Honeyz

TOTP 15 JAN 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re in mid January 1999 and Christmas is long gone and well behind us. The release schedules have woken up and been reactivated so there are some ‘new’ songs on tonight alongside some of the older hits that are still knocking about the charts which executive producer Chris Cowey doesn’t seem able to let go of. To that end, two of the first artists on tonight both featured in the last show. Indeed, they were the first two songs in that episode from seven days prior. As Men At Work once sang – “it’s just overkill”. Anyway, Kate Thornton is our host and we start with “End Of The Line” by the Honeyz. This was its third appearance on the show and this performance was just a repeat showing of the previous week’s. Having said that, it was a very hardy hit spending five weeks inside the Top 10 including the busy festive period when singles can get swept away in the Christmas rush. With nothing much else to say about this one, I looked to the internet for inspiration and found a piece online that talked about the purple outfits the group are wearing here which they also donned in the video. The article says:

“…the purple overcoats, which were low-key iconic in that they never permeated popular culture but remain a recognisable visual reference point within the Honeyz’ narrative.”

Paul Begaud – cantstopthepop.com – Dec 2020

Look, I’m no expert on the Honeyz so I should defer to Paul but, on the other hand, really?! Iconic?! They were purple overcoats not Geri Halliwell’s Union Jack dress!

The mid to late 90s fascination with the disco era of the Bee Gees was quite a thing. Seriously though, look at all of these hits that were either cover versions or featured samples of the Gibb brothers’ work around that period:

  • “How Deep Is Your Love” – Take That – 1996
  • “Words” – Boyzone – 1996
  • “Stayin’ Alive” – N-Trance – 1995
  • “We Trying To Stay Alive” – Wyvlef Jean – 1997
  • “Night Fever” – Adam Garcia – 1998
  • “More Than A Woman” – 911 – 1998
  • “Tragedy” – Steps – 1998

The trend continued apace in early 1999 with the highest chart entry of the week – “You Should Be…” by Blockster. This was a vehicle for DJ, producer and remixer Brandon Block whose career had seen him play all the ‘super clubs’ such as Up Yer Ronson, Ministry Of Sound and Republica. In 1999, he became a chart star with this reworking of the Bee Gees classic “You Should Be Dancing”. Given the glut of Bee Gees hits at the time, it doesn’t seem a very inventive concept but I guess he executed it pretty well. He’s the guy on the turntables (obviously) who looks a bit like The Apprentice reject, Strictly Come Dancing loser and JD Vance hanger on Thomas “Bosh” Skinner. However, for some of us non-dance heads, he is best known for this incident at the BRITS 2000…

Supposedly he was off his face and was convinced by the friends he was with that he had won an award and that he should go and collect it on stage. Ah, we’ve all been there. For instance, I was once on holiday in New York and found myself in a bar called The Slaughtered Lamb, a horror-themed bar in Greenwich Village. It had props like caged skeletons and werewolves. I’d had a few (OK, a lot!) and my friend Robin convinced me that the werewolf figure had blood dripping down its face and that I should report it to the bar staff. So I did. The woman behind the bar dismissed me like the fool I was whilst Robin and the rest of our group guffawed.

Anyway, Brandon Block seemed to learn from his public embarrassment and in 2009 agreed to take part in an anti-drugs campaign for the government. He followed that up by working with Blenheim the London drug and alcohol treatment service as a project worker and has also been employed by the NHS, working with people who have multiple complex needs. He currently works as a Stress Management and Goal Mapping Coach with people suffering from mental health issues.

Here’s that other hit that was on just last week from Bryan Adams and Melanie C. I’ve got nothing left to say about “When You’re Gone” so I’m going to shamelessly pinch a story from a podcast I’ve discovered called the Eighties Archive Podcast. It’s basically two fellas talking about 80s music but not the obvious stuff. They interview people from back then who may or may not have had hit records and it’s actually very engaging mainly because of their enthusiasm for the period. So you might get say, Leigh Gorman from Bow Wow Wow who was brilliant or Richard Jobson of The Skids and The Armoury Show (again brilliant) or some bloke who used to be in Roman Holliday (not so brilliant). Anyway, in their latest show, one of the presenters told a tale of how he was working in the Our Price store in the Lakeside shopping centre in 1991 at Christmas when all the punters seemed to want to buy was “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen (rereleased after Freddie Mercury’s death and that year’s festive No 1) and “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams. So fed up was the presenter with this situation that, fuelled by the bravado of youth (him and his mates thought they owned the shop), he started shouting at people that they didn’t have any more Bryan Adams singles. One customer took offence and said “You’re meant to be a record shop” to which the presenter replied “And you’re meant to have taste!” and flicked him the V’s! Scandalous behaviour that was witnessed by an Area Manager on a store visit which led to the presenter being sacked and quite right too. The moral of the story? Don’t disrespect Bryan Adams…nor flick the V’s at a customer when working in a shop.

A classic case of a record label indulging in careful release scheduling now. Ultra had bounded into the charts the previous year with their debut hit “Say You Do” landing at No 11. However, subsequent hits had seen diminishing returns at play so another big hit was required. The best way to do that? Release a single – “Rescue Me” – when it doesn’t take as many sales to get you up the higher end of the charts of course – early to mid January. Then you double down by copying the sound of somebody else’s recent huge hit – in this case Savage Garden – and bingo! Your boy band has a Top 10 single. Beware though. The effects of a reviving January hit will wear off fairly quickly and you’ll be left with that underlying cause of discomfort which is the absolute knowledge that your charges are, in fact, worthless crud and you’ll have to accept the truth that they are going nowhere. Which is exactly what happened to Ultra who were never seen nor hear from again after this hit. Hurray!

Oh this is just taking the piss now! Why is Chris Cowey showing a performance from four months ago of “Millennium” by Robbie Williams? I suggested in a recent post that the reason behind a repeat showing of him doing “No Regrets” was because he’s Robbie Williams and I stand by that given the decision to re-show this. Just as Jamie Theakston had eulogised about him in his intro the other week, so Kate Thornton bangs on about how everyone loves Robbie including her and her Mum! Cowey justifies the clip’s inclusion in the show by tying it to the fact that his second album “I’ve Been Expecting You” is at No 1 (which was true) but it does rather feel like it was shoe-horning it into the show. Anyway, I’m not about to comment on this one again so here’s what I wrote about it in the 18 Sep 1998 show:

TOTP 18 SEP 1998

And the 28 Aug show:

TOTP 28 AUG 1998

What the Hell is this? Why was Cowey encouraging presenter Kate Thornton to engage with the artists ‘backstage’ in some horribly cringeworthy interactions (they don’t qualify as interviews) that weren’t funny, entertaining nor worthwhile. There have been numerous attempts to spice up the format over the years by conversing with the artists or sometimes just celebrity guests and I can’t think of one that has ever worked. Moving on…

And yet another 70s disco era song revived in the late 90s. At least this one wasn’t a Bee Gees tune. After Blockster earlier comes Da Click, a UK garage group on the FFRR label, who took Chic’s anthem “Good Times”, added a load of rapping all over it, interpolated the vocals from Luther Vandross’ “Never Too Much”, called it “Good Rhymes” and had a No 14 hit with it. The words ‘Yankee Doodle’, ‘feather’ and ‘macaroni’ come to mind. It’s not big and it’s not clever. It also wasn’t any good. I always got this lot confused with Da Hool who is a German DJ and producer. I think my confusion is understandable which is more than I can say about Da Click’s decision to record this rubbish. It gets worse. Two years later, one of Da Click’s number – DJ Pied Piper – was responsible for one of the worst No 1 records ever – the execrable 2-step garage ‘anthem’ “Do You Really Like It?”.

There have been a few very famous Justins in the world of music. Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Justin Hawkins of The Darkness but before all of them came simply Justin. Only 15 years old here, this kid became a name after appearing in a BBC TV show called The Fame Game which followed the hopes and aspirations of young people wanting to be stars. Off the back of it, Justin (Osuji) would have a small Top 40 hit with a cover of “This Boy” by The Beatles. The follow up was “Over You”, a nothing ballad with the most ridiculous opening lines ever given to a 15 year old boy to sing who sounds like his voice hasn’t broken yet…

“I′ve had many many setbacks, misendeavours in my life

But it’s never gotten to me, all that trouble and my strife”

Writer(s): Cody Miller, Justin Stokes, Laurel Tessa Mahoney, Miranda Leigh Berdahl, James Colter Schaffner, Zach Inmon Walker

“Many, many setbacks”? By the age of 15? Now, of course, some kids have had terrible lives by that point and witnessed some awful things but in the context of trying to sell a love song to a TV audience, it just doesn’t seem authentic. Thankfully I don’t remember “Over You” at all. The only one of his that springs to mind is a cover of “Let It Be Me” by The Everly Brothers in early 2000 which would be Justin’s last Top 40 hit. Although his original pop career would end there, Justin would reinvent himself as Sonny J Mason working as a singer-songwriter and producer, collaborating with the likes of Craig David, Sugababes and So Solid Crew whilst also releasing his own solo recordings.

Yes! Finally! A great track gets its just deserts! Although it maybe felt unexpected that Fat Boy Slim was at No 1, it probably shouldn’t have done. After all, “Praise You” wasn’t the first chart topper he’d been involved with. As part of The Housemartins, he’d just missed out on being the Christmas No 1 by a week in 1986 with “Caravan Of Love” and at the very start of the 90s, his Beats International vehicle rose to the summit with “Dub Be Good To Me”. Then, of course, his Fat Boy Slim persona had already delivered him two big hits in 1998 with “The Rockefeller Skank” and “Gangster Trippin” so the writing had been on the wall for us all to read. And yet I do recall being slightly taken aback that he’d done it again in 1999 despite the quality of the track.

I’m not going to list all the source material that Norman Cook sampled to create “Praise You” – all that information is available via a quick search of the internet and in any case, I don’t know any of the originals at all so I can’t see the point in referencing them. What I do know is that he created an almost perfect dance track that had that curious, undefinable quality of being able to cross over into the mainstream. How did he do it? Musical genius? Pure luck? Cosmic forces at work causing the stars to align? If the answer was that obvious we’d all be raiding our record collections and looking to put together a patchwork of sounds that shouldn’t go together but somehow do. Something else that shouldn’t have worked but did was the promo video. Yes, that one. Directed by and starring Spike Jonze, it had the effect upon first viewing of making the audience exclaim “What the f**k was that?” so amateurish and so bizarre looking was it. Its protagonists, the fictional Torrance Community Dance Group, essentially invented the ‘flash mob’ phenomenon when filming the chaotic dance routines unannounced at the Fox Bruin Theater in Los Angeles. Indeed so low were its production values (the whole thing only cost $800 to make) that MTV refuses to air it initially until Cook advised them that it was supposed to look like that. It would go on to win three MTV Video Music Awards making their initial stance look ludicrous.

A small gripe though, why did we only get to see it once? Yes, it only had a solitary week at the top of the charts but that didn’t stop Chris Cowey from allowing multiple repeats of previous No 1s which were now descending the charts. Was he worried about the quality of the video as well?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1HoneyzEnd Of The LineNah
2BlocksterYou Should Be…Negative
3Bryan Adams / Melanie CWhen You’re GoneNo
4UltraRescue MeNo thanks
5Robbie WilliamsMillenniumNope
6Da ClickGood RhymesI did not
7JustinOver YouNever happening
8Fatboy SlimPraise YouNo but I had the album

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

TOTP 08 JAN 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

So, TOTP 1999 repeats are go! It’s my last year of doing this – please be halfway decent! As we’re in early January, the charts are very static with few new releases meaning that this show is full of songs that have been on before. Familiarity is also in evidence with our host who is Jamie Theakston who is becoming as ubiquitous as Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo used to be back in the day.

We start with Bryan Adams and Melanie C with “When You’re Gone”. This single really had legs spending ten consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 including three on the trot at No 6 which is its position this week. It’s continued to enjoy longevity in many forms long after the single finally dropped out of the charts via re-recordings and live performances. Adams returned to the song in 2005 for his compilation album “Anthology”, laying down a new version of it with Pamela Anderson of all people whilst Melanie C rejoined him in 2022 as they revisited the track for Adams’s “Classic Pt. II” album. Bryan frequently performs the song live as an acoustic number, usually plucking a member of the audience out to join him whilst Chisholm has also performed it during her concerts on a regular basis.

Theakston goes in for a bit of sexual innuendo in his intro to the next act. “If you’re one of the millions suffering from the flu then may I suggest the Theakston remedy. Stay in bed, snuggle up under your duvet and enjoy a healthy dose of the Honeyz” he chirps before doing his best Sid James impression by blowing out his cheeks. Yeah, knobhead. The Honeyz are back on the show for similar reasons as Bryan Adams/Melanie C – their hit “End Of The Line” is holding at No 9 having already peaked at No 5 in its first week in the chart. They were a bit like a prototype Sugababes weren’t they? Not that they shared a musical style but in terms of a revolving door policy when it came to their line up. Though there have only ever been four members to feature in a trio format, there is just one ever present in Célena Cherry. Of the other three, Heavenli Roberts has had five separate stints in the band, Naima Belkhiati two and Mariama Goodman three. The current lineup features Cherry, Roberts and Cherry’s sister Candace. Do you think they’ve…ahem…finally found the right combination?

Next, a third hit on the spin that has been on the charts for weeks already. Why is Robbie Williams on the show performing “No Regrets” again? Well, because he’s Robbie Williams would seen to be the main criteria. Observe the sycophantic intro from Jamie Theakston – “It’s Rob’s world, we just live in it”. Notice he calls him Rob not Robbie. I think they were possibly ‘mates’ at this point on account of Williams dating Nicole Appleton and Theakston seeing her sister Natalie though I think the former relationship ended around this time. Executive producer Chris Cowey would argue that it’s because “No Regrets” was going up the charts and with a lack of new releases to showcase, this was perfectly legitimate and justified. The truth is though that after debuting at No 4, the single had not spent another week inside the Top 10. Yes, successive drops to Nos 14 and 19 had been countered by consecutive moves back up the charts to No 18 and this week’s position of No 16 but it was hardly a big seller at this time. This was surely just a case of trying to pad the show out with a big name wasn’t it? Theakston’s intro doubles down on this. Let me entertain you? Nah, I’m good thanks.

A new song! A rare new entry into the Top 40 in the first week of January! It comes courtesy of Alisha’s Attic whose chart career to this point has been a model of consistency. Their first five hits had all peaked at either Nos 12, 13 or 14. “Wish I Were You” would end that run by going no higher than No 29. More than that though, it was portentous, ushering in the end of their pop career. None of their subsequent singles were bigger hits than No 24 and their third album “The House We Built” failed to make the Top 40. So what happened? It’s a question as old as The Rolling Stones that if I knew the answer to, I’d be a music industry mogul. If I had to guess though, I’d say that musical tastes moved on and, despite their consistency, Alisha’s Attic hadn’t established a big enough foothold in the charts to ride the changes. Ultimately, I think that’s a shame as I quite liked their quirky pop songs. However, “Wish I Were You” wasn’t their best work. It’s a bit slight and insubstantial to the point that the middle eight is essentially the sisters singing “I, I, I, I…” over and over. We didn’t need another Jim Diamond thanks! Things worked out for Shelly and Karen though as both have gone on to form successful careers as songwriters for other artists. Having been and done the pop star thing, presumably they don’t wish they were those people anymore.

Right who’s this? Oh it’s that woman with the huge hair again, Alda. She had a hit in 1998 with “Real Good Time” and she’s back with the follow up “Girls Night Out” which sounds very similar to its predecessor. No, not ‘very similar’ – exactly the same. As such, what else can I say about Alda who is originally from Iceland but relocated to London and now lives in…oh, this is just brilliant…High Barnet! This shizzle writes itself sometimes! What about her music you say? Well, it’s out and out pure pop confectionery – fine if that’s your flavour but too much of it would make you barf. Compared to her pop contemporaries like Robyn for example, she’s the cheap supermarket own brand equivalent of an M&S best seller – Home Bargains’ Claude The Caterpillar as opposed to M&S’s Colin The Caterpillar cake. No, not Claude The Caterpillar but Cuthbert because she’s more Aldi than Alda.

*I’ll get me coat*

Another new entry now and it’s from the Lighthouse Family. Now, I’ve defended this lot in the past on the basis that musical snobbery is wrong and that ridicule is nothing to be scared of but oh dear…this one…this one is just undeniably, irredeemably dreadful. Awful. Just no good.“Postcards From Heaven” was the title track from their second album and also the fifth single to be lifted (see what I did there?!) from it. That might explain why its peak of No 24 was the duo’s lowest chart position in a run of nine hits up to that point but I’m pretty sure it was because it was horseshit. It’s so insubstantial and slight and…dull. And it sounds just like all their other hits. Abject crap. Postcards from Heaven? More like delivery from the depths of Hell. Sorry guys but it turns out Adam Ant was wrong. Ridicule is something to be scared of.

Right, that’s your new tunes done with and so we’re back to the (very) familiar starting with a former (and indeed Christmas) No 1. Yes, the Spice Girls claimed the (then) coveted festive chart topper in 1998 with “Goodbye” and thereby became the first act to have three such consecutive hits since The Beatles in 1965. However it only stated stayed at the peak for one week hence the comment from Jamie Theakston about them getting on the wrong side of Chef’s “Salty Balls” as that was the record that deposed them. It was, in fact, the first No 1 single of 1999 but was not played on TOTP as an episode did not air the week of the 27th December 1998 to 2nd January 1999. So why didn’t “Salty Balls” feature on this particular show rather than “Goodbye”? Was it an issue with the lyrics? I mean, there’s a lot of innuendo in them but no actual swear words – I don’t think the single carried a Parental Advisory sticker did it? Whatever the reason, Chris Cowey chose not to go with Chef so we get a re-showing of a previous performance of “Goodbye”. As it turned out, this would be the group’s final TOTP appearance of the 90s and, therefore, also the last time I’ll be reviewing them in this blog. So, “Goodbye” indeed Sporty, Scary, Baby, Ginger and Posh. You came, you saw, you conquered – you spiced up our lives.

Who saw this coming? Steps at No 1? Seven weeks after it debuted at No 2, “Heartbeat/Tragedy” has risen to the top of the charts. It feels a bit like All Saints’ journey to No 1 with “Never Ever” which took weeks as well. Yes, its achievement was probably enabled by a lack of big new releases in the first week of January but still. In fairness, their last single “One For Sorrow” had peaked at No 2 and all three of their releases to this point had spent at least two months inside the Top 40 so maybe the clues had been there all along? “Heartbeat/Tragedy” took it to a new level though. Fifteen consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 including a month inside the Top 3 after it had relinquished the top spot – it was a chart monster.

In recognition of this success, we get a medley of the two tracks but it’s not a new performance but two separate appearances in the show cobbled together. Is it me or does it seem a bit of a shoddy edit? It’s not like when The Jam and Oasis were afforded two songs to celebrate their respective No 1s – the former’s “Town Called Malice” / “Precious” double A-side and the latter’s “Don’t Look Back In Anger” when they also performed their cover of Slade’s “Cum On Feel The Noize” which was an extra track on the CD single. Still, it was hardly a tragedy was it? Better best forgotten.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Bryan Adams and Melanie CWhen You’re GoneNah
2HoneyzEnd Of The LineNegative
3Robbie WilliamsNo RegretsDidn’t happen
4Alisha’s AtticWish I Were YouNope
5AldaGirls Night OutNever
6Lighthouse FamilyPostcards From HeavenGood Lord no!
7Spice GirlsGoodbyeNo
8StepsHeartbeat / TragedyI did not

Disclaimer

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

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

TOTP 18 DEC 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the week before Christmas in 1998 and all eyes are on the race to be that year’s festive No 1. Well, mine were as I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham so focussing on the late December dash up the charts was kind of part of the job. Now, the Top 20 countdown featured in this episode wasn’t the Christmas chart. That would be announced in the TOTP Christmas show* that aired on BBC2 on the big day itself so whoever was No 1 in this particular episode knew that they only had to hang on for seven days to take the title.

*I’m not reviewing the Christmas show as that was basically a rundown of the biggest selling singles of the year which no doubt I will have already reviewed potentially multiple times. The only ‘new’ songs were Denise van Outen and Johnny Vaughan doing a cover of “Especially For You” and a Christmas song from Jane McDonald – yeah, I think I’m doing us all a favour by skipping those two.

So who were the contenders? Let’s take a look…

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss who seems to have chopped some locks off although in the Christmas show she has longer hair so either they were extensions or they filmed that before this show? Anyway, with the greatest respect, I don’t think the opening act were in the running for the festive No 1 spot although one of their number had come very close to one 12 years prior*. In fact, The Beautiful South had a chart topper to their name – 1990’s “A Little Time” – and actually had come very close to another with their last single “Perfect 10” but I stand by my stance that they were never really in the running for the big Christmas prize. “Dumb”, the follow up to “Perfect 10”, was such a downbeat tune that it seemed an odd choice for a single at any time of the year but at Christmas time? Very strange. I’m a bit of a fan of Paul Heaton and his various musical incarnations but this is not one of my favourites of his. It seems quite repetitive and more concerned with its musicality than a tune. It’s still knocks spots off most of the crud in the charts this year though. “Dumb” peaked at No 16.

*The Housemartins were bumped off the No 1 spot at the death when the rerelease of Jackie Wilson’s “Reet Petite” claimed the festive chart topper over “Caravan Of Love” in 1986.

Oh blimey! This has come around quicker than I was expecting. Time to bring out the *SPOILER ALERT!* sign. The 1998 Christmas No 1 is suddenly upon us. Tear up those betting slips anybody who doubted the continuing pull of the Spice Girls as “Goodbye” beats off all competition to give the group three consecutive festive winners, the first time this has been achieved since The Beatles did it between 1963 and 1965. Despite the trauma of losing Geri Halliwell from their line up and the fall out of that, they ended the year as they began it at No 1. Obviously given its title, conclusions were leapt to that it was about Halliwell and it turned out that was true but that wasn’t the whole story. It was originally written whilst Geri was still in the group about the ending of a non-specific relationship but was rewritten following her departure to be specifically about her. A genuine outpouring of emotion or cynical manipulation of a situation to enrich the organisation? You decide. There was, of course, another reading of that title – that it was valedictory and heralded the end of the Spice Girls. That wasn’t quite true, there was another album and one last No 1 single but what was undeniable was that it drew a line under the first phase* of the group. They would not release any more material in the 90s. For me personally, this was the end of the Spice Girls story. However, they will be back for one more TOTP appearance in the next BBC4 repeat so their 90s story is not quite done yet.

*I’m not splitting hairs about first and second phases of the group pre and post Geri. I’m referring to the different phases when they were a recording artist and just a nostalgia reunion touring entity.

Another all girl group now as the Honeyz follow up their debut hit “Finally Found” with another Top 5 smash in “End Of The Line”. Another smooth soul sound, this was also an accomplished ballad that ebbed and flowed, swooped and soared – I could imagine Whitney Houston singing it, especially the “I deserve some damn respect” line. Did it ever gave a shot at being the Christmas No 1? No, I don’t think so – Honeyz weren’t established enough to take on the likes of the Spice Girls what with “End Of The Line” being only their second single. Curiously, despite racking up five Top 10 singles straight off the bat, I’m not sure they ever did fully establish themselves. Parent album to all those hits – “Wonder No 8” – never really achieved massive sales peaking at No 33. To this day, it remains the group’s only album release.

To a group now who did have a UK No 1 to their name but that was five years prior and their latest offering in 1998 was surely destined never to be enshrined in the annals of festive chart toppers. “Always Have, Always Will” was undoubtedly prime Christmas party playlist fodder with its blatant Motown rip off sound but Ace Of Base were never more than big outsiders at the bookies. Indeed, back in 1993 despite “All That She Wants” riding high in the charts, I think you would have got long odds on them being consistent hitmakers throughout the rest of the 90s but here they were with their eleventh UK Top 40 single. Obviously, the Motown samples are to the fore but it also sounds like that Eurovision song Sonia did also in 1993 or even this from the first Nativity…

One of the band appears to be missing from this performance – the blonde singer who I believe is the sister of the Anni-Frid lookalike on vocals here. Where was she then? Maybe this Motown pastiche was too shameful even for her? Certainly some of the 60s style dancing in the studio audience – were they planted dancers like in the good old days? – was embarrassing.

Having had three Top 10 hits to this point, Lutricia McNeal, not surprisingly, threw her hat into the ring for a tilt at the Christmas No 1 by releasing a ballad. Well, it was traditional. “The Greatest Love You’ll Never Know” certainly had the title of something that the aforementioned Whitney Houston might have recorded but its sound was very nondescript. It wasn’t in with a sniff of being the season’s best seller. Maybe Lutricia (or her record label) knew this and so, to increase its chances of success, made it a double A-side with a cover of classic Christmas hit – “When A Child Is Born” made famous by Johnny Mathis. After having heard that version dozens of times in the run up to Christmas 2025, I wasn’t likely to seek out Lutricia’s take on it but I did wonder if she did the cringey spoken word bit towards the end? And talking of the end, this would be McNeal’s final ever hit (and presumably TOTP appearance). Sadly, her legacy remains that although I remember her name, it’s because of the unusual nature of that moniker rather than her music.

Here’s another female solo artist with their eyes on the Christmas prize but, unlike Lutricia McNeal, she didn’t go with a smoochy ballad but instead stuck rigidly to the dance/pop formula that had already brought her two No 1 singles from her first two releases. I speak of Billie who, like another act we will see tonight, had ambitions of making it three chart toppers out of three. “She Wants You” didn’t break any new ground other than that of not sticking to the tried and tested strategy of releasing two fast tracks and one slow one at the outset of your pop career. Perversely, Billie would release a slower number with her fourth single “Honey To The Bee”.

However, just as Lutricia did, Billie backed up her song with a cover of a previous festive hit (Wham!’s “Last Christmas” in this case) as one of the extra tracks on the CD single. Again, I haven’t sought out Billie’s version and have no intention of doing so but I do wonder if she would have been better off releasing “Honey To The Bee” for Christmas instead. Finally, why are there eight (EIGHT!) male dancers behind her all dressed in their own casual clothes? Not very professional looking is it?

Right, this next one had zero chance of being No 1 for Christmas. Despite all their album sales, the fact is that REM were not prolific when it came to huge hit singles. Of their 22 UK chart entries to this point, only six made the Top 10 and within those, only one breached the Top 5. Added to that, I don’t think they were still in their imperial phase by 1998 so they were unlikely to suddenly release a universal festive tune that would capture the mainstream market and catapult them to the top of the charts. The last time they’d had such a transformative hit was…”Shiny Happy People”? Anyway, the band’s December 1998 hit was “Lotus” the chief lyric of which – “I ate the lotus” – was never going to be a Christmas classic. As with The Beautiful South, it really isn’t their best work but it’s still a decent tune. A big Christmas hit though? No. Actually, and I’m probably in a minority of one with this, but I believe there is an REM Christmas song though I don’t really understand why I think this. I refer to “Find The River” which was the sixth and final single from “Automatic For The People” and the least successful of those six. So why am I banging in about it? Well, it was released two days before December kicked in so there’s that and it somehow channels a Wintery theme which clearly anchors it as a Christmas song. In my head anyway.

And so we arrive at this week’s No 1. The occupants of said position would surely have fancied themselves as front runners to be the Christmas chart topper no? Erm…no. Not this year. I think that the opposition in the form of the Spice Girls was always going to be too strong and so a choice had to be made for/by B*Witched. Did they chance their arm(s) by going head to head with Sporty, Posh, Scary and Baby or did they, to use a golfing term, ‘lay up’ by releasing their single “To You I Belong” a week earlier thus avoiding a confrontation with “Goodbye” and simultaneously bagging their third consecutive No 1? It was a simple decision in the end. Lead singer Edele Lynch’s intro to this appearance of “This is our third No 1 on Top of the Pops. Thanks a million to everyone out there” seems to confirm that everyone involved was happy with the decision and its outcome.

As for the song itself, unlike Billie, B*Witched did follow the ‘two fast then a slow one’ template as “To You I Belong” was nothing like its predecessors. A ballad with a definite Irish feel to it (is that a flute in the mix?), it actually sounds like it was written to hopefully duplicate the success of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” title which it has more than a passing resemblance. I always found it quite weak and so adjusting its release date to ensure a record breaking* No 1 was a sensible choice.

*With this hit, B*Witched became the first Irish band to have three consecutive No 1 singles.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The Beautiful SouthDumbNot for me
2Spice GirlsGoodbyeNo
3HoneyzEnd Of The LineNah
4Ace Of BaseAlways Have, Always WillNever have, never will
5Lutricia McNealThe Greatest Love You’ll Never KnowNever
6BillieShe Wants YouI did not
7REMLotusNope
8B*WitchedTo You I BelongNo you didn’t

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002np2s/top-of-the-pops-18121998

TOTP 18 SEP 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

There was something going on with the scheduling and timing of shows at this point in TOTP history. The programmes were less than 30 minutes long it seems because the BBC had embarked upon a programme of repeating episodes of Fawlty Towers straight after our weekly dose of chart songs. As they were 35 minutes long, TOTP was truncated to allow them to fit. The Fawlty Towers episode being shown following this particular show was ‘Waldorf Salad’ which is one of my favourites. The scene where the American guest tells Basil to lay it on the line to his chef (who Basil has let go home early) that he’ll “bust his ass” if he hasn’t got the ingredients to make a Waldorf salad is just brilliant.

The other thing happening was that TOTP was being repeated in a late night slot, after midnight on Sunday morning, similar, I guess, to how these BBC4 repeats get shown again in the early hours. There’s something odd about the late night repeat of this show but we’ll get to that in time. Kate Thornton is our host and guess what? The first song of the night is last week’s No 1 which is no longer No 1 but which is being shown anyway. This was a standard and established Chris Cowey tactic by now as he fought to battle the constant flow of changing chart toppers. I get it (sort of) – why only show a big selling record just once especially if it hangs around the Top 10 for a while after debuting at No 1? However, the optics of this practice are odd – ending one show and beginning the next with the same song (and in some cases the same performance). Maybe that’s exaggerated though in these BBC4 repeats with two shows aired back to back. Was it not so noticeable at the time of original broadcast when seven days of viewers’ lives had passed since the last time they’d seen a performance of that song?

This week’s last week No 1 (if you get my drift) is “Booty Call” by All Saints who have dropped from the summit to No 7 in just one week which doesn’t bode well for a long lasting hit. Hang on, let me check the official charts database…

…no, it didn’t hang around the charts long at all. Just five weeks in the Top 40 in total and only two of those inside the Top 10. In fairness, it was the fourth single lifted from their album which had been out for about 10 months by this point so the fact that they’d got to No 1 at all was an achievement (or clever first week of release price discounting you might argue). The group (or record label London) weren’t done with that album just yet though and an improbable fifth single was released from it in late November and it made it to No 7. Presumably, this was to give the album a sales boost just before Christmas and also allowed them to add a promotional sticker to saying something along the lines of ‘includes the No 1s Never Ever, Under The Bridge/Lady Marmalade and Booty Call plus the Top 10 hits I Know Where It’s At and War Of Nerves’. I seem to recall that reorders of the album at this point did actually have such a sticker applied to them and it was green in colour to match the cover artwork. The things you remember. Now, where did I put my house keys?

Next up an American band whom I’m guessing, traditionally wouldn’t have had the ingredients for a Waldorf salad at the top of their rider list for their gigs. Anyway, Kate Thornton is suggesting to us that Aerosmith have put on a concert just for TOTP which can’t be right can it? She seems pretty convinced though; in fact she’s “full on” sure about it as she’s says the phrase twice in the space of a few seconds in her intro to “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. Come on Kate – I thought you were a safe pair of hands.

As with All Saints, this was only on the show just last week as well. Now, after double checking the chart stats in this one, I can confirm that despite all the success this single had globally, in the UK it actually went down the charts from No 12 to No 14 this week in 1998. Despite that fall, Chris Cowey had it back on the show and this extra exposure would catapult it into the Top 10 where it would spend the next two months, peaking at No 4. So, the question is, would the worldwide success the song received have been replicated in the UK without Cowey’s decision to ignore them descending the charts and have them on the show again for a second consecutive week? And what was the reasoning behind that decision? Here’s a third question though – am I overestimating the influence and pull that TOTP wielded at this point? I fear I may be. Back in the 80s, the show could make or break a hit but in 1998 was that still the case? I’m not sure. Probably the fact that the film it was taken from – Armageddon – had been released in UK cinemas by this point maybe had something to do with the song’s success. Still, it’s best to consider all angles with these things. I wouldn’t want you to miss a thing after all.

Returning to Fawlty Towers, a writer in The Guardian once described Jarvis Cocker as having “long Basil Fawlty legs” and you can see where they were coming from as the two do share a similar physicality. Said physicality is centre stage in this performance which would prove to be a valedictory one for Pulp for the 90s. Yes, “Party Hard” was their last hit of the decade and also the final single to be released from their “This Is Hardcore” album. Following “Different Class” was always going to be a big ask but I’m not sure anybody would have predicted the disparity in sales that would unfold. “Different Class” went four times platinum selling over a million copies whilst “This Is Hardcore” would sell a tenth of that. This was reflected in the chart positions of the latter’s four singles which achieve the following peak positions:

8 – 12 – 22 – 29

In the case of “Party Hard”, its chances were hamstrung by the second CD single including remixes of the track that were too long to count as sales according to recently introduced chart eligibility regulations. Talk about an own goal. Written about clubbers having to come to terms with ageing out of the nightlife scene, it’s a decent song but hardly one of their most memorable. All the reviews I’ve read about it point to Jarvis’s vocal sounded (deliberately?) like David Bowie but if I hadn’t read that beforehand, I’m not sure I would have picked up on it. Maybe I’m just not a big enough Bowie aficionado. I did pick up on the strange look this performance has with the cheerleading-type dancers and the studio audience holding helium filled balloons behind the band which lends the balloons an unnatural look as if they were lollipops or something. I’m not completely convinced that it all hangs together cohesively to be honest. And talking of honesty, when was the last time I was in a nightclub? I think it was in Manchester in 1999 when I would have been 31 which does seem to be too old for that type of thing on reflection.

There are plenty of examples of music stars whose offspring have followed their parents into the charts. Off the top of my head there’s Billy Ray Cyrus/Miles Cyrus, Bob Marley/Ziggy Marley, Frank Sinatra/Nancy Sinatra and John Lennon/Julian Lennon. There’s a sub genre though that isn’t so easy to name examples from. Parents who were in a pop group whose children also went on to be in bands with their own siblings. How many are there out there? There’s Wilson Phillips, 3T and…erm…The Osmond Boys? Well, add to that list Alisha’s Attic who were sisters Shelley and Karen Poole, the daughters of Brian Poole of Brian Poole and The Tremeloes fame. Having established themselves as a bona fide chart artist in 1996/97 with four hit singles and a Top 20 album, the time had come to progress that success with a second album and they had a very consistent yardstick to live up to. Look at these chart peaks for those first four singles:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12

As it turned out, the lead single from that sophomore album would continue the streak admirably by going to No 13. “The Incidentals” was its title and it was more, thoughtful, tuneful, well constructed pop on which they had made their name. However, it didn’t really push any musical boundaries and was reliant on their fanbase wanting more of the same. Initially they did with parent album “Ilumnia” also going Top 20 but by the time of third album “The House We Built” in 2001, times and tastes had changed and it disappointed commercially with the duo splitting soon after.

Both sisters went on to be very successful songwriters for other artists including Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Rita Ora, Sugababes, Boyzone and Westlife. Shelley is also a member of alt-country band Red Sky July with her husband Ally McErlaine (ex of Texas) who my wife caught recently as support for Eddie Reader at the Cottingham Folk Festival. Very good they were too apparently.

Whilst looking into the career history of the Honeyz, I discovered that they had appeared on ITV’s The Big Reunion show in 2013. The premise of the show was to get seven acts who were big in the 90s to reform and rehearse for a comeback show at the Hammersmith Apollo. Basically, it was a steal of MTV’s Bands Reunited from a decade earlier. Anyway, some of The Big Reunion episodes are on YouTube so I checked the Honeyz one out and one of the revelations that came out was that one of the members of the band couldn’t really sing, used to have her microphone turned off when performing and was only recruited for her looks! I’ll leave you to guess who that was but it got me thinking about members of bands throughout musical history who didn’t really do anything. Now, I’m not saying I agree that the people on the list below contributed nothing at all but that in some people’s/the media’s perception, they didn’t:

  • Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols)
  • Andrew Ridgeley (Wham!)
  • Bez (Happy Mondays)
  • Paul Rutherford (Frankie Goes To Hollywood)
  • Craig ‘Ken’ Logan (Bros)
  • Anyone in Boyzone who wasn’t Ronan Keating or Stephen Gately

OK, the last one is a bit facetious but you get my point. As for the Honeyz, OK it was Naima Belkhiati who had her microphone turned off (allegedly), the one on the left in this performance. There, she’s been “Finally Found” out.

No! Surely not?! It can’t be?! The aforementioned Boyzone are on the show AGAIN?! WHY?! That’s five out of the last six weeks they’ve featured. Yes, OK “No Matter What” was No 1 for three of those appearances and it stayed at No 3 for three consecutive weeks after that but even so!

Look, I’ve nothing else to say about this one. Instead, here’s Basil Fawlty to describe my frustration at its reappearance with actions saying much more than my words ever could.

Right, this is the point where this episode gets a bit complicated as previously mentioned. The version of the show that I watched and that exists currently on iPlayer featured T–Spoon and a track called “Sex On The Beach” which was at No 2 in the charts. However, back in 1998, the version that aired in the show’s usual early evening slot had Steps “One For Sorrow” on in place of T-Spoon. When the late night repeat aired in the early hours of Sunday morning, it was T-Spoon and not Steps who featured. So what gives? Well, apparently the BBC had received complaints from listeners to the Radio 1 Chart Show the previous Sunday when “Sex On The Beach” was played having debuted at No 2. Apparently, the lyrics “I wanna have sex on the beach, come on move your body” which are repeated throughout were the cause of the offence and so the BBC took the decision to not show it in the pre-watershed show at 7.30 as originally intended. However, presumably to pacify all those involved in the T-Spoon hit, a performance was recorded and it was shown (instead of Steps) in the late night rerun. Was the BBC right to take such action? On reflection, it seems a peculiar hill to die on. There have been far more controversial records to have charted and appear on the show than this one surely?! Just recently, a 1998 TOTP repeat included “Horny” by Mousse T – was that not cut from a similar cloth? Or was it the use of the word ‘sex’ that rattled the BBC powers that be? If so, how come “Generation Sex” by The Divine Comedy was on the very next week? I’ve checked out the rest of the lyrics and I’m not convinced they were a danger to the moral well being of the nation’s youth to be honest. Most of it I can’t understand anyway but there’s a reference to ‘ding-a-ling’, a term which didn’t stop Chuck Berry having a No 1 hit in 1972 based on the double entendre. Anyway, what’s surely more offensive is the way the thing sounded which was atrocious. I think I spotted the following influences in its composition:

  • The naffness of Peter Andre
  • The ‘toasting’ style of Chaka Demus and Pliers
  • The hollow production of Ace Of Base
  • The inane sing-along chanting of Inner Circle’s “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”

It’s hardly a ringing endorsement. As for T-Spoon, they defended themselves by stating that “Sex On The Beach” referred to the name of the infamous cocktail but nobody was really buying that. The whole thing was a sorry episode from start to finish.

Robbie Williams has bagged his first No 1 single with ”Millennium” and to celebrate that he’s performing the song in a dress and not just any dress but a sheer, floor length gown through which you could see his undergarments. I guess the obvious question is ‘why?’. So I asked AI. It had an answer for me which I could have guessed if I’d thought about it a bit more. According to AI it was a “provocative and attention-grabbing choice…designed to be memorable and push boundaries”. Yes, probably. Or was he just copying David Beckham wearing a sarong skirt just a few months earlier which caused a tabloid frenzy? In any case, he wasn’t the first nor the last music star to don a dress. David Bowie was famously photographed in a cream and blue satin dress whilst reclining on a chaise lounge for the cover of the UK release of his “The Man Who Sold The World” album. In 2020, Harry Styles was the first male to feature on the cover of Vogue magazine and he did so wearing a Gucci dress and just to come full circle on this post, although I don’t think Basil Fawlty ever wore a dress, I’m pretty sure John Cleese has at some point in his career.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1All SaintsBooty CallIt’s a no from me
2AerosmithI Don’t Want To Miss A ThingNegative
3PulpParty HardI did not
4Alisha’s AtticThe IncidentalsNope
5HoneyzFinally FoundNah
6BoyzoneNo Matter WhatBig NO
7T-SpoonSex On The BeachAs if
8Robbie WilliamsMillenniumAnd 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/m002lvjr/top-of-the-pops-18091998

TOTP 04 SEP 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

With Jo Whiley having vacated her seat in the TOTP presenter merry-go-round recently, it’s time for Kate Thornton to take centre stage. Having already passed the audition with her guest stint back in July (when Jayne Middlemiss was ill supposedly), here she was as a fully fledged member of the team. I quite liked her – she seemed like a safe pair of hands and, crucially, didn’t do that knowing head tilt/smirk thing that Middlemiss did ALL THE TIME!

Speaking of things that happened on the show all the time, here are Boyzone singing “No Matter What” for the fourth week in a row. Yes, I know they were also the last artist we saw on the previous show thereby making a curious set of bookend appearances but that was no unusual occurrence in the Chris Cowey era. And yes, I know they had slipped from No 1 to No 3 but again, that was no obstacle to consecutive appearances under Cowey. However, he was really taking the piss this time though as this was literally just a reshowing of the same performance that ended last week’s show! Unlike their previous appearances, the lads weren’t all in matching outfits this time – it was hardly dress down Friday stuff but it was a more casual approach all the same. According to Kate Thornton, the reason for them being on the show again was to acknowledge that that their latest album “Where We Belong” had gone back to No 1 in the album charts off the back of “No Matter What”. Having checked, this is true – it had debuted at No 1 back in June and then spent three months kicking around the upper end of the charts before jumping from No 21 to the top again this week. OK, so you could argue that was, indeed, reason enough to grant them another slot in the running order (I don’t agree as it goes).

What doesn’t make sense here though is that “Where We Belong” originally didn’t include “No Matter What”, the song that was sparking all this interest in the album and generating all those sales. A special edition came out in the November that included it plus “I Love The Way You Love Me” which was subsequently released as a single but back in September, the original UK version of the album didn’t feature “No Matter What”. This clearly didn’t matter to the record buying public as they helped create a Joe Cocker / Jennifer Warnes* moment for the lads pushing “Where We Belong” up to the top spot.

*”Up Where We Belong”? No? Please yourselves.

Steps weren’t helping themselves when it came to dispelling those ‘ABBA on speed’ accusations were they? Third single “One For Sorrow” actively encouraged those comparisons with its pure pop confection ways. I know I’ve previously dismissed them as bubblegum/ candy floss but time retrospectively seems to have been kind to this particular track with the Official UK Chart inducting it into their ‘Pop Gem Hall of Fame’. Clearly taking inspiration from the traditional children’s nursery rhyme about counting magpies, it would peak at No 2 becoming their then biggest hit. For any one of my age though, the phrase ‘one for sorrow’ will always be associated with the legendary kids TV programme Magpie…

For those who don’t know it, Magpie was the delinquent cousin to BBC’s Blue Peter. Way cooler and with much hipper (and attractive) presenters, it was to Blue Peter what Tiswas was to Multi Coloured Swap Shop. So would Steps have been Magpie or Blue Peter viewers?

Next up is one of the shortest chart hits of the year. Clocking in at just two minutes long (though Kate Thornton gets her maths wrong by calling it “178 seconds of pure Mansun action” which by my reckoning is nearly three minutes – maybe she wasn’t such a safe pair of hands after all?) “Being A Girl (Part 1)” was Mansun’s ninth consecutive Top 40 hit. Taken from their “Six” album, in its original format it was 7:53 long but it was chopped up and its opening two minutes were released as the lead track from their “Nine EP” (hence the “Part 1” suffix). Its frenetic, almost pop-punk pace was at odds with the band’s previous output. Apparently, “Part 2” is of a much more experimental rock nature though I can’t say I’ve ever listened to it. Now, when I said that “One For Sorrow” by Steps was inspired by the children’s nursery rhyme about counting magpies, I hadn’t bargained on it being completely trumped by the origin of one of Mansun’s lyrics. Check these out:

Blimey! I reckon Zhou would have been a Blue Peter fan rather than a Magpie viewer then.

Before the revolving door of members that was/is (?) the Sugababes, there was the Honeyz. Yes, perhaps the most notable thing about this lot was the times that their line up changed with individuals leaving and returning multiple times. Here though, they were in their infancy with their original members and debut hit “Finally Found”. Its smooth production and sound with a trip-off-the-tongue chorus was always going to find a home in the upper echelons of the charts at this time when you couldn’t move for all girl groups peddling a pop infused R&B sound. However, I did find myself asking whether saturation point was being reached? I mean, they weren’t really offering anything new were they? It could have been Eternal up there on stage singing that song couldn’t it?

Just like Eternal, the Honeyz had a member leave the group just as their success began but for Louise Nurding read Heavenli Roberts (formerly Abdi) who dropped out after just two singles. Unlike Louise though, she would rejoin the group, leave again, rejoin again, leave again, rejoin, leave one more time before finally rejoining with her current status being a fully paid up member of Honeyz. Confused? You will be. Her replacement the first time she left was Mariama Goodman who we saw on TOTP just the other week as part of Solid HarmoniE. Her time with her new group was short lived (about 14 months) before she left and was replaced by the retuning Heavenli Abdi. She would remain with the group until 2003 when they spilt following diminishing commercial returns and being dropped by their label. However, following an appearance by the original line up on ITV’s Hit Me, Baby, One More Time show in 2005, the group was reactivated and went back out on tour. However, Naima Belkhiati wanted to pursue an acting career and so was replaced for said tour by Candace Cherry, sister of lead vocalist Célena. By August of 2006, it was all change again as Heavenli Abdi departed for the second time and was replaced by Mariam Goodman (again). They continued with this line up until 2010 when the group went into hibernation. Two years on and Honeyz were back once more, lured together by another ITV show The Big Reunion and for this convening, the trio was Cherry, Abdi and Goodman, the first time that the latter two had been in the same line up together. The trio toured throughout 2013 before Abdi left for a third time in 2014. The duo of Cherry and Goodman released the first Honeyz single for 14 years in 2015 but it failed to chart. Over the next few years the duo would appear in reality TV shows such as Celebrity Coach Trip and Pointless Celebrities before, in 2023, Abdi announced she had rejoined the group. Within a year Goodman left again was replaced by Candace Cherry which is the current state of the line up. Phew! I’ve finally found the end of the story of the Honeyz group changes. Got all that? Good.

“Now watch out Songs Of Praise. The big fella’s got a new job. Haven’t you heard? God’s a DJ”. So says Kate Thornton in her intro to the next hit which can only be “God Is A DJ” by Faithless. I can’t recall such casual blasphemy since football commentator Alan Parry called Liverpool legend “the creator supreme” back in the early 80s. As Danny Baker said in his Match Of The 80s series, “The creator supreme? One in the eye for Christians everywhere there”.

Apparently, the inspiration for the track’s title came from a slogan on a T-shirt that the band’s guitarist Dave Randall used to wear to rehearsal if you were wondering. This was the lead single from the band’s second album “Sunday 8PM” and whilst there appears to be a lot going on sonically, my main take away from re-listening to it was that it seemed like there was a void where maybe some lyrics could/should have been. I get that it’s a dance track and so maybe words aren’t the thing but if you call said track a provocative title like “God Is A DJ”, I was hoping for a bit more than the late Maxi Jazz repeatedly telling us “This is my church, this is where I heal my hurts”. I know he says (and literally says, not sings nor raps) more than that and that there are fuller lyrics to be found on the internet that maybe exist in different remixes to the edit we get here but still. Is the message as simple as ‘music is my religion’? Conversely you could say it’s full of words and meaning if, as I suspect, Maxi was doing some sign language of what he was saying in this performance. Was that what he was doing? I think I’m just confused by the whole thing and better move on to…

…The Corrs…for the second time in consecutive weeks with “What Can I Do” despite dropping from No 3 to No 7. The technique of superimposing the presenter over the artist in the intro is already starting to look really tired and jaded, probably even back in 1998. When Kate Thornton moves towards the camera at one point, it really emphasises the clunky nature of the technology and looks like a special effect from a 70s episode of Dr. Who or something. Compare Kate with the guy hovering in this clip…

As for The Corrs, they were on the verge of their imperial phase with their next two singles going to No 6 and No 2 before they scored their first and only No 1 in the summer of 2000.

Back when Madonna was still relevant and hadn’t been totally eclipsed as the most famous woman on the planet by Taylor Swift, her releasing a new single was still a major deal. Faced with such an event, Chris Cowey’s ridiculous no video policy wilted before the power of her Madgesty. However, Cowey would still get his bit in by allowing just 1:45 worth of screen time to be shown of the promo for “Drowned World (Substitute For Love)”. There may have been good reason for Cowey to cut short the video for the third single from and opening track of Madge’s “Ray Of Light” album but he didn’t exercise that here. There was some controversy surrounding the scenes where Madonna is chased in her car by paparazzi on motorbikes which critics likened to the events that led to the death of Princess Diana the year before amid accusations of insensitivity and crassness. However, we get to see those scenes in this short clip so it’s shortened length clearly wasn’t due to the editing out of the offending images. In Madonna’s defence, her publicist Liz Rosenberg said that they were nothing to do with Princess Diana and were a reflection of Madge’s own personal experiences with the paparazzi. As for the song itself, it’s a bit of a lost classic that deserved a higher chart placing than its No 10 peak. That William Orbit production that permeates the whole album is very much in evidence with Madonna, whose voice I’ve never really considered as her biggest asset, giving a great vocal performance. Is it fair to say that “Ray Of Light” is Madonna’s best ever album? Quite possibly.

As we saw earlier, Boyzone no longer had the No 1 single but who had knocked them off? I can’t decide if the next occupants of the top spot were a surprise or not? What do we think about “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” by Manic Street Preachers being No 1? I don’t mean the quality of the song but that they could sell enough copies to outstrip everyone else. On the one hand, they’d nearly achieved that chart feat two years earlier when perhaps their best known song “A Design For Life” made No 2. This was backed up by a three times platinum selling album and the fact that all four singles released from it went Top 10. That album – “Everything Must Go” – had seen the band breakthrough into the mainstream so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that anticipation for new material would have increased off the back of it, thus contributing to the sales of “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” when it was finally released. Maybe I’ve already answered my question with an earlier comment though when referring to “A Design For Life” as ‘perhaps their best known song’. Is that why, in retrospect, I’m surprised? The fact that ‘their best known song’ wasn’t their first chart topper? Or is it even that the song that did do it for the band has such an unwieldy* title? Is it a purely a case of me being offended by the linguistic aesthetics?

*Apparently, it’s in the Guinness World Records as the No 1 single with the longest title without brackets

So what about the song itself? Inspired by a Spanish Republican propaganda poster warning of the horrors of not resisting Franco’s nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, it’s suitably epic sounding with those trademark broad sonic brush strokes whilst James Dean Bradfield manages to make that elongated title fit into a chorus somehow. It’s a good song but not a great one in my opinion and certainly not my favourite Manics tune. In the end though, it was their first No 1 single and so has its own individual elevated place in the band’s history but somehow I can’t help thinking whether it would have topped the charts without that other factor which I haven’t considered before – the dastardly record company tactic of first week discounting.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Boyzone No Matter WhatNever
2StepsOne For SorrowI’d rather listen to the Magpie theme tune
3MansunBeing A Girl (Part 1)Negative
4HoneyzFinally FoundNope
5FaithlessGod Is A DJNo
6The CorrsWhat Can I DoNah
7MadonnaDrowned World (Substitute For Love)No but my wife had the album
8Manic Street PreachersIf You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be NextI did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002lj3p/top-of-the-pops-04091998