September 1990 was a big month for the BBC. After banging on about the bringing back of The Generation Game in my last post, Auntie Beeb had another big happening for the second week running as on the very day this TOTP was broadcast, it showed the 1000th episode of Neighbours! Yes, the Aussie soap that had the nation fascinated by the goings on in Ramsey Street and that made household names (and pop stars) out of Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue (more of whom later) had reached this massive milestone in what seemed to be a short amount of time. In fact, it had been on the BBC since October 1986 so just under four years but that still doesn’t seem like much time for 1000 episodes. What’s that, 250 per year? So nearly four shows a week? How many episodes of Coronation Street and Eastenders were on our screens per week back then? Anyway, for what it’s worth, the 1000th episode concerned the engagement party of Des and Jane (or ‘Plain Jane Super Brain’ to give her full title) which is gatecrashed by Jane’s old squeeze Mike who’s not too keen on the whole idea of them getting hitched. And yes, I had to look all of that up – I’d long since stopped watching the show by 1990.

Appropriately for Mike’s dramatic entrance to confront Des and Jane, the first song of the night is entitled “I’ve Been Thinking About You” by Londonbeat. You all remember this lot right? They’d had a Top 20 hit back in 1988 with an almost a cappella song called “9 A.M. (The Comfort Zone)” but had been absent from the Top 40 since despite a nice enough follow up single called “Failing in Love Again” which I’d quite liked. “I’ve Been Thinking About You” however was nothing like either of those two tracks. This was…well…danceable but with a pop sensibility (that’s what the music journalists say isn’t it?). It also had that lodge-in-your-brain guitar riff running through it that people found hard to resist. The result? By far the band’s biggest ever hit. It was even a No 1 in the US (although it peaked just short of that at No 2 in the UK) and was a hit pretty much everywhere else. This was all fairly surprising stuff for a band who had a pretty small track record of success. To come back out of nowhere with a No 2 single was as impressive as it was unexpected. Apparently the song had been recorded in demo form as way back as 1987 but the band’s record label advised them to hold it back for release until they were more established. Seems they knew what they were talking about.

I’m not sure I made this connection at the time but two of the vocalists in the group had been the backing singers with Paul Young on his “Secret Of Association” album and tour and had also appeared with him at Live Aid. However, it’s not them that catch the eye in this performance. It’s hard not to keep staring at guitarist Willy M (real name William Henshall). I think it’s a combination of his stage presence and image. That floppy blonde hair and shades was an unusual look back then and I don’t think it’s any less unusual now. He’s also pretty tall and gangly and seems to love the attention this affords him. His twangy guitar solo allows him to take centre stage which he milks for all it’s worth. He’s now a neuroscience based technologist/inventor (according to his Twitter bio) living in LA.

As for me, I wasn’t overly enamoured by “I’ve Been Thinking About You” and actually preferred their follow up single “A Better Love” but I have to admit, there were a lot worse records in the charts at that time.

It’s back to back appearances for Janet Jackson and her latest single “Black Cat“. Obviously it’s the video again which is basically footage of Janet performing the song in concert. Dressed in a white top and black trousers and with her dark hair at that length, if you squint you could almost believe that was her brother Michael up there on stage – pretty sure one of his latter stage looks was very similar plus you could really imagine him singing “Black Cat”. It’s not a million miles away from the likes of “Dirty Diana”.

Supposedly “Black Cat” was very influential on Alanis Morissette in terms of the transition from her early pop career to the edgy rock sound of the “Jagged Little Pill” album whilst it has been covered by the likes of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. Indeed, Alanis herself performed it while part of Canadian band The New York Fries. As for Janet, she would release a seventh and final single from her “Rhythm Nation 1814” album before disappearing to record the multi platinum selling follow up “Janet” which would see the light of day in 1993.

Tonight’s presenter is Gary Davies who finally has a sensible haircut after all those mullets in the 80s but being shorn of some locks hasn’t reduced his Samson like power for patronising, casual sexism. While introducing Sonia he describes her and her record -breaking single “End Of The World” thus:

“She’s the only British girl to have her first five singles go into the Top 20”.

Girl Gary? You couldn’t have said ‘woman’ or even ‘female singer’.? I know you she was only 19 at the time but that’s still very much adulthood isn’t it? Am I being too PC, too easily offended on Sonia’s behalf? Maybe nobody batted an eyelid back then but it just jarred a bit whilst watching this back in 2021.

I have to admit I’m not sure I was aware that Sonia was a record breaker. They should have got her on Record Breakers with Roy Castle. Was it still on in 1990? In my mind’s eye it’s a 70s TV show. Those of us who can recall it will surely remember the theme tune with its ‘if you’re the fattest, the thinnest’ lyric. Now that really was politically incorrect. Makes Gary Davies look positively broad minded.

The return of INXS next. After the massive commercial success of their sixth album “Kick” towards the end of the 80s, the band had taken a sabbatical to work on other projects. Michael Hutchence threw his energies into the mystifying Max Q project whilst other band members took time out to work on side projects such as producing other artists. By the start of the new decade, they had reconvened to set about recording a follow up to “Kick” and the expectation to repeat the trick after their global commercial breakthrough must have been immense. “X” (named to commemorate the 10th year of the band’s existence) saw them pretty much pull it off. Despite selling only half of what its predecessor did, it still shifted 10 million units worldwide and contained a clutch of hit singles. “Suicide Blonde” was the first of those and despite the blues harp intro on the track, it didn’t sound too different to their “Kick” era to me.

And what was it all about? Well here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer and making good on my earlier promise of more Kylie:

Hutchence and Kylie had gone public about their relationship in November 1989 and were still a couple at this point I think. How Kylie’s ex Jason Donovan felt about it all I’m not sure – maybe he pulled a Mike from Neighbours style confrontation with the pair at Hutchence’s 30th birthday party bash back in January of that year. Maybe not.

I must admit that I thought that following Hutchence’s tragic demise in November 1997 that we would never hear “Suicide Blonde” played on the radio ever again but I was wrong. Not only does it continue to be played but INXS themselves continued to perform the song in concert after Michael’s death. This next bit is spooky though – “Suicide Blonde” was the last song that he performed live. It was the closing number at the final INXS show before his death at a concert in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania on September 27, 1997.

“Suicide Blonde” peaked at No 11.

Despite me not being the biggest dance music fan in the world, I always liked this next track. In fact, to say that 1990 seems to have been full of cruddy, half-baked dance tunes, we’ve seen a few very creditable examples of the genre in recent weeks. Deee-Lite, The Soup Dragons and now this lot…Bass-O-Matic with “Fascinating Rhythm”. These genuine one-hit wonders, like every act producing dance music in 1990 it seemed, came from Sheffield and included producer legend William Orbit in their ranks.

I don’t know what it was about this tune but it just really appealed to me. It seemed quite melodic I guess for an out and out dance track and it had some hook laden samples in there as well. I’m not sure if it was still in the charts by the time I started in Our Price in Manchester a few weeks after this but “Fascinating Rhythm” always reminds me of that time. Happy days.

There’s just time for Gary Davies to fluff his outro for Bass-O-Matic (“That’s gone up…err.. a lot this week” he states clearly forgetting his basic chart numbers) before we’re onto The KLF . For a band who wanted to expose the cynical workings of the music industry, they sure seemed happy to play the game when it came to TOTP. I think this is the third time they’ve been on with with “What Time Is Love” isn’t it? Or maybe their appearances were proving some sort of point that I’m not quite getting. To be fair to them, I think this is just a reshowing of a previous performance rather than an actual new studio appearance.

The band made headlines again in 2021 despite leaving the music business nearly 30 years ago when they finally relented to letting their back catalogue be made officially available on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. During my Our Price years, one of the most sought after import CD was that of their “White Room” album which was deleted along with all their other output back in 1992. Said import was bloody expensive too as I recall. I guess that was them having the final laugh in their grand plan to expose the music industry. So why the sudden Tory-esque U-turn? The band’s official YouTube page put out this statement:

“KLF have appropriated the work done between 1 January 1987 and 31 December 1991 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords [and] The KLF. This appropriation was in order to tell a story in five chapters using the medium of streaming. The name of the story is Samplecity Thru Transcentral. If you need to know more about the work done by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords or The KLF, you can find truths, rumours and half-truths scattered across the internet. From these truths, rumours and half-truths, you can form your own opinions. The actual facts were washed down a storm drain in Brixton some time in the late 20th Century.”

Future No 1 incoming! One of the year’s most unlikely chart toppers came from Maria McKee. I suppose her rise to the top was similar to that of Sinéad O’Connor in the unexpected stakes. Maria was, of course, the lead singer of country rockers Lone Justice until they split in 1987. I’d always quite liked their sound and my wife had even been to seem them live (at Newcastle’s Riverside venue I think). However, her solo career had not been a success and her 1989 debut self titled album had tanked commercially. Suddenly, from out of nowhere seemingly, she was back in the charts with a powerful yet tender ballad called “Show Me Heaven”. How had this happened? Well, it was all down to film soundtracks again. Yes, after having already seen the effect Pretty Woman and it soundtrack had on generating hit singles and revitalising the careers of seemingly forgotten pop acts, the UK public saw that commercial force unleashed once more. This time it was due to the Tom Cruise flick Days Of Thunder, the soundtrack of which included “Show Me Heaven”.

Maria’s live performance here was very affecting and no doubt helped to propel the song up the charts. Maria herself thought so anyway:

Inevitably, following the success of ‘Show Me Heaven”, McKee’s debut album was re-released but crucially it did not contain that song. Cue a queue of disgruntled punters wanting their money back in record shops across the land. At the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester where I started, there was a huge promotional poster for that album on the wall in the staff kitchen. Some wag on the staff wrote ‘she’s got such amazing grace’ on it.

It’s a new No 1! Yes! Mallett has been toppled and is gone, banished to the nightmares of those of us who lived through his time. In his place is…oh…the Steve Miller Band. Well, perhaps not the most exciting act and song but I’d have accepted pretty much anything instead of Bombalurina at this point. “The Joker” was of course back in the charts due to its inclusion in a Levi’s ad. So popular were the adverts that a compilation album of all the songs used in them was put together and released in 1991 featuring the likes of The Clash, Percy Sledge, Ben E King and of course Steve Miller Band. It was called “The Levi’s 501 Hits (Originals Stand The Test Of Time)” and it sold well enough to spawn a second volume. Like The KLF’s back catalogue (until this year) it is now very much deleted.

The play out video is “Epic” by Faith No More. I think this was the first song of theirs which really made me sit up and take note of them a bit more seriously. The chorus on it is a monster (you might even say ‘epic’ but obviously I wouldn’t be so…erm…obvious). I was never going to fully commit myself to funk metal (or whatever it was) but this certainly made me think twice. There’s even a gentle piano outro at the end just to add to the intrigue. Sadly for Faith No More, they are probably best known in the UK by non fans as that band who did a completely straight cover of “Easy” by The Commodores for no discenible reason.

“Epic” peaked at No 25.

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

If you really want to watch the whole show over, somebody has helpfully added it in its entirety to YouTube. Fill your boots!

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.

Some bedtime reading?