Michael Jackson | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 14 DEC 1995

Posted on April 23, 2024 by 80stastic

As the 7th December show wasn’t repeated on BBC4 due to the issue of it being hosted by Gary Glitter, we’ve jumped a week and find that this week’s presenter is someone we hadn’t seen in that role for nearly nine years! John Peel was last seen on TOTP in February 1987 so why was he suddenly back on our screens? The answer would be revealed at the end of the show when Peel is ambushed by Michael Aspel who informs him that he is the subject for an episode of This Is Your Life. Supposedly, the whole thing had been orchestrated by the BBC but it begs the question of why Peel himself thought he had been brought in from the cold for what would prove to be a one off return to the show. Didn’t he suspect something was afoot? After all, this was the era of the ‘golden mic’ slot – surely executive producer Ric Blaxill could have wheeled in a current celebrity or pop star for hosting duties over plucking Peel from the dusky corridors of late night Radio 1? Wouldn’t that have occurred to the experienced, seen-it-all Peely? Perhaps not as he seems genuinely surprised by the appearance of Aspel at the close of the show.

As for what John made of the artists he was presenting on this particular episode, well, I cant speak for him but, you know what, I’m going to have a go anyway. We start with Everything But The Girl and “Missing”. Is this the third time on the show for this one? Or maybe the fourth? This was bound to happen when a hit has the staying power that this one did. Fourteen consecutive weeks inside the Top 10? TOTP couldn’t ignore that sort of chart run.

Just as all roads seemed to lead to The Beatles at this time, there’s an element of The Fab Four to the story behind this song. The Beatles were turned down by record label Decca on New Year’s Day 1962 with manager Brian Epstein being told that guitar groups were on the way out – a year later Beatlemania broke out across the world. In 1995, after the original version of “Missing” had failed to become a hit, Ben and Tracey were let go by their UK record label Warner who told them that it was time to call it a day despite being played the Todd Terry mix of “Missing” and the track “Protection” that they’d worked on with Massive Attack. That remix would sell 1.2 million copies in the UK alone. Bloody record labels – what do they know?

Would John Peel have liked it? Surely he’d have liked this one

On account of us missing that Gary Glitter episode, I fear we’ll be served up the same songs that we saw in the last TOTP repeat. That certainly seems to be the case with “The Gift Of Christmas” by Childliners and what an unfortunate case it is. They’ve got the ‘galaxy of stars’ that was this charity collective into the studio again which presumably was a logistical nightmare so I’m surprised that the TOTP producers went for this option again. Just to prove my point, Michelle Gayle is front and centre in the line up this time – I’m sure she was missing the first time around. Boyzone, at least, were booked on the show in their own right to make the scheduling slightly easier. After seeing PJ/Ant had nicked his spiky hairstyle which he was sporting last time, Ronan Keating has completely flattened his locks for this appearance slightly giving him the look of a choirboy. I’ve no doubt that wannabe pop star ex-EastEnder Sean Maguire didn’t need asking twice to turn up given his desperation to traverse from the world of acting to the charts. Look at him jumping up and down at the end of the song trying to get into shot as our host does his next link. Had he no respect for himself nor Peel?

Would John Peel have liked it? He’d have had no truck with this rabble, charity record or not

This is definitely a third time on the show for the video of “Free As A Bird” by The Beatles. Obviously the video had to be the promotional tool for this single. There was no way that Paul, George and Ringo were going to rock up to the TOTP studio and perform the song with – what? – an image of John projected onto a screen behind them and Jeff Lynne lurking about in the background? Never happening and would we have wanted that anyway? I’m not sure. Having said that, such an appearance might have upped the single’s sales enough to overtake Michael Jackson and make it the Christmas No 1. Talking of which, I’m sure that “Free As A Bird” would have been the favourite for the festive chart topper crown as soon as news of its release came out. However, as the chart announcement neared, predictably Boyzone were in the hunt with Björk being seen as the ‘out of left field’ decent each way bet. The Beatles’ chances were further undermined by the late emergence of the perhaps even more left field The Mike Flowers Pops and their version of “Wonderwall” (more of whom later).

Perhaps they were also hampered by the fact that once people had heard “Free As A Bird”, they realised that it wasn’t all that after all. Sure, the huge fan base were always going to buy it and those intrigued by its status as a piece of pop history maybe bought it for that reason and not what it sounded like but it was never going to sustain as a classic track. An appearance by the then remaining Beatles on TOTP twenty-five years after splitting? That really would have been a moment in cultural history.

Would John Peel have liked it? Tricky one this. He was born on the Wirral and was famously a massive fan of Liverpool FC so he must have felt a connection to The Beatles. Indeed, during his early career in the States, he was hired by Dallas radio station KLIF as their official Beatles correspondent. However, would he have liked this particular track. I doubt it.

After achieving their first and so far only No 1 single with their last release “Fairground”, Simply Red must surely have expected a bigger hit than this follow up – “Remembering The First Time” – gave them when it peaked at No 22. Or would they have? Mick Hucknall and co were always more of an album band when it came to shifting units. Of their twenty single releases before “Fairground”, only four of them made the Top 10 with seven not piercing the Top 40 at all. When it came to albums though, well, just look at these numbers;

Album	Released	Chart peak	UK sales
Picture Book	1985	No 2	5 x platinum
Men And Women	1987	No 2	3 x platinum
A New Flame	1989	No 1	7 x platinum
Stars	1991	No 1	12 x platinum
Life	1995	No 1	5 x platinum

I have to say I don’t recall this one at all but then it is almost instantly forgettable though its lyrics should live long in the memory for all the wrong reasons.

Sitting here looking at the table, it’s just like a photograph, there’s you and me, fruit, drink, good food

All the things we did, the things we did, from the shower we took to the very first look

Words and music Mick Hucknall
EMI Music Publishing Ltd/So What Ltd

Ugh! The notion of Hucknall in the shower should never be articulated! Then there’s the chorus which ends with Mick singing “diddly dip, diddly dip” which sounds like the musical equivalent of The Flowerpot Men’s catchphrase “Flobabdob” which is in no way any sort of endorsement. In short, this was a bit of a stinker. Maybe that shower was desperately needed.

Would John Peel have liked it? No way! No way did Peel like Simply Red. He confirms this in his undoubted piss take comments after the performance about how Hucknall is the master of melody and that he can’t get enough of him.

1995 gave us a whole pan full of shit music and in many varieties of stool but surely none stank the charts out more than The Outhere Brothers. These two arses somehow wiped up two No 1s in “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” and “Boom Boom Boom” and a further Top 10 hit with “La La La Hey Hey”. They rounded off the year by joining forces with Molella on “If You Wanna Party”. Who was/is Molella? An Italian DJ and producer of course (weren’t they all?) who, judging by his Discogs entry, has worked with a load of names from the world of dance that I’ve never heard of. Would his input make any difference to The Outhere Brothers’ sound? No chance. This was more of their usual call and response bullshit – the musical equivalent of “Oggy Oggy Oggy, Oi Oi Oi!”. Their hits were more like ringtones than songs. Thankfully, they will only have one more UK chart hit after this – 1997’s “Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole Olé’” – with their final single being a remix of their debut release, a rather aptly titled little ditty called “Pass The Toilet Paper”.

Would John Peel have liked it? Bollocks he would!

It’s the aforementioned Ronan Keating and his Boyzone mates now as they’re back in the studio once more to perform their version of “Father And Son”. I think I’m right to give Ronan top billing as it really does feel like the rest of them are his backing band on this one, ‘oohing and aahing’ away behind him. As per his previous two appearances, Ronan takes it upon himself to address the studio audience mid song to big up the band, this time with a “we’ve had a great year” comment. I suppose they had; a No 1, triple platinum selling album and four huge hit singles, they were positioning themselves as the natural successor to Take That even though the lads from Manchester were still a going concern despite having very publicly lost a member. Maybe Boyzone or their management had some insider knowledge – literally just two months after this TOTP aired, almost to the day, Gary Barlow uttered these infamous words at a press conference “Unfortunately the rumours are true…from today there is no more”.

“Father And Son” would sell 600,000 copies in the UK peaking at No 2 and Ronan would revisit the song in 2004, recording a virtual duet with Cat Stevens to promote his solo Best Of album “10 Years Of Hits” and matching the chart position he achieved with Boyzone.

Would John Peel have liked it? The Cat Stevens original? Possibly. The Boyzone cover? I don’t think so

It’s another of those songs that had a long chart life next. Everything But The Girl, Boyzone and now Björk racked up a total of 32 weeks inside the Top 10 between the three hits on this show tonight – that’s well over half a year! I’m guessing that these singles experienced longevity of sales beyond what would normally be expected because of the time of year they they happened to be in the shops. The Christmas retail period would usually artificially inflate sales as members of the public, who wouldn’t normally frequent their local record emporium, would make an annual pilgrimage with shopping lists in hand. Even so, there was clearly something about these records that made them crossover into the mainstream consciousness. Boyzone’s single was always going to be a big hit I suppose but Everything But The Girl and Björk’s offerings were less obviously huge sellers.

In the case of “It’s Oh So Quiet”, I think the fact that it was a song from the 50s and had a big band backing helped it to appeal to an older audience despite Björk’s rather unique vocal stylings. The staging of the performance here works really well I think with the brass section hit by spotlights every time they burst into life and Björk cavorting about like a mischievous Nordic pixie sprinkled in fairy dust.

Would John Peel have liked it? Oh I reckon so don’t you?

And so to that late entrant to the race to be Christmas No 1. A complete outsider coming up on the rail from nowhere, with what was considered by many to be a novelty hit are The Mike Flowers Pops with their rendition of “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Despite working in a record shop at the time, I had no idea who this lot were or where they had come from but their backstory was that they’d been on the live circuit since 1993 and were seen by the producer of Radio 1 DJ Kevin Greening’s show who asked them to record easy listening versions of chart songs for a section called ‘Hits of 95’. “Wonderwall” was the first one they did and it was picked up by Chris Evans who told listeners of his breakfast show that it was the original version of the song. What larks! I heard a story that someone at Creation got spooked and rang Noel Gallagher to ask him if he was absolutely sure that he’d written “Wonderwall” and that he hadn’t just copied an obscure easy listening track because someone had discovered it and found Noel out! I didn’t listen to Kevin Greening’s show so just thought this was a case of someone finding a new angle to cash in on the success of Oasis*

*Tribute band No Way Sis would do a similar thing but in reverse when they bagged a chart hit in 1996 by releasing a version of easy listening classic “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” by The New Seekers in the style of Oasis.

To me, The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” was entertaining the first time you heard it and maybe a couple more after that but I couldn’t really understand why it turned out to be such a big hit going all the way to No 2. Maybe it was just that Christmas factor again. My wife liked it enough to go and see them live at the Manchester Academy though and enjoyed the evening. With their profile raised, the band would play at much bigger venues and were in demand for a while. Two more minor Top 40 hits followed in the new year but they will surely be defined by “Wonderwall”.

By the way, that Christmas Day TOTP that John Peel mentioned was shown on BBC4 in 2020 and in that repeat, they announced The Mike Flowers Pops as the festive chart topper. How so? Apparently, they’d recorded two chart rundowns as the Christmas chart wasn’t announced until December 24th and so they wouldn’t have known at the time of recording who was No 1. Somehow when they aired the repeat, they showed the wrong version with Michael Jackson not in pole position. Well, it was the Christmas of COVID so we were all a bit stressed out to be fair.

Would John Peel have liked it? I think he would have got on board with it at least initially anyway.

And so to the aforementioned Michael Jackson who is at No 1 and will stay there for Christmas with “Earth Song”. In total, it would spend six weeks stop the UK singles chart going on to sell over a million copies here. I have to say that I’m surprised it was such a success – it has always sounded so overwrought and the wrong side of melodramatic to me (and Jarvis Cocker too we would go into find out at the 1996 BRIT Awards but that’s all for a future post).

Would John Peel have liked it? No way. Peel stood with Jarvis on this one I reckon.

As John Peel does his sign off at the end of the show, Michael Aspel appears like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn at his side and does the whole This Is Your Life thing. Brilliantly, the sardonic Peel says that he was “rather looking forward to going home actually Michael”. Unbelievably, he’ll have been gone 20 years this October.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Everything But The Girl	Missing	No but I must have it on something surely?
2	Childliners	The Gift Of Christmas	Not even for charity
3	The Beatles	Free As A Bird	Nah
4	Simply Red	Remembering The First Time	I did not
5	The Outhere Brothers / Molella	If You Wanna Party	Not with you guys thank you – bo
6	Boyzone	Father And Son	No
7	Björk	It’s Oh So Quiet	Negative
8	The Mike Flowers Pops	Wonderwall	Nope
9	Michael Jackson	Earth Song	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/m001xz4g/top-of-the-pops-14121995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 16 NOV 1995

Posted on April 7, 2024 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Happy Clappers	I Believe	Defo no
2	Sean Maguire	You To Me Are Everything	Ha! No
3	Coolio	Gangsta’s Paradise	Nah
4	Enya	Anywhere Is	Nope
5	Madonna	You’ll See	Negative
6	The Beautiful South	Pretenders To The Throne	Not the single but I think I have it on a subsequent Best Of
7	Michael Jackson	Earth Song	I did not
8	Tina Turner	Goldeneye	Never happened
9	Robson & Jerome	I Believe	As if

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001xqx3/top-of-the-pops-16111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 SEP 1995

Posted on February 29, 2024 by 80stastic

After last week’s nadir of content, things aren’t much better this week I have to say with a couple of honourable exceptions. It’s another ‘golden mic’ presenter slot again though unlike last week, I’m not expecting much. The double act of Jo Brand and Mark Lamarr were two of my favourite holders of the chalice but the bar is seriously lowered as this time it’s Robbie Williams. Not long departed from Take That, the cheeky Stoke-on-Trent lad probably seemed like a decent shout for the role given that he was headline news even before his solo career had begun* due to the fall out from the Take That split.

*He wouldn’t release his first solo single until July 1996

However, he must also have been a considerable risk given his appearance at that year’s Glastonbury Festival when he was clearly under the influence of…something. He was a loose cannon. He jokes early on that he’d even stayed sober for the show. Well, let’s see if he can live up to one of his song titles and entertain us…

We start tonight with D:Ream who were starting to run out of steam (and sales) some eighteen months after their No 1 song “Things Can Only Get Better”. Having taken the opportunity afforded by such a big hit and run with it by releasing a flurry of further singles to almost constant diminishing returns, the party was entering the past-midnight-talking-shite phase. Take “Party Up The World” for example. The second single from sophomore album “World”, it sounds like it was written to order to supply a middling sized hit with an equivalent sized amount of quality. The song is not aided by Peter Cunnah’s live vocal here – he definitely hits a bum note early on. “Party Up The World” would give D:Ream a No 20 hit but after that it was a case of reliving the glories of “Things Can Only Get Better” which was most famously utilised by the Labour Party for their 1997 General Election campaign. I wonder if Howard Jones ever sits at home and in a quiet moment of reflection thinks “What was wrong with my song?”

Oh, one last thing. The chorus from “Party Up The World” is surely ever so slightly influenced by this Erasure tune which is ironic as D:Ream also released a single called “Star” which didn’t sound anything like the synth pop duo’s track…

Some Eurodance next courtesy of Cappella who have changed their singer since the last time we saw them. After Kelly Overett departed, a replacement was found in the form of Alison Jordan who was initially discovered via the Search For A Star competition on BBC’s That’s Life show in 1992.

After their last few hits all had titles that were variations of the usage of the word ‘move’ and the letter ‘U’ (meaning ‘you’), the group returned to an earlier hit for the inspiration for this latest one. In 1992, they made it to No 25 in our Top 40 with “Take Me Away” and in 1995, they achieved their final UK hit with “Tell Me The Way” – it’s clever stuff no? No, not really and neither was this tune. It sounds like they’d cut and pasted the most obvious and shittiest riffs and beats from every Eurodance hit ever and just glued them altogether – the musical equivalent of a patchwork quilt but one covered in excrement.

Capella never had another UK Top 40 hit but the project is still a going concern albeit with a totally different line up and they performed on the 90s nostalgia circuit. They even released a single as recently as 2023 called “Happy Phonk” but nobody really noticed.

Unable to resist the lure of tomfoolery any longer, the previously staid and sensible persona Robbie Williams had adopted tonight until now goes out of the window as he goes into skit mode. The premise of said skit is that he’s going to reveal the truth behind what Take That are really like but the only rehearsed line he gets out before an extra dressed as a security guard drags him off camera is that they drink camomile tea. Are you entertained yet? As comedy routines go, it’s hardly up there with the “Don’t tell him, Pike!” scene from Dad’s Army is it?

The first video of the night comes from Foo Fighters for their second ever single “I’ll Stick Around”. It’s another pretty nifty, driving rock tune though not as strong a track as their debut single “This Is A Call” to my ears. Dave Grohl looks so young here but then I guess we all did 29 years ago. I used to work with a guy called Dave at Our Price who looked a bit like Grohl though on reflection I’m wondering if the lookie-likie claims were purely based on the fact that Dave had long rock hair and his name was…well…Dave.

And suddenly, from out of nowhere, a man who hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit since 1988 and hadn’t been on TOTP for a decade. That appearance had been as part of Lloyd Cole and The Commotions performing their single “Lost Weekend”. If you’d told the 17 year old me back then that Lloyd wouldn’t be on the show for another 10 years, I would have dismissed you as a crackpot completely divorced from musical reality and yet that is exactly what happened. But how did it pan out like this? Well, after “Lost Weekend”, things quietened down for Lloyd and the Commotions. Follow up single “Cut Me Down” barely scraped into the Top 40 and then the band disappeared for nigh on two years recording their difficult third album “Mainstream”. When it did finally come out, it seemed that the world had moved on from their crafted, intelligent jangle pop and despite achieving gold status, the three singles from it could only muster these chart peaks:

46 – 31 – 59

The writing was on the wall and the band read it. They split in 1989 leaving Lloyd to pursue a solo career that somehow never seemed to chime with commercial trends. Three albums were released in quick succession in the early 90s but to limited sales. Not one of them produced a Top 40 single. And then, something finally stuck with public opinion. “Like Lovers Do”, the lead single from fourth album “Love Story” made No 24 in the charts and a TOTP appearance was warranted. I don’t know why the stars aligned between Lloyd and the record buying public on this particular single and no other – maybe it was just good marketing and promotion but it’s a nice enough song I guess.

I always liked Lloyd right from “Perfect Skin” though I can’t say I followed his solo career in too much detail. However, I saw him and the Commotions on the “Mainstream” tour when he failed to say more than two words to the audience and years later on his own in New Mills when he wouldn’t stop talking. His opening line in the latter gig to the crowd was “I know you’re all sat there thinking Lloyd Cole has let himself go a bit. Well, you should have a look in the mirror”. Excellent!

Next a song that I do remember but which I don’t recall so much fuss being made about it at the time as seems to have been written about it online since. “Fantasy” was the lead single from Mariah Carey’s fifth studio album “Daydream”. Her previous one “Music Box”* had been a monster selling 28 million copies worldwide.

*Technically her third album but I’m disregarding her 1994 Christmas collection

So how do you follow that? You just churn out a copycat album don’t you? Based purely on lead single “Fantasy”, it sounded to me like she’d done just that – it didn’t seem a whole lot different to something like “Dreamlover”. But then, I hadn’t heard the Bad Boy remix by Puff Daddy. This was the evidence of Mariah’s new direction. Featuring rapping from Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard, it was seen as a milestone recording by many for the fusion of urban/hip hop with mainstream pop with an emphasis on rap as a featuring act. Alongside “I’ll Be There For You / All I Need To Get By” Method Man and Mary J. Blige, it was designated as an early recording of the “Thug-Love” sub genre.

Apparently, the rest of the album was of a more R&B flavour which caused much concern and consternation at her label Columbia who really didn’t want to mess with the formula that had brought her and them so much success. The head of Sony Music (and Mariah’s husband at the time) Tommy Mottola was especially vexed. Mariah knew best however and the album was another huge seller shifting 20 million copies worldwide with “Fantasy” going to No 1 in the US and No 4 over here.

I’m not sure that this live by satellite performance from New York was worth the effort though. Is that the official video playing on the huge tv screens behind Mariah? Wouldn’t they have been better off just showing that?

Inevitably, Robbie Williams has gone there and resorted to chatting up a female audience member for his next link. Obviously, it’s all staged (he puts on a silly fake American accent) but it’s still not a good look especially 29 years on.

OK, so back with the music and it’s another showing of the studio appearance by The Rembrandts from the other week. Watching it back, I’ve noticed that in the version of “I’ll Be There For You” the band perform here, the iconic handclaps at the end of the first line seem very low in the mix and nowhere near as prominent as in the opening credits for Friends. That seem a little odd as although the addition of them wasn’t the band’s idea and they didn’t actually record them (they were done by the show’s creators who wanted to be on the record in some way), supposedly The Rembrandts thought the clapping was the best part of the song. There’s only four claps after that first line (though it sounds like more) but apparently it took loads of takes to record as the aforementioned show’s creators just couldn’t get the hang of it. I wonder if their mothers warned them that there’d be days like these?

There’s two ways to consider the next hit on the show – either it’s a clever updating (by 1995 standards) of a classic disco track or…it’s an heinous abomination of an idea that should have been dismissed as soon as it crystallised in the originator’s brain. I think, rather predictably, I’m of the latter opinion. N–Trance had started the year with one of the biggest dance anthems of the decade in “Set You Free”. Featuring vocals from Kelly Llorenna, it was a genuine, credible Hi-NRG, rave track. I, for one, didn’t see them following it up by going the tacky cover version route.

“Stayin’ Alive”, of course, was originally by the Bee Gees and was part of the soundtrack to the movie and indeed cultural phenomenon that was Saturday Night Fever. A huge global hit, it was an American No 1 song and UK No 4 in 1978. Fast forward 17 years and it was given the rap treatment by Ricardo da Force whose previous credits included some of The KLF’s biggest hits. Now, given those credentials, I would have hoped for a better outcome than what N-Trance served up which seemed to me to be calculated and cynical to appeal to the cattle market disco crowd.

The performance here goes big on all the 70s disco motifs including the obligatory geezer in the white John Travolta suit. It all seems a bit naff. However, the part where he removes his jacket and twirls it around and throws it into the audience before it is slung back landing on his arm is choreographed quite well. And that’s as positive as I can be about this one. Nasty stuff.

Despite being trailed as the play out track on last week’s show and still not to be released for another four days, Simply Red are back on the show to perform their new single “Fairground”. Not wishing to be outdone by Capella’s costumes earlier, Hucknall has turned up in his own full PVC outfit. For the love of God man! Why?! This was clearly his full on, decadent pop star phase. Check out his overflowing ginger locks as well!

I’m reminded of my own Mick story which I’ve told before but which seems appropriate here. When I first worked in Manchester at the Our Price store in Market Street as a Christmas temp, there was a young woman on the staff called Natalie who was very attractive (I think she’d done done some modelling). One morning she came into work and told us that Mick Hucknall had chatted her up in a bar and wanted to see her again but she wasn’t sure what to do about it. A bit later that day, I answered the work phone and the person on the other end asked to speak to Natalie. When I asked who was calling he simply replied “Mick”. It was Hucknall! In the end, Natalie told him she wasn’t interested I think. That’s not quite the end of the story though. One morning, Natalie turned up to work in a skin tight, black catsuit. I’m not sure she’d been home from another night out. She turned to me and said, “Do you think my outfit is a bit much?”. I didn’t know where to look! Fast forward five years though and I certainly didn’t want to look at Mick Hucknall in his own version of a catsuit!

What’s that?! What about the song? Oh look, “Fairground” will be No 1 soon enough and for 4 weeks so there’ll be plenty of time to discuss it in a future post!

Michael Jackson is No 1 with “You Are Not Alone” for the second and final week. Jackson, like Mariah Carey, recorded for Sony and just as the Songbird Supreme’s (© The Guinness Book of World Records) relationship with the company’s CEO Tommy Mottola deteriorated to the point of divorce, so The King of Pop (© erm…Michael Jackson?) also had issues with him. Big issues. In a 2002 press conference, he called him a racist and held up a picture of Mottola depicted as the devil. Sony refuted the claims and refused to renew Jackson’s contract. In 2020, Kanye West even suggested that Mottola had something to do with Jackson’s death in 2009 in a since deleted tweet though I’m not sure Kanye is the most reliable source of information.

The play out track is “Let’s Spend The Night Together” by the Rolling Stones which was played to advertise the return of TOTP2 as highlighted by Robbie Williams in his final piece to camera but I’m not spending the night or any other time reviewing that one.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	D:Ream	Party Up The World	Nope
2	Cappella	Tell Me The Way	Never
3	Foo Fighters	I’ll Stick Around	I did not
4	Lloyd Cole	Like Lovers Do	I didn’t as it goes
5	Mariah Carey	Fantasy	Nah
6	The Rembrandts	I’ll Be There For You	Yes for my wife but she gave it away to our Friends obsessed goddaughter
7	N-Trance	Stayin’ Alive	As if
8	Simply Red	Fairground	Its a definite no
9	Michael Jackson	You Are Not Alone	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/m001wc3t/top-of-the-pops-14091995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 07 SEP 1995

Posted on February 25, 2024 by 80stastic

I’m into my eighth year of doing this TOTP blog and sometimes it’s not always easy to find the time or inclination to write up these BBC4 repeats. Occasionally, I get a bit behind (being in bed with flu for six days straight in 2019 didn’t help the cause) but I’ve always just about managed to keep it all ticking over. However, after all this time, I’ve finally come up against a show the running order of which is seriously making me contemplate jacking it all in. Honestly, I look at the artists on this particular episode and it’s so demoralising and demotivating. With one (possibly two) exception(s), the rest of them are totally uninspiring. It’s a low point and that’s for sure.

Thankfully there is a sliver of redemption in the ‘golden mic’ hosts Jo Brand and Mark Lamarr who provide some comedic distraction from the musical garbage. I always liked Brand – she seemed to offer something different at a time where apart from French and Saunders, I don’t recall there being many female comedians having a high profile. Jo’s was in the ascendancy via her Jo Brand Through the Cakehole series on Channel 4. Lamarr was about to (but not quite yet) become a panel show regular via his stints on Shooting Stars and Never Mind The Buzzcocks both of which would air shortly. At the time of this TOTP appearance though, he was best known as the outside roving reporter on The Big Breakfast and as the presenter who took Shabba Ranks to task for his homophobic comments on The Word. Lamarr has said that his time on that programme and also Shooting Stars was no fun whatsoever. If he didn’t like those two shows, God knows what he’ll make of this TOTP!

We get off to a hideous start with the to camera piece at the top of the show coming from ‘comedian’ Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown who for some reason says he’s Sharon Stone before correcting himself. More of him (unfortunately) later though. Next, we’re into the studio with our guest presenters and it’s Jo Brand who gets the first line and in a show of self depreciation refers to herself as “an old trout” whilst Lamarr remains silent, acting bewildered by looking into the studio lights. His fish out of water act will last the whole show.

The first performer tonight is Nightcrawlers featuring John Reid with “Don’t Let The Feeling Go”. This was the third consecutive hit for this lot in 1995 and it would peak at No 13. God knows how though as it is as dull as my beloved Chelsea’s attack. Add to this that its resemblance to its predecessors is almost indistinguishable (to my ears at least) and I can’t make any case to explain its success. It certainly can’t have been down to John Reid who fronted this nonsense. Look at the state of him. He looks like a third rate magician who believes he can mesmerise his audience with a flick of his locks. He’d probably be called Mysterio or something. Just dreadful.

Aside from their tunes all sounding the same, Nightcrawlers also extended their strategy of duplication to their song titles. Look at this lot:

Don’t Let The Feeling Go
Push The Feeling On
Let’s Push It
Keep Pushing Our Love
Should I Ever (Fall In Love)
Never Knew Love

Mate, there’s more words ‘in the English language than just ‘feeling’, ‘push(ing)’ and ‘love’. They’re not rationed – although that will probably be the next target for austerity for this government (ooh, bit of politics there as Ben Elton said back in the day).

Mark Lamarr gets to speak for the first time in the next link and goes with an impression of an annoying punter harassing the DJ at a club to play thejr request. I love the fact that he chooses to ask for experimental industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle and avant garde multi instrumentalist and visual artist Captain Beefheart as his picks. When Jo Brand replies in the negative to both, he rounds the gag off perfectly by asking for 70s soft rockers Smokie* and gets a ‘yes’ from his co-host thereby highlighting the bonkers make up of the UK Top 40.

*He’ll be sorry he asked though.

The next artist up is Whigfield who, after three fluffy, pop-dance hits (including the beyond irritating ear worm that was “Saturday Night”), has released a ballad as her next single. No, really! “Close To You” wasn’t even a cover version of The Carpenters classic (that was actually called “(They Long To Be) Close To You” anyway). This was an original song and it’s actually a decent stab at writing a ballad. Drenched with strings and an endearing melody, the problem with it is the vocals. Sannie Charlotte Carlson (Whigfield was the name of the act not the singer) just didn’t have the pipes to deliver it. I mean, she gives it her best shot and she nearly gets there but she’s never quite nails it – those on point notes are as elusive as a squirming Tory politician who just won’t give a straight answer (ooh, another bit of politics!). Whigfield would turn to another ballad for their Christmas single with a woeful and ill judged cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” giving them their final UK Top 40 hit.

Mark Lamarr is back to giving us the silent treatment in the next segue so he’s brought a sign to do the talking first him. And what does he want to say? “Where are The Butthole Surfers?”. Excellent! The riotous American noise rockers with the weird album titles like “Rembrandt Pussyhorse” and “Locust Abortion Technician” were hardly TOTP material. Indeed, I’m surprised Lamarr got away with his sign – many media outlets refused to call the band by their full name instead referring to them as ‘The BH Surfers’. After his Throbbing Gristle and Captain Beefheart comments earlier, I make that Mark Lamarr 3 BBC 0.

Now, the one truly bright light in this festival of crud. “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer is not only one of the most recognisable songs in musical history but also perhaps one of the most influential. Sounding ahead of its time when first released in 1977 it retained its freshness and doesn’t seem to have dated even decades later. Widely acknowledged as a pioneer of electronic dance music, its legacy can be heard in the many forms of the genre from house to trance to techno. That claim is evidenced by its own longevity – it has been a hit four times in the UK alone.

The 1995 incarnation was to launch a new sub label of Polygram called Manifeste and was remixed by Rollo and Sister Bliss from Faithless. Polygram had already had some success with the disco Queen’s back catalogue with their “Endless Summers: Donna Summer’s Greatest Hits” compilation from 1994 so it probably seemed like a decent commercial strategy. Berri’s concurrent hit “The Sunshine After The Rain” might have had something to do with it as well with its interpolation of “I Feel Love”. The clip shown on this TOTP isn’t that remix though. As the caption says, this was the ‘original promo VT’ from 1977. So why was that? Wasn’t there a video for the ‘95 remix?

*checks YouTube*

Yes, there was but having watched it, I’m guessing that the BBC censors may have felt it was too erotic. Maybe. The ‘95 remix made No 8 returning her to the UK Top 10 for the first time since her Stock, Aitken and Waterman era of the late 80s. Its success would lead to another Donna classic “State Of Independence” getting the remix and rerelease treatment the following year when it peaked at No 13.

Wait? What?! Michael Bolton again?! He was only on last week and yet he’s back again for a second consecutive studio appearance. Why?! Was it that damned practice of the ‘exclusive’ performance followed by another for it entering the charts? I think so but why was Bollers still in the country? Was he on tour here? Not according to the setlist.fm website. Maybe he was just doing promotional work for the single? Could be but his Greatest Hits album wouldn’t be released for another two weeks. Whatever the reason, “Can I Touch You…There?” benefitted from this appearance by sliding up the charts to a peak of No 6 and, having reviewed this awful song once already, that’s all I have to say about it. Obviously though, Lamarr and Brand weren’t going to let an opportunity to take the piss out of the shaggy haired one pass and got in a line about a “dodgy barnet”.

This is all very curious. Or perhaps it isn’t. The presence in the UK Top 40 of a hit sung completely in a foreign language had always been a rarity. There was “Je T’Aime…Moi Non Plus” by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg which topped the charts in 1969 despite being banned for its sexual lyrical content. The 80s contributed a few examples of the genre. In 1987, Los Lobos went to the top of our charts with the all Spanish track “La Bamba” from the film of the same name and a year later, singer Desireless took “Voyage Voyage” into the UK Top 5 with another French language only track. In 1989, the lambada craze gave Kaoma a hit song in Portuguese. There were also near but not quite all foreign language hits for Falco with “Rock Me Amadeus” and Manhattan Transfer (“Chanson D’Amour”) but both included a spattering of words in English as well as German and French respectively. There have been others since but the percentage of foreign language records making up our charts historically is tiny.

Then in 1995 came Celine Dion. Fresh from the elongated success of her long running No 1 single “Think Twice” and similarly chart topping parent album “The Colour Of My Love”, surely the wisest career move would have been to keep on churning out the power ballads? Instead, Celine’s next project was the French language album “D’eux” and I return to my original thought of “this was all very curious or was it?” because “D’eux” was actually Celine’s tenth album sung entirely in French. She didn’t record her first English language album until “Unison” in 1990 but she’d been releasing French sung albums since 1981. After all, she was born in Canada to parents of French descent and won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988 with a song sung in that language representing Switzerland. Despite all the above, the decision to return to singing in French post “Think Twice” didn’t seem an obvious one although “D’eux” was always going to be huge in certain European territories. It sold well enough in the UK though nothing like the numbers that “The Colour Of My Love” did. The lead single from it was “Pour Que Tu M’Aimes Encore” and we get Celine performing it by satellite from New York on this TOTP. The French language strategy was ditched after the “D’eux” project with Dion’s next album “Falling Into You” returning to power ballad territory.

Jo Brand’s comment about Celine being thin in the intro hasn’t aged well given all the eating disorder rumours that Celine has been subject to over the years (all of which she has denied). In Jo’s defence though, she was clearly being self deprecating about her own size.

A video exclusive from Janet Jackson next and like Michael Bolton earlier and indeed her brother Michael later in the show, the track it’s for is to promote a Greatest Hits album. “Runaway” was taken from “Design Of A Decade: 1986 – 1996” which would sell 600,000 copies in the UK alone. I guess after ten years of hits, a compilation album was in order especially as Janet seemed intent on releasing nearly every song from her studio albums as singles. Indeed, “Design Of A Decade” had 18 tracks on it.

Again like her brother, the video for “Runaway” looks like it could be a Jacko promo with huge swathes of imagery and backdrops including some major cities from around the world like Paris, Sydney and for the second time in the show following Celine Dion’s turn earlier, the Manhattan skyline. At times, it looks like Disney’s 2019 live action adaptation of Aladdin with shots of deserts and elephants.

The song itself is a jolly if unsubstantial little number but, in a final similarity to brother Michael, the little bridge into the chorus contains a a vocal inflection that sounds just like “Man In The Mirror”. Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Oscar Wilde once said.

And so we arrive at the nadir of this particular TOTP. Oh God! How did we get here?! Well, it was all the fault of the Dutch apparently, or more specifically a Dutch club DJ who came up with the jolly wheeze of playing 70s band Smokie’s “Living Next Door To Alice”, stopping the record at the chorus and getting the assembled throng to chant “Alice?! Who the f**k is Alice?!”. This craze took off for some unfathomable reason and a single was released to capitalise on it made by an act called Gompie. It was a hit all round Europe and made a brief appearance in our charts at No 34 in May of this year.

Come the Summer and the British holidaymakers abroad became exposed to Gompie’s song and created further demand for it back in Blighty. Meanwhile, Smokie (who had never stopped touring despite the hits drying up once the 80s dawned) got a whiff of the phenomenon and decided to get in on the act by recording their own ‘blue’ version of the song and roped in their mate, the comedian Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown who had made a career for himself off the back of his outspoken and indeed offensive style of humour. “Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice?)” would become a huge sleeper success spending 13 weeks inside the Top 40 including 7 within the Top 10. It was still on the Top 100 as Christmas approached! Given the fact that the record couldn’t be played on the radio unless it was an edited version with the ‘F’ word bleeped, presumably punters had to buy the damned thing to hear it in its full, intended form. And who wanted to do that?! Why was it funny?! I just didn’t get it. The TOTP performance here is just ludicrous with Brown having to actually say “bleep” instead of the ‘F’ word.

Ah yes, Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. I have questions which could probably be condensed to just one word (not that one!) -WHY?! My mate Robin asked himself the same question when he ended up rather unwillingly at a Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown gig. Apparently, it was all the fault of his pal Al whose Christmas work outing involved attending the gig and Robin tagged along as he was given a freebie ticket. I’m not sure if he knew what type of comedian Brown was beforehand but after the first gag, he got with it and thought “Oh no, what have I done?”. He lasted 10 minutes out of politeness to Al for getting him the ticket and then walked out. Brown spotted him leaving and started to have a go at him but Robin (who was the worse for wear) and to his eternal credit turned around, told Brown to “f**k off!” and flicked him the rods! Excellent work sir!

After the Smokie / Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown abomination, Jo Brand remarks upon what a strange combination those two acts were. Mark Lamarr however informs us that Jo herself had been part of an unlikely coupling having made a record with Alvin Stardust. What?! Was this a joke or for real? Sadly, it’s the latter as Brand and Stardust teamed up to do a version of Alvin’s 1973 No 2 hit “My Coo Ca Choo”! You’ll be pleased to know that I can’t find a clip of said record online.

Like Janet Jackson earlier, Erasure had also been around for 10 years by 1995 and seemed to be unaffected by the shifting musical trends by continuing to have hits. “Stay With Me” was their 23rd and the lead single from their eponymous seventh studio album. I’ve said before that despite being a fan throughout the 80s, I lost sight of Andy and Vince after about 1992 so I don’t know this one at all. However, it’s a well constructed, plaintive synth ballad (no jumping on the Britpop bandwagon for these two) with a strong melody which suits Andy’s voice perfectly – it’s one of his best vocals I think. It possibly should have got higher in the charts than No 15.

Lamarr sends up the No 1 which is from Michael Jackson by donning a blouse and lipstick as per Jacko’s look in the video for “You Are Not Alone”. I’m not sure that it’s the winning visual gag that they must have thought it was in rehearsal. This was Jackson’s first UK No 1 single since “Black Or White” in 1991 and he would follow it with a second consecutive chart topper in “Earth Song” which was also the Christmas No 1. 1995 eh? What a time to be alive!

Sometime back in 2022 when I was writing up the 1992 TOTP repeats I said something along the lines of “and that’s the last we’ll see of Simply Red for quite some time. Enjoy the break”. That break is now over as the ginger haired one is back. Back in 1995 that is. After the mega success of their last album “Stars” which sold 9 million copies worldwide, it was always going to be a tall order to replicate those numbers. Hucknall and co gave it a decent go though with follow up album “Life” despite it inevitably falling short of its predecessor’s milestone.

The lead single from it was “Fairground” which would give the band their only UK No 1 single. You’ll notice that the play out video used here isn’t the official promo but rather a bunch of clips of Hucknall performing with the track added over the top. I’m assuming that’s because the single would not be released for another eleven days and presumably the video for it was still being edited? Which leads us to the question “why is the track on TOTP so early?”. Well, in order to create a buzz around the single, it was made available to radio stations a month prior to release so by the time it came out, it was already the most played song on the airwaves. Quite an achievement and huge justification of record company marketing strategy. At the end of this TOTP, Hucknall pops up on screen to say that he’ll be performing “Fairground” on next week’s show. Given that the single went to No 1 and stayed there for a month, that’s another five forthcoming appearances on these BBC4 repeats and so I think I’ll leave Mick hanging for now.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Nightcrawlers	Don’t Let The Feeling Go	No
2	Whigfield	Close Tol You	Negative
3	Donna Summer	I Feel Love	Not the remix but I must have it on something surely?
4	Michael Bolton	Can I Touch You…There?	Never happening
5	Celine Dion	Pour Que Tu M’Aimes Encore	Never
6	Janet Jackson	Runaway	Nope
7	Smokie / Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown	Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice?)	Did I f**k!
8	Erasure	Stay With Me	No
9	Michael Jackson	You Are Not Alone	As if
10	Simply Red	Fairground	I did not!

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/m001wc34/top-of-the-pops-07091995

TOTP 31 AUG 1995

Posted on February 15, 2024 by 80stastic

OK, so given the news about the passing of Steve Wright recently and that this blog is based around a show that he was synonymous with, I think I should spend a bit of time talking about the late DJ. First of all, I should own the fact that I haven’t always had the kindest words to say about Steve in these TOTP reviews. I didn’t always feel this way. Growing up as a rather cautious teenager and unsure of myself, I’d spend hours on my own listening to Radio 1 in the mid 80s. Steve Wright’s afternoon show was definitely a part of that and my still as yet undefined sense of humour latched on to the characters he created such as Dave Doubledecks and Mr Angry from Purley. Wright’s show was the boiling point in the day’s schedule which the previous programming had been steadily creeping towards on the entertainment thermometer. After Steve’s stint, the content would reflect a calmer tone via Peter Powell’s drive time show and then Janice Long in the evenings both of whom were clearly more about the music. I liked them all for different reasons.

Wright was a permanent presence for all of my youth – even after I’d stopped listening to him I knew he was still there if required. I have a distinct memory of being in the Sunderland Polytechnic library one day and overhearing a fellow student saying to his mate that he’d done enough studying for one day and was off home to listen to Steve Wright. Sure this was the pre-digital late 80s and there weren’t the multiple choices of entertainment available as there are in this day and age but I can’t imagine a student in 2024 being susceptible to the pull of appointment radio (if such a thing still exists). Steve Wright in the Afternoon (in its original incarnation) ran until 1993 at which point new station controller Matthew Bannister switched Wright unsuccessfully to the breakfast show slot. He left Radio 1 in 1995.

Steve started to lose his appeal for me during his time at Radio 2. I was coming to the end of my 20s when he joined and I guess I just couldn’t make him relevant to my life anymore. As we moved into the new millennium I found his Sunday Love Songs show repetitive and lazy – I think I even sent an email into the show expressing my views. I know! I clearly had too much time on my hands. Rightly, I didn’t receive a reply. My dissatisfaction carried on though, disproportionately. If I ever caught any of his daily Radio 2 show, it sounded to me like he was phoning it in, relying on and recycling his past glories. When I started writing this blog, I found fault in his appearances in the BBC 4 TOTP repeats (he hosted 56 times between 1980 and 1989) – he seemed all over the place and I outrageously suggested he might have spent too much time in the Green Room pre-recording. More likely he was just not as comfortable with being on TV – his talent and affinity was for the medium of radio. Given his profile and longevity of career, we might have expected him to crossover into television like Terry Wogan but as far as I can tell his only other on screen* excursion was the very short lived Steve Wright’s People Show that lasted four episodes in the mid 90s.

*He was the off screen narrator for TOTP2 for twelve years.

In the days following his death, the accolades from those that knew him told of how he forged the shape of UK radio by bringing the ‘zoo format’ to our shores. More than that though, he seemed like a genuinely lovely fella. BBC4 changed their TOTP repeats schedule to pay tribute to him by showing four** shows in which he featured as presenter. RIP Steve Wright.

** They included one which was originally missed from being repeated (the 13 December 1984 edition). I considered writing a review for that show but decided that it would ruin the chronology of my TOTP 80s blog and in any case, I’m too lazy.

With a twist of tragic coincidence, it so happens that in tonight’s ‘golden mic’ slot is someone who also died far too early. Dale Winton was just 62 when he died in 2018. I liked Dale. His Supermarket Sweep show was marvellously silly, knock about fun and his contempt for Lulu was always going to endear him to me. I also appreciate that despite being on a pop music show aimed at a youth audience, he’s still in his standard suit and tie apparel.

OK, so the first act tonight looks and sounds familiar and no wonder – this was a Top 40 hit just 10 months prior. Except…the artist name has been changed and not to protect the innocent either. Back in November 1994, “The Sunshine After The Rain” was a hit for the mouthful that was New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri and they even appeared on TOTP which means…I’ll have reviewed it in this blog. Wonder what I said?

*checks blog archive*

Well, that hasn’t helped much. I just wrote about how I was always confusing it with “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” by Zoë from earlier in the decade and guess what? I’m still suffering from that conflation even though I wrote a post detailing said conflation fairly recently. OK, for the second time, this is not that song but a dance cover of the song Elkie Brooks had a Top 10 hit with in 1977. Seventeen years later, a No 26 hit for the aforementioned New Atlantic/U4EA wasn’t deemed a big enough success and was reissued but just under the slimmed down banner of a solo Berri. Why? I dunno – did Berri sign to a different record label who wanted to repromote their new artist but with a tried and tested hit? I really can’t be bothered to do any more research than that which has revealed Berri’s real name of Rebecca Sleight so if you’re still wanting an answer, do your own Google searches.

Did the two releases sound any different from each other? Well, I’ve watched back both TOTP appearances so you don’t have to and can report back that they are both the bloody same! Berri has changed her image a bit in the intervening months so that she looks even more like a prototype Sophie Ellis Bextor but that’s about it. Both have that interpolation of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” as their backing and both have that annoying scratch effect around the line “I wanna” towards the end. Really, what was the point?! Well, obviously it was to sell some records and make some money and so it did going to No 4 and selling 200,000 copies in the UK. Berri would have one further hit and still performs on the UK festival circuit.

You know me, dance isn’t really my thing which probably explains why in the bpm obsessed mid-90s, lots of tunes that were hits passed me by despite the fact that I was working in a record shop at the time and so had more access to them than many. I thought “Hideaway” by De’Lacy would be another such track but I did actually remember this one once I’d watched this TOTP repeat back. A huge slice of US garage in the same vein as Robin S or Rosie Gaines, it topped the UK dance chart and peaked at No 9 in the Top 40. What I didn’t remember (if indeed I ever knew in the first place) was that De’Lacy wasn’t the singer (who was one Rainie Lassiter) but the name of the band like Toyah or Nena. De’Lacy was though named after one of the people in the band – De’Lacy Davis who was the percussionist.

As with many of these dance hits, there were multiple remixes of the track but the one that spearheaded the commercial release on deConstruction records was the Deep Dish radio edit. Apparently the label was miffed that a slew of imports via an Italian licensee hit specialist dance shops before the deConstruction imprint was available claiming that this impinged on the sales of their release. Rumour has it that they wanted those imports to be withdrawn from sale – that’s right; they wanted them hidden away. I’ll get me coat.

A record breaking track now. “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson was the first ever single to go straight in at No 1 in the US Billboard Hot 100. This seems incredible given that chart had been going since 1958 and also that this phenomenon was hardly a rare event in the UK. The Beatles did it in 1969 with “Get Back” whilst Slade took over the baton in the 70s with “Cum On Feel The Noize”. In 1982, The Jam achieved this feat with “Town Called Malice” and by the mid 90s, going straight in at No 1 was becoming de rigueur with the likes of Take That, Blur and Oasis all having done so. So why did it take so long in America? Not being a US charts expert, I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that the Billboard Hot 100 was a ratio of sales and airplay so maybe that had something to do with it? I’m sure someone out there will have a better explanation.

What I do know is that “You Are Not Alone” was also Jackson’s final US No 1 single and was taken from the “HIStory: Past, Present And Future Book 1” album. Although it was written by the now completely unpalatable R. Kelly who also sings backing vocals on it, the convicted sex offender was deemed far enough removed from the track for it not to need to be omitted from these BBC4 TOTP repeats.

Inevitably, the single was accompanied by a big budget video though the special effects in this one are toned down a bit compared to previous promos for the likes of “Black Or White” and “Scream”. There are however some sick inducing scenes with his then wife Lisa Marie Presley including the pair of them appearing semi nude against a temple backdrop. Their marriage ended the following year with Lisa Marie claiming coercive behaviour from Jackson and that he orchestrated their public appearances, the aforementioned scene in “You Are Not Alone” being just one example. As for the song itself, for me it’s one big, drippy ballad that’s so wet as to be unlistenable – its paucity of passion makes the song beyond redemption. Most of the UK failed to share my opinion once again and would ensure that our American cousins were (ahem) not alone in their love of the track by also sending it to No 1.

With the passing of Matthew Perry last year (what is it with this post and celebrity deaths?), the Friends story was ultimately put to bed. I really can’t imagine that there would be any appetite amongst fans or the cast for a revisiting of the show without Chandler. Back in 1995 though, the US sitcom was in its infancy. It premiered in the US in September 1994 but wasn’t broadcast in the UK until April the following year after Channel 4, who had a good track record for bringing American sitcoms to our shores, bought up the rights. Airing at 9.30 on a Friday evening, my wife was an early adopter and soon had me watching as well. By the end of its first season run on Channel 4 in September 1995, it was a resounding success. Inevitably, there was demand for the catchy theme tune that accompanied the credits. The tale behind “I’ll Be There For You” is a remarkably short one in reality though it wasn’t the original choice of song by the studio Warner Bros. Television. Look at this…

When REM turned down the request to use their song, the studio turned to the only band who were signed to Warner Bros. Records Inc. (the music division of the studio). Danny Wilde and Phil Solem, who had been in bands together since 1981 and had scored a decent sized hit as The Rembrandts in 1990 with “Just The Way It Is, Baby”, had achieved little commercial success thereafter. However, Friends producer Kevin S. Bright hadn’t forgotten the band and called their manager with a view to them recording the theme tune. Within a week of an initial meeting the song was written, laid down in the studio and airing on US television as Friends launched on 22nd September 1994.

Initially unavailable in America as a single (the band only recorded a one minute version of the song specifically for the credits), a Nashville DJ made a loop of that version thereby extending its length to three minutes and played it continuously. The clamour for a full length version caused the band to re-record it and it finally got a full release.

As with Deep Blue Something who would claim a UK No 1 with “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” in 1996, I don’t think the performance here by the band actually aids the record that much. They’re fairly unmemorable (sorry guys). Wasn’t there a video which included the cast members made that could have been shown instead?

*checks YouTube*

Yes, here it is…although…was this made in 1995 or was it put together for the 1997 rerelease. Yes, as Friends became a global phenomenon, the merchandising for the show went into overdrive. Mugs, calendars, T-shirts etc were all licensed and when the first series was released on VHS (remember them), they flew off the shelves. As such, it was a perfect time for the theme tune to be made available once more and it became a hit all over again. For statistics sake, “I’ll Be There For You” peaked at No 3 in 1995 and No 5 two years later disproving the lyric that it wasn’t their day, week, month or even their year.

Next, another of those pesky album chart slots which features a single that will eventually be released as a single anyway further down the line. Filling the spot this week are Boyzone who give us their version of “Father And Son” by Cat Stevens which is not only a track from their No 1 album “Said And Done” but will also become their next single when released in the November. After breaking through with a cover of a 70s ballad in “Love Me For A Reason” by The Osmonds a year previously, the group clearly thought it was worth another go using that same blueprint. And they were right; “Father And Son” would go all the way to No 2 selling 600,000 copies in the process and becoming not just the 13th best selling single of the year in the UK but surely one of Boyzone’s best known hits.

Talking of blueprints, the performance here with the five lads all sat on stools was surely the model for subsequent Irish boyband Westlife who seemed to spend their whole career sat on their arses singing indistinguishable love songs. Back to Boyzone though and this is really all about Ronan Keating who does all the heavy lifting vocals wise while the rest of them bill and coo around him. Stephen Gately* does attempt some harmonising at one point but the rest of them are stuck on “ooh” mode. In the middle of the song, Ronan addresses the studio audience by saying “Boyzone live on Top of the Pops” before exhaling in a ‘who’d have believed it’ kind of gesture. Do you think that was spontaneous on Ronan’s part or a deliberate, prearranged move to try and build the group some credibility?

*Stephen was another who died tragically young at the age of just 33. What is it with this post and death?

I can’t hear the Boyzone version of “Father And Son” without this scene from Max and Paddy’s Road To Nowhere coming to mind…

Heres some ropey old shit and no mistake! A second hit for Montell Jordan (who knew?). After “This Is How We Do It” was a US No 1, a follow up was required and so he gave us “Somethin’ 4 Da Honeyz”, a little tale he wrote about picking up women. How nice. This is nasty with Jordan informing us that if he sees a female worth his while (!) he knows that he can get ‘it’ and he’ll “hit it if she’s wit it”. He follows this up by saying if a woman is ugly, fat or skinny, it doesn’t matter as long as she likes to shoop (shoop shoop). Bloody hell! What a bellend! At one point he name drops soul singer Aaron Neville but, as someone remarked on Twitter, it sounds like he’s singing “could very well be the next Gary Neville”. Ha!

Jordan is now a born-again Christian and has become a worship leader and ordained minister at the Victory World Church in Atlanta, Georgia so presumably has learned his lesson and has a better attitude towards women.

Oh this is more like it! Echobelly had some excellent songs – in fact, their trio of singles that were “Insomniac”, “King Of The Kerb” and this one “Great Things” stand up alongside anything else that was labelled ‘Britpop’ at this time. Coming on like a more exotic Sleeper, at the height of their fame, they notched up two Top 10 albums and five Top 40 singles, their fast track to success certainly not hindered by lead singer Sonya Madam’s image. With so much attention being paid to Madan, comparisons with Blondie were always likely (something also experienced by No Doubt later in the decade and played up to in their “Don’t Speak” video).

Watching this performance back though, it’s not Debbie Harry I’m put in mind of but rather Britney Spears. A whole three years before the ‘Princess of Pop’ exploded around the world with “…Baby One More Time” and that video with the schoolgirl uniform, here was Sonya beating her to it. Not quite as provocative as Britney’s outfit maybe but still causing a stir, apparently Madan hadn’t anticipated all the fuss and saw her school clothes look as more Grange Hill than St.Trinians. Hmm. Anyway, Echobelly’s popularity dwindled as the decade progressed and by 2004, a protracted hiatus took place. They reconvened in 2009 and last released an album of new material in 2017.

Oh dear lord. What the f**k is going on here?! Michael Bolton hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in this country since 1991 when his version of “When A Man Loves A Woman” made No 8. So what do you do when your career needs reviving? Well, in Michael’s case a TV advertised Best Of was deemed the best plan of action and as was the emerging trend for such a collection back then, a new track was required to promote it. “Can I Touch You…There?” was co written and produced by Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange whose charge sheet of criminal songs includes tracks by Celine Dion, Bryan Adams and Billy Ray Cyrus. This one was right up there with any of those though. I’m guessing Bolton was searching for a new sound because this is a complete hotchpotch of a song. It’s as if Ace Of Base have taken the melody from Carly Simon’s “Why” and then roped in old Bollers to sing some double entendre lyrics over the top. It even goes a bit panpipes at the end! Who thought all of that was a good idea?! Well, plenty of people judging by its chart peak of No 6 meaning Michael got one final Top 10 hit after all. By the way, have you ever seen a woman with a bigger sax than the one on stage here has? Well if Bolton can be risqué…

It’s a second week at the top for Blur with “Country House” which has beaten “Roll With It” by Oasis into second place again. I don’t recall there being anywhere near the media frenzy that existed for the first week though. Blur would achieve another chart topper 18 months later when “Beetlebum” returned them to pole position. As for Oasis, they would go to No 1 a further seven times (making eight in total) with their final one being 2005’s “The Importance Of Being Idle”.

The play out video is “Scatman’s World” by Scatman John. The follow up to his novelty hit “Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop)” which combined jazz scatting, rapping and a dance beat, this was, regrettably, more of the same. And this is the question – did we really need any more of the same? I have the answer – NO!

Scatman John (real name John Paul Larkin) died at the age of 57 from lung cancer and he brings to an end one of the most haunted by death posts I’ve ever written.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Berri	The Sunshine After The Rain	I did not
2	De’Lacy	Hideaway	Not for me
3	Michael Jackson	You Are Not Alone	Never happening
4	The Rembrandts	I’ll Be There For You	YES! I bought it for my wife but we ended up passing it onto our Friends obsessed Goddaughter
5	Boyzone	Father And Son	Nope
6	Montell Jordan	Somethin’ 4 Da Honeyz	NO!
7	Echobelly	Great Things	No but I had a Best Of CD with it on
8	Michael Bolton	Can I Touch You…There?	Never!
9	Blur	Country House	Not the single but I had The Great Escape album with it on
10	Scatman John	Scatman’s World	As if

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001w2m5/top-of-the-pops-31081995

TOTP 06 JUL 1995

Posted on December 7, 2023 by 80stastic

Sometimes these TOTP repeats throw up some names that I haven’t thought about for ages but that are lodged in the recesses of my brain somewhere. On other occasions though, there’s a person on screen in front of my eyes that I literally have no idea who they are. This is the case with tonight’s show. Who the hell was / is Wendy Lloyd?! Well, it turns out that she was briefly a Radio 1 DJ who joined from Virgin Radio but who moved on to Talk Radio within a year or so. She now works as a voice over artist and podcast host. Mind you, just about every other person in the country is a podcaster these days. OK, well let’s see how I go on with remembering the names of the actual acts on the show tonight…

Well, I’m one for one as I certainly recall Diana King and her No 2 single “Shy Guy” as we sold shed loads of it in the Our Price store in Stockport where I was working at the time. Not quite a one hit wonder in the UK – she had two further medium sized chart entries with covers of “Ain’t Nobody” and “I Say A Little Prayer” – but this was certainly her crowning glory outside of her home country of Jamaica. Fusing dancehall reggae with swingbeat to produce an ultra commercial sound, this song was also aided by being included on the soundtrack to the successful film Bad Boys. I’ve never seen the movie or either of its sequels but my wife caught the first one and said that it was one of the loudest films she’s ever watched in a cinema. I think there were lots of scenes featuring explosions and stuff being blown up. Despite the soundtrack predominantly featuring hip-hop and R&B artists and despite the film starring Will Smith, the Fresh Prince himself didn’t contribute a track to the album. He was in a fallow phase following the end of him being part of a duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff and the start of him recording under his own name in 1997. If these TOTP repeats make it that far, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Mr. Smith.

For now though, let’s concern ourselves with Diana King. I’m guessing that “Shy Guy” must have had a lot of airplay pre-release as it crashed straight into our charts at No 4 and would spend seven consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Like I said, we sold shed loads of it. It sounded to me like it was a close relative of “Here Comes The Hotstepper” by Ini Kamoze from the year before, an association which was never going to make me a fan I’m afraid but it certainly rode the zeitgeist back then. It would go on to sell 400,000 copies in the UK alone and become our 25th best selling song of the year. “Shy Guy” it may have been called but it was no shrinking violet when it came to racking up those sales.

Who couldn’t remember Shaggy eh? Certainly not me but I wish I could forget him. After achieving a UK No 1 in 1993 with “Oh Carolina”, we hadn’t seen or heard much from the Shagster since. The follow up to that huge hit had failed to make the Top 40 and for a while it seemed like he would be that classic version of a one hit wonder – one chart topper from out of nowhere and then nothing ever again. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. OK, there’s a lot to unpack here so let’s start with the song. Shaggy needed another hit to avoid the aforementioned one hit wonder status and the best way to do that is…all together…”DO A COVER VERSION!”. Yes, of course he came back with a cover and chose “In The Summertime”, originally a huge hit back in 1970 for Mungo Jerry. This being Shaggy though, it was never going to be a straight remake and before long we get the inevitable patois rapping and him banging on about ‘sexy little women’ or something. Seeing as Shaggy can’t carry a tune, he’s brought a pal with him to do the heavy lifting singing wise. So first things first, Rayvon is not this guy…

Ah, if only it was. No, Shaggy’s mate Rayvon is a Barbadian singer whose real name is Bruce Brewster – no, really that was his name. He should have just stuck with that; much better than his stage name. Talking of names, you know what Shaggy’s true moniker is? Orville Burrell. And you know what the real name of the Shaggy character in Scooby Doo is? Norville Rogers! Norville and Orville?! That can’t be a coincidence can it? Is that why Shaggy is called Shaggy? Because his real name sounded like that of Scooby Doo’s best pal? Anyway, aside from Shaggy’s toasting interventions, the lyric “Have a drink have a drive” has been altered to “I’m gonna drive and ride” presumably after the Mungo Jerry original had been used in a public information film series about the dangers of drink-driving in 1992.

The cover version strategy worked and took Shaggy (and Rayvon) to No 5 paving the way for the second of his four UK No 1s later in the year with “Boombastic”. Looking at the track listing of the CD single there’s a remix of it called the Sting vs Shaggy remix. That’s not Mr Sumner is it who Shaggy would make an album with years later?

*checks Discogs website*

No it isn’t. It’s someone called Shaun Pizzonia who went by the name of Sting International. Sting, Shaggy, Norville, Orville…it’s all very confusing.

Now of course I remember the artist in the next video. Bobby Brown had a notorious profile especially in 1995 when he was charged with the assault of a nightclub patron, accused of urinating in a police car and cited for kicking a hotel security guard. Even Wendy Lloyd refers to his misdemeanours in her intro by saying he was giving his wife Whitney (Houston) a few headaches. However, when it comes to his discography, it’s me that suffers from a Bobby Brown migraine. I think it’s to do with all these K-Klass remixes that cause my perplexed state.

Look at “Humpin’ Around” for example. This had already been released once in 1992 when it made it to No 19. Fast forward three years and in its remixed form it peaked at No 8. This followed a similar rerelease strategy applied to “Two Can Play That Game” when it was a minor No 38 hit in 1994 but a Top 3 smash the following April. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going or indeed Humpin’around or playing a game. The fact that “Humpin’ Around” sounds like “Two Can Play That Game” and vice versa just adds to the confusion. Brown would have two more hits with remixes of his previous singles before the chart entries dried up for good. Just as well. My poor brain can’t stand much more.

There was no way I wasn’t going to remember any of the people involved in this next one. With that said, in the last couple of days, I rejected the chance to reacquaint myself with one lot of them. Over the weekend, I met up with my friends Steve and Robin whom I hadn’t seen since before COVID struck. Meeting at Steve’s gaff, a good catch up fuelled by many, many beers was had. Robin had done a cull of his CD collection and brought the unwanted titles with him to see if Steve or I wanted any of them before they were deposited at his local charity shop. I refused them all as my wife and I have been having our own declutter exercise recently. One of the titles I turned down was “Epsom Mad Funkers: The Best Of EMF”. My reasoning was that I already have a CD of their “Afro King” single which acted as a mini Best Of with the extra tracks being their first three hits. It seemed like good logic but was I right to refuse a double album including a whole CD of remixes? You know what? I think I can live with my decision.

Obviously “I’m A Believer” – the band’s collaboration with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer – is included on said Best Of but the chance to own that track wasn’t going to make me change my mind on Robin’s offer. I’m not sure of the back story surrounding how this pairing came about or why (other than EMF needing a career revitalising hit perhaps) but it would prove to be their final UK Top 40 entry. They released the aforementioned “Afro King” as the follow up but it stalled at No 51. And it’s not even on that Best Of album. I was definitely right to turn it down! The band are not all about the past though. They have a new album coming out called “The Beauty And The Chaos” but if I can’t be arsed to accept a free copy of their Greatest Hits, I’m not sure I’m ready for any new material from them.

Now here we have a case of not remembering the song rather than the artist. Nobody could ever forget about Michael Jackson but this song, “Childhood”? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. Wikipedia tells me that it was the other song on the double A-side single “Scream” but I don’t remember it at all. So why are TOTP showing the video for it when “Scream” is already going down the charts? Clearly, it was an attempt by Jackson’s record label Epic to drum up some sales for his “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1” album which, despite all the promotion they’d thrown at it, had been toppled from the top of the charts after just one week by Bon Jovi.

And so we get, billed as an album exclusive, the video to “Childhood” and for the love of God, it’s the most puke-inducing, vomit-rendering bucket full of sick you could possibly imagine. Clearly based around Jacko’s obsession with Peter Pan, there’s flying galleons transporting baseball playing kids while Michael himself sits at the base of a tree lamenting his lost childhood – it really is nauseating. Now, if I was a more fair-minded individual, I could maybe make a case in defence of Jackson given his own relationship with an abusive father that he would record a song like this but the whole package is just so overwhelmingly mawkish that I can’t get past it. He would top even this level of self indulgence at the 1996 BRIT awards show and his Christ-like performance of”Earth Song”. I think it’s time to move on…

…to what Wendy Lloyd describes as another exclusive performance but it’s not really is it? D:Ream were in the TOTP studio just the other week performing their new single “Shoot Me With Your Love” before it was in the Top 40. That was the ‘exclusive’ performance. This is just them being on the show again because they have entered the charts at No 7. Surely an ‘exclusive’ relates to something nobody else has so unless D:Ream had signed some sort of contract with the BBC that had an exclusivity clause in it not to perform on any other pop music show than TOTP, could poor old Wendy Lloyd be done under the Trades Description Act?

Anyway, Peter Cunnah does his best to get the studio audience over excited and sells the song like his life depends on it but the writing was on the wall for D:Ream. They would only have two further UK hits (and one of those peaked at No 40) before Cunnah descended into a cocaine addiction and rehab. From then on, all the band had to look forward to was a life of perpetual rereleases of “Things Can Only Get Better” and the perception (wrongly) that it was the only hit they ever had.

I guess you could be forgiven for forgetting about Amy Grant as she only ever had three UK hits, the last of which was this, her version of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. Now, if ever a single had a chart life span in the 90s that experienced cautious traction, this was it. Bucking the dominant trend of records going straight in and straight out of the charts, its Top 40 run was:

29 – 27 – 27 – 26 – 20 – 21 – 29 – 39

Slower than a taxi ride in the London rush hour. Or displaying remarkable tenacity and durability you could argue. Grant continues to records and release new material though they mostly seem to be either Christmas or Christian music albums.

Although I’ve never really made the time to listen to this next artist, I certainly haven’t forgotten her. For years, I lumped PJ Harvey into the same basket as Björk; not musically but as an artist who I believed I could never get into. As such, I studiously avoided her and her work. She was too weird and dark for my pop sensibilities and, as with the EMF Best Of album earlier, I was happy with my choice. Fast forward nearly 30 years and, just as with Björk, I wonder if I was maybe mistaken. I’ve quite enjoyed some of the Icelandic singer’s appearances in these TOTP repeats and watching PJ Harvey here on her debut on the show, I actually don’t mind “C’mon Billy”. Taken from her third album “To Bring You My Love”, it creeps about menacingly but with a hook that resounds in your head long after the song has finished. Maybe I should investigate some of her back catalogue. Maybe.

I wasn’t the only person who felt like I used to about PJ Harvey MBE back in the day. My aforementioned friend Robin saw her on an episode of Later…with Jools Holland when he was in the studio audience and disliked her performance so much, he gave her the rods at the end of it as the camera panned round. I’m not sure which appearance it was though and haven’t managed to spot him fingers aloft on the ones I’ve found on YouTube yet.

*checks again*

Still nothing. Ah well. As with investigating PJ Harvey’s back catalogue, I’ll keep on checking.

Robson & Jerome have been toppled (for now)! Hurray! Oh shite! They’ve been replaced by The Outhere Brothers! BOO! BOO! Yes, for the second time in 1995, this pair of dolts have secured themselves a UK No 1 record with “Boom Boom Boom”. How?! Why?! Was it anything to do with the track being taken up by other fanbases. For example, Newcastle United fans adopted it as a terrace chant by changing the words to “Toon, Toon, Toon”*. No, surely not.

*Toon is how they refer to themselves and being a reflection of the way the word ‘town’ is pronounced in a Geordie accent despite Newcastle being a city and not a town. Yeah, that’s just mad isn’t it?

Apparently, the duo were the first act to have their first two singles go to No 1 in the UK since New Kids On The Block in 1990. If I remember them correctly, their hits, like The Outhere Brothers, also relied upon nonsensical, shout-a-long choruses, in their case mainly revolving around the word “oh”.

Here’s something we’ve not had for a while on the show. – a single that never made the UK Top 40. That may be the reason why I don’t recall Heavy Stereo. Wikipedia tells me that they never actually had a single that got past No 45 in the charts despite four attempts of which this one, “Sleep Freak”, was the first. Listening to it now, it sounds very derivative with a definite glam rock beat to it. Hang on! There is something familiar about them! Yes, the lead singer is Gem Archer who would later join Oasis and go on to play in both Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye and his brother’s Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Maybe some things are definitely best left forgotten.

https://youtu.be/5cVJ9qBeHFg?si=ugbAbC1NusK4mi2z

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Diana King	Shy Guy	No
2	Shaggy featuring Rayvon	In The Summertime	As if
3	Bobby Brown	Humpin’ Around	Nope
4	EMF / Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer	I’m A Believer	Nah
5	Michael Jackson	Childhood	God no!
6	D:Ream	Shoot Me With Your Love	I did not
7	Amy Grant	Big Yellow Taxi	Negative
8	PJ Harvey	C’mon Billy	No but maybe I was wrong
9	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Away with you!
10	Heavy Stereo	Sleep Freak	It’s a 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/m001sx1m/top-of-the-pops-06071995

TOTP 15 JUN 1995

Posted on November 28, 2023 by 80stastic

As I begin writing this post, it turns out that today (29th November) is the 40th anniversary of the release of the first ever Now That’s What I Call Music album. Unbelievably, the series that started in 1983 is still going strong in 2023 with Now 116 having just come out. I bought that first album way back when but it would prove to be the first and last Now album I would ever purchase. I wonder why I stopped my allegiance to the series so suddenly? I recall being quite excited about that first album as it did something no other compilation album had ever done before – it was a joint venture between two of the UK’s biggest record labels EMI and Virgin meaning the amount of singles available to be licensed to appear on it was much bigger than at any time before. Plus, they were the original songs not some dodgy knock off covers that appeared on those awful Top Of The Pops compilation albums from the 70s. Incidentally, Mark Goodier had a T-shirt on in one of the BBC4 repeats the other week that was advertising the Top Of The Pops compilation album that got launched in 1995.

Anyway, back to that first Now album and why I never bought another of them after that one. Did I think maybe they were a bit naff and not cool enough? After all, not all the songs on them would have earned any street cred points at school. That first one had the likes of Bonnie Tyler, New Edition and Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack on it. It’s possible. The next time a Now album appeared on my radar was when my wife bought Now 13 around 1988. Then, in the 90s, I would see them on a regular basis as I was working at Our Price by then and selling them for a living. I remember in 1991 there being a big fuss about the landmark of Now 20 being reached. Incidentally, at one point around 1995, they thought about doing away with the numbers scheme as there was a fear that as the volume numbers got bigger and bigger, it would make the series seem outdated as no compilation series had ever gone on for that long. Anyway, I was still at Our Price (just) to help sell some of the 2.3 million copies that the best selling volume in the series (46) shifted in 1999. I’m getting ahead of myself though. I wonder how many of the songs featured in this TOTP made it onto a Now album?

By the way, tonight’s host is Michelle Gayle in the ‘golden mic’ slot which I guess was a canny choice by executive producer Ric Blaxill seeing as she brought with her both the glamour of being a pop star and the technical craft of being an actress so she could handle a few scripted lines whilst presenting.

Tonight’s opening act are Wet Wet Wet who are in the studio to promote their latest single “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now”. However, we’ve seen them do this one on the show before as, back in April, they performed the song in the album chart slot to promote their album “Picture This”. As such, I’ve already reviewed this track so what am I supposed to say about it now? Well, there was a reaction of astonishment online to Marti Pellow’s suit, specifically that it consists of a split pattern between stripes and checks (or is it spots?). Even I, about as anti-fashion as it comes and almost allergic to buying clothes, knows that’s a fashion faux pas. It’s like putting tomato ketchup on a Sunday roast; you just don’t do it.

Chart peak: No 7

Now album? Yes – Now 31

Oh no! Not these two jokers again! In a year that included Robson & Jerome, it’s quite the feat to be possibly the worst chart act of 1995. I couldn’t stand The Outhere Brothers with their child-like call and response nonsense and the fact that they wrote filthy lyrics but were quite prepared to peddle a heavily edited and sanitised version of them so as to pursue mainstream success. At least have the courage of your convictions! After “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” went to No 1 earlier in the year, the duo weren’t prepared to be one hit wonders and repeated the trick with follow up “Boom Boom Boom” by inexplicably convincing the UK record buying public to buy another of their moronic tracks in enough quantities to make it a second chart topper.

Enough of those two pricks though. Id rather discuss how the word ‘boom’ historically figures heavily in pop music culture. Look at all these songs that include the word (or variants of it) in their title:

Boom! Shake The Room – DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! – Vengaboys
Boom-Shack-A-Lak – Apache Indian
Boom Boom – John Lee Hooker
Boombastic – Shaggy
Sonic Boom Boy – Westworld

Then, of course, there’s The Boomtown Rats and for the fans of obscure 80s bands (like me) there’s Boom Boom Room. I guess it’s such a great word ‘boom’. Onomatopoeia at its finest.

Chart peak: No 1

Now album? Yes – Now 31

A second outing now for the video to “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” by U2. Now I always quite liked this song. It seemed a good fit for an superhero action movie; all swooping and soaring and dramatic. Plenty of others agreed with me as it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. However, it also had its fair share of detractors which resulted in a nomination for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song. It won neither so maybe they cancel each other out?

Aside from “Miss Sarajevo” from the “Passengers” side project, U2 wouldn’t release another single until “Discothèque” in 1997 which was another divisive song but then if you have a lead singer like Bono, you’re always going to divide opinion.

Chart peak: No 2

Now album? Yes – Now 32

Still with Bitty McLean? Yep, a whole two years on from his debut and biggest hit single “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”, UB40’s former sound engineer was still cranking out medium sized chart hits most of which seemed to be reggae’d up versions of classic pop songs. This particular one was his take on “We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters. He’d previously done “Dedicated To The One I Love” made famous by The Mamas & The Papas and indeed that first hit was originally recorded by Fats Domino. Did he write any of his own stuff? A quick check of the track listing for his first album “Just To Let You Know…” reveals that he wrote three out of the eleven tracks on there. Hmm. Not that many then. Poor old Bitty can’t do right for doing wrong by me though. I criticise him for not writing his own stuff but I also don’t like his cover versions. This one is just drivel and would prove to be his final UK Top 40 hit. Still, he did know how to rock a super slick suit. Marti Pellow take note.

Chart peak: No 23

Now album? No

https://youtu.be/ycU1L7Th6H8?si=dQg6-2dHG-BG1Jc7

From a killer suit to a killer tune. Perhaps the most unlikely comeback of 1995 belonged to Edwyn Collins, a man without a UK hit single since 1983 when his ex-band Orange Juice reached the Top 10 with their one and only Top 40 entry “Rip It Up”. The band split in 1985 after being unable to consolidate on that success so Edwyn went solo and despite releasing a couple of albums and a handful of singles, nobody was really listening. All of that changed with “A Girl Like You” from third album “Gorgeous George”. Originally released on November 1994, it became a massive hit in just about every territory on the planet except here where it stalled at No 42. Huge airplay support saw it given a rerelease in the UK in the Summer of 1995. A shimmering, slinky, retro sounding pop song that you could have easily believed came from the soundtrack to a super cool 60s spy movie set in Paris, it finally broke the UK’s collective resistance when it went Top 5.

Having read both the account of Edwyn’s double cerebral haemorrhage in 2005 by his wife Grace Maxwell and a book detailing the history and adventures of Postcard Records, I have to conclude that Edwyn’s had quite the life and is a man of superb character and resilience. He looks great in this performance and yes that is a ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook up there on drums as he played on the record.

Chart peak: No 4

Now album? Yes – Now 31

Before we get to the next act, we have an interloper in the studio but no need to worry, it’s not a protester with a cause but rather Louise from Eternal who surprises Michelle Gayle with a gold disc presented for sales of the latter’s debut album. Michelle seems genuinely surprised at this turn of events but retains her cool sufficiently to introduce the next act.

As with Bitty McLean earlier, here’s another artist that I’m amazed was still bothering the chart compilers in 1995. After her debut album made huge waves around the world and especially in the US, Paula Abdul went away for a couple of years and pulled off a follow up with second album “Spellbound” including the hits “Rush Rush” and “Vibeology”. Expecting her to complete a second comeback a lengthier four years on looked a forlorn hope but she managed to (sort of). Third album “Head Over Heels” would achieve gold status but those sales were drastically down on 1991’s “Spellbound” (three times platinum) and 1989’s “Forever Your Girl” (seven times platinum). Lead single “My Love Is For Real” sounded like Paula had been paying a bit too much attention to Kylie’s recent comeback hit of her own “Confide In Me” what with its Eastern influences and all. As with Bitty McLean, this would prove to be Paula’s last UK Top 40 hit.

Chart peak: No 28

Now album? No

I quite often rely on chart statistics in this blog to make a point or sometimes (whisper it!) pad the posts out a bit. They can be a barometer of what was happening in the charts but sometimes they don’t always tell the whole story I feel. Look at East 17 for example. I think there’s a decent argument that the band reached the pinnacle of their career with their Christmas No 1 “Stay Another Day” and that inevitably it was a slow descent from that point on. And yet…they had nine more hits after that chart topper of which six went Top 10 including two No 2s and a No 3. However, can you name any of them? Even looking at their discography, the only one that means anything to me is the single they did with Gabrielle. For me, their golden era was 1992-94. Everything past that I kind of struggle with. “Hold My Body Tight” is a case in point. There’s really not much to it at all. Lightweight doesn’t really cover it. It was the last single to be released from their “Steam” album and it did kind of feel (and sound) like an afterthought.

Chart peak: No 12

Now album? Yes – Now 31

Robson & Jerome are still at No 1 with “Unchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. At this point, there was talk of it becoming the biggest selling single in the UK ever but in the end such chatter was well wide of the mark. As it stands, it’s No 15 in the all time list though there’s two songs ahead of it that hadn’t been released yet in 1995.

Chart peak: No 1

Now album? No

https://youtu.be/ve___RcnRPM?si=JGuJMZ017Qd04qeu

And so to that exclusive screening of the video for “Scream” by Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson that Michelle Gayle has been bigging up all show. So was it worth the wait for this $6 million promo? Ah, I don’t know. All of these huge, blockbuster videos from past eras are always constrained by the technology that existed at the time they were made. In 1995, it looked impossibly slick and right at the cutting edge of what was possible. The black and white film, Janet’s dark make up making her look otherworldly and a spacecraft themed plot with image morphing special effects all combined well but watching it back in 2023, it doesn’t seem as impressive as my son’s FIFA computer game. It did receive eleven MTV Video Music Award nominations in 1995 – more than any other video had ever received – if that helps answer the question.

Chart peak: No 3

Now album? No

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now	No
2	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	As if
3	U2	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Bitty McLean	We’ve Only Just Begun	Nah
5	Edwyn Collins	A Girl Like You	Surely I did? No? Bah!
6	Paula Abdul	My Love Is For Real	Negative
7	East 17	Hold My Body Tight	I did not
8	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover	Never happening
9	Michael Jackson / Janet Jackson	Scream	Nope

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/m001snq0/top-of-the-pops-15061995

TOTP 08 JUN 1995

Posted on November 24, 2023 by 80stastic

I was never a member of the TOTP studio audience. Despite watching the show religiously since about 1982, it was never really an ambition of mine. It didn’t actually look like that much fun, being herded around a studio, told where to stand and when to cheer in the faint hope you would end up in shot behind the presenter so you could mouth “Hello Mum” to the camera or just generally act daft. Obviously, there was the appeal of occupying the same space as and being up close and personal with a pop star or band but you were completely at the mercy of the running order for whatever show you got tickets for. Take this one for example. June the 8th, 1995 was not a vintage episode. The biggest star in the studio that week by a mile was Annie Lennox. Of the other five acts actually there in person, two are fairly anonymous dance groups, one is a band just breaking through but who would come to be seen as a second tier Britpop artist, a singer who would be remembered for just one song that isn’t this one and two actors turned unlikely and unlikeable pop stars. It’s not a great haul is it?! Even the host is just a Radio 1 DJ (Nicky Campbell) rather than a ‘golden mic’ guest presenter. I think I would have felt short changed had I have been in the audience that week.

We start with one of those dance groups in Loveland who had notched up three middling sized hits before this one – “Don’t Make Me Wait” – took them to No 22 in the charts. Their resident vocalist was Rachel McFarlane who sings on this track but her status within the group seemed to be constantly up for debate. Sometimes their records were described as ‘Loveland featuring Rachel McFarlane’ and sometimes they carried the legend (as this single did) ‘featuring the voice of Rachel McFarlane’. Wonder what that was as all about? A legal / contractual thing? As for the song, it’s a pretty standard house dance tune, the like of which I thought had mainly been in the charts in the early part of the decade. Indeed, it puts me in mind of Ce Ce Peniston’s 1992 hit “Finally”.

Next that aforementioned Britpop band. Although I referred to them as second tier, I did rather like Dodgy and even had one of their albums. I think I used that phrase to distinguish them from the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Supergrass who I saw as the real vanguard of the movement. In 1995 though, I didn’t really know too much about Dodgy other than their name as someone I’d worked with at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester knew them personally. After a debut album with an awful title (“The Dodgy Album”? Seriously?) in 1993 that didn’t set the world alight – it peaked at No 75 in the charts – they regrouped and came back the following year with “Homegrown” that performed much better achieving gold status in the UK. It also provided the band with three Top 40 singles the first of which was “Staying Out For The Summer” which made No 38 in October 1994. Perhaps realising that they’d made a balls up with the release date, label A&M authorised a second assault on the charts in, you know, the Summer and the song was back in June 1995.

It’s a pretty cool track and I was reminded of that recently. To explain, I recently started volunteering as an usher at Hull Truck Theatre and one of the first plays I worked was called Pop Music by Anna Jordan. Set at a wedding where the two characters meet years after they were at the same school together, it tells the story of their lives since; the highs and mainly lows and how pop music has soundtracked their life landmarks. It’s a great play and the version I saw (six times) featured two wonderful actors. Their time on stage is accompanied by a constant playlist of pop songs including a selection from the Britpop era. The first one to feature? Yep, “Staying Out For The Summer”! My time watching the play reminded me what a great (and possibly underrated) tune it is. Sure, it displays its Beatles influences pretty heavily but that’s not a bad thing in most people’s book is it? Dodgy would return in 1996 with their biggest album and single in “Free Peace Sweet” (the one I had) and “Good Enough” respectively. Nigel Clark and Andy Miller would look pretty different from this TOTP appearance sporting peroxide blonde, bouffant locks. Dodgy barnets anyone?

It’s a time for a repeat of that performance by Bon Jovi of “This Ain’t A Love Song” now. Filmed in Milan, this was shown the other week as an ‘exclusive’ but is recycled here as the single is at No 7 in the charts. TOTP had history when it came to re showing Bon Jovi exclusives – the Niagara Falls one for “Always” was on about three times. Maybe executive producer Ric Blaxill thought the band was too big a name to just show it once. To be fair, despite having become globally successful in the 80s with an image of being one of those ‘hair metal’ bands, the stats say that they were more successful in the 90s. In the UK for example, they only had one Top 10 single between 1986 and 1989 out of nine releases. By comparison, the band’s first nine singles of the 90s yielded six Top Tenners. “This Ain’t A Love Song” would become the seventh and the fifth in a run of eight consecutive Top 10 placings. OK, the album sales might tell a different story but TOTP was historically based around the singles chart and this ain’t an album blog so…

That second dance act now and it’s yet another from the seemingly eternal conveyor belt of German Eurodance artists. Following on from Snap!, Real McCoy, Haddaway, Culture Beat, Captain Hollywood Project and preceding Sash!, Fragma and ATB came Jam & Spoon. This duo (real names Rolf Elmer and Markus Löffel) had been having hits all over Europe since 1992 but the UK had proved a tough nut to crack. Indeed, this hit “Right In The Night (Fall In Love With Music)” had already had a tilt at our charts the year before but had to be satisfied with a peak of No 31. As was the trend around this time for minor hits being given a second chance, it was rereleased to become a Top 10 hit. The track would be revived in 2008 by an artist who is also on this very TOTP. All will be revealed later.

As these things go (and I certainly wasn’t a fan of Eurodance), this one isn’t the worst example of the genre and the flamenco guitar interlude serves to distinguish it from some of the dross we’d heard this decade so far. A word on vocalist Plavka. She started her career singing as a soprano with the Santa Monica opera before decamping to London to join electronic dance pioneers The Shamen on their “En-Tact” album and then working with Jam & Spoon. That’s quite the varied career.

Now if we thought Bon Jovi was a big name worthy of an exclusive performance repeat, what about this fella? Not just perhaps the most famous person on the planet at the time but he’s brought his superstar sister along for good measure. I can only be talking about Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson (and indeed I am). “Scream” was their much talked about duet and a taster of Jacko’s forthcoming double album “HIStory: Past, Present And Future Book I” a studio album of new material coupled with his first Greatest Hits package. Much was expected of “Scream” and its $6 million video and the single did debut on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart at No 5, no other single before it had entered the chart at a higher position. However, it got no further than that peak and it was a similar story in the UK where it topped out at No 3. The reason why? Was it a backlash against Jackson following the recent child sex abuse allegations brought against him by Jordan Chandler and his family which were settled out of court by Jackson at a cost of $23 million. Certainly host Nicky Campbell felt emboldened to make a few jibes at the King of Pop calling him “dodgy” and declaring that he had written bigger cheques than the cost of the “Scream” video recently. All fairly distasteful given the nature of the source material. Back to the point about “Scream” and its failure to top the charts though. I think the main reason for its disappointing sales was the fact that it wasn’t very good. There’s hardly a proper song structure in there, rather it was mostly a riff and some trademark Jacko squeals.

As for the video shown here, it appears to be a hastily cobbled together montage of previous videos and clips of Jackson in concert owing to the fact that the official promo wasn’t ready for release yet. Ric Blaxill would have to show it the following week when it was slipping down the charts from No 3 to No 5, thereby breaking the show’s own rule about not featuring songs that were going down the charts. That’s how big a name Michael Jackson was. Eat your hearts out Bon Jovi!

The answer to that query about who did a cover of Jam & Spoon’s “Right In The Night (Fall In Love With Music)” now – yes it was “Saturday Night” hitmaker Whigfield who gave us her take on it in 2008. Wanna hear it? OK…

Hmm. Not bad. Possibly better than the original. Back in 1995 though, Whigfield was pursuing a much more pop vein with this, her third hit, “Think Of You”. Not as annoying as “Saturday Night”, this would still worm its way into your brain and take root for the Summer once heard. Impossibly catchy (some might even say cutesy), it would take her to No 7 in the chart. A one hit wonder she may be remembered as but the reality was that she wasn’t anything of the sort. Two more chart entries would follow this year though one was an ill advised cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”. You know that Christmas game Whamageddon where you try and avoid hearing said song from 1st to 24th December? Yeah, I don’t think there will ever be a game called Whigageddon.

After launching her cover versions album “Medusa” with a little known track from the 80s that never even made the UK Top 40, Annie Lennox went to the other extreme in her choice of follow up single by going with one of the most famous No 1 songs of all time. Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” was a chart topper around the world in 1967 and went on to sell 10 million copies. In comparison, “No More ‘I Love You’s’” released by The Lover Speaks in 1986 made it to the dizzy heights of No 58 despite being absolutely wonderful. Annie’s version, though not bad at all, was inferior to the original and so it was to be with “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”. Some may say that she was always onto a loser taking on a song which sits on such a pedestal.

The performance here is a continuation on a theme from the drag ballet dancers that accompanied her for “No More ‘I Love You’s’” though this time they are dressed in French maid costumes. The Minnie Mouse headgear is still there though. Annie would release a third single from the album, a cover of Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain” which I came across the other day as it is featured in the rather charming John Cusack film Serendipity. Knowing that I would be writing about Annie in this post, that discovery was…well…serendipitous.

No Jacko style video premiere issues for this next song. U2 had not released anything since 1993 before they contributed “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” to the Batman Forever soundtrack. Apparently the film’s director Joel Schumacher tried to shoehorn in a cameo role for Bono in the guise of his MacPhisto alter ego which he used during the Zoo TV Tour. When that didn’t materialise, Bono agreed to give a song to the soundtrack instead. And it was quite a song. Worked up from a demo from the “Zooropa” sessions and playing on the title of the song made famous by Mel Carter in 1965 and revived just the year before by Gloria Estefan, it swoops and soars around a jagged riff which does admittedly sound very similar to “Children Of The Revolution” by T-Rex.

The video directed by Kevin Godley and Maurice Linnane works pretty well I think even if the animation would be seen as clunky by today’s standards. Working in the MacPhisto / The Fly characters alongside clips from the actual film, it has a certain charm I think. Oh yeah, the film. Was it any good? Well, for me it was inferior to the Michael Keaton movies but so much better than the Batman And Robin flick with George Clooney as the Caped Crusader. Val Kilmer played it straight without the idiosyncrasies of Keaton’s portrayal but then he was probably wise not to try and outdo Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones as The Riddler and Two-Face respectively.

The single would lead a charmed chart life spending eight consecutive weeks inside the Top 10, even going back up the charts after falling initially when the film hit UK cinemas on July 14th. It also benefited from another song from the film being in the charts at the same time as Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” was rereleased after peaking at No 20 in 1994 but making it all the way to No 4 a year later. I think both singles helped raise the other’s profile.

And so it came to pass that the musical legend that was Michael Jackson wasn’t able to dent Robson & Jerome’s hold on the No 1 spot* as their version of “Unchained Melody” reigned supreme. This was just getting silly now.

*Not only that, he couldn’t even dislodge Pulp from the No 2 position.

The play out tune is “Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?” by The Bluetones. The first chart entry for another band forever associated with Britpop, it would peak at No 31. This was the sound of a band gearing up for the big time. Within eight months they would have a No 2 single in “Slight Return” and a No 1 album in “Expecting To Fly”. I think their success is sometimes overlooked and get remembered by those that didn’t invest in the band just for that one song. In fact, they would have thirteen Top 40 singles in total and two further Top 10 albums after “Expecting To Fly”.

The band continued to release new material and tour long after Britpop had withered before splitting in 2011 only to reform four years later.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Loveland	Don’t Make Me Wait	I did not
2	Dodgy	Staying Out For The Summer	No
3	Bon Jovi	This Ain’t A Love Song	Nope
4	Jam & Spoon	Right In The Night (Fall In Love With Music)	Nah
5	Michael Jackson / Janet Jackson	Scream	Never happening
6	Whigfield	Think Of You	Negative
7	Annie Lennox	A Whiter Shade Of Pale	Sorry Annie but no
8	U2	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	As if
10	The Bluetones	Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?	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/m001sfw6/top-of-the-pops-08061995

TOTP 16 DEC 1993

Posted on December 11, 2022 by 80stastic

To paraphrase Frankie Valli, here at TOTP Rewind it’s mid December back in ‘93 and very much like the temperatures in 2022, I recall it being very cold. I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham and travelling there from Manchester every day by a bus and then a tram. As such, it was an early start and I have a distinct memory of standing next to the radiator in our little flat not wanting to go outside to start the commute. The radio was playing “Babe” by Take That which didn’t help my mood as it brought to mind the song’s video which had lots of snow themed scenes including Mark Owen wandering around in what appeared to be Russia looking for his former lover in a bit of a blizzard. Aside from the cold, the work days were long and busy as this was a time before streaming where you had to physically go out to a record shop and buy a CD or cassette if you wanted an album or single. We packed so many customers into that little shop on George Street that at times it felt like the floor would collapse*.

*That did happen once when I was working in the Rochdale Our Price. A floor tile just cracked one day to reveal a gaping hole underneath. Just one of the many mishaps that occurred during my retail years including a man walking through the window which he mistook for the door, the shop’s fuse box starting to smoke, alarm call outs in the middle of the night, blocked toilets, failed central heating systems etc etc.

Despite all of the above, I was loving my time in Altrincham to the extent that me and my wife even contemplated moving there and even looked around a flat or two. Fortunately, we never made that move as in the first couple of weeks after Christmas came the word from area management that I was being moved again. I wouldn’t get back to Altrincham for five years. Enough of my personal life though, which songs were those busy shoppers snapping up as the big day approached…

If your hear the names Chaka Demus and Pliers, what immediately comes to mind? Apart from the ridiculousness of that second name obviously. For me it’s 1993 and their hit “Tease Me” and yet that No 2 (in more ways than one) was eclipsed by this single, their version of “Twist And Shout”. Somehow though, it seems to have escaped my memory banks despite it going to No 1 one in early ‘94. Maybe it’s because there have been so many different releases of this perennial song. I’m guessing most of us know it from The Beatles take on it in 1963 but it was very first recorded before them by The Top Notes. The first time it was a hit was when The Isley Brothers took it into the charts in 1962. Brian Poole and The Tremeloes had the temerity to release a version just four months after The Beatles (though they claimed they were already playing it live in shows before anybody else) and had a hit with it. It’s also been attempted by The Searchers, The Kingsmen, Bruce Springsteen and then in 1988, it was given the hip-hop treatment by Salt-N-Pepa and became a No 4 single in the UK.

Fast forward five years and here it was again courtesy of Chaka Demus and Pliers (plus Jack Radics and Taxi Gang). Maybe they were inspired by Salt-N-Pepa – if it could be hip-hopped, then maybe the song could be also be reggae-fied? Or maybe they took inspiration from ragga duo Louchie Lou and Michie One who took another song originally done by The Isley Brothers but made famous by another artist (“Shout” by Lulu) and bagged a Top 10 hit earlier in 1993 . Whatever the reason, Chaka Demus and Pliers’ version of “Twist And Shout” didn’t work for me as I could never got on board with all that toasting. Also, wasn’t this more of a Summer tune than a Christmas one? I know host Tony Dortie goes on about what a big party tune it is which could crossover into festive celebrations I guess but clearly the TOTP producers saw it as a Summer song judging by the palm trees in the set they designed for the performance here.

You’d be hard pressed to find a more blatant example of record company cashing in than this. Not having had Meatloaf as their artist for a decade by this point didn’t matter at all to CBS when it came to exploiting the back catalogue of their previous charge. With “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” and its single “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” tearing up the charts everywhere on the planet, of course CBS we’re going to rerelease probably his most famous song. So it came to pass the Meatloaf managed to be in possession of two UK Top 20 hits simultaneously in 1993 when “Bat Out Of Hell” got to No 8 beating its original 1979 peak by seven places. Who was buying it though? The parent album is one of the best selling in history so many, many people would surely already own the song so that leaves two options to my mind. One, Meatloaf completists or two, young music fans who’d only just discovered him via his latest success and either thought this was his latest/new single or wanted to explore his older stuff.

All of this just goes to show how perceptions can change in the wake of a huge success. Two years prior to this, “Bat Out Of Hell: Re-vamped” was released -basically a straight reissue but with “Dead Ringer For Love” added – and to promote it “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad” was rereleased. It peaked at No 69.

You know that debate that rages about this time of year about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not? Well, there’s surely a musical equivalent to that argument about whether “Stay Another Day” by East 17 is a Christmas song isn’t there? Why am I going on about a track that is twelve months away from being the festive No 1? I guess because looking at their performance here of “It’s Alright”, it’s clear that they weren’t averse to pushing a Christmas agenda if it suited which it did literally here as all four members are Santa suited-up. I actually beat East 17 to it by four years. In Christmas 1989, I was working in the toy department at Debenhams and used to stand in for the guy playing Father Christmas in the grotto on his breaks. That suit stank to high heaven. The store had a fire alarm go off whilst I was in it and we all had to evacuate the building. I got a few comments from the rest of the employees whilst stood outside waiting to be allowed back in.

Back to East 17 though and Tony Dortie says two things that peaked my interest in his links. Firstly that Brian Harvey was “flu affected”. We’ve been here before just the other week when Gabrielle appeared on the show in person to say she couldn’t perform her single as she had flu. Harvey goes one better by having flu but still managing to sing and jig about on stage. Flu my arse! Secondly, Dortie announces that he’s off on tour with East 17 shortly. On tour? Doing what exactly? They already had two guys in the band who appeared to do not very much at all. Surely they didn’t need a third?! Was Dortie just going to introduce them on stage each night? Was that all? Nice work if you can get it. It’s alright indeed.

In Christmas 1993, Diana Ross had a Best Of album out called “One Woman: The Ultimate Collection” which was a huge seller over the festive season going four times platinum and selling 1.2 million copies in the UK. We sold loads of it in that Altrincham Our Price where I was working but we had to go against company policy to do so. The CD was officially priced at something like £11.99 but all the other outlets in Altrincham (Boots, Woolies etc) were selling it for £9.99. Myself and the manager Cathy came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t sell any at £11.99 and so price matched. We didn’t ask permission or tell any other stores, we just did it and it worked – we sold loads and maintained a decent market share on the album. However, when the Area Manager turned up unexpectedly for a store visit we nearly shat ourselves thinking he would notice. He had this thing he did at Christmas where he would help out serving customers and so we were sure we would get busted as somebody in the queue would have the Diana Ross CD. Myself and Cathy joined in serving trying to spot anyone in the queue who would give the game away and head them off at the pass by jumping in and getting to them first. Somehow we got away with it. Phew!

Diana did an extensive tour to help promote the album an Our Price colleague went to see her on one of her dates. When I asked him how it had been the next day, he’d convinced himself that he was Ms Ross’s long lost, illegitimate child so consumed by the experience was he. I’m assuming she performed the single “Your Love” which was a new track added to the album to help promote it but it was hardly up there with some of her classic recordings for me. It peaked at No 14.

WTF?! Eight Breakers?! EIGHT?! You have to be kidding me?! That must be a record! Five is pretty much maximum capacity usually. Presumably the TOTP producers have done this because the chart at Christmas are usually clogged up with new records strategically released to cash in on the extra sales at this time of year. Even so. Eight Breakers means a whopping grand total of fourteen songs on this show! Tossers! Don’t they realise how much work this is for me?

We start with another boy band, this time of the American variety who time would surely have forgotten if not for a gimmick surrounding their name. EYC (it stood for Express Yourself Clearly) had this annoying habit of signing off from any promotional appearances by saying “E Y See ya”. Ugh! Somehow this trio of ex-New Kids On The Block backing dancers (no, that’s literally what they were) somehow managed to bag themselves six UK Top 40 hits the first of which was “Feelin’ Alright”. It had a sub House Of Pain vibe to it tailored for the teen market but it was pretty lame all the same.

My main memory of this lot came the following year. I was now working in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester where I first started three years previously. I was on the counter with the manager and he served a young girl with one of their singles. As he went behind the shelving to get it (the stock wasn’t in the racks live at this point) he said to me in a really loud voice which the customer must have heard, “This is crap isn’t it?”. How I cringed.

Next up a tune so intensely and annoyingly catchy it’s still in my head nearly thirty years on. I would have said that “Come Baby Come” by K7 was from 1994 not 1993. I’m kind of right. It reached its peak of No 3 in the January of ‘94 but was actually released in December ‘93. K7 was essentially US all rounder Louis Sharpe. A rapper, songwriter, record producer, he also went by the name of Kayel. He’s only really known over here though for this single. Employing that call and answer style of rap (is it meant to be him and his homies who he’s hangin’ with?), it kind of reminds me of that drill instructor song from the late 80s. What was it called again?

*googles ‘drill instructor song’

That’s it! “Full Metal Jacket (I Wanna Be Your Drill Instructor)” by Abigail Mead and Nigel Goulding…

Anyway, it also had that drive-you- insane shouty chorus that once heard is never forgotten*. Maybe it was just meant to distract you from those innuendo loaded lyrics which were actually pretty filthy. I guess the clue was in the song title but check these out:

Better move it fast so you can pump it (pump it)
Two balls and a bat (hoo), a pitcher with a hat (ha)
Slidin’ into home base, tryin’ to hit a home run
Swing batta batta batta batta batta swing
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Louis Sharpe / Joey Gardner
Come Baby Come lyrics © Universal Music – Z Songs, Warner-tamerlane Publishing Corp., Blue Ink Music, Third And Lex Music

You don’t have to be Finbarr Saunders to work out what’s going on here! I’m sure we’ll be seeing and hearing more of K7 in future TOTP repeats. For those of a delicate nature, you have been warned!

*Such an ear worm is it that thirty years later, when I want my dog called Benji to come to me, I often say “Come Benji come, Benji, Benji come come”.

Ah now, talking of delicate…how to approach this one? OK well, the facts around the record are that “Gone Too Soon” was the ninth and final single taken from Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album (the first – “Black And White” – had been released an incredible 25 months earlier). As the ninth single from an album that had been out for two years, even Jackson couldn’t eke out a big hit from it and it stalled at No 33. This was his lowest UK chart placing since a rerelease of “Girl Your So Together” in 1984.

Jackson recorded the track as a tribute to Ryan White, a US teenager who was haemophiliac and became infected with the HIV virus from a contaminated blood treatment. This was the dark ages of 1984 and Ryan was subsequently barred by his school from attending due to concerns from other parents that he would spread the virus. Given just six months to live, Ryan lived on for another five years in which time he became a high profile figure for HIV/AIDS research and public education attracting the attention of Jackson.

Unfortunately for the singer (and this is where the delicate bit comes in) the release of the song coincided with allegations of child sexual abuse against him made by the then thirteen years old Jordan Chandler. I’m guessing the single’s cover with a picture of Jackson walking around his Neverland ranch with Ryan maybe didn’t do the King of Pop any favours in the eyes of anyone who wanted to believe the allegations. The case was eventually settled out of court with the plaintiff reportedly receiving $23 million. Speculation about Jackson’s private life (already a media frenzy) had gone onto another, darker level. The scrutiny and effects of the accusations would never leave him and indeed resurfaced in 2003 with a second set of allegations. Jackson was acquitted on all counts in 2005. Four years later, he would be dead himself from cardiac arrest. At the memorial service, Usher performed “Gone Too Soon” and the circle was complete.

After being on the show last time, Cliff Richard is into the charts but it’s more with a loud fart than a bang at a lowly No 27 with “Healing Love”. The single would struggle on gamely to a high of No 19 but it was a far cry from the massive Christmas hits of “Mistletoe And Wine” and “Saviour’s Day”.

I can’t even find the official promo video for the single online so unloved is the song but from the few seconds we see here there seems to be a lot of billowing drapes behind Cliff as he sings. Haven’t seen as much material being wafted about since Spandau Ballet and “Only When You Leave” in 1984.

Next up a duet featuring a man who, despite being around since the time of disco, is only known in the UK for three songs, all of them collaborations with a female singer. Peabo Bryson first had a – no wait! You’re right. Let’s address that name of his before anything else. Peabo…you don’t get many of them to the pound do you? I’ve never heard anyone calling out “Peabo, come here now!” or “Have you seen our Peabo?”. However, I do know someone who once heard these immortal words come out of the mouth of a tired and frustrated mother:

“Oi! Cleopatra! Pack it in or I’ll twat ya!”
Hessle Road, Hull sometime around 2010

Only in Hull. Anyway, Peabo isn’t his real name. No, of course it isn’t! Sadly his real name is worse if anything – Robert Peapo Bryson. Peapo! That’s what you say when playing with a baby! As I was saying though, he first had a hit in the UK in 1983 with “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love For You”, an horrendously schmaltzy ballad that went all the way to No 2. There then followed an eight year gap until he returned with the title song from the Disney animation Beauty And The Beast alongside Celine Dion which bagged them a Top 10 hit. Clearly onto a good thing, he returned in 1993 with another Disney film song. This time it was “A Whole New World” which was from Aladdin and was, of course, another duet. The lucky lady this time was US singer songwriter Regina Belle who had been releasing records since 1987 without much commercial success. That was rectified and then some by “A Whole New World”. Not only was it an American No 1, it also is noteworthy for being the record that finally knocked Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” off the top spot after fourteen weeks over there. The reception to the record was a bit more lukewarm in the UK where it peaked at No 12.

It’s been covered a few times including by ex- One Direction member Zayn Malik (alongside Zhavia Ward) but the one that really stands out is the version by the god awful Peter Andre and his then wife Katie Price who included it on their album of covers also called “A Whole New World”. The track listing includes their takes on “Islands In The Stream” and the aforementioned “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love For You”. Hell’s teeth! That’s a whole new world of pain more like!

Next another of those rappers that the white middle class kids of Altrincham, Cheshire would fawn over. Ice T had a reputation for controversy that far outweighed any commercial success he achieved, certainly in this country. By 1993, he’d already released five albums but had never had a UK Top 40 hit…until “That’s How I’m Livin’”. We kind of knew already how he was living (that’s with a ‘g’ rather than as a ‘G’) and that was tendentiously. He’d provoked the ire of the POTUS George Bush no less with the release of “Cop Killer” by Body Count a track he wrote and a band he was a member of. He is also recognised as one of the defining influences of gangster rap and had well publicised disputes with fellow rappers like LL Cool J. However, Ice T was also savvy enough to diversify and forged an acting career for himself, starring in dozens of films and TV shows like New Jack City and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. “That’s How I’m Livin’” was taken from his album “Home Invasion” and peaked at No 21.

We didn’t know it at the time but the “Spooky” single would be the last material released by New Order (barring Best Ofs and rereleased singles) for eight years. For five of those years, the band didn’t see each other at all whilst the concentrated on personal projects. Yet again I have zero recall of this track. New Order singles of 1993? “Regret” of course. “Ruined In A Day”? Yeah. “World (The Price Of Love)”? Just about. This one though? I’ve got nothing, zero, nada. Like I’ve never heard it before. Why put out a fourth single from an album that been out for months during the Christmas rush? Consequently, “Spooky” only made No 22 which is actually higher than I would have expected. Maybe they just wanted to set a personal band record. This was the first time that New Order ever achieved four hits from the same album.

Tellingly, Tony Dortie says he doesn’t think the band have ever made a bad video. A bad video? Is that what they’d become reduced to by this point? What about the music? There were worst times ahead though with Peter Hook leaving under very acrimonious circumstances. Oh dear.

The final Breaker is a song that had already almost been the Christmas No 1 once and was rush released in 1993 to try again. Back in 1984, the whole of the UK record buying public seemed to be enthralled by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Two No 1 singles clocking up fifteen weeks at the top between them meant that when it came to the runners and riders for the festive chart topper, they were the bookies favourite. They had an epic, bowl-you-over ballad that was perfect for Christmas. They even had a nativity themed promo video. “The Power Of Love” duly went to No 1 on its first week of release. What hadn’t been figured into the odds was Bob Geldof and Band Aid which, when the list of high profile pop star contributors to the record became known, was always going to be the Christmas chart topper. Frankie were dethroned after just one week. Could the 1993 rerelease do what the 1984 original couldn’t and be No 1 for Yuletide? For Bob Geldof read Mr Blobby. They never stood a chance though “The Power Of Love” remains a firm favourite on Christmas playlists to this day. Mr Blobby on the other hand…

One of the success stories of 1993 now (and it pains me to say it) as we catch up with Haddaway in Disney World, Florida. Didn’t we see PM Dawn and Boy George there this year as well? Did TOTP have some sort of arrangement with Disney? Anyway, after No 2 and No 6 hits in the UK charts, the big question for Haddaway wasn’t “What Is Love?” but “how do I get a third hit? Well, one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned from these hundreds of TOTP repeats is that if you’re a new act with a shiny, uptempo pop song, you can replicate that formula for the follow up but you need something different for the third release and what is more different than a ballad? Haddaway clearly knew the rules and his third release was indeed a slow, romantic number called “I Miss You”. Sadly though, it’s not only slow but completely laboured and ponderous. It literally never gets out of first gear. Just dreadful. The lyrics sound like they came out of a one minute brainstorming session about the most obvious themes of love and regret.

I miss you, oh I miss you
I’m gonna need you more and more each day
I miss you, more than words can say
More than words can ever say
Copyright © 2000-2022 AZLyrics.com

Dreadful stuff. Somehow though, this nonsense got to No 9 to give Haddaway his third consecutive Top 10 hit. 1993 really had a lot to answer for.

Take That have gone straight into the charts at No 1 for the third consecutive time with “Babe”. No other act had done this at the time. Not the aforementioned Frankie, not The Jam (they managed two) not anyone. It really was quite the rise when you consider that eighteen months earlier, their biggest hit to date had been the No 38 single “Promises”. By Christmas 1993, they were the undisputed heroes for a generation of teenage girls. Of course, it’s not like we hadn’t seen bands being screamed at before. Bay City Rollers, Duran Duran, Bros…and yet none of them attained this particular chart achievement.

Tony Dortie joins the band on stage at the song’s end for a cosy chat about how well they’re doing and so high on success are they that they take the piss out of dethroned No 1 Mr Blobby by doing some Blobby impressions (led by Robbie Williams naturally). The pink and yellow dotted buffoon would have his revenge a week later when, rather improbably, he returned to the top of the charts to bag the Christmas No 1. I remember thinking that this was nuts and how had it happened? I was no Take That fan obviously but at least “Babe” was a proper song. Somebody who was a fan was my younger sister and years later she went to see a Robbie Williams tribute act where, in an unlikely turn of events, the worlds of Mr Blobby and Take That collided once more. The impersonator was a rather rotund figure and so his stage name was Blobby Williams and he was part of Take Fat. Marvellous.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Chaka Demus and Pliers	Twist And Shout	Nope
2	Meatloaf	Bat Out Of Hell	No
3	East 17	It’s Alright	Yes, yes I did
4	Diana Ross	Your Love	Never happening
5	EYC	Feelin’ Alright	As if
6	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
7	Michael Jackson	Gone Too Soon	Nah
8	Cliff Richard	Healing Love	Of course not
9	Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle	A Whole New World	Noi chance
10	Ice T	That’s How I’m Livin	Not my bag
11	New Order	Spooky	Negative
12	Frankie Goes To Hollywood	The Power Of Love	Not in 1984 nor 1993
13	Haddaway	I Miss You	Awful – no
14	Take That	Babe	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/m001fy5t/top-of-the-pops-16121993

TOTP 08 JUL 1993

Posted on September 15, 2022 by 80stastic

On the day this TOTP aired, and presumably straight after it finished, Phil Mitchell got married for the first time in Eastenders. His wife was a Romanian refugee called Nadia with the object of the nuptials being to get her a visa so she could stay in the UK. As soon as she was married, she went off with her boyfriend. Fast forward 29 years and Phil is about to get married for the fifth time to Kat Slater but as with his first wedding, it doesn’t go to plan. I wonder how many of the songs on tonight’s TOTP could apply to Phil’s love life?

A perfect start with “What Is Love” by Haddaway! Does Phil know? I doubt it. How about Haddaway? Did he have any inkling? He probably didn’t care as he was up to No 2 in the charts and onto his third TOTP appearance. Piece of piss this pop star lark he probably thought after ditching his career in the navy (presumably he said “sod this for a game of sailors”). So easy did he find bagging a hit that he did it again…and again…and again. His debut album would give him three further Top 10 hits though I couldn’t have named any without checking his discography. So effortless was Haddaway’s rise to fame that he didn’t even bother to name his album properly instead just calling it “The Album”. A bit like Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead calling his dog ‘dog’ then. I once found myself in Xanadu nightclub in Rochdale where I was working and being surrounded by punters dancing to Haddaway was a bit like being on the set of The Walking Dead in retrospect.

Phil Mitchell must have proclaimed “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” to one of his many wives down the years in that rasping voice of his. Taylor Dayne wasn’t one of them though as she’s never married Wikipedia tells me though she does look a little bit like the character Chrissie Watts (played by Tracy-Ann Oberman) who was married to Dirty Den and indeed murdered him. Hmm. I seem to have gone down a rather bleak rabbit hole there. I’m sure Taylor, on the other hand, is as sweet as popcorn….

Yes, after a career that took in acing, Broadway and pop stardom, the younger generation will know Taylor as Popcorn from The Masked Singer. Back in 1993 though she was promoting her “Soul Dancing” album via her cover of Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe” though it failed to cut through like her “Tell It To My Heart” debut that went double platinum in the States. She did however continue to have hits on the US Dance chart into the new millennium.

“Will You Be There?” Phil Mitchell might have been thinking to himself this week as he stood in church waiting for a very late Kat Slater to arrive. Michael Jackson must have been asking himself “Will you be a hit?” seeing as this was the eighth single to be taken from his 1991 (yes that’s 1991!) album “Dangerous”. He needn’t have worried as it made No 9 making Jackson the first artist to have an album generate eight consecutive Top 20 hits (it would have been eight consecutive Top 10 hits but for “Jam” peaking at No 13).

I thought I didn’t know how this one went but on hearing it back, it does sound familiar. It’s got a very gospel feel to it while the melody puts me in mind of “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers. However, it was another song that sounded similar which caused Jacko some legal problems when Italian songwriter Albano Carrisi launched a plagiarism suit claiming “Will You Be There” copied his composition “The Swans Of Balaka”. The claim was ultimately rejected.

Unbelievably, a ninth single – the prophetically entitled “Gone Too Soon” – was released from “Dangerous” nearly two years to the day since the album came out. That was a step too far though and it struggled to a peak of No 33 in the UK.

And the 1993 disco revival is still going strong. After Taylor Dayne covering Barry White earlier comes Kim Wilde who has recorded a cover of Yvonne Elliman’s 1978 hit “If I Can’t Have You”. Why? Well, it’s to promote her Best Of album “The Singles Collection 1981-93”. Kim, of course, had history when it came to cover versions to help restore former glories. In 1986, she did a version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by The Supremes to revive a career that was stalling. That proved to be a master stroke as it went to No 1 in the US and No 2 over here. “If I Can’t Have You” wasn’t quite the same success though it did supply her biggest hit since “Four Letter Word” in 1988 by peaking at No 12. It would also be her last ever UK Top 40 hit which presumably means this is also Kim’s final ever TOTP appearance (sob!). That Best Of album performed pretty well though going gold in the UK and just missing the Top 10.

What? An Eastenders connection? Oh well, didn’t Alfie Moon say to Kat the other night something to the effect of “If I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody baby”.

It’s Chaka Demus & Pliers now for what I think is the third time in the show with “Tease Me”. I think I’ve had enough of this one now Mr. TOTP producer! In his intro, host Mark Franklin states that 50% of this week’s Top 10 are live in the TOTP studio and I can’t help thinking that maybe CD & P were fitted into the running order just so that the show could make that claim. In fairness though, they had just moved up a place to a peak of No 3 so no doubt that’s how their inclusion would have been justified. After all, “Tease Me” was a hit all over the world but nowhere bigger than in the UK where it sold 400,000 copies.

I’m struggling to get a Phil Mitchell reference in for this one although surely he must have used a pair of pliers during a car repair down The Arches at some point down the years?

I’m giving myself a break from Eastenders references for the Breakers mainly because none of them lend themselves to the soap or Phil Mitchell at all. I mean, where’s the connection with U.S.U.R.A. and “Sweat”? These were the people who brought us “Open Your Mind” on the achingly trendy Deconstruction label and this was the follow up. Not being a dancehead, this did nothing for me (neither did its predecessor) though I understand it was a big hit in the clubs. “Sweat” peaked at No 29.

Now a guy who was a breakthrough success in 1991 but whom we hadn’t heard from since. Back in those 1991 posts, I admitted to an irrational hatred of Kenny Thomas back in the day, an opinion I had to modify on account of Kenny being a stand up, decent guy according to all sources.

My view of his music remained the same though – I wasn’t a fan and so I’m pretty sure that the thought of a second album of songs from him wouldn’t have had me counting down the days until its release date. “Wait For Me” was that album and its lead single was “Stay”. As Mark Franklin says in his intro, it was a cover though he doesn’t advise us who did the original so I did the detective work and tracked it down. I’m still none the wiser though even with the answer in front of me. It was the title track of a 1986 album by US R&B group The Controllers but only made No 77 in the UK charts. I have no idea about any of the content of the previous sentence.

“Stay” was all about the number two. It peaked at No 22 for two weeks.

AC/DC have come up many a time during these TOTP repeats and I’ve never really known what to say about them as I just don’t really get them at all. The throaty vocals of Brian Johnson, the misogynistic undertones of the lyrics and Angus Young’s schoolboy uniform stage outfits; none of it appealed to me. And yet there are people who I know and like who swear by the band.

Anyway, the end is nigh for AC/DC/TOTP as “Big Gun” is their penultimate UK Top 40 hit. Taken from the soundtrack to Last Action Hero, it made No 23. I’ve never seen the film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger but from reading the plot on Wikipedia it sounds like a stinker. I can appreciate there was an attempt to do something different with the action genre but it sounds like one of those movies where the kids are smarter than the adults which I’m not a fan of. The soundtrack is a who’s who of hard rock featuring Anthrax, Aerosmith and Alice In Chains alongside AC/DC and that’s just the ‘A’s.

Is this the first time we’ve seen The Levellers on TOTP? Well, yes and no. It is the first time we’ve seen them in these BBC4 repeats but not the first time that they appeared on the show. That was on 21st May 1992 when they appeared live by satellite from Paris performing “15 Years” but we didn’t get to see that repeat due to it being presented by Adrian Rose who refused to give permission for shows he featured in being re-broadcast. The band wouldn’t appear in the TOTP studio until 1995 when they performed “Hope Street”.

Back in 1993 though the band had just released their third and eponymous studio album and although they have retrospectively voiced their dislike of it, commercially it was their then best performing album peaking at No 2. In fact, The Levellers were on their way to the apex of their popularity which was displayed in a very visual way when they headlined Glastonbury in 1994 in front of 300,000 people.

The lead single from “The Levellers” album was “Belaruse” and it would start a bizarre run of chart placings which would see four of their next six single releases peak at No 12. Listening to it now, the hard drumming intro really reminds me of “Funeral Pyre” by The Jam.

The first of three songs that have been on the show before now starting with M People and “One Night In Heaven”. By the way, I can’t find the clips from this particular show so have had to use previous performance’s instead. Heather Small might be glad I have as there seems to be a curious tinny effect on her vocals as if the microphone isn’t working properly. She seems slightly uncomfortable up there as if she’s aware there’s a problem but it’s too late to do anything about it so she’s just going with it. Maybe it’s just because I’m playing it back through my phone.

“One Night In Heaven” peaked at No 6.

Stand aside Kim Wilde, here’s a true disco legend. Yes, you did a nice job with your cover of “If I Can’t Have You” but this is the Queen of Disco herself, Gloria Gaynor.

Look, I don’t need to tell you about “I Will Survive” though what I will say is that it’s been covered over a hundred times but maybe one of the more obscure versions is this from the Puppini Sisters who I caught live in a tiny venue in Hull that was completely oversold to the point that it really didn’t feel safe so I left early. Yes, I did survive.

Oh and one final Phil Mitchell/Eastenders reference – Phil has of course survived many a drama on the soap none more so than in the 2001 ‘Who Shot Phil?’ storyline when he survived being gunned down by ex-girlfriend Lisa.

It’s a final week at the top for Gabrielle with “Dreams”. Little did we all know that it would take seven years for her to get back to the top of the heap when her Bob Dylan sampling hit “Rise” made it to No 1 in early 2000. Not that there weren’t any hits in between of course. She clocked up nine Top 40 hits in the intervening years including five Top Tenners. The hits didn’t stop with “Rise” either with a further three Top 10 entries occurring in the subsequent 12 months. That’s sixteen hit singles in total plus seven charting albums (including a No 1). Maybe Gabrielle doesn’t get the credit she deserves?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	What Is Love	Hadaway and shite!
2	Taylor Dayne	Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love	No
3	Michael Jackson	Will You Be There?	No I won’t be and indeed wasn’t
4	Kim Wilde	If I Can’t Have You	Nope
5	Chaka Demus & Pliers	Tease Me	Never happening
6	U.S.U.R.A.	Sweat	Negative
7	Kenny Thomas	Stay	As if
8	AC/DC	Big Gun	Big log more like – no
9	The Levellers	Belaruse	Nah
10	M People	One Night In Heaven	No but my wife had the album
11	Gloria Gaynor	I Will Survive (Phil Kelsey remix)	I did not
12	Gabrielle	Dreams	And no

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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/m001btp2/top-of-the-pops-08071993