OK, the relentless BBC4 schedule of two TOTP shows a week combined with 14 episodes that we missed due to Adrian Rose’s unwillingness to sign a repeats waiver has delivered us into late September back in 1992. On the day this particular show was broadcast, Conservative MP David Mellor resigned from government in the light of his adulterous affair with actress Antonia De Sancha. Remember that? Can that really be 30 years ago?! I actually find myself longing for the days when a sex scandal dominated the news rather than the utter existential misery that we have these days. What I found must upsetting and shocking about this little tale of sleaze wasn’t the revelation that the wretched Mellor claimed to be a fan of my beloved Chelsea (though the shame of association with this vile man was bad enough) but that he apparently made love in a Chelsea strip. Eeewww! The Sun mocked up a picture of Mellor in said kit with the tag line ‘Night he scored four times with actress’. The whole thing was repulsive! Now of course, those stories of existential misery I mentioned before also apply to Chelsea – life was so much simpler back then David Mellor and all.

We start tonight’s show with an act called Messiah who have covered Donna Summer’s shimmering Giorgio Moroder co-written and produced disco classic “I Feel Love” (one for David Mellor there – eeewww!). Yet again, despite the real possibility that I may have sold this record to an eager punter while working at Our Price in Rochdale, I have zero recall of this track. The Donna Summer original? Obviously. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond’s cover from 1985? Of course. This techno rave up? Not a flicker.

Apparently that’s Precious Wilson doing the vocals who was in Eruption of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and “One Way Ticket” fame back in the 70s. Backing her up is a man playing a fiddle who seems to be doing an impression of Jerry Sadowitz’s “Ebeneezer Goode” character, a guy on keyboards at the back channelling his inner Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys (even down to the very tall hat) and, randomly, two people in Star Wars stormtrooper headgear. It looks a bit of a mess visually. The ‘Hail the Messiah!’ sample is from Life Of Brian.

Messiah’s version of “I Feel Love” peaked at No 19.

Reminder to self: Sade is the name of the band not the singer. Same as Toyah. Do not forget this when writing the next few paragraphs.

Sade is a bit of a mystery isn’t she? DOH!! I mean, Sade are an enigmatic band aren’t they? Making huge waves in 1984 with their BRIT award winning, four times platinum selling debut album “Diamond Life”, their sound seem to be completely fully formed immediately and created the cultural trope of the ‘coffee table album’. Two more albums followed in the next four years peaking at Nos 1 and 3. They played Live Aid. And yet…what do we really know about them and why, given their popularity, have they only ever had one Top 10 hit?

Well, aside from the fact that they are a band not a singer that I addressed before, three of them were from my home of the last 18 years Hull while the band’s singer Sade Adu was from Nigeria originally. They were like the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars of sophisti-pop. Sade (the individual) had worked as a part-time model and fashion designer before settling on music as her career of choice. I think she was part of the Blitz scene at the start of the 80s hanging out with New Romantic heroes Spandau Ballet who didn’t realise she could sing. By 1983, the buzz about her and her band was enough to attract the attention of Epic Records and contracts were duly signed.

Then came that genre defining first album and the whole world seemed to know their name. Or rather Sade Adu’s name. Could anyone name any other member of the band without googling them? As for their lack of singles success, maybe they’re just an album artist but the truth is that apart from debut single “Your Love Is King” going to No 6, none of their singles got higher than No 14. Which brings us to 1992 and “No Ordinary Love”. As well as having a song title that could make a David Mellor/Antonia De Sancha playlist (eeewww!), this would prove to be their second biggest hit ever (yep that No 14 hit) and was from the band’s fourth album “Love Deluxe”.

The release of that album made it four in eight years giving a rate of one every two years which was pretty consistent. However, it would be eight years before the next long player (2000’s “Lovers Rock”) and a further ten years after that before their sixth and so far last album (2010’s “Soldier Of Love”). Back in 1992 though, the fanbase had little idea that this batch of new songs would have to sustain them throughout the rest of the decade.

Despite having been away for four years during which there had been a dance music explosion, the TOTP producers still believed in Sade’s blend of sophisti-pop / neo soul enough to give them an ‘exclusive’ slot on the show. To be honest though, they did rather dish them out as prolifically as fixed penalty notices to a Conservative government. Sade (the individual) gives her usual sultry performance and doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the eight years since she first burst into the charts.

“No Ordinary Love” was originally a No 26 hit but achieved that No 14 peak when rereleased eight months later in June of 1993. I have no idea why that was.

Right, there’s two ‘what’s going on here then?’ moments in one next. Firstly, there’s a change of format with an extended chart rundown now included which covers places 20 through to 11 – previously we’d had to make do with the Top 10. It’s just a rolling ticker tape display over the top of a video but still. It’s a nod towards the format of old I guess.

Secondly, said video this week is from Omar but it’s for a song that isn’t “There’s Nothing Like This”. Eh? What gives? Omar had more than one Top 40 hit?! Well, he did but one of them wasn’t this single “Music”, the title track from his second album which peaked at No 53! What was going on here?! Singles that weren’t actually hits being given airtime on the show? And then irony of ironies, they play it as the backdrop of a new Top 40 centric feature! To top it all off, the track is only given 40 seconds before it’s yanked off screen. I’m guessing that the producers negotiated with Omar’s label and came up with a way of getting him on the show but the payback was it was for a very small amount of airtime. It’s basically a Breaker slot but they couldn’t call it that as it wasn’t actually in the Top 40 and so technically couldn’t be said to have ‘broken’ into the charts. What a mess!

Ah, that’s unfortunate. It’s Boy George next with “The Crying Game”. Not unfortunate because I didn’t like the record – I didn’t mind it really – but because it was literally the second to last song reviewed in my last post so I’m completely spent when it comes to saying anything else about it. OK well, George’s version of this song that was originally a hit in the 60s for Dave Berry (not that bloke on Absolute Radio in a morning) was taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name and and was produced by Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant.

I like the nod to George’s past with his twangy guitar player dressed like the Culture Club singer from ten years previous.

This is more like it *TOTP! This is what the kids wanted! In Autumn of 1992, you couldn’t be more achingly hip than Suede were. Lauded as many things including the antidote to grunge and the spearhead of a new wave of British rock music, they rode the zeitgeist hard with Melody Maker dubbing them “The Best New Band in Britain”. They appeared on the publication’s front cover before they even had a recording contract. They weren’t just big news, they were the news.

Inevitably given lead singer Brett Anderson’s androgynous image and the band’s glam rock influences, Bowie comparisons abounded. Impact wise, they were talked of in the same breath as The Smiths. Retrospectively, they have been allocated the status of the John the Baptist of Britpop, paving the way for the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp et al to dominate the mid 90s. It’s a role the band don’t sit comfortably with. Not everyone was sold on them initially though. My friend Robin who was living in London at the time caught an early gig of theirs and his three word review was “Suede – I wasn’t”. Clever sod.

“Metal Mickey” was the band’s first Top 40 hit though not their first single released. That’s honour went to “The Drowners” which had come out a few months before but failed to make the Top 40 despite being a great tune. By the time their debut eponymous album was released in March the following year, they had clocked up a Top 10 single in “Animal Nitrate” and the album duly went to No 1 becoming, at the time, the fastest selling debut album in UK history in a decade. It won the very first Mercury Music Prize and went on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK. I can remember playing it very loudly in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working before opening.

Four years later I saw the band live myself in Blackburn with my mate Steve on the tour for the “Coming Up” album. They were supported by Mansun. Both bands were good as I recall. We’ll no doubt be seeing lots more of Suede in these TOTP repeats.

“Metal Mickey” peaked at No 17.

*Interesting how in his intro host Mark Franklin actually says “TOTP” rather than “Top Of The Pops”. I just use the acronym to save on typing in my blog. What was Mark’s reason for using it?

Today may have been the end of the road for David Mellor’s political career but it was the start of a journey for one of the biggest selling singles of the year and indeed, one of the biggest selling of the decade in the US. “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men was No 1 over there for 13 weeks straight and was certified platinum for shifting a million units and won two Grammy awards. It topped the charts in the UK for three weeks and was the sixth best selling single of the year here. In short, it was a monster.

As with Boy George’s hit earlier, it was from a film soundtrack but unlike George’s one I’ve never seen, at least not all the way through. Boomerang was the latest Eddie Murphy in which he plays a character who is an advertising executive, a womaniser and male chauvinist. Hmm. I think made the right choice.

Anyway, so popular was “End Of The Road” that Boyz II Men’s debut album “Cooleyhighharmony” – which didn’t include the song initially – was rereleased with it now on the track listing. Their sound has been described as ‘hip-hop doo wop’ and helped establish R’n’B as the dominant music genre into the new millennium. For me though, “End Of The Road” was quite a straight forward big ballad albeit that unusually it featured all four members taking the lead vocal at various points in the song.

The performance here was from New Orleans and the most striking thing about it was their wardrobe. What were they thinking?! Matching suits and ties is fine but with baseball caps and shirt trousers?! It just looks weird. I mean not disturbing like David Mellor in his Chelsea kit but weird all the same.

“End Of The Road” will be No 1 soon enough so I’ll keep the rest of my powder dry until then.

An artist who is remembered for one song next though she really wasn’t a one hit wonder. The rule of diminishing returns after soaring the highest highs with her debut single was the possibly unfair fate that befell Tasmin Archer. That single was of course “Sleeping Satellite” and I definitely remember the advertising strategy for the single included a bill poster campaign which asked the question ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ with very little other information. Loads of these posters just started appearing overnight. Quite clever in terms of building anticipation I guess.

The single was perfect for daytime radio. A well crafted pop song built around a swirling piano riff and a swooping chorus, the record buying public’s resistance was futile. This was always going to be a hit and a big one. I’m not sure even the most committed of Archer’s record label team could have predicted a No 1 though. Surely Tasmin herself couldn’t have expected that outcome first time out despite her debut album being called “Great Expectations”. In a way, “Sleeping Satellite” flew decidedly in the face of its chart peers with the Top 40 being populated by dance track after dance track but then hadn’t Chesney Hawkes scored a huge No 1 with a decidedly pop record the year before? Was it just a case of history repeating itself?

My wife and I saw Tasmin live years later kind of by accident or at least it wasn’t planned. We were in Glasgow for a birthday weekend away and wandering around the city centre stumbled across the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and saw that she was playing there that night. We decided on a whim to go and bought tickets. Tasmin’s star had fallen a fair way by this point though (1996 I think) and the Strathclyde Suite in the venue was half full. She did her best but the audience reaction to her set suggested that they were just there for one obvious song. She told us punters that she’d been watching Stars In Their Eyes in her hotel room before the gig and let it slip that “I’d just die if someone did me”. I’m pretty sure nobody ever has.

Three Breakers now beginning with Def Leppard and a third single from their “Adrenalize” album called “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”. I don’t recall any singles from this album after the first two, the execrable duo of “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man”. I probably couldn’t handle any more after those two and deliberately avoided them. The soul searching title of this one sounds like it should be a ballad. OK, just for you lot I’ll break the habit of 30 years and give it a listen…

Well, I was right it is a ballad but it’s hardly a thing of delicate beauty is it? It’s all very soft rock by numbers sounding with crunchy guitars and Joe Elliott’s strained vocals. It’s sort of like Nigel Tufnel’s “Lick My Love Pump” in reverse if you get my drift.

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” peaked at No 16.

Some proper rockers now as we get the video for “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam. I didn’t know the back story to this one nor about the controversy surrounding the video until now. Written about 15 year old Texas high school kid Jeremy Delle who shot himself in front of his classmates in 1991, it was the third single to be released from the band’s all conquering “Ten” album and peaked at No 15 in the UK.

The video follows the source material pretty graphically and caused MTV to order that the scene showing ‘Jeremy’ with a gun in his mouth to be edited out. The network’s outrage didn’t stop the video from picking up four MTV Video Music Awards including video of the year though. The controversy surrounding the video caused the band to recoil from them and didn’t make another one for six whole years. MTV rarely broadcast the promo after the Columbine High School massacre of 1999 though the uncensored version was released on Pearl Jam’s YouTube channel in 2020 to mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

If you asked the average punter to name a tune by The Prodigy that had the word ‘fire’ in it, I’m betting the vast majority would respond with “Firestarter”. There is another possible answer though. “Fire/Jericho” was the band’s third single and paved the way for their debut album “Experience” which was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. A double A-side, it’s “Fire” that gets an airing on the show tonight. Sampling The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” amongst others, it was written to reflect that not all ravers were off their heads on ecstasy but some were blazing up on weed as well. One in the eye for Mary Whitehouse there.

The band seemed to have disowned the track in that it does not feature on their Best Of album “Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005” and that they hated the video that was made to promote it. Apparently it was the quality of the computer graphics that really irked them. Viewed by 2022 standards then yes, they look prehistoric but we’re they really so bad in 1992? I suppose it depends what you are comparing them to. Alongside the video for “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits then they hold up. Viewed against A-ha’s “Take On Me” or Michael Jackson’s face morphing “Black And White” then they do appear amateurish at best.

“Fire/Jericho” peaked at No 11.

From rave to…Mike Oldfield? Yes, you can criticise the show for many things but you have to admit that TOTP did its best to reflect all musical genres. Oldfield of course had just released “Tubular Bells II” but, inverting the release schedule, hadn’t trailed it with a lead single. This was rectified by the release of “Sentinel” a couple of weeks later.

Was I excited about “Tubular Bells II”? Hardly. Though I did have a dark Mike Oldfield secret – I’d bought his “Moonlight Shadow” single almost 10 years before – I’d never been inspired to seek out his back catalogue. Obviously I knew of the original “Tubular Bells” album from 1973 but my knowledge of it was limited to the introduction theme from it that was used in the film The Exorcist. That brings us nicely back to “Sentinel” which was a re-imagining of that piece. The performance in Edinburgh that Mark Franklin references in his intro was a live concert at Edinburgh castle on 4 September with 6,000 people in attendance. Oldfield’s performance here though really is that of the stereotypical muso even down to his carefully coiffured but meant to look carefree hair. He’s playing guitar and keyboards but still has two other keyboard players with him as well as a guy on piano. Alright we get it Mike! Your art is so elaborate and complex that you need all that entourage with you.

Researching Oldfield’s discography, I had no idea he’d made so many studio albums- 26 and counting! Mind you he does go in for big numbers. He’s been married four times and has seven children. I didn’t know that he wrote the score for The Killing Fields, a film that had a profound effect on me the first time I saw it. Presumably it wasn’t Oldfield’s choice to use John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the film’s denouement? Having said that, there were rumours that the aforementioned “Moonlight Shadow” was written about Lennon’s murder in 1980. Oldfield had arrived in New York on the same day and was staying just a few blocks from the Dakota building so…

“Sentinel” peaked at No 10.

We arrive at the No 1 and it’s still “Ebenezer Goode” by The Shamen. I wonder if there is/was a real person called Ebeneezer Goode? There must be surely? I know someone who has an uncle Ebeneezer but there surname isn’t Goode. When you Google the name, if you scroll down enough you get to a result that talks about a Methodist chapel in Suffolk that has been converted into a weekend retreat and it’s called Ebeneezer Goode! Either the owner used to be a raver in his youth or it’s named after a person who really did exist surely?

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/m0015x8y/top-of-the-pops-24091992