Here’s a blast from the past. Anyone remember Julia Carling? I have to admit I’d forgotten all about her but here she is presenting TOTP in 1996. OK, the show was maybe not commanding the same profile as in its 70s and 80s heyday but it was still the BBC’s flagship music programme. So who was/is Julia Carling and how did she get this gig? Well, she was a TV presenter (obviously) who’d started as a VJ on VH-1 and guested on Channel 4’s BigBreakfast before her spot here. She was also the wife of England rugby player Will Carling though Wikipedia informs me that the couple divorced in this year. Will was rumoured in the tabloids to be romantically linked with Diana Princess of Wales something that must have passed me by at the time. As for Julia, she spent some time on ThisMorning before disappearing from our screens to concentrate on a career in journalism and writing a book.
Before we get to Julia though there’s the return of the direct to camera message from a featured artist that was curiously replaced by a highlights montage the other week. Not sure what all that was about but there’s no ignoring its reappearance as we get Black Grape in the slot this week but it’s Keith Allen not Shaun Ryder taking centre stage as he’s joined them for their Euro 96 single “England’s Irie”. Unfortunately, Allen is there as his alter-ego, the never-not-annoying Keithski banging on about the football so let’s move on quickly to opening act Longpigs. Although more often than not categorised as Britpop, they never seem to get talked about as much as some of the movement’s other luminaries. In fact, the most frequent comment about the band always see seems to be that their guitarist was Richard Hawley who, of course, went on to forge a career as a solo artist in the new millennium. Longpigs had some decent tunes though of which this one – “She Said” – is probably my favourite. Despite sounded like the band are performing it under duress, it also has a power and menace of its own. Part of that menace comes from the repeated lyric “you better hit her”. I’m not quite sure what songwriter and singer Crispin Hunt was getting at when he wrote it but, certainly taken in isolation, the line is dubious. That apart, I do think the track stands up with that piano scale leading into the chorus simple yet very effective. Back to Crispin though and his name must be up there as the most posh boy moniker in all of Britpop. What? How about Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker? Oh hush!
Gabrielle’s career is a curious mixture of massive hits and middling, blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em chart entries. For every “Dreams”, “Rise” and “Out Of Reach”, there was a “Because Of You”, “I Wish” or this one – “Forget About The World”. The second single from her eponymous sophomore album, it would peak at No 23 whilst spending just three weeks on the Top 40. As such, I don’t recall this one at all but *whisper it* it’s actually quite good. A nice tune, perfect for Summer with a polished but not ostentatious production, I much prefer it to some of those aforementioned bigger hits. One thing that does let it down though, and this applies to nearly all of Gabrielle’s work, is her lack of diction. I had to have subtitles permanently on to be able to understand what she was singing about. Annunciate Gabrielle annunciate! Never mind forget about the world, she forgot about the words!
Another female solo artist now as we get the latest single from Mariah Carey who, after a slowish start to her UK chart career, was on a hot streak of Top 10 hits by the mid 90s. “Always Be My Baby” was the eleventh in a row to achieve such a chart peak over here. Of course, in the US, it had always been huge smash after huge smash right from the start with eight of her first ten hits going to No 1.
This track was the fourth and final to be lifted from her “Daydream” album and would go straight in at No 3 (it was a chart topper in America obvs). It would stay within the Top 40 for eight weeks, quite the feat of endurance in a chart era of singles debuting high then falling away rapidly. Contrast that with the stats for Gabrielle’s single – two comparable hits with wildly fluctuating chart performances. Why was that exactly? I’ve been writing this blog long enough to know that question is largely unanswerable. I even wrote a dissertation on it as a student and couldn’t get to the bottom of it. If I had to guess, I’d say that maybe Mariah had more airplay behind it than Gabrielle? Could be as I thought I didn’t know “Always Be My Baby” but the “doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-dum” hook sounded very familiar. Maybe though I was thinking of this 1992 hit from Betty Boo…
If it looks, sounds and has the whiff of an act of desperation, then it surely is an act of desperation. It had been two years since LetLoose had a huge hit single with “Crazy For You” that had transformed them briefly into contenders for the next teenage heartthrob band. By 1996 though, despite having a clutch of medium sized hits to their name, nothing had replicated the success of their breakthrough song and their album had sold moderately. Enough to warrant a follow up but a chart high of No 20 wasn’t going to give Boyzone sleepless nights.
The alarm bells must have truly started ringing though when the lead single from their second album – “Everybody Say, Everybody Do” – could only scramble to No 29 in the charts at the back end of 1995. Seven months would pass before the band reappeared. Presumably, in that time, the decision was made to break the pop music emergency glass and execute the standard, fall back contingency plan which was – altogether everyone – RELEASE A COVER VERSION! Yes, of course. When in need of a career reviving hit, that was the obvious move. In the case of Let Loose, their safe word song was the old Bread hit “Make It With You”. Now OK, it’s a nice ballad and it certainly did the job (albeit a stop gap one) when it returned the band to the Top 10 but that particular track had already been used for a similar purpose by The Pasadenas* only four years previously when their version peaked at No 20. Stealing ideas from the “Tribute (Right On)” hit makers was surely a low. Despite the cover’s chart success, the band still ended up going down the pan when second album “Rollercoaster” hit the skids and then disappeared without trace taking Let Loose with it. Ah, the ups and downs of life as a 90s boy band.
*The Pasadenas had done a whole album of covers in an attempt to rebuild their career.
And so to a band who had just announced that they were splitting up according to Julia Carling and she was right as CrowdedHouse (initially) called it a day in 1996 after having been around for about a decade. Was she right about it being their last time on TOTP though? Having done a little research, I think she might have been. 1-0 to Julia. Anyway, Crowded House were going out with a bang in that they released their first Greatest Hits album called “Recurring Dream” which would go on to sell over a million copies in the UK twice as many as their previous bestselling studio album “Woodface”. It included three new songs of which “Instinct” was one. Taking of things recurring, thus was yet another track that I thought I didn’t remember until I listened to it and it was hidden deep in my memory banks, presumably buried behind a heap of recollections of drunken nights out or the name of that kid from school that I can never recall. Anyway, it’s a very Crowded House tune which seems a lazy but accurate way to describe it. Another way would be that it was a typical example of their thoughtful, well crafted melodic rock/pop which I’ve always been a sucker for. In fact, perhaps one of my favourite gigs ever was seeing them play The Academy in Manchester around 1991 when bassist Nick Seymour did his infamous ‘chocolate cake’ party trick. Is “Instinct” one of the band’s best tunes? No, I wouldn’t say so but it’s a decent tune and at least they used the correct word for its title and didn’t make one up just so it scanned better. Yes, I’m talking about you Gary Kemp!
A second new track called “Not The Girl You Think You Are” was released as a follow up which I do remember as it sounded so much like The Beatles which was apparently deliberate as Neil Finn has described it as an homage to the Fab Four. It would help propel “Recurring Dream” to the top of the charts. It was also assisted in achieving that chart feat by an advertising campaign that featured a tag line that went something like “you know more Crowded House songs than you think you do” which I remember thinking was quite clever at the time. Its sales performance felt similar to that of The Beautiful South’s “Carry On Up The Charts” Best Of from a couple of years prior. Not shed loads of massive hits but enough familiar songs that it felt like a soundtrack to your life and therefore something you would need to own to represent it.
Crowded House would reconvene in 2007 and release the “Time On Earth” album though without founding member and drummer Paul Hester who tragically committed suicide in 2005 after battling with depression. The band’s latest album “Gravity Stairs” was released just four months ago in May of this year.
Oh shite! It’s that dreadful SimplyRed song that was appropriated as the official Euro 96 anthem. “We’re In This Together” should have been made available on the NHS for insomniacs – talk about soporific! I mentioned the last time this tripe was on that my reaction to it was in line with a Joe Pasquale heckler who threw his crutches away whilst shouting “I’d rather fall over than listen to this shit!” on the way down. Following on from that, I’ve remembered another extreme reaction that was in response to actually hearing a Simply Red track. When at polytechnic, a friend was in the student bar and not in a particularly good mood. Whatever was troubling him was not helped by Hucknall and co coming on the bar jukebox. His response to this was to set fire to his hair! Talk about “A New Flame”!
By this point in his career, Maxi Priest had been having chart hits for a decade beginning with “Strollin’ On” in 1986. Although there were a many a single that missed the Top 40 along the way, there were also plenty of major successes. Look at his 1990 hit “Close To You” which combined New Jack Swing and soul so well that it went to No 1 in America making him one of only two reggae artists (alongside UB40) to ever achieve a US chart topper.
However, to some uneducated ears (and I include my own in that description), it might seem that Maxi has become an enduring figure predominantly off the back of doing some reggae covers of already well known songs like “Some Guys Have All The Luck” and “Wide World” but that perhaps doesn’t tell the whole story. Maxi established himself by being able to adapt his natural reggae tendencies to align with the predominant musical trends of the day. His Wikipedia page lists his own musical genres as being Roots Reggae, R&B, Lovers Rock, Dancehall and Reggae Fusion. He’s worked with artists as diverse as Jazzie B, Roberta Flack, Lee Ritenour and Apache Indian. His choice of collaborator hasn’t always been spot on though. His willingness to follow the zeitgeist meant teaming up with two of the three S’s* of 1993’s ragga phenomenon. “Housecall” saw him join forces with the despicable Shabba Ranks before this track – “That Girl” – had him in partnership with the laughable Shaggy. Sampling “Green Onions” by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, I’m convinced that this would be so much better if Shaggy had not been involved. He’s turned up and done his usual nonsense in that low growl of his so we get random interjections like “Gangsta kinda lover”, “Fancy kinda lover” and, inevitably, “Sexy kinda lover” before he just resorts to making grunt noises. Come on Maxi! You were better than that!
*A Maxi Priest / Snow duet has yet to happen thankfully
It’s time for this week’s ’exclusive’ performance from BlackGrape with their contribution to the “Beautiful Game” compilation album (which also featured “Three Lions”) entitled “England’s Irie”. I never really got this one perhaps because, like Simply Red’s awful “We’re In this Together”, it doesn’t seem to have that much to do with football. Sure, there’s a few stock phrases in there like “Cross into the box”, “A perfect pass” and “It’s a football thing” that clearly anchor it as a football song but some of the lyrics are tenuous at best. “Dribble around my socks”? “Check my shirt and drink my shots”? “Squeeze me in box”? I suppose that last one could relate to the infamous photo of Vinnie Jones grabbing Gazza by his nuts but still. Maybe Shaun Ryder’s lack of a connection to football might explain it. Here’s @TOTPFacts:
Shaun Ryder on “England’s Irie”: “I know fuck all about football. I was born at the back of Old Trafford and I’m a red by birth, but I don’t do football. It means absolutely nothing to me.” #TOTP
Hmm. Shaun was aided in this track by Keith Allen and Joe Strummer who, as Julia Carling states in her intro vowed never to appear on TOTP with The Clash (2-0 to Julia). The fact that he broke that vow to perform on this track, well…I think this sums it up:
Of all the songs Strummer could have performed on TOTP THIS is the one 😠😫
Keith Allen, of course, was carving out a nice little side career for himself with football songs. As well as this one, there’s “World In Motion” with New Order and he would go on to release three further football ‘songs’ under the Fat Les banner. Cheers for that Keith. Apart from the lyrics, there are other things about “England’s Irie” that confuse me. For a start, what has the word ‘Irie’ got to do with the England football team? Here’s @TOTPFacts again:
(Explaining to a judge) “Irie” is Jamaican slang that originated in the Rastafari movement. Anything that makes you feel “alright” – that’s cool, enjoyable, or positive – can be described as irie. #TOTP
Secondly, apart from Strummer, nobody seems to be wearing an England football shirt. Shaun’s looks more like an England rugby top, Keith Allen is wearing orange as if he’s Dutch but also a kilt as if he’s Scottish. The drummer’s wearing an Argentina shirt for Chrissakes! It’s all a bit of a mess but then this is Black Grape we’re talking about so…
Before the No 1 record, Julia announces the first winner of the TOTP meet and greet competition and it’s David Howe from Chingford in Essex! I wonder what David thought of his prize – a chance to hang out with Shampoo as they shoot an ‘exclusive’ performance for the show in Madrid. A trip to the Spanish capital would have been nice but Shampoo? They were hardly the biggest of names were they? At least it wasn’t Peter Andre though!
The Fugees are No 1 for a third week with “Killing Me Softly”. This was one of those singles that flew off the shelves. There were a few of them in the 90s where anticipation for a song’s release created phenomenal demand. “Mmm Bop” by Hanson (no really!) was another along with “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt and “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears. Nothing though can touch the clamour for Elton John’s “Candle In The Wind 1997” after Princess Diana died but that’s a whole other story for a future post.
The play out track is “Where It’s At” by Beck. This was a track taken from his “Odelay” album (the one with the shaggy dog jumping over a hurdle on the cover) and was only his second UK hit when it peaked at No 35. Everyone I ever worked with at Our Price seemed to love Beck as he was perceived as being super hip. My view? Yeah, I quite liked him though not as much as my wife who bought “Odelay”. “Where It’s At” was typically edgy and alternative with samples a plenty and a whiff of 60s psychedelica. It would win Beck a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance though, for me, it wasn’t as memorable as follow up “Devil’s Haircut”. Still, what did I know.
P.S. In a link more tenuous than an “England’s Irie” lyric, there’s a connection between Julia Carling and Beck…Jeff Beck the rock guitarist with whom she lived for six years from the age of 18.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Longpigs
She Said
No but I had their album I think
2
Gabrielle
Forget About The World
No
3
Mariah Carey
Always Be My Baby
Nope
4
Let Loose
Make It With You
As if
5
Crowded House
Instinct
No but I had the Best Of album with it on
6
Simply Red
We’re In This Together
Never!
7
Maxi Priest / Shaggy
That Girl
Nope
8
Black Grape / Keith Allen / Joe Strummer
England’s Irie
Nah
9
Fugees
Killing Me Softly
No but my wife had the album
10
Beck
Where It’s At
See 9 above
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
It’s the middle of February 1994 and something odd is happening. Unlike in 2023, my beloved Chelsea are still in the FA Cup. Somehow they managed to get past last season’s runners up Sheffield Wednesday after a replay in the last round and, two days after this TOTP aired, would travel to Oxford United and dump them out as well. To put this in context, this was only the third time in my living memory that they had made the Quarter Finals and I’d been supporting them since 1975. Nowadays of course they are serial finalists and winners of the cup but back in 1994, this felt like a very big deal. They would end up making it all the way to the final that season but let’s not talk about the 4-0 thrashing they were handed by Manchester United eh? I was working in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester at the time and the Sony rep assigned to our shop was a guy called John who was also a Chelsea fan. He called in during the week and offered me the chance to go with him to the Oxford game on the Saturday but I had to work. What has all this got to do with TOTP? Nothing at all really but I like to recall what was going on in my life at the point these repeats originally aired. Right, now that’s done, let the music play…
This is the third show of Ric Blaxill’s stewardship and so far he’s only used Mark Goodier and Simon Mayo of his roster of returning Radio 1 DJs to host the show. Mayo gets the gig this week unfortunately but he gives a mercifully short intro at least before we’re into the tunes. SaintEtienne ended last week’s show and they begin this one but this time in the studio with a performance of “Pale Movie”. I said in the last post that it put me in mind of the theme tune to dubbed, black and white 60s TV series WhiteHorses. However, on reflection it’s got the merest whiff of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” about it – must be the Spanish guitars. Apparently the band themselves view the track as a missed opportunity in that it could have been absolutely blinding but they didn’t get it quite right. It sounds pretty good to me though.
Mayo can’t resist going through his various gears of smugness at the end where he makes references to the staging of the performance and the usage of Lambrettas. “That’ll be the first time you’ve seen Lambrettas on Top of the Pops since…ooh…1980 and Poison Ivy” he can’t wait to tell us to show off his pop knowledge. Oh piss off Mayo!
Right, what’s this screeching nonsense?! Well, it’s Cappella, the people who bought you “U Got To Know” and “U Got 2 Let The Music” in 1993. They’ve dispensed with the use of a ‘U’ instead of ‘you’ in their choice of song title this time as they deliver “Move On Baby” though they would return to it for their next hit “U & Me”.
Reading their Wikipedia entry, they were kind of like the Eurodance Tight Fit. How so? Well, Tight Fit were a hastily put together trio of models/ singers who were assembled to be the public image of a recording of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” organised by producer Tim Friese-Greene. However, the year before a different producer called Ken Gold had made a record called “Back To The Sixties”, a medley jumping on the Starsound/Stars On 45 craze. Although it was recorded by session musicians and singers, it was promoted by a group of actor/singer types also under the name of Tight Fit for a TOTP appearance. Sound familiar?
OK but how does this relate to Cappella? Well, Cappella weren’t really a group but more a promotional name for the ideas of Hi-NRG producer Gianfranco Bortolotti. They first had a UK chart hit in 1989 with “Helyom Halib” which was fronted by model Ettore Foresti who didn’t appear on the record at all. Fast forward four years and Bortolotti was having those aforementioned ‘U’ hits but this time the public faces of the act were rapper Rodney Bishop and dancer Kelly Overett. Neither were anywhere near the recording studio at the time the tracks were laid down. Judging by the vocals that Kelly gives on this TOTP appearance, that was probably a wise choice. Anyway, it does seem like the Tight Fit strategy of promoting a single was copied by Cappella. Or was it Tight Fit who copied Boney M and Black Box who copied Tight Fit and Capella who copied Black Box? Considering that question is more likely to give me a headache than listening to “Move On Baby” if that was possible!
For all their success, CrowdedHouse have a patchy record when it comes to hit singles. The did accrue thirteen UK Top 40 entries between 1987 and 1996 (twelve of them consecutively) which in itself is not too shabby but of those only one reached the Top 10 and of the rest only five made the Top 20. I guess they were more of an albums band. This one, “Locked Out”, was their joint second biggest hit when it peaked at No 12. The third single from their fourth album “Together Alone”, it’s a great pop song; urgent yet melodic, well crafted yet felt spontaneous.
It was also featured in a film that I’ve mentioned before (though I can’t recall why now). RealityBites starred Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder and Ben Stiller who also directed and whilst it wasn’t a runaway success at the time, has since become a bit of a cult classic. Its soundtrack isn’t talked about in such revered tones but it did furnish a fair few hits. Aside from “Locked Out” it also featured “Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb (a US No 1 and UK No 6) and Big Mountain’s cover of Peter Frampton’s “Baby I Love Your Way” (UK No 2 and US No 6). Those hits are for much later in the year though.
I confidently predicted the other week that we wouldn’t be seeing Dina Carroll on the show again until 1996 when her next album came out. So what’s she doing here this week performing an album track? It was all to do with the BRITS which last week’s TOTP had bigged up with a whole section dedicated to the nominations. Dina won Best British Female but as she will have got the gong for that at the actual BRITS show, they’ve allowed Simon Mayo to present her with an award to commemorate her album “So Close” selling one million copies. To celebrate that occurrence, she’s singing “Hold On” exclusively for the show despite it never being released as a single. It’s got a bit of a Marvin Gaye vibe about it but it certainly wasn’t as strong as “Don’t Be A Stranger” for example. Was this type of performance going to be a regular thing under new producer Ric Blaxill? The ‘million seller’ slot? Surely not…?
…or definitely maybe because here’s another new section of the show that is based around songs not actually in the Top 40. To be fair to Blaxill, this slot was at least linked to the charts being billed as it was Bubbling underthe40 and highlighting a song just outside them. Was he thinking that if a single was just outside the 40, given prime exposure on TOTP it would definitely be inside it the following week anyway so why not just get it on early doors? That did rather cast him in the role of hitmaker which is maybe not the job of the show’s producer? Wasn’t TOTP always meant to reflect the tastes of the record buying public and not to be forcing songs upon it? Anyway, whatever the reasoning behind the slot, in the case of Sinéad O’Connor, the exposure it gave her song “You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart” didn’t turn it into a hit in the UK. In fact, it never got any higher than where it was at the time of this performance – No 42. Taken from the soundtrack to the film InTheNameOfTheFather about the 1974 Guildford pub bombings and the four people falsely convicted of perpetrating them, it’s certainly an affecting track. I’ve never seen the film but I can imagine it fitting in well to a movie of such gravity. However, whether you’d want to listen to it over and over outside of the film I’m not sure.
Sinéad gives a typically atypical performance here. With just some spotlights, a smattering of dry ice, the word ‘forgiveness’ marker penned on her chest and a long bob wig (I’m assuming) for company, she goes from standing still defiantly to full on animated dancing via a bit of gentle swaying all in the space of three minutes. Sinéad would get herself a bona fide chart hit later in the year when “Thank You For Hearing Me” made No 13 and a gold selling parent album in “Universal Mother”.
The well established Breakers slot is still with us and we start with a third consecutive hit for UrbanCookieCollective. Yes, you read that right – a third consecutive hit. Remembered by many as a one hit wonder, the Cookies (as nobody ever called them) actually had five UK Top 40 hits though the final one was a a rerelease of their first. “Sail Away” was the third of those and would make No 18. It’s got a frenetic beat but none of the charm of “The Key The Secret”, as if they were trying to do their best 2 Unlimited impression.
Mayo’s at it again with his smug mode enabled going on about how there hasn’t been an act called Sasha on TOTP for decades. I presume he was referring to the French singer/songwriter Sacha Distel? Ooh Simon, you’re so knowledgeable! Nob. Anyway, this Sasha is the Welsh, multi-award winning DJ and producer. He isn’t the guy in the video who I believe is Sam Mollison. You didn’t make that clear in your intro did you Mayo? Maybe you didn’t know? He also isn’t Sash! the German DJ of “Encore Une Fois” fame. Anyway, this track “Higher Ground” made No19 and was a track from Sasha’s “The Qat Collection” which also furnished a No 32 hit called “Magic” also with Mollison on vocals though the album itself only made No 56.
Next it’s the official follow up single from Meatloaf to his gigantic, global No 1 hit “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. I say official as Sony rereleased “Bat Out Of Hell” in December 1993 to cash in on the renewed interest in their one time artist. However, the second song from the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” album was this track- “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through”. Yet another Jim Steinman composition, the track was actually recorded by Steinman 13 years prior for his “Bad For Good” album and was his only US chart hit in his own right.
Written about the uplifting power of rock music and its ability to see people through even the most extreme of circumstances, it’s classic Meatloaf fodder (it was originally written for him) and has the usual play on words title with the use of ‘through’ rather than ‘true’. Any song from the album chosen as the follow up to its chart busting predecessor would struggle in comparison sales wise and that was the case with “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through” which didn’t even make the Top 10 over here. The video was as over the top as you would expect though with Meatloaf cast as some sort of vigilante fortune teller going around blowing up jukeboxes to rescue runaway teenagers including a young Angelina Jolie. Director Michael Bay would go onto direct movies including Armageddon, Pearl Harbour and Transformers so he obviously had a thing about explosions.
God Mayo really is insufferable. In his next link, he says this:
“Now there comes a point in every good Top of the Pops where your Dad in the corner goes ‘What the Hell is this?!’. Well, just tell him it’s TheWildhearts and they’re great!”.
What’s wrong with that you may ask? Well, at the time of this show, Mayo was a 35 year old father of two so I’m not really buying his ‘I’m down with the kids’ positioning of himself. As for the band he was introducing, I really can’t remember them at all despite their thirteen UK Top 40 hits and four albums they released between 1993 and 1997. So were they great as Simon Mayo told us? Well, if “Caffeine Bomb” was anything to go by, not in my book. All this glam metal stuff had been done to death before and by better bands than this. New York Dolls, Kiss with their full face make up, even Manic Street Preachers had dabbled with make up and guitars in their early days. Then there was the early 90s UK glam blues/rock movement from the likes of The Quireboys and The Dogs D’Amour…oh and guess what The Wildhearts had links to both those bands. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:
The Wildhearts singer/guitarist Ginger (real name David Walls) was previously in The Quireboys, while drummer Bam was (and currently once again is) a member of The Dogs D'Amour. #TOTP
Oh it all makes sense now. They tried to make themselves controversial with headline baiting song titles like “Greetings From Shitsville”, “Sick Of Drugs” and “Just In Lust” but it all seems a bit desperate to me. Nothing to see here. Next!
Did someone mention 2Unlimited before? Um, yeah…it was me obviously but here they are still having hits even in 1994, three whole years after their first. “Let The Beat Control Your Body” was the ninth of fourteen in total in the UK and the fifth and final one from their “No Limits” album. To highlight how many hits they’ve had, the TOTP production team have set up a 2 Unlimited ‘art gallery’ full of gold and silver discs to enable a really weak link for Simon Mayo who obviously had a thing about other people’s disc awards following Dina Carroll’s earlier. They could have at least used the VisionOn gallery music to soundtrack it:
Once the performance starts it the usual 2 Unlimited shtick with lots of pounding beats and some ropey rapping from Ray and Anita enthusiastically singing some dreadful, trite lyrics like “My beat accepts you just as you are, it drives you away just like a fast car”. Seriously, how did they get away with this for so long?!
Mariah Carey has crashed straight I at No 1 with her cover version of Harry Nilsson’s “Without You” finally bringing D:Ream’s four week reign to an end. Supposedly the release of the single was delayed by three weeks probably to align perfectly with the Valentine’s Day market but possibly so as not to clash with the death of Nilsson himself who passed away on 15th January. A respectful amount of time maybe needed to be seen to have passed or was it to see if his record company might rerelease his most famous song in the aftermath of his demise? The single’s success gave her “Music Box” album a huge sales push despite it having been out for six months by this point. I’d ordered in a load for the Our Price I was working in but we still sold out by Saturday afternoon – a rookie error. “Without You” will be No 1 for another three weeks.
The play out tune is “Rush” by FreakPower which is the second song on the show tonight after Sinéad O’Connor’s “You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart” not to become a Top 40 hit. Freak Power were, of course, one of Norman Cook’s many musical vehicles and followed the dissolution of Beats International in his timeline. They would score a massive hit in 1995 with “Turn On, Tune In Cop Out” following its use in a Levi’s advert. I don’t remember this one at all though hardly surprising seeing as it peaked at No 62.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Saint Etienne
Pale Movie
Liked it, didn’t buy it
2
Cappella
Move On Baby
Never
3
Crowded House
Locked Out
No but I think I have it on a Best Of album
4
Dina Carroll
Hold On
I never bought her album, no
5
Sinéad O’Connor
You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
No
6
Urban Cookie Collective
Sail Away
Uh-uh
7
Sasha
Higher Ground
Nah
8
Meatloaf
Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through
Nope
9
The Wildhearts
Caffeine Bomb
God no!
10
2 Unlimited
Let The Beat Control Your Body
As if
11
Mariah Carey
Without You
I did not
12
Freak Power
Rush
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.
What were you doing twenty-nine years ago? I know, I know. It’s hard enough remembering why you’ve just come upstairs some days but I’m pretty sure that I had just begun working at the Our Price store in Altrincham, Cheshire. I’d been employed by the company for three years by this point and was onto my fourth different shop. I’d done nearly two years in Market Street, Manchester then a promotion saw me move to Rochdale for a year. A transfer to a bigger store in Stockport followed but it hadn’t really worked out for me. I never settled and found the whole place a bit overwhelming. When another move suddenly presented itself, I was relieved. Whether area management knew I was struggling and took pity on me I don’t know. I doubt it but I immediately felt better at Altrincham. It was a much smaller store (similar to Rochdale) and just felt more manageable. The staff were welcoming and I really got on with the manager Cathy. I think there were eight of us altogether including Christmas temps and it was a good little team. I loved it there in fact. Sadly, it would all come to an abrupt end immediately after Christmas but that’s for a future post. I wonder if any of the songs on this TOTP will ring any bells with me?
Well, this one should do. Not that I remember it specifically but because it sounds the same as all their other hits. I refer, rather obviously, to 2Unlimited. I think it was all starting to wear a bit thin by this point wasn’t it? “Maximum Overdrive” was their eighth UK hit in a two year period five of which had made the Top 5 including the No 1 single “No Limit”… and they all sounded…the…same. Too harsh? OK, they all followed a very similar pattern then. I get that they might have gone down well on your local nightclub’s dance floor but could anybody have listened to a whole album full of this stuff?!
*checks 2 Unlimited’s discography*
What?! Two of their albums went to No 1 in this country (“No Limits!” and “Real Things”) selling 350,000 copies between them?! This can’t be true can it?! This is as baffling as who the hell voted for Matt Hancock to stay in the jungle that long!
When I first saw Anita and Ray’s outfits for this performance – full black and white chequered leathers with a number 2 prominently displayed – I wondered if they’d gone all Two-tone but it was all to do with that motorbike at the back of the stage. Presumably that was meant to be a play on the theme of the single’s title with the backing dancers meant to be pit stop crew? Nah – this is how you incorporate motorbikes into your song. A masterclass from David Essex…
Why were the TOTP producers obsessed with informing us that artists that had been booked to appear in the studio could no longer do so because they were ill/indisposed so we’d have to make do with the video instead? Why bother telling us? Surely we wouldn’t have known they were meant to be there in person anyway would we? Methinks they protest too much. Unless…it was some sort of ploy to make the show still appear credible and valid by showing us that artists did still want to make the effort to appear in person – “we’re still the biggest music show on TV, honest we are!”. Anyway, that’s what happens here with Terence Trent D’Arby who was meant to be in the studio to perform his single “Let Her Down Easy” but had come down with a case of Beijing flu* according to host Tony Dortie so it’s the video instead.
*There was an actual epidemic of it in the winter of 1993/94 though whether TTD had actually contracted it or it was just Dortie trying to be topical I don’t know.
1993 had been quite a year for Terence on the quiet. A No 4 album in “Symphony Or Damn” which was also well received by the critics (it received a five star rating from QMagazine) with four Top 20 singles from it that achieved these very consistent chart peaks:
14 – 16 – 14 – 18
“Let Her Down Easy” was the final one of the four and though I don’t remember it, I really should have as it’s a striking piece of music. Almost entirely a piano led composition (there’s some orchestration low in the mix) with just Terence’s pure, isolated vocal, it’s quite the stand out track even today. It got the attention of George Michael who knew his way around a decent tune and he performed it live on his 2011-12 Symphonica tour which was recorded for his 2014 “Symphonica” album.
Back in a Eurodance dominated 1993 though, the track must have seemed like a complete anomaly. It should have been a bigger hit but maybe it got caught up in the Christmas rush. I liked the diversity of the album’s four singles with each one quite different from the other. Like I said, he had quite the year in 1993 but Terence Trent D’Arby rarely gets a mention in retrospectives of those twelve months.
Remember in 2001 when Kylie Minogue grabbed herself a No 1 single with the insanely catchy “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”? Back then, we remarked on how clever the lyrics and title were in that they worked on two levels; the object of Kylie’s affection but also the ear worm that was the actual song. Eight years earlier CultureBeat pulled off a similar coup with “Got To Get It”. ‘Got to get it, got to get it out of my head’ they sang referring to a relationship that had ended but of course it could also have referred to the track itself. Culture Beat are, of course, mostly remembered for that bit of pop trivia about “Mr Vain” being the first UK No 1 not to be released on 7” vinyl whereas Kylie is known as the ‘Princess of Pop’ and revered as a style icon. Get that out of your head Culture Beat!
In 1996 CrowdedHouse released a Best Of compilation called “Recurring Dream”. The TV ad campaign for the album used a tag line that was spoken by a voice over guy who said “you’ll know more songs than you think by Crowded House”. Clever stuff. However, here’s one of theirs that I don’t think most of us will know. I didn’t remember it and possibly Mr Voice Over Guy wouldn’t either as it’s not included in that “Recurring Dream” Best Of.
“Nails In My Feet” was the second track taken from the band’s “Together Alone” album and unlike its predecessor “Distant Sun” and subsequent release “Locked Out”, it didn’t seem like an obvious choice of single. It feels like it should be something special but flounders around in search of a tune and never actually finds one. The rather odd, almost off key middle eight that sounds a bit like the theme to 70s action-comedy series ThePersuaders! doesn’t help either.
Neil Finn does his best to sell the song with an expressive performance but it just doesn’t work for me and I say that as someone who’s seen them in concert twice. “Nails In My Feet” was supposedly inspired by Finn’s purchase of a pair of sandals with nails in them that were used to aerate the grass on his home’s tennis court rather than any religious imagery and achieved a respectable chart peak of No 22.
Tony Dortie’s at it again next telling the viewers at home that U2 should have been in the TOTP studio but for reasons he doesn’t want to bore us with, they haven’t made it. Tony, you can’t makes statement like that and not give us the whole story. You could have said nothing and we’d have been none the wiser but the cat’s out of the bag now so you have to tell all!
1993 was an odd chapter in the U2 story. Having finished 1992 with accumulated sales of “Achtung Baby” standing at 10 million and ticket sales for the supporting ZooTVTour reaching 2.9 million, the band paused for breath as there was now a six month break before the tour resumed with the Zooropa leg. The problem was that the band weren’t ready to just stop after months of touring. As Bono explained it:
“We thought we could live a normal life and then go back on the road [in May 1993]. But it turns out that your whole way of thinking, your whole body has been geared toward the madness of Zoo TV… So we decided to put the madness on a record. Everybody’s head was spinning, so we thought, why not keep that momentum going…?
Scholz, Martin; Bizot, Jean-Francois; Zekri, Bernard (August 1993). “Even Bigger Than the Real Thing”. Spin. Vol. 9, no. 5. Spin Media LLC. pp. 60–62, 96.
With loops created from tour sound checks and unused “Achtung Baby” demos being employed as starting blocks for recording sessions, the next decision was what format this new material would be released as. A four track EP was the original idea but such was the speed of their creativity, Bono suggested a whole album. Then it all got very confusing. The track chosen to promote the “Zooropa” album was “Numb” but in an unexpected turn of events, it was only released as a VHS video. I recall we got a couple of copies in the Our Price store in Rochdale but I’m not sure if we sold any of them. The then chart rules disallowed its sales from counting on the record singles chart so it kind of sunk without trace. After that rather spectacular own goal, a second track was summoned from the bench to promote the album – “Lemon”. Then it was going to be a double A-side release with “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, Bono’s duet with Frank Sinatra. Then Ol’ Blue Eyes’ people wanted a stand alone release and then finally that track was paired with the confoundingly titled track “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”. I do remember this coming out but twenty-nine years on, I couldn’t have told you how it went before re-listening to it. Now that I have listened to it again, I still can’t tell you so unmemorable is it. I don’t mind a bit of U2 now and again and you have to admire their longevity and willingness to reinvent themselves but this one is dreary as. Allegedly, Bono has previously labelled it as the band’s greatest song but I can’t hear it. It was actually written for the similarly titled Wim Wenders film Faraway, SoClose! but I’ve never seen it.
I suppose I should say something about the Bono/Frank Sinatra duet as well seeing as the single seems to have been a double A-side. How did this come about? Well, Frank had maybe been talking to Elton John as, just like the ‘Rocket Man’, he’d recorded an album of duets and, also like Elt, just called it “Duets”. Featuring collaborations with the likes of Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli, it sold well over the Xmas period peaking at No 5 in the UK. I say collaborations but it was a very mechanical process with Sinatra not actually being in the recording studio with any of his duetters at the same time. They sang along with his pre-recorded vocals with instructions to make their parts complement his. Frank ‘takin’ care of business’ as always. In that respect it was similar to the Natalie Cole (who appeared on the album with Sinatra on “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”) duet on “Unforgettable” with her deceased father Nat King Cole. The track “Under My Skin” recorded with Bono was chosen as a single to promote the album. Bono (along with the rest of the band) had already met Sinatra though in 1987 at a boxing match in Las Vegas between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. I bet Bono and the guys got a kick out of that.
The Breakers now beginningwith DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince who are trying to follow up on the huge and slightly unexpected success of “Boom! Shake The Room” with new single “I’m Looking For The One (To Be With Me)”. This is yet another track that I have no memory of (clearly working in a record shop didn’t mean that I knew every song in the charts) but it sounds a bit like their previous hit “Summertime”. Even the home made style video is reminiscent of that track. Maybe that Summer vibe was a bit misplaced on a record released as Christmas was coming into view and perhaps that’s why it got nowhere near replicating the success of “Boom! Shake The Room” when it peaked at No 24.
This next song has quite the back story. “Demolition Man” was written by Sting in the Summer of 1980 as a potential track for The Police album “Zenyatta Mondatta”. When it didn’t make the album it was offered to Grace Jones who recorded it for her 1981 “Nightclubbing” album and released it as its lead single.
Thinking that they could do a better version themselves, the band recorded it for their next album “Ghost In The Machine”.
Then over a decade later, here it is again as a solo release from Sting to promote the film of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. As with Faraway, SoClose! earlier, I’ve never seen it but reading its Wikipedia entry leads me to believe it’s one of those fun but dumb action movies that are good if you’re recovering from a hangover and have very little brain power available. The video has Sting rather gratuitously performing the song naked from the waist up with very little if any clips from the film inserted. One for his fan base there.
Sting of course has quite the connection with the world of movies. He’s acted in over a dozen films including Quadrophenia, Dune, TheBride and StormyMonday and has contributed music to many a soundtrack. Aside from DemolitionMan, he’s featured on LethalWeapon3 (“It’s Probably Me” with Eric Clapton), TheThreeMusketeers (“All Four Love” with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams), StarsAndBars (“Englishman In New York”) to name but three of a long list. There’s even a CD called “Sting At The Movies” that collects many of them together. The one burnt into my memory though is “Spread A Little Happiness” from Brimstone And Treacle in which he also starred. This seemed to be played all the time by Terry Wogan on his Radio 2 breakfast show which my Mum used to have on in the background on a school morning.
Oh the folly! Tony Dortie’s casual dismissal of the next act as “apparently once controversial” illustrates perfectly the smugness contemporary music has for its elders. Back in 1984, Frankie GoesToHollywood were everything and everywhere, exploding onto the charts like nothing witnessed since The Beatles. Three No 1 records amounting to sixteen weeks at the top, every other person in the country wearing a ‘Frankie Says…T-shirt’, a Radio 1 ban for the corrupting nature of the lyrics to “Relax”, a video for “Two Tribes” featuring actors playing out a wrestling match between Reagan and Chernenko at the height of the new Cold War…according to Dortie that just warrants an “apparently once controversial” remark. Know your musical history mate!
Frankie were back in the charts in 1993 thanks to a Best Of album and the rerelease of the “Relax” single to promote it. After that had made No 5, record label ZTT decided it was worth reissuing another of their hits. Surely “Two Tribes”* was the obvious choice or even “The Power Of Love” seeing as Christmas was coming and it had that video but no – “WelcomeToThePleasuredome” was selected. Now, nothing against the song which still stands up today in my book but it does carry with it that stigma of being the first single by the band not to go to No 1 despite ZTT using an advertising campaign declaring it their fourth No 1 before it was even released. As it turned out, it couldn’t dislodge “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey and has retrospectively been deigned to be the beginning of the end for the Frankie phenomenon. The 1993 remix still managed a Top 20 position but it seemed a missed opportunity. As it turned out, “The Power Of Love” was hastily rush released the week before Christmas and achieved a high of No 10 but with a bit more thought, a longer lead in time and better promotion, could it have challenged for the Christmas No 1 or would the power of Mr Blobby have easily seen it off?
* “Two Tribes” was eventually rereleased in February of 1994 making it to No 16.
The final two Breakers were both featured in full length on the previous show and are both due to be on the following week so I’ll leave my comments short for both for fear of running out of things to say about them. The first is “Again” by Janet Jackson. After her live by satellite performance the other week, we get the video this time which was directed by René Elizondo Jr. As well as being Janet’s then husband, he is also the man whose hands are covering her breasts on the cover of the September 1993 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine that formed the expanded artwork for her “Janet” album. So now you know.
The final Breaker is from Elton John and Kiki Dee or ‘Alton’ John as Tony Dortie pronounces it. Their rendition of “True Love” is up to No 8 on its way to a high of No 2, not quite the Christmas No 1 the bookies were predicting as per Dortie’s intro. The video is clearly aimed at creating a Christmas vibe with Elton and Kiki wearing prominently placed winter scarves whilst the black and white film depicting them as the guardian angels of the lyrics reeks of It’sAWonderfulLife. Guiding the boy and girl love interests to ensure they don’t miss each other at the train station, the film suddenly turns colour as they find each other. OK, I can live with that but the nun dancing with a homeless looking fella? Really?!
Tony Dortie tries to increase his street cred next by getting Public Enemy into his next intro. However, that credibility is stretched to its limits when you realise he’s crowbarred the hip hop legends into a segue into a performance by soprano and opera singer Lesley Garrett. So what was going on here then? Well, Lesley teamed up with 12 year old pianist and leukaemia patient Amanda Thompson to record a version of “Ave Maria”, the Latin prayer set to music by Charles Gounod when he superimposed a melody over Bach’s “Prelude No 1 in C Major”. It was a charity record raising £160,000 for the Malcolm Sergeant cancer fund and came about after Amanda had featured heavily in the ITV documentary series Jimmy’s about St.James’s hospital in Leeds. I think Esther Rantzen was something to do with it as well. There was even some fanciful talk of this being the Christmas No 1 but it topped out at No16.
Right, what are we up to now? Fourth week? Fifth? I’m losing count of how long Meatloaf’s been at No 1 with “I’dDoAnythingForLove (ButIWon’tDoThat)”. I suppose I should mention the incredible business parent album “Bat Out Of Hell 2: Back Into Hell” was also doing. In the UK alone it went six times platinum (1,800,000 sales) whilst in America it went five times platinum equating to 5,000,000 sales. Obviously it was also topped the album charts in both those territories. We sold a lot of it that Christmas in that little store in Altrincham. We did an end of year poll for the staff asking for their Top 3 albums of the year, fave single etc. “I’d Fo Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” was one member of staff’s pick. Didn’t see that coming.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
2 Unlimited
Maximum Overdrive
Never
2
Terence Trent D’Arby
Let Her Down Easy
Good song, didn’t buy it
3
Culture Beat
Got To Get It
See 1 above
4
Crowded House
Nails In My Feet
I did not
5
U2
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
No
6
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
I’m Looking For The One (To Be With Me)
Negative
7
Sting
Demolition Man
Nope
8
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Not in 1985 nor 1993
9
Janet Jackson
Again
Nah
10
Elton John / Kiki Dee
True Love
Of course not
11
Lesley Garrett / Amanda Thompson
Ave Maria
It’s a no from me
12
Meatloaf
I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’tDo That)
Unlike my Our Price colleague, 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.
This is all a bit odd. Suddenly there are no Breakers this week meaning there’s only eight acts in total on this particular TOTP. Added to that, the show is totally male dominated with no female artists on it at all and lastly the running order has been split right down the middle with the first four performances all by solo artists and the last four by bands.
The first of those solo artists is Haddaway with his hit single “Life”. What can you say about this guy? No, seriously. What else is there to say about him that I haven’t already said in previous posts? The ‘hadaway and shite’ reference? Done. That I couldn’t stand “What Is Love”? Tick. My opinion that “Life” was just a retread of its predecessor? Case stated. That in 2008 he teamed up with Dr. Alban to record a single called “I Love The 90s”? Yep…no wait…what?! No! Hell that sounds horrendous and guess what? It is horrendous! Look at this…
Dear God! That such a thing could be allowed to exist! Host Tony Dortie said of Haddaway after his performance “that man is out to lunch”. Not sure what his reasoning was for that assessment but having listened to “I Love The 90s” I conclude that he must have been a sandwich short of a picnic to record that nonsense. “Life” peaked at No 6.
Talking of Dortie, he then goes onto to tell some inane anecdote about how he once asked Meatloaf how he got his name. Tony…mate…just stick to the basics eh? So, after being previewed on the show what feels like an age ago (it was actually six weeks which does seem an extraordinarily long lead time), the single that would sell more than any other in the UK in 1993 is finally here. Surely nobody could have seen this coming?! Before “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, the last time Meatloaf had been in the UK Top 40 was in 1986 when he teamed up with John “St.Elmo’s Fire” Parr for the No 31 hit “Rock ‘n’ Roll Mercenaries”. His last completely solo hit had been 1984’s “Modern Girl”. How did he stage this incredible comeback? Well, he went back to his roots and when you understand that strategy then maybe his resurgence wasn’t quite the shock that I’ve made it out to be.
The 1977 “Bat Out Of Hell” album has sold 42 million copies worldwide so it was pretty much a no-brainer that an album called “Bat Out Of Hell II” would stack up some serious sales if ever released. Reunited with song writing partner Jim Steinman (the two had fallen out so badly that they ended up suing each other in the 80s), an official follow up to Meatloaf’s best known work was recorded with the official title “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell”. Whilst Steinman protested it was all about the art and wanting to revisit the world of “Bat Out Of Hell” and explore it deeper, Meatloaf let the truth out about what they were really doing with this quote:
“We called it Bat Out Of Hell II ‘cos that would help it sell shitloads”
Wall, Mick (2017). Like a Bat Out of Hell: The Larger than Life Story of Meat Loaf. Hachette UK. p. 167.
And so it did. The album went to No 1 in every territory on the planet and would rack up 14 million sales. The lead single did just as well going to No 1 in 28 different countries and was certified platinum in the US. It will be at No 1 in the UK soon enough in these TOTP repeats and for seven weeks so I’ll keep my powder dry for fear of a flood of commentary early on. Hmm…”I’ll Keep My Powder Dry (For Fear Of A Flood)”…if only Meatloaf or Jim Steinman were still alive…
Next a man making his last ever appearance on TOTP. Paul Young was first on the show back in 1978 (!) as part of Streetband performing novelty hit “Toast” but he became a regular from 1983 onwards as a star in his own right with massive hits like “Wherever I Lay My Hat”, “Come Back And Stay” and “Love Of The Common People”. The hits and therefore trips to the TOTP studios continued for a couple of more years before the orbit of his time as a pop idol began to wane but he caught his falling star in time to collect a handful of hits (and some more TOTP turns) and a No 1 Best Of album in the early 90s.
However, as Paul himself once sang, “Everything Must Change” and so it came to pass that the fame game was up come October 1993 as Paul served up one final TOTP outing for us. What a shame then that it was such a lacklustre performance. To start with, the set was awful. Some dry ice and some long curtains behind him were all Paul had to work with and with a total lack of detail on the behalf of the TOTP producers, they were red! He’s literally singing a song called “Now I Know What Made Otis Blue”! Sure that’s ‘blue’ as in mood not colour but even so! Secondly, there’s the sad spectacle of Paul’s vocals. Now either he had a bit of a sore throat on this particular day or it was a resumption of the vocal chords problems that he suffered from throughout his career but this isn’t the best singing he’s ever done in his life. What a shame to bow out on a bum note. Thanks for the good times Paul.
What are the chances? From one male solo artist making his final TOTP appearance to another immediately afterwards. As far as I can tell, this is the last time we’ll be seeing Billy Joel on the BBC’s flagship music show as his only UK Top 40 hit after “All About Soul” came in 2010 when “She’s Always A Woman” re-entered the charts but TOTP had been axed four years prior to that.
This was the follow up to his surprisingly successful “River Of Dreams” single which had made the Top 3 over the Summer. It’s pretty standard Billy fodder although there’s a nice sentiment behind the lyrics:
Billy Joel explains "All About Soul": "Sometimes love gets pretty thinly stretched. What sustains that? It's soul… How do you write a deeply felt love song celebrating a woman without it being trite, or hackneyed?…" #TOTP
"It's so difficult. But it's something we feel, something that matures in a relationship. That subject hasn't really been dealt with: married love, people who've been together a long time. There's always infatuation songs and lust songs, but who writes about abiding love?" #TOTP
"What really counts is who's standing in the long run, and that's one of the essential elements of that song — who's standing, and why is that? Why do people continue to survive? If someone believes in me, then I guess that I should believe in myself." #TOTP
Aah. There’s lovely. Belief and faith in each other. Billy even sings these lyrics in the song – “She gives me all the live I need to keep my faith alive” about his wife Christie Brinkley who painted the picture on the “River Of Dreams” album’s cover. Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley got divorced less than 12 months later. Ah.
We’re onto the groups now starting with a band enjoying a comeback almost as unlikely as Meatloaf’s. GoWest were shiny, new pop stars back in 1985 with some catchy tunes and a nice line in singlet vests. Then ‘85 turned into ‘86 and they were yesterday’s news before the clocks had struck twelve. As the 80s came to an end, Go West seemed like a small footnote in the decade’s pop music story but then came what seemed like one final swan song with a spot on the PrettyWoman soundtrack that gave the duo a hit with “King Of Wishful Thinking”. That was surely them done but no. Two years later came a gold selling album in “Indian Summer” and two Top 20 singles. OK but then nothing yeah? Full stop! The end. Erm…no. Buoyed by that success, a Greatest Hits album was put together (“Aces And Kings – The Best Of Go West”) and to promote it came this, a cover version of “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson And The Miracles. Sacrilege? Maybe. Was it terrible? It could have been worse but anybody would lose up against the original.
By the way, ever wondered whether the TOTP hosts were really that enthusiastic about all the acts on the show they were introducing or did they keep their true opinions to themselves back then? Here’s Tony Dortie with the answer:
#TOTP this Go West Garbage just what I imagine somebody in need of sleep puts on..pure toilet cover..no lights needed
Ouch! Well, Tony would game been pleased to know that Go West would only have one more chart entry, a remix of their very first hit “We Close Our Eyes” which made No 40 but, like Paul Young earlier, remain very active on the live nostalgia circuit. Oh, one final thing; is that Jaki Graham on backing vocals duties?
Right, a good, solid, proper band now as CrowdedHouse return with “Distant Sun”, the lead single from their fourth studio album “Together Alone”. After achieving some long overdue mainstream success in this country with previous album “Woodface” and its attendant singles, expectations must have been high for more of the same from the band’s record label Capitol. Sales of “Together Alone” didn’t quite live up to said expectations (selling roughly half of what its predecessor did) but still went platinum in the UK and made No 4 on the album chart. Like “Woodface”, five singles were released from it but none better I think than “Distant Sun” which is well crafted with some gorgeous melodies but also a change of pace and streak of defiance in the coda with the lyric “Like a Christian fearing vengeance from above” to the fore.
By this point Tim Finn had left the band and was replaced by Mark Hart and it got me thinking about the band’s various line up changes, their Split Enz origins, the tragedy of a drummer Paul Hester’s death, their split and reformation – some film director should really make a biopic to tell their story. Maybe one day. “Distant Sun” peaked at No 19.
OK. Calling this next lot a band might be stretching the definition a little but here they are anyway – it’s RightSaidFred with “Bumped”. Strange as it may seem to recall, the Freds had experienced phenomenal commercial success in the previous two years. A chart topping album and hit singles that went to positions 1, 2 and 3 in their first year plus a No 4 Comic Relief single from earlier in 1993. Only the single “Those Simple Things/Daydream” had let the side down when it peaked at No 29.
As such, the difficult second album syndrome approached. Could the lads push on through and establish themselves as more than just a comedy act? The answer was a resounding no. Sophomore album “Sex And Travel” flopped and of the singles taken from it, only one made the Top 40 and even then peaked at a lowly No 32. That was this track “Bumped” and it really is as weak as Matt Hancock’s claim that he’s doing I’mACelebrity Get Me Out Of Here to promote his dyslexia campaign. We see you Hancock. Anyway, the band were clearly under orders to promote themselves as more than a gimmick with Richard Fairbrass stating to the TOTP studio audience that “Bumped” was “more groovy than Stick It Out”. Now granted the track had a bit more musicality to it than something like “I’m Too Sexy” but it was hardly “Off The Wall” era Michael Jackson now was it?
Having commented on Paul Young’s wavering vocals earlier, I must now say something about Fairbrass’s singing. And I say this – the guy can’t really sing can he? Sure he can deliver a song but sing? Not so much. Right Said Fred would bag one final UK Top 40 hit in 2001 with the jokey “You’re My Mate” before embarking on a career as Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers.
Get ready to scream! TakeThat are straight in at No 1 with their collaboration with Lulu on “Relight My Fire”. The band broke all sorts of records and had No 1 singles coming out of their ears but the truth is that in their first incarnation up to 1996, they released more videos (seven) than they did studio albums (three) so it seems to me that they were definitely being promoted visually to a young audience over their actual music. It made sense to I guess. Just an observation.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Haddaway
Life
No
2
Meatloaf
I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)
Nope
3
Paul Young
Now I Know What Made Otis Blue
I did not
4
Billy Joel
All About Soul
Negative
5
Go West
Tracks Of My Tears
Nah
6
Crowded House
Distant Sun
It’s been a while but yes! I have the CD single of this one!
7
Right Said Fred
Bumped
As if
8
Take That / Lulu
Relight My Fire
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.
The new ‘year zero’ TOTP format isn’t so new anymore as this show marked its one year anniversary. Host Mark Franklin makes reference to this in his off screen intro and also mentions the shift of location from Television Centre to BBC’s Elstree base in Hertfordshire. All of the changes involved in the new format were meant to reconnect the then nearly 28 years old TOTP with its traditional youthful audience who were embracing a dance revolution that the show was struggling to showcase. In a case of perfect symmetrical timing, the first act on tonight is performing a song called “Connected”. I refer, of course, to StereoMCs.
Along with Suede from last week’s show, for a short while this lot were the epitome of hip. Not the same sort of hip that Brett and the boys exuded though. No, this was a more grubby, deep down and dirty type of hip. Not that I’m suggesting that Suede were a bunch of Mummies Boys. No, it’s just that the face of Stereo MCS, Rob Birch, had the look of someone who’d seen some things that you definitely wish you hadn’t. Well, that and Catweazle (Google him if you’re too young to know who that was). I wrongly assumed that they were a Manchester band due to their image and sound and although they had toured with Happy Mondays, they were in fact from Nottingham. They’d also been around since the end of the last decade and had already released two albums before they came up with “Connected”. The lead single and title of their third album, it hit a chord with both the dance heads and the indie crowd with its skanking beat and ‘aa-aa-ye-ah’ chant. It was perfect for lumbering around the dance floor Ian Brown / King Monkey style.
Just like Sade before them on last week’s show, the band were prolific at releasing material early in their career (three albums in three years) but then took nine years to record a follow up to “Connected”. The world felt like a very different place by then (9/11 was only a few months away from happening) and it didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor which went platinum, won a BRIT award and peaked at No 2 in the charts. They have released another three albums since with the last coming in 2011.
Some Antipodean rock/pop now as CrowdedHouse continue to mine the wealth of tunes from their “Woodface” album with the release of fifth single “It’s Only Natural”. The LP had come out 15 months earlier but sales of it only really took off after “Weather With You” was a Top 10 hit in February /March of ‘92. I loved this album and got a signed copy when the band did a PA at the HMV megastore in Manchester. I think they did a small set before playing a gig at Manchester Academy on the evening (which I also went to). It was a fine show, probably one of the best I have ever witnessed.
As for this TOTP performance, clearly the producers didn’t know what to do with the band and so they’ve ended up playing against a completely white backdrop with the only concession to props being the dry ice machine being put into top gear. Or maybe it was a deliberate statement that said these guys are all about the music and don’t need any cheap gimmicks getting in the way?
As for the song itself, you have to admire any song they gets ‘this mortal coil’ and ‘circumstantial’ into its lyrics but what was it actually about? Could it be that Neil Finn was singing about his hair? Neil’s barnet must be one of the most odd in music. Not flashy odd (Billy Idol) or designed to shock odd (Sigue Sigue Sputnik) but naturally odd. It’s got a life of its own, stubbornly growing at odd angles and generally behaving in an unruly way. Neil of course has previous in the hair stakes. He was in art rockers Split Enz (get it?) and his hair was even more mental then. “It’s Only Natural” peaked at No 24.
There have been a few changes to the ‘year zero’ format over the past 12 months one of which has been a return to a chart countdown (sort of). They started off just listing the Top 10 but over the last few weeks they’ve expanded that to include the rest of the chart. Here we get Nos 20 to 11 over a video by Chaos for their cover of “Farewell My Summer Love”. Who were these guys? Well, they were Sinitta’s backing dancers who were put together into a pop group by her then boyfriend Simon Cowell and included a 9 year old in their ranks, Don’t remember them? You can forgive yourself as firstly, just like with Omar’s “Music” single that soundtracked this feature last week, their song never actually made the Top 40 peaking at No 55. Secondly, their name. Does Ultimate Kaos ring any bells? That’s what they changed it to two years on from this and it worked as they clocked up six Top 40 hits. The power of the word ‘ultimate’ and some misspelling in evidence there.
If the staging for Crowded House was minimalist, then the producers have gone all Laurence Llewelyn- Bowen for the next act. Hear that noise? That’s the sound of the bottom of the music barrel being scraped. Or possibly it’s the annoying sound of one of the most iconic computer games of the decade. Tetris was that descending blocks puzzle game that was Nintendo’s top selling title and that came as the default game with their Game Boy console bundle. OK, so who’s idea was it to release a song based on the game? Nintendo themselves? Oh no. If you thought about it for long enough I reckon you would come up with the scoundrel’s name. The aforementioned Simon Cowell? Good guess but no. Need a clue? OK – Bombalurina. No, not Timmy Mallett but Andrew Lloyd Webber. The good lord (!) released a Eurodance version of the “Tetris” theme under the name of Doctor Spin and the idiotic British public bought it in enough quantities to take it to No 6.
Obviously the ex-Mr Brightman wasn’t going to perform this atrocity himself so for the sake of TOTP some dancers have been drafted in and dressed in costumes resembling blocks from the game. The absolute state of this. Unbelievably, this wasn’t the only record that was a hit based on this ludicrous idea as simultaneously in the charts came “Supermarioland” by Ambassadors Of Funk. What a time to be alive!
Some Breakers now starting with TheSundays. This is a band I really should have massively been into but yet again somehow they slipped under my radar and through my grasp. I eventually cottoned on when they released their (so far) final album “Static & Silence” five years on from this point but I really should dive deeper into their back catalogue. “Goodbye” was taken from their second album “Blind” and marked their first release on the Parlophone label after Rough Trade had entered receivership leading to the band relocating labels. Their debut album “Reading, Writing And Arithmetic” had been released with the indie legends and had been a huge success going Top 5 despite the lack of a hit single. That statistic was amended in 1998 when “Here’s Where The Story Ends” was covered by London dance act Tin Tin Out and taken into the Top 10. Somehow I always get that confused with Electribe 101’s “Tell Me When The Fever Ended”. Damn my fading memory.
I can name the first three singles from NenehCherry with no prompting whatsoever but ask me for anything after that and I’m struggling. There was “7 Seconds“ with Youssou N’Dour and…something on the “Red Hot+Blue” album? I remember the front cover to her second album “Homebrew” but nothing else about it and certainly not this lead single from it called “Money Love”.
Back in 1989 she’d been a huge breakout star with her “Raw Like Sushi” album achieving platinum status for sales of 300,000 units. Three years in pop music is a long time though and by the time “Homebrew” came out though, her era of glory felt like a long time ago. Did she still have the ear of pop fans? Sales of the album suggested no. It crawled to a high of No 27 despite the inclusion of a track featuring REM’s Michael Stipe. The single “Money Love” fared little better not even making the Top 20. Not that it wasn’t any good but how could Neneh expect to compete with a single based around the music used in a hand held computer game? Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber – you truly are an arse sir.
We had an ‘exclusive” performance of “Sentinel” by Mike Oldfield just last week but that hasn’t stopped the TOTP producers including it in the Breakers seven days later. I’m really not sure the video which seems to be a montage of various different takes on the “Tubular Bells” graphic warranted another outing. If you Google Mike Oldfield some of the entries in the People Also Ask section include ‘How long is Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells?’, ‘How much is Mike Oldfield?’ and ‘What did Mike Oldfield?’. Eh?
By the end of the fourth of tonight’s Breakers we will have achieved optimum capacity for shoehorning the most songs into the smallest amount of time. Eight songs in less than 12 minutes! I really think this was TOTP trying to compete with ITV’s entirely video based music vehicle TheChartShow. This last track really deserved more airtime. REM had gone truly global with the previous year’s “Out Of Time” album. Not resting on their laurels, they released their third album in four years “Automatic For The People” with the lead single being “Drive”. For me this is one of those songs that leaves an impression on you after just that first listen so heavy is its sound. A dark, brooding, menacing track, it’s marked out further by its odd structure- it doesn’t really have a chorus.
There’s various online theories about what the lyrics mean especially around who Ollie is but according to Michael Stipe, one of its influences comes from an unexpected source. The line “Hey kids, rock ‘n’ roll” was inspired by David Essex’s “Rock On”. Actually, I’m sure there’s a scene in his film Stardust when his character Jim MacLaine is doing a gig with his band The Stray Cats and he shouts out “Hey, rock ‘n’ roll!” during it now I come to think of it. As good as “Drive” is, for me it’s not best track on the album with at least three or four other songs ahead of it. It peaked at No 11, the band’s second biggest UK hit at that point in their career yet, unusually for an album’s lead single, it doesn’t feature on subsequent Best Of albums.
Right who’s next? Oh great, it’s Dr Alban who’s up to No 2. Look man, if I need a song called “It’s My Life” in my…erm…life then I’ve got that wonderful song by Talk Talk. Hell, at a stretch I’ve even got the cover version by No Doubt. I have zero need for this Eurodance-ified house track with some terrible rapping tacked onto it. Apparently the track was re-recorded in 2014 by the good doctor and some bloke called Chawki and retitled “It’s My Life (Don’t Worry)” but I really can’t be arsed to check it out not even for the purposes of this blog. Look, it’s my life OK?
Another song now that totally transports me back to this era when I had just started working at the Our Price store in Rochdale. “Iron Lion Zion” was the third posthumously released single by Bob Marley following his death in 1981. We’d already had “Buffalo Soldier” in 1983 to promote the “Confrontation” album of unreleased recordings which went to No 4. A year later came “One Love/People Get Ready” to promote the “Legend” compilation album. Fast forward to 1992 and “Iron Lion Zion” was put out to advertise the “Songs Of Freedom” box set. Like its two predecessors it went Top 5.
Espousing Rastafarian beliefs of Zion as the Promised Land of Ethiopia and the Lion Of Judah representing Haile Selassie, it also featured legendary jazzer Courtney Pine. Appealing to both daytime radio and the clubs via its 12” mix, it was a timely reminder of Marley’s talent and legacy. Apparently his final words to his son Ziggy on his death bed were “Money can’t buy life”. A wise man indeed.
If it’s the early 90s then there’s always room for one more dance tune and here it is – “I’m Gonna Get You” by Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown. This was the third hit on the spin for these Staffordshire techno ravers following “Such A Feeling” and “Playing With Knives” and it would prove to be the biggest of the lot when it peaked at No 3. This time they had roped in a female soul singer with the surname of Brown to help but it wasn’t Jocelyn. Nope, but Angie Brown had been recruited to sing like her namesake. “I’m Gonna Get You” featured lyrics from Jocelyn’s song “Love’s Gonna Get You” and rather than pay to sample the original, Angie filled in and re-recorded that part of the track.
So who is Angie Brown? Well, she’s worked mainly as a backing singer with some huge names like The Rolling Stones, Happy Mondays, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry. She’s also on Mark Morrison’s 1996 No 1 “Return Of The Mack” but her first taste of chart success in her own right came in 1992 with Bizarre Inc. Despite having Angie to front the record, there are five blokes up there with her on stage (two dancers and three keyboard players) at least half of which have the regulation ponytail for these times. For all that, I didn’t mind this one.
As it’s an anniversary show, it’s a perfect opportunity to squeeze in a mention that Radio 1 celebrated their own 25th birthday the day before this broadcast. Fair enough so how to mark this event on TOTP? Bit of a video montage of clips featuring past and present DJs perhaps. Maybe back in the day when Radio 1 and TOTP were so inextricably linked you couldn’t see the joins that would have been what happened. This was a new era though where Radio 1 ties had been severed so just a three second clip of all the DJs together on the steps of Broadcasting House (?) saying “Happy Birthday Radio 1 FM!” was deemed more than adequate.
Also celebrating 25 years of existence (just about) were the next act Status Quo. Hang on! Weren’t they on the first show of the ‘year zero’ era? Yes, they were playing a horrible version of “Let’s Work Together” from their “Rock ‘til You Drop” album. One year on almost to the day and they’re still seen by TOTP producer Stanley Appel as the go to party band when you’re having a knees up. Had he learned nothing from the past year?! So what are they playing this time? A medley of course! Just about everything they released around this time was a medley wasn’t it? This one was called “Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)” and featured tracks including “The Wanderer”, “Marguerita Time” and “Living On An Island”. Bigging up the performance by it being live from Amsterdam was neither here nor there as the band were just in a room that could gave been anywhere. What a horrible, pointless waste of everyone’s time!
TheShamen still rule the roost with “Ebeneezer Goode”. Remember when Wet Wet Wet deleted “Love Is All Around” after 15 weeks at No 1 because they were bored of the whole thing by then? Well The Shamen did the same thing two years before them with this single but you don’t hear much about it. There were rumours it was because of the constant press attention about the supposed drug references in the track but the band themselves said it was that its prolonged run at the top was mucking up their schedule for subsequent single releases. Naughty naughty!
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Stereo MCs
Connected
Don’t think I did
2
Crowded House
It’s Only Natural
No but I had the Woodface album it was from
3
Chaos
Farewell My Summer Love
Hell no!
4
Doctor Spin
Tetris
I’d rather have eaten my own arm
5
The Sundays
Goodbye
No
6
Neneh Cherry
Money Love
Nope
7
Mike Oldfield
Sentinel
Nah
8
REM
Drive
Not the single but I bought the Automatic For The People album
9
Dr. Alban
It’s My Life
Definitely not!
10
Bob Marley
Iron Lion Zion
I did not
11
Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown
I’m Gonna Get You
Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12
Status Quo
Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)
Are you joking?!
13
The Shamen
Ebeneezer Goode
It’s a 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.
We’ve missed another Adrian Rose episode and find ourselves in March of 1992 already. That means we missed Everything But The Girl doing “Love Is Strange” from their “Covers EP” which is a downer but never mind as the ‘92 version of me is awaiting my beloved Chelsea playing in an an FA Cup quarter final for the first time in 10 years. The game took place four days after this TOTP was broadcast. It didn’t end well. I had been telling my Our Price colleague Justin all week that our name was on the cup this year. The morning after we lost the replay to Sunderland, he showed me the back page of the paper he was reading that was emblazoned with the headline ‘C-Hell-sea’ and said “name’s not on the cup now”. There was no argument from me. We had proven ourselves to be charlatans once again, coming on like potential cup winners only to be undone by unassuming lower league opponents. And talking of charlatans (ahem)…
After a couple of stand alone singles after the release of debut album “Some Friendly”, TheCharlatans were back with a new track as a forerunner of sophomore album “Between 10th And 11th”. That track was lead single “Weirdo”. I didn’t think that much of it at the time but it’s aged pretty well over the intervening 30 years I think. For me this was a period of the band’s career that was all about the consolidation of their breakthrough success and building the foundations for their golden era that was ‘94 to ‘97.
Watching this performance back, their visuals are very Stone Roses whilst their sound comes quite close to Inspiral Carpets with that distinctive organ sound to the fore. Tim Burgess looks positively angelic up there and whilst it’s grossly unfair to compare that look to his present day image (I know I would come up short under such a comparison), I can’t help thinking that his blonde Andy Warhol hairdo is maybe not the route to go. These days of course, Tim is approaching (indie) national treasure status with his Twitter Listening Party endeavours to get us all through lockdown – I got a rather lovely hardback book for Xmas chronicling the best ones.
“Weirdo” peaked at No 19.
When Extreme scored a massive hit in the Summer of ‘91 with acoustic ballad “More Than Words”, it seemed to re-popularise acoustic / stripped back rock songs. In its wake would come “Everybody Hurts” by REM, “Wonderwall” by Oasis, “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” by Green Day and…well…this one. Now I always thought that Mr Big were a hoary old rock band from the 70s who happened to strike it lucky in the early 90s with acoustic soft rock ballad “To Be With You”. It turns out that they’d only formed in 1988 and by the time of their biggest hit had only actually released two albums.
This mega hit came from the second of those called “Lean Into It” (the one with a picture of the 1895 Montparnasse train incident on its cover) but it wasn’t really representative of their usual musical output. They’d made their name as a metal band but so all encompassingly successful was “To Be With You” that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were a one hit wonder. It was No 1 in the US for three weeks and also topped the charts in fifteen other countries (but only No 3 over here). I thought it stank though, its place in the shithouse confirmed by the fact that it was covered by Westlife. Mr Big? I’d rather have Mr Benn thanks.
Ah it’s that “It’s A Fine Day” record by Opus III again. The last time she was on, vocalist Kirsty Hawkshaw entertained us with her ball skills (no sniggering at the back). This time she’s gone all Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and brought us FIRE! For those still unable to let go of the balls though, there’s a graphic homage to their swirlingness displayed on two monitors behind Kirsty. It’s all smoke and mirrors (or balls and fire if you prefer) as this homogenised dance hit wasn’t a patch in the spooky ‘83 original by (simply) Jane.
“It’s A Fine Day” peaked at No 5.
We transition from Opus III to TheKLF via a segue made by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond themselves on Mount Fuji in Japan. As such, they can’t be in the TOTP studio to perform their latest single “America: What Time Is Love?”.
Now Cauty and Drummond can justifiably be criticised for burning a million pounds for the sake of art but they were certainly early adopters of recycling. Sadly their brand of it was never going to help the save the planet as it was their music that they were into reusing. This single was a reworking of their 1990 Top 5 hit “What Time Is Love?” which itself was a remix of its original 1988 acid house version. It would also be their last UK Top 40 hit as The KLF. This wasn’t unexpected though with their retirement from the music business having been spectacularly announced the month before with a violently controversial valedictory performance at The BRITS alongside Extreme Noise Terror.
I think I prefer this more hard rock take on the track to the version that formed part of the ‘Stadium House Trilogy’ with its “Ace Of Spades” riff. The video has the band performing under duress in a storm lashed ship (if it’s meant to be referencing the pilgrims and The Mayflower it looks more like a Viking longboat) with Cauty and Drummond (I assume it’s them under the costumes) looking like Count Binface. Truly bonkers to the very end.
“America: What Time Is Love?” peaked at No 4.
Hear that? It’s the sound of a band breaking through into the mainstream. CrowdedHouse had been in existence for seven years before people’s awareness of them and therefore their popularity mushroomed with the release of the single “Weather With You”. The third single taken from their third studio album “Woodface” was a hit all around Europe but crucially it went Top 10 in the UK where it remains their biggest ever hit. It’s also surely in the top two of their best known songs alongside “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. When the band released their Best Of album “Recurring Dream” in 1996 with the advertising slogan ‘you know more Crowded House songs than you think’, “Weather With You” was the first track on the running order. Surely a deliberate move by their record company.
The track features some distinctive and memorable lyrics including a reference to the address 57 Mount Pleasant Street. Apparently Neil Finn’s sister used to live on Mount Pleasant Road in Auckland, New Zealand though not at No 57. I’m sure I read somewhere that the band tracked down all the residents of the various 57 Mount Pleasant Streets around the world and invited them to a Crowded House gig. Presumably it was a publicity stunt though I can’t find any mention of it online.
Someone said on Twitter that the last time the band appeared on TOTP they had followed The KLF then too. I’m not sure if anything could or should be read into that but it did tickle my curiosity. I like their brief soft shoe shuffle / The Shadows impression at the song’s intro. I wonder if that was premeditated or organic?
Ah, it’s that sunny song by Shanice now. Was “I Love Your Smile” a jolly, bouncy, happy anthem or an insanely annoying piece of pop fluff? It’s a fine line. There’s a rap in the bridge section that wasn’t retained for the radio version (it’s in the video below if you’re interested). Apparently this was standard practice in the US back then to try and broaden a song’s appeal to the various musical genre specific radio stations. The rap was strategically positioned in the song’s structure at the bridge so it could be easily edited out for pop stations but left in for the R&B ones. Further examples include Shanice’s peers like Kym Sims and Ce Ce Peniston. Having listened to the rap, I can see why most radio stations didn’t play the version with it in. It’s pretty cringeworthy and feels very incongruous.
Shanice came to pop fame off the back of a TV career as a child. She was on the show KidsIncorporated and also on a talent show called StarSearch. This route to adult celebrity was a well trodden one. The above named shows also helped launch the careers of Britney Spears and Fergie from Black Eyed Peas whilst TheMickeyMouseClub brought the world its first glimpses of Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake as well as the aforementioned Spears. Is there a UK equivalent of this junior star conveyor belt? Yes, we had X Factor and Pop Idol but they had a minimum age requirement that excluded children. The only thing I can come up with is the whole S Club 7 phenomenon which begat S Club Juniors and that doesn’t bear thinking about.
“I Love Your Smile” peaked at No 2.
Four Breakers this week? Gee thanks TOTP producers! And what’s that? Three of them we’ll never see again? FFS! What’s the point then?! What’s that? Just skip them then? If only I could but the completist in me won’t allow that! Better get on with it then. First up is the only Breaker we will see again. It’s also a song with one of the most well known back stories ever.
In March 1991, Eric Clapton’s four year old son Conor died after falling from a window of a 53rd floor New York apartment. Understandably, the tragedy turned Clapton into a recluse for a while and when he did re-emerge it was to score the soundtrack of the film Rush. As part of the creative (and presumably grieving) process, the song “Tears In Heaven” came about. Initially written just to help stop Clapton being engulfed by grief, he eventually agreed to its inclusion in the film on the basis they it might help others going through similar mourning. The track would become one of his biggest ever hits peaking at No 2 in America and No 5 over here. It sold nearly three million physical copies in the US alone and won three Grammys for Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a male artist. The song was a big deal.
Before this TOTP repeat, if asked I would have said that it was the live version he performed for MTV Unplugged that was the single version that was a hit but I’m wrong. The single released to promote his Unplugged album was actually the version of “Layla” that he performed on the show but “Tears In Heaven” was in the B-side which maybe explains my confusion.
Clapton has rightfully received some harsh criticism recently over some of his political views both historical and current but it’s hard not to feel his pain at the circumstances behind this song.
From Eric Clapton to Joe Cocker. The Breakers this week were hardly full of young, hip, happening acts were they? Joe Cocker? What was he doing in the charts? All I really knew about The Cocker at the time was that he was from Sheffield, he was the guy with the growling voice and jerky arm movements who sang on “Up Where We Belong” and that his most famous song was a Beatles cover. I know a bit more now but not much. This track “(All I Know) Feels Like Forever” was from a film called The Cutting Edge which I don’t know at all but that Wikipedia tells me was a romantic comedy about ice skating directed by Paul Michael Glaser aka Starsky from Starsky And Hutch. As well as Joe Cocker, its soundtrack also featured Johnny Winter, Dan Reed Network and bizarrely “Ride On Time” by Black Box. The whole thing sounds a bit niche to me.
The single was a middling hit (No 25) but it rekindled enough interest in Joe to warrant a Best Of album release backed by a TV ad campaign and another hit single in his version of “Unchain My Heart”.
Joe Cocker would die of lung cancer in 2014.
Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker and now Barbara Streisand? Come on now! Look I know Babs is showbiz royalty but this surely is not what the Breakers section was created for?! As with Clapton and Cocker before her, her single “Places That Belong To You” was from a soundtrack the film of which starred Barbara herself. The Prince Of Tides was a romantic drama which saw Streisand star opposite Nick Nolte. I do recall the film being out though I have never seen it and consequently don’t know this song which was her first UK Top 40 entry since her duet with Miami Vice’s Don Johnson on “Till I Loved You” in 1988. One of my wife’s best friends has seen Babs in concert but the tickets are like gold dust apparently and can cost a fortune. Bloody ticket prices eh? Enough is enough I say (ahem).
“Places That Belong To You” peaked at No 17.
Finally! An act that isn’t some old timer flogging a song from a soundtrack! Let’s hear it for Curve! These rather spooky goth rockers are the first of two acts on the show tonight that owe their existence to Dave Stewart of Eurythmics who introduced vocalist Tony Halliday (nothing to do with Spandau Ballet’s lead singer!) to guitarist Dean Garcia. Despite limited commercial success – this single “Fait Accompli” was their biggest hit when it peaked at No 22 – the band did inspire a loyal following and can credibly say that they laid the foundations of success for the likes of Garbage later in the decade.
Curve went in a two year hiatus in 1995 before returning towards the end of the 90s and finally calling it a day in 2005. Both Halliday and Garcia continue to work on music projects.
After the name check for TOTP repeats denier Adrian Rose (Boo! Hiss!) at the top of the post, we arrive at another A.Rose and guess what?! Just like with Adrian, we are once again denied a full 1992 nostalgia experience. Where’s the proper video for “November Rain”?! It’s one of the most expensive music videos ever made and we just get this clip of Axl Rose sitting at a piano?! WTF?! Granted the official promo does have some footage of the band performing the song in a concert setting but this TOTP clip isn’t that.
This was the third single to be released by GunsN’ Roses from their “Use Your Illusion I” album and is just the pinnacle of overblown, overwrought, epic, wide screen panoramic view heavy rock power balladry. Just immense and a personal guilty pleasure. But the video man! It’s nearly as famous as the song. The huge pomposity of the track counter balanced against the sparseness of the desert backdrop and the TARDIS like chapel that appears tiny on the outside but can house a multitude of guests inside. Then the most famous scene of Slash striding outside to let rip that classic rock riff whilst being buffeted by a prairie wind. Quite why he would leave the ceremony directly after performing the Best Man duty of handing over the wedding rings though doesn’t really make any sense but who cares?! The second movement of the song with the strings and the Omen like chants then kicks in to coincide with the bride’s death and funeral. Brilliantly bonkers! Clocking in at 8:57 minutes long, it’s surely one of the longest ever chart hits though it wasn’t even the longest song on the album being beaten to that honour by the 10:14 of “Coma”.
Of course, the absurdity of the whole piece did leave it open to ridicule and ridiculed it was by French and Saunders….
And so we arrive at the second act that came about because of Dave Stewart. It was the hirsute Eurythmic who suggested that Marcella Detroit and his then wife Siobahn Fahey should come together as a band rather than Shakespear’s Sister being a Fahey solo project after witnessing the chemistry between the two in the recording studio. He also co-wrote “Stay” with the pair of course.
Aside from the link between Shakespear’s Sister and Curve there’s also a link between them and another of tonight’s acts as Marcella Detroit also co-wrote and sang on “Lay Down Sally” which was a minor hit for Eric Clapton in 1978. And that will do it for this week’s Shakespear’s Sister entry. Only another five weeks to go! Maybe Adrian Rose will swoop in and take care of at least one of those weeks?
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
The Charlatans
Weirdo
No but it’s on my Melting Pot Best Of album of theirs
2
Mr Big
To Be With You
Away with you more like! No
3
Opus III
It’s A Fine Day
Nope
4
The KLF
America: What Time Is Love?
I did not
5
Crowded House
Weather With You
No but I had the Woodface album
6
Shanice
I Love Your Smile
Nah
7
Eric Clapton
Tears In Heaven
No
8
Joe Cocker
(All I Know) Feels Like Forever
Negative
9
Barbara Streisand
Places That Belong To You
I didn’t even remember it let alone buy it
10
Curve
Fait Accompli
It’s a no
11
Guns N’ Roses
November Rain
No but it’s on their Best Of album I have
12
Shakespear’s Sister
Stay
Thought it was OK but not enough to buy it
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
And there goes 1991! Phew! So, was it a case of “Thank God that’s all over” or was it that we were all left wanting more? Let’s be honest, it’s option one isn’t it? As ever when I approach the next year of TOTP repeats, my optimism got the better of me and I came out the reviews thinking “it can’t have been as bad as all that surely?” and, as ever, I was wrong. In my defence, after the year of ‘Madchester’ that was 1990, was it unreasonable to have anticipated that 1991 would see a continuation of the dominance of the indie dance scene and all the cultural invention it bought? Sadly, the two biggest names of that movement were conspicuous by their absence. Both Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses were in a state of paralysis as they attempted to follow up on the huge events that were their iconic albums “Pills ‘n’ Thrills And Bellyaches” and “The Stone Roses . The latter were banjaxed by legal issues as they sought to disentangle themselves from their Silvertone recording contract and the Mondays? Well, they were hanging out with Ronnie Biggs in Brazil and doing a lot of drugs weren’t they?
Into the vacancy they created strode indie rock bands like Blur, Jesus Jones and Ride who looked the part but were they really just signings by major labels looking to jump on a bandwagon whose wheels had already come off? By the end of the year, a new dominant strain of rock music would arrive from Seattle in America. The era of grunge was upon us.
Dance music was still in the ascendancy with most of the tunes crossing over into the charts being rave anthems by the likes of The Prodigy, Bizarre Inc, Altern-8 and SL2. Meanwhile, some of the stars of the previous decade made a come back like Paul Young and a trimmed down OMD. Surely the biggest return of an act we’d first seen in the 80s though was by Simply Red who bagged the year’s biggest selling album in “Stars”.
As for TOTP, 1991 was a year of huge change with the ‘year zero’ revamp culling all those familiar Radio 1 DJ presenters in one fell swoop, replacing them with fresh faced youngsters we’d never seen before. A new live vocal performance policy was introduced to mixed results while the whole shebang was moved lock,stock and barrel, relocating from BBC Television Centre in London to BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood. It all took some getting used to and judging by the shows I’ve already reviewed, the new changes weren’t an immediate hit.
As usual with these end of year reviews, I like to remind myself of the songs that topped the charts to see if there is were any trends behind the sales and as ever, nothing really seems to make much sense.
17 songs had travelled to the summit of the charts. Of them, I would say they broke down like this:
6 by established stars (Queen twice, Michael Jackson, Cher, U2, George Michael and Elton John)
3 by ‘teen’ sensations (Chesney Hawkes, Jason Donovan, Color Me Badd)
2 by ‘new’ artists with a ‘new’ sound (Enigma, The KLF)
2 x novelty records (The Simpsons, Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff)
1 by a band with a loyal fanbase that manipulated the release schedules (Iron Maiden)
1 x TV advert tie in (The Clash)
1 x charity record (Hale & Pace)…
…and 1 by Bryan Adams.
Some may argue with my categories and you could swap some of the artists around of course. Was “Dizzy” an actual novelty record? Were Color Me Badd really a teen sensation? I had to draw the line somewhere though. Of those 17, I bought two and one of those was by mistake – I’ll let you work out / guess which ones they were. Discounting novelty and charity records and with the exception of Enigma, Iron Maiden and The KLF (and at a pinch U2), it was all very mainstream. Nothing ever seemed to change that much when it came to the really big hit singles. Maybe grunge will change all that in 1992…
Hits We Missed
During these reviews of the year in my other blog TOTP Rewind – the 80s, a lot of the entries in this section were songs and artists that had made it onto the show but those shows were not repeated by the BBC for reasons of taste surrounding hosts that were totally unpalatable today or, in the case of Mike Smith, because of legal restrictions. Thankfully, in 1990, any such restrictions were eradicated as none of the aforementioned hosts were still on the show.
However this vexatious issue returned in late 1991 due to one of the new presenters in the ‘year zero’ revamp (one Adrian Rose) following Smitty’s lead and failing to sign the repeat broadcast waiver! Fortunately, this only resulted in a couple of non transmitted shows but that kiss from Rose will prove to be more deadly in 1992 when multiple repeats won’t be shown. With all that said, there will still a few chart hits we missed seeing this year because they never actually featured on the show despite making the Top 40…
Alison Moyet – This House
Released 30/09/91
Peak chart position No 40
After finding solo stardom in the mid to late 80s after the dissolution of Yazoo, Alison Moyet began the new decade rejecting the notion of pursuing chart hits at any cost and putting artist integrity at the heart of her work. Her first album of the 90s was “Hoodoo” which sold reasonably but failed to produce any big hits as her commercial peak “Raindancing” had done. Maybe that’s what she wanted all along having publicly disowned that 1987 album.
“This House” was the only single from “Hoodoo” to scratch the Top 40 (and it was the lightest of dents) despite being the final of four releases. I think it’s fair to say that the track perfectly demonstrated her reinvention as a serious artist. A haunting, sombre number with a touch of Dire Straits’ “Private Investigations” in the verses, this was no “Weak In The Presence Of Beauty “. Its heavy nature meant that it struggled to find a home though in the rave obsessed charts despite it having originally featured as the B side to Alison’s cover of “Love Letters” which represented the peak of her commercial era. Oh the irony.
The fight for artistic integrity and credibility would continue with the release of the “Essex” album in 1994 before Alison would finally disentangle herself from her record label Columbia and return with “Hometime” some eight years later. Columbia meanwhile would flick the metaphorical v’s at Ms Moyet when they released a compilation of her singles in 1995 called…erm…”Singles” which went to No 1.
The Black Crowes – Hard To Handle
Released 05/08/91
Peak chart position No 39
*Originally released 1990 when it peaked at No 76.
In a year when the charts were seemingly dominated by rave anthems, there was still a small corner of the Top 40 reserved for some revivalist sounds, in this case courtesy of Southern rockers The Black Crowes. I’d certainly never heard of them before this point but apparently they’d been around since 1984 although they didn’t release their first studio album until six years later. That album was “Shake Your Money Maker” which included the band’s take on the Otis Redding song “Hard To Handle”, their first Top 40 hit in the UK.
I didn’t and don’t regard myself as any sort of enthusiast of Southern rock but I didn’t mind this. Knowing the original version of the song helped as well. I don’t remember the album being played on our shop stereo that much but somewhere along the line I also became aware of another single from the album, that being “Twice As Hard” (I think it may have been on that first Q Magazine compilation album that I bought around this time). The band would enjoy their biggest period of success the following year when their second album “The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion” went to No 1 in the US and No 2 in the UK. Rave anthems be gone!
Jellyfish – The King Is Half Undressed
Released 14/01/91
Peak chart position No 39
Sometimes the crazy world of pop throws up some complete anomalies, artists and songs that seem out of time with the era in which they appeared. Jellyfish were a fine example of this phenomenon. Hailing from San Francisco, they took their myriad influences of the likes of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, ELO, 10cc, Queen, Bowie, Wings and XTC and placed them all in a huge cooking pot, set it on a low heat and came up with a new pop cuisine that was both appetising and yet like something you wouldn’t necessarily choose from the menu. Intricate melodies combined with complex harmonies and all glued together by a timeless pop sensibility. Marvellous for pop fans like me but undeniably incongruous in a soundscape of rave and grunge.
Their material would engender a loyal cult following who saw them as the musical missing link but commercial success would remain tantalisingly out of reach despite tour slots with the aforementioned The Black Crowes. They even played at Wembley Stadium before 72,000 people supporting INXS yet “The King Is Half Undressed” would be their only UK Top 40 hit (and then only just). It came from an album called “Bellybutton” which included some great tracks including “Now She Know’s She’s Wrong” and “Baby’s Coming Back” the latter of which was even a No 1 for British boy band McFly in 2007. A sophomore album appeared in 1993 called “Spilt Milk” which the band saw as the natural culmination and apogee of their sound and which drew (probably unhelpful) comparisons with “Pet Sounds” – indeed they had even some ultimately unproductive songwriting sessions with yer actual Brian Wilson! It bombed in America though was better received in this country and the band broke up due to that well worn and weary of excuses ‘creative differences’. Their back catalogue probably demands a better legacy than it is afforded.
Milltown Brothers – Which Way Should I Jump?
Released 11/02/91
Peak chart position No 38
*Originally released 1989 – did not chart
When Tiffany sang “Could’ve Been” in 1988 I’m pretty sure she wasn’t singing about a gang of lads from Colne, Lancashire – not least because Milltown Brothers weren’t formed until a year later – but she…ahem…could’ve been.
Tipped by the NME no less for stardom as the 80s became the 90s, a bidding war by the major labels saw the band sign with A&M records who released a re-recording of “Which Way Should I Jump” (it was originally issued on an indie label two years before) which made them bonafide chart stars when it entered the Top 40 at No 38. A debut album called “Slinky” promised much with some nifty tunes that did much to dispel the idea that they were just another bunch of baggy chancers. I’m pretty sure it was a Recommended Release in Our Price.
However, the fates conspired against them with the release of follow up single “Here I Stand”. According to the band’s own website, the track was denied sales from independent record shops where they had done a string of promotional PAs by the chart compilers who feared chart rigging (officially the single was subject to the process of ‘weighting’) and it peaked at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41. The repercussions were disastrous. No Top 40 hit meant no TOTP appearance and A&M lost their nerve and faith in the band. A follow up album wasn’t released until two years later by which point all momentum was lost. The band effectively broke up only to reform in 2004 and are still together to this day last releasing an album in 2020.
And yes they were brothers. Well at least singer and guitarist Matt and Simin Nelson are.
Nirvana- Smells Like Teen Spirit
Released 10/09/1991
Peak chart position 7
The first casualty of that unsigned Adrian Rose waiver and it’s a biggie. Who knew back in the Autumn of 1991 what an influence and legacy this song would have? I didn’t that’s for sure. I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t have a clue who Nirvana were nor did I get what all the fuss was about back then. It seemed to all happen overnight, this movement called grunge. Suddenly there were punters coming into the shop asking for that album with the front cover of a naked child, underwater and reaching for a dollar bill on a string. What was going on?
And then I heard the song. I couldn’t understand what they were singing about but then I wasn’t the only one not able to translate those lyrics that seemed indecipherable on first hearing. It didn’t matter. It was a huge cacophony of noise, bludgeoning the listener into submission. Immediately designated a legacy of being the ultimate anthem for a generation of disaffected, nihilistic youths, it is routinely listed at the top of all those polls like ‘The Best Single Ever’ and ‘The Most Important Rock Song Of All Time’. I’m guessing it still resonates with the younger generation some 30 years on even though those who were first turned on by it are now middle aged and thinking about their pension provision. The only track I can think of that has had such a visceral effect since would be “Creep” by Radiohead. Possibly. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, in short, was a monster.
And then I watched this TOTP performance. God it was awful. From Kurt Cobain’s deliberately tone deaf vocals to his giving the microphone a blow job to the inevitable and uncovincing stage invasion. The band were never invited back. More informed and articulate people than I have already written millions of words about the influence and impact of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and indeed “Smells Like Teen Spirit” so I don’t propose to write an essay on this but suffice to say that I’m pretty sure I have wigged out like a lunatic to this in some seedy venue on an indie night. Haven’t we all?
Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Released 12/08/91
Peak chart position No 39
*”Only Love Can Break Your Heart” originally reached number 95 on the UK Singles Chart. It was re-released in August 1991 reaching a new peak of number 39.
The second of two cover versions in this section comes from a band as far removed from the southern rock of The Black Crowes as it’s possible to be. Before 1991, if anyone had asked me about Saint Etienne, my mind would have immediately reverted to 1977 and that memorable European Cup tie between Liverpool and St Etienne that was one of my first footballing memories. David ‘Supersub’ Fairclough and all that. I would never have thought that 13 years later the defeated French team would provide the name for a dance act that seemed to come out of nowhere but who would transcend their club beginnings and become a cultural force for years to come. I say ‘out of nowhere’ but founding members Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs had already masterminded a Top 10 hit in ‘91 courtesy of “7 Ways To Love” by Cola Boy, not that I knew of that connection at the time.
I think I first heard their version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” when I covered for a day in the Our Price Piccadilly store in Manchester (I usually worked down the road in the Market Street shop). It never seemed be off the shop stereo that day and it sounded achingly trendy to my ears ( yes ‘trendy’ was still an acceptable word back then!). It had a haunting quality to it combined with a shuffling back beat that immediately created a perception that the band were part of the indie-dance scene. My wife bought the parent album “Foxbase Alpha” and the tracks within it demonstrated that they had much more to them than just that. 60s pop influences combined with club culture sensibilities and some art film samples shaped an experimental yet accessible album. I think “Wilson” might be my favourite track.
Apparently vocalist Sarah Cracknell doesn’t actually do the singing on “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (those duties were performed by one Moira Lambert) as she wasn’t a permanent band member at the time of recording. As much as I liked the band, I did have a problem with them though. I saw them in concert around 1993 (supported by Pulp no less) but they used backing tracks and only played a 43 minute set! Crackers (she must be known as ‘Crackers’ within the band don’t you think?) announced at the end of the last song that “we’re not a rock band and we don’t do encores”. What a swizz!
Hits That Never Were
Airhead -Funny How
Released 05/10/91
Peak chart position No 57
There’s a surprising number of famous people that hail from Maidstone, Kent. There’s the actors Mackenzie Crook (The Office / Worzel Gummidge), Tamsin Greig (Black Books / Friday Night Dinner) and Shaun Williamson (Barry from Eastenders / erm that’s it). If that wasn’t enough there’s also artist, Children’s TV presenter and national treasure the late, great Tony Hart. When it comes to pop stars though there’s a distinct dearth. Yes, David Bowie lived in Maidstone in the early 60s pre fame as part of blues group Manish Boys but he wasn’t from there. So it fell upon a group of lads in the early 90s to maintain Maidstone’s end in the pop stakes and those lads were called Airhead.
Originally entitled Jefferson Airhead before being threatened with legal action by US psychedelic rockers Jefferson Airplane, they briefly garnered public attention due to their brilliantly poppy single “Funny How” gaining heavy rotation on Radio 1’s playlists. Despite this exposure and its insanely catchy lyric “it’s funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you, funny how the ones you don’t do”, it failed to crack the Top 40. They did achieve that feat with follow up single “Counting Sheep” as 1991 turned into 1992 which reached No 35 but it’s “Funny How” that remains their best known work. It was even used to soundtrack some montages in Match Of The Day at the time.
They only released one album called “Boing!!” which made the Top 30 but the band split not long after due to tensions with their record label. For those that know it though, “Funny How” remains one of the biggest and best hits that never were of the whole decade.
Crowded House – Chocolate Cake
Released 22/06/91
Peak chart position No 69
Prior to the start of the 90s, Crowded House we’re pretty much known in the UK purely for their 1987 Top 30 hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. Their eponymous debut album it was taken from did exactly zilch over here. Follow up long player “Temple Of Low Men” made even less impact (is there anything lower than zilch?). However, their breakthrough moment would come with the release of third album “Woodface” in 1991 which would sprout four Top 40 hit singles including a Top Tenner in “Weather With You”.
And this one. Very much the runt of the litter, “Chocolate Cake” was the first single to be released from the album and it was largely ignored by the UK. Maybe it was too confrontational for most people. The lyrics take a swipe at multiple targets including overweight Americans, Andrew Lloyd Webber, capitalism and how the masses will accept any old toss served up to them as culturally valid without understanding the value of true art. Something like that anyway. I never did work out who ‘Mrs Hairy Legs’ was though.
A thoroughly forgotten Crowded House track, it didn’t even appear in their 1996 No 1 Best Of album “Recurring Dream” for which the advertising campaign used the tagline “you know more Crowded House songs than you realise”. Clearly not “Chocolate Cake” though.
Elvis Costello – The Other Side Of Summer
Released 08/04/91
Peak chart position No 43
I may have included this one in the review purely because my wife is a big admirer of the artist and I remember buying this one for her (using my Our Price staff discount of course!). I’m certainly no super fan myself but I do like plenty of his stuff. It’s just that since his 70s and 80s heydays he seems to have forgotten to include a melody in most of his tunes. Sorry my love!
“The Other Side Of Summer” couldn’t be described as such though having been deliberately written as a Beach Boys pastiche (early 70s era) and it fair bounces along in a very hummable way. Its musicality is totally at odds with its lyrics though which takes issue with both Pink Floyd and John Lennon with the latter being taken to task for “Imagine” (‘Was it a millionaire who said ‘imagine no possessions’?”).
It didn’t strike a chord with UK music fans though peaking at No 43. Taken from the album “Mighty Like A Rose”, what I most remember about this was the massive Grizzly Adams style beard Costello had grown and that was used in the promotional images surrounding the release. Paddy McAloon eat your heart out!
Before bestriding the UK charts later in the 90s with massive hits like “Are You Gonna Go My Way” and “Fly Away” (a chart topper no less), his singles weren’t always hits. Indeed, by the end of 1991, he’d only ever had two Top 40 entries to his name – “Let Love Rule” (No 39) and his breakthrough hit of this year “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over” which just missed the Top 10 when it peaked just outside at No 11.
“Stand By My Woman” was the follow up to that single and it failed to keep the hit momentum going, returning him to the chart doldrums by missing the Top 40 altogether. Why wasn’t it a success? There was no apparent reason. Yes, it was a change of tempo though still a well structured if rather mournful and brooding ballad as opposed to its breezily paced predecessor but who decreed that each song had to sound the same as all your others? Well yes, Stock, Aitken and Waterman obviously but who cares what they thought?
Taken from his “Mama Said” album which I liked so much I bought, its title could have been a direct response to Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” although it had more in common musically with Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”.
Lloyd Cole – Weeping Wine
Released 21/10/91
Peak chart position Did not chart
When a lead singer of a successful band goes solo it tends to be an endeavour fraught with potential obstacles. Will your fan base accept you as an individual artist? Should you stick to the formula that made you a star in the first place or try and attract a different (meaning more mature) audience? Will you change your image? Not many have made the transition successfully I would contend. For every George Michael there’s a Limahl. In the case of Lloyd Cole, the former Commotions frontman didn’t pull up any trees commercially but he did produce a more than credible body of work.
After his band called it a day in 1989, Lloyd hit the ground running with two solo albums released in consecutive years. Although hit singles proved to be elusive, the albums sold steadily presumably as he retained his fan base’s interest and devotion at least initially. The second of those albums “Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe” is regarded by some Lloyd aficionados as his creative peak and from it came the single “Weeping Wine”. Hardly my favourite song of his by any standard but there was something about this unassuming, county tinged lament that appealed.
Years on from this I caught Lloyd live at a gig in New Mills, Derbyshire. He was great – entertaining yet self effacing banter with some brilliant tunes. The best thing was the interval though. That’s not a slur on Lloyd at all. During the break in his set, me and my mates Robin and Steve decamped to a pub round the corner from the venue for a quick jar and who was at the bar ahead of us having a whisky but Lloyd himself. I loved that nobody in the pub (including us) bothered him for autographs or selfies. He was just another punter. And of course Lloyd is a Chelsea fan like me. Gotta love the man just for that!
Love And Money – Winter
Released 16/11/91
Peak chart position No 52
Who comes to mind first when you hear the term ‘Scottish rock and pop’? Simple Minds? Big Country? Deacon Blue? Maybe somebody a little less obvious like Teenage Fan Club? Or more traditionally Gaelic like Runrig? How many attempts would it take before this lot came up as an answer I wonder?
I first became aware of Love And Money back in 1986 when their debut single “Candybar Express” started getting airplay on Radio 1. It wasn’t enough to make it a hit but it was a solid marker of things to come. Fast forward two years and their “Strange Kind Of Love” album generated four singles all of which I liked including the title track and “Up Escalator “. Still Top 40 success eluded the band.
By 1991, their third album “Dogs In The Traffic” seemed like a last throw of the dice to achieve the chart placings they deserved. Yet another Our Price Recommended Release, it became their highest charting long player but even then at a paltry peak of No 41. The final single from it was “Winter” presumably kept back to coincide its release with its namesake season. It’s a rather lovely, reflective track that was quite the change from the rawness of “Candybar Express” and the slick 80s production of “Strange Kind Of Love”. Sadly it disappeared like dandruff in a blizzard in the Xmas rush peaking outside the Top 40 yet again at No 52. Criminal really.
Singer and songwriter James Grant is still out there gigging and recording. His band’s debut album was called “All You Need Is…Love And Money”. Perhaps he also needed just a little bit of luck.
Malcolm McLaren – Magic’s Back
Released 21/12/91
Peak chart position No 42
What a curiosity this was but then anything involving Malcolm McLaren was never going to be run of the mill! On Xmas day in 1991, Channel 4 broadcast The Ghosts Of Oxford Street, basically a vanity project by McLaren (who wrote, directed and acts as narrator for the film) detailing the history of the famous London shopping street. The narrative is helped along by the interspersing of musical segments performed by an eclectic array of artists including Tom Jones, Happy Mondays, Sinead O’Connor and Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues doing that Xmas song.
This being a McLaren project though, Malcolm of course grants himself a song in amongst it all and what a song it was. His previous musical output had pushed the boundaries of traditional genres with the likes of “Buffalo Gals” and “Double Dutch” but “Magic’s Back” was a straight up dance floor filling house track ably aided by the vocal talents of Alison Limerick. Malc’s contribution is limited to his rather creepy spoken word intro but the rest of the track is banging! There was a whole album of the songs featured in the film but like the single it didn’t sell that well.
I’m pretty sure that I watched The Ghosts Of Oxford Street on Xmas day in 1991 and I’m equally pretty sure I was very disappointed with it even allowing for my fascination of all things McLaren. You never see it repeated on TV do you? Ever. Funny that.
TheMock Turtles – And Then She Smiles
Released 29/06/91
Peak chart position No 44
I waxed lyrical about The Mock Turtles back when I reviewed the TOTP show on which they performed “Can You Dig It?” months ago in this blog. I don’t therefore propose to rehash all of that again here. However, I did want to include them in this section as they really should have had more than just one hit (and no I’m not counting the 2003 Fatboy Slim remix of “Can You Dig It?”).
Back in 1991 when that song was originally in the charts, the band chose the tried and tested strategy of following it up by rereleasing a previous single. “And Then She Smiles” was originally out in 12” format back in 1989 but it was re-recorded and given a second bite of the cherry to consolidate the band’s commercial breakthrough. It seemed a smart move. The track was radio friendly and not a million miles away from the sound of its predecessor. It had a decent shot of charting. Somehow though, it fell tantalising short. Maybe it didn’t have that X Factor hook of “Can You Dig It?” – its spiralling, psychedelic guitar intro and its bouncing bass groove? Was it actually just a bit too…pedestrian? Not for me I have to say.
The band (or possibly the record company) doubled down on the misstep when it released a third single that sounded just like “And Then She Smiles” in “Strings And Flowers”. Again, I was a fan but it didn’t make much commercial sense to do the same thing as before and expect a better return. It sank without trace and so did The Mock Turtles until that 2003 revival thanks to David Beckham and a Vodafone ad. “And Then She Smiles” finally had its day when it was used as the theme tune to Sky’s comedy drama show Stella which ran from 2012 to 2017 starring none other than my mate Robin’s sister Emma.
Pete Wylie & Wah! The Mongrel – Don’t Lose Your Dreams (Excerpt From A Teenage Opera Part 154)
Released 15,07/91
Peak chart position Did not chart
As the 90s we’re getting going, apart from a couple of collaborations with The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (aka The KLF) and fellow scousers The Farm, nothing much had been seen or heard of Pete Wylie since his 1986 hit single “Sinful!”. Well, those of us who classed ourselves as Wylie fans had been wowed by a string of excellent singles released in “Sinful!”s wake but as far as the charts were concerned, nothing he offered up to the record buying public had returned him to his former glories. “Diamond Girl”, “If I Love You” and “Fourelevenfortyfour” were all fantastic but each one had come and gone without a sniff of the Top 40. It really was a ludicrous state of affairs given his immense talent for turning a fine tune.
1991 would be a pivotal year for Pete but it had nothing to do with his music. Not that there wasn’t any music. Far from it as he released the album “Infamy! Or How I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today” under his latest pseudonym of Pete Wylie And Wah! The Mongrel. As I recall it was yet another Our Price Recommended Release. It failed to chart at all despite including yet more wonderful tracks to add to his remarkable ‘repertwah’. “Circle Of Salt” and the epic “The Kerry Baby” were standouts for me but the lead single from the album was “Don’t Lose Your Dreams (Excerpt From A Teenage Opera Part 154)”. A sprawling opus with everything chucked into the production and a title that referenced Keith West’s 1967 No 2 hit “Grocer Jack” was possibly out of place in 1991 but Wylie has never been one to play by the rules or do what might be expected of him.
Predictably (and quite wrongly) it sank without trace but that was the least of a Pete’s troubles. On 11th November he suffered a near fatal fall in Liverpool when a railing gave way fracturing both his spine and sternum. Thankfully he made a full recovery. Legend has it that when the paramedics arrived on the scene and went through the usual response questions to ascertain Pete’s level of consciousness and awareness starting with asking him his name he replied “You should f*****g know who I am!”. Pete Wylie ladies and gentlemen, part time rock star, full time legend.
TheReal People – Window Pane
Released 06/07/91
Peak chart position No 60
From one scouse legend to another bunch of Liverpudlians who would end up with a legacy of legend makers rather than actual legends themselves. Noel Gallagher was a roadie with the Inspiral Carpets when he first met Tony Griffiths of The Real People who had been a going concern since 1988, touring the world as a major label artist having been signed by Columbia on CBS. They’d released their debut eponymous album in 1991 to positive reviews though commercial success had been harder to come by. Noel wanted to put together a demo for his band Oasis to send out to record labels and Griffiths helped him out by lending him use of The Real People’s own eight track studio. Lacking much in the way of recording know how, Griffiths and his brother and fellow band member Chris showed Noel, Liam et al the studio ropes. The result was the “Live Demonstration” tape that included original versions of many of the tracks that would end up being released on “Definitely Maybe” including “Columbia”, “Bring It On Down” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”.
Although their Manc mates would go onto become the biggest band in the UK by the mid 90s, it never quite worked out for The Real People success wise. One paltry No 38 in 1992 (“Believer”) was the peak of their chart fame and a second album for CBS , though recorded, remained unreleased until 2012 when the band finally made it available independently. However, despite cult status amongst those in the know, the Griffiths brothers went on to write hits for the likes of Cher, Ocean Colour Scene and Atomic Kitten. Their band continues to play live and record with their last album being 2016’s “Monday Morning Breakdown”. The Real People then, the real people behind Oasis. Definitely….maybe.
Their Season In The Sun
Banderas
Communards offshoot group Banderas looked they were onto something in early 1991 when they took their single “This Is Your Life” (nothing to do with Eamon Andrews nor The Blow Monkeys) into the Top 20. Funky yet spiky it was taken from an album called “Ripe” which boasted the musical chops of Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner as contributors. The all female duo of Sally Herbert and the striking, shaven headed Caroline Buckley shook up the conventional band template and they seemed in the right place at the right time to form a successful chart career. However follow up singles failed to make the Top 40 and the album similarly struggled commercially.
There were no further releases and the band dissolved, left with a legacy of the “whatever happened to…?” conundrum. However, excellent reissues label Cherry Red are just about to release a double CD deluxe version of the album which includes liner notes by Sally and Caroline plus an interview with their by old pal Jimmy Somerville. Banderas – a band ‘ripe’ for reassessment.
Cathy Dennis
One of the biggest breakout stars of 1991, diminutive Cathy came straight outta Norwich and achieved four Top 20 singles and a gold selling album in the space of 12 months. However, the hits dried up as she attempted to consolidate on her success and by the mid point of the decade the game was up. Cannily though, Cathy changed sports and became an in demand songwriter for other artists penning “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” for Kylie, “Toxic” for Britney Spears and “I Kissed A Girl” for Katy Perry.
Chesney Hawkes
Poor old Chezza. Perhaps the ultimate here today gone tomorrow pop star. A five week stint at No 1 with “The One And Only” led to both fame with the public but also derision in the music press. By the end of the year he was pretty much finished. He even has to put up with the ignominy of being labelled a one hit wonder despite follow up single “I’m A Man Not A Boy” going Top 30. Still, he seems like a nice bloke and is happy to play his (not quite) one and only hit in the nostalgia circuit.
Color Me Badd
How on earth did this happen? A group who included a sub standard George Michael lookalike, a Kenny G doppelgänger and a lead singer who was the spit of that god awful rapper Snow somehow managed to have a huge global hit with a song with one of the most teeth grindingly creepy titles of all time?! Come on people! What were you thinking?!
Shamelessly riding the New Jack Swing wave, these four knobheads from Oklahoma briefly caused a sensation when “I Wanna Sex You Up” hit No 2 in the US and topped the charts over here. They looked ridiculous and sounded horrendous. It couldn’t last and it didn’t. One more hit (the candy pop of “All 4 Love”) and that brief craze was over. Color Me Fad anyone?
Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch
When you’re more famous for your kecks than your music then you know you’re in trouble (just ask Kris Kross). Marky Mark would of course go on to have a very successful film career under his real name of Mark Wahlberg but for a brief (chortle) period of time Marky Mark and indeed his Funky Bunch were very hot news indeed. A US No 1 single in “Good Vibrations” led to him being the face (or possibly crotch) of a Calvin Klein underwear advertising campaign. However, the stench of some repugnant homophobic views aired on Channel 4’s The Word would see him rightly vilified and his music career was dead after just two years.
The Railway Children
Wigan New Wavers who having spent their early years on the tracks of the indie charts finally flagged down a mainstream chart hit in 1991 with “Every Beat Of The Heart”. Their late arrival as chart stars didn’t sustain though and despite pursuing a timetable of further hits, their time in the public spotlight was cancelled (ahem).
Sophie Lawrence
Five years on from Nick Berry taking “Every Loser Wins” to No 1, another Eastenders actor tried their luck at the pop game as Sophie Lawrence brought us a pretty straight and sterile version of Donna Summer’s disco classic “Love’s Unkind”. Whereas Berry’s character Wicksy had been a fan favourite (especially amongst the female side of the show’s audience I’m guessing), I’m not convinced that Sophie’s stroppy teenager Diane Butcher was quite so popular. Maybe that’s why her attempt at pop stardom stalled at No 21.
A Stock, Aitken and Waterman produced follow up was recorded (a Kylie album track fact fans) but it was never released and Sophie’s time in the pop merry go round came to a shuddering and final stop. Dum dum da dum dum dum dum ….
Zoë
Like Chesney Hawkes before her, Zoë wasn’t quite a one hit wonder but she is surely only known for one song, her No 4 hit “Sunshine On A Rainy Day”. A well crafted pop/dance crossover with an exuberant chorus, it proved a substantial hit, staying on the charts for 11 weeks. Despite her album being of similar material it failed to convince record buyers of its worth and came and went without anyone hardly noticing. No 37 hit “Lightning” didn’t pull up many trees as a follow up so Zoë quit pop music and reinvented herself as a potter before returning to music trying out rock and folk directions.
Last Words
So where does 1991 rank in terms of musical excellence? It’s not a classic in my book but I don’t think it’s the worst ever either (yes 1993 I’m looking at you). The Top 40 – and therefore TOTP – seemed to be awash with dance tunes of every hue but there were some standout songs for me as well. “Can You Dig It?” by The Mock Turtles, “Sit Down” by James, “3AM Eternal” by The KLF for example.
However, there was an elephant in the room that the whole of the year (almost literally) was dominated by; one song bestriding the charts behemoth like that would forever be associated with 1991. I speak, of course, of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams. Was it a great big steaming turd brought into existence to remind us that nothing had really changed when it came to mainstream chart music despite the dance revolution or a phenomenon of commerciality that deserved our recognition? Yeah, don’t all rush to reply – I think I know the answer already.
And me personally? How was 1991? I didn’t know it then but this year was possibly the most stable year of the decade work wise. I remained in the same job working at the same record shop (Our Price in Market Street, Manchester) and liked the people I worked with. A brief wobble about the shop being sold off earlier in the year came to nothing and by Xmas I had become the store’s chart cassette buyer! The thrill of it all! 1992 would bring big changes though as for the first time in my life I got a work promotion and became an Assistant Manager but that’s all for future posts
I’ve going to carry on into the 1992 TOTP repeats. Fancy joining me?
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 ontowork 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:
Can I please add to this. During my first show, Live Your Life Be Free. I was quite ill with food positioning. Belinda thought she had food poisoning too. By the time we met again for this episode, turns out I was ill but she was actually pregnant with @JamesDukeMason
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.
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 