LV

TOTP 30 NOV 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

After last week’s show was all about ‘new’ hits, this time out we have five (out of nine) that have already featured on a previous TOTP including the final four songs. We also have a ‘golden mic’ host again tonight in Jack Dee who must have done a good job in the eyes of executive producer Ric Blaxill as he returned just a month later to co-host the TOTP Christmas show with Björk.

For now though, he’s in his customary suit introducing Berri who was recently in the charts with a cover of the old Elkie Brooks hit “Sunshine After The Rain”. After that was a Top 5 hit having been rereleased and branded as being by just Berri (as opposed to New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri the first time around), a follow up was required. “Shine Like A Star” didn’t deviate much from the formula even going so far as to recycle the word ‘shine’ in the title. That decision paid dividends by producing the desired chart hit though its peak of No 20 meant it was a more of a blinking star in the night sky than a full blown super nova. An album was released though only in Japan and Berri as a chart comet was officially burnt out. The person behind the persona Rebecca Sleight continued to work in the music industry contributing backing vocals to various dance projects and recording as part of the folk duo The Raggy Anns. She’s also performed at the odd festival on the nostalgia circuit. As Holly Johnson once sang on the Frankie Goes To Hollywood hit “Welcome To The Pleasuredome”, ‘Shooting stars never stop even when they reach the top’.

Whether you liked or loathed them, you couldn’t ignore PJ & Duncan around this time not least because they seemed to release a single every couple of weeks. Jack Dee even says that the pair were on the show the last time he hosted it. This hit – “Perfect” – was their fourth of 1995 and eighth in total since April 1994. Of those, seven made the Top 20 but only one made the Top 10. This latest one seemed to divide the vocals up into PJ/Ant on rapping and Duncan/Dec doing the singing not that I was really paying that much attention as the whole sorry shower of a song washed over me. However, what I did notice was the former’s spiky hairdo which Boyzone’s Ronan Keating was also sporting the other week. Was there something going on with this hairstyle back then that I either didn’t notice at the time or had completely forgotten about?

The first of those five songs that have been on the show before now. “Miss Sarajevo” by Passengers was at its No 6 peak. I went into this in some detail the first time it was on the show so I’ll allow myself to keep it brief here (and because I’m way behind in writing up these TOTP repeats). So my only comment here is this – was that deliberate editing by the show’s production team to perfectly synchronise the moment when Bono sings “a time for East 17” with the chart rundown caption revealing East 17 at No 12 with “Thunder”?

Here come Garbage with a second Top 40 hit on the spin in “Queer”. The follow up to “Only Happy When It Rains”, its peak of No 13 was validation that the band were on to something and would pave the way for five of their next six singles to go Top 10 including their biggest ever hit “Stupid Girl”. It would also help their eponymous debut album go double platinum both here and in America.

There really was something quite inventive about this lot that I don’t think I picked up on on enough at the time. Had I done, I think I would have been a massive fan but instead I was more of a casual bystander, aware of them and their hits but not really affording them the appreciation they deserved. I asked Alexa to “Play Garbage” whilst I was decorating recently and I was very impressed with what I heard, not just the hits but the deeper cuts (that’s what we say these days isn’t it?) as well. Despite my instruction, Alexa didn’t serve me up any rubbish.

We saw them in the direct to camera message at the top of the show and I have to say I was confused about what was going on. My initial thought was that the multitude on screen were all of the artists to feature on this particular TOTP all put together just to shake the format up a bit but no, all these people were just one act – it’s (nearly) Christmas time and there is a need to be afraid as this is Childliners with “The Gift Of Christmas”. Judging by the online reaction to this single when this BBC4 repeat aired, most people seem to have either banished the memory of it so deep in their brains that they can’t recall it at all or literally never knew it existed in the first place. Either way, that’s not good news for a charity single trying to raise money for and awareness of their cause. Obviously, this particular cause was Childline, the charity launched by Esther Rantzen in 1986 which had already had two charity singles released in its name before this – “With A Little Help From My Friends” by Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and “You’ve Got A Friend” by Big Fun and Sonia in 1990.

In his intro, Jack Dee asks the watching TV audience to see how many pop stars we can spot in the performance here. So I did. Here’s who I could identify:

  • Boyzone (including Ronan with his aforementioned spiky hair)
  • East 17 (this apparently was the time for them)
  • Danni Minogue (who hadn’t had a substantial chart hit in nearly two and a half years by this point)
  • Sean Maguire (of course he was, he was so desperate to be a pop star back then)
  • The little guy from Ultimate Kaos
  • That bloke from Nightcrawlers
  • Is that pissing Peter Andre in there? He hadn’t even had one hit yet!
  • The two identical, peroxide blonde twins at the back were a duo called Gemini (geddit?) whom I only remember because their record label pushed and pushed for them to get a big hit record but they never did (if you don’t count this one)
  • Erm…is that someone from MN8?

Wikipedia tells me they also in there are C.J. Lewis, China Black, Let Loose, EYC, Deuce and a pre-fame (at least in the UK) Backstreet Boys. Yeah, all the greats then. The song itself is an abomination and those lyrics! Look in disbelief at this:

“Make all the children smile and grin

Some of them small, some of them look thin“

Or these:

“How quickly we forget, just what Christmas is

The wise men and the shepherds, they started up this thing“

Read that last line again. Just unbelievably bad. Then there’s a rap in the middle which starts with this line:

“Another child cries while Mama dies“

Given the gravitas of those words, Sean Maguire’s decision to start pulling out some gangsta rap moves (or whatever they are) at this point seems a little ill judged. He should have shown some of the decorum of his namesake, Manchester United’s Harry, who shook the hands of every Coventry City player immediately after the winning penalty went in during the shoot out in yesterday’s epic FA Cup semi final.

The single peaked at No 9 so hopefully made some money for its charity but you almost never hear it played at Christmas despite the existence of radio stations playing only festive songs continuously from the 1st December. Truly a lost Christmas song and thank the Lord for that.

That’s it for ‘new’ songs so we carry on with another screening of the video for “Free As A Bird” by The Beatles. Having spoken about the song last time, I guess I should concentrate on the video. I’ve watched it a few times now and though it’s packed with references to the band, their lives and songs – some obvious, some very oblique* – which must have kept Beatles obsessives busy – I’m not sure it is really that engaging in its own right. I get it’s meant to be a ‘bird’s eye view’ in keeping with the song’s title but it doesn’t really convey the sheer excitement and mania that constantly surrounded the band. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to but I think I’d liked to have seen more imagery of them in their early mop top days. Just my personal opinion of course. Those of a different opinion would argue that’s what The Anthology TV series was for which is fair enough.

* My favourite, if intentional, is that the bouncer at the door of The Cavern has a flat top haircut as in the lyric “Here come old flat-top” from “Come Together”.

Despite being at No 1 a month or so ago, Coolio (with L.V.) is back in the studio with “Gangsta’s Paradise” as it is holding at No 2 having gone back up the charts from No 3. Quite extraordinary sales for a single that had been in the charts for around six weeks by this point. I say ‘back’ on the show but you can tell by the cutaway that it’s clearly just a replay of an earlier performance.

The widely known fact about “Gangsta’s Paradise” is that it interpolates Stevie Wonder’s track “Pastime Paradise” from his celebrated 1976 album “Songs In The Key Of Life”. However, I’m guessing what isn’t widely known (I didn’t know until now anyway) is that the wonderful and sadly departed Billy Mackenzie of The Associates did a cover of “Pastime Paradise” on his 1992 solo album “Outernational”. Want to hear it? Of course you do…

A small insight now into the thought processes that went into how to stage artists on TOTP. I have no experience nor evidence as to who made the decisions about the best way to set up an act for a studio appearance (was it floor managers, artist management, the artists themselves or ultimately the show’s executive producer Ric Blaxill?) but someone looked at Enya’s last time on TOTP performing “Anywhere Is” and thought “Yeah, it was good but I think a few tweaks are required”. Compare and contrast this first performance…

…and this follow up appearance…

I think the changes can be summed up in the following table and I’m sure that you’ll agree they were well worth making (ahem)…

SameDifferent
Enya sat at a pianoEnya’s top
Piano covered in flowersLess flowers on studio floor
Enya staring down camera in an unsettling waySix drummer boys instead of two
Two cello players in blonde wigsTwo violinists in blonde wigs instead of three

It’s a fourth and final week at No 1 for Robson & Jerome with “I Believe” which means, apart from the 1995 Christmas Special show which I won’t be reviewing, we won’t be seeing these two again for nearly a whole year of repeats when they will return with their third and final No 1 single. Hurray! Given that this single sold a million copies, I wonder if Simon Cowell (who’d pestered the two actors to do the whole pop star thing) had mistimed its release date and had he delayed it by a couple of weeks, whether it would have been the Christmas No 1? Presumably, he’d wanted the decks clear for the release of their album and not wanted the single to distract punters from buying that? The album’s release date would have been carefully chosen to maximise sales from the Christmas period and in the event, was in the shops from 19th November. That means the single managed one week at the top despite the album being out so maybe Cowell misjudged the duo’s ability to shift some serious units? Ultimately, of course, all that really mattered was, just like with the current government’s tenure, the answer to the question “when would this heinous period be over for good?”

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1BerriShine Like A StarNah
2PJ & DuncanPerfectNo
3PassengersMiss SarajevoNo but maybe should have
4GarbageQueerSee 3 above
5ChildlinersThe Gift Of ChristmasNO!
6The BeatlesFree As A BirdNope
7Coolio / LVGangsta’s ParadiseI didn’t
8EnyaAnywhere IsNah
9Robson & JeromeI BelieveNever!

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/m001xz4d/top-of-the-pops-30111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 16 NOV 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s yet another ‘golden mic’ presenter hosting for this episode of TOTP. This innovation from Executive Producer Ric Blaxill was becoming ever more pervasive since being introduced in 1994. Looking ahead to the 1996 shows, there seems to be a celebrity/pop star at the helm nearly every week punctuated occasionally by a Radio 1 DJ like Lisa I’Anson or the duo of Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. Come 1997 though, new Executive Producer Chris Cowey would phase the ‘golden mic’ slots out and instead return to a more settled, rotating roster of young BBC presenters like Jayne Middlemiss, Jamie Theakston and Zoe Ball. Whether this was a good thing or not is down to your own personal preferences but as long as it kept Simon Mayo out in the cold and away from the show, it worked for me.

Anyway, the pop star hosting this November ‘95 show was Louise, late of Eternal and now embarking on a solo career. A symbiotic relationship – TOTP got some girl next door charm and a stage school trained presenter whilst Louise had her profile raised at a crucial time of her career, just one single into her time as a solo artist. Actually, had she started seeing Jamie Redknapp by this point? That was another symbiotic relationship in terms of heightening each other’s fame. I’m not casting any aspersions on their devotion to each other by the way; they were married for 19 years and have two children together after all. However, if you look at David and Victoria Beckham as the model for building a brand back then, you can’t help but draw comparisons. Again, I’m not doubting the sincerity of their personal relationship but they certainly didn’t shy away from the Posh and Becks image. I’m not sure that Jamie and Louise pursued that power couple badge as keenly as P & B did but the inevitable press interest in them must have increased their fame surely?

We start with a rerelease of a dance tune. Of course we do – this was 1995 after all, the year of this practice. We really should be familiar with the name of said dance tune as it wasn’t just released twice but five times over an eight year period! Not only that but it shared the same title as this week’s No 1 record. “I Believe” by Happy Clappers was originally released in 1994 but failed to even make the Top 100. A rerelease in June 1995 saw it become a No 1 on the UK Dance chart whilst also securing a not too shabby peak of No 21 on the UK Top 40. However, following the trend of the time, it came out for a third time less than six months later becoming a No 7 hit. Hurray and a big hand for the Happy Clappers! Two years later it was back again making No 28 before a fifth and final outing in 2003 thanks to a Carl Cox remix saw it fail to make any meaningful impression on the charts. As a pop kid, I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to dance music but if pressed for an opinion, I’d say the track doesn’t really warrant all that attention and multiple releases. I’m sure it packed out dance floors in clubs up and down the land but rather than make me want to applaud it, I’m more likely to give it a massive thumbs down.

When it comes to soap stars turned pop stars, Sean Maguire was pretty unusual. A good looking lad who’d made his name on first Grange Hill and then EastEnders, you could understand him wanting to give pop music a go but by the mid-90s, hadn’t we all had enough of this particular subset of pop star? After all, it had been a whole nine years since Anita Dobson and Nick Berry swapped Albert Square for the pop charts and opened the door for a bath full of soap stars to slip through. Most famously there were Kylie and Jason but also Craig McLachlan, Kylie’s sister Dannii, Stefan Dennis, Sophie Lawrence and of course Ant & Dec. Seemingly though we were still willing to accept pretty much anybody as pop stars as long as they’d been in a soap. After Sean Maguire came Sid Owen (EastEnders), Will Mellor (Hollyoaks), Natalie Imbruglia (Neighbours) and Adam Rickitt (Coronation Street).

Maguire though seemed different – like this was a serious career move for him not just a quick, cheap cash-in on his soap fame. To this end, he had eight Top 40 hits all peaking somewhere between No 27 and No 12. It’s not a bad haul I suppose. When it came to albums though, Sean couldn’t convince people that he was a serious artist. His first album peaked at No 75 whilst his second and final one could only make it to No 43. This hit – a cover of The Real Thing’s 1976 chart topper “You To Me Are Everything” – came slap bang in the middle of his run of hits making it to No 16. A cover version normally means an artist being desperate for a career reviving hit and that may be the case here after the lead single from his second album “Spirit” only made it to No 22. In Maguire’s defence, this was the first time he’d released a cover as a single (he would release one further one subsequently) but there is still a case to be answered here as to why he’s plodded through a disco classic so laboriously. A very obvious choice of cover badly executed would be my assessment.

Now, the unusual sight of a former No 1 being back on the show just a week or so after it had been toppled. This wasn’t a case of some creative running order manipulation on behalf of the aforementioned Ric Blaxill though. No, this was a legitimate slot allocation as “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio was going back up the charts from No 3 to No 2! Quite remarkable.

We get the video this time which though inevitably including clips from the Dangerous Minds film (the soundtrack of which the song appears on), also introduced a different element to the whole promo concept. By getting the star of the movie Michelle Pfeiffer to agree to film some scenes with Coolio himself, a whole new dimension to the visuals was created. Though Pfeiffer herself does little other than stare at Coolio whilst he raps in her face, the intensity between them and brooding nature of the interaction (somehow accentuated by Pfeiffer’s cut glass cheekbones) is visually arresting. As a result, the promo won Best Rap Video at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1996.

Enya was never your typical chart star was she? In a parallel universe, she was the ultimate one hit wonder with her 1988 chart topper “Orinoco Flow” making her famous for a month before the novelty of her Celtic, new age sound was replaced by the next latest craze. Except that, in the real world, she didn’t disappear. Or at least she did but kept coming back every couple of years with a new, commercially successful album. “Watermark”, the parent album for “Orinoco Flow”, went four times platinum in both the UK and America, selling 11 million copies worldwide. Three years later, she returned with “Shepherd Moons” which matched those numbers. Another four years would pass before her next studio album “The Memory Of Trees” appeared. Although there was a dip in sales, it still shifted 3 million units in the US and went double platinum over here. That’s about 30 million sold over the course of seven years and three albums! And yet I would wager that Enya wasn’t seen as a musical heavyweight unless you were maybe a record company executive. Did the punters or the music press consider her as a peer of other mammoth selling artist like, I don’t know, Michael Jackson or Mariah Carey? I’m guessing not but these are just my own thoughts of course. Maybe I’m underestimating and misrepresenting Enya.

Anyway, the lead single from “The Memory Of Trees” was “Anywhere Is”. A more upbeat, dare I say almost jolly track than some of her more ethereal work, it would become her second highest peaking UK hit after “Orinoco Flow” when it got to No 7. Enya seems to almost propel the song along in this performance by pure will power hypnotising the watching audience into enjoying it via the intense stares she constantly gives to the camera. Seriously, it’s a bit Stepford Wives or probably we’d say AI these days.

This was always going to happen – another showing of Madonna’s in studio appearance from the other week, her first for 11 years. Fortunately for Ric Blaxill, as with Coolio before, he could claim that a repeat of Madge’s turn was legitimate as “You’ll See” was going up the charts. This was quite the stroke of luck as songs climbing the Top 40 was becoming more and more seldom with the trend for singles careering in and out of charts at high speed was more the norm. Even an artist s big as Madonna couldn’t be guaranteed a hit to climb steadily anymore. This was her first single to go up the charts in successive weeks since “Erotica” went from No 10 to No 4 to No 3 in 1992.

The Beautiful South released 34 singles during their career but I’m guessing that this one is not one of their best remembered. Not because it’s not any good, it’s yet another one of their bittersweet pop confections but because it’s one of those rare things – a non-album single. Plugging the gap between their 1994 six times platinum selling compilation “Carry On Up The Charts” and their 1996 studio album “Blue Is The Colour”, “Pretenders To The Throne” was a medium sized hit peaking at No 18.

As far as I can tell, the band only released one other non-album single but this one wasn’t made available in the UK. Their version of The Mamas & The Papas hit “Dream A Little Dream” was only released in Germany and the way to get hold of it in this country was to buy the soundtrack to the Meg Ryan / Kevin Kline romcom French Kiss for which it was recorded. I was working in the Our Price store in Stockport at the time and can only assume that a local radio station had picked up on the track and was playing it as we kept getting asked for it all the time in the shop. This was in an era before digital streaming platforms and so customers used to get quite narky after having made the effort to come into the store to get that song off the radio they liked only to be told it couldn’t be purchased.

Another example was when a station started playing “The Masterplan” by Oasis convincing listeners that it was their new single only to be told by us that actually it was just an extra track on their “Wonderwall” CD single. This wasn’t too much if a problem as we routinely kept all the Oasis singles in stock regardless of whether they were in the charts or not but I could have done without those conversations where the punter was convinced of their own information and that I was in the wrong.

And so we come to the latest in what seems like an endless conveyor belt of Michael Jackson video exclusives that we were served up by TOTP throughout the 90s. By my reckoning, “Earth Song” was the twelfth single released by Jackson by this point in the decade and everyone had been a hit in the UK so I’m assuming that we had to endure the unveiling of each accompanying promo the same amount of times. The whole thing was bloody exhausting!

Perhaps best known on these shores not for *SPOILER ALERT* staying at No 1 for 6 weeks nor indeed being our Christmas No 1 that year but for being the song that Jacko was performing at the BRITS in 1996 when Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker protested at his Christ complex antics by wafting his behind in Jacko’s direction.

As this is a video ‘exclusive’, we get around 5 minutes and 45 seconds of the promo. I’m assuming this won’t always be the case in subsequent weeks. Given, how much we’ll be seeing this in future TOTP repeats, can I get away with leaving this one here for now? I think I can.

It’s a hat-trick of superstars for TOTP. After Madonna and David Bowie on the past two shows, this week it’s Tina Turner in person in the studio. I’m not sure I watched her performance here though as I don’t recall it at all. In fact, I have little memory of the song either. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Tina’s singing a Bond theme – “Goldeneye” – and I’ve never been much of a Bond fan. Consequently, a new film and associated theme song was never going to get me that excited. Secondly, despite this being the first film in the franchise for six years, the song didn’t actually pull up any trees chart wise. In at No 10 and then a slide down the chart week on week that not even the opening of the actual film could halt. Maybe I don’t remember it much because it didn’t hang around for long.

Listening to it now, it sounds like a Bond theme and looks like a Bond theme with all those 007 lookalikes on stage with Tina but somehow it doesn’t seem like one of the great Bond themes to me. Inevitably, at the time, there were comparisons with Shirley Bassey, the artist behind two of the most memorable Bond songs ever but I just don’t find it convincing. Others, however, did. A 2022 Classic FM list ranked all 24 Bond themes based on their musical merit. “Goldeneye” came in at No 3! I was astonished when I read that. For me, the greatest of them all is McCartney’s “Live And Let Die” – I thought that was a universally accepted given. Apparently not as that came a lowly 17th on the list. What about those classic mid to late 80s songs by Gladys Knight, Duran Duran and A-ha? Nos 7, 9 and 23 (!) respectively. Hmm. Maybe there’s a reason I’m not a massive Bond fan. I just don’t get it. I mean, I thought Daniel Craig was good in the ones of his that I’ve caught but there’s loads I’ve never seen that including Goldeneye which was the first of the Pierce Brosnan years.

Watching Tina’s performance here, it struck me what a strange gig it must have been for those six ‘Bonds’ on stage with her. Presumably they were from a modelling agency? What brief were they given? All you have to do is stand there with a gun and look as suave as you can?

It’s a second week of four at No 1 for Robson & Jerome with “I Believe” giving a strange top and tail arrangement to the show after it opened with “I Believe” by Happy Clappers.

The guys have gone for a more casual look this time with their black jackets of last week now removed to reveal plain white shirts (and breaches in the case of Jerome). 29 years on and I still am not sure how to explain the popularity of the duo. They had the best selling album and single of the 1995 in the UK! I think I’ll leave the final word to Alan Partridge..,

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Happy ClappersI BelieveDefo no
2Sean MaguireYou To Me Are EverythingHa! No
3CoolioGangsta’s ParadiseNah
4EnyaAnywhere IsNope
5MadonnaYou’ll SeeNegative
6The Beautiful SouthPretenders To The ThroneNot the single but I think I have it on a subsequent Best Of
7Michael JacksonEarth SongI did not
8Tina TurnerGoldeneyeNever happened
9Robson & JeromeI BelieveAs if

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/m001xqx3/top-of-the-pops-16111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 02 NOV 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

Woah! We’re into November in these 1995 TOTP repeats – that year is nearly over already! Not that I would have been thinking like that working in a record shop with the hectic festive trading period looming. I did ten Christmases with Our Price and they seemed to get progressively harder with the passing of every year. Maybe it was just the ageing process (I was 22 when I did my first and in my early 30s at the time of the last one) that meant I found them more and more tiring. Or maybe it was that the company expected us to get through them on less and less staff each year whilst simultaneously beating last year’s sales. I’d felt energised by the hustle and bustle of my very first Christmas but that feeling had dissipated over the years and coming to work had lost its sense of fun.

Presenting this TOTP though was a man who looked like he’d had loads of fun during his career as the lead singer of Madness what with all those wacky videos throughout the early part of the 80s. Whilst the band were on one of their hiatuses, Suggs undertook an initially successful solo career in this year keeping his profile high and affording him this ‘golden mic’ opportunity and what an opportunity! He got to host the show that had Madonna on it in person in the studio for the first time in eleven years! Suggs used this chance to hone his presenting skills and went on to secure the job of host on…oh yeah…Channel 5’s karaoke show Night Fever. Oh dear. Unbelievably, that show didn’t ruin his TV career and he went on to present shows including Salvage Squad, Inside Out and Disappearing London which won three Royal Television Society awards including one for himself as ‘Presenter of the Year’. Wow! Literally a few of days ago, I was listening to Gary Davies’s Sounds of the 80s show on Radio 2 and he announced that he was being joined by Suggs as co-host next week. I then saw him on The Jonathan Ross Show performing with Madness their new single “Round We Go”. All this proves that you can’t keep a good man down.

Right, that’s quite the lengthy intro so let’s get to the music and we start with a great tune. Echobelly were really hitting their stride by this point in their career with new single “King Of The Kerb” the second hit from their Top 5 album “On”. With this, “Great Things” and “Insomniac” (from their debut album “Everyone’s Got One”), the band had come up with a really strong trio of tracks. I wasn’t the only one who thought that – Madonna had shown an interest in signing the band to her Maverick label. Do you think they had a chat about it in the green room after this show? They ultimately didn’t sign due to their existing contractual arrangements and it was a change in said arrangements that would derail the band’s career. Having signed to Rhythm King with their records released on offshoot label Fauve, when the former’s distribution deal with Sony subsidiary Epic came to an end in 1996, a new deal was signed with Arista Records of the BMG group. This had the effect of Rhythm King being essentially shut down and subsumed by Arista. The band had reservations about the change of label and decided to stay with Epic. The contractual wrangling and singer Sonya Madan’s health problems (a potentially fatal thyroid issue) meant a third album “Lustra” wasn’t released for another two years by which point the band’s shine (and indeed that of Britpop) had lost its…well…lustre. The album only made No 47 in the charts. Echobelly have had various lengthy hiatuses since but are still a going concern and indeed are on tour later this year.

Talking of commercial declines, here’s another band who were starting down the other side of their own particular hill of success. MN8 began the year with a bang and a No 2 record in “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” and followed it up with two other Top 10 hits. By the time of fourth single “Baby It’s You” though, their chart positions were more of a knoll than a mountain. And rightly so by my reckoning. Although that first hit was annoying, it was catchy. This though, well it was just bland R&B styled pop wasn’t it? Its peak of No 22 could perhaps be explained away as the natural state for a fourth single from an album that had been out for six months as could the No 25 peak of its fifth “Pathway To The Moon”. However, when the lead single from the second album could only get to No 15 the following year, the alarm bells must have been ringing. That second album – “Freaky” – was a complete sales fail peaking at No 114. There has been no new material released by MN8 since though supposedly there have been talks over the years about a reunion.

Next, another showing of the video for “Heaven For Everyone” by Queen. The promo features footage from the films A Trip To The Moon, The Impossible Voyage and The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon all by French filmmaker Georges Méliès. This wasn’t the first time that the band had used this technique – the video for 1984’s “Radio Ga Ga” incorporated images from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Perhaps not surprising as they were both made by the same director, David Mallett. However, this isn’t the one that’s shown here. A second video directed by Simon Pummell was included on the VHS release of Made In Heaven: The Films featuring performance artist Stelarc operating a robotic hand.

The Monday after this TOTP aired, the album “Made In Heaven” was released. It went straight to the top of the charts and despite only being available for two months was the 7th best selling album in the UK in 1995. The power and pull of Freddie Mercury was still very much alive after four years after his death.

It’s another performance of “Thunder” by East 17 now as they’ve landed in the charts at No 4 following their ‘exclusive’ appearance two weeks ago. Although they were hardly down the dumper at this point, for me at least, this period of the career was less than impressive. I’d liked their early singles – “Deep” was a great song- whilst you couldn’t help but take note of their scoring the previous year’s Christmas No 1. By the time of third album “Up All Night” though, the formula seemed to be failing. Sure they were still having hits and the album sold well but it did half the amount predecessor “Steam” had done. In a sure fire move that the wobbles had set in with record label London Records, their next album release was a Greatest Hits collection. Just fourteen months on from this TOTP, Brian Harvey (who looks a bit like Phil Mitchell in this performance if you squint) would give that radio interview and the band would start to implode. By the way, had they been giving fashion advice to MN8? Those big jackets looked very East 17.

P.S. The Walthamstow outfit’s erstwhile rivals Take That would release a single in 2009 called “Up All Night”. What are the chances eh?

And another band who have been on the show in recent weeks! This time it’s UB40 with their hit “Until My Dying Day” taken from their “Best Of Volume Two” album. Admittedly it’s not just second studio appearance as this time they are live by satellite from Brooklyn in the shadow of its famous bridge. As a location, it’s a step up from the university car park that Diana King performed in the other week but it’s still not great. For one thing, hasn’t this location been used by other artists before (or perhaps from the Manhattan side of the bridge?). Secondly, it’s not quite the shot of a tree we got during that Diana King performance but we do get a couple of views of just the bridge without the band on camera at all. Now some might say less of UB40 filling your TV screen was a good thing but it does seem rather odd in retrospect. These ‘satellite’ performances were really outstaying their welcome by this point.

Here’s yet another song I don’t remember at all but in my defence, there’s a good reason for that – it wasn’t a hit in the UK. Yes, it’s one of those rare occasions when the TOTP producers decided to give an ‘exclusive’ slot to a single that would fail to break into our Top 40. On reflection, giving such a platform to “Rock Steady” by Bryan Adams and Bonnie Raitt seems a strange decision. Sure Bry had become a units shifting behemoth in the 90s due to that Robin Hood song and indeed, had been at No 4 in the UK earlier in the year with “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” from the Don Juan DeMarco soundtrack. But Bonnie? A huge star in the States no doubt but over here, she’d only ever had one minor hit single when “You” made No 31 in 1994. In my head, she was the sort of artist whose albums would be featured in the Recommended Releases section in Our Price – not a hot enough record to guarantee sales but maybe a few could be squeezed out of it if it was discounted for a couple of weeks. The UK just didn’t really get her fusion of country/blues/rock. Look at these contrasting chart positions:

AlbumYearUS Chart PeakUK Chart Peak
Nick Of Time1989151
Luck Of The Draw1991238
Longing In Their Hearts1994126

“Rock Steady” was taken from Bonnie’s first live album “Road Tested” – yep, a live album. For an artist who had failed to set the UK charts alight with her studio albums, the idea that a live album would suddenly reverse that trend seemed an audacious strategy by her record label. Predictably, it did nothing over here.

Having spent a lot of words decrying Bonnie’s appearance on the show, I should say that my wife quite likes her. Well, she likes one of her songs to be more accurate. “Something To Talk About” featured on the soundtrack to the 1995 film of the same name starring Dennis Quaid, Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick. One last thing to note here is that in his intro, Suggs depicts the duet as a ‘battle of the larynxes’ and pits Bonnie versus Bryan with a “ding ding round one” remark. Now isn’t that reminiscent of the aforementioned Night Fever show he would go on to host?

Suggs goes old skool for his next link by donning a bowler hat and sporting an umbrella – all classic props from the ‘nutty boys’ video heyday. It seems though that there may have been some sartorial collusion with the next act who are McAlmont & Butler with vocalist David matching Suggs in the chapeau department. Whatever this duo released after the towering epic that was debut single “Yes” it was destined not to match its magnificence. So it was with “You Do”. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good song – it was, it is but inevitably it felt a bit after the Lord Mayor’s show.

Their album “The Sound Of…McAlmont & Butler” appeared in late November though it was really just the two aforementioned hits and all the extra tracks from their CD singles which may explain its minor chart peak position of No 33. By then, the duo had parted ways anyway. An interview in the NME given by McAlmont about the lack of substance to his relationship with Butler plus some unfounded accusations of his homophobia hastened the split. Both pursued solo projects (Bernard’s debut album “People Move On” is a personal favourite) before a reunion in 2002 ushered in second album “Bring It Back”. Another prolonged sabbatical then occurred before the duo toured together in 2015.

And so to the big, nay HUGE exclusive performance. With her first appearance on the show in person for eleven years it’s….Madonna! I’m pretty sure this would have created some headlines back in the day. Not seen in the TOTP studio since that performance of “Like A Virgin” with that pink wig, Madonna suddenly found the time to be in the country to promote her latest single “You’ll See”. A new track written for her ballads collection “Something To Remember”, it’s a mature, emotionally charged love song who that Madge delivers competently which I think was the point of the whole project – to get people talking about her as a recording artist again , as a singer with an actual voice rather than the controversy courting, media baiting spectacle she had become. To that end, she appears here decidedly grown up in a dressed down yet stylish all black outfit and a classic, soft hairstyle. No gimmicks, no button pushing flashes of flesh – just a woman, her voice and a song to sing. And it works, though I have to say listening back to it now that it almost seems like a rehash of her 1986 ballad “Live To Tell”. It would return Madonna to the UK Top 5 whilst the album sold 10 million copies worldwide.

In 2024, is Madonna still relevant? I’m sure she still has a huge, global fanbase but is she as big a deal these days as a Taylor Swift (announced just yesterday as a billionaire!), a Miley Cyrus or even a countrified Beyoncé? I’m not sure. I think I would wish for her a more demure tail end of her career. All that Madame X stuff seemed a bit desperate. Madonna became one of the most famous people on the planet but even she’ll see that you can’t hold back the march of time.

Coolio and L.V. remain at No 1 with “Gangsta’s Paradise”. This record really was a phenomenon sales wise. Over two million copies sold in the UK alone, it would be our second best selling single of the year (only the bizarre Robson & Jerome craze prevented it from being top of the pile). Despite only being No 1 here for two weeks, it would spend the next five weeks either at No 2 or No 3. There was no quick descent down the charts for this monster. So how come it only got those two weeks at the top here? *SPOILER ALERT* Bloody Robson & Jerome again wasn’t it! Their single “I Believe” knocked it off the top spot and remained there for four weeks. Add that to their version of “Unchained Melody” (the aforementioned best selling single in the UK of 1995) and they had quite a lot to answer for this year.

Back to “Gangsta’s Paradise” though and its presence in the film Dangerous Minds meant that the movie’s soundtrack was also a massive seller topping the American album chart and going triple platinum. Despite it no longer being the UK No 1, we’ll be seeing it on TOTP twice more in the repeats to come. Like I said before, it was an absolute phenomenon.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1EchobellyKing Of The KerbNo but I had a Best of with it on
2MN8Baby It’s YouNever
3QueenHeaven For EveryoneNegative
4East 17ThunderNope
5UB40Until My Dying DayNo
6Bryan Adams and Bonnie RaittRock SteadyNah
7McAlmont & ButlerYou DoNo I didn’t but I had their album
8MadonnaYou’ll SeeI did not
9Coolio / L.V.Gangsta’s ParadiseI was one of the few that didn’t

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001xhz8/top-of-the-pops-02111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 26 OCT 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

After four consecutive shows of not having to suffer the frankly insufferable Simon Mayo as host, the smug one is back and this time he’s brought his mates with him. Yes, lingering around the studio for this TOTP is Chris Evans and his breakfast show crew but more of them later. The last time he was on, Mayo did that whole ‘Rhymin’ Simon’ schtick which was just intolerable. We don’t have that this time at least but he does start with some line that relates to a news story about a supermarket sandwich not being fresh. What that news story was actually about I have no idea but if you asked Mayo today what it was about I bet he would know. He’s the sort of bloke who’d have a spreadsheet of all the times he was on the show, what his links were and a laughter rating system as to how funny he was.

Anyway, let’s get to it with the music. 1995 was the year of rereleases with those afforded another chance becoming a much bigger hit second time around. However, the recipients of this exercise were generally dance tracks – The Lightning Seeds were most definitely and defiantly pop and none more so than the tracks on their “Jollification” album. This one – “Lucky You” – was initially the lead single from the album when released in August of 1994 but somehow missed the Top 40 when it peaked at No 43. Three hit singles and 14 months later it was made available again and this time made it all the way to No 15 becoming the album’s second highest charting single in the process. “Lucky You” is such a model example of a pop song that you would think it had been created in a laboratory. Crafted and perfected to within an inch of its life, it was ideal for daytime radio. The Lightning Seeds were my go to band on a Saturday afternoon in the Our Price store I worked in at the time if we needed to shove something on in a hurry as the last CD had finished playing. As a consequence, many of my colleagues hated The Lightning Seeds with a passion.

Ian Broudie has always maintained pretty much the same look throughout his career – mop(top) of hair, goatee beard and shades permanently attached. Only the flecks of grey these days indicate the passing of any time. As much as he knows how to write a good pop tune, I’ve never been overly convinced about his voice which isn’t the biggest you’ve ever heard. He wrote “Lucky You” with Terry Hall and it would suit the sadly deceased singer’s voice better I think. I much prefer Hall’s version of “Sense” which he also co-wrote with Broudie.

In direct contrast to Ian Broudie comes Meatloaf and his massive voice. In this week’s chart, he found himself in a four way tussle for the coveted No 1 spot. His new single “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” was up against another new release from Coolio whilst the previous week’s No1 and No 2 from Simply Red and Def Leppard respectively were both performing well. In the final sales count, Meatloaf would just fall short of repeating the feat of “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by entering the Top 40 at No 2. It was still quite the achievement though for an artist who had only had one UK Top 10 hit prior to the biggest selling single of 1993 and confirmed how much the success of the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” project had done to revive Meatloaf’s career and profile.

Oof! What on earth is this? Well, obviously it’s a horrible remix of one of the classic pop singles of all time. The more pertinent question is why? After The Human League made a successful if rather unexpected return to the charts earlier in 1995 with the album “Octopus” and its hit singles “Tell Me When” and “One Man In My Heart”, their previous record label Virgin decided to cash in on their ex-artist by rereleasing their first Greatest Hits album from 1988 which had gone double platinum in the UK. In a clever piece of negotiation with the band’s new label East West, they managed to licence the aforementioned “Tell Me When” and a new song entitled “Stay With Me Tonight” to be included on the album’s track listing thereby ensuring it lent it a veneer of authority and comprehensiveness.

A third track was added to the album which was a remix of “Don’t You Want Me (Remixes)” by Snap! and it was this abomination that was chucked out into the shops to promote the collection. Maybe it’s just that people of a certain age who were around at the time of its original 1981 release (like me) have an emotional attachment to it (especially as it was also that year’s Christmas No 1) that we find it hard to accept any deviation from its true form. Or, perhaps more obviously, the 1995 remix was a just piece of worthless shit and that’s why we hate it. There was certainly no love for it on social media when this TOTP repeat aired on BBC4 recently. The 1995 remix somehow got to No 16 in the charts but as for who was buying it, I can only assume completist super fans or the tone deaf.

Next we have perhaps the ultimate rerelease of the whole decade let alone 1995. I say rerelease but it’s actually a remix of a 1994 single that originally only made No 69 on the chart. By 1995, despite critical acclaim and being eight albums into their career, Everything But The Girl had only ever had three Top 40 singles of which two were cover versions. All that changed with “Missing”. Originally a lo-fi electronic dance single from their “Amplified Heart” album, the duo’s American record label suggested that it be reworked by the legendary remixer Todd Terry to be played in New York clubs. His beefed up house beats treatment of the track combined with Tracey Thorn’s enchanting, ethereal vocals and the killer line “like the deserts miss the rain” propelled the song into becoming a monster hit of epic proportions all around the world. In the UK it peaked at No 3 but even more impressively, it spent 14 (!) weeks inside the Top 10. Look at these chart positions:

8 – 6 – 6 – 4 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 8

How’s that for consistency?! It would sell over a million copies here whilst in America it got all the way to No 2 after a 28 weeks climb to get there. It would spend a then record breaking 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. These were unbelievable stats – this is Everything But The Girl we’re talking about! They were hardly a gargantuan unit shifting monster. As much as I’d always liked them, I would never have predicted that they could sell this many records but then “Missing” was no ordinary song. It had that much sought after but rarely achieved quality of being able to crossover into lots of different markets. Punters who would never have listened to a dance track let alone buy one were queuing up at the local record shop to purchase a copy. The track transcended its supposed status as a song of the pop charts to become a part of the cultural tapestry. Tracey Thorn herself has said that “Missing” has been played at funerals and memorial services. Given its chart run detailed above and that we’ll likely be seeing EBTG a fair few times over the forthcoming repeats, I think I’ll leave it there for now.

Watching this next video, I’ve realised that I really don’t know that much about The Smashing Pumpkins. Sure, I know the titles of their first three albums and I could recognise their covers from having sold them to punters whilst working in record stores throughout the 90s. What they actually sounded like though? I wouldn’t be so sure. I know their hit “Tonight, Tonight” which I like but that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge of their back catalogue. Take this single for example. “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” was the lead single from third album “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” and reached No 20 on the UK Top 40 and yet I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. How is this possible if I worked in a record shop you ask? Sadly, the stereotype of leaning on the counter all day, brew in hand listening to all the cool and groovy new sounds and being rude to any customers who attempted to ask you anything wasn’t true at all. Sometimes you were so busy that if I’d been asked at gunpoint to tell you what had been played on the shop sound system that day, I couldn’t have.

So now I’ve heard “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”, what is my considered opinion of it? Well, it’s OK I guess. An interesting chorus but it seems to take forever to get to it with the verses being as dull as. I wasn’t that keen on Billy Corgan’s voice either. Give me this instead by the Mock Turtles for a song about butterfly wings any day of the week…

“Ain’t Nobody” by Rufus and Chaka Khan is such an enduring song. 40 years old now and it is still a staple of radio playlists whether you’re Radio 2 or Retro Soul Radio. It’s a remarkable legacy for a song that was a big hit but not one of the biggest sellers of all time. It made the UK Top 10 in 1984 and No 22 in the US though it did top the R&B charts over there as well. Its long lasting nature is perhaps partly due to how many times it has been covered by other artists. “Ain’t Nobody” has been recorded by Jaki Graham, LL Cool J, Mary J. Blige, Natasha Bedingfield and as an interpolation with the Human League’s “Being Boiled” by Richard X vs Liberty X as “Being Nobody”.

And then there’s this version by Diana King. Needing a follow up to her mega selling hit “Shy Guy”, she (or her record label possibly) went for that tried and trusted strategy of releasing a cover version of a well known song. And it worked – sort of. It reached No 13 in the UK and made No 4 on the US Dance Club Play chart but it was nowhere near the seller that “Shy Guy” was. Perhaps deservedly so in my opinion. It seems fairly ordinary to my ears despite Diana trying to put a ragga tweak in there early on by randomly shouting out “Have Mercy!” in the intro. There then follows a fairly faithful rendition of the original but with a horrible, tinny sounding backing which loses all the smooth groove of the original. The whole performance is not helped by the location for this satellite exclusive which appears to have been filmed in the car park of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yep, a car park. Diana is joined by two guys in flasher macks one of whom looks like he’s going to have a piss in a flower bed when he turns his back to the camera. At one point there’s a shot which is a close up of a tree because it has a small street sign which says ‘Top Of The Pops’ on it. A close up of a tree! This was a real low for these satellite performances. Bon Jovi at Niagara Falls this was not! Sadly, I can’t find the clip on YouTube though. Diana would have one more UK hit two years later with another cover version (this time of ”I Say A Little Prayer”) before the hits ran out completely.

The aforementioned Chris Evans finally appears on camera for this next link though mercifully he says nothing choosing instead to eat from a packet of crisps. Instead, Simon Mayo ignores Evans (presumably this was cooked up by the pair beforehand) and instead introduces the Radio 1 Breakfast Show newsreader Tina Ritchie to do the link. Ritchie does her job well enough despite Mayo doing a gyrating movement opposite her while she speaks. He seems to lower himself down her body while she speaks (though that may be the camera angle) as if he’s lap dancing for her. It’s a truly sickening sight. Why was he allowed to do it?! Horrible man.

UB40 is the act that Tina Ritchie introduces with a song I have zero recollection of. “Until My Dying Day” was released to promote the band’s second Best Of album snappily titled “The Best Of UB40 – Volume Two” which collected all their hits from 1988 to 1995. The first volume had gone six times platinum in the UK but its follow up did nowhere near the same business despite including their 1993 No 1 “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You”. Its sales can’t have been helped by “Until My Dying Day” which, dearie me, is dreary to the point of being soporific. @TOTPFacts says that the track was originally written for the soundtrack of the James Bond film Goldeneye. That can’t be right can it? Goldeneye? UB40’s song is more like Jap’s Eye!

Wait, wasn’t Cher on the show and in the studio last week? She bloody was you know! As if to distinguish between the two appearances, she’s come in fancy dress as Elvis this week seeing as her hit – “Walking In Memphis” – is all about him (sort of).

It’s an attempt to do something different I guess but she doesn’t really look like Elvis, rather a tired stereotype of a 50s Teddy Boy. It’s all a bit silly and Cher’s dance moves don’t add any authenticity at all. Maybe I’m missing the point and should just accept it as a bit of fun but I can’t get past the fact that Annie Lennox beat Cher to this look by a good 12 years and did it so much better…

And so to another new No 1 and this one has gone straight into pole position in week one making it the ninth single to do so up to this point in 1995 and the third on the bounce following Shaggy and Simply Red before it. Coolio was the winner of that aforementioned four way chart tussle with his “Gangsta’s Paradise” song. I say Coolio but I should also give props to his oppo LV who was also formerly credited on the track. This was an absolute monster of a record and similar to “Missing” earlier in the post, stayed on the UK Top 40 for what seemed like an eternity. Two weeks at No 1 but then three at No 2, two at No 3 and a further five inside the Top 10 on top of that.

Famously interpolated (there’s that word again) with Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”, it was also featured heavily in the hit film Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Also like “Missing”, it was a huge crossover hit with record buyers who wouldn’t normally listen to rap music purchasing the single. It also garnered airplay support from radio stations that wouldn’t normally touch rap with a barge pole. In a 2020 poll by digital publication The Pudding, “Gangsta’s Paradise” was one of the most recognisable 90s songs amongst Millennials and Generation Z’ers.

I’m wondering now if our appetite for the song hadn’t been whetted by the film Pulp Fiction. The opening line “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” from Psalm 23:4 is very reminiscent off this scene courtesy of Samuel L. Jackson whilst the whole film, like the song, is about gangsters…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The Lightning SeedsLucky YouNot the single but I think I may have had the Jollification album at some point
2MeatloafI’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)Definitely not
3The Human LeagueDon’t You Want Me (Remixes)Love the original but not that remixed shite!
4Everything But The GirlMissingNo but I must have it on something surely?
5The Smashing PumpkinsBullet With Butterfly WingsNegative
6Diana KingAin’t NobodyNah
7UB40Until My Dying DayNope
8CherWalking In MemphisI did not
9Coolio / LVGangsta’s ParadiseNo

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/m001x9fl/top-of-the-pops-26101995?seriesId=unsliced