Gabrielle

TOTP 14 MAR 1996

Sometimes, things can take a while before they come to fruition, a substantial gestation period before conditions are right for optimum blossoming. In the world of entertainment, we might call it a sleeper hit. In the UK singles chart of 1996, such things were becoming a rarity with singles careering in and out of the Top 40 within a couple of weeks, usually debuting at their peak position before falling away quickly. Songs going straight in at No 1, a complete rarity in the 80s, was becoming a weekly event. In the television industry however, sleeper hits were still a thing. Stretching back to the 70s, Happy Days only became a huge success once the programme makers decided to centre the show around the character of Fonzie. In the 80s, the first series of Blackadder was not a ratings winner until they changed eras and the personality of the title character in Series 2. A similar thing happened with Men Behaving Badly with its popularity soaring once Harry Enfield’s character was replaced by Tony played by Neil Morrissey.

So it was in 1996 with This Life which first aired four days after this TOTP was broadcast. An ensemble piece about a group of 20 something law graduates as they began their careers, it gained little attention when first broadcast. However, with a second series secured, the first was repeated early in 1997 so that it would segue into the second and it started to gain traction both critically and ratings wise. I’m pretty sure that would have been when I started watching it. The show’s success would make stars of the young, mainly unknown cast, none more so than Andrew Lincoln who would eventually become the lead in The Walking Dead phenomenon. This Life featured plenty of contemporary music in it chosen by a pre-fame Ricky Gervais (credited as ‘Music Advisor’) with a heavy Britpop bent. Artists such as Oasis, Pulp, Blur, Suede and Supergrass would all have their songs used. None of those acts are on this episode of TOTP sadly but let’s see who are.

Oh come on! After I’d spent the intro making the case that unlike TV, the Top 40 wasn’t home to any sleeper hits by 1996, the very first song on tonight’s show is just that. “Return Of The Mack” by Mark Morrison would take six whole weeks to get to No 1, the making it the first record to actually climb to the top spot since Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone” the previous September. Not only that, it also took its own sweet time descending the charts. Look at these positions in a solid twelve week stay inside the Top 10.

6 – 6 – 6 – 4 – 3 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 10

In short, it was a monster shifting 1.8 million copies in the UK alone, being our fifth best selling single of the year and also going to No 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100. So what was it about it the track that got under people’s skin so? Well, it was damned catchy with a singalong chorus that anyone could do but especially if your surname began with ‘Mc’ or ‘Mac’. Plus, it was a very smooth sound, almost effortlessly so. Much of that came from its sampling of “Genius Of Love” by Tom Tom Club which also featured heavily in Mariah Carey’s hit “Fantasy” from a few months earlier so maybe that triggered some brain muscle memory that appealed?

As for Morrison himself, he was not a pleasant individual and would never win any Citizen of the Year awards. I knew he’d been in trouble with the police but it wasn’t until I read up on him for this post that I understood the full extent of his law breaking. Perhaps the most famous incident was when he was sentenced to 12 months in Wormwood Scrubs for paying a lookalike to do 108 of his 150 hours of community service following his conviction for affray in a brawl in which there was one fatality. In an act of premonition, Morrison foretells his fate by wearing a set of handcuffs on his left hand in this performance.

Continuing the police presence in this show, here’s Gabrielle who wasn’t in trouble with the law herself at this time but she did have to help them with their enquiries. This was a case involving her ex-partner and father of her child who murdered his stepfather. Obviously, once the press got hold of the story and made the connection with Gabrielle, it was her name that hit the headlines not his but there was never any suggestion of the singer being involved in the murder. It wasn’t the greatest profile with which to relaunch her career though. However, “Give Me A Little More Time” was too appealing a song for any bad press to derail it and it became a Top 5 hit.

I should say, by the way, that tonight’s hosts (plural) are MN8 who are making the most of their brief time in the spotlight. I can’t say I approve of their banter so far especially the feeble joke about a band trying to be like Oasis called, The Ants…The Spiders…no The Beatles. Come on guys, that’s awful! Anyway, “Real Love” was the second single to come out of The Anthology project following the massively disappointing “Free As A Bird”. Based around another unfinished John Lennon demo, at least this one doesn’t sound like an ELO B-side despite the involvement once again of Jeff Lynne in a producer role. The video is the predictable montage of archive clips of the band integrated with some new footage of Paul, George and Ringo recording their contributions to that original demo. It doesn’t seem to have such a defined narrative as the promo for “Free As A Bird” which was meant to be from the perspective of a bird in flight. It also doesn’t have that grainy animation effect which its predecessor did but, personally, I think it’s all the better for that.

I don’t recall this but apparently Radio 1 refused to play “Real Love” on the basis that they were a contemporary music station and the latest release from The Beatles wasn’t what their listeners wanted to hear. Oh dear. Whilst falling short of calling it a ban, Radio 1’s stance caused a reaction from Paul McCartney (the return of the Mc?) who wrote an 800 word article in the Daily Mirror expressing his disappointment and that he could hear the influence of The Beatles in a lot of the then contemporary music. He had a point when it came to Oasis at least. In an act of contrition, station controller Matthew Bannister agreed for a ‘Golden Hour’ of Beatles music and that of those artists influenced by them to be broadcast.

The sixth take of the “Real Love” demo is the first track on the soundtrack to the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon which I owned at one point. The official 1996 release of it would be the last new Beatles song released in the lifetime of George Harrison who died in 2001. In 2023, the final ever Beatles single “Now And Then” was released but thankfully I won’t have to review that.

OK, I quite liked the MN8 intro for this next one. One of them says “There’s Motörhead, Radiohead, Beavis and Butthead now there’s Technohead” while his pal keeps interrupting him saying he wants to be a hippy. “Go away and be a hippy then” the first one exclaims in exasperation finally. Look, it’s hardly Derek and Clive or Morecambe and Wise but it amused my tiny brain OK?! Talking of which, the brainless “I Wanna Be A Hippy” was purely for the feeble minded. The TOTP producers couldn’t get enough of it though it seems. Despite having fallen down the charts twice (and gone back up once), staying at No 9 (after peaking at No 6) for two weeks was considered enough chart traction for another (a third?) TOTP appearance. It would hang around the Top 40 for a further five weeks before departing by which point their follow up single was out and straight into the Top 20. Oh joy!

Wait…what?! Peter Andre had a hit in this country before “Mysterious Girl”?! I wouldn’t have believed it but here’s the evidence literally in front of my eyes. “Only One” was already at its peak of No 16. The aforementioned “Mysterious Girl” would be his subsequent single release and it would be that song that really broke him when it went to No 2. He followed that up with two consecutive No 1s before 1996 was over meaning he had four hits in that calendar year. Who would have thought that 28 years later, this perma-tanned, baby oiled berk would still be appearing on our TV screens long after his pop career was over?! What is his enduring appeal? I just don’t get it.

If I had to say something about “Only One” it would be that it’s not as bad as “Mysterious Girl” but that’s like saying Rishi Sunak isn’t as bad as Liz Truss. Both are horribly useless but one couldn’t outlast a wilting lettuce. Sadly Peter Andre’s career could.

Next up is Robert Miles who is up to No 2 with “Children”. In my mind, for no discernible reasons other than they’re both instrumentals and they were both in the charts at the same time, this record is always linked to the theme tune to The X Files by Mark Snow which we’ll see on the show in a couple of episodes time. As for this show, if you look closely in the Top 10 rundown, you can see there’s some editing gone on. The graphics for Robert Miles does not include the title of the song. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why:

Following the Dunblane massacre on 13 March 1996, #TOTP did not refer to the song's title during the chart rundown on this, and the next, edition – although the on-screen caption at the beginning of this performance was left in.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 7, 2024

Whether this was the right decision or not, it was kind of undermined by what’s reported in the second half of the tweet above.

By 1996, and this might well upset some people, is it fair to say, in terms of the charts, that Gary Numan was becoming a one trick pony? Hear me out. He’s here on the show to perform his only* solo No 1 hit “Cars” – retitled as “Cars (Premier Mix)” – due to its use in an ad campaign for Carling Premier beer.

*”Are Friends Electric?” was released under the Tubeway Army banner

The last time he was in the TOTP studio? 1987. And what song was he performing then? Yes, another remix of “Cars” (this time restyled as the ‘E’ reg model mix). In total, the song has been released four times as a single if you count the original 1979 issue and a further rerelease in 1993 when it peaked at No 53. The 1996 version would get to No 17 and would be backed by a Best Of compilation called “The Premier Hits”. Money for old rope? Almost certainly.

Now, that’s not to say that Numan wasn’t busy recording in all the intervening years. He was – he’s released 22 studio albums and 51 singles so far in his career but would you have noticed unless you were a die hard fan? Ah yes, those fans, the so-called ‘Numanoids’. I’ve said before that I never enjoyed a good relationship with that particular fan base. Why? Because they were a massive pain in the arse when I worked in record shops that’s why! Endlessly ringing up to ask about release dates for their hero and then disputing the information I gave them. Always just a synth riff away from starting an argument. I’ve never been that keen on Numan himself either – all that endorsing of Margaret Thatcher (which he has publicly regretted since) and then marrying a member of his fan club. Then there’s his industrial rock sound that has dominated his later work. Not for me thanks though I can appreciate his pioneering part in the synth pop movement and his influence on subsequent artists. I’ve not got a totally closed outlook you know. I’m pretty open-minded and in touch with my caring side. You could say I’m a new man (ahem).

We arrive at one of the more notorious TOTP appearances, not because of the quality of the performance nor what the band were wearing but because of a much more…well, legal matter. As announced by hosts MN8, for the first time on the show was a totally unsigned act. Yes, it’s time for the curious footnote of pop music history that was/is Bis. Having formed at school in Woodfarm, East Renfrewshire this trio found themselves on the UK’s premier music show on prime time TV despite being unknown to the vast majority of the watching millions. How did this happen? It seems to be down to just one man who was a fan. Handily for Bis, that man was TOTP Executive Producer Ric Blaxill. What are the chances?! Now, as for that “unsigned” claim, it turns out that unknown doesn’t mean unsigned as they were actually on the indie label Chemikal Underground which was started by Scottish band The Delgados to release their first single. Other artists on the label’s roster included Arab Strap and Mogwai though their only UK Top 40 single came courtesy of Bis. The song performed here – “Kandy Pop” – was taken from their “The Secret Vampire Soundtrack” EP and would make No 25 in the charts.

Listening back to it now, I do wonder what all the fuss was about as it’s the sound of some over excited teenagers let loose in a recording studio and thinking that they’re the future of pop music. All very underwhelming. Maybe I felt different about it at the time – I can’t recall. Amazingly, this wasn’t their only UK Top 40 hit as in November 1998, “Eurodisco” went to No 38 (they were on the Wiiija label by this point). Bis split in 2003 but reconvened in 2009 and are still a going concern today and have toured with the likes of Foo Fighters, Garbage and…wait…Gary Numan?! That must surely have come about after they both appeared on this TOTP?! Maybe they got along well in the Green Room post show?

Take That remain at No 1 with their (sort of) valedictory single “How Deep Is Your Love”. In the last post, I said that I hadn’t realised how many units they’d shifted of their albums, seeing them as purely a singles band (in their first incarnation). However, their (first) Greatest Hits album released at this time would easily outsell two of those three studio albums with only “Everything Changes” marginally out performing it. Maybe they were a singles artist after all?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Mark Morrison	Return Of The Mack	Negative
2	Gabrielle	Give Me A Little More Time	Nah
3	The Beatles	Real Love	No but I had a version of the demo on that Imagine: John Lennon soundtrack
4	Technohead	I Wanna Be A Hippy	Never
5	Peter Andre	Only One	As if
6	Robert Miles	Children	I did not
7	Gary Numan	Cars (Premier Mix)	No
8	Bis	Kandy Pop	Nope
9	Take That	How Deep Is Your Love	No but my wife had their Greatest Hits CD

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/m001zyvf/top-of-the-pops-14031996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 29 FEB 1996

Posted on 17 Days Ago by 80stastic

1996 must have been a leap year as we’ve got a TOTP on the 29th February. The day after this show aired, Status Quo took Radio 1 to the High Court over its refusal to playlist the band’s latest single, a cover of “Fun Fun Fun” by The Beach Boys who also feature on the record. Status Quo lost their legal action with the BBC successfully claiming that the group did not fit the demographic audience the station was trying to reach. In a musical landscape dominated by Britpop and dance music, they had a point. Or did they? The album the single came from – “Don’t Stop” – went to No 2 and sold 100,000 copies so wasn’t it Radio 1’s obligation to reflect what was popular? For what it’s worth, I think they made the right decision. The album was entirely made up of cover versions including (and I’ve only just discovered this) their takes on “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats and “The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)” by Timbuk 3. I know! What on earth?! I’m almost curious enough to investigate what they sound like but not quite.

The following day, Melody Maker praised Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker for his protest at the BRIT awards two weeks earlier against Michael Jackson’s performance of “Earth Song” suggesting he should be knighted. Although Jarvis got arrested for his part in the incident (with Bob Mortimer famously attending the police station to represent him legally), I think we all know who ultimately came off better out of the episode. Pulp were probably as famous as they ever would be at that point with the controversy taking Jarvis to the front pages of the daily newspapers rather than just the music press. It hadn’t always been like that of course with the band having spent the 80s on the peripheries of indiedom before the move to Island Records and becoming bona fide chart stars. And how did they do that? Via “Perseverance” of course which incidentally is the name of the first song on the show tonight.

Yes, Terrorvision have blasted their way into the Top 5 with this, the lead single from third album “Regular Urban Survivors”, and it’s a stonking tune. Breaking the conventions of standard rock with brass parts and a vocal from Tony Wright that’s ragged and raw sounding but by no means without melody and hooks aplenty, it’s a great way to start the show and marks a welcome departure from all those dance acts and their repetitive beats. A regular reader of this blog assures me that Tony has a very nice cafe in Otley and he can often be seen behind the counter serving cups of tea and slices of Victoria sponge to the local residents or perhaps those rock fans who have gone on a pilgrimage to find one of their 90s heroes. Tony has framed pictures of his lyrics on the wall if you want to get a selfie with some rock memorabilia. Maybe he even has one that includes the infamous line in “Perseverance” about the ‘whales and dolphins’?

Ah! Here’s the dance act with repetitive beats. I knew it would only be a matter of time. Gusto were nothing to do with Chelsea right back Malo but was instead New Jersey producer Edward Greene whose hit “Disco’s Revenge” was built around a loop of a sample of a track called “Groovin’ You” by former Herbie Hancock drummer Harvey Mason. The title “Disco’s Revenge” was taken from a quote by legendary ‘Godfather of House Music’ Frankie Knuckles who described the style of music developed in his club in Detroit thus. If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ll know that, by writing the above, I’ve wandered into an area where I’ve no right in being, namely house music. I’m clearly out of my depth when discussing such matters so I’ll extricate myself quickly.

As for “Disco’s Revenge”, I’d rather have “Rocker’s Revenge and their 1982 smash hit “Walking On Sunshine”.

Whether you like her or not, the dominance of the charts by Celine Dion was in full swing by the mid 90s. With one huge No 1 to her name already in the form of “Think Twice”, she would then settle into a pattern of churning out the hits on a regular basis before exploding again with that song from the Titanic movie in 1997. Within the calendar year of 1996, she would rack up four Top 10 UK hits. No artist would have more than that. So popular was she that one Christmas around this time, the police had to be called to an Our Price store in the region (thankfully not the one where I worked) to settle a dispute between two customers who were locked in battle (literally) over the last Celine Dion CD in the shop with both refusing to let go of it! “Falling Into You” was the title track from Celine’s fourteenth studio album and saw some rather restrained vocals for once from the ‘Queen of Power Ballads’. If only those two shoppers had showed the same restraint.

Next the return of Gabrielle whom we haven’t seen on the show or in the charts for a whole two years. The curse of having your debut single go to No 1 (the only way from there is down) had afflicted Gabrielle since “Dreams” had topped the charts in 1993. Her three subsequent single releases had peaked at Nos 9, 26 and 24. However, she would spectacularly lift that hoodoo with “Give Me A Little More Time”. Just a ‘Just’ away from sharing the same title as the old Chairman Of The Board hit from the 70s (and also for Kylie in the 90s) and ‘a little’ too much to be the name of Whitesnake’s 1984 minor hit, Gabrielle’s song was actually a classy slice of soul/pop with a retro 60s feel. Perfect for daytime radio playlists, it reversed her trend of diminishing chart returns and then some by peaking at No 5.

While she’s been away, Gabrielle has had a change of image with a new hairstyle that also acts as a replacement for her trademark eye patch. She has ptosis, a condition which causes the drooping of one eyelid and has always covered it using hats, sunglasses, her hair and, of course, the eye patch. Did she ever wear it again after this point? If this wasn’t a watershed moment for the eye patch, it definitely was for Gabrielle’s career as this hit would usher in a period of sustained success. Two more mid-sized hits followed “Give Me A Little More Time” before a No 2 turned up after she joined forces with East 17 on “If You Ever”. Two more Top Tenners followed in its wake before “Rise” gave her a second No 1 some seven years after her first. She still wasn’t done as “Out Of Reach” went to No 4 on the back of its inclusion on the soundtrack to Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Next a run of three huge music legends on the bounce starting with Sting who’s beaming in to the show from that well used TOTP satellite location under Brooklyn Bridge, New York. How many times was this setting featured?! I get that the backdrop is an arresting image of the Manhattan skyline but it kind of dwarfs the artist and makes them seem incongruous. Sting’s appearance here isn’t helped by the fact that he’s doing a dance version of “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot”. Why?! As it’s a designated dance version, there has to be a troop of backing dancers cavorting behind him but this just adds to the feeling of absurdity. Sadly I can’t find a clip of this performance on YouTube. Maybe that’s for the best.

Meanwhile, back in the studio is Tina Turner with the lead single from her latest album “Wildest Dreams”. Remarkably, this was her first studio album for seven years though it didn’t feel like Tina had been away at all thanks to a Best Of collection in 1991, her biopic film What’s Love Got To Do With It and accompanying soundtrack in 1993 and her recording of the theme tune for the James Bond flick Goldeneye in 1995. Listening to “Whatever You Want”, it sounds like it could also have been recorded for a 007 film with some heavy “Licence To Kill” vibes permeating through. Tina does her usual Tina shtick here but as with Sting before her, the backing dancers seem unnecessary. No doubt Tina and record label Parlophone would have been wanting (and perhaps expecting) a bigger hit with the track than the No 23 high it produced but I fear she may have been ever so slightly out of sync with UK chart tastes at the time.

We’d only just bid farewell to Babylon Zoo’s “Spaceman” at the top of the charts but now we were literally saying “Hallo Spaceboy” to David Bowie and the Pet Shop Boys. It seems to be generally accepted that Bowie was not at his best in the 80s. Despite the success of “Let’s Dance” (both the album and the single), pretty much all of his output that decade did not meet with the approval of the fans. However, and I’m not counting myself as a Bowie superfan but I did see him live once, I struggled with his 90s material. “Black Tie White Noise” passed me by with its lack of obvious singles, “Earthling” was never going to win me over with its exploration into the drum and bass phenomenon and then there was “Outside”. Influenced by Twin Peaks, this was a concept album that followed a narrative of a detective investigating the murder of a 14 year old girl in a fictional New Jersey town. Reviews were mixed with some labelling it as his finest work since “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)” whilst others derided it as pretentious shit. I was probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes of opinion but even I was definite that “Hallo Spaceboy” was a good single. How much of that is down to the involvement of the Pet Shop Boys more than Bowie I’m not sure but their influence couldn’t be denied. An almost hi-NRG backing allied to Bowie’s unique phrasing and Neil Tennant’s deadpan vocals, the decision to reference “Space Oddity” and Major Tom in the lyrics was perhaps cynical but also a clincher.

Despite looking like a vicar with a stiletto fetish, Bowie is still effortlessly cool in this performance with Neil and Chris happy to literally stand to one side to let the people see the master at work. “Hallo Spaceboy” peaked at No 12 making it Bowie’s second highest charting single as a solo artist of the whole of the 90s.

On February 13th 1996, Take That announced that they were splitting up. It’s hard to recall nearly 30 years on how much of a big deal this was especially as ten years later they came back and have stayed back for a further 18 years and counting but a big deal it was. Infamously, telephone helplines were set up by the government to support those teenage fans that were left distraught and with feelings so big that they didn’t know what to do with them. They had been together for six years or so but only three and a half of those were as chart stars. Was that a long time for a teen-oriented pop group to be around or had they called time on themselves too early? I’m pretty sure that they could have carried on for another album and a few hit singles but by that point they would have been pushing 30 which may have been at the older end of the pop star age bracket. By disappearing for 10 years, they probably gave people the chance to miss them before picking up where they left off and giving themselves a second career. Did they feel the pressure of the presence of Boyzone in the charts as a rival to their popularity? I think they possibly could have ridden that out. After the departure of Robbie Williams the year before, maybe the writing had been on the wall although there still seemed to be an appetite for the group.

To draw a line under what would turn out to be the first part of their career, a Greatest Hits album was released with a new single to promote it which was a cover of the Bee Gees 1977 hit “How Deep Is Your Love”. Was it a lazy move to bow out with a cover? Well, there was a certain amount of symmetry to the release as their breakthrough hit in 1992 had been a cover – “It Only Takes A Minute” by Tavares. The That lads give a decent take on the track with Gary Barlow’s lead vocal a passable Gibb brother impression. Whilst he and Jason Orange have sensible, mid 90s haircuts, Howard Donald has what can only be described as dread bunches whilst Mark Owen has a hairstyle I might have had in junior school! After this single, the talk turned to solo careers with Gary Barlow everyone’s favourite to be the most successful. Little did we know. One person who did seem to be in the know was host Nicky Campbell who correctly predicted a “reunion tour in the next century” in his outro.

Oasis are straight in at No 1 with “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. Of course they are. What’s maybe surprising is that despite all the fuss around the band and Britpop, this was only their second chart topper at the time after “Some Might Say” the year before. Of course they’d had some near misses. I was convinced they would be the Christmas No 1 in 1994 with “Whatever” but they lost out to East 17. Then there was the Battle of Britpop when they were beaten into second place by Blur and of course, their last single “Wonderwall” had sold and sold and sold but not at the right time to displace Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”. This time, however, there was no stopping them even though it would only be for one week due to the hysteria surrounding Take That’s swansong.

Is there a more Britpop moment than Noel Gallagher and his Union Jack Epiphone Supernova guitar in this performance? What’s that? The Select magazine cover from April 1993 with Suede’s Brett Anderson set against a Union Jack backdrop? Or Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit on the cover of Vanity Fair in a bed with Union Jack pillow cases and bedspread? Nah, it’s Liam and that guitar for me. Perhaps an even bigger moment associated with this song in my opinion though is its use in the wonderful BBC drama Our Friends In The North. The final episode of the decades spanning show aired eleven days after this TOTP was broadcast. The final scene showed the character Geordie played by Daniel Craig striding across the Tyne Bridge (and out of our lives it felt like) after an emotional reunion with the show’s other three main protagonists. It was quite a moment for the watching millions at home. When “Don’t Look Back In Anger” came on to soundtrack this scene, it felt almost perfect. Timing wise, with the last episode being set in 1995 and the song at the top of the charts, it felt like the zeitgeist hadn’t been followed so much as tracked and hunted down. It really was sublime stuff.

Oasis themselves wouldn’t release anything after “Don’t Look Back In Anger” for nigh on 18 months as they retreated to record the difficult third album “Be Here Now” by which point Britpop was on its way out making this TOTP performance an even more defining moment in time. As Martin Tyler said of Liam and Noel’s beloved Man City winning the Premier League so dramatically in 2012, “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again so watch it, drink it in…”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Terrorvision	Perseverance	Good tune but no
2	Gusto	Disco’s Revenge	As if
3	Celine Dion	Falling Into You	Never
4	Gabrielle	Give Me A Little More Time	No
5	Sting	Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot	Nah
6	Tina Turner	Whatever You Want	Nope
7	David Bowie featuring Pet Shop Boys	Hallo Spaceboy	No but I did like it
8	Take That	How Deep Is Your Love	No but my wife had that Best Of album
9	Oasis	Don’t Look Back In Anger	YES!

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/m001zqts/top-of-the-pops-29021996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 24 FEB 1994

Posted on February 11, 2023 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

Holy grail, holy cow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9 – 26 – 24

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

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

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

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

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

*checks their discography*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 09 DEC 1993

Posted on December 7, 2022 by 80stastic

In the last post I made a claim that the No 1 was a bit of an anticlimax on the grounds that it followed the biggest boy band around who performed in the studio against a backdrop of 3D images (ooh!). By comparison, the No 1 was in its seventh week at the top and we were surely all getting a bit fed up of its video. It doesn’t seem right though does it? TOTP was always a chart based show highlighting which songs were the most popular in a chronological way via the chart countdown. Despite the use of such a linear tool, the implication is that the excitement heightens as we get to the nation’s favourite song. But what if said record doesn’t deserve such a reception? I realise this leaves me open to accusations of musical snobbery but if the No 1 is so heinous, what’s the plan? The question is especially relevant to this particular TOTP as, like a Tory minister doubling down on a failed economic policy, the ending of this show has two terrible songs.

Having said all of the above, the start of the show is pretty ropey as well. Bad Boys Inc were one of the many awful boy bands that appeared in the wake of Take That during the 90s. The whole thing reeked of cynicism with no more of a bigger example than this slushy ballad aimed at the Christmas market. After, two uptempo pop singles had made them bona fide chart stars (albeit in quite a minor way), they took that well worn path of releasing a slowie as their third single to, you know, showcase their diversity. The fact that it was shoved out into the marketplace as Christmas approached was surely just coincidence no? “Walking On Air” (note the similarity of title to established festive tune “Walking In The Air” from The Snowman) was ghastly whilst the performance here (I can’t find it in YouTube as nobody seems interested in recording it for posterity) is just as dire. The lead singer out front forever putting his hand to his heart to show his sincerity backed by three twirling, sliding goons all performing on a bed of dry ice. What a shower!

Disregarding the Bee Gees, I haven’t heard such high pitched vocals since Modern Romance did their ballad “Walking In The Rain” a decade earlier. What is it with ballads and the word ‘walking’? “Walking In Air”, “Walking In The Rain”, “Walking In Memphis” and of course who could forget George Michael’s ‘guilty feet’ in “Careless Whisper”. The record buying public showed their lack of affection for Bad Boys Inc with their own feet by walking past their local record shop and therefore not buying their single. It peaked at No 24.

Now here’s a very old track (even in 1993) which was suddenly and maybe surprisingly a very big hit. Sudden because it’s gone straight into the chart at No 5 and surprising because when it was first released in 1981 it did nothing at all sales wise. There is a reason for its explosion of popularity though and as usual it’s to do with record company promotional activities. “Controversy” was the title track from Prince’s fourth studio album and by 1993 he’d added another ten to that number so why was it plucked for single release at this point in his career? To advertise a Best Of album of course. “The Hits 1”, “The Hits 2” and “The Hits / The B sides” was a triple headed beast of a release documenting The Purple One’s best/most well known/biggest (delete as applicable) songs so far. Previous single “Peach” was released in the October to promote the set but that was a brand new composition I think. To give the Best Ofs an extra push for Christmas, another single was required and “Controversy” was selected for the job. Did I know this track? Don’t think I did. I only cottoned onto Prince from about 1983 when conversely “1999” was in the charts the first time around. Did I like it? Not that much. Was I surprised that it was such a big hit? Yes I was. As with “Peach” though, the two CD singles contained hits that weren’t included on the Hits albums plus there was a William Orbit remix of “The Future” so maybe that was it?

We’re back to this trend of the TOTP hosts telling us that an artist should have been on the show but can’t be because they’re ill/indisposed etc. I asked the other week why they bothered with this practice as they could have just shown the video without saying anything and we wouldn’t have known any better. This week, they’ve doubled down like…ah I’ve been here before haven’t I? They have made a complete spectacle of this issue though with Gabrielle. According to presenter Mark Franklin she can’t perform in the studio tonight and the reason is…Well, let’s ask Gabrielle herself because she’s in the actual studio! What?! Mark asks her if she’s OK and Gabrielle days “Not at the moment because I’ve got flu”. Got flu?! Got flu?! Why aren’t you in bed Gabrielle?! This is madness! Look, when I’ve had flu I’ve had to crawl to the bathroom if I needed the loo on my hands and knees. The idea that I could have got myself into a TV studio and been interviewed in front of a TV audience of millions is just unconscionable. I don’t wish to doubt her but really?!

Anyway, enough of the health issues, what about the music? Well, I’m guessing that Gabrielle’s record label were ever so slightly uncomfortable at this point. After the euphoria of a No 1 single with her debut single “Dreams”, might they have been expecting a bigger follow up hit than the No 9 that the unfortunately entitled “Going Nowhere” supplied? If so, then a lot must have been riding on “I Wish”. Sadly, it wasn’t really up to the task being a fairly average piece of soul/pop and it peaked at No 26. Maybe it just got lost in the Christmas rush. Gabrielle would recover to bag a further eight Top 10 hits including No 1 “Rise” in 2000. Seems like Gabrielle’s wish came true.

The Bee Gees are up to No 6 in an unexpected tilt at the Christmas No 1 spot with “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. To mark the event we get a live by satellite performance from New York. As with the vast majority of these satellite specials, it’s a total let down. Maybe I’m viewing them through 2022 eyes and in 1993 it may have been a major event but I can’t help but think it’s totally lame. A completely uneventful run through of the song performed underneath Brooklyn Bridge is interlaced with some totally non related shots of ice skating at the Rockefeller Center. And that’s it. Yes, it’s a cinematic backdrop I guess with the Statue of Liberty visible in the background and a helicopter comes into view at one point but I was more fascinated by who the fourth Bee Gee was up there with Barry, Maurice and Robin.

There’s an easy line to be written here about the next artist and the title of her latest single but I’m not that obvious. All I’ll say is that 1993 is surely a year that Dina Carroll would never forget. Five hit singles and an album that was the highest selling debut by a British female artist in UK chart history at the time? It was the stuff of dreams. The last of those five hits was “The Perfect Year” which was from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boulevard. It seemed a bit of an anomaly to me at the time. Firstly, it wasn’t on the aforementioned album (“So Close”) which confused and upset a few punters in the Our Price store I was working in and wouldn’t appear on an album until Dina’s sophomore effort “Only Human” appeared a whole three years later.

Secondly, the schedule for its release had clearly been set to cash in on the Christmas holidays market with the lyrics even referencing New Year’s Eve but it was hampered by the extended success of previous single “Don’t Be A Stranger”. So well received had it been that it was still in the Top 10 and outsold “The Perfect Year” on the latter’s first week of release. Clearly, record label A&M would not have wanted her previous hit to be splitting sales of her new one but because of the latter’s Christmas theme, they couldn’t keep it back any later. Dina having two simultaneous hits added to the customer confusion in store:

Customer: Do you have the Dina Carroll single?

Me: Which one? There’s two

Customer: The one that’s in the charts

Me: They both are

Customer: The one that’s a big ballad

Me: They both are

Customer: Well, I’ll get her album then I’m covered

Me: Her album doesn’t have both singles on it

Customer: Are you having a laugh?

Me: Not really, no

Dina’s performance here is very professional but then she’d had plenty of practice at being on TOTP that year. It felt like she was on the show every other week. Her black and white outfit is very effective against the Wintery backdrop though those impractical, oversized sleeves must have been a nightmare at the dinner table. Also, why did they feel the need to insert some clips (presumably) from the video while Dina was singing? They looked so incongruous. Children running across a field and then staring at the camera motionless – why? Then there’s the old fella. The expression he had on his face reminded me of something and it’s this. My sadly departed mother-in-law used to work as a receptionist in a doctor’s surgery and would sometimes bring home freebies from the pharmaceutical companies like mugs. She had one that was just an old man grinning on it. The first time I saw it I couldn’t understand why anyone would have that image on a mug and then I turned it around and saw the drug it was advertising – it was a brand of laxative. Aaah…

“The Perfect Year” had to settle for a chart peak of No 5, two places lower than “Don’t Be A Stranger”.

Four Breakers now starting with UB40 whose single “Bring Me Your Cup” I don’t recall at all. It was the third track lifted from their “Promises And Lies” album and listening to it now, it’s actually a lot better than I was expecting. It starts out very understated but forms an unexpected ear worm very quickly with its lilting rhythm allied to Ali Campbell’s soothing vocals. Should probably have been a bigger hit than No 24 but then the album had been out for over four months by then so maybe it was to be expected. Not a bad effort though.

In amongst the endless diet of Eurodance bollocks that 1993 served up there were the occasional morsels of unexpected taste. Songs that would appear for no apparent reason and then the artist would pretty much disappear again. Off the top of my head I’m thinking Spin Doctors, The Frank and Walters and this lot – Blind Melon. These US psychedelic rockers reminded me of fellow countrymen Jellyfish who similarly are known in this country for one hit and not much else despite there being so much more to them. Blind Melon’s contribution to the story of 1993 was “No Rain”, a hippy, trippy, winsome tune with some Beatles influences thrown in for good measure. It sounded like an antidote to some of the god awfulness populating the charts and yet again a complete outlier.

Helping to promote the song was the video featuring the ‘bee girl’, a tap dancer in a bee costume and large glasses who gets laughed off stage and then spends the rest of the film trying to dance for anyone who will let her. She eventually finds an unlikely outlet for her routine – a field of similarly dressed people all dancing together. The girl playing the character would become a bit of a star, hobnobbing with the likes of Madonna at the MTV awards before having a career as an actress appearing in two episodes of US medical drama ER. Blind Melon themselves would have two further very minor UK chart hits before disbanding in 1999. They have reformed a couple of times since despite the drugs overdose death of vocalist Shannon Hoon.

Name a Pet Shop Boys single released in 1993? “Go West” right? Has to be. No? “Can You Forgive Her” then? Still not the one you’re thinking of? “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing” – well, no I don’t habitually spend hours trying to remember the titles of Pet Shop Boys singles but…oh, of course! That was the third track released from their “Very” album and in many ways is the quintessential PSB song. Eccentric title? Check! Swirly synth back beat? Check! Gloriously catchy, camp melody? Check! Typically deadpan vocals from Neil Tennant? Check! This was what they did best. Sadly, I think it got caught up in the Christmas rush and didn’t even make the Top 10, peaking at No 13.

The kaleidoscopic video features Chris and Neil in daft wigs that make the former look like Mike Flowers of Mike Flowers Pops (two years before anybody knew who he was) and the latter like Louis Balfour, host of The Fast Show’s Jazz Club. Nice!

The final Breaker comes from “the most successful rap group of 1993” according to host Mark Franklin. Were Cypress Hill that big?

*checks their bio*

Seems they were. The band have sold 20 million albums worldwide and in 1993 their second album “Black Sunday” went straight into the US charts at No 1 selling 261,000 copies in its first week. Their eponymous debut album was also still on the charts at the same time and they became the first hip hop artist to have two albums in the Top 10 simultaneously.

From “Black Sunday” came this third single “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That”. I’d liked the House Of Pain sounding “Insane In The Brain” (who couldn’t?) but by this one I’d probably lost interest. Maybe I had a beef with them as the album was one of those that always needed a temporary inlay card to display it otherwise the real CD cover would get nicked especially as the booklet contained 19 facts about the history of hemp and the positive attributes of cannabis. The middle class, white kids in Altrincham where I was working loved all of that stuff and especially those T-shirts and posters with the image of an alien on them with a massive reefer blazing up bearing the legend ‘Take me to your dealer’. Laughed their arses off at that every time.

“I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” peaked at No 15.

We have arrived at the first of those two terrible songs that end the show. By 1993, Cliff Richard was absolutely synonymous with Christmas. Not only had he claimed the festive No 1 twice since 1988 (thrice if you count his contribution to Band Aid II) but he seemed to have a tilt at it every year. “We Should Be Together” was his offering in 1991 peaking at No 10 and “I Still Believe In You” was strategically released in late November the following year to try and capture those Christmas sales making it to No 7. Come 1993 and Cliff was chancing his arm once more with “Healing Love”. Not a specifically Christmas themed song for once, it was actually the last of five singles released from his “The Album”…erm…album. It was co-written by Nik Kershaw who knows his way around a decent pop tune but this definitely wasn’t one of them. It’s not just that it’s a sluggish, turgid, completely unexceptional tune but the lyrics are dreadful. Really hackneyed stuff about losing the battle but winning the war and how about this for a line a seven year old could have written…

“Now I can see that you’re feeling sad…”

Come on! For this performance, Cliff has turned up in a jacket and tie and looks like he’s got his schedule wrong and was expecting to be on Wogan and not TOTP. As ever, he’s brought with him that guy from the aforementioned Modern Romance as one of his backing singers who’s been with him since “Mistletoe And Wine”.

“Healing Love” never hit a sniff at topping the charts peaking at No 19 but Cliff never really gave up on his quest for another Christmas No 1. The following year, he teamed up with his old pal Phil Everly for a double A-side of “All I Have To Do Is Dream” and a remix of his old hit “Miss You Nights” but it topped out at No 14. He couldn’t have come any closer in 1999 with the divisive “The Millennium Prayer” which actually went to No 1 and was still top of the pile with just one week to go before being toppled by Westlife. Undeterred, he went again in 2003 (“Santa’s List” – No 5) and 2006 (“21st Century Christmas” – No 2) and this year he has released a Christmas album. Cliff was 82 in October. You have to admire his longevity if not his music.

Just…just…f*****g WHY?! What were people thinking?! Oh, yeah. Of course. There was no thinking happening at all. A complete lack of brain activity. How else can you explain this total failure of any sense of taste on such a widespread scale? This monumental aberration. Nothing about “Mr Blobby” by Mr Blobby deserved anything but our complete contempt. So why was it f*****g No 1? Were 5 year olds (or their parents) buying it? When The Teletubbies became a phenomenon a few years later with the pre school population and released a record, I could just about understand parents doing just that but Mr Blobby wasn’t quite the same type of character. His beginnings weren’t on children’s TV but an early evening light entertainment show presumably not being watched by toddlers so who was his single appealing to? It certainly wasn’t funny and neither was its accompanying video which featured a number of celebrity cameos. Obviously, Edmonds was there being responsible for the whole debacle but there’s also a very young looking Jeremy Clarkson as Mr Blobby’s limo driver, Carole Vorderman, Wayne Sleep and bizarrely ex-footballer and pundit Garth Crooks. Mr Blobby is seen in various scenes where he inevitably falls over destroying everything in his path which includes parodies of four well known recent pop promos – “Addicted To Love” by Robert Palmer, “Rhythm Is A Dancer” by Snap!, “I Can’t Dance” by Genesis and “Stay” by Shakespear’s Sister. The last one particularly grinds my gears for the pure reason that it uses actual footage of the original in the parody – why? We all knew which video it was lampooning when the camera switched to the lookalike Marcella Detroit so why try and install some credibility by using images of the real one? I don’t know why this especially offends me but it does. Anyway, this madness will all be over soon as Take That will be top of the charts next week and surely also the Christmas No 1 won’t it? Won’t it?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bad Boys Inc	Walking On Air	Of course not
2	Prince	Controversy	No
3	Gabrielle	I Wish	Nope
4	Bee Gees	For Whom The Bell Tolls	I did not
5	Dina Carroll	The Perfect Year	Nah
6	UB40	Bring Me Your Cup	Negative
7	Blind Melon	No Rain	No but maybe should have
8	Pet Shop Boys	I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing	No but I assume it’s on their Pop Art Best Of which I have
9	Cypress Hill	I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That	It’s another no
10	Cliff Richard	Healing Love	Never happening
11	Mr Blobby	Mr Blobby	What do you think?

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/m001frnn/top-of-the-pops-09121993

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.

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 08 JUL 1993

Posted on September 15, 2022 by 80stastic

On the day this TOTP aired, and presumably straight after it finished, Phil Mitchell got married for the first time in Eastenders. His wife was a Romanian refugee called Nadia with the object of the nuptials being to get her a visa so she could stay in the UK. As soon as she was married, she went off with her boyfriend. Fast forward 29 years and Phil is about to get married for the fifth time to Kat Slater but as with his first wedding, it doesn’t go to plan. I wonder how many of the songs on tonight’s TOTP could apply to Phil’s love life?

A perfect start with “What Is Love” by Haddaway! Does Phil know? I doubt it. How about Haddaway? Did he have any inkling? He probably didn’t care as he was up to No 2 in the charts and onto his third TOTP appearance. Piece of piss this pop star lark he probably thought after ditching his career in the navy (presumably he said “sod this for a game of sailors”). So easy did he find bagging a hit that he did it again…and again…and again. His debut album would give him three further Top 10 hits though I couldn’t have named any without checking his discography. So effortless was Haddaway’s rise to fame that he didn’t even bother to name his album properly instead just calling it “The Album”. A bit like Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead calling his dog ‘dog’ then. I once found myself in Xanadu nightclub in Rochdale where I was working and being surrounded by punters dancing to Haddaway was a bit like being on the set of The Walking Dead in retrospect.

Phil Mitchell must have proclaimed “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” to one of his many wives down the years in that rasping voice of his. Taylor Dayne wasn’t one of them though as she’s never married Wikipedia tells me though she does look a little bit like the character Chrissie Watts (played by Tracy-Ann Oberman) who was married to Dirty Den and indeed murdered him. Hmm. I seem to have gone down a rather bleak rabbit hole there. I’m sure Taylor, on the other hand, is as sweet as popcorn….

Yes, after a career that took in acing, Broadway and pop stardom, the younger generation will know Taylor as Popcorn from The Masked Singer. Back in 1993 though she was promoting her “Soul Dancing” album via her cover of Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe” though it failed to cut through like her “Tell It To My Heart” debut that went double platinum in the States. She did however continue to have hits on the US Dance chart into the new millennium.

“Will You Be There?” Phil Mitchell might have been thinking to himself this week as he stood in church waiting for a very late Kat Slater to arrive. Michael Jackson must have been asking himself “Will you be a hit?” seeing as this was the eighth single to be taken from his 1991 (yes that’s 1991!) album “Dangerous”. He needn’t have worried as it made No 9 making Jackson the first artist to have an album generate eight consecutive Top 20 hits (it would have been eight consecutive Top 10 hits but for “Jam” peaking at No 13).

I thought I didn’t know how this one went but on hearing it back, it does sound familiar. It’s got a very gospel feel to it while the melody puts me in mind of “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers. However, it was another song that sounded similar which caused Jacko some legal problems when Italian songwriter Albano Carrisi launched a plagiarism suit claiming “Will You Be There” copied his composition “The Swans Of Balaka”. The claim was ultimately rejected.

Unbelievably, a ninth single – the prophetically entitled “Gone Too Soon” – was released from “Dangerous” nearly two years to the day since the album came out. That was a step too far though and it struggled to a peak of No 33 in the UK.

And the 1993 disco revival is still going strong. After Taylor Dayne covering Barry White earlier comes Kim Wilde who has recorded a cover of Yvonne Elliman’s 1978 hit “If I Can’t Have You”. Why? Well, it’s to promote her Best Of album “The Singles Collection 1981-93”. Kim, of course, had history when it came to cover versions to help restore former glories. In 1986, she did a version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by The Supremes to revive a career that was stalling. That proved to be a master stroke as it went to No 1 in the US and No 2 over here. “If I Can’t Have You” wasn’t quite the same success though it did supply her biggest hit since “Four Letter Word” in 1988 by peaking at No 12. It would also be her last ever UK Top 40 hit which presumably means this is also Kim’s final ever TOTP appearance (sob!). That Best Of album performed pretty well though going gold in the UK and just missing the Top 10.

What? An Eastenders connection? Oh well, didn’t Alfie Moon say to Kat the other night something to the effect of “If I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody baby”.

It’s Chaka Demus & Pliers now for what I think is the third time in the show with “Tease Me”. I think I’ve had enough of this one now Mr. TOTP producer! In his intro, host Mark Franklin states that 50% of this week’s Top 10 are live in the TOTP studio and I can’t help thinking that maybe CD & P were fitted into the running order just so that the show could make that claim. In fairness though, they had just moved up a place to a peak of No 3 so no doubt that’s how their inclusion would have been justified. After all, “Tease Me” was a hit all over the world but nowhere bigger than in the UK where it sold 400,000 copies.

I’m struggling to get a Phil Mitchell reference in for this one although surely he must have used a pair of pliers during a car repair down The Arches at some point down the years?

I’m giving myself a break from Eastenders references for the Breakers mainly because none of them lend themselves to the soap or Phil Mitchell at all. I mean, where’s the connection with U.S.U.R.A. and “Sweat”? These were the people who brought us “Open Your Mind” on the achingly trendy Deconstruction label and this was the follow up. Not being a dancehead, this did nothing for me (neither did its predecessor) though I understand it was a big hit in the clubs. “Sweat” peaked at No 29.

Now a guy who was a breakthrough success in 1991 but whom we hadn’t heard from since. Back in those 1991 posts, I admitted to an irrational hatred of Kenny Thomas back in the day, an opinion I had to modify on account of Kenny being a stand up, decent guy according to all sources.

My view of his music remained the same though – I wasn’t a fan and so I’m pretty sure that the thought of a second album of songs from him wouldn’t have had me counting down the days until its release date. “Wait For Me” was that album and its lead single was “Stay”. As Mark Franklin says in his intro, it was a cover though he doesn’t advise us who did the original so I did the detective work and tracked it down. I’m still none the wiser though even with the answer in front of me. It was the title track of a 1986 album by US R&B group The Controllers but only made No 77 in the UK charts. I have no idea about any of the content of the previous sentence.

“Stay” was all about the number two. It peaked at No 22 for two weeks.

AC/DC have come up many a time during these TOTP repeats and I’ve never really known what to say about them as I just don’t really get them at all. The throaty vocals of Brian Johnson, the misogynistic undertones of the lyrics and Angus Young’s schoolboy uniform stage outfits; none of it appealed to me. And yet there are people who I know and like who swear by the band.

Anyway, the end is nigh for AC/DC/TOTP as “Big Gun” is their penultimate UK Top 40 hit. Taken from the soundtrack to Last Action Hero, it made No 23. I’ve never seen the film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger but from reading the plot on Wikipedia it sounds like a stinker. I can appreciate there was an attempt to do something different with the action genre but it sounds like one of those movies where the kids are smarter than the adults which I’m not a fan of. The soundtrack is a who’s who of hard rock featuring Anthrax, Aerosmith and Alice In Chains alongside AC/DC and that’s just the ‘A’s.

Is this the first time we’ve seen The Levellers on TOTP? Well, yes and no. It is the first time we’ve seen them in these BBC4 repeats but not the first time that they appeared on the show. That was on 21st May 1992 when they appeared live by satellite from Paris performing “15 Years” but we didn’t get to see that repeat due to it being presented by Adrian Rose who refused to give permission for shows he featured in being re-broadcast. The band wouldn’t appear in the TOTP studio until 1995 when they performed “Hope Street”.

Back in 1993 though the band had just released their third and eponymous studio album and although they have retrospectively voiced their dislike of it, commercially it was their then best performing album peaking at No 2. In fact, The Levellers were on their way to the apex of their popularity which was displayed in a very visual way when they headlined Glastonbury in 1994 in front of 300,000 people.

The lead single from “The Levellers” album was “Belaruse” and it would start a bizarre run of chart placings which would see four of their next six single releases peak at No 12. Listening to it now, the hard drumming intro really reminds me of “Funeral Pyre” by The Jam.

The first of three songs that have been on the show before now starting with M People and “One Night In Heaven”. By the way, I can’t find the clips from this particular show so have had to use previous performance’s instead. Heather Small might be glad I have as there seems to be a curious tinny effect on her vocals as if the microphone isn’t working properly. She seems slightly uncomfortable up there as if she’s aware there’s a problem but it’s too late to do anything about it so she’s just going with it. Maybe it’s just because I’m playing it back through my phone.

“One Night In Heaven” peaked at No 6.

Stand aside Kim Wilde, here’s a true disco legend. Yes, you did a nice job with your cover of “If I Can’t Have You” but this is the Queen of Disco herself, Gloria Gaynor.

Look, I don’t need to tell you about “I Will Survive” though what I will say is that it’s been covered over a hundred times but maybe one of the more obscure versions is this from the Puppini Sisters who I caught live in a tiny venue in Hull that was completely oversold to the point that it really didn’t feel safe so I left early. Yes, I did survive.

Oh and one final Phil Mitchell/Eastenders reference – Phil has of course survived many a drama on the soap none more so than in the 2001 ‘Who Shot Phil?’ storyline when he survived being gunned down by ex-girlfriend Lisa.

It’s a final week at the top for Gabrielle with “Dreams”. Little did we all know that it would take seven years for her to get back to the top of the heap when her Bob Dylan sampling hit “Rise” made it to No 1 in early 2000. Not that there weren’t any hits in between of course. She clocked up nine Top 40 hits in the intervening years including five Top Tenners. The hits didn’t stop with “Rise” either with a further three Top 10 entries occurring in the subsequent 12 months. That’s sixteen hit singles in total plus seven charting albums (including a No 1). Maybe Gabrielle doesn’t get the credit she deserves?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	What Is Love	Hadaway and shite!
2	Taylor Dayne	Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love	No
3	Michael Jackson	Will You Be There?	No I won’t be and indeed wasn’t
4	Kim Wilde	If I Can’t Have You	Nope
5	Chaka Demus & Pliers	Tease Me	Never happening
6	U.S.U.R.A.	Sweat	Negative
7	Kenny Thomas	Stay	As if
8	AC/DC	Big Gun	Big log more like – no
9	The Levellers	Belaruse	Nah
10	M People	One Night In Heaven	No but my wife had the album
11	Gloria Gaynor	I Will Survive (Phil Kelsey remix)	I did not
12	Gabrielle	Dreams	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/m001btp2/top-of-the-pops-08071993

TOTP 01 JUL 1993

Posted on September 13, 2022 by 80stastic

I seem to have spent a lot of time recently talking about 90s American sitcoms. There was Cheers and its memorable theme tune one week and then Blossom the next thanks to tonight’s opening act. There’s a connection to yet another one on this show as well but we’ll come to that in due course. For now, it’s that Blossom star Joey Lawrence who is in the studio to get teenage girls’ hearts racing as he performs “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix”. I suppose there was a tradition of young male US teen idols making a splash in the UK that proceeded Joey. I’m thinking David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson of course…OK, I’m not making a case that Lawrence had anywhere near the success of those guys but maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised that he did translate over here. Good looking lad, de jour pop tune, hit TV show to his name. Look if Leif Garrett and Glenn Medeiros could have huge hits over here why not Joey Lawrence?

Looking through his film and TV credits, he seems to have played characters called Joe or Joey six times. Talk about being typecast. Still, he sells his song well enough here though his sleeveless leather jacket (very “Bad Boys” era Wham!) seems a bit dated and I’d have to say that Blossom herself had the better dance moves…

It’s ~~Debbie~~ Deborah Harry’s birthday so host Tony Dortie tells us. She was 48 then which makes her 77 now! I suddenly feel older than usual and I feel ancient most of the time anyway. We get her video for “I Can See Clearly” tonight after that nonsense with the magician in the studio the other week which sees her cavorting around in a field at night during a storm complete with lightning strikes. Not sure how that would help her see clearly unless the video director was using the illumination from the lightning as a metaphor? As for that song title, do you think she deliberately left the word ‘now’ off despite the chorus including it just so people wouldn’t think she’d done a Johnny Nash cover?

“I Can See Clearly” peaked at No 23 and remains her last UK solo hit.

Well, what a disappointment! After the sparkling and sprightly tune that was “Regret”, New Order followed it up with the completely dreary “Ruined In A Day”. The intro promises so much more but then it just flatlines as soon as Bernard’s vocals come in. Sometimes Sumner’s lo-fi singing is the perfect foil for the track but here it’s just a drone. Surely there must have been better options on their “Republic” album than this for a single? Yes, yes there was as the third single from it, “World (The Price Of Love)”, was a much better choice which makes you wonder why they didn’t just go with that instead seeing as they released it anyway.

“Ruined In A Day” peaked at No 22.

The first of two women in very large hats on the show tonight next as we get a 90s take on a70s disco classic. I think she’s called Yvonne Shelton and the guys behind her are Barry Jamieson and Jon Sutton. Together they were Evolution and, mixing in the same circles as A Guy Called Gerald and 808 State, they would go on to be huge names in the world of dance music, known for creativity and innovation working with the likes of UNKLE, Sasha and Jon Digweed. There doesn’t seem to be anything very innovative about adding some Italian House piano to Chic’s “Everybody Dance” to me though. Hadn’t we seen this sort of trick dozens of times before already in the dance era? We all have to start somewhere I suppose. Oh and Yvonne? Worzel Gummidge says he wants his hat back.

Four Breakers again this week (seriously, 1993 TOTP – give me a break won’t you!) and we start with The Smashing Pumpkins and “Cherub Rock”. To say I spent almost the entire 90s working in record shops, I seem to have ignored many a band who others swear by. These Chicago indie rockers are a case in point. Even today, I probably only know about three Smashing Pumpkins songs most notably “Tonight, Tonight” their highest charting UK single. This track passed me by completely though I do recognise the cover of the album it came from (“Siamese Dream”) so I must have sold a few copies.

Weren’t they a bit like a US version of The The (who I do like)? Not in musical style so much as in the structure of the band which is basically Billy Corgan as The The is essentially Matt Johnson? Apologies if I’m outraging any Pumpkins fans here but in my defence, I don’t really know what I’m talking about!

Billy Idol on the other hand I do know something of though not so much this period of his career. The Billy Idol I knew about was the 1984-85 vintage when the UK finally welcomed his style of rock with reactivated singles “White Wedding” and “Rebel Yell” finally becoming Top 10 hits alongside his more toned down side as shown on “Eyes Without A Face”. I kept tabs on him through 1986’s “Whiplash Smile” album and again with more re-released hits in the late 80s like “Mony Mony” and “Hot In The City” to promote his “Vital Idol” Best Of.

As the 90s dawned though, I lost sight of him. “Charmed Life” passed me by and then came 1993’s “Cyberpunk”. A concept album no less (no really) which was inspired by Billy’s desire to embrace emerging technology and the digital world in order to create music. Idol combined this with his interest in the sci-fi sub genre of cyberpunk following a comment by a journalist about an electronic muscle stimulator on his leg which was part of his recovery process after a motorcycle accident. The album included spoken word narratives between tracks and was created in Idol’s home studio on his Mackintosh computer.

Reaction to the album amongst critics was overwhelmingly negative but I wonder if there’s some snobbery at play. David Bowie’s 1999 interview with Jeremy Paxman about the role the internet would play in our future lives has seen him lauded as a visionary retrospectively. Rightly so of course.

However, shouldn’t Billy be afforded a bit more credibility for his own observations six years prior to Bowie’s?

“Shock To The System” was the album’s lead single written about the Los Angeles riots of 1992 with a video that seemed to be a mash up of Judge Dredd meets Robocop. Despite the kudos I’ve given Billy above, it’s a poor song which explains its peak at No 30 in the UK charts.

After Brian May and Cozy Powell stank the studio out last week, here’s another rock royalty amalgamation – Whitesnake’s David Coverdale and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page together on a single called “Take Me For A Little While”. I called Brian and Cozy hoary old rockers in the last post but Tony Dortie refers to David and Jimmy as “two dinosaurs of rock” in his intro. I’m not sure which is the bigger insult.

As with The Smashing Pumpkins earlier, I remember selling the “Coverdale-Page” album due to its plain but distinctive cover and we sold a lot of it quickly as all the rock fans of Rochdale where I was working made a trip to their local Our Price to pick up a copy of this imagination pricking collaboration. I don’t remember it being played in the shop though and therefore I don’t know this track at all. I never got the boat going to Led Zeppelin island and my knowledge of Whitesnake is limited so I’m not the best judge of its merits but I don’t think I’ll be playing it again. I’d rather have Robert Plant and his “29 Palms” I think.

Taylor Dayne? What “Tell It To My Heart” Taylor Dayne? Her? In 1993? Wow! I had totally forgotten this! Well, in the intervening eight years since her last UK hit, Taylor had scored a US No 1 record with “Love Will Lead You Back” which stiffed over here so when she presented Arista label president Clive David with her third album, he suggested she cover the old Barry White hit “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe” to boost its chances. Whereas Debbie Harry earlier had knocked off the word ‘now’ from her “I Can See Clearly” single to ensure it wasn’t confused with the Johnny Nash song, Taylor removed the word ‘Babe’ from her song even though it was actually a cover version. Hardly the best way to “Prove Your Love” of the original (see what I did there?).

Anyway, Taylor’s version of “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” was produced by C+C Music Factory’s Clivillés and Cole and was a US dance chart No 1 and made a respectable No 14 over here.

Time for that second big hatted lady on the show now and she’s singing a song that will always transport me straight back to 1993 – “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes. It’s one of those records that would become more well known than the band who made it (see also “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin and “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” by Cutting Crew). It’s also a song that, like it’s chart peer “Two Princes” by Spin Doctors, very much seems to divide opinion. Some seem to love it whilst others can’t abide it. I’m a bit more in the middle – I think it’s a good song but it probably suffered from bring overplayed on the radio. So much airplay did it receive that punters were asking for it before it had entered the Top 40. I recall we ordered a few copies in to see how it went (we didn’t normally buy in non chart singles) and they did indeed go straight away. The buyers at Head Office must have got wind and scaled out loads of it across the chain and…hey presto! With copies actually available in the shops, a huge hit ensued. It went to No 1 all over Europe (though No 2 in the UK) and would make the band almost perfect one hit wonders – one huge hit then nothing followed by the band splitting up. I say ‘almost’ as there was a follow up single called “Spaceman” but it tanked although their album “Bigger, Better, Faster, More!” did well going to No 4 in the UK.

Eighteen months after 4 Non Blondes had been and gone I was helping to shut down the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester as the company had sold the unit. I was clearing out the manager’s office and when moving a filing cabinet, found a CD of “Bigger, Better, Faster, More!” behind it. I took it home as I didn’t know what else to do with it (all the shop’s other stock had already been disposed of) but I’ve no idea where it is now.

Oh and that connection to another US sitcom that I mentioned earlier? Well, the woman in the big hat belting out “What’s Up?” is Linda Perry who was married to Sara Gilbert for five years and who is Sara Gilbert? She’s the actress who played Darlene Conner in Roseanne.

Tony Dortie had a bit of a thing for Jade didn’t he? “Now it’s time for me to break out into a hot sweat” he brazenly tells us as he introduces their live by satellite performance from Los Angeles. “I Wanna Love You” was actually the trio’s debut single in the US but which was released in the UK off the back of the success of “Don’t Walk Away”. Maybe it’s just the similarity of song title but it sounds very much like Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up” to me. It’s almost as if “I Wanna Love You” is the clean version of that 1991 hit with the word ‘sex’ being replaced by the more wholesome ‘love’. At least there’s some extra content to this satellite performance with some pre-recorded shots of the group arriving at a venue before we get the standard fare of the track being sung in some soulless setting.

“I Wanna Love You” peaked at No 13 in the UK.

Next the moment that Dortie has been bigging up all show – Take That are in the studio! “Pray” was the first of their twelve (twelve!) No 1 singles of which eight came within the group’s first incarnation up to 1996. Those eight chart toppers were almost consecutive with only “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” breaking the sequence halfway through when it peaked at No 3. They’re impressive figures whatever your opinion of Take That. I did have an opinion though and it was that “Pray” was really lame and throwaway. Yes, it has that gospel feel chorus (pray geddit?) but compared to their high octane rendering of “Could It Be Magic” for example, it seemed so pedestrian.

As for their performance here, well it didn’t need to be anything special to sell the record and it wasn’t. An obvious gospel choir in the background and some twisty – turning dancing from the lads whilst Gary Barlow (now minus his peroxide blonde hair – a true non-blonde as it were) does the actual singing. It was all very underwhelming but then I guess I wasn’t the group’s target audience to be fair.

Gabrielle gets a second week at No 1 with “Dreams” and in 2023 she’s touring to commemorate its 30 years anniversary! I feel very old for the second time in this post. She’s even coming to my current home of Hull. Will I be going to see her? Dream on.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Joey Lawrence	Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix	Never happening
2	Deborah Harry	I Can See Clearly	No it was poor fare
3	New Order	Ruined In A Day	See 2 above
4	Evolution	Everybody Dance	No
5	The Smashing Pumpkins	Cherub Rock	Nah
6	Billy Idol	Shock To The System	Nope
7	David Coverdale & Jimmy Page	Take Me For A Little While	I did not
8	Taylor Dayne	Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love	Negative
9	4 Non Blondes	What’s Up?	No but I had that found CD of the album for a while
10	Jade	I Wanna Love You	It’s a no
11	Take That	Pray	Of course not
12	Gabrielle	Dreams	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/m001btp0/top-of-the-pops-01071993

TOTP 24 JUN 1993

Posted on September 12, 2022 by 80stastic

1993 is not one of my favourite years for music. That’s based on my memory and what I’ve seen on these TOTP repeats from this year so far but I would have to say that the singles chart was pretty eclectic. I’ve moaned and moaned about the proliferation of Eurodance tunes on the show but a glance at the running order for this episode paints a different picture. Yes, there are what you would term dance acts but there’s also some old timers like Rod Stewart and Brian May plus Gloria Gaynor makes her bow in the 1993 disco revival. There’s a boy band (sort of) plus there’s even some actual decent music courtesy of one of Scotland’s finest bands. Oh and Joey Lawrence is on as well. There has to be some utter tripe on or how would we know it’s still 1993?

We start with one of those dance acts but it’s a homegrown one as opposed to being imported from Europe. For me, this was the moment when M People became a proper big deal. Yes, they’d already cracked the Top 10 with a remix of “How Can I Love You More” earlier in the year but that track had topped and tailed debut album “Northern Soul” by being the first and last single released from it. What we had now was new material from a traditionally difficult second album. How would the public receive it? As it happened, they made “One Night In Heaven” the band’s biggest hit to date by sending it to No 6 in the charts giving them a second consecutive major smash and thereby continuing a run of eight singles that would all make the Top 10. It was official – M People would be sticking around for a while.

That second album was of course “Elegant Slumming” that would go triple platinum in the UK and produce another three hit singles after “One Night In Heaven”. It was also, memorably, the winner of the Mercury Music Prize in 1994. Mike Pickering had hit upon a successful formula of dance music which had enough beats to satisfy the bpm addicts and enough melody to appeal to the less hardcore dance heads. As an aside, I had a lecturer when I was a Polytechnic student called Mike Pickering but we all called him Mick Prick. No idea why. He seemed like a decent sort.

Before the next act, we have to address host Mark Franklin’s hair. What’s he done to it? Where’s his usual bouncy quiff gone? He’s plastered it all down to his head! I guess it does look very 1993 or is it jazz club?

Somebody else having hair issues is the next artist, the aforementioned Rod Stewart. I’m sure you’ve all seen this as it’s been doing the rounds but just in case…

Fuck sake 😂 https://t.co/53wGzX0wSr
— Sir Rod Stewart (@rodstewart) August 31, 2022

Heh. Anyway, Rod was back in the charts with a cover of Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately”. He’d recorded it for his 1991 “Vagabond Heart” album but this live version was taken from his “Unplugged…And Seated” album recorded as part of the MTV Unplugged series. That format was already well established in music fans’ minds with artists such as Paul McCartney, Mariah Carey and Eric Clapton having released albums under its banner recently. Even so, I was still slightly surprised at the success of Rod’s MTV album which went to No 2 and was platinum selling. As for his performance of “Have I Told You Lately” here, it’s all a bit much with Rod over emoting all over the place and then there’s that weird bit in the middle where a woman in the audience gives him a bunch of flowers and then rushes off past the camera and seemingly out of the venue. What was that all about? Now if she’d have handed him a hairbrush, that might have made some sense.

“Have I Told You Lately” peaked at No 5.

Next to the (sort of) boy band and so far I’d say that East 17 had done a good job of becoming the anti- Take That. However, the decision to release a cover of “West End Girls” by Pet Shop Boys was a complete misstep. What was the thinking around this? Were record label London concerned that last single “Slow It Down” had failed to make the Top 10 and so released a cover to ensure a hit? If so, it was a strategy that was not a complete success as the East End boys version of “West End Girls” peaked at No 11. Somebody suggested on Twitter that it was down to their manager Tom Watkins who was trying to restart a working relationship with former clients Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe after they had separated at the end of the 80s. Whatever the truth, it was a calculated decision as the original pressings of their album “Walthamstow” didn’t include “West End Girls”. It was re-released with it added on in the wake of the single charting and we had to withdraw all the old copies from sale in the Our Price I was working in.

It’s just such a stiff, unconvincing cover not helped by the performance here which is just a lot of twirling around and jumping about on stage. All except for John Hendy. Were the other three trying to tell John something? He always seemed to be the one left to his own devices when the band appeared on TOTP. He was relegated to the back of the stage noodling on a bass guitar when they performed “Deep” and sat on a sofa idling away at a keyboard for “Slow It Down”. He’s back on the bass again here whilst Brian, Terry and Tony are doing their thing out front. I’m surprised that he’s not kicking in chairs and knocking down tables in frustration. Ahem.

Number One in the World! Except it’s not. It’s No 6 in the chart this week on its way to a high of No 3 for Chaka Demus and Pliers and “Tease Me”. It’s another of those live by satellite performances (New York this week) which might just be in a room next door to the TOTP studio for all we know. It’s literally an empty setting other than a light pattern projected onto the blank walls. Seriously, what was the point?

I find it hard to discuss Chaka Demus and Pliers without finding them completely ridiculous because of that tool-related name. I’m sure there was a scene in the 90s sitcom 2point4 Children where the Belinda Lang character asks her teenage daughter what she’s listening to and when the answer comes back as Chaka Demus and Pliers, it’s the foundation for a whole litany of jokes. So what was the story behind that moniker? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

Pliers explains his moniker: "I first got the name… when I was in the studio recording a song for a DJ in Jamaica who was like, ‘You sound like [Jamaican reggae singer] Pinchers, so shouldn’t you be called Pliers?' He was really excited about it…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 2, 2022

"I was never really interested in being called Pliers. So when they went on and renamed me Pliers anyway, I wasn’t happy… It wasn’t until the record came out that I realised they’d changed it! But because it had already been done I just went with it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 2, 2022

So now you know.

Four Breakers again this week. I wish they would give this up. Really elongates these reviews unnecessarily. Most of them we never see again anyway. Ho hum.

SWV are the first of the four with their single “Weak”. The UK was still resisting the charms of the Sisters With Voices unlike in the US where this song was No 1 for two weeks and sold a million copies. By contrast, it stiffed at No 33 over here. It wasn’t until the “Right Here/Human Nature” mash up single came out a few weeks later that we decided we quite liked them after all.

And so we arrive at the time of Joey Lawrence. Who? Well, he was one of the stars of an American sitcom called Blossom that had been picked up by Channel 4 over here and was based around the title character played by Mayim Bialik. The premise of the show was of a family of three kids and their Dad dealing with their mother/wife leaving them. Lawrence played middle child Joey, a sports jock (to use the American vernacular) who wasn’t blessed with great intelligence but fancied himself as ‘one for the ladies’ and was given a catchphrase of “Woah!”. He was a sort of prototype Joey from Friends I guess. The show actually had far more depth to it than Lawrence’s character suggests. Firstly, it centred around a female lead which was not the norm at the time but it was also the atypical comedy themes that it dealt with such as sexual assault, Blossom’s first period and drug abuse (Blossom’s elder brother Tony was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict).

It was a decent watch and indeed me and my wife did tune in to it regularly when it was broadcast on Fridays I think. Bialik would go on to star in The Big Bang Theory whilst Lawrence starred in Melissa & Joey for four seasons. That’s not what concerns us here though. No. We have to address Lawrence’s music career which began whilst he was just 16 with the single “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix”. Actors becoming pop stars was nothing new of course – we’d had a plethora of them in recent years mainly from the Aussie soap Neighbours but supposedly music was always Joey’s first love and he co-write this tune. It was a bit Bobby Brown-lite sounding to me (and I wasn’t a fan of the full fat flavour in the first place) and did he get a “Woah oh oh” into the chorus to play up to his character’s catchphrase?

Thankfully Joey Lawrence mania never really took off (although there was one young female customer in the Altrincham Our Price that I ended up working in who was a bit obsessed) and the whole thing was done by the end of the year. For the record though, “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix” peaked at No 13.

And now for some ‘proper’ music though I have to admit I wasn’t an early adopter of Teenage Fanclub. Even though they were on to their fourth album (“Thirteen”) by 1993, they seemed to have eluded my radar which must have been on the blink as their brand of jangly power pop was right up my street. “Radio” was the lead single from that album and would become their second Top 40 hit after the previous years “What You You Do To Me” (how had I missed that single?!).

To me, they always seem more recognised for their influence and legacy than their commercial deeds and indeed were described by Kurt Cobain as the best band in the world in 1992 when they toured with Nirvana. I’ve since become a convert and “My Uptight Life” from their “Howdy!” album is one of my favourite ever tunes. Alas, I fear they won’t make their full TOTP appearance until the 1997 repeats come around.

“Radio” peaked at No 31.

Ah shit! More Shabba Ranks? Really?! Yes, if we thought he only had one song in “Mr Loverman” then we were wrong for here he is back again with “What’cha Gonna Do”. This was another collaboration, this time with Queen Latifah following his hit “Housecall” with Maxi Priest. You know what? Sod this for a game of darts. What am I gonna do Shabba? I’m moving straight on. “Laters!” as Tony Dortie might say.

Right what’s next? Oh come on! This wasn’t what the kids wanted in 1993 surely? Some hoary old rock from some hoary old rockers? I speak of Brian May and Cozy Powell who, having been a Breaker last week, are in the studio this time to perform “Resurrection”. This sounds horrible. Can I just get away with skipping this one as well? No? You want some more content? OK – here’s host Mark Franklin no less with some trivia:

Yeah, not a particularly good one for me I agree. Bit of trivia ahead of TX for those who enjoy it. Bryan May’s backing singer on this performance is Shelley Preston who replaced Jay Aston in Bucks Fizz in 1985.
— Mark Franklin (@MarkFranklin123) September 2, 2022

Now away with you all!

I’m gathering some speed now so look out anybody who gets in my way! Oh, it’s alright as it’s Gloria Gaynor – she’ll survive (ahem). Yes, inevitably given the disco revival of 1993, Gloria Gaynor has entered the fray with a Phil Kelsey remix of her 1979 No 1 and subsequent gay / feminist anthem, “I Will Survive”. This was always going to happen wasn’t it? There is an interesting back story to this track though. Gloria had lost her ‘Queen of Disco’ crown to the emerging Donna Summer and so was looking for a hit to reclaim it. “Substitute” was chosen as the song to relaunch her. It had originally been recorded by The Righteous Brothers but had been a recent massive hit for South African all-girl group Clout (one of the best records of the 70s – fact!). Needing a B-side, songwriters Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren supplied “I Will Survive” which Gloria loved but which her label Polydor didn’t and “Substitute” was released as the A-side.

When it failed to do the business, Gloria persuaded club DJs to flip the record and it eventually became a favourite at New York superclub Studio 54. Meanwhile, Boston disco radio DJ Jack King was also playing “I Will Survive” and this combined promotion would convince Polydor to re-release the single with “I Will Survive” on the A-side. The rest is history.

The 1993 remix though is awful with a horrible Chicago House backing installed for no apparent reason other than bandwagon jumping. It would rise to No 5 and a Very Best Of album was put out on the back of its success. Gloria’s vocal in this performance is effortless though I could have done without the audience sing-a-long that she encourages towards the end.

Oh God! Mark Franklin hasn’t just restyled his hair – he’s added an earring aswell! That camera angle of the back of his head which shows it in full effect was surely planned?! Anyway, Mark is back on screen to introduce Alexander O’Neal who is in the studio to promote his latest single “In The Middle” which was the second track to be lifted from his “Love Makes No Sense” album. A whole studio appearance seems a bit like overkill for a single that only got to No 32 and was a follow up to the album’s title track and lead single which only made No 26. Things didn’t get any better for Alexander who only returned to the UK Top 40 once more in 1996 with the No 38 hit “Let’s Get Together”.

Gabrielle is the new No 1 with “Dreams” though it’s hardly a surprise given its entry last week at No 2. The TOTP producers have decided that Gabrielle is a classy performer and adorned the stage with white drapes for some reason to make that point. As with Gloria Gaynor earlier, I could do without the metronomic clapping from the studio audience. At the end of the song, we get something which I don’t think we’ve seen since the early days of the ‘year zero’ revamp where Mark Franklin joins Gabrielle on stage for a little chat to ask when her album is out. It’s still cringey and still a bad idea. Maybe he just wanted to get more screen time for his earring?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	One Night In Heaven	No but my wife had the album
2	Rod Stewart	Have I Told You Lately	Nah
3	East 17	West End Girls	See 1 above
4	Chaka Demus and Pliers	Tease Me	Not likely
5	SWV	Weak	No
6	Joey Lawrence	Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix	As if
7	Teenage Fanclub	Radio	No to my shame
8	Shabba Ranks and Queen Latifah	What’cha Gonna Do?	Not buy it obviously
9	Brian May and Cozy Powell	Resurrection	I say again, “Away with you!”
10	Gloria Gaynor	I Will Survive	Nope
11	Alexander O’Neal	In The Middle	Never happening
12	Gabrielle	Dreams	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/m001bm8v/top-of-the-pops-24061993

TOTP 17 JUN 1993

Posted on September 8, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s mid June 1993 and the big news story on this particular day was that Manchester United bought Nottingham Forest midfielder Roy Keane for a then record £3.75 million. And yes, you’re right this is meant to be a music blog so here’s a Roy Keane inspired ditty…

This Morrissey single never made the Top 40 and so this TOTP performance was never broadcast until a viewers vote got it played on retro show TOTP2 in 2003. Mozza would often change the lyrics to “never seen a keener midfielder” when performing it live and the track was played over the closing credits of Keane’s 2002 documentary As I See It.

Right, that’s the 1993 news done. On with the show and we start with, as per usual, a high tempo dance track courtesy this time of The Time Frequency and a track from their “The Power Zone EP” called “Ultimate High”. This all feels a bit 1991 if not 1989 with a definite whiff of Italian House about it. On first glance I actually thought there might be a Germanic influence as it looked like one of the obligatory anonymous blokes at the back on keyboards was dressed like a member of Kraftwerk circa “The Man Machine” era but he’s actually just wearing a red jacket over a black T-shirt.

I’m kind of intrigued as to why they called themselves The Time Frequency and not just Time Frequency. The addition of the definite article seems incongruous somehow. Time Frequency seems to fit better for a dance music project to my mind. I wonder if the band naming process went something like the scene in 1991 film The Commitments? In a discussion about what the band should be called, manager Jimmy Rabbitte, in response to suggestions like ‘Free Beer’ (always draws a big crowd) and ‘A Flock Of Budgies’ says:

We have to be “the” something. All the great sixties bands were “The Somethings”

Looking at this performance from The Time Frequency, I don’t think they look half as much fun as The Commitments…

When I think of 1993, I don’t immediately bring to mind a disco revival but there was one in amongst all the Eurodance nonsense. We’ve already seen Boney M (or at least a version of them) back in the charts and in a week or so Gloria Gaynor will go Top 5 with a remix of “I Will Survive”. And then there’s Sister Sledge who are into their third hit of the year with a remix of “Thinking Of You”. I was just 16 years old awaiting my ‘O’ Level results when it was first a hit in the Summer of 1984. Nine years later and I’m a married man working in a record shop in Rochdale.

I’m not sure I had that sort of perspective at the time though. It was probably just another single to be sold to the punters. I never minded this though either in 1984 or 1993. And what’s a true test of a good song? If it can be covered in a completely different style by an artist outside of the originator’s genre of course. I present Paul Weller…

Did someone mention Eurodance? Yes, I did of course but that doesn’t mean I wanted to hear any and certainly not from this bloke. For some reason, in my head, Haddaway has become the pin up boy for all the musical shite that 1993 threw our way with his song “What Is Love” being the biggest, stinking turd in the toilet bowl. I’m sure he’s a nice guy but I just hated this. Hadaway and shite!

Bizarrely, just like Cliff Richard who was a Breaker on the show last week, Haddaway’s album was also just called “The Album” meaning there were two albums on the album chart at the same time called “The Album”. Got that? Good.

The circular spotlights in this performance look familiar. Oh yeah, the Mysterons. That’s it…

From Captain Scarlet to Dr Who now as we find good, old Sting doing this week’s live by satellite performance (from Pittsburgh) which features what appears to be the opening titles of the Jon Pertwee era doctor on the walls in the background.

Anyway, it looks like, after weeks of coming close, we have arrived at the actual most boring satellite performance in TOTP history. There is literally nothing going on here (if you discount the Dr Who lighting) with Sting sat down throughout whilst he sings “Fields Of Gold”, the third single taken from his “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album. So unenthusiastic is Sting about the whole prospect of performing that he hasn’t even learned the words to the song as he appears to have a lyric sheet in his hand. He just sits steadfast and motionless on his chair with a wry smile on his face as if he’s in on some band in joke or has just farted and knows it’s going to be a bad one that will linger. Or maybe this was some sort of preparation for a bout of tantric sex that he is infamous for. Meanwhile, the only other camera shots we get are of the guitarist fingering the strings of his instrument. Hmm. Maybe it is something to do with tantric sex? After all, look what the man himself says of the song courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Sting on the lyrics of "Fields Of Gold": "In England, our house [in Wiltshire] is surrounded by barley fields, and in the summer it's fascinating to watch the wind moving over the shimmering surface like waves on an ocean of gold." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 2, 2022

"There's something inherently sexy about this sight, something primal, as if the wind were making love to the barley. Lovers have made promises here, I'm sure, their bonds strengthened by the comforting cycle of the seasons." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 2, 2022

The song itself tends to divide opinion. As this TOTP repeat aired, Twitter comments ranged from “brilliant song” to “absolute shite”. I don’t mind it I have to say and it took on a whole new lease of life when the now departed Eva Cassidy did a version of it which was played on the radio extensively by Terry Wogan. Though never released as a single in the UK, Cassidy’s posthumous career was based largely around this song and “Over The Rainbow” which saw her compilation album “Songbird” go to No 1 in the UK in 1998.

Sting’s original peaked at No 16.

One of the biggest hits of the year now from a complete newbie. I’d be lying if I said I’d heard the original Tracy Chapman sampling promo of “Dreams” by Gabrielle before the official release sans sample came out on Go! Beat in 1993 but there was one and here it is…

Apparently it was played in the clubs a lot around ‘91/‘92 but I was not really frequenting clubs much at the time on account of being permanently brassic. It must have reached quite a few people though as when the officially sanctioned (some may say sanitised) version came out, pre-demand was so high that it entered the chart at No 2, the highest position ever at the time for a previously uncharted act*.

*That record would be broken just a year later when Whigfield went straight to No 1 with “Saturday Night”.

Who was Gabrielle though? This was the second time in under a year that a young, female singer appeared from nowhere to score a huge smash hit following Tasmin Archer in 1992. Well, she was Louise Gabrielle Bobb and she hailed from Hackney, London. She’d had the condition ptosis causing the drooping of the upper eyelid since childhood hence the eye patch she wore in all her public appearances and performances. I can’t remember what the general reaction to the eyepatch was at the time, whether people saw it as an affectation or not but it certainly added an element of intrigue to her. Where Tasmin Archer had her ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ poster campaign to raise her profile, Gabrielle had her eyepatch.

The thing about “Dreams” that I never understood for years was what the words to the second line of the chorus were. It was almost unintelligible. Thankfully, the world is digital these days and so a quick Google reveals them to be:

Look at me babe, I’m with you

Hmm. Bit of an anticlimax that.

Right I’m really behind with these TOTP reviews so let’s whip through these Breakers starting with Kingmaker. This lot should have been a lot bigger than they were and indeed looked they would be for a while but record company interference did for them. Their legacy was a back catalogue that was been given a deserved revisit in the form of 5 CD box set “Everything Changed” courtesy of reissue specialist label Cherry Red a couple of years ago. This single, “Queen Jane”, was the follow up to “10 Years Asleep” and would make No 29 in the charts.

Now I’m writing this a few days after the Queen passed away which has resulted in all the TV schedules being rearranged to accommodate coverage of the aftermath and also to ensure nothing deemed inappropriate at this time is broadcast. What has this got to do with Kingmaker? Well, there’s their band name for a start. Could well be deemed to be in bad taste. Then there’s the case of their 1992 single “Armchair Anarchist” with its lyrics about bombing the House of Lords was deemed too insensitive for daytime radio and failed to make the charts. Fast forward thirty years and I’m wondering that if the Queen had died a week earlier, would this edition of TOTP have been allowed to be broadcast? Look at these lyrics in “Queen Jane”:

A funny thing happened on the way to here, the headlines read like the end was near for Queen Jane

They say your vacant face, helps the tourist trade, If they could see you in your leisure time, well!

Queen Jane, you’ve got everything to die for

Considering that radio stations are currently tying themselves up in knots over coming up with sombre pop songs to play, I’m pretty sure “Queen Jane” wouldn’t make the cut.

What I remember about Brian May and the early 90s is as follows:

“Driven By You” and that Ford car advert
Freddie Mercury’s death and the memorial concert
“Too Much Live Will Kill You”

What I don’t remember is a song called “Resurrection” with legendary rock drummer Cozy Powell. From the few seconds it’s afforded as a Breaker, I have no wish to get to know the song better as it sounds like a dreadful noise.

I’m sure I say this every time Thunder are on the show but they have a remarkable singles chart record. Eighteen Top 40 singles points to incredible consistency and yet none of them got any higher than No 18. I guess they had a sizeable, loyal fanbase but never managed to crossover with a huge single like, say, Extreme did with “More Than Words”. This single “Like A Satellite” is a case in point. The fourth and final track to be lifted from their “Laughing On Judgement Day”, it peaked at No 25.

This year’s Eurovision winner next and in 1993 it was Ireland’s Niamh Kavanagh with “In Your Eyes”. This was the first time that a winning song in the contest had featured on the UK chart since 1987 when Johnny Logan made No 2 with “Hold Me Now”. Ireland was in the middle of a run of three consecutive Eurovision wins between ‘92 and ‘94 (they also won it in ‘96) but the unlikely truth is that the United Kingdom has won the contest more recently than Ireland.

Niamh had some musical chops though having performed as lead and backing vocalist on the soundtrack to the film – and I genuinely didn’t know this when I referenced it earlier – The Commitments! “In Your Eyes” though is nothing like any of the soul songs found in that film. It’s a straight up, big ballad that sounds like it could have been a hit for Gloria Estefan. Predictably it was No 1 in Ireland and peaked at No 24 in the UK.

1993 was pretty good to Terence Trent D’Arby. He’d recovered from the false step that was sophomore album “Neither Fish Nor Flesh” to comeback with a Top 10 LP in “Symphony Or Damn” and four Top 20 hit singles. “Delicate” was the second of them and was a duet with Des’ree who’s only chart entry to that point had been her Top 20 hit “Feel So High” from the previous year. An (ahem) delicate ballad, it showcased the diversity of TTD’s talent. Whether you liked him or not, the guy could sing and write a decent tune. Featuring a groovy, Eastern sounding melody, it was a nice antidote to all that Eurodance nonsense.

The careers of Terence and Des’ree went in opposite directions after this coming together. The former would release his “Vibrator” album in 1995 which failed to consolidate on the success of “Symphony Or Damn” and he would not release another for six years before ultimately changing his name to Sananda Matreiya. Des’ree would go on to sell a million copies in the US of her 1994 album “I Ain’t Movin’” and achieved a No 1 record in Europe (and No 8 in the UK) in “Life” in 1998.

Despite working in a record shop at this time, there have been a substantial number of singles from this year that I have nothing down for in my memory banks. Here’s another one – “I Can See Clearly” by Deborah Harry. Nothing to do with Johnny Nash, this track was the lead single from Harry’s fourth (and so far final) solo album “Debravation” and was written by legendary record producer Arthur Baker. All of those solo albums followed a pattern in that each produced just the one hit which in every case was the lead single. For the completists out there the others were:

1981 – “Backfired” from “KooKoo”

1986 – “French Kissin In The USA” from “Rockbird”

1989 – “ I Want That Man” from “Def, Dumb & Blonde”

I have to say that I don’t know “Backfired” but “I Can See Cleary” doesn’t match up to the other two songs for me. All very unremarkable. What is remarkable is this performance and I’m not talking about the lead singer of Blondie having brown hair. I haven’t checked but is this the first time an artist has appeared on TOTP with a magician? Perhaps a more pertinent question would be why did Debbie (sorry Deborah!) feel the need to do it? The guy doing the magic tricks is surely the most incongruous addition to an act since Howard Jones’s dancing mime Jed in 1983?! It all looks so lame. First he makes a candle appear then disappear, then a pair of glasses (presumably to help Debbie – Deborah damn it! – see clearly) then a flaming torch and finally he sets fire to a flower. All very underwhelming. Now if he’d have changed her hair colour from brown back to blonde on stage, I would have been impressed.

“I Can See Clearly” peaked at No 23 but she reactivated Blondie in 1999 notching up a No 1 record with “Maria”.

UB40 remain at No 1 with “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” but they surely must have been looking over their collective shoulders at Gabrielle gatecrashing the charts at No 2. They would have been right to as this would prove to be their last week at the top of the pile. It was a different story in the US where it was No 1 for seven weeks. Parent album “Promises And Lies” also went to the top of the charts and was the seventh best selling album of the year in the UK. The band would never be as big again. Only twice have they revisited the Top 10 of the singles chart since (follow up “Higher Ground” made No 8 whilst 1998’s “Come Back Darling” just snuck in at No 10). The band splintered in 2008 when Ali Campbell left to form his own version of the group with fellow departees Mickey Virtue and Astro. Rumours abounded that ‘Mr Ubiquitous 1993’ Maxi Priest was to replace Ali Campbell but in the end it was his brother Duncan Campbell who stepped into that role. Tragedy struck the UB40 family in 2021 with both founding members Brian Travers and Astro passing away.

Ghj

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Time Frequency	The Power Zone EP	Never happening
2	Sister Sledge	Thinking of You (RAMP Radio Mix)	Nope
3	Haddaway	What Is Love	I say again, ‘Headway and shite!’
4	Sting	Fields Of Gold	No
5	Gabrielle	Dreams	Nah
6	Kingmaker	Queen Jane	I did not
7	Brian May and Cozy Powell	Resurrection	Resurrection?! It should have been buried deep in the ground never to be heard of again! That’s a no by the way.
8	Thunder	Like A Satellite	Negative
9	Niamh Kavanagh	In Your Eyes	Not likely
10	Terence Trent D’Arby and Des’ree	Delicate	Nice tune but no
11	Deborah Harry	I Can See Clearly	No it was crap
12	UB40	(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001bm8s/top-of-the-pops-17061993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

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TOTP 24 FEB 1994

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TOTP 09 DEC 1993

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TOTP 30 SEP 1993

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TOTP 08 JUL 1993

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TOTP 01 JUL 1993

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TOTP 24 JUN 1993

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TOTP 17 JUN 1993

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