Frankie Goes To Hollywood

TOTP 24 FEB 1994

Posted on February 11, 2023 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

Holy grail, holy cow

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/Y7Jfa_-b0GE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9 – 26 – 24

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

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

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

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

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

*checks their discography*

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/x8jTa6ksKVI

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/KJ7mEbf29lk

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 16 DEC 1993

Posted on December 11, 2022 by 80stastic

To paraphrase Frankie Valli, here at TOTP Rewind it’s mid December back in ‘93 and very much like the temperatures in 2022, I recall it being very cold. I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham and travelling there from Manchester every day by a bus and then a tram. As such, it was an early start and I have a distinct memory of standing next to the radiator in our little flat not wanting to go outside to start the commute. The radio was playing “Babe” by Take That which didn’t help my mood as it brought to mind the song’s video which had lots of snow themed scenes including Mark Owen wandering around in what appeared to be Russia looking for his former lover in a bit of a blizzard. Aside from the cold, the work days were long and busy as this was a time before streaming where you had to physically go out to a record shop and buy a CD or cassette if you wanted an album or single. We packed so many customers into that little shop on George Street that at times it felt like the floor would collapse*.

*That did happen once when I was working in the Rochdale Our Price. A floor tile just cracked one day to reveal a gaping hole underneath. Just one of the many mishaps that occurred during my retail years including a man walking through the window which he mistook for the door, the shop’s fuse box starting to smoke, alarm call outs in the middle of the night, blocked toilets, failed central heating systems etc etc.

Despite all of the above, I was loving my time in Altrincham to the extent that me and my wife even contemplated moving there and even looked around a flat or two. Fortunately, we never made that move as in the first couple of weeks after Christmas came the word from area management that I was being moved again. I wouldn’t get back to Altrincham for five years. Enough of my personal life though, which songs were those busy shoppers snapping up as the big day approached…

If your hear the names Chaka Demus and Pliers, what immediately comes to mind? Apart from the ridiculousness of that second name obviously. For me it’s 1993 and their hit “Tease Me” and yet that No 2 (in more ways than one) was eclipsed by this single, their version of “Twist And Shout”. Somehow though, it seems to have escaped my memory banks despite it going to No 1 one in early ‘94. Maybe it’s because there have been so many different releases of this perennial song. I’m guessing most of us know it from The Beatles take on it in 1963 but it was very first recorded before them by The Top Notes. The first time it was a hit was when The Isley Brothers took it into the charts in 1962. Brian Poole and The Tremeloes had the temerity to release a version just four months after The Beatles (though they claimed they were already playing it live in shows before anybody else) and had a hit with it. It’s also been attempted by The Searchers, The Kingsmen, Bruce Springsteen and then in 1988, it was given the hip-hop treatment by Salt-N-Pepa and became a No 4 single in the UK.

Fast forward five years and here it was again courtesy of Chaka Demus and Pliers (plus Jack Radics and Taxi Gang). Maybe they were inspired by Salt-N-Pepa – if it could be hip-hopped, then maybe the song could be also be reggae-fied? Or maybe they took inspiration from ragga duo Louchie Lou and Michie One who took another song originally done by The Isley Brothers but made famous by another artist (“Shout” by Lulu) and bagged a Top 10 hit earlier in 1993 . Whatever the reason, Chaka Demus and Pliers’ version of “Twist And Shout” didn’t work for me as I could never got on board with all that toasting. Also, wasn’t this more of a Summer tune than a Christmas one? I know host Tony Dortie goes on about what a big party tune it is which could crossover into festive celebrations I guess but clearly the TOTP producers saw it as a Summer song judging by the palm trees in the set they designed for the performance here.

You’d be hard pressed to find a more blatant example of record company cashing in than this. Not having had Meatloaf as their artist for a decade by this point didn’t matter at all to CBS when it came to exploiting the back catalogue of their previous charge. With “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” and its single “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” tearing up the charts everywhere on the planet, of course CBS we’re going to rerelease probably his most famous song. So it came to pass the Meatloaf managed to be in possession of two UK Top 20 hits simultaneously in 1993 when “Bat Out Of Hell” got to No 8 beating its original 1979 peak by seven places. Who was buying it though? The parent album is one of the best selling in history so many, many people would surely already own the song so that leaves two options to my mind. One, Meatloaf completists or two, young music fans who’d only just discovered him via his latest success and either thought this was his latest/new single or wanted to explore his older stuff.

All of this just goes to show how perceptions can change in the wake of a huge success. Two years prior to this, “Bat Out Of Hell: Re-vamped” was released -basically a straight reissue but with “Dead Ringer For Love” added – and to promote it “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad” was rereleased. It peaked at No 69.

You know that debate that rages about this time of year about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not? Well, there’s surely a musical equivalent to that argument about whether “Stay Another Day” by East 17 is a Christmas song isn’t there? Why am I going on about a track that is twelve months away from being the festive No 1? I guess because looking at their performance here of “It’s Alright”, it’s clear that they weren’t averse to pushing a Christmas agenda if it suited which it did literally here as all four members are Santa suited-up. I actually beat East 17 to it by four years. In Christmas 1989, I was working in the toy department at Debenhams and used to stand in for the guy playing Father Christmas in the grotto on his breaks. That suit stank to high heaven. The store had a fire alarm go off whilst I was in it and we all had to evacuate the building. I got a few comments from the rest of the employees whilst stood outside waiting to be allowed back in.

Back to East 17 though and Tony Dortie says two things that peaked my interest in his links. Firstly that Brian Harvey was “flu affected”. We’ve been here before just the other week when Gabrielle appeared on the show in person to say she couldn’t perform her single as she had flu. Harvey goes one better by having flu but still managing to sing and jig about on stage. Flu my arse! Secondly, Dortie announces that he’s off on tour with East 17 shortly. On tour? Doing what exactly? They already had two guys in the band who appeared to do not very much at all. Surely they didn’t need a third?! Was Dortie just going to introduce them on stage each night? Was that all? Nice work if you can get it. It’s alright indeed.

In Christmas 1993, Diana Ross had a Best Of album out called “One Woman: The Ultimate Collection” which was a huge seller over the festive season going four times platinum and selling 1.2 million copies in the UK. We sold loads of it in that Altrincham Our Price where I was working but we had to go against company policy to do so. The CD was officially priced at something like £11.99 but all the other outlets in Altrincham (Boots, Woolies etc) were selling it for £9.99. Myself and the manager Cathy came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t sell any at £11.99 and so price matched. We didn’t ask permission or tell any other stores, we just did it and it worked – we sold loads and maintained a decent market share on the album. However, when the Area Manager turned up unexpectedly for a store visit we nearly shat ourselves thinking he would notice. He had this thing he did at Christmas where he would help out serving customers and so we were sure we would get busted as somebody in the queue would have the Diana Ross CD. Myself and Cathy joined in serving trying to spot anyone in the queue who would give the game away and head them off at the pass by jumping in and getting to them first. Somehow we got away with it. Phew!

Diana did an extensive tour to help promote the album an Our Price colleague went to see her on one of her dates. When I asked him how it had been the next day, he’d convinced himself that he was Ms Ross’s long lost, illegitimate child so consumed by the experience was he. I’m assuming she performed the single “Your Love” which was a new track added to the album to help promote it but it was hardly up there with some of her classic recordings for me. It peaked at No 14.

WTF?! Eight Breakers?! EIGHT?! You have to be kidding me?! That must be a record! Five is pretty much maximum capacity usually. Presumably the TOTP producers have done this because the chart at Christmas are usually clogged up with new records strategically released to cash in on the extra sales at this time of year. Even so. Eight Breakers means a whopping grand total of fourteen songs on this show! Tossers! Don’t they realise how much work this is for me?

We start with another boy band, this time of the American variety who time would surely have forgotten if not for a gimmick surrounding their name. EYC (it stood for Express Yourself Clearly) had this annoying habit of signing off from any promotional appearances by saying “E Y See ya”. Ugh! Somehow this trio of ex-New Kids On The Block backing dancers (no, that’s literally what they were) somehow managed to bag themselves six UK Top 40 hits the first of which was “Feelin’ Alright”. It had a sub House Of Pain vibe to it tailored for the teen market but it was pretty lame all the same.

My main memory of this lot came the following year. I was now working in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester where I first started three years previously. I was on the counter with the manager and he served a young girl with one of their singles. As he went behind the shelving to get it (the stock wasn’t in the racks live at this point) he said to me in a really loud voice which the customer must have heard, “This is crap isn’t it?”. How I cringed.

Next up a tune so intensely and annoyingly catchy it’s still in my head nearly thirty years on. I would have said that “Come Baby Come” by K7 was from 1994 not 1993. I’m kind of right. It reached its peak of No 3 in the January of ‘94 but was actually released in December ‘93. K7 was essentially US all rounder Louis Sharpe. A rapper, songwriter, record producer, he also went by the name of Kayel. He’s only really known over here though for this single. Employing that call and answer style of rap (is it meant to be him and his homies who he’s hangin’ with?), it kind of reminds me of that drill instructor song from the late 80s. What was it called again?

*googles ‘drill instructor song’

That’s it! “Full Metal Jacket (I Wanna Be Your Drill Instructor)” by Abigail Mead and Nigel Goulding…

Anyway, it also had that drive-you- insane shouty chorus that once heard is never forgotten*. Maybe it was just meant to distract you from those innuendo loaded lyrics which were actually pretty filthy. I guess the clue was in the song title but check these out:

Better move it fast so you can pump it (pump it)
Two balls and a bat (hoo), a pitcher with a hat (ha)
Slidin’ into home base, tryin’ to hit a home run
Swing batta batta batta batta batta swing
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Louis Sharpe / Joey Gardner
Come Baby Come lyrics © Universal Music – Z Songs, Warner-tamerlane Publishing Corp., Blue Ink Music, Third And Lex Music

You don’t have to be Finbarr Saunders to work out what’s going on here! I’m sure we’ll be seeing and hearing more of K7 in future TOTP repeats. For those of a delicate nature, you have been warned!

*Such an ear worm is it that thirty years later, when I want my dog called Benji to come to me, I often say “Come Benji come, Benji, Benji come come”.

Ah now, talking of delicate…how to approach this one? OK well, the facts around the record are that “Gone Too Soon” was the ninth and final single taken from Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album (the first – “Black And White” – had been released an incredible 25 months earlier). As the ninth single from an album that had been out for two years, even Jackson couldn’t eke out a big hit from it and it stalled at No 33. This was his lowest UK chart placing since a rerelease of “Girl Your So Together” in 1984.

Jackson recorded the track as a tribute to Ryan White, a US teenager who was haemophiliac and became infected with the HIV virus from a contaminated blood treatment. This was the dark ages of 1984 and Ryan was subsequently barred by his school from attending due to concerns from other parents that he would spread the virus. Given just six months to live, Ryan lived on for another five years in which time he became a high profile figure for HIV/AIDS research and public education attracting the attention of Jackson.

Unfortunately for the singer (and this is where the delicate bit comes in) the release of the song coincided with allegations of child sexual abuse against him made by the then thirteen years old Jordan Chandler. I’m guessing the single’s cover with a picture of Jackson walking around his Neverland ranch with Ryan maybe didn’t do the King of Pop any favours in the eyes of anyone who wanted to believe the allegations. The case was eventually settled out of court with the plaintiff reportedly receiving $23 million. Speculation about Jackson’s private life (already a media frenzy) had gone onto another, darker level. The scrutiny and effects of the accusations would never leave him and indeed resurfaced in 2003 with a second set of allegations. Jackson was acquitted on all counts in 2005. Four years later, he would be dead himself from cardiac arrest. At the memorial service, Usher performed “Gone Too Soon” and the circle was complete.

After being on the show last time, Cliff Richard is into the charts but it’s more with a loud fart than a bang at a lowly No 27 with “Healing Love”. The single would struggle on gamely to a high of No 19 but it was a far cry from the massive Christmas hits of “Mistletoe And Wine” and “Saviour’s Day”.

I can’t even find the official promo video for the single online so unloved is the song but from the few seconds we see here there seems to be a lot of billowing drapes behind Cliff as he sings. Haven’t seen as much material being wafted about since Spandau Ballet and “Only When You Leave” in 1984.

Next up a duet featuring a man who, despite being around since the time of disco, is only known in the UK for three songs, all of them collaborations with a female singer. Peabo Bryson first had a – no wait! You’re right. Let’s address that name of his before anything else. Peabo…you don’t get many of them to the pound do you? I’ve never heard anyone calling out “Peabo, come here now!” or “Have you seen our Peabo?”. However, I do know someone who once heard these immortal words come out of the mouth of a tired and frustrated mother:

“Oi! Cleopatra! Pack it in or I’ll twat ya!”
Hessle Road, Hull sometime around 2010

Only in Hull. Anyway, Peabo isn’t his real name. No, of course it isn’t! Sadly his real name is worse if anything – Robert Peapo Bryson. Peapo! That’s what you say when playing with a baby! As I was saying though, he first had a hit in the UK in 1983 with “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love For You”, an horrendously schmaltzy ballad that went all the way to No 2. There then followed an eight year gap until he returned with the title song from the Disney animation Beauty And The Beast alongside Celine Dion which bagged them a Top 10 hit. Clearly onto a good thing, he returned in 1993 with another Disney film song. This time it was “A Whole New World” which was from Aladdin and was, of course, another duet. The lucky lady this time was US singer songwriter Regina Belle who had been releasing records since 1987 without much commercial success. That was rectified and then some by “A Whole New World”. Not only was it an American No 1, it also is noteworthy for being the record that finally knocked Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” off the top spot after fourteen weeks over there. The reception to the record was a bit more lukewarm in the UK where it peaked at No 12.

It’s been covered a few times including by ex- One Direction member Zayn Malik (alongside Zhavia Ward) but the one that really stands out is the version by the god awful Peter Andre and his then wife Katie Price who included it on their album of covers also called “A Whole New World”. The track listing includes their takes on “Islands In The Stream” and the aforementioned “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love For You”. Hell’s teeth! That’s a whole new world of pain more like!

Next another of those rappers that the white middle class kids of Altrincham, Cheshire would fawn over. Ice T had a reputation for controversy that far outweighed any commercial success he achieved, certainly in this country. By 1993, he’d already released five albums but had never had a UK Top 40 hit…until “That’s How I’m Livin’”. We kind of knew already how he was living (that’s with a ‘g’ rather than as a ‘G’) and that was tendentiously. He’d provoked the ire of the POTUS George Bush no less with the release of “Cop Killer” by Body Count a track he wrote and a band he was a member of. He is also recognised as one of the defining influences of gangster rap and had well publicised disputes with fellow rappers like LL Cool J. However, Ice T was also savvy enough to diversify and forged an acting career for himself, starring in dozens of films and TV shows like New Jack City and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. “That’s How I’m Livin’” was taken from his album “Home Invasion” and peaked at No 21.

We didn’t know it at the time but the “Spooky” single would be the last material released by New Order (barring Best Ofs and rereleased singles) for eight years. For five of those years, the band didn’t see each other at all whilst the concentrated on personal projects. Yet again I have zero recall of this track. New Order singles of 1993? “Regret” of course. “Ruined In A Day”? Yeah. “World (The Price Of Love)”? Just about. This one though? I’ve got nothing, zero, nada. Like I’ve never heard it before. Why put out a fourth single from an album that been out for months during the Christmas rush? Consequently, “Spooky” only made No 22 which is actually higher than I would have expected. Maybe they just wanted to set a personal band record. This was the first time that New Order ever achieved four hits from the same album.

Tellingly, Tony Dortie says he doesn’t think the band have ever made a bad video. A bad video? Is that what they’d become reduced to by this point? What about the music? There were worst times ahead though with Peter Hook leaving under very acrimonious circumstances. Oh dear.

The final Breaker is a song that had already almost been the Christmas No 1 once and was rush released in 1993 to try again. Back in 1984, the whole of the UK record buying public seemed to be enthralled by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Two No 1 singles clocking up fifteen weeks at the top between them meant that when it came to the runners and riders for the festive chart topper, they were the bookies favourite. They had an epic, bowl-you-over ballad that was perfect for Christmas. They even had a nativity themed promo video. “The Power Of Love” duly went to No 1 on its first week of release. What hadn’t been figured into the odds was Bob Geldof and Band Aid which, when the list of high profile pop star contributors to the record became known, was always going to be the Christmas chart topper. Frankie were dethroned after just one week. Could the 1993 rerelease do what the 1984 original couldn’t and be No 1 for Yuletide? For Bob Geldof read Mr Blobby. They never stood a chance though “The Power Of Love” remains a firm favourite on Christmas playlists to this day. Mr Blobby on the other hand…

One of the success stories of 1993 now (and it pains me to say it) as we catch up with Haddaway in Disney World, Florida. Didn’t we see PM Dawn and Boy George there this year as well? Did TOTP have some sort of arrangement with Disney? Anyway, after No 2 and No 6 hits in the UK charts, the big question for Haddaway wasn’t “What Is Love?” but “how do I get a third hit? Well, one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned from these hundreds of TOTP repeats is that if you’re a new act with a shiny, uptempo pop song, you can replicate that formula for the follow up but you need something different for the third release and what is more different than a ballad? Haddaway clearly knew the rules and his third release was indeed a slow, romantic number called “I Miss You”. Sadly though, it’s not only slow but completely laboured and ponderous. It literally never gets out of first gear. Just dreadful. The lyrics sound like they came out of a one minute brainstorming session about the most obvious themes of love and regret.

I miss you, oh I miss you
I’m gonna need you more and more each day
I miss you, more than words can say
More than words can ever say
Copyright © 2000-2022 AZLyrics.com

Dreadful stuff. Somehow though, this nonsense got to No 9 to give Haddaway his third consecutive Top 10 hit. 1993 really had a lot to answer for.

Take That have gone straight into the charts at No 1 for the third consecutive time with “Babe”. No other act had done this at the time. Not the aforementioned Frankie, not The Jam (they managed two) not anyone. It really was quite the rise when you consider that eighteen months earlier, their biggest hit to date had been the No 38 single “Promises”. By Christmas 1993, they were the undisputed heroes for a generation of teenage girls. Of course, it’s not like we hadn’t seen bands being screamed at before. Bay City Rollers, Duran Duran, Bros…and yet none of them attained this particular chart achievement.

Tony Dortie joins the band on stage at the song’s end for a cosy chat about how well they’re doing and so high on success are they that they take the piss out of dethroned No 1 Mr Blobby by doing some Blobby impressions (led by Robbie Williams naturally). The pink and yellow dotted buffoon would have his revenge a week later when, rather improbably, he returned to the top of the charts to bag the Christmas No 1. I remember thinking that this was nuts and how had it happened? I was no Take That fan obviously but at least “Babe” was a proper song. Somebody who was a fan was my younger sister and years later she went to see a Robbie Williams tribute act where, in an unlikely turn of events, the worlds of Mr Blobby and Take That collided once more. The impersonator was a rather rotund figure and so his stage name was Blobby Williams and he was part of Take Fat. Marvellous.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Chaka Demus and Pliers	Twist And Shout	Nope
2	Meatloaf	Bat Out Of Hell	No
3	East 17	It’s Alright	Yes, yes I did
4	Diana Ross	Your Love	Never happening
5	EYC	Feelin’ Alright	As if
6	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
7	Michael Jackson	Gone Too Soon	Nah
8	Cliff Richard	Healing Love	Of course not
9	Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle	A Whole New World	Noi chance
10	Ice T	That’s How I’m Livin	Not my bag
11	New Order	Spooky	Negative
12	Frankie Goes To Hollywood	The Power Of Love	Not in 1984 nor 1993
13	Haddaway	I Miss You	Awful – no
14	Take That	Babe	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/m001fy5t/top-of-the-pops-16121993

TOTP 18 NOV 1993

Posted on November 26, 2022 by 80stastic

What were you doing twenty-nine years ago? I know, I know. It’s hard enough remembering why you’ve just come upstairs some days but I’m pretty sure that I had just begun working at the Our Price store in Altrincham, Cheshire. I’d been employed by the company for three years by this point and was onto my fourth different shop. I’d done nearly two years in Market Street, Manchester then a promotion saw me move to Rochdale for a year. A transfer to a bigger store in Stockport followed but it hadn’t really worked out for me. I never settled and found the whole place a bit overwhelming. When another move suddenly presented itself, I was relieved. Whether area management knew I was struggling and took pity on me I don’t know. I doubt it but I immediately felt better at Altrincham. It was a much smaller store (similar to Rochdale) and just felt more manageable. The staff were welcoming and I really got on with the manager Cathy. I think there were eight of us altogether including Christmas temps and it was a good little team. I loved it there in fact. Sadly, it would all come to an abrupt end immediately after Christmas but that’s for a future post. I wonder if any of the songs on this TOTP will ring any bells with me?

Well, this one should do. Not that I remember it specifically but because it sounds the same as all their other hits. I refer, rather obviously, to 2 Unlimited. I think it was all starting to wear a bit thin by this point wasn’t it? “Maximum Overdrive” was their eighth UK hit in a two year period five of which had made the Top 5 including the No 1 single “No Limit”… and they all sounded…the…same. Too harsh? OK, they all followed a very similar pattern then. I get that they might have gone down well on your local nightclub’s dance floor but could anybody have listened to a whole album full of this stuff?!

*checks 2 Unlimited’s discography*

What?! Two of their albums went to No 1 in this country (“No Limits!” and “Real Things”) selling 350,000 copies between them?! This can’t be true can it?! This is as baffling as who the hell voted for Matt Hancock to stay in the jungle that long!

https://youtu.be/J–XvsaSz6I

When I first saw Anita and Ray’s outfits for this performance – full black and white chequered leathers with a number 2 prominently displayed – I wondered if they’d gone all Two-tone but it was all to do with that motorbike at the back of the stage. Presumably that was meant to be a play on the theme of the single’s title with the backing dancers meant to be pit stop crew? Nah – this is how you incorporate motorbikes into your song. A masterclass from David Essex…

Why were the TOTP producers obsessed with informing us that artists that had been booked to appear in the studio could no longer do so because they were ill/indisposed so we’d have to make do with the video instead? Why bother telling us? Surely we wouldn’t have known they were meant to be there in person anyway would we? Methinks they protest too much. Unless…it was some sort of ploy to make the show still appear credible and valid by showing us that artists did still want to make the effort to appear in person – “we’re still the biggest music show on TV, honest we are!”. Anyway, that’s what happens here with Terence Trent D’Arby who was meant to be in the studio to perform his single “Let Her Down Easy” but had come down with a case of Beijing flu* according to host Tony Dortie so it’s the video instead.

*There was an actual epidemic of it in the winter of 1993/94 though whether TTD had actually contracted it or it was just Dortie trying to be topical I don’t know.

1993 had been quite a year for Terence on the quiet. A No 4 album in “Symphony Or Damn” which was also well received by the critics (it received a five star rating from Q Magazine) with four Top 20 singles from it that achieved these very consistent chart peaks:

14 – 16 – 14 – 18

“Let Her Down Easy” was the final one of the four and though I don’t remember it, I really should have as it’s a striking piece of music. Almost entirely a piano led composition (there’s some orchestration low in the mix) with just Terence’s pure, isolated vocal, it’s quite the stand out track even today. It got the attention of George Michael who knew his way around a decent tune and he performed it live on his 2011-12 Symphonica tour which was recorded for his 2014 “Symphonica” album.

Back in a Eurodance dominated 1993 though, the track must have seemed like a complete anomaly. It should have been a bigger hit but maybe it got caught up in the Christmas rush. I liked the diversity of the album’s four singles with each one quite different from the other. Like I said, he had quite the year in 1993 but Terence Trent D’Arby rarely gets a mention in retrospectives of those twelve months.

Remember in 2001 when Kylie Minogue grabbed herself a No 1 single with the insanely catchy “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”? Back then, we remarked on how clever the lyrics and title were in that they worked on two levels; the object of Kylie’s affection but also the ear worm that was the actual song. Eight years earlier Culture Beat pulled off a similar coup with “Got To Get It”. ‘Got to get it, got to get it out of my head’ they sang referring to a relationship that had ended but of course it could also have referred to the track itself. Culture Beat are, of course, mostly remembered for that bit of pop trivia about “Mr Vain” being the first UK No 1 not to be released on 7” vinyl whereas Kylie is known as the ‘Princess of Pop’ and revered as a style icon. Get that out of your head Culture Beat!

In 1996 Crowded House released a Best Of compilation called “Recurring Dream”. The TV ad campaign for the album used a tag line that was spoken by a voice over guy who said “you’ll know more songs than you think by Crowded House”. Clever stuff. However, here’s one of theirs that I don’t think most of us will know. I didn’t remember it and possibly Mr Voice Over Guy wouldn’t either as it’s not included in that “Recurring Dream” Best Of.

“Nails In My Feet” was the second track taken from the band’s “Together Alone” album and unlike its predecessor “Distant Sun” and subsequent release “Locked Out”, it didn’t seem like an obvious choice of single. It feels like it should be something special but flounders around in search of a tune and never actually finds one. The rather odd, almost off key middle eight that sounds a bit like the theme to 70s action-comedy series The Persuaders! doesn’t help either.

Neil Finn does his best to sell the song with an expressive performance but it just doesn’t work for me and I say that as someone who’s seen them in concert twice. “Nails In My Feet” was supposedly inspired by Finn’s purchase of a pair of sandals with nails in them that were used to aerate the grass on his home’s tennis court rather than any religious imagery and achieved a respectable chart peak of No 22.

https://youtu.be/ss2TgrfrVaw

Tony Dortie’s at it again next telling the viewers at home that U2 should have been in the TOTP studio but for reasons he doesn’t want to bore us with, they haven’t made it. Tony, you can’t makes statement like that and not give us the whole story. You could have said nothing and we’d have been none the wiser but the cat’s out of the bag now so you have to tell all!

1993 was an odd chapter in the U2 story. Having finished 1992 with accumulated sales of “Achtung Baby” standing at 10 million and ticket sales for the supporting Zoo TV Tour reaching 2.9 million, the band paused for breath as there was now a six month break before the tour resumed with the Zooropa leg. The problem was that the band weren’t ready to just stop after months of touring. As Bono explained it:

“We thought we could live a normal life and then go back on the road [in May 1993]. But it turns out that your whole way of thinking, your whole body has been geared toward the madness of Zoo TV… So we decided to put the madness on a record. Everybody’s head was spinning, so we thought, why not keep that momentum going…?
Scholz, Martin; Bizot, Jean-Francois; Zekri, Bernard (August 1993). “Even Bigger Than the Real Thing”. Spin. Vol. 9, no. 5. Spin Media LLC. pp. 60–62, 96.

With loops created from tour sound checks and unused “Achtung Baby” demos being employed as starting blocks for recording sessions, the next decision was what format this new material would be released as. A four track EP was the original idea but such was the speed of their creativity, Bono suggested a whole album. Then it all got very confusing. The track chosen to promote the “Zooropa” album was “Numb” but in an unexpected turn of events, it was only released as a VHS video. I recall we got a couple of copies in the Our Price store in Rochdale but I’m not sure if we sold any of them. The then chart rules disallowed its sales from counting on the record singles chart so it kind of sunk without trace. After that rather spectacular own goal, a second track was summoned from the bench to promote the album – “Lemon”. Then it was going to be a double A-side release with “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, Bono’s duet with Frank Sinatra. Then Ol’ Blue Eyes’ people wanted a stand alone release and then finally that track was paired with the confoundingly titled track “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”. I do remember this coming out but twenty-nine years on, I couldn’t have told you how it went before re-listening to it. Now that I have listened to it again, I still can’t tell you so unmemorable is it. I don’t mind a bit of U2 now and again and you have to admire their longevity and willingness to reinvent themselves but this one is dreary as. Allegedly, Bono has previously labelled it as the band’s greatest song but I can’t hear it. It was actually written for the similarly titled Wim Wenders film Faraway, So Close! but I’ve never seen it.

I suppose I should say something about the Bono/Frank Sinatra duet as well seeing as the single seems to have been a double A-side. How did this come about? Well, Frank had maybe been talking to Elton John as, just like the ‘Rocket Man’, he’d recorded an album of duets and, also like Elt, just called it “Duets”. Featuring collaborations with the likes of Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli, it sold well over the Xmas period peaking at No 5 in the UK. I say collaborations but it was a very mechanical process with Sinatra not actually being in the recording studio with any of his duetters at the same time. They sang along with his pre-recorded vocals with instructions to make their parts complement his. Frank ‘takin’ care of business’ as always. In that respect it was similar to the Natalie Cole (who appeared on the album with Sinatra on “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”) duet on “Unforgettable” with her deceased father Nat King Cole. The track “Under My Skin” recorded with Bono was chosen as a single to promote the album. Bono (along with the rest of the band) had already met Sinatra though in 1987 at a boxing match in Las Vegas between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. I bet Bono and the guys got a kick out of that.

The Breakers now beginning with DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince who are trying to follow up on the huge and slightly unexpected success of “Boom! Shake The Room” with new single “I’m Looking For The One (To Be With Me)”. This is yet another track that I have no memory of (clearly working in a record shop didn’t mean that I knew every song in the charts) but it sounds a bit like their previous hit “Summertime”. Even the home made style video is reminiscent of that track. Maybe that Summer vibe was a bit misplaced on a record released as Christmas was coming into view and perhaps that’s why it got nowhere near replicating the success of “Boom! Shake The Room” when it peaked at No 24.

This next song has quite the back story. “Demolition Man” was written by Sting in the Summer of 1980 as a potential track for The Police album “Zenyatta Mondatta”. When it didn’t make the album it was offered to Grace Jones who recorded it for her 1981 “Nightclubbing” album and released it as its lead single.

Thinking that they could do a better version themselves, the band recorded it for their next album “Ghost In The Machine”.

Then over a decade later, here it is again as a solo release from Sting to promote the film of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. As with Faraway, So Close! earlier, I’ve never seen it but reading its Wikipedia entry leads me to believe it’s one of those fun but dumb action movies that are good if you’re recovering from a hangover and have very little brain power available. The video has Sting rather gratuitously performing the song naked from the waist up with very little if any clips from the film inserted. One for his fan base there.

Sting of course has quite the connection with the world of movies. He’s acted in over a dozen films including Quadrophenia, Dune, The Bride and Stormy Monday and has contributed music to many a soundtrack. Aside from Demolition Man, he’s featured on Lethal Weapon 3 (“It’s Probably Me” with Eric Clapton), The Three Musketeers (“All Four Love” with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams), Stars And Bars (“Englishman In New York”) to name but three of a long list. There’s even a CD called “Sting At The Movies” that collects many of them together. The one burnt into my memory though is “Spread A Little Happiness” from Brimstone And Treacle in which he also starred. This seemed to be played all the time by Terry Wogan on his Radio 2 breakfast show which my Mum used to have on in the background on a school morning.

Oh the folly! Tony Dortie’s casual dismissal of the next act as “apparently once controversial” illustrates perfectly the smugness contemporary music has for its elders. Back in 1984, Frankie Goes To Hollywood were everything and everywhere, exploding onto the charts like nothing witnessed since The Beatles. Three No 1 records amounting to sixteen weeks at the top, every other person in the country wearing a ‘Frankie Says…T-shirt’, a Radio 1 ban for the corrupting nature of the lyrics to “Relax”, a video for “Two Tribes” featuring actors playing out a wrestling match between Reagan and Chernenko at the height of the new Cold War…according to Dortie that just warrants an “apparently once controversial” remark. Know your musical history mate!

Frankie were back in the charts in 1993 thanks to a Best Of album and the rerelease of the “Relax” single to promote it. After that had made No 5, record label ZTT decided it was worth reissuing another of their hits. Surely “Two Tribes”* was the obvious choice or even “The Power Of Love” seeing as Christmas was coming and it had that video but no – “Welcome To The Pleasuredome” was selected. Now, nothing against the song which still stands up today in my book but it does carry with it that stigma of being the first single by the band not to go to No 1 despite ZTT using an advertising campaign declaring it their fourth No 1 before it was even released. As it turned out, it couldn’t dislodge “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey and has retrospectively been deigned to be the beginning of the end for the Frankie phenomenon. The 1993 remix still managed a Top 20 position but it seemed a missed opportunity. As it turned out, “The Power Of Love” was hastily rush released the week before Christmas and achieved a high of No 10 but with a bit more thought, a longer lead in time and better promotion, could it have challenged for the Christmas No 1 or would the power of Mr Blobby have easily seen it off?

* “Two Tribes” was eventually rereleased in February of 1994 making it to No 16.

The final two Breakers were both featured in full length on the previous show and are both due to be on the following week so I’ll leave my comments short for both for fear of running out of things to say about them. The first is “Again” by Janet Jackson. After her live by satellite performance the other week, we get the video this time which was directed by René Elizondo Jr. As well as being Janet’s then husband, he is also the man whose hands are covering her breasts on the cover of the September 1993 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine that formed the expanded artwork for her “Janet” album. So now you know.

The final Breaker is from Elton John and Kiki Dee or ‘Alton’ John as Tony Dortie pronounces it. Their rendition of “True Love” is up to No 8 on its way to a high of No 2, not quite the Christmas No 1 the bookies were predicting as per Dortie’s intro. The video is clearly aimed at creating a Christmas vibe with Elton and Kiki wearing prominently placed winter scarves whilst the black and white film depicting them as the guardian angels of the lyrics reeks of It’s A Wonderful Life. Guiding the boy and girl love interests to ensure they don’t miss each other at the train station, the film suddenly turns colour as they find each other. OK, I can live with that but the nun dancing with a homeless looking fella? Really?!

https://youtu.be/sbry5Z8aEXM

Tony Dortie tries to increase his street cred next by getting Public Enemy into his next intro. However, that credibility is stretched to its limits when you realise he’s crowbarred the hip hop legends into a segue into a performance by soprano and opera singer Lesley Garrett. So what was going on here then? Well, Lesley teamed up with 12 year old pianist and leukaemia patient Amanda Thompson to record a version of “Ave Maria”, the Latin prayer set to music by Charles Gounod when he superimposed a melody over Bach’s “Prelude No 1 in C Major”. It was a charity record raising £160,000 for the Malcolm Sergeant cancer fund and came about after Amanda had featured heavily in the ITV documentary series Jimmy’s about St.James’s hospital in Leeds. I think Esther Rantzen was something to do with it as well. There was even some fanciful talk of this being the Christmas No 1 but it topped out at No16.

https://youtu.be/zh5Rs25kJMQ

Right, what are we up to now? Fourth week? Fifth? I’m losing count of how long Meatloaf’s been at No 1 with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’tDo That)”. I suppose I should mention the incredible business parent album “Bat Out Of Hell 2: Back Into Hell” was also doing. In the UK alone it went six times platinum (1,800,000 sales) whilst in America it went five times platinum equating to 5,000,000 sales. Obviously it was also topped the album charts in both those territories. We sold a lot of it that Christmas in that little store in Altrincham. We did an end of year poll for the staff asking for their Top 3 albums of the year, fave single etc. “I’d Fo Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” was one member of staff’s pick. Didn’t see that coming.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Maximum Overdrive	Never
2	Terence Trent D’Arby	Let Her Down Easy	Good song, didn’t buy it
3	Culture Beat	Got To Get It	See 1 above
4	Crowded House	Nails In My Feet	I did not
5	U2	Stay (Faraway, So Close!)	No
6	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	I’m Looking For The One (To Be With Me)	Negative
7	Sting	Demolition Man	Nope
8	Frankie Goes to Hollywood	Welcome To The Pleasuredome	Not in 1985 nor 1993
9	Janet Jackson	Again	Nah
10	Elton John / Kiki Dee	True Love	Of course not
11	Lesley Garrett / Amanda Thompson	Ave Maria	It’s a no from me
12	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’tDo That)	Unlike my Our Price colleague, 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/m001fh20/top-of-the-pops-18111993

TOTP 30 SEP 1993

Posted on October 27, 2022 by 80stastic

When Robbie Coltrane died recently, like many people, it got me thinking about his acting credits and the roles on which he made his name. Although I’ve seen many of the Harry Potter films due to my son’s influence, it won’t be Hagrid that I remember him for. Not when there’s so many other turns that I could reflect on. There’s his memorable performance as Dr Johnson, creator of A Dictionary of the English Language in Blackadder The Third for starters. Then there’s his starring role in the critically acclaimed National Treasure from 2016.

However for me, he was never better than in Cracker which first aired on ITV three days before this TOTP was broadcast. Based around the immensely complex character of criminal psychiatrist Dr Edward ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald, it ran for three series from 1993 to 1995 plus a couple of later specials in 1996 and 2006. Whilst its plots were incredibly engrossing (the Hillsborough story is the one I remember the most), there was another source of interest for me in that it was set and filmed in Manchester where I was living at the time. I think they even filmed in the area I lived called Longsight. I certainly recall walking home up my road one night and stumbling upon a whole film crew filming outside a house with many actors / extras dressed as police. I wasn’t the only person who was given a shock that night. The local drug dealer (‘Mr Dodgy’ we called him) nearly shat himself when confronted with the scene.

Talking of scares, here’s “Big Scary Animal” by Belinda Carlisle to open the show. This is the third time in consecutive weeks that this track has been featured but despite all that exposure, it couldn’t break into the Top 10 peaking just outside at No 12. Belinda’s discography tells me that she has more Greatest Hits albums to her name than studio albums which would suggest that she was all about the singles but that argument doesn’t quite stack up when you crunch her numbers. Discounting her solo debut “Belinda”, the following four albums all went Top 10 in the UK with two of them achieving platinum sales status. And yet…have you ever met somebody who owns a Belinda Carlisle studio album?

How do you follow up one of the biggest selling songs of the year which also happens to be your debut single? This was the dilemma facing Gabrielle who had shot to fame off the back of her No 1 “Dreams”. Talk about setting a high bar for yourself. Sadly and perhaps inevitably, “Going Nowhere” failed to live up to expectations. Not exactly a prophetic song title as it did make the Top 10 but it didn’t have that mercurial bit of magic that “Dreams” had courtesy of that adapted Tracy Chapman sample. It sounds like something Aretha Franklin might have recorded in the 80s. A very clunky, dated sound in a dance obsessed 1993.

Two further singles were released from her debut album “Find Your Way” and they did the opposite of that instruction by getting lost in the lower reaches of the charts, neither even making the Top 20. Was Gabrielle’s pop star career in danger of petering out? Perhaps against the odds, she would turn her fortunes around gradually over the course of the decade before peaking again triumphantly with a definitely prophetically titled song, the No 1 single “Rise” in 2000.

What’s going on here then? The pop phenomenon (and they really were) of 1984 back in the charts in 1993? Well of course it was all about record company plundering of an artist’s back catalogue to squeeze some more revenue out of their reputation. Frankie Goes To Hollywood were unavoidable in 1984. They owned the charts with three No1 records totting up fifteen weeks at the top between them. They became one of a handful of artists to command the No1 and No2 chart positions in the same week and were surrounded by controversy after the BBC banned the first of those No1 singles “Relax” due to its overtly sexual nature (Mike Read and all that). After the success came the downfall and the gap of two years between debut album “Welcome To The Pleasuredome” and follow up “Liverpool” proved insurmountable in terms of maintaining their profile and the band split in 1987 after basically imploding.

This though was all ancient history in pop terms and by 1993 record label ZTT calculated that the nine years between Frankie’s annus mirabilis and a revisiting of their story was long enough. To try and entice a new fanbase or indeed reactivate their existing one towards their amazing story once more, they released “Bang!…The Greatest Hits Of Frankie Goes To Hollywood” – it did what it said on the tin. Like Belinda Carlisle earlier, Frankie have far more compilations than studio albums to their name (a ratio of 10:2) but this one was by far the most successful going to No 4 in the charts and achieving gold status sales. To promote the album, a version of “Relax” was re-issued – the “Classic 1993 Version” to be exact – though I’m not entirely sure how different it was from the original which already had a myriad of mixes anyway.

There’s no controversy this time around with videos as the BBC is showing a live performance promo of the song directed by David Mallet. Even nearly ten years on, the notorious and banned S&M video with an obese Roman emperor and drag queens was never going to be shown before the watershed. The 1993 rerelease of “Relax” peaked at No5. Quite remarkable.

This next one is just a brilliant song in my book and a highlight from a great album that doesn’t get the praise it deserves. “Roses In The Hospital” was the third single from “Gold Against The Soul” by Manic Street Preachers and regularly trades positions in my mind with “Life Becoming A Landslide” (the follow up single) as the best track on the album.

Borrowing just ever so slightly from Bowie’s “Sound And Vision” (or is it “Sorrow”?), it’s got an unexpectedly funky backbeat allied with the hookiest (yes, that’s a word!) of choruses. Add in a wonderful coda that combines a refrain of the phrase “forever delayed”* with a knowing nod to The Clash’s “Rudie Can’t Fail” and it couldn’t…well…fail. It didn’t either when becoming the biggest hit from the album by peaking at No 15. This was the highest chart positions of any of their own compositions at the time with 1992’s No 7 “Theme From M.A.S.H (Suicide Is Painless)” obviously a cover version.

I was working in the Our Price in Stockport around this time and there were actually two Our Prices in the town, the big one on Merseyway and a much smaller one just around the corner from it. That store had a reputation for stocking classical music and I believe actually employed a ‘mature’ lady (compared to all us youngsters working for the company anyway) for a few hours a week who had great classical product knowledge. I was covering in the smaller store on the morning “Roses In The Hospital” came out and for some reason Sony sent us one 7” single despite the fact that the store didn’t stock any vinyl. Why do I remember this non-consequential crap? Oh and apparently that isn’t Nicky Wire in the Minnie Mouse mask as he was on honeymoon so his place was taken by a roadie in disguise. He wasn’t making some anti-Disney statement. Didn’t Echo and the Bunnymen do something similar when performing “Seven Seas” on the show in 1984 with a guy in a fish costume standing in for an absent Les Pattinson?

* “Forever Delayed” would be the title of the band’s first Best Of album in 2002 though curiously “Roses In The Hospital” was not included on the track listing. It did appear on the DVD version of the album and 2011 retrospective “National Treasures -The Complete Singles”.

Just the two Breakers this week starting with an act that always confuses me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I always get US3 confused with the similarly named Oui 3 who were having hits around this time. Secondly, like fellow jazz rapper Guru who was also on the show as a Breaker recently, they had an album that I remember selling loads of in Our Price but which Wikipedia tells me was not a massive commercial success. In the case of Guru that was the album “Guru’s Jazzmatazz Vol. 1” which only made No 58 in the charts whilst US3’s was “Hand On The Torch” which topped out at No 40.

“Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)” was the biggest hit from the album though it took a re-release to achieve this peak of No 23 after it bombed initially the year before. Sampling Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island”, I quite liked this though it wasn’t really my bag.

After Frankie Goes To Hollywood earlier, here’s another huge star of the 80s. Unlike Frankie though, Paul Young had managed to eke out some chart hits after his imperial phase of 83-85 had petered out and remain a semi regular visitor to the charts. In the 90s up to this point he had scored a total of four Top 40 entries (including No 4 hit “Senza Una Donna (Without A Woman)” with Zucchero). Just like Frankie though, he had also released a big selling Greatest Hits compilation called “From Time To Time – The Singles Collection” which had even topped the charts in 1991*.

However, Paul’s studio albums had suffered from a case of diminishing returns for a while with each one selling less than its predecessor right back to his debut “No Parlez” in 1983. By the time we got to 1993’s “The Crossing”, he was beyond the point of no return when it came to reversing that trend with it peaking at a lowly No 27. The lead single from it was a song that suggested that Paul (or his songwriters) had taken a leaf out of the ABC book of composition but instead of Smokey singing, we had Otis Redding feeling sad. I speak as a person who owns some Paul Young records and I have to say that “Now I Know What Made Otis Blue” is not his finest hour. However, it is deceptively catchy and has some powerful ear worm potential. Maybe that’s why it made an impressive chart high of No 14. Paul would visit the UK Top 40 only twice more and in a very reduced way but he remains a big draw on the live circuit.

*As with Belinda Carlisle before him, Paul has more Best Of compilations to his name than actual studio albums.

The debut now of a group who would enjoy enormous and sustained success throughout the decade despite losing a popular member Robbie Williams / Take That style. The presence in the UK charts of all female American R&B groups like En Vogue, SWV and Jade had highlighted a gap in the market for a UK version. In all honesty, apart from Bananarama, we hadn’t had many girl bands of any musical persuasion at all. Up to 1993, who else was there? Toto Coelo? Belle And The Devotions? The Reynolds Girls? The Beverley Sisters? We were seriously lagging behind. Enter Eternal – sisters Easther and Vernie Bennett and friends Kéllé Bryan and Louise Nurding. Put together by First Avenue Records using the En Vogue template, they exploded out of the gate with debut single “Stay” which made No 4 confirming consumer appetite for such a band.

Underpinning that success was the confidence of their performance here. Easther gives a strong lead vocal while the synchronised dance moves behind her are absolutely on point including some Egyptian style head slides and eye catching arm waving. Talking of eye catching, perhaps predictably, Louise Nurding got a lot of attention as the only non-black person in the group and within two years she would leave the band to pursue her own successful solo career. Had EMI always got her flagged for such a move? There was a rumour that they didn’t think they could break the band in the US as an R&B act if they had someone white in the line-up but I don’t want to pursue that particular line of thought. Suffice to say both Eternal and Louise were able to co-exist and have plenty of chart hits. The former had eight UK Top 10 hits including a No 1 post Louise who herself racked up an impressive twelve Top 20 hits half of which went Top 5. The one album they recorded as a four piece – “Always And Forever” – went four times platinum in the UK and sold four million copies worldwide paving the way for many an all female band in their wake including Spice Girls, All Saints, Girls Aloud and The Saturdays.

https://youtu.be/fvXOqli-yhY

Host Mark Franklin informs us that Chaka Demus And Pliers were meant to be in the TOTP studio to perform “She Don’t Let Nobody” but the former wasn’t very well and they had to cancel. He probably had a sore throat having strained it doing all those ‘Baby Girl’ and ‘Number One in the World’ shout outs. Ho hum.

This next one is a curious thing. Not the performance itself which is pretty standard but the fact that it was the band’s one and only time in the TOTP studio and it was for a single that only made it to No 40 in our charts. Can’t be that many acts that have such a TOTP history. Of course, the videos for Spin Doctors previous hit singles “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” had been on the show before but this run through of “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” was the band’s only live performance.

The third single taken from their “Pocketful Of Kryptonite” album, it was very much in the same vein as its predecessors (no shaking things up with a slushy ballad for these guys) but a much more washed out, half-hearted version. Maybe that explains its lowly chart placing. Jimmy Olsen was of course Superman’s nerdy pal who had his own DC Comic but I’d take Fitz from Cracker to solve a case over Jimmy every time.

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince still reign supreme at No 1 with “Boom! Shake The Room”. The pair seemed to have an issues with buildings – their debut album was called “Rock The House”. Yeah, you guessed it. I’ve got nothing left to say about this one. Thankfully this is its last week at No 1 as the Take That juggernaut is coming…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Belinda Carlisle	Big Scary Animal	Nope
2	Gabrielle	Going Nowhere	No
3	Frankie Goes To Hollywood	Relax	Not in 1993 but I did back in 1984 obviously
4	Manic Street Preachers	Roses In The Hospital	Not the single but I bought the album
5	US3	Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
6	Paul Young	Now I Know What Made Otis Blue	Nah
7	Eternal	Stay	I did not
8	Chaka Demus And Pliers	She Don’t Let Nobody	Certainly not
9	Spin Doctors	Jimmy Olsen’s Blues”	Negative
10	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	Boom! Shake The Room	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/m001d7qy/top-of-the-pops-30091993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 24 FEB 1994

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TOTP 16 DEC 1993

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TOTP 18 NOV 1993

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TOTP 30 SEP 1993

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