Bananarama

TOTP 25 MAR 1993

Posted on July 16, 2022 by 80stastic

I’ve spent a lot of time recently banging on about the unholy trinity of the three S’s of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks and Snow dominating the charts. Well, guess what? I’m still doing it in this post as two of them are on the show again this week. It’s come to my attention though that they weren’t the only members of the ‘S’ brigade. This week’s show is jam packed with them and no I didn’t like a single one!

We start with an ‘S’ and it’s ‘S’ for Sybil, she of the hit “When I’m Good And Ready”. Sybil was never as popular again as she was at this moment in terms of sales. Her run of two consecutive big hits comprising this single and previous No 3 smash “The Love I Lost” with West End was brought to an abrupt halt when the next single “Beyond Your Wildest Dreams” peaked outside of the Top 40 at that most unfortunate of places No 41. It wasn’t for the want of trying though. She even did two different versions of the song- a pop ballad version for the UK market…

And a hip-hop remix with a rap in the middle for the US territories…

It made no difference as neither version was a hit. Off the top of my head I can only think of Climie Fisher also doing a similar thing where there was a straight ballad version of their single “Rise To The Occasion” and a hip-hop remix complete with the ubiquitous and annoying ‘aaah yeaaah’ sample.

The track had also previously been recorded by Lonnie Gordon and released as a follow up to her “Happenin’ All Over Again” hit but had also missed the chart peaking at No 48. All of this despite the claim by writers Stock, Aitken and Waterman that it is one of the best songs they ever penned. And if you thought the chart performance of “Beyond Your Wildest Dreams” was unlucky, Sybil followed up taking it to No 41 in the charts by releasing another single from her “Good ‘N’ Ready” album called “Stronger Together” and that peaked at…yep…No 41.

https://youtu.be/BaFT-kpD3Og

No S’s in sight next as we once again witness the power of an advert to make us buy a song that had already been a hit once all over again. This time the product being soundtracked by an old hit was the Volkswagen Golf and the song that benefited from it “Young At Heart” by The Bluebells. Normally I don’t go back and see what I’ve already written about a chart hit that I’ve reviewed in a previous blog post for fear of just regurgitating the same words but I did in this case. I think it’s because I view their chart histories separated by nine years as almost completely different entities, relating to two disparate records.

Originally a hit in the Summer of 1984 when I had not long turned 16, “Young At Heart” was never off the airwaves. Radio 1 seemed to play it four or five times a day at least which was not good for me as I couldn’t stand it. In my post on the track in my 80s TOTP blog, I made a point of saying I liked the band but hated this song and I stand by that. I still have a soft spot for The Bluebells but their most well known song is also their worst to my ears. Back in 1984, they followed up “Young At Heart” with the wonderful “Cath” but it only just scraped into the charts at No 38. A final single called “All I Am (Is Loving You)” was released which missed the charts completely and the band fizzled out.

The song’s second coming seemed nothing to do with the band and indeed it wasn’t. They weren’t actually even together in 1993 and hadn’t been for some years. I think I’m right in saying that the story behind its 1993 reactivation was that the person working for the ad agency that was looking after the Volkswagen account had come up with a song for the advert but that there were some issues with copyright and it couldn’t be used and so she had to come up with another song fast. Thinking back to her childhood, she remembered that jolly song that she used to hear on the radio. The rights owners were sought out and contacted and the rest is history.

For many record buyers though, they may not have known anything of the record’s past or the career of the band who made it. They just knew it as the song from that car advert with the twist at the end when instead of getting married, it turns out that the ‘bride’ is actually celebrating getting divorced. The single’s cover was just a still of said actress from the advert reinforcing this new identity for the song as something separate and somehow itself divorced as it were from the band. It even has the Volkswagen logo in the corner. It was corporate and false and in some way, it devalued the original even though I hadn’t liked it.

On hearing of the success of the rerelease (it outstripped the original’s chart peak easily in the first week) the members of The Bluebells reconvened and agreed to reform to promote the single with appearances like this one on TOTP. They look like they’re treating it as a laugh which is probably the correct attitude to have taken. They weren’t under any record company pressure to maximise sales presumably. Whatever it did commercially was a bonus. Subsequent performances would be taken even less seriously as the band struggled to come to terms with this unexpected turn of events. “Young At Heart” would go to No 1 for four weeks and be the twelfth best selling single of the year in the UK in 1993.

We’re back with the S’s now and it’s the most hateful of the lot – Shabba Ranks with “Mr Loverman”. I could never understand the appeal of this record. I mean, I didn’t like Shaggy nor Snow’s songs either but I could just about appreciate why they were successful. “Mr Loverman” though? Nah, that was just nasty. Aside from Ranks’s own despicable views which were enough to put any sane thinking person off anyway, I just couldn’t take the song seriously with all those ridiculous ‘Shabba!’ shout outs. Now I learn it’s not even Ranks name checking himself but Maxi Priest sampled from their “Housecall” single.

The whole stupid business was parodied in a sketch by the team behind the US comedy TV series In Living Color to whom I shall leave the last word…

All female US R&B groups seemed to be everywhere in the 90s. At the start of the decade we had En Vogue and then as the years passed we saw the likes of SWV, TLC and Brownstone right up to the titans of the genre Destiny’s Child. And those were only the ones that crossed over to the UK. Back in America there were groups who never managed to translate acclaim at home into huge overseas success. I’m thinking of Xscape, 702 and Total. Here’s one for you that did manage to straddle the pond as it were but who rarely get talked about anymore.

Jade were Joi Marshall, Tonya Kelly and Di Reed from Chicago who are best remembered for their hit “Don’t Walk Away” though they did have a few others. In 1993 they were always going to be compared to En Vogue who were having transatlantic hits at the time and I guess their sound wasn’t too dissimilar. “Don’t Walk Away” was a radio friendly piece of sassy R&B that enabled the trio to pull out some slinky dance moves when performing it. It rose to a lofty No 7 position in the UK charts and an even higher peak of No 4 in the US selling 2.5 million copies worldwide. Their album “Jade To The Max” racked up substantial numbers and a lengthy tour had them looking fair set for superstardom. They appeared in both film (The Inkwell) and TV (Beverly Hills 90210) and contributed tracks to a couple of soundtracks as well. A second album followed in 1994 and then…nothing. Everything just seemed to stop. Were they dropped from their label? Did they just decide themselves to jack it all in?

I think they all stayed in music one way or another and two of them reunited in 2021 with the improbably named Myracle Holloway (a finalist on The Voice). The curious tale of Jade – a gemstone amongst the Brownstones.

https://youtu.be/IKGd_KiRAWg

We’re back amongst the S’s now and it’s another stone related artist – Robin Stone better known as Robin S. This New York singer songwriter’s legacy would be formed upon and based around this one track, the house anthem “Show Me Love”. We sold loads and loads of this in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working. And then we went home, had a sleep, came back to work and sold some more of it the next day. I’m surprised that it wasn’t a bigger hit than its final chart placing of No 6 though it did return to the Top 40 a further two times as remixes. In fact, it seems to have been released eight times in total. See what I mean about Robin’s legacy being totally built around this one track? I’m sure there are some Robin S super fans out there who would dispute that claim but it’s true. And there’s many would say that being known for “Show Me Love” would be recognition enough. It regularly appears in lists of the best dance tunes of all time and its influence is still felt today in the music of the likes of Clean Bandit and is sampled in Beyoncé’s latest single “Break My Soul”.

Interesting to note the difference here between Sybil’s performance at the top of the show with her three backing singers and Robin’s with nothing but some dry ice for company while she belts her tune out. I recall the cover of the single was just a very basic generic design in green with a cream header with the label’s name (Champion) repeated in lines all over it. Very poor. Maybe they didn’t expect it to be a big hit outside of the clubs and so didn’t bother designing a cover to be shipped in huge quantities to retailers?

Oh Hell! Cliff’s back again. Yes, despite the charts being jam packed with dance tunes of every hue and genre, a little corner of them was still reserved for Cliff Richard and whatever piece of garbage song he was peddling in 1993. “Peace In Our Time” was the offending article this time and it was at its peak of No 8. This is just a horrible tune with its backing that sounds like a speeded up version of “The Living Years” by Mike And The Mechanics and its insipid lyrics but it’s Cliff’s performance which really grabs the attention.

As with his last time on the show the other week, I can’t find a clip of it on YouTube. Unlike then, Cliff has ditched all his entourage of backing singers and has done a Robin S and gone solo albeit that he still has the remnants of the Sting set from the other month with him for company. It’s Cliff’s movements that are so spellbinding though – spellbindingly awful that is. They’re just so weird and unnatural. Plus he’s turned up in the bloke from Runrig’s leather jacket and trainers combo. It looks…completely unconvincing and actually very safe. In the 50s he would have been seen as a danger to the moral well being of the nation’s youth in that get up but in 1993, he just looked lame. The 90s weren’t kind to Cliff. Yes, he had two Xmas No 1s at the start and end of the decade but they were both gut wrenchingly awful and the intervening years were populated by instantly forgettable singles like this one. Those great airplay hits of the late 70s and early 80s like “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, “Carrie” and “Wired For Sound” seemed like a life time ago even then.

And onto the Breakers and I’ve realised that we have arrived at a rather poignant moment as this blink and you miss it moment is the last we’ll see of Bananarama on TOTP for twelve years! Regulars on the BBC show since their first hits in 1982, this was, by my calculations (I make host Tony Dortie wrong with his figure of thirty-one) their twenty-third Top 40 hit, ten of them being Top 10 hits. None of those Top Tenners had been in the 90s though and their commercial appeal was definitely on the wane. The decision to leave the Stock, Aitken and Waterman stable to make records with hip producer Youth had not resulted in healthy sales of the “Pop Life” album and so a revamp was required for next album “Please Yourself”.

That revamp took the form of jettisoning ‘new girl’ Jacquie O’Sullivan (who had actually been in the group since 1988) and re branding themselves as a duo. To quote one of their previous album titles, wow! Would it work, could it work and indeed should it work? To give themselves some extra insurance on this bold move, Sara and Keren returned to their previous producers who were now a duo themselves, Stock and Waterman. It was the latter who came up with the theme that the album should promote a new hybrid sound of ‘ABBA -Banana’. It would turn out to be a good idea but not for Bananarama.

The album was poorly received and limped to a chart peak of No 46. It produced just two hits, a pair of No 24s, in “Movin’ On” and this one, a cover of the Andrea True Connection song “More More More”. I’m guessing this was released as previous single “Last Thing On My Mind” had missed the charts completely and as we all know, if you find yourself in need of a hit, what do you do? Altogether now… you release a cover version! It’s a pretty faithful take on the disco classic and probably made sense as a choice of single given the resurgence of disco songs in the charts at that time from the likes of Boney M and Sister Sledge. In fact, the Bananas would maybe have done better with a whole disco themed album than an ABBA one. Maybe the ABBA revival had been sooo 1992? Either way, it gave them a chart hit, the last they would have for twelve years by which time TOTP itself was on its last legs.

As Bananarama seemed to be slipping into pop oblivion, Pete Waterman looked for another vehicle for his ‘ABBA-Banana’ concept – thankfully though the era of Steps was still four years off. As for the Nanas, they would continue to perform live as a duo before pulling off the event that their fans had almost never dared to hope could happen- a reunion tour with Siobahn Fahey in 2017. The tour was a huge success and led to Keren and Sara being revitalised to write and record new material. “In Stereo” was well received on its release in 2019 and they have a new album called “Masquerade” due out literally in a few days time.

Another ‘S’ now as the band called Sunscreem are on the show with yet another hit. Sunscreem are becoming quite the curiosity for me. I was always aware that there was a band called Sunscreem because they were a chart act and I worked in a mainstream record shop and we stocked their music. I could even tell you that they were a Sony artist. What they sounded like though was a different matter. I haven’t recognised any of their tunes that have featured in these TOTP repeats so far and “Pressure US” is no different. Apparently this was a remix of the band’s debut single which had been a No 1 hit on the US Dance chart. Given its success across the pond, it was rereleased in the UK with the ‘US’ suffix added to make it clear it was a remix.

In the nicest possible way, Sunscreem were my ghost poo*. You know when you know you’ve had a poo but there is absolutely no evidence on the toilet paper or in the toilet bowl that anything actually took place. So it was for me with Sunscreem. I knew they existed but my memory banks have zero evidence about what they sounded like.

“Pressure US” would peak at No 19, a whole forty-one places higher than the original version from 1991.

*There is no nicest possible way is there?

Now I might have been pushing it earlier to suggest the existence of Robin S super fans but I know for a fact the next artist has a multitude of them so I need to tread carefully here. David Bowie spent much of the very early 90s dicking around with (no, think of the fanbase – definitely not dicking around, think of something else) ‘experimenting’ with his side project rock band Tin Machine the results of which had failed to convince many of their merits. However, 1993 saw the first proper Bowie album for six years with the last being the poorly received “Never Let Me Down”. Expectations were high for a return to form though with “Black Tie White Noise” and it duly went to No 1 though it got a mixed reception in the press.

Lead single “Jump They Say” though was pretty good I thought and it would provide Bowie, rather unbelievably, with his first Top 10 hit since “Absolute Beginners” in 1986. Inspired by the tragic story of his half brother Terry who committed suicide in 1985 by walking out in front of a train, it also had a powerful video that has been described by some critics as Bowie’s finest hour as an actor in a music promo. Bowie’s acting credentials though are a mixed bag. Brilliant in The Man Who Fell To Earth but hammy in Labyrinth and downright awful in Jazzin’ For Blue Jean (Shush! Remember the fan base!). “Jump They Say” was easily the biggest hit of the three singles released from the album but my favourite of his in 1993 was none of those but the theme song he wrote for the TV adaption of Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha Of Suburbia novel.

In a post a few weeks back, I admitted to my complete dislike of Lulu. Imagine my delight then when I read the running order for tonight’s show and saw that she’s on again. I remembered her single “Independence” that she performed then but I really thought we were shot of her until much later in the year when she would pop up on Take That’s “Relight My Fire” single. I was wrong as she literally sings “I’m Back For More” on her duet with Bobby Womack. I have zero memory of this song probably because it is so unmemorable. A complete drag. Don’t get me wrong, Bobby’s vocals are as great as you’d expect them to be but Lulu’s scratchy, annoying voice really grates.

Of much more interest are the dance moves of the studio audience members positioned behind the pair. I’m especially drawn to the guy extreme right of the screen who’s turned up in clobber as if he’s expecting a call up to be the sixth member of the aforementioned Take That. That ‘curtains’ haircut and waistcoat combination is oh so early 90s.

“I’m Back For More” peaked at No 27. The parent album “Independence” stalled at No 67. It was Lulu’s only studio album of the decade and yet bizarrely her record label saw fit to release a collection album in 1999 called “I’m Back For More: The Very Best Of Her Nineties Recordings”. Eh? Isn’t that just the “Independence” album then? Well (or rather ‘wellllllllll’) I checked and yes, it pretty much is. If she could sell that then maybe she was the woman who sold the world.

It’s a final week of two at the top for the final ‘S’ of the night – Shaggy and his “Oh Carolina” single. I’d forgotten that the track appeared on the soundtrack to the film Sliver, a erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone (wait, add another three S’s to the tally!). That soundtrack would also feature another No 1 song which would become the second biggest seller in the UK of 1993 – UB40’s version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love”.

https://youtu.be/raZ5vIGcCs0

As it’s the final week for Shaggy, I’m going to shoehorn in another and much more tenuous link between “Oh Carolina” and Sliver. Shaggy of course was also the name of a character in the legendary cartoon Scooby Doo the theme tune of which includes these lyrics:

Come on Scooby Doo, I see you pretending you got a sliver

But you’re not fooling me ‘cause I can see the way you shake and shiver

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sybil	When I’m Good And Ready	Nah
2	The Bluebells	Young At Heart	Not in 1984 and not in 1993 either
3	Shabba Ranks	Mr Loverman	Mr Dickhead more like – NO!
4	Jade	Don’t Walk Away	Nope
5	Robin S	Show Me Love	Not my thing
6	Cliff Richard	Peace In Our Time	As if
7	Bananarama	More More More	No No No
8	Sunscreem	Pressure US	Nope
9	David Bowie	Jump They Say	I didn’t…jump or buy it
10	Lulu and Bobby Womack	I’m Back For More	No
11	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	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/m00196dt/top-of-the-pops-25031993

TOTP 03 SEP 1992

Posted on March 26, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve moved into September 1992 here at TOTP Rewind and Summer is officially over. We’ve had the last hurrah of the August Bank Holiday and the Olympics in Barcelona have been and gone. The new football season is well under way. The two biggest album releases of the week are “Tourism” by Roxette and, with quite some fanfare, Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells II”. None of this is what is occupying my mind though for I am about to embark upon a new stage in my work life. I mentioned the other week when discussing big football transfers of the day that I had my own transfer looming. Well, now it was here – I had a job promotion for the first time in my life! The last time I had been picked out for a role of higher responsibility was when I was made deputy head boy at my junior school. Fast forward 14 years and my time had come around once more as I was offered the job of Assistant Manager at the Our Price store in Rochdale.

I’d been working as a sales assistant in the store in Market Street, Manchester for nearly two years by this point and was quite happily ticking along not really thinking of moving up the ladder as it were. Then one day the Area Manager came into the shop and asked to speak to me in the manager’s office. With slight trepidation I entered the room and she told me of the vacancy and that she wanted me to fill it. Apparently the usual reaction to the offer of promotion was to say thank you very much and snatch the company’s hand off. I did something different – I asked for some time to think about it. I think the Area Manager was a bit wrong footed by my less than enthusiastic reaction but agreed to my request and I was given a few days grace. Why did I hesitate? The commute mainly but I think I’d been considering whether staying in retail was still my best option two years on. In the end, as I didn’t have any other choice on the table, I took the promotion. It would prove to be a pivotal decision that shaped my working life until the end of the decade.

I can’t remember the exact time I started in Rochdale but it was in September so a lot of the songs from around now really remind me of that time. I’m pretty sure I’d been back to my hometown of Worcester for a visit over the August Bank Holiday and caught Alien 3 at the cinema whilst there and that was just before the Rochdale era. It was hard leaving the shop in Manchester because it was all I had known and I’m not great with change but off I went on the 7.00 am bus from Piccadilly Gardens that first day not even knowing exactly where the shop in Rochdale was. I recall that I’d recently had a very severe, short haircut just before. I think I’d been influenced by the barnet of Roy Keane who was one of the hottest properties in English football at the time. It really was all change.

There was a huge change also in tonight’s opening act as we see the return of Bananarama but now they were a duo. After Siobhan Fahey left the group in 1988, she was replaced by Jacquie O’Sullivan. Three years later, with Jacquie still being referred to as ‘the new girl’ in the press and feeling like a paid employee rather than an equal member of the trio, she up and left. Instead of just recruiting another third person, Keren and Sara decided to continue with just the two of them. The first material in this new beginning was the single “Movin’ On”.

Renewing a rather tempestuous relationship with producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman (deliberate omission of Matt Aitken who wasn’t involved), it was a calling card for the rest of the new album “Please Yourself”. Waterman’s vision for the album was ‘ABBA-Banana’ – a collection of songs in the style of the Swedish supergroup updated with a 90s sound. He didn’t get it right initially as the album bombed or at least he hadn’t hit upon the right vehicle for the songs. People didn’t seem ready to accept an ABBA’d up slimmed down Bananarama but by the end of the decade the record buying public were quite happy about some of the same songs being peddled by two guys and three gals boot scootin’ their way to glory. I talk, of course, of Steps who recorded “Movin’ On” for their second album whilst their cover of “Last Thing On My Mind” (the second Bananas single from “Please Yourself”) was a Top 10 hit for them.

So why did Steps succeed where the Nanas failed? After all, weren’t we in the throes of an ABBA revival in ‘92? Erasure had recently been at No 1 with their “Abba-esque EP” whilst only this month Polygram would release the “Abba Gold: Greatest Hits” compilation which would sell 5.61 million copies in the UK alone making it the second best selling album here of all time behind Queen’s “Greatest Hits”. We were Abba mad all over again yet the Bananarama Swedish reinvention failed to convince the record buying public. Maybe we couldn’t accept a duo version of the group after a decade of being used to three of them racking up the hits? Or could it just be that (whisper it) they’d come to the end of the road? It had been a great run that surely couldn’t have been predicted all those years ago when they first hit the charts alongside Fun Boy Three.

The performance here certainly bares no resemblance to those early, chaotic days. Where there was once home made, tomboy chic and DIY dance steps were sleek, evening dresses and synchronised arm movements. It didn’t look like that much fun to be honest.

“Movin’ On” peaked at No 24 whilst the album “Please Yourself” made a paltry No 46. It would be another 27 years before they would return to the album chart Top 40.

One of the biggest (and most notorious) tunes of the whole year next. “Ebeneezer Goode” may well be to The Shamen what “Merry Xmas Everybody” is to Slade – a cash cow but also an albatross around their neck. The infamy surrounding the track was so high profile that the question of whether the song itself was any good(e) seemed to get lost in the furore. The idea that a pop song was encouraging drug use was distinctly unpalatable back then and there were numerous calls for it to be banned (presumably Mary Whitehouse was at the front of the queue of those with objections to it). You don’t need me to recount the whole tale of ecstasy references contained within it though the band themselves, whilst not denying said references, also say it wasn’t quite as clear cut as just encouraging ravers to get off their tits. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Colin Angus: "It was intended to be celebratory and cautionary, like holding up a distorting mirror to rave culture." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

For what it’s worth, I think the track works – though I wasn’t much of a fan back in the day – not least because the band understood it had the potential to be controversial and made it work for them by making it instantly memorable and most importantly quotable. Lyrics like “Naughty naughty, very naughty”, “Has anyone got any Vera’s?” and “Got any salmon? Sorted” must have been repeated up and down the country especially in school playgrounds which only increased its notoriety. For this TOTP performance Mr C changes that last line to “Got any underlay?”. Here’s the man himself on that, again, courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: "When we went on Top Of The Pops, I changed the line "Got any salmon?" to "Got any underlay?" and people said, "That's not in the song! Drug reference!…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

"I was asked about it on Radio 1 by Mark Goodier, and said that salmon was rhyming slang for salmon and trout – snout, cigarettes – a legal drug that has killed thousands, so I'd changed it. He said, 'So what's 'underlay'?' I said it was a gratuitous rug reference." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

A fine example of the art of winding people up there. The performance starts with a small clip of the promo video which features Scottish comedian Jerry Sadowitz as the titular Ebeneezer who gives a maniacal turn that is only rivalled in my mind by Reece Shearmith’s Papa Lazarou in The League Of Gentlemen.

“Ebeneezer Goode” will be No 1 soon enough.

https://youtu.be/vukqGn68wug?si=pPFk3zPa6GpFYlpp

Despite it being September 1992, we now get a plug for the next Eurovision Song Contest which won’t take place until May 1993. The reason for this incredibly early heads up was that we’d already chosen the artist who would represent the UK and she was, by happy circumstance, on the show tonight. The career of Sonia, for she was the chosen one, had degenerated into a string of cover versions by the early 90s – three of her last four hits had been covers – but her record company Arista had seen the uplift of success that Eurovision could bring with that year’s contestant Michael Ball. He hadn’t even won the contest and yet his album released off the back of it had gone to No 1. Arista pinned their hopes on lightning striking twice when their charge was picked to take the baton from Ball. I say picked but I’m assuming that there were some negotiations between Arista and the Eurovision committee.

That was all months off yet though so in the meantime, to keep Sonia in the public’s thoughts, here was…yes, another cover version. This time it was Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” which, in my humble opinion, has one of the best intros ever.

However, Sonia’s version does away with that completely and just goes into the track full pelt like a Nadine Dorries rant and does away with any of its subtlety. It doesn’t get any better after that; in fact the whole thing is just an exercise in how not to do a cover version. It’s got that horrible, genetic 90s house beat and then they’ve arsed about with the chorus so when Sonia gets to the line ‘always the best in town’ a “Ride On Time” vocal effect comes in on ‘always’. Awful, awful and indeed awful. Sonia does her best to sell it with an energetic performance as ever but it’s beyond redemption.

Nine months later, she would compete at Eurovision and emulate Michael Ball’s runner up position. It was a different story with her album though. Whilst Ball topped the charts Sonia dropped the ball when hers peaked at No 32.

Is there a doctor in the house? The good news is that there is, the bad news is that it’s Dr. Alban. Apparently this guy was a proper doctor (of dentistry) who passed his exams and opened a practice before turning to music full time. From what I can make out “It’s My Life” was one of those holiday hits that UK tourists had heard on the continent and made popular back in Blighty on their return. No wonder it was dreadful then. Wikipedia describes Dr. Alban’s music as “Eurodance/hip hop reggae in a dancehall style”. Hmm. Covering a few bases there. Maybe there was something in it though. Was Dr. Alban an early adopter of a musical movement that would hit a peak the following year when The Three S’s (Shaggy, Snow and Shanna Ranks) dominated the charts? Or am I just talking bollocks?

Of course, you can’t mention Dr. Alban without mentioning that Tampax advert. You know that one with the roller skating woman and the beach football scene that’s soundtracked by “It’s My Life”? You know, this one…

I have to say that the doctor delivers a completely lacklustre rapping performance here. Talk about half-hearted. I think I’ve only ever seen one less enthusiastic rapper in my life…

One last thing. What links Dr.Alban and Sonia? No, not that they’re on the same TOTP together. Not that, obviously. No, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest. Twenty-one years after Sonia did her bit for the UK, Dr. Alban teamed up with someone called Jessica Folcker (yes I had to check that spelling) to take part in the Swedish equivalent of A Song For Europe for the right to represent his native country in the 2014 competition. He came fifth.

The Breakers now starting with some American glam metal and you know what? I couldn’t give less of a toss about the seemingly endless conveyor belt of bands peddling this stuff like W.A.S.P. and Mötley Crüe and this lot – Skid Row. From what I can ascertain this was a double A-side featuring their debut single “Youth Gone Wild” with “Delivering The Goods”, their cover of a Judas Priest track. It all seems to have been in aid of promoting their album “B-Side Ourselves” (see what they did there?), an EP of covers the majority of which had all been on the B-side of previous singles. Erm…so what was the point of it all then? I suppose it’s only like Oasis’s “The Masterplan” compilation album which collected together their B-sides and additional tracks that had featured on their singles but had not appeared on any studio albums but still.

“Youth Gone Wild / Delivering The Goods” peaked at No 22 and was their last UK Top 40 hit. Hurray!

It seems ABBA really were inescapable in 1992! Here they are again with a re-release of “Dancing Queen” to promote that “Abba Gold: Greatest Hits” I mentioned earlier. Released by Polygram who had acquired the rights to the group’s back catalogue, it has become one of the biggest selling albums of all time. To heighten the impact of its release, all previous ABBA compilations were deleted which presumably included one that we had in my family home when I was growing up. You know the one with Björn and Agnetha sat on a park bench on the cover? Yeah, that one.

“ABBA Gold” was a phenomenon of marketing and sales. It has been certified 20 x platinum in the UK alone and has sold 30 million copies worldwide. It seemed to sell itself without the need of a single to promote it but I guess if you really wanted to pick one to do so then “Dancing Queen” was a logical choice. Perhaps their best known song – I say perhaps because there are so many that could take that accolade – it had been a No 1 on its original release in 1976. The 1992 rerelease made a respectable No 16.

The marketing strategy for “ABBA Gold” was so successful that Polygram (or it might have changed its name to Universal by then) attempted to repeat the trick when it set its sights on The Carpenters whose “Carpenters Gold: Greatest Hits” even had the same cover design as the Swedish superstars album.

Richard Marx had two hits in 1992? He had three actually but I only knew the big one “Hazard”. The follow up was “Take This Heart” which even after listening to it didn’t ring any bells with me. After the dark but bewitching story telling of its predecessor, Marx returned to his safe space of soft rock ballad with this one. It’s pretty unremarkable stuff to my ears but pleasant in a bland sort of way.

The video sees Marx getting to indulge in his sporting fantasy of scoring a home run in the World Series for his beloved baseball team the Chicago Cubs with the plot twist being it was all a dream. I wrote a story in English class when I was about 12 where the ending was that it had all been a dream and I got marks knocked off for that being a lame idea. My teacher would definitely have knocked marks off Marx for that video.

“Take This Heart” peaked at No 13.

The final Breaker is a song that reminds me very much of starting at the Rochdale shop. You know how some songs (whether you like or loathe them) just remind you of a time without actually being linked to a specific memory? Yeah, that.

It had been nearly a whole year since Brian May had been in the Top 10 with “Driven By You” but when he did finally get around to releasing a follow up it wasn’t with a new song but one that he’d had up his sleeves for a few years by that point.”Too Much Love Will Kill You” had been written by May for inclusion on Queen’s 1989 album “The Miracle” but a band decision that all songs for it must be group compositions and not individually written meant it didn’t make the cut for legal reasons. It was recorded though with Freddie Mercury on vocals and finally released on their 1995 album “Made In Heaven”.

Before all that though, Bri’s original ended up on his solo album “Back To The Light” and it gave him his second consecutive Top 10 hit when released as a single. It actually performed better than the Queen version which peaked at No 15 when given its own release in 1996. Which version did I prefer? Probably May’s if I really had to choose as it hasn’t got the powerful hysteria lurking in Freddie’s vocals which I don’t think this particular track benefits from.

The video with Brian looking straight down the camera lens at us with that curly mop of hair is giving me heavy David Essex Stardust vibes – the bit where he performs his rock opera “Dea Sancta”:

Another song that really reminds me of starting at Rochdale now, primarily because we sold loads of it. We first saw Lionel Richie perform “My Destiny” on the show back in June as an ‘exclusive’ to promote his “Back To Front” Best Of album. It was one of three new tracks released as singles. The first was “Do It To Me” which didn’t set the charts alight and peaked at No 33. “My Destiny” was a different story. Perfect daytime radio fodder, it received airplay by the bucketload and secured it a place in the Top 10. A third single “Love, Oh Love” failed to crack the Top 40 at all.

If you’ve been watching ITV’s Saturday night show Starstruck – a reinvention of Stars In Their Eyes for the 2020s – you will be familiar with the format that sees three music artist impersonators perform as their hero in a group before the winning group is whittled down to one overall winner. Last Saturday saw three guys take to the stage as Lionel Richie. Yes, that’s right they were ‘once, twice, three times a Lionel’. I’ll get my coat.

What the Hell is this? Well, clearly it’s a horrible noise but who was responsible for it? They were called U96 and their track “Das Boot” was a techno cover version of the theme tune to a German film/TV mini series of the same name about the crew of a U-boat. I got a bit confused when I saw the running order for this episode and noticed the name U96. I was expecting some British jazz-rap until I realised that was Us3 I was thinking of and their hit “Cantaloop” from 1993. This right load of techno bollocks was a huge hit all around Europe although the UK was notably a little less receptive with it just grazing the Top 20 at No 18.

The TOTP producers have gone all out with their graphics for this one with the initial part of the performance viewed as if through a periscope before ultimately resorting to some dry ice to try and hide the fact that it’s just some blokes in keyboards up there on stage.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Das Boot though I do have a memory of Iain Lee screaming “Das Boot” on early noughties Channel 4 breakfast show RI:SE because fellow presenter Kate Lawler was wearing some knee high boots one morning. I need to have a word with myself about my cultural references don’t I?

P.S. What links Sonia, Dr. Alban and U96? Yep, it’s Eurovision again! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

U96 mainman Alex Christensen went on to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, as half of combo Alex Swings Oscar Sings! "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" finished in 20th place. https://t.co/GfdFoLd7HY #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

Another live satellite link up now as we find Sinéad O’Connor in New York. The interview beforehand between her and host Mark Franklin is a hard watch as Sinéad is clearly not in the mood for a chat. Mark took to Twitter to defend himself against the not very pleasant criticism he received for his part in what went down explaining that the whole interview had lasted three minutes and had been edited down for transmission. If what we saw was the best bit it does make you wonder what was in the rest of it.

As for the music, Sinéad is performing “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” from her third album “Am I Not Your Girl?”, a collection of cover versions including this single originally recorded by country singer Loretta Lynn. We’ve seen a few artists in recent shows backed by either a small string section (Vanessa Williams) or a few brass players (Jimmy Nail / KWS) but Sinéad blows them all out of the water with what looks like a whole orchestra with her. It makes quite an impressive sight and an even more impressive sound.

This is the standout track and performance for me on the show tonight. Whatever you say about Sinéad, she can deliver a song. People did have a lot to say about her exactly one month on from this TOTP when Sinéad appeared on Saturday Night Live to promote “Am I Not Your Girl”. She sang “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” and was scheduled to also perform “Scarlet Ribbons” but changed it to “War” by Bob Marley on the live show which she intended as a protest against sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. That wasn’t enough controversy for Sinéad though so she whipped out a photo of Pope John Paul II and, looking straight down the camera, tore it up whilst saying “Fight the real enemy”. Cue an explosion of outrage. The NBC network received 4,400 calls of complaint none of which stopped O’Connor’s accusations being proved ultimately true. NBC have never rebroadcast the show as it originally aired much in the same way that the infamous Sex Pistols/ Bill Grundy interview was banned for many years.

Snap! remain on top of the pile with “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and yet again it’s the promo video that we are served up. Why haven’t they been in the studio as yet? Could it be because Turbo B was in dispute with the act’s management and left before the next single “Exterminate!” was released? Also departing after “Rhythm Is A Dancer” was vocalist Thea Austin who’d only just joined the group. And I thought Sugababes held the monopoly on the revolving door approach to band membership.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bananarama	Movin’ On	Nope
2	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	I didn’t as it goes
3	Sonia	Boogie Nights	Never!
4	Dr. Alban	It’s My Life	As if
5	Skid Row	Youth Gone Wild / Delivering The Goods	Hell no!
6	ABBA	Dancing Queen	Not the single but we’ve all got Abba Gold haven’t we?
7	Richard Marx	Take This Heart	No thanks
8	Brian May	Too Much Love Will Kill You	I did not
9	Lionel Richie	My Destiny	Nah
10	U96	Das Boot	Das Boot!! No
11	Sinéad O’Connor	Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home	No
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015nq0/top-of-the-pops-03091992

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 10 JAN 1991

Posted on May 29, 2021 by 80stastic

Already 10 days into the new year of 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and yet tonight’s host Jakki Brambles still takes the opportunity to wish us a Happy New Year. Keep up Jakki! This show mainly features songs that were ‘new’ to us back then and we start with one from Bananarama and “Preacher Man”. Not to be confused with Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man”, this was the second single to be released from the nanas fifth album “Pop Life” but actually came out a whole six months after lead single “Only Your Love” due to Sara Dallin contracting meningitis which delayed its release. Despite its difficult birth, it would end up being the most successful of the four singles released from the album when it peaked at No 20.

The single was well received critically as being a strong, hooky pop song but for me it doesn’t stand out as being one of their most memorable tunes. I think it’s the reedy sounding vocals that let it down. The “Karma Chameleon” style harmonica solo in the middle doesn’t help either. As ever with Bananarama TOTP performances, Keren and Sara mark themselves out as the power couple of the trio by wearing the same outfit while Jacquie is still very presented as the new girl and odd one out three years on with her alternative togs. This sartorial separation was also evident even when Siobhan Fahey was still in the group and the signs had been there for some time that she was not on the same page as the other two – it wasn’t the biggest shock ever when she departed.

Bananarama would not return to the Top 20 for another 14 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV0sQB8xyRQ

Here’s Whitney Houston next with one of her trademark power ballads. After the uptempo “I’m Your Baby Tonight”, it wasn’t a surprise that she reverted to this genre and indeed, “All The Man That I Need” didn’t seem that different to the likes of “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. Oh, check this out – on the The Bodyguard World Tour of 1993–94, she performed the song as part of a love song medley that included …yep…”Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. Well there you go – identikit Whitney. You have to admit though that she had the pipes to be able to pull it off.

In the US, it gave her a 9th No 1 single from 11 releases but it stalled at No 13 over here. Maybe we didn’t like the video which is as dull as a night down the pub with George Eustace. It’s just Whitney mooching around various rooms in a big house (one of which includes a John Lennon “Imagine” type white piano) before she is joined by a gospel choir for the climax.

The song had already been recorded by Sister Sledge and someone called Linda Clifford before Whitney got her mitts on it and then, in 1994, Luther Vandross preformed a gender swap on it by recording at as “All The Woman That I Need”. There can’t be that many songs where that has occurred can there? Top of my head I can think of “I Saw Him Standing There” which was Tiffany’s version of The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” and sticking with the Fab Four, there’s The Carpenters take on their “Ticket To Ride” when Karen Carpenter changes the lyrics from ‘the girl that’s driving me mad’ to ‘the boy that’s driving me mad’. Oh and Tracey Ullman converting “My Girl” by Madness to “My Guy’s Mad at Me”.

This is more like it! This is what the kids wanted! Some grebo rock! Or were they a hip-hop/dance/rock sample heavy hybrid? Whatever, “X, Y & Zee” became Pop Will Eat Itself’s biggest ever hit up to his point when it peaked at No 15. It was also their fourth Top 40 hit as well after “Can U Dig It?”, “Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina” and the delightfully entitled “Dance Of The Mad Bastards”. Oh and I make it their 10th single Jakki, not their 13th as you suggest in your intro.

Part of the extraordinary story of how the West Midlands market town of Stourbridge became the epicentre for…whatever we’re calling this genre…when it spawned not one, not two but three bands in The Wonderstuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Pop WIll Eat Itself. How did this happen? I’m not sure but there’s surely a film to be made out of this phenomenon (if there hasn’t been one made already). There is definitely a book on the subject in existence – the rather wonderfully titled of The Eight Legged Atomic Dustbin Will Eat Itself.

Back to “X, Y & Zee” and I always quite liked this wistful track with a twist and its brilliantly quirky lyrics like:

Mother Nature and Father Time
Used to be good friends of mine
But now we’ve put them in a home
Filed them under “uses unknown”

Apparently, lead singer Clint Mansell went onto become a Hollywood film score composer creating soundtracks for the likes of Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan. I haven’t been that surprised since a lovely lad I used to work with at Our Price called Scott ended up being a bank manager. Scott was a right laugh and the most unlikely future bank manager I could ever imagine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taX4YvL-sXI

We’re back with that “Grease Megamix” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John next. Presumably its sales had been helped by Xmas and New Year’s Eve parties across the nation. The last time this was on TOTP, they only played the “Summer Nights” section of the mix but this time they feature the other two tracks in “You’re The One That I Want” and “Greased Lightnin'”. Now of course, the latter song has some lyrics that probably wouldn’t be suitable before the watershed and indeed the following line has been edited out.

You know that it ain’t shit, we’ll be gettin’ lots of tit, greased lightnin’

However, the censors clearly didn’t know what they were doing as they left in:

You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream, for greased lightnin’

and

You know that I ain’t braggin’, she’s a real pussy wagon

What did they think Travolta was singing about FFS?!

“Grease Megamix” peaked at No 3.

Right, don’t remember this one at all. “I Can’t Take The Power” by Off-Shore anyone? Even the ever reliable @TOTPFacts could only come up with this info about it.

Off Shore was the project of German DJs/producers Jens Lissat and Peter Harder. A couple of other DJs/producers were involved in this single release: Eric Kupper provided some keyboards, and Justin Strauss remixed it. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 21, 2021

Oh and apparently the titular sample is from “Love’s Gonna Get You” by Jocelyn Brown. Was it supposed to be some sort of response record to Snap!’s “The Power”?

Whatever. “I Can’t Take The Power” peaked at No 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR-z7QdskBc

Yes! TOTP on it tonight with what the kids like! After Pop Will Eat Itself comes Jesus Jones and although not from Stourbridge, they were definitely in the same musical universe. “International Bright Young Thing” ushered in an era of a band at the peak of the powers.

No doubt about it – Jesus Jones were big…for a time

Taken from their forthcoming second album “Doubt”, it would become their biggest ever hit whilst said album would go to No 1. It had, without… erm…doubt…been one of the most enquired about albums over Xmas (along with “Spartacus” by The Farm) in terms of when it was coming out. The world really did seem to be at their feet. Sadly, the band suffered a press backlash (maybe the ‘International Bright Young Thing’ tag was too much for some publications) and they would wind up being seen as very irrelevant very quickly especially after grunge happened.

For the moment though, they are leading the gang of dance/rock groups who are in the charts with their long, flicky hair and wayward keyboard players – look at the state of the Jesus Jones ivories tinkler here; a total dereliction of playing duties and clearly under the influence of something.They’d have been banned from the show back in the early 80s for much less (Pigbag were for a very similar offence).

“International Bright Young Thing” peaked at No 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxj1AoxxbFk

A couple of videos we’ve seen before next starting with MC Hammer and “Pray”. I’m sure this has been on a couple of times already but it’s a climber of two places within the Top 10 to a peak of No 8 so I guess its presence again could be justified by the TOTP producers.

There were numerous remixes of this track including:

Slam The Hammer Mix
Slam The Hammer Piano Dub
Jam The Hammer Mix
Hit ‘Em Hard Mix
Nail ‘Em Down Chant

The titles of the remixes sound like they more belong to an Iron Maiden track than the pious Mr Hammer. Check out this from @TOTPFacts again:

Speaking of praying: MC Hammer was previously in a Christian rap group called The Holy Ghost Boys. He became a preacher in the late '90s, with a Christian ministry programme on Trinity Broadcasting Network. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 21, 2021

The second previously seen video is for “Sadness (Part 1)” by Enigma. This is up to No 2 and will be top of the heap soon enough. Watching the video back, it’s all a bit Wicker Man. For a start, the scribe encounters Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (depicting a scene from Dante’s Inferno) which kind of relates to Police Sergeant Howie’s discovery of all the pagan Celtic imagery on Summerisle. Even more of a parallel though is the fact that the scribe seems to be being tempted by the undressed woman on the other side of the gate who whispers all that ‘Sade, donnes moi’ (‘Sade, give it to me’) Marquis de Sade malarkey to him. Remember that scene in Wicker Man when the Britt Ekland character tries to seduce Edward Woodward through the walls of his room in the pub? Come on! It’s the same thing! Well, almost.

The ever suave Robert Palmer is up next with his Marvin Gaye mash up single “Mercy Mercy Me / “I Want You”. It was a brave move to cover not one but two Marvin Gaye tracks (Palmer himself admitted to being very nervous when he debuted the song on US Television during an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show) but I think he gets away with it.

Palmer was becoming quite the regular hit-maker by this point. This would be his second consecutive Top 10 hit following his UB40 collaboration on “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” at the back end of 1990 and would help propel parent album “Don’t Explain” into the Top 10 as well. It would be the last time he would have either a single or album in such upper echelons of the charts though.

Oh, and is that Boon Gould from Level 42 on bass up there with Robert? Could be.

The aforementioned Iron Maiden are still at No 1 with their sneakily released “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter” single. I’ve commented before on that book that Jakki Brambles mentions at the end of the song written by Bruce Dickinson (Lord Iffy Boatrace) – it’s complete bawdy filth including a character who invents the ultimate sex machine. Didn’t mention that did you Jakki?

A musical heavyweight is the play out video. For all his success with The Police, Sting‘s solo career had not resulted in anywhere near the size of hits that his band had generated. By the 90s, he had yet to achieve a Top 10 hit and in fact, of the 10 solo singles he released in the 80s, only 3 of them made the Top 40. However, he had begun the new decade in better shape when a Ben Liebrand remix of “Englishman in New York” made the Top 20 in 1990 to be followed by this, “All This Time”, the lead single from his new album “The Soul Cages”.

I remember the release of the album being seen as a big deal and the Our Price store I was working in certainly had lots if stock of it. Big sales were expected but although it went to No 1, I don’t recall selling many. It would achieve gold status for 100,000 copies sold but was far less than his previous solo albums “…Nothing Like the Sun” (platinum – 300,000 sales) and “The Dream Of The Blue Turtles” (double platinum – 600,000 sales).

For all that talk of disappointing sales figures, I quite liked “All This Time”. Despite its dark lyrics referencing the recent death of his father, it had an uplifting melody and although he can be a complete knacker at times, I’ve always quite liked Sting’s voice. Interesting that he’s only the play out video though, not deemed worthy enough of kicking off the show or having his own little premiere moment in the middle of it. Sting would regroup and return in 1993 with the much more successful “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album when he would also finally get that Top 10 hit when “All For Love” from The Three Musketeers soundtrack went to No 2 in the charts…but it was with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams so I’m not sure if that actually counts.

“All This Time” peaked at No 22.

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

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bananrama	Preacher Man	Nah
2	Whitney Houston	All The Man That I Need	Nope
3	Pop Will Eat Itself	X Y & Zee	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	John Travolta and Olivia Newton John	Grease Megamix	Negative
5	Off-Shore	I Can’t Take The Power	Buy it? I don’t even remember it!
6	Jesus Jones	International Bright Young Thing	No but it was on that first Q magazine album that I did buy
7	MC Hammer	Pray	It’s a no
8	Enigma	Sadness (Part 1)	No
9	Robert Palmer	Mercy, Mercy Me / I Want You	No but it’s on my Robert Palmer Best Of CD I think
10	Iron Maiden	Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter	Definitely not
11	Sting	All This Time	I did not

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/m000w6t9/top-of-the-pops-10011991

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.

TOTP 26 JUL 1990

Posted on February 5, 2021 by 80stastic

We are still in the middle of Summer here at TOTP Rewind, Summer 1990 that is. I haven’t dropped in on the 22 year old version of myself for a few posts so let me give him a bell and see if he’s there….oh yeah, affordable mobile phones are yet to flood the market so I didn’t have one in 1990 – indeed I spent most of the decade without one. Never mind, I know where he’ll be – working at Kingston Communications on that temporary VDU input contract. What’s that? The contract finished a couple of weeks ago? So where is he now then? Try Queen’s Gardens? OK, thanks. Not having any work again, the 1990 me used to often spend my time idling the hours away wandering around Queen’s Gardens in Hull, usually with my trusty Sony Walkman for company.

Queen’s Gardens, Hull – yes they do look nice don’t they?

I’m guessing my girlfriend / wife must have had a job at this time as I have no recollection of spending anytime with her shooting the breeze in the gardens in the sun. I think my period of free time didn’t last that long as Kingston Communications asked me to come back for a further couple of weeks work later on in the Summer so impressed were they by me as the master of VDU input. For now though, I’m busy doing nothing and listening to? What was I listening to on that Walkman? The only thing I can recall is that I had purchased the cassette single of the latest World Party single called “Put The Message In The Box” so I was probably playing that on repeat.

Enough of me though and back to TOTP. Tonight’s host is Jakki Brambles who appears to have undergone a dramatic image restyle with her hair now up but with some cascading ringlets framing her face. From cascading ringlets to cascading rain as we join opening act Blue Pearl who are still “Naked In The Rain”. As well as the unlikely named Durga McBroom on vocals, the band also featured Youth, the well known record producer and musician. His is an interesting story with notable career moments including being founding member and bass player in gothic rockers Killing Joke and going on to produce pretty much everyone from Art Of Noise to The Verve via Crowded House, James, Erasure and Bananarama (more of whom later). One of his less heralded projects but one which I always quite liked were funk pop-rockers Brilliant who included future KLF masterminds Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond as their keyboardist/guitarist and A&R manager respectively. Drummond didn’t share my like of the band though stating in an interview on Norwegian radio station NRK P2 that:

“I signed a band called Brilliant, who I worked with, we worked together, and it was complete failure. Artistically bankrupt project. And financially deaf. We spent £300,000 on making an album that was useless. Useless artistically, useless… commercially.”

Ouch! Well, I disagree Bill. What say you reader?

Back to Blue Pearl though and after “Naked In The Rain” peaked at No 4, the house duo seemed to be set to ride the dance wave into the early 90s and beyond but follow up track “Little Brother ” only made it to No 31 whilst the album “Naked” was caught with its pants down at a lowly No 58. The project was disbanded in 1993 but “Naked In The Rain” returned to the Top 40 in 1998 as…erm… “Naked In The Rain 98”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBiABXbcLBQ&pbjreload=101

Oh knackers! It’s going to be one of those dance dominated shows isn’t it? The second act tonight are Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K with “Rockin’ Over The Beat”. I really can’t think of anything else I want to say about this lot. C’mon man think! Ok, how about a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles connection? They’re all the rage aren’t they? Brilliant (no not them)! Here goes…Technotronic contributed the song “Spin That Wheel” to the soundtrack album of the film under the pseudonym of Hi Tek 3 and Ya Kid K ‘featured’ on that as well. n some territories it was released as “Spin That Wheel (Turtles Get Real)”. The track was released as a single twice in the UK, peaking at No 69 in January 1990 but making No 15 when re-released nine months later. That do you? No? Well, Ya Kid K seemingly couldn’t get enough of those turtles so she released her own solo single called “Awesome (You Are My Hero)” from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II soundtrack in 1991. Cow and indeed abunga!

OK, so the next one is another dance track but an interesting one for all that. I already knew of the song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega as it had been the opening track on Suzanne’s 1987 album “Solitude Standing” which my girlfriend/wife had bought. Being an a cappella song, it was quite striking on first hearing (and pretty much every one after that too). It had been released as a single but it was too out there for our tastes back in 1987 and it stalled at No 58.

The idea though that it could be converted into a dance track? Well, I for one never saw it coming. And DNA, who were they? They were a production duo from Bath who added a Soul II Soul backbeat to the original and released it as a bootleg. None of this was done with either Vega or her record label A&M ‘s approval and the former wasn’t initially keen on the idea. However, on hearing the DNA remix, artist and label decided not to sue but to get on board with the idea and give it an official release. The rest is history. Its rise to No 2 in the UK charts was still a surprise though, to me anyway. Could you actually dance to it in a club? It put me in mind more of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” more than a dance floor banger.

Seven years later, DJ and producer Armand van Helden pulled off a similar trick when he remixed American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos’ “Professional Widow” track as “Professional Widow (It’s Got to Be Big)” and scored a No 1.

Oh good. Here come The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid with “I’m Free”. This still sounds good to me. Unfairly labelled as the polythene Primal Scream in some quarters – both bands had seemingly moved away from their jangly guitar roots to make indie-dance records come the new decade – somehow the moment for The Soup Dragons to become massive stars slipped through their grasp. Despite a marvellous follow up single in the re-issued “Mother Universe” and a critically well received Top 10 album in “Lovegod”, momentum was lost and by 1995 they had disbanded. Maybe chart success was never really the plan though. Singer Sean Dickson stated in a Smash Hits article that:

“I could bloody write a record to get in the charts tomorrow – I’m not that dumb. But it doesn’t appeal to me at all – that’s for nerds and assholes and idiots who want to ruin their lives.”

Well quite.

“I’m Free” peaked at No 5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGpSZjfU66I

The Breakers are back! We start with Bell Biv DeVoe who were of course previously all members of “Candy Girl” hit makers New Edition. Once Bobby Brown left the band and embarked on a successful solo career, the other vocalists in the group wanted in – Ralph Tresvant will turn up in our charts again with his “Sensitivity” single soon enough whilst Johnny Gill scored big with his eponymous 1990 solo album before forming R’n’B supergroup Levert.Sweat.Gill. That left the other three guys (Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe) who had pretty much always been the backing vocalists and weren’t sure what to do once New Edition splintered. Encouraged by producer Jimmy Jam, they joined forces and gained immediate success with their “Poison” single and album. The title track in particular, though only just scraping into the Top 20 over here, was huge in the US and has taken on a life of its own in the subsequent years being used extensively in film, TV and computer games soundtracks.

Unsurprisingly, it did sound very Bobby Brown to me which was like kryptonite to Superman for my pop sensibilities although I always thought that the elongated ‘poison’ hook was effective. At the song’s end, they give name checks to their ex New Editions band mates with these lyrics:

“Yo’, wassup to Ralph T and Johnny G
And I can’t forget about my boy, B. Brown
And the whole NE crew“

New Edition – the most amicable band break up ever.

Now is this the biggest ever gap between the release of a huge No 1 single and its follow up? Sinéad O’Connor‘s all conquering “Nothing Compares 2 U” was initially released on January 8th in 1990 before hitting the top of the charts in early February but its follow up, “The Emperor’s New Clothes“, wasn’t released until six months later! Why the big wait in between releases? No idea. Could it be that her record company hadn’t banked on the extraordinary success of “Nothing Compares 2 U” and the weight of expectation for more chart glory that it ushered in? Maybe they’d an original single release schedule but it was totally skewed by her rise to superstardom? Whatever the reason there certainly seemed to be some indecision before “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was plucked for single release. I don’t know parent album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” well enough to know if this was a wise choice of track or not but it was always going to suffer in comparison to its predecessor. It’s much more “Mandinka” than “Nothing Compares 2 U” and is a pretty solid effort but it was doomed from the start to fall short commercially. It duly peaked at No 31.

As the 80s ended, Bananarama could reflect on a decade that included 18 Top 40 hits (including 10 Top Tenners) and the status of being the UK’s most successful all girl group. As the 90s dawned though, the future looked less certain than their glorious past. Their fanbase was still coming to terms with the leaving of Siobhan Fahey and her replacement by Jacquie O’Sullivan whilst original and now principal group members Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin were contemplating which direction to go in next. Their fifth studio album “Pop Life” saw them lose faith with the Stock, Aitken and Waterman formula, go back to their beginnings with producers Steve Jolley and Tony Swain before finally settling on Sara’a ex-boyfriend Youth (him again!) to produce the album.

“Only Your Love” was the lead single and despite pinching ‘woo woo’ vocals from “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones, didn’t really tear up the charts and after gathering some moss along the way, came to a standstill at No 27. The video featured the usual rabble of half dressed male hunks for the girls to cavort around and the whole thing looked and sounded a bit half arsed to me. Bit ironic considering that they left SAW behind because they said that the tracks they offered to them showed a complete lack of progression with accusations from the Nanas that the production trio had stagnated and were spending all their time working on tunes for Kylie and Jason Donovan.

The album fared even worse peaking at No 42 but then the group were never really an album act were they? The harsh truth is that there are more Bananarama compilation albums in existence (16) than studio albums (11). Pretty telling I think.

At the end of the promotion for the album, Jacquie O’Sullivan jumped ship and swapped a ‘Pop Life’ for a career as a yoga teacher leaving Keren and Sara to carry on as a duo.

Back in the studio we find Paula Abdul and her latest single “Knocked Out”. In a totally predictable turn of events, Paula has taken to the TOTP stage backed by four dancers dressed as boxers. I’m guessing Ms Abdul came up with the routine herself – I thought she was meant to be an award winning choreographer? The boxing theme was surely too lame and obvious though? She must have been so preoccupied by the routine though that she forgot to include any sort of tune in her single which really is nothing more than some beats to soundtrack her dance moves rather than a piece of music in its own right.

“Knocked Out” peaked at No 21.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_xrb_vBPQ

Jakki Brambles fluffs her lines in the intro to MC Hammer‘s “U Can’t Touch This” by announcing that his album is called “Please Hammer Hurt ‘Em” when in fact it was entitled “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em”. Come on Jakki – this is easy stuff surely? Pretty sure I would have been docked points for that answer when asked the name of MC Hammer’s album in my Our Price interview a few months on from this broadcast.

Famously sampling “Super Freak” by Rick James, unlike the aforementioned Suzanne Vega and DNA, Rick routinely turned down requests from rappers to sample his music but his lawyers authorised the “Super Freak” sample without his permission. Despite the royalties it brought in, James claimed he wouldn’t have done the deal had he been asked.

The video to “U Can’t Touch This” became the most-played of 1990 on MTV as well as winning a clutch of awards. It has been viewed 601 million times on YouTube which is mind blowing when you consider that it’s basically Hammer in some comedy oversized pants doing some cheesy dance steps. Somehow the single only made it to No 8 in the US Billboard Top 100 which seems rather implausible given its profile.

Hammer’s run of hit singles continued for a couple of years before his star started to wane. A relaunch with a harder, gangster rapper image was unsuccessful and by the late ’90s, he became a TV preacher.

A second studio performance for River City People next with their cover of “California Dreamin'”. This lot seemed such an anachronism in the charts of 1990 though not necessarily an unpleasant one. So did their hit spark a revival of The Mamas & the Papas music? It seems not. I was expecting their to have been a quickly put together, TV advertised Best Of album rushed out on the back of the River City People’s chart success but their discography doesn’t show one. There had been one in 1977 but there wasn’t another released until 1995. Do I own one? Not exactly though my wife bought the soundtrack to the film Beautiful Thing which was basically the same thing. If you’ve not seen the film, it’s worth a watch about two young lads coming to terms with their homosexuality and slowly building relationship. Kind of like an It’s A Sin for the 90s. Kind of.

“California Dreamin’ / Carry The Blame” peaked at No 13.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyd64afymW8

King Elton of John has been deposed and we have a new No 1. Unfortunately it’s “Turtle Power” by ~~Technotronic~~, ~~Hi Tek 3,~~ ~~Ya Kid K~~….Partners In Kryme. In my mind, this was only at the top of the heap for one solitary week but in actual fact it was there for four whole weeks! Oh joy!

Not wanting to miss any opportunities, the promotions team behind the phenomenon get two guys dressed in Turtle outfits to stand beside Jakki but I’m not sure starting to touch her inappropriately was in their brief. By the time we return to Jakki at the song’s end, she’s got them back under control and the whole show is rounded off with a resounding cry of ‘Cowabunga!’ although I think Jakki cocks that up too and says ‘Carrabunga!’ which sounds like some sort of bribery attempt involving Jamie Carragher.

There is still the ‘any other business moment’ of the play out video which is “LFO” by LFO. I was not frequenting any nightclubs at this time and so this passed me by completely. I do recall their ‘Frequencies” album coming out on the achingly hip Warp label about a year later as I was working in Our Price by that time and some of the dance heads at the shop got very excited about it.

“LFO” peaked at No 12.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLwLB47jpFc

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Blue Pearl	Naked In The Rain	It’s a no
2	Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K	Rockin’ Over The Beat	This beat is…shit. No
3	Suzanne Vega featuring DNA	Tom’s Diner	No but my wife had the original version of the song on Suzanne’s Solitude Standing album
4	The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid	I’m Free	Thought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe
5	Bell Biv Devoe	Poison	Nope
6	Sinead O’Connor	The Emperor’s New Clothes	Nah
7	Bananarama	Only Your Love	No
8	Paula Abdul	Knocked Out	Negative
9	MC Hammer	U Can’t Touch This	And I didn’t – no
10	River City People	California Dreamin’ / Carry The Blame	Nope
11	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
12	LFO	LFO	LF…NO

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rpmq/top-of-the-pops-26071990

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

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 25 MAR 1993

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TOTP 03 SEP 1992

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TOTP 25 APR 1991

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TOTP 10 JAN 1991

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TOTP 26 JUL 1990

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Some bedtime reading?