Eric Clapton

TOTP 23 MAR 1995

Posted on October 17, 2023 by 80stastic

Ah crap! It’s been a good run but it’s finally come to an end. Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is back hosting TOTP! He says later in this show that he hasn’t been on presenting duties since the previous October. I haven’t checked to see if that’s true but regardless, I’d have gladly never seen the w****r anchoring the show again. He always seemed to me to treat it as his own personal promotional vehicle, making it all about him with his annoying, cryptic one liners and ridiculous tailoring.

He starts off by saying that there’s no public flogging on tonight’s show. What?! Was this something to do with the sentencing of Eric Cantona for his kung fu style assault of a Crystal Palace fan which took place on the very same day this TOTP went out? Eric got 14 days in prison pending an appeal which he subsequently won and saw his sentence reduced to 120 hours of community service. So, not exactly a public flogging then Simon.

With the first example of Mayo’s inane drivel dispensed with, it’s time for the opening act who is Sean Maguire. He was the ex-EastEnders and Grange Hill actor who had decided that he was wasting his time with all that TV work and what the world really needed was to bear witness to his singing talents while he ‘testified’* on stage. So far, he’d made a decent stab at the transformation with a couple of middling sized hits the previous year and now he was back with his third single “Suddenly”. Nothing to do with the Billy Ocean hit of the same name, this was just more pop-by-numbers stuff designed to appeal to the teen market with an instrumental break written in to allow for the obligatory dance routine to be included. I mean, it’s a catchy little ditty but it’s hardly a pop music masterpiece. Even so, it had more longevity than Sean’s fashion gimmick which saw him with a top tied around his waist even though he was wearing a jacket over his singlet. Why did he need the jacket if he was too warm to wear the top? This didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe it was de rigueur fashion accessorising in 1995? We’ll certainly see more examples of it later on in the show.

Mayo really is a prick. In his second intro, he makes a reference to Peter Tatchell, the human and gay rights campaigner when announcing Tin Tin Out as the next artist. Why? Well, I think that he was referring to a current news story about Tatchell’s involvement with the direct action group OutRage! who ran a campaign to out 20 MPs who publicly supported anti-gay legislation whilst secretly living gay personal lives. One such MP was Sir James Kilfedder who died of a heart attack three days before this TOTP was broadcast just as the Belfast Telegraph ran a story that he was one of the politicians targeted. A sensitive story you would think. Not to Mayo. That’s source material for a cheap line while he presents a pop music programme. Tin Tin Out? Geddit? Like I said, a prick.

Anyway, back to the music and Tin Tin Out were an electronic music duo who mixed hits for some of the biggest names like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys but they also had a sideline in hits under their own name. “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” was their second such hit peaking at No 14. A version of the Bacharach and David song that Sandie Shaw took to the top of the charts in 1964, it was a cover in the loosest sense of the word. Basically they took the song’s distinctive melody, added a house beat to it and roped in vocalist Vanessa Contenay-Quinones of the duo Espiritu to sing (rather badly here I would add) the song’s title repeatedly. It sounds horrible to my ears. Perhaps to offset this infernal racket, there are four half naked backing dancers (with their tops tied around their waists as per Sean Maguire) making the female members of the audience react as if it were The Chippendales they were watching.

Tin Tin Out would find further success later in the decade with covers of The Sundays (“Here’s Where The Story Ends”) and Edie Brickell (“What I Am”). The latter was with ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton which was released on the same day as Gerri Halliwell’s “Lift Me Up” causing a chart battle to see who would be No 1. In the end, Ginger won out over Baby.

By the way, if I wanted a cover of “Always (Something There To Remind Me)” – which I did apparently in 1983 as I bought this single – then there’s always this…

I may have succumbed to some ropey old synth pop version of a 60s classic in 1983 but there was no way I was falling for this next load of old tosh twelve years later. I know we’ve seen many an act bag themselves a huge hit and basically just repeat the song with a few tweaks for the follow up over the years but this by Rednex really was scandalous. After the horror that was their No 1 single “Cotton Eye Joe”, they almost literally put out the same record again for their next one. As a result, “Old Pop In An Oak” was every bit as dreadful as its predecessor. Despite not making the Top 10, enough poor saps bought it in sufficient quantities to send it to No 12. What the hell happened people?!

In 1993, Duran Duran pulled off the seemingly impossible by escaping the from the box the public had put them in labelled ‘They used to be famous in the 80s’ and coming up with a hit single that put them back into the Top 10 for the first time in four years with “Ordinary World”. Not only that but its parent album was a million seller in the US and went gold in the UK. They were back and had momentum on their side. What they did with that momentum was tantamount to commercial and artistic suicide. Whose idea was it to record an album of cover versions? Or perhaps the question should be ‘whose idea was it to record an album of those cover versions?’.

Take the lead single from the “Thank You” album for example. Wasn’t Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” seen as sacrosanct at the time? What were they boys thinking? However, the phrase ‘at the time’ really should have been in italics for it has been covered by many an artist since and I don’t remember the same amount of cries of heresy as were reserved for the Duran boys? Indeed, just three months after this, Kirsty MacColl released her own version with Evan Dando of The Lemonheads to promote her Best Of album “Galore” and I’m pretty sure there weren’t any cries of “Heresy!” from anyone. By 1997, just about every big name in the music business had covered it (sort of). A BBC promotional video to showcase their musical diversity featuring the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Bono, Heather Small, Brett Anderson of Suede, Tom Jones, Gabrielle, Evan Dando (again!) and perhaps most memorably Dr John (“such a poyfick day”) was absolutely fêted by the public; so much so that it was released as a single and went to No 1 for three weeks. All of this leads me to believe that it was more about who was doing the cover version and it was a case of everybody else = good, Duran Duran = bad.

Or maybe it wasn’t even about this track? After all, Lou Reed is on record as saying the Duran version was the best recording of any of his songs. Was it the other covers on “Thank You” that offended so? Taking on songs by Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop was ill judged but to navigate “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel and Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” was clinically insane. The readers of Q magazine were so incensed that in a 2006 poll, they voted “Thank You” the worst album of all time. So was it that bad? Well, I’ve often found myself on the wrong side of popular opinion and I did buy a couple of Duran Duran albums in the 80s but on the whole, even I would say it was a not a clever career move. As so it proved. After the critical backlash “Thank You” received, the band floundered. Follow up album “Medazzaland” didn’t even get released in Europe with the record buying public seemingly only interested in their past glories – a Best Of collection called “Greatest” made No 4 when released in 1998. It would take a reunion of the classic line up in 2004 to return them towards the top of the charts when the “Astronaut” album made No 3.

Talking of the classic line up, that’s Roger Taylor on drums in this TOTP performance which took me by surprise as he hadn’t had anything to do with the band since leaving in 1986. Apparently he played on three tracks for the “Thank You” album and appeared in the video for “Perfect Day”. Meanwhile, bassist John Taylor seems to have taken leave of his fashion senses – a checked shirt matched with stripey trousers?!

Next a band who in many ways replaced Duran Duran in the affections of the teen market as the boys from Birmingham’s popularity dwindled in the late 80s. Wet Wet Wet were on a commercial high come the mid 90s. They’d had that single in 1994 at No 1 for fifteen weeks and now were back with a new hit in the Top 10. Of course, also like Duran Duran, they’d suffered their own decline in approval around 1989-1991 but that was all behind them now.

Following the biggest selling single of the year though was no easy task and “Julia Says” predictably couldn’t get anywhere near the sales of “Love Is All Around”. A high of No 3 was nothing to be sniffed at though even if the track itself wasn’t their strongest by a mile and it did help propel parent album “Picture This” to No 1 and a million sales. The hits kept coming until the end of the decade when Marti Pellow left the band to deal with his addiction issues. Wet Wet Wet are still a going concern but only just. Graeme Clark is the only remaining member of the original four piece line up though they have just announced a co-headlining tour with perennials of the nostalgia circuit Go West.

A case next of an appearance on TOTP not helping the sales of a single. “Original” by Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday was a new entry on the chart this week at No 18 but it would fall to No 35 seven days later despite the exposure of this performance. To be fair, the sound of the track didn’t exactly lend itself to a turn on TV. Its dark, dubby rhythms allied to Halliday’s almost deadpan vocals weren’t a perfect match for the medium of TV. Not that it isn’t a good track – it is but it acts almost as a visual downer in amongst the scream-inducing likes of Sean Maguire and Wet Wet Wet. Yes, there are some shrieks from the studio audience at times during “Original” but I get the impression they were falsely manufactured by the prompting of a floor manager.

Leftfield were, of course, influential production team Neil Barnes and Paul Daley who’d already had a hit under their own steam when they collaborated with John Lydon on the hypnotic “Open Up” in 1994. Toni Halliday was the lead singer with shoe gazing / dance beat hybrid Curve who’d had a handful of minor hit singles and two moderately successful albums to this point but whose legacy was to open the doors for the likes of Garbage to stride through. The album “Original” came from was the Mercury Prize nominated “Leftism” which is widely regarded as a milestone moment in dance music. Listening to this track now, it sounds very like Portishead to me whose album “Dummy” beat “Leftism” to the aforementioned Mercury Prize in 1995.

Next another band who like Wet Wet Wet are trying to follow up the biggest hit of their career. East 17 may not have had the best selling single of the year like the Wets but they did have the Christmas No 1 with all the sales that brings with it. Surely they couldn’t bag another chart topper with their next release? The short answer is no they couldn’t but they did keep their record of consecutive Top 10 hits going with “Let It Rain” taking the tally to five.

After the balladry of “Stay Another Day”, it was back to the sound on which they made their name – a hard-hitting, quick house beats dance floor-filler with a shouty yet catchy chorus. Its intro has Tony Mortimer going all Prince-like in “Let’s Go Crazy” mode, preaching from the pulpit before the beats hit about corridors of creation and colliding comets. Actually, he sounds a bit like Gary Clail of On-U Sound fame.

I’d have to say that apart from that intro, it’s not one of their most memorable tunes, not quite the banger it wants to be. Talking of which, Terry Coldwell (the bloke in the singlet on the left in this performance and only remaining original member still with the group) was in the news recently when he participated in a Counties Radio competition where presenter Justin Dealey would ask people in the street to sing a song and if he judged it good enough, he would buy them a hot dog as a reward. Snappily entitled ‘Sing a banger for a banger’, Coldwell rocked up and sang “Stay Another Day” but was denied his prize on account of sounding too authentic!

Mayo’s back with his crappy jokes now as he name checks the boxer Chris Eubank. As far as I understand it, by saying that Chris’s favourite song was “Hypnotised” by Simple Minds, he was referring to the fact that Eubank had recently lost his WBO super middleweight title to Steve Collins who had employed a guru to help him prepare mentally for the fight leading the press to believe that Collins was hypnotised for the bout. As Eubanks entered the ring before the fight, Collins sat in his corner motionless with headphones on, giving more credence to the rumour. None of this backstory makes Mayo’s quip funny though. Look mate, you’re just there to introduce the acts not perform a stand up routine. Just do your job.

Anyway, this was the second and last single from the “Good News From The Next World” album and it wasn’t very good. Not only was it completely soporific but I’m sure they’d used that bridge part before in a previous hit. In short, poor on quality and lethargic of effort. Must do better.

By the way, what was going on with guitarist Charlie Burchill?! Back in 1984, I’d desperately coveted his look but he just looks weird here. Horrible hair and a jacket that looks like he’d borrowed it from a pearly king. And I thought John Taylor’s wardrobe was suss.

The Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton has, rather predictably, brought an end to Celine Dion’s run at No 1 and to quote Captain Sensible’s 1982 hit “Wot”, ain’t I glad. Beware though. This respite will only last a week before a new menace takes residence in the top spot…

Just before the credits roll, there’s a plug for the BBC’s A Song for Europe show to pick this year’s UK Eurovision entry. It seemed quite an elongated process. There was a Top of the Pops Song for Europe Special show that Mayo mentions where each of the competing songs was showcased but that wasn’t the point where the winner was chosen. No, there was another programme a week later where that decision was made by a public vote. Each artist also had a celebrity champion advocating for them. Some of the entrants were well known – Londonbeat for example (who sounded dreadful in the clip at the end of this TOTP) plus recent chart stars Deuce and Samantha Fox fronting Sox. The rest of them I have no idea about except the actual winner of course who were Love City Groove who trounced everybody with over 140,000 votes. The artist placed second got 81,000 by comparison. Things didn’t work out for Love City Groove on the big day but that’s a story for another post.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sean Maguire	Suddenly	As if
2	Tin Tin Out featuring Espiritu	Always (Something There To Remind Me)	No
3	Rednex	Old Pop In An Oak	Hell no!
4	Duran Duran	Perfect Day	Nope
5	Wet Wet Wet	Julia Says	Nah
6	Leftfield featuring Tony Halliday	Original	No but my wife might have had the album I think
7	East 17	Let It Rain	Negative
8	Simple Minds	Hypnotised	I did not
9	Cher, Neneh Cherry, Chrissie Hynde and Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	Not even for charity

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rb00/top-of-the-pops-23031995

TOTP 16 MAR 1995

Posted on October 14, 2023 by 80stastic

I can’t remember if I watched this particular TOTP but if I did then I’m pretty sure that I would have had my mind on something else. Immediately after it finished, my beloved Chelsea were playing a European Cup Winners Cup quarter-final. Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, they were attempting to reach a European semi-final for the first time in 24 years. It may not seem it to the club’s younger fanbase who have been used to continuous success but this was a big deal. So big that I recall turning the TV off with minutes still to play and Chelsea winning 2-0 for fear of a late away goal that would knock us out. My nerves couldn’t take it. I turned the TV back on to the sight of a celebrating Chelsea crowd and realised we were through. It would all end in failure (as it always did back then) when we lost the semi-final to eventual winners Real Zaragoza.

I’m not sure that there’s a musical equivalent of that sort of experience. Having said that, just eleven days after this TOTP broadcast, a single was released that used to almost give me palpitations. Josh Wink’s “Higher State Of Consciousness” would set my nerves right on edge when it played on the shop stereo of the Our Price store I was working in. It literally could almost send me into a panic attack. Here’s hoping the tunes on tonight’s show aren’t as triggering.

By the way, tonight’s host is Lenny Henry as it’s Comic Relief the following day and so TOTP has been hijacked to help with the promotion. Lenny’s links are not especially funny but it’s hard not to warm to him.

Well, there’s nothing to make me nervous about the first artist on tonight. Alex Party are on to their third TOTP appearance I think with “Don’t Give Me Your Life”. If anything, I’m completely bored of this track. However, there is one thing that’s peaked my interest in this performance and that’s the presence of a drummer in amongst all the backing dancers leaping about. A drummer? On a Eurodance hit?! Obviously, they’ve got the obligatory two nerdy guys on keyboards in there but a drummer wasn’t usually in the mix surely? Has he always been there?

*quickly checks previous shows to feature Alex Party*

Well, he wasn’t there in the first appearance but then neither were the keyboard players but they were all on stage in the second appearance; I just can’t have noticed them. I wonder why there was the change of line up? Surely they weren’t looking for musicianship credibility?!

Next up is a group which was never going to raise my anxiety levels but this particular performance was a jolt to the system. A single by The Human League where Phil Oakey doesn’t do the lead vocals? This was out of the ordinary to sat the least. In fact it was more than out of the ordinary, it was the first time Susanne Sulley had been lead vocalist on one of the band’s singles. “One Man In My Heart” was the follow up to comeback hit “Tell Me When” which had rather surprisingly gone Top 10 at the start of the year. It also did pretty well chart wise achieving a respectable No 13 peak.

On first hearing, it sounds like a very one dimensional synth ballad but its simplicity is also its strength. An unfussy vocal from Susanne allied to a winning melody elevates it to something above the ordinary. Even the hackneyed ‘Ooh La La La’ backing from Phil and Joanne can’t bring it down. Sadly though, the only subsequent occasions that a Human League single would make the Top 20 would be rereleases of “Don’t You Want Me”. Having said that, the band don’t seem weighed down by their illustrious early 80s history but rather embrace it. They are almost constantly on tour it seems churning out the hits and have only released two albums of new material in the 28 years since “Octopus” (parent album of “One Man In My Heart”) came out. One last thing, what is that contraption that Phil is ‘playing’?

And so to the song that is the whole point of Sir Lenny Henry being on the show tonight – the Comic Relief single. This year it was no novelty song à la “The Stonk” or “Stick It Out” but a proper composition – “Love Can Build A Bridge”, a big country ballad by mother and daughter duo The Judds. It seems rather unfair but I’m guessing that Comic Relief were canny enough to know that The Judds weren’t a big enough name to promote the single (even though it’s their own song) and so roped in four mega star names to do the job. Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton met the brief and indeed would carry it all the way to No 1.

In his intro, Lenny implores the watching TV audience that whatever we do on Comic Relief day, not to do nothing and that we could at least by the single. Well, I didn’t I have to admit but I would hope that I made a donation. They would have involved picking up the (landline) phone, ringing in to the dedicated number and actually speaking to someone. Cast your mind back even further to Live Aid and Bob Geldof was telling us to go to the post office to get a postal order mailed out. It’s so much easier these days. Just text a message on your mobile to a number and you’re done. Try explaining that to the kids today. Though I’m glad to have lived through the eras I did, there’s no denying technology does have some benefits.

Apart from the fear that I may not have made a donation to Comic Relief, there was nothing about the last song to make me anxious. However, my calmness is under threat immediately from the next act. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The time of The Outhere Brothers is upon us. For reasons unclear, these two berks racked up four UK Top 10 hits this year including two (TWO!) No 1s. Quite why the British record buying public had a vulnerability for unequivocally crap records remains inexplicable to me. There must be a thesis or at least a dissertation in it for somebody.

The first of those two chart toppers was “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” which gained notoriety for its sexually explicit lyrics (I looked them up, they are very explicit). Now of course, the version performed on TOTP was the radio edit (or clean version) with the offending lyrics removed which pretty much just left a moronic chant of the single’s title. However, the CD single included the explicit version as part of the extra tracks meaning many a young record buyer ended up with access to innocence corrupting material. Such was the outrage that it even promoted a question in Parliament (raised by the MP from my hometown of Worcester as it happens). Perhaps nobody should have been surprised given the titles of the duo’s first two singles – “Pass The Toilet Paper” and the delightfully named “Fuk U In The Ass”. Its notoriety probably helped propel it to the chart summit. I know from working in record shops for years that we never sold those clean versions of records by the likes of Eminem. The youth all wanted to hear the cussing.

The performance here is deeply unimpressive. Malik and Hula (they weren’t really brothers I don’t think) are wearing basketball outfits for no discernible reason and there are the obligatory scantily clad women dancing behind them. I can feel my anxiety levels rising. Not because of any potentially explicit lyrics but because with this crap going to No 1, we’re going to have to endure it at least once more.

Next a band whose name sounds like it should strike a note of trepidation and indeed they were named after a 1986 horror film but, in truth, Terrorvision weren’t that scary. However, they did have a rather spooky chart statistic which was that their last five singles had peaked between No 29 and 21. This next release – “Some People Say” – would make that six when it got to a high of No 22. The fifth and last single taken from their “How To Make Friends And Influence People” album, I can’t say I remember it at all. Maybe it was unfortunate to have been around at the same time as a similarly entitled single – “Some Might Say” by Oasis was released the following month and would become their first No 1. Terrorvision never had their own chart topper though they came close with “Tequila” in 1999 which peaked at No 2.

Clearly taking a leaf out of her brother’s book of ‘How many singles is too many to release from one album?’*, Janet Jackson is back with the seventh from her 1993 “Janet” album. Yes, you read that right; 1993. Janet was still releasing singles from an album that came out eighteen months previously.

*Answer: There is no limit if your surname is Jackson

“Whoops Now” was a double A-side with “What’ll I Do” and was a hidden track on the album but was deemed commercial enough for a single release. It’s a fairly unremarkable Motown pastiche to my ears; a bit too cute for its own good. The performance here is an ‘exclusive’ live performance from Oslo and to be honest, Janet’s exhortations to the audience to want to hear them make some noise (or words to that effect) whilst singing a song so slight is almost comical.

“Whoops Now” made No 9 on the UK Top 40 but it wouldn’t be long before Janet was back. Just two months later, her duet with brother Michael entitled “Scream” would go all the way to No 2.

Right, if you’re confused as I was about Lenny Henry’s intro for this next track, it’s because we had forgotten about this Levi’s 501 advert. Maybe watch this before proceeding further and it should clear that mystery up…

…all done? Up to speed now? Great! Yes, after a Levi’s advert turned an unknown song by a fabricated band the previous year (“Inside” by Stiltskin) into a No 1 record, the marketing machine rolled on into 1995 and yet again made a huge hit out of a relatively obscure track. The lucky recipients of the Levi’s magic dust this time though were the latest project of a man who was no stranger to chart hits.

It had been seven years since the The Housemartins had called it a day and in that time, whilst Paul Heaton found mass appeal with the wry pop melodies of The Beautiful South, Norman Cook had turned his attention to the world of dance music. Success came early and in some style with Cook’s group Beats International securing a 1990 No 1 with “Dub Be Good To Me”. There was only one way to to go after that though and that particular project withered away. The ever inventive Cook was soon back in the saddle with his next vehicle Freak Power whose 1993 debut single “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” was a minor chart hit when it made No 29. Somebody at Levi’s (or the advertising agency working for them) must have noticed the track as just under eighteen months later it was chosen to soundtrack the next 501 campaign. You can hear why. A super slick soul groove with a touch of funk that saw the bass guitar supplying the hooky riff, it sounded familiar the first time you heard it with Gill Scott-Heron springing to mind. It turns out though that the bass line was appropriated from a tune called “Flo” by Red Holt from the 70s. Though that name means nothing to me, I’m sure Norman would have had a copy of said track in his extensive vinyl collection.

The reach of the advert ensured that “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” would become a major hit second time around peaking at No 3 though, if pressed, I would have guessed that it made it to the top of the charts like Stiltskin did a year before. I like the fact that lead singer Ashley Slater pulls out a trombone during this performance but then he had been a member of jazz big band/orchestra Loose Tubes in the 80s. In terms of my nerves with regards to this hit, the only thing concerning me was the potential for an unfortunate typo when it came to the name of Loose Tubes.

Lenny Henry might be experiencing some nerves of his own as he introduces the next artist on the show but they’re the good type rather than the anxiety inducing variety. It’s only his all time hero Prince. Sadly for Lenny, the Purple One was in the middle of his dispute with Warners and so what we get here is Prince pretending he’s not really there. As a way of releasing material outside of his existing contract, Prince used his backing band since 1990 New Power Generation to vent his creative spleen. “Get Wild” was the lead single from the band’s second album “Exodus” and, in line with their earlier output, it’s a supercool funk work out in the style of Parliament. For this performance, Prince has assumed one of his multiple alter egos, in this case, Tora Tora and appears on stage in a gauze scarf totally obscuring his face. If you peer closely, I think you can determine that it is Prince but I can’t help thinking it kind of diluted the experience of him appearing on the show.

In the Top 40 at the same time as “Get Wild” was something called “Purple Medley” which, as it says in the title, was a mashup of Prince hits and well known tracks either re-recorded or sampled. Released by Warners, it might appear as if this was the record company trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue from their artist’s back catalogue but it was actually Prince who was behind the single in an attempt to fulfil his contractual obligations with Warners. No doubt he would have raised a wry smile when “Get Wild” peaked at No 19 and “Purple Medley” spluttered to a high of No 33.

Finally! It’s the last of seven weeks at the top of the charts for Celine Dion with “Think Twice”. There was no rapid descent of the charts for the single though as it would spend another two weeks inside the Top 5 and a further four after that within the Top 40. In total it would spend thirty-one weeks on the UK Top 100. My nerves were officially frazzled.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Alex Party	Don’t Give Me Your Life	No
2	The Human League	One Man In My Heart	Don’t think I did
3	Cher / Chrissie Hynde / Neneh Cherry / Eric Clapton	Love Can Build A Bridge	I did not
4	The Outhere Brothers	Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)	Hell no
5	Terrorvision	Some People Say	Nope
6	Janet Jackson	Whoops Now	Negative
7	Freak Power	Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out	Nah
8	New Power Generation	Get Wild	It’s a no from me
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/m001r3g8/top-of-the-pops-16031995

TOTP 02 MAR 1995

Posted on October 6, 2023 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.

https://youtu.be/wHFbmDEpgqk?si=DSoeMQsa0Eeu20am

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 23 JUL 1992

Posted on March 14, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re in mid Summer ‘92 at TOTP Rewind. The Euros have been and gone (and with them Graham Taylor’s credibility as the England manager) and the Olympics in Barcelona are just about to start and we all know what that means…yes that bloody song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe will be everywhere including the top end of the charts very soon. For now though, we have a TOTP which is, yet again, a right mix bag of music and artists. We’re back to a presenting duo rather than the solo host we have seen recently with Tony Dortie being paired with Claudia Simon. The producers are sticking with the small changes to the format they made recently meaning we get to see Claudia and Tony do an intro even before the titles roll and then do the Top 10 countdown before we see/hear any artists. I’m not convinced about any of it.

When we do get to the actual music, the first intro is very odd. As the camera alights on Claudia and Tony, the latter says “This record is massive on the dance floor” but the camera keeps moving down towards the stage. Claudia says out of shot “Making their debut on Top of the Pops…” and then…nothing. Surely Claudia was teeing up actually saying who the first act was?! What happened? Did her mike fail? Did she forget who she was introducing? Or did the producers say “Just forget it. Too late now anyway. They’ve started and the artist graphic is on screen already”?

That artist graphic told us that the band were Sunscreem with “Love U More”. So who were these lot? I remember the name but the only other thing I recall about them was that they were a Sony artist (the curse of opening all those deliveries while working for Our Price in the 90s strikes again!). Turns out that they weren’t just another anonymous dance act put together to front a hit single. They were a house band from Essex- no I don’t mean they were the resident band for the whole of the county but that they played ‘house’ music – and actually performed live concerts.

Having been tipped as the next big name in dance music during ‘91, they finally broke into the UK Top 40 with “Love U More”. Listening to it now, it does ring a few bells one of which reminded me of “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” by Zoë. If that bell was ringing though then there was an air horn going off in my head about their performance which is giving me heavy D:Ream vibes. It’s not just their sound, the lead singer even has a tartan suit on!

That singer is Lucia Holm who recorded a fine version of one of my favourite ever songs “Heaven” by The Psychedelic Furs in 2005.

Not only that, check out this fact from @TOTPFacts about her involvement in another of my favourite tunes:

Sunscreem singer Lucia Holm also played cello on "Life In A Northern Town" by The Dream Academy – from which her playing was later sampled by Dario G for his dance track "Sunchyme". https://t.co/s2CrslZ6jO #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

I had no idea! I was also in the dark that Steps covered “Love U More” on their debut album. Look!

Nice to see some actual, proper musical instruments on display in a dance outfit performance though I’m not sure about the two dancers throwing some shapes. Sunscreem would go on to have eight UK Top 40 hits though none would get any higher than No 13. “Love U More” itself would make No 23.

Snap! are up to No 2 with “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and it’s obvious now that it’s going to be a chart topper. I’m not sure I would have predicted it spending six weeks as the nation’s best seller though but then what did I know eh? Oh yeah, I was working in a record shop at the time so maybe I should have had my finger in the pulse a bit more.

The track routinely features in the ‘Best No 1s /dance anthems of the 90s’ polls but I bet nobody involved in the record could have foreseen its influence extend to this extent…

Thought Shakespear’s Sister only had one hit? You are sorely mistaken for they had six UK Top 40 hits in total though I’m guessing this one would have a decent chance at being a very low scorer on Pointless. “Goodbye Cruel World” was actually the lead single from their “Hormonally Yours” album and not the all conquering “Stay” but nobody noticed it when it was initially released in late September ‘91 and it struggled to a high of No 59. Maybe that would have been the end of the band had they not had that Dave Stewart penned No 1 song up their sleeves but up their sleeves it was and the rest is (you’re) history.

Essentially a straightforward rock/pop song, it had enough quirkiness about it to make it stand out from the crowd. However, it never made it above its chart position here of No 32 in spite of this TOTP exposure. To be fair, the whirling dervish routine of Siobhan Fahey was starting to irritate and they did seem to shoehorn in a platform for Marcella Detroit’s to display her operatic range every song. Siobahn seems to think it’s Xmas time judging by the white fur trim in her outfit but it’s their bass player that my eyes are more drawn to. She looks ever so familiar and judging by the #TOTP tweets for this show, a fair few people thought the same and wanted to identify her. General consensus was that its Claire Kenny who has worked with the likes of Orange Juice, Sinéad O’Connor and Brian Eno though I think it’s Amazulu that I recognise her from which probably says quite a lot about me.

The Breakers are in a much more sensible place in the show this week and we start with the poster boys of grunge Nirvana. To say how influential they were, their career was pretty short and their back catalogue fairly small. Three studio albums and six UK Top 40 hits in a seven year existence. Yes, you could argue that The Beatles only existed for a decade and look at their legacy but they released thirteen albums in that period. You could also make the case that Nirvana’s potential for longevity was truncated by Kurt Cobain’s death but I think that the band were never likely to pull a U2 and carve out a 40 year career. Cobain’s heroin addiction was always an issue and the group almost broke up after disagreements surrounding Kurt’s attempts to reorganise their royalties structure so that he got more to reflect his songwriting input. There’s also that theory that those who shine the brightest burn out the quickest and that the band were always destined to fulfil that particular narrative but is that just a lazy take on their story?

Anyway, one of those six hit singles was “Lithium” which was the third track to be released from “Nevermind”. It’s a good song and all that but it doesn’t stray far from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” template in that the verses are subdued lulling us into a false sense of security before the violent eruption of the go apeshit chorus.

The video is a collage of gig footage. Cobain had originally had an idea for an animation to tell the story of a girl called Preggo who lives in a forest and takes some eggs she found in her closet to a king in a castle. This was shelved when it became apparent that it the video would take four months to make. They couldn’t think of anything else to do than just cobble some concert clips together?

“Lithium” peaked at No 11 in the UK singles chart.

Still bleeding the “Stars” album dry are Simply Red or more accurately their record label EastWest. I’m wondering about the wisdom of releasing a fifth single (“Your Mirror”) from an album that had been out for 10 months by this point and which had sold so many copies in the first three of those months that it became the biggest selling album of the whole year.

Were EastWest hoping that there were still some punters out there who hadn’t yet been persuaded into buying “Stars” by the first four singles off it but who might be convinced by the fifth? Surely not. Was it designed to appeal to completist super fans who couldn’t resist the lure of Simply Red product? Did such people exist? Were there exclusive extra tracks on the single? Or was it as I first thought just a case of milking the label’s elite cash cow as much as they could?

“Stars” was the band’s fourth album – would that have bought them to the end of their current record deal? Were EastWest concerned they might lose their lucrative charges? As it turned out they didn’t but it would be four years before the next Simply Red album. Had they thought that might be the case and so wanted to maximise sales of the current one by going all Michael Jackson on its singles release schedule? Were the band on tour and so the single was to promote that?

So many questions to which I’m not sure I actually care what the answers are. This is Simply Red and Mick Hucknall we’re talking about here after all! Suffice to say “Your Mirror” did nothing for me but it reached a respectable No 17 on the charts which presumably meant something to EastWest.

Talking of Jacko…after the first three singles from Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album had been given the ‘exclusive’ treatment by TOTP, the video for his latest single only warrants a slot in the Breakers! Possibly to prevent litigation from The King of Pop’s lawyers, it gets a full outing on the following week’s show.

The single in question is “Who Is It” and the critical reception it received at the time suggested that it was “Billie Jean” 2.0. I can certainly hear that in the bridge into the chorus but is there a bit of “Dirty Diana” in there as well?

It managed to get to No 10 in the UK despite it being the fourth single off the album but curiously wasn’t released simultaneously in the US where they went with “Jam” as the fourth single release. I didn’t really care for it at all. Oh, and never mind ‘who is it’, the question I wanted to ask was why doesn’t the song title have a question mark at the end of it? Answer me that.

So who did get the ‘Exclusive’ slot this week instead of Jackson? It’s gone to Enya? Really?! Are you sure?! Yes, for she was in the studio to promote her single “Book Of Days” from the album “Shepherd Moons”. As Tony Dortie says, it also featured in the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman film Far And Away. I think I went to the pictures to see that one. It was OK but far too long and the ending is one of the worst in cinematic history.

As for the performance here, there’s a few things to unpack. Firstly, is she singing live as per TOTP policy? She could be but with all those vocal effects on the record it’s hard to tell. Secondly, what was the deal with the platinum blonde wigs on the cello players? Was it a tribute to Gerry Anderson’s UFO and the purple wigs worn by the female staff at moon base? Finally, the flowers on the piano and studio floor – was that an influence on the cover to the Oasis single “Don’t Look Back In Anger”?

“Book Of Days” peaked at No 10.

https://youtu.be/5hTo-3TF0Nw

Obviously “Sexy MF” by Prince was never going to get any airplay if the true word behind the acronym hadn’t been blanked but it’s not like the rest of the lyrics were squeaky clean. Some of them were filthy:

You seem perplexed I haven’t taken you yet

Can’t you see I’m harder than a man can get

I got wet dreams comin’ out of my ears

I get hard if the wind blows your cologne near me

Sheesh! Where was the censor? Presumably on the dance floor.

“Sexy MF” peaked at No 4.

Action from the US chart next as we get a first look at an artist who’s about to bring his success over here. I say first look but if we’d have been watching Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine carefully we’d have seen his guy before. I have to admit that as a teenager I was probably more interested in directing my gaze at Gloria rather than her band! Anyway, enough of that! The guy in question is Jon Secada and “Just Another Day” would be first and biggest hit.

I could never see the appeal of this song and found it quite laborious and dull. I seemed to be in the minority though as it went to No 5 both in the UK and the US. Now I’m not saying the guy can’t sing but, as someone commented on Twitter, he doesn’t half make a meal of this performance which is a flurry of gurning expressions, mike stand wielding and fist clenching. He makes Spandau’s Tony Hadley look like a wallflower. No doubt we’ll be seeing more of Mr Secada in future repeats.

You wait ages for one ‘Exclusive’ (that never comes if you’re Michael Jackson) and then two come along. The second one after Enya earlier is from Elton John and Eric Clapton who have collaborated on a little ditty called “Runaway Train”. The second single released from Elton’s “The One” album, I have to say that this is utter garbage. A right dirge and money for old rope for the pair of them. This did nothing for either protagonist’s reputation. Even the video effects are horrible and only serve to increase the strength of the headache listening to the song will give you.

Unfortunately Claudia Simon stumbles over her words in the intro to this one saying that the video was “shot at the Wembley during Elton’s worldwise tour’. Sadly, there was nothing wise about this train wreck of a release and it peaked at a lowly No 31.

Jimmy Nail is No 1 again with “Ain’t No Doubt” and he’s in the studio again doing his weird, shambling performance that he’s done every week so far in that same dark suit and T-shirt ensemble. He almost motionless and it’s left to his brass section to provide all the movement on stage. The dinner jackets, black bow ties and shades they’re all wearing remind me of the backing singers Nick Heyward had for his single “Warning Sign” back in 1984:

Jimmy was riding high on the back of the success of his Spender TV series which was huge back in the day and regularly pulled in audiences of 14 million. I’m pretty sure I was one of them though I can’t recall any of the episodes or stories now. In keeping with my own memory, it’s almost as though that it’s entirely forgotten now. Never repeated on TV and never even released on DVD or video and yet his first big hit series Auf Wiedersehen Pet is never off the likes of ITV 4 or the Drama channel.

We play out with “Shake Your Head” by Was (Not Was). Some of the things that the lyrics say you can’t do are palpably untrue. ‘You can’t win money at the horses” for example. I’ll wager some of the thousands attending this week’s Cheltenham festival would disagree. The biggest whopper though is “And you can’t influence the masses”. Vote Leave campaign anyone?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sunscreem	Love U More	Nah
2	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	Nope
3	Shakespear’s Sister	Goodbye Cruel World	I did not
4	Nirvana	Lithium	No
5	Simply Red	Your Mirror	Certainly not
6	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	Negative
7	Enya	Book Of Days	It’s a no from me
8	Prince	Sexy MF	Not the single but I have it on a Best Of CD I’m sure
9	Jon Secada	Just Another Day	Never happening
10	Elton John and Eric Clapton	Runaway Train	I’d have rather bought Runaway Train by Soul Asylum and that’s shit as well
11	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	And no
12	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought their Best Of album Hello Dad…I’m In Jail with it on

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/m00156d0/top-of-the-pops-23071992

TOTP 12 MAR 1992

Posted on February 3, 2022 by 80stastic

In recent years the calling of a general election has been a relentlessly regular occurrence. Between 2015 and 2019 the country had to go through this process three times. Back in 1992, we hadn’t had one for five years but the day before this TOTP aired, sitting Prime Minister John Major announced that there would be a General Election in April.

Whilst I would no doubt have taken notice of this statement, I would have been more focussed on my imminent trip down to London. Yes, despite being permanently skint living in Manchester on a record shop worker’s wages, I had somehow managed to squirrel away enough money for a trip to the capital.

I was staying with my friend Robin and he’d got us tickets to go and see my beloved Chelsea play. See, there’s the proof above. As ever with Chelsea in those days I came away disappointed:

Those Chelsea tickets weren’t the only tickets Robin got for us that weekend. His sister is an actress and was appearing in a play that weekend so along we popped. I can’t remember exactly what it was about but my main recollection was that it was decidedly weird. When Robin reminded me of this event recently we had a strange WhatsApp conversation which went like this:

Robin: Remember seeing The Fall with Right Said Fred?

Me (incredulous): Absolutely nothing. The Fall supported by Right Said Fred?!

Robin: No we watched a play called “ The Fall”, only 8 people were in the audience and one was the ‘Freddie with porn star hair.

So there you have it. A weekend of footballing disappointment and a close encounter with a genuine pop star (sort of). Right Said Fred aren’t on this particular TOTP but are on in two week’s time. Damn the gods of synchronicity!

Suppose I’d better get in with the music then and tonight’s opening act are Gun with “Steal Your Fire”. In keeping with the major political announcement of the day before, presenter Tony Dortie keeps it topical with a reference to the contents of Norman Lamont’s briefcase. I’m guessing as Lamont was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, this would have been to do with interest rates (I’m certainly not going anywhere near that Julian Clary reference!) though I doubt at the time I was following the Exchange Rate Mechanism that closely. Now I’d quite liked this lot with their hits “Better Days” and “Shame On You”, the latter of which I’d even bought. By 1992 though, I’d completely lost track of them. I remember second album “Gallus” coming out and the cover of it but I’m not sure it was ever played in the Our Price I worked in (there wasn’t much of a rock fraternity amongst the staff) so I’m not familiar with it at all, not even this single. Having listened to it back though, it seems that Gun were, like Margaret Thatcher before them, ‘not for turning’ when it came to their musical direction. “Steal Your Fire” stuck rigidly to the formula.

The single peaked at No 24 which at that point was the band’s biggest chart hit but their peak would come in the Summer of ‘94 when they took their cover of Cameo’s “Word Up” into the Top 10.

One of the stories of the 1992 Top 40 was the blatant (and amusing) attempt by The Wedding Present to manipulate them. Yes, decades before the charts were hijacked by the X Factor and social media galvanised campaigns to artificially create hits, David Gedge and co were already at it.

Their cunning plan was to match Elvis Presley’s chart record of having twelve Top 30 hits in one calendar year, something The King had achieved in 1957. To do this, they released a limited edition single every single month in 1992. The limited stock quantities (only 10,000 were pressed for the UK and 5,000 for the rest of the world) created a frenzy amongst their fan base and crucially a brief but significant sales spike each month propelling every single into the Top 30 for one week before dropping like a stone once copies were exhausted. A genius ruse from Gedge! Meanwhile back in the record shops it was causing carnage as desperate fans tried to ensure they didn’t miss out. Even our shop which was a two trading floor city centre store would only get a handful of the singles which fans wanted to pre-order. That’s fine but woe betide the staff on release day if the system went wrong and all copies were sold before those pre-orders were picked up. Like I said, carnage.

The TOTP appearances that this practice created for the band – they were on the show four times in 1992 – only added to the chaos. Here’s Gedge himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

"…. So you’re on Top Of the Pops the Thursday after and the record was unavailable. It was a bit of a charade, really. I think we turned them down once and lied – 'Our bass player’s got a poorly arm' or something.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 28, 2022

For the record, “Three” was neatly the third of these monthly single releases despite Gedge’s confusing jumper with the number four on it (oh you little scampi Dave!). They weren’t just called ‘One’ to ‘Twelve’ though. “Three” peaked at No 14.

Tony Dortie’s nicked one of my phrases! I’m sure I referred to a ‘rave conveyor belt’ in a recent post. Tony is using it in reference to the next act who are Toxic Two performing their one and only hit “Rave Generator”. Now I know I say this a lot and in my defence we are talking about tunes from 30 years ago but I genuinely did not know of the existence of this until just this moment. It seems to be a mash up of “French Kiss” by Lil Louis and “Pacific State” by 808 State.

As there are hardly any lyrics in it (there’s a sample of someone saying ‘How do you feel now?’) the show has the perennial problem of how to stage the performance of it. They’ve gone for some zoom in zoom out camera trickery, some overlaid special effects and a panoramic view of the studio audience to try and create the impression that we are witnessing a rave in full flow. Oh and those dancers in leotards who look like they’re doing a yoga class on speed. Were people really dancing like that in clubs around this time?

There’s a noise in “Rave Generator” that reminds me of the blast sound from a Blake’s 7 ray gun. Maybe it was the same sound. After all, the aforementioned 808 State used sound library clips. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

Like "Pacific State" by 808 State, it also makes use of the sound library on the E-mu Systems Emulator II (an early sampler) – specifically the loon sound on disk #22, "Wind Chimes/Birds/ Stream". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 28, 2022

“Rave Generator” peaked at No 13.

The grunge bandwagon rolls in with Nirvana’s follow up to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Now it’s never occurred to me before and so I must have missed this story at the time but there was some controversy around “Come As You Are” and it wasn’t to do with Kurt Cobain’s lyrics about guns. No, it was to do with the fact that the song bore very strong similarities to the track “Eighties” by Killing Joke. And it does. Now I’ve made the connection I can’t unhear it. Apparently Killing Joke considered legal action against Nirvana but sacked it off as a bad idea after Cobain’s suicide in 1994. Or maybe it was because there’s a case to be made that Killing Joke weren’t innocent of plagiarism themselves and that they based their song on a Damned track called “Life Goes On”. Maybe they didn’t want to draw too much attention to that with a high profile law suit.

At the time though, if I’d have been asked about similarities between “Come As You Are” and another song I’d have replied ‘Yes, it sounds like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” only less frenetic’.

Cobain’s hometown was a place called Aberdeen, Washington but the story I draw your attention to isn’t that there’s somewhere with the same name as Scotland’s Granite City in America but that the sign welcoming you to Aberdeen includes the line ‘Come As You Are’.

“Come As You Are” peaked at No 9.

Who’s next? Clivilles & Cole? Who were they then? Well, they were the guys behind C+C Music Factory of course ( C+C geddit?) but for some reason they felt the need to release this single – “A Deeper Love” – under their own names. I’m not sure what the criteria was for that decision. Was it because “A Deeper Love” was a change in musical direction and therefore wouldn’t have sat comfortably under the C+C Music Factory name? My dance head credentials are really good enough to make that assessment. Sure, I can tell that “Things That Make you Go Hmmm…” was of a much more popper flavour than “A Deeper Love” but was it really that different from “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”? I’m sure someone out there could tell me ‘Of course it is and here’s why…’. Anyway Clivilles & Cole it was (although co-host Claudia Simon confusingly refers to them as just C+C) and singer Deborah Cooper was chosen to front it. The only other track that Clivilles & Cole released under their own names was this cover of U2’s “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” who was the flipside to “A Deeper Love”.

The performance here includes the return of the bubble machine that we saw when Manic Street Preachers were on the show the other week. There you have it then. In the world of TOTP 1992, there was seemingly little difference between house anthems and alternative rock.

“A Deeper Love” peaked at No 15.

It’s the video for Eric Clapton‘s “Tears In Heaven” next. I went into the back story of this one in the last post so I don’t propose to go through it all again now not least because it’s already well known to most people.

However, what I didn’t say was that the track was co-written with one Will Jennings who also wrote “Up Where We Belong” for the soundtrack to An Officer And A Gentleman which was sung by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. Joe of course was in the Breakers section last week alongside Clapton. Yeah, this little bit of pop trivia really should have gone in last week’s post shouldn’t it. Once again I curse the gods of synchronicity! Jennings also wrote “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic which gave Celine Dion a huge No 1 hit. Maybe any more references to Will Jennings are best left alone then.

“Tears In Heaven” peaked at No 5 in the Uk and No 2 in the US.

The Exclusive performance this week comes from Annie Lennox who is embarking on a solo career after her and Dave Stewart decided to put Eurythmics on an indefinite hiatus. Striking out on her own would prove to be a very successful decision for Annie with debut album “Diva” going four times platinum in the UK. In hindsight it seems ridiculous to imagine anything other than further success for Lennox but I can’t recall whether that was the general perception at the time. Surely Annie herself must have experienced some self doubt given that she had spent the last 15 years working with Dave Stewart? If she did have any nerves about being on stage alone, Annie certainly conquers them in this performance. The closing “You don’t know how I feel” line is delivered with real conviction.

If she did then the chart performance of debut single “Why” must have settled her nerves. A soulful ballad with a hint of gospel with existential dilemma lyrics, it was a hit all around Europe including the UK where it peaked at No 5. Some critics described it as her attempt to write her own version of “My Way”. I’m not sure about that though the first person lyrics give it a very personal touch.

Annie would score a total of eight hit singles throughout the 90s including four Top Tenners.

The Breakers are a bit weird this week. There’s only two of them and they’ve both already been on the show as performances via satellite. U2 were on the 27 Feb show that we missed due to the Adrian Rose issue whilst Mr. Big were only on last week. Were they not actually in the Top 40 when we saw those satellite performances and therefore they’ve been allocated as Breakers because now they are? Seems a bit rum to me.

Anyway, it’s Mr. Big up first with their drippy ballad “To Be With You”. This is the official promo video as opposed to that satellite performance and it’s as dreary as the song. It’s just the band sat around in a railroad car performing the track. Halfway through it changes from black and white to colour. That’s it. Now when I was a student at Poly, we had to make a video as part of one of the course’s modules and one of the visual effects that we used was switching from black and white to colour. It may have even been my idea. However, we were just a bunch of clueless 18 year olds messing about not a professional video director. Surely whoever was for this promo could have come up with something better than this? Very poor.

And so to the twice aforementioned U2. Now there seems to be three different videos for “One”. TOTP shows the version directed by Mark Pellington which has a buffalo running in a field (an image that would be reused for the cover of their second greatest hits album “Best Of 1990 – 2000”). A second video directed by the band’s long time official photographer Anton Corbijn depicted the band in drag and featured Bono’s father Robert Hewson. The video was pulled after the band announced that royalties from the single would go to AIDS charities and they were worried that the drag theme might link AIDS to the gay community in a negative way. Finally a third video was shot by Rattle And Hum director Phil Joanou which was basically Bono sat at a table in a club smoking and drinking interspersed with footage of the gang performing the song.

I have to say that “One” is up there as one of my favourite U2 songs and is certainly my fave from the “Achtung Baby” album. I even performed my own version of it at my guitar class many years ago. Thankfully I don’t think any recordings of it exist. The lyrics resonate with the line ‘We’re one but we’re not the same’ pithily conveying the notion that humanity has to get along for the world to survive. It should surely have been a bigger hit than its No 7 chart peak. Its legacy though has outlasted that commercial peak and it regularly features in various ‘the greatest song of all time’ polls.

Shakespear’s Sister remain at No 1 with “Stay” and this week we get to see its famous video. Inspired by the 50s American independent sci fi film Cat-Women Of The Moon, it depicts Marcella Detroit at the bedside of her comatose lover willing him to regain consciousness before Siobahn Fahey appears as some sort of grim reaper/ angel of death figure come to take him to the after life. A physical fight between Detroit and Fahey ensues (a metaphor for the man’s struggle between life and death presumably) in which the former wins out and her lover awakes. I think it’s the demonic look on Fahey’s face that makes the video so memorable.

As with the video for “November Rain” by Gun N’ Roses last week, this promo was also lampooned by French and Saunders, just as Baddiel and Newman had done.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Gun	Steal Your Fire	Nah
2	The Wedding Present	Three	Even working in a record shop couldn’t secure me a copy
3	Toxic Two	Rave Generator	Hell no!
4	Nirvana	Come As You Are	No
5	Clivilles & Cole	A Deeper Love	Not for me thanks
6	Eric Clapton	Tears In Heaven	Nope
7	Annie Lennox	Why	No but my wife had the album
8	Mr. Big	To Be With You	Negative
9	U2	One	No but I had the album
10	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	I didn’t

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/m0013vgd/top-of-the-pops-12031992

TOTP 05 MAR 1992

Posted on January 28, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve missed another Adrian Rose episode and find ourselves in March of 1992 already. That means we missed Everything But The Girl doing “Love Is Strange” from their “Covers EP” which is a downer but never mind as the ‘92 version of me is awaiting my beloved Chelsea playing in an an FA Cup quarter final for the first time in 10 years. The game took place four days after this TOTP was broadcast. It didn’t end well. I had been telling my Our Price colleague Justin all week that our name was on the cup this year. The morning after we lost the replay to Sunderland, he showed me the back page of the paper he was reading that was emblazoned with the headline ‘C-Hell-sea’ and said “name’s not on the cup now”. There was no argument from me. We had proven ourselves to be charlatans once again, coming on like potential cup winners only to be undone by unassuming lower league opponents. And talking of charlatans (ahem)…

After a couple of stand alone singles after the release of debut album “Some Friendly”, The Charlatans were back with a new track as a forerunner of sophomore album “Between 10th And 11th”. That track was lead single “Weirdo”. I didn’t think that much of it at the time but it’s aged pretty well over the intervening 30 years I think. For me this was a period of the band’s career that was all about the consolidation of their breakthrough success and building the foundations for their golden era that was ‘94 to ‘97.

Watching this performance back, their visuals are very Stone Roses whilst their sound comes quite close to Inspiral Carpets with that distinctive organ sound to the fore. Tim Burgess looks positively angelic up there and whilst it’s grossly unfair to compare that look to his present day image (I know I would come up short under such a comparison), I can’t help thinking that his blonde Andy Warhol hairdo is maybe not the route to go. These days of course, Tim is approaching (indie) national treasure status with his Twitter Listening Party endeavours to get us all through lockdown – I got a rather lovely hardback book for Xmas chronicling the best ones.

“Weirdo” peaked at No 19.

When Extreme scored a massive hit in the Summer of ‘91 with acoustic ballad “More Than Words”, it seemed to re-popularise acoustic / stripped back rock songs. In its wake would come “Everybody Hurts” by REM, “Wonderwall” by Oasis, “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” by Green Day and…well…this one. Now I always thought that Mr Big were a hoary old rock band from the 70s who happened to strike it lucky in the early 90s with acoustic soft rock ballad “To Be With You”. It turns out that they’d only formed in 1988 and by the time of their biggest hit had only actually released two albums.

This mega hit came from the second of those called “Lean Into It” (the one with a picture of the 1895 Montparnasse train incident on its cover) but it wasn’t really representative of their usual musical output. They’d made their name as a metal band but so all encompassingly successful was “To Be With You” that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were a one hit wonder. It was No 1 in the US for three weeks and also topped the charts in fifteen other countries (but only No 3 over here). I thought it stank though, its place in the shithouse confirmed by the fact that it was covered by Westlife. Mr Big? I’d rather have Mr Benn thanks.

Ah it’s that “It’s A Fine Day” record by Opus III again. The last time she was on, vocalist Kirsty Hawkshaw entertained us with her ball skills (no sniggering at the back). This time she’s gone all Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and brought us FIRE! For those still unable to let go of the balls though, there’s a graphic homage to their swirlingness displayed on two monitors behind Kirsty. It’s all smoke and mirrors (or balls and fire if you prefer) as this homogenised dance hit wasn’t a patch in the spooky ‘83 original by (simply) Jane.

“It’s A Fine Day” peaked at No 5.

We transition from Opus III to The KLF via a segue made by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond themselves on Mount Fuji in Japan. As such, they can’t be in the TOTP studio to perform their latest single “America: What Time Is Love?”.

Now Cauty and Drummond can justifiably be criticised for burning a million pounds for the sake of art but they were certainly early adopters of recycling. Sadly their brand of it was never going to help the save the planet as it was their music that they were into reusing. This single was a reworking of their 1990 Top 5 hit “What Time Is Love?” which itself was a remix of its original 1988 acid house version. It would also be their last UK Top 40 hit as The KLF. This wasn’t unexpected though with their retirement from the music business having been spectacularly announced the month before with a violently controversial valedictory performance at The BRITS alongside Extreme Noise Terror.

I think I prefer this more hard rock take on the track to the version that formed part of the ‘Stadium House Trilogy’ with its “Ace Of Spades” riff. The video has the band performing under duress in a storm lashed ship (if it’s meant to be referencing the pilgrims and The Mayflower it looks more like a Viking longboat) with Cauty and Drummond (I assume it’s them under the costumes) looking like Count Binface. Truly bonkers to the very end.

“America: What Time Is Love?” peaked at No 4.

Hear that? It’s the sound of a band breaking through into the mainstream. Crowded House had been in existence for seven years before people’s awareness of them and therefore their popularity mushroomed with the release of the single “Weather With You”. The third single taken from their third studio album “Woodface” was a hit all around Europe but crucially it went Top 10 in the UK where it remains their biggest ever hit. It’s also surely in the top two of their best known songs alongside “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. When the band released their Best Of album “Recurring Dream” in 1996 with the advertising slogan ‘you know more Crowded House songs than you think’, “Weather With You” was the first track on the running order. Surely a deliberate move by their record company.

The track features some distinctive and memorable lyrics including a reference to the address 57 Mount Pleasant Street. Apparently Neil Finn’s sister used to live on Mount Pleasant Road in Auckland, New Zealand though not at No 57. I’m sure I read somewhere that the band tracked down all the residents of the various 57 Mount Pleasant Streets around the world and invited them to a Crowded House gig. Presumably it was a publicity stunt though I can’t find any mention of it online.

Someone said on Twitter that the last time the band appeared on TOTP they had followed The KLF then too. I’m not sure if anything could or should be read into that but it did tickle my curiosity. I like their brief soft shoe shuffle / The Shadows impression at the song’s intro. I wonder if that was premeditated or organic?

Ah, it’s that sunny song by Shanice now. Was “I Love Your Smile” a jolly, bouncy, happy anthem or an insanely annoying piece of pop fluff? It’s a fine line. There’s a rap in the bridge section that wasn’t retained for the radio version (it’s in the video below if you’re interested). Apparently this was standard practice in the US back then to try and broaden a song’s appeal to the various musical genre specific radio stations. The rap was strategically positioned in the song’s structure at the bridge so it could be easily edited out for pop stations but left in for the R&B ones. Further examples include Shanice’s peers like Kym Sims and Ce Ce Peniston. Having listened to the rap, I can see why most radio stations didn’t play the version with it in. It’s pretty cringeworthy and feels very incongruous.

Shanice came to pop fame off the back of a TV career as a child. She was on the show Kids Incorporated and also on a talent show called Star Search. This route to adult celebrity was a well trodden one. The above named shows also helped launch the careers of Britney Spears and Fergie from Black Eyed Peas whilst The Mickey Mouse Club brought the world its first glimpses of Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake as well as the aforementioned Spears. Is there a UK equivalent of this junior star conveyor belt? Yes, we had X Factor and Pop Idol but they had a minimum age requirement that excluded children. The only thing I can come up with is the whole S Club 7 phenomenon which begat S Club Juniors and that doesn’t bear thinking about.

“I Love Your Smile” peaked at No 2.

Four Breakers this week? Gee thanks TOTP producers! And what’s that? Three of them we’ll never see again? FFS! What’s the point then?! What’s that? Just skip them then? If only I could but the completist in me won’t allow that! Better get on with it then. First up is the only Breaker we will see again. It’s also a song with one of the most well known back stories ever.

In March 1991, Eric Clapton’s four year old son Conor died after falling from a window of a 53rd floor New York apartment. Understandably, the tragedy turned Clapton into a recluse for a while and when he did re-emerge it was to score the soundtrack of the film Rush. As part of the creative (and presumably grieving) process, the song “Tears In Heaven” came about. Initially written just to help stop Clapton being engulfed by grief, he eventually agreed to its inclusion in the film on the basis they it might help others going through similar mourning. The track would become one of his biggest ever hits peaking at No 2 in America and No 5 over here. It sold nearly three million physical copies in the US alone and won three Grammys for Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a male artist. The song was a big deal.

Before this TOTP repeat, if asked I would have said that it was the live version he performed for MTV Unplugged that was the single version that was a hit but I’m wrong. The single released to promote his Unplugged album was actually the version of “Layla” that he performed on the show but “Tears In Heaven” was in the B-side which maybe explains my confusion.

Clapton has rightfully received some harsh criticism recently over some of his political views both historical and current but it’s hard not to feel his pain at the circumstances behind this song.

From Eric Clapton to Joe Cocker. The Breakers this week were hardly full of young, hip, happening acts were they? Joe Cocker? What was he doing in the charts? All I really knew about The Cocker at the time was that he was from Sheffield, he was the guy with the growling voice and jerky arm movements who sang on “Up Where We Belong” and that his most famous song was a Beatles cover. I know a bit more now but not much. This track “(All I Know) Feels Like Forever” was from a film called The Cutting Edge which I don’t know at all but that Wikipedia tells me was a romantic comedy about ice skating directed by Paul Michael Glaser aka Starsky from Starsky And Hutch. As well as Joe Cocker, its soundtrack also featured Johnny Winter, Dan Reed Network and bizarrely “Ride On Time” by Black Box. The whole thing sounds a bit niche to me.

The single was a middling hit (No 25) but it rekindled enough interest in Joe to warrant a Best Of album release backed by a TV ad campaign and another hit single in his version of “Unchain My Heart”.

Joe Cocker would die of lung cancer in 2014.

Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker and now Barbara Streisand? Come on now! Look I know Babs is showbiz royalty but this surely is not what the Breakers section was created for?! As with Clapton and Cocker before her, her single “Places That Belong To You” was from a soundtrack the film of which starred Barbara herself. The Prince Of Tides was a romantic drama which saw Streisand star opposite Nick Nolte. I do recall the film being out though I have never seen it and consequently don’t know this song which was her first UK Top 40 entry since her duet with Miami Vice’s Don Johnson on “Till I Loved You” in 1988. One of my wife’s best friends has seen Babs in concert but the tickets are like gold dust apparently and can cost a fortune. Bloody ticket prices eh? Enough is enough I say (ahem).

“Places That Belong To You” peaked at No 17.

Finally! An act that isn’t some old timer flogging a song from a soundtrack! Let’s hear it for Curve! These rather spooky goth rockers are the first of two acts on the show tonight that owe their existence to Dave Stewart of Eurythmics who introduced vocalist Tony Halliday (nothing to do with Spandau Ballet’s lead singer!) to guitarist Dean Garcia. Despite limited commercial success – this single “Fait Accompli” was their biggest hit when it peaked at No 22 – the band did inspire a loyal following and can credibly say that they laid the foundations of success for the likes of Garbage later in the decade.

Curve went in a two year hiatus in 1995 before returning towards the end of the 90s and finally calling it a day in 2005. Both Halliday and Garcia continue to work on music projects.

After the name check for TOTP repeats denier Adrian Rose (Boo! Hiss!) at the top of the post, we arrive at another A.Rose and guess what?! Just like with Adrian, we are once again denied a full 1992 nostalgia experience. Where’s the proper video for “November Rain”?! It’s one of the most expensive music videos ever made and we just get this clip of Axl Rose sitting at a piano?! WTF?! Granted the official promo does have some footage of the band performing the song in a concert setting but this TOTP clip isn’t that.

This was the third single to be released by Guns N’ Roses from their “Use Your Illusion I” album and is just the pinnacle of overblown, overwrought, epic, wide screen panoramic view heavy rock power balladry. Just immense and a personal guilty pleasure. But the video man! It’s nearly as famous as the song. The huge pomposity of the track counter balanced against the sparseness of the desert backdrop and the TARDIS like chapel that appears tiny on the outside but can house a multitude of guests inside. Then the most famous scene of Slash striding outside to let rip that classic rock riff whilst being buffeted by a prairie wind. Quite why he would leave the ceremony directly after performing the Best Man duty of handing over the wedding rings though doesn’t really make any sense but who cares?! The second movement of the song with the strings and the Omen like chants then kicks in to coincide with the bride’s death and funeral. Brilliantly bonkers! Clocking in at 8:57 minutes long, it’s surely one of the longest ever chart hits though it wasn’t even the longest song on the album being beaten to that honour by the 10:14 of “Coma”.

Of course, the absurdity of the whole piece did leave it open to ridicule and ridiculed it was by French and Saunders….

And so we arrive at the second act that came about because of Dave Stewart. It was the hirsute Eurythmic who suggested that Marcella Detroit and his then wife Siobahn Fahey should come together as a band rather than Shakespear’s Sister being a Fahey solo project after witnessing the chemistry between the two in the recording studio. He also co-wrote “Stay” with the pair of course.

Aside from the link between Shakespear’s Sister and Curve there’s also a link between them and another of tonight’s acts as Marcella Detroit also co-wrote and sang on “Lay Down Sally” which was a minor hit for Eric Clapton in 1978. And that will do it for this week’s Shakespear’s Sister entry. Only another five weeks to go! Maybe Adrian Rose will swoop in and take care of at least one of those weeks?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Charlatans	Weirdo	No but it’s on my Melting Pot Best Of album of theirs
2	Mr Big	To Be With You	Away with you more like! No
3	Opus III	It’s A Fine Day	Nope
4	The KLF	America: What Time Is Love?	I did not
5	Crowded House	Weather With You	No but I had the Woodface album
6	Shanice	I Love Your Smile	Nah
7	Eric Clapton	Tears In Heaven	No
8	Joe Cocker	(All I Know) Feels Like Forever	Negative
9	Barbara Streisand	Places That Belong To You	I didn’t even remember it let alone buy it
10	Curve	Fait Accompli	It’s a no
11	Guns N’ Roses	November Rain	No but it’s on their Best Of album I have
12	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	Thought it was OK but not enough to buy it

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0013mbv/top-of-the-pops-05031992

TOTP 15 FEB 1990

Posted on November 3, 2020 by 80stastic

OK, we’ve just had Valentine’s Day in 1990 but much more important than that is the fact that four days prior to this TOTP broadcast, the world saw Nelson Mandela released from incarceration after 27 years. A world changing event of immense political importance…or so you would have thought. I clearly recall there being complaints from viewers to the BBC about their coverage of this historic event interrupting their enjoyment of Antiques Roadshow! Some simple research of the internet confirmed that they received 500 (!) such complaints! If that wasn’t bad enough, 23 years later, they received about 850 complaints about the extent of its coverage of Mandela’s death, including its decision to interrupt a repeat of sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys on BBC1 to bring viewers news of his death. Mrs. Fucking. Brown’s Boys.

Anyway, enough of world events, back to the music and tonight’s show is hosted by Anthea Turner who has just got married to her manager and ex- Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell. Peter, of course, went out with fellow Radio 1 DJ Janice Long between ’84 and’85. It was a complicated web of relationships at Radio 1 back in the day. Anthea has ditched all that rock chick, back combed hair (for the wedding presumably) and the first act she introduces tonight are Black Box with “I Don’t Know Anybody Else”. This was the follow up to their huge No 1 “Ride On Time” which was the best selling single in the UK of the previous year so this track had a lot to live up to. Despite early encouraging signs (it crashed into this week’s chart as the highest new entry at No 5), it ultimately fell short of emulating its predecessor when it peaked at just one place higher the following week.

It always sounded like a pound shop version of “Ride On Time” to me – looks / sounds the same but isn’t quite as good. My overriding memory of this track though relates to a visit to see my girlfriend around this time whilst we were geographically separated (I was in Worcester and she in Hull). I’d saved up my dole money and traversed north to stay with her for a few days. One night, we ventured out into town and ended up in a bar called The Mint who were having a music quiz night. Fancying my chances, we entered and found ourselves in a tie break situation for first place. The winner was to be decided by the team that was the first to spot a current chart hit but played backwards. To my elation then (and shame now) I was first up off my seat to correctly identify Black Box and “I Don’t Know Anybody Else”. We won a cheap bottle of bubbly but in the bleak, unemployed Winter of 1990 it felt like gold.

Oh blimey it’s Cher again with her “Just Like Jesse James” video. On reflection, this is just Cher doing her version of Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” (indeed Jon Bon Jovi himself would come as close as dammit to covering his band’s own song for his almost identical solo hit “Blaze Of Glory” later in the year). This isn’t that surprising given that “Just Like Jesse James” was co-written by Desmond Childs who was responsible for the Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer”, “Bad Medicine” and “Born To Be My Baby”. By pure coincidence (or was it?), he also wrote “How Can We Be Lovers?” for Michael Bolton who will make his TOTP debut later in the show (gulp!).

This was Cher’s first hit of the 90s in the UK but she wouldn’t stop there. Oh no – she released 21 further singles over the course of the decade resulting in 16 Top 40 hits of which 6 went Top 10 and 3 were No 1s (if you include a charity single she featured on in “Love Can Build a Bridge”). Say what you like about her, she could spin a modicum of musical talent an awful long way.

After, Eric Clapton contributed guitar to Phil Collins current hit “I Wish It Would Rain Down” the other week, Phil returns the favour now by supplying the drums on Clapton’s new single “Bad Love”. Now this always sounded like Clapton had just re-written “Layla” to me and guess what? He had! Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Eric Clapton on "Bad Love": "Warner Bros wanted another 'Layla'. I thought, 'Well, if you sit down and write a song in a formatted way, it's not so hard. You think, 'What was 'Layla?' comprised of? A fiery intro modulated into the first verse & chorus with a riff around it" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 30, 2020

It really is a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of a record with the bridge part of it basically stolen from “Badge” by Cream which Clapton also wrote of course. Apparently that was the idea of one Mick Jones – no not the lead guitarist with The Clash but the one from AOR dinosaurs Foreigner (boo!). For all its calculated and knowing composition, I didn’t mind it – at least Clapton was just stealing from himself and wasn’t trying to jump on the latest bandwagon. An Italo House Clapton anyone?

“Bad Love” peaked at No 25.

Despite the proliferation of dance tunes that seemed to dominate the charts (and therefore TOTP as well) around this time, we’ve actually seen some undeniably indie bands feature on the show in recent weeks as well. We’ve had peroxide blonde Brummies Birdland and psychedelic doomsters The House Of Love on the same show previously and now we get one of the biggest names of all indiedom in The Wedding Present. Now my mate Robin had been well into this lot back in Poly but I hadn’t really got on board in the same way. I knew their single “Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?” from a couple of years before which had just missed the Top 40 and also “Kennedy” their bona fide chart hit from ’89 and of course the iconic sleeve for their indie label debut album “George Best” but that was probably about it.

This single “Brassneck” was taken from their first major label album release “Bizarro” (albeit in a beefed up production form compared to the album version) and was a shot across the bows of the then prevalent mainstream chart music. Uncompromising is the word I would use and that can also certainly be applied to main man David Gedge’s performance of the song here. No cheeky grins and jumping about from the Gedge here. His look of disinterest is almost defiant. Apparently it wasn’t deliberately conceived but more rather grew organically. Here’s Dave himself with the story during an interview with https://gedgesongs.wordpress.com:

“I was just following an old tradition established by some of my heroes… those punk bands who didn’t take Top Of The Pops seriously and who took the mickey out of the whole ‘miming’ thing. I started doing it during the TV rehearsals, fully expecting a producer or director to tell me to stop messing about but no one did. So with each run-through it became a little more… extreme, ha, ha”.

Some 10 months or so on from this broadcast I was working at Our Price In Manchester and went out for a drink after work with some colleagues (possibly in the pre-IRA bomb version of Sinclair’s Oyster Bar or maybe the Old Wellington for the Manc pedants out there) and our table was joined by a woman who turned out to be one of Mark E Smith’s sisters. She turned to me and asked me to sing some Wedding Present songs as I was the spitting image of David Gedge! And it turned out I was back then…well sort of. She also told me that Gedge was a ‘sex god’ to use her phrase which immediately turned my complexion bright red. There’s a clip of The Wedding Present doing a cover of “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” on TOTP where I swear it’s me up there doing the vocals. Obviously the middle aged me doesn’t look like him now of course (to be fair Gedge doesn’t look like Gedge anymore) but as a skinny 22 year old I could pass for him. In my 80s blog I revealed how I spent three years being called ‘Dan’ at Sunderland Poly due to my resemblance to the actor Dan Ackroyd so Dave Gedge was a step up! Sadly I look more like Sam Allardyce these days. Bah!

“Brassneck” peaked at No 24.

Talking of cover versions, here’s Rod Stewart doing his best to murder the Tom Waits track “Downtown Train”. Rod included his version on his 1989 “Best Of” album and it just sounds so sanitised compared to Tom’s original. Stewart somehow manages to purge all the earthiness from the song.

Not content with ruining one Waits composition he repeated the crime again two years later when he covered Tom Traubert’s Blues”. You know what, I do like some Rod Stewart stuff – “The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)” for example is fabulous – but he’s also done a lot of crap and I get the impression that he’s not that nice a character either.

“Downtown Train” peaked at No 10 over here and No 3 in the US.

‘Sybil!!!!’ When the singer Sybil (full name Sybil Lynch) was in the charts I never made any connection (subconscious or other wise) with Basil Fawlty’s wife but every time I hear her name mentioned now I can’t get the Fawlty Towers character so superbly played by Prunella Scales out of my head!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onrhrq1k4yE

Sybil the singer’s cover of “Walk On By” peaked at No 6 but she would continue to release cover versions in her later career including treatments of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day”, Al Greens’s “So Tired Of Being Alone” and Carole King’s “It’s Too Late”. None of them made the UK Top 40. Despite her reliance on other artists for the majority of her hits, she went on to work in education, at one point teaching lyric & songwriting composition and creative writing. Who said ‘I know nothing’?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65q1ZykHDE0

Stand well back! The career of Depeche Mode is about to rocket into the stratosphere! In March 1990, the band released their “Violator” album and their world was never the same again. It went triple platinum in the US selling 3 million copies and propelled the band into playing gigs in huge super size stadiums – an estimated 1.2 million fans across the planet saw the World Violation Tour. Such was the extent of Mode mania in the US that when the band held an in-store autograph signing at Wherehouse Entertainment in Los Angeles to promote the album, some 20,000 fans turned up with a near riot ensuing. Not that the band had been small fry by anyone’s description before then but this was next level stuff.

“Enjoy The Silence” was the second single to be taken from the album (following the excellent “Personal Jesus” ) and I’m going to say that it is perhaps the band’s most well respected and important of their career. It won Best British Single at the 1991 BRIT Awards and went Top 10 both in the US and here. Indeed, it was the first time the band had visited the UK Top 10 since “Master And Servant” six years previously. In a Q Magazine interview in 2008, Dave Gahan said of the track:

“It really made the album cross over into another cosmos. It had been a constant climb over the previous 10 years, but I don’t think we were prepared for what was about to come. The album was a worldwide success and suddenly these huge royalty checks started coming in and you were able to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted – the velvet rope was always open.“

It really is an excellent song and the iconic video with its King Midas imagery (a man who has everything but just wants a quiet place to sit down) cements its reputation. Songwriter Martin Gore seemed to like songs that included the word ‘silence’ as much as Sybil liked cover versions – they had a 1982 hit song with “Leave in Silence” of course.

Oh bloody hell! It’s Michael Bolton! And you know what this means…my Michael Bolton story! OK, I’ve told this one before in my 80s TOTP blog when a certain Kenny G* featured on the show but here it is again. In 1993, I went to see Michael Bolton in concert! Oh God, even just typing the words out looks wrong! There are mitigating circumstances I swear!

I was working in Our Price at the time and was on a works’ night out that ended up at a nightclub where I was well and truly off my tits. A guy I worked with called Andy was also there. Andy loved his mainstream pop music and was quite a character. He named his car Jason after Jason Donovan and just about shoved me out of the way one day so he could get to serve Barbara Knox (Corrie’s Rita Fairclough) in the shop. He also loved Michael Bolton and asked me, whilst I was under the influence in the nightclub, if I would go with him to see the poodle haired one in concert in Sheffield. And I said yes. Now remember, I was blotto – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Andy bought the tickets the next day before I could back out and so I found myself travelling to Sheffield a few weeks later to see Michael Bolton. I seem to have blacked out anything that I witnessed that evening from my memory but my impression is that Andy enjoyed it rather more than I did. Still, it’s a good story.

*And what has this to do with Kenny G? Well, Kenny was the support act. Yes, just when I though it couldn’t be any more of a surreal experience, it turned out that ‘the G man’ (as Bolton referred to him) was on the same bill!

For the purposes of factual acknowledgement, “How Am I Supposed To Live with Out You” was Bolton’s first (and biggest) UK hit peaking at No3. It was a US No 1 despite the fact that Laura Branigan (of “Gloria” fame) had already had a Top 20 hit with it in 1983.

The Stranglers‘ run of 80s chart hits had started to peter out by the middle of the decade and so to arrest that trend they used the old cover trick to beef up their profile by releasing a version of “All Day And All Of The Night” by The Kinks. It worked, returning them to the Top 10 in ’88 for the first time in five years.

Needing another fillip to start the new decade they repeated the exercise by releasing “96 Tears” which had been a US No 1 in 1966 for ? and the Mysterians. Nothing to do with Captain Scarlet (that was the Mysterions), they were a garage rock band from Michigan but you could be forgiven that “96 Tears” was a Stranglers original so easily does it fit their trademark sound. The distinctive organ riff that runs thorughout puts me in mind of those Oldham baggy stars Inspiral Carpets and guess what they also did a version of it…

Back to The Stranglers and their version would peak at No 17 and they would enjoy a brief renaissance in 1991 when their “Greatest Hits 1977–1990” collection album went all the way to No 4 in the album charts off the back of a successful TV ad campaign.

Sinéad O’Connor is still at No 1 with “Nothing Compares 2 U”. It’s the third of four weeks at the top spot and if the UK record buying audience hadn’t tired of it already, it seems the TOTP producers were starting to. We get just over two minutes of the song in this clip. The single sold three and a half million copies worldwide and was the second biggest selling single in the UK in 1990. That’s how you do a cover version Rod Stewart!

We close with “Steamy Windows” by Tina Turner. The third single from her “Foreign Affair” album, it peaked at No 13 in the UK.

The song was written by blues rock guitarist Tony Joe White who wrote “Polk Salad Annie” famously recorded by Elvis Presley. Tony was one of those artists that would get played during one of our specialist music mornings when when I worked for Our Price. You were only allowed to play music of a certain genre like easy listening, jazz or blues. Here’s his version of the track which I think I prefer to Tina’s histrionic take on it…

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDh-AATO9Ng

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Black Box	I Don’t Know Anybody Else	It helped win me a bottle of bubbly but I didn’t celebrate by buying the single – no
2	Cher	Just Like Jesse James	No – phew!
3	Eric Clapton	Bad Love	Nah
4	The Wedding Present	Brassneck	I may have looked like Gedge but I didn’t feel the need to buy his single
5	Rod Stewart	Downtown Train	God no
6	Sybil	Walk On By	No
7	Depeche Mode	Enjoy The Silence	It seems I did enjoy the silence as it’s not in my singles collection. WTF?
8	Michael Bolton	How Am I Supposed To Live Without You	Quite easily Michael…oh except I saw you in concert. Oh God the shame!
9	The Stranglers	96 Tears	It’s a no
10	Sinéad O’Connor	Nothing Compares 2 U	Don’t think so
11	Tina Turner	Steamy Windows	Nope

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000nwtc/top-of-the-pops-15021990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 23 MAR 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 16 MAR 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 02 MAR 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 23 JUL 1992

Disclaimer

TOTP 12 MAR 1992

Disclaimer

TOTP 05 MAR 1992

Disclaimer

TOTP 15 FEB 1990

Disclaimer

Some bedtime reading?