TOTP 07 NOV 1991
After last week’s Halloween themed show, the TOTP producers have passed on celebrating Bonfire night as well (it was two days before this programme aired to be fair) but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any fireworks on offer. Not literally of course (Health & Safety and all that) but metaphorically beginning with a performance kicking off the show that must be up there as one of the weirdest in TOTP history. The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (aka The KLF aka The Timelords aka Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) are ripping up the rule book here (year zero revamp or not). The performance is certainly inextricably linked to the nature of the track “It’s Grim Up North” it’s true. A Scotsman reading out a list of towns and cities in the North of England against a backdrop of a pulsating industrial techno beat was hardly your standard Top 40 material so you could argue that inevitably any promotional appearance to support it would end up being unconventional at the very least. I think Drummond and Cauty delivered in spades though with a pragmatic reading of the lyrics juxtaposed with that most bizarre yet intrinsically English of art forms Morris dancing. What f****d up psyche devised this?
After giving the new format down the banks almost relentlessly these past few weeks, credit where it’s due – this was challenging in both a sensory and aesthetic manner. I can’t imagine the old guard of the likes of Steve Wright introducing this. Actually, who is that doing the disembodied voice over? It turns out that it’s one Elayne Smith. Who? Well, like Mark Franklin before her with his BBC local radio background, Elayne was plucked from the relative obscurity of pirate radio where she presented the breakfast show on the station London Weekend Radio. The internet suggests that she only made one more TOTP appearance after this debut. She doesn’t seem to get a fair crack of the whip from the start. It takes three performances and 10 mins 30 seconds before we actually see Elayne on screen and she gets a name check.
Back to The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu though and that performance. The Morris dancing – what point were they trying to make here? In my own, ill informed mind, I think of Morris dancing as a very Southern thing so my initial analysis was that it was a juxtaposition of North vs South imagery but that’s actually incorrect. The North West of England has a long history of Morris Dancing so it can’t be that. Was it a nod to the May Day celebration in legendary folk horror film The Wicker Man? That was set on a remote Hebridean island called Summerisle and Drummond and Cauty did infamously burn £1 million on the Scottish island of Jura in 1994 (or did they?) Anyway, as a jarring spectacle it’s up there with the likes of Pete Wylie and those nuns in 1986 for his performance of “Sinful”. Talking of whom, “It’s Grim Up North” was originally released as a limited edition “Club Mix” in December 1990 with Wylie on vocals and it was planned to be a prominent track on the JAM’s album “The Black Room” (a parallel follow up to The KLF’s “The White Room”) but the album was never completed.
Nevertheless, this 1991 version was put out into the market place due to The KLF’s huge success (as Elayne said in her intro, nobody had sold more singles than them in 1991). As for the towns and cities that are referenced in its lyrics, it’s very North West based (there’s no mention of Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough etc) and Cumbria is only represented by Barrow-in-Furness. The city where I live Hull creeps in but the rest of North Yorkshire is poorly represented. In fact, the cities and towns read out by Drummond reads like a list of Our Price stores in the North West area (I worked in a couple of them) mentioning as it does places like Accrington, Bolton, Burnley, Nelson and Rochdale. If Drummond wanted to have really courted controversy he should have included my mate Robin’s Cumbrian hometown…Cockermouth. When we were at Poly together, Robin was asked by a lecturer during a linguistic seminar to tell him where he was from for an example of a word he could break down into its component parts. Cockermouth came Robin’s reply prompting the lecturer to write this on his board…
Cock – er – mouth
Hilarity ensued.
Anyway, “It’s Grim Up North” finishes with a fully orchestrated arrangement of William Blake’s Jerusalem which was set to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. I’m guessing this was to make use of the famous ‘dark Satanic Mills’ line and it connection to the Industrial Revolution? Somehow it works when it really shouldn’t. “It’s Grim Up North” peaked at No 10 and The KLF would tie up 1991 with the release of their collaboration with Tammy Wynette on “Justified & Ancient” which prompted many a customer to come into the Our Price I was working in to ask for that song about ‘an ice cream van’.
Now, new producer Stanley Appel’s live vocal policy has been the undoing of many a turn on the revamped show so far but here we have an example of how it can actually give the TV audience a better viewing experience – the ad lib. Second act on tonight are Crowded House for whom a live vocal was as natural as breathing and Neil Finn does a great job here but he was also able to indulge in a slight bit of off script free styling when he announces into the microphone ahead of beginning to sing latest single “Fall At Your Feet”, “It’s grim down South”. Not the funniest ad lib ever but at least it gave expression to some of the character behind the performer.
At this point, Crowded House were a one hit wonder in the UK having announced themselves in 1987 with “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (coincidentally also in the charts at this time courtesy of Paul Young’s cover version) before failing to chart with any of their subsequent (and rather excellent) single releases. Even this track from third album “Woodface” had been preceded by a flop in lead single “Chocolate Cake” (chart peak No 69) but finally the UK saw sense and bought “Fall At Your Feet” in enough quantities to send it to No 17. “Woodface” would prove to be their commercial breakthrough peaking at No 6 in the UK album chart and providing a further three Top 40 hits including Top Tenner “Weather With You”. That song would prove to be their biggest ever hit over here and helped the album to a slew of sales in 1992. I always saw that period of the band as portraying them as that year’s REM who had broken through in a big way commercially themselves in ’91 with their “Out Of Time” album.
Just to clarify co-presenter Mark Franklin’s announcement that they were an Australian band – I had to check as I wasn’t sure that was strictly true. Weren’t they from New Zealand? Both myself and Franklin were right (and wrong). The band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1985 but Neil Finn is actually a Kiwi and was of course in New Zealand art rockers Split Enz before Crowded House. Plus at this point, Neil’s brother Tim was also in the band making it an equal Antipodean split (drummer Paul Hester and bass player Nick Seymour were Aussies).
I saw Crowded House play live at The Manchester Academy around this time and it still ranks as one of my favourite gigs ever. They’d done a PA at the HMV megastore earlier in the day when I’d got my copy of “Woodface” signed by the band and then caught them live in the evening where Nick Seymour did his infamous chocolate cake party piece. I saw them later on at the much bigger Manchester Apollo but it wasn’t as good a gig as that more intimate one in the Academy.
Like Brothers In Rhythm who were on the show a few weeks earlier, I’d kind of forgotten that the next act were actual chart stars in their own right rather than the ace face of remixers that they came to be known for in the 90s. K-Klass would go onto work with acts as major as Bobby Brown, Janet Jackson & Luther Vandross, New Order, Rihanna, Whitney Houston…the list goes on. Moreover, their remix of “Baby Come On Over” by Samantha Mumba was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2002 in the Best Remix category. And yet they started off in 1991 as another of those dance acts on the seemingly endless conveyor belt of artists who stuck rigidly to the template of anonymous blokes stood in the background fiddling around on decks of keyboards whilst a female singer belted out some sub-soul vocals front of stage. It wasn’t my bag at all but I didn’t actually mind “Rhythm Is A Mystery”. I think it was that rolling Italian House piano riff that made it tolerable.
So who were K-Klass? Well, the singer was the exotically named Bobbi Depasois and the other four blokes were …well…were literally just some blokes with regular jobs that happened to have a hit record. Russell Morgan (I went to school with a kid called Russell Morgan but it’s not him!) was a postman, Paul Roberts worked for BT, Andy Williams was a lab technician and Carl Thomas delivered fish in a fish van. Basically K-Klass were the musical equivalent of a non-league football team that have somehow got to the 3rd round of the FA Cup and drawn Man Utd generating newspaper articles about how the players are all part -time and the their ‘real’ jobs are being a plumber, electrician etc. “Rhythm Is A Mystery” peaked at No 3 after only making it to No 61 on its initial release just six months earlier.
In the ‘exclusive’ slot this week is Belinda Carlisle who, having been in the studio for the very first show in the ‘year zero’ revamp era just a month prior with her “Live Your Life Be Free” single, is back with follow up “Do You Feel Like I Feel”. This was almost an exact duplicate of its predecessor only not as good. The Our Price where I was working at the time were sent a sampler cassette for the album to plug ahead of the official release and I think (cringe!) that I may have signed that promo out for myself. It had four tracks on it including this one plus a track called “I Plead Insanity” which should have been a single but never was. “Do You Feel Like I Feel” would prove to be Belinda’s last ever US Billboard Hot 100 hit though she would keep going strong in the UK for a fair few years after that.
Oh and that first ‘year zero’ performance for “Live Your Life Be Free” which had Mark Franklin pointlessly ‘interviewing’ Belinda afterwards for about 30 seconds? Here’s Mark himself on that:
No wonder he kept the chat so short – he had to nip off camera to find the crapper pronto!
It’s that INXS video for “Shining Star” next. This was a Breaker last week and I didn’t have much to say about it then so quite what I’m expected to say about it this time I’m not sure. Well, what actually happens in the video? It’s a basic band performance set in a private club venue alongside a sub plot of some grotesque male characters being disposed of or humiliated by their female consorts. So we get a guy leaving down a chute after a lever is pulled, another fella being sent skywards on a see-saw plank and a geezer being sprayed with a bottle of bubbly as if it were a fire extinguisher. It’s all pretty daft and uninspired fare. It was directed by music video go to guy David Mallet who is responsible for some of the most iconic music promos of the 80s including David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl”, “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats and “Radio Ga Ga” and “I Want To Break Free” by Queen. Not sure what happened here though as he really phoned it in. “Shining Star” peaked at No 27.
Not fair! They’ve only gone and done it to me again! Two on the trot! I could hardly muster 50 words about this lot when they were a Breaker last week and now here they are in the studio. What can I say about Control and “Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)”? I’ve pretty much got nishters. OK, I guess I have to try so yet again we have a dance act conforming to the tried and tested model of having some faceless blokes on assorted keyboards etc at the back of the stage fronted by a female singer (just like K-Klass earlier in the show) but… that poor woman doing the vocals! She looks and sounds like she just happened to be wandering past the TOTP studio on her way home on a cold November evening and was asked by the producers to literally come in off the street and perform this track. The singing is definitely ropey and why has she got a Winter coat on?! Supposedly, the original 12″ release of this had the lyrics “dance with me I’m on ecstasy” which was changed to “dance with me I’m your ecstasy” for the full release. Ah, the gnarly old head of potential media outrage is raised once more
“Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)” peaked at No 17 and was Control’s one and only Top 40 hit. That enough for you? Yeah, I think that’ll more than do.
Right, there’s a grand total of four Breakers tonight but none them would ever be played in full on the show. We start with Metallica and ‘The Unforgiven”. The follow up to their seminal single “Enter Sandman”, yet again this isn’t one that sparks any synapses of recognition in my brain but, having listened to it properly, it’s actually quite interesting. Having decided that they wanted to mess around with traditional song structures to see what happened, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich hit upon the idea of reversing the template of a standard verse leading into a huge, bellowing chorus and instead had strident verses and a softer sounding chorus. It doesn’t sound like it should work but it kind of does. So pleased with themselves were they that the band would record not one but two sequels in the form of “The Unforgiven II” from the album “Reload” and “The Unforgiven III” from the album “Death Magnetic” – heavy metal recycling; it might catch on. “The Unforgiven” peaked at No 15.
There’s more than one Chris Rea Christmas song?! There’s three actually but this one, “Winter Song”, doesn’t specifically make mention of the ‘c’ word in its title nor its lyrics. Even so, it was no doubt released at this time of year in the hope of being a hit at Christmas. Chris (or possibly his record label) had quite the cynical streak – his last single, released in June, had been called “Looking For The Summer”. Hmm.
“Winter Song” doesn’t sound a million miles way from the ubiquitous festive favourite “Driving Home For Christmas” especially the original 1986 version which is a bit more sombre than the sprightly re-recording that gets plated every Yuleltide. The lyrics seem to be about keeping his lover warm from the cold of Winter (he should have borrowed that woman from Control’s overcoat!) but then missed a Christmas trick with the video which seems to be based around rivalries between the various factions of Rea’s tour crew. So not Christmassy at all.
“Winter Song” made a respectable No 27 in a crammed Christmas singles market. Oh, that third Chris Rea festive song? He released something called “Joys of Christmas” in 1987 (“Driving Home For Christmas” was on the B-side). No, I’ve never heard of it before either.
Ooh – bit of a moment here. Is this the very first time that Manic Street Preachers appeared on TOTP? Although double A -side “Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat” was already the band’s third single release of 1991, I must admit that I wasn’t really aware of these Welsh rockers until the following year when I couldn’t ignore “You Love Us” and “Motorcycle Emptiness”. I’ll rephrase that. I was aware of the name Manic Street Preachers at this time not least because of the Steve Lamacq / Richey Edwards incident in May when Edwards carved the words ‘4 REAL’ into his forearm with a razor blade when asked by the NME journalist how serious he was about the band, their music and ideals. However, I’m not really sure that I knew what they actually sounded like. Somehow I must have missed “Stay Beautiful” and this single despite the fact that they both made the Top 40 (their earlier non Columbia singles that were either self released or on indie label Heavenly hadn’t charted).
The band’s iconic debut album “Generation Terrorists” was released in early ’92 and would spawn six singles and achieve gold status for 100,000 sales. Its length (73 minutes and 18 tracks long) led to accusations of a lack of quality control and the band maybe regretted in retrospect their decision to make outlandish claims that it would sell 16 million copies and that they would split up after its release. However, its reputation remains intact nearly 30 years later and is celebrated and cherished by fans.
Oh and that video with Nicky Wire, Richey Edwards and James Dean Bradfield all supposedly naked and quite happy to be in close proximity to each other was probably deemed a bit too controversial for a before the watershed screening by the BBC hence it only belong on screen for less than 30 seconds. “Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat” peaked at No 26.
We finish with yet another single that I managed to let pass me by despite my working five days a week in a record shop at the time. “Me. In Time” was a non album single for The Charlatans released between their debut LP “Some Friendly” (’90) and follow up “Between 10th And 11th” (’92) and was the third not to feature on an album in a row after “Over Rising” and a re-release of early single “Indian Rope”. Presumably this was a deliberate strategy on behalf of record label Situation Two to ensure their boys didn’t disappear from view and people’s minds as the Madchester phenomenon waned as 1991 came to an end.
Now I’ve listened to it properly 30 years after the event, I conclude that it’s not bad at all if a little lightweight. It seems to be a genuinely forgotten single of theirs as well with it not being on any of the band’s Best Of albums (as far as I can tell) and the only version on Spotify is from a live gig and not the studio single release. Also, what was with the errant punctuation in the song’s title? Weird(o).
And talking of weird….what the Hell was happening here?! Neil Sedaka on TOTP?! In 1991?! Look, I know he is a legendary singer, pianist, composer and record producer (I’m pretty sure my parents had one of his albums when I was growing up) but really?! He’s been squeezed in to the show courtesy of the album chart feature as he had a Greatest Hits album to promote called “Timeless – The Very Best Of Neil Sedaka”. Not sure why the world needed one as there must have been pushing about 20 Best Of / Greatest Hits / Collection Neil Sedaka albums by this point (and there have been many more since – check out his discography) but I do remember this one coming out. It was on the PolyGram TV label and therefore received its own TV ad campaign to promote it. Presumably the marketing team at Polygram TV had negotiated a spot for Neil on TOTP because how else do you explain Sedaka’s appearance here? It’s as confounding as a sudoko puzzle. Some of the acts on tonight only emphasise how incongruous he seemed – sadly Manic Street Preachers and Metallica were only on video but I would like to imagine that Sedaka met up with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in the BBC bar afterwards and spent a while shooting the breeze over a few beers. Maybe not.
However, I do know of one person who caught up with Sedaka in a bar once. It was at the Midland Hotel (I think) in Manchester city centre. Neil was staying there as he was playing a show (Sedaka ‘plays shows’ rather than ‘does gigs’ don’t you think?) and my Our Price manager Pete (the original bass player with the Stone Roses) happened to be in there having a few drinks on a night out. On spying the great man himself, Pete (emboldened by a few ales) lumbered over to Sedka and expressed his gratitude to him for writing “Solitaire” as if he hadn’t, Karen Carpenter would never have sang it and Pete would never have heard it. Apparently, Sedaka’s reaction to his approach suggested that Pete had scared the bejeezus out of him.
Anyway, back to his TOTP performance and did Elayne Smith really describe Neil as being ‘back in full effect’? Or was she referring to The Charlatans? He gives us “Miracle Song” which was actually released as a single despite being promoted here as an album track. It sank without trace. Surely he would have been better suited to a spot on Wogan or Des O’Connor than TOTP? For all I’ve derided him a bit here, I don’t mind a bit of Sedaka and he has written some great songs – just ask my old boss Pete.
After 16 weeks of the same song at No 1, we now have two different chart toppers in consecutive weeks. With U2 only lasting seven days in pole position, they give way to Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff with “Dizzy”. They’re not in the studio though (shame – I would love to have known what Neil Sedaka made of Vic and Bob) so it’s the promo video which is basically a carbon copy of what they did when they were in the studio last time (including Bob sliding through Vic’s legs at one point). Apparently this single was a huge favourite down at nightclubs on a student night. I can imagine. Had I been born just a couple of years later I’m sure I would have been throwing myself around the dance floor at Rascals, my club of choice in Sunderland where I was a student in the 80s. I was once stood near to Vic Reeves in a queue for the Eurostar at Paris Gare du Nord. He was with his wife Nancy Sorrell. That’s as interesting as the story gets I’m afraid.
As a follow up to ‘Dizzy’, Vic released a dance version of the hymn “Abide With Me” which is traditionally sung at the FA Cup Final before kick-off. It’s was a bizarre way to follow up a No 1 record and it duly flopped when it peaked at No 47. Maybe that was what Vic wanted all along – maybe it was some sort of satirical comment on pop music and manipulating the charts. He should have joined in with that fictional chat between Bill Drummond, Jimmy Cauty and Neil Sedaka as the former two knew a thing about how to send up the music industry.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu | It’s Grim Up North | It’s not actually and I didn’t |
| 2 | Crowded House | Fall At Your Feet | Not the single but I had the album (signed by the band!) |
| 3 | K-Klass | Rhythm Is A Mystery | I did not |
| 4 | Belinda Carlisle | Do You Feel Like I Feel | No but I had that promo album sampler thing with it on – for shame! |
| 5 | INXS | Shining Star | Not the single but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs |
| 6 | Control | Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy) | No |
| 7 | Metallica | The Unforgiven | Nope |
| 8 | Chris Rea | Winter Song | No thanks |
| 9 | Manic Street Preachers | Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat | I’m ashamed to say I didn’t but I do own a couple of their albums and have seen them live twice |
| 10 | The Charlatans | Me. In Time | Negative |
| 11 | Neil Sedaka | Miracle Song | Of course not |
| 12 | Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff | Dizzy | I didn’t |
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/m00116fn/top-of-the-pops-07111991
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 