Phil Collins

TOTP 13 DEC 1996

We’ve skipped a week in these TOTP repeats due to the 6th December show being presented by Gary Glitter. Having checked the running order, I don’t think we missed much. In fact, on a personal level, I’m relieved to not have to review Peter Andre and 3T again. Talking of ‘again’, Toni Braxton was on again and there seemed to be a disconnect between executive producer Ric Blaxill’s perception of the pulling power of (Miss) Diana Ross and her ability to sell records at this time. Slap bang in the middle of the show were Oasis cover band No Way Sis with their version of “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” which might have been of some curiosity value but, like Mike Flowers Pops before them, was hardly the stuff of legend. The only performance I would have liked to have watched was show opener Mansun doing “Wide Open Space”. I’ll have to pick that one up in my review of the year post.

Anyway, that’s what we missed but let’s get on with the show we did get to see. Our host is Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds who doesn’t strike me as the most charismatic of choices but let’s see how he does. It’s a very workmanlike start as he introduces Manic Street Preachers who are performing the fourth and last hit taken from their “Everything Must Go” album called “Australia”. “Everyone’s a classic” says Broudie and I guess he’s not wrong as every one of them went Top 10. To put that into context, up to 1996, the only time the band had scored a Top Tenner was with their cover of “Theme From M.A.S.H. (Suicide Is Painless)” from the NME compilation album “Ruby Trax”. In fact, of the next seven singles they released after that, the highest chart peak achieved was No 15. Is it fair to say that the Manics were better known as an albums band rather than a singles one prior to the disappearance of Richey Edwards? Probably but then who would have foreseen the level of sales the band would enjoy on their reemergence as a trio?

“Australia” pretty much followed the template of the album’s previous singles though that’s not to say they all sounded the same but there was definite evidence of a decision to go in a more commercial direction in these hits, albeit the band didn’t desert all their trademark angular pop/rock and intellectual lyrics origins. The “Everything Must Go” album changed everything for the band – they were back and more successful than ever. Their next single release was “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” which would give the their first No 1 single. They were bigger than they’d ever been but what did that mean for their fans who had been there since the beginning? I can certainly remember that sixth form phase of not wanting to like anything the masses were into? Was there a similar sentiment amongst the Manics faithful?

With Christmas fast approaching, it’s time to bring out the big ballads as artists jockey for the coveted festive No 1. It’s a trick as old as time but it would often bring about huge results and Damage weren’t immune to its appeal. Only their second hit in and they’d already rolled out the ballad barrel. Now, I don’t remember “Forever” at all but it was actually more than just another single by a boy band. How so? Well, it was co-written by one Steve Mac who had previously been behind dance hits such as “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion” by Nomad and “Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)” by Chad Jackson. However, his career changed direction with “Forever” as it came to the attention of Simon Cowell who loved it and asked Mac to join his songwriting team for a new group he was putting together. The name of that group? IOYOU. Not familiar with them? You’ll know them by the name they finally settled on – Westlife. Yes, those fresh faced Irish lads with a penchant for singing sugary ballads on stools that dominated the charts in the late 90s. Mac would go on to work with artists of the calibre of Aaron Carter, JLS, The Saturdays, Shayne Ward, O-Town, Olly Murs and Susan Boyle. Yes, I am being facetious – Mac has also worked with artists such as Ed Sheeran Biffy Clyro, London Grammar and Kylie Minogue but there’s still an awful lot of garbage in there that he’s been at least partly responsible for and it all came about because of one song that he wrote called “Forever”. The damage (ahem) that song has done.

Next up is a real stinker which I had forgotten all about until this honking reminder. Elton John loves a collaboration from as far back as 1976 when he teamed up with Kiki Dee on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” then on into the 80s with the likes of Millie Jackson, George Michael, Jennifer Rush and Cliff Richard. As the 90s dawned, he worked with George Michael (again) and did a whole album of collaborations called “Duets” with the likes of RuPaul, Marcella Detroit and Kiki Dee (again). And then came this – a duet with Luciano Pavarotti called “Live Like Horses”. Host Ian Broudie says it was to raise money for Bosnia and AIDS charities in his intro but then slyly gives his own verdict on the musical worth of the track by saying “Never mind the song, just buy the record”. He’s not wrong as it’s a steaming pile of shite. Basically just another of those plodding, pedestrian ballads that Elton churned out in the 90s, the plan seemed to be to just get Pavarotti to add his esteemed vocals to it so that it would be transformed into something approaching “Miss Sarajevo” by Passengers from the previous year which, of course, Pavarotti had featured on. That track though elicited a genuine emotional reaction whereas “Live Like Horses” provoked a shrug and a “meh”.

There’s a story that when it was performed on The National Lottery Show, host Bob Monkhouse spoke to both Elton and Luciano separately and it transpired that both thought the song was awful but believed that the other loved it and so promoted it together with gusto. If only they’d expressed those views to each other then we might have been spared all of this. The track appears on Elton’s 1997 album “The Big Picture” without Pavarotti’s vocals and no, I’m not going to inflict that on you. It is Christmas after all.

I’m quite liking Ian Broudie as host and the sly little digs that he’s getting in. After dissing “Live Like Horses” in the nicest possible way, he then turns his attention to Phil Collins, accusing him of “still banging on”. However, he’s not banging on his drums but…playing guitar? What was going on here then? Well, the facts were that “It’s In Your Eyes” was the second single taken from the “Dance Into The Light” album and I’m guessing it didn’t live long in anyone’s mind’s eye despite Phil’s turn on the guitar. Its chart peak of No 30 would seem to back me up. Stealing the melody from “Any Time At All” by The Beatles probably didn’t help. That track was from the soundtrack to A Hard Day’s Night in which a very young Phil had been in the audience for the concert sequence at the film’s end. However, the song which featured 13 year old Phil in the crowd – “You Can’t Do That” – was cut from the film meaning Phil wasn’t actually in it. So maybe it was a case of Phil’s revenge, him borrowing heavily from “Any Time At All”? As the TOTP caption hinted at, Phil would see out the 90s recording the soundtrack to the Walt Disney version of the Tarzan story. Please God let the promotion for it not have featured Phil in a loincloth.

After Elton John and Phil Collins before him, here’s a third musical heavyweight on the show in the diminutive form of Prince although he was officially known as symbol or The Artist Formerly Known As Prince or TAFKAP or The Artist or something (or nothing) by this point. For two of these artists, their long list of hits was coming to an end and sadly for His Purpleness, he was one of them. His offering to the record buying public this Christmas was a cover of “Betcha By Golly Wow” that was originally a hit for The Stylistics in 1972. It all seems a bit unnecessary in retrospect and I’m glad that his final hit in the UK wasn’t a cover version – that would have seemed a bit perverse given his huge vault of songs that he wrote himself. His final two hits in this country came courtesy of the same song when “1999” was rereleased in 1998 and also the following year to coincide with new year celebrations for both entering 1999 and leaving it for the new millennium. Yes, it was an obvious and possibly cynical move but at least he ended his UK chart story with a classic song.

It’s that song by The Beautiful South next. Yes, the one that Terry Wogan would often threaten to play the album version of (I’m guessing he never did) – it can only be “Don’t Marry Her”. The second single released from their “Blue Is The Colour” album, for me, this was even better than predecessor “Rotterdam” which itself had been made the Top 5 and been a massive radio hit. We all know the background story to this one with the lyrics having to be drastically revised for its release as a single. I like both versions though replacing “sweaty bollocks” with “Sandra Bullocks” was a bit of a stretch. In some ways, “Don’t Marry Her” is the definitive Beautiful South song – a jaunty, catchy melody allied to biting, bitter lyrics that speak of how life really is rather than some sanitised image that pop songs can sometimes present. It’s the first track on the album so it was a hard hitting introduction to their latest work; presumably that was deliberate on behalf of the band.

I was working in the Our Price store in Stockport this Christmas and I recall our Area Manager – the sadly passed away Lorcan Devine – sending a message to stores telling us all to go big on stocking up on “Blue Is The Colour” on the strength of the “Don’t Marry Her” single on account of it being, in his words, a belter and potential chart topper. I didn’t disagree with him but the expected sales of the album didn’t quite pan out as Lorcan had anticipated with the single peaking at No 8 (albeit that the album did go to No 1) and he had to admit to getting it wrong. Probably not being able to play the damned thing in the shop due to the opening track’s use of the “f” word didn’t help!

After a very memorable song comes one I’d forgotten all about. In fact, pressed to name any songs by Snoop Doggy Dogg, I wouldn’t be able to get beyond “What’s My Name?”. There were others though (loads of them actually including a No 1 with Katy Perry) and “Snoop’s Upside Ya Head” was his fourth. Obviously based around the Gap Band hit, it actually featured their vocalist Charlie Wilson as well. As with Prince earlier, it seems rather superfluous and indeed contrived (Snoops/Oops). In fact, of more interest to me is my discovery that “Oops Upside Ya Head” was originally titled “I Don’t Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops)”. Keep that bit of trivia and mark it ‘essential pop music quiz info’.

We have a case of premature chart action at No 1 as Boyzone have gone too early with their attempt at securing the festive chart topper. After narrowly missing out in the previous two years with cover versions of The Osmonds (“Love Me For A Reason”) and Cat Stevens (“Father And Son”), their third tilt at the Christmas bestseller was a song that they co-wrote themselves* in “A Different Beat”.

*Actually, it was all members of the band apart from Mikey Graham. Presumably he was off having his haircut on the day they wrote it judging by his shaved head in this performance.

By releasing the single on 2nd December, Boyzone created a situation where there were too many weeks and too many other big releases to come after it for them to be able to hang on to the top spot until the Christmas chart was announced. Or maybe they knew what was coming (the Dunblane song and the third single from the Spice Girls) and so went early with “A Different Beat” so they wouldn’t be up against either of those releases in week one thereby ensuring themselves another No 1. Perhaps they should have just reversed the order of the first two singles released from the album and put their cover of “Words” by the Bee Gees out as their Christmas hit. I’m thinking it was a stronger song than “A Different Beat” which sounded like it was trying too hard to be on the soundtrack to The Lion King with its “Ee Ay Oh” chorus and African chants.

I mentioned earlier that our Area Manager had misjudged the sales potential of “Don’t Marry Her” but he wasn’t the only one encouraged into ordering too many copies of a single that Christmas. I went over the top on “A Different Beat” having nearly sold out of “Words” before it. Not wanting to do the same with the follow up, I overstocked on it massively. Doh!

There’s no 20th December show as it was hosted by Shaun Ryder who spent the whole time doing Jimmy Saville impressions so obviously BBC4 weren’t going to show that. I’m not doing a post about the Christmas Day TOTP either as I’ve reviewed pretty much everything on there already in the regular shows. I will, however, be writing a review of the whole year before moving into the 1997 repeats.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Manic Street Preachers	Australia	No but I had the album
2	Damage	Forever	No
3	Elton John / Luciana Pavarotti	Live Like Horses	Absolutely not
4	Phil Collins	It’s In Your Eyes	But not in my ears Phil – NO
5	Prince	Betcha By Golly Wow	Nah
6	The Beautiful South	Don ‘t Marry Her	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	Snoop Doggy Dogg	Snoops Upside Ya Head	Nope
8	Boyzone	A Different Beat	I ordered loads of it but buy it? Never!

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/m0025pv8/top-of-the-pops-13121996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 SEP 1996

Posted on November 6, 2024 by 80stastic

We’re nearly three quarters of the way through these BBC4 TOTP repeats from 1996 and I have to say this is one of the most mainstream episodes yet. When I say ‘mainstream’, I am of course, referring to the music. Despite its pre-watershed time slot, the show hadn’t shied away from showcasing some of the more niche hits of the day even when the staging of said hits (take your pick from the many dance sub-genres of the day) was problematic. Hell, they’d even had the Sex Pistols on the other week, the very scourge of the mainstream back in the day. However, whether by fault or design, this week saw a more conventional roster of acts on the show. I’ll leave it to you to decide if this week’s host – Tony Mortimer of East 17 – was mainstream or not.

We kick off with Belinda Carlisle – a mainstream stalwart if ever there was. The success of “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” that catapulted her to solo stardom was already eight years in the past by this point and the hits had long since dried up for her in the US. Over here though, she retained a loyal following and had continued to maintain a chart presence throughout those years even if her numbers weren’t always as high as in those early days. Indeed, before 1996, she hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in this country since 1990 when “(We Want) The Same Thing” made No 6. Since then, it had generally been a case of diminishing returns for both her singles and albums. Only 1992’s Best Of collection had really produced massive sales.

However, the release of the “A Woman & A Man” album had generated two consecutive Top 10 hits for her. Following “In Too Deep” in July of this year came “Always Breaking My Heart” which peaked at No 8. The album didn’t sell significantly more copies than any of her other 90s studio albums so maybe the success of its singles was just down to a change in the way singles were being released and promoted by record companies by this point in the decade. I’m pretty sure first week of release discounting was a standard practice by now which would account for why singles were debuting in the charts at their peak position before sliding away. This was true of many a hit, not just Belinda’s. The fact that “Always Breaking My Heart” was a bit of a duffer only adds substance to this theory. Despite being written by Per Gessle of Roxette (was there a more mainstream band ever?) who certainly knew his way around a catchy pop hit, it’s a pretty weak effort. Is it just me or does Belinda’s outfit here make her look like a high powered business person rather than a pop/rock star?

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Definitely the former

Next is surely one of the most mainstream songs of this or any year and as is the way with many a mainstream hit, loads of people bought it at the time but its legacy is one of disownment. “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something will be at No 1 soon enough but try finding someone who admits to having bought it. Talking of disowning, there seems to be a concerted belief by some people online that the song was originally recorded by US indie rockers Gin Blossoms and that the Deep Blue Something version is, in fact, a cover. Quite where or why this rumour started I don’t know but there doesn’t seem to be any truth in it whatsoever. So widespread is its reach though that the band put on their Myspace page back in the day for readers not to request “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” as it’s not their song.

The film of the same title was, of course, based on a book by Truman Capote who once featured on the cover of a single by The Smiths – “The Boy With A Thorn In His Side” – which, incidentally, could be how Deep Blue Something feel about their hit. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might be allowing myself to believe that they were behind the rumour trying to rid themselves of the albatross around their necks such is the bad rap their hit gets.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Despite the Gin Blossoms fake connection, it’s undeniably mainstream

If I thought the first two artists on this show were mainstream, I might need to create a whole new category for the Lighthouse Family – ‘super mainstream’ or ‘mainstream extreme’ maybe? “Goodbye Heartbreak” was the duo’s third consecutive hit after the reactivated tracks “Lifted” and “Ocean Drive” finally did the business for them and it was very much in the same mould as its predecessors. Some might even say “exactly the same as…”. I’ve not given this lot much grief in previous posts for fear of accusations of musical snobbery but was their whole album like this? I’ve never heard it in its entirety – I might as well have asked my Our Price colleagues of the day to play the audiobook of Hitler’s Mein Kampf as the Lighthouse Family on the shop stereo – so I’m not really qualified to judge. However, if it is, I’m not sure I would have made it through to the end. Change the record! No, literally change the record.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Mainstream extreme

Unlike Belinda Carlisle earlier, the next artist looks every inch the pop/rock star in this satellite performance. Sheryl Crow’s future career as such though was by no means guaranteed at this point. Sure, she’d had a massive hit in 1994 on both sides of the ocean with “All I Wanna Do” and her debut album “Tuesday Night Music Club” had won three Grammys in 1995 but it had been written with a collective of other musicians (the titular Tuesday Music Club) prompting accusations that Crow was just the attractive face of the group, the image but not the talent. As such, she was desperate to prove her musical credentials with her follow up, eponymous album. Lead single “If It Makes You Happy” was a huge step in that direction straight off the bat. I’ve said before that the mark of a good song is if it can be performed in a variety of different styles and still sound convincing in each of them. Well, apparently Sheryl tried a number of different genres for this track including country, punk, funk and even as a David Lynch style soundtrack piece. However, it worked best as the growling, prowling, rasping rock track it turned out to be. It would go Top 10 in both the US and the UK but interestingly, the only country it topped the charts was Canada which may explain why this performance came from Vancouver. Perhaps, Sheryl was on promotional duties over there at the time? Its chart success was Crow’s biggest since the aforementioned “All I Wanna Do” and would provide the platform for her career to carry on its upward trajectory, paving the way for her sophomore album to go three times platinum in the UK alone.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Hmm. Difficult one this. If huge sales make you mainstream then Sheryl Crow undoubtedly was. However, she always seemed a little more gritty than that to me

A quick word on Tony Mortimer before we proceed – he seems more lacking in energy and charm than I would have imagined. Quite dull actually. Liven up a bit Tony! Maybe the only straight up dance tune on the show tonight will get him going? Ah, not this one though. Apparently, “Oh What A Night” by Clock attracted a fair amount of derision even back in 1996 presumably for being an atrocious take on The Four Seasons mid 70s classic. Singer Lorna Saunders is now a legal secretary and was once on Never Mind The Buzzcocks as part of the identity parade feature. I don’t know if either team managed to spot her but she was once mistaken by Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay for 2 Unlimited’s Anita Doth! Doh!

Mainstream or Indie Theme? The most horrible and tacky form of mainstream

The ‘flashback’ feature is still with us and this week we are treated to “Prince Charming” by Adam And The Ants. I’m not sure that Adam is given the credit and respect that he deserves sometimes. He managed to combine originality (yes, I know there was a definite Malcolm McLaren influence at some point but still) with massive sales and a memorable image – that’s quite some plate spinning going on there. I think even his most commercial numbers like this one still stand up. The second and final No 1 for Adam And The Ants before the main man went solo, it retains the power to take me right back to the early 80s over 40 years hence every time I hear it. The natural successor to the dandy highwayman of “Stand And Deliver”, it’s actually quite basic in its nature with a few lyrics repeated over and over but the style and panache of the visuals of the video make it into something quite outlandishly striking. Ah yes, that video with the cameo of Diana Dors as the fairy godmother is a once seen never forgotten experience.

In the last blog post, I asked the question of whether you could actually dance to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”. In the case of “Prince Charming”, Adam’s right hand man Marco Pirroni actually admits that it was a track that was difficult to dance to and so the arm-crossing choreography featured in the video was devised in order that it would be able to be played in clubs and discos. The whole package remains quite stunning. Adam And The Ants were almost untouchable for two years at the start of the decade but it couldn’t last and despite a No 1 straight out of the traps as a solo artist with “Goody Two Shoes”, by the end of 1982, Adam was already starting to show signs of decline when his third solo single “Desperate But Not Serious” stalled at No 33. “Puss ‘n Boots” saw a brief rally the following year but his time as the country’s No 1 pop star was almost at an end. Despite turning 70 literally the other day, Adam is still touring though he had to cancel his Autumn 2024 dates due to ill health.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Huge popularity aside, Adam was always outside of the mainstream for me from his punk roots to his unique and enduring style

After a very subdued intro from Tony Mortimer we get The Bluetones and “Marblehead Johnson”. This was their third hit of 1996 and was a standalone single that presumably was intended to keep the band’s momentum going following the success of their No 1 album “Expecting To Fly” and No 2 single “Slight Return”. I’ve got to be honest, it’s not as good as I remembered it. In fact, it’s a bit dull. It sounds like it’s always on the cusp of kicking into life and then just meanders off somewhere for a bit of noodling.

Its title reminds me of the Warren Zevon song “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” which I once played by mistake in the Our Price I was working in as it came on after “Werewolves Of London” which was the track I’d originally chosen. It was quickly taken off by the manager as its subject matter of a Norwegian mercenary fighting in the Nigerian Civil War and having his head blown off was deemed inappropriate. Mine’s not a great story I admit but then listening to “Marblehead Johnson” is hardly a scintillating experience.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? My initial reaction is the latter but then in 1996, had Britpop become the mainstream?

And so we arrive at the ultimate in mainstream music, the arch purveyor of prosaic pop, patron saint of the unremarkable, Mr Middle of the Road himself…it’s Phil Collins.

Poor old Phil. We really have had it in for him for quite some time. Does he deserve it? Depends which side of the fence you stand I guess. Some people must like his music given the amount of records he’s sold and yet he’s become a byword for naff. It’s not just his music that can offend though, it’s also…well…him. Accusations of smugness, ubiquity, tax avoidance and of ending his marriage by fax (the last one has always been strenuously denied by Collins and it is generally accepted to not be true) abounded. Maybe it all affected him as his 90s output was nowhere near as commercially successful as that of his 80s heyday. That’s not to say they didn’t sell at all – 1993’s “Both Sides” went double platinum but that didn’t match any of his 80s albums sales and indeed was nowhere near the twelve times platinum status of 1989’s “…But Seriously”. By 1996, the malaise seemed to have set in permanently. “Dance Into The Light” the album would only sell 100,000 copies (gold status) in the UK with its title track lead single peaking at No 9. Let’s be honest, even if you were a mega Phil fan, this comeback track must have been a disappointment. Some cod-reggae groove, Caribbean horn section and some truly shonky lyrics about South Africa coming out of apartheid (?). It’s a bit of a stinker and surely one of his least remembered hits.

Phil embarked on a phase of writing for Disney soundtracks after the “Dance Into The Light” project before returning in 2002 with seventh studio album “Testify” which only reached No 15 in the charts. The last album to do anywhere near the numbers of his glory years was, of course, a Best Of collection in 1998, – the first official one of his career – called “…Hits” which topped the charts and went six times platinum in the UK alone.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Do you really have to ask?

The Fugees are the UK No 1 with “Ready Or Not”, their second song to top our charts in 1996 following “Killing Me Softly”. I don’t think you could really label the trio as mainstream despite those huge sales figures evidencing their commercial crossover, not when you consider their legacy which lasted much longer than their career. Sure, there are many accolades that talk about them bringing hip-hop into the mainstream but that didn’t make them mainstream artists – I don’t think that’s what they wanted to be either. They were innovators whose creativity struck a commercial seam of gold. Sometimes the right people get lucky I guess.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Indie definitely

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Belinda Carlisle	Always Breaking My Heart	Nah
2	Deep Blue Something	Breakfast At Tiffany’s	Nope
3	Lighthouse Family	Goodbye Heartbreak	Negative
4	Sheryl Crow	If It Make You Happy	No but I had her Best Of with it on
5	Clock	Oh What A Night	Never
6	Adam And The Ants	Prince Charming	No but I think my younger sister had the album
7	The Bluetones	Marblehead Johnson	I did not
8	Phil Collins	Dance Into The Light	What do you think?
9	Fugees	Ready Or Not	Not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002497z/top-of-the-pops-20091996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 APR 1994

Posted on March 17, 2023 by 80stastic

As ever it seems, this TOTP is a right mixed bag of huge, stellar names and those that perhaps haven’t lingered in the memory anywhere near as long. To illustrate that point, two of the artists on the show are from the furthermost extremes of the spectrum. One is an absolute legend of the world of music and show business and the other…well, let’s just say I’d be surprised if many people could recall them.

We start though with a band who I had forgotten all about but do recall their name now I’m presented with them in front of me. Skin (terrible name)* were part of that early 90s UK rock movement populated by the likes of Little Angels and Thunder (indeed they toured with both of them) and also had affiliations with Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson – Skin’s drummer Dicki Fliszar (not a stage name apparently) had played in Dickinson’s tour band. This led to them signing with Maiden’s management company and record label Parlophone. The link with Dickinson even got them a place on a hit single albeit under the pseudonym of Smear Campaign on the 1992 Comic Relief single “I Wanna Be Elected”. A debut EP (under their own name) called “The Skin Up” failed to crack the Top 40 but this follow up – “The Money EP” – hit pay dirt when it climbed to a peak of No 18. Watching this performance back, they clearly had pretensions to be the next Led Zeppelin with lead singer Neville MacDonald channeling his inner Robert Plant to full effect. Just because the band were called Skin, did we really have to see two of them displaying some here?

* When my mate Robin caught Spinal Tap live around 1992, he was in the front row and managed to touch the hand of one of the group or as he described it “I got skin off the band”. I don’t think Skin, the band, would have got the same reaction from him.

Skin would go on to collect a handful of UK Top 40 hits and a Top 10 eponymous debut album and a support slot at Gateshead Stadium for Bon Jovi. Sadly, what should have been a career high turned into a disaster when a voltage converter was put to US settings by a stage hand which resulted in their guitarist’s amplifier being blown as well as the keyboard player’s Hammond organ. When I was working in the Civil Service in the early 2000s (stick with me, I do have a point), one of my colleagues was a huge Dexys Midnight Runners fan who actually got to know some of the people from the band’s history and those of The Bureau who formed out of the ashes of the first Dexys incarnation. A man who had a foot in both camps was Mick Talbot (later of The Style Council) who told my colleague that shortly before Live Aid started (The Style Council were second on that day), Mick noticed the same issue with the sound equipment (i.e. it was configured to US settings) and so, knowing it would blow, quickly changed them thereby averting a technological disaster and a late start to The Global Jukebox. There you go – the inside track on one of the biggest musical events ever courtesy of TOTP Rewind!

Here’s a band in the process of making a name for themselves – Eternal with a third consecutive hit. “Just A Step From Heaven” would follow “Stay” and “Save Our Love” into the Top 10. I’ve noticed with all their TOTP performances that it always seems to be Easther Bennett on lead vocals with the other three group members acting effectively as backing dancers. Now you could have maybe levelled the same accusation at male peers Take That in their early days with Gary Barlow always out front doing the heavy lifting vocals wise and the rest of the boys popping some moves behind him. However, they did diversify with Robbie Williams, Mark Owen and even Howard Donald all getting a shot at being lead singer (I don’t think poor old Jason Orange ever did). Did Eternal ever swap roles about like that? Was their a vocals rota? I’m not sure.

During this performance though, they did have those ‘circles’ lighting effects gliding around the stage that look like those scenes from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons when the latter used ‘retrometabolism’ to create facsimiles of people and objects that they could control. Easther as a Captain Black figure doing away with her band mates and replacing them with replicants under her power so they remain in her shadow? Nah, you’re right. It could never have happened because Louise left the band of her own accord in 1995.

As for the song, it sounded a bit bland to me lacking the star quality of their debut hit. I much prefer this similarly (but not quite the same) titled song from the criminally overlooked The Adventures…

Next a song that turned the band responsible for it from a hardcore funk metal outfit to mainstream rock stars. That journey for Red Hot Chili Peppers had begun with a stumble in the UK when the sublime “Under The Bridge” could only make No 26 in March of 1992 but in the US they travelled much further going all the way to No 2 becoming a huge airplay hit in the process. You can’t keep a good song down though and we finally caught up with our American counterparts in 1994 when, after an energy booster in the shape of Top 10 hit “Give It Away”, we went full throttle in our appreciation of the Chili Peppers making a re-release of “Under The Bridge” a runaway chart success. OK, runaway might be pushing it for a song that peaked at No 13 but it fits with my ‘journey’ metaphor and it was literally twice the hit it was before. I was one of those that succumbed to its charms second time around.

Starting out as a poem written by Anthony Kiedis about his struggles with heroin addiction, its hit potential was seen by producer Rick Rubin and after being worked up into song form by bassist Flea and guitarist John Frusciante it found its way onto the band’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” album. The titular bridge refers to a bridge in LA where Kiedis found himself hanging out with drug dealers trying to score his next hit so desperate had his addiction become. Los Angeles looms large in the song with these opening lines clearly referring to it:

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in, the city of angels
Lonely as I am, together we cry
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Anthony Kiedis / Chad Gaylord Smith / John Anthony Frusciante / Michael Peter Balzary
Under the Bridge lyrics © MoeBeToBlame, Peermusic Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Words & Music A Div Of Big Deal Music LL

Now it’s my turn to sneak a reference in but it’s not about LA but Captain Scarlet again. In the episode ‘Place Of Angels’, the good captain foils a Mysteron plot to release a deadly virus into the Los Angeles reservoir. And of course, the female pilots of the Spectrum fighter jets were known as The Angels. What’s that got to do with Red Hot Chili Peppers? Nothing but artistic license and all that. The video by director Gus Van Sant has a “Streets Of Philadelphia” feel to it with Kiedis walking through various LA locations to make the bond between song and city absolutely clear if it wasn’t enough already. Just like Springsteen, the Chili Peppers would also record material for soundtracks in the 90s when they supplied songs for The Coneheads, Pretty Woman and Beavis and Butt-head Do America movies.

Next that name that surely is lost to most in the mists of time. Except…Club House you say? Wasn’t that the name of the people who did that awful Steely Dan /Michael Jackson mash up “Do It Again” in 1983? I think it was but this can’t be the same lot returning in 1994 can it?

*checks Wikipedia*

Bloody hell it is! That’s a more unlikely comeback than Boris Johnson recovering from Partygate (please privileges committee, don’t make a fool of me by finding him innocent!). What had they been doing for a whole decade? Well, according to their bio, they’d done another medley record in 1987 mixing Mory Kanté’s “Yé ké Yé ké” with The Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m A Man” and had a US Dance No 1 with the Deee-Lite sampling “Deep In My Heart” in 1990. In addition to those two tracks, the vocalist here – one Carl Fanini – sang in that Eurodance hit by Eastside Beat “Ride Like The Wind”.

Suddenly though, like the nightmare of a returning Liz Truss, they were back with a track called “Light My Fire” which obtusely was nothing to do with The Doors song of the same name. It had failed to make the UK Top 40 when released in September of 1993 but a Cappella remix released on Pete Waterman’s PWL label sent it to the Top 10 the following year. God knows how though as it’s an abominable record, all pulsing Italian Hi-NRG beats and the phrase “Burn Baby Burn” (surely pinched from “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps) repeated over and over. If you require any more evidence that this was a steaming pool of piss, ask yourself why, if it’s such a great tune, is there the need for a man on stilts juggling, a woman fire eating and four dancers dressed as devil figures in bright red spandex suits up there on stage? Even all of the above can’t distract from the reality that this was just awful.

Of course, for all my previous talk of nobody remembering Club House or their single, the track did carve out its own little piece of pop history by being an infamous part of the origin of one of the biggest boy bands of the 90s. Ladies and gentlemen…Boyzone!

Level 42 on TOTP in 1994? The year widely acknowledged as being the lift off point for Britpop? It seems as wrong as tomato ketchup on a Sunday roast yet here they were with their second hit of that year. “All Over You” came from their “Forever Now” album and was the follow up to the title track and it sounds like it has the potential of being a decent tune akin to something like “Hot Water” from their past but it never really goes anywhere. Yes it’s got a chunky, funky rhythm courtesy of Mark King’s trademark slap bass but it meanders aimlessly with its sole intention seeming to be how many rhyming words it can get into the lyrics which end in ‘-ing’. And then. And then there’s that middle right when keyboardist Mike Lindup breaks into a solo bit that has very strong Spinal Tap “Stonehenge” vibes:

Through the heat-haze and the blue
I will shimmer and distort
And become what you always knew
But were never taught in this sad time
Take on board the things I say
Just be sure that you’ll be mine someday
Justify the things I do
Just believe that it’s all over you
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Mark King / Michael David Lindup / Philip Gould
All Over You lyrics © Peermusic (uk) Ltd.

All that was missing was some dwarves dancing around an 18” model. “All Over You” peaked at No 26 but Level 42’s chart years were nearly over. They would visit the Top 40 just one more time.

Time for that legend of music now as we get an exclusive performance from Miss Barbara Streisand (like ~~Diana Ross~~, Miss Diana Ross, you have to prefix her name with Miss). I’m not about to do a potted history of Barbara’s career here as it would take too long and I’m behind with these reviews but suffice too say, host Nicky Campbell just about sums it up in his intro. I was aware of Miss Barbara Streisand initially from her No 1 single “Woman In Love” from 1980 when I was 12 but I didn’t really regard her as a singer that much as she didn’t really have another major hit throughout the decade when I was consuming pop music avariciously. I regarded her more as a film star, that woman that was in Funny Girl, Hello Dolly!, A Star Is Born and Yentl, none of which were movies that particularly interested me at all growing up. I was aware that she was a huge name though, so much so that by the time she was touring in 1993/94 – the first time since 1966 – tickets were going for astronomical prices. A friend managed to get one for one of her four nights at Wembley Arena (from where this satellite performance came) and I think she might have paid around £200 even in 1994! It looks like a lot of the ticket price revenue went on paying for the very stylish stage set. The tour grossed $50 million playing to 400,000 people.

The song she performs here – “As If We Never Said Goodbye” – is from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boulevard which made it the second chart hit from the show in recent months following Dina Carroll’s version of “The Perfect Year”. It also featured on Miss Barbara Streisand’s most recent album “Back To Broadway” which had been a huge success going double platinum in the US and gold over here. The single made it to No 20 and she would clock up another three chart hits in the UK during the 90s, all of them duets with Celine Dion, Bryan Adams and Vince Gill to add to those from the 80s (Don Johnson) and perhaps her most famous in the late 70s with Donna Summer (“No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)”) and Neil Diamond (“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”).

Were Ride a big name? I guess the were amongst the ‘shoegaze’ community and the TOTP caption says their career record sales at that point was 500,000. It seems a bit unfair of the producers though who put up a similar caption for Miss Barbara Streisand detailing her 7 million album sales. Still, as Nicky Campbell says in his intro, she’d never headlined the Reading Festival. I quite liked a couple of their tunes like “Leave Them All Behind” and “Twisterella” from 1992’s Top 5 album “Going Blank Again”. This track, “Birdman” was from their third album “Carnival Of Light” which showcased a departure from the band’s usual songwriting style with Mark Gardner arriving at the studio with fully formed compositions rather than crafting tracks from jamming sessions. It also displayed a different sound with a deliberate move away from ‘shoegaze’ to a more classic rock sound. Another change was obvious in this performance as that’s not Gardner up there on vocals but guitarist Andy Bell (later of Hurricane #1, Oasis and Beady Eye). Bell had written half of the tracks on the album (including this single) so I guess he wanted to make like UB40 and sing his own song? Despite the album replicating the chart peak of its predecessor, it alienated some of their original fanbase and drew unfavourable reviews from the press whilst even the band themselves fell out of love with it referring it it as “Carnival Of Shite”. Hmm. Ride released another album (1996’s “Tarantula”) before disbanding only to reform in 2014.

The final three names tonight are all very much part of the rock/pop music establishment starting with the guy who did the personal message at the top of the show Michael Bolton. Interestingly, he did seem to plug Miss Barbara Streisand’s appearance more than his own. Even Mr Mullet Head had to bow before the ‘Queen of the Divas’. Bollers is on the show to plug his latest offering, a cover of the Bill Withers classic “Lean On Me”. This was literally money for old rope (or hair). Bolton had already done an album of cover verists in 1992 called “Timeless: The Classics” and yet he didn’t see any issue with recording yet another for his next album “The One Thing” and even less compunction about releasing it as a single when he was in need of a hit. After all, he’d done a similar thing in 1991 when, after the first two singles from his “Time. Love And Tenderness” album had failed to pull up any trees sales wise, he released a cover of Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman” to restore him to the Top 10. Just shameless really. Bolton gives his usual over emoting performance here which also features Michael J. Mullins on backing vocals. “Who?” you may ask. Well, he’s the guy who sang on all the later hits for Modern Romance and who was the perennial backing singer for Cliff Richard. Now if Bollers had done a cover version of “Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey” I might have had a bit more respect for him. As it was his, version of “Lean On Me” peaked at No 14.

Prince is the next huge name on the show as he is still at No 1 with “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”. As with many other artists, his highest charting single in the UK is certainly not his best – in my humble opinion at least. I could name a load of other tracks I prefer. Off the top of my head there’s “Purple Rain”, “Alphabet Street”, “Take Me with U”, “Raspberry Beret”…I could go on. Prince would only return to the our Top 10 twice more after “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” and one of those was with a rather obvious release of “1999” as 1998 drew to a close.

The play out song is another single that didn’t actually make the Top 40 despite the artist being one of the biggest names in in music. “We Wait And We Wonder” was the third single from Phil Collins‘ “Both Sides” album and was written as a response to the Warrington bombings and the whole situation of the Irish Troubles peaking at No 45. Despite all his success as a solo artist, Phil has had his fair share of non charting releases as well, some of them coming immediately after a huge hit. “Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away” only made No 45 despite being the follow up to the chart topping “You Can’t Hurry Love”. Then there’s “Do You Remember?” which failed to make the Top 40 despite coming from his multi platinum album “…But Seriously”. “Wear My Hat” from 1997’s “Dance Into The Light” would suffer a similar fate all of which just goes to show that no matter how big your name or reputation, you cannot take the vagaries of the charts nor the record buying public for granted.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Skin	The Money EP	Nah
2	Eternal	Just A Step From Heaven	No
3	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Under The Bridge	Yes, yes I did
4	Club House	Light My Fire	As if
5	Level 42	All Over You	Never happening
6	Barbara Streisand	As If We Never Said Goodbye	I did not
7	Ride	Birdman	Negative
8	Michael Bolton	Lean On Me	See 4 above
9	Prince	The Most Beautiful Girl in the World	Not for me thanks
10	Phil Collins	We Wait And We Wonder	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/m001jvps/top-of-the-pops-28041994

TOTP 20 JAN 1994

Posted on January 24, 2023 by 80stastic

And so the party is finally over. Not the TOTP party as the grand old show will carry on for another twelve and a half years from this point. No, it’s the end of the line for presenter Tony Dortie whose innings finishes after 57 shows stretching back to the 3rd October 1991. So who pulled the plug on Dortie? Well, presumably it was incoming new producer Ric Blaxill who replaced ‘year zero’ innovator Stanley Appel and decided to shake things up by…erm…getting some of those old Radio 1 DJs back in on presenting duties. That hardly sounds like a creative genius teeming with new ideas at work does it? To be fair to Blaxill, he did come up with some other plans to overhaul the show including the ‘golden mic’ where TV celebrities, pop stars and comedians were invited to present the show. Curiously, this change seems to already be in place before Dortie has left the building as he is joined on his final show by Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot as co-host. I presumed initially that this was just to introduce his own band’s video but he does get extra presenting duties later on in the show. The subsequent show would be Dortie’s presenting partner Mark Franklin’s last appearance. The times they were a-changin’…

…talking of which, we start the show with a tune that seemed out of time. It was now nearly four years since Inspiral Carpets burst into our lives as part of the ‘Madchester’ scene and whilst that movement had withered whilst main protagonists The Stone Roses were still missing presumed disbanded and the Happy Mondays having self destructed, these Oldham lads had carved themselves out a little niche which revolved around Clint Boon’s farfisa electronic organ and its swirling 60s retro sounds. By 1994 though, they were coming to the end of their initial incarnation and that year’s “Devil Hopping” would be their last album for twenty years after being dropped by Mute Records. The lead single from it was “Saturn 5” which seems to borrow a fair bit from “Telstar” by The Tornados. Yes, I know that 1962 No 1 transatlantic hit was an instrumental track but it was named after the Telstar communications satellite that was launched into orbit that year. Similarly, “Saturn 5” was named after the space rocket that launched all the Apollo missions. Then there’s the almost distorted, futuristic (back in 1962!) organ sound on “Telstar” which “Saturn 5” isn’t a million light years away from.

According to Boon, the song is about hope and achieving your ambitions. Here’s @TOTPFacts with an explanation of that Rockette lyric:

"Jerry wants to be a rockette" explained: "Jerry is my wife's auntie. She always wanted to be a Radio City Rockette, and now she is one! The song's about optimism and ambition." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

I went to New York for the very first time in 1994 and me and my wife did the Radio City Hall tour and met a Rockette. It was a a bizarre experience. Anyway, some of the other lyrics refer to the assassination of JFK (“the lifeless corpse of President 35”) and his grieving wife Jackie Onassis (“the lady crying by his side is the most beautiful woman alive”) and Boon’s mother-in-law going on a first date with her husband in a Ford Mustang (“Lady take a ride on a Zeke 64”). In my head, I’d made the line “An Eagle lands” into a reference to 1970s sci-fi series Space 1999 whose spacecrafts were called ‘Eagles’. Either that or the Eagle comic and its space captain hero Dan Dare. Both theories kind of fit with the space theme but further research on my part suggests it’s more probably to do with the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where JFK learned to fly and whose nickname is ‘Eagles’. Regardless of its subject matter, I liked “Saturn 5” and its incongruousness with the rest of the charts. Yes, it was a bit formulaic – my work colleague Justin remarked on first hearing it “Ah, there’s the distinctive organ” – but it was well constructed and had charm as well as hooks. It would make No 20 on the chart while the album went to No10.

I saw singer Tim Hingley years later as a solo artist at tiny venue Fibbers whilst I was living in York. Can’t remember if he played “Saturn 5” though. I also caught Clint Boon do a DJ set of ‘Manchester’ tunes as a warm up for a Happy Mondays gig a few years ago. That really was money for old rope.

https://youtu.be/xjWm0OSA6iE

And so to that first Joe Elliott intro which, rather obviously, is for his own band. He actually does a decent job and seems much more at ease than an over excited Dortie. They do have some decent banter (note banter not ‘bants’) as Tony chides Joe for his Sheffield United shirt who responds with with “Hold your tongue philistine Spurs freak”. Nice comeback!

As for Def Leppard’s cover of The Sweet’s “Action”, I pretty much said everything I had to say about it in the last post. Erm…OK, did they do any other cover versions?

*checks internet*

They’ve done loads! Some are obvious like T. Rex, Bowie and Thin Lizzy but some less so. How about these? “Rock On” by David Essex and…No! “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode?! I’ve got to hear this…

…well, it doesn’t eclipse Johnny Cash’s take on it but it’s not bad I’ll admit. I suppose that’s testament to how much of a great song it is. “Action” peaked at No 14 but Def Leppard returned with their equal biggest hit ever in 1995 with “When Love And Hate Collide” which peaked at No 2 matching the high of 1992’s “Let’s Get Rocked”.

Here’s something a bit different. Tori Amos might be an acquired taste and suffer from continual accusations of being a Kate Bush wannabe but I’ve always quite liked her. I’m pretty sure we even had her first album “Little Earthquakes” at some point. It sold respectably and steadily but 1994 saw her up the ante with the release of sophomore album “Under The Pink” which went to the top of the charts. The lead single was “Cornflake Girl” which would give Tori her highest charting single by far at that point when it peaked at No 4. I said in the last post that I was surprised that Toni Braxton’s “Breathe Again” was such a big hit and “Cornflake Girl” also falls into that category. Nothing to do with the quality of the song – it’s a great track – but because it felt like such an outlier in the charts. A haunting piece with a striking melody that allows Tori’s otherworldly vocals to flourish, it sounded like nothing else in the Top 40 at the time (and no smart arse remarks about Kate Bush not having a single out that month!).

The song has some dark origins. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

"Cornflake Girl" is about female genital mutilation, which Amos was discussing with a friend. "We were talking about the fact that the women are betrayed, by a grandmother, a mother, an older sister – that the women you trust the most are taking you into this butchery.." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Out of this discussion came the song’s title which was a name that Tori and her peers would use growing up to describe girls who would hurt you despite a close relationship. On a lighter note, Amos appeared in an advert for a Kellogg’s cereal in 1984 but apparently that was nothing to do with her writing the song.

Interestingly, Billy Bragg also name checks the phrase on a track called “Body Of Water” on his 1991 album “Don’t Try This At Home”.

Summer could take a hint
Seeing you in a floral print
Oh to become a pearl
In the wordy world of the cornflake girl
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Billy Bragg / Philip Douglas Wigg
Body of Water lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

In an unlikely turn of events, as I was checking my Tori Amos facts for this post, I discovered that she is a very close friend of the author Neil Gaiman who is actually godfather to her daughter. The book literally next to me on the coffee table as I read that information? The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

For me though, the one thing that always comes to mind when I hear “Cornflake Girl” is this TV theme for a show that always seemed to be on the late night schedules growing up in the Central ITV region…

Talking of cover versions as we were before about Def Leppard, Tori has quite a few in her live set lists. I think my favourite is this unlikely coming together of styles…

Oh come on! Still with Haddaway in 1994? Surely he was a one year phenomenon? Sadly, he’s still knocking about with his “I Miss You” single. Everything about this performance is just odd, from Haddaway’s cringeworthy spoken intro to the presence of the woman on stage with him? Quite why was she there? She spends the first part of the song sat on a chair looking miserable. I’ve not seen someone look so upset in a pop song since that woman in the video for Eddy Grant’s 1982 No 1 “I Don’t Wanna Dance” when she’s left fuming on the beach whilst Eddy noodles around on his guitar whilst sat on an unlikely floating platform in the sea.

https://youtu.be/ZFT5ZVUsPIw

Back in 1994, the woman on stage with Haddaway finally gets up to wander around a bit before miming some “ooh, woohs” backing vocals. Is that why she was there all along? For that? It really wasn’t worth it. “I Miss You” peaked at No 9.

As with Def Leppard earlier, here’s another of last week’s Breakers getting a full spin on the show. Toni Braxton gets the live by satellite treatment to perform her “Breathe Again” hit. They’ve plonked her on a stool sat between two candelabras on the stage of the Apollo Theatre, New York where she belts out her song…to nobody. They even have a shot from behind Toni facing the empty theatre and its non existent audience just in case anyone was under the misconception that somebody (anybody) was actually there. Madness. I hope Ric Blaxill got rid of this nonsense when he took over the TOTP reins and resuscitated the show. Hey, maybe he made it breathe again! I’ll get me coat.

https://youtu.be/Pp_OMu3top0

Four Breakers this week starting with some bloke called Joe (just Joe) who I hardly remember and couldn’t tell you anything about before reading up on him but who somehow managed to have ten UK Top 40 hits the last of which came some ten years on from this, his debut single, “I’m In Luv”. Tony Dortie is clearly giving zero f***s seeing as he’s been given the chop and this is is final appearance as he says the following in his intro “…I know it’s politically incorrect to say so but there’s some mighty fine ladies in this video”. Well! Tone had some previous with this sort of thing dropping similar comments about Jade, En Vogue etc during his time on the show. He also says that Joe “…at last gives us the missing note between hip hop and R&B…”. Wasn’t that called New Jack Swing?

A genuine sales phenomenon next as Garth Brooks makes his first TOTP appearance. No. Really. Check these stats out from @TOTPFacts

In the USA, Garth Brooks is the only artist to have released nine albums that achieved diamond status by selling over 10 million copies (surpassing the Beatles' previous record of six). #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Garth Brooks has also been certified as the best-selling solo artist when it comes to albums in the USA – ahead of Elvis Presley. As of 13 January 2023, Brooks is on 157 million, with Presley at 146.5 million. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Told you. It was an unlikely occurrence though for a country artist. Or was it? Certainly in the UK, that genre had traditionally struggled to gain a foot hold commercially but in the US? I’m thinking there was a much bigger market and appetite for country music. Randy Travis, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Dwight Yoakam, George Strait and loads more artists had huge careers over there as country acts. However, Troyal Garth Brooks (that’s his actual name! Troyal!) was somehow different. His melting pot of country with elements of rock and pop allowed him to crossover into the mainstream markets and he did so like nobody before him. We’d resisted in the UK for the early part of the decade despite promotion by his record company of his albums like “Ropin’ The Wind”, “No Fences” and “The Chase” but we finally caved to his fifth one “In Pieces” which rose to No 2 in our charts. The single from it that broke the dam was “The Red Strokes” – (actually a double A-side with “Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up)”) – a pleasant but unremarkable ballad to my ears and the biggest of only three UK hit singles which peaked at No 13. Hold onto your Stetson though as we’ll be seeing more of Garth Brooks on the next show.

I’d totally forgotten about the final single from Depeche Mode’s “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” album. “In Your Room” was a powerful slab of gloom rock in line with the rest of the album which was influenced by the emergence of grunge. Despite the album having been out for nearly a year by this point and despite it being the fourth track released from it, “”In Your Room” still went Top 10 displaying the loyalty and purchasing power of the band’s fanbase.

The video references much of the band’s past work with homages to “Strangelove”, “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy The Silence” amongst others. There’s also a heavy David Lynch vibe with scenes of bondage set against the red curtain drapes reminding me of both Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. The band themselves were in turmoil at this point with Dave Gahan struggling with his heroin addiction whilst the single would be the last to feature Alan Wilder who left the group after the completion of the album. We would not see them again for four years when they returned with “Ultra”.

Well, I suppose this was totally inevitable. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown had been married for eighteen months when they decided they needed to record a song together to further publicly display their love for each other. I’m surprised it took that long. “Something In Common” was the chosen track but if they were expecting a gigantic hit off the back of them joining forces, it didn’t quite happen. A No 16 peak was all it could achieve over here whilst it also failed to make the Top 10 in the US. How come? I mean, Whitney was on a very hot streak with the success of The Bodyguard whilst Brown’s 1992 album “Bobby” had gone double platinum. Maybe the song was just no good? It’s uptempo and probably right on the New Jack Swing zeitgeist but it doesn’t live long in the memory. Seriously, how far down the list would you have to go when naming Whitney or Bobby Brown songs before you got to “Something In Common”?

Joe Elliott is back to do a link for the next artist who is Phil Collins. How many times was Phil on TOTP as a solo artist doing a mournful ballad? I don’t know and I’m not about to count but I’m pretty sure he did what he does whilst performing “Everyday” on every appearance; that Everyman, shuffling turn whilst wearing oversized, casual clothes to create the impression that he’s only turned up at the studio to sing a song whilst he’s waiting for the first coat of creosote to dry on his garden fence before applying the second. I’m not buying it Phil nor indeed any of your records. “Everyday” peaked at No 15.

They’ve done it! D:Ream are No1 with “Things Can Only Get Better” a year after it originally peaked at No 24. Despite it being his last ever TOTP show, Tony Dortie still has one last presenting gaff in him when he refers to their lead singer Peter Cunnah as ‘Pete Cornelius’! Watching Pete perform here in his trademark checked suit, I can’t help but notice that there’s an element of Robbie Williams about his performance. All that energetic cavorting and arm waving and a desperation to make everything about him on stage. Well, D:Ream had just been on tour with Take That at the time so maybe he did indeed learn from the master!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Inspiral Carpets	Saturn 5	No but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs
2	Def Leppard	Action	Nah
3	Tori Amos	Cornflake Girl	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Haddaway	I Miss You	…but I don’t miss you. No
5	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
6	Joe	I’m In Luv	I’m not – no
7	Garth Brooks	The Red Strokes	No
8	Depeche Mode	In Your Room	I did not
9	Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown	Something In Common	Negative
10	Phil Collins	Everyday	Never!
11	D:Ream	Things Can Only Get Better	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/m001h88r/top-of-the-pops-20011994

TOTP 13 JAN 1994

Posted on January 20, 2023 by 80stastic

Christmas and New Year are now distant memories – not just in 2023 but in 1994 where we currently find ourselves in the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule. The charts have pretty much evacuated from their bowels all that Christmas stodge and some new songs are cleansing the Top 40. Well, I say cleanse but there are still some rotten tunes stinking the place out. Oh well, nose pegs at the ready then as we go again..,

We start with the previous year’s Eurodance sensation Culture Beat who are back with a third consecutive hit in “Anything”. There’s no let up in the formula here – they couldn’t have mixed things up with a ballad? – as Jay Supreme performs a high speed rap workout while vocalist Tania Evans chips in with a chorus including lyrics that seem to suggest desperation to please a (potential) partner. I’d like to think such themes were not prevalent today but toxic masculinity is on the increase with hateful figures like Andrew Tate generating headlines. I’m probably reading far too much into it but seeing Tania sing those words does jar a bit. On closer examination of the lyrics online, Jay Supreme seems to be having similar relationship problems where nothing he does, says or wears is good enough for his other half but he’s rapping so fast nobody can decipher what he’s on about. “Anything” was at its chart peak of No 5 already. They would never return to the Top 10.

Get those nose pegs ready as here’s a bona fide toilet bowel dweller in the form of “All For Love” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting. This was proper dog shit, baked for the latest cinematic take on the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers. I recall there being a big buzz about the film starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt and Chris O’Donnell in the titular roles and I, myself, duly went to see it. Sadly, like its song, it was no good, without merit and, in short, a stinker. There was something very cynical about casting Sheen and Sutherland together to reunite them in some sort of 17th century cousin to their Brat Pack western Young Guns (indeed, some reviewers christened the film ‘Young Swords’). This was just one of a long list of film adaptations of the famous story – I had no idea there were that many – but I’d take the cartoon from my childhood from The Banana Splits TV show over any of them.

Back to that song though and its protagonists were probably more of an unholy trinity than they were The Three Musketeers for many. Certainly there are a fair few musical crimes that can be levelled at Adams, Stewart and Sting individually (though some of all three’s back catalogue stands up to scrutiny) but this collective effort really is a low point. It probably sounded like a good idea in theory – three massive mainstream stars (the musketeers) record a song that borrows its title from the main characters’ motto (‘All for one and one for all’) but the actual song is such a dirge that it can’t fail but to reek. Composed by Bry and his go to songwriting partner Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange, who was also responsible for that other Adams turd “Please Forgive Me”, it really is an awful record. The film did decent business though and so the single was a huge hit off the back of it going to No 1 in the US and around the world though its peak of No 2 in the UK meant it wasn’t quite a case of all for one and one for all.

“All For Love” isn’t the only Three Musketeers inspired pop song though. “You’ve Got Everything Now” from the eponymous debut album by The Smiths features the line “I’ve seen you smile but I’ve never really heard you laugh” and borrows from a narrative description of the musketeer Athos

He was very taciturn, this worthy signor. Be it understood we are speaking of Athos. During the five or six years that he had lived in the strictest intimacy with his companions, Porthos and Aramis, they could remember having often seen him smile, but had never heard him laugh.
— Chapter 7, The Interior of the Musketeers, The Three Musketeers Project Gutenberg.

Proving that it’s not a total clean sweep of new songs in the charts, here’s K7 with “Come Baby Come”. Released in mid December back in ‘93, it would spend a giant sixteen weeks on the charts peaking at No 3. Despite the single’s success, K7 didn’t sustain. Indeed, if you Google K7 these days you will find an entry for him but behind results for an independent music label, a brand of power washer and alongside anti virus software.

What’s this? A Ce Ce Peniston hit that isn’t “Finally”? Well, there’s actually a few of them but to me they all sound like inferior re-writes of “Finally” including this one called “I’m In The Mood”. Nothing to do with The Nolans’ biggest hit but the lead single from her second album called “Thought ‘Ya Knew”. According to reviews at the time, this was meant to have a bit of a jazz slant to it but I’m not sure I can hear it. The single actually did OK chart wise making No 16 but the parent album, unlike her debut “Finally” which went Top 10, floundered to a high of No 31. I have to say that I don’t recall anything of this stage of Ce Ce’s career but she carried on gamely throughout the 90s releasing two more albums before the end of the decade to little reception before scoring one final hit in 1997 with a cover of Jocelyn Brown’s “Somebody Else’s Guy”.

How can I have forgotten about this?! The The on TOTP and I’ve erased it from my memory banks?! What was going on in my life at the time to have dislodged this from a special place in my grey matter?! So many questions but surely the biggest of the lot should be why isn’t Matt Johnson routinely lauded as a national treasure?! I first became aware of his genius in 1983 when I heard “Uncertain Smile”. Then I saw the striking artwork on the single’s cover in WH Smith and, even as a 15 year old pop kid, knew something special was going on here. By the time I was a Poly student, I had the first album “Soul Mining” in pride of place in my cassette collection to make me look…well, I’d have maybe said ‘trendy’ back then but probably I meant non mainstream (even though I hopelessly was).

The album also included the singles “Perfect” and “This Is The Day” and it was the latter of those two which was chosen as the main track on the “Dis-Infected EP”. Remodelled as “That Was The Day”, it was backed up by a take on the title track of 1986 album “Infected” plus remixes of two tracks from the most recent album at the time, 1992’s “Dusk”. Presumably this EP was released to maintain profile in between albums (Johnson’s album of Hank Williams cover versions – “Hanky Panky” – didn’t appear until 1995) and its No 17 peak would make it The The’s biggest ever hit just eclipsing 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation”.

Coming after Culture Beat, K7 and Ce Ce Peniston in the running order, this incarnation of The The looks every bit the outlier on TOTP. Matt, for all his genius, never looked like a pop star bless him whilst the minimal set up of a keyboard player and a guy on harmonica were at odds with all the synchronised dance moves, rapping and general party atmosphere of the acts before. And thank God for that.

“This Is The Day” was covered in 2011 by Manic Street Preachers to promote their third compilation album “National Treasures – The Complete Singles” thus affording Matt Johnson a sliver of that national treasure status he so richly deserves.

Three Breakers this week starting with “Everyday” by Phil Collins. I don’t remember this at all and there’s a case to be made that I just count my blessings and leave it at that. The reviewer in me won’t allow that though (Damn you!) so I’m going in for a listen – this isn’t going to end well is it?

*manages two and a half minutes before switching off*

Well, it was, as I suspected, not worth the effort. According to Wikipedia, Phil played every musical part on this track which means it was him that ripped of Bruce Hornsby for the piano intro. After that it drifts off into predictable Collins territory with a melancholic melody and lyrics so rank and hackneyed that there should be a law against this form of song composition. Phil bangs on about being knocked off his feet and the fire inside him and his life being worth nothing without the object of his affections…turn it in mate! I can imagine it being used in a lame rom com movie starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Anniston to soundtrack the bit where the film’s couple have broken up. Nice work for Phil but all rather cynical.

The song was the second single from his “Both Sides” album and though making a respectable chart high of No 15, possibly didn’t allay record company fears after lead single “Both Sides Of The Story” underperformed.

The era of Toni Braxton is upon us. A huge star straight off the bat in the US where “Another Sad Love Song” went Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, that single stalled on initial release over here meaning that “Breathe Again” would become her first UK Top 40 hit. And what a hit! It would eventually peak at No 2 over here which seemed like a slight case of overachievement for an R&B ballad. Clearly the song had something that set it apart from the other examples of the genre we had seen. It did ebb and flow quite nicely and Braxton could clearly deliver the required vocal. Even so, I for one was slightly taken aback by its popularity.

“Another Sad Love Song” was rereleased in this country in the wake of the success of “Breathe Again” and this time was a hit making No 15. However, Toni really came into her own in 1996 when she had another No 2 hit record in “Un-break My Heart”, a single that sold and sold and sold, spending nineteen weeks in total on the charts.

The final Breaker is a cover of a glam rock hit from the 70s courtesy of Def Leppard. Having taken five years to record a follow up to the multi platinum selling “Hysteria” album, these lads were not exactly prolific. “Adrenalize” had been a success but not on the same level as its predecessor and another studio album wouldn’t arrive until 1996. So, how to fill the gap? With a compilation album of course. However, Def Leppard wanted to give something back to the fans that was not just a boring Best Of that would just mean the completists forking out for tracks they already owned so they came up with “Retro Active”, an album of touched up B-sides and unreleased recordings from the band’s vaults. There were also a couple of cover versions including Mick Ronson’s “Only After Dark” and this one, a 1975 Top 20 hit from The Sweet called “Action”. I didn’t think I knew this song but having given both versions a spin, it did ring some bells in the deepest corners of my mind.

Is it just me or do The Sweet not get the recognition they deserve? Whenever glam rock gets mentioned, it seems that the first names to crop up are T-Rex, Slade, Wizzard and even Roxy Music (nobody can talk about Gary Glitter anymore for obvious reasons). Do The Sweet get overlooked slightly? In their early 70s heyday, they tore up the charts with songs like “Ballroom Blitz”, “Teenage Rampage” and “Block Buster!” clocking up ten Top 10 hits including a No 1 and five (!) No 2s making them one of the unluckiest bands ever. By the time of “Action” though, the hits were drying up. This would be one of their last with only a change of musical direction giving them one final Top Tenner with “Love Is Like Oxygen” in 1978.

Def Leppard do a decent version of “Action” though the original is easily better. After the almost philanthropic act of the “Retro Active” release, the band went and released a proper Best Of anyway in 1995 called “Vault: Def Leppard Greatest Hits (1980-1995) which became another platinum seller. It’s all about the Benjamins at the end of the day isn’t it?

Back in the studio we find Eternal who are consolidating on the success of debut single “Stay” with another mid tempo soul/pop track called “Save Our Love”. The buzz around this lot was still very vibrant coming out of Christmas and so another hit was almost guaranteed. “Save Our Love” duly did the business going Top 10 though falling short of the No 4 peak of its predecessor by four places. For me, this follow up was nowhere near as strong as their opener. Sure it was radio friendly with a shiny production but it didn’t have the nuance of “Stay”. It all felt a bit too straightforward – Eternal by numbers. Talking of numbers, the group still had its full complement of them at this stage but by the following year, Louise Redknapp (Nurding as was) would have left the group. She, along with her band mates, were kept busy in 1994 though releasing five singles and promoting their debut album “Always And Forever”.

I’m not sure what the petrol station vibe is all about for this performance. Can’t think of many other artists who have channeled it. Billy Joel was a mechanic in a garage for “Uptown Girl” wasn’t he so not quite the same. Oh yes though – mechanics or more specifically Mike And The Mechanics who used an image of a gas pump attendant asleep on some tyres next to his pump as the cover of their Best Of album entitled “Hits” in 1996. By the way, those combat trousers that Eternal are wearing were all the rage in 1994. I think I even had some. No doubt we’ll be seeing more examples of their popularity in future repeats.

The reggae Rick Astley next as studio tape operator/ tea boy turned pop star Bitty McLean is back with another hit. After the No 2 success of his debut single “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”, it looked as though Bitty’s career was over almost immediately when follow up single “Pass It On” steadfastly refused to do so and stalled at No 35. However, here he was back with another hit in “Here I Stand” that would ultimately make No 10 despite being awful. It was another cover version (originally released by Justin Hinds And The Dominoes in 1967) but Bitty makes it sound completely tuneless in his rendition. I really didn’t get the appeal of Bitty and his music but I’m sure that he’s a lovely chap all the same!

It’s a second week at the top for Chaka Demus And Pliers with their version of “Twist And Shout” despite heavy competition from D:Ream who are up to No 2 this week. Apparently, “Twist And Shout” was selling less at the top of the charts than it was when lodged at No 3 at Christmas. The vagaries of the post festive season sales slump and all that.

There are, of course, many different versions of “Twist And Shout”. Here’s one from Bruce Springsteen which segues into “La Lamba”…

I’m sure I heard a story about the recording of The Beatles’ first album in which “Twist And Shout” wasn’t going to be included on it but a journalist told them that they should record “La Bamba” as he’d heard them do it live and it sounded great. The band responded that they didn’t play “La Bamba” in concert but realised the press guy was talking about “Twist And Shout” which they did perform live and that’s how it got onto the album. This is surely the definitive version of the song…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Culture Beat	Anything	Never happening
2	Bryan Adams / Rod Stewart / Sting	All For Love	NO!
3	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
4	Ce Ce Peniston	I’m In The Mood	Nah
5	The The	Dis-Infected EP	No but I had the Soul Mining album which includes lead track This Is The Day
6	Phil Collins	Everyday	Double NO!
7	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
8	Def Leppard	Action	Negative
9	Eternal	Save Our Love	It’s a no
10	Bitty McLean	Here I Stand	Never!
11	Chaka Demus And Pliers	Twist And Shout	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/m001h027/top-of-the-pops-13011994

TOTP 28 OCT 1993

Posted on November 9, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s late October 1993 and TOTP seems to be in the midst of an identity crisis. Almost exactly two years ago, the ‘year zero revamp’ took place, culling the Radio 1 DJs as presenters and seeking to reinvent the show as the home of music for the youth population. Noble intentions indeed but just look at the some of the artists on this show:

Bryan Adams
Phil Collins
Meatloaf
David Hasselhoff!

Sure, it was a chart based show and it could be argued that the choice of artists reflected those shifting the most units but in reply I would refer you to that list again and say David Hasselhoff!! What’s that? Wasn’t the Breakers section there to showcase the more left field tunes in the chart? Good point and there are indeed some of them in tonight’s jam packed Breakers feature like The Grid and The Good Men but when there’s five of them like tonight you literally get about twenty seconds worth of those artists. Plus, included in that section tonight are Tina Turner and a song by a character from a sit com! What was going on?! This needs a deeper look so let’s get started…

I’ve banged on about this opening song in many a previous post as its singer was everywhere in 1993 with three Top 40 hits already prior to this one being the biggest of the lot. I’m on about Dina Carroll and her single “Don’t Be A Stranger” and my search for the reason why her record label A&M kept its release back for so long. Anyway, it’s here now and up to No 4 and would spend nine weeks inside the Top 10 as follows:

10 – 4 – 4 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 8 – 8

Such was its consistent selling that I think it may still have been in the Top 10 when the follow up single “The Perfect Year” was released in the December. Enough of its chart stats though, was it any good? It’s certainly an accomplished ballad and Dina can deliver on its drama with her vocal range. Apparently it was re-recorded from the album version but the main difference seems to be the addition of a longer intro (almost an overture in classical terms) and turning those spiky strings up a bit in the mix maybe. Why did it resonate so much with the record buying public though? Well, Christmas was approaching and a love song always goes down well at that time of year. Indeed, the chart for the festive period 1993 was littered with them – “Babe” by Take That, “Hero” by Mariah Carey, “For Whom The Bell Tolls” by the Bee Gees and “True Love” by Elton John and Kiki Dee leap out after just a cursory glance at the Top 40.

In this performance, the backing track doing the ‘Don’t Be A Stranger’ part of the chorus rather than Dina singing it herself does jar slightly but otherwise she does a good job of selling the song without the need for any stage gimmicks. I’m guessing we might be seeing this one again in future TOTP repeats.

Here comes Björk to completely undermine my theory that I posited in the intro about the show being full of mainstream, rock royalty artists. Of course she does. After her first two singles as a solo artist failed to tear up the charts peaking at Nos 36 and 29, she made a much better fist of it with third release “Play Dead” though she wasn’t quite on her own for this one. British film composer David Arnold is also officially credited on the record as it was part of the soundtrack to the crime drama movie The Young Americans starring Harvey Keitel (can’t say I’ve ever seen it).

Now I’ve been critical of Björk’s voice in the past but by any measure, this is a spellbinding piece of music, full of dramatic, swooping, swirling orchestration that ally perfectly with her…distinctive voice. It really is quite a thing. Its chart peak of No 12 was well deserved and sensibly her record company included it as an extra track on international pressings of her “Debut” album. I say sensibly but it apparently caused many official complaints from fans who had already bought the initial “Play Dead” lite version of the album.

The Breakers? Already? Yes, just two songs in we get those ‘happening’ tunes causing a stir somewhere in the chart. They usually pop up after about four or five songs but they’re here early this week for whatever reason. They start with a band who, like Björk before them, are most definitely not swimming in the mainstream. The early to mid 90s saw the Levellers at their commercial peak. Their eponymous third album released in August had peaked at No 2 whilst the follow up two years later “Zeitgeist” would top the chart. “This Garden” is as the second single released from the former and would become, quite oddly, the band’s fourth hit in six releases to peak at No 12. It’s quite the tune as well with loads packed into it including jungle rhythms, a didgeridoo, squawking bird sound effects, an (almost) rap and some lyrics that I presumed were about environmental issues but seem to be discussing the state of society and its culture as a whole on closer inspection. Interesting stuff.

Another atypical act now (the more conventional stuff is coming I promise), this time electronic house explorers The Grid who were Dave Ball of Soft Cell and record producer/DJ etc Richard Norris. They’d actually been around releasing material for years but had only discovered chart gold once before earlier in 1993 when “Crystal Clear” rose to No 27. “Texas Cowboys” was the follow up and did even better peaking at No 21. I’m sure it made sense to teenagers listening to it whilst playing Sonic the Hedgehog on their Megadrive but it sounds likely to induce a migraine to me.

The Grid would release their most well known track “Swamp Thing” the following year which, after it went Top 3, caused “Texas Cowboys” to be rereleased and it duly beat its initial chart peak by four places.

OK so this isn’t exactly mainstream but was it really what the kids were buying? How do you explain this. Well, in a year when Mr. Blobby would be the Christmas No1, anything was possible and so it was that a song from a space themed sitcom performed in character (a character by the way which was a humanoid evolved from a pregnant cat over three million years) was a hit in the UK charts. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Red Dwarf I just didn’t see the need for this drippy, insipid Motown pastiche to be in the charts. I mean if you want to do a spin off from a successful comedy TV series, it surely has to be funny doesn’t it or am I missing something? If it had been something like The Young Ones and Cliff Richard doing “Living Doll” for Comic Relief I could have got on board but I just didn’t see the point of “Tongue Tied” by The Cat. Even the video directed by Danny John-Jules who played The Cat wasn’t funny.

It was actually used as part of the story in the last episode of season two called “Parallel Universe” so it wasn’t an entire anomaly construct but that episode aired in 1988 so why release it five years later? Oh, reading up on it, the reason seems to be to help promote the launch of season six which makes more sense. It turns out that Danny John-Jules had some previous in the pop star lark. He’s in the video for Wham!’s “Edge Of Heaven”…

Go to 3:10

And so the tidal wave of mainstream music begins with this little trickle in the Breakers from Tina Turner. Like Dina Carroll earlier, Tina was all over the charts in 1993. “Why Must We Wait Until Tonight” was the third single from the soundtrack album to the biopic of her life called What’s Love Got To Do With It and the third consecutive hit after “I Don’t Wanna Fight” (No 7) and “Disco Inferno” (No 12) peaking at No 16. Compared to those two songs though, this one didn’t seem to have much about it – in fact it’s a bit of a dirge. Oh and if you’re thinking it’s unfair to consider Tina mainstream then know this – “Why Must We Wait Until Tonight” was co-written by Bryan Adams.

And a final, parting shot across the bows of TOTP from those making more alternative forms of music at this time from The Good Men. Now if you’re thinking haven’t we seen this one before fairly recently then you’re right, we have. Back in August, “Give It Up” got as high as No 23 before sliding out of the charts. However, such was its banger status in the clubs it never really went away and resurfaced in the Top 40 in late October before spending four weeks in the Top 10 and settling on a peak of No 5. There have been countless examples of singles that have been rereleased and become bigger hits than they were when first out but one that had already been a middle sized hit just two months earlier? That takes some doing I think. The track’s legacy wasn’t quite as impressive being sampled two years later by Simply Red for their No 1 single “Fairground”. Give it up Hucknell.

Right, that’s your lot for anything outside of the mainstream canon. From here on in its pure establishment rock beginning with Bryan Adams who gets a whole five minutes allocated to him to perform “Please Forgive Me”. This was a new track specifically recorded to promote his first Best Of album “So Far So Good” and his first single since “Do I Have To Say The Words” fifteen months previously. Presumably this compilation was to plug the gap between Bryan’s studio albums – there was five years separating “Waking Up The Neighbours” and “18 Till I Die”.

Let’s get this out there straight away – “Please Forgive Me” is not a good song. Actually, it’s dreadful. I say this as someone who isn’t anti-Bryan Adams. I even saw him live back in 1987 and he was a great performer but this? No. No thank you. And I thought that song he wrote for Tina Turner was bad. Everyone else seemed to love it though. Crashing in to the chart at No 3, it would finally settle at No 2. What this whole saga does show us is the transformative power of a huge No 1 single. After sixteen weeks at the top with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, Bry was a proper chart star with his subsequent releases of new material being a big deal. The idea of him entering the UK charts with a single at No 3 in week one back in 1987 would have been laughable. He couldn’t buy a hit back then.

The album was a huge success going to No 1 and three times platinum here and sell 13 million copies worldwide. Adams would return in 1994 as part of a trio with Sting and Rod Stewart with the equally awful “All For Love” from The Three Musketeers film.

https://youtu.be/9EHAo6rEuas

Is there anyone more mainstream than Phil Collins? An easy target for the music press who consistently dissed him as the omni-creator of the worst type of sterile, bland music, he was also accused of turning prog-rockers Genesis into lamentable peddlers of lame pop-rock. Just as a solo artist, he dominated the 80s with four albums and fifteen hit singles – come 1993, had the public’s Collins saturation point been reached? It appeared not. His album “Both Sides” went double platinum and was a No 1. Lead single “Both Sides Of The Story” went Top 10.

Phil’s in New York to perform it on TOTP via satellite and curiously he doesn’t get a spoken intro. The show seemed to have developed this convention during the ‘year zero’ era. I’m not sure what the reasoning was behind it. The artist was so big and well known that they needed no introduction? Anyway, it’s the usual Collins turn with Phil gurning and over emoting his way through the song with a backing band that did nothing to promote TOTP’s desire to be at the heart of youth programming. The keyboards player looks like ex-Dragons Den overlord Theo Paphitis for Chrissakes!

https://youtu.be/VevijL3CMkM

Who do you go to after Adams and Collins? For the TOTP producers there was only one answer – ‘The Hoff’ himself, the one and only David Hasselhoff! For the love of God! What were they thinking? Yes, he had quite the singing career in mainland Europe in places like Austria and Germany but he was surely considered a joke in the UK no? Everything about this is wrong, so depth plumbingly wrong. There’s the song for starters. Were “If I Could Only Say Goodbye” a facial expression it would be a grimace at best. Look at some of these lyrics:

I remember the day you came into my life
I remember how time stood still
You were my lover, my friend, my joy
You were my life
I loved you then and I always will
How time has its way with things
And all the changes it brings, baby
If I could only say goodbye
There will always be a part of me for you
If I could find the reason why
If I could only say goodbye
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: James Barry / Michael Fallon / Peter Fallon
If I Could Only Say Goodbye lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Somebody wrote those down, read them, considered them and decided “yeah, they’re fine”! WTF?! Then there’s Hasselhoff himself in his ridiculous, sleeveless denim shirt and his barely passable crooner voice. Just no. As with Phil Collins, there were people on his backing band that caught my eye. He had two (two!) keyboard players one of which seemed to be a younger version of himself and the other was a dead ringer for host Mark Franklin. As if this whole farce wasn’t bizarre enough!

This turn has a way to go though to top Hasselhoff’s most famous performance in the bizarre stakes…

So impactful was this broadcast that ‘The Hoff’ is now synonymous in some minds with being responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union! Not quite but kudos to him for being part of one of the biggest events of 20th century world history. Despite this TOTP appearance, “If I Could Only Say Goodbye” struggled to a peak of No 35. Thirteen years later, an online campaign saw his song “Jump In My Car” go to No 3. There are no words.

There’s only one way to end this. How? With a monstrously epic soft rock ballad courtesy of Meatloaf of course. “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” remains in top spot and still has weeks to go before its reign is toppled by Mr.Blobby (1993 really was batshit).

Right, let’s address that song title. What exactly is the ‘that’ Meatloaf won’t do? Well, here’s the man himself to explain it with a blackboard and pointer…

Got it? Good. And it’s definitely not what this guy John Thundergun says it’s about OK?

I would do anything for love but I won’t do that is about up the arse isn’t it?
— John Thundergun (@Bongoharris72) November 4, 2022

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Dina Carroll	Don’t Be A Stranger	Banged on about it, never bought it
2	Björk and David Arnold	Play Dead	It’s a no
3	Levellers	This Garden	Nah
4	The Grid	Texas Cowboys	Nope
5	The Cat	Tongue Tied	Never
6	Tina Turner	Why Must We Wait Until Tonight	I did not
7	The Good Men	Give It Up	No
8	Bryan Adams	Please Forgive Me	I don’t Bryan, I really don’t
9	Phil Collins	Both Sides Of The Story	Of course not
10	David Hasselhoff	If I Could Only Say Goodbye	Hell no!
11	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	I’d do anything for music (but I didn’t buy that)

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/m001drbn/top-of-the-pops-28101993

TOTP 14 OCT 1993

Posted on November 2, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s mid October 1993 and the England national football team have just suffered a disastrous defeat in their attempt to qualify for next year’s World Cup. The day before this TOTP aired, they lost 2-0 to Holland in a winner takes all match virtually extinguishing their chances of going to USA ‘94. Defeat came in controversial circumstances with England denied a penalty and Dutch midfielder Ronald Koeman escaping a clear red card at 0-0 before stepping up to curl a free kick into the England net just two minutes later.

A documentary crew recorded England manager *Graham Taylor’s reaction on the touch line so that the moment of his utter despair was captured for posterity. I recall going into work at the Our Price in Stockport the next day and the mood being decidedly downbeat. Presumably that mood was replicated across the country. I wonder if there were any tunes on TOTP to lift our spirits…

*Graham’s favourite recording artist was Dame Vera Lynn. I’m pretty sure she’s not on the show though.

Well, there’s a positive vibe about the opening act who are experiencing a definite high really early in their career. Eternal are up to No 7 with their debut single “Stay”. Is it just me or did they seem to appear overnight as a fully formed pop sensation? There never seemed to be any doubt that they would be successful. Maybe it was the slick dance moves that convinced or perhaps they were just the right set of people at the right time to address the gap in the market for a UK all female R&B infused pop group? Whatever the reason, they did in fact ‘stay’ around for most of the decade (albeit not all four of them together) whereas the unfortunate Graham Taylor would be gone from the England job just over a month after this TOTP aired.

I’ve been writing this TOTP blog for almost six years now covering the period 1983-1993 and written over a million words and still there’s one band who refuse to retreat from the Top 40. Starting with “Flight Of Icarus” in ‘83 and right up to this one “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, those monsters of rock Iron Maiden had eighteen UK Top 40 singles of which nine went Top 10. I haven’t gone back through the literally hundreds of posts to see if I had to find something to write about every single one but I’m guessing most of them will have featured. That’s a lot of words to write about a band I have very little interest in.

Looking at their discography, they are good for another ten hits before TOTP was axed in 2006. I fear that they may outlast my blogging resolve. As for this particular single, it was yet another ‘live’ track (they seemed quite keen on those) taken from their “A Real Dead One” album. I can’t be arsed to listen to it but I’m guessing it’s pretty similar to most of their previous chart entries. If that makes me a musical snob then so be it.

Finally!! I’ve been banging on about Dina Carroll and her single “Don’t Be A Stranger” for months now. I may have seemed at one point to be rather obsessed by it. Why? Well, I couldn’t understand why her record label A&M waited until the very last moment to release it as a single. It was the sixth and final track from her album “So Close” but it was as by far the biggest selling going all the way to No 3 when none of the previous five got any higher than No 12. They must have known they had a song with massive hit potential on “So Close” – they even used it to promote the album’s release on TOTP back on 28th January in the show’s album chart feature. So why then let it languish unreleased for another nine months? Were they holding it back for Christmas? I’m going over old territory again here. All I know is that we sold loads of “Don’t Be A Stranger” which stayed in the Top 40 for eleven weeks (nine of them inside the Top 10) with the knock on effect that sales of the album went crazy over the Christmas period that year. Ah! So it was about Christmas then! Maybe A&M knew what they were doing after all.

Next a band at the peak of their fame and apex of their commercial success. From high school slackers to darlings of the inkies music press – that was the seven year journey of The Lemonheads who had just released their sixth studio album called (rather oddly I always thought) “Come On Feel The Lemonheads”. The album would go to No 5 in the UK whilst also supplying their biggest ever hit single “Into Your Arms”.

When not talking about that England defeat, a lot of the staff at the Our Price in Stockport where I was working were very excited by the prospect of this album coming out. Undoubtedly, “Into Your Arms” is a good song but what was catching my attention about the album was its front cover on which Evan Dando looked curiously like the store’s previous manager who had just left to join HMV. Given that Dando’s face seemed to be in every magazine cover at the time – he was included in People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list – I think I would have been pleased with the comment. Sadly my cheek bone structure would always disqualify me from any such comparison.

As with their previous appearance in the TOTP studio, Evan looks like a giant up there on stage making his guitar seem like a toy. And what was it that they were throwing about mid-song? Just bits of paper? Breadcrumbs like the audience were ducks in a pond? Pop stars eh? Don’t ya just love ‘em?

The Breakers are back with a vengeance after taking last week off with four of the blighters coming at us. We start with a rerelease of a UK No 1 from 1986 – well if it’s good enough for Frankie Goes To Hollywood…”Chain Reaction” was somewhat of a surprise chart topper for Diana Ross coming as it did after an extremely fallow three years preceding it. More so than that though, it was a UK phenomenon as it was totally ignored in the US. None of the other singles from parent album “Eaten Alive” were big hits so what was it about “Chain Reaction” that appealed to us so?* I’m guessing the Bee Gees factor seeing as they wrote it and Barry Gibb does backing vocals on it.

* I say ‘we’ but I have to admit I could never stand it.

So why was it in the charts again? To promote her latest Greatest Hits album “One Woman: The Ultimate Collection” obviously which was a huge seller over that Christmas and went four times platinum in the UK. The 1993 rerelease was actually entitled “Chain Reaction ‘93” (who’d have thought it?!) and was supposedly a remix though they just recycled the original video to promote it. The 1993 incarnation peaked at No 20.

Some big hitters in the Breakers this week as after Miss Diana Ross comes Prince. Back in 1993, the purple one had just released a sprawling Best Of package comprising three separate albums – “The Hits 1”, “The Hits 2” and “The B Sides”. I say Prince but really it was his record company Warners. The former wanted to release the first album by his latest project The New Power Generation but the latter went with the the Best Ofs that they’d wanted to release two years earlier. In total that was 56 tracks if you bought the whole set (36 singles and 20 B-sides). You could buy “The Hits 1” and “The Hits 2” separately but “The B-Sides” had to get bought as part of the whole set. To promote the kit and caboodle came the single “Peach” which was included on “The Hits 2”. Helpfully for all the completists out there, the two CD singles released in the UK came backed with extra tracks that had been singles that weren’t included on either of “The Hits” albums.

As for the song itself, it’s a damn funky, infectious number with some typically dirty lyrics. Never one to shy away from writing about sex, Prince went into the 90s really pushing the envelope. “Gett Off”, “Cream”, “Sexy MF”…and then “Peach” with lyrics like this:

She was pure, every ounce, I was sure when her titties bounced
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Prince Rogers Nelson
Peach lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Years later, I asked a work colleague when discussing “Peach” where was the censor? Her reply was succinct and to the point – “on the dance floor”. Of course, for readers of a certain vintage and inclination, the word ‘peach’ when used in a sexual manner will always conjure up images of Viz’s Sid the Sexist character and his chat up line “D’yer like fruit pet?” I’ll leave you to work out the rest.

https://youtu.be/-fWvjev6WeI

The Prodigy are next with “One Love”, the lead single from their second album “Music For The Jilted Generation” except said album would not appear until July the following year, nearly nine months later. They did a similar thing with their debut album “Experience”. That was released in September of 1992 yet their first two singles which both featured on it came out twelve and nine months before it way back in 1991. I’m not reading anything into it especially; it just struck me as curious.

There was a practice for singles that came out in between albums to be stand alone releases to maintain a band’s profile during the intervening gap. Off the top of my head there’s “The Way You Are” by Tears For Fears that came out in between “The Hurting” and “Songs From The Big Chair” and…oh, here’s a thing…remember that 1990 single from the Stone Roses that was released in between their eponymous debut and “Second Coming”? Remember its title? Yep, “One Love”. Now that is curious. The Prodigy’s “One Love” peaked at No 8 and its video is a complete head f**k.

Bon Jovi’s singles from their “Keep The Faith” album didn’t make much sense. I mean, sure the title track as their first new material of the decade was always going to be a big hit and so it was peaking at No 5. The album came out about three weeks later and then nothing was released from it until January presumably to avoid getting caught in the Christmas rush. So far, so sensible. “Bed Of Roses” was the second single to be released and it understandably peaked at a lower position than its predecessor given that punters would have already bought the album. Then things start to go a bit odd. Third single “In Your Arms” made No 9 thereby reversing the beginnings of a possible case of diminished returns. The following single “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” performed pretty well to say it was the fourth to be released from the album but it did appear to revert to type by peaking at No 17 (the worst performing of all the album’s singles).

And then came this one, the fifth called “I Believe”. This was nearly a year since the album came out and yet it managed to get to No 11. This didn’t make any sense at all. The song itself wasn’t anything special and not one of their best remembered tunes I would suggest. The CD single did have three live tracks on it so could that have influenced potential buyers? The final single to be released from the album completed the oddness. “Dry County” came out on March 7th 1994 a whole sixteen months after the album was released and peaked at No 9. Oh I give up.

There have been many songs on TOTP whilst I have been writing this blog that I have zero recall of and my general reaction has been this:

https://youtu.be/3sIUxy5hDSI

However, my discovery that there is not a single trace in my memory banks of this next act has left me shocked. Why? Well, because they sound pretty good to me and the sort of thing I would have liked. Presumably I didn’t watch this TOTP when first broadcast and missed seeing them but I was working in a record shop at the time so I really have no excuse. I’m talking about One Dove who were a Scottish dance act. Hang on…me?Liking dance music? That can’t be right. I’ve said many times I’m really not a dance head but there’s something very accessible about this track “Breakdown”. It’s got a proper tune and singer Dot Allison (who would have an extensive solo career after the band split) is playing a guitar! It’s also got a hypnotic quality to it. It reminds me of “Visions Of You” by Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart featuring Sinéad O’Connor. It should have been a bigger hit than a No 24.

Apparently the band split after becoming disillusioned with the music business when their label tried to commercialise their sound. And yes, I had to look all of this up owing to my complete lack of knowledge about One Dove before this repeat aired. I wonder if I merged them into The Doves in my head who were a completely different band altogether but who formed out of Sub Sub who had a massive hit with “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)” in this year. Maybe they were just displaced by that false memory? Getting old is just crap isn’t it?

Oh crikey! It’s Phil Collins! Yes, the much maligned croaker restarted his solo career this year after the last couple of years were taken up with the Genesis album “We Can’t Dance”. Now whatever you might say or think about Phil, his popularity is undeniable. His 1993 album “Both Sides” was his fifth solo venture. Of those five albums to that point, four of them (including “Both Sides”) went to No 1 whilst the other peaked at No 2. “Both Sides Of The Story” was the lead single and (almost) title track from the album and went straight into the Top 10 at No7. Wait…is this the one with the bagpipes near the end? I think it is. As with most of Phil’s and indeed Genesis’s TOTP turns, the producers have cleared the decks running order wise to give an enormous time slot of over five minutes for the performance. Phil spends most of it over emoting and the whole thing sounds particularly overwrought.

Phil played his last show with Genesis in March of this year having to retire from touring due to serious back issues resulting in nerve damage which won’t allow him to drum any more.

https://youtu.be/o-srnmevlL4

Take That and Lulu remain at No 1 with “Relight My Fire”.

Apparently one of the CD singles featured a live Motown medley as one of the extra tracks. A live Motown medley you say? By Take That? Yeah, I think I’d rather have these boys featuring a guy who’s possibly more maligned than even Phil Collins…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Eternal	Stay	Nope
2	Iron Maiden	Hallowed Be Thy Name	Never happening
3	Dina Carroll	Don’t Be A Stranger	Despite harping on about it all this time, I never actually bought it
4	The Lemonheads	Into Your Arms	No
5	Diana Ross	Chain Reaction ‘93	Nah
6	Prince	Peach	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	The Prodigy	One Love	I did not
8	Bon Jovi	I Believe	No but I had a promo copy of the album
9	One Dove	Breakdown	No but maybe I should have
10	Phil Collins	Both Sides Of The Story	As if
11	Take That / Lulu	Relight My Fire	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/m001dhjb/top-of-the-pops-14101993

TOTP 26 APR 1990

Posted on December 8, 2020 by 80stastic

Welcome to the UK in late April 1990. We’ve just had the poll tax riots, the Strangeways prison revolt and in politics, Labour now have a 23-point lead over the Conservatives in the latest MORI poll – however, it would count for little when the next General Election rolled around in 1992 with the Tories winning a reduced but overall majority. Musically, we are in the grip of dance music and in particular ‘rave’ culture with massive gatherings taking place in fields and warehouses around the country. The 80s and its pop stars seems like a long time ago with the likes of Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Culture Club all either defunct, missing in action or struggling to remain relevant. Indeed, the day after this TOTPM aired, The Krays film opened in UK cinemas starring Spandau’s Kemp brothers as the notorious East End gangsters – being pop stars was no longer on their agenda it seemed.

So who were the pop stars of the day who had come in to replace those icons of yesteryear? Let’s find out shall we?….

…for f***’s sake! Well, the opening act tonight are not pop stars at all but Capital FM DJs blurring the divisions between presenters and performers by rebranding themselves as a bona fide chart act…it can only be Pat & Mick who are back with their rendition of “Use It Up And Wear It Out”. Look I know it was all for charity but this was just all levels of wrong. Having tormented us with “Let’s All Chant” in 1988 and “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet” in 1989, they didn’t see fit to leave the whole sorry debacle in the 80s but carried on into the new decade with their version of the old Odyssey hit.

I actually watched this repeat back with my wife which doesn’t usually happen and our reactions were to it were quite the contrast. I was appalled and sat there on the sofa picking massive lumps out of it while she freely admitted that she probably danced to this back in the day! While I guffawed at the atrocious dancing on display not only by Pat & Mick but also by the studio audience members, she said she thought some of the moves on display were pretty good! Whaat?! OK there are a few things to unpack here. Firstly, why were the dancers in the background TOTP audience members and not ‘proper’ dancers in the first place? Was it to create a more realistic party atmosphere? Secondly, what instructions were they given about dance moves by the producers? Just do your own thing but keep it clean? Thirdly, what was the girl on the extreme right of screen on?! Check out her mad, arm waving moves! She’s lost in a world of her own. Even Mick gives her a concerned look at one point. Oh yes, Pat & Mick themselves – why was Mick wearing a suit while Pat was sporting some sort of faux Adam Ant military jacket? Why does Pat jump when he mimes the word ‘shake’? Surely he should …erm…shake at that point? Why has Pat still got that ridiculous mullet hair into the 90s? Why….oh just…why? Why? Why ? WHY?

When I googled Pat & Mick, one of the suggested other questions that people ask was ‘What is the meaning of Pat and Mick?’ Well, I couldn’t agree more – what is the meaning of them? However, when I clicked on the link I discovered that ‘Pat & Mick’ is also Cockney rhyming slang meaning ‘sick’ or ‘out of commission due to being unwell’. Excellent! Couldn’t be more appropriate as having to watch those two berks again has made me feel proper poorly!

“Use It Up And Wear It Out” peaked at No 22 and thankfully was the last of their chart hits.

Having mentioned The Krays film above, we now find a song from another film that was out this year . “Wild Women Do” by Natalie Cole was, of course, on the soundtrack to Pretty Woman which the third highest-grossing film worldwide in 1990. This Disney re-telling of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts proved irresistible to cinema goers as did its soundtrack which went double platinum in the UK and triple platinum in the US. As well as Natalie’s track, it included the career-rejuvenating hit “King of Wishful Thinking” by Go West, the career-making single “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette and the career-retrospective remix hit “Fame 90” by David Bowie that featured on a recent TOTP repeat.

Up against those mega-selling hits, “Wild Women Do” kind of got lost in the mix a little. Indeed, it was only a No 34 hit in the US (whilst a slightly more respectable No 16 over here). It’s actually used in the film itself in the scenes where Vivian goes window shopping in Beverly Hills….

It didn’t really register on my radar as something I should be concerned with I have to say although I did catch the film at the cinema. I recall Gere also had another film out simultaneously called Internal Affairs where he played a very different character indeed to his Pretty Woman counterpart. Worth searching out that film in my humble opinion while we’re all stuck in our houses over Xmas.

I have no memory at all of this next act although my wife reckons she remembers them. Unique 3 anyone? Oh hold on, did they also do that “Cantaloop” hit? No, no they didn’t – that was Us3 it seems. Unique 3 were from Bradford and, despite my lack of memory of them, are actually regarded as ground breaking in the field of UK hip-hop by those in the know (not me then obviously). Cited by the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Coldcut and Goldie, “Musical Melody” was their only Top 40 hit but hey were massive on the club scene (it says here) paving the way for the Jungle, Drum & Bass and Nu-Skool Breaks scene (I have no idea what that last one is). It sounds a bit like Dream Warriors of “Wash Your Face In My Sink” and “My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style” to my uncultured ears both of which I quite liked. Maybe I’m more dope than I realised!

“Musical Melody” peaked at No 29.

Bruno followed Pat Sharp’s lead with a military style look for tonight’s show

Time for some moronic behaviour from tonight’s host Bruno Brookes next as he tries to sound hip by saying “Yo! Unique 3 y’all” whilst perfecting an impression of Napoleon Bonaparte by having one arm inserted inside his jacket. WTF?!

When he finally does get on with introducing the next act, it’s Paula Abdul with her hit “Opposites Attract”. I couldn’t really be doing with this to be honest – the song was pretty unremarkable and then there was the pratting about with that cartoon cat in the video. I can imagine a conversation in the record label boardroom going something like this:

Label exec: “Look, we need to squeeze every last drop of sales out of the album so we’re going for one final, sixth (!) single but how do we market it?”. What’s popular right now?”

Marketing guy: “How about we get Paula to sing and dance with a cartoon rabbit like in that Who Framed Roger Rabbit film?”

Label exec: “Brilliant! Except let’s make it a different animal to ensure we don’y look like we’ve completely ripped off the idea.”

Marketing guy: “How about a ….cat?”

Label exec: “That’ll do”

It all just seemed very cynical to me. Apparently Izzy Stradlin from Guns N’ Roses once wrote a song for Paula. Not sure if she ever recorded it but a video of the wholesome Ms Abdul and rock ‘n roll casualty Izzy would have certainly been worth a watch.

Some Breakers now and we start with All About Eve and “Scarlet”. I’d sort of lost track of this lot by the start of the 90s and must admit this doesn’t sound familiar. It was the third and final single to be taken from sophomore album “Scarlet And Other Stories” and although pleasant enough, doesn’t really stand out from the rest of their folk goth rock twiddlings. The band notched up nine Top 40 hits during their career but curiously, seven of them all peaked somewhere between the Nos 38 and 30. Consistent I suppose though.

Surely nobody remembers this next one – Kid Creole And The Coconuts with “The Sex of It”? What that Kid Creole? The one who had that run of Top 10 hits back in ’82 with songs like “I’m a Wonderful Thing, Baby”, “Stool Pigeon” and “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy”? It can’t be him? In the Top 40 in 1990? It surely is – let’s be realistic, there can’t have been two acts called Kid Creole And The Coconuts – and this song was written by Prince no less. Apart from the lead vocals being contributed by the Kid himself (August Darnell), everything else recorded on the track was courtesy of Prince and his band. It sounds like it as well. Amazingly, despite their European success, Kid Creole And The Coconuts only appeared in the Billboard Hot 100 chart on one occasion when “Hey Mambo” (with Barry Manilow bizarrely) peaked at No 90.

Someone else still having unlikely hits in to the 90s was Sinitta who was enjoying her penultimate Top 40 appearance with “Hitchin’ A Ride”. Having declined to work with Stock, Aitken and Waterman any further after her 1988 hit “I Don’t Believe In Miracles”, Sinitta embarked upon a run of three consecutive chart hits that were cover versions of songs that had previously been hits in the 70s – “Hitchin’ A Ride” had been a hit for Vanity Fare in 1970 whilst the other two were “Right Back Where We Started From” (Maxine Nightingale in 1975) and “Love On A Mountain Top” (Robert Knight in 1974). Though not exactly edifying stuff (let’s be fair, they were all hideous), she undoubtedly extended her chart life well beyond her natural talents with this strategy.

“Hitchin’ A Ride” peaked at No 24.

Right, what’s Brookes babbling on about now? “Next a real band with a fabulous cult following if it makes sense” he blathers whilst introducing Jesus Jones. Make sense? Not really Bruno but then that was never your strong point was it? He finishes the segue by pronouncing the last ‘real’ of “Real Real Real” with a growl. It looks and sounds odd at best and disturbing at worst.

I’m pretty sure that this is just a reshowing of their initial TOTP appearance from the other week rather than a brand new performance. The band are still together to this day 30 years later and with the original line up which takes some doing. How many other bands have the same line up and that kind of longevity? U2? The Rolling Stones (sort of)? Erm…A-ha?

The curious case of Jesus Jones and their rise and fall is quite the story. Look at these chart placings and then consider what a short space of time this commercial collapse happened within:

Album	Year of release	Chart peak
Liquidiser	1989	31
Doubt	1991	1
Peverse	1993	6
Already	1997	161

What happened? Was it the rise of ‘grunge’? The advent of ‘Britpop’? Or was it just that the music press, who had hailed them as the future of rock ‘n’ roll, turned on them and the whole ‘indie dance’ movement that the band were poster boys for. Check out this quote from the NME in 1993:

“There is something fundamentally wrong with Jesus Jones: they have no sense of the ridiculous. They are loathed by every man, woman and child in Christendom, because they are a plasticine pop group who refuse to accept the fact that they are the stuff of three-minute-flavoured pop sweets. They are The Monkees who want to be Emerson, Lake And Palmer; five Mike Nesmiths.”

Ouch! And anyway, what’s wrong with The Monkees? I love The Monkees!

“Real Real Real” peaked at No 19.

After Jesus Jones have finished, Brookes advises the watching millions that the band are a “wild bunch of fellas with a really dry sense of humour”. Yeah, thanks for that Bruno. As a piece of info worthy of broadcast, it’s about as useful as one of Viz character Roger Irrelevant’s musings and he once eloped with an armchair declaring it pregnant with his children.

Right, who’s next? Well it must be Jason Donovan or New Kids On The Block or someone similar as the TOTP audience are screaming and those yelps of excitement are for…Phil Collins?! Phil f***ing Collins?! Are you kidding me?! That’s a very low bar to instigate such a reaction. “Something Happened On The Way To Heaven” was the third single from Phil’s “…But Seriously” album and was a return to that uptempo faux Motown sound that he was prone to after the heavier sound of the previous two singles “Another Day In Paradise” and ‘I Wish It Would Rain Down”. It does skip and bounce along, I’ll give it that. It’s almost “Sussudio” Part II.

Apparently it was written for inclusion on the soundtrack to the film War Of The Roses but Danny de Vito, who directed and co-starred in the movie, didn’t like it and rejected it. Some excellent taste on display there from Danny. Someone else with good taste is the dog in the video who wanders around the set as Phil and his band rehearse the song and shits on stage near a backing singer and then pisses on the leg of the bassist who looks like cross between Yoffy from Fingerbobs and Gandalf. Someone give that dog a Scooby Snack – he’s earned it!

I once got into a Twitter row with the Absolute 80s radio station about this song when I pulled them up for it actually being released in 1990 rather than the previous decade so why were they playing it. Their retort was that it came from an album recorded and released in the 80s so it was legitimate. Well, all I can say is that it’s a good job they don’t have VAR for decade radio playlists as that is a clear and obvious error!

Yet another song and act I have no recall of next. Tongue ‘N’ Cheek arose from the ashes of Total Contrast (who I also can’t remember) who had a No 17 hit in 1985 with “Takes A Little Time” (Wikipedia tells me). “Tomorrow” was their biggest UK chart record peaking at No 20. They give an energetic performance with that jumping up and down dance move but I’m afraid the song doesn’t really do anything for me.

Apparently they had another hit a year later with a cover of Patrice Rushen’s “Forget Me Nots” but surely if we’re going to reference that song when it comes to 90s chart hits, we’re talking about it being sampled in George Michael’s “Fastlove” or Will Smith’s “Men In Black”. Unfortunately for Tongue ‘N’ Cheek, I’m being absolutely serious about that comment and not…erm…tongue in cheek.

It’s a third week at the top for Madonna and “Vogue”. It turns out that all 16 Hollywood stars name-checked in the song are now sadly dead after the last person still alive, Lauren Bacall, died in 2014. Meanwhile, the video for the song has now recorded 100 million views on YouTube thereby giving Madonna the title of the first female artist in history to have four songs from four different decades reach that milestone. What were the others? Well, they were “La Isla Bonita” from the 80s, “Hung Up” from the 2000s and “Bitch I’m Madonna” from the 2010s.

You can tell I’m struggling to think of anything else to say about this one can’t you?

Hands up who wants to see what a Bruce Dickinson solo career away from Iron Maiden looked like? Right, I can see one hand …from Bruce himself…anyone else? OK, that’s a bit harsh. I hadn’t realised quite what an extensive solo career the Dickster (ooh, went a bit Boris Johnson there) has had. I just thought it was limited to the “Tattooed Millionaire” album project but no. He’s released six studio albums and ten singles as a solo artist! Who knew? Put your hand down again Bruce!

I do remember this one and for my money it was just ever so slightly more melodic than your average Iron Maiden track but as with Phil Collins previously, that’s a pretty low bar. The album includes tracks with some very Iron Maiden sounding names though like “Hell On Wheels”, “Zulu Lulu” and the obligatory Spinal Tap -esque title “Lickin’ the Gun”. It also featured a pretty straight cover of David Bowie’s “All The Young Dudes’ which was of course made famous by Mott The Hoople who had a No 3 hit with it in 1972. Bruce’s version only reached No 23 – well, no point in trying to re-invent the wheel is there?

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Pat & Mick	Use It Up And Wear It Up	What do you think?
2	Natalie Cole	Wild Women Do	Nah
3	Unique 3	Musical Melody	Not for me
4	Paula Abdul	Opposites Attract	I was repelled by this though – no
5	All About Eve	Scarlet	No
6	Kid Creole And The Coconuts	The Sex Of It	Nope
7	Sinitta	Hitchin’ A Ride	Shittin’ a turd more like – no
8	Jesus Jones	Real Real Real	Don’t think I did actually
9	Phil Collins	Something Happened On The Way To Heaven	It’s another no
10	Tongue ‘N’ Cheek	Tomorrow	Negative
11	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
12	Bruce Dickinson	Tattooed Millionaire	And no

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pz16/top-of-the-pops-26041990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 08 FEB 1990

Posted on October 30, 2020 by 80stastic

After a raft of new acts and songs in the last couple of TOTP shows, the charts of early 1990 seem to have slowed down a bit with only three of the performances tonight not having featured before. Also, there’s only ten artists in total as opposed to the thirteen that have been crammed into the last couple of broadcasts which means less writing for your truly. Thank f**k for that!

Tonight’s presenter is Gary ‘safe pair of hands’ Davies and opening the show are Yell! with their version of “Instant Replay”. Now these two were definitely not a couple of talentless bimbos. Says who? Erm…those two talentless bimbos up there on stage. Yes in a rather tetchy Smash Hits interview, Yell! rejected all accusations of a dearth of perceivable musical ability in their camp:

“We’re not a couple of talentless bimbos”

Well, that clears that up then. Anything else you want to say for the record:

“People tend to think if you’re doing something like this you don’t have any brains…’cause we lift our arms and go ‘Instant Replay!!!’…’cause we click our fingers at the same time…’cause we’re doing a cover…We’re saying ‘this is for now!’, let’s have a good time and get serious later…”

Hmm… bit of protesting too much going on there I think. So did Yell! ‘get serious later’? Well, they released another cover version of a dance tune (Average White Band’s “Let’s Go Round Again”) and erm…this. *Does this count as getting serious?

*No, no it really doesn’t.

Right, what’s with the guys in hard hats in the studio audience crowding around Gary Davies? I don’t get it. Bob the Builder wouldn’t become a chart sensation for a further ten years so it can’t be anything to do with that. Just weird.

On with the music though and here’s Janet Jackson with a song I don’t recall at all in “Come Back To Me”. Taken from her “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” album, it sounds very much like one of her earlier singles “Let’s Wait A While” to me. Like brother Michael, Janet wasn’t adverse to releasing multiple tracks of her albums as singles. There were seven off this album alone none of which got any higher than No 15 over here. Contrast that to their performance in the US where she clocked up four No1s, two No 2’s (including “Come Back To Me”) and a No 4. Cross-Atlantic differences and all that.

A huge record up now and indeed a future No 1 from the latest incarnation of a post Housemartins Norman Cook. Having already released two singles under his own name the previous year in “Blame It on the Bassline” and “For Spacious Lies” (albeit aided by MC Wildski and Lester respectively), he decided to formalise his collaborations under the banner of Beats International (which on reflection is a pretty crappy name). More of a collective than a stable band including singers, musicians, rappers and dancers, their first single “Dub Be Good to Me” was a huge hit straight off the bat. Mashing up The Clash’s “Guns Of Brixton” and SOS Band’s “Just Be Good To Me” proved to be a genius idea which was then expanded by lacing it with other samples from Ennio Morricone and Johnny Dynell (the “Tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty, you’re listening to the boy from the big bad city, this is jam hot” rap at the start of the track). Featuring the lead vocals of an unknown Lindy Layton, there was just something about this almighty groove that captured the public’s attention and affection and it was soon a chart topper.

Parent album “Let Them Eat Bingo” however was only a moderate seller and generally perceived by the critics as a bit of a curate’s egg (my wife bought it though and second album “Excursion On The Version”). Cook called time on the project after that, moving onto form Freak Power and then assume the FatBoy Slim alter ego before the decade was out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaeCn_8aCkk

It’s those deadly serious looking Scottish lads Del Amitri next with their folk pop dirge of tune “Nothing Ever Happens”. Folk pop dirge? Look, they’re not my words but only those of lead singer Justin Currie himself who tweeted along to this performance as the BBC4 TOTP repeat went out. See…

Not very good clappers in the crowd this week. Probably traumatised by having to stand through our folk pop dirge.
— justin currie (@thejustincurrie) October 16, 2020

I loved the fact that Currie is very self deprecating in his tweets with this one being my favourite:

Oooh, angry look to camera 1 in last verse. Very effective. You tit.
— justin currie (@thejustincurrie) October 16, 2020

Despite this being the second time the band appeared on TOTP, the producers just reused their original performance clip for this show (there’s an abrupt cut away from Gary Davies to the band with no long, lead in shot) so this was their debut. In keeping with the acoustic nature of the song, it’s a very downbeat performance, almost as if they’re busking. It must have been a strange experience for the rest of the band. Finally, after years of trying they have a genuine chart hit and have made it onto the legendary show that was TOTP where careers are made or broken. The next three and a half minutes were vital to their career and what are they doing as the camera turns to them and they beam direct into the watching nation’s sitting rooms? They’re sat down with their arms draped over their guitars, not knowing where to look. After what must have seemed like an age whilst Justin Currie sings the unaccompanied intro, the rest of the song kicks in and they can mime along. Meanwhile, the normally excitable studio audience just sort of stand there, no clapping, no cheering and certainly no dancing.

They did go onto sell six million albums worldwide after this (and got to meet Sinéad O’Connor in the BBC bar afterwards!) so it all turned out alright in the end. Nothing ever happens indeed!

The last of the ‘new’ tunes next as Lisa Stansfield attempts to follow up her huge No 1 hit “All Around The World” with her new single “Live Together”. I was never much of a fan of the former and much preferred this one. The orchestral strings in the mix gave it a fuller, more lush sound that that of its predecessor. However, when you get such a big seller that early in your career, trying to emulate its success is never going to be easy and although achieving a very respectable No 10 peak, “Live Together” never looked likely to bring Lisa the same returns.

Lisa’s image in the video reminded me of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Dick Dastardly but instead of his twirly moustache, she’s got twirly kiss curls. Despite working in the Our Price store in Rochdale (Lisa’s hometown) for a year in the early 90s, I never saw her in the shop once. The one time she finally did come in, I was on my day off! Drat and double drat!

After appearing in last week’s Breakers section, The Beloved have moved up sufficient places in the Top 40 to warrant a studio appearance this time around to perform their single “Hello”. I loved this quirky dance / pop crossover tune and despite being on the dole, purchased the cassette single from my local record emporium.

I really like Jon Marsh’s dancing in this with his finger pointing hand guns and swishing poncho. Sadly, the song gets cut short before we get to the Jeffrey Archer name drop. I would have liked to see if Jon would have incorporated his ‘wanker’ gesture from the promo video into the studio performance. As fate would have it, I write this post on the day after one of the celebrities that we do get to hear name checked in the lyrics, comedian Bobby Ball, died. RIP Bobby and Rock On.

Those hard hat guys are back again as Gary Davies introduces the next act. There are also two young girls with matching Deirdre Barlow spectacles and frizzy perms in shot! Quite extraordinary! Very much the opposite of extraordinary though is the artist that Gary is introducing as it’s Phil Collins who plods his way through latest single “I Wish It Would Rain Down“. I’m sure I’ve told this story before but as Phil is so boring, I have no other recourse than to wheel it out again…

I once attended a wedding where the music that was played in the registry office as we waited for the bride to arrive appeared to be a Phil Collins Greatest Hits CD. As such, the three songs that were played one after the other before she arrived were:

“I Wish It Would Rain Down” (surely not on your wedding day?)
“Against All Odds” (with its lyric ‘you coming back to me is against all odds’)
“Separate Lives” (perhaps not the best song to celebrate the union of two people in matrimony)

“I Wish It Would Rain Down” peaked at No 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yseNilZX3_I

Skid Row‘s video for their “18 And Life” single is the next thing we get to see on the show despite it only being on just last week. Its rise of 11 places to No 12 though was deemed justification enough by the TOTP production team to reshow it. Written about the plight of an 18 year old who received a life sentence for the murder of his friend with a gun he thought was not loaded, the full version of the video incorporates this element of the song with many scenes showing the use of a firearm. Uncomfortable with this, MTV refused to air the video.

Comparing the full video below with the version shown on TOTP, it’s clear that the BBC had similar concerns and all of the images involving a gun have been edited out. They even removed the scene where the protagonist’s father chucks him out of the house threw a plate glass window. Well, it was before the watershed and Mary Whitehouse was still in post as President of the National Viewers and Listeners Association to be fair.

Sinéad O’Connor is still at No 1 with “Nothing Compares 2 U” and this week it’s the video that TOTP uses rather than her in studio performance. The promo won three Moonmen at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards for Video of the Year (O’Connor became the first female artist to be awarded with it), Best Female Video and Best Post-Modern Video.

With all the accolades though inevitably came the piss takes. This one is courtesy of Gina Riley on Australian comedy show Fast Forward…

The play out song this week is “The King And Queen Of America” by Eurythmics. I’m kind of surprised this video got a second airing considering it peaked at a lowly No 29 and had already been shown last week but it did go up five places in the Top 40 that week which seemed to be the criteria for inclusion on the show at the time (see also Skid Row and The Beloved earlier).

Apparently, the 7″ single was issued in an incorrect sleeve initially and had to be withdrawn on the day it went on sale. Those copies that slipped through the net have become one of the most collectable Eurythmics items and command around £1000 resell price. Sort of their version of the A&M release of The Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen” though not quite as desirable – a copy of that collectible sold for £13,000 at auction in 2019.

For posterity’s sake I include the chart rundown below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXlaIQkzzEw

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Yell!	Instant Replay	NO!
2	Janet Jackson	Come Back To Me	Nah
3	Beats International	Dub Be Good To Me	No but my wife had their album
4	Del Amitri	Nothing Ever Happens	No but it’s on a Q magazine compilation album I bought
5	Lisa Stansfield	Live Together	Nope
6	The Beloved	Hello	Yes! I did buy this one! The cassette single no less!
7	Phil Collins	I Wish It Would Rain Down	As if
8	Skid Row	18 And Life	Haddaway and shite
9	Sinéad’ O’Connor	Nothing Compares 2 U	Don’t think so
10	Eurythmics	The King And Queen Of America	That’s a no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000nnyn/top-of-the-pops-08021990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 26 JAN 1990

Posted on October 22, 2020 by 80stastic

OK, a few things about this particular TOTP show. Firstly, it was broadcast on a Friday rather than its usual Thursday slot due to the BBC’s coverage of the Commonwealth Games. I have zero recall of this festival of sporting endeavours but Wikipedia tells me that the opening ceremony had been on the Wednesday of this week but I’m not sure which specific event was deemed unmissable TV viewing on the Thursday and required that TOTP be shunted across the broadcast schedule.

Drum ‘n’ bass legend
Goldie wanted to get a kiwi bird as a pet
but couldn’t find one in the ‘jungle’. Soz!

Incidentally, the mascot for the games was called Goldie – no, not the DJ and musician of Metalheadz fame but rather a kiwi bird.

Secondly, the show is timed at 33 minutes long and includes 13 acts! Bastards! This is going to take me ages to write up! Thirdly, well here’s @TOTPFacts with the third point of note:

This was the final occasion (excluding Christmas editions) where two hosts were paired up to host a #TOTP until the “Year Zero” revamp of October 1991. Until then this presenting roster of Mayo, Brambles, Campbell, Davies, Brookes, Goodier and Turner would remain stable.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 16, 2020

Well, there are pros and cons to this I feel. No duos might mean no more poorly scripted ‘comedy’ exchanges between presenters which is a good thing. However, there are at least three names on that list who I cannot abide (I’ll let you work out for yourselves who they are) and the thought of them cropping up on a regular basis for almost the whole of the next two years is a harrowing thought.

On with the show then and somewhere in a darkened laboratory, the evil professors of manufactured pop are brewing another concoction to torment the nation with. This particular experiment seemed to have combined the DNA of Big Fun with London Boys and created a two headed monster called Yell! Who on earth were these two berks?! Well, they were called Daniel James (not the Man Utd footballer clearly) and Paul Varney (not Reg’s lad surely?). Or were they? You see, Daniel James also went under the name of Colin Heywood. Oh, he was also an actor – must have been a stage name thing. Anyway, they were signed to Fanfare Records by Simon Cowell (he had to have something to do with this monstrosity didn’t he?) and they had immediate success with their cover of the Dan Hartman hit “Instant Replay”. Quite why we needed another version of this disco stomper in a cold, bleak January I’m not sure. I wonder if including the exclamation mark after their name Wham! style was Cowell’s idea?

Despite all the studio audience…erm…yelling and squealing on display here, the duo never got to be the next teen sensation they clearly hoped to be. A further two single releases (including another cover version, this time of Average White Band’s “Let’s Go Round Again”) both flopped spectacularly and Yell! disappeared into a whisper. James went back to acting whilst Varney wrote the UK’s 1999 Eurovision entry “Say It Again” by Precious which made No 6 in the chart, a whole four places higher than his own hit a decade earlier. It was also considerably more successful than his ex bandmate James’ excursion into Eurovision who came sixth in the 1986 Song For Europe competition.

Well we can slag TOTP off as much as we want (and many of us do on Twitter) but you can’t say the show wasn’t diverse. From Yell! to Public Enemy. It’s quite a leap. The second single taken from the “Fear Of A Black Planet” album, there is so much going on in this extraordinary noise that is “Welcome To The Terrodome” assaulting your senses that it’s hard to break it down. One of the things I did pick out listening back to this was the Mikey Dread sample from “Operator’s Choice” that The Soup Dragons would also use to great effect on their minor hit “Mother Universe” (which I bought) later in the year. There’s also Flavor Flav quoting bits of Al Pacino dialogue from the film Scarface and some shuddering guitar riffs – it’s a heady brew and I felt exhausted by the end if it. And that song title? Nothing to do with Frankie Goes To Hollywood nor Samuel Coleridge – here’s @TOTPFacts again with the origin story…

Chuck D on "Welcome To the Terrordome": "What does it mean? It means the 1990s are coming. If we as a people do the right thing we'll be all right, if we do the wrong thing the black situation is out of here at the end of the decade…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 16, 2020

…prophetic words indeed.

“Welcome To The Terrodome” peaked at No 18.

Another of those debut performances that Simon Mayo promised us at the top of the show now as Del Amitri make their bow. I have to admit I’d never come across this lot before this point but they had actually been in existence since 1985 and had already released one unsuccessful album. Everything was to change for the band with the release of the almost ironically named single “Nothing Ever Happens” from their second album “Waking Hours” (that’s ‘waking’ not ‘working’ Jakki Brambles). Peaking at No 11 it would be their biggest ever hit which was a surprise to me given that they’ve had 15 Top 40 UK chart singles.

This gentle, folky song seemed very much at odds with the rest of the homogeneous dance tunes – infested charts to me and was probably one of the reasons that I liked it. Lead singer and group founder Justin Currie does a much better explanation of the song than I ever could in this performance of it in the brilliant BBC4 programme Songwriters’ Circle…

I recall hearing Steve Wright play the song on his then Radio 1 show and making some deeply unfunny Only Fools And Horses inspired comment about the band’s name afterwards. It went along the lines of:

“Del Amitri there. E’s alright ain’t he old Del”

According to Wikipedia, the band name is actually:

“a bastardisation of the name of a film producer who appeared in the closing credits of a film Currie saw in 1979 – “probably Dimitri-something, but we couldn’t remember… so eventually through osmosis or maybe Chinese Whispers ‘Dimitri’ became ‘Del Amitri’.”

So now you know Steve Wright. OK?

Three Breakers now starting with Lonnie Gordon and “Happenin’ All Over Again”. Question: When is a Donna Summer song not a Donna Summer song? Answer: When Donna refuses to record it because she has fallen out with its writers Stock, Aitken and Waterman and it’s given to someone else. That someone else was of course Lonnie (God I so keep wanting to type Donegan) Gordon. Listening back to it, you could really hear Donna recording this but Lonnie got the glory (it was Single of the Fortnight in Smash Hits magazine!) and took this Italo House infused S/A/W tune all the way to No 4.

It was covered eight years later by…ahem…Tracie from Coronation Street…

Who? Wreckx-n-Effect? No – rack up another score in the blogger’s- memory-fails-him-again tally. Apparently they were New Jack Swingers from Harlem and they would go onto have a No 2 record in the US with the rather quaintly entitled “Rump Shaker” (only kept off the top spot by the all conquering success of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”) but I don’t remember that one either. Anyway, that’s all a couple of years down the road. In the right here, right now (i.e. 1990) they have a middling hit with “Juicy”. I’m assuming I won’t know this either….

*clicks play on the video below*

…well part of it was familiar so I looked it up and it samples “Juicy Fruit” by M’Tume which I do remember from the charts of 1983. No wonder it sounded familiar. Wreckx-n-Effect’s version peaked at No 29 over here, five places higher than M’Tume’s original which somehow seems wrong to me.

The final Breaker this week is “The Face” by And Why Not? (try saying that band name without picturing Barry Norman sat in a chair slyly slagging off some film or other -impossible). This lot’s brand of reggae-tinged pop had them briefly hailed as the next big thing but despite three Top 40 hits (“The Face” was the biggest peaking at No 13) and support slots with UB40 and Transvision Vamp, it never quite happened for the Brummie trio. Supposedly, Wendy James fancied one of them (according to Smash Hits magazine anyway). Not sure that particular endorsement helped their cause.

You never hear them mentioned at all nowadays, not even in these nostalgia-fuelled times of reunion tours and deluxe box set album reissues. Even specialist reissue label Cherry Red hasn’t picked up the rights on their only album “Move Your Skin”. My wife had a copy back in the day – I’ll ask her if she still has it if they want to borrow it!

All of this week’s Breakers will be be back as the first three acts of next week’s TOTP.

Oh god! Double cringe moment incoming. As the camera cuts back to Jakki Brambles it catches her dancing to And Why Not? which seems to involve some sort of half-hearted, squawking chicken move. She compounds this by introducing the next act F.P.I. Project by referencing the fact that their single “Goin’ Back To My Roots” was originally a hit for Odyssey in 1981. “Here it is 1990 stylee…” she advises. Stylee?! Stylee Jakki?! God, did we really use that expression back then? Surely nobody still trots that one out today do they?

This being the third time F.P.I. Project have been on the show, I’ve run out of things to say about them. OK, look nine years on from this, they released “Goin’ Back To My Roots” again. How did it fare compared to the No 9 peak of its 1990 counterpart? It spent one week on the UK charts at No 96. I know there were a lot of ‘nines’ in those last two sentences but will that do? Who said ‘Nein’?

The F.P.I. Project performance was clearly just footage from a previous show slotted into the current one (i.e. they weren’t actually there in the studio that week) . The cut from that clip back to Simon Mayo clearly takes him by surprise and he tries to style (or is that stylee?) it out by making some snidey remark about TOTP cameramen before introducing yet another track that must have passed me by at the time. “I’ll Be Good to You” by Quincy Jones and featuring the vocal talents of Chaka Khan and Ray Charles is the track in question.

Taken from Quincy’s platinum selling and multiple grammy winning “Back On The Block” album, it was originally a hit in 1976 by R’n’B duo The Brothers Johnson with Jones on production duties. Thirteen years later, he returned to it and got Ray Charles and Chaka Khan to do the vocals. Look, I know everyone involved in this song are /were musical legends but having listened to it today, I just can’t warm to it. Completely passes me by. This fact didn’t pass me by though. Ray Charles fathered 12 children by 10 different women in his lifetime – and we thought Boris Johnson had form in this area!

Here now to hammer home the feeling of having the January blues is Phil Collins. Some might say that Phil’s presence alone would be enough to bring you down but just to make sure there’s no escape from the melancholy he’s singing a song called “I Wish It Would Rain Down”. The second single to be lifted from his ridiculously successful “…But Seriously” album, it would return Collins to the Top 10 in the UK but was even more successful across the pond where it went Top 3 in the US and was the best selling single of the year in Canada!

Phil looks as sweaty as ever under the studio lights in this performance but I’m more interested in his backing band. Jakki Brambles tells us that Eric Clapton performs guitar on the track in her intro but is that actually ‘God’ up there on stage behind Phil? After much squinting at the screen, I don’t believe it is but it seems that they deliberately got a lookalike in to fool us! Also, check out Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on bass!

I thought “I Wish It Would Rain Down” was marginally better than previous single “Another Day In Paradise” but that’s not saying much – they’re both shite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yseNilZX3_I

Who came first then? Adamski? Normski? Chelski?! Well, I think it was Normski who fronted BBC’s DEF II programming from 1988 to 1994 closely followed by Adamski with this his first hit single, “N-R-G”. The Chelski term didn’t come into existence until 2003 when my beloved Chelsea FC were taken over by Russian billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich. I still can’t stand the term to this day.

Anyway, here’s Adamski making his TOTP debut as Simon Mayo advises and according to The Story Of 1990 TOTP documentary, the girl dancers on stage with him were completely the producers idea and Adamski hated it. The rasta guy though was his flat mate (one Daddy Chester) but his dancing alone was judged to be inadequate. This highlights the problem that TOTP had with the flood of dance tunes making the charts back then. Just what did you do when it came to a studio performance of the track? The programme really struggled to showcase this new genre.

On her way to pop’s summit is Sinéad O’Connor with her Prince cover “Nothing Compares 2 U”. Despite having had a shaved head as early as 1988 when she even appeared on TOTP to perform “Mandinka” with that hairstyle, I recall there being quite a bit of press about it again in 1990. Maybe she was just more mainstream this time, reaching elements of the nation that she hadn’t previously with this huge hit thereby promoting this fascination with her looks. According to Wikipedia, her shaved head was initially an assertion against traditional views of women but having decided to grow it back years later, she lopped it all off again after being mistaken for Enya!

T’KNOB have gone! Yes, the new pretenders to pop’s throne have been deposed by Princess Kylie whose cover of “Tears On My Pillow” has risen to the top after just two weeks. It won’t last long though as she’ll be dethroned next week by Sinéad O’Connor (not sure of her status in pop’s royal family). Of the three Kylie Minogue singles released in 1990, “Tears On My Pillow” was easily the weakest but then the other two, “Better The Devil You Know” and “Step Back In Time”, are for me possibly her two greatest tunes.

“Tears On My Pillow” was included on the soundtrack to The Delinquents in which Kylie starred and which was the most successful Australian film of 1990 in Australia. Reading that statement back, was that much of an achievement? By comparison, it was the 17th highest grossing film of the year in the UK. Draw your own conclusions.

Finally we get to the thirteenth and final song of the night and guess what? It’s another dance track I can’t recall at all. Gino Latino anyone? Not an Italian TV chef but a DJ (real name Lorenzo Cherubini), “Welcome” was his only UK Top 40 hit (as far as I can tell) and it peaked at No 17. Check this out though. He also went under the pseudonym of Jovanotti and look at this tweet I found on a @TOTPFacts thread:

Cherubini also worked in TV as Jovanotti and was a presenter on the Janet Street-Porter masterminded DEF II strand on BBC2 (New Order composed the closing music for DEF II magazine show Reportage – which they later used for ‘World In Motion’)
— Angus Teee (@AngusTeee) October 16, 2020

I promise you I had no idea about any of this when I started going on about Normski earlier!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w9CaYcjnJ4

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBrgIoMg0Z4

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Yell!	Instant Replay	NO!
2	Public Enemy	Welcome To The Terrordome	I did not
3	Del Amitri	Nothing Ever Happens	Not the single but it’s on my Greatest Hits CD of theirs
4	Lonnie Gordon	Happenin’ All Over Again	Nah
5	Wreckx-n-Effect	Juicy	Nope
6	And Why Not?	The Face	No but my wife had their album
7	The FPI Project	Going Back To My Roots	No
8	Quincy Jones featuring Chaka Khan and Ray Charles	I’ll Be Good To You	Buy it? I didn’t even remember it
9	Phil Collins	I Wish It Would Rain Down	As if
10	Adamski	N-R-G	N-O-P-E
11	Sinéad’ O’Connor	Nothing Compares 2 U	Don’t think so
12	Kylie Minogue	Tears On My Pillow	No
13	Gina Latino	Welcome	Goodbye more like – no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000ng7c/top-of-the-pops-26011990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 13 DEC 1996

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TOTP 20 SEP 1996

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TOTP 28 APR 1994

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TOTP 20 JAN 1994

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TOTP 13 JAN 1994

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TOTP 28 OCT 1993

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TOTP 14 OCT 1993

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TOTP 26 APR 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 08 FEB 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 26 JAN 1990

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Some bedtime reading?