Kym Sims

TOTP 02 APR 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re approaching Grand National weekend in 1992 and like many up and down the land, I’m on the look out for a horse to back. I’d discovered the art of having a flutter in my student days but that was betting on something I had an interest in; football. Horse racing I knew nothing about. My father in law knew about the gee gees but he didn’t go in for the Grand National as he perceived it to be a lottery and not worthy of his time so I was in my own. True, I had won £50 quid on Aldaniti back in 1981 but that was through a raffle ticket via my local non league football club and not therefore from taking money from the bookies. However, the General Election was taking place the following week and so, like many punters, I took my inspiration from that and went for a horse called Party Politics. He came in first by two and a half lengths at 14-1. I was delighted as money was fairly tight at the time so my win was timely.

If you thought that the impending Grand National might be a theme for this week’s TOTP then you’d be wrong. No mention of any nags but there were two guest presenters whose comedy characters sent up those out of touch Radio 1 DJs who should have been sent to the knackers yard years before. I can only be talking about Smashie and Nicey as played by Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield respectively. I initially thought this must be a tie in with Comic Relief but my research tells me that there was no such event in 1992 as it was a fallow year falling in the two year gap between official events. There was however a mini Comic Relief TV show on BBC1 on 17th April looking at some of the work done with the money raised the previous year and there was a Comic Relief single but more of that later.

No, as far as I can tell, Smashie and Nicey were there purely to plug the second series of Harry Enfield’s Television Programme that started on BBC2 later that evening. Were Smashie and Nicey funny? I don’t find them humorous today but I can’t recall how I felt about them back then though I much preferred Enfield’s earlier character Loadsamoney and his impoverished counterpart Buggerallmoney. Their sketches always seemed to feature them playing “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive and shouting “Let’s Rock!” and they try this schtick to introduce the opening act but it’s wide of the mark for me. Nicey says that the opening act are “quite literally, probably the Queen Mum’s favourite heavy metal band” and this royal theme peppers nearly all of their links throughout the show. Not sure why that was. Were the Royal Family especially in the news at that time or we’re they always referred to as part of Smashie and Nicey’s sketches?

Anyway, the whole thing falls flat as the opening act are LA heavy metal merchants W.A.S.P. who don’t seem a good foil for all this knockabout fun. Far too earnest about their art. I say art but their ‘music’ is quite literally, probably the worst thing I have heard since…well Def Leppard last week. Just a horrible noise. This track, “Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)”, was the lead single from their album “The Crimson Idol” which the band described as a concept album. Said concept revolved around a kid called Jonathan who is rejected by his parents who are in mourning for their favourite son Michael who has been killed by a drunk driver. Jonathan goes off the rails, buys a crimson coloured guitar and becomes a rock star after being signed by a record label president called…yep, Chainsaw Charlie. Jonathan becomes a huge star but his parents still hate him so he commits suicide on stage by hanging himself using his own guitar strings. FFS! What a load of bollocks! Who was taken in by this crap?! Well, the punters that sent this single to No 17 in the UK Top 40 at a guess. Just unfathomable.

Next we have another one of those live satellite link ups, this time with Roxette in Sweden. As Smashie and Nicey launch into a decidedly unfunny preamble routine it appears that Per and Marie can’t hear the pair’s ramblings at all. Either there were some technical difficulties or maybe it wasn’t live at all and just a pre-recorded performance? They launch into this acoustic version of their latest single “Church Of Your Heart” before Smashie and Nicey have finished their intro which adds to the sense that this wasn’t live at all.

This was the fifth and final single from their “Joyride” album and it’s not much more than an inoffensive little ditty really whose title seems to be a mash up of two Culture Club singles – “Church Of The Poison Mind” and “Time (Clock Of The Heart)”. Per taking lead vocal over Marie is the only thing to stop it from hardly being there at all. He goes all Bob Dylan before the song’s coda when he brings out his harmonica which he then chucks over his shoulder when he’s finished playing it. That’s no way to treat a musical instrument! He’s the Kurt Zouma of harmonicas!

“Church Of Your Heart” peaked at No 21.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-01WdHVLns

Onto that aforementioned Comic Relief single now. I have to say that I never really got the appeal of Mr. Bean. I’d loved Rowan Atkinson in all his Blackadder guises but this character? Not for me. Maybe I’m just not much of a fan of physical comedy – I’d never liked those Charlie Chaplin shows that seemed to be on every morning during the Summer holidays when I was a young kid. However, I was in the minority as the New Year’s Day episode of the Mr Bean series had attracted an audience of 28.7 million so it seemed a smart move to get the character to front the 1992 Comic Relief record. To tie in with the forthcoming General Election, the song chosen was Alice Cooper’s “Elected” though it was retitled “(I Want To Be) Elected”. Joining Atkinson on the record were Smear Campaign aka Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and rock band Skin (then known as Taste).

I thought this was awful. Bean’s lines in it in the form of manifesto pledges were as funny as Liz Truss being the Foreign Secretary and anyway, I thought the USP of Mr Bean was that he didn’t speak. Even the army of Bean fans didn’t get on board with this and its chart placing of No 9 was one of the lowest of all the Comic Relief singles. The previous year, the odious “The Stonk” by Hale & Pace had been a No 1. Surely the obvious move for the charity would have been to ask Right Said Fred to do it. That invitation duly came 12 months later as the Freds did “Stick It Out” but by then their success was on the wane and the single peaked at No 4 (albeit five places higher than Mr Bean). By 2017, both “Stick It Out” and “(I Want To Be) Elected” ranked as only the 19th and 21st best performing Comic Relief singles respectively. The phrase missed opportunities comes to mind.

I had totally forgotten that Kym Sims had another hit other than the one she is remembered for. Just to make it easier to recall the rest of her back catalogue she made her next single “Take My Advice” sound exactly the same as “Too Blind To See It”. I mean she wasn’t the first artist to stick to a formula when it came to consolidating on initial success but mix it up a bit eh?

Unlike Kim, the TOTP producers did decide to mix it up by interspersing the rather dull video that accompanied the single with shots of Smashie and Nicey throwing some shapes back in the studio. Oh God. Guys, it’s so deeply unfunny. Who thought this was a good idea? Well, those TOTP producers I guess. Both they and Kym Sims should have taken my advice on all of these issues but they were too blind to see it.

Hang on! Soul II Soul were in the studio performing their single “Joy” literally last week! Why are they back on seven days later? Yes, they were a chart climber but it wasn’t like they were a 30 seconds cameo in the Breakers section. No, they were given a full studio slot. What happened to the rule saying the only act allowed on the show in consecutive weeks was the No 1 artist?

I have other questions. Why is Jazzie B using a conductor’s baton to lead the proceedings behind singer Richie Stephens and has he nicked Vince Clarke’s synth from Erasure’s appearance last week?

“Joy” peaked at No 4.

There’s another four Breakers this week and as is the emerging trend with this feature, we would not see 75% of them on the show again. First up is Prince & The New Power Generation with “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night”. This was the fourth single from his “Diamonds And Pearls” album and was identified by many a critic as the stand out track from it. The video shown here isn’t the one that was originally shot which didn’t feature Prince at all and only showed images of a poverty stricken African-American family. It was considered too political for MTV and so a second film was made to include footage of Prince and his band performing the song.

“Money Don’t Matter 2 Night” peaked at No 19.

Salt ‘N’ Pepa had enjoyed a pretty good 1991. Two singles that went Top 5 plus a Top 20 hit to boot and a top selling Greatest Hits album. 1992 looked to be going the same way with “Expression” released to promote a remix album called “Rapped In Remixes: The Greatest Hits”. Yet the single failed to break the Top 20 and the remix album did nothing. This was the second time the track had been in the UK Top 40 as it originally made No 40 when released as the lead single from their third album “Blacks’ Magic”.

1993 would be a better year with another Top 10 hit courtesy of their collaboration with En Vogue on “Whatta Man” and Top 20 entries “Shoop” and “None Of Your Business” all from their five times platinum in the US album “Very Necessary”. Somehow the album failed to take off in the UK struggling to a peak of No 36.

In a recent post while reviewing a TOTP that featured The Pasadenas performing “I’m Doing Fine Now“, I suggested that the end of the road for the band was coming up fast. Well surely this brief appearance for their cover of Bread’s “Make It With You” was their final destination. Taken from their covers album “Yours Sincerely” it did nowhere near the business that its predecessor did peaking at No 20.

This one passed me by at the time but listening to it now, it sounds like quite a nasty take on the original. Something very plastic sounding about it. Might be the parping brass section or the ever so 90s backing track. At least they tried to make it sound different I guess. If this is to be the last time we see The Pasadenas, I can’t say I’ll miss them.

The final Breaker sees Curtis Stigers doing a Kym Sims as he follows up his huge breakthrough hit single “I Wonder Why” with a song that sounds very, very similar. I don’t know his eponymous debut album apart from the singles so I’ve no idea if there was a better option for the follow up but I can imagine his label saying “We’re just going to play it safe Curtis man. We don’t want anything coming from out of leftfield so which song sounds the closest to your first one? Fine. “You’re All That Matters To Me” it is.”

So similar were the tracks they they nearly even replicated each other’s chart positions with “You’re All That Matters To Me” peaking just one place below its predecessor at No 6.

This week’s ‘exclusive’ performance comes from Chris De Burgh. In what universe was this man worthy of the term ‘exclusive’?! In a parallel 1992 where all dance music is banned and radio stations are only allowed to play soporific cruddy balladry?! I mean, how could the TOTP producers consider Chris De Burgh to be still relevant to the pop charts at this time?! I’m sure some negotiations took place between De Burgh’s record label A&M and the BBC over this slot which presumably was to help sell his new album “Power Of Ten” from which this track “Separate Tables” was taken because how else do you explain it?!

De Burgh’s musical reputation had never recovered since the huge turd that was “Lady In Red” in 1986. Some of his early stuff is actually OK (no it is, really) but everything since that heinous crime against music had been dreadful. This single was never going to improve his standing. If his musical reputation was in tatters, his personal reputation would take a similar nosedive a couple of years after this when the press revealed details of his affair with his family’s 19 year old nanny whilst his wife recovered from a broken neck injury. That’s real shitty behaviour right there.

The curious thing about this performance is that the staging is completely off. Where are the table props? Look at the song title guys! Instead there’s some sort of elaborate chaise longue littering the back of the stage and four Doric columns. Talk about missing an open goal!

“Separate Tables” peaked at No 30. Let’s never talk of this again. Agreed?

It’s a seventh week of eight fur Shakespear’s Sister and “Stay”. It’s probably about time that the issue of that band name was addressed. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Right at the very end of the show we get a weird personal message from Cher letting us know she’ll be in next week’s TOTP. Weird it may have been but that five seconds to camera piece was more of an ‘exclusive’ than the whole of Chris De Burgh’s performance.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1W.A.S.P.Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)A huge no
2RoxetteChurch Of Your HeartNah
3Mr. Bean and Smear Campaign(I Want To Be) ElectedNot even for charity
4Kym SimsTake My AdviceNope
5Soul II SoulJoyNo but I snaffled a promo cassette single of it for my wife
6Prince & The New Power GenerationMoney Don’t Matter 2 NightNo
7Salt ‘N’ PepaExpressionNegative
8The PasadenasMake It With YouNever happening
9Curtis StigersYou’re All That Matters To MeI did not
10Chris De BurghSeparate TablesI’d have rather eaten my own arm
11Shakespear’s SisterStayIt’s another 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/m00142cl/top-of-the-pops-02041992

TOTP 09 JAN 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

Well, we’ve finally made it into 1992 and the first thing to say is that we’re not starting at the very beginning. No, we’ve missed a week because of the Adrian Rose issue so we start a week later on the 9th of January. In my prologue post for 1992 I was very negative about the prospects for the year but having checked the running order for this show, there’s some artists on that are distinctly removed from the mainstream’s usual suspects. None more so than the opening act tonight who are Iceland’s finest The Sugarcubes.

Now I have to be straight up about this with my cards firmly on the table and admit that I’m no fan of Björk – in fact I pretty much can’t stand her ‘singing’. All that straining and shrieking which I’m meant to find spellbinding but which actually just grates on me? No thanks. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate her record as an artist though. Her longevity alone deserves respect – 9 albums, 2 soundtrack albums, 39 singles just as a solo performer plus another 3 albums and 14 singles with The Sugarcubes. Then there’s her acting career, she’s written books of poetry and been involved in charitable endeavours such as the “Army Of Me: Remixes And Covers” project to raise funds for those affected by the Asian tsunami of 2004. Plus you couldn’t accuse her of standing still creatively. Starting with the punk of early band Spit And Snot, she moved through the avant garde indie rock of The Sugarcubes onto her solo career beginning with the dance beats of “Debut” then the experimental eclecticism of follow up “Post” through to the voice only recording of 2004 ‘s “Medúlla” and finally the folktronica of her most recent album “Utopia”. She’s a female version of David Bowie in terms of reinvention. I still can’t stand her voice though.

The only thing I really knew about The Sugarcubes in 1992 was their 1987 single “Birthday” which had been Melody Maker‘s single of the year. It had been far too out there for me though and I certainly hadn’t been tempted to find out more of their work via their first two albums “Life’s Too Good” and “Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!”. The single “Hit” though found them at their most accessible (to me at least). The track has an almost funky back beat and the bridge into the chorus is actually quite melodic. Even Björk has toned down on her vocal stylings although I’m not sure about the Icelandic version of Bez in the cap in this performance nor his dodgy rapping skills. The album the single was taken from called “Stick Around For Joy” did reasonable business peaking at No 16 in the UK charts but the band broke up at the end of the year despite massive exposure from supporting U2 during the US leg of their Zoo TV Tour in October and November playing to a total of 700,000 people.

By the way, tonights hosts are Mark Franklin and Claudia Simon and its the latter who describes the next song as a “seriously hard dance tune that makes you want to get up and dance”. Ooh! Who could it possibly be?! Well, it’s an ensemble that went by the name of Isotonik. Now back in the early 90s, the only use of the word ‘isotonic’ had come from the lips of John Barnes in his infamous Lucozade advert – “it gets to your thirst…fast” and all that….

…until this lot turned up. Who were they? According to Mark Franklin, they were formed by one Chris Paul who was an ex copper turned DJ / producer who also dabbled in nightclub promotion – he was behind the Orange Raves brand operating out of London. Using his entrepreneurial nous, he used this TOTP appearance for a bit of free advertising (the BBC didn’t notice/care apparently) by having his mate dress up as an orange and jig along on stage with the rest of the dancers in front of an Orange Rave logo backdrop. I have to say that:

a) The costume comes across more like a tomato than an orange under the studio lights

b) It looks absolutely shit.

As for their track “Different Strokes”, it seemed too be a mash up of a load of samples (I know not which ones and I care even less) and there’s a definite flavour of 808 State and “Charly” era The Prodigy that’s been half inched and added into the mixer. Just horrible.

“Different Strokes” peaked at No 12.

We’re onto our first video of the night and it’s “Too Blind To See It” by Kym Sims. Claudia Simon gives her album a plug in the intro to it by saying “if it’s anything like her single, it’s gonna be BIG!”. So was it? Big I mean. I remember the cover to it and we certainly stocked it in the Our Price I was working in but how well did it actually sell? Hmm. Well, according to he officialcharts.com database, it spent just two weeks in the UK charts peaking at No 39 before dropping to No 50 and then slipping out altogether. I think you could find a number of words to describe its commercial track record then but ‘BIG’ would not be one of them.

Kim did have a further two hits released from her eponymous and only album but that didn’t inspire a rejuvenation of its sales and she would not trouble the chart compilers ever again despite continuing to work within the music industry, writing for both herself and other artists. Having said all that, there does seem to be a lot of love out there online for the track “Too Blind To See It” being variously described as ‘a tune’ and ‘an absolute banger’. Indeed.

Blimey! First The Sugarcubes and now Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine! TOTP was really starting the new year with an indie bang! To paraphrase Chris Tarrant from his Tiswas days, this is what the kids wanted! Having broken through the chart barrier that prohibited Grebo rock from infecting the youth of the day in 1991 with not one but two hit singles in “Sheriff Fatman” and “After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)”, Jim Bob and Fruitbat strode confidently into 1992 with some right old “Rubbish”. Or was it “R.U.B.B.I.S.H” as I’ve seen it alternatively spelt online. Either way, it was more of the same from the duo but although it undoubtedly kicked the rest of the charts squarely in the Schofields, it did sound a bit “Sheriff Fatman”-lite to me. Fair play though to them for getting Mother’s Pride bread into the lyrics a good decade before dreadful boy band Blue managed the same feat in their hit “One Love”.

The performance here seems to channel a Mad Max post apocalyptic industrial world setting with Jim Bob spending most of his time on the roof of a battered old car. Oh and that bandage on his arm? Here’s the man himself with the story behind it:

As you do. 1992 was the peak of Carter’s commercial powers and saw them score a No 1 album (no really) with “1992 – The Love Album”. “Rubbish” itself though was a stand alone single although it did get added as a bonus track to a 2011 re-release of “101 Damnations”.

Incidentally, they recorded a version of tonight’s opening song, “Hit” by The Sugarcubes, as the B-side to their 1993 single “Lean on Me I Won’t Fall Over”. I love it when a post comes together all by itself.

I think they’ve moved the Breakers section to its more traditional spot of being in the middle of the show. It seemed to be positioned just before the No 1 in recent weeks which seemed odd. Mark Franklin does the intro for it and during it, a weird thing occurs. He name checks all the acts featured in the Breakers except for one which he refers to instead as just “another great song”. Did he just forget who was on or was it some sort of indirect slur?

Anyway, the first Breaker (Franklin did name them) is The Stone Roses who despite it now being 1992 are still releasing singles from their debut album that came out in May 1989! What was going on?! Well, the band was still in a state of transition. Having removed themselves from their restrictive Silvertone recording contract and signed with US big hitters Geffen, they’d also just sacked their manager, the colourful character that was Gareth Evans. Their was precious little new music being laid down though. They mostly seemed to be following Manchester United around the country or hanging out in the bars of Chorlton shooting the breeze.

With no new material forthcoming, I’m guessing Silvertone saw a window of opportunity to make the most of the tracks they had licenced to them and put out just about every song from the first album as a single. The latest track to receive this treatment was “Waterfall”, no doubt a great song (I especially liked the line ‘so good to have equalised’) but surely we all knew it by then. Even so the band still had a loyal enough fan base to send it to No 27.

Next the one act that Franklin didn’t mention in his intro and it’s Kiss. Why the omission? Did he have beef with the US rockers? It seems unlikely. Anyway, Kiss hadn’t featured in the UK Top 40 since 1987 brought us “Reason To Live” and more memorably “Crazy Crazy Nights” but they were back via the trusted method of having a song featured in a hit film. That film was of course Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey for which Kiss had recorded a version of Argent’s 1973 hit “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You”. It wasn’t a straight cover though as they rewrote the lyrics in the verses to pay tribute to their drummer since 1982 Eric Carr who appears on the track but who died of cancer in 1991 aged 42. The rewrite also caused them to retitle the song “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You II”. Carr was too ill to play drums on the track but he sings on the a capella break before the song’s finale. He also appears in the video wearing a wig as his chemotherapy treatment had caused him to lose his hair.

I don’t think I knew that it wasn’t a Kiss original at the time but I did always have a soft spot for it. I wasn’t the only one as my work colleague Justin also did specifically that a capella bit. The song’s appeal stretched beyond Justin and I though – enough people bought it to send it all the way to No 4. I liked the film as well. Stupid as mud but good fun all the same and the song works well positioned over the ending.

Yay! Another nice bit of serendipity! After the Carter USM / The Sugarcubes connection comes another link in between two artists on the same show. We saw Kym Sims earlier and I noted that after her brief fame as a chart star she ended up writing for other artists. Well, one of those was Ce Ce Peniston who is the next Breaker with “We Got A Love Thang”. No that isn’t a mistake. Ce Ce really did gave hits that weren’t “Finally”. It’s just that it felt like that was her only song. To be fair to those of us who felt like this, we could be forgiven when you consider that the release before “We Got A Love Thang” was “Finally” and the one after it was… yep…”Finally” albeit the 1992 remix. The original release in October ‘91 peaked at No 26 whilst the remix went all the way to No 2. In between came “We Got A Love Thang” and it also did the business chart wise peaking at No 6. For me though, it didn’t have any of the hooks and charm of its predecessor (and successor) and I always found it quite bland.

The final Breaker comes from The Prodigy. After being the main protagonists in initiating a brief musical sub genre of rave tunes which sampled children’s programming with their debut hit “Charly”, the pressure was on to come up with a more credible follow up. They did it and then some with “Everybody In The Place”. An instant rave classic, it would go all the way to No 2. It would be included on their debut album “Experience” which we sold loads of in Manchester (I guess due to the massive club scene there) but which I am surprised to learn didn’t even make the Top 10, peaking outside of it at No 12. It did eventually go platinum for sales of 300,000 mind. Even though “Everybody In The Place” consolidated the band’s initial success, I don’t think many of us could have foreseen the impact The Prodigy would have over the whole of the 90s nor their legacy beyond that.

Next a track that is so wicked that it will melt your boots according to presenter Claudia Simon. Who could she possibly be talking about? It turns out she’s waxing lyrical about Blue Pearl. Yes, that Blue Pearl who scored a huge hit back in 1990 with “Naked in The Rain”. So, hands up all those who thought that this lot were a one hit wonder?

*blogger raises his hand*

Well, we were all wrong for they actually had four Top 40 singles (although two of them were both “Naked in The Rain”). This one, “(Can You) Feel the Passion” – no brackets, no points – peaked at No 14 but wasn’t include on there only album called “Naked”. If it sounds familiar, that’s probably because it features samples from Bizarre Inc’s “Playing with Knives.” The spoken word delivery from singer Durga McBroom (not a character from the The Worst Witch but her actual name) does make it out stand out rather but clearly not enough to commit it to my memory first time around.

As with Carter USM before them, the staging of the performance has a Mad Max feel to it with those industrial looking drums being struck by some rather sinister looking guys with intimidating black stripes across their eyes making them look like Adam Ant’s evil twin brothers. Durga would go onto tour with Pink Floyd providing backing vocals for “The Great Gig In The Sky” thereby proving that she could also sing as well as speak.

Senseless Things (no ‘The’ for you pedants out there) were probably a band I should have got more into. Pedalling an energetic brand of punk pop and with a name pinched from a Shakespearean phrase, I could have gone big for this lot. Somehow I didn’t and now my main memory of them is that they were signed to Epic, a subsidiary of Sony – damn all those boxes of albums that I opened during my Our Price years and their delivery notes that I perused!

“Easy To Smile” was the first of two Top 20 hits that they achieved in 1992. Listening back to them now, what strikes about them is that they sound very American, like a US Green Day even. Though they never amounted to that much hit wise (they never troubled the Top 40 after 1992), they would demonstrate their musical chops in their careers after the band broke up in 1995. Lead singer Mark Keds (sadly now deceased) became a member of The Wildhearts and also has a co-writer credit on The Libertines’ 2004 hit “Can’t Stand Me Now”, which took a line from the 1998 single “Hey! Kitten” of one of his post Senseless Things bands called Jolt. Rhythm guitarist Ben Harding went on to join charting band 3 Colours Red whilst Morgan Nicholls performed with Muse, Gorillaz, The Streets and Lily Allen. Talking of Gorillaz, one other thing I recall about Senseless Things was the amazing artwork on their album covers and which is seen in the backdrop to their TOTP performance. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the lowdown on it:

“Easy To Smile” peaked at No 18.

Due to the Adrian Rose effect, missed episodes and me not bothering to review the 1991 Xmas TOTP, I think this is the first of my posts that includes Queen at No 1 with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Re-released off the back of Freddie Mercury’s death on 24 November, its ascent to the top of the charts and 5 week stay there not only secured it the Xmas No 1 spot but also meant that it became the only song to hold that accolade twice by the same artist.

Unlike its initial release in 1975 though, the 1991 version was a double A side which saw “Bohemian Rhapsody” paired with “These Are The Days Of Our Lives”, the fifth and final track to be taken from the “Innuendo” album. I guess I can understand that the fans wanted something to mark the passing of their idol, something to hang on to and what better choice than their best known and most successful song ever? Or was it pure, cynical greed by EMI to cash in on a tragic event and while they were at it, they added a song from the latest (and now last) album to try and flog that as well? A bit of both maybe.

I think at this time, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was one of those songs that I’d heard so many times that it had become unlistenable. I may still be at that stage now. As for “These Are The Days Of Our Lives”, it sounded like very untypical Queen fare to me, a lilting ballad whose title sat perfectly as a goodbye to Freddie. I suppose similar claims of appropriateness could have been made for “Who Wants To Live Forever” and “The Show Must Go On” but I think the chosen track was the most respectful. Interesting that the TOTP producers chose to show the full 6 minute video of “Bohemian Rhapsody” – was that really necessary?

Order of appearanceArtist TitleDid I buy it?
1The SugarcubesHitNo – that voice…
2IsotonikDifferent StrokesHell no
3Kym SimsToo Blind To See ItNah
4Carter The Unstoppable Sex MachineRubbishI did not
5The Stone RosesWaterfallNo but I have the album though don’t we all?
6KissGod Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You IIGuilty pleasure but didn’t buy it
7Ce Ce Peniston We Got A Love ThangNo we don’t
8The ProdigyEverybody In The PlaceNope
9Blue Pearl(Can You) Feel the PassionNo
10Senseless ThingsEasy To SmileShould have but didn’t
11Queen Bohemian Rhapsody / These Are The Days Of Our LivesNah

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/m001349m/top-of-the-pops-09011992

TOTP 12 DEC 1991

Posted on by 80stastic

Christmas is coming! Unlike in 2021 where the certainty of what our festive period will be like is now under threat again from the pandemic (or more accurately the government’s handling of it), 30 years ago, some of the most pressing issues we were facing included whether we had enough wrapping paper and remembering to buy a Radio Times to plan our TV watching (very important in the pre-digital age). If, like me, you were working in retail at this time, another consideration was when we could fit in any Christmas shopping of our own after facilitating everybody else’s by working behind a shop counter for hours on end. Oh, and what the Christmas No 1 would be… and please let it not be Cliff Richard again this year. Well, as it turned out, Cliff didn’t really get a look in but which records were in the charts back then? Let’s find out…

We start tonight’s TOTP with one of the year’s biggest breakout stars in Cathy Dennis who is in the studio to perform her fourth Top 40 hit of 1991 and her fifth overall. “Everybody Move” was the final single to be released from her gold selling No 3 album “Move To This” and was a return to the radio friendly dance material of her earlier hits after previous single “Too Many Walls” had seen her go down the slow ballad route.

In all honesty, “Everybody Move” should probably have remained an unreleased album track. It’s pretty lightweight stuff and certainly it doesn’t require a great leap of imagination from this to the kind of stuff that Cathy would end up writing for the likes of S Club 7 and Hear’say later in the decade. Accordingly, it only made it to No 25 in the UK Top 40.

Whilst the reaction on Twitter to this performance focussed on Cathy’s Joker-esque outfit, I was more drawn to her dance move which comes over like a half-hearted Mick Channon windmill celebration…

Now I know I quite often draw on football references for this blog and that I’ve just done it again immediately above but quite why presenter Tony Dortie decides to do the same in his intro to the Top 10 countdown remains a mystery. “It’s day 12 on the Advent calendar, Hearts and Leeds are currently topping things in the football world but let’s see which musical crackers are doing the business in the Top 10” he trills. Hmm. For completions sake, I should note that Leeds Utd would indeed go onto win the old Division 1 league title come May the following year however the 1991–92 Scottish Premier Division season was won by Rangers, nine points ahead of Hearts. Dortie messes up the countdown straight away when he announces that Nirvana are at No 10 with “Smells Like Teen”. What happened to your ‘spirit’ Tony?! Unlike Boris Johnson, at least Tony owns his mistakes…

There’s some more curious missing word action next as we get what would probably have been described as a ‘banging’ tune’ back then called “Running Out Of Time” by Digital according to co-host Claudia Simon. That wasn’t their full name though Claudia, was it? No, that was Digital Orgasm – ooh and indeed err missus! This wasn’t anything to do with presenter error by the way as the on screen artist and title graphics confirm that Claudia hadn’t just messed up her intro. This, it would seem, was a TOTP policy decision. Presumably, the use of the word orgasm would have been seen as far too offensive pre the 9 o’clock watershed and so was dropped.

As with all of these dance tunes from this era, I have zero recall of it despite working in a record shop while it was in the charts. Listening back to it now, it sounds like it’s been concocted in a rave laboratory with the basic tune of “Insanity” by Oceanic spliced together with snippets of “Charly” by The Prodigy. Both were huge hits so I guess if that really was the formula behind “Running Out Of Time” then it was a sound one.

As for the performance, it looks as if the TOTP producers have given a bit more thought to how to portray this seemingly endless conveyor belt of dance acts. There appear to be loads more camera cuts and in quick rotation meaning we get lots of different angles of the performers which I’m guessing was meant to try and replicate a more clubby experience. There’s also some slightly different distorted visual effect for the non vocal bits – they’ve lost the Doctor Who green which never worked for me anyway. The woman doing the singing looks almost otherworldly like one of Captain Kirk’s alien love interests which kind of helps things along as well.

“Running Out Of Time” peaked at No 16.

Oh no! It’s the dreaded Cliff Richard! Oh yes though as he’s not No 1! He’s nowhere near the top of the tree actually being at No 19 and there’s only two weeks until Christmas! Talking of trees, the show’s production team have pulled out all the stops for Cliff to make the stage look like his front room at Christmas. A fully decorated tree, a mock fireplace, cards and candles – were Health and Safety informed?! – and Cliff himself in an armchair dressed in a sparkly jacket. For some reason though, they haven’t bothered with the prop of a telephone for the faux phone call part at the beginning of the record leaving Cliff to mime speaking into an imaginary one and then putting it back in its cradle. It just looks weird. I was hoping that Cliff might go full Val Doonican and sing the whole song from that armchair but he’s up on his feet in no time to look sincerely into the camera at us and do some of those wavy arm moves of his.

Does anybody really remember “We Should Be Together”? It’s surely Cliff’s forgotten Christmas single after “Mistletoe And Whine…sorry..Wine” and “Saviour’s Day”? You never hear it played on the radio come December despite some of the commercial stations like Magic having cleared all of their playlist schedules to play exclusively Christmas tunes. Somehow it did get to No 10 in the UK Top 40 though it was never a serious contender for the top spot.

We get the video for “Too Blind To See It” by Kym Sims next. It’s introduced by Claudia Simon who says Kym is “kickin’ up a flavour” (that’s probably ‘flava’ isn’t it?) whilst all the time a youth from the studio audience gurns away behind her looking remarkably like a young Mark Ronson.

It turns out that “Too Blind To See It” is a dance record that I do remember (finally)! I think it’s that shuffling back beat and the ‘no man in the world’ sample that must have lodged in my brain. It’s a pretty nifty tune I think and yet it was written and produced by my arch nemesis Steve “Silk” Hurley /aka the man who killed music with his “Jack Your Body” No 1 in 1987. Hmm. Anyway, on reflection it has a ring of “Finally” by Ce Ce Pension to it which is probably no surprise as Kym was the co-writer on her hit “Keep On Walkin'”.

Wikipedia tells me that “Too Blind To See It” was released on the East West Records label who were responsible for a string of dance hits around this time including “Peace” by Sabrina Johnston and “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” by En Vogue. They all had that simple yet distinctive, generic East West cover as I recall or was that only used if they’d run out of the official picture sleeve? Can’t remember now.

“Too Blind To See It” was Kym’s biggest hit peaking at No 5 in the UK although she would have two further and smaller Top 40 hits by the end of 1992.

“Salt n’ Pepa are in the house and rockin’ the mic!” says Tony Dortie as we move back to the studio for their performance of “You Showed Me”. They’ve all come dressed in what looks like black latex jackets while their three dancers have dungarees in the same material making them look like a kinky version of Rod, Jane and Freddy.

The staging of the performance has a feel of West Side Story to it but the choreographer hasn’t really worked out what to do with DJ Spinderella who seems redundant when the rapping kicks in and is left to wander off with her allocated dance partner and act out an argument between them. At the song’s finale she retreats to the back of the stage, goes up the stairs erected there and assumes a rather risqué position by wrapping her legs around his crotch area. I take it back about Rod, Jane and Freddy – they’d have never got up to such vulgar antics! Or would they?…..

Meanwhile over on the other stage we find Right Said Fred about to perform their next hit single “Don’t Talk Just Kiss”. Before we get to the Freds though, I noticed something that I don’t believe we’ve seen before in these TOTP repeats which was the studio audience actually running across the floor to be in place for the next performance. There’s literally about a dozen people behind Tony Dortie all in a rush, vying for a view of the next pop stars on the show. I always imagined that the studio audience was shepherded around the set, the flock to the floor manager’s sheep dog. However, they all seem like they have been let off the leash to roam (or run) wherever they wish. This year zero revamp has a lot to answer for!

Anyway, I must admit that I for one thought we had heard the last of Right Said Fred when “I’m Too Sexy” finally dipped out of the Top 40 and dismissed the whole thing as a one off novelty hit. How wrong I was. “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” was not only another smash for the trio but it was (SHOCK!) a decent tune to boot! How had this happened? Well, proving that they weren’t as daft as they looked, the Fairbrass brothers (and the other one) got soul diva Jocelyn Brown in to sing on the track. Jocelyn’s vocals had already been sampled for Snap!’s 1990 No 1 hit “The Power” whilst her own 1984 hit “Somebody Else’s Guy” would form the hook for George Michael’s 1992 Top 5 hit “Too Funky”. Here though, she was actually singing on the song rather than being sampled although she didn’t actually get any credits on the record. That seems a bit weird as she’s up there front and centre on stage alongside the band for this TOTP appearance so they obviously weren’t trying to play down her contribution.

“Don’t Talk Just Kiss” would prove to be another massive hit peaking at No 3 whilst their album “Up” (released in March of the following year) would top the charts and go double platinum. Over the pond though it was a different story and the band did indeed become the one hit wonder I had thought they were destined to be. “I’m Too Sexy” had been a US No 1 but “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” stalled at No 76. Supposedly radio stations were still playing that first hit when the follow up was released and there was little interest in any Right Said Fred material that wasn’t “I’m Too Sexy”. They would have no further hits Stateside.

The camera pans around to Claudia Simon up in the gantry for the next link and she advises us of four Breakers three of which are stone cold stinkers starting with Jason Donovan and the “Joseph Megamix”. After his surprise No 1 hit earlier in the year with “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it was always on the cards that some abomination like this medley would end up being churned out to cash in. With the Christmas party season upon us, it probably seemed like a decent bet that it would be a hit but can anyone say that they’ve ever been to a party where this was put on the turntable and if so, did they not leave immediately?!

“Joseph Megamix” peaked at No 13.

Another megamix! Are you kidding me?! What’s this one then? “The Bare Necessities Megamix” by UK Mixmasters?! Sorry? What? Pardon? And crucially, why? This was a Jungle Book medley that actually only featured two songs – “I Wanna Be Like You” and the titular “Bare Necessities”. You won’t be surprised to know that this heap of shit had Simon Cowell’s fingerprints all over it as it was released on his BMG subsidiary label IQ Records. UK Mixmasters was actually some bloke called Nigel Wright who was also responsible for the equally odious act Mirage who scored some hits in the late 80s doing medleys of house records under the umbrella title of “Jack Mix”. He also did that Saturday Night Fever medley earlier in 1991. What a talented guy!

Talking of talented guys, that’s all round entertainer Gary Wilmot up there promoting this garbage. However, when the track was performed in the TOTP studio the following week, another Gary (Martin) took over the vocalist role. I had to look this guy up but apparently he went onto make his name as an acclaimed voice over actor. We won’t get to see the TOTP with Martin as it’s one of those episodes hosted by Adrian Rose who didn’t give this consent for the repeat to be aired so we’ll miss it. So….just for you… here’s that performance below you lucky people!

Finally some proper music…even if it is U2! Only kidding I liked the “Achtung Baby” era of the band and “Mysterious Ways” was the second single to be released off that album. As a follow up to their No 1 song “The Fly” it was a strong if bold choice. There’s plenty going on in “Mysterious Ways” and most of it was maybe not what we would have expected from the band at the time. This was no po-faced, earnest rock anthem like “With Or Without You” but a groovy, exuberant tune that starts as it means to go on with that wah wah peddle guitar effect from The Edge setting the tone. It sounded so much better to me than “The Fly” and should have been a bigger hit than its No 13 placing although it did make the Top 10 in America. U2 would take this path towards dance experimentation again in 1997 with the electronic influenced No 1 single “Discothèque” but for me, “Mysterious Ways” trumps it by some considerable distance.

What?! New Kids On The Block were still in our charts in December 1991? Hadn’t that particular craze blown out long before this point? Well. yes it kind of had. This single “If You Go Away” was a final hurrah of the initial phase of their career before they briefly regrouped in 1994 for a less than glorious return. They would finally return as an entity in 2008 and are still touring to this day (I think).

“If You Go Away” is a soporific ballad that you can imagine Michael Bolton having rejected as too banal. It was included as the only new track on their first Best Of album called “H.I.T.S.” that was released for the Christmas market. I was the chart cassette buyer at the Our Price store I was working at then and have to admit to a gross over estimate of demand for that album. We hardly sold any and my over optimistic ordering left us with quite a few copies to go into the New Year sale when they again failed to sell. Ah well, yuh learn.

The black and white video is meant to make us perceive them as serious artists as opposed to the unobtainable desire of teenage girls. That and the fact that they had changed their name to NKOTB was a giveaway that they were looking for a new audience. For me though, they would always be more T’KNOB than NKOTB (over ordering of their album aside).

“If You Go Away” peaked at a surprisngly high No 9 in the UK Top 40.

Oh God! I’m in “Martika’s Kitchen”! Yes, it’s time for one of the stupidest song titles of the year courtesy of…well, Martika. On reflection, is it stupid or misunderstood? I don’t think I twigged it at the time but the general consensus on the internet is that “Martika’s Kitchen” is actually filthy! How did I not pick up on this back then?! Firstly, it’s written by Prince which should have been enough evidence of its salacious nature to close the case right there and then. Exhibit B (m’lud) comes in the form of the lyrics, for example:

The table is set, the oven is hot
Baby, when we get started, we won’t ever ever stop

and:

I don’t care I’ve got the chair, if you think your butt’ll fit it
You turn me all the way up, I admit it

In my defence, I think the fact that Martika has chosen to wear some very non-revealing clothes in this performance maybe misled me. As for the sound of the song, at the time it seemed very pop-orientated compared to previous single “Love… Thy Will Be Done” (also written by Prince) but which didn’t seem like it could possibly have been written by the same person. However, on reflection, “Martika’s Kitchen” has some definite Prince hallmarks attached to it although parts of it also remind me of Janet Jackson’s “Nasty”.

This was the second single from her album of the same name and although it sold reasonably in the UK, like T’KNOB before it, I’m pretty sure we had plenty of copies left over for the New Year sale. Perhaps I wasn’t that great at being chart cassette buyer!

George Michael and Elton John are still No 1 with “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”. With two weeks to go, they must have been in the running for the festive chart topper but once “Bohemian Rhapsody” was re-released on the back of Freddie Mercury’s death, all bets were off. George would, of course, score a further No 1 with another cover version two years later, this time of Queen’s own “Somebody To Love” as part of the “Five Live EP” recorded at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert the year before. Elton meanwhile would return in 1992 with his “The One” album the title track of which really was a bit of a dirge.

As we’ve skipped the 19 December show, the next post will be the end of year review.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Cathy DennisEverybody MoveNah
2Digital OrgasmRunning Out Of TimeNo chance
3Cliff RichardWe Should Be TogetherNever happening
4Kym SimsToo Blind To See ItNope
5Salt n’ PepaYou Showed MeNo
6Right Said FredDon’t Talk Just KissNegative
7Jason DonovanJoseph MegamixAs if
8UK MixmastersThe Bare Necessities MegamixDitto
9U2Mysterious WaysNo but I bought the album
10NKOTBIf You Go AwayI wish they would – No
11MartikaMartika’s KitchenI did not
12George Michael and Elton JohnDon’t Let the Sun Go Down on MeAnd 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/m0011myd/top-of-the-pops-12121991