22nd Nov 1990. A momentous date in British history. Why? Thatcher was finally going after her Cabinet refused to back her in a second round of leadership elections. I’m pretty sure I was in work with my newly acquired Xmas temp job at Our Price when the news broke. A Downing Street statement was issued at 09.30 in the morning after Thatcher had informed her Cabinet and the Queen of her decision to stand down. The timing of the news meant that the whole day would have been taken up discussing it (whilst serving some customers as well no doubt). I was just 10 years old when Thatcher came to power. I was now a married man of 22. This was huge. I have a memory that I couldn’t quite believe it when I first heard. After all, less than 24 hours earlier she had vowed to ‘fight on and fight to win’ after winning the first round of the leadership contest but not with the required majority. I should state that I wasn’t in a state of denial and couldn’t accept what had happened – I despised Thatcher and her government. It was just that it felt like her reign would never end and then suddenly, she was done. It didn’t seem real. There was a very staunch socialist working in the shop at the time who was besides himself with excitement the whole day. There was no mention of the news on that night’s TOTP although host Anthea Turner, whom I’m pretty sure she is a Tory supporter, seems to be sporting a rather sensible haircut that would prove to be an inspiration for Theresa May decades later. That apart, the BBC steered clear of any political comment. Enough of the politics though, who were the acts that were campaigning for your sales to make them the new chart leader?

We start with new chart sensations EMF who have gone Top 5 already with “Unbelievable” and were no doubt eyeing that No 1 spot. I’d certainly never heard of them before their Smash Hits Poll Winners Party slot but apparently the ‘buzz’ around the band had been building for a while. When they toured as support for Adamski, there were more EMF baseball caps and T-shirts sold than the “Killer” hit maker’s. As a result the group were banned from selling merchandise in the concert venues. With a loyal following in place and a fantastic, fresh sound, they seemed destined to have a No 1 record…..

…and then this bloke happened! If it’s late 1990, it must be Vanilla Ice! Rising to the attention of the UK via the same route as EMF (appearing on the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party), it seems crazy to recall now but Vanilla Ice wasn’t always regarded as a complete joke. I’m fairly confident that his “Under Pressure” sampling hit “Ice Ice Baby” was seen as, if not cutting edge, then inventive? No? How about ‘clever’? Still not having it. OK, ‘resourceful’ then? Right then smart arses, what word would you use? ‘SHITE’. Yes, agreed but I’m taking about back in 1990 without any revisionism in play. Still ‘shite’. Ok, you win. Even so, it was the first ever single by a rap artist to go to No 1 in the US. That must count for something surely?

Very much seen as the white MC Hammer, the two seemed inextricably entwined for a while – Ice toured with Hammer and “Ice Ice Baby” was nominated for a Grammy in the category Best Rap Performance alongside Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” (which took the award).

Real name (unbelievably) Robert Van Winkle, Vanilla Ice took “Ice Ice Baby” straight to No 3 (a record highest entry for a new act in the UK Top 40 at the time -it was eventually usurped by Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night”) before making the short jump to No 1 a week later. We were in the grip of Vanilla Ice fever! Sensing they were onto something potentially very big record company SBK, once the single had hit the top spot in the US also, pulled “Ice Ice Baby” from sale in an attempt to force people to buy Ice’s album “To The Extreme”. It worked as it went onto go 7× Platinum in the States. Like I said, Vanilla Ice fever.

And yet…at some undetermined point, the world seemed to wake up to the fact that we’d all been duped. This guy wasn’t the real deal, he was a fraud! His success disappeared almost as soon as it had started. One further Top 10 single followed (a cover of Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music”) and then…pretty much nothing. No, not nothing, ridicule. Suddenly nobody was owning up to having bought any Vanilla Ice records. The spell was broken and music fans came to their senses. Maybe it had all been a bad dream.

As for Vanilla Ice himself, various career changes were undertaken to maintain his celebrity. An attempt at becoming a serious rapper appealing to the hip hop market fell on deaf ears. There then followed acting, motocross, becoming a Rastafarian and growing dreadlocks and then eventually, inevitably, reality TV. Oh dear. A little part of 1990 however will always remain Vanilla Ice’s. Yo, VIP, let’s kick it!

Perhaps the least remembered of their hits, so what was the deal with The Proclaimers doing a cover of Roger Miller’s “King Of The Road” then? Well it was from a film soundtrack (of course it was), the film in question being an Australian romantic drama called The Crossing – no I’ve never seen it either. Anyway, I should say for all the pedants out there that “King Of The Road” was actually an EP (remember EPs were all the rage in 1990 – The Wedding Present, Ride, Inspiral Carpets etc) with three other tracks on it including their take on a song mostly associated with Johnny Cash called “Long Black Veil”).

The performance by Charlie and Craig here strikes me as a bit odd. Why the tuxedos and bow ties? Is it some sort of ironic comment on the subject of the lyrics (a drifter of no fixed abode)? Then of course there is the Jonathan King sticker on the double bass – that hasn’t aged well. I was only mentioned King in the last post in relation to the Righteous Brothers. I had no idea I would be referring to him again so soon. At the song’s close, the sound seems to dip to almost a whisper. Is that how it was on the record or a sound fault in the studio? Oh and I don’t recall anybody seriously suggesting that “King Of The Road” might be the Xmas No 1 as Anthea informs us. Really?! As it turned out, it peaked at No 9.

Right, who’s idea was this because I need to have a serious word with them? Did we really need a version of “It Takes Two” by Rod Stewart and Tina Turner in our lives? I didn’t. Look, I don’t mind the original by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston of course but this duet seemed so cynical and… well, just money for old rope. What? It was part of a Pepsi TV advert campaign you say? Well, look I’m not about to take on the might of a multinational corporation so I’ll let this one go.

Rod, of course, was no stranger to cover versions. Just the previous year, he’d had a hit with Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train” and he seems to have spent huge chunks of the latter part of his career churning out covers as part of his “Great American Songbook” series of albums. Rod maintained his Motown theme when he released a single literally called “The Motown Song” in 1991. Both that and “It Takes Two” were included on his “Vagabond Heart” album of the same year.

“It Takes Two” is one of those songs that was made for a duet and as such many, many versions of it have been recorded down the years – Donny and Marie Osmond, Cliff Richard and Cilla Black even Rod returned to it again in 2019 when he partnered with Robbie Williams (yuk!). Even worse than that though was a version by Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw! At least such a ghastly creation cold never happen again…could it?

Rod and Tina’s version of “It Takes Two” peaked at No 5.

Ah, this is better – a genuinely affecting (if slightly disturbing) ballad in “Falling” courtesy of Julee Cruise. Sadly, Anthea can’t remember her chart placings and although she has just announced that it is at No 11 this week in her chart rundown section, she then introduces it as being at No 10. FFS! You were hosting a show literally based around the Top 40 Anthea!. These things mattered!

Julee gives a very ethereal performance befitting the song that she is singing. She refuses to look into the camera and her ‘I’m not really here’ persona gives the impression that she has been transported to another far away dimension entirely. I think it worked pretty well.

The song’s co-composer Angelo Badalamenti would achieve another Top 40 hit six years later when he teamed up with James’s Tim Booth for the Booth and the Bad Angel project which produced an album and this single called “I Believe” but really, it sounded just like something from Booth’s day job to me:

Like “It Takes Two” earlier, here’s another song that has been widely covered. Jimmy Somerville‘s take on “To Love Somebody” by the Bee Gees was to promote his “The Singles Collection 1984/1990” which was a big seller over Xmas as I remember. That album seemed to draw a line under Jimmy’s career for a while. It would be another five years before he released his next record and indeed he has only recorded four solo albums in total since 1990.

For someone with such unique vocal talents, a lot of Jimmy’s hits seem to have been cover versions. I’m thinking “Don’t Leave Me This Way and “Never Can Say Goodbye” with The Communards and ” “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and the medley of “I Feel Love / Johnny Remember Me / Love To Love You Baby” with Bronski Beat. Then there’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and this one as a solo artist. I’m not making a judgement just an observation.

“To Love Somebody” was Jimmy’s last Top 10 hit peaking at No 8.

Definitely not a cover version is double A-side “Cubik/Olympic” by 808 State. We get “Cubik” this week and back then, that menacing, heavy dance riff would have sounded exhilarating to me but listening back 31 years later, it makes me feel a sense of dread. Damn you middle age!

To be fair though, even in my 30s I was a delicate flower and I did find myself nearly having a panic attack every time the staff in the Our Price I was working played “Higher State of Consciousness” by Josh Wink over the in-store sound system.

The fourth and final week at No 1 for The Righteous Brothers with “Unchained Melody”. Unlikely as it seems, there is a connection between The Righteous Brothers and Scottish stadium rockers Simple Minds. How so? Erm…simple really. The Minds 1984 single “Speed Your Love To Me” was influenced by the line in “Unchained Melody” ‘God speed your love to me’. When asked in an interview with Songfacts.com if there was a connection, Jim Kerr replied:

Yes, there must have been. We loved that song. I think it was [producer] Steve Lillywhite that said, “You know, there’s, ‘God speed your love to me’ in The Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody.'” And, of course, it’s wonderful. Such a great sentiment.

As far as I can tell, Simple minds have never covered “Unchained Melody” and The Righteous Brothers have never given us their take on “Speed Your Love To Me”.

What fresh Hell is this?! Bloody jinxed it didn’t I with my comment about Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw before because here they are with the official Children In Need charity single for 1990. Their version of “It Takes Two” had been the previous year’s official single for the charity and it made it all the way to…No 53! Great effort. “Let’s Dance” was the old Chris Montez number and this time Bruno and Liz pulled out all the stops and got the record to…No 54. There have been worse performing Children In Need singles but not many. It’s hardly “Perfect Day” is it?

I always found Brookes and Kershaw’s ‘love-hate’ on air relationship tedious at best and creepy at worst.

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	EMF	Unbelievable	Unbelievably not at the time but I did buy a later single of theirs called Afro King, the CD of which was like a mini greatest hits which had it on
2	Vanilla Ice	Ice Ice baby	No No baby
3	The Proclaimers	King Of The Road	Nah
4	Rod Stewart and Tina Turner	It Takes Two	But not you two – no!
5	Julee Cruise	Falling	No but it was on that first Q Magazine album that I bought.
6	Jimmy Somerville	To Love Somebody	No but I had that 84-90 Best Of with it on
7	808 State	Cubik / Olympic	Nope
8	The Righteous Brothers	Unchained Melody	It’s a no
9	Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw	Let’s Dance	Charity single or not, this was simply appalling. NO!

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000tpzk/top-of-the-pops-22111990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bedtime reading?