Maxi Priest

TOTP 13 MAY 1993

Posted on August 17, 2022 by 80stastic

These TOTP repeats are bloody relentless! If you get a bit behind with them like I did last week as I was away for a few days, it takes a real effort to get back up to date. It’s the double bills with two shown every Friday on BBC4 that makes it so hard to keep up. Why can’t they just show one a week like they would have done when originally broadcast?

*checks schedule for next week*

That’s what I’m talking about! There’s only one show on this coming Friday for some reason. Why can’t they do that all the time?! For now though, I’m still on catch up so time to get writing…

What can I tell you about this week in May 1993. Well, on this very day Chris Waddle was voted the Football Writers Association’s Player of the Year. Waddle had returned to English football after a spell in France with Marseilles and helped his new club Sheffield Wednesday to both domestic cup finals that season. In fact, the second of those took place two days after this TOTP broadcast. A 1-1 draw with Arsenal meant a replay was required (the last one ever in an FA Cup final) the knock on effect of which was that TOTP was shunted to the Friday the following week to allow for BBC’s coverage of the second match on the Thursday. Waddle even scored in that replay but his team still went down 2-1 to a last minute extra time winner.

Waddle, of course, wasn’t just known for football. No, there was that mullet hairstyle and his own dalliance with being a pop star in the 80s alongside his then team mate Glenn Hoddle. Yes, three years before Gazzamania saw Paul Gascoigne become a chart star, Glenn and Chris beat him to it with “Diamond Lights”, a genuine contender for the title of the worst record of all time.

Waddle stayed at Wednesday until 1996 before the inevitable descent down the leagues which had him seeing out his playing career in non-league football with the likes of Glapwell and Stockbridge Park Steels. To paraphrase that famous milk advert, “who are they?!”. He also entered popular culture as a comedy reference (not for his hairstyle though) but for this…

Excellent stuff! Anyway, on with the ‘proper’ music. Now I would count myself as a fan of OMD but I don’t remember this track at all. In fairness, the band’s career had been a series of boom and bust periods so there were always going to be some singles that slipped under the net. “Architecture And Morality” was a definite boom time whereas “Dazzle Ships” was misunderstood and misfired. “Junk Culture” took them in a more mainstream pop direction resulting in chart success but “Crush” and “The Pacific Age” mustered just one Top 20 hit between them. With the band splintering at the end of the 90s, that could have been that but a remarkable resurrection took place in 1991 with Andy McCluskey masterminding two consecutive Top 10 singles on the bounce and a successful album in “Sugar Tax”.

With their comeback officially confirmed, another album for the new look band was required. “Liberator” was that album with “Stand Above Me” its lead single. Even McCluskey isn’t keen on it describing it as “busy and messy” in a 2019 Record Collector interview. He went on to say “I was aware that Britpop was approaching and I didn’t know what I should do”. In the end, he basically rewrote “Sailing On The Seven Seas” and called it “Stand Above Me”. In fact, quite a few of their songs had started to morph into one at this point. There wasn’t much between say, “Dreaming”, “”Call My Name” and “Pandora’s Box” – all good pop tunes but a million miles away from those more experimental early hits like “Enola Gay”, “Joan Of Arc” and “Genetic Engineering”.

Still, Andy McCluskey gives the impression of being happy with his lot in this performance although his opening shout of ‘Kick it!’ was ill judged. There’s something that doesn’t compute watching three of them on stage swinging guitars around with a banner behind proclaiming them to be OMD. With three guitars on display? No wonder McCluskey said it had all got a bit messy.

“Stand Above Me” peaked at No 21.

What?! Shabba Ranks again?! No, I absolutely refuse to talk about him anymore. I’d rather watch Maxi Priest play football which is handy as here he is…

OK, he’s no Chris Waddle but check out this about him courtesy of @TOTPFacts…

In March 2003, at the age of 43, Maxi Priest played for non-league club Southall FC, after the club struggled to field a squad because of injuries and suspensions. He came on as a second-half sub during a 3-0 loss to Feltham. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 12, 2022

“Housecall” peaked at No 8.

Ah, I thought we hadn’t seen her for a few shows but she’s back with yet another of a seemingly infinite number of singles from her album “So Close”. Seeing as it’s 1993, it can only be Dina Carroll that I am referring to. “Express” was the fifth single released from the album in just under twelve months and yet surprisingly was the biggest hit of the lot to that point peaking at No 12.

I’ve said it before in just about every post that’s featured Dina but her chart history is really intriguing. The fact that she could get her biggest hit of five with the fifth release is odd enough on its own but when you throw in the massive curveball that is “Don’t Be A Stranger”…there’s so much to be explained. Why did A&M wait five months after “Express” before releasing it? They’d released three singles in the same time period up to that point. Why was it left to being the sixth and final single to be released when they knew they had it up their sleeves all along? I read somewhere recently that so many singles were taken from the album as it wasn’t crossing over from the limited UK soul market and A&M were trying to promote it to the mainstream market. That theory doesn’t really add up though as it spent fourteen weeks in the Top 10 between January and September before slipping down the charts. True, when “Don’t Be A Stranger” was a huge hit, the album rocketed up the charts again spending three consecutive weeks at No 2 but the idea that the album wasn’t a success before that doesn’t really hold water for me. God, I sound a bit obsessed by all this don’t I? I don’t even have any of Dina’s records so I don’t know why I should be.

As for “Express”, it stood out from some of her other mid tempo soul singles as it was a definite attempt to incorporate some funk into proceedings including a parping sax noise that just about avoided being annoying. I think the kids today would call the song ‘sassy’.

A second studio appearance for Robert Plant now whose “29 Palms” single is this week’s highest climber (he’ll go no further than this peak of No 21 though). Not a lot of thought seems to have gone into the staging of this performance by the TOTP production team. There’s a couple of palm trees at either end of the stage (palms – geddit?) and some neon signage that’s meant to give the impression of an American diner (do you get diners on beaches?). To add to the imagery, one of Robert’s band has come dressed as a surfer dude/beach bum.

Another of the band (the guitarist in the green shirt) is Kevin Scott Macmichael whom, seven years prior to this appearance, I interviewed when he was in the band Cutting Crew. They were riding high in the charts with “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” and I’d just become a student at Sunderland Polytechnic and interviewed them for the student newspaper before a gig that they were playing at the Poly. As I recall Kevin was quietly spoken and generous with his time to an 18 years old me who didn’t really know what I was doing. Kevin sadly died of lung cancer in 2002.

By 1993, it had been ten years since Tina Turner’s music career comeback began with “Let’s Stay Together” and the “Private Dancer” album. More huge hits followed – 1989’s “Foreign Affair” album sold six million copies worldwide whilst her “Simply The Best” Best Of collection two years later went eight times platinum in the UK alone. Despite all this success and profile (or maybe because of it), the world still needed to see and hear more of Tina and so a biopic was the next logical step. What’s Love Got To Do With It was that film starring Angela Bassett as Tina. I watched it on TV once – it wasn’t bad. Obviously given its subject matter, the film would have a soundtrack album and promoting it was this single “I Don’t Wanna Fight”. Written by Lulu (no, really) it’s actually a pretty accomplished soul pop ballad which would go Top 10 both here and in the US, the last time she ever achieved that feat in the latter territory.

The normally reliable Mark Franklin gets the song’s title wrong in his intro referring to it (I think)) as ‘I Don’t Want To Go Fighting’ making it sound like her reply to Elton John’s rallying cry of “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”. Tina seemed as keen on song titles beginning ‘I Don’t Wanna…’ as Sting did for those starting with the word ‘Every’. “I Don’t Wanna Lose You” was a No 8 hit for her in 1989. She should have done one called “I Don’t Wanna Perform This Song In A Virtually Empty Theatre Venue In Monte Carlo” as this ‘exclusive’ was yet another example of TOTP thinking they were bringing us something special when it really wasn’t. An empty venue devoid of atmosphere in an exotic location like Monte Carlo is still an empty venue devoid of atmosphere.

There’s a good mix of Breakers this week according to Mark Franklin so let’s put that claim to the test. We start with The Waterboys who were last in the charts two years earlier when a rerelease of “The Whole Of The Moon” finally got the chart placing it deserved when it peaked at No 3. The single promoted a Best Of album that was released by EMI as one final attempt to milk the cash cow before their artist jumped ship to Geffen. The first new material of that move was the album “Dream Harder” which was preceded by the lead single “The Return Of Pan”. This was the second time that Mike Scott had written a song about the Greek deity after “The Pan Within” from 1985 album “This Is The Sea”.

I remember the album coming out but I’m not sure it ever got a spin on the shop stereo in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working. I probably should have found a quiet Tuesday afternoon to give it a proper play. After all, my association with The Waterboys stretched back to 1983 when I heard their very first single “A Girl Called Johnny” which I had on a compilation album called “Chart Stars”. If that makes me sound like I was a very cutting edge 14 year old, I really wasn’t. That album also included Galaxy, Bonnie Tyler and (gulp) The Kids From Fame! Quite how the first single by The Waterboys made it in to the running order I’m not sure but a flop single by The Teardrop Explodes was also on there so it was an odd thing. Presumably the compilers filled it with whatever they could get licences for.

Anyway, supposedly “Dream Harder” had a much more of a rock guitar vein to it than their previous work but then I’ve always struggled to describe their musical style. When I went for my initial interview at Our Price for a Xmas temp position in 1990, there was a music quiz and one of the sections was to identify the musical genre of an artist. One of those artists was The Waterboys. My answer? ‘Folky/bluesy type thing’. The correct answer was, of course, Rock/Pop.

“The Return Of Pan” peaked at No 24.

Well, in terms of ‘a mix’ of music, Mark Franklin was right but ‘a good mix’? That’s surely not the right word if one of those records in the mix is this. “The Jungle Book Groove” by The Disney Cast was presumably released to cash in on the fact that The Jungle Book had been made available on VHS this year. As I remember, Disney employed a very strategic release strategy around this time. They’d deleted all their classic film titles and then rereleased them one at a time so as to focus full attention on that one product as opposed to just making them all available on mass. This created a discounting price war with retailers looking closely at what everyone else was doing to guide their pricing policy. Whilst we all nipped into each other’s shops to see what they were selling the video for, one of the supermarkets stole everyone’s thunder (was it Asda?) by selling it at the cheapest price but with the added gimmick of qualifying for a free banana in the process! Genius!

There’d already been a Disney medley single by The UK Mixmasters called “Bare Necessities Megamix” which had been a hit over the Xmas of 1991 but that didn’t put off the Disney money men from selling it to us all over again by releasing “The Jungle Book Groove” on the Disney affiliated label Hollywood Records. Now look, I don’t mind a Disney film nor the songs in them but I do mind them being cynically packaged and turning up in the Top 40. No Disney, I don’t wanna be like you.

The final Breaker comes from Bon Jovi who have released a third (of six in total) single from their “Keep The Faith” album. This one was “In Your Arms” and was pretty standard Jovi fare that sounds like they could have knocked it out in a couple of hours with their thumbs up their bums, minds in neutral as my old History teacher was prone to saying. Perfect daytime radio fodder though.

My main memory of this song is hearing a news feature on Radio 1 whilst travelling in a car with my work colleague Andy on the way to a concert in Sheffield.* “In Your Arms” had just been released and the feature covered the story that, presumably in a coordinated promotional move by the record company, The London Trocadero had just installed a waxwork of Jon Bon Jovi and a crowd of fans had gathered for the unveiling. I think Jon was there in person at the event as the crowd were chanting “We want the flesh, we want the flesh…”.

A couple of years later, I found myself alone and at a loose end in London on a visit to my friend Robin who lived down there. I decided a trip to The Trocadero was in order and found myself having my photo taken with the waxwork Jon. For some reason, I thought this would be a good souvenir of my visit and purchased said photo! So proud was I of it that I put it on display on the staff room wall in the Our Price in Stockport where I was working. What was I thinking?! My work colleagues didn’t half take the piss and, to be fair, I absolutely deserved it. No idea where it is now – the photo not the waxwork which must have surely been melted down by now.

“In Your Arms” peaked at No 9.

*Yes, it was that concert, the Michael Bolton one and no, I’m not about to go into how that came about all over again.

After the Breakers come the Abominations or Inner Circle as I like to call them. “Sweat (A La La La La Long)” is up to No 5 on its way to a peak of No 3 and so another studio performance is in order. The thrifty TOTP producers have recycled the stage that Robert Plant used with its palm trees to made it look like a beach party.

If you search for Inner Circle on the internet today, one of the results is for an online dating app. It’s a good job that online dating wasn’t around when Inner Circle the band were in the charts. I don’t think having these lines on your profile would win over potential partners:

Girl I’m want to make you sweat, sweat ‘till you can’t sweat no more

And if you cry out, I’m gonna push it some more

Just nasty.

Another week at the top for the “Five Live” EP and another different track from it on the show. This time it’s George Michael’s take on “Killer” by Adamski which is mashed up with “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” made famous by The Temptations. This wasn’t from the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert but was recorded at Wembley Arena the year before.

By my reckoning, this is the third time “Killer” had been a hit. The Adamski original was No 1 in 1990 and then Seal took his own version into the Top 10 in late 1991. As for “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone”, aside from The Temptations’ 1973 US No 1, it was a Top 20 hit for Was (Not Was) in 1990.

There’s a little bonus clip before the credits roll as the BBC promote the Eurovision Song Contest that took place two days after this TOTP aired. As such, we get the video for the UK entry who in 1993 was Sonia with “Better The Devil You Know”. Sonia came second taking the result to the final set of points allocated before losing out to Ireland’s Niamh Kavanagh. Her performance meant that the single got a small boost sales wise and reversed its descent down the charts meaning its seven week run looked like this:

22 – 18 – 25 – 17 – 15 – 40 – 57

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	OMD	Stand Above Me	I did not
2	Shabba Ranks / Maxi Priest	Housecall	Do one will ya!
3	Dina Carroll	Express	Nope
4	Robert Plant	29 Palms	No but I had that promo CD of the album
5	Tina Turner	I Don’t Wanna Fight	No
6	The Waterboys	The Return Of Pan	Nah
7	Disney Cast	The Jungle Book Groove	Never happening
8	Bon Jovi	In These Arms	See 4 above
9	Inner Circle	Sweat (A La La La La Long)	As if
10	George Michael	Five Live EP	Don’t think I did
11	Sonia	Better The Devil You Know	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001b0cb/top-of-the-pops-13051993

TOTP 06 MAY 1993

Posted on August 13, 2022 by 80stastic

When I decided to carry on doing these TOTP reviews into the 90s repeats, the one year I really wasn’t looking forward to revisiting was 1993. In my mind’s eye, it was all nasty Eurodance anthems, the dreaded three ‘S’s of Shaggy, Shabba and Snow and the worst Xmas No 1 of all time. Well, we’re into May now and whilst the horror of Mr Blobby is still a way off, we’ve already had plenty of the of the other flavours of shite. Let’s hope a new month brings new hope of better things to come…

Well, that hope didn’t last long did it! FFS! Straight off the bat we have some more Eurodance nonsense courtesy of one of the genre’s biggest acts. After driving us all insane with the abomination that was “No Limit”, 2 Unlimited have not been able to resist the temptation to do it all over again with a tune that is so similar they should have just called it “No Limit 2.0” and be done with it. In truth, all their tunes pretty much sounded the same though didn’t they? And yes by saying that, I now sound just like my Dad speaking to me about pop music circa 1983. “Tribal Dance” was the latest of their musical oeuvre to annoy the shit out of us and it would rise to No 4 in this, the biggest year of their career. This track supposedly includes more of Ray’s raps than usual but still less than the version that the rest of Europe would get. I have to say that I don’t feel short changed.

There was a lot of talk online about this TOTP performance and it mostly revolved around the words ‘inappropriate’ and “cultural appropriation’ and you can see why? What the hell were those costumes the backing dancers were wearing all about?! Yes, obviously somebody was trying to pursue a theme of ‘tribal’ as per the song’s title but this?! Of course, it’s quite possible that nobody made any sort of dissenting comment back in 1993 but you like to think we live in more enlightened times these days. Or perhaps we don’t. I’m sure I could be accused of being too ‘woke’ about it by someone. In truth though, all you need is Michael Caine a red tunic and you’ve got a re-enactment of the film Zulu.

The official video for “That’s The Way Love Goes” by Janet Jackson soundtracks the Top 40 countdown to No 11. It’s also the second of three new entries inside the Top 5 this week that we will see on the show tonight. Reading some of the online comments about the video, I’m now wondering if I’m missing something. People seem to love this promo and describe it as being “a timeless classic”, “visually stylish” and “one of the most creative videos ever made” with the protagonists “chillin’ and vibin’ out together”. And yet. All I’m seeing is Janet surrounded by some sycophants (including a very young Jennifer Lopez) in a loft apartment imploring her to play a tape of her new single before mooching and smooching about with each other. I’m probably just a grumpy, middle aged man who’s forgotten how to have fun and enjoy anything anymore though.

“That’s The Way Love Goes” peaked at No 2 in the UK and was a No 1 record in the US.

After starting the show with some frenetic Eurodance beats before sliding into some slinky R&B vibes we now arrive at a huge slice of stadium house courtesy of Utah Saints (U-U-U-Utah Saints)*. “Believe In Me” was the third of their trilogy of Top 10 hits and although I thought it was OK, it didn’t quite have the immediacy of “What Can You Do For Me” and “Something Good”. After turning to Eurythmics and Kate Bush for source material for those two tracks, they’ve stuck with the 80s by sampling The Human League for this one. It works but doesn’t seem as clever as its predecessors, a bit too obvious somehow.

*Sorry, contractually obliged to do that

In their wisdom, the TOTP producers have decided to overlay the whole performance here with a green wavelength graphic which probably seemed like a good idea at the time but which feels intrusive in retrospect. And what on earth is that the guy with the tied back dreadlocks playing? It looks like a key-tar but has some sort of built in computer where a keyboard should be. It’s like a prototype for the controller in the Guitar Hero computer game. Oh and the “This is the Utah Saints calling all humanoids” line is entirely lame. Reminded me of this sketch:

I wasn’t wrong about 1993. It really was the year that kept on giving – the problem was that it was serving up huge dollops of horseshit. Here’s another steaming clump – “All That She Wants” by Ace Of Base. This was one of those songs that came from nowhere and was suddenly huge immediately. That’s how it felt anyway. It must have been picking up plenty of airplay before it went massive as I’m sure we kept getting asked about it in the Our Price I was working in before it was in the charts. We didn’t have a clue what it was the punters were talking about but Head Office soon cottoned on and ordered it in for stores in bulk. How this cod reggae/ lowest common denominator Europop mash up made *SPOILER ALERT* three weeks at No 1 is as mystifying as the rise and rise of Liz Truss. I always hated that little sax parp that introduced the chorus and also the way the vocalist sang the line ‘She’s the hunter, you’re the fox’ with that elongated, descending stress on the last word. Heinous isn’t a strong enough word for it. The performance here didn’t help to endear me to the song either. Who did the two women arm dancing think they were? Susan and Joanne from the aforementioned Human League?

Ace Of Base were, of course, from Sweden and are the third biggest selling band from those shores after ABBA and Roxette but when the competition for that particular bronze medal includes the likes of Rednex (of “Cotton Eye Joe” fame), Dr. Alban and Europe, it rather undermines the achievement of a place on the rostrum.

I really feel the need for something decent in this week’s Breakers to lift the mood, nay standard. We start with something unusual though. I knew Sounds Of Blackness were a gospel group but that’s all that I knew and I certainly couldn’t have named any of their songs.

However, having looked them up on Wikipedia I do remember the cover for their 1993 album “Africa To America: The Journey Of The Drum” from which this single – “I’m Going All The Way” – came. It was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who were nothing if not versatile – they were also the producers behind Janet Jackson who was on the show earlier of course. Look, I can appreciate gospel music but back in 1993 I don’t think it was what I was looking for and I certainly wasn’t expecting to find it in the Top 40.

In my head, there’s a definite line drawn in 1985 that marked the end of Depeche Mode as, for want of a better description, a pop band and their going forwards as, for want of another better description, a rock band. Now I do know that those terms are far too simplistic to do justice to the career of the band. I think it’s just that 1985 saw the release of their first Best Of album “The Singles 81>85” and that felt like a real marker in the sand that said, ‘OK, here’s a a physical reminder of everything we’ve done up to this point but from here on in, we’re going in a new direction”. The following year “Black Celebration” was released and everything did feel different starting with its dark lead single “Stripped”.

By 1993, Depeche Mode had perfected that new, harder sound into something massively commercial. The 1990 ”Violator” album sold seven and a half million copies worldwide and housed four classic singles. Then came “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” starting with strident lead single “I Feel You” which we didn’t get to see on TOTP for some reason. The follow up single was “Walking In My Shoes” and this little snippet on the Breakers was all we got of it. What was going on here? It’s another great track, doomy yet melodic and the video sees Dave Gahan in his full on rock god phase. Tragedy of course struck the band in May this year with the unexpected death of Andy Fletcher. Just today though, photos have been released of Gahan and Martin Gore back in the studio which is good news.

The second hit for Rage Against The Machine now. After “Killing In The Name” had been a No 25 hit earlier in the year (sixteen years before its Xmas No 1 sideshow), “Bullet In The Head” did even better piercing yer actual Top 20.

The band have been nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame on four occasions (2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021) but failed every time to get voted in. Rage Against The Machine there, the Nigel Farage of funk metal. And yes, I know their political views couldn’t be more diametrically opposed but I need to put this post to bed and a cheap line is all I’ve got for this lot.

Oh do f**k off! Even in 1993 at the height of his infamy, nobody needed any more Shabba Ranks surely?! After the Top 3 success of “Mr. Loverman” (itself a rerelease), record company Sony were always going to give 1991 single “Housecall” another tilt at the charts. It peaked at No 31 on its initial release but a remix saw it leap into the Top 10 second time around. A collaboration with Maxi Priest (whom I have no beef with BTW), it gave rise to the “Shabba!” sample on “Mr. Loverman” that was both ubiquitous and pilloried in 1993.

Finally some genuine relief from all this musical crud! Kingmaker hailed from Hull (my home for these last eighteen years) but in 1993 I was living in Manchester and working in Rochdale so I missed what surely must have been a sense of excitement in the band’s hometown at having the first authentic chart act since The Housemartins in the 80s.

“Ten Years Asleep” was their third Top 40 hit and came from their sophomore album “Sleepwalking”. Unbelievably, its lead single “Armchair Anarchist” which is a fab tune had stalled at No 47 in October of 1992 but its follow up did the trick rising to No 15, the band’s joint highest chart placing. True, it wasn’t a million miles away from the sound of acts like The Wonder Stuff and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin but at a time when decent indie pop tunes were at a premium, this was wonderful. Dealing with the vexing and existential subject of the passing of time and the inevitable conforming behaviours that seem to affect all of us, the lyrics showed what a great writer Loz Hardy was even though his hand had been forced by the band’s record label demanding that he essentially write a hit record. In this performance he looks like Ian Hart playing John Lennon in The Beatles biopic Backbeat.

It seems odd to consider it now but Kingmaker had been a bigger deal than the likes of Radiohead and Suede both of whom had supported them on tour in 1992. However, disputes with their record label about approaches to writing, recording and formatting of their music hampered their progress and by the time that third album “In The Best Possible Taste” came out in 1995, they’d been sunk by the good ship Britpop. They split soon after but reformed briefly in 2010 without Hardy as Kingmaker MMX.

Oh dear. In fact, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. This is just cringe (the kids don’t use the ‘worthy’ suffix do they?). Nobody can deny Elton John his place in musical history (except my mate Robin who once told me that he didn’t like even one of his songs) but this is just…wrong.

“Simple Life” was the fourth and final single from his 1992 album “The One” and it failed to make the Top 40 despite this ‘exclusive’ TOTP performance from Atlanta. Literally, what was the point of this? The song is turgid enough but the sight of Elton all togged up on a stage with just a black backdrop for company and deprived of his piano thereby forcing him into attempting to (gulp) ‘dance’…well, it’s just cruel. He even flicks his wig at one point as if to say ‘look I’ve got hair’ even though we know he didn’t. Please, I know I said spare me from all the Eurodance crap earlier in the post but this really wasn’t the lifebelt I was hoping for.

While Elton was struggling around the edges of the Top 40, his mate George Michael was still at No 1 as part of the “Five Live” EP. Last week we had his version of Queen’s “Somebody To Love” but this time it’s his duet with Lisa Stansfield on their 1991 Xmas No 1 (double A-sided with “Bohemian Rhapsody”) “These Are The Days Of Our Lives”. Recorded at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert of the previous year, I’d never liked the original but in the hands (or rather mouths) of George and Lisa it sounds pretty good. The former wouldn’t release any new music after this until 1996’s “Older” album but the latter would return later in 1993 with her third studio album “So Natural”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Tribal Dance	Definitely not
2	Janet Jackson	That’s The Way Love Goes	Nah
3	Utah Saints	Believe In Me	I did not
4	Ace Of Base	All That She Wants	As if
5	Sounds Of Blackness	I’m Going All The Way	No
6	Depeche Mode	Walking In My Shoes	Good song but no
7	Rage Against The Machine	Bullet In The Head	Nope
8	Shabba Ranks and Maxi Priest	Housecall	Away with you!
9	Kingmaker	Ten Years Asleep	I seem have been asleep as it’s not in the singles box
10	Elton John	Simple Life	Hell no!
11	Queen / George Michael / Lisa Stansfield	Five Live EP	Don’t think I did

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/m0019tp2/top-of-the-pops-06051993

TOTP 12 SEP 1991

Posted on October 10, 2021 by 80stastic

After last week’s massive rave up of a show, surely the TOTP studio wouldn’t be taken over by mad ravers ‘avin’ it large again this week? Well, yes and no. Dance music is definitely represented by the artists in the actual building again but when you add in the videos chosen by the producers to be shown this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were back in the 70s or at The Royal Variety Performance. No seriously, two of the artists on this TOTP had either already been on Her Majesty’s favourite night out of the year or would appear on it in the near future, those acts being Cliff Richard (13 times!) and Right Said Fred (once in 1992). The mainstream acts didn’t stop with just those two though. No, also on TOTP tonight were Bryan Adams (twice!), Roxette and Julian Lennon who’s Dad John had also appeared at The Royal Variety Performance as part of The Beatles with his infamous “just rattle your jewellery” remark in 1963. Oh, and despite having only released one new song in the 90s so far, The Stone Roses are suddenly back on the show with a re-release of a track from their 1989 debut album for some reason. This has all the makings of a curate’s egg of a programme.

Before all that though, what’s the rather cryptic announcement from host Simon Mayo at the top of the show all about? “If you got your tickets for tonight’s show through Keith Prowse, you can watch through to 7.30 but cheer and applaud louder because you are watching for free. Seems fair enough to me.” Eh? What was the story there then? Some dispute between the BBC and the legendary ticket agency and music publisher Keith Prowse? Was Mayo legally obliged to say that? It just seems so utterly incongruous and bizarre.

Talking of bizarre, the opening act tonight are Bizarre Inc with “Such A Feeling” and these guys were definitely ‘avin’ it. In an attempt to stand out from the rest of the rave crowd, they have employed a couple of podium dancers to give a visual form to their track. Watching it back, it remains me of the time that I was working in the Our Price in Rochdale and on a night out found myself in the town’s Xanadu nightclub having become detached from my colleagues. My God! The sights I saw – including podium dancers! I loved working at that store but the delights of a night out in Rochdale I was not prepared for.

Bizarre Inc were from Stafford and at one point included a band member who would find their way into Altern-8 who were also having mainstream chart hits at this time. It all sounds a bit incestuous to me.

“Such A Feeling” peaked at No 13 but Bizarre Inc would return before the end of the year with a Top 5 hit in the re-released “Playing with Knives”.

“20th Century Boy” by Marc Bolan & T. Rex is next having been re-released off the back of a Levi’s advert. The marketing guys at Levi’s had struck a rich vein of 70s tunes to help promote their jeans at this time, having worked through a load of 60s songs at the back end of the 80s. They’d already turned to The Steve Miller Band and Bad Company in their pursuit of soundtracks to their iconic advertising campaign but suddenly they had struck on the idea that some glam rock was now what was required. I guess you can’t knock their choice; T.Rex had lit up the charts with some huge tunes that had turned Marc Bolan into a superstar. Between 1970 and 1973 the chart peaks of their singles read:

2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 4

with the No 3 in the list being the original release of “20th Century Boy”. Come 1974 though, the spell appeared to be broken. The release of the “Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow” album met with a downturn of sales and a critical backlash. The return to all those complex song titles from the band’s psychedelic folk era when they were known as Tyrannosaurus Rex maybe wasn’t the best idea – as well as the album’s title, the tracks on it included “Painless Persuasion v. The Meathawk Immaculate” and “The Leopards Featuring Gardenia & the Mighty Slug”. The album wasn’t even released in the US and the band were dropped from their label. Bolan split from producer Tony Visconti and the group splintered.

Subsequent albums releases fared even worse but the explosion of the punk movement in ’76 seemed to re-energise Bolan and he even toured with The Damned as well as reinstating his public profile with his own TV show Marc. I was too young to experience those early hits in real time being aged just 2 when “Ride A White Swan” bestrode the charts in ’70 but I have faint memories of that TV show and I think my elder brother had a pin badge with Bolan’s image on it.

Of course, tragedy was just around the corner (or more specifically a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride Barnes, southwest London) when Marc was killed in a car accident when his girlfriend Gloria Jones lost control of the mini they were travelling in. His legacy lives on though with names like Johnny Marr and Siouxsie and the Banshees crediting him as being a major influence with the latter recording their own version of “20th Century Boy” as the B-side to the single “The Staircase (Mystery)” single in 1979.

Simon Mayo’s having a nightmare here. After the weirdness of the Keith Prowse comment he’s started going on about Paddy Ashdown now. Was Ashdown in the news back then? Was this when all the ‘Paddy Pantsdown’ stuff was happening?

*checks internet*

No that scandal blew up in the run up to the ’92 election. I can’t find a Paddy Ashdown story for Sep ’91 so I’m not sure what Mayo is going on about. Surely he wasn’t using the show as a platform for his own political views?

Anyway, the act he is introducing via this political lay-by is Roxette with “The Big L.” The circus themed video for this one includes a scene where there’s five greased up body builder types huddled together on a small circular platform all playing mouth organ. What was that all about?! Maybe the video director had been influenced by the recent bare-chested antics of Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch or maybe even the “Do What U Like” video by Take That (the one with the bare arse cheeks and a ton of jelly) which had been creating waves of controversy around this time? With it being a Roxette video though, it just comes across as a bit safe and lame rather than daring.

“The Big L.” peaked at No 21.

Is it me or is there a bit of an echo in the studio tonight? I thought I’d noticed one in a couple of Simon Mayo’s links before but it seems to have spread to the performers now. There’s a distinct trace of reverb on Sabrina Johnston‘s live vocals on “Peace”. Or was that a deliberate sound effect? Sound quality issues aside, this was up there with Oceanic’s Insanity” in the bangin’ tunes stakes. Sadly for Sabrina, she also followed the same career path as Oceanic in that she could never really follow up on the success of “Peace’ . An album was released and two further singles from it but none of them managed to indent the charts. Indeed, Sabrina’s only other chart entry was when a remix of “Peace” made No 35 as part of a double A-side with Crystal Waters to promote the HIV/AIDS charity album “Red Hot + Dance” (the one with George Michael’s “Too Funky” on it). In later years though, she did go onto appear as a backing vocalist on Lauryn Hill’s album “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill”.

More Paddy Ashdown quips from Simon Mayo next. Give it up mate! “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses is the the prompt for him to get in another Paddy joke (as it were). Had Ashdown done a particular poorly received press conference or something back then?

“I Wanna Be Adored” was the opening track on the band’s iconic eponymous debut album from ’89. So why was it being released as a single two and a half years later? Well, I think it was to do with the legal battle with their then-record label Silvertone. The band wished to terminate their five-year contract with Silvertone whose owners Zomba Records took out an injunction against the Roses in September 1990 to prevent them from recording with any other label. The courts ruled in favour of the band in May 1991 but Silvertone appealed the decision thereby delaying the release of any new material from the band further. I guess Silvertone wanted to make as much dough out of the band as they could before they were their act no longer and so released a number of tracks from that debut album that had never previously been released (or indeed intended for release) as stand alone singles. “I Wanna Be Adored” was followed by “Waterfall”, ‘I Am The Resurrection” and a re-release of “Fool’s Gold” in ’92. Bit naughty that.

“I Wanna Be Adored” was also one of the tracks that my one time Our Price manager Pete played on as the band’s original bass player. The Martin Hannett produced album that Pete featured on never saw the light of day as the band weren’t happy with it until it was released as “Garage Flower” in 1996 against the wishes of everyone involved in the original recordings.

I said in the last post that I didn’t think we’d be seeing this act until her next hit in about three years time. I was wrong. Following her appearance in the Breakers Crystal Waters has moved up the charts sufficiently to qualify for another appearance this week with her “Makin’ Happy” single. The single edit of this was remixed by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley who I very much see as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse bringing death to music with his “Jack Your Body” No 1 single in 1987.

The video is a typical dance track promo with Crystal’s face superimposed over a background of abstract, dancing figure images and some very literal interpretations of the song’s lyrics – some Rocky Horror Picture Show style lips for ‘She screams Ah ooh’ and a camera for ‘Now picture you with me’. To be fair, most of the lyrics seem to be comprised of ‘ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh-wee ooh-wee’. It’s hardly Proust is it?

“Makin’ Happy” peaked at No 18.

Having gone after Paddy Ashdown for a cheap laugh, Mayo now sets his sights on pop royalty in Cliff Richard. Asking the audience the question who has appeared on TOTP most across its then 27 year history, he mimes us a clue of who it is. For some reason he thinks giving a double thumbs up and waving his arms about as if protecting himself from some falling debris is a dead ringer of an impression of Cliff! Surely the thumbs up gesture would be more likely to be Paul ‘Whacky Thumbs Aloft’ McCartney and although Cliff has been known to do some very odd arm movements whilst performing, Mayo’s interpretation seems very wide of the mark.

As for the song Cliff is singing, I have no memory whatsoever of “More To Life” but then I didn’t watch the TV show Trainer which it was the theme tune for. Apparently Trainer was a follow up (of sorts) to mid 80s yachting drama Howard’s Way but was set in the word of horse racing. As with Howard’s Way, Simon May (not Mayo) wrote the instrumental theme tune for the opening credits but lyrics were added for the version over the closing credits which were supplied by Mike Read (yes, the Radio 1 DJ). In later years of course, Read would pen “UKIP Calypso” for a UKIP dinner that he was attending and, with the endorsement of Nigel Farage, it was released as a single. It was widely panned as being racist for Reads’s mock Caribbean accent and the lyrics ‘The leaders committed a cardinal sin / Open the borders let them all come in / Illegal immigrants in every town / Stand up and be counted Blair and Brown’. That’s Mike Read there, friend of Nigel Farage and writer of racist songs. Arsehole. Read of course was very matey with Cliff as I recall and often did impressions of him. There really was no end to his talents was there?

“More To Life” the song is just bland, Cliff-by-numbers pop and the whole story saga should be condemned to the rubbish tip of terrible cultural ideas.

Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch are up next with “Good Vibrations”. Now I’ve always quite liked Mark Wahlberg as an actor. I know some of the films he’s been in have had bad reviews like Planet Of The Apes and The Happening and he’s certainly no De Niro or Pacino but even so, like I said, I quite like him.

However, I didn’t know until now when I’ve read up on him that he did some terrible things as a teenager like racially aggravated assault for which he was sentenced to two years in jail but served only forty-five days of his sentence. Eighteen years later he apologised to his victim in person who stated publicly that he had forgiven Wahlberg. Now knowing this information and reading an interview back with him in Smash Hits magazine as Marky Mark, he clearly was a prick back then. In said interview he refers to women as ‘bitches’ and the Smash Hits writer describes his conversation as “…the blokiest tirade you ever did hear this side of an Eddie Murphy Live video…” – like I said, a prick.

He followed this up a year later in December ’92, while performing on the cult late night Channel 4 show The Word, by praising fellow guest Shabba Ranks who had stated gay people should be crucified for which both he and Ranks were widely condemned and criticised (not least by The Word presenter Mark Lamarr on the show). Supposedly Wahlberg doesn’t like to be reminded or asked about his music career these days. It’s not hard to see why.

The huge dance anthems just keep on coming as Rozalla enters the game with “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. Having been massively popular on the dance floors of the clubs in Ibiza in the Summer, it was no surprise that it became a huge hit in the UK charts when the returning hordes went searching for a memento of their holidays in the nation’s record shops. Well, at least we’d moved on from those foreign holiday hits like Ryan Paris from back in the day.

Rozalla was born in Zambia though moved to Zimbabwe aged 18 where she scored five No 1 singles. She relocated again in 1988, this time to London where she worked with production duo Nigel Swanston and Tim Cox and the collaboration bore fruit in the form of “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. Looking at her performance here, you wouldn’t have imagined that such a huge sound could have come from such a diminutive and slight looking person. She absolutely bosses it though and has the crowd in the palm of her hand when she takes her very sparkly jacket. She would go on to have a eight UK Top 40 hits in total including a re-release of this track re-titled as “Everybody’s Free (Ca$ino Mix)” in 1996.

Moving the Breakers to just before the No 1 is really starting to piss me off now. It’s lulling me into a false sense of security before hitting me with the realisation that there are at least three more songs to review even though the show is nearly over. We start with a man not seen in the Top 40 for seven years but who topped all the Best Newcomer and Most Promising New Act polls at the time of that success. Julian Lennon had already released three albums by ’91 but they had spiralled into a pattern of diminishing returns since the success of debut “Valotte”. Subsequently, his return to the Top 40 with “Saltwater” was quite the surprise. Tackling the issues of environmental conservation and world poverty in a pop song wasn’t unique but neither was it a regular occurrence back then. Obviously there was the whole Bad Aid project to address famine in Ethiopia and wasn’t “Crazy Horses” by The Osmonds about pollution? Then of course there was “Save The Whale” by …erm…Nik Kershaw. I’m sure there are plenty more examples but my point is that unlike sewers and non disposable wipes, the charts weren’t clogged up with them.

Enter Julian with a rather drippy yet heartfelt take on it all with his 6th form poetry-esque lyrics bemoaning man’s capability to land on the moon but not be able to stop children starving back on earth. Musically, it inevitably drew comparisons with his Dad especially the “Strawberry Fields Forever” beginning whilst the Beatles connection was continued by the guitar part that was written but not performed by George Harrison. I quite liked it and its themes seem more relevant today than ever. Like his debut single “Too Late For Goodbyes”, it peaked at No 6 whilst his only other Top 40 entry was his cover of Dave Clark Five’s “Because” for the 1986 musical Time soundtrack winch literally crept in at No 40.

What?! Shabba Ranks was in the charts?! The Shabba Ranks that was discussed earlier for his vile homophobic comments on The Word? Yep, the very same but this was a year before that controversial moment broke so presumably, in ’91, he wasn’t courting the condemnation that followed. Here he’s teamed up with Maxi Priest for a single called “Housecall” which sounds horrific to my ears and which thankfully passed me by at the time. Fortunately we only get 18 seconds of it in the Breakers, a feature which now seems to be a totally pointless exercise in boosting the amount of songs featured in the show (we’ve gone up from 13 to 14 in recent weeks). Julian Lennon only got 24 seconds and the final Breaker Bryan Adams gets 17 seconds! This was ridiculous and presumably just a ploy to be able to say it was keeping up with ITV competition The Chart Show. Utter nonsense (as was Shabba and Maix’s collaboration).

Hang on! Did I just say Bryan Adams was in the Breakers? But *spoiler* he’s still at No 1 isn’t he? Yes, but both statements are true because he’d been at No 1 so long now that his next single was due for release. “Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started” chart life would would come and go within a mere five weeks peaking at No 12 whilst “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was still riding high in the Top 40. This was the time when it really started to get nuts I think. His new (and infinitely better in my opinion) song had been rejected in favour of a record buying public continuing to purchase his previous single that had been No 1 for over three months. This was just bonkers!

In the US, it would peak at No 2 but you know what they put on the B-side of the US release? Yes, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”! It had been No 1 in America for seven weeks! Why make it at the B-side?! In the UK the flip was a live version of his duet with Tina Tuner “It’s Only Love”. I quite liked the speeded up stop animation in the video which enlivened an otherwise straight performance promo.

So it’s a 10th week for good ol’ Bry with that Robin Hood song. The video for “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was directed by Julien Temple which I don’t think I knew before. Bit of a contrast to his punk origins of the Sex Pistols film The Great Rock And Roll Swindle. Apparently it was shot in Sheffield. You’d have thought that he would have chosen Nottingham as his location wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s only about 30 odd miles from Sheffield anyway. And, the day it was being shot, Nottingham Forest were playing in the FA Cup final against Spurs. All the omens and references surely pointed to Nottingham not Sheffield? I wonder which football team Bryan Adams supports? Oh he must have a team. Look at Sylvester Stallone (Everton), Tom Hanks (Aston Villa) and Kevin Costner (Arsenal). Then you’ve got Robert Plant being a Wolves fan and Dave Grohl supports West Ham.

*checks internet*

I knew it! Bryan is a fan of….my beloved Chelsea! Who said he had/was bad taste?

It’s Right Said Fred and “I’m Too Sexy” to play us out but before that, Simon Mayo ends his last show before the ‘year zero’ revamp by signing off with “I’ll see you sometime”. He definitely knew didn’t he?

Back to the Freds and there’s a link between them and the aforementioned Julien Temple as the latter directed the Jazzin’ For Blue Jean short film for David Bowie to promote his 1984 “Blue Jean” single which starred none other than Richard Fairbrass as one of the band for fictional pop star Screaming Lord Byron. As toe curlingly awful as Jazzin’ For Blue Jean is (and I’ve watched it) it still knocks the promo for “I’m Too Sexy” into a cocked hat. What do you think about that Fairbrass?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bizarre Inc	Such A Feeling	Bizarre Inc? Godawful stink more like! No
2	Marc Bolan & T. Rex	20th Century Boy	No but I have a Best Of CD with it on
3	Roxette	The Big L.	No
4	Sabrina Johnston	Peace	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	The Stone Roses	I Wanna Be Adored	No but I’ve got the album
6	Crystal Waters	Makin’ Happy	It didn’t make me happy – no
7	Cliff Richard	More To Life	God no!
8	Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch	Good Vibrations	Nah
9	Rozalla	“Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”	I did not
10	Julian Lennon	Saltwater	No but I didn’t mind it actually
11	Shabba Ranks/ Maxi Priest	Housecall	NO!
12	Bryan Adams	Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started	Negative
13	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Double negative
14	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	It’s a final no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00103fx/top-of-the-pops-12091991

TOTP 28 JUN 1990

Posted on January 23, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s Summer 1990 and World Cup fever is on the rise. The England national team have just secured a place in the quarter finals of the competition two days prior to this TOTP broadcast when David Platt produced a swivelling volley moments before the end of extra time against Belgium to win the game 1-0 for England. Platty’s memorable intervention saved the nation from a penalty shoot out, something we had no experience of back then but which, by the end of the tournament, we would know the heartache and darkness of only too well.

But for now, the nation rejoiced and, labouring under the misapprehension that we had a bye into the semi finals as we faced Cameroon next, were starting to believe something truly special might be afoot. So were there any ‘special’ tunes in the chart to match the nation’s mood? Let’s see…

…well we start with “Oops Up” by Snap! and a bizarre performance that includes a rubber duck (supplied by presenter Gary Davies from the side of the stage via a throw of admirable accuracy) that appears to get squeaked throughout the song. I hadn’t noticed that sound effect on the original recording but, having checked, it is there.

If the rubber duck was meant to soften the image and reputation of rapper Turbo B, it had a lot of work to do. Around this time, he was involved in a very unsavoury incident at a benefit show. The group had been asked by a promoter to do a PA at a nightclub for a benefit event but what Turbo hadn’t realised was that it was for an AIDS charity and the event took place in a gay nightclub. When the lights went up, Turbo found himself in a room full of drag queens and freaked out. Demanding to see the club owner, he allegedly proclaimed “If you ever book me in a place like this again, I’ll kill you”. The owner replied, with hands on his hips, “This is a gay club seven nights a week” at which point Turbo got him by his throat and began throttling him and then all hell broke loose. In a Smash Hits interview when quizzed about the incident, Turbo B’s version was a bit different:

“…if a man gets his ass grabbed by another man he tends to be upset. I tried to talk to this guy and tell him this is not supposed to be like this. His justification of my ass getting grabbed was that it was cool. It wasn’t, so he got choked.”

Despite his protestations that he wasn’t anti-gay later in the interview, it seems pretty clear that Turbo B was not exactly well informed nor accepting of anything that wasn’t strictly heterosexual. As a result of the incident, an organisation called Zap Snap! formed who would protest at Snap! gigs and this would inform singer Penny Ford’s decision to leave the group. In a songfacts website interview she stated:

“And that was another reason why I decided to leave Snap! Because my sister was a serious, staunch gay advocate, and it was like a blow to my family to have me out there being represented with a gay basher. So that’s what started Turbo’s decline“.

Sadly, I think we will be seeing more of Turbo B and his prejudiced views before 1990 is through.

Onto much safer and non-threatening ground next (or is it?*) as we get Jason Donovan and his latest single “Another Night”. From late ’88 to the end of ’89, Jase’s run of hit singles looked like this in terms of their chart peaks:

5 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2

However, as the new decade dawned, the spell appeared to be broken. His first single release of 1990 (“Hang On to Your Love”) peaked at No 8 whilst “Another Night” would really set alarm bells ringing when it failed to even make the Top 10 (topping out at No 18)! When asked about the charts and his position within them in Smash Hits at this time, Donovan had this to say:

“Do I worry about where my records get to in the charts? Oh yeah, of course I do. It wasn’t so great that “Hang On to Your Love” didn’t do as great as some of my other singles have done but looking back on it, I think I would have to put the blame on the strength of that particular song….I think it was a bit of a grower and not nearly as catchy as say “When You Come Back to Me”.

So how did you explain the chart performance of “Another Night” then Jason? It didn’t shift the required amount of units because it was a basically proper dog shit? It is actually dreadful. It sounds like a failed Song For Europe entrant, not good enough even for the Eurovision Song Contest.

*Donovan of course had his own homophobic incident in 1992 when he sued The Face magazine for publishing allegations that he was homosexual. The lawsuit led to a backlash in which he was accused of being homophobic. In his 2007 autobiography, Jason stated that suing The Face was the biggest mistake of his life.

Pretty sure we are on safe ground finally with Maureen and her version of “Thinking Of You”. I’m very doubtful that there are any scandals surrounding Ms Walsh. As Gary Davies mentioned, she was the vocalist on Bomb The Bass’ “Say A Little Prayer” back in ’88 and…what? She lied to Tim Simenon about what she did for a living when she met him in a nightclub by telling him she was a singer when she wasn’t? So there is a skeleton in her cupboard (albeit a small one). So what was her job at the time? Well, it was either (depending on the date of that nightclub meeting) working in Miss Selfridge or working in an admin position in the police force. Lying whist she was employed by the rozzers? Shameful.

Back to the music though and that guy who comes on and raps in the middle? What was with the cane?

Three Breakers next and we start with Double Trouble and “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”. Were these the guys who had a hit with “Street Tuff” along with that Rebel MC bloke? A quick search of Wikipedia says they are and that their cover of the Rose Royce classic was actually on their album “As One” which features ‘Street Tuff”. Coincidentally, they also did a remix of tonight’s opening song “Oops Up” by Snap!.

I don’t recall them doing this track though and on hearing it back, I’m not sure why they bothered. Jimmy Nail’s version back in ’85 was far more interesting and I’m not joking.

Hell, I’d even choose Madonna’s version over Double Trouble’s and her take on it was rubbish.

“Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” (the Double Trouble version) peaked at No 21.

Right, what’s this? Bobby Brown and Glenn Medeiros? WTF?! Really?! How? Why? So many questions. This seems an even more unwanted pairing than last week’s Sonia and Big Fun coupling. So, apparently this collaboration came about through Medeiros’s friend Rick James who …wait a minute! Rick James?! Funk legend Rick James?! He was a friend of wimpy Glenn Medeiros of “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You” fame?! That requires more explanation than the Bobby Brown connection even. Anyway, it was Rick who put Glenn in touch with Bobby Brown who was looking for someone to produce while he had some free time on his hands and so they worked on a song called “Love Me Little Lady” *pause while blogger vomits* which went on Glenn’s latest album. After Brown called him up to say how much he liked said album, Medeiros asked him to put a rap on the track “She Ain’t Worth It”. And the rest is…

“She Ain’t Worth It” was a No 1 record in the US and a no 12 hit in the UK. This was Glenn’s attempt to beef up his image (he even got a new haircut!) and sound but it’s like something New Kids On The Block would have rejected as trying too hard. In short, it wasn’t worth it Glenn.

Oh OK. I hadn’t realised that Del Amitri had another Top 40 hit in 1990 after “Nothing Ever Happens” at the start of the year but here they are on TOTP again. I knew that they had re-released “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” as a follow up to “Nothing …” but it had failed to be a hit for a second time despite some heavy radio play. I mistakenly believed that the same fate befell “Move Away Jimmy Blue” but it crawled to a high of No 36. Not as intriguing as “Nothing …” nor as immediate as “Kiss This Thing…”, it’s still a pretty good tune I think although not one of my favourites of theirs.

Now then, here was a chart anomaly and a half! A Irish jig complete with accordian, fiddle and a double bass? What the Hell was this?! It was, quite simply, magnificent in my book. The perfect antidote to all this homogenised house music, when asked about the sound of “The Great Song Of Indifference” in a Smash Hits interview, Bob Geldof admitted that it wasn’t a modern sound:

“Nope, it’s not a current record but then I’m hardly a major force in modern music. I’m frankly tired of hip hop and house and that. I know nothing about it except that I hear it a lot but it just sounds old hat”

Well said Sir Bob! This was only the second chart hit of Geldof’s solo career and it remains his last. His first had been the rather worthy sounding “This Is The World Calling” back in ’86 but “The Great Song Of Indifference” was a different beast altogether. Made with his band The Vegetarians Of Love (which was also the name of the accompanying album), its subject matter of world apathy in the face of humanitarian disasters and horror was in stark contrast to its knock about, almost joyful sound. Witness:

I don’t care if the Third World fries
It’s hotter there I’m not surprised
Baby I can watch whole nations die
And I don’t care at all

Supposedly Bob had wanted to infuse it with a cajun feel and had spent some time in Louisiana soaking up the cajun vibe before recording the album. The Irish dancing element of the performance here from the wee guy in the shirt and dickie bow at the front pre-dates Riverdance by four years! Marvellous stuff all round.

A couple of personal tie -ins to Bob and this record before I move on. At some point either myself or my wife must have bought this single as we used to dance around our one room flat to it when we first married. We used to really fling ourselves around. We were skint at the time and this would be what passed for a Friday night’s entertainment. Skint or not, they were happy, simpler times. Right at the end of the record there’s a bit when the musicians fall about laughing before Geldof’s distinctive tones clearly cut in with “Let’s listen…”. One of the guys laughing really sounds like Nick Heyward but I’m guessing it’s not.

And that second Geldof story? I once had a friend who did some freelance PR work and one of the people she worked for was the sadly departed Peaches Geldof. My friend found it all a bit demanding and was ready to jack it in. The final straw that broke the camel’s back? It was when Bob got involved and began calling her to to sort stuff out for Peaches. Not known for his tact and diplomacy, Bob’s phone calls prompted her to throw her work phone into the Thames whilst mid conversation with Geldof!

“The Great Song Of Indifference” peaked at No 15.

Damn. I thought for a moment when Gary Davies said “Still with the charts here’s Bruce…” in his intro to the next artist his next word would be Springsteen. Unfortunately for me, it was Dickinson. Yes, the Iron Maiden front man’s video for “All The Young Dudes” gets another airing for some reason. What? He went up 9 places to No 23 that week? I don’t care! His version of the Mott The Hoople* classic was awful! To be fair to Bruce Dickinson, he does seem to be a man of many talents. He’s a fully trained pilot and worked for a commercial airline for a while. He’s also a published author, he’s been a champion fencer (once rated the 7th best fencer in England), he’s presented his own radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music from 2002 to 2010 and he’s even created a successful beer called ‘Trooper’ with Robinsons brewery in Stockport. If only he’d left the singing alone.

*When I first started working in Our Price there was guy who used to come in who was obsessed with Mott The Hoople. He would come in regularly to check what albums we had of the band in stock (not many!) and would hang around for ages hoping to strike up a conversation with an unsuspecting member of staff about his faves. Takes all sorts I suppose.

Nest it’s a re-run of Maxi Priest‘s performance of “Close To You” from the other week next although Gary Davies tries to make out that Maxi is actually in the studio again.

Maxi never really did it for me and I got nothing else to say about this one. Do me a solid @TOTPFacts and help me out will you?

Maxi Priest was named after Max Bygraves. "He's my mum's favourite singer." He changed his surname from Elliott to Priest after discovering Rastafarianism. "It comes from the Priest Levi, a figurehead of the 12 tribes of Israel."#TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 15, 2021

Sorted!

Still at No 1 we find Elton John with “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”. Infamously, both songs on this double A-side had been flops when initially released individually at the end of ’89 but parent album “Sleeping With The Past” also had a truncated route to the top of the charts. Although it debuted at No 6 when released in Sep ’89, it departed the Top 10 the following week and fell out of the Top 40 completely after a month. Inevitably, once the success of the re-activated single kicked in, so the album was also revitalised. After knocking around the lower reaches of the Top 100, it climbed from No 54 to No 2 in one week! After three consecutive weeks in that position it embarked on a five week run at No 1 eventually going three time platinum in the UK alone. Yet for all that, it’s hardly regarded as one of his best albums I would speculate. Apart from “Sacrifice” and “Healing Hands”, are any of the other tracks on the album well known? Follow up single “Club at the End of the Street” didn’t even get into the Top 40. Elton in the Summer of 1990 was a very curious phenomenon indeed.

The play out video is “Unskinny Bop” by Poison. Having checked out their discography, I was amazed to discover that Poison had eight UK Top 40 hits. I could have named …let me think…four absolute tops. “Unskinny Bop” would have been one of the four. The timeline of their hits would have been beyond me though, not helped by a re-release of “Nothin’ But a Good Time” with nearly 18 months in between releases. I could not have told you when “Unskinny Bop” had been a hit for example but I can tell you that it did very little for me. It was a bit like “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (i.e not that good). And what the Hell was an “Unskinny Bop” anyway? Is ‘unskinny’ even a legitimate word? Supposedly it was just a guide lyric according to guitarist C.C. DeVille, a phonetic place holder until the proper lyrics had been written but it stuck (see also the lyrics to “The Riddle” by Nik Kershaw).

“Unskinny Bop” peaked at No 15.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Snap!	Ooops Up	Nope
2	Jason Donovan	Another Night	Another shite more like – no
3	Maureen	Thinking Of You	Not for me thanks
4	Double Trouble	Love Don’t Live Here Anymore	No love for this one at my house
5	Glenn Medeiros and Bobby Brown	She Ain’t Worth It	And neither was this song
6	Del Amitri	Move Away Jimmy Blue	No but it’s on my Best Of CD of theirs
7	Bob Geldof	The Great Song Of Indifference	Yes – present and correct in the singles box!
8	Bruce Dickinson	All The Young Dudes	As if
9	Maxi Priest	Close To You	Not my bag
10	Elton John	Sacrifice /Healing Hands	Not knowingly but I’ve since discovered that Healing Hands is on a Q Magazine compilation LP that I bought. That doesn’t count does it?!
11	Poison	Unskinny Bop	No

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000r6j0/top-of-the-pops-28061990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 14 JUN 1990

Posted on January 16, 2021 by 80stastic

We are less than one week (and only one game in the case of England) into the Italia ’90 World Cup and already the nation is gloomy about the team’s chances of progressing. A scratchy 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland in the first group match wasn’t the start that we’d hoped for and the game itself was a bit of a stinker. Cue Gary Lineker…

Ahem. Another draw (this time 0-0) with Holland followed two days after this TOTP was broadcast meaning qualification into the knockout stages hung in the balance. The drama, the tension. How about some music to calm our nerves….

Well, for a start off, presenter Bruno Brookes’ jacket of many colours would have been flashing me up and setting me on edge. Look at it! If Shakin’ Stevens and Adam Ant’s wardrobes had ever got together and sired a sprog, this would be it. Just revolting. There should have been a law to prevent such a jacket being worn on national TV. Talking of the law, here’s Guru Josh with his second consecutive hit “Whose Law (Is It Anyway?). Having conquered the charts earlier in the year with “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)”, here he is again with a single whose title sounds like it was inspired by a certain long running, satirical Channel 4 improvisational comedy series. However, I’m guessing was probably about the Entertainment (increased Penalties) Act, that the government introduced this year allowing fines of up to £20,000 for hosting illegal raves or parties. As you can probably guess by his appearance and performance here, Guru (Mr. Josh?) was very anti this legislation and its curtailing of rave culture.

As for the track itself, it’s pretty similar to “Infinity” to my ears with that distinctive saxophone sound to the fore again although the vocals (if you can call them that) are very grating and distracting. The engineer on this track was someone called Chinito Bandito whose sounds like a character from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Wacky Races.

After this single only made it to No 26 in the charts, Guru Josh decamped to Ibiza to concentrate on art and running a promotions company. He returned to the Top 40 one more time with a re-release of “Infinity” in 2008 but tragically committed suicide in December 2015.

Right. Who’s this? Maureen? Nothing to do with telephone directory services but in fact the woman who sang on Bomb The Bass’s cover of “Save A Little Prayer” back in ’88. She’s back on the show with another cover version but this time of the 1984 No 11 hit “Thinking Of You” from Sister Sledge. There seemed to be a rush of hit singles around the early ’90s that was based around the practice of taking an original well known song and covering it in a different musical style, usually of a dance orientated nature. Hell, there’s another one along straight after this! Here Maureen (full name Maureen Walsh but probably Mo to her friends don’t you think?) gives a Soul II Soul style treatment of this Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards penned disco classic. I’m not sure it was worth the effort to be fair.

The look of the performance here is very odd. Maureen at 5′ 10″ cuts an imposing figure on a small stage whilst the two guys backing her on keyboards look so out of place that they remind me of Raw Sex from French and Saunders. That’s before we even talk about the guy who comes on in the middle to do the seemingly obligatory but wholly incongruous rap.

“Thinking Of You” was as good as it got for Maureen when it peaked spookily at exactly the same chart position as the Sister Sledge original at No 11. She did release an album called “Take It From Me” in ’91 but you’d be hard pushed to find it anywhere today.

Another old tune given a musical refurbishment now as Snap! bring us their second hit of the year in “Ooops Up”. Not exactly a cover per se but it was certainly inspired by The Gap Band’s dance floor classic “Oops Upside Your Head” whilst also managing to shoe horn references to the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet”. Now I never knew this before but the full title of that Gap Band hit is actually “I Don’t Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops!)”. Hmm, bit of a mouthful – I can see why it is better known by its truncated moniker. Penny Ford, who does the vocals on this track, was actually a back up singer for The Gap Band earlier in her career although she wasn’t responsible for choosing it to for the Snap! track.

The original Gap Band lyrics ‘Everybody say oops up side your head, say oops upside your head’ were added to by the addition of the line ‘somebody say opala.’ So, ever wondered what an opala is? Well, obviously it’s the German for ‘Oops’ what with Snap! being the brain child of German producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti and nothing to do with Opal Fruits sweets (and yes I mean Opal Fruits and not the wanky Starburst re-brand). When I was at Poly, I knew a girl who thought the lyrics to “Oops Upside Your Head” were ‘Oops swap sides again, I said oops swap sides again’ because of the dance that went with it. The one where you have two lines sat on the dance floor who lean backwards, forwards and sideways together? You know the one. She had a point.

This next song sounds like it should be a cover version but it isn’t. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Maxi Priest had done a version of The Carpenters classic “Close To You” seeing as he’d already done reggae-fied covers of “Some Guys Have All The Luck” made famous by Robert Palmer and “Wild World” by Cat Stevens but it’s actually a Maxi original. I say reggae but Wikipedia tells me that Maxi’s music was actually reggae fusion as it has an R&B influence mixed in there as well. Whatever.

“Close To You” was (almost unbelievably) a Stateside No 1 which I never knew until now making Maxi (known as ‘The happiest man in pop’ according to Smash Hits magazine) only the second ever UK reggae act to achieve that feat after UB40 with “Red Red Wine” in 1988. The Brummie lads repeated the trick in 1993 with their cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. Maybe British reggae was quite the thing in the US at the time then.

For the completists out there, yes there was a cover of The Carpenters “(They Long to Be) Close to You” (to give it its full title) recorded by soul singer Gwen Guthrie in 1986 which made No 25 in the UK charts. So definitely not by Maxi Priest.

Some ropey old shite next as we get the “Freestyle Mega Mix” by Bobby Brown. This was a medley of Brown’s previous hits “Every Little Step”, “On Our Own”, “Don’t Be Cruel” and “My Prerogative” which was released as a single to promote his remix album “Dance!…Ya Know it!” although it wasn’t included on the album itself.

Presumably the whole project was an attempt by his record company MCA to keep Brown’s profile high while he was in between albums (his follow up to 1988’s multi-platinum “Don’t Be Cruel” didn’t appear until 1992) and it reeks of cynicism. Somehow this steaming turd got all the way to No 14 in the UK Top 40.

Another run out for the video for “The Only One I Know” by The Charlatans next. Taken from the album “Some Friendly”, I didn’t realise until now (not having bought it) that it actually didn’t appear on the vinyl version of the album initially as the band wanted to take only one single from each album with follow up “Then” being the designated single.

20 years on from its release, “The Only One I Know” appeared in a Cadbury’s chocolate advert which would have been unthinkable back in the day. At least it wasn’t used to advertise Revels the orange flavour of which was the inspiration for the lyrics to their song “Polar Bear” which was also on “Some Friendly” and was gave the title of Charlatans fanzine Looking For The Orange One.

“The Only One I Know” peaked at No 9.

Pretty sure this is the third time Betty Boo‘s “Doin’ The Do” has been on the show but that this is the first time she has made a studio appearance after the promo video was broadcast twice previously. Now apparently, Betty used to work in Dorothy Perkins on a Saturday before she was a pop star and guess what? Maureen who we saw on the show earlier used to work in Miss Selfridge. This made me wonder if any other pop stars had worked in clothes shops before finding fame. Didn’t Kaiser Chiefs front man Ricky Wilson used to work in Next? I’m sure he admitted this in an interview once and managed to avoid using the till for a whole year as he hadn’t been trained on it. His time there paid off though as he won the Shockwaves NME Award For Best Dressed Person in 2006.

Not sure if Betty won any awards for her dress sense but she’s rocking that space cadet look in this performance. She should have gone for a purple wig though in the style of the female Moonbase personnel in the old Gerry Anderson space series UFO. She would really go for the space theme in a big way though with the video to her next single ‘Where Are You Baby?”

“Doin’ The Do” peaked at No 7.

Oh Lord! As if we haven’t seen enough of this lot already in 1990, New Kids On The Block are back with a new single and another album! “Step By Step” was the title of both lead single and parent album and is their biggest selling record going to No 1 in the US for three weeks and being certified platinum. I obviously wasn’t the target audience but even allowing for my unreceptive ears, this was utter, utter drivel. Bland by numbers dance pop of the most anonymous kind, what did people see in it? I’m missing the point though by looking for any musical merit. The fact was that the group’s popularity was at such a high by this point that they could have released some rectal discharge in a branded NKOTB plastic bag and it would have sold. The Step One, Step Two etc parts where the individual members get a solo bit are especially repugnant though. Worse than all of the above though is that this is only the fifth of eight chart hits that they racked up in 1990 alone! Gulp.

The World Cup is in full flow (even if the England team weren’t by this stage of the tournament) so predictably New Order are still No 1 with “World In Motion”. I say New Order but I think it was officially credited as ‘England New Order’. Unlike the Euro ’96 “Three Lions” anthem which was created by actual football fans in David Baddiel and Frank Skinner that was reflected in the lyrics, New Order weren’t massive football fans and the lyrics to “World In Motion” are suitably vague as to not specifically centre them in the sphere of football. Apparently the FA wanted to avoid anything that could be construed as a football hooligan chant. Yes, Keith Allen was a footy nut but despite his influence, I think there is a huge difference in the tone of “World In Motion” compared to “Three Lions”. New Order were not in a good place as a band (they would split three years later) and so maybe the whole football song experiment was seen as some sort of light relief and a bit of a laugh. Their expectations were low and mirrored the nation’s lack of hope for a successful campaign by the football team. Both perspectives were to be triumphantly turned on their heads by performances both in the charts and on the pitch.

Conversely, by the time Euro ’96 rolled around, football had gone through a transformation and was popular again and not just with the working classes. Under Terry Venables and with home advantage, England were expected to go all the way whilst the “Three Lions” song featuring two well known comedians who had already tied their football colours to the post with the Fantasy Football League TV show, was seen as a potential huge hit right from the off. Ultimately the record would indeed be a smash hit going to No 1 on two separate occasions during its ’96 run alone whilst the football team would fall tantalisingly short again.

The play out video is “Girl To Girl” by 49ers. I barely remembered their biggest hit from earlier in the year “Touch Me”, so this one had no chance, especially with it peaking at a lowly No 31. I don’t think I missed out on much in retrospect.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Guru Josh	Whose Law (Is It Anyway?)	Nah
2	Maureen	Thinking Of You	Not for me thanks
3	Snap!	Ooops Up	No
4	Maxi Priest	Close To You	Not my bag
5	Bobby Brown	Freestyle Mega Mix	Big no
6	The Charlatans	The Only One I Know	No but it’s on their Best Of Melting Pot CD that I have
7	Betty Boo	Doin’ The Do	No but my wife had it on a Smash Hits Rave album
8	New Kids On The Block	Step By Step	What do you think?
9	New Order	World In Motion	Call the cops! There’s been a robbery. This isn’t in my singles box!
10	49ers	Girl To Girl	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000qzml/top-of-the-pops-14061990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 13 MAY 1993

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TOTP 06 MAY 1993

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TOTP 12 SEP 1991

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TOTP 28 JUN 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 14 JUN 1990

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Some bedtime reading?