Cher

TOTP 18 JAN 1996

It’s all change in the charts in these TOTP repeats as all but the No 1 are songs that haven’t featured previously and even that No 1 is in its first (and only) week at the top. There’s also a new host who similarly would only get one go in the hot seat. Comedian Alan Davies had become a well known name both a a live stand up and radio personality by 1996 but he was still a year away from his big mainstream breakthrough role in mystery crime drama Jonathan Creek. Watching this TOTP back, Davies doesn’t seem a particularly good fit for the show. His sardonic humour and aloof manner were perhaps not the ideal skills set for presenting a fast moving, pop music show. He just doesn’t seem very engaged or indeed engaging.

We start tonight with Bucketheads whose last hit was the Top 5 stand out dance tune “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)” which combined disco funk with house beats to great effect in 1995. The follow up sort of stuck to that formula with a reworking of Brass Construction’s 1976 hit “Movin’” retitled as “Got Myself Together”. Whilst a very competent dance floor filler I’m sure, for me it didn’t have that something extra that made its predecessor that little bit more intriguing. They’ve wheeled out all the usual visual 70s funk tropes for this performance but I can’t help feeling that you’d be better off listening to the original if funk was your thang (sorry!).

Sunscreem were not a band that I paid that much attention to back in the day but that’s possibly my bad as I’ve quite enjoyed some of their songs when they’ve featured on these TOTP repeats. “Blue Skies” is another case in point. Enough of a good melody in the chorus to satisfy my pop sensibilities but also with the correct bpm to stay hip with the dance heads. If I’d only given them more of a chance in the 90s, I might have had a bit more musical credibility with my record shop colleagues.

As with the artist at No 1 this week, the band had issues with their record company Sony Music. They’d released tracks independently for inclusion on some dance compilations and therefore broke the terms of their contract with Sony. In return, Sony didn’t put much effort into promoting Sunscreem with their second album “Change Or Die” not released in major territories outside of the UK. The writing was on the wall and the band negotiated their release from their Sony contract. Sunscreem are still going though with their last album being released in 2018.

How do you follow one of the biggest selling singles in the world in 1995? Well, in the case of Coolio, and this didn’t seem like the most likely strategy, you release a cover version of an old Kool & The Gang track. “Too Hot” was a hit for Robert ‘Kool’ Bell and his mates in early 1980 but was reactivated by the “Gangsta’s Paradise” star sixteen years later as the follow up to that single. Obviously, it’s not a straight cover what with Coolio being a rapper and all but it does kind of hang together quite well. I can’t say that I remember this one from back then though. In fact, if pressed on Coolio’s cannon of work, I really could only name “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “C U When You Get There” (that inevitably the wags amongst us referred to as “C U Next Tuesday”). I’m sure most people would come up with the same tracks. Both the lyrics and video for “Too Hot” warn of the dangers of unsafe sex which set him apart from some of the other West Coast rappers. Maybe Coolio actually lived in a socially conscious world rather than a “Gangsta’s Paradise”.

Lush were another of those bands that I was on acquaintance terms with only by virtue of knowing what the covers of their albums looked like and who they were distributed by for ordering purposes in the record shops I worked in. As for their sound…well, I knew they were part of the ‘shoe gaze’ crowd but I’m not sure I’d ever actually heard any of their songs which is a shame in hindsight as “Single Girl” is quite the tune. The more I write about my time in record shops, the more it makes me feel like it was a whole list of missed listening opportunities. Anyway, back to Lush and supposedly this era of the band saw them leaving behind that ‘shoe gaze’ phase and moving towards the Britpop zeitgeist; not that Lush saw themselves in that bracket. That’s the thing about Britpop – no act associated with the movement seemed to want to admit to being associated with the movement.

Alan Davies’s intro here seems rather inappropriate in retrospect. His story about chatting up lead singer Miki Berenyi at a Pulp gig and asking for her number only to realise she’d given him that of a pizza delivery place might have seemed vaguely humorous at the time but then Miki posted this on Twitter when the BBC4 TOTP repeat went out recently…

I think this is the one where Alan Davies intro'd us with an anecdote about me staving off his chat-up lines with a fake telephone number… (I genuinely thought I gave him the right number, but didn't realise he was chatting me up) https://t.co/OM7dqHmXSO
— Miki Berenyi (@berenyi_miki) May 10, 2024

So it was true?! Why did Davies think telling that story to an audience of millions watching at home was a good idea? Did he ask Miki’s permission beforehand to use the anecdote? Thankfully Miki seems like a good sort and went on to say it was 30 years ago and isn’t a big deal.

“Single Girl” was subsequently parodied by the Shirehorses (aka Mark and Lard) as “Single Bloke”. I used to love listening to their Radio 1 afternoon show when I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham which I’d have on in the background if I happened to be away from the counter. Clearly another reason why I didn’t know how Lush sounded as I could have used that time to acquaint myself with their album. Ah, well.

I think I’ve said this before but what was it with Nightcrawlers (featuring John Reid -for the pedants!) and their song titles? They all seemed to feature the words ‘Push’, ‘Pushing’ or ‘Feeling’. So here we get “Let’s Push It” but they also had hits with “Don’t Let The Feeling Go”, “Keep Pushing Our Love” and “Push The Feeling On” (which was released six times!). Talk about sticking to a formula! Creativity? New ideas? Balls to all that! Just keep selling the masses the same song over and over again and when I say same song, I don’t just mean the titles but also the sound. Seriously, could you really distinguish any of their hits from another?

After starting the decade in spectacular style with the No 1 single “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” and No 1 album “Greatest Hits 1965-1992”, there’d been a bit of a downturn for Cher commercially. After “Love And Understanding” made the UK Top 10 in the early Summer of 1991, of her next seven singles released, none got any higher than No 31 with the nadir being reached with the last of those being a version of “I Got You Babe” with Beavis and Butt-head. That was followed by an almighty reversal of fortunes when she featured on the 1995 Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” alongside Neneh Cherry, Chrisse Hynde and Eric Clapton which topped the UK chart. I think these days we’d called it an ‘asterisk’ hit what with it being for charity and all. A No 1 is a No 1 though and it acted as a springboard for Cher who recorded her twenty-first studio album and first since 1991’s “Love Hurts” for new label Warners in 1995’s “It’s A Man’s World”. Featuring a number of cover versions of songs by the likes of James Brown, Marc Cohn and The Walker Brothers, it went gold in the UK which was not insignificant but was nowhere near the numbers of her Greatest Hits collection which sold 10 times that amount.

OK, that’s enough stats and chart positions, what about the actual music? “One By One” was the second single released from the album and it was, rather unbelievably, the debut single for Liverpool band The Real People (then known as JoJo And The Real People) in 1987. Who you ask? Well, they may not have had many hits (one minor Top 40 entry in 1992) but they did help none other than Noel Gallagher to record a demo to send out to record companies in the early days of Oasis featuring many songs that would end up on “Definitely Maybe”. So my question is how did “One By One” come to the attention of Cher/her management/Warners? I’m not sure there’s a straight line between the two. Anyway, here’s the original version of the song…

The Cher version released in the UK was quite different to that made available in America. The former was a trademark, chugging rock guitar number but the latter dropped all those traditional stylings (including backing vocals and sax solo) and turned it into an R&B tune. The Wikipedia entry for the song includes clips of both versions and the difference is quite startling. “One By One” made No 7 in the UK and paved the way for Cher to return in 1998 with the all conquering “Believe” album and single.

Talking of Liverpool bands, here’s one that, unlike The Real People, would have loads of hits. Cast were onto their third with “Sandstorm”. I liked this lot. I’d bought their debut single “Finetime” and also enjoyed its follow up “Alright”. Somehow though, I considered this one to be slightly inferior though listening to it now, I’ve no idea why as it’s a banger in very much the same vein as its predecessors. Supposedly a fave of the aforementioned Noel Gallagher, Cast seemed to have timed their arrival to perfection in terms of riding the Britpop zeitgeist. I’m sure they would deny their membership but they were definitely seen as a part of that movement.

On reflection, you could say that these early singles were quite conventional, rock/pop songs but if you’re a good songwriter (as I believe lead singer John Power to be) then your tunes will always stand up when heard through the lens of retrospect. Image wise, Power seems to be copying the Oasis sartorial look with that jacket (or maybe they copied him?) but the standout performer is always Keith O’Neill with his energetic, powerful drumming. At the time, we hadn’t witnessed anything like it on the show since Talk Talk’s Lee Harris a decade earlier.

I’ve given myself a hard time on this blog lately about not remembering certain songs or artists but I think I can give myself a free pass for not recalling this lot. Who on earth were Solo?! Well, apparently, they were an American a cappella R&B group who had one minor hit in the UK with this song “Heaven” which got to No 35. I don’t wish to be unkind but this sounds so dull. Clearly the guys can sing but I’m not sure why TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill thought their performance here was any sort of ‘exclusive’ (“Heaven” wasn’t even a hit in the US) nor why he gave them the direct to camera message slot at the top of the show. And that band name! Is that solo as in with no instruments? Well, no instruments except a double bass it seems. So obvious was the name Solo that they had to go by the name Solo (US) here to avoid confusion with dance producer Stuart Crichton who had released records under that moniker. That’s before we even mention Han Solo (Star Wars), Napoleon Solo (The Man From U.N.C.L.E) and Skid Solo (Tiger comic).

Just as the UK was falling in love with George Michael all over again in 1996, the US seemed to be going a bit cold on him. George had ended Michael Jackson’s six week reign at the top of the charts with “Jesus To A Child” going straight in at No 1. The lead single from his album “Older”, it was followed by a further chart topper in “Fastlove” and three other singles that peaked at either No 2 or No 3. The album went six times platinum here and effortlessly leapt to No 1. However, across the pond, those two singles only made it to Nos 7 and 8 respectively and the album peaked at No 6 and was only the 99th best selling album of the year. By contrast, it was the UK’s 5th best selling of 1996. That’s not to say it didn’t sell at all in the US; one million sales is not to be disregarded lightly but “Faith” sold ten (!) times that amount in the late 80s. Why should this be? Well, maybe the songs weren’t as obviously commercial and radio friendly as those of “Faith” and George had been away for a while – it had been six years since “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” came out. Maybe, his audience had just moved on in his absence? It can’t have been a gay backlash as he didn’t come out until 1998. Sadly for George, his stay at the top will last just one week as he was unable to repel the march of “Spaceman” by Babylon Zoo. He should have maybe stuck with those “Faith” era Levi’s.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bucketheads	Got Myself Together	Never happening
2	Sunscreem	Blue Skies	No but maybe should have
3	Coolio	Too Hot	Nah
4	Lush	Single Girl	Nope
5	Nightcrawlers	Let’s Push It	I did not
6	Cher	One By One	Negative
7	Cast	Sandstorm	See 2 above
8	Solo	Heaven	Definitely not
9	George Michael	Jesus To A Child	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/m001z1vm/top-of-the-pops-18011996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 26 OCT 1995

Posted on March 27 by 80stastic

After four consecutive shows of not having to suffer the frankly insufferable Simon Mayo as host, the smug one is back and this time he’s brought his mates with him. Yes, lingering around the studio for this TOTP is Chris Evans and his breakfast show crew but more of them later. The last time he was on, Mayo did that whole ‘Rhymin’ Simon’ schtick which was just intolerable. We don’t have that this time at least but he does start with some line that relates to a news story about a supermarket sandwich not being fresh. What that news story was actually about I have no idea but if you asked Mayo today what it was about I bet he would know. He’s the sort of bloke who’d have a spreadsheet of all the times he was on the show, what his links were and a laughter rating system as to how funny he was.

Anyway, let’s get to it with the music. 1995 was the year of rereleases with those afforded another chance becoming a much bigger hit second time around. However, the recipients of this exercise were generally dance tracks – The Lightning Seeds were most definitely and defiantly pop and none more so than the tracks on their “Jollification” album. This one – “Lucky You” – was initially the lead single from the album when released in August of 1994 but somehow missed the Top 40 when it peaked at No 43. Three hit singles and 14 months later it was made available again and this time made it all the way to No 15 becoming the album’s second highest charting single in the process. “Lucky You” is such a model example of a pop song that you would think it had been created in a laboratory. Crafted and perfected to within an inch of its life, it was ideal for daytime radio. The Lightning Seeds were my go to band on a Saturday afternoon in the Our Price store I worked in at the time if we needed to shove something on in a hurry as the last CD had finished playing. As a consequence, many of my colleagues hated The Lightning Seeds with a passion.

Ian Broudie has always maintained pretty much the same look throughout his career – mop(top) of hair, goatee beard and shades permanently attached. Only the flecks of grey these days indicate the passing of any time. As much as he knows how to write a good pop tune, I’ve never been overly convinced about his voice which isn’t the biggest you’ve ever heard. He wrote “Lucky You” with Terry Hall and it would suit the sadly deceased singer’s voice better I think. I much prefer Hall’s version of “Sense” which he also co-wrote with Broudie.

In direct contrast to Ian Broudie comes Meatloaf and his massive voice. In this week’s chart, he found himself in a four way tussle for the coveted No 1 spot. His new single “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” was up against another new release from Coolio whilst the previous week’s No1 and No 2 from Simply Red and Def Leppard respectively were both performing well. In the final sales count, Meatloaf would just fall short of repeating the feat of “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by entering the Top 40 at No 2. It was still quite the achievement though for an artist who had only had one UK Top 10 hit prior to the biggest selling single of 1993 and confirmed how much the success of the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” project had done to revive Meatloaf’s career and profile.

Oof! What on earth is this? Well, obviously it’s a horrible remix of one of the classic pop singles of all time. The more pertinent question is why? After The Human League made a successful if rather unexpected return to the charts earlier in 1995 with the album “Octopus” and its hit singles “Tell Me When” and “One Man In My Heart”, their previous record label Virgin decided to cash in on their ex-artist by rereleasing their first Greatest Hits album from 1988 which had gone double platinum in the UK. In a clever piece of negotiation with the band’s new label East West, they managed to licence the aforementioned “Tell Me When” and a new song entitled “Stay With Me Tonight” to be included on the album’s track listing thereby ensuring it lent it a veneer of authority and comprehensiveness.

A third track was added to the album which was a remix of “Don’t You Want Me (Remixes)” by Snap! and it was this abomination that was chucked out into the shops to promote the collection. Maybe it’s just that people of a certain age who were around at the time of its original 1981 release (like me) have an emotional attachment to it (especially as it was also that year’s Christmas No 1) that we find it hard to accept any deviation from its true form. Or, perhaps more obviously, the 1995 remix was a just piece of worthless shit and that’s why we hate it. There was certainly no love for it on social media when this TOTP repeat aired on BBC4 recently. The 1995 remix somehow got to No 16 in the charts but as for who was buying it, I can only assume completist super fans or the tone deaf.

Next we have perhaps the ultimate rerelease of the whole decade let alone 1995. I say rerelease but it’s actually a remix of a 1994 single that originally only made No 69 on the chart. By 1995, despite critical acclaim and being eight albums into their career, Everything But The Girl had only ever had three Top 40 singles of which two were cover versions. All that changed with “Missing”. Originally a lo-fi electronic dance single from their “Amplified Heart” album, the duo’s American record label suggested that it be reworked by the legendary remixer Todd Terry to be played in New York clubs. His beefed up house beats treatment of the track combined with Tracey Thorn’s enchanting, ethereal vocals and the killer line “like the deserts miss the rain” propelled the song into becoming a monster hit of epic proportions all around the world. In the UK it peaked at No 3 but even more impressively, it spent 14 (!) weeks inside the Top 10. Look at these chart positions:

8 – 6 – 6 – 4 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 8

How’s that for consistency?! It would sell over a million copies here whilst in America it got all the way to No 2 after a 28 weeks climb to get there. It would spend a then record breaking 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. These were unbelievable stats – this is Everything But The Girl we’re talking about! They were hardly a gargantuan unit shifting monster. As much as I’d always liked them, I would never have predicted that they could sell this many records but then “Missing” was no ordinary song. It had that much sought after but rarely achieved quality of being able to crossover into lots of different markets. Punters who would never have listened to a dance track let alone buy one were queuing up at the local record shop to purchase a copy. The track transcended its supposed status as a song of the pop charts to become a part of the cultural tapestry. Tracey Thorn herself has said that “Missing” has been played at funerals and memorial services. Given its chart run detailed above and that we’ll likely be seeing EBTG a fair few times over the forthcoming repeats, I think I’ll leave it there for now.

Watching this next video, I’ve realised that I really don’t know that much about The Smashing Pumpkins. Sure, I know the titles of their first three albums and I could recognise their covers from having sold them to punters whilst working in record stores throughout the 90s. What they actually sounded like though? I wouldn’t be so sure. I know their hit “Tonight, Tonight” which I like but that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge of their back catalogue. Take this single for example. “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” was the lead single from third album “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” and reached No 20 on the UK Top 40 and yet I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. How is this possible if I worked in a record shop you ask? Sadly, the stereotype of leaning on the counter all day, brew in hand listening to all the cool and groovy new sounds and being rude to any customers who attempted to ask you anything wasn’t true at all. Sometimes you were so busy that if I’d been asked at gunpoint to tell you what had been played on the shop sound system that day, I couldn’t have.

So now I’ve heard “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”, what is my considered opinion of it? Well, it’s OK I guess. An interesting chorus but it seems to take forever to get to it with the verses being as dull as. I wasn’t that keen on Billy Corgan’s voice either. Give me this instead by the Mock Turtles for a song about butterfly wings any day of the week…

“Ain’t Nobody” by Rufus and Chaka Khan is such an enduring song. 40 years old now and it is still a staple of radio playlists whether you’re Radio 2 or Retro Soul Radio. It’s a remarkable legacy for a song that was a big hit but not one of the biggest sellers of all time. It made the UK Top 10 in 1984 and No 22 in the US though it did top the R&B charts over there as well. Its long lasting nature is perhaps partly due to how many times it has been covered by other artists. “Ain’t Nobody” has been recorded by Jaki Graham, LL Cool J, Mary J. Blige, Natasha Bedingfield and as an interpolation with the Human League’s “Being Boiled” by Richard X vs Liberty X as “Being Nobody”.

And then there’s this version by Diana King. Needing a follow up to her mega selling hit “Shy Guy”, she (or her record label possibly) went for that tried and trusted strategy of releasing a cover version of a well known song. And it worked – sort of. It reached No 13 in the UK and made No 4 on the US Dance Club Play chart but it was nowhere near the seller that “Shy Guy” was. Perhaps deservedly so in my opinion. It seems fairly ordinary to my ears despite Diana trying to put a ragga tweak in there early on by randomly shouting out “Have Mercy!” in the intro. There then follows a fairly faithful rendition of the original but with a horrible, tinny sounding backing which loses all the smooth groove of the original. The whole performance is not helped by the location for this satellite exclusive which appears to have been filmed in the car park of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yep, a car park. Diana is joined by two guys in flasher macks one of whom looks like he’s going to have a piss in a flower bed when he turns his back to the camera. At one point there’s a shot which is a close up of a tree because it has a small street sign which says ‘Top Of The Pops’ on it. A close up of a tree! This was a real low for these satellite performances. Bon Jovi at Niagara Falls this was not! Sadly, I can’t find the clip on YouTube though. Diana would have one more UK hit two years later with another cover version (this time of ”I Say A Little Prayer”) before the hits ran out completely.

The aforementioned Chris Evans finally appears on camera for this next link though mercifully he says nothing choosing instead to eat from a packet of crisps. Instead, Simon Mayo ignores Evans (presumably this was cooked up by the pair beforehand) and instead introduces the Radio 1 Breakfast Show newsreader Tina Ritchie to do the link. Ritchie does her job well enough despite Mayo doing a gyrating movement opposite her while she speaks. He seems to lower himself down her body while she speaks (though that may be the camera angle) as if he’s lap dancing for her. It’s a truly sickening sight. Why was he allowed to do it?! Horrible man.

UB40 is the act that Tina Ritchie introduces with a song I have zero recollection of. “Until My Dying Day” was released to promote the band’s second Best Of album snappily titled “The Best Of UB40 – Volume Two” which collected all their hits from 1988 to 1995. The first volume had gone six times platinum in the UK but its follow up did nowhere near the same business despite including their 1993 No 1 “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You”. Its sales can’t have been helped by “Until My Dying Day” which, dearie me, is dreary to the point of being soporific. @TOTPFacts says that the track was originally written for the soundtrack of the James Bond film Goldeneye. That can’t be right can it? Goldeneye? UB40’s song is more like Jap’s Eye!

Wait, wasn’t Cher on the show and in the studio last week? She bloody was you know! As if to distinguish between the two appearances, she’s come in fancy dress as Elvis this week seeing as her hit – “Walking In Memphis” – is all about him (sort of).

It’s an attempt to do something different I guess but she doesn’t really look like Elvis, rather a tired stereotype of a 50s Teddy Boy. It’s all a bit silly and Cher’s dance moves don’t add any authenticity at all. Maybe I’m missing the point and should just accept it as a bit of fun but I can’t get past the fact that Annie Lennox beat Cher to this look by a good 12 years and did it so much better…

And so to another new No 1 and this one has gone straight into pole position in week one making it the ninth single to do so up to this point in 1995 and the third on the bounce following Shaggy and Simply Red before it. Coolio was the winner of that aforementioned four way chart tussle with his “Gangsta’s Paradise” song. I say Coolio but I should also give props to his oppo LV who was also formerly credited on the track. This was an absolute monster of a record and similar to “Missing” earlier in the post, stayed on the UK Top 40 for what seemed like an eternity. Two weeks at No 1 but then three at No 2, two at No 3 and a further five inside the Top 10 on top of that.

Famously interpolated (there’s that word again) with Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”, it was also featured heavily in the hit film Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Also like “Missing”, it was a huge crossover hit with record buyers who wouldn’t normally listen to rap music purchasing the single. It also garnered airplay support from radio stations that wouldn’t normally touch rap with a barge pole. In a 2020 poll by digital publication The Pudding, “Gangsta’s Paradise” was one of the most recognisable 90s songs amongst Millennials and Generation Z’ers.

I’m wondering now if our appetite for the song hadn’t been whetted by the film Pulp Fiction. The opening line “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” from Psalm 23:4 is very reminiscent off this scene courtesy of Samuel L. Jackson whilst the whole film, like the song, is about gangsters…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Lightning Seeds	Lucky You	Not the single but I think I may have had the Jollification album at some point
2	Meatloaf	I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)	Definitely not
3	The Human League	Don’t You Want Me (Remixes)	Love the original but not that remixed shite!
4	Everything But The Girl	Missing	No but I must have it on something surely?
5	The Smashing Pumpkins	Bullet With Butterfly Wings	Negative
6	Diana King	Ain’t Nobody	Nah
7	UB40	Until My Dying Day	Nope
8	Cher	Walking In Memphis	I did not
9	Coolio / LV	Gangsta’s Paradise	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/m001x9fl/top-of-the-pops-26101995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 19 OCT 1995

Posted on March 22 by 80stastic

Three days before this TOTP aired, a seismic event shook the UK. Bet Lynch left Coronation Street! Yes, after a solid run of 25 years on the soap, the character (played by Julie Goodyear) was finally leaving the show. She would return for a couple of guest appearances in 2002 and 2003 but her days as the landlady of the Rover’s Return came to an end on 16th October 1995. An iconic figure, she bestrode the cobbles of Weatherfield in her leopard skin print outfits and bleached blonde beehive hairdo with purpose and identity, one of life’s survivors. Not that I was watching Coronation Street back then. I think I’d long given up on it and so probably missed Bet’s grand departure. I think I must have been about to start watching Hollyoaks though with its first episode airing just four days after this TOTP. Anyway, I wonder if the influence of Bet Lynch can be spotted in any of the acts in this episode.

There’s no evidence of one of Coronation Street’s most memorable characters in this week’s hosts who are comedians Stewart Lee and Richard Herring again (they’d presented a show back in the May of this year as well). I can’t imagine that either of them even watched the soap at the time – it probably wouldn’t have aligned well with their brand of satirical humour. Lee’s hair here is quite the stand out. I recall those curtains-style haircuts being popular in the mid 90s but he seems to have taken it way beyond that with his hairstyle verging on Hasidic Judaism.

The first act tonight is Wildchild and whilst you may not remember the name, their hit will sound familiar not least because it was a hit three times over. Originally released in April 1995 under the title of “Legends Of The Dark Black Pt 2 (Renegade Master Mix)”, it peaked at No 34. Six months later, as was the way of dance records in this year, this version was released as simply “Renegade Master” when it topped out at No 11. In January 1998, the track was remixed by Fatboy Slim and was rereleased as “Renegade Master ‘98” and it peaked at No 3.

That’s the stats dealt with but what about the actual track? Was it any good? Well, you know me, I’m no dance head so I’m not best qualified to answer that question but watching this performance back, there didn’t seem to be much to it at all. Basically it’s just a couple of samples (“Eye Examination” by Del the Funky Homosapien for the riff and “One For The Trouble” by A.D.O.R. for the vocals)* worked up into a full blown track.

*Yes, obviously I had to look this up!

The person behind Warchild, whom I assume is the guy on stage here, was Roger McKenzie who tragically passed away just weeks after this performance from an undiagnosed heart condition. With such a dance oriented hit, the TOTP producers faced the recurring dilemma of how to showcase it. In this case, it was left to McKenzie to lead a dance troupe of four dressed in military fatigues in a heavily synchronised routine. Sort of reminiscent of Janet Jackson circa her “Rhythm Nation 1814” era.

By my reckoning this is the fourth TOTP appearance from Smokie for their sweary hit “Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice?)” which seems extraordinary but then it did stay on the Top 40 for 14 weeks of which 8 were inside the Top 10. Thankfully, the merciful gods of the UK charts have seen fit to spare us mere mortals the horror of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown being on the show so it’s left to the studio audience to insert the ‘bleeps’. Conversely though, this makes the whole putrid nonsense seem even more bizarre with a group of middle aged men still clearly stuck squarely in their 70s heyday singing a song to a crowd of youngsters, who have no idea who they were or are, waiting to shout out “Alice? Who the bleep is Alice?!”. At least Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown’s objectionable presence clearly categorised the whole odious exercise as a novelty record. Without him there it was just downright weird. Deservedly, Smokie never had another UK Top 40 hit.

No sign of Bet in this next song though it is inspired by five fictional female characters or rather the aircraft they piloted. If anybody reading this was /is a fan of the Gerry Anderson show Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons then you will be familiar with the Angels and their Angel Interceptors fighter planes. Code named Destiny, Symphony, Rhapsody, Melody and Harmony, they defended the Spectrum organisation’s airborne HQ Cloudbase from enemy attack. Thinking about it, how did Ash know about Captain Scarlet?! Wasn’t their debut album famously named “1977” after the year they were born in (and the year that the first Star Wars film came out)? So they were 18 in 1995? How did they know about a TV series that first aired in 1967? Remember, this was well before the internet was widely available and YouTube was yet to be invented. Well, Wikipedia tells me that the show was rebroadcast on BBC2 in 1993 following the success of the Thunderbirds repeats the year before so I’m guessing that would be how it came into the band’s cultural reference framework.

Whatever the origins of the song and how they came about, what couldn’t be denied was that “Angel Interceptor” was a worthy follow up to “Girl From Mars”. Cut from (roughly) the same cloth, it belts along at pace but doesn’t sacrifice melody to maintain that speed resulting in a pretty nifty tune. The video on the other hand doesn’t have much going for it. Apparently, the band themselves had major input into the promo but I don’t think I’d be owning up to that as it’s all pretty lacklustre stuff that lacks much in the way of a plot.

Finally we have arrived at the last knockings of the hit machine phenomenon that was 2 Unlimited. Well, almost. “Do What’s Good For Me” wasn’t strictly their last ever hit on these shores (there was one final single that clambered to No 38 in 1998) but it did usher in the end of their TOTP appearances. Hurray! / Boo! (delete as applicable). They’d had a good run though with their first time on the show going way back to 1991 with “Get Ready For This”. The hits flowed after that with a total of 14 UK chart entries of which only two failed to make the Top 20 with eight going Top 10 (including that No 1). I pretty much despised everything they ever did but I guess you have to give credit to a run of success like that.

“Do What’s Good For Me” was taken from the duo’s “Hits Unlimited” collection whose chart peak of No 27 gave more support to the idea that the game was up for Ray and Anita. After the hits dried up the pair left the project which continued with replacements recruited. Ray and Anita reunited in 2012 to perform live gigs but Anita departed for a second time in 2016 when she replaced by someone mysteriously called just Kim.

Another prolific 90s act now. East 17 had been having hits almost as long as 2 Unlimited with their first hit “House Of Love” entering the charts in 1992. Three years later they were on to their twelfth in “Thunder” which was the lead single from their third studio album “Up All Night”. So that’s three albums and twelve singles in three years – like I said, prolific. I’m sure that there was a special edition of the CD version of the album that had that frosted glass look which if you tilted it changed the image…

*Checks the Discogs website*

…Discogs describes it as ‘lenticular’ – sounds like a bone in the body or a particularly crap comedian stage name (Len Tickles Ya?). Anyway, “Thunder” continued the band’s obsession with weather themed singles – earlier in the year they’d released “Let It Rain”. This performance sees the four lads joined on stage with a guitarist, drummer and an unlikely second keyboard player supplementing Tony Mortimer (who has a keyboard of his own). Presumably the group wanted to beef up their sound? Or at least give the impression of beefing up their sound.

As for the song itself, it’s got a strong chorus I guess but the lyrics are dreadful – some nonsense about the thunder calling you from the mountain high and spreading your wings and flying.

And so to another band who once recorded a song about spreading your wings and flying. Surely Bet Lynch and Freddie Mercury were a match made in heaven (ahem) style wise? Well, it’s certainly true that she was the inspiration behind the look of Freddie’s drag persona in the video for Queen’s 1984 single “I Want To Break Free” in which the band all dressed up as Coronation Street characters.

After Freddie’s death in 1991 and his tribute concert the following year, the remaining band members returned to the studio in 1993 to work up the final vocal recordings Mercury had done in his last days into full blown songs. With not enough tracks to fill a whole album, it was decided to seek out non Queen songs that Freddie had either recorded as a solo artist or contributed vocals to. So we had “I Was Born To Love You and “Made In Heaven” from his “Mr. Bad Guy” album and this one, “Heaven For Everyone” which was originally released on Roger Taylor’s side project band The Cross’s 1988 album “Shove It”. When made available as a single, the track featured Taylor on lead vocals but the album incarnation has Freddie doing the honours and it’s that version that was given the Queen treatment for the band’s 1995 album “Made In Heaven”. Released as the lead single from it, “Heaven For Everyone” went to No 2, a clear statement that the public’s appetite for the band had yet to be satiated. If the single was a statement then the album was a full blown press conference broadcast simultaneously to the world with it going to No 1 globally and 4 x platinum in the UK alone.

To me though, the song was a fairly unremarkable ballad that doesn’t really have that famous Queen bravado but I guess as the first official single released from the band since Freddie’s death, it probably needed to be reflective in its sound and intent.

Having listened to The Cross version, it doesn’t deviate that much accept for some incongruous spoken word bits in the intro, middle and end which don’t really add anything to the track at all. Clearly the record buying public weren’t ready for a Roger Taylor offshoot project in 1988 and it duly peaked at No 84.

With their ex-band mate Louise still in the charts, Eternal announced that they had no intention of disappearing with a stand up R&B track called “Power Of A Woman” (Bet Lynch would have been proud). As the single to begin a new era for the band, it was strong and confident and its move away from a more pop sound seemed to play up to those rumours that the band had ditched Louise to guarantee more airplay on US R&B stations. In fact, listening to it now, it resembles what Mariah Carey was doing around this time who herself was trying to harness a more R&B flavour.

The band restructure hadn’t meant a change in roles though as the majority of the vocal heavy lifting is still done by Easther Bennett with her sister Vernie and Kéllé Bryan acting pretty much as backing singers. The album of the same name would also do well going double platinum in the UK though that was half the amount of copies sold by their debut “Always & Forever” meaning that you could say that a loss of 25% of band membership cost them 50% of their popularity.

Finally we get the biggest Bet Lynch influence of the show as Cher channels her inner Rover’s Return landlady to perform with platinum blonde hair. Having already had two No 1s earlier in the decade (albeit one being from a film and the other as part of a quartet on charity single “Love Can Build A Bridge”) and chalking up two No 1 albums in the 90s in “Love Hurts” and “Greatest Hits: 1965-1992”, this era of Cher was going pretty well.

However, her album “It’s A Man’s World” would prove to be a slight misstep. Sure, it made the Top 10 over here but it sold a tenth of those two previous albums whilst its lead single – a cover of Marc Cohn’s “Walking In Memphis” – seemed like a blatant attempt to court commercial success. It had only been a hit three years previously so it was still very much in the public consciousness. Not only that but it had been the subject of that controversial dance cover by Shut Up And Dance which brought the threat of legal action from Cohn. Presumably all that litigious behaviour had been resolved before this Cher release as one of the extra tracks on the CD format of the single was a remix by…yep…Shut Up And Dance. I recall thinking the whole Cher version was a cynical exercise in trying to secure a hit to promote the new album and although it certainly was – a No 11 as opposed to the No 22 peak of the original – it was very much seen as a commercial disappointment (including by Cher herself). She would more than make up for said disappointment three years later when her hit “Believe” would become the biggest selling single in the UK of 1998.

It’s the fourth and final week at No 1 for “Fairground” by Simply Red and we finally get that Blackpool Pleasure Beach video. However, the whole thing is cloaked in so much special effects that it seems to lose much of the identity of Blackpool to me. The album “Fairground” was taken from (“Life”) went straight to No 1 so the single did well to retain peak position given that its sales must have been affected by its release. Even so, I for one, am glad its reign at the top was coming to an end.

As for a tie in with Bet Lynch, well who could forget her involvement in this iconic storyline set in Blackpool?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wildchild	Renegade Master	No
2	Smokie / Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown	Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice?)	Of course not
3	Ash	Angel Interceptor	No but I have their Best Of album with it on
4	2 Unlimited	Do What’s Good For Me	Never
5	East 17	Thunder	Nope
6	Queen	Heaven For Everyone	Negative
7	Eternal	Power Of A Woman	Nah
8	Cher	Walking In Memphis	Not a chance
9	Simply Red	Fairground	I did 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/m001x9f9/top-of-the-pops-19101995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 23 MAR 1995

Posted on October 17 by 80stastic

Ah crap! It’s been a good run but it’s finally come to an end. Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is back hosting TOTP! He says later in this show that he hasn’t been on presenting duties since the previous October. I haven’t checked to see if that’s true but regardless, I’d have gladly never seen the w****r anchoring the show again. He always seemed to me to treat it as his own personal promotional vehicle, making it all about him with his annoying, cryptic one liners and ridiculous tailoring.

He starts off by saying that there’s no public flogging on tonight’s show. What?! Was this something to do with the sentencing of Eric Cantona for his kung fu style assault of a Crystal Palace fan which took place on the very same day this TOTP went out? Eric got 14 days in prison pending an appeal which he subsequently won and saw his sentence reduced to 120 hours of community service. So, not exactly a public flogging then Simon.

With the first example of Mayo’s inane drivel dispensed with, it’s time for the opening act who is Sean Maguire. He was the ex-EastEnders and Grange Hill actor who had decided that he was wasting his time with all that TV work and what the world really needed was to bear witness to his singing talents while he ‘testified’* on stage. So far, he’d made a decent stab at the transformation with a couple of middling sized hits the previous year and now he was back with his third single “Suddenly”. Nothing to do with the Billy Ocean hit of the same name, this was just more pop-by-numbers stuff designed to appeal to the teen market with an instrumental break written in to allow for the obligatory dance routine to be included. I mean, it’s a catchy little ditty but it’s hardly a pop music masterpiece. Even so, it had more longevity than Sean’s fashion gimmick which saw him with a top tied around his waist even though he was wearing a jacket over his singlet. Why did he need the jacket if he was too warm to wear the top? This didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it was de rigueur fashion accessorising in 1995? We’ll certainly see more examples of it later on in the show.

Mayo really is a prick. In his second intro, he makes a reference to Peter Tatchell, the human and gay rights campaigner when announcing Tin Tin Out as the next artist. Why? Well, I think that he was referring to a current news story about Tatchell’s involvement with the direct action group OutRage! who ran a campaign to out 20 MPs who publicly supported anti-gay legislation whilst secretly living gay personal lives. One such MP was Sir James Kilfedder who died of a heart attack three days before this TOTP was broadcast just as the Belfast Telegraph ran a story that he was one of the politicians targeted. A sensitive story you would think. Not to Mayo. That’s source material for a cheap line while he presents a pop music programme. Tin Tin Out? Geddit? Like I said, a prick.

Anyway, back to the music and Tin Tin Out were an electronic music duo who mixed hits for some of the biggest names like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys but they also had a sideline in hits under their own name. “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” was their second such hit peaking at No 14. A version of the Bacharach and David song that Sandie Shaw took to the top of the charts in 1964, it was a cover in the loosest sense of the word. Basically they took the song’s distinctive melody, added a house beat to it and roped in vocalist Vanessa Contenay-Quinones of the duo Espiritu to sing (rather badly here I would add) the song’s title repeatedly. It sounds horrible to my ears. Perhaps to offset this infernal racket, there are four half naked backing dancers (with their tops tied around their waists as per Sean Maguire) making the female members of the audience react as if it were The Chippendales they were watching.

Tin Tin Out would find further success later in the decade with covers of The Sundays (“Here’s Where The Story Ends”) and Edie Brickell (“What I Am”). The latter was with ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton which was released on the same day as Gerri Halliwell’s “Lift Me Up” causing a chart battle to see who would be No 1. In the end, Ginger won out over Baby.

By the way, if I wanted a cover of “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” – which I did apparently in 1983 as I bought this single – then there’s always this…

I may have succumbed to some ropey old synth pop version of a 60s classic in 1983 but there was no way I was falling for this next load of old tosh twelve years later. I know we’ve seen many an act bag themselves a huge hit and basically just repeat the song with a few tweaks for the follow up over the years but this by Rednex really was scandalous. After the horror that was their No 1 single “Cotton Eye Joe”, they almost literally put out the same record again for their next one. As a result, “Old Pop In An Oak” was every bit as dreadful as its predecessor. Despite not making the Top 10, enough poor saps bought it in sufficient quantities to send it to No 12. What the hell happened people?!

In 1993, Duran Duran pulled off the seemingly impossible by escaping the from the box the public had put them in labelled ‘They used to be famous in the 80s’ and coming up with a hit single that put them back into the Top 10 for the first time in four years with “Ordinary World”. Not only that but its parent album was a million seller in the US and went gold in the UK. They were back and had momentum on their side. What they did with that momentum was tantamount to commercial and artistic suicide. Whose idea was it to record an album of cover versions? Or perhaps the question should be ‘whose idea was it to record an album of those cover versions?’.

Take the lead single from the “Thank You” album for example. Wasn’t Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” seen as sacrosanct at the time? What were they boys thinking? However, the phrase ‘at the time’ really should have been in italics for it has been covered by many an artist since and I don’t remember the same amount of cries of heresy as were reserved for the Duran boys? Indeed, just three months after this, Kirsty MacColl released her own version with Evan Dando of The Lemonheads to promote her Best Of album “Galore” and I’m pretty sure there weren’t any cries of “Heresy!” from anyone. By 1997, just about every big name in the music business had covered it (sort of). A BBC promotional video to showcase their musical diversity featuring the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Bono, Heather Small, Brett Anderson of Suede, Tom Jones, Gabrielle, Evan Dando (again!) and perhaps most memorably Dr John (“such a poyfick day”) was absolutely fêted by the public; so much so that it was released as a single and went to No 1 for three weeks. All of this leads me to believe that it was more about who was doing the cover version and it was a case of everybody else = good, Duran Duran = bad.

Or maybe it wasn’t even about this track? After all, Lou Reed is on record as saying the Duran version was the best recording of any of his songs. Was it the other covers on “Thank You” that offended so? Taking on songs by Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop was ill judged but to navigate “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel and Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” was clinically insane. The readers of Q magazine were so incensed that in a 2006 poll, they voted “Thank You” the worst album of all time. So was it that bad? Well, I’ve often found myself on the wrong side of popular opinion and I did buy a couple of Duran Duran albums in the 80s but on the whole, even I would say it was a not a clever career move. As so it proved. After the critical backlash “Thank You” received, the band floundered. Follow up album “Medazzaland” didn’t even get released in Europe with the record buying public seemingly only interested in their past glories – a Best Of collection called “Greatest” made No 4 when released in 1998. It would take a reunion of the classic line up in 2004 to return them towards the top of the charts when the “Astronaut” album made No 3.

Talking of the classic line up, that’s Roger Taylor on drums in this TOTP performance which took me by surprise as he hadn’t had anything to do with the band since leaving in 1986. Apparently he played on three tracks for the “Thank You” album and appeared in the video for “Perfect Day”. Meanwhile, bassist John Taylor seems to have taken leave of his fashion senses – a checked shirt matched with stripey trousers?!

Next a band who in many ways replaced Duran Duran in the affections of the teen market as the boys from Birmingham’s popularity dwindled in the late 80s. Wet Wet Wet were on a commercial high come the mid 90s. They’d had that single in 1994 at No 1 for fifteen weeks and now were back with a new hit in the Top 10. Of course, also like Duran Duran, they’d suffered their own decline in approval around 1989-1991 but that was all behind them now.

Following the biggest selling single of the year though was no easy task and “Julia Says” predictably couldn’t get anywhere near the sales of “Love Is All Around”. A high of No 3 was nothing to be sniffed at though even if the track itself wasn’t their strongest by a mile and it did help propel parent album “Picture This” to No 1 and a million sales. The hits kept coming until the end of the decade when Marti Pellow left the band to deal with his addiction issues. Wet Wet Wet are still a going concern but only just. Graeme Clark is the only remaining member of the original four piece line up though they have just announced a co-headlining tour with perennials of the nostalgia circuit Go West.

A case next of an appearance on TOTP not helping the sales of a single. “Original” by Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday was a new entry on the chart this week at No 18 but it would fall to No 35 seven days later despite the exposure of this performance. To be fair, the sound of the track didn’t exactly lend itself to a turn on TV. Its dark, dubby rhythms allied to Halliday’s almost deadpan vocals weren’t a perfect match for the medium of TV. Not that it isn’t a good track – it is but it acts almost as a visual downer in amongst the scream-inducing likes of Sean Maguire and Wet Wet Wet. Yes, there are some shrieks from the studio audience at times during “Original” but I get the impression they were falsely manufactured by the prompting of a floor manager.

Leftfield were, of course, influential production team Neil Barnes and Paul Daley who’d already had a hit under their own steam when they collaborated with John Lydon on the hypnotic “Open Up” in 1994. Toni Halliday was the lead singer with shoe gazing / dance beat hybrid Curve who’d had a handful of minor hit singles and two moderately successful albums to this point but whose legacy was to open the doors for the likes of Garbage to stride through. The album “Original” came from was the Mercury Prize nominated “Leftism” which is widely regarded as a milestone moment in dance music. Listening to this track now, it sounds very like Portishead to me whose album “Dummy” beat “Leftism” to the aforementioned Mercury Prize in 1995.

Next another band who like Wet Wet Wet are trying to follow up the biggest hit of their career. East 17 may not have had the best selling single of the year like the Wets but they did have the Christmas No 1 with all the sales that brings with it. Surely they couldn’t bag another chart topper with their next release? The short answer is no they couldn’t but they did keep their record of consecutive Top 10 hits going with “Let It Rain” taking the tally to five.

After the balladry of “Stay Another Day”, it was back to the sound on which they made their name – a hard-hitting, quick house beats dance floor-filler with a shouty yet catchy chorus. Its intro has Tony Mortimer going all Prince-like in “Let’s Go Crazy” mode, preaching from the pulpit before the beats hit about corridors of creation and colliding comets. Actually, he sounds a bit like Gary Clail of On-U Sound fame.

I’d have to say that apart from that intro, it’s not one of their most memorable tunes, not quite the banger it wants to be. Talking of which, Terry Coldwell (the bloke in the singlet on the left in this performance and only remaining original member still with the group) was in the news recently when he participated in a Counties Radio competition where presenter Justin Dealey would ask people in the street to sing a song and if he judged it good enough, he would buy them a hot dog as a reward. Snappily entitled ‘Sing a banger for a banger’, Coldwell rocked up and sang “Stay Another Day” but was denied his prize on account of sounding too authentic!

Mayo’s back with his crappy jokes now as he name checks the boxer Chris Eubank. As far as I understand it, by saying that Chris’s favourite song was “Hypnotised” by Simple Minds, he was referring to the fact that Eubank had recently lost his WBO super middleweight title to Steve Collins who had employed a guru to help him prepare mentally for the fight leading the press to believe that Collins was hypnotised for the bout. As Eubanks entered the ring before the fight, Collins sat in his corner motionless with headphones on, giving more credence to the rumour. None of this backstory makes Mayo’s quip funny though. Look mate, you’re just there to introduce the acts not perform a stand up routine. Just do your job.

Anyway, this was the second and last single from the “Good News From The Next World” album and it wasn’t very good. Not only was it completely soporific but I’m sure they’d used that bridge part before in a previous hit. In short, poor on quality and lethargic of effort. Must do better.

By the way, what was going on with guitarist Charlie Burchill?! Back in 1984, I’d desperately coveted his look but he just looks weird here. Horrible hair and a jacket that looks like he’d borrowed it from a pearly king. And I thought John Taylor’s wardrobe was suss.

The Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton has, rather predictably, brought an end to Celine Dion’s run at No 1 and to quote Captain Sensible’s 1982 hit “Wot”, ain’t I glad. Beware though. This respite will only last a week before a new menace takes residence in the top spot…

Just before the credits roll, there’s a plug for the BBC’s A Song for Europe show to pick this year’s UK Eurovision entry. It seemed quite an elongated process. There was a Top of the Pops Song for Europe Special show that Mayo mentions where each of the competing songs was showcased but that wasn’t the point where the winner was chosen. No, there was another programme a week later where that decision was made by a public vote. Each artist also had a celebrity champion advocating for them. Some of the entrants were well known – Londonbeat for example (who sounded dreadful in the clip at the end of this TOTP) plus recent chart stars Deuce and Samantha Fox fronting Sox. The rest of them I have no idea about except the actual winner of course who were Love City Groove who trounced everybody with over 140,000 votes. The artist placed second got 81,000 by comparison. Things didn’t work out for Love City Groove on the big day but that’s a story for another post.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sean Maguire	Suddenly	As if
2	Tin Tin Out featuring Espiritu	Always (Something There To Remind Me)	No
3	Rednex	Old Pop In An Oak	Hell no!
4	Duran Duran	Perfect Day	Nope
5	Wet Wet Wet	Julia Says	Nah
6	Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday	Original	No but my wife might have had the album I think
7	East 17	Let It Rain	Negative
8	Simple Minds	Hypnotised	I did not
9	Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	Not even for charity

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/m001rb00/top-of-the-pops-23031995

TOTP 16 MAR 1995

Posted on October 14 by 80stastic

I can’t remember if I watched this particular TOTP but if I did then I’m pretty sure that I would have had my mind on something else. Immediately after it finished, my beloved Chelsea were playing a European Cup Winners Cup quarter-final. Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, they were attempting to reach a European semi-final for the first time in 24 years. It may not seem it to the club’s younger fanbase who have been used to continuous success but this was a big deal. So big that I recall turning the TV off with minutes still to play and Chelsea winning 2-0 for fear of a late away goal that would knock us out. My nerves couldn’t take it. I turned the TV back on to the sight of a celebrating Chelsea crowd and realised we were through. It would all end in failure (as it always did back then) when we lost the semi-final to eventual winners Real Zaragoza.

I’m not sure that there’s a musical equivalent of that sort of experience. Having said that, just eleven days after this TOTP broadcast, a single was released that used to almost give me palpitations. Josh Wink’s “Higher State Of Consciousness” would set my nerves right on edge when it played on the shop stereo of the Our Price store I was working in. It literally could almost send me into a panic attack. Here’s hoping the tunes on tonight’s show aren’t as triggering.

By the way, tonight’s host is Lenny Henry as it’s Comic Relief the following day and so TOTP has been hijacked to help with the promotion. Lenny’s links are not especially funny but it’s hard not to warm to him.

Well, there’s nothing to make me nervous about the first artist on tonight. Alex Party are on to their third TOTP appearance I think with “Don’t Give Me Your Life”. If anything, I’m completely bored of this track. However, there is one thing that’s peaked my interest in this performance and that’s the presence of a drummer in amongst all the backing dancers leaping about. A drummer? On a Eurodance hit?! Obviously, they’ve got the obligatory two nerdy guys on keyboards in there but a drummer wasn’t usually in the mix surely? Has he always been there?

*quickly checks previous shows to feature Alex Party*

Well, he wasn’t there in the first appearance but then neither were the keyboard players but they were all on stage in the second appearance; I just can’t have noticed them. I wonder why there was the change of line up? Surely they weren’t looking for musicianship credibility?!

Next up is a group which was never going to raise my anxiety levels but this particular performance was a jolt to the system. A single by The Human League where Phil Oakey doesn’t do the lead vocals? This was out of the ordinary to sat the least. In fact it was more than out of the ordinary, it was the first time Susanne Sulley had been lead vocalist on one of the band’s singles. “One Man In My Heart” was the follow up to comeback hit “Tell Me When” which had rather surprisingly gone Top 10 at the start of the year. It also did pretty well chart wise achieving a respectable No 13 peak.

On first hearing, it sounds like a very one dimensional synth ballad but its simplicity is also its strength. An unfussy vocal from Susanne allied to a winning melody elevates it to something above the ordinary. Even the hackneyed ‘Ooh La La La’ backing from Phil and Joanne can’t bring it down. Sadly though, the only subsequent occasions that a Human League single would make the Top 20 would be rereleases of “Don’t You Want Me”. Having said that, the band don’t seem weighed down by their illustrious early 80s history but rather embrace it. They are almost constantly on tour it seems churning out the hits and have only released two albums of new material in the 28 years since “Octopus” (parent album of “One Man In My Heart”) came out. One last thing, what is that contraption that Phil is ‘playing’?

And so to the song that is the whole point of Sir Lenny Henry being on the show tonight – the Comic Relief single. This year it was no novelty song à la “The Stonk” or “Stick It Out” but a proper composition – “Love Can Build A Bridge”, a big country ballad by mother and daughter duo The Judds. It seems rather unfair but I’m guessing that Comic Relief were canny enough to know that The Judds weren’t a big enough name to promote the single (even though it’s their own song) and so roped in four mega star names to do the job. Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton met the brief and indeed would carry it all the way to No 1.

In his intro, Lenny implores the watching TV audience that whatever we do on Comic Relief day, not to do nothing and that we could at least by the single. Well, I didn’t I have to admit but I would hope that I made a donation. They would have involved picking up the (landline) phone, ringing in to the dedicated number and actually speaking to someone. Cast your mind back even further to Live Aid and Bob Geldof was telling us to go to the post office to get a postal order mailed out. It’s so much easier these days. Just text a message on your mobile to a number and you’re done. Try explaining that to the kids today. Though I’m glad to have lived through the eras I did, there’s no denying technology does have some benefits.

Apart from the fear that I may not have made a donation to Comic Relief, there was nothing about the last song to make me anxious. However, my calmness is under threat immediately from the next act. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The time of The Outhere Brothers is upon us. For reasons unclear, these two berks racked up four UK Top 10 hits this year including two (TWO!) No 1s. Quite why the British record buying public had a vulnerability for unequivocally crap records remains inexplicable to me. There must be a thesis or at least a dissertation in it for somebody.

The first of those two chart toppers was “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” which gained notoriety for its sexually explicit lyrics (I looked them up, they are very explicit). Now of course, the version performed on TOTP was the radio edit (or clean version) with the offending lyrics removed which pretty much just left a moronic chant of the single’s title. However, the CD single included the explicit version as part of the extra tracks meaning many a young record buyer ended up with access to innocence corrupting material. Such was the outrage that it even promoted a question in Parliament (raised by the MP from my hometown of Worcester as it happens). Perhaps nobody should have been surprised given the titles of the duo’s first two singles – “Pass The Toilet Paper” and the delightfully named “Fuk U In The Ass”. Its notoriety probably helped propel it to the chart summit. I know from working in record shops for years that we never sold those clean versions of records by the likes of Eminem. The youth all wanted to hear the cussing.

The performance here is deeply unimpressive. Malik and Hula (they weren’t really brothers I don’t think) are wearing basketball outfits for no discernible reason and there are the obligatory scantily clad women dancing behind them. I can feel my anxiety levels rising. Not because of any potentially explicit lyrics but because with this crap going to No 1, we’re going to have to endure it at least once more.

Next a band whose name sounds like it should strike a note of trepidation and indeed they were named after a 1986 horror film but, in truth, Terrorvision weren’t that scary. However, they did have a rather spooky chart statistic which was that their last five singles had peaked between No 29 and 21. This next release – “Some People Say” – would make that six when it got to a high of No 22. The fifth and last single taken from their “How To Make Friends And Influence People” album, I can’t say I remember it at all. Maybe it was unfortunate to have been around at the same time as a similarly entitled single – “Some Might Say” by Oasis was released the following month and would become their first No 1. Terrorvision never had their own chart topper though they came close with “Tequila” in 1999 which peaked at No 2.

Clearly taking a leaf out of her brother’s book of ‘How many singles is too many to release from one album?’*, Janet Jackson is back with the seventh from her 1993 “Janet” album. Yes, you read that right; 1993. Janet was still releasing singles from an album that came out eighteen months previously.

*Answer: There is no limit if your surname is Jackson

“Whoops Now” was a double A-side with “What’ll I Do” and was a hidden track on the album but was deemed commercial enough for a single release. It’s a fairly unremarkable Motown pastiche to my ears; a bit too cute for its own good. The performance here is an ‘exclusive’ live performance from Oslo and to be honest, Janet’s exhortations to the audience to want to hear them make some noise (or words to that effect) whilst singing a song so slight is almost comical.

“Whoops Now” made No 9 on the UK Top 40 but it wouldn’t be long before Janet was back. Just two months later, her duet with brother Michael entitled “Scream” would go all the way to No 2.

Right, if you’re confused as I was about Lenny Henry’s intro for this next track, it’s because we had forgotten about this Levi’s 501 advert. Maybe watch this before proceeding further and it should clear that mystery up…

…all done? Up to speed now? Great! Yes, after a Levi’s advert turned an unknown song by a fabricated band the previous year (“Inside” by Stiltskin) into a No 1 record, the marketing machine rolled on into 1995 and yet again made a huge hit out of a relatively obscure track. The lucky recipients of the Levi’s magic dust this time though were the latest project of a man who was no stranger to chart hits.

It had been seven years since the The Housemartins had called it a day and in that time, whilst Paul Heaton found mass appeal with the wry pop melodies of The Beautiful South, Norman Cook had turned his attention to the world of dance music. Success came early and in some style with Cook’s group Beats International securing a 1990 No 1 with “Dub Be Good To Me”. There was only one way to to go after that though and that particular project withered away. The ever inventive Cook was soon back in the saddle with his next vehicle Freak Power whose 1993 debut single “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” was a minor chart hit when it made No 29. Somebody at Levi’s (or the advertising agency working for them) must have noticed the track as just under eighteen months later it was chosen to soundtrack the next 501 campaign. You can hear why. A super slick soul groove with a touch of funk that saw the bass guitar supplying the hooky riff, it sounded familiar the first time you heard it with Gill Scott-Heron springing to mind. It turns out though that the bass line was appropriated from a tune called “Flo” by Red Holt from the 70s. Though that name means nothing to me, I’m sure Norman would have had a copy of said track in his extensive vinyl collection.

The reach of the advert ensured that “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” would become a major hit second time around peaking at No 3 though, if pressed, I would have guessed that it made it to the top of the charts like Stiltskin did a year before. I like the fact that lead singer Ashley Slater pulls out a trombone during this performance but then he had been a member of jazz big band/orchestra Loose Tubes in the 80s. In terms of my nerves with regards to this hit, the only thing concerning me was the potential for an unfortunate typo when it came to the name of Loose Tubes.

Lenny Henry might be experiencing some nerves of his own as he introduces the next artist on the show but they’re the good type rather than the anxiety inducing variety. It’s only his all time hero Prince. Sadly for Lenny, the Purple One was in the middle of his dispute with Warners and so what we get here is Prince pretending he’s not really there. As a way of releasing material outside of his existing contract, Prince used his backing band since 1990 New Power Generation to vent his creative spleen. “Get Wild” was the lead single from the band’s second album “Exodus” and, in line with their earlier output, it’s a supercool funk work out in the style of Parliament. For this performance, Prince has assumed one of his multiple alter egos, in this case, Tora Tora and appears on stage in a gauze scarf totally obscuring his face. If you peer closely, I think you can determine that it is Prince but I can’t help thinking it kind of diluted the experience of him appearing on the show.

In the Top 40 at the same time as “Get Wild” was something called “Purple Medley” which, as it says in the title, was a mashup of Prince hits and well known tracks either re-recorded or sampled. Released by Warners, it might appear as if this was the record company trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue from their artist’s back catalogue but it was actually Prince who was behind the single in an attempt to fulfil his contractual obligations with Warners. No doubt he would have raised a wry smile when “Get Wild” peaked at No 19 and “Purple Medley” spluttered to a high of No 33.

Finally! It’s the last of seven weeks at the top of the charts for Celine Dion with “Think Twice”. There was no rapid descent of the charts for the single though as it would spend another two weeks inside the Top 5 and a further four after that within the Top 40. In total it would spend thirty-one weeks on the UK Top 100. My nerves were officially frazzled.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Alex Party	Don’t Give Me Your Life	No
2	The Human League	One Man In My Heart	Don’t think I did
3	Cher / Chrissie Hynde / Neneh Cherry / Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	I did not
4	The Outhere Brothers	Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)	Hell no
5	Terrorvision	Some People Say	Nope
6	Janet Jackson	Whoops Now	Negative
7	Freak Power	Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out	Nah
8	New Power Generation	Get Wild	It’s a no from me
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	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/m001r3g8/top-of-the-pops-16031995

TOTP 02 MAR 1995

Posted on October 6 by 80stastic

Five of the nine songs on tonight’s show have already been featured in recent weeks but then the whole of this week’s Top 40 was in chaos so no wonder the running order was a bit off. So what was going on then? Well, for the second time in as many months, there was a bit of a cock up with the compilation of the sales data that informed the charts and every position apart from the Top 8 was affected. Even worse was the fact that the error wasn’t noticed until after the charts were announced and broadcast on the Sunday chart show. A recalibrated Top 40 was rapidly published on the Monday but in a curious move, TOTP head producer Ric Blaxill chose to base the Thursday night show around the incorrect chart. Maybe it was a case of supporting the more public version that the BBC had broadcast as to not have would have undermined the corporation’s authority as the custodians of the chart? Or maybe Blaxill just thought people wouldn’t have noticed the rectified chart and so just wanted to not draw attention to the error?

Whatever the reason, the decision seems a little odd in retrospect but surely the bigger mystery is why Keith Allen was asked to host the show. OK, maybe not why Keith Allen per se but why was he allowed to do it as the character of ‘Keithski Allenski’. The online reaction to his…erm…performance was overwhelmingly negative with most reactions being along the lines of “what the Hell was that?!” and “Why is he shouting all the time?!”. It’s clear he was trying to send up ‘yoof’ presenter and one time beau of Janet Street-Porter Normski but was Normski still a big name by 1995? Wikipedia tells me that the programming strand DEF II which was produced by Street-Porter and which housed Normski’s rhyming/rapping presenting style was off the air permanently by May 1994. Obviously Allen’s creation had some longevity as I know instinctively 28 years later who he is parodying but back in 1995 would it have all seemed a bit old hat? Talking of hats, apparently the one Allen was wearing wasn’t actually his but one he fished out of the BBC prop store that was used by EastEnders character Ethel! Anyway, whilst we’re discussing whether Normski was still a big name at this time, how well known was Keith Allen himself? Well, if you’d been a fan of The Comic Strip Presents…in the late 80s you’d have seen him in the episodes The Bullshitters and The Yob. He’d also been in Danny Boyle’s excellent Shallow Grave but I’m guessing an awful lot of people knew him as that bloke who got round the back in the video for New Order’s “World In Motion” during Italia ‘90. I read his autobiography Grow Up a few years back and it was an entertaining read though I’m not sure if I warmed to him that much by the end of it. I did have sympathy for him though when he revealed that his Dad wouldn’t let him watch the 1966 World Cup final for a childhood misdemeanour on the morning of the game.

He starts the show in high octane mode extorting the audience at home to “rip up the shag pile” – it doesn’t really get any better and you could say the same for first act MN8 who were never higher in the charts than they were right now – “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” is up to No 2 which means a third TOTP studio appearance for the band. As such, I haven’t got much else to say about them. Right, I’ll try one last google search for inspiration…

*sound of keyboard tiles clicking*

Right then. Let’s have a look…

*scans results*

Usual Wikipedia entry…official fan page on Facebook…hang on, what’s this? There’s a device designed to alleviate period pain called MN8?! Apparently, it’s a small device that is attached discreetly to underwear. Sadly there’s nothing discreet about MN8 the band and their personalised underwear which they are all to keen to whip out during this performance.

Next a song that was actually at No 20 rather than No 21 as the TOTP graphic advised but it’s splitting hairs I guess. It would go onto be the band’s second biggest hit ever though when it finally came to a halt at No 12. If you were asked to name 3 in 10 on Ken Bruce’s Popmaster quiz for Mike + The Mechanics could you do it? There’s “The Living Years” their US chart topper, UK No 2 and funeral standard obviously and then there’s…erm…well, actually there are some more. Their debut single “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” in 1986 made No 21, “Word Of Mouth” got to No 13 in 1991 and “All I Need Is A Miracle” was a massive radio airplay and Top 5 US hit though it didn’t make the UK charts until it was rereleased in 1996 to promote a Best Of album.

Then there’s this, the lead single from the “Beggar On A Beach Of Gold” album. If you asked AI to create the optimum AOR airplay hit, it might well come up with “Over My Shoulder”. A pleasant melody allied with Paul Carrack’s golden soul voice, how could it fail? Well, the whistling in the middle eight was considered an impediment by some it has to be said. Did it really add anything to the track by going all Roger Whittaker on it?

It certainly didn’t put daytime DJs off playing it. My wife and I went to Prague around this time and we seemed to hear it everywhere. However, my biggest memory of hearing it in the radio was in 1996 when it was played on the coach taking us to the airport in Madrid. We’d had a great holiday there but I got a case of Montezuma’s Revenge on the last day from an ice cream and spent the night on the hotel room bathroom floor. Somehow I had to get myself together to make the flight home the following morning. I hauled myself onto the coach and kept everything crossed or rather clenched. First tune on the radio that morning? “Over My Shoulder”. It wasn’t anything over my shoulder I was was worried about though. Any movement under my seat on the other hand…Miraculously, I managed the entire journey home without incident. Unfortunately though, the whole episode has left me with some rather unpleasant associations with “Over My Shoulder” none of which is the fault of Mike + The Mechanics to be fair.

I recently listened to an interview with Paul Carrack who discussed his time in the band and why he left. He told the story of how he’d put together an album in 2000 showcasing his career to that point but was still required to pay the licensing fee to include “The Living Years” on the track listing despite being the vocalist on the song. At that point, he realised he needed to be in control of his own catalogue of music and his time in the band came to an end. Asked by the interviewer if he’d heard any material by the rejuvenated Mike + The Mechanics (they reformed in 2010 with a new line up), Carrack quickly replied “Not really”. Oof!

Keithski is back banging on about tearing up carpets again before introducing “Push The Feeling On” by Nightcrawlers. Like many a 90s dance tune, it had an elongated gestation period before a massive hit was finally birthed. Originally released in 1992, it only made No 86 but its B-side was a remix of the track by DJ and producer Marc Kinchen which picked up a lot of play in the clubs and eventually was given an official release as a single in 1994 which made No 22 in the UK charts. Encouraged by that success, Kinchen returned to the track to tweak it a little more and it was released for a third time under the title “New MK Mixes for ‘95” which would become the definitive version of the track.

Now I couldn’t have picked this one out of the myriad dance tunes that dominated the 90s without re listening to it but now that I have, let’s address the elephant in room. This is the same tune as that intensely annoying We Buy Any Car jingle! Well, sort of. It’s actually based on the 2021 track “Friday” by Riton X Nightcrawlers featuring Mufasa and Hypeman which itself was obviously based on “Push The Feeling On”. Those fiendish marketing guys even got YouTube sensation Musafa to be in the ad campaign.

Anyway, back in 1995, none of us could have predicted there would be this thing called YouTube (except perhaps David Bowie) but we did have the video which was basically a procession of people posing in a Photo Booth. The director obviously went for fast clips with bold colours (check out those hairstyles) but the image that dominates for me is that of main Nightcrawler John Reid with his incredibly long, lank hair and weary expression. Maybe he hadn’t managed to sell his vehicle to We Buy Any Car.

Another dance tune next but we shouldn’t really be surprised. By my reckoning, every other hit in the Top 20 this week is a dance tune. Honestly, they were everywhere. Look at this lot:

N-Trance
Perfecto Allstarz
MC Sar and The Real McCoy
Bucketheads
Clock
Nicki French
Ini Kamoze

That’s not even including MN8 and Nightcrawlers that we’ve already seen tonight and now here’s Alex Party! Their hit “Don’t Give Me Your Life” is up to No 3. It would eventually peak one place higher. I don’t really have anything else to say about this one so instead I’m going to talk about Keith Allen’s intro for it and specifically his use of the phrase “Acieed!”. This was obviously a reference to the infamous “We Call It Acieed” single by D Mob from 1988 which got banned by the BBC amidst a tabloid backlash against the acid house movement and rave culture. Whilst it’s certainly true that the track did lead to the phenomenon of the younger generation going around randomly shouting the phrase aloud, would the kids of 1995 have known about? Clearly, he was sending up the whole ‘wicked DJ” persona for laughs but would the kids have got his cultural reference and joined in with the joke?

Future No 1 incoming and it’s this year’s Comic Relief song. After the dance track “Absolutely Fabulous” by Pet Shop Boys the previous year and the awful novelty record of “Stick It Out” by Right Said Fred in 1993, the charity went for a big ballad this time round. “Love Can Build A Bridge” was a country & western song by mother and daughter duo The Judds which had already been used for a charity record as recently as six months prior when Children for Rwanda covered it in aid of Save The Children. However, despite a TOTP appearance, it failed to make the Top 40. Comic Relief clearly saw legs in the song though and drafted in not one but four artists to record it. The combination of Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and not forgetting Eric Clapton would add the necessary star power to propel it to the chart summit.

However, it only ranks at No 15 in the best selling Comic Relief songs of all time. The next time a single was released in aid of the charity, they played the percentages much better and instead of taking a punt on a track relatively unknown to the UK public, they co-opted the appeal of a band rather than a song. The Spice Girls were at the height of their fame in 1997 and the decision for their latest single release (“Mama /Who Do You Think You Are”) to be used as the official Comic Relief song was always going to guarantee sales. It stands as the fourth best selling Comic Relief single of all time.

Curiously, both Cher and *Chrissie Hynde’s last singles released prior to “Love Can Build A Bridge” were the same song. Cher had a minor hit with “I Got You Babe” in 1993 alongside cartoon characters Beavis and Butt-head whilst Chrissie bagged a No 1 with UB40 on the same track in 1985. Both were terrible in my humble opinion.

*Credited as Chrissie Hynde and not as part of The Pretenders obviously

Keith Allen’s had a change of outfit for the next intro and put on the football shirt of his beloved Fulham FC. Now why’s he done that? Do you think it could be to wind up famous Watford supporting Elton John who is the next act on? I wouldn’t put it past him. Elton’s in the studio to perform his latest single “Believe” and as it’s one of his trademark plodding ballads, they’ve positioned the audience in a circle creating an in the round effect. Clearly the studio director has instructed them to sway as per tradition for such a song. It’s all as unconvincing as the single earring Elton’s sporting.

When Elton finished his Glastonbury set this year, he had his getaway planned so meticulously that he was back for his kids bedtime in minutes. Or as my Elton hating mate Robin put it, you could still hear the crowd booing as he tucked them in.

Back to that Top 40 foul up now and the curious case of Scarlet. Their hit “Independent Love Song” had peaked at No 12 a fortnight ago and then slipped down to No 14 the following week. In the incorrect chart announced seven days later on Radio 1 it was listed as a non mover and so TOTP Executive Producer Ric Blaxill took the decision to book them for the show again. However, when the rectified chart was published, Scarlet had fallen to No 16. In keeping with the show’s protocol of not featuring acts that were going down the charts, Blaxill really should have cancelled Scarlet’s booking but instead he honoured it making them part of a very elite club to have appeared on TOTP while their record descended the Top 40. Well I never.

P.S. As with his “Acieed!” reference, I’m not entirely convinced that ‘ver yoof’ would have got Keith Allen’s Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons name check in his intro.

The exclusive performance this week comes from Faith No More whose single “Digging The Grave” was released the week following this broadcast. I was never really that into these guys. I quite liked “We Care A Lot” and “Epic” is an…well…epic song but after that? Not so much for me thanks. What? Their cover of “Easy”? What about it? I could never figure out the point of it nor who was buying it. This track, however, was a return to their grunge rock tendencies and must have completely passed me by as I don’t recall it at all. Thankfully. What I do like though is the band standing behind Keith Allen as he does his intro for the No 1 record with a look on their faces that says “What the f**k is this guy going on about?!”.

Said No 1 is Celine Dion again with “Think Twice” which is exactly what I’m having to do to come up with something to say about this one again. Right think…that’s once…and that’s twice. I’ve got nothing. I could have done with that Top 40 cock up working in my favour and moving Celine down the chart.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	MN8	I’ve Got A Little Something For You	No
2	Mike + The Mechanics	Over My Shoulder	Negative
3	Nightcrawlers	Push The Feeling On	Uh uh
4	Alex Party	Don’t Give Me Your Life	Nope
5	Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	Not even for charity
6	Elton John	Believe	Nah
7	Scarlet	Independent Love Song	Really should have but no
8	Faith No More	Digging The Grave	I did not
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	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/m001qwr3/top-of-the-pops-02031995

TOTP 19 NOV 1992

Posted on May 8, 2022 by 80stastic

As Springtime approaches its end for another year, back in 1992 and the world of TOTP repeats, Xmas is coming into view. Bonfire night has been and gone and for all of us working in retail back then, the days were getting busier. I was working as Assistant Manager in the Our Price store in Rochdale having been promoted for the first time in my working life a couple of months previously. Despite the lengthy commute from our rented flat in Manchester, I was enjoying the job immensely. After previous manager Adrian had departed for pastures new (the Manchester Virgin megastore as I recall), a new boss arrived in the form of Ian from the Burnley store. Ian had worked at Rochdale before so knew the score which was helpful for the wet behind the ears me. Ian turned out to be a top bloke and one of the best people to work alongside. Around this time we recruited two Xmas temps called Chris and Lee who fitted in perfectly with the rest of the team. We were known as the ‘good time’ store by the Area Manager as every time he rang us, he could hear laughter in the background. It couldn’t have gone much better for a first time managerial role for me. Sadly, it also lulled me into a false sense of security that all shops were like this. There were darker times ahead in other stores.

That’s enough about my personal circumstances for now though. You’re not here for that. On with the show! One of the breakout stars of 1991 had been Cathy Dennis who had stepped out of D-Mob’s shadows into a solo spotlight to notch up four Top 20 singles and a Top 3 album in the UK and a pair of Top 10 hits in the US. Once you’ve ridden so high of course, the challenge is to stay there. Her initial success had been based on out and out dance tunes like “Touch Me (All Night Long)” and “Just Another Dream” but in the fast moving world of early 90s dance music, was it wise to just repeat that formula or should she go in another direction? After all, she had dabbled with balladry on hit single “Too Many Walls”. If it’s not broken, why fix it though? In the end she kind of fudged it with the single “Irresistible”. Both uptempo but with a definite pop touch it kind of fell between two stools. Taken from sophomore album “Into The Skyline”, it ended up sounding like Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby”. Pleasant enough but so, so lightweight as to be almost ephemeral, disappearing from your memory banks as soon as the last beat had sounded.

Chart wise it did OK returning Cathy to the Top 40 over here though it stalled at No 61 in the US. However its No 24 peak made it the biggest hit of four singles taken from the album. Despite the absence of any monster hits to promote it, “Into The Skyline” managed to go Top 10 which surprised me as I thought it had disappeared without trace. Talking of disappearing, what was the score with Cathy’s jumper in this performance? Its threadbare, tatty appearance suggests she may have had a case of moths in her wardrobe.

Now when I saw this next track on the show’s running list, I assumed they were carrying on with the nostalgia section which had been used in recent weeks to promote the 1,500th show even though that particular milestone had been passed last week. However I was wrong in my assumption as the retro clip of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher was actually in the album chart slot to promote Cher’s “Greatest Hits: 1965-1992” which was at No 1. Though there had been Cher Best Of albums in the past, there hadn’t been one since 1974 and so this one that had grouped together all her soft rock hits of the late 80s to ‘92 was justified I guess though maybe not ancient. Only four tracks predated the 80s although she had done brand new recordings of some covers from before then. The majority of the album though was made up of hits from her later successful albums like “Heart Of Stone” and “Love Hurts”.

And yet…TOTP chose her most well known song with one time partner Sonny Bono to broadcast. Maybe the producers felt that there hadn’t been enough distance of time since her most recent hits or perhaps they’d had good feedback on the nostalgia section? Either way, “I Got You Babe” was not given an official re-release at this time so the choice presumably was the producers?

I never liked this song much probably because of UB40 and Chrissie Hynde’s lame cover in 1985 or possibly because of its explainable but irritating overuse in Groundhog Day.

Another oldie next as we welcome back Heaven 17 to the show for the first time in eight years. Yes, incredibly we hadn’t seen these Sheffield electro pioneers on TOTP since they performed “This Is Mine” in 1984. To be fair, that was the last time they’d had a Top 40 hit in this country so I guess it’s not that surprising.

After the “How Men Are” album from which that single came had run its course, the group had gone into a commercial collapse. Mid and late 80s albums “Pleasure One” and the spookily entitled “Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho” had missed the charts completely but suddenly they were back! Why? Well, I’d like to be able to say it was due to the public rediscovering them due to some brilliant new material they’d released but sadly it was, like Cher, due to a Greatest Hits album. “Higher And Higher: The Best Of Heaven 17” didn’t do nearly as well as Cher’s peaking at a lowly No 31 despite it being a reasonable retrospective covering all their singles plus a few album tracks and the inclusion of a Brothers In Rhythm remix of their biggest hit “Temptation”. Well, it was 1992 after all.

That remix nearly matched the success of the original peaking just two places shy of the 1983 version’s No 2 position. I know it’s a great track and I love “The Luxury Gap” album but I still found it surprising and confusing that it could be a hit all over again nine years on. 1983 felt like forever ago. I’d been a 15 year old who’d never had a girlfriend back then. I was now 24 and had been married for two years. I guess it must have been the Brothers In Rhythm association that sold it to the masses. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see it back in the charts it’s just that those 1983 memories of it were so strong and definitive that this new version almost felt wrong somehow.

Another dance remix of “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” returned Heaven 17 to the Top 40 (just!) the following year but that would prove to be their final chart entry though they are now ironically a big live draw – they never toured at all during their glory years.

Something that you very rarely used to see on TOTP but which seemed to creep in more and more during this era of the show was a single that wasn’t a hit. We have another example here as Madness release a live version of the old Jimmy Cliff song “The Harder They Come”. Taken from their live album “Madstock!” which captured their legendary live shows at Finsbury Park in August of this year, it failed to make the Top 40 peaking at No 44. After managing to squeeze three more hits out of their back catalogue already in 1992 with rereleased singles to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album, maybe they thought another hit just before Xmas was a shoo-in?

Quite why this performance comes from Red Square, Moscow seems to be lost in the mists of time. It doesn’t add much to proceedings apart from some obligatory Russian Ushanka hats being worn by the band and some half hearted attempts at traditional Russian dancing which almost allows Suggs and Chas Smash to fulfil the prophecy of the song title. I guess Saint Basil’s Cathedral in the background must make for one of the most impressive TOTP backdrops ever though.

Wait, what? I’m sure I’ve already announced at least twice before in this blog that this must be the final TOTP appearance for The Pasadenas but here they are yet again! This time though is the last time and I think that they knew the game was up. Why? Well, they’d resorted to a cover version to reverse the downturn in their commercial fortunes, that well known and used trick for dredging up a hit when your career depends on it. What makes it even more desperate is that they’d already released a whole album of cover versions earlier in the year called “Yours Sincerely”. They pulled it off once- “I’m Doing Fine Now” was a Top 5 hit for them – but subsequent single releases from it had bought diminishing returns. So when the cover version technique ran out of steam, surely you don’t try and rectify it by doing another cover version do you? You do if you’re The Pasadenas as their version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” did make the charts (unlike Madness and “The Harder They Come”) but it was only delaying the inevitable. A No 22 hit wasn’t enough to stop them being dropped by Columbia/Sony Music and they ignored the advice of their last ever hit single and disbanded a couple of years later.

In a frankly bizarre coincidence, their last time on the show was to perform a song that had a link to a band making their first appearance in eight years. Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory both performed on Tina Turner’s career resurrecting version of “Let’s Stay Together” in 1983. Indeed Ware also helped produce it.

Some Breakers next starting with INXS and “Taste It” who were on the show two weeks ago in their first ever in person appearance. This time it’s just the promo video though.

I haven’t got that much else to say about this one other than I really like the fact that the band used the same font for the parent album “Welcome To Wherever You Are” and all the singles from it. A simple yet effective band of white across the cover with the title of the album/single in black and the band’s name in red. It reminds me of those label printers you got in the 70s where you pushed the sticky backed tape through the device, selected the letter you wanted (normally via a wheel) and then literally punched the impression onto the tape.

The Prodigy are next with “Out Of Space” and I was surprised to discover that this short clip in the Breakers was its only time in the show given the success the last fifteen months had brought them. In that time they’d had No 2 and No 3 hits plus a further Top 20 entry and their debut album “Experience” had been released to great acclaim. “Out Of Space” would add another Top 5 single to that haul.

Featuring samples from Max Romeo and Ultramagnetic MCs, the track cemented the band’s status as premier league electronic rave pioneers. That was maybe something that had appeared unlikely when they first appeared with the public information film sampling single “Charly” which saw them cast initially as novelty record merchants. They were still four years away though from being the heavy techno behemoths of “Firestarter” and “Breathe”. Did anyone see that coming? Or the ostriches?

The other week I noted how Metallica were still releasing singles from an album that had been out for well over a year. This week we have another example of a hard rock band doing exactly the same thing – step forward Guns N’ Roses. Their two “Use Your Illusion” albums had been released on the same day back in September 1991 yet five single releases across both albums later, here they were with another one. “Yesterdays” was taken from the second “Illusion” album and I always felt like it stood alone from the rest of the singles from the project in that it eased back from all the heavy rock bluster, especially in that almost sprightly opening guitar riff. You could make a case that it harks back to the opening of “Paradise City” even I guess. Of course it reverts to type eventually in the middle eight when Slash goes back to his usual ways but even so.

Every single from the “Illusions” albums made the UK Top 10 bar the final one “Civil War” and that only missed it by one place. Pretty impressive stuff. There would be a monumental gap of 17 years between the “Illusion” double pack and the next album of new material when “Chinese Democracy” came out in 2008. That album gained almost mythical status during the wait for it. It was forever listed in the new release info we used to get weekly in Our Price as date ‘To Be Confirmed’. Those 17 years were punctuated just once by 1993’s covers album “The Spaghetti Incident?” but it didn’t really satisfy the fan base selling only a third of both “Illusion” albums.

The final Breaker is by Simply Red with their “The Montreux EP”. The track played is called “Drowning In My Own Tears”. Ah, make your own jokes up!

A genuine titan of a tune next. No seriously, it was enormous, a monster, a leviathan. It came, it saw, it conquered and then it shat over everything else in the charts combined. A gargantuan hit. OK, I’ve run out of words now. I can only be talking about “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. I already knew this song as my wife had a Dolly Parton Best Of CD with it on before Whitney got her mits on it and I much prefer her version but you can’t deny the reach of Whitney’s take on it which is now the definitive recording for many. This is going to be No 1 for ages so I’m not going to say loads about it straight away. For now though, here’s some facts and stats about it:

It topped the US charts for 14 weeks and the UK for 10
It was the biggest selling single of 1992 and the 10th best selling single of the 90s in the UK
By 2013, it had sold 20 million copies making it the best selling single by a female artist ever
It won the 1994 Grammies for Record Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
For a time it was the second biggest selling single of all time after “We Are The World” by USA For Africa but was bumped into third place in 1997 by Elton John’s new version of “Candle In The Wind”
It is taken from The Bodyguard soundtrack which is the biggest selling soundtrack of all time

Phew!

From Houston to Houston we have a problem as Genesis are inflicting a live single on us. Yes, after Madness earlier and their live single came “Invisible Touch (Live)” which was taken from the accompanying live album “The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts” which documented the band’s 1992 We Can’t Dance tour. The track listing was basically the singles released from their last three studio albums so all the radio friendly pop hits hence ‘shorts’. There was also a ‘longs’ live album featuring songs from their prog rock days but the less said about that the better. Live versions of the poppier end of their catalogue was concern enough.

I guess it made sense to choose a track that had been a US No 1 as the single to promote the album if a little obvious. “Invisible Touch” must surely have been and remain one of their most played songs on radio. One question though, is this the version heard on the single or just Phil Collins doing a live vocal as per TOTP policy? I’m guessing the latter as wouldn’t we be able to detect noise from the concert crowd otherwise? It follows then that when Phil does his audience response bit with the studio audience that is actually the latter repeating “yeah-uh” back to him and not them miming along to the original gig goers as that would just be too weird. Yeah, you’re right – I’m overthinking it. Who cares?

Boyz II Men have come to the end of the road at No 1 (come on, it’s an open goal!) and been replaced by Charles And Eddie with “Would I Lie To You”. At the time I couldn’t believe that this had happened as I hated this pair and what I perceived as their insipid, stupid tune. Thirty years on and I can’t quite understand what I was so enraged about. I still don’t like the song but I don’t have any hatred for it either. If anything it’s bland and inoffensive but then I guess that might be the biggest crime of all for some.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cathy Dennis	Irresistible	Nah
2	Sonny & Cher	I Got You Babe	Wasn’t released as a single
3	Heaven 17	Temptation	Not the 1992 remix but my wife has The Luxury Gap on vinyl
4	Madness	The Harder They Come	Nope
5	The Pasadenas	Let’s Stay Together	Definitely not
6	INXS	Taste It	Not the single but I bought the album
7	The Prodigy	Out Of Space	No
8	Guns N’ Roses	Yesterdays	No but I have it on there Best Of album
9	Simply Red	The Montreux EP	Never!
10	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	No but my wife had the Dolly Parton original
11	Genesis	Invisible Touch (Live)	As if
12	Charles And Eddie	Would I Lie To You?	Never happening

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/m00170d6/top-of-the-pops-19111992

TOTP 09 APR 1992

Posted on February 12, 2022 by 80stastic

As Arcadia almost* once sang, “It’s Election Day” in 1992 and the polls are predicting either a hung parliament or a Labour win. That proved to be as accurate as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Brexit promises for UK prosperity as the Conservative party triumphed albeit with a reduced majority. ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’ screamed The Sun’s front page two days later. Thirty years on and the right wing press is no less influential.

*They actually sang “it’s re-election day”

OK well, after that sombre opening let’s get to the music on tonight’s show which is presented by Tony Dortie and Femi Oke. The latter made her debut on the show the other week but I think she only made a handful of appearances all told. Shame, she seemed like a safe pair of hands. As you’d expect, there’s going to be an overwhelming majority of election references in the links and Tony is first in line getting in the words ‘party’, ‘polls’ and ‘vote’ as he introduces the opening act Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U. Who?! Yeah, I’m lost on this one too. As Tony mentions in his intro, this lot were Belgian techno heads – I bet leave campaigner Jacob hated them – and this single “Injected With A Poison” was their biggest hit. As you know, I was no raver back in the day so this made little impression on me and listening to it now as a 53 year old it sounds like one big horrible noise to my middle aged ears. Apparently this was a remix of their earlier single “Free Your Body/ Injected With A Poison” and according to online popular culture publication Freaky Trigger, featured “an underwater electric whisk” and “one of those duck calling kazoo things”. Yeah, I don’t know about you but neither of those things would be high on my list of essentials in a tune.

Main man Maurice Engelen was also the guy behind recent hit makers Digital Orgasm (or just ‘Digital’ as the controversy avoiding TOTP referred to them). I think that’s him shouting “We don’t need that anymore” and “Are you listening to me?” and looking like he’s been lost in Glastonbury for a decade. He also recorded material under the name Lords Of Acid whose canon of work included tracks called “Rough Sex” and “I Must Increase My Bust”. The latter must surely have been inspired by that 1980 Sunblest bread advert featuring light entertainment star Marti Caine who says “I wonder if it’ll do anything for my bust” as she ponders her chest whilst cramming a slice of bread in her mouth.

“Injected With A Poison” peaked at No 16.

After the Top 10 rundown which, for all those chart curiosity enthusiasts out there, includes two acts whose name both begin with Mr. B…, Femi gets in a name check of the leaders of all three main political parties before introducing the man who ‘gets her vote’ Curtis Stigers who is in the studio to perform his latest hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. There seems to be a rule for the male members of his backing band that they have to have a mop of long hair or be wearing a waistcoat to be allowed on the stage. Or both. In fact, you have to follow the Stigers style or you’re out.

One time when Curtis himself would have wanted to be out occurred years later when he appeared on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. One of their features was some sort of super fan quiz where they got an infatuated member of the public on the show with their idol and asked them questions about them. If they got them right they won a holiday or something. Anyway, a Curtis devotee was on and was asked by host Johnny Vaughan what Stigers’ date of birth was. She got it wrong and so missed out on the competition prize. Curtis thought this was very harsh and called Johnny, as I recall, ”you cruel bastard” or something like that. As a punishment they locked Curtis in a cupboard and promptly forgot all about him. After the show had finished and his PR people turned up asking where he was, they suddenly remembered and had to let him out. When appearing on live daytime TV Curtis, do not swear. That’s all that matters.

Another bangin’ tune next as Altern 8 are here with their second Top 10 hit “Evapor 8”. This performance is mental. Obviously there’s the Altern 8 guys in their hazmat suits and masks for a start. In these pandemic weary days where we’re all used to the notion of mask wearing, back in 1992 this seemed really sinister (well it did to me anyway) and helped create a whiff of danger about the duo. On top of that though, there’s three sports wear clad ‘casuals’ who look like they’re off their tits throwing some shapes, legendary singer P. P. Arnold centre stage wearing a pair of marigolds and a massive dancing robot on stilts!

Given that Tony and Femi were throwing General Election references around like confetti, how did they miss this open goal?

Altern-8's Chris Peat was an independent candidate for the Stafford constituency (then Bill Cash's seat) in the 1992 General Election. He received 158 votes, just beating the Natural Law Party. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 4, 2022

Chris represented the Hardcore Altern8-ive party. I’m guessing their manifesto would have included something about removing government legislation that made raves illegal.

“Evapor 8” by Alter 8 peaked at No 6. Boo! Where’s the symmetry in that!

After the Monster Raving Looniness of Altern 8, we were back to the safe seat of Vanessa Williams next with her ballad “Save The Best For Last”. Has there ever been such a contrast of styles in consecutive performances on the show? From raving robots and face masks to a seated, dinner suited orchestra backing a singer in a sequinned dress. I’m guessing Vanessa didn’t return to America with the opinion that our pop stars were quaint.

From raving mad techno to sophisticated balladry and finally onto tongue in cheek silliness as Right Said Fred are in the studio to perform their future No 1 “Deeply Dippy”. Whilst not an orchestra like Vanessa’s, the Freds do have their own brass packing backing section up there with them and it’s their contribution that really makes this song I think.

Richard Fairbrass camps it up as you would expect dressed in an unbuttoned, garishly coloured frilly shirt and he curiously changes the song’s last line from “I’m takin’ a hot tahiti” to “I’m goin’ to hitchhike to Walthamstow”. Not sure what that was about. An in joke presumably.

Given their current anti vaxxer stance, we can expect their new single, a cover of Praga Khan’s “Free Your Body / Injected With A Poison” any day now.

As announced by the lady herself at the end of the previous TOTP, Cher is tonight’s ‘Exclusive’ performance. Crikey! After Chris De Burgh last week and now Cher, this slot really is down with the kids ain’t it?!

“Could’ve Been You” was the fourth single released from her “Love Hurts” album and like “Save Up All Your Tears” and the title track, this was also a cover version. Bob Halligan’s original came out a year before and sank without trace but was deemed perfect fodder for Cher’s brand of soft rock. It’s a right old plodder if truth be known but Cher can sell anything given an enormous wig and a leather bra and so it dutifully made No 31 over here, no doubt aided by this TOTP performance and her slot on Aspel And Company two days later. Let’s hope she’d learned the song’s words by then as she’s clearly reading them off that monitor at her feet.

Hang about! There’s another ‘Exclusive’ performance straight after Cher’s?! How come Genesis have also got this slot and more importantly who the f**k is Daryl as name checked by Femi in her intro?! When I think of Genesis, I’m thinking Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. At a push I’d include Peter Gabriel although I really don’t know that much about the band’s early career. I’m never thinking of some bloke called Daryl! Who was this geezer? Well if you’re a Genesis super fan then you should have got yourself on The Big Breakfast because you’ll know that Daryl is Daryl Stuermer who’s association with the band goes as far back as 1978. He was their touring lead guitarist and bass player from ‘78 to ‘92 and then again in 2007 for the Turn It In Again Tour and most recently last year for The Last Domino? Tour. He’s on stage with the lads here to perform the band’s latest single “Hold On My Heart”.

This was the third single taken from their “We Can’t Dance” album and was the obligatory ballad after the first two were more rock fare. Honestly, it could be any of the slow songs from their previous album “Invisible Touch” like “In Too Deep” or “Throwing It All Away” or indeed a Phil Collins solo effort like “One More Night” or… well anything from 50% of his back catalogue as he only has two types of song – love lorn ballad or mid temp pop.

You’ll remember that Genesis secured an ‘Exclusive’ slot on the show for the first single off the album called “No Son Of Mine” which went on for about six and a half minutes! Thankfully this performance is restricted to just over four but I really think that six months in to this new format that the producers haven’t got a clue how to make TOTP seem more relevant to the younger element of their audience. Genesis, Cher and Chris De Burgh?! Nadine Dorries looks on top of her interview game by comparison.

“Hold On My Heart” peaked at No 16.

There’s no Breakers this week so there’s only eight acts in the show in total tonight. Not sure why that maybe. It can’t be anything to do with the election as the show is still the same running time and hadn’t been cut short to make way for coverage of the event. I can only assume it’s because of the two ‘exclusive’ performances in the same show from Cher and Genesis taking up the time that would usually be allotted to the Breakers.

As such we’re onto the No 1 already and it’s an eighth and final week at the top for Shakespear’s Sister. I know it’s only half the time that Bryan Adams was at the top and we’ve missed at least one week due to the Adrian Rose issue but it hasn’t felt anywhere near as onerous an experience as the era of the Groover from Vancouver.

Though they would never be as big again, Marcella and Siobahn didn’t disappear immediately after “Stay” had finally departed the charts. A follow up single called “I Don’t Care” would return them to the Top 10 and their album “Hormonally Yours” went double platinum in the UK. However, the relationship between the two was volatile and after being hospitalised for depression, Fahey decided to end their partnership by announcing it in absentia via her publisher at the 1993 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony, an event that Detroit was present at. However there was a happy ending as the two reunited in 2019 having resolved their differences to tour and record new material.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U	Injected with a poison	Hell no
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Not for me thanks
3	Altern 8	Evapor 8	I wasn’t a raver -no
4	Vanessa Williams	Save The Best For Last	Nope
5	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	Nah
6	Cher	Could’ve Been You	No
7	Genesis	Hold On My Heart	Never happening
8	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	I did 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/m00142cn/top-of-the-pops-09041992

TOTP 25 JUL 1991

Posted on September 9, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and it’s a pivotal period for the grand old show which was in its 28th year. The ‘year zero’ revamp is just around the corner and we have already seen a flurry of cosmetic changes to the programme in the weeks prior to it. Various bits of tinkering with the chart rundown had led to inconsistencies in the show’s core concept and in the last few episodes we have seen a nasty green screen backdrop employed behind the presenters. However, that now seems to have been ditched as tonight’s host Mark Goodier is seen against a background of the real set. However, they do seem to have positioned him away from the studio audience who are all facing towards the stage area and not looking at Goodier at all. This gives the whole thing a rather sparse look, as if this is the dress rehearsal rather than the actual show.

The first act on tonight are making their debut in person performance on the show (I believe) but this landmark event is shot through with tragedy. The Shamen had been building a reputation on the club scene following the release of their “En-Tact” album the previous year but mainstream success had so far eluded them (bar one Top 30 entry for the single “Hyperreal”). However, the decision to remix and releases their “Pro-Gen” track from that album and retitle it as “Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)” would prove to be a masterstroke as it crashed into the charts at No 9 this week. All of this chart activity however had come heart breakingly late for bass and keyboards player Will Sinnott who had tragically drowned whilst on a trip to Tenerife to film a promo video for “Move Any Mountain”. Founder member Colin Angus decided to carry on under The Shamen name with rapper Mr C promoted to the position of full time band member. I have to say that I prefer the original track “Pro-Gen” where Mr C’s rapping is dialled down a bit. However, if you didn’t like either of those mixes then there were plenty of others to choose from as apparently there were as many as 35 versions of the track circulating in Europe and the band themselves released a whole album (“Progeny”) dedicated to mixes of the track – 19 remixes of “Move Any Mountain (Progen 91)” plus 16 samples and loops according to Wikipedia. Phew!

I worked with someone at Our Price in later years who had a massive crush on Mr C which took me by surprise a bit. He never struck me as the hereat throb type. “Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)” would peak at No 4 unable to dethrone Bryan Adams but they would return a year later to claim that No 1 spot with the infamous “Ebeneezer Goode” single. Naughty, naughty!

C+C Music Factory again?! How many times is this that the video for “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” has been on? Three? Four? How am I supposed to keep coming up with stuff to say about this one?! Oh, hang on…there’s a cover version of it you say by a band called Stooshe? Never heard of them. Well, that could be an oasis for my word count desert. Let’s have a listen then…

…well that was ghastly! Harrowing even. Who the hell are these people?

*checks Wikipedia*

So, they’re a British girl group from London formed to be an urban and soulful Spice Girls! The name is pronounced as in ‘pushy’ and originates from the word ‘stoosh’ which is urban slang for either something expensive, a girl who thinks she’s nicer than she is or being stoned! WTF?! The suffix -she was added on the end to represent female empowerment (oh you mean ‘girl power’ then?). The resulting name is pronounced like the Scottish word ‘stooshie’ which means ‘the disruption caused by a disagreement or misunderstanding’. What a load of old ‘tosh’… that’s ‘tosh’ as in ‘what a lot of old bollocks’.

C+C Music Factory’s version of “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” peaked at No 4.

Still enjoying 1991 was Dannii Minogue who is back on TOTP with her third hit in the last four months. “Jump To The Beat” was of course a cover of the Stacy Lattisaw No 3 hit from 1980 and it completed a peculiar little pop palindrome for Dannii when it peaked at No 8 meaning her three Top 40 entries so far had achieved the following chart peaks:

8-11-8

Stacy Lattisaw was only 13 when she had her hit but Dannii was a whole six years older at 19 when she took it back into the charts. Someone who was younger than both of them was the daughter of a guest at a wedding that I attended around this time. It was the evening do of a friend from school of my wife’s and there was a little girl there who clearly loved this record and was throwing herself around the dance floor as the DJ played it. As the night drew to a close and the DJ announced there was only one song left we all begged him to play “Jump To The Beat” again for this young girl but the jobsworth refused and played “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” instead as he had clearly decided well in advance that would be his final record of the night. Instead of at least one guaranteed person on the dance floor, he got nobody as everyone walked off as soon as the first strains of Bryan Adams came over his disco speakers. Nobhead.

Having introduced themselves to UK audiences with the funk metal of “Get The Funk Out”, Extreme threw us all a curve ball when they followed it up with the spare and brittle sounding acoustic ballad “More Than Words”. Despite Mark Goodier’s warning not to be fooled by the gentle song and that they were a serious rock band, many a pop fan was duped into buying the band’s “Pornograffitti” album on the strength of “More Than Words”. Such a deception had not been put into practice since 1986 when the Doctor and the Medics album “Laughing At The Pieces” was bought by many a chart follower expecting an LP full of “Spirits In The Sky”s.

The joke was on Extreme in the end though as the song became an albatross around their necks and they became known as ‘the More Than Words guys’ (see also 4 Non Blondes and Berlin whose biggest hit was more famous than the band). It’s a pleasant enough rock ballad though I guess and went to No 1 in the US and would surely have done the same over here but for the Bryan Adams effect.

1991 wasn’t all about acts making their first breakthrough into the charts like Dannii Minogue, The Shamen and Extreme that we have seen on the show so far. It was also about this who rose phoenix like from the ashes to rekindle former glories like Feargal Sharkey and Mike and the Mechanics who both returned to the charts in this year after a big gap away from them. And this lot. OMD (who seemed to be basically Andy McCluskey at this point) were enjoying not one but two Top 10 hits in 1991 with the second being this one “Pandora’s Box”.

It was hard not to believe the band were all just about McCluskey to be fair when you watched performances like this and all you can see are his extraordinary ‘Dad Dancing’ moves which have been described as ‘a geography teacher with ants in his pants’ and ‘an epileptic windmill’. My brother-in-law looks a bit like Andy McCluskey I always think (although my wife can’t really see it). I have never witnessed him dancing though.

“Pandora’s Box” peaked at No 7.

After getting Bette Midler into the TOTP studios the other week, the producers have pulled off another coup by twisting the arm of Cher into making a visit. She’s here to promote her latest single “Love And Understanding” and as with Andy McCluskey’s dancing, all you can see in this performance is Cher’s hair. Presumably that was a wig? It’s not as shocking as Madonna’s pink fright-wig back in 1984 for her performance of ‘Like A Virgin” but it was still a bold statement.

Just like Madonna, Cher is up there all on her own with no backing singers / dancers / band which I’m kind of surprised about. You would imagine she would have a whole Mariah Carey style entourage with her. The following single release from Cher was a song called “Save Up All Your Tears” which was the opening track of the “Love Hurts” album and which I recall was also recorded by Robin Beck of “First Time” fame (that cola advert song from 1988) but which tonked when released as the follow up to her surprise No 1. They are almost exactly the same! Here’s Robin’s version…

And here’s Cher’s…

Apart from Cher’s more throaty vocals, almost indentical.

“Love And Understanding” peaked at No 10.

This next bloke is “a bit of a musical genius” according to Mark Goodier. Why? He’s only the ‘The Godfather of House Music’ that’s why! Even a dance tune dodger like me knew the name Frankie Knuckles and of his legendary status within the genre. “The Whistle Song” must be his best known tune in his own right but he has also remixed some massive chart hits like “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson, “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton and “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan. Such is his influence that he even has another nickname which is ‘The Man Of The House’ which immediately makes me think of this:

Despite acknowledging his indisputable legacy, “The Whistle Song” did very little for me. A performance that included a key-tar and a flute on the same stage?! Come on! No wonder the TOTP producers got in four backing dancers in hot pants to liven things up a bit. The single peaked at No 17.

Three Breakers this week starting with “Twist And Shout” by Deacon Blue. Obviously not that “Twist And Shout”, this was the second single to be released from the band’s “Fellow Hoodlums” album and was easily the biggest hit from it. In fact, it would turn out to be the last of their only three Top 10 singles. I think there was just something simple and joyful about this song that made UK record buyers sit up and take note. The fact that it was released in the Summer also added to its appeal. There’s plenty of hooks in it as well which always helps and none more so than Lorraine McIntosh’s high pitched squeal on the word ‘upside’ in the lyric ‘turned the big world upside down’.

The single’s success, as with OMD and “Pandora’s Box” earlier in the show, would initiate a welcome spike in sales of the parent album which although a No 2 record, had failed to shift the units that its predecessor “When The World Knows Your Name” had done. The basic but colourful video enhanced the feel good factor of the song with the bond between the band obvious to see.

Despite the phenomenal success of his debut album, Seal‘s single releases were suffering from a dose of the diminishing returns. “Crazy” had been a huge hit just missing the top spot by one place but follow up “Future Love Paradise” hadn’t made the Top 10 and this one, “The Beginning”, didn’t make the Top 20. Maybe it was because so many people had splashed out on the album that had already been out for six weeks and which had gone straight to No 1 that there was little demand to buy more tracks released from it? Maybe Seal was an albums artist? His first two albums both went to No 1 after all whilst he only ever had three Top 10 hits under his own name and one of those was a re-recording of “Killer” (which was officially credited to Adamski). “The Beginning” was a pretty decent tune although were they all starting to sound just a little bit samey by this point?

I really didn’t see this next hit coming. Bomb The Bass? As in “Beat Dis” Bomb The Bass? Tim Simenon’s alias hadn’t been seen ins the charts since 1988 when they had racked up three consecutive Top 10 hits and been one of the breakout sensations of the year. Three years is a long time in the music industry though and I had just about forgotten all about Bomb The Bass. They had also been rather hamstrung to be fair when they had been caught up in the BBC / Radio 1 Gulf War censorship controversy with their band name being deemed far too politically sensitive leading to an airtime black out (see also Massive attack).

Undeterred, they released new single “Winter In July” after the conflict had ended to positive reviews. This new direction seemed much less frenetic than the likes of “Beat Dis” with a more soulful feel (surely the single’s title was a nod in the direction of Stevie Wonders’ “Hotter Than July”) and helped to return Simenon to the Top 10 where it peaked at No 7. Parent album “Unknown Territory” perfumed steadily rather than spectacularly but this would prove to be their commercial peak. Simenon would go on to produce material for the likes of Gavin Friday and Depeche Mode before taking an extended break from the music industry due to physical and mental exhaustion. He returned to the business in 2008 with his “Future Chaos” album.

We’re only into week 3 of Bryan Adams‘ 16 week reign at the top of the charts. How are we all holding up? Given the amount of projected posts that I will have to find content for about “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, I’m allowing myself to use one @TOTPFacts tweet a week to help me out. Here’s this week’s :

Bryan Adams had competition: Chicago's Peter Cetera also submitted a version. Michael Kamen: "In all honesty, Cetera's was too pretty. I write sweet melodies, and sometimes they need someone to deliver them with enough authority to make sure that you don't fall asleep." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 27, 2021

Well, Cetera did have a proven track record for soundtrack compositions. His 1986 hit “Glory Of Love” was featured in The Karate Kid II for which it received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe in the category of Best Original Song and a Grammy Award in 1987 for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Male Artist. It was also a US No 1 and UK No 3 song. Cetera’s effort doesn’t seem to have ever seen the light of day and even in this digital age of leaks and spoilers, I can’t find a trace of it anywhere online.

In addition to “Glory Of Love”, he also had a song on the hugely successful Pretty Woman soundtrack so the guy had chops when it came to film music. It wasn’t to be but I find it hard to believe that we would have had Peter Cetera at No 1 for 16 weeks in the Summer of 1991.

The play out video is “Pregnant For The Last Time” by Morrissey. This was a non album single that I have no memory of whatsoever. It sounds quite rockabilly and actually listenable which you can’t always say about Morrissey (especially these days). Not sure if Mozza himself still likes it though as he hasn’t played it live since the 1991 Kill Uncle tour apparently.

“Pregnant For The Last Time” peaked at No 25.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	Move Any Mountain (Progen’91)	No but I easily could have done
2	C+C Music Factory	Things That Make You Go Hmmm	Nope
3	Dannii Minogue	Jump To The Beat	Never going to happen
4	Extreme	More Than Words	Bit too formulaic for me
5	OMD	Pandora’s Box	No but it’s on their Best Of CD that I have
6	Cher	Love And Understanding	Nah
7	Frankie Knuckles	The Whistle Song	Not for me
8	Deacon Blue	Twist And Shout	See 5 above
9	Seal	The Beginning	No but I was one of those who had the album
10	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	No
11	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	Negative
12	Morrissey	Pregnant For The Last Time	A final 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/m000z2j4/top-of-the-pops-25071991

TOTP 11 JUL 1991

Posted on August 24, 2021 by 80stastic

Do you ever find yourself trying to remember a time before huge events had happened and had entered the world’s consciousness and what that felt like? Is it possible to access that part of your memory or does it no longer exist as any recollections you may have had up to that point can now only be viewed through the filter of those happenings?

Is that too heavy an intro for a post in a blog about 90s chart music? Too weighed down in the existential? Probably as I’m not referring to personal life changing occurrences like the birth of a child or the death of a loved one. I’m not even referring to world events like 9/11 or COVID. No, I’m talking about times before we had ever heard of a particular song or artist (well, in my defence, it is a music blog as I said earlier).

I touched on this subject the other week when we got our very first airing on TOTP of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams before it had even got to No 1 let alone staying there for 16 weeks. I’m reminded of that theme again this week as the date of this TOTP was around the exact same time that the debut single by a group came out who the vast majority of us had never heard of but from whom it would be impossible to escape in the years to come. I refer, of course, to Take That! Yes, 30 years ago in mid July their first ever single “Do What U Like” was released to a massive shrug of indifference from the public. It made zero impression on the charts despite the efforts of the put together boy band to build a fan base by playing endless shows in schools and clubs. They even made a saucy video involving naked buttocks and jelly smearing to gain them some profile although that did seem to rather shoot them in the foot as it couldn’t be played on daytime TV.

They did manage a small Top 40 hit when their next single “Promises” scrambled it’s way to No 38 but they were back pushing their faces up at the chart window again when third single “Once You’ve Tasted Love” failed to do the business. At this point they seemed destined to fall by the way side like so many other pop wannabes down the years and they couldn’t really blame their marketing and promotion teams – they had loads of press in the teen mags and were constantly being talked up as the next big thing.

At some point around this time, Gary Barlow came into the Our Price store where I worked in Manchester. We all knew who he was due to their aforementioned press coverage. As he wandered around the store, my co-worker Craig decided to follow him around mouthing behind his back “nobody buys your records, nobody buys your records”. Cruel but undeniably funny. Of course, Barlow had the last laugh as they finally hit pay dirt with their very next release “It Only Takes A Minute” and the rest was history. Hit after hit followed including 8 No 1s before they called it a day in 1996. The hits and affection for the band were still there when they reformed in 2006 as they took on near national treasure status. All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the ubiquitous Robbie Williams!

So, in conclusion and in answer to the question “is it possible to recall a time before household names entered our lives and how that felt?” then yes it is as a small part of me will always have a mental image of Craig following Gary Barlow around Our Price openly mocking him when I hear the words ‘Take’ and ‘That’!

Blimey! That intro was so long that I feel I should be tying up this post by now but I haven’t even got to the first act on tonight’s show which is…DJ H featuring Stefy. Oh. I think this lot had a hit earlier in the year but I’ve forgotten what it was called already. This track went by the title of “I Like It”, three words that proved beyond host Bruno Brookes who introduces it as “you need it and you love it”. WTF?!

Anyway, this was just more nasty Italian House but the real dregs of the genre I would suggest. Clearly the woman up there isn’t the actual singer. At points she sounds like Martha Wash who supplied the vocals for Black Box’s ‘Ride On Time” and at others like Aretha Franklin so I’m guessing there are samples of both those singers in the mix somewhere. So boring is the performance visually (Steffi herself hardly moves at all and can’t even get her miming to the few lines she has right) that the TOTP producers include loads more shots of the studio audience than they usually would. Not only that but they are dancing! Or attempting something that approximates to dancing at least – it seems to just be jumping up and down in most cases. Right at the end of the song, it sounds like the backing track is being played on warped vinyl as it carriers crazily off beat. Surely it wasn’t meant to sound like that was it?

“I Like It” peaked at No 16.

It’s the Paula Abdul video for “Rush Rush” again next (the third time it’s been played I believe). This was pretty much the end fo the road for Paula as a successful pop star. She managed one more UK hit of the “Spellbound” album from which “Rush Rush” was taken and then one final solitary Top 40 entry in 1995. She only actually made three studio albums of which the final one “Head Over Heels” was a big commercial disappointment compared to her first two. That’s not to diminish her chart stats though. She did have six US No 1 singles and two No 1 albums after all and set a record for the most No 1 singles from a debut album on the Billboard Hot 100.

The four years between her second and third albums though was a lifetime in the music industry and nobody was that arsed when she finally returned. In that time she married and divorced the actor Emilio Estevez and also sought treatment for bulimia so it’s hardly surprising that she took her eye off the ball of her music career. She did however, re-invent herself as a reality TV judge working on shows like American Idol, Live to Dance and The X Factor and also was seen as a big enough draw still to undertake a Las Vegas residency from August 2019 to January 2020.

When Andy McCluskey decided to carry on the OMD name after the departure of his writing partner Paul Humphreys (plus band members Martin Cooper and Malcolm Holmes) at the end of the 80s, he surely couldn’t have imagined the success he would have had straight off the bat with the single “Sailing on the Seven Seas” and the album “Sugar Tax” with both hitting No 3 in their respective charts. So when second single “Pandora’s Box” was lifted from the album and followed its predecessor into the Top 10, he must have been tempted to do the lottery that week (had it been invented by then which it hadn’t) as his Midas touch seemed to know no bounds.

My sister’s then boyfriend was obsessed with this song apparently and bought every available version of it that was released including a limited edition collector’s CD single which came housed in a rather neat little wooden box. I’m pretty sure we had this version in the Our Price I was working in at the time.

“Pandora’s Box” seemed to be a much more straight forward type of pop song compared to its more quirky, shuffling predecessor. The verses were fairly pedestrian but the pay off of the uplifting chorus was more than worth the wait.

Inspired by silent film actress Louise Brooks and named after the 1929 film Pandora’s Box in which she starred, the single was retitled “Pandora’s Box (It’s a Long, Long Way)” for the American market but God knows why? A similar practice had been inflicted upon a single by The Icicle Works who’s song “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)” was reversed for its US release as “Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)”. Weirdos.

“Pandora’s Box” would peak at No 7 and was directly responsible for a spike in sales of the album around this time.

C+C Music Factory are up next (or CeCe Music Factory as Bruno Brookes mispronounces it) with their “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…”single, talking of which, does that bass line sound a bit like the one used so majestically in “Groove Is In The Heart” by Dee-Lite? Hmmm. Anyway, the track had plenty more hooks to it including that saxophone riff which is recycled at the end of every line. Sometimes it’s the little things like that which can make a song (see also that ringing almost tinny sounding double strummed guitar chord in “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult).

Oh and that lyric about ‘playing tic tac toe’? Nothing to do with noughts and crosses apparently. It refers to when you have sex with three different partners in one night according to the urban dictionary. You learn a new thing or three every day.

1991 saw the release of not only some of the biggest selling albums of the whole decade but also some of the most iconic. Look at some of these albums for a start

Artist	Title
Massive Attack	Blue Lines
Metallica	Metallica
Pearl Jam	Ten
Primal Scream	Screamadelica
Red Hot Chili Peppers	Blood Sugar Sex Magik
REM	Out Of Time
U2	Achtung Baby

All released within the calendar year of 1991. However, no such list could be compiled without including not one but two albums released in the same year by one band. That band was, of course, Guns N’ Roses and the albums were “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” both released on the same day (17th September) to much fanfare and excitement. Two albums by a huge artist on the same day! Long before the Blur vs Oasis chart battle, this was a majorly significant event in the record industry. Within six months though the practice would appear old hat as Bruce Springsteen followed suit with the “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town” albums both released on 31 March 1992.

Before that Guns N’ Roses day in September though, we had the first new material from the band of the decade (although the track “Civil War” had appeared on the charity album “Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal” in 1990) with the single “You Could Be Mine”. Not only would it in effect be the lead single from the “Use Your Illusion II” album but it was also being used prominently in the soundtrack to one of the biggest films of the year, the much anticipated Terminator 2: Judgment Day the sequel to 1984’s Terminator. The flick was a huge success becoming the highest-grossing film of 1991, beating Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (more of which later) into the process.

“You Could Be Mine” seems a perfect fit with the film and was used during the ending credits and in the film itself in early scenes with John Connor and that’s despite it having what would normally be seen as the impediment of having a one-minute drum and guitar intro. The video is basically just a straight in concert performance intertwined with some action sequences from the film but it’s all held together by the fairly weak premise of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator himself being dispatched to assassinate the band after the gig. Somehow though despite the hokey ending as Arnie finally catches up with the band as they leave the venue and deciding that killing them would be a ‘Waste of Ammo’, it all kind of hangs together and just works; for me at least.

“You Could Be Mine” would peak at No 3 and would herald a run of seven singles taken from across both “Use Your Illusion” albums stretching into 1993 when the final “Civil War EP” was released.

A rare in the studio appearance from Billy Bragg next as he performs his “Sexuality” hit single. To be honest, it’s nowhere near as much fun as the video we saw in the Breakers last week, shorn as it is of Kirsty MacColl in the background making small dick gestures behind Billy’s back plus some admirable attempts at slapstick humour from the Braggster himself.

So what was “Sexuality” all about anyway? There is a lot of online discussion about some of the lyrics references. What was the significance of an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade or of a nuclear submarine sinking off the coast of Sweden? I think a lot of it was just Billy playing around with word puns like rhyming ‘Sweden’ with ‘read them’ and Robert De Niro with Mitsubishi Zero (which wasn’t a car at all but a Japanese WWII fighter aircraft). My general reading of the song is that it’s a celebration of sexual freedom in whatever form that takes.

I saw Billy in concert in Dublin in 2006 and in the middle of his set an extremely pissed fan got out from his seat and wondered up the aisle to the stage waiving an autograph pad. Billy handled it pretty well but you could see that it really annoyed him as he issued the withering put down “I’m working mate”.

“Sexuality” peaked at No 27.

Another video from another big rock band next as after Guns N’ Roses we now get INXS with “Bitter Tears”. This was another track from their “X” album and managed to immediately see off the possibility of a run of flopped singles from the band. Despite the album having been out for 9 months by this time and “Bitter Tears” being the fourth and final single from it, another Top 40 miss (previous single “By My Side” only made No 42) was avoided when it made it to a peak of No 30.

As Bruno Brookes hints at in his intro, the band were about to play a huge gig at Wembley stadium on 13 July 1991 as part of their Summer XS tour to a sold-out audience of 74,000 fans. The band would never play live to a bigger crowd. It was recorded and and filmed and would become the live album “Live Baby Live” which would be released in the November. “Bitter Tears” was included in the set list for the concert but didn’t make it onto the track listing for the album (it did however feature in the video of the gig).

The style of the promo video for “Bitter Tears” follows the well worn template that all the band’s videos seemed based on. A straight performance of the song filmed in black and white with a few cut away graphics thrown in to maintain interest. I’m not sure if they were all shot by the same director but if they were, he or she did seem to be a one trick pony.

After Guns N’ Roses sang “You Could Be Mine” earlier in the show, here were Bros being even less decisive with “Are You Mine?”. The 90’s pop career of Bros after their late 80s success could not be better summed up than by the phrase the ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’. The biggest group in Britain at the height of Brosmania, by the time the new decade was getting into its stride, they were an afterthought at best. Seriously, who thought a third album by the Goss twins was a good idea? A third one though they did make and it was called “Changing Faces”. It struggled to a high of No 18

I knew that they were still trying to recapture their glory days back then as I was working in a record shop but I could not have told you how any of their later singles went with “Are You Mine?” a prime example. I think I have a strong defence for my lack of recall about this one though on the basis that it is absolutely dire and instantly forgettable. A complete snooze fest from start to finish.

There would be one more single released before the duo went their separate ways, Matt Goss into a successful residency at Las Vegas and Luke into an acting career. 27 years later that documentary about them would appear and the rest is history…

“Are You Mine?” peaked No 12.

Who’s this then? Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam? That can’t be right surely? The people that had a hit in 1985 with “I Wonder If I Take You Home”? They had another hit 6 years later? I have literally zero recall of this but for the record their second hit was called “Let the Beat Hit ‘Em” and was produced by Clivillés and Cole who we saw earlier under their other guise of C+C Music Factory. It sounds completely bland to my non dance ears but it is lauded by the likes of Pete Tong and Trevor Nelson no less the latter of whom says of it in Music Week magazine “It’s not the coolest record I’ve ever bought but it’s the most fun.”

“Let the Beat Hit ‘Em” peaked t No 17 in the UK but it topped the dance and R&B charts in the US.

And here we are, the first of 16 weeks at No 1 for Bryan Adams and “Everything I Do (I Do it For You)“. How am I supposed to write about one song for so long?! On top of that, I need to be wary of just repeating the same trivia and tidbits that @TOTPFacts might serve up as he has the same problem. OK, I think I’ll allow myself to reproduce one @TOTPFacts tweet per post so here’s this week’s:

The starting point for "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" was Michael Kamen's "Maid Marian" cue for Prince Of Thieves… https://t.co/Hp58YEmMWs #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 20, 2021

Apparently Bryan and producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange wrote the song in just 45 minutes. I’m guessing Michael Kamen’s piece took a while longer.

I’d forgotten that Bryan actually made it into the TOTP studio for at least one week of the song’s chart reign but here he is in his trademark white T-shirt and jeans emoting all over the stage although the show’s producers do intercut his performance with the promo video.

In case you’re bored of the song already, here’s a 1992 cover of the song by Fatima Mansions which was released as part of a double A-side with “Suicide Is Painless” by Manic Street Preachers which was a charity single for the Spastics Society. It made No 7 but hardly received any airplay as the Manics track was predominantly the one played on radio.

The play out video is “Love And Understanding” by Cher. Coming hard on the heels of her recent No 1 with “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)”, I’m guessing much was expected by her record company of the follow up. It did pretty well making it to the Top 10 (just) in the UK and the Top 20 in the US. Its sales (plus a last minute inclusion of “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)”) helped propel parent album “Love Hurts” to No 1 in the UK where it would stay for 6 weeks and end up becoming the best selling female album of the year.

I was working at the Market Street Our Price store in Manchester at the time and around then, the company was committed to its slogan of ‘mad about music, see a specialist’ (or something like that) which meant every week day morning, we had to play music from a particular genre like Easy Listening, Folk or Classical. Once 12 o’clock came around there was a rush to put a chart album on and I recall shoving “Love Hurts” on as the first thing that came to hand after a particularly gruelling morning of folk music. The store manger happened to walk by and said to me “Time for some proper music eh?”. We should probably both have been ashamed.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	DJ H featuring Stefy	I Like It	I’d rather have bought “I Like It’ by Gerry and the Pacemakers frankly.
2	Paula Abdul	Rush Rush	No
3	OMD	Pandora’s Box	No but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs
4	C+C Music Factory	Things That Make You Go Hmmm…	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	Guns N’ Roses	You Could Be Mine	See 3 above
6	Billy Bragg	Sexuality	No but I bought Accident Waiting To Happen, another single from the album
7	INXS	Bitter Tears	See 3 above
8	Bros	Are You Mine?	Are you mad more like! No
9	Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam	Let the Beat Hit ‘Em	Nope
10	Bryan Adams	Everything I Do (I Do it For You)	I did not
11	Cher	Love And Understanding	Despite somehow managing to buy two recent Cher singles (one by mistake), I managed to avoid this one. Honest!

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/m000yw8k/top-of-the-pops-11071991

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 18 JAN 1996

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TOTP 26 OCT 1995

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TOTP 19 OCT 1995

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TOTP 23 MAR 1995

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TOTP 16 MAR 1995

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TOTP 02 MAR 1995

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TOTP 19 NOV 1992

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TOTP 09 APR 1992

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TOTP 25 JUL 1991

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TOTP 11 JUL 1991

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