TOTP 17 JUN 1993
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:
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 