OK, before we get into the music, there’s a bit of housekeeping to take care of. Firstly, we’ve missed a whole episode which hasn’t happened for quite some time. Nothing to do with Operation Yewtree nor presenters who hadn’t signed the waiver for BBC4 to broadcast the repeats they featured in – no this was a matter of a technical nature. The tapes for the TOTP shown on 25 August 1994 held in the BBC archive were deemed to be not of broadcast quality and so we miss out on what was surely one of the more interesting guest presenters in Malcolm MacLaren. Despite being a bit of an arse I’m sure, I’ve always had a soft spot for Malcolm and could listen to his drivel for hours. At least he led an interesting life. I’ve checked the running order for that show and I don’t think we missed much. Many acts we’d already seen before including Red Dragon, Shampoo and unbelievably Let Loose again! We did however miss Dinosaur Jnr which might have been distracting at least plus the return of Kylie Minogue with her first new material since leaving PWL as she entered her ‘Dance Kylie’ phase. Oh well.

The other bit of housekeeping is regarding tonight’s host who we haven’t seen before. So who was / is Claire Sturgess? Well, she’s a voice over artist and DJ currently working on Absolute Radio where she’s been since 2015. Back in 1994 though, she was a Radio 1 DJ presenting the rock show on Sunday evenings. She would stay at the BBC until 1997 but only hosted TOTP one more time before being replaced by Lisa I’Anson.

Right, on with the tunes and we start with one that perhaps more than any other (with the possible exception of “Common People” by Pulp) has come to be associated (rightly or wrongly) with the Britpop movement. Think of “Parklife” (the song) by Blur and what comes to mind? Phil Daniels? Of course. The “vorsprung durch technik’ line? Yep. The iconic video with Damon in that tracksuit top camping it up whilst an ice cream van drives by. Without doubt. They’re all woven into the fabric of the time but sometimes I think we forget what a strange song “Parklife” really is. A track where all the verses are spoken in a cockney accent, a chorus that you could imagine Dick Van Dyke singing in one of those musicals he starred in and lyrics about brewer’s droop, dirty pigeons and habitual voyeurs. And yet it all hangs together perfectly to the point that we didn’t bat an eyelid when it was released but instead accepted it as another example of Blur’s pursuit to celebrate ‘Englishness’. Except it wasn’t. Here’s Graham Coxon courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

In this performance, Daniels is word perfect and Damon, relieved of the stress of doing all the heavy lifting vocals wise, seems to be enjoying his freedom to ham it up on stage more than usual. My personal memory of this song though would come three months later at Christmas. I was asked to co-coordinate the works Christmas do for all the Our Price shops in the area. I found a venue and we got one of the staff at the Piccadilly, Manchester store to do the DJ-ing (if you worked in a record shop there was always someone who was either in a band or a DJ on the staff). The manager I organised the shindig with (Rick) was a bit nervous on the actual night about whether people were having a good time or not and especially about the music being played. Our DJ put on “Girls & Boys” which seemed a safe choice but which only served to agitate Rick into shouting at him “Give ‘em Parklife Will, give ‘em Parklife!”. Such was the influence of Blur and that song in particular in 1994.

P.S. I think Will did indeed give ‘em “Parklife” at some point in the evening.

Oh great! Another soap star turned pop star. This time the actor is from EastEnders reviving bad memories of Nick ‘Wicksy’ Berry and Anita ‘Angie’ Dobson. Sean Maguire’s stay in the soap had been short (January to December 1993) but he had been a big hit with the audience (especially the teenage female section of it). It was almost inevitable then that he’d give the old pop star lark a go and here he was, eight months after leaving EastEnders, back on our screens on the BBC’s premier music show. Unbelievably, despite not being able to shift any meaningful amount of units of either of his two albums, he would rack up eight Top 40 singles over a three year period. The first of those was “Someone To Love” and it’s a decent slice of late summer pop which seems to have pinched a bit from Kool And The Gang’s “Celebration”. Maguire sells it well enough and there’s been less likely pop stars (Stefan Dennis anyone?) but I’m guessing that his record label couldn’t have envisaged another six hits after this one. They were all pretty consistent as well. Look at these chart positions:

14 – 27 – 18 – 22 – 16 – 12 – 14 – 27

They’re not too shabby for a soap actor turned pop star. Maguire played Irish wannabe footballer Aidan Brosnan in EastEnders. Hmm. A footballer called Maguire who went onto have a career as a singer. Man Utd’s Harry Maguire as a pop star anyone?

I referenced this record the other week but it wasn’t really pre-planned – it just sort of played out that way. I’m talking about “Endless Love” by Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross. I mentioned their version as the record that knocked Boyz II Men off the No 1 spot in New Zealand but I’d already referred to the Lionel Richie / Diana Ross 1981 original when stating that I hadn’t heard a song basically regurgitated as a different track as I believed Boyz II Men had done with “End Of The Road” and “I’ll Make Love To You” since Lionel Richie rewrote “Endless Love” as “Truly”. I’d actually forgotten that this duet existed until these TOTP repeats aired but exist it does so I’ll have to discuss it. It came from a whole album of covers recorded by Luther called, rather blandly, “Songs” which already had a Lionel Richie song on the track listing in “Hello” but Sony president Tommy Mottola and his then wife Mariah decided that they could boost the album’s chances of success by having her appear on it and so the cover of “Endless Love” came to be. It was a sound business strategy – Mariah was perhaps at the very peak of her popularity with her latest album “Music Box” achieving huge global sales and indeed her contribution helped “Songs” to platinum sales and a No 1 chart position in the UK alone. The single also performed well going to No 2 in America and No 3 here. For me though, it’s a very faithful reproduction and rather pointless and anodyne. I suppose there was a gap of 13 years between the release of the original and the cover so maybe it’s possible there were people out there who didn’t know the Richie / Ross version and so came to it as a brand new song? Or perhaps people did know it and were reminded how much they’d liked the original but in those days before streaming and Spotify, they couldn’t just get access to the song and so bought what was available, the Vandross / Carey remake? I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to work out how some of these songs managed to be hits – and I wrote a dissertation about it whilst a student at Poly.

Next we find Terrorvision having a very steady year of consolidating their success and building their fanbase as they are back on TOTP performing their fourth Top 40 hit of the year “Pretend Best Friend”. And when I say steady, I mean incredibly consistent. Look at these chart peaks for those four singles:

29 – 21 – 25 – 25

A fifth single was released before 1994 was out and it made it to No 24. Their first single of the following year peaked at No 22. Like I say, incredibly consistent. As for the song itself, I don’t recall it but it kind of sounds how I expected it to with Tony Wright launching into a high speed rap that is vaguely reminiscent of “Ant Rap” before the almost shouted chorus. There’s also a bit where it all slows down and Tony wields a megaphone which is all rather incongruous. Good song title though.

After the exclusive of a double live by satellite section in the show last week, head producer Ric Blaxill has gone in hard on the idea by repeating the ‘satellite segue’ (as they’ve named it) for this week. We start off in Philadelphia with a curiously dull performance by the aforementioned Boyz II Men of “I’ll Make Love To You”. Now, my knowledge of the geography of Philadelphia is mostly limited to the scene in Rocky where Sylvester Stallone runs up the 72 steps leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the iconic training scene. Luckily for me, I think that’s near to where this performance takes place with the mini stage erected in the Benjamin Franklin Parkway right in front of the Washington Monument. The whole set up seems to be adhering to Blaxill’s stated desire to get the live by satellite slots to feature well known landmarks that have nothing to do with the music per se but which are a step up from the performances in empty theatre halls we have seen previously. It’s all a bit odd though. The parkway has people wandering through it minding their own business or joggers doing their own version of the Rocky training regimen whilst four guys are singing “I’ll Make Love To You” whilst they pass by. Shouldn’t be allowed really.

The second part of the satellite segue stays in America but transports us to New York and specifically to The Bottom Line club in Greenwich Village where we find Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories. Now it might not be recognisable as a landmark like the Washington Monument before it but this venue was legendary in its own right. Owners Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky put on a huge amount of musical talent in the 30 years the club was open including the likes of Prince, The Police, Benatar, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Miles Davis, Dolly Parton….and in the fall of 1994 Lisa Loeb. But who was she?

Well, for someone who is a one hit wonder in the UK (she managed a few more hits in the US), Lisa has quite the biography and discography – her Wikipedia entry is sizeable to say the least. She had been recording music and performing live since the late 80s but it was a friendship with neighbour and actor Ethan Hawke that gave Lisa her lucky break. Having met through the NYC theatre community, Hawke gave Loeb’s song “Stay (I Missed You)” to Ben Stiller who was directing the film Reality Bites that Hawke was starring in and he made the decision to use it over the end credits. The rest really is history. The track’s pretty, folk-infused pop melody proved irresistible to the American public who sent it to No 1 making Lisa and her band the first ever artist to top the chart there without being signed to a label.

Lisa looked a bit like Nana Mouskouri’s hipper younger sister but there was more to her than her trademark glasses. As well as being a musician, she also runs a number of businesses including one for fair trade coffee and, making use of that glasses association, the Lisa Loeb Eyewear Collection with each frame being named after one of her song titles. She’s also written children’s books and done some acting though one of her credits is for one of the worst films of all time – Hot Tub Time Machine 2. If you haven’t seen it and stumble across it whilst channel flipping then heed my advice – Don’t stay (you’ll be glad you missed it).

One of last week’s satellite segue acts are in the TOTP studio this week as Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry move up to No 3 with “7 Seconds”. The staging of this one starts out simple yet effective with a single spotlight centred on first Youssou and then Neneh as each takes the vocal lead in turn. However, the production team can’t have been totally won over by the idea as by the time the first chorus comes around, they’re both floodlit and there’s a multi screen video installation behind them showing the official promo film that accompanied the single. Shame. I thought a more paired back, minimalist setting would work best for this particular track but the show disagreed and went for Youssou N’More.

It would take a braver man than me to start a political rant about this government’s despicable deportation to Rwanda scheme in a pop music blog but I am inevitably put in mind of it by the next song which is “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Children For Rwanda which was a charity single to raise money for Save The Children. If this all sounds familiar but not quite how you remember it then it’s quite possible you’re thinking of the version by Cher, Chrissie Hynde and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry that was released for Comic Relief just 6 months on from this and which went to No 1 for a week. Sadly for the Children For Rwanda single, it failed to sell nearly as well and peaked outside the Top 40.

We’ve reached week 14 of 15 (we missed week 13 due to the broadcast quality issue discussed earlier) for Wet Wet Wet’s reign at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” and whilst I’m really struggling to say anything of interest about it after so many appearances on the show, it seems like Ric Blaxill might be finding it difficult to keep us all interested as well. To shake things up a bit, he’s doubled down on the live by satellite feature and has the band beaming in from LA. This definitely falls into the category of performing in front of a world famous landmark with the Hollywood sign prominent in the background. The end is coming though. There’s only one more week and the story behind it’s demise will be discussed in the next post.

The play out song is “We Are The Pigs” by Suede. 1994 was a year of massive upheaval for the band most notably due to the departure of guitarist Bernard Butler who formally left their ranks on 8th July following tensions whilst recording sophomore album “Dog Man Star”. As if that wasn’t enough, difficult second album syndrome raised its ugly head. Not that the band didn’t make the album they wanted to; they did, but the direction they took confused critics and some of the fans after their electrifying eponymous debut. Many saw its grandiose soundscapes as pretentious and although it sold well enough, it was seen as a bit of a step backwards commercially in comparison to its predecessor. History has been kind to the album though and revisionism has it hailed as an under appreciated and misunderstood at the time classic. When the band played five nights at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2003 with each night dedicated to one of their studio albums, it was the tickets for the Dog Man Star show that sold the quickest.

As for its lead single, “We Are The Pigs” is certainly dark in nature and tone but it’s still a huge tune. There’s even a bit in it which sounds like that reverb sound in “Peter Gunn” by Diane Eddy and subsequently The Art Of Noise. Do you think that’s totally innocent or knowingly inserted?

The almost post apocalyptic video with burning crosses, cars afire and masked gangs roaming the streets puts me in mind of the climax of The Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, the ending of which had to be reshot as audience reaction at test screenings deemed it to violent and pessimistic. Similarly, the promo for Suede’s single got little airplay due to it being banned for being too violent. This may have contributed to the track only making it to No 18 in the UK Top 40.

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ln6m/top-of-the-pops-01091994