49ers

TOTP 14 JUN 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

We are less than one week (and only one game in the case of England) into the Italia ’90 World Cup and already the nation is gloomy about the team’s chances of progressing. A scratchy 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland in the first group match wasn’t the start that we’d hoped for and the game itself was a bit of a stinker. Cue Gary Lineker…

Ahem. Another draw (this time 0-0) with Holland followed two days after this TOTP was broadcast meaning qualification into the knockout stages hung in the balance. The drama, the tension. How about some music to calm our nerves….

Well, for a start off, presenter Bruno Brookes’ jacket of many colours would have been flashing me up and setting me on edge. Look at it! If Shakin’ Stevens and Adam Ant’s wardrobes had ever got together and sired a sprog, this would be it. Just revolting. There should have been a law to prevent such a jacket being worn on national TV. Talking of the law, here’s Guru Josh with his second consecutive hit “Whose Law (Is It Anyway?). Having conquered the charts earlier in the year with “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)”, here he is again with a single whose title sounds like it was inspired by a certain long running, satirical Channel 4 improvisational comedy series. However, I’m guessing was probably about the Entertainment (increased Penalties) Act, that the government introduced this year allowing fines of up to £20,000 for hosting illegal raves or parties. As you can probably guess by his appearance and performance here, Guru (Mr. Josh?) was very anti this legislation and its curtailing of rave culture.

As for the track itself, it’s pretty similar to “Infinity” to my ears with that distinctive saxophone sound to the fore again although the vocals (if you can call them that) are very grating and distracting. The engineer on this track was someone called Chinito Bandito whose sounds like a character from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Wacky Races.

After this single only made it to No 26 in the charts, Guru Josh decamped to Ibiza to concentrate on art and running a promotions company. He returned to the Top 40 one more time with a re-release of “Infinity” in 2008 but tragically committed suicide in December 2015.

Right. Who’s this? Maureen? Nothing to do with telephone directory services but in fact the woman who sang on Bomb The Bass’s cover of “Save A Little Prayer” back in ’88. She’s back on the show with another cover version but this time of the 1984 No 11 hit “Thinking Of You” from Sister Sledge. There seemed to be a rush of hit singles around the early ’90s that was based around the practice of taking an original well known song and covering it in a different musical style, usually of a dance orientated nature. Hell, there’s another one along straight after this! Here Maureen (full name Maureen Walsh but probably Mo to her friends don’t you think?) gives a Soul II Soul style treatment of this Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards penned disco classic. I’m not sure it was worth the effort to be fair.

The look of the performance here is very odd. Maureen at 5′ 10″ cuts an imposing figure on a small stage whilst the two guys backing her on keyboards look so out of place that they remind me of Raw Sex from French and Saunders. That’s before we even talk about the guy who comes on in the middle to do the seemingly obligatory but wholly incongruous rap.

“Thinking Of You” was as good as it got for Maureen when it peaked spookily at exactly the same chart position as the Sister Sledge original at No 11. She did release an album called “Take It From Me” in ’91 but you’d be hard pushed to find it anywhere today.

Another old tune given a musical refurbishment now as Snap! bring us their second hit of the year in “Ooops Up”. Not exactly a cover per se but it was certainly inspired by The Gap Band’s dance floor classic “Oops Upside Your Head” whilst also managing to shoe horn references to the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet”. Now I never knew this before but the full title of that Gap Band hit is actually “I Don’t Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops!)”. Hmm, bit of a mouthful – I can see why it is better known by its truncated moniker. Penny Ford, who does the vocals on this track, was actually a back up singer for The Gap Band earlier in her career although she wasn’t responsible for choosing it to for the Snap! track.

The original Gap Band lyrics ‘Everybody say oops up side your head, say oops upside your head’ were added to by the addition of the line ‘somebody say opala.’ So, ever wondered what an opala is? Well, obviously it’s the German for ‘Oops’ what with Snap! being the brain child of German producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti and nothing to do with Opal Fruits sweets (and yes I mean Opal Fruits and not the wanky Starburst re-brand). When I was at Poly, I knew a girl who thought the lyrics to “Oops Upside Your Head” were ‘Oops swap sides again, I said oops swap sides again’ because of the dance that went with it. The one where you have two lines sat on the dance floor who lean backwards, forwards and sideways together? You know the one. She had a point.

This next song sounds like it should be a cover version but it isn’t. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Maxi Priest had done a version of The Carpenters classic “Close To You” seeing as he’d already done reggae-fied covers of “Some Guys Have All The Luck” made famous by Robert Palmer and “Wild World” by Cat Stevens but it’s actually a Maxi original. I say reggae but Wikipedia tells me that Maxi’s music was actually reggae fusion as it has an R&B influence mixed in there as well. Whatever.

“Close To You” was (almost unbelievably) a Stateside No 1 which I never knew until now making Maxi (known as ‘The happiest man in pop’ according to Smash Hits magazine) only the second ever UK reggae act to achieve that feat after UB40 with “Red Red Wine” in 1988. The Brummie lads repeated the trick in 1993 with their cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. Maybe British reggae was quite the thing in the US at the time then.

For the completists out there, yes there was a cover of The Carpenters “(They Long to Be) Close to You” (to give it its full title) recorded by soul singer Gwen Guthrie in 1986 which made No 25 in the UK charts. So definitely not by Maxi Priest.

Some ropey old shite next as we get the “Freestyle Mega Mix” by Bobby Brown. This was a medley of Brown’s previous hits “Every Little Step”, “On Our Own”, “Don’t Be Cruel” and “My Prerogative” which was released as a single to promote his remix album “Dance!…Ya Know it!” although it wasn’t included on the album itself.

Presumably the whole project was an attempt by his record company MCA to keep Brown’s profile high while he was in between albums (his follow up to 1988’s multi-platinum “Don’t Be Cruel” didn’t appear until 1992) and it reeks of cynicism. Somehow this steaming turd got all the way to No 14 in the UK Top 40.

Another run out for the video for “The Only One I Know” by The Charlatans next. Taken from the album “Some Friendly”, I didn’t realise until now (not having bought it) that it actually didn’t appear on the vinyl version of the album initially as the band wanted to take only one single from each album with follow up “Then” being the designated single.

20 years on from its release, “The Only One I Know” appeared in a Cadbury’s chocolate advert which would have been unthinkable back in the day. At least it wasn’t used to advertise Revels the orange flavour of which was the inspiration for the lyrics to their song “Polar Bear” which was also on “Some Friendly” and was gave the title of Charlatans fanzine Looking For The Orange One.

“The Only One I Know” peaked at No 9.

Pretty sure this is the third time Betty Boo‘s “Doin’ The Do” has been on the show but that this is the first time she has made a studio appearance after the promo video was broadcast twice previously. Now apparently, Betty used to work in Dorothy Perkins on a Saturday before she was a pop star and guess what? Maureen who we saw on the show earlier used to work in Miss Selfridge. This made me wonder if any other pop stars had worked in clothes shops before finding fame. Didn’t Kaiser Chiefs front man Ricky Wilson used to work in Next? I’m sure he admitted this in an interview once and managed to avoid using the till for a whole year as he hadn’t been trained on it. His time there paid off though as he won the Shockwaves NME Award For Best Dressed Person in 2006.

Not sure if Betty won any awards for her dress sense but she’s rocking that space cadet look in this performance. She should have gone for a purple wig though in the style of the female Moonbase personnel in the old Gerry Anderson space series UFO. She would really go for the space theme in a big way though with the video to her next single ‘Where Are You Baby?”

“Doin’ The Do” peaked at No 7.

Oh Lord! As if we haven’t seen enough of this lot already in 1990, New Kids On The Block are back with a new single and another album! “Step By Step” was the title of both lead single and parent album and is their biggest selling record going to No 1 in the US for three weeks and being certified platinum. I obviously wasn’t the target audience but even allowing for my unreceptive ears, this was utter, utter drivel. Bland by numbers dance pop of the most anonymous kind, what did people see in it? I’m missing the point though by looking for any musical merit. The fact was that the group’s popularity was at such a high by this point that they could have released some rectal discharge in a branded NKOTB plastic bag and it would have sold. The Step One, Step Two etc parts where the individual members get a solo bit are especially repugnant though. Worse than all of the above though is that this is only the fifth of eight chart hits that they racked up in 1990 alone! Gulp.

The World Cup is in full flow (even if the England team weren’t by this stage of the tournament) so predictably New Order are still No 1 with “World In Motion”. I say New Order but I think it was officially credited as ‘England New Order’. Unlike the Euro ’96 “Three Lions” anthem which was created by actual football fans in David Baddiel and Frank Skinner that was reflected in the lyrics, New Order weren’t massive football fans and the lyrics to “World In Motion” are suitably vague as to not specifically centre them in the sphere of football. Apparently the FA wanted to avoid anything that could be construed as a football hooligan chant. Yes, Keith Allen was a footy nut but despite his influence, I think there is a huge difference in the tone of “World In Motion” compared to “Three Lions”. New Order were not in a good place as a band (they would split three years later) and so maybe the whole football song experiment was seen as some sort of light relief and a bit of a laugh. Their expectations were low and mirrored the nation’s lack of hope for a successful campaign by the football team. Both perspectives were to be triumphantly turned on their heads by performances both in the charts and on the pitch.

Conversely, by the time Euro ’96 rolled around, football had gone through a transformation and was popular again and not just with the working classes. Under Terry Venables and with home advantage, England were expected to go all the way whilst the “Three Lions” song featuring two well known comedians who had already tied their football colours to the post with the Fantasy Football League TV show, was seen as a potential huge hit right from the off. Ultimately the record would indeed be a smash hit going to No 1 on two separate occasions during its ’96 run alone whilst the football team would fall tantalisingly short again.

The play out video is “Girl To Girl” by 49ers. I barely remembered their biggest hit from earlier in the year “Touch Me”, so this one had no chance, especially with it peaking at a lowly No 31. I don’t think I missed out on much in retrospect.

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

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1Guru JoshWhose Law (Is It Anyway?)Nah
2MaureenThinking Of YouNot for me thanks
3Snap!Ooops UpNo
4Maxi PriestClose To YouNot my bag
5Bobby BrownFreestyle Mega MixBig no
6The CharlatansThe Only One I KnowNo but it’s on their Best Of Melting Pot CD that I have
7Betty BooDoin’ The DoNo but my wife had it on a Smash Hits Rave album
8New Kids On The BlockStep By StepWhat do you think?
9New OrderWorld In MotionCall the cops! There’s been a robbery. This isn’t in my singles box!
1049ersGirl To GirlNope

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000qzml/top-of-the-pops-14061990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 22 MAR 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s two thirds of the way through March in 1990. The 21 year old me is still unemployed and has been since the start of the year. My girlfriend is miles away in Hull while I languish in poverty and hopelessness back in my parents’ house in Worcester. The only highlight of this particular week was my beloved Chelsea winning an actual trophy on the Sunday after this TOTP was broadcast. Back then, Chelsea were not the trophy winning machine they are now so any cup win was a big deal. The Zenith Data Systems trophy may seem like a joke to johnny come lately fans now but winning a final at Wembley was a huge deal for us diehards back then. Unfortunately, this was 1990 and very few games were being shown live on terrestrial TV so I couldn’t witness it live but my brother’s mate who has a Sky dish taped it for me and I watched the whole thing back on a VHS the following day. Apparently Moore’s Leisure Centre in Stockton was the place to go though. There was even a fellow Chelsea fan in there…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8f7G26wO4o

Enough football though. This is a music blog so play on sir and after last week’s ‘TOTP in decent tunes shocker’ episode, the question now is will that continue into this week’s show?

It’s a poor start. In fact, it’s a shocking start as the opening act are those three berks collectively known as Big Fun though why anybody would derive any fun (big or otherwise) from this turd fest, I have no idea. They’re in the studio after last week’s Breakers slot to perform their hit single “Handful Of Promises” and guess what? Absolutely everything about this is dreadful. The song, the bag of a fag packet dances moves …everything. Smash Hits ran a competition to win a copy of this single and I think the question they posed says it all about Big Fun:

Which of the following is an anagram of one of the Big Fun hunks’ name?

Is it :

  1. BIG WOBBLY NETHER REGIONS
  2. CHEST LIP WRICK
  3. DIPSTICK OF THREE

Heh. “Handful Of Promises” peaked at No 21.

I sometimes wonder if Erasure get the credit they deserve. Their longevity alone should be recognised (2020 is the duo’s 35th year together) whilst their creativity and productivity has been prolific. Their stats alone are amazing:

  • 35 x Top 40 singles
  • 16 x Top 10 singles (including 1 x No 1)
  • 18 x studio albums
  • 4 x No 1 studio albums
  • 1 x No 1 Greatest Hits album
  • 1 x Ivor Novello award for Most Performed Work
  • 1 x BRIT award for Best British Group
  • 1 x Mercury Music prize nomination

Despite all of the above, I wonder if they are unfairly seen now as a retro act permanently tied to the 80s and early 90s of their imperial phase. I would also put Duran Duran in that category and yet a peer like U2, who although undoubtedly having their critics and detractors, are seen as somehow more ‘credible’? Is it just a rock v (electro) pop prejudice?

Anyway, that Ivor Novello award mentioned above was actually for this single “Blue Savannah” which had a limited edition 30th anniversary re-release this year as part of Record Store Day.

One of those pesky electronic dance acts next that caused the TOTP producers so many problems with what to do with them on the show. When dance music exploded at the end of the 80s, permeated the mainstream and produced bona fide chart hits, TOTP was left with the problem of how to put them on the show. The hypnotic beats as pop songs and faceless DJs as pop stars format was TV kryptonite for a popular music TV show and so it came to pass that Orbital (brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll) served up one of the most lacklustre performances in the show’s history when they were on to promote their dance anthem “Chime”. The brothers give a wonderful interview in the TOTP – The Story of 1990 film about said performance. They pushed just about every TOTP producer button when they :

  • Refused to mime
  • Left plugs on their keyboards to show they weren’t playing live
  • Refused a dancer on stage with them and so when one was forced upon them, refused to acknowledge she was even there
  • Wore T-shirts with political slogans on them (‘No Poll Tax’) when they had been explicitly told such behaviour was outlawed

Excellent work all round lads!

I always get Orbital confused with The Orb (not being a dance head and all) which to an 80s pop fan must be the same as a clubber confusing Howard Jones with Nik Kershaw! Blasphemy!

“Chime” reached a high of No 12 and the duo would return with even bigger hits later in the decade with “Satan” and the theme tune to the The Saint film reboot.

Fed up of dance tunes yet? No? Good because here’s another from 49ers who are back in the charts with their second of two Top 20 hits in “Don’t You Love Me”. Please note that these Italo Housers from Brescia are just 49ers and not The 49ers (think Eurythmics and not The Eurythmics). This is important as there is another musical act called The 49ers who are a hip-hop duo from Newark, Delaware who consist of members Jas Mace and Marchitect (I’m not making this up).

Yeah…you got me. I’ve got nothing else to say about 49ers so I’m just filling time….

…until the Breakers! Thank God! We start with another tune that I don’t remember at all and it’s a collaboration between Queen Latifah and De La Soul with “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children”. Queen Latifah is one of those artists who seem to have been around forever but I’d be hard pressed to name any of her songs as demonstrated by me not knowing this one. I’d probably know her filmography better than her discography to be honest. She’s great as Motormouth Maybelle in the 2007 version of Hairspray for example.

Having listened to “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children” though, it’s definitely a tune and De La Soul provide that extra special ingredient to make it a potent dish. An embarrassing spoonerism from Gary Davies when he introduces the Queen as Queen La-feet-ah doesn’t take anything away from the track.

Now despite all this dance music bouncing around the charts back in 1990, somehow there was also room for some soft metal from a band that we hadn’t seen for a couple of years. Heart had staged a delayed assault on the UK charts back in 87-88 when they broke big with Top 3 hit “Alone” before belatedly finding an audience over here for their back catalogue which also made the charts when re-released off the back of that breakthrough hit. Fast forward to 1990 and here are the Wilson sisters again back with a new song in “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” which turns out to have some of the most excruciatingly cringey lyrics ever committed to vinyl.

It’s basically one of those story songs but it’s completely ill advised. For a start there’s the plot about a woman who picks up a male hitch-hiker with the sole intent of taking him to a motel to have sex in an attempt to get pregnant. She then departs the next day leaving a note for the guy saying not to try and contact her. Inevitably they then run into each other years later with his child and she admits to him that she only did it because the man she is in love with is not able to father children. Look, I’m not making any judgements about the protagonist’s behaviour at all but is that really the best subject matter for a song? The band themselves hated it – they didn’t write it, rather it was penned by producer ‘Mutt’ Lange and they felt pressurised to record it. Here’s singer Ann Wilson from a 2017 ultimateclassicrock.com interview:

“I didn’t believe in the way the original lyrics were devaluing the man in the story. Just going, ‘Yeah, I can pick you up. We can have a night of love. We can never even know each other’s names. You can be so miraculous, and then I can just get up and leave you a note and walk out on you. Have a baby and sort of gloat about your surprise when you see the kid.’ To me, that was kind of an empty, weird, sort of hateful story.”

The song was actually banned in Ireland because the main character was a woman advocating random sex with a hitchhiker and the band didn’t play it live for years.

Then of course there are those lyrics. Here are a few of Lange’s (ahem) ‘beautiful’ words:

So we found this hotel
It was a place I knew well
We made magic that night
Oh, he did everything right

He brought the woman out of me
So many times, easily
And in the morning, when he woke
All I left him was a note

Eewww! And pray, what did the note say?

I told him I am the flower
You are the seed
We walked in the garden
We planted a tree

I mean really. It reminds me of another salacious story song – “Platinum Blonde” by Prelude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcHUvZIVv6A

Enough muck! Something a little more edifying please? Oh come on! What fresh hell is this? A dance version of a Phil Collins song? Talk about a double whammy of crapness! As far as I can tell, Jam Tronik were a German dance project who specialised in making naff dance versions of well known songs. There only UK hit single (peaking at No 19) was “Another Day In Paradise” – like the world really needed such a thing! Some of the other artists whose work they bastardised included The Carpenters, Meatloaf and Ben E. King.

As hateful as this is, it’s not the worst Phil Collins incident I have been witness to this week. I was watching some TV quiz show about music presented by that bloke from JLS and his partner the other day and they had AJ Pritchard on it – you know, that Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer whose now on I’m A Celebrity...Well, played the intro to “Mad World” by Tears For Fears, he had to identify who the artist was. His answer? “Is it Phil Collins?”. I despair.

Back in the studio now and it’s one of the biggest songs of the year (the 10th best selling in fact). Snap! were a German Eurodance group formed in 1989 by producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti and “The Power” would become the first of two UK No 1 singles for them. As with Black Box before them (and Milli Vanilli almost simultaneously), there was a ‘who’s the real singer?’ scandal attached to Snap! I think the female vocalist up there on stage with rapper Turbo B is one Jackie Harris who didn’t actually lay down the vocals for the track. That was Chaka Khan backing singer Penny Ford. With the Milli Vanilli lip sync scandal about to break and with Snap! being on the same record label as those two charlatans, a second miming furore was not what was required and so Penny was found pretty quickly and officially restored to the Snap! line up.

As for the song itself, it wasn’t my cup of tea at all but you certainly couldn’t ignore the blistering force of it. It fair smacked you about the face the first time you heard it. It will be No 1 soon enough.

This again?! This is the third time the video for “Lily Was Here” by Candy Dulfer and David A. Stewart has been on the show and I’m out of things to say about it now. Erm…oh yeah! I’ve got Dave Stewart’s autobiography. I wonder what he had to say about this record?

*much flicking of pages and skip reading later*

Well, he said….precisely nothing about it. I couldn’t find one mention of “Lily Was Here” or Candy Dulfer. Bit rude. I mean, I know he’s worked with just about everyone in both the music and movie worlds so it might have been hard to fit every collaboration into one tome but even so. I wouldn’t expect a Christmas card from Dave anytime soon Candy. He’s well moved on…

“Lily Was Here” peaked at No 6.

In amongst this seemingly endless ocean of generic (and frankly mostly dreadful) dance tunes, there comes the odd life raft of relief….and ‘odd’ is certainly the word for this next act. Quite how US alternative art rockers They Might Be Giants came to score a UK Top 10 hit at this time is almost as big a mystery as the lyrics to “Birdhouse In Your Soul”. This curious and beguiling piece of pop still intrigues me 30 years on. Everything about it from its peculiar song structure to its oblique lyrics screams ‘this is not a hit record’ and yet it somehow works. Ah yes, those lyrics. Making references as disparate as Jason and the Argonauts and The Longines Symphonette whilst including phrases like ‘filibuster vigilantly’ which really should have no place in a pop song, the piece is supposedly written from the perspective of a a blue nightlight shaped like a canary. As you do.

The performance here is delightfully bonkers with front man John Linnell throwing some very David Byrne-esque shapes. I also liked the follow up to this which was called “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” but it failed to make the Top 40 but they returned there again one final time in 2001 with “Boss Of Me” which was the theme tune to the US TV sit com Malcolm In The Middle.

“Birdhouse In Your Soul” flew all the way up to No 6 in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FRiKeu70Go

A fourth and final week at No 1 then for Beats International with “Dub Be Good To Me”. I’m guessing that they might be on TOTP at least once more as their follow up single “Won’t Talk About It” hit the Top 10 but they never appeared in the Top 40 again after that. Why did they break up? Who knows? Maybe Norman Cook was disillusioned with the project after the commercial failure of the ska/reggae influenced second album “Excursion On The Version”? Maybe he wanted to pursue a different musical direction as he did with the acid jazz inspired Freak Power? Or maybe he just wanted to widen his palette of production skills by working with lots of other artists? Whatever the reason, thank God they made “Dub Be Good To Me” with its stretch at the top of the charts that thereby deprived Jive Bunny of a fourth consecutive No 1 single.

The play out track is “Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)” by Jimmy Somerville. This was the title track of his debut solo album and came on the back of two other hit singles taken from it in “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Comment Te Dire Adieu”. Unlike the previous two, this was a Somerville original and he wrote it to promote gay rights. Indeed, there was a definite association between the song and the ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) movement and that organisation’s ‘Read My Lips’ kiss-in events to demonstrate positive expressions of queer sexuality.

Aside from its political overtones though, it’s a bloody good disco record to boot. I like the way that Jimmy wove in the phrase ‘enough is enough’ into the song – I’m guessing it was a small homage to “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” the 1979 disco stomper by Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand.

“Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)” peaked at No 26.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LppdfoTcdLw
Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1Big FunHandful Of Promises…and a pocketful of shite, NO!
2ErasureBlue SavannahNo but It must be on their Greatest Hits collection that I own.
3OrbitalChimeNah
449ersDon’t You Love MeNo I don’t
5Queen Latifah and De La SoulMama Gave Birth To The Soul ChildrenNope
6HeartAll I Wanna Do Is Make Love To YouIt’s a no from me
7Jam TronikAnother Day In ParadiseNOOOOOOO!!!
8Snap!The PowerNot for me thanks
9David A. Stewart and Candy DulferLily Was HereAnother no
10They Might Be GiantsBirdhouse In Your SoulNot the single but it’s on a Q – The Album compilation LP that I bought
11Beats InternationalDub Be Good To MeNo but my wife had their album
12Jimmy SomervilleRead My Lips (Enough Is Enough)No


Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p9v4/top-of-the-pops-22031990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 15 MAR 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

After weeks of watching aghast at the state of the charts back in early 1990, there seemed to be some online optimism that we were finally embarking on a run of episodes that promised to turn the tide of disappointment. Even the usually disparaging @TOTPFacts seemed to have caught the good times vibe:

And yet…be warned for despite the undoubted presence of some decent tunage on display tonight, there is an awful lot of shite to have to wade through first. Simon Mayo is the host for tonight’s show who is usually nondescript enough to be considered as a safe pair of hands so let’s get into it…

…hmm. Now which camp do The Mission fall into? Decent or shite? I’m going to go for the former but with the caveat that it’s a risky choice. I definitely like some of their stuff (“Stay With Me”, “Wasteland” and “Tower of Strength” for example) but there was only so much of it that I could handle in one go. “Deliverance” was the second single from their “Carved In Sand” album and I have to say it doesn’t really ring any bells with me. That may be to do with the fact that it was only in the Top 40 for three weeks and was already at its peak of No 27 by the time of this TOTP performance. If I didn’t watch this particular episode (and I’m not sure that I did) then maybe it was just in and out too quick for me to have heard it. Having caught up with it some 30 years later, it doesn’t strike me as one of their better efforts. A rousing enough chorus but the rest of it is a bit of a dirge don’t you think? Well, Norman Cook agreed with me. In a Smash Hits article reviewing the charts back then he stated of “Deliverance”:

” I hate all this macho rock business and The Mission came from a punk new wave background and they really ought to know better“

Ouch!

OK, after a debatable start to the show, I’m nailing my colours to the flag straight off the bat with this one by saying “I’ll Be Loving You Forever” by New Kids On The Block is utter excrement, a complete jobbie of a song. After two uptempo dance pop singles broke them in the UK, it was pretty obvious that they would go for a weepy ballad for their next choice of release. Not obvious enough for Simon Mayo though who declares that T’KNOB have gone “exceedingly early” for a big *hand gesture* ballad *follow up hand gesture*. What’s with the gesticulating Simon? He comes across like he’s giving a paper at some academic conference – it’s not rocket science Mayo!

The song itself is so insipid as to hardly be there at all. Jordan Knight’s reed thin vocal is barely audible (except maybe to dogs). If you want falsetto vocals allied to love songs then The Stylistics had already been there and done it (much better) in the 70s.

“I’ll Be Loving You Forever” broke their run of UK No 1 singles after “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” and “Hangin’ Tough” had scaled the summit by peaking at No 5. It was the opposite trend in the US where it was their first ever Billboard Hot 100 chart topper.

Ooh, now then. Here’s one to split the nation. After I blithely stated in a recent post that the name Candy never caught on as a popular choice for newborns despite the rise to fame of Candy Dulfer, bizarrely there was another Candy in the charts almost immediately afterwards. Candy Flip, as I recall, were briefly hailed as ‘the next big thing’ when they gave The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” the ‘rave’ treatment. This caused huge division around the duo; for some this was utter musical blasphemy while for the nation’s clubbers, it was bringing rave culture to the mainstream. In all honesty, and I say this as someone who has never been to a rave, I’m guessing that Candy Flip could have been seen by some in the rave community as betraying the whole movement by becoming pop stars off the back of it. Just a thought.

So who exactly were this pair of chancers? Well, they were Richard “Rik” Anderson- Peet and Daniel “Dizzie Dee” Spencer who had met whilst studying music and recording technology in Manchester where they moved in social circles that included the likes of A Guy Called Gerald and The Stone Roses. Clearly not ones to miss a trick when it came to burgeoning trends, they jumped on the ‘Madchester’ / ‘baggy indie’ bandwagon for their look and bingo! Ready made pop stars! They even made it onto the front cover of Smash Hits!

Apparently they did actually have some musical ability as in later life, Peet became a producer for the likes of The Charlatans and Muse whilst Spencer worked with erm…Robbie Williams…on his least well received album “Rudebox”. Yeah, maybe keep quiet about that. They also had some serious musical heritage in their locker. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Mind blowing stuff. Talking of which they were named after ‘candyflipping’, the slang term for the practice of taking ecstasy and LSD at the same time. So definitely not Candy Dulfer then.

“Strawberry Fields Forever” peaked at No 3 and was their only chart hit. Their was an album which, gazumping Madness by two whole years, was called “Madstock…The Continuing Adventures of Bubblefish Car”. I don’t think a Candy Flip revival will be happening any time soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Erf4aWJFjc

Is this the third consecutive week that “Love Shack” by The B-52s has been on the show? The TOTP producers must have loved this one. It’s the video yet again (I presume the band were too busy touring or something to pop by the studio) and as such, I’m out of comments so I’ll hand over to Homer Simpson for this one:

“Love Shack” peaked at No 2.

So the Breakers are back but at 1 min and 26 seconds to cover three whole songs, it barely seems worth it! The first of these stretches the description of ‘song’ to be fair. “Handful Of Promises” was the third hit on the bounce by Big Fun and was taken from their “Pocketful Of Dreams” album of which this song gave the album its title. Clearly it’s horrible. Nasty, cynical and lacking of any sort of tune, it somehow scrambled to a No 21 peak. Smash Hits magazine did a Big Fun v Yell battle of the bands piece which Big Fun won by 23 and a half points to 11 but it was a hollow victory – a bit like trying to work out which member of the Tory cabinet is the biggest wanker.

The good news is that I think Big Fun only have one Top 40 hit left in them before they will plague the charts and us no further.

I have to admit that Fish‘s solo career completely passed me by. “A Gentleman’s Excuse Me” is yet another of his recordings that I don’t think I have heard before now. The second of three singles taken from his “Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors” album (incredibly all three were Top 40 hits) it’s actually a pretty little thing (to quote Bing Crosby from his Xmas chat with David Bowie)

It puts me in mind of “Home Thoughts From Abroad” by Clifford T. Ward. In fact, it almost seems like Fish was deliberately trying to rewrite it. In the shite v decent poll, I’m marking this one down as up to snuff.

There is a theory that Wet Wet Wet‘s second studio album (if you discount their demoes / early recordings album “The Memphis Sessions”) “Holding Back The River” should have been their third whilst their actual third album (“High On The Happy Side”) should have been their second. Confused? Don’t be because it does make sense. After their debut “Popped In Souled Out” established their blue eyed soul / pop amalgam sound, the obvious move would have been to follow it up with something very similar. What the Wets did however was to throw caution to the wind and write an album that was much more mature that dealt with more heavyweight subject matters. For example the near title track from their sophomore album “Hold Back The River” deals with alcoholism I believe.

Whilst certainly not a commercial failure (it was a No 2 and went double platinum), it didn’t perform as well as “Popped In Souled Out”. When their career was looking decidedly dodgy two year later, they returned to a more accessible sound and found their way back to the very summit of the charts with “High On The Happy Side” which also furnished them with another No 1 single in “Goodnight Girl”. Did they go for that grown up sound too early (maybe we should ask Simon Mayo – he seems to have an opinion about these things!)? I doubt it. Things worked out pretty well for the band ultimately. “Hold Back The River” remains one of their lowest charting singles though peaking at No 31 but then there is a jazz break down half way through it so what did they expect?!

OK, now we get to the big guns which all the pre-show ‘ooh this is a good one’ fuss was all about. Not just one of the biggest tunes of the 90s but one of the biggest tunes ever – it can only be “Loaded” by Primal Scream. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know anything about Bobby Gillespie and co before this point but then, I don’t think that many people did. Yes, they had been around since the early 80s and had already released two albums by 1990 but they hadn’t got anywhere near mainstream success. Enter Andy Weatherall (who sadly died in February) to alter forever not just the career of Primal Scream but also that of music culture period.

I can’t recall for sure the first time that I heard “Loaded” but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it straight away. What were all those sampled voices at the beginning and what was with the structure of the track that seemed to be all over the place? And why did it take so long for the singer to come in? Thirty years on and hundreds of plays later, it’s hard to believe I once thought like that. I’m nothing if not consistent though. Having not immediately swooned at Morrissey’s feet as The Smiths broke and then resisted the charms of the emerging Stone Roses, this was par for the course for me. I’m glad to say that I got with the programme in time and own both “Screamadelica” and an import CD single of “Loaded” (purchased some time after the initial single release I have to admit).

For a while I was convinced that those disembodied voices at the start of the track were The Monkees but I subsequently learned that they are actually Frank Maxwell and Peter Fonda from the 1966 biker movie The Wild Angels. I’ve never seen the film but if you ever wondered what was the scene that they were sampled from, here’s the answer:

Bobby Gillespie stated in an February 2011 NME interview about the samples used in the remix:

“Imagine if we hadn’t got the Fonda one though. We wouldn’t be sat here now. I don’t know where we’d be but we would not be sat here talking to you. The gods were smiling on us that day.”

I can’t quite describe what it is that those clipped pieces of dialogue add to the track are but I totally agree with Bobby.

The original track that Weatherall remixed was of course “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” from the band’s second album which was on that CD single I bought as an extra track and I have to say, I think that stands up pretty well on its own merits as well…

I managed to catch Primal Scream live at an open air gig in Hull in 2017 and they were belting. Bobby Gillespie definitely has a portrait in an attic at home where he looks absolutely decrepit though.

“Loaded” peaked at No 16.

The second big gun of the evening now as the TOTP TV audience gets its first sighting of Inspiral Carpets with their hit single “This Is How It Feels”. Instead of Simon Mayo blathering on about the sporting exploits of the band’s hometown of Oldham that year, I would rather have seen the current  Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle introduce the band in that game show host style that he employs to command Prime Minister Questions… “and now, we travel north to Oldham where we find Inspiral Carpets – Inspiral Carpets everyone!”.

To be fair to Mayo, Oldham Athletic had a monumental season that year (I’ve no idea about the basketball and rugby teams he also mentions). Despite finishing 8th in Division 2 and missing out on the play-offs, it was in the two domestic cup competitions that they excelled. The day before this TOTP aired, they had beaten 1st Division title hopefuls Aston Villa 3-0 to reach the FA Cup semi finals and had already secured a place in the actual League Cup Final. A guy called Frankie Bunn scored SIX goals in one game on the way to the final. I distinctly remember what a big deal all of this seemed at the time. Sadly Oldham would go onto lose that final and also the FA CUp semi final after taking Man Utd to a replay.

Back to the music though and Inspiral Carpets seemed to be promoted in the press as part of some ‘Madchester’ Holy Trinity (despite not actually being from Manchester) alongside the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays. I’m not sure if that’s how they actually saw themselves having been in existence since 1983. I didn’t know this until now but they had an almost Fall like number of personnel changes in the years leading up to this commercial breakthrough.

As for the song itself, I thought it was great with its prominent, swirling organ sound and heavyweight lyrics. Bizarrely, my elder brother and Paul Weller disciple seemed to be going through a ‘Madchester’ phase at the time and had a mix tape featuring all the aforementioned bands on it (including Inspiral Carpets) which he was fond of blasting out of our shared bedroom at the time. He was also a big Man Utd fan and had been going to the matches for a few years back then and went to all the FA Cup games that season including that semi final. Maybe his fleeting association with the ‘baggie’ was more to do with the football than the music. Incidentally, Man Utd used to serenade their Man City counterparts with a chant based on “This Is How It Feels” with the words changed to :

This is how it feels to be City, this is how it feels to be small

This is how it feels when you club wins nothing at all

I think that one got consigned to the dustbin of terrace chants sometime around 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1nUgoUTJsY

Lead singer Tom Hingley had a very striking look back then. It was sort of Mr Logic from Viz meets Red Dwarf‘s Dwayne Dibley. Most disconcerting. I’m pretty sure I saw him do a solo gig at the tiny York venue Fibbers after he subsequently left the band but I can’t recall whether he still had the same hairstyle or not. Mind you, Clint Boon’s Stooges cut isn’t much better.

“This Is How It Feels” peaked at No 14.

Oh FFS! Seriously! We hadn’t all had enough of Jive Bunny by the time that the new decade had come around?! No, we hadn’t because they racked up another four hit singles before they finally fucked off sometime around 1991. “That Sounds Good to Me” followed the same cut and paste formula that these idiots had already used to mug off the UK public three times previously and featured tracks including “Everybody Need Somebody To Love”, “Long Tall Sally” and “Roll Over Beethoven”. I’m pretty sure that the version of “Everybody Need Somebody To Love” recorded for the Blues Brothers film was re-released not long after this Jive Bunny abomination

*checks http://www.officialcharts.com*

Yes! I was right. It was released about a month or so after this and peaked at No 12. Inexplicably, Jive Bunny peaked 8 places higher at No 4!

Beats International still claim the No 1 slot with “Dub Be Good To Me”. In a Smash Hits interview entitled ‘How To Make A Hit record In Your Bedroom’, Norman Cook admitted that putting together “Dub Be Good To Me” from the initial sampling he did in his bedroom to the finished record took just three days and £400. Wow! £400 for a record that was innovative and well…pretty good actually. By those standards, Jive Bunny, using similar techniques, must have spent about 40p to produce their steaming heap of shit.

The play out track is “You Don’t Love Me” by the 49ers which was their follow up to “Touch Me” and which I don’t remember at all. Apparently it samples Jody Watley’s 1987 hit “Don’t You Want Me” which I also have zero recall of. I’m putting this one in the shite pile which means, by my reckoning, the final tally for tonight’s show is:

Shite Music 7 v 5 Decent Tunes

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S39Knuda5kw
Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1The MissionDeliveranceNah
2New Kids On The BlockI’ll Be Loving You ForeverGood God no!
3Candy FlipStrawberry Fields ForeverNope
4B-52sLove ShackCouldn’t be doing with it – no
5Big FunHandful Of Promises…and a pocketful of shite, NO!
6FishA Gentleman’s Excuse MeNo
7Wet Wet WetHold Back The RiverNo but my wife liked this one
8Primal ScreamLoadedYes but some time after the event
9Inspiral CarpetsThis Is How It FeelsNo but I’ve got their Greatest Hits I think
10Jive BunnyThat Sounds Good To MeOh this is an open goal….That sounds shite to me..No!
11Beats InternationalDub Be Good To MeNo but my wife had their album
1249ersDon’t You Love MeNo I don’t

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p9v2/top-of-the-pops-15031990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is imgres-2-1.jpg

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

TOTP 18 JAN 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re three weeks into 1990 and I have the deep January blues. I am unemployed, living back at my family home in Worcester and my girlfriend lives 170 miles away in Hull. I haven’t worked since my temporary retail job at Debenhams finished on Christmas Eve so I have no money and my social life is non existent. In terms of things to look forward to, it’s confined to watching my beloved Chelsea make a rare TV appearance (they weren’t considered one of the big six clubs back then) in a live match* screened on ITV some four days earlier. I have no career plans, I am signing on and having to go to the DSS Job Club to be able to make use of free stamps to make applications for positions I don’t want and won’t get anyway. I am floundering.

* We scraped a 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday. It wasn’t great.

I’m guessing that I must have been relying heavily on music at the time to keep me going and give me a lift. No doubt TOTP would have been part of my weekly musical intake. This particular show have better been good…

…as with last week’s TOTP, the opening act on the show were also the closing turn on the previous episode. I wrote in the last post that I wasn’t sure that had ever happened before and yet here is the same phenomenon the very next week! Said opening act are Halo James who host Nicky Campbell describes as a “potent mix of teen appeal and genuine talent”. As ever with the snarky Campbell, you can’t quite tell if he’s taking the piss royally or on the level.

“Could Have Told You So” was the band’s only hit despite being tipped for greatness at the time and I also commented in the last post that they were no better than the likes of Breathe (of “Hands To Heaven” fame) to my ears with their brand of sophisto -pop. Since writing that, I have discovered that their one and only album (“Witness”) was produced by respected record producer Bob Sargeant – whose credits include Haircut 100, The Beat, The Buzzcocks, Motorhead, Dexys Midnight Runners and….yep….Breathe. QED!

Lead singer Christian James clearly decided to mark his debut TOTP performance here by wearing the most god awful multi coloured jacket that reminds me of one of Irish easy listening crooner Val Doonican’s comfy sweaters. Just vile.

Halo James were destined to be one hit wonders, cursed by being a band out of time (their brand of sophisto -pop had long since bitten the dust) and simultaneously a marketing dilemma. Were they a teen band or a credible artist? Indeed Campbell’s intro seems to hint at this dichotomy. However, if “Could Have Told You So” still floats your boat then, as with seemingly every album ever released these days, there is a special edition of “Witness” available including eight (!) bonus tracks.

Asked to name a hit by Lil’ Louis I would be able to respond confidently with “French Kiss” but prodded for a second….I’d dry up completely. And yet there was a second hit and here it is in “I Called U (But You Weren’t There)” and despite my initial lack of recollection, on hearing this back the titular spoken line, in that weird, strung out drawl was instantly familiar. It’s actually almost a reverse of the old Oran ‘Juice’ Jones song “The Rain” except this time the protagonist is the woman who follows Louis in her blue car to see what the bounder was up to.

For this track Louis (real name Marvin Burns) rebranded himself as Lil Louis & the World and the single reached No 16. In fact, it turns out that there was a third hit for Lil’ (as his mum calls him) when fellow US DJ and producer Josh Wink released a track called  “How’s Your Evening So Far?” which heavily sampled “French Kiss” in 2000 and took it to No 23 in the UK charts. On a side note, Josh Wink made one of the few tracks that actually give me the jitters and makes me feel anxious and sweaty every time I hear it in “Higher State of Consciousness”. The times the staff in Our Price Stockport used to put this over the shop stereo back in the mid 90s just to see my reaction. Cruel it was.

Martika is up next with a song I really don’t recall at all called “More Than You Know”. This was the third single released from her debut LP following the success of “Toy Soldiers” and “I Feel The Earth Move” and it’s easily the weakest of the three. Apparently it was actually her first single released in the US where it became a No 18 Billboard Hot 100 hit so it was deemed worthy of a run out over here. Her record label Sony really shouldn’t have bothered. It sounds like something Debbie Gibson might have dashed off sat on the toilet during a particularly lengthy shit. Martika even pinches Debbie’s ‘aah, aah’ sighs from “Only In My Dreams”.

Somehow “More Than You Know” scrambled all the way to No 15 in the UK and Martika would return to our charts some eighteen months later with a much more mature sound following her collaboration with Prince on “Love… Thy Will Be Done”.

Back to Nicky Campbell who furnishes us with the lamest of jokes about house booms before introducing one of the seemingly never ending conveyor belt of Italian house acts on the scene at the time in the 49ers.

We’ve already seen this one on the show before and I have very little else left to say about it…except this. Ever wondered what it is the vocalist is actually singing in the chorus to “Touch Me”? It always sounded like ‘Pick a pear and a planet’ to me but apparently the lyrics are actually ‘People can’t understand it’. If you want to know more about the composition of “Touch Me”, here’s @TOTPFacts but word of warning, the Aretha Franklin video is a bit creepy….

At the end of the 49ers video, we cut back to Campbell in the studio and there’s what appears to be a very young Martine McCutcheon stood behind him as he links to the next act. She’s got a big frizzy perm but it doesn’t half look like her. It couldn’t be could it?

For the love of God….I’m never not dumbfounded by the amount of useless heavy metal acts that seemed to get so much chart action in these TOTP repeats. From Anthrax all the way through to W.A.S.P via Mötley Crüe, all horrible and here’s another bunch of berks in Megadeth. Somehow these LA thrash metalloids racked up seven hit singles in the UK Top 40 between 1990 and 1994 and “No More Mr Nice Guy” was the first. This one wasn’t even their own song but a cover of the old Alice Cooper track which they recorded for the soundtrack of the Wes Craven slasher flick Shocker.

Looking through the band’s discography, I recognise some of their album titles (and indeed covers) from my years at Our Price but mainly for how dumb they sound. The evidence m’lud…

  • “Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?”
  • “Rust in Peace”
  • “So Far, So Good… So What!”

All the band members seem to have Spinal Tap names as well like Dave Mustaine, David Ellefson, Dirk Verbeuren and Kiko Loureiro. Incredibly, they do seem be genuine and not stage names. Look, I’m sure all of these types of bands have very loyal fan bases who swear by them but …sod it…it’s my blog so “No More Mr Nice Guy” from me… I say they’re shite.

The Breakers are back! Yes, after being ditched in the first two shows of the new decade and seemingly consigned to the TOTP dustbin, the section is back albeit with only two entries in it. The first is “Inner City Mama” by Neneh Cherry. I’d completely forgotten (if indeed I ever knew at all) that there was a fourth single released from Neneh’s “Raw Like Sushi” album but here it is. Apparently it was only released in Europe and New Zealand with the track “Heart” chosen for the US and Australian territories. Why would you need two different tracks to be released in Australia and New Zealand? Seems a bit odd to me that.

I don’t recall this one at all but it has that Massive Attack back beat to it which is hardly a surprise considering Neneh was involved in the Bristol hip hop scene and helped as an arranger on Massive Attack’s seminal “Blue Lines” album. Indeed, the band’s Robert Del Naja co-wrote “Manchild” with her.

“Inner City Mama” fizzled out at No 31.

The second Breaker hardly needs an introduction at all. Easily one of the most recognised songs of the whole decade let alone the year, it would become a stand out moment in musical history thanks to the unnerving performance and vocals of Sinéad O’Connor. We all know that “Nothing Compares 2 U” is actually a Prince song but for me it’s easily the best treatments of one of his compositions especially (ahem) compared to the likes of “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan (I could never understand the appeal of that one) or the execrable version of “Kiss” by Tom Jones.

The power of the song was completely entwined with the visuals of the video with its almost constant close up on Sinéad’s face and the reportedly natural tears that she sheds at the song’s end.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” will be at No 1 soon enough and also around the globe including the US, Australia and pretty much everywhere in Europe. It became the third best-selling single of 1990, the 82nd best-selling single of the whole decade and was certified platinum. We’ll be seeing loads more of it in the weeks to come so I’ll leave it there for now.

Meanwhile back in the TOTP studio we find The Quireboys who have returned for a second performance of their hit “Hey You”. I didn’t notice this before but what’s with the bulk load of flowers that are spread around the stage, most prominently on the piano? It immediately put me in mind of the cover to the Oasis single “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. That iconic image couldn’t have been inspired by The Quireboys surely?!

Liam went a bit over the top with the
conciliatory flowers he sent to Noel

Often talked of in the same breath as fellow blues rockers Dogs D’Amour, lead singer Spike would ultimately (and perhaps inevitably) collaborate with two members of the Dogs on two separate projects in the 90s.

The Quireboys are still together to this day playing live and releasing new material (their last album was as recent as 2019) albeit with only two original members but including the aforementioned Spike.

Back to Nicky Campbell now for some more stilted audience interaction – he comes across as the archetypal middle aged uncle who thinks he’s still down with the kids. His Top 10 rundown gets increasingly histrionic until he introduces the video for Kylie Minogue’s new hit “Tears On My Pillow” at which point he resorts to the catty behaviour we have seen from him before. Witness:

“And that means that Kylie Minogue has gone straight in at No 2 with the old Imperials song. It appears in the closing credits of the film The Delinquents if you manage to stay in the cinema that long…“

Turn it in Campbell. You’re just making yourself look like a petty, vindictive goon.

Anyway, as for Kylie this would be her fourth No 1 single (albeit only for one week) and would be her last for a decade. I never knew that it was actually on her ‘Enjoy Yourself” album – I always assumed it had been recorded specifically for the soundtrack of The Delinquents film. I did actually catch the movie at the cinema at the time (must have been cheap ticket Thursday or something) and it was ….underwhelming. So underwhelming that I can’t recall what happens in it other than Kylie’s character bleaches her hair blond and goes to prison at one point I think. I’ve never seen the film shown on terrestrial TV since. Wasn’t the male lead meant to be the new Sean Penn or something? Can’t even recall his name now…

*checks internet*

Charlie Schlatter! That was him. Apparently he stayed in acting and is best known for his role as Dr. Jesse Travis in Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke according to Wikipedia. Hmmm. Kylie meanwhile…

“Tears On My Pillow” was included in the film Grease of course although it’s hardly remembered as one of the big tunes on that soundtrack.

New Kids On The Block still reign at the top of the charts with “Hangin’ Tough”. As with Halo James earlier, there is a deluxe version of their album of the same name that came out this year for the 30th anniversary. In the customer reviews for the album on Amazon I found this one

“Amazing album for anyone who is a blockhead”

I genuinely thought it was someone talking the piss until I realised that ‘blockhead’ must be the collective term given to fans of the band! And then I dug a bit deeper and found that a fan had set up a Facebook page called Blockheads Unite and designed her own logo for it. Unfortunately she seemed to have come up with a idea that was a direct rip off of the design created by Barney Bubbles who did the logo for Ian Dury and The Blockheads that was used in their advertising and promotion. The NKOTB fan was forced to take it down and issue an apology which included the line:

“I had never heard of Ian Drury and The Blockheads”

No, I’ve never heard of Ian Drury either! Cringe!

Thankfully this is the last week that “Hangin’ Tough” is at the No 1 spot but we’ll be seeing plenty more of them in future repeats. Gulp!

The play out video is “N-R-G” by Adamski. Now I’m no dance head but I had actually heard of Adamski before this as he’d appeared on a free 4-track 7″ vinyl single given away with Record Mirror in 1989. I bought said issue and guess what? It’s still in my singles box! I am sorry to say I have never, ever played it.

It featured his track “I Dream of You” which was included on his album “Live And Direct” which had made the charts when released in December 1989. That album also included a live version of “N-R-G” and the track was edited and given a single release the following month. I have to say it never did anything for me (it’s just a load of blips and bleeps to my ears) but I once worked with a girl called Sarah in Our Price who absolutely loved Adamski.

Mr Ski (real name Adam Tinley) took “N-R-G” to No 12 and will be back soon enough later on in 1990 as a fully fledged pop star alongside Seal for one of the sensations of the year in “Killer”.

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

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1Halo JamesCould Have Told You SoCould have told you No more like
2Lil’ Loui & The WorldI Called U (But You Weren’t There)Emphatic no
3MartikaMore Than You KnowMore than you NO more like
449ersTouch MeNah
5MegadethNo More Mr Nice GuyA thousand  times NO!
6Neneh CherryInner City MamaNo but my wife had the album
7Sinéad’ O’Connor  Nothing Compares 2 UDon’t think so
8The QuireboysHey YouNo but a Q Album compilation that I bought
9Kylie MinogueTears On My PillowNo
10New Kids On The BlockHangin’ ToughNo but I think my younger sister may have been into them and bough it
11AdamskiN-R-GN-O-P-E

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ng79/top-of-the-pops-18011990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 04 JAN 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

YES! A brand new decade! Out with the old stuff and in with the groovy new tunes! 1990 is here at last in the world of TOTP Rewind and what fresh out of the box new acts, songs and musical directions await us? Well, it all looks very much the same as the show starts – same theme tune, same opening graphics and a very familiar presenter in Gary Davies. In an attempt to add some sparkle to the proceedings, Davies informs us that tonight’s show marks TOTP’s 26th birthday and also informs us that the show is live and that it will be “fast” and “frantic”. Ooh (Gary Davies)! The girl to Gary’s left in his intro has gone full on Lisa Stansfield in her choice of hat to top of her outfit that includes a Madonna style crucifix. All still a bit 80s sartorially then.

So who gets the honour of being the show’s first act on of the new decade? Oh, well…it’s The Quireboys. Hmm. Look, I didn’t mind their flavour of retro blues rock but maybe ‘retro’ wasn’t what was required when it came to the first act of a new decade. There was a lot of traffic on Twitter about this when BBC4 aired the repeat last week with many people comparing The Quireboys unfavourably to the opening act on the first TOTP of the 80s who were Madness apparently. The Nutty Boys were seen as much more deserving of the accolade. A bit unfair on The Quireboys maybe but I guess I can see where the Twitterati were coming from.

As for the song itself, “Hey You” would prove to be their biggest ever hit reaching No 14 paving the way for the parent album (“A Bit of What You Fancy”) to go all the way to No 2 in the charts. I didn’t buy the single but it did appear on a compilation called “Q The Album” (as in the magazine) that I purchased that had a very eclectic and not altogether coherent track listing. I think it was the first release in a long list that the publication lent its association to. To be fair most of the tracks were pretty decent but I couldn’t quite see the connection between, for example, Jesus Jones, Cowboy Junkies and erm..Elton John!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVhAJ1ZhT-w

Well, say what you liked about The Quireboys but at least they had a ‘new’ tune we hadn’t seen on the show before unlike the majority of the acts on tonight with them. Yes, despite my trumpeting of a new start with a new year, a new decade and indeed a new blog, the majority of the songs on this show I have reviewed before in my old 80s blog. Bah! Here’s one of the blighters now – Madonna with “Dear Jessie”…

The fourth and final single to be released from her “Like A Prayer” album (in the UK at least – it wasn’t issued as a single in the US), it always seemed very out of synch with the rest of the album. All strings and whimsical lyrics, its nursery rhyme quality was nothing like “Express Yourself” or indeed the album title track. It would prove to be a passing affectation as her Madgesty came storming back later in the year with one of her best known and funkiest grooves ever in “Vogue”.

The animated video doesn’t help to tone down the cute-o-meter but if you do keep watching until the end and the (love) parade of characters including teddy bears, clowns and erm…roller skating bananas (WTF!) you get a glimpse of what looks very suspiciously like Gabriel the Toad from Bagpuss.

“Dear Jessie” peaked at No 5.

Another act that’s been reviewed before I think next in Silver Bullet. Adding to the never ending list of rappers with ordinary real names, comes one Richard Brown aka Silver Bullet who with his DJ (Mo) forged this rap track “20 Seconds To Comply” around the infamous Robocop sample. Supposedly their record company EMI wanted to make them into a “rap version of Bros” – the phrase ‘the mind boggles’ hardly does justice to the ludicrousness of such an idea.

I hardly remember Silver Bullet at all (always confusing them with So Solid Crew and their similarly entitled hit “21 Seconds To Go”) but online opinion suggests that they were responsible for something called ‘Britcore’ which was a faster, harder version of hip-hop and for influencing the likes of Prodigy and initiating the rise of jungle music in the 90s. Meanwhile Bros’s legacy was some distinctly average pop tunes and that documentary. Hmm.

Oh man! It’s another song I’ve already reviewed and another dance tune to boot! Latino Rave weren’t even a proper act at all but just a promo tool to flog the newly conceived “Deep Heat” dance compilation album issued by Telstar that would flood the market in the late 80s and early 90s. The clue was in the single’s title “Deep Heat ’89” just to make it absolutely clear what was going on here. Mixing together recent dance hits from the likes of Technotronic, Starlight and A Guy Called Gerald, it did what it was supposed to do I guess by climbing all the way to No 12 in the charts and establishing the “Deep Heat” brand in the process. All very cynical and manipulative in my book but then I wasn’t a clubhead so maybe I wasn’t the target audience.

Another song we’ve seen before and that was reviewed in my 80s blog now courtesy of Sonia who implores us to “Listen To Your Heart”. The Scouse Kylie has been shorn of her usual back up dancers for this performance and is up there selling the song all on her own – bless. It’s OK though as she’s beefed up her look by clearly having a look in Ms Minogue’s wardrobe and has half inched one of her trademark hats. She should have just asked that Lisa Stansfield wannabe lass from the top of the show if she could have borrowed hers.

Later in the year, an entirely different song but with exactly the same title would become a No 6 hit via Swedish soft rock peddlers Roxette thereby eclipsing Sonia’s effort by a whole four chart places. Arr ay!

And another! Yes, we’ve seen / heard this tune on the show before as well! This version of “The Magic Number” by De La Soul doesn’t seem to be the radio edit though – not entirely sure why TOTP chose to go with this remix.

I’ve always been very partial to this version though….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG_xCP3xMSw

This was the last single to be released from the seminal album “3 Feet High And Rising” and would be the last we would see of the trio for over a year before they would return with the rather unwieldly entitled single “A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays”.

A new song! Hallelujah! It is yet another Italian house tune though…49ers were co called, according to Gary Davies, because vocalist Dawn Mitchell (didn’t she used to be in Eastenders?) was the 49th vocalist to audition for them. Really? Surely the band’s name must have had something to do with American football team the San Francisco 49ers?! Surely?! Even if we believe Davies’s story, that must mean that there were 48 singers worse than Dawn Mitchell?! I’m not even sure she was the singer on the track as the original vocalist was someone called Ann-Marie Smith but Dawn Mitchell was brought in to ‘front the band’. Ah that old chestnut! Like the woman who fronted Black Box then. Talking of whom, “Touch Me” very much has the feel of “Ride On Time” to me with its statutory component parts of pounding beats and uplifting piano. No wonder it made No 3 in the charts.

49ers followed this up with a single called “Don’t You Love Me” which I don’t recall at all while DJ and producer Gianfranco Bortolotti would go onto have multiple hits with house act Capella in the mid 90s.

Yay! Another ‘new’ song! Oh, it’s by New Kids On The Block though. Yes, the NKOTB (or T’KNOB as I like to call them) phenomenon was just getting into full flow by this point. To follow up their No 1 success with “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”, they re-released “Hangin’ Tough” which had flopped outside the Top 40 in September of ’89 but which would become their second consecutive No 1 single in the UK this time around whilst also being the first ‘new’ No 1 of 1990.

After the American sports connection of previous act 49ers, we now get another one immediately as “Hangin’ Tough” was written to be a sports anthem, specifically a theme tune for basketball team Boston Celtics. Oh right – hangin’ as in hanging on the basketball hoop after a slam dunk? Is that what they meant all along? Anyway, it was meant to be their version of “We Will Rock You” by Queen but isn’t “We Are The Champions” Queen’s sports anthem? Whatever, as well as possibly their most well known song for its dumb ass “oh oh oh oh oh” chant- a- long refrain, “Hangin’ Tough” also sucked big time (seeing as we seem to have dived head first into American culture). Just awful.

OK, back to the previously seen hits and it’s yet another dance track, this time by Rob ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K with “Got To Get”. Leila was a bit like a Swedish Betty Boo it strikes me watching this back – “Got To Get” isn’t a million miles away from the likes of “Doin’ The Do” is it?

Hang on, Swedish you say? Yes, all three of them hailed from Sweden which presumably is the prompt for Gary Davies to advise us to “Watch out for some good music coming out of Sweden this year” at the song’s end. Who could he have meant? Swedish music acts? Well obviously there’s Abba but he can’t have meant them. Who else? Ace Of Base wouldn’t appear for another three years and in any case , nobody would have described them as good surely? Far too early in the decade for The Cardigans. Hmm…Army Of Lovers of “Crucified” fame? Maybe. Oh, I’ve got it. The aforementioned Roxette – it must be them. Hardly a Swedish invasion was it? To be fair to Davies, as the decade progressed, the Swedes did make an impression on the UK charts with the likes of The Wannadies, Whale and erm…Rednex all having hits on our shores whilst The Hives continued that run into the new millennium. Maybe Gary was on to something after all.

“Got To Get” peaked at No 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmSKk4BVtZc

So to the No 1 which, as it’s only a week or so since Xmas, is still the festive chart topper which in 1989 was Band Aid II with “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. I’ve said everything I want to say about this in my 80s blog but serendipitously there is a timely tie in as one of the guest vocalist on the track was of course Sir Cliff Richard and it just so happens that as I write this post, I note that today (14th October) is his 80th birthday. I’ll type that again… His. 80th. Birthday! Unbelievable. So he was how old when he did Band Aid then?

* performs some basic mental arithmetic*

My God he was 49! That’s younger than I am now. I am as old as f**k!

The play out track is yet another dance track in “Going Back To My Roots” by F.P.I. Project feat. Sharon Dee Clarke. This was of course an Italian house version of the Odyssey 1981 hit and as with De La Soul earlier, this appears to not be the radio edit as it is an instrumental version. Just weird. Why bother having the act perform in the studio if it’s basically just two dancers up front going through some very perfunctory dance moves. Where was vocalist Sharon Dee Clarke? As result all we get basically 1 minute and 40 seconds of the TOTP studio audience constantly labouring through the ‘Woo! Yeah!’ chant that was de rigueur for any commercial house tune at this time. Ever wonder where that all originated from? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

I’m assuming that the three waist coated geezers in the background trying to gee up the crowd are Marco Fratty, Corrado Presti, and Roberto Intrallazz, whose surname initials spell out the act’s name (F.P.I. Project- geddit?). Yes, Gary Davies that’s F.P.I. Project and not “Rich In Paradise” which was the name of one of the songs that are sampled in the track, specifically by Honesty 69. I take it all back. Davies wasn’t onto something – he didn’t have a clue what he was on about.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart rundown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmbPXZ1zhA

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1The QuireboysHey YouNo but as I say, it was on that Q Album compilation that I bought
2MadonnaDear JessieNo but my wife had the album
3Silver Bullet20 Seconds To ComplyNo
4Latino RaveDeep Heat ‘89I’d have rather covered my genitals in Deep Heat muscle rub than bought this
5SoniaListen To Your HeartAs if
6De La SoulThe Magic NumberNo but my wife had their album
749ersTouch MeNah
8New Kids On The BlockHangin’ ToughNo but I think my younger sister may have been into them and bough it
9Ron ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila KGot To GetI really didn’t feel the need to get this at all
10Band Aid IIDo They Know It’s ChristmasI bought the ’84 version but not even charity could make me part with my cash for this one
11The FPI ProjectGoing Back To My RootsNope

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000n7g4/top-of-the-pops-04011990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/12/december-27-1989-january-9-1990.html