David Bowie

TOTP 01 OCT 1999

Five of this episode’s eight hits we’ve already seen on previous shows so what gives? More running order manipulation by executive producer Chris Cowey or was it a particularly static chart this week?

*checks official.charts.com website*

Well, the Top 40 consisted entirely of new entries and songs going down the charts with a solitary non-mover. I haven’t checked but I think the charts were like this most weeks around this time as new release discounting by record companies took hold. There were eleven new entries so obviously they couldn’t all be shown so the five highest were featured which I guess can be justified. Here’s the thing though – of those five, two we’d already seen as exclusive performances before they were even in the charts. So what about the other three hits we’d seen before? Well, one is last week’s No 1 which is still at the top so I can’t argue with that, one is a previous No 1 which was at No 4 (so no need to show that again) and one which had debuted at No 2 three weeks ago and gone down the charts every week since and was now at No 8 (absolute travesty that it was shown again!).

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we’ve reached the Newcastle leg of our Top Of The Tops On Tour journey around the country with the show coming from the Ikon nightclub which guess what? Yep, it’s not there anymore. Geordie Jayne must have been in her element though.

We start with that ludicrous showing of the No 8 hit this week which is “The Launch” by DJ Jean. What else is there to say about this one? I have nothing so here’s how they reviewed it in clubbing magazine Mixmag when listing ‘The Biggest Drops in Dance Music’ (whatever that means) in 2020:

“Get ready for the launch advises a vocal near the start of this track. The sage words follow a sample of NASA comms, which come back around as a space shuttle countdown (5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..) as the track builds towards its momentous drop. It’s extremely cheesy, and extremely fun”.

Seb Wheeler; Dave Turner; Patrick Hinton (17 April 2020). “The Best Drops In Dance Music According To You”. Mixmag

“Cheesy and extremely fun”? Queasy and extremely dumb I’d say. Next!

And again I say NEXT! No, no, no,no, NO! Not Shania Twain and “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”! Now, I’ve used a lot of exclamation marks in my words above but I feel justified in exclaiming my horror at this song. I can’t be the only person who abhors this tune can I? Well, I’m not because there’s at least one reader of this blog who agrees with me who said of it:

“Shania Twain is the soundtrack to drunken hen do’s around the world”

Essor, 29 April 2026

Indeed. So who else is with us? There must be some negative reviews of “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” online no? Let me have a look…

*checks comments against its official video on YouTube*

…erm, no. Overwhelmingly positive including testimonies about female cancer survivors who used the song to give them strength and fortitude. I’m beginning to feel a bit guilty now. Surely someone else can’t abide this song?

*checks internet desperately*

Nothing! Well, just one who said this in response to a forum post asking if people felt euphoric after listening to it or whether it was a cliché:

“Can’t stand it, personally. I can’t say I’ve ever felt euphoric after listening to any particular song. Music for me tends to be a darker expression, like ‘My Body is a Cage’ or ‘Born a Girl’ (Manic Street Preachers)”.

Reddit, 2023, username unknown

Hmm. I’m not sure I want to closely associate my remarks with someone who sees music as a dark expression. I think I’ll leave this whole conversation by referring to my mate Robin who once pointed out to me that music is subjective and that he can have the opinion that he dislikes everything Elton John has ever recorded. Indeed, it’s his right to.

OK, who’s next? Ah, a perfect choice for the TOTP On Tour brand. An artist who used to be in a successful group but who left and was now pursuing solo stardom. This sort of promotion was made for such a scenario. Kéllé Bryan had, of course, been a part of UK R&B girl group Eternal…until she was sacked by fax by the Bennett sisters Easther and Vernie after the release of their Greatest Hits album in 1997 due to a reported “breakdown in professional relations”. Unsurprisingly, the accounts of both parties vary wildly as to the reasons behind the split but what is definite is that, by this point, Louise Redknapp (née Nurding) had long since left the group so it left the sisters to continue as a duo.

Sadly for Kéllé, her solo career never achieved lift off like Louise’s did. In fact, it barely got off the ground. This solitary single – “Higher Than Heaven” – was all she had to show for it. A second single and album scheduled for release in late 1999 never appeared though both singles are now available on Spotify. So what happened? Online reports suggest her health suffered after she was diagnosed with lupus and therefore unable to undertake any promotional activities. It’s a theory that potentially holds water though, as ever, the truth is probably more nuanced. Could she have been successful as a solo artist? There was definitely some promise as “Higher Than Heaven” was a bright, gospel-tinged R&B/pop song that was perfect for daytime radio. Its No 14 peak possibly didn’t do it justice. However, for me, it couldn’t eclipse its namesake by Age Of Chance which really should have been a bigger hit:

Kéllé would go on to have a career in TV appearing in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks and becoming part of the Loose Women team. Together with Louise Redknapp, she declined the chance to take part in an Eternal reunion in 2023 after reported comments by the Bennett sisters stating that they would not appear in a number of LGBT Pride events claiming that the trans community had hijacked Pride.

P.S. This is weird and surely nothing to do with algorithms. Just as I finished writing about Kéllé, Celebrity Bridge Of Lies came on TV starring Clare Richards from Steps, Kimberly Wyatt of The Pussycat Dolls, Amelle Berrabah of Sugababes and yep, Kéllé Bryan ex-Eternal. Spooky!

After just one new song we’re back to a track we only just saw in the last show. Fortunately, it is David Bowie. Unfortunately, it’s not one of his best. “Thursday’s Child” was previewed in a ‘new’ (as categorised by the TOTP caption person) performance seven days prior but as the single has gone into the Top 40 at No 16, we get a repeat showing this week. I’ve not a lot else to say about it having already discussed it in the last post. However, I couldn’t help but note that, in 1999, a new Bowie song debuted on the chart lower than that of someone who was chucked out of Eternal. Hmm.

And still talking of Eternal, whilst their line up had halved to a duo since their inception, next up are a group with seven members in it – yes, it’s S Club 7 with their follow up to their debut No 1 single “Bring It All Back”. Whilst that track had been all out pop with a bpm that was almost exhausting, their second single slowed the beats down with an R&B groove whilst retaining an unshiftable hook. The real genius here though was in its title. “S Club Party” reinforced their brand whilst imbuing it with the idea that they were all about fun – “There ain’t no party like an S Club Party” indeed. It was clever stuff. The songwriters even incorporated a verse which name checked every member of the group to imprint their identities on the nation’s consciousness. The single didn’t quite emulate the chart success of its predecessor by peaking at No 2 but it was surely strong consolidation for the fledging pop act. S Club 7 were doing their thing alright.

And the pop sensations keep on coming. As host Jayne Middlemiss states in her intro, Britney Spears had the biggest selling single of the year in the UK at this point with “…Baby One More Time” (a fact that wouldn’t change by the end of 1999). Given that level of success, the obvious thing to do would be to repeat the formula which is exactly what Britney did with “(You Drive Me) Crazy”. Now, in fairness to her, she didn’t jump to that conclusion straight away. Her second single “Sometimes” had a much softer sound to it with the beat count slowed right down to ballad status. It had worked as well giving Britney a Top 3 hit over here. However, for her third single she did revert to that original blueprint. “(You Drive Me) Crazy” was essentially “…Baby One More Time” all over again – “Baby Two More Times” if you will. Not that she should be criticised necessarily for that. Plenty of artists have done the same thing before and since but you couldn’t fail to notice the similarities.

Yet again Britney can’t be in the studio herself (nearly all her appearances to this point had just been via the official video for her hit) so she sends us another to camera message to apologise. Again. Anyway, the video is what you would expect. A massive troupe of dancers busting moves everywhere in a club setting but if you look closely you’ll see cameos by Adrian Grenier (Entourage) and Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina The Teenage Witch) as “(You Drive Me) Crazy” was used in the soundtrack for the movie Drive Me Crazy in which they starred. I have never seen said film nor do I wish to but I must admit to not even being aware of its existence so maybe the endorsement by association with Britney didn’t quite work? “(You Drive Me) Crazy” would go Top 5 in the UK but more No 1s would follow with “Born To Make You Happy” and yet another “…Baby One More Time” apeing hit in “Oops!…I Did It Again” (erm…again) going to the top of our singles chart.

Right Cowey, explain yourself! Why was Lou Bega on again given that “Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of)” was now at No 4, its lowest chart position so far having spent two weeks at No 1 and a further two at No 2? He’d already had two appearances on the show courtesy of his time at the top. There were other new entries into this week’s Top 40 that could have featured like Idlewild or Blink 182. You couldn’t have showcased them? Admittedly they were a lot further down the chart but in the chart they certainly were. Bah!

Eiffel 65 remain at the top of the tree with “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” for the second of three weeks at No 1. Their hit would become the second biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Looking at that year end chart, this particular TOTP featured four artists who appeared in the Top 10 including three within the Top 4. They were Britney Spears, Eiffel 65, Lou Bega and Shania Twain. 1999 – what a time to be alive.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	DJ Jean	The Launch	Of course not
2	Shania Twain	Man! I Feel Like A Woman!	NEVER!
3	Kéllé Bryan	Higher Than Heaven	Didn’t happen
4	David Bowie	Thursday’s Child	Negative
5	S Club 7	S Club Party	Nope
6	Britney Spears	(You Drive Me) Crazy	Nah
7	Lou Bega	Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of)	No
8	Eiffel 65	Blue ( Da Ba Dee)	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vr8v/top-of-the-pops-01101999

TOTP 24 SEP 1999

Posted on 2 Days Ago by 80stastic

On the date this TOTP was broadcast, 45 years earlier, the Italian footballer Marco Tardelli was born. Yes, the guy behind one of the most iconic goal celebrations of all time that happened in the aftermath of him scoring Italy’s second goal in the 1982 World Cup final which became known as the ‘Tardelli Scream’. That guy. I wonder if any of the acts in this show could elicit such a reaction of pure emotion?

Our host is Jamie Theakston and this week the show comes live from the L2 nightclub in Liverpool as part of the Top Of The Pops On Tour project. We start with last week’s No 1 which has dropped to No 4 this week (the weekly changing of the guard at the top of the charts was in full effect by this point). However, the Vengaboys were at the peak of their commercial powers in 1999 with two consecutive No 1 singles of which “We’re Going To Ibiza” was the second.

Although it is a terrible, terrible song, it does have an interesting spin off story which occurred in 2019. The ‘Ibiza Affair’ or ‘Ibiza-gate’ was a political scandal involving Heinz-Christian Strache, the former vice-chancellor of Austria and leader of The Freedom Party and Johann Gudenus, a former deputy leader of the same political party. A sting operation commissioned by Iranian lawyer Ramin Mirfakhra saw Strache and Gudenus discussing their party’s underhanded practices and intentions in a secretly recorded meeting in Ibiza. It led to the collapse of the Austrian government with demonstrators in Vienna co-opting “We’re Going To Ibiza” as a song of protest against the government causing the track to re-chart and the Vengaboys themselves to perform it at the ‘Thursday demonstrations’ protests in front of the Chancellery in Vienna. Well, it’s a step up from this I guess…

Scream connection: In interviews, Vengaboys members have mentioned that they encourage a back-and-forth energy with the crowd, often saying, “If we all scream loud enough, nobody hears the mistakes”. Yeah, there’s no scream with enough decibels to disguise what a mistake “We’re Going To Ibiza” was.

What to say about Sting’s solo career? On the one hand, the case could be made that it’s been both lengthy and stellar. Fourteen studio albums released over a 40 year period including two No 1s with the latest release coming in 2021. On the other, none of his albums have made the Top 10 since 2003’s “Sacred Love” and he has only had one Top 10 single ever if you discount his 1994 collaboration with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams “All For Love”. I think I could probably name a fair few of his hits but then I spent a decade working in record shops. How many of his solo songs have genuinely cut through to the wider general public? I would say maybe two – “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” because of its title based on a saying already in parlance and the reference in Jimmy Nail’s No 1 “Ain’t No Doubt” and “Fields Of Gold” and that’s only because of the life it took on when it was covered by Eva Cassidy and the Terry Wogan effect. “Brand New Day” was never going to make that list of two which is a shame as it’s not a bad song. The lead single and title track from Sting’s sixth solo studio album, it has a certain charm with its lolloping rhythms and Stevie Wonder vibe (Wonder actually plays harmonica on the track). I like Sting’s phrasing of the lyrics and even the jazzy trombone interjections which I would ordinarily object to don’t trouble me.

The album would sell well, making the Top 5 and going platinum matching the performance of its predecessor “Mercury Rising”. Tellingly though, neither sold anywhere near as many copies as 1997’s “The Very Best of Sting & The Police” which, although a bizarre concept and perhaps not a true barometer of his solo popularity, did indicate that there was maybe more interest in Sting’s past glories than an appetite for new material.

Scream connection: well, there’s the legendary screaming matches between Sting and The Police drummer Stewart Copeland as a result of their toxic working relationship.

The musical transformation of Everything But The Girl from jazz-pop stylists to electronica dance merchants had, for the most part, left me cold. I’d appreciated the milestone making “Missing” (who hadn’t?) but the continuation of that direction via the “Walking Wounded” album had not maintained that regard. I was with the gig-goer who caught the band around this time and who was overhead by the band’s Ben Watt to say, “Well, that was a load of techno bollocks”.

Rather than being a one-off experiment though, Ben and Tracey Thorn doubled down on the dance vibe for follow up album “Temperamental”. Those in the know (i.e. the music press – ahem) divined a slight readjustment of dance sensibilities with the drum ‘n’ bass beats toned down in favour of a more old school house sound but it all sounded the same to my dance deaf ears. Here’s a typical review:

“EBTG’s early bossa-nova folk has been fully transformed into a contemporary sonic physicality that washes the album’s desperation with sweaty, regenerative joy”

Walters, Barry (October 1999). “This New House”, Spin; Vol. 15, no. 10. pp. 151–152.

“Sonic physicality”? Sweaty, regenerative joy”? I think I’ll pass and I did. Having said all of that, listening to “Five Fathoms” which acted as the lead single from the album (although technically that was “The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)” which they released with Deep Dish a year prior), I actually didn’t mind it. There was more of a proper song structure in there than I was expecting and I liked some of the lyrics like:

“Did I grow up just to stay home?
I’m not immune, I love this tune”

Songwriters: Ben Watt, Five Fathoms lyrics © Sm Publishing Uk Limited

Plus, of course, Tracey’s vocals are always on point. However, “Temperamental” would prove commercially inferior to “Walking Wounded” by some distance and would be the last Everything But The Girl album of new material for nearly a quarter of a century.

Scream connection: Their song “Tender Blue” from the “Eden” album contains the lyric “The baby’s screaming down the hall”.

Before the next act, there’s a bizarre little interlude where Jamie Theakston interviews Holly Johnson. Had this been 1989 instead of 1999, it might have made some sense with Holly riding high in the charts back then with his first solo hits like “Love Train” and “Americanos” but a decade on, he hadn’t been near the Top 40 since. The album he mentions as his next release – “Soulstream” – was studiously ignored in every territory despite including a version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “The Power Of Love”. It’s all a bit pointless and inexplicable and does nobody any favours with the only retrievable piece of utility being that Holly can introduce the next artist who also shares the surname Johnson.

Paul Johnson was a Chicago house DJ and record producer who started the label Dust Traxx and was known for his big personality. He was also a wheelchair user from the age of 16 following an incident where a stray bullet left him paralysed from the waist down. His wheelchair is clearly visible in this performance making him the first person to appear in one on TOTP since…Robert Wyatt in 1974 and his version of “I’m A Believer”? Did he perform “Shipbuilding” on the show in 1983?

Anyway, his hit was “Get Get Down” which was the penultimate Billboard Dance Club No 1 of the 20th century and a Top 5 hit in the UK. A house anthem that was as likely to fill daytime radio playlists as dance floors up and down the country, it was a curiously sparse track consisting of just a looped bass riff, a driving descending beat in what passed for the chorus and the word “down” repeated over and over. I would have liked it better if it had sampled “Wham Rap” – “I said a-get, get, get on down, I said a-get, get, get on down”.

One of those to play “Get Get Down” on the radio were Marc and Lard who, in a pretence of displeasure at such a negative sounding record, would chant “Up, up, up, up” over the top of it. I still miss those guys. Paul Johnson would have one leg amputated in 2003 whilst the other was also removed after a car accident in 2010. He died in 2021 after contracting COVID-19.

Scream connection: In a 1964 New Statesman essay titled “The Menace Of Beatlism”, a British journalist and historian called Paul Johnson attacked the phenomenon of screaming fans.

Anyone remember NetAid? No, me neither. Band Aid and Live Aid? Yes, of course. Sport Aid? Yep. I even vaguely recall Hear ‘n Aid but NetAid? Zip, nothing, nada. For the record, it was an anti-poverty initiative started by the United Nations Development Programme and American multinational technology conglomerate corporation Cisco Systems. It was launched by a concert event on 9 October 1999 to utilise a fledgling internet to raise money and awareness for the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel third world debt. Three concerts in Wembley, New Jersey and Geneva took place with a host of international stars on the respective bills. So, a sort of Live Aid for the 90s then.

To help spearhead the campaign, a single was released. Just as the aforementioned Live Aid had its own such promotional track in Mick Jagger and David Bowie’s desecration of “Dancing In The Streets”, NetAid had the duo of Wyclef Jean and U2’s Bono with an insufferable song called “New Day”. I thought I had zero chance of remembering this but there was something about Wyclef Jean banging on about “nuff respect” that stirred a neurone in my memory into action. I wish it had stayed dormant. This was a hateful mash up of musical styles that just didn’t work. There’s a cringeworthy bit where Wyclef exhorts Bono with the line “Now Bono won’t you sing the hook?”. Oh. Dear. In short, it was a complete and utter mess. Unlike Jagger and Bowie’s equally miserable effort, it didn’t even fulfil its brief of raising lots of cash for its charity, staggering to one week at No 23 n the UK charts. Look, it was for charity and all that but let’s not talk about this ever again OK?

Scream connection: Billedkunst Opphavsrett i Norge or BONO for short is a Norwegian copyright organization that manages rights for artists including Edvard Munch who painted the seminal Expressionist work The Scream.

We continue the internet theme with the return of a music legend. The 80s are often referred to as to as a fallow decade for David Bowie in terms of the quality of his back catalogue but the 90s were hardly a golden period I would argue either. After the albums “Outside” and “Earthling” saw him trying to keep up with ever changing musical movements, his final album before the new Millennium- “Hours” – found him trying to be at the forefront of a technological revolution. It was one of the first albums by a major artist available to download via the internet and specifically via Bowie’s website BowieNet. The ability to do such a thing is completely taken for granted by Generation Z but back in 1999, it would have been a totally alien concept for most of us. Not everyone was an early adopter like Bowie and even if we had an internet connection, it probably wasn’t up to downloading multiple files. However, “Hours” was released digitally before it was physically so it must have been a frustrating experience for many of Bowie’s devoted fanbase.

Bowie predicts the internet in 1999

For those people who did manage to access the album via their computer, would they have been pleased or disappointed by the fruits of their labours? Well, “Hours” received generally mixed reviews and regularly appears towards the bottom of lists ranking Bowie’s albums. Critics seemed to like individual tracks but believed that the album lacked cohesion. Lead single “Thursday’s Child” was one of its more well received songs but it’s hardly classic Bowie though some tried to relate it to his seminal “Hunky Dory” album. An airy ballad of sorts, its title was inspired by Eartha Kitt’s autobiography though surely the traditional nursery rhyme “Monday’s Child” had a bearing as well. If so, Bowie wasn’t the first to incorporate it into a song with the likes of Matt Monro and Spandau Ballet using the motif before him. Am I saying Bowie copied the Spandau boys? No, I wouldn’t dare obviously. “Thursday’s Child” peaked at No 16 despite Bowie’s in person performance here though clearly he wasn’t in the L2 nightclub in Liverpool – that would have been a major coup.

Scream connection: Bowie immersed himself in early 20th century German Expressionism during his Berlin period in the late 70s. Edvard Munch who painted The Scream was a pioneer of Expressionism.

The audience in Liverpool might have missed out on Bowie but they did get another big name in Tom Jones plus the added bonus of The Cardigans to boot. Together. How so? Well, Tom hadn’t released an album for five years and so to relaunch himself, he put together a covers album. Hardly an original concept but Tom added an extra layer of interest by recording each individual song as a collaboration with a different artist including the likes of Stereophonics, Robbie Williams and Natalie Imbruglia. The lead single taken from it was a cover of the Talking Heads track “Burning Down The House” with the aforementioned Swedish rockers The Cardigans.

It appeared a bold choice on initial inspection. For a start, how well known was the song? Sure, it had been Talking Heads’ only Top 10 hit in the US but in the UK it had failed to chart on its release in 1983. So, we were talking about a 16 year old song that had never been a hit. That take is disingenuous though as “Burning Down The House” was hardly unknown. Its parent album “Speaking In Tongues” had charted in the UK and moreover, it was an integral part of perhaps the greatest live album of all time – “Stop Making Sense”. All that said though, there were perhaps more obvious choices for the lead single from Tom’s covers album “Reload” – INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” or “Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks maybe? Obvious isn’t always right though and Tom and The Cardigans’ version of “Burning Down The House” lit the charts up returning Jones to the Top 10 for the first time since 1988 which was, coincidentally, also a cover – Prince’s “Kiss” with the Art Of Noise. I was one of those who bought “Burning Down The House” though mainly for Tom’s version of EMF’s “Unbelievable” which was an extra track on the CD single after seeing him perform it live with EMF on his 1992 TV series Tom Jones: The Right Time which is just a great clip.

Scream connection: Jones is well known for eliciting screams from his audiences at live gigs where the throwing of underwear on stage has also been a regular occurrence.

One of the most memorable/annoying No 1s of the year now as Eiffel 65 top the chart with “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. This was yet another dance track that had caused a splash over the summer in Ibiza and, like ATB and Lou Bega before it, the record had charted in a minor way just in sales of import copies alone before shooting straight to the summit over here once it had an official UK release. Despite their French sounding name, this lot were actually Italian and they came up with their most well known track after the initial looped keyboard hook was fleshed out with some nonsense lyrics about a blue man living in a blue world (or something). However, the track’s USP was the “da ba dee” line in the chorus which had an almost hypnotic effect on the listener. It also created one of the most infamous misheard lyrics of all time as many people (including myself) heard “Aberdeen I will die”. Surely only Kate Bush’s backing vocals line “Jeux sans frontières” in Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” which was misheard as “She’s so popular” rivals it. “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” was No 1 all around Europe and beyond and would stay at the top of the UK charts for three weeks (one of only three singles to do so in 1999) becoming the second biggest selling single of the year. Yabba-da-ba-dee!

Scream connection: Well, here’s a thing. Aside from the “Aberdeen I will die” mishear, the internet tells me that “Da Ba dee” was also mistaken for either “If I bleed, I would die” or “I will scream” and that some have concluded that they were inspired by a ritualistic, screaming, dancing event. Bloody conspiracy theories.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Vengaboys	We’re Going To Ibiza	As if
2	Sting	Brand New Day	I did not
3	Everything But The Girl	Five Fathoms	Nope
4	Paul Johnson	Get Get Down	Not for me
5	Wyclef Jean / Bono	New Day	Never
6	David Bowie	Thursday’s Child	Nah
7	Tom Jones / The Cardigans	Burning Down The House	YES!
8	Eiffel 65	Blue (Da Ba Dee)	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002vr8s/top-of-the-pops-24091999

TOTP 29 FEB 1996

Posted on June 13, 2024 by 80stastic

1996 must have been a leap year as we’ve got a TOTP on the 29th February. The day after this show aired, Status Quo took Radio 1 to the High Court over its refusal to playlist the band’s latest single, a cover of “Fun Fun Fun” by The Beach Boys who also feature on the record. Status Quo lost their legal action with the BBC successfully claiming that the group did not fit the demographic audience the station was trying to reach. In a musical landscape dominated by Britpop and dance music, they had a point. Or did they? The album the single came from – “Don’t Stop” – went to No 2 and sold 100,000 copies so wasn’t it Radio 1’s obligation to reflect what was popular? For what it’s worth, I think they made the right decision. The album was entirely made up of cover versions including (and I’ve only just discovered this) their takes on “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats and “The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)” by Timbuk 3. I know! What on earth?! I’m almost curious enough to investigate what they sound like but not quite.

The following day, Melody Maker praised Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker for his protest at the BRIT awards two weeks earlier against Michael Jackson’s performance of “Earth Song” suggesting he should be knighted. Although Jarvis got arrested for his part in the incident (with Bob Mortimer famously attending the police station to represent him legally), I think we all know who ultimately came off better out of the episode. Pulp were probably as famous as they ever would be at that point with the controversy taking Jarvis to the front pages of the daily newspapers rather than just the music press. It hadn’t always been like that of course with the band having spent the 80s on the peripheries of indiedom before the move to Island Records and becoming bona fide chart stars. And how did they do that? Via “Perseverance” of course which incidentally is the name of the first song on the show tonight.

Yes, Terrorvision have blasted their way into the Top 5 with this, the lead single from third album “Regular Urban Survivors”, and it’s a stonking tune. Breaking the conventions of standard rock with brass parts and a vocal from Tony Wright that’s ragged and raw sounding but by no means without melody and hooks aplenty, it’s a great way to start the show and marks a welcome departure from all those dance acts and their repetitive beats. A regular reader of this blog assures me that Tony has a very nice cafe in Otley and he can often be seen behind the counter serving cups of tea and slices of Victoria sponge to the local residents or perhaps those rock fans who have gone on a pilgrimage to find one of their 90s heroes. Tony has framed pictures of his lyrics on the wall if you want to get a selfie with some rock memorabilia. Maybe he even has one that includes the infamous line in “Perseverance” about the ‘whales and dolphins’?

Ah! Here’s the dance act with repetitive beats. I knew it would only be a matter of time. Gusto were nothing to do with Chelsea right back Malo but was instead New Jersey producer Edward Greene whose hit “Disco’s Revenge” was built around a loop of a sample of a track called “Groovin’ You” by former Herbie Hancock drummer Harvey Mason. The title “Disco’s Revenge” was taken from a quote by legendary ‘Godfather of House Music’ Frankie Knuckles who described the style of music developed in his club in Detroit thus. If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ll know that, by writing the above, I’ve wandered into an area where I’ve no right in being, namely house music. I’m clearly out of my depth when discussing such matters so I’ll extricate myself quickly.

As for “Disco’s Revenge”, I’d rather have “Rocker’s Revenge and their 1982 smash hit “Walking On Sunshine”.

Whether you like her or not, the dominance of the charts by Celine Dion was in full swing by the mid 90s. With one huge No 1 to her name already in the form of “Think Twice”, she would then settle into a pattern of churning out the hits on a regular basis before exploding again with that song from the Titanic movie in 1997. Within the calendar year of 1996, she would rack up four Top 10 UK hits. No artist would have more than that. So popular was she that one Christmas around this time, the police had to be called to an Our Price store in the region (thankfully not the one where I worked) to settle a dispute between two customers who were locked in battle (literally) over the last Celine Dion CD in the shop with both refusing to let go of it! “Falling Into You” was the title track from Celine’s fourteenth studio album and saw some rather restrained vocals for once from the ‘Queen of Power Ballads’. If only those two shoppers had showed the same restraint.

Next the return of Gabrielle whom we haven’t seen on the show or in the charts for a whole two years. The curse of having your debut single go to No 1 (the only way from there is down) had afflicted Gabrielle since “Dreams” had topped the charts in 1993. Her three subsequent single releases had peaked at Nos 9, 26 and 24. However, she would spectacularly lift that hoodoo with “Give Me A Little More Time”. Just a ‘Just’ away from sharing the same title as the old Chairman Of The Board hit from the 70s (and also for Kylie in the 90s) and ‘a little’ too much to be the name of Whitesnake’s 1984 minor hit, Gabrielle’s song was actually a classy slice of soul/pop with a retro 60s feel. Perfect for daytime radio playlists, it reversed her trend of diminishing chart returns and then some by peaking at No 5.

While she’s been away, Gabrielle has had a change of image with a new hairstyle that also acts as a replacement for her trademark eye patch. She has ptosis, a condition which causes the drooping of one eyelid and has always covered it using hats, sunglasses, her hair and, of course, the eye patch. Did she ever wear it again after this point? If this wasn’t a watershed moment for the eye patch, it definitely was for Gabrielle’s career as this hit would usher in a period of sustained success. Two more mid-sized hits followed “Give Me A Little More Time” before a No 2 turned up after she joined forces with East 17 on “If You Ever”. Two more Top Tenners followed in its wake before “Rise” gave her a second No 1 some seven years after her first. She still wasn’t done as “Out Of Reach” went to No 4 on the back of its inclusion on the soundtrack to Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Next a run of three huge music legends on the bounce starting with Sting who’s beaming in to the show from that well used TOTP satellite location under Brooklyn Bridge, New York. How many times was this setting featured?! I get that the backdrop is an arresting image of the Manhattan skyline but it kind of dwarfs the artist and makes them seem incongruous. Sting’s appearance here isn’t helped by the fact that he’s doing a dance version of “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot”. Why?! As it’s a designated dance version, there has to be a troop of backing dancers cavorting behind him but this just adds to the feeling of absurdity. Sadly I can’t find a clip of this performance on YouTube. Maybe that’s for the best.

Meanwhile, back in the studio is Tina Turner with the lead single from her latest album “Wildest Dreams”. Remarkably, this was her first studio album for seven years though it didn’t feel like Tina had been away at all thanks to a Best Of collection in 1991, her biopic film What’s Love Got To Do With It and accompanying soundtrack in 1993 and her recording of the theme tune for the James Bond flick Goldeneye in 1995. Listening to “Whatever You Want”, it sounds like it could also have been recorded for a 007 film with some heavy “Licence To Kill” vibes permeating through. Tina does her usual Tina shtick here but as with Sting before her, the backing dancers seem unnecessary. No doubt Tina and record label Parlophone would have been wanting (and perhaps expecting) a bigger hit with the track than the No 23 high it produced but I fear she may have been ever so slightly out of sync with UK chart tastes at the time.

We’d only just bid farewell to Babylon Zoo’s “Spaceman” at the top of the charts but now we were literally saying “Hallo Spaceboy” to David Bowie and the Pet Shop Boys. It seems to be generally accepted that Bowie was not at his best in the 80s. Despite the success of “Let’s Dance” (both the album and the single), pretty much all of his output that decade did not meet with the approval of the fans. However, and I’m not counting myself as a Bowie superfan but I did see him live once, I struggled with his 90s material. “Black Tie White Noise” passed me by with its lack of obvious singles, “Earthling” was never going to win me over with its exploration into the drum and bass phenomenon and then there was “Outside”. Influenced by Twin Peaks, this was a concept album that followed a narrative of a detective investigating the murder of a 14 year old girl in a fictional New Jersey town. Reviews were mixed with some labelling it as his finest work since “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)” whilst others derided it as pretentious shit. I was probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes of opinion but even I was definite that “Hallo Spaceboy” was a good single. How much of that is down to the involvement of the Pet Shop Boys more than Bowie I’m not sure but their influence couldn’t be denied. An almost hi-NRG backing allied to Bowie’s unique phrasing and Neil Tennant’s deadpan vocals, the decision to reference “Space Oddity” and Major Tom in the lyrics was perhaps cynical but also a clincher.

Despite looking like a vicar with a stiletto fetish, Bowie is still effortlessly cool in this performance with Neil and Chris happy to literally stand to one side to let the people see the master at work. “Hallo Spaceboy” peaked at No 12 making it Bowie’s second highest charting single as a solo artist of the whole of the 90s.

On February 13th 1996, Take That announced that they were splitting up. It’s hard to recall nearly 30 years on how much of a big deal this was especially as ten years later they came back and have stayed back for a further 18 years and counting but a big deal it was. Infamously, telephone helplines were set up by the government to support those teenage fans that were left distraught and with feelings so big that they didn’t know what to do with them. They had been together for six years or so but only three and a half of those were as chart stars. Was that a long time for a teen-oriented pop group to be around or had they called time on themselves too early? I’m pretty sure that they could have carried on for another album and a few hit singles but by that point they would have been pushing 30 which may have been at the older end of the pop star age bracket. By disappearing for 10 years, they probably gave people the chance to miss them before picking up where they left off and giving themselves a second career. Did they feel the pressure of the presence of Boyzone in the charts as a rival to their popularity? I think they possibly could have ridden that out. After the departure of Robbie Williams the year before, maybe the writing had been on the wall although there still seemed to be an appetite for the group.

To draw a line under what would turn out to be the first part of their career, a Greatest Hits album was released with a new single to promote it which was a cover of the Bee Gees 1977 hit “How Deep Is Your Love”. Was it a lazy move to bow out with a cover? Well, there was a certain amount of symmetry to the release as their breakthrough hit in 1992 had been a cover – “It Only Takes A Minute” by Tavares. The That lads give a decent take on the track with Gary Barlow’s lead vocal a passable Gibb brother impression. Whilst he and Jason Orange have sensible, mid 90s haircuts, Howard Donald has what can only be described as dread bunches whilst Mark Owen has a hairstyle I might have had in junior school! After this single, the talk turned to solo careers with Gary Barlow everyone’s favourite to be the most successful. Little did we know. One person who did seem to be in the know was host Nicky Campbell who correctly predicted a “reunion tour in the next century” in his outro.

Oasis are straight in at No 1 with “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. Of course they are. What’s maybe surprising is that despite all the fuss around the band and Britpop, this was only their second chart topper at the time after “Some Might Say” the year before. Of course they’d had some near misses. I was convinced they would be the Christmas No 1 in 1994 with “Whatever” but they lost out to East 17. Then there was the Battle of Britpop when they were beaten into second place by Blur and of course, their last single “Wonderwall” had sold and sold and sold but not at the right time to displace Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”. This time, however, there was no stopping them even though it would only be for one week due to the hysteria surrounding Take That’s swansong.

Is there a more Britpop moment than Noel Gallagher and his Union Jack Epiphone Supernova guitar in this performance? What’s that? The Select magazine cover from April 1993 with Suede’s Brett Anderson set against a Union Jack backdrop? Or Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit on the cover of Vanity Fair in a bed with Union Jack pillow cases and bedspread? Nah, it’s Liam and that guitar for me. Perhaps an even bigger moment associated with this song in my opinion though is its use in the wonderful BBC drama Our Friends In The North. The final episode of the decades spanning show aired eleven days after this TOTP was broadcast. The final scene showed the character Geordie played by Daniel Craig striding across the Tyne Bridge (and out of our lives it felt like) after an emotional reunion with the show’s other three main protagonists. It was quite a moment for the watching millions at home. When “Don’t Look Back In Anger” came on to soundtrack this scene, it felt almost perfect. Timing wise, with the last episode being set in 1995 and the song at the top of the charts, it felt like the zeitgeist hadn’t been followed so much as tracked and hunted down. It really was sublime stuff.

Oasis themselves wouldn’t release anything after “Don’t Look Back In Anger” for nigh on 18 months as they retreated to record the difficult third album “Be Here Now” by which point Britpop was on its way out making this TOTP performance an even more defining moment in time. As Martin Tyler said of Liam and Noel’s beloved Man City winning the Premier League so dramatically in 2012, “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again so watch it, drink it in…”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Terrorvision	Perseverance	Good tune but no
2	Gusto	Disco’s Revenge	As if
3	Celine Dion	Falling Into You	Never
4	Gabrielle	Give Me A Little More Time	No
5	Sting	Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot	Nah
6	Tina Turner	Whatever You Want	Nope
7	David Bowie featuring Pet Shop Boys	Hallo Spaceboy	No but I did like it
8	Take That	How Deep Is Your Love	No but my wife had that Best Of album
9	Oasis	Don’t Look Back In Anger	YES!

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zqts/top-of-the-pops-29021996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 09 NOV 1995

Posted on April 3, 2024 by 80stastic

Tonight’s TOTP sees yet another ‘golden mic’ host at the helm. I find Lee Evans an interesting guy not because I especially liked his physical brand of humour but more because he took the unusual to retire from stand up comedy and retreated from the world of celebrity at the age of just 50 to spend more time with his family. Apart from a couple of stage roles, he’s rarely been seen since. Anybody who walks away at the height of their fame makes for a fascinating case study in my book just because you don’t see it that often. In the world of music, off the top of my head there’s Rick Astley though he subsequently came back to the world of pop music with a level of success that must have surprised even him. I guess you could also include Take That in this category who split in 1996 whilst still wildly popular though again they came back to the charts with a vengeance. How about Syd Barrett? The co-founder of Pink Floyd withdrew from public life completely in 1972 though to be fair, he’d already been fired from his band over concerns about his drug taking and mental health but he did release two solo albums before disappearing to concentrate on his gardening.

Anyway, Lee Evans had been pulling in huge crowds on his stand up tours playing to a record breaking 10,108 people in 2005 at the Manchester Arena. His 2008 “Big” tour was the biggest selling comedy DVD that Christmas. In 2011, he was honoured by the British Comedy Awards with the Channel 4 award for Special Contribution to Comedy. In short, he was huge. And then, in 2014 he announced his retirement from stand up comedy. Presumably, he could have carried on with the massive grossing tours but he quit at the top and fair play to him. I wonder if there’s any acts on tonight’s TOTP that also went out at the top?

Well, I don’t think the opening turn tonight could be put into that category. One No 13 hit could hardly be described as being at the top! Who the heck were Ruffneck featuring Yavahn anyway? Having listened to their hit “Everybody Be Somebody” they appear to have been the creators of one of the worst dance tracks of the 90s. This is just horrible! Totally repetitive with Yavahn basically singing the title over and over with some bloke screeching it back to her somewhere in the mix. Seriously, this was awful. And yet, incredibly, in one chart – the US Hot Dance Club Play chart – this Swedish act were actually at the top as this track went to No 1 for three weeks. Ruffneck? I’d rather have Rednex and that’s saying something!

Talking of dreadful Swedish pop groups, here’s another one right on cue. Ace Of Base had first entered our lives in 1993 with the odious chart topper “All That She Wants”. The hits kept coming with no upturn in quality – “The Sign” was as bad as its predecessor whilst their cover of Aswad’s “Don’t Turn Around” was execrable. “Lucky Love” was the lead single from their second album “The Bridge” and was more of the same turgid, insipid euro-pop that they made their name with. And the lyrics! They must have taken all of the time it took for Lee Evans to start sweating to write…

Lucky love belongs in teenage heaven

Whoa, whoa, yeah
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: – Joker / Billy Steinberg
Lucky Love lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

What the hell does that mean?! Pure gibberish. The track was so insubstantial and unmemorable that even the TOTP caption person couldn’t remember its title and so we got a graphic declaring it was called “Lucky Cove” which sounds like a location on a pirate map where ‘X’ marked the spot where the treasure was to be found. “Lucky Love” was less treasure and more cheap baubles and despite it being a No 1 in their home country and Finland, it rightly stalled at No 20 in the UK.

Next, a true legend of popular music who potentially could have gone out right at the top of their game but, unlike their erstwhile rivals The Beatles, chose to carry on…and on…and on…and on. By 1995, The Rolling Stones had been on the go for 33 years – the fact that they are still an ongoing entity a further 29 years later is utterly remarkable. A career lasting 62 years and counting? It’s just mad, crazy and probably never to be repeated. Sure, there’s versions of other bands still touring but they’ve had so many line up changes that you’d have to apply the spade law* to them. The fact that The Stones have only ever had eight official band members in all those years surely marks them out as unique from everyone else. Ronnie Wood is the youngest of the current band line up at the age of 76!

*If you replace the handle of your spade and then subsequently its blade, is it still the original spade or a different tool entirely?

Anyway, in late 1995 the band had not long finished The Voodoo Lounge Tour. Instead of taking a well earned break, they released “Stripped” which was an acoustic album made up of a mixture of live tracks from the tour (including rehearsals performances in some cases) and studio reworking of songs from their back catalogue. I’m guessing that new label Virgin had their eyes on the upcoming Christmas market and took inspiration from the then in vogue MTV Unplugged show to come up with the idea for “Stripped”. To promote the album, a single was needed and in a move that seems so calculated yet obvious you can’t believe they hadn’t done it before, the band released a version of the Bob Dylan classic “Like A Rolling Stone”. It’s a great song and a decent enough version but come on! Dylan has always been a conundrum to me – a great songwriter but I don’t like his voice. I suppose it’s all subjective. The same could be said of Tom Waits but I really like Tom’s vocals. The Stones’ version of “Like A Rolling Stone” made No 12 giving them their biggest UK hit since “Undercover Of The Night” twelve years earlier. Ah, the power of a cover – and in this particular case, that cover by this band.

Saint Etienne have always been a band who do things on their own terms it seems to me so they had it in them to quit while they were ahead as it were but chose to carry on a career which has been going 34 years now. Never let it be said that it hasn’t been a diverse one though. 60s pop, house music, electronica and even folk have been influences incorporated into their sound. The very definition of eclectic. With support from the ‘inkies’ press, they really should have had bigger hits but they’ve never even had one Top 10* hit.

*If you don’t count “7 Ways To Love” under the guise of Cola Boy which I don’t.

Their lack of huge selling singles makes the decision to release a singles collection album literally called “Too Young To Die: Singles 1990-1995” seem a rather odd one. A Japan only Best Of called “Fairy Tales From Saint Etienne” had been released earlier in the year so maybe they wanted a more official documentation of their work so far? Whatever the reason, the album did OK sales wise reaching No 17 in a crowded pre-Christmas market place though failed to match the chart highs of previous two studio albums “So Tough” and “Tiger Bay” which both went Top 10.

To promote the album, the single “He’s On The Phone” was released. The song’s origins were rather convoluted. A remix by producer Motiv8 of their track “Accident” from the band’s “Reserection” EP (and no that’s not a typo) that they made in collaboration with French singer songwriter Étienne Daho, “Accident” itself was a reworking of Daho’s 1984 French language hit “Week-end à Rome”. That’s Daho in this TOTP performance, the bloke who wanders on stage towards the end of the song to mumble some words in French. I’d forgotten what how much of a dance track this one was. I think I was confusing it with “You’re In A Bad Way” which was much more pure pop. There seems to be an awful lot of PVC on show here with the overly energetic backing dancers kind of jarring against the smooth delivery of Sarah Cracknell who’s very good at looking straight down the camera. “He’s On The Phone” became the band’s biggest ever hit when it peaked at No 11.

A proper One Hit Wonder now (in the UK at least) as Whale get their fifteen minutes of fame. Can such an artist that falls into this category be able to quit at the top? I suppose it depends on whether they carry on in search (unsuccessfully) of more hits. I’m guessing that most do. In Whale’s case, they pushed really hard just to have the one. “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” was on its second mission to seek out the strange new world of the UK Top 40 having peaked at No 46 on its first release back in 1993. Its second incarnation beamed down into the Top 20 at No 15. And what a curious, almost alien life form it was. The music press tied itself up in knots trying to define it. Many tried to describe the song by referring to it as a hybrid of other bands, usually Beastie Boys/Dee-Lite/ Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Sugacubes. Others just made shit up like Stephen Dalton from the NME:

“A monstrous saga of sexual slumming perched atop a toxic tidal wave of scuzz–metal riffola”
Dalton, Stephen (12 August 1995). “Long Play”. NME. p. 42.

“Scuzz–metal riffola? Anyways, what did I make of it? I suppose I have to give you my attempt to describe it now. Well, I liked it – let me say that for starters. An otherworldly, wailing (no pun intended) vocal from the female singer on an undulating, almost hypnotic verse before the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” like chorus not just kicks in but kicks the door down. There’s even some death-metal-esque random shouting in there. How’s that for a description? I seem to recall a fair bit of discussion about what a ‘slobo’ was so here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer:

What is a “slobo”, exactly? Er, a misunderstanding. Whale’s Henrik Schyffert: "I heard that 'slobo' was a nickname for Chelsea girls. 'Hobo Humpin' Sloane Babe' would have been right. So there's a cute Swedish misunderstanding for you.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 22, 2024

I like the way singer Cia Berg pops up beside Lee Evans in his intro before joining the rest of the band on stage. I thought she was a cheeky, inventive studio audience member at first. Whale would have one more (even bigger) hit in their native Sweden but after two albums they were done and split before the end of the decade.

Having described Saint Etienne as the very definition of eclectic earlier, where the hell do I go to talk about Everything But The Girl? Their Wikipedia entry uses the following categorisations of their music:

Sophisti-pop
Electronica
Drum and Bass
Trip-hop
Folk pop
Jazz pop
Indie pop

Pick the bones out of that lot. However you think of them, perhaps the first song of theirs that will come to mind is “Missing” or rather the Todd Terry remix of it. Already inside the Top 10 by this TOTP appearance and therefore their biggest ever hit even at that point, it would spend 14 weeks inside the Top 10 peaking at No 3. The success of the single saw them head off to explore more possibilities of a dance sound with 1996’s album “Walking Wounded” embracing electronica and finding acceptance amongst the record buying public by going platinum in the UK. Not everyone was in favour of their new direction though. I recall Tracey and Ben in an interview talking about a crowd reaction to a gig they did around the time of “Walking Wounded” and recalled that one disgruntled punter had said of the music on the way out “Well, that was a load of techno bollocks!”. Can’t please them all I suppose.

Now here’s a band that probably should have called it a day long before they did but in 1995, there was no bigger name in British music than Oasis. After losing out in the Battle of Britpop to Blur, the lads from Burnage would go on to win the war when it came to album sales. “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” would go 17 (seventeen!) times platinum in the UK alone becoming the second best selling album here of 1995 despite only being out for three months. Fast forward 13 years and the band’s final album “Dig Out Your Soul”, whilst still selling well and going to No 1 would go just double platinum with some parts of the music press accusing the album of being “generically Oasis”. I have all their albums bar one (2000’s “Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants”) but even I as a fan, could see that they had gone on about two albums two long.

Back in November 1995 though, they were unstoppable. Well, almost. In fact, they were stopped twice around this time and on both occasions by the same act. More of that later though. The third single to be released from the album was “Wonderwall” which has become possibly their most well known hit. I say possibly as it’s maybe a toss up between that and the following single “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. Fine margins and all that. Sadly for me, “Wonderwall” was so ubiquitous that it’s become one of those songs that it’s hard to listen to anymore. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good song or that I didn’t enjoy it at the time but merely that, for me, it’s suffered from overexposure. However, I have to also say that it sounded like a classic from the get go. Spare and brittle yet perfectly conceived and executed. It would become a staple of the busker’s repertoire. Apparently bass player Guigsy didn’t play on the actual recording of the track with Noel taking on bass duties instead. He also didn’t feature in the official promo video for “Wonderwall” as he had temporarily left Oasis due to nervous exhaustion with his place in the band and promo briefly being taken by Scott McLeod. I’m sure that’s Guigsy in this TOTP though. Maybe it was a case of timing as this performance looks pre-recorded so maybe it was done a bit before the single was released.

The song’s title was inspired by the 1968 film Wonderwall and its soundtrack album called “Wonderwall Music” by George Harrison, the first solo album by a member of The Beatles. Sometime in the early 2000s, I was working and living in York and used to attend a pub pop quiz on a Tuesday evening. One night, one of the questions was ‘What was the 60s film whose title is also the name of an Oasis single?’. I confidently wrote down “Don’t Look Back In Anger” but soon discovered I’d got confused with the 1959 kitchen sink drama Look Back In Anger based on the John Osbourne play of the same name. I’ll never make that mistake again.

As confident as I was in my incorrect answer, so was Lee Evans in his false prediction that “Wonderwall” would be No 1 soon enough. It never made it though it has sold 3.6 million copies making it the biggest selling Oasis single in the UK. As for the Mike Flowers Pop version, I’ll get to that all in good time.

After Madonna in the studio last week, seven days on TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill had pulled off another coup – that of getting David Bowie on the show in person! OK, 1995 wasn’t peak Bowie but still; David Bowie! As much as it’s generally accepted that the 80s weren’t The Thin White Duke’s finest years, I’m not convinced that the 90s were much, if any, better. Before I go any further, I should state that whilst I like Bowie (who doesn’t?) that I’m no aficionado and so my opinions come from a place of limited knowledge – if you are a mega-fan and are offended by anything else I may write from this point, it was not my intention to irk you. So…in my humble opinion, of the four albums he released during the 90s, I would venture that none of them rank highly in the Bowie canon. His fanbase ensured that four of them went Top 10 including a No 1 in “Black Tie White Noise” but none achieved massive sales. In fact, I think I’m right in saying that Bowie’s biggest selling albums of the decade were both compilations – 1990’s “Changesbowie” and 1993’s “The Singles Collection”.

Come 1995, the latest Bowie album was “Outside” and as with any album by The Master (as Lee Evans refers to him in his intro), there’s a shit load of words written about it online which I couldn’t hope to summarise in this post. Suffice to say, the main themes are that it was inspired by Twin Peaks (and possibly Cluedo) with a concept narrative about the murder of a 14 year old girl being investigated by a detective Nathan Adler. The album (though I talk about it in the surety that I’ve never heard it) features a bewildering mix of styles including rock, jazz, electronica, industrial rock and ambient. This single – the second taken from it – “Strangers When We Meet” – was originally a track on Bowie’s soundtrack album to the BBC series The Buddha Of Suburbia based on the novel by Hanif Kureishi. That album did the sum of naff all sales wise though has retrospectively come to be regarded as a ‘great lost album’. I don’t know how much the original version of “Strangers When We Meet” differs from its later incarnation (if at all) but for what it’s worth, I quite like what we get in this performance. I don’t remember it at all but it’s a good tune if a little pedestrian for Bowie and though it will certainly never be regarded as one of his classics, it probably deserved a better UK chart placing than No 39. As ever, Bowie looks effortlessly cool here and is the natural opposite when juxtaposed to the upcoming act at No 1.

P.S. I’m saying that Bowie was still at the top of his game when his final album “Blackstar” was released in 2016. Obviously, his premature death wasn’t the same as him calling time on his career. He surely would have released more albums post 2016 had he lived on.

And so to the act that not only kept Oasis from scoring a No 1 single with “Wonderwall” but also pipped them to the accolade of having the best selling UK album of 1995. How did the abomination that was Robson & Jerome happen? Well, as with most musical abominations, it was all Simon Cowell’s fault. It was him who pursued the Soldier Soldier actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn to release a version of “Unchained Melody” after their characters had performed the song in a plot line in the show and the phenomenal public response to the record (it sold 1.8 million copies) meant that more would follow. Cowell wasn’t going to let this cash cow go out to pasture without milking it dry first. And so, the inevitable follow up arrived and of course, it was another cover version. “I Believe” had been a massive hit in 1953 for Frankie Laine – no, like really massive – it went to No 1 on three different occasions registering 18 weeks at the top of the charts in the process. The Bachelors also had a big hit with the song when their version got to No 2 in the UK in 1964. Cowell would have known this and also that the age demographic who would buy a Robson & Jerome single would also know the song from years before. It smacks of cold, calculating strategy. R&J’s take on “I Believe” would top the charts for 4 weeks though they were unable to last the extra 3 weeks that would have been required to become the Christmas No 1. Ha! You got that calculation wrong didn’t you Cowell?! Thankfully, the song is only just over 2 minutes long so the performance here is mercifully short.

Talking of mercifully short, Robson & Jerome at least had the good sense and self knowledge to understand when to cut short their pop career. A second album and third single followed in 1996 – all of which went to No 1 in their respective charts – but these were their last releases (if you don’t count a couple of subsequent compilations shoved out by their label RCA). This means we’ve finally found an act on this TOTP that went out at the top just like Lee Evans!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Ruffneck featuring Yavahn	Everybody Be Somebody	Never happening
2	Ace Of Base	Lucky Love	No
3	The Rolling Stones	Like A Rolling Stone	Nah
4	Saint Etienne	He’s On The Phone	I didn’t
5	Whale	Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Everything But The Girl	Missing	No but I must have it on something surely
7	Oasis	Wonderwall	This was one of the few of their singles I failed to buy for some reason
8	David Bowie	Strangers When We Meet	Nope
9	Robson & Jerome	I Believe	As if

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001xhzf/top-of-the-pops-09111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 25 MAR 1993

Posted on July 16, 2022 by 80stastic

I’ve spent a lot of time recently banging on about the unholy trinity of the three S’s of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks and Snow dominating the charts. Well, guess what? I’m still doing it in this post as two of them are on the show again this week. It’s come to my attention though that they weren’t the only members of the ‘S’ brigade. This week’s show is jam packed with them and no I didn’t like a single one!

We start with an ‘S’ and it’s ‘S’ for Sybil, she of the hit “When I’m Good And Ready”. Sybil was never as popular again as she was at this moment in terms of sales. Her run of two consecutive big hits comprising this single and previous No 3 smash “The Love I Lost” with West End was brought to an abrupt halt when the next single “Beyond Your Wildest Dreams” peaked outside of the Top 40 at that most unfortunate of places No 41. It wasn’t for the want of trying though. She even did two different versions of the song- a pop ballad version for the UK market…

And a hip-hop remix with a rap in the middle for the US territories…

It made no difference as neither version was a hit. Off the top of my head I can only think of Climie Fisher also doing a similar thing where there was a straight ballad version of their single “Rise To The Occasion” and a hip-hop remix complete with the ubiquitous and annoying ‘aaah yeaaah’ sample.

The track had also previously been recorded by Lonnie Gordon and released as a follow up to her “Happenin’ All Over Again” hit but had also missed the chart peaking at No 48. All of this despite the claim by writers Stock, Aitken and Waterman that it is one of the best songs they ever penned. And if you thought the chart performance of “Beyond Your Wildest Dreams” was unlucky, Sybil followed up taking it to No 41 in the charts by releasing another single from her “Good ‘N’ Ready” album called “Stronger Together” and that peaked at…yep…No 41.

No S’s in sight next as we once again witness the power of an advert to make us buy a song that had already been a hit once all over again. This time the product being soundtracked by an old hit was the Volkswagen Golf and the song that benefited from it “Young At Heart” by The Bluebells. Normally I don’t go back and see what I’ve already written about a chart hit that I’ve reviewed in a previous blog post for fear of just regurgitating the same words but I did in this case. I think it’s because I view their chart histories separated by nine years as almost completely different entities, relating to two disparate records.

Originally a hit in the Summer of 1984 when I had not long turned 16, “Young At Heart” was never off the airwaves. Radio 1 seemed to play it four or five times a day at least which was not good for me as I couldn’t stand it. In my post on the track in my 80s TOTP blog, I made a point of saying I liked the band but hated this song and I stand by that. I still have a soft spot for The Bluebells but their most well known song is also their worst to my ears. Back in 1984, they followed up “Young At Heart” with the wonderful “Cath” but it only just scraped into the charts at No 38. A final single called “All I Am (Is Loving You)” was released which missed the charts completely and the band fizzled out.

The song’s second coming seemed nothing to do with the band and indeed it wasn’t. They weren’t actually even together in 1993 and hadn’t been for some years. I think I’m right in saying that the story behind its 1993 reactivation was that the person working for the ad agency that was looking after the Volkswagen account had come up with a song for the advert but that there were some issues with copyright and it couldn’t be used and so she had to come up with another song fast. Thinking back to her childhood, she remembered that jolly song that she used to hear on the radio. The rights owners were sought out and contacted and the rest is history.

For many record buyers though, they may not have known anything of the record’s past or the career of the band who made it. They just knew it as the song from that car advert with the twist at the end when instead of getting married, it turns out that the ‘bride’ is actually celebrating getting divorced. The single’s cover was just a still of said actress from the advert reinforcing this new identity for the song as something separate and somehow itself divorced as it were from the band. It even has the Volkswagen logo in the corner. It was corporate and false and in some way, it devalued the original even though I hadn’t liked it.

On hearing of the success of the rerelease (it outstripped the original’s chart peak easily in the first week) the members of The Bluebells reconvened and agreed to reform to promote the single with appearances like this one on TOTP. They look like they’re treating it as a laugh which is probably the correct attitude to have taken. They weren’t under any record company pressure to maximise sales presumably. Whatever it did commercially was a bonus. Subsequent performances would be taken even less seriously as the band struggled to come to terms with this unexpected turn of events. “Young At Heart” would go to No 1 for four weeks and be the twelfth best selling single of the year in the UK in 1993.

We’re back with the S’s now and it’s the most hateful of the lot – Shabba Ranks with “Mr Loverman”. I could never understand the appeal of this record. I mean, I didn’t like Shaggy nor Snow’s songs either but I could just about appreciate why they were successful. “Mr Loverman” though? Nah, that was just nasty. Aside from Ranks’s own despicable views which were enough to put any sane thinking person off anyway, I just couldn’t take the song seriously with all those ridiculous ‘Shabba!’ shout outs. Now I learn it’s not even Ranks name checking himself but Maxi Priest sampled from their “Housecall” single.

The whole stupid business was parodied in a sketch by the team behind the US comedy TV series In Living Color to whom I shall leave the last word…

All female US R&B groups seemed to be everywhere in the 90s. At the start of the decade we had En Vogue and then as the years passed we saw the likes of SWV, TLC and Brownstone right up to the titans of the genre Destiny’s Child. And those were only the ones that crossed over to the UK. Back in America there were groups who never managed to translate acclaim at home into huge overseas success. I’m thinking of Xscape, 702 and Total. Here’s one for you that did manage to straddle the pond as it were but who rarely get talked about anymore.

Jade were Joi Marshall, Tonya Kelly and Di Reed from Chicago who are best remembered for their hit “Don’t Walk Away” though they did have a few others. In 1993 they were always going to be compared to En Vogue who were having transatlantic hits at the time and I guess their sound wasn’t too dissimilar. “Don’t Walk Away” was a radio friendly piece of sassy R&B that enabled the trio to pull out some slinky dance moves when performing it. It rose to a lofty No 7 position in the UK charts and an even higher peak of No 4 in the US selling 2.5 million copies worldwide. Their album “Jade To The Max” racked up substantial numbers and a lengthy tour had them looking fair set for superstardom. They appeared in both film (The Inkwell) and TV (Beverly Hills 90210) and contributed tracks to a couple of soundtracks as well. A second album followed in 1994 and then…nothing. Everything just seemed to stop. Were they dropped from their label? Did they just decide themselves to jack it all in?

I think they all stayed in music one way or another and two of them reunited in 2021 with the improbably named Myracle Holloway (a finalist on The Voice). The curious tale of Jade – a gemstone amongst the Brownstones.

We’re back amongst the S’s now and it’s another stone related artist – Robin Stone better known as Robin S. This New York singer songwriter’s legacy would be formed upon and based around this one track, the house anthem “Show Me Love”. We sold loads and loads of this in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working. And then we went home, had a sleep, came back to work and sold some more of it the next day. I’m surprised that it wasn’t a bigger hit than its final chart placing of No 6 though it did return to the Top 40 a further two times as remixes. In fact, it seems to have been released eight times in total. See what I mean about Robin’s legacy being totally built around this one track? I’m sure there are some Robin S super fans out there who would dispute that claim but it’s true. And there’s many would say that being known for “Show Me Love” would be recognition enough. It regularly appears in lists of the best dance tunes of all time and its influence is still felt today in the music of the likes of Clean Bandit and is sampled in Beyoncé’s latest single “Break My Soul”.

Interesting to note the difference here between Sybil’s performance at the top of the show with her three backing singers and Robin’s with nothing but some dry ice for company while she belts her tune out. I recall the cover of the single was just a very basic generic design in green with a cream header with the label’s name (Champion) repeated in lines all over it. Very poor. Maybe they didn’t expect it to be a big hit outside of the clubs and so didn’t bother designing a cover to be shipped in huge quantities to retailers?

Oh Hell! Cliff’s back again. Yes, despite the charts being jam packed with dance tunes of every hue and genre, a little corner of them was still reserved for Cliff Richard and whatever piece of garbage song he was peddling in 1993. “Peace In Our Time” was the offending article this time and it was at its peak of No 8. This is just a horrible tune with its backing that sounds like a speeded up version of “The Living Years” by Mike And The Mechanics and its insipid lyrics but it’s Cliff’s performance which really grabs the attention.

As with his last time on the show the other week, I can’t find a clip of it on YouTube. Unlike then, Cliff has ditched all his entourage of backing singers and has done a Robin S and gone solo albeit that he still has the remnants of the Sting set from the other month with him for company. It’s Cliff’s movements that are so spellbinding though – spellbindingly awful that is. They’re just so weird and unnatural. Plus he’s turned up in the bloke from Runrig’s leather jacket and trainers combo. It looks…completely unconvincing and actually very safe. In the 50s he would have been seen as a danger to the moral well being of the nation’s youth in that get up but in 1993, he just looked lame. The 90s weren’t kind to Cliff. Yes, he had two Xmas No 1s at the start and end of the decade but they were both gut wrenchingly awful and the intervening years were populated by instantly forgettable singles like this one. Those great airplay hits of the late 70s and early 80s like “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, “Carrie” and “Wired For Sound” seemed like a life time ago even then.

And onto the Breakers and I’ve realised that we have arrived at a rather poignant moment as this blink and you miss it moment is the last we’ll see of Bananarama on TOTP for twelve years! Regulars on the BBC show since their first hits in 1982, this was, by my calculations (I make host Tony Dortie wrong with his figure of thirty-one) their twenty-third Top 40 hit, ten of them being Top 10 hits. None of those Top Tenners had been in the 90s though and their commercial appeal was definitely on the wane. The decision to leave the Stock, Aitken and Waterman stable to make records with hip producer Youth had not resulted in healthy sales of the “Pop Life” album and so a revamp was required for next album “Please Yourself”.

That revamp took the form of jettisoning ‘new girl’ Jacquie O’Sullivan (who had actually been in the group since 1988) and re branding themselves as a duo. To quote one of their previous album titles, wow! Would it work, could it work and indeed should it work? To give themselves some extra insurance on this bold move, Sara and Keren returned to their previous producers who were now a duo themselves, Stock and Waterman. It was the latter who came up with the theme that the album should promote a new hybrid sound of ‘ABBA -Banana’. It would turn out to be a good idea but not for Bananarama.

The album was poorly received and limped to a chart peak of No 46. It produced just two hits, a pair of No 24s, in “Movin’ On” and this one, a cover of the Andrea True Connection song “More More More”. I’m guessing this was released as previous single “Last Thing On My Mind” had missed the charts completely and as we all know, if you find yourself in need of a hit, what do you do? Altogether now… you release a cover version! It’s a pretty faithful take on the disco classic and probably made sense as a choice of single given the resurgence of disco songs in the charts at that time from the likes of Boney M and Sister Sledge. In fact, the Bananas would maybe have done better with a whole disco themed album than an ABBA one. Maybe the ABBA revival had been sooo 1992? Either way, it gave them a chart hit, the last they would have for twelve years by which time TOTP itself was on its last legs.

As Bananarama seemed to be slipping into pop oblivion, Pete Waterman looked for another vehicle for his ‘ABBA-Banana’ concept – thankfully though the era of Steps was still four years off. As for the Nanas, they would continue to perform live as a duo before pulling off the event that their fans had almost never dared to hope could happen- a reunion tour with Siobahn Fahey in 2017. The tour was a huge success and led to Keren and Sara being revitalised to write and record new material. “In Stereo” was well received on its release in 2019 and they have a new album called “Masquerade” due out literally in a few days time.

Another ‘S’ now as the band called Sunscreem are on the show with yet another hit. Sunscreem are becoming quite the curiosity for me. I was always aware that there was a band called Sunscreem because they were a chart act and I worked in a mainstream record shop and we stocked their music. I could even tell you that they were a Sony artist. What they sounded like though was a different matter. I haven’t recognised any of their tunes that have featured in these TOTP repeats so far and “Pressure US” is no different. Apparently this was a remix of the band’s debut single which had been a No 1 hit on the US Dance chart. Given its success across the pond, it was rereleased in the UK with the ‘US’ suffix added to make it clear it was a remix.

In the nicest possible way, Sunscreem were my ghost poo*. You know when you know you’ve had a poo but there is absolutely no evidence on the toilet paper or in the toilet bowl that anything actually took place. So it was for me with Sunscreem. I knew they existed but my memory banks have zero evidence about what they sounded like.

“Pressure US” would peak at No 19, a whole forty-one places higher than the original version from 1991.

*There is no nicest possible way is there?

Now I might have been pushing it earlier to suggest the existence of Robin S super fans but I know for a fact the next artist has a multitude of them so I need to tread carefully here. David Bowie spent much of the very early 90s dicking around with (no, think of the fanbase – definitely not dicking around, think of something else) ‘experimenting’ with his side project rock band Tin Machine the results of which had failed to convince many of their merits. However, 1993 saw the first proper Bowie album for six years with the last being the poorly received “Never Let Me Down”. Expectations were high for a return to form though with “Black Tie White Noise” and it duly went to No 1 though it got a mixed reception in the press.

Lead single “Jump They Say” though was pretty good I thought and it would provide Bowie, rather unbelievably, with his first Top 10 hit since “Absolute Beginners” in 1986. Inspired by the tragic story of his half brother Terry who committed suicide in 1985 by walking out in front of a train, it also had a powerful video that has been described by some critics as Bowie’s finest hour as an actor in a music promo. Bowie’s acting credentials though are a mixed bag. Brilliant in The Man Who Fell To Earth but hammy in Labyrinth and downright awful in Jazzin’ For Blue Jean (Shush! Remember the fan base!). “Jump They Say” was easily the biggest hit of the three singles released from the album but my favourite of his in 1993 was none of those but the theme song he wrote for the TV adaption of Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha Of Suburbia novel.

In a post a few weeks back, I admitted to my complete dislike of Lulu. Imagine my delight then when I read the running order for tonight’s show and saw that she’s on again. I remembered her single “Independence” that she performed then but I really thought we were shot of her until much later in the year when she would pop up on Take That’s “Relight My Fire” single. I was wrong as she literally sings “I’m Back For More” on her duet with Bobby Womack. I have zero memory of this song probably because it is so unmemorable. A complete drag. Don’t get me wrong, Bobby’s vocals are as great as you’d expect them to be but Lulu’s scratchy, annoying voice really grates.

Of much more interest are the dance moves of the studio audience members positioned behind the pair. I’m especially drawn to the guy extreme right of the screen who’s turned up in clobber as if he’s expecting a call up to be the sixth member of the aforementioned Take That. That ‘curtains’ haircut and waistcoat combination is oh so early 90s.

“I’m Back For More” peaked at No 27. The parent album “Independence” stalled at No 67. It was Lulu’s only studio album of the decade and yet bizarrely her record label saw fit to release a collection album in 1999 called “I’m Back For More: The Very Best Of Her Nineties Recordings”. Eh? Isn’t that just the “Independence” album then? Well (or rather ‘wellllllllll’) I checked and yes, it pretty much is. If she could sell that then maybe she was the woman who sold the world.

It’s a final week of two at the top for the final ‘S’ of the night – Shaggy and his “Oh Carolina” single. I’d forgotten that the track appeared on the soundtrack to the film Sliver, a erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone (wait, add another three S’s to the tally!). That soundtrack would also feature another No 1 song which would become the second biggest seller in the UK of 1993 – UB40’s version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love”.

As it’s the final week for Shaggy, I’m going to shoehorn in another and much more tenuous link between “Oh Carolina” and Sliver. Shaggy of course was also the name of a character in the legendary cartoon Scooby Doo the theme tune of which includes these lyrics:

Come on Scooby Doo, I see you pretending you got a sliver

But you’re not fooling me ‘cause I can see the way you shake and shiver

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sybil	When I’m Good And Ready	Nah
2	The Bluebells	Young At Heart	Not in 1984 and not in 1993 either
3	Shabba Ranks	Mr Loverman	Mr Dickhead more like – NO!
4	Jade	Don’t Walk Away	Nope
5	Robin S	Show Me Love	Not my thing
6	Cliff Richard	Peace In Our Time	As if
7	Bananarama	More More More	No No No
8	Sunscreem	Pressure US	Nope
9	David Bowie	Jump They Say	I didn’t…jump or buy it
10	Lulu and Bobby Womack	I’m Back For More	No
11	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00196dt/top-of-the-pops-25031993

TOTP 12 APR 1990

Posted on December 1, 2020 by 80stastic

It’s nearly Easter already in 1990 where TOTP Rewind currently resides – the day after this TOTP was broadcast was the Good Friday – but the 21 year old me doesn’t have chocolate eggs or bunnies on my mind. No, I’m more concerned with finding a job as I am in my fourth month of unemployment. What’s more, this very day (12th April) is my girlfriend (now wife)’s birthday so I would have needed to get her a present. I seem to recall that I decided for some reason that a brass ornament of a vintage style camera (one of those ones where the photographer ducked underneath a black cloth covering to take the picture) would be just the sort of thing she would like. I saw it in a shop that specialised in that sort of knick-knacker but in truth, she would rather have had my original idea which was a VHS tape of The Beatles Help! film. She really wasn’t taken by the brass camera and I’d even haggled about the price with the shop owner to get it for her! Oh well, let’s see what tunes that the charts had to offer that week – there’d better be some good stuff in stock!

Not a bad start at all! In my head, Jesus Jones didn’t appear on the charts until much later in the year but I’m clearly getting my facts skewed as here they are in mid April with “Real Real Real” which was their first Top 40 hit peaking at No 19. Very much seen as being part of that indie /dance crossover movement, they were one of the first (alongside Happy Mondays simultaneously) to make the big commercial breakthrough and opened a gate to chartdom that acts such as EMF, The Shamen and Pop Will Eat Itself would also stride through.

I think I may have heard of Jesus Jones previous to this via their nearly hit “Info Freako” from the year before but I didn’t know much about them. By the start of 1991 however, they would be genuine chart stars and the future of rock ‘n’ roll according to some. When I did my first Xmas working at Our Price in 1990 there were two albums that we were asked for all the time that hadn’t even been released yet. One was The Farm’s “Spartacus” and the other was “Doubt” by Jesus Jones. I think they were delayed possibly to heighten the clamour for them to fever pitch and when they were finally released within a month of each other in 1991, they both reached no 1 in the album chart.

I always get a bit confused about Jesus Jones’s timeline in terms of their hits, possibly because they racked up a few in quick succession over the course of a year or so. After “Real Real Real”, they scored another four Top 40 hits including “Right Here, Right Now” being released twice and peaking at No 31 on both occasions. I hadn’t realised until now that the band had also briefly been a very big deal in the US with “Real Real Real” going to No 4 over there whilst “Right Here, Right Now” peaked at No 2. I had always assumed they were a peculiarly British phenomenon.

The band are still together having gigged throughout the years when they were being referred to as residing in the “Where are They Now” files. Indeed, I recall them receiving some very derogatory press about resorting to playing corporate gigs as the entertainment for big conglomerate firm events although I’m guessing such gigs probably pay pretty well.

Like Gloria Estefan, Janet Jackson has always seemed to me to be capable of only two types of song. The big, lush soul ballad like “Let’s Wait A While” and “Come Back To Me” and the uptempo R’n’B dance tune like “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “Miss You Much”. Completely unfair I’m sure but it’s my blog and that’s my opinion when I think of her (see what I did there? No? Oh forget it!).

“Escapade” was very much in the latter category and was one of seven (!) singles taken from her “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” album. As with all the other videos for her uptempo songs, it’s all about the choreographed dance routines. Whilst undoubtedly impressive as a spectacle, it always seems to me as if the tracks are written with a routine in mind rather than for any musical reasons. Yet again, this was a Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production and they came up with the name “Escapade” as it was one of many potential song title ideas that they kept in a little notebook which sounds overly cynical and not very organic at all to me. Aside from Jam and Lewis, the track also features ‘finger snaps’ contributed by former New Edition member Johnny Gill. Finger snaps?! If you’re going to get an official credit for that, I should maybe have bigged up my triangle playing in my Junior school concert back in the day!

“Escapade” peaked at No 17 in the UK but was a No 1 song in the US.

“It’s hot in here” informs this week’s host Mark Goodier referring to the temperature in the studio – so why are you wearing a jacket, shirt and tie then Mark? I’m sure you’ve done enough shows by this point to be able to make informed wardrobe decisions surely?!

OK, the next act is Technotronic. When I was putting this post together, my wife (she of the unwanted birthday present!) remarked, “God, you haven’t got to review this have you?” referring to “This Beat Is Technotronic”. Yes, I’m afraid so. This was the third single from their “Pump Up the Jam: The Album” erm…album and saw someone called MC Eric take the mike while previously used vocalist Ya Kid K took a rest. It still sounded the same as all the rest to me though apart from perhaps even more annoying and repetitive if that were possible.

Apparently the two dancers up there on stage with him are his old school mates called Gary and julian who he plucked from being on the dole in Cardiff to come and be in Technotronic with him. If any of my old school pals are reading this, fancy joining me for another go at perfecting the triangle?

“This Beat Is Technotronic” peaked at No 14.

“It’s the way they move that makes you want to groove” remarks Goodier at the end of Technotronic’s turn in one of the cringiest segue ways ever which leads us into “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” by Heart. Again. Really? I think this is the third time this has been on the show in recent weeks. Look, I’ve talked about the ridiculous lyrics, I’ve commented on the nasty video…what else is there left for me to say about it?

Well, it was taken from an album called “Brigade” that managed to rise all the way to No 3 in our charts but the band would only achieve chart action one more time in this country when their 1993 single “Will You Be There (In the Morning)” made No 19 from the album “Desire Walks On’ which was also their last long player to make any impression on the Top 40. There. Now please go away.

The Breakers are back after being missing in action for the last two shows and we start with David Bowie and “Fame 90”. So why was a 15 year old Bowie track being released again? It was all part of the promotion for his “Changesbowie” retrospective album that was released in March of this year which included all his biggest hits from 1969’s “Space Oddity” to 1984’s “Blue Jean”. I remember the album being a staple of the ‘Core Stock’ / ‘Best Seller’ section when I first worked for Our Price which were titles that you should never sell out of (although I’m sure we did of course).

Bowie was also embarking on a career spanning greatest hits world tour called the Sound+Vision Tour in support of the album. In what was seen at the time as quite ground breaking, fans were asked to vote for which songs should be included in the set list by phoning a number to log their votes with proceeds from the calls going to charity. In a world where telephone voting for everything from The Eurovision Song Contest to Strictly COme Dancing is second nature to us all today, this seemed like a revolutionary idea back in 1990. I’m sure there was some sort of counter campaign to rig the vote by encouraging people to vote for “The Laughing Gnome” thereby forcing Bowie to have to perform it live but I think he twigged what was going on before committing to the idea.

The video for “Fame 90” featured clips of previous Bowie promos alongside the man himself throwing some shapes with a blonde female dancer which supports the idea of the Changesbowie retrospective but seems a little short of inspiration to me.

“Fame 90” peaked at No 28, 11 places lower than its original 1975 release.

The scouse Kylie next as Sonia is back with “Counting Every Minute”. This was the fourth of five tracks released as singles from her debut album “Everybody Knows” with each one making the Top 20, a feat that made Sonia the first ever British solo female artist to achieve this. Quite how she managed to do this remains a mystery though. “Counting Every Minute” in particular is especially weak. I’ve had dumps with more substance to them.

The video is as half-hearted as the song. Just Sonia and some backing dancers going through the motions in front of a clock face back drop. How long did the video director take to come up with that concept?! You can almost hear him saying “Right then Sonia. Just smile and do that rolling shoulders move you do and we’ll fill in the rest afterwards in post production. No, don’t worry – it’ll look great. Promise. ACTION!”

Right, so quite why was “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love’ by The Blues Brothers in the charts? It seems to be because the film of the same name was re-released on VHS for its 10th anniversary by MCA/Universal Home Video. The movie has garnered cult status over the years – the movie poster was a mainstay of student room walls when I was one of at Sunderland Poly back in the 80s. However, I was surprised to discover that it was also a sizeable commercial success. It was the 10th biggest film in the US in the year of its cinema release (1980) and is the ninth-highest-grossing musical of all time.

Where The Monkees had gone before and The Commitments would follow, the film spawned a real life band who toured in support of the movie. Its celluloid stars John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd retained their roles as front men / brothers Jake and Elwood with a supporting band of established musicians from the likes of Blood, Sweat & Tears and Booker T and the M. G.’s. The whole thing had started out as a sketch on legendary US TV entertainment show Saturday Night Live and spiralled once a film based on the characters was proposed. Here’s a 1978 clip from SNL showcasing the Blues Brothers:

Despite its legendary status and the stars it made of Belusihi and Ackroyd (thanks in part to those amazing dance steps of theirs), The Blues Brothers isn’t what I will forever associate the latter with – in fact I don’t think I’ve even seem the film from start to finish. No, I will always think of my time at Sunderland Poly where I spent three years being called Dan due to my resemblance to Ackroyd at the time.

Some more bpm nonsense now as we see Bizz Nizz and their hit “Don’t Miss The Party Line”. The phrase ‘party line’ is not associated with some crappy dance tune for many people who grew up in Hull in the 70s and 80s (of whom my wife was one). No, it referred to the type of telephone service you had and in the case of a ‘party line’, it was a local telephone loop circuit that was shared by more than one subscriber. Yes kids, this meant that there was no privacy on a party line! If you were chatting with a friend, anyone on your party line could pick up their telephone and listen in! Unbelievable! Think you’ve go a problem because you want to upgrade your phone and you’re still under contract for your existing phone? Try dealing with someone listening in while you’re exchanging tales of drunken exploits with your bestie! Or, heaven forbid, on a booty call!

What? The Bizz Nizz record? Oh, that was shit as well.

Despite all the fuss over Paula Abdul in the US (four No 1 singles and a No 1 album). reaction to her in the UK had been more muted. Yes, “Straight Up” had been a Top 3 single for her over here but that was 12 months back and her only chart entry since then had been the No 24 hit “Forever Your Girl”. What was needed was a gimmick to reinstate our attention – how about her duetting with an animated cat? Purrfect! (sorry). “Opposites Attract” would become her biggest ever UK hit charging all the way to No 2 and is probably her best known song.

So this cat business? What the f**k was that all about?! Well, there had been a big reaction to the Who Framed Roger Rabbit film at the end of the 80s with its live action / animation mash up so maybe that was an influence. The cartoon cat in question was MC Skat Cat who was voiced by a duo called The Wild Pair who get the official credit on the record as the collaborators. The guy who wrote the song, Oliver Leiber (son of legendary songwriter Jerry Leiber), came up with the title after browsing a second-hand bookstore after his car broke down and he had four hours to kill. He wrote down titles of a number of pulp fiction novels like A Bloody Moon or Midnight Mistress but the one he plumped for was Opposites Attract. Hang on, didn’t we see this method of songwriting earlier with Janet Jackson’s “Escapade”? Is that all it took to come up with a song title? What have i got on my book shelves I could use to inspire me as a song writer? Hmm. Chelsea: 100 Memorable Matches is probably a little niche in all honesty.

Back to Paula though and the song is basically a play on the Gershwin tune “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” made popular by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It all seemed very calculated and lacking in any authenticity to me and I couldn’t really be doing with it at all.

Ah, good to see that The Cure were still ploughing their own particular furrow into the new decade. “Pictures Of You” wasn’t a new song as such though as it was the fourth single to be released from their “Disintegration” album and was very much immediately recognisable as a Cure song. Doomy? Sure. Dark? Yep. Quality tune? Undoubtedly. I’ve always admired the way Robert Smith has never given a shit about following trends or chasing the zeitgeist, an attitude perfectly summed up by this clip of him at the ceremony where the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019…

“Pictures of You” peaked at No 24 and was voted No 278 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list in 2011.

So it took just two weeks for Madonna to hit the top spot once again with “Vogue”. I saw some online opinion criticising the lyrics of the song last week, specifically the name call section in the song’s bridge where Madonna references sixteen Hollywood stars from the 1920s to the 1950s. It seemed to be all about the ‘Harlow Jean’ line in that her name was reversed to shoe horn it into the lyrics to make a rhyming space for the following line ‘picture of a beauty queen’. I’m not sure that I agree with the negative opinions to be honest. After all, there is a precedent for this type of wordsmithery. Here’s the opening lines of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”:

“It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old man sitting next to me
Makin’ love to his tonic and gin”

His tonic and gin?! Have you ever gone into a bar and asked for a tonic and gin as opposed to a gin and tonic? Well, if it’s good enough for Billy…Madonna could have avoided all of this if she used Norma Jeane as in Marilyn Monroe instead of Harlow Jean but she’d already used Monroe in a previous line to rhyme with DiMaggio. Oh I give up!

After two fast hits in “Seven o’Clock” and “Hey You” came the inevitable ballad from The Quireboys in “I Don’t Love You Anymore”. I’m not sure that I remember this one. Let me have a listen…

Hmm. Pretty nondescript stuff really. Reminds me a bit of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison. I can imagine it got lighters waving in the audience when they performed it live but it’s got as much longevity as lighter fuel.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Jesus Jones	Real Real Real	Don’t think I did actually
2	Janet Jackson	Escapade	Nah
3	Technotronic	This Beat Is Technotronic	No, this beat is metronomic and dull
4	Heart	All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You	It’s a no from me
5	David Bowie	Fame 90	Not the 90 remix single but I’m sure my wife must have the original somewhere
6	Sonia	Counting Every Minute	Huge no
7	The Blues Brothers	Everbody Needs Somebody To Love	Nope
8	Bizz Nizz	Don’t Miss The Party Line	Miss it? I gave it a massive wide berth!
9	Paula Abdul	Opposites Attract	I was repelled by this though – no
10	The Cure	Pictures Of You	No
11	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
12	The Quireboys	I Don’t Love You Anymore	…don’t think I ever did

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pr1x/top-of-the-pops-12041990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

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https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 01 OCT 1999

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TOTP 24 SEP 1999

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TOTP 29 FEB 1996

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TOTP 09 NOV 1995

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TOTP 25 MAR 1993

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TOTP 12 APR 1990

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Some bedtime reading?