After being stuck in the world of TOTP 1990 for what felt like much longer than 52 weeks, we have finally arrived in 1991! I approach it with a great deal of caution – too many times during these repeats have I been tricked by my memory into thinking that *insert year here* was pretty good only to be utterly let down by the paucity of tunes on offer each week. C’mon 1991 – don’t let me down! 

I would have just come through my first Our Price Xmas around now. After working some long hours and serving queue after queue of customers, both Xmas and Boxing Day were days off. Back then Boxing Day still saw just about every store closed unlike today when it is one of the biggest trading days of the year. We had been briefed by the store management that it was the 27th Dec that was the busiest (and most horrible day) of the year in retail as that was the day everybody bought back those unwanted gifts. Back then, the company had a no cash refund policy for items that were not faulty. Swapsies or vouchers were the only things on offer which could lead to many a confrontation with a disgruntled customer. I wonder how many of the acts on tonight’s show would have had their wares brought back that day? 

The year starts with someone who surely nobody would have been disappointed to find in their Xmas stocking (obviously I mean her album!). Betty Boo had been one of the biggest stars of 1990 and her single “24 Hours” was her fourth consecutive hit to be plucked from her debut album “Boomania”. So the first thing to note about her performance here is that Betty has lost her Booettes since her last TOTP appearance. Where were the two ladies with the matching black bob hairstyles? Had they all fallen out? According to Betty in a Guardian interview in 2006, those girls liked a good night out and were always pissed when they were touring the world with Betty back in the day so maybe they both had hangovers? With all due respect to Ms Boo, she looks a bit isolated and lost up there on her own. Secondly, what’s with the zebra style plastic mac look? It doesn’t fit her at all does it? As for the song, in truth, it was easily the weakest thing she had released up to this point so it was no surprise that, unlike her other hits, it got nowhere near the Top 10 peaking at No 25. We would not see Betty in the charts again for nigh on two years by which point her time had passed. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOWEsuhmR8o

OK, so second song into the brand new year and what are we served up? Something that had already been a massive hit as recently as 1987 that was somehow back in the Top 40 again! What a swizz! So why was “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes back in the charts four years on? Well, we have to remember that this was 30 years ago before the digital age of streaming and catch up services  – we still only had four TV channels! They hadn’t even invented DVDs! So when a ‘big’ film was finally screened on terrestrial TV, it was a huge deal. Just a few weeks before, the premiere of Top Gun on UK TV had seen “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin become a hit all over gain and so it was also the case with this song from the film Dirty Dancing which had premiered on ITV on Boxing Day pulling in 12.2 million viewers. This was appointment TV – not quite The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show but it was up there. According to the song’s co-writer Franke Previte, it only just made the cut for the film as it was “…the last song on the last tape submitted on the last day for the movie’s final scene”. A bit like Will Young who sneaked onto Pop Idol after being the very last person the judges had seen in the preliminary auditions. 

Bill Medley, of course, had already made an unlikely chart comeback of his own a few weeks prior to this as part of The Righteous Brothers whose “Unchained Melody’ was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1990 off the back of its inclusion in the film Ghost. Jennifer Warnes also had her own film soundtrack history having scored a huge hit back in 1983 as part of another duet, this time with Joe Cocker with the song with “Up Where We Belong” which featured prominently in An Officer And A Gentleman. Her only other UK chart entry had been with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan” which peaked at No 74 also in 1987 which I’d quite liked.

“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” peaked at No 8 second time around just two places lower than its 1987 original release. 

Dear oh dear. Had record company BMG really had plans to turn Gazza into a proper pop star? As well as his two singles, he also released an album (albeit one that was universally panned and which failed to make the Top 100 in the charts). And after all, Kevin Keegan had scored a hit back in the late 70s with “Head OVer Heels” and Glenn and Chris (Hoddle and Waddle) had nearly got into the Top 10 with “Diamond Lights” back in 1987 so why not Gazza? The truth was though that Gazza the celebrity was already in decline by this point – his business advisers, on the advice of Spurs manager Terry Venables, had already begun winding down his non-football activities when they cancelled six PAs back in Sep 1990 and there would be no further appearances. The constant limelight  was also beginning to take its toll on his performances on the pitch. Even TOTP host Gary Davies has a dig at him with his “He’s doing better in charts than he is on the football pitch” quip. He wasn’t wrong. Spurs had just lost all three games over the Xmas period and had only won three times since October.

However, just two days after this TOTP was broadcast, they would win 1-0 away to Blackpool in the FA Cup to start a run to the final that was powered almost single handedly by Gazza. He scored six times on the way to Wembley but the final itself (despite a Spurs win) would end in personal devastation. Over pumped and high on adrenaline, Gazza charged around the pitch with no self control until injuring himself in a terrible challenge on *Nottingham Forest’s Gary Charles. If he hadn’t have been stretchered off he would surely have been sent off. For me, he was never quite the same player again. 

“Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)” peaked at No 31.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JCsOjfW144

…he was also the lead singer of a Britpop band called Merc who attracted the attention of Creation’s Alan McGee and went onto form post-punk band Ulterior and performs under the stage name of Honey. 

Oh not this again?! Despite what host Gary Davies says in his intro, this record was Black Box‘s first four (not three Gary) hit singles all mashed together into one track which they called “The Total Mix”. I think there is an official video for this single but I can’t find it online and in any case, TOTP don’t show it here – instead just playing the track over the video for previous single “Everybody, Everybody”.

I’m guessing this must have been popular in the clubs to have generated enough sales to take it to No 12 in the singles charts. You’d think that releasing a megamix of your previous four hits all taken from the same album (“Dreamland”) would have been the final act of milking said album dry but no! They released another three singles after “The Total Mix” although only one of them (“Strike It Up”) made the Top 40. So that’s a charge sheet of fleecing the record buying public, a lip synching scandal and a lawsuit brought against them for unauthorised sampling. How did this lot sleep at night?

Finally a decent record courtesy of Seal and his hit “Crazy”. In an unlikely turn of events, this would not be the only song featured on the same show to have this title. His first truly solo single after the collaboration with Adamski on “Killer”, this track would cement him in the public’s collective mind as a proper pop star to be taken seriously. Seal always seemed to have a gravitas to him to me, that he wasn’t just another throwaway singer that would be here today and forgotten by Xmas. He delivered on this perception with a No 1 album (which, by the way, was not called “Deep Water” as Gary Davies advised but just “Seal”). Admittedly there is a track called “Deep Water” on it – maybe there had been plans for that to be the title track at some point in fairness to Davies. 

Seal was perfect for TOTP studio performances, setting many a young girl’s pulse racing with his rippling muscles, cool dread hairstyle and those intriguing facial scars. He was born to do this shit. Not sure about his little man bag stuck down the front of his leather trousers though. 

“Crazy” would just miss the top spot peaking at No 2. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7acMwppcfSI

1. Madonna – “The Immaculate Collection”

2. Elton John – “The Very Best Of Elton John”

3. Phil Collins – ‘Serious Hits Live”

4. Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti – “The Three Tenors In Concert”

5. Cliff Richard – “The Event”

This lot were hardly cutting edge were they?! Things That Make You Go Hmmm indeed…

Righto, who’s next? Anthrax?! For the love of God! Why?! These US thrash metal arses had not been higher than No 26 in the UK Top 40 before but somehow got to No 16 with “Got The Time”. I’m guessing it was a case of careful release scheduling (much less sales were required to register a hit in the week immediately following the Xmas rush when everyone is skint but more of that later). 

Ah, that’s much better than that racket Anthrax were making. 

Now to that second sing of the night called “Crazy” but this time it’s by Patsy Cline. Country music legend Patsy has a legacy that completely outstrips her chart statistics. She only ever had one Top 10 hit (the original release of “Crazy” in the US back in 1961) and yet she is known and revered throughout the world. A bit like the musical reverse of my beloved Chelsea’s German striker Timo Werner – his stats say he’s had a decent season (12 goals and 15 assists in all competitions) but I am never confident that he is going to score. Please prove me wrong on Saturday in the Champions League final Timo!

I have to admit I couldn’t tell you any other Patsy Cline songs apart from this one and yet, despite only recording four studio albums before her untimely death in a plane crash in 1963, I counted 42 Greatest Hits compilation albums in her discography page on Wikipedia. I’m guessing the reason for this re-release was to promote one such Best Of package or was it used in yet another film soundtrack maybe? I’m not sure. Anyway, it peaked at No 14 this time around. 

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qO-hwTu1jM