TOTP 20 APR 1995
Those big BBC changes keep on coming in 1995. The day after this TOTP aired, both Bruno Brookes and Steve Wright presented their final shows on Radio 1. Brookes, of course, had hosted his last TOTP just the other week; Wright hadn’t been near the corporation’s flagship pop music show for years. Dear old Uncle Steve probably felt hard done by having been shunted from his natural habitat of Radio 1 afternoons to the Breakfast Show by new controller Matthew Bannister in the January of the previous year. The new time slot hadn’t worked out and the Monday after Wright’s departure, the era of Chris Evans commenced.
Whatever your opinion of Mr Evans, there’s no denying he created some noise around himself and his show. The first time I became aware of him was in 1992 when he presented a Sunday afternoon show on Radio 1 called Too Much Gravy and he genuinely sounded like a breath of fresh air. He had a feature where he asked listeners to suggest songs that were really long and really short in length as I recall. Later that year he would break into TV with The Big Breakfast and his fame (some may say infamy) was assured. Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush would follow (made by Evans’ own production company) before the call came from Matthew Bannister to renew his relationship with Radio 1. His breakfast show would add 600,000 new listeners possibly due to the controversy it created with innuendo-laden features and the regular questioning of a female member of his team called Holly Samos about her sex life. Over the next couple of years, Evans would become one of the biggest celebrities around aided by the rise of ‘lad culture’ and his Channel 4 show TFI Friday. This post isn’t about blowing smoke up Chris Evans’ arse though so on with the music and we start with Pato Banton and Ranking Roger and their duet “Bubbling Hot”.
Now, if like me you’re wondering why this sounds so familiar even though you weren’t aware that it even existed until it was featured on these TOTP repeats, then here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why:
Roger, of course, is probably best known for his time as a member of The Beat though there is much more to his musical legacy including a band who never had a UK Top 40 hit though they did achieve some success in America. General Public were kind of a punk /ska supergroup comprising a line up of ex-members of The Specials, The Clash, Dexys Midnight Runners and the aforementioned The Beat’s Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger. Though ignored at home, three of their songs would make it into film soundtracks resulting in hits on the US charts. The John Hughes pictures Weird Science, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off plus the Alicia Silverstone starring Clueless all feature General Public tracks of which this is probably my favourite:
Wakeling and Roger reactivated General Public in 1995 and would score another US hit from another film soundtrack (this time Threesome) with a version of the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There”. Sadly, Ranking Roger died of cancer in 2019 aged just 56.
Next up we have *checks notes* ah yes, some Eurodance. Of course we do. You couldn’t sodding avoid this soulless genre back then. Corona are this week’s exponent of the genre’s paucity of passion with their single “Baby Baby”. There are few if any redeeming features on display here. Even the singer isn’t the actual singer. Echoing Black Box’s vocalist deception, the woman fronting the whole sham here – Olga Maria de Souza – was just that, a front. The voice on the track belongs to someone called Jenny B. In fact, despite being the public face of the act throughout the 90s and beyond, Souza didn’t actually lay down her own vocals on any Corona recording until 2005! We’re talking Boris Johnson levels of building a career based on nothing but smoke and mirrors here. “Baby Baby” would somehow become a No 5 hit. The more I hear, the less I understand.
A genuinely arresting song now that would make you stop in your tracks the first time you heard it. Portishead had firmly been announced by the music press as the movement leaders of trip hop by this point though this wasn’t an image that the band themselves wished to promote. After “Glory Box” had made them bona fide Top 40 stars earlier in the year, a rerelease of their debut single “Sour Times” was deemed sensible and what a sound decision it proved to be.
After making No 57 in August of 1994, it would peak at No 13 second time around. Many a descriptor has been used to identify Portishead’s sound in general but on this track in particular, words like ‘haunting’, ‘melancholy’ and ‘cinematic’ are certainly not wide of the mark. That last one certainly rings true. “Sour Times” features a speeded up sample from a track from film composer Lalo Schifrin’s album “More Mission: Impossible”. Not only that but the video features footage from a short film made by the band themselves! I had no idea such a thing existed! Said film is called To Kill A Dead Man and a still from it formed the cover of their “Dummy” album. The theme from the film was an extra track on the CD single of “Sour Times” and gives off some serious 60s spy film vibes…
Of course, Portishead weren’t the first band to make their own feature film. ABC came out with Mantrap in 1983 and, like To Kill A Dead Man, it was a spy caper and had its own theme tune called “Theme From Mantrap”.
After that rather spine tingling interlude, we’re back to the cruddy, generic dance music. I say generic but there was something that set Real McCoy apart from their peers and that was that for some reason their particular brand of Eurodance crossed over to America. They had two No 3 hits over there with “Another Night” and “Run Away” not though with this one, “Love & Devotion”. Yes, I know the TOTP caption says “3rd UK hit and 2nd US Top 20 hit” but as far as I can tell, this isn’t true. This track wasn’t released as a single in America.
Anyway, so what was it about the Real McCoy version of Eurodance that succeeded over the pond where the genre generally didn’t prove to be popular? I think I may have said in a previous post whilst commenting on another of their hits that there seemed to be more of a classic pop song structure to their output than some of their contemporaries so was that a factor? Bizarrely, in the case of “Love & Devotion”, I could probably understand if that had been a major hit in the US (it wasn’t released there remember) as it has more than a passing resemblance to Ace Of Base whose Euro-infused cod reggae sound provided them with a No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. I’ll say it again, the more I hear the less I understand.
When it comes to songs from films, Portishead, despite having their own short film to their name, had some way to go to catch the soundtrack master Bryan Adams. The Groover From Vancouver’ first had one of his songs featured in a film in 1983 when “Heaven” appeared in the largely unknown A Night In Heaven and by 2002 he had written a whole soundtrack album by himself for the animated western Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron but it was the 90s when he bestrode the genre mammoth like. Starting with that Robin Hood song, he followed it up by being part of a trio with Sting and Rod Stewart on “All For Love” from The Three Musketeers and then came “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” from Don Juan DeMarco. Yet another ballad (all his film songs seemed to be of the love variety), the flamenco guitar gave it a differential to the others but for me it was always a bit of a damp squib. Sorry Bry but I’ve never really loved this song. Not one bit.
It’s the ‘album’ slot now but as is commonwith this feature, what we actually get is a very long preview of the artist’s next single. Wet Wet Wet’s latest album “Picture This” (as the TOTP caption says) was No 1 and had already sold 340,000 copies (it would go on to shift 900,000 units) so I guess it made sense to have the top selling artist on the show. The track they perform here is “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now” which would end up being their next single when it was released in June. It’s an accomplished, well produced pop song but a little to formulaic and obvious for me. It would peak at No 7 when finally released.
If the track itself didn’t really intrigue me, I was struck by something about the performance of it, namely that bass player Graeme Clark and keyboardist Neil Mitchell have swapped places and instruments. Was that just some sort of band in joke or did they perhaps want to have a laugh by messing with the usual set up? Neither looks convincing in their new role. Neil hardly moves his fingers at all along the bass neck whilst Graeme literally bashes around on the keys like he was Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones. It got me thinking though about other occasions in the show’s history where a classic band line up has been subverted. Later in the year we would get the classic Oasis performance of “Roll With It” when Noel and Liam exchanged places and didn’t Jimmy Somerville and Sarah Jane Morris mine each other’s vocal parts when performing “Don’t Leave Me This Way”? I think they did. Must be something about songs that begin with the word ‘Don’t’.
Ah, it’s Björk. Always a difficult review for me. I used to think I didn’t like Björk because she can’t sing. Then I came to the realisation that she can sing but I just don’t like her voice. Then I surprised myself when rewatching these BBC4 TOTP repeats by actually appreciating and even liking some of her material like “Venus As A Boy” and “Big Time Sensuality”. So how do I approach and revisit “Army Of Me”, the lead single of her second album “Post”? Well, I’m afraid this one doesn’t work for me. Too menacing, brooding and industrial sounding for my delicate pop sensibilities. However, even I couldn’t resist the charms of her version of “It’s Oh So Quiet” when she scored a massive hit with it over the Xmas period.
Björk is back on the show in a future repeat alongside Skunk Anansie to perform a remix of “Army Of Me”. Maybe I’ll like that version better. By the way, this was yet another song that featured on a film soundtrack – the big screen adaptation of the comic book character Tank Girl. The collection of songs was assembled by Courtney Love and included tracks by her own band Hole (of course) and the aforementioned Portishead. This is fast turning into a film soundtrack special!
Or is it a Eurovision special? With the song contest just three weeks away, the BBC was ramping up its promotion of the annual event. The UK’s official entry Love City Groove will be along shortly but right now it’s an act that came third to them in the selection competition A Song For Europe. Deuce had already had a No 11 hit with “Call It Love” earlier in the year but their Eurovision attempt “I Need You” would go one better giving them their biggest ever hit. Having listened back to this rather nasty slice of Eurodance, I can understand why it didn’t win. Deuce were like a second rate Steps prototype and nobody needed that in their lives.
Despite being well beaten at A Song For Europe by Love City Groove, Deuce did pip their victors in one chart battle – they made it to the Top 10 first. Whilst the rappers were at No 17 this week, Deuce went straight in at No 10. LCG would eventually supersede that feat by peaking at No 7 after Eurovision had aired.
Take That remain at No 1 for a third week with “Back For Good”. The black and white video of the band mooching about in the rain in slow motion in front of some classic American cars became almost iconic, perhaps because it was the last to feature Robbie Williams in the band’s first incarnation. A still from it would form the cover for their 2005 Best Of “Never Forget – The Ultimate Collection”.
And so to Love City Groove. Tacked onto the end of the show as an additional tenth track (most shows of this period had featured nine), this looked like a clear case of hype building for Eurovision by the BBC. I guess in this week in particular they could make the case that its inclusion was merited as it was the highest climber on the chart leaping from No 26 to No 17. My guess is that this won’t be the last TOTP appearance for “Love City Groove”.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Pato Banton and Ranking Roger | Bubbling Hot | Nah |
| 2 | Corona | Baby Baby | NO! |
| 3 | Portishead | Sour Times | No but my wife had the album |
| 4 | Real McCoy | Love & Devotion | Negative |
| 5 | Bryan Adams | Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? | Nope |
| 6 | Wet Wet Wet | Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now | I did not |
| 7 | Björk | Army Of Me | It’s a no |
| 8 | Deuce | I Need You | But I don’t need you or your record |
| 9 | Take That | Back For Good | No but my wife did |
| 10 | Love City Groove | Love City Groove | 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/m001rrzj/top-of-the-pops-20041995
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 