There’s some massive tunes and stellar names on this particular TOTP starting with one of the biggest rock songs of all time. Who doesn’t know “Ace Of Spades” by Motörhead? Seriously though, who doesn’t?
Enter Motörhead fan, stage left…
MF: Alright pal. What other Motörhead songs do you know?
Me: Erm…well…there’s that one about…you know…um…ahh…Oh God! I don’t know any others!
Yes, turns out I’m not really an aficionado on Motörhead at all though I do like “Ace Of Spades” but then who doesn’t (don’t start all that again!). What I do know however is that during their early 1980s heyday I read a series of articles about the band in the Daily Mirror (our family’s choice of paper) where I learned of the classic line up of Lemmy, Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor and ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke. I also read of their tales of debauchery involving what they called ‘dodgy boilers’ who even the wet behind the ears 12 year old me knew referred to groupies who were prepared to get horizontal to meet their idols.
Sadly, all three of the classic line up have now shuffled off this mortal coil with the band officially disbanding following Lemmy’s death in 2015. Still, all us 80s kids will always have this…
The iconic tunes continue with the PetShopBoys treatment of The Village People classic “Go West”. This cover version had been first performed by the duo at an AIDS charity gig at the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester organised by Derek Jarman. Originally scheduled for a non-album release in 1992, it was eventually included in the set list for their fifth studio album “Very”.
I recall there being a real buzz about this single – I have a distinct memory of Simon Bates (who must have been coming to the end of his time at Radio 1) asking on air when it was going to be released. Certainly it provided a spike in sales of “Very” when it entered the chart at No 2. Somehow it never made it to that coveted top spot though.
Watching the video back now, it seems madly prophetic with Neil and Chris striding across Red Square in blue and yellow costumes which offer up images of the war in Ukraine perpetrated by Russia. This is hammered home by the intro which seems strangely redolent of the State Anthem of the Soviet Union. Obviously, nobody would have been considering any of that back in 1993 when we would probably have been marvelling at the CGI of the promo by Howard Greenhalgh which was nominated for a Grammy.
I saw the Pet Shop Boys live about six months ago with a friend and this track was a stand out inducing much hugging, swaying and singing along. Chris and Neil would never have as big a hit single again.
Another huge song now as we see the TOTP debut of Radiohead. So much has been written about “Creep” let alone the band themselves so I don’t think I can add anything much to that particular canon of work. However, these are my personal thoughts and memories for what they are worth.
I’d heard of Radiohead due to their minor hit single “Anyone Can Play Guitar” from earlier in the year but hadn’t actually heard Radiohead if you see what I mean. The initial release of “Creep” from 1992 when it failed to chart hadn’t registered on my musical radar. I’d kept meaning to give their debut album “Pablo Honey” a play on the shop stereo but never got round to it. Suddenly though, there was a huge buzz around “Creep” again. Why? It had been a big hit in Israel and gained a lot of airplay on alternative rock radio stations in the US which, in a Spinal Tap “Sex Farm” has gone Top 10 in Japan style, convinced EMI to rerelease it against the band’s wishes. Their decision was rewarded with a No 7 smash hit single.
Knowing what we do now about what the band went onto do, watching this performance back seems a little surreal. Compared to even their next album “The Bends”, “Creep” has a rather unsophisticated albeit massive sound to it. Or maybe it’s just being confronted by the shock of Thom Yorke’s peroxide blonde hair that grates. That’s not to say “Creep” isn’t a good (or even great) song just that its legacy wouldn’t be being chief representative of their catalogue. Indeed, for a while it became one of those songs that becomes an albatross around an artist’s neck. The band nearly imploded from the record company expectations of writing a similar follow up and refused to play it live for years.
For all that though, you can’t underestimate the impact of the performance here on TOTP – it blew most other songs in the chart away. That ‘ch-chunk’ guitar sound from Jonny Greenwood’s guitar was off the scale whilst Yorke’s tortured vocals could not be ignored. This was the performance Nirvana should have given on the show for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” instead of that comedy turn they served up. Certainly only Motörhead could compete on this particular show. “Creep” then – by no means Radiohead’s best song but it was still much more than just a slacker anthem.
That run of three choice tracks on the spin comes to an end then (in my humble opinion) with yet someone more slick but soulless US R’n’B courtesy of Jade. A third consecutive hit for the Chicago trio, “One Woman” was a big ballad unlike their previous two, hip-hop influenced singles “Don’t Walk Away” and “I Wanna Love You” but although it’s a very accomplished sound I’m sure, it did little for me. And hadn’t we seen the choreography with a chair routine before from Janet Jackson? Or was it Madonna? Or Liza Minnelli in Cabaret?
“One Woman” peaked at No 22 both here and in the US.
Another live by satellite performance now. This time it’s from Minneapolis and is by Lenny Kravitz. Is this the third time he’s been on the show doing “Heaven Help”? It feels like it and means I have very little left to say about this one…
…other than check out the hair on his backing band. The guitarist’s Afro is immense but then you see his drummer’s. Wow! If Roy Wood and the drummer from Wizzard had a love child…
Just the three Breakers this week starting with ex–MassiveAttacksinger SharaNelson and “One Goodbye In Ten”. The follow up to Top 20 hit “Down That Road”, quite what we were meant to make of it after hearing just sixteen seconds of it here (I timed it) I have no idea. Sixteen seconds! What was the point?! Seriously though Stanley Appel, sixteen seconds?!
Having listened to the full song on YouTube, it seems to me to be a pleasant enough ditty with a Motown-esque feel to it and some nicely inserted strings but just on the wrong side of lightweight. It would peak at No 21, two places lower than her debut hit.
What the Roxette is going on here? Marie and Per were back in the charts with “It Must Have Been Love” again? Host Mark Franklin tells us it’s because of the film it was taken from PrettyWoman having its terrestrial TV premiere recently and therefore record company EMI had rereleased it to cash in on its second wave of popularity. Yes kids, back in the day before Spotify and streaming platforms had been invented allowing continuous access to just about everything song wise, events like this would happen regularly. Off the top of my head, Berlin went back into the charts with “Take My Breath Away” four years after it was a hit initially thanks to the TV showing of TopGun and Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes experienced a similar thing with “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” when DirtyDancing made it to our TV screens four years after the cinema release of the film.
I wonder what Marie and Per felt about the rerelease? It’s not as if they hadn’t recorded any other material since “It Must Have Been Love” was originally a hit in 1990. In fact, they were very consistent visitors to our charts so would they have been pleased to see that by making No 10 in 1993, it became their third biggest hit over here of the eight singles they had released in the intervening years? Maybe they just thought about the royalties cheques.
1993 saw the first new material from Kate Bush of the decade. Her last studio album had been 1989’s “The Sensual World” and apart from her version of “Rocket Man” for the Elton John /Bernie Taupin tribute album “Two Rooms”, we hadn’t heard from her since. “Rubberband Girl” was the lead single from her album “The Red Shoes” and like three of her last five singles released, would improbably peak at No 12 in the charts. Was that a good return for such a big name? I dunno. Maybe Kate was always more of an album artist and her fan base would be waiting for “The Red Shoes” itself to come out? I know my wife did.
As for the song, Kate herself dismisses it rather as:
Well, it’s a fun track […] It’s just a silly pop song really […]
Mojo magazine (UK) 2011
Other online reviews I have read say the song’s production values date it and that it feels like an outlier on the rest of the album. I don’t know about any of that but I found it engaging enough. I assume the lyrics reflect somebody bouncing back from a setback? Kate Bush does Chumbawumba? Or is it more literal than that and Kate is talking about a dancer who just wants to be supple? The album cover does depict a drawing of red ballet shoes and Kate did release a short film in conjunction with the album called The Line,TheCrossAndTheCurve in which she played a dancer who puts on a pair of magical ballet shoes. Whatever. I thought it was OK but nowhere near the standard of some of her early career classics.
No! No! No! Not Chaka DemusAndPliers again! “Tease Me” has only just gone out of the charts and they’re immediately back in with the follow up “She Don’t Let Nobody”. I have to say I don’t recall this one despite its No 4 chart peak. “Tease Me” yeah of course and their chart topper cover of “Twist And Shout” obviously but this one? It escaped the memory bank somehow.
I wasn’t expecting much based on “Tease Me” which seemed to be full of either Chaka Demus or Pliers (I’ve no idea which) shouting “Baby Girl” or “Number One In The World” repeatedly. Having listened to it though, it could have been worse. It’s almost a proper song which I guess is not surprising seeing as it was written by soul legend Curtis Mayfield. Obviously, it’s completely ruined by the inclusion of all the rapping/toasting but you know, the template was there.
If a week is a long time in politics (and that has been proven beyond any doubt by recent events in Westminster), it is also true that a year can be an eternity in pop music. Multiply that by five and it feels like time has bent and warped and no longer exists by any temporal measures. Five years though was the real time gap between Belinda Carlisle hitting No 1 with “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” and her 1993 incarnation. By this point in her career, the hits were much smaller in the UK and non-existent in America. Her last album “Live Your Life Be Free” hadn’t yielded any Top 10 singles and neither would this, her next album, “Real” though lead single “Big Scary Animal” came close when it peaked at No 12.
I was working at the Our Price store in Stockport by now having transferred from Rochdale and the staff there were quite unforgiving of artists deemed to not be credible. Belinda came into that category and there was much mocking of the title of her latest single which I didn’t quite understand. What I did understand was that this wasn’t much of a departure from her usual fare. Pleasant song with a big hooky chorus? You betcha. Still, if it ain’t broke and all that…
The album sneaked into the Top 10 at No 9 but just a year earlier, her first Greatest Hits collection had gone to No 1 suggesting that there was an appetite for her earlier work but maybe not her new stuff. I think maybe Madonna went through a similar thing with “The Immaculate Collection” release. In 1996 though, she bucked that trend when her album “A Woman & A Man” provided her with two Top 10 UK singles.
Oh, yes. I had to watch this performance very closely to realise that the blonde haired guitarist on the left wasn’t Nick Beggs of Kajagoogoo who toured with Belinda around this time and worked with her on the aforementioned “A Woman & A Man” record.
Still at No 1 are CultureBeat with “Mr.Vain” although this will be the last of four weeks at the top. The single would end up being the 10th biggest seller of 1993 in the UK. The rest of that Top 10? Oh god it was awful. Haddaway, Shaggy, 2 Unlimited, Ace Of Base…and horror upon horror another single with the prefix ‘Mr.’…”Mr.Blobby”. “Mr…f*****g…Blobby”. I give up.
Hjjk
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Motörhead
Ace Of Spades
I must have it on something surely?!
2
Pet Shop Boys
Go West
No but I have it on there Pop Art collection
3
Radiohead
Creep
No but I had it on one off those Best Album Ever…indie compilations
4
Jade
Oner Woman
Nah
5
Lenny Kravitz
Heaven Help
I did not
6
Shara Nelson
One Goodbye In Ten
Nope
7
Roxette
It Must Have Been Love
No
8
Kate Bush
Rubberband Girl
No but my wife had the Red Shoes album
9
Chaka Demus And Pliers
She Don’t Let Nobody
Of course not
10
Belinda Carlisle
Big Scary Animal
Negative
11
Culture Beat
Mr. Vain
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.
August and indeed the Summer of 1993 is coming to an end and so is something else – my time at the Our Price store in Rochdale. After an immensely enjoyable twelve months as Assistant Manager there, the powers that be wanted to move me. In theory, I should have been pleased about this. It was a transfer to a much bigger store at Stockport which, though not a promotion, reflected well on how area management viewed me. Plus, Stockport was a much shorter commute than schleping all the way over to Rochdale. I didn’t want to go though. I really liked the team where I was and the size of the shop was manageable with a great profile in the town. The move to Stockport would prove to be a short-lived one but that’s enough about my personal circumstances; what about the music?
Well, we start with some Therapy? who someone in the TOTP production team must have really liked as they seemed to be on the show regularly in 1993. I think this is their third studio appearance already which isn’t bad going for a noisy rock band on prime time TV. This single is “Opal Mantra” which was nothing to do with those 70s sweets Opal Fruits that became Statburst but rather a pun on the name of the German sports car model Opel Manta. I didn’t pay much attention to Therapy? at the time but listening back to them what I’ve noticed is that they always seem to have too many words in their lyrics to fit in with the tune. Probably just me of course but anyway.
As far as I can tell this was a stand alone single prior to the release of their fourth studio album “Troublegum” the following year although bizarrely the two singles released before “Opel Mantra” both made it onto the album.
Now here’s a song that always reminds me of late Summer/ early Autumn 1993 whenever I hear it except if I was to hear the original version of it, I probably wouldn’t recognise it at all. “Right Here” was first released by SWV (Sisters With Voices) back in 1992 but only in America. Despite being a hit on the R&B chart, it made little impression on the Billboard Hot 100.
A US No 1 record later in “Weak” and the track was given another chance but this time with an added sample from another song – “Human Nature” by Michael Jackson. And so it came to pass that the version we would all come to know was rechristened as “Right Here (Human Nature Remix)”. Who’s idea was it to mash up SWV and Jacko? Well, it was credited to Teddy Riley but weren’t there some bootleg copies in existence well before the official release creating a buzz around the track?
“Human Nature” was, of course, from Jackson’s “Thriller” album and was one of the seven singles taken from it in 1983. Curiously though, it was never given a UK release back then so would it have been less well known in the UK? If true, it makes SWV’s hit even more impressive but I think it’s a difficult idea to sell that the biggest album of all time contains tracks that some countries were oblivious to. It went fifteen times platinum in the UK after all.
“Right Here (Human Nature Remix)” would rise to No 3 in the UK – easily their biggest hit over here – and would only be kept off the top spot in the US by another artist also on this TOTP.
From Sisters With Voices to TheSisters Of Mercy (do you think that was deliberate by the show’s producers?) who are in the studio with their latest single “Under The Gun”. Not only was this their latest single but as we stand in October 2022, it is also the band’s last single. Yes, incredibly, despite the band being an going concern to this day, they have not released any new material since this track which was to promote their second Greatest Hits album “A Slight Case Of Overbombing”. I think I’ve discussed this before but this situation arose out of a dispute with their label EastWestwho eventually agreed to receive the final two albums owed by the band according to their contract via the Andrew Eldritch vehicle SSV (almost another link with SWV). Allegedly standing for Screw Shareholder Value, the albums were made with industrial sonic pioneers Xmas Deutschland’s Peter Bellendir and were largely unlistenable loops of Eldritch’s verbal musings. Despite being free of EastWest since 1997, no new Sisters Of Mercy product has been forthcoming.
As for “Under The Gun”, apparently that’s Terri Nunn up there with Eldritch. Yeah, the two-tone haired singer from Berlin of “Take My Breath Away” fame. She looked a bit different seven years on from that global hit but you can hear her influence all over this track. In fact it’s pretty good up until the point where Eldritch does his…’thing’ whatever that is (a Goth rap?). I’ve always considered Eldritch a bizarre yet intriguing figure and found myself wondering what he looks like today. So I Googled him. His Wikipedia picture suggests that he has now gone bald but he still retains those sunglasses that project an air of otherworldliness. I once sat on a train from Sunderland to Newcastle around 1987 next to a bald man wearing shades dressed in black who had a tape recorder with him and for the entire journey played a tape out loud that the whole carriage could hear that was of demonic chanting, blood curdling screams and general devil worship. I was too freaked out to say anything to him but he did turn it off when the guard checked his ticket only to turn it back on once he had left.
Anyway, back to Eldritch though who has tried to distance himself and the band from accusations of gothness and is on record as stating:
“I’m constantly confronted by representatives of popular culture who are far more goth than we, yet I have only to wear black socks to be stigmatised as the demon overlord.”
“Sisters – VirginNet Interview”. Thesistersofmercy.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2001
“Under The Gun” peaked at No 19.
Next the point where it looked like Ace Of Base might not be the next big pop sensation that was suggested by their monster No 1 “All That She Wants” earlier in the year. So big was that single that it spent sixteen weeks on the charts and was still selling so well that the follow up “WheelOfFortune” had its release delayed. I’m guessing that their label London Records would have been hoping for and indeed maybe expecting a bigger chart hit than the No 20 peak achieved here. The outlook would get worse when the title track to their album “Happy Nation” would barely dint the Top 40 when released in November. Luckily for label and band but decidedly unluckily for music fans, that trend was reversed spectacularly in 1994 when they got to No 2 with “The Sign”.
I have to admit to not knowing how this one went and after watching this TOTP performance, I’m still not sure. The very definition of lightweight, it barely registers at all. And those nasally, whiny vocals are the musical equivalent of fingernails being scraped down a blackboard! As for the prop that was the wheel of fortune in the background…talk about lacklustre! It just has some random numbers around the edge. Why weren’t the coloured segments filled in with what you could win?! It didn’t look like it even had the flicker thing that determines which segment you’ve landed on once the spinning has stopped. Bah!
And so to that much trumpeted (by host Tony Dortie if nobody else) song by Meatloaf. Who would have thought that in a year dominated by Eurodance crud and a trend for ragga/dancehall tunes that the biggest selling single of the year would belong to the Loaf. I mean, it’s not as if he had a brilliant track record for massive hit singles in the UK. His last Top 10 hit had been “Dead Ringer For Love” in 1981 and of the eleven singles released after that until this point, only three had made the Top 40 and none of those had managed a position higher than No 17. Yes, of course “Bat Out Of Hell” was one of the biggest selling albums in history but that was already fifteen years old by 1993. A Meatloaf revival was not on the cards.
Hang on though! “Bat Out Of Hell” you say. What if we did…I don’t know…”Bat Out Of Hell II” to help revive his fortunes? Presumably that’s a close approximation of what long standing songwriting partner Jim Steinman said about Meatloaf in 1993. Yes, a return to the original hit formula (not that much of his other stuff sounded any different) was the order of the day and so it came to pass that “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” would make Marvin Lee Aday a huge star all over again. The first single from the project was “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” continuing a long line of ludicrous song titles that occur regularly in Meatloaf’s back catalogue. There’s something odd here though as despite this preview on TOTP on a show in August, as far as I can tell the single wasn’t released until October and after the album was released in September. That can’t be right can it?
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there for now as this will be at No 1 soon enough and for seven (!) weeks so I’ll just leave it with RIP Meatloaf for now.
We’re back to multiple Breakers again this week after just two in the last show and we start with Lenny Kravitz and a third single from his “Are You Gonna Go My Way” album called “Heaven Help”. This is yet again another song I don’t recall even though it made the charts to the tune of No 20. Some of the music press described it as showing Kravitz’s soul influences specifically Curtis Mayfield and Isley Brothers and I can hear why. It’s got a nice feel to it and I’m guessing it got decent daytime airplay at the time. I should probably check out the album. After all, I did but his previous one “Mama Said”.
OK so I’m aware there was a rap/hip-hop outfit called Onyx but that was/is the extent of my knowledge. Until now. Hailing from Queens, New York City, they were formed by Fredro Starr (yes I had to double take on that name as well!), Sonny Seeza and Big DS. This single(“Slam”) would make No 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 – not just the R&B chart, the mainstream chart – quite remarkable for a rap record. It’s also widely regarded as being responsible for introducing slam dancing or moshing to hip-hop as per the promo video. Wait, didn’t House Of Pain already do that with “Jump Around?”
Anyway, Wikipedia tells me that they were notable for loud screaming, aggression, fighting with each other and then these two characteristics which look slightly odd in the written word…rapping with grimy voices and bald head fashion. What?! Surely grime wasn’t a musical genre back then so what were grimy voices exactly? And bald head fashion…? To be honest, if I wanted to listen to a record called “Slam” then I’d go for this…
Yes, there were twoJoey Lawrence singles that charted in the UK unbelievably. After “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix” came “I Can’t Help Myself” – his song titles were a little egocentric. This one could easily be the template for every Backstreet Boys song ever which is fine if you like that sort of thing I guess but it obviously did nothing for me.
“I Can’t Help Myself” peaked at No 27.
Almost under the radar, Terence Trent D’arby was having quite a year in 1993 on the sly. Nothing like the impact of 1987/88 when he burst into the pop world fully formed from nowhere to both critical and commercial success but quite a year all the same. After looking like he had wrecked his musical career with the poorly received sophomore album “Neither Fish Nor Flesh”, to manage to resurrect himself as a chart act again was quite a feat. The “Symphony Or Damn” album went Top 10 and would produce four hit singles of which “She Kissed Me” was the third. Those singles peaked at:
14 – 14 – 16 – 18
Like I said, not the remarkable success of those early years but he was consistent. Given the quality of the 1993 singles, they probably should have been bigger hits, “She Kissed Me” being a case in point. Slick and with a killer chorus, it also showcased his diversity given how different it was to previous single “Delicate”. As with Lenny Kravitz earlier, maybe I should investigate the TTD back catalogue further although I don’t think I’ll start with the aforementioned “Neither Fish Nor Flesh”.
I think this is the first and only cover version on this TOTP after what seemed like an endless conveyor belt of them recently. Just like Kim Wilde’s treatment of “If I Can’t Have You” the other week, this one is also of a song from the soundtrack of SaturdayNightFever. Tina Turner’s take on The Trammps’ “Disco Inferno” featured in another film also – Tina’s biopic What’sLoveGotToDoWithIt. It certainly suits Tina’s raspy vocal and I think she does a decent job with it. I wonder though if her record company had faith in the track’s chart potential as they made the B-side “I Don’t Wanna Fight” which was her previous hit from just a few weeks before. That was a standard record company practice as I recall to try and insure against a flop record. It worked (kind of) as “Disco Inferno” made No 12.
Bit of a big deal next as we get Mariah Careyinthestudio. She was already a superstar in America after a string of No 1 singles and although UK record buyers hadn’t embraced her quite as keenly, this was still a big exclusive. I’m not sure if she had her reputation as a diva at this point but if she was a bit of a nightmare off camera, I wonder how she manifested it? Her tour riders are renowned for some explicit demands like hotel rooms having temperatures of precisely 75 degrees, being festooned with eight (not seven or nine) tall leafy plants and kitted out with Joe Malone candles (and certainly none of those Gwyneth Paltrow mucky scent ones)
To be fair to Mariah, she seems quite low key in this performance of “Dreamlover” with a dress down wardrobe and a discreet trio of backing singers. She holds back on the vocals as well until the very last few notes when she gives her pipes an airing. Somehow this TOTP appearance only managed to nudge the single up one place to a high of No 9 but it went to No 1 in the US keeping the aforementioned SWV off top spot.
Freddie Mercury’s reign at the top of the charts is over and he has been replaced by CultureBeat and their “Mr. Vain” single. Was this the peak of Eurodance or its nadir? More irritating than “No Limits” by 2 Unlimited or even better than Snap!’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer”? The man behind Culture Beat was German DJ and producer Torsten Fenslau who tragically died in a car crash aged 29 barely two months after this TOTP aired.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Therapy?
Opal Mantra
No
2
SWV
Right Here (Human Nature Remix)
Nope
3
The Sisters Of Mercy
Under The Gun
I did not
4
Ace Of Base
Wheel Of Fortune
As if
5
Meatloaf
I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)
I’d do anything for music but I wouldn’t buy that
6
Lenny Kravitz
Heaven Help
Negative
7
Onyx
Slam
Nah
8
Joey Lawrence
I Can’t Help Myself
I had no such problems with restraint when it came to not buying this record
9
Terence Trent D’arby
She Kissed Me
Good song, didn’t buy it
10
Tina Turner
Disco Inferno
Disco Infer-NO
11
Mariah Carey
Dreamlover
Sorry Mariah, it’s a no
12
Culture Beat
Mr. Vain
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.
When I started doing this TOTP blog five and a half years ago I never imagined it would last this long. My starting point was January 1983, the year that saw music competing as my chosen interest alongside football. I was 14 years old in January 1983 and by the time of this TOTP show in late May 1993, I was just about to turn 25. Funny how the gap between those ages seems like a chasm in terms of maturity and growing up and yet the same ten year period between the ages of say 44 and 54 (how old I am currently) doesn’t seem anywhere near as seismic.
And what if you look at those ten years in terms of the charts comparing 1983 to 1993 – how different were the Top 40s? Sure, the names will have changed but how about the music trends and movements? I guess the biggest difference is the predominance of dance in all its myriad forms within the charts but in terms of quality? Well, I’m not getting into that in one short intro to be honest. Suffice to say, I have watched, listened to, dissected and given verdict on hundreds of artists, songs and genres after rewatching these old TOTP shows and the whole thing has been frankly bewildering. Let’s see if anyone on this episode can make sense of it for me…
I don’t think I’m going to get any answers from the opening act. StereoMCs are one of the most mystifying bands ever. A platinum selling No 2 album that yielded four Top 20 singles and then nothing for nine years. The gap until “Deep Down & Dirty” meant that the album gained almost mythical status about whether it would ever come out (see also “Chinese Democracy” by Guns N’ Roses). And yes I know that their career didn’t start with “Connected” and that they had released two albums before it but unless you’re a really committed fan of the band, surely they don’t register with most people.
“Creation” was the fourth and final of those “Connected” singles and it’s of a very similar vein to its predecessors but I have to say I don’t recall it. To be fair, I bet I’m not alone. I kind of like the way that they found a formula that worked and just stuck to it – no mixing things up with a slower ballad for this lot.
“Creation” peaked at No 19, the same position as its immediate predecessor “Ground Level” and one place lower than “Connected” – they were pretty consistent you have to admit. And then they weren’t in terms of releasing music at least. Why the nine year wait for “Deep Down & Dirty”? Well, the band toured “Connected” until 1994 and had gone back into the studio after finishing the dates but inspiration failed to strike. Instead of recording they busied themselves by forming their own label and signed and released music by new artists. They also did remixes for the likes of U2 and Madonna and then things like starting families were also a factor. Basically, life got in the way to paraphrase John Lennon’s famous quote. However, a small part of 1992/93 will always belong to Stereo MCs.
Are you kidding me?! Tina Turner with “I Don’t Wanna Fight” again?! Is this the third week on the trot?
*checks BBC4 schedule*
It is! Seriously, what am I supposed to say about this record for a third consecutive time? Well, supposedly the song was originally offered to Sade but I really can’t imagine what a version of it by the makers of “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love Is King” would have sounded like. This had happened before with another of Tina’s biggest ever hits and the title of the biopic from which “I Don’t Wanna Fight” was taken. Here’s Bucks Fizz with the story (no really – Bucks Fizz!)
What else? Oh yeah, it was written by Lulu more of whom later. The What’sLove’sGotToDoWithIt soundtrack would give Tina two further hit singles and she would return in 1995 with the theme tune to the James Bond film Goldeneye.
If it’s 1993 then Suede must be along in a minute and, right on cue, here they are with their new single “So Young”. The bright new hope for British music were confident enough in themselves to release a fourth and final single from their debut album that had already been out for two months and to be fair to them, they were right to have faith in the track. This was pure anthem, so sky-scraping in its stature that the press didn’t seem to notice the ‘chase the dragon’ heroin reference in its lyrics (wonder what The Shamen thought given the fuss over “Ebeneezer Goode” the previous year).
Watching this performance back, the band don’t radiate zeitgeist other than via Brett Anderson’s effortless other worldliness. Matt Osman’s enormous frame was always an obstacle to the notion of cool whilst Bernard Butler shakes his mane vigorously whilst rocking back and forth in away that suggests he might benefit from being sedated. Two years later though, he would let rip in similar fashion whilst performing “Yes” with David McAlmont on LaterWithJools Holland and I would think it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen. Such are the vagaries of music, taste and opinion.
“So Young” entered the Top 40 at No 22 and exited it the following week suggesting that they were a fan base phenomenon but by 1996, they would release the No 1 album “Coming Up” which would generate five Top 10 singles. The moral of the story? Don’t believe the hype but do trust the process.
Back to the aforementioned Lulu now as we find LouchieLou&MichieOne with their version of the Scottish singer’s most famous tune “Shout”. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again – I despise “Shout” and have little time for Lulu. As such a ragga version of the song was not going to enthral me. Retitled as “Shout (It Out)”, I would have placed this as being released years earlier, say 1986, if asked but I think that’s my brain playing tricks on me again as that’s when a re-release of Lulu’s version was a hit all over again. If I’d thought about it and indeed listened to the track again then surely I would have come to the conclusion that 1993 was the optimal year for the Louchie Lou and Michie One version to have been a hit seeing as it was a ragga/rap restyling of it. Ragga had a grip on the UK charts in this year thanks to the deadly three ‘S’s of Shaggy, Shabba and Snow. In fact, it was probably a bit of cynical marketing from their record label – jump on the bandwagon but use a well known record to get a head start on the rest of the field. Or maybe I’m being too harsh on Louchie Lou and Michie One, casting them as record company puppets. After all, I don’t know anything about them and how they came to be on TOTP with a hit record. Wikipedia just says they met at a Rebel MC concert in 1991.
What I did find out though was that their album was full of similar ragga-fied treatments of well known songs with versions of Kool And The Gang’s “Get Down On It” and “Somebody Else’s Guy” by Jocelyn Brown. Their only other major hit though was when they appeared on Suggs’ hit cover of Simon And Garfunkel’s “Cecilia”. It might have been crap but it did give us this rather memorable TOTP intro from Chris Eubank:
I’m still in pursuit of some insight into how the musical changes over the course of the ten years of these TOTP repeats came to be but I’m not sure I’ll get any sense out of Lenny Kravitz given the psychedelic tip he seems to be on with his latest single “Believe”. This is a full blown, trippy wig out with Lenny channelling his inner “Hey Jude” and singing about the power of positive thought, self belief, God and, of course, love. The BBC producers have picked up on the vibe and added some kaleidoscope effects for good measure.
Lenny’s really thrown the kitchen sink at this one with strings and a lush orchestration all in the mix. It’s not that it doesn’t work or isn’t a decent tune but for me it just fails to be the soaring anthem it strives to be. Maybe I wasn’t the only person to think this judging by its chart peak of No 30. I’m guessing that wasn’t the high that Kravitz was hoping for given the effort and time that seems to have gone into its creation. Still, the whooping studio audience seemed to enjoy it but maybe that was less organic and more at the floor manager’s direction.
Three Breakers this week starting with the second cover version on the show tonight. Bryan Ferry wasn’t averse to doing his own version of other people’s songs – his first ever solo album “These Foolish Things” was a collection comprised entirely of covers – and in 1993 he returned to that blueprint with his “Taxi” LP. After lead single “I Put A Spell On You” had made decent head way up the charts by peaking at No 18, the follow up would surely have been expected to do the same. It nearly did when “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” made it to No 23.
It wasn’t the first Gerry Goffin /Carole King song Ferry had covered. The aforementioned “These Foolish Things” album contained his take on their song “Don’t Ever Change” and he revisited their canon of work for this single. The Shirelles scored a No 1 with it in 1961 but the version I prefer is Carole King’s herself as it appeared on her iconic “Tapestry” album. And Bryan’s take on it? Yeah, he does it justice I think.
As it’s Ferry, there is of course a glamorous model in the video with not many clothes on whilst he mooches about the set. This particular model was Anna Nicole Smith. If that name rings a bell it’s probably due to the 1993 Playmate of the Year’s controversial marriage aged 27 to 89 year old billionaire J. Howard Marshall who died just eighteen months after their wedding. Smith herself would die aged just 39 after an accidental drug overdose.
Yeah, look I’m behind with these reviews so I haven’t got the time to ponder about Megadeth and their “Sweating Bullets” single OK? I will say this though. If you’ve ever wondered what might have become of Ed Sheeran had he been into trash metal instead of his stultifying brand of pop music, here’s your answer.
We arrive now at the seventh and final* GunsN’ Roses single to be pulled from their “Use Your Illusion” albums a whole 22 months after the first single “You Could Be Mine” appeared. Amazingly, all six singles to this point made the UK Top 10 and this final one only missed completing the set by one place. “Civil War” was that track although it was actually the lead song from a UK only EP.
*The song “Estranged” from “Use Your Illusion II” was released after “Civil War” in January 1994 but not in the UK
“Civil War” had been in existence for a while initially featuring on the 1990 charity album “Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal”, but it would also be included on the track listing for “Use Your Illusion II”. An anti war protest song, it features a sample from the film CoolHandLuke starring Paul Newman in the titular role in its intro:
Feeling that the song still needed more embellishment, Axl Rose whistles the tune from American civil war song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” in the intro and coda. In a presumably unintentional but rather neat act of symmetry, this final “Use Your Illusion” track was originally made available as the B-side to the aforementioned “You Could Be Mine”, the very first single released from that double album project.
The song itself is another epic sounding rock track which almost leaves you exhausted by the end of it. The spare, whistled opening could deceive on first listen that this was going to be a wistful, acoustic affair akin to “Patience” but it’s actually more in common with “November Rain” or “Don’t Cry”. Yes, you could level accusations of being overblown, bloated and lyrically naive at it but it works pretty well for me, even the corny, dumb closing line “What’s so civil ‘bout war anyway?”.
The band would release an album of punk covers called “The Spaghetti Incident” in November of 1993 and then there was precisely nothing (bar their much derided cover of “Sympathy For The Devil” from the InterviewWithAVampire soundtrack) until that aforementioned “Chinese Democracy” album fifteen years later.
Look out Suede! You might be the hip, young band for disaffected youth in 1993 but here come the original purveyors of angst flavoured, doom pop who recorded the album for miserable, misunderstood and introspective teenagers in 1983 with “The Hurting”. Well, here they come sortof anyway. It’s not quite the Tears For Fears we knew and loved on show here for this is TFF without Curt Smith who left the band acrimoniously in 1991. I guess he was burnt out after the mind numbingly laborious process that was the recording of the “Seeds Of Love” album.
Left to his own devices, remaining member of the duo Roland Orzabal decided to carry on under the band’s banner and delivered the “Elemental” album and its leading single “Break It Down Again”. In direct contrast to the song and album titles, Roland didn’t break it down into elements, he threw everything at it including…what…is that five cellos being played on stage up there? And, unlike Lenny Kravitz earlier, he pulled it off. In fact, not having listened to “Break It Down Again” for a good while, it’s actually a far better tune than I remember. It’s got an interesting, choppy structure (shame the producers used it as a marker to cut the song off in mid flow in this performance) and Roland’s voice is bloody good. I don’t think he gets the credit probably for his vocal talents. Back in the 80s, I always preferred the softer, purer voiced Curt Smith to take on singing duties but I think he’s won me over finally here. As an aside, conversely I liked the idiosyncratic tones of Andy McCluskey’s voice to the angelic sounding Paul Humphreys’ in OMD.
Ah yes, that phrase ‘back in the 80s’ brings me full circle to the question in the intro as to how chart music had changed in the decade between 1983 and 1993. Maybe Tears For Fears encapsulate the whole discussion. Ten years on from “The Hurting” they were still going out to bat and knocking it out of the park. All that had really changed was the personnel and hairstyles. Too simplistic a view? Yeah probably.
“Break It Down Again” made the Top 20 (just) and the album went Top 5, a good enough return to convince Orzabal to carry on and release another Curt-less album, the much less well received “Raoul And The Kings Of Spain” before Smith returned to the fold in 2000. Their current album “The Tipping Point” is possibly my favourite of 2022 so far. And yes I think that’s the ubiquitous Gail Ann Dorsey up there on bass who was on the show with the aforementioned Bryan Ferry the other week.
1993 was turning out to be quite the year for Lisa Stansfield. She started it with a Top 10 hit in “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” from TheBodyguard soundtrack, scored a No 1 as part of the “Five Live EP” duetting with George Michael on “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” (still in the Top 5 at this point by the way) and now here she was with another hit from another soundtrack.
“InAllTheRightPlaces” was the song chosen to promote the film IndecentProposal, an erotic drama starring Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford. Erotic dramas were all the rage at the time with BasicInstinct and Sliver also doing the business at the box office in this period. It’s rumoured that Lisa Stansfield herself was considered for the Demi Moore role but that could be cobblers I suppose.
Certainly not cobblers was Lisa’s performance here as she just dons her stylish black dress and gets on stage alone to belt out the song. She appears to have copied Brett Anderson’s Bob haircut though (or is it the other way round). The song is an accomplished, sultry ballad that suits Lisa’s voice perfectly. As well as appearing on the soundtrack, it also made it onto her third studio album “So Natural” which was released in the November.
Oh and was there some actual thought put into the running order for this TOTP? Bryan Ferry’s version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” was also on the Indecent Proposal soundtrack.
Ace Of Base are at No 1 for the second of three weeks with “All That She Wants”. Just like the TOTP producers who seemed to have planned their running order this week, I’ve also put some thought into this post and not just thrown it together. Ace Of Base recorded a song called “Cecilia” (which I referenced earlier) for their third album “Flowers” which was written by them as a deliberate continuation of the Simon And Garfunkel song. Want to hear it? Nah, me neither.
The show ends with a weird outro from host Mark Franklin. Why on earth is he sat at a table with a random woman whom he does not introduce, both with a glass of red wine poured out before them whom he ‘cheers’ just before the credits roll. Wait. What? How? Why? Etc etc…
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Stereo MCs
Creation
I did not
2
Tina Turner
I Don’t Wanna Fight
No
3
Suede
So Young
No but I had the album
4
Louchie Lou & Michie One
Shout (It Out)
Never happening
5
Lenny Kravitz
Believe
Nope
6
Bryan Ferry
Will You Love Me Tomorrow
No but I had a promo copy of the album
7
Megadeth
Sweating Bullets
Sod off!
8
Guns N’ Roses
Civil War EP
No but I have a Greatest Hits album with it on
9
Tears For Fears
Break It Down Again
Didn’t but probably should’ve
10
Lisa Stansfield
In All The Right Places
Negative
11
Ace Of Base
All That She Wants
See 7 above
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.
When did you first become aware of the term ‘Reality TV’? It’s hard to recall the exact moment so ingrained has it become in our cultural terms of reference. Myriad examples of it infest our TV programming schedules of ever more ludicrous concepts and content. I have to admit at this point that I am no TV snob and have watched (and continue to watch) my fair share of Reality TV but when did it actually enter our lives? Received wisdom would suggest it all began with Big Brother back in 2000. Nasty Nick and all that. I for one was hooked back then and for a number of subsequent series until it disappeared up its own arse.
However, there was an earlier Reality TV show that beat BigBrother to our screens by a whole seven years. Three days after this TOTP aired, TheLivingSoap entered our lives. I say our lives but I’m not entirely sure how many people were actually aware of its existence let alone how many people were watching it. It centred around the lives of six students sharing a house in Manchester which was of specific interest to me as I was living there at the time (though working in Rochdale) and my wife was working at the University library so often saw the cameras recording around campus. I’d been a student myself as recently as 1989 so a chance to revisit that period of my life, even remotely, was also appealing.
The show’s gimmick was that it was aired immediately after it had been filmed and was edited using the very first Avid editing technology. It was essential viewing in our house and Simon, Spider, Karen etc became celebrities in the student body of Manchester. It even had a groovy, contemporary theme tune – “Renaissance” by M People which was eventually released as a single and became a big hit. Predictably, the attention and intrusion of the cameras forced four of the six housemates to leave the show before its culmination being replaced by other ‘famous for fifteen minutes’ wannabes chosen by a public vote.
I wonder what became of them all? They’ll just about be in their early 50s now (I certainly am). The only two I can trace online are Simon McEwan who ended up as a BBC producer and Karen Bishko who has had an unbelievable career. She studied History of Art at Manchester but went onto become a singer songwriter who would be the support for Take That in 2007 and would end up writing a musical that was performed in New York! Anyway, M People aren’t on TOTP tonight but let’s see who are….
We start with a to camera piece by veteran radio DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman. Why? Well, it’s in aid of Comic Relief and if it’s that time of year then that can only mean one thing – another terrible charity record. Recent years had seen the likes of Bananarama, Mr Bean with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and Hale & Pace on single duty. The 1993 vintage was a rather obvious choice – everyone’s favourite fun chart act RightSaidFred. I mean this was an open goal surely? Who else was even in the running?
As with Hale & Pace two years earlier, the song was written specifically for the cause and was based around that year’s theme which was “Stick It Out”. Oo’er and indeed missus. The single was officially credited to Right Said Fred and Friends with the latter being various celebs of the time adding their ‘hilarious’ contributions. I know I’m stating the bleeding obvious here but this song is really, really terrible. An absolute stinker. Completely devoid of any merit – I’m talking musically of course. It’s good that it raised some money for Comic Relief although you’d have to ask who on earth bought this shite?!
As it’s the Freds, there’s the obligatory bit of double entendre in the lyrics where they sing about ‘a tall erection’ and sticking it out ‘on the doctor’s couch’ (which sounds a bit creepy) and the the rest of it seems to be a rewrite of Spitting Image’s “The Chicken Song” with lines like ‘clean your teeth with your feet’, ‘take a sprout for a walk’ and ‘make a sand igloo’. The studio performance is intercut with the official video for the celebrity interventions and almost inevitably, Bernard Cribbins, whose 1962 novelty song gave the band their name, turns up. Not you too Cribbins. Say it ain’t so! “Stick It Out” peaked at No 4.
One of only three songs in tonight’s show that we’ve seen before now as we get the video for “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz. It’s a basic performance promo but it’s the staging of it that makes it memorable. The circular, tiered arena set has a RockyHorrorPictureShow vibe recalling that scene with Meatloaf as Eddie on his motorbike but it’s the overhead lighting that is the money shot. Consisting of 983 incandescent tubes that could be brightened and dimmed to form patterns of light, it’s a pretty cool effect, certainly for 1993.
Although the parent album was a big success, Kravitz struggled to replicate the title track’s sales with any of the subsequent singles released from it. The “Circus” album followed in 1995 but couldn’t match its predecessor’s numbers but Lenny finished the decade with a surprise UK No 1 single in “Fly Away”.
Well this is confusing. When I saw All About Eve on the running order for this show, I automatically thought it was referring to the “Martha’s Harbour” hitmakers but no. “All About Eve” was the name of the song with the artist being Marxman. I have zero recollection of them or their track so I was surprised to see that they have a decent sized Wikipedia entry. It turns out that they were quite the trailblazers. Perhaps rather lazily referred to as the Anglo-Irish Public Enemy, it’s certainly true that their music was informed by their militant socialist values and their message of ending economic and social injustices. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story behind the slogans on their T-shirts in this performance:
The slogan on Marxman's t-shirts, "Self defence is no offence", was used in campaigns for the release of women such as Sara Thornton, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990 after being convicted of murdering her abusive husband. #TOTP
Wow! Do you think the TOTP producers were aware of what they we’re putting on our screens? I’m sure the show had shied away from such political messaging previously. As for Marxman’s sound, I quite like this track though I am getting some heavy Love City Groove vibes. Who were Love City Groove? This was Love City Groove…
OK, that’s possibly a bit too irreverent a comparison. I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read, that Marxman’s legacy is a sight more substantial than Love City Groove’s. They toured with both U2 and Depeche Mode and collaborated with artists like The Pogues and Sinéad O’Connor and producers such as DJ Premier of Gang Starr.
“All About Eve” peaked at No 28 and was the band’s only chart hit.
Now here’s a seminal song if ever I heard one. Now hear me out but is there a case for saying that Suede were the indie Take That? No, wait! Come back! Don’t go! Listen, by that I mean they both bands had experienced the unusual career trajectory of generating more press column inches than record sales in their early days; Take That in the teen mags and Suede in the inkies. Both bands would curiously finally correct that with their biggest hit singles to date that both peaked at No 7. For Take That see “It Only Takes A Minute” and for Suede it was “Animal Nitrate”. That’s the end of the Take That comparisons honest!
Despite their media profile, Suede’s first two singles had peaked at No 49 (“The Drowners”) and No 17 (“Metal Mickey”). There were no such brakes on the progress up there charts for “Animal Nitrate”. It just sounded so fresh, so new, so…dangerous. It was an enormous, snarling sound with Brett Anderson’s androgynous vocals allied to Bernard Butler’s irresistible, epic opening guitar riff a potent combination.
Like most of us, I think my first hearing of the song came a couple of weeks before this TOTP on 16th February when Suede performed it at the BRITS. The NME had campaigned for the new indie press darlings to perform on the show despite not being nominated for anything. Their performance that night felt important. They were introduced as “the already legendary Suede” and despite their fledgling career, that didn’t sound like hyperbole. Obviously the focus fell on Brett Anderson with his provocative image of naked chest, bobbed haircut and the slapping of his own arse. It was a genuine WTF? moment.
There was no looking back after that with the single going Top 10 and their much anticipated eponymous debut album going to No 1 on its release later in March. It felt like something significant was happening. In the end something did happen though, for many, the movement that followed Suede’s success would be ultimately unfulfilling.
This week’s live satellite broadcast comes from Hawaii and features k.d. Lang who thus far was best known in the UK for her duet with Roy Orbison on their re-recording of “Crying”. k.d. (it stands for Kathryn Dawn) had, however, been around for years on the country circuit before her 1992 album “Ingénue” (a more commercial and less traditional collection of songs) brought her mainstream recognition and success. The lead single from it was “Constant Craving” which would become both her most successful and recognised song. It took a couple of attempts though to make it a hit. It stalled at No 52 when it was originally released in 1992. I’m pretty sure that I’d heard it then and was aware of who she was but I can’t be sure. It’s thirty years ago!
Anyway, it was a No 15 success the second time around and deservedly so – it’s a good tune. I can’t be sure if it was 1992 or 1993 but in one of those years, some poor sod in the Our Price North West region was tasked with compiling every employee’s favourite musical choices of the year including single. So wide ranging were the replies in this category that the winning song only needed four votes to top the poll. The winner? Yep, “Constant Craving”.
My wife was a big fan and bought the “Ingénue” album. At some point in the decade (I’m not sure of the year and can’t be arsed to check) we even went to see her live at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Her voice was amazing as I recall. As an out lesbian artist, her audience reflected that. As we entered the venue, we were behind one lady with a very short haircut who was wearing a Harrington jacket and big Dr Marten boots. The young guy checking the tickets called her ‘sir’ and got an earful back in reply. I did kind of feel sorry for him. I think he wasn’t very culturally aware and that it was a genuine mistake.
The mix on the performance here is very odd with k.d. drowning out what I presume is a backing track easily. It feels like she’s singing accompanied by a cheap karaoke machine. Although the album sold well going to No 3 in the charts, k.d. never had another UK Top 40 hit. Follow up “Miss Chatelaine” got decent airplay but only got as far as No 68.
Nah, I’ve not really got anything much to say about this next act. Had host Mark Franklin not introduced them I wouldn’t have known just by looking at them that this was Runrig. I mean I was aware that there existed a band called Runrig and that they played Celtic rock music but I didn’t really know any of their stuff at all. To be fair to me, “Wonderful” was only the band’s second charting single after the “Hearthammer EP” in 1991.
Watching this back, I kind of feel sorry for the band. Their first time on TOTP after being in existence since 1973 and they deliver that performance. I mean I know it’s not fair to expect an over the top, all singing and dancing extravaganza when they’re a bunch of forty something guys playing a rather average rock song but come on! They’re like Big Country’s more sensible, straight laced elder brothers. Do you think the lead singer had always been planning on wearing a leather jacket if he ever got on TOTP whenever that might be – the 70s, the 80s whenever? I guess it is a classic item of clothing but it just seems to jar somehow.
Anyway, “Wonderful” peaked at No 29 and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Ah shit. We’re back to four Breakers this week after none on the last show. More content for me to have to come up with then. Super! Now, one political activist group on the show was quite daring but two? What was going on?! Like Marxman before them, RageAgainstTheMachine’s music was all about political messaging and anti-authoritarian views. Not that I understood any of that at the time. I thought it was all a bit of an unholy racket. Anyway, “Killing In The Name” was their debut single and although it would achieve a respectable peak of No 25 on the UK Top 40, that was by no means the end or indeed the highlight of its chart story.
Fast forward sixteen years and the singles chart is unrecognisable from its heyday with the once much celebrated race for the Xmas No 1 now hijacked and debased by TV talent show TheXFactor. Two members of the public had had enough and formed a Facebook group to campaign for people to buy “Killing In The Name” instead of that year’s XFactor winner’ song. The campaign went viral and, with a physical release of RATM’s track not required as it could be downloaded online and still count as a sale, “Killing In The Name” was duly crowned Xmas No 1 for 2009. I felt a little bit for that year’s XFactor winner little Geordie Joe McElderry who got caught up in the whole media frenzy and was asked about whether such galvanising campaigns should be allowed to subvert the chart compilation in that way but ah, what the hell.
After doing a studio performance last week, Bryan Ferry’s cover of “I Put A Spell On You” is now officially a Breaker at No 22. As you’d expect, the video is set in a nightclub and populated by gorgeous models with Louise Brooks hairstyles looking glamorous and seductive whilst Bryan lurks in the shadows. It’s all very Ferry.
I suggested in a previous post that Annie Lennox had done a superior cover of the song but there is also this by the much underrated Alan Price as well. I do like a bit of Alan Price now and again I have to say…
There was definitely something up with TOTP producer Stanley Appel this week. Not only did he put two political activist groups in the show but he also sneaked The Jesus Lizard into the running order! These Illinois noise rockers (yes, ‘noise rock’ was a thing apparently) were surely one of the unlikeliest of bands to ever appear on the Beeb’s prime time music show but here they were riding on the coat tails of Nirvana’s success with a split single release of their song “Puss” along with Kurt Cobain’s “Oh, The Guilt”. I seem to remember that this was only available on a limited edition 7” but I could be wrong. If I didn’t get Rage Against The Machine then I certainly wasn’t going to be swayed by this lot.
Three years later though I did have my own peculiar little Jesus Lizard moment. It came when I was serving a customer in the Our Price in Stockport who was enquiring about the new George Michael single and wanted to know what it was called. My confident reply? “It’s called ‘Jesus To A Lizard’ madam” before correcting myself to “Jesus To A Child”. Talk about a brain fart. How we laughed!
“Puss / Oh, The Guilt” peaked at No 12.
The final Breaker is the latest single from Madonna. The third single taken from her “Erotica” album, “Bad Girl” is an almost forgotten Madge hit – well, I’d forgotten all about it anyway. To be fair to myself, she’s released eighty-nine singles to date so some of those were bound to skip through my memory cells. I’d also forgotten about the video featuring Christopher Walken who plays the role of Madonna’s character’s guardian angel thereby predating his infamous dancing appearance in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice” by some eight years.
“Bad Girl” kept up Madonna’s run of UK Top 10 singles in the 90s by just creeping in at No 10 itself but in the US it became her first single to fail to make the Billboard Top 20 thus breaking a run of twenty-seven hits starting with “Holiday” in 1983 and ending with “Deeper And Deeper” in 1992. Tellingly for Madonna though, this brief Breakers appearance was the only time we saw “Bad Girl” on TOTP. Back in the 80s, wouldn’t a new Madonna single and video have warranted a much bigger fanfare than this?! We weren’t (gulp) getting bored of her surely?
Just to rub salt into Madge’s wounds, here comes a performance from a legendary female artist that does get the full bells and whistles treatment with host Mark Franklin even going so far as to say he was proud to introduce her. He was talking, of course, of (Miss) Diana Ross. If “Bad Girl” is a forgotten Madonna single though, what does that make “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)”? This was yet another single to be lifted from her “Force Behind The Power” album that had already been out eighteen months! It’s one of those songs that you’ve forgotten about as soon as the last note has disappeared into the ether. So vacuous was it that it was hardly there at all. A bit like Michelle Donelan being Secretary of State for Education for thirty-six hours or however long it was. As I say, hardly there at all.
There was one thing to note here though. Diana’s clearly borrowed that bloke from Runrig’s leather jacket for this performance – maybe I was wrong to ridicule him after all. “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)” peaked at No 31 – don’t ask me how it even got that far up the chart.
Still top of the pile are 2Unlimited with “No Limit”. I think they’ve got one more week after this but that won’t be the last we’ll see of them as there’s at least another four Top 10 hits to come from them in the next couple of years.
What do you think the pinball themed video was all about? Was it some sort of Elton John / Tommy / The Who tribute?
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did IBuy it?
1
Right Said Fred And Friends
Stick It Out
Not even for charity
2
Lenny Kravitz
Are You Gonna Go My Way
No
3
Marxman
All About Eve
Nope
4
Suede
Animal Nitrate
No the single but I had the album
5
k.d.Lang
Constant Craving
Not but my wife had the album
6
Runrig
Wonderful
Never
7
Rage Against The Machine
Killing In The Name
Nah
8
Bryan Ferry
I Put A Spell On You
No but I had a promo copy of the album
9
The Jesus Lizard / Nirvana
Puss / Oh, The Guilt
Negative
10
Madonna
Bad Girl
I did not
11
Diana Ross
Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)
As if
12
2 Unlimited
No Limit
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.
I write this as the 2022 Glastonbury festival has just taken place the previous weekend which garnered large viewing figures and reviews a plenty off the back of some massive performances by the likes of Billie Eilish (I didn’t get it) and Paul McCartney (marvellous stuff). It got me thinking about what the festival was like back in the day. Now, I have to fess up straight away that I’ve never actually been to Glastonbury – the myriad bands and music you could see and listen to was appealing but the thought of all that scuzziness was less so. So my recollections of it are all based on radio, TV and press coverage.
Thinking back to the 80s, I don’t remember much being made of it at all in the media, probably because it wasn’t broadcast live until 1994 when Channel 4’s 4GoesToGlastonbury programming made it available to the masses at home. If I think about say, 1983, when I was first becoming obsessed with pop music, I don’t recall it appearing on my radar at all. A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that the big acts that year were UB40, Marillion, King Sunny Ade and his African Bests and, rather implausibly New York singer-songwriter Melanie who once had a hit with a cover of “Ruby Tuesday”. Hmm. It didn’t cater for my admittedly chart-centric tastes at the time and that would continue for a couple of years although the line up would become progressively more of a broad church as the decade worn on. By the end of the 80s, I was just finishing being a Poly student and was aware that some of my peers were going to Glastonbury but a jaunt to Somerset was never high on my list of Summer priorities somehow.
By the mid 90s, I was working in record retail and therefore much more aware of Glastonbury as just about everyone I ever worked with seemed to have either been or was planning to go. The TV coverage was much bigger with the BBC taking over from Channel 4 and so we all got to see those iconic sets from the likes of Radiohead, The Prodigy and Massive Attack. But what of 1993? That is the year we are up to in these BBC4 TOTP repeats after all. Well, at least a couple of tonight’s acts appeared at the festival that year but the headliners included The Black Crowes, The Kinks (replacing Red Hot Chili Peppers), Suede and The Orb.
Before we get into the nitty gritty , I should note that we have skipped the 11 February edition of the show as it featured the now taboo Rolf Harris doing his version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”. Incidentally, Harris was also on the bill at Glastonbury that year.
Right, that’s enough preamble. Let’s blog! We start with a rather incongruous and improbable five second message from Sting and Take That from New York saying that their both on the show later. Erm…OK. Cheers for that guys. The first performing act tonight are StereoMC’s with a single that seems destined to forever remain in the shadow of previous hits “Connected” and “Step It Up” despite being a hit of a comparable size. “Ground Level” was the third release from the band’s “Connected” album and although it’s a decent track, it lacks the immediacy and urgency of its two predecessors.
Such was the visual impact of the spectacle that is/was frontman Rob Birch, I’d almost completely forgotten that they had three female singers complementing him but they are very much to the fore in this performance. For all of them though, their time in the spotlight was coming to and end. There would be one more hit single pulled from “Connected” and then nothing for eight long years until follow up album “Deep Down & Dirty” appeared.
Played Glastonbury? Yes
In 1993? Yes, their only appearance thus far
1993 was a massive year for Whitney Houston as she released multiple singles from TheBodyguard soundtrack. Her cover of “I’m Every Woman” by Chaka Khan was the second of those and would peak at No 4 both here and in the US. Although the chart topping reign of “I Will Always Love You” was brought to an end in the UK by *spoiler alert* 2 Unlimited, over the pond it remained No 1 even while “I’m Every Woman” ascended and then descended the charts.
Chaka Khan features in the video and even receives a shout out from Whitney on the record at the track’s coda. Chaka’s original was a hit twice; first in 1979 when it reached No 11 and a decade later when a remix of it peaked at No 8. Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon once admitted that he initially misheard the song’s lyric as ‘climb every woman’ – the dirty dog!
PlayedGlastonbury? No but the video features TLC who played this year’s festival
Not seen in our charts for nearly two years, 1993 brought us the return of Lenny Kravitz with his new album and title track single “Are You Gonna Go My Way”. Whilst his last hit was the almost sweet sounding “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”, this was a full on, all out rocking scorcher of a song fuelled by a heavy guitar riff and powered by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix. This really was the point when the Hendrix comparisons were out in force. I couldn’t tell if they were valid or not on account of not being a big Jimi fan. I don’t think I could hear him…
…an argument that’s kind of nonsense sure but it makes for a good scene in the movie. Anyway, all I knew was that Lenny looked every inch the rock god up there on stage and he was killing it. I’m not sure that I fully appreciated the track at the time but it’s a belter. It peaked at No 4 here instantly making it his biggest UK hit at the time but curiously it was released as an airplay only single in the US meaning it didn’t qualify for the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Apparently this was a common practice back then in America to increase album sales as buying the parent album was the only way to get that groovy tune you’d heard on the radio. What was it about though? Here’s Lenny himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:
Lenny Kravitz explains "Are You Gonna Go My Way?: "I thought the subject matter was really interesting, because it's coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ… So basically, 'Are you gonna go my way?' meaning 'my way of love.'" #TOTP
By the way, I’m currently watching Lenny’s daughter Zoë starring in the TV series of High Fidelity which is based on the book by Nick Hornby and the film starring John Cusack and Zoë’s mother Lisa Bonet. It’s pretty good too. In it, Zoë’s character Rob is involved with a young, up and coming Scottish rock star who, in the story, has just bagged himself a slot at Glastonbury. I love it when a blog post comes together!
PlayedGlastonbury? Yes
In1993? Yes and again in 1999
My god! TOTP were really pushing this latest Sting tune! After last week’s studio appearance he’s back just seven days later with another full performance of “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” this time live from New York. Thankfully he’s lost the ridiculous WitchfinderGeneral outfit from the previous week but maybe he should have kept it – at least it might have livened up this dreary run through. This was a classic example of why these live by satellite link ups were ultimately disappointing. Look at the setting for it. I don’t know exactly where he is but Sting is singing against a back drop of literally a brick wall. I’m guessing it might be a rehearsal room or sometimes it was an empty theatre venue neither of which worked for me.
I’ve told my Sting tale before haven’t I? The one about how a friend of my mate Robin, who was a guitar player who toured with some major artists, was at a dinner party at Sting’s house and in the middle of the dinner the host made all the guests stop eating and go and watch a documentary…about Sting.
“If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” peaked at No 14.
PlayedGlastonbury? Yes
In1993? No. One and only appearance in 1997
There’s three Breakers on this show starting with REM and “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”. I think I’m right in saying that despite the popularity of parent album “Automatic For The People” (a No 1 and seven times platinum seller in the UK alone) and despite all three singles released from it to this point making the Top 20, TOTP never featured any of them for more than the few allotted seconds in the Breakers section. A travesty really.
One of the lighter tunes on the album, there’s quite a lot to unpack about this one. Firstly, what the hell is Michael Stipe singing about? Indeed, I could just rephrase that question as ‘What is Michael Stipe singing?’ as the lyrics in the chorus topped a 2010 poll as the most misheard lyric ever. The official words in the chorus are ‘Call me when you try to wake her’ although that doesn’t seem to scan right to me. It is commonly misheard as ‘Calling Jamaica’ or ‘Only Jah waker’ and even ‘Call me Tom Baker’! OK, that’s the line sorted but what is the song about exactly? Well, as you would expect there’s various theories to be found online ranging from a couple being in rehab to a homeless woman sleeping in a phone box to a gambling addiction and finally, inevitably about drugs. Even the band themselves aren’t sure with bass player Mike Mills on record as saying “Half the song is about somebody trying to get in touch with someone who can sleep on his floor. The other half – you’re on your own”.
The song’s opening and title borrows heavily from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” made famous by The Tokens in the 60s and Tight Fit in the 80s. Apparently REM paid for the rights to use the song and part of the deal was that they had to record their own version of it. They duly did and it appears as an extra track on the single.
According to Wikipedia, despite the song’s popularity, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” is one of a very few songs the band has never played live. Is that right? It seems an odd decision. Is it a technical thing that it’s hard to reproduce out of the studio environment? Maybe Michael Stipe himself doesn’t know what the words are that he should be singing?
PlayedGlastonbury? Yes
In1993? No in 1999 and finally in 2003
There’s a few comparisons I think between REM and the next Breaker artist Metallica. Not sonically but in terms of career trajectory and intense scrutiny from fans about their songs and their meanings. Both bands had been around for years and been very successful but both, it seems to me, went to another level globally with the release of an album quite some time into their career. For REM it was seventh album “Out Of Time” (though a case could also be made for their sixth and major label debut “Green” I guess) and in the case of Metallica, their eponymously titled fifth also known as ‘the black album’. Again I’m sure hard rock fans could argue that earlier albums were also seminal but I’m talking purely sales and “Metallica” sold three times as many copies as any of its predecessors.
In terms of fathoming what their songs were about , as with “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” before it, Metallica’s “Sad But True” had lots of fans dissecting the lyrics. Many theories can be found online and many concern the same subjects as REM’s tune – addiction and drugs – but also the concept of religion and the duality of good and evil. It’s pretty heavy stuff but then three members of the band were going through divorces at the time of its writing and recording so…
Predictably, “Sad But True” did little for me. It’s those crunching guitars and the shouted vocals that always put me off. The single peaked at No 20 in the UK charts.
PlayedGlastonbury? Yes
In1993? No. Only appearance came in 2014
Did someone mention “Ruby Tuesday” earlier? Well, yes it was me (obviously). It turns out that Melanie would not be the only artist to take on The Rolling Stones classic. If you were to place a bet on somebody doing a cover around this time then Rod Stewart would surely have been the bookies favourite. In recent years he’s carved out a new career for himself of interpreting classic standards via his “Great American Songbook” series but even back in the day, Rod wasn’t averse to a cover version. Just look at some of the singles he’d released leading up to 1993:
“Downtown Train” by Tom Waits
“It Takes Two” by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston
“Broken Arrow” by Robbie Robertson
“You Are Everything” by The Stylistics
“Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)” by Tom Waits (again!)
Plus he’d done a version of “Your Song” for the Elton John / Bernie Taupin tribute album “Two Rooms”. Then, in early 1993, came the “Lead Vocalist” album. This was an odd release which seemed to have been cobbled together by record company Warners just to cash in on the fact that Rod had just been given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent BRITS. The album was a mixture of five newly recorded covers and a random collection of material from Rod’s past including tracks from The Faces and his solo career. Those covers included the aforementioned “Tom Traubert’s Blues”, “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks and of course “Ruby Tuesday”.
Let’s be fair, Rod’s version is horrible. Mechanical of sound and cynical of conception, it has none of the charm of The Rolling Stones original nor the emotion of Melanie’s cover.
Look I don’t mind the odd bit of Rod but there’s an awful lot of crud in his back catalogue as well and this one certainly deserves that description. He would return to covers later in the decade with his album “When We Were The New Boys” which included his take on “Cigarettes And Alcohol” by Oasis and “Rocks” by Primal Scream. Dear God!
PlayedGlastonbury? Yes
In1993? No, Rod’s only appearance came in 2002
We swing back over to New York now for a performance by TakeThat with what surely must be one of their least remembered songs. After the dynamic fun of “Could It Be Magic”, “Why Can’t I Wake Up With You” was a turgid, lifeless affair and I can’t understand why they would have gone with this as a choice of next single. Was this a one off release or was it from the album?
*checks Take That discography*
Huh. Well, it was on “Take That And Party” (surely one of the worst album titles ever by the way?) but it wasn’t the version released as a single. Here’s the album version which is a bit of a weepy ballad:
The single version was eventually included on the sophomore album “Everything Changes” and it’s had a dance back beat applied with an annoying, repetitive bleep noise in the mix. Apparently, the lyrics were changed as well but frankly who cares?! We’re they already trying to look for a mature audience less than a year after finally getting some proper chart action and were therefore pushing the whole Gary Barlow as talented singer-songwriter schtick? I thought this was completely yawn inducing. Bore off!
By the way, their live by satellite performance here is as underwhelming as Sting’s with the lads performing against a backdrop of some draped material and a smoke machine. What was the point? Then again I wasn’t a teenage girl desperate for a look at my heroes. Maybe the idea of them being ‘live’ as it were was more appealing than the video?
PlayedGlastonbury? As if
Ah well now, this is timely. The hero of this year’s Glastonbury is on the show! The 90s however weren’t peak era Paul McCartney. He didn’t manage one Top 10 single and the three albums he released that decade are hardly amongst his most cherished by fans. “Off The Ground” was the first of those three and, as host Mark Franklin states, had given him a chart entry in “Hope Of Deliverance” but it was all very underwhelming. The follow up was “C’Mon People” which I don’t recall at all, possibly because it didn’t even make the Top 40 despite this TOTP performance. Was it meant to be some sort of anthem of unity? It’s all a bit drab sounding to me. Interesting how they’ve staged Macca’s performance here with members of the studio audience crowding around him and his piano. It’s a bit “All You Need Is Love” isn’t it?
Those audience members in shot seem unsure what to do with themselves. It’s a difficult tune to dance to though the guy in the sleeveless denim jacket gives it a go. He’s got his thumbs inside his waistline at one point. He needs to go some to beat these guys dancing with Mud though…
Seeing some of the reaction on social media to Macca’s Glastonbury set list made me wonder what would have happened if he’d included “C’Mon People” in it. A Twitter meltdown I’m guessing and possibly the breaking of the internet.
PlayedGlastonbury? Played it? He rocked it on Saturday night. Amazing. Oh and he also performed there in 2004
In1993? No
Finally a new No 1 but careful what you wish for as Whitney is toppled by one of the most annoying chart toppers of the whole decade. Widely (and perhaps rightly) pilloried for its lack of lyrics (“No no, no nuh no no, no nuh no no, no no there’s no lyrics”) 2 Unlimited’s “No Limit” also had an inane hook that lent itself to many a moronic football chant. I think my favourite was for former Bolton Wanderers forward Mixu Paatelainen. You can work out how it went for yourselves easy enough.
Supposedly there was a controversy over this week’s chart as to who was actually No 1 – Take That or 2 Unlimited – so close were the sales but I don’t remember any such stories in the press and certainly nothing to rival the Deee-Lite vs Steve Miller Band battle of 1990.
PlayedGlastonbury? Ha! Ha! Never!
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Stereo MC’s
Ground Level
Nah
2
Whitney Houston
I’m Every Woman
I did not
3
Lenny Kravitz
Are You Gonna Go My Way
No but it’s a good tune
4
Sting
If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
Nope
5
REM
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
No but I had the album it was from Automatic For The People
6
Metallica
Sad But True
Happy to say no and that’s the truth
7
Rod Stewart
Ruby Tuesday
Never happening
8
Take That
Why Can’t I Wake Up With You?
Hell no!
9
Paul McCartney
C’Mon People
No
10
2 Unlimited
No Limit
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.
And there goes 1991! Phew! So, was it a case of “Thank God that’s all over” or was it that we were all left wanting more? Let’s be honest, it’s option one isn’t it? As ever when I approach the next year of TOTP repeats, my optimism got the better of me and I came out the reviews thinking “it can’t have been as bad as all that surely?” and, as ever, I was wrong. In my defence, after the year of ‘Madchester’ that was 1990, was it unreasonable to have anticipated that 1991 would see a continuation of the dominance of the indie dance scene and all the cultural invention it bought? Sadly, the two biggest names of that movement were conspicuous by their absence. Both Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses were in a state of paralysis as they attempted to follow up on the huge events that were their iconic albums “Pills ‘n’ Thrills And Bellyaches” and “The Stone Roses . The latter were banjaxed by legal issues as they sought to disentangle themselves from their Silvertone recording contract and the Mondays? Well, they were hanging out with Ronnie Biggs in Brazil and doing a lot of drugs weren’t they?
Into the vacancy they created strode indie rock bands like Blur, Jesus Jones and Ride who looked the part but were they really just signings by major labels looking to jump on a bandwagon whose wheels had already come off? By the end of the year, a new dominant strain of rock music would arrive from Seattle in America. The era of grunge was upon us.
Dance music was still in the ascendancy with most of the tunes crossing over into the charts being rave anthems by the likes of The Prodigy, Bizarre Inc, Altern-8 and SL2. Meanwhile, some of the stars of the previous decade made a come back like Paul Young and a trimmed down OMD. Surely the biggest return of an act we’d first seen in the 80s though was by Simply Red who bagged the year’s biggest selling album in “Stars”.
As for TOTP, 1991 was a year of huge change with the ‘year zero’ revamp culling all those familiar Radio 1 DJ presenters in one fell swoop, replacing them with fresh faced youngsters we’d never seen before. A new live vocal performance policy was introduced to mixed results while the whole shebang was moved lock,stock and barrel, relocating from BBC Television Centre in London to BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood. It all took some getting used to and judging by the shows I’ve already reviewed, the new changes weren’t an immediate hit.
As usual with these end of year reviews, I like to remind myself of the songs that topped the charts to see if there is were any trends behind the sales and as ever, nothing really seems to make much sense.
17 songs had travelled to the summit of the charts. Of them, I would say they broke down like this:
6 by established stars (Queen twice, Michael Jackson, Cher, U2, George Michael and Elton John)
3 by ‘teen’ sensations (Chesney Hawkes, Jason Donovan, Color Me Badd)
2 by ‘new’ artists with a ‘new’ sound (Enigma, The KLF)
2 x novelty records (The Simpsons, Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff)
1 by a band with a loyal fanbase that manipulated the release schedules (Iron Maiden)
1 x TV advert tie in (The Clash)
1 x charity record (Hale & Pace)…
…and 1 by Bryan Adams.
Some may argue with my categories and you could swap some of the artists around of course. Was “Dizzy” an actual novelty record? Were Color Me Badd really a teen sensation? I had to draw the line somewhere though. Of those 17, I bought two and one of those was by mistake – I’ll let you work out / guess which ones they were. Discounting novelty and charity records and with the exception of Enigma, Iron Maiden and The KLF (and at a pinch U2), it was all very mainstream. Nothing ever seemed to change that much when it came to the really big hit singles. Maybe grunge will change all that in 1992…
Hits We Missed
During these reviews of the year in my other blog TOTP Rewind – the 80s, a lot of the entries in this section were songs and artists that had made it onto the show but those shows were not repeated by the BBC for reasons of taste surrounding hosts that were totally unpalatable today or, in the case of Mike Smith, because of legal restrictions. Thankfully, in 1990, any such restrictions were eradicated as none of the aforementioned hosts were still on the show.
However this vexatious issue returned in late 1991 due to one of the new presenters in the ‘year zero’ revamp (one Adrian Rose) following Smitty’s lead and failing to sign the repeat broadcast waiver! Fortunately, this only resulted in a couple of non transmitted shows but that kiss from Rose will prove to be more deadly in 1992 when multiple repeats won’t be shown. With all that said, there will still a few chart hits we missed seeing this year because they never actually featured on the show despite making the Top 40…
Alison Moyet – This House
Released 30/09/91
Peak chart position No 40
After finding solo stardom in the mid to late 80s after the dissolution of Yazoo, Alison Moyet began the new decade rejecting the notion of pursuing chart hits at any cost and putting artist integrity at the heart of her work. Her first album of the 90s was “Hoodoo” which sold reasonably but failed to produce any big hits as her commercial peak “Raindancing” had done. Maybe that’s what she wanted all along having publicly disowned that 1987 album.
“This House” was the only single from “Hoodoo” to scratch the Top 40 (and it was the lightest of dents) despite being the final of four releases. I think it’s fair to say that the track perfectly demonstrated her reinvention as a serious artist. A haunting, sombre number with a touch of Dire Straits’ “Private Investigations” in the verses, this was no “Weak In The Presence Of Beauty “. Its heavy nature meant that it struggled to find a home though in the rave obsessed charts despite it having originally featured as the B side to Alison’s cover of “Love Letters” which represented the peak of her commercial era. Oh the irony.
The fight for artistic integrity and credibility would continue with the release of the “Essex” album in 1994 before Alison would finally disentangle herself from her record label Columbia and return with “Hometime” some eight years later. Columbia meanwhile would flick the metaphorical v’s at Ms Moyet when they released a compilation of her singles in 1995 called…erm…”Singles” which went to No 1.
The Black Crowes – Hard To Handle
Released 05/08/91
Peak chart position No 39
*Originally released 1990 when it peaked at No 76.
In a year when the charts were seemingly dominated by rave anthems, there was still a small corner of the Top 40 reserved for some revivalist sounds, in this case courtesy of Southern rockers The Black Crowes. I’d certainly never heard of them before this point but apparently they’d been around since 1984 although they didn’t release their first studio album until six years later. That album was “Shake Your Money Maker” which included the band’s take on the Otis Redding song “Hard To Handle”, their first Top 40 hit in the UK.
I didn’t and don’t regard myself as any sort of enthusiast of Southern rock but I didn’t mind this. Knowing the original version of the song helped as well. I don’t remember the album being played on our shop stereo that much but somewhere along the line I also became aware of another single from the album, that being “Twice As Hard” (I think it may have been on that first Q Magazine compilation album that I bought around this time). The band would enjoy their biggest period of success the following year when their second album “The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion” went to No 1 in the US and No 2 in the UK. Rave anthems be gone!
Jellyfish – The King Is Half Undressed
Released 14/01/91
Peak chart position No 39
Sometimes the crazy world of pop throws up some complete anomalies, artists and songs that seem out of time with the era in which they appeared. Jellyfish were a fine example of this phenomenon. Hailing from San Francisco, they took their myriad influences of the likes of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, ELO, 10cc, Queen, Bowie, Wings and XTC and placed them all in a huge cooking pot, set it on a low heat and came up with a new pop cuisine that was both appetising and yet like something you wouldn’t necessarily choose from the menu. Intricate melodies combined with complex harmonies and all glued together by a timeless pop sensibility. Marvellous for pop fans like me but undeniably incongruous in a soundscape of rave and grunge.
Their material would engender a loyal cult following who saw them as the musical missing link but commercial success would remain tantalisingly out of reach despite tour slots with the aforementioned The Black Crowes. They even played at Wembley Stadium before 72,000 people supporting INXS yet “The King Is Half Undressed” would be their only UK Top 40 hit (and then only just). It came from an album called “Bellybutton” which included some great tracks including “Now She Know’s She’s Wrong” and “Baby’s Coming Back” the latter of which was even a No 1 for British boy band McFly in 2007. A sophomore album appeared in 1993 called “Spilt Milk” which the band saw as the natural culmination and apogee of their sound and which drew (probably unhelpful) comparisons with “Pet Sounds” – indeed they had even some ultimately unproductive songwriting sessions with yer actual Brian Wilson! It bombed in America though was better received in this country and the band broke up due to that well worn and weary of excuses ‘creative differences’. Their back catalogue probably demands a better legacy than it is afforded.
Milltown Brothers – Which Way Should I Jump?
Released 11/02/91
Peak chart position No 38
*Originally released 1989 – did not chart
When Tiffany sang “Could’ve Been” in 1988 I’m pretty sure she wasn’t singing about a gang of lads from Colne, Lancashire – not least because Milltown Brothers weren’t formed until a year later – but she…ahem…could’ve been.
Tipped by the NME no less for stardom as the 80s became the 90s, a bidding war by the major labels saw the band sign with A&M records who released a re-recording of “Which Way Should I Jump” (it was originally issued on an indie label two years before) which made them bonafide chart stars when it entered the Top 40 at No 38. A debut album called “Slinky” promised much with some nifty tunes that did much to dispel the idea that they were just another bunch of baggy chancers. I’m pretty sure it was a Recommended Release in Our Price.
However, the fates conspired against them with the release of follow up single “Here I Stand”. According to the band’s own website, the track was denied sales from independent record shops where they had done a string of promotional PAs by the chart compilers who feared chart rigging (officially the single was subject to the process of ‘weighting’) and it peaked at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41. The repercussions were disastrous. No Top 40 hit meant no TOTP appearance and A&M lost their nerve and faith in the band. A follow up album wasn’t released until two years later by which point all momentum was lost. The band effectively broke up only to reform in 2004 and are still together to this day last releasing an album in 2020.
And yes they were brothers. Well at least singer and guitarist Matt and Simin Nelson are.
Nirvana- Smells Like Teen Spirit
Released 10/09/1991
Peak chart position 7
The first casualty of that unsigned Adrian Rose waiver and it’s a biggie. Who knew back in the Autumn of 1991 what an influence and legacy this song would have? I didn’t that’s for sure. I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t have a clue who Nirvana were nor did I get what all the fuss was about back then. It seemed to all happen overnight, this movement called grunge. Suddenly there were punters coming into the shop asking for that album with the front cover of a naked child, underwater and reaching for a dollar bill on a string. What was going on?
And then I heard the song. I couldn’t understand what they were singing about but then I wasn’t the only one not able to translate those lyrics that seemed indecipherable on first hearing. It didn’t matter. It was a huge cacophony of noise, bludgeoning the listener into submission. Immediately designated a legacy of being the ultimate anthem for a generation of disaffected, nihilistic youths, it is routinely listed at the top of all those polls like ‘The Best Single Ever’ and ‘The Most Important Rock Song Of All Time’. I’m guessing it still resonates with the younger generation some 30 years on even though those who were first turned on by it are now middle aged and thinking about their pension provision. The only track I can think of that has had such a visceral effect since would be “Creep” by Radiohead. Possibly. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, in short, was a monster.
And then I watched this TOTP performance. God it was awful. From Kurt Cobain’s deliberately tone deaf vocals to his giving the microphone a blow job to the inevitable and uncovincing stage invasion. The band were never invited back. More informed and articulate people than I have already written millions of words about the influence and impact of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain and indeed “Smells Like Teen Spirit” so I don’t propose to write an essay on this but suffice to say that I’m pretty sure I have wigged out like a lunatic to this in some seedy venue on an indie night. Haven’t we all?
Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Released 12/08/91
Peak chart position No 39
*”Only Love Can Break Your Heart” originally reached number 95 on the UK Singles Chart. It was re-released in August 1991 reaching a new peak of number 39.
The second of two cover versions in this section comes from a band as far removed from the southern rock of The Black Crowes as it’s possible to be. Before 1991, if anyone had asked me about Saint Etienne, my mind would have immediately reverted to 1977 and that memorable European Cup tie between Liverpool and St Etienne that was one of my first footballing memories. David ‘Supersub’ Fairclough and all that. I would never have thought that 13 years later the defeated French team would provide the name for a dance act that seemed to come out of nowhere but who would transcend their club beginnings and become a cultural force for years to come. I say ‘out of nowhere’ but founding members Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs had already masterminded a Top 10 hit in ‘91 courtesy of “7 Ways To Love” by Cola Boy, not that I knew of that connection at the time.
I think I first heard their version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” when I covered for a day in the Our Price Piccadilly store in Manchester (I usually worked down the road in the Market Street shop). It never seemed be off the shop stereo that day and it sounded achingly trendy to my ears ( yes ‘trendy’ was still an acceptable word back then!). It had a haunting quality to it combined with a shuffling back beat that immediately created a perception that the band were part of the indie-dance scene. My wife bought the parent album “Foxbase Alpha” and the tracks within it demonstrated that they had much more to them than just that. 60s pop influences combined with club culture sensibilities and some art film samples shaped an experimental yet accessible album. I think “Wilson” might be my favourite track.
Apparently vocalist Sarah Cracknell doesn’t actually do the singing on “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (those duties were performed by one Moira Lambert) as she wasn’t a permanent band member at the time of recording. As much as I liked the band, I did have a problem with them though. I saw them in concert around 1993 (supported by Pulp no less) but they used backing tracks and only played a 43 minute set! Crackers (she must be known as ‘Crackers’ within the band don’t you think?) announced at the end of the last song that “we’re not a rock band and we don’t do encores”. What a swizz!
Hits That Never Were
Airhead -Funny How
Released 05/10/91
Peak chart position No 57
There’s a surprising number of famous people that hail from Maidstone, Kent. There’s the actors Mackenzie Crook (The Office / Worzel Gummidge), Tamsin Greig (Black Books / Friday Night Dinner) and Shaun Williamson (Barry from Eastenders / erm that’s it). If that wasn’t enough there’s also artist, Children’s TV presenter and national treasure the late, great Tony Hart. When it comes to pop stars though there’s a distinct dearth. Yes, David Bowie lived in Maidstone in the early 60s pre fame as part of blues group Manish Boys but he wasn’t from there. So it fell upon a group of lads in the early 90s to maintain Maidstone’s end in the pop stakes and those lads were called Airhead.
Originally entitled Jefferson Airhead before being threatened with legal action by US psychedelic rockers Jefferson Airplane, they briefly garnered public attention due to their brilliantly poppy single “Funny How” gaining heavy rotation on Radio 1’s playlists. Despite this exposure and its insanely catchy lyric “it’s funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you, funny how the ones you don’t do”, it failed to crack the Top 40. They did achieve that feat with follow up single “Counting Sheep” as 1991 turned into 1992 which reached No 35 but it’s “Funny How” that remains their best known work. It was even used to soundtrack some montages in Match Of The Day at the time.
They only released one album called “Boing!!” which made the Top 30 but the band split not long after due to tensions with their record label. For those that know it though, “Funny How” remains one of the biggest and best hits that never were of the whole decade.
Crowded House – Chocolate Cake
Released 22/06/91
Peak chart position No 69
Prior to the start of the 90s, Crowded House we’re pretty much known in the UK purely for their 1987 Top 30 hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. Their eponymous debut album it was taken from did exactly zilch over here. Follow up long player “Temple Of Low Men” made even less impact (is there anything lower than zilch?). However, their breakthrough moment would come with the release of third album “Woodface” in 1991 which would sprout four Top 40 hit singles including a Top Tenner in “Weather With You”.
And this one. Very much the runt of the litter, “Chocolate Cake” was the first single to be released from the album and it was largely ignored by the UK. Maybe it was too confrontational for most people. The lyrics take a swipe at multiple targets including overweight Americans, Andrew Lloyd Webber, capitalism and how the masses will accept any old toss served up to them as culturally valid without understanding the value of true art. Something like that anyway. I never did work out who ‘Mrs Hairy Legs’ was though.
A thoroughly forgotten Crowded House track, it didn’t even appear in their 1996 No 1 Best Of album “Recurring Dream” for which the advertising campaign used the tagline “you know more Crowded House songs than you realise”. Clearly not “Chocolate Cake” though.
Elvis Costello – The Other Side Of Summer
Released 08/04/91
Peak chart position No 43
I may have included this one in the review purely because my wife is a big admirer of the artist and I remember buying this one for her (using my Our Price staff discount of course!). I’m certainly no super fan myself but I do like plenty of his stuff. It’s just that since his 70s and 80s heydays he seems to have forgotten to include a melody in most of his tunes. Sorry my love!
“The Other Side Of Summer” couldn’t be described as such though having been deliberately written as a Beach Boys pastiche (early 70s era) and it fair bounces along in a very hummable way. Its musicality is totally at odds with its lyrics though which takes issue with both Pink Floyd and John Lennon with the latter being taken to task for “Imagine” (‘Was it a millionaire who said ‘imagine no possessions’?”).
It didn’t strike a chord with UK music fans though peaking at No 43. Taken from the album “Mighty Like A Rose”, what I most remember about this was the massive Grizzly Adams style beard Costello had grown and that was used in the promotional images surrounding the release. Paddy McAloon eat your heart out!
Lenny Kravitz – Stand By My Woman
Released 14/09/91
Peak chart position No 55
Before bestriding the UK charts later in the 90s with massive hits like “Are You Gonna Go My Way” and “Fly Away” (a chart topper no less), his singles weren’t always hits. Indeed, by the end of 1991, he’d only ever had two Top 40 entries to his name – “Let Love Rule” (No 39) and his breakthrough hit of this year “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over” which just missed the Top 10 when it peaked just outside at No 11.
“Stand By My Woman” was the follow up to that single and it failed to keep the hit momentum going, returning him to the chart doldrums by missing the Top 40 altogether. Why wasn’t it a success? There was no apparent reason. Yes, it was a change of tempo though still a well structured if rather mournful and brooding ballad as opposed to its breezily paced predecessor but who decreed that each song had to sound the same as all your others? Well yes, Stock, Aitken and Waterman obviously but who cares what they thought?
Taken from his “Mama Said” album which I liked so much I bought, its title could have been a direct response to Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” although it had more in common musically with Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”.
Lloyd Cole – Weeping Wine
Released 21/10/91
Peak chart position Did not chart
When a lead singer of a successful band goes solo it tends to be an endeavour fraught with potential obstacles. Will your fan base accept you as an individual artist? Should you stick to the formula that made you a star in the first place or try and attract a different (meaning more mature) audience? Will you change your image? Not many have made the transition successfully I would contend. For every George Michael there’s a Limahl. In the case of Lloyd Cole, the former Commotions frontman didn’t pull up any trees commercially but he did produce a more than credible body of work.
After his band called it a day in 1989, Lloyd hit the ground running with two solo albums released in consecutive years. Although hit singles proved to be elusive, the albums sold steadily presumably as he retained his fan base’s interest and devotion at least initially. The second of those albums “Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe” is regarded by some Lloyd aficionados as his creative peak and from it came the single “Weeping Wine”. Hardly my favourite song of his by any standard but there was something about this unassuming, county tinged lament that appealed.
Years on from this I caught Lloyd live at a gig in New Mills, Derbyshire. He was great – entertaining yet self effacing banter with some brilliant tunes. The best thing was the interval though. That’s not a slur on Lloyd at all. During the break in his set, me and my mates Robin and Steve decamped to a pub round the corner from the venue for a quick jar and who was at the bar ahead of us having a whisky but Lloyd himself. I loved that nobody in the pub (including us) bothered him for autographs or selfies. He was just another punter. And of course Lloyd is a Chelsea fan like me. Gotta love the man just for that!
Love And Money – Winter
Released 16/11/91
Peak chart position No 52
Who comes to mind first when you hear the term ‘Scottish rock and pop’? Simple Minds? Big Country? Deacon Blue? Maybe somebody a little less obvious like Teenage Fan Club? Or more traditionally Gaelic like Runrig? How many attempts would it take before this lot came up as an answer I wonder?
I first became aware of Love And Money back in 1986 when their debut single “Candybar Express” started getting airplay on Radio 1. It wasn’t enough to make it a hit but it was a solid marker of things to come. Fast forward two years and their “Strange Kind Of Love” album generated four singles all of which I liked including the title track and “Up Escalator “. Still Top 40 success eluded the band.
By 1991, their third album “Dogs In The Traffic” seemed like a last throw of the dice to achieve the chart placings they deserved. Yet another Our Price Recommended Release, it became their highest charting long player but even then at a paltry peak of No 41. The final single from it was “Winter” presumably kept back to coincide its release with its namesake season. It’s a rather lovely, reflective track that was quite the change from the rawness of “Candybar Express” and the slick 80s production of “Strange Kind Of Love”. Sadly it disappeared like dandruff in a blizzard in the Xmas rush peaking outside the Top 40 yet again at No 52. Criminal really.
Singer and songwriter James Grant is still out there gigging and recording. His band’s debut album was called “All You Need Is…Love And Money”. Perhaps he also needed just a little bit of luck.
Malcolm McLaren – Magic’s Back
Released 21/12/91
Peak chart position No 42
What a curiosity this was but then anything involving Malcolm McLaren was never going to be run of the mill! On Xmas day in 1991, Channel 4 broadcast The Ghosts Of Oxford Street, basically a vanity project by McLaren (who wrote, directed and acts as narrator for the film) detailing the history of the famous London shopping street. The narrative is helped along by the interspersing of musical segments performed by an eclectic array of artists including Tom Jones, Happy Mondays, Sinead O’Connor and Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues doing that Xmas song.
This being a McLaren project though, Malcolm of course grants himself a song in amongst it all and what a song it was. His previous musical output had pushed the boundaries of traditional genres with the likes of “Buffalo Gals” and “Double Dutch” but “Magic’s Back” was a straight up dance floor filling house track ably aided by the vocal talents of Alison Limerick. Malc’s contribution is limited to his rather creepy spoken word intro but the rest of the track is banging! There was a whole album of the songs featured in the film but like the single it didn’t sell that well.
I’m pretty sure that I watched The Ghosts Of Oxford Street on Xmas day in 1991 and I’m equally pretty sure I was very disappointed with it even allowing for my fascination of all things McLaren. You never see it repeated on TV do you? Ever. Funny that.
TheMock Turtles – And Then She Smiles
Released 29/06/91
Peak chart position No 44
I waxed lyrical about The Mock Turtles back when I reviewed the TOTP show on which they performed “Can You Dig It?” months ago in this blog. I don’t therefore propose to rehash all of that again here. However, I did want to include them in this section as they really should have had more than just one hit (and no I’m not counting the 2003 Fatboy Slim remix of “Can You Dig It?”).
Back in 1991 when that song was originally in the charts, the band chose the tried and tested strategy of following it up by rereleasing a previous single. “And Then She Smiles” was originally out in 12” format back in 1989 but it was re-recorded and given a second bite of the cherry to consolidate the band’s commercial breakthrough. It seemed a smart move. The track was radio friendly and not a million miles away from the sound of its predecessor. It had a decent shot of charting. Somehow though, it fell tantalising short. Maybe it didn’t have that X Factor hook of “Can You Dig It?” – its spiralling, psychedelic guitar intro and its bouncing bass groove? Was it actually just a bit too…pedestrian? Not for me I have to say.
The band (or possibly the record company) doubled down on the misstep when it released a third single that sounded just like “And Then She Smiles” in “Strings And Flowers”. Again, I was a fan but it didn’t make much commercial sense to do the same thing as before and expect a better return. It sank without trace and so did The Mock Turtles until that 2003 revival thanks to David Beckham and a Vodafone ad. “And Then She Smiles” finally had its day when it was used as the theme tune to Sky’s comedy drama show Stella which ran from 2012 to 2017 starring none other than my mate Robin’s sister Emma.
Pete Wylie & Wah! The Mongrel – Don’t Lose Your Dreams (Excerpt From A Teenage Opera Part 154)
Released 15,07/91
Peak chart position Did not chart
As the 90s we’re getting going, apart from a couple of collaborations with The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (aka The KLF) and fellow scousers The Farm, nothing much had been seen or heard of Pete Wylie since his 1986 hit single “Sinful!”. Well, those of us who classed ourselves as Wylie fans had been wowed by a string of excellent singles released in “Sinful!”s wake but as far as the charts were concerned, nothing he offered up to the record buying public had returned him to his former glories. “Diamond Girl”, “If I Love You” and “Fourelevenfortyfour” were all fantastic but each one had come and gone without a sniff of the Top 40. It really was a ludicrous state of affairs given his immense talent for turning a fine tune.
1991 would be a pivotal year for Pete but it had nothing to do with his music. Not that there wasn’t any music. Far from it as he released the album “Infamy! Or How I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today” under his latest pseudonym of Pete Wylie And Wah! The Mongrel. As I recall it was yet another Our Price Recommended Release. It failed to chart at all despite including yet more wonderful tracks to add to his remarkable ‘repertwah’. “Circle Of Salt” and the epic “The Kerry Baby” were standouts for me but the lead single from the album was “Don’t Lose Your Dreams (Excerpt From A Teenage Opera Part 154)”. A sprawling opus with everything chucked into the production and a title that referenced Keith West’s 1967 No 2 hit “Grocer Jack” was possibly out of place in 1991 but Wylie has never been one to play by the rules or do what might be expected of him.
Predictably (and quite wrongly) it sank without trace but that was the least of a Pete’s troubles. On 11th November he suffered a near fatal fall in Liverpool when a railing gave way fracturing both his spine and sternum. Thankfully he made a full recovery. Legend has it that when the paramedics arrived on the scene and went through the usual response questions to ascertain Pete’s level of consciousness and awareness starting with asking him his name he replied “You should f*****g know who I am!”. Pete Wylie ladies and gentlemen, part time rock star, full time legend.
TheReal People – Window Pane
Released 06/07/91
Peak chart position No 60
From one scouse legend to another bunch of Liverpudlians who would end up with a legacy of legend makers rather than actual legends themselves. Noel Gallagher was a roadie with the Inspiral Carpets when he first met Tony Griffiths of The Real People who had been a going concern since 1988, touring the world as a major label artist having been signed by Columbia on CBS. They’d released their debut eponymous album in 1991 to positive reviews though commercial success had been harder to come by. Noel wanted to put together a demo for his band Oasis to send out to record labels and Griffiths helped him out by lending him use of The Real People’s own eight track studio. Lacking much in the way of recording know how, Griffiths and his brother and fellow band member Chris showed Noel, Liam et al the studio ropes. The result was the “Live Demonstration” tape that included original versions of many of the tracks that would end up being released on “Definitely Maybe” including “Columbia”, “Bring It On Down” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”.
Although their Manc mates would go onto become the biggest band in the UK by the mid 90s, it never quite worked out for The Real People success wise. One paltry No 38 in 1992 (“Believer”) was the peak of their chart fame and a second album for CBS , though recorded, remained unreleased until 2012 when the band finally made it available independently. However, despite cult status amongst those in the know, the Griffiths brothers went on to write hits for the likes of Cher, Ocean Colour Scene and Atomic Kitten. Their band continues to play live and record with their last album being 2016’s “Monday Morning Breakdown”. The Real People then, the real people behind Oasis. Definitely….maybe.
Their Season In The Sun
Banderas
Communards offshoot group Banderas looked they were onto something in early 1991 when they took their single “This Is Your Life” (nothing to do with Eamon Andrews nor The Blow Monkeys) into the Top 20. Funky yet spiky it was taken from an album called “Ripe” which boasted the musical chops of Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner as contributors. The all female duo of Sally Herbert and the striking, shaven headed Caroline Buckley shook up the conventional band template and they seemed in the right place at the right time to form a successful chart career. However follow up singles failed to make the Top 40 and the album similarly struggled commercially.
There were no further releases and the band dissolved, left with a legacy of the “whatever happened to…?” conundrum. However, excellent reissues label Cherry Red are just about to release a double CD deluxe version of the album which includes liner notes by Sally and Caroline plus an interview with their by old pal Jimmy Somerville. Banderas – a band ‘ripe’ for reassessment.
Cathy Dennis
One of the biggest breakout stars of 1991, diminutive Cathy came straight outta Norwich and achieved four Top 20 singles and a gold selling album in the space of 12 months. However, the hits dried up as she attempted to consolidate on her success and by the mid point of the decade the game was up. Cannily though, Cathy changed sports and became an in demand songwriter for other artists penning “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” for Kylie, “Toxic” for Britney Spears and “I Kissed A Girl” for Katy Perry.
Chesney Hawkes
Poor old Chezza. Perhaps the ultimate here today gone tomorrow pop star. A five week stint at No 1 with “The One And Only” led to both fame with the public but also derision in the music press. By the end of the year he was pretty much finished. He even has to put up with the ignominy of being labelled a one hit wonder despite follow up single “I’m A Man Not A Boy” going Top 30. Still, he seems like a nice bloke and is happy to play his (not quite) one and only hit in the nostalgia circuit.
Color Me Badd
How on earth did this happen? A group who included a sub standard George Michael lookalike, a Kenny G doppelgänger and a lead singer who was the spit of that god awful rapper Snow somehow managed to have a huge global hit with a song with one of the most teeth grindingly creepy titles of all time?! Come on people! What were you thinking?!
Shamelessly riding the New Jack Swing wave, these four knobheads from Oklahoma briefly caused a sensation when “I Wanna Sex You Up” hit No 2 in the US and topped the charts over here. They looked ridiculous and sounded horrendous. It couldn’t last and it didn’t. One more hit (the candy pop of “All 4 Love”) and that brief craze was over. Color Me Fad anyone?
Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch
When you’re more famous for your kecks than your music then you know you’re in trouble (just ask Kris Kross). Marky Mark would of course go on to have a very successful film career under his real name of Mark Wahlberg but for a brief (chortle) period of time Marky Mark and indeed his Funky Bunch were very hot news indeed. A US No 1 single in “Good Vibrations” led to him being the face (or possibly crotch) of a Calvin Klein underwear advertising campaign. However, the stench of some repugnant homophobic views aired on Channel 4’s The Word would see him rightly vilified and his music career was dead after just two years.
The Railway Children
Wigan New Wavers who having spent their early years on the tracks of the indie charts finally flagged down a mainstream chart hit in 1991 with “Every Beat Of The Heart”. Their late arrival as chart stars didn’t sustain though and despite pursuing a timetable of further hits, their time in the public spotlight was cancelled (ahem).
Sophie Lawrence
Five years on from Nick Berry taking “Every Loser Wins” to No 1, another Eastenders actor tried their luck at the pop game as Sophie Lawrence brought us a pretty straight and sterile version of Donna Summer’s disco classic “Love’s Unkind”. Whereas Berry’s character Wicksy had been a fan favourite (especially amongst the female side of the show’s audience I’m guessing), I’m not convinced that Sophie’s stroppy teenager Diane Butcher was quite so popular. Maybe that’s why her attempt at pop stardom stalled at No 21.
A Stock, Aitken and Waterman produced follow up was recorded (a Kylie album track fact fans) but it was never released and Sophie’s time in the pop merry go round came to a shuddering and final stop. Dum dum da dum dum dum dum ….
Zoë
Like Chesney Hawkes before her, Zoë wasn’t quite a one hit wonder but she is surely only known for one song, her No 4 hit “Sunshine On A Rainy Day”. A well crafted pop/dance crossover with an exuberant chorus, it proved a substantial hit, staying on the charts for 11 weeks. Despite her album being of similar material it failed to convince record buyers of its worth and came and went without anyone hardly noticing. No 37 hit “Lightning” didn’t pull up many trees as a follow up so Zoë quit pop music and reinvented herself as a potter before returning to music trying out rock and folk directions.
Last Words
So where does 1991 rank in terms of musical excellence? It’s not a classic in my book but I don’t think it’s the worst ever either (yes 1993 I’m looking at you). The Top 40 – and therefore TOTP – seemed to be awash with dance tunes of every hue but there were some standout songs for me as well. “Can You Dig It?” by The Mock Turtles, “Sit Down” by James, “3AM Eternal” by The KLF for example.
However, there was an elephant in the room that the whole of the year (almost literally) was dominated by; one song bestriding the charts behemoth like that would forever be associated with 1991. I speak, of course, of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams. Was it a great big steaming turd brought into existence to remind us that nothing had really changed when it came to mainstream chart music despite the dance revolution or a phenomenon of commerciality that deserved our recognition? Yeah, don’t all rush to reply – I think I know the answer already.
And me personally? How was 1991? I didn’t know it then but this year was possibly the most stable year of the decade work wise. I remained in the same job working at the same record shop (Our Price in Market Street, Manchester) and liked the people I worked with. A brief wobble about the shop being sold off earlier in the year came to nothing and by Xmas I had become the store’s chart cassette buyer! The thrill of it all! 1992 would bring big changes though as for the first time in my life I got a work promotion and became an Assistant Manager but that’s all for future posts
I’ve going to carry on into the 1992 TOTP repeats. Fancy joining me?
It’s 1991 and that grand old institution that was TOTP is having an identity crisis. Ratings had fallen and the show was struggling to retain its relevance to a Top 40 chart which had become increasingly dominated by dance music the stars of which were the tunes themselves rather than those making them. The programme’s traditional format and the way it delivered flamboyant pop stars into the nation’s living rooms every Thursday night functioned rather less well when its content was anonymous looking DJ types stood behind some keyboards or a mixing desk. Adding to its dilemmas was the competition it faced from other music shows. Having gone head to head with TOTP in the late 80s with its own version of the show in The Roxy, ITV had usurped that traditional format and came up with The Chart Show whose video only / no presenter format on a Saturday morning was increasingly popular. Then of course there was MTV which had been serving the UK via its MTV Europe network since 1987 although its penetration into UK homes was hardly universal. Still, its style and programming was starting to make TOTP look like a TV relic. Rallying against this, the show employed what was then cutting edge technology (presumably) in green screen backdrops for the presenters, changes to the Top 40 countdown (the show’s whole modus operandi since its inception), an ill judged Top 5 albums feature and cramming more and more videos into its 30 minutes of screen time. The 30 minutes time limit was beginning to look very restricting. I’m sure The Chart Show lasted at least an hour and of course MTV broadcast all day long.
As we approach the mid-point of the year, the show has reduced its regular hosts to a shallow pool of names, those being Gary Davies, Bruno Brookes, Jakki Brambles, Mark Goodier, Nicky Campbell and tonight’s presenter Simon Mayo. Anthea Turner had already been relieved of her duties a few weeks prior. Come the end of September, all of these names would be jettisoned in favour of new, younger and mainly unknown faces as part of the ‘Year Zero’ revamp brought in by new executive producer Stanley Appel. For now though, the show is limping along trying to convince us all that everything is fine and that there’s nothing to see here (literally true in the case of some of those pesky dance acts).
So, as stated, it’s Simon Mayo’s turn at the wheel for this particular instalment and he brings his usual smug sense of his own importance to proceedings. I’m finding Mayo especially grating in these repeats although to be fair, all of the aforementioned names had their own intrinsic foibles. If Mayo was smug then we also had Goodier (plain boring), Davies (overly chummy), Brambles (disinterested) and Brookes (just creepy). Mayo begins the show by asking the audience to name any Belgian “singing superstars” – I say ask, it’s more like he’s goading us in a ‘see I can name more than you’ way as he references The Singing Nun and Plastic Bertrand before advising us that we can “add this lot to the pile” as he introduces Cubic 22 with their hit “Night In Motion”. They’re hardly singing though are they Simon? No, because Cubic 22 were one of those dance acts meaning some faceless bods behind keyboards and a couple of dancers. The only voices you hear are some sample vocals shouting ‘Party time’ and ‘Let me hear ya!’. That really doesn’t qualify Cubic 22 as singing stars in my book Mayo. The performance here though is a prime example of the challenges TOTP faced in reflecting the nation’s dance music choices. Watch it without the track playing and the visual element is woeful. Lots of shots of hands playing keyboards and the two dancers doing some very ordinary synchronised moves. At least with a video you might get some clever graphics or distracting images. Why on earth did they have such an act in the studio open the show?!
Next, Mayo comes across like wannabe football fan David Cameron (‘call me Dave, I’m a football fan but is it Aston Villa or West Ham?) with his remarks about “Rush Rush” by Paula Abdul being an ode to Welsh striker Ian Rush. I know he’s a Spurs fan (he goes on about Terry Venables later on in the show) but did he have to try so hard to get his football credentials over?
This was the lead single from Paula’s “Spellbound” album and I’m sure we had an import CD of it in the Market Street, Manchester Our Price I was working in ahead of its UK release. I can’t believe anyone would have coughed up the £18 or whatever it was just to be able to say they had it a couple of weeks before anybody else!
Playing across the bottom of the video is the Top 40 countdown which Mayo didn’t think worthy of a mention in his intro (though of course his pathetic Ian Rush quip was) and they’ve even tweaked that as they have gone back to referencing everything in the Top 40 whereas they had previously omitted anything going down the charts. As I said earlier, identity crisis.
It may be a new decade but that didn’t put any sort of brakes on Erasure‘s imperial phase. Here they are with their first new material since 1989’s “Wild” album and “Chorus” would confirm that their popularity was a strong as ever when it went straight in at No 3 in the charts. Admittedly, it was hardly a major change of musical direction for Andy and Vince but hey, if it ain’t broke and all that. The lead single from their fifth studio album of the same name, would it have sounded out of place on any of three previous albums? I liked it though. It fair whipped along with a hooks a plenty and the most unlikely use of a word in the chorus (‘fishes’) since George Michael managed to get ‘feet’ into “Careless Whisper”. It was also perfect for any Radio 1 daytime playlist.
The album would give the duo their third consecutive No 1 when it was released later in the year. I’m pretty sure that on that day, our deliveries of new releases didn’t turn up until well into the afternoon which meant we missed out on loads of sales as everyone who wanted it on the day of release popped over the road to HMV who had racks of it. By the end of the 90s, retailers had agreed with the record companies that new releases could be delivered on the Friday before the release date to allow shops to get them ready for sale first thing Monday morning on the strict proviso that they could not be sold before then. The rule was pretty much totally observed in my experience although there must have been the odd title that slipped through the net company wide.
Back to Erasure though and what was the deal with the Vince and Andy mannequins in this performance? They weren’t a feature of the official promo video so presumably they were made just for this TOTP appearance. Seems a bit extravagant but then I guess Erasure were (well Andy anyway).
More inane attempts at wit from Mayo next when he introduces “Hey Stoopid” by Alice Cooper and tries a line about getting a thick ear if you go into a record shop and saying ‘Hey Stupid’. Well, I worked in a record shop at the time Simes and never did I have the licence to assault a customer who happened to annoy me.
As for Alice, after his unlikely monster hit “Poison” in 1989, he managed to eke out a few more in the 90s though none were as successful as “Poison”. As with Erasure before him, this lead single was also the same title of his album which featured guest contributions from some of rock’s biggest names including Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Nikki Sixx. Given the deliberate mis-spelling of ‘stupid’, I’m surprised Noddy Holder wasn’t on that list.
As for the song itself, it was fairly dumb as mud stuff and not likely to oust the likes of “School’s Out”, “Elected” or indeed “Poison” as one of Alice’s most famous songs (and yes I know the first two are actually Alice Cooper the band tracks).
“Hey Stoopid” peaked at No 21 in the UK.
Now most of us may know Omar just for “There’s Nothing Like This” but there was far more to him than just that one song. He has worked with some legendary names like Stevie Wonder and Lamont Dozier and is still making music to this day. His career is actually remarkably similar to that of another British soul singer Roachford. See how their stories resemble each other:
Omar
Roachford
Grew up in musical family. His father drummed for Bob Marley, his brother is Grammy winning producer, remixer and DJ Scratch Professer and is sister is a BRIT School alumna
Grew up in a musical family and was playing in his uncle’s touring band as a teenager
Is a multi instrumentalist
Is a multi instrumentalist
Unjustly and incorrectly categorised as a one hit wonder – “There’s Nothing Like This”
Unjustly and incorrectly categorised as a one hit wonder – “Cuddly Toy”
Appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music in 2012
Appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music in 2019
Now I’m no soul aficionado but even I could appreciate that “There’s Nothing Like This” was slick, smooth and perfectly sung. Oh and get this from @TOTPFacts:
Not long before this #TOTP appearance, Omar had to turn down an offer of playing on Jason Donovan's tour. "They wanted me to play percussion, but I was too busy. Even though they were offering £1000 a week."
The insertion of that bit of trivia will make sense later on.
After weeks of cramming in up to four acts in the Breakers section, this week we only have two. First off is ChesneyHawkes with a song called “I’m A Man Not A Boy”. You could almost hear the music press laughing in Chesney’s face at the title. Its No 27 chart peak sounded the death knell for the poor lad’s pop star career which was over before it had even started. No 27? That was an awful attempt at following up a record that had topped the charts for five weeks. It did however do one thing which was to disprove the theory that Chesney, like the aforementioned Omar and Roachford, was not a one hit wonder.
In truth, “I’m A Man Not A Boy” was nowhere near as good a pop record as its predecessor. It was a weak tune with a risible title. Maybe there was a different track on the Buddy’s Story album that his label Chrysalis Records (them again!) could have released instead that might have done the trick? It was all too late now though. A third and final track off the album was released as a single called “Secrets Of The Heart” which was a fairly terrible ballad. It did nothing to reverse Chezza’s fortunes and it peaked at No 57.
Fast forward to 1993 and a comeback single called “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” was released but its soon became apparent that Chesney was now persona non grata in the world of pop and it couldn’t get any higher than No 63. The parent album disappeared without trace. Hawkes seems to have come to terms with his time as a pop star though and now lives happily in Los Angeles with his American wife Kristina and their three children.
Now if it hadn’t been for the next single, I could have said that Chesney’s song was ‘The One And Only’ Breaker this week but here’s Incognito with “Always There” to stop that happening (damn it!). Now I had never heard of this lot before 1991 but I turns out that they were actually part of the UK Jazz Funk movement of the early 80s with their first album released in 1981. However, it would be another 10 years before their next long player by which time, like Omar earlier in the show, they had been signed to Gilles Peterson’s newly formed acid jazz label Talkin’ Loud. Impressed by their arrangement of “Always There”, it was picked out as a single but there was a problem. The band’s vocalist was sick so the replacement was the legendary R&B singer Jocelyn Brown (of “Somebody Else’s Guy” fame). The impetus that Jocelyn gave the record turned it into a Top 10 smash.
I also hadn’t been aware that “Always There” was actually a cover version with the original having been a minor hit for an act called Side Effect in the mid 70s. Incognito would repeat the cover version trick for their next hit the following year, a version of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ’bout A Thing”.
The increasingly tiresome Mayo indulges himself in some more dreadful attempts at humour as he introduces “It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” by Lenny Kravitz by stating that it was inspired by some football commentary by John Motson. OK, Simon well not only was that lame but it didn’t make any sense. I presume you were trying to make a link to the legendary line from the 1966 World Cup final commentary “some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over…it is now!” but that was, of course, by Kenneth Wolstenholme and not John Motson. This is schoolboy error stuff.
“It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” was written by Kravitz as he attempted to save his marriage to actress Lisa Bonet (who found fame playing Denise Huxtable in The Cosby Show). Despite his attempts, the two divorced in 1993 and she would later play the role of singer Marie De Salle in the wonderful High Fidelity with John Cusack and Jack Black. If you merge those two characters together you just about get Denise La Salle who had a hit with the execrable “My Toot Toot” in 1985. You can tell I’m flagging a bit here can’t you?
“It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” peaked at No 11.
And the moment has arrived. The moment you all dreaded. It’s the first week of Bryan Adams and “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” and he hasn’t even got to No 1 yet! It’s strange to think that as this TOTP went out with the song entering the chart at No 8 that we had no idea at that point how ingrained it would become in our psyche not just in 1991 but forever more. Taken from the soundtrack to the Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it proved to be irresistible to UK audiences famously staying at the top of the charts for a record breaking 16 weeks.
Look, this song is going to be on show after show after show which means I’ll have to write about it a lot so I don’t propose to dump everything I have to say about it on week one. So to start with, here’s some statistics about its chart performance:
No 1 in the UK for 16 weeks from July 7 to October 27
Topped the Europe-wide sales chart for 18 continuous weeks, still an all-time record
Topped the European-wide radio airplay chart for 10 weeks
No 1 for 7 weeks in the US, Billboard Hot 100, which combines radio airplay and sales,
No 1 for 8 weeks on the US Adult Contemporary Chart ,the longest run atop that chart since 1979
No 1 for 9 weeks in Adams’s native Canada
No 1 for 11 weeks in Australia
No 1 for 12 weeks in Sweden
No 1 in 18 countries being try best sell of the year in 7 of them
Sold 15 million copies worldwide
Phew!
More gibberish from Simon Mayo next as he introduces “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s an awful lot of touching going on; touching this, touching that, touching cameramen. I don’t know whether I approve actually. Mind you, it hasn’t done the Divinyls any good at all has it? There at No 12 this week…”. What?! No Simes, there isn’t a lot of touching going on, it’s just that there is a song in the charts with the word ‘touch’ in its title and surely you meant to say “it hasn’t done the Divinyls any harm at all has it?” to make any sort of sense of your nonsense.
This week it’s the infamous studio performance where singer Chrissy Amphlett spends a lot of time seemingly fondling her breasts. The sexual tension is added to by her guitarist playing his instrument in an erect, phallus like position. Blimey! Wilkipedia informs me that the B-side to the single was a track called “Follow Through”. Oh God! Don’t bring any toilet humour into the already overcrowded proceedings.
Despite taking “I Touch Myself” to No 10, they were unable to repeat the trick and it became their only UK chart hit. Chrissy Amphlett sadly passed away in 2013 from breast cancer but her legacy was the I Touch Myself project promoting breast cancer awareness and encouraging women to check themselves regularly.
Hallelujah! Color Me Badd have been toppled and we have a new No 1! The bad news is it’s Jason Donovan. Yes, in some sort of twisted version of a Faustian pact, we had traded the obvious material benefit of getting rid of those berks who wanted to sex us up for our pop music souls by placing “Any Dream Will Do” at the top of the pile. Look, it’s not that I hate musicals (I don’t at all) but I can’t really be doing with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and certainly not the insipid and twee “Any Dream Will Do”. I wasn’t the only one. Look at this tweet from an actual Jase fan:
As someone who was a fan of @JDonOfficial as a kid, this song was what killed every bit of fandom I had back then. He was singing songs from school play territory & it just seemed so naff. Now I'm older I look back with fondness at the stuff before this, though..but this…cringe
Quite. No wonder Omar turned his offer of touring with him down!
The play out video is “Sheriff Fatman” by Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and it’s finally time for my claim to fame story. This single appeared on the duo’s album “101 Damnations”. The album closes with the track “G. I. Blues” which is an anti-war song inspired by John Savage’s character in The Deer Hunter. Now, look at the personnel listed as having contributed to the making of the album in the screenshot below. See that arrow pointing to someone called Rob Sheridan? Rob was Best Man at my wedding!
This has been my go to claim to fame indie story for years. How Rob knew Jim Bob and Fruitbat I really can’t recall but knew them he did and there is his name, recorded in history for all to see. And then…during the first wave of the pandemic last year, when joining in on Tim Burgess’s Twitter Listening Party “101 Damnations”, Jim Bob tweeted this:
This piano bit is a lot harder to play than it sounds. We had to get a friend Rob to play it but he did it too well so we had to change it after he’d left the studio #TimsTwitterListeningParty
What! You mean that isn’t Rob playing on the album after all?! Noooo!
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Cubic 22
Night In Motion
No chance
2
Paula Abdul
Rush Rush
I was in no rush to buy this
3
Erasure
Chorus
Don’t think I did
4
Alice Cooper
Hey Stoopid
No
5
Omar
There’s Nothing Like This
Nope
6
Chesney Hawkes
I’m A Man Not A Boy
Dearie me no
7
Incognito
Always There
Nah
8
Lenny Kravitz
It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over
No but I had the album
9
Bryan Adams
(Everything I Do) I Do It for You
Negative
10
Divinyls
I Touch Myself
Liked it, didn’t buy it
11
Jason Donovan
Any Dream Will Do
See 6 above
12
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
Sheriff Fatman
No but I must have it on something
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.
We’re just about slap bang in the middle of 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and I have just had my 23rd birthday. I’ve been married for just over 8 months and am working at Our Price in Manchester (the Market Street store). Life has settled down into a routine after the huge changes of matrimony and moving to a new city. However, things are about to get a little nerve racking as around about this time (I could be wrong on the exact timings as its 30 years ago) the staff were all called into a early meeting one Saturday morning and we were told that the company were looking to sell the shop off. Oh shit! What did that mean? Was the company in trouble? What would happen to all us guys and gals that worked there? FFS! I’d not expected anything like this when we were told the Area Manager would be coming to inform us of something. I gullibly thought it would be about some new promotion or other (though why that would have required Area Manager’s input I don’t know).
From the little info that we were given that morning about potential redundancies, I had worked out that I might just be safe by virtue of having joined a week before the other Xmas temps that were kept on. It was a precarious position which could change at any moment but obviously there were people who I worked with in a worse position than me. However, our finances were threadbare and we were living month to month with just enough to pay the rent on our flat but precious little else to cover for anything going wrong that would have financial implications let alone a budget for a social life. As I remember this threat of store closure hung over us for sometime and obviously was all the staff could talk about for a while. It didn’t make for a happy atmosphere. In the end, the company couldn’t find a buyer and the decision was taken to keep the store trading which it did for another four years before it was finally sold off and became a travel agents (I think). For now though, these were scary times so I hope that the music in the charts and on TOTP would have given me a lift.
Tonight’s host is Jakki Brambles and she gives a strange intro to the first act on tonight.
“We have probably the only ever artist to score five Top 20 singles off her debut album and still got dropped by her record label. You can’t keep a good woman down, here’s Sonia…”
That all seemed a bit personal and unnecessary Jakki. A case of damning with faint praise even. It was true though. After becoming the first female UK artist to achieve five top 20 hit singles from one album, she did leave Chrysalis Records and moved on from Stock, Aitken and Waterman though the reason why doesn’t seem clear. Maybe she felt sidelined by Kylie and Jason? Anyway, Sonia proved to be more resilient than we might have suspected and returned to the charts with new record label IQ Records and a new single called “Only Fools (Never Fall In Love)”. Supposedly written for Diana Ross (it’s close to being exactly the same title as her 1981 cover of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers!), it was pinched for Sonia by her A&R man, one Simon Cowell. And guess what, it was a horrible Motown pastiche! What a surprise! Still, the UK’s pop fans decided that the hadn’t had enough of Sonia yet and sent it to No 10 in the charts. Have that Pete Waterman!
I was at Polytechnic with someone who was bit like Sonia, except that she didn’t have red hair, wasn’t Scouse and wasn’t annoying so nothing like her at all really!
They’ve messed round with the chart run down again! Why?! They’ve gone back to having it run along the bottom of the screen rolling news ticker style whilst a video plays. I’m sure they tried this at some point back in the 80s and gave it up as a bad job. I bet they went back to it to try and fit in more videos because they were worried about the competition provided by ITV’s The Chart Show. Jakki gamely tries to promote this new convention as “incredible value for money, two for the price of one. Yes, not only do we give you the sight and sound of Amy Grant, we also reveal in vision only, the UK Top 40”. What a crock of shit! Maybe the producers thought that the traditional countdown with the stills of the artists set against the TOTP theme tune was a bit old hat going into the 90s and so needed a revamp complete with that green screen presenter effect. Maybe it did look cutting edge back then but it looks awful now.
Anyway, as for Amy Grant, she was up to No 2 with “Baby Baby” although the TOTP graphics team have it down as a new entry. Maybe it was teething troubles with all this new technology? A more wholesome song and performer it would have been hard to imagine as Amy was ‘The Queen of Christian Pop’ whilst “Baby Baby” was inspired by her then six week old daughter Millie’s face. By way of contrast, we’ll be seeing a few songs about the sexual act and even masturbation later on. Ahem.
Nothing unsavoury here though as the squeaky clean Gloria Estefan brings us “Remember Me With Love”. I recall reading an article in the early 90s about an obsessive Madonna fan who bought anything and everything to do with Madge but when she released her “Erotica” album and that ‘Sex’ book with the nude photos and simulations of sexual acts…well, it was all to much for him and he turned his back on Madonna and instead turned his attentions to someone much purer. Yes, of course, he chose to devote himself to Gloria Estefan. Not that the dichotomy of pop stars and their sexual image hasn’t been around before this. There was Michael Jackson v Prince, The Beatles v The Rolling Stones and maybe even Paul McCartney v John Lennon?
“Remember Me With Love”peaked at No 22.
Blimey! I thought we’d done with All About Eve back at the end of the 80s but here they are with yet another Top 40 single in “Farewell Mr. Sorrow”. Julianne Regan and co have one of the more bizarre chart histories going – 9 Top 40 singles but only one of them got any higher than No 29 which of course was the infamous “Martha’s Harbour” which peaked at No 10.
This one was their 8th consecutive chart hit and quite a pleasant little ditty it is too – most unlike a lot of their other work. It was taken from their third studio album “Touched By Jesus” which was their first recording without guitarist and sometime Mr Regan Tim Bricheno and it didn’t do nearly as well as their first two albums leading to the band leaving record label Vertigo and signing with MCA for their last album “Ultraviolet” by which time nobody was interested anymore. I always quite liked them though.
Some of that smut next with a band who Jakki Brambles tells us have never had a hit not even in their native Australia. Really Jakki? Is that actually true? We are of course talking about Divinyls and their hit “I Touch Myself” and handily, someone on Twitter has already checked this claim out and debunked it:
Oh dear Jakki. Anyway, this is that masturbation song which is obviously what it’s about. Or is it? Well, yes it is. Here singer Chrissy Amphlett from a 2013 Cosmopolitan interview:
“In a world where female sexuality and masturbation is still widely feared and demonized, we need to pay some major respect to the brave women who empower us. ‘I Touch Myself’ is not just a party song, but also an emboldened call-to-action. Amphlett reminded us that we are in control of our own bodies and pleasure, and there is no shame in that game.”
Well quite. Now I didn’t know this until a friend told me years after the event but “I Touch Myself” wasn’t the first song on the subject of female masturbation. No, that was Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop” from 1984. Well, the lyrics are stacked with innuendo to be fair:
Do I want to go out with a lion’s roar Huh, yea, I want to go south n get me some more Hey, they say that a stitch in time saves nine They say I better stop – or I’ll go blind
Hey, hey – they say I better get a chaperone Because I can’t stop messin’ with the danger zone No, I won’t worry, and I won’t fret – Ain’t no law against it yet
Gulp! So indecent was it deemed to be that it earned a place on the Parents Music Resource Center’s Filthy Fifteen list which led to the creation of the Parental Advisory sticker. Most of the songs on that list were by hard rock bands like Judas Priest, AC/DC and Black Sabbath. Oh and W.A.S.P. but then if you call a song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” then what do you expect. Obviously the aforementioned Madonna was also on the list for 1985’s “Dress You Up” but that guy who was the obsessive fan who rejected her for Gloria Estefan must have missed that news story.
At the time, the name Lenny Kravitz was new to me but he had already released one album back in 1989 called “Let Love Rule” but it had completely passed me by. Fast forward two years and he was back with another collection of songs called “Mama Said” from which this single, “It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” was taken. This was the second track to be lifted from the album after lead single “Always on the Run” had just missed out on being a hit by peaking at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41. Its follow up though did the trick. Dripping with Motown and Philadelphia soul vibes, it went all the way to No 11 in the UK and just missed the top spot in the US where it peaked at No 2.
The album was pretty good too. How did I know? Well because around this time I was taking part in my first ever Our Price stocktake. I’d been warned about these mythical events that might go on until past midnight where all the staff took part and had to count at price point every single item in the shop. I’d warned my wife on the big day that I could well be home late but I think we were all done reasonably early at 9ish. Whilst counting, and possibly to stop us all gossiping about the impending shop closure, we were allowed to put music on the shop stereo and someone out on “Mama Said”. That album stayed on most of the night I think as we just kept pressing repeat so as not to waste time looking for/arguing over what the next album for playing should be and who got to choose it. I liked what I heard enough to buy the album and especially liked opening track “Fields Of Joy”:
A huge tune next as Massive Attack (now allowed to have the second word of their name included as the Gulf War had needed) return with “Safe From Harm”. After the mesmerising “Unfinished Sympathy”, surely they couldn’t pull another corker from out of their hat but yes they could. Inspired by the film Taxi Driver, this was equally as hypnotic as its predecessor with Shara Nelson’s vocals to the fore and rapping from 3D that managed that difficult feat of not being intrusive but understated and yet integral to the track.
Like “Unfinished Sympathy” and indeed the “Blue Lines’ album itself, “Safe From Harm” wasn’t as big a hit as you remember or indeed it deserved, peaking at just No 25.
Just when you thought they wouldn’t shoehorn in any Breakers this week, here they are with only *10 minutes of the show remaining. We start with Rod Stewart and “The Motown Song” which was the third single to be released from his “Vagabond Heart” album. This really did seem like money for old rope to me. He’s already done a version of “It Takes Two” with Tina Turner on that album and this seemed like more of the same corny, obvious shite. A bit like when The Rolling Stones finally released a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” in the mid 90s. As with “It Takes Two”, Rod collaborated with a legendary act in The Temptations for this one but even their presence couldn’t save it from being a steaming pool of pish.
If anything, the animated video for it makes it even more corny. Made by the same company responsible for “Dear Jessie” by Madonna, it features some ‘hilarious’ comic mishaps befalling cartoon versions of stars like Vanilla Ice (who gets buried under a truckload of ice cubes) and Sinéad O’Connor (who slips while shaving her head and has to wear plasters over the resulting nicks). Like I said, hilarious. Rod himself appears in the video both in human and cartoon form of which the latter looks more like him than the real thing.
“The Motown Song” made No 10 both in the UK and US singles charts.
*Plus the repeat edited out a video of “Light My Fire” by The Doors for copyright reasons.
Some funk/glam/metal rock or something next as Extreme make their first appearance on the show. Despite having been around since 1985, I’d certainly never heard of this lot before but suddenly there was huge interest in them thanks to their “Get The Funk Out” single. This energetic workout of a track was getting a lot of airplay on MTV (I think) and suddenly we were getting lots of enquiries about their second album “Extreme II: Pornograffitti” from which the single was taken. That title caused quite bit of confusion with many people (me included) thinking the band were actually called Extreme II. It didn’t help that Extreme II was what a member of staff had written on the master bag for the band’s name. The record company (and this seemed to happen a lot in 1991) immediately withdrew the album which had been out nearly a while year by this point so that they could re-release it later on when the single had peaked with some extra advertising for it.
Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt was getting a lot of press attention at the time not just as the latest guitar noodling prodigy but also as a bit of a heartthrob. To be fair, their lead singer (and normally the visual focus of a band) lead singer Gary Cherone was a bit more….erm…awkward looking. The album would spawn another four UK Top 40 singles including the the soft rock ballad “More Than Words” that made No 2 over here and No 1 in the US. For a while, Extreme looked like they could be the next big rock act.
Next a song that had been a hit just 8 months earlier albeit performed by a completely different artist. “From A Distance” was originally recorded by country legend Nanci Griffith (though she didn’t write it) for her 1987 album “Lone Star State of Mind”. Despite being many people’s definitive version of the song, it failed to chart. Then, in 1990, it was recorded and released as a single by both Cliff Richard (his was a live version and was also that whichwas a UK hit) and Bette Midler whose take on it lost out to Sir Cliff and finished up outside the Top 40 at No 45. However, in the US, Bette’s version was a huge success and won a Grammy for Song of the Year in 1991. Presumably that was why it was re-released over here. As with Extreme, there was suddenly a big demand from punters for their album that it featured on (“Some People’s Lives”) but yet again it was withdrawn by the record company so that it could be re-released and re-promoted. I was getting truly sick of explaining this phenomenon to customers by now.
I could see why Midler had chosen to record it. It was in the same ball park as her recent US No 1 “Wind Beneath My Wings” and indeed scored her a No 2 hit in there home country. In the UK, it would peak at No 6.
Some more filth now as we get “People Are Still Having Sex” by LaTour. This was like “Kissing With Confidence” by Will Powers meets “French Kiss” by Lil’ Louis. It originally included the lyric ‘This AIDS thing’s not working’ but was changed to ‘This safe thing’s not working’ to ensure it got some radio play.
I couldn’t really be doing with this at all – the track that is not sex per se. It just seemed sensationalist for the sake of getting some press. It was a minor hit globally peaking at No 15 in the UK.
And to round off this episode of smut and obscenity, the No 1 record is still “I Wanna Sex You Up” by Color Me Badd. So that’s two records with ‘sex’ in the title and one about masturbation on the same show. Mary Whitehouse must have been apoplectic. Just to crank up the sex-o-meter, the band are in the studio in person! Everything about this performance is so wrong. From the suits to the dancing (the three lads at the back seem to be doing ‘ring a ring a roses’ at one point) to the actual song.
Despite their success, Smash Hits magazine only had Color Me Badd on their front cover once throughout the whole of 1991. In comparison, Chesney Hawkes was on three times as was Dannii Minogue. Even The Farm, Philip Schofield and those twin sisters from Neighbours got a front cover!
The play out video is “Monkey Business” by Skid Row. I get really confused by all these metal bands. Skid Row, Mötley Crüe, Anthrax, Megadeth… I couldn’t really tell you the difference between any of them. To differentiate this lot from the pack, their lead singer called himself Sebastian Bach though his real name is Sebastian Philip Bierk. The latter seems more appropriate.
Normally I include the chart rundown here but due to the new format, there is no clip I can include. Sorry.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Sonia
Only Fools (Never Fall In Love)
Only a fool would have bought this
2
Amy Grant
Baby Baby
No but my wife liked it
3
Gloria Estefan
Remember Me With Love
Nah
4
All About Eve
Farewell Mr. Sorrow
I did not
5
Divinyls
I Touch Myself
Thought I might have but the singles box says no
6
Lenny Kravitz
It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over
No but I had the album
7
Massive Attack
Safe From Harm
See 6 above
8
Rod Stewart
The Motown Song
No thanks
9
Extreme
Get The Funk Out
Not the single but I have it on something I think
10
Bette Midler
From A Distance
Nope
11
LaTour
People Are Still Having Sex
No
12
Color Me Badd
I Wanna Sex You Up
I should coco
13
Skid Row
Monkey Business
I’d rather watch a monkey defecate
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 Rewind - the 90s 