Boyzone | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 04 JAN 1996

Posted on May 6, 2024 by 80stastic

Here we go again…it’s another new year of BBC4 TOTP repeats which means a whole lot more blogging for yours truly. This is my eighth year (real time) of doing this and my fourteenth TOTP year that I’ll have reviewed. “Why?” is probably the question you’re about to ask and it’s one I have posed to myself many a time. I nearly gave it up after finishing the first TOTP year (1983) as it was taking so much time but I didn’t and so resolved to finish the decade. Then another big decision – do I carry on with the 90s repeats? I resolved to at least give it a go as it coincided with my time of working in record shops so I thought that would be a good tie-in and also the provider of potential material for the posts. My personal circumstances changed around this point also which meant that I had more time to devote to it and now I can see the end in sight. Once the 90s repeats are done (assuming we all get that far) I’ll stop. I left record shops behind in 2000 so it seems reasonable to end it all there. By my reckoning, that will be in roughly two years (real) time.

For now though, it’s back to early January 1996. As the singles chart is fairly slow moving and congested after the Christmas sales period, of the nine hits featured on tonight’s show, we’ve seen five of them before. We start with one of those from The Outhere Brothers with Molella and their single “If You Wanna Party”. I have zero left to say about this pair of pillocks and I’m really hoping this is the last time we have to see them on the show. Their discography says they had one more hit after this called “Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole Ole” which made No 18 in 1997. Well, even if this isn’t their last time on the show that’s at least a year off from the chance of them appearing again. Their very last single was a little ditty called “Ae-Ah” which sounds like the noise I make when I bend down these days.

You never hear Dubstar mentioned when conversation turns to Britpop artists do you? That’s maybe because they weren’t really part of that movement although that didn’t stop us adding them to the Britpop display on an end panel in the Our Price I worked in. “Not So Manic Now” was their third single and then biggest hit before it was trumped by a rerelease of debut single “Stars” in the wake of its success. I quite liked both tracks – they were kind of like a poppier version of Portishead and Sarah Blackwood’s fragrant vocals have an aroma of Kirsty MacColl listening back to them now, a connection I didn’t make at the time. Parent album “Disgraceful” had Robert Steel’s memorable ‘pencil case vulva’ artwork on its cover which certainly made it stand out though the album never quite achieved the sales its singles hinted at when it peaked at No 30. I had no idea until researching this post that “Not So Manic Now” was actually a cover version having been recorded by local Castleford band Brick Supply. Want to hear it? Yeah me too…

…wow! I think I actually prefer that original version. The sort of thing I would have lapped up in the 80s had I been aware of it. If you look online, there is some debate as to what the song is about with some very grim scenarios put forward so I think I prefer to think of it like my mate Robin who would use the song’s title to describe the canon of the Manic Street Preachers material post the disappearance of Richie Edwards.

Two back to back hits we’ve seen before now beginning with “Oh Father” by Madonna. As with every Madonna song, there is reams of stuff written about this online though for myself, having reviewed it once, I’m not inspired to say much more about it. I sometimes think with these prolific artists like Madge and Prince, if you record so much material, it can’t all be good can it? Scanning through her singles discography for example, are the likes of “Gambler”, “Who’s That Girl” or “Hanky Panky” really that great? Sure, she’s made some wonderful pop records over the decades but there has to be the odd duffer in there occasionally surely? For what it’s worth, I don’t think “Oh Father” is one of them though it is rather a ‘lost’ Madonna single which you rarely hear played on the radio.

So by my reckoning, this is the fourth time that Boyzone have been on the show performing “Father And Son” including one from months earlier when they featured in the ‘Album Chart’ slot. That seems like an awful lot of times – when Ronan says to the studio audience mid song “Boyzone back on Top of the Pops” he wasn’t wrong was he? He probably should have added the words “yet again” though. This is clearly just a reshowing of one of those four appearances – you can tell because Roman’s got his hair gelled in spikes but he has it flattened in one of the later performances.

The song has longevity in other ways as well. It was originally a hit for Cat Stevens in 1970 then, of course, Boyzone twenty-five years later. In 2004, the two joined forces with Ronan Keating doing a virtual duet with Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam) which also rose to No 2 with the profits going to the Band Aid Trust. Then, sixteen years on from that, Yusuf put together a duet of the song with himself using his original 1970 vocals for the ‘son’ part and recording his 2020 self voice for the role of the ‘father’. Johnny Cash also recorded two versions of the track, once in 1974 and a version also turned up on his posthumous 2003 album “Unearthed” as a duet with Fiona Apple. Just for good measure, psychedelic rockers the Flaming Lips got involved in the song’s story when their track “Fight Test” was deemed in a lawsuit to be so similar to “Father And Son” that 75% of any royalties from it have to go to Yusuf Islam.

I thought I didn’t know this next song – “Lump” by the Presidents Of The United States Of America – but as soon as I heard it, everything came rushing back. My lack of memory isn’t easy to understand given the song’s hook is pretty basic. Maybe I just haven’t heard it agin in the intervening 28 years since it was in the charts. I’m guessing it doesn’t get that much radio play. If you do hear the band on the airwaves these days, it’s probably their biggest hit “Peaches” anyway. To my utter surprise, their discography tells me that they had two other Top 40 entries in the UK singles chart. Maybe I’d remember them too if I heard them but I really can’t be arsed to put that theory to the test. There is however one other song that they did that I do recall and guess what? It’s a cover version of a huge song. No wonder I remember it. In 1998, Presidents Of The United States Of America recorded their take on the iconic song “Video Killed The Radio Star” by British synth pop band the Buggles which I only knew because it featured in the Adam Sandler film The Wedding Singer as it wasn’t a hit peaking at No 52 here. I quite enjoyed their version actually when I would have thought it was impossible to hold a torch to the Buggles so kudos to them.

Anyway, back to “Lump” and its garage rock channelling, unsophisticated sound was a welcome presence in the charts as an antidote to all those over processed, homogenised Eurodance tunes and, some might say, a decent alternative to the ever pervasive Britpop movement. As for that band name, I’m guessing they chose it so they could be introduced on stage at gigs with “Ladies and gentlemen…the Presidents Of The United States Of America”.

Whatever the truth was behind the departure of Louise Nurding (as was) from Eternal, as with Robbie Williams exit from Take That, it didn’t look like losing a high profile member was going to derail the group; at least initially anyway. Second album “Power Of A Woman” sold two million copies worldwide (although that was half the amount of debut “Always And Forever”) and furnished the reconfigured trio with four Top 10 hits the second of which was “I Am Blessed”. Presumably, this huge ballad was released with the Christmas market in mind though looking at its chart run, something somewhere didn’t quite go to plan. Debuting at No 14 two weeks before Christmas, the chances of it sweeping all others before it to become the festive chart topper looked remote at best. A two place move the following week and then a one place drop the week after would suggest that maybe the marketing or promotion of the single was off. Did it get swallowed up in the Christmas glut of competing releases? And then, curiously, an upturn with three consecutive weeks of chart climbs saw it break into the Top 10 finally coming to a halt at a high of No 7. It just doesn’t seem like the record performed how it would have been expected to by the group’s label.

Maybe that rise up the charts had something to do with, if not divine intervention, then at least papal influence as the trio did indeed (as referenced by host Nicky Campbell) perform “I Am Blessed” for then Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. Rather than being a gospel number though, it sounds like the type of power ballad that could have sat comfortably withinthe track listing of the soundtrack to The Bodyguard with Easther Bennett doing her best Whitney Houston impression. There was, however, a bona fide gospel number as an extra track on the CD single with the trio taking on “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. As if performing for the Pope wasn’t enough, Eternal were still a year or so away from the band’s commercial high point of achieving a No 1 single with “I Wanna Be The Only One”. Hallelujah!

Again? Seriously? As good as song as it is, this must be about the fifth time that Everything But The Girl have been on the show performing “Missing”. What else can I say about this song? Well, nothing really but then there is more to Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt than this track. I guess like most people, I first came across the duo in 1984 when “Each And Every One” made No 28 on the UK Top 40. From then, I kind of lost sight of them until 1986 and the wonderful “Come On Home” single. It was taken from the album “Baby, The Stats Shine Bright” which my wife loved and is one of the records that I always associate with first meeting her when we were both 18. A couple more albums followed including “Idlewild” which housed their then biggest hit single, that Rod Stewart cover, which took them to No 3 but which I was never that fond of. They put that right though with their sumptuous “Covers EP” in 1992. “Amplified Heart” arrived in 1994 with the original version of “Missing” before that Todd Terry remix changed everything.

In amongst all of this, Ben would suffer the potentially fatal and certainly life changing Churg-Strauss syndrome, an autoimmune condition that resulted in him having 5m of necrotised small intestine removed. In 1997, Ben wrote a book called Patient about his experience and I was lucky enough to catch him talking about it during a personal appearance at Waterstones on Deansgate, Manchester as part of the book tour to support its publication. It really is a remarkable story and I urge anyone to read the book if you come across it – it was out of print for a few years but was republished on the Bloomsbury imprint in 2014. There, that’s better than rehashing what I’ve already said about “Missing” because you know what? I don’t want to talk about it (ahem).

And here’s another song I don’t want to talk about – Michael Jackson is still No 1 with “Earth Song” but I’m going to skip this completely as in a few repeats time, we’ll be entering February, the month of the BRIT awards and that protest by Jarvis Cocker against Jacko’s performance of this track at them. Consider my powder kept dry…

Nicky Campbell! What are you doing man?! Whose idea was this to get him to pose naked with just a guitar to cover his modesty?! Do you think he is actually nude? I didn’t want to look too closely to investigate further. He could be as I’m pretty sure that bit was recorded on a closed set – there’s no sign of any studio audience in shot. The apparent reason for the…what should we call this?…’sketch’ (?) is because the video for the new George Michael single was rumoured to feature some nudity but didn’t so Campbell added some of his own. A likely story.

What is true is that this was the first self penned single by George in nearly four years so it was kind of a big deal. On top of that, it was the first new material with new record label Virgin since leaving his contract with Sony Music after a protracted legal battle. “Jesus To A Child” was the lead single from George’s third studio album “Older”. It would be a huge commercial success – No 1 in the UK, the fifth best selling album here of 1996 (eventually going six times platinum) and giving George six hit singles all of which went Top 3 or higher; this was the first time this had ever been achieved in this country. The front cover of the album features a simple close up of George’s face half covered in shadow. He’d changed his look significantly since we’d last seen him in public (his performance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert?). The bouncy hair and designer stubble had been replaced by a buzz cut and sculpted facial hair which puts me in mind somehow of Mr. Claypole (if you know, you know). I’m sure there was a story at the time about how the initial designs for the artwork for the album had been stolen and turned up in somebody’s dustbin or something but maybe I’m mistaken.

As for “Jesus To A Child”, it was a deeply personal song written about the death of George’s partner Anselmo Feleppa who’d died from an AIDS related brain haemorrhage in 1993 (Michael was not yet out about his sexuality but he retrospectively went on record saying the clues were there for those who were listening). In many respects it was a brave sound to come out with as your first new material for years. A brooding, sombre mature ballad that was completely at odds with a musical landscape of Britpop and dance tunes. It was definitely more aligned to “Different Corner” than “Too Funky”. The UK record buying public reacted positively to it though; so positively that it went straight to No 1 albeit for a solitary week. My main memory of this song though is being asked by a punter in the Our Price store I was working in what the new George Michael single was called. I must have been distracted that day as I came back with the answer “Jesus To A Lizard” mixing up George with US hardcore rockers The Jesus Lizard. I felt as embarrassed as Nicky Campbell should have been.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Outhere Brothers with Molella	If You Wanna Party	I do, I do…but not with you two berks – NO!
2	Dubstar	Not So Manic Now	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Madonna	Oh Father	No
4	Boyzone	Father And Son	Nah
5	Presidents Of The United States Of America	Lump	It’s a no
6	Eternal	I Am Blessed	Negative
7	Everything But The Girl	Missing	No but I must have it on something surely?
8	Michael Jackson	Earth Song	Team Jarvis all the way! That’s a no by the way
9	George Michael	Jesus To A Child	Nope

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/m001yty5/top-of-the-pops-04011996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 DEC 1995

Posted on April 23, 2024 by 80stastic

As the 7th December show wasn’t repeated on BBC4 due to the issue of it being hosted by Gary Glitter, we’ve jumped a week and find that this week’s presenter is someone we hadn’t seen in that role for nearly nine years! John Peel was last seen on TOTP in February 1987 so why was he suddenly back on our screens? The answer would be revealed at the end of the show when Peel is ambushed by Michael Aspel who informs him that he is the subject for an episode of This Is Your Life. Supposedly, the whole thing had been orchestrated by the BBC but it begs the question of why Peel himself thought he had been brought in from the cold for what would prove to be a one off return to the show. Didn’t he suspect something was afoot? After all, this was the era of the ‘golden mic’ slot – surely executive producer Ric Blaxill could have wheeled in a current celebrity or pop star for hosting duties over plucking Peel from the dusky corridors of late night Radio 1? Wouldn’t that have occurred to the experienced, seen-it-all Peely? Perhaps not as he seems genuinely surprised by the appearance of Aspel at the close of the show.

As for what John made of the artists he was presenting on this particular episode, well, I cant speak for him but, you know what, I’m going to have a go anyway. We start with Everything But The Girl and “Missing”. Is this the third time on the show for this one? Or maybe the fourth? This was bound to happen when a hit has the staying power that this one did. Fourteen consecutive weeks inside the Top 10? TOTP couldn’t ignore that sort of chart run.

Just as all roads seemed to lead to The Beatles at this time, there’s an element of The Fab Four to the story behind this song. The Beatles were turned down by record label Decca on New Year’s Day 1962 with manager Brian Epstein being told that guitar groups were on the way out – a year later Beatlemania broke out across the world. In 1995, after the original version of “Missing” had failed to become a hit, Ben and Tracey were let go by their UK record label Warner who told them that it was time to call it a day despite being played the Todd Terry mix of “Missing” and the track “Protection” that they’d worked on with Massive Attack. That remix would sell 1.2 million copies in the UK alone. Bloody record labels – what do they know?

Would John Peel have liked it? Surely he’d have liked this one

On account of us missing that Gary Glitter episode, I fear we’ll be served up the same songs that we saw in the last TOTP repeat. That certainly seems to be the case with “The Gift Of Christmas” by Childliners and what an unfortunate case it is. They’ve got the ‘galaxy of stars’ that was this charity collective into the studio again which presumably was a logistical nightmare so I’m surprised that the TOTP producers went for this option again. Just to prove my point, Michelle Gayle is front and centre in the line up this time – I’m sure she was missing the first time around. Boyzone, at least, were booked on the show in their own right to make the scheduling slightly easier. After seeing PJ/Ant had nicked his spiky hairstyle which he was sporting last time, Ronan Keating has completely flattened his locks for this appearance slightly giving him the look of a choirboy. I’ve no doubt that wannabe pop star ex-EastEnder Sean Maguire didn’t need asking twice to turn up given his desperation to traverse from the world of acting to the charts. Look at him jumping up and down at the end of the song trying to get into shot as our host does his next link. Had he no respect for himself nor Peel?

Would John Peel have liked it? He’d have had no truck with this rabble, charity record or not

This is definitely a third time on the show for the video of “Free As A Bird” by The Beatles. Obviously the video had to be the promotional tool for this single. There was no way that Paul, George and Ringo were going to rock up to the TOTP studio and perform the song with – what? – an image of John projected onto a screen behind them and Jeff Lynne lurking about in the background? Never happening and would we have wanted that anyway? I’m not sure. Having said that, such an appearance might have upped the single’s sales enough to overtake Michael Jackson and make it the Christmas No 1. Talking of which, I’m sure that “Free As A Bird” would have been the favourite for the festive chart topper crown as soon as news of its release came out. However, as the chart announcement neared, predictably Boyzone were in the hunt with Björk being seen as the ‘out of left field’ decent each way bet. The Beatles’ chances were further undermined by the late emergence of the perhaps even more left field The Mike Flowers Pops and their version of “Wonderwall” (more of whom later).

Perhaps they were also hampered by the fact that once people had heard “Free As A Bird”, they realised that it wasn’t all that after all. Sure, the huge fan base were always going to buy it and those intrigued by its status as a piece of pop history maybe bought it for that reason and not what it sounded like but it was never going to sustain as a classic track. An appearance by the then remaining Beatles on TOTP twenty-five years after splitting? That really would have been a moment in cultural history.

Would John Peel have liked it? Tricky one this. He was born on the Wirral and was famously a massive fan of Liverpool FC so he must have felt a connection to The Beatles. Indeed, during his early career in the States, he was hired by Dallas radio station KLIF as their official Beatles correspondent. However, would he have liked this particular track. I doubt it.

After achieving their first and so far only No 1 single with their last release “Fairground”, Simply Red must surely have expected a bigger hit than this follow up – “Remembering The First Time” – gave them when it peaked at No 22. Or would they have? Mick Hucknall and co were always more of an album band when it came to shifting units. Of their twenty single releases before “Fairground”, only four of them made the Top 10 with seven not piercing the Top 40 at all. When it came to albums though, well, just look at these numbers;

Album	Released	Chart peak	UK sales
Picture Book	1985	No 2	5 x platinum
Men And Women	1987	No 2	3 x platinum
A New Flame	1989	No 1	7 x platinum
Stars	1991	No 1	12 x platinum
Life	1995	No 1	5 x platinum

I have to say I don’t recall this one at all but then it is almost instantly forgettable though its lyrics should live long in the memory for all the wrong reasons.

Sitting here looking at the table, it’s just like a photograph, there’s you and me, fruit, drink, good food

All the things we did, the things we did, from the shower we took to the very first look

Words and music Mick Hucknall
EMI Music Publishing Ltd/So What Ltd

Ugh! The notion of Hucknall in the shower should never be articulated! Then there’s the chorus which ends with Mick singing “diddly dip, diddly dip” which sounds like the musical equivalent of The Flowerpot Men’s catchphrase “Flobabdob” which is in no way any sort of endorsement. In short, this was a bit of a stinker. Maybe that shower was desperately needed.

Would John Peel have liked it? No way! No way did Peel like Simply Red. He confirms this in his undoubted piss take comments after the performance about how Hucknall is the master of melody and that he can’t get enough of him.

1995 gave us a whole pan full of shit music and in many varieties of stool but surely none stank the charts out more than The Outhere Brothers. These two arses somehow wiped up two No 1s in “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” and “Boom Boom Boom” and a further Top 10 hit with “La La La Hey Hey”. They rounded off the year by joining forces with Molella on “If You Wanna Party”. Who was/is Molella? An Italian DJ and producer of course (weren’t they all?) who, judging by his Discogs entry, has worked with a load of names from the world of dance that I’ve never heard of. Would his input make any difference to The Outhere Brothers’ sound? No chance. This was more of their usual call and response bullshit – the musical equivalent of “Oggy Oggy Oggy, Oi Oi Oi!”. Their hits were more like ringtones than songs. Thankfully, they will only have one more UK chart hit after this – 1997’s “Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole Olé’” – with their final single being a remix of their debut release, a rather aptly titled little ditty called “Pass The Toilet Paper”.

Would John Peel have liked it? Bollocks he would!

It’s the aforementioned Ronan Keating and his Boyzone mates now as they’re back in the studio once more to perform their version of “Father And Son”. I think I’m right to give Ronan top billing as it really does feel like the rest of them are his backing band on this one, ‘oohing and aahing’ away behind him. As per his previous two appearances, Ronan takes it upon himself to address the studio audience mid song to big up the band, this time with a “we’ve had a great year” comment. I suppose they had; a No 1, triple platinum selling album and four huge hit singles, they were positioning themselves as the natural successor to Take That even though the lads from Manchester were still a going concern despite having very publicly lost a member. Maybe Boyzone or their management had some insider knowledge – literally just two months after this TOTP aired, almost to the day, Gary Barlow uttered these infamous words at a press conference “Unfortunately the rumours are true…from today there is no more”.

“Father And Son” would sell 600,000 copies in the UK peaking at No 2 and Ronan would revisit the song in 2004, recording a virtual duet with Cat Stevens to promote his solo Best Of album “10 Years Of Hits” and matching the chart position he achieved with Boyzone.

Would John Peel have liked it? The Cat Stevens original? Possibly. The Boyzone cover? I don’t think so

It’s another of those songs that had a long chart life next. Everything But The Girl, Boyzone and now Björk racked up a total of 32 weeks inside the Top 10 between the three hits on this show tonight – that’s well over half a year! I’m guessing that these singles experienced longevity of sales beyond what would normally be expected because of the time of year they they happened to be in the shops. The Christmas retail period would usually artificially inflate sales as members of the public, who wouldn’t normally frequent their local record emporium, would make an annual pilgrimage with shopping lists in hand. Even so, there was clearly something about these records that made them crossover into the mainstream consciousness. Boyzone’s single was always going to be a big hit I suppose but Everything But The Girl and Björk’s offerings were less obviously huge sellers.

In the case of “It’s Oh So Quiet”, I think the fact that it was a song from the 50s and had a big band backing helped it to appeal to an older audience despite Björk’s rather unique vocal stylings. The staging of the performance here works really well I think with the brass section hit by spotlights every time they burst into life and Björk cavorting about like a mischievous Nordic pixie sprinkled in fairy dust.

Would John Peel have liked it? Oh I reckon so don’t you?

And so to that late entrant to the race to be Christmas No 1. A complete outsider coming up on the rail from nowhere, with what was considered by many to be a novelty hit are The Mike Flowers Pops with their rendition of “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Despite working in a record shop at the time, I had no idea who this lot were or where they had come from but their backstory was that they’d been on the live circuit since 1993 and were seen by the producer of Radio 1 DJ Kevin Greening’s show who asked them to record easy listening versions of chart songs for a section called ‘Hits of 95’. “Wonderwall” was the first one they did and it was picked up by Chris Evans who told listeners of his breakfast show that it was the original version of the song. What larks! I heard a story that someone at Creation got spooked and rang Noel Gallagher to ask him if he was absolutely sure that he’d written “Wonderwall” and that he hadn’t just copied an obscure easy listening track because someone had discovered it and found Noel out! I didn’t listen to Kevin Greening’s show so just thought this was a case of someone finding a new angle to cash in on the success of Oasis*

*Tribute band No Way Sis would do a similar thing but in reverse when they bagged a chart hit in 1996 by releasing a version of easy listening classic “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” by The New Seekers in the style of Oasis.

To me, The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” was entertaining the first time you heard it and maybe a couple more after that but I couldn’t really understand why it turned out to be such a big hit going all the way to No 2. Maybe it was just that Christmas factor again. My wife liked it enough to go and see them live at the Manchester Academy though and enjoyed the evening. With their profile raised, the band would play at much bigger venues and were in demand for a while. Two more minor Top 40 hits followed in the new year but they will surely be defined by “Wonderwall”.

By the way, that Christmas Day TOTP that John Peel mentioned was shown on BBC4 in 2020 and in that repeat, they announced The Mike Flowers Pops as the festive chart topper. How so? Apparently, they’d recorded two chart rundowns as the Christmas chart wasn’t announced until December 24th and so they wouldn’t have known at the time of recording who was No 1. Somehow when they aired the repeat, they showed the wrong version with Michael Jackson not in pole position. Well, it was the Christmas of COVID so we were all a bit stressed out to be fair.

Would John Peel have liked it? I think he would have got on board with it at least initially anyway.

And so to the aforementioned Michael Jackson who is at No 1 and will stay there for Christmas with “Earth Song”. In total, it would spend six weeks stop the UK singles chart going on to sell over a million copies here. I have to say that I’m surprised it was such a success – it has always sounded so overwrought and the wrong side of melodramatic to me (and Jarvis Cocker too we would go into find out at the 1996 BRIT Awards but that’s all for a future post).

Would John Peel have liked it? No way. Peel stood with Jarvis on this one I reckon.

As John Peel does his sign off at the end of the show, Michael Aspel appears like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn at his side and does the whole This Is Your Life thing. Brilliantly, the sardonic Peel says that he was “rather looking forward to going home actually Michael”. Unbelievably, he’ll have been gone 20 years this October.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Everything But The Girl	Missing	No but I must have it on something surely?
2	Childliners	The Gift Of Christmas	Not even for charity
3	The Beatles	Free As A Bird	Nah
4	Simply Red	Remembering The First Time	I did not
5	The Outhere Brothers / Molella	If You Wanna Party	Not with you guys thank you – bo
6	Boyzone	Father And Son	No
7	Björk	It’s Oh So Quiet	Negative
8	The Mike Flowers Pops	Wonderwall	Nope
9	Michael Jackson	Earth Song	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/m001xz4g/top-of-the-pops-14121995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 23 NOV 1995

Posted on April 10, 2024 by 80stastic

It’s all about ‘new’ songs on this episode of TOTP. To clarify, I mean songs we haven’t seen on these BBC4 repeats before (obviously). Of the ten hits on the show, only three have featured previously and of the new songs, one is a very big deal indeed. Yes, late November back in ‘95 was a very special time if you were a Beatles fan. Not only was there a single being released of new material under the name of The Beatles for the first time since 1970, not only had the compilation album “Anthology I” just been released containing rarities, outtakes and live performances from the period 1958-64 but the first episode of the documentary series The Beatles Anthology was about to air the Sunday after this TOTP was broadcast. We’ll see the video for the single at the end of the show. Before then though, there’s lots to get through so let’s get into it.

By the way, this week’s host is Nicky Campbell who seems to have toned down his barely concealed spite for everyone and everything on the show since returning to presenting duties after the ‘year zero’ experiment was officially shut down. He seems much more affable and blissed out as is shown by his intro to the opening act which is M People with their version of “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces. By any measure, this didn’t seem like a good idea and indeed it wasn’t. ‘Why?’ is the word that springs to mind. Well, it all seems rather cynical when you look into it. Having bled five times platinum selling album “Bizarre Fruit” dry and with no new material on the horizon (next studio album “Fresco” wouldn’t be released until 1997), presumably someone at record label Deconstruction looked at the onrushing festive ‘95 sales period and thought “Hang on, we haven’t got a new M People album out for the punters to buy for Christmas. What are we going to do?”. The solution was to repackage “Bizarre Fruit”, tweak the track listing slightly, bundle it up with an extra disc of remixes and live versions and sell it to those same punters who had bought the original album just twelve months previously. On reflection, it seems fairly shameful though I don’t recall being outraged at the time.

To promote the misleadingly titled “Bizarre Fruit II”, a new track was required as its lead single. Enter the band’s version of “Itchycoo Patk”. It seems to me that some songs should just be left alone period. This is one of them. A No 3 hit for Small Faces in the Summer of Love that was 1967, its sound and groove (both enhanced by the then cutting edge technology of flanging) made for a perfect time piece of the period. I, for one, did not think the world needed another take on it and certainly not M People’s. It just doesn’t suit Heather Small’s powerhouse voice and the mid 90s production on it sounds so clunky now. I’m wondering if it’s chart high of No 11 was a slight disappointment to the band and label. Eight of their previous nine hits had gone Top 10 (only “Love Rendezvous”, the final single from the original “Bizarre Fruit” album spoilt that run). Though there were more hit singles and albums to come before they split (initially) in 1999, for me, “Itchycoo Park” was a line in the sand that signified the end of M People’s imperial phase.

After looking as though they might be seen as hoary old rockers who should have been locked in a cupboard labelled ‘The 80s’ as the new decade began, Bon Jovi had so successfully remodelled themselves that by 1995, especially in the UK, they were flying. On the back of that success, they had (ahem) flown into the UK to do a studio performance for TOTP of their new single “Lie To Me”. The third single from their 10 million selling album “These Days”, it would be the band’s seventh of eight Top 10 hits on the spin in the UK at this time. I have to stay that I don’t remember this one at all but listening to it now, it seems in keeping with this era of the band’s sound. They’d dialled back on the bombast and bluster of those stadium anthems that characterised their ‘poodle rock’ phase and gone with a more, toned down reflective type of rock ballad. Not bad but not destined to be one of their most well known tunes to the uncommitted or casual fan. The studio audience seem genuinely excited about the band (or more specifically Jon Bon Jovi) being before them in person or is it the work of a floor manager prompting the crowd with a sign with the words ‘scream now’ on it?

As highlighted by Nicky Campbell, five of tonight’s ten acts have names that begin with ‘B’. Four of them debut inside the Top 10 with The Beatles not joining that group only because their single wasn’t yet released. So, after Bon Jovi, we now get Blur who are attempting to follow up that No 1 with the second single from their album “The Great Escape”. Ultimately they would fail with “The Universal” getting no higher than its position here of No 5. It’s such a better song than its predecessor though. A wondrous, sweeping, panoramic track that showcased a maturity to the band that was sadly nowhere to be heard (or seen in the case of the respective videos) on “Country House”. It really is quite stunning. Ah yes, the video. Clearly an homage to A Clockwork Orange with the band styled as Droogs, Damon Albarn looks positively unsettling with his Alex DeLarge eyeliner.

It’s worth noting that, in the aftermath of The Battle of Britpop, Oasis, despite moving down the chart from No 2 to No 3 with “Wonderwall”, they were still outselling the Blur single. Also worth noting, just for its complete randomness, is that the golf ball speaker featured in the video for “The Universal” was bought at a charity auction by ex-footballer and now pundit Garth Crooks! What?! I mean, if it had been country singer Garth Brooks it might have made some sense but Garth Crooks?!

Nicky Campbell is totting up the Beatles references in his segues. We’ve already had “The Long And Winding Road” and now we get the use of the word ‘anthology’ when he jokingly predicts that Blur will have their own such collection out in 25 years time. Obviously, none of us knew then how long Blur would go on for back then but I don’t suppose many would have believed that they would be an ongoing entity to this day albeit with some lengthy sabbaticals in amongst their timeline. Campbell’s comment made me wonder if such a Blur product existed so I checked. There’s nothing called an ‘anthology’ but there are a couple of box sets – one is called (in a rather linear way) “The 10 Year Limited Edition Anniversary Box Set” which collected all the singles (plus extra tracks) from their first six studio albums. The second is “Blur 21” released in 2012 commemorating 21 years since the release of debut album “Leisure” and including everything the band had recorded to that point including a disc of bonus material for each album plus three DVDs, a book and a 7” single from when the band went by the name of Seymour. Although neither box set was released in 2020 (the 25 years mark pinpointed by Campbell), their existence does rather piss all over the intended humour of his remark.

Everything But The Girl have made it to No 3 in the charts equalling their biggest ever hit, their cover of “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” in 1988. However, “Missing” would prove to be much more enduring. Fourteen weeks on the Top 10 and nineteen inside the Top 40 and selling over a million copies in the UK. I think it’s only right that (presumably) “Missing” is the duo’s most well known song and not a bloody Rod Stewart cover (though they wear it well) as that would seem to be a complete misnomer as a calling card for them.

I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as a superfan but I’ve always felt an affinity for Everything But The Girl what with Ben and Tracey meeting and forming the band at university in Hull – my wife is from Hull and I have lived there for twenty years now. I also used to work at the university and suggested Tracey as being a suitable person to officially open the refurbished library building in 2015 but they went with then poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy (who was very good in fairness).

Just as they scored their first UK hit single with a ballad from the 70s at Christmas time, Boyzone repeated the trick just twelve months later but for The Osmonds read Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf). Like “Missing” before it, “Father And Son” would prove to very chart durable spending a solid ten weeks in the Top 10 including three at No 2. It was certainly a contender for the Christmas No 1 before ultimately losing out to Jacko. They would finally get that first UK chart topper the following year with, you guessed it, another cover; this time of the Bee Gees classic “Words”.

This appearance is all about Ronan Keating as it was the last time they were on the BBC show performing “Father And Son”. What’s that you say? They’ve done this one on TOTP before? Yes, yes they have. How is this possible when this is the single’s first week in the Top 40? Ah well, they were on about three months back when Dale Winton hosted the show and they sneaked onto the running order via the album chart slot to promote their debut long player “Said And Done”. Back then, Ronan broke away from his singing mid performance to say to the audience “Boyzone live on Top of the Pops…ah”. He does the same thing during this second visit to the studio but this time says “Boyzone back on Top of the Pops…” and then cackles to himself. Was this really necessary? Weren’t they an established pop act by this point. Surely Keating didn’t need another ‘pinch himself moment’ as if to say “How did I get here?”. It was hardly Bob Geldof stopping in his tracks at Live Aid when singing the line “and the lesson today is how to die…” and then repeating that moment 20 years later at Live 8 was it?! Unlike their first appearance performing “Father And Son” when the group were all sat down on stools, they’re stood up this time. Not sure if this is significant but clearly a young version of Westlife sat at home watching preferred the stools version.

Back to Ronan though, and this was the time when he started doing something odd with his hair with it styled into punk-like spikes almost. Most peculiar. I think this might have also been the song that caused some of my Our Price colleagues to start doing Keating impressions by hitting themselves repeatedly in the throat with the sides of their hands to create his distinctive tremble. I think it was a technique also used for Belinda Carlisle impersonations. Work days must have been very long back then.

Now to one of the most poignant songs of the year and tragically its subject matter of the absurdity of war is still as prevalent and relevant today. The Siege of Sarajevo, as part of the Bosnian War following the break up of Yugoslavia, would last 1,425 days, the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. The heavy shelling of the city would lead to mass killings of civilians and a life of suffering and fear for those who lived with no access to transport, water, gas or electricity. American journalist Bill Carter travelled to Sarajevo in 1993 to help the humanitarian aid effort and having seen the cost of the conflict to human life and feeling that western media were ignoring the war, contacted U2 who arranged satellite link ups on their Zoo TV Tour to give a platform to the population of Sarajevo to the outside world. This relationship led to Bono agreeing to direct a documentary made by Carter about life during the siege and a collaboration between U2, producer Brian Eno and Luciano Pavarotti that resulted in the track “Miss Sarajevo”.

Inspired by the story of a beauty pageant organised by Bosnian women as an act of defiance of the war, the surreal nature of the act spoke to Bono and inspired the writing of the song. Considered a side project by the band and so released under the pseudonym of Passengers, the song is undeniably affecting. Epic yet understated, quintessentially U2 but with a vocal by opera giant Luciano Pavarotti woven in seamlessly with not a trace of incongruity, it towered above just about everything else on the chart. In my humble opinion, this would have been a much more worthy Christmas No 1 than Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” in spite of the latter’s laudable green credentials. A simple ‘list’ style lyric structured around the question “Is there a time…?”, the stand out line was “A time for East 17”. I’m guessing that most of us on first hearing the song did a double take and asked ourselves “Did Bono just sing East 17?”. Now there was an incongruity in the song but I read it as Bono highlighting the contrast between the horrors of war happening under our noses but possibly being more aware of something as trivial as a pop band. I could be wrong of course.

The video we see here is a mixture of clips from Bill Carter’s documentary, the performance of the song at the traditional Pavarotti & Friends concert in Modena, Italy and images of the aforementioned beauty pageant described in the song. A superficial detail given the gravitas of the song is that The Edge performs without his usual headwear leaving it to Bono to uphold that particular tradition.

Another song now that looked like it had a shot at Christmas No 1 at one point and it came from the most unlikely source. Björk had made her name first as part of Icelandic indie band The Sugarcubes before going solo and releasing her eclectic debut album…erm…”Debut” to critical praise and substantial commercial popularity. Follow up album “Post” continued her pursuit of diversity with techno, trip hop, house and ambient dance genres all in the mix. However, the third single released from it, despite the smorgasbord of styles that was the album, still managed to surprise most of us. “It’s Oh So Quiet” – a cover of a 1951 tune originally recorded by American singer and actor Betty Hutton (whom was unknown to the majority of people including Nicky Campbell judging by his “No idea” facial expression in his intro) – was so out there as to almost seem like a novelty. Adding to the bonkers-ness of it all is this performance with the pantomime-esque costumed backing entourage.

None of this stopped it from crossing over into the mainstream causing people who’d never heard of Björk before to not just become aware of her but actively seek out her single to buy. Anyway, whatever it was about the extreme styles in the song – hushed, whispered tones and idiosyncratic little yelps and squeals give way to that huge big band chorus – “It’s Oh So Quiet” would become not just her highest charting and biggest selling single in the UK (it has been certified gold for 400,000 sales) but also her most well known. I wonder if that annoys Björk at all? If not, then maybe this…erm…tribute from Coronation Street actor Vicky Entwhistle from 2001 on Stars In Their Eyes does?

I’m guessing some thought went into the running order of this show as we go from one Nordic act to another with Swedish band Whale following the Icelandic avant-garde artist that is Björk. Yes, it’s a second trip to the TOTP studio for the “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” hitmakers which is not bad going for a single that only made No 15 in the charts. For this second performance, singer Cia Berg seems to have donned a platinum blonde wig since we last saw her. Maybe, inspired by Björk, she was channeling her inner Betty Hutton who had the image of what they used to describe I believe as a ‘blonde bombshell’ back in the day. There are other similarities with Björk like the quirky vocals and the over the top props of the band behind her (feather boas and Max Wall style wigs) but whereas her career as a recording artist is still ongoing today (her last album was 2022’s “Fossora”), Whale would be done by the end of the 90s.

The nation is still under the spell of Robson & Jerome whose “I Believe” single is No 1 for a third of four weeks. Doubling down on this inexplicable phenomenon, the British public also bought the duo’s album that was released this week in enough quantities to send that to No 1 as well. As the recently tragically departed Karl Wallinger once sang on the World Party hit “Is It Like Today?”, ‘How did it come to this?’

And so to the main event. As it’s The Beatles, despite being the play out video, we get nearly three minutes of “Free As A Bird” as opposed to the usual sixty seconds the closing song is quite often allocated. I guess the first thing to say about it is that it’s not very good is it? I wasn’t the only person who thought that; reviews were mixed to say the least. Most of the criticisms seemed to be about the fact that it sounded more like ELO or possibly The Travelling Wilburys than The Beatles but then it was produced by Jeff Lynne so what did people expect?

More of an issue for me was that it was a mechanical plodder devoid of any of the artistry and creativity that was prevalent in the Fab Four’s back catalogue. Based on a demo of a song John Lennon wrote in 1977 and donated to the ‘Anthology’ project by Yoko Ono, I wonder if he would have envisaged the studio recording turning out like this had he lived to see it finished? I understand that there was still a massive appetite amongst the fanbase for any new material but let’s be honest, it just didn’t stand up to any type of comparison. Put it this way, if you were on a blind date and the conversation turned to The Beatles and in answer to the question what’s your favourite song of theirs your date said “I think I’d have to say Free As A Bird”, you’d want to be sure that your tracker on your mobile phone was active, that’s all I’m saying. I think the definitive view on the track though comes from the record buying public. After weeks of press and buzz about the single (it wasn’t even released until the 4th December, eleven days after this TOTP aired), it was widely expected to go straight to No 1. After all, this was a first new single for twenty-five years by the biggest band the world has ever seen, something that perhaps we thought would never happen – how could it not top the charts? And yet it didn’t, entering the chart at No 2 but getting no further, it was unable to shift “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson from the throne. Ironically, Jackson had purchased the publishing rights to The Beatles catalogue ten years before.

As for the video that was made to promote the single, it was directed by Joe Pytka who, in another link to Michael Jackson, had already directed music videos for the King of Pop such as “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Dirty Diana” and “Heal The World”. The sepia tint gives it a grainy feel which I’m guessing was to tie it into the 60s? Apparently there are over 80 visual references to the band’s songs, lyrics and story inserted into the promo for Beatles fanatics to pore over. I would describe myself as a fan rather than a fanatic so when I saw the car crash scene, I thought it was a reference to Paul McCartney’s RTA in 1966 that was the basis for the whole ‘Paul Is Dead’ conspiracy theory but it actually relates to the lyrics of “A Day In The Life”. That song references the death of John and Paul’s friend Tara Browne who was heir to the Guinness fortune. Maybe putting in a ‘Paul Is Dead’ reference would have poured to much petrol on the fire of that particular rumour? Watching the video back now, it doesn’t have the same impact as it did back in 1995 but it still stands up I think.

A second single called “Real Love” also based on a Lennon home demo and taken from the “Anthology 2” album was released in 1996 peaking at No 4 in the UK before the final ever Beatles single – based on yet another Lennon 70s home demo called “Now And Then” – was released in November 2023 which though making it to No 1, seemed to be less well received even than “Free As A Bird”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	Itchycoo Park	Nope
2	Bon Jovi	Lie To Me	Nah
3	Blur	The Universal	No but I had The Great Escape album with it on
4	Everything But The Girl	Missing	No but I must have it on something surely?
5	Boyzone	Farther And Son	Never happening
6	Passengers	Miss Sarajevo	No but could /should have
7	Björk	It’s Oh So Quiet	No
8	Whale	Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Robson & Jerome	I Believe	As if
10	The Beatles	Free As A Bird	I did not

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/m001xqx8/top-of-the-pops-23111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 31 AUG 1995

Posted on February 15, 2024 by 80stastic

OK, so given the news about the passing of Steve Wright recently and that this blog is based around a show that he was synonymous with, I think I should spend a bit of time talking about the late DJ. First of all, I should own the fact that I haven’t always had the kindest words to say about Steve in these TOTP reviews. I didn’t always feel this way. Growing up as a rather cautious teenager and unsure of myself, I’d spend hours on my own listening to Radio 1 in the mid 80s. Steve Wright’s afternoon show was definitely a part of that and my still as yet undefined sense of humour latched on to the characters he created such as Dave Doubledecks and Mr Angry from Purley. Wright’s show was the boiling point in the day’s schedule which the previous programming had been steadily creeping towards on the entertainment thermometer. After Steve’s stint, the content would reflect a calmer tone via Peter Powell’s drive time show and then Janice Long in the evenings both of whom were clearly more about the music. I liked them all for different reasons.

Wright was a permanent presence for all of my youth – even after I’d stopped listening to him I knew he was still there if required. I have a distinct memory of being in the Sunderland Polytechnic library one day and overhearing a fellow student saying to his mate that he’d done enough studying for one day and was off home to listen to Steve Wright. Sure this was the pre-digital late 80s and there weren’t the multiple choices of entertainment available as there are in this day and age but I can’t imagine a student in 2024 being susceptible to the pull of appointment radio (if such a thing still exists). Steve Wright in the Afternoon (in its original incarnation) ran until 1993 at which point new station controller Matthew Bannister switched Wright unsuccessfully to the breakfast show slot. He left Radio 1 in 1995.

Steve started to lose his appeal for me during his time at Radio 2. I was coming to the end of my 20s when he joined and I guess I just couldn’t make him relevant to my life anymore. As we moved into the new millennium I found his Sunday Love Songs show repetitive and lazy – I think I even sent an email into the show expressing my views. I know! I clearly had too much time on my hands. Rightly, I didn’t receive a reply. My dissatisfaction carried on though, disproportionately. If I ever caught any of his daily Radio 2 show, it sounded to me like he was phoning it in, relying on and recycling his past glories. When I started writing this blog, I found fault in his appearances in the BBC 4 TOTP repeats (he hosted 56 times between 1980 and 1989) – he seemed all over the place and I outrageously suggested he might have spent too much time in the Green Room pre-recording. More likely he was just not as comfortable with being on TV – his talent and affinity was for the medium of radio. Given his profile and longevity of career, we might have expected him to crossover into television like Terry Wogan but as far as I can tell his only other on screen* excursion was the very short lived Steve Wright’s People Show that lasted four episodes in the mid 90s.

*He was the off screen narrator for TOTP2 for twelve years.

In the days following his death, the accolades from those that knew him told of how he forged the shape of UK radio by bringing the ‘zoo format’ to our shores. More than that though, he seemed like a genuinely lovely fella. BBC4 changed their TOTP repeats schedule to pay tribute to him by showing four** shows in which he featured as presenter. RIP Steve Wright.

** They included one which was originally missed from being repeated (the 13 December 1984 edition). I considered writing a review for that show but decided that it would ruin the chronology of my TOTP 80s blog and in any case, I’m too lazy.

With a twist of tragic coincidence, it so happens that in tonight’s ‘golden mic’ slot is someone who also died far too early. Dale Winton was just 62 when he died in 2018. I liked Dale. His Supermarket Sweep show was marvellously silly, knock about fun and his contempt for Lulu was always going to endear him to me. I also appreciate that despite being on a pop music show aimed at a youth audience, he’s still in his standard suit and tie apparel.

OK, so the first act tonight looks and sounds familiar and no wonder – this was a Top 40 hit just 10 months prior. Except…the artist name has been changed and not to protect the innocent either. Back in November 1994, “The Sunshine After The Rain” was a hit for the mouthful that was New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri and they even appeared on TOTP which means…I’ll have reviewed it in this blog. Wonder what I said?

*checks blog archive*

Well, that hasn’t helped much. I just wrote about how I was always confusing it with “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” by Zoë from earlier in the decade and guess what? I’m still suffering from that conflation even though I wrote a post detailing said conflation fairly recently. OK, for the second time, this is not that song but a dance cover of the song Elkie Brooks had a Top 10 hit with in 1977. Seventeen years later, a No 26 hit for the aforementioned New Atlantic/U4EA wasn’t deemed a big enough success and was reissued but just under the slimmed down banner of a solo Berri. Why? I dunno – did Berri sign to a different record label who wanted to repromote their new artist but with a tried and tested hit? I really can’t be bothered to do any more research than that which has revealed Berri’s real name of Rebecca Sleight so if you’re still wanting an answer, do your own Google searches.

Did the two releases sound any different from each other? Well, I’ve watched back both TOTP appearances so you don’t have to and can report back that they are both the bloody same! Berri has changed her image a bit in the intervening months so that she looks even more like a prototype Sophie Ellis Bextor but that’s about it. Both have that interpolation of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” as their backing and both have that annoying scratch effect around the line “I wanna” towards the end. Really, what was the point?! Well, obviously it was to sell some records and make some money and so it did going to No 4 and selling 200,000 copies in the UK. Berri would have one further hit and still performs on the UK festival circuit.

You know me, dance isn’t really my thing which probably explains why in the bpm obsessed mid-90s, lots of tunes that were hits passed me by despite the fact that I was working in a record shop at the time and so had more access to them than many. I thought “Hideaway” by De’Lacy would be another such track but I did actually remember this one once I’d watched this TOTP repeat back. A huge slice of US garage in the same vein as Robin S or Rosie Gaines, it topped the UK dance chart and peaked at No 9 in the Top 40. What I didn’t remember (if indeed I ever knew in the first place) was that De’Lacy wasn’t the singer (who was one Rainie Lassiter) but the name of the band like Toyah or Nena. De’Lacy was though named after one of the people in the band – De’Lacy Davis who was the percussionist.

As with many of these dance hits, there were multiple remixes of the track but the one that spearheaded the commercial release on deConstruction records was the Deep Dish radio edit. Apparently the label was miffed that a slew of imports via an Italian licensee hit specialist dance shops before the deConstruction imprint was available claiming that this impinged on the sales of their release. Rumour has it that they wanted those imports to be withdrawn from sale – that’s right; they wanted them hidden away. I’ll get me coat.

A record breaking track now. “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson was the first ever single to go straight in at No 1 in the US Billboard Hot 100. This seems incredible given that chart had been going since 1958 and also that this phenomenon was hardly a rare event in the UK. The Beatles did it in 1969 with “Get Back” whilst Slade took over the baton in the 70s with “Cum On Feel The Noize”. In 1982, The Jam achieved this feat with “Town Called Malice” and by the mid 90s, going straight in at No 1 was becoming de rigueur with the likes of Take That, Blur and Oasis all having done so. So why did it take so long in America? Not being a US charts expert, I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that the Billboard Hot 100 was a ratio of sales and airplay so maybe that had something to do with it? I’m sure someone out there will have a better explanation.

What I do know is that “You Are Not Alone” was also Jackson’s final US No 1 single and was taken from the “HIStory: Past, Present And Future Book 1” album. Although it was written by the now completely unpalatable R. Kelly who also sings backing vocals on it, the convicted sex offender was deemed far enough removed from the track for it not to need to be omitted from these BBC4 TOTP repeats.

Inevitably, the single was accompanied by a big budget video though the special effects in this one are toned down a bit compared to previous promos for the likes of “Black Or White” and “Scream”. There are however some sick inducing scenes with his then wife Lisa Marie Presley including the pair of them appearing semi nude against a temple backdrop. Their marriage ended the following year with Lisa Marie claiming coercive behaviour from Jackson and that he orchestrated their public appearances, the aforementioned scene in “You Are Not Alone” being just one example. As for the song itself, for me it’s one big, drippy ballad that’s so wet as to be unlistenable – its paucity of passion makes the song beyond redemption. Most of the UK failed to share my opinion once again and would ensure that our American cousins were (ahem) not alone in their love of the track by also sending it to No 1.

With the passing of Matthew Perry last year (what is it with this post and celebrity deaths?), the Friends story was ultimately put to bed. I really can’t imagine that there would be any appetite amongst fans or the cast for a revisiting of the show without Chandler. Back in 1995 though, the US sitcom was in its infancy. It premiered in the US in September 1994 but wasn’t broadcast in the UK until April the following year after Channel 4, who had a good track record for bringing American sitcoms to our shores, bought up the rights. Airing at 9.30 on a Friday evening, my wife was an early adopter and soon had me watching as well. By the end of its first season run on Channel 4 in September 1995, it was a resounding success. Inevitably, there was demand for the catchy theme tune that accompanied the credits. The tale behind “I’ll Be There For You” is a remarkably short one in reality though it wasn’t the original choice of song by the studio Warner Bros. Television. Look at this…

When REM turned down the request to use their song, the studio turned to the only band who were signed to Warner Bros. Records Inc. (the music division of the studio). Danny Wilde and Phil Solem, who had been in bands together since 1981 and had scored a decent sized hit as The Rembrandts in 1990 with “Just The Way It Is, Baby”, had achieved little commercial success thereafter. However, Friends producer Kevin S. Bright hadn’t forgotten the band and called their manager with a view to them recording the theme tune. Within a week of an initial meeting the song was written, laid down in the studio and airing on US television as Friends launched on 22nd September 1994.

Initially unavailable in America as a single (the band only recorded a one minute version of the song specifically for the credits), a Nashville DJ made a loop of that version thereby extending its length to three minutes and played it continuously. The clamour for a full length version caused the band to re-record it and it finally got a full release.

As with Deep Blue Something who would claim a UK No 1 with “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” in 1996, I don’t think the performance here by the band actually aids the record that much. They’re fairly unmemorable (sorry guys). Wasn’t there a video which included the cast members made that could have been shown instead?

*checks YouTube*

Yes, here it is…although…was this made in 1995 or was it put together for the 1997 rerelease. Yes, as Friends became a global phenomenon, the merchandising for the show went into overdrive. Mugs, calendars, T-shirts etc were all licensed and when the first series was released on VHS (remember them), they flew off the shelves. As such, it was a perfect time for the theme tune to be made available once more and it became a hit all over again. For statistics sake, “I’ll Be There For You” peaked at No 3 in 1995 and No 5 two years later disproving the lyric that it wasn’t their day, week, month or even their year.

Next, another of those pesky album chart slots which features a single that will eventually be released as a single anyway further down the line. Filling the spot this week are Boyzone who give us their version of “Father And Son” by Cat Stevens which is not only a track from their No 1 album “Said And Done” but will also become their next single when released in the November. After breaking through with a cover of a 70s ballad in “Love Me For A Reason” by The Osmonds a year previously, the group clearly thought it was worth another go using that same blueprint. And they were right; “Father And Son” would go all the way to No 2 selling 600,000 copies in the process and becoming not just the 13th best selling single of the year in the UK but surely one of Boyzone’s best known hits.

Talking of blueprints, the performance here with the five lads all sat on stools was surely the model for subsequent Irish boyband Westlife who seemed to spend their whole career sat on their arses singing indistinguishable love songs. Back to Boyzone though and this is really all about Ronan Keating who does all the heavy lifting vocals wise while the rest of them bill and coo around him. Stephen Gately* does attempt some harmonising at one point but the rest of them are stuck on “ooh” mode. In the middle of the song, Ronan addresses the studio audience by saying “Boyzone live on Top of the Pops” before exhaling in a ‘who’d have believed it’ kind of gesture. Do you think that was spontaneous on Ronan’s part or a deliberate, prearranged move to try and build the group some credibility?

*Stephen was another who died tragically young at the age of just 33. What is it with this post and death?

I can’t hear the Boyzone version of “Father And Son” without this scene from Max and Paddy’s Road To Nowhere coming to mind…

Heres some ropey old shit and no mistake! A second hit for Montell Jordan (who knew?). After “This Is How We Do It” was a US No 1, a follow up was required and so he gave us “Somethin’ 4 Da Honeyz”, a little tale he wrote about picking up women. How nice. This is nasty with Jordan informing us that if he sees a female worth his while (!) he knows that he can get ‘it’ and he’ll “hit it if she’s wit it”. He follows this up by saying if a woman is ugly, fat or skinny, it doesn’t matter as long as she likes to shoop (shoop shoop). Bloody hell! What a bellend! At one point he name drops soul singer Aaron Neville but, as someone remarked on Twitter, it sounds like he’s singing “could very well be the next Gary Neville”. Ha!

Jordan is now a born-again Christian and has become a worship leader and ordained minister at the Victory World Church in Atlanta, Georgia so presumably has learned his lesson and has a better attitude towards women.

Oh this is more like it! Echobelly had some excellent songs – in fact, their trio of singles that were “Insomniac”, “King Of The Kerb” and this one “Great Things” stand up alongside anything else that was labelled ‘Britpop’ at this time. Coming on like a more exotic Sleeper, at the height of their fame, they notched up two Top 10 albums and five Top 40 singles, their fast track to success certainly not hindered by lead singer Sonya Madam’s image. With so much attention being paid to Madan, comparisons with Blondie were always likely (something also experienced by No Doubt later in the decade and played up to in their “Don’t Speak” video).

Watching this performance back though, it’s not Debbie Harry I’m put in mind of but rather Britney Spears. A whole three years before the ‘Princess of Pop’ exploded around the world with “…Baby One More Time” and that video with the schoolgirl uniform, here was Sonya beating her to it. Not quite as provocative as Britney’s outfit maybe but still causing a stir, apparently Madan hadn’t anticipated all the fuss and saw her school clothes look as more Grange Hill than St.Trinians. Hmm. Anyway, Echobelly’s popularity dwindled as the decade progressed and by 2004, a protracted hiatus took place. They reconvened in 2009 and last released an album of new material in 2017.

Oh dear lord. What the f**k is going on here?! Michael Bolton hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in this country since 1991 when his version of “When A Man Loves A Woman” made No 8. So what do you do when your career needs reviving? Well, in Michael’s case a TV advertised Best Of was deemed the best plan of action and as was the emerging trend for such a collection back then, a new track was required to promote it. “Can I Touch You…There?” was co written and produced by Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange whose charge sheet of criminal songs includes tracks by Celine Dion, Bryan Adams and Billy Ray Cyrus. This one was right up there with any of those though. I’m guessing Bolton was searching for a new sound because this is a complete hotchpotch of a song. It’s as if Ace Of Base have taken the melody from Carly Simon’s “Why” and then roped in old Bollers to sing some double entendre lyrics over the top. It even goes a bit panpipes at the end! Who thought all of that was a good idea?! Well, plenty of people judging by its chart peak of No 6 meaning Michael got one final Top 10 hit after all. By the way, have you ever seen a woman with a bigger sax than the one on stage here has? Well if Bolton can be risqué…

It’s a second week at the top for Blur with “Country House” which has beaten “Roll With It” by Oasis into second place again. I don’t recall there being anywhere near the media frenzy that existed for the first week though. Blur would achieve another chart topper 18 months later when “Beetlebum” returned them to pole position. As for Oasis, they would go to No 1 a further seven times (making eight in total) with their final one being 2005’s “The Importance Of Being Idle”.

The play out video is “Scatman’s World” by Scatman John. The follow up to his novelty hit “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)” which combined jazz scatting, rapping and a dance beat, this was, regrettably, more of the same. And this is the question – did we really need any more of the same? I have the answer – NO!

Scatman John (real name John Paul Larkin) died at the age of 57 from lung cancer and he brings to an end one of the most haunted by death posts I’ve ever written.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Berri	The Sunshine After The Rain	I did not
2	De’Lacy	Hideaway	Not for me
3	Michael Jackson	You Are Not Alone	Never happening
4	The Rembrandts	I’ll Be There For You	YES! I bought it for my wife but we ended up passing it onto our Friends obsessed Goddaughter
5	Boyzone	Father And Son	Nope
6	Montell Jordan	Somethin’ 4 Da Honeyz	NO!
7	Echobelly	Great Things	No but I had a Best Of CD with it on
8	Michael Bolton	Can I Touch You…There?	Never!
9	Blur	Country House	Not the single but I had The Great Escape album with it on
10	Scatman John	Scatman’s World	As if

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/m001w2m5/top-of-the-pops-31081995

TOTP 10 AUG 1995

Posted on February 4, 2024 by 80stastic

The BBC4 commemorative shows celebrating the 60th anniversary of TOTP are finally over meaning a return to the schedule of the 1995 repeats. If you recall, we’d just entered August of that year with the Blur v Oasis Battle of Britpop rapidly coming into view. However you feel about that time now with nearly 30 years perspective, it was a heady experience for me personally, feeling right at the centre of it working in a record shop in Greater Manchester. However, neither band are on this TOTP with both their singles being released the Monday after it aired. Blur performed “Country House” in an exclusive slot the week before – “Roll With It” will get one in next week’s show.

Anyway, tonight’s host is Lisa I’Anson and we start with…who? Mary Kiani? Well, I should show a little humility after bigging up my record shop credentials earlier as Mary clocked up four solo UK Top 40 hits in the 90s plus three (including a Top Tenner) as the vocalist for dance project The Time Frequency. That’s not a bad career. In comparison, how many chart hits have I ever had? None obviously though my rendition of Nick Cave and Kylie’s “Where The Roses Grow” in guitar class back in the day was pretty special. Back to Mary though and her journey to the UK Top 40 wasn’t via your usual route. As a session singer, she toured with the credibility sapping Donny Osmond. Mary clearly didn’t care about any of that though. Post chart success, she would contribute her vocals to “The Simpsons’ Yellow Album”.

Yet in 1995, she was riding the dance tidal wave. This single – “When I Call Your Name” – went to No 1 in the UK Dance charts. I don’t remember it at all but listening to it now, it’s a pleasant enough ditty which wouldn’t sound out of place on an M People album. That’s either a compliment or an insult depending on your opinion of M People I guess. I’m not sure about the ‘white out’ special effects in this performance though – all a bit too Dr Who in the 70s.

Kiani has continued to release material sporadically over the years but remains a big draw on the gay club circuit and in Australia where she now lives.

Yes! This is what the kids want! Music played by a bunch of teenagers for teenagers! Ash were indeed teenagers having started the band back in 1992 when lead singer Tim Wheeler was only 15 years old. This performance of their first Top 40 hit “Girl From Mars” came just four weeks after the band had sat their final ‘A’ Level exams! Imagine that! I’d love to think that the band sat around saying “What shall we do in the Summer while we’re waiting for our exam results?” and one of them pipes up “Well, we could take a single to No 11 in the charts and appear on TOTP. Anyone fancy that? Or we could get a job fruit picking or even just bum around doing nothing. I’m easy”. Of course, Ash were much more involved in the music industry than that scenario suggests by this point. They’d already released a mini album called “Trailer” on indie label Infectious Records and three singles from it. In March 1995, they put out “Kung Fu”, the lead single from their full debut album “1977” which just missed the Top 40. Momentum was building and with the championing of them by Radio 1’s Steve Lamacq and the station giving major airplay to “Girl From Mars”, the inevitable big hit ensued. And quite right too. It’s a great tune, one of many the band would record. “1977” would go to No 1 but in many ways they are the perfect singles band. Indeed, in 2009/2010, they took The Wedding Present idea of releasing a single every month but upped the ante by making the cycle every two weeks. Over those two years, they released 27 singles.

I caught them live in 2011 in Manchester on the anniversary tour for their “Free All Angels” album (also a No 1) and they were great. However, my abiding association with “Girl From Mars” belongs to someone I was working with at the time. Cara was/is one of the nicest people you could meet but she had a reputation for being…erm…in a world of her own at times I think is the best way to put it. This state of being caused her to be known on the lunch rota as ‘Cara – on loan from Mars’. The description stuck rather and when she left after getting a job with Head Office, we bought her the single as a leaving present. I am always reminded of Cara whenever I hear “Girl From Mars” to this day.

It’s a second outing for the award winning video for “Waterfalls” by TLC next. The song was nominated in two categories at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards in 1996. As I type this, we’ve just had this year’s – the 66th – and there are a couple of parallels between the 1996 and 2024 shows. Both featured performances by Annie Lennox (and both songs she sang were cover versions) and both had Celine Dion presenting an award. Whatever you think of her music (and it all sounds hateful to me), it was a good news story to see her in public after all the reporting of her recent health problems.

Although “Waterfalls” didn’t win the gong for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, they did walk away that year with the award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (blimey what a mouthful!) for “Creep”.

It’s a second song that has been on the show before next and perhaps rather surprisingly it’s another studio outing for Julian Cope with his single “Try Try Try”. Surprisingly? Well, the single only spent three weeks on the chart and only one of those (this week when it debuted at No 24) inside the Top 40. So how did it come to be on the show twice? Well, Julian was afforded an ‘exclusive’ slot a couple of weeks before the single was released. Although that explains the maths of it, a second studio appearance did seem a bit like overkill – Julian was hardly a mainstream pop star in 1995. Indeed, was he ever a mainstream anything? Apart from a brief spell in 1986/87 when Island Records tried to promote him as a more traditional rock star for the “Saint Julian” / “World Shut Your Mouth” era, Cope has always chosen a path less travelled. Conversely, maybe that was why the TOTP producers wanted him back on their show; as an antidote to the more generic, manufactured pop acts of the time. I mean just look at him here! Utterly bonkers with his Gandalf style hat and oversized hi-vis jacket with leopard print lining. Maybe it was just a case of counting though. A chart entry of No 24 was probably a big enough number to justify another go on the show.

A bigger mystery than the appearance of Julian himself on the show though is the person in the studio audience with the giant paper mache head that looks like the Mekon from the 2000 AD and Eagle comics. What was that all about?! Fortunately, @TOTPFacts is here with the answer:

That's Julian Cope's seven-foot alter-ego Sqwubbsy. #TOTP (thanks to @wadeywade for the memory prompt) https://t.co/RXq3TR0xaW
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 2, 2024

Breaking free from the chains of being a potential one hit wonder comes Tina Arena who clocks up a second Top 40 entry with “Heaven Help My Heart”. Whereas her debut hit was intense and brooding, this one was a paint-by-numbers country ballad that, unlike Julian Cope, went straight down the middle of the road. Indeed, so bland was it that when Radio 1 DJ Chris Evans played it, he took it off air after a minute or so declaring it too easy listening for his zeitgeist riding, lad culture fawning, Britpop following show and despatched a (presumably all too willing) lackey to hand deliver it to Terry Wogan over at Radio 2. What a prick! Evans that is, not Terry. Ironically, within a couple of years, ballads like “Heaven Help My Heart” would become big chart hits in the UK from the likes of Shania Twain and LeeAnn Rimes as the last vestiges of Britpop played out.

Tina’s next single also featured the word ‘heaven’ in the title as she released a cover of Maria McKee’s “Show Me Heaven”. Gulp! Heaven help us all.

There have been some terrible cover versions to besmirch the charts over the years. More specifically, there have been some terrible Beatles covers. I’m thinking “Strawberry Fields Forever” by Candy Flip, Tiffany’s approximation “I Saw Him Standing There” and, of course, Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo’s take on “Help!” (no I don’t care that it was for charity, it’s shit). Despite the dreadful stink caused by all of these, this version of “I’m Only Sleeping” by Suggs also reeks to high heaven. Taken from his first solo album “The Lone Ranger”, it somehow went Top 10. As shown in the examples above, covering The Beatles isn’t for everyone and to my ears, Suggs makes a porcine one of it here. Did he really think he could just add his usual layer of ska pop over the original and get away with it. He doubles down on the error in the performance by doing his Suggs shtick of juddery movements (even doing a staged fall at one point) just to make sure we all knew that we were residents of Suggsworld for three minutes.

Incredibly, he managed to out-shite himself with another cover taken from the album the following year when he took on “Cecilia” by Simon & Garfunkel which led to the infamous Chris Eubank intro but that’s for a future post.

Another year and another controversial Madonna video. After the press backlash she received following the release of her “Erotica” album and coffee-table book Sex, in 1992 when she was deemed by some to have gone too far with her sexual explicit material, Madge seems initially to have decided to tone things down a bit. “I’ll Remember” was an unthreatening big ballad from the film With Honors with a more classic looking and dare I say it tasteful video. Her next studio album “Bedtime Stories” addressed subjects that were more about love than sex but then came the fourth and final single to be released from it. “Human Nature” was a direct response to the criticism she had received for “Erotica” and Sex – an answer song, a musical middle finger. Look at some of these lyrics:

“Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex…You punished me for telling you my fantasies…I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me”

Songwriters: Dave Hall / Madonna Ciccone / Kevin Harold Mc Kenzie / Shawn Mc Kenzie / Michael Deering
Human Nature lyrics © Wb Music Corp., Emi April Music Inc., Webo Girl Publishing Inc., Stone Jam Music, Wize Men Music Publishing, Webo Girl Publishing, In

Blimey! Then there’s the aforementioned video with Madonna and her dancers decked out in S&M gear (hell, even her pet chihuahua is dressed in leather!) and cavorting in small boxes which on reflection looks like a kinky version of Celebrity Squares! Clearly it’s about Madonna retaking control of the narrative but hadn’t we seen all this before and in a more provocative way? Remember the X-rated promo for “Justify My Love”? Talking of that track, the intro of “Human Nature” seems to mirror it with its hypnotic trip-hop beat opening with Madonna repeating the line “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself” over and over. All in all, I found the whole thing rather tiresome but what did I know? The single still made No 8 in the UK though it was notably not a big hit in America.

A week before the Battle of Britpop, we had another contest of the charts though not with the same levels of rivalry nor media attention. The Battle of the Boybands (which nobody called it at the time) saw the pretenders to the throne Boyzone on the same show as current kings Take That though I don’t think the latter were in the studio together as the clip is just a previous appearance re-shown. First up though are those nice Irish lads with their third hit single “So Good” which is up to No 3. Whilst Take That’s “Never Forget” lived up to its name as being one of the group’s most memorable songs even being performed at the Coronation Concert for King Charles III, “So Good” really didn’t fulfil the claim of its title being one of the band’s least remembered hits – in short, it’s so bad.

And so to the boyband winners. Take That are at No 1 for a second week with “Never Forget”. Although Boyzone would eventually amass a comparable amount of chart topping singles themselves, to my mind they always came up short when in a straight competition with Gary, Mark, Howard, Jason (and never forgetting Robbie of course!) for the title as the nation’s favourite 90s boyband. Maybe not the gulf in popularity that we saw in the 80s between Bros and Brother Beyond but a clear distance nonetheless. Just my personal view of course. Other opinions are available. What’s that? What about those other Irish lads Westlife? Oh feck off!

The play out track is “Don’t You Want Me” by Felix and if it sounds familiar then that’s probably because it was a hit three times in the UK during the 90s. This was its second incarnation making No 10. The original release was a No 6 hit in 1992 and in 1996 it returned to the charts peaking at No 17. Obviously, each release had a different mix but this practice of recycling dance tracks that had already been a chart success before was really prevalent around this time. “Don’t You Want Me” was on the Deconstruction Records label but given its release history, Reconstruction Records might have been a more apt name (chortle).

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Mary Kiani	When I Call Your Name	Nope
2	Ash	Girl From Mars	No but I have theirBest Of album Intergalactic Sonic 7″s with it on
3	TLC	Waterfalls	I did not
4	Julian Cope	Try Try Try	No No No
5	Tina Arena	Heaven Help My Heart	Nah
6	Suggs	I’m Only Sleeping	Dear me no
7	Madonna	Human Nature	Negative
8	Boyzone	So Good	So bad – no
9	Take That	Never Forget	It’s a no
10	Felix	Don’t You Want Me	No I don’t

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/m001vvzc/top-of-the-pops-10081995

TOTP 27 JUL 1995

Posted on December 22, 2023 by 80stastic

Right, that’s Christmas and New Year celebrations well and truly over with for another year and a return to normality beckons. However, that isn’t on the cards for these BBC4 TOTP repeats. As far as I can tell, we won’t be returning to these 1995 shows until late January at the earliest as the 60th anniversary commemorations of the show via a series of retro programmes focusing on performances from the 60s, 70s and 80s continue. So, after being behind with my reviews for weeks, I now have ample opportunity to catch up. Hurray!

Tonight’s episode is hosted by Craig McLachlan, probably still best known at this time as Henry from Neighbours though he had carved out a brief career for himself as a pop star at the turn of the decade with his No 2 UK hit “Mona”. Quite why he was perceived to be a big enough name to host TOTP in July 1995 though is a question that’s not immediately obvious to answer to me. He’d left Ramsey Street long ago and his last chart hit in this country – a version of “You’re The One That I Want” with Debbie Gibson as part of the cast of Grease – had been two years prior. However, he had just finished starring in the BBC crime drama series Bugs so that could be the reason behind his appearance here. I never watched that show so maybe that’s why I didn’t quite understand the height of his profile. Whatever the reason for his ‘golden mic’ slot, he turns in a pretty lacklustre performance. Giving a pretence of what you perceive to be cool and actually being cool are two very different things though why he thought he could pull off an all-in-one leather singlet outfit with shades accessories, only he will know. Maybe he was trying on a future look for size as there’s something a bit Frank-N-Furter about it, a role that McLachlan would play more than once in productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Looking remarkably ordinary in comparison (thank goodness) are opening act The Boo Radleys who have clocked up a third consecutive Top 40 hit. After the ubiquitous airplay hit that was “Wake Up Boo!” at the start of the year, the band had followed it up with what I believed was an infinitely better tune in “Find The Answer Within” but once again I was in the lower percentile of the record buying public when it peaked at No 37. Undeterred, a third single from the “Wake Up!” album was released and “It’s Lulu” would fall between two stools, peaking a whole 12 places higher than its immediate predecessor but nowhere near the Top 10 position of the (almost) title track.

As much as I liked it, I believed there were better tracks on the album (which I’d bought) and had hoped “Twinside” or the beautiful ballad “Wilder” would have been chosen as the third and final single from it. Sadly it was not to be and the perfectly decent but rather obvious “It’s Lulu” was given the shout (ahem). I’m guessing it wasn’t actually about the diminutive Scottish singer as the lyrics seem to tell the story of a teenage girl who feels the angst of her age group admitting that she can’t buy any clothes that fit, gets her facts from Smash Hits and is only understood by the posters on her walls. OK, they’re a bit clunky but they beat the pants off Lulu shouting endlessly about not very much.

Now it’s never occurred to me before but is there something in the verses to “It’s Lulu” that’s reminiscent of a certain cult classic advert from the early 80s?…

OK, this was just getting silly now; silly and confusing. “Stuck On U” was the sixth consecutive Top 40 hit for those cheeky scamps PJ & Duncan including one inside the Top 10 and four registering respectable chart peaks of either No 15 or No 12. Quite how they were mining these hits from a very narrow vein of pop/rap material…well…I can only assume that the people buying their records were actually buying into their likeable personalities as the music was formulaic at best. But was it their personalities or their characters because – and this was where the confusion came in – the lines between the real duo (as in Ant & Dec) and their Byker Grove constructs were really blurred around this time. You see despite still continuing to release records as PJ & Duncan (a trend that would carry on until 1996), they were doing a side hustle as TV presenters (having left Byker Grove well behind them) under their own names. Indeed, just three months before this TOTP aired, the first episode of their own show entitled The Ant & Dec Show (!) was broadcast on CBBC. Identity crisis at all?

To add to the confusion, “Stuck On U” was the lead track from their second album “Top Katz” (an awful, dreadful title) which Wikipedia informs me only made it to No 46 in the charts despite containing four hit singles and yet it went gold selling 100,000 copies. No 46 but it sold 100,000 copies? That can’t be right can it? This is a case of advanced orders from record shops masquerading as actual customers sales isn’t it?

Next, what would be called a collaboration these days but back in 1995 it was probably…what? A duet? Maybe not. Anyway, whatever it was, it featured…oh that was probably it wasn’t it? One of the artists featuring the other.

*checks cover of single*

Yes! Officially, it was Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige. Method Man was one of those rap artists that definitely required a temporary insert in place of the actual CD sleeve when on display in any of the Our Price stores I worked in along with Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, 2 Pac, NWA etc. This single “I’ll BeThere For You / You’re All I Need To Get By”, released on the legendary Def Jam label, was supposedly one of the first examples of the ‘Thug-Love’ genre which I wasn’t aware of at the time but which I understand now to be the combination of a rapper doing the verses and an R&B soul singer doing the chorus (I think). Said chorus plunders heavily the melody from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s hit 1968 hit “You’re All I Need To Get By” which is the only bit which appeals to me I have to say. The track did appeal in its entirety to a lot of people though going to No 3 in the US and Top 10 in the UK. Was it from a film as that might have had an influence on its success?

*checks Wikipedia*

It doesn’t seem so but it was the biggest hit for either artist at the time. Mary J. Blige is one of those names which I know and who have been extraordinarily successful even earning the moniker of the ‘Queen of R&B’ but whom I’m not sure I could name even three of her songs. The same without doubt applies to Method Man. That clearly says more about my musical tastes than either’s profile.

We’re only three songs in and already Craig McLachlan is becoming insufferable in his role as host. In his link to the next act he says “Yo! Top of the Poppers!” Oh dear. I tried out that greeting affectation once when I was a student at Sunderland Poly. My wife (then girlfriend) was with me at the time and nearly dumped me on the spot. I’ve never used it since. McLachlan then goes on to say that people are always asking him what his favourite type of music is. There’s a couple of things about both this revelation and his answer that don’t ring true to me. Firstly, that anyone would be that interested in his musical preferences in the first place and secondly that he would reply with The Lightning Seeds. Yes, I know it was just a lame line, a construct to segue between artists but couldn’t the scriptwriters have done better here?

Anyway, this was the point where Lightning Seeds really got into gear as a chart hit making machine with “Perfect” being their third Top 40 single of 1995, all of them from their “Jollification” album which would achieve platinum sales by the end of the year. Unlike its high speed predecessors “Change” and “Marvellous”, “Perfect” was a much slower, reflective tune, some may even say melancholy. In fact, listening back to it now, it strikes me that perhaps this was actually Ian Broudie’s attempt at writing his own version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”. Now I’m not suggesting that his song is on a par with the classic track from the iconic “Transformer” album – of course not – but it does have a feel of it, possibly.

As for the performance here, the TOTP producers obviously felt that, despite ex-Icicle Works drummer Chris Sharrock doing his best Keith Moon impression, Ian Broudie sat at a keyboard wasn’t the most interesting spectacle. As such, they came up with a special effect that saw his head, detached and blown up in size dangling over the stage like some pop music version of the Wizard Of Oz (before we got to see the real Oz behind the curtain).

A rerelease of “Lucky You” would see Lightning Seeds clock up four hit singles in 1995 before returning in 1996 with the enduring football anthem “Three Lions” the following year and there was nothing cowardly about that song.

Craig McLachlan does some awful Guinness referencing intro for the next act who are, of course, Irish boyband Boyzone. Unlike the Lightning Seeds who followed up two uptempo hits with a slower song, the pretenders to Take That’s crown did the reverse, releasing a pop tune that bounces along after two consecutive ballads. I made the point previously that the group’s second hit “Key To My Life” was surely a forgotten Boyzone hit. Well, if that one is forgotten then “So Good” must be consigned to oblivion. It’s basically just a chorus with some other bits thrown in as an afterthought. Now, I can’t help noticing the dancing on display here (because the music is hardly captivating is it?) and it occurred to me that though there is definite progress from this…

…most of their moves involve wiggling a leg around Riverdance style and generally just jumping on the spot. Yes, at least they do it in time and their matching outfits lend the whole thing a sense of synchronicity but it’s not that slick is it? Still, maybe it was better that they weren’t super tight. I always admired Bananarama for their amateurish dance steps (earlier in their career at least) and couldn’t stand the synchronised swimming precision of some of the boy bands that emerged later in the decade.

After two hits that they’d had a hand in writing themselves, Boyzone would return with a cover in Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” that would give them another enormous festive hit just as their version of “Love Me For A Reason” by The Osmonds had done the previous Christmas.

Now I could have sworn that I didn’t know this song by REM but having watched the video for “Tongue”, it does ring a fair few bells and so it should as it has a very distinctive sound. The fifth and final single from the “Monster” album, Michael Stipe sings the whole song in falsetto and it seems to my ears that there’s very little instrumentation to the track save for the sustaining sound of a dominant organ. It’s quite striking so how it seems to have escaped my accessible memory banks is bemusing.

Something else that seemed to have slipped my mind (if I ever knew it in the first place) was the song’s subject matter. Michael Stipe is on record as saying that it is about cunnilingus. Off the top of my head, I can only think of “Turning Japanese” by The Vapours as a pop song that is inspired by a particular sexual act though I’m sure there will be more. I wonder if host Craig McLachlan knew the story behind the song. It would certainly have made his intro take on a complete different tone. Replace every mention of Rapid Eye Movement here with the word ‘cunnilingus’ and see what difference it makes:

“Let me talk to you about Rapid Eye Movement . Do you know what that is? Rapid Eye Movement – have you experienced it? You’re about to…R…E..M!”.

It’s time for another appearance by Seal as his single “Kiss From A Rose” is up to No 5. Somewhat surprisingly, despite his profile, Seal would only have another two UK Top 40 hits under his own name. In fact, his chart success fell away pretty spectacularly. Despite his first two albums going to No 1, his third, 1998’s “Human Being”, only made it to No 44 selling 10x less than its predecessor. He did have more of a return to form with “Seal IV” making No 4 appropriately in 2003 but he has not had another Top 10 album since. We won’t see him in the UK singles chart again for nearly 18 months when another song from a film – his cover of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” from Space Jam returned him to the Top 20.

It’s the album chart slot now which means a chance for Supergrass to plug their debut album “I Should Coco” which has risen to the top of the charts off the back of the success of their No 2 single “Alright”. To celebrate the achievement, the band are live by satellite from Vancouver performing “Caught By The Fuzz” which was their first ever single which failed to make the Top 40 on its release in the autumn of 1994.

Wikipedia tells me that a mugshot of Hugh Grant – who had been caught by the fuzz (and indeed his short and curlys) receiving oral sex from prostitute Divine Brown on Sunset Boulevard exactly a month before this TOTP aired – was intended to be the artwork for the sleeve of the US release of the single. However, Grant’s lawyers complained and the idea was dropped. Not completely it would seem though as bassist Mick Quinn is wearing a T-shirt in this performance with that infamous Grant mugshot emblazoned all over it. I wonder if Hugh’s lawyers were watching?

As for the song itself, I’m slightly surprised that it never got a rerelease off the back of the band’s subsequent success. Maybe they thought they’d plundered the album enough by this point and wanted to avoid over exposure seeing as “Alright” had been all over radio and TV. Good tune though.

Oh dear. Inevitably, Craig McLachlan has got a guitar out and is singing the next intro (and I thought Mike Read was bad back in the day). Quite who the two blokes with him are or why they are dressed as Arabs I’m not sure. Could the disguised duo be any of the artists that were in the studio that day? Well, having inspected the footage, it’s clearly not PJ & Duncan / Ant & Dec nor any of Boyzone – could it be any of the Lightning Seeds or The Boo Radleys? I’d like to think they wouldn’t have lowered themselves.

Anyway, said intro is for Julian Cope who is enjoying his first UK Top 40 hit since the rather lovely “Beautiful Love” from 1991. “Try Try Try” was the lead single from his twelfth solo studio album “20 Mothers” – wait, his twelfth was in 1995?! So how many has he done in total?

*checks his discography*

My God! He’s up to 36 now! Like him or loath him (and I very much like him), you have to admire the prolific frequency of his output. Listening back to “Try Try Try” now, I’m struck by how conventional a sound it is which is at odds with his outlandish appearance (he does look like a knacker in that druid hat). It sort of reminds me of The Who in places, something about the melody perhaps? I’d sort of lost track of Julian by this point having kind of drawn a line under him when buying his 1992 compilation “Floored Genius” though I’m sure I went to an exhibition he curated at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester around this time.

There’s an episode of Rock Family Trees about the post-punk scene in Liverpool in the early 70s where Pete Wylie talks about Cope having been in the short lived but near legendary Crucial Three with him alongside Ian McCulloch. His relationship with Julian has been antagonistic over the years and he describes him as being this rather unwanted, weirdo type figure tutting “Here comes Julian” whenever Cope arrived. My wife and I still use this phrase today usually when our cat is pissing us off referring to him as Julian even though his name is Peter Pan.

The Outhere Brothers are still at No 1 with “Boom Boom Boom”. Fear not though as their four week reign at the top will be ended in the next show by *SPOILER ALERT* Take That who also ended the run of their other chart topper “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)”. This, in some way, almost makes up for the fact that they couldn’t depose Mr. Blobby as the Christmas No 1 in 1993. Almost.

The play out video is “Violet” by Hole. Apparently the lyrics relate to Courtney Love’s past relationship with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and it got me thinking about how many other songs are about relationships that have gone bad. Off the top of my head there’s “A Good Heart” by Feargal Sharkey which was written by Maria McKee about the end of her relationship with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. Then there’s the follow up single “You Little Thief” which is written by Tench and is supposedly his response to McKee’s song. Perhaps the most famous example though is Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”. For years there was speculation about who the song was about but Carly has finally admitted that it was about ex-lover Warren Beatty – well, the second verse at least if not the whole song. There must be many more out there though surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	It’s Lulu	No but I had the album
2	PJ & Duncan	Stuck On U	As if
3	Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige	I’ll BeThere For You / You’re All I Need To Get By	No
4	The Lightning Seeds	Perfect	Nope
5	Boyzone	So Good	Never happening
6	REM	Tongue	Nah
7	Seal	Kiss From A Rose	I did not
8	Supergrass	Caught By The Fuzz	See 1 above
9	Julian Cope	Try Try Try	Sorry Julian but no
10	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Hell no!
11	Hole	Violet	Not for me thanks

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/m001tdmj/top-of-the-pops-27071995

TOTP 27 APR 1995

Posted on November 7, 2023 by 80stastic

This post is dedicated in its entirety to Pete Garner who passed away recently. Known to many as the original bass player with The Stone Roses, I got to know Pete in the mid 90s when I worked with him at Our Price the record retailer. He was the sweetest, soundest, funniest person you could ever hope to meet. I learned so much about life from him. RIP Pete.

In my review of the previous show, I spent some time discussing the rise of Chris Evans as he was about to start his two year stint on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. In order to promote their new boy, the BBC have got him in to host TOTP straight off the bat. Evans wasn’t the only debut happening around this time. Three days before this show broadcast, Channel 4 aired the first episode of one of the best sit coms ever in Father Ted. A week later, the channel was at it again but this time with a show from across the pond with the ratings sensation Friends. It’s a sobering realisation that two of the stars from those shows are no longer with us. Father Ted himself Dermot Morgan would pass away less than three years on from here whilst Matthew Perry who played Chandler Bing in Friends sadly died just a week or so ago. Back in 1995 though, I’m guessing that Chris Evans would be full to the brim of brio as he brings his presenting style to TOTP. Let’s see how he did…

He starts off in a fairly uncontroversial manner with a lame set up about the studio lights not working before a short intro for opening act MN8. After just missing out on the top spot with debut single “I’ve Got A Little Something For You”, this lot of R&B wannabes were hot news. They consolidated on that success with follow up “If You Only Let Me In” which was a No 6 hit. Quite different in style from its predecessor, it had a much more pure pop boyband vibe that would become ubiquitous as the decade progressed and the throng of such acts became ever larger. I mean, it’s actually one of the better examples of that sound; well constructed with plenty of hooks though it also seems to have been written with one eye on accommodating the obligatory dance moves for the three guys in the band playing second fiddle to the singer. Still, it was probably a sensible choice at that point in their career; a catchy tune to maintain their chart presence and guarantee airplay. For the moment, MN8 were playing the game well.

Whilst MN8 were in the ascendancy, another boyband were desperately trying to stay afloat in some choppy teenage audience waters. Let Loose were trying to do exactly the opposite of what their band name suggested; they didn’t want to be let loose in a sea of faded boybands but rather wanted to be tied steadfastly to the chart dock. This single – “Best Of Me” – did indeed act as a decent life belt giving them a Top 10 hit though I can’t work out why as it’s as dull as dishwasher. The verses sound like a Bread song (they would record an actual Bread song in “Make It With You” the following year) whilst the chorus goes a bit “See The Day” by Dee C. Lee complete with added string section. And why on earth is there a double necked guitar on show here? Let Loose? More like obtuse.

If MN8 were playing the R&B pop stars game well, then here’s Bobby Brown to show them that “Two Can Play That Game”. In the segue into this one, Chris Evans starts reverting to type and his ‘lads mags’ persona by banging on about a naked Pamela Anderson and Liz Hurley bouncing up and down on a space hopper. What? Bobby Brown, of course, had a few image problems of his own with a list of charges against him including drink driving, defaulting on child care payments and battery of his wife Whitney Houston. If his personal life was chaotic and full of misdemeanours, in 1995 his career was at a high point. “Two Can Play That Game” gave him his biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 3.

Evans completely lays bare his ‘lad culture’ credentials once more by referring to an upcoming performance by Oasis as being his “personal heroes”. Before that though we have yet another appearance for our Eurovision entry Love City Groove. I make this their third time on the show with the song contest still two weeks away. What with plugging the BBC’s coverage of Eurovision and the showcasing of Radio 1’s Breakfast Show host, TOTP was in danger of becoming just a promotional tool for the corporation’s output rather than a platform for the most popular music of the day.

As for “Love City Groove”, it still stands up and out I think in the long history of UK Eurovision acts. It didn’t completely convince the watching panels on the night of the contest finishing 10th out of 23 countries receiving 76 points, almost half the amount the winners Secret Garden from Norway did with their song “Nocturne”. That victory seemed to give credence to the idea that Eurovision was ready for a different musical genre to take centre stage over the more traditional acts witnessed down the years. Sadly for the UK, that genre was haunting, violin led and almost instrumental rather than sing -a-long rap. Bugger!

It’s time for “the best song around” now as endorsed by Chris Evans in his intro for Oasis. On reflection, it wasn’t even the best song on the CD single – that honour goes to “Acquiesce” in my opinion. However, “Some Might Say” was certainly better than most residents of the Top 40 and, as expected, gave the band their first of eight No 1 singles. At the time, I was in agreement with Evans and loved this though I’m not sure it stands up as well through the perspective of 28 years distance. Back then though, I didn’t care that, just as “Cigarettes And Alcohol” had done, it had more than a whiff of a T-Rex riff about it. Nor did I care that the lyrics weren’t the best (rhyming ‘fishes’ with ‘dirty dishes’ indeed!). I didn’t even mind Liam’s pronunciation of ‘Shine’ as “Sh-i-iiine”. To me it sounded…well…powerful I guess. Powerful and hopeful that something different might be about to happen.

This was pretty much the last public appearance of drummer Tony McCarroll with the band. The next time they appeared on TOTP, his replacement Alan White was on the drummer’s stool. McCarroll being buried alive by the rest of the band in the “Live Forever” video probably should have given us all a big clue as to his impending fate.

Creation boss Alan McGee had wanted to release the track as a double A-side with the aforementioned “Acquiesce” but Noel Gallagher stood firm saying the latter was the B-side. Legend has it that the conversation went something like this:

McGee: “Acquiesce” is too good. Knock something average out for the B-side.

Noel: Sorry Alan but I don’t write shit songs.

As for the performance here, Liam seems to have perfected his motionless, thousand yard stare act by this point while the rest of the band (Noel excepted) look like they can’t quite comprehend how they got here from where they started. By the way, Liam’s Manchester City coat would not have been seen as bandwagon jumping. At the time City were not the winning machine they are today; that would have been their rivals United.

The third boyband on tonight now and the second trying to follow up a No 2 hit single. Like MN8 before them, Boyzone had gone as close as possible to a chart topper without actually getting one with previous single “Love Me For A Reason” but, despite that success, a lot must have been riding on their next release in terms of their potential longevity. A bunch of pretty Irish boys getting a Christmas hit with a cover of a well known sloppy ballad was one thing but repeating the trick with a composition of their own? Well, that was another matter.

As it turned out, “Key To My Life” was also the key to the band’s consolidation. A very encouraging chart peak of No 3 would surely have given the group confidence that they could compete with Take That (especially when, a few weeks later, the departure of Robbie Williams would cause the future of the band to be put in doubt). A saccharine drenched ballad, it seems to me that “Key To My Life” is a largely forgotten Boyzone single despite its strategic importance to their career.

Watching this performance back, I’m struck by how washed out the group look with all those grey colours and pastel shades on display in their outfits. Their stylist should have been given the keys to a better wardrobe.

It’s another studio appearance by Tina Arena performing her hit “Chains” now. Her song was universally seen as being about being trapped in a relationship that was no longer working though Tina herself attributes its meaning to her trying to escape from her past as a child star when she was dubbed ‘Tiny Tina” aged 8 on a talent show. Fast forward over 40 years and a modern day restriction that Tina struggled with was the whole issue of ‘selfies’. In 2019 she made the decision not to allow people to take ‘selfies’ as she felt trapped by them and instead would rather have a good old chat with the person. That revelation somehow put me in mind of that famous Boy George quote who, when at the height of his fame, was asked about the act of sex. “I’d rather have a nice cup of tea” he replied though I’m pretty sure he had his fingers crossed when he said it.

It’s that band again whose name I remember but whose music I don’t. Chris Evans does his best to create some buzz around them by bigging them up in his intro but even the man of the moment’s endorsement didn’t cut through with me. I refer to The Wildhearts who we last saw on the show doing their minor hit “Geordie In Wonderland”. They’re back with the lead single from their second album “P.H.U.Q” called “I Wanna Go Where The People Go”.

Listening to it now, it’s not bad though even if I’d cottoned on to it back in 1995, I’m not sure I’d have been bowled over by its sound. I’m sure they had and still have a hardcore fanbase but for me, they blur into one a bit with all those other early 90s UK blues rock revival bands like The Dogs D’Amour and The Quireboys though that’s not surprising as main Wildheart Ginger used to be a member of the latter.

It’s the fourth and final week at No 1 for Take That with “Back For Good”. It’s often said (including by me) that the mark of a good song is how often it’s covered by other artists and especially if it’s done in a completely different style and it still works. Well, here are just a few varied takes on “Back For Good”. Firstly, a slinky, muscular version courtesy of McAlmont & Butler from 2002 for the War Child charity album in association with the NME:

Here it’s turned into an indie classic by The Wedding Present on their “How The West Was Won” album:

How about a lo-fi anthem from Swedish band The Concretes on covers compilation album “Guilt By Association”:

And finally a punk rendering courtesy of Robbie Williams himself; a live version included as an extra track on his “Angels” single:

The “wash it off” ad lib line has its origins in an adopted reaction from Take That fans when the song was performed live. When Gary Barlow would sing “Got your lipstick mark still in my cup”, the crowd would apparently sing back to him “Ooh wash it off!”. So now you know.

Punk covers of your own songs were all the rage back then. Here’s Duran Duran on The Word from 1995 doing “Hungry Like The Wolf”:

The play out track is back after disappearing for a while and tonight’s is a goodie from Weezer. This power pop, pop-punk, geek rock (call it what you will) anthem named after rock ‘n’ roll legend “Buddy Holly” would make it all the way to No 12. If the song wasn’t memorable enough, you can’t forget the video once seen, especially if , like me, you grew up in the 70s. Back then, the US sitcom Happy Days was huge with its main character Fonzie assuming almost legendary status with his cool persona and catch phrases “Ayyyy” and “Sit On It”. I remember they’re being some TV awards show on when Happy Days was at its peak and it somehow losing out to Blue Peter in one category. Even the wide eyed innocent child that I was thought that was a fix.

Anyway, the idea to incorporate footage from Happy Days with Weezer performing “Buddy Holly” in Arnold’s Drive-In was inspired. Director Spike Jonze did an incredible job. The actor who played drive-in owner Al did a cameo to introduce the band and a lookalike did the Fonzie dance scene but apparently the rest was all done without computer graphics and instead used clever editing. It looked amazing in 1995 and still looks great today I think.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	MN8	If You Let Me In	No
2	Let Loose	Best Of Me	Definitely not
3	Bobby Brown	Two Can Play That Game	Nope
4	Love City Groove	Love City Groove	I did not
5	Oasis	Some Might Say	YES!
6	Boyzone	Key To My Life	Never happening
7	Tina Arena	Chains	Negative
8	The Wildhearts	I Wanna Go Where The People Go	Nah
9	Take That	Back For Good	No but my wife did
10	Weezer	Buddy Holly	Liked it, didn’t buy it

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/m001rrzv/top-of-the-pops-27041995

TOTP 05 JAN 1995

Posted on July 17, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s time to welcome in the New Year…of 1995. As I recall I was in a curry house in Rusholme, Manchester with my wife and a friend as the midnight struck on New Year’s Eve. The head waiter announced to everyone in the restaurant the following:

“Ladies and gentlemen; we have just slipped into 1995”

…with a very salacious emphasis on the word ‘slipped’. It was all very unsavoury. Anyway, 1995 it was and what a year it would turn out to be. Britpop exploded, the unfashionable Blackburn Rovers win the Premier League (try telling your kids that) and pubs are allowed to stay open throughout Sunday afternoons for the first time.

Meanwhile, over at TOTP, the first new show of the year is hosted by comedian Jack Dee for the second time and who does he introduce as the first artist as we enter the mid point of the 90s? A synth band from the early 80s. Yep, for all its Britpop associations, 1995 opens with The Human League. If you ignore the single “Heart Like A Wheel” which made a lowly No 29 in 1990 (and I am), this was the band’s first major hit since “Human” made the Top 10 in 1986. That song had been a US chart topper with American audiences unable to resist the band’s attempt at a soul ballad, aided by Janet Jackson producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. However, their 1995 offering “Tell Me When” was nothing like “Human” and was instead a return to their early 80s synth sound on which they’d made their name. The lead single from seventh studio album “Octopus” (terrible title), it really did sound like an anachronism – a pleasant anachronism but an anachronism all the same. Quite why it cut through with the record buying public of early 1995 I’m not quite sure although it did top the airplay charts so obviously that will have boosted its chances.

Phil Oakey’s distinctive vocals sound ever so slightly wobbly in this TOTP performance, not helped by the amount of words in the lyrics of the verses; there seem to be too many causing him to almost stumble. Still, the chorus is an absolute winner recalling the glories of “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” and “Don’t You Want Me”. The band were being promoted as a trio of Phil, Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall by this point and I have to say I don’t recognise the other three guys up their on stage with them. I think most of the classic line up had departed by then. The sight of all six just standing in a straight line like a New Romantic chorus line is a bit jarring but they just about get away with it with Susan’s Sally Bowles from Cabaret vibe the standout. And Phil still had hair!

The album was their first for new label eastwest since being released by Virgin Records and performed solidly going to No 6 and producing another hit single in the Susan Sulley sung “One Man In My Heart”. Heartened by their success, the band went back out on tour whilst Virgin decided to cash in on their former charges by rereleasing their 1988 Greatest Hits album but with “Tell Me When” tacked onto it. A challenge this year from Pulp to the title of the biggest band from Sheffield not withstanding, The Human League were back.

Despite a new song to start a new year (albeit from an old artist), the charts around this time were usually stagnated after the Christmas rush and the next song is the first of four that we’ve already seen not that long ago on the show. In fact this one, “Eternal Love” by PJ & Duncan, had already peaked at No 12 and started descending the charts but the slow sales after the Christmas rush had created a rather false scenario which saw the record go back up the Top 40 from No 16 to No 14.

I’ve recently been binge watching the Channel 4 sit com Derry Girls (I know, where have I been?!) and there’s an episode where the gang go to see a Take That concert in Belfast. Inevitably, various events delay them on their journey including an escaped polar bear and a bomb scare. When they realise that they are running late, one of the characters points out that they’ve already missed the support act who are PJ & Duncan. Expressions of crushing disappointment ensue amongst the group. This got me thinking – was that based on fact or a work of fiction courtesy of the script writers? So I checked. As Derry Girls is set in the 90s and the episode concerned occurs at a time when Robbie Williams was still in the band, I checked for concerts between 1992 and 1995 and as far as I can tell, PJ & Duncan did not support Take That. The support acts that I found listed were Eternal, Ultimate Kaos and an act called Overlord X.

Just in case my Take That concert research hasn’t made me look sad enough, I think that I should say, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I have actively attended a Take That concert myself! It was in 2009 and I went because my younger sister (a big fan) had been let down by a friend who was meant to be going with her so I stepped into the breach. And you know what, they were great fun making the crowd forget all about the terrible weather (it was at Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester). Oh and the support that day? It was meant to be a young Lady Ga Ga and some bloke called Gary Go but Ga Ga went doolally and didn’t turn up so we got an extended set from Mr Go. It could have been worse I suppose – it could have been PJ & Duncan.

A future No 1 incoming. For now though, “Think Twice” by Celine Dion is up to No 4 on its 9th week inside the Top 40. It would get held up at No 2 for a further three weeks before finally getting to the chart summit. Its thirteen consecutive weeks rise to the top was a chart record and when it got there it stayed for nearly two months. Why was it so enduring? Well, the UK record buying public had already shown in spectacular fashion in the 90s that it was an utter sucker for big ballads with the towering stretches at the top of the charts of “Love Is All Around” and “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and “Think Twice” was certainly a big ballad so maybe we shouldn’t have been too surprised by its success. Plus, Celine had already put us on notice of her penchant for a huge love song with her cover of Jennifer Rush’s “The Power Of Love” so she had it in her armoury to inflict some major damage on the charts. Added to all of that, “Think Twice” was written by Andy Hill and Peter Sinfield who had a history when it came to writing UK chart toppers having been responsible for “The Land Of Make Believe” for Bucks Fizz. Even so, the song’s tenure in the charts and slow gestation to becoming a No 1 did seem like an anomaly. I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Seven weeks at No 1? Sheesh!

Becoming more regular than Rishi Sunak reciting his five pledges, here comes another future No 1 and unbelievably it’s worse than Celine Dion’s chart topper. Much worse. We have reached a definite low point in 90s music. The time of Rednex is upon us. Who were these people that were responsible for one of the rottenest singles of the decade? Well, they were a trio of Swedish producers who hit upon the idea / dastardly plot to fuse Eurodance and American country folk music into a diabolical hybrid. The first result of this experiment of the devil was “Cotton Eye Joe”, a bastardised version of “Cotton Eyed Joe”, a 19th century song that possibly had its origins in the slave communities working on plantations in the Deep South. It’s a ridiculous notion cheaply executed.

They needed some stooges to front the single so they recruited this ragtag collection of…well…ragtags. To make the whole project look more authentic, they were given rustic stage names which only made the debacle look more risible. Ace Ratclaw, Boneduster Crock, Ken Tacky and my personal favourite Jiggie McClagganahan were just some of the pseudonyms used. With depressing predictability, “Cotton Eye Joe” went to No 1 all around Europe including the UK where it remained in pole position for three weeks. In fact, it would get to the top of the charts before Celine Dion and would be the record they kept her at No 2 for three consecutive weeks. So, let me get this straight; we are looking at ten weeks at No 1 spilt between records by Rednex and Celine Dion. Yeah, 1995, the year of Britpop my arse!

It’s purveyors of melodic UK rock Thunder next who had been having consistent yet decidedly average sized hits since the start of the decade. Albums wise it was a different story though. Their second album “Laughing On Judgement Day” had gone straight in at No 2 and sold 100,000 copies in 1992/3. This single – “Stand Up” – was the lead single from follow up “Behind Closed Doors” which itself went silver and peaked at No 5. However, “Stand Up” couldn’t disrupt the pattern of middling success for Thunder singles when it peaked at No 23. Of the eighteen UK Top 40 hits the band achieved, none went higher than No 18.

I don’t recall “Stand Up” at all but listening back to it, there’s a definite whiff of “Crazy Horses” by The Osmonds to it. No really, listen to that chugging guitar backing. Well, I guess as a rock band they couldn’t really have done a cover of “Love Me For A Reason” could they?! Ahem.

A true one hit wonder next – one huge, mega smash and then zip, nada, nothing although to be fair to Ini Kamoze, he had been around for years making reggae/dancehall material with the likes of Sly and Robbie before his big commercial breakthrough with “Here Comes The Hotstepper”. I didn’t know any of that at the time though. Like most of us I’m guessing, he was the man with the song that went “naaa na na na naaa etc” who also described himself as a “lyrical gangster” as mentioned by Jack Dee in his intro. You had to give it to Ini, his dancehall/hip-hop/ pop fusion tune was damned catchy but then he had lifted said “naaa” hook from “Land Of 1000 Dances” made most famous by Wilson Pickett.

Two other things spring to my mind when talking about “Here Comes The Hotstepper”. Firstly, its use in one of the worst films I’ve ever had the misfortune to see – Prêt–à–Porter. A satirical-comedy (supposedly) on the circus that is Paris Fashion Week, it is one of only two films I have ever considered walking out of. The other was Young Einstein starring Yahoo Serious which I did leave before the end and whilst I made it to the end of Prêt–à-Porter, it turned out that the two people I went to see it with had spent the entire movie on the verge of leaving as well.

Secondly, and I can find no evidence of this online but I’m sure that it happened, when one of those hit compilations came out around this time that included “Here Comes The Hotstepper”, the track listing didn’t show Ini Kamoze but ‘I’m A Kamikaze’. I swear this happened but 29 years later I can’t remember which hits album it was on. My first thought was the relevant entry in the Now series but all the images online of the track listing for Now 31 show the correct spelling. Maybe it was an error on initial copies and any reorders were corrected? I don’t know but I’m convinced that it happened. “Here Comes The Hotstepper” made No 4 in the UK and was a No 1 record the US.

And so to a band who did feel able to do a cover of The Osmonds’ “Love Me For A Reason” but then Boyzone were hardly Thunder. With Take That still at the height of their commercial appeal at this point, was there really a need or indeed gap in the market for another boy band? Apparently there was as the five, fresh faced Irish lads were up to No 2 with their debut UK hit. Before the 90s were said and done, they would have accrued a further 15 none of which peaked lower than No 4 and included 6 chart toppers. Admittedly, two thirds of them (and all of those No 1s) came after Take That had called it a day (or so we thought) in 1996 and there definitely was an opening down the boy band Job Centre. Even so, despite their obvious credentials for the position, you’d have to say they took full advantage of the opportunity.

The band set out their stall early on with this performance. Ronan Keating was clearly the main guy with his gold coloured jacket while the rest of them are in black but, as co-vocalist, Stephen Gateley gets to share the spotlight alongside Ronan. The other three guys are relegated to the back to spend most of their time doing what can only be described as ‘arm dancing’ – seriously, they hardly move their feet at all during the whole thing. Westlife would take this inaction to a new level when they turned up as the decade was ending and seemed to spend most of their time singing sickly ballads whilst sat on stools.

We end with another boy band (of sorts) as East 17 remain at the top with Christmas No 1 “Stay Another Day”. This was literally the moment when the band were at their peak. A week later they were deposed from their throne by Rednex and they would never return to the chart summit. That’s not to say they weren’t heard of again. 1995 would bring two more hit singles from their “Steam” album plus a third studio album in “Up All Night” with the lead single from it going to No 4. By early 1997 though, Brian Harvey had given that radio interview and things would start to unravel…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Human League	Tell Me When	Nope
2	PJ & Duncan	Eternal Love	Nah
3	Celine Dion	Think Twice	As if
4	Rednex	Cotton Eye Joe	NO!!!
5	Thunder	Stand Up	Nah
6	~~I’m A Kamikaze~~ Ini Kamoze	Here Comes The Hotstepper	No but I think my wife did
7	Boyzone	Love Me For A Reason	Never happening
8	East 17	Stay Another Day	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/m001nq1m/top-of-the-pops-05011995

TOTP 08 DEC 1994

Posted on June 29, 2023 by 80stastic

Christmas is coming but the charts aren’t full of facts. The Top 40 announced on the Sunday before this TOTP contained incorrect information. Apparently there were some Woolworths shops that couldn’t retrieve their sales data to send to chart compilers Millward Brown so the tech guys were deployed to extract it. This they did except it was the wrong data. They just duplicated the Friday sales figures instead of Saturday’s and by the time the mistake was noticed it was too late as the Top 40 had been published and announced on Radio 1. Millward Brown chose to style it out by retrospectively compiling the correct chart but it was never made available to the public other than by using it as the basis for the ‘last week’ positions for the following week’s chart. It must have played havoc with the minds of all the Top 40 ~~nerds~~ devotees out there. TOTP decided to go with the chart that Radio 1 had initially announced rather than the revised one but in the end, the cock up hadn’t made that much difference to many records with only minor adjustments of a place or two being required – I think the biggest was that Mariah Carey should have been at No 5 rather than No 6.

Anyway, none of the above is mentioned by guest presenter Neneh Cherry who is the holder of the ‘golden mic’ chalice this week. Neneh had been back in the charts of course in a big way in 1994 alongside Youssou N’Dour on “7 Seconds” but even so, I’m not sure that she had the pull that she would have had 5 years previously. Still, she had a nice delivery style and brought a certain amount of credibility to proceedings. Her first job is to introduce the opening act who is Whigfield who had the unenviable task of trying to follow up a massive selling debut single somehow. And how do you do that? As we have seen so many times in the course of these TOTP repeats, you take the original record, add a few minor changes, give it a different song title and release it all over again. Listen to the banking track on “Another Day” – exactly the same as “Saturday Night”. To try and fool the record buying public into purchasing a single they’d already bought once, the producer behind the Whigfield brand – one Larry Pignagnoli – mixed things up by stealing the groove from Mungo Jerry’s 1970 No 1 “In The Summertime” (main Mungo Ray Dorset would receive a writing credit ultimately). It’s all very unsatisfactory and underhand really but it got Whigfield a Top 10 hit just in time for the Christmas party season. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – nice work if you can get it.

Of course, party dance tunes wasn’t the only way to bag yourself a Christmas hit. A nice ballad was also a strong and proven strategy. Many an artist had pulled off the trick of coming out with a ‘slowie’ in contrast to their previous material over the years – Wet Wet Wet (“Angel Eyes”), The Christians (“Ideal World”) and Bros (“Cat Among The Pigeons”) from the late 80s spring to mind but I’m sure there’s loads more examples. Not impervious to this idea were PJ & Duncan whose previous hits had all been uptempo examples of their brand of pop rap but the fifth single from their album “Psyche” and their fourth hit of the year broke that mould. I guess with a title like “Eternal Love” we shouldn’t have been surprised. Aimed squarely at the teenage girl’s market, it’s as wet and drippy as a poor quality nappy. Do you think this was their attempt at following in LL Cool J’s footsteps when he slowed things down for his hit “I Need Love”?

At this fledgling stage of their career, there were still a few things the duo had to sort out and come to a decision on. Firstly, PJ / Ant’s hat – what was that all about?! So that we could tell them apart?! I’m not sure how long this style affectation lasted but at some point it was ditched. Another style decision that was yet to be resolved was actually more of a staging conundrum. Who should stand where. These days, the fact that Ant stands to the left and Dec the right as we look at our TV screens (in reverse for them of course) is well established but it’s the other way round in this performance and I think it has been like that for every TOTP appearance so far. I wonder when and why they changed it? Is there some sort of feng shui consultant but for people whose services you can call upon?

Next up it’s the familiar video for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” after the The Ronnettes pastiche promo last time. Presumably it wasn’t that familiar back in 1994 though. You can’t avoid it now, so immeshed is it in our festive culture. You could just as easily make a case for a game of Mariah-geddon as Wham-a-geddon. In fact, so ubiquitous is the track that I think the fact that she did a whole album of Christmas songs is almost overlooked. Can you name any of the other tracks on that “Merry Christmas” album without either owning it or looking it up?

Apparently, there were other singles lifted from it (either for commercial release or promotional purposes) though not in the UK I believe. In other territories, “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” and “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) both charted but I’m fairly confident in saying that if you were to hear those songs played on radio in this country it would be the Bruce Springsteen and Darlene Love versions. Despite being No 1 in certain countries, the album only managed a peak of No 32 in the UK. Still, it’s all about that song isn’t it and it’s so far generated $80 million in royalties.

The first TOTP appearance next of a boy band that would last the decade and beyond despite the most inauspicious of beginnings. Boyzone were put together by Louis Walsh (who later found fame himself as a judge on TV shows X Factor and Popstars) with the direct intention of forming an Irish Take That (who were themselves put together by Nigel Martin-Smith to be a British New Kids On The Block). After auditioning 300 hopefuls, an initial six-piece outfit was established and they appeared on Irish talk show The Late Late Show in late 1993 to do…erm…this:

So when I said inauspicious beginnings earlier, what I actually meant was perhaps the most mortifying, ignominious debacle ever witnessed on TV. Sheesh! What were they thinking?! What was Louis Walsh thinking?! Was anybody thinking?! Despite that…whatever it was…the group weren’t killed stone dead by it and somehow got signed by Polygram. There were casualties though. Two of the original line up were ditched and were replaced by Mikey Graham who joined Roman Keating, Stephen Gately, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy for the release of their debut single, a cover of the Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons / The Spinners hit “Working My Way Back To You” which was a success on the Irish chart but nowhere else. That was all the impetus they needed though and another cover of “Love Me For A Reason” (made famous by The Osmonds) would make them bona fide chart stars when it made No 2 over Christmas in the UK singles chart.

Watching this TOTP performance back, it’s clear that some drastic styling had gone on since that turn on The Late Late Show. They’ve all been kitted out with suits and super wide collar shirts to create a sense of unity and their dancing has been stripped back to a few synchronised arm movements and sidesteps. No more freestyle workouts for these boys. It just about hangs together well enough to deliver the song. They would go on to have another fifteen hit singles before the decade was out including six No 1s and six No 2s. The time of Boyzone (not Boys’ Own Neneh) was upon us.

Gloria Estefan does U2? Of course not – it’s not the same song at all although their similar titles could cause confusion I guess. Gloria’s hit is a cover of the 50s song “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” taken from her album of the same name. U2, on the other hand, contributed a song to the soundtrack of the movie Batman Forever called “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”. Hope that clarifies everything.

Gloria’s single did surprisingly well for her just missing out on the Top 10 by one place and thereby becoming her biggest hit since “Megamix / Miami Hit Mix” made No 8 promoting her Best Of album two years prior. You had to go back to 1989 and “Don’t Wanna Lose You” for her previous Top 10 hit. Maybe it was the Christmas factor that allowed Gloria to hit big with a familiar if not well known love song? She would never have such a high placing single in the UK charts again though she has continued to release albums up to the present day with the last being 2022’s Christmas collection. What with Gloria and Mariah both having done Christmas albums, all we need now is one from Madonna for a full set. Or maybe we don’t…need a Madonna Christmas album that is.

Now here’s EYC following the same game plan as PJ & Duncan earlier in that they’re ditching their usual high tempo mix of pop and R&B for a slow smoocher for the Christmas market. “One More Chance” was all sighs and harmonies but very little in the way substance or indeed a tune. In short, it was a stinker.

PJ & Duncan weren’t the only influence on the trio though. They must have been watching Boyzone in rehearsals with their shirts and suits and decided that they wanted a piece of that action. Are they morning suits they’re wearing?! They also seem to have pinched some of Ronan and co’s stripped back dance moves but then completely blow the whole effect by attempting to outdo them with the addition of a totally incongruous accessory. What were the white gloves all about? They look like snooker referees on the pull! Utter nonsense. Talk about “Snooker Loopy”! Brave heart though as I think this lousy lot have just one more hit single in them and then their table will have been cleared.

Cliff Richard is no stranger to a duet. He’s performed alongside the likes of Sarah Brightman, Elton John, Van Morrison, Olivia Newton John, Cilla Black and this guy – Phil Everly and not just once but twice. Back in 1983, Cliff and Phil took “She Means Nothing To Me” to No 9 in the UK charts. I didn’t mind it actually although obviously I never let anyone at school know this. Fast forward 11 years and the two were reunited for a curious collaboration. How so? Well, there was nothing particularly odd about their choice of song; “All I Have To Do Is Dream” had been a No 1 for The Everly Brothers in 1958 so it was a song Phil had been performing for over 35 years. Cliff meanwhile had his first hit “Move It” in the very same year so was a contemporary of Phil’s and would of course know the song. Cliff was promoting a Best Of collection for Christmas in 1994 called “The Hit List” which rounded up all his highest charting singles to date (those that went Top 5 or higher) but curiously also included one that only made No 15. “Miss You Nights” was a hit in 1976 but was included on “The Hit List” as it was a fan favourite.

“So what?” you may ask. Well, a remix of “Miss You Nights” was released as a single to promote the album which seems an unexpected choice of song given the nature of the album’s track listing criteria. That wasn’t all though. It was released as a double A-side single with a live version of “All I Have To Do Is Dream” which wasn’t on the album at all! OK, then maybe it was on an album by Phil Everly and it was promoting that? Not according to my research – his last solo album had been in 1983. There was a 105 track Everly Brothers box set released in 1994 but surely that would have been for super fans and completists only. I can’t believe the Cliff/Phil single was anything to do with that. So what was the rationale behind its release? Yes, obviously Christmas was on the way and Cliff had absolutely cornered the Christmas singles market in recent years but did his record company EMI really think he could garner another festive No 1 with this? In the end, it scampered up the charts to No 14 so nowhere near replicating the success of “Mistletoe And Wine” or “Saviour’s Day”. Phil never released another solo single after this whilst Cliff would return in 1995 with his musical project Heathcliff which he conceived, starred in and allowed him to release an album of songs from.

Next up is “the very attractive Jimmy Nail” according to Neneh Cherry. Jimmy’s transition from Oz in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, who was an extremely likeable character but hardly a pin up, to the sleek, some may say chiselled, pop star/actor we see here was quite a thing. Obviously he’d lost quite a bit of weight since he first appeared on our screens but was it also something to do with the more endearing roles we were seeing him perform in Spender and Crocodile Shoes? I think it’s a possibility.

Talking of roles, a reader reminded me in reply to a previous post where I wondered whatever happened to Jimmy that as well as the two shows mentioned above, he was also kept busy with a third and fourth series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet in 2002 and 2004 respectively and two hour long episodes called Au Revoir that were broadcast in the Christmas of 2004. As for “Crocodile Shoes” the single, was at its chart peak of No 4 this week; a significant success though I don’t think it ever really had a chance of being the Christmas No 1.

East 17 are No 1 with “Stay Another Day” and will remain there for 5 weeks to become the festive chart topper as well. As I recall, the Christmas chart was actually announced on the TOTP broadcast on the big day itself and I was convinced that Oasis would pip both East 17 and Mariah Carey to the crown with their standalone single “Whatever”. They seemed to have timed its release just right with it being available for the first time just the week before and with the buzz about the band reaching boiling point and judging by the amounts we were selling if it in the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester, it seemed like a shoo-in to me. I was amazed when they were announced at No 3 and cried foul, stating something didn’t smell right. However, there were no such stories of rigging in the papers and media. I clearly was letting my Oasis tinted glasses cloud my judgement.

The Walthamstow boys were rightly crowned the Kings of Christmas and their song has gone into the great cannon of festive tunes. Although we get another studio appearance here, there were actually two promo videos made for the single though I only remember seeing one of them at the time. I assume they were made at the same time but the one I saw back in 1994 was the one of the bend seen laying down the track in a recording studio. The one that we now see every December of the band in oversized, white fur trimmed parkas shot in black and white floating about in a snow storm shocked me when I first saw it as it was many years after 1994 and I’d long since left working in record shops behind. How could I have missed seeing it in all those intervening years?

And that’s a wrap for 1994 here at TOTP Rewind. The shows broadcast on the 15th and 22nd December were pulled from the BBC4 repeats schedule as they both featured Gary Glitter. I’ve checked the running order for those shows though and we’re not missing much. Rednex, Mighty Morph’n Power Rangers, Celine Dion, Zig & Zag…it couldn’t be much worse. They did show the Christmas Day edition hosted by Take That (obviously) but it didn’t feature any hits I hadn’t already commented on and so I’m not regurgitating all that again. I will do my own review of 1994 post (the epilogue) as usual though.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Whigfield	Another Day	As if
2	PJ & Duncan	Eternal Love	Infernal racket more like! No!
3	Mariah Carey	All I Want For Christmas Is You	Nope
4	Boyzone	Love Me For A Reason	No
5	Gloria Estefan	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me	Nah
6	EYC	One More Chance	No chance more like!
7	Cliff Richard & Phil Everly	All I Have To Do Is Dream	Didn’t happen
8	Jimmy Nail	Crocodile Shoes	I did not
9	East 17	Stay Another Day	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/m001mwfx/top-of-the-pops-08121994