Bee Gees

TOTP 17 JUL 1998

It’s mid July 1998 and there’s two trends in evidence within the TOTP running order etiquette, one of which is possibly informing the other. The first is that, after a few records that have bucked the trend of seven days chart toppers by staying at No 1 for more than one week, we are back in a run of weekly changes to the pole position. From now until the end of the year, only four singles will manage more than one week at the top. This sequence seemed to inform the TOTP appearance policy because, as demonstrated in this show, we would get the previous week’s No 1 given another slot despite no longer being the country’s most bought single.

I’ve commented on this before making a case for both sides of the argument and my take on it remains confused. On the one hand, it was jarring that a show whose format historically was to showcase the records making the most strides in the Top 40 would be featuring singles whose sales had, if not dropped, been overtaken by other new releases. On the other, you could argue that none of this was the fault of executive producer Chris Cowey who possibly felt that he couldn’t just toss away a big hit record after just one showing because the record companies were manipulating the charts with their first week of release discount pricing. However, Cowey didn’t help himself by putting last week’s No 1 as the first act on the show the following week making a consecutive appearance segue albeit seven days apart as was the case here with Billie and her hit “Because We Want To”. Now, in my head this one stayed around the charts for ages which I suppose it did – a month inside the Top 10, two on the Top 40 altogether and yet it was constantly going down the charts. Not once did it reverse that descent as we had seen many a sustaining hit do this year. Still, a No 1 with your debut single aged just 15 was still quite the achievement. Ah yes, Billie’s age. In her first TOTP appearance, there was a lot of flesh on display what with her wearing a black singlet top. For this performance, she’s completely covered up. Do you think there had been complaints to the BBC about such a young girl wearing a top that revealed her midriff and bare shoulders? Or was it a decision made by Billie herself or her management team? Whatever the reason, it was a noticeable change of style.

And talking of changes of style…from pop song to schlock song as we get the infernal combination of Celine Dion and the Bee Gees duetting on “Immortality”. Whose idea was this?! Well, it was those dastardly Gibb brothers obviously who wrote the song for the stage musical of Saturday Night Fever and decided that Celine’s vocals were needed to complete the track. It was a terrible idea and an even worse sound though one that could easily have been predicted given the two artists involved. Don’t get me wrong, some of the Bee Gees classic catalogue is…well…classic but the 90s saw them record some desperately overwrought and whiny ballads and “Immortality” was no exception. The lyrics were vapid, rhyming ‘immortality’ with ‘eternity’ and banging on about fulfilling your destiny with the overall effect that, in keeping with its title, it seemed to go on forever. The whole thing was truly reprehensible.

Now there’s some jiggery pokery, some sleight of hand going on here as host Jamie Theakston was clearly superimposed over the Celine Dion/Bee Gees performance for his intro, as if Chris Cowey was trying to convince the watching TV audience that he was actually there but he obviously wasn’t. What was all that about? Couldn’t they have just done a voiceover or was there a clause in Theakston’s contract guaranteeing an agreed amount of screen time? Surely not.

Anyway, he’s definitely in the studio with the next artist (s) who is/are Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa. Now there’s a lot to unpack here starting with who were all these people? Well, Pras Michel was, of course, a member of the Fugees who were on hiatus following the mega international success of their album “The Score” allowing its three members to pursue solo careers. Pras was the second of the three to have a hit under their own name when “Ghetto Superstar” made No 2 in the UK. Ol’ Dirty Bastard (or ODB as he was styled for pre-watershed audiences) was part of the Wu-Tang Clan whilst I had to double check who Mýa was as I mistakenly believed her initially to be the woman who had that hit with The Tamperer – I was wrong as that was someone called Maya not Mýa; Maya Days to be precise. No, Mýa, if her discography is anything to go by, is a recording artist with quite the track record – eight studio albums and sixty-three singles. So, how do I neither remember nor know of her? What I do know about her is that she was in a battle with Billie as to who had the most winning smile in pop. Wow!

Erm…anyway, as we all know (even Jamie Theakston did), “Ghetto Superstar” interpolates the 1983 hit “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers that was written by the aforementioned Bee Gees. In my 80s TOTP blog, when reviewing that hit, I said it might as well have been called “Islands In The Mainstream” so middle-of-the-road was it. Turns out I was wrong about that as well as it was identified as the template for a hit by a member of one of the coolest acts of the decade and a man whose chosen professional name included an actual swear word. It shouldn’t work really but it did becoming the ninth best selling single of 1998 in the UK. Mind, we did have a track record for being susceptible to this sort of thing – “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio springs to mind.

My abiding memory of this song though involves a bus driver. Stay with me. I was living in Manchester when it was a hit and one Sunday, my wife and I were heading into town to do something (can’t remember what) so we hopped on a bus to save our legs. Once onboard, we quickly realised that this wasn’t your standard bus. The driver wasn’t wearing a uniform and he didn’t have a machine to issue passengers with any kind of ticket. He also didn’t seem to know what prices he should be charging but rather was making it up as he went/drove along. Who was this guy and how had he got hold of a bus? Had he hired one for the day? Had he stolen it? The clincher though that this wasn’t a regular bus service was that he had music blaring out which he was singing along to. The song that was playing when we boarded? Yep, “Ghetto Superstar”.

It’s Eagle-Eye Cherry again but his third consecutive appearance on the show can be justified I guess as it’s three weeks on the spin at No 6 for “Save Tonight”. This was a remarkably hardy hit spending six weeks inside the Top 10 and just under three months on the Top 40. That’s the power of a very radio friendly single, I guess.

In an attempt to distinguish this performance from his previous two, Eagle-Eye does an acoustic version of the track alongside two other guitarists and two blokes on either end of the line, one adding backing vocals and the other playing the most vigorous and energetic tambourine I think I’ve ever seen. It all hangs together pretty well though and makes for a memorable performance. Maybe Chris Cowey should have looked into doing more of these kind of slots but then not every single on the show would have lent itself to such a version so well. An acoustic “Ghetto Superstar” anyone? I think this guy proves my point..

Another two songs we’ve seen on the show before already now beginning with “Got The Feelin’” by Five. Whilst I could make a case for Eagle-Eye Cherry’s repeated appearances, this was preposterous. After debuting at No 3, this single had slipped every week since to No 5 then No 8 and eventually No 14. However, a rise of a solitary place to No 13 in week five on the charts was enough reason for Chris Cowey to show their initial performance (the one with the football shirts) again. However, according to official charts.com, “Got The Feelin’” is Five’s second biggest selling single ever, shifting half a million copies and clocking up 12 million streams and counting in the UK so does that add some credibility to Cowey’s decision? Oh I don’t know anymore!

Hell’s teeth! Cowey’s done it again with the very next song only this one is worse! I know I’m banging on about this but why are we watching Mousse T featuring Hot N’ Juicy when they are at No 11 in the charts with “Horny” having dropped a place from last week’s No 10? And what on earth is going on with those face-to-face graphics on either side of the screen?! It’s the same technology used to impose Jamie Theakston’s fizzog against a backdrop of the previously shown performance clip but this time features the women from Hot N’ Juicy. Why? Why do that? It looks cheap and nasty and adds very little in terms of impact. Make it make sense somebody. Please!!

No confusion as to why this next hit is on the show – crashing into the charts at No 9 are Garbage with the second single from their sophomore album “Version 2.0” called “I Think I’m Paranoid”. Now this is a tune! A deceptively sparse intro and simplistic verse leads immediately into a crunching power chord and Shirley Manson snarling the song title before coming back with an unexpected second part to the chorus with the “bend me, break me” refrain which would get them into trouble copyright wise with music publisher Helios Music Corporation. They claimed it infringed upon significant elements of the Scott English and Larry Weiss composition “Bend Me, Shape Me” which had been a hit for The American Breed in the US and Amen Corner in the UK. Yes, the words in that phrase are the same but there’s not much else to link the two songs to my ears. As for the performance here, you can’t take your eyes off Shirley who looks fantastic throughout in that polka dot dress. Erm…(again)… time to move on I think…

It’s another new No 1 that will only spend a solitary week at the top. Another Level would never return to the chart summit but they scaled it with “Freak Me”, a cover of an American No 1 by Silk from 1993 which never even cracked the UK Top 40 so it was possible to pass it off as their own song. Maybe. Anyway, it’s pure filth with lyrics about whipped cream and licking their baby up and down! Seriously though, I’m surprised the ‘whipped cream’ line got past the BBC sensors especially as there was a toned down version that the band performed on the promo video and for TV appearances though clearly not this one. I could never see (or hear) the appeal of this lot but judging by the screams from the studio audience, they were hot property for a while. I always get Dane Bowers from the band confused with Anthony Costa from similarly unremarkable outfit Blue. Anybody else have that problem?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Billie	Because We Want To	No
2	Celine Dion / Bee Gees	Immortality	Heavens no!
3	Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa	Ghetto Superstar	Nope
4	Eagle-Eye Cherry	Save Tonight	No but my wife had his album
5	Five	Got The Feelin’	Nah
6	Mousse T featuring Hot N’ Juicy	Horny	I did not
7	Garbage	I Think I’m Paranoid	Great track but no
8	Another Level	Freak Me	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/m002k7yz/top-of-the-pops-17071998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 07 MAR 1997

Posted on February 5 by 80stastic

We’ve entered a new phase of TOTP history with this repeat as it marks the changing of the guard of the show’s executive producer role. Outgoing was Ric Blaxill* who been in the post for three years following the ‘Year Zero’ revamp debacle and in his place would come Chris Cowey who had worked on The Tube in the 80s and been the producer of its (sort of) 90s successor The White Room. I’m assuming that Blaxill’s rather sudden departure was due to the viewing figures for TOTP being down to two million though in fairness to Blaxill, the show being moved to a Friday night at 7.30 and going up against Coronation Street was probably the biggest factor in that outcome and that may have been a decision made way above him.

*Blaxill makes a valedictory cameo appearance at the end of the previous show when the Spice Girls are messing about with Ian Wright. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Bye TOTP Bye’

Cowey was brought in to reverse that trend and he did with viewing figures rising to five and a half million within the six year period he was executive producer. How did he do it? In his own words:

“There wasn’t any one fact why it worked. It was a million and one tiny fixes”

Sunderland Echo, Published 17th Jan 2024

One such fix was a phasing out of the ‘golden mic’ slot which saw celebrities from the world of music and showbiz taking over as presenters. Instead, a regular roster of hosts was assembled being sourced from BBC youth magazine show The O–Zone and existing Radio 1 DJs. This was no return to the ‘Smashie and Nicey’ days of the 70s and 80s though with the DJs being sourced from the cooler, edgier end of the spectrum like Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. I know that both are no longer seen as cool or edgy in 2025 but they possibly were back in 1997. Look, they were young at least and we should all be thankful that neither was Simon Mayo – OK?! Erm… where was I? Oh yeah, Chris Cowey. Well, he was all about live performances so artists appearing on the show were encouraged to sing live and he also saw the potential to take the TOTP brand abroad which resulted in localised versions of the show being broadcast throughout Europe. He would also favour a bit of nostalgia when he reintroduced a revamped version of the classic “Whole Lotta Love” theme tune and a new logo and title sequence. All of that’s to come though as Cowey wouldn’t officially take over until the Summer of 1997* so I’m assuming there was an interim period where a caretaker producer (or series of producers) was in charge of the show. The credits for this one says the director was one John L. Spencer.

*Credit to loyal blog reader Essor for that info

As for tonight’s edition, it was the aforementioned Jo Whiley as solo host for the first time introducing Eternal as the opening artist tonight. Now you can say what you like about this lot but you can’t deny that they were prolific in their output. “Don’t You Love Me” was their twelfth consecutive UK chart hit in just over three years of which all but two went Top 10. Taken from their platinum selling “Before The Rain” album, it was (at the time) the highest charting of the lot. I recall thinking back then that this was quite classy sounding but I think I may have misjudged it. For a start it rips off the bassline from the Dennis Edwards track “Don’t Look Any Further” (which I knew from The Kane Gang version) and which M People had taken to No 9 as recently as 1993. Secondly, it’s all a bit overwrought with lyrics about homelessness and poverty completely over cooked by adding a children’s choir at the song’s climax along with a harpsichord for some reason. Then there’s all the pointy, angled choreography that accompanies this performance. The song’s subject matter is hardly something to dance along to. It just looks odd and jarring. For all my misgivings and despite the threat posed by the phenomenon of the Spice Girls, Eternal were about to score their only chart topping single with their very next release – “I Wanna Be The Only One”.

Around 1994, I started losing sight of Erasure’s output after they’d been a constant presence in my pop music life since 1985 and their first ever single “Who Needs Love Like That”. By 1997, I could hardly see them at all. “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” was their 26th UK chart hit but it was also their first not to make the Top 20. It was from their eighth studio album called “Cowboy” the title of which I didn’t recall so I looked it up and I didn’t even recognise its front cover! And I worked in a record shop! I really did have a blind spot when it came to Vince and Andy at this point.

As for this particular single, it kind of feels like it should be better than it is. Some of the trademark Erasure components are in place like a catchy chorus and a jaunty synth pop backing but it just doesn’t quite hang together right for me. Sort of like Erasure by numbers but the finished composition is a bit wonky. Bits of the electronic bleeps in the production sound like they’ve been lifted directly from their 1988 hit “Stop” whilst it goes all “Telstar” by The Tornados towards the end with what sounds like a clavioline prominent. The end effect feels like it’s all been thrown together somewhat. “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” would be Erasure’s last hit of the 90s but they would return in the new millennium with yet more new material.

The first video of the night comes courtesy of the Bee Gees and their hit “Alone”. Apparently there were two different promos shot for this single – one for the US and another for all other territories. Not sure why. Anyway, the latter features the brothers performing against a clearly green screen created background of a futuristic styled spinning room intercut with images of a woman floating in zero gravity removing her spacesuit – an obvious homage to the movie Barbarella. And that’s it. Nothing else. One single idea to base the whole video on. Wikipedia tells me that the US promo features the band in the recording studio intercut with footage of them from throughout their career and images from the UK video. Both were directed by Nick Eagan who has designed some iconic single and album covers for the likes of Dexys, The Clash, INXS and Duran Duran but he was clearly phoning this assignment in. “Alone” would peak at No 5 on the UK charts.

Any hopes that Peter Andre’s pop career might be a flash in the pan have been dashed over and over as the buffed up goon is onto his fifth UK hit in just under a year. At least this one didn’t go to No 1 like his previous two singles. I think we missed having to endure “I Feel You” which topped the chart not long before Christmas but no such luck this time around as the title track from his album “Natural” is straight in at No 6. This was more of the same nasty, knowing R&B dance pop with lyrics designed to get his female teenage fanbase dreaming of clandestine meetings with their hero. Just to ramp up the sexual tension, there’s even a bit in it that steals from another godawful hit from the 90s with carnal referencing lyrics – “I Wanna Sex You Up” by Color Me Badd. Horrible, wretched stuff. Andre’s ‘music’ really was desperate like going into the only cubicle in a public toilet that’s free when you’re dying for the loo and realising that the bloke who was in there before you has made the most unholy stench and you are left with the despairing choice of soiling yourself or breathing in that rancid air – that level of desperate. Just naff off mate.

Jo Whiley is a bit gushy introducing the next artist though I’m not surprised that she’s jumped on this particular bandwagon. “The muso’s muso. He can do no wrong” she says. Who can she be talking about? Well, it’s Beck of course. Just about everyone I ever worked with during my time in record shops were crazy about Beck. He was effortlessly cool (even when he looked geeky) and his music was a stylish antidote to all that generic dance music and seemingly endless conveyor belt of boybands. This one – “The New Pollution” – was no exception. The third single from his “Odelay” album, it was featured a syncopated (is that the right word?) take on the bass line from “Taxman” by The Beatles forming a wicked groove that pulled you in from note one. The lyrics seem a bit oblique (“She’s got a carburettor tied to the moon”) but I’m guessing it has some sort of environmental message judging by the title or is that too literal a take? A bigger Beck fan than I will put me straight I’m sure. I like all the performers on stage all dressed head to toe in white jumping about at the end like they’re in some sort of Woody Allen movie (or possibly a Madness video). “We salute the godlike genius of Beck” says Jo Whiley at the song’s end. I’m not sure I’d go that far but he was pretty cool. Far too cool for the likes of me though not my record shop colleagues nor my wife who bought the album.

Some smooth, R&B soul next courtesy of Babyface. Given that nickname by funk legend Bootsy Collins on account of his youthful looks (his real name is Kenneth Edmonds), it made me wonder how many other people were given that moniker. Well, there’s ‘Baby Face’ Nelson, the 1930s gangster and Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the ex-Manchester United player and manager who was nicknamed ‘The Baby Faced Assassin’. And that’s where the well runs dry. There’s plenty of people who were known as ‘Baby’ – Emma Bunton was ‘Baby Spice’ for example – but ‘Baby Face’ or indeed ‘Babyface’? I’m not so sure. It appears that not only are there not that many who go by the name of Babyface but even those that do are not that well known to some people. At the 2025 Grammy Awards that took place a few days ago, Babyface was being interviewed on the red carpet when hot new star Chappell Roan walked past. The Associated Press reporters immediately forgot they were interviewing the 13 times Grammy winning producer and recording artist and shouted out “Chappell” clearly smelling a much bigger interview in their eyes. Babyface was extremely magnanimous by allowing the reporters to pursue Roan without taking offence. The fallout from the incident showed that others had taken offence though including Dionne Warwick who tweeted her disgust at the incident and the panel on US talk show The View who balked the disrespect shown to Babyface and the apparent lack of knowledge as to his accomplishments…

Quite right too. Well said. His 1997 hit “Every Time I Close My Eyes” however was never going to inspire me to interview Babyface if I’m honest. Just not my thing and the presence of Mariah Carey on backing vocals and Kenny G* on sax wasn’t going to sway me either.

*No I’m not going to go into my Kenny G story again! It’s in the blog archives if you must relive it!

Despite their longevity, this was only the second ever TOTP studio appearance by Aerosmith. Surprising? Maybe not. Up to this point, they had only achieved seven UK Top 40 hits of which none had gone higher than number 13 and they were still over a year away from Top 5 international smash “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. However, an eighth in “Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)” earned them another not just a No 22 chart placing but a visit to the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood. The pop kid that I was, Aerosmith had not been a band that had crossed my path in my youth with my first engagement with them coming via their 1986 collaboration with Run DMC on “Walk This Way”. After that, they occasionally piqued my interest with tracks like “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” and “Cryin’” but I was hardly a huge fan. Such was my lack of commitment that I don’t even remember this one at all but listening to it now, it’s not a million away from the aforementioned “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”, being that bluesy yet camped up rock n’ roll sound that they made their name on. As to what the song was about, well, it’s not so hard to work out is it?! No, he wasn’t singing about proposing!

“When I grow up, I want to be a rock chic!” trills Jo Whiley after that Aerosmith performance. Hmm. Anyway, No Doubt are No 1 for the last of three weeks with “Don’t Speak”. What’s the link between this song and the artist we’ve just seen Aerosmith? Listen to the intro to this and see if it reminds you of something…

Yep, very similar. Anyway this week we get the promo video for “Don’t Speak” with its plot about the media focus on singer Gwen Stefani whilst the rest of the band are ignored. This wasn’t a narrative of pure fiction though. Tensions in the band had been riding high perhaps not helped by bassist Tony Kanal and Stefani’s romantic relationship breaking down. That wasn’t the only relationship breakdown in the camp though. Legend has it that the band were on the verge of splitting at the time of shooting the video but they decided to go through with it as a sort of healing treatment – group therapy if you will. I’m guessing it worked as the band carried on until 2005 and are back together today after a couple of sabbaticals.

As Comic Relief was only one week away, we end the show with the official song for that year’s campaign – “Who Do You Think You Are” by the Spice Girls. For the promotion of the song and the event, a video was shot which harked back to 1989’s Comic Relief. I say ‘harked back’ but I mean totally pinched the idea from. I refer to the appearance of Kathy Burke, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Back in 1989, Bananarama were tasked with delivering the charity’s single – a cover of “Help” by The Beatles – which was credited as being by Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo who were a spoof group made up of…yep…Kathy Burke, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The concept was revisited in 1997. As the Spice Girls had five members, two other celebrities were drafted in namely Lulu and actress, comedian and writer Llewella Gideon. For Lananeeneenoonoo read the Sugar Lumps (a name which would have made more sense if the Sugababes had been around then). I didn’t find this skit funny back in 1989 and was even less enamoured of its 1997 counterpart but hey – it was for charity.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Eternal	Don’t You Love Me	Negative
2	Erasure	Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me	Nope
3	Bee Gees	Alone	I did not
4	Peter Andre	Natural	As if
5	Beck	The New Pollution	No but my wife and the album
6	Babyface	Every Time I Close My Eyes	Not my bag at all
7	Aerosmith	Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)	Nah
8	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	Good tune but no
9	Spice Girls	Who Do You Think You Are	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/m0027fvx/top-of-the-pops-07031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 FEB 1997

Posted on January 31 by 80stastic

It’s the last day of February in 1997 and we’ve just had the BRIT Awards show which featured that Union Jack mini dress worn by Geri Halliwell when the Spice Girls performed at the event. It has come to be seen as an iconic moment in UK music history. At the 2010 BRIT Awards, it was voted the most memorable performance of the last 30 years. The dress itself was auctioned in 1998 at Sotheby’s with the winning bid of £41,320 becoming a Guinness World Record as the most money paid for an item of pop star clothing at auction. The design has been copied by many a fan attending various Pride events or Spice Girls concert. Let’s see if we can spot its influence on any of the artists in this particular episode of TOTP…

By the way, tonight’s host is footballer Ian Wright who is cutting his teeth on TOTP for his staggeringly long and full media career which he built for himself after he finally stopped kicking a ball for a living. The first act he introduces are the Bee Gees who may not be wearing any Union Jack dresses but they did pick up an Outstanding Contribution Award at the BRITS earlier in the week. Whatever you thought of their music, you couldn’t deny their longevity and said award was deserved. Having released their first single in 1963, they scored their first UK hit in 1967 racking up a further eight hits (including two No 1s) before the decade ended. It would be the 70s though that would be their golden era and the period of their career that they are most remembered for with the disco explosion and Saturday Night Fever phenomenon. The 80s were a different story and one of complete extremes – they only released eight singles in total all of which except one failed to make the UK Top 40 but the one that did? Yep, it was a No 1.

And so to the 90s and although it certainly wasn’t up there with the 70s, the Gibb brothers were pretty consistent. Nine chart entries including four Top 5 hits of which “Alone” was the third. That’s not even counting the two cover versions in 1996 by Take That and Boyzone of “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Words” respectively that both went to No 1. Having blown smoke up their collective arses for a few sentences, I have to say that “Alone” tested my patience in terms of its listenability. It’s all a bit predictable and, dare I say it, indistinguishable from their other 90s hits. Even when they tried to shake things up by inserting some bagpipes into the track, it just really dated it. John Farnham* had done that 10 years before on “You’re The Voice”. The Bee Gees final UK Top 5 hit would follow in 1998 when they joined forces with Celine Dion on “Immortality”. Oh deep joy.

*Yes I also mentioned him in another recent post and no, I’m not obsessed with him!

A-ha! The first signs of the influence of the Union Jack dress are in evidence in this next performance by Republica as lead singer Saffron (real name Samantha Sprackling) chooses a Saint George’s Cross T-shirt to wear under her suit jacket. Republica were one of those curious cases where they definitely were not a one hit wonder and in any case, that hit wasn’t even the highest charting of their career but they were destined to be defined by it. “Ready To Go” is the track in question and it was originally released a year before this when it failed to make the Top 40. The 1996 version (often referred to as the Original UK Mix’) was vastly different to the one we would all grow to know with more of a dance sound to it. A piano motif existed where the hit version had guitars and it just had a lighter touch to it in general. The version that peaked at No 13 in our charts was a US remix that would ultimately become the one that was released to Europe second time around which had a much heavier sound and faster tempo making it more like a rock track than a dance anthem though I’m sure many did cut some rug to it. In fact, I bet it went down a storm in the indie discos of the time with much jumping up and down on the dance floor – I don’t think I would have been involved in this myself you understand; being 29 this year I was probably aging out of the club market.

The high octane thrill ride that was “Ready To Go” would lend itself to being the perfect soundtrack to the start of sports events. I believe Sunderland AFC used to run out to this track at their home matches back in the day. As for Republica, they looked like they might be the next big thing for a while with Saffron’s cheekbones and looks allied to a very commercial sound – a UK No Doubt possibly. However it wouldn’t last. Their final UK hit came in 1998 with the band’s fortunes being undone by a poorly received second album and record label Deconstruction going bust. They kind of remind me of a 90s version of Westworld of “Sonic Boom Boy” fame who similarly burnt brightly but briefly though Republica reformed in 2008 and are still a going concern today.

The two highest chart entries of the week are both huge dance tunes and we get both of them back to back starting with “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! This was all very confusing. The track’s title was French for “One more time” yet Sash! are a German DJ/production team. Not only that but it sounded very similar to “Insomnia” by Faithless so much so that Rollo considered his legal options for a while. A trance floor filler, it is almost entirely an instrumental track aside from the title being repeated by vocalist Sabine Ohmes plus her spoken word intro “Mesdames, Messieurs Le disc-jockey Sash! est de retour” which translates to “Ladies and gentlemen, DJ Sash! is back here”. Due to the lack of lyrics, if you watch the performance with the subtitles on, the following words flash on screen:

“Band plays an ambient house beat”

and…

“He plays a phrase again and again”

Bizarrely, that’s almost exactly what I was going to write as my review of the track!

As Ian Wright says, viewers might have had the second highest chart entry of the week in their collection already. “You Got The Love” by The Source featuring Candi Staton was originally a huge hit back in 1991 but was rereleased in 1997 as the ‘New Voyager Mix’ and was a hit all over again peaking one place higher than its 1991 counterpart at No 3. For what it’s worth I much prefer the original but I haven’t got the time nor the inclination to write about this one all over again so this is what I had to say about it when I reviewed the 1991 TOTP repeats in which it featured which numbered three – coincidentally, almost the same amount of times it was released:

TOTP 07 FEB 1991

TOTP 14 FEB 1991

TOTP 28 FEB 1991

Not wearing a Union Jack dress but definitely wearing her British influences on her sleeve was Cathy Dennis who is back in the charts with a cover of perhaps the quintessential English song – “Waterloo Sunset”. With The Kinks very much being talked about at the time as ‘The Godfathers of Britpop’, it must have seemed a sensible choice for Cathy to move away from the dance diva image that had made her name and remodel herself as a singer-songwriter, paying homage to the great Ray Davies and riding the zeitgeist at the same time. Or was it a much more cynical move? Cathy’s career was teetering on the edge and she needed a hit to revive it? We’ve seen that move so many times. Well, it’s true that the hits, whilst not having dried up completely, had certainly shrivelled in size. After debut album “Move To This” had achieved gold status, follow up “Into The Skyline” had not sustained after initial success and none of its singles had got any higher in the charts than No 23. Fast forward five years and third album “Am I The Kinda Girl?” would fail and flail its way to a lowly chart peak of No 78. Cathy’s cover of “Waterloo Sunset” did give her a No 11 hit (her highest position since 1991) but it was a temporary reprieve with the follow up single missing the Top 40 altogether. At this point, Cathy gave up on being a star in her own right and forged a hugely successful career writing songs for other people. A bit ironic then that her final hit was with a composition that wasn’t one of hers.

Cathy does a decent job of selling us “Waterloo Sunset” with this performance and, let’s be fair, convincing people they needed a version of this iconic song that wasn’t by The Kinks was not an easy sell. Her feather boa is a nice nod to the 60s as is her coy, daydreaming looks to the camera. Having her play a guitar gives me Sheryl Crow vibes which perhaps was intentional for her singer-songwriter ambitions.

And yet more evidence of the influence of that Geri Halliwell dress as Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale is wearing a top with a Union Jack design on it. His British grunge band have finally bagged themselves a UK hit after breaking the US first as “Swallowed” has landed inside the Top 10. Rossdale, of course, was in a relationship with No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani at this point but they won’t have had a chance to spend any time together on this show as they weren’t in the studio simultaneously – the No Doubt performance we will see later is just a repeat of the one from last week. If they had met up, they could have worked on a mash up of their two hits – an ode to not talking whilst you’re eating called “Don’t Speak…Swallow”. I’ll get me coat.

Although he was about to enter that part of his career when he couldn’t guarantee himself a UK Top 40 hit with every release, having Prince (or The Artist as he was known back then) on TOTP in person would still have been a big deal. It certainly was for host Ian Wright for whom he was his idol as he gushed in his intro. Although he hadn’t won anything at the BRITS (he’d been nominated for Best International Male Solo Artist), Prince/The Artist had performed the title track from his latest album “Emancipation” at the show. Whilst he was still in the country, he popped by the BBC’s flagship music show for a performance of his latest single “The Holy River”. Seeing as he didn’t play this one at the BRITS, I’m guessing that this TOTP appearance was very much scheduled – he knew he didn’t have to promote his latest single at the awards show as he had another UK TV slot already booked. We didn’t know it at the time but excluding the rerelease of “1999” in 1998, this single would be Prince’s final UK Top 40 hit in his lifetime. As such, I wish I had something nicer to say about it but it’s all style over substance. It’s a much more toned down, traditional pop/rock song than some of his more funk driven output but it never really goes anywhere – does it even have a chorus? He can call himself The Artistall he liked but it didn’t stop him from going all Prince-like at the end where he gives us a “Purple Rain”-esque guitar solo just for good measure. Ah, well. Thanks for all the memories Mr Nelson.

And this is where we came in as we return to the protagonist of the Union Jack dress story though Geri Halliwell doesn’t have it on tonight. In fact, she’s distinctly covered up this time leaving Victoria/Posh to wear a revealing outfit with an awful lot of décolletage on show. Yes, it’s time for an exclusive performance of their new single from the Spice Girls. As with Prince before them, they’d already done a turn at the BRITS though they were given a two song slot as we got “Wannabe” and “Who Do You Think You Are”. The latter formed a double A-side with the song on the show tonight – “Mama” – which would be the Comic Relief single for 1997. In a remarkably fortunate falling of dates (hmm…), Comic Relief day and Mothering Sunday were within five days of each other this year so with that double whammy of events, there was no way that this fourth Spice Girls single wasn’t going to No 1 and when it did, the group set a new record of all of their first four releases topping the chart. Have that Gerry and the Pacemakers, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Jivebunny and Robson & Jerome!

I have to admit that “Mama” always seemed a bit of a weak effort to me, sweet to the point of being sickly despite its noble sentiments (basically the girls admitting what cows they were to their Mums when they were growing up). I much preferred the sassy, uptempo “Who Do You Think You Are”. The Spice Girls juggernaut would roll on in 1997 albeit there would be a six month gap where they didn’t release anything before they were back with a new single and album, a second Christmas No 1 and even a film. Spice Girls overload is coming!

Even Ian Wright has picked up on the constant revolving door sequence of a new No 1 becoming a weekly event, so much so that he articulates his surprise that “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt has managed a second week at the top of the charts in 1997. To me, it did have that feel of having gravitas to it that would enable more longevity than something like, I don’t know, Tori Amos or LL Cool J. If you examine the sales figures for those records in the week they were No 1, that view is kind of borne out. “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” and “Ain’t Nobody” both sold 80,000 copies in their first weeks which was enough to secure top spot for them both. “Don’t Speak” sold 195,000 copies in week one and followed that up with 140,000 copies in week two – both these figures were more than any No 1 single had sold since Christmas. Even in its third week, it sold 85,000 copies to hold on at No 1 – again more than Tori Amos and LL Cool J. However, it couldn’t stand up to the g-force of the Spice Girls single when that was released in March.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bee Gees	Alone	I didn’t
2	Republica	Ready To Go	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Sash!	Encore Une Fois	Never
4	The Source featuring Candi Staton	You Got The Love	Negative
5	Cathy Dennis	Waterloo Sunset	No
6	Bush	Swallowed	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
7	Prince aka The Artist	The Holy River	Nope
8	Spice Girls	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	Nah
9	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	See 2 above

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/p00fsvld/top-of-the-pops-28021997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 31 MAR 1994

Posted on March 3, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s the end of March 1994 and new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill is implementing his ideas for the show slowly but surely. Unlike the ‘year zero revamp ‘ of 1991 which seemed to want to change everything all at once, this was more of an organic approach. Yes, he’d brought back some of the Radio 1 DJs overnight and ditched Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin without flinching but some things remained the same. The logo, theme tune and titles were unchanged and so was the day of broadcast. All of these elements would be replaced or shifted in time but for now it was essentially the same show. However, Blaxill did take the decision to ditch the Breakers section meaning there were less Top 40 singles showcased but there seemed to be more emphasis on getting artists into the actual TOTP studio in person. Of the 10 acts on this show, seven were in studio performances. He’d also started putting a personal, direct to camera message from the ‘exclusive’ artist at the top of the show beforethe titles had even got underway. Last week it was Salt ‘N’ Pepa and this time around it was the Bee Gees. Little alterations but alterations nonetheless.

We start though with Haddaway and his fourth consecutive UK hit single “Rock My Heart”. I think I’ve said this before but it seems like a real anomaly to me that this guy was in the charts in 1994 despite the fact that we’d only first become aware of him less than a year before. He was definitive 1993 in my head. After, switching to a ballad for his previous hit “I Miss You”, he was squarely back with the Eurodance formula for this one and it’s all very repetitive stuff. Not even his overly energetic backing dancers can liven this up. Haddaway was just about done after this No 9 hit. He did manage two further minor UK hits but his second album released in 1995 – “The Drive” – stalled completely and tanked over here though he did retain some of his European fanbase.

I should mention that tonight’s host is Bruno Brookes and that his hair by this point was taking on a life of its own. He’d always had a bit of a mullet back in his 80s heyday but the dawn of a new decade hadn’t persuaded him to go for an into the 90s haircut. No, Bruno went the other way and doubled down on long hair to the point that it seemed to be trying to form an enclosure around his face. Never mind Haddaway being an anomaly, Brookes was an uber – outlier.

Anyway, back to the music and sometimes it’s easy to think you know a song but you really don’t. What am I talking about? Well, you can identify a song when it comes on the radio easily enough because you’ve heard it enough times to be buried in your memory banks but do we know how it came about, its origins, the motivations behind its composition, what are the lyrics actually about? Here’s an example…”Say Something” by James. Now, I might hear it and think “yes, that’s James. Unmistakably them from around the mid 90s I would imagine when they were having lots of hits”, tick myself as being correct and refile the song in my brain until the next time I hear it. Yet the hours and process that might have gone into bringing that song to the public maybe deserve more than that brief acknowledgment.

Why am I picking on James for this narrative? Well, after touring their fourth album “Seven” extensively it was time to return to the recording studio to begin work on their fifth “Laid”. Desperate to work with the legendary Brian Eno, their wish was granted and he duly agreed to act as producer. The band had historically always had song-storming sessions whilst jamming in their Manchester rehearsal rooms out of which the seeds of new tracks would be germinated. Eno observed this and thought that this organic (there’s that word again!) practice was just as valid for recording as the finished product and got the band to agree to letting him record said sessions as a second album, a companion piece to “Laid”. Originally meant to be released simultaneously or as a double album, reticence from their label meant it didn’t see the light of day until August 1994 when “Wah Wah” was released nearly a year after “Laid”. At 23 tracks and 68 minutes long, it divided opinion. To the casual fan who liked their big, anthemic hit singles, it wasn’t what was required but for the strong devoted it was a great insight into how the band worked and their motivations. Now, “Say Something” was actually track five on the “Laid” album but it was paired with a track called “Jam J” for release as a double A-side single which was track 3 on “Wah Wah”. There is a song on “Wah Wah” called “Say Say Something” but it bears no resemblance to its “Laid” counterpart. To further hammer home this point about song composition and not usually getting to know the full gestation period of a track, “Wah Wah” includes an early take of “Sometimes” which would become the second single released from 1997 album “Whiplash”.

As for the performance here, Tim Booth delivers a great vocal but it is combined with a strangely static stance with him only loosening up in the middle eight with some snake-hipped shimmying. The single would peak at No 24 and we won’t see/hear from them again for nearly three years when they would release “She’s A Star” as the first single from that “Whiplash” album.

A video now as we get to see the promo for “I’ll Remember” by Madonna again. Like The Beatles and The Clash before her, Madge didn’t really go in for personal appearances on the show. Off the top of my head there’s two from 1984 – her debut performing “Holiday” in the January, all armpits and bangles and then there’s the infamous pink wig appearance in December for “Like A Virgin”. A bit of digging in the internet tells me that over a decade later she was in the studio in November of 1995 to perform “You’ll See” from her ballads collection “Something To Remember” and 1998 saw her on the show twice for run throughs of “Frozen” and “The Power Of Goodbye”. I think that’s it for the 80s and 90s. Not many really when you consider her global reach and the amount of hits she had during that time. The new millennium brought a handful more of appearances before the show was axed in 2006.

Who said Eurodance acts all sound the same?! Well, I’m pretty sure I have at some point in this blog but just as Haddaway shook things up with a ballad for his third single, so Culture Beat lowered the bpm and mood for their fourth hit “World In Your Hands”. This was actually very different to all their previous stuff with an almost trip-hop backbeat and some very sombre raps courtesy of Jay Supreme. The whole track feels pretty dark watching it back. It’s almost Massive Attack-esque. Well, not quite but maybe ‘Medium Sized Rebuke’. Did we really need the very literal stage dressing of a massive spinning globe though? “World In Your Hands” peaked at No 20.

New producer or not, TOTP wasn’t going to turn its back on Eurovision and so here was the UK’s 1994 entrant – Frances Ruffelle with a song called “Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)”. Although the song was chosen two weeks earlier by a public telephone vote on A Song For Europe, Frances was already nailed on as the artist to sing it as she was pre-chosen for the gig. She actually performed all eight contending songs over four preview shows during a one week period in March. Although a new name to me, Frances actually came from a very showbiz background. Her Mum is Sylvia Young, founder of the legendary Sylvia Young Theatre School in London and Frances had already made a name for herself in her own right starring in West End productions Starlight Express and Les Misérables. She has furthered that showbiz legacy by being the mother of pop star Eliza Doolittle.

I have to say I don’t remember this song at all (can’t have bothered watching Eurovision that year) but it sounds like Culture Beat weren’t the only people who had been listening to Massive Attack. France’s song had a whiff of the trip hop collective – even the song title bears a resemblance to their most famous song! “Lonely Symphony” is nowhere near as memorable as “Unfinished Sympathy” though and that proved to be its undoing on Eurovision night as Frances trailed in a distant 10th place. It faired better on the UK singles chart where it peaked at a respectable No 25.

Twitter users watching this BBC4 repeat got themselves into a bit of a lather when they realised that Frances was wearing Union Jack underwear beneath her rather sheer dress. I wonder if a then 21 year old, pre-Spice Girls Geri Halliwell was watching back in 1994 and thinking “Hang on a minute. That’s interesting…”

Unlike the Breakers section , Ric Blaxill hadn’t jettisoned the ‘exclusive live by satellite’ slot and continued to keep perhaps misplaced faith with it in the same way that Todd Boehly still believes that Graham Potter is the best person to be my beloved Chelsea’s manager (for now). There’s no denying the size of the name who’s occupying that slot this week but yet again it seems to me to be a wholly uneventful…well…event.

As the onscreen caption states, Bruce Springsteen was enjoying his biggest ever hit with “Streets Of Philadelphia” which was up to No 2 by this point. Not only was the size of the hit impressive but also its longevity. It spent 7 weeks inside the Top 10 alone including a run of 4 where it placed no lower than No 3. Somehow though, The Boss couldn’t manage to topple some Dutch chancers who’d revived the Charleston from the top of the charts. The performance here might be interesting to Bruce aficionados (I know a few) but it’s a tad on the dull side isn’t it? OK, given the sombre mood of the track and the gravitas of the film it came from, you couldn’t expect Bruce to be jumping around stage as if he was singing “Dancing On The Dark” or something but it seems to disrupt the tempo of the show. The fact that it’s in black and white (mostly) doesn’t help. Maybe I’m missing the point. I probably am.

See, now Blaxill’s gone completely the other way mood wise. Talk about polar extremes! Some might say this was going from the sublime to the ridiculous. Get ready for S*M*A*S*H! Now, I spent the 90s working in record shops and so felt reasonably across what was happening in UK music but I have to admit that the ‘New wave of new wave’ was a scene that I don’t recall but it turns out that it was an actual thing and it wasn’t just some clever/nonsense line that Bruno Brookes came up with. Apparently some sort of Britpop forerunner, it was characterised by new bands who wore their original New Wave artists’ influences on their sleeves. All sounds a bit myopic to me. S*M*A*S*H were just one of the bands in the scene though the ones that I’m familiar with are surely more closely associated with Britpop – Sleeper, Echobelly, Shed Seven, Elastica…

So, S*M*A*S*H then. I’m assuming the name was a play on the title of Korean War based comedy drama M*A*S*H? They came from Welwyn Garden City, they made loud records with provocative, ban-inducing titles (“Lady Love Your C**t” anyone?) and somehow managed to get onto TOTP without having released a single (the first act ever to do so). Here’s @TOTPFacts on how they ended up on the show:

Although Pulp were hoping for a call that week ("Do You Remember The First Time?" had entered the top 40 at 33), #TOTP producer Ric Blaxill instead decided to take a punt on S*M*A*S*H, whose non-chart-eligible EP had charted in the album chart 28. "Shame" was the lead track.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

S*M*A*S*H's Ed Borrie explains: "Our radio plugger… brought Ric Blaxill to see us in Luton at this sports hall… and then a couple of weeks later he had us on Top Of The Pops." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

Simples! OK, maybe not that simple. Their story does have a few more details. The song they performed here – “Shame” – was the lead track from an EP that chart regulations excluded from being eligible for the singles chart but which did qualify for the album chart where it reached No 26. They did finally get a proper hit single later in the year when “(I Want To) Kill Somebody” made No 26 but it’s controversial subject matter got it banned. Listening back to “Shame”, I have to say I don’t mind it. A bit derivative but then if you’re part of a scene whose name harks back to to another well established movement what do you expect? They seem like a prototype of the noisier moments of The Libertines. Just like their frontman Pete Doherty, I’m guessing S*M*A*S*H’s singer Ed Borrie had some issues with drug abuse given his wide-eyed, staring performance here. Surely he’d taken something beforehand? Sadly, I think I’m right. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

S*M*A*S*H bassist Salvatore Alessi went on to join Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, while drummer Rob Hague was in These Animal Men.
Singer Ed Borrie, meanwhile, disappeared into (in his words) "North London's drug scene". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

Happily, Ed is on better form now and is still doing live gigs having supported the likes of My Life Story in 2019. One last thing, how did they get away with singing “You’re girlfriend’s a bitch” on pre-watershed, prime time TV?

We move from Ric Blaxill shaking things up with a cutting edge new band to yet another extreme of giving a part of the pop establishment a pat in the back. Bruno Brookes stands in front of a huge disc that he’s presenting to the Bee Gees to mark 30 years in the business and 100 million sales worldwide. This bit of staging was another small change – hadn’t Simon Mayo stood with a load of 2 Unlimited gold discs the other week as a prop to introduce them? The massive disc only serves to make Bruno look even smaller than he actually is and seems to have made him stumble over his words in his segue. “With me three members of the Bee Gees…” he begins. Aren’t you missing a ‘the’ there Bruno? How many more members of the Bee Gees did you think there were? In truth, it’s all just a big set up to promote their latest single “How To Fall In Love Part 1” and what a curious thing it is. It never seems to get going properly and is so lightweight that it’s hardly there at all. Nowhere near as accessible as previous Top 5 hit “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, it was also nowhere near as successful peaking at No 30. Another curious thing about this was why does Barry Gibb sing the whole song with his right hand in his pocket?

It’s the final week at the top for Doop with “Doop”. Can we just try to forget that this ever happened and never talk of it again? Great.

The play out music is “How Gee” by Black Machine. Yeah, I haven’t a clue either but it sounds very familiar presumably because it’s made up of a load of samples from other songs? Seems that was the case. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

Sampled in Black Machine's "How Gee": some sax from "Soul Power 74" by Maceo & the Macks (1974) https://t.co/FgVufeq7J6, and a snippet of "Sho Yuh Right Sho Yuh Right" by Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers (1985) https://t.co/ZvL0YvIFhN #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

… Plus vocals from "Rich Man" by St Paul (1987) https://t.co/V9gd5wYnQ7 and "Rock 'N Roll Dude" by Chubb Rock (1987) https://t.co/fwaJPsKxXM #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

Apparently they were an Italian electronic group that had a few hits in the 90s mainly in Austria and The Netherlands with “How Gee” being the biggest in the UK where it got to No 17. They’re the first act on the next show as well so heaven knows what I’ll find to write about them then!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	Rock My Heart	Never happening
2	James	Say Something	Not the single but I have their Best Of album with it on
3	Madonna	I’ll Remember	Nope
4	Culture Beat	World In Your Hands	No
5	Frances Ruffelle	Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)	Not even patriotic duty made me buy this
6	Bruce Springsteen	Streets Of Philadelphia	Nah
7	SMASH	Shame	I did not
8	Bee Gees	How To Fall In Love Part 1	As if
9	Doop	Doop	See 1 above
10	Black Machine	How Gee	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/m001jf1w/top-of-the-pops-31031994

TOTP 23 DEC 1993

Posted on December 17, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s nearly Christmas. Well, yes that’s hardly news I know but I’m talking about Christmas twenty-nine years ago as per the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule which has arrived at the festive period in 1993. I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham at the time and so if I watched this episode then I would have done so in the knowledge that the following day was perhaps the busiest of the whole retail year. Given my experience of Christmas Eve in the Rochdale store the previous year, I wouldn’t have been looking forward to it. You could say there was a distinct lack of festive cheer from the punters or to put it another way, they tore lumps out of us. Rude, aggressive and if we told them that we’d sold out of Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits on cassette (we had), they reacted as if we’d told their three year old child that Father Christmas didn’t exist. As such, I wasn’t looking forward much to the 24th December. I wonder which songs were in the charts that I might have been flogging to Christmas stressed customers?

We start with a song that would reach its chart peak the following year which is why I associate “Come Baby Come” by K7 with 1994 rather than 1993. The last time this was on TOTP in the Breakers section, I commented on how its lyrics were full of innuendo so I was expecting a very risqué studio performance full of explicit, sexually charged dance moves. However, whilst Mr K7 (real name Louis Sharpe) and his three backing singers/dancers are next level slick, I didn’t notice too many moves that would have had the TOTP producers panicking. Bizarrely though, at one point the main man pulls out one that appears to be replicating him washing his armpits in the shower with his microphone substituting for a bar of soap! He then follows it up with a Jarvis Cocker Michael Jackson baiting bum waft – not sure if that qualifies as explicit or just plain silly. “Come Baby Come” would peak at No 3 in the UK.

https://youtu.be/v5QlvbrJyIo

The Bee Gees are up to No 4 with “For Whom The Bell Tolls” giving them their highest chart placing since their No 1 “You Win Again” in 1987. The song’s title references the phrase originally written by metaphysical poet John Donne and the novel by Ernest Hemingway but there was another band that beat the Gibb brothers to using it to name a song by nearly a decade. I have to admit to not having a clue that this track even existed before now but exist it does and it comes from one of the biggest rock bands ever. Metallica (for it is they) recorded a track called “For Whom The Bell Tolls” for their second album “Ride The Lightning” in 1984. In the name of musical exploration, I listened to it earlier and guess what? It did absolutely nothing for me! Lots of crunching rock guitar and strangulated vocals does not make yours truly a happy boy. Apparently the song is a huge fan favourite but seeing as I’m not a Metallica fan, that influences me as much as Rishi Sunak telling me that he cares about the working class (ooh, bit of politics there as Ben Elton used to say).

Anyway, the rather surprising success of the Bee Gees song meant that the group now had a UK Top 5 single in four consecutive decades (the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s) – that’s approaching Cliff Richard levels of chart achievement. They would even bag themselves two more before the decade was out. Quite remarkable.

Now here’s a curious but rather charming Christmas tune. This seemed to come out of nowhere just as the big day approached but maybe it was released too late to make any real impression on the Top 40. Certainly its chart peak of No 37 seems to reflect that. Or maybe it was just too out of leftfield for the mainstream Christmas market with its non traditional shoppers for whom the festive season is the only time they would venture into a record shop all year looking for Cliff Richard or that nice Elton John and Kiki Dee song or even the Bee Gees. It was unlikely their shopping list included the record by Saint Etienne and the bloke from The Charlatans.

I’d forgotten that “I Was Born On Christmas Day” was actually just one song from a four track EP called (rather bluntly) “Xmas 93” but it was the only one to feature the now national treasure that is Tim Burgess. The other tracks included a Billy Fury cover and two instrumentals none of which I’ve ever heard as the lead song was presumably the only one played.

As Christmas tunes go, it’s an odd one but pretty groovy. Mostly devoid of the usual festive music baubles (sleigh bells, references to Santa Claus, snow, trees, presents etc), it instead has a driving house beat and an unusual melody. In fact, apart from its title which is sung on repeat in the coda, there’s very little to distinguish it’s a Christmas song. The lyrics seem to be about someone missing their absent partner throughout the course of the year awaiting their return at Christmas and thinking of everything that has happened in the world they left behind whilst away.

Tim Burgess and Sarah Cracknell have definite chemistry up there on stage, holding hands, draping a shared feather boa around each other’s shoulders…is there even a little kiss between them at one point? Well, the lyrics do refer to a Tim and Sarah tying the knot!

As host Mark Franklin says in his intro, 1993 had been a great year for Saint Etienne with a Top 10 album (“So Tough”) and their highest ever charting single (to that point) in “You’re In A Bad Way”. The Charlatans on the other hand failed to release any material but would return in 1994 with their own Top 10 album “Up To Our Hips” and the excellent single “Can’t Get Out Of Bed”. As for “I Was Born In Christmas Day”, you don’t hear it that often on the radio despite its obvious time slot each year. Incidentally, neither Tim nor Sarah were actually born on Christmas Day though Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley was. Other rock/pop stars born on the 25th December include Annie Lennox, Dido and Shane MacGowan whilst Lemmy came into the world on Christmas Eve.

https://youtu.be/7bkD035IpzI

One of the nastiest things about 1993 (amongst many) was the breakthrough success of the revolting Shabba Ranks. After a rereleased “Mr Loverman” took him to No 3, there was a small procession of follow up singles in its wake of which “Family Affair” was the third. Pretty much a remake of the Sly And The Family Stone classic with some rapping and toasting over the top (including inevitably a few shouts of ‘Shabba!’), this was from the soundtrack to the Addams Family Values film. I’d quite enjoyed the silly but likeable “Addams Groove” by Hammer from the original 1991 The Addams Family film but this was just horrible. It featured Patra, Terri and Monica (I’ve no idea) and made No 18 in the charts but I’m glad to say I don’t remember it at all – I’ve never seen any of the Addams Family films either. Shabba Ranks would only have one more UK Top 40 hit after this. Good riddance to his homophobic ass!

https://youtu.be/uByYfM2AcfI

Dina Carroll now with “The Perfect Year”, a single that perfectly encapsulates her annus mirabilis. One of the comments most made by people commenting on the Twitter hashtag #TOTP during the 1993 repeats has been “Whatever happened to Dina Carroll?” and it’s a fair question. After this single, we didn’t hear any new material from her for nearly three years. When it did arrive, it was successful but just not anywhere near as much as her earlier stuff. Debut album “So Close” went four times platinum. By comparison, the follow up “Only Human” sold a quarter of that; not insubstantial by any measure but a definite decline. Why did it take so long for that sophomore album to appear? Well, she suffered from burn out after that initial runaway success and took a break from touring and recording and when she returned she walked into a contract mess. The guy who signed her for A&M had left for Mercury Records but his new label weren’t keen on him taking Dina with him initially. By the time it was all resolved and Dina’s first single on Mercury appeared (“Escaping”), it was 1996!

Her new label seemed unsure what to do with her – was she a slick, soul balladeer or a club diva? Or both? She’d successfully straddled both camps with her eclectic debut album but somehow Mercury didn’t seem reassured by that. A third album was never released and a case of otosclerosis (hereditary bone disease of the ear) was clearly not helpful for a recording artist. As the millennium dawned, Dina just seemed to disappear. A Best Of album fulfilled her contractual obligations to Mercury in 2001 and her only release since then was 2016’s “We Bring The Party” with the Dig Band.

Meanwhile, back in 1993, Dina became the only British female artist to have two simultaneous Top 10 hits during the whole of the decade. In the week 12th to 18th December, “Don’t Be A Stranger” was at No 8 whilst “The Perfect Year” was at No 10. I think I’m right in saying A&M had deleted the former to make way for the latter so we had loads of the No 10 but hardly any of the No 8. Funny the things you remember isn’t it?

https://youtu.be/STvZNiPbNB4

Even though this is officially the Christmas chart, there are still room for a couple of Breakers. One though is utterly dreadful and the other is last year’s Christmas No 1! Yes, despite being the best selling single in the UK of 1992, it’s back in the Top 40 twelve months on. I refer, of course, to Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You”. Now remember that the charts were a different beast back then to the one that functions (sort of) these days. You couldn’t just get a song (any song) into the charts via a concerted social media campaign by coercing people into streaming it loads. It had to be officially released which means that “I Will Always Love You”, despite its ubiquity over the last twelve months, must have been rereleased. Why would that have happened? Well, it was all to do with the VHS of The Bodyguard coming out in November of this year.

This was such a big marketing event back then that it presumably made perfect sense to record label Arista to give the soundtrack and the most famous single from it another promotional push. As a result, “I Will Always Love You” managed a peak of No 25 the second time around. Of course, this wasn’t an entirely new phenomenon. In 1985, both “Last Christmas” by Wham! and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid returned to the charts after being the festive No 2 and No 1 respectively the year before. Even so though, it did feel like overkill.

Now to that second and abhorrent Breaker. Probably long forgotten as the other novelty record in the chart of Christmas 1993, overshadowed by the spotted, pink dickhead at No 1 but the combination of Hulk Hogan and Green Jellÿ doing a cover of “I’m The Leader Of The Gang” is potentially even more heinous than the blobby one’s effort, given what we now know about Gary Glitter. Hulk Hogan had been a wrestling star throughout the 80s with his 1988 WWF match with Andre the Giant holding the record for the highest TV audience for wrestling ever. In 1993, Hogan broke away from WWF to sign for rival federation WCW which maybe is the reason for this single release? Bit of promotion for WCW? After all, the WWF Superstars had bagged themselves two UK hit singles in the past twelve months so…

Green Jellÿ had achieved the same chart feat with two hits of their own in 1993 with “Three Little Pigs” and “Anarchy In The UK” and it was they that Hogan was paired with to deliver this execrable record. I mean, it’s literally unlistenable. Who the hell bought enough copies to take it to No 25?

The penultimate tune before we get to the Christmas No 1 comes from EYC. This lot of chancers were put together to take the US by storm but did diddly squat over there. They did, however, gain moderate chart success both here and in Australia. Debut hit “Feelin’ Alright” reached No 16 but listening to it back now, it just sounds like a lot of horrible shouting. Maybe I’m just too middle aged to be able to engage with this sort of stuff now but I probably felt the same about it nearly thirty years ago.

They were the first act to win the Best Roadshow Act award at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party but that sounds like an award that was designed purely for them to win – a bit like the award I got from my works 5-a-side team for Most Improved Player (a back handed compliment if there ever was one). They also picked up six UK Top 40 singles during their brief career so I fear we may not have seen the last of them by a long chalk.

“So this is Christmas and what have you done?” sang John Lennon and in 1993 this line rang truer than ever for it was indeed Christmas and what the British public had done was to make Mr Blobby the festive chart topper. How on earth could we have let this happen?! I’d foolishly believed that the “Mr Blobby” single had peaked too early after being No 1 two weeks ago but the deposed chart topper somehow rallied and regained the crown just in time to be announced as the Christmas No 1. How often did that sort of chart trajectory occur? Apparently “She Loves You” by The Beatles was No 1 for four weeks in 1963 before dropping down for a whole seven weeks and then miraculously returning to the top for a further two weeks. The Fab Four then knocked themselves off the pinnacle with “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. So not without precedent but that was The f*****g Beatles we’re talking about not some tit in a pink latex suit! Aaaarrrgh!!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
2	Bee Gees	For Whom The Bell Tolls	Nah
3	Saint Etienne and Tim Burgess	I Was Born On Christmas Day	Probably should have but no
4	Shabba Ranks with Patra, Terri and Monica	Family Affair	Never happening
5	Dina Carroll	The Perfect Year	Nope
6	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	Not the first nor second time
7	Hulk Hogan and Green Jellÿ	I’m The Leader Of The Gang	As if
8	EYC	Feeling’ Alright	No
9	Mr Blobby	Mr Blobby	Did I bollocks!

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/m001g4xh/top-of-the-pops-23121993

TOTP 09 DEC 1993

Posted on December 7, 2022 by 80stastic

In the last post I made a claim that the No 1 was a bit of an anticlimax on the grounds that it followed the biggest boy band around who performed in the studio against a backdrop of 3D images (ooh!). By comparison, the No 1 was in its seventh week at the top and we were surely all getting a bit fed up of its video. It doesn’t seem right though does it? TOTP was always a chart based show highlighting which songs were the most popular in a chronological way via the chart countdown. Despite the use of such a linear tool, the implication is that the excitement heightens as we get to the nation’s favourite song. But what if said record doesn’t deserve such a reception? I realise this leaves me open to accusations of musical snobbery but if the No 1 is so heinous, what’s the plan? The question is especially relevant to this particular TOTP as, like a Tory minister doubling down on a failed economic policy, the ending of this show has two terrible songs.

Having said all of the above, the start of the show is pretty ropey as well. Bad Boys Inc were one of the many awful boy bands that appeared in the wake of Take That during the 90s. The whole thing reeked of cynicism with no more of a bigger example than this slushy ballad aimed at the Christmas market. After, two uptempo pop singles had made them bona fide chart stars (albeit in quite a minor way), they took that well worn path of releasing a slowie as their third single to, you know, showcase their diversity. The fact that it was shoved out into the marketplace as Christmas approached was surely just coincidence no? “Walking On Air” (note the similarity of title to established festive tune “Walking In The Air” from The Snowman) was ghastly whilst the performance here (I can’t find it in YouTube as nobody seems interested in recording it for posterity) is just as dire. The lead singer out front forever putting his hand to his heart to show his sincerity backed by three twirling, sliding goons all performing on a bed of dry ice. What a shower!

Disregarding the Bee Gees, I haven’t heard such high pitched vocals since Modern Romance did their ballad “Walking In The Rain” a decade earlier. What is it with ballads and the word ‘walking’? “Walking In Air”, “Walking In The Rain”, “Walking In Memphis” and of course who could forget George Michael’s ‘guilty feet’ in “Careless Whisper”. The record buying public showed their lack of affection for Bad Boys Inc with their own feet by walking past their local record shop and therefore not buying their single. It peaked at No 24.

Now here’s a very old track (even in 1993) which was suddenly and maybe surprisingly a very big hit. Sudden because it’s gone straight into the chart at No 5 and surprising because when it was first released in 1981 it did nothing at all sales wise. There is a reason for its explosion of popularity though and as usual it’s to do with record company promotional activities. “Controversy” was the title track from Prince’s fourth studio album and by 1993 he’d added another ten to that number so why was it plucked for single release at this point in his career? To advertise a Best Of album of course. “The Hits 1”, “The Hits 2” and “The Hits / The B sides” was a triple headed beast of a release documenting The Purple One’s best/most well known/biggest (delete as applicable) songs so far. Previous single “Peach” was released in the October to promote the set but that was a brand new composition I think. To give the Best Ofs an extra push for Christmas, another single was required and “Controversy” was selected for the job. Did I know this track? Don’t think I did. I only cottoned onto Prince from about 1983 when conversely “1999” was in the charts the first time around. Did I like it? Not that much. Was I surprised that it was such a big hit? Yes I was. As with “Peach” though, the two CD singles contained hits that weren’t included on the Hits albums plus there was a William Orbit remix of “The Future” so maybe that was it?

We’re back to this trend of the TOTP hosts telling us that an artist should have been on the show but can’t be because they’re ill/indisposed etc. I asked the other week why they bothered with this practice as they could have just shown the video without saying anything and we wouldn’t have known any better. This week, they’ve doubled down like…ah I’ve been here before haven’t I? They have made a complete spectacle of this issue though with Gabrielle. According to presenter Mark Franklin she can’t perform in the studio tonight and the reason is…Well, let’s ask Gabrielle herself because she’s in the actual studio! What?! Mark asks her if she’s OK and Gabrielle days “Not at the moment because I’ve got flu”. Got flu?! Got flu?! Why aren’t you in bed Gabrielle?! This is madness! Look, when I’ve had flu I’ve had to crawl to the bathroom if I needed the loo on my hands and knees. The idea that I could have got myself into a TV studio and been interviewed in front of a TV audience of millions is just unconscionable. I don’t wish to doubt her but really?!

Anyway, enough of the health issues, what about the music? Well, I’m guessing that Gabrielle’s record label were ever so slightly uncomfortable at this point. After the euphoria of a No 1 single with her debut single “Dreams”, might they have been expecting a bigger follow up hit than the No 9 that the unfortunately entitled “Going Nowhere” supplied? If so, then a lot must have been riding on “I Wish”. Sadly, it wasn’t really up to the task being a fairly average piece of soul/pop and it peaked at No 26. Maybe it just got lost in the Christmas rush. Gabrielle would recover to bag a further eight Top 10 hits including No 1 “Rise” in 2000. Seems like Gabrielle’s wish came true.

The Bee Gees are up to No 6 in an unexpected tilt at the Christmas No 1 spot with “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. To mark the event we get a live by satellite performance from New York. As with the vast majority of these satellite specials, it’s a total let down. Maybe I’m viewing them through 2022 eyes and in 1993 it may have been a major event but I can’t help but think it’s totally lame. A completely uneventful run through of the song performed underneath Brooklyn Bridge is interlaced with some totally non related shots of ice skating at the Rockefeller Center. And that’s it. Yes, it’s a cinematic backdrop I guess with the Statue of Liberty visible in the background and a helicopter comes into view at one point but I was more fascinated by who the fourth Bee Gee was up there with Barry, Maurice and Robin.

There’s an easy line to be written here about the next artist and the title of her latest single but I’m not that obvious. All I’ll say is that 1993 is surely a year that Dina Carroll would never forget. Five hit singles and an album that was the highest selling debut by a British female artist in UK chart history at the time? It was the stuff of dreams. The last of those five hits was “The Perfect Year” which was from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boulevard. It seemed a bit of an anomaly to me at the time. Firstly, it wasn’t on the aforementioned album (“So Close”) which confused and upset a few punters in the Our Price store I was working in and wouldn’t appear on an album until Dina’s sophomore effort “Only Human” appeared a whole three years later.

Secondly, the schedule for its release had clearly been set to cash in on the Christmas holidays market with the lyrics even referencing New Year’s Eve but it was hampered by the extended success of previous single “Don’t Be A Stranger”. So well received had it been that it was still in the Top 10 and outsold “The Perfect Year” on the latter’s first week of release. Clearly, record label A&M would not have wanted her previous hit to be splitting sales of her new one but because of the latter’s Christmas theme, they couldn’t keep it back any later. Dina having two simultaneous hits added to the customer confusion in store:

Customer: Do you have the Dina Carroll single?

Me: Which one? There’s two

Customer: The one that’s in the charts

Me: They both are

Customer: The one that’s a big ballad

Me: They both are

Customer: Well, I’ll get her album then I’m covered

Me: Her album doesn’t have both singles on it

Customer: Are you having a laugh?

Me: Not really, no

Dina’s performance here is very professional but then she’d had plenty of practice at being on TOTP that year. It felt like she was on the show every other week. Her black and white outfit is very effective against the Wintery backdrop though those impractical, oversized sleeves must have been a nightmare at the dinner table. Also, why did they feel the need to insert some clips (presumably) from the video while Dina was singing? They looked so incongruous. Children running across a field and then staring at the camera motionless – why? Then there’s the old fella. The expression he had on his face reminded me of something and it’s this. My sadly departed mother-in-law used to work as a receptionist in a doctor’s surgery and would sometimes bring home freebies from the pharmaceutical companies like mugs. She had one that was just an old man grinning on it. The first time I saw it I couldn’t understand why anyone would have that image on a mug and then I turned it around and saw the drug it was advertising – it was a brand of laxative. Aaah…

“The Perfect Year” had to settle for a chart peak of No 5, two places lower than “Don’t Be A Stranger”.

https://youtu.be/oIwVk6aFuek

Four Breakers now starting with UB40 whose single “Bring Me Your Cup” I don’t recall at all. It was the third track lifted from their “Promises And Lies” album and listening to it now, it’s actually a lot better than I was expecting. It starts out very understated but forms an unexpected ear worm very quickly with its lilting rhythm allied to Ali Campbell’s soothing vocals. Should probably have been a bigger hit than No 24 but then the album had been out for over four months by then so maybe it was to be expected. Not a bad effort though.

In amongst the endless diet of Eurodance bollocks that 1993 served up there were the occasional morsels of unexpected taste. Songs that would appear for no apparent reason and then the artist would pretty much disappear again. Off the top of my head I’m thinking Spin Doctors, The Frank and Walters and this lot – Blind Melon. These US psychedelic rockers reminded me of fellow countrymen Jellyfish who similarly are known in this country for one hit and not much else despite there being so much more to them. Blind Melon’s contribution to the story of 1993 was “No Rain”, a hippy, trippy, winsome tune with some Beatles influences thrown in for good measure. It sounded like an antidote to some of the god awfulness populating the charts and yet again a complete outlier.

Helping to promote the song was the video featuring the ‘bee girl’, a tap dancer in a bee costume and large glasses who gets laughed off stage and then spends the rest of the film trying to dance for anyone who will let her. She eventually finds an unlikely outlet for her routine – a field of similarly dressed people all dancing together. The girl playing the character would become a bit of a star, hobnobbing with the likes of Madonna at the MTV awards before having a career as an actress appearing in two episodes of US medical drama ER. Blind Melon themselves would have two further very minor UK chart hits before disbanding in 1999. They have reformed a couple of times since despite the drugs overdose death of vocalist Shannon Hoon.

Name a Pet Shop Boys single released in 1993? “Go West” right? Has to be. No? “Can You Forgive Her” then? Still not the one you’re thinking of? “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing” – well, no I don’t habitually spend hours trying to remember the titles of Pet Shop Boys singles but…oh, of course! That was the third track released from their “Very” album and in many ways is the quintessential PSB song. Eccentric title? Check! Swirly synth back beat? Check! Gloriously catchy, camp melody? Check! Typically deadpan vocals from Neil Tennant? Check! This was what they did best. Sadly, I think it got caught up in the Christmas rush and didn’t even make the Top 10, peaking at No 13.

The kaleidoscopic video features Chris and Neil in daft wigs that make the former look like Mike Flowers of Mike Flowers Pops (two years before anybody knew who he was) and the latter like Louis Balfour, host of The Fast Show’s Jazz Club. Nice!

The final Breaker comes from “the most successful rap group of 1993” according to host Mark Franklin. Were Cypress Hill that big?

*checks their bio*

Seems they were. The band have sold 20 million albums worldwide and in 1993 their second album “Black Sunday” went straight into the US charts at No 1 selling 261,000 copies in its first week. Their eponymous debut album was also still on the charts at the same time and they became the first hip hop artist to have two albums in the Top 10 simultaneously.

From “Black Sunday” came this third single “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That”. I’d liked the House Of Pain sounding “Insane In The Brain” (who couldn’t?) but by this one I’d probably lost interest. Maybe I had a beef with them as the album was one of those that always needed a temporary inlay card to display it otherwise the real CD cover would get nicked especially as the booklet contained 19 facts about the history of hemp and the positive attributes of cannabis. The middle class, white kids in Altrincham where I was working loved all of that stuff and especially those T-shirts and posters with the image of an alien on them with a massive reefer blazing up bearing the legend ‘Take me to your dealer’. Laughed their arses off at that every time.

“I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” peaked at No 15.

We have arrived at the first of those two terrible songs that end the show. By 1993, Cliff Richard was absolutely synonymous with Christmas. Not only had he claimed the festive No 1 twice since 1988 (thrice if you count his contribution to Band Aid II) but he seemed to have a tilt at it every year. “We Should Be Together” was his offering in 1991 peaking at No 10 and “I Still Believe In You” was strategically released in late November the following year to try and capture those Christmas sales making it to No 7. Come 1993 and Cliff was chancing his arm once more with “Healing Love”. Not a specifically Christmas themed song for once, it was actually the last of five singles released from his “The Album”…erm…album. It was co-written by Nik Kershaw who knows his way around a decent pop tune but this definitely wasn’t one of them. It’s not just that it’s a sluggish, turgid, completely unexceptional tune but the lyrics are dreadful. Really hackneyed stuff about losing the battle but winning the war and how about this for a line a seven year old could have written…

“Now I can see that you’re feeling sad…”

Come on! For this performance, Cliff has turned up in a jacket and tie and looks like he’s got his schedule wrong and was expecting to be on Wogan and not TOTP. As ever, he’s brought with him that guy from the aforementioned Modern Romance as one of his backing singers who’s been with him since “Mistletoe And Wine”.

“Healing Love” never hit a sniff at topping the charts peaking at No 19 but Cliff never really gave up on his quest for another Christmas No 1. The following year, he teamed up with his old pal Phil Everly for a double A-side of “All I Have To Do Is Dream” and a remix of his old hit “Miss You Nights” but it topped out at No 14. He couldn’t have come any closer in 1999 with the divisive “The Millennium Prayer” which actually went to No 1 and was still top of the pile with just one week to go before being toppled by Westlife. Undeterred, he went again in 2003 (“Santa’s List” – No 5) and 2006 (“21st Century Christmas” – No 2) and this year he has released a Christmas album. Cliff was 82 in October. You have to admire his longevity if not his music.

Just…just…f*****g WHY?! What were people thinking?! Oh, yeah. Of course. There was no thinking happening at all. A complete lack of brain activity. How else can you explain this total failure of any sense of taste on such a widespread scale? This monumental aberration. Nothing about “Mr Blobby” by Mr Blobby deserved anything but our complete contempt. So why was it f*****g No 1? Were 5 year olds (or their parents) buying it? When The Teletubbies became a phenomenon a few years later with the pre school population and released a record, I could just about understand parents doing just that but Mr Blobby wasn’t quite the same type of character. His beginnings weren’t on children’s TV but an early evening light entertainment show presumably not being watched by toddlers so who was his single appealing to? It certainly wasn’t funny and neither was its accompanying video which featured a number of celebrity cameos. Obviously, Edmonds was there being responsible for the whole debacle but there’s also a very young looking Jeremy Clarkson as Mr Blobby’s limo driver, Carole Vorderman, Wayne Sleep and bizarrely ex-footballer and pundit Garth Crooks. Mr Blobby is seen in various scenes where he inevitably falls over destroying everything in his path which includes parodies of four well known recent pop promos – “Addicted To Love” by Robert Palmer, “Rhythm Is A Dancer” by Snap!, “I Can’t Dance” by Genesis and “Stay” by Shakespear’s Sister. The last one particularly grinds my gears for the pure reason that it uses actual footage of the original in the parody – why? We all knew which video it was lampooning when the camera switched to the lookalike Marcella Detroit so why try and install some credibility by using images of the real one? I don’t know why this especially offends me but it does. Anyway, this madness will all be over soon as Take That will be top of the charts next week and surely also the Christmas No 1 won’t it? Won’t it?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bad Boys Inc	Walking On Air	Of course not
2	Prince	Controversy	No
3	Gabrielle	I Wish	Nope
4	Bee Gees	For Whom The Bell Tolls	I did not
5	Dina Carroll	The Perfect Year	Nah
6	UB40	Bring Me Your Cup	Negative
7	Blind Melon	No Rain	No but maybe should have
8	Pet Shop Boys	I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing	No but I assume it’s on their Pop Art Best Of which I have
9	Cypress Hill	I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That	It’s another no
10	Cliff Richard	Healing Love	Never happening
11	Mr Blobby	Mr Blobby	What do you think?

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/m001frnn/top-of-the-pops-09121993

TOTP 02 DEC 1993

Posted on December 4, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re into December 1993 here at TOTP Rewind and the charts are starting to shape up for the race for Christmas No 1 with many a new release jostling for position on the starting grid as it were. Of the ten songs featured in this show, only two of them have been on previously. Amongst them are two future chart toppers including the festive one but we start by addressing this whole 3D thing. I can’t say I’m any sort of expert on 3D technology but I’m guessing that back in 1993 it probably seemed quite revolutionary. However, according to Wikipedia, the first stereoscope that tricked the brain into combining two separate images to produce 3D perception was developed in 1838! Fast forward 150 odd years and Panasonic introduced the first TV with 3D capability in 1981. Twenty years on from that and 3D screenings of films gained in popularity peaking with the release of Avatar in 2009. In the wake of that film, there was a short period of demand for 3D TVs but sales plateaued quickly and production of them had. all but stopped by 2016. OK, so given all the above, I’m sticking with my original summation that this was probably quite the event in 1993*.

*Apparently, this TOTP was part of the BBC’s 3DTV week (so an event indeed) which included this notorious piece of TV history…

So how did TOTP incorporate 3D into the show? Well, they kind of fudged it. The whole show wasn’t in 3D but there were some sections that lent themselves to some experimentation. The ‘weather vane’ opening titles were accentuated by adding some 3D graphics to them of the glasses that were required to appreciate the effects (proceeds from the sales of the glasses went to Children In Need). Then host Tony Dortie’s links were an obvious opportunity to add some 3D-ness so instead of the usual backdrop of the studio audience he had the show logo in 3D behind him. The show’s producers also hijacked the official promo videos for the Breakers section and showed some specifically put together films instead that highlighted the 3D technology in its best light. This resulted in the most inappropriate visual backing you’re ever likely to see for “YMCA” by The Village People. They do the same thing for the whole of U2’s “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” video before climaxing with the pièce de résistance of the studio performance by Take That but more of that later. On with the actual music…

We begin with a song that I knew from its recording by another artist but not the actual original. “Don’t Look Any Further” was originally released by ex-frontman of The Temptations Dennis Edwards in 1984 on the Motown label but failed to chart. Four years later, The Kane Gang released their version of the song. You remember The Kane Gang surely? They had a couple of hits in 1984 with “Closest Thing To Heaven”and “Respect Yourself” and their song “Smalltown Creed” was the inspiration behind the ‘Ooh Gary Davies’ jingle for the Radio 1 DJ. After that they rather drifted away despite a second album which included the glorious “Motortown” single and “Don’t Look Any Further”. Sadly, neither of these great tracks could revive their commercial fortunes peaking at Nos 45 and 52 respectively.

Five years on and the song was rejuvenated by the dance act of 1993 M People who were on a roll having already racked up three Top 10 singles during the year including No 2 hit “Moving On Up”. They do a pretty good job of the track with the vocals shared between Heather Small and Mark Bell which I’m guessing didn’t happen too often. To my mind though, I would have thought that the track “Renaissance” would have been a better choice of single given that it already had a public profile from its use as the soundtrack the BBC student documentary The Living Soap which aired this year. That oversight was corrected early the following year when it became the fourth and final single released from “Elegant Slumming”.

https://youtu.be/KfHAuQ4hdJ4

It’s that U2 video for “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” now or rather it isn’t as it’s been sacrificed for a promo film put together to highlight the 3D sheen that it’s been lacquered with. It seems to be a load of unrelated images of people doing everyday things like sitting in cafes, buying flowers at a market in European city settings like Paris, Amsterdam and Venice. A carnival (?) full of costumed and bemasked participants comes in towards the end. I wonder if the show’s producers had to have a difficult conversation with U2’s management to get approval for showing this instead of the official video that they’d have paid money to make?

Next a song that always reminds me of Christmas 1993. I’ve not been complimentary about Björk in the past but I’ve amended my opinion over time from she can’t sing to she can sing but I just don’t like her voice but I’ll have to modify it again. I have actually enjoyed re-hearing her singles “Venus As A Boy” and “Play Dead” on these TOTP repeats and this one, “Big Time Sensuality”, is the best of the lot. From its brooding, slowly building intro, it moves through the gears of its electronic beats to a pulsating and sustained rhythm that somehow manages to upstage even Björk’s idiosyncratic vocals. It’s a banger and no mistake.

https://youtu.be/gW-ANZjeJvQ

The live by satellite performance here from Rennes means we don’t get to see the actual infamous video with Björk filmed hamming it up on the back of a truck while it moves slowly through the streets of New York City.

Did its black and white filming and use of fast motion special effects influence the promo for The Prodigy’s “Firestarter”? Maybe but it was definitely sent up by those masters of parody French and Saunders though…

And it’s finally arrived. The moment in pop music history when the UK officially lost its collective mind and deemed it necessary to rush out and buy 600,000 copies of a record perceived by many a poll as the worst of all time. The Mr Blobby phenomenon is hard to explain. Initially a recurring character from BBC light entertainment programme Noel’s House Party, he became enshrined in British popular culture and somehow still retains a presence to this day. His original premise was as a tool in the Gotcha Oscars segment of the show, a kind of Candid Camera for the 90s where celebrities were duped into performing humiliating activities. Under the impression that Mr Blobby was a genuine Children’s TV character, they were then left to look on in bewilderment as this pink and yellow spotted costumed figure with a permanent grin proceeded to trash everything in its path and immediate vicinity. Somehow, this walking catastrophe managed to capture the nation’s hearts and his fame transcended his initial purpose. He would crop up on other TV shows including Lovejoy and Keeping Up Appearances and was a regular on other light entertainment programmes and kids TV like Live & Kicking and The Generation Game. Sensing there was money to be made unexpectedly out of this dereliction of duty to the traditions of humour on behalf of the public, merchandisers got in in the act with a number of Mr Blobby products including dolls, slippers, towels and a ‘blobbumentary’ VHS video. A record was inevitable and duly arrived in late November to cash in on the Christmas market.

I can find no redeeming features at all to “Mr Blobby” the single. Sure, there’d been many a novelty record make the charts prior to it. My Dad owned a copy of Benny Hill’s “Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)” which was not only a chart topper but the Christmas No 1 of 1971. There was at least a plot to it though featuring a fair few innuendos to keep the adults engaged. It worked for kids as well – I can remember playing it on the family record player as a child and being entertained. It was a multi level masterpiece compared to “Mr Blobby”. There have also been records that have come out of TV shows like The Wombles in the 70s but at least they had a charm and were written by genuine songwriter Mike Batt. Plus, the Wombles were eco-friendly and ahead of their time. Mr Blobby was just an accident prone, irritating twat. The 80s provided us with another novelty No 1 in “The Chicken Song” by Spitting Image and as lame as it was, at least it had its origins in a controversial, politics lampooning, satirical comedy show with genuinely amusing puppets. Mr Blooby was devoid of any trace of humour and his costume was shit. As for the actual “Mr Blobby” ‘song’ if you an call it that, there are no words but seeing as this is a text based blog, I guess I’ll have to try and write some. It’s just hideous, an assault to the ears, totally devoid of any musical merit, atrocious, excrement…They couldn’t use the character’s voice on account of it being electronically altered and also that he only uses it to say “Blobby, blobby, blobby” so what sort of vocal could they use instead? Of course, the most annoying of all vocals committed to vinyl ever – a St Winifred’s school style kids choir! Heinous!

Oh God, I haven’t even got onto the video yet. I’ll maybe leave that for another post because horror of horrors, this diabolical record not only gets to No 1 (twice!) but it will also be *SPOILER ALERT* the 1993 Christmas No 1.

From the ridiculous to the sublime. The East 17 v Take That rivalry was hardly Oasis v Blur but in 1993 that particular feud didn’t exist so the Walthamstow street urchins meets Manchester’s slick pop idols was much bigger than the Bros versus Brother Beyond battle of 1988 surely? In the war for chart dominance, Take That seemed to be pulling clear of East 17 having bagged themselves two consecutive No 1s whilst Tony, Brian and…erm…the other two were flailing around in the mid parts of the Top 40. Their last two singles hadn’t even made the Top 10. Something needed to be done and it was with the release of the sixth and final single from their debut album everything was suddenly alright again. “It’s Alright” is, for me, the band’s best ever work even eclipsing the smooth sound of “Deep” and Christmas tear jerker “Stay Another Day”.

I’m a sucker for a song that starts slowly and then explodes into life and “It’s Alright” fits the bill perfectly. From that tinkling piano intro courtesy of Tony Mortimer leading into Brian Harvey’s isolated, angelic vocal (whatever else has been said about him, the guy could sing) to the momentary lull and the song taking off with that shouty chorus allied to a breakneck electronic backing – its marvellous stuff. Add in some punchy, racing strings and a return to the soft, lilting piano riff for the outro and it’s almost 1993 pop perfection. The album version was much more lacklustre and so you really needed to buy The Guvnor mix of the single (which I did). The song is really all about Tony and Brian’s parts so they had to find something for the other two to do for this performance. One of them gets a bass guitar to fiddle about with whilst the other is left to his own devices up front – he resorts to some shadow boxing moves at one point. He might as well have been hiding in one of the telephone boxes that inexplicably decorate the stage. At least it would have given them a reason for being there. The nostalgia of Brian Harvey’s chimney style beanie hat is also bizarrely comforting to me.

“It’s Alright” went to No 3 becoming their biggest hit at that point and also kickstarted their golden era which would culminate in that cash cow of a Christmas No 1 a year later.

The Breakers next but as specified earlier, not the official promo videos that should have accompanied them but those specially put together films to show off the 3D effects. We start with the first sighting in the UK charts of Snoop Doggy Dogg. There’s so much to say about this artist (just check out the length of his Wikipedia entry) that I’m not about to try and give a potted history of him in a few sentences here. However, I do recall in 1993 that he was being talked up as the next big rap/hip-hop superstar. He had a credible back story having featured on the legendary Dr.Dre’s debut album and single. A year later he was centre stage with his own debut material released, like Dre’s, on the Death Row Records label. “What’s My Name?” was a Top 10 smash in the US but only managed to peak at No 20 over here which seems odd given that it sold 200,000 copies in the UK. I’m pretty sure we sold many of them in the small branch of Our Price I was working at in Altrincham, Cheshire. I never failed to be amused by the antics of clearly middle class white kids in a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester who would wander around the store acting as if they were from the hood. They’d affect that ‘-izzle’ vocabulary that Snoop Doggy Dogg is known for popularising (“shizzle my nizzle” and all that), in a faux black patois whilst flicking through our rap section. Who were they kidding? I once heard one lad say to his mate as he browsed the section, “Oh man that’s bad* and that’s badder than that and that’s badder than that!”.

*Bad meaning good obvs

Instead of the infamous dog morphing video, we are dished up some images of rides at a fairground to display the those 3D effects. Man, that’s bad!*

*Bad meaning shite

Alongside Mariah Carey’s “Hero” and “Again” by Janet Jackson, the next Breaker was one of those ballads that hung around the charts for ages, sold loads but never really achieved the chart peak you might imagine it would. Of the three, “For Whom The Bell Tolls” by the Bee Gees achieved the highest position of No 4 (“Hero” made No 7 and “Again” No 6). It spent a total of twelve weeks inside the Top 40 including six in the Top 10. Check out its full chart run:

38 – 13 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 6 – 8 – 12 – 19 – 26 – 34

It’s solid stuff and that peak of No 4 would make it the band’s biggest hit of the whole decade. For all you tend to think of their massive success being in the 70s (which it was), they didn’t do too badly in the 90s. Eight Top 40 hits of which four went Top 5. Compare that to the 80s when they only had one entry into the Top 40 albeit that went all the way to the top (“You Win Again” in 1987). Having said all that “For Whom The Bell Tolls” seems a fairly unremarkable ballad to me. It does however allow for both Barry (verses) and Robin (chorus) to showcase their rather unique vocals. There’s also something about the bridge that reminds me of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” and if it sounds bizarre to mention Shaggy and the Bee Gees in the same breath, remember that the former made an unlikely album with Sting. As for the 3D film, it’s an aerial shot of a mountain range that looks like that one Jon Bon Jovi stood at the top of for the “Blaze Of Glory” video.

If it’s Christmas party season in 1993 then it must be time for a rerelease of a 70s disco classic. Yes, following in the footsteps of the likes of Sister Sledge, Boney M and Gloria Gaynor who all enjoyed small revivals in this year comes The Village People and their huge 1978 hit “Y.M.C.A.”. As far as I can tell, this was its first time back in our charts since which seems remarkable considering its ubiquity. I’m guessing there was a Best Of album out as well to cash in on the “Y.M.C.A. (‘93 remix)” No 12 chart performance but I really can’t remember. The most striking thing about this though is the film that the TOTP producers chose to go with it to highlight 3DTV week. Whose idea was it to sync one of the biggest, campest disco party tunes of all time with some ground level images of a big stick and a Dalmatian dog walking by it?! Even in super duper 3D that must have been boring as hell!

We have reached the TOTP 3D crescendo. Where previously the effects had been restricted to using specifically created videos replacing the official promos for featured songs and some jiggery pokery going on behind host Tony Dortie during his links, the moment had come for some actual 3D-ness whilst an artist performed in the studio. And what better artist for this extravaganza than the biggest in Britain Take That?*

*One in the eye for the overlooked East 17 there

After their last two singles had both gone straight into the charts at No 1, a third looked a sure fire bet and what’s more, they’d timed it perfectly to bag the Christmas chart topper whilst they were at it. The track chosen for the job was “Babe”, an out and out ballad which was a change of direction for the band. Yes, they’d had a hit with a ballad before in “A Million Love Songs” but whilst that was a bit of a sway-a-long swooner, “Babe” was of a different flavour. For a start it was completely overwrought, written to bring teenage girls to a state of high tension and unmanageable emotions. I recall thinking the first time I heard it that it was the drippiest, wettest sounding thing I’d heard since…I dunno…”Seasons In The Sun” by Terry Jacks maybe?

Secondly, the vocals were supplied by Mark Owen for the first time and not Gary Barlow. His saccharine stylings were perfect for the song which apparently had been written specifically for him by Barlow at the request of the band’s manager Nigel Martin-Smith to cash in on Owen’s popularity (like Ringo Starr, he got the most fan mail). Post 1996 when the band first broke up, the talk was all about who would have the biggest solo career – Gary Barlow or Robbie Williams? The claims of a third band member are largely skipped over nowadays but it should be remembered that Mark Owen also has a back catalogue of work including five albums and six hit singles. The first of those, “Child”, was actually pretty good.

Thirdly, Barlow’s construction of the song also had to take into account the guitar playing proficiency (or limits thereof) of Jason Orange. With shades of The Monkees lingering, Orange (and Owen presumably) were wanting to be more proactive in the recording of their songs rather than being pretty boy backing dancers to Barlow’s talent and so Jase had begun to learn to play the guitar. Gary takes up the story:

“Jay had always felt that musically he didn’t contribute to the band like the rest of us, which is what prompted him to take up the guitar. Eventually Mark, whose voice was getting better, and Jay, who had totally cracked the chords for the chorus, had the song down pat; it was time for the middle eight. The trouble was I didn’t want Jay to have to learn any more chords, so I wrote the rest of the song around the ones he already knew. There was one other complication in that Mark was at the top of his range, so it couldn’t go any higher. It’s a hell of a way to write a hit.”
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/take-that/babe

Anyway, “Babe” duly crashed in at No 1 on its first week of release making Take That the first act in UK chart history to achieve this feat*. The Christmas No 1 would elude them though in unlikely and controversial circumstances when Mr Blobby, having been deposed by Take That, went back to the top of the chart on Christmas Day.

*Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s first three singles all went to No 1 but didn’t all top the charts in week one. “Relax” took twelve weeks to rise to the summit

As for the 3D effects, the images used behind and swirling around the band seem to be a very literal interpretation of the song. We get an early 20th century phone and a load of numbers on screen when Owen sings “so I picked up the phone and dialled your number” before the special effects team give up and just have a heart shape with the band members emblazoned on it flying around. It was probably all very exciting if you were a teenage girl and had the requisite 3D glasses at the time. I wasn’t and didn’t.

The No 1 bizarrely seems like an anti climax after all that but then it is Meatloaf who is in his seventh week at the top with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” so maybe that’s about right. Meat would never have another No 1 record in the UK nor US though he came close in 1995 when another preposterously titled single “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” got to No 2 in this country. RIP Meatloaf.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	Don’t Look Any Further	No but my wife had the album
2	U2	Stay (Faraway, So Close!)	No
3	Björk	Big Time Sensuality	No but I should have
4	Mr Blobby	Mr Blobby	What do you reckon?
5	East 17	It’s Alright	Yes, yes I did!
6	Snoop Doggy Dogg	What’s My Name?	Nope
7	Bee Gees	For Whom The Bell Tolls	Nah
8	The Village People	Y.M.C.A. (‘93 remix)	Negative
9	Take That	Babe	I did not
10	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	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/m001frnf/top-of-the-pops-02121993

TOTP 19 AUG 1993

Posted on October 5, 2022 by 80stastic

After weeks of cramming twelve or even thirteen acts into the show’s running order, the TOTP producers have taken pity on my sorry ass and given me just ten to review for this episode and four of those have been on before. This is music to my ears as I’m running behind schedule in banging these posts out.

We start with a band not seen on the show since the 80s I’m guessing whose appearance here would be a valedictory one as far as TOTP was concerned. The Pogues had been in a state of flux for most of the decade before 1993 turned up a hit for them out of the blue. After Shane MacGowan was fired in 1991 for finally breaking the patience of the rest of the band after one too many binge drinking sessions, Joe Strummer stepped in to take over on vocals before founding member Spider Stacy took on the job full time. They released a cover of “Honky Tonk Wonen” by the Rolling Stones the following year but it failed to make the Top 40. I recall my huge Pogues fan Our Price manager at the time playing the single as soon as it came out of the delivery box on the morning of release and then being very disappointed approximately three and a half minutes later.

Spider Stacy was still in post as the band reconvened to record the “Waiting For Herb” album from which “Tuesday Morning” was the lead single. It’s a decent tune and knocks spots off most of its chart contemporaries but with the greatest will in the world, it’s no “Sally MacLennane” and Spider is no Shane.

The Pogues split in 1996 before reuniting j 2001 and disbanding for the final time in 2014.

As with one of the shows the other week, TOTP is suddenly taken over by UB40 and associates as first we get the video for their latest single “Higher Ground” which accompanies the 40-11 chart rundown and then we get their mate Bitty McLean in the studio. I’m not sure if I’m surprised or not by the chart statistic that “Higher Ground” is their first Top 10 hit written by themselves since the appropriately entitled “Sing Our Own Song” in 1986. Well, they did do a lot of cover versions you know.

The video is pretty dull stuff with the band performing against some sort of industrial wasteland intercut with clips of amongst other things a trapeze artist (higher ground?). As with most UB40 promos, the whole thing seems to be carried by Ali Campbell’s cheeky grin.

On with the nitty gritty and that little ditty from Bitty. Now I thought that Bitty Mclean‘s “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)” was a bit shitty (OK I’ll stop now!) but plenty disagreed with me as he was up to No 3 on his way to a peak of No 2. It was also a massive hit globally going to No 1 in the Netherlands and New Zealand where it topped the charts for seven weeks. Bitty’s dance moves were something to behold. He swayed and staggered about waving his arms as if drunk and looking like he might topple backwards at any moment. Very Shane MacGowan.

Despite his seven UK Top 40 hits, I wonder if anyone really remembers Bitty these days or has his nickname been usurped by this recurring sketch from Little Britain?

What do you get if you combine London Boys’ dance moves and Peter Andre’s sense of style? This confident looking bloke apparently who is fronting an act called Aftershock and their single “Slave To The Vibe”. I have zero recollection of either Mr. Aftershock (whoever he was) or his track but then he’s not helped in his quest for immortality by the work of the TOTP cameraman. He makes a right hash of filming his dance moves that surely would have sealed his place in musical posterity had he actually managed to capture them. Sadly, he manages to focus on everything but the front man and even when he does turn the camera on him, a studio audience member’s head totally obscures the shot! I can’t find a clip of the performance so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Apparently it was on the soundtrack to erotic thriller Sliver alongside the aforementioned UB40’s “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” but I’ve never seen that so there’s another reason I don’t remember it.

https://youtu.be/rSSzRv3lBvQ

Just the two Breakers this week (which explains the reduced amount of acts in the show). I’m guessing there was just a lack of new entries / high climbing records this week? Anyway, the first Breaker is basically a mini- episode of Rock Family Trees. The Breeders began life as an outlet for the writings of Pixies bassist Kim Deal who was unsatisfied with the direction of the band. Whilst touring with Throwing Muses, she got their guitarist Tanya Donnelly on board with the project and they produced a demo which got them a deal with 4AD Records to whom both their current bands were already signed.

Debut album “Pod” was not commercially successful but did receive the kudos of being named by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain as one of his favourite records ever. An EP called “Safari” was then recorded before Donelly departed the project to form Belly who were also signed to 4AD and who would hit with their single “Feed The Tree”. Deal recruited her sister Kelley to replace Donelly even though she couldn’t actually play guitar at that point and they recorded the album “Last Splash” from which “Cannonball” was the lead single.

A staple of every indie nightclub DJ’s record box, I myself even cut some rug to it at Fifth Avenue in Manchester occasionally. Its blistering, staccato rhythms and distorted vocals imbued it with a full-force power that felt like it could peel the skin off your face. A truly breathtaking record in every sense. The best ever record to only achieve a peak of No 40? Quite possibly.

One of the biggest selling singles of the year in America next. Mariah Carey had always been a sales phenomenon in the US with her first five singles all going to No 1 over there. This side of the pond, we were a bit more lukewarm in our reception. The highest position achieved by any of those singles in the UK was No 9. History was to repeat itself with the release of “Dreamlover”, the lead single from her third studio album “Music Box”. Yet another No 1 in America, it would top out at No 9 over here.

It was perfect for daytime radio – light but not lightweight, bouncy but not bumpy, it also saw Mariah ease off on that (in)famous vocal range. It also allowed her to pursue her interest in hip-hop via the employment of producer Dave Hall who had worked on Mary J. Bilge’s “What’s The 411?” album. The fluffy, feel-good video was a perfect visual vehicle for the track and I always picture Mariah in her checked shirt cavorting about in a field of hay when I hear the track but that’s enough of that!

Could this be the final time we see Tasmin Archer on TOTP? Quite possibly. A superstar in the making with her No 1 “Sleeping Satellite” less than a year before, she had already been relegated to an also ran come August 1993. “Arienne” was the fourth hit from her debut album “Great Expectations” but was also the worst performing as each release peaked lower down the charts than its predecessor. I always thought this was a more obvious follow up to “Sleeping Satellite” than actual second single “In Your Care” and had record company EMI gone that route then surely it would have landed higher than its No 30 peak here.

I quite liked it but maybe that was due to its similarities to “Carrie Anne” by the marvellous Hollies – Tasmin totally nicks their phrasing for her song. Taking of that name, have you ever met anyone called Arienne before? You’re doing well if you have. Between 1880 and 2020, only 428 babies were named Arienne in the US making it the 18,714th most popular name of all time. As for Tasmin, she would return to the UK Top 40 one more time when her “Shipbuilding” EP of Elvis Costello covers just sneaked in during 1994.

To Miami Beach now for a satellite link up with the Bee Gees who are in the charts with their “Paying The Price Of Love” single. The more I listen to this one, the more excruciating it sounds. Unlike Mariah Carey who toned down her high pitched vocals for “Dreamlover”, Barry Gibb has turned the falsetto-meter up to a spine tingling, Spinal Tap-esque 11. I’m sure there were bits of it that only our dog could hear. And those outfits they were wearing! The Bee Gees made very little sense sartorially or sonically outside of the disco era.

WHO?! You may well ask. Their/his (?) name was Sinclair and the song was “Ain’t No Casanova” and that’s about all their is to know about this whole minuscule footnote of chart history. There’s very little else out there online. As with Tasmin Archer borrowing heavily from The Hollies for her hit “Arienne”, so Sinclair seemed to have revisited a previous chart hit for inspiration. Remember “Casanova” by Levert from 1987? The very first line of that song is ‘I ain’t much on Casanova’. I mean come on!

Sinclair’s record plugger must have either done a hell of a job or just got lucky to get a slot on TOTP when the record had only entered the chart at No 37. In any other week it surely would have been a Breaker? The appearance helped it to a peak of No 28 and then…nothing. Probably for the best.

Another week at the top for Freddie Mercury and “Living On My Own” and yet another artist on the show that had a remarkable vocal after Mariah Carey and Barry Gibb. Who had the biggest vocal range though? Well, Classic FM published an article this year where they compared the voices of artists from Prince to Pavarotti and Bowie to Bocelli. Freddie Mercury comes in with an impressive 4 octave F2 to E6 range with Barry Gibb just behind him on 3.4 but Mariah Carey topped them all being able to go from F2 to G7, a span of 5 octaves. Ouch! Cease is the word!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Pogues	Tuesday Morning	Nope
2	UB40	Higher Ground	No
3	Bitty McLean	“It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”	Never
4	Aftershock	Slave To The Vibe	Not my vibe at all
5	The Breeders	Cannonball	I must have it on something surely
6	Mariah Carey	Dreamlover	Nah
7	Tasmin Archer	Arienne	I did not
8	Bee Gees	Paying The Price Of Love	Wasn’t ever happening
9	Sinclair	Ain’t No Casanova	Negative
10	Freddie Mercury	Living On My Own	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/m001cjqx/top-of-the-pops-19081993

TOTP 29 JUL 1993

Posted on September 24, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s late July 1993 and the BBC’s musical output has gone stale. The seismic changes of the TOTP ‘year zero’ revamp happened twenty-two months ago and many are no longer with us most obviously the majority of the slew of new presenters that were introduced. In fact, the only two remaining are Mark Franklin and Tony Dortie who have been presenting solo on alternate weeks since October 1992. The show’s audience has plateaued at a level of 6.5 million which was less than it was attracting pre the revamp.

Meanwhile, over at Radio 1, whilst it seems like the ‘Smashie And Nicey’ image propagated by the likes of Simon Bates, Dave Lee Travis and Gary Davies will carry on forever, change is a-comin’. The era of Matthew Bannister as controller of Radio 1 is nearly upon us and he will action a root and branch transformation that will strip away the old, rotting wood. The culture of change would prove to be contagious. Within months, TOTP would also change head producer and the incoming Ric Blaxill would reverse most of the ‘year zero’ changes. For now though, it was the calm before the storm. Let’s see who was afloat before the sea of change appeared over the horizon…

We start with an act that was having some success under the current regime but who would flourish under the new. “Unforgiven” was D:Ream’s third of four consecutive Top 40 hits in 1993 though none would get any higher than No 19. Solid but not spectacular. Come early 1994 though they would go off like a rocket with the re-release of “Things Can Only Get Better” soaring to No 1.

Like most people I’m guessing, I don’t remember “Unforgiven” but on listening back to it, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s OK. A bit more grit to it than their most famous tune, the most impressive part of it is the bridge into the chorus which Peter Cunnah almost growls – quite the feat in a dance record. Linda Perry from 4 Non Blondes seems to have started a trend for tall hat wearing given the millinery of one of the backing singers. Where will it all end? Well, I’ll tell you where it won’t end – with me making the almost obligatory reference to Professor Brian Cox on keyboards…oh shit.

“Unforgiven” peaked at No 29.

“Show Me Love” by Robin S was not just one of the biggest dance tunes of 1993 but of the whole decade and beyond. How do you follow a hit line that? Easy! Just release virtually the same song again but change its title. “Luv 4 Luv” is “Show Me Love”, not just sonically but linguistically with the same three syllable title and chorus but with a slight change of spelling. Money for old rope? This was, to reference the film maker Stanley Kubrick, money for pieces of string too short to be useful*. Even Tony Dortie can’t resist a jibe by stating tongue-in-cheek that it’s “nothing like her first single”.

*Kubrick was a massive hoarder and when his family were sorting through his estate after his death, they found a box labelled ‘pieces of string too short to be useful’. His archives now reside at the London College of Communication .

Amazingly, enough people bought the single to send it to No 11 in the UK charts. I don’t get this. Presumably if a punter liked it enough to buy “Luv 4 Luv” then said punter must have felt the same about “Show Me Love” and also bought that so essentially you have the same record twice. Surely there can’t have been people who only bought “Luv 4 Luv”?! “I wasn’t bothered about “Show Me Love” but this new one by Robin S is great and I must have it”…said no-one ever.

When Freddie Mercury died in November 1991, Queen’s most iconic song “Bohemian Rhapsody” was rereleased and almost inevitably became that year’s Xmas No 1. Four months later, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness took place at Wembley Stadium with the remaining members of Queen all involved. Such was Freddie’s popularity though, there was still a clamour for his recordings and so the band’s label raided his back catalogue as a solo artist. For a name as big as Freddie’s, there wasn’t actually that much solo work to raid. He only recorded two studio albums (and one of those was the “Barcelona” collaboration with Montserrat Caballé) plus the standalone single “The Great Pretender”, a couple of tracks for the Dave Clark musical Time and “Love Kills” from Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. That didn’t stop Parlophone coming up with the unimaginatively titled “The Freddie Mercury Album” compilation in 1992 which included elements of all those recording projects. That album had already seen the release of “In My Defence” from Time and a rerelease for the aforementioned “The Great Pretender” which had both charted.

What came next though, nearly two years after Freddie’s death, was a surprise. A posthumous No1 record with a single that had stumbled to a peak of No 50 when originally released eight years prior? How did that happen? Well, it was all down to a team of remixers called The No More Brothers who took the track “Living On My Own” which had been on Freddie’s 1985 solo debut album “Mr Bad Guy” and that 1992 compilation and turned it into a dance hit. A chart topper all over Europe including the UK, it was a sales sensation. Me though, I didn’t get it. I hadn’t been aware of the 1985 original but this 1993 version didn’t make me want to seek it out. It just sounded so bland and I hated the lines ‘Dee do de de, Dee do de de, I don’t have no time for no monkey business”. What?! Written down, the first part looks like a script for a Harry Enfield’s The Scousers sketch whilst the monkey business bit was just hackneyed. How was this a No 1 record? The video is the same one used for the 1985 release and uses footage of Freddie’s 39th birthday party in Munich where he recorded the “Mr Bad Guy” album.

The general perception amongst the fanbase of Manic Street Preachers is that their second album “Gold Against The Soul” is also their worst. There is also an agreed opinion that the one stand out track on it is “La Tristesse Durera” which was released as its second single. I disagree on both counts. I love this album and though “La Tristesse Durera” is a fabulous track, it’s not my favourite from it. That honour switches between “Roses In The Hospital” and “Life Becoming A Landslide” on a regular basis.

Actually, I need to correct myself here and give the song its full title which is “La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)”. No brackets, no points. I make this clarification not just for the sake of accuracy nor to be a pedant but to highlight a peculiar oddity about the track that has a tie in with another song I love that has brackets in the title. For some reason, when released in the US, the the song’s title was changed to “Scream To Sigh (La Tristesse Durera)”. Why? I have no idea but nearly a decade earlier, The Icicle Works’ single “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” had its title changed to “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)” for the US market. What was it about US record labels and brackets and the word ‘scream’?

As for the performance here, would there have been outrage at Nicky Wire wearing a dress? There shouldn’t have been. It’s not as if we hadn’t seen it before. There was Bowie on the cover of his “The Man Who Sold The World” album and that bloke from Mud who wore one on the actual show.

“La Tristesse Durera (Whisper To A Scream)” peaked at No 22.

“Live from the Dominion Theatre in London’s West End…” Don’t get too excited it’s just Craig McLachlan in a revival of Grease the Musical and I have to say that, based on this short clip of “You’re The One That I Want” he doesn’t seem too convincing as Danny Zuko. Maybe it’s his curly hair, or his average singing voice or maybe it’s just that he’s not John Travolta which is not his fault of course. Debbie Gibson on the other hand belts it out and wears that iconic leather outfit well.

As Tony Dortie says, the cast included Shane Richie who played the role of Kenickie but as for him being “very funny” – if he performed anything like he did when on 3–2–1 in 1987…Perhaps he should have changed his name to Shame Richie…

Five Breakers again this week (bastards!) starting with Juliet Roberts and “Caught In The Middle”. I had no idea at the time but this wasn’t Juliet’s first Top 40 record – she was the vocalist on “It’s Over” by Funk Masters way back in 1983. She then joined smooth jazzers Working Week whose single “I Thought I’d Never See You Again” I quite liked though nobody else seemed to much when it peaked at No 80. Fast forward eight years and Juliet finally had a hit in her own right.

There’s a couple of parallels between Juliet and Shara Nelson who was on the show the other week. Both were having success under their own names after supplying the vocals for other artists (Shara sang on Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy”) and both were on the Cooltempo label. Also like Shara, Juliet’s solo career seemed to peter out rather. “Caught In The Middle” made No 24 though a David Morales remix the following year peaked ten places higher. A couple more Top 20 singles followed before the decade was out but that didn’t translate into album sales with her debut long player “Natural Thing” only making No 65. She continues to be in demand as a backing singer though.

The first of two huge stars now who are experiencing a drop off in singles sales as their latest offerings fail to tempt UK record buyers. After her last single “That’s The Way Love Goes” went to No 2 over here, Janet Jackson might have expected the follow up to perform similarly. It didn’t. “If” was the second single from her “Janet” album which I thought was meant to be a more smooth, sensual sounding soul record but this single could have been on the more strident previous album “Rhythm Nation 1814” with its hard beats and rock guitar riff. Yes, the lyrics aligned with the album’s sexual theme touching on fantasy and voyeurism but sonically it was nothing like the previous single.

The video plays on the voyeurism subject with scenes involving touch screen monitors and web cams, seemingly jumping on the bandwagon of Sliver, the erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone that was popular at the time. Maybe the racy video worked against the single’s commercial potential – was it too racy for anything other than a short Breaker spot on TOTP? Whatever the reason, “If” only made it to No 14 in the UK.

Oh crap! It’s “River Of Dreams” by Billy Joel. Now I like Billy and some of his back catalogue (especially the earlier stuff) is great. Even his last album prior to this (“Storm Front”) had some good singles on it. This track though rivalled “Uptown Girl” for sheer, undiluted awfulness. The title track off his only studio album of the 90s and the last to be comprised of pop songs*, it was and remains shockingly bad.

*His 2001 set “Fantasies & Delusions” contained only classical compositions.

Not everyone agreed with my assessment though. It was a huge global hit and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for 1994 losing out to, by coincidence, the next artist to feature on the Breakers. Why couldn’t I stand it? It was just so twee and I hated that harmonised intro that goes “In the middle of the…I go walking in the…”. I think ultimately though it reminds me of a time when I wasn’t that happy at work but that’s for a post in the near future.

Long after I’d finished working in record shops and stopped listening to Radio 1, I found myself at the radio home for the newly middle aged and listening to Terry Wogan’s breakfast show and he used to play this constantly. It nearly broke me.

“River Of Dreams” peaked at No 3.

Now to that second artist (alongside Janet Jackson) suffering an unexpected downturn in sales of their latest single and also the winner of that 1994 Grammy for Record of the Year. “Run To You” was the fourth single released by Whitney Houston from The Bodyguard soundtrack and was basically a retread of the third single “I Have Nothing” in that they were both towering ballads executed with precision by Whitney over a shiny production. So similar were they that Natalie Cole performed a medley of them at the 1993 Academy Awards (I’m guessing Whitney was indisposed).

Presumably due to the fact that the so many people already had the song due to buying the soundtrack album, “Run To You” failed to work itself into a sprint up the charts peaking at No 15 in the UK and No 31 in the US.

The video looks a bit crap by today’s high CGI standards with Whitney running against a backdrop of clouds although maybe it was a homage to the film of the aforementioned Grease when Danny and Sandy’s car takes off into the sky and they fly off into the clouds?

Neither “Run To You” nor Janet Jackson’s “If” were shown in full on TOTP which you maybe wouldn’t have expected for two such huge names.

Another huge name who had already had her video shown in full on the show is the final Breaker this week. Madonna is up to No 7 with “Rain” from her “Erotica” album. The tickets Tony Dortie refers to are for the two concert dates in September that Madonna played at Wembley Stadium as part of her The Girlie Show world tour.

“Rain” ended the first act of the show and was interspersed with “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” by The Temptations and “Singin’ In The Rain”. Want to hear it? Here you go but having sat through the whole thing myself, I must warn you that you won’t get these 9 minutes and 48 seconds of your life back…

Back in the studio we find Dannii Minogue performing her rendition of Melba Moore’s “This Is It”. You know I said earlier about Juliet Roberts being an in demand backing singer after her solo career ended? Well, she must have been moonlighting back in 1993 as she provided backing vocals on Dannii’s previous single to “This Is It” which was called “Love’s On Every Corner”.

Twenty years after she had a hit with “This Is It”, the track supplied the title for a Best Of Dannii album which included a duet with sister Kylie of the ABBA standard “The Winner Takes It All” – I wonder which of the two of them that was then?

“This Is It” peaked at No 10.

https://youtu.be/2BkYJ5g8kE4

There’s only one Bee Gees song I remember from 1993 and it ain’t this one. “For Whom The Bell Tolls” was a surprise Top 5 hit over Xmas that year that just seemed to keep on selling even when you thought it must have run out of steam. “Paying The Price Of Love” though? Nah, I’ve got nothing. Their previous hit to this had been the shameless rewrite of “Chain Reaction” that was “Secret Love” in 1991. Did this one sound like any of their other songs? A slight hint of “You Win Again” maybe? Maybe not.

Barry Gibbs’ falsetto here is quite remarkable. That’s not a compliment though – a better descriptor would be ridiculous. I know it works somehow on most of their back catalogue especially their disco era peak but taken in isolation it’s quite mad. If he turned up on a talent show like The Voice for example and did that, would the judges turn around or would they look at each other and break out into a fit of uncontrollable giggling? What if they did turn around and then saw his mane of hair?! I can only really think of Barry Gibb and Queen’s Brian May that have always maintained the same hairstyle throughout their careers. Honourable mentions should also go to Rod Stewart and Paul Weller for sustaining comedy haircuts but they have tweaked them down the years.

“Paying The Price Of Love” peaked at No 23.

You can’t really argue with Tony Dortie’s assessment that Take That were “simply the biggest pop band in the UK” at this time as “Pray” notches up a third week at No 1. The boys are back in the studio this week and what I’m noticing from this performance is the clear division of hairstyles between them (and yes, I know I seem to be obsessed with pop star barnets yet again this week). Mark, Howard and Robbie all have that classic mid 90s long at the the sides curtains style while Jason and Gary have a more classic crew cut. I think I know which has aged the better.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	D:Ream	Unforgiven	Nope
2	Robin S	Luv 4 Luv	Never
3	Freddie Mercury	Living On My Own	I did not
4	Manic Street Preachers	La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)	Not the single but I had the album
5	Craig McLachlan and Debbie Gibson	You’re The One That I Want	No
6	Juliet Roberts	Caught In the Middle	Negative
7	Janet Jackson	If	Nah
8	Billy Joel	River Of Dreams	Hell no!
9	Whitney Houston	Run To You	No thanks
10	Madonna	Rain	It’s a no
11	Dannii Minogue	This Is It	No it isn’t
12	Bee Gees	Paying The Price Of Love	I didn’t pay the price
13	Take That	Pray	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/m001c948/top-of-the-pops-29071993

TOTP 28 MAR 1991

Posted on July 8, 2021 by 80stastic

Sibling rivalry. Healthy competition or the bringer of long lasting family fractures? I have siblings and, as a football obsessed youngster, grew up knowing that my elder brother was so much better at the game than me. I could barely get into my school team whilst he had scouts from professional clubs sniffing around. It was….character building. There are of course many examples of sporting siblings but how many of them attain an equitable level of success and fame. My theory would be that one is always more successful / well known than the other. Off the top of my head…

Serena Williams vs Venus Williams? Definitely Serena
Andy vs Jamie Murray? Andy surely
Anton vs Rio Ferdinand? Easily Rio
Gary vs Phil Neville? Hmm, I’d have to go Gary

OK, I’m sure you could all come up with anomalies to debunk my theory but I’m sticking with it. More than that, I’m going to try and extend it to musical siblings. Who have we got? Ray and Dave Davies from The Kinks, The Gibb brothers of the Bee Gees, Noel and Liam Gallagher, the three Wilson brothers in The Beach Boys, Hanson(!)… I’m beginning to see a problem with this in that these siblings were in bands together so it’s harder to make a definitive judgement. OK, some of them pursued their own solo careers so you could assess those I suppose but I’m not sure that’s a fair yardstick and yes, you could make a case for Brian Wilson over Dennis and Carl but then what about the twins Charlie and Craig Reid of The Proclaimers? They were tied to each other biologically and musically. So we’re am I going with all of this? In a very clunky and laborious way to the the first act on tonight’s TOTP who is Dannii Minogue – Kylie’s sister. And those last two words go straight back to my original point. Was Dannii always destined to be in the shadow of Kylie? Or as author Kathy Lette put it that there was always a perception that Dannii was the B-side to Kylie’s A?

It wasn’t how it started though. Dannii, despite being 4 years younger than her sister, was the most well known of the two in the beginnings of their careers as she appeared on Australian TV variety show Young Talent Time and indeed it was Dannii that got Kylie invited on the show to perform with her. After that, their careers seemed to run in tandem. Kylie became known to us in the UK as Charlene from Neighbours whilst Dannii took the role of Emma Jackson in Home And Away. Crucially though, Kylie had met Stock, Aitken and Waterman and beat her sister to chart stardom with her No 1 single “I Should Be So Lucky”. Was that the moment that their paths separated and Kylie was fused onto the nation’s consciousness ahead of Dannii?

By the time that Ms Minogue junior was releasing her “Love And Kisses” single, Kylie had already racked up 3 hit albums and 12 Top 10 singles including 4 No 1s in the UK. Dannii had a lot of catching up to do. She wasn’t helped by the fact that “Love And Kisses” wasn’t released in the UK until a whole year after its Australian release. When it finally did arrive, it performed pretty well rising to No 8 over here despite it being a fairly insubstantial, Janet Jackson style bit of pop fluff. Its parent album of the same name (it had been changed from its original “Dannii” title in Australia) also clocked up enough sales to achieve gold status and provided Dannii with a further four Top 40 singles.

1991 was Danni’s highpoint of the 90s though. The rest of the decade saw mainly dwindling sales (with the odd exception) and by around 1995/6, she was peddling her calendar that included naked shots of her. We definitely sold a few of those in the Our Price store I was working in (ahem). However, 2003’s “Neon Nights” dance album was well received and went Top 10 and she followed that up by appearing as an X Factor judge on our TVs every Saturday night from 2007 to 2010.

Did someone mention The Bee Gees before? Here are the Brothers Gibb with their “Secret Love” video. I’ve been sat here at my computer for a good five minutes now and I can’t think of anything else to say about this record other than it really wasn’t one of their finest moments. How about I just pad it out with some sales stats? Yeah? OK, well even their US record label had lost faith in them by this point and subsequently didn’t do that much promotion for the parent album ‘High Civilisation” in the States. Consequently, it didn’t chart at all over there though it did struggle to a high of No 24 in the UK. It was more popular in the rest of Europe specifically in Germany (No 2) and Switzerland (No 6). No further singles from the album were big hits anywhere on the planet.

We wouldn’t see The Bee Gees in the charts for another two years.

Right, who’s this fella? He looks like a scaffolder or something rather than a pop star. What’s that Bruno Brookes? He used to be a scaffolder actually? Oh right. Presumably that’s why you’re dong this link from the studio gantry and with the camera pointing up at you to give the impression of height – not something you were ever very good at eh?

This fella was, of course, Gary Clail (and his On-U Sound System) with “Human Nature”. I was never quite sure what the On-U Sound System bit was all about but it was a nod to the On-U Sound Records label which specialised in dub music. Clail himself had been releasing record since 1985 (presumably when he wasn’t atop a scaffold somewhere) and also worked with legendary hip hop artists Tackhead but I have to admit I hadn’t heard of him before 1991.

“Human Nature” though was a great track and deservedly went Top 10. Despite his dub roots, the sound on this seemed like The Shamen meets The KLF to me but then I knew very little about dub music so I was probably way off. It was the lyrics though that I noticed most – their themes of intolerance and social divisions and the inability of mankind to empathise sound as relevant today as back then which doesn’t say much for the progress of society in the last 30 years. I say it was the lyrics I noticed most but you couldn’t fail to catch an eyeful of Lana Pellay (aka Lanah P aka Alan Pillay). Wow! Now Ru Paul’s Drag Race might well be seen as mainstream these days but back then, drag queens weren’t on your TV that often. I don’t think even Lily Savage had cut through to the masses by this point so Lana’s performance seemed to imbue the whole act with an element of outrageousness it seemed to me. It may have even outraged some viewers I guess.

However, Bruno Brookes seemed more taken with Clail himself as he referred to him as ‘Mr Cheeky Face’ at the end of the track. Well, I suppose he did have a glint in his eye that reminds me a bit of Robbie Williams . No? Maybe? Gary would have one further Top 40 hit in 1991 but has continued to release material as recently as 2014.

Oh please. Not again. Not another Eurodance mega mix single! After Technotronic and Black Box pulled off the same cheap stunt of releasing a single made up of all their other previous hits mixed together because…well just because they could, here were Snap! getting in on the act. Theirs was called “Mega Mix” – as opposed to Black Box’s “The Total Mix” and Technotronic’s “Megamix” – they were so imaginative with their titles weren’t they?

“Mega Mix” peaked No 10 which seems remarkable given all the tracks on it had all been Top 10 hits themselves in the last 12 months (including a No 1). How did people keep falling for this shit? Was it a club DJ thing? Thankfully, we won’t see Snap! for another 12 months or so but when they do return it will be as serious as cancer.

Finally, finally James are in the TOTP studio. After having three (albeit smallish)Top 40 hits in 1990 without being invited onto the show, the producers could ignore them no longer when the re-release of “Sit Down” went straight in at No 7. Originally released on Rough Trade in 1989 when it peaked at No 77, the band were convinced by new label Fontana to re-record it with Pixies producer Gil Norton and, propelled by a major marketing campaign (which even included appearing on Wogan before the single was released), it became a huge hit spending three weeks at No 2 behind Chesney Hawkes (sorry Chesney lad but there’s no defending that).

In a way, the song is the total antithesis of Gary Clail’s “Human Nature”, reassuring us that we are not all alone in the world with our worries and anxieties and to reach out (sorry, hate that phrase) to our fellow human beings and sit down next to each other to succour some comfort. When played live in Paris before it was released, the Mancunian element of the audience spontaneously sat down on the floor eventually triggering the whole 1000 strong crowd to do the same. This communal sitting down was repeated at a show at the G-Mex, Manchester in December 1990 thereby setting a trend tho be repeated at every show for the last 30 odd years. And yes, I’ve seen James live and sat down with them.

“Sit Down” success would pave the way for the band to become a huge mainstream success. The time of James had arrived.

It’s Scritti Politti and Shabba Ranks up next with their horrendous treatment of The Beatles song “She’s A Woman”. Having watched it back, quite what is it that Shabba Ranks adds to the record? There’s a mini rap breakdown towards the middle of it when he blathers on about ‘crazy music lovers’ or something but it only lasts a few seconds. Other than that he seems to be making some indecipherable noises in the background throughout -presumably he was extorting us to ‘wind it up’ or some other such nonsense.

I’ve always sided with Mark Lamarr when it comes to Shabba Ranks. Apart from his repulsive views, I’ve always viewed him as ridiculous for his tendency to shout out ‘Shabba’ in what felt like all his records which was beautifully lampooned in Phoenix Nights…

…Ray Von there who, like James before him, was also asking for people to “Sit Down”.

“She’s A Woman” peaked at No 20.

Now then, Bruno Brookes in a half way decent segue shock now as he finds a way to bridge the gap between Shabba Ranks and the next act Definition Of Sound. “Shabba Ranks who once said of himself I’m not a star I’m a galaxy. There you are that’s the definition of self confidence…” I don’t need to join the dots for what comes next do I?

Definition Of Sound were Kevin Clark and Don Weekes although they went by the monikers of Kevwon and The Don. That’s Kevwon not Rayvon. As well as the single “Wear Your Love Like Heaven”, they also had an album out called “Love And Life: A Journey With The Chameleons” which was a bit confusing as there was also the Manchester band called The Chameleons. Anyway, I looked up the album on Amazon and saw some customer reviews of it. One was positively brimming with enthusiasm for it:

There is not one bad track on this excellent album. It sounds as fresh today as it did back in the early nineties and is a real feel good collection of songs.

There was also this courtesy of marinegirl who simply said:

Dreadful

Well, you can’t please everyone.

I’m guessing that the lucky number seven the chorus is linked in with the title of the track given its significance and the regular occurrence of it in the New Testament. There’s also some nicely squeezed in reference to drug taking in the lyrics:

Oi, I change my angle and my point
(Oooh) In fact it’s time to roll up a joint.. venture

There also seems to be a lot of talk about women and the pursuit of them and yet Kevwon told Smash Hits magazine that he was “as sexy as a wet stamp”. Well, if you’re a philatelist …wet stamps…just saying.

The start of the 90s had seen The Rolling Stones on the road with their Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour but recordings wise, they would not release an album of new material until 1994’s “Voodoo Lounge”. To fill the gap between that and 1989’s “Steel Wheels”, a live album of the tour was released. Entitled “Flashpoint”, it featured 15 live tracks and two new studio recordings one of which was the single “Highwire”. Supposedly written about the international arms trade and the events that led to the first US war with Iraq, I have no recollection of this at all but I don’t mind it actually but then I’m hardly a Stones aficionado. The song’s first line (“We sell them missiles, we sell them tanks, we give them credit, you can call up the bank”) was considered far too politically sensitive by the BBC and duly the video shown on TOTP begins with the second verse. However, it wasn’t on their list of banned songs presumably because it was released after the conflict had ended.

“Highwire” peaked at No 29.

He’s done it! Chesney Hawkes is No 1! Yes, Chesney mania is in full swing as people can’t seem to get enough of his “The One And Only” single. He’s back in the studio tonight with his band although, they’re not quite the same people that adorned all the covers of the pop press. By the end of its five week run at the top, the band line up had changed to include that guy who looked a bit like Lou Diamond Phillips on bass and the black guy on keyboards who gets very over excited during this performance had been replaced by a white dude. Also, the drummer has been changed so that it’s Chesney’s brother Jodie up there on the sticks.

Ah yes, Chesney’s drummer. I promised you a boring Chesney story last time and here it is. I was once in the same room as Chesney’s drummer! It was for an album playback event at a bar in Manchester (I think it was for Ricky Ross) and the record company rep had got a load of us from the Our Price store I was working in on the guest list. It was a free bar and a very messy do. I didn’t speak to Chesney’s brother though I did manage to grab a few words with Ricky. That’s it. Thats’ my Chesney story…

…ooh, and I’ve found another example to support my musical sibling rivalry theory that I posited at the start of the post. Whatever you might think about Chesney (and James fans clearly hate him) he was, is and will always remain more famous than his brother.

See, this post should really be over now what with that final bit of sibling theme tying it altogether nicely but sadly, there is still one ‘song’ left. The play out video is “Over To You John” by Jive Bunny. FOR F***’S SAKE! The end of March 1991 and these pillocks are still in the charts. Thankfully it is the last time we shall ever see them. Yes, it is finally all over.

“Over To You John” reminds me of the 1983 single by Pink Floyd called “Not Now John”. Thankfully, there isn’t a Jive Bunny style Pink Floyd mega mix. Or is there…..yikes!

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Dannii Minogue	Love And Kisses	Not likely
2	The Bee Gees	Secret Love	If I’d wanted Chain Reaction (which I didn’t), I’d have bought back in 1986
3	Gary Clail and O-Nu Sound System	Human Nature	No but I easily could have
4	Snap!	Mega Mix	Hell no
5	James	Sit Down	Not the single but I have their first Best Of album with it on
6	Scritti Politti and Shabba Ranks	She’s A Woman	Horrendous stuff – no
7	Definition Of Sound	Wear Your Love Like Heaven	No but I think I downloaded it off iTunes years later
8	The Rolling Stones	Highwire	Nah
9	Chesney Hawkes	The One And Only	Nope
10	Jive Bunny	Over To You John	Now please f**k off John and never come back

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/m000xh7c/top-of-the-pops-28031991

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 17 JUL 1998

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TOTP 07 MAR 1997

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TOTP 28 FEB 1997

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TOTP 31 MAR 1994

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TOTP 23 DEC 1993

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TOTP 09 DEC 1993

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TOTP 02 DEC 1993

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TOTP 19 AUG 1993

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TOTP 29 JUL 1993

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TOTP 28 MAR 1991

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