No Doubt

TOTP 03 OCT 1997

I said in the last post that we hadn’t yet reached the Kate Thornton/Gail Porter/Jamie Theakston era of TOTP presenters and yet here was the last of those three names on our screens just the following week. Was I mistaken in my claim then? Not really. It turns out that Theakston’s appearance here was as a ‘guest presenter’ and he wouldn’t become a part of the regular roster of hosts until 1998. So kind of like an audition then, similar to what happened with Sarah Cawood the other week? Probably not as he was already an established BBC presenter being onto his second series of co-hosting Saturday morning kids TV show Live & Kicking alongside TOTP regular Zoe Ball so I’m guessing he was just filling in as no-one else was available? These days, Theakston hosts the Heart radio breakfast show with Amanda Holden though my first thought when his name is mentioned is that, like Angus Deayton, he was exposed by a tabloid newspaper for visiting a brothel and snorting cocaine in 2002. Two BBC presenters making the same misdemeanour in the same year. The Beeb was having a public relations nightmare!

Anyway, let’s see how Theakston did on his TOTP debut. We start with Oasis who are in the studio to promote their single “Stand By Me”. The second track taken from their “Be Here Now” album, it would peak at No 2 thus becoming another of those songs denied being a chart topper by the Elton John phenomenon. At the time, the album received mostly positive (and even gushing) reviews in the music press but, in retrospect, has come to be seen as the point where it all started to go wrong for the band. Criticisms of it being overproduced and bloated were given credence by the length of some of its songs. Ignoring the “All Around The World (Reprise)” outro, only two of the eleven tracks clocked in at under the five minutes mark. “Stand By Me” itself has a running time of five seconds off six minutes and we get nearly all of that 5:55 length in this performance. Was that a mark of the power and influence that Oasis held at that time? That they could command such an exposure on the BBC’s prime time music show? After all, “Be Here Now” was the best selling British album of 1997 and the fastest selling of all time in the UK.

Anyway, with some temporal distance and the revisiting of the album, although history hasn’t been too kind to it, people have generally… well…stood by “Stand By Me” which has been regarded as one of its standout tracks. I can hear why. It’s a bloody good song though it hardly broke any new ground and indeed, always reminded me of Mott The Hoople’s “All The Young Dudes” – that ascending scale at the end of the chorus? I’m not the only one who thinks that. Noel Gallagher was asked in a Q Magazine interview if he’d pinched the riff from the Bowie penned song and he admitted that he had! Not only that but that he’d used it for “Don’t Look Back In Anger” as well (though the chords for that are almost identical to “Streets Of London” by Ralph McTell). It’ll be interesting to see how many songs from “Be Here Now” that Oasis play in their 2025 reunion tour. I’m guessing not many but if there’s to be just one, my money would be on “Stand By Me”.

Theakston goes a bit un-PC in his intro for the next artist who is Louise giving it the whole Sid James steam-coming-out-of-his-ears look. Well, it was the era of ‘lads mags’ I guess so it was probably more acceptable back then. Now, continuing with the theme of pinching song ideas which we started with Oasis, Louise seems to have done a bit of appropriating herself as new single “Arms Around The World” sounds an awful lot like Janet Jackson’s “Runaway”. No, I mean like really an awful lot…

See? Anyway, “Arms Around The World” was the lead single from Louise’s second album “Women In Me” and would become her then biggest hit when it peaked at No 4 meaning five of her first six solo outings into the charts had gone Top 10. Not quite reaching the recent No 1 heights of her old band Eternal but pretty impressive all the same. There’s another (albeit more tenuous) link with the aforementioned Oasis whose next single would be “All Around The World”. “Arms Around The World”? “All Around The World”. As Sid James might have said “Cor, blimey! You lot are hard work!”.

We stay in the studio – there was a definite preference for studio performances under executive producer Chris Cowey – with No Doubt whose name allows Theakston to deliver the most woeful, lame and obvious line imaginable his intro. Like most people I’m guessing, my first encounter with Gwen Stefani and co was via super-hit “Don’t Speak”. What stands out to me about their subsequent releases is how they sounded so very little like that global No 1. “Just A Girl” and this one – “Spiderwebs” – were much more of that ska punk/pop fusion sound that characterised their origins. Of course, I’m not familiar with those origins – it’s just what I’ve read – as, despite working in a record shop, I’d barely heard the band’s “Tragic Kingdom” album from which the hits came. I did know said hits though and “Don’t Speak” seemed to me to bear little resemblance to what followed. Was it a deliberate attempt to go more mainstream or just a song that came about organically and ended up with a more wide reaching sound?

As for “Spiderwebs”, it’s a pretty cool track although it’s subject matter about Gwen Stefani receiving unwanted attention from a smitten suitor isn’t the most obviously appealing source material. Still, similar to No Doubt, there was another band who based their career on a post-punk/ reggae fusion sound and who scored the biggest hit of their career with a song about stalking so who am I to be the songwriting…ahem…police?

Now here’s a curious thing and I’m not just talking about the artist for whom the adjective ‘curious’ could always be applied. No, I’m referring to the fact that Chis Cowey found a place in the running order for Björk whose release “Jóga” was never going to make the Top 40. Why? Because it broke the chart regulation of being released in more than three formats. The lead track for third album “Homogenic”, it was only made available in the shops as a three CD and VHS Box Set, hence in four formats. It seems a curious (there’s that word again) marketing strategy to launch your artist’s next collection of new material – releasing the very first example of it in a format that broke chart rules. Did her record label One Little Indian not understand these rules and so it was a massive error on their part? Maybe so as Wikipedia says that they tried to argue that the VHS was bundled for free and so the release didn’t contravene the Official Chart Company’s three format restriction but the OCC weren’t having any of it. Host Jamie Theakston says in his segue that “Jóga” wouldn’t chart as only 3,000 copies of it had been made. Was that true? Or was that One Little Indian retrospectively trying to cover their backs? As I say, the whole thing is very curious.

As for what “Jóga” sounded like, well, I’ve had to revise my opinion about Björk in this blog many times from my initially derogative stance as I’ve leaned to appreciate her craft more but I’m going old school on this one – what a racket! Supposedly a love letter both to her best friend called Jóga and her native country Iceland, the story goes that Björk gave the concept of the track to her engineer Markus Dravs who then came up with a rhythm track that she felt was too abstract. Then producer Mark Bell took said track and added “some noises” which just about sums the whole thing up – a noise. No amount of strings can polish it up for me and Björk wailing away about being in a “state of emergency” wasn’t going to convince me otherwise.

Although M People hadn’t released anything since their cover of the Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park” in 1995, their absence hadn’t been as pronounced as it might have been due to the use of their “Search For A Hero” song to soundtrack a series of TV adverts for Peugeot during 1996. Despite its exposure causing a clamour for the song all over again (it had already been a No 9 hit), the band resisted all calls to rerelease it. Working in a record shop in pre-digital times, it really used to annoy me when this sort of thing happened. An artificial demand for a track caused by an advert or a radio station deciding to add it to their playlists which wasn’t actually available as a single to buy. Another example was when a Manchester radio station started playing “Acquiesce” by Oasis* despite it not being officially released as a single. We had loads of people ask for that convinced it was their new single. Fortunately, in that case, we could flog them the “Some Might Say” CD single as it was an extra track on that and we always kept all the Oasis singles in stock at all times what with us being in Stockport. Another example where there was no simple solution though was when the film Mannequin was first shown on TV in the early 90s and the next day, we had a procession of people come in asking for “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship which had been a hit in 1987! None of this will mean anything to people that have grown up in the era of streaming platforms and digital music but those who were there will recognise my pain!

*”Stand By Me” itself would be used for a series of adverts for the Halifax bank between 2021 and 2023.

Anyway, back to M People and they finally did release a single (of new material no less) in “Just For You” from their fourth and final album “Fresco” in 1997 and although not one of their most instantly recognisable tracks, it’s a very pleasant sound all the same. Gone was that rather clunky production that characterised their early hits and in its place was a much more smooth soul sound. It was perfect for daytime radio scheduling but perhaps they missed a trick by not releasing it a couple of months earlier as it had a great Summer vibe to it. However, its chart peak at No 8 would be their penultimate Top 10 hit. The time of M People was coming to an end.

The aforementioned Janet Jackson now with, for the third artist in a row, a lead single from a new album. Having signed the then biggest record deal in history with Virgin Records, our first taste of the fruits of that deal was “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” from “The Velvet Rope” album. As indicated by its title, the track took inspiration the Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi” with the copyright cleared sample running throughout it so majorly that it a credit was given to Joni on the song. Also featuring was Q-Tip (no, not Paul Young’s old band) from A Tribe Called Quest. I can’t say that it did much for me and I much preferred the original (excruciating laugh and all). I also didn’t think much to the over the top staging of this performance with Ms Jackson not being revealed from her backwards facing throne until nearly a minute in. Get over yourself Janet!

Now, just as Louise seemed to have stolen from Jackson’s “Runaway”, so Janet seems guilty of some musical thievery as she was on the end of litigation from UK soul singer Des’ree who claimed that “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” was very (meaning too) similar to her hit “Feel So High”. In 1998, she was awarded an out of court settlement of 25% of the publishing royalties equating to about £2 million. You can hear why she won…

Clearly it was felt that they’d been enough wailing and wringing of hands caused by the death of Princess Diana by this point and so we don’t get “Candle In The Wind ‘97” this week but the other song on the Elton John single. Yes, it was a double A-side single though that fact has been mostly forgotten now. The ‘other song’ was “Something About The Way You Look Tonight” and was essentially the lead single from his album “The Big Picture”. Wikipedia tells me that the track was released on its own without “Candle In The Wind ‘97” five days before the double A-side but I don’t remember that at all. Indeed, the official charts website makes no reference to this. Is it possible that it was just a case of bad timing and the single was all ready to go before the tragic car crash in Paris on 31 August and its release was just overtaken by events?

Whatever the truth, the song itself was a typical 90s Elton ballad which sounded like it could have been on the Lion King soundtrack to me. It wasn’t though and another song that wasn’t on an album was “Candle In The Wind ‘97” which did not feature on “The Big Picture”. I wonder how many people bought it thinking it was?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Oasis	Stand By Me	No, I’d given up on buying their singles by this point
2	Louise	Arms Around The World	Nope
3	No Doubt	Spiderwebs	Nah
4	Björk	Jóga	Definite no
5	M People	Just For You	Negative
6	Janet Jackson	Got ‘Til It’s Gone	I did not
7	Elton John	Something About The Way You Look Tonight / Candle In The Wind ’97	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/m0029vby/top-of-the-pops-03101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 04 APR 1997

Posted on February 16 by 80stastic

As widely predicted and discussed within the TOTP online community, BBC4’s repeats for 1997 are facing more disruption than the London Underground during a tube strike due to the various misdemeanours of some of the artists who had big hits this year. The first of these came at the end of March when the show that aired on the 28th of that month featured the video for R Kelly’s hit “I Believe I Can Fly”. The R&B singer is currently serving a 31 year sentence for racketeering and child pornography. Having checked the running order for that episode, my opinion is that we didn’t miss much with only the Pet Shop Boys and The Beautiful South being of potential interest to this blogger.

We’ll be jumping around for a while though as “I Believe I Can Fly” went to No 1 for three weeks and later in the year we have Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Sean Combs who spent six weeks on top of the UK charts with “I’ll Be Missing You” and who is currently facing charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. I’m assuming all shows that feature either R Kelly or Puff Daddy will be pulled and not re shown. For this episode though we are on safe ground with a load of dance tunes and those nice Spice Girls featuring. Our hosts are the irreverent pair Mark and Lard who had recently taken over the reigns of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show following the departure of Chris Evans.

We’re straight in – literally straight in as there’s no to camera piece from a featured artist nor even a presenter intro in these strange, new times – with the latest hit from Cast called “Free Me”. The lead single from sophomore album “Mother Nature Calls”, it was more of that so called ‘Britpop’ sound that had seen them become chart stars over the previous 18 months though possibly a bit more of an earthy sound and not quite as melodic. It was a decent tune – definitely not ‘filler’ but by no means ‘killer’ either. When reviewing their last hit, the standalone single “Flying”, I criticised the track’s lyrics for being basic and superficial. I have to say that this was also the case with “Free Me”. So simple are they that if they were a boy in a nursery rhyme, they’d definitely be called Simon. I mean, look at these:

Give me some time to be me, give me the space that I need

Give me a reason to be, give me some time to be

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Russell Glyn Ballard
Free Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

What? I wouldn’t have submitted that as an 11 year old if I’d been asked to write some poetry in an English lesson. Come on John Power – you were better than that! By the way, I’m not sure about your hat either. Must do better.

After Mark and Lard have reinforced their northern roots by insisting that you pronounce Cast as “Cast” and not “Carst” (they’re right of course), they introduce 3T who, unbelievably, were still having hits two years after their first. Happily, “Gotta Be You” would be the fifth and final time they would feature in the UK charts. Their discography informs me that this one featured a Herbie Critchlow who Wikipedia informs me is a producer and songwriter who has penned songs for the likes of Backstreet Boys, Rita Ora and…erm…Andy Abrahams. Is he the guy that comes on in the middle of this performance and raps something truly dodgy about zombie nymphomaniacs or something? Anyway, even he gets bored of the whole thing and exits stage left before the end of the song and he co-wrote the bloody thing! To paraphrase Morrissey when reviewing a Modern Romance single in Smash Hits, “there may well very well be a worse group than 3T but can anybody really think of one?”.

Next we have…what the actual f**k?! No Doubt?! AGAIN?! After venting my spleen in the last post that “Don’t Speak” had been shown in the 21 March show despite no longer being at No 1 and dropping down the charts, here they are once more. To quote from the extraordinary film Blazing Saddles, “What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin’ on here?” OK, the single had gone back up from No 4 to No 3 so in theory it was a chart climber, but this was the sixth time it had been on the show already and only three of those had been as the No 1 record. Sixth you say? YES! SIX! I’ve done my research and it was even on the 28 March show that we didn’t get to see meaning it was in three consecutive weeks after falling from the top of the charts. And it doesn’t even stop there as it was also on the 18 April show (which we similarly won’t get to see) meaning it was given a slot on the running order more often than when it was the actual No 1! This was just ludicrous! Who was the director during these shows?

*Checks internet*

It was that John L Spencer character again! Well, all I can say is never mind The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, this was The John L Spencer Bullshit Explosion!

When Mark and Lard looked at which acts would be featured in the show they would be presenting, what do you reckon they thought? I’m betting that when their fingers descended the list and alighted on N–Trance their reaction wasn’t “Brilliant! We’ve got N-Trance on the show and even better than that, they’re doing a cover of that old Ottawan hit!”. The descent of the people who gave us the dance floor classic “Set You Free” into a naff 70s tribute act was indeed a bizarre career move. It all seems to be down to the recruitment of rapper Ricardo da Force to their ranks who had previously featured on those huge hits by The KLF in the early 90s. He was at the forefront of N-Trance’s reworking of the Bee Gees classic “Stayin’ Alive” which had stunk the charts out in the Autumn of 1995 when it did a hit No 2.

Throwing out credibility for commercial success, they repeated the trick with “D.I.S.C.O.”. The original was gruesome enough but the 1997 version was just vulgar and the performance here, complete with 70s disco wigs and outfits (obviously) turned up the tacky-o-meter to 11. In case you’re not convinced by my argument, then here’s all the proof you need – it was covered by the King of Cheese himself Chico. It’s Chico time!….

What? There’s a counter argument? Which is?

*The guy who wrote and produced “D.I.S.C.O.” – Daniel Vangarde – is the father of Thomas Bangalter, one half of achingly hip dance outfit Daft Punk*

Daft Punk? Seriously? No, I don’t care. N-Trance can, to quote Norman Stanley Fletcher from Porridge, “Naff off!”.

Ah this is better – “North Country Boy” by The Charlatans. I recall that a record company rep turned up at the Our Price shop where I worked a couple of weeks before this all excited and carrying a pre-release copy of this single saying how it was really special and the best thing the band had ever done. Was he right? Well, music taste is totally subjective but he might have been in with a shout with that claim though it’s not my own personal favourite (which I think is “Just Lookin’”, today anyway). It’s probably one of their best known songs though, peaking at No 4 and coming from the album “Tellin’ Stories” which ushered in a period of great chart success for the band. The album itself went to No 1 while furnishing the band with four hit singles that achieved the following peaks:

3 – 4 – 6 – 16

I’m pretty sure that Mark and Lard liked this one – they even did their own version of it (sort of) under the guise of their alter ego spoof band project The Shirehorses. This is The Charley Twins…

This show really is dance heavy. After N-Trance earlier, we now get three more tracks from that (admittedly wide-ranging) genre back to back starting with DJ Quicksilver and “Bellissima”. Anybody whose stage name includes the letters ‘DJ’ in it immediately raises red flags for me and my pop sensibilities and in the case of Mr Quicksilver, I wasn’t wrong. His real name is Orhan Terzi which sounds like he’s Hull City’s latest Turkish midfield signing and I wish he had pursued a career in football rather than dance music. I can only assume that my brain can’t be wired the same way as the dance-heads that bought this single (it sold 600,000 copies- 600,000!) as I can hear nothing in the track that would have compelled me to shell out good money to buy it. It’s just the same beats all the way through with some strings sounds laid over the top of it. Repetitive, monotonous and moronic. I guess if you were tripping off your tits in a club it might make more sense but how could you listen to it in the privacy of your own home? The ballerina type dancer was a novel way to visually stage the track I guess but then she’s usurped by the usual women in PVC trousers and one in suspenders no less. Quicksilver himself gets a brief close up when he gurns down the camera lens and gives a thumbs up. Prat! It’s a massive thumbs down from me.

The second dance act on the show is that rare beast that had achieved a No 1 single. Back in 1995, Livin’ Joy rather surprisingly topped the charts with a rerelease of their No 18 hit “Dreamer” from the year before. They’d followed that up with two further Top Tenners but ultimately they would submit to the trend of diminishing returns.

This fourth single “Where Can I Find Love” would peak outside the Top 10 at No 12 and final chart entry “Deep In You” even lower at No 17. This one sounds a little too frantic for me, too much going on in the mix but who cares about that? What was going on with singer Tameko Star’s hat?! It’s enormous – I haven’t seen one that big since this fella was on our TV screens…

Did I say that dance acts having a No 1 hit were a rare beast? I was clearly talking out of my arse as here’s The Chemical Brothers with their second consecutive chart topper “Block Rockin’ Beats”. I think this might just have taken me by surprise at the time as it’s possible that I dismissed previous No 1 “Setting Sun” as having had an Oasis flavoured boost via the vocal contributions of Noel Gallagher. However, I must have underestimated the appeal of the Manchester duo as here they were again as the kings of the Top 40. Or had I? There was a lot of discussion at the time about how quickly the sales of “Block Rockin’ Beats” fell away in its second week of release as it slipped to No 8 just seven days after topping the charts. At the time, it was the ninth biggest fall from the pinnacle since charts were compiled. Was this down to the nature of it being a dance track with a lack of crossover appeal (say compared to something like “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt) or was it just more evidence of how the charts were being manipulated by record companies and their first week price discounting strategies.? Or perhaps a bit of both? I mean, they weren’t alone – both Blur and U2 had experienced similar chart slippage with their last two singles (though not quite as big as The Chemical Brothers). Did I just say ‘lack of crossover appeal’? Yet again, I seem to be spouting nonsense as when parent album “Dig Your Own Hole” came out a few weeks later, it went to No 1 and chalked up platinum sales. What was it Frank Zappa said? Writing about music is like dancing about architecture?

For the record, I quite enjoyed “Block Rockin’ Beats” and in a completely contrary stance to what I’d just said about Livin’ Joy, I liked that it sounded chaotic and all over the place. Musical opinion eh? Whatcha gonna do? The video features Perry Fenwick a year before he made his EastEnders debut as Billy Mitchell. I met his ex-partner and fellow actor Angie Lonsdale once when she was sharing a house with my mate Robin when he lived in London. She was nice. Yeah, it’s not a great story is it?

The play out video is “Mama” by the Spice Girls despite the fact that they have slipped from No 1 to the runners up spot this week. Yes, following in the footsteps of No Doubt and the nonsensical decision of temporary TOTP director John L. Spencer to show songs going down the charts, we get this one again. There were surely other hits in the Top 40 that could have been shown instead?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cast	Free Me	Nah
2	3T	Gotta Be You	No
3	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	Nope
4	N-Trance	D.I.S.C.O.	F...K. O.F.F.
5	The Charlatans	North Country Boy	No but I had the Melting Pot Best Of with it on
6	DJ Quicksilver	Bellissima	Never
7	Livin’ Joy	Where Can I Find Love	I did not
8	The Chemical Brothers	Block Rockin’ Beats	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	Spice Girls	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/m0027pnq/top-of-the-pops-04041997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 21 MAR 1997

Posted on February 12 by 80stastic

How was your life going in March 1997 (assuming you’re old enough to have any memories of 28 years ago)? If you were Tony Blair, you’d just received an endorsement as the next leader of the country by none other than traditional Tory supporters The Sun. Surely sitting Prime Minister John Major must have known the game was up then. If you were me (and I was), then you were stressed out at work and planning a trip to China. Those two things weren’t related – I was stressed at work as the manager of the Our Price where I worked had left a few weeks before and I was effectively acting manager by default whilst the recruitment process for a replacement was taking an age. I’d reluctantly agreed to put my hat in the ring at the behest of my colleagues (better the devil you know and all that) and we were about to introduce a new electronic stock control system which required a lot of preparation work. On top of that we had a new member of staff who was ruffling a few feathers in the team and apparently, according to my diary, one day a member of the public got stabbed in the shopping precinct where the store was located and I had to ring an ambulance, the police and try and patch him up. I have no recall of this at all so I’m either a complete fantasist or I’ve blocked out the memory of it.

That wasn’t the end of my stress though. One Saturday after work, a few of us went for a drink at a local pub and I took the pack of weekly memos with me as I planned to read them on the Sunday at home as I hadn’t had time at work. The memos were delivered to every store in a blue plastic pouch (‘the blue bag’) containing all the relevant information we needed for the next week including stock prices, charts and promotion details. As I sat down in the pub, I put them on the ledge above a radiator behind me so that they were in view of everyone and wouldn’t be forgotten at the end of the evening. What I hadn’t accounted for was the fact that there was a gap behind the radiator and between the seating and the blue bag slipped down the gap seamlessly once I let go of it. Disaster! Try as we might, we couldn’t retrieve it (and we spent the whole evening trying!) despite fashioning various apparatus using string and hooks (maybe even a coat hanger at one point) to pick it up. Either we gave up or the pub closed and I left memo less. I had to send someone to the Manchester store on Monday morning to photocopy theirs (this was the pre-digital age). As far as I knew, the memos would stay there until the pub had a refit, a time capsule from 1997. Almost 20 years later and long after I’d left Our Price, I went back to the pub and it had indeed had a refit so the memos would have been found (and binned) presumably. I resisted the temptation to ask the bar staff if they could check their lost and found for them!

As for China, my old school friend and best man at my wedding Rob was living and studying in Beijing so I’d arranged with his brother to fly out to visit him in the May. I had to get visas and inoculations and all that sort of thing sorted so there was a lot going on around this time. I’m sure I’ll get onto what went down in China in the next few posts.

Anyway, back to the month of March and if you were Kylie Minogue at that time, then you were hosting this edition of TOTP and had invested in a rather unflattering new, messy, plum coloured hairstyle. I think this was her ‘indie Kylie’ phase when she would collaborate with the likes of James Dean Bradfield of the Manics (he co-wrote her “Some Kind Of Bliss” single of this year) so I’m guessing that a new phase meant a new image. Definitely not having a style remodel was opening act Lisa Stansfield who was still very much attached to her brand of smooth R&B soul/dance that she’d made her name on. By 1997, she was onto her fourth solo album but after releasing the previous three in a four year period, it had been four years since album number three “So Natural”. Lisa had carved out a nice little sideline for herself though in recording songs for soundtrack albums – her contributions to The Bodyguard and Indecent Proposal had given her two Top 10 hits. In addition to that, she’d been back there earlier this year when remix team the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels looked to Lisa’s back catalogue to come up with “People Hold On (The Bootleg Mixes)”. However, taking a holistic approach to Lisa’s career up to this point, it’s surprisingly yet undeniably a case of diminishing returns as sales of her albums from “Affection” onwards decreased. Of course, that’s a very statistical approach – Lisa’s albums were still selling well but the UK figures were as follows:

Affection – 900,000 (triple platinum)
Real Love – 600,000 (double platinum)
So Natural – 300,000 (platinum)
Lisa Stansfield – 100,000 (gold)

It’s a definite downwards trend but I guess it’s all relative. Anyway, “The Real Thing” was the lead single from that last eponymous album and, for me, was typical Lisa fare which was fair enough but didn’t show much musical progression. On the other hand, if it ain’t broke and all that. It would return Stansfield to the Top 10 with a song that wasn’t from a film for the first time since 1991’s “Change” though she did feature on the “Five Live EP” alongside Queen and George Michael that would make No 1 off the back of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. However, “The Real Thing” would also be the last time a single of hers would be so high in the charts. I sometimes wonder if Lisa gets the credit she deserves though. You rarely hear her referred to when it comes to naming the UK’s most renowned female singers do you?

Ooh now, might this be a bit awkward? Kylie has to introduce one of her exes as INXS are the second artist on tonight. Ah, it was probably alright – Kylie and Michael Hutchence stopped seeing each other in 1991 so I’m guessing both parties might have moved on. Hutchence certainly had – by 1997 he was two years into a relationship with Paula Yates and they had had a daughter together. However, the relationship was intense and played out under a media spotlight and against a bitter custody battle with Yates’s ex-husband Bob Geldof over the three daughters they had together. Within eight months of this TOTP appearance, Hutchence would be dead, having committed suicide in a Sydney hotel room aged just 37. I remember thinking on hearing the news that “Suicide Blonde” would surely never be played on the radio ever again though it subsequently was resurrected after an appropriate amount of time had passed. One song that was cut in the wake of the news was “So Long Suicide” from the Duran Duran set of the gig they played on the night of Hutchence’s death. The band had already recorded a track about their friend called “Michael, You’ve Got A Lot To Answer For” that featured on their “Medazzaland” album that was released a month before his death.

As for INXS, they would carry on intermittently for the next 15 years with various guest singers including Terence Trent D’Arby at one point and then a permanent vocalist in J.D. Fortune who was recruited via reality television show Rock Star: INXS. Returning to this TOTP performance, I think this would have been their last time on the show in person not only because of Hutchence’s subsequent death but also because “Elegantly Wasted” was their final UK Top 40 hit. The title track of their tenth studio album, it sounded much like everything else they’d ever recorded since the “Kick” album. The winning formula of that record had helped the band become global success and saw Hutchence depicted as a rock god. Fast forward a decade and it was a sound that was starting to feel, if not worn out, then definitely not fresh. As with Lisa Stansfield earlier, it had been a case of diminishing returns for sales of INXS albums since the high point of “Kick” and “Elegantly Wasted” wasn’t about to reverse that trend. It was a sad end to the band’s glory days which had coincided with my time as a student at Sunderland Poly and my early years of marriage and living in Manchester. Thanks for the memories. RIP Michael.

Sometimes I look down the running order for these TOTP repeats and think to myself “what on earth do I have to say about this one?” – “Love Guaranteed” by Damage undoubtedly falls into that category. Needless to say I don’t remember it at all and listening to it in the present day, it made as much impression on me as a feather on a set of scales. It was just more of that one-paced, pedestrian R&B /pop hybrid that was popular back then. What’s that? What about Christopher Lee in the video? What about him? Plot wise, I think he’s meant to be in control of some sort of time portal but he looks as bored with the whole thing as I feel about it. Other than that, he does bugger all except stand around and stare down the lens of the camera. What? It’s the way that he stares though? Ah well, you’ve got me there.

As Kylie says in her intro to the next artist, the Aussies had taken over this particular episode of TOTP what with INXS, Kylie herself of course and now Gina G. Yes, lest we forget, the UK’s 1996 Eurovision entrant was actually Australian*. Despite trailing in eight place on the big night, “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” had gone on to become a No 1 single. More surprising than that though was that Gina managed to sustain a pop career for another year or so and rack up four more hits. “Fresh” was the third of those and also the title track from her debut album. I don’t remember the song at all (for the record it was another ridiculously catchy, disco inflected Eurodance number) but I do recall the album – not for its music but for its dreadful cover art. It looked so amateurish and like it had been designed on the back of a beer mat down the pub. Gina is covered in chocolate icing (hmm…) holding a microphone attached to a stand with the microphone plugged into a socket on a wall. The room it’s set in is all in purple for some reason and Gina’s name and the album title look like they’ve been chucked on randomly at an angle rather than positioned with any resemblance of judgement. Then there’s Gina’s hair which looks like Crystal Tipps from 70s cartoon Crystal Tipps And Alistair. Is that some sort of air blower in the foreground (that might explain Gina’s hair) or is it an amp? You can’t tell because the whole thing has some sort of grainy tint to it that makes it look out of focus. The whole thing is an ugly mess. It was shot by renowned and award winning photographer David LaChapelle whose style has been described as “hyper-real and slyly subversive” – yeah, whatever. Regardless of what it looked like, the album continued her run of success by peaking at No 12 and achieving silver status in the UK in recognition of 60,000 sales.

*This theme was continued in 1997 as the UK entrant was Katrina And The Waves whose lead singer was Katrina Leskanich, an American but well be seeing them in these TOTP repeats soon enough.

Now, this is the song of the night so far for me. The Divine Comedy are probably not everybody’s cup of tea – was ‘wimp rock’ the term that some hack came up with to label them with? – but I’ve always quite liked them. After becoming genuine pop stars with chart hits the previous year, the band didn’t rest on their laurels and released their fifth album “A Short Album About Love” just nine months after their last “Casanova”. Despite containing three hit singles, it hadn’t sold that well so a change of tack was required. Rather than a complete change of sound, a different approach was deemed necessary and that was to record their next album at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire with an orchestra (but no audience). The plan worked in that the album made No 13 in the charts though I think I’m right in saying it was sold at a reduced price on account of only consisting of seven tracks so that may have helped its sales. It also produced another hit single in “Everybody Knows (Except You)” which was another ballad (of sorts) following on from previous hit “Frog Princess” though it was a much more…what’s the word?…agile?…unconventional?…love song but tuneful as hell. As for the performance, there was a lot of talk online about main man Neil Hannon’s cheek bones and beard. They are quite impressive though never really having had cheekbones or been able to grow a beard properly myself, I’m no expert.

By 1997, Wet Wet Wet had been having hits for a whole decade and to commemorate that anniversary, they released an album called “10”. Ironically, they wouldn’t release an album at all in the next ten years after their band splintered due to disputes over royalty payments and Marti Pellow’s hiatus to address his drugs and alcohol addictions. For the moment though, it seemed like business as usual as the band continued to churn out the hits. The phrase ‘business as usual’ could not only be applied to the band’s chart consistency but also to their sound. Lead single “If I Never See You Again” was yet more of their sophisti-pop, blue eyed soul style that they had honed over the years. I’d enjoyed their early hits but ten years in and – a bit like INXS earlier – it had all become a bit stale and predictable. Proving my point, the band’s final hit of the 90s would be with the most predictable cover version they could have chosen, the most covered song in history – “Yesterday” by The Beatles. With that and the whole “Love Is All Around” extended episode, “If I Never See You Again” might well have been the words on the lips of many a disgruntled music fan in 1997.

What’s that? Do I fancy a quick win? What do you mean? “Isn’t It A Wonder” by Boyzone has been on TOTP before on the 8 November 1996 show when it was premiered as an album track from their “A Different Beat” album? So I could just add a link to my review of that episode and I wouldn’t have to listen to/think about/ comment on it a second time? Right then…

TOTP 08 NOV 1996

The Spice Girls are holding at No 1 with the double A-side single “Mama / Who Do You Think You Are” off the back of Comic Relief day that happened the previous week. This time we get a performance of “Mama” and the girls have got some kids on stage with them to make the song even more sickly than it already was. I wonder who the kids were? Competition winners? They’ll be in their mid-30s now – you feel old now don’t you? I’m not sure that Mel B’s outfit was appropriate with her sitting next to that young lad. Still, it’ll have given him a good story to tell for the rest of his life.

The play out video is…wait…what? “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt?! But…but…they weren’t No 1 anymore and were at No 4 in the charts this week. They’d already been on three weeks in the trot whilst they’d topped the charts and yet they were back on again? Why? Well, this was all to do with the new appearance rules that had been brought in following the departure of Ric Blaxill as executive producer when songs no longer had to be new entries nor climbing the charts to be given a slot on the show. If you were going down the Top 40 you might yet get the call to appear one more time. Kylie says that “Don’t Speak” was the biggest selling single of the year to this point in an attempt to legitimise its video being given another showing but it seems a bit of a hollow reason to me. If this was the show’s new direction, I wasn’t sure about where we were heading.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Lisa Stansfield	The Real Thing	Negative
2	INXS	Elegantly Wasted	Nah
3	Damage	Love Guaranteed	As if
4	Gina G	Fresh	Nope
5	The Divine Comedy	Everybody Knows (Except You)	No but I had their Best Of with it on
6	Wet Wet Wet	If I Never See You Again	No
7	Boyzone	Isn’t It A Wonder	Never
8	Spice Girls	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	I did not
9	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	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/m0027pnn/top-of-the-pops-21031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 07 MAR 1997

Posted on February 5 by 80stastic

We’ve entered a new phase of TOTP history with this repeat as it marks the changing of the guard of the show’s executive producer role. Outgoing was Ric Blaxill* who been in the post for three years following the ‘Year Zero’ revamp debacle and in his place would come Chris Cowey who had worked on The Tube in the 80s and been the producer of its (sort of) 90s successor The White Room. I’m assuming that Blaxill’s rather sudden departure was due to the viewing figures for TOTP being down to two million though in fairness to Blaxill, the show being moved to a Friday night at 7.30 and going up against Coronation Street was probably the biggest factor in that outcome and that may have been a decision made way above him.

*Blaxill makes a valedictory cameo appearance at the end of the previous show when the Spice Girls are messing about with Ian Wright. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Bye TOTP Bye’

Cowey was brought in to reverse that trend and he did with viewing figures rising to five and a half million within the six year period he was executive producer. How did he do it? In his own words:

“There wasn’t any one fact why it worked. It was a million and one tiny fixes”

Sunderland Echo, Published 17th Jan 2024

One such fix was a phasing out of the ‘golden mic’ slot which saw celebrities from the world of music and showbiz taking over as presenters. Instead, a regular roster of hosts was assembled being sourced from BBC youth magazine show The O–Zone and existing Radio 1 DJs. This was no return to the ‘Smashie and Nicey’ days of the 70s and 80s though with the DJs being sourced from the cooler, edgier end of the spectrum like Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. I know that both are no longer seen as cool or edgy in 2025 but they possibly were back in 1997. Look, they were young at least and we should all be thankful that neither was Simon Mayo – OK?! Erm… where was I? Oh yeah, Chris Cowey. Well, he was all about live performances so artists appearing on the show were encouraged to sing live and he also saw the potential to take the TOTP brand abroad which resulted in localised versions of the show being broadcast throughout Europe. He would also favour a bit of nostalgia when he reintroduced a revamped version of the classic “Whole Lotta Love” theme tune and a new logo and title sequence. All of that’s to come though as Cowey wouldn’t officially take over until the Summer of 1997* so I’m assuming there was an interim period where a caretaker producer (or series of producers) was in charge of the show. The credits for this one says the director was one John L. Spencer.

*Credit to loyal blog reader Essor for that info

As for tonight’s edition, it was the aforementioned Jo Whiley as solo host for the first time introducing Eternal as the opening artist tonight. Now you can say what you like about this lot but you can’t deny that they were prolific in their output. “Don’t You Love Me” was their twelfth consecutive UK chart hit in just over three years of which all but two went Top 10. Taken from their platinum selling “Before The Rain” album, it was (at the time) the highest charting of the lot. I recall thinking back then that this was quite classy sounding but I think I may have misjudged it. For a start it rips off the bassline from the Dennis Edwards track “Don’t Look Any Further” (which I knew from The Kane Gang version) and which M People had taken to No 9 as recently as 1993. Secondly, it’s all a bit overwrought with lyrics about homelessness and poverty completely over cooked by adding a children’s choir at the song’s climax along with a harpsichord for some reason. Then there’s all the pointy, angled choreography that accompanies this performance. The song’s subject matter is hardly something to dance along to. It just looks odd and jarring. For all my misgivings and despite the threat posed by the phenomenon of the Spice Girls, Eternal were about to score their only chart topping single with their very next release – “I Wanna Be The Only One”.

Around 1994, I started losing sight of Erasure’s output after they’d been a constant presence in my pop music life since 1985 and their first ever single “Who Needs Love Like That”. By 1997, I could hardly see them at all. “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” was their 26th UK chart hit but it was also their first not to make the Top 20. It was from their eighth studio album called “Cowboy” the title of which I didn’t recall so I looked it up and I didn’t even recognise its front cover! And I worked in a record shop! I really did have a blind spot when it came to Vince and Andy at this point.

As for this particular single, it kind of feels like it should be better than it is. Some of the trademark Erasure components are in place like a catchy chorus and a jaunty synth pop backing but it just doesn’t quite hang together right for me. Sort of like Erasure by numbers but the finished composition is a bit wonky. Bits of the electronic bleeps in the production sound like they’ve been lifted directly from their 1988 hit “Stop” whilst it goes all “Telstar” by The Tornados towards the end with what sounds like a clavioline prominent. The end effect feels like it’s all been thrown together somewhat. “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” would be Erasure’s last hit of the 90s but they would return in the new millennium with yet more new material.

The first video of the night comes courtesy of the Bee Gees and their hit “Alone”. Apparently there were two different promos shot for this single – one for the US and another for all other territories. Not sure why. Anyway, the latter features the brothers performing against a clearly green screen created background of a futuristic styled spinning room intercut with images of a woman floating in zero gravity removing her spacesuit – an obvious homage to the movie Barbarella. And that’s it. Nothing else. One single idea to base the whole video on. Wikipedia tells me that the US promo features the band in the recording studio intercut with footage of them from throughout their career and images from the UK video. Both were directed by Nick Eagan who has designed some iconic single and album covers for the likes of Dexys, The Clash, INXS and Duran Duran but he was clearly phoning this assignment in. “Alone” would peak at No 5 on the UK charts.

Any hopes that Peter Andre’s pop career might be a flash in the pan have been dashed over and over as the buffed up goon is onto his fifth UK hit in just under a year. At least this one didn’t go to No 1 like his previous two singles. I think we missed having to endure “I Feel You” which topped the chart not long before Christmas but no such luck this time around as the title track from his album “Natural” is straight in at No 6. This was more of the same nasty, knowing R&B dance pop with lyrics designed to get his female teenage fanbase dreaming of clandestine meetings with their hero. Just to ramp up the sexual tension, there’s even a bit in it that steals from another godawful hit from the 90s with carnal referencing lyrics – “I Wanna Sex You Up” by Color Me Badd. Horrible, wretched stuff. Andre’s ‘music’ really was desperate like going into the only cubicle in a public toilet that’s free when you’re dying for the loo and realising that the bloke who was in there before you has made the most unholy stench and you are left with the despairing choice of soiling yourself or breathing in that rancid air – that level of desperate. Just naff off mate.

Jo Whiley is a bit gushy introducing the next artist though I’m not surprised that she’s jumped on this particular bandwagon. “The muso’s muso. He can do no wrong” she says. Who can she be talking about? Well, it’s Beck of course. Just about everyone I ever worked with during my time in record shops were crazy about Beck. He was effortlessly cool (even when he looked geeky) and his music was a stylish antidote to all that generic dance music and seemingly endless conveyor belt of boybands. This one – “The New Pollution” – was no exception. The third single from his “Odelay” album, it was featured a syncopated (is that the right word?) take on the bass line from “Taxman” by The Beatles forming a wicked groove that pulled you in from note one. The lyrics seem a bit oblique (“She’s got a carburettor tied to the moon”) but I’m guessing it has some sort of environmental message judging by the title or is that too literal a take? A bigger Beck fan than I will put me straight I’m sure. I like all the performers on stage all dressed head to toe in white jumping about at the end like they’re in some sort of Woody Allen movie (or possibly a Madness video). “We salute the godlike genius of Beck” says Jo Whiley at the song’s end. I’m not sure I’d go that far but he was pretty cool. Far too cool for the likes of me though not my record shop colleagues nor my wife who bought the album.

Some smooth, R&B soul next courtesy of Babyface. Given that nickname by funk legend Bootsy Collins on account of his youthful looks (his real name is Kenneth Edmonds), it made me wonder how many other people were given that moniker. Well, there’s ‘Baby Face’ Nelson, the 1930s gangster and Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the ex-Manchester United player and manager who was nicknamed ‘The Baby Faced Assassin’. And that’s where the well runs dry. There’s plenty of people who were known as ‘Baby’ – Emma Bunton was ‘Baby Spice’ for example – but ‘Baby Face’ or indeed ‘Babyface’? I’m not so sure. It appears that not only are there not that many who go by the name of Babyface but even those that do are not that well known to some people. At the 2025 Grammy Awards that took place a few days ago, Babyface was being interviewed on the red carpet when hot new star Chappell Roan walked past. The Associated Press reporters immediately forgot they were interviewing the 13 times Grammy winning producer and recording artist and shouted out “Chappell” clearly smelling a much bigger interview in their eyes. Babyface was extremely magnanimous by allowing the reporters to pursue Roan without taking offence. The fallout from the incident showed that others had taken offence though including Dionne Warwick who tweeted her disgust at the incident and the panel on US talk show The View who balked the disrespect shown to Babyface and the apparent lack of knowledge as to his accomplishments…

Quite right too. Well said. His 1997 hit “Every Time I Close My Eyes” however was never going to inspire me to interview Babyface if I’m honest. Just not my thing and the presence of Mariah Carey on backing vocals and Kenny G* on sax wasn’t going to sway me either.

*No I’m not going to go into my Kenny G story again! It’s in the blog archives if you must relive it!

Despite their longevity, this was only the second ever TOTP studio appearance by Aerosmith. Surprising? Maybe not. Up to this point, they had only achieved seven UK Top 40 hits of which none had gone higher than number 13 and they were still over a year away from Top 5 international smash “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. However, an eighth in “Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)” earned them another not just a No 22 chart placing but a visit to the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood. The pop kid that I was, Aerosmith had not been a band that had crossed my path in my youth with my first engagement with them coming via their 1986 collaboration with Run DMC on “Walk This Way”. After that, they occasionally piqued my interest with tracks like “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” and “Cryin’” but I was hardly a huge fan. Such was my lack of commitment that I don’t even remember this one at all but listening to it now, it’s not a million away from the aforementioned “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”, being that bluesy yet camped up rock n’ roll sound that they made their name on. As to what the song was about, well, it’s not so hard to work out is it?! No, he wasn’t singing about proposing!

“When I grow up, I want to be a rock chic!” trills Jo Whiley after that Aerosmith performance. Hmm. Anyway, No Doubt are No 1 for the last of three weeks with “Don’t Speak”. What’s the link between this song and the artist we’ve just seen Aerosmith? Listen to the intro to this and see if it reminds you of something…

Yep, very similar. Anyway this week we get the promo video for “Don’t Speak” with its plot about the media focus on singer Gwen Stefani whilst the rest of the band are ignored. This wasn’t a narrative of pure fiction though. Tensions in the band had been riding high perhaps not helped by bassist Tony Kanal and Stefani’s romantic relationship breaking down. That wasn’t the only relationship breakdown in the camp though. Legend has it that the band were on the verge of splitting at the time of shooting the video but they decided to go through with it as a sort of healing treatment – group therapy if you will. I’m guessing it worked as the band carried on until 2005 and are back together today after a couple of sabbaticals.

As Comic Relief was only one week away, we end the show with the official song for that year’s campaign – “Who Do You Think You Are” by the Spice Girls. For the promotion of the song and the event, a video was shot which harked back to 1989’s Comic Relief. I say ‘harked back’ but I mean totally pinched the idea from. I refer to the appearance of Kathy Burke, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Back in 1989, Bananarama were tasked with delivering the charity’s single – a cover of “Help” by The Beatles – which was credited as being by Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo who were a spoof group made up of…yep…Kathy Burke, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The concept was revisited in 1997. As the Spice Girls had five members, two other celebrities were drafted in namely Lulu and actress, comedian and writer Llewella Gideon. For Lananeeneenoonoo read the Sugar Lumps (a name which would have made more sense if the Sugababes had been around then). I didn’t find this skit funny back in 1989 and was even less enamoured of its 1997 counterpart but hey – it was for charity.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Eternal	Don’t You Love Me	Negative
2	Erasure	Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me	Nope
3	Bee Gees	Alone	I did not
4	Peter Andre	Natural	As if
5	Beck	The New Pollution	No but my wife and the album
6	Babyface	Every Time I Close My Eyes	Not my bag at all
7	Aerosmith	Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)	Nah
8	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	Good tune but no
9	Spice Girls	Who Do You Think You Are	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/m0027fvx/top-of-the-pops-07031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 FEB 1997

Posted on January 31 by 80stastic

It’s the last day of February in 1997 and we’ve just had the BRIT Awards show which featured that Union Jack mini dress worn by Geri Halliwell when the Spice Girls performed at the event. It has come to be seen as an iconic moment in UK music history. At the 2010 BRIT Awards, it was voted the most memorable performance of the last 30 years. The dress itself was auctioned in 1998 at Sotheby’s with the winning bid of £41,320 becoming a Guinness World Record as the most money paid for an item of pop star clothing at auction. The design has been copied by many a fan attending various Pride events or Spice Girls concert. Let’s see if we can spot its influence on any of the artists in this particular episode of TOTP…

By the way, tonight’s host is footballer Ian Wright who is cutting his teeth on TOTP for his staggeringly long and full media career which he built for himself after he finally stopped kicking a ball for a living. The first act he introduces are the Bee Gees who may not be wearing any Union Jack dresses but they did pick up an Outstanding Contribution Award at the BRITS earlier in the week. Whatever you thought of their music, you couldn’t deny their longevity and said award was deserved. Having released their first single in 1963, they scored their first UK hit in 1967 racking up a further eight hits (including two No 1s) before the decade ended. It would be the 70s though that would be their golden era and the period of their career that they are most remembered for with the disco explosion and Saturday Night Fever phenomenon. The 80s were a different story and one of complete extremes – they only released eight singles in total all of which except one failed to make the UK Top 40 but the one that did? Yep, it was a No 1.

And so to the 90s and although it certainly wasn’t up there with the 70s, the Gibb brothers were pretty consistent. Nine chart entries including four Top 5 hits of which “Alone” was the third. That’s not even counting the two cover versions in 1996 by Take That and Boyzone of “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Words” respectively that both went to No 1. Having blown smoke up their collective arses for a few sentences, I have to say that “Alone” tested my patience in terms of its listenability. It’s all a bit predictable and, dare I say it, indistinguishable from their other 90s hits. Even when they tried to shake things up by inserting some bagpipes into the track, it just really dated it. John Farnham* had done that 10 years before on “You’re The Voice”. The Bee Gees final UK Top 5 hit would follow in 1998 when they joined forces with Celine Dion on “Immortality”. Oh deep joy.

*Yes I also mentioned him in another recent post and no, I’m not obsessed with him!

A-ha! The first signs of the influence of the Union Jack dress are in evidence in this next performance by Republica as lead singer Saffron (real name Samantha Sprackling) chooses a Saint George’s Cross T-shirt to wear under her suit jacket. Republica were one of those curious cases where they definitely were not a one hit wonder and in any case, that hit wasn’t even the highest charting of their career but they were destined to be defined by it. “Ready To Go” is the track in question and it was originally released a year before this when it failed to make the Top 40. The 1996 version (often referred to as the Original UK Mix’) was vastly different to the one we would all grow to know with more of a dance sound to it. A piano motif existed where the hit version had guitars and it just had a lighter touch to it in general. The version that peaked at No 13 in our charts was a US remix that would ultimately become the one that was released to Europe second time around which had a much heavier sound and faster tempo making it more like a rock track than a dance anthem though I’m sure many did cut some rug to it. In fact, I bet it went down a storm in the indie discos of the time with much jumping up and down on the dance floor – I don’t think I would have been involved in this myself you understand; being 29 this year I was probably aging out of the club market.

The high octane thrill ride that was “Ready To Go” would lend itself to being the perfect soundtrack to the start of sports events. I believe Sunderland AFC used to run out to this track at their home matches back in the day. As for Republica, they looked like they might be the next big thing for a while with Saffron’s cheekbones and looks allied to a very commercial sound – a UK No Doubt possibly. However it wouldn’t last. Their final UK hit came in 1998 with the band’s fortunes being undone by a poorly received second album and record label Deconstruction going bust. They kind of remind me of a 90s version of Westworld of “Sonic Boom Boy” fame who similarly burnt brightly but briefly though Republica reformed in 2008 and are still a going concern today.

The two highest chart entries of the week are both huge dance tunes and we get both of them back to back starting with “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! This was all very confusing. The track’s title was French for “One more time” yet Sash! are a German DJ/production team. Not only that but it sounded very similar to “Insomnia” by Faithless so much so that Rollo considered his legal options for a while. A trance floor filler, it is almost entirely an instrumental track aside from the title being repeated by vocalist Sabine Ohmes plus her spoken word intro “Mesdames, Messieurs Le disc-jockey Sash! est de retour” which translates to “Ladies and gentlemen, DJ Sash! is back here”. Due to the lack of lyrics, if you watch the performance with the subtitles on, the following words flash on screen:

“Band plays an ambient house beat”

and…

“He plays a phrase again and again”

Bizarrely, that’s almost exactly what I was going to write as my review of the track!

As Ian Wright says, viewers might have had the second highest chart entry of the week in their collection already. “You Got The Love” by The Source featuring Candi Staton was originally a huge hit back in 1991 but was rereleased in 1997 as the ‘New Voyager Mix’ and was a hit all over again peaking one place higher than its 1991 counterpart at No 3. For what it’s worth I much prefer the original but I haven’t got the time nor the inclination to write about this one all over again so this is what I had to say about it when I reviewed the 1991 TOTP repeats in which it featured which numbered three – coincidentally, almost the same amount of times it was released:

TOTP 07 FEB 1991

TOTP 14 FEB 1991

TOTP 28 FEB 1991

Not wearing a Union Jack dress but definitely wearing her British influences on her sleeve was Cathy Dennis who is back in the charts with a cover of perhaps the quintessential English song – “Waterloo Sunset”. With The Kinks very much being talked about at the time as ‘The Godfathers of Britpop’, it must have seemed a sensible choice for Cathy to move away from the dance diva image that had made her name and remodel herself as a singer-songwriter, paying homage to the great Ray Davies and riding the zeitgeist at the same time. Or was it a much more cynical move? Cathy’s career was teetering on the edge and she needed a hit to revive it? We’ve seen that move so many times. Well, it’s true that the hits, whilst not having dried up completely, had certainly shrivelled in size. After debut album “Move To This” had achieved gold status, follow up “Into The Skyline” had not sustained after initial success and none of its singles had got any higher in the charts than No 23. Fast forward five years and third album “Am I The Kinda Girl?” would fail and flail its way to a lowly chart peak of No 78. Cathy’s cover of “Waterloo Sunset” did give her a No 11 hit (her highest position since 1991) but it was a temporary reprieve with the follow up single missing the Top 40 altogether. At this point, Cathy gave up on being a star in her own right and forged a hugely successful career writing songs for other people. A bit ironic then that her final hit was with a composition that wasn’t one of hers.

Cathy does a decent job of selling us “Waterloo Sunset” with this performance and, let’s be fair, convincing people they needed a version of this iconic song that wasn’t by The Kinks was not an easy sell. Her feather boa is a nice nod to the 60s as is her coy, daydreaming looks to the camera. Having her play a guitar gives me Sheryl Crow vibes which perhaps was intentional for her singer-songwriter ambitions.

And yet more evidence of the influence of that Geri Halliwell dress as Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale is wearing a top with a Union Jack design on it. His British grunge band have finally bagged themselves a UK hit after breaking the US first as “Swallowed” has landed inside the Top 10. Rossdale, of course, was in a relationship with No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani at this point but they won’t have had a chance to spend any time together on this show as they weren’t in the studio simultaneously – the No Doubt performance we will see later is just a repeat of the one from last week. If they had met up, they could have worked on a mash up of their two hits – an ode to not talking whilst you’re eating called “Don’t Speak…Swallow”. I’ll get me coat.

Although he was about to enter that part of his career when he couldn’t guarantee himself a UK Top 40 hit with every release, having Prince (or The Artist as he was known back then) on TOTP in person would still have been a big deal. It certainly was for host Ian Wright for whom he was his idol as he gushed in his intro. Although he hadn’t won anything at the BRITS (he’d been nominated for Best International Male Solo Artist), Prince/The Artist had performed the title track from his latest album “Emancipation” at the show. Whilst he was still in the country, he popped by the BBC’s flagship music show for a performance of his latest single “The Holy River”. Seeing as he didn’t play this one at the BRITS, I’m guessing that this TOTP appearance was very much scheduled – he knew he didn’t have to promote his latest single at the awards show as he had another UK TV slot already booked. We didn’t know it at the time but excluding the rerelease of “1999” in 1998, this single would be Prince’s final UK Top 40 hit in his lifetime. As such, I wish I had something nicer to say about it but it’s all style over substance. It’s a much more toned down, traditional pop/rock song than some of his more funk driven output but it never really goes anywhere – does it even have a chorus? He can call himself The Artistall he liked but it didn’t stop him from going all Prince-like at the end where he gives us a “Purple Rain”-esque guitar solo just for good measure. Ah, well. Thanks for all the memories Mr Nelson.

And this is where we came in as we return to the protagonist of the Union Jack dress story though Geri Halliwell doesn’t have it on tonight. In fact, she’s distinctly covered up this time leaving Victoria/Posh to wear a revealing outfit with an awful lot of décolletage on show. Yes, it’s time for an exclusive performance of their new single from the Spice Girls. As with Prince before them, they’d already done a turn at the BRITS though they were given a two song slot as we got “Wannabe” and “Who Do You Think You Are”. The latter formed a double A-side with the song on the show tonight – “Mama” – which would be the Comic Relief single for 1997. In a remarkably fortunate falling of dates (hmm…), Comic Relief day and Mothering Sunday were within five days of each other this year so with that double whammy of events, there was no way that this fourth Spice Girls single wasn’t going to No 1 and when it did, the group set a new record of all of their first four releases topping the chart. Have that Gerry and the Pacemakers, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Jivebunny and Robson & Jerome!

I have to admit that “Mama” always seemed a bit of a weak effort to me, sweet to the point of being sickly despite its noble sentiments (basically the girls admitting what cows they were to their Mums when they were growing up). I much preferred the sassy, uptempo “Who Do You Think You Are”. The Spice Girls juggernaut would roll on in 1997 albeit there would be a six month gap where they didn’t release anything before they were back with a new single and album, a second Christmas No 1 and even a film. Spice Girls overload is coming!

Even Ian Wright has picked up on the constant revolving door sequence of a new No 1 becoming a weekly event, so much so that he articulates his surprise that “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt has managed a second week at the top of the charts in 1997. To me, it did have that feel of having gravitas to it that would enable more longevity than something like, I don’t know, Tori Amos or LL Cool J. If you examine the sales figures for those records in the week they were No 1, that view is kind of borne out. “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” and “Ain’t Nobody” both sold 80,000 copies in their first weeks which was enough to secure top spot for them both. “Don’t Speak” sold 195,000 copies in week one and followed that up with 140,000 copies in week two – both these figures were more than any No 1 single had sold since Christmas. Even in its third week, it sold 85,000 copies to hold on at No 1 – again more than Tori Amos and LL Cool J. However, it couldn’t stand up to the g-force of the Spice Girls single when that was released in March.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bee Gees	Alone	I didn’t
2	Republica	Ready To Go	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Sash!	Encore Une Fois	Never
4	The Source featuring Candi Staton	You Got The Love	Negative
5	Cathy Dennis	Waterloo Sunset	No
6	Bush	Swallowed	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
7	Prince aka The Artist	The Holy River	Nope
8	Spice Girls	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	Nah
9	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	See 2 above

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/p00fsvld/top-of-the-pops-28021997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 21 FEB 1997

Posted on January 29 by 80stastic

A day after this TOTP aired, scientists at Roslin Institute, Midlothian announced the birth of a cloned sheep called Dolly seven months after the event. Dolly was named after country legend Dolly Parton apparently. Anyway, it’s kind of apt that this story about cloning was in the news back then because tonight’s show is co-hosted by Ant & Dec who in the early years of their career were subject to the claim that people couldn’t tell them apart! Ba dum tss! Alright, alright. It’s a poor start to the post from me. Things can only get better right? And no, that doesn’t mean D:Ream are on the show.

Things are looking up immediately though as the show is opened by James and one of their best known hits “She’s A Star”. As the caption says, this was the band’s first hit for three years and first new material since the double album project of “Laid” and “Wah Wah” in 1993 and 1994 respectively. In the meantime, there had been some significant events and shifts within the group. Firstly, guitarist Larry Gott had left to become a designer and spend more time with his family (although he still contributed to the writing and recording of 1997 album “Whiplash ”). Lead singer Tim Booth had wandered off to do a side project titled Booth and the Badman with Twin Peaks composer Angelo Badalamenti whilst the band’s manager Martine McDonagh resigned. The band also discovered that they owed a £250,000 tax bill. Against that background, they still had to keep delivering the goods and they duly did with the lead single from the aforementioned “Whiplash” album. “She’s A Star” is a monster of a tune – one of those that is familiar from the very first moment you hear it even though you know that can’t be possible. Superbly crafted with that huge, elongated chorus delivered by Booth’s falsetto vocals, for me though, it’s the bridge into that chorus which is the best part. The whole thing just soars – a complete anthem from the first note to the last. Now, some of the observant of you might say “Hang on, the last time you banged on about an elongated chorus it was slagging off Mark Owen for having one in his hit “Clemente” so what’s the difference, hypocrite?”. Well, I guess it’s that, to me (and it’s just my opinion) the chorus was all “Clementine” had whereas “She’s A Star” was a much more complete song hence my comment about the bridge part.

The fright masks and freaky wigs displayed on mannequins on stage with the band were from the cover of the single and were designed by a friend of Tim Booth’s and photographed for the artwork in the infamous Chelsea Hotel in New York. Is it me or do they look a bit like Sid Vicious and if so, presumably the photoshoot location was intentional given Sid’s history with that place? The video featured a young Keeley Hawes who would find fame in Ashes To Ashes, Tipping The Velvet and Spooks to name just a few TV series. She was also in the promo for Suede’s “Saturday Night” a performance of which we saw on TOTP just the other week. Sadly for Keeley, neither video were played on the show.

Who on earth is/was this?! DJ Kool? Seriously?! That was his stage name? DJ Kool?! I don’t remember him at all. What was his hit called? “Let Me Clear My Throat”?! Is this a wind up? Have I slipped through a time portal entered a parallel universe or something? None of this really happened did it?! Right, let me listen to the track…

…hang on! I do know this or at least I know the sample it’s based around. That’s “Hear The Drummer Get Wicked” by Chad Jackson. Except it isn’t as that track used a sample as well. So what’s the original sample? My research pointed me in the direction of this…

…but even that’s not the original which as far as I can tell is this…

Mystery solved. As for DJ Kool, what a load of old tripe. He displays a distinct lack of creativity in his choice of sample and then just shouts a load of disjointed, cliched phrases over it before descending into call and response, lowest common denominator behaviour. He even nicked the track’s title from a Beastie Boys song called “The New Style”. Thank heavens we never heard from him again because he was as welcome as…cough, cough, splutter, splutter…phlegm.

Next to a case of art imitating life imitating art or something as we have the song from a soundtrack to a film about a fictional mid 60s band who shoot to fame off the back of a hit song that actually becomes a hit in real life. The film is That Thing You Do! and was the writing and directorial debut of Tom Hanks (whose name Ant & Dec manage to turn into a double entendre in their intro). The movie tells the story of The Wonders from Erie, Pennsylvania who win a local talent contest when their newly recruited drummer Guy speeds up the tempo of their self penned song and wins them a shot at the big time when they are picked up by major label Play-Tone Records. The film charts the band’s rise to prominence in parallel with their song rising the charts with each stage showing their fame getting bigger and bigger until they find themselves performing to the whole of America on The Hollywood Television Showcase. Inevitably, it all ends in disappointment with the band imploding though there is a happy ending.

At the time, I thought that Tom Hanks had also written the song “That Thing You Do!” but he didn’t (though he did contribute to two songs on the soundtrack album). That was written by Adam Schlesinger, one time member of Fountains Of Wayne about whom I know very little except the song “Stacy’s Mom” from 2003. Anyway, the title track is an exceptional example of a perfect pop song that would also fit easily into a 60s compilation album without anyone realising that it was written three decades later. It’s just as well that the song works as you get to hear it over and over in the film in various different performances and guises yet it’s a tribute to Schlesinger that you never tire of to – well, I don’t anyway. I think its ubiquity is rendered less dominant by the dedication of the actors who apparently spent weeks in rehearsal learning their instruments so that when it came to miming the song for the shooting of the film, they looked and played liked authentic musicians.

You might have guessed already that I am a fan of this film but then I am a sucker for a music based narrative which shows the progression from early beginnings to fame. Some of my favourite films and books include That’ll Be The Day and its sequel Stardust starring David Essex and the novel Espedair Street by Iain Banks which all fit into this category. Despite not being a massive commercial hit at the time, the film That Thing You Do! has become a bit of a cult hit with fans to the extent that in 2021, a Wonders Night was staged in Erie where the film was partially set with cast members attending and participating in a panel discussion, autograph session and auction. As a result of funds collected from the event, raised $25,500 for Notice Ability, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to helping students with dyslexia.

As for the song “That Thing You Do!”, it didn’t match the chart high of its fictional counterpart peaking at No 41 in America and No 22 in the UK. As for art imitating life imitating art, Tom Hanks established a film and television production company named Playtone based on the record label in the film and a music arm of the operation is actually called Playtone Records label. Playtone has had an exclusive television development deal with HBO since the company was formed. Playtone’s projects for HBO have won 46 Emmy Awards while garnering 113 Emmy Award nominations.

Unlikely chart heroes Space were really getting the hang of this pop star lark by 1997. “Dark Clouds” was their fourth consecutive Top 20 hit all taken from their debut album “Spiders”. Although it’s made of much the same stuff as their previous hits, it’s perhaps a little more mellow than its predecessors. Actually, listening to it now for the first time in years, there’s something about it that is giving me Summer of 1983 vibes. Why would that be? Well, I think that it’s putting me in mind of “Long Hot Summer” by The Style Council. Can you hear it? No? You might have to wait for the dark clouds to drift away to reveal the sunshine.

This trend for rap artists remaking old hits around this time is becoming tedious. There was Coolio who topped the charts with a treatment of Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” and just the other week we had LL Cool J at No 1 with his version of the old Rufus and Chaka Khan hit “Ain’t Nobody”. Now here was Warren G who himself had already gone down that route with his take on Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It” a few weeks prior. With that going to No 2, he clearly thought another attempt on going one better was justified using the same formula hence we got “I Shot The Sheriff”, the Bob Marley classic that Eric Clapton also had a hit with.

Picking up the protest song theme of the original, Warren G added some lyrics about police brutality and institutional racism. Sadly, despite this being 1997, these issues would continue to raise their ugly heads in the years to come both in America and the UK. The poignancy of the track didn’t make it any more listenable for me though with Warren’s flat vocals on the song’s title phrase especially off putting. Despite my reservations, the single would be a massive hit but it still missed out on a No 1 by a single place just like its predecessor.

And now to one of the most revered dance tracks of all time made by one of the most influential dance artists of all time. Despite the superlatives in that statement, Daft Punk weren’t that well known back in early 1997. Well, not to the non-dance heads in the mainstream like…well…me. That would all change with seminal track “Da Funk”. Having originally been released in a limited run pressing on 12” only via independent label Soma back in 1995, the track was reactivated after endorsement by The Chemical Brothers and Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale. A bidding war ensued between the majors with the French duo (Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homer-Christo) signing with Virgin ultimately. Their new label were keen to rerelease “Da Funk” and with their backing and promotional budget, it would go Top 10. Combining house, funk and EDM, it had the music press salivating at its bass and beats. Even I could appreciate this one as being something special.

Its accompanying, Spike Jonze directed video was equally groundbreaking. The plot of Charles the Dog Boy with his leg in a cast and hobbling on a crutch around New York has the feel of an indie, art house short film. All very intriguing though I was left wondering if it was the best way to promote the single with the track low down in the mix to allow the characters in the video to speak their lines and interact. Having said that, it was certainly ahead of its time and must surely have been an influence on the 2024 Robbie Williams biopic Better Man which sees Williams portrayed as an anthropomorphic chimpanzee with no other characters in the movie reacting to his appearance (meant to portray his state of mind) just as in the “Da Funk” promo and its protagonist Charles.

From one Spike (Jonze) to another Spike (Dawbarn) as the latter is name checked by Ant & Dec alongside his band mates in their intro to 911. It’s not Spike that I’m focussing on here though but lead singer Lee Brennan as we return to the theme of Dolly the sheep and cloning. Look at Lee and then look at Dec. If they’re not a case of cloning then they were surely separated at birth! Anyway, Lee, Spike and Jimmy are here to perform their latest hit “The Day We Find Love” and what a wimpy, feeble track it was. However, the strategy of releasing a ballad around Valentine’s Day certainly paid off when it debuted at No 4, the band’s biggest chart hit to date at that point. Watching them perform it though, their stage choreography (especially from Spike and Jimmy!) seem incongruous to the song. All jerky arm movements and shrugging shoulders like someone shoved ice cubes down their back. “The Day We Find Love”? Nah, Give me “The Day We Caught The Train” any day.

It’s a seventh different No 1 in seven weeks as No Doubt debut at the top of the charts with “Don’t Speak”. Now, as I recall, there was a huge buzz about this one due to its massive airplay – it was the most played song on American radio up to this point in 1997. I’m sure that a communication came from Our Price Head Office informing stores that due to unprecedented demand for the single, an unusually large order of initial stock of it had been placed for the chain. I don’t think we’d ever had anything like that from the company before. It would happen again the following year though when Britney Spears appeared from nowhere with her “…Baby One More Time” single. Anyway, back to No Doubt and I can’t say that they’d been on my radar despite working in a record shop and despite the fact that they’d already appeared in the UK Top 40 (albeit briefly) when their single “Just A Girl” spent one week at No 38 in October of 1996. However, we all knew about them a few months later when this monster track was unleashed. It would break the sequence of consecutive different UK No 1s by staying at the top for three weeks and would go on to be our seventh best selling single of the year. Actually, I would have thought it would have been higher. What was above it?

*checks list*

Ah, well. It was never going to top “Candle In The Wind ‘97” but “Barbie Girl” and The Teletubbies?! What was going on?! Anyway, “Don’t Speak” is a very accomplished rock/pop power ballad but not in the vein of something from Cher or Celine Dion. It had more credibility than anything by those two. Maybe it was the band’s ska punk beginnings or Gwen Stefani’s unconventional vocals that lent them that. However, the song’s success undoubtedly brought the band into the mainstream with parent album “Tragic Kingdom” selling 16 million copies worldwide. The success of “Don’t Speak” would usher in a rerelease for “Just A Girl” which would go Top 3 the second time around. For a while, No Doubt was the bomb. And then…well…as noted many a time before, a band with a female lead singer and an otherwise all male line up was always going to have its publicity centred around the vocalist and Stefani certainly was who the press were interested in. With her looks compared to Madonna’s and much attention paid to her midriff, tensions within the band were high but that’s a discussion for a future post.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	James	She’s A Star	No but I had the album
2	DJ Kool	Let Me Clear My Throat	No
3	The Wonders	That Thing You Do!	Great track but its a no
4	Space	Dark Clouds	Nah
5	Warren G	I Shot The Sheriff	Nope
6	Daft Punk	Da Funk	See 3 above
7	911	The Day We Find Love	Never
8	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	See 3 above

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/m0027791/top-of-the-pops-21021997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 03 OCT 1997

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TOTP 04 APR 1997

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TOTP 21 MAR 1997

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TOTP 07 MAR 1997

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TOTP 28 FEB 1997

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TOTP 21 FEB 1997

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