Celine Dion

TOTP 17 JUL 1998

It’s mid July 1998 and there’s two trends in evidence within the TOTP running order etiquette, one of which is possibly informing the other. The first is that, after a few records that have bucked the trend of seven days chart toppers by staying at No 1 for more than one week, we are back in a run of weekly changes to the pole position. From now until the end of the year, only four singles will manage more than one week at the top. This sequence seemed to inform the TOTP appearance policy because, as demonstrated in this show, we would get the previous week’s No 1 given another slot despite no longer being the country’s most bought single.

I’ve commented on this before making a case for both sides of the argument and my take on it remains confused. On the one hand, it was jarring that a show whose format historically was to showcase the records making the most strides in the Top 40 would be featuring singles whose sales had, if not dropped, been overtaken by other new releases. On the other, you could argue that none of this was the fault of executive producer Chris Cowey who possibly felt that he couldn’t just toss away a big hit record after just one showing because the record companies were manipulating the charts with their first week of release discount pricing. However, Cowey didn’t help himself by putting last week’s No 1 as the first act on the show the following week making a consecutive appearance segue albeit seven days apart as was the case here with Billie and her hit “Because We Want To”. Now, in my head this one stayed around the charts for ages which I suppose it did – a month inside the Top 10, two on the Top 40 altogether and yet it was constantly going down the charts. Not once did it reverse that descent as we had seen many a sustaining hit do this year. Still, a No 1 with your debut single aged just 15 was still quite the achievement. Ah yes, Billie’s age. In her first TOTP appearance, there was a lot of flesh on display what with her wearing a black singlet top. For this performance, she’s completely covered up. Do you think there had been complaints to the BBC about such a young girl wearing a top that revealed her midriff and bare shoulders? Or was it a decision made by Billie herself or her management team? Whatever the reason, it was a noticeable change of style.

And talking of changes of style…from pop song to schlock song as we get the infernal combination of Celine Dion and the Bee Gees duetting on “Immortality”. Whose idea was this?! Well, it was those dastardly Gibb brothers obviously who wrote the song for the stage musical of Saturday Night Fever and decided that Celine’s vocals were needed to complete the track. It was a terrible idea and an even worse sound though one that could easily have been predicted given the two artists involved. Don’t get me wrong, some of the Bee Gees classic catalogue is…well…classic but the 90s saw them record some desperately overwrought and whiny ballads and “Immortality” was no exception. The lyrics were vapid, rhyming ‘immortality’ with ‘eternity’ and banging on about fulfilling your destiny with the overall effect that, in keeping with its title, it seemed to go on forever. The whole thing was truly reprehensible.

Now there’s some jiggery pokery, some sleight of hand going on here as host Jamie Theakston was clearly superimposed over the Celine Dion/Bee Gees performance for his intro, as if Chris Cowey was trying to convince the watching TV audience that he was actually there but he obviously wasn’t. What was all that about? Couldn’t they have just done a voiceover or was there a clause in Theakston’s contract guaranteeing an agreed amount of screen time? Surely not.

Anyway, he’s definitely in the studio with the next artist (s) who is/are Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa. Now there’s a lot to unpack here starting with who were all these people? Well, Pras Michel was, of course, a member of the Fugees who were on hiatus following the mega international success of their album “The Score” allowing its three members to pursue solo careers. Pras was the second of the three to have a hit under their own name when “Ghetto Superstar” made No 2 in the UK. Ol’ Dirty Bastard (or ODB as he was styled for pre-watershed audiences) was part of the Wu-Tang Clan whilst I had to double check who Mýa was as I mistakenly believed her initially to be the woman who had that hit with The Tamperer – I was wrong as that was someone called Maya not Mýa; Maya Days to be precise. No, Mýa, if her discography is anything to go by, is a recording artist with quite the track record – eight studio albums and sixty-three singles. So, how do I neither remember nor know of her? What I do know about her is that she was in a battle with Billie as to who had the most winning smile in pop. Wow!

Erm…anyway, as we all know (even Jamie Theakston did), “Ghetto Superstar” interpolates the 1983 hit “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers that was written by the aforementioned Bee Gees. In my 80s TOTP blog, when reviewing that hit, I said it might as well have been called “Islands In The Mainstream” so middle-of-the-road was it. Turns out I was wrong about that as well as it was identified as the template for a hit by a member of one of the coolest acts of the decade and a man whose chosen professional name included an actual swear word. It shouldn’t work really but it did becoming the ninth best selling single of 1998 in the UK. Mind, we did have a track record for being susceptible to this sort of thing – “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio springs to mind.

My abiding memory of this song though involves a bus driver. Stay with me. I was living in Manchester when it was a hit and one Sunday, my wife and I were heading into town to do something (can’t remember what) so we hopped on a bus to save our legs. Once onboard, we quickly realised that this wasn’t your standard bus. The driver wasn’t wearing a uniform and he didn’t have a machine to issue passengers with any kind of ticket. He also didn’t seem to know what prices he should be charging but rather was making it up as he went/drove along. Who was this guy and how had he got hold of a bus? Had he hired one for the day? Had he stolen it? The clincher though that this wasn’t a regular bus service was that he had music blaring out which he was singing along to. The song that was playing when we boarded? Yep, “Ghetto Superstar”.

It’s Eagle-Eye Cherry again but his third consecutive appearance on the show can be justified I guess as it’s three weeks on the spin at No 6 for “Save Tonight”. This was a remarkably hardy hit spending six weeks inside the Top 10 and just under three months on the Top 40. That’s the power of a very radio friendly single, I guess.

In an attempt to distinguish this performance from his previous two, Eagle-Eye does an acoustic version of the track alongside two other guitarists and two blokes on either end of the line, one adding backing vocals and the other playing the most vigorous and energetic tambourine I think I’ve ever seen. It all hangs together pretty well though and makes for a memorable performance. Maybe Chris Cowey should have looked into doing more of these kind of slots but then not every single on the show would have lent itself to such a version so well. An acoustic “Ghetto Superstar” anyone? I think this guy proves my point..

Another two songs we’ve seen on the show before already now beginning with “Got The Feelin’” by Five. Whilst I could make a case for Eagle-Eye Cherry’s repeated appearances, this was preposterous. After debuting at No 3, this single had slipped every week since to No 5 then No 8 and eventually No 14. However, a rise of a solitary place to No 13 in week five on the charts was enough reason for Chris Cowey to show their initial performance (the one with the football shirts) again. However, according to official charts.com, “Got The Feelin’” is Five’s second biggest selling single ever, shifting half a million copies and clocking up 12 million streams and counting in the UK so does that add some credibility to Cowey’s decision? Oh I don’t know anymore!

Hell’s teeth! Cowey’s done it again with the very next song only this one is worse! I know I’m banging on about this but why are we watching Mousse T featuring Hot N’ Juicy when they are at No 11 in the charts with “Horny” having dropped a place from last week’s No 10? And what on earth is going on with those face-to-face graphics on either side of the screen?! It’s the same technology used to impose Jamie Theakston’s fizzog against a backdrop of the previously shown performance clip but this time features the women from Hot N’ Juicy. Why? Why do that? It looks cheap and nasty and adds very little in terms of impact. Make it make sense somebody. Please!!

No confusion as to why this next hit is on the show – crashing into the charts at No 9 are Garbage with the second single from their sophomore album “Version 2.0” called “I Think I’m Paranoid”. Now this is a tune! A deceptively sparse intro and simplistic verse leads immediately into a crunching power chord and Shirley Manson snarling the song title before coming back with an unexpected second part to the chorus with the “bend me, break me” refrain which would get them into trouble copyright wise with music publisher Helios Music Corporation. They claimed it infringed upon significant elements of the Scott English and Larry Weiss composition “Bend Me, Shape Me” which had been a hit for The American Breed in the US and Amen Corner in the UK. Yes, the words in that phrase are the same but there’s not much else to link the two songs to my ears. As for the performance here, you can’t take your eyes off Shirley who looks fantastic throughout in that polka dot dress. Erm…(again)… time to move on I think…

It’s another new No 1 that will only spend a solitary week at the top. Another Level would never return to the chart summit but they scaled it with “Freak Me”, a cover of an American No 1 by Silk from 1993 which never even cracked the UK Top 40 so it was possible to pass it off as their own song. Maybe. Anyway, it’s pure filth with lyrics about whipped cream and licking their baby up and down! Seriously though, I’m surprised the ‘whipped cream’ line got past the BBC sensors especially as there was a toned down version that the band performed on the promo video and for TV appearances though clearly not this one. I could never see (or hear) the appeal of this lot but judging by the screams from the studio audience, they were hot property for a while. I always get Dane Bowers from the band confused with Anthony Costa from similarly unremarkable outfit Blue. Anybody else have that problem?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Billie	Because We Want To	No
2	Celine Dion / Bee Gees	Immortality	Heavens no!
3	Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa	Ghetto Superstar	Nope
4	Eagle-Eye Cherry	Save Tonight	No but my wife had his album
5	Five	Got The Feelin’	Nah
6	Mousse T featuring Hot N’ Juicy	Horny	I did not
7	Garbage	I Think I’m Paranoid	Great track but no
8	Another Level	Freak Me	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/m002k7yz/top-of-the-pops-17071998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 27 MAR 1998

Posted on August 19 by 80stastic

Despite attempts during the ‘year zero’ revamp to fiddle with the format, TOTP was pretty much always* centred around hit songs and the Top 40 singles chart. During those early 90s years, the show dipped its toes into albums with an album chart slot but it never really worked and like everything and everyone associated with that period, was ultimately rejected.

*I stopped watching around 2000 after I left my job in record shops that I’d had for 10 years so maybe they revisited the album idea after that? I’ve no interest in finding out.

However, just to freshen things up a bit, I’m going to dip my own toes into the corresponding album chart for this show’s post and beyond to see what was happening back in 1998. Here’s hoping I don’t regret this…

OK, so Jamie Theakston is our host and we begin with…Celine Dion? Again?! Yes, she was only on the show (justifiably) two weeks ago when, for the second non-consecutive time, she was No 1 with “My Heart Will Go On” but she’s back as, having slipped to No 3 the following week, she’s actually gone back up the charts to No 2. OK so, whilst her single was yo-yo-ing around the very top of the charts, her album “Let’s Talk About Love” was also shifting units-a-plenty by being this week’s best selling title. I suppose that’s not too much of a surprise given that “My Heart Will Go On” was included on it* though clearly its sales had been boosted by the success of both the Titanic film and single. After spending four of its first five weeks on the chart at No 1 at the end of 1997, this was the first time it had been back to the top spot in three months.

*Was it always on it or was it added to it after its global success?

What perhaps is more surprising is that the Titanic soundtrack album’s chart stats up to this point read as follows:

29 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2

For an album of nearly entirely orchestral pieces (Celine’s single was on there as well), this was phenomenal. Indeed, Wikipedia tells me that it is the highest selling primarily orchestral soundtrack ever! I probably shouldn’t be taken aback at the sales of the Titanic soundtrack given…

a) the record busting-success of the film

b) the fact that presumably I must have sold a few copies over the counter myself seeing as I was working for Our Price at the time

…and yet I am. The only other similar title I can think of that was a consistent seller during my time working in record shops is The Mission OST. Maybe this post’s albums angle might be enlightening.

Here’s an unconventional hit. – “This Is Hardcore” by Pulp. The title track from their sixth studio album, it was quite obviously about porn. Or was it? Jarvis Cocker has explained that it was actually about the entertainment industry and how people get burned out and used up in the same way that he perceived those making porn films did. Yeah, maybe though he also admitted to watching a lot of porn in hotels on tour and the song’s lyrics, while not explicitly graphic, were certainly risqué – “you make me hard”, “teenage wet dream”, me on top of you” and “what men in stained raincoats pay for” were just some of Cocker’s chosen words. I wonder if the BBC censors has anything to say about them?

If the lyrics were an unlikely component of a hit single then so was its sound. Online comments have compared it to a Bond theme due to its cinematic strings though it puts me more in mind of a 60s film noir soundtrack. Ultimately, the track is imbued with a sense of the seedier side of life. On the one hand, Jarvis is the perfect person to deliver such a song but on the other, it reeks of that tedious trap that artists fall into after a period of initial success of writing about that success as a follow up. Which brings me onto “This Is Hardcore” the album. On a purely commercial level, it was almost disastrous when compared to the achievements of its predecessor. Whilst it did debut at No 1, it spent just two weeks inside the Top 10. In contrast, “Different Class” spent six months there and has sold 1.3 million copies in the UK. The sales of “This Is Hardcore” are a tenth of that. What I remember most about it though is the final track “The Day After The Revolution” which has the longest fade out of all time and clocks in at a shade under 15 minutes in length.

I wonder how many people in this episode’s studio audience realised that they were in the presence of a future superstar. Yes, it’s our first viewing of Beyoncé Knowles before she was a solo artist and was so famous she no longer needed a surname. Now, when I think of Destiny’s Child, my mind turns to all those hits around the very end of the 90s and start of the new millennium like “Bills, Bills, Bills”, “Say My Name”, “Independent Women”, “Survivor” and “Bootylicious”. It certainly didn’t go to March 1998 and a song called “No, No, No”. I have not even the most fleeting recall of this song. It seems a fairly average R&B track to me with a very repetitive and basic chorus and nothing like a track that would mark the group out for the success they would go on to experience. What do I know though? It was a No 3 hit in the US and No 5 over here. Now, if it wasn’t completely obvious from the interjections by Wyclef Jean of Fugees fame that you can hear, this was the REMIX version that he produced. Yes, Wyclef – we got it the first time you said it! How different it is from the original version I know not and care less but both versions are on their eponymous debut album if you wish to investigate.

Said album wouldn’t make a huge impression on the UK charts peaking at No 45 but by 2001, the “Survivor” album would spend four weeks at No 1 and sixteen inside the Top 10. Then came the Beyoncé solo career and the dropping of her surname. Now, of course, there was a song about another Knowles which referred to him just by his first name. This is Cockerel Chorus and their tribute to 1970s Spurs left back Cyril Knowles…

We’re getting ever closer to the end of M People in these TOTP repeats. “Angel Street” was the final single lifted from their final studio album “Fresco”. All that’s left now is a Best Of album and the two new tracks that were released as singles from it. To date, there has been no new M People album since 1997 and no new single since 1999 though they have toured sporadically. That remaining touring element to their story belied the idea that they’d ‘split up’ and promoted the theory that they were, in fact, on an elongated hiatus with no stories of the band falling out but rather coming to a natural break in activities. Incidentally, M People was originally conceived by Mike Pickering as a fluid collective arrangement rather than a traditional group with floating singers (though once Heather Small and her powerhouse vocals was discovered, that plan was dropped) so maybe an official break up was never on the cards? That said, was the writing on the wall that an extended break was on the cards? Small had recently given birth to her first child and the Deconstruction label which had been the band’s home since the beginning had closed necessitating them to release “Fresco” on their own record label. The album had sold well, debuting at No 2 and spending twenty weeks inside the Top 20. And yet, it couldn’t match the success of predecessor “Bizarre Fruit” achieving roughly half of its sales. The three singles taken from it weren’t the massive hits that those of “Bizarre Fruit” or Mercury Prize winning “Elegant Slumming” had been with middle release “Fantasy Island” peaking at a worrying No 33. “Angel Street” looked to have reversed that trend by peaking at No 8 but one week inside the Top 10 wasn’t the stuff of mega-hits. In truth, it wasn’t one of their strongest songs being almost as if generated by AI as a typical M People track (had AI existed back then).

I was intrigued to read though that the sax player here is one Snake Davis, an unofficial band member, who has played with just about every one you can think of. His website says he has recorded more than 400 tracks with over 60 artists and toured with the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Eurythmics. I mention him for three reasons. One is that he played a gig recently at the theatre where I work which was a sell out of dedicated fans. The second is that, if you watch him here, he doesn’t play his sax at all and just stands there trying to blend in with what is happening on stage. What was that all about? I’m guessing that they must have edited him out as the performance looks pre-recorded and seems to finish before the song should do. Finally, how tall did he look here? Snake certainly didn’t need a ladder with him. Yeah, you’re right – I shoehorned that last one in and it’s not even that funny is it?

Right, who’s this? The All Seeing I? Didn’t they have a hit with Tony Christie? Something about a panther? I’m sure they did but before that came this one – “Beat Goes On” which samples a Buddy Rich take on the Sonny & Cher hit from 1967. As Jamie Theakston alludes to in his intro, this lot were an electronic outfit from Sheffield and seemed very tied to their home city working with the likes of the aforementioned Tony Christie, Jarvis Cocker, Phil Oakey and Babybird. Again, I thought I couldn’t remember this one but the track was immediately familiar as soon as it started.

I liked the staging on display in this performance with the vocal parts being undertaken by a monitor on a plinth showing a close up of an eyeball and a big pair of Rocky Horror Picture Show style red lips. In the early 90s when I was first working for Our Price, the VHS of that film was released to retail and to promote it, we had lots of in store posters of the infamous, disembodied smackers that open the movie. I took one home and put it in the wall of our small flat in Manchester. It was an odd move on my behalf but it seemed to make perfect sense at the time. Anyway, back to The All Seeing I and this performance is reminding me of two other songs from the early 80s. The first is “Da Da Da” by Trio. I’m not sure why – maybe it’s the fact both featured a creepy looking drummer. The second song is “Kissing With Confidence” by Will Powers for the obvious tie in with the lips motif. The lyrics to this one included the line “Do you have spinach on your teeth?”. In the case of The All Seeing I lips, there’s no spinach but there’s definitely some stray lipstick marks. Less a case of ‘the beat goes on’ and more of ‘the lippie goes on…and on…’

What’s that? What about an album story? Well, they did have one which had one of the worst titles in pop music history – “Pickled Eggs And Sherbet” – which failed to do any serious business at the shops peaking at No 45 on the album chart. And that’s where that particular story ends. Talking of which…

Now, I always get confused about this one as it is all rather confusing. The name of this hit is “Here’s Where The Story Ends” and it’s by Tin Tin Out (who, confusingly, are nothing to do with Hergé’s comic book character) but the story behind this one needs telling from the beginning. The duo of Darren Stokes and Lindsay Edwards were known as remixers working with the likes of Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Olive and TLC. However, they also released records in their own right and had accrued a small collection of minor hits to this point. However, this one, which would become their second biggest hit ever, wasn’t actually their song but was originally recorded by dream pop outfit The Sundays though it was never released as a single due to the collapse of the band’s then record label. However, it was at No 36 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty for 1990. Still with me? Good.

Tin Tin Out got hold of it, gave it a dance vibe and recruited one S. Nelson to sing it. It wasn’t Shara Nelson of Massive Attack fame though. No, this was Shelley Nelson (not to be confused with one time Bucks Fizz member Shelley Preston). The masses liked this version so much that it went Top 10, something The Sundays never achieved with any single they ever released. To rub salt in the wound, the Tin Tin Out version won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song in 1999! How does that work?! Well, it worked so well that they repeated the formula of working with a female vocalist and covering someone else’s song later that very year when they teamed up with Spice Girl Emma Bunton on a version of 1988 hit “What I Am” by Eddie Brickell & The New Bohemians. The song placed at No 2 being pipped to the top spot by Geri Halliwell’s “Lift Me Up” in what was termed ‘The Battle of the Spice Girls’ (actually I may have made that up).

There’s a lot to unpack there (though not an album worth talking about) so I’m just going to finish off by saying that I add to my own confusion by mixing up “Here’s Where The Story Ends” with this late 80s dance hit by Electribe 101…

And just like that, the downward trajectory of the career of Robbie Williams was reversed and the rest is history. Yes, we all know that it was “Angels” that saved him from the dumper but in a way, it was what he did immediately afterwards that was just as important. Had he failed to consolidate on that success, thus making “Angels” be regarded as a one-off fluke, might things have panned out differently?

“Let Me Entertain You” was an almost perfect choice for a follow up. Bounding out of the traps, it said “I’m here and you’re all coming with me” and off we all jolly well popped. Infamously, it had been scheduled for release as the third single from the “Life Thru A Lens” album but Robbie supposedly got cold feet about releasing a song which such a bold and confrontational title and so “South Of The Border” replaced it ushering in claims that Williams was all washed up. Emboldened by the success of “Angels” though, the ex-Take That man felt comfortable enough to promote “Let Me Entertain You” and instead of being a pleading offer, it was now a cast-iron guarantee. For me, it is a great pop song, probably one of his best ever tunes with its sliding guitar riffs and explosive chorus backed with jangly keyboards and brass play out. It took Robbie to the next level and put him clearly ahead of his ex-band mates’ solo careers. In short, this was the moment he won.

Despite the renewal of his pop star worth, Robbie doesn’t seem reassured in this performance though. He’s very over exuberant, jumping up and down constantly and draping himself around his bass player David Bowie/Mick Ronson/Starman style for support. His sharp, buzz cut that he modelled for the promotion of “Angels” has been replaced by a backward step to the peroxide blonde/tracksuit look that he adopted in his darkest moments immediately post-Take That at Glastonbury ‘95. It wasn’t a good sign. Twenty-seven years later though and he’s completely come to terms with that period of his life as he prepares to release the thirteenth studio album of his career titled “Britpop” with a picture of him from Glastonbury as the album cover. Thirteen! Many of us doubters could never have imagined such a career of longevity back in 1996/97. Theakston lets Robbie know just before the start of his performance that his debut album had gone double platinum. A look at the its chart stats reveal the evidence of what we all knew anyway. Released it the October of ‘97, it debuted at No 11 before sliding out of the Top 40 within three weeks. It then spent over a month absolutely nowhere before the “Angels” effect kicked in. Look at these numbers:

63 – 32 – 21 – 18 – 12 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 3 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 3

It would spend a total of 44 weeks inside the Top 10 and has been certified a further six times platinum since Jamie Theakston’s announcement in this show to total 2.4 million copies sold in the UK alone.

Run–D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins remain at the top with “It’s Like That”. Despite the fact that rap and hip-hop were well established music genres by this point and hits with rapping in them were not uncommon events, the size of this hit was unexpected I would argue. After all, despite their reputation and profile as hip-hop legends, Run-D.M.C. weren’t renowned for massive hit singles in the UK. Indeed, they’d only visited our Top 40 three times before this – the marvellous collaboration with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way” in 1986 (No 8), follow up “It’s Tricky” in 1987 (No 16) and “Run’s House” in 1988 (No 37). They would have only one more UK hit after “It’s Like That” – a remix of the aforementioned “It’s Tricky” in 2003 which peaked at No 20. The story isn’t very different when it comes to albums. By far their highest charting album was 1988’s “Tougher Than Leather” which made No 13. In a move Dick Dastardly would have baulked at, their Best Of album “Together Forever: Greatest Hits 83-91” was rereleased with the Jason Nevins remix of “It’s Like That” added to it and renamed “Greatest Hits 83-98”. It peaked at No 31.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Celine Dion	My Heart Will Go On	Never
2	Pulp	This Is Hardcore	I did not
3	Destiny’s Child	No, No, No	Erm…No
4	M People	Angel Street	No thanks
5	The All Seeing I	Beat Goes On	Nah
6	Tin Tin Out	Here’s Where The Story Ends	Nope
7	Robbie Williams	Let Me Entertain You	No but I had a promo copy of the album
8	Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins	It’s Like That	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002gv59/top-of-the-pops-27031998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 13 MAR 1998

Posted on August 13 by 80stastic

We’re in mid March 1998 and on the same day this TOTP was broadcast, there was a lunar eclipse which was visible over much of Western Europe. There may well have been a load of stars on this show but were any of them bathed in moonlight? Let’s find out…

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss who has no obvious lunar connections other than when she spent the Summer of 2005 mooning after ex-footballer Lee Sharpe after appearing with him on Celebrity Love Island. Anyway, we’re under way with Natalie Imbruglia who has the unenviable task of coming up with a follow up to her massive debut hit single “Torn”. It’s a familiar quandary faced by many before her and since. Do you play it safe and stick to the winning formula with something so similar to its predecessor that you get accused of being a one trick pony or…do you take a chance and change direction hoping your newly found fan base will go with you?

In the case of Natalie, I would argue she came up with a hybrid of the two strategies – “Big Mistake” is nothing like “Torn” but it did ape the sound of another successful artist of the time Alanis Morissette. By its nature a much harder sound than the ultimate example of a radio friendly song that was its predecessor, it couldn’t hope to emulate its popularity and sales. And it didn’t – whilst it matched the chart high of “Torn” when it debuted at No 2, its commercial longevity just wasn’t there. Look at this stat – “Torn” was the 8th best selling song of 1997 in the UK. “Big Mistake” was the 91st in 1998. Still, she did co-write it which was probably brought a much needed dash of credibility after the discovery that “Torn” was actually a cover. It would take seven years before Natalie would fashion another hit that could even resemble the reach of “Torn” – 2005’s “Shiver” from No 1 album “Counting Down The Days” was the most played song of that year in the UK.

Moon moment: Natalie recorded a song called “Stuck On the Moon” for 2007’s Best Of album “Glorious”.

By 1998, the fortunes of Simple Minds were on a definite downwards trend. Though the decade had started well enough with the platinum selling, No 2 album “Real Life”, there followed a hiatus of four years punctuated only by the release of Best Of album “Glittering Prize 81/92” and which saw the band officially become a duo of Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. 1995 album “Good News From The Next World”, whilst by no means a commercial disaster, would sell a third of the amount of copies of its predecessor. It was also their last release on Virgin Records who dropped the band having been their label since 1981.

Picked up by Chrysalis, work began on eleventh studio album “Néapolis”. Such a change ignited a need within Kerr and Burchill to reinvent themselves and they did this by…erm…getting the old band back together! Well, sort of. They recruited original bassist Derek Forbes and drummer Brian McGee on a rehearsal only basis (though Forbes would eventually rejoin the line up on a permanent basis) and sought out a sound that moved away from their stadium rock and that was more aligned with their early electronic material. The result was underwhelming. Lead single “Glitterball” is Simple Minds by numbers, meandering along with no direction, a track in search of a tune, or a glitter ball in search of a disco if you prefer (which I do). The album pretty much tanked and Chrysalis refused to release it in the US citing the ultimate insult – a lack of interest. Having lost faith in the album, the label also lost faith in their charges and the band were dropped by Chrysalis in 1999 after just one album. I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again in these 90s TOTP repeats. It’s a sorry way to bow out but fret not – Jim and Charlie are still together, still touring and receding new music with the last studio album arriving in 2022.

Moon moment: Does the title “Glitterball” count? How about “‘C’ Moon Cry Like A Baby” from their “Sparkle In The Rain” album then?

Another act attempting to follow up on their debut hit are Five but unlike Natalie Imbruglia, they haven’t deviated too much from the original plan. Having gone Top 10 (just) with their first single “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)”, the lads double downed on the formula by releasing another slice of uptempo, hip-hop pop (I think I just made that up) in “When The Lights Go Out”. Like a rocket launch, the band’s trajectory was straight up as this track eclipsed their debut effort by landing on the charts at No 4 and get this, even made the Top 10 in the US. Who knew? Not me for sure. So successful was “When The Lights Go Out” that, in some territories, it was considered to actually be the band’s first single. I have to say though that it sounded a weaker effort to my ears than the punchy “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)”. Five’s third single would be the distinctly poppy “Got The Feelin’” which again passed me by. However, fourth single “Everybody Get Up” was an absolute banger. I’m getting ahead of myself though. For the time being, Five were doing just fine without my approval.

Moon moment: Lunar eclipse? When the lights go out? Come on! This shizzle writes itself!

Some bump ‘n’ grind R&B now from someone that Jayne Middlemiss describes in her intro as a “real man”. Hmm. She’s talking about Ginuwine who is onto his fourth consecutive hit with a track called “Holler”. Not surprisingly, this guy did nothing for me but then I’m pretty sure he wasn’t meant to with lyrics like this…

“You make me wanna holler Ginuwine like the leather tickling my fancy tryna get my kitty wetter…And when you’re through puffin’ you can butter up my muffin“

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Timothy Mosley / Elgin B. Lumpkin / Lushone Nikcole Feliet Siplin
Holler lyrics © Wb Music C

Pure filth! All that horrible male posturing was presumably to over compensate for the fact that his real name is Elgin Baylor Lumpkin meaning that Ginuwine was not genuine about his real name.

Moon moment: His song “Gin And Wine” does mention the moon and the tide but then again, he also mentions something about his baby being his bitch or something so, you know, Wordsworth he isn’t.

So it seems that the British public had learned nothing from the 1995/96 Robson & Jerome fiasco when two actors became the biggest pop stars in the land with some ropey old cover versions just because they’d been on the TV in a series whose characters were required to sing a song for a plot line. In their wake came John Alford and Steven Houghton from London’s Burning and in 1998 came a whole troupe of people in the form of the Cast From Casualty with a cover of the old Love Affair hit “Everlasting Love”.

Now, I’ve never been an ardent watcher of Casualty so looking at this lot on stage, I couldn’t really tell you who were the actors and who were the jobbing session musicians (though one was Steve Ellis from Love Affair as Jayne Middlemiss helpfully informs us) so I had to google it. The woman doing the singing is Rebecca Wheatley who played receptionist Amy and I think one of the backing singers is Julia Watson who was Barbara ‘Baz’ Wilder. Her character was one of the principal protagonists of the two part episode ‘Everlasting Love’ which revolved around her impending marriage to regular character Charlie Fairhead. I’m guessing that there was some emergency/ accident/incident that delayed the wedding somehow? I can’t even be bothered to find out to be honest. Anyway, one look at that episode title should reveal why this particular track was chosen for covering but it should also be noted that it was the Children In Need record. Having said that, charity or not, this was hopeless stuff. Was this TV actor to pop star business a purely British phenomenon? I don’t recall the cast of Dallas for example releasing records – or maybe they did and no, I’m really not going to look that up.

Moon moment: Apparently there was an episode in 2005 entitled ‘Paper Moon’. That’ll have to do.

OK- I’m calling it early but this next tune is the best of this show’s crop in my humble opinion. We hadn’t seen Shed Seven at all in 1997 as they spent the year recording their third album “Let It Ride” which was released in the June of 1998. Bizarrely though, the lead single for the album – “Chasing Rainbows” – had come a good 18 months ahead of the album. So long was the gap that it made it seem like second single – “She Left Me On Friday” – was actually the first from it. Perhaps not as classy sounding as its predecessor, it still did what it was meant to do which was make some noise in announcing the re-emergence of the band courtesy of a shouty but memorable chorus. The wah-wah guitar middle eight sounds slightly incongruous but not so much as to cause any lasting damage to the song’s merits. There was some debate amongst the TOTP online community about Shed Seven being better than Oasis. I’m not sure about that but it’s interesting to note how Rick Witter doesn’t over pronounce the word ‘shine’ in the lyrics as Liam Gallagher undoubtedly would have.

Moon moment: The word ‘moon’ is used twice in the lyrics to “Going For Gold” which is another song in which Witter doesn’t pronounce ‘shine’ as ‘she-iiiiiine’.

Yet again I am undone in my musical knowledge as I have got nothing on Lionrock so have had to rely on the internet again for this one. Apparently, they were record producer Justin Robertson, MC Buzz B and recording engineer Roger Lyons whilst their biggest hit “Rude Boy Rock” heavily sampled “Nimrod” by The Skatelites.

So, the guy with the megaphone in this performance got me wondering. What other examples of megaphone usage are there in the rock/pop world? I couldn’t really think of any. I had a vague image of Bill Drummond of The KLF using one in a performance but I could be making that up. So, once again, I had to resort to the World Wide Web for some help (where has my own creativity gone?!). It gave me the following examples:

“Orange Crush” by REM
“Mr Brightside” by The Killers
“Crackerman” by Stone Tempe Pilots
“Winchester Cathedral” by New Vaudeville Band
1930s crooner Rudy Vallée

Any more?

Moon moment: Erm…there’s a quite famous picture of the moon rising over a prominent rock formation in Japan called Shishi-Iwa which is shaped like a lion’s head and literally means Lion Rock. Tenuous link but it’s all I’ve got.

After waiting patiently at No 2 for a fortnight, Celine Dion is back on the top of the charts with “My Heart Will Go On”. Presumably sales were buoyed by the success of the Titanic film but clearly there was also something about the song that connected with the public. Was it the Celtic flute motif that permeated the film as well? Or perhaps the gigantic key change at the song’s climax? Was it the purity of Celine’s vocals (she did it in one take apparently)? Whatever it was, the song has become indelibly embedded into popular culture and for many is the standard against which all power ballads should be measured. And yes, as ever, I still hate it.

Moon moment: Celine recorded a song called “Water From The Moon” but there are two better connections. Firstly, in the film, the depiction of the night sky in terms of the position of the moon and stars was inaccurate. Director James Cameron acknowledged the error and corrected it for the 3D rerelease of the movie. Secondly, there is a documentary featuring Cameron and astronaut Buzz Aldrin which deals with their perspectives on exploration in the deep ocean and space using footage of the Titanic and rare NASA footage from Apollo 11.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Natalie Imbruglia	Big Mistake	I did not
2	Simple Minds	Glitterball	Nah
3	Five	When The Lights Go Out	Nope
4	Ginuwine	Holler	Negative
5	Cast From Casualty	Everlasting Love	Are you kidding?
6	Shed Seven	She Left Me On Friday	No but I had it on a Best Of album I think
7	Lionrock	Rude Boy Rock	No
8	Celine Dion	My Heart Will Go On	Of course not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002gk6n/top-of-the-pops-13031998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 06 MAR 1998

Posted on August 9 by 80stastic

We’ve entered March in these 1998 TOTP repeats and on the day this show was broadcast, Liam Gallagher was charged with assault after allegedly breaking a fan’s nose in Brisbane, Australia. He followed this up by getting himself banned from Cathay-Pacific airline for allegedly abusing passengers and staff on the flight home to the UK. Oh dear. He wasn’t the only pop star in this year to get themselves in bother as Mark Morrison, Mark E. Smith and Ian Brown all fell foul of the law. I wonder if any of the acts on this show have some misdemeanours in their pasts…

Our host is Jamie Theakston who certainly does have some proverbial skeletons in his closet, namely his visit to a Mayfair brothel in 2002 which was leaked in the press despite Theakston’s attempt to prevent publication of the story via an injunction. Back in 1998 though he was the squeaky clean host of kids Saturday morning TV show Live & Kicking as well as being part of the roster of presenters for TOTP and his first job on tonight’s show is to do the outro for the opening act who are Cornershop. Wait…what?! But they were the final act we saw in the last TOTP as they were at No 1! Yes, but this meant nothing in the era of the show’s executive producer Chris Cowey where chart positions and downward movement within the Top 40 were insignificant. For example, “Brimful Of Asha” was down from No 1 to No 3 this week but as a hit that was still selling lots of copies, it warranted a slot in the running order. Maybe Cowey was right – in a world of first week of release discounted prices, was this how TOTP countered that practice manipulating the charts? After all, otherwise you had the prospect of a big hit only being featured once on the show* because of it peaking high and then constantly dropping as the full price point kicked in. Even so, this particular segue across two shows and seven days does jar.

*We’ll come back to this at the end of the show

Anyway, as I indicated in my last post, I bought “Brimful Of Asha” and actually enjoyed both versions of the track on the single so much so that I caught them live at Manchester Academy. However, it wasn’t the best gig I ever attended. They didn’t say a word to the audience all night which always irks me. A live gig should be just that – a live experience not just recreating the sound of the records however accurate that might be. Cornershop would have a couple more minor Top 40 hits but are still a together having last released an album in 2020.

Controversial moment: There was that time in 1992 when they burnt posters of Morrissey outside the offices of EMI to protest about his perceived overtly racist behaviour having draped a Union Jack flag around him during a set at the Madstock festival in Finsbury Park.

Finley Quaye was still riding high at this point in his career. His debut album “Maverick A Strike” had gone gold in just three weeks and he’d recently won the Best British Male award at the 1998 BRITS. He was also a regular on TOTP with “Your Love Gets Sweeter” his fourth consecutive Top 40 hit. It’s another reggae-tinged, soulful, melodic number but there’s something in its tune that reminds me of this…

Just me then. Anyway, where did it all go wrong for Finley? From what I have read, there seems to have been a certain element of self-destruction surrounding Quayle’s erratic behaviour and unreliability. He also had a reputation for uncooperativeness and not playing the music industry’s games. You can perhaps see an example of this in his appearance here with a less than energetic performance and his decision to turn up in attire as if it was dress down Friday. I’ve never heard any of his material since “Maverick A Strike” so I can’t comment on its quality but maybe it was just a case of musical tastes moving on? Certainly his private life was problematic involving assault charges, unpaid debts and being declared bankrupt in 2012. Attempts at a comeback were undermined by Quaye not turning up for gigs and, in one desperate case, being physically manhandled off stage by the venue owner for a shambolic performance. All of this led to a lack of trust in him within whatever was left of his dwindling fanbase. Whether he’ll be able to overcome his demons and return to a successful music career, who knows?

Controversial moment: Despite all the issues detailed above, perhaps Finley’s most stand out incident was when Prince Harry (himself no stranger to controversy) admitted in an interview in 2023 with Stephen Colbert (another controversial figure!) that if he could only listen to one song for the rest of his life then he would choose “Your Love Gets Sweeter”.

Like “Brimful Of Asha”, here was another song that had already peaked at No 1 and dropped down from the top spot but which was still an incredibly strong seller and so is featured on the show again. “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion was in its second week at No 2 and it would rise back to the chart summit the following week. It is, however, a chart curiosity that despite being the second best selling single in the UK for 1998, it spent only two weeks at No 1. That shouldn’t diminish its sales reputation though. Look at these chart positions:

1 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 3 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 4

Not too shabby and definite evidence that even in the fast moving chart currents of 1998, certain singles could swim against the tide or at least tread water. Of course, “My Heart Will Go On” had an enormous advantage of most of its chart competitors in that it was from a massive, massive film – Titanic was the highest grossing film of all time, a record it held for twelve years – and that can’t be ignored in the final totting up but it remains an iconic song and yes, I hate it.

Controversial moment: Celine? Surely not though there is a comical claim by an American priest that her stereotype-free children’s clothing line was promoting satanism!

WHO?! Hinda Hicks anyone? Success wise she was the solo artist equivalent of N-Tyce who were on last week’s show. Four middling sized Top 40 singles (of which “If You Want Me” was the first) and an album that peaked at No 20. Her music was an R&B infused pop/soul sound (yawn – wasn’t it always?) and in Hinda’s defence she did get three MOBO Award nominations (plus two BRIT Awards ones). So why don’t I remember her given that I had the added advantage of working in a record shop at the time? Maybe the market for that genre was over flooded? Possibly. She did also suffer from record company machinations when Island Records and Universal Records merged causing the promotion for her second album to be non existent and that was that for her career as a chart artist. Her Wikipedia page doesn’t list any further activity by Hinda post 2008. However, her name resurfaced in 2011…

Controversial moment: Not really controversial but her name was appropriated by Lilly Allen in the tweet ‘Toni Braxton Hinda Hicks’ which was a reference to the phrase ‘Braxton Hicks’ which is a nickname for false labour pains during pregnancy.

It strikes me that it would be easy to dismiss this next artist as yet another forgotten hitmaker of the 90s whose hits were synth-heavy but gravitas-lite songs and she was just the pop puppet fronting them. However, having done some background reading on her, there’s more than meets the eye to Robyn. Firstly, she writes her own stuff so that preconceived notion of mine of her being all image and no substance is immediately dispelled. Secondly, the reaction to her songs has created quite the fan base, especially amongst the LGBTQ+ community. In an interview with vice.com, she posited the theory that this is because she is a Swedish woman and that feminist debate is very mainstream there and has been for years so there is an easier connection between the gay community and her because of her upbringing.

Robyn’s career could have gone a very different way. She declined to sign with Jive Records who then turned their attention to another young female artist called Britney Spears who Jive called “An American Robyn” and who, as it panned out, would prove to be much more easier to control than Robyn would have been. Despite not having the same levels of fame as Britney, Robyn’s influence on pop music has been widely acknowledged by the likes of Lorde, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen and Andy McCluskey (the writing force behind Atomic Kitten). Her work is seen as contributing to the ideological school of thought that is ‘poptimism’ which argues that pop music is as worthy of professional critique and interest as rock music. Blimey! Having said all of this, “Show Me Love” didn’t hold my interest for long, pleasant enough a pop tune as it is though. Plus, did she not think when she wrote it that a track called “Show Me Love” by an artist called Robyn might cause confusion with the dance anthem of the same name by Robin S?

Controversial moment: Her 1999 album “My Truth” included songs about abortion. Her US label RCA asked her to re-record or edit out these tracks deeming them too controversial for American markets. Robyn refused and the album was not released in the US.

I’m pretty sure that I dismissed this next song as being almost a novelty hit at the time. Have I changed my tune since? Maybe. We have arrived at the moment in the career of Space when those scouse scamps were never bigger. “The Ballad Of Tom Jones” would be their highest charting single ever when it peaked at No 4. Essentially a duet between Tommy Scott and Cerys Matthews of Catatonia, it tells the story of two warring partners in a chaotic relationship who are saved from inflicting physical damage to each other by stumbling across the songs of Tom Jones on the radio as their row reached boiling point. So why didn’t I think much of it at the time? I think it was that the chorus was underwhelming and the lines about knickers and not coming from Wales grated. Also, the counterpoint repeating of ‘Tom Jones, Tom Jones’ didn’t work for me. And yet…it is creepily endearing. A curiosity sure but with some musicality to it that perhaps I’d previously ignored. Whilst Space were at their pinnacle, Cerys and her band were only just beginning their run of hits having recently pierced the Top 3 with “Mulder And Scully”. They would have a further seven Top 40 hits including two Top 10 entries. Both Space and Cerys would end up contributing to tracks on an album by the actual Tom Jones in 1999 when he released his covers project “Reloaded”.

P.S. Unlike with the aforementioned Dexys performance of 16 years prior, there were no shenanigans with the picture on the backdrop screen here which features Sir Tom himself. How I would have loved it to have been Howard.

Controversial moment: Nothing much for Space but in 2020 Cerys played a song that included a racial slur in its lyrics on her radio show which BBC Radio 6 Music had to apologise for. She also engaged in a relationship with EastEnders actor Marc Bannerman whilst taking part in I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here in 2011 making the front pages of the tabloids as Bannerman had a partner back home.

From Space to Spice next as we reach a line in the sand moment in the Spice Girls story by encountering both their first hit not to go to No 1 and their last single release whilst Geri Halliwell was still officially a member of the group (the first time around anyway). For the record, “Stop” was their seventh single out of eleven in total and one of only two not to top the charts. Is there any reasonable theory that explains this? Yes, parent album “Spiceworld” had been out for four months by this point so maybe punters didn’t feel the need to own the single and the album? Maybe but then how do you explain the fourth single lifted from it – “Viva Forever”- going to No 1 after “Stop”? Perhaps it was just a slow decline in their popularity 21 months into a career that had constantly been in our faces? Or was it the strength of the song that kept it off the top spot which was…

*checks the online chart archives*

…”It’s Like That” by Run-D.M.C. versus Jason Nevins. Possibly. It was the UK’s third best selling single of 1998. Or maybe “Stop” was just a weak track? It’s a jolly enough, upbeat, Motown-aping song but certainly not as strong as something like “Say You’ll Be There” or as explosive and attention demanding as “Wannabe”. I guess we’ll never know the true reason. What we do know is that Geri would be gone within three months of this performance and things would never quite be the same again in Spiceworld.

Controversial moment: Are you kidding? Far too many to list here.

There a new No 1 and it signalled the comeback of Madonna. Hang on, had she actually been away? Not really though she had been busy becoming a mother and filming the Evita film meaning she hadn’t released a studio album of new material since 1994’s “Bedtime Stories”. Although singles wise, she’d maintained a presence in our charts throughout that period, “Frozen” was her first single release in a year since “Another Suitcase In Another Hall” from the aforementioned Evita soundtrack. The lead track from her “Ray Of Light” album, it would debut at No 1 giving Madge a UK chart topper for the first time since “Vogue” in 1990. Despite this feat, this solitary week at the top was the only time it featured on TOTP. Now, as discussed earlier, a song dropping down the charts wasn’t a barrier to repeat appearances under executive producer Chris Cowey (even from No 1 – I give you Cornershop) so what happened here? Something to do with broadcasting restrictions imposed by Madonna herself?

Anyway, critical reaction to both the single and album were overwhelmingly positive and seen as a real return to form. Me personally? I wasn’t that enamoured – it just didn’t grab me and I wasn’t swayed by the whole Eastern mysticism angle nor the slightly odd video with Madonna as a shape-shifting witch figure prowling across a desert. However, I did quite like the rest of the album which my wife bought especially the title track. A collaboration with legendary producer William Orbit, it incorporated electronica, trip-hop and new age styles. Nearly 30 years in and it has become a touchstone album for creativity with it being credited as a huge influence for the likes of FKA Twigs, Addison Rae and Erika de Casier (I’ve no idea!) making “Ray Of Light” 2025’s hottest album according to some headlines. Ex-Little Mix member Jade Thirwell has even recorded her own version of “Frozen” whilst Madonna herself is revisiting the album with a remix version entitled “Veronica Electronica”.

Controversial moment: I’d be here all day listing them but how about this for a “Frozen” specific one? In 2005, a Belgian judge ruled that the track plagiarised the song “Ma Vie Fout Le Camp” by Fabrice Prevost and for eight years it could not be played nor sold in Belgium.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cornershop	Brimful Of Asha	YES!
2	Finley Quaye	Your Love Gets Sweeter	No but my wife had his album
3	Celine Dion	My Heart Will Go On	Never
4	Hinda Hicks	If You Want Me	Nope
5	Robyn	Show Me Love	Nah
6	Space / Cerys Matthews	The Ballad Of Tom Jones	No
7	Spice Girls	Stop	I did not
8	Madonna	Frozen	See 2 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/m002gk6l/top-of-the-pops-06031998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 FEB 1998

Posted on July 31 by 80stastic

There seems to have been a clear decision by Executive Producer Chris Cowey to big up the recent BRIT Awards for this show, presumably to promote a connection between TOTP and what was then a huge brand. Indeed, the BRITS was enjoying a massive media presence in the mid to late 90s with controversy after controversy occurring. 1996 saw the Jarvis Cocker/Michael Jackson incident whilst 1997 gave us Geri Halliwell’s iconic Union Jack dress and her wardrobe malfunction. 1998 delivered another huge moment when Chumbawamba’s Danbert Nobacon poured a jug of water over Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott who was in the audience. Cowey didn’t seem to what to distance himself from such behaviour though and so the first three acts on tonight’s show are all BRIT winners. Our host is Jo Whiley and we start with the person named the best British Female Solo Artist gong Shola Ama. In all honesty and with the greatest respect to those nominated, it wasn’t packed with stellar names that year (I’m possibly doing Lisa Stansfield a disservice here) but you can only beat who’s in front of you as the saying goes. I never really understood all the fuss about Shola who undoubtedly could sing pretty well but was that enough? The fact that her most famous hit was a cover version which was pretty faithful to the original also undermined her credibility for me. Still, here she was with the title track of her debut album which was her fourth hit on the trot. “Much Love” was a competent R&B/soul number but I would have thought that you might need somebody who had a little more to them than that to be declared ‘The Best’. Sorry Shola. Much love and all that.

Our next BRIT winner are Stereophonics who collected the award for Best British Breakthrough Act beating the likes of All Saints (themselves two times winners on the night) and my personal faves Embrace. The award was presented by Jo Whiley (and actor Max Beesley) so there’s a nice sense of continuity with her introducing them on this TOTP. After three Top 40 hits in 1997, a rerelease of their debut single to cash in on their BRIT award success was always likely and so “Local Boy In The Photograph” would become the band’s then highest charting song when it peaked at No 14 having initially stalled at No 51. A fan favourite to this day, you can hear why as this is a mighty tune. Perfectly showcasing Kelly Jones’s knack for creating vignettes of small town life – this one with a tragic twist chronicling the suicide of a teenager from his youth – it’s powerful guitar sound supplies a driving intensity that is the perfect complement to its lyrics. Jones’s capacity for storytelling shouldn’t have been a surprise as he had pursued a parallel career as a scriptwriter, even sending off some of his creations to the BBC who recognised his potential by paying him enough to purchase his first computer. However, music was always Jones’s first love and when the band were signed there was no turning back. Word had got around about the Stereophonics.

Oh this is just silly now and clearly a case of opportunism. Having won BRIT Awards for British Single and British Video of the year for “Never Ever”, Chris Cowey couldn’t resist sneaking in one final appearance of All Saints performing the ubiquitous track to further that link between TOTP and the BRITS. What number was this now? Nine? I’ve lost count and have certainly lost my words to say anything more about this one other than it’s so shoehorned into the running order here that it doesn’t get an intro from Whiley (and just the briefest of mentions in the outro) and it’s just a re-showing of one of those other eight or so previous performances. What a swizz!

That’s the BRITS winners done with and so we move onto another new(ish) guitar band that appeared in the post-Britpop era. Hurricane #1 had their origins in shoegaze outfit Ride whose Andy Bell (yes, that Andy Bell, the latterly Oasis bass player) was the driving force behind them. Similar to Stereophonics, they’d also had a trio of minor hits the previous year but would begin 1998 with their biggest hit to date. “Only The Strongest Will Survive” was the title track of their second album and is a nifty little tune that puts me in mind of another lost 90s band The Lemon Trees. It’s actually a softer sound than I remembered them as having – maybe their band name was playing tricks with my mind. As I recall, they were tipped for great things but it never quite happened for them (despite being signed to Creation) after said second album failed to sell in any meaningful way and the band split up. They did reform in 2014 without Bell and have been prolific in releasing new material with four albums made in just eight years. As for Bell, after being in Oasis for ten years he followed Liam Gallagher into Beady Eye before concentrating on a solo career and doing soundtrack work. Then came that announcement on 24 August 2024…

There seemed to be something going on with TOTP and male guitar bands this week. After Stereophonics and Hurricane # 1 earlier, here comes another one and it doesn’t stop with The Lilys either but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, you read that right – The Lilys and no, I don’t remember them either. Despite having been around since 1988 and having a list of past band members to rival The Fall and The Waterboys, this No 16 hit “A Nanny In Manhattan” seems to be their only 15 minutes of fame in nigh on 40 years.

Within the show’s predilection for guitar bands this week, there appears to be a sub genre which is ‘guitar bands who had a song used in an advert’. What am I talking about? Well, Hurricane # 1 had “Only The Strongest Will Survive” used in an ad campaign for The Sun newspaper and The Lilys were the 1998 recipients of the Levi’s Jeans advert golden chalice although it proved to be more of the poisoned variety. The Washington DC band must have thought that the good times had arrived when their song was chosen to soundtrack the latest Levi’s advert directed by Roman Coppola but they couldn’t replicate the success of the likes of Stiltskin, Babylon Zoo and Freak Power*.

*Did you notice Jo Whiley pull a face when she name checked those bands in her intro? This from the woman who would present a show on the musical significance of The Teletubbies if it kept her on TV!

Listening to “A Nanny In Manhattan”, I’m not surprised. What a racket! I know I’m a very middle aged man now but even 27 years ago I would have hated this if I’d been aware of it. Their Wikipedia page says that they earned a reputation for copying the styles of other artists down the years but I’m not sure who they were trying to sound like here. A shite version of The Strokes three years before they were a thing? Frontman Kurt Heasley seems to think he’s in The Byrds whilst the bass player has cultivated the type of facial hair that was last seen on Mr. Claypole in Rentaghost. I think I’d rather watch Dobbin the pantomime horse curl one out on stage. Gadzooks!

French electronic music was a bit of a thing around this time. First we had Daft Punk and before the end of the decade Cassius arrived. In between them came Air. The duo of Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin delivered their ‘Best Albums of the 90s’ list featuring “Moon Safari” collection three weeks before they’d even released a single from it which was surely the wrong way round in terms of promotion. Or maybe it wasn’t as “Sexy Boy” gave them a No 13 hit straight off the bat and what a classy track it was. All slinky rhythms and vocoder vocals, it brought sensual dance music to the charts. The problem here though was how to promote it as Dunckel and Godin, by their own admissions, weren’t classic pin up material (see box out below) but, in a bold move, they resisted the temptation to get some male models in to be the titular “sexy boys” and just fronted it out themselves with a pair of keyboards and a band of slacker dudes behind them. Bravo chaps!

“The song was about who we wanted to be; we weren’t handsome when we were younger; our friends always had more success with girls.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 25, 2025

“Moon Safari” would be a huge hit in the UK going double platinum with 600,000 sales (one of which was to my wife) whilst Air would enjoy a career of success, critical acclaim and longevity. How though, did I manage to think they were singing “sexy body” for years?

It’s time for that final male guitar band on the show and is it just me or is Jo Whiley’s intro to them a bit odd? She refers to The Bluetones as “one of our brightest hopes for ‘98”. What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, on the one hand…nothing. Having been one of the breakout stars of 1996 with platinum selling, No 1 album “Expecting To Fly”, much would have been anticipated of their sophomore album “Return To The Last Chance Saloon”. And yet…the phrase “brightest hopes for…” suggests a brand new artist doesn’t it? Not one that is pretty well established already no? Well, semantics aside, sadly for the band, Jo’s hopes were dashed and their album title proved to be prophetic as it underperformed significantly compared to its predecessor and although lead single “Solomon Bites The Worm” would debut at No 10, it would be the last of their four consecutive Top 10 hits and indeed last ever. Although on first hearing it advances at you all robust and angular with that twangy guitar rift, it seems to be all posturing and no substance to me. There’s not much to it although Wikipedia informs me it is based upon the English nursery rhyme “Solomon Grundy” which reads:

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
This is the end
Of Solomon Grundy

James Orchard Halliwell, 1842

“Solomon Bites The Worm” apes those words and structure about the cradle to the grave concept but to be honest, there’s another song that does that much better…

The Bluetones would release two more singles from the album to diminishing returns but would return in 2000 with perhaps their best song “Keep The Home Fires Burning” and are still a touring entity to this day.

Right, what on earth was going on here. Why was a song that had been in the charts solidly for three months including seven weeks in the Top 20 only just appearing on TOTP when it had peaked and was going down the charts? Seriously, what happened here? Was this actually the first time that Lutricia McNeal had been on the show? Why was she not on in late November/early December ‘97 when “Ain’t That Just The Way” debuted inside the Top 10? Even if Lutricia wasn’t available in person (it was a hit all over Europe so she may have been on promotional duties) why wasn’t the video shown? Explain yourself Chris Cowey!*

*I’m not counting the fact that it was used to soundtrack the Top 20 countdown for a minute or so one week

Anyway, “Ain’t That Just The Way” was originally a 1975 B-side to Barbi Benton’s single “The Reverend Bob” (and featured in an episode of TV series McCloud!) but it was reactivated by Lutricia two decades later to launch her solo career after being the singer with Swedish rap duo Rob’n’Raz. It transcends both the dance and pop markets with its beats and singalong chorus which might explain its wide appeal and ability to hang around the charts for so long. Or maybe I’m just talking crap. Lutricia will be back in the charts again in a few weeks with another hit “Stranded” which, like its predecessor, would also hang around for months. Wonder if Chris Cowey will allow that one on the show?

We have arrived at one of the biggest selling hits of the decade – “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion which, of course, was from the film Titanic. What to say about this monster hit? Well, it was a No 1 in just about every country in every territory and sold 18 million copies worldwide. It’s racked up 728 million streams in the US. It won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, four Grammys…like the song itself, it goes on and on. However, the comment I’d most like to make about it is that it’s dreadful. Awful. Horrible. The only saving grace in all these facts about its commercial success is that it wasn’t actually the best selling single of 1998 in the UK. That was…well, we’ll come to that in a future post. That and the fact that somehow it was only No 1 over here for two non-consecutive weeks although it did spend nine weeks on the trot inside the Top 3. And that’s all I’m saying about it at this time. Unlike Celine’s heart, I won’t go on.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shola Ama	Much Love	Negative
2	Stereophonics	Local Boy In The Photograph	No but I had the album
3	All Saints	Never Ever	No
4	Hurricane #1	Only The Strongest Will Survive	Nah
5	The Lilys	A Nanny In Manhattan	Hell no
6	Air	Sexy Boy	No but my wife had the album
7	The Bluetones	Solomon Bites The Worm	I did not
8	Lutricia McNeal	Ain’t That Just The Way	Nope
9	Celine Dion	My Heart Will Go On	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/m002g805/top-of-the-pops-20021998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 19 DEC 1997

Posted on June 10 by 80stastic

Christmas is nearly upon us in the world of BBC4’s TOTP repeats and, unlike nowadays, there is much talk of who will be this year’s festive No 1. Some of the contenders in the race were:

The Teletubbies – “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’”
Various Artists – “Perfect Day”
Spice Girls – “Too Much”
Robbie Williams – “Angels”
Chicken Shed Theatre Company – “I Am In Love With The World”

If you can’t remember who clinched the title then here’s a clue – they had silly names and there was a lot of controversy surrounding them. No, not the Teletubbies! It was the Spice Girls though I’m willing to bet a few of them had handbags to rival Tinky Winky’s!

Anyway, we’re not there yet. We still have one last show for the great and the good of the class of 1997’s pop cohort to promote their Christmas wares and we start with Natalie Imbruglia who is still in the Top 10 despite having spent the last two months in residence there. Although this was the era of singles debuting high and crashing out of the Top 40 completely within a fortnight due to record company first week of release discounting, there were still plenty of examples of hits that bucked that trend. Off the top of my head, just in 1997, there’s No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak”, “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba, No Mercy’s “Where Do You Go”, All Saints’ “Never Ever” and “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! “Torn” was another such song. Look at these chart stats:

2 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 5 – 9 – 8 – 8 – 8 – 9 – 10

This week’s TOTP appearance was for one of those No 8 positions so presumably because it had gone back up the charts or was holding steady. In the week before Christmas, it seems a bit odd to be opening the show with a months old hit which would also feature in the Christmas Day show but there you go. Would there have been a discussion at her label RCA about deleting it to make way for the follow up single “Big Mistake”? If there was, it was clearly poo-pooed in favour of ensuring it wasn’t swallowed up in the festive rush and was held back for the much slower post Christmas sales period. Nearly thirty years on though, it all see seems a bit academic as despite a triple platinum selling debut album and ten UK Top 40 singles to her name, I’m willing to bet the vast majority of people could only name “Torn” when it comes to Natalie Imbruglia hits.

Here’s another of those songs that took up long term residency in the charts – “Angels” by Robbie Williams. This one spent twelve consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 whilst never going higher than No 4 thus undermining the faith that some of the bookies had in it to be the Christmas chart topper. Maybe some of that belief was based on the fact that:

It was a ballad – always a winner at Christmas
There appeared to be some sleigh bells somewhere in the mix in the intro
There was an extra track on the CD single called “Walk This Sleigh”

History tells us, of course, that this was the single that saved Robbie’s career which got me thinking if there were other examples of this. The first that came to mind was “Instinction” by Spandau Ballet. After scoring their biggest ever hit with “Chant No. 1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On)” in the Summer of 1981, their next two singles released for the “Diamond” album were chart failures. “Paint Me Down” only managed a humble peak of No 30 whilst “She Loved Like Diamond” was a sales disaster failing to make the Top 40 at all. Suddenly, the pressure was on and the band were in desperate need of a hit to resurrect their career. Enter Trevor Horn whose remix of the album track “Instinction” took them back to the Top 10 before the band became global superstars with “True”.

Then there’s the case of Culture Club. Having had demos rejected by EMI, the band finally signed with Virgin Records but after their first two singles had less longevity to them than TACO Trump’s tariff charges, there must have been concern within the record label that their charges were a dud. A last throw of the dice in third single “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” saw the track receive support from David Hamilton on Radio 2 (which wasn’t the popular music playing station it is today back then) and a last minute TOTP appearance after Shakin’ Stevens cried off saw the world introduced to Boy George. Cue tabloid hysteria but also massive sales and pop superstardom.

Bringing it back to Robbie Williams, Take That struggled to find chart success in their early days with their first three singles getting no further than No 38. After all the promotional groundwork the band had done in clubs and schools, it was scant reward. A fourth single was given the go ahead but only with the safety net of it being a cover version. Their version of the old Tavares hit “It Only Takes A Minute” took them into the Top 10 and Take That are still with us 33 years later (albeit now as a trio).

Now I remember there was a Bryan Adams MTV Unplugged album because I recognise the cover but I couldn’t have told you that the lead single from it was called “Back To You”. However, I do know the song. How come? Because it was a staple of the early guitar classes I attended back in about 2009 as it turns out the chords to it are pretty basic. We used to start with this one to get us warmed up. Does that mean I liked it? It’s an OK track but it doesn’t come near to the power of “Run To You”. It actually sounds a bit twee in comparison. Still, those chords won’t learn themselves and a part of me will always be reminded of sitting in a circle and strumming along to its backing track whenever I hear it. Bryan’s original would make No 18 in the UK but was a No 1, rather predictably, in his native Canada.

I’m not sure if the bookmakers had this one down as a potential Christmas No 1 but then, in fairness to Ladbrokes, William Hill and the rest, the chart journey of “Never Ever” by All Saints was hard to have predicted. In at No 3 in its first week, it then fell for two consecutive charts before reversing the trend to spend three weeks at No 4 of which this TOTP appearance was one. It would finally top the charts for a solitary week in early 1998. Quite extraordinary really.

P.S. I like host Jayne Middlemiss’ intro where she really lets her Geordie accent come through when she says “Mel. Shaz, Nicki and Nat are gonna sing for wuh”. Lovely stuff.

What’s not so lovely though is the link to the next song which comes from one of the band themselves. Yes, introducing “If God Will Send His Angels” by U2 is Bono himself. What was this all about? A demonstration that the show’s profile was still so powerful that it could get superstars to record exclusives for it? Bono’s Christmas message includes him banging on about his kids wanting him to have a bath after returning from being on tour (how festive) before apologising for not being there with us (by which I presume he means in the studio) and therefore we get the promo for the single which was the fifth and last taken from “Pop”. I had totally forgotten about this one probably because it’s totally unmemorable. Even the by now over used record-at-slow-speed-and-then-sped-up video technique employed on the promo seemed old hat. It really is a bit of a dirge but it managed a chart peak of No 12 nonetheless. You could doubt the wisdom of releasing a fifth track from an album at the height of the Christmas singles rush – what did record label Island think was going to happen? The reasoning behind it seems to be the fact that due to the deadline of a pre-booked tour, the “Pop” album was rushed to market in what the group felt was an unfinished state. As such the band either remixed or completely remade the tracks taken from it for single release making them seem like more essential than usual purchases for the die-hards in the fanbase.

“If God Will Send His Angels” would also end up on the soundtrack album for the film City Of Angels (the clue to the reason why is in both titles!). I’ve never seen it but it starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan and was about an angel falling in love with a mortal woman. The film was a commercial success as was the soundtrack which also featured songs by Alanis Morissette and Goo Goo Dolls both of whom were managed by Rob Cavallo who was the album’s executive producer. Funny that. Morissette had the follow up album to global smash “Jagged Little Pill” due out whilst Goo Goo Dolls also had an album forthcoming. Again, funny that. The latter’s track contributed to the film was “Iris” which would top airplay charts around the world when released as a single the following year, be nominated for a Grammy and is still a staple of pop/rock radio station playlists to this day and you can’t say that about “If God Will Send His Angels”,

And so to another of those potential contenders for the Christmas No 1 according to the bookies. “I Am In Love With The World” by Chicken Shed Theatre Company was originally included on the “Diana Princess Of Wales: Tribute” charity album due to her patronage of the theatre company that literally started in an old chicken shed and was released as a single from it in time for Christmas. Presumably the bookmakers were predicting another Elton John style flood of sales. It never transpired with “I Am In Love With The World” (why was it ‘I am’ and not ‘I’m’) peaking at a relatively lowly No 15. Maybe its inclusion on an album that went double platinum in the UK reduced its chances or maybe the nation had taken enough time by this point to shake off its collective malaise that Diana’s death had brought on. Or maybe, and I don’t wish to wield harsh criticism against a charity record, it was just terrible. Because it really was.

Say what you like about Celine Dion (and many of us have) but she worked with some of the biggest names in music. Her previous single to this (which was still in the Top 40) was a duet with Barbra Streisand and the follow up – “The Reason” – was co-written by Carole King. My wife introduced me to Carole’s “Tapestry” LP when we first met back in 1986 so it has a special place in my heart but this track was like a paper doily compared to the songs woven into that classic album. A power ballad (of course it was) but it wasn’t a Jim Steinman type powerhouse like “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” which she’d had a hit with the previous year. It sounded like a Eurovision* entry or possibly an X Factor winner’s song.

*Celine had, of course, won that particular song contest for Switzerland in 1988.

Tellingly, that duet with Barbra Streisand (“Tell Him”) would endure much better than “The Reason”. It peaked at No 3, spent four weeks inside the Top Ten 10 and a further four inside the Top 20 whereas “The Reason” peaked at No 11 and spent just three weeks in total in the Top 20. In the week of the Christmas chart, “Tell Him” held at No 13 whilst “The Reason” dropped to No 16.

Christmas wasn’t just about selling singles though. Albums was where the real money was and what type of album did record companies love to put out at Christmas time? A Best Of compilation of course! Yes, the reliable old staple of festive release schedules was a Greatest Hits/Best Of/Collection (delete as appropriate) and around this time a new strain of the format appeared – a retrospective of a solo artist and their former band on the same album. Although there had already been a Sting Greatest Hits (“Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984-1994”) and two collections from The Police (1986’s “Every Breath You Take: The Singles” and 1992’s “Greatest Hits”), record label A&M reckoned they could still squeeze some more readies out of the back catalogue of both their artists by combining them into one album. Was this a genius move or a hateful idea – you’ll have your own opinion but it didn’t sit well with me. I like my retrospectives to be definitive which this surely couldn’t be. Not everything by two artists could be contained in one album. Surely a box set was needed?

Anyway, in 1997 came “The Very Best Of Sting & The Police” (note the use of the word ‘Very’ to signify that this was something different even though it wasn’t). Featuring fifteen tracks (seven from Sting and eight by The Police), it went four times platinum in the UK either matching or beating the sales of those aforementioned previous collections. So which songs didn’t make the cut?

The Police:

“So Lonely”
“De Do Do Do De Da Da Da” (though it was included in subsequent reissues of the album)
“Invisible Sun”
“Spirits In The Material World”
“Wrapped Around Your Finger”
“Synchronicity II”
“King Of Pain”

Sting:

“Spread A Little Happiness”
“All This Time”
“It’s Probably Me”
“Nothing ‘Bout Me”
“All For Love” (with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams)
“Love Is The Seventh Wave”
“Seven Days”

And those lists aren’t completely exhaustive! Bah!

To promote the album, a single was required and so The Police’s first UK Top 40 hit “Roxanne” was recommissioned for the job. However, it wasn’t the original version but a horrible remix by Puff Daddy who probably reckoned he owed Sting one for “I’ll Be Missing You”. What he came up with featured samples and a horrible rap and was retitled as “Roxanne ‘97” and was just a dreadful mess. Thankfully, we don’t get that version here but a rather affecting acoustic take on it. Although Sting might rival Bono in the holier-than-thou arse stakes, you can’t deny that “Roxanne” is a great tune (Puff Daddy remix aside).

I’m guessing that the bookies didn’t want to get burned by a Christmas No 1 they hadn’t seen coming as happened in 1993 when firm favourites Take That were bounced out of the top spot by Mr Blobby and so didn’t underestimate the Teletubbies. Thankfully, history didn’t repeat itself. It seems the joke was wearing thin by this point as we only get 30 seconds of “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’” as the credits roll. I never thought I’d say this but thank God for the Spice Girls.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	No
2	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo copy of the album
3	Bryan Adams	Back to You	Nope
4	All Saints	Never Ever	Negative
5	U2	If God Will Send His Angels	I did not
6	Chicken Shed Theatre Company	I Am In Love With The World	Hell No!
7	Celine Dion	The Reason	Never
8	The Police / Sting	Roxanne ’97	Nah
9	Teletubbies	Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’	Of course not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002chnq/top-of-the-pops-19121997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 NOV 1997

Posted on May 14 by 80stastic

With a couple of notable exceptions, this episode of TOTP has a definite mainstream flavour to it. Nothing wrong with that necessarily – it’s just an observation. Our host is Jayne ‘knowing smirk’ Middlemiss and we begin with a second consecutive appearance from Natalie Imbruglia performing her hit “Torn”. This would definitely fall into the category of ‘mainstream’ in my book as well as being a very decent tune. However, the version we all know wasn’t how it sounded in earlier incarnations. Check out its back story – it has more chapters to it than War And Peace. This is the Danish language version by Lis Sørensen which went under the title of “Brændt” (“Burnt” in English)…

Then there’s this – the ‘grunge’ version by US rock band Ednaswap that featured two of the song’s writers in its line up – Scott Cutler and Anne Preven. Discussing “Torn” in an interview with theringer.com, Sophie B. Hawkins said that she would like to have Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones administer her with the Men In Black memory eraser treatment so that she didn’t know the Natalie Imbruglia version allowing her to see if she could spot the potential of the Ednaswap version to be such huge pop smash.

Would she have? Would any of us? Who knows? What I do know is that after Ednaswap and Lis Sørensen and before we got to Natalie there was a stop off in Norway where singer Trine Rein had a hit with it there…

Finally, the definitive version came about when third co-writer Phil Thornalley was put together with Natalie Imbruglia by his manager and new music publisher and one time Haircut 100 member Marc Fox. It was Fox who convinced them that they should give “Torn” another shot and so they worked the track up between them for days on end until they had what they believed was the perfect pop take on it. It was a heaven sent pairing – Thornalley’s reputation for working with some of the 80s biggest names was now so far in the rear mirror as to be imperceptible to the naked eye and he was desperate to relive his past glories whilst Imbruglia wanted to throw everything she had at pursuing a pop career. They were both prepared to do the hard yards and it paid off handsomely. “Torn” tore up the charts globally going Top 5 just about everywhere whilst her album “Left Of The Middle” went multi platinum. What I remember about that album is that they changed the artwork on it. Initially, it had a rather arty four column design with different images of Natalie in each. However, subsequent reorders were fulfilled by a new design that was just a portrait of her face that accentuated her striking eyes. I always assumed that was a deliberate and blatant marketing strategy on behalf of her label. I could be wrong.

Now, these reviews take some time to put together (I’ve spent literally weeks of my life doing this for the past nine years) so when a chance for a shortcut comes along, I’m going to take it. And here is one such opportunity. “Open Road” by Gary Barlow was on the 6th June edition of the show when Gazza performed it to celebrate the release of his debut solo album of the same name. Back then, I commented on how many people he’d brought to the studio with him that day. I don’t think it’s quite as many this time though it’s a pretty large band of musicians up there with him. Also different this time is that he’s plonked behind some keyboards for this performance whereas he was wandering up and down a walkway (the titular “Open Road” maybe?) before. Anyway, to see what else I wrote about this one, just click on the link to my previous post below:

TOTP 06 JUN 1997

Now, I said earlier there were a couple of exceptions to the wall to wall mainstream running order and this next artist is one of those I was thinking of. However, did Moby sit outside of that mainstream world? Within two years, he would have a UK No 1 and a worldwide 12 million selling album that spawned eight singles so could he be considered ‘alternative’ for want of a better word? I think he’d certainly begun his career out in the left field with his techno rave hit “Go” sampling the theme from cult, surrealist horror drama Twin Peaks but here he was in 1997 doing a dance version of perhaps one of the most recognisable theme tunes in movie history. It’s a conundrum for sure.

So quite why was he turning his hand to the “James Bond Theme”? Well, it was all to do with the new Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies which was released in the UK in December. The second movie starring Pierce Brosnan as 007, it followed 1995’s Goldeneye. I’ve never been a huge Bond fan I have to say. He’s just too slick and cool a character for me to get on board with – to quote Morrissey, he “says nothing to me about my life”. Anyway, back to Moby and his ‘re-version’ (as it was officially titled) of that famous tune. It was part of the soundtrack album to Tomorrow Never Dies the theme tune of which was recorded by Sheryl Crow. I have to say that his version doesn’t do much for me and is certainly no improvement on or indeed interesting take on the original to my ears. Even Moby himself rather distances himself from his recording by apparently saying that the original is miles better than the version he did. Whilst the go to image in our minds eye of Moby might be of him behind a keyboard and not wielding a guitar, here’s @TOTPFacts to add some context to what we saw here on our TV screens:

It's not THAT strange that Moby's playing a guitar – he previously played with 4AD indie rock band Ultra Vivid Scene. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 9, 2025

Oh blimey! Here’s a duet that, depending on your tastes, was either made in Heaven or came directly from the bowels of Hell. The backstory to this pairing of Barbra Streisand (note spelling of first name!) and Celine Dion is that at the 1997 Oscars show, Celine became the first artist ever to perform twice on the same show. One of the songs she sang was “I Finally Found Someone” from The Mirror Has Two Faces movie (that had been a hit for Streisand and Bryan Adams) after Babs declined to perform it. Originally, Natalie Cole was scheduled to replace Streisand but when she pulled out at short notice, Celine was asked to step into the breach. So pleased was Barbra with Dion’s treatment of her song that she suggested they record a duet together. The result was “Tell Him” which I assumed was also from a film soundtrack but wasn’t. Listening to it, I could more imagine it being used in a stage musical – a bad one mind you. “Tell Him” is less a song and more an emoting contest with Céline and Babs dukin’ it out for top billing. Apparently, Barbra (watch that spelling again!) is one of Celine’s idols so maybe it was subconscious on the latter’s part but Streisand is so lost in the business of show that it must have been instinctive. With those two names involved, it couldn’t help but be a hit and it was peaking at No 3 in the UK. That made two consecutive Top 10 hits for Barbra in the UK for the first time since the late 70s/early 80s whilst Celine would go down the soundtrack route to devastating effect (and I used that world deliberately) before 1997 was out with “My Heart Will Go On”.

I was talking to someone at work the other day who is 30 years younger than me and it transpired that she’d never seen Trainspotting. Not only that but she’d never heard of it and thought it would be a film about nerdy people with an obsession about trains. It’s moments like these that make me realise how old I really am. Anyway, that rather clunky reference is my segue into the next artist who are PF Project featuring Ewan McGregor and their hit “Choose Life” based on a speech given by McGregor’s character Mark ‘Rentboy’ Renton. This would be the second of my non-mainstream hits on the show this evening but again, given the popularity of Trainspotting and the reach of the film, did it actually reside in the left field? Well, sonically I think so as it reminds me of that dance track which used to give me the fear – “Higher State Of Consciousness” by Josh Wink.

As for the that speech it was based around, well, clearly that had to be and was sanitised for commercial consumption with the offending swear words removed so a case could be made that the track had been modified for mainstream acceptability and tastes. As for the performance here, it was the usual dance hit set up with anonymous blokes behind keyboards but with McGregor’s part shown on a big screen behind them. However, as with Moby earlier, there was a guitarist on stage which must have been some sort of record for two dance track studio performances to feature that instrument on the same show.

Some acoustic action now from Jon Bon Jovi with his third solo hit of 1997 all taken from his album “Destination Anywhere”. Host Jayne Middlemiss tells us that it was written about a row with his wife in Amsterdam though he’s applied some creative licence as his wife’s name is Dorothea not Janie as in “Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town”. Someone commented on Twitter that Mr Jovi had clearly written this with the help of an Oasis chord book and you can kind of hear what they meant. It has that ‘busker’ quality to it that so many Noel Gallagher songs have. It’s not an unpleasant sound though and in any case, Jon must also have taken some inspiration from Kenny Rogers who, of course, had a massive hit with “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” with his group First Edition in 1969. As of 2025 though, Jon Bon Jovi is yet to resume his solo career.

What a time 1997 had been for Texas. After eight years of trying to follow up on the success of debut album “Southside” (spearheaded by the slide guitar propelled hit “I Don’t Want A Lover”), they finally cracked it big time with their fourth studio album “White On Blonde”. A chart topping, multi-platinum selling monster, it furnished the band with four hit singles all of which went Top 10. The final one of these was “Put Your Arms Around Me” and I have to say it was by far the weakest. For me, it’s just not substantial enough and I’m surprised that it was chosen for single release. Sharleen Spiteri’s vocals are as poignant as ever but there’s just not enough to it to make it truly memorable. It’s an album filler and no more and certainly not single material.

What’s even more bemusing is that they had a glorious track closing the album called “Breathless” that would have made a fine choice as the final single release. What do I know though?

Aqua remain at No 1 for a third week of four. Although often derided and despite appearing regularly in ‘The Worst Songs Of All Time’ lists, “Barbie Girl” has quite the cultural reach, impact and legacy. Fancy hearing a South Park version? Here you go…

Or a Family Guy version? No problem…

What? You want the original? Surely not? Oh well…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	Gary Barlow	Open Road	Never happening
3	Moby	James Bond Theme	I did not
4	Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion	Tell Him	Never
5	PF Project featuring Ewan McGregor	Choose Life	Nah
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town	Nope
7	Texas	Put Your Arms Around Me	No but I had a promo copy of the album
8	Aqua	Barbie Girl	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/m002bx6b/top-of-the-pops-14111997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 18 OCT 1996

Posted on November 20, 2024 by 80stastic

You don’t hear much about him these days but for a while there as the 80s turned into the 90s, Nigel Kennedy was quite the big deal. Tearing up the classical music manual with his appearance, style and attitude, he challenged the predominant perception of what that art form was and who it was for and found himself catapulted into the mainstream by the success of his “Vivaldi: The Four Seasons” album which topped the classical music chart for over a year selling three million copies in the process. What with Kennedy and the extraordinary popularity of The Three Tenors off the back of Italia ‘90, classical music was suddenly accessible to the masses. Our Nige wasn’t to everyone’s taste though. In 1991, he was denounced by the then Controller of BBC Radio 3 John Drummond as being “a Liberace for the nineties”* who went on to criticise his “ludicrous”* clothes and mocked his accent as being “self invented”*. Kennedy responded calling Drummond “pompous”* and of “encouraging exclusivity”* within classical music.

*All quotes taken from Paul Kelso article: Kennedy hits back at arts elitism, The Guardian, Wed 30 August 2000

Whichever side of the argument you find yourself on, none of it explains what Kennedy was doing on our screens in 1996 presenting TOTP does it? Was his profile still so high a good five years on from his “Four Seasons” heyday? His Wikipedia page says that in 1992, he’d announced that he was leaving classical music and he made an album with the marvellous Stephen Duffy called “Music In Colours” which was interesting though I found Nigel’s bits fairly unlistenable. However, by the middle of the decade he’d returned to the work of international classical concerts and just a few months after this TOTP appearance, he received an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music at the BRITS so maybe he was in the ascendancy again? Anyway, let’s see how he does in the role of presenter…

Straight off the bat, Kennedy (who just introduces himself as ‘Nigel’) weirds us all out with his hair. What. The. F**k.? He has an enormous, towering Mohican fin protruding from the top of his head! Is it real?! If it is, how much product did it take to get it to stand on end like that?! Back in my youth in the 80s, I had ‘big’ hair (didn’t we all?) and would get through cans of Cossack hairspray in the pursuit of trying to get my bonce to look like Morten Harket’s coiffured locks but this was next level stuff. Pure madness and that’s also a phrase that could describe what was happening with the opening act The Boo Radleys at this time. Having broken through to the mainstream with hit single “Wake Up Boo!” and No 1 album “Wake Up!”, the band allegedly decided that all this pop star stuff wasn’t really for them and so made a follow up album that would alienate all those Johnny-come-lately fans (of whom I was one) in the form of “C’mon Kids”. At least, that’s how the story goes but it’s been denied by lead singer Sice that the band deliberately recorded new material designed to kill their previous pop vibe.

I’d bought and been a big fan of the “Wake Up” album but somehow my interest in The Boo Radleys had waned by the time “C’mon Kids” came out and the only songs from it I know are the singles “What’s In The Box (See Whatcha Got)” and the title track. Those who had listened to it included the music press and they were mainly lukewarm in their reaction, with the main takeaway being that the band had committed commercial suicide. Certainly it didn’t sell any where near as much as its predecessor peaking at No 20 but I quite like the singles from it so maybe I should give it a chance nearly 30 years on from its release. After all, it does have some fans within the music industry – Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers said he listened to little else for a year whilst Tom White of The Electric Soft Parade names it as his favourite album ever. Perhaps its greatest accolade though is that supposedly Radiohead went back to the drawing board after hearing it during the “OK Computer” sessions.

“C’mon Kids” the song is nothing like their most well known tune being much more of a harder sound with fuzzy, squalling guitars and an almost shouted vocal from Sice. Jangly, bouncing pop it wasn’t but then why should the band have been expected to come up with “Wale Up Boo! (Part II)”?! They would stay together for another album before the 90s were up before disbanding though some of the members reformed in 2020 and have released two albums of new material since.

I’ve got to comment on a Montell Jordan song that isn’t “This Is How We Do It”? Who knew he even had any other hits? Well, he did and this one is called “I Like” and was the third of five he had in the UK. Watching this back, I’m struck by how lacking in substance it is. There’s hardly anything to it at all which is not helping me in my struggle to find something to say about it. I guess I could mention the lyrics that are so hackneyed that Montell might as well have just called the song ‘Black Cab’ and be done with it. Hackneyed? Hackney? Hackney carriage? Oh please yourselves! Anyway, the lyrics are terrible – ‘lips’ are rhymed with ‘hips’ , ‘walk’ with ‘talk’ and Montell even says “You’re so sexy” at one point. Couldn’t he have just been happy with having the one hit that sustained? After all, “This Is How We Do It” has endured to the point that it’s currently being used to soundtrack a Deliveroo advert.

Kennedy fluffs his lines a bit next as he plugs TOTP2 by saying “By the way, you’ve got to check out this amazing unforeseen…unseen footage of the Stones on Top of the Pops 2”. Probably hard to check out something unforeseen but I’m being harsh on poor Nige, he was just nervous no doubt. And so he should have been, so we all should have been for Mark Morrison has returned with his third hit of the year “Trippin’” and if The Mack is back then that means only one thing – he’ll have his handcuffs with him! I could never understand the appeal of this guy – neither his music nor his image and judging by all his run ins with the law, he was hardly a stand up guy. In the lyrics to “Trippin’”, he starts referring to himself in the third person and there is no bigger indicator of being a massive prick than that! He would crank out another hit before the end of the calendar year called “Horny” and follow it up in 1997 with one called “Moan & Groan”. Delightful.

There follows a really strange segue where immediately after Mark Morrison finishes we just get the voice of Nigel Kennedy (he’s not seen at all) saying “And here is Celine…*big pause*…Dion” before the screen fades and the video for “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” starts playing. Why wasn’t he in shot and why the large pause? Maybe the camera couldn’t accommodate his huge Mohican hairstyle. Anyway, it is Celine Dion and unlike the other week when we got six minutes worth of the promo, mercifully we only get half that amount this time around. In an interview with the director Nigel Dick, he effused about what a hard worker Celine is and mentioned that he made her run across gravel barefoot for a scene five times until he was happy with the shot. Celine didn’t complain but came to the shoot the next day with her feet in bandages. Fair play to her though I would do the same just to never have to watch this video again.

Nigel is back with us visually now and asking the question why we’ve never seen the next artist on TV before despite them having sold 20 million records. Who is he talking about? It’s Bally Sagoo who I must admit to not being aware of despite this hit “Dil Cheez (My Heart…)” and despite working in a record shop at the time it was in the charts. Having read up on him, my embarrassment of not knowing who he is has multiplied as he really is a big deal. In his early days he was a DJ in Birmingham but he wasn’t spinning the latest chart sounds. No, he was creating his own mixtapes fusing together elements of Western music and hip hop with Indian music. He signed with local record label Oriental Star Agencies as an in house producer collaborating with the likes of Qawwali superstar Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan before signing to Sony Records in his own right. His reworking of an Asha Bhosle song would be played on Radio 1 making him the first Indian artist to achieve national mainstream radio airplay. He then released the album “Rising From The East” which would spend a week in the UK album chart and furnish two Top 40 singles including “Dil Cheez (My Heart)”. Having broken through the glass ceiling, he went stratospheric in terms of exposure by supporting Michael Jackson on the HIStory World Tour. From there he launched his own record label showcasing both his material and other new artists and in 2003 was honoured at the UK Asian Awards with the inaugural trophy for outstanding achievement (presented to him by the Spice Girls no less). His music can be found in films like Bend It Like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding and he has diversified into areas such as film production, artist promotion and management, fashion and technology. Like I said, he’s quite the mover and shaker.

Back to Nigel’s original question about why we’d never seen Bally Sagoo on TV before, I guess it was because there had traditionally been so few UK hit singles that had an Asian influence and sound to them and if they weren’t chart hits the they wouldn’t have been on TOTP. There’s a few exceptions like “Ever So Lonely” by Monsoon in 1982 and are we counting “Im Nin’alu” by Israeli singer Ofra Haza from 1988? By the 90s things were starting to change with the likes of Apache Indian bringing Bhangramuffin to the Top 40 and in 1998, Cornershop took “Brimful Of Asha” to No 1. In these TOTP repeats, we’re not far off from Kula Shaker having a hit with a song sung entirely in Sanskrit in “Govinda”. More recently, there has been the rise of K-pop (which I know barely anything about) and of course the global phenomenon that was “Gangnam Style” by Psy. From the world of film, “Jai Ho” won an Oscar for Best Original Song after soundtracking that memorable dance sequence in Slumdog Millionaire. Finally, in 2023, Diljit Dosanjh became the first Punjabi artist to perform at the Coachella music festival. And I haven’t even mentioned Bollywood…

Nigel’s Mohican is starting to wilt under those studio lights and has flopped on one side. Also suffering a malfunction is the show’s running order as we don’t get to see the advertised ‘Flashback’ feature which was John Travolta and Olivia Newton John doing “Summer Nights” from Grease. Presumably it was cut for reasons of timing to fit in with BBC4’s Friday night schedule. So do I have to review this or not? Look, we all know this song and the film it comes from. I don’t need to make anymore comment on it do I? No I don’t.

Next up is a song that I definitely know but I may have struggled to name the artist behind it. Without looking it up or watching this TOTP repeat, I might have come up with Another Level but I think I would have been confusing “Freak Me” with this song which is “No Diggity” by Blackstreet. Oh, hang on. The album it was taken from was called “Another Level”? Ah well, then my mistake is perhaps forgivable. Perhaps not though as this track was an American No 1 and was the single that knocked “Macarena” off the top of the charts after it had been there for nine weeks. It’s yet another R&B number on this particular show following Montell Jordan and Mark Morrison earlier and also features Dr.Dre (nearly forgot about him) and Queen Pen. It’s come to be recognised as perhaps the definitive New Jack Swing song thanks to the creative input of Blackstreet founder member and lead vocalist Teddy Riley, the man credited with creating the genre. Did I like it? Not really though its title and hook have remained with me all these years. Apparently ‘no diggity’ means ‘no doubt’ but sadly for Nigel Kennedy, he fluffs his lines again and repeats the word ‘diggity’ for no reason and is left with ‘no dignity’.

After the huge success of “Three Lions” with Baddiel and Skinner over the Summer of football, it was back to the day job for Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds with another knockabout bit of pop fluff to promote. It may have seemed like an age ago but their last non-football related single had been “Ready Or Not” which had been released way back in February. It was the lead track from the “Dizzy Heights” album but that would not appear until the November after the recording of it was delayed to allow Broudie to concentrate on the “Three Lions” project so effectively “What If” became the lead single.

I have to say it’s not one of their strongest songs (despite being co-written by the wonderful and much missed Terry Hall) and the performance of it here demonstrates that Broudie is not the owner of the most powerful voice in pop. It actually reminds me of something else which I think is this by Sean Maguire and that’s not a good thing by the way…

By strange pop coincidence, there was actually a Lightning Seeds song in the Top 40 in this very week which went under the radar. The cover of “All I Want” from their first album by Susanna Hoffs is actually rather lovely and was at No 32 in the UK Top 40 at the time of this Lightning Seeds performance.

Having not heard it in ages, I’d forgotten what a good song “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps is. Pigeonholed in the music press as a cross between Portishead and Garbage, they looked to have the world at their feet but they never seems to be able to go beyond that first flush of success with their debut album “Becoming X”. Maybe it was all the remixes that the band had done of “6 Underground” that seemed to keep them anchored in those initial recordings (there was even an official remix album released called “Becoming Remixed” as a companion piece to their debut). Or maybe it was that the track “6 Underground” wouldn’t go away. After its 1996 chart run, it was rereleased the following year off the back of being included on the soundtrack to The Saint film and peaked at No 9, six places higher then its first foray into the Top 40. That second strata of success and that of follow up “Spin Spin Sugar” was enough evidence for a rerelease of the album which included new artwork and the inclusion of what many saw as the definitive version of “6 Underground” by Nellee Hooper. Then there was the two years of touring in support of the album when they opened for Blur and Neneh Cherry and played with Tricky and Lamb securing the perception of them as a trip hop band. All of this delayed the release of second album “Splinter” until 1999 when musical tastes had moved on and momentum was lost.

However, the biggest event that determined the band’s path was surely when lead singer Kelli Ali was told by fellow band members Chris Corner and Liam Howe that her vocals would not suit their new direction and she was fired from the line up before the recording of “Splinter”. This led to them being dropped by their label Virgin and they would never recapture the level of those early glories. They would go on a decade long hiatus before rebooting the band in 2016 and last released an album in 2021.

After the demise of Take That earlier in the year, the positioning of Boyzone as the UK’s next premier boyband was a foregone conclusion. They’d already spent two years coming up on the rails with a collection of hits that had peaked at Nos 2, 3 and 4 but their first chart topper had proved elusive. With those cheeky Manc scamps out of the way, there was no stopping them. Add to that the fact that they’d returned to the trusted strategy of releasing a cover version and the deal was not so much as sealed as cemented shut. “Words” by the Bee Gees was the song to do it for them and I recall it selling and selling and then selling some more in the Our Price store where I worked. We may have even come perilously close to selling out of it (an unspeakable crime for a record shop). When they released the follow up “A Different Beat”, I was determined not to be in that situation again so ordered in a load of the single. Despite also going to No 1, it failed to sell in anywhere near the quantities of “Words” and we were left with massive overstock. The fickle gods of pop music had farted in my face once again.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	C’Mon Kids	Negative
2	Montell Jordan	I Like	I disliked
3	Mark Morrison	Trippin’	Nah
4	Celine Dion	It’s All Coming Back To Me Now	As if
5	Bally Sagoo	Dil Cheez (My Heart…)	Nope
6	John Travolta and Olivia Newton John	Summer Nights	No
7	Blackstreet	No Diggity	I did not
8	Lightning Seeds	What If	Nah
9	Sneaker Pimps	6 Underground	Liked it, didn’t buy it
10	Boyzone	Words	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/m0024s0d/top-of-the-pops-18101996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 04 OCT 1996

Posted on November 13, 2024 by 80stastic

We are well into the Autumn of 1996 here at TOTP Rewind as we enter the month of October and big changes are afoot. No, I don’t mean the show’s new opening titles but rather the fact that Manchester City have just appointed a new manager – Steve Coppell replaced Alan Ball two days after this TOTP aired. This was big news where I worked in the Our Price store in Stockport where many of my colleagues were City fans. Coppell had done wonders over two separate stints at Crystal Palace and big things were expected of him but his reign would last just 33 days and 6 matches after which he quit stating that the pressure of the job was to big for him. What I remember most of this time was that in those 33 days, the Man City calendar for 1997 came out and had a team photo on the cover with Coppell front and centre. The calendar company and the club must have been so pissed off. What were the chances? With Stockport not being far from Manchester, we stocked the calendar and decided we would try and hide the recently resigned Coppell’s face with the price sticker to try and make it seem like it wasn’t an already out of date product which, let’s be fair, is not a good look for a calendar. Anyway, I wonder if there are any artists on this show that had a similarly short career in pop music?

Our host is ‘Tony from Terrorvision’ (that’s was his official name around this time) who looked like he might have a potential career in the media if the whole rock star thing didn’t work out. To be fair to him, his appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks was very good and indicated that a projected media career wasn’t so fanciful. He starts his shift by introducing Sleeper and their latest hit “Statuesque”. The fourth and final single released from “The It Girl” album, it also drew a line under their most successful period. By the time that third album “Pleased To Meet You” came out in the Autumn of 1997, Britpop was in its last vestiges and with no zeitgeist to ride, reaction to it was cool with neither of the singles taken from it making the Top 20. For now though, it was success as usual. “Statuesque” was very much in the same style as its predecessors from the album and secured a No 17 chart peak and a third hit for the band in this calendar year. However, the winning formula of the music wasn’t translating into a ring of confidence when it came to Louise Wener’s stage presence. I’ve said it before but she does look a bit uncomfortable up there in terms of knowing what to do with herself when not singing into the mike. She just sort of shuffles about, swinging her arms and flicking her hair. They could have at least given her a guitar to strum.

Rivalling ‘Tony from Terrorvision’s’ profile at this time, Louise would appear on the Vic Reeves/Bob Mortimer TV game show Shooting Stars in December of this year. Actually, the pair would mirror each other’s extra curricular TV appearances with Wener also appearing on Never Mind The Buzzcocks in 1997 having already presented TOTP six months prior to Tony’s slot here. All of this must have only highlighted the gulf of recognition between Louise and the rest of her band mates whose anonymity was seized upon by the music press who referred to them as “Sleeperblokes”. They took it in good spirits though even having T-shirts produced for them to wear with the phrase on the front.

Steve Coppell-ometer: Burnt brightly but briefly in their heyday but were saved from a higher score by reforming in 2017

We’re still in the ‘techno bollocks’ stage of Everything But The Girl’s career and I still can’t get in board with it. “Single” was the third single taken from the “Walking Wounded” album that had seen them take a more electronica direction following the huge success of the Todd Terry remix of “Missing”. This track, like its predecessors from this era, just sounds a bit ‘meh’ to me (for want of a better word). If I’d been out at a club on an all nighter and I’d made it back home in the early hours and wanted some comedown music to chill out to as the sun came up, then maybe “Single” would be a good choice in that scenario but as I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve been in that situation…

I had wondered if “Single” was a clever marketing ploy as per the one used by Public Image Ltd back in 1986 when they released an album called “Album” (the CD version of it was called “Compact Disc” and the cassette format “Cassette”). Its lead single was a song called “Rise” but was packaged as being called “Single”. Sadly, Everything But The Girl’s song was just about being single, as in not in a relationship. Miserabilists.

Steve Coppell-ometer: A very low score for Ben and Tracey who recorded under the Everything But The Girl banner between 1982 and 2000 before resurrecting it in 2021 and releasing the “Fuse” album in 2023. They have also been in a relationship with each other for decades finally marrying in 2009. So they didn’t really know anything about being single did they?

It’s another female lead vocal now. Having gone from a band to a duo we now get a solo artist. Gabrielle’s career might have gone another way after her debut single “Dreams” went to No 1 in 1993. She could have been a classic one hit wonder but a series of follow up hits ranging in size from minor to middling to mighty meant that her time as a pop star would carry on until the present day. “If You Really Cared” was one of those middling sized hits I would suggest, peaking at No 15. It strikes me as typical Gabrielle fare, smooth R&B pop, very radio friendly (some of the guitar parts put me in mind of “You’re The Best Thing” by The Style Council) though not likely to last long in the memory. There’s only really the aforementioned “Dreams” plus “Rise” and “Out Of Reach” from her back catalogue that I could tell you how they went.

There is something else to say about this song though and it’s this: why did Gabrielle put out a single so close to the scheduled release of her duet with East 17? Everyone clearly knew it was in the pipeline as ‘Tony from Terrorvision’ describes her as the drinking partner of the boys from Walthamstow and the TOTP caption says ‘Soon releasing duet with East 17’. “If You Really Cared” was made available in the shops on 23 September whilst “If You Ever” came out on 21 October. Was that really an advisable strategy and whilst we’re at it, having the titles of both singles start with the word “If” – would they not have been slightly confusing for punters and indeed record shop staff?

Steve Coppell-ometer: Hardly a blip on its radar which is understandable given she’s been a recording artist for over 30 years

Things I know about LL Cool J:

He’s a rapper non
He had a hit in the 80s called “I Need Love”
He’s also an actor (though I couldn’t name any of the films he’s been in)
The name LL Cool J stands for Ladies Love Cool James
Erm…that’s it

Clearly that list doesn’t include this hit “Loungin’” so this must have passed me by despite going to No 7 in our charts. So back in the day, did the word loungin’ mean something other than relaxing (probably) on a sofa? Was it a forerunner of Netflix and chill? Well, the online urban dictionary gives a definition of:

“The act of a girl lying across a guy’s chest with her head on his shoulder. Usually undertaken while on a sofa watching a film.”

Frodrick Frankenstein February 4, 2009

Hmm. Kind of a Netflix and chill vibe then. “Loungin’” would the first of a run of five UK Top 10 hits for LL Cool J including a No 1 with his version of “Ain’t Nobody” for the Beavis and Butt–Head Do America soundtrack. Well, there’s something to look forward to then. Ahem.

Steve Coppell-ometer: Cool James hardly registers a flicker with a career stretching into five decades

This week’s ’flashback’ section features a very famous TOTP performance – it’s Rod Stewart doing “Maggie May”. Yeah, that one with a very hirsute John Peel miming the mandolin. Apparently Rod was told he couldn’t have a non musician up there with him but he insisted on Peel being part of the performance with the latter having to guarantee the Musicians’ Union that he hadn’t received payment for the privilege. The TOTP cameramen were instructed not to focus on Peel but Rod got wind of this and so indulged in some horseplay in and around the DJ so that he would be caught in shot on camera. The performance as a whole is a riot of ill discipline with The Two Ronnies Laine and Wood disappearing off stage mid song meaning that they missed their miming cues whilst scrambling back to their original positions. Sadly in this clip, we don’t get to see the infamous scenes of Rod, Wood and Laine kicking a football about on stage as the song finishes.

“Maggie May” was Stewart’s first solo No 1 and has become perhaps his most enduring song though my first awareness of him would be via his 1975 No 1 “Sailing” which my Mum and Dad liked. They weren’t the only ones. Apparently ex-footballer turned pundit Alan Shearer replied “Sailing by Rod Stewart” when asked by then Blackburn Rovers team mate Graeme Le Saux to name his favourite song ever. Shearer would have been in his early to mid 20s at that point! Le Saux, who is two years older than Shearer and was all about the likes of Jamiroquai at the time, was (perhaps rightly) flabbergasted.

Steve Coppell-ometer: Are you mad?! Rod’s 80 in January and still going strong

There are only nine songs on this TOTP as opposed to what has become the standard ten and I can only assume that was to allow the show to feature the six minutes long video of Celine Dion performing “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”. As ‘Tony from Terrorvision’ says, “it goes on and on and on…”. The way that the decks were cleared to accommodate it is similar to the special treatment reserved for a Michael Jackson video exclusive – I know she was shifting some units but really?! You don’t have to listen to the song for long to realise it’s a Jim Steinman composition – legend has it that his on/off pal Meatloaf wanted to record it but Steinman told him to hang fire and he could have it for “Bat Out Of Hell 3” but then gave it to Celine to record. Also unimpressed by that decision was one Elaine Caswell, singer with all female group Pandora’s Box who Steinman put together in the 80s and who first recorded “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”. Apparently, the original recording just had her vocals removed and Dion’s added over the top. Elaine was so upset that she couldn’t bear to be in the room if Celine’s version came on the radio. Supposedly Caswell collapsed five times whilst laying down the track in the studio. It is not known whether it was due to physical exhaustion from all that overwrought singing or that the rancid stench of the song overpowered her senses causing her to faint.

As for the video that TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill seems to have made such a fuss over, it’s all very derivative with a “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” promo vibe detectable and substantial nods to the movie Ghost and even to The Rocky Horror Picture Show* present. Celine emotes all over the place and the whole thing feels like it wasn’t really worth all that bother. “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” would take Celine to No 3 in the UK and No 2 in the US. All of this and we haven’t even got anywhere near that Titanic song yet…

*That bit where the ghost of her dead lover drives his motorbike in the house reminds me of Eddie riding his round and round the stairs before he is ultimately despatched by Dr. Frank-N-Furter with an ice pick. Eddie was, of course, played by Meatloaf.

Steve Coppell-meter: Nothing doing here. Despite health issues, Celine still has the desire to record and perform live. She completed an eight year residency in Las Vegas in 2019.

On and on and on…do you think ‘Tony from Terrorvision’ knew that as well as poking fun at Celine Dion that he was also referencing a song by the next artist. Longpigs would rack up four chart hits in 1996 – “On And On” was the second of them peaking at No 16. This one though – “Lost Myself” – was the fourth and final single to make the Top 40 for them in that calendar year. I thought I didn’t know this one but I did remember it when I watched this performance back – the hook of lead singer Crispin Hunt pausing momentarily between the words ‘live’ and ‘by’ in the lyric “to live by myself I’m far too weak” was very arresting and immediately rang a bell. It did strike me as unusual that there were two bands in the charts at this time with lead singers with very similar and… well…let’s have it right, quite posh sounding names in Crispin Hunt from Longpigs and Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker. Still, what’s in a name. I mean, I couldn’t tell you if that’s a Barbie or a Sindy doll strapped to Hunt’s microphone. Actually, what was that about?

Steve Coppell-ometer: Finally an artist who shows up on it. Longpigs were only in existence for seven years and bar one minor chart entry in 1999, all their hits came in this year.

As in the previous two years, Boyzone (now elevated to being the UK’s premier boy band after the demise of Take That earlier in 1996) looked to that old chestnut of a cover version to secure themselves a massive hit. Having taken both “Love Me For A Reason” by The Osmonds and “Father And Son” by Cat Stevens to a chart peak of No 2, the band’s decision to record a version of “Words” by the Bee Gees would reward them with their first UK chart topper. Sound logic but was it all becoming just a little bit cynical? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least another two covers that they released as singles in Tracy Chapman’s “Baby Can I Hold You” and Billy Ocean’s “When The Going Gets Tough” (the second one was for Comic Relief at least) so it’s a concept they weren’t done with yet.

“Words” was originally a No 8 in 1968 for the Bee Gees and you can see why Boyzone (or their management) chose it. A wistful, weary ballad that suited Ronan Keating’s wistful, weary voice perfectly and of course, it had that Gibb Brothers stardust that so many other artists had found themselves sprinkled with when covering a Bee Gees song. The lads seem a bit overdressed here in all that stuffy clobber of large coats, scarves and ties – they must have been sweltering under those studio lights. What do they care for what I’m writing about them though? It’s only words.

Steve Coppell-ometer: Nothing registering here. The lads would carry on until 2000 and then again from 2007 to 2019.

And so to the No 1 and it’s “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something and what a divisive chart topper it was. Literally the worst song ever for some online commenters, it was also undoubtedly popular at least briefly. Where do I stand on it? Well, I certainly wouldn’t describe it as the worst song ever but is it a great track? Probably not. However, look it up on YouTube and there are so many videos of people having a go at playing the song – it seems to be quite the busker’s favourite and if the mark of a song is how many times it’s been played then, at least that’s one thing it’s got.

Steve Coppell-ometer: Finally a massive score on this. They came, they saw, they conquered… and then they disappeared having spent as many weeks inside the Top 10 as Coppell had games in charge of Manchester City – six.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sleeper	Statuesque	Decent song but no
2	Everything But The Girl	Single	Not happening
3	Gabrielle	If You Really Cared	Nope
4	LL Cool J	Loungin’	Negative
5	Rod Stewart	Maggie May	No but my parents liked it
6	Celine Dion	It’s All Coming Back To Me Now	Never
7	Longpigs	Lost Myself	I did not
8	Boyzone	Words	Nah
9	Deep Blue Something	Breakfast At Tiffany’s	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/m0024hpb/top-of-the-pops-04101996?seriesId=unsliced

Cannot

TOTP 28 JUN 1996

Posted on September 30, 2024 by 80stastic

It’s another of those episodes where the climax of the show isn’t the No 1 but an exclusive appearance by a featured artist doing a two strong song performance. After Paul Weller the other week, it’s the turn of the Sex Pistols this time around who have reformed for the Filthy Lucre tour. As for the rest of the line up, there’s only six other chart hits on the show of which we’ve seen three previously. I have to say I’m not liking this new format that’s been adopted since the move to Friday nights. Thankfully, this is the last of these I understand. Maybe audience reaction to them wasn’t great? By the way, our host tonight is Gina G who is as famous as she’ll ever be at this point after her Eurovision entry “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” topped the UK charts just a few weeks back.

We start though not with Gina but with David Howe from Chingford in Essex. Don’t ask “Who he?” – he literally tells you in his direct to camera message that he’s the first winner of the TOTP meet and greet competition and his prize was a trip to Madrid to hang out with Shampoo. I pondered in my last post what David would have thought of that and he looks rather underwhelmed despite the gloriously sunny backdrop behind him. The Shampoo girls Jacqui and Carrie look miserable with the whole situation. Maybe David was star struck whilst Shampoo were cultivating their abrasive ‘riot grrrl’ image?

It’s one of those ‘new’ songs to kick off the show from Everything But The Girl and “Wrong”. Despite being their most commercially successful period with three consecutive Top 10 hits as opposed to just three Top 40 singles in their entire career previously, I was having serious trouble getting on board with this new direction that they’d taken. I could appreciate that Todd Terry remix which had single handedly rejuvenated their career but I was missing their old stuff like the deserts miss the rain as the song went*.

*It was also the title of a 2002 Best Of album that tellingly didn’t include “Wrong”.

The gorgeous “Baby, The Stars Shine Bright” album was a particular favourite but all this electronica dance stuff was becoming a big turn off for me. Would it be wrong of me to suggest that this latest hit was basically just a retread of “Missing”? They’d even got Todd Terry back in to remix it! Tracey’s voice was as affecting as ever but the track didn’t stand up to repeated plays for me. “Wrong” would effectively draw a line under this era of the band being their last ever single to visit the Top 10 and ushering in a return to more conservative chart positions before Tracey and Ben took a quarter of a century off from Everything But The Girl only returning in 2023 with the “Fuse” album which went Top 3.

By 1996, Britpop had totally embedded itself in UK culture and its musical landscape. The movement’s swagger was hard to avoid but there were signs that a different type of genre was emerging as an antidote to all that Britpop brashness. From small pockets, intelligent, wrily observed, quirky pop music was sprouting. We’d already seen Space in the charts recently with a single that featured a glockenspiel and now came The Divine Comedy. Channeling the spirit of 60s baroque pop, this outfit from Northern Ireland was mainly just a vehicle for the creative genius of Neil Hannon. Having formed in 1989, they’d already released three albums into the pop void before Radio 1’s Chris Evans championed “Something For The Weekend”, the lead single from fourth studio album “Casanova”. With that backing, a first ever Top 40 hit was achieved when it debuted and peaked at No 14. Hannon’s distinctive, almost spoken vocal delivery style might have almost put the song into the novelty bracket à la The Mike Flowers Pops but there was something more substantial to it. Maybe it was the storytelling in the song which relates the tale of a suitor’s unwanted advances to a young woman who tricks him into looking in the woodshed only for her friends to knock him unconscious and steal his car and money. You don’t get songs detailing that kind of stuff everyday of the week. The line “There ain’t nothing in the woodshed…except maybe some wood” was typical of the humour Hannon would bring to his idiosyncratic songwriting. He even looked unconventional for a pop star but that was also part of his appeal I think. I have a friend who adores him and when she met him and got him to sign something for her, he included the famous woodshed line alongside his signature.

“Something For The Weekend” would usher in a run of chart hits that would last the entire 90s and into the middle of the next decade. Perhaps their best known tune is “National Express” with its lyric about having an arse the size of a small country which made the Top 10 in 1999. That same year, the marvellous Best Of album “A Secret History” was released achieving gold status sales and peaking at No 3. It’s a great starting point for anyone wanting to investigate the band’s catalogue. In a bizarre turn of events, psychedelic Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals would have a hit with a track also called “Something For The Weekend” just a couple of weeks after The Divine Comedy had done so though they changed the title to “Something 4 The Weekend” for the single release.

I saw The Divine Comedy live back in 2017 when they supported Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott at Craven Park, home of rugby team Hull Kingston Rovers. As good as Hannon was, I wish it had been in a smaller setting rather than a stadium gig. Maybe something like that woodshed if they cleared out all the wood.

It can’t be time for Celine Dion again already can it?! I think this is the third time she’s been on with “Because You Loved Me” and to add insult to injury, it’s that concert performance once more that the TOTP producers tried to convince us was a live satellite link up when it obviously wasn’t. I hadn’t noticed before but the camera picks out members of the audience some of whom are visibly touched by what they are witnessing. One woman had clearly been crying. Now, I’m not going to go down the musical snobbery route – people like what they like and may have a strong emotional attachment to a song based on some event from their own private lives – but it did take me by surprise. Haven’t seen tears on TOTP like that since that teenage girl was highlighted sobbing on the Duran Duran video for “The Reflex”.

Right, it’s time for that exclusive performance from Madrid by Shampoo now that was the mystery prize for the meet and greet competition won by Dave from Chingford. Presumably he was watching from the sidelines off camera. Shampoo were one of a number of female duos that were successful in the 90s including Shakespears Sister, Scarlet and Alisha’s Attic. Jacqui and Carrie though were a curious outfit. A handful of moderately sized hit singles in the UK and yet they sold a million copies of their debut album “We Are Shampoo” in Japan and Asia. There’s probably some deep connection at play there which warrants some detailed cultural analysis but I haven’t got time to go into all that now. All I will say is that their sound and image didn’t seem to be anything particularly new. Hadn’t we seen something similar from the likes of Transvision Vamp and Fuzzbox previously?

Anyway, it’s time to address the elephant in the room which is the title of this their last ever hit. Literally in the week that the phenomenon that would become the Spice Girls released their debut single “Wannabe”, Shampoo were in the charts with a song called “Girl Power”. Yes, the slogan that Sporty, Posh, Baby, Scary and Ginger used to promote themselves around the world was already out there in the cultural vernacular. Now, I’m not suggesting some act of dishonest appropriation not least because Shampoo didn’t invent the phrase themselves. The origins of ‘girl power’ are recognised as belonging to US punk band Bikini Kill who used it as the subtitle to their second feminist zine in 1990. However, it is quite the coincidence don’t you think? Could the Spice Girls management have been influenced by the Shampoo single or is that just me forcing an event that never happened to create my own narrative? Surely the marketing strategy for the Spice Girls had been months in the formulating and hadn’t just adopted something as pivotal as the ‘girl power’ mantra on the hoof? Well, apparently it was. The Spice Girls did just nick it off Shampoo! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story:

"Girl Power" charted a week before The Spice Girls' "Wannabe". In a 2016 interview, Geri Halliwell said she got the phrase from Shampoo. “I saw them and I thought, 'Oh my God, that is so good.'” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 20, 2024

"Girl Power" was previously the title of a 1991 zine by US riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, which is presumably where Shampoo saw it. Mel C: "It was very much in existence already. It was then Geri who shouted it during an early television interview and it stuck." #TOTP pic.twitter.com/GvXkqjixWX
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 20, 2024

Ha! Well, I guess Shampoo themselves must have nicked it off Bikini Kill then. After all, it was sometimes spelt ‘grrrl power’ after the ‘riot grrrl’ movement they aligned themselves with in their early days. What’s undeniable is that the fortunes of Shampoo and the Spice Girls went in wildly different directions from this point on. The latter would conquer the world in less than six months while the former never returned to the charts and whose last single release was a desperate cover version of a song by Christmas playlist perennials The Waitresses. Rubbing salt in the wound, whilst Jacqui and Carrie were having to entertain Dave from Chingford in Madrid, they were missing out on being in the TOTP studio at the same time as their heroes the Sex Pistols. For what it’s worth, I preferred Shampoo’s brand of “Girl Power” to anything the Spice Girls released under that banner.

Right, what’s wrong with this picture with said picture being Black Grape performing “England’s Irie” with their mates Keith Allen and Joe Strummer? Well, two days before this went out, the England football team lost their Euros 96 semi final with Germany in heartbreaking fashion on penalties. Thus, the timing of this exultant performance of a song about them seems slightly off. Surely they should have released it a few weeks earlier when “Three Lions” came out? By the time it was finally in the charts, all the expectation, excitement and general sense of positivity that had engulfed the nation had completely dissipated. I did mention recently that the release schedule for Black Grape’s singles had been too tight when “Fat Neck” came out the month before “England’s Irie”. Maybe someone at the label messed up? Or maybe they’d banked on England making the final which would have given the record a whole weekend’s trading before the game on the Sunday evening to rack up some monster sales? Either way, this performance was rendered a bit after-the-Lord Mayor’s-show by the events of the Wednesday evening.

Talking of which, who can forget Gareth Southgate’s tortured face after being the only person to miss his penalty? I recall that the next morning, the aforementioned Chris Evans conducting a debrief of the match on his breakfast show (he always was a bandwagon jumper and being a footy fan was now seen not just as acceptable but the done thing in the era of ‘lad culture’). He pronounced that Southgate was a “top man” and played “Walkaway” by Cast as a tribute to him and the team whilst the nation cried into our cornflakes. As for Black Grape, they would only trouble the Top 40 compilers once more after their second album “Stupid Stupid Stupid” was poorly received though they are still releasing new material to this day with latest album “Orange Head” having come out earlier this year.

The Fugees reign supreme still at the top of the charts with “Killing Me Softly”. Yet again we have the same studio performance we’ve always had, presumably as it was the only time they were in the country. They could have mixed it up a bit and showed the official promo video for it at least once. After all, it did win an MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video. Interestingly, the TOTP producers let the ending credits roll over the top of it even though we still have the Sex Pistols to come creating a false ending effect. There are no further credits when the Pistols finish.

Lauryn Hill had a small acting career that briefly ran in tandem with her singing one. Most notably she starred in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit. I think this is my favourite scene from the film:

Somebody remarked on Twitter that Gina G must be really tall as she seems to be stooping in every link that she does and they’re right. It’s like she’s a mime artist performing being trapped in a cube. Most odd. Not as odd though as the ‘punk’ outfit she has on to introduce the Sex Pistols. What’s with the feather headdress? That look is more Hiawatha than high priestess of punk.

Anyway, the Sex Pistols are finally here to perform for us. I was just too young when they were at the height of their fame/infamy in 1976/77 to be caught up in the punk phenomenon though I was aware of the band’s name (which seemed very dangerous to the then eight year old me) and that two of the band were called Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. I couldn’t have named any of their songs or told you what they sounded like though. My next encounter with the band came a few years later in a music lesson at Grammar school (I’d passed my 11 plus exam) when the hardest kid in class Paul Dukes convinced the recently qualified and wet behind the ears teacher that “Friggin’ In The Riggin’” from “The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle” album was a suitable song for composition appreciation. Inevitably, the needle was abruptly removed from the record long before the song’s end. As I got older and more into music, I expanded my knowledge of rock history which included getting to know the band’s story and music though mainly the holy trinity that is “Anarchy In The UK”, “God Save The Queen” and “Pretty Vacant”. I eventually bought the “Never Mind The Bollocks” album as well.

There had been a mini Pistols revival in 1992 when Virgin raided the band’s rather limited back catalogue to release the “Kiss This” compilation that achieved gold status and made the Top 10 on the charts. Four years later, a full on reunion including original bass player Glen Matlock was put into effect for the six month long Filthy Lucre tour. One of the dates was at Finsbury Park on the 23td June, the day after England had defeated Spain in a quarterfinal of the Euros on penalties. Yes, the one with that Stuart Pearce celebration…

Pearce and Gareth Southgate somehow found themselves at Finsbury Park introducing the Sex Pistols on stage the following day. No, really look:

Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate introducing the Sex Pistols on stage at Finsbury Park – the day after England beat Spain on penalties at Euro ‘96. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🎸#Euro96Relived pic.twitter.com/CjmnQQEE0b
— Stu’s Football Flashbacks (@stusfootyflash) May 12, 2020

Also there that day was my manager at the Our Price where I was working, the late, great Pete Garner original bassist with the Stone Roses. I had to cover his Sunday shift in the shop so he could go. I only know this as it’s all in my recently found diary that handily covers the whole of 1996. It also tells me that I listened to the Sex Pistols gig live on the radio that evening. Back to this TOTP performance though and inevitably the band do one of the ‘holy trinity’ tracks. “Pretty Vacant” made No 6 in the charts when released in the Summer of 1977 and would usher in the band’s first ever appearance on TOTP so I guess there’s some history and symmetry at play in the band choosing to perform it here. It was the follow up to the press baiting and BBC banned single “God Save The Queen” released at the height of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee celebrations. That ban clearly had zero effect on the band’s sense of daring as they then released a song that included John Lydon’s surely deliberate annunciation of the word ‘vacant’ as ‘vay-c**t’. Twenty-six years later, The Darkness tried a similar linguistic trick on their festive hit “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)”. Bells End? Bellend? We all caught up? Good.

For the second track, the band went for a less obvious choice in “New York”, a song generally perceived to be about US glam rockers New York Dolls whom, of course, Malcolm McLaren used to manage before switching his attention to the Pistols. Clearly the passage of time had softened the band’s edges as they presumably relented to BBC demands about the song’s lyrics with the word ‘shit’ sung by Lydon as ‘it’ and ‘faggot’ as ‘maggot’. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Everything But The Girl	Wrong	I did not
2	The Divine Comedy	Something For The Weekend	No but I had that Best Of album
3	Celine Dion	Because You Loved Me	No
4	Shampoo	Girl Power	Nah
5	Black Grape / Joe Strummer / Keith Allen	England’s Irie	Nope
6	The Fugees	Killing Me Softly	No but my wife had the album
7	Sex Pistols	Pretty Vacant	I have the Never Mind The Bollocks album
8	Sex Pistols	New York	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/m00233z0/top-of-the-pops-28061996?seriesId=unsliced

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