AC/DC

TOTP 08 JUL 1993

Posted on September 15, 2022 by 80stastic

On the day this TOTP aired, and presumably straight after it finished, Phil Mitchell got married for the first time in Eastenders. His wife was a Romanian refugee called Nadia with the object of the nuptials being to get her a visa so she could stay in the UK. As soon as she was married, she went off with her boyfriend. Fast forward 29 years and Phil is about to get married for the fifth time to Kat Slater but as with his first wedding, it doesn’t go to plan. I wonder how many of the songs on tonight’s TOTP could apply to Phil’s love life?

A perfect start with “What Is Love” by Haddaway! Does Phil know? I doubt it. How about Haddaway? Did he have any inkling? He probably didn’t care as he was up to No 2 in the charts and onto his third TOTP appearance. Piece of piss this pop star lark he probably thought after ditching his career in the navy (presumably he said “sod this for a game of sailors”). So easy did he find bagging a hit that he did it again…and again…and again. His debut album would give him three further Top 10 hits though I couldn’t have named any without checking his discography. So effortless was Haddaway’s rise to fame that he didn’t even bother to name his album properly instead just calling it “The Album”. A bit like Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead calling his dog ‘dog’ then. I once found myself in Xanadu nightclub in Rochdale where I was working and being surrounded by punters dancing to Haddaway was a bit like being on the set of The Walking Dead in retrospect.

Phil Mitchell must have proclaimed “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” to one of his many wives down the years in that rasping voice of his. Taylor Dayne wasn’t one of them though as she’s never married Wikipedia tells me though she does look a little bit like the character Chrissie Watts (played by Tracy-Ann Oberman) who was married to Dirty Den and indeed murdered him. Hmm. I seem to have gone down a rather bleak rabbit hole there. I’m sure Taylor, on the other hand, is as sweet as popcorn….

Yes, after a career that took in acing, Broadway and pop stardom, the younger generation will know Taylor as Popcorn from The Masked Singer. Back in 1993 though she was promoting her “Soul Dancing” album via her cover of Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe” though it failed to cut through like her “Tell It To My Heart” debut that went double platinum in the States. She did however continue to have hits on the US Dance chart into the new millennium.

“Will You Be There?” Phil Mitchell might have been thinking to himself this week as he stood in church waiting for a very late Kat Slater to arrive. Michael Jackson must have been asking himself “Will you be a hit?” seeing as this was the eighth single to be taken from his 1991 (yes that’s 1991!) album “Dangerous”. He needn’t have worried as it made No 9 making Jackson the first artist to have an album generate eight consecutive Top 20 hits (it would have been eight consecutive Top 10 hits but for “Jam” peaking at No 13).

I thought I didn’t know how this one went but on hearing it back, it does sound familiar. It’s got a very gospel feel to it while the melody puts me in mind of “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers. However, it was another song that sounded similar which caused Jacko some legal problems when Italian songwriter Albano Carrisi launched a plagiarism suit claiming “Will You Be There” copied his composition “The Swans Of Balaka”. The claim was ultimately rejected.

Unbelievably, a ninth single – the prophetically entitled “Gone Too Soon” – was released from “Dangerous” nearly two years to the day since the album came out. That was a step too far though and it struggled to a peak of No 33 in the UK.

And the 1993 disco revival is still going strong. After Taylor Dayne covering Barry White earlier comes Kim Wilde who has recorded a cover of Yvonne Elliman’s 1978 hit “If I Can’t Have You”. Why? Well, it’s to promote her Best Of album “The Singles Collection 1981-93”. Kim, of course, had history when it came to cover versions to help restore former glories. In 1986, she did a version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by The Supremes to revive a career that was stalling. That proved to be a master stroke as it went to No 1 in the US and No 2 over here. “If I Can’t Have You” wasn’t quite the same success though it did supply her biggest hit since “Four Letter Word” in 1988 by peaking at No 12. It would also be her last ever UK Top 40 hit which presumably means this is also Kim’s final ever TOTP appearance (sob!). That Best Of album performed pretty well though going gold in the UK and just missing the Top 10.

What? An Eastenders connection? Oh well, didn’t Alfie Moon say to Kat the other night something to the effect of “If I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody baby”.

It’s Chaka Demus & Pliers now for what I think is the third time in the show with “Tease Me”. I think I’ve had enough of this one now Mr. TOTP producer! In his intro, host Mark Franklin states that 50% of this week’s Top 10 are live in the TOTP studio and I can’t help thinking that maybe CD & P were fitted into the running order just so that the show could make that claim. In fairness though, they had just moved up a place to a peak of No 3 so no doubt that’s how their inclusion would have been justified. After all, “Tease Me” was a hit all over the world but nowhere bigger than in the UK where it sold 400,000 copies.

I’m struggling to get a Phil Mitchell reference in for this one although surely he must have used a pair of pliers during a car repair down The Arches at some point down the years?

I’m giving myself a break from Eastenders references for the Breakers mainly because none of them lend themselves to the soap or Phil Mitchell at all. I mean, where’s the connection with U.S.U.R.A. and “Sweat”? These were the people who brought us “Open Your Mind” on the achingly trendy Deconstruction label and this was the follow up. Not being a dancehead, this did nothing for me (neither did its predecessor) though I understand it was a big hit in the clubs. “Sweat” peaked at No 29.

Now a guy who was a breakthrough success in 1991 but whom we hadn’t heard from since. Back in those 1991 posts, I admitted to an irrational hatred of Kenny Thomas back in the day, an opinion I had to modify on account of Kenny being a stand up, decent guy according to all sources.

My view of his music remained the same though – I wasn’t a fan and so I’m pretty sure that the thought of a second album of songs from him wouldn’t have had me counting down the days until its release date. “Wait For Me” was that album and its lead single was “Stay”. As Mark Franklin says in his intro, it was a cover though he doesn’t advise us who did the original so I did the detective work and tracked it down. I’m still none the wiser though even with the answer in front of me. It was the title track of a 1986 album by US R&B group The Controllers but only made No 77 in the UK charts. I have no idea about any of the content of the previous sentence.

“Stay” was all about the number two. It peaked at No 22 for two weeks.

AC/DC have come up many a time during these TOTP repeats and I’ve never really known what to say about them as I just don’t really get them at all. The throaty vocals of Brian Johnson, the misogynistic undertones of the lyrics and Angus Young’s schoolboy uniform stage outfits; none of it appealed to me. And yet there are people who I know and like who swear by the band.

Anyway, the end is nigh for AC/DC/TOTP as “Big Gun” is their penultimate UK Top 40 hit. Taken from the soundtrack to Last Action Hero, it made No 23. I’ve never seen the film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger but from reading the plot on Wikipedia it sounds like a stinker. I can appreciate there was an attempt to do something different with the action genre but it sounds like one of those movies where the kids are smarter than the adults which I’m not a fan of. The soundtrack is a who’s who of hard rock featuring Anthrax, Aerosmith and Alice In Chains alongside AC/DC and that’s just the ‘A’s.

Is this the first time we’ve seen The Levellers on TOTP? Well, yes and no. It is the first time we’ve seen them in these BBC4 repeats but not the first time that they appeared on the show. That was on 21st May 1992 when they appeared live by satellite from Paris performing “15 Years” but we didn’t get to see that repeat due to it being presented by Adrian Rose who refused to give permission for shows he featured in being re-broadcast. The band wouldn’t appear in the TOTP studio until 1995 when they performed “Hope Street”.

Back in 1993 though the band had just released their third and eponymous studio album and although they have retrospectively voiced their dislike of it, commercially it was their then best performing album peaking at No 2. In fact, The Levellers were on their way to the apex of their popularity which was displayed in a very visual way when they headlined Glastonbury in 1994 in front of 300,000 people.

The lead single from “The Levellers” album was “Belaruse” and it would start a bizarre run of chart placings which would see four of their next six single releases peak at No 12. Listening to it now, the hard drumming intro really reminds me of “Funeral Pyre” by The Jam.

The first of three songs that have been on the show before now starting with M People and “One Night In Heaven”. By the way, I can’t find the clips from this particular show so have had to use previous performance’s instead. Heather Small might be glad I have as there seems to be a curious tinny effect on her vocals as if the microphone isn’t working properly. She seems slightly uncomfortable up there as if she’s aware there’s a problem but it’s too late to do anything about it so she’s just going with it. Maybe it’s just because I’m playing it back through my phone.

“One Night In Heaven” peaked at No 6.

Stand aside Kim Wilde, here’s a true disco legend. Yes, you did a nice job with your cover of “If I Can’t Have You” but this is the Queen of Disco herself, Gloria Gaynor.

Look, I don’t need to tell you about “I Will Survive” though what I will say is that it’s been covered over a hundred times but maybe one of the more obscure versions is this from the Puppini Sisters who I caught live in a tiny venue in Hull that was completely oversold to the point that it really didn’t feel safe so I left early. Yes, I did survive.

Oh and one final Phil Mitchell/Eastenders reference – Phil has of course survived many a drama on the soap none more so than in the 2001 ‘Who Shot Phil?’ storyline when he survived being gunned down by ex-girlfriend Lisa.

It’s a final week at the top for Gabrielle with “Dreams”. Little did we all know that it would take seven years for her to get back to the top of the heap when her Bob Dylan sampling hit “Rise” made it to No 1 in early 2000. Not that there weren’t any hits in between of course. She clocked up nine Top 40 hits in the intervening years including five Top Tenners. The hits didn’t stop with “Rise” either with a further three Top 10 entries occurring in the subsequent 12 months. That’s sixteen hit singles in total plus seven charting albums (including a No 1). Maybe Gabrielle doesn’t get the credit she deserves?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	What Is Love	Hadaway and shite!
2	Taylor Dayne	Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love	No
3	Michael Jackson	Will You Be There?	No I won’t be and indeed wasn’t
4	Kim Wilde	If I Can’t Have You	Nope
5	Chaka Demus & Pliers	Tease Me	Never happening
6	U.S.U.R.A.	Sweat	Negative
7	Kenny Thomas	Stay	As if
8	AC/DC	Big Gun	Big log more like – no
9	The Levellers	Belaruse	Nah
10	M People	One Night In Heaven	No but my wife had the album
11	Gloria Gaynor	I Will Survive (Phil Kelsey remix)	I did not
12	Gabrielle	Dreams	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/m001btp2/top-of-the-pops-08071993

TOTP 15 OCT 1992

Posted on April 13, 2022 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m Gonna Get You” peaked at No3.

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

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

“Erotica” the single peaked at No 3.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Assassin” peaked at a No 12.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001648v/top-of-the-pops-15101992

TOTP 25 APR 1991

Posted on July 25, 2021 by 80stastic

The record company release schedules were very busy back in April 1991 as there are 10 songs new to the charts on this particular TOTP. Also having a busy old time of it was one David Icke who had resigned from the Green Party and then held a press conference to announce to the world that he was a son of the Godhead and that the world was going to end in 1997 after a period of tidal waves and earthquakes. Four days after this TOTP aired, he appeared on Wogan and gave an interview that was catastrophic to his career and credibility.

The following month, a crowd of youths gathered outside Icke’s home and went all Life Of Brian by chanting “We want the Messiah” and “Give us a sign, David”. Oh dear.

He resurfaced when the pandemic struck suggesting that there was a link between the COVID-19 and 5G mobile phone networks. To think he just used to be that fresh faced sports presenter on Grandstand when I was a kid. I remember the media storm surrounding Icke at this time and in particular the reptilian conspiracy theory he promoted that shapeshifting lizard like aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Didn’t he even say that the Queen was a reptile? Fast forward 30 years and we are overrun by conspiracy theories including QAnon and the anti vaccination protesters in London this weekend. Icke and his son were at the latter by the way. Have we / Icke learned nothing?

Hopefully there will be no trace of a conspiracy theory or any playing of records backwards to reveal satanic messages in any of tonight’s acts…

…we start with EMF and their latest single “Children”. The third track to be taken from their “Schubert Dip” album, it was very much still in the same vein as previous hits “Unbelievable” and ‘I Believe” and maybe that was the problem. They were starting to sound a bit samey. Certainly there was a downturn in commercial fortunes with this one as it failed to make the Top 10 as its predecessors had and indeed only just scraped into the Top 20 at No 19. I mean, there was nothing wrong with it per se but watching the performance back, was there a tiny bit of melancholy in lead singer James Atkin’s eyes indicating that maybe this pop star lark wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?

A second album “Stigma” was released in 1992 but did little to reverse their decline in popularity and indeed was only in the charts for two weeks (its predecessor had charted for 19 weeks). By the time of 1995’s third album “Cha Cha Cha”, they had resorted to teaming up with another of tonight’s acts Vic Reeves for a version of The Monkees “I’m A Believer” which although a big hit (No3), failed to revive their career. Follow up single “Afro King” (which was actually fantastic) missed the charts and they disappeared before resurfacing in the new millennium for a series of reunions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVR_3TMq1hI

Just when I thought we’d got away without any conspiracy theory stuff, host Nicky Campbell (who seems to be on one tonight) hooks us back in with the old ‘what does EMF stand for?’ conundrum. Many a theory had been posited about this including ‘Epsom Mad Funkers’ but it was generally believed to be ‘Ecstasy Mother F*****s’. In any case it certainly wasn’t ‘Exciting New Music’ as Campbell jokes. Just lame. To be fair to Campbell, he did tweet this when the repeat was shown on BBC4 thereby demonstrating a bit of self knowledge at least:

Daughter turned it on. Torture. Watching is like the most painful therapy session ever. #totp pic.twitter.com/jVNlUmZmR6
— Nicky Campbell (@NickyAACampbell) July 16, 2021

I don’t remember this one at all …except I do. What am I talking about? Well, the track is “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)” by De La Soul which I have no recall of but the chorus is nicked from “Name And Number” by Curiosity Killed The Cat which is still in my memory banks (some might say unfortunately). This was the lead single from their second studio album “De La Soul Is Dead” but the only single I remember from that was the next one called “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” and its ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ chorus.

Wasn’t there some fuss about the album’s title and also its cover with its fallen over, broken flower pot and strewn flowers image? Did some critics read into it that it meant that the trio were splitting up? In actual fact, it was meant to refer to a change in musical direction and the dead imagery referred to the death (or at least a deliberate distancing from) the “D.A.I.S.Y.” (Da Inner Sound, Y’all) scene. Although the album sold pretty well (it went Top 10 in the UK), it seems to me that it is nowhere near as revered as their iconic debut “3 Feet High And Rising”.

“Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)” peaked at No 10.

This is the single I was meant to buy for my wife the other week but somehow I bought her home “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” instead! How could I get Vic Reeves and Cher mixed up?!

Me not buying my wife Vic Reeves single in 1991

For two years we had all been enamoured with Vic Reeves Big Night Out on Channel 4 (at least myself and my wife had been) and I think I’m right in saying that the second and final series had just aired the week before this single came out. That single was a cover of “Born Free”, the title song from the 1966 film of the same name sung by Matt Monro (hence Nicky Campbell’s name check at the end of the performance). However, it wasn’t that track that my wife wanted but the B side which was “Oh! Mr Songwriter” with which Vic always closed each episode of Big Night Out.

Coming off the back of the success of the TV series, the single was a huge success peaking at No 6 and was followed by an album called “I Will Cure You” later in the year which would make the Top 20 and include an actual No 1 record in Vic’s collaboration with The Wonder Stuff on a cover of Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy”.

Vic can’t resist subverting the norms of a TOTP performance here by having his backing singers indulge in a plate of sandwiches half way though whilst he shows the audience a flip chart of birds. Here’s Vic on that performance via @TOTPFacts:

Vic Reeves on his first #TOTP appearance: "I sang the song and they dropped a load of tinfoil down. They didn't tell me about it, and I swallowed half of it and started gagging halfway through the song."
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 16, 2021

By the way, I did ultimately correct my error and buy the Vic Reeves single for my wife so no conspiracy there.

One of the best singles of the whole decade next? Possibly. “Get The Message” by Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner super group Electronic appeared some 18 months after their first single “Getting Away With It”. The intervening length of time and the fact that “Getting Away With It” was so dominated by the distinctive vocals of Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant made it feel like this single was almost by a new artist altogether. And what a song it was! It just sits together effortlessly, an almost perfect combination of Marr’s musicality, Sumner’s low register singing and Primal Scream vocalist Denise Johnson’s wonderful vocal talents at the song’s coda. Plus there was that incessantly catchy, swirling ‘wah-wa-wa wah’ sound effect at the end of the second chorus.

An eponymous album followed in May and I remember there being some disappointment amongst punters that the track listing didn’t include “Getting Away With It”. I think there was an import version of it that did include that track if you were prepared to pay around £18 for the CD though I’m not sure we sold many of those in the Our Price I was working in. Subsequent releases have rectified that omission. The album was a big success peaking at No 2 and selling over a million copies worldwide. “Get The Message” itself peaked at No 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyW6AGB_P3I

Some Breakers and the TOTP producers are sticking with the pile ’em high strategy of the previous week as they cram 4 songs into 1 minute and 30 seconds. We start with Roachford whom we haven’t seen for nigh on two years. “Get Ready!” was the new single and also the title of their second album. I had a bit of a soft spot for Roachford – “Cuddly Toy” had been a floor filler at the Sunderland nightclub of my choice when I had been a student up in the North East – and though this track wasn’t anywhere near as immediate as their biggest ever hit, it was a bit of a grower I thought. It grew on me so much that I bought it in the end although it was from the bargain bin of our Summer sale later in the year. The album sold steadily though it was hampered by a lack of any further hit singles from it

I once saw Roachford live – it must have been about 1994 – as I got on the guest list for their gig via the Sony rep who came to our store. They were pretty good I have to say. Andrew Roachford would later join Mike + The Mechanics as their some time vocalist and also released an album as recently as 2020 called “Twice In a Lifetime” which charted at No 31 on the UK album chart – the first Roachford album to make the Top 40 for 23 years.

“Get Ready!” the single peaked at No 22.

Yet another AC/DC single! There have been a plague of them since I’ve been writing my 80s and 90s TOTP blogs. “Are You Ready” is their ninth Top 40 hit in the period I have covered and guess what? It sounds the same as all the other ones! No I don’t care, it does! Plus, the video is exactly the same as well – the band live in concert with Angus Young in his schoolboy uniform and Brian Johnson in his flat cap. Give it a rest! “Are You Ready” peaked at No 34 and was from the band’s gold selling album “The Razors Edge”.

I think I remember this next one or am I thinking of a different record altogether? Frances Nero had recorded for Motown in the 60s but her only UK Top 40 hit was “Footsteps Following Me”. Apparently it was written by Ian Levine, the man behind the UK Hi-NRG scene and who worked with a load of artists in the 80s including Pet Shop Boys, Bucks Fizz, Erasure, Kim Wilde, Bronski Beat and Bananarama. “Footsteps Following Me” peaked at No 17 and was dubbed by British DJs as ‘the soul anthem of the nineties’ (it says on Wikipedia).

What is that other tune that “Footsteps Following Me” reminds me of? Oh yeah, it’s this…

Did someone mention Bananarama earlier? Here they are doing The Doobie Brothers. I really don’t remember this but the internet tells me that their version of “Long Train Running” was the third single to be released from their “Pop Life” album and was basically only recorded to fill up the album track listing. The TOTP graphics team were at it again with this one calling it “Long Train Coming” which is probably another record altogether!

The 1973 original wasn’t a hit in the UK at the time but it was remixed in 1993 and became a Top 10 smash whilst this rather weedy sounding version by the Nanas peaked at No 30.

A bit of pop history now as the get our first national view of Blur. Hands up those watching this performance who thought this lot would become a giant figure bestriding the UK musical landscape for years to come? Yeah, me neither. I quite liked “There’s No Other Way” though I have to say. Somehow though, at the time, I didn’t feel the need to explore their debut album “Leisure” which was released a few months later. Had I done so and developed a loyalty to Blur three years before Oasis appeared, I may have been on their side in the war versus the Manc lads of 1995.

This performance though did little to convince me that they weren’t just another of those floppy fringed, indie bands like Ride but put into drug induced overdrive. Drug induced? Looks at the state fo Damon Albarn’s wide eyed stare and Alex James’s clueless leaping about. Both clearly under the influence. Don’t take my word for it though. Here’s Damon himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Before playing "There's No Other Way" at the Reading Festival in 1999, Damon Albarn recounted Blur's #TOTP debut, saying "[Alex and me] both took an E before we went on stage. Before us, Vic Reeves was signing that 'Born Free' song… and he had all this glitter…"
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 16, 2021

"… And it was really nice, probably the best time I ever had at Top Of The Pops. And our record company gave us those drugs! Isn't that fucked up?" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 16, 2021

The single peaked at No 8 whilst the album also went Top 10. Even so, their elevation into the national consciousness was still a good few years off. There’s no other way of seeing it though, “There’s No Other Way” was a statement of intent.

I said the other week that I didn’t remember “Seal Our Fate” by Gloria Estefan when it was included in the Breakers section. I clearly can’t have caught this episode of the show either as who could forget Gloria performing the single in that PVC dress?! Blimey! She has a whole parade of people up there on stage backing her (The Miami Sound Machine?) but nobody is looking at them. Erm…anyway…unusually the single was a bigger hit in the UK than it was in the US peaking at No 24 over here but only No 53 across the pond.

It was used in a Pepsi advert also featuring Gloria herself which I also don’t remember but here it is:

He’s still there for a fifth week at the top and as Nicky Campbell advises us, nobody had achieved such a run at No 1 since Paul Hardcastle with “19” in 1985. Was there some sort of music industry conspiracy happening to keep Chesney Hawkes in pole position for all this time? How could such a dastardly deed be done and to what end? Had anybody thought to ask David Icke about “The One And Only”?

Despite that plea from Jakki Brambles last week, Chezza doesn’t seems have had his locks shorn at all. To be fair, his brother on the drums has an even worse haircut. Are all those shrieks from the TOTP audience genuine or were they result of the floor staff whipping them up into a false frenzy? If Chesney-mania was a thing, it was very short-lived. Just one Top 30 single was to follow and that was that. Only Sajid Javid’s time as Health Secretary before he caught COVID himself was shorter. Chesney seems at one with himself and his time as a pop star though. He now lives in Los Angeles with his American wife Kristina and their three children and occasionally performs on the nostalgia circuit.

The play out video is “Quadrophonia” by Quadrophonia and guess what? I have zero recall of this one. This seems to be happening a lot lately. Back in the 80s I seemed to know every song that made the Top 40 (and a fair few that didn’t) but the 90s is proving a horse of a different colour altogether. Maybe I was out having a life as opposed to spending all my hours sat in a room listening to Radio 1.

Apparently this lot were a Dutch/Belgian electronic music collective – like we didn’t have enough of them clogging up the charts back then – who thought it would be a clever trick to make a play on words of the title of The Who’s 1973 album and the 1979 film it inspired. The sound that they came up with was a horrible noise. The end. Cue someone riding a Vespa over a cliff top at Beachy Head.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_K4yn4IIRI

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EMF	Children	No but I bought that Afro King single the extra tracks on which were basically a mini greatest hits including Children
2	De La Soul	“Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)”	Nope
3	Vic Reeves	Born Free	Yes for my wife (eventually!)
4	Electronic	Get The Message	Not the single but I must have it on something surely?
5	Roachford	Get Ready!	Yes (albeit it from the bargain bin)
6	AC/DC	Are You Ready?	Not for this garbage no
7	Frances Nero	Footsteps Following Me	Nah
8	Bananarama	Long Train Running	No
9	Blur	There’s No Other Way	See Electronic above
10	Gloria Estefan	Seal Our Fate	Negative
11	Chesney Hawkes	The One And Only	I did not
12	Quadrophonia	Quadrophonia	Not likely

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/m000xw3q/top-of-the-pops-25041991

TOTP 20 SEP 1990

Posted on March 10, 2021 by 80stastic

We’re pushing on through 1990 now and find ourselves entering the final third of September. The year has brought us a dramatic World Cup, a Summer heatwave and a seemingly endless conveyor belt of awful, awful records in the Top 40…but all of those things would pale into insignificance for me as I was exactly one month away from getting married! Yes, my girlfriend and I had been reunited over the Summer when I secured some temporary employment in her hometown of Hull and now we had decided that we weren’t going to be separated again. We were only 22 by this point and none of our friends and peers had got married or were even talking about such a happening that I was aware of but we were determined and confident in each other and our relationship.

We had decided we would move to Manchester. We had very little connection to the city other than we both knew one person each who lived there. To this end, I had applied for jobs in record shops there to have some employment set up for our arrival. Why record shops? I loved music and thought that I would be working in a field that engaged me. I also figured that somehow it would be a springboard into some sort of career in the music business, that I would be headhunted to some record company position and end up running a record label or some such other fantasy. In my defence of this folly, I was very young, just starting out in life and I didn’t have a f*****g clue! The first record shop that I heard back from was the Our Price chain and they invited me to interview for a temporary Xmas sales assistant position. So it came to pass that in this very week of September 1990, I travelled over to Manchester and rocked up at the offices above the Manchester Piccadilly store where I was interviewed by a very pleasant guy (whose name I forget), sat a music quiz and was told that I would be a suitable person to work for Our Price. I remember him asking me if I though the money they were paying was enough (£100 a week as I recall) and I said absolutely! I wasn’t going to talk myself out of the opportunity before I’d even begun. Success!

My other brief whilst I was over in Manchester was to try and find some accommodation for us to live in once we’d moved across the Pennines. On this point I was less successful and I returned to Hull with nothing in place on that subject. Still, one out of two wasn’t bad. I had a start date for late October agreed and had familiarised myself with Manchester a little at least whilst I was staying with one of the two people we knew there for a couple of days. I recall travelling back to her flat on the bus on the Saturday afternoon and wondering how my beloved Chelsea had got on that day. This was before the days of mobile phones, live score apps and the rest. I was unsure about outing myself as a Chelsea fan on public transport in the centre of Manchester but fortunately they had been playing Man City that afternoon so I simply asked somebody on the bus who had a pink ‘un (remember them) sports paper the City result*. Bingo! I was already getting used to this living in Manchester lark!

*It was a 1-1 draw by the way.

As a consequence of all this grown up stuff, I had taken my eye off the ball as to the pop charts and am pretty sure I didn’t even watch this particular TOTP. Let’s see what I missed….

….we start with one of those awful, awful records I referred to earlier. Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood were one of those Eurodance outfits that we’d seen so much of in this year like 49ers and Bizz Nizz. The Captain himself was a guy called Tony Dawson-Harrison who earned his nickname when stationed with the US Army in Germany. Hang on! Wasn’t that the same back story as Turbo B from Snap!?

*checks Wikipedia*

Yes, it was! And didn’t Sydney Youngblood of “If Only I Could” fame follow the same route to chart glory?

*checks Wikipedia again*

Yes! What the hell was the deal with American army soldiers based in Germany becoming pop stars in the early 90s?! Anyway, he was joined by vocalist Nancy “Nance” Coolen (not hard to work out where her nickname came from) and a couple of dancers and hey presto! A massive hit called “I Can’t Stand It”. After that single hit big, Captain Hollywood left to pursue a solo career (he had a couple of minor hit singles in the UK in the mid 90s but was a much bigger deal in the rest of Europe) and was replaced by Stacey “Stay-C” Seedorf (they really needed to work on those nicknames a bit more!). From that point on it became a carousel of band members and line up that would put The Fall to shame (well, The Sugababes at least). Apparently they are still a going concern to this day. As for me, I couldn’t stand “I Can’t Stand It” which peaked at No 7 over here.

Wait a minute! What’s going on here? The Stone Roses in the charts with “Fools Gold”? Again? It had already spent 14 weeks in the Top 100 between Nov 1989 and Feb 1990 – why was it re-released so quickly afterwards? Well, after the band’s commercial breakthrough in 1989 with “Made Of Stone”, “She Bangs The Drums” and of course “Fools Gold”, there was a rush to get more of their product out into the marketplace, not all of it with the endorsement of the band. Early single “Sally Cinnamon” on their ex-label Revolver came out again with a video that the band hated. They tried to stop the release and when they couldn’t, it led to the legendary office trashing incident when the band, on route to the recording studio, stopped by the FM Revolver headquarters and trashed the offices by hurling paint all over them and former manager Paul Birch. The inevitable court case followed with the band fined £3,600 each.

After “Elephant Stone” was also released from their iconic debut album came the much heralded single “One Love”. Tipped to be No 1, the band’s mythical aura had slipped after the debacle of the Spike Island concert and it stalled at No 4, unable to dislodge Elton John or indeed get the better of Craig McClachlan! Given its relative failure, was “Fools Gold” re-issued to remind us of their former glories? Its original release had seen it double A-sided with “What The World Is Waiting For” but was it just a standard A -side this time? Or was it just the original release propelled back into the charts by demand? I’m not sure. he waters are muddied further by the fact that it has been re-released at least a further two times since. I’m pretty sure that the debut album was re-released with “Fools Gold” included as an extra track at some point in the early 90s as well.

The 1990 release made it to No 22 in the charts whilst the 1989 original release made it all the way to No 8. I have to say it’s not my favourite Stone Roses tune by some distance, whilst Ian Brown seems to be making quite the fool himself these days without any recourse to gold.

I had to jinx it by mentioning Snap! before didn’t I? Here’s Turbo B and co with their third hit of 1990 “Cult Of Snap”. After “The Power” and “Ooops Up”, this one at least had a differential to it in the form of the African sounding drumbeats and chanting. Indeed, it proved to be popular in that territory as it peaked at No 2 in Zimbabwe. When this TOTP repeat aired, a few social media commentators said that it reminded them of that “In Zaire” song by Johnny Wakelin which I just about remember from my childhood. Let’s see if they had a point then…

…ooh yeah, maybe. Anyway, back to “Cult Of Snap” and I found this one a little less irritating than their previous efforts (maybe it was Johnny Wakelin subconsciously drawing me in from the 70s). It turns out though that Snap! didn’t have the very first release of this track. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Although "Cult Of Snap" was a Snap! composition, this wasn't the track's first release. An Italian outfit called Hi Power rushed out a version, which charted as high as no 73, before Snap! got theirs out. https://t.co/9FBOyfjPCp #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 5, 2021

The ever generous Turbo B (who had already been involved in a homophobic instigated nightclub incident by this point) declared of Hi Power’s version in a Smash Hits interview:

“These people, they’re ridiculous. If he was a good rapper, it would be OK but he was a shit rapper, he has no timing. “

What a pleasant man! It’s a bit rich anyway given that “The Power” included the unauthorised sampling of vocals by Jocelyn Brown which led her to commence legal action. The legally complex world of sampling eh?

“Cult Of Snap” peaked at No 8 in the UK.

One of the constants of this blog throughout the 80s and now the 90s has been the persistent existence of hard rock acts within the UK Top 40 whatever the current musical milieu dictated. House music? Not a problem? Overblown ballads from film soundtracks? Out of our way, we’re coming through! Boys bands and teeny bop idols? We give zero f***s! We’re here to play loud rock music and nobody will stop us! The likes of Megadeth, Skid Row and Whitesnake had steadfastly refused to budge from the Top 40, presumably propelled their in the first pace by a sizeable, loyal fan base. Another such act were AC/DC for whom “Thunderstruck” was already their 14th UK Top 40 hit and followed the likes of “Who Made Who” and “Heatseeker” into the Top 20. As I’ve said many time previously, I never got the boat going to AC/DC island and this did nothing for me. I can’t be doing with their song titles for one thing – they all seem to just constant variants on the whole ‘power’ theme.

The song inspired a whole movie called Thunderstruck which was released in 2004 and was a comedy about five guys who go to an AC/DC show in 1991 and agree to bury the first one who dies next to Bon Scott. No really. Look, here’s the trailer….

…yeah. It looks well shit doesn’t it?

Some Breakers next and we start with the return of S’Express. Despite cornering the market as the commercial face of house music when arriving with a bang back in 1988 with the No 1 single “Theme from S-Express”, Mark Moore and co had suffered from a case of diminishing returns ever since with each subsequent single release peaking lower than its immediate predecessor. Their fortunes were not helped by a two year gap between album releases with sophomore long player “Intercourse” not arriving until a whole three years after the bomb that was “Theme from S-Express” had exploded into the charts.

“Nothing To Lose” was actually the second single to be lifted from “Intercourse”, the first had been “Mantra For A State Of Mind” nearly a year before – see what I mean about them not being fussed about maintaining momentum with regular release schedules? Indeed, the four singles that were released from the album covered a period of three years!

I have to say that I didn’t mind “Nothing To Lose” though and my wife liked it so much she bought the 12″. However, their appeal was definitely on the wane. It peaked at No 32 and became their last ever Top 40 hit until a remix of “Theme from S-Express” retitled as “Theme from S’Express – The Return Trip” made the Top 20 in 1996.

Is this the same DNA who were just in the charts with Suzanne Vega with that remix of “Tom’s Diner”? It is apparently. I had no idea they had more than one hit. A quick check of their discography shows that they had five Top 40 entries although this one, “La Serenissima”, seems to be the only one in their own right. Including “Tom’s Diner”, all the other ones were with additional artists with the most successful and famous being Kylie Minogue whom they remixed “Shocked ” for as “Shocked (DNA Remix)” (it did what it said on the tin) in 1991 which peaked at No 6.

Featuring that ubiquitous James Brown “Funky Drummer” sample, “La Serenissima” was actually a cover of a piece by Rondò Veneziano who Wikipedia tells me are ‘an Italian chamber orchestra, specialising in Baroque music, playing original instruments but incorporating a rock-style rhythm section of synthesiser, bass guitar and drums’. That sounds…erm…like an Italian version of ‘Hooked On Classics’?

“La Serenissima” – the Byzantine title for Venice if you’re asking – peaked at No 34.

Who’s up for some Monie Love? Last seen in the charts at the back end of 1989 with her Top 20 single “Grandpa’s Party”, she was back there again with “It’s a Shame (My Sister)” which was her hip-hop take on “It’s a Shame”, the old 70s hit by The Spinners. Is it my imagination or was Monie Love briefly tipped to be the next hip-hop superstar? Well, there’s still a lot of love for Monie online where she is routinely referred to as a hip-hop icon. Interviewed by http://www.pbs.org and asked what her greatest contribution was to hip-hop, she replied:

“Oh, wow, that’s easy for me. My greatest contribution to Hip-Hop was allowing the United States of America to know and understand exactly how far they reach, and how influential they are to children in completely different countries because I am the import. I’m one of the first successful imports on the Hip-Hop tree of life.”

Import? Ah, you see Monie was born Simone Johnson in Battersea in 1970 before relocating to the US permanently where she carved out a successful career in radio. Oh, and I’ve no idea who True Image are/were who are also credited on the record. Sounds like one of Louis Walsh’s X Factor boy bands to me.

After The Stone Roses earlier in the show, we get another of those acts closely associated with the baggy sound of Manchester (although they were actually from a combination of the West Midlands and Northwich in Cheshire). The Charlatans were bona fide pop stars by this point but this was actually their debut appearance on TOTP never actually having made it on the show for previous single “The Only One I Know” despite it going Top 10 (the promo video had to suffice instead). “Then” was a worthy follow up and very nearly made it two Top Tenners on the bounce, peaking just outside at No 12.

Lead singer and now near National Treasure Tim Burgess has obviously been to the barbers with his bowl cut look replaced with something altogether more sharp. The decision to lop off his locks was made because Tim felt that too many people trying to copy his floppy fringe look apparently. These days of course, he has adopted a hairstyle that seems to be a mash up of Andy Warhol and Purdey from The New Avengers. Haircuts aside, he remains a rather wonderful human being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR-LTttw2pk

If this TOTP was a football match, it would be between the indie/dance baggie sound and heavy rock and this would be the match report:

“After The Baggies (no, not WBA!) went 1-0 up early doors via a strike from The Stone Roses, Heavy Rock equalised via the ever reliable AC/DC. Shortly after the break(ers) however, The Baggies were back in front via a good follow up from The Charlatans. Not to be out done, Heavy Rock fired a second equaliser from veterans Iron Maiden.”

Yes, just like AC/DC earlier, Iron Maiden were still rampaging up the charts as the 80s became the 90s. We could have been forgiven for thinking they were on a sabbatical given the solo career of Bruce Dickinson earlier in the year but they were back with new single “Holy Smoke” which was the lead single from their “No Prayer For The Dying” album. By this point, the band’s fan base was so big that they could guarantee a high chart placing for anything they released as demonstrated by “Holy Smoke” which entered the charts at No 3. The band (or possibly their record label) saw a way to exploit this to the max with their next single “Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter” which was released in the week after Xmas when there was traditionally a lull in sales after the Xmas rush. This meant that far fewer copies need to be sold to have a massive hit and so it came to pass that Iron Maiden would score their first and only No 1 single as 1991 dawned.

I don’t really recall “Holy Smoke” at all and on hearing it on this TOTP repeat iI did wonder if it was an instrumental. It isn’t but the reason for my confusion was that the show’s producers started the playback of the track from the point of a guitar solo which I’m guessing was a strategic move to omit some of the song’s more profane lyrics which occur early on such as ‘Flies around shit/bees around honey’ and ‘I’ve lived in filth/I’ve lived in sin/and I still smell cleaner than the shit you’re in’. Ooh, they were scary rebels weren’t they Iron Maiden?

Breaking News! There’s a last gasp winner in The Baggies v Heavy Rock match as the former seal the win with a goal from late substitute The Farm. Hang on, it’s gone to VAR! There’s a debate about whether the goal should stand as Stockley Park look at evidence that The Farm were not actually a baggie band and therefore they should be disqualified from playing. According to a Smash Hits interview with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, he had this to say about the “Groovy Train” hitmakers:

“I saw them live five years ago and they were a crap R’n’ B band.”

Damning stuff. The decision is in though and the goal stands on the basis of this angle from @TOTPFacts:

A few weeks after this, Happy Mondays released their single "Kinky Afro". The track was originally titled "Groovy Afro", but the Mondays changed the title after finding out about "Groovy Train". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 5, 2021

If holy trinity indie /dance member Happy Mondays were concerned about The Farm, then they must have been baggy! However, I’m pretty sure that I saw an Expedia advert on the TV the other day that used “Groovy Train” as the soundtrack to it which kind of undermines its indie credentials a bit in my book. Apparently, Duran Duran have turned down multiple lucrative requests over the years from various food outlets asking to use “Hungry Like The Wolf” in an advertising campaign but they have always refused. So there you have it – Duran Duran have more credibility than The Farm. Maybe.

Steve Miller Band are still at No 1 with ‘The Joker” holding off Deee-Lite’s tilt at the top for a second week. The previous week of course had raised the whole chart controversy of the two acts being tied for the No 1 position. Using a clearly unfair ruling, “The Joker” was given the number one as its sales had increased more from the previous week. To diffuse chart rigging accusations, the compilers Gallup subsequently announced that “The Joker” had actually sold 8 (EIGHT!) copies more than “Groove Is In The Heart”. How convenient. Did someone have to look for those 8 sales a bit like Donald Trump going looking for missing votes in the US presidential election?

Wanna hear Homer Simpson singing “The Joker”? Of course you do…

Confirming that he wasn’t a one hit wonder, the play out video is “Tunes Splits The Atom” by MC Tunes and 808 State. This track also confirms, Geoff Hurst in the final minute style, the victory for The Baggies over Heavy Rock with both MC Tunes and 808 State hailing from ‘Madchester’. As if that wasn’t enough, “Tunes Splits The Atom” samples a bass riff from “I Am The Resurrection” by The Stone Roses. Done and indeed dusted.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7OgnxrnCRY

eqwrt

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood	I Can’t Stand It	…and therefore I didn’t buy it
2	The Stone Roses	Fools Gold	No but I must have it on something
3	Snap!	The Cult Of Snap	I was not a member of this cult
4	AC/DC	Thunderstruck	Clusterfuck more like! No
5	S’Express	Nothing To Lose	No but my wife bough the 12”
6	DNA	La Serenissima	Nah
7	Monie Love	It’s A Shame (My Sister)	Nope
8	The Charlatans	Then	No but it’s on my Melting Pot Best Of CD of theirs
9	Iron Maiden	Holy Smoke	They could blow their smoke out of their arses for all I cared -no
10	The Farm	Groovy Train	No but I easily could have
11	Steve Miller Band	The Joker	It’s a no
12	MC Tunes / 808 State	Tunes Splits The Atom	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/m000st47/top-of-the-pops-20091990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 08 JUL 1993

Disclaimer

TOTP 15 OCT 1992

Disclaimer

TOTP 25 APR 1991

Disclaimer

TOTP 20 SEP 1990

Disclaimer

Some bedtime reading?