C. J. Lewis

TOTP 06 OCT 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

We’ve got another ‘golden mic’ show as we enter October 1994 with guest presenters Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. Having been ‘the other two’ in The Mary Whitehouse Experience alongside the first rock stars of comedy David Baddiel and Rob Newman, Punt and Dennis did go on to hugely successful careers in their own rights. Hugh Dennis is a regular on comedy panel shows and starred in long running BBC sitcom Outnumbered. Punt, who as I recall had to fend off multiple questions in interviews as to whether he was actually the son of Eric Idle of Monty Python fame due to their facial similarities, would pursue a career off camera as a script editor and screenwriter. In 1994, the first series of their own sketch show – The Imaginatively Titled Punt & Dennis Show – had just finished being broadcast so their public profile was possibly at its highest point, certainly as a double act anyway. As such, they were probably a good choice as guest hosts and TOTP head producer Ric Blaxill couldn’t have booked Baddiel and Newman instead as they weren’t speaking to each other by then (they wouldn’t be in each other’s company for another 24 years).

Anyway, that’s enough about the presenters, what about the music? Well, I’d talk about it if we had some but I’m not sure that the opening act meets the criteria to be defined as music. By Autumn 1994, the trend for reggaefied versions of old pop hits was so popular that just about every week the chart seemed to have a representative of the genre. In this Top 40 for example there’s Pato Banton and this guy, C.J. Lewis who’d already carved out two hits for himself with ragga covers of songs by The Searchers and Stevie Wonder. However, C.J. was after a third and turned to the 70s smash “Best Of My Love” by The Emotions to complete the hat-trick. Sticking to the formula, this was again a case of C.J. toasting his way through the verses with the chorus performed faithfully by vocalist Samantha Depasois. It really was a load of old tosh but C.J. got his wish and “Best Of My Love” became his third consecutive hit peaking at No 13.

When it came to original material though, the hits reduced in size dramatically before disappearing altogether. Subsequent singles “Dollars” and “R To The A” both peaked at No 34 and C.J. never returned to the Top 40 again. To paraphrase his namesake from the wonderful BBC comedy The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, C.J. didn’t get where he is today without pinching other people’s songs and then bastardising them.

Is this a third studio appearance for Cyndi Lauper to perform her track “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”? I think it is. As such, the TOTP producers have tried to shake things up a bit by having Cyndi arrive on stage by cadging a lift from one of the moveable studio cameras – you know, those huge ones that glide around on tracks to get smooth panoramic vistas? Yeah, those. It’s not a bad bit of staging actually. Cyndi then indulges in some hand shaking with the studio audience though I’m sure I detect some slight panic in her a couple of times as she struggles to free herself from an over enthusiastic audience member. They’re an appreciative crowd though who generate some large cheers for both Cyndi’s guitarist’s slide guitar work and for the star herself when she belts out a protracted long note. Talking of long, Cyndi’s career certainly has some length. She’s been at it for over 40 years now and just this year was announced as a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame though she didn’t make the cut, losing out to Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott.

By 1994, Madonna had been having hits for 10 years. So many of them in fact that this one – “Secret” – was her 35th consecutive Top 10 hit. As they’ve all come in the years that I’ve been blogging about TOTP repeats, that means I’ve probably had to write something about all of them. That’s a lot of words about Madonna. Do I have anything else left to say about her? Yeah, probably.

After the outrage and backlash she suffered from her “Erotica” album and Sex book project in 1992, it was time for Madonna to soften her image a bit and that meant a change of image. The Mistress Dita persona of “Erotica” gave way to a more classic ‘blonde bombshell’ look inspired by Hollywood actress Jean Harlow (whom had been one of those name checked on Madge’s “Vogue” single). Then there was her new album of which “Secret” was the lead single. Lyrically, “Bedtime Stories” explored themes of love as opposed to sex and musically it ventured into R&B and hip-hop to generally positive reviews. I must admit though to getting a bit lost (and dare I say it even bored) by Madonna at this point. I get that she wanted to keep evolving creatively as an artist but it all seemed a bit too knowing and contrived. “Secret” is very accomplished and well crafted but it just didn’t cut through with me.

Interesting to note though as a timepiece of the era, Madonna discussed the song on the internet (I had no idea what that even was in 1994) leaving an audio message for her fans and a snippet of the track online. It’s hard to comprehend in these times of 24hr online access to music platforms how exciting this must have been. To hear a song back then, you either had to catch it on the radio or a TV music show or actually go and buy your own copy. I guess you could tape it off the radio but that involved a certain amount of planning and commitment that you kids today wouldn’t understand. My god I’m an old fart.

OK, enough of my old man rants s here comes Michelle Gayle who’s just entered the Top 10 at No 9 on her way to a high of No 4 with “Sweetness”. In total, Michelle would rack up seven UK chart hits of which all bar one would make the Top 20.

https://youtu.be/jSSMCocyA2A

However, it seems that Michelle wasn’t bothered about chart positions. During my research for this post (yeah, I do some!) I came across this clip of her during her stint on the 2003 ITV show Reborn In The USA. This was basically a travelling version of the X Factor but for fading pop stars who would compete with each other for audience votes in a different US city each week with the act getting the least being booted off. This video is of the four finalists Peter Cox (Go West), Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet), Hayden Eshun (Ultimate Kaos) and Michelle discussing whether musical artists have a competitive streak. Tony was a definite ‘yes’ whilst Michelle just didn’t see it that way at all…

Go to 5:40

In direct contrast to Michelle’s view, in the early weeks of the show the competition between two of the participants became so acute that it spilled over into something else all together. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the great TV spats. Give it up for Dollar Vs Sonia!

The live by satellite slot where artists performed against the backdrop of a well known landmark had given us perhaps its most memorable moment just the other week when Bon Jovi played “Always” with the stunning visual of the Niagara Falls behind them. Head producer Ric Blaxill wasn’t going to waste that bit of footage and so it gets another airing on this show.

Now I’ve had a (well documented) weakness for a bit of the Jovi in the past but I have to say that John’s lyrics are sometimes a bit obvious and cliched. In this one he sings about loving his baby forever and a day until the heavens burst but there are a couple of lines that made me think of something else completely. First there’s this…

It’s nothing but some feelings that this old dog kicked up

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Always lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing

And then this…

I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Always lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing

Dogs? Just a man? You know where I’m going don’t you?

Sometimes when writing this blog my synapses are firing and the words come easily. Sometimes they really don’t. This is one of those latter moments. I haven’t really got anything else to say about “Circle Of Life” by Elton John. Think man! Anything will do! Nobody’ll read it anyway let alone care. I’m writing this sat in a Costa Coffee shop listening to Arab Strap and inspiration is not striking.

*Looks at Elton’s discography in forlorn hope of sparking a kernel of an idea*

OK. Got something. How many soundtrack albums do you think Elton has written? Well, according to his discography it’s ten. TEN! How many could you name though? Yes, The Lion King obviously and it’s 2019 remake. How about Rocketman Elton’s biographical musical drama? Wikipedia counted it so that’s good enough for me. Billy Elliot: The Musical is on there of course. How about Gnomeo & Juliet though? Or Sherlock Gnomes? I’m afraid that they’re his as well (Why Elton? Why?). There’s also the musical based on Verdi’s Aida known rather pompously as “Elton John And Tim Rice’s Aida”, The Muse which was a late 90s comedy which I don’t recall at all and a DreamWorks Animation called The Road To El Dorado. Perhaps the most intriguing was his first which came out in 1971 for a film called Friends (nothing to do with the US sit com TV series). I have never heard of this film until now but apparently it received a Golden Globe nomination for Best English Language Foreign Film. Not knowing the film, I obviously wasn’t aware of Elton’s soundtrack album either but then it has never been released as a standalone CD since its initial vinyl release although its tracks are on the “Rare Masters” compilation album that was released in 1992. I’ve gone from nothing to say to far too much Elton John information haven’t I?

https://youtu.be/wbeQ5lJ2Q-s

However, I’ve not said too much about tonight’s hosts Punt & Dennis since the top of the post so how are they doing? Well, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed but maybe it’s like looking back at the technology of the time; it seems underwhelming by today’s standards but was actually cutting edge at the time. Anyway, they’ve bought out the big guns for this next link as Hugh Dennis gets his own backstage set up to showcase perhaps the duo’s best known comedy character Mr Strange and his catchphrase “Milky milky”. Known for his love of milk (that had usually gone off) and with the manner of a Peeping Tom, he was a weird but memorable creation. Dennis had actually brought him out for the Elton John intro but I wanted to save commenting on that until he got his own little slot when introducing the next act who are Take That. Before he does that though, we get the revelation that Mr Strange doesn’t wash his pants. Of course he doesn’t. Anyway, onto the biggest teen sensation since the last one and Gary Barlow gives us his own little intro telling us how the band are on a 31 date tour before joining the rest of them for a run through of new single “Sure” whilst presumably on a break from rehearsals.

After previous single “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” had broken the group’s run of four consecutive No 1s by peaking at No 3, I’m guessing there was just a tiny bit of pressure on follow up “Sure” to ensure normal service had been resumed, especially as it was a brand new track. As it turned out, this super slick slice of pop-R&B would return the band to the top of the charts (a position they maintained for two weeks) but it seems to me that “Sure” is an almost forgotten No 1. The first taster of their third album “Nobody Else” which was released the following year, it got completely overshadowed by the other two singles released from it – “Back For Good” was so perfect a pop song that many refused to believe Barlow had written it and was actually the work of Bee Gee Barry Gibb whilst “Never Forget” got elevated to another level when it was released just as the news of the departure of Robbie Williams from the band broke.

https://youtu.be/D4d88BK8NgU

I’m sure I read at the time that Gary Barlow believed that “Sure” was the best thing that the band had ever released and was disappointed that it only lasted for two weeks at the top of the charts. I think the gist of his gripe was that he thought that the song was good enough to have transcended the teen fan base and cut through to more adult record buyers. The irony is that those two subsequent singles probably did do that on some level. In a 2021 article in The Guardian, writer Alex Petridis ranked the best 20 Take That tracks. “Sure” came in at No 12 whilst “Never Forget” and “Back For Good” were put at No 3 and No 1 respectively. I think that’s probably about right.

As for the performance here, there’s been a couple of image changes since the last time the group were on TOTP. Robbie Williams has had all his hair shaved off and Howard Donald has started his metamorphosis into pop music’s equivalent of Chewbacca. Meanwhile their outfits seem to have been inspired by the Gerry Anderson show UFO and specifically the uniforms worn by the crew of the Skydiver craft. Blimey!

For all their massive profile and popularity, when it came to huge hit singles, INXS were no Take That. They only ever had one UK Top 10 hit despite having 18 Top 40 entries. I guess they were more of an albums band? Despite the lack of mega-selling singles, as was often the case with such bands, if you put all their medium sized hits together on one Best Of album it would sell like hotcakes. I’m thinking the likes of The Beautiful South and Crowded House who both had Greatest Hits albums that sold and sold despite not having a stack of high charting tracks to put on them. So it was with INXS as well whose first compilation album went platinum in the UK.

To help promote it came this new track “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)” which was actually an old song left over from the “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts” sessions that didn’t make the cut for that album. It’s pretty standard INXS fare which is no bad thing but it’s certainly not one of their best. Whatever the calibre of the song though, any performance that features Michael Hutchence was always going to be billed as an ‘exclusive’ by the TOTP producers such was his star quality. “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)” peaked at No 15 continuing that run of Top 10 avoiding hits.

Hugh Dennis brings out another character to introduce Whigfield who is in her fourth and final week at No 1. This time it’s Embarrassing Dad who threatens to do the “Saturday Night” dance. As I said before, I was a little underwhelmed by their whole shtick. As for Whiggy, as Dennis referred to her, “Saturday Night” would be the 2nd best selling single in the UK in 1994 only behind Wet Wet Wet. It was replaced at the top by *SPOILER ALERT* Take That’s “Sure” which for purposes of context was the 37th biggest seller of the year. Make of that what you will.

https://youtu.be/lRfTrOtdHwc
Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1C.J. Lewis Best Of My LoveAs if
2Cyndi LauperHey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)Not this nor the 1984 original
3MadonnaSecretNah
4Michelle GayleSweetnessNope
5Bon JoviAlwaysNegative
6Elton JohnCircle Of LifeNo
7Take ThatSureSure didn’t
8INXSThe Strangest Party (These Are The Times)I did not
9WhigfieldSaturday NightAnd 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/m001m6qn/top-of-the-pops-06101994

TOTP 21 JUL 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

After one ‘Julian C’ on the show last week in the form of Julian Cope, we have another tonight as Julian Clary takes on the role of presenter. Now, I’m wondering if this was quite the controversial choice on behalf of head producer Ric Blaxill as just seven months before, Clary had caused a furore at the British Comedy Awards when he had compared the set to Hampstead Heath and joked that he’d just been fisting former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont backstage. The uproarious audience reaction meant that his punchline “Talk about a red box!” went largely unnoticed. However, the damage had been done for The Daily Mail and The Sun who campaigned to have Julian banned from TV. Haven’t moved on much in 30 years have we?

Anyway, was seven months a big enough time gap for all that media outrage to have died down? Ric Blaxill must have been hoping that the public were at the stage where the opportunity for offence had dissipated but the potential for a return to the public consciousness moments of “did you see that on TOTP last night?” was still very much alive. I’m thinking the debut of Boy George on the show in 1982 or Nirvana in 1991. Julian was, no doubt, a big name by 1994 and not just because of his Lamont moment. I think I was first aware of him (and Fanny the Wonder Dog) in the 80s on Friday Night Live and then his game show Sticky Moments With Julian Clary. He’d even released a single in 1988 – a cover of “Leader Of The Pack” under the name of The Joan Collins Fanclub. I wonder if Julian’s turn on tonight’s show would have caused a bulging Points Of View post bag or not?

Well, Julian has certainly come dressed for the occasion in leopard print cat suit and a feather boa accessory and he gets us raving (his word) straight away with Clubhouse and “Living In The Sunshine”. Bizarrely, despite working in record shops whilst these Italian house merchants were having a couple of hits in 1994, the only single of theirs I can remember is their Steely Dan / Michael Jackson mash up “Do It Again” from a decade earlier. There’s a scientific term for this phenomenon which is the ‘reminiscence bump’ – people tend to disproportionately recall memories from when they were aged 10 to 30. Well, I was 26 in 1994 and 15 in 1983 so does that prove the theory or not? Maybe 30 is pushing it a bit. Maybe 10-21 is more like it? Or maybe I don’t recall “Living In The Sunshine” because it’s utterly forgettable crap? The only notable thing about this performance is the Punch and Judy show. Not sure that would be allowed these days or are they just dancing together in which case maybe it would? Is this is the one and only case of a Punch and Judy prop being used on the show? I think there’s one in the video for “Look Of Love” by ABC and Mud had that ventriloquist dummy for “Lonely Thus Christmas” didn’t they but not a Punch and Judy. Even Marillion didn’t gave that and they had a song called “Punch and Judy”!

Julian is getting into his stride now (literally) as he walks across the stage in front of the next artist whilst they have already started their song, salaciously referring to testosterone and pectorals but then it is a boy band he’s talking about and as he says, “what else is there?”. Bad Boys Inc were onto their fifth of six hit singles by this point and this one – “Take Me Away (I’ll Follow You)” – would prove to be their second biggest when it peaked at No 15. Dearie me though, this was so depressingly average, even by boy band standards. They really were the dregs of that particular genre and that’s allowing for the fact that the 90s were full of sub par, wannabe hopefuls looking to be the next Take That. The song is so piss weak and sounds like it was written in about the same amount of time it’s taken Julian Clary to get his make up touched up which we playfully get to see whilst Bad Boys Inc are on stage. Apparently Bad Boy Ally Begg (the one in the white long sleeved shirt) went onto become a sports TV presenter and doesn’t really like to talk about his time as a boy band member – his website glosses over that period of his life saying if you want to know about it then just Google Bad Boys Inc. He’s right to be ashamed.

https://youtu.be/DfibBB5ebak

Oh god! This is yet another song that takes me right back to the Summer of 1994 when I was selling loads of it during an unhappy stint working at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester. Even just seeing the single’s cover in its Wikipedia entry is giving me the fear. “Regulate” by Warren G and Nate Dogg spent eight consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 peaking at No 5 and was taken from the soundtrack to the film Above The Rim. Part of the emerging West Coast G-funk scene, Warren G hung with his hounds Snoop Doggy Dogg and Nate Dogg and was also the half brother of Dr. Dre so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that he would bag himself an enormous hit before too long. What was a surprise though, given all those rap connections, was that his hit was predominantly based around a classic soft rock track. “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)” had been a No 4 US hit for yacht rocker Michael McDonald in 1982 (not that anyone was using that term back then) but somehow it was able to be recycled for a classic gangsta funk track. Just to make it stand out even more, its intro samples some dialogue from the 1988 film Young Guns, specifically around the Lincoln County Regulators, a deputised posse that fought in the Lincoln County War in the late 19th century and from which the track took its name. The video shown here includes clips from Above The Rim which featured Tupac Shakur just to up the content on the rapper-o-meter for this track as if it needed any more.

“Regulate” was a smash all around the globe leading to Warren G cranking out another five hits in the UK alone including a couple of No 2s before the decade was out. He missed a trick though by not forming a supergroup called G-Force alongside Ali G, Kenny G and Stevie G.

As announced at the top of the show by the lead singer in that direct to camera slot, The Grid are back on the show for a third time I believe with their mega hit “Swamp Thing” As with their previous appearances, they’re doing exactly the same performance with the banjo player stuck under a space age hairdryer or something. They could have thought of a different staging for a third appearance couldn’t they?

https://youtu.be/qEV4q3n91yc

Some 29 years on from this huge track, another dance phenomenon has entered social parlance but this time around it’s not The Grid but ‘The Griddy’*

*With thanks to my teenage son for alerting me to this.

The profusion of reggae fusion chart hits that started in 1993 with the likes of Shaggy and Bitty McLean was still going strong over 12 months later. One of its least worthy proponents was this guy – C. J. Lewis – who’d already had success with his No 3 cover of “Sweets For My Sweet” some months earlier and now he was at it again by desecrating the classic Stevie Wonder song “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”.

C.J. (real name Stephen James Lewis so shouldn’t that be S. J. Lewis?) tries to make the song his own (to quote Louis Walsh) by reordering the words in the title to read “Everything Is Alright (Uptight)”. Yeah, that’s worked a treat mate. This is just a horrible abomination. C.J. spends most of his time toasting “Ribidibidoo-badey” to a bemused looking studio audience who shuffle about pretending to dance for the duration of the song. Compare it with this TOTP performance of the original by Stevie and…well, there is no comparison.

Two years on from this, the song was in the news again when Oasis recorded “Step Out” and were asked for 6% royalties by Wonder due to its similarities to “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”. The Manc lads didn’t want to do that so removed it from the track listing for their second album “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?”. When it did appear as an extra track on the “Don’t Look Back In Anger” single, it included a credit for Wonder alongside co-songwriters Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby.

I think Julian Clary has kept it the right side of respectable so far given the restrictions of the 9 o’clock watershed but he can’t help himself when doing the link to The B–52’s and their “(Meet) The Flintstones” single banging on about sniffing loincloths and having a gay old time. Well, I guess that was what he was invited on for. A second Flintstones film came out in 2000 called The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas but none of the stars of the 1994 original reprised their roles. The brand new cast couldn’t replicate the success of its predecessor and it completely bombed at the box office. In a nice (if tenuous) little connection to this edition of TOTP, the second film featured Joan Collins in the supporting cast. Joan Collins? Julian Clary? The Joan Collins Fan Club? Oh, please yourselves!

It’s time for some rockin’ next courtesy of Skin. What was it with all these British rock bands of the 90s that they all wanted to be the next Led Zeppelin? That certainly seemed to be the case with the lead singers who were all intent on doing their best Robert Plant impression (I’m ignoring Julian’s comment about all that hair in show making them look like Tammy Wynette!). “Tower Of Strength” was the band’s second Top 40 entry of the year following “The Money EP”, it was also the second hit in 1994 to have the title “Tower Of Strength”. The first had been the rerelease of The Mission’s single that had originally been a No 12 hit in 1988. It made No 33 the second time around.

It got me thinking about the phrase and its origins which are religious in nature with it usually being reserved for God in the Bible. Its usage changed to referring to religious faith in general when Tennyson used the phrase to compare the Duke of Wellington to God. However, it was Shakespeare who changed its meaning to the one we understand today when he used it in Richard III. Blimey! Bit of culture there! Musically, there have been two other chart entries of a song called “Tower Of Strength” and both were in the charts at the same time in late 1961 so I’m guessing they were different versions of the same song – one by somebody called Gene McDaniels but by far the bigger hit was by Frankie Vaughan who went all the way to No 1. As for Skin, it sounds to me like they’ve pinched the melody from “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers which I suppose makes some sort of sense. “Tower Of Strength”? “Lean On Me”? Same sort of thing isn’t it? Oh please yourselves (again)!

Before Ant and Dec were the TV behemoths that we know today, they were of course PJ & Duncan, characters from BBC teen drama Byker Grove who went on to be actual pop stars after performing as the fictional band Grove Matrix in the show. It was almost Monkees-esque. The song they performed in the show was called “Tonight I’m Free” and was the duo’s first actual single release in 1993 but it failed to chart. Second single “Why Me?” did crack the Top 40 but it was third single “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” that will always be what people remember about their career as pop stars. Ridiculous and, indeed ridiculed, it was also catchy as hell based around the catchphrase of US boxing and wrestling ring announcer Michael’s Buffer. The addition of the ‘h’ in ‘Rhumble’ was to avoid copyright issues as Buffer had trademarked the phrase. The lyric “Watch us wreck the mike PSYCHE!” far outlives anything else they released and they released a lot of stuff – three studio albums and fifteen singles! There’s also a line that gave a big indication as to their future careers though we couldn’t possibly have known at the time. “I’m Ant (I’m Declan), a duo, a twosome” they…erm…rap? They would eventually rebrand themselves as Ant & Dec whilst still recording music (specifically thejr third album – “The Cult Of Ant & Dec”) before giving it up in 1997.

There were two different versions of the CD single so to differentiate between them in the Piccadilly Our Price, the singles buyer wrote on the masterbags “Twat” (Dec/ Duncan) and “Twat in a hat” (Ant / PJ). When I got transferred to the Our Price in Stockport in the new year, it turned out that the album the staff had played most on the shop stereo had been PJ & Duncan’s “Psyche” and that their favourite track was one called “She Scores A Perfect Ten”. Want to hear it? Sure you do…

Hmm. It’s got a bit of an East 17 “Deep” vibe so better than I would have expected. Also better than expected are the lads moves in this TOTP performance – talk about in sync! PSYCHE!

We’ve reached eight weeks at the top for Wet Wet Wet with “Love Is All Around”. By this point they had drawn level with Shakespear’s Sister and The Archies in terms of length of time as the UK No 1 knowing that one more would see them replicate Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Wings and John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. The sixteen weeks of Bryan Adams was still a way off though. Were we thinking it could be challenged at this point or did we believe that common sense must kick in soon?

The play out song is “Trouble” by Shampoo. Now they might seem like a small footnote in the history of pop music and they may have only had five Top 40 hits none of which got higher than No 11 and their four albums didn’t sell anywhere except Japan but…there is still so much love for this pair online and I know people who swear by them.

Jacqui Blake and Carrie Askew were school friends from Plumstead, London who ran a fanzine for Manic Street Preachers and somehow became pop stars themselves. The TOTP producers managed to get them as the last act on this show but the first on the next so I’ll keep my powder (and hair) dry for the moment before delving into the Shampoo story in the next post.

https://youtu.be/gLDcC2JJKKw

So how did Julian Clary do as host? I think he brought something different to the show and I liked how he shook up the presenting format with his walks across stage and shots of him ‘dancing’ and the pretence of him having his make up retouched mid song. However, it all seemed a bit tame on reflection. I guess he was never going to do a Norman Lamont pre watershed though.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1ClubhouseLiving In The SunshineNo
2Bad Boys IncTake Me Away (I’ll Follow You)As if
3Warren G and Nate DoggRegulateI did not
4The GridSwamp ThingIt’s a no from me
5C. J. LewisEverything Is Alright (Uptight)Never
6The B-52’s(Meet) The FlintstonesNope
7SkinTower Of StrengthNah
8PJ and DuncanLet’s Get Ready To RhumbleNegative
9Wet Wet WetLove Is All AroundDidn’t happen
10ShampooTroubleAnd 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/m001l56h/top-of-the-pops-21071994

TOTP 05 MAY 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

There have been some memorable chart battles for the No1 spot over the years. The Beatles in an unlikely fight with Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967, Rod Stewart in a right royal dust up with The Sex Pistols to see who would be the Silver Jubilee chart topper, and of course, the Oasis v Blur Battle of Britpop that we’ll see in these TOTP repeats of 1995. Then there’s those contests where the story wasn’t about the artists and the sides that they represented (establishment v anti-establishment, North v South) but were more about the sales and the tiny margins that determined who got to be No 1. I’m thinking 1990’s Deee-Lite v Steve Miller Band where there was a cigarette paper between them. Apparently, another battle of that nature took place in this week but you rarely hear it talked about with a handful of sales separating three artists one of which we start the show with.

In the final totting up, C.J. Lewis had to settle for the No 3 position with his execrable cover of “Sweets For My Sweet” by The Searchers. What a hideous thing this was. A desecration of a classic 60s pop song by the then popular trend of ragga-fying (for want of a better description) Shaggy style. I can’t understand what C.J. is banging on about during his rapping so I looked up the lyrics online and, having read them three times over, am still none the wiser. Rather bizarrely, the TOTP caption states that Lewis used to be a social worker. He really should have stuck to that much more useful profession than tormenting us all with this nonsense.

By the way, I should mention that Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is back again as host and he’s at it already in his first intro. “Good evening. You’ve seen him in Shadowlands, now hear his single…C.J. Lewis!”. This pathetic quip concerns the film Shadowlands that had been in UK cinemas around this time and which details the relationship between The Chronicles of Narnia author C.S. Lewis and Jewish American poet Joy Davidman. What was the point of referencing this other than for Mayo to make himself feel superior to us plebs who couldn’t possibly understand his comment, not having his literary breadth of knowledge? Arse.

It’s The Cranberries next whose name is another opportunity for another pathetic Mayo line about ‘sauce’. The stupid thing is that the pun had already been done…by the band themselves. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Anyway, they’re on the show to promote the re-release of their song “Dreams” (it had originally been their debut single when released in 1992). This was the most obvious choice of a follow up single since Spandau Ballet released “Gold” to consolidate on the success of “True”. A driving, uptempo number that was at odds with the more lilting “Linger”, it was nevertheless another perfectly crafted pop song. Also like “Linger”, it was ubiquitous. It seemed to get enormous amounts of airplay. Was it used on an advert as well?

*checks internet*

Well, it was certainly used by Tourism Ireland in 1996 and again in 2019 by P&O Cruises whilst a cover of it was used in a bed commercial called ‘What Dreams Are Made Of’. Anyway, why the hell did it not get any higher than No 27?! If Gabrielle could have a No 1 with a song called “Dreams”, why couldn’t The Cranberries?

Dolores O’Riordan pulls a Dave Grohl (or should that have been the other way round) for this performance by being sat down in an armchair covered in drapes due to knee ligament damage but, miraculously, she stands up unaided halfway through. She wasn’t having us on was she? Possibly because Dolores always was the main point of attention for the band. It wasn’t a new scenario of course. Look at Toyah and Blondie in the late 70s and early 80s and No Doubt also in the 90s. Were Nena of “99 Red Balloons” fame a band not a singer as well?

In an act of vicious irony, a bastardised version of the song would finally become the Top 10 hit the original deserved to be when Dario G’s “Dream To Me” went to No 9 in 2001.

Now Simon Mayo had some history when it came to football-related quips when hosting TOTP so giving him a song by an actual football team to introduce was too much of an open goal for him to miss. Keen to show off his credentials as a Spurs supporter, Mayo bangs on about there not being enough Chas ‘N’ Dave* in “Come On You Reds” by The Manchester United Football Squad.

* Chas ‘N’ Dave famously made three FA Cup final songs with Tottenham Hotspur.

I despise this song. Not because it’s dreadful (it is though), not because the original song it’s based on – “Burning Bridges (On And Off And On Again)” by Status Quo – is dreadful (it is though) but because it was recorded for the 1994 FA Cup final. So? Well, United’s opponents were my beloved Chelsea who had made the final for the first time in 24 years. I was so excited but it would all end in tears in the rain at Wembley nine days after this TOTP aired. I think I’ll leave the whole sorry saga until the following week’s repeat.

As for “Come On You Reds”, the popularity of the club and their historic double achievement of the league and FA Cup would see the single go to No 1 making it the only single released by a club* side to ever make it to the top of the charts.

* “Back Home” (1970) and “World In Motion” (1990) were by England World Cup squads.

It’s time to party like it’s 1985 now which is the last time this next band had a UK Top 40 hit. The first time I became aware of Killing Joke was is their excellent 1984 single “Eighties” but it’s their No 16 song “Love Like Blood” that they are best know for outside of their loyal fanbase. That single blew my 16 years old ears off; powerful and brooding, it somehow enticed me in despite my dominant pop sensibilities. However, I didn’t think my about them after that. To be fair, they didn’t release anything at all between 1990 and 1994 so my lack of engagement with them was hardly surprising. Suddenly though, they were not only back with a second Top 40 hit nine years after thejr first but also with an appearance on TOTP. This should be interesting…

…as expected, Jaz Coleman doesn’t disappoint with an intense, wild eyed performance complete with dirty boiler suit and face marks. Their single “Millennium” isn’t as immediate as “Love Like Blood” but it has a slowly building potency that you can’t ignore. However, a party tune it ain’t and, unlike Robbie Williams’ similarly named 1998 No 1, I bet it wasn’t in any New Year’s Eve party playlists in 1999. The single’s success prompted a handful of chart hits though none were bigger than No 25. The band are still touring to this day.

We’re firmly back in 1994 now with a dance tune from the Positiva label. A subsidiary of Universal Music Group, it was responsible for hits by Radoc, DJ Quicksilver, Barbara Tucker, Alice Deejay, and, rather lamentably, Vengaboys. Into the 2000s the label scored chart toppers with Frogma and Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis Bextor (another one of those famous battles for the No 1 spot with True Steppers featuring Dane Bowers and Victoria Beckham). Positiva was also home to Judy Cheeks who was having her second chart hit with “Reach”. A crossover club track, this was a Hi-NRG tune that was in the same vein as “Peace” by Sabrina Johnston from three years prior. Judy gives an energetic performance and I like the massive letters spelling out R-E-A-C-H on stage with her. Simple yet effective. The single (ahem) reached No 17 in the UK and No 22 when a remix was released in 1996.

It’s time for a satellite exclusive performance now, this week from Richard Marx who also did the message to camera at the top of the show. For a man who had a rather occasional relationship with the UK charts – he seems to have been on TOTP a lot. These are his chart peak numbers from 1987 – 1994:

78 – 50 – 50 – 60 – 52 – 2 – 45 – 38 – 54 – 55 – 3 -13 – 29 – 13 – 32 – 38

“Silent Scream” was the No 32 in this list and therefore his penultimate hit over here. Taken from his “Paid Vacation” album, it’s got a worthy message – the poor treatment of the older generation in the US compared to other countries where that demographic is recognised for their knowledge and wisdom – but the song itself is pretty average. Some may even say dull. Performing on the top of a skyscraper doesn’t change that. Sorry Richard.

The Levi’s advertising campaign strategy that began in 1985 with that commercial of Nick Kamen taking his kecks off in a launderette not only established the brand at the forefront of everyone’s minds when it came to jeans, it also altered the face of the UK charts. Nostalgia ruled as track after track from the 50s, 60s and 70s reappeared in the Top 40 after being the soundtrack to the latest Levi’s ad. In some cases, they would even sell enough to go to No 1 (Ben E King, The Clash and the aforementioned Steve Miller Band).

However by 1992/3, the hit formula seemed to be on the wane. Tracks by Dinah Washington and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins failed to make the charts and so, in 1994 a change of approach was required. Enter Peter Lawlor. Who? Well, I’d never heard of him either but he is a songwriter, producer and multi instrumentalist who single handedly came up with the song “Inside” which soundtracked this Levi’s ad:

The advert was a huge success and subsequently there was a curiosity about what the song was and who made it that led to a clamour to be able to buy it. The aforementioned Peter Lawlor played everything on the track but recruited singer Ray Wilson for the vocals. So who were the band Stiltskin that were credited with being the artist behind the song ? Well, I didn’t know this until now but they didn’t exist before the advert was made. They were formed by Lawlor just to promote the song. No wonder the TOTP caption just says ‘From Scotland – 1st single’. The track’s post-grunge sound struck a chord with the record buying public and it would go to No 1 for a week making it the first original song used in a Levi’s ad to do so. I have my own personal Stiltskin story but I’ll leave that for the next show’s post.

So what’s going on here then? Evan Dando doing a solo turn without the rest of The Lemonheads of a song that wasn’t even a hit? Did Evan just happen to be in the country and popped by as a favour to new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill? The caption just says ‘Evan Dando from The Lemonheads Big Gay Heart Acoustic Version’ which doesn’t explain much. “Big Gay Heart” was released as a single by the band so maybe a TOTP booking was just part of the promotional campaign for the track and the rest of the band were unavailable for some reason? I don’t know. It just looks a bit odd.

The new trend for using a gold disc as an intro is back with Mayo presenting one to Evan who looks like he’d rather be anywhere than on stage talking to him (can’t blame him for that). Dando’s had his hair lopped off since the last time we saw him which makes him look even taller than ever. And that T-shirt he’s wearing? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

Despite the pre- performance cringe fest, Evan gives a nice turn giving off some heavy Chris Isaak vibes. I think I do prefer the full band version though. None of this promotion could prevent “Big Gay Heart” from stalling at No 55 which was a shame (about Ray).

And so to the climax of the battle for this week’s No 1 spot. In the end, it went to unlikely pop star Tony Di Bart and his “The Real Thing” single but apparently there was only a handful of sales between him, Prince and C.J. Lewis. Di Bart’s one week stay at the top of the charts followed by Stiltskin’s seven day reign would mean we had four different No 1s in just six weeks. That would all change dramatically very shortly though. Wet Wet Wet are coming…

The play out song is “The Real Thing” by 2 Unlimited. Wait. What? Two songs with the same title one after the other. Did Ric Blaxill do that deliberately? Is that the only reason the 2 Unlimited track is on the show? Because it completed some sort of producer in-joke? In actual fact, despite having released a fifth and final single from their “No Limits” album, this was the lead single from their next album “Real Things”. It would make No 6 but it would be Ray and Anita’s last visit to the UK Top 10. The era of 2 Unlimited was coming to an end.

Gun

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1C.J. LewisSweets For My SweetHell no
2The CranberriesDreamsShould have but didn’t
3The Manchester United Football SquadCome On You RedsNever, ever happening!
4Killing JokeMillenniumNo
5Judy CheeksReachNegative
6Richard MarxSilent ScreamNope
7StiltskinInsideNah
8Evan Dando / The LemonheadsBig Gay HeartLiked it, didn’t buy it
9Tony Di BartThe Real ThingI did not
102 UnlimitedThe Real ThingAnd 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/m001jvpx/top-of-the-pops-05051994

TOTP 21 APR 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

So I’m 500 not out in TOTP Rewind posts but there’s no time for patting myself on the back as I’m behind with the BBC4 repeats schedule so it’s on with No 501 and we start with Bitty McLean. I’ve genuinely run out of things to say about Bitty – mate of UB40? Tick. Penchant for reggae-fied versions of classic songs? Obvs. What he did post fame? Yep, been there done that. Little Britain joke? Yeah, yeah. He is the uncle of a retired professional footballer called Aaron McLean who spent his career in the lower leagues and played for the England C team (yeah, I didn’t know there was such a thing either) but is that really such an interesting fact especially in a music blog?

OK, how about the song he’s singing here? Well, “Dedicated To The One I Love” was originally recorded by an American R&B group called The “5” Royales in 1957 and then by girl group The Shirelles who took it to No 3 to in 1961. Surely the best known version though is that of The Mamas & The Papas who had a No 2 hit with it in 1967. The track features Michelle Phillips on lead vocals for the first time as opposed to Cass Elliot. Phillips would go on to have an acting career after the band broke up in 1970 and starred in the acclaimed crime biopic Dillinger earning a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. Roles in TV films followed until she joined the cast of US soap Knots Landing in 1987 where the tale of “Dedicated To The One I Love” comes full circle. In a 1992 episode in which Phillips featured, the Mamas & The Papas’ version of the song plays in the background. The producers even called the episode Dedicated To The One I Love. Yeah, that’s it for this one – that’s all I’ve got.

Right, what’s next? Oh no. Not another ragga version of a pop standard?! Unlike Bitty McLean who specialised in putting an almost lovers’ rock sheen on his covers, C. J. Lewis fancied himself as the UK equivalent of Shaggy as he takes on classic 60s pop song “Sweets For My Sweet” by festooning it with loads of ‘toasting’ including the classic cliche shout out “Hear Me Now!”. Oh gawd. This was just a racket both sonically and artistically. Horrible stuff.

The version we all now by The Searchers from 1963 was a UK No 1 and is it immeasurably better than this load of nonsense. Whilst I prefer Manchester rivals The Hollies, it’s hard to resist the charms of this Merseybeat combo – “When You Walk In The Room”, “Don’t Throw Your Love Away”, “Needles And Pins”, “Sugar And Spice” and of course this one are all great 60s pop tunes…all of which makes C.J. Lewis’s dreadful cover even more heinous. Even the single’s artwork adds to the nastiness of the thing as it appears to depict a woman lifting up her skirt as Lewis looks on from his sofa. WTF? Everything about this guy was wrong including his stage name. Why did he go by the moniker of C. J. Lewis when his actual name was Steven James Lewis? He would stick with the formula of applying a ragga tip to established hits when he followed up “Sweets For My Sweet” with a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Everything Is Uptight (Alright)” and The Emotions’ “Best Of My Love”. Heaven help us.

Yes! Finally a proper song made by a proper artist! Despite being a huge name, The Pretenders hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit since “Hymn To Her” in 1986. In their defence, they’d not actually released much material in that time with their only album since “Get Close” (from which “Hymn To Her” came) being 1990’s underwhelming “Packed!”. There had also been a successful Best Of compilation in 1987 (“The Singles”) and Chrissie Hynde had renewed her relationship with UB40 to guest on 1988’s “Breakfast In Bed” single. Oh and not forgetting that Moodswings song “Spiritual High (State Of Independence) Pt.II” that featured Chrissie on vocals and samples Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. It’s not a lot though in an eight year period. Having said all of that, it seemed a bit churlish of the TOTP caption person to just put ‘Back after 8 years’ as their comment. They couldn’t have put something about how many records they’d sold in their career or the fact that they had the first new No 1 record of the 80s with “Brass In Pocket”? 1994 though did see the band return in good form with Top 10 album “Last Of The Independents” and its storming lead single “I’ll Stand By You”. Supposedly, Chrissie wasn’t sure about the song initially. Written specifically to be a hit with songwriters Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, she doubted her motivations about the song when it was finished. However, having played it to some friends outside of the music industry who were reduced to tears by the track, she relented and let it be released. It’s not a million miles away from “Hymn To Her” to my ears which is a compliment by the way. I like both songs. “I’ll Stand By You” has a power to it I think and Chrissie’s vocals are always right on it.

They say you can tell the quality of a song by how many times other artists have covered it. If so, “I’ll Stand By You” is a tune a few times over. It was done by Girls Aloud in 2004 as that year’s Children In Need single and three years later was also chosen as a charity record when American Idol artist Carrie Underwood recorded it for the Idol Gives Back campaign. Three years after that it was again recorded for a charitable concern when Shakira released it as a fundraiser for the Hope For Haiti Now effort after the earthquake there in 2010. I guess the track’s meaning had a major crossover quality which leant itself to supporting people in crisis as well as its original intention of describing being loyal and faithful to a person.

There’s something very appealing I think about this TOTP performance of the song; something to do with Chrissie’s dress down image and the fact that you can see her panic ever so slightly when she struggles to pick up her guitar halfway through. Nice to see founding member Martin Chambers up there on drums who had rejoined the band after leaving in 1986 after problems with his drumming after cutting his hand badly on tour and also struggling to deal with the deaths of band members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon in 1982 and 1983 respectively following issues with drug use. I guess that caption was pretty accurate in the case of Chambers then. “I’ll Stand By You” peaked at No 10 whilst the album went gold for selling 100,000 copies.

https://youtu.be/yrLfKS_iGTk

It’s the video for “Always” by Erasure next and it’s quite a thing. Set against an ancient China backdrop with Andy Bell dressed as some sort of mythical spirit, the plot revolves around the passing of the seasons as metaphors for good and evil with a battle ensuing between Bell’s character and a bad dragon type dude with the former trying to protect a Mother Nature type figure. Sheesh! The length of that sentence shows how much was going on in the video. It works pretty well though I think but then Vince and Andy always seemed to want to put some drama into their promos. Actually, I don’t think Vince is in this one at all unless he’s under that bad spirit costume which seems unlikely given Vince’s slight frame. “Always” would peak at No 4 and would also provide the title for their fourth Best Of compilation from 2015 celebrating the 30th anniversary of the formation of the band.

A new name appears from nowhere with a dance smash that gives them the highest ever UK chart entry for an unknown artist when it crashes in at No 3, enjoys a huge hit with the record and then pretty much disappears again bar a couple of minor follow ups. A footnote in musical history is created and that’s the end of the story. Right? Wrong. Who had money on a Crystal Waters comeback? No you didn’t! I’m sure even Crystal would have been surprised. Back though she was with “100% Pure Love”. Yes, the artist who brought us “Gypsy Woman (La Da Dee La Da Da)” had set her sat nav for the Top 40 once more and with a track that didn’t stray too far from the blueprint of her monster hit. As with Chrissie Hynde earlier, Crystal’s voice is distinctive to the point of being beyond replication but unlike with The Pretenders’ singer, that wasn’t a positive for me. I could never get on board with her vocals, catchy hook or not. Plenty of people disagreed with me though and the single was a sizeable hit in the US and around Europe (it went to No 15 in the UK).

I have to admit to not really remembering this one. If I think of the phrase ‘100%’ in the mid 90s, I think of the Telstar compilation series which started with the title “100% Dance Hits” and expanded out to cover musical genres such as Acid Jazz, Christmas, Blues & Soul, Reggae etc. There must have been one called “100% Pure Love” surely?

Now here’s a song that divides opinion. “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies received a lot of positive reviews at the time for being original, melodic and taking on the difficult issue of the suffering and humiliation that children can experience if there was something in their life that marked them out as different. Retrospectively though, the track regularly appears in various ‘worst song ever’ type polls. For what it’s worth, I’d place myself in the former group. It seems to me that much of the criticism it receives is about its title and by extension chorus. What is it that people object to? That it’s lazy? Silly? That doesn’t really add up though. There have always been songs with nonsensical titles – some by major artists. Look at “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” by The Beatles or “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da Da” by The Police. Or is it vocalist Brad Roberts’ deep singing voice that offends listeners so? Again, there have always been singers with low registers whose work people love. Look at Johnny Cash for example.

Anyway, the song was a huge international success including the UK where it made No 2. Bizarrely though, it was probably least successful in their home country of Canada where they’d already had a huge hit with “Superman’s Song” in 1991. Subsequent releases from parent album “God Shuffled His Feet” were more successful there than “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”. All very curious. One of those releases, “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” gave the band a No 23 hit in the UK whilst a cover of “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead” by their heroes XTC for the movie Dumb And Dumber supplied their final hit over here when it made No 30.

Talking of dividing opinion, this next band have always been rather good at that. Some see them as master crafters of intelligent pop music whilst for others, they are the antithesis of that, inauthentic chancers with an overblown sense of their own worth. I’m talking about Deacon Blue -and I’m firmly in the former camp. Some people really do hate them though. I found someone online who’s written a piece about how he’d been reminded about how much he hated them when he saw them live. Eh? Well, in his defence, they were the support band for Simple Minds so he hadn’t chosen to catch them in concert per se, he was there for the headline act. He despised them so much that when they were on stage, he took the opportunity to delete some emails off his phone rather than raise his head to look st them. Simple Minds though we’re great according to him. Hmm. Another who shared this view was my Our Price manager at the time who commented on the band’s TOTP appearance here that it was the most cliched, hackneyed performance they could possibly have come up with. Again, hmm. Show some dignity guys.

Ah yes, “Dignity”. Ricky Ross, Lorraine McIntosh (swoon) and…erm…the others were on the show to plug their first Greatest Hits album “Our Town” which would be a platinum selling No 1 (so there were quite a lot of us who liked them after all). The album featured all but two of their singles and three new tracks including “I Was Right And You Were Wrong” (another song title for the doubters) which had been released as a single and made No 32 but which didn’t generate a TOTP appearance. Instead, we get “Dignity” which was actually given a formal rerelease as a single (its third time in total) and it made No 20, its highest ever position on the UK charts. Deacon Blue would split up in this year only to return in the new millennium from which point they have released six further studio albums.

https://youtu.be/YV4AZCMDtSY

It’s that Tony Di Bart fella now, possibly the most unlikely and unconvincing pop star since…well, who? Chesney Hawkes? Glenn Medeiros? At least they had pin up appeal. Is it too harsh to suggest that you couldn’t say the same thing about Tony? Maybe it was all about the song in this case and not the guy who was delivering it? Time has been kind to “The Real Thing” with it being seen as a genuinely great pop record as opposed to part of the handbag house brigade that was all the rage in 1994. I can’t say that I share that opinion though. I found its success bewildering. Maybe I wasn’t going to the right type of clubs? Host Mark Goodier (who seems to have spent the whole show lurching about like he’s got a bad back) was wrong in his rather insensitive (given who was standing next to him) chart prediction – Di Bart wasn’t No 1 the next week though he was the week after.

Wait! What? Was that bloke stood next to Mark Goodier and who did the personal message to camera at the top of the show not Prince?! Was it just a very good lookalike?! I ask because at no point does Goodier actually refer to the guy nor acknowledge his presence and in that VT clip he does send himself up for the whole symbol moniker. If it was a lookalike, what was the point? Just to mess with our minds?

On the other hand, maybe it was the real thing as we don’t get the standard video promo but an exclusive pre-recorded performance. But then, if he was actually in the country and at the studio, why wouldn’t he have done a regular run through of “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” like all the other artists on the show did with their songs? This was just weird as was the version that Prince recorded for the show. The slowed down, sexy take might have been the bedroom choice but it wasn’t the song that everyone was hearing on their radios and buying in the shops was it? Anyway, it was Prince’s first and only UK No 1 having missed out twice before when the 1985 reissue of “1999/Little Red Corvette” and 1999’s “Batdance” both peaked at No 2.

The play out song is “Back In My Life” by Joe Roberts but who was/is Joe Roberts? Well, he’s English and had a handful of minor hits in the mid 90s before disappearing whence he came. Ironically, the single that came out after this No 39 hit was a cover of Prince’s “Adore” so not only did he follow the Purple One on the TOTP running order but his singles release schedule also followed him. He sounds a bit like a poor man’s Curtis Stigers whilst one promo shot of him that I found sees him looking like Bo Selecta’s characterisation of David Blaine. Shazam!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Bitty McLeanDedicated To The One I LoveNo
2C. J. LewisSweets For My SweetGod no!
3The PretendersI’ll Stand By YouLiked it, didn’t buy it
4ErasureAlwaysNope
5Crystal Waters100% Pure LoveNah
6Crash Test DummiesMmm Mmm Mmm Mmm See 3 above
7Deacon BlueDignityNo but I had the original Raintown album with it on
8Tony Di BartThe Real ThingNot my bag – no
9PrinceThe Most Beautiful Girl In The WorldI did not
10Joe Roberts Back In My LifeAnd 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/m001jn48/top-of-the-pops-21041994