Chumbawamba

TOTP 30 JAN 1998

It’s late January 1998 and Bill Clinton, the President of the United States of America, isn’t having a good week. Four days before this TOTP aired, he’d made his infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” denial on TV to the world in the hope of quelling rumours of a sex scandal involving himself and White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

It would turn out that Bill’s definition of ‘sexual relations’ was different to the rest of the planet’s when he was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Despite admitting months later that he had engaged in an “improper physical relationship” with Lewinsky, Clinton’s insisted that he had not given misleading evidence because he understood the definition of ‘sexual relations’ as given by the Independent Counsel’s Office to include giving oral sex but not receiving oral sex and therefore he had not engaged in sexual relations. Talk about splitting (pubic) hairs!* Somehow he got off the charges of impeachment and stayed in office but he did receive a fine for giving misleading testimony.

*Sorry!

Given that there is now a convicted felon in the White House (for the second time) who seems to be intent on declaring himself ‘King of America’, Clinton-Lewinsky-gate may have loss some of its scandalous reputation when seen through 2025 eyes but I guess that just shows how far the acceptable behaviour bar has been lowered by Trump. None of this has anything to do with good old, wholesome TOTP of course…or does it? I wonder if I can find some incredibly tenuous links…

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we start with…oh my God…not again! It can’t be “Never Ever” by All Saints again surely?! This is their eighth appearance on the show (including the Christmas Day episode) and they still have one more to go! Their first performance of “Never Ever” came on the 21 November 1997 and the last will be on 20 February 1998. That’s a time span of almost exactly three months. Three months! If that sounds ludicrous then there does seem to be an explanation which is that their hit spent 15 weeks inside the Top 10 of which only six were occasions when the record went down the chart. It was, in short, an absolute monster! Did it never occur to their record label London to delete the single so as to clear the way for their next release à la Dinah Carroll’s “Don’t Be A Stranger” or just so we could all move on with the rest of our lives as happened with Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around”? As it turned out, London and All Saints had their cake and ate it as follow up single “Under The Bridge/ Lady Marmalade” went to No 1 (on two separate occasions) anyway.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: He “never, ever” had sexual relations with that woman (except he did)

Talking of follow ups to huge hit singles that hung around the charts for ages, here’s Chumbawamba trying to consolidate on the unexpected runaway success of “Tubthumping” with their next release “Amnesia”. I couldn’t have told you how this one went before re-hearing it but as soon as that “Do you suffer from long term memory loss?” line appeared in the hook, the sinker dropped and it all came flooding back. No amnesia for me! Although featuring another catchy chorus (delivered this time by Alice Nutter), it didn’t have the same immediate impact as its predecessor. It just didn’t have the same explosive energy – in fact, the verses were quite pedestrian. It was still commercial enough though to score the band a No 10 hit which was still quite remarkable for an anarcho-punk band formed in 1982.

“Amnesia” was written in response to the disparity between the promises of politicians and their actions once voted into power and the repeated lack of discernment of the electorate who put them there with particular inspiration coming from the band’s reaction to Tony Blair’s New Labour. Ten days after this TOTP was broadcast, there was a very visible and infamous rejection of New Labour when the band’s Danbert Nobacon poured a bucket of iced water over then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott at the BRIT Awards show. Ah, 1998 when the BRITS were still worth watching.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: Oh brilliant! Check this out from the band’s Boff Whalley about “Amnesia”:

“People forget that what Bill Clinton before he gets elected is not what Bill Clinton will do when he’s in office and that’s not just about Bill Clinton, that’s about all politicians”

“Chumbawamba Talks About Political “Amnesia””. MTV. Viacom.

Still with those hits that had legs comes “Angels” by Robbie Williams which was in its eight week inside the Top 10 four of which had been spent at No 7 where it found itself again this week. Despite all that time in the chart and subsequent TOTP appearances, I don’t think I’ve yet addressed the issue of authorship surrounding this one. Now, we all know that Robbie’s early material was co-written with Guy Chambers who was originally in the criminally underrated and overlooked band The Lemon Trees before meeting Williams and, indeed, “Angels” is one of the songs that they wrote together – theirs are the names that are listed in the credits on the single and parent album. However, enter Irish singer-songwriter Ray Heffernan whom Robbie met in a short visit to Dublin in 1996 before the launch of his solo career. At the time, both men were heavy drinkers and, after a session in a bar, recorded a rough and incomplete version of a song Heffernan had played to Williams called “Angels Instead”.

On returning home, Robbie would take up with Guy Chambers and presented what he had of the early version of “Angels” and they worked it up into the song we know today. Heffernan took legal representation out to protect his claims on the track (whatever they actually were) and in the end settled for a one off payment of £7,500 to basically go away. Forever. “Angels” would become a modern day standard and earn millions in royalties and an Ivor Novello award. You may think this would have destroyed Heffernan and he was certainly angry for a while but on reflection is glad not to have earned all those royalties as he believes it would have only enabled his destructive drug use of the time. All he really wants is proper recognition of his input into the song from Williams. Having watched the video below chronicling the story as to whether Robbie is right or wrong, I think I’m believing Ray instead.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: I did not have musical relations with that man

Right, it’s all songs we haven’t seen before in these BBC4 repeats from here on in starting with the first appearance on the show for Catatonia. For a while back in the late 90s, this lot were big news. Arriving as part of the ‘cool Cymru’ movement alongside Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, Stereophonics and Feeder – “Mulder And Scully” was the track to catapult them to superstardom. Obviously influenced by the main characters from hit sci-fi TV show The X–Files, it also allowed singer Cerys Matthews a platform for her distinctive voice or as host Jayne Middlemiss commented, her regional accent. Such vocal stylings were not unique – The Proclaimers were infamous for singing in their Scottish brogue and Chas & Dave made a career out of recording using their cockney dialect – but it wasn’t as simple as that with Cerys. There was also the over pronunciation of words such as “Scull-eee” and the rolling ‘R’s in follow up hit “Road Rage”. Even this wasn’t entirely new though – Liam Gallagher’s extraordinary extended articulation of the word “shine” as “she-iiiiiiine” for example. And yet, you couldn’t ignore Matthews. She was a force of nature with many a tale of legendary drinking escapades to her name. Because of her presence in the line up, it would be easy to lump them in with all those other bands of the period who were fronted by a charismatic female singer like Elastica, Sleeper, Echobelly and Skunk Anansie but all those bands had their own sound and that included Catatonia.

I think I’d first come across them when their single “I Am The Mob” lightly scraped the Top 40 in the Autumn of 1997 though they’d been around for a lot longer than that. Having formed in 1992 and been though various line up changes and independent releases, they’d finally came to market via a major label with 1996’s “Way Beyond Blue” album which I somehow managed to miss completely despite working in a record shop. When “Mulder And Scully” debuted at No 3 though, we all had to take notice. Had it been a deliberate ploy to write a song that referenced an incredibly successful current TV show or was it just that Cerys was plugging into the popular culture zeitgeist? I choose to believe the latter as it’s not really a song about The X–Files as such but rather a metaphor. Having said that, I did find the use of the show’s protagonists’ names in the chorus slightly jarring. Reading all that back, I seem to be rather conflicted about Catatonia don’t I? What I am sure about is that they continued to have hits to the end of the 90s and into the new millennium. Sophomore album “International Velvet” went three times platinum but by the time of their fourth, the band seemed to be an anachronism and they split in 2001.

Cerys Matthews would go on to be an award winning author and broadcaster with shows on BBC Radios 2 and 4 and 6 Music and founded The Good Life Experience festival. In 2007, she appeared on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here causing a stir in the tabloids when she began a relationship with fellow camp mate and EastEnders actor Marc Bannerman. What I remember most about her post Catatonia career though is that she used to write a column in The Guardian under the pseudonym of Dr Crotchety who was an agony aunt for music fans giving people who wrote in suggestions to liven up their listening habits which I found patronising in the extreme. She gave the impression of loving every single type of musical genre which I just couldn’t get on board with.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: Well, this is fortunate. Cerys Matthews serenaded Bill Clinton at the Haye-On-Wye Literature Festival in 2001 even laying her head on his chest!

After something so memorable comes a totally forgettable hit which guess what?…I’d forgotten about it. “So Good” by Juliet Roberts anyone? She’d had a medium sized hit in 1994 with a remix of “Caught In The Middle” but sure enough, I don’t recall that either despite the fact that I must have reviewed it in this blog. This one was a double A-side with another remix of a previous hit “Free Love”. She was big on rereleases and remixes was Juliet. She also was fond of a collaboration. As far back as 1983, she was the vocalist for the Funk Masters on their Top 10 hit “It’s Over” and in 2001 had a US Dance chart No 1 with big shot DJ, producer and remixer David Morales on the track “Needin U II”.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: Nothing for Juliet Roberts. Julia Roberts on the other hand appeared on the final week of The David Letterman Show alongside Bill Clinton and also appeared in a Broadway fund raiser in support of Hilary Clinton in 2016.

A case now of when one of a band’s most well known songs divides their fan base*. Green Day had made their name playing fast, power chord-heavy pop-punk tunes but here they were in reflective mood with an acoustic ballad. The track “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” had actually been around for years before it was recorded for the band’s “Nimrod” album, having been considered unsuitable for inclusion on their previous two major label releases.

*See also “More Than Words” by Extreme

It’s a deceptive song – on the one hand very simple – even a basic strummer like me can manage the chord sequence – and yet it has a depth to it. Just look at its title for a start; it’s almost paradoxical but allows the listener to take their preferred meaning away from it. For example, it has become a staple of DJ set lists at US Prom dances as a symbol of celebration for surviving High School. Conversely, when a senior manager left one of my previous workplaces and the staff were asked to contribute a song to a playlist they created for him, I chose “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” for the first two words of the title. Ah but what were those two words? Well, ‘good’ and ‘riddance’ obviously except…in some territories it was released as “Time Of Your (Good Riddance)”! What was that all about? To make it more easily identifiable to the casual listener as opposed to a Green Day devotee? Maybe it’s an American thing – the exact same scenario happened with the Icicle Works single “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” which was released in the US as “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)”.

Anyway, this new direction for Green Day seemed to confuse some of their fanbase and even in some cases left them feeling betrayed. This wasn’t the band they’d grown up loving. They couldn’t…gulp…be looking for a more mainstream audience could they? Thankfully, the band hadn’t sold their soul for a hit and would release perhaps their defining album in 2004 – the punk concept album “American Idiot”. As for “Good Riddance”, it has become accepted as a Green Day standard and is usually played as the last song by the band at their gigs.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: The band’s song “Holiday” from the aforementioned “American Idiot” album includes the lyrics “I declare I don’t care about the president” and “I don’t care about the latest scandal” which are reportedly about Clinton-Lewinsky-gate.

There are some songs that just won’t be left alone. “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” is one of them. Originally a hit for Sylvester in 1978, it was reactivated in 1990 by Jimmy Somerville who took it into the Top 5. Just eight years later, here was Byron Stingily making it a hat trick of chart appearances for the track. Having first experienced success as part of Ten City in 1989 with “That’s The Way Love Is”, Byron’s solo career finally kicked off in 1997 with the US Dance Chart No 1 hit “Get Up (Everybody)” which also made No 14 in the UK. He followed that up with this curiously hollow and empty sounding version of a disco classic. It really adds nothing to the original and is inferior to the Jimmy Somerville cover to my ears. Stingily would only have one more hit which saw him return to past glories with his solo treatment of that Ten City single. As for “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, it’s also been covered by Adam Lambert, Lewis Taylor and Sandra Bernhard.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: This is unbelievable! Stingily’s version of Sylvester’s best known song was featured on a Spanish dance compilation album called “Ahora ‘98” the front cover of which was a parody of Bill and Hilary Clinton with actors pretending to be them at a desk in the Oval Office with a pair of legs protruding underneath it meant to be Monica Lewinsky who is…well…in a compromising position to say the least!

There’s a new No 1 from someone who would become a global superstar though the only connection he would make with me is that his name is my current job title. Usher has gone on to be known as the ‘King of R&B’ with a multi platinum selling back catalogue including nine No 1 US singles. Curiously though, this track – “You Make Me Wanna…” wasn’t one of them despite topping our charts when it peaked at No 2 over the pond. With its acoustic guitar hook, it crossed over into the mainstream big time winning a host of awards as it went and yet I hardly remember it at all. I guess I’m just not an R&B kinda guy.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: This post has written itself! In 2010, Usher hosted a Senate fundraiser for candidate Michelle Nunn with Bill Clinton as the guest of honour. A year later, Usher performed at the ‘Decade of Difference’ concert celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the William J. Clinton foundation and also Bill Clinton’s 65th birthday. During Usher’s performance, this happened…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	All Saints	Never Ever	Nope
2	Chumbawamba	Amnesia	I did not
3	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo of his album
4	Catatonia	Mulder And Scully	It’s a no from me
5	Juliet Roberts	So Good	No, it wasn’t
6	Green Day	Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)	Great song but it seems I didn’t
7	Byron Stingily	You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)	Nah
8	Usher	You Make Me Wanna…	Not my bag

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/m002dt20/top-of-the-pops-30011998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 1997 – the epilogue

Posted on June 13 by 80stastic

So there goes 1997 – and what a seismic year it was. Labour won the General Election to form a government for the first time in 18 years whilst the end of the British Empire was finally signalled by the return of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China. In other UK news, we got a new terrestrial TV channel for the first time since 1982 when Channel 5 launched. Just beating that event in the time elapsed stakes was the United Kingdom’s victory at the Eurovision Song Contest making us the winners for the first time in sixteen years. Trumping them all though in terms of time past was my beloved Chelsea winning a major trophy for the first time in twenty-six years when they beat Middlesbrough 2-0 in the FA Cup final.

However, one news story would overshadow just about every other as the Summer drew to a close – the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris. Its reverberations were felt in every corner of the planet – one of those global events where you can remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. It would, of course, have an historic impact on the pop charts as well in the form of the Elton John single “Candle In The Wind 1997 / “Something About The Way You Look Tonight” both the fastest and best selling single of all time in the UK overtaking Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in the process.

Of course, there was more to the world of pop music in this year than that one single (no matter how many copies it sold). What else happened in the charts? Who were the movers and shakers and which musical trends were in the ascendancy? Well, there is a school of thought that says the Britpop movement officially came to an end this year with the release of the third Oasis album “Be Here Now”. Music critic Jon Savage certainly made that claim citing the weight of expectation crushing both the album and any lingering momentum Britpop may have been clinging on to. The decision of Noel Gallagher to attend a drinks reception at Downing Street at the invitation of newly installed Prime Minister Tony Blair may have also been a final nail in the coffin for what had ostensibly been seen as a working class movement previously.

So if Britpop was fizzling out, what was catching fire? Well, it’s time for a look at those year-end charts again to see if we can make head or tail of them. Here’s the list of the 50 best selling singles of the year:

No.	Title	Artist	Peak position	Sales^[5]
1	“Candle in the Wind 1997“/”Something About the Way You Look Tonight“	Elton John	1	4,770,000
2	“Barbie Girl“	Aqua	1	1,500,000
3	“I’ll Be Missing You“	Puff Daddy & Faith Evansfeaturing 112	1
4	“Perfect Day“	Various Artists	1	1,000,000+
5	“Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!“	Teletubbies	1
6	“Men in Black“	Will Smith	1
7	“Don’t Speak“	No Doubt	1
8	“Torn“	Natalie Imbruglia	2	813,000
9	“Tubthumping“	Chumbawamba	2
10	“Spice Up Your Life“	Spice Girls	1
11	“MMMBop“	Hanson	1
12	“D’You Know What I Mean?“	Oasis	1
13	“Never Ever“	All Saints	3^[a]
14	“I Believe I Can Fly“	R. Kelly	1
15	“Mama“/”Who Do You Think You Are“	Spice Girls	1
16	“I Wanna Be the Only One“	Eternal featuring BeBe Winans	1	600,000+
17	“Freed from Desire“	Gala	2
18	“Where Do You Go“	No Mercy	2
19	“Sunchyme“	Dario G	2
20	“Free“	Ultra Naté	4
21	“Encore Une Fois“	Sash!	2
22	“Too Much“	Spice Girls	1
23	“Time to Say Goodbye (Con Te Partirò)“	Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli	2
24	“Bellissima“	DJ Quicksilver	4
25	“As Long as You Love Me“	Backstreet Boys	3
26	“Baby Can I Hold You“/”Shooting Star”	Boyzone	2
27	“Ecuador“	Sash! featuring Rodriguez	2
28	“Wind Beneath My Wings“	Steven Houghton	3
29	“Don’t Let Go (Love)“	En Vogue	5
30	“Stay“	Sash! featuring La Trec	2
31	“Lovefool“	The Cardigans	2
32	“The Drugs Don’t Work“	The Verve	1
33	“Tell Him“	Barbra Streisand & Celine Dion	3
34	“Together Again“	Janet Jackson	4
35	“2 Become 1“	Spice Girls	1
36	“You Might Need Somebody“	Shola Ama	4
37	“You’re Not Alone“	Olive	1
38	“Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)“	Backstreet Boys	3
39	“Angels“	Robbie Williams	5^[b]
40	“C U When U Get There“	Coolio featuring 40 Thevz	3
41	“Your Woman“	White Town	1
42	“Never Gonna Let You Go“	Tina Moore	7
43	“Bitter Sweet Symphony“	The Verve	2
44	“Remember Me“	Blue Boy	8
45	“Closer than Close“	Rosie Gaines	4
46	“Stand by Me“	Oasis	2
47	“Professional Widow (It’s Got to Be Big)“	Tori Amos	1
48	“Picture of You“	Boyzone	2
49	“Say What You Want“	Texas	3
50	“I’ll Be There for You“	The Rembrandts	5^[c]

Well, as ever, it’s hard to draw any cast iron conclusions from that about what on earth was going on in the charts in that particular year. My first observation is that the Spice Girls only had one entry in the Top 10 but I think that was a scheduling issue with “2 Become 1” and “Too Much” suffering from having sales over two calendar years as Christmas No 1s. It certainly didn’t mean the UK were bored of them yet – they had two albums in the Top 5 best selling albums of the year. However, 1998 would be a difficult year for the group with the departure of Geri Halliwell and negative reviews of their Spice World film.

Looking more closely at the make up of the Top 10, I think they break down like this:

two charity records in “Candle In The Wind 1997” and “Perfect Day”
a novelty record (the Teletubbies) which could be two if you include “Barbie Girl” in that category which I think I do
a hit from a successful film (“Men In Black”)
a rap tribute track that was based around a No 1 from a 1983 No 1 hit (Puff Daddy)
a debut single from another Australian soap actor turned pop star (Natalie Imbruglia)
a ska-punk/ new wave band who turned up a mainstream crossover monster (No Doubt)
a most unlikely drinking anthem courtesy of an anarcho-punk band who’s been around for 15 years by this point (“Tubthumping”)

I would argue that the two most unexpected artists in that list are Chumbawamba and No Doubt in terms of ‘who saw them coming?’. The rest of the Top 50 includes over a dozen hits by artists whom I would qualify as being dance acts which seems to accurately reflect the weekly content of the charts. Special mention should go to Sash! for having three entries in the Top 50. As for Britpop, it is noted only by its absence. Oasis have two entries (“D’You Know What I Mean?” at No 12 and “Stand By Me” at No 46) whilst the only other artist that could possibly be put in that bracket (however much they may not have wanted to be) was The Verve who also had two songs on the list in “Bitter Sweet Symphony” (No 43) and “The Drugs Don’t Work” (No 32). In more general terms, sales of the single format remained healthy with each No 1 single in every week from late June onwards selling at least 100,000 copies per week. There were also 24 different No 1s, the same as the previous year and twice the amount in 1992 and that’s allowing for the fact that Puff Daddy was at the top for six weeks (over two separate periods), Elton John for five weeks, Aqua for four and Will Smith for four.

If we examine the best selling albums chart, you’d be forgiven for discounting everything I said about Britpop being over as Oasis and The Verve took the top two positions. It didn’t feel like that though. The former’s “Be Here Now” numbers seemed like the final hurrah of a sales phenomenon – certainly the album’s legacy doesn’t match its commercial performance. As for The Verve’s “Urban Hymns”, the presence of two of the most iconic singles of the decade in its track listing caused a massive crossover into the mainstream that few would have foreseen based on their previous back catalogue.

The rest of the Top 10 seemed more predictable on first glance but actually wasn’t. Sure, both the Spice Girls albums are in there but who saw such a successful return by Texas coming? The same can’t be said for Celine Dion for whom the services of a crystal ball were not required but both The Prodigy and Radiohead (the latter with one of the most revered albums of all time) were most definitely not conventional chart stars. The final two places went to the only Greatest Hits albums in the Top 10 courtesy of Eternal (presumably helped by the popularity of their No 1 single “I Wanna Be The Only One”) and, in a retro style, Wham! despite the fact that they split up eleven years prior. Elsewhere in the list, it was all very as you were with established artists like M People, Jamiroquai, The Beautiful South, Madonna and Enya all featuring via their latest album. A mention in dispatches for the Lighthouse Family who had two albums between Nos 11 and 14. Rubbing salt in Blur’s wound was the fact that, after being crushed by the sales of “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” in the war with Oasis, their eponymous fifth album could only manage a year end position of No 29 (despite having topped the charts on release) whilst “Be Here Now” was the best seller of 1997 with 1.5 million units shifted.

And what of TOTP? Well, 1997 saw a change of Executive Producer with Ric Blaxill departing after three years at the helm to be replaced by Chris Cowey who had made his name at Channel 4 working on The Tube and The White Room. A new name at the top meant a new approach and Cowey would ditch the ‘golden mic’ celebrity presenters in favour of a rotating roster of fixed presenters pulled from the BBC’s youth entertainment show The O–Zone. Enter Jayne Middlemiss and Jamie Theakston to join the retained Radio 1 DJs Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. Further changes would be made in 1998 with more new presenters, a revitalised theme tune plus a 60s inspired logo and title sequence but that’s all for another time.

Hits That Never Were

Not as many entries in this section as in past years. Not sure if that is significant or not.

Edward Ball – “The Mill Hill Self Hate Club”

Released: Apr ’97

Chart Peak: Did not chart but peaked at No 57 on first release in ’96

Not to be confused with Ed Balls the ex-politician, TV presenter and initiator of ‘Ed Balls Day’ via an erroneous tweet, Edward Ball was the overlooked man of Creation Records. Whilst an infatuated UK couldn’t get enough of Oasis, Edward was quietly releasing some quality tunes that were shamefully ignored by the public. I include myself in that category as I have only discovered his music in the past couple of years but it was worth the wait.

“The Mill Hill Self Hate Club” was initially released in 1996 when it made it to No 57 in the charts but was given a rerelease in 1997 hence its presence here. A marvellously tuneful pop romp that should have been perfect for daytime radio in the style of Dodgy but somehow it never happened. The video features a number of well known faces including Creation founder Alan McGee, Hurricane #1 guitarist and future Oasis member Andy Bell, *Chelsea footballer and indie music enthusiast Graeme Le Saux and – hallelujah – the greatest living Englishman Nick Heyward who was signed to Creation at the time. As if that wasn’t enough, the wonderful Anna Friel makes a cameo at the video’s beginning and end!

*I’m wondering if Edward is a fan of my beloved Chelsea FC as the video features a picture on the wall of their 1970 FA Cup win plus the presence of Le Saux of course. In addition to that, Nick Heyward has a song on his “Apple Bed” album called “The Chelsea Sky” and Edward’s single before this was called “Love Is Blue”.

Nick Heyward – “Today”

Released: Jun ’97

Chart Peak: Did not chart

So, it’s time for the usual check-in with the aforementioned Nick Heyward to see what he’d been up to this year. Well, he hadn’t been testing on his laurels. After releasing his second album of the 90s in 1995 with “Tangled” (which had given him his first UK Top 40 single for twelve years in “Rollerblade”), he left Epic Records and signed to Creation (hence his appearance in the Edward Ball video presumably). Surely being on the coolest label, the label that helped Oasis achieve so much success, would mean Nick would regain his rightful place in the hearts and charts of the UK. Not a bit of it. He released two singles in this year to trail his wonderful “Apple Bed” album and they both sank without trace.

“Today” was the first of those, a blistering power-pop track complete with wah-wah guitar solo in the instrumental break – it was a bold statement. That it floundered completely says everything about the record buying public and nothing about Nick’s songwriting. How he failed to find commercial success with any of his three 90s albums in the age of Britpop is staggering especially with the last of those released on the ultimate Britpop label. Nick continues to tour constantly both as a solo act and as part of the reactivated Haircut 100 but has only released three albums in the last 27 years with the most recent being 2017’s “Woodland Echoes”.

ABC – “Skyscraping”

Released: May ’97

Chart Peak: No 93

By 1997, ABC hadn’t released an album for six years and were now down to just one original member of the classic line up – lead singer Martin Fry after Mark White had left the band to pursue interests outside of the music industry. Teaming up with Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory, Fry came back with the album “Skyscraping” which was a critical success but a commercial flop. I’m not sure why as the three singles lifted from it were all good, solid, proper pop tunes. The title track gets the nod for this section as it’s a typically grandiose ABC number with sweeping strings and a poised vocal from Martin. I have to say that Fry doesn’t maybe get the credit he deserves sometimes. He’s still out there touring constantly and has even found time to revisit the classic “Lexicon Of Love” album to produce a second volume. In spite of all this, his voice still sounds on point unlike some of his contemporaries. I caught him on tour around this time at the Manchester Academy and he was great with this song a highlight. Good on you Martin!

Goldblade – “Strictly Hardcore”

Released: Mar ’97

Chart Peak: No 64

This one made the cut not because I was a particular fan but because I was working at the time with the sister of one of the band members so I heard a lot about them. Goldblade were/are a hardcore art punk band from Manchester formed in 1995 by John Robb, once of The Membranes and now a respected and published author and journalist. He also makes occasional appearances as a music commentator in the media – I say ‘occasional’ but he seems to be the resident go to talking head on these retrospective music list shows that are normally on Channel 5. He’s always on – it’s become a standing joke in our house. I find him a bit annoying if I’m honest and his book about The Stone Roses was repetitive and not well edited in my opinion. However, he is credited with coining the phrase ‘Britpop’. Or was that Stuart Maconie?

Anyway, back in 1997, Rob’s band Goldblade featured Jay Taylor on guitar whose sister Beth I worked with at the Our Price in Stockport. Beth had her own band Dumb who were regulars on the live music scene in Manchester in the 90s whose sound was compared to that of US hardcore band Fugazi. I think Jay may have even been a floating member of Dumb as well. They released a few singles and a couple of albums and did a session for John Peel too. I saw them live once and although the music wasn’t really my bag, they were exhilarating to watch.

Goldblade had two UK chart entries the highest peaking of which was “Strictly Hardcore” which, in fairness, is actually a great song. Octane-fuelled and relentless of pace, it belts along cracking the whip as it goes. There’s even some Dexy’s style horns at the end. They are still an on-off entity, occasionally playing live gigs though they have gone on the back burner whilst Robb reactivated the Membranes.

Hits We Missed

We missed loads of TOTP repeats for this year due to the Puff Daddy/R Kelly issue and consequently lots of performances so I’m going to have to be selective about which ones feature in this section else I’ll never get this post finished. Some of the hits we missed were some of the most prominent of the decade like Blur’s “Song 2” and “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve but so much has been written about them already that I’m not going to add my insignificant tuppence worth. Instead I’ve picked out five, four of which we didn’t see because they didn’t warrant a TOTP appearance as opposed to the show not being repeated.

Candyskins – “Monday Morning”

Released: Feb ’97

Chart Peak: No 34

Just as Edward Ball was the overlooked man of Creation Records, so The Candyskins were the almost forgotten men of the ‘Oxford scene’ that brought us Radiohead and Supergrass. By 1997, despite being hailed by the music press as one of the seminal bands of the early stages of Britpop, The Candyskins had already released two albums to limited interest from the record buying public. After leaving record label Geffen due to a dispute over royalties, their album “Sunday Morning Fever” was released on Ultimate and gave the band their only UK Top 40 single “Monday Morning”. As with Edward Ball, this should have been massive on the radio but I don’t remember hearing it much back then. A breezy, guitar driven track with a jaunty chorus, it could certainly have lived with “Alright” by the aforementioned Supergrass.

Bizarrely, the title “Monday Morning” seemed to be a flame to the moths of Britpop. Not only did The Candyskins write a song of that name but Rialto had a minor hit in this year also called “Monday Morning 5.19”. And we’re still not done. There’s a track on Pulp’s “Different Class” album called “Monday Morning” too.

Lamb – “Gorecki”

Released: Mar ’97

Chart Peak: No 30

If you think of the trip-hop movement, where and who comes to mind first? Bristol and Portishead? Tricky? I bet it’s not Lamb and Manchester but they definitely deserve a name check. OK, I m not sure that they would want to be definitively defined as a trip-hop artist per se as there were elements of jazz and drum and bass in their work but if you listen to their biggest hit “Górecki” you can understand why they are categorised as such. Inspired by Henryk Górecki’s “Third Symphony”, check out some of the comments on YouTube about it. Superlative after superlative – ‘timeless’, ‘perfection’, ‘incredible’, ‘beautiful’, ‘unparalleled’, ‘masterpiece’…my wife was one of those using such descriptions as she bought the single (well, I did for her on my staff discount). It is certainly an affecting track and one that you can hear being a left field ‘our tune’ for the want of a better phrase.

And yet…what I remember most about this track is punters asking for that song ‘Goreki’ as opposed to ‘Goretski’. And yes I realise how snobby that sounds! The track would go on to be used in various TV shows, movies and video games including Torchwood, Moulin Rouge and Tomb Raider. Lamb spilt in 2004 before reconvening five years later. Three studio albums later, they are currently inactive.

Travis – “Happy”

Released: Oct ’97

Chart Peak: No 38

It’s my understanding that in 1999, Scottish band Travis almost single-handedly kept record shop chain Our Price (for whom I was working) from going to the wall with the sales of their sophomore album “The Man Who”. So perilous were the company’s finances that the cash injection supplied by the phenomenal success of the album was crucial in keeping the wolf from the door. Of course, that could all just be a myth but it’s what I heard. If it seems a like an unlikely tale then so is the rise of Travis from Britpop also-ran to multi platinum selling band within two years.

Back in 1997, they’d just released their debut album to mixed reviews and inconsistent sales. Their first four singles had peaked at Nos 39, 40, 30 and 38. It was hardly ground breaking stuff. “Happy” was the last of those and is a robust and at times soaring rock/pop track that maybe fell between the gaps when it came to airplay. Too rocky for daytime but not rock enough for the specialist stations. We had a promo sampler of the album to be played in store which I nabbed and would lead me to purchase the proper album eventually. It’s a far harder sound than the one which they conquered the UK with on their follow up but I think I actually prefer it (although I did like “The Man Who” as well).

I’m pretty sure I caught them live before they made it big supporting Nick Heyward at the Manchester Academy but I definitely saw them just as they were taking off at the same venue which must have been a couple of years later. Nowadays, they’ve become a byword for naff which seems unfair as Fran Healy is a decent songwriter although he did nick the chords from “Wonderwall” for the hit “Writing To Reach You” albeit that he does acknowledge that with a reference to the Oasis classic in the lyrics.

Ben Folds Five – “Battle Of Who Could Care Less”

Released: Mar ’97

Chart Peak: No 26

In 2004, much was made of Keane’s debut album “Hopes And Fears” and quite rightly too as it’s a fine album full of swooping, epic pop songs. However, what people mostly seemed to be talking about was the fact that the music was very heavily piano-led leading to the band being dubbed ‘the band with no guitars’. It seemed to me that this approach was being described as revolutionary and yet they weren’t the first band to adopt such a style. Ben Folds Five were from Chapel Hill, North Carolina and opted to exclude lead guitars from their music to focus on piano, bass and drums. This, allied to their quirky humour (there were only three members of Ben Folds Five for example), clever arrangements and vocal harmonies, made them standout in the 90s alt-rock scene. They crossed over into mainstream success with second album “Whatever And Ever Amen” which featured lead single “Battle Of Who Could Care Less”. I was immediately drawn to the song’s unusual title and was rewarded for my interest by a clever, biting yet melodic track which sounded like nothing else in the charts. It shouldn’t really have been a hit given its polarity to its contemporaries but thankfully it was. The band have split and reformed numerous times with Folds pursuing a solo career in between.

Echo & The Bunnymen – “Nothing Lasts Forever”

Released: Jun ’97

Chart Peak: No 8

Finally, we end this section with a hit we should have see as it made it onto TOTP but were denied due to the Puff Daddy/R Kelly issue. As with Texas this year, the revitalisation of Echo & The Bunnymen was surely not on anyone’s 90s bingo card. After Ian McCulloch left the band in 1988, the three remaining members had committed to carrying on but having recruited a replacement singer (as if McCulloch could ever be replaced) their plans were destroyed by the death of drummer Pete de Freitas in an RTA aged just 27. A psychedelic tinged album called “Reverberation” was released in 1990 to apathy from the fanbase and just about zero sales. As guitarist Will Sergeant observed, it seemed that the world wasn’t interested in Echo & The Bunnymen without Mac there and the band duly split.

McCulloch would record two well received though equally poor selling solo albums before reuniting with Sergeant to record new material under the name Electrafixion but it would take bassist Les Pattinson’s decision to rejoin the fold to prompt the return of Echo & The Bunnymen and what a return it was with the album “Evergreen” going Top 10 as did lead single “Nothing Lasts Forever”. This was one of those songs that felt like an instant classic the very first time you heard it. An indie rock anthem with a hint of melancholy about it, this was such a strong comeback. Its poignancy was confirmed by the fact that both Janice Long and Christian O’Connell played it as the final song in their last ever shows for Radio 2 and Absolute Radio respectively. Not that it needed it but the presence on backing vocals of Noel Gallagher probably added to its appeal for some. The band have released six albums since then and remain a big pull on the live circuit.

Their Season In The Sun

Hanson

A classic case of ‘the only way is down’ after their first single went to No 1 around the world. “MMMBop” was one of the catchiest hits of the decade but all anybody wanted to really talk about was how young the trio of brothers were. Two more hits followed before the year was out but nothing they released could top their debut. The band are still together though and in 2023 collaborated with Busted on their cover of that song which was retitled “MMMBop 2.0”. It isn’t the only cover in existence – as of 2016 there were 93,000 versions of it on YouTube.

No Mercy

Not as controversial nor as successful as German producer Frank Farian’s other group projects Boney M and Milli Vanilli, this American trio briefly found fame in 1997 when they combined flamenco guitars with a Eurodance beat which saw their song “Where Do You Go” become a hit in the UK, the US and Europe. We especially couldn’t get enough of it and bought enough copies for it to spend nine consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Two more charting singles followed before the craze burnt out and the hits dried up.

It seems unfair to include these anarcho-punks in this section but the truth is that their 30 year career can be condensed into just one hit for the vast majority of people. “Tubthumping”was everywhere in the late Summer and Autumn of 1997 and even its lyric about being ‘knocked down’ set against the backdrop of the death of Princess Diana in a car crash couldn’t dent its popularity. In truth, there were a couple more hits including a World Cup song meaning they weren’t a one hit wonder but really their legacy to everyone outside of their fanbase is that No 2 hit. Indeed, it is so well known that the far right have attempted to hijack it for their political campaigns (Trump in 2016 and New Zealand’s Winston Peters in 2024) resulting in cease and desist letters being sent from the band. Quite right too.

White Town

Now this lot definitely were a one hit wonder and a definitive example of it at that- a solitary smash that was a No 1 and then absolutely nothing. I say ‘this lot’ but it was really just Jyoti Prakash Mishra who gave the world “Your Woman”, a distinctive dance number that didn’t sound like anything you’d ever heard before despite sampling British bandleader Lew Stone’s treatment of the 1932 song “My Woman” featuring vocals by Al Bowlly – not that many who bought it would have been familiar with a 65 year old song. The gender identity swapping lyrics allied to its insanely catchy hooks caused a brief sensation but a follow up single failed to make the Top 40 and White Town’s fame was over almost before it had begun. However, “Your Woman”’s legacy was given a boost in 2020 when Dua Lipa sampled the same trumpet hook featured in it in her song “Love Again”

The Supernaturals

Some of the finest power pop melodies of the year were provided by this Glasgow outfit who scored three Top 40 hits and a Top 10 album in this year. Sadly, they couldn’t consolidate on that success and it was a case of diminishing returns from there on in and they split in 2002. However, since reforming in 2012 they have continued to be active on the festival scene and have supported the likes of Sleeper and Embrace. Their two most well known songs “The Day Before Yesterday’s Man” and “Smile” have outlived their initial chart lives by being used to soundtrack banking TV adverts and appeared in TV series like Teachers and Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights and the film Shooting Fish.

Last Words

So, 1997 – we are done with you but you were quite the year. On a personal level, it was pretty significant. I went to China (!), I was the manager of a record shop (albeit for a few months as a stand in until somebody else was appointed permanently) and I finally witnessed my beloved Chelsea win a major trophy. It wasn’t all good though. This was the year my mental health started to dip and it would turn into a full blown crisis in 1998…

TOTP 26 SEP 1997

Posted on April 14 by 80stastic

This particular TOTP episode is a curious mix of hits that have been hanging around the charts for ages, one that we only saw seven days ago, two dance tracks that were all about the tunes and not the artists, a mostly forgotten Robbie Williams hit that was actually a line in the sand moment and that Elton John single. Pick the bones out of that! Well, I intend to so let’s get to it…

Tonight’s host is Jo Whiley who seems to be on permanent rotation with Jayne Middlemiss and Zoe Ball (I guess we haven’t got to the Kate Thornton/Gail Porter/Jamie Theakston era yet). We start with Chumbawamba who have spent a solid six weeks in the Top 5 with “Tubthumping” and was now on the move back up the charts from No 5 to No 3 having slipped from its original peak of No 2. It seems there was a reason for this. In the wake of the death of Princess Diana, its airplay completely crashed presumably because:

It wasn’t a ballad and that was the only form of musical composition deemed required at this time
Its lyrics about being knocked down could hardly have been more inappropriate given the events in Paris of 31st August

In the week before that date it had been the most played track on radio but in the week after it almost completely disappeared from playlists. A further week on from that and it was decided that a suitable period of time had passed and it was right back up there on the airplay charts presumably helping to boost its sales once more. And they say a week is a long time in politics.

Depending on your point of view, “Sunchyme” by Dario G is either a work of genius or musical sacrilege – I fall into the latter category. Based around the wonderful “Life In A Northern Town” by The Dream Academy (which I bought back in the day), this monster of a dance tune had been in existence for months as a bootleg but hadn’t got a formal commercial release as label Eternal Records couldn’t get clearance for the samples used in it. This delay in making it available to the masses only helped to build anticipation of its release which, when it finally happened, sent the single to No 2 in the charts. Like George Michael’s “You Have Been Loved” before it, this would also surely have been a chart topper at any other time.

I guess I can hear why “Sunchyme” struck a chord with its Dream Academy sample forming the basis of a catchy hook that sounded almost gospel-esque when chopped up in that way. Allied to a distinctive Italian house piano riff, it really didn’t matter if punters didn’t know the 1985 No 15 hit source material, the track couldn’t fail. My claim that it was committing musical heresy by treating one of the best hits of the 80s (to my ears) like that meant little to the nation’s clubbers which I suppose is fair enough. Quite why this performance comes across as the stage version of The Lion King though, I’m not quite sure. Still, I suppose it makes a change from the usual anonymous, pony-tailed blokes on keyboards behind a gyrating, spandex clad dancer.

Jo Whiley gives us a smooth segue from Dario G to the aforementioned Robbie Williams when she says “from a Northern town to South of the Border”. Not bad Jo. Now I labelled this hit as mostly forgotten earlier and I stand by that description for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s almost as if Robbie himself wants to consign it to history – it did not feature on his 1999 compilation album “The Ego Has Landed” that was put together with tracks from his first two solo albums specifically for the American market. Then, it didn’t appear on his 2004 Greatest Hits which featured 19 tracks. Nor was it on the 2009 compilation “Songbook” that was given away free with the Daily Mail as part of a promotion campaign for Robbie’s “Reality Killed The Video Star” album. Such freebie albums are usually where lesser hits are to be found but it wasn’t a home for “South Of The Border”. It did make the cut for the 2010 Best Of “In And Out Of Consciousness” but that was a comprehensive, 39 tracks career retrospective. It was his only hit that failed to make the Top 10 for nine years and 20 single releases. So, pretty much forgotten.

And yet…it perhaps shouldn’t be as it demarcated a pivotal crossroads in his career. The relative failure of the single (it peaked at No 14) was seen by many as evidence that Robbie Williams the solo artist would not sustain. It was just a matter of time before he petered out completely and its this commonly held perception that made what came next all the more unexpected and revelatory. His next single, which according to legend was a make or break release, was “Angels”. And yet the story could have all played out very differently as “South Of The Border” was never intended to be a single. The plan was that “Let Me Entertain You” was going to be the third track taken from the album “Life Thru A Lens” but Robbie had a dose of the wobbles and didn’t feel confident enough to release something with such a provocative title. At the last minute, it was ditched for “South Of The Border”. Who knows whether, if the original plan had been adhered to, the Robbie Williams story would have been any different. Maybe. Maybe not.

As for “South Of The Border”, it’s probably a better song than its legacy might suggest. I think I prefer it to previous single “Lazy Days” which doesn’t get the same rap by virtue of a six place chart difference it would seem (it peaked at No 8). There’s a spoken word bit low in the mix in the middle eight that we don’t get in this performance (which isn’t great by the way) where Robbie talks about going for a night out on the town with various celebrities including Anthea Turner and Daniella Westbrook which always quite intrigued me. The turnaround of Williams career would be more compelling though.

Damn! It’s that studio performance by Tina Moore of “Never Gonna Let You Go” again! What am I supposed to say about this one…again? Well, what I have noticed is that so far is that Jo Whiley has only been in the studio at the same time as one of the four artists on the show so far, that being Dario G. Now, two of them are understandable in that they’re just re-showings of previous performances (including Tina Moore) but the Robbie Williams cut away suggests his appearance was pre-recorded and Jo’s intro was tacked on the end separately. Why would that be? A scheduling issue?

Anyway, from what I can work out this was Tina’s fifth week on the chart and she was actually climbing it having peaked at No 7. The positions for her hit in the thirteen weeks of it’s time in the Top 40 were:

7 – 11 – 9 – 12 – 9 – 11 – 11 – 17 – 15 – 23 – 21 – 28 – 35

Check those numbers out. It reversed its decline four times. Four! That’s quite a chart journey. It seems the general public weren’t gonna let Tina go for a while.

It’s the second of those two dance tracks I mentioned at the top of the post now as German group Bellini take to the stage or should that be the dance floor as all the five women on our TV screens were doing was peddling some not overly impressive dance moves. There’s a lot of leg shaking and twerking but not much else. Now, I assumed that said women were just some jobbing dancers put together for TV appearances to promote the single “Samba De Janeiro” but it seems they were full time members of the band. Sort of. Full time they may have been but permanent they were not. Bellini’s list of group members might not be quite of The Fall or The Waterboys proportions but I counted fifteen past and present names in their Wikipedia entry and that doesn’t include the guys behind their sound, the producer duo of Ramon Zenker and Gottfried Engels otherwise known as The Bellini Brothers.

As for the track itself, it pays a huge debt to Brazilian jazz percussionist Airto Moreira sampling two of his tracks from the 70s and was a Top 10 hit all around Europe. If I’d had to guess, I would have put its release date as a year later to coincide with the 1998 World Cup tournament which seemed to have loads of samba themed songs soundtracking its coverage. I wasn’t far off as it was used extensively during the 2008 Euros after every goal was scored and Norwich City has played it as ‘goal music’ for pretty much the last 20 years. Indeed, Bellini took their name as a tribute to Brazilian football legend Hilderaldo Bellini who won the World Cup in 1958 and 1962 which is quite odd as the guys behind the Bellini Brothers moniker were German but then I guess they were never going to name themselves after 80s German international footballer Horst Hrubesch whose surname was pronounced by most English commentators as ‘Rubbish’.

Sly & Robbie featuring Simply Red are the act that we already saw just a week ago but that performance of their cover of “Night Nurse” is re-shown again seven days on because the single has gone into the charts at No 13.

This does nothing for me and, in fact, I’d rather listen to Martin Freeman’s version in a toilet from Breeders…

I’d almost forgotten there was a fourth single from Blur’s eponymous fifth studio album but there was and here it is…”M.O.R” was, perhaps understandably, the smallest hit of those four singles with it being released over six months after the album when it peaked at No 15. Now if you’d forgotten how it goes but then thought that it was instantly recognisable when you watched this TOTP repeat, that’ll be the Bowie effect. We were given a clue by Jo Whiley* in her intro when she said “Now some boys who just keep swinging” as “M.O.R.” borrows from Bowie’s “Boys Keep Swinging” and “Fantastic Voyage” from his “Lodger” album. Bowie and Brian Eno had come up with the concept of composing multiple songs with the same chord progression for the album and those two songs were the ones that made the cut. So were Blur paying homage to or stealing that concept? Does it even matter? The truth is that at least Blur were trying to do something different and not just repeat the formula of past glories. Could Oasis say the same for their output at the time?

*Never one to miss an opportunity to show off her music credentials was she Jo! Dream Academy and now David Bowie references!

The video for “M.O.R.” features four stuntmen as the band members in a plot about escaping the police. The monikers given to the fictional ‘actors’ playing Blur are all genuine anagrams of the band’s actual names. Check these out:

Trevor Dewane – Dave Rowntree
Lee Jaxsam – Alex James
Morgan C. Hoax – Graham Coxon
Dan Abnormal – Damon Albarn

That last one is genius, better than Bellini anyway!

Obviously, “Candle In The Wind ‘97” by Elton John is still at the top of the charts. I’m not sure when the sales of the single started to slow down. It was No 1 for five weeks and sold 658,000 copies on its first day of release and 1.5 million in the first week. As of September 2017 it had sold 4.94 million copies in the UK. By those numbers, I’m guessing there must have been a tapering off even when it was still No 1. For context though, this TOTP aired just under a month after Princess Diana’s death and one day shy of three weeks since her funeral.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Chumbawamba	Tubthumping	YES!
2	Dario G	Sunchyme	No but I bought The Dream Academy original
3	Robbie Williams	South Of The Border	No but I had a promo copy of the album
4	Tina Moore	Never Gonna Let You Go	I did not
5	Bellini	Samba De Janeiro	Nah
6	Sly & Robbie/Simply Red	Night Nurse	Nope
7	Blur	M.O.R.	No but I had the album
8	Elton John	Candle In The Wind ’97	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/m0029lyt/top-of-the-pops-26091997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 29 AUG 1997

Posted on March 31 by 80stastic

We’ve nearly got to that point in the 90s when one the decade’s most historic events took place – the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Two days after this TOTP aired, reports started to emerge that she had been involved in a car crash in Paris before her death, aged just 36, was confirmed. It really is one of those seismic incidents which anchors you in time. I’m guessing we can all remember where we were when the story broke. I myself was in my flat in Manchester doing not very much at all (well it was a Sunday) but from the moment news came in of what had happened, the coverage was wall-to-wall. Normal life seemed to be put on hold. Now, I should say straight out that I’m not a fan of the monarchy and don’t believe in the institution but I could appreciate that this was a tragedy especially for her two young children. What I couldn’t understand though was the reaction of the general public which seemed to be frenzied hysteria – vast swathes of the population seemed to lose all sense of proportion. There were stories of people missing funerals of family and friends to go to London to watch the funeral procession on its way to Westminster Abbey. Coverage of the funeral showed people wailing uncontrollably and hurling bunches of flowers at the coffin. I just didn’t understand nor agree with, what seemed to me, to be these disproportionate displays.

The day of the funeral on 6th September saw everything close in the morning as a mark of respect and so that the nation could watch the funeral. The Our Price store where I worked dutifully complied. We opened in the afternoon and the very first bloke who came in walked straight up to the counter and said “Have you got that song that Elton John sang at the funeral?”. In today’s digital world, that wouldn’t have seemed like an unreasonable request but back in 1997, it was a ludicrous question. I was flabbergasted. How did he think we would have copies of a single in stock of a song that had just been performed for the first time ever about an hour before. At this point, it hadn’t even been decided that it would be made available to the general public via a single release. I should be clear that the guy was asking for that version of the song specifically performed at the funeral and not just the original “Candle In The Wind” recording. Even if he’d have been happy with the original, we might have had it on a Greatest Hits but that would have been it. In 2025, a song from an event of such public interest could be made available on a streaming platform instantly but in 1997, the world just didn’t work like that. Ultimately, the song was released as a single about a week later but that’s a discussion for a future post. Right now, let’s sit back and watch TOTP as if in a more innocent time before Diana’s death.

Jayne Middlemiss is our host again and executive producer Chris Cowey is still wedded to the idea of incorporating a model of the figure 1 into the show’s opening to enforce the idea that it is still the No 1 music show on TV. This week, a glammed up Jayne in full evening dress walks on as the model No 1 drops to the floor behind her. No, you’re right it doesn’t really work does it? The opening artist is Jon Bon Jovi who continues the royal theme to this post with his single “Queen Of New Orleans”. The second track released from his “Destination Anywhere” album, like its predecessor “Midnight In Chelsea”, it was co-written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. A solo album by the man behind Bon Jovi was never going to be a huge departure from the sound that made him and his band global stars but “Queen Of New Orleans” is no “Livin’ On A Prayer”. It’s got a laid back feel to it with Jon growling his way through the lyrics whilst some rock guitars squall and squeal away in the background. Ah yes, those lyrics. It’s hard to believe that two men with the amount of hits to their names as Bon Jovi and Stewart could have come up with such useless words. For example:

“Me and Leigh met Summer of ‘95, in a burgundy dress looking finer than a French wine“

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Jon Bon Jovi
Queen Of New Orleans lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Really? Burgundy and French wine in a line together? Talk about cheesy (thank God they didn’t!). Then there’s this:

“That night I made a move, man I felt hard, when I put my hands in her cookie jar”

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Jon Bon Jovi
Queen Of New Orleans lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Oh please! Viz’s Finbarr Saunders would have baulked at that. And finally, in a blinding piece of self knowledge, we have this:

“She said baby our love’s just like your songs, the beat ain’t bad but the words are all wrong”

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Jon Bon Jovi
Queen Of New Orleans lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Ha! Apart from appearing on a few charity singles, Jon Bon Jovi has yet to return to his solo career.

Shola Ama had nine UK Top 40 hits in total but apart from her cover of Randy Crawford’s “You Might Need Somebody”, I couldn’t have told you the names of any of them without checking her discography first. It turns out that this one – “You’re The One I Love” – would be her highest charting when it peaked at No 3. This was actually a rerelease of her debut single which stalled at No 85 in 1996. Her album “Much Love” came out on the Monday after this TOTP and would go to No 6 eventually selling 100,000 copies. Shola was big news and never bigger than when she won a BRIT award for Beat British Female and two MOBOs for Best Newcomer and Best R&B act. And then…well, it all went a bit flat. A follow up album appeared in 1999 but it was a commercial failure peaking at No 92. Shola would remain within the music business even featuring on a Top 10 hit in 2004 for The Pirates. However, it maybe wasn’t the career she might have imagined she would have after her success filled start.

As for “You’re The One I Love”, it’s a very serviceable R&B/soul hit the type of which was very prominent at this time but does it linger long in the memory? Not mine I’m afraid. Apparently, Shola’s son is a big name music producer called Mekhi or prollymac or something – he’s one of those ‘Nepo Babies’ which is what the kids are saying these days but I wouldn’t know about that or Mekhi/prollymac. In fact, I struggled to find anything to say about his Mum.

Who’s this? Conner Reeves? Do I know this guy? Let me think….Reeves…Reeves….I know Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves obviously and Country legend Jim Reeves. Hell, I even remember 80s footballer Kevin Reeves but Conner (with an ‘e’ not an ‘o’) Reeves? Nope, I’ve got nothing. What’s his hit called? “My Father’s Son”? That kind of sounds familiar but am I getting confused with that song by Mike + The Mechanics about a son’s regret over an unresolved conflict with their now deceased father – “The Living Years”. Actually, didn’t the bloke who had a hit with that song called “Jessie” do one called “My Father’s Son”?

*checks internet and cross references*

That’s him. Joshua Kadison and yes he did but that’s not this song. It’s all very confusing.

Anyway, Conner Reeves’ song was his debut hit of five (five!) in total and apparently big things were predicted for him but I’m not sure why on the strength of “My Father’s Son” as it’s a bit of a plodder. How would I describe his sound? Well, Wikipedia categorises it as blue-eyed soul which is as good a description as any I guess. As for his image, he’s giving me serious Gilbert O’Sullivan vibes with that cap. Did he always wear it? Was it his USP? He looks like a bit of a knacker to be honest. In short, I’m not sold. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’d rather have “Son Of My Father” than “My Father’s Son”…

Hmm. The running order for this particular show isn’t turning out to be the best. Now we’ve got UB40 but it’s not the UB40 of their classic early 80s hits. No, the 1997 version of the band had certainly seen better days and was probably past its sell by date. They hadn’t released a new studio album for four years and had filled that gap with a Best Of Volume 2. “Tell Me Is It True” was their first release of any nature for two years and was initially from the soundtrack to the movie Speed 2: Cruise Control though it would later turn up on their album “Guns In The Ghetto”. As Jayne Middlemiss hints at in her intro, the band actually had a cameo appearance in the film but I didn’t know that until now as I’ve never seen it. I loved the original Speed starring the aforementioned Keanu Reeves (I love it when a post comes together) but he wasn’t in the sequel and it got bad reviews so I gave it a miss. There were a few supposed blockbuster movies out that Summer that didn’t really land – Event Horizon and The Fifth Element were two others. I actually fell asleep in the latter though I was talking to someone at work the other day who loves it.

Anyway, that’s all besides the point. What is the point? The music of course so was “Tell Me Is It True” any good? Well, having listened back to it, it was actually better than I expected. The verses echoed back to those glory days of their prime although the chorus was a bit of a letdown. Also a letdown was the reaction to the “Guns In The Ghetto” album so the band returned to that reliable sales generator the “Labour Of Love” project with Volume III released in 1998. The new millennium would see the band splinter acrimoniously but that’s a whole other story/film/documentary…

And yet another artist who I don’t know at all despite having been in full time employment in a record shop at the time of her biggest hit. The name Tina Moore does resonate with me but only because that’s the name of the wife of the 1966 World Cup winning England captain Bobby Moore. Tina Moore the singer? My memory bank is as empty as a MAGA supporter’s head. For the record, she had two UK chart hits with “Never Gonna Let You Go” the first and biggest of them. Now if it sounds a bit like Rosie Gaines that’s possibly because it was on the flip side of white label copies of “Closer Than Close” but it wasn’t picked up for an official release like its partner. When it finally was, it was this ‘Bump-N-Go’ remix by Kelly G (an associate of Chicago house legend Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley no less) that did the trick sending the track to No 7. I assume the “chicka-boom” comment by Middlemiss in her intro was a reference to the noise of the track’s two-step backing track was it? Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about do I? I’m clearly winging it here!

And so to a band whose name I do recall but I would struggle to tell you any of their songs let alone how they sounded. Symposium were ‘the best live band in Britain’ according to the Melody Maker’s front page in late March 1997. I obviously never saw them live but judging by this TOTP appearance, I’ve got a fair idea of what one of their gigs would have been like. “They’re noisy, they’re wild, they’re anarchic” Jayne Middlemiss tells us in her intro which I’m sure fitted perfectly with how the band’s label would have wanted them to be described but were they? Certainly their song “Fairweather Friend” had lots of pop punk energy but was it anything we hadn’t heard before? Green Day springs to mind. Maybe if I’d have been the same age as the band (18 or so) I’d have found them as entertaining as the even younger studio audience clearly did. Once again, I have to question the lack of security here – there’s a semi-mosh pit going on down the front and then, breaking a longstanding taboo, one of the band stage dives into the audience! Naturally, after such antics, there’s then a stage invasion just as we’ve seen recently with Oasis and to a lesser extent Stereophonics recently. What was going on here?!

“Fairweather Friend” would be Symposium’s biggest hit of three peaking at No 25. By 2000, the perennial problem of ‘musical differences’ would do for the band though they reformed for occasional gigs in 2022. By the way, they surely have two of the most tongue-twister type named members in their line up since Big Country drummer Mark ‘Unpronounceable Name’ Brzezicki – try saying Wojtek Godzisz and Hagop Tchaparian three times in a row.

What was executive producer Chris Cowey thinking of with this running order? After stage-diving and stage invasions with Symposium, the next act in the studio is Chumbawamba! All those youngsters in the studio audience needed calming down not given another track to get their adrenaline pumping! “Tubthumping” was definitely the latter! Thankfully, the first couple of rows of the audience seem to have settled into a rather nerdy ‘dance’ of bending over when singer Dunstan Bruce sings “I get knocked down” and raising their arms when he sings “but I get up again” before shaking their fist rather limply to “You’re never gonna keep me down”. Ah to be young again – actually, they’ll all be in their mid-40s now! Oh, and talking of unusual band member names, Chumbawamba had Danbert Nobacon and Alice Nutter in their ranks but obviously they were made up.

It’s a third week at the top for “Men In Black” and once again we have a superimposed Will Smith introducing the video. I think it worked OK once but I fear overexposure had caused the magic dust to disperse too far by this point. The same couldn’t be said for the single itself which continued to see off all opposition to remain at No 1 for this chart and the following week’s. However, we would all be saturated by the news of a car crash in Paris in the days to come after this TOTP was broadcast.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Jon Bon Jovi	Queen Of New Orleans	No
2	Shola Ama	You’re The One I Love	Negative
3	Conner Reeves	My Father’s Son	I did not
4	UB40	Tell Me Is It True	No and that’s the truth
5	Tina Moore	Never Gonna Let You Go	Nope
6	Symposium	Fairweather Friend	Nah
7	Chumbawamba	Tubthumping	YES!
8	Will Smith	Men In Black	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/m00293qd/top-of-the-pops-29081997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 22 AUG 1997

Posted on March 27 by 80stastic

After rotating a trio of presenters in Jayne Middlemiss, Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley in the first few weeks of his tenure, TOTP Executive Producer Chris Cowey has branched out with his choice of hosts. Recent shows were piloted by Mary Anne Hobbs, Phil Jupitus and Denise van Outen. And then there’s this week – the curious case of Sarah Cawood. Having started her presenting career on Nickelodeon, she’d most recently appeared in Channel 4’s The Girlie Show. You remember The Girlie Show surely? It was a Channel 4 late night magazine show that was in the slot usually reserved for The Word and was hosted by a team of presenters including Cawood and a very young Sara Cox. It wasn’t well received by viewers or the tabloids though I always quite liked it, especially the ‘Wanker of the Week’ feature. Anyway, despite those post-pub beginnings, she was drafted into host the BBC’s flagship, prime time pop music show in 1997 but here’s the curious thing – Cawood wouldn’t present another TOTP for nearly five years at which point she was a regular until June 2003. So what was that all about? Didn’t Cowey think Cawood was any good in this 1997 show but changed his mind in 2002? I think she does a decent job for what it’s worth.

We start with one of the biggest and most unlikely hits of the year – “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba. This really was an astonishing hit from a band that had never troubled the chart compilers in their previous 15 years of existence. I’d certainly not heard of the anarcho -punk outfit before around 1992 when I worked with a colleague called Emma who was a bit of a Riot Grrrl and was into them. I’d somehow managed to miss their response to Jason Donovan taking The Face magazine to court for claiming that he was lying by denying he was gay – the band had ‘Jason Donovan – Queer as Fuck’ T-shirts printed which they gave away free with their single “Behave”. Fast forward to 1997 and the band had controversially signed to EMI having left indie label One Little Indian. The decision was viewed with mistrust at best and open hostility at worst from their fanbase and peers with accusations of hypocrisy levelled at them not least because they had recorded songs criticising the conglomerate in the past including contributing to a compilation album called “Fuck EMI”. Hmm. Chumbawamba’s stance was that the move would allow them to take their political messages to a wider audience. That was achieved and then some with “Tubthumping”. It spent three consecutive weeks at No 2 and a further eight inside the Top 10. How did they do it? By coming up with a track that crossed over massively. With its terrace chant chorus and lyrics about drinking, it appealed to the ‘lad culture’ who couldn’t have cared less about the band’s anarcho-communist political views because you could shout it as you stumbled from one bar to another on a pub crawl at the weekend and that was all mattered. Obviously, this move to the mainstream risked alienating their original fanbase but the I guess the band deemed it worth it. It was an irresistible, once heard never forgotten track which had enough going on in it to ensure it wasn’t just a lowest common denominator, appeal to the masses tune. There’s an excerpt from Brassed Off in the intro and a sample of “Trumpet Voluntary” by Jeremiah Clarke in the trumpet solo for a start.

For this performance, the band had to compromise even further by agreeing not to sing the word “Pissin’” in the lyric “Pissin’ the night away” so were left with an uncomfortable gap instead. Talking of the lyrics, I read that it was such a big hit in the US as well (No 6) because American audiences had misheard the words “I get knocked down” as “I get No Doubt” and thought it was some sort of tribute record to the “Don’t Speak” hitmakers. I would say that can’t be true but then America did vote in Donald Trump as their president. Twice. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t try and use it to soundtrack his campaign. He’s too stupid to understand that the song is actually for and about working class people and their resilience in the face of adversity.

There were some ropey old boy bands in the 90s of which I would include OTT and when I say ‘ropey’, I literally mean ‘money for old rope’. The sheer audacity of their record label Epic to think they could launch this lot to global stardom on the back of some uninspired choices of cover versions. Having had their first hit with a cover of “Let Me In” by The Osmonds (blatantly copying Boyzone’s initial route into the charts), they went there again with a cover of a classic MOR ballad – Air Supply’s “All Out Of Love”. What a lazy, banal and uninventive way to go. In the 2001 film Rock Star, Mark Wahlberg’s character (a singer in a rock tribute band) argues with his brother about their differing musical tastes. Whilst he is into heavy rock, he chastises his brother for liking Air Supply. I think that says it all.

The staging of this performance with the studio audience all sat down on the floor cross-legged, gazing up at the four dullards in front of them reminds me of junior school assemblies. Watching OTT is about as much fun as those assemblies. Only two of the four band members sing solo parts while the other two just do the nerd shuffle on either end of the line up. When there’s the “what are you thinking of?” break down towards the song’s conclusion, one of the ‘singers’ does some weird arm movements like he’s cracking a whip or something. It looks really odd and jarring which is also how I’d describe the decision to call these berks OTT as there is nothing ‘over the top’ about them at all – they couldn’t have been more bland and safe.

Two years on from their No 1 single “Dreamer” and Livin’ Joy were commendably still having Top 20 hits though “Deep In You” would be the last. I’m not sure I would have predicted that continuation of chart success back in 1995 years especially for a dance act when the hits were more about the track than the artist. Tellingly though, despite the presence of five hits on it, Livin’ Joy could not shift significant quantities of their only album “Don’t Stop Movin’” which would peak at No 41 in the charts.

OK, so I have to mention the elephant in the room here which is why is singer Tameko Star wearing what appear to be a pair of marigolds throughout the performance? She looks like she should be cleaning the bathroom rather than singing on TOTP. More ‘Deep In The Loo’ than “Deep In You”.

Here’s a comeback I’m guessing we’d all forgotten about – the return of Dannii Minogue. Or should that be just ‘Dannii’? As part of her relaunch, there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to rebrand her with just her first name in the style of Madonna, Cher and…well…her sister Kylie. I’m not sure Dannii would ever be that famous as to only require her first name although, to be fair, how many other people called Dannii do you know or can think of? Looking back through her discography (which took longer than I would have imagined), it appears that this one name promotion of her had actually started all the way back to her first few single releases judging by their artwork. In Australia, it seems her records were always billed as being by just ‘Dannii’ whereas in the UK she was Dannii Minogue at least initially. However, just a handful of singles in and there was parity between the territories. There seemed to be a definite strategy in place for her return in 1997 to reinforce the Dannii only moniker – the TOTP caption doesn’t include her surname and Sarah Cawood refers to her as just ‘Dannii’.

Nomenclatures aside, her last hit had been the very minor “Get Into You” way back in 1994 so where had she been all this time? Well, she’d got married and subsequently divorced in the space of just two years which had taken its emotional toll on her. She modelled nude for Playboy (I’m sure there were also nude calendars as we were selling them in the Our Price store where I worked) and returned to TV co- hosting Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast show. By 1997, she pursued a return to music and if her name wasn’t any different then her comeback single was. Dannii’s biggest hits in the UK to this point had been covers of disco songs like “Jump To The Beat” and “This Is It” and although “All I Wanna Do” was a dance track, it sure wasn’t disco. This was Hi-NRG with a relentless (if repetitive) chorus that aligned itself well with her new adult and deliberately sexualised image. The TOTP performance plays into that with her movements shown in almost slow motion at some points and a couple of knowing winks to the camera. The single would debut and peak at No 4 but it couldn’t stimulate sales of parent album “Girl” which stalled at No 57. However, she would return in 2003 with gold selling album “Neon Nights”.

Next up are a Welsh band who, like their peers Manic Street Preachers, are still going to this day. In fact, there are a few parallels between the Manics and Stereophonics besides their nationalities – they’ve both released double figures amount of albums, they both play a brand of alternative (for want of a better word) rock music and both are referred to incorrectly using a definite article on occasion though, as I have done, Manic Street Preachers are often referred to as The Manics. On that point, I once worked with someone that insisted that Stereophonics was pronounced phonetically as ‘Steree-off-ernics” but he was a bit of a prat.

Anyway, “A Thousand Trees” was the second Top 40 hit for Stereophonics after “More Life In A Tramp’s Vest” earlier in the year and was another great example of the storytelling ability of Kelly Jones. A tale of how rumours in a small town environment can destroy a person’s reputation, I love the metaphor of matches and trees in the lyrics which Jones cleverly inverts to make his point. Parent album “Word Gets Around” was released the Monday after this TOTP aired and I remember putting it straight back on the shop stereo even though we’d just played it as I wanted to hear it again – I wasn’t disappointed. There’s some great songs on there; not just the singles but album tracks as well like my personal favourite “Check My Eyelids For Holes”. I bought the album and the follow up “Performance And Cocktails” but I’d kind of lost sight of them after third album “Just Enough Education To Perform”. I should probably update my knowledge of the rest of their back catalogue though there is a lot of it to go at with a new album due in April 2025 to boot!

As for this performance, I’m left asking the question of whether there was a problem with security in the TOTP studio around this time. After the crowd invasion of the stage when Oasis were on the other week, this time a lone youth seems to spring from out of the audience to jump around (rather uncooly) behind Kelly Jones before disappearing back into the crowd. Was that planned? If not, where were the floor managers/studio security? The show’s reputation was at stake – I’m surprised that Jones didn’t write a song about that!

And just like that, the first era of Mark Owen’s solo career was over. It took less than a year from the release of his debut single post-Take That for it took come off the rails and was emphatically demonstrated by his solo single “I Am What I Am” (not that one) peaking at a lowly No 29. Now, you could argue that this wasn’t the harbinger of doom that I’m making it out to be given that it was the third track taken from his album “Green Man” that had been out for eight months by this point. However, the album hadn’t sold well peaking at No 33 so the suggestion that punters might not have bought the single because they already had the album doesn’t really hold water. Presumably the diminishing sales caused tension between Owen’s label RCA and their artist as “I Am What I Am” has originally been earmarked to be the fourth single released from “Green Man” but a fourth single never appeared and Mark was subsequently dropped. I said earlier the ‘first era’ of his solo career as Owen would return to it six years later with the interesting single “Four Minute Warning” which peaked at No 4. Although album sales continued to be sparse, his fifth album “Land Of Dreams” released in 2022 would go Top 5 and in any case, his solo career was running in parallel with the second coming of Take That from 2006 onwards.

As for “I Am What I Am” specifically, it’s a decent enough little tune but listening to it feels to me like watching my beloved Chelsea play currently – you think they should be better than they are and you’re constantly waiting for them to make something happen and they never do (you win matches by scoring goals lads not by having loads of possession).

I mentioned earlier the connections between Stereophonics and Manic Street Preachers but the former also has one with this band – Suede. Well, sort of. There’s probably a few but the one I’m thinking of is that they both had hits with very similar titles. In 2004, Stereophonics took “Moviestar” to No 5 while back in 1997, Suede went to No 9 with “Filmstar” – ‘movie’ or ‘film’…what’s the difference? This was the fifth and final single from “Coming Up” (who did they think they were? George Michael? Michael Jackson?) and it was another example of that more accessible sound that had run through the album. Built around one of Richard Oakes’s favourite guitar riffs, its chart peak of No 9 meant that all five of the singles from “Coming Up” had gone Top 10 (maybe they were George Michael and Michael Jackson!). In this performance, keyboard player Neil Codling seems to do very little, at some points sitting there with his hands idle looking meaningfully at the camera. Who did he think he was? Brian Jones incarnate?

Will Smith remains at No 1 with “Men In Black” and his intro piece from the other week is recycled with Smith superimposed over the start of the video again. It would stay at the top for four weeks becoming the sixth best selling single in the UK that year. The film of the same name was also a smash hit with opening weekend box office receipts of $51 million making it the third highest grossing opening weekend ever at the time. I caught the movie at the cinema and enjoyed it for what it was though I don’t think I’ve ever watched any of its three sequels. There was also two soundtrack albums released – a score by composer Danny Elfman and a collection of songs by R&B and hip hop artists such as De La Soul, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Alicia Keys and Destiny’s Child as well as two tracks by Smith himself. Despite only the title track actually featuring in the film, the album was a huge success in the US going to No 1 and selling over three million copies. It sold more conservatively over here reaching gold status for 100,000 units shifted.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Chumbawamba	Tupthumping	YES!
2	OTT	All Out Of Love	As if
3	Livin’ Joy	Deep In You	Nope
4	Dannii Minogue	All I Wanna Do	Negative
5	Stereophonics	A Thousand Trees	No but I had the album
6	Mark Owen	I Am What I Am	Nah
7	Suede	Filmstar	See 5 above
8	Will Smith	Men In Black	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/m00293qb/top-of-the-pops-22081997?seriesId=unsliced