In a truncated show (I think the Fawlty Towers repeats issue was at play again), there’s only seven hits being offered up to the viewing audience but only one of those has been seen before which is last week’s No 1. Our host is Kate Thornton who tells us in her top of the show intro that there’s “a slice of the riviera thrown in for free”. What can she mean? We’ll find out in due course but we start with Ace Of Base who, five years on from their debut hit and No 1 record “All That She Wants”, were still pestering us with their tinny sounding brand of reggae-lite Eurodance. After the sickly sweet but ultimately pointless entity that was their last single “Life Is A Flower”, they were back with a cover version of a Bananarama track. Get that – Bananarama and not fellow Swedes ABBA with whom numerous and completely illegitimate comparisons had been made. “Cruel Summer” was the song chosen supposedly at the demand of their record company. Maybe they thought Steps* had already cornered the market with ABBA soundalikes?
*Steps had themselves had a hit with a cover version of a Bananarama track earlier in 1998. “Last Thing On My Mind” made No 71 in 1992 for the Nanas whereas Steps took it to No 6.
Now this particular song has had quite the prolonged life. Originally a No 8 hit for Bananarama in 1983, it also went Top 10 in America the following year after it was included in the hit movie TheKarate Kid. Five years on from that it was remixed and rereleased making it to No 19 in the UK charts. Then came this insipid version from Ace Of Base but get this – they didn’t inflict it upon the world once but three times! A bilingual second version with French boy band Alliage was recorded specifically for the French market and then in 2009, an eight track strong EP of remixes from Rico Bernasconi was released in Germany. Mein gott! Now that is cruel! Mercifully, we only get about 2:15 of the 3:30 total length of the track in this performance presumably as the show had more pressing matters in the Riviera…
…and suddenly were on the beach at Cannes with Jamie Theakston! What the…?! No lead up to it, no proper explanation – Theakston says something about being there for the television festival – and where’s Kate Thornton disappeared to? The camera angle doesn’t impart the sense of glamour and decadence that you’d expect with the French Riviera – it’s just the screen filled with Theakston’s slappable face until we get an aerial shot to show that it’s definitely Cannes beach although it doesn’t look that impressive, just a few palm trees and a tiny stage set up in a corner next to what seems to be a jetty. It’s hardly making the splash that executive producer Chris Cowey must have intended.
So who is the artist in Cannes for this ‘exclusive’ performance? Why it’s Billie of course who is giving us a preview of her second single “Girlfriend”, the follow up to her debut hit “Because We Want To”. Within a week it would follow its predecessor to the top of the charts thereby emulating this week’s No 1 artist B*Witched by having her first two singles not just go to the top but debut there. Pure and simple pop artists were clearly in vogue at this time. Also just like B*Witched, Billie’s second release wasn’t as immediate as her first but I guess it did the job of more than consolidating on that initial success. It does seem a bit basic though and it’s puerile chorus about asking someone if they have a girlfriend doesn’t really sustain but then it was probably perfect for her teenage girl fan base. After all, Billie herself had only just turned 16 a couple of weeks before this TOTP aired. Then we’re back to Theakston who does a link into the next artist back in the studio. So why was he in Cannes anyway? Maybe he was trying to get away from the trauma of having split up with his then girlfriend Natalie Appleton from All Saints? Billie’s song probably didn’t help. Oh, that’s what that exchange between Theakston and Robbie Williams was about the other week when the former introduced the latter onto the TOTP stage and they seemed to be arguing about who had the best girlfriend – Williams was dating Nicole Appleton at the time.
That artist that Theakston links back to in the studio is Bryan Adams who seems to be doing his best impression of Oasis with his new single “On A Day Like Today”. From the acoustic intro to the drenching of strings in the mix, it has a suspicious whiff of “Wonderwall” about it before it eventually goes full soft rock anthem at its climax. It really was a bit of an elephant in the room which was quite apt as the parent album’s cover featured Adams and an elephant’s trunk. After a run of medium sized hits during the mid 90s (including “On A Day Like Today” which peaked at No 13), the end of the decade and the new millennium would herald a string of bigger singles for Bryan. A duet with Mel C made the Top 3 which was followed by two unlikely hits (including a No 1 no less) with ambient/trance DJ Chicane. None of which sounded like Oasis.
After her successful duet with Monica on “The Boy Is Mine”, Brandy is on collab duty again for the follow up, this time with rapper Mase on the track “Top Of The World”. As we’ve seen previously when there’s a rapper/R&B artist get together, the former isn’t available in the studio so his contributions are supplied via the official video on a big screen at the back of the stage behind Brandy. As with her previous hit, the UK record buying public loved this and sent it to No 2 with sales of 200,000 copies. Me? You won’t be surprised to know that:
(a) I don’t remember it
(b) I don’t like it now that I’ve heard it
These types of R&B tracks do nothing for me. I just can’t seem to find any sort of foothold in them that I can grab hold of, no ‘in’ that I can squeeze through to maintain my interest. If I’d been in the studio audience for this performance, Brandy exhorting the assembled crowd to “Come on, sing along if you know the words” would have had zero effect on me not least because she then just sings “sittin’ on top of the world” repeatedly which is basically the title of the song but for the words “sittin’ on”. Even the least observant of us could surely have remembered/known two extra words?!
What on earth is this?! Well, it’s four young people on stage singing Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” in an urban style badly that’s what it is but it could be an audition for Britain’sGotTalent*. This is just horrible. The people behind it were called 4TheCause although the real culprits of responsibility would have been their record label I suppose for putting this garbage out. Hailing from Illinois originally but having relocated to Germany, they suddenly found themselves successful with this rubbish across Europe and so tried to repeat the trick with more covers of “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers and “Everytime You Go Away” by Hall & Oates but thankfully neither hit pay dirt.
*Tellingly, they got a record contract after winning the Apollo Style talent contest at school in 1995.
Blimey! UB40 were still having hits in 1998? Yes, they were and they were still residents of the UK’s Top 40 as late as 2005 but “Come Back Darling” would be their final Top 10 hit ever. Despite having no doubt reviewed some of them in this blog, I couldn’t have named any of their hits in the 90s after their No 1 cover of “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You”. There were a few though, most of them from their last big selling album “Promises And Lies”. Their next studio album “Guns In The Ghetto” had disappointed commercially and so the band resorted to their reliable fall back position of releasing another volume of their “Labour Of Love” project. The first volume in 1983 and the second from 1990 had both been hugely successful and so I guess it made sense to go there again and “Come Back Darling” was the lead single from it. I have to admit to not knowing the original by Johnny Osbourne and The Sensations but I can only hope it’s better than this dreary, snooze-fest that UB40 dished up. Honestly, I couldn’t make it through to the end of this one – that’s how dull it was. It did strike me though, looking at the band up there on stage, how sad it is that this line up is completely and irreversibly fractured. Brian Travers and Astro have both passed away whilst the split between brothers Robin and Ali Campbell created a fissure so large that there are two versions of the band in existence with seemingly little hope of the two entities being reunified.
B*Witched are No 1 for a second week with “Rollercoaster” bringing to an end a run of six consecutive different chart toppers in six weeks. I mentioned earlier when discussing Billie that pure pop acts were order of the day in 1998 but it’s a claim which stands up when you consider some of the year’s biggest singles artists include Steps, Five, Aqua, Cleopatra and 911 as well as the already established pop big hitters like Boyzone and the Spice Girls. As if to crystallise that sentiment, four of them would appear on a single celebrating the ultimate in pop royalty ABBA with the medley single “Thank ABBA For The Music” that would go to No 4 six months later. Pop was most definitely back.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Ace Of Base
Cruel Summer
Never
2
Billie
Girlfriend
Nah
3
Bryan Adams
On A Day Like Today
I did not
4
Brandy / Mase
Top Of The World
Nope
5
4 The Cause
Stand By Me
Dear me no
6
UB40
Come Back Darling
Negative
7
B*Witched
Rollercoaster
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
And just like that we appear to have reached a ‘jumping the shark’ moment in the history of TOTP. I ranted a bit in the last post about the Cast of Casualty having a hit record and their continuation of the soul-destroying trend for actors becoming pop stars off the back of their TV series characters performing a song in the show. That was bad enough but just seven days later we have the unedifying spectacle of the resurrection of another TV show inspired hit machine that made little sense back in the mid 70s and even less in the late 90s. We’ll get to that presently but some admin first in that we should acknowledge the fact that Jo Whiley is tonight’s presenter and I may have words to say about her later as well.
We begin though with the Spice Girls who have entered the charts at No 2 with their latest single “Stop”. Normally, a No 2 hit wouldn’t be anything to be sniffed at but in this case, well…it was seen as quite the seismic disappointment seeing as it halted the run of every one of the group’s singles having gone to the top of the charts. Despite Jo Whiley saying in her link that she didn’t think it meant the end of ‘girl power’, the Battle of Britpop aside, I don’t think there’d been as much discussion of a song not getting to No 1 since “Welcome To The Pleasuredome” halted Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s run of chart toppers in the mid 80s. I discussed the potential reasons for “Stop”…well…stopping their imperial run in the last post so I’m not going over all that again but suffice to say that in a way Jo Whiley was right – a No 2 instead of a No 1 single wasn’t the end of ‘girl power’ but the departure of Geri Halliwell a couple of months later possibly was.
We’re at the ‘jumping the shark’ moment already. Now don’t get me wrong. I like TheWombles as much as the next person of my generation who grew up with them in that final, five minute children’s TV slot before the boring old news came on. Everyone child of the 70s knew the names Great Uncle Bulgaria, Tobermory, Madame Cholet, Wellington, Bungo, Tomsk and, of course, Orinoco. I think a very young me had a poster of Wellington on my bedroom wall. That stop-motion animation and the playful voice of Bernard Cribbins was magical stuff. However, the idea to turn them into a pop group…I’m not sure I was ever on board with that even as a small child. Back in the 70s though they were huge. The brainchild of Mike Batt who wrote not just their hits but the TV show theme tune as well, according to Wikipedia they were the most successful music act of 1974 in the UK with more weeks on the singles chart than any other artist. Is that true? My God. It probably is though. In 1977 – the year of punk – David Soul was the UK’s best selling artist so…
Those 1974 hits included “Remember You’re A Womble” (No 3), “Banana Rock” (don’t recall that one but it made No 9), “Minuetto Allegretto” (No 16) and, of course, “Wombling Merry Christmas” (No 2). Back then, there were no Gorillaz-style computer graphics nor holograms to depict The Wombles but people in cumbersome, furry costumes which did actually look like their television counterparts but had no moving mouth parts which kind of undermined the whole idea of them performing.
Back to the late 90s though and why were TheWombles suddenly back on TOTP? Well, they are back in the charts with a rerelease of “Remember You’re A Womble” which would peak at No 13. Again though I ask why? Why did we need to be reminded of this – how to be diplomatic about this? – song that was ofitstime? Apparently it was part of campaign to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the show first appearing on our TV screens. A good enough reason you might say? No and I’ll tell you for why. Firstly, TheWombles were back on our TV screens anyway as a new series of episodes were made after Canadian company Cinar Films acquired the rights from original production company FilmFair. These were shown in the UK by ITV. Secondly, the songs were awful and we really didn’t need them back in our lives and indeed our ears.
At the song’s end, Jo Whiley ponders whether it could be The Verve underneath those Wombles costumes. A facetious remark obviously but it got me thinking about who did occupy those furry suits? Back in the mid-70s, some of the names of those who were in the band as it were included Mike Batt (obviously), session guitarist Chris Spedding who produced the first Sex Pistols demos and had his own hit called “Motor Bikin’”, legendary session drummer Clem Cattini who worked with everyone including pioneering producer Joe Meek and was one of The Tornadoes on mega hit “Telstar” and Robin Le Mesurier (son of the beloved Dad’s Army actor). As for the 90s version, the internet is not giving up much. Apparently whoever were in those costumes didn’t want to remember they’d been a Womble!
Some proper music now with the return of James who have reached that point in their career where a Best Of album is not only due but justifiable and credible. Taking the singles from their four albums on Fontana/Mercury (not including jam sessions album “Wah Wah”), plus two new songs and an track from early EP “James II”, it would go to No 1 and three times platinum. I was one of those who bought it and a good choice it was too but playing the whole album in one session, I had to admit to myself that some of the tracks did tend to merge into each other. I know – that’s fighting talk to some people but I can only call it as I hear it. Maybe that’s just an inevitable consequence of their sound being so distinctive and idiosyncratic.
Anyway, as was the established practice by this point, a new song was released to promote the Best Of which was “Destiny Callling”. Now, you know what I said about their songs merging into each other? Well, band member Saul Davies described the writing process for “Destiny Calling” as “whacking on a capo and playing “She’s A Star” at twice the speed”. Look, I’m not trying to find fault here, I’m just reporting the details. For what it’s worth, I liked it – a fairly obvious dig at the mechanics of the music industry, it was a perfect appetiser for the retrospective of their work…OK, of their chart successful work. What’s great about James though is that they’ve never rested on their laurels. Within 18 months they’d released their eighth studio album and have gone onto produce another ten in the following 25 years. I like Tim Booth’s Ian Curtis type wig out as the performance reaches its climax. Thankfully, nobody in the studio audience shouted at him to “Sit Down!”. Ahem.
I have no idea who this is or what her hit sounded like so I’m going in with no preconceived notions…
*three minutes later *
…well, what did I expect from a song called “Uh La La La”? This is lowest common denominator Eurodance rubbish that wasn’t even original. Alexia (for that is her who were talking about) clearly ripped off 1995 hit “I Luv U Baby” by The Original for the final line of the chorus (not the words which are clearly not unique but the intonation of the delivery). And what about that title? Clearly pinched from Kool And The Gang’s “Let’s Go Dancin’ (Ooh La,La, La)” but with the ‘Ooh’ adapted to ‘Uh’ to try and disguise the theft even though she’s clearly singing “Ooh”. Was this an attempt to become 1998’s version of Whigfield? I say 1998 but the single had been a hit all around Europe in 1997 but via lots of different record labels so the swines at Sony music ordered a unifying re-edit, remix and rerelease on Almighty Records to launch Alexia in the UK and so we had to suffer like the rest of the continent. A couple more minor hits later and Alexia was gone from our charts forever though she’s still recording music to this day amassing 19 (!) album releases to date including a Christmas album in 2022.
At the end of Alexia’s performance, Jo Whiley makes a remark that “Uh La La La” is about Alexia’s inner feelings but that “it could so easily be about the sex appeal of a Teletubby”. In a recent post, I commented on Jo’s intro for The Lilys who were the latest act to record a song for a Levi’s ad campaign following in the footsteps of Stiltskin, Babylon Zoo and Freakpower. When mentioning those names, she noticeably grimaced and I remarked this was a bit rich coming from a woman who would argue in favour of the musical significance of The Teletubbies if it kept her on TV. Ha! I wasn’t so far away with my assessment!
We’ve arrived at the final hit of the 90s for Kylie Minogue and although not one of her most well known tracks it might well be one of the most underrated. “Breathe” was the third and final single released in the UK from her “Impossible Princess” album. I think I’ve discussed the problematic gestation ofthat album before but briefly, it took two years to record due to changes of musical direction, various different collaborations and a quest for pure perfection from everyone involved in it. As such, its release was postponed multiple times and then its title was deemed dubious after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in August 1997. It was finally made available in the UK in late March of 1998 having been renamed to simply “Kylie Minogue” (the third eponymous album of her career) meaning that all three singles from it were released before the parent album which was unusual to say the least.
“Breathe” is actually very engaging – slinky but not without substance and almost hypnotic with its lyrics about internal contemplation. It could be a prototype for “Pure Shores” by All Saints which is a compliment by the way. It probably deserved better than its chart high of No 14. The 90s had started with a No 1 for Kylie with “Tears On My Pillow” but by the decade’s end, her sound, exemplified by the likes of “Breathe”, was almost unrecognisable from that. Whilst her creativity was in the ascendancy, her commerciality was on the wane but she would get the latter back in spades come the new millennium with “Spinning Around” and those hot pants. Sadly, I won’t be reviewing those TOTP repeats as I’m stopping at the end of 1999 so fare thee well Kylie and thanks for all the content.
Bryan Adams is up next with another track from his “Unplugged” album. Unlike the first single taken from it though, “I’m Ready” was not a new song but nearly two decades old which Adams first recorded in 1983 for his album “Cuts Like A Knife”. Back then it was an out and out rock song but in 1998 it metamorphosed into an acoustic ballad complete with a low whistle played by Irish folk legend Davy Spillane which seems like an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the Celtic flute sound to be found on “My Heart Will Go On”. I definitely prefer the rockier version of “I’m Ready” though it’s hardly one of his best efforts. Still, compared to The Wombles, this was high art indeed. By the end of the decade, Adams would have released another studio album, a second Greatest Hits collection, teamed up with a Spice Girl and even had a dance hit (courtesy of a remix by Chicane) that had gone down a storm in Ibiza!
By March 1998, “White On Blonde”, the fourth Texas album, had been out for over a year and delivered the band four Top 10 singles. So how do you convince your fanbase to buy a fifth? Easy. Team up with a couple of rappers and re-record the first of those four hits and release it as a double A-side with another track from the album. That sounds overly cynical but that is what happened – the release details at least. I may be being presumptuous about the intentions behind them. However, with follow up album “The Hush” still 14 months away from being available in the shops, it was a way of both maintaining the band’s profile and keeping them in the charts.
The rappers concerned were Method Man and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan so big names (not quite sure how they knew Sharleen and the gang though) and the track they collaborated on was “Say What You Want” which they retitled “Say What You Want (All Day, Every Day)”. It was performed at that year’s BRIT Awards and presumably audience reaction was positive enough for a proper release to be considered (maybe that was the real reason behind it being made commercially available). As this version wasn’t on the album, the track on its own wasn’t going to squeeze any more sales out of it so it was doubled up with “Insane” which was on the album. So, starting with “Say What You Want (All Day, Every Day)” and I have to say I didn’t get it. I’ve read comments online saying how it “just worked” but I couldn’t/still can’t hear it. The rap bits don’t blend with the pop song – they just sound really incongruous next to each other. Then there’s that layer of strings introduced to the chorus that wasn’t in the original which sounds discordant or even out of tune. Am I missing something?
As for “Insane”, I’m not convinced that it’s quite strong enough to have been a single but it’s a moody number that has something going for it. The smouldering brass parts remind me of Portishead (or is it Groove Armada?) and Sharleen’s vocals are as on point as ever but it’s maybe just a bit too downbeat? I think it probably makes more sense in the context of the album.
We have a new No 1 and it’s from Run D.M.C.vsJason Nevins. The track “It’s Like That” had actually been the rap trio’s debut single all the way back in 1983 but had largely been overlooked in favour of its B-side “Sucker M.C.’s”. Fast forward 14 years and, with Run D.M.C’s legacy as one of the most influential hip-hop artists ever assured, the track was revisited by producer and remixer Jason Nevins and became a massive international hit, going to No 1 in multiple countries. I seem to remember that it had been available in other territories way before an official release was secured in the UK meaning that imports of the single made their way into record shops over here first. I think we may have had a few copies in the Our Price in Stockport where I worked. Its phenomenal (and maybe unexpected) success would lead it to spend six weeks at No 1 and become the third best selling single of 1998 in the UK. As well be seeing plenty more of this one, I’ll leave it there for now.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Spice Girls
Stop
Nah
2
The Wombles
Remember You’re A Womble
What do you think?!
3
James
Destiny Calling
No but I had the Best Of album
4
Alexia
Uh La La La
Definitely not
5
Kylie Minogue
Breathe
Negative
6
Bryan Adams
I’m Ready
Nope
7
Texas / Wu-Tang Clan
Say What You Want (All Day, Every Day) / Insane
No but I had a promo copy of the album
8
Run D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins
It’s Like That
And no
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Christmas is nearly upon us in the world of BBC4’s TOTP repeats and, unlike nowadays, there is much talk of who will be this year’s festive No 1. Some of the contenders in the race were:
The Teletubbies – “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’”
Various Artists – “Perfect Day”
Spice Girls – “Too Much”
Robbie Williams – “Angels”
Chicken Shed Theatre Company – “I Am In Love With The World”
If you can’t remember who clinched the title then here’s a clue – they had silly names and there was a lot of controversy surrounding them. No, not the Teletubbies! It was the Spice Girls though I’m willing to bet a few of them had handbags to rival Tinky Winky’s!
Anyway, we’re not there yet. We still have one last show for the great and the good of the class of 1997’s pop cohort to promote their Christmas wares and we start with Natalie Imbruglia who is still in the Top 10 despite having spent the last two months in residence there. Although this was the era of singles debuting high and crashing out of the Top 40 completely within a fortnight due to record company first week of release discounting, there were still plenty of examples of hits that bucked that trend. Off the top of my head, just in 1997, there’s No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak”, “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba, No Mercy’s “Where Do You Go”, All Saints’ “Never Ever” and “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! “Torn” was another such song. Look at these chart stats:
2 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 5 – 9 – 8 – 8 – 8 – 9 – 10
This week’s TOTP appearance was for one of those No 8 positions so presumably because it had gone back up the charts or was holding steady. In the week before Christmas, it seems a bit odd to be opening the show with a months old hit which would also feature in the Christmas Day show but there you go. Would there have been a discussion at her label RCA about deleting it to make way for the follow up single “Big Mistake”? If there was, it was clearly poo-pooed in favour of ensuring it wasn’t swallowed up in the festive rush and was held back for the much slower post Christmas sales period. Nearly thirty years on though, it all see seems a bit academic as despite a triple platinum selling debut album and ten UK Top 40 singles to her name, I’m willing to bet the vast majority of people could only name “Torn” when it comes to Natalie Imbruglia hits.
Here’s another of those songs that took up long term residency in the charts – “Angels” by Robbie Williams. This one spent twelve consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 whilst never going higher than No 4 thus undermining the faith that some of the bookies had in it to be the Christmas chart topper. Maybe some of that belief was based on the fact that:
It was a ballad – always a winner at Christmas
There appeared to be some sleigh bells somewhere in the mix in the intro
There was an extra track on the CD single called “Walk This Sleigh”
History tells us, of course, that this was the single that saved Robbie’s career which got me thinking if there were other examples of this. The first that came to mind was “Instinction” by Spandau Ballet. After scoring their biggest ever hit with “Chant No. 1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On)” in the Summer of 1981, their next two singles released for the “Diamond” album were chart failures. “Paint Me Down” only managed a humble peak of No 30 whilst “She Loved Like Diamond” was a sales disaster failing to make the Top 40 at all. Suddenly, the pressure was on and the band were in desperate need of a hit to resurrect their career. Enter Trevor Horn whose remix of the album track “Instinction” took them back to the Top 10 before the band became global superstars with “True”.
Then there’s the case of Culture Club. Having had demos rejected by EMI, the band finally signed with Virgin Records but after their first two singles had less longevity to them than TACO Trump’s tariff charges, there must have been concern within the record label that their charges were a dud. A last throw of the dice in third single “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” saw the track receive support from David Hamilton on Radio 2 (which wasn’t the popular music playing station it is today back then) and a last minute TOTP appearance after Shakin’ Stevens cried off saw the world introduced to Boy George. Cue tabloid hysteria but also massive sales and pop superstardom.
Bringing it back to Robbie Williams, Take That struggled to find chart success in their early days with their first three singles getting no further than No 38. After all the promotional groundwork the band had done in clubs and schools, it was scant reward. A fourth single was given the go ahead but only with the safety net of it being a cover version. Their version of the old Tavares hit “It Only Takes A Minute” took them into the Top 10 and Take That are still with us 33 years later (albeit now as a trio).
Now I remember there was a Bryan Adams MTV Unplugged album because I recognise the cover but I couldn’t have told you that the lead single from it was called “Back To You”. However, I do know the song. How come? Because it was a staple of the early guitar classes I attended back in about 2009 as it turns out the chords to it are pretty basic. We used to start with this one to get us warmed up. Does that mean I liked it? It’s an OK track but it doesn’t come near to the power of “Run To You”. It actually sounds a bit twee in comparison. Still, those chords won’t learn themselves and a part of me will always be reminded of sitting in a circle and strumming along to its backing track whenever I hear it. Bryan’s original would make No 18 in the UK but was a No 1, rather predictably, in his native Canada.
I’m not sure if the bookmakers had this one down as a potential Christmas No 1 but then, in fairness to Ladbrokes, William Hill and the rest, the chart journey of “Never Ever” by All Saints was hard to have predicted. In at No 3 in its first week, it then fell for two consecutive charts before reversing the trend to spend three weeks at No 4 of which this TOTP appearance was one. It would finally top the charts for a solitary week in early 1998. Quite extraordinary really.
P.S. I like host Jayne Middlemiss’ intro where she really lets her Geordie accent come through when she says “Mel. Shaz, Nicki and Nat are gonna sing for wuh”. Lovely stuff.
What’s not so lovely though is the link to the next song which comes from one of the band themselves. Yes, introducing “If God Will Send His Angels” by U2 is Bono himself. What was this all about? A demonstration that the show’s profile was still so powerful that it could get superstars to record exclusives for it? Bono’s Christmas message includes him banging on about his kids wanting him to have a bath after returning from being on tour (how festive) before apologising for not being there with us (by which I presume he means in the studio) and therefore we get the promo for the single which was the fifth and last taken from “Pop”. I had totally forgotten about this one probably because it’s totally unmemorable. Even the by now over used record-at-slow-speed-and-then-sped-up video technique employed on the promo seemed old hat. It really is a bit of a dirge but it managed a chart peak of No 12 nonetheless. You could doubt the wisdom of releasing a fifth track from an album at the height of the Christmas singles rush – what did record label Island think was going to happen? The reasoning behind it seems to be the fact that due to the deadline of a pre-booked tour, the “Pop” album was rushed to market in what the group felt was an unfinished state. As such the band either remixed or completely remade the tracks taken from it for single release making them seem like more essential than usual purchases for the die-hards in the fanbase.
“If God Will Send His Angels” would also end up on the soundtrack album for the film City Of Angels (the clue to the reason why is in both titles!). I’ve never seen it but it starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan and was about an angel falling in love with a mortal woman. The film was a commercial success as was the soundtrack which also featured songs by Alanis Morissette and Goo Goo Dolls both of whom were managed by Rob Cavallo who was the album’s executive producer. Funny that. Morissette had the follow up album to global smash “Jagged Little Pill” due out whilst Goo Goo Dolls also had an album forthcoming. Again, funny that. The latter’s track contributed to the film was “Iris” which would top airplay charts around the world when released as a single the following year, be nominated for a Grammy and is still a staple of pop/rock radio station playlists to this day and you can’t say that about “If God Will Send His Angels”,
And so to another of those potential contenders for the Christmas No 1 according to the bookies. “I Am In Love With The World” by ChickenShedTheatreCompany was originally included on the “Diana Princess Of Wales: Tribute” charity album due to her patronage of the theatre company that literally started in an old chicken shed and was released as a single from it in time for Christmas. Presumably the bookmakers were predicting another Elton John style flood of sales. It never transpired with “I Am In Love With The World” (why was it ‘I am’ and not ‘I’m’) peaking at a relatively lowly No 15. Maybe its inclusion on an album that went double platinum in the UK reduced its chances or maybe the nation had taken enough time by this point to shake off its collective malaise that Diana’s death had brought on. Or maybe, and I don’t wish to wield harsh criticism against a charity record, it was just terrible. Because it really was.
Say what you like about Celine Dion (and many of us have) but she worked with some of the biggest names in music. Her previous single to this (which was still in the Top 40) was a duet with Barbra Streisand and the follow up – “The Reason” – was co-written by Carole King. My wife introduced me to Carole’s “Tapestry” LP when we first met back in 1986 so it has a special place in my heart but this track was like a paper doily compared to the songs woven into that classic album. A power ballad (of course it was) but it wasn’t a Jim Steinman type powerhouse like “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” which she’d had a hit with the previous year. It sounded like a Eurovision* entry or possibly an XFactor winner’s song.
*Celine had, of course, won that particular song contest for Switzerland in 1988.
Tellingly, that duet with Barbra Streisand (“Tell Him”) would endure much better than “The Reason”. It peaked at No 3, spent four weeks inside the Top Ten 10 and a further four inside the Top 20 whereas “The Reason” peaked at No 11 and spent just three weeks in total in the Top 20. In the week of the Christmas chart, “Tell Him” held at No 13 whilst “The Reason” dropped to No 16.
Christmas wasn’t just about selling singles though. Albums was where the real money was and what type of album did record companies love to put out at Christmas time? A Best Of compilation of course! Yes, the reliable old staple of festive release schedules was a Greatest Hits/Best Of/Collection (delete as appropriate) and around this time a new strain of the format appeared – a retrospective of a solo artist and their former band on the same album. Although there had already been a Sting Greatest Hits (“Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984-1994”) and two collections from ThePolice (1986’s “Every Breath You Take: The Singles” and 1992’s “Greatest Hits”), record label A&M reckoned they could still squeeze some more readies out of the back catalogue of both their artists by combining them into one album. Was this a genius move or a hateful idea – you’ll have your own opinion but it didn’t sit well with me. I like my retrospectives to be definitive which this surely couldn’t be. Not everything by two artists could be contained in one album. Surely a box set was needed?
Anyway, in 1997 came “The Very Best Of Sting & The Police” (note the use of the word ‘Very’ to signify that this was something different even though it wasn’t). Featuring fifteen tracks (seven from Sting and eight by The Police), it went four times platinum in the UK either matching or beating the sales of those aforementioned previous collections. So which songs didn’t make the cut?
The Police:
“So Lonely”
“De Do Do Do De Da Da Da” (though it was included in subsequent reissues of the album)
“Invisible Sun”
“Spirits In The Material World”
“Wrapped Around Your Finger”
“Synchronicity II”
“King Of Pain”
Sting:
“Spread A Little Happiness”
“All This Time”
“It’s Probably Me”
“Nothing ‘Bout Me”
“All For Love” (with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams)
“Love Is The Seventh Wave”
“Seven Days”
And those lists aren’t completely exhaustive! Bah!
To promote the album, a single was required and so The Police’s first UK Top 40 hit “Roxanne” was recommissioned for the job. However, it wasn’t the original version but a horrible remix by Puff Daddy who probably reckoned he owed Sting one for “I’ll Be Missing You”. What he came up with featured samples and a horrible rap and was retitled as “Roxanne ‘97” and was just a dreadful mess. Thankfully, we don’t get that version here but a rather affecting acoustic take on it. Although Sting might rival Bono in the holier-than-thou arse stakes, you can’t deny that “Roxanne” is a great tune (Puff Daddy remix aside).
I’m guessing that the bookies didn’t want to get burned by a Christmas No 1 they hadn’t seen coming as happened in 1993 when firm favourites Take That were bounced out of the top spot by Mr Blobby and so didn’t underestimate the Teletubbies. Thankfully, history didn’t repeat itself. It seems the joke was wearing thin by this point as we only get 30 seconds of “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’” as the credits roll. I never thought I’d say this but thank God for the Spice Girls.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Natalie Imbruglia
Torn
No
2
Robbie Williams
Angels
No but I had a promo copy of the album
3
Bryan Adams
Back to You
Nope
4
All Saints
Never Ever
Negative
5
U2
If God Will Send His Angels
I did not
6
Chicken Shed Theatre Company
I Am In Love With The World
Hell No!
7
Celine Dion
The Reason
Never
8
The Police / Sting
Roxanne ’97
Nah
9
Teletubbies
Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’
Of course 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.
We’re in the midst of a huge run of ‘golden mic’ hosts in these TOTP repeats. So far in 1997, the only Radio 1 DJ to have presented the show is Nicky Campbell back at the start of January. Since then we’ve had Rhona Cameron, Phil Daniels, Noddy Holder and in the next three shows we’ll see Peter Andre, Ant & Dec and Ian Wright before Jo Whiley waves the flag for Radio 1 again on 7th March. For this week though we have Ardal O’Hanlon aka Father Douglas Maguire from FatherTed. A Christmas special for that show (the one with the lingerie department scene) had recently aired so Ardal’s profile was in the ascendancy at the time. His approach to hosting is to claim propriety for the charts for this week and therefore TOTP as well and he pulls it off successfully I think.
The opening act are TheSupernaturals who were a sort of nearly men of Britpop. Hailing from Scotland, they’d done the ‘paying their dues’ route of touring to create a fan base and independently releasing their early material until they were eventually picked up by major label Food in 1995. They then did a load more touring but not as headline act in their own tour but supporting the likes of Dodgy, Ash, Menswear, Sleeper, The Bluetones and in a rather unlikely move Tina Turner (must have been another support artist in after them surely?). Putting in the miles on the road paid off when their second single release “Lazy Lover” pierced the Top 40 peaking at No 34. The follow up was “The Day Before Yesterday’s Man” which was a nice play on words and an incredibly catchy bit of piano led but guitar based rock/pop. Despite this TOTP appearance though, it would only make No 25 in the charts. A re-release of their debut single “Smile” was deemed necessary to try and build on their first hit which it did but, despite being perhaps their best known tune, could only make it two places higher up the charts. Their album “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” did go Top 10 (just) but that would be the band’s commercial peak and it was a case of diminishing returns after that. Why weren’t they bigger than they were? Was it a case of bad timing with their arrival on the scene coming just as Britpop was burning out? Were they ahead of their time? They may not thank me for the comparison but were they a prototype Scouting For Girls? Or were they just always destined to be the bridesmaid and not the bride? For my part, I liked them and even bought their album though it was a few years after the event in a sale in a record shop in Madrid bizarrely whilst on holiday there.
After splitting in 2002, they reformed in 2012 and are still an ongoing entity today. If you think you don’t know or remember them, you might actually know some of their songs by osmosis as a number of them have been used to soundtrack advertising campaigns for the likes of Sky Movies, Arnold Clark Automobiles and Smile bank (guess which song they used for that one!). They’ve also featured in films and TV shows such as ShootingFish, Hollyoaks, Clarkson’sCarYears, FastFood and HomesUnderTheHammer. With such demand to licence their work, maybe they aren’t the nearly men I thought they were.
When you think of Michelle Gayle, who do you think of? Hattie Tavernier in EastEnders? Or perhaps as half of rap duo Fresh ‘n’ Fly from her time in Grange Hill? Or the rather accomplished singer that she turned out to be during her brief music career? It perhaps should be the latter as she probably doesn’t get the credit she deserves for the decent stab she made of it. Sure, her best known song “Sweetness” was a bit sleight and throwaway but it was bright, bubbly and fun. Some of her other hits weren’t your average soap star turned pop star fare; she was no Stefan Dennis! No, my impression is that she took it seriously and wanted to be taken seriously rather than giving this opportunity her existing fame had afforded her a whirl. And some of her songs were OK. Take this one – “Do You Know” – for example. It’s a smooth as silk, sleekly produced R&B/pop song that was perfect for daytime radio and Michelle co-wrote it.
So why didn’t her time as a pop star last longer? I think it was to do with the perception of her as a singles artists as opposed to one who could shift lots of albums. She clocked up seven chart hit singles (including two inside the Top 10) but her two studio albums failed to sell in copious amounts peaking at Nos 30 and 17. She was also unlucky with record company machinations. After leaving RCA after her second album she joined EMI but a third album she recorded the them was never released. There was then an attempted comeback in 2004 when another album went unreleased after her label folded. She has had better luck and more success after becoming an author and a return to acting but this time treading the boards at the theatre. In 2023, she made a surprise if very fleeting return to her pop star days by appearing on stage with Louise at a Shepherd’s Bush gig singing her hit “Sweetness”.
So how is Ardal doing? Not bad actually. He has resisted doing a turn in character as Father Dougal Maguire whilst sneaking in some FatherTed references (“we’ll be having an exclusive from the British band Bush who are huge in America but very small here”) and channeling the spirit of Dougal by projecting the image of a man who is nominally in charge of the show but who doesn’t really have any control or know what’s going on (“we’ll be having some music, some counting, young people screaming and here’s Michelle Gayle singing a song…”). In his segue for the next video, he doesn’t hold back in his distaste for the duo involved by saying he doesn’t know how they got into his charts and then appearing to have had headphones on for the duration of it when the track is over. To be fair to Ardal, he had a point. “I Finally Found Someone” by Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand was hardly down with the kids was it?
Taken from the soundtrack to Babs’s latest film TheMirrorHasTwoFaces (which I’ve never even heard of let alone seen), it’s perhaps what you would expect if you put these two together to record a song for a romantic comedy/drama – a big, rather overwrought ballad that ticks all the boxes of cinematic requirements. It wasn’t for me though Bry’s raspy rock voice does blend better than expected with the more refined tones of Babs. However, I’m not sure Adams is at his best when in the vicinity of movie soundtracks – often pilloried for that Robin Hood song, he was also part of the unholy trio that also included Rod Stewart and Sting that sicked up the bilious “All For One” from TheThreeMusketeers movie. “Have You Ever Really Lived A Woman?” from Don Juan DeMarco was similarly awful and then there’s this. Barbra and movies, on the other hand, are synonymous with each other. Tell me this though. How have I, in 2025 and at 56 years of age, only just noticed how she spells her name?!
And now for something completely different. I say completely different but, although the year had changed, the make up of the charts hadn’t as they were still home to multiple dance hits of which “Passion” by Amen! UK was just one of many. The correlation between banging tunes filling the dance floors and filling up the Top 40 was still dominant as the decade turned the final corner and headed for the finish. Who was buying these records in the shops? Was it club goers who wanted to recreate that top night they’d had last weekend in their living room? Was it DJs needing a track to complete their next set playlist? Most dance records of this time left me cold but I could appreciate their appeal and power in the setting of a nightclub but not so much being played at home. Maybe punters were practicing their dance moves in the safety of their homes before daring to present them to fellow club goers? Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about at all? Anyway, these are the facts for this one. The guy behind it was Irish DJ Paul Masterson who would go on to have more hits under the pseudonym of Yomanda and it was released on the painfully hip Deconstruction label reaching No 15 in the charts. It made No 40 when rereleased in 2003.
Another dance tune though this one is completely different to Amen!UK. Nuyorican Soul was a side project by American garage house producers ‘Little’ Louis Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez aka Masters at Work. This single – “Runaway” – was a fairly faithful cover of a 70s disco track by the Salsoul Orchestra featuring the vocals of Loleatta Holloway who supposedly is the most sampled female singer in popular music history (remember the whole Black Box/“Ride On Time” debacle?). Vega and Gonzalez didn’t sample Loleatta in their version though choosing instead to have Puerto Rican singersongwriter India do the actual heavy lifting vocally. Some 90s production values made the whole thing sound retro yet current and it was duly a hit going to No 24 in the UK Top 40 and No 1 in our Dance Chart.
After a rather oblique Father Ted reference earlier when he referred to Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand as “Lenny* and Petula Clarke”, Ardal O’Hanlon veers off into random-ville for his next link by name checking Toyah Wilcox, noting that it’s been 427 weeks since she’s been in the charts? That can’t be actually true can it? 427 weeks is what? Just over eight years. Right, I’m checking Toyah’s discography…
…Oh My God! He was nearly right. In fact, Ardal underestimated Toyah’s absence from the charts. Her last visit to the Top 40 was in May 1985 so a gap of nearly 12 years by this point! “Why can’t you be more like EnVogue?” he asks Toyah looking straight into the camera before we get the video for “Don’t Let Go (Love)” which is back up to No 5 this week. However, this would be the final time that the group would visit the UK Top 10. Good song as it is, it’s another of those tracks that has brackets in the title for no discernible reason. They don’t sing the word ‘love’ in the chorus – in fact, that word doesn’t appear in the lyrics at all (though ‘lovers’ does). For balance, Toyah wasn’t adverse to the use of brackets in her song titles. There’s “Be Loud, Be Proud (Be Heard)”, “Don’t Fall In Love (I Said)” and the marvellously ridiculous “Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You)”.
*Recurring character Bishop Brennan’s first name was Leonard or Len as Father Dougal would call him much to his annoyance.
And here it is again. The problem for TOTP producers as to what to do with an almost instrumental dance hit. On this occasion it is The Orb with “Toxygene” and the decision on staging for their performance was to have the duo (Alex Paterson and Andy Hughes I think) each sit on a revolving mini platform tinkering with their keyboards and equipment set up. It looks ill-conceived at best and laughable at worst. What astonishes me is why the band themselves agreed to do it. Did they really think this was the best way to promote their single? Wasn’t there a video to go with it that could have been shown thereby killing two birds with one stone – a better showcase for the track and a solution for the show about how to stage it?
The track itself was supposed to be a remix of Jean Michel Jarre’s “Oxygène 8” from his “Oxygène 7–13” album though it doesn’t really sound anything like it at all which apparently Jarre wasn’t too happy about. I’ve wondered why there weren’t more uses of Jarre’s work in 90s dance tracks (there could well have been for all I know but this is the first I’ve come across) seeing as he was The Godfather of electronic, ambient and new-age sounds. There were people I knew at school who swore by him though it didn’t do much for me and my youthful pop sensibilities. Maybe Jarre’s reaction to The Orb’s treatment of “Oxygène 8” was a reason why there weren’t more samples of his work in existence.
Next an example of that curious phenomenon of when a UK artist is huge in America but can’t get arrested in their own country. In the 80s we had The Escape Club and Wang Chung. Bush were the 90s equivalent. Their debut album “Sixteen Stone” went Top 5 in the US but could only peak at No 42 over here. However, they finally broke through in the UK with the lead single from their second album “Razorblade Suitcase” which was called “Swallowed”. Listening to it now, it really does sound like a Nirvana tribute act, an accusation that was levelled at them constantly back then. I thought it was OK but I was never going to fall for them hook, line and sinker. I’m guessing though that their record company would hope that some female punters would do exactly that for lead singer Gavin Rossdale. They were out of luck if they did as he was going out with Gwen Stefani of No Doubt at the time and they would later be married for 13 years. No doubt we’ll be seeing…erm… No Doubt on these TOTP repeats very soon.
In the last post, I talked about “Walk On By” being one of the most recorded songs in history. However, “Ain’t Nobody” must be up there as well. Originally recorded by Rufus and Chaka Khan, it has also been recorded by Jaki Graham, Scooter, Richard X versus Liberty X and had been in the charts as recently as 1995 courtesy of Diana King. The there’s this version by LLCoolJ. Recorded for the soundtrack of the BeavisAndButt–HeadDoAmerica film, it was a somewhat surprising No 1 in my opinion. It wasn’t as big a hit anywhere else in the world (including the US apart from their Rap Chart) and I don’t recall the film being a big hit over here (though Wikipedia tells me it did good business in America) so I’m not quite sure why it proved so popular in the UK. LL Cool J’s next hit also came from a film soundtrack as he was one of the artists on “Hit ‘Em High (The Monstars’ Anthem)” from SpaceJam.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
The Supernaturals
The Day Before Yesterday’s Man
No but I had their album
2
Michelle Gayle
Do You Know
No
3
Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand
I Finally Found Someone
Never
4
Amen! Uk
Passion
Not my bag
5
Nuyorican Soul featuring India
Runaway
Negative
6
En Vogue
Don’t Let Go (Love)
Nope
7
The Orb
Toxygene
I did not
8
Bush
Swallowed
No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
9
LL Cool J
Ain’t Nobody
Nah
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.
As I write this, the latest series of I’mACelebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! has just concluded with Danny Jones being crowned as the new King of the Jungle and it strikes me that there’s a couple of tie ins between that show and this episode of TOTP. No, nothing to do with McFly who wouldn’t be invented for another eight years nor The Communards whose Reverend Richard Coles came third this year. Neither is there a connection to contestant Tulisa formerly of hip-hop trio N-Dubz who wouldn’t start having hits for a further ten years. However, the first link is really obvious and it’s the show’s opening act who are Ant&Dec. Told you it was obvious! The ever present hosts of I’mACelebrity…GetMeOutOfHere! since the first series in 2002 (apart from they one year when Ant was in rehab and was replaced by Holly Willougby), the diminutive duo were still very much pop stars at this point in their career though that was rapidly approaching its natural end.
“When I Fall In Love” was their eleventh consecutive UK Top 40 hit but there were only two more to come in their original incarnation. Although the title of this one suggests images of Nat King Cole or maybe even Rick Astley (!), thankfully it was nothing to do with that classic 50s hit though maybe it would have been better if it had been as this was absolute garbage. A totally nothing tune but even that chronic lack of substance was too much for Dec’s weedy voice. Meanwhile, Ant’s rap was clearly inserted to give him something to do whilst his pal tried and failed to do the vocal heavy lifting. On the CD single, you had the choice of playing the radio edit with or without the rap though that’s like choosing whether you’d rather eat your left or right arm. Talking of arms, Dec seems to be unsure what to do with his right one during this performance, slashing about wildly with it as if he’s swatting flies. And what was going on with his hair? That mullet bit…was that even real? It looks like a wig that might have been used in a really poor quality Beatles biopic. In short (unlike Dec’s hair), everything about this was a bit naff (exactly like Dec’s hair). I think they made the right decision to knock the pop star thing on the head not long after this.
There’s no ShedSeven connection to I’mACelebrity…GetMeOutOfHere! that I’m aware of but in 1996, the York indie rockers were at the top of their game. Five UK chart hits in one calendar year was quite the achievement – they were literally at the apex of their career which was quite apt given that four of those hits came from an album called “Maximum High”. In fact, two of those singles continued the theme in “Getting Better” and “Going For Gold”. Sadly, “Bully Boy”can’t really be shoehorned in at all whilst “On Standby” and “Chasing Rainbows” not just end the metaphor but invert it.
It’s that last song that concerns us here though. This wasn’t from “A Maximum High” but the lead single from third studio album “Let It Ride” though it was released a good six months before it. So why was that? Well, Rick Witter is on record as having an issue with the release schedule but it’s nothing to do with the gap between the single and album coming out. He believes that if “Chasing Rainbows” had been released in a different week to its actual release date, it might have been a No 1. Does he have a point? On first glance, that seems a stretch for a single that peaked at No 17. However, was he meaning that they should have waited a few weeks until that sales lull after Christmas when traditionally it took much fewer sales to get a single to the top of the charts? I’m thinking Iron Maiden’s “Bring Your Daughter…To The Slaughter” for example. Well, a quick look at the first chart of 1997 shows the Christmas No 1 was still in pole position but the two highest new entries came at Nos 2 and 3 and from unlikely artists in Tori Amos with that dance remix of “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” and Orbital with their dramatic track “Satan”. There’s no guarantee that Shed Seven would have gone to the top of the pile if they’d released “Chasing Rainbows” in that same week but I’m betting they would have got higher than No 17.
P.S. One of my favourite bands is Embrace and just this week I attended a very intimate Q&A session with lead singer Danny McNamara in which he divulged that when they were starting out, the feedback they got from labels and A&R men was that they didn’t sound enough like Shed Seven. Hmm.
I’m pretty sure that Tina Turner was never a camp mate in I’mACelebrity…Get Me Out Of Here nor AdinaHoward or WarrenG who remade her hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It”* in 1996. Despite its No 2 chart peak, this had totally disappeared from my poor, overworked memory. And thank f**k for that because it was a shoddy idea horribly executed. Warren G, of course, had scored a major hit two years prior to this with the track “Regulate” whilst Adina had bagged herself a minor UK hit the previous year with “Freak Like Me” which the Sugababes would take to No 1 seven years later as part of a mash up with Tubeway Army’s “Are Friends Electric?”.
*Breaking news: Before Tina Turner was offered the track, it was recorded by Bucks Fizz but shelved after Tina’s version was a hit. Is there a connection between the 1981 Eurovision winners and I’m ACelebrity…GetMeOutOfHere!? Surely Cheryl Baker has been on it, she’s been on everything else.
This version of Tina’s 1984 UK No 3 and US No 1 hit was nothing like as stunning as the Sugababes’ offering. It just seems like a cynically constructed vehicle for Warren G much as he had done with “Regulate” which was built around Michael McDonald’s yacht rock classic “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)”. This time though, it felt like a complete cut and paste exercise with Adina doing a passable Tina impression before Warren would come barging in with his rapping. It was part of the soundtrack to a film called PoliceStory3: Supercop starring Jackie Chan hence his featuring in the video. Said soundtrack includes a version of Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” as covered by Tom Jones. If that sounds horrendous then I can assure you that it absolutely is…
If “Star” was Bryan Adams’ shot at securing a Christmas No 1, he was wildly off target. Maybe he thought having the word ‘star’ in the title would tip the seasonal scales in his direction. What he should have done was write a half decent song instead of this awful dirge. I think I used that word to describe his last single “Let’s Make A Night To Remember” as well. It was all a bit of a disappointment after his “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” track had spearheaded the campaign for his “18 Til I Die” album in fine form.
The single released after this was yet another love song, this time a duet with Barbara Streisand from the film TheMirrorHasTwoFaces called “I Finally Found Someone” which was equally as tedious. Following that, the title track from “18 Till I Die” was was released and was an uptempo rocker which was perfectly serviceable so it seemed to me that Bry was in a bit of a slump when it came to ballads around this time. If he wanted a Christmas hit, he could always have rereleased this which originally a single way back in 1985 before it got used in the 2022 film ViolentNight.
Now, I’m confident that neither Bryan Adams nor Barbara Streisand have been on I’mACelebrity…GetMeOutOfHere! (can you imagine the fee they’d have to pay Babs to appear!) but how about next year the programme makers take a left field punt on Crispian Mills from KulaShaker? Not only is he the lead singer of a band (albeit one that stopped having hits a quarter of a century ago) but his family background is acting royalty being the son of Haley Mills (WhistleDownTheWind, TheParentTrap etc) and the grandson of Sir John Mills (IceColdInAlex, Ryan’sDaughter etc and indeed etc). OK, it might be a bit of a stretch to assume that the watching TV audience would know who he was these days but back in 1996, he and his band were one of the breakout stars of the year. Rivalling Shed Seven for the most hits in those 12 months, “Govinda” was Kula Shaker’s fourth single to chart and their third to make the Top 10 when it peaked at No 7.
As host Nicky Campbell says, mixing Eastern mysticism with Western pop had indeed proved to be a good idea for the band, providing the blueprint for their whole career pretty much. It was never more evident than on “Govinda” which was sung totally in Sanskrit with the text taken from a devotional chant entitled “Govinda Jaya Jaya” which had been recorded back in 1970 by the London Radha Krishna Temple and produced by George Harrison who was also responsible for the collective’s No 12 UK hit “Hare Krishna Chant”. Growing up as a child in Worcester in the 70s, my only experience of the Hare Krishna movement had been people laughing at them as a procession of them snaked down the High Street on a Saturday afternoon chanting their mantra and dressed in saffron orange. Probably like most people who knew nothing of their beliefs, I was left wondering who this bloke Harry Krishna was. Fast forward to the mid 90s and whilst I hadn’t converted to their faith, I was fully into Kula Shaker and especially this single. Sadly, the Krishna teachings of humility, selflessness and global oneness didn’t reach everyone out there. Whilst working in the Stockport branch of Our Price, a man came to the counter and asked me if we had “that Paki song”. He meant “Govinda” and the irony of the dichotomy he represented (a man using a racist term to ask for the Eastern influenced song he liked) wasn’t lost on me though it certainly was on him.
“Govinda” would draw a line under the band’s prolific output with only two singles being released over the next two years until their second album “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” finally appeared in 1999 by which time, the band’s momentum, if not lost, had certainly been misplaced. They are still a going concern today though having released their latest album “Natural Magick” just this year.
P.S. I quite often watch these TOTP repeats with subtitles on so that if I comment on a song’s lyrics or a presenter’s links, I’m not misquoting people. The subtitles for “Govinda” just say ‘He sings in Sanskrit’. Bit of a ‘can’t be arsed’ approach to the job isn’t it?
Did I say that Kula Shaker were one of the biggest breakout acts of 1996? Like a back-pedalling, dodgy politician I may have mis-spoke as the official Breakthrough Artist of 1996 were actually Garbage who even won an award as such at the MTV Europe Music Awards (Kula Shaker weren’t even nominated). How so? Well, their eponymous debut album would sell 4 million copies worldwide and that calendar year saw them in the Top 10 of the UK singles charts with “Stupid Girl” and this track “Milk”. The last track on that album, it wasn’t the album closing, big ballad that might have been assumed but, as described by lead singer Shirley Manson, a “siren song” about loss. It’s almost hypnotic but with a definite dark element to it. Presumably the band didn’t think it was dark enough though and so recruited trip-hop artist Tricky to lay down some sinister vocals onto the track. It’s the Tricky version (called The Wicked Mix) that was a hit in the UK but obviously we don’t see/hear that version in this TOTP appearance as it’s an exclusive performance from Atlanta where the band were presumably on tour. However, in other territories, the track was released without Tricky’s vocals (The Siren Mix) which didn’t go down well with the Bristolian rapper who complained to the press about the situation. As far as I can tell, the Tricky version did better chart wise than the pure Garbage release.
“Milk” was the last single to be taken from the album (the one with the pink cover) and that pedantic part of my brain is still impressed with how Shirley Manson has colour co-ordinated with it in her choice of outfit for this performance. I say ‘still’ as I liked it the first time she did it in an earlier TOTP appearance when there was a pink feather boa wrapped around her microphone stand. If I am being really pedantic though, does Shirley have some lipstick on her teeth in this performance?
I bet Jimmy Nail has been asked to be on I’mACelebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! He’d have been a prime candidate wouldn’t he? I also bet he would have turned down flat any invitation as my perception is that he’s quite a private person and would have balked at the idea of laying himself bare in a reality TV show. Why do I think that? Well, in 2004, Nail successfully sued News Group Newspapers and Harper Collins Publishers over false allegations made in the News Of The World about him and Nailed, an unofficial biography which was the newspaper’s source of the claims. Jimmy described reading the article as one of the worst experiences of his life. Given all of that, I don’t think he would have been up for being filmed constantly in an artificial environment with people he didn’t know. Anyway, he’s on TOTP to promote his single “Country Boy”. The last time he was on the show, he and his band wore schoolboy outfits but this time, they are wearing black suits and ties which makes them look like they’ve just arrived from a funeral. This was possibly quite apt as this single would be his last ever hit in the UK so you could say this valedictory performance was almost a wake for his career as a pop star.
And so we arrive at the other link to I’mACelebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! No, none of the members of the Fugees have ever been on the show – it’s far more tenuous than that but I’ll get to it in a minute. “No Woman, No Cry” was the fourth single taken from “The Score” album and it just missed out on giving the band a third consecutive No 1 after “Killing Me Softly” and “Ready Or Not” when it peaked one place lower – the Fugees really were a big deal in this year. Yet another classic song given the hip-hop treatment, Bob Marley’s original had peaked at No 22 in 1975 and at No 8 when rereleased in 1981 following his death. I say “given the hip hop treatment” but it’s actually a pretty straight version – host Nicky Campbell calls it “authentic” though I’m not sure that’s quite the right word.
Anyway, to that I’mACelebrity…GetMeOutOfHere! connection. So this year’s runner up was Coleen Rooney. Now back in September 2010, Rooney’s then current club Manchester United were due to play his former team Everton at Goodison Park. Rooney’s switch from red to blue back in 2004 had never been forgiven by the fans who had once adored him and to whom he had sworn allegiance what with Everton being the team he grew up supporting. The abuse Rooney would receive every time he returned to Everton was horrific and unyielding. A month before this particular match, Rooney was the centre of claims that he’d paid two women for a threesome in a Manchester hotel whilst Colleen was five months pregnant with their first child Kai. The press was rife with stories that this would be the end of their marriage. If this was manna from heaven for the more salacious tabloids, it was also the stuff of inspiration for the Everton faithful who came up with a chant based around the story. Set to the tune of “No Woman, No Cry”, they would let rip with “No woman, no Kai”. Cruel absolutely but undeniably clever. In the end, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t select Rooney for the match day squad choosing instead to protect him from running the gauntlet of abuse he would inevitably have received. And that is my second and final connection between this episode of TOTP and I’mACelebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! I thank you.
We have a new No 1 and thank heavens for that as the last incumbents were Robson & Jerome. Going straight to the top of the charts are TheProdigy and it’s their second No 1 of 1996 following “Firestarter” in the March. If anything, I liked “Breathe” even more than its predecessor even though it was cut from the same cloth pretty much. It was another barnstorming dance anthem that felt claustrophobic, dangerous and indeed dirty, a sensation only exaggerated by the downright grimy video. Cockroaches, centipedes and an alligator inhabit an apartment that made that house at the end of TheBlair Witch Project look clean. Then there’s the performances of Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill who look absolutely crazed and depraved, almost daring the audience not to carry on listening. There’s also a slight nod to the Run DMC /Aerosmith video for “Walk This Way” with the two protagonists separated by a flimsy wall which is ultimately breached. This wasn’t doing anything to improve Flint’s public perception amongst the tabloids who were already on his case after his deranged appearance in the “Firestarter” promo.
“Breathe” would spend two weeks at No 1 whilst parent album “The Fat Of The Land” topped the charts for six and went five times platinum in the UK alone. The Prodigy were never bigger than in this year.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Ant & Dec
When I Fall In Love
As if
2
Shed Seven
Chasing Rainbows
Nah
3
Warren G and Adina Howard
What’s Love Got To Do With It
Never
4
Bryan Adams
Star
No thanks
5
Kula Shaker
Govinda
No but I had a promo copy of the album
6
Garbage
Milk
I did not
7
Jimmy Nail
Country Boy
Nope
8
Fugees
No Woman, No Cry
No but my wife had the album
9
The Prodigy
Breathe
No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
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.
According to my 1996 diary, around this time I received a reward cheque for £50. What for? Well, back in the day, if a retail worker took a customer’s credit card out of circulation at the request of the card issuer, they would send you a cheque for that amount as a thank you. The way it would work is that the customer with the overspent card would try and buy something on it and when it was put through the PDQ machine, the display would show the message ‘contacting card issuer’ and you’d have to pick up the phone that was part of the machine and talk to the customer’s bank. They’d ask a couple of questions about the transaction and possibly ask to speak to them in person as well. The chances were that ultimately you would get asked to retain the card and cut it up in front of them before sending it back to the bank. The experience was both exciting (at the thought of the £50 reward) and unnerving (as to how the customer would react) at the same time. Mostly they would be sheepish and let you do what you had to do but not always. One in particular I remember went ballistic whilst talking to the bank shouting at the top of his voice “Don’t you know who I am?! I’m a knight of the f*****g realm!”. I don’t know what the person on the other end of the line said but it must have been withering as the customer gave me the phone back, said sorry and sloped off. Anyway, eventually the company I was working for (Our Price) changed their policy so that the reward cheques didn’t go to the individual but the shop (supposedly into a fund for a Xmas do or some such) but this reward must have predated that as it came directly to me. So, in honour of that and in view of the recent furore over concert ticket prices, I thought I’d play a game of £50 quid or gig with the artists on this episode of TOTP. Would I rather have pocketed the money or paid to see the artist live?*
*For the purposes of the game, I’m assuming gig prices from 1996 not nowadays.
We start with an easy one – there is no way on earth I would have preferred to see Ant&Dec doing their thing (whatever it was) live over 50 quid in my pocket. Did they even do proper gigs on an official tour? They might have supported Take That back in the day or maybe that was just a plot line in an episode of DerryGirls? This was their first single to be released under the moniker we all now know (i.e. their real names) as opposed to that of the fictional characters from Byker Grove PJ & Duncan. Quite why they persisted with calling themselves that long after they had ceased to appear in the show I’m not sure. It seems a like an oversight. The track itself – “Better Watch Out” – is an absolute stinker! Some cobblers about Ant (who gets to sing the verses) being beaten up by the brothers of a girl he’s trying it on with. The lyrics suggest he might be deserving of said punishment as he then pursues the girl’s sister before indicating he might set his sights on their mother. What a cad! It’s a nasty sentiment matched by a terrible song – I can imagine it being used to soundtrack some chase scene in 70s children’s show HereComeThe DoubleDeckers!
£50orgig? Cash every time
Ah, now this one is tricky because I have actually seen the artist live previously. Don’t take the piss! I know we’re talking about Bryan Adams here but this was years ago, years before this TOTP performance even. Back in 1987, whilst a student at Sunderland Poly, myself and a friend who was also a housemate, took ourselves off to the big smoke of Newcastle and caught Bryan live at the City Hall where he was supported by T’Pau (I mean it! Stop sniggering!). It was a top gig, it really was! He was promoting his “Into The Fire” album that had failed to shift many units in the UK but which I’d liked anyway. This was years before that Robin Hood song and his slow decline into a world of ever more dreary ballads and he rocked the joint. Fast forward nine years and guess what? He’s just released a dreary ballad! “Let’s Make A Night To Remember” was the second single from his “18 Til I Die” album and was a massive disappointment after its lead single, the fun-filled “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” which I had enjoyed. It’s so one paced and trudges along with Bry singing some lines that sound like he’d pinched them directly from the Ladybird Book of Hackneyed Lyrics. In short it was a duffer though somehow got him all the way to No 10 in our charts.
£50orgig? If the gig was that one from 1987, I’d definitely go back in time to relive it. A 2024 concert? I’ll take the Benjamins thanks.
Another difficult one as I have seen PetShopBoys live and not that long ago; as recently as May 2022 in fact. It was a COVID delayed concert that should have taken place in 2020 and it was bloody marvellous! A date on the Dreamworld – TheGreatestHitsLive tour, it did exactly what it said on the tin meaning that yes, they did play this track “Se a vida é (That’s The Way Life Is)”. The setlist.fm website tells me it was the ninth song of the night as part of a mini medley with “Single Bilingual”.
The second single released from the “Bilingual” album, it’s a joyously upbeat track which was well received by the music press and given a lot of radio support – it’s Summer release date (presumably planned to exploit its seasonal sound) certainly aided its playlist potential. The promo video being shot at a water theme park in Florida almost certainly had one eye on that Summer vibe as well though I can’t help thinking it would have been better if it was in colour and the single itself should possibly have been released earlier in the season.
Linguistically, the title isn’t quite correct. The English translation from the Portuguese of “Se a vida é” is “If life is…” and not “That’s the way life is…” which would be “A vida é assim”. Ah, you say tom-ay-to, I say tom-a-to. The single peaked at No 8 (it perhaps should have been higher) – they would never have a higher placing single throughout the 90s up until this day.
£50orgig? I’m going gig every time on this one. It’s a sin not to.
This one’s going to be an easy decision as well. After the breakthrough of their first UK hit single earlier in 1996 with “Get Down (You’re The One For Me)”, the Backstreet Boys staked their claim as the next big teen sensation with follow up “We’ve Got It Goin’ On” which would debut at No 3. What a load of old toss this was. Recycling that horrible ‘ner ner ner na ner ner ner ner ner’ hook used previously by the likes of Montell Jordan and MN8 (and which Peter Andre would also adopt in a TOTP repeat coming very soon), this also made no sense grammatically. “We’ve got it goin’ on for years” the band sing but surely that should be “we’ve had it goin’ on for years”. Even if they’d got the grammar spot on it still wouldn’t have made sense as their first release came in 1995 so oneyear before this. That’s ‘year’ – singular. Maybe they were projecting into the future and meant “We’ll have it goin’ on for years” which would have been statistically accurate as, sadly, they continued to have hits for the rest of the 90s and into the new millennium. Clearly temporal clauses were not what they had going on.
This lot really were just New Kids On The Block revisited. An all male American group with five members making music for the female teenage market. They even had the same type of characters in the band. There’s the cute, young looking one, the taller, older one with facial hair, the street wise one etc etc. In the case of the last type, Backstreet Boy Brian Littrell literally looks like his NKOTB counterpart Donnie Wahlberg. He’s also responsible for some horrible wailing when he goes all Mariah Carey early on in the song where he over annunciates the word “go” as “go-ooh-aoow”. Deeply unnecessary and unpleasant. Horribly, we’ll be seeing lots more of these berks in future repeats.
£50orgig? Show me the money!
After Bryan Adams earlier, we now have another dreary ballad although this one is also nonsensical. I criticised the lyrics to “Why?” by 3T and Michael Jackson the other week as being hopeless for lines like this:
Why does Monday come before Tuesday? Why do Summers start in June?
A reader of the blog got in touch to point out that not only were the song words abysmal but also inaccurate as only half the planet has its summers start in June – the Southern Hemisphere has its summers start in December. Thank you to Essor for pointing that out.
Watching the video for this one (another one all in black and white just like the Pet Shop Boys earlier – it must have been a thing back then), I noticed that the guy from 3T with his rucksack has bought it back for the promo and he walks along a corridor with it dangling by his side. What was the point of this accessory? Did he gave a product placement deal with a rucksack manufacturer in place? Or was it just his trademark gimmick like Shades and his sunglasses in the film That ThingYouDo! ?
£50orgig? Despite a Michael Jackson concert being quite the event, I’d still take the cash especially if the support were 3T.
This is the third time in the show for OMC and “How Bizarre” and they’ll manage another brief appearance as the play out song before they’re done. It’s not surprising given how long the record spent on our charts (fourteen weeks on the Top 40 of which six were inside the Top 10). This week it was at its peak of No 5 but would spend a further three consecutive weeks holding at No 8.
As host Beerjte Van Beers says, OMC stood for Otara Millionaires Club however if you google OMC the top result is not the “How Bizarre” hitmakers but a fishing tackle and outdoor products manufacturer called One More Cast. They have a range called Terminal Tackle which includes such items as ‘Tweakers Touch Me Up’, ‘Revibed Blood Worm Tippers’ and ‘Vitabitz Ring Swivels Size 11’ which all sound like double entendres to my uneducated angling brain. As for seeing them live, surely it would descend into the sketch from TheBigTrain below:
£50orgig? Cash please!
My interest in REM had started to wane by the mid 90s to the point that I had very little anticipation for the new single from their tenth studio album “New Adventures In Hi-Fi” called “E-Bow The Letter” (with Patti Smith no less on backing vocals). In fact, it just about passed me by but then that was possibly a lot of people’s experience as their first new song for a couple of years was not radio friendly. In fact, it was almost anti-playlist. That doesn’t make it a poor song though of course but by the band’s own admission, it wasn’t an obvious nor easy choice of lead single which their record company struggled with just as they had with “Drive” being the first track released from “Automatic For The People”. In fact, “E-Bow The Letter” actually sounds quite similar to “Drive” so there’s sonic as well as thematic similarities. On first listen, it does seem to be a bit all over the place and, whisper it, miserable. However, there’s beauty in misery and the overall effect is…well…quite affecting. The ‘E-Bow’ of the title is a device to induce sustained vibration in an electric guitar string whilst the ‘letter’ refers to a communication never sent by Stipe to his friend River Phoenix who had died of a drug overdose at the Viper Club in Los Angeles three years earlier whilst the band inside played a song called “Michael Stipe”. The track would become the band’s then highest charting single when it debuted at No 4 and its parent album would get to No 1 but a decline in sales for the band was clearly happening as the latter sold significantly less than either “Monster” or “Automatic For The People”.
£50 or gig? Now supposedly I passed up the chance to see REM live in 1988 on their tour in support of the “Green” album. What my enthralling other option was I could not tell you but I regret it, especially now the band have broken up so I’m going ‘gig’ on this one.
Next a song that was the first ever to achieve over one million airplays in America and yet it hardly ever seems to get played in this country… or so I thought until I heard it all the time on Magic Radio* recently. Donna Lewis is a classic one hit wonder – almost. A huge, enormous hit then nothing ever again. “I Love You Always Forever” would spend nine weeks (!) at No 2 in America behind Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” and go to No 5 here in the UK as part of a five week stay inside the Top 10.
*Yes, I know – Magic Radio – but in this scary world I sometimes need to hear something soothing.
That US success led me to believe that Donna was American but she’s actually Welsh, hailing from Cardiff with the success of her hit bringing her a BRIT award nomination in 1997 for Best British Female Artist. More success seemed inevitable but her album, though selling a million copies in the US, performed averagely everywhere else including over here where it peaked at No 52. She would have one more UK chart entry (denying her that classic one hit wonder status) with follow up single “Without Love” spending a week at No 39. She did perform a duet with Richard Marx for the 20th Century Fox animated film Anastasia in 1997 that was a hit on the Adult Contemporary Billboard chart but that really was it for chart success although Donna still records to this day with her latest album having been released this year.
So what was it about “I Love You Always Forever” that struck a chord with audiences and gold for Donna? Well, it strikes me that it has a timeless quality – it could have been a hit in the 80s as easily as it was in the 90s and Donna’s girlish voice (often compared to Cyndi Lauper) suited the almost nursery rhyme chant of the chorus perfectly. Ultimately though, it was a light, joyful song that almost seemed to bring hope to a world that so often seemed dark. One reviewer described listening to it as “catharsis” and that, presumably, is why I suddenly started hearing it on Magic radio in 2024.
£50orgig? It’s the same scenario as the OMC gig. Sorry Donna, it’s got to be the money.
It’s a fifth week at the top for the Spice Girls and “Wannabe” so it’s probably time to talk about some of the lyrics of their debut single. First off is the elephant in the room – what the hell was “zigazig ah” all about?! Well, Marie Claire magazine reckoned they had the answer in a 2023 article:
One of Wannabe’s co-writers revealed that it was inspired by a saying on set: ‘Shit and cigars.’ Apparently, the Spice Girls shared a recording studio in Shoreditch with a famous musician and decided to give said celebrity this nickname. Why? Well the anonymous co-writer told The Sun: “There was this one eighties pop dude who hated us for encroaching on what he considered ‘his turf’ which was boy bands and girl bands.This guy had this nasty habit of taking a dump in the shared khazi while smoking a cigar, so we took to referring to him as ‘Shit and Cigars’.”
By Jamie Troy-Pride, published 20 April 2023 in News
Wonder who Mr Shit and Cigars was then? Cigars conjures up images of someone whom I don’t want to reference so let’s move on to the bit in the song where the group all get a name check. Marie Claire has the inside story on that too:
‘We’ve got Em in the place’ is likely a reference to Emma/Baby Spice who, apparently, ‘likes it in your face’. Pretty self explanatory. Then ‘we got G like MC’ (Geri and Mel C) who ‘like it on an e’ – this one really caught us off guard. Who knew that we’ve been unknowingly singing that for over twenty years? ‘Easy V’ actually gets it very easy because she doesn’t come for free – ‘she’s a real lady’, so congrats Posh. And Mel B’s is steeped in mystery as we’ll just have to see what she’s all about.
By Jamie Troy-Pride, published 1 August 2023 in Features
Not sure I needed to know that but it’s too late now. A final word about the people that the girls get up on stage with them for this TOTP performance. Do you think that was planned or spontaneous? The woman on the end in the hot pants next to Mel B looked like a bit of a ‘wannabe’ to me.
£50orgig? Say you’ll be there? Sorry but I’ll be at home counting my 50 notes.
The play out track is “You’ll Be Mine (Party Time)” by Gloria Estefan. I don’t remember this one and have very little to say about it as a consequence so I’m going to rely on a tale I’ve told before about a friend from Poly who once asked if Emilio was Gloria’s brother having conflated the name Estevez with Estefan. In my friend’s defence, Gloria’s husband is called Emilio.
£50orgig? Miami Sound Machine or Fifty Pound PDQ Machine? I’ll take the latter thanks.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Ant & Dec
Better Watch Out
I did and I swerved when I saw you coming – NO!
2
Bryan Adams
Let’s Make A Night To Remember
Nah
3
Pet Shop Boys
Se a vida é (That’s The Way Life Is)
No but I had it on their Pop Art compilation
4
Backstreet Boys
We’ve Got It Goin’ On
Never
5
3T / Michael Jackson
Why?
As if
6
OMC
How Bizarre
No but my wife did
7
REM
E-Bow The Letter
Negative
8
Donna Lewis
I Love You Always Forever
Nope
9
Spice Girls
Wannabe
I did not
10
Gloria Estefan
You’ll Be Mine (Party Time)
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.
Those sneaky BBC4 schedulers have done me dirty by suddenly announcing with a day’s notice that the 1996 TOTP repeats are back. I thought I had at least another week to knock out this last remaining episode for review before they’d start again! Serves me right for dragging my feet I guess. Sadly, as well as being my favourite word, procrastination is also my middle name.
Before I crack on with this particular show, I should address the fact that we’ve missed one. The 23rd May episode was not repeated with the general consensus being that it was for reasons of sensitivity. One of the artists featured was the actor John Alford who is best known for his roles in Grange Hill and London’sBurning. Alford was giving this soap star turned pop star malarkey a go – well, it had worked for loads of others before him including another ex GrangeHill pupil in Sean Maguire who, by massive coincidence, was also on the same show. Alford managed three UK chart hits in 1996 (all cover versions obviously) but subsequently disappeared after his only album tanked when peaking at No 171. In later years he has had several run ins with the law and is currently awaiting trial for alleged sex offences involving a girl aged under 16 hence the decision not to air the show he featured on presumably. I’ve had a look at the rest of the running order for that particular episode and there is little chance of FOMO raising its head in my personal opinion. In addition to the aforementioned Alford and Maguire, most of the other hits on that week we’d already seen before including those by Robert Miles, Black Grape, Tony Rich Project, Gina G and, unbelievably, Mark Morrison (again!). We did miss out on SWV and Dodgy but I can live with that.
Tonight’s hosts are funny men Jack Dee and the late Jeremy Hardy who do the whole show as if they were BBC presenters from the 50s which is fairly amusing for most of the time. We open with, I read to my astonishment when researching them, the best-selling boy band ofalltime!! What?! The Backstreet Boys?! That’s what Wikipedia tells me, yes. It also says that they are the first group since Led Zeppelin to have their first ten albums reach the Top 10 on the US charts. OK, so there are a couple of things to unpack here before we go any further. Firstly, the Backstreet Boys have made ten albums?! Surely not! I’m checking their discography. Wait there…
…they have! Although, one of them is a Christmas album and didn’t make the Top 10 in America. Maybe that claim included Greatest Hits compilations? Secondly, the biggest selling boy band of all time? What about New Kids On The Block or Take That or One Direction? Or even one of those K-pop groups? And what criteria are we using to define boy band? Were The Beatles* a boy band or The Jackson 5? If they qualify the. Surely they outsold Backstreet Boys?
*Obviously they weren’t but I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here
Whatever the truth behind the claim, their sales certainly didn’t start out like that. Not in the UK anyway. Their first two singles releases failed to make the Top 40 over here (though both were subsequently rereleased and became hits). Somehow the UK were initially impervious to the five piece’s charms but we finally caved when third single “Get Down (You’re The One For Me)” made it to No 14. Quite why though remains a mystery to me as it’s awful, useless, just no good. Based around that annoying swing beat riff that was prevalent about a year before and used on hits by the likes of MN8 and Montell Jordan with hackneyed, pseudo sexual lyrics, it truly stank the place out. They weren’t even that good looking were they? Maybe the pretty boy one with blonde hair but the rest? What did I know though. Their next thirteen singles went Top 10 in the UK including a No 1, two No 2s and four No 3s. It seemed that we really were getting down with the Backstreet Boys and they were indeed the ones for us.
From a boy band to a collaboration that was rather more out of left field albeit that one of the collaborators was about to become so successful that a crossover into the mainstream would be inevitable. Jamiroquai were an established chart act by this point with two hit albums and a readily identifiable sound to their name. They also had Jay Kay as their frontman who was providing the gossip columns with material as he embraced the pop star lifestyle. In 1996, their third album “Travelling Without Moving” was released and would go on to sell eight million copies worldwide, four times more than the sales of their first two combined. It also generated their three highest charting singles to date in “Virtual Insanity” (No 3), “Cosmic Girl” (No 6) and “Alright” (No 6). Before all of those though came “Do U Know Where You’re Coming From”. This was a joint project with jungle pioneer M–Beat and you might be forgiven for thinking that this was a revamp of the similarly titled Diana Ross hit “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)” given that M-Beat’s last hit had been a cover of another female soul singer – Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love”. It wasn’t (thank God!). What it was though, to my ears, was a track that was trying to tick too many musical boxes but ended up being a confused, mess of a song. I think there might be a decent tune in there somewhere but all those shuffling, jungle breakbeats just kept fracturing any cohesiveness it might have had.
The single did get to No 12 and was included as an extra track on “Travelling Without Moving” (albeit with a very slight title change). M-Beat (aka Marlon Hart) would not have any further UK chart hits though he did produce remixes for Soul II Soul and Roy Davis Jr. who would have minor hits with them in the late 90s. Hart himself would become homeless not long after this TOTP appearance before taking IT consultancy positions for McLaren F1 and Lloyds Bank and finally returning to music in 2022. So he did know where he was coming from after all!
Well, this is shaping up to be a show of extremes. We move from a jungle/acid jazz-funk mash up to some hard rock courtesy of Metallica. A Top 10 hit pretty much everywhere, “Until It Sleeps” was the lead single from new album “Load”. It’ll come as no surprise to anyone who’s taken even a passing interest in my blog previously that I‘m not the biggest Metallica fan. I can acknowledge the power of “Enter Sandman” but that’s the extent of my appreciation. Consequently, this track didn’t and doesn’t make my musical radar bleep.
Its video is more interesting to me though. It looks like the set of a horror movie or perhaps the darker moments of StrangerThings most of the time but its imagery is apparently inspired by the work of 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, specifically TheGardenOfEarthlyDelights, Haywain and EcceHomo. I can’t say that I’m that familiar with Bosch’s work but here’s @TOTPFacts with the visual evidence:
The video for “Until It Sleeps” was inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. This bit has a basic similarity to “Ecce Homo”, for example. #TOTPpic.twitter.com/ySF60N1qPw
From high art to a rancid fart of a song. That dreadful moment of the 90s is upon us – it’s time for Peter Andre and “Mysterious Girl”. Brace yourselves everyone, we’re going in! It seems an odd concept to grasp now but there was a time when Peter Andre wasn’t a part of our lives, always there in the cultural milieu, grifting away at his latest cash grab and attempting to give himself a sheen of relevance and currency. So embedded is he in our society that in the 2007 British comedy film GrowYourOwn starring Eddie Marsan, at one point in its story about locals on an allotment reacting angrily when some refugees are given plots on it, one character announces “You know who I blame? Peter Andre!”.
Back in 1996 though, he was only known for one minor hit single in the UK called…erm… “Only One”. A concerted media campaign targeting teen magazines though raised his profile enough to put out a follow up. “Mysterious Girl” was actually a rerelease having peaked at No 53 in September 1995. We all dodged a bullet then but when the gun was reloaded for a second time we were hit right between the eyes with both barrels. This horrible, cod reggae, Inner Circle rip off would spend eleven consecutive weeks in the UK Top 10 mainly skittering between Nos 2 and 3. Thankfully it never made it to the top of the charts though even that silver lining would become a black cloud burst in 2004 when it got to No 1 after a concerted campaign by DJ Chris Moyles. Gee, thanks Chris. I was working in the Our Price store in Stockport in 1996 and we sold this single over and over and over again. When we’d finished doing that, we sold it some more and every time I did, the questions running around my head were “What am I doing with my life? How did it come to this?”. I’d had similar thoughts when I’d been the stand in Father Christmas in Debenhams seven years earlier whilst sat in Santa’s Grotto surrounded by soft toy reindeers and nodding penguins. Peter Andre – so much to blame him for.
It’s an Antipodean double whammy as we go from an Australian dope in Peter Andre to a song called “Australia” that’s pretty dope – I believe that can also mean ‘good’ in the modern vernacular*.
*God, I sound like the two stuffy characters Jeremy Hardy and Jack Dee are using to present the show!
Occupants of the revived ‘album’ slot are Manic StreetPreachers and a track from their “Everything Must Go” album that would also turn out to be the fourth and final single released from it when it made No 7 in the charts in the December of 1996. The album had only been out for ten days at this point and with it going straight in at No 2, a place on the BBC’s flagship music show was not only deemed appropriate but also assured and deserved. Interestingly, the band shunned the chance to preview their next single, the album’s title track, that would hit the shops in July and instead opted for this song that was written as a metaphor for getting as far away from the UK and its tabloid press as possible in the wake of band member Richey Edwards’ disappearance the previous year. Also of note in this performance is the nerdy look of James Dean Bradfield including spectacles and a neat and tidy haircut. Quite the change from those early “Generation Terrorists” era TOTP appearances.
I’d seen the Manics support Oasis* at their Maine Road gigs a month before this show aired and would see them headline their own show about a year afterwards. I also had the album – I was becoming quite the fan though what I was not a fan of was the cardboard sleeves they insisted releasing their singles in at this time. Working in a record shop as I was, they were a pain to display.
*No, I didn’t get involved in the frankly shameful Oasis reunion gigs tickets fiasco. I saw them when they were at the top of their game and relevant – I have no desire to revisit the money grabbing so and so’s they seem to have become nearly thirty years later.
If it’s time for CelineDion then it must also be time for a big, heart string pulling ballad and we do indeed get both these outcomes with “Because You Loved Me”. Released as the second single from her “Falling Into You” album, it was also included on the soundtrack to the film UpCloseAndPersonal starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. I’ve never seen this film before but reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, I don’t think I’ll be seeking it out for a viewing anytime soon. A rather stodgy sounding news drama/romance that bore no resemblance to the book on which it was based? No, I’m alright thanks. Pfeiffer was making a habit though of starring in films that had a huge big hit single featured in them. Just a few months before, Coolio had conquered the globe with his Stevie Wonder channeling “Gangsta Paradise” from DangerousMinds.
As for “Because You Loved Me”, it’s all pretty laboured and predictable to my ears but was clearly aural nectar for lots of other people’s lugholes as it went to No 1 in America and won a Grammy and was nominated for an Academy Award. And to think we’re still 18 months away from her even bigger film ballad “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Gulp!
Having finally scored themselves a massive hit by rereleasing their debut single “Lifted”, the LighthouseFamily have shone their spotlight onto another earlier release to secure themselves a follow up. As well, as being the title track of their debut album, “Ocean Drive” was also their second ever single and their first ever Top 40 hit when it peaked at No 34 in October ‘95. Could the old rerelease strategy work for a second time? Of course it could and not even the fact that “Ocean Drive” was almost identical to “Lifted” would stop people buying it for a second time. Harsh? Possibly but almost certainly accurate. Yes, this was more of that radio friendly, lilting groove, smooth vocal, easy listening soul/pop that they made their name on. And why not? You didn’t have to buy or listen to it if it didn’t float your boat did you eh?
So where is Ocean Drive? Well, there’s a mile long road in the South Beach neighbourhood of Miami Beach, Florida which bears that name and is famous for its Art Deco hotels, restaurants and bars. So, that must be what inspired the song then? Well, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t as it’s about a road in the UK. A quick search of the internet reveals that there is indeed an Ocean Drive and it’s not that far from me in Hull being located in a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire called Newport. There might not be any Art Deco buildings there but google maps shows me that there is a pub called the Crown & Anchor, one called The Jolly Sailor Inn and a fish and chip shop called Johnny Haddocks so Ocean Drive kind of fits the nautical theme. Mr and Mrs Lighthouse (as name checked by Dee and Hardy in their intro) would fit right in.
After being on the show as an ‘exclusive’ two weeks prior, Bryan Adams is back again as his single “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” has blasted into the charts at No 6. There’s something different about this second performance though that I can’t quite put my finger on…oh yeah, that’s it…Bry’s missing a member from his band. Where’s the guitarist that was standing on his left from the last time? In an attempt to fill the space, they’ve moved the keyboard player to the front of the stage but he’s no substitute for standing back to back with Bryan and rocking out like his guitarist did. Also, the drummer looks very different. On the first appearance the guy behind the kit had huge Afro hair but that’s all gone this time around. Is it the same guy? Was he just wearing a wig the first time? If it was the latter, he clearly decided to ignore the advice of the title of the track he was drumming on and ditched it.
Listening back to this, is it me or is there a slight whiff of U2 about some of the guitar work as it comes out of the chorus? No? Nothing like The Edge? How about Bry’s bass player then? If you squint your eyes does he look a bit like Adam Clayton? OK, you got me. All this talk of drummers, Adam Clayton and U2 is me trying to tee up the show’s play out tune but more of that later. First, we have a new No 1 to deal with…
And so after weeks of anticipation and a flurry of football songs in the charts that weren’t that football song, it’s finally here and it’s gone straight in at No 1. As with Peter Andre, it’s hard to recall now that there was a time when “Three Lions (It’s Coming Home)” wasn’t a part of the national psyche, wasn’t trotted out every time England played in a football tournament and wasn’t sung on the terraces. A time when the subject of a song about the England football team would instantly bring to mind New Order’s “World In Motion” or possibly “Back Home” from 1970. All of this was trampled into the turf by Baddiel, SkinnerandtheLightningSeeds in 1996. Now bearing in mind that Euro 96 hadn’t even started by this point, the promotion surrounding the release of the single must have been pretty extensive to have propelled it straight to the top of the charts on week one. Despite working in a record shop at the time, I can’t recall if there was a massive buzz around the song before a ball had been kicked in anger but we must have sold loads of it in that first week. After debuting at the very top of the charts, the following month saw it mostly at No 2 with a solitary week at No 4 before returning to No 1, with sales no doubt fuelled by the England team progressing to the semi-finals. We all know what fate befell them there sadly. That month gap between the two occasions that “Three Lions” was the UK’s best selling single saw “Killing Me Softly” by Fugees at No 1. It dropped a place as Euro 96 came to its climax and then leapfrogged back to the top for another week after it had finished. This meant that these two singles spent seven weeks swapping the No 1 position between them. There’s another less talked about twist of trivia that bonded the two together acts together and it really is quite bizarre – the single that the Lightning Seeds released before “Three Lions” was a song called “Ready Or Not” whilst the single that the Fugees released after “Killing Me Softly” was a song called…yep…”Ready Or Not”. What are the chances eh?
Quite why the FA approached Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds to write a song for the tournament I’m not sure but Broudie’s decision to get Frank Skinner and David Baddiel involved made perfect sense (ooh, see what I did there? ‘Perfect’ and ‘Sense’? Oh never mind!) what with the duo having recently finished the third and final series of Fantasy Football League for the BBC. Both comedians were by now also synonymous with the beautiful game with Skinner professing his love of WBA and Baddiel a fellow fan of my beloved Chelsea.
Like everybody in the country it seemed, I got caught up with the feel good factor that the football was bringing and “Three Lions” seemed a perfectly good soundtrack to that period. However, its repeated appearance at every football tournament since has made it almost unlistenable now. They really did flog it to death. An updated version with changed lyrics went to No 1 two years later for the 1998 World Cup and it topped the charts again as England reached the semi final in 2018 in the same competition. As far as I can tell, the only tournaments that England qualified for since the song was originally released when “Three Lions” hasn’t featured in the charts were the 2000 and 2004 Euros. My research tells me that Fat Les’s “Jerusalem” and a version of “All Together Now” were the predominant England songs for those years respectively.
The play out track is “Theme From Mission: Impossible” by Adam ClaytonandLarry Mullen Jnr. Yes, here’s the reason for my cack handed referencing of the two members of the aforementioned U2 earlier in the post. The very first movie of the Mission: Impossible franchise was released this year and nearly 30 years later it is still going, still with Tom Cruise as the star and with the most recent outing MissionImpossible: DeadReckoningPartOne (the seventh film so far) having been released in 2023. I caught the first film at the cinema in Stockport as the Our Price store there where I was working had an arrangement with the local cinema to supply them with CDs to play in the foyer. It might even have been a special preview screening that I attended as I seem to remember coming out with a press pack of still photos etc. I think I enjoyed it but I’m not sure that I’ve watched any of the sequels in their entirety. I recall watching the original 60s TV series as a small child and being confused by Leonard Nimoy being in it but not being dressed as Mr Spock!
I’m guessing that Adam and Larry were approached to record the movie’s theme tune off the back of U2’s wildly successful contribution to the previous year’s BatmanForever film. They don’t muck about with it too much though they’ve clearly danced it up a bit and explore that further with a number of remixes on the 12” and extra tracks on the CD single. At the end of the day though, it all pales in comparison to the iconic original which kind of negates the whole thing. Competing with its composer Lalo Schifrin really did prove to be an impossible mission.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Backstreet Boys
Get Down (You’re The One For Me)
As if
2
Jamiroquai / M-Beat
Do U Know Where You’re Coming From
No
3
Metallica
Until It Sleeps
I did not
4
Peter Andre
Mysterious Girl
Sir! You insult me with your impertinence!
5
Manic Street Preachers
Australia
No but I had the album
6
Celine Dion
Because You Loved Me
Never
7
Lighthouse Family
Ocean Drive
Nope
8
Bryan Adams
The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You
Negative
9
Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds
Three Lions (It’s Coming Home)
Nah
10
Theme From Mission: Impossible”
Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr
Another 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.
The BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule is all over the place at the moment with some rather large gaps punctuating the 1996 episodes. As such, I’ve taken my eye off the ball somewhat but have realised that there are two shows from that year that I haven’t reviewed yet so I’m officially back to it. We pick it up in the middle of May and find footballer Ian Wright in the ‘golden mic’ slot. I think this may have been his very first shot at TV presenting which kicked off a lengthy and varied media career including game shows, panel shows, his own talk show and, of course, football punditry. Back in 1996, though coming to the end of his career, Wright was still an Arsenal player and over a year away from becoming their all time top goal scorer at the time. However, the 1995-96 season which had just finished had not been a happy one for Wrighty. He didn’t have a good relationship with dour Scottish manager Bruce Rioch leading to him putting in a transfer request (albeit that was later withdrawn). I’m guessing that Rioch wouldn’t have automatically given his blessing to one of his players hosting a pop music show (just as well that the football season had just finished) but then Wright had a natural affinity with the show having been a pop star himself (nearly) in 1993 when his single “Do The Right Thing” got to No 43 in the charts. It wasn’t totally terrible in fairness…
Anyway, TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill showed considerable foresight giving Wright his break in TV presenting given what he went on to do in his post football media activities. I’m expecting a lot of bubbly enthusiasm from him. Let’s see how he does…
We start, confusingly though, with another footballer (sort of). Eric Cantona had risen Lazarus like from his ‘king fu’ take down of a Crystal Palace fan in 1995 and the eight month ban that followed to drive Manchester United to a second double in three seasons having just scored the winner in the FA Cup final just five days before this TOTP aired. His star would never shine so bright as it did at the culmination of the 1995/96 season. To mark his remarkable comeback from potential football oblivion, there was a song in the charts honouring his achievements. In the ‘direct to camera’ section at the very start of the show, the producers had hired a Cantona lookalike to stand in a United shirt as a camera spins around him and a football commentary plays in the background. I’m not sure it works on reflection especially as the guy doesn’t look that much like Cantona and has an expression on his face that says “Ah what you gonna do? They’re paying me for this!”
Enough of football though, to the music and we start with “There’s Nothing I Won’t Do” by JX. I really haven’t much to say about this apart from I don’t remember it obviously. Their previous single- “Son Of A Gun” – I could confidently have named unprompted, probably because it was a hit twice (No 13 in 1994 and No 6 the following year) but this one? My memory banks are emptier than Liz Truss’s head. And yet, listening back to it some 28 years later, it does sound familiar but I’m putting that down to the generic nature of its Eurodance sound. As my Dad used to say to me back in the 80s, “it all sounds the same”. With awful inevitability, I know say the exact same words to my 14 year old son when he plays his music in the car.
Not remembering one Eurodance hit out of a whole ocean of them in the mid 90s is one thing but not being able to bring to mind a whole artist? That’s another level but that’s what has happened with this next artist. Who is/was Horace Brown?! I would have thought that a name like Horace would have made him more memorable to me; I mean, how many Horaces are there in the history of music? There’s Horace Andy the Jamaican roots reggae singer songwriter and…erm…Horace Wimp from the ELO song? Anyway, it turns out that this Horace was an American R&B singer who had two middling sized hits in the UK whilst signed to the Motown label. This one – “One For The Money” – was the bigger of the two when it peaked at No 12.
Taking lyrical inspiration from “Blue Suede Shoes”, it sounds a bit like… well…Another Level (to use that phrase again). Whilst those 90s soul boys were all about the sass and sang about whipped cream and licking things (eeew!), Horace Brown was less salacious and more tedious singing the rather childish line “Three to get the honeys”. That’s not even the worst lyric of “One For The Money” though. At one point he sings about “living in an eight room mansion on the hill”. An eight room mansion?! Surely a mansion has more rooms than that?! I live in a mid terrace house in Hull and we have… let me see…nine! OK, we had a loft conversion done but still. Maybe he meant eight bedrooms? Details Horace, details!
It’s yet another football song now that still (still!) isn’t that one nor is it even the Eric Cantona single but instead comes courtesy of Liverpool FC&BootRoom Boyz whose “Pass & Move (It’s The Liverpool Groove)” is this week’s highest new entry.
Wrighty gives it the big ‘un about those now infamous cream suits that the Liverpool team wore as they strolled about the Wembley turf before kick off sarcastically calling them “blinding” but Ian himself hasn’t always got his fashion choices correct. Who could forget his bouncy castle puffer coat?
If this was old twitter there would be an account called Ian Wright’s big coat pic.twitter.com/NgD4GQq90f
Now here’s a mystery. Quite why did BlackGrape feel the need to release this standalone single called “Fat Neck”? The usual answer would be to fill the gap between albums. There were two years and three months between the band’s debut “It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah” and disappointing follow up “Stupid Stupid Stupid” so a new track was an established record company strategy of maintaining their artist’s profile. Mystery solved. Except…a month after “Fat Neck” another Black Grape single came out and yes, it was another football song – “England’s Irie” for the Euro 96 tournament. Admittedly, it was a collaboration with Joe Strummer and Keith Allen but surely everyone knew it as a Black Grape song which would have done the job of keeping the band’s name in lights without the need for “Fat Neck” as well?
Added to this was the fact that back in March, they’d released the third and final single from “It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah” in the form of “Kelly’s Heroes” meaning that Shaun and co had three singles out in four months. Both “Fat Neck” and “England’s Irie” were released on the same label (Radioactive) and even had sequential catalogue numbers so this was clearly deliberate and not a scheduling cock up between two different labels’ calendars. So the question remains why the need for “Fat Neck” especially when it wasn’t much of a song but rather Black Grape-by-numbers. In the label’s defence both singles ended up going Top 10 so maybe they knew what they were doing after all.
As Ian informs us in his next intro, it was the Eurovision Song Contest two days after this TOTP aired so it must be time for a plug for the UK entrant GinaG with “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit”. I’ve lost count the amount of times Gina has been on the show now but it’s a lot. She secured herself one further place in the running order* by going to No 1 in the charts the week following Eurovision despite finishing an underwhelming 8th on the big night.
*BBC4 didn’t show that particular TOTP denying us one last Gina performance of her most famous tune but we’ll go into that in further detail in the next post.
Quite why Gina’s undeniably catchy song failed to garner more votes remains unsolved. It was a Top 10 hit all round Europe including Norway where the contest took place. It was suggested that perhaps Gina wasn’t actually up to doing the live singing on the big night with her credentials for doing so seeming to rest on the fact that she was the songwriter’s then girlfriend rather than her vocal talents. I’m not sure if that’s correct or fair though as she had done some singing for an Australian dance group called Bass Culture in the early 90s with a single called “Love The Life” getting a legitimate commercial release. Whatever the reasons behind her lacklustre points total, it didn’t matter when it came to being a pop star as, in addition to bagging the first UK No 1 single to originate from Eurovision since Nicole’s “A Little Peace” in 1982, she would go on to achieve four further Top 40 hits including two Top Tenners. She was a bona fide pop star for a while and how many of us can say that?
I said in a previous post that one of Gina’s backing dancers reminded me of Samantha Janus though it wasn’t actually her. This time, I’m thinking she looks like another EastEnders actress but this time Kim Medcalf who played Sam Mitchell (the second version) on two separate occasions over a period of 20 years. Again, I’m fairly sure it’s not her in reality. These are hardly ‘doof doof’ revelations are they?
Surely with deliberate planning on behalf of the producers, we now have the rarely seen/heard “Ooh Aah” segue as we switch from Gina G to 1300DrumsfeaturingUnjustifiedAncientsofM.U. and their hit “Ooh! Aah! Cantona”. Yes, it’s another football song but still not that one! What’s going on here?! Anyway, I’m guessing that this track was released to cash in on the Cantona effect. Eric was possibly at the peak of both his powers and profile at this time having successfully resurrected his image following the ‘kung fu’ incident the previous year which led to a ban of eight months from playing football. As mentioned earlier, five days before this TOTP was broadcast, he’d scored the only goal of the FA Cup final to secure Manchester United the ‘double double’. He’d almost single-handedly hunted down a Newcastle United side that held a twelve points lead over United at one point. Within a year, he would be gone, retiring at the age of 30. Following his retirement, he had both the phrase “Ooh Aah Cantona” with which his adoring fans serenaded him and his name and number from his shirt (Cantona 7) patented as commercial trademarks. If that was to prevent further records by the likes of 1300 Drums being made without his approval, then I raise my collar to you sir for this hit was missing an ‘s’. It’s just a generic Italo House backing to what I always thought was a fairly moronic chant. What a bunch of chancers! The Unjustified Ancients of M.U. were nothing to do with The KLF’s Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond as far as I’m aware but just a pathetic play on words.
The performance here is bizarre but then I’m not sure what on earth any choreographer could have done with this. Presumably, the Can Can dancers are to reflect Eric being French but it’s all a bit tenuous. Then they wheel out the aforementioned Cantona lookalike who does pretty much nothing other than stand there with a cup which, by the way, looks about as much like the FA Cup as he did like Cantona. If he does look like a footballer at all it’s Chelsea legend Dan Petrescu who himself is a dead ringer for X Files star David Duchovny. There’s a couple of guys in Cantona masks which I’m guessing were modelled on his SpittingImage puppet. In 2009, said masks were used to superb effect in the Ken Loach film Looking For Eric which is a great watch if you get the chance. Cantona himself would, of course, embark on his own career in film after leaving football appearing in multiple movies (including the Loach one as himself) and only this morning I saw him on my TV as the face of the latest William Hill bookmakers advertisement. The world has not forgotten Cantona, and you can bet on that.
The TOTP producers have missed a trick with this next artist. Judging by the cutaway from Ian Wright’s intro, this is just a repeat of the studio performance from the other week of SmashingPumpkins doing “Tonight, Tonight”.
So what you may ask? Well, they could have shown the promo film for the single which won six awards at the 1996 MTV Music Video Awards including Video of the Year. Stylistically based on the 1902 Georges Méliès silent film ATripToTheMoon, it featured primitive special effects, backdrops and puppets which made for a piece that was at turns both charming and disturbing. The plot concerns a male and female protagonist couple making a journey to the moon on a zeppelin. On arrival, they jump off the zeppelin to fall to their destination with their descent slowed by their umbrellas. Once on the moon, creepy looking hostile aliens take them prisoner before our heroes fight them off again with their multi purpose umbrellas. Escaping in a rocket, they then encounter a sea-god type who fortunately is friendly and puts on a show for their entertainment featuring mermaids and starfish before returning them to the surface in a bubble. Lovely stuff as Alan Partridge might say. Stylus Magazine put it at No 40 in their 2006 list of the top 100 music videos of all time. I think the video might have lived in the memory longer for the TOTP audience longer than the straight studio performance they’d already seen before .
Right, let’s have a little check in with how Ian Wright is doing as host. Well, he’s been competent I would say in not fluffing his lines and has kept his Tigger-ish over exuberance in check. However, he does seem overly intent on name checking his then Arsenal teammates. We had ‘Ooh Aah’ Ray Parlour during the Gina G link and now he manages to squeeze in Tony Adams for the next artist on account of the fact that it is his namesake Bryan Adams. Somewhat surprisingly, “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” was his first single released from a studio album since “Do I Have To Say The Words?” in July 1992. I say ‘somewhat surprisingly’ as it wasn’t as if Bry hadn’t been seen in our charts since then. Quite the opposite in fact. Look at this lot:
“Please Forgive Me” – No 2 – 1993 – to promote a Best Of album
“All For Love” (with Sting and Rod Stewart) – No 2 – 1994 – ThreeMusketeers soundtrack
“Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” – No 4 – 1995 – DonJuan DeMarco soundtrack
On top of that, he appeared on TOTP alongside Bonnie Raitt for a performance of non-hit single “Rock Steady”. It was like he’d hardly been away and yet here he was back for more with the lead single from a new album called “18 Til I Die. I couldn’t be doing with any of those stop gap, turgid ballads listed above but “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” was more of a return to form. He was back with some bluesy rock swagger and a memorable hook in the chorus (that tiny bit of guitar that pre-empts the words “is you” makes it). Sure, the lyrics are a bit hackneyed and the title undeniably cheesy but, for me, this was his best hit in quite some time.
We’re into the home straight now as Wrighty gets to grips with the Top 10 countdown. He goes for a straightforward, factual, no gags presentation until he gets to No 5 when he can’t resist taking the piss out of poor old Chris Eubank’s lisp from a few weeks back by pronouncing it as “Thethilia and Thuggth”. Before introducing George Michael at No 1 for a third week with “Fastlove”, he’s back on the footballer name drop game when he mentions his mate Paul Ince aka ‘The Guv’nor’. It’s a clumsily constructed reference with it only being made it so he can call George the guv’nor of the music business but otherwise I think he’s done an OK job as host. I didn’t know this until now but Ince has a solid link to pop music and no, it’s nothing to do with him appearing on any Manchester United singles. He is the uncle of ex The Saturdays star and now TV presenter Rochelle Humes. Well I never!
As for George Michael, I’m kind of surprised that “Fastlove” stayed at top of the charts for three weeks given that we were entering the era of weekly straight-in-at-No1s but looking at the charts, the competition wasn’t that strong at the time with the Top 3 stagnating rather with two hits that had been around for ages in “Return Of The Mack” and “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit”. Eventually, “Fastlove” couldn’t resist the push given to Gina G following the Eurovision Song Contest which aired two days after this TOTP.
As Wright closes the show with a massive Afro wig on for some reason, Bryan Adams wonders into shot from out of the studio audience wearing a Chelsea shirt! What?! Our host asks Bryan the question I want to know the answer to – “Are you a Chelsea fan?”. It turns out that he is and has been since about 1985 which is when he came to live in London. How did I never know that the Groover from Vancouver supported my beloved Chelsea?! Clearly I can’t have watched this particular TOTP when it aired originally.
The play out video is “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette. Like the aforementioned singles by Mark Morrison and Gina G, this was another hit that was enjoying an elongated time on the charts. Seven weeks inside the Top 40 was quite the run and this second outing on TOTP was due to it going back up the charts from No 25 to No 23 having spent the previous three weeks descending them.
As with the Smashing Pumpkins video I mentioned earlier, the promo for this one also won big at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards collecting three gongs but losing out to Billy Corgan and co in the Video of the Year and Best Direction in a Video categories. One of those three wins was for Best Editing and you can see why with the illusion of there being four different Alanis Morissettes travelling in a car all done without any special effects. The different versions of herself are colour coded (red, green and yellow sweaters) to display different aspects of her personality. According to Alanis, the driver in the red beanie hat is the responsible one in control, yellow sweater with the braids is the quirky one, red sweater is a romantic risk taker and green sweater is the fun one who gets into trouble. To be honest though, I can’t see much to distinguish them from each other as they all just seem to spend the entire journey laughing, shouting, singing and throwing their arms about. Ok, red sweater (the risk taker) climbs out of the window and is nearly taken out by a bridge and the (responsible) driver tries to stop her but that seems a to be the only demonstration of their dominant character traits. There is a final ‘irony’ at the video’s end when the car runs out of petrol despite the start of the promo showing Alanis driving away from a petrol station. We don’t actually witness her filling up the tank though so maybe she just bought the coffee in her hand potentially confirming that “Ironic” really is the song that can’t stop not being ironic. That’s a little ironic, don’t you think?
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
JX
There’s Nothing I Won’t Do
No
2
Horace Brown
One For The Money
Negative
3
Liverpool FC & Boot Room Boyz
Pass & Move (It’s The Liverpool Groove)
Never
4
Black Grape
Fat Neck
Nah
5
Gina G
Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit
Nah
6
1300 Drums featuring Unjustified Ancients of M.U.
Ooh! Aah! Cantona
As if
7
Smashing Pumpkins
Never Never
No but I probably should have
8
Bryan Adams
The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You
Nope
9
George Michael
Fastlove
I did not
10
Alanis Morissette
Ironic
No but I bought her album
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.
Woah! We’re into November in these 1995 TOTP repeats – that year is nearly over already! Not that I would have been thinking like that working in a record shop with the hectic festive trading period looming. I did ten Christmases with Our Price and they seemed to get progressively harder with the passing of every year. Maybe it was just the ageing process (I was 22 when I did my first and in my early 30s at the time of the last one) that meant I found them more and more tiring. Or maybe it was that the company expected us to get through them on less and less staff each year whilst simultaneously beating last year’s sales. I’d felt energised by the hustle and bustle of my very first Christmas but that feeling had dissipated over the years and coming to work had lost its sense of fun.
Presenting this TOTP though was a man who looked like he’d had loads of fun during his career as the lead singer of Madness what with all those wacky videos throughout the early part of the 80s. Whilst the band were on one of their hiatuses, Suggs undertook an initially successful solo career in this year keeping his profile high and affording him this ‘golden mic’ opportunity and what an opportunity! He got to host the show that had Madonna on it in person in the studio for the first time in eleven years! Suggs used this chance to hone his presenting skills and went on to secure the job of host on…oh yeah…Channel 5’s karaoke show Night Fever. Oh dear. Unbelievably, that show didn’t ruin his TV career and he went on to present shows including SalvageSquad, InsideOut and DisappearingLondon which won three Royal Television Society awards including one for himself as ‘Presenter of the Year’. Wow! Literally a few of days ago, I was listening to Gary Davies’s Soundsofthe80s show on Radio 2 and he announced that he was being joined by Suggs as co-host next week. I then saw him on TheJonathan Ross Show performing with Madness their new single “Round We Go”. All this proves that you can’t keep a good man down.
Right, that’s quite the lengthy intro so let’s get to the music and we start with a great tune. Echobelly were really hitting their stride by this point in their career with new single “King Of The Kerb” the second hit from their Top 5 album “On”. With this, “Great Things” and “Insomniac” (from their debut album “Everyone’s Got One”), the band had come up with a really strong trio of tracks. I wasn’t the only one who thought that – Madonna had shown an interest in signing the band to her Maverick label. Do you think they had a chat about it in the green room after this show? They ultimately didn’t sign due to their existing contractual arrangements and it was a change in said arrangements that would derail the band’s career. Having signed to Rhythm King with their records released on offshoot label Fauve, when the former’s distribution deal with Sony subsidiary Epic came to an end in 1996, a new deal was signed with Arista Records of the BMG group. This had the effect of Rhythm King being essentially shut down and subsumed by Arista. The band had reservations about the change of label and decided to stay with Epic. The contractual wrangling and singer Sonya Madan’s health problems (a potentially fatal thyroid issue) meant a third album “Lustra” wasn’t released for another two years by which point the band’s shine (and indeed that of Britpop) had lost its…well…lustre. The album only made No 47 in the charts. Echobelly have had various lengthy hiatuses since but are still a going concern and indeed are on tour later this year.
Talking of commercial declines, here’s another band who were starting down the other side of their own particular hill of success. MN8 began the year with a bang and a No 2 record in “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” and followed it up with two other Top 10 hits. By the time of fourth single “Baby It’s You” though, their chart positions were more of a knoll than a mountain. And rightly so by my reckoning. Although that first hit was annoying, it was catchy. This though, well it was just bland R&B styled pop wasn’t it? Its peak of No 22 could perhaps be explained away as the natural state for a fourth single from an album that had been out for six months as could the No 25 peak of its fifth “Pathway To The Moon”. However, when the lead single from the second album could only get to No 15 the following year, the alarm bells must have been ringing. That second album – “Freaky” – was a complete sales fail peaking at No 114. There has been no new material released by MN8 since though supposedly there have been talks over the years about a reunion.
Next, another showing of the video for “Heaven For Everyone” by Queen. The promo features footage from the films ATripToTheMoon, TheImpossibleVoyage and TheEclipse: Courtshipofthe SunandMoon all by French filmmaker Georges Méliès. This wasn’t the first time that the band had used this technique – the video for 1984’s “Radio Ga Ga” incorporated images from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Perhaps not surprising as they were both made by the same director, David Mallett. However, this isn’t the one that’s shown here. A second video directed by Simon Pummell was included on the VHS release of MadeInHeaven: TheFilms featuring performance artist Stelarc operating a robotic hand.
The Monday after this TOTP aired, the album “Made In Heaven” was released. It went straight to the top of the charts and despite only being available for two months was the 7th best selling album in the UK in 1995. The power and pull of Freddie Mercury was still very much alive after four years after his death.
It’s another performance of “Thunder” by East17 now as they’ve landed in the charts at No 4 following their ‘exclusive’ appearance two weeks ago. Although they were hardly down the dumper at this point, for me at least, this period of the career was less than impressive. I’d liked their early singles – “Deep” was a great song- whilst you couldn’t help but take note of their scoring the previous year’s Christmas No 1. By the time of third album “Up All Night” though, the formula seemed to be failing. Sure they were still having hits and the album sold well but it did half the amount predecessor “Steam” had done. In a sure fire move that the wobbles had set in with record label London Records, their next album release was a Greatest Hits collection. Just fourteen months on from this TOTP, Brian Harvey (who looks a bit like Phil Mitchell in this performance if you squint) would give that radio interview and the band would start to implode. By the way, had they been giving fashion advice to MN8? Those big jackets looked very East 17.
P.S. The Walthamstow outfit’s erstwhile rivals Take That would release a single in 2009 called “Up All Night”. What are the chances eh?
And another band who have been on the show in recent weeks! This time it’s UB40 with their hit “Until My Dying Day” taken from their “Best Of Volume Two” album. Admittedly it’s not just second studio appearance as this time they are live by satellite from Brooklyn in the shadow of its famous bridge. As a location, it’s a step up from the university car park that Diana King performed in the other week but it’s still not great. For one thing, hasn’t this location been used by other artists before (or perhaps from the Manhattan side of the bridge?). Secondly, it’s not quite the shot of a tree we got during that Diana King performance but we do get a couple of views of just the bridge without the band on camera at all. Now some might say less of UB40 filling your TV screen was a good thing but it does seem rather odd in retrospect. These ‘satellite’ performances were really outstaying their welcome by this point.
Here’s yet another song I don’t remember at all but in my defence, there’s a good reason for that – it wasn’t a hit in the UK. Yes, it’s one of those rare occasions when the TOTP producers decided to give an ‘exclusive’ slot to a single that would fail to break into our Top 40. On reflection, giving such a platform to “Rock Steady” by Bryan Adams and Bonnie Raitt seems a strange decision. Sure Bry had become a units shifting behemoth in the 90s due to that Robin Hood song and indeed, had been at No 4 in the UK earlier in the year with “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” from the DonJuan DeMarco soundtrack. But Bonnie? A huge star in the States no doubt but over here, she’d only ever had one minor hit single when “You” made No 31 in 1994. In my head, she was the sort of artist whose albums would be featured in the Recommended Releases section in Our Price – not a hot enough record to guarantee sales but maybe a few could be squeezed out of it if it was discounted for a couple of weeks. The UK just didn’t really get her fusion of country/blues/rock. Look at these contrasting chart positions:
Album
Year
US Chart Peak
UK Chart Peak
Nick Of Time
1989
1
51
Luck Of The Draw
1991
2
38
Longing In Their Hearts
1994
1
26
“Rock Steady” was taken from Bonnie’s first live album “Road Tested” – yep, a live album. For an artist who had failed to set the UK charts alight with her studio albums, the idea that a live album would suddenly reverse that trend seemed an audacious strategy by her record label. Predictably, it did nothing over here.
Having spent a lot of words decrying Bonnie’s appearance on the show, I should say that my wife quite likes her. Well, she likes one of her songs to be more accurate. “Something To Talk About” featured on the soundtrack to the 1995 film of the same name starring Dennis Quaid, Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick. One last thing to note here is that in his intro, Suggs depicts the duet as a ‘battle of the larynxes’ and pits Bonnie versus Bryan with a “ding ding round one” remark. Now isn’t that reminiscent of the aforementioned NightFever show he would go on to host?
Suggs goes old skool for his next link by donning a bowler hat and sporting an umbrella – all classic props from the ‘nutty boys’ video heyday. It seems though that there may have been some sartorial collusion with the next act who are McAlmont&Butler with vocalist David matching Suggs in the chapeau department. Whatever this duo released after the towering epic that was debut single “Yes” it was destined not to match its magnificence. So it was with “You Do”. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good song – it was, it is but inevitably it felt a bit after the Lord Mayor’s show.
Their album “The Sound Of…McAlmont & Butler” appeared in late November though it was really just the two aforementioned hits and all the extra tracks from their CD singles which may explain its minor chart peak position of No 33. By then, the duo had parted ways anyway. An interview in the NME given by McAlmont about the lack of substance to his relationship with Butler plus some unfounded accusations of his homophobia hastened the split. Both pursued solo projects (Bernard’s debut album “People Move On” is a personal favourite) before a reunion in 2002 ushered in second album “Bring It Back”. Another prolonged sabbatical then occurred before the duo toured together in 2015.
And so to the big, nay HUGE exclusive performance. With her first appearance on the show inperson for eleven years it’s….Madonna! I’m pretty sure this would have created some headlines back in the day. Not seen in the TOTP studio since that performance of “Like A Virgin” with that pink wig, Madonna suddenly found the time to be in the country to promote her latest single “You’ll See”. A new track written for her ballads collection “Something To Remember”, it’s a mature, emotionally charged love song who that Madge delivers competently which I think was the point of the whole project – to get people talking about her as a recording artist again , as a singer with an actual voice rather than the controversy courting, media baiting spectacle she had become. To that end, she appears here decidedly grown up in a dressed down yet stylish all black outfit and a classic, soft hairstyle. No gimmicks, no button pushing flashes of flesh – just a woman, her voice and a song to sing. And it works, though I have to say listening back to it now that it almost seems like a rehash of her 1986 ballad “Live To Tell”. It would return Madonna to the UK Top 5 whilst the album sold 10 million copies worldwide.
In 2024, is Madonna still relevant? I’m sure she still has a huge, global fanbase but is she as big a deal these days as a Taylor Swift (announced just yesterday as a billionaire!), a Miley Cyrus or even a countrified Beyoncé? I’m not sure. I think I would wish for her a more demure tail end of her career. All that Madame X stuff seemed a bit desperate. Madonna became one of the most famous people on the planet but even she’ll see that you can’t hold back the march of time.
Coolio and L.V. remain at No 1 with “Gangsta’s Paradise”. This record really was a phenomenon sales wise. Over two million copies sold in the UK alone, it would be our second best selling single of the year (only the bizarre Robson & Jerome craze prevented it from being top of the pile). Despite only being No 1 here for two weeks, it would spend the next five weeks either at No 2 or No 3. There was no quick descent down the charts for this monster. So how come it only got those two weeks at the top here? *SPOILER ALERT* Bloody Robson & Jerome again wasn’t it! Their single “I Believe” knocked it off the top spot and remained there for four weeks. Add that to their version of “Unchained Melody” (the aforementioned best selling single in the UK of 1995) and they had quite a lot to answer for this year.
Back to “Gangsta’s Paradise” though and its presence in the film DangerousMinds meant that the movie’s soundtrack was also a massive seller topping the American album chart and going triple platinum. Despite it no longer being the UK No 1, we’ll be seeing it on TOTP twice more in the repeats to come. Like I said before, it was an absolute phenomenon.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Echobelly
King Of The Kerb
No but I had a Best of with it on
2
MN8
Baby It’s You
Never
3
Queen
Heaven For Everyone
Negative
4
East 17
Thunder
Nope
5
UB40
Until My Dying Day
No
6
Bryan Adams and Bonnie Raitt
Rock Steady
Nah
7
McAlmont & Butler
You Do
No I didn’t but I had their album
8
Madonna
You’ll See
I did not
9
Coolio / L.V.
Gangsta’s Paradise
I was one of the few that didn’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.
Those big BBC changes keep on coming in 1995. The day after this TOTP aired, both Bruno Brookes and Steve Wright presented their final shows on Radio 1. Brookes, of course, had hosted his last TOTP just the other week; Wright hadn’t been near the corporation’s flagship pop music show for years. Dear old Uncle Steve probably felt hard done by having been shunted from his natural habitat of Radio 1 afternoons to the Breakfast Show by new controller Matthew Bannister in the January of the previous year. The new time slot hadn’t worked out and the Monday after Wright’s departure, the era of Chris Evans commenced.
Whatever your opinion of Mr Evans, there’s no denying he created some noise around himself and his show. The first time I became aware of him was in 1992 when he presented a Sunday afternoon show on Radio 1 called Too Much Gravy and he genuinely sounded like a breath of fresh air. He had a feature where he asked listeners to suggest songs that were really long and really short in length as I recall. Later that year he would break into TV with TheBigBreakfast and his fame (some may say infamy) was assured. Don’tForgetYourToothbrush would follow (made by Evans’ own production company) before the call came from Matthew Bannister to renew his relationship with Radio 1. His breakfast show would add 600,000 new listeners possibly due to the controversy it created with innuendo-laden features and the regular questioning of a female member of his team called Holly Samos about her sex life. Over the next couple of years, Evans would become one of the biggest celebrities around aided by the rise of ‘lad culture’ and his Channel 4 show TFIFriday. This post isn’t about blowing smoke up Chris Evans’ arse though so on with the music and we start with Pato Banton and Ranking Roger and their duet “Bubbling Hot”.
Now, if like me you’re wondering why this sounds so familiar even though you weren’t aware that it even existed until it was featured on these TOTP repeats, then here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why:
“Bubbling Hot” pinches a melody from Dave & Ansel Collins’s classic 1971 track “Double Barrel”: https://t.co/p5kVXVuuC9#TOTP
Roger, of course, is probably best known for his time as a member of The Beat though there is much more to his musical legacy including a band who never had a UK Top 40 hit though they did achieve some success in America. General Public were kind of a punk /ska supergroup comprising a line up of ex-members of The Specials, The Clash, Dexys Midnight Runners and the aforementioned The Beat’s Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger. Though ignored at home, three of their songs would make it into film soundtracks resulting in hits on the US charts. The John Hughes pictures WeirdScience, SixteenCandles and FerrisBueller’sDayOff plus the Alicia Silverstone starring Clueless all feature General Public tracks of which this is probably my favourite:
Wakeling and Roger reactivated General Public in 1995 and would score another US hit from another film soundtrack (this time Threesome) with a version of the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There”. Sadly, Ranking Roger died of cancer in 2019 aged just 56.
Next up we have *checks notes* ah yes, some Eurodance. Of course we do. You couldn’t sodding avoid this soulless genre back then. Corona are this week’s exponent of the genre’s paucity of passion with their single “Baby Baby”. There are few if any redeeming features on display here. Even the singer isn’t the actual singer. Echoing Black Box’s vocalist deception, the woman fronting the whole sham here – Olga Maria de Souza – was just that, a front. The voice on the track belongs to someone called Jenny B. In fact, despite being the public face of the act throughout the 90s and beyond, Souza didn’t actually lay down her own vocals on any Corona recording until 2005! We’re talking Boris Johnson levels of building a career based on nothing but smoke and mirrors here. “Baby Baby” would somehow become a No 5 hit. The more I hear, the less I understand.
A genuinely arresting song now that would make you stop in your tracks the first time you heard it. Portishead had firmly been announced by the music press as the movement leaders of trip hop by this point though this wasn’t an image that the band themselves wished to promote. After “Glory Box” had made them bona fide Top 40 stars earlier in the year, a rerelease of their debut single “Sour Times” was deemed sensible and what a sound decision it proved to be.
After making No 57 in August of 1994, it would peak at No 13 second time around. Many a descriptor has been used to identify Portishead’s sound in general but on this track in particular, words like ‘haunting’, ‘melancholy’ and ‘cinematic’ are certainly not wide of the mark. That last one certainly rings true. “Sour Times” features a speeded up sample from a track from film composer Lalo Schifrin’s album “More Mission: Impossible”. Not only that but the video features footage from a short film made by the band themselves! I had no idea such a thing existed! Said film is called ToKillADeadMan and a still from it formed the cover of their “Dummy” album. The theme from the film was an extra track on the CD single of “Sour Times” and gives off some serious 60s spy film vibes…
Of course, Portishead weren’t the first band to make their own feature film. ABC came out with Mantrap in 1983 and, like ToKillADeadMan, it was a spy caper and had its own theme tune called “Theme From Mantrap”.
After that rather spine tingling interlude, we’re back to the cruddy, generic dance music. I say generic but there was something that set Real McCoy apart from their peers and that was that for some reason their particular brand of Eurodance crossed over to America. They had two No 3 hits over there with “Another Night” and “Run Away” not though with this one, “Love & Devotion”. Yes, I know the TOTP caption says “3rd UK hit and 2nd US Top 20 hit” but as far as I can tell, this isn’t true. This track wasn’t released as a single in America.
Anyway, so what was it about the Real McCoy version of Eurodance that succeeded over the pond where the genre generally didn’t prove to be popular? I think I may have said in a previous post whilst commenting on another of their hits that there seemed to be more of a classic pop song structure to their output than some of their contemporaries so was that a factor? Bizarrely, in the case of “Love & Devotion”, I could probably understand if that had been a major hit in the US (it wasn’t released there remember) as it has more than a passing resemblance to Ace Of Base whose Euro-infused cod reggae sound provided them with a No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. I’ll say it again, the more I hear the less I understand.
When it comes to songs from films, Portishead, despite having their own short film to their name, had some way to go to catch the soundtrack master Bryan Adams. The Groover From Vancouver’ first had one of his songs featured in a film in 1983 when “Heaven” appeared in the largely unknown ANightInHeaven and by 2002 he had written a whole soundtrack album by himself for the animated western Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron but it was the 90s when he bestrode the genre mammoth like. Starting with that Robin Hood song, he followed it up by being part of a trio with Sting and Rod Stewart on “All For Love” from TheThreeMusketeers and then came “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” from DonJuan DeMarco. Yet another ballad (all his film songs seemed to be of the love variety), the flamenco guitar gave it a differential to the others but for me it was always a bit of a damp squib. Sorry Bry but I’ve never really loved this song. Not one bit.
It’s the ‘album’ slot now but as is commonwith this feature, what we actually get is a very long preview of the artist’s next single. Wet Wet Wet’s latest album “Picture This” (as the TOTP caption says) was No 1 and had already sold 340,000 copies (it would go on to shift 900,000 units) so I guess it made sense to have the top selling artist on the show. The track they perform here is “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now” which would end up being their next single when it was released in June. It’s an accomplished, well produced pop song but a little to formulaic and obvious for me. It would peak at No 7 when finally released.
If the track itself didn’t really intrigue me, I was struck by something about the performance of it, namely that bass player Graeme Clark and keyboardist Neil Mitchell have swapped places and instruments. Was that just some sort of band in joke or did they perhaps want to have a laugh by messing with the usual set up? Neither looks convincing in their new role. Neil hardly moves his fingers at all along the bass neck whilst Graeme literally bashes around on the keys like he was Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones. It got me thinking though about other occasions in the show’s history where a classic band line up has been subverted. Later in the year we would get the classic Oasis performance of “Roll With It” when Noel and Liam exchanged places and didn’t Jimmy Somerville and Sarah Jane Morris mine each other’s vocal parts when performing “Don’t Leave Me This Way”? I think they did. Must be something about songs that begin with the word ‘Don’t’.
Ah, it’s Björk. Always a difficult review for me. I used to think I didn’t like Björk because she can’t sing. Then I came to the realisation that she can sing but I just don’t like her voice. Then I surprised myself when rewatching these BBC4 TOTP repeats by actually appreciating and even liking some of her material like “Venus As A Boy” and “Big Time Sensuality”. So how do I approach and revisit “Army Of Me”, the lead single of her second album “Post”? Well, I’m afraid this one doesn’t work for me. Too menacing, brooding and industrial sounding for my delicate pop sensibilities. However, even I couldn’t resist the charms of her version of “It’s Oh So Quiet” when she scored a massive hit with it over the Xmas period.
Björk is back on the show in a future repeat alongside Skunk Anansie to perform a remix of “Army Of Me”. Maybe I’ll like that version better. By the way, this was yet another song that featured on a film soundtrack – the big screen adaptation of the comic book character Tank Girl. The collection of songs was assembled by Courtney Love and included tracks by her own band Hole (of course) and the aforementioned Portishead. This is fast turning into a film soundtrack special!
Or is it a Eurovision special? With the song contest just three weeks away, the BBC was ramping up its promotion of the annual event. The UK’s official entry Love City Groove will be along shortly but right now it’s an act that came third to them in the selection competition A Song For Europe. Deuce had already had a No 11 hit with “Call It Love” earlier in the year but their Eurovision attempt “I Need You” would go one better giving them their biggest ever hit. Having listened back to this rather nasty slice of Eurodance, I can understand why it didn’t win. Deuce were like a second rate Steps prototype and nobody needed that in their lives.
Despite being well beaten at A Song For Europe by Love City Groove, Deuce did pip their victors in one chart battle – they made it to the Top 10 first. Whilst the rappers were at No 17 this week, Deuce went straight in at No 10. LCG would eventually supersede that feat by peaking at No 7 after Eurovision had aired.
TakeThat remain at No 1 for a third week with “Back For Good”. The black and white video of the band mooching about in the rain in slow motion in front of some classic American cars became almost iconic, perhaps because it was the last to feature Robbie Williams in the band’s first incarnation. A still from it would form the cover for their 2005 Best Of “Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection”.
And so to LoveCityGroove. Tacked onto the end of the show as an additional tenth track (most shows of this period had featured nine), this looked like a clear case of hype building for Eurovision by the BBC. I guess in this week in particular they could make the case that its inclusion was merited as it was the highest climber on the chart leaping from No 26 to No 17. My guess is that this won’t be the last TOTP appearance for “Love City Groove”.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Pato Banton and Ranking Roger
Bubbling Hot
Nah
2
Corona
Baby Baby
NO!
3
Portishead
Sour Times
No but my wife had the album
4
Real McCoy
Love & Devotion
Negative
5
Bryan Adams
Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?
Nope
6
Wet Wet Wet
Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now
I did not
7
Björk
Army Of Me
It’s a no
8
Deuce
I Need You
But I don’t need you or your record
9
Take That
Back For Good
No but my wife did
10
Love City Groove
Love City Groove
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
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 