was the whole issue of ‘selfies’. In 2019 she made the decision not to allow people to take ‘selfies’ as she felt trapped by them and instead would rather have a good old chat with the person. That revelation somehow put me in mind of that famous Boy George quote who, when at the height of his fame, was asked about the act of sex. “I’d rather have a nice cup of tea” he replied though I’m pretty sure he had his fingers crossed when he said it.

It’s that band again whose name I remember but whose music I don’t. Chris Evans does his best to create some buzz around them by bigging them up in his intro but even the man of the moment’s endorsement didn’t cut through with me. I refer to The Wildhearts who we last saw on the show doing their minor hit “Geordie In Wonderland”. They’re back with the lead single from their second album “P.H.U.Q” called “I Wanna Go Where The People Go”.

Listening to it now, it’s not bad though even if I’d cottoned on to it back in 1995, I’m not sure I’d have been bowled over by its sound. I’m sure they had and still have a hardcore fanbase but for me, they blur into one a bit with all those other early 90s UK blues rock revival bands like The Dogs D’Amour and The Quireboys though that’s not surprising as main Wildheart Ginger used to be a member of the latter.

It’s the fourth and final week at No 1 for Take That with “Back For Good”. It’s often said (including by me) that the mark of a good song is how often it’s covered by other artists and especially if it’s done in a completely different style and it still works. Well, here are just a few varied takes on “Back For Good”. Firstly, a slinky, muscular version courtesy of McAlmont & Butler from 2002 for the War Child charity album in association with the NME:

Here it’s turned into an indie classic by The Wedding Present on their “How The West Was Won” album:

How about a lo-fi anthem from Swedish band The Concretes on covers compilation album “Guilt By Association”:

And finally a punk rendering courtesy of Robbie Williams himself; a live version included as an extra track on his “Angels” single:

The “wash it off” ad lib line has its origins in an adopted reaction from Take That fans when the song was performed live. When Gary Barlow would sing “Got your lipstick mark still in my cup”, the crowd would apparently sing back to him “Ooh wash it off!”. So now you know.

Punk covers of your own songs were all the rage back then. Here’s Duran Duran on The Word from 1995 doing “Hungry Like The Wolf”:

The play out track is back after disappearing for a while and tonight’s is a goodie from Weezer. This power pop, pop-punk, geek rock (call it what you will) anthem named after rock ‘n’ roll legend “Buddy Holly” would make it all the way to No 12. If the song wasn’t memorable enough, you can’t forget the video once seen, especially if , like me, you grew up in the 70s. Back then, the US sitcom Happy Days was huge with its main character Fonzie assuming almost legendary status with his cool persona and catch phrases “Ayyyy” and “Sit On It”. I remember they’re being some TV awards show on when Happy Days was at its peak and it somehow losing out to Blue Peter in one category. Even the wide eyed innocent child that I was thought that was a fix.

Anyway, the idea to incorporate footage from Happy Days with Weezer performing “Buddy Holly” in Arnold’s Drive-In was inspired. Director Spike Jonze did an incredible job. The actor who played drive-in owner Al did a cameo to introduce the band and a lookalike did the Fonzie dance scene but apparently the rest was all done without computer graphics and instead used clever editing. It looked amazing in 1995 and still looks great today I think.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	MN8	If You Let Me In	No
2	Let Loose	Best Of Me	Definitely not
3	Bobby Brown	Two Can Play That Game	Nope
4	Love City Groove	Love City Groove	I did not
5	Oasis	Some Might Say	YES!
6	Boyzone	Key To My Life	Never happening
7	Tina Arena	Chains	Negative
8	The Wildhearts	I Wanna Go Where The People Go	Nah
9	Take That	Back For Good	No but my wife did
10	Weezer	Buddy Holly	Liked it, didn’t buy it

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rrzv/top-of-the-pops-27041995

TOTP 20 APR 1995

Posted on November 2, 2023 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rrzj/top-of-the-pops-20041995

TOTP 13 APR 1995

Posted on October 28, 2023 by 80stastic

After Bruno Brookes’ valedictory TOTP appearance last week, we’re back to the ‘golden mic’ slot and this time it’s given to Phill Jupitus. Now quite how big a name Phill was at the time I’m not sure. Wikipedia tells me that he didn’t start his stint as a team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks until 1996 but that he had his own radio show on BBC GLR. In the pre-digital world, I’m not sure that the latter post would have cut through that much but I’m wondering if I would have been aware of him thanks to my Weller super fan elder brother and the fact that Phill had been involved with the Red Wedge movement of the mid 80s. Possibly. Anyway, Phill would go onto have a very successful career as a stand up, actor, radio host, performance poet and podcaster. However, Wikipedia informs me that Phill has now retired and is studying art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee.

Back to 1995 though and Phill is doing his best to look excited at the thought of introducing this year’s Eurovision entry which, though the artist didn’t do the business on the night of the contest finishing 10th, is one of the more memorable acts to have represented the UK. Now it may not seem like a big deal to our sophisticated 2023 ears with the hindsight of twenty-nine contests informing our perspective but having a rap / hip-hop group as the Eurovision entry was almost revolutionary. Love City Groove were that group and, as I remember, much was expected of them if not to actually win it then to at least shake the whole competition up a bit. Their 10th place finish wasn’t very glorious but was in line with recent UK form in the competition. Frances Ruffelle had also finished 10th the previous year as had Samantha Janus in 1991. Sure, only Coco in 1978 and Rikki in 1987 had secured a poorer position in the years since the competition’s inception, but given the horrors that were to come for the UK, 10th place would certainly come to be seen as not bad at all. However, Eurovision stalwart Terry Wogan wasn’t that impressed. As the voting played out on the big night and it became apparent that the losing streak that we’d been on since Bucks Fizz were the last UK winners in 1981 was going to continue, Terry grimly stated that “the experiment has failed”.

They may not have brought the bacon home for the UK but “Love City Groove” the single was more successful in winning over the UK record buying public. Its peak of No 7 meant that it was the highest charting UK Eurovision song since Bardo made No 2 in 1982. Indeed, no Eurovision song (UK or otherwise) had made our Top 10 since Johnny Logan’s “Hold Me Now” in 1987.

Watching their performance here, it all looks rather unconvincing like it’s actually a present day parody, sending up mid 90s sounds and styles; even their name sounds like a spoof. I guess that opinion can only exist with 28 years of hindsight though. I’m predicting this won’t be the last time we see Love City Groove on TOTP as Eurovision night was still a month away at this point.

Next an artist who is pretty much known as a one hit wonder over here (although that’s not statistically correct) but is a huge deal in her own country. Tina Arena (not quite her real name but close enough – Filippina Arena isn’t quite as snappy I guess) is an Australian singer-songwriter, musical theatre actress and producer who has sold 10 million records worldwide but how many people in the UK know her just for “Chains”?

A slow building, brooding power ballad with a memorable chorus performed by a strong vocalist with a soprano range, it was always going to do well commercially. And so it did. Going double platinum in Australia, it also crossed over in the UK selling 200,000 copies but then, we’d always been suckers for power ballads. Meatloaf had the biggest selling single of 1993 with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and more recently Celine Dion’s “Think Twice” had been our No 1 single for seven weeks. “Chains” didn’t quite match the feats of those two records but a No 6 hit was highly respectable.

Tina did have four more UK chart entries but none made the Top 20. Her final hit was called “Whistle Down The Wind” from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name based on the Hayley Mills film. I thought at the time she must have covered the greatest living Englishman Nick Heyward’s debut solo hit but thankfully she hadn’t. A quick thought on the staging of the performance here. What was the deal with having the backing singers positioned on a separate stage away from Tina? There was plenty of space behind her which Phill Jupitus occupies when he walks on behind her to do the next intro. Odd.

I saw a post on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) on a #TOTP thread the other day saying that everyone had lost interest in REM by 1995. I’m not sure that’s true as most of their post ‘95 albums went to No 1 both here and in the US but I have to admit personally to not following their output as closely from “Monster” onwards. I think a case could be made that those four albums “Green”, “Out Of Time”, “Automatic For The People” and the aforementioned “Monster” represented their imperial phase. “Strange Currencies” was the third single to be lifted from that album but it could easily have been called “Everybody Hurts 2.0” so close is its sound to that previous 1993 hit. It doesn’t mean it isn’t a good song (it is) but I guess maybe I expected more from a band like REM than song recycling.

The video features Norman Reedus who would go on to play Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead franchise but it’s another US TV show that has a more current link to “Strange Currencies”. If you haven’t caught FX’s The Bear (you can watch it on Disney Plus in the UK), you’ve missed out. A comedy drama about an award winning chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to run his dead brother’s sandwich shop…yeah, I know that description isn’t really selling it but trust me, it’s great. Anyway, the show has a fine soundtrack featuring the likes of Wilco, Radiohead, The Breeders, Van Morrison and “Strange Currencies”. Such was the show’s impact that a second video for the song was released in June of this year featuring footage of REM’s documentary Road Movie and clips from The Bear.

It’s another outing for the latest incarnation of Snap! now with their hit “The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)”. I haven’t got much else on this one seeing as this is its second studio appearance recently other than to say the staging of it looks very simplistic with just vocalist Summer and two backing dancers for company. I know there was always an issue with presenting dance acts on the show effectively but this does seem overly sparse.

Also looking on the scant side were the band’s album sales. Generating big numbers from a dance act’s albums as opposed to their singles was always a difficult trick to pull off but Snap! had been one of the more successful proponents of the art. Debut album “World Power” went Top 10 and achieved gold status as did the 1992 follow up “The Madman’s Return” but their third effort “Welcome To Tomorrow” bombed out at No 69. To be fair, it didn’t feature a No 1 single like its predecessors did (“The Power” and “Rhythm Is A Dancer” respectively). That kind of makes sense but then how do you explain how 1996’s Greatest Hits collection “Snap! Attack: The Best Of Snap!” could only make a high of No 47? Ah, the vagaries of public approval.

Next, it’s another of those previous ‘exclusive’ performances being wheeled out again once said single has entered the charts. This time it’s for “Doll Parts” by Hole. Did I tell my Hole / Nirvana T-shirt story last time? I think I did meaning I’m struggling for content yet again. Erm…well there’s the influence that Courtney Love has had on inspiring subsequent female performers to embark on a career in rock music but there’s plenty been written about that much better than I could do in my irreverent blog. Instead, here’s an insight to that TOTP appearance from the other week courtesy of @TOTPFacts when Ant & Dec were the hosts:

This Hole appearance is a repeat of their performance from two weeks earlier. Apparently during rehearsals either Ant or Dec introduced Hole as "featuring Kurt Cobain's widow", but Courtney Love objected and insisted on a retake. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 20, 2023

Wait. What? Another Bruce Springsteen track from his “Greatest Hits” album?! We had “Murder Incorporated” the other week and now we get the second of four new tracks on the collection “Secret Garden”. His label Columbia must have been hitting the phones hard to get him exposure like this. Or maybe The Boss was such a big name that he told TOTP when he would be on the show.

“Murder Incorporated” was never released as a single in the UK but “Secret Garden” was. However, despite the strength of the track, it only made No 44 originally. What do I mean by originally? Well, it was reactivated two years later by its inclusion on the soundtrack to Jerry Maguire which is possibly why it sounds so familiar to me. Either that or the fact that it could be mistaken for “The Big Ones Get Away” by Buffy Sainte-Marie. The 1997 release of “Secret Garden” would make No 17 whilst the “Greatest Hits” album topped the charts just about everywhere on the planet.

And another dance tune that’s back for another TOTP appearance that I’m not sure I have the stamina to comment on. Strike are up to No 4 with “U Sure Do” which is where they will peak. Will that do? No? OK, how about the contrast in performance between them and Snap! earlier? A vocalist and two backing singers on a bare looking stage was all Snap! had but Strike have two keyboard players, two twirling dancers and two backing singers on their own podiums. I get that there’s a difference in tempo between the respective tracks which may have influenced the set ups but it hardly seems fair does it?

The exclusive performance this week features two controversial and irrepressible characters and a song that has a back story that has a connection to one of tonight’s artists that was on earlier. Shane MacGowan (and the Popes) and Sinéad O’Connor were an unlikely duet or were they? In terms of their voices maybe. Sinéad with her pure, angelic vocal and Shane with his drunken growl but in terms of their background and profiles, perhaps their collaboration was inevitable. The track they chose to record together was an old Pogues song called “Haunted” that had originally been on the soundtrack to the Sid Vicious biopic Sid And Nancy which is where the connection with another act on tonight’s show comes in. Courtney Love had a bit part in that film as a friend of Nancy Spungen. “Haunted” failed to make the Top 40 on its original release in 1986 but its re-recording in 1995 and inclusion on the soundtrack to another film (Two If By Sea / Stolen Hearts) propelled it to a high of No 30.

I quite like it I have to say even if the contrast in Shane and Sinéad’s voices is a bit jarring to say the least. The latter, of course, died in July this year at the tragically young age of 56. Back in 1995, I don’t think any of us would have predicted that MacGowan would live longer out of the two of them.

Take That are still secure in top spot with “Back For Good” for a second week. It would eventually sell over a million copies and is the biggest selling single by a boyband ever in the UK.

Such is its influence that it has been used in The Office as the love theme between Tim and Dawn but I think even that is eclipsed by its use in Channel 4 sit com Spaced which also managed to reference the rather wonderful John Cusack film Say Anything.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Love City Groove	Love City Groove	Not likely
2	Tina Arena	Chains	Not for me
3	REM	Strange Currencies	Neative
4	Snap!	The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)	I did not
5	Hiole	Doll Parts	No thanks
6	Bruce Springsteen	Secret Garden	Nah
7	Strike	U Sure Do	Nope
8	Shane MacGowan and the Popes / Sinéad O’Connor	Haunted	No
9	Take That	Back For Good	No but my wife did

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/m001rk7c/top-of-the-pops-13041995

06 APR 1995

Posted on October 25, 2023 by 80stastic

We’ve arrived in April of 1995 here at TOTP Rewind and back then, the day before this TOTP was broadcast, came some seismic music news. The NME published a statement announcing that Stone Roses drummer Reni had left the band. Now maybe a drummer leaving any band wouldn’t normally be such a big deal but I guess the Roses weren’t just any band and Reni wasn’t just any drummer. He cut a legendary figure as part of the four musketeers of the classic line up with his wicked talent and trademark bucket hat. His departure was the removal of the foundation stone that would see the band disintegrate by 1996. It would be another seventeen years before he played with them again.

By a strange quirk of fate, Reni wouldn’t be the only drummer to leave a huge Manchester band this month. On the last day of April, Tony McCarroll was sacked from Oasis thereby definitely making him the Pete Best of the 90s. Maybe. This TOTP doesn’t feature The Stone Roses, Oasis nor The Beatles though amazingly we only missed all three by a whisker. The Stone Roses had been in the Top 40 in March with “Ten Storey Love Song”, Oasis were a month away from their first No 1 “Some Might Say” and The Beatles were actually in the charts again with the track “Baby It’s You” from the “Live At The BBC” album. So if they’re some of the artists not on the show, who were the acts that were?

We start with a dance outfit (of course we do) but who was Grace? Well, she wasn’t the woman front and centre doing the vocals for “Not Over Yet” in this performance. Her name is Patti Low. Neither was it the singer who replaced her after this single – she’s Dominique Atkins. In fact, Grace wasn’t a woman at all. Grace was a group formed by superstar DJs Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne and originally named State Of Grace until they realised that an American band had nabbed the name first. Oakenfold had already been in the charts this year with a different vehicle for his material in the form of Perfecto Allstarz but presumably that moniker wasn’t deemed suitable to promote “Not Over Yet”. A different type of dance track required a different artist name right? Anyway, Grace would go onto have a total of six Top 40 hits but none were bigger than “Not Over Yet” which peaked at No 6.

I thought I didn’t know this one but as soon as that chorus kicked in, it all came flooding back. How could I have forgotten that driving hook that persistently hammers at your brain until it’s stuck in there. As dance tunes go, and you know I’m not a big fan, I’d have to say it’s one of the best examples of trance/disco out there. Indeed, so good was it that it was a hit all over again when re-released four years later under yet another pseudonym- this time Planet Perfecto – when it made No 16. That made it three releases in total for the track if you include its original 1993 outing when it failed to chart and four if you count the 2007 cover version by Klaxons. Who knows, it may even get a future release. It still might be not over yet for this particular tune. Ahem.

I should say that the host tonight is Bruno Brookes in his last ever appearance on the show. He’d had a good run though stretching all the way back to 1984. Obviously there was a three year break during the ‘year zero’ revamp but even so. After getting permanently annoyed by him as the years rolled by, I actually thought he did a decent job when he returned in 1994 but for some reason he’s started the last show in bizarre fashion. Dressed in clergyman garb and calling himself Reverend Rock ‘n’ Roll, it all seems to be just so he can get in a cheap quip about ‘saying grace’ as he introduces opening act…yep…Grace. Not exactly dis-grace-ful but certainly lame.

And talking of lame…here come Ultimate Kaos with a really wimpy ballad called “Show A Little Love”. I could never understand the appeal of this lot or indeed quite what the deal was with them at all. A bunch of barely teenage boys and a lead singer who was only nine when they started out eliciting screams from the young girls in the studio audience? I know I wasn’t the target demographic even back then but the whole thing was decidedly icky. I suppose Michael Jackson wasn’t much older when The Jackson 5 started having hits and although that’s an obvious comparison to make, surely that’s the template that Simon Cowell was following when he put Ultimate Kaos together. “Show A Little Love” was also of an identikit nature being a sickly, bubblegum-pop-by-numbers ballad aimed directly at the hearts of teenage girls. At least it wasn’t as inappropriate as their previous hit “Hoochie Booty” but its No 23 peak meant it wouldn’t last long in the memory and rightly so.

We’re back in the world of dance with the next hit which is “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)” by Bucketheads. It’s the video for this one again which was directed by Guy Ritchie and Alex De Rakoff, both at the very start of their careers. The former would go on to direct The Calcium Kid whilst the latter would find fame with Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and by marrying Madonna.

There’s a scene in the video where the male protagonist walks into a record shop, picks a 12” from the racks (by Bucketheads obviously) and proceeds to nip behind the counter, put the record on the shop turntable and start dancing around with the guy working there. I can honestly say that scene never happened to me once and I worked in record shops for the whole of the 90s pretty much. The only punters who made it behind the counter were those who had been caught on the rob by the security guard and were waiting in the staff kitchen for the police to arrive. Their defence? “These sounds fell into my bag by accident. Honest.”

You’d think spending eight hours a day, five days a week working in a record shop that you’d hear just about every new album that was released wouldn’t you? Wrong! There’s loads of albums that I recognise the cover of but have no idea what it sounded like. Terence Trent D’Arby’s fourth album is a prime example. The cover was striking with TTD sporting a peroxide blonde short haircut and a pair of wings – quite the angelic image. Now I thought it was called “Vibrator” but according to Wikipedia its full title is “Terence Trent D’Arby’s Vibrator* (*Batteries Included)”. Ooerr.

The lead single from it was “Holding Onto You” and I have to say that I was expecting more from it. It’s a bluesy/soul number that sort of meanders along but never really convinces. I keep waiting for the song to get started but it never does. TTD’s distinctive voice is to the fore and seems to have got deeper over the years but even that can’t save it. I’m surprised it got as high as No 20. This would prove to be the last ever UK Top 40 hit for the man who now signs his name as Sananda Maitreya and wasn’t exactly going out on a high. A far cry from the dizzy heights and expectations that met his arrival on the music scene eight years before. Shame really.

What the chuff am I supposed to write about this one seeing as “Baby Baby” by Corona sounds exactly like their previous hit “Rhythm Of The Night”? I know this was common practice around this time but why didn’t the punters see through it and not buy it?! Was it all just about the bpm on the dance floors?

Vocalist Olga Maria de Souza has gone all Bladerunner for this performance with her sartorial choices; specifically the transparent mac that the replicant Zhora is wearing as she flees from Deckard. Thankfully she hasn’t got a snake like Zhora had too. There would have been letters sent to Points Of View, I’m telling you.

Just as the ‘exclusive’ performance from Prince and NPG was recycled the other week, so is this recent appearance by Simple Minds which was also labelled as ‘exclusive’. It’s all very well repeating these clips but where does that leave me eh? I’ve already written about this one in a previous post and they’re just in the studio not at a world famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower as they were when promoting previous single “She’s A River” on the show. Follow up single “Hypnotise” wasn’t anywhere near as strong to my ears so they probably should have reversed the songs and their settings. “Hypnotise” would have benefited from the distraction of the Eiffel Tower whereas “She’s A River” was probably muscular enough to stand up to a session in the TOTP studio as it were.

“Hypnotise” would end up being the band’s penultimate UK Top 40 hit. A lack of chart success didn’t deter them though and they are now in their 47th year of existence (albeit with only Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill remaining from the original lineup) and have released 21 studio albums with the most recent being 2022’s “Direction Of The Heart”.

Nope, no memory of this one at all. Pato Banton did a single with Ranking Roger of The Beat? Pato only had that one (albeit massive) hit didn’t he? His execrable version of “Baby Come Back”. Well no, actually. He had four (or five if you count his guest rap on Sting’s “This Cowboy Song” for which he received a credit) but none of his other hits got anywhere near the success of his chart topper. This one – “Bubbling Hot” -only managed a peak of No 15. He liked a collaboration though did old Pato. As well as Ranking Roger and Sting (with whom he also had a minor hit with a cover of The Police’s “Spirits In The Material World”), “Baby Come Back” also featured Ali and Robin Campbell of UB40. In fact, that means every one of his hits was with in conjunction with other artists.

“Bubbling Hot” kind of sounds like a reggae version of Arrow’s soca classic “Hot Hot Hot” to my untutored ears which is not necessarily a bad thing but overall there doesn’t seem to be much to the track really. Still, it’s nice to see the sadly departed Ranking Roger who died of cancer in 2019 again.

If it’s the 90s and Bryan Adams then it must be a big ballad and his latest release is…kind of. “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” certainly was a ballad but it was not quite of the same flavour of some of his other love songs of the decade. Tracks like “Please Forgive Me”, “All For Love” (with Rod Stewart and that king of collaborations Sting), “Do I Have To Say The Words” and of course “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” were very much soft rock ballads but this one was slightly different. How? It had a flamenco guitar in it courtesy of Paco de Lucia as name checked by Bruno Brookes in his intro.

I have to admit to dismissing this song completely at the time, very possibly due to its inclusion of said guitar. Written for the soundtrack to the film Don Juan DeMarco, it peaked at No 4 showing the power that Bryan still wielded when it came to mainstream balladeering. The fact that (yet again) the song was part of a film soundtrack probably helped its success though I don’t think Don Juan De Marco cut through quite as much as something like Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. I for one didn’t catch it at the time and have never watched it ever. One person who did was my friend Susan. Whilst waiting in the queue to buy her ticket, she heard the guy in front of her ask for his by putting an extraordinary emphasis on the word ‘Juan’. It went something like this: “Two for Don WHOOAHN De Marco please”. For the record, Susan didn’t believe that the guy was Spanish either.

Rejoice for The Outhere Brothers are Top of the Pops no more. They probably were still selling enough records to have stayed at No 1 for a few weeks yet but they were no match for the unit shifting phenomenon that took their place. We have arrived at the commercial and creative peak of Take That. In some ways it was, if not unexpected, then not guaranteed given that their last two singles hadn’t quite performed as expected. “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” had broken a run of four consecutive chart toppers by only making it to No 3 whilst “Sure”, though making it to No 1, only stayed there for one week despite Gary Barlow’s belief that it was the best thing the band had ever done. I (and millions of others) would beg to disagree Gary. It’s hard to see past “Back For Good” when it comes to that accolade. The song had been unveiled in a performance at the BRIT Awards in February creating a demand for it that saw it made available to the media six weeks before you could buy it in the shops and resulting in the single’s official release being brought forward. It would sell close on 400,000 copies in its first week meaning it had sold more in seven days than any single since Band Aid in 1984. It wasn’t hard to understand why. “Back For Good” was a shimmering pop masterpiece. It’s full of melody and nicely crafted lyrics about lipstick marks and coffee cups – this one though is excellent:

In the twist of separation, you excelled at being free
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Gary Barlow
Back for Good lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

I think though it’s the harmonies of the backing vocals that seeks the deal. Such was the song’s quality that it even gave them a hit in America which had been impervious to their success at home before.

Not everything was rosy in the Take That garden though. Within three months Robbie Williams would be gone, asked to leave by at least two of his bandmates over his attitude and commitment. Are there signs of him feeling the stress here with his shaved hair which has been died a hue of red/purple? “Back For Good” will be No 1 for four weeks so the boys (including Robbie) will be back soon enough. Sadly for Bruno Brookes, well, he was gone for good.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Grace	Not Over Yet	No
2	Ultimate Kaos	Show A Little Love	Never
3	Bucketheads	The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)	Negative
4	Terence Trent D’Arby	Holding Onto You	Nah
5	Corona	Baby Baby	I did not
6	Simple Minds	Hypnotise	Its a no from me
7	Pato Banton and Ranking Roger	Bubbling Hot	Not I
8	Bryan Adams	Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?	Nope
9	Take That	Back For Good	No but my wife did – on 7″ no less

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/m001rk79/top-of-the-pops-06041995

TOTP 30 MAR 1995

Posted on October 20, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s another golden mic episode of TOTP and this week the slot goes to Ant & Dec or Ant & Declan as they introduce themselves. Or is it PJ & Duncan? Ant says that they are in fact them as well in the intro. They were releasing records as PJ & Duncan at this time (that didn’t change to Ant & Dec until 1996) but maybe they (or their management) were starting to think about a more long term brand. Certainly they’d decided on who should stand where by this point with Ant on the viewer’s left and Dec on the right. They had been positioned the other way round when performing on TOTP as opposed to presenting. I was wondering if this was their first such gig but Wikipedia tells me they’d already co-hosted a children’s programme on ITV called Gimme 5 before getting their own show on BBC. Little did we know at the time that they would come to dominate the TV schedules behemoth like for the next three decades.

Back in 1995 though, they were those fresh-faced lads from Byker Grove who sang that song “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” (amongst other hits) introducing Strike as the first act of the night. This is one of those occasional moments in chart history when the hit is much more well remembered than the artist. “U Sure Do” was said hit that actually made the UK Top 40 twice. It made No 31 in early January but was a much bigger hit just a few weeks later in the March and April of 1995 when it peaked at No 4. To be fair, although I used the word ‘occasional’, you could make a case that the vast majority of these 90s Eurodance hits were all about the tracks not the people behind them or indeed in front of them. For example, Strike had four further UK Top 40 hits but I defy anybody to name even one of them.

“U Sure Do” was based around the hook from Donna Allen’s 1987 hit “Serious” though I’m not sure I made that connection at the time. I also didn’t know that Strike’s singer – Victoria Newton – went onto record a dance version of All About Eve’s “Martha’s Harbour”. If that sounds like a hideous concept to you, then I urge you not to click on the video below. Trust your gut feeling. If only Victoria Newton hadn’t heard about the idea of making a dance track of All About Eve’s biggest hit, just like Julianne Regan couldn’t hear the the backing track on that infamous TOTP appearance.

Some R&B balladeering now from a new name in Brownstone. Whilst I do remember this group, I couldn’t have told you the name of any of their hits and certainly don’t recall the info shared by Ant & Dec in their intro about them being signed to Michael Jackson’s label MJJ Music. Indeed, the fact that Jacko even had his own record label can’t have registered with me at all. Apparently, it was in existence from 1993 to 2001 and was owned by Sony and distributed by Epic for whom Jackson recorded but was dissolved over disagreements between Sony and the singer over the promotion of his career. Brownstone were one of the label’s few artists to secure any hits with the other being 3T who famously were a trio made up of Jackson’s nephews. Nepotism much?

Brownstone made a splash when this single “If You Love Me” made the Top 10 in the US and UK but their subsequent releases suffered from a dose of diminishing returns and they split in 1998 before reforming in 2007 and 2019 though only Nichole ‘Nicci’ Gilbert remains from the original line up. As for this performance, the lady on the left surely couldn’t see out from under that lowered peaked cap could she? Had she seen Gabrielle with her eye patch look and said “Hold my beer”?

I’d have to say that Ant & Dec’s links weren’t the best at this stage of their career. Rather obvious and unfunny but they were both very young and not as slick the as they would become. The segue into “Two Can Play That Game” is especially lame unlike the song by Bobby Brown. Like “U Sure Do” earlier and many other hits around this time it seemed, this had already been a minor hit before bestriding the charts giant-like later in its life. Originally a No 38 in the Summer of 1994, it would go Top 3 nine months later.

Now usually it took a remix by a de jour producer to make a track a much bigger hit second time around and indeed “Two Can Play That Game” did have such a sprinkle of magic in the form of mixes by K Klass (the album version didn’t) but here’s the thing; as far as I can tell, these remixes were already present on the 1994 original release as well as the 1995 re-issue. Which begs the question why was it given a second chance? I guess either Bobby or his record company had faith in the track and thought it deserved a second chance. You can hear why I think. Steered by a hand-clapping beat with some strident house piano flourishes, it’s also got an uplifting chorus that I can imagine leant itself to much dancing with abandon on many a dance floor throughout the country. Limbs!

The success of the single prompted the release of a whole remix album of the same name later in the year which did what it said on the tin – featured remixes of some of his biggest songs that led to three more recycled tracks becoming UK Top 40 hits.

Finally! After weeks of wondering where all the Britpop artists were in this year of Britpop, here’s one that were really at the heart of it. Or were they? Well, Menswear were a bit of a conundrum. In some quarters, they were very much seen as manufactured to be part of the burgeoning scene rather than growing out of it organically and therefore not genuine nor credible. There was some truth in that of course. First mentioned in a Select magazine article by founding members Johnny Dean and Chris Gentry before the band even existed, the hype surrounding them was huge. Having put the idea out there, Dean and Gentry decided that they should probably form the band for real and lo, Menswear were born to the world in the epicentre of Britpop, namely Camden. A debut gig had the record labels frothing at the mouth, besides themselves with fear at the thought of missing out on the next big thing. In the end, London Records won the race at the cost of £90,000. A £500,000 publishing deal (they only had seven songs in their repertoire at the point of signing!) and an NME front cover followed before this TOTP appearance. They hadn’t even released anything at the time!

As if the buzz around them wasn’t big enough, they made their first single “I’ll Manage Somehow” a limited edition release with, as Dec says in his intro, just 5,000 copies made available. Ant wasn’t the only one asking the question “Why?”. Around this time, I was doing a further education night course about music of the 70s. One of my fellow course members was a guy called Dominic who had heard about this band called Menswear but was mightily pissed off that he couldn’t find their single anywhere to purchase due to its limited release. Knowing I worked in a record shop, he asked me what it was all about. I said I thought it was a marketing strategy to create a clamour for the product at the counter but Dominic wasn’t having it and thought it was daft. He had a point. In the end, “I’ll Manage Somehow” somehow managed a peak of No 49. Wouldn’t it have been better to mass produce it and give them the chance of a bigger debut hit or was I missing something? The follow up single “Daydreamer” made No 14 so clearly that was made more widely available. It was their third single “Stardust” though that did it for me. Hopefully we’ll get to see that one on a future TOTP repeat.

Having said that, watching this performance back some 28 years later, I’m not sure if the profile the band attained is quite so obviously explained. They made a decent sound to my ears but it was hardly revolutionary and indeed left them open to the same accusations of plagiarism that plagued their Britpop contemporaries Elastica. I’d forgotten Johnny Dean’s military style tunic that he wore here. A few short years later, The Libertines would copy the look in their own brief blaze of hype and glory. So was the Menswear ballyhoo that bad? After all, they were hardly the first to go there. Sigue Sigue Sputnik did it much more outrageously and ridiculously back in 1986 and were vilified extensively and that thing about being the pin up band for a musical movement? Wasn’t that what Spandau Ballet were for the New Romantics? Unlike Spandau though, Menswear weren’t able to extend their life beyond their Britpop origins and when that came to an end, so did they. Drummer Matt Everett would become a writer, presenter and sidekick to ex-Radio 6 DJ Shaun Keaveny whilst lead singer Johnny Dean became an advocate for the National Autistic Society after being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and briefly restarted Menswear with a new line up in 2013. He ditched the project shortly afterwards though following a change of heart.

When you’ve had a name as big as Prince on your show recently, I guess you’re going to make use of his performance more than once even if you couldn’t actually see his face. Yes, it’s that former ‘exclusive’ appearance by New Power Generation promoting their “Get Wild” single where Prince hides his fizzog throughout it behind a veil in protest at the actions of his record company Warners with whom he was in dispute. With the Purple One using NPG as a means of releasing material whilst hamstrung by Warners and the latter retaliating by issuing a single called “Purple Medley”, it set up a chart battle of sorts though it would hardly rival the Blur v Oasis bout later in the year. Prince would finally disentangle himself from Warners around 1996.

He wasn’t the first pop star to use the gimmick of a mask of course. Here’s David Soul pre his Starsky and Hutch days as The Covered Singer…

He wouldn’t be the last either with the advent of the TV show The Masked Singer being syndicated around the world and featuring actual pop stars…

From one music legend to another. After Prince comes The Boss! The reason behind Bruce Springsteen’s appearance here seems to be to promote his recently released No 1 “Greatest Hits” album from which “Murder Incorporated” was one of four new tracks. I say ‘new’ but it was actually a really old song that was written during the “Born In The USA” album sessions but which didn’t make the cut. In fact, “Murder Incorporated” was going to be the album’s title at one point. It got reactivated for Bruce’s first compilation album and fast became a crowd favourite when played live. It’s a good song I think that doesn’t sound out of place next to some of the other more well known and celebrated tracks on the album. It was never released as a single in the UK (in fact it was only released in Canada) hence the big TOTP caption ‘Album Track’.

The “Greatest Hits” would go multi platinum but Bruce chose to follow it up with an album that would be his first to fail to make the Top 10 in the US for two decades. “The Ghost Of Tom Joad” was his second acoustic collection after “Nebraska” and on the one hand didn’t seem like an obvious direction to go in but on the other it made perfect sense. Draw a line under one phase of your career by reminding everyone how great it was with a Best Of and then deliver something unexpected. That’s how you maintain a career that’s lasted over 50 years I guess.

Snap! were still having hits in 1995? Well, yes they were but both visually and sonically you would be forgiven for believing that this wasn’t the same group that exploded onto the charts in 1990 with “The Power”. Rapper Turbo B had long gone and they were on to their fourth singer in Summer after Jackie Harris, Thea Austin and Niki Haris before her. In this performance with Summer and her two backing vocalists/dancers in crimson ball gowns, they look an era away from those early days which I guess they were. Their sound had also transformed over the years to the point that they were now peddling trance flavoured pop with “The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)” a prime example. With a title that seemed to borrow an awful lot from that old Barry White hit, it consisted of Summer repeating the word ‘eternity’ over and over until it sounded like she was singing ‘eternally’. It does, however, have a deeply hypnotic quality to it that kind of draws you in…and in…and…No! Snap out of it! Ahem.

“The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)” would make a respectable No 15 on the UK charts but the majority of their final hits would be remixes of past glories, mainly “Rhythm Is A Dancer” which provided their last Top 40 entry in 2008. It wasn’t their first hit but it was their last meaning Snap!’s success didn’t last an eternity.

Whilst I can appreciate their place in musical history, I was never a massive Nirvana fan. Consequently, by association, I was never that interested in Hole either. The band started by Courtney Love who was, of course, married to Kurt Cobain always seemed to be inextricably linked to Nirvana because of that relationship. Working in record shops throughout the 90s, obviously I was aware of their releases and the names of their albums but I never had that much interest in hearing them. Plenty of people did though. I don’t think I understood quite how many records they sold. Literally millions of copies of their second and third albums in America achieving platinum status. It wasn’t quite the same story in the UK though those two albums “Live Through This” and “Celebrity Skin” did shift 100,000 units each. In terms of singles, Hole had never had a Top 40 hit in this country until “Doll Parts”. Watching this performance doesn’t make me feel I mistakenly deprived myself of their oeuvre I have to say. It’s all a bit too lo-fi and grunge- high for me and I don’t think I could listen to Courtney Love’s voice on repeat that much.

Despite not being a fan, I do have a Hole story. A month after this TOTP aired, the band played a gig at the Manchester Academy venue. A quick search of the internet tells me it was actually Sunday 30th April. I was living in Manchester at the time and my wife and I had been for a walk somewhere and on the way back home, passed by the Academy. The ticket touts were out in force and they seemed to be particularly interested in trying to flog me one. Approach after approach was made to the point where I was getting annoyed. “No mate, I’m not interested”; my reply was almost becoming a chant. I turned to my wife and, exasperated, said “What’s going on? Why do they keep trying to flog a ticket to me?”. My wife looked me up and down and then pointed to my T-shirt. “Maybe that’s got something to do with it?”. I’d completely forgotten that I was wearing a Nirvana T-shirt. Now you would be forgiven for asking the question “Hang on, I thought you said you weren’t that into Nirvana so what gives with the T-shirt?”. Well, there’d been some sort of Nirvana promotion at the Our Price store where I worked whereby customers got a feee T-shirt if they bought the album or something. Anyway, there were loads left over so they were dished out to the staff and I happened to have mine on the day of the Hole gig completely by chance. For the record, I didn’t buy a ticket for David gig.

Ant & Dec finally start to get into their stride with their links with a nice Morecambe and Wise style routine around the No 1 record “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” by The Outhere Brothers. That intro is the only good thing about this whole footnote in UK musical history when the public lost their minds not just once but twice (there’s another No 1 coming in a few weeks) over these two dolts. The whole appeal of this record it seems to me was its sexually explicit lyrics which, of course, we don’t hear in this performance. You wouldn’t have heard them on the edit version played on the radio either. It kind of makes this TOTP appearance slightly redundant. Still, the studio audience seem to be having a great time whooping it up in call and response fashion.

We should perhaps be thanking our lucky stars for small mercies. If it weren’t for Take That releasing a new single around this time, “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” would surely have stayed at No 1 for longer. In total, it spent six weeks inside the Top 2 with only one of those in the top spot.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Strike	U Sure Do	I sure don’t – no
2	Brownstone	If You Love Me	No
3	Bobby Brown	Two Can Play That Game	Nope
4	Menswear	I’ll Manage Somehow	Couldn’t get a copy despite working in a record shop
5	New Power Generation	Get Wild	Nah
6	Bruce Springsteen	Murder Incorporated	Not released as a single
7	Snap!	The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)	Negative
8	Hole	Doll Parts	Not my bag really
9	The Outhere Brothers	Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)	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/m001rb0b/top-of-the-pops-30031995

TOTP 23 MAR 1995

Posted on October 17, 2023 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rb00/top-of-the-pops-23031995

TOTP 16 MAR 1995

Posted on October 14, 2023 by 80stastic

I can’t remember if I watched this particular TOTP but if I did then I’m pretty sure that I would have had my mind on something else. Immediately after it finished, my beloved Chelsea were playing a European Cup Winners Cup quarter-final. Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, they were attempting to reach a European semi-final for the first time in 24 years. It may not seem it to the club’s younger fanbase who have been used to continuous success but this was a big deal. So big that I recall turning the TV off with minutes still to play and Chelsea winning 2-0 for fear of a late away goal that would knock us out. My nerves couldn’t take it. I turned the TV back on to the sight of a celebrating Chelsea crowd and realised we were through. It would all end in failure (as it always did back then) when we lost the semi-final to eventual winners Real Zaragoza.

I’m not sure that there’s a musical equivalent of that sort of experience. Having said that, just eleven days after this TOTP broadcast, a single was released that used to almost give me palpitations. Josh Wink’s “Higher State Of Consciousness” would set my nerves right on edge when it played on the shop stereo of the Our Price store I was working in. It literally could almost send me into a panic attack. Here’s hoping the tunes on tonight’s show aren’t as triggering.

By the way, tonight’s host is Lenny Henry as it’s Comic Relief the following day and so TOTP has been hijacked to help with the promotion. Lenny’s links are not especially funny but it’s hard not to warm to him.

Well, there’s nothing to make me nervous about the first artist on tonight. Alex Party are on to their third TOTP appearance I think with “Don’t Give Me Your Life”. If anything, I’m completely bored of this track. However, there is one thing that’s peaked my interest in this performance and that’s the presence of a drummer in amongst all the backing dancers leaping about. A drummer? On a Eurodance hit?! Obviously, they’ve got the obligatory two nerdy guys on keyboards in there but a drummer wasn’t usually in the mix surely? Has he always been there?

*quickly checks previous shows to feature Alex Party*

Well, he wasn’t there in the first appearance but then neither were the keyboard players but they were all on stage in the second appearance; I just can’t have noticed them. I wonder why there was the change of line up? Surely they weren’t looking for musicianship credibility?!

Next up is a group which was never going to raise my anxiety levels but this particular performance was a jolt to the system. A single by The Human League where Phil Oakey doesn’t do the lead vocals? This was out of the ordinary to sat the least. In fact it was more than out of the ordinary, it was the first time Susanne Sulley had been lead vocalist on one of the band’s singles. “One Man In My Heart” was the follow up to comeback hit “Tell Me When” which had rather surprisingly gone Top 10 at the start of the year. It also did pretty well chart wise achieving a respectable No 13 peak.

On first hearing, it sounds like a very one dimensional synth ballad but its simplicity is also its strength. An unfussy vocal from Susanne allied to a winning melody elevates it to something above the ordinary. Even the hackneyed ‘Ooh La La La’ backing from Phil and Joanne can’t bring it down. Sadly though, the only subsequent occasions that a Human League single would make the Top 20 would be rereleases of “Don’t You Want Me”. Having said that, the band don’t seem weighed down by their illustrious early 80s history but rather embrace it. They are almost constantly on tour it seems churning out the hits and have only released two albums of new material in the 28 years since “Octopus” (parent album of “One Man In My Heart”) came out. One last thing, what is that contraption that Phil is ‘playing’?

And so to the song that is the whole point of Sir Lenny Henry being on the show tonight – the Comic Relief single. This year it was no novelty song à la “The Stonk” or “Stick It Out” but a proper composition – “Love Can Build A Bridge”, a big country ballad by mother and daughter duo The Judds. It seems rather unfair but I’m guessing that Comic Relief were canny enough to know that The Judds weren’t a big enough name to promote the single (even though it’s their own song) and so roped in four mega star names to do the job. Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton met the brief and indeed would carry it all the way to No 1.

In his intro, Lenny implores the watching TV audience that whatever we do on Comic Relief day, not to do nothing and that we could at least by the single. Well, I didn’t I have to admit but I would hope that I made a donation. They would have involved picking up the (landline) phone, ringing in to the dedicated number and actually speaking to someone. Cast your mind back even further to Live Aid and Bob Geldof was telling us to go to the post office to get a postal order mailed out. It’s so much easier these days. Just text a message on your mobile to a number and you’re done. Try explaining that to the kids today. Though I’m glad to have lived through the eras I did, there’s no denying technology does have some benefits.

Apart from the fear that I may not have made a donation to Comic Relief, there was nothing about the last song to make me anxious. However, my calmness is under threat immediately from the next act. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The time of The Outhere Brothers is upon us. For reasons unclear, these two berks racked up four UK Top 10 hits this year including two (TWO!) No 1s. Quite why the British record buying public had a vulnerability for unequivocally crap records remains inexplicable to me. There must be a thesis or at least a dissertation in it for somebody.

The first of those two chart toppers was “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” which gained notoriety for its sexually explicit lyrics (I looked them up, they are very explicit). Now of course, the version performed on TOTP was the radio edit (or clean version) with the offending lyrics removed which pretty much just left a moronic chant of the single’s title. However, the CD single included the explicit version as part of the extra tracks meaning many a young record buyer ended up with access to innocence corrupting material. Such was the outrage that it even promoted a question in Parliament (raised by the MP from my hometown of Worcester as it happens). Perhaps nobody should have been surprised given the titles of the duo’s first two singles – “Pass The Toilet Paper” and the delightfully named “Fuk U In The Ass”. Its notoriety probably helped propel it to the chart summit. I know from working in record shops for years that we never sold those clean versions of records by the likes of Eminem. The youth all wanted to hear the cussing.

The performance here is deeply unimpressive. Malik and Hula (they weren’t really brothers I don’t think) are wearing basketball outfits for no discernible reason and there are the obligatory scantily clad women dancing behind them. I can feel my anxiety levels rising. Not because of any potentially explicit lyrics but because with this crap going to No 1, we’re going to have to endure it at least once more.

Next a band whose name sounds like it should strike a note of trepidation and indeed they were named after a 1986 horror film but, in truth, Terrorvision weren’t that scary. However, they did have a rather spooky chart statistic which was that their last five singles had peaked between No 29 and 21. This next release – “Some People Say” – would make that six when it got to a high of No 22. The fifth and last single taken from their “How To Make Friends And Influence People” album, I can’t say I remember it at all. Maybe it was unfortunate to have been around at the same time as a similarly entitled single – “Some Might Say” by Oasis was released the following month and would become their first No 1. Terrorvision never had their own chart topper though they came close with “Tequila” in 1999 which peaked at No 2.

Clearly taking a leaf out of her brother’s book of ‘How many singles is too many to release from one album?’*, Janet Jackson is back with the seventh from her 1993 “Janet” album. Yes, you read that right; 1993. Janet was still releasing singles from an album that came out eighteen months previously.

*Answer: There is no limit if your surname is Jackson

“Whoops Now” was a double A-side with “What’ll I Do” and was a hidden track on the album but was deemed commercial enough for a single release. It’s a fairly unremarkable Motown pastiche to my ears; a bit too cute for its own good. The performance here is an ‘exclusive’ live performance from Oslo and to be honest, Janet’s exhortations to the audience to want to hear them make some noise (or words to that effect) whilst singing a song so slight is almost comical.

“Whoops Now” made No 9 on the UK Top 40 but it wouldn’t be long before Janet was back. Just two months later, her duet with brother Michael entitled “Scream” would go all the way to No 2.

Right, if you’re confused as I was about Lenny Henry’s intro for this next track, it’s because we had forgotten about this Levi’s 501 advert. Maybe watch this before proceeding further and it should clear that mystery up…

…all done? Up to speed now? Great! Yes, after a Levi’s advert turned an unknown song by a fabricated band the previous year (“Inside” by Stiltskin) into a No 1 record, the marketing machine rolled on into 1995 and yet again made a huge hit out of a relatively obscure track. The lucky recipients of the Levi’s magic dust this time though were the latest project of a man who was no stranger to chart hits.

It had been seven years since the The Housemartins had called it a day and in that time, whilst Paul Heaton found mass appeal with the wry pop melodies of The Beautiful South, Norman Cook had turned his attention to the world of dance music. Success came early and in some style with Cook’s group Beats International securing a 1990 No 1 with “Dub Be Good To Me”. There was only one way to to go after that though and that particular project withered away. The ever inventive Cook was soon back in the saddle with his next vehicle Freak Power whose 1993 debut single “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” was a minor chart hit when it made No 29. Somebody at Levi’s (or the advertising agency working for them) must have noticed the track as just under eighteen months later it was chosen to soundtrack the next 501 campaign. You can hear why. A super slick soul groove with a touch of funk that saw the bass guitar supplying the hooky riff, it sounded familiar the first time you heard it with Gill Scott-Heron springing to mind. It turns out though that the bass line was appropriated from a tune called “Flo” by Red Holt from the 70s. Though that name means nothing to me, I’m sure Norman would have had a copy of said track in his extensive vinyl collection.

The reach of the advert ensured that “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” would become a major hit second time around peaking at No 3 though, if pressed, I would have guessed that it made it to the top of the charts like Stiltskin did a year before. I like the fact that lead singer Ashley Slater pulls out a trombone during this performance but then he had been a member of jazz big band/orchestra Loose Tubes in the 80s. In terms of my nerves with regards to this hit, the only thing concerning me was the potential for an unfortunate typo when it came to the name of Loose Tubes.

Lenny Henry might be experiencing some nerves of his own as he introduces the next artist on the show but they’re the good type rather than the anxiety inducing variety. It’s only his all time hero Prince. Sadly for Lenny, the Purple One was in the middle of his dispute with Warners and so what we get here is Prince pretending he’s not really there. As a way of releasing material outside of his existing contract, Prince used his backing band since 1990 New Power Generation to vent his creative spleen. “Get Wild” was the lead single from the band’s second album “Exodus” and, in line with their earlier output, it’s a supercool funk work out in the style of Parliament. For this performance, Prince has assumed one of his multiple alter egos, in this case, Tora Tora and appears on stage in a gauze scarf totally obscuring his face. If you peer closely, I think you can determine that it is Prince but I can’t help thinking it kind of diluted the experience of him appearing on the show.

In the Top 40 at the same time as “Get Wild” was something called “Purple Medley” which, as it says in the title, was a mashup of Prince hits and well known tracks either re-recorded or sampled. Released by Warners, it might appear as if this was the record company trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue from their artist’s back catalogue but it was actually Prince who was behind the single in an attempt to fulfil his contractual obligations with Warners. No doubt he would have raised a wry smile when “Get Wild” peaked at No 19 and “Purple Medley” spluttered to a high of No 33.

Finally! It’s the last of seven weeks at the top of the charts for Celine Dion with “Think Twice”. There was no rapid descent of the charts for the single though as it would spend another two weeks inside the Top 5 and a further four after that within the Top 40. In total it would spend thirty-one weeks on the UK Top 100. My nerves were officially frazzled.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Alex Party	Don’t Give Me Your Life	No
2	The Human League	One Man In My Heart	Don’t think I did
3	Cher / Chrissie Hynde / Neneh Cherry / Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	I did not
4	The Outhere Brothers	Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)	Hell no
5	Terrorvision	Some People Say	Nope
6	Janet Jackson	Whoops Now	Negative
7	Freak Power	Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out	Nah
8	New Power Generation	Get Wild	It’s a no from me
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001r3g8/top-of-the-pops-16031995