Bryan Ferry

TOTP 03 JUN 1993

Posted on August 31, 2022 by 80stastic

In a recent post I made a reference to the ex-footballer Chris Waddle who had just been voted the 1993 sports writers’ Player of the Year. As this is a music blog, I obviously had to mention Waddle’s almost surreal attempt at pop superstardom in 1987. I even inserted a clip of him performing on TOTP. Unfortunately that seemed to cause the misapprehension amongst some that I was mixing up my TOTP years. As such, I need to be careful in this intro as I am going to talk about his partner in crime, Glenn Hoddle. You see, the day after this TOTP aired, Glenn was appointed as the new manager of my beloved Chelsea. Back in 1993, this was big news for Chelsea fans. Growing up, I’d seen my team managed by a succession of useless gaffers like Ken Shellito, Danny Blanchflower and Geoff Hurst. The latest incumbent Ian Porterfield had been similarly challenged. Hoddle, by contrast, was in demand after taking unfashionable Swindon Town into the Premier League. Plus, he brought some glamour with him. At 36 years of age, he was young for a manager and of course he had been a pop star (of sorts) in the 80s. Let’s see if there’s anyone in this show who can hold a light to Glenn in his “Diamond Lights” pomp…

…oh God no! Not him! I knew it must be coming as it’s one of the big hits of 1993 but I always, always hated it. I talk of Haddaway and his Eurodance song “What Is Love”. This guy was like a German Sydney Youngblood in that both served in the forces before deciding they’d give this pop star lark a go – Haddaway was in the Navy (you can sail the seven seas) and Youngblood the US Army. His debut single was pretty much No 1 in every country in Europe apart from the UK where he had to be satisfied with a No 2. Yes, it was catchy but all those Eurodance hits were catchy – it didn’t guarantee any measure of quality though. It’s not even that Haddaway couldn’t sing as the guy clearly had some pipes on him. It’s just that there seems to be a never ending conveyor belt of this sort of stuff this year and even by early June I was sick of it all. Yes, I guess it’s got a bit more soul to it than something like “No Limit” but that stabbing synth riff used to make my skin crawl.

The other reason I couldn’t take Haddaway seriously was that, having spent three years in Sunderland as a student, hearing his name immediately sent the synapses in my brain firing to arrive at the North East phrase of ‘hadaway n’ shite’ – a proclamation of negativity or disbelief to put it politely.

Look, if I want a song called “What Is Love” there’s one right here which is infinitely more preferable to me…

Isn’t this No 1 yet? Must surely be next week then. UB40’s version of “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” has exploded sales wise – we were shifting loads of it in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working – though I was never quite sure why. It just sounded so clunky and mechanical and…well…ham-fisted in its production. All the charm of the song seemed to have been sucked out of it. Nothing wrong with putting a completely different spin on a song of course but it felt like they put as much love into it as they would have writing a shopping list. Compare their laborious take on the song with this joyous version from 1986 by Lick The Tins…

I know the UB40 version was on the soundtrack to the film Sliver but surely that wasn’t responsible for its popularity was it? I’ve never seen the film but it was an erotic thriller so surely didn’t have that mainstream appeal of something like Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and we all know what that film did for Bryan Adams. Surely the age rating it would have been given would have precluded some potential record buyers from even getting into the cinema? I’m guessing that the promo video for the single is based around CCTV scenes featured in the movie some of which clearly indicate that Sharon Stone’s character has gone further than just crossing her legs as per her Fatal Attraction character. I’m no prude but I’m surprised the BBC didn’t edit them out.

Right here comes Jamiroquai to “Blow Your Mind” except that this track was hardly going to do that. It’s just a watered down version of their first hit “Too Young To Die” isn’t it? A jam session that’s been told it’s a song and believed the messenger. Jay Kay just scats his way through it with a lot of Fast Show jazz club free-styling – the wearing of his trademark silly hat doesn’t convince. Neither does the staging of this performance. Why has the stage been made to look like someone’s living room? There’s two sofas with members of the band sat precariously on arms and a backrest (that’s the sort of thing I’d tell my child off about) plus a fruit bowl on a coffee table possibly featuring plastic fruit. Why? How is that a depiction of blowing your mind? Just nonsense.

“Blow Your Mind” peaked at No 12, a chart position so high that it is the only thing that is mind blowing about the whole release.

Now, host Tony Dortie informs us that the next artist should have been performing live in the studio but she’s unwell so we have to make do with the video for “Lords Of The New Church” by Tasmin Archer. On reflection, surely this track should have been the follow up to her No 1 smash “Sleeping Satellite” rather than the excellent but commercially challenged “In Your Care”? It’s much more up tempo and certainly more radio friendly and, according to Tasmin herself, was written about a new breed of politicians in the early 90s and definitely not the 80s post punk band of the same name.

All of the above theory though is debunked by the chart position the single attained – a lowly high of No 26, ten places lower even than its predecessor. Was Tasmin losing her audience already at this point? If so, could it have been halted if the release order of “In Your Care” and “Lords Of The New Church” had been reversed? We’ll never know but what is a fact is that she suffered from a case of diminished returns when it came to her five hit singles whose chart peaks were:

1 – 16 – 26 – 30 – 40

I’m not sure what’s going on in the video which seems to revolve around a man in a gold lame suit and a Stetson hat travelling through Nevada on his way to Las Vegas. Perhaps a studio performance from Tasmin might have sold the record more. When you consider that she was scheduled to do just that but couldn’t due to ill health, was that single event a sliding doors moment in her career? Yeah, I’m probably reading too much into that aren’t I?

Here come this week’s Breakers starting with Sade and their (Sade are a band not a singer remember) single “No Ordinary Love”. A little bit of a chart curio this one. I’d forgotten this but this was actually the second time it had been a Top 40 hit in under a year. How so? Well, originally released as the lead single to fourth album “Love Deluxe”, it had peaked at No 26. Sade had even performed it in the TOTP studio. However, subsequent singles from the album had failed to chart and sales of the album were less than its predecessor. In fact, much like Tasmin Archer, Sade had suffered from diminished returns as well but with their albums. “Love Deluxe” sold half of what third album “Stronger Than Pride” sold which in turn sold half of sophomore album “Promise”. All of them performed less well than the iconic debut “Diamond Life”.

As such, were Epic Records in a panic about their artist’s commercial value and that’s why they rereleased a single that had proven to be popular (albeit in a small way)? Maybe but it seems more of a case of opportunism as the rerelease* was surely due to the inclusion of the song in the film Indecent Proposal. Yes, if a song was in a film in 1993 it was more than likely to be an erotic thriller and probably this one. Strangely though, despite featuring in the actual film proper, it didn’t make it onto the official soundtrack. Maybe that’s why the promo video doesn’t include any clips from the film in it – probably some complicated licensing issues. Ah yes, the promo video that sees Sade Adu as a mermaid. Hmm. I wonder what angle the director was going for?

The rereleased “No Ordinary Love” peaked at No 14.

*When is a re-release actually a re-entry? Apparently the 1993 version had the same track listing and catalogue number as its 1992 counterpart.

And talking of Indecent Proposal…here’s a song that is on the official soundtrack to the film. We saw Lisa Stansfield on the show in person last week performing “In All The Right Places” and that exposure has helped propel it into the charts at No 13. As she’s in the Breakers section, it’s the video this time which does include scenes from the film. As I mentioned last week, rumours persisted at the time that Lisa had been offered the Demi Moore role in the film. Whether she was or not, what is true is that she did finally get to appear in a film some six years later when she starred in musical comedy Swing opposite Hugo Speer. I’ve never seen it but it gets decent reviews online so it might be worth a watch plus she recorded most of the music for it.

So who remembers this? “Three Little Pigs” by Green Jellÿ? Yeah, I know. You’ve tried to forget it. I really wasn’t excited by the concept of a comedy rock band from America I have to say but that’s what this lot were having been around since 1981. One of their early songs was called “I’ve Got Poo-Poo On My Shoe” so we shouldn’t have been surprised by this god awful retelling of the Three Little Pigs fairytale. They had form.

The musicianship is intentionally bad (that’s part of the joke you see) whilst much was made of the ‘hilarious’ stop motion clay animation video. It was hardly original though was it? We’d already seen this sort of parody single back in the 80s from the likes of Weird Al Yankovic and The Firm, the latter of which had also used the same video technique to great effect on their No 1 single “Star Trekkin’”. I didn’t get why this was so popular (the single went Top 5) unless it was kids buying it thinking they were being rebellious.

They followed this up with a cover of “Anarchy In The UK” that they interlaced with references to The Flintstones. Again, not original as The Screaming Blue Messiahs beat them to it by about five years with their “I Wanna Be A Flintstone” hit.

Ah, some proper music now or as host Tony Dortie describes it “some solid musical nourishment” courtesy of A–ha who are back with new single “Dark Is The Night”. Nothing to do with the Shakatak single of the same name, this was the trio’s first UK Top 40 hit since “Crying In The Rain” three years before and was the lead single from their fifth studio album “Memorial Beach”.

By 1993, A-ha’s days of being teen pin-ups were well behind them but then they’d never really pursued that anyway. It was kind of a byproduct of their Scandinavian good looks. However, they definitely seemed determined to shed that image with a song like “Dark Is The Night” which is such a more mature sound than something like “Touchy” or “Take On Me”. I liked it but not too many others seemed to. Its chart trajectory petered out at No 19 whilst the album got no higher than No 17 and produced no further hits. The commercial failure of the project convinced the band to take a seven year hiatus before returning with the “Minor Earth, Major Sky” album.

That means that this could well be the last time we see A-ha on TOTP which also means one final chance for me to indulge in an activity I had been doing since I was 17 and which I was still doing in 1993 despite it being my 25th birthday three days after this TOTP aired. I am, of course, referring to ‘Morton Harket hair watch’. My fascination with Morton’s barnet had been with me through A Levels, Polytechnic and even getting married. My aim – to get my hair to look like his. Here he seems to have grown it and let it flop with no product aided quiff to be seen. Surely I could achieve that?! Sadly, even if I could, my complete lack of cheekbones meant I would never pull off the Morten look convincingly.

As the Tory party leadership contest draws to a close and we stand at the dawn of a new PM, what better act to mark the event than P.M. Dawn?! You think I’m done with the crappy puns? Hell no! It seems now that it is “More Than Likely” that Liz Truss will be the next UK Prime Minister. Heaven help us all. OK, now I’m done – back to the matter at hand. This was the very last of six UK Top 40 hits for both artists concerned here P.M. Dawn and Boy George though this one only just made it peaking at No 40 despite this TOTP appearance at Disneyworld no less. It’s not quite as bonkers as New Order on the set of Baywatch on Venice Beach but it’s up there. It’s a decidedly odd vista, the two of them togged up in completely inappropriate clothes for the weather, sat down metres apart for the whole performance with the Disney castle towering above them in the background. @TOTPFacts has the story behind the location:

This PM Dawn/Boy George performance in Disneyworld apparently took place during a layover on George's flight from London to Buenos Aires for his first South American tour. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 26, 2022

The song itself is another gorgeous P.M. Dawn melody which suits Boy George’s vocals perfectly. It really should have been a bigger hit. I had a promo copy of parent album “The Bliss Album…?” which includes a rather wonderful version of “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles:

It all ended tragically for the original line up of the group. DJ Minitemix was accused of sexually assaulting a 14 year old relative and was subsequently fired from the band whilst Prince Be died of renal disease in 2016.

This is starting to feel like overkill now as we get the third song on the show from the film Indecent Proposal and a fourth from an erotic thriller if you include UB40’s from Sliver. A Breaker last week, Bryan Ferry is in the studio this week (with everyone’s trusty sidekick bass player alongside, the ubiquitous Gail Ann Dorsey) to perform “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”. As with P.M. Dawn and Boy George earlier, this would be Bryan’s final UK chart single although he would continue to have big selling albums.

As usual, Bryan is effortlessly cool but it all looks a bit too comfy and predictable for me. The reaction he provoked with his debut TOTP appearance in 1972 with Roxy Music performing “Virginia Plain” is a million miles away from what he’s doing here. Maybe it’s unfair to compare them. Maybe.

I’m not sure that I ever knew until now that “All That She Wants” hitmakers Ace Of Base were a family group (well almost). Three of the four members were siblings – they’re basically the Swedish Corrs. It got me thinking about other famous family bands. There’s Oasis obviously plus the Campbell clan of UB40 (pre and post their splintering). The Beach Boys featured three brothers and a cousin and then of course there’s The Osmonds and The Jackson 5. How about Kings Of Leon or the Bee Gees? There’s been a few. Where do Ace Of Base rate in this list? For me, they’re below The Partridge Family* and they weren’t even a real family! I’d almost even have Glenn and Chris before them. Almost.

*Yes, I know Shirley Jones was David Cassidy’s stepmother.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	What Is Love	Hadaway and shite!
2	UB40	(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You	Nah
3	Jamiroquai	Blow Your Mind	No but my wife had the album
4	Tasmin Archer	Lords Of The New Church	Nope
5	Sade	No Ordinary Love	Negative
6	Lisa Stansfield	In All The Right Places	No
7	Green Jellÿ	Three Little Pigs	Pigshit – no
8	A-ha	Dark Is The Night	No but I have it on a Best Of CD
9	P.M. Dawn / Boy George	More Than Likely	No but I had a promo copy of the album
10	Bryan Ferry	Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow	I did not
11	Ace Of Base	All That She Wants	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001bdx1/top-of-the-pops-03061993

TOTP 27 MAY 1993

Posted on August 25, 2022 by 80stastic

When I started doing this TOTP blog five and a half years ago I never imagined it would last this long. My starting point was January 1983, the year that saw music competing as my chosen interest alongside football. I was 14 years old in January 1983 and by the time of this TOTP show in late May 1993, I was just about to turn 25. Funny how the gap between those ages seems like a chasm in terms of maturity and growing up and yet the same ten year period between the ages of say 44 and 54 (how old I am currently) doesn’t seem anywhere near as seismic.

And what if you look at those ten years in terms of the charts comparing 1983 to 1993 – how different were the Top 40s? Sure, the names will have changed but how about the music trends and movements? I guess the biggest difference is the predominance of dance in all its myriad forms within the charts but in terms of quality? Well, I’m not getting into that in one short intro to be honest. Suffice to say, I have watched, listened to, dissected and given verdict on hundreds of artists, songs and genres after rewatching these old TOTP shows and the whole thing has been frankly bewildering. Let’s see if anyone on this episode can make sense of it for me…

I don’t think I’m going to get any answers from the opening act. Stereo MCs are one of the most mystifying bands ever. A platinum selling No 2 album that yielded four Top 20 singles and then nothing for nine years. The gap until “Deep Down & Dirty” meant that the album gained almost mythical status about whether it would ever come out (see also “Chinese Democracy” by Guns N’ Roses). And yes I know that their career didn’t start with “Connected” and that they had released two albums before it but unless you’re a really committed fan of the band, surely they don’t register with most people.

“Creation” was the fourth and final of those “Connected” singles and it’s of a very similar vein to its predecessors but I have to say I don’t recall it. To be fair, I bet I’m not alone. I kind of like the way that they found a formula that worked and just stuck to it – no mixing things up with a slower ballad for this lot.

“Creation” peaked at No 19, the same position as its immediate predecessor “Ground Level” and one place lower than “Connected” – they were pretty consistent you have to admit. And then they weren’t in terms of releasing music at least. Why the nine year wait for “Deep Down & Dirty”? Well, the band toured “Connected” until 1994 and had gone back into the studio after finishing the dates but inspiration failed to strike. Instead of recording they busied themselves by forming their own label and signed and released music by new artists. They also did remixes for the likes of U2 and Madonna and then things like starting families were also a factor. Basically, life got in the way to paraphrase John Lennon’s famous quote. However, a small part of 1992/93 will always belong to Stereo MCs.

Are you kidding me?! Tina Turner with “I Don’t Wanna Fight” again?! Is this the third week on the trot?

*checks BBC4 schedule*

It is! Seriously, what am I supposed to say about this record for a third consecutive time? Well, supposedly the song was originally offered to Sade but I really can’t imagine what a version of it by the makers of “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love Is King” would have sounded like. This had happened before with another of Tina’s biggest ever hits and the title of the biopic from which “I Don’t Wanna Fight” was taken. Here’s Bucks Fizz with the story (no really – Bucks Fizz!)

What else? Oh yeah, it was written by Lulu more of whom later. The What’s Love’s Got To Do With It soundtrack would give Tina two further hit singles and she would return in 1995 with the theme tune to the James Bond film Goldeneye.

If it’s 1993 then Suede must be along in a minute and, right on cue, here they are with their new single “So Young”. The bright new hope for British music were confident enough in themselves to release a fourth and final single from their debut album that had already been out for two months and to be fair to them, they were right to have faith in the track. This was pure anthem, so sky-scraping in its stature that the press didn’t seem to notice the ‘chase the dragon’ heroin reference in its lyrics (wonder what The Shamen thought given the fuss over “Ebeneezer Goode” the previous year).

Watching this performance back, the band don’t radiate zeitgeist other than via Brett Anderson’s effortless other worldliness. Matt Osman’s enormous frame was always an obstacle to the notion of cool whilst Bernard Butler shakes his mane vigorously whilst rocking back and forth in away that suggests he might benefit from being sedated. Two years later though, he would let rip in similar fashion whilst performing “Yes” with David McAlmont on Later With Jools Holland and I would think it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen. Such are the vagaries of music, taste and opinion.

“So Young” entered the Top 40 at No 22 and exited it the following week suggesting that they were a fan base phenomenon but by 1996, they would release the No 1 album “Coming Up” which would generate five Top 10 singles. The moral of the story? Don’t believe the hype but do trust the process.

Back to the aforementioned Lulu now as we find Louchie Lou & Michie One with their version of the Scottish singer’s most famous tune “Shout”. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again – I despise “Shout” and have little time for Lulu. As such a ragga version of the song was not going to enthral me. Retitled as “Shout (It Out)”, I would have placed this as being released years earlier, say 1986, if asked but I think that’s my brain playing tricks on me again as that’s when a re-release of Lulu’s version was a hit all over again. If I’d thought about it and indeed listened to the track again then surely I would have come to the conclusion that 1993 was the optimal year for the Louchie Lou and Michie One version to have been a hit seeing as it was a ragga/rap restyling of it. Ragga had a grip on the UK charts in this year thanks to the deadly three ‘S’s of Shaggy, Shabba and Snow. In fact, it was probably a bit of cynical marketing from their record label – jump on the bandwagon but use a well known record to get a head start on the rest of the field. Or maybe I’m being too harsh on Louchie Lou and Michie One, casting them as record company puppets. After all, I don’t know anything about them and how they came to be on TOTP with a hit record. Wikipedia just says they met at a Rebel MC concert in 1991.

What I did find out though was that their album was full of similar ragga-fied treatments of well known songs with versions of Kool And The Gang’s “Get Down On It” and “Somebody Else’s Guy” by Jocelyn Brown. Their only other major hit though was when they appeared on Suggs’ hit cover of Simon And Garfunkel’s “Cecilia”. It might have been crap but it did give us this rather memorable TOTP intro from Chris Eubank:

I’m still in pursuit of some insight into how the musical changes over the course of the ten years of these TOTP repeats came to be but I’m not sure I’ll get any sense out of Lenny Kravitz given the psychedelic tip he seems to be on with his latest single “Believe”. This is a full blown, trippy wig out with Lenny channelling his inner “Hey Jude” and singing about the power of positive thought, self belief, God and, of course, love. The BBC producers have picked up on the vibe and added some kaleidoscope effects for good measure.

Lenny’s really thrown the kitchen sink at this one with strings and a lush orchestration all in the mix. It’s not that it doesn’t work or isn’t a decent tune but for me it just fails to be the soaring anthem it strives to be. Maybe I wasn’t the only person to think this judging by its chart peak of No 30. I’m guessing that wasn’t the high that Kravitz was hoping for given the effort and time that seems to have gone into its creation. Still, the whooping studio audience seemed to enjoy it but maybe that was less organic and more at the floor manager’s direction.

Three Breakers this week starting with the second cover version on the show tonight. Bryan Ferry wasn’t averse to doing his own version of other people’s songs – his first ever solo album “These Foolish Things” was a collection comprised entirely of covers – and in 1993 he returned to that blueprint with his “Taxi” LP. After lead single “I Put A Spell On You” had made decent head way up the charts by peaking at No 18, the follow up would surely have been expected to do the same. It nearly did when “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” made it to No 23.

It wasn’t the first Gerry Goffin /Carole King song Ferry had covered. The aforementioned “These Foolish Things” album contained his take on their song “Don’t Ever Change” and he revisited their canon of work for this single. The Shirelles scored a No 1 with it in 1961 but the version I prefer is Carole King’s herself as it appeared on her iconic “Tapestry” album. And Bryan’s take on it? Yeah, he does it justice I think.

As it’s Ferry, there is of course a glamorous model in the video with not many clothes on whilst he mooches about the set. This particular model was Anna Nicole Smith. If that name rings a bell it’s probably due to the 1993 Playmate of the Year’s controversial marriage aged 27 to 89 year old billionaire J. Howard Marshall who died just eighteen months after their wedding. Smith herself would die aged just 39 after an accidental drug overdose.

Yeah, look I’m behind with these reviews so I haven’t got the time to ponder about Megadeth and their “Sweating Bullets” single OK? I will say this though. If you’ve ever wondered what might have become of Ed Sheeran had he been into trash metal instead of his stultifying brand of pop music, here’s your answer.

We arrive now at the seventh and final* Guns N’ Roses single to be pulled from their “Use Your Illusion” albums a whole 22 months after the first single “You Could Be Mine” appeared. Amazingly, all six singles to this point made the UK Top 10 and this final one only missed completing the set by one place. “Civil War” was that track although it was actually the lead song from a UK only EP.

*The song “Estranged” from “Use Your Illusion II” was released after “Civil War” in January 1994 but not in the UK

“Civil War” had been in existence for a while initially featuring on the 1990 charity album “Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal”, but it would also be included on the track listing for “Use Your Illusion II”. An anti war protest song, it features a sample from the film Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman in the titular role in its intro:

Feeling that the song still needed more embellishment, Axl Rose whistles the tune from American civil war song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” in the intro and coda. In a presumably unintentional but rather neat act of symmetry, this final “Use Your Illusion” track was originally made available as the B-side to the aforementioned “You Could Be Mine”, the very first single released from that double album project.

The song itself is another epic sounding rock track which almost leaves you exhausted by the end of it. The spare, whistled opening could deceive on first listen that this was going to be a wistful, acoustic affair akin to “Patience” but it’s actually more in common with “November Rain” or “Don’t Cry”. Yes, you could level accusations of being overblown, bloated and lyrically naive at it but it works pretty well for me, even the corny, dumb closing line “What’s so civil ‘bout war anyway?”.

The band would release an album of punk covers called “The Spaghetti Incident” in November of 1993 and then there was precisely nothing (bar their much derided cover of “Sympathy For The Devil” from the Interview With A Vampire soundtrack) until that aforementioned “Chinese Democracy” album fifteen years later.

Look out Suede! You might be the hip, young band for disaffected youth in 1993 but here come the original purveyors of angst flavoured, doom pop who recorded the album for miserable, misunderstood and introspective teenagers in 1983 with “The Hurting”. Well, here they come sort of anyway. It’s not quite the Tears For Fears we knew and loved on show here for this is TFF without Curt Smith who left the band acrimoniously in 1991. I guess he was burnt out after the mind numbingly laborious process that was the recording of the “Seeds Of Love” album.

Left to his own devices, remaining member of the duo Roland Orzabal decided to carry on under the band’s banner and delivered the “Elemental” album and its leading single “Break It Down Again”. In direct contrast to the song and album titles, Roland didn’t break it down into elements, he threw everything at it including…what…is that five cellos being played on stage up there? And, unlike Lenny Kravitz earlier, he pulled it off. In fact, not having listened to “Break It Down Again” for a good while, it’s actually a far better tune than I remember. It’s got an interesting, choppy structure (shame the producers used it as a marker to cut the song off in mid flow in this performance) and Roland’s voice is bloody good. I don’t think he gets the credit probably for his vocal talents. Back in the 80s, I always preferred the softer, purer voiced Curt Smith to take on singing duties but I think he’s won me over finally here. As an aside, conversely I liked the idiosyncratic tones of Andy McCluskey’s voice to the angelic sounding Paul Humphreys’ in OMD.

Ah yes, that phrase ‘back in the 80s’ brings me full circle to the question in the intro as to how chart music had changed in the decade between 1983 and 1993. Maybe Tears For Fears encapsulate the whole discussion. Ten years on from “The Hurting” they were still going out to bat and knocking it out of the park. All that had really changed was the personnel and hairstyles. Too simplistic a view? Yeah probably.

“Break It Down Again” made the Top 20 (just) and the album went Top 5, a good enough return to convince Orzabal to carry on and release another Curt-less album, the much less well received “Raoul And The Kings Of Spain” before Smith returned to the fold in 2000. Their current album “The Tipping Point” is possibly my favourite of 2022 so far. And yes I think that’s the ubiquitous Gail Ann Dorsey up there on bass who was on the show with the aforementioned Bryan Ferry the other week.

1993 was turning out to be quite the year for Lisa Stansfield. She started it with a Top 10 hit in “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” from The Bodyguard soundtrack, scored a No 1 as part of the “Five Live EP” duetting with George Michael on “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” (still in the Top 5 at this point by the way) and now here she was with another hit from another soundtrack.

“In All The Right Places” was the song chosen to promote the film Indecent Proposal, an erotic drama starring Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford. Erotic dramas were all the rage at the time with Basic Instinct and Sliver also doing the business at the box office in this period. It’s rumoured that Lisa Stansfield herself was considered for the Demi Moore role but that could be cobblers I suppose.

Certainly not cobblers was Lisa’s performance here as she just dons her stylish black dress and gets on stage alone to belt out the song. She appears to have copied Brett Anderson’s Bob haircut though (or is it the other way round). The song is an accomplished, sultry ballad that suits Lisa’s voice perfectly. As well as appearing on the soundtrack, it also made it onto her third studio album “So Natural” which was released in the November.

Oh and was there some actual thought put into the running order for this TOTP? Bryan Ferry’s version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” was also on the Indecent Proposal soundtrack.

Ace Of Base are at No 1 for the second of three weeks with “All That She Wants”. Just like the TOTP producers who seemed to have planned their running order this week, I’ve also put some thought into this post and not just thrown it together. Ace Of Base recorded a song called “Cecilia” (which I referenced earlier) for their third album “Flowers” which was written by them as a deliberate continuation of the Simon And Garfunkel song. Want to hear it? Nah, me neither.

The show ends with a weird outro from host Mark Franklin. Why on earth is he sat at a table with a random woman whom he does not introduce, both with a glass of red wine poured out before them whom he ‘cheers’ just before the credits roll. Wait. What? How? Why? Etc etc…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MCs	Creation	I did not
2	Tina Turner	I Don’t Wanna Fight	No
3	Suede	So Young	No but I had the album
4	Louchie Lou & Michie One	Shout (It Out)	Never happening
5	Lenny Kravitz	Believe	Nope
6	Bryan Ferry	Will You Love Me Tomorrow	No but I had a promo copy of the album
7	Megadeth	Sweating Bullets	Sod off!
8	Guns N’ Roses	Civil War EP	No but I have a Greatest Hits album with it on
9	Tears For Fears	Break It Down Again	Didn’t but probably should’ve
10	Lisa Stansfield	In All The Right Places	Negative
11	Ace Of Base	All That She Wants	See 7 above

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001b6p1/top-of-the-pops-27051993

TOTP 11 MAR 1993

Posted on July 10, 2022 by 80stastic

1993 was not a year I was looking forward to reviewing and one of the main reasons for that has now arrived in this TOTP – the unholy trinity of the three S’s. I speak of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks and Snow. The first two are both on tonight’s show whilst the latter makes his debut entry into the Top 40 this week. Somehow these three crystallised for me everything they was wrong with the charts around this time. The fact that they all arrived together at the same time probably had something to do with it. Could I have been wrong in my initial assessment? Let’s see if a gap of twenty-nine years has changed my perspective.

Opening the show though are another act who were all about the S’s so much so they had two of them in their name – it can only be Sister Sledge. Well, it could also have been Sam Smith or Sandie Shaw or Shakespear’s Sister or (God forbid) Shakin’ Stevens but let’s not go there. Seriously.

After they’d scored a hit for the third time in fourteen years with yet another remix of “We Are Family” earlier in 1993, perhaps the most obvious rerelease of all time was unleashed upon us – yes it was time once more for “Lost In Music”. Why obvious? Well, every time one song was released as a single, the other came out shortly after. Look at this lot:

26 May 1979 – “We Are Family”
21 Aug 1979 – “Lost In Music
07 Sep 1984 – “Lost In Music”
17 Nov 1984 – “We Are Family”
24 Jan 1993 – “We Are Family”
13 Mar 1993 – “Lost In Music”

I mean they’re both disco standards but is that just a teeny bit of overkill? Couldn’t they have mixed it up a bit? How about a rerelease of “Thinking Of You” instead? What? They did do that as well! It was their third hit single of 1993 when it came out again in the June. Oh come on! Wait…

*blogger is gripped by sudden panic*

They didn’t rerelease “Frankie” as well did they?! Please God no!

*checks Sister Sledge discography*

Oh thank f**k for that. They didn’t. I couldn’t have hoped with a second helping if that on the show. I’d have barfed for sure.

The 1993 version of “Lost In Music” peaked at No 14.

What’s that you say Tony Dortie (in your daft hat)? Bruce Dickinson is leaving Iron Maiden? Did he? I have to say that this piece of blockbusting news must have passed me by at the time. Having read up on the story, it seems that Bruce had announced he was leaving the band before they headed out on a forty-six date world tour. It doesn’t sound like a good idea and indeed it wasn’t. Both his band mates and their fanbase were pissed off with Dickinson for putting the group’s future in doubt. Maybe keeping schtum about leaving to pursue your solo career until after the tour is done may have been the way to go Bruce?

Anyway, this live single “Fear Of The Dark” wasn’t from Dickinson’s final tour as it hadn’t yet happened. Instead it was, rather obviously, from the previous year’s Fear Of The Dark tour which was enshrined forever in the resultant album “A Real Live One”. Now, I wouldn’t need every finger of one hand to list the number of Iron Maiden songs that I like but this one starts off in a rather un-Maiden-esque style with Dickinson laying off on the over the top throaty vocals and with a low key intro but then they resort to type and it loses my interest immediately. It peaked at No 8 thanks to that newly pissed off but still sizeable fanbase.

And so we return to those pesky S’s now as we find Shaggy on his way to the top of the charts with “Oh Carolina”. Up to No 2 this week and with 2 Unlimited now in their fifth week at the pinnacle, Tony Dortie’s prediction of it being No 1 the following week was hardly the stuff of Nostradamus. Yet it was, at the same time, an unlikely chart topper. Apparently “Oh Carolina” would be the first ‘reggae’ No 1 since Aswad’s “Don’t Turn Around” in 1988 if you can classify that as a reggae track and if you ignore the dub reggae of “Dub Be Good To Me” by Beats International in 1990. The following week, Snow’s “Informer” would storm to No 8 meaning there would be three reggae influenced singles in the Top 10 simultaneously for the first time ever. It was a strange time in the UK charts but why and how had this shake up of the charts come to be? Maybe it was just the law of averages and probability – it had to happen some time.

I worked for Our Price throughout the 90s and we used to source the majority of our reggae stock from the supplier Jetstar. In my memory, they are who we ordered the Shaggy single from though I could be wrong about that. Whenever you used to ring their telesales team with an order, you were guaranteed to talk to someone effortlessly cool on the other end of the line. It always sounded like the atmosphere in the Jetstar office was just one long, chilled out sesh with the occasional bit of work done now and then if they felt like it. I’m sure they are all really hard working but that was the vibe that was projected. I was jealous. Also having a good time is Shaggy who is clearly enjoying himself in this performance probably riding on the confidence of knowing he’ll have a No 1 record soon enough.

And so we come to easily the most objectionable of the three S’s of 1993 – “Mr Loverman”, Shabba Ranks. I hated everything about this; the song, its success and of course Ranks himself not least of all because of this interview on The Word:

Let’s have it right, what a f*****g arsehole! Thankfully Mark Lamarr was on hand to call him out unlike Dani Behr who wanted to sweep it all under the carpet and move on. That took place in 1992 and by March 1993, Ranks had put out a public apology for his grotesque words. Funnily enough it coincided with the rerelease of the “Mr Loverman” single. Do you think his record company Sony put some pressure on him to retract what he had said so that their product wasn’t dead in the water before it started? Yes, I did say rerelease as the single had already been a hit once the previous August when it got to No 23. Presumably the rising profile of dancehall and the success of Shaggy convinced Sony to roll the dice again and so it became a No 3 hit second time around.

The track became infamous for the use of the ‘Shabba!’ shout out which became a catch all catchphrase for just about any situation. My favourite use of it though was by Ray Von from Phoenix Nights…

It’s a third time on the show for Bryan Ferry and his treatment of “I Put A Spell On You”. Now originally I had thought that this might be just a rebroadcast of the first time Ferry did a studio performance as the staging is almost exactly the same but it isn’t as the cut away to the next act reveals. This raises the question of quite why Ferry just gave an identikit performance again? I mean I think there’s less dancers this week but everything else including the performers outfits are the same. I guess I expected a bit more creativity from Bryan than that.

“I Put A Spell On You” peaked at No 18.

I find it hard to remember but there was a time when Jamiroquai’s sound was regarded as fresh and new and exciting. That sensation didn’t last long as petty soon everything they released sounded exactly the same as..well…everything else they’d ever released. Back in 1993 though Jay Kay was a hip, young groover bringing his brand of acid jazz, soul/funk vibes to the nation. I guess he’s always been a divisive figure though. Early on he suffered from accusations of plagiarising Stevie Wonder and of being a hypocrite for espousing environmental themes in his lyrics whilst having an obsession with the collection of fast, expensive cars. Subsequent misdemeanours like being charged with assaulting a photographer and waxing lyrical in concert about how great his then partner Denise Van Outen’s breasts were didn’t do his image any favours.

I always thought “Too Young To Die” was Jamiroquai’s first single but there’d been one before it called “When You Gonna Learn” in 1992 which had made No 28 on the charts but which had escaped my attention completely. It was their first single for Sony though which may account for my confusion. As for the performance here, you have to admit that Jay Kay (it’s all about him really in much the same way that Simply Red is all about Hucknall) makes quite the impression. His vocals are good (though the ‘de de de de do’ chorus is unmistakably Wonder-esque) but it’s his look which grabs the attention. Watching him now, the first thing that springs to mind is how hot he must have been under the studio lights in his oversized clobber. Ah yes, the clothes or more specifically that hat! It would become Kay’s signature look and inform the ‘buffalo man’ logo that would be the face of the band’s brand featuring on the art work for the covers of their first four albums. Some thought had clearly gone into this from a marketing point of view.

Did I like their sound? Yeah, initially. My wife liked it so much she bought that first album “Emergency On Planet Earth”. I think I got bored with it quite quickly though. “Too Young To Die” made it all the way to the Top 10 and the album was a platinum selling No 1. The time of Jamiroquai had begun.

Next a band who, like many before them, suffer from the misguided belief by many that they were a one hit wonder. PM Dawn really weren’t though their biggest and most memorable success did rather overshadow the rest of their back catalogue which is a shame. The Spandau Ballet sampling “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” was that huge hit of course from the Summer of 1991 and we hadn’t heard that much from the duo since. The follow up single “Paper Doll” had been scrunched up and binned when it failed to make the Top 40 whilst two further singles had at least charted though neither got further than No 29. “Looking Through Patient Eyes” would correct that though when it peaked at No 11.

Turning from Spandau Ballet to George Michael for inspiration on this one – the track heavily samples “Father Figure” – it was another great example of their wordy rapping (hood) allied to a mellow yet catchy sound. It was taken from their second album the title of which confirmed their verbose credentials – “The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations Of Love And Anger And The Ponderance Of Life And Existence)”. They really did have a thing about word heavy album titles. Their debut was called “Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience” whilst their fourth carried the title of “Dearest Christian, I’m So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here. Love Dad”. Like the Ferry album “Taxi”, Our Price got a promo copy of the album which ended up in my possession. My wife even made a cover for it.

Sadly, Prince Be died in 2016 after suffering for years from diabetes related conditions including having one of his legs amputated at the knee due to gangrene.

If it’s…we’ll any year since 1958 actually…then there must be a Cliff Richard single out. 1993’s first offering of that particular year was a song called “Peace In Our Time”. This is yet another song I don’t recall at all. I wonder what it sounds like?

*watches Cliff’s performance back*

Oh this is just a glorious tune. So full of life and positivity and…nah, you got me. It’s just the same old Cliff shite that he’d been peddling for years. Apparently a hit for Eddie Money in the US in the late 80s, it’s just sanctimonious crap about having faith, putting songs in our hearts and building a heaven on earth. It even goes on about turning water into wine! Just horrible. If I want a song called “Peace In Our Time”, there’s always this…

Cliff’s got all his usual mates with him here backing him up – Janey Lee Grace, that bloke from Modern Romance – whilst the main man himself does his usual weird arm movements. At one point he’s only a flick of the wrist away from doing a Bruce Forsyth pose. Cliff, of course, was at Wimbledon last week doing his usual cringe fest crowd singalong. For the love of God Cliff, give it a rest and grant us some peace in our time! By the way, I can’t find the TOTP performance so here’s a clip from some German pop show:

It’s the final week at the top for 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. After positing the theory the other week that dance acts couldn’t sell albums, Ray and Anita completely debunk this by having a No 1 with parent album “No Limits” (note the plural). Released on the PWL label in the UK, Pete Waterman made the decision to remove Ray’s raps from the tracks which only increased the ‘there’s no lyrics’ jibes in the press. The ribbing was continued in later weeks by some unlikely critics – the Scottish popsters The Bluebells who had some fun at 2 Unlimited’s expense by shouting out ‘Techno, techno, techno, techno’ during a TOTP performance of their rejuvenated hit “Young At Heart”. Those cheeky scamps!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I Buy It?
1	Sister Sledge	Lost In Music ’93	Nope
2	Iron Maiden	Fear Of The Dark (Live)	Never
3	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	Nah
4	Shabba Ranks	Mr Loverman	Hell no!
5	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had a promo of the album
6	Jamiroquai	Too Young To Die	No but my wife had the album
7	PM Dawn	Looking Through Patient Eyes	See 5 above
8	Cliff Richard	Peace In Our Time	What do you think?!
9	2 Unlimited	No Limit	Negative

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018zst/top-of-the-pops-11031993

TOTP 04 MAR 1993

Posted on July 5, 2022 by 80stastic

When did you first become aware of the term ‘Reality TV’? It’s hard to recall the exact moment so ingrained has it become in our cultural terms of reference. Myriad examples of it infest our TV programming schedules of ever more ludicrous concepts and content. I have to admit at this point that I am no TV snob and have watched (and continue to watch) my fair share of Reality TV but when did it actually enter our lives? Received wisdom would suggest it all began with Big Brother back in 2000. Nasty Nick and all that. I for one was hooked back then and for a number of subsequent series until it disappeared up its own arse.

However, there was an earlier Reality TV show that beat Big Brother to our screens by a whole seven years. Three days after this TOTP aired, The Living Soap entered our lives. I say our lives but I’m not entirely sure how many people were actually aware of its existence let alone how many people were watching it. It centred around the lives of six students sharing a house in Manchester which was of specific interest to me as I was living there at the time (though working in Rochdale) and my wife was working at the University library so often saw the cameras recording around campus. I’d been a student myself as recently as 1989 so a chance to revisit that period of my life, even remotely, was also appealing.

The show’s gimmick was that it was aired immediately after it had been filmed and was edited using the very first Avid editing technology. It was essential viewing in our house and Simon, Spider, Karen etc became celebrities in the student body of Manchester. It even had a groovy, contemporary theme tune – “Renaissance” by M People which was eventually released as a single and became a big hit. Predictably, the attention and intrusion of the cameras forced four of the six housemates to leave the show before its culmination being replaced by other ‘famous for fifteen minutes’ wannabes chosen by a public vote.

I wonder what became of them all? They’ll just about be in their early 50s now (I certainly am). The only two I can trace online are Simon McEwan who ended up as a BBC producer and Karen Bishko who has had an unbelievable career. She studied History of Art at Manchester but went onto become a singer songwriter who would be the support for Take That in 2007 and would end up writing a musical that was performed in New York! Anyway, M People aren’t on TOTP tonight but let’s see who are….

We start with a to camera piece by veteran radio DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman. Why? Well, it’s in aid of Comic Relief and if it’s that time of year then that can only mean one thing – another terrible charity record. Recent years had seen the likes of Bananarama, Mr Bean with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and Hale & Pace on single duty. The 1993 vintage was a rather obvious choice – everyone’s favourite fun chart act Right Said Fred. I mean this was an open goal surely? Who else was even in the running?

As with Hale & Pace two years earlier, the song was written specifically for the cause and was based around that year’s theme which was “Stick It Out”. Oo’er and indeed missus. The single was officially credited to Right Said Fred and Friends with the latter being various celebs of the time adding their ‘hilarious’ contributions. I know I’m stating the bleeding obvious here but this song is really, really terrible. An absolute stinker. Completely devoid of any merit – I’m talking musically of course. It’s good that it raised some money for Comic Relief although you’d have to ask who on earth bought this shite?!

As it’s the Freds, there’s the obligatory bit of double entendre in the lyrics where they sing about ‘a tall erection’ and sticking it out ‘on the doctor’s couch’ (which sounds a bit creepy) and the the rest of it seems to be a rewrite of Spitting Image’s “The Chicken Song” with lines like ‘clean your teeth with your feet’, ‘take a sprout for a walk’ and ‘make a sand igloo’. The studio performance is intercut with the official video for the celebrity interventions and almost inevitably, Bernard Cribbins, whose 1962 novelty song gave the band their name, turns up. Not you too Cribbins. Say it ain’t so! “Stick It Out” peaked at No 4.

One of only three songs in tonight’s show that we’ve seen before now as we get the video for “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz. It’s a basic performance promo but it’s the staging of it that makes it memorable. The circular, tiered arena set has a Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe recalling that scene with Meatloaf as Eddie on his motorbike but it’s the overhead lighting that is the money shot. Consisting of 983 incandescent tubes that could be brightened and dimmed to form patterns of light, it’s a pretty cool effect, certainly for 1993.

Although the parent album was a big success, Kravitz struggled to replicate the title track’s sales with any of the subsequent singles released from it. The “Circus” album followed in 1995 but couldn’t match its predecessor’s numbers but Lenny finished the decade with a surprise UK No 1 single in “Fly Away”.

Well this is confusing. When I saw All About Eve on the running order for this show, I automatically thought it was referring to the “Martha’s Harbour” hitmakers but no. “All About Eve” was the name of the song with the artist being Marxman. I have zero recollection of them or their track so I was surprised to see that they have a decent sized Wikipedia entry. It turns out that they were quite the trailblazers. Perhaps rather lazily referred to as the Anglo-Irish Public Enemy, it’s certainly true that their music was informed by their militant socialist values and their message of ending economic and social injustices. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story behind the slogans on their T-shirts in this performance:

The slogan on Marxman's t-shirts, "Self defence is no offence", was used in campaigns for the release of women such as Sara Thornton, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990 after being convicted of murdering her abusive husband. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 1, 2022

Wow! Do you think the TOTP producers were aware of what they we’re putting on our screens? I’m sure the show had shied away from such political messaging previously. As for Marxman’s sound, I quite like this track though I am getting some heavy Love City Groove vibes. Who were Love City Groove? This was Love City Groove…

OK, that’s possibly a bit too irreverent a comparison. I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read, that Marxman’s legacy is a sight more substantial than Love City Groove’s. They toured with both U2 and Depeche Mode and collaborated with artists like The Pogues and Sinéad O’Connor and producers such as DJ Premier of Gang Starr.

“All About Eve” peaked at No 28 and was the band’s only chart hit.

Now here’s a seminal song if ever I heard one. Now hear me out but is there a case for saying that Suede were the indie Take That? No, wait! Come back! Don’t go! Listen, by that I mean they both bands had experienced the unusual career trajectory of generating more press column inches than record sales in their early days; Take That in the teen mags and Suede in the inkies. Both bands would curiously finally correct that with their biggest hit singles to date that both peaked at No 7. For Take That see “It Only Takes A Minute” and for Suede it was “Animal Nitrate”. That’s the end of the Take That comparisons honest!

Despite their media profile, Suede’s first two singles had peaked at No 49 (“The Drowners”) and No 17 (“Metal Mickey”). There were no such brakes on the progress up there charts for “Animal Nitrate”. It just sounded so fresh, so new, so…dangerous. It was an enormous, snarling sound with Brett Anderson’s androgynous vocals allied to Bernard Butler’s irresistible, epic opening guitar riff a potent combination.

Like most of us, I think my first hearing of the song came a couple of weeks before this TOTP on 16th February when Suede performed it at the BRITS. The NME had campaigned for the new indie press darlings to perform on the show despite not being nominated for anything. Their performance that night felt important. They were introduced as “the already legendary Suede” and despite their fledgling career, that didn’t sound like hyperbole. Obviously the focus fell on Brett Anderson with his provocative image of naked chest, bobbed haircut and the slapping of his own arse. It was a genuine WTF? moment.

There was no looking back after that with the single going Top 10 and their much anticipated eponymous debut album going to No 1 on its release later in March. It felt like something significant was happening. In the end something did happen though, for many, the movement that followed Suede’s success would be ultimately unfulfilling.

This week’s live satellite broadcast comes from Hawaii and features k.d. Lang who thus far was best known in the UK for her duet with Roy Orbison on their re-recording of “Crying”. k.d. (it stands for Kathryn Dawn) had, however, been around for years on the country circuit before her 1992 album “Ingénue” (a more commercial and less traditional collection of songs) brought her mainstream recognition and success. The lead single from it was “Constant Craving” which would become both her most successful and recognised song. It took a couple of attempts though to make it a hit. It stalled at No 52 when it was originally released in 1992. I’m pretty sure that I’d heard it then and was aware of who she was but I can’t be sure. It’s thirty years ago!

Anyway, it was a No 15 success the second time around and deservedly so – it’s a good tune. I can’t be sure if it was 1992 or 1993 but in one of those years, some poor sod in the Our Price North West region was tasked with compiling every employee’s favourite musical choices of the year including single. So wide ranging were the replies in this category that the winning song only needed four votes to top the poll. The winner? Yep, “Constant Craving”.

My wife was a big fan and bought the “Ingénue” album. At some point in the decade (I’m not sure of the year and can’t be arsed to check) we even went to see her live at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Her voice was amazing as I recall. As an out lesbian artist, her audience reflected that. As we entered the venue, we were behind one lady with a very short haircut who was wearing a Harrington jacket and big Dr Marten boots. The young guy checking the tickets called her ‘sir’ and got an earful back in reply. I did kind of feel sorry for him. I think he wasn’t very culturally aware and that it was a genuine mistake.

The mix on the performance here is very odd with k.d. drowning out what I presume is a backing track easily. It feels like she’s singing accompanied by a cheap karaoke machine. Although the album sold well going to No 3 in the charts, k.d. never had another UK Top 40 hit. Follow up “Miss Chatelaine” got decent airplay but only got as far as No 68.

Nah, I’ve not really got anything much to say about this next act. Had host Mark Franklin not introduced them I wouldn’t have known just by looking at them that this was Runrig. I mean I was aware that there existed a band called Runrig and that they played Celtic rock music but I didn’t really know any of their stuff at all. To be fair to me, “Wonderful” was only the band’s second charting single after the “Hearthammer EP” in 1991.

Watching this back, I kind of feel sorry for the band. Their first time on TOTP after being in existence since 1973 and they deliver that performance. I mean I know it’s not fair to expect an over the top, all singing and dancing extravaganza when they’re a bunch of forty something guys playing a rather average rock song but come on! They’re like Big Country’s more sensible, straight laced elder brothers. Do you think the lead singer had always been planning on wearing a leather jacket if he ever got on TOTP whenever that might be – the 70s, the 80s whenever? I guess it is a classic item of clothing but it just seems to jar somehow.

Anyway, “Wonderful” peaked at No 29 and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Ah shit. We’re back to four Breakers this week after none on the last show. More content for me to have to come up with then. Super! Now, one political activist group on the show was quite daring but two? What was going on?! Like Marxman before them, Rage Against The Machine’s music was all about political messaging and anti-authoritarian views. Not that I understood any of that at the time. I thought it was all a bit of an unholy racket. Anyway, “Killing In The Name” was their debut single and although it would achieve a respectable peak of No 25 on the UK Top 40, that was by no means the end or indeed the highlight of its chart story.

Fast forward sixteen years and the singles chart is unrecognisable from its heyday with the once much celebrated race for the Xmas No 1 now hijacked and debased by TV talent show The X Factor. Two members of the public had had enough and formed a Facebook group to campaign for people to buy “Killing In The Name” instead of that year’s X Factor winner’ song. The campaign went viral and, with a physical release of RATM’s track not required as it could be downloaded online and still count as a sale, “Killing In The Name” was duly crowned Xmas No 1 for 2009. I felt a little bit for that year’s X Factor winner little Geordie Joe McElderry who got caught up in the whole media frenzy and was asked about whether such galvanising campaigns should be allowed to subvert the chart compilation in that way but ah, what the hell.

After doing a studio performance last week, Bryan Ferry’s cover of “I Put A Spell On You” is now officially a Breaker at No 22. As you’d expect, the video is set in a nightclub and populated by gorgeous models with Louise Brooks hairstyles looking glamorous and seductive whilst Bryan lurks in the shadows. It’s all very Ferry.

I suggested in a previous post that Annie Lennox had done a superior cover of the song but there is also this by the much underrated Alan Price as well. I do like a bit of Alan Price now and again I have to say…

There was definitely something up with TOTP producer Stanley Appel this week. Not only did he put two political activist groups in the show but he also sneaked The Jesus Lizard into the running order! These Illinois noise rockers (yes, ‘noise rock’ was a thing apparently) were surely one of the unlikeliest of bands to ever appear on the Beeb’s prime time music show but here they were riding on the coat tails of Nirvana’s success with a split single release of their song “Puss” along with Kurt Cobain’s “Oh, The Guilt”. I seem to remember that this was only available on a limited edition 7” but I could be wrong. If I didn’t get Rage Against The Machine then I certainly wasn’t going to be swayed by this lot.

Three years later though I did have my own peculiar little Jesus Lizard moment. It came when I was serving a customer in the Our Price in Stockport who was enquiring about the new George Michael single and wanted to know what it was called. My confident reply? “It’s called ‘Jesus To A Lizard’ madam” before correcting myself to “Jesus To A Child”. Talk about a brain fart. How we laughed!

“Puss / Oh, The Guilt” peaked at No 12.

The final Breaker is the latest single from Madonna. The third single taken from her “Erotica” album, “Bad Girl” is an almost forgotten Madge hit – well, I’d forgotten all about it anyway. To be fair to myself, she’s released eighty-nine singles to date so some of those were bound to skip through my memory cells. I’d also forgotten about the video featuring Christopher Walken who plays the role of Madonna’s character’s guardian angel thereby predating his infamous dancing appearance in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice” by some eight years.

“Bad Girl” kept up Madonna’s run of UK Top 10 singles in the 90s by just creeping in at No 10 itself but in the US it became her first single to fail to make the Billboard Top 20 thus breaking a run of twenty-seven hits starting with “Holiday” in 1983 and ending with “Deeper And Deeper” in 1992. Tellingly for Madonna though, this brief Breakers appearance was the only time we saw “Bad Girl” on TOTP. Back in the 80s, wouldn’t a new Madonna single and video have warranted a much bigger fanfare than this?! We weren’t (gulp) getting bored of her surely?

Just to rub salt into Madge’s wounds, here comes a performance from a legendary female artist that does get the full bells and whistles treatment with host Mark Franklin even going so far as to say he was proud to introduce her. He was talking, of course, of (Miss) Diana Ross. If “Bad Girl” is a forgotten Madonna single though, what does that make “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)”? This was yet another single to be lifted from her “Force Behind The Power” album that had already been out eighteen months! It’s one of those songs that you’ve forgotten about as soon as the last note has disappeared into the ether. So vacuous was it that it was hardly there at all. A bit like Michelle Donelan being Secretary of State for Education for thirty-six hours or however long it was. As I say, hardly there at all.

There was one thing to note here though. Diana’s clearly borrowed that bloke from Runrig’s leather jacket for this performance – maybe I was wrong to ridicule him after all. “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)” peaked at No 31 – don’t ask me how it even got that far up the chart.

Still top of the pile are 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. I think they’ve got one more week after this but that won’t be the last we’ll see of them as there’s at least another four Top 10 hits to come from them in the next couple of years.

What do you think the pinball themed video was all about? Was it some sort of Elton John / Tommy / The Who tribute?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I Buy it?
1	Right Said Fred And Friends	Stick It Out	Not even for charity
2	Lenny Kravitz	Are You Gonna Go My Way	No
3	Marxman	All About Eve	Nope
4	Suede	Animal Nitrate	No the single but I had the album
5	k.d.Lang	Constant Craving	Not but my wife had the album
6	Runrig	Wonderful	Never
7	Rage Against The Machine	Killing In The Name	Nah
8	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had a promo copy of the album
9	The Jesus Lizard / Nirvana	Puss / Oh, The Guilt	Negative
10	Madonna	Bad Girl	I did not
11	Diana Ross	Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)	As if
12	2 Unlimited	No Limit	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018s7p/top-of-the-pops-04031993

TOTP 25 FEB 1993

Posted on July 1, 2022 by 80stastic

After having last week off due to Glastonbury, we’re back with a double helping of BBC4 TOTP repeats to review. To be honest, I wouldn’t have said no to another week’s holiday. I’ve only just caught up and suddenly were off again! At least there’s only eight artists on the show this week as there aren’t any Breakers and, with one notable and entirely permissible exception, they’re all in the TOTP studio.

We start with Bizarre Inc with a track I don’t recall at all entitled “Took My Love”. As with previous hit “I’m Gonna Get You”, it features Angie Brown on vocals and was taken from their album “Energique”. Actually, I don’t remember the album either. I thought they were a singles band.

*checks Bizarre Inc discography*

Nope. I don’t recognise that album cover but then I probably didn’t sell many copies of it in the Rochdale Our Price I was working in as, despite the presence of three hit singles, it only got as high as No 41 in the charts. In fact, did any of the dance acts from this period have big selling albums? Did the likes of Altern 8, K-Klass, Felix, Shut Up And Dance, Rozalla, Kym Sims, U.S.U.R.A. etc translate their singles success into album sales? Check these stats out:

Artist	Album	Chart peak
Altern 8	Full On… Mask Hysteria	11
Felix	#1	26
K-Klass	Universal	73
Kym Sims	Too Blind to See It	39
Rozalla	Everybody’s Free	20
Shut Up And Dance	Death Is Not the End	38
U.S.U.R.A.	Open Your Mind	Did not chart

OK, it’s not an exhaustive list but all of these acts had decent sized hit singles in the proceeding twelve months to this point and I’d have to say I don’t see a massive crossover trend for the parent albums. Anyway, back to Bizarre Inc and I didn’t find this track anywhere near as effective as their previous hits. It followed the same formula but didn’t quite have the same immediate impact. Also, what was the deal with the synths on swings? Didn’t another dance act use this prop on the show recently? I’m sure they did but I’m not going back in the archives to check who it was. Just chalk it up to another failed attempt by the TOTP producers to make dance acts look visually interesting.

“Took My Love’ peaked at No 19.

From a single I don’t remember at all to one which always brings to mind early 1993 when I hear it these days. The repositioning and relaunch of Annie Lennox as a solo artist after Eurythmics went on a decade long sabbatical had gone as well as it could possibly have been expected to. Her debut solo album “Diva” went straight in at No 1 and furnished Annie with two Top 10 singles. Then, just nine days before this TOTP aired, it won a BRIT for Best British Album. Annie won another for Best British Female Artist. It was heady stuff but she still wasn’t finished.

“Love Song For A Vampire” was a track Annie recorded for the Francis Ford Coppola directed film Bram Stokers Dracula starring Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves. For me, it was easily the best thing about the film. I just couldn’t get past Keanu’s disastrous English accent or the odd way that Oldman glided around the set as Dracula. The sexual imagery seemed like it existed just to create a headline and the whole thing just felt like a big letdown and a missed opportunity to reboot the classic tale.

Annie’s song (no, not John Denver’s) though was a fine piece; with her vocals being hauntingly beautiful and yet unsettling at the same time. Its unusual structure helps to create that feeling of otherworldliness that resonates from it. It doesn’t have a chorus as such and is built around a constant, pressing synth refrain. The track wasn’t on “Diva” so not wishing to miss out on a chance to plug it again, her record label made it a double A-side with “Little Bird” which was from the album. It was “Love Song For A Vampire” though that got all the airplay and it was an enormous hit peaking at No 3.

For Annie’s turn here, it looks like the TOTP production team have been busy repurposing sets from previous performances by other artists. We saw those candles and burning torches just the other week when Sting was on and the dry ice coming from that little run of steps looks familiar as well though I can’t think who else used that as a prop. They’ve added a window behind Annie presumably for a vampire to fly through. Thankfully there are no fake bats anywhere to be seen on stage.

Of course, Annie’s song (still not John Denver) isn’t the only hit single to come from a film about vampires in the 90s…

The only act not in the studio tonight is Michael Jackson and in all honesty I don’t think the show can be criticised for not pulling off the coup of a personal appearance by the self styled King of Pop himself. Despite it being 1993, in true Jacko tradition, he’s still releasing songs from an album that came out two years ago. “Give In To Me” was the seventh single of nine in total to come from “Dangerous” and was released an astonishing fifteen months after the album. That didn’t seem to matter though as it scaled the UK charts all the way to No 2 (it wasn’t released as a single in the US).

Jackson’s profile was higher than usual though even by his phenomenal standards at this time owing to the recent broadcast of his Oprah Winfrey interview that host Tony Dortie references in his intro. Maybe that helped shift a few units. I’m sure the tabloids would have been full of comment about Jacko’s explanation of his ever whitening skin which we now know was due to a condition called vitiligo and nothing to do with deliberate skin bleaching. Nobody was buying it at the time though (his explanation not his single).

As for the song itself, it just sounded like a rehash of previous hit “Dirty Diana” from the “Bad” album to me. As if to confirm my opinion, the CD single came with “Dirty Diana” as an extra track along with another song that included a heavy metal guitar solo in “Beat It” from “Thriller”. That came courtesy of Eddie Van Halen whereas the solo on “Give In To Me” was the work of Slash from the aforementioned Guns N’ Roses. As with previous single “Heal The World”, the 7” came in a poster bag sleeve. I hated those things! Such a faff to put back together if you dared to open it up to look at the poster.

The ubiquitous Dina Carroll next who seemed to be on the show every other week around this time. Having released three singles in 1992, none of which got any higher than No 26, Dina was back on the chart trail in 1993 with a song called “This Time”. Nothing to do with the Bryan Adams song of the same name nor indeed the England World Cup squad of 1982’s ditty ( I would have liked to have heard Dina tackle that one!), this was another slushy sounding ballad just like previous single “So Close”. It could just as easily have been sung by the likes of Eternal.

I’ve said it before but why were her record label A&M pissing about with these nice but average tracks when they could have just released “Don’t Be A Stranger”. The album had just come out but they didn’t release the ace up their sleeve until nine months later. I’ve never worked in marketing nor promotions but the strategy behind Dina’s release schedule still leaves me baffled.

“This Time” peaked at No 23 thereby becoming Dina’s worst performing single at the time. Even then, A&M didn’t turn to “Don’t Be A Stranger”, instead opting for the uptempo “Express” as the next single. You deserve a big, Johnny Rotten style raspberry for that A&M!

We arrive now at one of the names that I will always associate with 1993 though the artist concerned has gone onto successes way past those twelve months. I speak, of course, of Shaggy or as I think of him, one of the three ‘S’s – the unholy trinity of Snow, Shabba Ranks and his good self. Now when I was growing up, the name Shaggy only meant one thing – Scooby Doo’s best mate. Not in 1993 though. Shaggy was a chart sensation with his ragga / dancehall take on obscure ska song “Oh Carolina”. With samples of James Brown and the Peter Gunn theme thrown into the mix alongside Shaggy’s gruff vocals, it sounded fresh and new in 1993 despite actually having quite the retro roots.

Needless to say, I didn’t like it. I couldn’t be doing with all that growling, wind-it-up, raggamuffin ‘toasting’ Shaggy did although the song was as catchy as hell. In his defence, I would say that if I had to choose (with a gun to my head), I found Shaggy to be the most tolerable of the three ‘S’s. My Dad taught me as a kid that the three ‘S’s referred to your daily ablutions routine – shit, shower and shave. If I had to associate those with the musical three ‘S’s of 1993, I think I’d go:

Shit – Shabba Ranks (because he is/was)
Shower – Shaggy (because you felt dirty after listening to his record)
Shave – Snow (because he looked like he needed one to get rid of his bum fluff)

Back to “Oh Carolina” though and I always thought that it sounded like Shaggy was singing “yer arse” in the chorus. You know that bit is immediately after the words “Oh Carolina”? There. The actual lyrics are “Prowl off, jump and prance” but if you watch The Story of 1993 video on iPlayer, Shaggy suggests that him and his mates in their youth used to sing an expletive in there when listening to the original by the Folkes Brothers.

A success all around Europe, “Oh Carolina” was nowhere bigger than in the UK where it went to No 1 so we’ll be seeing it again soon and for that reason I’ll leave the Shaggy discussion there for now.

Here comes another young female solo artist who was a big deal for a short while in the 90s but who, like Dina Carroll before her, didn’t quite manage to sustain a career of longevity. Tasmin Archer scored one of the biggest hits of 1992 with her No 1 single “Sleeping Satellite” but, of course, that’s a double edged sword. Yeah, the initial success is great but how do you follow it up? If your next single doesn’t go to No 1 as well, it’s deemed to be a failure and you’re all washed up already. Even if you manage to repeat the trick and bag another chart topper, it only prolongs the eventual fall. Look at the case of Frankie Goes To Hollywood – three No 1 singles straight off the bat. A phenomenon. Then the fourth only goes to No 2 and the band are immediately written off as being down the dumper.

Given that piece of history, poor Tasmin was really up against it. Many may have thought that she didn’t give herself a decent chance by choosing a follow up single that dealt with the subject of child abuse and includes the radio unfriendly line ‘son of a bitch, you broke my heart’ in the lyrics. That view though assumes songwriting to be a commercial transaction – write an unchallenging, catchy tune, get a hit. Tasmin chose another path, the path of songwriting as an art. It was a brave choice and one that didn’t bring in the sales but which should have sustained her credibility as a serious recoding artist. I’m not sure it did.

The song in question was “In Your Care”, written from the point of view of a child experiencing abuse. It was angry in tone and delivery with Tasmin spitting out the ‘son of a bitch’ line. The first time you heard it, the moment was genuinely arresting. Another unusual decision was for a new artist to allow their second ever release to be a charity single but that’s just what Tasmin did with the profits from it going to Childline. You couldn’t argue that it’s subject matter wasn’t on point but was it too much for record buyers? After all, previous Childline singles had been much more jolly Beatles covers by the likes of Wet Wet Wet and Tom Jones. The latter had only just been in the charts the other week back then so maybe there was even a case of charity fatigue?

To try and signpost the gravity of the single, the TOTP producers have put a grainy, black and white picture effect at the beginning and end of the performance. I’m not sure it really makes its point. Still, nice to see a double bass on the show.

“In Your Care” peaked at No 16.

Has anyone, anywhere ever referred to Bryan Ferry as ‘The Guvnor’ before as host Tony Dortie does here in his intro? ‘The Guvnor’?! This is Bryan Ferry we’re talking about Tony! Not Viz comic mobster Big Vern, not self styled hard man footballer Paul Ince who actually went by the nickname of ‘The Guvnor’. It’s Bryan f*****g Ferry Dortie! He studied fine art at Newcastle University, he’s the archetypal lounge lizard, one of the most stylish rock stars of all time. You make him sound like Grouty from Porridge, the top dog feared by his fellow inmates who intimidates even the prison wardens. Dear God!

Anyway, rant over. Ferry is on the show to plug his new single, a cover of the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song “I Put A Spell On You”, the lead single from his latest album “Taxi”. This was Bryan’s first album since 1987’s “Bête Noire” though there had been a compilation album in between called “The Ultimate Collection” which had given him a hit single in the form of the rereleased “Let’s Stick Together”. As with much of his 70s solo output, “Taxi” was essentially a covers album (the very last track is a Ferry original) that actually did pretty well going to No 2 in the charts and achieving gold sales status. I remember being mildly surprised at its success as it seemed an anomaly in a musical landscape dominated by dance music but then, as we saw earlier, albums by dance acts never sold that well. As well this single, the album included tracks by the likes of Lou Reed, Carole King and a version of the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace”. I think I may have had a promo copy of the album though I’ve no idea where it is now.

The staging of the performance here is suitably pretentious for a Ferry production with dancers strutting about pointlessly while Bry tinkles the ivories on the piano. Is that Gail Ann Dorsey up there with him on bass? I think it is – well you can’t deny the class she brings to the proceedings I guess.

Although much of his back catalogue is outstanding, this does sound a bit dreary on reflection. It managed a chart high of No 18 but if you want a different (and in my opinion superior) take on the track, here’s the aforementioned Annie Lennox…

Those cheeky rascals 2 Unlimited are still ripping up the charts with their lowest common denominator dance anthem “No Limit”. It really was amazing how this lot managed to have so many hits (fourteen in the UK!) when their songs were so flimsy. There really is not a lot of flesh on the bones of “No Limit” but that didn’t seem to matter to the masses who sent it to No 1 for a whole five weeks!

They’ve got a couple of masked up dancers in for this performance and the one on the right looks oddly familiar. Oh, I’ve got it. The smaller monster in this clip from 70s sci-fi show Space 1999 – dead ringer…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bizarre Inc	Took My Love	Nope
2	Annie Lennox	Love Song For A Vampire / Little Bird	No but wife had the Diva album with Little Bird on it
3	Michael Jackson	Give In To Me	Nah
4	Dina Carroll	This Time	No
5	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	Didn’t do it for me – no
6	Tasmin Archer	In Your Care	Great song but it’s not in the singles box
7	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had that promo copy of the album. No idea where it is now
8	2 Unlimited	No Limit	Never!

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018s7m/top-of-the-pops-25021993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 03 JUN 1993

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TOTP 27 MAY 1993

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TOTP 11 MAR 1993

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TOTP 04 MAR 1993

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TOTP 25 FEB 1993

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