Elton John

TOTP 18 MAY 1995

We have a new presenter tonight as Lisa I’Anson makes her TOTP debut. Lisa was the new weekday host of Radio 1’s lunchtime show and presumably was given an opportunity on the BBC’s flagship music programme to raise her profile and promote her appointment. Lisa stayed in that slot until 1996 when she shifted to the weekend lunchtime show. However, her tenure at Radio 1 came to an end in the aftermath of a no show for her…erm…show in August 1998 after a night out in Ibiza where Radio 1 had decamped to for its annual Summer jaunt. The writing was on the wall and she left the station six months later. After the shenanigans Chris Evans had put the Radio 1 management through just a few years earlier including demands for extra holiday and Fridays off and a 17 hour bender that only ended 2 hours before he was due on air, they were always going to come down hard on subsequent misdemeanours. It was a different story over at Talksport though where Breakfast Show presenter Alan Brazil was sacked in 2004 for missing a show only to be reinstated three weeks later.

For now though, Lisa was a fully paid up part of the Radio 1 gang and loving her first TOTP appearance even allowing herself a quick “Hello Mum” to camera before she introduces tonight’s opening artist who is Billie Ray Martin with “Your Loving Arms”. When I first started working for Our Price in the Autumn of 1990, all the hipper members of staff loved Electribe 101. Their album “Electribal Memories” could always be found near the store’s CD player so often was it played. I was never really onboard with the whole thing though probably because I wasn’t one of the hipper members of staff. Anyway, Electribe 101 drifted towards a break up but singer Billie Ray Martin’s vocal talents meant she was never going to just be allowed to disappear without trace and so at the very end of October 1994, her debut solo single “Your Loving Arms” was released. Hang on…October 1994 you say? But we’re in May 1995…what gives? Well, it’s yet another case of a minor dance hit single being rereleased a few months later and becoming a major one. This was all the rage around about now. Think Strike’s “U Sure Do” and “Dreamer” by Livin’ Joy and now this one. Its original chart peak of No 38 was completely eclipsed second time around when it went to No 6. How and why did this keep happening? Were the rereleases remixed by happening DJs or was it just a case of there being a lot of money sloshing around in record labels marketing budgets so giving a record another go was always an option? I’m not sure but “Your Loving Arms” was sleek, stylish and fronted by an artist who was also both of those things so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to us that it became a big hit eventually. Sadly for Billie, she would never have such success again though she did manage two No 29 follow ups from her album “Deadline For My Memories” though the album itself failed to shift in huge quantities.

Now this performance here, what were the angels all about? I’ve checked the lyrics to the track out and can’t see any tie in. Admittedly, their wings are impressive but it all seems rather disconnected and over the top. Billie herself is rather static due to the length of the train her dress has. All a bit odd but I probably accepted it as completely normal back then. Billie Ray Martin’s career choice meant that she continued the timeline of singers called Billie. Before her came Billie Holiday, Billie Jo Spears and she was followed by Billie Eilish and…erm…well Billie!

Celine Dion is back in the studio for another crack at propelling “Only One Road” up the charts “Think Twice” style. It’s yet another power ballad (of course it is, did she ever record anything that wasn’t?) but I would wager that it’s not one that is easily remembered compared to “My Heart Will Go On”, the aforementioned “Think Twice” or even her cover of Jennifer Rush’s “The Power Of Love”. It sounds like it could be from a Disney film which was indeed a road Celine had traveled before when she recorded the theme song to Beauty And The Beast with Peabo Bryson. Whatever you think of her music (and that’s not much in my book), let’s wish her well battling against the neurological condition stiff-person syndrome that she was diagnosed with last year.

Wait, what?! Ali Campbell had a solo career? Yes he did and irony of ironies, he did it whilst he was still a member of UB40 so presumably with the band’s blessing? Given what happened between the two parties subsequently, it strikes me now as a peculiar state of affairs. Was it an authorised project to fill the four year gap between the UB40 albums “Promises And Lies” and “Guns In The Ghetto”? Whatever the reasons behind the endeavour, Ali found himself riding high in the charts with a song called “That Look In Your Eye” and an album called “Big Love”. I don’t remember the single at all which seems quite a slight thing with some very reedy singing on it from both Ali and his duet partner, one Pamela Starks who very little seems to be known about. I can find reference to a Pamela Starks who is a casting director and worked on the Prince film Sign ‘o’ the Times but they can’t be the same people can they? From casting for a music legend to singing a twee little number with the bloke from UB40? It seems an unlikely journey.

Campbell would squeeze out two further solo hit singles, both of which were covers – a version of “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah” by Jimmy Cliff and another duet, this time with his daughter Kibibi on “Somethin’ Stupid” as made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. Blimey! Come back Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne – all is forgiven.

Next, the first of two iconic songs in the show beginning with “Yes” by McAlmont & Butler. What a track this is! An instant stone cold classic. The huge Phil Spector-esque wall of sound, the joyously uplifting chorus, Bernard’s immense guitar work and David’s stunning vocals. Not just one of the songs of the year but of the decade too. If there were any doubts about the ex-Suede guitarist’s career potential, they were surely blown away by this track. As for McAlmont, I’d certainly had no idea who he was before this but once you’d heard that voice, you would never forget him.

Despite working in a record shop and selling loads of this single during the week, remarkably, I hadn’t actually heard “Yes” once. This was corrected in some style when I met up with some old Polytechnic friends in Chester at the weekend. My friend Robin had bought “Yes” and brought it with him and insisted on playing it to the group continuously on the first night. When the track had finished and the next track on the CD single began, Robin would shake his head, say “uh-uh” and restart “Yes”. This went on for some time but although people in the group were getting a bit fed up, it certainly resolved my issue of not having heard the track up to that point.

As good as this TOTP performance is, you really have to see their appearance on Later…with Jools Holland to appreciate the true majesty of the song. Bernard wigging out with his guitar, David and his extraordinary vocal range and even more extraordinarily long fingers that gave him an otherworldly quality; it’s quite astonishing and a clip I keep returning to after all these years. The duo will return to the TOTP studio on the next show so I’ll have more to say about them then.

It’s that song from the Guinness advert next. “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado was the music that soundtracked said advert called Anticipation which you may remember as featuring the guy doing weird dancing whilst waiting for his pint to settle. What you may not be aware of (as I wasn’t until now) is that the campaign started a lawsuit battle. British director Mehdi Norowzian launched the litigation against advertising agency Arks claiming that the company had based Anticipation on a short film called Joy that he had presented to Arks as part of a show reel whilst trying to secure employment with them. Arks did offer Norowzian a job, that of directing an advert for their client Guinness based around Joy and its distinctive jump editing sequence. When Norowzian turned them down as he wanted to do something completely different, Arks went ahead and made the advert without him. Norowzian lost his legal battle and had to pay £200,000 in legal costs. Here are both Anticipation and Joy so you can compare them. I definitely prefer Joy.

wait for it…

The guy in the advert is called Joe McKinney and he spent two years making personal appearances around Europe promoting Guinness. Sound like a dream job? Not for Joe. That lifestyle became too much for him and he gave up alcohol in 1997. He did go on to have a successful acting career but he did not take part in the Guinness 250th anniversary celebrations in 2009.

Next a man who’s singing a song that sounds like it could be Elton John’s latest single followed by…yep Elton John and his latest single. Joshua Kadison is the young pretender in this scenario with his single “Jessie” which has been stuck at No 20 for three weeks (this appearance would push it up to a peak of No 15).

It’s a nice enough song I guess though it does try to be Elton’s “Daniel” a bit too much I think. The irony here is that Kadison sounds more like Elton here than Elton does himself these days…

And so to the man himself. Elton John wasn’t quite as prolific in the 90s as he had been in the 70s and 80s but he was still churning out albums on a pretty regular basis. After 1992’s “The One”, “1993’s “Duets” and 1994’s “The Lion King” soundtrack came “Made In England”. When I think of Elton’s output this decade, what comes to mind first are ballads, mostly of the mawkish variety. The title track of this, his 24th studio album, was nothing of the kind though being a jaunty, upbeat, classic pop song with a singalong chorus.

By the end of 1996 though, it was back to the ballads with a collection called simply “Love Songs”. It included two tracks from the “Made In England” album the song titles of which were all just one word apart from the title track. This performance was from the British ambassador’s residence in Paris. I guess Elton was trying to be humorous.

Time for that second iconic song of the evening. There can’t be many people who aren’t aware of “Common People” by Pulp. Instantly recognisable and perhaps one of the songs most linked with Britpop (whether they liked it or not), it remains the band’s calling card. After years of swimming in the shallow waters of indie-dom followed by breakthrough bona fide chart hits from their “His ‘n’ Hers” album, with “Common People”, their success and fame exploded. Jarvis assumed national treasure status (only increased by his Michael Jackson protest at the BRITS) and sales of their “Different Class” album went through the roof (four times platinum in the UK). In the end it just took one song to cut through to the masses to enable all of this and “Common People” was the perfect vehicle even down to its title.

Written about a real life encounter Cocker had with a Greek art student at Saint Martins College who wanted to move to Hackney and rough it with ‘the common people’, it has become completely entrenched in the national consciousness even transcending the world of pop music to wider cultural realms. Look at this for example…

Such is the song’s legend that it even warranted an hour long BBC3 documentary in 2006. Sadly the film makers failed to locate the Greek art student who inspired the track though the Athens Voice newspaper suggested the wife of a former finance minister and daughter of a wealthy Greek businessman. In 2012, in true Lambert Simnel style, a woman called Katerina Kana came forward stating that the song is about her though Jarvis has not commented on her claim. “Common People” was voted the nation’s favourite Britpop song in a BBC Radio 6 Music poll in 2014 whilst that accolade was repeated the following year in a Rolling Stone magazine poll.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Never reluctant to shoot itself in its collective foot, the good old British public decided that it really couldn’t live without a shonky cover version of a song so well known it had been No 1 in our charts just five years earlier. It’s not quite the national leave of senses that Mr. Blobby was but it’s up there.

I’ve never watched the TV series Soldier Soldier that made pop stars out of actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn but enough people did that when their characters performed a version of “Unchained Melody” in an episode broadcast in November 1994, it started a desire amongst the show’s fans to own a copy of it that only one man could satiate. Step forward the scourge of the charts Simon Cowell to give us Robson & Jerome. Never one to miss out on a sales opportunity regardless of its artistic merit, Cowell pursued the two actors to record an official release of “Unchained Melody” to such an extent that Green threatened him with legal action to stop the harassment. He eventually relented though and the single was released on May 8th.

What happened next was nothing short of a phenomenon. First week sales of 300,000 easily took it to the No 1 position but incredibly it outstripped even that the following week with 470,000 units shifted; the biggest one week sales of a record since Band Aid in 1984. At one point it was selling 10 times more than the No 2 record “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado and more than the rest of the Top 10 combined. It would become the UK’s biggest selling single of 1995. I distinctly recall the beginnings of its sales story. The morning it was released, we kept being asked for it in the Our Price store I was working in but so under the radar had it been that the buying team at Head Office hadn’t bought in any copies for the chain initially meaning none of the company’s shops had it in stock. Trying to be proactive, we placed our own order for some copies just to meet local demand before Head Office cottoned on to what was happening and placed a massive order for the whole chain. All of this proved that retailers should never underestimate how suggestible the public are to the power of a popular TV show.

Right, I’m nearly done. Just the play out track to go and it may not be an iconic song but it’s certainly by a legendary artist. Despite being dead for 14 years by this point, Bob Marley’s back catalogue kept being raided for ever more releases and chart entries. “Keep On Moving” came from a compilation album called “Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On” which was kind of a continuation of the 1984 Best Of “Legend”. I don’t recall this single at all but it did make No 17 in the UK charts. Right, I’m out. See ya!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Billie Ray Martin	Your Loving Arms	No
2	Celine Dion	Only One Road	Negative
3	Ali Campbell	That Look In Your Eye	I did not
4	McAlmont & Butler	Yes	YES!!!
5	Perez ‘Prez’ Prado	Guaglione	Nah
6	Joshua Kadison	Jessie	Nope
7	Elton John	Made In England	It’s a no
8	Pulp	Common People	Not but I had the ‘Different Class’ album
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	Are you kidding?!
10	Bob Marley	Keep On Moving	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s8tg/top-of-the-pops-18051995

TOTP 02 MAR 1995

Posted on October 6 by 80stastic

Five of the nine songs on tonight’s show have already been featured in recent weeks but then the whole of this week’s Top 40 was in chaos so no wonder the running order was a bit off. So what was going on then? Well, for the second time in as many months, there was a bit of a cock up with the compilation of the sales data that informed the charts and every position apart from the Top 8 was affected. Even worse was the fact that the error wasn’t noticed until after the charts were announced and broadcast on the Sunday chart show. A recalibrated Top 40 was rapidly published on the Monday but in a curious move, TOTP head producer Ric Blaxill chose to base the Thursday night show around the incorrect chart. Maybe it was a case of supporting the more public version that the BBC had broadcast as to not have would have undermined the corporation’s authority as the custodians of the chart? Or maybe Blaxill just thought people wouldn’t have noticed the rectified chart and so just wanted to not draw attention to the error?

Whatever the reason, the decision seems a little odd in retrospect but surely the bigger mystery is why Keith Allen was asked to host the show. OK, maybe not why Keith Allen per se but why was he allowed to do it as the character of ‘Keithski Allenski’. The online reaction to his…erm…performance was overwhelmingly negative with most reactions being along the lines of “what the Hell was that?!” and “Why is he shouting all the time?!”. It’s clear he was trying to send up ‘yoof’ presenter and one time beau of Janet Street-Porter Normski but was Normski still a big name by 1995? Wikipedia tells me that the programming strand DEF II which was produced by Street-Porter and which housed Normski’s rhyming/rapping presenting style was off the air permanently by May 1994. Obviously Allen’s creation had some longevity as I know instinctively 28 years later who he is parodying but back in 1995 would it have all seemed a bit old hat? Talking of hats, apparently the one Allen was wearing wasn’t actually his but one he fished out of the BBC prop store that was used by EastEnders character Ethel! Anyway, whilst we’re discussing whether Normski was still a big name at this time, how well known was Keith Allen himself? Well, if you’d been a fan of The Comic Strip Presents…in the late 80s you’d have seen him in the episodes The Bullshitters and The Yob. He’d also been in Danny Boyle’s excellent Shallow Grave but I’m guessing an awful lot of people knew him as that bloke who got round the back in the video for New Order’s “World In Motion” during Italia ‘90. I read his autobiography Grow Up a few years back and it was an entertaining read though I’m not sure if I warmed to him that much by the end of it. I did have sympathy for him though when he revealed that his Dad wouldn’t let him watch the 1966 World Cup final for a childhood misdemeanour on the morning of the game.

He starts the show in high octane mode extorting the audience at home to “rip up the shag pile” – it doesn’t really get any better and you could say the same for first act MN8 who were never higher in the charts than they were right now – “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” is up to No 2 which means a third TOTP studio appearance for the band. As such, I haven’t got much else to say about them. Right, I’ll try one last google search for inspiration…

*sound of keyboard tiles clicking*

Right then. Let’s have a look…

*scans results*

Usual Wikipedia entry…official fan page on Facebook…hang on, what’s this? There’s a device designed to alleviate period pain called MN8?! Apparently, it’s a small device that is attached discreetly to underwear. Sadly there’s nothing discreet about MN8 the band and their personalised underwear which they are all to keen to whip out during this performance.

Next a song that was actually at No 20 rather than No 21 as the TOTP graphic advised but it’s splitting hairs I guess. It would go onto be the band’s second biggest hit ever though when it finally came to a halt at No 12. If you were asked to name 3 in 10 on Ken Bruce’s Popmaster quiz for Mike + The Mechanics could you do it? There’s “The Living Years” their US chart topper, UK No 2 and funeral standard obviously and then there’s…erm…well, actually there are some more. Their debut single “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” in 1986 made No 21, “Word Of Mouth” got to No 13 in 1991 and “All I Need Is A Miracle” was a massive radio airplay and Top 5 US hit though it didn’t make the UK charts until it was rereleased in 1996 to promote a Best Of album.

Then there’s this, the lead single from the “Beggar On A Beach Of Gold” album. If you asked AI to create the optimum AOR airplay hit, it might well come up with “Over My Shoulder”. A pleasant melody allied with Paul Carrack’s golden soul voice, how could it fail? Well, the whistling in the middle eight was considered an impediment by some it has to be said. Did it really add anything to the track by going all Roger Whittaker on it?

It certainly didn’t put daytime DJs off playing it. My wife and I went to Prague around this time and we seemed to hear it everywhere. However, my biggest memory of hearing it in the radio was in 1996 when it was played on the coach taking us to the airport in Madrid. We’d had a great holiday there but I got a case of Montezuma’s Revenge on the last day from an ice cream and spent the night on the hotel room bathroom floor. Somehow I had to get myself together to make the flight home the following morning. I hauled myself onto the coach and kept everything crossed or rather clenched. First tune on the radio that morning? “Over My Shoulder”. It wasn’t anything over my shoulder I was was worried about though. Any movement under my seat on the other hand…Miraculously, I managed the entire journey home without incident. Unfortunately though, the whole episode has left me with some rather unpleasant associations with “Over My Shoulder” none of which is the fault of Mike + The Mechanics to be fair.

I recently listened to an interview with Paul Carrack who discussed his time in the band and why he left. He told the story of how he’d put together an album in 2000 showcasing his career to that point but was still required to pay the licensing fee to include “The Living Years” on the track listing despite being the vocalist on the song. At that point, he realised he needed to be in control of his own catalogue of music and his time in the band came to an end. Asked by the interviewer if he’d heard any material by the rejuvenated Mike + The Mechanics (they reformed in 2010 with a new line up), Carrack quickly replied “Not really”. Oof!

Keithski is back banging on about tearing up carpets again before introducing “Push The Feeling On” by Nightcrawlers. Like many a 90s dance tune, it had an elongated gestation period before a massive hit was finally birthed. Originally released in 1992, it only made No 86 but its B-side was a remix of the track by DJ and producer Marc Kinchen which picked up a lot of play in the clubs and eventually was given an official release as a single in 1994 which made No 22 in the UK charts. Encouraged by that success, Kinchen returned to the track to tweak it a little more and it was released for a third time under the title “New MK Mixes for ‘95” which would become the definitive version of the track.

Now I couldn’t have picked this one out of the myriad dance tunes that dominated the 90s without re listening to it but now that I have, let’s address the elephant in room. This is the same tune as that intensely annoying We Buy Any Car jingle! Well, sort of. It’s actually based on the 2021 track “Friday” by Riton X Nightcrawlers featuring Mufasa and Hypeman which itself was obviously based on “Push The Feeling On”. Those fiendish marketing guys even got YouTube sensation Musafa to be in the ad campaign.

Anyway, back in 1995, none of us could have predicted there would be this thing called YouTube (except perhaps David Bowie) but we did have the video which was basically a procession of people posing in a Photo Booth. The director obviously went for fast clips with bold colours (check out those hairstyles) but the image that dominates for me is that of main Nightcrawler John Reid with his incredibly long, lank hair and weary expression. Maybe he hadn’t managed to sell his vehicle to We Buy Any Car.

Another dance tune next but we shouldn’t really be surprised. By my reckoning, every other hit in the Top 20 this week is a dance tune. Honestly, they were everywhere. Look at this lot:

N-Trance
Perfecto Allstarz
MC Sar and The Real McCoy
Bucketheads
Clock
Nicki French
Ini Kamoze

That’s not even including MN8 and Nightcrawlers that we’ve already seen tonight and now here’s Alex Party! Their hit “Don’t Give Me Your Life” is up to No 3. It would eventually peak one place higher. I don’t really have anything else to say about this one so instead I’m going to talk about Keith Allen’s intro for it and specifically his use of the phrase “Acieed!”. This was obviously a reference to the infamous “We Call It Acieed” single by D Mob from 1988 which got banned by the BBC amidst a tabloid backlash against the acid house movement and rave culture. Whilst it’s certainly true that the track did lead to the phenomenon of the younger generation going around randomly shouting the phrase aloud, would the kids of 1995 have known about? Clearly, he was sending up the whole ‘wicked DJ” persona for laughs but would the kids have got his cultural reference and joined in with the joke?

Future No 1 incoming and it’s this year’s Comic Relief song. After the dance track “Absolutely Fabulous” by Pet Shop Boys the previous year and the awful novelty record of “Stick It Out” by Right Said Fred in 1993, the charity went for a big ballad this time round. “Love Can Build A Bridge” was a country & western song by mother and daughter duo The Judds which had already been used for a charity record as recently as six months prior when Children for Rwanda covered it in aid of Save The Children. However, despite a TOTP appearance, it failed to make the Top 40. Comic Relief clearly saw legs in the song though and drafted in not one but four artists to record it. The combination of Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and not forgetting Eric Clapton would add the necessary star power to propel it to the chart summit.

However, it only ranks at No 15 in the best selling Comic Relief songs of all time. The next time a single was released in aid of the charity, they played the percentages much better and instead of taking a punt on a track relatively unknown to the UK public, they co-opted the appeal of a band rather than a song. The Spice Girls were at the height of their fame in 1997 and the decision for their latest single release (“Mama /Who Do You Think You Are”) to be used as the official Comic Relief song was always going to guarantee sales. It stands as the fourth best selling Comic Relief single of all time.

Curiously, both Cher and *Chrissie Hynde’s last singles released prior to “Love Can Build A Bridge” were the same song. Cher had a minor hit with “I Got You Babe” in 1993 alongside cartoon characters Beavis and Butt-head whilst Chrissie bagged a No 1 with UB40 on the same track in 1985. Both were terrible in my humble opinion.

*Credited as Chrissie Hynde and not as part of The Pretenders obviously

Keith Allen’s had a change of outfit for the next intro and put on the football shirt of his beloved Fulham FC. Now why’s he done that? Do you think it could be to wind up famous Watford supporting Elton John who is the next act on? I wouldn’t put it past him. Elton’s in the studio to perform his latest single “Believe” and as it’s one of his trademark plodding ballads, they’ve positioned the audience in a circle creating an in the round effect. Clearly the studio director has instructed them to sway as per tradition for such a song. It’s all as unconvincing as the single earring Elton’s sporting.

When Elton finished his Glastonbury set this year, he had his getaway planned so meticulously that he was back for his kids bedtime in minutes. Or as my Elton hating mate Robin put it, you could still hear the crowd booing as he tucked them in.

Back to that Top 40 foul up now and the curious case of Scarlet. Their hit “Independent Love Song” had peaked at No 12 a fortnight ago and then slipped down to No 14 the following week. In the incorrect chart announced seven days later on Radio 1 it was listed as a non mover and so TOTP Executive Producer Ric Blaxill took the decision to book them for the show again. However, when the rectified chart was published, Scarlet had fallen to No 16. In keeping with the show’s protocol of not featuring acts that were going down the charts, Blaxill really should have cancelled Scarlet’s booking but instead he honoured it making them part of a very elite club to have appeared on TOTP while their record descended the Top 40. Well I never.

P.S. As with his “Acieed!” reference, I’m not entirely convinced that ‘ver yoof’ would have got Keith Allen’s Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons name check in his intro.

The exclusive performance this week comes from Faith No More whose single “Digging The Grave” was released the week following this broadcast. I was never really that into these guys. I quite liked “We Care A Lot” and “Epic” is an…well…epic song but after that? Not so much for me thanks. What? Their cover of “Easy”? What about it? I could never figure out the point of it nor who was buying it. This track, however, was a return to their grunge rock tendencies and must have completely passed me by as I don’t recall it at all. Thankfully. What I do like though is the band standing behind Keith Allen as he does his intro for the No 1 record with a look on their faces that says “What the f**k is this guy going on about?!”.

Said No 1 is Celine Dion again with “Think Twice” which is exactly what I’m having to do to come up with something to say about this one again. Right think…that’s once…and that’s twice. I’ve got nothing. I could have done with that Top 40 cock up working in my favour and moving Celine down the chart.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	MN8	I’ve Got A Little Something For You	No
2	Mike + The Mechanics	Over My Shoulder	Negative
3	Nightcrawlers	Push The Feeling On	Uh uh
4	Alex Party	Don’t Give Me Your Life	Nope
5	Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	Not even for charity
6	Elton John	Believe	Nah
7	Scarlet	Independent Love Song	Really should have but no
8	Faith No More	Digging The Grave	I did not
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001qwr3/top-of-the-pops-02031995

TOTP 16 FEB 1995

Posted on September 28 by 80stastic

The BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule is missing the 9th February show as it included the video for convicted sex offender R Kelly’s “Bump N’ Grind” over which the chart countdown played. It isn’t the only thing missing as on 17th February 1995 the Vauxhall Cavalier belonging to Richie Edwards of Manic Street Preachers was reported as abandoned near the Severn Bridge. Edwards had been missing since leaving the London Embassy Hotel on 1st February. Attending police found evidence that the car had been lived in but although it had been left near a notorious suicide spot, there has never been any conclusive evidence that Richie committed suicide. Despite numerous sightings of him over the years, his whereabouts and status have never been confirmed until 2008 when he was officially ‘presumed dead’ although he is still listed as a missing person.

So much has been written about the story of Edwards disappearance that it has almost become legend. As such, it’s hard to recall initial reactions to the news but it remains a huge event not just for Manics fans but also in rock history. What I do recall is that there was much discussion about what the remaining members of the band would do next. Ultimately they decided to carry on and returned in 1996 with possibly their most well known album “Everything Must Go”.

Continuing the ‘missing’ theme, looking at the running order for this particular TOTP, it strikes me that there’s something else absent and that’s the presence of Britpop. Isn’t 1995 meant to be the year it exploded? So where are all its representatives? Now you might be thinking to yourself, “What’s this guy on about? What about Elastica?!” Yes, that’s true. Before the show has even started, you’ve got Justine Frischmann and co announcing their presence on the show tonight in the message to camera slot. However, check out some of the rest of the artists on the running order:

Elton John
Annie Lennox
Celine Dion
Gloria Estefan

Hell, there’s even a classical violinist on the show albeit she was a rather unusual flavour of that particular genre.

Not mentioned in that list are tonight’s opening act who are Alex Party. This Italo House collective had a minor hit the year before with “Alex Party (Saturday Night Party)” but it’s this one – “Don’t Give Me Your Life” that is surely the one they are known for if, indeed, they are remembered at all. Now I’ve had my say on all these generic dance tunes clogging up the charts around this time and nearly all of it has been negative. What can I say? I’m a pop kid at heart not a dance head. However, it did seem to me that within this one there was almost the semblance of a proper song structure. I’m sure I can detect verses and a bridge into a chorus. This wasn’t the norm was it or hadn’t I been listening to all the other dance hits properly? True, said chorus incorporates a deadly annoying bleeping synth riff that seemed to be a feature of the genre but tiny credit where it’s due I suppose. “Don’t Give Me Your Life” would peak at No 2 in the UK selling 400,000 copies along the way.

The first of four songs that we’ve only just seen next – that’s the fall out from missing an episode I suppose. I went into quite some detail about Scarlet and their biggest hit “Independent Love Song” in the last post so what to say about them this time?

Well, maybe that it seems to me that they’re not talked up enough as being a commercially successful group from Hull; after all my adopted city isn’t full of them. Yes, of course, there’s The Housemartins and The Beautiful South and Mick Ronson but after that? Everything But The Girl met at Hull University and took their name from a Hull shop but neither Tracey nor Ben were actually from Hull. Kingmaker had a smattering of Top 40 hits between 1992 and 1995 but I would suggest they are ignored in a similar fashion to Scarlet. Who else? The Paddingtons were tipped for superstardom at the start of the new millennium but never really lived up to those expectations. Any more? Wait, what?! Throbbing Gristle? The industrial music pioneers led by Genesis P-Orridge were from Hull?! I never knew that! Mind you, if you’ve ever heard any of their stuff, I’m not surprised the good people of Hull don’t big them up.

So, back to Scarlet. Sure, they only had two UK Top 40 chart hits but, on the other hand, they had TWO UK CHART HITS! How many of us can lay claim to that?! Oh and why does host Mark Goodier say he feels overdressed in reaction to Cheryl Parker’s flamboyant, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen-esque studio outfit. Surely he means underdressed or is he being ironic? Probably lose the irony and stick to the straight down the line script that you’ve built a career on eh Mark, there’s a good chap.

Hi, is that the fumigators? Good. I’ve got an urgent job that needs doing. There an horrendous stench in the TOTP studio due to the presence of a massive stinker at No 19 in the charts! I don’t mean to be disrespectful but Gloria Estefan’s version of “Everlasting Love” is malodorous in the extreme. The third track released as a single from her “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” album, this is one of the worst covers I think I may ever have heard. OK, not the very worst. Nothing can can hold a candle to Paul Shane butchering “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” but it’s still absolutely awful.

I think it’s just the utter laziness with which Gloria approaches the song. That homogenous Eurodance sound has just been applied lavishly to this classic pop song made most famous by The Love Affair who took it to No 1 in 1968. Those Italo House piano flourishes just seem so incongruous and make the thing sound so clunky.

The performance here does nothing to aid the song either. It’s another underwhelming live by satellite exclusive, this time from Miami (obviously) but I’m not convinced that the whole thing isn’t just filmed against a green screen with a fake background added in. Also, Gloria’s backing band look like the uncoolest collection of musicians ever assembled. In short, the whole thing was a bad idea with a botched execution. Must do better.

And so to the aforementioned classical violinist. There are examples of classical music crossing the divide into the pop charts but as Mark Goodier alludes to in his intro, it didn’t happen often. Off the top of my head, there’s “Nessun Dorma” by Luciano Pavarotti but that was off the back of the BBC’s Italia 90 coverage. Then there’s Ravel’s “Balero” but again that was due to another sporting event – Torvill and Dean’s gold medal winning skate at the 1984 Winter Olympics. Of course, there have been pop hits inspired by classical music. How about “World In Union” by Kiri Te Kanawa which was based on a movement from Holst’s The Planets (again though that hit came about as part of the promotion of the 1991 Rugby Union World Cup). There’s always “Fanfare For The Common Man” by Emerson Lake & Palmer I guess which was an adaptation of composer Aaron Copland’s work of the same name. OK, there’s been a few but it must be a tiny percentage that have occupied the charts compared to pop/rock acts over a 70 year period.

Seeking to change all that was a then 16 year old Singaporean-born classical violinist called Vanessa-Mae. Hailed by some as the female Nigel Kennedy, she made her first professional appearance aged just 10 and by 1995 she was already onto her fourth album. However, it was that album -“Violin Player” which would send her into the Stradivarius stratosphere with sales of 1.2 million worldwide. The album was produced by Mike Batt of Wombles and “Bright Eyes” fame and the lead single from it was “Toccata And Fugue”, a take on J.S.Bach’s “Toccata And Fugue In D Minor”.

Now, and I deliberately omitted this one from my list above, we had already seen a version of this piece in the UK Top 40 back in 1980 when Sky took “Toccata” to No 5. This though was the golden era of classical/pop music crossovers – I think this was also when that horrible Hooked On Classics phenomenon was about.

In 1995 with Eurodance and Britpop dominating, the prospect of a classical artist breakthrough seemed unlikely. I guess that Vanessa-Mae wasn’t your average classical artist. Was there some negativity from the classical music world to how she was promoted at the time? I see to think there was. Certainly her performance here was challenging the accepted and expected norms of the genre. Backing dancers lifting her up in the air and then appearing to do ‘The Locomotion’ dance? The insertion of a sample that says “Fasten Your Seat Belts” halfway through? And what about Vanessa-Mae’s outfit? Leopard print top and micro skirt? Remembering she was just 16 at the time was there any outcry about that back then or was it not seen as a big deal as the era of ‘lad culture’ approached? The single made No 16 which was a position not to be sniffed at given its musical style. The rest is history. By 2006, she was listed as the wealthiest entertainer aged under 30 in the UK.

Maybe spare a thought for Ed Alleyne-Johnson though. The one time New Model Army member and violinist recorded “Purple Electric Violin Concerto” three years before “Violin Player” and fused a classical instrument with a more pop/rock vibe to great effect and critical success but nowhere near the commercial sales of Vanessa-Mae. Then again he didn’t look like her either.

Phew! I didn’t anticipate having so much to say about Vanessa-Mae. Consequently, the next act might be given the briefest of write ups especially as, like Scarlet before them, they’ve already been on before. I refer to MN8 who are up to No 5 with “I’ve Got A Little Something For You”. There was some debate online recently in the wake of their appearances on TOTP as to what that little something actually was. I say debate but it’s pretty clear they were singing about their penises isn’t it? Oh and there’s this titbit about member Dee Tails. He became an actor and has played four different Star Wars characters. What’s that? Make a joke about light sabres. I wouldn’t stoop so low!

It’s right wing nutter masquerading as Home Secretary Stella Braverman’s current nemesis now. In the Tory government’s quest to turn the nation against each other by vilifying nurses, doctors, teachers, rail staff etc, I didn’t see Elton John as an obvious target for them. As if the world wasn’t mad enough. Anyway, back in 1995, Elton was on a hot streak. Unlike the second half of the 80s when he couldn’t buy a hit, the 90s had already provided him with eleven Top 40 singles including two No 1s. Even that though wasn’t enough to satiate Elton and less than a year after his “The Lion King Soundtrack” album came out, he released his next one called “Made In England”. The lead single from it was “Believe” which received critical acclaim but to me sounds like a rewrite of his 1992 plodding ballad hit “The One”*. Seriously, Elton could have knocked this one out whilst polishing his multiple music awards. In fact, “Believe” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance but didn’t win.

*Interestingly, the B-side of the single is the aforementioned “The One”. Hmm.

The black and white promo with Elton travelling in a zeppelin was probably bigged up at the time as a feat of video production but it hasn’t aged that well. “Believe” peaked at No 15 but to be honest, I couldn’t recall what it sounded like before listening to it and I’ve already forgotten how it goes now. Still, anyone who gets up the nose of Suella Braverman is OK by me.

Another song now that I wrote loads about in the last post and also an example of how your brain shifts and re-edits events over time. I described Annie Lennox’s hair during her performance of “No More ‘I Love You’s’” as being a bit Minnie Mouse-esque. There was clearly something lingering in my mind that triggered that comment and here it is. Actual Mini Mouse headgear! I must have forgotten Annie wore some for real! She’s lost the drag queen ballerinas for this one and replaced them with some guys who look like they’ve raided Scarlet’s wardrobe with their ruffled shirts.

Something else I talked about in the last post was what I felt was an odd decision from Annie to make her second solo album a collection of cover versions. I’ve since discovered that the reason for her decision is that she felt emotionally spent after pouring everything into debut album “Diva” and a covers album was a way of releasing an album without the same emotional investment and also allowing her to spend more time with her children. That work/life balance worked for Annie as she went one better than Elton John by winning the Grammy she was nominated for when “No More ‘I Love You’s’” won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

And so to this week’s ‘exclusive’. After looking completely ill at ease during the message to camera piece at the top of the show, Elastica look much more comfortable on stage performing their single “Waking Up”. This was their third consecutive Top 20 hit but rather unbelievably given the band’s profile, it was also their last. True, they did release their first album a month on from this that went to No 1 and broke records for a debut album in the UK so chart-wise, that was their biggest achievement but it’s still surprising. Or is it given that the band didn’t release another single in the UK until 2000* by which point Britpop had long since burnt out?

*I’m not including the 6 track EP released in 1999 that was a collection of demos and rarities.

So why was there such a big gap between releases? Well, after their album came out, they embarked on a huge round of touring (they went round North America four times). The punishing schedule led to bass player Annie Holland leaving the band citing exhaustion. This put into action a flurry of line up changes which, allied with Justine Frischmann’s heroin addiction, proved to not be conducive to the recording of new material. Record label issues and a poor reaction to second album “The Menace” led to the band calling it a day in 2001.

With that all said, I guess it’s time to confront the elephant in the room, the dreaded ‘P’ word – plagiarism. All three of Elastica’s hit singles faced accusations of copying other artists’ work. “Line Up” and “Connection” sounded a bit too similar to songs by post-punk rockers Wire whilst “Waking Up” bears an undeniable resemblance to “No More Heroes” by The Stranglers. This led to litigation action from several music publishers which were settled out of court. Does that tarnish the Elastica legacy or their place in musical history (however big or small that might be)? Personally, I don’t think so but maybe I’m being hypocritical as Ed Sheeran can get to f**k with his song stealing ways as far as I’m concerned.

It’s a second week at the top for Celine Dion with “Think Twice”. Somehow, despite this being its fourteenth week on the Top 40, “Think Twice” had managed to position itself in pole position just as Valentine’s Day rolled around. This may just have been a factor in not just seeing off competition from Annie Lennox who was strongly tipped to replace it but also in helping Celine to capture the album top spot in the shape of “The Colour Of My Love”. February 1995 – what a time we were all having!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Alex Party	Don’t Give Me Your Life	No
2	Scarlet	Independent Love Song	Surely I bought this? No?
3	Gloria Estefan	Everlasting Love	Everlasting shite more like. No
4	Vanessa-Mae	Toccata And Fugue	Nope
5	MN8	I’ve Got A Little Something For You	Negative
6	Elton John	Believe	I did not
7	Annie Lennox	No More ‘I Love You’s’	No but I have the original by The Lover Speaks from 1986
8	Elastica	Waking Up	I didn’t as it goes
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00fsvgs/top-of-the-pops-16021995

TOTP 06 OCT 1994

Posted on June 3 by 80stastic

We’ve got another ‘golden mic’ show as we enter October 1994 with guest presenters Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. Having been ‘the other two’ in The Mary Whitehouse Experience alongside the first rock stars of comedy David Baddiel and Rob Newman, Punt and Dennis did go on to hugely successful careers in their own rights. Hugh Dennis is a regular on comedy panel shows and starred in long running BBC sitcom Outnumbered. Punt, who as I recall had to fend off multiple questions in interviews as to whether he was actually the son of Eric Idle of Monty Python fame due to their facial similarities, would pursue a career off camera as a script editor and screenwriter. In 1994, the first series of their own sketch show – The Imaginatively Titled Punt & Dennis Show – had just finished being broadcast so their public profile was possibly at its highest point, certainly as a double act anyway. As such, they were probably a good choice as guest hosts and TOTP head producer Ric Blaxill couldn’t have booked Baddiel and Newman instead as they weren’t speaking to each other by then (they wouldn’t be in each other’s company for another 24 years).

Anyway, that’s enough about the presenters, what about the music? Well, I’d talk about it if we had some but I’m not sure that the opening act meets the criteria to be defined as music. By Autumn 1994, the trend for reggaefied versions of old pop hits was so popular that just about every week the chart seemed to have a representative of the genre. In this Top 40 for example there’s Pato Banton and this guy, C.J. Lewis who’d already carved out two hits for himself with ragga covers of songs by The Searchers and Stevie Wonder. However, C.J. was after a third and turned to the 70s smash “Best Of My Love” by The Emotions to complete the hat-trick. Sticking to the formula, this was again a case of C.J. toasting his way through the verses with the chorus performed faithfully by vocalist Samantha Depasois. It really was a load of old tosh but C.J. got his wish and “Best Of My Love” became his third consecutive hit peaking at No 13.

When it came to original material though, the hits reduced in size dramatically before disappearing altogether. Subsequent singles “Dollars” and “R To The A” both peaked at No 34 and C.J. never returned to the Top 40 again. To paraphrase his namesake from the wonderful BBC comedy The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, C.J. didn’t get where he is today without pinching other people’s songs and then bastardising them.

Is this a third studio appearance for Cyndi Lauper to perform her track “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”? I think it is. As such, the TOTP producers have tried to shake things up a bit by having Cyndi arrive on stage by cadging a lift from one of the moveable studio cameras – you know, those huge ones that glide around on tracks to get smooth panoramic vistas? Yeah, those. It’s not a bad bit of staging actually. Cyndi then indulges in some hand shaking with the studio audience though I’m sure I detect some slight panic in her a couple of times as she struggles to free herself from an over enthusiastic audience member. They’re an appreciative crowd though who generate some large cheers for both Cyndi’s guitarist’s slide guitar work and for the star herself when she belts out a protracted long note. Talking of long, Cyndi’s career certainly has some length. She’s been at it for over 40 years now and just this year was announced as a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame though she didn’t make the cut, losing out to Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott.

By 1994, Madonna had been having hits for 10 years. So many of them in fact that this one – “Secret” – was her 35th consecutive Top 10 hit. As they’ve all come in the years that I’ve been blogging about TOTP repeats, that means I’ve probably had to write something about all of them. That’s a lot of words about Madonna. Do I have anything else left to say about her? Yeah, probably.

After the outrage and backlash she suffered from her “Erotica” album and Sex book project in 1992, it was time for Madonna to soften her image a bit and that meant a change of image. The Mistress Dita persona of “Erotica” gave way to a more classic ‘blonde bombshell’ look inspired by Hollywood actress Jean Harlow (whom had been one of those name checked on Madge’s “Vogue” single). Then there was her new album of which “Secret” was the lead single. Lyrically, “Bedtime Stories” explored themes of love as opposed to sex and musically it ventured into R&B and hip-hop to generally positive reviews. I must admit though to getting a bit lost (and dare I say it even bored) by Madonna at this point. I get that she wanted to keep evolving creatively as an artist but it all seemed a bit too knowing and contrived. “Secret” is very accomplished and well crafted but it just didn’t cut through with me.

Interesting to note though as a timepiece of the era, Madonna discussed the song on the internet (I had no idea what that even was in 1994) leaving an audio message for her fans and a snippet of the track online. It’s hard to comprehend in these times of 24hr online access to music platforms how exciting this must have been. To hear a song back then, you either had to catch it on the radio or a TV music show or actually go and buy your own copy. I guess you could tape it off the radio but that involved a certain amount of planning and commitment that you kids today wouldn’t understand. My god I’m an old fart.

OK, enough of my old man rants s here comes Michelle Gayle who’s just entered the Top 10 at No 9 on her way to a high of No 4 with “Sweetness”. In total, Michelle would rack up seven UK chart hits of which all bar one would make the Top 20.

However, it seems that Michelle wasn’t bothered about chart positions. During my research for this post (yeah, I do some!) I came across this clip of her during her stint on the 2003 ITV show Reborn In The USA. This was basically a travelling version of the X Factor but for fading pop stars who would compete with each other for audience votes in a different US city each week with the act getting the least being booted off. This video is of the four finalists Peter Cox (Go West), Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet), Hayden Eshun (Ultimate Kaos) and Michelle discussing whether musical artists have a competitive streak. Tony was a definite ‘yes’ whilst Michelle just didn’t see it that way at all…

Go to 5:40

In direct contrast to Michelle’s view, in the early weeks of the show the competition between two of the participants became so acute that it spilled over into something else all together. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the great TV spats. Give it up for Dollar Vs Sonia!

The live by satellite slot where artists performed against the backdrop of a well known landmark had given us perhaps its most memorable moment just the other week when Bon Jovi played “Always” with the stunning visual of the Niagara Falls behind them. Head producer Ric Blaxill wasn’t going to waste that bit of footage and so it gets another airing on this show.

Now I’ve had a (well documented) weakness for a bit of the Jovi in the past but I have to say that John’s lyrics are sometimes a bit obvious and cliched. In this one he sings about loving his baby forever and a day until the heavens burst but there are a couple of lines that made me think of something else completely. First there’s this…

It’s nothing but some feelings that this old dog kicked up
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Always lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing

And then this…

I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Always lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing

Dogs? Just a man? You know where I’m going don’t you?

Sometimes when writing this blog my synapses are firing and the words come easily. Sometimes they really don’t. This is one of those latter moments. I haven’t really got anything else to say about “Circle Of Life” by Elton John. Think man! Anything will do! Nobody’ll read it anyway let alone care. I’m writing this sat in a Costa Coffee shop listening to Arab Strap and inspiration is not striking.

*Looks at Elton’s discography in forlorn hope of sparking a kernel of an idea*

OK. Got something. How many soundtrack albums do you think Elton has written? Well, according to his discography it’s ten. TEN! How many could you name though? Yes, The Lion King obviously and it’s 2019 remake. How about Rocketman Elton’s biographical musical drama? Wikipedia counted it so that’s good enough for me. Billy Elliot: The Musical is on there of course. How about Gnomeo & Juliet though? Or Sherlock Gnomes? I’m afraid that they’re his as well (Why Elton? Why?). There’s also the musical based on Verdi’s Aida known rather pompously as “Elton John And Tim Rice’s Aida”, The Muse which was a late 90s comedy which I don’t recall at all and a DreamWorks Animation called The Road To El Dorado. Perhaps the most intriguing was his first which came out in 1971 for a film called Friends (nothing to do with the US sit com TV series). I have never heard of this film until now but apparently it received a Golden Globe nomination for Best English Language Foreign Film. Not knowing the film, I obviously wasn’t aware of Elton’s soundtrack album either but then it has never been released as a standalone CD since its initial vinyl release although its tracks are on the “Rare Masters” compilation album that was released in 1992. I’ve gone from nothing to say to far too much Elton John information haven’t I?

However, I’ve not said too much about tonight’s hosts Punt & Dennis since the top of the post so how are they doing? Well, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed but maybe it’s like looking back at the technology of the time; it seems underwhelming by today’s standards but was actually cutting edge at the time. Anyway, they’ve bought out the big guns for this next link as Hugh Dennis gets his own backstage set up to showcase perhaps the duo’s best known comedy character Mr Strange and his catchphrase “Milky milky”. Known for his love of milk (that had usually gone off) and with the manner of a Peeping Tom, he was a weird but memorable creation. Dennis had actually brought him out for the Elton John intro but I wanted to save commenting on that until he got his own little slot when introducing the next act who are Take That. Before he does that though, we get the revelation that Mr Strange doesn’t wash his pants. Of course he doesn’t. Anyway, onto the biggest teen sensation since the last one and Gary Barlow gives us his own little intro telling us how the band are on a 31 date tour before joining the rest of them for a run through of new single “Sure” whilst presumably on a break from rehearsals.

After previous single “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” had broken the group’s run of four consecutive No 1s by peaking at No 3, I’m guessing there was just a tiny bit of pressure on follow up “Sure” to ensure normal service had been resumed, especially as it was a brand new track. As it turned out, this super slick slice of pop-R&B would return the band to the top of the charts (a position they maintained for two weeks) but it seems to me that “Sure” is an almost forgotten No 1. The first taster of their third album “Nobody Else” which was released the following year, it got completely overshadowed by the other two singles released from it – “Back For Good” was so perfect a pop song that many refused to believe Barlow had written it and was actually the work of Bee Gee Barry Gibb whilst “Never Forget” got elevated to another level when it was released just as the news of the departure of Robbie Williams from the band broke.

I’m sure I read at the time that Gary Barlow believed that “Sure” was the best thing that the band had ever released and was disappointed that it only lasted for two weeks at the top of the charts. I think the gist of his gripe was that he thought that the song was good enough to have transcended the teen fan base and cut through to more adult record buyers. The irony is that those two subsequent singles probably did do that on some level. In a 2021 article in The Guardian, writer Alex Petridis ranked the best 20 Take That tracks. “Sure” came in at No 12 whilst “Never Forget” and “Back For Good” were put at No 3 and No 1 respectively. I think that’s probably about right.

As for the performance here, there’s been a couple of image changes since the last time the group were on TOTP. Robbie Williams has had all his hair shaved off and Howard Donald has started his metamorphosis into pop music’s equivalent of Chewbacca. Meanwhile their outfits seem to have been inspired by the Gerry Anderson show UFO and specifically the uniforms worn by the crew of the Skydiver craft. Blimey!

For all their massive profile and popularity, when it came to huge hit singles, INXS were no Take That. They only ever had one UK Top 10 hit despite having 18 Top 40 entries. I guess they were more of an albums band? Despite the lack of mega-selling singles, as was often the case with such bands, if you put all their medium sized hits together on one Best Of album it would sell like hotcakes. I’m thinking the likes of The Beautiful South and Crowded House who both had Greatest Hits albums that sold and sold despite not having a stack of high charting tracks to put on them. So it was with INXS as well whose first compilation album went platinum in the UK.

To help promote it came this new track “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)” which was actually an old song left over from the “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts” sessions that didn’t make the cut for that album. It’s pretty standard INXS fare which is no bad thing but it’s certainly not one of their best. Whatever the calibre of the song though, any performance that features Michael Hutchence was always going to be billed as an ‘exclusive’ by the TOTP producers such was his star quality. “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)” peaked at No 15 continuing that run of Top 10 avoiding hits.

Hugh Dennis brings out another character to introduce Whigfield who is in her fourth and final week at No 1. This time it’s Embarrassing Dad who threatens to do the “Saturday Night” dance. As I said before, I was a little underwhelmed by their whole shtick. As for Whiggy, as Dennis referred to her, “Saturday Night” would be the 2nd best selling single in the UK in 1994 only behind Wet Wet Wet. It was replaced at the top by *SPOILER ALERT* Take That’s “Sure” which for purposes of context was the 37th biggest seller of the year. Make of that what you will.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	C.J. Lewis	Best Of My Love	As if
2	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Not this nor the 1984 original
3	Madonna	Secret	Nah
4	Michelle Gayle	Sweetness	Nope
5	Bon Jovi	Always	Negative
6	Elton John	Circle Of Life	No
7	Take That	Sure	Sure didn’t
8	INXS	The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)	I did not
9	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001m6qn/top-of-the-pops-06101994

TOTP 22 SEP 1994

Posted on May 28 by 80stastic

There’s only three ‘new’ songs in this episode of TOTP so I’m going to have to try hard not to repeat myself in this post. Definitely not repeating himself is Gary Lineker who announced his retirement from playing football the day before this show aired. You never hear much about him these days do you? Ahem. Right, let’s get to it…

…and we start with what looks like a dance aerobics class. It’s actually a performance of “Rhythm Of The Night” by Corona but it involves an awful lot of kicks, knee lifts and lunges. I’m guessing the neon lights backdrop was to create a sense of night time/nightlife though I’m intrigued by the choice of the ‘Jazz Club’ one. Hardly seems in keeping with this Eurodance anthem does it? Louis Balfour would no doubt approve though.

Corona would have five more UK Top 40 hits including two inside the Top 10 but can anybody remember how any of them went? I’m willing to bet they sounded a lot like “Rhythm Of The Night” though.

With ex-EastEnder Sean Maguire having only just departed the charts after his recent hit single “Someone To Love” had turned him into a bona fide pop star, Michelle Gayle wasn’t waiting for a respectful amount of time to have passed before gatecrashing the charts herself faster than you can hum “doof, doof, de doof, doof, doof, doof”. Like Maguire, Michelle had left the soap from her role as Hattie Tavernier the previous Christmas but unlike Maguire, she’d already had a Top 40 hit a year earlier with debut single “Looking Up”. I’m not sure why her follow up “Sweetness” took so long to come out (EastEnders recording commitments maybe?) but it would prove worth the wait when it became her biggest hit peaking at No 4.

You could understand why. A breezy piece of R&B pop with a chorus that screamed ear worm, this was the peak of her music career. That’s not to say that she didn’t continue to have chart hits because she had another five though only one made the Top 10. “Sweetness” is surely her most well known track though. And let’s be fair, for an ex-EastEnder, its quality was maybe more than was expected – this was no “Anyone Can Fall In Love” or “Something Outa Nothing”. And yet Michelle, it seemed to me, never quite managed to shed her soap star past to the extent that people forgot about it and thought of her as a pop star first. Maybe the three years gap between albums didn’t help establish her credentials in the public consciousness? For whatever reason though, I have a soft spot for “Sweetness”, maybe because my wife liked it and that’s good enough for me.

Another ‘new’ song next though it has taken on a life of its own due to its origins. As with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” before it, “Circle Of Life” was an Elton John composition for The Lion King film project and for me, was actually the better song. Maybe I’m biased as I’ve seen my son perform it as part of his musical theatre group live on stage but I think I’ve always had that opinion. So has Elton supposedly as he rarely plays “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” in concert but “Circle Of Life” has become a staple of his live set. The Oscars committee didn’t agree with me and Elton though and awarded the gong for Best Original Song to “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” in 1994 over “Circle Of Life”. I think the striking opening sung in Zulu helps to set it apart from its predecessor. If we’re talking about repeating ourselves though, surely there’s no more effective way of doing that than life within a circle?

So we’re back to the songs that have been on the show before with “We Are The Pigs” by Suede. However, somebody who hadn’t been on the show before was the band’s new guitarist Richard Oakes. With Bernard Butler having jumped ship a few weeks before, Oakes was drafted in as his replacement despite being only 17 at the time (he wasn’t 18 until 9 days after this TOTP aired) and that he’d been up against approximately 500 candidates for the job.

Now I think I might have a little personal insight into this story. I knew someone who was seeing Suede’s manager around this time and apparently Richard Oakes’ Mum was wanting quite a lot of input into her son’s career and this was becoming quite wearisome for said manager. To be fair to her, she was looking at the prospect of her 17 year old son plunging into the lifestyle of a famous indie rock band and all that entails so she was entitled to have some misgivings but apparently she was very forceful in getting her voice heard. Just to make us all feel ancient, I can reveal that Richard Oakes is now 46.

Incidentally, you don’t hear the word ‘swine’ used as an insult anymore do you? It was commonplace when my Dad was younger then I am now back in the 60s and 70s. Look at this for example:

It’s the last of the ‘new’ songs now and it’s by…Naomi Campbell?! The supermodel Naomi Campbell? I don’t remember this! When did this happen?! Well, September 1994 obviously but seriously, who remembers “Love And Tears”? You’re forgiven if you don’t as it only reached No 40 in the UK singles chart and the album it was taken from – “Baby Woman” – completely bombed over here. However, it was a huge success in Japan selling over one million copies there. The album was mocked and derided by our music press with its only legacy being the inspiration for the Naomi Awards, a parody of The Brit Awards; a musical equivalent of the Rotten Tomatoes employed by the film industry I guess. Run by music TV channel Music Choice, it named its award ceremony after Campbell whose contribution to the world of music were judged to be the gold standard for wretchedness. Seems a bit harsh. How bad was “Love And Tears” then?

*Watches TOTP performance*

Hmm. Well, my judgement would be that it’s as if AI had been around then and was asked to construct a soul/pop song and also to create one of the world’s most beautiful women to front it. There’s a bit of Kylie’s “Confide In Me” Eastern influences in the mix and is the melody reminiscent of “Proud” by Heather Small? It also kind of reminds me of the sound that would make All Saints famous a few years later but ultimately it’s a bit bland and without emotion. Coincidentally, the winner of the 2006 Worst British Solo Male Artist Naom Award was Lee Ryan of Blue who I’m pretty sure once recorded a track created by some song writing software as opposed to crafted by a person.

Campbell herself would cut a controversial figure in subsequent years with drug addiction problems, four convictions for assault and alleged contacts with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s all repeated songs from here on in starting with “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)” by Cyndi Lauper.

Obviously a reworking of her debut hit from 1984, that original recording was actually inspired by another song. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

Initially, Lauper struggled to find the right style in which to record the song. Then, after she and her team talked about "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners, she suggested emulating that. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 19, 2023

Bassist Eric Bazilian: "I turned down the tempo knob on the drum machine, programmed in the same kick drum pattern as 'Come On Eileen', clicked on my guitar, and played that guitar riff. She started singing, and that was it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 19, 2023

Interesting. Not as interesting as this though. The sound that “Come On Eileen” was based around (and indeed the whole style of the “Too-Rye-Aye” era of Dexys) was pinched from the group that Kevin Rowland’s former band mate Kevin ‘Al’ Archer founded called Blue Ox Babes and this track “What Does Anybody Ever Think About” in particular:

It’s that Niagara Falls performance next by Bon Jovi. This was the definitive take on head producer Ric Blaxill’s vision for the live by satellite slot of taking artists out of empty concert halls and have them perform against landmark backdrops. As dramatic panoramas go, the crashing waters of Niagara Falls was hard to top. The darkness of the night time setting only added to the event. Big tick for Ric. “Always” was the single promoting the band’s first Best Of album “Cross Road” which would prove to be the biggest selling album of the year in the UK.

It’s not just a repeat but a three-peat for Lisa Loeb And Nine Stories and their hit “Stay (I Missed You)”. After being in a satellite segue the first time and then the official promo video second time around, Lisa has finally made it into the studio in person to complete a TOTP hat-trick. She always seemed to be in the same attire when on screen, that being black top, skirt and woolly tights. It put me in mind of Tanita Tikaram who wore similar outfits when making TV appearances early in her career. Maybe it was a thing with female singers with alliteration in their names – you might even say it was a “Good Tradition”. Ahem.

Whigfield remains at No 1 with “Saturday Night”. There was, of course, no chance of Wet Wet Wet mounting a fight back to reclaim the top spot as they had deleted “Love Is All Around” meaning no more copies were being pressed so there was no product to meet demand (even if it still existed). Unlike some dance tunes of the era, the person we saw performing the song did actually sing on the recording although Sannie Carlson admitted to not being that much of a singer and that they had to do over 20 takes at getting her vocals right and in the end had to splice the best bits together. Now that really is repeating yourself.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Corona	Rhythm Of The Night	No
2	Michelle Gayle	Sweetness	I did not
3	Elton John	Circle Of Life	Nah
4	Suede	We Are The Pigs	Negative
5	Naomi Campbell	Love And Tears	Never
6	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Nope
7	Bon Jovi	Always	Didn’t happen
8	Lisa Loeb And Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	It’s a no from me
9	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001m15w/top-of-the-pops-22091994

TOTP 07 JUL 1994

Posted on April 22, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s the middle of the Summer 1994 and the UK singles chart is stagnating. Of the ten songs on tonight’s TOTP, we’ve already seen seven of them on a previous show. I’m pretty sure that was nothing out of the usual though as record companies kept huge releases back for the Autumn schedules and the Christmas sales period. They probably also figured that the public was spending its money on holidays rather than CDs and cassettes. The only beneficiaries of this would be those annoying hits that the travelling hordes had heard whilst holidaying in Europe that would inevitably end up being huge sellers in the UK. 1994 was not immune to this phenomenon but we won’t get to that particular record for a while yet.

In the meantime, we start the show with a single that I think had only featured so far as the play out song a couple of shows back but was now residing in the Top 10 and so qualified for a studio appearance. I mentioned Gun in my last post when discussing my peculiar superpower for missing the zeitgeist completely and lumping my affections on the wrong horse. The Stone Roses or Gun? Well, I quite like the sound of those Scottish rockers and I’m not sure about all this ‘Madchester’ stuff…dear oh dear. Anyway, whilst King Monkey and co would release one of the most iconic debut albums of all time, Gun did have a few hits the biggest of which was their cover of Cameo’s “Word Up”. Pretty much just a straight up rock treatment of the original stone cold 1986 classic track, it still worked pretty well I thought. Nothing fancy, just a load of squealing guitar riffs where the funky Cameo bass was, a standard rock vocal instead of Larry Blackmon’s idiosyncratic voice and a Genesis “Mama” style cackle when the “W.O.R.D. UP” bit comes along. The lead singer had undergone quite the image change since the last time we saw him. Gone are his long, pony tail locks and in their place a short, spiky peroxide blonde hairdo. He also seems to have taken up the singing with your arms behind your back style which would become Liam Gallagher’s trademark. In fact, I don’t recall Liam striking that pose when Oasis made their TOTP debut on the last show. He couldn’t have copied it off the bloke from Gun surely? Maybe I was ahead of the zeitgeist for once!

One of the few new tracks on the show next and I’m guessing this was one of those dreadful holiday hits imported from Europe that I was talking about before. “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” by Italian dance outfit 2 Cowboys is just an abomination but sadly would prove not to be a one off as there was a flurry of these…how would you describe them? A techno-hoedown? A Eurodance square dance? How about pure, unadulterated shite? Where did all this start? Was it with the line dancing phenomenon driven by Billy Ray Cyrus and his “Achy Breaky Heart”? We certainly seemed to stock a load of cheap line dancing CDs on budget labels in the Our Price store where I was working (we even had to create their own section in the racks). Surely you couldn’t line dance to “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” though? Not without breaking your neck anyway. So, was it with Doop and their Charleston gimmick No 1 from earlier in the year? How about The Grid and their banjo fuelled dance sensation “Swamp Thing” that was riding high in the charts at the time? Or even Bravado and their “Harmonica Man” single? Whoever was responsible for it needed a kick in the Gonfi-Gons. This abhorrent nonsense would lead to one of the worst No 1s of the decade in 1995 when Rednex took “Cotton Eye Joe” to the top of the charts. Shocking stuff. And one final thing, what does ‘Gonfi-Gon’ even mean? I assumed it was Italian for ‘do-si-do’ but according to Google Translate it means ‘swollen swollen’. Nobs.

It’s The B–52’s next (or The B.C. 52’s if you’re being pedantic) with “(Meet) The Flintstones” from the live action film version of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The post-punk art rockers from Athens, Georgia are finally calling it a day this year when they play a residency in Las Vegas starting in May with their final ever show in September bringing the curtain down on nigh on half a century of adventures in American kitsch culture and bubblegum punk beats. And no I’m not sure if those are the right words to describe what they did but how would you describe their career and legacy?

To be honest, I don’t come at that question from a position of much authority nor knowledge. I was hardly aware of anything much about The B-52’s until 1986 when a re-release of “Rock Lobster” made No 12 in the UK charts and the track was played at my nightclub of choice Images On Glass (wanky name) in downtown Worcester. My ever more hip wife already had a copy of “Planet Claire” I think. Then “Love Shack” made them mainstream pop stars in 1990 (though I always hated that song) and then this…let’s face it…truly awful Flinstones single that really didn’t do their legacy justice. Apparently. they were an influence in convincing John Lennon to return to making music with the “Double Fantasy” album. That should be how they are remembered. If you really need a Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme sung by a band in your life then there’s always The Dickies…

Aswad are back in the TOTP studio again performing “Shine”. This was one of those records that refused to conform to the growing trend that would come to dominate the mid to late 90s that saw singles in and out of the charts within two to three weeks. “Shine” completely bucked this trajectory by spending twelve weeks in total on the Top 40, six of which were consecutive within the Top 10 where it made steady progress to a peak of No 5, even going back up the charts when it had fallen the week before. Maybe it was the seasonal thing I mentioned earlier because there were a few singles that hung around the charts for what seemed like the whole of this Summer – “Crazy” by Let Loose, “Swamp Thing” by The Grid and “I Swear” by All 4 One spring to mind. Or maybe the public just really liked these records?

“Shine” would be Aswad’s second biggest hit after “Don’t Turn Around” and they would only grace the UK Top 40 twice more with two minor hits one of which was a cover version of “You’re No Good” which was a big hit for The Swinging Blue Jeans amongst others. Aswad were pretty keen on cover versions in their later career. The aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around” was a cover of a Tina Turner B-side and they also did a version of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. They also took part in a reggae tribute album to The Police recording their take on “Roxanne” which Sting must have liked as he subsequently teamed up with them for a version of “Invisible Sun”. I’ve listened to it so you don’t have to and it doesn’t do anything for either artist’s credibility or legacy. It certainly doesn’t ‘shine’ but then what do you expect from an ‘invisible sun’?

Here’s yet another song we’ve already seen courtesy of Elton John with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Apparently, this was the most played song on radio and TV in the US in 1994. Want to take a guess at who held that position in the UK? Yes, Wet Wet Wet’s version of “Love Is All Around” of course. DJs just couldn’t resist sticking it to us despite the fact that it bored everybody to death by being at No 1 for 15 weeks. Interestingly, the rest of the Top 5 airplay hits of this year included three that were all in the charts around this time – Let Loose, Big Mountain and the afore discussed Aswad. Presumably all that exposure goes some way to explaining their chart longevity. The only one that really surprised me was the second most played record which was “Seven Seconds” by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour but then it was a huge hit around Europe including here where it peaked at No 3 spending four and a half months on the Top 40 and six weeks inside the Top 10.

I sometimes wonder if The Pretenders get the credit they deserve. Their back catalogue is full of good tunes and in Chrissie Hynde, they have a charismatic lead singer with a unique voice. Their chart stats stand up to scrutiny – 13 UK Top 40 singles of which 5 made the Top 10 plus, of course, a chart topper in “Brass In Pocket” (the first new No 1 single of the 80s). It strikes me though that they never really get talked about as one of the great rock/pop bands. Yes, their eponymous debut album regularly appears in Best Of polls and Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 but do you hear their music much on the radio these days? Sure, “2000 Miles” gets airplay every Christmas and “I’ll Stand By You” gets a spin every now and again. I guess you’ll hear “Brass In Pocket” on one of those 80s themed radio stations. It doesn’t seem like much though. Clearly, I haven’t done any statistical breakdown of this theory (it’s all just based on my own perception) so I’m at risk of being shot down in flames but I’m pretty damn sure that this hit – “Night In My Veins” – you will not hear on any station any time soon. And that’s a shame as it’s a good song. The almost forgotten follow up to the aforementioned “I’ll Stand By You”, it’s a nice slice of melodic rock that should have got higher than No 25.

Chrissie looks cool as in leather trousers and high heels in this performance but sadly I fear this might be their last ever appearance on the show as they only had one subsequent Top 40 hit when “Human” got to a lowly No 33 in 1999. They have continued to release new material though with their last album “Hate For Sale” released as recently as 2020.

And yet another song that was huge over the Summer of 1994. I’m pretty sure this is the third time for All 4 One with “I Swear” on the show so to shake things up, they’ve gone for a live by satellite set up from Malibu as opposed to the two previous TOTP studio performances.

This optics in this with the four members of the group walking along the beach with microphones in hand looks completely mad. They’re fooling nobody. Was it to try and keep in line with the show’s live vocal policy? They’re surely miming?! I’ve not seen anything so unconvincing since Jason Donovan wandered along that mountain range strumming his unpowered electric guitar in the video for “Too Many Broken Hearts”! They should have just embraced the completely ludicrous nature of this and gone full New Order on Venice Beach, California performing “Regret” in the company of the cast of Baywatch, David Hasselhoff and all.

Hold the front page! Take That release a single that doesn’t go straight to No 1! Yes, after four consecutive chart toppers, the lads have to settle for the relative failure of a No 3 hit in “Love Ain’t Here Anymore”. Now you could make a reasonable case for this outcome as being down to the song being the sixth single released from their “Everything Changes” album (who did they think they were, Michael Jackson?). However, it is my firm belief that it missed the top spot on account of it not being very good. A big, sloppy ballad deliberately written to make their teenage female fans swoon, it’s basically a rewrite of “A Million Love Songs” but with some awful lyrical rhymes. I mean “It’s gone away to a town called yesterday”? Please.

Two questions about this performance occur to me. What the hell are they wearing and what on earth was that squeal that Gary Barlow let out at the song’s…erm…climax?! Might be a poor choice of word that on reflection.

Wet Wet Wet clearly disagree with Take That’s assertion that “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” as they are still No 1 with “Love Is All Around”. As with All 4 One earlier, the TOTP producers have tried to alleviate the monotony of a persistent chart botherer by getting in a guest presenter just to introduce this one song. Consequently, alongside regular host Mark Goodier, appears Reg Presley on his shoulder. Reg, of course, was the guy who wrote “Love Is All Around” back in 1967 for The Troggs. He does a nice little turn as well, not fluffing his lines and seemingly well chuffed to be back on TOTP. If you listen carefully, as the camera cuts away to Wet Wet Wet, you can hear Goodier call Presley a star to which Reg replies “Thanks”. Obviously, he’s also on the show to plug a Troggs Greatest Hits album that has been released in the wake of the success of the Wets’ cover version but let’s ignore that.

Marti Pellow, alongside his two guitarists, look like they belong in 1967 and its Summer of Love that Reg references in his intro with their hippy length hair. I recall a headline on the front cover of Smash Hits when they first started growing their hair that said “Och aye Jock McKay, look at the state of the Wets!”. Not sure that would be allowed these days. Sadly, Reg Presley died from lung cancer in 2013 aged 71.

The play out song is another cover version but an unlikely and rather heinous one – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Abigail anyone? What? Sorry…who?! Well, her full name is Abigail Zsiga who, despite the exotic name, hailed from Warrington and she supplied the vocals for a minor hit called “I Feel You” by Love Decade in 1992 (no me neither). After that, she carved out a rather niche career of recording Hi-NRG versions of popular songs including k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving”, REM’s “Losing My Religion” and this Nirvana classic. It’s all rather nasty but at least you can hear far more clearly what the actual lyrics were as opposed to the original. It’s not much of an endorsement though is it?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Gun	Word Up	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	2 Cowboys	Everybody Gonfi-Gon	As if
3	The B-52s	(Meet) The Flintstones	Nope
4	Aswad	Shine	No
5	Elton John	Can You Feel The Love Tonight	I did not
6	The Pretenders	Night In My Veins	It’s a no from me
7	All 4 One	I Swear	No chance
8	Take That	Love Ain’t Here Anymore	Nah
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	And no
10	Abigail	Smells Like Teen Spirit	Certainly 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/m001kyvr/top-of-the-pops-07071994

TOTP 23 JUN 1994

Posted on April 15, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s the final week of June 1994 and the World Cup is well under way. Republic of Ireland have already pulled off an unlikely 1-0 win against Italy and Diego Maradona had shocked the world with that bulging eyes goal celebration. Two days after this TOTP aired, he failed a drug test after the Argentina v Nigeria group game and was expelled from the tournament. He never played for his country again. The England team were watching at home like the rest of us after failing to qualify for the first time since 1978. Did we not like that! The World Cup provides the perfect opportunity for tonight’s host Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo to play to the camera by wearing a different country’s football shirt every time he does a link. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – what a nob!

We start with a band who had history when it came to rustling up a big hit out of nowhere. In 1988, Aswad bagged themselves a No 1 with “Don’t Turn Around”. There previous highest chart peak had been No 70. They would spend the next six years as infrequent visitors to the Top 40 clocking up a handful of medium sized hits. By the Summer of 1994, their last chart entry had been a rather desperate career reviving attempt – a cover of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. I, for one, did not see them plundering a Top 5 single any time soon but that’s what they did with the release of “Shine”. Why did this particular track spark with the record buying audience? If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a super wealthy songwriter rather than an impoverished blog writer. For what it’s worth, “Shine” (to me) seemed much more aligned with their reggae roots than the likes of the out and out pop of “Don’t Turn Around” and given the then recent trend for ragga/dancehall songs and reggae-fied pop classics in the charts, maybe this was the apposite time for an Aswad comeback. Whatever the reason, “Shine” certainly had some legs – it spent three months in the Top 40 of which half of that time was in the Top 10. I’m sure we’ll be seeing Aswad again on these repeats.

Just to prove my point about the proliferation of reggae and its various sub genres in the charts at this time, here’s Dawn Penn with “You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)”. And if that wasn’t enough evidence to prove how parochial the charts were becoming and this TOTP in particular, here’s @TOTPFacts with a further tidbit:

Aswad later sampled "You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)" for their track "You're No Good" a no 35 hit in 1995: https://t.co/XYmjep0ptK #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 7, 2023

If Aswad’s comeback was surprising then what can be said about the success of this single? Originally recorded in 1967 and based around a Willie Cobb 1960 song (which itself relied heavily on a 1955 Bo Diddley track), somehow in 1994, it was deemed essential Summer listening. NME put it at No 24 in their list of the 50 best songs of the year. However, it was a case of ‘yes, yes, yes’ for the single and ‘no, no, no’ for the accompanying album which was received much less favourably and it got no further than No 51 in our charts.

Oh this is just getting silly now. How much more Aswad can one blog post take?! The next act is Ace Of Base whose latest single is a version of the aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around”! Why?! Why did they think this was a good idea? Well, apparently it wasn’t the band’s brainwave but their record label Arista’s who wanted some extra tracks laid down for the release of the US version of their debut album. One of those tracks had been previous single “The Sign” and now it was the turn of a song written by songwriter extraordinaire Dianne Warren and Albert Hammond. It was originally recorded by Tina Turner as the B-side to her 1986 single “Typical Male” before Aswad got their hands on it. Six years later it resurfaced in the hands of Swedish hitmakers Ace Of Base who wanted to give it a makeover and reworked it in a minor key to lend it an air of melancholy. I guess they should be given some credit for trying to do something different with what was clearly a straight up and down, uptempo pop song but it’s still a big, steaming pool of piss. I think it’s the nasally vocals on it (and indeed all their records) that grate. That plus the god awful rap in the middle. Oh, and the nasty, tinny production. Yeah, I think that covers it.

Arista clearly knew their markets though and “Don’t Turn Around” went to No 4 in the US and No 5 in the UK as well as being a hit all around the world. Ace Of Base would return with yet another cover version in 1998 with their take of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer”.

Pretty sure there’s no Aswad association with this next artist. Whilst the UK was experiencing the second coming of Bryan Adams in the form of Wet Wet Wet being No 1 for weeks on end, America also had its own version of chart purgatory in the shape of All 4 One whose single “I Swear” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eleven consecutive weeks. Inevitably, it became a massive success over here as well and surely would have risen to the summit were it not for Marti Pellow and chums. It got wedged in at the No2 position for seven weeks unable to dislodge “Love Is All Around”. I think this was my sister and her then boyfriend’s song as I recall. No doubt it held that status for many a couple in 1994.

Not quite a one hit wonder in the UK (they had a No 33 single in 1995), they had more success in the US though no chart entries there either past 1996. Despite that, the group are still together with the original line up with their most recent album coming in 2015.

Well before Yorkshire rockers Terrorvision were singing about ‘whales and dolphins’ on their 1996 hit single “Perseverance” there was Shed Seven and their first foray into the Top 40 “Dolphin”. I seem to remember there being a lot of fuss about the emergence of this lot (who were also Yorkshire lads hailing from York itself) and the release of their debut album “Change Giver”. I hadn’t been an early adopter of the Shed buzz though. I hadn’t noticed their debut single “Mark” (to be fair, it only made No 80) and this one also seemed to have passed me by. Not sure why as it’s a decent tune and I was open to the idea of a guitar band playing a form of jangly pop. The music press seemed open to it as well, at least initially. Comparisons with The Smiths and an article in the NME describing them as ‘the UK’s brightest hopes’ alongside positive gig reviews fuelled expectations. Within months though the press had turned and the band were even criticised for their names. Not the band’s name but their actual names. Look at this:

“Do they really expect to make it big with a singer called Rick Witter?”
Sullivan, Caroline. “Feature: Blurred Vision”. The Guardian G2 (Thursday 10 November 1994): 5.

Ridiculous. Anyway, the album made a short lived but significant splash reaching No 16 but only spending two weeks on the chart. It was a start though and within two years they were cranking out some quality tunes like “Getting Better” and “Going For Gold” both of which were used to soundtrack some BBC montages of the England football team during Euro 96 at the height of lad culture. Perhaps their pièce de résistance though was “Chasing Rainbows”, the lead single from third album “Let It Ride”. They were up there with the big boys of Britpop briefly. Ah yes, Britpop. Blur Vs Oasis and all that. Except for a while it was Shed Seven Vs Oasis, a rivalry which I must admit to not being aware of at the time but which seems to be heightened by both bands releasing debut albums within a week of each other. The rivalry became a feud that was played out in the music press with comments like this from Noel Gallagher:

“If we’re The Beatles, where are The Rolling Stones… it’s not f***ing Shed Seven’.”
Simpson, Dave. “Feature: More Songs About Puberty And Power”. Melody Maker (10 September 1994): 32–34.

Ultimately, “Change Giver” couldn’t compete with the record breaking “Definitely Maybe” but it wasn’t for a lack of confidence. Rick Witter is wearing a Shed Seven T-shirt in this TOTP performance with a picture of himself on the front! “Dolphin” peaked at No 28.

Live action films that use cartoons as their source material are rarely a good idea in my book. As far back as 1980 when Robin Williams took on Popeye, they never seemed to work. Leslie Nielsen’s turn as Mr Magoo in 1997 didn’t live long in the memory and neither did Matthew Broderick’s as Inspector Gadget in 1999. And then there’s The Flintstones. A staple of many a child of the 60s and 70s televisual schedule, the live action film starring John Goodman as Fred Flintstone actually did pretty well at the box office but it was still awful. With songs from films being big business in the 90s (think Bryan Adams / Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Whitney Houston / The Bodyguard and Wet Wet Wet / Four Weddings and a Funeral), it was no surprise that Universal Pictures wanted a huge hit to promote the film. Enter The B–52’s to record a version of the cartoon’s well known theme tune.

In many ways they were the perfect vehicle for a reworking of “(Meet) The Flintstones” having an almost cartoonish image themselves and being at the kitsch end of New Wave but on listening back to this today, it sounds horrific. Renamed as The B.C. 52’s (how amusing), they put their trademark stylings to the song like the over emphasised vocals of Kate Pierson and some wah wah guitar but it just doesn’t work for me. Shoehorning in some of the sound effects from the original into the mix like the canned drum roll that accompanies ‘Fred’s two feet’ in the cartoon sounds completely incongruous. What did I know though as the single went all the way to No 3. It would be the band’s final UK and US chart hit.

Some more pissing Eurodance next. I’m so fed up of this now. At the risk of sounding like my Dad when he used to pass judgment on the music of my youth, it all sounds the same and the bigger the crap the longer it goes on. Cappella seemed to be a poor man’s 2 Unlimited but with an obsession with inserting ‘U’ instead of ‘you’ in their song titles. “U & Me” was the third of their singles to follow this trend after “U Got 2 Know” and “U Got 2 Let The Music”. I can’t remember how they went but I’m guessing they sounded pretty similar to this one. Do you think Eurodance is just a dead form of music now? Like Latin is a dead language that nobody speaks anymore, is Eurodance a genre of music that nobody makes nor listens to any longer? We can only hope. “U & Me” peaked at No 10.

The 90s had been pretty good to Elton John so far. The decade had furnished him with his first ever solo UK No 1 in “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”, his album “Sleeping With The Past” (1990) was also a chart topper whilst “The One” (1992) went to No 2. Meanwhile, his collaborations album “Duets” had given him two Top 10 singles on the bounce. I hadn’t liked any of it though. In fact, I’d thought it was all terrible pretty much. However, that period’s success had lifted Elton out of his late 80s malaise when everything had gone a bit awry post “Too Low For Zero” and its radio friendly singles like “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” and “I’m Still Standing”.

What came next in 1994 some would say was his best work in years and it was all due to a Disney film. The Lion King would become an international phenomenon becoming the second highest grossing film of all time at one point behind the original Jurassic Park but also spawning a musical, sequels, a prequel and TV series. The man behind its soundtrack though was Elton and he fashioned a record that would go diamond in the US alone, achieving 10 million sales. The two big singles from it were “Circle Of Life” and this one, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Both were heart strings tugging ballads the like of which Elton was more than capable of composing once he’d weaned himself off the overly saccharine which he was want to indulge in. I could appreciate the musicality of both hits from the soundtrack though I preferred “Circle Of Life” if I’m honest as did Elton who is on record as stating it’s the better song. It was “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” though that won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1995.

The single was also a big hit in the US where it made No 4 though the reception to it in this country was somehow only worthy of a chart peak of No 14. Elton would return in 1995 with the platinum selling “Made In England” album.

It’s week four for Wet Wet Wet at the chart summit. What can I say about it this week? How about our perception of what exactly was going on here at the time? Did we have any idea that we were witnessing the genesis of a 15 weeks run at No 1 for “Love Is All Around”? Four Weddings And A Funeral was pulling in huge numbers at the box office to help promote the song in much the same way that Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves did for “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” so maybe we should have seen it coming? Or had we consigned the whole Bryan Adams debacle to history as a one off and therefore in our minds there was no way such a run could happen again or at least certainly not within three years?

And what of chart rivals? Were there any records that looked likely to depose the Wets in those early weeks? Was it inconceivable that someone like Big Mountain (with their own song from a film) could get to No 1? How about Dawn Penn or US chart toppers All 4 One? Or even Ace Of Base who’d already scored a chart topper of their own the previous year and whose current single was a song that had been No 1 for Aswad just six years before? Marti Pellow and co would see them all off to achieve fifteen weeks atop the charts before getting bored themselves and deleting the record so that sales would eventually and inevitably decline. At least that put them marginally above Bryan Adams in the credibility stakes.

The play out song is “Night In My Veins” by The Pretenders. I’d completely forgotten that there was a follow up to “I’ll Stand By You” but here it is and it’s not bad if nowhere near as memorable as its predecessor. A catchy, melodic rock work out, it would make No 25 and was the band’s penultimate UK Top 40 entry.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Aswad	Shine	Nope
2	Dawn Penn	You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)	No and indeed no, no
3	Ace Of Base	Don’t Turn Around	As if
4	All 4 One	I Swear	No but I bet my sister did
5	Shed Seven	Dolphin	No but I have a live album of theirs with it on
6	The B-52’s	(Meet) The Flinstones	Never happening
7	Cappella	U & Me	Negative
8	Elton John	Can You Feel The Love Tonight	Nah
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	I did not
10	The Pretenders	Night In My Veins	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001krc9/top-of-the-pops-23061994

TOTP 12 MAY 1994

Posted on March 24, 2023 by 80stastic

There was a lot going on in mid May 1994. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack. The British romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral opened in UK cinemas. However, the one event that was dominating my thoughts occurred two days after this TOTP aired. The 1994 FA Cup final was not the best of games and it will probably only be remembered for Man Utd completing their first league and cup double and becoming only the fourth team in the 20th century to do so. For me though, it will always be a painful memory.

Growing up as a Chelsea fan in the late 70s and early 80s was horrible. We were mainly useless and spent five consecutive seasons in the old Second Division and we were hopeless in the cups. The closest we got to cup glory were wins in the Full Members Cup in 1986 and the Zenith Data Systems in 1990. Most people reading this will never have heard of them. Suddenly though, in 1994, we were in the FA Cup final. The actual FA Cup final! Our first time since 1970! I couldn’t have been more excited. I was working in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester at the time so obviously there were a couple of United fans in amongst my colleagues. I’m pretty sure we all managed to get the Saturday off to watch the game though. I got a couple of friends round to watch the game at our little flat and, with beers at the ready, settled in for the kick off. I should have known that the day was set for disaster when the heavens opened and the rain came down. Where was the glorious sunshine that had always made an appearance during those cup final days of my youth?

Despite the portents of doom provided by the weather, we actually started well and were the better team in the first half. Our talismanic midfielder Gavin Peacock hit the bar. 0-0 at half time. We more than had a chance. The second half remains one of the worst of my life. Three goals conceded in nine minutes (one an awful penalty decision by public schoolteacher David Elleray) destroyed Chelsea and indeed me. We couldn’t even get a consolation goal despite numerous chances. At 4-0 down, I was willing Elleray to blow the full time whistle to put me out of my misery.

In an extraordinary act of self inflicted pain, I was in Manchester city centre the next day seeing off my friends at Piccadilly train station just as the United team were arriving back from London with a huge crowd assembled to welcome their heroes home. I should have run a mile in the opposite direction but somehow I loitered and was spotted by a bunch of Ryan Giggs obsessed young girls who decided I didn’t look like I was enjoying myself enough and asked who I supported. Loyalty to my club took over and I replied “Chelsea” at which point they hurled merciless abuse at me. My disastrous weekend was complete. To add insult to injury, that hateful United record “Come On You Reds” was ubiquitous and went to No 1 the following week and with me working in a record shop, my misery continued for quite some time.

Anyway, that’s enough football talk. This is a music blog isn’t it? Here comes the music then but just before that, I need to acknowledge the host who this week is Jack Dee. This use of celebrity hosts was known as the ‘golden mic’ feature where presenting duties were performed by pop stars, comedians and…well…Chris Eubank. We’d already had Robbie and Mark from Take That and Meatloaf step into the breach and now it was the turn of Dee, making him the first non-music related host. Jack had been a name for a couple of years by this point with his own show having first aired in 1992. That, allied to his starring in the ‘No nonsense’ John Smith’s beer adverts, had helped cement his dour personality and sardonic humour in the minds of the public. As such, the TOTP audience had a decent idea of what to expect from Dee who could almost have been a natural successor to John Peel.

So, to the music, if you can call it that as tonight’s opening act are American R&B chancers EYC. How this lot ever amounted to anything more than one hit single is beyond me. What’s this one called? “Number One”? Ha! Fat chance! Or should I say flat chance as their vocals here are like the proverbial pancake. They also sound completely breathless (in their defence, I suppose they are jumping around like loons for the entirety of the performance). The track is basically a backbeat with some suggestive lyrics over the top of it. Just awful. Next!

We’ll come to the next act in just a sec but for the moment, I want to talk about Jack Dee again and give him some deserved credit for him calling out the inane displays of the Radio 1 DJs who have hosted the show (yes, I mean you Simon Mayo).

“Yes, I am presenting Top of the Pops because I’m a comedian and if you think that’s a bad idea, then what about all the DJs who keep trying to tell jokes” Dee deadpans. You nailed it Jack.

Back to the music and it’s that Joe Roberts bloke again. Just who was this guy and why was he on TOTP so much? Well, his Wikipedia entry, like the size of his hits, is pretty small. As the TOTP caption says, he’s from Manchester and he had three Top 40 hits, one of which was this song “Back In My Life”. This was a rerelease – it made No 59 first time around – and despite this exposure on the show, couldn’t get any higher than its peak this week of No 39. Not surprising really as it’s the musical equivalent of narcolepsy. Totally soporific. Joe himself is like a combination of Curtis Stigers and Vic Reeves’s club singer. Dear oh dear. Next!

Now, here’s a band about to enjoy arguably the biggest year of their career. In 1994, East 17 would release a double platinum album and three hit singles the last of which would become the Christmas No 1 and become a nice little pension pot for its songwriter Tony Mortimer. The first of those singles though was “All Around The World”, the lead single from second album “Steam” and absolutely nothing to do with the Oasis song of the same name. For me, East 17 had hit the ground running with their debut single, the frenetic “House Of Love” but then stumbled with the lacklustre follow up “Gold” before regaining their balance with the super slick “Deep”. However, the subsequent two singles “Slow It Down” and the misguided cover of Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” were more potholes in the road before they really got into their stride with the sublime “It’s Alright”.

This new single harked backed to the sound of “Deep” though it wasn’t as good and felt like it had been written specifically to be a Top 5 hit. Nothing wrong with that I guess and the plan worked when it got to No 3 but there was something a little bit cynical about it, as if their record label had really taken control of these pop urchins and wanted to push them up a bit. The video for the track also gives the impression that the boys have had their urban wrinkles ironed out. It’s all a bit too…sophisticated? Is that the right word?

Parent album “Steam” was released in the October and the Our Price chain had a preview CD of it to be played instore but it had Radio 1 DJ Mark Goodier talking in between the tracks. Bah! Despite this, I took the freebie promo home when the actual album came out for my wife who’d bought the first album. We had it for ages without ever playing it I think but I’m guessing it got lost/disposed of following a couple of flat and house moves. In short, it didn’t follow us ‘all around the world’. It’s OK, my coat is already in my hand.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, we find Gloworm with the second (and biggest) of their two chart hits “Carry Me Home”. It had been nearly two years since this lot combined house and gospel music to create a dancefloor banger in “I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” but now they were back with a tune that sounded…exactly the same. Well, it does to my ears but then they’re not bpm refined so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

As it’s got a gospel bent to it, obviously the staging for the performance has singer Sedric Johnson in a pulpit and the backing singers all have those full length community choir smocks on. I suppose a Kenny Everett Brother Lee Love big hands get up would have been a bit too over the top? “Carry Me Home” peaked at No 9.

Bollers is back! Yes, Michael Bolton is on the show again for no discernible reason. Well, yes obviously he’s on to plug his latest single, his cover of the Bill Withers tune “Lean On Me” but is his appearance justified? Well, he is a new entry at No 15 having been an exclusive performance two weeks earlier so what do you think? Is that reason enough? You’re right of course. There’s never any justification nor need for Michael Bolton on our TV screens and I say that as someone who saw him in concert by mistake! No, I’m not going into that particular story again! It’s in the archives if you must read about it.

I have a good friend who I met when I first worked for Our Price back in 1990. Steve’s from Bolton and everyone in the shop referred to him as Steve Bolton or just Bolton on account of his accent. When I first started working with him I assumed his surname was actually Bolton as I never heard anyone refer to his actual surname which is Wilson. Well, you know. If there could be a Michael Bolton then why not a Steve Bolton? One day, someone rang the shop asking for Steve Wilson. I answered the phone and confidently replied that there was nobody of that name that worked there but that there was a Steve Bolton. After much talking at cross purposes, confusion and to the hilarity of my colleagues, Steve was eventually put on the phone. Actually, Michael Bolton isn’t even Michael Bolton’s real name which is Michael Bolotin. Probably not enough difference between that and his stage name to cause Steve Wilson levels of perplexity though.

Two people now who also go by monikers that aren’t actually their real names. We all know that Elton John was originally named Reg Dwight but I’m not sure I knew that Marcella Detroit is actually Marcella Levy and that she’s from Detroit. They’ve come together to cover the classic Motown duet originally performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”. Their take on it was obviously on Elton’s “Duets” album as were his last two single releases with Kiki Dee and RuPaul. It also ended up on Marcella’s “Jewel” album and I have to say I don’t recall it at all. Hardly surprising since it only spent three weeks inside the Top 40 and didn’t get any higher than No 24. It doesn’t seem to add much to the original I have to say.

Elton and Marcella appear to be having an earring-off in the TOTP studio with the former sporting a single cross-shaped one up against the latter’s Bet Lynch style massive ring. I make Marcella the winner in this particular battle. She’s also got a much superior voice to Elton (and this was before he turned into Foghorn Leghorn).

Marcella would return to the Top 40 one more time as a solo artist before going on to appear in ITV’s Pop Star To Opera Star and reforming Shakespear’s Sister in 2019 with Siobhan Fahey. Elton, meanwhile, would score two further hits in 1994 with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and “Circle Of Life” both from The Lion King soundtrack.

When I started reviewing these TOTP repeats, I began with the year 1983 and back then many a show was not rebroadcast due to problematic presenters in the wake of Operation Yewtree. Others were pulled due to the late Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith not signing the licence extension to allow the BBC to air any shows that he presented. At the time, many in the TOTP fanbase questioned why the BBC didn’t just edit the presenters out rather than just not broadcast the show at all. Well, they’ve done some retrospective editing for this one but it’s nothing to do with the host, the marvellous Jack Dee. In the light of R Kelly’s conviction for racketeering, child pornography and enticing a minor, his performance of “Your Body’s Callin’” has been removed.

This weeks ‘exclusive’ performance comes from a cultural icon whose career just goes to show that not everything can be measured in sales and commercial success. Iggy Pop is surely one of the most recognisable and memorable rock stars of all time and yet, despite having recorded some classic songs during his career of over 50 (!) years, has hardly any chart hits to his name. His only appearance in the UK Top 40 by the time of this TOTP appearance had been seven years prior when his version of “Real Wild Child (Wild One)” had made No 10. I know – it seems unbelievable. What about all those other iconic songs like “Lust For Life” and “The Passenger”? Surely they were hits? Well, yes they were but not when they were originally released. The former was a hit in 1996 after featuring prominently in Trainspotting whilst the latter made the Top 40 after being used in a Toyota car advert in 1998. “China Girl”? Nope, although obviously co-writer David Bowie had a huge hit with it in 1983. His work with The Stooges? Afraid not. Despite all of the above, Iggy’s stature as the ‘Godfather of Punk’ remained undimmed and TOTP producer Ric Blaxill wasn’t going to let the chance of an in person appearance pass him by.

“Beside You” was taken from Iggy’s “American Caesar” album which came with the parental warning sticker ‘This is an Iggy Pop record’. It’s a nice enough slice of melodic rock but according to reviews, the track isn’t really representative of the rest of the album which I have to own up to having never heard. It was co-written by ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones in 1985 for Iggy’s “Blah-Blah-Blah” album but never made the cut. When record label Virgin heard “American Caesar”, they gave Iggy the classic “we can’t hear a single” line and so “Beside You” was retrieved from the demo archive. Iggy is joined onstage here by multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano who’s worked with everyone from John Mellencamp to David Bowie to Neil Finn. So, did this TOTP exposure propel Iggy to a rare UK hit? No, of course not. It peaked at No 47.

Oh, one final thing. When I first started working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester, the walls in the gents loo were covered in graffiti where employees past and present had come up with toilet humour based around music artists. There was Deacon Poo, Kenny Log-gins, Ruthless Crap Assassins but my favourite by far was Iggy Plop.

There’s a new No 1 and it’s from Stiltskin courtesy of that Levi’s ad. And that means…it’s time for my Stiltskin story. Sometime in 1994, we had some some friends to stay at our flat in Manchester. It may have been around October time as we moved flat from No 47 to No 43 on our road around that time and we may have roped in our friends to help with the move (you still have to put everything in boxes and move them you know!).

Anyway, my wife had a works do to go to on that weekend so I was left to entertain our friends with a night out in Manchester. We were all in our mid 20s at this point so we could just about get away with going to a nightclub – so we did. Me, Robin, Susan and the aforementioned Steve ended up at an indie night in Fifth Avenue nightclub. We’d had enough drink to embolden us to strut our stuff on the dancefloor to some banging indie tunes for the whole night. As we got to the wee small hours and the club was winding down, me and Robin were still at it. The place was full of dry ice and obviously dark so we weren’t overly aware of our surroundings. As it happened, Stiltskin’s “Inside” was played as the last song of the night and as the lights came up and the dry ice cleared, Robin and I were faced with the horrifying truth that we were the only people left on the dancefloor…and we were dancing to Stiltskin – a made up band who’s were only briefly famous because of a jeans advert and whose singer would end up in Genesis for a while. We try not to talk about it but we both know it happened.

The play out tune is another dance anthem by someone called Maxx. I have zero memory of “Get-A-Way” despite it getting to No 4 in the charts. If only my memory was as discerning when it came to forgetting things like your team getting stuffed 4-0 in the FA Cup final or dancing to Stiltskin.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EYC	Number One	As if
2	Joe Roberts	Back In My Life	No
3	East 17	All Around The World	No but I had that promo CD of the album
4	Gloworm	Carry Me Home	Nah
5	Michael Bolton	Lean On Me	Never happening
6	Elton John / Marcella Detroit	Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing	I did not
7	Iggy Pop	Beside You	Nope
8	Stiltskin	Inside	Danced to it, never bought it
9	Maxx	Get-A-Way	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001k2r1/top-of-the-pops-12051994

TOTP 24 FEB 1994

Posted on February 11, 2023 by 80stastic

Musical comebacks – there have been a few across the decades, some more successful than others. Take That made a remarkable return to the charts in 2006 ten years after they had disbanded with a No 1 album and single and sold out tour dates, all without the presence of Robbie Williams in their ranks (at least initially). In 1983, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” album would bag her four Grammy Awards following years in the commercial wilderness after finally escaping her abusive relationship with husband Ike. And what about Elvis Presley’s 1968 TV Special which would become unofficially known as ‘The ‘68 Comeback Special’, reinvigorating his career which had declined into a spiral of those awful movies he made. Even in these BBC4 TOTP repeats, we’ve seen both Meatloaf and Duran Duran rise from the ashes of their past careers to record huge sellers in 1993.

Then there’s the less well received comebacks. When Guns N’ Roses self destructed causing a massive delay of fifteen years between albums, by the time “Chinese Democracy “ finally came out, there was little appetite for Axl Rose and his new band line up. Spandau Ballet did pull off a successful reunion in 2009 with a sell out tour, an album of re-recorded versions of songs from their back catalogue and a feature length documentary biopic Soul Boys Of The Western World. However, when lead singer Tony Hadley left for good in 2017, the band tried to carry on by replacing him with relative unknown Ross William Wild. They only lasted a handful of gigs before realising that a Hadley-less Spandau wasn’t really what the people wanted. Nor did people have any room in their lives for the second coming of Vanilla Ice who attempted a comeback in 1998 with a nu-metal influenced album called “Hard To Swallow” (indeed it was). And then there was Level 42 who kick off this edition of TOTP. Was it a return to their glory days of the mid 80s or did they illicit an indifferent reaction?

The dawn of the 90s saw the band looking every bit the 80s anachronism. Their long term record label Polydor allegedly rejected their first new material of the decade (the 1991 album “Guaranteed”) which led to the band relocating to RCA but the album wasn’t well received when it finally appeared. Could they achieve an unlikely comeback three years on just as Britpop was brewing?

“Forever Now” was the title of both their tenth studio album and lead single from it. It was also the last album to feature three members of the original line up in Mark King, Mike Lindup and Phil Gould with the latter returning to the fold for the first time since 1987. It was a short lived return for Gould who refused to tour the album due to his lack of confidence in the record company. The fan base saw the album as very much a return to form but for an uncommitted observer like me, it sounded a bit directionless. They’d added a load of horns into the mix alongside King’s trademark slap bass but it just seems to meander along without really going anywhere ultimately. Maybe channeling the origins of the band’s name (with 42 being the answer to “the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything” as per The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy), the song’s lyrics seem to ponder the existential mystery of time, coming up with the conclusion that we should all just live for the moment. However, it expresses that sentiment in the most cack-handed of ways with these words:

Holy grail, holy cow

I just want to live forever now
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Frank John Musker / Mark King / Richard Simon Darbyshire
Forever Now lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Dear oh dear. Later in the year, another song would appear with the lyrics “live forever” in it. It was so much better than Level 42’s effort, you could see the difference in quality between them from space.

“Forever Now” the single did achieve a respectable peak of No 19 though whilst the album made the Top 10. The band would break up in the October of 1994 before reappearing with King and a new touring line up in 2001.

Level 42 weren’t the only ones in revival mode on this show as the host was also on the comeback trail. Bruno Brookes hadn’t been on the show since 1991 just before the ‘year zero’ cull but was brought back into the fold alongside Simon Mayo, Mark Goodier and Nicky Campbell by new producer Ric Blaxill. So here he was in 1994 with the same hairstyle that he had on his first TOTP appearance back in 1984. Quite remarkable. Bruno Brookes introducing Level 42 on TOTP – this really was an 80s flashback.

The next act weren’t exactly looking to make a comeback as they’d had a No 1 single less than 12 months earlier but the comparative lack of success of its follow ups had led me to believe we’d maybe already seen the last of them. How wrong I was. Ace Of Base have sold an estimated 50 million records worldwide to date making them the third best selling artist from Sweden ever behind the mighty ABBA and..ahem…Roxette. Their debut album sold 9 million copies in the US alone and it’s from that album that this track – “The Sign” – came. Sort of. As with Red Hot Chili Peppers the other week, Ace Of Base’s release history was a bit complicated. Originally entitled “Happy Nation”, it was initially released in the UK in June 1993. However, it was kept back for nearly 6 months in the US and retitled “The Sign” with that track plus two others added to it. When the title track went to No 1 over there for 6 weeks, the single was given a release in the UK whilst the “Happy Nation” album was also rereleased with those extra tracks added and retitled “Happy Nation (U.S. Version). Got all that? Good.

In my head, “The Sign” went to No 1 over here just as it had done in the US but Wikipedia assured me it was a No 2 record. Depending on your point of view it’s either incredibly catchy or intensely annoying (I’m in the latter camp) yet it many circles it is cherished. Katy Perry has acknowledged it as a big influence on her music and it regularly appears in those 50 Best Songs of the 90s polls. For me though, it was always a very slight, lowest common denominator pop song. Its Wikipedia entry refers to it as ‘techno-reggae’ whatever the hell that was. As with all of Ace Of Base’s hits, I couldn’t get along the overly nasal vocals. As for its legacy, it surely doesn’t get any bigger than Pitch Perfect?

Another comeback of sorts now as we find the rather unusual event of a record going back up the charts having already peaked once. There’s no great mystery to why this happened though. “All For Love” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting had entered the charts at No 7 back in mid January before making its way to a peak of No 2 and then descending the charts. However, the film it was from – The Three Musketeers – was released to UK cinemas just two weeks before this TOTP aired and so, with it playing over the end credits, people’s attention was drawn to it once more resulting in a sales spike. It’s still a shocking song though.

No comebacks here – “Stay Together” was a bit of a stop gap single though between Suede albums. Crashing straight into the charts at No 3, was this official proof that they were not just the next big thing but indeed, the current big thing? As for that by rather out there Derek Jarman reference by Bruno Brookes, here’s @TOTPFacts with the story behind it:

No, you didn't dream that, Bruno Brookes just mentioned avant garde filmmaker Derek Jarman, who died of an AIDS-related illness on 19 February 1994. Jarman directed the video for Suede's "So Young". #TOTP https://t.co/p1HxIRGrJy
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 3, 2023

They’ve also got the info on drummer Simon Gilbert’s 16 T-shirt:

Suede drummer Simon Gilbert's "16" t-shirt was a message in support of lowering the gay male age of consent to 16. At this point it was still 21. On 21 February 1994, the House of Commons had voted to reduce it to 18. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 3, 2023

Look, it takes a long time to write these reviews so sometimes I allow myself a shortcut by relying on other sources to tell the stories – OK? And anyway, Suede were only just in the TOTP studio performing “Stay Together” the other week so I’ve already said everything I wanted to say about it.

An artist next who would achieve a couple of comebacks during her time and in 1994, her career trajectory would suggest she’d be in need of one soon enough. After bursting into the charts in 1993 with a debut No 1 single in “Dreams”, Gabrielle had failed to replicate that success with the follow up singles which had peaked at Nos:

9 – 26 – 24

“Because Of You” was the last of those figures and, in its defence, it was the fourth and final track released from an album that had been out for four months already including the busy Christmas period. Even so, these were surely disappointing numbers for both artist and record company. Another reason why “Because Of You” underperformed could be that it was basically “Dreams” without the killer chorus. However, Gabrielle would pull off the first of those aforementioned comebacks two years later with a Top 5 single in “Give Me A Little More Time” and a platinum selling eponymously titled sophomore album. In 2000 she would produce an even better comeback with her chart topping “Rise” single and album.

Oh, and if you need a song called “Because Of You” in your life, there’s always this…

Here come the Breakers starting with an artist who had already made a comeback at the start of the decade after his last two albums of the 80s had seen his sales fall away dramatically. Both 1986’s “Leather Jackets” and 1988’s “Reg Strikes Back” had underperformed commercially and 1990’s “Sleeping With The Past” looked to be going the same way until a rerelease of “Sacrifice” coupled as an A-side with “Healing Hands” made Elton John relevant again by giving him his first solo UK No 1. Elton built on that success with a No 2 album in “The One” and a platinum selling “Duets” album. It was from the latter that this ghastly single was taken – a reworking of his 1976 No 1 with Kiki Dee “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” but this time fine with US drag queen and TV celebrity RuPaul.

This was just a terrible idea badly executed. Elton’s last single had been a duet with the aforementioned Kiki Dee on the Cole Porter song “True Love”. Couldn’t he have ditched that and done a revamped version of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with her instead? The nasty, tinny sounding production on the Hi-NRG RuPaul version here does nothing for either of the protagonists’ careers. And the video is just a cringe fest. Perhaps due to its then recent performance at the BRITS, the 1994 version of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” peaked at an inexplicable No 7.

No comebacks here as this was one of the first chart hits for Soundgarden that took them from being just another grunge rock band from Seattle to global recognition. I have to admit to not knowing that much about Soundgarden. I knew there was a small, dingy club at Back Piccadilly, Manchester called Soundgarden as we had an Our Price Christmas do their once – caterer ran off with the food budget without supplying any actual grub – but the band? Not much. Did they do one called “Black Hole Sun”?

*checks their discography*

Yes, that was them and that track was the third single from their 1994 album “Superunknown”. The first though was this one – “Spoonman”. Nothing to do with Noel Gallagher’s quote about sibling Liam being “as angry as a man with a fork in a world of soup” nor Mr Spoon from Button Moon, it was actually inspired by something I did have some knowledge about – the film Singles. The plot revolves around the love lives of some Generation X’ers in Seattle including the wannabe rock star character Cliff played by Matt Dillon. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam worked on songs for the soundtrack with the latter’s bass guitarist Jeff Ament tasked with coming up with names for Cliff’s fictional rock band in the film. ‘Spoonman’ was one of his suggestions but in the end they went for ‘Citizen Dick’. Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell used the title as the basis for this track. It didn’t appear in the soundtrack album initially though a version was included on a 2017 super deluxe edition. It would peak at No 20 on the IK charts.

This next song is from a band not so much attempting a comeback as being at the centre of a rerelease campaign for their decade old back catalogue. “Two Tribes”, perhaps surprisingly, was the last of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s first four singles to get the 90s remix/rerelease treatment after “Relax”, “Welcome To The Pleasuredome” and “The Power Of Love” before it. Surprising in the respect that it was No 1 for 9 weeks in 1984, the longest running No1 record in the UK during the entire 80s. Is it their most popular/well known song though? Could a case be made for “Relax” which is, after all, the 7th best selling single in the UK of all time. Or how about “The Power Of Love” what with its festive season associations and place on many a Christmas playlist? What is not surprising is that none of the singles from Frankie’s second album “Liverpool” were deemed worthy of a second outing. “Two Tribes (Fluke’s Minimix)” achieved a peak of No 16 whilst “Bang!…The Greatest Hits Of Frankie Goes To Hollywood” made No 4.

A second helping of Sting on the show now as we go live by satellite to Sydney, Australia for a performance of his latest single “Nothing ‘Bout Me”. This exemplified new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill’s approach to these live by satellite links to have artists doing a turn in front of a famous landmark (in this case Sydney Opera House). This was the final single from the “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album which brought a nice symmetry to the tracks taken from it if you include one that originally featured on the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack but ended up on the Sting album. Why? Well, it was called “It’s Probably Me”. Mr Sumner was obviously keen on three word song titles where the last one was ‘me’ at this time.

It’s a fairly jaunty number and was written as Sting’s retort to all the attempts by the music press to dissect his psyche every time he released an album. It suffered from being the last single from an album that had already been out for nearly a year and got no higher than its No 32 chart position it was at here. Bruno Brookes talks about Sting having “a cast of thousands” with him in this performance and there’s certainly a fair few there with him including seven backing singers! However, even that’s not the most noticeable thing about this performance. Where did you get that outfit sir?!

So here’s a bit of a thing as UK music fans get their first look at Beck. What an interesting artist this guy is but he would probably say that the least interesting thing about him is his debut hit “Loser”. There’s so much to unpack and discuss about Beck but I’m pushed for time again this week so let’s start by dispelling a couple of myths:

He is not related to the Hanson brothers of “Mmm Bop” fame. His surname is spelt Hansen.
“Loser” is not a stoner rap or anti-establishment slacker anthem that speaks of Generation X ennui. The ‘loser’ theme is, according to Beck himself, merely a description of his lack of skill as a rapper, made up on the spot when he was writing the song.
It has nothing to do with Nirvana nor Kurt Cobain’s death a few weeks after it was a hit despite their label Sub Pop selling T-shirts emblazoned with the word ‘LOSER’ on them.

It remains, however, a great track in my humble opinion despite Beck declaring it interesting but ultimately unimpressive. It would not be indicative of his future musical direction though with many fans of the song being caught out by the rest of his material. A bit like when those people who loved “More Than Words” by Extreme being disappointed at the rest of their funk metal back catalogue perhaps?

“Loser” with its bizarre lyrics (“beefcake pantyhose” indeed!) would go Top 10 in the US though we were slightly more conservative in our liking of it over here where it peaked at No 15. By the way, I’ve no idea who these old fellas are up there on stage with Beck or why they are there but they’re great all the same.

There is a rather tragically poignant version of the song in the TV series Glee. Both the actors featured in the performance are now no longer with us. Cory Monteith died in 2013 of an accidental drug overdose whilst Mark Salling committed suicide by hanging in 2018.

No comebacks apparent in the No 1 slot as Mariah Carey holds steady for another week with “Without You”. The popularity of her version led to a surge in sales for parent album “Music Box” which had been out for six months already giving her the double whammy of a No 1 single and album simultaneously. Curiously, despite eight of her previous ten singles going to No 1 in the US, it peaked at No 3 over there. Mariah would eke out another UK Top 10 hit from “Music Box” in “Anytime You Need A Friend” before undertaking another cover of a love song when she duetted with Luther Vandross on Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love”. She would end 1994 by releasing that Christmas song.

The play out song this week gives us one final comeback and how unlikely was this one?! Anyone who had a bet on the Charleston dance craze being back in 1994 must have coined it in. “Doop” by Doop was a mash up of ragtime, the aforementioned Charleston and some house beats and would be at No 1 in the UK soon enough. Criminally, it denied Bruce Springsteen what would have been his first and so far only solo UK chart topper.

Although the bpm are completely different, it does put me in mind of this intensely creepy single that was released in 1982. A synth pop version of Irving Berlin anyone? Although UK record buyers were unable to resist the ‘charms’ of Doop in 1994, back in the 80s we had a bit more taste as this drivel bombed over here whilst going to No 4 in the US.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Level 42	Forever Now	Nah
2	Ace Of Base	The Sign	Never happening
3	Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting	All For Love	See 2 above
4	Suede	Stay Together	Could have but didn’t
5	Gabrielle	Because Of You	Nope
6	Elton John and RuPaul	Don’t Go Breaking My Heart	As if
7	Soundgarden	Spoonman	No
8	Frankie Goes To Hollywood	Two Tribes	Bought it in 1984 but not 1994
9	Sting	Nothing ‘Bout Me	I did not
10	Beck	Loser	See 4 above
11	Mariah Carey	Without You	Negative
12	Doop	Doop	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001hqvk/top-of-the-pops-24021994

TOTP 25 NOV 1993

Posted on November 30, 2022 by 80stastic

I write this a couple of days after Wales were knocked out of the World Cup in Qatar by England. Twenty-nine years ago to the month, Wales also tumbled out of the World Cup at the qualifying stages when they looked set to make it to the finals for the first time since 1958. Needing to win against Romania and with the scores tied at 1-1, Wales were awarded a penalty. Up stepped the unfortunate Paul Bodin, an accomplished penalty taker, who slammed his kick against the crossbar. Almost inevitably, the game slipped away from Wales and with it their chance to become legends. Redemption for the nation would not arrive until 2022. I wonder if there’s any acts on this TOTP that messed up their shot at legendary status?

Does one big hit and a clutch of middling ones make you a dance legend? I’m not so sure but that was the fate of K–Klass. 1991 had seen them in the Top 3 with “Rhythm Is A Mystery” but they had struggled to solve the puzzle of how to follow that up. Neither of their two subsequent singles hit higher than No 20 but they were back in 1993 (a whole year since their last release) to try again. Another monster hit looked on the cards when they crashed into the charts week one with “Let Me Show You” at No 13 and the attendant TOTP appearance seemed likely to push it into the Top 10. Needless to say, I couldn’t have told you how this one went without hearing it back first but I found it better than I was expecting actually though I’m not sure why. I mean, there’s a bit of a tune in there which always helps – it reminds me of “Show Me Love” by Robin S though I was no fan of that – and singer Bobbi Depasois sells it well but I can’t put my finger on its appeal. Maybe it’s the comedic value of the obligatory anonymous blokes on keyboards who do a cracking job of being long haired, tech nerds who really can’t dance – no seriously, they REALLY can’t dance.

Despite this performance, “Let Me Show You” got no higher than the No 13 peak it was already at here. One further Top 40 hit followed before the collective embarked upon a career of producing and remixing for the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue and M People.

Whatever you think of him (and I know somebody who has dismissed any and every song he’s ever recorded as unlistenable), surely you can’t deny the status of legend that Elton John carries. He’s sold over 300 million records worldwide and has been in the music business for 60 years! For a third week on the trot, he’s on the show with his duet with Kiki Dee of “True Love”. Kiki is an interesting character. In my head, she was one of those artists that would be the musical interlude in light entertainment programmes like Barbara Dickson on The Two Ronnies (though I don’t know if that’s actually true) but there’s so much more to her than that. For a start, she was the first white British artist to be signed to Motown and in her early career as a session singer she sang backing vocals for the likes of Dusty Springfield*. Her early recordings on the Fontana label all failed to chart but one of them – “On A Magic Carpet Ride” – remains a firm favourite on the Northern Soul scene. After signing to Elton’s label The Rocket Record Company, she started to have hits in her own right like “Amoureuse” and “I’ve Got The Music In Me” before that duet with with The Rocket Man himself on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”*.

*Coincidentally, there was another link between Kiki and Dusty Springfield as the latter was Elton’s original choice of duet partner but she was too ill to do the recording at the time. She would eventually duet with a current pop act to great effect in 1987 with Pet Shop Boys on “What Have I Done To Deserve This”.

She’s supported Queen at Hyde Park in front of 150,000 people but topped even that figure by reprising “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Elton at Live Aid in 1985. She’s also had a career in musical theatre appearing in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers on the West End taking on the role originally performed by Barbara Dickson (ah! Maybe that’s the reason for the connection in my head I mentioned earlier). So, Kiki Dee; maybe not a musical legend but it’s been quite a life.

Now I think legends might be too big a word for the next act but they certainly knew their way around a good tune or two. The Wonder Stuff were onto maybe the fourth period of their career by this point by my reckoning. Having started out as indie grebo darlings with tunes like “It’s Yer Money I’m After Baby” and “Wish Away” they expanded their sound on second album “Hup” with the addition of new band member and multi instrumentalist Martin Bell (not ‘the man in the white suit’) before becoming major chart stars with out and out pop singles like “Size Of A Cow”. By 1993 they were onto their fourth studio album “Construction For The Modern Idiot” and seemed to me to have developed a more mature rock sound with songs like “On The Ropes” and this one, “Full Of Life (Happy Now)”. However, the chart placings had dropped off alarmingly. Yes, “On The Ropes” had made the Top 10 but it seemed to be a fanbase purchase thing. It had gone straight in at No 10 but dropped out of the charts completely three weeks later. “Full Of Life (Happy Now)” followed a similar trajectory but on a diminished scale entering the charts at No 28 where it would peak and spend just two weeks inside the Top 40. It was a decent tune nonetheless. A Best Of album restored them to the Top 10 the following year before they took a six year sabbatical.

This next band may not amount to more than a few soft rock hits in the late 80s and early 90s over here but in America they are bona fide legends I would suggest. If I judge them by the same criteria I used for Elton John then that suggestion becomes a full on statement of fact. They’ve been in existence in one form/name or another since 1967 and have sold 35 million records worldwide. They were inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. I speak of Heart who are back with a new single called “Will You Be There (In The Morning)”.

I think I was first aware of Heart around the mid 80s when I used to listen to the US chart rundown show on Radio 1 hosted by Paul Gambaccini. Back then, they were having those soft rock hits like “These Dreams” and “What About Love”. I had no idea of their more rockier back catalogue from the 70s. The UK market was resistant to them though and it wasn’t until “Alone” broke through in 1987 that they had a seriously big UK hit on their hands. In the wake of that success, their previously ignored US mid 80s hits were rereleased and became successful in our country as well. I recall that they were huge airplay hits, inescapable whilst I was a second year polytechnic student. As the new decade dawned and the UK went baggy-tastic, enthralled by the sounds of ‘Madchester’, Heart seemed unwanted and no longer relevant. Somehow though, they bagged themselves a rather salacious Top 10 hit in “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You”. Then…nothing. A live album bombed over here but improbably they managed one more UK chart hit in this year of Eurodance anthems. Well if Meatloaf could be huge all over again, why not them?

“Will You Be There (In The Morning)” would be the band’s last chart entry in both territories (UK No 19, US No 39). It’s a more toned down sound to some of those shiny, over produced 80s hits but it never really gets going for me. The band are still together surviving a rather unsavoury family incident when Ann Wilson’s husband assaulted her sister Nancy’s 16 year old twin sons after they left the door to his RV open.

Just like Elton John and Kiki Dee’s “True Love”, this next single is on the show for a third consecutive week. As such, I’ve very little left to say about “Again” by Janet Jackson. What? Is she a musical legend? Well, you can’t deny her success but can you really be regarded as legendary when you’re not even the most famous artist in your own family? “Again” peaked at No 6.

Just the three Breakers tonight starting with an act that is completely out of the leftfield in terms of being on TOTP in 1993 but who is regarded as one of the most influential artists in electronic music ever. A legend then. Probably. Aphex Twin is Richard James, a Cornwall DJ who rose to prominence by featuring on the achingly trendy Warp Records compilation “Artificial Intelligence” which was ground breaking in terms of redefining dance music identity and giving birth to the genre of Intelligent Dance Music (IDM). The “On EP” was his first Top 40 chart entry although he’d already released four previous EPs and an album prior to this and that was just under the Aphex Twin moniker. He also recorded as Polygon Window, The Dice Man and Bradley Strider to name but three.

Unsurprisingly I never got the boat going to Aphex Twin island being a pop kid at heart and all but he/they were all the rage with some of my more dance aware colleagues in Our Price who would always be trying to get the likes of them and Rochdale electronic pioneers Autechre on the shop stereo on a Saturday afternoon when we really should have been playing…erm…I dunno…Lightning Seeds?

Right. Quick question. Kate Bush – legend or not? Here’s what Graeme had to say in his comments posted against the video for “Moments Of Pleasure” on YouTube:

I class her in the same company as Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh and Mozart

Blimey! Talk about superlatives. Having said that, I once made the case to a friend that Brian Wilson should be considered in the same breath as Beethoven so…Anyway, this was the second single from Kate’s “The Red Shoes” album and is typically representative of her work in that its an epic, swooping, tender ballad though it never seems to quite reach full bloom to my ears if that makes any sense. It made No 26 in the charts which was pretty much par for the course with Kate’s singles around this time. Her last massive hit had been “Running Up That Hill” which made No 3 in 1985. Her last Top 10 hit came the following year when she duetted with Peter Gabriel on “Don’t Give Up”. The chart positions for the singles after that and up to “Moments Of Pleasure” were:

23 – 12 – 25 – 38 – 12 -12 – 26

Still, it’s not all about hit singles is it? Her albums sold consistently, every one making the Top 10 with two of them topping the chart. Legend? Yeah, she must have a shot at it surely?

The Doobie Brothers?! The Doobie Brothers in the UK charts in 1993?! What was going on here?! It was all down to a remix of their 1973 song “Long Train Runnin’” doing the rounds. The remix was by a duo called Sure Is Pure one of whom had previous in turning classic songs into awful dance hits. Remember Candy Flip who did that dreadful version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles back in 1990? Well, one of their number was Danny Spencer who formed Sure Is Pure with his brother Kelvin. That was just the start though. Do you recall the mini disco revival earlier in 1993? Those remixed Sister Sledge singles that were a big part of it were the work of Danny and Kelvin. Quite why they chose the Doobie Brothers as their next target though I have no idea. The band behind 70s hits like “Listen To The Music” and “What A Fool Believes” which were big in America but not over here hardly seemed ripe for a revival. I suppose the guitar kick on “Long Train Runnin’” was pretty funky so maybe that was what attracted the remix duo. The 1993 version went all the way to No 7 making it easily the band’s biggest UK hit ever. A Best Of album was inevitably released off the back of it. As for the legends question, like Heart before them, The Doobie Brothers were inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 and have sold 40 million albums worldwide but legends? Not in my universe.

Belinda Carlisle has been a regular performer on TOTP since the ‘year zero’ revamp – I think she may have even been on the first show of the new regime back in October ‘91 – but I wasn’t expecting to see her on the show in November of ‘93 as I didn’t know she had a hit single to promote at that time. She did though and here it is. “Lay Down Your Arms” was the follow up to “Big Scary Animal” (which I did remember) but it only got up the charts as far as No 27. It doesn’t sound like traditional Carlisle fare but then it is a cover version. The original was recorded by a band called The Graces featuring Belinda’s ex-Go-Gos band mate Charlotte Caffey who co-wrote it. It’s not a bad little tune with some twangy guitar riffs even giving it an “Out Of Time” era REM vibe.

None of Belinda’s releases were becoming hits in the US at this time and maybe it seemed like they were drying up in this country as well. However, she regrouped for one final hurrah in 1996 bagging herself a gold selling album in “A Woman And A Man” and four hit singles from it including two Top 10s before the well of commercial success finally ran dry. She remains a live draw (she’s touring in the UK early next year) and is probably a legendary figure to many a young lad growing up in the late 80s and early 90s.

We’re up to six weeks for Meatloaf at No 1 with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” so I’m nearly out of content for this one. Oh yes! The legend question. I think it has to be a ‘yes’ doesn’t it? His “Bat Out Of Hell” trilogy of albums has sold 100 million copies alone with the first of those staying in the charts continuously for nine whole years and still sells an estimated 200,000 units per year. That sounds like a legend to me.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	K-Klass	Let Me Show You	Nope
2	Elton John / Kiki Dee	True Love	Never happening
3	The Wonder Stuff	Full Of Life (Happy Now)	I didn’t
4	Heart	Will You Be There (In The Morning)	No
5	Janet Jackson	Again	Nah
6	Apex Twin	On EP	Not my bag
7	Kate Bush	Moments Of Pleasure	Not for me
8	The Doobie Brothers	Long Train Runnin’	Negative
9	Belinda Carlisle	Lay Down Your Arms	I did not
10	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001fh28/top-of-the-pops-25111993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 18 MAY 1995

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TOTP 02 MAR 1995

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TOTP 16 FEB 1995

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TOTP 06 OCT 1994

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TOTP 22 SEP 1994

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TOTP 07 JUL 1994

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TOTP 23 JUN 1994

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TOTP 12 MAY 1994

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TOTP 24 FEB 1994

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TOTP 25 NOV 1993

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