Eagle-Eye Cherry

TOTP 13 NOV 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

That’s not Kate Thornton! She may have similar hair but it isn’t Kate. And it’s certainly not Jayne Middlemiss so who’s this on hosting duties for this particular TOTP? Well, it was Katy Hill (she does tell us that’s her name right at the very start of the show to be fair) and she was a Blue Peter presenter who went on to appear on kids Saturday morning show Live & Kicking. Was executive producer Chris Cowey auditioning her to become part of the roster of regular presenters? If so she can’t have passed as this was her one and only TOTP gig. Was she trying to diversify? I guess Blue Peter wasn’t known for regularly featuring pop artists. In fact, did they ever have any chart acts on? A quick search of the internet doesn’t reveal many. In terms of actual performances, we have McFly, Ed Sheeran and Olly Murs but there doesn’t appear to be many names from back in the day though I could be wrong. I wonder if any of the acts on tonight’s show could ever have been on Blue Peter?

We start with Touch And Go and their salacious hit “Would You…?”. The guy behind the record, one David Lowe produced and mixed the single in his modest recording studio on the western slopes of the Malvern Hills, not far from my hometown of Worcester. There’s another tenuous link between me and “Would You…?” though. Lowe had an ongoing association with Oval Records which was run by Charlie Gillett the British radio presenter, musicologist and writer. Lowe came up with the concept of Touch And Go in collaboration with Gillett who was always on the look out for unconventional music apparently. What’s any of this got to do with me? There is the tiniest of connections. In the mid 90s, I signed up for a further education course on 50s music. After the course had finished, all us students went for a drink and at said gathering, one of the attendees told us that he had been to school with Charlie Gillett who had been a very quiet lad who’d never spoken of his passion for music (especially rock ‘n’ roll) and so when he went onto have his illustrious career in that field, it had been a total shock to his schoolmates and peers. And that is my Touch And Go/Charlie Gillett story.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? Absolutely NOT!

When Madonna got rare permission from Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA to use a sample from “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” for her global smash “Hung Up”, it was only the third time such a request had been granted by the Swedish superstars. However, back in 1998, Madge herself was the recipient of an application to use one of her own songs in somebody else’s hit. According to Wikipedia, her agreement toallow“MaterialGirl” to be sampled for “If You Buy This Record (Your Life Will Be Better)” by The Tamperer featuring Maya was the first time she had ceded to such a petition. However, I wish she hadn’t. Whereas Madonna’s “Hung Up” was a great song making brilliant use of the ABBA source material, The Tamperer’s effort was a horrible noise with the melody from “Material Girl” just plonked incongruously into the mix of a track that had barely anything about it at all. In fact, it was so simple – it’s ‘hook’ was a stuttering cry of “f-f-f-f-f-f-fabulous” – it could have been a blueprint for all those hits by the Vengaboys. Has there ever been a more inappropriately named hit?

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? Featuring the lyric “I got a party in my pants”? No chance.

Whilst we all know who Will Smith is (one of the most famous people on the planet I would surmise), how many of us are instantly familiar with the name Tatyana Ali? Well, if you’ve forgotten or never knew in the first place, she was a regular member of the cast of The Fresh Prince Of Bel–Air alongside Smith playing his young cousin Ashley Banks. After the show ended in 1996, Smith supposedly stepped up his efforts to get Ali to consider a career in music (in some of the later episodes of the show, her character had been involved in storylines that required her to sing). The culmination of Smith’s prompting was that Ali joined the roster of artists on Michael Jackson’s record label MJJ Music with an album called “Kiss The Sky” being released. The album underperformed and Ali was eventually let go from the label but it did leave us with three hit singles, the first of which was “Daydreamin’”. Peaking at a perhaps surprising high of No 6, to me, it was a decent attempt at sounding like Janet Jackson and no more. Inevitably, there would be a release that featured Will Smith which would come with the next single “Boy You Knock Me Out” which would eclipse the chart high of its predecessor by going to No 3. She returned the favour by adding vocals to a track on Smith’s “Willennium” album but would never release another album of her own, instead returning to her acting career and adding her support to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? Oh, I think so. Ali had a pretty clean living image and her song was praised for its lack of references to sex and violence.

In the course of the nearly nine years of writing this blog, I’ve witnessed many an artist just repeat the formula of their debut hit by releasing something very similar. However, Eagle-Eye Cherry took that strategy to a new level by coming up with an almost facsimile of that first success. “Falling In Love Again” sounds so similar to “Save Tonight” that I checked to see if the guitar chord structures he employed were the same in both and they damn near were. Look at this:

Save Tonight: Am – F – C – G

Falling In Love Again: Am – C – G

I’m not saying it’s not a pleasant sound but that does seem to be taking the piss rather. His sister never took such liberties with her audience I don’t think.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? Quite possibly. I think he would have met the required levels of safeness.

Like most people I’m guessing, all I knew of Faith Evans was her part in the gigantic 1997 No 1 record “I’ll Be Missing You” alongside Puff Daddy. However, there was more to her than that. She’d already had her own US platinum selling album called simply “Faith” and contributed a track to the soundtrack for Waiting To Exhale. After the death of her partner – the rapper Notorious B.I.G. – she re continued her solo career in 1998 with the album “Keep The Faith”*. The lead single from it was “Love Like This”, an out and out R&B track built around a Chic loop (weren’t they all?) that did well in all the urban charts and in the US Billboard Hot 100 but curiously failed to become a huge hit over here peaking at No 24 in our national chart. Indeed, she was bested by the improbable occurrence of another Faith in the Top 40 at the same time – Faith Hill whose “This Kiss” topped even Alanis Morissette’s “Thank U” for unlikely song words by managing to get the phrases “ centrifugal motion”, “perpetual bliss” and “pivotal moment” into its lyrics.

*The use of her name and its derivatives would be a theme Evans would keep coming back to. Subsequent album titles included “Faithfully”, “A Faithful Christmas” and “Something About Faith”.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? Married to the ultimate gangsta rapper who was murdered in a drive by shooting and an association with Puff Daddy/P Diddy/ Sean Combs and all his baggage? Never happening.

It’s the return of East 17 next or rather E-17 as the group rebranded themselves in the wake of various bust ups, negative press coverage and even a question raised about them in the House Of Commons. The fall out from Brian Harvey’s disastrous radio interview in 1997 where he endorsed the taking of the drug ecstasy claiming “it can make you a better person”, would have an everlasting effect on the group putting in motion line up changes that would become the norm in subsequent years. Harvey was initially sacked by the rest of the band but was reinstated the following year after chief songwriter Tony Mortimer himself left due to irreconcilable creative differences. The three piece vowed to carry on, bagged themselves a new record deal with Telstar and released their first new material as E-17 with the single “Each Time”. Although this entered the charts at No 2, I don’t recall hearing it at all at the time. Were they suffering an image backlash in the form of an airplay embargo? Anyway, I think I knew it was meant to be a new direction for the band with more of an emphasis on the ubiquitous R&B sound. As such, I was never that interested in actually listening to “Each Time” but now that I have, it’s not as bad as I’d feared. Quite tuneful in fact. It’s maybe a shame that this new path for the group was never given more time to play out. Sadly, that never happened as despite a No 2 position for the single, the parent album “Resurrection” never even made the Top 40 and they were left to sign off their chart career with a No 12 hit called “Betcha Can’t Wait” in 1999 and that was it. East 17 are still going (after a fashion) but with just one original member (Terry Coldwell) still in the line up. They may not be having hits anymore but they’ll always get some work at Christmas thanks to “Stay Another Day”.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? What with all those negative drug taking headlines and their ‘bad boy’ image, it was surely never on the cards unless it was to light a candle on the Christmas Advent Crown whilst singing that song. They’d have probably set fire to it anyway. Oh no, that was John Noakes wasn’t it?

Is it me or did there seem to be someone from the Fugees on the show or in the charts every week at this point? In October we had Lauryn Hill with “Doo Wop (That Thing)” riding high inside The Top 5 and just seven days prior to this, Pras dropped in to the TOTP studio to perform “Blue Angels”. This week it was the turn of Wyclef Jean but he wasn’t on his own. No, he’s got the aforementioned Pras with him alongside someone called Free Marie who is a rapper and nothing to do with the 70s rock band who had hits with “Alright Now”, “Wishing Well” and “My Brother Jake”. There was, however, a different rock band involved in Wyclef’s hit which, once you know its title is “Another One Bites The Dust”, means that you instantly know who I’m talking about. Apparently the Queen fanbase were none too pleased about this classic track by their favourite band being hijacked by Wyclef for inclusion on the soundtrack of the film Small Soldiers and I can sort of understand why. He basically took the original track and just (c)rapped all over it. Not especially creative nor indeed respectful. Also not respectful was Wyclef Jean’s video message which introduces the video we see here when he says “ C’mon Freddie Mercury, where you at?”, a line he also repeats in the actual track. Well Wyclef mate, he’d been dead for seven years so I’m not sure why you were expecting to see him! This whole project just felt all wrong from initial conception to its bad execution but it didn’t stop the sometime Fugee from doing loads more subsequent collaborations with the likes of Bono, Tom Jones, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott and even The Rock.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? No, I don’t think he would have been a natural fit.

Cher reigns supreme at the top of the charts with “Believe” for a third straight week of seven. This really was a transformative hit not only for Cher for whom it marked a massive uptick in her commercial fortunes after the disappointment of her last album “It’s A Man’s World” but also for the wider music world. The fact that Cher was 52 years old at the time meant that middle aged female artists suddenly had licence to show that this wasn’t a one-off and would follow in her footsteps with the likes of Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Donna Summer, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper all releasing albums that were of a dance music flavour.

Would they have ever appeared on Blue Peter? I think Blue Peter might not have been a big enough show for Cher. A bit beneath her. Still, she may have won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording with “Believe” but she hasn’t got a Blue Peter badge I’ll wager.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Touch And GoWould You…?No, I wouldn’t and indeed didn’t
2The Tamperer featuring MayaIf You Buy This Record (Your Life Will Be Better)Hell no
3Tatyana AliDaydreamin’No thanks
4Eagle-Eye CherryFalling In Love AgainNope
5Faith EvansLove Like ThisNah
6East 17 or (E-17 if you prefer)Each TimeNo
7Wyclef Jean / Pras / Free Marie / QueenAnother One Bites The DustNever
8Cher BelieveI did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002n30j/top-of-the-pops-13111998

TOTP 17 JUL 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid July 1998 and there’s two trends in evidence within the TOTP running order etiquette, one of which is possibly informing the other. The first is that, after a few records that have bucked the trend of seven days chart toppers by staying at No 1 for more than one week, we are back in a run of weekly changes to the pole position. From now until the end of the year, only four singles will manage more than one week at the top. This sequence seemed to inform the TOTP appearance policy because, as demonstrated in this show, we would get the previous week’s No 1 given another slot despite no longer being the country’s most bought single.

I’ve commented on this before making a case for both sides of the argument and my take on it remains confused. On the one hand, it was jarring that a show whose format historically was to showcase the records making the most strides in the Top 40 would be featuring singles whose sales had, if not dropped, been overtaken by other new releases. On the other, you could argue that none of this was the fault of executive producer Chris Cowey who possibly felt that he couldn’t just toss away a big hit record after just one showing because the record companies were manipulating the charts with their first week of release discount pricing. However, Cowey didn’t help himself by putting last week’s No 1 as the first act on the show the following week making a consecutive appearance segue albeit seven days apart as was the case here with Billie and her hit “Because We Want To”. Now, in my head this one stayed around the charts for ages which I suppose it did – a month inside the Top 10, two on the Top 40 altogether and yet it was constantly going down the charts. Not once did it reverse that descent as we had seen many a sustaining hit do this year. Still, a No 1 with your debut single aged just 15 was still quite the achievement. Ah yes, Billie’s age. In her first TOTP appearance, there was a lot of flesh on display what with her wearing a black singlet top. For this performance, she’s completely covered up. Do you think there had been complaints to the BBC about such a young girl wearing a top that revealed her midriff and bare shoulders? Or was it a decision made by Billie herself or her management team? Whatever the reason, it was a noticeable change of style.

And talking of changes of style…from pop song to schlock song as we get the infernal combination of Celine Dion and the Bee Gees duetting on “Immortality”. Whose idea was this?! Well, it was those dastardly Gibb brothers obviously who wrote the song for the stage musical of Saturday Night Fever and decided that Celine’s vocals were needed to complete the track. It was a terrible idea and an even worse sound though one that could easily have been predicted given the two artists involved. Don’t get me wrong, some of the Bee Gees classic catalogue is…well…classic but the 90s saw them record some desperately overwrought and whiny ballads and “Immortality” was no exception. The lyrics were vapid, rhyming ‘immortality’ with ‘eternity’ and banging on about fulfilling your destiny with the overall effect that, in keeping with its title, it seemed to go on forever. The whole thing was truly reprehensible.

Now there’s some jiggery pokery, some sleight of hand going on here as host Jamie Theakston was clearly superimposed over the Celine Dion/Bee Gees performance for his intro, as if Chris Cowey was trying to convince the watching TV audience that he was actually there but he obviously wasn’t. What was all that about? Couldn’t they have just done a voiceover or was there a clause in Theakston’s contract guaranteeing an agreed amount of screen time? Surely not.

Anyway, he’s definitely in the studio with the next artist (s) who is/are Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa. Now there’s a lot to unpack here starting with who were all these people? Well, Pras Michel was, of course, a member of the Fugees who were on hiatus following the mega international success of their album “The Score” allowing its three members to pursue solo careers. Pras was the second of the three to have a hit under their own name when “Ghetto Superstar” made No 2 in the UK. Ol’ Dirty Bastard (or ODB as he was styled for pre-watershed audiences) was part of the Wu-Tang Clan whilst I had to double check who Mýa was as I mistakenly believed her initially to be the woman who had that hit with The Tamperer – I was wrong as that was someone called Maya not Mýa; Maya Days to be precise. No, Mýa, if her discography is anything to go by, is a recording artist with quite the track record – eight studio albums and sixty-three singles. So, how do I neither remember nor know of her? What I do know about her is that she was in a battle with Billie as to who had the most winning smile in pop. Wow!

Erm…anyway, as we all know (even Jamie Theakston did), “Ghetto Superstar” interpolates the 1983 hit “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers that was written by the aforementioned Bee Gees. In my 80s TOTP blog, when reviewing that hit, I said it might as well have been called “Islands In The Mainstream” so middle-of-the-road was it. Turns out I was wrong about that as well as it was identified as the template for a hit by a member of one of the coolest acts of the decade and a man whose chosen professional name included an actual swear word. It shouldn’t work really but it did becoming the ninth best selling single of 1998 in the UK. Mind, we did have a track record for being susceptible to this sort of thing – “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio springs to mind.

My abiding memory of this song though involves a bus driver. Stay with me. I was living in Manchester when it was a hit and one Sunday, my wife and I were heading into town to do something (can’t remember what) so we hopped on a bus to save our legs. Once onboard, we quickly realised that this wasn’t your standard bus. The driver wasn’t wearing a uniform and he didn’t have a machine to issue passengers with any kind of ticket. He also didn’t seem to know what prices he should be charging but rather was making it up as he went/drove along. Who was this guy and how had he got hold of a bus? Had he hired one for the day? Had he stolen it? The clincher though that this wasn’t a regular bus service was that he had music blaring out which he was singing along to. The song that was playing when we boarded? Yep, “Ghetto Superstar”.

It’s Eagle-Eye Cherry again but his third consecutive appearance on the show can be justified I guess as it’s three weeks on the spin at No 6 for “Save Tonight”. This was a remarkably hardy hit spending six weeks inside the Top 10 and just under three months on the Top 40. That’s the power of a very radio friendly single, I guess.

In an attempt to distinguish this performance from his previous two, Eagle-Eye does an acoustic version of the track alongside two other guitarists and two blokes on either end of the line, one adding backing vocals and the other playing the most vigorous and energetic tambourine I think I’ve ever seen. It all hangs together pretty well though and makes for a memorable performance. Maybe Chris Cowey should have looked into doing more of these kind of slots but then not every single on the show would have lent itself to such a version so well. An acoustic “Ghetto Superstar” anyone? I think this guy proves my point..

Another two songs we’ve seen on the show before already now beginning with “Got The Feelin’” by Five. Whilst I could make a case for Eagle-Eye Cherry’s repeated appearances, this was preposterous. After debuting at No 3, this single had slipped every week since to No 5 then No 8 and eventually No 14. However, a rise of a solitary place to No 13 in week five on the charts was enough reason for Chris Cowey to show their initial performance (the one with the football shirts) again. However, according to official charts.com, “Got The Feelin’” is Five’s second biggest selling single ever, shifting half a million copies and clocking up 12 million streams and counting in the UK so does that add some credibility to Cowey’s decision? Oh I don’t know anymore!

Hell’s teeth! Cowey’s done it again with the very next song only this one is worse! I know I’m banging on about this but why are we watching Mousse T featuring Hot N’ Juicy when they are at No 11 in the charts with “Horny” having dropped a place from last week’s No 10? And what on earth is going on with those face-to-face graphics on either side of the screen?! It’s the same technology used to impose Jamie Theakston’s fizzog against a backdrop of the previously shown performance clip but this time features the women from Hot N’ Juicy. Why? Why do that? It looks cheap and nasty and adds very little in terms of impact. Make it make sense somebody. Please!!

No confusion as to why this next hit is on the show – crashing into the charts at No 9 are Garbage with the second single from their sophomore album “Version 2.0” called “I Think I’m Paranoid”. Now this is a tune! A deceptively sparse intro and simplistic verse leads immediately into a crunching power chord and Shirley Manson snarling the song title before coming back with an unexpected second part to the chorus with the “bend me, break me” refrain which would get them into trouble copyright wise with music publisher Helios Music Corporation. They claimed it infringed upon significant elements of the Scott English and Larry Weiss composition “Bend Me, Shape Me” which had been a hit for The American Breed in the US and Amen Corner in the UK. Yes, the words in that phrase are the same but there’s not much else to link the two songs to my ears. As for the performance here, you can’t take your eyes off Shirley who looks fantastic throughout in that polka dot dress. Erm…(again)… time to move on I think…

It’s another new No 1 that will only spend a solitary week at the top. Another Level would never return to the chart summit but they scaled it with “Freak Me”, a cover of an American No 1 by Silk from 1993 which never even cracked the UK Top 40 so it was possible to pass it off as their own song. Maybe. Anyway, it’s pure filth with lyrics about whipped cream and licking their baby up and down! Seriously though, I’m surprised the ‘whipped cream’ line got past the BBC sensors especially as there was a toned down version that the band performed on the promo video and for TV appearances though clearly not this one. I could never see (or hear) the appeal of this lot but judging by the screams from the studio audience, they were hot property for a while. I always get Dane Bowers from the band confused with Anthony Costa from similarly unremarkable outfit Blue. Anybody else have that problem?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1BillieBecause We Want ToNo
2Celine Dion / Bee Gees ImmortalityHeavens no!
3Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing MýaGhetto SuperstarNope
4Eagle-Eye CherrySave TonightNo but my wife had his album
5FiveGot The Feelin’Nah
6Mousse T featuring Hot N’ JuicyHornyI did not
7GarbageI Think I’m ParanoidGreat track but no
8Another LevelFreak MeNO!

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002k7yz/top-of-the-pops-17071998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 10 JUL 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

The World Cup of 1998 is reaching its climax with the final played two days after this TOTP aired. England have long since been eliminated so it’s a shoot out between hosts France and holders Brazil. History shows that it was the French who triumphed 3-0 in a game overshadowed by the Ronaldo (R9 not R7) intrigue that the BBC labelled ‘the great World Cup final mystery’. Seventy-two minutes before kick-off, Ronaldo was not on the official team sheet submitted to FIFA. Amidst chaotic scenes, half an hour later Brazil’s star striker was back in the line up and the conspiracy theories started. Stories about R9 not being fit but coming under pressure from sponsors to play was the predominant one. The accepted truth though was that R9 had suffered a convulsive fit in the night and spent three hours in hospital before deciding he was fit to play after all. His presence made little difference to the result but he would find redemption four years later scoring both goals in the 2002 final as Brazil beat Germany. I wonder if there are any such redemption arc stories on tonight’s show.

Our host is Zoe Ball and this was the last regular TOTP episode that she ever presented (she reappeared in 2001 for some special anniversary edition). I’m not sure if it was her decision or executive producer Chris Cowey’s for her to leave the roster of presenters but she wasn’t short of work still having her job on Saturday morning kids show Live & Kicking and her breakfast show gig on Radio 1. Maybe it was all getting a bit much for her especially given her reputation at the time as a ‘ladette’. Burning the candle at both ends perhaps? Anyway, her redemption arc is pretty much complete with her being so much a part of the BBC establishment that in 2024 she was named as the second highest earning presenter behind Gary Lineker.

We start with another run out for “C’est La Vie” by B*Witched. Yes, despite having already been at No 1 for two weeks and the appearances that involved, they were back on the show because they’d gone up the charts from No 4 to No 3. Now, I think it’s time that I discuss what some may think the undiscussable – that dreadful fashion faux pas that is the double denim look. Not since Shakin’ Stevens had we seen such quantities of denim adjacent to each other on TOTP. Yes, I know it’s not on display in this performance but it is undoubtedly part of the mental image ingrained in the minds of those of us who lived through the time of B*Witched. Had they already been tipped off by this point what a naff look it was? Maybe but their redemption story has come full circle with the girls back together touring and recording once more and the fans attending their concerts these days are still wearing those double denim outfits as are the band themselves. According to press interviews, everyone is very pleased about it. As for Shaky, he is surely beyond redemption.

In the long list of soap stars turned pop stars, I’m guessing that the name Matthew Marsden doesn’t spring immediately to mind. However, for an 18 month period in the late 90s, this guy was a big deal. Arriving on Coronation Street as mechanic Chris Collins in March 1997, so big was his impact that he won the National Television Award for Most Popular Newcomer that year. After having an affair with Sally Webster, Collins did a midnight flit and was never seen again. In real life, Marsden had embarked on a career as a pop star having signed to Columbia Records for £500,000. His debut single was “The Heart’s Lone Desire” and, in all honesty and knowing some of the garbage other soap actors have released (I’m looking at you Stefan Dennis!), it wasn’t completely dreadful. A decent pop track that wasn’t just about ultra catchy hooks, it would debut and peak at No 13. I’m not sure why Matthew chooses to sit down for the duration of the performance though, delivering the song as if he’s telling his mates a story down the pub whilst looking extremely chuffed with himself at the same time.

Marsden’s pop career would only last one more minor hit – a cover version of Hall & Oates’ “She’s Gone” performed as a duet with Destiny’s Child no less (more of whom later) and an album that did precisely nothing. In the face of that brutal reality, the soap star turned pop star became an acting star with roles in movies such as Black Hawk Down, Resident Evil: Extinction and Atlas Shrugged. So redemption for an aborted pop career then? Hmm. Well, the thing is that Marsden has a hankering for American right wing politics and is an anti-vaccine advocate which, in my book, are not the component parts for a happy ending.

Next an act with a track that was first a hit ten years earlier. Having returned to charts at the back end of 1997 with “Jungle Brother”, the…erm…Jungle Brothers were back again with “I’ll House You ‘98”. Despite making No 22 when originally released, it was never featured on a TOTP show back then. Consequently, I didn’t review it in the 80s version of this blog but I do make mention of it when commenting on Royal House’s “Can You Party” which was the blueprint for “I’ll House You”.

TOTP 27 OCT 1988

That track had been remixed by the legendary Todd Terry who offered the Jungle Brothers the chance to combine their hip-hop sound with house music. The result was a track with a legacy that is up there with Run-D.M.C.’s “Walk This Way”. Group member Baby-Bam has described what the trio attempted to do as to “Hip-hopitise” the original House track which sounds like some process for turning humans into rabbits but you get what he means. “I’ll House You ‘98” would peak at No 26, four places lower than the original.

Karen Ramirez is back in the studio to perform her hit “Looking For Love” and after wearing a conventional all black outfit of trousers and singlet on her previous appearance, she’s turned up this week in an old gold coloured suit and tie combination! Quite extraordinary! If Colonel Mustard had been a pop star! Of course, she wasn’t the first pop star to don a gold suit. ABC’s Martin Fry favoured a gold lame version in his band’s early days and he did famously sing about “The Look Of Love”. As for a redemption arc for Karen, there doesn’t seem to be much of one. After her 15 minutes of fame she disappeared save for releasing one download only album in 2006 and nothing since. No comeback hit. No rerelease of “Looking For Love” nor use of it on a hit film soundtrack. Maybe her withdrawal from the music industry was her redemption arc though. Maybe she didn’t like what she found during her time within it and went looking for…something else. Like somewhere to dispose of that mustard suit. Apparently, Martin Fry tried to flush his original one down a toilet in a Tokyo hotel.

A group with an average age of 16 next – that’s according to Zoe Ball and, having checked, she’s right. It’s hard to reconcile but two of the members of Destiny’s Child were 16 and two were 17 years old at the time of this performance. “With Me” was the follow up to their debut hit “No, No, No” and, although I didn’t remember the song, its sound was pretty much what I was expecting before I watched this episode back. I haven’t got a lot else to say other than it’s interesting to note that when Zoe name checks the band in her outro, Beyoncé’s is the last name to come from her lips as opposed to the first. I’m probably reading far too much into that retrospectively but it did jump out at me. “Say My Name” indeed. In terms of a redemption arc, two of the members here – LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson – would be forced out of the band in early 2000 leading to them bringing lawsuits against their manager (and father of Beyoncé) Matthew Knowles as well as their two former band mates for breach of partnership. Things got heated with disparaging remarks were traded in public between the parties. However, in return for dropping the section of the lawsuit aimed at Beyoncé and Kelly Rowlands, a settlement was made with Luckett and Roberson for the pair to receive royalties for their recordings when part of the group. So they got what they were owed with the redeeming factor being that they could then pay those bills, bills, bills (sorry).

After debut album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” had topped the charts in 1997, expectations for Mansun’s follow up were sky high. Perhaps rather inevitably, the sophomore collection “Six” didn’t quite meet them. Not that it was a failure unless you count going Top 10 as such but its run of just four weeks on the charts compared to the nearly eight months of its predecessor speaks volumes. The record shop chain I was working for at the time – Our Price – were caught up in the pre-release buzz about “Six” as I’m pretty sure the buying department decreed to the stores that we were not allowed to sell out* of it in its first week of release. Not allowed, mind. I can’t remember what the consequence would have been had a store done so but it really didn’t matter as the massive sales didn’t materialise and there was never any chance of a sell out. Also not selling out were Mansun themselves as they steadfastly refused to record “Attack Of The Grey Lantern Vol 2” but rather went for a more experimental sound with lots of guitar effects using distortion pedals called things like ‘Big Muff’ and ‘Rat fuzz’. Hmm. Jon Garrett of online magazine PopMatters described the album as:

“The sound of a band collectively snubbing its fan base and smashing expectation to spectacular effect”

Garrett, Jon (28 October 2002). “Mansun: Six”. PopMatters.

*Our Price employed a similar tactic for the second album by Ash called “Nu-Clear Sounds” which again failed to live up to the sales projections based on No 1 debut album “1977”. I think they might have dropped the edict after that.

The lead single was “Legacy” which was actually the lead track on “Eight EP” which saw the band continue with their idiosyncrasy of releasing singles as EPs. It’s instantly identifiable as Mansun, retaining their distinctive sound but it does become rather repetitive to my ears as the track progresses. That said, it would achieve the band’s highest ever chart position when it peaked at No 7. I’d loved “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” but my interest in the band waned at this point and there would be no redemption arc between me and them up to their demise in 2003.

OK, let’s be clear. Despite what our failing memories (my failing memory anyway) tells us, Eagle-Eye Cherry was not a ‘one hit wonder’. He had a further two hits in the UK after “Save Tonight” but I couldn’t have named either of them without checking. Could you? Apparently, he still gets people shouting “Save Tonight” at him in public as if it’s his name – you’d think people would remember Eagle-Eye wouldn’t you?! This got me thinking that there should be another sub category for this type of artist. The criteria would be that although your biggest hit wasn’t your only one, it’s your defining one, the only one that anyone but the super-fans remembers, the only one that continues to get radio play to this day, the one that’s your royalties pension. It could be called something like ‘big hit wonder’. Who else might be categorised like this? Kajagoogoo and “Too Shy”? The Boo Radleys and “Wake Up Boo!”? There must be loads more…

A bit of chart history next. By debuting at the very top, Billie became the youngest artist to achieve a No 1 record since Helen Shapiro in 1961. Of course, we now know her as Billie Piper, accomplished and award winning actress synonymous with shows such as Doctor Who, Secret Diary of a Call Girl and I Hate Suzie. Back in 1998 though, she was fresh-faced, 15 year old Billie (she would change to Billie Piper by the time her second album arrived in the new millennium), a fresh-out-of-the-box, immediate pop star. How did she get to such an exalted position at such a young age though? Well, if she looked familiar to pop fans back then, it was probably because she’d been the face chosen to star in a TV commercial to promote Smash Hits magazine so there was already a connection established between her and pop music before she’d even released anything. The next logical step was to rectify that and she did so with “Because We Want To”, a shout-a-long anthem for the Millennials generation. This catchy pop tune allied with Billie’s winning, toothsome smile and some hot-stepping, slick dance moves proved irresistible to the record buying public. The end of the 90s would belong to Billie with another No 1 in follow up single “Girlfriend” plus two more Top 3 hits and a platinum selling album.

Come the new millennium, I, for one, was surprised that she managed to turn up another chart topper with “Day And Night”, the lead single from sophomore album “Walk Of Life”. It was almost up there with Kylie’s triumphant comeback with “Spinning Around” that same year. Unlike Ms Minogue though, Piper’s music career did not sustain. The album sold much less than her debut and the relative failure of its title track single would signify the end of her time as a pop star. Fast forward to 2005 and she would have all the time in the universe as Rose Tyler, the first companion of a reactivated Dr Who taking the role presumably because she wanted to.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1B*WitchedC’est La VieI did not
2Matthew MarsdenThe Heart’s Lone DesireDidn’t happen
3Jungle BrothersI’ll House You’98Nope
4Karen RamirezLooking For LoveNah
5Destiny’s ChildWith MeNegative
6MansunLegacyNo
7Eagle-Eye CherrySave TonightNo but my wife and the album
8BillieBecause We Want ToNo – because I didn’t want to

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002k7yx/top-of-the-pops-10071998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 03 JUL 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

This list marks a true milestone for me. This is TOTP Rewind post No 700! Yes, if you combine all the 80s and 90s shows reviews together, the total is 700. How did I get here and more importantly, was it worth it? Well, I’ll leave the second part of that question to anybody who’s taken the time to read any of the previous 699 posts to answer. As for ‘how did I get here?’ (you’ve got “Once In A Lifetime” by Talking Heads running through your mind now haven’t you?), I’ll tell you. It’s taken me nearly nine years of watching, considering and writing to get me to 700. NINE YEARS! I must be either someone who’s very dedicated to a cause or a complete narcissist.

To mark the occasion, the gods of pop music nostalgia have plotted to provide me with one of the worst running orders in TOTP history but before we get to all that, we have a brand new presenter making their debut on the show in the form of Kate Thornton. A journalist initially (she was the youngest ever editor of Smash Hits magazine aged just 21), she made the transition to TV via ITV current affairs programme Straight Up and is widely credited as the person who placed “Candle In The Wind” centre stage as part of the national grieving process for the death of Princess Diana. Apparently, her bosses wanted some music to soundtrack a photo tribute piece for Diana and Thornton was tasked with sourcing something appropriate. As the news broke on a Sunday, the record library was shut and so Kate was left with whatever she had in her car. A copy of Elton John’s Greatest Hits was on the stereo and the rest is literally history. Big history. The BBC came calling and a place in the TOTP presenter roster was offered. I like that the producers made some attempt at humour by introducing her with a skit as if she’d been pulled out of the studio audience at random to replace a poorly Jayne Middlemiss. Maybe she had, though clearly not in the manner presented. She gives a very confident and assured performance on her debut and would become the host of X Factor in 2004. I never quite understood why she was replaced by Dermot O’Leary. I believe she’s to be found on Greatest Hits Radio these days along with all the other BBC presenters deemed not hip enough anymore like Ken Bruce and Simon Mayo although to be fair, I’m not sure if either of those two were ever hip.

Anyway, we start with a new face with a shiny, new hit from a famous family. Before 1998, the phrase ‘Eagle Eyes’ would have conjured up memories of Action Man toys from my childhood but Eagle-Eye Cherry (his actual real name!) came along to change all that.

The son of American jazz artist Don Cherry and Swedish designer Moki Cherry and the half brother of Neneh Cherry, he had early career intentions to be an actor and enrolled in the High School Of Performing Arts in New York (Fame and all that) being in the same class as Jennifer Aniston. However, he would ultimately choose music as his first passion and returned to his home of Stockholm to write his debut album “Desireless”. His instincts paid off when the album sold four million copies around the world, spearheaded by lead single and opening track “Save Tonight”. Irresistible for daytime radio controllers, it’s actually quite a simple song based around the well established and familiar chord progression of Am-F-C-G that is the backbone of many a huge hit including “Hey Jude”, “Wonderwall” and “Imagine”. It’s slick and smooth though with a vocal from Cherry that has enough interest in it to keep the listener’s attention. Great things were predicted for Eagle-Eye – my wife was enamoured enough to buy “Desireless” and see him live at the Manchester Academy – but the old diminishing returns and changing tastes seem to do for him and the hits had all but dried up come the new millennium. He still recording new material though with his last album released in 2023.

Sticking with the eagle theme come Hanson whose latest hit “Thinking Of You” includes the lyric “Fly with the wings of an eagle” running throughout its length. The fifth and final single taken from their “Middle Of Nowhere” album, listening back to it, you could understand why it hadn’t appeared earlier in the release schedule. The album’s lead single had been the No 1 “MMMBop” and, to paraphrase Kate Thornton in her intro, whether you found it adorable or downright irritating, you couldn’t deny it was insanely catchy. Sadly for “Thinking Of You”, it was no “MMMBop” despite its clear aspirations to be so. However, it was MMBop-lite which sounds like a diet version of a fizzy drink but you get my drift. It seems to have all the component parts but it doesn’t have that killer hook. It’s like an early demo of their most famous song before they’d worked it into shape as the pop mega-hit it became. “Thinking Of You” would be the band’s last hit of the 90s (though they’d have three more into the new decade).

As with Hanson before them, after a couple of years of hits, Space were coming to the end of their time as Top 40 stars. Conversely, this, their penultimate hit, was called “Begin Again”. Another track lifted from their Top 3 album “Tin Planet”, it would peak at No 21, their smallest ever chart hit. Now, I’ve championed Space a bit in previous posts and my wife had their first album “Spiders” but by this point, their quirky flavoured schtick was starting to grate a bit. That eerie sound that they’d cultivated which had initially charmed was becoming predictable. “Begin Again” was another track with swooping strings and a almost mariachi feel to it with singer Tommy Scott banging on about being a man who would kill for love whilst giving his usual wild-eyed stare to the camera. Give it a rest Tommy! After leaving their label Gut Records, the band released their music to the fanbase via their website until they split in 2005. However, they did ‘begin again’ in 2011 and are still a recording and touring entity to this day.

Here’s another link back to Hanson with another boy band. 911 were on to their seventh (of ten) consecutive Top 10 hits with “How Do You Want Me To Love You” which sounds impressive but was it really? Of those ten hits, they all debuted in their peak position in week one and none of them stayed inside the Top 10 for more than two weeks. Clearly their fan base were spending their pocket money to purchase the singles as soon as they were released when they would have been heavily discounted as well to create a high entry point but when the contributing factors of fanbase and discounting were taken away, there was no substance to sustain their chart lives. This one was a prime example. Week one in at No 10, week two dropped to No 35, week three out of the Top 40 altogether. Yes, they did have a No 2 and a No 1 hit but both were cover versions of well known songs so that diminishes those achievements in my book rather. They had three albums that peaked at Nos 13, 10 and 8 selling enough copies for one gold and two silver discs. Is that impressive? Mildly at a push I’d say. Away from the numbers (as Paul Weller once sang), this was a drippy, insipid pop ballad that was forgotten as soon as the last note sounded.

Oh come on! We’ve already had two boy bands and now a third?! And this one, as Kate Thornton tells us in her intro, has toured with 911. So hang on, they were the support act for a group that themselves were almost completely lacking in any discernible merit but who topped the bill ahead of them? Have I got that right? OK so what we’re saying is that Ultra were a poor man’s 911?! Dear Lord. Can you get any worse than that?! After scoring a hit with debut single “Say You Do”, these no marks were back with a follow up called “Say It Once”. Heavens! They couldn’t even come up with two song titles that didn’t crib off each other! This is really poor stuff to mark my 700th post. The bad news is that they had a further two hits after this. Say it ain’t so.

For Pete’s sake! No, for my sake and my 700th post! This is no way to mark the occasion – Hanson, 911, Ultra and now Aaron Carter?! You’ve got to be kidding me?! This guy was the little brother of Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys and he was just ten years old at the time of this broadcast. By comparison, the youngest Hanson brother was 12. Had we seen anything like this since Little Jimmy Osmond tormented us with “Long Hair Lover From Liverpool” in 1972? I can’t think of a similar act. What on earth was this all about and why was it happening? I’m guessing it was the most cynical act by the little blighter’s record company to cash in on the popularity of the Backstreet Boys but was it really that blunt? Well, he did support his big brother’s band on tour so maybe it was.

Apparently he’d already had three UK hit singles by this point so did we mercifully miss them or have I reviewed them and completely obliterated them from my memory banks? For the record, the fourth hit was a scandalous cover of “Surfin’ USA” by The Beach Boys. Watching the performance of it here just feels wrong. Not as bad as when Channel 4 aired the Minipops series in 1983 which was not just a dodgy idea but one of the most heinous concepts ever conceived and executed but still wrong. Oh, and the intro with Jo Whiley was absolute cringe. Why?! As is sadly often the way when fame comes to someone so young, Carter would have a traumatic and tragically short life dying in 2022 aged just 34 by accidental drowning in a bath following the taking of Xanax and difluoroethane.

TOTP Executive Producer Chris Cowey has finally relented and has allowed a video to feature on the show. Apparently, this was the first promo shown since 1st May 1998 after eight weeks of studio only appearances. I’m not sure why he introduced the policy in the first place nor why he made an exception for the Beastie Boys but in the case of the latter, I’m guessing Cowey couldn’t ignore the return of one of the biggest names in rap especially as their single crashed into the Top 5. I’ve said this before but just about everyone I ever worked with in Our Price over a 10 year period loved the Beastie Boys. Not the “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” version but the more mature and achingly cool era of the band exemplified by “Paul’s Boutique”*, the eccentricity of “Check Your Head” and the eclectic nature of “Ill Communication”. Accordingly, when “Hello Nasty” came out in 1998 after a four year gap, it was a big deal for many of my colleagues.

“Intergalactic” was its lead single and it came out swinging with a big sound and a video that seemed epic at the time but maybe isn’t viewed as that through 2025 eyes. A tribute to the Japanese Kaiju genre of films (Godzilla and the like) and featuring a giant robot battling an octopus-headed creature (?), it won the 1999 Best Hip Hop Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. The battle scenes between the robot and the octopus thing remind me of the Power Rangers franchise which I had to endure watching when my son was a young boy and it was one of the oddest TV series I think I’ve ever seen. How it ran for 30 years is beyond me. Whatever the merits or drawbacks of the video, and certainly after the crime against music that was NYCC’s brutally bad cover version of “Fight For Your Right” earlier in 1998, it was good to have the real thing back.

*Here’s another link back to Hanson. “Thinking Of You” that was on the show earlier was produced by the Dust Brothers (Michael Simpson and John King) whose other credits include “Paul’s Boutique”.

Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds are No 1 for a third week but any chance of the England football team winning the World Cup crown disappeared in dramatic fashion three days before this TOTP aired. They crashed out on penalties to Argentina in the Round of 16 after having had David Beckham sent off for petulantly lashing out at Diego Simeone whilst lay on the floor. For a while, Beckham was public enemy No 1 with even an effigy of him and a noose tied to a lamppost making headlines. With England out, there would be the inevitable drop off in sales of “3 Lions ‘98”. However, it would return to the charts eight times over the years when a football tournament has been played. The nation’s wait for a follow up to 1966 and all that continues however…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Eagle-Eye CherrySave TonightNo but my wife had his album
2Hanson Thinking Of YouNegative
3SpaceBegin AgainNah
4911How Do You Want Me To Love YouAs if
5UltraSay It OnceNever
6Aaron CarterSurfin’ USA Hell no!
7Beastie BoysIntergalacticNope
8Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds3 Lions ’98No

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002jy45/top-of-the-pops-03071998?seriesId=unsliced