TOTP 19 APR 1990
I tell you what, having to write about two BBC4 TOTP repeats week in week out is proving to be a relentless schedule to stick to. Fortunately, this particular show only has nine acts as there are no Breakers again this week and six of them have been on before so I might be able to get away with saying not very much about them. Fingers crossed!
It’s Jakki Brambles in the presenters hot seat this week and talking of hot, she does seem to have a constant need to wrap up warm when she’s on. She’s got a black overcoat on this time which she seems to be hugging into herself giving the impression that she’s freezing in the TOTP studio. She did this the last time she was on as well I think. Mark Goodier on the other hand complained about how hot it was when he was the host last time but then he didn’t help himself with a jacket, shirt and tie outfit. Whatever – let’s hope for some ‘hot’ acts on the show tonight….
…not quite what I was hoping for as we start with Sonia and her latest single “Counting Every Minute”. This was just the musical equivalent of watching paint dry. I tried staring at the walls once to try and slow down time when I really didn’t want to go back to work – it didn’t help. I should have just listened to Sonia as this garbage seems to go on forever, endlessly filling the silence with its own pop vacuum – counting every minute indeed. When asked in Smash Hits for her take on the state of the charts at this time, she replied that as well as liking all her SAW stablemates like Kylie, Jason and Big Fun, she’d also just bought the Phil Collins album. What was I saying about watching paint dry?!
Another song that we saw just last week now as “I Don’t Love You Anymore” by The Quireboys gets another airing. Apparently, such was the band’s riotous reputation that before their first TOTP appearance (they were actually the very first act on the show in the the 90s), the producers contacted their management to see if the rumours that they would vomit over the cameramen and set fire to Bruno Brookes were true. Of course they weren’t and the only reason their video is being shown instead of the band in person is because they were touring Japan. At least that’s the story Jakki Brambles has been told to tell and she’s sticking to it.
“I Don’t Love You Anymore” peaked at No 24.
For all the terrible, terrible records that 1990 has given us so far in these repeats, it has also given us some of the decade’s most seminal and creative works as well. After Sinéad O’Connor and Happy Mondays comes Adamski and Seal with “Killer”. I say ‘and Seal’ but he wasn’t actually credited officially on the record despite his obvious input. It’s seems strange to acknowledge in 2020 given the career that Seal has had in the intervening years but there was a time when the world didn’t have a clue who he was and that time was now. We knew who Adamski was – that odd little DJ bloke who’d had a hit with the dance track “N-R-G” earlier in the year but “Killer” didn’t sound anything like “N-R-G”to my ears. It was almost devastating the first time you heard it. The hypnotic bassline that builds until that voice enters the fray. Given his latter canon of work is very much more of a soulful bent, it was an unusual route into the world of music for Seal – supplying the vocals for an out and out dance tune.
As well as his obvious singing talents, he also supplied the visual focus for the record which I don’t think can be underestimated. With his striking looks – aided by his scars which are the result of an autoimmune skin condition – and his mid length dreads, he cut an imposing figure. Having said all of that, you can’t ignore the power of the actual music. Did I expect it to be a No 1 record? I’m not sure but it was always destined to be a big hit. In the end it was one of two massive records to soundtrack the Summer of 1990 with the other one being “World In Motion” by New Order – I’m disqualifying another No1 record (“Sacrifice” by Elton John) on the grounds that it was crap.
By the end of the year, Seal was a major star in his own right notching up a massive hit in “Crazy” which peaked at No 2. By the time that his debut album came out in June of 1991, he was huge and it topped the album charts. Said record included a re-recorded version of “Killer” which meant he did get his overdue star billing and credit for the song in the end. His version peaked at No 8 and its M. C. Escher themed video won British Video of the Year at the 1992 Brit Awards.
George Michael performed a version of “Killer” at the The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 which was included on the “Five Live” EP and took the song back to No 1 in 1993.
It’s The Blues Brothers up again next with “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”. I really should make the time to watch the film from start to finish one day. Actually, there’s probably a whole load of ‘must see’ films that I’ve yet to get around to watching. Let me see….there’s Das Boot, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cinema Paradiso and perhaps the biggest crime of all (and very timely) It’s A Wonderful Life! Alright, alright – I know! I’m a film philistine and a terrible person to (das) boot. Still, that’s added a bit to the word count for this post. Is that enough for The Blues Brothers? No? OK, well in 1998, an ill advised sequel came out called Blues Brothers 2000 without, obviously, the sadly departed John Belushi. It received mixed reviews. I’ve never seen that either.
Alannah Myles is on the rise with her single “Black Velvet”. It’s up top No 2 this week which requires not just a re-showing of the promo video but an actual in-the-studio appearance by Alannah herself! Presumably her record company thought that this would give the record that extra push to get it over the line and score her a UK No 1 to add to her Canadian and US chart toppers. Sadly for Alannah the marketing ploy didn’t work and she would remain tantalisingly one place short.
There are a few theories as to what the song is about. It seems pretty obvious to me that it’s about Elvis given the lyrics include lines like
- “Love Me Tender leaves ’em cryin’ in the aisle”
- “Up in Memphis the music’s like a heat wave”
- “The boy could sing, knew how to move ev’rything”
However, according to some of the comments posted on the Songfacts.com website it could also be about any of the following:
- Led Zep’s Robert Plant (unlikely)
- Cheap Canadian whiskey (possibly)
- A woman’s crotch (WTF?!)
However, my favourite post is from one Ashley Jade from Cleveland who just says:
“This song scares me“
Blimey! I hope Ashley never gets to hear any of experimental industrial noise makers Throbbing Gristle’s work – she’ll never sleep again!
Finally a dance record that I remember…though sadly not one that I liked. “Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” by The Adventures of Stevie V was a huge crossover hit being massive in both the clubs and the pop charts where it would peak at No 2. The intriguing sounding act were put together by producer Steve Vincent (the titular Stevie V) and also included Mick Walsh and singer Melody Washington. I seem to recall the press getting very worked up about this record and declaring it ‘hiphouse’ and that the music world would soon be falling at the feet of The Adventures of Stevie V. It didn’t quite work out like that despite Vincent himself stating that he wanted to be “bigger than Salman Rushdie. As big as The Pope”. They had just one more Top 40 hit and Vincent teaches music technology at Bedford College these days.
As for the single itself, it reminded me of “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent” by Gwen Guthrie which I hadn’t liked either. The backing dancers in this performance look like they might have been getting some tips from The Blues Brothers when it came to their moves whilst their baggy pants look was clearly inspired by MC Hammer.
Ooh some US rock now but not the AOR stuff that the likes of Heart were peddling but what some critics were calling ‘alternative metal’ at the time – a fusion of alternative rock and heavy metal. Given that genre description, then we can only be talking about Faith No More right? Look, I have to come clean and admit that I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. If I had to describe Faith No More’s sound I’d have maybe gone for ‘funk metal’ but I’m sure that will sound like heresy to their loyal fan base.
I knew of the band via their major label debut single “We Care A Lot” a couple of years before this but that was the extent of my knowledge. This single, “From Out Of Nowhere” was taken from their third album “The Real Thing” and was actually a re-release after it had completely bombed on its first outing in October 1989. However, after the band breached the Top 40 (albeit in a minor way) with No 37 hit “Epic”, it was re-issued and consolidated their chart success by peaking at No 23. “Epic” itself would be re-released before the year was out and made it a worthwhile exercise by peaking at No 25, twelve places higher than its original chart placing and becoming possibly their best known song.
Actually, scratch that, a lot of UK pop fans will know the band for their pretty straight cover of ‘Easy” by The Commodores which made No 3 early in 1993. Quite why they chose to release a cover of that song I really don’t know nor do I know why music fans felt they needed the Faith No More version in their lives rather than the existing Commodores original but that’s the great British public for you. I recall that the original release of parent album “Angel Dust” didn’t have “Easy” on it but it was re-issued with it added to the track listing hoping to trick some mainstream pop fans into buying a rock record. Too cynical? Unlike Faith No More, I don’t care a lot.
Madonna is still at the top of the charts this week with “Vogue”. The black and white video caused some controversy due to ‘nipple-gate’ when MTV initially refused to air the promo because of the sheer lace blouse Madonna wears at one point through which viewers got a big flash of the Ciccone chest and specifically, if you peered close enough, her nipples. Crikey!
We also got a first view of the iconic ‘cone bra’ in the video which would come to be the lasting image of her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. That tour was chronicled in the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside of North America) which spawned the infamous scene below or, in the spirit of ‘nipple-gate’, neat-gate’ if you will…
The play out video is “Ghetto Heaven” by The Family Stand. Apparently Jeffrey in the band could play any musical instrument and at school was so far ahead of the rest of the class that his music teacher would let him go into another room and do his own thing. All of this reminded me of a similar situation in our music lessons at grammar school.
There was a guy called Nick who could play piano whilst the rest of us were complete doughnuts musical ability wise so Nick was allowed to go and practice piano in a side room. What did the rest of us get up to? Well, memorably Paul Dukes managed to convince our frankly wet behind the ears music teacher Mr Wilderspin to play “Friggin’ In The Riggin” by The Sex Pistols as part of musical appreciation! I think we maybe got to the end of the first verse before Wilderspin raced over to the turntable to yank the needle of the record. To be fair to him, even just the first verse was maybe slightly pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable for a bunch of school kids to be listening to in class…
It was on the good ship Venus
By Christ, ya should’ve seen us
The figurehead was a whore in bed
And the mast, a mammoth penis
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
| 1 | Sonia | Counting Every Minute | Huge no |
| 2 | The Quireboys | I Don’t Love You Anymore | …don’t think I ever did |
| 3 | Adamski | Killer | No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on |
| 4 | The Blues Brothers | Everbody Needs Somebody To Love | No |
| 5 | Alannah Myles | Black Velvet | Nope |
| 6 | Adventures of Stevie V | Dirty Cash (Money Talks) | Not for me thanks |
| 7 | Faith No More | From Out Of nowhere | I did not |
| 8 | Madonna | Vogue | Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD |
| 9 | The Family Stand | Ghetto Heaven | Nah |
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/m000pr1z/top-of-the-pops-19041990
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 Rewind - the 90s 