Def Leppard

TOTP 09 MAY 1996

Posted on August 8, 2024 by 80stastic

There’s ten hits on this episode of TOTP but we’ve seen four of them before and one of the new ones is a football song (no, not that one; not yet). We’ve also seen the presenter before and not that long ago – it’s that Beertje Van Beers woman again. I’m not sure she was any more famous than she had been the first time she hosted the show a few weeks before (despite the exposure afforded her by that appearance) so why was she back again? Was it all about how she looked? In the era of Britpop and lads mags then I suppose that was a distinct possibility.

Beertje’s first job is to introduce one of those hits we’ve seen before – it’s Suggs featuring Louchie Lou and Michie One with “Cecilia”. The last time they were on led to an infamous incident when lisping boxer Chris Eubank had to contend with a bit of a tongue twister when doing the Top 10 countdown. As A-ha’s Morten Harket once sang on “I’ve Been Losing You”, he was hissing his ‘S’s’ like a snake. Poor Chris and poor the watching British public as this was a honking cover version. I’ve said this before but Suggs’s solo career has always been completely at odds to his Madness one for me. I like Madness and have even seen them live but Suggs on his own just doesn’t compute. For some reason in the mid 90s though, his awful Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel covers won the approval of UK record buyers giving him two Top 10 hits. Parent album “The Lone Ranger” achieved silver sales status and provided Suggs with a further three smaller chart hits but by the time of his second solo album “The Three Pyramids Club” (which sounds like the title of a Richard Osman novel), this brief infatuation was over and it sank without trace. Suggs never really returned to his solo career although he did have a hit with “Blue Day” in 1997 which was the FA Cup final song for my (and his) beloved Chelsea FC (more about cup final songs later). However, just last year, he teamed up with Paul Weller for the Slade-esque spelt single “Ooh Do U Fink U R”.

I’m always very cautious when it comes to commenting on rap artists purely because I don’t know enough about their music and its culture. I’m a white man who grew up in Worcester as a pop kid. If I tried to do any kind of analysis, it would be totally inauthentic. I guess I’m still allowed an opinion on what I’m watching and hearing on these TOTP repeats though right? I can’t just skip over a rap artist appearing on the show can I? The completist in me won’t let me just swerve this so here I go. I know the name Busta Rhymes – of course I do. I spent the 90s working in record shops. Could I name any of his tracks unprompted? Not a one. Would I recognise any if I were to check out his discography? Let’s see…

*checks Busta Rhymes discography*

Oh yeah. He did “Hit ‘Em High (The Monsters Anthem)” from the Space Jam soundtrack with B-Real, Coolio, LL Cool J and Method Man. And therein lies the problem. The only Busta Rhymes hit I know is from a movie about basketball starring Bugs Bunny. I don’t have any depth of knowledge nor relevance to the world of rap. OK, I’ll have to just go for the most superficial of reviews. “Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check” was the debut single for Busta Rhymes and would peak at No 8 in both the US and the UK. I initially thought that the BBC censor was sleeping again to have let the lines “let’s get high” and “roll some weed” get through but then I checked led out the full, explicit lyrics. Dearie me! There’s no way any of that was getting through the BBC bad language filter. Mary Whitehouse would have self combusted.

Now this is an interesting link from Beertje even though she possibly only used it for its play on words. “In Holland we have three types of people; soccer players, cheeseheads and Klubbheads” she informs us. OK, so let’s break this down. Soccer players? Well, of course the Dutch have a rich history of producing fantastic footballers. One of my mates could talk for hours about Johan Cruyff and ‘total football’. Cheeseheads? I had to do some research on this I have to admit. It’s not a term to refer to enthusiasts of Dutch cheese though that would seem legitimate. No, apparently its usage dates back to the 19th century when Holland was occupied by Napoleon’s army and Dutch cheese producers got fed up with French soldiers stealing their beloved Gouda cheese. As a form of protection when confronting said soldiers, the Dutch wore helmets made out of cheese barrels hence ‘cheeseheads’. The term actually became an insult used by the French and Belgians when referring to Dutch people. Hmm. So by making sure she shoehorned in a play on words to introduce a Dutch dance act, Beertje actually insulted her own country? Oh well.

Said dance act are a team of Dutch dance producers with more than 40 aliases for their recordings including Hi_Tack, Da Klubb Kings and my personal favourite Drunkenmunky. For this their biggest hit “Klubbhopping” however, they went by the moniker of Klubbheads. I’m not going to lie, listening back to this is just making me feel nauseous, like somebody’s taken a club to my head. Klubbheads indeed.

Finally something approaching a decent tune. Having made it big with their last single “Slight Return”, The Bluetones weren’t about to rock the boat by messing with that hit formula and so they didn’t with its follow up “Cut Some Rug” which was certainly cut from the same cloth as its predecessor. Jangly guitars, a shuffling backbeat and some acerbic lyrics (“And all the time you remind me of blitzkreig and the doodle bug, salt upon a bubbling slug”) all allied with a hummable chorus. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it was the gameplan here alright.

Having gone off on a tangent earlier when discussing the origins of the phrase ‘Cheeseheads’, let’s continue that theme with an exploration into backstory of an expression that I’ve certainly used in this blog before- ‘cut some rug’. Apparently, it dates back to the 1930s and 40s when the ‘jitterbug’ dance was popular. Owing to its high energy moves, its protagonists would leave lots of marks on the dance floor that looked like cuts in a carpet or rug. I’m not sure that ‘The Bluetones shuffle’ as demonstrated by Beerjte in her intro would inflict such damage. By the way, I might make this cultural references thing an occasional series you know! Or maybe not.

One of those nearly one hit wonders now when an artist who is only known for one big hit single but whose discography shows that they actually had a further but minor chart entry. Yeah, one of them. The Tony Rich Project was, unsurprisingly, the project of one Tony Rich (real name Antonio Jeffries), a songwriter for LaFace Records who penned compositions for the likes of Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men and TLC. He made the leap into the sphere of artist in his own right with debut single “Nobody Knows”, a tender, soulful ballad that hit big both in the US and over here. Follow up single “Like A Woman” made it to No 27 in our charts then nothing. Well, not nothing as Tony continued to record and release new material well into the new century with his last album appearing in 2017 but he would never have any other major chart success. There is no truth in the rumour that Tony’s artist name inspired the title of 1999’s supernatural horror film phenomenon The Blair Witch Project. That particular movie’s name was influenced, of course, by British soft rockers The Alan Parsons Project.

“Let’s get rocked!” as the next band once sang. Def Leppard (for it is they) hadn’t released a studio album since 1992’s “Adrenalize” filling that gap with a greatest hit and B-sides collection. When the new album finally arrived, it wasn’t quite the Def Leppard of old. There were a few reasons why, not least that the band had seen which way the wind was blowing in the arena of rock music and had understood that post grunge, the sound that had served the so well in their late 80s pomp wasn’t going to cut it in the mid 90s. Added to that was the realisation that they’d been, as described by guitarist Vivian Campbell, living in a state of arrested development singing songs about putting out the trash and that they should write more mature songs that reflected their adult experience. And there was plenty of source material – founding member Steve Clark had died in 1991, guitarist Phil Collen had got divorced, bassist Rick Savage was battling facial paralysis condition Bell’s palsy and the death of his father whilst drummer Rick Allen and lead singer Joe Elliott had been arrested for spousal abuse and assault respectively. Given all that dark and heavy material, the album’s title track and lead single “Slang” seems remarkably jaunty. I can’t say that I’ve ever listened to the rest of the album but supposedly it does see the band operating outside of their comfort zone with more industrial and electronic sounds incorporated. It garnered mixed reviews ranging from a confused mess of an album to plaudits for trying to do something new. Back to the single though and it doesn’t really go anywhere for me and sounds like a poor man’s version of “Slam” by Dan Reed Network.

The one thing that did stand out for me was Joe Elliott’s super straightened new hairdo. It put me in mind of – and this is very niche – a particular style of grooming that some owners of the Maltese breed of dog go in for. We have a Maltese dog and we make sure he has a regular trim at the dog groomers but I’ve seen owners displaying their dogs at Crufts with the fur all grown out and straight as a curtain. Poodle rock indeed.

The next three hits we have seen before on the show starting with an ex-No 1! Yes, it’s that curious TOTP phenomenon of a record having gone down the charts and either going back up or putting the blocks on its descent to such an extent of being afforded a place on the show’s running order. We saw it in an earlier 1996 show when Oasis’s “Wonderwall” got a repeat airing when it re-entered the Top 5 having dropped out of the Top 10 a few weeks earlier. Now it’s the turn of Mark Morrison whose “Return Of The Mack” is still holding at No 2 despite having been on the charts for two months. The last time Beerjte was hosting, she introduced Morrison as that week’s No 1 and he celebrated by picking her up and carrying her off at the end of the song. Thankfully, she’s put enough physical distance between them this time to ensure that doesn’t happen again. In her intro, there’s a moment where she throws a look in the direction of Morrison on the stage behind her and I’m sure you can detect something in it that says “don’t think of trying it again mister”. I hope so anyway.

I would never describe Damon Albarn as a “Charmless Man” but by his own confession, this period of Blur’s career saw him potentially as a clueless one. If that sounds harsh, look at this from Damon himself:

The following year, Damon Albarn described “Charmless Man” as “The work of someone who was severely fucked up,” adding, “Where is it coming from? It's got nothing to do with anything.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 5, 2024

See? I think I said in my last post when Blur were on the show performing this track in the ‘exclusive’ slot that it was a decidedly decent song and I stand by that though it’s clearly not one of their most high profile despite its chart peak of No 5. I’m sure Liam Gallagher would have dismissed it as “chimney sweep music” though. I’m not sure what drummer Dave Rowntree’s over sized drumsticks nor Graham Coxon’s shrunken guitar in this appearance were all about – presumably some band in joke. Graham’s ‘Freedom For Tooting!’ t-shirt was obviously a reference to the 70s sitcom Citizen Smith starring Robert Lindsay as hapless revolutionary Wolfie Smith. I recently listened to an interview with Lindsay and he recounted that the fame that the role brought him had its downsides including being harassed by both admiring women and jealous boyfriends on a night out and, in one extreme case, being blamed for an outbreak of football hooliganism when attending a match played by his hometown team of Ilkeston as the perpetrators had come dressed as Wolfie for the day. I’m pretty sure that Graham Coxon would never have done anything so charmless.

George Michael stays at No 1 with “Fastlove” for a second of three weeks. This track would prove to be his last hit in America, a territory that he dominated in his “Faith” era. That album provided George with six huge hit singles including four consecutive No 1s between ‘87 and ‘88. Quite phenomenal. Things started to tail off a bit with 1990’s “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” albeit that lead single “Praying For Time” did furnish another chart topper. By the time of the “Older” album nearly a decade after his late 80s pomp, although sizeable hits, “Jesus To A Child” and “Fastlove” would peak at Nos 7 and 8 respectively whereas both hit the top spot in the UK. This was very much a role reversal of those “Faith” chart positions – of those four American No 1s, in the UK the corresponding peaks were:

2 – 11 – 8 – 13.

Although his US numbers were down, George continued to stack ‘em high over here throughout the rest of the decade. These were the chart positions of his seven single releases after “Fastlove” until the end of ‘99:

2 – 3 – 2 – 10 – 2 – 2 – 4

There may have even been cultural differences in terms of chart compilation and release strategies that explains the contrasts highlighted above but I thought they were…well…worth highlighting.

We play out with another football song but, as I said at the top of the post, it’s still not that one. This TOTP aired two days before the 1996 FA Cup final between Liverpool and Manchester United and it tuned out to be a complete damp squib of a game that was decided by a solitary goal by Eric Cantona (himself the subject of yet another football song in the Top 40 that will feature on the following TOTP repeat). Already in the charts was the cup final song by United called “Move Move Move (The Red Tribe)” which would peak at No 6. Released a week later was this effort from their ultimately defeated opponents under the name of Liverpool FC & The Boot Room Boyz. Despite losing the cup final (cream suits and all), this pile of shite actually won the chart battle when it entered the chart at No 4. With a similar title to United’s hit – “Pass & Move (It’s The Liverpool Groove)” – it also tried to capture the predominant dance sound of the time much as their rivals had. Both failed dismally. Liverpool should have just updated 1988’s “Anfield Rap” – now that was a football record with a groove.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Suggs featuring Louchie Lou and Michie One	Cecilia	Never
2	Busta Rhymes	Woo-Hah!! Got You All In Check	No
3	Klubbheads	Klubbhopping	Not likely
4	The Bluetones	Cut Some Rug	I did not
5	The Tony Rich Project	Nobody Knows	Nah
6	Def Leppard	Slang	Negative
7	Mark Morrison	Return Of The Mack	Nope
8	Blur	Charmless Man	No but I had their Great Escape album
9	George Michael	Fastlove	Another no
10	Liverpool FC & The Boot Room Boyz	Pass & Move (It’s The Liverpool Groove)	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.

TOTP 12 OCT 1995

Posted on March 19, 2024 by 80stastic

We’re well intro the Autumn of 1995 with these TOTP repeats now but away from which artists were in the charts, who else was in the news around this time? Well, the day before this show aired, Everton striker Duncan Ferguson was making headlines of the wrong kind when he was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment for making lines on the head of Raith Rovers defender John McStay after head butting him during a game. As such, he became the first British footballer to be given a custodial sentence for an on-field offence. I wonder if there are any criminal records on this TOTP that deserved to be sent down?

Here’s one for a start! PJ & Duncan should have been locked up and the key thrown away for this rubbish. Eighteen months on from their first hit, the novelty was wearing thin. “U Krazy Katz” was the duo’s seventh Top 40 single and what a stinker it was! Everything about this song honked not least its awful title. ‘Crazy’ spelt with a ‘K’ and ‘Cats’ spelt with a ‘K’ and a ‘Z’ with the obligatory ‘U’ replacing ‘You’. Who did they think they were? Slade?! As for the track, it’s like Modern Romance doing their mambo styled hit “Don’t Stop That Crazy Rhythm” but instead of singing it they‘ve rapped their way through the damned thing. Vile stuff.

Although their music was still crap, something had changed with these two. Yes, obviously they’d gone for 40s style suits and brogues (and an ill judged cane for Dec/Duncan) for this appearance rather than the usual baseball cap, jeans and trainers look but it’s something else I’m referring to. A small but defining detail that would shape their future careers to this day…yep, they swapped sides! It’s not for the whole performance but there are definite points where they swap over so that PJ is on the left (as we look at the TV screen) and Duncan on the right. Do you think they watched this back and thought “Haway man! We look better this way round ‘n’ that!”. Think of Ant & Dec now and I’m betting your mind’s eye places the former on our left and Dec the right. It’s hard wired into our brains but up to this point, their stints on TOTP had their positions reversed. By the way, that’s another more obvious change that is on the way – the dropping of the PJ & Duncan monikers and the adopting of the Ant & Dec brand. There’s only two more PJ & Duncan hits to endure after this one before they switch.

The solo career of Suggs was the equivalent of a one man crime wave. It should have been illegal and actionable. After his disastrous cover of “I’m Only Sleeping” by The Beatles as his debut offering, the Madness frontman followed it up with this original track called “Camden Town”. A fusion of ska and pop with a side order of reggae, it was jaunty for sure but oh so insubstantial. The verses remind me of the theme tune to Only Fools And Horses but set in Camden rather than Peckham. Ah yes, that title location. Was that a deliberate and contrived attempt to drum up some credibility for Suggs off the back of the epicentre of the burgeoning Britpop movement?

Now, I like Madness and have seen them in concert but whilst Suggs’s character makes sense within the structure of the band, out on his own, his affected delivery and stilted movements just grate on me. Worse was to come with his cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” released from his album “The Lone Ranger” the following April.

So what links Mariah Carey and Simply Red? Well, the former’s video for her single “Fantasy” was set in an amusement park and saw Mariah riding a rollercoaster and the latter were at No 1 at the same time with “Fairground” and the promo for that one was filmed at Blackpool Pleasure Beach with The Big One rollercoaster prominently featured. There was another link between Mariah and a fellow resident in this week’s chart. Ten places below her at No 16 were folk-rockers The Levellers with their new single…yep…”Fantasy”. Fancy that!

Next, a second consecutive studio performance for Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue with their murder ballad duet “Where The Wild Roses Grow”. I mentioned in the last post that I performed this song in a guitar class I used to attend back in 2010 as a duet with a student called Lisa and that it was recorded for posterity. The guitar teacher gave me a CD of our performance and I added it to my iTunes library. I thought I could maybe embed it into this blog but I’ve run into a few tech issues. I got a new Mac a while back and never got around to importing everything from my old one onto the new one including my iTunes library (well, we’re all on Spotify now aren’t we?). When I’ve gone back to said library on the old Mac, it says that the file for the track can’t be located. It’s all a bit of a mess. If I could find the original CD, maybe I could upload it to the new Mac? Can’t find it anyway so it looks like you’re all have to live with the disappointment of not hearing my Nick Cave impression but rest assured it was immense!

My duet with Lisa wasn’t as unexpected as Nick and Kylie’s what with us both attending the same guitar class and all but there have been other pairings throughout musical history that rivalled their unlikeliness. How about Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry on “7 Seconds” or Marc Almond and Gene Pitney with “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart”. Yeah, Richard and Lisa from guitar class doesn’t sound as left field as some of those names I admit. As for musical crimes, “Where The Wild Roses Grow” is an excellent song and should never be considered in those terms but if you listen to the lyrics, well that’s literally a different story altogether.

After Jimmy Nail used his Auf Wiedersehen, Pet fame to launch his music career in 1985 with a cover of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”, it took him seven years to come up with his next hit single, the chart topping “Ain’t No Doubt”. However, once he’d made that comeback, he was determined to stick around and in the mid 90s, he was prolific. He released three albums in three years between ‘94 and ‘96, the middle of which was “Big River”. Coming after “Crocodile Shoes” and before “Crocodile Shoes II” (a “Crocodile Shoes” sandwich?), it was a sizeable success going platinum in the UK and making the Top 10. Its lead single was the title track which made No 18 on the UK charts. A love letter to the River Tyne and its heyday at the heart of the once thriving shipbuilding industry that also acknowledges its decline, it features the guitar work of fellow Geordie Mark Knopfler. It’s a decent enough song that was a good platform for Nail’s gruff voice but quite why it needed a rerelease three months later as “Big River ‘96” is beyond me and also most of the record buying public as it stalled at No 72.

I’ve said before in this blog that you could do worse than give Jimmy’s 1997 Best Of album “The Nail File” a spin on your streaming platform of choice. Tracks like the Paddy McAloon penned “Cowboy Dreams” and “Country Boy” are just great songs and you can’t deny that Jimmy has a distinctive voice. A crime against music? Hadaway and shite!

Something serious now. The War Child International charity was founded in 1993 to ensure war child victims have access to protection, education and psychosocial support both in conflict and post-conflict areas with the UK arm established in 1994. A year later, they worked with British and Irish artists to create “The Help Album” to raise funds for the charity. Featuring the likes of Oasis, The Stone Roses, Suede, The Charlatans and Sinéad O’Connor, it took John Lennon’s “Instant Karma!” as its inspiration and was recorded, mixed and released within five days. So quick was the process that initial copies hit the shops with no track listing printed on the sleeve. Despite that drawback, the album went to No 1 in the compilation album chart. A single and an EP were taken from the album, the former was a cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together” by supergroup The Smokin’ Mojo Filters whose membership included Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher, Steve Craddock, Steve White and Carleen Anderson. It peaked at No 19. The “Help EP” was a four track release that included contributions from Portishead, Guru, PJ Harvey but was headed up by this song – “Lucky” by Radiohead.

For some reason, and I don’t recall this but Wikipedia assured me it happened, Radio 1 refused to support the EP with airplay which contributed to it only making No 51 in the charts. TOTP had no such qualms and so we got this video exclusive which gave us an early taste of a Radiohead track that would end up on their third album, 1997’s “OK Computer”. This is a great song, epic in its sound and ambition but also moving in its intensity – the sort of song that has the power to send shivers up your spine. For some reason, it’s always reminded me of the theme tune to the 1981 BBC2 adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

The affecting video could sadly have been made in 2024 what with the world witnessing the Russia/Ukraine and Gaza/Israel conflicts, the only difference being that such images (and much, much worse) are now beamed directly into our heads via our mobile phones.

On a much lighter note, “The Help Album” included some great cover versions such as Suede taking on Elvis Costello’s “Shipbuilding”, Terry Hall and Salad doing “Dream A Little Dream Of Me” and this one by the Manic Street Preachers…

All three tracks on the spin to end the show we have seen before so I’m going to rifle through them beginning with “When Love And Hate Collide” by Def Leppard. Like many artists, the Sheffield rockers recently went down the orchestral versions of their back catalogue route (see also Midge Ure, Embrace and even Cutting Crew) with an album called “Drastic Symphonies”. Said album includes an orchestral version of “When Love And Hate Collide” which does make it sound monumentally epic.

An orchestra can’t do anything about the song’s lyrics though which are straight up dreadful. Clichéd, hackneyed and in places non sensical. Look at these:

I got your number on my wall but I ain’t gonna make that call

When divided we stand baby, United we fall
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Richard Savage / Joseph Elliott
When Love & Hate Collide lyrics © Bmg Platinum Songs Us, Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

How can you stand divided but fall united? And who had a phone number on their wall? I know this was pre-mobile phone ubiquity but wouldn’t you have written a phone number on a telephone pad or Filofax even? Then there’s stock phrases like “Heart of Stone” and “hits you right between the eyes” and some dreadful rhyming couplets like “fighting for” and “act of war”. What do you expect though from grown men who wrote a song in “Let’s Get Rocked” from the point of view of an American teenager with references to ‘taking out the trash’ and ‘tidying your room’?

I seem to have used the word ‘epic’ a lot in this post but if there’s anyone in the history of music for whom that word was invented it must be Meatloaf. However, he’d also give Def Leppard a run for their money when it came to wonky lyrics. I mean, just look at the title of this one – “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)”. Clever play on words or just plain dumb? On top of that there’s more clichés like ‘selling your soul’, ‘holding your hand’ and ‘moving mountains’. Somehow though, Meat manages to sound the right side of ridiculous just by the sheer force of his personality and stage persona. He’s joined for this performance by an un-name checked woman but whom my research (OK Wikipedia!) tells me is Patti Russo who toured and recorded with Meatloaf between 1993 and 2013. She still tours and “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” regularly appears in her set list (and that’s no lie).

It’s a third week (of four) for Simply Red with “Fairground” at the top of the charts and we are still yet to see that aforementioned Blackpool Pleasure Beach video. To date, the single remains the band’s only No 1. In fact, despite all their hits over the years (31 Top 40 entries by my reckoning), very few have come close to getting to the peak. “Holding Back The Years” and “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” were both just one position away from hitting top spot but as for the rest – well, only one other made the Top 5. I guess they’re more of an albums band. A quick check of their discography shows that indeed they are with them racking up four No 1 studio albums plus a Greatest Hits collection that also topped the charts. Now that’s a criminal record!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	PJ & Duncan	U Krazy Katz	No chance
2	Suggs	Camden Town	I did not
3	Mariah Carey	Fantasy	Never happened
4	Nick Cave / Kylie Minogue	Where The Wild Roses Grow	Sang it, never bought it
5	Jimmy Nail	Big River	Nope
6	Radiohead	Lucky	No but I had their OK Computer album
7	Def Leppard	When Love And Hate Collide	Nah
8	Meatloaf	I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)	No
9	Simply Red	Fairground	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/m001wsmk/top-of-the-pops-12101995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 SEP 1995

Posted on March 8, 2024 by 80stastic

The last couple of shows have been very poor quality-wise for me – too many anonymous or fly-by-night dance acts and, in the case of one particular standards drop (on many levels) a loathsome novelty record. Well, tonight’s episode sees a definite upturn in the calibre of tunes but…there’s also a tendency for very established acts and mainly those of a rock persuasion. Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Meatloaf are all on the show tonight as are Wet Wet Wet and Simply Red. Was this what the kids wanted from the UK’s most watched music programme? Or did they want to see and hear more from the Britpop scene that was dominating the musical landscape? Well, it would seem that the TOTP producers were aware of the need to strike a balance. The show had always been structured around the Top 40 singles chart so that needed to be reflected and so, in the case of Simply Red for example, they were always going to be featured as this week’s No 1 record. However, there are also what could be considered Britpop artists on tonight so you can’t say that the genre wasn’t represented.

In a further effort to promote TOTP as being on trend, the chosen presenters this week are Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. The pair presented The Evening Session on Radio 1 together from 1993 to 1997 with its emphasis on indie and non mainstream music. Indeed, Lamacq seemed to me like the natural successor in waiting to John Peel whilst Whiley…hmm…well, I never really warmed to Jo Whiley. I didn’t think she had much credibility somehow. She seemed to me like she’d just found herself in the right place at the right time and got to where she was rather fortuitously. That’s probably completely unfair of me and I find myself on very dangerous ground by highlighting my misgivings about the female member of the presenting duo but I can assure you I have no such agenda. I just didn’t buy into Jo’s “I love all of this music” persona. In later years, she moved to Radio 2 and seemed as comfortable introducing the likes of Billy Joel as Billy Joe Armstrong (of Green Day fame). I’ve never found her convincing when she’s hosted at the Glastonbury Festival either. However, her work highlighting the struggles of her sister Frances, who has learning difficulties and diabetes, during the COVID pandemic and the need for her and anybody of a similar status to be a priority to be vaccinated led to the shaping of government policy. I had to reassess my opinion on Jo and I find myself being much more disposed to her these days.

Anyway, we start with one of those Britpoppers in Cast. I quite liked this lot, having seen John Power’s original band The La’s live twice, I guess I was always going to. I dutifully bought their debut single “Finetime” and I’m surprised I didn’t buy the follow up “Alright” which was just as good. Jangly, 60s influenced pop with a 90s twist – yep, sign me up. Although it only reached No 13 in the charts, it was enough of a hit to maintain the band’s momentum and ushered in a run of six successive Top 10 singles. As with Supergrass before them, clearly being a Britpop band and having a hit called “Alright” was a more than ‘alright’ strategy for continuing success.

I love the energy and style of drummer Keith O’Neill in this performance which I don’t think we’d seen the like of in the TOTP studio since Talk Talk’s Lee Harriss powered his way through “Life’s What You Make It” a decade earlier. One final thing, I’m pretty sure the lads in Cast didn’t pronounce their band name as ‘Carst’ Jo Whiley!

A marked strand of the whole Britpop movement was the concept of a band that was fronted by a distinctive female singer. I’m thinking Sleeper, Elastica and Echobelly. Add to that list Garbage. The TOTP caption said that the singer was from Edinburgh with the rest of the band from Madison, US. Whilst that is factually correct, to me it illustrated a laziness on the part of the researchers. That singer was Shirley Manson who had started her musical career as backing vocalist and keyboard player in the marvellous but mostly ignored Scottish rockers Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. The band’s label decided that Shirley had star quality and wanted to launch her as a solo artist. A side project under the name of Angelfish fronted by Manson was put into action and one of their videos came to the attention of the three members of Garbage (one of whom was Butch Vig who had produced Nirvana’s iconic “Nevermind” album). An invitation was sent by Garbage to audition for their band and despite initial reactions not being especially positive, Shirley got the gig. Debut single “Vow” received airplay from the aforementioned John Peel and tonight’s co-host Steve Lamacq (which explains why he introduced them as “the excellent Garbage”). The limited release of “Vow” meant that it wasn’t a big commercial hit but by the time of third single “Only Happy When It Rains”, the momentum of and buzz about the band was enough to propel it into the UK Top 40.

Whilst I liked and appreciated those other indie bands that had women lead singers, Garbage’s sound was much more rock and somehow bigger than their contemporaries to me. I guess that was always going to be the case bearing in mind that Nirvana connection. This track was a great example of the band’s style which would bring them huge success and a long career. Their debut eponymous album would sell 4 million copies worldwide and go double platinum here in the UK propelled by subsequent hit singles “Queer”, “Stupid Girl” and “Milk”. The pink, feather boa adorned Mike stand in this performance is presumably a nod to the album’s cover artwork. The band are still going strong with their most recent album released in 2021 whilst they also announced their first tour for five years with dates confirmed for later this year.

The most interesting thing about this next song by Wet Wet Wet is what Jo Whiley points out in her intro – that its video shows us that Marti Pellow has had his hair radically recut. Gone are the luscious long locks that he’s been sporting since about 1992 and that were certainly still in place for previous single “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now”, replaced by a much shorter (some might say sensible) style. And once you’ve taken that on board, you can effectively switch off watching the rest of the video as the song is soporific. “Somewhere Somehow” sounds to me like a slowed down version of their 1988 hit “Temptation” with a country tinge added to it. Pellow adds a “Love Is All Around” -esque ‘Hey!’ shout into it during the middle eight to try and liven it up but nothing could shake awake this snore fest. Not sure what the woman wandering around with Angel wings attached to her was all about but it probably wasn’t the best idea for her to be walking near a cliff edge – what if a gust of wind had got under those wings!

Was this a new section on the show? The ‘Acoustic Exclusive’ slot or had it just been made up for The Pretenders? After the success of their last studio album “Last Of The Independents” which had given the band their first UK Top 10 single for eight years in “Stand By You”, their record company Warners clearly wanted to keep the band’s profile raised. Rather than waiting for the next studio album to be delivered (which wouldn’t be for another five years), a live, televised performance showcasing the band in acoustic mode formed their next release. Recorded at the Jacob Street Studios in London and accompanied by the Duke Quartet, “The Isle Of View” album was clearly based on the MTV Unplugged concept which was popular in the 90s and featured artists such as Eric Clapton and Nirvana. Its title was a pun on the words ‘I Love You’, a practice no doubt inspired by the film This Is Spinal Tap. You know that bit where the band claim they once played a jazz/blues festival on the Isle Of Lucy? No such place existed and it was a play on words of the title of the US 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy starring Lucille Ball. Apparently, fans of the film didn’t initially pick up on the joke and I didn’t pick up on the reference when my mate Robin bought me a T-shirt with ‘Isle Of Lucy’ emblazoned on it and I love that film! Bah!

Chrissie Hynde performs “Kid” for this TOTP which would end up being released as a single retitled as “Kid ‘95 live” though it would only make No 73 in the charts. The acoustic version is a revelation which lays bare how amazing Chrissie’s voice is (as if it needed pointing out any further). The verse almost sounds like “Unchained Melody” done in this way. Not sure what her red evening gloves were all about though.

It wasn’t the first time that “Kid” had been performed in a stripped back style though. Check out this from Everything But The Girl from 1985…

The pursuit of ever more unusual locations for Bon Jovi to perform on TOTP continues. After Niagara Falls for “Always” and an American Football stadium for “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night”, we get a runway at an airport in Dallas for “Something For The Pain”. I’m not sure I’m buying Jo Whiley’s explanation as to how this came about – they were just about to get on a plane when the phone call came in from TOTP – as this looks very staged to me – they’ve even got TOTP logos handy for display.

However, watching this back, it wasn’t the location that struck me as odd as much as the very un -Bon Jovi looking bass player they had performing with them. Who the heck was that guy?! Well, I think his name is Hugh McDonald and he was the replacement for Alec John Such who left the band in 1994 after not taking too kindly to his bass playing being criticised by Jon Bon Jovi supposedly. McDonald would tour and record with the band for 21 years before finally being made an official member in 2016. That’s quite the probationary period! Such sadly died in 2022 from a heart attack aged 70. As for the song, it was a pretty standard Jovi composition – a jaunty, little rock number that they probably could have knocked out waiting for that plane to take off.

Is this another new slot? An ‘exclusive performance’? Not just an ‘exclusive’ and certainly not a ‘satellite performance’ but an ‘exclusive performance’. What gives? Well, it appears to be something created bespoke for the next artist who are TLC. According to Jo Whiley, the TOTP family had been waiting for a long time to get the trio on the show (was this their first time in the studio then?) and fortunately they must have been in the country. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a hit single that was rising in the charts to justify an appearance according to TOTP law, so the show producers shoehorned them in anyway, I’m guessing. To give TLC something to perform, a “Hits Medley” was dreamed up comprising “Creep” / “Waterfalls” / “Diggin’ On You” the last of which hadn’t actually been released and wouldn’t be until October. This makes me wonder why they didn’t just perform the final track as an ‘exclusive’ preview of said single? Why the need for a medley? It all seems a bit odd. Nothing wrong with the tracks or performance of course, just that the thinking behind them didn’t seem in alignment with the show’s traditional concept of reflecting what was popular in the UK singles charts. I guess though that the show had changed over the years (and we’d seen plenty in the 90s what with the ‘year zero’ reset and the replacement of Stanley Appel with Ric Blaxill as the show’s executive producer). Maybe this was just another one.

In the whole cannon of Britpop bands, there was perhaps none more Britpop than Menswear. For those who denigrated the movement, they were such an easy target. “They’re not a real band are they?” or “They’re a music press construct” or ultimately “Who do they think they are?”. I get all that and yet I still liked them and this single – “Stardust” – is a banger!

In some ways, they were like the Britpop equivalent of Spandau Ballet. A band who emerged out of a short lived, uniquely British music movement and who were the pin up boys and face of said movement. Gary Kemp is on record as saying that the New Romantics needed a group to rally around that were theirs rather than clinging to Bowie and Roxy Music and Spandau were in the right place at the right time. Menswear kind of performed a similar role – where Spandau were talked about because of their cultish wardrobe in their early days (all kilts, highland sashes and deer stalker hats) so Menswear took inspiration from their name and went for an image influenced by the classic mod look. Melody Maker ran a cover story that labelled them as “the best-dressed new band in Britain”. Indeed, check out Jo Whiley’s sartorial comments in her intro.

Then there’s the bidding war parallels. Spandau became hugely sought after by record labels after a highly publicised early gig aboard the cruiser HMS Belfast. Fifteen years later, Menswear played their debut gig at a club called Smashing on Regent Street which kick started a ruck amongst labels desperate to sign the next big thing. They eventually signed with London Records on an unheard of contract offering the band 18.5% gross revenues. They then signed a publishing deal worth £500,000 despite only having a repertoire of seven songs at the time. However, where the two bands diverge is that Spandau managed to adapt and outgrow the New Romantic scene once it had run out of steam to become bona fide, mainstream pop stars whereas Menswear couldn’t escape the Britpop tag after that movement petered out and they imploded with band infighting and a second album that was only released in Japan. They literally just came to a full stop.

Back in 1995 though, they were where it was at for all the groovy, young Britpoppers. I wasn’t particularly young at the time (I was 27) and had never been groovy but I could still appreciate “Stardust” for the tune it was. It fair gallops along driven by Matt Everett’s on point drumming with Johnny Dean’s affected vocals being punctuated by lots of “ba, ba baaas’ backing vocals. Yes, the piano outro could be accused of plagiarism from “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones but I didn’t care. The aforementioned Dean trod a thin line between swagger and being a dick in this performance with his dramatic, angular posing but I think he just gets away with it. Even The Who-like set destroying nonsense at the end didn’t put me off nor Dean’s silly styling out of having to omit the word ‘fucker’ from the lyrics – at least it gave Jo Whiley a nice line in her intro describing them as “groovy little muckers”. I’m definitely warming to her you know.

From groovy muckers to legends of rock (Steve Lamacq’s words not mine). Def Leppard seemed to be following in the career footsteps of Bon Jovi who were on earlier. The New Jersey outfit had come to a crossroads and decided a new direction was needed. Drawing a line under what had gone before, (including sacking their bass player) they released a Best Of album in 1994 called “Crossroads” (geddit?) before releasing an album that was supposedly darker in its themes than what had gone before but which was critically acclaimed in “These Days”.

Def Leppard were similarly assessing their options. Without an album of new material since “Adrenalize” in 1992, they found themselves in a dark place. Divorce, ill health, arrests for spousal abuse and assault and the death of guitarist Steve Clark meant the band were intent on writing some songs that were more from personal experience and mature than their standard “Let’s Get Rocked” rubbish. Also like The Jovi, they had a line up change following Clark’s passing with the addition of new guitarist Vivian Campbell. Perhaps more significantly though, sixth studio album “Slang” would be the first since 1980 without the involvement of producer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange.

Before that though, they put down their own marker to delineate their career in Greatest Hits collection “Vault”. To promote it was a new song, a rock ballad called “When Love And Hate Collide”. Possibly not renowned for their slow songs, they had a hit with at least one to my knowledge – “Love Bites” in 1988. However, this new track seemed more epic. It sounds like it was written to order for a blockbuster movie. In fact, it sounds like a template for Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” which was written for the sci-if disaster film Armageddon.

I always quite liked the name of that Best Of – “Vault” sort of implied that there were sacred treasures inside though whether that meaning should apply to Def Leppard’s back catalogue rather depends on your opinion of the band I guess. My mate Steve who’s from Bolton swears that they were huge there in the 80s. Hmm. There’s a show on Sky Arts called Guy Garvey: From The Vaults which is a veritable treasure trove of fabulous musical clips taken from the archives of shows like The Tube, Razzmatazz, So It Goes and Tiswas. Based around a specific year and curated by Garvey, it’s a little gem of a programme and if the word ‘vault’ is good enough for Guy Garvey, it’s good enough for me.

Simply Red are this week’s new No 1 with “Fairground” which knocks Shaggy off the top spot after just one week. It remains the band’s only chart topping single to date. My first impressions on hearing it went along the lines of “Hang on, he’s just nicked that beat from “Give It Up” by The Goodmen. What a swizz!” OK, I maybe didn’t say ‘swizz’ but my point remains. It seemed to me like Hucknall was just jumping on the dance bandwagon in an attempt to remain relevant. After all, it had been four years since the last album, the all conquering “Stars”. However, lots of people didn’t seem to mind the sample and bought it in enough quantities for it to spend four weeks at the chart summit. At least we don’t get that clip with him wearing his PVC outfit like we got last week. Whoever advised him to don that costume really weren’t ’good men’ and should have told him to ‘give it up’.

The play out video is “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” by Meatloaf. After the gargantuan success of the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” album and “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” single, delivering a follow up was always going to be an almost impossible task. “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” was no flop but it couldn’t hope to match the sales of its predecessor. Like Def Leppard before him, the Meat also had a change of producer and some may argue that was the reason for not being able to replicate the success of “Bat Out Of Hell II”. Meatloaf without Jim Steinman was like Ant without Dec (or the other way round as happened in 2018) – it just wasn’t right.

Having said all that, “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” sounded right out of the Steinman playbook. Epic sounding rock ballad, huge production, paradoxical title – all the ingredients associated with the legendary writer and producer were there. And yet, it didn’t perform as well commercially. I mean, a UK No 2 was damn good going for a guy who had been nowhere near the top of the charts for years pre- “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” but in America it only got to No 13. A sizeable hit sure but nowhere near being a No 1 record. It was a similar story with the album. Big sales but dwarfed by those of its predecessor.

In an unlikely turn of events I’m going to reference Spandau Ballet again in a post about pop music in 1995. Having made a connection between them and Menswear earlier, I’m jumping the shark now and relating them to Meatloaf. Gary Kemp said in a 2000 BBC documentary about the band that nobody else could play their songs and that you could get a new guitarist or singer even but really people just wanted to see the five original members performing on stage. Maybe it was a similar theme with Meatloaf and Steinman? That the former’s audience mostly wanted him and Steinman together?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cast	Alright	No but easily could have
2	Garbage	Only Happy When It Rains	See 1 above
3	Wet Wet Wet	Somewhere Somehow	No
4	The Pretenders	Kid ‘95 live	Nope
5	Bon Jovi	Something For The Pain	I did not
6	TLC	Hits Medley	N/A
7	Menswear	Stardust	Call the police! Where’s my copy of this?!
8	Def Leppard	When Love And Hate Collide	Nah
9	Simply Red	Fairground	Never
10	Meatloaf	I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)	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/m001wkgl/top-of-the-pops-28091995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 JAN 1994

Posted on January 24, 2023 by 80stastic

And so the party is finally over. Not the TOTP party as the grand old show will carry on for another twelve and a half years from this point. No, it’s the end of the line for presenter Tony Dortie whose innings finishes after 57 shows stretching back to the 3rd October 1991. So who pulled the plug on Dortie? Well, presumably it was incoming new producer Ric Blaxill who replaced ‘year zero’ innovator Stanley Appel and decided to shake things up by…erm…getting some of those old Radio 1 DJs back in on presenting duties. That hardly sounds like a creative genius teeming with new ideas at work does it? To be fair to Blaxill, he did come up with some other plans to overhaul the show including the ‘golden mic’ where TV celebrities, pop stars and comedians were invited to present the show. Curiously, this change seems to already be in place before Dortie has left the building as he is joined on his final show by Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot as co-host. I presumed initially that this was just to introduce his own band’s video but he does get extra presenting duties later on in the show. The subsequent show would be Dortie’s presenting partner Mark Franklin’s last appearance. The times they were a-changin’…

…talking of which, we start the show with a tune that seemed out of time. It was now nearly four years since Inspiral Carpets burst into our lives as part of the ‘Madchester’ scene and whilst that movement had withered whilst main protagonists The Stone Roses were still missing presumed disbanded and the Happy Mondays having self destructed, these Oldham lads had carved themselves out a little niche which revolved around Clint Boon’s farfisa electronic organ and its swirling 60s retro sounds. By 1994 though, they were coming to the end of their initial incarnation and that year’s “Devil Hopping” would be their last album for twenty years after being dropped by Mute Records. The lead single from it was “Saturn 5” which seems to borrow a fair bit from “Telstar” by The Tornados. Yes, I know that 1962 No 1 transatlantic hit was an instrumental track but it was named after the Telstar communications satellite that was launched into orbit that year. Similarly, “Saturn 5” was named after the space rocket that launched all the Apollo missions. Then there’s the almost distorted, futuristic (back in 1962!) organ sound on “Telstar” which “Saturn 5” isn’t a million light years away from.

According to Boon, the song is about hope and achieving your ambitions. Here’s @TOTPFacts with an explanation of that Rockette lyric:

"Jerry wants to be a rockette" explained: "Jerry is my wife's auntie. She always wanted to be a Radio City Rockette, and now she is one! The song's about optimism and ambition." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

I went to New York for the very first time in 1994 and me and my wife did the Radio City Hall tour and met a Rockette. It was a a bizarre experience. Anyway, some of the other lyrics refer to the assassination of JFK (“the lifeless corpse of President 35”) and his grieving wife Jackie Onassis (“the lady crying by his side is the most beautiful woman alive”) and Boon’s mother-in-law going on a first date with her husband in a Ford Mustang (“Lady take a ride on a Zeke 64”). In my head, I’d made the line “An Eagle lands” into a reference to 1970s sci-fi series Space 1999 whose spacecrafts were called ‘Eagles’. Either that or the Eagle comic and its space captain hero Dan Dare. Both theories kind of fit with the space theme but further research on my part suggests it’s more probably to do with the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where JFK learned to fly and whose nickname is ‘Eagles’. Regardless of its subject matter, I liked “Saturn 5” and its incongruousness with the rest of the charts. Yes, it was a bit formulaic – my work colleague Justin remarked on first hearing it “Ah, there’s the distinctive organ” – but it was well constructed and had charm as well as hooks. It would make No 20 on the chart while the album went to No10.

I saw singer Tim Hingley years later as a solo artist at tiny venue Fibbers whilst I was living in York. Can’t remember if he played “Saturn 5” though. I also caught Clint Boon do a DJ set of ‘Manchester’ tunes as a warm up for a Happy Mondays gig a few years ago. That really was money for old rope.

And so to that first Joe Elliott intro which, rather obviously, is for his own band. He actually does a decent job and seems much more at ease than an over excited Dortie. They do have some decent banter (note banter not ‘bants’) as Tony chides Joe for his Sheffield United shirt who responds with with “Hold your tongue philistine Spurs freak”. Nice comeback!

As for Def Leppard’s cover of The Sweet’s “Action”, I pretty much said everything I had to say about it in the last post. Erm…OK, did they do any other cover versions?

*checks internet*

They’ve done loads! Some are obvious like T. Rex, Bowie and Thin Lizzy but some less so. How about these? “Rock On” by David Essex and…No! “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode?! I’ve got to hear this…

…well, it doesn’t eclipse Johnny Cash’s take on it but it’s not bad I’ll admit. I suppose that’s testament to how much of a great song it is. “Action” peaked at No 14 but Def Leppard returned with their equal biggest hit ever in 1995 with “When Love And Hate Collide” which peaked at No 2 matching the high of 1992’s “Let’s Get Rocked”.

Here’s something a bit different. Tori Amos might be an acquired taste and suffer from continual accusations of being a Kate Bush wannabe but I’ve always quite liked her. I’m pretty sure we even had her first album “Little Earthquakes” at some point. It sold respectably and steadily but 1994 saw her up the ante with the release of sophomore album “Under The Pink” which went to the top of the charts. The lead single was “Cornflake Girl” which would give Tori her highest charting single by far at that point when it peaked at No 4. I said in the last post that I was surprised that Toni Braxton’s “Breathe Again” was such a big hit and “Cornflake Girl” also falls into that category. Nothing to do with the quality of the song – it’s a great track – but because it felt like such an outlier in the charts. A haunting piece with a striking melody that allows Tori’s otherworldly vocals to flourish, it sounded like nothing else in the Top 40 at the time (and no smart arse remarks about Kate Bush not having a single out that month!).

The song has some dark origins. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

"Cornflake Girl" is about female genital mutilation, which Amos was discussing with a friend. "We were talking about the fact that the women are betrayed, by a grandmother, a mother, an older sister – that the women you trust the most are taking you into this butchery.." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Out of this discussion came the song’s title which was a name that Tori and her peers would use growing up to describe girls who would hurt you despite a close relationship. On a lighter note, Amos appeared in an advert for a Kellogg’s cereal in 1984 but apparently that was nothing to do with her writing the song.

Interestingly, Billy Bragg also name checks the phrase on a track called “Body Of Water” on his 1991 album “Don’t Try This At Home”.

Summer could take a hint
Seeing you in a floral print
Oh to become a pearl
In the wordy world of the cornflake girl
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Billy Bragg / Philip Douglas Wigg
Body of Water lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

In an unlikely turn of events, as I was checking my Tori Amos facts for this post, I discovered that she is a very close friend of the author Neil Gaiman who is actually godfather to her daughter. The book literally next to me on the coffee table as I read that information? The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

For me though, the one thing that always comes to mind when I hear “Cornflake Girl” is this TV theme for a show that always seemed to be on the late night schedules growing up in the Central ITV region…

Talking of cover versions as we were before about Def Leppard, Tori has quite a few in her live set lists. I think my favourite is this unlikely coming together of styles…

Oh come on! Still with Haddaway in 1994? Surely he was a one year phenomenon? Sadly, he’s still knocking about with his “I Miss You” single. Everything about this performance is just odd, from Haddaway’s cringeworthy spoken intro to the presence of the woman on stage with him? Quite why was she there? She spends the first part of the song sat on a chair looking miserable. I’ve not seen someone look so upset in a pop song since that woman in the video for Eddy Grant’s 1982 No 1 “I Don’t Wanna Dance” when she’s left fuming on the beach whilst Eddy noodles around on his guitar whilst sat on an unlikely floating platform in the sea.

Back in 1994, the woman on stage with Haddaway finally gets up to wander around a bit before miming some “ooh, woohs” backing vocals. Is that why she was there all along? For that? It really wasn’t worth it. “I Miss You” peaked at No 9.

As with Def Leppard earlier, here’s another of last week’s Breakers getting a full spin on the show. Toni Braxton gets the live by satellite treatment to perform her “Breathe Again” hit. They’ve plonked her on a stool sat between two candelabras on the stage of the Apollo Theatre, New York where she belts out her song…to nobody. They even have a shot from behind Toni facing the empty theatre and its non existent audience just in case anyone was under the misconception that somebody (anybody) was actually there. Madness. I hope Ric Blaxill got rid of this nonsense when he took over the TOTP reins and resuscitated the show. Hey, maybe he made it breathe again! I’ll get me coat.

Four Breakers this week starting with some bloke called Joe (just Joe) who I hardly remember and couldn’t tell you anything about before reading up on him but who somehow managed to have ten UK Top 40 hits the last of which came some ten years on from this, his debut single, “I’m In Luv”. Tony Dortie is clearly giving zero f***s seeing as he’s been given the chop and this is is final appearance as he says the following in his intro “…I know it’s politically incorrect to say so but there’s some mighty fine ladies in this video”. Well! Tone had some previous with this sort of thing dropping similar comments about Jade, En Vogue etc during his time on the show. He also says that Joe “…at last gives us the missing note between hip hop and R&B…”. Wasn’t that called New Jack Swing?

A genuine sales phenomenon next as Garth Brooks makes his first TOTP appearance. No. Really. Check these stats out from @TOTPFacts

In the USA, Garth Brooks is the only artist to have released nine albums that achieved diamond status by selling over 10 million copies (surpassing the Beatles' previous record of six). #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Garth Brooks has also been certified as the best-selling solo artist when it comes to albums in the USA – ahead of Elvis Presley. As of 13 January 2023, Brooks is on 157 million, with Presley at 146.5 million. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Told you. It was an unlikely occurrence though for a country artist. Or was it? Certainly in the UK, that genre had traditionally struggled to gain a foot hold commercially but in the US? I’m thinking there was a much bigger market and appetite for country music. Randy Travis, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Dwight Yoakam, George Strait and loads more artists had huge careers over there as country acts. However, Troyal Garth Brooks (that’s his actual name! Troyal!) was somehow different. His melting pot of country with elements of rock and pop allowed him to crossover into the mainstream markets and he did so like nobody before him. We’d resisted in the UK for the early part of the decade despite promotion by his record company of his albums like “Ropin’ The Wind”, “No Fences” and “The Chase” but we finally caved to his fifth one “In Pieces” which rose to No 2 in our charts. The single from it that broke the dam was “The Red Strokes” – (actually a double A-side with “Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up)”) – a pleasant but unremarkable ballad to my ears and the biggest of only three UK hit singles which peaked at No 13. Hold onto your Stetson though as we’ll be seeing more of Garth Brooks on the next show.

I’d totally forgotten about the final single from Depeche Mode’s “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” album. “In Your Room” was a powerful slab of gloom rock in line with the rest of the album which was influenced by the emergence of grunge. Despite the album having been out for nearly a year by this point and despite it being the fourth track released from it, “”In Your Room” still went Top 10 displaying the loyalty and purchasing power of the band’s fanbase.

The video references much of the band’s past work with homages to “Strangelove”, “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy The Silence” amongst others. There’s also a heavy David Lynch vibe with scenes of bondage set against the red curtain drapes reminding me of both Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. The band themselves were in turmoil at this point with Dave Gahan struggling with his heroin addiction whilst the single would be the last to feature Alan Wilder who left the group after the completion of the album. We would not see them again for four years when they returned with “Ultra”.

Well, I suppose this was totally inevitable. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown had been married for eighteen months when they decided they needed to record a song together to further publicly display their love for each other. I’m surprised it took that long. “Something In Common” was the chosen track but if they were expecting a gigantic hit off the back of them joining forces, it didn’t quite happen. A No 16 peak was all it could achieve over here whilst it also failed to make the Top 10 in the US. How come? I mean, Whitney was on a very hot streak with the success of The Bodyguard whilst Brown’s 1992 album “Bobby” had gone double platinum. Maybe the song was just no good? It’s uptempo and probably right on the New Jack Swing zeitgeist but it doesn’t live long in the memory. Seriously, how far down the list would you have to go when naming Whitney or Bobby Brown songs before you got to “Something In Common”?

Joe Elliott is back to do a link for the next artist who is Phil Collins. How many times was Phil on TOTP as a solo artist doing a mournful ballad? I don’t know and I’m not about to count but I’m pretty sure he did what he does whilst performing “Everyday” on every appearance; that Everyman, shuffling turn whilst wearing oversized, casual clothes to create the impression that he’s only turned up at the studio to sing a song whilst he’s waiting for the first coat of creosote to dry on his garden fence before applying the second. I’m not buying it Phil nor indeed any of your records. “Everyday” peaked at No 15.

They’ve done it! D:Ream are No1 with “Things Can Only Get Better” a year after it originally peaked at No 24. Despite it being his last ever TOTP show, Tony Dortie still has one last presenting gaff in him when he refers to their lead singer Peter Cunnah as ‘Pete Cornelius’! Watching Pete perform here in his trademark checked suit, I can’t help but notice that there’s an element of Robbie Williams about his performance. All that energetic cavorting and arm waving and a desperation to make everything about him on stage. Well, D:Ream had just been on tour with Take That at the time so maybe he did indeed learn from the master!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Inspiral Carpets	Saturn 5	No but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs
2	Def Leppard	Action	Nah
3	Tori Amos	Cornflake Girl	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Haddaway	I Miss You	…but I don’t miss you. No
5	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
6	Joe	I’m In Luv	I’m not – no
7	Garth Brooks	The Red Strokes	No
8	Depeche Mode	In Your Room	I did not
9	Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown	Something In Common	Negative
10	Phil Collins	Everyday	Never!
11	D:Ream	Things Can Only Get Better	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/m001h88r/top-of-the-pops-20011994

TOTP 13 JAN 1994

Posted on January 20, 2023 by 80stastic

Christmas and New Year are now distant memories – not just in 2023 but in 1994 where we currently find ourselves in the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule. The charts have pretty much evacuated from their bowels all that Christmas stodge and some new songs are cleansing the Top 40. Well, I say cleanse but there are still some rotten tunes stinking the place out. Oh well, nose pegs at the ready then as we go again..,

We start with the previous year’s Eurodance sensation Culture Beat who are back with a third consecutive hit in “Anything”. There’s no let up in the formula here – they couldn’t have mixed things up with a ballad? – as Jay Supreme performs a high speed rap workout while vocalist Tania Evans chips in with a chorus including lyrics that seem to suggest desperation to please a (potential) partner. I’d like to think such themes were not prevalent today but toxic masculinity is on the increase with hateful figures like Andrew Tate generating headlines. I’m probably reading far too much into it but seeing Tania sing those words does jar a bit. On closer examination of the lyrics online, Jay Supreme seems to be having similar relationship problems where nothing he does, says or wears is good enough for his other half but he’s rapping so fast nobody can decipher what he’s on about. “Anything” was at its chart peak of No 5 already. They would never return to the Top 10.

Get those nose pegs ready as here’s a bona fide toilet bowel dweller in the form of “All For Love” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting. This was proper dog shit, baked for the latest cinematic take on the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers. I recall there being a big buzz about the film starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt and Chris O’Donnell in the titular roles and I, myself, duly went to see it. Sadly, like its song, it was no good, without merit and, in short, a stinker. There was something very cynical about casting Sheen and Sutherland together to reunite them in some sort of 17th century cousin to their Brat Pack western Young Guns (indeed, some reviewers christened the film ‘Young Swords’). This was just one of a long list of film adaptations of the famous story – I had no idea there were that many – but I’d take the cartoon from my childhood from The Banana Splits TV show over any of them.

Back to that song though and its protagonists were probably more of an unholy trinity than they were The Three Musketeers for many. Certainly there are a fair few musical crimes that can be levelled at Adams, Stewart and Sting individually (though some of all three’s back catalogue stands up to scrutiny) but this collective effort really is a low point. It probably sounded like a good idea in theory – three massive mainstream stars (the musketeers) record a song that borrows its title from the main characters’ motto (‘All for one and one for all’) but the actual song is such a dirge that it can’t fail but to reek. Composed by Bry and his go to songwriting partner Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange, who was also responsible for that other Adams turd “Please Forgive Me”, it really is an awful record. The film did decent business though and so the single was a huge hit off the back of it going to No 1 in the US and around the world though its peak of No 2 in the UK meant it wasn’t quite a case of all for one and one for all.

“All For Love” isn’t the only Three Musketeers inspired pop song though. “You’ve Got Everything Now” from the eponymous debut album by The Smiths features the line “I’ve seen you smile but I’ve never really heard you laugh” and borrows from a narrative description of the musketeer Athos

He was very taciturn, this worthy signor. Be it understood we are speaking of Athos. During the five or six years that he had lived in the strictest intimacy with his companions, Porthos and Aramis, they could remember having often seen him smile, but had never heard him laugh.
— Chapter 7, The Interior of the Musketeers, The Three Musketeers Project Gutenberg.

Proving that it’s not a total clean sweep of new songs in the charts, here’s K7 with “Come Baby Come”. Released in mid December back in ‘93, it would spend a giant sixteen weeks on the charts peaking at No 3. Despite the single’s success, K7 didn’t sustain. Indeed, if you Google K7 these days you will find an entry for him but behind results for an independent music label, a brand of power washer and alongside anti virus software.

What’s this? A Ce Ce Peniston hit that isn’t “Finally”? Well, there’s actually a few of them but to me they all sound like inferior re-writes of “Finally” including this one called “I’m In The Mood”. Nothing to do with The Nolans’ biggest hit but the lead single from her second album called “Thought ‘Ya Knew”. According to reviews at the time, this was meant to have a bit of a jazz slant to it but I’m not sure I can hear it. The single actually did OK chart wise making No 16 but the parent album, unlike her debut “Finally” which went Top 10, floundered to a high of No 31. I have to say that I don’t recall anything of this stage of Ce Ce’s career but she carried on gamely throughout the 90s releasing two more albums before the end of the decade to little reception before scoring one final hit in 1997 with a cover of Jocelyn Brown’s “Somebody Else’s Guy”.

How can I have forgotten about this?! The The on TOTP and I’ve erased it from my memory banks?! What was going on in my life at the time to have dislodged this from a special place in my grey matter?! So many questions but surely the biggest of the lot should be why isn’t Matt Johnson routinely lauded as a national treasure?! I first became aware of his genius in 1983 when I heard “Uncertain Smile”. Then I saw the striking artwork on the single’s cover in WH Smith and, even as a 15 year old pop kid, knew something special was going on here. By the time I was a Poly student, I had the first album “Soul Mining” in pride of place in my cassette collection to make me look…well, I’d have maybe said ‘trendy’ back then but probably I meant non mainstream (even though I hopelessly was).

The album also included the singles “Perfect” and “This Is The Day” and it was the latter of those two which was chosen as the main track on the “Dis-Infected EP”. Remodelled as “That Was The Day”, it was backed up by a take on the title track of 1986 album “Infected” plus remixes of two tracks from the most recent album at the time, 1992’s “Dusk”. Presumably this EP was released to maintain profile in between albums (Johnson’s album of Hank Williams cover versions – “Hanky Panky” – didn’t appear until 1995) and its No 17 peak would make it The The’s biggest ever hit just eclipsing 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation”.

Coming after Culture Beat, K7 and Ce Ce Peniston in the running order, this incarnation of The The looks every bit the outlier on TOTP. Matt, for all his genius, never looked like a pop star bless him whilst the minimal set up of a keyboard player and a guy on harmonica were at odds with all the synchronised dance moves, rapping and general party atmosphere of the acts before. And thank God for that.

“This Is The Day” was covered in 2011 by Manic Street Preachers to promote their third compilation album “National Treasures – The Complete Singles” thus affording Matt Johnson a sliver of that national treasure status he so richly deserves.

Three Breakers this week starting with “Everyday” by Phil Collins. I don’t remember this at all and there’s a case to be made that I just count my blessings and leave it at that. The reviewer in me won’t allow that though (Damn you!) so I’m going in for a listen – this isn’t going to end well is it?

*manages two and a half minutes before switching off*

Well, it was, as I suspected, not worth the effort. According to Wikipedia, Phil played every musical part on this track which means it was him that ripped of Bruce Hornsby for the piano intro. After that it drifts off into predictable Collins territory with a melancholic melody and lyrics so rank and hackneyed that there should be a law against this form of song composition. Phil bangs on about being knocked off his feet and the fire inside him and his life being worth nothing without the object of his affections…turn it in mate! I can imagine it being used in a lame rom com movie starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Anniston to soundtrack the bit where the film’s couple have broken up. Nice work for Phil but all rather cynical.

The song was the second single from his “Both Sides” album and though making a respectable chart high of No 15, possibly didn’t allay record company fears after lead single “Both Sides Of The Story” underperformed.

The era of Toni Braxton is upon us. A huge star straight off the bat in the US where “Another Sad Love Song” went Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, that single stalled on initial release over here meaning that “Breathe Again” would become her first UK Top 40 hit. And what a hit! It would eventually peak at No 2 over here which seemed like a slight case of overachievement for an R&B ballad. Clearly the song had something that set it apart from the other examples of the genre we had seen. It did ebb and flow quite nicely and Braxton could clearly deliver the required vocal. Even so, I for one was slightly taken aback by its popularity.

“Another Sad Love Song” was rereleased in this country in the wake of the success of “Breathe Again” and this time was a hit making No 15. However, Toni really came into her own in 1996 when she had another No 2 hit record in “Un-break My Heart”, a single that sold and sold and sold, spending nineteen weeks in total on the charts.

The final Breaker is a cover of a glam rock hit from the 70s courtesy of Def Leppard. Having taken five years to record a follow up to the multi platinum selling “Hysteria” album, these lads were not exactly prolific. “Adrenalize” had been a success but not on the same level as its predecessor and another studio album wouldn’t arrive until 1996. So, how to fill the gap? With a compilation album of course. However, Def Leppard wanted to give something back to the fans that was not just a boring Best Of that would just mean the completists forking out for tracks they already owned so they came up with “Retro Active”, an album of touched up B-sides and unreleased recordings from the band’s vaults. There were also a couple of cover versions including Mick Ronson’s “Only After Dark” and this one, a 1975 Top 20 hit from The Sweet called “Action”. I didn’t think I knew this song but having given both versions a spin, it did ring some bells in the deepest corners of my mind.

Is it just me or do The Sweet not get the recognition they deserve? Whenever glam rock gets mentioned, it seems that the first names to crop up are T-Rex, Slade, Wizzard and even Roxy Music (nobody can talk about Gary Glitter anymore for obvious reasons). Do The Sweet get overlooked slightly? In their early 70s heyday, they tore up the charts with songs like “Ballroom Blitz”, “Teenage Rampage” and “Block Buster!” clocking up ten Top 10 hits including a No 1 and five (!) No 2s making them one of the unluckiest bands ever. By the time of “Action” though, the hits were drying up. This would be one of their last with only a change of musical direction giving them one final Top Tenner with “Love Is Like Oxygen” in 1978.

Def Leppard do a decent version of “Action” though the original is easily better. After the almost philanthropic act of the “Retro Active” release, the band went and released a proper Best Of anyway in 1995 called “Vault: Def Leppard Greatest Hits (1980-1995) which became another platinum seller. It’s all about the Benjamins at the end of the day isn’t it?

Back in the studio we find Eternal who are consolidating on the success of debut single “Stay” with another mid tempo soul/pop track called “Save Our Love”. The buzz around this lot was still very vibrant coming out of Christmas and so another hit was almost guaranteed. “Save Our Love” duly did the business going Top 10 though falling short of the No 4 peak of its predecessor by four places. For me, this follow up was nowhere near as strong as their opener. Sure it was radio friendly with a shiny production but it didn’t have the nuance of “Stay”. It all felt a bit too straightforward – Eternal by numbers. Talking of numbers, the group still had its full complement of them at this stage but by the following year, Louise Redknapp (Nurding as was) would have left the group. She, along with her band mates, were kept busy in 1994 though releasing five singles and promoting their debut album “Always And Forever”.

I’m not sure what the petrol station vibe is all about for this performance. Can’t think of many other artists who have channeled it. Billy Joel was a mechanic in a garage for “Uptown Girl” wasn’t he so not quite the same. Oh yes though – mechanics or more specifically Mike And The Mechanics who used an image of a gas pump attendant asleep on some tyres next to his pump as the cover of their Best Of album entitled “Hits” in 1996. By the way, those combat trousers that Eternal are wearing were all the rage in 1994. I think I even had some. No doubt we’ll be seeing more examples of their popularity in future repeats.

The reggae Rick Astley next as studio tape operator/ tea boy turned pop star Bitty McLean is back with another hit. After the No 2 success of his debut single “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”, it looked as though Bitty’s career was over almost immediately when follow up single “Pass It On” steadfastly refused to do so and stalled at No 35. However, here he was back with another hit in “Here I Stand” that would ultimately make No 10 despite being awful. It was another cover version (originally released by Justin Hinds And The Dominoes in 1967) but Bitty makes it sound completely tuneless in his rendition. I really didn’t get the appeal of Bitty and his music but I’m sure that he’s a lovely chap all the same!

It’s a second week at the top for Chaka Demus And Pliers with their version of “Twist And Shout” despite heavy competition from D:Ream who are up to No 2 this week. Apparently, “Twist And Shout” was selling less at the top of the charts than it was when lodged at No 3 at Christmas. The vagaries of the post festive season sales slump and all that.

There are, of course, many different versions of “Twist And Shout”. Here’s one from Bruce Springsteen which segues into “La Lamba”…

I’m sure I heard a story about the recording of The Beatles’ first album in which “Twist And Shout” wasn’t going to be included on it but a journalist told them that they should record “La Bamba” as he’d heard them do it live and it sounded great. The band responded that they didn’t play “La Bamba” in concert but realised the press guy was talking about “Twist And Shout” which they did perform live and that’s how it got onto the album. This is surely the definitive version of the song…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Culture Beat	Anything	Never happening
2	Bryan Adams / Rod Stewart / Sting	All For Love	NO!
3	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
4	Ce Ce Peniston	I’m In The Mood	Nah
5	The The	Dis-Infected EP	No but I had the Soul Mining album which includes lead track This Is The Day
6	Phil Collins	Everyday	Double NO!
7	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
8	Def Leppard	Action	Negative
9	Eternal	Save Our Love	It’s a no
10	Bitty McLean	Here I Stand	Never!
11	Chaka Demus And Pliers	Twist And Shout	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/m001h027/top-of-the-pops-13011994

TOTP 04 FEB 1993

Posted on June 23, 2022 by 80stastic

We enter the month of February in our review of 1993 here at TOTP Rewind and the Top 40 has now jettisoned all those Xmas rush singles – with one notable exception – that were clogging up the chart. There are eleven new entries this week and seven climbers and yet, looking at the running order for this TOTP, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the charts were in a state of inertia as so many of these songs have already either been on the show recently or are re-releases of old hits.

Look at the show’s opener for example. “How Can I Love You More” had been a Top 40 hit for M People as recently as November 1991 when it peaked at No 29. So why had it been made available again? Well, although they’d had racked up four Top 40 singles from their debut album “Northern Soul”, none of them had got higher than No 29. The band had been out on tour to promote the album and “How Can I Love You More” had been a live favourite. So it came to pass that record label Deconstruction decided that should be the track to be given another tilt at the charts. DJ Sasha was approached to give the song a club sheen and bingo! The band’s first Top 10 hit.

So how different was the Sasha remix to the original cut? Well it wasn’t quite as stark as the difference between the original version of Cornershop’s “Brimful Of Asha” and the Norman Cook remix but you could certainly hear it. The 1991 release has an electronic backing that reminds me of “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League whereas the 1993 version sounds like it has a lot more going on in the mix with some shuffling rhythms that make it sound like it had a faster tempo. I think I actually prefer the remix to my surprise.

1993 would be the year that M People became a really big deal. Following “How Can I Love You More” into the Top 10 came “One Night On Heaven” (No 6), “Moving On Up” (No 2) and “Don’t Look Any Further” (No 9) whilst their “Elegant Slumming” album would rise to No 2.

Here’s another! This is a third time on the show for Duran Duran and their “Ordinary World” single. So well received was the song that it got nominated for an Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. It would lose out to another song that, coincidentally, was on this very same show – “If I Ever Lose My Faith” by Sting. In his book Duran Duran: the unauthorised biography, Steve Malins tells the story that at this very TOTP, Duran’s guitarist Warren Cuccurullo (he replaced Andy Taylor) was chatting to Sting and the ex – The Police frontman admitted that he didn’t want to go on after Duran as “Ordinary World” was such a beautiful song. Given Sting’s ginormous ego, that was quite the compliment.

Cuccurullo is an interesting character. He toured and recorded with Frank Zappa before forming synth-pop, MTV favourites Missing Persons in the early 80s. He was recruited (eventually) by Duran Duran after previous incumbent Taylor approached his ex Missing Persons band members about working with him as he started on his solo career. Alerted to the possibility that Taylor would be leaving Duran, Cuccurollo contacted the Birmingham superstars about replacing their want away guitarist. By 1993 he was a permanent member of the band and, according to Malins, he had a voracious sexual appetite and would host ‘Privacy’ parties in his hotel room when the band were touring which basically sounded like orgies. Blimey! What would Princess Diana have said?!

“Ordinary World” peaked at No 6 in the UK and No 3 in the US.

And yet another song that we’ve already seen on the show before! And like Duran Duran it’s their third time on! I struggled to say anything about “Heaven Is” by Def Leppard the previous two times so God knows what I’m supposed to say about a third appearance! Well, again like the Duran boys, this showing did nothing to improve their ultimate chart placing as both acts were at their peaks in this week.

Anything else? Well, in the last post I mentioned how lead singer Joe Elliott hated the video for this single so I thought I’d see if I could spot why. I’m not sure I can as the video is by far the best thing about the single. Essentially it’s just a straight performance promo with some special effects thrown in for good measure but it’s done pretty well. It reminds me of the video for INXS’s “Need You Tonight”. I particularly liked the scene with the guitar strings morphing into one of those string art pictures. You know those ones where you can form a curve by layering loads of strings closely together at an angle? We did one in woodwork when I was at school. I made a plane I think. Erm…sorry…got a bit distracted there. Anyway, not quite sure why Joe Elliott hated it so much. Maybe he didn’t like the way his hair looked in it. To be fair, who would want their hair to look like Joe Elliott’s?

It’s a third song on the trot that’s been on the show recently and guess what? Just like Duran Duran and Def Leppard before them, it was at its peak chart position this week. This is just weird now. Unlike those two bands though, in the case of The Beloved, the No 8 peak of “Sweet Harmony” would prove to be their highest ever Top 40 placing.

Watching this performance I’m struck by two things about lead singer Jon Marsh. Firstly his singing is pretty awful here. In fact, in the verses he’s hardly singing at all, it’s more sort of speaking rhythmically. Secondly, I’d been trying to work out who he looks like and I think I’ve worked it out – ex footballer and now pundit Dean Ashton…

Finally a new song! Not only that but there’s a great little link between it and the artist immediately previous. Rapination were two Italian producers who also went by the name The Rapino Brothers. It’s not them that provide the connection to The Beloved though. No, that would be the vocalist for their “Love Me In The Right Way” single who was, of course, Kym Mazelle. Kym was one of the people name checked by The Beloved on their “Hello” hit of 1990 alongside the likes of Billy Corkhill and Vince Hilaire…

Excellent track that. Anyway, fast forward three years and Kym is working with these Italian dudes – I’m guessing that’s them on stage with her here on drums and (gulp) keytar. I have to say I don’t recall this track at all but it sounds very generic Italian House so not a lot there for me.

The single made it to No 22 (and yes, another hit at its chart peak this week) whilst The Rapino Brothers went on to work with Kylie Minogue and Primal Scream. By the way does the name Rapino instantly make anybody else think of this?

It’s time for some Breakers next starting with another rerelease! As with The Cult last week, we have another 80s band promoting a Greatest Hits collection with the re-issue of their most famous song. I refer to Ultravox although in truth, that Greatest Hits album was actually entitled “If I Was: The Very Best Of Midge Ure And Ultravox”. Released by Chrysalis, it did what it said on the tin. It was “Vienna” though that was chosen to plug the album and what else can I write about this track that hasn’t already been written? Infamously kept off the No 1 spot when originally released in 1981 by Joe Dolce’s execrable single “Shaddap You Face”, it has gone down as a synth pop classic, an epic of the genre.

Oh, here’s something I bet nobody has ever written about it before. When it was a hit in ‘81, I was a 12 year old schoolboy and a lad called Neil used to hit me hard on the arm singing “this means nothing to me” as he did. Four years later and he was still at it giving me a wrap on the knuckles while singing “Hit That Perfect Beat” by Bronski Beat. Maybe Neil had been influenced by Clockwork Orange in his hobby of putting violence to music?

Back to “Vienna” though and the year before this rerelease, the song had been re-recorded by original band member Billy Currie who had got together a new line up of Ultravox. Currie was the only original band member and the vocals were supplied by one Tony Fennell. Released as “Vienna ‘92”, it sank like a stone. I mean, it’s not terrible but it just seems so pointless. Fennell does a pretty good impression of Midge Ure whilst the synths are a bit more strident and there’s an obtrusive funky guitar in there but all I can think is ‘why?’

The 1993 rerelease made No 13 whilst the Very Best Of album went Top 10. By the way, in another link with Sting, four years on A&M repeated Chysallis’ trick of merging two Best Ofs into one when they released “The Very Best Of Sting And The Police”.

What fresh hell is this?! Tom Jones sings The Beatles?! As well as being Tom’s first hit of the 90s, his treatment of “All You Need Is Love” was a charity record, raising money for Childline, the foundation set up by Esther Rantzen. And now that joker card has been played, I can’t really criticise it can I? Well, yes I can. It really doesn’t suit Tom’s gruff Welsh vocal chords and the song choice was less than inspired. Nothing wrong with the sentiment of course which strikes the right note but wasn’t a previous Childline charity single also a Beatles cover?

*checks online*

Yes, the Wet Wet Wet single “With A Little Help From My Friends” was for Childline. It was a double A-side with Billy Bragg covering another Beatles track in “She’s Leaving Home”. Look, I hope Tom made lots of money for the charity (the single peaked at No 19) but this was/is horrible.

At last another brand new song and it comes courtesy of Extreme with their latest single “Tragic Comic”. I know that this came from the band’s triple album “III Sides To Every Story” but I couldn’t tell you how it goes. Let’s have a listen…

…hmm. Vaguely familiar but it’s like a piss weak version of their previous hit “Hole Hearted” in that its got that acoustic sound but the tune isn’t really up to it. It would prove to be the band’s final UK Top 40 entry when it peaked at No 15.

Now I remember the name of this next act but I couldn’t have told you how their tune went. It turns out that Gloworm actually tried to create a new genre of dance music combining house with gospel. The first result of this hybrid experiment was “I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” but to me it sounds like one of the first crossover house tunes – “Love Can’t Turn Around” by Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk. Maybe that would have been a compliment to Gloworm but I always hated that song.

The performance here with all jungle staging and costumes gives the whole thing a look of the stage version of The Lion King. Surely some sort of nightclub setting would have been better for such a tune?

“I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” peaked at No 20.

And so to the already much mentioned in this post artist Sting who brings us probably one of his better known solo songs “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You”. This was the lead single from his “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album that would become, I think, his best selling solo LP. You see, despite all his success with The Police and his undoubted star profile, Sting’s solo stats aren’t the best. Up to this point in his career, his highest charting single was “Russians” which made No 12 in 1985. In fact, he’d had more singles fail to make the Top 40 than ones that did. His last album “The Soul Cages” had only given him one hit and the album before that (“…Nothing Like The Sun”) had generated none at all although one its singles (“Englishman In New York”) belatedly provided one when remixed by Ben Liebrand at the start of the decade. Given all of this, I wonder what was expected of his latest single?

I’ll tell you what wasn’t expected – that Sting would turn up at the TOTP studio dressed like Vincent Price in Witchfinder General. What was he thinking?! Actually all of his band have got hats on. The guitarist has one that has a heavy Windy Miller from Camberwick Green vibe. Then there’s the set. Is it meant to like like the inside of a church to make a link with the word ‘faith’ in the song’s title? Maybe so what with all those candles and flaming torches but Sting’s outfit makes the whole thing seem quite menacing and, dare I say it, even satanic. Most odd.

What about the song you ask? Oh, well I always thought it was OK if a little slow and pedestrian like. Get this though. It starts with a flattened fifth chord. So? Well a flattened fifth is a tri-tone and was banned by the church as being the devil’s music! A-ha! I was right in my use of the word ‘satanic’! The single was a medium sized hit peaking at a respectable No 14 making it, at the time, Sting’s second biggest hit ever.

And still Whitney Houston is No 1 with “I Will Always Love You”! Fear not though as this is the last TOTP repeat that we will see with it still on top of the charts. However that doesn’t mean it’s the last we’ll see of Whitney herself in this year as on that very next episode she’s back with the follow up, her cover of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”. In fact, in 1993 Whitney had five hit singles (if you include “I Will Always Love You”). Never mind being ‘every woman’, she was more ‘ever present woman’.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	How Can I Love You More	No but I think my wife may have had the album
2	Duran Duran	Ordinary World	Good song but not a purchase it seems
3	Def Leppard	Heaven Is	…not having to listen to this. No
4	The Beloved	Sweet Harmony	No
5	Rapination featuring Kym Mazelle	Love Me In The Right Way	Nope
6	Ultravox	Vienna	No but I have it on an Ultravox Best Of (not the one mentioned in the post)
7	Tom Jones	All You Need Is Love	Not even for charity!
8	Extreme	Tragic Comic	Nah
9	Gloworm	I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)	Nope
10	Sting	If I Ever Lose My Faith In You	It’s another no
11	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	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/m0018b82/top-of-the-pops-04021993

TOTP 28 JAN 1993

Posted on June 17, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re already just about through the first month of 1993 at TOTP Rewind and what we’ve seen on the show has done little to assuage my fears about how bad this year’s charts were going to be. It’s been a load of cover versions and old singles rereleased so far and the No 1 hasn’t yet changed since Xmas. There’s been the odd moment of interest like Apache Indian and the return of Duran Duran with decent new material but generally it’s been a bit of a slog already. Come on TOTP producers, give me something stimulating this week please!

It’s not a good start at all. 2 Unlimited amassed fourteen UK chart hits but how many of them could you name other than “No Limit”? OK if you’re an avid watcher of the BBC4 TOTP repeats you might be able to come up with some other titles but I’ve written about this lot every time they’ve featured on the show in the past eighteen months and I’m struggling. They’d had four consecutive big hits from their “Get Ready!” album up to this point but this was the track that defined them and why? Because it was insanely catchy. Like proper designed to make you demented catchy. And how did they do that? They just repeated the most basic two letter word in the English language over and over. It was as simple (or moronic some might say) as that. Well, they did throw in the line ‘techno, techno, techno, techno’ to spice it up a bit as well to be fair to them.

The simplicity of the track didn’t avert us from buying it in buckets all around Europe where it was No 1 just about everywhere. It was especially big over here topping the charts for five weeks and being the UK’s fourth best selling single of the year. I think I’ll leave it there for now. Another five weeks worth of appearances on the show means having to dredge up a lot of words about this one and unlike 2 Unlimited, I have my limits.

If 2 Unlimited had very few lyrics then this next tune had hardly any at all as we get that face morphing video from U.S.U.R.A. again to soundtrack the 40 – 11 chart rundown. “Open Your Mind” was the name of the track and judging by some of the online comments I’ve found after this TOTP repeat went out, there’s still a lot of retro love out there for this rave tune. It reminds me of that Lil Louis track “French Kiss” but without the creepy sex noises. Who were they though? Well, they were an electronic dance group from Italy (obviously) who released a number of singles throughout the 90s but “Open Your Mind” was their standout hit. Indeed it was a hit all over again in 1997 when an updated remix came out.

And that name? Apparently it was inspired by that of one of the group’s mothers who was called Ursula. So why did they decide to make it look like an acronym? Just B.I.Z.A.R.R.E.

It’s a hat trick of dance hits to start the show as West End featuring Sybil are back in the studio with “The Love I Lost” and the differences between them all just serve to highlight what a multi-faceted beast ‘dance music’ is/was. This slick reworking of the old Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes classic was completely removed from the relentless, in your face beats of 2 Unlimited and the repetitive techno house rhythms U.S.U.R.A. but then I guess a slice of Philly soul disco (albeit remade for the 90s) was never going to sound like either of them. Somehow though there was room for all of them in the Top 10 at the same time – the world of dance was a broad church in 1993. I was working in Rochdale at the time this was a hit and from my very limited knowledge of nightclubs in the town (I went to one once), I can imagine that it would have gone down pretty well with the local punters.

The original was a UK No 21 hit in 1974 whilst the 1993 version went all the way to No 3.

The failure in their very early career of Take That to set the charts alight – none of their first three singles got higher than No 38 – is probably not that well remembered now. Similarly lost in the annals of pop history is that their chart rivals East 17 also went through an existential crisis early doors. Having announced themselves to UK pop fans with a Top 10 debut single “House Of Love”, they made the obvious next move of rush releasing a follow up in the form of the similar sounding “Gold”. Obvious isn’t always sensible though and the single struggled to a peak of No 28. Alarm bells rang at record label London Records and apparently there were rumours of the band being dropped unless another major hit single could be pulled out of the fire sharpish. Main songwriter Tony Mortimer would prove with “Deep” that he was more than up to the task.

Whereas the band’s first two hits had been high tempo, high energy stompers with juddering dance beats, “Deep” was nothing of the sort. It had a smooth, mellow funk groove that oozed out of your radio’s speaker. It was almost inconceivable that this was the same band that had been responsible for those first two hits. Apparently it was released on the sly as a promo to clubs initially under the pseudonym Levi and Friends. The reaction from clubbers was enough to warrant a full and official East 17 release. Its Top 5 chart placing was convinced London to let the band stay another day and their future was assured.

OK, that’s the song’s back story taken care of but we need to address this performance. First of all there’s the set. Here’s the band’s Terry Coldwell courtesy of @TOTPFacts on that subject:

Terry Coldwell: "No one told us what the set was gonna be or anything like that… We'd got this cool track and they'd placed us at the bottom of a swimming pool. It was so random." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 10, 2022

I have to take issue with Terry’s choice of the word ‘random’ here. It wasn’t actually random at all. Your song was called “Deep” so the TOTP producers put you in a set made up to look like a swimming pool. And what do swimming pools have Terry? Yep, a deep end. Now, a lame joke it may have been but random? No. Quite why there is a shark tied to the side of said swimming pool wall though remains a mystery. Then there’s the lady on the steps drinking a cocktail. Why is she there? To mine the operatic female vocal effect that appears halfway through the song? Maybe except she doesn’t really do that does she? Oh, is she meant to look like a mermaid? Again, bit of a mixed metaphor there then. Finally, why is John Hendy mooching around in the background with a bass guitar instead of joining in with the rest of the band on their really quite impressive dance moves? Maybe he had a poorly knee. Bless.

The album chart feature is back and this week is showcasing Dina Carroll’s “So Close” long player. The choice of track from it that Dina performs is curious though. On the face of it, “Don’t Be A Stranger” looks like a perfect choice seeing as it was the biggest selling single to be taken from the album. It’s just that it wasn’t released as a single until October. There would be two other singles taken from the album before then. Indeed, the first of those, “This Time”, would come out just a couple of weeks after this TOTP performance so why didn’t she perform that track? Unless…”Don’t Be A Stranger” was meant to be the next single but they kept it back on purpose for the Xmas market? Whatever the truth of the matter, “Don’t Be A Stranger” was a decent ballad and Dina performed it well. It would rise to No 3 in the singles chart when it was finally released nine months later

It’s the Breakers next which include two songs we’ve already seen on the show before starting with “Heaven Is” by Def Leppard. The fourth single from their “Adrenalize” album, it had apparently been around for years before it was finally recorded. Parts of it had been taken from “Hysteria” single “Armageddon It” according to band member Phil Collen. I don’t think that’s much of an endorsement to be honest Phil. A recycled version of a song whose lyrics include the line “Yeah, but are you gettin’ it? (Armageddon it!)”? Why not just get Beavis and Butthead to write your lyrics and be done with it? Utter nonsense. It peaked at No 13 (somehow) oh and singer Joe Elliott hated the video.

What’s this? The Cult’s 1985 hit “She Sells Sanctuary” back in the charts in 1993? What was going on?! Well, it’s a simple enough explanation. To fill a three year gap between studio albums, a Greatest Hits album entitled “Pure Cult: For Rockets, Ravers, Lovers And Sinners” was released and the band’s best known song was rereleased to promote it. Except it actually went by the title of “She Sells Sanctuary MCMXCIII” I believe and it’s…f******g horrible! What have they done to this stellar track?! I’ll tell you what – added some ridiculous bongos to it! Why? Just WHY?

Alright, I’m calming down. Back in 1985, this was the tune that got us all onto the dance floor in The Barn, my nightclub of choice in Worcester during my youth. I testified on the raised dance floor many a time to this track. And then…The Barn got taken over by new management and changed its name to the wankiest ever – Images On Glass – and changed its DJ who would not play anything even slightly goth or indie and The Cult were taken off the playlist. Instead we had to put up with the likes of Luther Vandross and Alexander O’Neal and the hippest tune they would play would be “Sanctify Yourself” by Simple Minds. It was a grim time.

Meanwhile in 1993, the remix of “She Sells Sanctuary” matched the chart peak of the original release when it made it to No 15. The “Pure Cult” Greatest Hits album – perhaps surprisingly – went to No 1.

It’s a third rock band on the spin as we get the latest single by Bon Jovi. The second single from their “Keep The Faith” album, “Bed Of Roses” would peak at a rather disappointing No 13. Now I’ve admitted in the past to my Bon Jovi weaknesses but this one always seemed like a bit of a duffer to me. A bit laborious, a bit obvious and not their finest hour at all to my ears but there seems to be a lot of online love out there for the track. For me though it was possibly the weakest of the singles from the album trailing far behind “In These Arms”, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” and the epic “Dry County”.

Apparently Jon Bon Jovi refused to shoot the mountain top scenes in the video having already been filmed at the top of a canyon for the “Blaze Of Glory” single from Young Guns II. He sent his band mates Richie Sambora and David Bryan instead. Rumour has it that, in reply to his instruction, they both said “I’ll Be There For You”. I’ll get me coat.

The re-emergence of Duran Duran is still in full effect. The “Ordinary World” single is rocketing up the charts and therefore qualifies as a Breaker this week. The video plays on the wedding theme of the album’s cover (despite officially having an eponymous title, it is also known as ‘the wedding album’) depicting a bride on her wedding day with the band as guests.

There’s a couple of things that always struck me about the video. Firstly, what was the deal with the elongated bow/sash thing that makes the bride’s wedding dress look like it has wings. Nick Rhodes has a fiddle with the accessory later on in the video when he’s setting up a photo shoot (of course he would play the photographer!). Secondly, the guy she’s marrying is punching so far above his weight he’s in danger of being knocked out in the first round. Despite those reservations and Simon Le Bon’s dodgy barnet, the whole thing just about hangs together OK.

I’m putting this out there right from the get go – I don’t like Lulu. I don’t like her voice, I always hated her most famous song “Shout” and I get the impression she’s not very nice. I know she’s carved out a career of huge longevity for herself and is one of just two performers (the other being Cliff Richard) to have performed on TOTP in every decade that the show was broadcast but I just don’t warm to her. There’s an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks (I think) where Dale Winton voiced his hatred of Lulu by saying he’d happily dance on her grave! You don’t get more savage takedowns than that.

Anyway, in 1993, she tried to resurrect her pop career. She’d only managed one hit in the 80s (a rerelease of “Shout”) so she returned with some material that had clearly been written to be contemporary and update her sound. “Independence” was the song that she chose to relaunch herself with and it was a slick, soul/dance number that drew inevitable comparisons with Lisa Stansfield. It all seemed very cynical to me. A carefully designed strategy to make Lulu still sound relevant. It did nothing for me.

The single made No 11 which I’m guessing would have been seen as a decent return for all that plotting but the album of the same name bombed and furnished her with only one further minor chart hit, a duet with Bobby Womack. Undaunted, Lulu regrouped and reappeared later in the year on a No 1 hit no less when she guested on Take That’s cover of Dan Hartman’s “Relight My Fire” prompting much gossip about which of the lads she was shagging. Now that really was something for the tabloids to ‘shout’ about.

Whitney Houston is still No 1. Apparently the original choice for the big song from The Bodyguard film was Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” but it had already been used heavily in the previous year’s Fried Green Tomatoes so that idea was ditched.

The main driver behind the decision to go with “I Will Always Love You” was Kevin Costner who made the case that the plot of the film hinged on Whitney’s character singing an a cappella version of it. In fact, Costner’s influence was also felt over Houston being cast in the role. So sure was he of her suitability was he that he convinced the studio to delay recording for a year until she was available. This was on the back of his Dances With Wolves film winning an Oscar in 1991 so his stock was very high. Not even that run in with her Madgesty on In Bed With Madonna could dent his halo.

Right at the end of the show there’s what can only be described as a Sting in the tail. Actually, it was more of a Sting trailer as host Tony Dortie bigs up the ex frontman of The Police being on the show next week. To do this there’s a compilation of three of his previous hits (“All This Time”, “The Soul Cages” and “An Englishman In New York”) to work the watching TV audience up into a frenzy. This was all very strange. Had this ever been done for anyone else? Was Sting still such a big name at this time? These were Kevin Costner levels of influence!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	No Limit	God no!
2	U.S.U.R.A.	Open Your Mind	Not for me thanks
3	West End featuring Sybil	The Love I Lost	I did not
4	East 17	Deep	No but my wife had the Walthamstow album
5	Dina Carroll	Don’t Be A Stranger	No
6	Def Leppard	Heaven Is	…not having to listen to this. No!
7	The Cult	She Sells Sanctuary	Not this horrible remix but I must have the original on something
8	Bon Jovi	Bed Of Roses	No but I had a promo copy of the album
9	Duran Duran	Ordinary World	Good song but not a purchase it seems
10	Lulu	Independence	Away with you!
11	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	Nope

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/m00183dv/top-of-the-pops-28011993

TOTP 21 JAN 1993

Posted on June 15, 2022 by 80stastic

There’s a new president in the White House as the day before this TOTP aired, Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd POTUS. I can’t really think about Clinton without this coming to mind…

And then this of course…

Politicians lying. Fast forward thirty odd years and literally nothing has changed. If anything, it’s got worse. And that’ll do for the intro this time. I’ve done a few lengthy ones lately so I’m due a more succinct start to a post.

We start the show with yet another 70s disco revival. After Boney M and their recent megamix single and Greatest Hits album returned them to the charts for the first time in well over a decade, now strode Sister Sledge straight into the Top 10. What was going on?

The last time we saw the sisters in the UK charts was eight years previous with a No 1 hit that was, for me, one of the worst hits of…well…ever. I refer of course to the execrable “Frankie”, a song so bad that it didn’t just stink the place out but dissolved its foundations with its foul stench. After that inexplicable chart topper, nothing, zip, nada. And then this comeback with a remix of 1979 hit and their signature tune “We Are Family”. Entitled the ‘Sure Is Pure Remix’, this is was to promote, like the aforementioned Boney M, a Greatest Hits compilation simply called “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge 1973-93”. Well, I guess you couldn’t blame their record label for wanting a piece of the retro action but this wasn’t the first time that there’d been a Sister Sledge revival. Back in 1984, Chic remixes of “Lost In Music” and “We Are Family” had graced the Top 40 to the tune of Nos 4 and 33 respectively yet here they were back again for another go. It seems you really can’t keep a good tune down and “We Are Family” is a good tune no doubt. The 1993 version peaked at No 5 and inevitably led to a follow up which was a re-release of, yes of course, “Lost In Music”. A bit less obviously there was a final rerelease of their 1984 hit “Thinking Of You” which would give the group their third hit single of the year.

As for the performance here, the first thing that I noticed is that there’s only three of the group on stage immediately rendering untrue the lyrics “I got all my sisters with me”. I’ve tried to work out who is there and who is missing. Kathy is definitely doing the lead vocals and I think that’s Kim and Debbie up there with her meaning it’s Joni who was missing (I think). Was it Joni who did most of the singing on “Frankie”? Sadly Joni passed away in 2017 but the group is still going via the family’s next generation as the sisters’ kids are now involved. Their website welcomes visitors with the intro:

Welcome ”FAM”, to the official Sister Sledge website! Keep it real, keep it “SLEDGENDARY®”!

They’ve copyrighted the word ‘sledgendary’. Excellent!

It’s the 40-11 chart rundown next over the top of the video for Faith No More’s cover of “Easy” by the Commodores or “I’m Easy” as they have inexplicably taken it upon themselves to retitle it. The band are on record as saying that even though their version is very faithful, the video featuring some transvestites shows that they were ‘up to something’ in their decision to record it and that it was all very tongue in cheek. Was it the case then that they were trying to subvert and expose the mechanisms of the music industry by releasing the song and were in fact some sort of US version of The KLF?! I’m not sure I get nor am buying this.

“I’m Easy” peaked at No 3 in the UK but was only a minor hit in the US where it stuck at No 58. Cultural differences and all that.

Here’s a thing. I would never have thought that there was a connection between UK blue eyed soul merchants Go West and US West Coast rapper 2Pac but there is and it’s this song called “What You Won’t Do For Love”. Nothing to do with Meatloaf and his similar sounding single that would be the year’s best seller, this was actually a cover version (another one) of a 1978 track written by US singer-song writer Bobby Caldwell.

The 2Pac connection is courtesy of it being sampled for posthumous single “Do For Love” whist Go West recorded it for their “Indian Summer” album.

Peter Cox and Richard Drummie were on a bit of a roll come 1993. This was their third Top 20 hit on the bounce after “King Of Wishful Thinking” and “Faithful”. Who could have predicted that when the hits had dried up in the late 80s? I’m surprised it was a hit though as the duo’s version is a real plodder and sounds lumpen next to the original. To be honest I’m more drawn to their backing band than the song. There’s a sax player who looks like Eric Catchpole from Lovejoy and a guy on keyboards who resembles Just Good Friends actor and “Dancing With The Captain” hitmaker Paul Nicholas.

Go West saw out 1993 with two more UK hits both taken from their Best Of collection “Aces And Kings”. Their cover (another one!) of “The Tracks Of My Tears” by The Miracles reached No 16 whilst a re-release of debut hit “We Close Our Eyes” just scraped in at No 40. The band gave never returned to the UK charts since.

Snap! are waiting on the next stage to perform their hit “Exterminate!”. They were really keen on the use of exclamation marks weren’t they? I say ‘they’ but this seems to be mostly being promoted as a Niki Haris single if the on screen graphics and host Mark Franklin’s intro are anything to go by. She has had quite the career though. As well as her time with Snap!, she’s toured extensively with Madonna and collaborated with the likes of Anita Baker, Prince, Ray Charles, Tom Jones and Luther Vandross to name but a few. That Billie Holiday tribute thing that Franklin mentions though, well I struggled to find much online about that at all. Was it a film, TV special, album, concert? I found a listing on the BFI database but only scant details about it. Did it ever happen? Maybe it was exterminated? I’ll get me coat.

Yay the Breakers! This is where I have to comment on a load of songs some of which we may only ever get to see/hear for 30 seconds or so. Seems like a good deal. We start with a song for Bill Clinton – “Dogs Of Lust” by The The. Just as I have previously posted about XTC and Prefab Sprout, The The really don’t get the commercial success their catalogue deserves. Not in terms of the charts anyway and with TOTP being a show predominantly based around the Top 40, we rarely got to see them on our screens. I say ‘them’ but I mean Matt Johnson as the band really are basically a vehicle for his creativity.

This single was his first chart hit since 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation” and only his third ever at the time. It feels wrong to say that “Dogs Of Lust” was typical The The fare as if the word ‘typical’ could ever be applied to Matt Johnson but it was in the respect that it was as uncompromising, startling and in your face a track as everything he does always is. The opening harmonica riff which becomes a repeating refrain is reminiscent of the theme tune from The Old Grey Whistle Test and came courtesy of everyone’s favourite in demand collaborator Johnny Marr.

The track was the lead single from the album “Dusk” which, in a chart statistic that seeks to undermine my earlier claims about lack of commercial success, peaked at No 2. It produced three hit singles in all though none were bigger than “Dogs Of Lust” and its No 25 chart high.

Matt’s next two albums achieved very modest sales and he busied himself with creating film soundtracks as the new millennium dawned though he has recently released a No live album of his comeback gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

I’d totally forgotten that there was a fourth single release from Del Amitri’s “Change Everything” album despite it being the second biggest of the lot with a chart peak of No 20. The title of this one is almost a single by The Jam (“When You’re Young”) and very nearly a Bucks Fizz hit (“When We Were Young”) but “When You Were Young” it was and a pleasant little ditty it was too if a little formulaic.

There had been a gap of five months or so since their last single “Just Like A Man” but that was a marketing strategy decision apparently as “When You Were Young” was kept back to avoid the Xmas rush. I think the plan worked.

Alice In Chains? To quote Roy Chubby Brown, “Who The F**k Is Alice?”. Well, they were one of those grunge bands of course that were meant to flood the UK music scene in the wake of Nirvana but which never really materialised. “Would?” was actually from the soundtrack to the film Singles which I loved but which my friend Robin who I saw it with hated. In essence, it was your basic romantic comedy/ drama but set in Seattle against the backdrop of the grunge movement. Following the love lives of two couples and one single person, its soundtrack featured big grunge hitters like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and of course Alice In Chains as well as alternative rockers like Paul Westerberg and The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m pretty sure I even gave it a play on the shop stereo of the Rochdale Our Price I was working in. “Would?” is a heavy sound that wouldn’t normally have floated my boat but then I had liked “Alive” by Pearl Jam so maybe my tastes were changing back then.

Alice In Chains would rack up a string of minor hits in the UK during the 90s though none as big as “Would?” which peaked at No 19. They also had songs feature on two other films, Arnie’s Last Action Hero and slacker comedy Clerks. Oh, and the reason Robin hated Singles? There’s a character called Steve in it who is a town planner but who used to be a DJ. In a scene in his flat with new girlfriend Linda, they’re perusing his record collection and the vinyl is in PVC sleeves. Even his punk records. This disgusted Robin so much he barely paid any attention to the rest of the film.

A lot of the dance anthems that have featured on these TOTP repeats have failed to ring any bells with me but I do recall “Open Your Mind” by U.S.U.R.A. This piece of Italian techno sampled “New Gold Dream (81–82–83–84)” by Simple Minds and was a dance smash around Europe including over here where it peaked at No 7. I even recall that it was on the very hip Deconstruction Records label because it had that generic red and yellow single cover with a band looping a ‘d’ and ‘c’ together.

The face morphing video caused a bit of a stir not for its effects – it was no “Black And White” – but because of the faces chosen which included Joe McCarthy, Benito Mussolini, Richard Nixon, Ian Paisley, Ronald Reagan, Josef Stalin, Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse. Interestingly no Bill Clinton though.

Now to a very underrated band with a song that’s actually a bit of a banger in a very understated way. The Beloved had come to popular attention in late ‘89/early ‘90 with the hit singles “The Sun Rising” and “Hello” and an album “Happiness” which gained positive reviews for its fusion of house and pop music. Fast forward three years and the band had been through a seismic shift with founding member Steve Waddington having left the fold. Remaining original member Jon Marsh replaced him with his wife Helena. Nothing like keeping it in the family eh?

This new line up returned in 1993 with “Sweet Harmony” the lead single from new album “Conscience”. It was still that combination of dance beats and a pop structure on which they’d made their name but this time that sound had been refined right down to the most precise of details. This was so slick that it worked as a club anthem and as a great pop song as substantiated by its Top 10 chart placing. Clearly the TOTP producers didn’t quite know what to do with this genre bending hit as exemplified by that classic default strategy of flooding the stage with dry ice.

However, it wasn’t their appearance on the show that everyone was talking about but rather the single’s accompanying promo video. You know, the nudity one. Yes, the staging of a naked Jon Marsh surrounded by similarly nude women (infamously including then unknown but future TV presenter Tess Daly) was meant to promote the idea of human unity but instead got the likes of the aforementioned Mary Whitehouse outraged at the indecency.

There were at least two people who did like it though…

What was it this week with acts who felt the need to turn their names into faux acronyms. After U.S.U.R.A. earlier, we now have T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Didn’t these people realise I’d be writing a blog thirty years later and have to type this nonsense out?!

After being a Breaker last week, this Clivillés and Cole project were in the studio seven days on to perform “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”. Yes, that’s TV’s Michelle Visage up there with the Nosferatu talons and she’s giving me some heavy PM Dawn / “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” vibes with her rapping style.

Taken from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, it was already at its No 17 peak which was 13 places lower than the chart high achieved by a Ben Liebrand remix of the Bill Withers original back in 1988.

Now I knew there were at least two singles taken from Def Leppard’s “Adrenalize” album in the odious “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man” but I had no idea that it had gifted the world six! “Heaven Is” was the fourth of those and lead singer Joe Elliott is on record as saying the song was ‘more Queen than Queen’ and that the backing vocals sounded like The Beach Boys. Hmm. Let’s have another listen then…

*3 minutes 37 seconds later*

…nah, that’s just the same old Def Leppard shite.

“Heaven Is” peaked at No 13.

Is this week eight at the top for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You”? I’m losing count now. I’m also running out of things to say about it so instead, here’s Dolly Parton’s original…

…and Whitney’s version for comparison…

*So which is best?

*It’s Dolly. Obviously.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sister Sledge	We Are Family (Sure Is Pure Remix)	Nope
2	Faith No More	I’m Easy	No
3	Go West	What You Won’t Do For Love	I did not
4	Snap!	Exterminate!	Nah
5	The The	Dogs Of Lust	No but I maybe should have
6	Del Amitri	When You Were Young	Not the single but it’s on my Best Of of theirs that I have
7	Alice In Chains	Would?	Negative
8	U.S.U.R.A.	Open Your Mind	Remembered it, didn’t buy it
9	The Beloved	Sweet Harmony	See 5 above
10	T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.	It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day	And no
11	Def Leppard	Heaven Is	Not this – no!
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	She’ll never beat Dolly for me

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/m00183ds/top-of-the-pops-21011993

TOTP 24 SEP 1992

Posted on April 2, 2022 by 80stastic

OK, the relentless BBC4 schedule of two TOTP shows a week combined with 14 episodes that we missed due to Adrian Rose’s unwillingness to sign a repeats waiver has delivered us into late September back in 1992. On the day this particular show was broadcast, Conservative MP David Mellor resigned from government in the light of his adulterous affair with actress Antonia De Sancha. Remember that? Can that really be 30 years ago?! I actually find myself longing for the days when a sex scandal dominated the news rather than the utter existential misery that we have these days. What I found must upsetting and shocking about this little tale of sleaze wasn’t the revelation that the wretched Mellor claimed to be a fan of my beloved Chelsea (though the shame of association with this vile man was bad enough) but that he apparently made love in a Chelsea strip. Eeewww! The Sun mocked up a picture of Mellor in said kit with the tag line ‘Night he scored four times with actress’. The whole thing was repulsive! Now of course, those stories of existential misery I mentioned before also apply to Chelsea – life was so much simpler back then David Mellor and all.

We start tonight’s show with an act called Messiah who have covered Donna Summer’s shimmering Giorgio Moroder co-written and produced disco classic “I Feel Love” (one for David Mellor there – eeewww!). Yet again, despite the real possibility that I may have sold this record to an eager punter while working at Our Price in Rochdale, I have zero recall of this track. The Donna Summer original? Obviously. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond’s cover from 1985? Of course. This techno rave up? Not a flicker.

Apparently that’s Precious Wilson doing the vocals who was in Eruption of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and “One Way Ticket” fame back in the 70s. Backing her up is a man playing a fiddle who seems to be doing an impression of Jerry Sadowitz’s “Ebeneezer Goode” character, a guy on keyboards at the back channelling his inner Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys (even down to the very tall hat) and, randomly, two people in Star Wars stormtrooper headgear. It looks a bit of a mess visually. The ‘Hail the Messiah!’ sample is from Life Of Brian.

Messiah’s version of “I Feel Love” peaked at No 19.

Reminder to self: Sade is the name of the band not the singer. Same as Toyah. Do not forget this when writing the next few paragraphs.

Sade is a bit of a mystery isn’t she? DOH!! I mean, Sade are an enigmatic band aren’t they? Making huge waves in 1984 with their BRIT award winning, four times platinum selling debut album “Diamond Life”, their sound seem to be completely fully formed immediately and created the cultural trope of the ‘coffee table album’. Two more albums followed in the next four years peaking at Nos 1 and 3. They played Live Aid. And yet…what do we really know about them and why, given their popularity, have they only ever had one Top 10 hit?

Well, aside from the fact that they are a band not a singer that I addressed before, three of them were from my home of the last 18 years Hull while the band’s singer Sade Adu was from Nigeria originally. They were like the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars of sophisti-pop. Sade (the individual) had worked as a part-time model and fashion designer before settling on music as her career of choice. I think she was part of the Blitz scene at the start of the 80s hanging out with New Romantic heroes Spandau Ballet who didn’t realise she could sing. By 1983, the buzz about her and her band was enough to attract the attention of Epic Records and contracts were duly signed.

Then came that genre defining first album and the whole world seemed to know their name. Or rather Sade Adu’s name. Could anyone name any other member of the band without googling them? As for their lack of singles success, maybe they’re just an album artist but the truth is that apart from debut single “Your Love Is King” going to No 6, none of their singles got higher than No 14. Which brings us to 1992 and “No Ordinary Love”. As well as having a song title that could make a David Mellor/Antonia De Sancha playlist (eeewww!), this would prove to be their second biggest hit ever (yep that No 14 hit) and was from the band’s fourth album “Love Deluxe”.

The release of that album made it four in eight years giving a rate of one every two years which was pretty consistent. However, it would be eight years before the next long player (2000’s “Lovers Rock”) and a further ten years after that before their sixth and so far last album (2010’s “Soldier Of Love”). Back in 1992 though, the fanbase had little idea that this batch of new songs would have to sustain them throughout the rest of the decade.

Despite having been away for four years during which there had been a dance music explosion, the TOTP producers still believed in Sade’s blend of sophisti-pop / neo soul enough to give them an ‘exclusive’ slot on the show. To be honest though, they did rather dish them out as prolifically as fixed penalty notices to a Conservative government. Sade (the individual) gives her usual sultry performance and doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the eight years since she first burst into the charts.

“No Ordinary Love” was originally a No 26 hit but achieved that No 14 peak when rereleased eight months later in June of 1993. I have no idea why that was.

Right, there’s two ‘what’s going on here then?’ moments in one next. Firstly, there’s a change of format with an extended chart rundown now included which covers places 20 through to 11 – previously we’d had to make do with the Top 10. It’s just a rolling ticker tape display over the top of a video but still. It’s a nod towards the format of old I guess.

Secondly, said video this week is from Omar but it’s for a song that isn’t “There’s Nothing Like This”. Eh? What gives? Omar had more than one Top 40 hit?! Well, he did but one of them wasn’t this single “Music”, the title track from his second album which peaked at No 53! What was going on here?! Singles that weren’t actually hits being given airtime on the show? And then irony of ironies, they play it as the backdrop of a new Top 40 centric feature! To top it all off, the track is only given 40 seconds before it’s yanked off screen. I’m guessing that the producers negotiated with Omar’s label and came up with a way of getting him on the show but the payback was it was for a very small amount of airtime. It’s basically a Breaker slot but they couldn’t call it that as it wasn’t actually in the Top 40 and so technically couldn’t be said to have ‘broken’ into the charts. What a mess!

Ah, that’s unfortunate. It’s Boy George next with “The Crying Game”. Not unfortunate because I didn’t like the record – I didn’t mind it really – but because it was literally the second to last song reviewed in my last post so I’m completely spent when it comes to saying anything else about it. OK well, George’s version of this song that was originally a hit in the 60s for Dave Berry (not that bloke on Absolute Radio in a morning) was taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name and and was produced by Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant.

I like the nod to George’s past with his twangy guitar player dressed like the Culture Club singer from ten years previous.

This is more like it *TOTP! This is what the kids wanted! In Autumn of 1992, you couldn’t be more achingly hip than Suede were. Lauded as many things including the antidote to grunge and the spearhead of a new wave of British rock music, they rode the zeitgeist hard with Melody Maker dubbing them “The Best New Band in Britain”. They appeared on the publication’s front cover before they even had a recording contract. They weren’t just big news, they were the news.

Inevitably given lead singer Brett Anderson’s androgynous image and the band’s glam rock influences, Bowie comparisons abounded. Impact wise, they were talked of in the same breath as The Smiths. Retrospectively, they have been allocated the status of the John the Baptist of Britpop, paving the way for the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp et al to dominate the mid 90s. It’s a role the band don’t sit comfortably with. Not everyone was sold on them initially though. My friend Robin who was living in London at the time caught an early gig of theirs and his three word review was “Suede – I wasn’t”. Clever sod.

“Metal Mickey” was the band’s first Top 40 hit though not their first single released. That’s honour went to “The Drowners” which had come out a few months before but failed to make the Top 40 despite being a great tune. By the time their debut eponymous album was released in March the following year, they had clocked up a Top 10 single in “Animal Nitrate” and the album duly went to No 1 becoming, at the time, the fastest selling debut album in UK history in a decade. It won the very first Mercury Music Prize and went on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK. I can remember playing it very loudly in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working before opening.

Four years later I saw the band live myself in Blackburn with my mate Steve on the tour for the “Coming Up” album. They were supported by Mansun. Both bands were good as I recall. We’ll no doubt be seeing lots more of Suede in these TOTP repeats.

“Metal Mickey” peaked at No 17.

*Interesting how in his intro host Mark Franklin actually says “TOTP” rather than “Top Of The Pops”. I just use the acronym to save on typing in my blog. What was Mark’s reason for using it?

Today may have been the end of the road for David Mellor’s political career but it was the start of a journey for one of the biggest selling singles of the year and indeed, one of the biggest selling of the decade in the US. “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men was No 1 over there for 13 weeks straight and was certified platinum for shifting a million units and won two Grammy awards. It topped the charts in the UK for three weeks and was the sixth best selling single of the year here. In short, it was a monster.

As with Boy George’s hit earlier, it was from a film soundtrack but unlike George’s one I’ve never seen, at least not all the way through. Boomerang was the latest Eddie Murphy in which he plays a character who is an advertising executive, a womaniser and male chauvinist. Hmm. I think made the right choice.

Anyway, so popular was “End Of The Road” that Boyz II Men’s debut album “Cooleyhighharmony” – which didn’t include the song initially – was rereleased with it now on the track listing. Their sound has been described as ‘hip-hop doo wop’ and helped establish R’n’B as the dominant music genre into the new millennium. For me though, “End Of The Road” was quite a straight forward big ballad albeit that unusually it featured all four members taking the lead vocal at various points in the song.

The performance here was from New Orleans and the most striking thing about it was their wardrobe. What were they thinking?! Matching suits and ties is fine but with baseball caps and shirt trousers?! It just looks weird. I mean not disturbing like David Mellor in his Chelsea kit but weird all the same.

“End Of The Road” will be No 1 soon enough so I’ll keep the rest of my powder dry until then.

An artist who is remembered for one song next though she really wasn’t a one hit wonder. The rule of diminishing returns after soaring the highest highs with her debut single was the possibly unfair fate that befell Tasmin Archer. That single was of course “Sleeping Satellite” and I definitely remember the advertising strategy for the single included a bill poster campaign which asked the question ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ with very little other information. Loads of these posters just started appearing overnight. Quite clever in terms of building anticipation I guess.

The single was perfect for daytime radio. A well crafted pop song built around a swirling piano riff and a swooping chorus, the record buying public’s resistance was futile. This was always going to be a hit and a big one. I’m not sure even the most committed of Archer’s record label team could have predicted a No 1 though. Surely Tasmin herself couldn’t have expected that outcome first time out despite her debut album being called “Great Expectations”. In a way, “Sleeping Satellite” flew decidedly in the face of its chart peers with the Top 40 being populated by dance track after dance track but then hadn’t Chesney Hawkes scored a huge No 1 with a decidedly pop record the year before? Was it just a case of history repeating itself?

My wife and I saw Tasmin live years later kind of by accident or at least it wasn’t planned. We were in Glasgow for a birthday weekend away and wandering around the city centre stumbled across the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and saw that she was playing there that night. We decided on a whim to go and bought tickets. Tasmin’s star had fallen a fair way by this point though (1996 I think) and the Strathclyde Suite in the venue was half full. She did her best but the audience reaction to her set suggested that they were just there for one obvious song. She told us punters that she’d been watching Stars In Their Eyes in her hotel room before the gig and let it slip that “I’d just die if someone did me”. I’m pretty sure nobody ever has.

Three Breakers now beginning with Def Leppard and a third single from their “Adrenalize” album called “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”. I don’t recall any singles from this album after the first two, the execrable duo of “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man”. I probably couldn’t handle any more after those two and deliberately avoided them. The soul searching title of this one sounds like it should be a ballad. OK, just for you lot I’ll break the habit of 30 years and give it a listen…

Well, I was right it is a ballad but it’s hardly a thing of delicate beauty is it? It’s all very soft rock by numbers sounding with crunchy guitars and Joe Elliott’s strained vocals. It’s sort of like Nigel Tufnel’s “Lick My Love Pump” in reverse if you get my drift.

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” peaked at No 16.

Some proper rockers now as we get the video for “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam. I didn’t know the back story to this one nor about the controversy surrounding the video until now. Written about 15 year old Texas high school kid Jeremy Delle who shot himself in front of his classmates in 1991, it was the third single to be released from the band’s all conquering “Ten” album and peaked at No 15 in the UK.

The video follows the source material pretty graphically and caused MTV to order that the scene showing ‘Jeremy’ with a gun in his mouth to be edited out. The network’s outrage didn’t stop the video from picking up four MTV Video Music Awards including video of the year though. The controversy surrounding the video caused the band to recoil from them and didn’t make another one for six whole years. MTV rarely broadcast the promo after the Columbine High School massacre of 1999 though the uncensored version was released on Pearl Jam’s YouTube channel in 2020 to mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

If you asked the average punter to name a tune by The Prodigy that had the word ‘fire’ in it, I’m betting the vast majority would respond with “Firestarter”. There is another possible answer though. “Fire/Jericho” was the band’s third single and paved the way for their debut album “Experience” which was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. A double A-side, it’s “Fire” that gets an airing on the show tonight. Sampling The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” amongst others, it was written to reflect that not all ravers were off their heads on ecstasy but some were blazing up on weed as well. One in the eye for Mary Whitehouse there.

The band seemed to have disowned the track in that it does not feature on their Best Of album “Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005” and that they hated the video that was made to promote it. Apparently it was the quality of the computer graphics that really irked them. Viewed by 2022 standards then yes, they look prehistoric but we’re they really so bad in 1992? I suppose it depends what you are comparing them to. Alongside the video for “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits then they hold up. Viewed against A-ha’s “Take On Me” or Michael Jackson’s face morphing “Black And White” then they do appear amateurish at best.

“Fire/Jericho” peaked at No 11.

From rave to…Mike Oldfield? Yes, you can criticise the show for many things but you have to admit that TOTP did its best to reflect all musical genres. Oldfield of course had just released “Tubular Bells II” but, inverting the release schedule, hadn’t trailed it with a lead single. This was rectified by the release of “Sentinel” a couple of weeks later.

Was I excited about “Tubular Bells II”? Hardly. Though I did have a dark Mike Oldfield secret – I’d bought his “Moonlight Shadow” single almost 10 years before – I’d never been inspired to seek out his back catalogue. Obviously I knew of the original “Tubular Bells” album from 1973 but my knowledge of it was limited to the introduction theme from it that was used in the film The Exorcist. That brings us nicely back to “Sentinel” which was a re-imagining of that piece. The performance in Edinburgh that Mark Franklin references in his intro was a live concert at Edinburgh castle on 4 September with 6,000 people in attendance. Oldfield’s performance here though really is that of the stereotypical muso even down to his carefully coiffured but meant to look carefree hair. He’s playing guitar and keyboards but still has two other keyboard players with him as well as a guy on piano. Alright we get it Mike! Your art is so elaborate and complex that you need all that entourage with you.

Researching Oldfield’s discography, I had no idea he’d made so many studio albums- 26 and counting! Mind you he does go in for big numbers. He’s been married four times and has seven children. I didn’t know that he wrote the score for The Killing Fields, a film that had a profound effect on me the first time I saw it. Presumably it wasn’t Oldfield’s choice to use John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the film’s denouement? Having said that, there were rumours that the aforementioned “Moonlight Shadow” was written about Lennon’s murder in 1980. Oldfield had arrived in New York on the same day and was staying just a few blocks from the Dakota building so…

“Sentinel” peaked at No 10.

We arrive at the No 1 and it’s still “Ebenezer Goode” by The Shamen. I wonder if there is/was a real person called Ebeneezer Goode? There must be surely? I know someone who has an uncle Ebeneezer but there surname isn’t Goode. When you Google the name, if you scroll down enough you get to a result that talks about a Methodist chapel in Suffolk that has been converted into a weekend retreat and it’s called Ebeneezer Goode! Either the owner used to be a raver in his youth or it’s named after a person who really did exist surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Messiah	I Feel Love	Nah
2	Sade	No Ordinary Love	No
3	Omar	Music	Never happening
4	Boy George	The Crying Game	Nope
5	Suede	Metal Mickey	No but I bought the album
6	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	I did not
7	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
8	Def Leppard	Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad	Hell no!
9	Pearl Jam	Jeremy	It’s a no
10	The Prodigy	Fire / Jericho	Jeri-no
11	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Sent me to sleep more like – no
12	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	He’s ever so good…but I didn’t buy it

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015x8y/top-of-the-pops-24091992

TOTP 02 JUL 1992

Posted on March 8, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re jumping about in two week increments at the moment at TOTP Rewind. We’ve only had two consecutive ‘92 shows in these repeats since BBC4 reached the end of April editions. This is of course due to ‘year zero’ presenter Adrian Rose who decided not to sign the waiver paperwork for the shows he featured in. Given the abuse he regularly gets from the online TOTP community, I wonder if he still stands by that decision. He probably doesn’t give a toss does he?

Talking of decisions, a huge one had been made at the BBC which resulted in an event that took place the day after this TOTP aired. Yes, Friday 3rd July 1992 saw the last ever episode of the Wogan talk show broadcast. Its ten year tenure was finally brought to an end and saw it replaced by new BBC soap Eldorado. Remember that? It was god awful and beset with problems not the least of which was that the producers had cast some totally inexperienced actors in the roles. It lasted just 12 months before being axed. Oh and it was nothing to do with this bunch of monstrously haired pop hopefuls who were big in the mid 80s in Italy but absolutely nowhere else on the planet…

Anyway, back to Wogan and that final show. His guests included Frank Bruno, Michael Crawford and Jason Donovan who provided one of the musical interludes. In a recent article in Classic Pop magazine, regular columnist Ian Peel made a case that the Wogan archives were a treasure trove of great pop performances. Unlike TOTP, artists promoting their latest singles didn’t necessarily have to have already cracked the Top 40 and in some cases never did. This led to some wonderful footage that otherwise might never have existed. I bet Drum Theatre were on the show at some point! Anyway, might be worth a look on YouTube for some lost performances if you have too much time on your hands like me.

With that context set, let’s get on with the show. There’s only one presenter tonight (Tony Dortie) and I think this tweak of the format comes to be the standard in the weeks to come. We begin with something from the US charts and it’s Arrested Development with “Tennessee”. With the gangsta rap genre on the rise, this hip hop ensemble took rap in a different direction with a more melodic approach. They combined that with lyrical themes that espoused spirituality and freedom rather than the misogyny and street gang culture of gangsta rap. It helped to create a winning formula that propelled their debut album “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days In The Life Of…” to sales of over 6 million copies worldwide.

Initially though, they weren’t an immediate hit in the UK. This single “Tennessee” missed the Top 40 on its original release though it would become a hit here when rereleased the following year. It took next single, the Sly & The Family Stone copying “People Everyday”, to break the dam allowing success to flood in when it hit No 2 in the charts towards the end of the year. My wife was so taken with them that she bought the album.

More a collective than a band, the project spilt in 1996 after declining sales but reformed in 2000 and have since released twelve albums. They’re currently on tour and playing a gig in my neck of the woods in Cottingham in April. There’s even talk of us going.

I can’t find a clip of the TOTP performance online so the official promo video will have to suffice.

The sound of Staffordshire rave now as Altern–8 bring us their latest dance floor banger that has the figure 8 in its title, that being their trademark and all. Well, that and the face masks and hazmat suits. “Hypnotic St-8” is their latest offering but this performance isn’t about the track at all. No, the only thing to concern us here are the two fully adidas trackied up geezers throwing some shapes behind the singer. They look proper mental. Totally off their tits. Surely that couldn’t have been faked could it? There must have been some chemical substances involved. I wonder who these guys were? Mates of the band or just some random clubheads that they picked up off the streets? The latter looks more likely given the state of them. Wow!

“Hypnotic St-8” peaked at No 16.

Due to the missed Adrian Rose shows, this is the second post running that I have to find something to say about Def Leppard and their almost unspeakable single “Make Love Like A Man”. This week it’s the promo video but it might as well be the band in the studio again as it’s just a straight performance promo intercut with some old time movie footage possibly featuring stars like Harold Lloyd or Lillian Gish though I’m no cinephile of that era so I could be wrong on that score. The song is all tongue in cheek, knockabout fun according to the band so I don’t suppose we should read too much into the film clips.

Although “Make Love Like A Man” was a big hit on the US Rock chart, the band’s ability to cross over into the US mainstream Billboard Hot 100 – as they had done in the late 80s with the “Hysteria” album – had diminished by 1992 and it only made No 36 there. UK fans were more loyal taking it to No 12.

This is more like it! Electronic hadn’t been seen on the show since “Get The Message” made the Top 10 over a year earlier but now they were back but, as Tory Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis might say, in a very specific and limited way. It took five years for Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr to record a follow up album to 1991’s eponymous debut and in the meantime the only new material we got to hear was this one off single “Disappointed”. Taken from the soundtrack to absolutely rotten live action/animation hybrid film Cool World, it featured the vocals once again of Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant who sang on their debut hit “Getting Away With It” in 1989. It’s a perfect bit of pop confection that would prove to be their biggest hit when it peaked at No 6.

Given that it’ll be years before we see them once more, I might as well tell my Johnny Marr story again. It was November 1999 – I was working as Assistant Manager at the Our Price store in Altrincham and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G character is taking UK TV audiences by storm. It’s Monday morning and the Ali G ‘Innit’ video has just been released. The demand for it is very high. Our store has sold out its initial allocation by lunchtime. My colleague Lisa takes a phone call from a member of the public who is enquiring if we have any of the video in stock. She tells the caller we do but crucially without checking our stock levels. Fast forward to late afternoon and who should walk into the shop but Johnny Marr! He comes straight up to me on the counter and asks for the Ali G video. I inform him that we have sold out unfortunately. This information gets Johnny very agitated. “I rang up earlier and was told you had it in. I left the recording studio early to come and buy it” he informs me. I’m not getting given down the banks by Johnny Marr for something that’s not my fault I quickly surmise and so ring upstairs to the stockroom to find out who had taken the phone call. Lisa comes on the line and admits it was her. I ask if she checked stock levels before telling Marr we had it in and she says no she didn’t. To my utter shame I tell Lisa that she has to come downstairs, apologise and explain to Johnny Marr no less exactly what happened and why he can’t buy the Ali G video. To Lisa’s eternal credit she does exactly that. I still feel bad to this day.

By the way, this wasn’t the only single called “Disappointed” from 1992 that I liked. I even bought this one…

Just two Breakers this week and yet again neither would end up being on the show in its full form. We start with The B52s and a track which was both their new single and title track of their next album. After achieving massive unexpected (and possibly unwanted?) commercial success with the “Cosmic Thing” long player, did the band feel the pressure to come up with an equally successful follow up? It seemed like it when they released “Good Stuff” with the track itself sounding like a rewrite of their biggest hit “Love Shack”. It wasn’t that it was awful just a bit uninspired and obvious. The big difference between “Cosmic Thing” and “Good Stuff” was the crucial missing ingredient of Cindy Wilson who had taken time out from the band to start a family. Now reduced to a trio, it just didn’t work as well despite the presence of uber producers Don Was and Nile Rodgers. The album did pick up an alternative Grammy nomination but lost out to “Bone Machine” by Tom Waits which incidentally includes one of my favourite ever Waits tunes in “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”.

Despite steady sales the album didn’t do nearly as well as its predecessor and the band would not release any new material for 15 years. “Good Stuff” the single peaked at No 21 in the UK and No 28 in the US.

Incidentally, as there are only two Breakers tonight they’re getting what seems to be double the air time that artists on this section get when there are four. Both The B-52s and second Breaker Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine get at least a minute’s worth of exposure when 30 seconds has been the norm. So to CTUSM who are really making the most of their annus mirabilis. How many hits in ‘92 have they had now? They seem to be on every other week! It’s actually the third but if you count everything since the “Sheriff Fatman” re-release in June of ‘91 then it’s five Top 40 hits in just over a year. This one is “Do Re Me So Far So Good” and was another track from their “1992 – The Love Album” long player. It’s good and all that but their tunes were all starting to merge into one a bit for me by this point.

Now, this story about Jim Bob and Fruitbat not being able to perform live as planned due to being taken ill in rehearsals. Was that true? Here’s Tony Dortie with a different version of events to the one he gave in show 30 years ago plus a retort from Jim Bob himself:

Every week with the soap dodgers stuff. And none of what you’ve said is true.
— Jim Bob (@mrjimBob) March 4, 2022

And there’s more. Here’s Jim Bob again with his own version of what went down:

#totp pic.twitter.com/OVBRpDMcs0
— Jim Bob (@mrjimBob) March 4, 2022

So who do you believe? “Do Re Me Do Far So Good” peaked at No 22.

And so to the second biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Did anybody see a Snap! revival coming in ‘92? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. After four Top 10 hits (including a No 1) in ‘90 from their “World Power” album, I thought the (ahem) ‘Cult of Snap’ was over. How wrong could I have been? I mean it’s not as wrong as Priti Patel being Home Secretary but still. Suffice to say I hadn’t read the room (or pop landscape anyway).

“Rhythm Is A Dancer” was a huge tune spending six weeks atop the charts over here. It was also No 1 all over Europe and was Top 5 in America. Of course, you can’t mention this song without reference to that lyric about being serious as cancer but it’s origins may lie with Eric B. and Rakim. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story:

Snap weren't the first to use the dire lyric "As serious as cancer". Eric B & Rakim got there first in their 1987 track "I Ain't No Joke" ("I got a question as serious as cancer/Who can keep the average dancer…?") #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 4, 2022

OK, well if it’s going to No 1 for six weeks, I think I’ll leave it there and keep my powder dry.

Blimey! The TOTP producers loved “Hazard” by Richard Marx didn’t they?! Is this the third time it’s been on? This time it’s one of those satellite live link up jobs. Coming direct from LA, Richard is joined by a band of five very serious looking musos whilst he’s decided to come dressed as if he’s got a stint presenting Play School to do after he’s finished singing. Again I’ve drawn a blank on YouTube as this satellite performance isn’t listed so the official promo video will have to do.

Marx would eke out two more Top 40 hits from the “Rush Street” album that Tony Dortie mentions (both with the word ‘heart’ in the title) but neither came close to replicating the success of “Hazard”. A bit like when Eden Hazard never came close to replicating the form of his time at Chelsea when he moved to Real Madrid.

Now if Snap!’s comeback was unforeseen then the return of the next act must have been a 1,000,000-1 bet down at Ladbrokes. Jimmy Nail had one brief stint as a pop star in ‘85 when his version of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” was a No 3 hit almost certainly off the back of his success as Oz in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Presumably his second assault on the charts was initiated by his successful TV show Spender. That had just finished its second season in February so Jimmy’s profile was high. As such, maybe it was considered to be the optimum time to give that pop lark another whirl.

Nail’s pop career mark II was to be launched on a different record label. First time round he’d been signed to Virgin but this time he was with EastWest home of Simply Red. Well, they certainly knew about massive selling albums having ‘91’s best seller in “Stars” so maybe Jimmy and his management thought they could do a job for him too. Surely though nobody involved in the project could have predicted a No 1 single which is what “Ain’t No Doubt” delivered. So long had it been since his first pop incarnation that when “Ain’t No Doubt” first started receiving airplay, people didn’t know who the singer was. This was no more evident than on Simon Mayo’s Radio 1 breakfast show. Mayo decided to play the single to the rest of his Breakfast crew to see if they could recognise the singer. Nobody could although the late Dianne Oxberry made a decent guess at The Kane Gang. Dianne was from County Durham so at least would have recognised the North East accent.

“Ain’t No Doubt” would end up as the eighth best selling UK single of the year. Not bad for a glass factory worker who’d served time in prison and who had never acted professionally until his break in Auf Wiedersehen Pet when he was already nearly 30.

A triple helping of Erasure is served up to end the show. We’ve only seen their version of “Take A Chance On Me” from the “ABBA-esque EP” so far on the show but now we get to see videos for two of the other tracks on it in “Lay All Your Love On Me” and “Voulez Vous”. Not all of the videos you understand – all three are squeezed into just over two minutes Breakers style. This was no Oasis performing “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Cum On Feel The Noize” or The Jam doing both “Town Called Malice” and “Precious” on the show. Still, it was an attempt to do something different or as Tony Dortie tweeted:

#totp trolling The Chart show back in day !!! Erasure hat trick
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

As for the videos themselves, “Lay All Your Love On Me” has a Little Red Riding Hood motif which then morphs into Vince and Andy riding motorcycles through a forest background which reminded me of Star Wars Return Of The Jedi. You know that bit on the planet with the ewoks where there’s a chase scene between stormtroopers and…whoever it is (Han Solo?) on hover bikes (or something) against a forest backdrop? That one. All a bit odd.

I commented on the video for “Take A Chance On Me” in the last post so…

…onto “Voulez Vous” which is a behind-the-scenes take on the making of a pop video with lots of footage showing the staging that goes into a basic promo of Andy and Vince performing on a revolving circular stage. It’s OK but not the best concept I’ve ever seen for a pop video.

In response to the “Abba-esque EP”, Abba tribute act Bjorn Again released their own single of cover versions…of Erasure songs. Genius! The “Erasure-ish” featured “A Little Respect” and “Stop” and reached No 25 in the charts.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Arrested Development	Tennessee	No but my wife had the album
2	Altern-8	Hypnotic St-8	Nah
3	Def Leppard	Make Love Like A Man	Never
4	Electronic	Disappointed	Nope
5	The B52s	Good Stuff	I did not
6	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Do Re Me So Far So Good	Negative
7	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	Not for me thanks
8	Richard Marx	Hazard	No
9	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	Undoubtedly a decent enough tune but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it
10	Erasure	ABBA-esque EP	No but I thought my wife might have

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/m0014zvn/top-of-the-pops-02071992

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 09 MAY 1996

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TOTP 12 OCT 1995

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TOTP 28 SEP 1995

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TOTP 20 JAN 1994

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TOTP 13 JAN 1994

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TOTP 04 FEB 1993

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TOTP 28 JAN 1993

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TOTP 21 JAN 1993

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TOTP 24 SEP 1992

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TOTP 02 JUL 1992

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