We arrived at an unusual episode of TOTP whereby the executive producer Ric Blaxill incorporated what might now be called a ‘heritage’ slot into the show but which I’m sure wouldn’t have been labelled as such at the time. Host Mark Goodier refers to it only using the generic, catch all term of ‘exclusive’ which is the description that was used for just about any non standard performance on the show around this time. The band featured in this slot are pretty special though and retain a huge legacy – it’s only the bloody Ramones!
All in good time though and we start with the antithesis of the legendary punk rockers with one of the worst examples of naff dance music that the 90s spewed forth. Clock (even their name was terrible) followed the classic Eurodance blueprint of a female singer and male rapper even though they were actually from Manchester as opposed to Holland or Germany like many of the acts of that genre. Where they did divert from the template was in their decision to pursue chart hits via that well trodden route of the cover version. After a couple of minor hits with their own compositions in 1994, they went Top 10 with a cover of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” and that success convinced them to carry on in that direction. Next up was their version of Tag Team’s 1994 No 34 hit “Whoomph! (There It Is)”. Now this track has quite the backstory which I’ve already discussed in the post covering the TOTP featuring Tag Team so I don’t propose to go over all that again. What I will say is that when Clock first started releasing singles and I wasn’t aware of who they were despite working in a record shop, when I was asked about them by a customer I presumed they were asking about Clock DVA, the experimental industrial pioneers from Sheffield who formed in 1978 and were contemporaries of Cabaret Voltaire. I might as well have been talking a different language trying to explain Clock DVA to the young punter who just wanted to buy his favourite Eurodance tune.
Depressingly, we’ll be seeing lots more of Clock in these TOTP repeats as they went on to (ahem) clock up a further nine UK Top 40 hits throughout the 90s including covers of “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)”* by the Four Seasons, “You Sexy Thing”* by Hot Chocolate and “Blame It On The Boogie” by The Jacksons. You lucky people!
*They truncated the titles to differentiate them from the originals though.
I think my patience with Jamiroquai wasn’t so much wearing thin by this point as had completely perished to reveal an embarrassing hole in its pants. To my ears, everything single they’d released by this point sounded the same as the one before. “Stillness In Time” was a case in point. It meanders along with the promise of breaking into this really cool groove but never actually goes anywhere. Do you think Jay Kay, when laying down these tracks, would say to himself “Yes! We really nailed it there!”? And yet, this single entered the chart at the highest position (No 9) the band had ever achieved so maybe it was me that was out of step with public opinion? The performance here is sooo muso – there’s even a man wearing an oversized poncho for Chrissakes! Nah, not for me thanks.
And now…a single that has gone down in the annals of time as one of the very worst ever laid down in a recording studio from an album that QMagazine decreed as the worst of all time in a 2006 poll. It is now received knowledge that DuranDuran made the biggest career misstep ever by releasing their covers album “Thank You” as the follow up to 1993’s career reviving “The Wedding Album” but is that a fair take on the reviled collection of songs? I mean, Lou Reed said that their version of “Perfect Day” was the best cover ever of one of his songs. Indeed, “Thank You” wasn’t even the commercial catastrophe we might have expected from the worst album ever – it made No 12 in the UK album charts and sold half a million copies in the US. So what’s the deal with it?
I think the answer lies in the track listing and the songs the band chose to cover. Some of them were seen as sacrosanct and untouchable and certainly by some faded 80s pin up pop stars. How dare Duran Duran take on the back catalogues of Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Elvis Costello etc! The ultimate act of heresy though appears to be their decision to cover Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” and Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)”. The latter was released as the second single from the album and like Clock earlier, they changed the title slightly to “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”.
So it’s cards on the table time – I don’t mind the Duran Duran version. I think it’s alright in the same way that I thought Gun’s rocked up cover of “Word Up” by Cameo was OK. Is it better than or even as good as the original? No, I don’t think so but that doesn’t make it utter shite by default. I even think the black and white video works and adds something to the track. What didn’t work though was the album’s standing both critically and within the band’s own oeuvre of work. In fact it derailed them. A follow up album (“Medazzaland”) wasn’t released in the UK and by the end of the decade, the band had lost both their record label Capitol / EMI and bass player and founding member John Taylor. They would not have another hit album until 2004 when the original line up reformed to record “Astronaut”. And yet…I wonder if it’s time for “Thank You” to be revisited and reappraised. There are surely worse albums out there. Surely?
Who remembers All–4–One? “I Swear” yeah? Sure. Great. Who remembers their other hit though? Not so many hands up now are there? Well, they did have one and it was called “I Can Love You Like That” and remarkably, just like “I Swear” before it, this was a song originally recorded by country singer John Michael Montgomery. I guess if it had worked once, why wouldn’t it work again? And it did, in America at least where it was a No 5 hit. Over here though, we decided that one huge song from All-4-One was quite enough thank you very much and it struggled to a high of No 33 despite this live TOTP performance (which I can’t find a clip of by the way). The group would never return to our charts though they are still together to this day and last released an album in 2016.
Heeeere’s Edwyn! Yes, the rather fabulous Edwyn Collins is back on the show to perform his brilliant but surprising hit “A Girl Like You”. Edwyn, of course, started his musical career as the lead singer of Orange Juice who criminally only had one UK Top 40 hit. However, alongside the likes of The Adventures, Icicle Works and It Bites, they really should have had more. “Flesh Of My Flesh”, “Lean Period” and “What Presence?!” were all great singles that were habitually ignored by the record buying public. Their back catalogue has been revisited retrospectively though including a six CD box set called “Coals To Newcastle” and a compilation called “The Glasgow School” the latter of which featured a cover of “I Don’t Care” by The Ramones. I’m guessing then that Edwyn would have been stoked to be on the same show as the Queens punk rockers. Except he wasn’t. The clip shown here was just a repeat of an earlier performance from a couple of weeks before. Bloody scheduling! Rip it up!
We now turn our attention to Menswear and I don’t mean that awful tank top that host Mark Goodier is wearing. It looks like an off cut of the rug in my dining room. No, I mean the poster boys of Britpop – they even had a Levi’s modelling contract – who are experiencing their first chart hit in “Daydreamer”.
More than perhaps any other artist of this era, Menswear’s is a cautionary tale of running before you can walk, going too far too soon and all those other advisory idioms. Being lauded by the press and courted by record labels whilst only having four songs inevitably led to egos bigger than their talent and it would all end in tales of drug abuse, mental health issues, a sacked drummer and a massively over budget sophomore album that only got a release in a Menswear obsessed Japan. Back in June 1995 though, the band looked like they had the world at their feet. A distinctive, Roxy Music infused single and a frontman in the modish, angular Johnny Dean who had perfected the art of looking right down the camera lens long before ex-Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg did it at the 2010 General Election live TV debates. God, even that is now 13 years ago! Oh to be young and watching Menswear on TOTP again!
Boo! Rubbish! Get off! It’s TheOuthere Brothers again whom I referred to as “those two pricks” in a previous post. By way of contrast, Mark Goodier calls them “those naughty boys”. Yeah, I stand indubitably by my comment mate. Their single “Boom Boom Boom” is up to No 2 on its way to the top of the charts where it will stay for four weeks. It came from an album called “1 Polish, 2 Biscuits & A Fish Sandwich” which were not that subtle references to the penis, buttocks and vagina. They went on to release a Best Of album in 2002 called “The Fucking Hits”. It’s not big and it’s not clever is it? Like I said, pricks.
And so tothe Ramones. Now I wouldn’t describe myself as a super fan but I certainly can appreciate the influence that the band had despite little in the way of commercial success. Their hi-speed, pop-punk sound would mobilise a generation of bands and shape their futures in a way that they surely couldn’t have predicted. That said, would the pop kids of 1995 have known or cared who the Ramones were? Maybe they did. Or maybe it was just that executive producer Ric Blaxill was a fan and wanted to get them on the show. I don’t know. On the show they were though and they were there to plug their fourteenth and final studio album “Adios Amigos” of which “I Don’t Want To Grow Up” was the lead single. Now, I already knew this Tom Waits song as my wife is a fan and had the “Bone Machine” album it’s taken from. It’s a great track, all raggedy, shuffling and shambolic but also captivating.
This version by the Ramones is pretty good too and the fact that the tempo of it can be ramped up so much shows the quality of the song. You could be forgiven for thinking it was a Ramones original.
Given the trademark brevity of the Ramones’ material, there’s time for another song from them so we get an album track called “Cretin Family” from them. Mark Goodier’s attempt at looking genuinely surprised that there was more doesn’t convince anyone. He must have known – there’s even a caption on screen that says ‘Yes more!’. It’s sobering to think that Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy are now all no longer with us.
From the Ramones to Robson&Jerome. That’s quite a leap! The duo are still at No 1 with “Unchained Melody” for a seventh and final week. When the dust finally settled, it would have spent 14 weeks in the Top 40 and 25 inside the Top 100. That’s just under half a year! Just as it finally dropped out of the charts, their follow up “I Believe / Up On The Roof” went straight in at No 1. 1995 – what a time to be alive!
The play out track is “This Is A Call” by FooFighters. I have a history of missing out on bands that I really should have been into and Dave Grohl’s post Nirvana vehicle was another to add to the list. I think because I’d never really got Nirvana either (although clearly “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a monster tune), my musical antenna weren’t pointing in the Foo Fighters direction in the first place. That said, “ThisIsACall” is a banger so why it didn’t lead me to investigate more of their stuff at the time I don’t know. Still, it’s much easier these days to explore music unknown to you what with the likes of Spotify and all so I really have no excuse. I’ve got until their next appearance in these TOTP repeats to report back…
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Clock
Whoomph! (There It Is)
As if
2
Jamiroquai
Stillness In Time
No
3
Duran Duran
White Lines (Don’t Do It)
Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
4
All-4-One
I Can Love You Like That
Nope
5
Edwyn Collins
A Girl Like You
Liked it, didn’t buy it
6
Menswear
Daydreamer
I did not
7
The Outhere Brothers
Boom Boom Boom
Hell no!
8
Ramones
I Don’t Want To Grow Up / Cretin Family
Negative
9
Robson & Jerome
Unchained Melody
Of course not
10
Foo Fighters
This Is A Call
No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
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
Ah crap! It’s been a good run but it’s finally come to an end. Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is back hosting TOTP! He says later in this show that he hasn’t been on presenting duties since the previous October. I haven’t checked to see if that’s true but regardless, I’d have gladly never seen the w****r anchoring the show again. He always seemed to me to treat it as his own personal promotional vehicle, making it all about him with his annoying, cryptic one liners and ridiculous tailoring.
He starts off by saying that there’s no public flogging on tonight’s show. What?! Was this something to do with the sentencing of Eric Cantona for his kung fu style assault of a Crystal Palace fan which took place on the very same day this TOTP went out? Eric got 14 days in prison pending an appeal which he subsequently won and saw his sentence reduced to 120 hours of community service. So, not exactly a public flogging then Simon.
With the first example of Mayo’s inane drivel dispensed with, it’s time for the opening act who is Sean Maguire. He was the ex-EastEnders and Grange Hill actor who had decided that he was wasting his time with all that TV work and what the world really needed was to bear witness to his singing talents while he ‘testified’* on stage. So far, he’d made a decent stab at the transformation with a couple of middling sized hits the previous year and now he was back with his third single “Suddenly”. Nothing to do with the Billy Ocean hit of the same name, this was just more pop-by-numbers stuff designed to appeal to the teen market with an instrumental break written in to allow for the obligatory dance routine to be included. I mean, it’s a catchy little ditty but it’s hardly a pop music masterpiece. Even so, it had more longevity than Sean’s fashion gimmick which saw him with a top tied around his waist even though he was wearing a jacket over his singlet. Why did he need the jacket if he was too warm to wear the top? This didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it was de rigueur fashion accessorising in 1995? We’ll certainly see more examples of it later on in the show.
Mayo really is a prick. In his second intro, he makes a reference to Peter Tatchell, the human and gay rights campaigner when announcing Tin Tin Out as the next artist. Why? Well, I think that he was referring to a current news story about Tatchell’s involvement with the direct action group OutRage! who ran a campaign to out 20 MPs who publicly supported anti-gay legislation whilst secretly living gay personal lives. One such MP was Sir James Kilfedder who died of a heart attack three days before this TOTP was broadcast just as the Belfast Telegraph ran a story that he was one of the politicians targeted. A sensitive story you would think. Not to Mayo. That’s source material for a cheap line while he presents a pop music programme. Tin Tin Out? Geddit? Like I said, a prick.
Anyway, back to the music and Tin Tin Out were an electronic music duo who mixed hits for some of the biggest names like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys but they also had a sideline in hits under their own name. “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” was their second such hit peaking at No 14. A version of the Bacharach and David song that Sandie Shaw took to the top of the charts in 1964, it was a cover in the loosest sense of the word. Basically they took the song’s distinctive melody, added a house beat to it and roped in vocalist Vanessa Contenay-Quinones of the duo Espiritu to sing (rather badly here I would add) the song’s title repeatedly. It sounds horrible to my ears. Perhaps to offset this infernal racket, there are four half naked backing dancers (with their tops tied around their waists as per Sean Maguire) making the female members of the audience react as if it were The Chippendales they were watching.
Tin Tin Out would find further success later in the decade with covers of The Sundays (“Here’s Where The Story Ends”) and Edie Brickell (“What I Am”). The latter was with ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton which was released on the same day as Gerri Halliwell’s “Lift Me Up” causing a chart battle to see who would be No 1. In the end, Ginger won out over Baby.
By the way, if I wanted a cover of “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” – which I did apparently in 1983 as I bought this single – then there’s always this…
I may have succumbed to some ropey old synth pop version of a 60s classic in 1983 but there was no way I was falling for this next load of old tosh twelve years later. I know we’ve seen many an act bag themselves a huge hit and basically just repeat the song with a few tweaks for the follow up over the years but this by Rednex really was scandalous. After the horror that was their No 1 single “Cotton Eye Joe”, they almost literally put out the same record again for their next one. As a result, “Old Pop In An Oak” was every bit as dreadful as its predecessor. Despite not making the Top 10, enough poor saps bought it in sufficient quantities to send it to No 12. What the hell happened people?!
In 1993, Duran Duran pulled off the seemingly impossible by escaping the from the box the public had put them in labelled ‘They used to be famous in the 80s’ and coming up with a hit single that put them back into the Top 10 for the first time in four years with “Ordinary World”. Not only that but its parent album was a million seller in the US and went gold in the UK. They were back and had momentum on their side. What they did with that momentum was tantamount to commercial and artistic suicide. Whose idea was it to record an album of cover versions? Or perhaps the question should be ‘whose idea was it to record an album of those cover versions?’.
Take the lead single from the “Thank You” album for example. Wasn’t Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” seen as sacrosanct at the time? What were they boys thinking? However, the phrase ‘at the time’ really should have been in italics for it has been covered by many an artist since and I don’t remember the same amount of cries of heresy as were reserved for the Duran boys? Indeed, just three months after this, Kirsty MacColl released her own version with Evan Dando of The Lemonheads to promote her Best Of album “Galore” and I’m pretty sure there weren’t any cries of “Heresy!” from anyone. By 1997, just about every big name in the music business had covered it (sort of). A BBC promotional video to showcase their musical diversity featuring the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Bono, Heather Small, Brett Anderson of Suede, Tom Jones, Gabrielle, Evan Dando (again!) and perhaps most memorably Dr John (“such a poyfick day”) was absolutely fêted by the public; so much so that it was released as a single and went to No 1 for three weeks. All of this leads me to believe that it was more about who was doing the cover version and it was a case of everybody else = good, Duran Duran = bad.
Or maybe it wasn’t even about this track? After all, Lou Reed is on record as saying the Duran version was the best recording of any of his songs. Was it the other covers on “Thank You” that offended so? Taking on songs by Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop was ill judged but to navigate “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel and Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” was clinically insane. The readers of Q magazine were so incensed that in a 2006 poll, they voted “Thank You” the worst album of all time. So was it that bad? Well, I’ve often found myself on the wrong side of popular opinion and I did buy a couple of Duran Duran albums in the 80s but on the whole, even I would say it was a not a clever career move. As so it proved. After the critical backlash “Thank You” received, the band floundered. Follow up album “Medazzaland” didn’t even get released in Europe with the record buying public seemingly only interested in their past glories – a Best Of collection called “Greatest” made No 4 when released in 1998. It would take a reunion of the classic line up in 2004 to return them towards the top of the charts when the “Astronaut” album made No 3.
Talking of the classic line up, that’s Roger Taylor on drums in this TOTP performance which took me by surprise as he hadn’t had anything to do with the band since leaving in 1986. Apparently he played on three tracks for the “Thank You” album and appeared in the video for “Perfect Day”. Meanwhile, bassist John Taylor seems to have taken leave of his fashion senses – a checked shirt matched with stripey trousers?!
Next a band who in many ways replaced Duran Duran in the affections of the teen market as the boys from Birmingham’s popularity dwindled in the late 80s. WetWetWet were on a commercial high come the mid 90s. They’d had that single in 1994 at No 1 for fifteen weeks and now were back with a new hit in the Top 10. Of course, also like Duran Duran, they’d suffered their own decline in approval around 1989-1991 but that was all behind them now.
Following the biggest selling single of the year though was no easy task and “Julia Says” predictably couldn’t get anywhere near the sales of “Love Is All Around”. A high of No 3 was nothing to be sniffed at though even if the track itself wasn’t their strongest by a mile and it did help propel parent album “Picture This” to No 1 and a million sales. The hits kept coming until the end of the decade when Marti Pellow left the band to deal with his addiction issues. Wet Wet Wet are still a going concern but only just. Graeme Clark is the only remaining member of the original four piece line up though they have just announced a co-headlining tour with perennials of the nostalgia circuit Go West.
A case next of an appearance on TOTP not helping the sales of a single. “Original” by Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday was a new entry on the chart this week at No 18 but it would fall to No 35 seven days later despite the exposure of this performance. To be fair, the sound of the track didn’t exactly lend itself to a turn on TV. Its dark, dubby rhythms allied to Halliday’s almost deadpan vocals weren’t a perfect match for the medium of TV. Not that it isn’t a good track – it is but it acts almost as a visual downer in amongst the scream-inducing likes of Sean Maguire and Wet Wet Wet. Yes, there are some shrieks from the studio audience at times during “Original” but I get the impression they were falsely manufactured by the prompting of a floor manager.
Leftfield were, of course, influential production team Neil Barnes and Paul Daley who’d already had a hit under their own steam when they collaborated with John Lydon on the hypnotic “Open Up” in 1994. Toni Halliday was the lead singer with shoe gazing / dance beat hybrid Curve who’d had a handful of minor hit singles and two moderately successful albums to this point but whose legacy was to open the doors for the likes of Garbage to stride through. The album “Original” came from was the Mercury Prize nominated “Leftism” which is widely regarded as a milestone moment in dance music. Listening to this track now, it sounds very like Portishead to me whose album “Dummy” beat “Leftism” to the aforementioned Mercury Prize in 1995.
Next another band who like Wet Wet Wet are trying to follow up the biggest hit of their career. East 17 may not have had the best selling single of the year like the Wets but they did have the Christmas No 1 with all the sales that brings with it. Surely they couldn’t bag another chart topper with their next release? The short answer is no they couldn’t but they did keep their record of consecutive Top 10 hits going with “Let It Rain” taking the tally to five.
After the balladry of “Stay Another Day”, it was back to the sound on which they made their name – a hard-hitting, quick house beats dance floor-filler with a shouty yet catchy chorus. Its intro has Tony Mortimer going all Prince-like in “Let’s Go Crazy” mode, preaching from the pulpit before the beats hit about corridors of creation and colliding comets. Actually, he sounds a bit like Gary Clail of On-U Sound fame.
I’d have to say that apart from that intro, it’s not one of their most memorable tunes, not quite the banger it wants to be. Talking of which, Terry Coldwell (the bloke in the singlet on the left in this performance and only remaining original member still with the group) was in the news recently when he participated in a Counties Radio competition where presenter Justin Dealey would ask people in the street to sing a song and if he judged it good enough, he would buy them a hot dog as a reward. Snappily entitled ‘Sing a banger for a banger’, Coldwell rocked up and sang “Stay Another Day” but was denied his prize on account of sounding too authentic!
Mayo’s back with his crappy jokes now as he name checks the boxer Chris Eubank. As far as I understand it, by saying that Chris’s favourite song was “Hypnotised” by SimpleMinds, he was referring to the fact that Eubank had recently lost his WBO super middleweight title to Steve Collins who had employed a guru to help him prepare mentally for the fight leading the press to believe that Collins was hypnotised for the bout. As Eubanks entered the ring before the fight, Collins sat in his corner motionless with headphones on, giving more credence to the rumour. None of this backstory makes Mayo’s quip funny though. Look mate, you’re just there to introduce the acts not perform a stand up routine. Just do your job.
Anyway, this was the second and last single from the “Good News From The Next World” album and it wasn’t very good. Not only was it completely soporific but I’m sure they’d used that bridge part before in a previous hit. In short, poor on quality and lethargic of effort. Must do better.
By the way, what was going on with guitarist Charlie Burchill?! Back in 1984, I’d desperately coveted his look but he just looks weird here. Horrible hair and a jacket that looks like he’d borrowed it from a pearly king. And I thought John Taylor’s wardrobe was suss.
The Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton has, rather predictably, brought an end to Celine Dion’s run at No 1 and to quote Captain Sensible’s 1982 hit “Wot”, ain’t I glad. Beware though. This respite will only last a week before a new menace takes residence in the top spot…
Just before the credits roll, there’s a plug for the BBC’s ASongforEurope show to pick this year’s UK Eurovision entry. It seemed quite an elongated process. There was a TopofthePopsSongforEuropeSpecial show that Mayo mentions where each of the competing songs was showcased but that wasn’t the point where the winner was chosen. No, there was another programme a week later where that decision was made by a public vote. Each artist also had a celebrity champion advocating for them. Some of the entrants were well known – Londonbeat for example (who sounded dreadful in the clip at the end of this TOTP) plus recent chart stars Deuce and Samantha Fox fronting Sox. The rest of them I have no idea about except the actual winner of course who were Love City Groove who trounced everybody with over 140,000 votes. The artist placed second got 81,000 by comparison. Things didn’t work out for Love City Groove on the big day but that’s a story for another post.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Sean Maguire
Suddenly
As if
2
Tin Tin Out featuring Espiritu
Always (Something There To Remind Me)
No
3
Rednex
Old Pop In An Oak
Hell no!
4
Duran Duran
Perfect Day
Nope
5
Wet Wet Wet
Julia Says
Nah
6
Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday
Original
No but my wife might have had the album I think
7
East 17
Let It Rain
Negative
8
Simple Minds
Hypnotised
I did not
9
Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton
Love Can Build A Bridge
Not even for charity
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree
And there go the 1993 TOTP repeats – weren’t they awful?! This particular year was the one I was least looking forward to reviewing so far and my trepidation was justified. Some truly terrible music made the charts topped off with the festive chart topper also being possibly the worst No 1 single of all time. What a time to be alive! So what was all this terrible music of which I write? Well, if I think of the charts of 1993, the first word that comes to mind is ‘Eurodance’ – so many acts seemed to appear this year peddling their synth riffs, drum machines, inanely and insanely catchy choruses and their ‘featured’ rappers. The likes of 2 Unlimited, Culture Beat and Haddaway all scored massive hits during the twelve calendar months with the first two even bagging themselves a No 1 record. The second thought that enters my head when considering this year is the spectre of the ‘Three S’s’ – Shaggy, Shabba and Snow. They each racked up a ginormous smash, specifically “Oh Carolina” (No 1), “Mr Loverman” (No 2) and “Informer” (No 2) all within a few weeks of each other. And they were all shite. As I said, what a time to be alive. Singles sales in general were up after the slump of the previous year but the standard of No 1s was as poor as ever. Look at this lot…
It’s grim reading. Seventeen chart toppers by sixteen artists (Mr Blobby was No 1 on two occasions) and I bought none of them. I would break them down as follows:
3 x Eurodance nonsense (2 Unlimited, Culture Beat, Ace Of Base)
3 x teen sensations (Take That)
2 x 80s songs reactivated by (i) TV advert (The Bluebells) and (ii) record company fleecing an artist’s back catalogue posthumously (Freddie Mercury)
1 x EP taken from the tribute concert for said deceased artist (George Michael & Queen with Lisa Stansfield)
1 x execrable novelty hit (Mr Blobby)
1 x last year’s Christmas No 1 hung over into the new year (Whitney Houston)
1 x out of the blue monster hit by hoary old rocker (Meatloaf)
1 x lame reggae flavoured cover for a film soundtrack by a band that owed their biggest hits to lame reggae flavoured covers (UB40)
1 x soul/dance floor filler by a new artist (Gabrielle)
1 x hip-hop shout-a-long anthem from an artist better known as a TV star at the time (DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
1 x reggae hit from a new artist jumping on the dancehall/toasting bandwagon of 1993 (Shaggy)
It’s not the most inspiring collection of songs ever. Where was the innovation? Was this really what the kids wanted? It wasn’t any better if you looked at the biggest selling albums of the year. The Top 10 included the usual mainstream names like Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Diana Ross, UB40, U2 plus the resurrected Meatloaf who easily helped himself to both the year’s best selling single and album. The only real surprises were the performances of the No 2 and No 3 albums. The former came from REM who achieved that position with a record that was released in the October of the previous year. Meanwhile, the latter came from the only ‘new’ artist in the Top 10 in Dina Carroll whose success was no doubt enabled by the presence of six hit singles on her album. It doesn’t get much better if you scroll down the chart where you’ll find the familiar names of Sting, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart and Tina Turner. However, honourable mentions should go to Spin Doctors, Stereo MCs and Björk.
Hits We Missed
Despite there being very few shows in 1993 that weren’t rebroadcast by BBC4 due to presenter issues – I think we may have missed the episode with Rolf Harris performing “Stairway To Heaven” understandably – there were still a few Top 40 hits that didn’t make it onto TOTP. Yes, even though the infernal Breakers section with its five or so songs crammed into a two minute slot was a constant throughout the year, somehow there were still some singles we never got to see. Here are my picks…
Sugar – “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
I used to work with someone who loved Bob Mould and his post Hüsker Dü project and you can hear why on this, Sugar’s only UK chart hit. Leaving behind his previous band’s punk tendencies for some perfect power pop, this should have been huge. If you need validation of this opinion then check out the comments against it on YouTube where the most used word to describe the song/artist is ‘underrated’.
The parent album “Copper Blue” was well received by the critics both at the time (it was the NME album of the year) and beyond (it features in the 1001AlbumsYouMustHearBeforeYouDie reference book). It wasn’t just the critics who liked it as it did sell well making the Top 10 in the UK so why didn’t this single get a chance on TOTP? Bob Mould broke up Sugar in 1996 though he did tour “Copper Blue” just as himself in 2012.
Released: Jan ‘93
Chartpeak: No 30
Radiohead – “Anyone Can Play Guitar”
Asked to name Radiohead’s first hit, I’m guessing many would answer “Creep” but although it was their first single release, “Anyone Can Play Guitar” was actually their first foray into the Top 40. You could forgive the error though. One week at No 32, one week at No 50 and then gone. No wonder we didn’t get to see this one on TOTP. It was an inauspicious chart start for a band that would become a behemoth of the 90s and beyond.
Listening back to it now, it must have seemed at odds with its chart contemporaries. It’s all feedback and distortion in the opening before that’s zapped and the now familiar Radiohead staccato rhythm kicks in. The chorus actually has a strong, almost joyful (for them) melody which plays directly against the entrenched, downbeat nature of the verses. I must admit that it passed me by at the time before we were all swallowed up by that enormous sound of “Creep”. Fast forward two years and the band upped their game with the epic “The Bends” album and I for one couldn’t resist them any longer. So, “Anyone Can Play Guitar” – if nothing else, a great Pointless answer if the category of Radiohead Top 40 hits ever comes up.
Released:Feb ’93
Chartpeak:No 32
Neil Young – “Harvest Moon”
I have to admit that my knowledge of Neil Young in 1993 could never be described as extensive – in fact it’s as limited as the amount of copies that exist of the A&M pressing of “God Save The Queen”. Obviously I knew his only UK hit single to that point (1971’s “Heart Of Gold”) and that it came from an album called “Harvest” but beyond that? Hardly anything. I was aware of a handful of his songs from cover versions by other artists like “The Needle And The Damage Done” via a cover version by The Icicle Works and Pete Wylie from 1986 and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” by Saint Etienne in 1991. Oh and The Alarm covered “Rockin’ In The Free World” on their early 90s album “Raw”. Yes, I knew about his involvement in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young but all I really knew of their catalogue was “Our House” (I’ve since discovered a few more of their wonderful harmonies). It’s not much to say that Young has recorded forty-five studio albums over the course of his career. I think the fact that he released an album of feedback (1991’s “Arc”) didn’t help to pique my curiosity.
In 1993 came “Harvest Moon” though and I recall there being a lot of fuss in the music press about its release. Seen as a follow up to “Harvest” twenty years on, it would be his biggest selling album since the original. However the title track didn’t achieve the same level of success when issued as a single despite being critically lauded. It seems to me that it borrows the guitar motif from “Walk Right Back” by The Everly Brothers (albeit a slowed down version) but that’s not a criticism. It’s a gorgeous melody and judging by the comments against the video for it on YouTube, it certainly means a lot to people. Entry after entry talks about how it is the song that reminds the author of a departed loved one. The power of music isn’t always measured by chart positions.
Released:Feb ’93
Chartpeak:No 36
Duran Duran – “Too Much Information”
1993 was a year of rejuvenation for a few names from the past. The Bluebells had a TV advert inspired No 1 with a single from 1984, Nick Heyward would return with his first new album for five years (more of that later) whilst Go West somehow managed to bag themselves three Top 40 hits. And then there was Duran Duran. Seemingly destined to be locked away with the other unwanted 80s artefacts in the pop music broom cupboard as the new decade dawned, they completed a remarkable commercial comeback in this year.
After the very poorly received “Liberty” album in 1990, many thought we had seen the last of Duran Duran. However, the doubters hadn’t banked on the band’s seventh eponymously titled studio album (aka ‘The Wedding Album’). Led by the outstanding and enduring single “Ordinary World”, it went Top 5 in the UK and Top 10 in the US becoming their highest charting album in a decade since “Seven And The Ragged Tiger” at the height of their pomp. Another accomplished single followed in “Come Undone” but there was a third, largely forgotten single that appeared in August.
“Too Much Information” was the opening track on the album and it’s a belter. Starting off with an acoustic guitar intro, it suddenly bounds into life with a punchy groove that never quits over the next four minutes or so. Reversing the traditional single release template of two uptempo tunes and then a slow track, this was quite the change of pace after “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone”. Often seen as a prediction of the information highway which was in its infancy, the lyrics also show some self knowledge with lines like “Destroyed by MTV, I hate to bite the hand that feeds me” referencing the role that the music channel played in breaking the band in America. There’s also some tongue in cheek admittance of the turbulent past of the band with the lyric “This band is perfect, just don’t scratch the surface”.
The Julian Temple directed video does a great job of depicting sensory overload with multiple cuts coming thick and fast – there’s even a homage to the infamous eye clamps scene from AClockworkOrange. None of this made any difference to the single’s chart fortunes though and it barely scraped into the Top 40. Would a Breaker slot on TOTP have made any difference? Maybe. The success and favourable sway of public opinion the band received in 1993 quickly evaporated when they released their collection of covers “Thank You” two years later which was declared the worst album of all time by QMagazine in 2006.
Released:Sep ’93
Chartpeak:No 35
Squeeze – “Third Rail”
As comebacks go, this next band’s reappearance in the charts wasn’t as successful as Duran Duran’s but was easily as welcome. Squeeze had gone a whole six years without a Top 40 entry before “Third Rail” became their first (just!) since “Hourglass” in 1987. In that time they’d released two albums neither of which had pulled up any trees commercially although a 1992 Greatest Hits had returned then to the Top 10 of the album charts.
However, 1993 saw a renaissance of sorts. “Some Fantastic Place” achieved a No 26 peak and was quite the sleeper hit selling steadily under the radar. The album featured the return (briefly) of Paul Carrack who had been with the band on 1981’s “East Side Story” and also Elvis Costello drummer Pete Thomas who replaced long term sticks man Gilson Lavis.
The title track was released as the second single from it and is a superlative piece of work. Like “Harvest Moon” earlier, it resonates with people who have lost loved ones – it was written about the death of a long time friend of the band who introduced Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook in the 70s – with both men claiming it to be their favourite Squeeze song. I could have included it in the HitsThatNeverWere section below but I’ve gone with “Third Rail”. Starting with a startling, descending guitar riff, it then goes into a backbeat borrowed from the old Rhythm and Blues stomper “Some Other Guy” before the typically catchy chorus hooks you in. Unbelievably, Squeeze have only ever had three Top 10 hits with the last of those coming in 1981. There really isn’t any justice in the world.
Released: July ‘93
ChartPeak: No39
Hits That Never Were
My favourite part of these yearly overviews is rediscovering those songs that I believed should have been huge chart hits but somehow failed to pierce the Top 40. Here are my selection for 1993…
Freaky Realistic – “Leonard Nimoy”
One of the greatest lost gems of the decade came from Peckham but unlike its most famous fictional resident Del Boy, hardly anyone seemed to promote their claims to superstardom by declaring “you know it makes sense”. By rights, Freaky Realistic should have been saying to themselves “This time next year, we’ll be millionaires!” off the back of their one and only album “Frealism” but as ever, the UK record buying public thought they knew better (they didn’t) and almost totally ignored them. Not my wife though who bought the album and introduced me to its delights. Fusing some gorgeous pop melodies with dance beats, it should have been an iconic title of the genre alongside the likes of The Beloved and even Primal Scream (no, really – it’s that good). Somehow though, not even a super low retail price (promoted as a ‘freaky price’) of £5 could entice enough punters to explore its charms.
Three singles were released from it and I could have plumped for any of them to highlight but in the end I chose the Star Trek referencing “Leonard Nimoy” which was as catchy as hell and yet kooky in a playful way with its choice of subject matter. Unfortunately, it didn’t live long and prosper in the charts spending just one week at No 71 being unable to…ahem…’cling on’ to any higher placing.
Internal feuding broke the band up and a planned second album never materialised despite a batch of new songs being demoed. “Frealism” was unavailable for many years but reissue specialist label Cherry Red rereleased it in 2010. Get yourself a copy, you won’t regret it.
Released:July ’93
Chart peak: No 71
Ian McNabb – “If Love Was Like Guitars”
Throughout these reviews, especially in the 80s years, one of the artists that I have included most in this section have been The Icicle Works. Great single after great single was routinely ignored by the record buying public until the band could take no more and disbanded in 1990.
By 1993, Ian McNabb had formulated his first solo album “Truth And Beauty” (he’s added another ten in the intervening thirty years) and guess what? Hardly anybody bought that either! I did my best for Ian’s fortunes by purchasing it though and it’s a great little collection of well crafted songs as you would expect from such an accomplished songwriter. “If Love Was Like Guitars” wasn’t, as I incorrectly remembered, the lead single (at least not technically) though my mistake was forgivable. McNabb had released two singles in 1991 which both ended up on the album but given that was two years prior and they did absolutely nothing, no wonder my mind has settled on “If Love Was Like Guitars” as the main promotional track for “Truth And Beauty”. And what a track! A trippy, swirling, psychedelic Beatles-esque verse leads into a huge, chunky guitar chorus with sing-a-long lyrics before the obligatory but perfectly placed key change and wah-wah guitars take us home. Why oh why did this not become a huge hit?
The following year, Ian released the Mercury Music Prize nominated “Head Like A Rock” album with Crazy Horse of the aforementioned Neil Young fame. I saw him live on that tour and he was great. In fact, I’ve seen Ian maybe four or five times live and he can still knock it out of the park. A starry blue eyed wonder indeed.
Released: January ‘93
Chart peak: No 67
The Lemon Trees – “Child Of Love”
You wait all decade (so far) for a lost gem and then two turn up in the same year. After Freaky Realistic earlier, here’s another lost treasure of 1993. The Lemon Trees (not to be confused with The Lemonheads nor indeed the song “Lemon Tree” by the German band Fool’s Garden) were so much more than just the original band of Guy Chambers who would find fame and fortune for his songwriting collaborations with Robbie Williams. This 60s influenced five piece were interested in real instruments and life affirming melodies and they brought all that to the table on their only album “Open Book” which I duly bought. Every track on it is a winner including all five singles taken from it none of which hit higher than No 52 in the charts. They operated a spirit of true egalitarianism with those five singles being sung by three different band members.
“Child Of Love” was the fourth of those and I was convinced it would be the one to be the band’s breakthrough hit. It has a lovely, lilting, Summertime feel to it with a Stevie Wonder sounding harmonica break towards the end (although the singer Alex Lewis plays a melodica in the video). Why did it fail? Not enough promotion? I’m pretty sure it was on ITV’s ChartShow but maybe record company MCA didn’t have enough faith in their charges after three misses on the trot? Whatever the reason, it never quite happened for The Lemon Trees. A fifth single – the excellent “I Can’t Face The World” – came close but that was not enough to prevent a second album remaining unreleased and gathering dust in the MCA vaults. To add to the crime, you can’t even access their first album easily as it’s not on Spotify. Sort it out somebody!
The various members of the band stayed in music mostly. Brothers Paul and Jeremy Stacey have worked with the likes of Sheryl Crow, The Black Crowes and The Finn Brothers. As for the aforementioned Guy Chambers, although mostly known for writing many of Robbie Williams’ biggest hits, his list of other artists he’s worked with is as long as two arms including Melanie C, Beverley Knight, Rufus Wainwright and Miles Kane as well as writing music for the RSC and finally getting round to releasing his own piano album in 2019. As of 2005, Paul Holman was running a record shop in Dorset which is staying in music I guess.
Released:April ’93
Chart peak:No 55
Eskimos And Egypt – “Fall From Grace”
I’ve included this one as I knew the girlfriend of one of the band members and consequently met him a couple of times. Hailing from Manchester (where I was living), Eskimos And Egypt were a hybrid of dance beats and real instruments, kind of like a cross between The Shamen and The Prodigy. They were signed to One Little Indian, the label that was also home to Björk. As she was enjoying a year of mainstream breakthrough success, presumably Eskimos And Egypt held high hopes that they would follow a similar course. Despite TV appearances like this one on TheWord, they weren’t able to crossover into the Top 40.
Like The Lemon Trees earlier, most of the members remained in the music business after the band split moving into production and working with the likes of Sonique, Erasure and t.A.T.u. They even wrote and produced a hit for Rednex of “Cotton Eye Joe” fame called “The Spirit Of The Hawk”. Hmm. As I recall, the guy from the band I met was called Mark and was a big Bolton Wanderers fan who liked to talk about a goal he’d seen cult hero Frank Worthington score for them. Not the famous one against Ipswich where he has his back to goal and flips it over his head before volleying home but one not recorded by the cameras where he supposedly did keepy uppy all the way from the halfway line before scoring. In the snow. Or something.
Released:April ’93
Chart peak:No 51
Betty Boo – “Hangover”
There was so much more to Betty Boo than those catchy, space cadet, start of the 90s hits “Doin’ The Do” and “Where Are You Baby?”. For a start there’s that stuff-of-legend meeting and impromptu performance for Public Enemy in the Shepherd’s Bush MacDonalds as part of She Rockers. Then there’s the pop duo WigWam she formed with Alex James of Blur and her career as a songwriter penning tracks for Girls Aloud, Dannii Minogue, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and of course the Ivor Novello winning “Pure And Simple” for Hear’Say. What most people don’t talk about though is her sophomore album “GRRR!It’sBettyBoo”. Madonna was such a fan of the album that she offered Betty to sign with her own Maverick Records label but she turned down the opportunity – the timing wasn’t right as she was committed to caring for her terminally ill mother.
That second album was a commercial failure peaking at No 62 (by comparison her debut “Boomania” went Top 5 achieving platinum sales) but it did have some decent singles on it. The lead one, “Let Me Take You There”, was even a hit making it to No 12 but it would prove to be Betty’s last. The two follow ups couldn’t breach the Top 40 – “I’m On My Way” peaked at No 44 whilst this one, “Hangover” did even worse. And yet it’s a great pop song, a catchy melody cleverly combined with a Country & Western slide guitar twang and Betty’s trademark rap in the middle eight – what’s not to like? Even the video-in-a-video promo is nicely pitched. Bloody record buying public strikes again.
Released:April ’93
Chart peak:No 50
Luke Goss And The Band Of Thieves – “Sweeter Than The Midnight Rain”
A surprising but deserved entry I think. After making the decision in 1992 that he couldn’t continue with Bros, Luke Goss was left with no record deal and no income but a desire to be honest about who he was. To that end, he wrote his autobiography entitled IOweYouNothing which was well received and formed a band to perform the music that he wanted to play. Not wanting to do a pale imitation of his former glories, he changed musical direction completely for “Sweeter Than The Midnight Rain”. In an interview with Philip Schofield on the last ever GoingLive, Goss described his new sound as being a bit Lenny Kravitz-y, his voice as gravelly and that it was basically “slamming”. He was kind of right as well, especially about his voice. The song begins with an almost wah-wah guitar before Luke comes in doing his best John Mellencamp impression. It was pretty much as far removed from “When Will I Be Famous” as it was possible to be and I, for one, admired that. It’s not a bad tune to boot. Luke also went for a new look to go with his new sound though the long hair isn’t convincing and he’s completely bald these days.
There was meant to be an album (six tracks had already been laid down) but the only material that appeared was a second single called “Give Me One More Chance” but the public didn’t and it failed to chart and Luke turned his back on music to chance his arm as an actor which he has made a decent fist of. Bros were back in the spotlight in 2018 after that documentary aired but I don’t remember any mention of Luke’s solo career in amongst his brother Matt’s laughable one liners. Maybe it wasn’t such a joke after all.
One of the most exciting musical moments of 1993 for me was the return of this man. Despite being one of the most underrated UK songwriters ever (in my humble opinion), we hadn’t seen nor heard from Nick Heyward in nearly five years. Having realised a remarkable transformation in just a few weeks from pin up lead singer of Haircut 100 into mature solo artist with the beyond accomplished 1983 album “North Of A Miracle”, Nick’s commercial fortunes had declined sharply by the end of the 80s. Second and third solo albums “Postcards From Home” and “I Love You Avenue” had both disappeared without trace and Nick entered the 90s so lacking in confidence that he turned down the offer to become the vocalist of Electronic who turned their attention to Neil Tennant. Suddenly though, he was back with a new record label in Epic and a first album since 1988. “From Monday To Sunday” was not a big seller but it was well received critically and crucially announced Heyward as being back as a functioning recording artist. It also showed that his pop instincts (that had always been spot on) were still ahead of the curve, predating Britpop’s channeling of The Beatles by two years.
Lead single “Kite” is a deceptively wonderful track. On first hearing, I didn’t quite get it but it’s a work of genius which is Heyward’s greatest achievement for many. XTC flavoured with autobiographical lyrics that seem to describe his experience of flying high in his early days of fame before getting a case of vertigo, it’s a real winner. Oh, and is that trumpet sound (“The afternoon came, trumpets played”) pinched off “Fantastic Day”? The single not only led Nick’s revival at home but was a surprise hit on US college radio (otherwise rather bizarrely known as Billboard’s Hot Modern Tracks Chart). This gave him the impetus to tour America with the likes of Therapy?, Evan Dando, Teenage Fanclub and almost unbelievably Tony Bennett. I think he toured with Squeeze in the UK (who were presumably promoting the aforementioned “Some Fantastic Place” album) but I couldn’t get tickets for their show at the Manchester Apollo.
Nick would release a further two albums during the 90s with the second of the two released on that most Britpop of labels Creation. Nick was now one of the Godfathers of the movement! Despite being one of the busiest live performers around, it would be another twenty years before his next proper studio album, the magnificent “Woodland Echoes”.
Released:August ’93
Chart peak:No 44
REM – “Find The River”
This is quite the 90s rarity – an REM single that didn’t make the Top 40. Out of twenty-three that they released during the decade, this was the only one that failed to chart. On the one hand that’s understandable as it was the sixth single released from the “Automatic For The People” album that had been out for fourteen months by this point. On the other, this was absolute nonsense, a travesty and a stinging indictment of the UK record buying public’s poor judgment.
“Find The River” is a beautiful song and easily my favourite track from the album which is quite the accolade given the quality of the rest of the songs on it. It’s wistful, meandering, achingly beautiful and for some reason always reminds me of Christmas, probably because of its very late November release date – it’s certainly on my festive playlist anyway. Maybe that release date was part of the reason it wasn’t a hit in that it got caught up in the Christmas rush? I’m not sure how you can explain away it getting no further than No 54 whilst Mr Blobby was No 1 though.
REM would return just nine months later with “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”, the lead single from their “Monster” album which would become their third biggest UK hit at the time when it peaked at No 9.
Released: Dec ‘93
Chartpeak: No54
Their Season In The Sun
4 Non Blondes
One of those artists whose hit became bigger than them in the same vein as “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin and “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” by Cutting Crew. Unlike these other two acts though, 4 Non Blondes were genuine one hit wonders. “What’s Up” made No 2 in the UK charts in the Summer of 1993 and then…nothing. Or not quite nothing as parent album “Bigger, Better, Faster, More!” was also a success (presumably off the back of the single) but who knows anyone who has it…except me. I didn’t buy it. I found a copy down the back of a filing cabinet when shutting down the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester. All the stock had been boxed up and shipped out by that point so I kept it. I never played it once.
Dina Carroll
Never mind WhatHappenedToBabyJane (the film not the Rod Stewart song), whatever happened to Dina Carroll. One of the undoubted breakthrough stars of 1993, she promptly disappeared for three years before returning with a sophomore album that sold well but which nobody remembers. That’s because her back catalogue is dominated by her debut album “So Close” and its attendant six hit singles especially the final one “Don’t Be A Stranger”. Reading between the lines, I wonder if Dina just didn’t fancy this whole business of being a star and all its trappings. She took some time off after 1993 due to feeling ‘burnt out’. Maybe that was a big indicator. A shame because she had demonstrated her diversity of sound ably with the “So Close” album. Hopefully, unlike Bette Davis’s character ‘Baby Jane’ Hudson, Dina’s not bitter about it all.
Haddaway
…and shite!
Joey Lawrence
US teen actor who made the leap into pop stardom albeit briefly. He was kind of like a 90s Leif Garrett. With just two middling UK hits to his name, he disappeared pretty quickly. All I really remember about him is that his singles came with a free fold out poster, never a good sign of musical ability. In his defence, he returned to acting and eked out a fairly successful career.
Shabba Ranks
Surely one of the biggest wankers of the decade, the stench of Ranks’ revolting homophobic views still permeates his public image. That and being responsible for one of the stupidest and most ridiculed shout outs ever committed to record. ‘Shabba!’? Tosser more like.
Snow
Canadian rapper who spent seven consecutive weeks on top of the US charts with his single “Informer” (it made No 2 over here). This dreadful track featured the phrase ‘A licky boom-boom down’ repeatedly and told the story of Snow (presumably) being arrested and taken to a police station ‘where they whipped down my pants and looked up my bottom’. The censors didn’t get involved though as Snow’s rapping skills were so poor nobody could understand a word of what he was banging on about. Needless to say, he never had another hit single in this country.
Spin Doctors
And a third ‘S’ artist but not the final member of the unholy trinity that was Shabba, Snow and Shaggy. In fairness to Shaggy, he continued to have big hits well beyond this year. Spin Doctors on the other hand will always be remembered for 1993 and “Two Princes”, a fabulously groovy tune no doubt but which, much like 4 Non Blondes, was more memorable than the band themselves.
No Christmas Show Review?
Nope. There’s nothing on it we haven’t seen before and it goes on for ages. I’m not doing that Smashie and Nicey 30 years retrospective either.
Last Words
So, 1993 – the worst year of the decade for chart music? It must be up there though I fear that there may be some equally awful moments lurking in the late 90s. For me personally it was a year of great change. I worked in three separate Our Price stores over the course of the twelve months and with lots of different people. The moves didn’t stop in 1994 either but that’s for future posts. I don’t recall buying that much music from this year despite my staff discount which either means most of it was shite (or at least didn’t tally with my personal tastes) or I was skint most of the time. Or a bit of both. 1994 must be better mustn’t it? Fancy joining me to find out?
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
Sometimes I genuinely feel sorry for the kids of today. Sure they’ve got stuff that we never had thanks to the developments of technology – mobile phones and the internet alongside platforms like Spotify have given them access to endless swathes of music at the touch of a button. On the other side of the coin though there’s cyber bullying and trolling and a relentless stream of images of what they are told they should look like. Plus, of course, we didn’t have to go through a global pandemic as kids and teenagers – we still don’t know the full extent of the damage to their collective mental health that COVID lockdown and associated restrictions has caused.
If that all sounds a bit heavy for a blog about TOTP then fear not – I’m not talking about any of that. No, I’m talking about the fact that they never experienced the joy of watching Saturday morning kids TV, not properly anyway. Yes, these days they have their own dedicated TV channels showing programmes designed to appeal to their age groups leaving the schedules for BBC and ITV clear to be filled with cooking shows. That’s not right though is it? When I was a kid, Saturday mornings involved choosing between Tiswas and MultiColouredSwapShop – the anarchic fun of Chris Tarrant, Lenny Henry and the object of many a schoolboy crush Sally James or the more respectable and bigger budgeted entertainment offered by Noel Edmonds, Cheggers and Maggie Philbin. I wonder if the BBC won the ratings war in the end? After all, their presenting trio even had a hit record as Brown Sauce with “I Wanna Be A Winner”.
As the 70s gave way to the 80s, both shows were replaced. The new vehicles were SaturdaySuperstore (basically a continuation of Swap Shop) on BBC1 and No73 (with its legendary Sandwich Quiz section) on ITV. Five to six years seemed to be the shelf life of these shows and so in 1987 SaturdaySuperstore was no more being usurped by GoingLive and it’s that show that is the reason for this intro as two days after this TOTP aired, the 179th and final ever episode of it aired after a run of six years. Hosted by Philip Schofield and Sarah Greene, it saw me through many a hungover Saturday morning as a student but by the 90s I was working every weekend at Our Price and so rarely saw it. The pop star guests that would come on the show would be very much of the mainstream variety and usually those who would have a large teen fanbase like Bros or A-ha but they sometimes had artists a bit less obvious on like Squeeze and Transvision Vamp. After the show’s finale, it was replaced just six months later by Live And Kicking which was exactly the same format but with different presenters. It would run for a very solid eight years but couldn’t compete in the end with Ant and Dec’s SMTVLive. There’s a good chance some of the acts on this TOTP appeared on GoingLive. Let’s see…
We start with East17 who my research tells me were on GoingLive just two weeks before the final episode, presumably performing this single “Slow It Down”. I wonder if they did it like this then? This performance must surely go down in the annals of TOTP history as one of the most awkwardly staged appearances by a group ever! What were the other two blokes doing in the background?! Were they have meant to have ‘slowed down’ so much that they’d actually stopped?! They were literally just sat around twiddling- one with a keyboard and the other with a microphone. If mobile phones had been invented then, they would have had those as props instead. Talk about sidelining! They were always seen as ‘the other two’ who did nothing anyway so this really wasn’t helping their profiles. Who decided on this arrangement? Their management? Were there plans afoot to ditch Terry Coldwell and John Hendy (to refer to them by their proper names and avoid accusations of sidelining myself) and relaunch the band as a duo? It looks so deliberate. Why did they go along with it?!
Their nemesis Take That also had a couple of members in Jason Orange and Howard Donald who were very much seen as ‘the dancers’ in the group’s early days but they were never subjected to public humiliation like this! Take That always seemed a tight unit (until the Gary Barlow / Robbie Williams tension split the band) with each member having fan attention of their own but poor old Terry and John always seemed superfluous to say the least.
As for the song itself, “Slow It Down” always seemed a poor choice of single being nowhere near as accomplished as “Deep” or later single “It’s Alright”. Supposedly it’s about sex (slow it down, don’t rush it – geddit?) but that probably went over the heads of the younger elements of their fanbase.
As far as I can tell, Dr. Alban never appeared on GoingLive – maybe the Tampax ad association scared the producers off – but many a ‘doctor’ has been on TOTP before. There was Dr Hook and Dr. Feelgood in the 70s, Doctor and the Medics and Dr. Robert of The Blow Monkeys in the 80s and tons of songs that featured a doctor. Just off the top of my head there’s “Doctor Doctor” by The Thompson Twins, “Dr. Beat” by Miami Sound Machine and “Doctorin’ The TARDIS” by The Timelords. Any and all of these (and it’s not a great list is it?) are preferable to my ears to Dr. Alban and his song “Sing Hallelujah!”. I mean just listen to him! His voice is so flat and monotonous. Then after you’ve finished listening to him, look at him. Have you ever seen such a spiritless, passionless and lifeless performer? He just aimlessly wanders around the stage, occasionally shrugging his shoulders as some sort of substitute for a dance move and even nips around the back of his gospel choir a couple of times as if he’s trying to hide from the camera. Staggeringly awful.
“Sing Hallelujah!” peaked at No 16.
Duran Duran seemed to be on SaturdaySuperstore every other week around ‘82 to ‘84 but I’m not sure if they were ever on GoingLive as that show’s run coincided with a downturn in the band’s commercial fortunes. By the time they were reviving with “Ordinary World” and the “Wedding Album”, GoingLive was nearly dead. “Come Undone” wasn’t though and kept their rejuvenating success going by rising to No 13.
The video has the guys seemingly reverting to their New Romantics heyday with ruffled shirts and frilly sleeves on display. I’d always wanted Simon Le Bon’s hair when I was a callow youth but had failed dismally to recreate it. However, his 1993 locks never seemed to suit him, like he was in between styles and in a constant state of growing out a haircut gone wrong.
“Come Undone” was followed by a third single from the album called “Too Much Information” which I thought was great but it only made No 35 on the UK charts. For shame.
There’s no way that Cappella were ever on GoingLive surely? How would the public phone-in have worked? Would anybody have been arsed to ask them a question? The only one I would want to ask them is “Why?”
Now this next bloke was on twice in the early days of GoingLive. Terence Trent D’Arby appeared in Episode No 4 in October ‘97 and episode No 16 in January’ 88. This would have been in his first and most successful period of his career after he burst onto the pop scene with his eight million selling debut album “Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby”. The album spawned four hit singles. I’m guessing that he was promoting the third and fourth of those on his GoingLive appearances – “Dance Little Sister” and “Sign Your Name” with the latter only missing the top of the charts by one place.
What followed two years later has come to be seen as possibly the most infamous example of career sabotage ever. Sophomore album “Neither Fish Nor Flesh” was nothing like its super commercial predecessor. It produced zero hit singles, it spent a paltry four weeks on the charts (“Introducing The Hardline According To…” spent nine weeks at No 1 in comparison) and was widely regarded as self indulgent tosh. Now I’ve never heard any of it so I’m just repeating what I’ve read about it but then the fact that I’ve never heard a single minute of the album speaks volumes of its inability to resonate with pop music fans. By way of contrast, I reckon it would only take 15 minutes of listening to a retro 80s radio station before you would hear “Sign Your Name”. Terence himself says of the album that it was “the project that literally killed TTD and from those molten ashes began the life of Sananda”. Ah yes, I’m sure you know this but D’Arby goes by the name of Sananda Maitreya these days. Although his new identity has no religious significance, Maitreya believes it means ‘rebirth’ in Sanskrit.
His version of the story of his name change doesn’t quite tell the whole story though as he released a further two albums as TTD before taking on his new identity. The first of these was 1993’s “Symphony Or Damn” the lead single of which was “Do You Love Me Like You Say”. The first of four hits from the album, I have to say I don’t remember this one much. It sounds like a song in search of a tune, trying a bit too hard to be a knockout track without finding that crucial punch. There’s a lot going on in it but none of it is very cohesive. Terence / Sananda looks every inch the star up there though, like a soul brother to Lenny Kravitz’s rock persona.
A No 14 hit was a very respectable return to the charts though. The album made the Top 10 and featured a few good tracks like “She Kissed Me” and the theme song from the Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer film FrankieAndJohnny which my manager Ian at the Our Price store in Rochdale loved.
It’s that time again! Four Breakers this week starting with a song that would become one of the most well known of this band’s entire catalogue of work despite being the fourth single released from an album that had been out for six months by this point. “Everybody Hurts” is the song and the band is, of course, REM. Written to offer understanding and hope to those with suicidal thoughts, it’s an understated yet powerful piece with Michael Stipe’s vocal completely on point. Many critics used the word ‘melancholy’ in their descriptions of the track which it is but the crucial element to its success is that it wasn’t ‘maudlin’. It was pure and people could identify with it for that very reason.
The video was shot by Ridley Scott’s son Jake and although the band are in it, there’s virtually no performance element to their appearance. Instead they are sat in a traffic jam with the camera picking out other drivers and car passengers whilst their inner thoughts are displayed on screen via subtitles. It sounds as boring as hell but it’s actually very affecting and if you watch to the very end, there’s an even bigger pay off.
“Everybody Hurts” peaked at No 7 in the UK, their second biggest ever hit after “Shiny Happy People” which in many ways was the exact antithesis of the song.
My God, Rod Stewart was all over the charts at this time. “Shotgun Wedding” was the third single taken from his curious compilation album “Lead Vocalist” which was a combination of songs from his own back catalogue (including his work with The Faces) and cover versions. This song was written by one Roy C who may not be a familiar name (he wasn’t to me) but he was actually a great musical influencer. How come? Well, Roy C (Roy Charles Hammond in full) wrote a song called “Impeach The President” that was recorded by The Honey Drippers in response to President Nixon and the Watergate affair. That song included a distinctive drum pattern that would become the template that was used by every big name you can think of in the hip-hop / R&B field. I’m talking Public Enemy, N.W.A, LL Cool J, De La Soul, Ice Cube, 2Pac, TLC etc etc.
See what I mean? Anyway, “Shotgun Wedding” was another of Roy’s tunes. Here’s his original set to a scene from The Monkees for some reason:
Rod’s version is predictably vile and soulless yet it still made it to No 21 in the charts. One month after this single, he released his “Unplugged…And Seated” MTV album that would go to No 2 in the UK. Like I said, he was all over the charts like a cheap (wedding) suit at this time.
TheProdigy are up next with a fifth single from their debut album “Experience” none of which – including this one “Wind It Up (Rewound)” – peaked lower than No 11. Quite a feat. I kind of get the impression though that this one was released just to maintain their profile in between albums. There was nearly two years separating “Experience” and “Music For The Jilted Generation” with the first single from the latter not due to appear for another six months from now.
A radically different remix of the album version, this release would signal the end of the band’s ‘kiddie rave’ era and they would reject that formula in favour of a commitment to pioneering dance music with next release “One Love”.
Now I’m pretty sure none of the Breakers so far ever appeared on GoingLive and the final band in this section were unlikely to change that sequence. NewOrder had of course been on TOTP just last week in the now legendary Baywatch performance but this week we get the official video for the “Regret” single. Apparently labelled by bassist Peter Hook as “the last good New Order song”, it would also be the band’s last Top 5 hit.
Having checked the schedule, I can see they are on the show again next week as well so I’ll leave it here for this one except to say that the video is exceedingly dull (though I think it’s meant to be arty) and I’d rather have watched the oddity of the Baywatch performance again.
If it’s April then there must be a whiff of Eurovision in the air and indeed there is with the next act being the UK’s entry for 1993. This year we’d all known for a while that Sonia was our official entrant though we didn’t know what song she’d be singing until six days before this TOTP aired. You see, in the weeks before, Sonia appeared in four separate preview programmes in which she showcased two potential songs that would go forward as the UK entry. ASongForEurope was broadcast on April 9th and a viewer vote determined the winner. The track that came out on top won easily and so it was that “Better The Devil You Know” was picked as Sonia’s song. Nothing to do with Kylie, this track was written by Brian Teasdale and Dean Collision and here’s a young Dean aged 10 playing guitar with Burt Weedon and then 21 in his own pop group Blue (not them) again, improbably, with Burt Weedon. Apologies in advance for the glimpses of Sa-vile:
Why am I going out of my way to make a big thing of Dean Collinson? Well, in her youth orchestra days as a teenager, my wife knew him. Not very well but there paths crossed due to that musical connection. That’s the whole story. Not very interesting but a story nonetheless.
Anyway, Sonia and Dean (and that Brian bloke) were the team flying the flag for the UK in Ireland and a pretty good job they did too coming in second with 164 points behind the winners Ireland (yep, them again). What was the song like you ask? Oh, it was awful – a horrible, plastic sham of a mockery of an attempt to sound like “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” (Collinson even admitted that had been his intention). It made it to No 16 in the UK charts.
Oh and though I was sure that Sonia was absolutely the type of pop star that was perfect for a spot on GoingLive, I can only find one instance of her on the show when she appeared remotely for the Video Vote section.
Ah, finally! Despite being a going concern since 1986, WorldParty are finally on TOTP! That it took so long is plain criminal. So many great singles had come and gone – “Private Revolution”, “Ship Of Fools”, “Way Down Now” and their one and only Top 40 entry to this point at No 39 “Message In The Box” and yet none had resulted in a hit big enough to warrant a performance on the show. Suddenly and unexpectedly there was “Is It Like Today” peaking inside the Top 20 at No 19. That wasn’t all. Parent album “Bang!” was a No 2 hit. Their previous album “Goodbye Jumbo” had got no higher than No 36 despite being named QMagazine’s album of the year. What had changed? Well, rather than just being the name of a vehicle for prime mover Karl Wallinger, World Party were now a proper band with David Carlin-Birch and ex-Icicle Works drummer Chris Sharrock becoming permanent and full time members. Even so, it was quite the turnaround.
As quickly as the success had come, so it also left. The album spawned just one other Top 40 hit (the No 37 peaking “All I Gave”) and World Party retreated to the world of critical acclaim but small commercial inroads. Wallinger saw the royalties roll in when Robbie Williams covered his song “She’s The One” but most people believed it was written by either Williams or song writing partner Guy Chambers (who helped produce the original) including my Robbie worshiping sister. Wallinger suffered an aneurysm in 2001 but recovered to tour again. That I never saw them live despite their playing Sunderland Poly whilst I was studying there remains an eternal embarrassment to me.
Oh and as for appearing on GoingLive, it seems unlikely given their struggles to get on TOTP.
TheBluebells still have command of the No 1 spot with “Young At Heart”. After the original 1984 video was aired last week, they’re back in the studio this week and have clearly put some thought into what they would do. The result was The Bluebells disco complete with record decks and something I’ve never seen at any wedding reception disco I’ve been to, a quartet of female backing dancers. This is the show where we they did the ‘Shabba!’ shout out that we all found hilarious at the time but I’m not sure it’s aged that well. The 2 Unlimited parody didn’t either.
P.S. Has Karl Wallinger copied Bobby Bluebell’s hairstyle or was it the other way round?
Not the single but I have it on a Greatest hits CD
4
Cappella
U Got To Know
Never happening
5
Terence Trent D’Arby
Do You Love Me Like You Say
No
6
REM
Everybody Hurts
No but I had the Automatic For The People album
7
Rod Stewart
Shotgun Wedding
NO!
8
The Prodigy
Wind It Up (Rewound)
Nah
9
New Order
Regret
I regret I didn’t but I should have
10
Sonia
Better The Devil You Know
It wasn’t better. I knew Sonia and I was never buying her single
11
World Party
Is It Like Today?
No but I have their Best In Show CD with it on
12
The Bluebells
Young At Heart
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.
Right, I haven’t done this for a while and it doesn’t always go down well as this is a music blog but I’m just going to delve quickly into what was happening in the football in April 1993 as I have a specific memory of this time. The race for the very first Premier League title is hotting up as Manchester United, Aston Villa and surprisingly Norwich City are all in with a shout. It’s all a bit nip and tuck with United just behind Villa as they head into the weekend fixtures two days after this TOTP aired. I’m working in the Our Price store in Rochdale still and around 4.30 ish on a Saturday I would find some reason to nip upstairs into the back room where the shop radio was located to try and catch the last bit of action and results from the footy. This Saturday was no exception and the big game being covered was Man Utd against Sheffield Wednesday. It’s a crucial game in the title race and United find themselves 0-1 down late into the game – a disaster for their title challenge if the score stays the same.
Meanwhile, in another North Western Our Price store (Bury I think) is one Mick Jones. I knew Mick from when he worked in the other Manchester store in Piccadilly whilst I was down the road in Market Street. Mick was/is a big United fan but he had a problem that day – he had no access to finding out the score. Now this sounds ridiculous in 2022 where everything is at our fingertips and available on our mobile phones. Need to know the score? No problem- there’s plenty of score update apps available or there’s the goals as they go in coverage of shows like SkySports’ SoccerSaturday with Jeff Stelling or the BBC’s FinalScore with Jason Mohammad. Back in 1993, such resources were not around and so we all relied on the good old radio. Sadly, poor old Mick couldn’t get a signal for the shop radio where he was and so was left completely in the dark.
Somehow I became aware of his predicament (a phone call about work presumably) and, taking pity on him, was phoning him up with score updates. As the game reached the 86th minute and with United still behind, an unlikely saviour appeared in the shape of centre back Steve Bruce. A header from a Dennis Irwin cross pulled United level and so I was straight on the blower to Mick. Relief but they really needed a win. In the final minute Bruce did it again and I was back in the phone with the good news for Mick. Salvation and although it wasn’t my team Chelsea winning (we lost 0-1 at Southampton that day), I felt like I had been a Good Samaritan at least with my score update service. The win sent United top and they would stay there until the end of the season winning their first league title for 26 years.
The football theme continues (very tenuously) with the first band on tonight’s show who are called SubSub (geddit?). Their single “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)” was one of those records that had no choice but to be a massive hit. Imprinted on your brain from the very first hearing it was immensely immediate and yet also had a baked in credibility courtesy of being released on the Rob’s Records label. Rob, of course, was the late Rob Gretton, former manager of Joy Division and New Order and co founder of Factory Records. I’m pretty sure that a work colleague called Paul introduced me to this track as he was intent on buying anything that the label released. Their other acts included Mr Scruff and A Certain Ratio.
Anyway, Sub Sub were brothers Andy and Jez Williams and school friend Jimi Goodwin who had become regulars at the legendary Manchester club The Haçienda in the early 90s and were inspired to record music of their own. Their 12” single “Space Face” was an underground club hit but it was “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) that the band’s name would become associated with. And what a tune to be known for! A retro disco sound that sounded box fresh at the same time featuring Philly soul strings, wah-wah guitar and the vocals of Melanie Williams, it was just impossible to ignore. That lolloping bass line was courtesy of a record the Williams brothers won at a fair (no really) and it was this from the musical Hair (you can hear it if you listen closely enough)…
Sub Sub went to No 3 and stayed inside the Top 10 for six weeks. I could have sworn that the record came out in 1994 but here I am showing that my memory isn’t what it once was again. Now I was very careful with my words earlier when I said that “Ain’t No Love Ain’t No Use)” was what Sub Sub are best remembered for as the Williams brothers and Jimi Goodwin are surely more well known for something else. After a fire burnt down their recording studio in 1996, they literally rose from the ashes and reinvented themselves as rock band The Doves who would go onto have three No 1 albums and score hit singles like “There Goes The Fear” and “Pounding”.
It’s the Sybil video for “When I’m Good And Ready” that gets to soundtrack the Top 40 rundown to No 11 this week. This is the third time this song has been on the show so I’m kind of out of things to say about it. The normally reliable @TOTPFacts has taken the week off as well so I can’t even pinch any of his content.
Erm…how about this? Twelve years on, Sybil performed on the ITV show HitMeBabyOneMoreTime which showcased pop stars of yesteryear singing their biggest hits alongside a cover of a (then) contemporary song. The watching TV audience voted for a weekly winner to go through to the grand final. In her heat, Sybil was up against Kelly Marie of “Feels Like I’m In Love” fame, the lead singer from Cutting Crew, those three Cleopatra girls and Chesney Hawkes. The winner? Nobody but nobody could defeat the legend that is Chesney Hawkes! If you’re interested though (and I’m certainly not) here’s Sybil doing her contemporary cover of Shania Twain’s “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!”…
Another song we’ve seen before next as Jade are back in the studio to perform their hit “Don’t Walk Away”. I can’t find a clip of this performance but it’s almost identical to the previous one even down to the long white drapes set. The only difference is that the trio have black, customised hot pants on this time as opposed to full length black leggings.
This uniformity didn’t translate into everlasting unity though. After the group petered out in 1997, the three members formed their own careers. However, when a reunion was planned last year as part of a retro concert called 90sKickback, original lead vocalist Di Reed wasn’t invited to perform. No explanation was given by her former band mates Tonya Kelly and Joi Marshall who instead recruited one time TheVoice contestant Myracle Holloway and rebranded themselves as ‘The Ladies Of Jade’. Attempts by Reed to contact Kelly and Marshall went unanswered and Reed was said to be considering action about the legality of her band mates use of the name Jade but remained hopeful it wouldn’t come to that. It all sounds a bit Spandau Ballet/ Bucks Fizz esque to me where they all ended up in court. I guess it just goes to show that bands of the longevity and democratic nature like U2 are the exception and not the rule.
Woah! Wasn’t expecting this! David Essex on TOTP in 1993! Right, I need to fess up straight away that I love David Essex mainly due to his starring role in the two wonderful films That’llBeTheDay and Stardust which are two of my favourite movies of all time. He’s also made some great pop tunes and seems like a thoroughly decent sort. By the 90s though, the hits had dried up. Indeed his last Top 40 appearance had been in 1985 with “Falling Angels Riding”. So why was he suddenly back on the show? Well, it was due to an unexpected hit album called “Cover Shot” which was, unsurprisingly, a covers album that, with the aid of a TV ad campaign, would rise to No 3 in the charts, his biggest hit since his mid 70s heyday. The album featured some fairly uninspired choices of songs by the likes of The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens and this one – “Here Comes The Night” by Van Morrison’s band Them.
Despite my stated admiration of Essex, I have to admit this isn’t his finest hour. His distinctive voice just about holds up but the whole thing felt like a big anachronism in 1993. David still had his long locks back then but never mind his barnet, check out the mahoosive mullet on his bass player. He still thought it was 1985 apparently. I’m glad David found some success at this time but I just wish it had been with a better project.
Wasn’t RobinS on the same show with Sybil the other week as well? I think she was. Back then, Sybil had a trio of backing dancers/singers to enhance her performance whilst Robin S took to the stage in complete solitude. This time however, she seems to have half inched Sybil’s entourage as she’s now got three dancers behind her. I wonder how the logistics of these things were decided upon? How was it deemed OK for Robin S to have no backing singers one week but three the next? Who sorted all this stuff out? The TOTP production team? The artist’s management? The label? Whatever the mechanics behind it all, “Show Me Love” was up to No 6 which would be its peak position despite this performance.
The Breakers section is jam packed with four tunes this week meaning each of them hardly get any airtime at all. As with the thought process behind the number of backing singers earlier, I wonder how the amount of Breakers was worked out each week? Sometimes it’s as low as two and I’m sure it’s been as high as five on occasion. Was it all just down to Head Producer Stanley Appel to have the casting vote?
However it was worked out, Dr. Alban was the first artist to make the cut this week. Yes, “It’s My Life” wasn’t the only hit he had. There was another one but only one. “Sing Hallelujah!” was its name and it was actually a hit on four separate occasions around Europe including in Hungary this year. In the UK though, once was enough and no wonder as this was a steaming pile of horseshit. I think the thing about the good doctor was that he was actually a really bad rapper. His voice was monotone and he garbled his words. This track had a gospel choir added to some perfunctory Italian house piano lines which we were somehow expected to be wowed by. Hadn’t (MC) Hammer already done that trick with the infinitely better “Do Not Pass Me By”?
“Sing Hallelujah!” made it to No 16 on the UK charts but surely Dr Alban’s legacy is his association with a Tampax advert.
Not only do we have David Essex on the show tonight but there’s also one of his 70s contemporaries. Yes, after last week’s in the flesh performance, Barry Manilow has crashed into the charts at No 22 with “Copacabana (At The Copa) 1993 Remix”.
Copacabana is of course a real place being a neighbourhood located in the Brazilian city of Rio De Janeiro and is famed for its 2.5 miles of beaches . Its New Year’s Eve celebrations are renowned across the world and in 1994 included a concert by Rod Stewart that was attended by…this can’t be right surely?…3.5 million people!
As for Manilow , Bazza’s no slouch in the touring department. Wikipedia lists twenty seven tours in his own right not including residency shows nor his early career stints as the opening act for the likes of Helen Reddy and Roberta Flack.
Encouraged by the success of the “Copacabana” remix, a follow up single was released, this time a remix of “Could It Be Magic” which grazed the charts at No 36. Maybe in 1993, people had become to used to the Take That version? This was Barry’s last UK Top 40 entry. Similarly, David Essex would only have one more visit to the charts in 1994 when a duet with Catherine Zeta Jones covering “True Love Ways” made No 38. Both would continue to be big live draws to this day though.
Next to a legendary US rock band but one which had a curious relationship with the UK charts. My knowledge of Aerosmith was non-existent until 1986 saw them team up with Run-DMC for their genre-bending hit “Walk This Way” but in my defence, they’d never had a song in the UK Top 40 to that point. That hit revitalised their career in the US and they released their “Permanent Vacation” album to commercial and critical success the following year.
Meanwhile, back in the UK we had returned to our habit of steadfastly ignoring them. None of the singles from “Permanent Vacation” were hits here. Fast forward a couple of years and we finally saw fit to give them another hit in the form of “Love In An Elevator” which was taken from the “Pump” album and which made No 13. After that had been and gone though, we reverted to type and ignored all the other singles from the album. As the new decade dawned, UK record buyers decided that maybe we’d made a mistake in not buying some of their previous stuff and so a rerelease from the “Permanent Vacation” album became a Top 20 hit. That song was “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” and was possibly rereleased off the back of it featuring heavily in the Robin Williams movie MrsDoubtfire. And so to 1993 and it was time to indulge Steven Tyler, Joe Perry et al in another hit single. This time it was “Livin’ On The Edge” from the album “Get A Grip”. Was that the one with the cow’s udders on the cover?
*checks Wikipedia*
Yeah, thought it was. Anyway, the single was written in response to the Los Angeles riots incited by the acquittal of the white police officers who beat black motorist Rodney King. Nearly thirty years later and the world was to witness such tragic scenes again in America with the killing of George Floyd. Aerosmith had already made their position clear on the political and societal mood in the country that the Donald Trump era had ushered in when they sent a cease and desist letter to the president after “Livin’ On The Edge” had been played at one of his rallies in 2018. Good on ‘em.
As for how the song sounded, it didn’t seem too dissimilar to “Love In An Elevator” to me but it was criticised in the press for sounding too much like Bon Jovi! The single made No 19 at which point the UK decided it did rather like Aerosmith after all and made five of the six singles released from “Get A Grip” Top 40 hits. We seemed to have taken the album’s title to heart.
The final Breaker sees the the Lazarus like return of Duran Duran carry on at a pace with the release of “Come Undone” which would furnish the band with another hit following the surprise success of “Ordinary World”. A further example of their new, mature yet radio friendly sound, it wasn’t as immediate as its predecessor to my ears but became a rapidly established ear worm once heard a few times.
The track was actually a very late addition to their eponymous album referred to as the “Wedding Album” and was cooked up musically by Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo with the lyrics hastily developed by Simon Le Bon. I always quite liked the line “Happy Birthday to you was created for you” a lyric that Le Bon literally inserted as it was his wife Yasmin’s birthday at the time. Despite appearances to the contrary in the video, apparently John Taylor doesn’t play on the track as the bass line was created by a synth in his absence.
As I write this, the band have just played at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in their home city of Birmingham. Not everyone was watching though. Here’s comedian Mark Lamarr…
I'm reliving my youth tonight. Ah, those wonderful nights throughout the 80s when I avoided watching Duran Duran at all costs. Takes me right back.
Harsh! If you follow the thread, Lamarr doesn’t hold back on his dislike of the band. “Come Undone” peaked at No 13 in the UK and No 7 in the US.
Wait! What? There was more than one hit from TheBeloved’s “Conscience” album? I’ve been thinking these past thirty years that only “Sweet Harmony” had made the charts but here’s indisputable proof that I was wrong. “You’ve Got Me Thinking” made No 23 and was actually a double A-side with “Celebrate Your Life” (which I had no idea about either). Watching this performance back though, I’m realising that it’s quite the tune. Understated yet hypnotic, it perfectly fits Jon Marsh’s idiosyncratic vocal style. Yes, the performance is hardly scintillating with everyone on stage sat down throughout but that kind of feels right for such a blissed out tune somehow. A nice little find I think which you don’t get to say too often in these TOTP repeats.
To rack up one infamous TOTP appearance would be enough for most bands but two? I guess NewOrder weren’t most bands. Their 1983 appearance on the show to perform “Blue Monday” live has become almost legendary and will often appear on those When TV Goes Wrong list type programmes. It was a shambles but the band’s reputation came out of it intact on account of them being seen as edgy, daring heroes for trying to subvert the show’s by then stuffy, established format. Fast forward ten years and they were back with another turn that would go down in the annals of TV history for being…well…just bizarre.
After the collapse of the aforementioned Factory Records in 1992, New Order signed with London Records, something they were able to do without impediment as they didn’t actually have a formal contract with Factory. Indeed, the reason that a proposed buy out of Factory by London failed to happen was due to the fact that Factory didn’t own their artists’ material. The first release on their new label (indeed their first since “World In Motion” in 1990) was “Regret”. The lead single from their sixth studio album “Republic”, it’s surely one of their most well known songs thanks in part to that distinctive, stop start intro. It easily fitted into daytime radio playlists just as “True Faith” had done six years earlier and ended up being a huge hit when it peaked at No 4.
But aside from all that, there was this…the TOTP performance from Venice Beach, LA on the set of Baywatch. What. The. F**k? How did this happen? Well, the band were touring America in support of the album and wanted to keep the single selling as it was helping to get their Haçienda nightclub out of the financial shit. TOTP were always keen on a performance they could promote as an exclusive and so the band plotted and planned about what was the most extreme and ludicrous setting they could come up with for their appearance. They settled on the TV series Baywatch, a show as ludicrous as New Order’s proposal. Most of the cast bailed out that day except one man, a man of no inconsiderable musical career himself – David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff. Rumours abound (though denied by the band) that he wanted to somehow join in musically with the performance – possibly the only thing that could have made the whole shebang even more out there. As it was, the sight of four pasty skinned Mancs miming next to extras in thong bikinis on a golden beach with frisbees flying about and a game of volleyball going on behind them was ludicrous enough. I’m sure I read somewhere that The Hoff proved to be a lovely guy and when some photos were taken with the band afterwards for posterity, he stood in a hole dug in the sand so as not to tower over the band too much.
Did I think the performance was mad at the time? Probably not. I probably just foolishly thought well, David Hasselhoff is famous and New Order are famous so why wouldn’t they know each other? With the hindsight of thirty years, it was all clearly bonkers!
It’s a second week at the top for TheBluebells and “Young At Heart” but instead of being in the studio as they have been on both previous appearances, we get the video this week. I actually like the fact that they didn’t bother making an updated promo and we just get the original from 1984, Clare Grogan and all. There’s also a cameo from Scottish actress Molly Weir who would have been known back in 1984 for her role as Hazel the McWitch in barmy childrens show Rentaghost. In 1993, I doubt she would have been as widely recognised. And is that Craig Gannon in the band line up who would go onto replace Andy Rourke in The Smiths briefly and whom Morrissey would label as ‘undiscussable’? I think it is.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Sub Sub
Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)
Thought I did but singles box says no
2
Sybil
When I’m Good And Ready
Nah
3
Jade
Don’t Walk Away
No
4
David Essex
Here Comes The Night
Not released as a single
5
Robin S
Show Me Love
Not my bag
6
Dr. Alban
Sing Hallelujah!
Never happening
7
Barry Manilow
Copacabana (At The Copa) 1993 Remix
Nope
8
Aerosmith
Livin’ On The Edge
Negative
9
Duran Duran
Come Undone
No but I have it on something I think
10
The Beloved
You’ve Got Me Thinking
No but it’s a lost gem
11
New Order
Regret
No but I regret it now
12
The Bluebells
Young At Heart
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.
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 MPeople 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:theunauthorisedbiography, 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 TheBeloved, 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 ClockworkOrange 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 TheLionKing. 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 WitchfinderGeneral. What was he thinking?! Actually all of his band have got hats on. The guitarist has one that has a heavy WindyMillerfrom CamberwickGreen 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.
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. 2Unlimited 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
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? TheCult’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 SanctuaryMCMXCIII” 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 FriedGreenTomatoes 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 DancesWithWolves film winning an Oscar in 1991 so his stock was very high. Not even that run in with her Madgesty on InBedWithMadonna 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.
It’s mid January 1993 and I’m pissed off. The night before this TOTP aired, my beloved Chelsea had lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. That result combined with losing to Crystal Palace in the League Cup the week before effectively ended our season at the halfway stage. Bloody Hell! This was in the days before rolling coverage and every game being on TV. I tuned into Sportsnight to find out the result and it just came up on the screen. No highlights, no post match interviews, no report from the ground just the presenter reading out the result. Brutal. Anyway, as such, I was in a bad mood at work in the Our Price store in Rochdale the next day. I wonder if I sold any of the singles on this TOTP that day?
Well I certainly remember this tune as shifting a fair few copies. West End featuring Sybil and “The Love I Lost” seemed to strike a chord with record buyers that maybe few of us saw coming. Or perhaps we really should have. Let’s examine the evidence…
Firstly, Sybil was a known singer with a small but healthy track record of recent hits. In 1989 she’d bagged herself two chart entries with cover versions of Bacharach and David songs “Don’t Make Me Over” and “Walk On By” which peaked at No 19 and No 6 respectively. Ah yes, that’s the next piece of evidence- cover versions. The charts were full of cover versions around this time so why not jump on the bandwagon? Thirdly, this wasn’t just any cover version. The original was by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and what usually happened to Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes cover versions historically? Yep, they were massive hits. The Communards take on “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was the biggest selling single of 1986 whilst Simply Red’s 1989 cover of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” went to No 2. Fourthly, it was produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman who knew a thing or two about hit records. Or was it? Here’s @TOTPFacts:
Producer Eddie Gordon: "I was West End, solely… The reason you won't find my name on the record is because Pete Waterman and Mike Stock decided that due to the success of [the track] they would now be West End, until I threatened to sue them." #TOTP
"… They then sent a fax around to the UK's major labels' A & R departments to say that I played no part in the recording process, to try and stop West End from being hired as remixers." #TOTP
"Tony Dortie introduced the act on TV with, 'and the man behind West End is Eddie Gordon', after another PWL employee at the rehearsal told Tony what Waterman was up to." #TOTP
Wow! What a tangled web we weave! Sybil didn’t care though and used the success of “The Love I Lost” (it made No 3) to give her career a shot in the arm and bagged herself a Top 5 follow up single in “When I’m Good And Ready” and a Top 20 album in “Good ‘N’ Ready”. Two more singles were released from it but in a remarkable case of bad luck, both peaked at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41.
Oh, here we go. A sure sign that Take That were now officially a big deal is the fact that they’ve done a little to camera piece from Germany explaining why they can’t be in the TOTP studio to perform “Could It Be Magic”. They were now that established! Although it only lasts a few seconds, it’s interesting to note that the only band member not to speak is Robbie Williams who I would have guessed would have been all over this especially as it’s him on lead vocals on the single. Maybe he wasn’t very well, poor thing.
As I recall there was a lot of praise for Take That’s treatment of this Barry Manilow track at the time in terms of turning it from the original ballad into an up tempo disco stomper. What I didn’t know then was that Donna Summer had already performed that transformation in 1976 and had a huge hit on the US dance chart with it (in the UK it barely grazed the Top 40).
Donna’s version isn’t quite as frenetic as Take That’s and takes a good minute or so to warm up but once it gets going, you can hear that the teen sensations couldn’t claim to have come up with the original concept. I mean, what they did with it was pretty good and all and even won them a BRIT for Best British Single but original? No.
“Could It Be Magic” peaked at No 3 for Take That.
Shanice?! She never had another hit other than “I Love Your Smile”. I know because I checked for my review of 1992 so why is she back on TOTP in 1993? Oh, it’s the US charts feature and she’s having a big hit with “Saving Forever For You” over there. I see. The single ultimately peaked at No 4 across the pond but we were harder to please here in the UK and it stalled outside the Top 40 despite this TOTP appearance.
As host Tony Dortie says, the song is from the soundtrack to hit 90s US teen drama Beverly Hills90210. My wife used to watch this on a Saturday morning after I had hauled my sorry ass onto the early morning bus to Rochdale for work. Despite saying nothing to us about our lives, it was popular in the UK as well making the lead actors like Jason Priestley and Luke Perry major stars. It ran for ten years and was reactivated in 2018.
I have no recall of the music featured in the show though and a glance at the track listing of the soundtrack album released in 1992 doesn’t help – I don’t know any of the songs on it. “Saving Forever For You” was however written by prolific songwriter Diane Warren who has been responsible for some of the biggest US hits over the last 30 years or so including nine No 1s so it had pedigree though that clearly cut no ice with the UK record buying public. It sounds a bit like “Miss You Like Crazy” by Natalie Cole which Warren didn’t write but which she probably could have.
Shanice’s performance here throws up a few questions. Why has she turned up wearing multi coloured dungarees like a PlaySchool presenter, why was she sat down for the majority of the song and what was the deal with the lone floral arrangement behind her?
The next studio performance looks and sounds chaotic but not in a good way. PopWillEatItself had, possibly against the odds, racked up a steady flow of Top 40 hits since the late 80s with their brand of sample driven indie rock that the music press decided should be called ‘grebo’. I say it was unlikely not because they weren’t any good – “Def. Con. One” and “X Y and Zee” are great records – but they always seemed to be swimming against the tide of what was chart popular. They were outliers in their sound and image. Yes, the other members of that Stourbridge triumvirate had also managed to achieve chart hits but certainly in the case of The Wonder Stuff, that seemed to have come about because of a deliberate decision to go for a more commercial sound (“Size Of Cow” etc).
PWEI still seemed really out there to me and this is ably demonstrated in their performance for “Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!”. This was all over the place and, let’s be fair, the vocals were hardly on point. One of the band has turned up with hair like Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Mad Hatter whilst the other fella looks like Wee Willy Winkie but with dreadlocks instead of a hat. I suppose what I’m saying is that I just wasn’t feeling this one. Other punters did though sending it to No 9 (NINE!) in the charts making it their biggest ever hit though I’m putting that down to a slack sales period following Xmas and a loyal fanbase.
After playing ArrestedDevelopment’s “Revolution” in the Breakers the other week, TOTP have flipped to the other song in the double A-side single this week as we get “Mr. Wendal” this time around in a live by satellite performance from Atlanta, Georgia. I always liked this and actually preferred it to “People Everyday”. An insightful piece on the status of being homeless, it had a vibrancy to it and an undoubted groove as well.
This performance reflects the record with a high stepping, high kicking, star jumping backing singer, a guy spinning some tunes whilst…erm…constantly sitting down and an old fella (Mr. Wendal?) sat in a rocking chair cleaning a pair of shoes! OK, maybe it didn’t reflect the energy of the track completely but if you’re going to listen to a pop song about homelessness, wouldn’t you prefer it to be this over “Another Day In Paradise”?
“Mr. Wendal” peaked at No 4.
I didn’t know the source material for this next song until I checked it out the other week and I have to say listening to the Marianne Faithfull original was hardly a road to Damascus moment. I guess Sunscreem should be given credit for attempting to turn “Broken English” into a dance anthem but for me it never quite gets going and then all of a sudden it’s over. The repeated lyric ‘What are you fighting for?’ lent itself to the repetitive beat of a house banger but all the jumping around by singer Lucia Holm and the addition of two podium dancers and a key change can’t sell it to me.
Sunscreem’s version of “Broken English” peaked at No 13.
Here come this week’s Breakers starting with those funky divas En Vogue and their latest single “Give It Up, Turn It Loose”. Now, if I was on Popmaster on Radio 2 and got through to the 3 in 10 challenge, I reckon I could do it if Ken Bruce asked me for three hit singles by En Vogue. However, this wouldn’t have been one. This must have totally passed me by back in the day. Listening to it now, the first word that comes to mind is ‘smooth’. These girls knew how to put a soul vibe together.
Being the fourth single from the album hampered its chart chances but “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” still managed a respectable peak of No 22. Oh, I would have gone for “Hold On”, “My Lovin’ ( You’re Never Gonna Get It)” and “Free Your Mind” on 3 in 10 by the way.
Now I was pretty sure that of the singles released from the soundtrack to TheBodyguard, all but one of them were by Whitney Houston with the anomaly being Lisa Stansfield. If I’m right in this assumption (which according to Wikipedia I am), how do you explain T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. and their Bill Withers’ inspired hit “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”? Well, I’m reliant on Wikipedia again here which tells me that this lot were a Clivillés and Cole (of C+C Music Factory) project featuring one Michelle Visage on lead vocals. Yes, that Michelle Visage of StrictlyComeDancing, CelebrityBigBrother and RuPaul’sDragRace fame. Also part of the ensemble was a singer called Octavia, a name which, if you’re reading this and are my age, should be giving you some heavy Pipkins vibes right now.
Anyway, this track was definitely on TheBodyguard soundtrack, though I don’t remember it as being at all. All I think of when I think of that album is Whitney Houston and power ballads. I certainly don’t think of T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. whom I’ve learned to dislike immensely on account of what a pain in the arse it is to type out their name.
“It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day” peaked at No 17.
Now I do remember this next one. In 1986, you couldn’t escape Peter Gabriel. His “So” album was a No 1 around the world propelled to success by the single “Sledgehammer” and that video. It would be another six years before the follow up album “Us” appeared. In the intervening years, there’d been just a film soundtrack album (“Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ”) and a Best Of compilation “Shaking The Tree”. What would his new material sound like? Well, if “Steam” was anything to go by, it was exactly the same as the old material.
The second single from the album, this was “Sledgehammer Pt II”. Not that this was a bad thing, it was just that I think we were expecting something more from a creative like Gabriel. Not only did “Steam” sound like “Sledgehammer”, it looked like it too as the accompanying video was directed by Stephen R Johnson who had made the promos for “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time”. It would win a Grammy for Best Music video, the second consecutive triumph for a Peter Gabriel video after “Digging The Dirt” the previous year. The motion capture technology for the water sequences was used again in the video for TLC’s “Waterfalls” video a couple of years later which again generated awards a plenty. As engaging as the “Steam” promo is, it does make Gabriel come across as a creepy sex pest in places.
Despite a chart high of No 10, we never got to see any more of the video on TOTP other than this glimpse in the Breakers which seems kind of odd and must have pissed off Gabriel and Johnson. So successful was the single in Canada that it knocked Whitney Houston off the No 1 spot which must have taken some doing. Just one more thing on this song, if you mash up “Steam” and “Sledgehammer” you just about get the title of a great single of the 80s which should have been huge but which missed the charts altogether…
Of the twelve songs featured in tonight’s show, half of them are cover versions. Here’s another one now and this one might just be the strangest of the lot. The reason given by Faith NoMore as to why they covered “Easy” by the Commodores was that they wanted to wrong foot some of the traditional rock crowd coming to see their gigs. Originally recorded to be a B-side to their “Be Aggressive” single, their label decided to make the release a double A-side instead. It was a good decision as the cover got all the airplay and made the single a No 3 hit. So far so straightforward. Where’s the strangeness in that then? OK well, firstly the track was retitled as “I’m Easy” but…only in Europe. What was that all about? Secondly, they did it absolutely straight, almost a carbon copy of the original even down to the Lionel Richie “oooh!” sound after the middle eight. Why bother? Whet was the point of that? Finally, given its similarity to the original, why were punters buying in their droves? Did they not know the original at all? Did they think it was a Faith Mo More song? I just didn’t get it.
The single went all the way to No 3 in the UK at a stroke easily becoming their biggest hit. It wasn’t on the initial pressings of the band’s “Angel Dust” album but given the single’s success it was rereleased with the track included. Obviously.
Now here was a song that certainly wasn’t a cover. By 1993, popular opinion decreed that DuranDuran were dead in the water. A pop group from the 80s that had elicited far more screams from their adoring fans than favourable reviews from the music press at their peak daring to think they could still be relevant in the 90s? On yer bikes lads! They had started the new decade with an underperforming album in “Liberty” that seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. ‘Look guys, you had a good run now do one will you’ seemed to be the perceived wisdom. Maybe another band would have indeed done one but Duran Duran weren’t any other band. Like U2, whatever you think of them, their longevity deserves some credit.
And so it came to pass that “OrdinaryWorld” would be the catalyst for a revival of fortunes that was a pivotal moment, a turning point in their career. Widely recognised as their best ever tune, it was such a mature sound that record buyers seemed to forget any prejudice they may have been holding against the band and bought it in huge quantities. Written about the death of a friend, Simon Le Bon’s notoriously (ooh see what I did there?) oblique lyrics were never stronger than on display here. It was a masterpiece of composition. It went to No 6, the band’s highest chart peak since “A View To A Kill” eight years before.
The band had lost two core members back in 1985/86 in the Taylors Andy and Roger but the three remaining originals were now joined by guitarist Warren Cuccurullo on a permanent basis and his guitar sound on the record would prove to be instrumental in its success. The album sold well – 100,000 units shifted in the UK and 1 million in the US. Two more singles were released and charted with “Come Undone” an especially good follow up. Their positive reviews was short lived though as their next album “Thank You”, their covers project, was panned and has been described by dissenting music press columnists as one of the worst albums of all time.
Back in 1993 though, I recall that the album “Duran Duran” (aka “The Wedding album”) came out in the February and we had a customer in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working come in and ask to reserve the vinyl version for her super fan husband (along with the cassette and CD formats). We were a small store and didn’t stock vinyl so to ensure we had a copy in stock on the day of release, we had to order it one week in advance. The customer was adamant that it was imperative that her hubby got his hands on all available formats on the big day so I promised I would sort it for her/him. And I did. The vinyl came in on time but unfortunately neither the woman nor her husband did…ever. We were left with a vinyl copy we couldn’t display. Bloody Durannies! The song itself though was a beauty and I’m surprised it didn’t hit Top 3 at least.
As for their performance on TOTP, Simon Le Bon’s notoriously (ooh I did it again!) shonky vocals just about stand up in that there’s no flat note incident as per their Live Aid appearance but he seems to be struggling a bit in the fade out. Still, as Tony Dortie says, it was nice to see them back and in such good form.
It’s seven weeks at No 1 for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You” with the single achieving enough sales to be confirmed as the biggest selling single by a female solo artist ever at the time. She was toppled in the UK of that title by Cher whose 1998 single “Believe” sold 1.79 million copies. I’m not sure if that record still stands. I don’t understand the charts now which seem to allow anything to be a chart entry if it gets enough streams. I think Kate Bush might be No 1 this week with “Running Up That Hill” due to its use in the finale of Netflix horror drama series StrangerThings. It’s a crazy world we live in these days.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
West End featuring Sybil
The Love I Lost
Nope
2
Take That
Could It Be Magic
Nah
3
Shanice
Saving Forever For You
Did anybody?
4
Pop Will Eat Itself
Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!
I did not
5
Arrested Development
Mr. Wendal
No but my wife had the album
6
Sunscreem
Broken English
Did nothing for me
7
En Vogue
Give It Up, Turn It Loose
No
8
T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.
It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day
Negative
9
Peter Gabriel
Steam
It was OK but I was never going to buy it
10
Faith No More
I’m Easy
No – didn’t get this at all
11
Duran Duran
Ordinary World
Not the single but I have it on something I’m sure
12
Whitney Houston
I Will Always Love You
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.
Like a former Brosette dumping the Goss brothers and transferring her affections onto New Kids On The Block, we have left behind July 1990 and moved into August…and it’s sweltering! The day after this TOTP aired, the UK Summer heat wave peaked with a temperature of 37.1 °C! Apparently immune to the heat though is tonight’s presenter Bruno Brookes who felt the need for a shirt and jacket combo – madman. He does, however, promise us some ‘hot hits’ so let’s see what the little fella has got in store for us…
…well, never mind the heatwave, it’s the UK rock wave of 1990 that’s in full flow. After Thunder were on the show the other week, now we get their doppelgängers Little Angels with their new hit “She’s A Little Angel”. As far as I can ascertain, this seemed to be a stand alone single released between their albums “Don’t Prey For Me” and “Young Gods” although I think it has turned up on the latter album in subsequent re-releases. It was definitely the band’s second chart hit after “Radical Your Lover” made it to No 34 back in May.
Lead singer Toby Jepson does seem to be trying out his best Robert Plant impression in this performance. Drummer Michael Lee would go one better though by actually touring and performing with Plant after Little Angels split in 1994. As well as the aforementioned Thunder, we also had Gun on the show recently who seemed to me to also be a part of this early 90s UK rock movement and it was Jepson who would link all three bands by supporting Thunder in 2006 as a solo artist and then becoming Gun’s lead singer from 2008 to 2010. They should have just gone the Busted/McFly route who joined forces in 2013 as McBusted. What would that have made them? ‘Little Gunder’ maybe? Or ‘Gunder Angels’ even?
Little Angels would have their own season in the sun when their 1993 “Jam” album went to No 1 on the charts. I was working in Our Price Rochdale when that album came out and I bagged the promo copy of it that their record company had sent out to all stores to promote. Somehow it got lost in transit over the years whilst moving cities. I also caught the band doing a PA in HMV Manchester at this time; that makes it sound like I apprehended them doing an illegal set – they were meant to be there doing a PA! They were pretty good as I recall.
Did somebody mention New Kids On The Block? Here are the pesky little blighters with their single “Tonight”. I’m not sure if the video below is the one that TOTP show which, as Bruno advises, seems to be clips of the group’s recent tour, but it is the official video. I know at least two people who like this song (my wife is one of them!) whilst I completely dismissed it as pop cack at the time. On listening to it 31 years later, I can at least hear what they were trying to do which is come up with a more mature sound than their previous efforts like “Hangin’ Tough” and “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”. They even reference their past chart life in the lyrics hoping to distance themselves from it by admitting its existence. Check these out:
Remember when we said “Girl, please don’t go” And how I’d be loving you forever Taught you ’bout hanging tough As long as you’ve got the right stuff
And then they attempt to break with their past with the line:
Well I guess it’s a brand new day after all
Quite clever really – bit like breaking through a musical fourth wall. Well, sort of.
It wasn’t just the lyrics though, they were obviously trying out a new sound as well. I say ‘new’ sound but they were clearly borrowing heavily from a number of artists. The intro is pure “California Dreamin'” by The Mamas And The Papas, whilst there is more than a whiff of The Beatles circa “Magical Mystery Tour” and The Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” era. Too much? How dare I compare The Beatles and The Beach Boys with T’KNOB? OK – it’s pushing it but you see where I’m coming from? No? OK – you win.
“Tonight” peaked at No 3.
A run of three hits we’ve seen previously on the show next beginning with LFO and “LFO”. OK, this is just weird. Not the track (although it is a bit too out there for my tastes) but this bit of trivia that I found online. Despite the existence of LFO who were from Leeds, from 1995 there was also an American band called LFO. They must have got away with the duplicate name as it stands for ‘Lyte Funkie Ones’ whilst their UK counterparts acronym stood for ‘Low Frequency Oscillation’ apparently. That’s not the weird bit though. This is…the US LFO released a version of “Step By Step” by New Kids On The Block! Yes, that lot that were just on! In fact, “Step By Step” was the single before “Tonight” that we’ve just seen. Here it is….
Despite being released seven years apart, the sprites of pop trivia have discharged their unknown powers to create a tenuous but valid link between acts on this 1990 TOTP. Saves me having to come up with something about LFO anyway.
“LFO” by LFO (the UK one) peaked at No 12.
After being a Breaker in last week’s show, Bell Biv Devoe are in the studio tonight to perform “Poison”. Also known as BBD (enough with the acronyms! – grammar editor), I would have said that this was by far the trio’s biggest hit in the UK but I was wrong. Apparently (and I must have missed this completely at the time despite working in record shops by then), they also appeared on the single “The Best Things in Life Are Free” by Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross. And I don’t mean they were in the studio that day and happened to join in on the backing vocals, they get a proper credit. The single cover includes the legend ‘with special guest BBD and Ralph Tresvant’. Hang on…Ralph Tresvant? Wasn’t he in New Edition alongside Mr Bell, Mr Biv and Mr DeVoe? Indeed he was. And I thought Gun, Little Angels and Thunder were a tight little friendship group!
Anyway, “The Best Things in Life Are Free” was a hit twice for Janet/Luther/BBD/Mr Tresvant – a No 2 in 1992 and a No 7 in 1995 when it was remixed thereby easily outperforming “Poison” which peaked at No 19.
More weirdness now as it’s that incongruous best selling albums of the month feature again. For the record, these were the top sellers in July 1990:
1. Elton John – “Sleeping With The Past”
2. Luciano Pavarotti – “The Essential Pavarotti”
3. Rollings Stones – “Hot Rocks 1964–1971”
4. The Beach Boys – “Summer Dreams”
5. Madonna – “I’m Breathless”
Interesting that two of the Top 5 are essentially Best Ofs from legendary acts plus another one from a classical artist and that the other two albums are the latest offerings by established superstars. Where were all the new groups/bands/artists? Also, I note that TOTP finally play “Healing Hands” for the Elton clip after weeks of persisting with ‘Sacrifice”
And it’s one of those ‘established superstars’ that we stick with as we return to the singles chart as “Hanky Panky” by Madonna gets another spin. 1990 was not only the year that she starred in the Dick Tracy flick which this single was written for but she also embarked upon her Blonde Ambition World Tour. Said tour featured a Dick Tracy segment which, according to a Smash Hits review of the show, was the point at which most of the audience chose to nip out to the toilet. I’m kind of not surprised.
Despite its obvious and calculated attempt at outrage, “Hanky Panky” came across as too knowing and cartoon-ish to be truly pushing the barriers of decency for me. However, it did signpost the direction in which she would take her career from this point in. Her next single was “Justify My Love” with its sexually explicit promo video whilst her next studio album was the controversy courting “Erotica” and that coffee table book of adult content.
The first new single release of the decade from Prince next (well in the UK anyway) and it’s “Thieves In The Temple”. After his last project, the below par (it was to me at least) Batman soundtrack, Prince stays within the world of cinema with his next endeavour, the “Graffiti Bridge” project. Essentially a follow up to 1984’s Purple Rain, the film has been widely dissed since its release. I have to admit I’ve never seen it but given that it was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Prince), Worst Director (Prince), Worst Screenplay (Prince), and Worst New Star (Ingrid Chavez), I not in any hurry to seek it out. As for the film’s soundtrack album, it was critically well received but didn’t shift the units that he had in the past. It was often a title that would crop up in the Special Purchase section during my Our Price days – titles that there were massive overstocks of that specialist companies bought up cheap and then flogged back to record stores to sell at a discounted price. Actually, Prince’s last studio album “Lovesexy” was also a perennial Special Purchase title now I come to think of it.
“Thieves In The Temple” though was a pretty decent tune to my ears and was actually the final song recorded for the album and only added to the track listing at the last minute. I thought the metaphor of the title was clever and the chorus was catchy as opposed to “Batdance” which didn’t appear to have any sort of chorus at all. Although I didn’t buy the single, it was on the first Q Magazine album that I did purchase.
“Thieves In The Temple” peaked at No 7.
“It’s so hot” exclaims Bruno Brookes next as he insists on wearing his heavy looking jacket under studio lights. He subsequently describes the next act as “definitely the No 1 novelty record of the Summer so far”. Novelty record? Not sure about that to be honest. Was “Wash Your Face In My Sink” by Dream Warriors a novelty record? My friend Robin told me recently that when this was a hit, somebody he worked with down in that there London thought it was hysterical that there was a record in the charts whose title was innuendo for a specific sexual act! Robin was new in his job so didn’t know his colleague well and understandably didn’t want to explore the conversation any further so I have no idea which sexual act was being referred to. Every time I have since tried to imagine what it could be I have felt dirty and indeed in need of a wash in a sink.
In a Smash Hits article , King Lou of the band explained the song’s meaning as this:
“We took something as primitive as a washroom and we used the toilet being the dirty and the negative and the sink being the cleansed, the positive. Basically just picture the sink as being a rap book and the lyrics being the flow coming from the tap. It’s basically trying to say you can’t wash your negativity in my positivity. It goes really deep. It was originally to be called ‘Tablecloths and Napkins’.
I hope that clears it all up.
Well, well well. It’s the return of one of the biggest bands of the 80s next. Duran Duran had a hit in the 90s with a song that wasn’t “Ordinary World”? Yes they did. Their first hit of the new decade was something called “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” whatever that meant and was the lead single from their new album “Liberty”. The band had drawn a line under their first era by releasing Best Of album “Decade” at the end of ’89. If they’d envisioned that as a new start for the 90s, it didn’t begin well. They had a new line up for a start with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Sterling Campbell having made the transition from session guys to fully blown band members. What would this change of dynamic do to the band? Secondly, did they still have any juice left in the creative tank to rebuild their career and do it all over again? Did they still have a market to appeal to? In short, were they still relevant?
Well, if I was any sort of measure, then the answer was no. Despite owning Duran Duran records in my days of early youth, “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” passed me by completely. A complete non-event. Could this have been because it didn’t actually receive that much airplay at the time? Not a good sign for a band on the comeback trail. Parent album “Liberty” debuted healthily enough inside the Top 10 but dropped out of the charts calamitously within a few short weeks. American magazine Trouser Press gave it this stinging review:
“The album is idiotic with lyrics that set new standards for pretensions gone out of bounds…”
Ouch! When I started at Our Price a few months later in 1990, I worked with a guy called Mark who had been a big Duran fan in his youth (well, he was a fellow Brummie) and he said that he’d bought “Liberty” out of band loyalty but never would do again so bad was it. He was done with them. Double ouch!
Retrospectively, even the band themselves slagged it off. Here’s Nick Rhodes in 2005 (from Steve Malins) Duran biography on “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)”:
“It wasn’t right, I didn’t really like it as a single”
Triple ouch!
In subsequent years, the band have mellowed to the album and there has been talk of them revisiting some of the songs and demos that never made the track listing cut but that period of the band’s career will never be more than a depressing footnote.
Listening to “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” today, it sounds very poppy and pretty flimsy. There’s really not much to it at all. Follow up single “Serious” (once described by singer Simon Le Bon as the band’s finest moment) didn’t even make the Top 40. It would be three long years before they would return to the charts again.
Those turtles are still at No 1 this week, or rather Partners In Kryme are with their single “Turtle Power”. Whilst this TOTP repeat aired last Friday evening a debate broke out online about the identity of the first hip hop track to make it to No 1 in the UK. Unbelievably, the following claim was made:
The only UK top 40 hit for Partners In Kryme, “Turtle Power” was also the UK's first hip hop number one. (Thanks to @JonnyWelly for pointing this out!) #TOTP
WTF?! That can’t be right can it?! I wasn’t the only one to dispute this statement as various contenders were nominated including Snap!, Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”, Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You” and even a shout for “Under Pressure”. However, one track rang truer than all these with the watching public and after a quick poll, this was the official result:
Okay, let's sort this out democratically. First UK hip hop number one? VOTE NOW #TOTP
You wait all year for a dance act with an eponymously titled Top 40 hit to appear and then two turn up in the same show! After “LFO” by LFO earlier, here comes “Tricky Disco” by Tricky Disco. And as with LFO, Tricky Disco were also on the Sheffield record label Warp.
As you might have easily predicted, I wasn’t into this at all. Load of breaks, bass and bleeps nonsense. They added to their charge sheet with this piece of crap in 1995….
“Tricky Disco” by Tricky Disco peaked at No 14.
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
No but it was on that Q Magazine compilation I bought
7
Dream Warriors
Wash Your Face In My Sink
Liked it but not enough to buy it
8
Duran Duran
Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)
Nah – I’d given up on them by this point
9
Partners In Kryme
Turtle Power
This is a crime…against music. No
10
Tricky Disco
Tricky Disco
Tricky Disc-NO
Disclaimer
OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 