Right Said Fred

TOTP 07 OCT 1993

Posted on October 31, 2022 by 80stastic

This is all a bit odd. Suddenly there are no Breakers this week meaning there’s only eight acts in total on this particular TOTP. Added to that, the show is totally male dominated with no female artists on it at all and lastly the running order has been split right down the middle with the first four performances all by solo artists and the last four by bands.

The first of those solo artists is Haddaway with his hit single “Life”. What can you say about this guy? No, seriously. What else is there to say about him that I haven’t already said in previous posts? The ‘hadaway and shite’ reference? Done. That I couldn’t stand “What Is Love”? Tick. My opinion that “Life” was just a retread of its predecessor? Case stated. That in 2008 he teamed up with Dr. Alban to record a single called “I Love The 90s”? Yep…no wait…what?! No! Hell that sounds horrendous and guess what? It is horrendous! Look at this…

Dear God! That such a thing could be allowed to exist! Host Tony Dortie said of Haddaway after his performance “that man is out to lunch”. Not sure what his reasoning was for that assessment but having listened to “I Love The 90s” I conclude that he must have been a sandwich short of a picnic to record that nonsense. “Life” peaked at No 6.

https://youtu.be/qbuTTcLyNXk

Talking of Dortie, he then goes onto to tell some inane anecdote about how he once asked Meatloaf how he got his name. Tony…mate…just stick to the basics eh? So, after being previewed on the show what feels like an age ago (it was actually six weeks which does seem an extraordinarily long lead time), the single that would sell more than any other in the UK in 1993 is finally here. Surely nobody could have seen this coming?! Before “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, the last time Meatloaf had been in the UK Top 40 was in 1986 when he teamed up with John “St.Elmo’s Fire” Parr for the No 31 hit “Rock ‘n’ Roll Mercenaries”. His last completely solo hit had been 1984’s “Modern Girl”. How did he stage this incredible comeback? Well, he went back to his roots and when you understand that strategy then maybe his resurgence wasn’t quite the shock that I’ve made it out to be.

The 1977 “Bat Out Of Hell” album has sold 42 million copies worldwide so it was pretty much a no-brainer that an album called “Bat Out Of Hell II” would stack up some serious sales if ever released. Reunited with song writing partner Jim Steinman (the two had fallen out so badly that they ended up suing each other in the 80s), an official follow up to Meatloaf’s best known work was recorded with the official title “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell”. Whilst Steinman protested it was all about the art and wanting to revisit the world of “Bat Out Of Hell” and explore it deeper, Meatloaf let the truth out about what they were really doing with this quote:

“We called it Bat Out Of Hell II ‘cos that would help it sell shitloads”
Wall, Mick (2017). Like a Bat Out of Hell: The Larger than Life Story of Meat Loaf. Hachette UK. p. 167.

And so it did. The album went to No 1 in every territory on the planet and would rack up 14 million sales. The lead single did just as well going to No 1 in 28 different countries and was certified platinum in the US. It will be at No 1 in the UK soon enough in these TOTP repeats and for seven weeks so I’ll keep my powder dry for fear of a flood of commentary early on. Hmm…”I’ll Keep My Powder Dry (For Fear Of A Flood)”…if only Meatloaf or Jim Steinman were still alive…

Next a man making his last ever appearance on TOTP. Paul Young was first on the show back in 1978 (!) as part of Streetband performing novelty hit “Toast” but he became a regular from 1983 onwards as a star in his own right with massive hits like “Wherever I Lay My Hat”, “Come Back And Stay” and “Love Of The Common People”. The hits and therefore trips to the TOTP studios continued for a couple of more years before the orbit of his time as a pop idol began to wane but he caught his falling star in time to collect a handful of hits (and some more TOTP turns) and a No 1 Best Of album in the early 90s.

However, as Paul himself once sang, “Everything Must Change” and so it came to pass that the fame game was up come October 1993 as Paul served up one final TOTP outing for us. What a shame then that it was such a lacklustre performance. To start with, the set was awful. Some dry ice and some long curtains behind him were all Paul had to work with and with a total lack of detail on the behalf of the TOTP producers, they were red! He’s literally singing a song called “Now I Know What Made Otis Blue”! Sure that’s ‘blue’ as in mood not colour but even so! Secondly, there’s the sad spectacle of Paul’s vocals. Now either he had a bit of a sore throat on this particular day or it was a resumption of the vocal chords problems that he suffered from throughout his career but this isn’t the best singing he’s ever done in his life. What a shame to bow out on a bum note. Thanks for the good times Paul.

What are the chances? From one male solo artist making his final TOTP appearance to another immediately afterwards. As far as I can tell, this is the last time we’ll be seeing Billy Joel on the BBC’s flagship music show as his only UK Top 40 hit after “All About Soul” came in 2010 when “She’s Always A Woman” re-entered the charts but TOTP had been axed four years prior to that.

This was the follow up to his surprisingly successful “River Of Dreams” single which had made the Top 3 over the Summer. It’s pretty standard Billy fodder although there’s a nice sentiment behind the lyrics:

Billy Joel explains "All About Soul": "Sometimes love gets pretty thinly stretched. What sustains that? It's soul… How do you write a deeply felt love song celebrating a woman without it being trite, or hackneyed?…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 28, 2022

"It's so difficult. But it's something we feel, something that matures in a relationship. That subject hasn't really been dealt with: married love, people who've been together a long time. There's always infatuation songs and lust songs, but who writes about abiding love?" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 28, 2022

"What really counts is who's standing in the long run, and that's one of the essential elements of that song — who's standing, and why is that? Why do people continue to survive? If someone believes in me, then I guess that I should believe in myself." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 28, 2022

Aah. There’s lovely. Belief and faith in each other. Billy even sings these lyrics in the song – “She gives me all the live I need to keep my faith alive” about his wife Christie Brinkley who painted the picture on the “River Of Dreams” album’s cover. Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley got divorced less than 12 months later. Ah.

We’re onto the groups now starting with a band enjoying a comeback almost as unlikely as Meatloaf’s. Go West were shiny, new pop stars back in 1985 with some catchy tunes and a nice line in singlet vests. Then ‘85 turned into ‘86 and they were yesterday’s news before the clocks had struck twelve. As the 80s came to an end, Go West seemed like a small footnote in the decade’s pop music story but then came what seemed like one final swan song with a spot on the Pretty Woman soundtrack that gave the duo a hit with “King Of Wishful Thinking”. That was surely them done but no. Two years later came a gold selling album in “Indian Summer” and two Top 20 singles. OK but then nothing yeah? Full stop! The end. Erm…no. Buoyed by that success, a Greatest Hits album was put together (“Aces And Kings – The Best Of Go West”) and to promote it came this, a cover version of “Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson And The Miracles. Sacrilege? Maybe. Was it terrible? It could have been worse but anybody would lose up against the original.

By the way, ever wondered whether the TOTP hosts were really that enthusiastic about all the acts on the show they were introducing or did they keep their true opinions to themselves back then? Here’s Tony Dortie with the answer:

#TOTP this Go West Garbage just what I imagine somebody in need of sleep puts on..pure toilet cover..no lights needed
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) October 28, 2022

Ouch! Well, Tony would game been pleased to know that Go West would only have one more chart entry, a remix of their very first hit “We Close Our Eyes” which made No 40 but, like Paul Young earlier, remain very active on the live nostalgia circuit. Oh, one final thing; is that Jaki Graham on backing vocals duties?

https://youtu.be/9yIM9udd504

Right, a good, solid, proper band now as Crowded House return with “Distant Sun”, the lead single from their fourth studio album “Together Alone”. After achieving some long overdue mainstream success in this country with previous album “Woodface” and its attendant singles, expectations must have been high for more of the same from the band’s record label Capitol. Sales of “Together Alone” didn’t quite live up to said expectations (selling roughly half of what its predecessor did) but still went platinum in the UK and made No 4 on the album chart. Like “Woodface”, five singles were released from it but none better I think than “Distant Sun” which is well crafted with some gorgeous melodies but also a change of pace and streak of defiance in the coda with the lyric “Like a Christian fearing vengeance from above” to the fore.

By this point Tim Finn had left the band and was replaced by Mark Hart and it got me thinking about the band’s various line up changes, their Split Enz origins, the tragedy of a drummer Paul Hester’s death, their split and reformation – some film director should really make a biopic to tell their story. Maybe one day. “Distant Sun” peaked at No 19.

https://youtu.be/YbuyjNv5BEk

OK. Calling this next lot a band might be stretching the definition a little but here they are anyway – it’s Right Said Fred with “Bumped”. Strange as it may seem to recall, the Freds had experienced phenomenal commercial success in the previous two years. A chart topping album and hit singles that went to positions 1, 2 and 3 in their first year plus a No 4 Comic Relief single from earlier in 1993. Only the single “Those Simple Things/Daydream” had let the side down when it peaked at No 29.

As such, the difficult second album syndrome approached. Could the lads push on through and establish themselves as more than just a comedy act? The answer was a resounding no. Sophomore album “Sex And Travel” flopped and of the singles taken from it, only one made the Top 40 and even then peaked at a lowly No 32. That was this track “Bumped” and it really is as weak as Matt Hancock’s claim that he’s doing I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here to promote his dyslexia campaign. We see you Hancock. Anyway, the band were clearly under orders to promote themselves as more than a gimmick with Richard Fairbrass stating to the TOTP studio audience that “Bumped” was “more groovy than Stick It Out”. Now granted the track had a bit more musicality to it than something like “I’m Too Sexy” but it was hardly “Off The Wall” era Michael Jackson now was it?

Having commented on Paul Young’s wavering vocals earlier, I must now say something about Fairbrass’s singing. And I say this – the guy can’t really sing can he? Sure he can deliver a song but sing? Not so much. Right Said Fred would bag one final UK Top 40 hit in 2001 with the jokey “You’re My Mate” before embarking on a career as Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers.

Get ready to scream! Take That are straight in at No 1 with their collaboration with Lulu on “Relight My Fire”. The band broke all sorts of records and had No 1 singles coming out of their ears but the truth is that in their first incarnation up to 1996, they released more videos (seven) than they did studio albums (three) so it seems to me that they were definitely being promoted visually to a young audience over their actual music. It made sense to I guess. Just an observation.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	Life	No
2	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	Nope
3	Paul Young	Now I Know What Made Otis Blue	I did not
4	Billy Joel	All About Soul	Negative
5	Go West	Tracks Of My Tears	Nah
6	Crowded House	Distant Sun	It’s been a while but yes! I have the CD single of this one!
7	Right Said Fred	Bumped	As if
8	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/m001dhj6/top-of-the-pops-07101993

TOTP 18 MAR 1993

Posted on July 13, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve got into a very steady pattern with these TOTP shows in terms of the presenters. Back in October of 1991 at the very start of the ‘year zero’ revamp there were more new presenters than Tory MPs in a leadership contest. By March 1993, all those other wannabes had fallen by the wayside leaving a core of just two – Mark Franklin and Tony Dortie. If, like in the race to be Prime Minister, a vote was out to the TOTP fan community as to who was the best, which one would triumph? I think my choice for Prime Presnter would go to Franklin. A reliable, safe pair of hands, he always seemed unflappable and that nothing could disrupt his focus. A bit on the dull side? Maybe but I think I’d take that over Dortie who was always appeared to be one word away from a gaffe or misplaced street slang phrase. Also, I’m not convinced he really was across his brief on…you know…pop music which does seem like a basic pre-requisite of the job. It’s my pick on hosting duties tonight. Let’s hope he serves up a presenting master class to justify my choice and not come across as, to quote that master of the nonsensical put down Boris Johnson, a ‘Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest’.

Franklin begins in off screen, word perfect style when introducing the show’s opening act Hue And Cry. Just like Heaven 17 recently, Pat and Greg Kane were experiencing something of a revival of their 80s heyday thanks to the release of a Greatest Hits album. Best known for their hits “Labour Of Love” and “Looking For Linda” (they liked a bit of alliteration with the letter ‘L’), their fortunes had been in decline since the turn of the decade. True, their 1991 album “Stars Crash Down” had made the Top 10 but that was a last hurrah. There would be only one more album that graced the charts at all (1992’s “Truth And Love” made No 33) and then nothing but chart wilderness. We hadn’t seen them on TOTP for four years which was how long it had been since their last hit single.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and so record company Circa stepped in with a Greatest Hits compilation album called “Labours Of Love – The Best Of Hue And Cry”. It did the trick but as former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis might have said, in a limited and specific way. Yes, the Best Of album made the charts but its No 27 peak was surely below Circa’s expectations. And yes, the release of a remixed “Labour Of Love” provided both a hit single and a TOTP appearance but a No 25 chart high paled in comparison to the Top 5 placing achieved by the remix of “Temptation” by the aforementioned Heaven 17. It all seemed a tad underwhelming.

I don’t think their revival masterplan was helped by either the remix of the single nor their appearance here. The addition of that nasty, generic dance backbeat did nothing but dim the splendour of the original version of “Labour Of Love” and then there’s the guitarist and bass player on stage with Pat and Greg. Who the Hell were those two blokes and why had they come dressed like they were auditioning for a part in the musical Rock Of Ages? This wasn’t the Hue And Cry I remembered and liked. Thankfully, I have a more recent and better memory of the band. I saw them do a live gig in Cottingham at the back end of last year and they were great. It was a small venue so Pat’s enormous voice easily filled it and Greg is a fine musician demonstrating not just his keyboards skills but his prowess on guitar as well. That TOTP appearance was a nice reminder thought that they both used to have hair.

Franklin remains off camera as he does the shortest of segues into the next act who is…be afraid…Snow! Ah, the dreaded third component of the unholy trinity of the three S’s after Shaggy and Shabba Ranks. The three dancehall men of the musical apocalypse. Snow (real name Darrin Kenneth O’Brien) was a Canadian reggae musician and rapper who had come to prominence on the back of his “Informer” single which spent seven (!) weeks at No 1 in America before slinking back to obscurity. He was basically the reggae Vanilla Ice.

For me, he wasn’t the most offensive of the three S’s (that was Shabba Ranks clearly) but he was the most ludicrous. For a start, what was he actually singing/rapping about because it sounds like he’s going on about ‘licking bum bums down’! WTF?! The lyrics are actually ‘lucky boom boom down’ which all makes everything much clearer! Here’s @TOTPFacts with a more lucid explanation of the story behind “Informer”:

The lyrics of "Informer" relate to Snow being charged with two counts of attempted murder (related to a knife fight in a pub) in 1989. The charges were later reduced to aggravated assault, and he was eventually acquitted. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 8, 2022

OK, so actually Snow was more like the Canadian Smiley Culture than the reggae Vanilla Ice…

Unlike Smiley though who had hidden his ganja before the police pulled him over, Snow was taken downtown to the cop shop where a rectal examination took place. No really. That’s what it says in his lyrics! Look:

“Well the destination reached in down-a East detention, where they whip down me pants look up me bottom”

Apologies for any lingering mental images that may have caused you. “Informer” would peak at No 2 meaning the three S’s would have the Top 3 chart places covered between them with Shaggy bagging a No 1 and Shabba Ranks going all the way to No 3. What a time to be alive!

I think we all need to calm down after that and just in time, Mark Franklin finally appears on screen to reassure us that everything will be OK, even making a quip about trying to sing “Informer” at karaoke. Look how calmly he deals with the jostling from the assembled members of the studio audience. He could teach Rishi Sunak a thing or two about not flapping when under pressure like being asked, I don’t know, say about his family’s tax arrangements.

Talking of cash, here’s Right Said Fred (and friends) to ask us to dig in our pockets for Comic Relief by buying their “Stick It Out” single. The promo video for it is largely unwatchable (though I don’t suppose I felt that way in 1993) with various celebs contributing to the ‘fun’ like Clive Anderson, Hugh Laurie and Linda Robson and Pauline Quirke from Birds Of A Feather. The latter two seem to have no problem leaving their dignity at the door as they leap into the action with some awful dance moves and shouting of ‘stick it aaart!’. Didn’t Linda Robson come out as a big Boris Johnson fan on Loose Women recently? Explains a lot.

“Stick It Out” peaked at No 4.

After The Jesus Lizard were on the show the other week, here comes another unlikely act in the shape of Therapy? It turns out that there was more connecting the two bands than my casual observation. Wikipedia tells me that Therapy?’s sound was influenced by The Jesus Lizard and that the Irish rockers went on to support the Teaxan grunge merchants in their early days. Maybe head TOTP producer Stanley Appel was majorly into his grunge on the sly.

I think the first time I became aware of Therapy? I was sat on a bus in Manchester and glanced out of the window to see a poster advertising their major label debut single “Teethgrinder”. It wasn’t a pleasant sight but it got my attention and put their name in my head. Both the single and parent album “Nurse” achieved Top 40 placings, establishing them as a chart act. The band had signed with A&M after releasing a couple of albums via indie label Wiiija so they could clearly see potential for a big career.

If that early success gave the band a place on the backbenches as it were, then 1993 saw them promoted to ministerial status with three EPs all hitting the charts. The first of those was “Shortsharpshock” with “Screamager” being the lead track. I didn’t think I knew this but the “screw that, forget about that” bridge into the chorus is definitely familiar. It’s a pretty decent tune in fact. They won’t thank me for this comparison but they come across here a bit like a grunge version of early era Busted even down to the bass player wearing long shorts.

Greater success was just around the corner with 1994 album “Troublegum” making the Top 5. The band are still going to this day and have released fifteen studio albums in total.

Mark Franklin is having a good night. Not only has there been nothing approaching a cock up but now he pulls off a difficult segue in slick style. We move from Therapy? across to the neighbouring stage where we find Big Country who launch into action with not a word of introduction. As Stuart Adamson finishes his initial vocal and the guitars kick in, Franklin’s disembodied voice comes in and times his intro to perfection before Adamson restarts singing. A masterclass.

You would be forgiven for saying though, “never mind Mark Franklin, did you just say Big Country are on the show?!”. Yes, yes I did. “Weren’t they just an 80s band though?”. No, no they weren’t though it’s true that their golden era of 1883-86 was well behind them. Like Duran Duran though, those other superstars of the previous decade who were just expected to retire once the 90s came around, Big Country weren’t for giving up. Despite witnessing a downturn in commercial fortunes that began with their final album of the 80s “Peace In Our Time” and a near collapse of the band with 1991’s “No Place Like Home”, they returned in 1993 with a much better received effort in “The Buffalo Skinners”.

The lead single from it was “Alone” and it certainly sounded like a return to form and the sound that had brought them so much success. Those chugging guitars that came to be described as ‘bagpipe rock’ allied to Adamson’s unmistakable growling vocals was a potent brew. Actually, Stuart looked great here, sleek of leather trousers with an into the 90s haircut replacing his previous gravity defying barnet, how many of us watching that night could have predicted his tragic demise just eight short years later at the age of forty-three?

“Alone” peaked at No 24 whilst the album almost mirrored that with a placing of No 25. It would prove to be their last stand commercially. Subsequent albums failed to make any impression and they folded after Adamson’s death. A twenty-five year anniversary reunion in 2007 sparked the band back to life and they are still a live pull to this day with guitarist Bruce Watson’s son now in the line up.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Mike Pickering never met a singer called Heather Small but a big tall dude called Elton instead, got off his tits on illegal substances, laid down a track called “Crystal Clear”and called his band The Grid not M People. And it sounded like this. This is completely bonkers and yet I have no memory of it at all. The track I mean, not The Grid. I do remember them though my knowledge is limited. This is what I know about The Grid:

Dave Ball from Soft Cell was a band member
They had a No 3 hit in 1994 with “Swamp Thing”

From what I have read online, if you were out clubbing at this time then this track was an absolute banger especially The Orb remixes of it on the 12”. I wasn’t and so I don’t even remember it let alone have good memories of it. The whole thing looks bonkers and yet….it could have been so much more insane. The original plan was for the project to form around the nucleus of producer and DJ Richard Norris and…wait for it…Psychic TV’s Genesis P. Orridge! Holy shit! Talk about avant-garde!

“Crystal Clear” peaked at No 27.

https://youtu.be/xoLOYCitMQA

The Breakers are back this week and finally Mark Franklin makes a misstep when he says in his intro to Hot Chocolate that he can’t quite remember them but he’s told they’re rather good. Oi! Franklin! Enough with your “I’m so young that I can’t be expected to know about old fogey music” attitude! Just how old was Mark at this point? I can’t find a definitive answer but seem to recall Tony Dortie saying that he was only seventeen when he got the TOTP gig. Let’s do the maths then. “It Started With A Kiss” was a No 5 hit in 1982 originally so Mark would have been six maybe? He might have a point I guess. He probably wasn’t even born when they were having hits like “You Sexy Thing” in the mid 70s. Even so, surely everyone knew Hot Chocolate didn’t they?

Well, if you didn’t then helpfully there was yet another Greatest Hits album out in 1993 for you to get acquainted with them. Yes, like Big Country before them, Errol and the boys have more compilations to their name than studio albums. I guess they were more of a singles band to be fair. “It Started With A Kiss” was the track chosen to promote it and it was a good enough choice though maybe the aforementioned “You Sexy Thing” might have been wiser. A horrible early 90s dance remix of it would surely have been a bigger hit. As it happens, that’s exactly what happened four years later when a Ben Liebrand remix of it went Top 10 off the back of The Full Monty film. “It Started With A Kiss” itself got a second rerelease in 1998 and made No 18 beating its 1993 peak by thirteen places.

Unlike Mark Franklin, I was old enough to remember “It Started With A Kiss” first time around and have a memory of hearing Steve Wright playing it and at the point where Errol sings “You don’t remember me do you?” interjecting with “Sure I do, bald fella, sings a bit”. Steve Wright – phoning it in for forty years. Thank God he’s going.

More grunge rock! That Appel fella was definitely into it! This time it comes courtesy of Alice In Chains and their single “Them Bones”. The second single from their “Dirt” album, this is supposedly one of their most well known songs but I can’t say it rings any bells with me. It’s all very stereotypical grunge to my ears but it’s my eyes which are more offended by it. Not the video but the title of the song. “Them Bones”? Surely they meant “Those Bones”? Or even “Dem Bones” as in the ‘leg bone connected to the knee bone etc’ song. Alice In Chains defo referred to the Platinum Jubilee as ‘Platty Jubes’.

“Them Bones” peaked at No 26.

“When I’m Good And Ready” could be the official line coming from Boris Johnson about when he will finally leave No 10 but it’s actually the title of Sybil’s follow up single to the Top 3 hit she had in “The Love I Lost” with West End. This time she totally on her own (except for her backing singers who include the backing singer’s backing singer Miriam Stockley) and it’s another upbeat, breezy Eurodance anthem courtesy of Stock and Waterman (but not Aitken).

I thought this wasn’t anywhere near as good as “The Love I Lost”. It was all a bit forced and clunky. It was a song for Sonia basically. It turns out that Stock and Waterman knew their market though and this was a big hit in the clubs which drove its sales enough for it to peak at No 5. The video missed a trick though. Sybil and her pals are clearly performing against a green screen backdrop but instead of using something interesting as the background image, they’ve got some basic colours (including green) and a sofa that gives it a Friends opening titles vibe.

Remember Ugly Kid Joe that did that anthem to nihilism “Everything About You”? Well, they’re back with a cover of Harry Chapin’s “Cats In The Cradle”.

Now what I knew about Harry Chapin could have been expressed in just four letters back then “W.O.L.D.”. Yes, the 1973 minor hit that DJs often couldn’t resist playing as it was all about…a DJ. Did I know “Cat’s In The Cradle” his platinum selling US No 1 single from the following year? Probably not as it was a flop over here. Reading up on Chapin though, he actually released a lot of material during his career – nine studio albums between 1972 and 1980 before he perished in a car accident in 1981. Apparently “W.O.L.D.” was the inspiration behind an American sit com I used to watch bank in the day called WKRP In Cincinnati. Remember that? No? Well, here’s the theme tune anyway…

Back to Ugly Kid Joe though and their version of “Cat’s In The Cradle” is OK I think though why they retitled it “Cats In The Cradle” without the apostrophe I don’t know. Maybe they went to the same school as Alice In Chains? I presume they were in need of a hit as anything they’d released after “Everything About You” had fallen on deaf ears and so went down the well trodden cover version route. It did the trick going Top 10 here and in the US though they never managed another hit after that.

Anything Harry Chapin can do, Monie Love can do better! You’ve got a song with a four letter acronym title? Well, I’ve got one with five! “Born 2 B.R.E.E.D.” was taken from her second album “In A Word Or 2” and the biggest hit of the four singles taken from it. The title’s acronym stood for ‘Build Relationships where Education and Enlightenment Dominate’ whilst “W.O.L.D” stood for…erm…nothing really. The lyrics tell the story of a DJ being let go by his radio station as he has got too old for their target audience hence the last three letters but I think that’s where the messaging ends. Monie’s message was a strong one though about empowerment and the prejudice facing young mothers and was co written with Levi Seaver Jr and Prince and recorded at the latter’s Paisley Park studio.

Despite the success of “Born 2 B.R.E.E.D.” (it made the Top 20), the album didn’t sell well and Monie disappeared from view. She never released another album but instead transferred to a career in US radio working for various stations including Philadelphia’s WHPI-FM, WTLC in Indianapolis and WALR in Atlanta. Sadly though not WKRP in Cincinnati nor, indeed, WOLD.

He’s done it! Shaggy is No 1 with “Oh Carolina”. Now many of us, me included, may have thought at the time that Shaggy was a prime one hit wonder candidate, riding the dancehall zeitgeist for one huge hit then gone, never to be seen or heard of again. A bit like Jeremy Hunt who can’t seem to get a high profile job again however hard he tries. We were all wrong though (about Shaggy not Hunt). Two short years later he did it again pulling off another chart topper with “Boombastic”. Roll on another five years and he was at it once more with two consecutive No 1s in “It Wasn’t Me” and “Angel”. Even today he’s still around making hit albums with Sting no less. Deliciously, he’s also collaborated with someone called Rayvon which was also the name of the DJ character in Phoenix Nights that used to shout out “Shabba!“ as popularised by fellow three S’s member Shabba Ranks. Sometimes this shit just writes itself.

Mark Franklin rounds of his superb performance with another word perfect outro and we’re out. And that’s how you address an audience Liz Truss, Rishi Sinai, etc etc…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Hue And Cry	Labour Of Love (Remix)	Not the remix but I bought the original on 10″for my brother for his birthday. Think I’ve got that Best Of album as well.
2	Snow	Informer	Hell no!
3	Right Said Fred	Stick It Out	Not even for charity
4	Therapy?	Shortsharpshock EP	I did not
5	Big Country	Alone	Nah
6	The Grid	Crystal Clear	Nope
7	Hot Chocolate	It Started With A Kiss	No
8	Alice In Chains	Them Bones	Negative
9	Sybil	When I’m Good And Ready	Not for me
10	Ugly Kid Joe	Cats In The Cradle	Not bad but no
11	Monie Love	Born 2 B.R.E.E.D	Another no
12	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	And one final 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/m0018zsw/top-of-the-pops-18031993

TOTP 04 MAR 1993

Posted on July 5, 2022 by 80stastic

When did you first become aware of the term ‘Reality TV’? It’s hard to recall the exact moment so ingrained has it become in our cultural terms of reference. Myriad examples of it infest our TV programming schedules of ever more ludicrous concepts and content. I have to admit at this point that I am no TV snob and have watched (and continue to watch) my fair share of Reality TV but when did it actually enter our lives? Received wisdom would suggest it all began with Big Brother back in 2000. Nasty Nick and all that. I for one was hooked back then and for a number of subsequent series until it disappeared up its own arse.

However, there was an earlier Reality TV show that beat Big Brother to our screens by a whole seven years. Three days after this TOTP aired, The Living Soap entered our lives. I say our lives but I’m not entirely sure how many people were actually aware of its existence let alone how many people were watching it. It centred around the lives of six students sharing a house in Manchester which was of specific interest to me as I was living there at the time (though working in Rochdale) and my wife was working at the University library so often saw the cameras recording around campus. I’d been a student myself as recently as 1989 so a chance to revisit that period of my life, even remotely, was also appealing.

The show’s gimmick was that it was aired immediately after it had been filmed and was edited using the very first Avid editing technology. It was essential viewing in our house and Simon, Spider, Karen etc became celebrities in the student body of Manchester. It even had a groovy, contemporary theme tune – “Renaissance” by M People which was eventually released as a single and became a big hit. Predictably, the attention and intrusion of the cameras forced four of the six housemates to leave the show before its culmination being replaced by other ‘famous for fifteen minutes’ wannabes chosen by a public vote.

I wonder what became of them all? They’ll just about be in their early 50s now (I certainly am). The only two I can trace online are Simon McEwan who ended up as a BBC producer and Karen Bishko who has had an unbelievable career. She studied History of Art at Manchester but went onto become a singer songwriter who would be the support for Take That in 2007 and would end up writing a musical that was performed in New York! Anyway, M People aren’t on TOTP tonight but let’s see who are….

We start with a to camera piece by veteran radio DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman. Why? Well, it’s in aid of Comic Relief and if it’s that time of year then that can only mean one thing – another terrible charity record. Recent years had seen the likes of Bananarama, Mr Bean with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and Hale & Pace on single duty. The 1993 vintage was a rather obvious choice – everyone’s favourite fun chart act Right Said Fred. I mean this was an open goal surely? Who else was even in the running?

As with Hale & Pace two years earlier, the song was written specifically for the cause and was based around that year’s theme which was “Stick It Out”. Oo’er and indeed missus. The single was officially credited to Right Said Fred and Friends with the latter being various celebs of the time adding their ‘hilarious’ contributions. I know I’m stating the bleeding obvious here but this song is really, really terrible. An absolute stinker. Completely devoid of any merit – I’m talking musically of course. It’s good that it raised some money for Comic Relief although you’d have to ask who on earth bought this shite?!

As it’s the Freds, there’s the obligatory bit of double entendre in the lyrics where they sing about ‘a tall erection’ and sticking it out ‘on the doctor’s couch’ (which sounds a bit creepy) and the the rest of it seems to be a rewrite of Spitting Image’s “The Chicken Song” with lines like ‘clean your teeth with your feet’, ‘take a sprout for a walk’ and ‘make a sand igloo’. The studio performance is intercut with the official video for the celebrity interventions and almost inevitably, Bernard Cribbins, whose 1962 novelty song gave the band their name, turns up. Not you too Cribbins. Say it ain’t so! “Stick It Out” peaked at No 4.

https://youtu.be/DIcnd3A4DCU

One of only three songs in tonight’s show that we’ve seen before now as we get the video for “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz. It’s a basic performance promo but it’s the staging of it that makes it memorable. The circular, tiered arena set has a Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe recalling that scene with Meatloaf as Eddie on his motorbike but it’s the overhead lighting that is the money shot. Consisting of 983 incandescent tubes that could be brightened and dimmed to form patterns of light, it’s a pretty cool effect, certainly for 1993.

Although the parent album was a big success, Kravitz struggled to replicate the title track’s sales with any of the subsequent singles released from it. The “Circus” album followed in 1995 but couldn’t match its predecessor’s numbers but Lenny finished the decade with a surprise UK No 1 single in “Fly Away”.

Well this is confusing. When I saw All About Eve on the running order for this show, I automatically thought it was referring to the “Martha’s Harbour” hitmakers but no. “All About Eve” was the name of the song with the artist being Marxman. I have zero recollection of them or their track so I was surprised to see that they have a decent sized Wikipedia entry. It turns out that they were quite the trailblazers. Perhaps rather lazily referred to as the Anglo-Irish Public Enemy, it’s certainly true that their music was informed by their militant socialist values and their message of ending economic and social injustices. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story behind the slogans on their T-shirts in this performance:

The slogan on Marxman's t-shirts, "Self defence is no offence", was used in campaigns for the release of women such as Sara Thornton, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990 after being convicted of murdering her abusive husband. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 1, 2022

Wow! Do you think the TOTP producers were aware of what they we’re putting on our screens? I’m sure the show had shied away from such political messaging previously. As for Marxman’s sound, I quite like this track though I am getting some heavy Love City Groove vibes. Who were Love City Groove? This was Love City Groove…

OK, that’s possibly a bit too irreverent a comparison. I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read, that Marxman’s legacy is a sight more substantial than Love City Groove’s. They toured with both U2 and Depeche Mode and collaborated with artists like The Pogues and Sinéad O’Connor and producers such as DJ Premier of Gang Starr.

“All About Eve” peaked at No 28 and was the band’s only chart hit.

Now here’s a seminal song if ever I heard one. Now hear me out but is there a case for saying that Suede were the indie Take That? No, wait! Come back! Don’t go! Listen, by that I mean they both bands had experienced the unusual career trajectory of generating more press column inches than record sales in their early days; Take That in the teen mags and Suede in the inkies. Both bands would curiously finally correct that with their biggest hit singles to date that both peaked at No 7. For Take That see “It Only Takes A Minute” and for Suede it was “Animal Nitrate”. That’s the end of the Take That comparisons honest!

Despite their media profile, Suede’s first two singles had peaked at No 49 (“The Drowners”) and No 17 (“Metal Mickey”). There were no such brakes on the progress up there charts for “Animal Nitrate”. It just sounded so fresh, so new, so…dangerous. It was an enormous, snarling sound with Brett Anderson’s androgynous vocals allied to Bernard Butler’s irresistible, epic opening guitar riff a potent combination.

Like most of us, I think my first hearing of the song came a couple of weeks before this TOTP on 16th February when Suede performed it at the BRITS. The NME had campaigned for the new indie press darlings to perform on the show despite not being nominated for anything. Their performance that night felt important. They were introduced as “the already legendary Suede” and despite their fledgling career, that didn’t sound like hyperbole. Obviously the focus fell on Brett Anderson with his provocative image of naked chest, bobbed haircut and the slapping of his own arse. It was a genuine WTF? moment.

There was no looking back after that with the single going Top 10 and their much anticipated eponymous debut album going to No 1 on its release later in March. It felt like something significant was happening. In the end something did happen though, for many, the movement that followed Suede’s success would be ultimately unfulfilling.

This week’s live satellite broadcast comes from Hawaii and features k.d. Lang who thus far was best known in the UK for her duet with Roy Orbison on their re-recording of “Crying”. k.d. (it stands for Kathryn Dawn) had, however, been around for years on the country circuit before her 1992 album “Ingénue” (a more commercial and less traditional collection of songs) brought her mainstream recognition and success. The lead single from it was “Constant Craving” which would become both her most successful and recognised song. It took a couple of attempts though to make it a hit. It stalled at No 52 when it was originally released in 1992. I’m pretty sure that I’d heard it then and was aware of who she was but I can’t be sure. It’s thirty years ago!

Anyway, it was a No 15 success the second time around and deservedly so – it’s a good tune. I can’t be sure if it was 1992 or 1993 but in one of those years, some poor sod in the Our Price North West region was tasked with compiling every employee’s favourite musical choices of the year including single. So wide ranging were the replies in this category that the winning song only needed four votes to top the poll. The winner? Yep, “Constant Craving”.

My wife was a big fan and bought the “Ingénue” album. At some point in the decade (I’m not sure of the year and can’t be arsed to check) we even went to see her live at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Her voice was amazing as I recall. As an out lesbian artist, her audience reflected that. As we entered the venue, we were behind one lady with a very short haircut who was wearing a Harrington jacket and big Dr Marten boots. The young guy checking the tickets called her ‘sir’ and got an earful back in reply. I did kind of feel sorry for him. I think he wasn’t very culturally aware and that it was a genuine mistake.

The mix on the performance here is very odd with k.d. drowning out what I presume is a backing track easily. It feels like she’s singing accompanied by a cheap karaoke machine. Although the album sold well going to No 3 in the charts, k.d. never had another UK Top 40 hit. Follow up “Miss Chatelaine” got decent airplay but only got as far as No 68.

https://youtu.be/0CcQ3x82g04

Nah, I’ve not really got anything much to say about this next act. Had host Mark Franklin not introduced them I wouldn’t have known just by looking at them that this was Runrig. I mean I was aware that there existed a band called Runrig and that they played Celtic rock music but I didn’t really know any of their stuff at all. To be fair to me, “Wonderful” was only the band’s second charting single after the “Hearthammer EP” in 1991.

Watching this back, I kind of feel sorry for the band. Their first time on TOTP after being in existence since 1973 and they deliver that performance. I mean I know it’s not fair to expect an over the top, all singing and dancing extravaganza when they’re a bunch of forty something guys playing a rather average rock song but come on! They’re like Big Country’s more sensible, straight laced elder brothers. Do you think the lead singer had always been planning on wearing a leather jacket if he ever got on TOTP whenever that might be – the 70s, the 80s whenever? I guess it is a classic item of clothing but it just seems to jar somehow.

Anyway, “Wonderful” peaked at No 29 and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Ah shit. We’re back to four Breakers this week after none on the last show. More content for me to have to come up with then. Super! Now, one political activist group on the show was quite daring but two? What was going on?! Like Marxman before them, Rage Against The Machine’s music was all about political messaging and anti-authoritarian views. Not that I understood any of that at the time. I thought it was all a bit of an unholy racket. Anyway, “Killing In The Name” was their debut single and although it would achieve a respectable peak of No 25 on the UK Top 40, that was by no means the end or indeed the highlight of its chart story.

Fast forward sixteen years and the singles chart is unrecognisable from its heyday with the once much celebrated race for the Xmas No 1 now hijacked and debased by TV talent show The X Factor. Two members of the public had had enough and formed a Facebook group to campaign for people to buy “Killing In The Name” instead of that year’s X Factor winner’ song. The campaign went viral and, with a physical release of RATM’s track not required as it could be downloaded online and still count as a sale, “Killing In The Name” was duly crowned Xmas No 1 for 2009. I felt a little bit for that year’s X Factor winner little Geordie Joe McElderry who got caught up in the whole media frenzy and was asked about whether such galvanising campaigns should be allowed to subvert the chart compilation in that way but ah, what the hell.

After doing a studio performance last week, Bryan Ferry’s cover of “I Put A Spell On You” is now officially a Breaker at No 22. As you’d expect, the video is set in a nightclub and populated by gorgeous models with Louise Brooks hairstyles looking glamorous and seductive whilst Bryan lurks in the shadows. It’s all very Ferry.

I suggested in a previous post that Annie Lennox had done a superior cover of the song but there is also this by the much underrated Alan Price as well. I do like a bit of Alan Price now and again I have to say…

There was definitely something up with TOTP producer Stanley Appel this week. Not only did he put two political activist groups in the show but he also sneaked The Jesus Lizard into the running order! These Illinois noise rockers (yes, ‘noise rock’ was a thing apparently) were surely one of the unlikeliest of bands to ever appear on the Beeb’s prime time music show but here they were riding on the coat tails of Nirvana’s success with a split single release of their song “Puss” along with Kurt Cobain’s “Oh, The Guilt”. I seem to remember that this was only available on a limited edition 7” but I could be wrong. If I didn’t get Rage Against The Machine then I certainly wasn’t going to be swayed by this lot.

Three years later though I did have my own peculiar little Jesus Lizard moment. It came when I was serving a customer in the Our Price in Stockport who was enquiring about the new George Michael single and wanted to know what it was called. My confident reply? “It’s called ‘Jesus To A Lizard’ madam” before correcting myself to “Jesus To A Child”. Talk about a brain fart. How we laughed!

“Puss / Oh, The Guilt” peaked at No 12.

The final Breaker is the latest single from Madonna. The third single taken from her “Erotica” album, “Bad Girl” is an almost forgotten Madge hit – well, I’d forgotten all about it anyway. To be fair to myself, she’s released eighty-nine singles to date so some of those were bound to skip through my memory cells. I’d also forgotten about the video featuring Christopher Walken who plays the role of Madonna’s character’s guardian angel thereby predating his infamous dancing appearance in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice” by some eight years.

“Bad Girl” kept up Madonna’s run of UK Top 10 singles in the 90s by just creeping in at No 10 itself but in the US it became her first single to fail to make the Billboard Top 20 thus breaking a run of twenty-seven hits starting with “Holiday” in 1983 and ending with “Deeper And Deeper” in 1992. Tellingly for Madonna though, this brief Breakers appearance was the only time we saw “Bad Girl” on TOTP. Back in the 80s, wouldn’t a new Madonna single and video have warranted a much bigger fanfare than this?! We weren’t (gulp) getting bored of her surely?

Just to rub salt into Madge’s wounds, here comes a performance from a legendary female artist that does get the full bells and whistles treatment with host Mark Franklin even going so far as to say he was proud to introduce her. He was talking, of course, of (Miss) Diana Ross. If “Bad Girl” is a forgotten Madonna single though, what does that make “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)”? This was yet another single to be lifted from her “Force Behind The Power” album that had already been out eighteen months! It’s one of those songs that you’ve forgotten about as soon as the last note has disappeared into the ether. So vacuous was it that it was hardly there at all. A bit like Michelle Donelan being Secretary of State for Education for thirty-six hours or however long it was. As I say, hardly there at all.

There was one thing to note here though. Diana’s clearly borrowed that bloke from Runrig’s leather jacket for this performance – maybe I was wrong to ridicule him after all. “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)” peaked at No 31 – don’t ask me how it even got that far up the chart.

Still top of the pile are 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. I think they’ve got one more week after this but that won’t be the last we’ll see of them as there’s at least another four Top 10 hits to come from them in the next couple of years.

What do you think the pinball themed video was all about? Was it some sort of Elton John / Tommy / The Who tribute?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I Buy it?
1	Right Said Fred And Friends	Stick It Out	Not even for charity
2	Lenny Kravitz	Are You Gonna Go My Way	No
3	Marxman	All About Eve	Nope
4	Suede	Animal Nitrate	No the single but I had the album
5	k.d.Lang	Constant Craving	Not but my wife had the album
6	Runrig	Wonderful	Never
7	Rage Against The Machine	Killing In The Name	Nah
8	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had a promo copy of the album
9	The Jesus Lizard / Nirvana	Puss / Oh, The Guilt	Negative
10	Madonna	Bad Girl	I did not
11	Diana Ross	Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)	As if
12	2 Unlimited	No Limit	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/m0018s7p/top-of-the-pops-04031993

TOTP 30 APR 1992

Posted on February 17, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s the last day of April 1992 at TOTP Rewind and the UK charts are in the middle of a run of being topped by eleven different albums by eleven different artists in consecutive weeks. This was due partly to the release schedules being full of new albums being released by established artists including Bruce Springsteen, Def Leppard and The Cure. I’ll include Annie Lennox in that category as well despite “Diva” being her debut solo album. Right Said Fred’s “Up” made it to the top spot off the back of “Deeply Dippy” giving them a No 1 double whammy. There are two Greatest Hits albums in there courtesy of Madness and Lionel Richie, a loyal fan based generated chart topper from Iron Maiden, a Eurovision Song Contest driven album from the UK’s entry Michael Ball and of course the ubiquitous Simply Red. The only album in this sequence that was a real surprise came from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.

The singles chart was stagnant by comparison with only twelve different songs making it to No 1 all year, the lowest number since 1962. Were any of this week’s offerings on TOTP amongst them? Well, yes obviously there’s this week’s actual No 1 but apart from that is obviously what I meant!

We start with Marc Almond whose version of “The Days Of Pearly Spencer” is ripping up the charts and currently residing in the No 4 spot. Host Tony Dortie promotes it as a future No 1 later on. Was his prediction correct? Well, *SPOILER* no but No 4 was a damn fine effort by Marc. With the exception of his No 1 in 1989 with Gene Pitney, his biggest ever solo hit before this was his cover of Jacques Brel’s “Jacky” which peaked at No 17.

Like Vanessa Williams the other week, Marc is backed by a seated orchestra in full performance dress code. The effect is rather spoilt though as Marc is isolated away from the orchestra on a small circular stage and surrounded by the studio audience clapping along enthusiastically. The sound of the hand claps is rather incongruous drowning out as it does the strings of the orchestra. Marc gives a professional turn though, all serious mannerisms and intense staring at the camera.

Marc would only make the UK Top 40 would more time in 1995 with “Adored And Explored” but continues to release material both in his own right and as part of a rejuvenated Soft Cell.

It’s another one of those live satellite link ups next. I’m not sure they have quite been the success that new producer Stanley Appel must have hoped they would be. It all seems very clunky and the talky bits between the presenters and artist are excruciating. That’s if they can even hear each other. In the last such link up, either Roxette couldn’t hear guest hosts Smashie and Nicey due to a technical fault or they were ignoring them.

This week’s ‘satellite’ artist are En Vogue who are coming at us live from LA on the legendary Soul Train TV show. We hadn’t seen En Vogue for a whole two years since their debut hit single “Hold On”. I’d pretty much forgotten all about them but suddenly they were back with a track that would become another huge success in “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”.

I remember not being sure about this track when I first heard it – I think it was all those ‘ooh bops’ and that a capella breakdown half way through. It was a bit too far removed from my pop sensibilities. However, my wife loved it and I can see why now. If you Google this song, the word that keeps coming up in all the online reviews is ‘sassy’ and it’s a spot on description. These ladies were all about sassy and female empowerment.

The lead single from their “Funky Divas” album, it was a hell of a way to announce that they were back. A No 2 hit in the US and No 4 in the UK, this wasn’t even the best single released from the album for me with that honour going to anti-prejudice anthem ”Free Your Mind”.

Their performance here is great but was it live? It almost sounds too perfect. Maybe you could get away with miming if you weren’t actually in the TOTP studio and therefore didn’t have to abide by the live vocal policy? I’m sure that’s the loophole that Boris Johnson’s legal team would be pursuing.

At the start of this post I commented on how the album charts were being dominated by established artists but was that true of the Top 40 singles? Well, in this show we’ve got some R’n’B, some goth rock, some metal, two 80s acts showing there was still life in them into the 90s and…erm… Right Said Fred. And this lot who presenter Claudia Simon described as when rave meets reggae whilst also claiming that TOTP brought us all kinds of music. Hard to dispute that given tonight’s running order. Fellow presenter Tony Dortie said it was his favourite current Top 40 hit. SL2 were the act that were the apple of Tony’s eye and their hit was “On A Ragga Tip”. This was the second consecutive hit for these London hardcore ravers after 1991’s “DJs Take Control /Way In My Brain” and would be the biggest of their career when it peaked at No 2.

Not being much of a rave nor reggae fan, this didn’t really do anything for me. Apparently it’s built around a sample from Jah Screechy called “Walk And Skank”. I’ve no idea who Jah Screechy is or was but I’m betting that you can’t see his song title for the first time without doing a double take after reading it as something else completely!

In this performance the dancer on the left clearly loses her place in her moves at one point and has to count herself back in. Don’t get me wrong, they’re impressively complicated steps but it was quite noticeable.

https://youtu.be/_ff7Dr0d-4w

What’s the difference between The Beatles and The Sisters Of Mercy? Yes, obviously one were the lovable mop tops who’s sound ate the world and the others are some dour goths from Leeds but that’s not what I meant. No, I was after the answer that one gave up touring to concentrate on recording studio albums and the other gave up recording studio albums to concentrate on touring. Incredibly, Andrew Eldritch and co have not released any new material since 1993 due to a dispute with their record label EastWest. The band went on strike against the label in 1993. Why? It seems to be about accusations against the label of incompetence including a disastrously planned tour with Public Enemy. Unfortunately for the Sisters, they still owed the label two albums according to their contract and were forced to re-record 1983 single “Temple Of Love” as “Temple Of Love 92” for a compilation of their early back catalogue called “Some Girls Wander By Mistake”. To jazz it up a bit (can you jazz up goth rock?) they’ve got in Ofra Haza of “Im Nin’alu” fame on backing vocals.

This version went straight into the charts at No 3 which seemed slightly surprising to me back then and still does today. In my teenage years, going goth was a cool statement to make. I flirted with the fringes of it but never quite had the conviction to dye my hair black so I’m hardly a knowledgeable commentator on this but it still seems an unlikely chart high. Maybe I’m doing them a disservice. I’m sure they had/have a loyal fan base of hardcore devotees.

A second compilation album, “A Slight Case Of Overbombing”, released in 1993 covered the band’s back catalogue from 1984 onwards but their recording contract stipulated that they still owed EastWest two studio albums. In the end, the label accepted two albums under the moniker of SSV which were a project constructed by Eldritch just to fulfil their contractual obligations. The albums consisted of just some synths, no percussion and some mumbled, spoken word vocals by Eldritch on a loop. EastWest accepted the master tapes without listening to them first. The recordings were never released. This story reminds me of that scene in 24 Hour Party People where Shaun Ryder and Happy Mondays manager Nathan meet Tony Wilson in Dry bar in Manchester to deliver the master tapes for the band’s eagerly awaited “Yes Please” album. Listening to the tapes, Wilson starts getting into the first track until he realises there are no vocals on them with Ryder and manager giggling in the background as they’ve spent all the money Wilson fronted for the album to be recorded in Barbados on drugs.

Eldritch looks here like he’s been to a health spa since the last time we saw him on the show when he looked like a living waxwork. I guess even goth rock gods have to grow up eventually .

https://youtu.be/X8WH-vqGm3Y

I guess there was no way that TOTP wasn’t going to show Michael Jackson’s video for “In The Closet” again given the chance. Although it’s only at No 8 in the charts, that’s good enough for a second outing for it. The track was actually credited to ‘Michael Jackson and Mystery Girl’ the latter of whom provides some whispered vocals in the middle. It turns out that was Princess Stéphanie of Monaco who had a brief career as a pop star in the 80s but who was completely washed up by 1992. Maybe she thought she could relaunch herself off the back of this Jackson track. If so, might have been BBC a good idea to get yourself a proper credit rather than a lame pseudonym. Hands up who else now has the execrable “Mysterious Girl” by Peter Andre in their head after reading the above paragraph? Many apologies.

Now this next link was unusual. The Cure were meant to be playing in the studio performing “Friday I’m In Love” according to Tony Dortie but there’s a problem. Singer Robert Smith is not available due to illness so they’re going to have to play the video instead. Nothing that out of the ordinary except…why are band members Simon Gallup and Perry Bamonte in the studio to deliver this news? Was Robert taken ill at the very last moment? What gives? Simon and Perry look they’d rather be bungee jumping into a live volcano than being interviewed on TOTP. They also don’t seem too convincing with their story. Were they not on the level? Here’s @TOTPFacts:

So… was Robert Smith really "not very well"? At The Cure's Nottingham Rock City gig on 27 April 1992 he asked the audience whether or not they should bother doing it. The majority of the audience said no… #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 11, 2022

Cheeky scamps! As for their song, this is surely one of the band’s most radio friendly and therefore well known singles. The chaotically simple video with its fast cuts, set pieces and ever changing backdrop curtains just adds to its charm and won an MTV Video Music Award. The Cure were never as big commercially again as they were in this moment but then Robert Smith probably wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They’ve moved the Breakers again back to that incongruous position just before the No 1. There’s also four of them which is deeply unhelpful to this blogger who is already behind schedule writing up all these TOTP repeats. The intro for this feature sees Tony Dortie and Claudia Simon as disembodied heads on multiple giant video screens which was presumably meant to be cutting edge at the time… or was it just a blatant Max Headroom rip off? The script for the intro sounds like it was written just 10 seconds before being spoken with Extreme described as having “one hot song” and Metallica being about to “rock in at 12”. Oh dear.

And it’s Metallica that we start with “Nothing Else Matters”, the third single from their eponymous ‘black’ album. Apparently this is one of the LA heavy metallers best known and most loved songs but I’m afraid it must have passed me by. I’m trying to remember who I was working with in the Market Street Our Price shop in Manchester at the time who was a big rock fan who might have played the album in store but I can’t think of any which may explain my unawareness of it. Hang on! Our Price legend Knoxy was there and he was a true rocker. He must have given the album a spin a few times surely? I loved working with Knoxy. King of the one liners (not all of them PC back then I have to say) and possessor of an epic quiff. He later grew a huge mane of rock god hair. Top bloke.

“Nothing Else Matters” peaked at No 6.

Now this was a chart (ahem) curiosity. Back in 1987, Curiosity Killed The Cat were the dog’s bollocks when it came to being the next happening chart stars. “Down To Earth” took them to No 3 and their debut album was a chart topper. The newspapers and glossy music mags were full of these four groovy hipsters (not that sort of hipster!) with their good looks and danceable pop tunes especially lead singer Ben Volpeliere- Pierrot and his ever present beret. By the end of the year though, they were pretty much done with just one further Top 40 hit arriving in 1989.

A 90s comeback was surely not on anybody’s cards but never underestimate the power of a cover version. Trimmed down to a three piece and with a truncated band name of just Curiosity, they recorded Johnny Bristol’s innuendo heavy 1974 No 3 hit “Hang On In There Baby”. They may not have had nine lives like the felines that inspired their original name but they must have used up at least three to be back in the charts five years after their first hit. This really was a last hurrah though despite the single equalling the chart peak of Bristol’s original. Two subsequent singles failed to scratch the Top 40 and a third album “Back To Front” went straight in the bin like so much cat litter.

While the rest of the band gave up on the idea of being pop stars after that, Ben Volpeliere- Pierrot clung on to the notion that he still was and carried on performing at retro festivals. I even saw him at one of those 80s Rewind concerts in Manchester around 2001. I think he was advertised as ‘Ben from Curiosity Killed The Cat’. He was first on a bill of about seven acts. Miaow!

It’s that “hot song” from Extreme next. “Song For Love” was the fifth and final single to be released from the band’s “Pornograffitti” album and *guilty pleasure alert* possibly my favourite. It’s completely prosaic and hackneyed but I kind of like it anyway. It sounds like the band had been listening to “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You” by Argent that was covered by Kiss for Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey which I also had a soft spot for.

The band would return later in the year with their concept album “III Sides To Every Story” which despite receiving acclaim from their fan base sold poorly due to the absence of a genre bending, mainstream appealing hit single like “More Than Words” had been.

After opening the show last week, EMF find themselves with just a few seconds in the Breakers this week. Last week’s appearance was billed as an ‘Exclusive’ so I’m guessing their “Unexplained EP” hadn’t actually entered the charts at that point. It’s in at No 18 this week. Its spot in the Breakers didn’t do much for its chart prospects though as it didn’t get any higher.

I’m still not convinced about the legitimacy of the Breakers. In reality it was probably just the second tier of exposure that the show’s producers could offer to record labels wanting to promote their acts with the first tier obviously being a full in studio performance or playing of the promo video.

There’s a weird addendum at the end of the section when Claudia Simon bigs up the diversity of artists featured but reserves a special mention for one of them when she says “as for Extreme, they are just so good”. Odd.

Right Said Fred are at No 1 again with “Deeply Dippy” and the talk on Twitter was all about what Richard Fairbrass was wearing which seemed to be some sort of Lycra onesie. More accurately it was what his outfit highlighted that was the hot topic of conversation. It’s hard to unsee his package once you’ve noticed it. And how could you fail to notice it. Not since Stuart Adamson of Big County wore his tight white strides back in the 80s had such a lunchbox been spied. I think this tweet from Lee Roberts probably summed up most people’s reaction:

Ffs put it away mate
— Lee Roberts (@MrScoops76) February 11, 2022

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Marc Almond	The Days Of Pearly Spencer	I did not
2	En Vogue	My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)	Yes this is in the singles box but I think my wife bought it
3	SL2	On A Ragga Tip	Nah
4	Sisters Of Mercy	Temple Of Love 92	Nope
5	Michael Jackson	In the Closet	Negative
6	The Cure	Friday I’m In Love	Not the single but I have a Greatest Hits of theirs with it on
7	Metallica	Nothing Else Matters	But neither did this – no
8	Curiosity	Hang On In There Baby	No
9	Extreme	Song For Love	Liked it, didn’t buy it
10	EMF	The Unexplained EP	It’s a no
11	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	And a final 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/m00149b0/top-of-the-pops-30041992

TOTP 23 APR 1992

Posted on February 15, 2022 by 80stastic

The curse of Adrian Rose has struck again meaning we have missed the 16 April show. As such we arrive in the week that the race for the last ever First Division title was decided before the juggernaut of the Premier League arrived the following season. The day before this TOTP aired. Manchester United had suffered an unexpected 1-0 loss at relegation threatened West Ham. This set up a scenario whereby title rivals Leeds could become champions at the weekend if they won and United lost again. Both teams were due to play on the Sunday with Leeds playing first away at Sheffield United and Man Utd facing the daunting task of a trip to their old enemy Liverpool.

As it turned out, at the same time that Leeds were playing their game, I was also involved in a match of high stakes when I played for an Our Price team against a team of record company reps on some playing field somewhere in the Greater Manchester area. I have very little recall of the game (certainly not the result) though I do remember thinking I could be watching Sunday morning TV rather than doing this shit for absolutely nobody’s benefit. As we left the field after somebody had decided enough was enough (there was no ref to call full time), Leeds were securing a 3-2 win courtesy of a ludicrous own goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtT3mDAECNU

Later that day I watched ITV’s coverage of Man Utd 0-2 loss at Liverpool which made Leeds the champions. They had a TV crew at Leeds striker Lee Chapman’s house who had some of his team mates with him including the talismanic Eric Cantona and dour Yorkshire man David Batty. As the final whistle sounded at Anfield, a live link to Chapman’s living room enabled an immediate reaction from the Leeds players. Asked how he felt at winning the title by the interviewer, Batty replied “well, it’s a bonus”. Now that’s what I call an exclusive scoop!

TOTP start the show this week with their own exclusive scoop – the return of EMF! Hmm. The underwhelmed David Batty or a new EMF single – which was the bigger scoop? I think we’ll call that one a draw. Don’t get me wrong, I loved “Unbelievable” it’s just that everything that came after that was all a bit samey but not quite as good. Some 18 months on from their moment of magnificence, were we all still on tenterhooks awaiting new material from the band.? Whether we were or not, new material was what we got and not just one song but four in the form of the “Unexplained EP”. I say four new songs but one of them was a cover of Iggy And The Stooges’ “Search And Destroy” but let’s not be pedantic.

The song performed here is “Getting Through” and it didn’t tinker with the EMF formula too much, basically being yet another rehash of everything they had gone before. The result wasn’t terrible just a bit…meh. Lead singer James still has his terrible trademark headgear on and nothing seems to have moved forward at all.

In September they released their second album “Stigma” (which included “Getting Through”) to a lukewarm reaction when it peaked at No 19 and spent just two weeks on the chart before dropping as fast as David Batty’s excitement levels.

The “Unexplained” EP peaked at No 18.

Not this fella again! I think this is the third time for Curtis Stigers and his second hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. This performance is a carbon copy of the one he did the other week even down to the white shirt and waistcoat combo he’s wearing and has forced the members of his backing band to as well. He’s even in in the same spot in the running order just after the Top 10 countdown. He has changed his backing singers and has got them a bit more coordinated in their dance moves although it’s pretty much your basic nerd shuffle. Enough of this. Next!

Well, this is as far removed from Curtis Stigers as it gets. Here’s Iron Maiden! You have to hand it to these lads, they had a loyal fan base and knew how to utilise them. Since 1988, the chart peaks of their seven singles released in that period were:

3-5-6-6-3-1-2

The final number in that sequence relates to this track “Be Quick Or Be Dead”, the lead single from their ninth studio album “Fear Of The Dark”. Never mind EMF sticking to a formula, this lot had been churning out variations on the same theme for years. I know that opinion is heresy to their fans but, like I say, it’s just an opinion.

The CD single came with a hidden extra track called “Bayswater Ain’t A Bad Place To Be” which is basically Bruce Dickinson ripping the piss out of the band’s manager Rod Smallwood in an accent that sounds a bit like Bill Oddie. I managed about two and a half minutes of the eight minutes and eight seconds of it. Can you do any better?

They’ve moved the Breakers to a more sensible position in the show as opposed to just before the No 1 so here they are starting with Marc Almond and “The Days Of Pearly Spencer”. I had no idea initially that this wasn’t an Almond original but it is of course a cover version of a David McWilliams tune. Who? Well, he was a Belfast singer songwriter who scored a No 1 hit with his “Harlem Lady” single in France but remained largely unknown in the UK. “The Days Of Pearly Spencer” was on the B-side of “Harlem Lady” and gained a lot of attention due to a massive advertising campaign launched by his manager Phil Solomon but it failed in the UK as Radio 1 refused to play it due to Solomon’s close ties to pirate radio station Radio Caroline. Supposedly written about a homeless man in Ballymena, County Antrim, its heavily stylised chorus came about from recording McWilliams’ vocals using a telephone line from a phone box near the studio.

Marc’s version was taken from his “Tenement Symphony” album and was quirky enough to prick the curiosity of the record buying public who made it a huge No 4 hit. Considering the majority of his solo singles were minor hits at best and often chart flops (with the obviously huge exception of “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart”) this was both a big deal and very surprising. Unfortunately the single’s success didn’t translate to the album which peaked at a low lowly No 39.

https://youtu.be/4NlGAVdkqKA

If Leeds United were having a stellar season in 1991/92 finishing as First Division champions, then Kylie Minogue was having a distinctly mid table time of it. Her album “Lets Get To It” had seriously underperformed with two of the four singles from it not making the UK Top 10, the first time this had ever happened to her.

The second of those singles was “Finer Feelings” which at the time the critics were talking up as indicating a more mature direction that she would surely be following once her much predicted uncoupling from Stock, Aitken and Waterman was complete. Maybe the press was just reacting to the fact that the lyrics referred to ‘sex’ and ‘sexual healing’. Like “Word Is Out” before it, “Finer Feelings” is very much a forgotten Kylie single although it was also a line in the sand as a demarcation between her eras. Her next studio album would be on dance label Deconstruction and would usher in a whole new phase of her career.

After I’ve moaned on about the Breakers section bring a waste of time recently with it featuring singles that would amount to very little chart wise and which would not be seen on TOTP again, it seems to have been repurposed to highlight those that have been on the show as recently as the previous week and are now moving up the charts. Two of this week’s Breakers fall into that category. Kylie was the first and now comes Michael Ball who was on the show just seven days before.

After a brief but very successful time in the charts during 1989 when “Love Changes Everything” was a No 2 hit, you could have been forgiven for thinking that was it for The Ballster as a pop star. However, never underestimate the influence of the Eurovision Sing Contest. Well, at least not in the early 90s.

After the failure of Samantha Janus the previous year, the BBC took the decision of who would represent the UK out of the public’s hands and pre chose Ball. They did though allow us to choose which song he would sing out of a choice of eight. Yes, that meant that A Song For Europe show this year featured a lot of Michael Ball! “One Step Out Of Time” was the track given the honour of representing the country and what a fluffy, little lightweight thing it was. I never felt like it really suited Ball’s voice but maybe that’s because all I’d ever heard him sing before that was “Love Changes Everything”. However, it very nearly did the business on the big night coming in second to Ireland (obviously).

The sliding sections video has a feel of Duran Duran’s “Rio” to it though Michael was hardly the Simon Le Bon type. An album was released off the back of the single’s success which included “Love Changes Everything” despite it having been released as a single a whole three years prior. And if you thought Michael Ball was bad, the following year’s entry was Sonia!

The second mention in this section for the Deconstruction label comes courtesy of K–Klass. These arch mixers had a massive hit in their own right at the back end of 1991 with “Rhythm Is A Mystery” so they thought they’d have a go at doing it all over again with follow up single “So Right”. I don’t remember this track so couldn’t tell you how this went at all but I’m guessing it sounds exactly the same as the first hit.

*listens to 30 seconds of the track*

Yep. I was right. Next!

Rivalling Leeds United in the annus mirabilis stakes in 1992 were Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. They even named their No 1 album (No 1!) after the year -“1992 – The Love Album”. How did this happen? A fervently indie act with a defiantly anti-mainstream sound and subversive image as chart topping pop stars? Well, being signed to major label Chrysalis Records who picked up the band after the demise of Rough Trade probably helped but was it just that? Was there also a desire for something reactionary in an era of the conventional and the ordinary that CUSM were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of? Was it to do with their infamous Philip Schofield felling appearance at the Smash Hits Awards show a few months earlier? Or was it just a case of a talented duo with some great songs naturally rising to the top?

Whatever the reason, “Only Living Boy In New Cross” would become the band’s first and only Top 10 hit. A clear play on words of the Simon & Garfunkel song “The Only Living Boy In New York”, its performance here is reminiscent of some of those ‘party atmosphere’ shows of the mid 80s with balloons galore and a stage full of audience members. Didn’t The Smiths do something similar in terms of having a crowd up there with them? I’m pretty sure Wheatus did years later whilst performing “Teenage Dirtbag” on the show.

Inevitably with all peaks, their commercial zenith couldn’t last and it didn’t. Their descent came about just as they’d reached their high point. Headlining that year’s Glastonbury Festival was confirmation of their elevated status and yet it went sour after Fruitbat, infamous rugby tackler of Philip Schofield, insulted the legendary Michael Eavis after being annoyed that their set was cut short due to some bands who were on before them overrunning. It led to a lifetime ban from the festival.

“Only Living Boy In New Cross” peaked at No 7.

https://youtu.be/kUqaoBALGFM

I hate it when the show has an ‘exclusive’ showing of a Michael Jackson video because there’s so much to read about them online whilst doing research for the blog. Anyway, here’s the next one for the third single from his “Dangerous” album “In The Closet”. If the internet had been around in 1992 like it is today then this song title would have been the ultimate click bait. Michael Jackson? In The Closet? Is he coming out of said closet? However the song didn’t reveal anything about Jacko’s sexual orientation but instead dealt with the story of a clandestine relationship. The lyrics were pretty suggestive though with lines like ‘Cause if it’s aching you have to rub it’ and ‘touch me there, make the move’ but then it was co-written with Teddy Riley who also penned such salacious tunes as “Rump Shaker” and “No Diggity”.

I have to say that although I knew there was a Michael Jackson song called “In The Closet”, I couldn’t remember at all how it went. Listening to it now I forgive myself as it’s entirely forgettable. Also suffering from amnesia was Jackson himself who forgot to put any tune into the track – it’s as if it was created purely just to construct a dance routine for the video. Ah yes , the ‘exclusive’ video – that’s crap as well. It’s just Jacko and Naomi Campbell cavorting about on a sepia tinted set. Compared to the mini epics that were his last two videos for “Black And White” and “Remember The Time”, it’s a huge let down.

“In The Closet” only made No 8 on the UK Top 40 and the next two singles did even worse before the trend was reversed with a perfectly timed Xmas release of saccharine ballad “Heal The World” – basically a rewrite of “We Are The World” – just missing the top spot when it peaked at No 2.

We have a new No 1 after eight weeks of Shakespear’s Sister sitting on the throne. Actually, Right Said Fred were No 1 the week before but we missed that show due to the Adrian Rose conundrum but they’re still there this week with “Deeply Dippy”. Now in an interview on the songfacts.com website, the Fairbrass brothers told the story that they nearly toured with Faith No More. Apparently both sides liked what the other did and there was a definite motivation to make it happen but management got cold feet. They were also rumoured to be offered a support slot with Michael Jackson but the band were put off by all the rules, regulations and restrictions surrounding Jackson and being in his presence. Both stories got me thinking about unlikely touring partners or support acts. Surely the most infamous one is Jimi Hendrix supporting The Monkees but there must be other outlandish examples surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EMF	Unexplained EP	Nope
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Nah
3	Iron Maiden	Be Quick Or Be Dead	Certainly not
4	Marc Almond	The Days Of Pearly Spencer	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	Kylie Minogue	Finer Feelings	No but I think my wife had it on a Greatest Hits album
6	Michael Ball	One Step Out Of Time	Did I bollocks!
7	K-Klass	So Right	So wrong – no
8	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Only Living Boy In New Cross	Don’t think I did
9	Michael Jackson	In The Closet	In the bin more like – no
10	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	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/m001499y/top-of-the-pops-23041992

TOTP 09 APR 1992

Posted on February 12, 2022 by 80stastic

As Arcadia almost* once sang, “It’s Election Day” in 1992 and the polls are predicting either a hung parliament or a Labour win. That proved to be as accurate as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Brexit promises for UK prosperity as the Conservative party triumphed albeit with a reduced majority. ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’ screamed The Sun’s front page two days later. Thirty years on and the right wing press is no less influential.

*They actually sang “it’s re-election day”

OK well, after that sombre opening let’s get to the music on tonight’s show which is presented by Tony Dortie and Femi Oke. The latter made her debut on the show the other week but I think she only made a handful of appearances all told. Shame, she seemed like a safe pair of hands. As you’d expect, there’s going to be an overwhelming majority of election references in the links and Tony is first in line getting in the words ‘party’, ‘polls’ and ‘vote’ as he introduces the opening act Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U. Who?! Yeah, I’m lost on this one too. As Tony mentions in his intro, this lot were Belgian techno heads – I bet leave campaigner Jacob hated them – and this single “Injected With A Poison” was their biggest hit. As you know, I was no raver back in the day so this made little impression on me and listening to it now as a 53 year old it sounds like one big horrible noise to my middle aged ears. Apparently this was a remix of their earlier single “Free Your Body/ Injected With A Poison” and according to online popular culture publication Freaky Trigger, featured “an underwater electric whisk” and “one of those duck calling kazoo things”. Yeah, I don’t know about you but neither of those things would be high on my list of essentials in a tune.

Main man Maurice Engelen was also the guy behind recent hit makers Digital Orgasm (or just ‘Digital’ as the controversy avoiding TOTP referred to them). I think that’s him shouting “We don’t need that anymore” and “Are you listening to me?” and looking like he’s been lost in Glastonbury for a decade. He also recorded material under the name Lords Of Acid whose canon of work included tracks called “Rough Sex” and “I Must Increase My Bust”. The latter must surely have been inspired by that 1980 Sunblest bread advert featuring light entertainment star Marti Caine who says “I wonder if it’ll do anything for my bust” as she ponders her chest whilst cramming a slice of bread in her mouth.

“Injected With A Poison” peaked at No 16.

After the Top 10 rundown which, for all those chart curiosity enthusiasts out there, includes two acts whose name both begin with Mr. B…, Femi gets in a name check of the leaders of all three main political parties before introducing the man who ‘gets her vote’ Curtis Stigers who is in the studio to perform his latest hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. There seems to be a rule for the male members of his backing band that they have to have a mop of long hair or be wearing a waistcoat to be allowed on the stage. Or both. In fact, you have to follow the Stigers style or you’re out.

One time when Curtis himself would have wanted to be out occurred years later when he appeared on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. One of their features was some sort of super fan quiz where they got an infatuated member of the public on the show with their idol and asked them questions about them. If they got them right they won a holiday or something. Anyway, a Curtis devotee was on and was asked by host Johnny Vaughan what Stigers’ date of birth was. She got it wrong and so missed out on the competition prize. Curtis thought this was very harsh and called Johnny, as I recall, ”you cruel bastard” or something like that. As a punishment they locked Curtis in a cupboard and promptly forgot all about him. After the show had finished and his PR people turned up asking where he was, they suddenly remembered and had to let him out. When appearing on live daytime TV Curtis, do not swear. That’s all that matters.

Another bangin’ tune next as Altern 8 are here with their second Top 10 hit “Evapor 8”. This performance is mental. Obviously there’s the Altern 8 guys in their hazmat suits and masks for a start. In these pandemic weary days where we’re all used to the notion of mask wearing, back in 1992 this seemed really sinister (well it did to me anyway) and helped create a whiff of danger about the duo. On top of that though, there’s three sports wear clad ‘casuals’ who look like they’re off their tits throwing some shapes, legendary singer P. P. Arnold centre stage wearing a pair of marigolds and a massive dancing robot on stilts!

Given that Tony and Femi were throwing General Election references around like confetti, how did they miss this open goal?

Altern-8's Chris Peat was an independent candidate for the Stafford constituency (then Bill Cash's seat) in the 1992 General Election. He received 158 votes, just beating the Natural Law Party. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 4, 2022

Chris represented the Hardcore Altern8-ive party. I’m guessing their manifesto would have included something about removing government legislation that made raves illegal.

“Evapor 8” by Alter 8 peaked at No 6. Boo! Where’s the symmetry in that!

After the Monster Raving Looniness of Altern 8, we were back to the safe seat of Vanessa Williams next with her ballad “Save The Best For Last”. Has there ever been such a contrast of styles in consecutive performances on the show? From raving robots and face masks to a seated, dinner suited orchestra backing a singer in a sequinned dress. I’m guessing Vanessa didn’t return to America with the opinion that our pop stars were quaint.

From raving mad techno to sophisticated balladry and finally onto tongue in cheek silliness as Right Said Fred are in the studio to perform their future No 1 “Deeply Dippy”. Whilst not an orchestra like Vanessa’s, the Freds do have their own brass packing backing section up there with them and it’s their contribution that really makes this song I think.

Richard Fairbrass camps it up as you would expect dressed in an unbuttoned, garishly coloured frilly shirt and he curiously changes the song’s last line from “I’m takin’ a hot tahiti” to “I’m goin’ to hitchhike to Walthamstow”. Not sure what that was about. An in joke presumably.

Given their current anti vaxxer stance, we can expect their new single, a cover of Praga Khan’s “Free Your Body / Injected With A Poison” any day now.

https://youtu.be/TNnOSmTtPmQ

As announced by the lady herself at the end of the previous TOTP, Cher is tonight’s ‘Exclusive’ performance. Crikey! After Chris De Burgh last week and now Cher, this slot really is down with the kids ain’t it?!

“Could’ve Been You” was the fourth single released from her “Love Hurts” album and like “Save Up All Your Tears” and the title track, this was also a cover version. Bob Halligan’s original came out a year before and sank without trace but was deemed perfect fodder for Cher’s brand of soft rock. It’s a right old plodder if truth be known but Cher can sell anything given an enormous wig and a leather bra and so it dutifully made No 31 over here, no doubt aided by this TOTP performance and her slot on Aspel And Company two days later. Let’s hope she’d learned the song’s words by then as she’s clearly reading them off that monitor at her feet.

Hang about! There’s another ‘Exclusive’ performance straight after Cher’s?! How come Genesis have also got this slot and more importantly who the f**k is Daryl as name checked by Femi in her intro?! When I think of Genesis, I’m thinking Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. At a push I’d include Peter Gabriel although I really don’t know that much about the band’s early career. I’m never thinking of some bloke called Daryl! Who was this geezer? Well if you’re a Genesis super fan then you should have got yourself on The Big Breakfast because you’ll know that Daryl is Daryl Stuermer who’s association with the band goes as far back as 1978. He was their touring lead guitarist and bass player from ‘78 to ‘92 and then again in 2007 for the Turn It In Again Tour and most recently last year for The Last Domino? Tour. He’s on stage with the lads here to perform the band’s latest single “Hold On My Heart”.

This was the third single taken from their “We Can’t Dance” album and was the obligatory ballad after the first two were more rock fare. Honestly, it could be any of the slow songs from their previous album “Invisible Touch” like “In Too Deep” or “Throwing It All Away” or indeed a Phil Collins solo effort like “One More Night” or… well anything from 50% of his back catalogue as he only has two types of song – love lorn ballad or mid temp pop.

You’ll remember that Genesis secured an ‘Exclusive’ slot on the show for the first single off the album called “No Son Of Mine” which went on for about six and a half minutes! Thankfully this performance is restricted to just over four but I really think that six months in to this new format that the producers haven’t got a clue how to make TOTP seem more relevant to the younger element of their audience. Genesis, Cher and Chris De Burgh?! Nadine Dorries looks on top of her interview game by comparison.

“Hold On My Heart” peaked at No 16.

There’s no Breakers this week so there’s only eight acts in the show in total tonight. Not sure why that maybe. It can’t be anything to do with the election as the show is still the same running time and hadn’t been cut short to make way for coverage of the event. I can only assume it’s because of the two ‘exclusive’ performances in the same show from Cher and Genesis taking up the time that would usually be allotted to the Breakers.

As such we’re onto the No 1 already and it’s an eighth and final week at the top for Shakespear’s Sister. I know it’s only half the time that Bryan Adams was at the top and we’ve missed at least one week due to the Adrian Rose issue but it hasn’t felt anywhere near as onerous an experience as the era of the Groover from Vancouver.

Though they would never be as big again, Marcella and Siobahn didn’t disappear immediately after “Stay” had finally departed the charts. A follow up single called “I Don’t Care” would return them to the Top 10 and their album “Hormonally Yours” went double platinum in the UK. However, the relationship between the two was volatile and after being hospitalised for depression, Fahey decided to end their partnership by announcing it in absentia via her publisher at the 1993 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony, an event that Detroit was present at. However there was a happy ending as the two reunited in 2019 having resolved their differences to tour and record new material.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U	Injected with a poison	Hell no
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Not for me thanks
3	Altern 8	Evapor 8	I wasn’t a raver -no
4	Vanessa Williams	Save The Best For Last	Nope
5	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	Nah
6	Cher	Could’ve Been You	No
7	Genesis	Hold On My Heart	Never happening
8	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00142cn/top-of-the-pops-09041992

TOTP 26 MAR 1992

Posted on February 6, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve missed another TOTP repeat broadcast due to the Adrian Rose issue and so find ourselves at the fag end of March 1992. So who is this guy enraging the community of TOTP repeat completists and why won’t he let the shows he presented in be re-shown? I have touched on this subject before when it first became apparent it was an issue at the end of the 1991 programmes. This is the seventh of fifteen that we will miss because of it so a recap feels in order.

It seems Adrian Rose now goes by the name of Adrian Woolfe and is the founder and co-CEO of Studio 1, an international production, distribution and licensing company. His bio on their website shows that he was part of the creative team at Celador that developed Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and was responsible for implementing a brand and marketing roll out strategy for it and managed the show’s intellectual property rights into 107 countries. All this wanky business jargon are the words in his bio not mine by the way! OK, so he’s now a big shot in the entertainment business. Still doesn’t explain his reluctance to have his TOTP past repeated. Apparently ‘he has his reasons’ which is the only rather cryptic explanation emanating from his camp. Whatever they are, it all happened 30 years ago and he’s clearly made a success of his post show career so what’s up with this? Of course, it is Adrian’s prerogative and his ‘crime’ of upsetting some music nostalgia enthusiasts is hardly one to trouble the Met (mind you nothing seems to be worthy of the Met’s due diligence these days) but still. It all seems rather unnecessary.

OK. Enough of Mr Rose/ Woolfe. Onto the shows we do have access to and we start this one with TOTP stalwarts Erasure who are now into their seventh year of appearances on the show. “Breath Of Life” was the fourth and final single from their “Chorus” album and I have to say it’s not the single that immediately comes to my mind when I think of Erasure in 1992. No, that honour would go to their “Abba-esque” EP that would provide them with their first and so far only UK No 1 single. Still, “Breath Of Life” was a bona fide Top 10 hit peaking at No 8 so maybe it doesn’t deserve to be so overlooked. Having said all that, it’s not one of their stronger efforts for me. It seems to have pinched the title of that Squeeze single “Take Me I’m Yours” for its chorus and has a keyboard riff that sounds like it could have been from an early Depeche Mode single; not surprising I guess given Vince Clarke’s musical origins.

As for the performance, usually Erasure seemed to put a lot of thought into the staging of their TOTP appearances but here they seem to just have a mock up of the surface of the moon behind them and some backing singers in very glittery dresses. Also, what was the deal with Vince’s massive synth?! It looks like Cape Canaveral back there.

After their mention in my last post surrounding the hirsute Fred being in the audience of a play I saw whilst visiting my mate Robin in London, Right Said Fred are on the show in performance mode. Not in the studio though as we get the “great” (as presenter Claudia Simon describes it) video for latest single “Deeply Dippy”. The release of this track saw the band at the peak of their popularity when it went to No 1 in the UK.

I have to admit that the first time that I heard this, I found it vastly underwhelming though it’s actually infinitely better than “I’m Too Sexy” which is ultimately a novelty song. Some perspective is needed here obviously. This is Right Said Fred we’re talking about but “Deeply Dippy” does sound quite accomplished in comparison. It actually builds nicely to an uplifting (fair)brass section emboldened climax courtesy of the Average White Band. There’s even some shades of subtlety in there with some shifts of tempo and some gentle guitar noodling. To be fair(brass), the Freds were professional musicians with the brothers having played with the likes of David Bowie and Bob Dylan. They weren’t just some stooges brought in to front the act.

The video is the usual montage of Right Said Fred japes with the band generally just arseing about in various locations surrounded by various leggy models (“see those legs man”). According to an interview with Richard and Fred Fairbrass on the Songfacts website, the promo was deemed too ‘gay’ for US audiences and their American label made them shoot another one. They might as well not have bothered as it sank without trace and the band are still known as a one hit wonder (for “I’m Too Sexy”) over there. Apparently the woman in the green dress is the wife of the Fred who was in the audience of that play I saw down in London a couple of weeks before. I wonder if she was with him.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, we find Annie Lennox who looks like she nipped in on her way to a red carpet event such as the Oscars so sparkly and glamorous is her dress. Never afraid of messing around with gender roles and appearances, Annie’s hair and make up are designed to challenge with their nod to the gothic. After her ‘exclusive’ performance two weeks ago of her debut solo single “Why”, she’s back on the show after crashing into the Top 10 with it. By the way, I’m not counting her 1988 hit single “Put A Little Love In Your Heart” with Al Green from the film Scrooged on account of the fact that…well…she wasn’t solo was she?

Annie doesn’t need any backing musicians nor singers (not even Al Green) up there with her and does the whole thing on her own with just some studio lighting and a smoke machine for company. The audience come in with their applause a tad too early though (presumably on instruction from a floor manager) so that they drown out Annie’s final “You don’t know how I feel” line. Boo!

As with most celebrities, there is a Half Man Half Biscuit song that name checks Annie called “Paintball’s Coming Home” but it took me many a listen to hear the reference. If you don’t know the song, maybe you’ll get it first time…

Next, one of the most ridiculous songs of the whole decade in my book. Def Leppard had not been in the 90s at all up to this point. Presumably they had spent the first two years of it trying to write a follow up album to their monster hit “Hysteria” from which they released just about every track as a single. What they came up with was “Adrenalize” the lead single of which was “Let’s Get Rocked”.

This song was just an appalling waste of everyone’s time. The band’s for recording it, the radio stations for having to play it and the public for having to listen to it. What’s so wrong with it? Well, it’s just dumb ass, bombastic, cliched rock for one but it’s most heinous crime are the lyrics. Yes, I know that lead singer Joe Elliott is assuming a role within it and isn’t singing in the first person per se but it’s still ludicrous to hear a then 31 year old Sheffield man singing about being asked by his Dad to take out the trash and tidy his room and also refer to himself as a ‘dude’. I just couldn’t take it seriously. He then goes on about trying to get his ‘baby in the mood’ before coming out with a double entendre Finbar Saunders would have baulked at “ I suppose a rock’s out of the question”. Good grief!

Just like a Tory minister defending Boris Johnson’s latest gaff, the band had a go at justifying it. Here’s Joe Elliott courtesy of @TOTPFacts.

"We ended up writing this song, lyrically, which summed up the character of Bart Simpson – but [also] the character of any 16-year-old kid that's going through one of those phases with his father." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 28, 2022

Nice try but I wasn’t buying it (metaphorically and literally). As if the song wasn’t bad enough, the video looks like a nasty knock off of the promo for “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits. Back in 1985 that video had blown our minds but by 1992 we’d all seen Michael Jackson’s “Black And White” which made “Let’s Get Rocked” look like caveman scribblings.

The follow up single was the equally risible and bad taste “Make Love Like A Man”. Oh come on now! None of this seemed to bother their fans though who sent “Let’s Get Rocked” to No 2 in the UK and the album “Adrenalize” to the top of the charts both sides of the pond. Well if people can accept and believe Boris Johnson’s lies then buying this shit is hardly a great leap.

This week’s ‘Exclusive’ performance comes from the current US No 1 act Vanessa Williams. Just like Shanice a few weeks before her, Vanessa seemed to appear from nowhere with the song that she will always be known for even though technically she isn’t a one hit wonder. “Save The Best For Last” was No 1 in the US at the time of this TOTP performance even though it had only just sneaked into our Top 40 which I guess was the justification for its ‘exclusive’ billing. A tale of two people having made eyes at each other over the years without acting on it and then finally getting it together, it was a decent ballad but oh so boring. The twee lyrics didn’t help. Whenever I hear it now I’m still convinced that she’s going to sing “sometimes the cow jumps over the moon”.

Vanessa is also an actress and has appeared in loads and loads of film and TV projects like Eraser, Perry Mason, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, Ally McBeal and possibly most famously as The Queen Of Trash in The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland. Alright alright. That last one should be as Wilhelmina Slater in comedy drama Ugly Betty. Oh and that comment about Vanessa technically not being a one hit wonder? She also had a UK No 21 hit in 1995 with the song “Colors Of The Wind” from the soundtrack to the Disney animation Pocahontas. “Save The Best For Last” would miss the top spot over here when it peaked at No 3.

A happy face, a thumpin’ bass for a loving’ race! Soul II Soul are this week’s “mega exclusive” as co-host Mark Franklin describes it and they are back with new material which to my ears was a lighter, more uplifting sound than their previous work. “Joy” was the lead single from their third album “Volume III Just Right” and their trademark thumpin’ bass was replaced by a ‘new vibration rocking the nation’. Other changes included new vocalist Richie Stephens and the addition of a gospel backing choir and a prominent brass section. Jazzie B was still there of course but there was no sign of Caron Wheeler who had embarked on a solo career as the new decade began although she did contribute vocals on one track on “Volume III Just Right”.

It seemed like a solid return for the band when “Joy” peaked at No 4 but subsequent singles from the album failed to even pierce the Top 30. Whilst the album sold steadily, its gold status compared very unfavourably to the triple platinum high of debut “Club Classics Vol. One” from just three years before. The Our Price I was working in had a promo cassette single of “Joy” which I snaffled away for my wife who liked the song. No idea where it is now though.

Now then, to the Breakers of which there are four this week and also of which none of them will feature on the show again. I’m seriously starting to doubt the wisdom of this feature. First up are, like Soul II Soul, another band who are returning with new material after a significant break. The Cure’s last studio album had been 1989’s “Disintegration” with the gap between that and its follow up being plugged by the remix album “Mixed Up”. Come 1992 and they returned with their very first and so far only chart topper “Wish”. Prefacing the album was the single “High”.

It sounded like very traditional Cure fare to me. Good but hardly anything we hadn’t heard before. We played the album in store and my memory of it was that it was pretty gloomy. And then came track 7. “Friday I’m In Love” was joyous and would become one of the best loved and most played songs of their whole back catalogue. However, that’s all for another post. The video for “High” was probably better than the song for me with its cloud imagery giving me very strong Monkey vibes. Not sure what I’m talking about? Watch this…

As he did the other week, Mark Franklin fails to name check all of the artists in this week’s Breakers section. He only refers to three of the four that appear. This suggests to me there wasn’t an autocue so was it scripted like this? If not, was Mark just incapable of holding four names in his head at once? Anyway, the act he doesn’t mention is this one. “Do Not Pass Me By” would be the very last of eight UK Top 40 singles that Hammer would have. I never knew this but it’s actually a reworking of a 19th century hymn called “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior”. Interesting. I maybe shouldn’t be surprised given the career that Hammer (real name Stanley Burrell) went on to have as an ordained preacher. In all, if we’re just looking at the UK, Hammer’s reign as the forefather of ‘pop rap’ lasted just 18 months or so. The largest part of his legacy remains his pants. “Do Not Pass Me By” peaked at No 14.

How do you follow up an unexpected No 1 hit? Well, if you’re Wet Wet Wet, you release a better song than your chart topper which they duly did in “More Than Love”. Previous single “Goodnight Girl” had gloriously returned the band back into mainstream success and so they weren’t about to waste their shot at being pop stars all over again. Instead of re-releasing one of the two singles preceding “Goodnight Girl” from the album “High On The Happy Side” that hadn’t been massive hits, they went with another album track that was a solid, mid tempo, singalong pop song. If Gary Barlow had written this, it would have been regarded as an instant pop classic. As it is, it’s one of the Wets least remembered hits not helped by its unspectacular No 19 chart peak.

The rather basic video seems to have been storyboarded purely to allow Marti Pellow to show off his luxurious locks. In fact the whole band have gone in for the very long hair look except drummer Tommy who seems to be almost bullied by his hirsute band mates given his thin head of hair. Tommy always strikes me as being very much in the same mould as Blur’s Dave Rowntree. The member of the band that garners the least attention but is the most dependable. Drummers. They aren’t all Keith Moons or John Bonhams.

Manic Street Preachers? Again? Weren’t they on just the other week performing “You Love Us”? Yes they were but with momentum building and their reputation preceding them, here’s another single called “Slash ‘N’ Burn”. Released exactly two months after its predecessor, this was another track from their “Generation Terrorists” album, the fourth of six in total. Its strident guitar riffs were inspired by Guns ‘N Roses apparently who also seemed to inspire the song’s title given the inclusion of that ‘n’ instead of ‘and’. It got me thinking how many other times ‘n’ has been used in music history. Obviously there’s Salt ‘n’ Pepa but any others? Erm…Jack ‘n’ Chill?

It’s a sixth week at the top for Shakespear’s Sister. As it’s parent album “Hormonally Yours” is coming up to its 30 years anniversary and is getting a deluxe 2 CD re-release, there was a Guardian article about “Stay” over the weekend. In it, Siobhan Fahey says that the look she was going for in the video was “an unhinged Victorian heroine meets Suzi Quattro meets Labelle!”. Well, obviously. She also admits that she’d been on the vodka in the shoot and was half cut by the time her scenes were being shot. That might explain her maniacal grin as she descended the stairway.

I recall that when their album was released it was heavily discounted in Our Price so that the CD was just £9.99 which was pretty cheap for a chart CD back in the day. Why do I remember this stuff when I can’t remember where I’ve just put my glasses? F**k knows.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Erasure	Breath Of Life	I did not
2	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	Didn’t mind it, certainly didn’t buy it
3	Annie Lennox	Why	No but buy wife had the album
4	Def Leppard	Let’s Get Rocked	C’mon get real!
5	Vanessa Williams	Save The Best For Last	There was more chance of the cow jumping over the moon
6	Soul II Soul	Joy	No but I had that promo cassette single
7	The Cure	High	Nope
8	Hammer	Do Not Pass Me By	Nah
9	Wet Wet Wet	More Than Love	See 3 above
10	Manic Street Preachers	Slash ‘N’ Burn	‘N’-egative
11	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	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/m0013vgg/top-of-the-pops-26031992

TOTP 12 DEC 1991

Posted on December 20, 2021 by 80stastic

Christmas is coming! Unlike in 2021 where the certainty of what our festive period will be like is now under threat again from the pandemic (or more accurately the government’s handling of it), 30 years ago, some of the most pressing issues we were facing included whether we had enough wrapping paper and remembering to buy a Radio Times to plan our TV watching (very important in the pre-digital age). If, like me, you were working in retail at this time, another consideration was when we could fit in any Christmas shopping of our own after facilitating everybody else’s by working behind a shop counter for hours on end. Oh, and what the Christmas No 1 would be… and please let it not be Cliff Richard again this year. Well, as it turned out, Cliff didn’t really get a look in but which records were in the charts back then? Let’s find out…

We start tonight’s TOTP with one of the year’s biggest breakout stars in Cathy Dennis who is in the studio to perform her fourth Top 40 hit of 1991 and her fifth overall. “Everybody Move” was the final single to be released from her gold selling No 3 album “Move To This” and was a return to the radio friendly dance material of her earlier hits after previous single “Too Many Walls” had seen her go down the slow ballad route.

In all honesty, “Everybody Move” should probably have remained an unreleased album track. It’s pretty lightweight stuff and certainly it doesn’t require a great leap of imagination from this to the kind of stuff that Cathy would end up writing for the likes of S Club 7 and Hear’say later in the decade. Accordingly, it only made it to No 25 in the UK Top 40.

Whilst the reaction on Twitter to this performance focussed on Cathy’s Joker-esque outfit, I was more drawn to her dance move which comes over like a half-hearted Mick Channon windmill celebration…

Now I know I quite often draw on football references for this blog and that I’ve just done it again immediately above but quite why presenter Tony Dortie decides to do the same in his intro to the Top 10 countdown remains a mystery. “It’s day 12 on the Advent calendar, Hearts and Leeds are currently topping things in the football world but let’s see which musical crackers are doing the business in the Top 10” he trills. Hmm. For completions sake, I should note that Leeds Utd would indeed go onto win the old Division 1 league title come May the following year however the 1991–92 Scottish Premier Division season was won by Rangers, nine points ahead of Hearts. Dortie messes up the countdown straight away when he announces that Nirvana are at No 10 with “Smells Like Teen”. What happened to your ‘spirit’ Tony?! Unlike Boris Johnson, at least Tony owns his mistakes…

And he failed miserably x
— DORTIE (@TonyDortie) November 19, 2021

There’s some more curious missing word action next as we get what would probably have been described as a ‘banging’ tune’ back then called “Running Out Of Time” by Digital according to co-host Claudia Simon. That wasn’t their full name though Claudia, was it? No, that was Digital Orgasm – ooh and indeed err missus! This wasn’t anything to do with presenter error by the way as the on screen artist and title graphics confirm that Claudia hadn’t just messed up her intro. This, it would seem, was a TOTP policy decision. Presumably, the use of the word orgasm would have been seen as far too offensive pre the 9 o’clock watershed and so was dropped.

As with all of these dance tunes from this era, I have zero recall of it despite working in a record shop while it was in the charts. Listening back to it now, it sounds like it’s been concocted in a rave laboratory with the basic tune of “Insanity” by Oceanic spliced together with snippets of “Charly” by The Prodigy. Both were huge hits so I guess if that really was the formula behind “Running Out Of Time” then it was a sound one.

As for the performance, it looks as if the TOTP producers have given a bit more thought to how to portray this seemingly endless conveyor belt of dance acts. There appear to be loads more camera cuts and in quick rotation meaning we get lots of different angles of the performers which I’m guessing was meant to try and replicate a more clubby experience. There’s also some slightly different distorted visual effect for the non vocal bits – they’ve lost the Doctor Who green which never worked for me anyway. The woman doing the singing looks almost otherworldly like one of Captain Kirk’s alien love interests which kind of helps things along as well.

“Running Out Of Time” peaked at No 16.

Oh no! It’s the dreaded Cliff Richard! Oh yes though as he’s not No 1! He’s nowhere near the top of the tree actually being at No 19 and there’s only two weeks until Christmas! Talking of trees, the show’s production team have pulled out all the stops for Cliff to make the stage look like his front room at Christmas. A fully decorated tree, a mock fireplace, cards and candles – were Health and Safety informed?! – and Cliff himself in an armchair dressed in a sparkly jacket. For some reason though, they haven’t bothered with the prop of a telephone for the faux phone call part at the beginning of the record leaving Cliff to mime speaking into an imaginary one and then putting it back in its cradle. It just looks weird. I was hoping that Cliff might go full Val Doonican and sing the whole song from that armchair but he’s up on his feet in no time to look sincerely into the camera at us and do some of those wavy arm moves of his.

Does anybody really remember “We Should Be Together”? It’s surely Cliff’s forgotten Christmas single after “Mistletoe And ~~Whine~~…sorry..Wine” and “Saviour’s Day”? You never hear it played on the radio come December despite some of the commercial stations like Magic having cleared all of their playlist schedules to play exclusively Christmas tunes. Somehow it did get to No 10 in the UK Top 40 though it was never a serious contender for the top spot.

We get the video for “Too Blind To See It” by Kym Sims next. It’s introduced by Claudia Simon who says Kym is “kickin’ up a flavour” (that’s probably ‘flava’ isn’t it?) whilst all the time a youth from the studio audience gurns away behind her looking remarkably like a young Mark Ronson.

It turns out that “Too Blind To See It” is a dance record that I do remember (finally)! I think it’s that shuffling back beat and the ‘no man in the world’ sample that must have lodged in my brain. It’s a pretty nifty tune I think and yet it was written and produced by my arch nemesis Steve “Silk” Hurley /aka the man who killed music with his “Jack Your Body” No 1 in 1987. Hmm. Anyway, on reflection it has a ring of “Finally” by Ce Ce Pension to it which is probably no surprise as Kym was the co-writer on her hit “Keep On Walkin'”.

Wikipedia tells me that “Too Blind To See It” was released on the East West Records label who were responsible for a string of dance hits around this time including “Peace” by Sabrina Johnston and “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” by En Vogue. They all had that simple yet distinctive, generic East West cover as I recall or was that only used if they’d run out of the official picture sleeve? Can’t remember now.

“Too Blind To See It” was Kym’s biggest hit peaking at No 5 in the UK although she would have two further and smaller Top 40 hits by the end of 1992.

“Salt n’ Pepa are in the house and rockin’ the mic!” says Tony Dortie as we move back to the studio for their performance of “You Showed Me”. They’ve all come dressed in what looks like black latex jackets while their three dancers have dungarees in the same material making them look like a kinky version of Rod, Jane and Freddy.

The staging of the performance has a feel of West Side Story to it but the choreographer hasn’t really worked out what to do with DJ Spinderella who seems redundant when the rapping kicks in and is left to wander off with her allocated dance partner and act out an argument between them. At the song’s finale she retreats to the back of the stage, goes up the stairs erected there and assumes a rather risqué position by wrapping her legs around his crotch area. I take it back about Rod, Jane and Freddy – they’d have never got up to such vulgar antics! Or would they?…..

Meanwhile over on the other stage we find Right Said Fred about to perform their next hit single “Don’t Talk Just Kiss”. Before we get to the Freds though, I noticed something that I don’t believe we’ve seen before in these TOTP repeats which was the studio audience actually running across the floor to be in place for the next performance. There’s literally about a dozen people behind Tony Dortie all in a rush, vying for a view of the next pop stars on the show. I always imagined that the studio audience was shepherded around the set, the flock to the floor manager’s sheep dog. However, they all seem like they have been let off the leash to roam (or run) wherever they wish. This year zero revamp has a lot to answer for!

Anyway, I must admit that I for one thought we had heard the last of Right Said Fred when “I’m Too Sexy” finally dipped out of the Top 40 and dismissed the whole thing as a one off novelty hit. How wrong I was. “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” was not only another smash for the trio but it was (SHOCK!) a decent tune to boot! How had this happened? Well, proving that they weren’t as daft as they looked, the Fairbrass brothers (and the other one) got soul diva Jocelyn Brown in to sing on the track. Jocelyn’s vocals had already been sampled for Snap!’s 1990 No 1 hit “The Power” whilst her own 1984 hit “Somebody Else’s Guy” would form the hook for George Michael’s 1992 Top 5 hit “Too Funky”. Here though, she was actually singing on the song rather than being sampled although she didn’t actually get any credits on the record. That seems a bit weird as she’s up there front and centre on stage alongside the band for this TOTP appearance so they obviously weren’t trying to play down her contribution.

“Don’t Talk Just Kiss” would prove to be another massive hit peaking at No 3 whilst their album “Up” (released in March of the following year) would top the charts and go double platinum. Over the pond though it was a different story and the band did indeed become the one hit wonder I had thought they were destined to be. “I’m Too Sexy” had been a US No 1 but “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” stalled at No 76. Supposedly radio stations were still playing that first hit when the follow up was released and there was little interest in any Right Said Fred material that wasn’t “I’m Too Sexy”. They would have no further hits Stateside.

The camera pans around to Claudia Simon up in the gantry for the next link and she advises us of four Breakers three of which are stone cold stinkers starting with Jason Donovan and the “Joseph Megamix”. After his surprise No 1 hit earlier in the year with “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it was always on the cards that some abomination like this medley would end up being churned out to cash in. With the Christmas party season upon us, it probably seemed like a decent bet that it would be a hit but can anyone say that they’ve ever been to a party where this was put on the turntable and if so, did they not leave immediately?!

“Joseph Megamix” peaked at No 13.

Another megamix! Are you kidding me?! What’s this one then? “The Bare Necessities Megamix” by UK Mixmasters?! Sorry? What? Pardon? And crucially, why? This was a Jungle Book medley that actually only featured two songs – “I Wanna Be Like You” and the titular “Bare Necessities”. You won’t be surprised to know that this heap of shit had Simon Cowell’s fingerprints all over it as it was released on his BMG subsidiary label IQ Records. UK Mixmasters was actually some bloke called Nigel Wright who was also responsible for the equally odious act Mirage who scored some hits in the late 80s doing medleys of house records under the umbrella title of “Jack Mix”. He also did that Saturday Night Fever medley earlier in 1991. What a talented guy!

Talking of talented guys, that’s all round entertainer Gary Wilmot up there promoting this garbage. However, when the track was performed in the TOTP studio the following week, another Gary (Martin) took over the vocalist role. I had to look this guy up but apparently he went onto make his name as an acclaimed voice over actor. We won’t get to see the TOTP with Martin as it’s one of those episodes hosted by Adrian Rose who didn’t give this consent for the repeat to be aired so we’ll miss it. So….just for you… here’s that performance below you lucky people!

Finally some proper music…even if it is U2! Only kidding I liked the “Achtung Baby” era of the band and “Mysterious Ways” was the second single to be released off that album. As a follow up to their No 1 song “The Fly” it was a strong if bold choice. There’s plenty going on in “Mysterious Ways” and most of it was maybe not what we would have expected from the band at the time. This was no po-faced, earnest rock anthem like “With Or Without You” but a groovy, exuberant tune that starts as it means to go on with that wah wah peddle guitar effect from The Edge setting the tone. It sounded so much better to me than “The Fly” and should have been a bigger hit than its No 13 placing although it did make the Top 10 in America. U2 would take this path towards dance experimentation again in 1997 with the electronic influenced No 1 single “Discothèque” but for me, “Mysterious Ways” trumps it by some considerable distance.

What?! New Kids On The Block were still in our charts in December 1991? Hadn’t that particular craze blown out long before this point? Well. yes it kind of had. This single “If You Go Away” was a final hurrah of the initial phase of their career before they briefly regrouped in 1994 for a less than glorious return. They would finally return as an entity in 2008 and are still touring to this day (I think).

“If You Go Away” is a soporific ballad that you can imagine Michael Bolton having rejected as too banal. It was included as the only new track on their first Best Of album called “H.I.T.S.” that was released for the Christmas market. I was the chart cassette buyer at the Our Price store I was working at then and have to admit to a gross over estimate of demand for that album. We hardly sold any and my over optimistic ordering left us with quite a few copies to go into the New Year sale when they again failed to sell. Ah well, yuh learn.

The black and white video is meant to make us perceive them as serious artists as opposed to the unobtainable desire of teenage girls. That and the fact that they had changed their name to NKOTB was a giveaway that they were looking for a new audience. For me though, they would always be more T’KNOB than NKOTB (over ordering of their album aside).

“If You Go Away” peaked at a surprisngly high No 9 in the UK Top 40.

Oh God! I’m in “Martika’s Kitchen”! Yes, it’s time for one of the stupidest song titles of the year courtesy of…well, Martika. On reflection, is it stupid or misunderstood? I don’t think I twigged it at the time but the general consensus on the internet is that “Martika’s Kitchen” is actually filthy! How did I not pick up on this back then?! Firstly, it’s written by Prince which should have been enough evidence of its salacious nature to close the case right there and then. Exhibit B (m’lud) comes in the form of the lyrics, for example:

The table is set, the oven is hot
Baby, when we get started, we won’t ever ever stop

and:

I don’t care I’ve got the chair, if you think your butt’ll fit it
You turn me all the way up, I admit it

In my defence, I think the fact that Martika has chosen to wear some very non-revealing clothes in this performance maybe misled me. As for the sound of the song, at the time it seemed very pop-orientated compared to previous single “Love… Thy Will Be Done” (also written by Prince) but which didn’t seem like it could possibly have been written by the same person. However, on reflection, “Martika’s Kitchen” has some definite Prince hallmarks attached to it although parts of it also remind me of Janet Jackson’s “Nasty”.

This was the second single from her album of the same name and although it sold reasonably in the UK, like T’KNOB before it, I’m pretty sure we had plenty of copies left over for the New Year sale. Perhaps I wasn’t that great at being chart cassette buyer!

George Michael and Elton John are still No 1 with “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”. With two weeks to go, they must have been in the running for the festive chart topper but once “Bohemian Rhapsody” was re-released on the back of Freddie Mercury’s death, all bets were off. George would, of course, score a further No 1 with another cover version two years later, this time of Queen’s own “Somebody To Love” as part of the “Five Live EP” recorded at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert the year before. Elton meanwhile would return in 1992 with his “The One” album the title track of which really was a bit of a dirge.

As we’ve skipped the 19 December show, the next post will be the end of year review.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cathy Dennis	Everybody Move	Nah
2	Digital Orgasm	Running Out Of Time	No chance
3	Cliff Richard	We Should Be Together	Never happening
4	Kym Sims	Too Blind To See It	Nope
5	Salt n’ Pepa	You Showed Me	No
6	Right Said Fred	Don’t Talk Just Kiss	Negative
7	Jason Donovan	Joseph Megamix	As if
8	UK Mixmasters	The Bare Necessities Megamix	Ditto
9	U2	Mysterious Ways	No but I bought the album
10	NKOTB	If You Go Away	I wish they would – No
11	Martika	Martika’s Kitchen	I did not
12	George Michael and Elton John	Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me	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/m0011myd/top-of-the-pops-12121991

TOTP 12 SEP 1991

Posted on October 10, 2021 by 80stastic

After last week’s massive rave up of a show, surely the TOTP studio wouldn’t be taken over by mad ravers ‘avin’ it large again this week? Well, yes and no. Dance music is definitely represented by the artists in the actual building again but when you add in the videos chosen by the producers to be shown this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were back in the 70s or at The Royal Variety Performance. No seriously, two of the artists on this TOTP had either already been on Her Majesty’s favourite night out of the year or would appear on it in the near future, those acts being Cliff Richard (13 times!) and Right Said Fred (once in 1992). The mainstream acts didn’t stop with just those two though. No, also on TOTP tonight were Bryan Adams (twice!), Roxette and Julian Lennon who’s Dad John had also appeared at The Royal Variety Performance as part of The Beatles with his infamous “just rattle your jewellery” remark in 1963. Oh, and despite having only released one new song in the 90s so far, The Stone Roses are suddenly back on the show with a re-release of a track from their 1989 debut album for some reason. This has all the makings of a curate’s egg of a programme.

Before all that though, what’s the rather cryptic announcement from host Simon Mayo at the top of the show all about? “If you got your tickets for tonight’s show through Keith Prowse, you can watch through to 7.30 but cheer and applaud louder because you are watching for free. Seems fair enough to me.” Eh? What was the story there then? Some dispute between the BBC and the legendary ticket agency and music publisher Keith Prowse? Was Mayo legally obliged to say that? It just seems so utterly incongruous and bizarre.

Talking of bizarre, the opening act tonight are Bizarre Inc with “Such A Feeling” and these guys were definitely ‘avin’ it. In an attempt to stand out from the rest of the rave crowd, they have employed a couple of podium dancers to give a visual form to their track. Watching it back, it remains me of the time that I was working in the Our Price in Rochdale and on a night out found myself in the town’s Xanadu nightclub having become detached from my colleagues. My God! The sights I saw – including podium dancers! I loved working at that store but the delights of a night out in Rochdale I was not prepared for.

Bizarre Inc were from Stafford and at one point included a band member who would find their way into Altern-8 who were also having mainstream chart hits at this time. It all sounds a bit incestuous to me.

“Such A Feeling” peaked at No 13 but Bizarre Inc would return before the end of the year with a Top 5 hit in the re-released “Playing with Knives”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9GscEY_LkY

“20th Century Boy” by Marc Bolan & T. Rex is next having been re-released off the back of a Levi’s advert. The marketing guys at Levi’s had struck a rich vein of 70s tunes to help promote their jeans at this time, having worked through a load of 60s songs at the back end of the 80s. They’d already turned to The Steve Miller Band and Bad Company in their pursuit of soundtracks to their iconic advertising campaign but suddenly they had struck on the idea that some glam rock was now what was required. I guess you can’t knock their choice; T.Rex had lit up the charts with some huge tunes that had turned Marc Bolan into a superstar. Between 1970 and 1973 the chart peaks of their singles read:

2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 4

with the No 3 in the list being the original release of “20th Century Boy”. Come 1974 though, the spell appeared to be broken. The release of the “Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow” album met with a downturn of sales and a critical backlash. The return to all those complex song titles from the band’s psychedelic folk era when they were known as Tyrannosaurus Rex maybe wasn’t the best idea – as well as the album’s title, the tracks on it included “Painless Persuasion v. The Meathawk Immaculate” and “The Leopards Featuring Gardenia & the Mighty Slug”. The album wasn’t even released in the US and the band were dropped from their label. Bolan split from producer Tony Visconti and the group splintered.

Subsequent albums releases fared even worse but the explosion of the punk movement in ’76 seemed to re-energise Bolan and he even toured with The Damned as well as reinstating his public profile with his own TV show Marc. I was too young to experience those early hits in real time being aged just 2 when “Ride A White Swan” bestrode the charts in ’70 but I have faint memories of that TV show and I think my elder brother had a pin badge with Bolan’s image on it.

Of course, tragedy was just around the corner (or more specifically a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride Barnes, southwest London) when Marc was killed in a car accident when his girlfriend Gloria Jones lost control of the mini they were travelling in. His legacy lives on though with names like Johnny Marr and Siouxsie and the Banshees crediting him as being a major influence with the latter recording their own version of “20th Century Boy” as the B-side to the single “The Staircase (Mystery)” single in 1979.

Simon Mayo’s having a nightmare here. After the weirdness of the Keith Prowse comment he’s started going on about Paddy Ashdown now. Was Ashdown in the news back then? Was this when all the ‘Paddy Pantsdown’ stuff was happening?

*checks internet*

No that scandal blew up in the run up to the ’92 election. I can’t find a Paddy Ashdown story for Sep ’91 so I’m not sure what Mayo is going on about. Surely he wasn’t using the show as a platform for his own political views?

Anyway, the act he is introducing via this political lay-by is Roxette with “The Big L.” The circus themed video for this one includes a scene where there’s five greased up body builder types huddled together on a small circular platform all playing mouth organ. What was that all about?! Maybe the video director had been influenced by the recent bare-chested antics of Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch or maybe even the “Do What U Like” video by Take That (the one with the bare arse cheeks and a ton of jelly) which had been creating waves of controversy around this time? With it being a Roxette video though, it just comes across as a bit safe and lame rather than daring.

“The Big L.” peaked at No 21.

Is it me or is there a bit of an echo in the studio tonight? I thought I’d noticed one in a couple of Simon Mayo’s links before but it seems to have spread to the performers now. There’s a distinct trace of reverb on Sabrina Johnston‘s live vocals on “Peace”. Or was that a deliberate sound effect? Sound quality issues aside, this was up there with Oceanic’s Insanity” in the bangin’ tunes stakes. Sadly for Sabrina, she also followed the same career path as Oceanic in that she could never really follow up on the success of “Peace’ . An album was released and two further singles from it but none of them managed to indent the charts. Indeed, Sabrina’s only other chart entry was when a remix of “Peace” made No 35 as part of a double A-side with Crystal Waters to promote the HIV/AIDS charity album “Red Hot + Dance” (the one with George Michael’s “Too Funky” on it). In later years though, she did go onto appear as a backing vocalist on Lauryn Hill’s album “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill”.

More Paddy Ashdown quips from Simon Mayo next. Give it up mate! “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses is the the prompt for him to get in another Paddy joke (as it were). Had Ashdown done a particular poorly received press conference or something back then?

“I Wanna Be Adored” was the opening track on the band’s iconic eponymous debut album from ’89. So why was it being released as a single two and a half years later? Well, I think it was to do with the legal battle with their then-record label Silvertone. The band wished to terminate their five-year contract with Silvertone whose owners Zomba Records took out an injunction against the Roses in September 1990 to prevent them from recording with any other label. The courts ruled in favour of the band in May 1991 but Silvertone appealed the decision thereby delaying the release of any new material from the band further. I guess Silvertone wanted to make as much dough out of the band as they could before they were their act no longer and so released a number of tracks from that debut album that had never previously been released (or indeed intended for release) as stand alone singles. “I Wanna Be Adored” was followed by “Waterfall”, ‘I Am The Resurrection” and a re-release of “Fool’s Gold” in ’92. Bit naughty that.

“I Wanna Be Adored” was also one of the tracks that my one time Our Price manager Pete played on as the band’s original bass player. The Martin Hannett produced album that Pete featured on never saw the light of day as the band weren’t happy with it until it was released as “Garage Flower” in 1996 against the wishes of everyone involved in the original recordings.

I said in the last post that I didn’t think we’d be seeing this act until her next hit in about three years time. I was wrong. Following her appearance in the Breakers Crystal Waters has moved up the charts sufficiently to qualify for another appearance this week with her “Makin’ Happy” single. The single edit of this was remixed by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley who I very much see as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse bringing death to music with his “Jack Your Body” No 1 single in 1987.

The video is a typical dance track promo with Crystal’s face superimposed over a background of abstract, dancing figure images and some very literal interpretations of the song’s lyrics – some Rocky Horror Picture Show style lips for ‘She screams Ah ooh’ and a camera for ‘Now picture you with me’. To be fair, most of the lyrics seem to be comprised of ‘ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh-wee ooh-wee’. It’s hardly Proust is it?

“Makin’ Happy” peaked at No 18.

Having gone after Paddy Ashdown for a cheap laugh, Mayo now sets his sights on pop royalty in Cliff Richard. Asking the audience the question who has appeared on TOTP most across its then 27 year history, he mimes us a clue of who it is. For some reason he thinks giving a double thumbs up and waving his arms about as if protecting himself from some falling debris is a dead ringer of an impression of Cliff! Surely the thumbs up gesture would be more likely to be Paul ‘Whacky Thumbs Aloft’ McCartney and although Cliff has been known to do some very odd arm movements whilst performing, Mayo’s interpretation seems very wide of the mark.

As for the song Cliff is singing, I have no memory whatsoever of “More To Life” but then I didn’t watch the TV show Trainer which it was the theme tune for. Apparently Trainer was a follow up (of sorts) to mid 80s yachting drama Howard’s Way but was set in the word of horse racing. As with Howard’s Way, Simon May (not Mayo) wrote the instrumental theme tune for the opening credits but lyrics were added for the version over the closing credits which were supplied by Mike Read (yes, the Radio 1 DJ). In later years of course, Read would pen “UKIP Calypso” for a UKIP dinner that he was attending and, with the endorsement of Nigel Farage, it was released as a single. It was widely panned as being racist for Reads’s mock Caribbean accent and the lyrics ‘The leaders committed a cardinal sin / Open the borders let them all come in / Illegal immigrants in every town / Stand up and be counted Blair and Brown’. That’s Mike Read there, friend of Nigel Farage and writer of racist songs. Arsehole. Read of course was very matey with Cliff as I recall and often did impressions of him. There really was no end to his talents was there?

“More To Life” the song is just bland, Cliff-by-numbers pop and the whole story saga should be condemned to the rubbish tip of terrible cultural ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nv_1GrQiN4

Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch are up next with “Good Vibrations”. Now I’ve always quite liked Mark Wahlberg as an actor. I know some of the films he’s been in have had bad reviews like Planet Of The Apes and The Happening and he’s certainly no De Niro or Pacino but even so, like I said, I quite like him.

However, I didn’t know until now when I’ve read up on him that he did some terrible things as a teenager like racially aggravated assault for which he was sentenced to two years in jail but served only forty-five days of his sentence. Eighteen years later he apologised to his victim in person who stated publicly that he had forgiven Wahlberg. Now knowing this information and reading an interview back with him in Smash Hits magazine as Marky Mark, he clearly was a prick back then. In said interview he refers to women as ‘bitches’ and the Smash Hits writer describes his conversation as “…the blokiest tirade you ever did hear this side of an Eddie Murphy Live video…” – like I said, a prick.

He followed this up a year later in December ’92, while performing on the cult late night Channel 4 show The Word, by praising fellow guest Shabba Ranks who had stated gay people should be crucified for which both he and Ranks were widely condemned and criticised (not least by The Word presenter Mark Lamarr on the show). Supposedly Wahlberg doesn’t like to be reminded or asked about his music career these days. It’s not hard to see why.

The huge dance anthems just keep on coming as Rozalla enters the game with “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. Having been massively popular on the dance floors of the clubs in Ibiza in the Summer, it was no surprise that it became a huge hit in the UK charts when the returning hordes went searching for a memento of their holidays in the nation’s record shops. Well, at least we’d moved on from those foreign holiday hits like Ryan Paris from back in the day.

Rozalla was born in Zambia though moved to Zimbabwe aged 18 where she scored five No 1 singles. She relocated again in 1988, this time to London where she worked with production duo Nigel Swanston and Tim Cox and the collaboration bore fruit in the form of “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. Looking at her performance here, you wouldn’t have imagined that such a huge sound could have come from such a diminutive and slight looking person. She absolutely bosses it though and has the crowd in the palm of her hand when she takes her very sparkly jacket. She would go on to have a eight UK Top 40 hits in total including a re-release of this track re-titled as “Everybody’s Free (Ca$ino Mix)” in 1996.

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

Moving the Breakers to just before the No 1 is really starting to piss me off now. It’s lulling me into a false sense of security before hitting me with the realisation that there are at least three more songs to review even though the show is nearly over. We start with a man not seen in the Top 40 for seven years but who topped all the Best Newcomer and Most Promising New Act polls at the time of that success. Julian Lennon had already released three albums by ’91 but they had spiralled into a pattern of diminishing returns since the success of debut “Valotte”. Subsequently, his return to the Top 40 with “Saltwater” was quite the surprise. Tackling the issues of environmental conservation and world poverty in a pop song wasn’t unique but neither was it a regular occurrence back then. Obviously there was the whole Bad Aid project to address famine in Ethiopia and wasn’t “Crazy Horses” by The Osmonds about pollution? Then of course there was “Save The Whale” by …erm…Nik Kershaw. I’m sure there are plenty more examples but my point is that unlike sewers and non disposable wipes, the charts weren’t clogged up with them.

Enter Julian with a rather drippy yet heartfelt take on it all with his 6th form poetry-esque lyrics bemoaning man’s capability to land on the moon but not be able to stop children starving back on earth. Musically, it inevitably drew comparisons with his Dad especially the “Strawberry Fields Forever” beginning whilst the Beatles connection was continued by the guitar part that was written but not performed by George Harrison. I quite liked it and its themes seem more relevant today than ever. Like his debut single “Too Late For Goodbyes”, it peaked at No 6 whilst his only other Top 40 entry was his cover of Dave Clark Five’s “Because” for the 1986 musical Time soundtrack winch literally crept in at No 40.

What?! Shabba Ranks was in the charts?! The Shabba Ranks that was discussed earlier for his vile homophobic comments on The Word? Yep, the very same but this was a year before that controversial moment broke so presumably, in ’91, he wasn’t courting the condemnation that followed. Here he’s teamed up with Maxi Priest for a single called “Housecall” which sounds horrific to my ears and which thankfully passed me by at the time. Fortunately we only get 18 seconds of it in the Breakers, a feature which now seems to be a totally pointless exercise in boosting the amount of songs featured in the show (we’ve gone up from 13 to 14 in recent weeks). Julian Lennon only got 24 seconds and the final Breaker Bryan Adams gets 17 seconds! This was ridiculous and presumably just a ploy to be able to say it was keeping up with ITV competition The Chart Show. Utter nonsense (as was Shabba and Maix’s collaboration).

Hang on! Did I just say Bryan Adams was in the Breakers? But *spoiler* he’s still at No 1 isn’t he? Yes, but both statements are true because he’d been at No 1 so long now that his next single was due for release. “Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started” chart life would would come and go within a mere five weeks peaking at No 12 whilst “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was still riding high in the Top 40. This was the time when it really started to get nuts I think. His new (and infinitely better in my opinion) song had been rejected in favour of a record buying public continuing to purchase his previous single that had been No 1 for over three months. This was just bonkers!

In the US, it would peak at No 2 but you know what they put on the B-side of the US release? Yes, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”! It had been No 1 in America for seven weeks! Why make it at the B-side?! In the UK the flip was a live version of his duet with Tina Tuner “It’s Only Love”. I quite liked the speeded up stop animation in the video which enlivened an otherwise straight performance promo.

So it’s a 10th week for good ol’ Bry with that Robin Hood song. The video for “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was directed by Julien Temple which I don’t think I knew before. Bit of a contrast to his punk origins of the Sex Pistols film The Great Rock And Roll Swindle. Apparently it was shot in Sheffield. You’d have thought that he would have chosen Nottingham as his location wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s only about 30 odd miles from Sheffield anyway. And, the day it was being shot, Nottingham Forest were playing in the FA Cup final against Spurs. All the omens and references surely pointed to Nottingham not Sheffield? I wonder which football team Bryan Adams supports? Oh he must have a team. Look at Sylvester Stallone (Everton), Tom Hanks (Aston Villa) and Kevin Costner (Arsenal). Then you’ve got Robert Plant being a Wolves fan and Dave Grohl supports West Ham.

*checks internet*

I knew it! Bryan is a fan of….my beloved Chelsea! Who said he had/was bad taste?

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

It’s Right Said Fred and “I’m Too Sexy” to play us out but before that, Simon Mayo ends his last show before the ‘year zero’ revamp by signing off with “I’ll see you sometime”. He definitely knew didn’t he?

Back to the Freds and there’s a link between them and the aforementioned Julien Temple as the latter directed the Jazzin’ For Blue Jean short film for David Bowie to promote his 1984 “Blue Jean” single which starred none other than Richard Fairbrass as one of the band for fictional pop star Screaming Lord Byron. As toe curlingly awful as Jazzin’ For Blue Jean is (and I’ve watched it) it still knocks the promo for “I’m Too Sexy” into a cocked hat. What do you think about that Fairbrass?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bizarre Inc	Such A Feeling	Bizarre Inc? Godawful stink more like! No
2	Marc Bolan & T. Rex	20th Century Boy	No but I have a Best Of CD with it on
3	Roxette	The Big L.	No
4	Sabrina Johnston	Peace	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	The Stone Roses	I Wanna Be Adored	No but I’ve got the album
6	Crystal Waters	Makin’ Happy	It didn’t make me happy – no
7	Cliff Richard	More To Life	God no!
8	Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch	Good Vibrations	Nah
9	Rozalla	“Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”	I did not
10	Julian Lennon	Saltwater	No but I didn’t mind it actually
11	Shabba Ranks/ Maxi Priest	Housecall	NO!
12	Bryan Adams	Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started	Negative
13	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Double negative
14	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	It’s a final 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/m00103fx/top-of-the-pops-12091991

TOTP 29 AUG 1991

Posted on October 2, 2021 by 80stastic

The Summer of 1991 has nearly shed its last vestiges as we look towards the Autumn. And what happens in the Autumn? Yes, a new football season begins. Despite enduring years of disappointment, I still retained some small hope that 1991/92 might be the season when my beloved Chelsea actually win something. Back in the early 90s, we were a mid table side, we could beat the best one week and lose to the worst the next. We were consistently inconsistent. On the day this TOTP was broadcast, Chelsea signed a new player to help take us to the next level. There was just one problem. It was Vinnie Jones. The renowned hard man and one time member of Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’ was signed from Sheffield United for £575,000 and his main contribution that season was to break his own record for getting booked when he was cautioned for a tackle after just 3 seconds against his former club. Oh great.

Not only did Vinnie follow Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne so closely that he was infamously photographed grabbing him by the balls in 1988, he would also follow Gazza into a music career. For “Fog On The Tyne” read “Wooly Bully” which Jones recorded a version of in 1993. It failed to chart. Vinnie still thought he had a talent for singing though and in 2019 took part in The X Factor: Celebrity where he finished 6th out of 14 entries and performed covers of “I Fought The Law” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” by The Clash in Live Show 4 which is possibly the worst thing I have ever seen or heard…

Talking of ‘hard men’, this show starts off with someone who would make a name for himself as an actor playing some ‘tough guy’ roles along the way in flicks such as The Yards, Four Brothers and Shooter before branching out into lighter roles in Ted and Ted 2 and Instant Family. Back in 1991 though, he was more known as the brother of one of the guys in New Kids On The Block. It is of course Mark Wahlberg or as he was known in his pop career Marky Mark.

Having originally been involved in the NKOTB project but dropping out before they found fame, Wahlberg took his music career in a hip-hop direction with the creation of Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch and the decision brought immediate dividends with debut single “Good Vibrations” which was a huge global hit including being a US No 1 record. Nothing to do with the Beach Boys hit of the same name, this track instead based around “Love Sensation” by Loleatta Holloway which, of course, was famously sampled by Black Box for their mammoth No 1 “Ride On Time”. Had Wahlberg not heard that record before deciding to re-use its famous sample for his own track? He couldn’t have come up with something different? There was one difference between the records though and that was the acknowledgment of Loleatta Holloway who appears on stage here with Wahlberg. Presumably record label Interscope had taken note that Holloway had sued the heck out of Black Box for their uncredited use of her vocals and didn’t want to enter into litigation with such a formidable person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6jDxmLxL78

The other thing that Wahlberg was known for back then was his pants or more precisely his Clavin Klein pants and his naked torso both on show in this performance. He would go onto star in Calvin Klein adverts the following year. Having watched them back, they really are quite repugnant.

“Good Vibrations” peaked at No 14 and was the only UK hit for Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch.

PM Dawn are next with “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” having slotted snuggly into the No 3 spot behind Right Said Fred and Bryan Adams. I had high hopes that they would displace both on its surge to a triumphant No 1 but in the end they made no inroads on either as both stood firm against the onslaught of dreamy, Spandau Ballet infused R&B.

The video features a very brief cameo by Spandau’s Tony Hadley at its denouement. Well, his band were totally inactive at the time so why not earn some extra cash? The director of said video was a guy called Mark Pellington who sounds like he should have been playing centre midfield for Sheffield Wednesday but who actually went on to produce promos for the likes of U2, Pearl Jam, INXS, REM and Public Enemy amongst a host of others.

As for their album that host Mark Goodier plugs in his intro, “Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience” would go gold in the UK and platinum in the US off the back fo the success of “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss”.

Apparently, after the death of the band’s Prince Be, remaining member DJ Minutemix re-recorded all the vocals of the band’s catalogue to ensure he got more royalty money and for a while they were the versions of the duo’s output that you could hear on Spotify. Didn’t Squeeze do a similar thing to get around the issue of their record label owning the rights to their back catalogue?

Back in the studio we find EMF with their latest single “Lies”. I know they weren’t a one hit wonder as some seemed to believe and could name maybe four of their singles at a push but this one has clearly escaped my memory banks. Listening to it now, the formula was starting to wear a bit thin. This really did sound like all their other songs with the exception of “Unbelievable”. Apparently this was the track they issued as a follow up to that single in the US as they skipped the UK follow up “I Believe” thinking it wasn’t right for the US market. I’d have to day that my mind really isn’t tuned in to the finer nuances between those two songs to have made such a distinction other than “Lies” has a very slight Spaghetti Western feel to it. As for Mark Goodier’s claim the the band had sold a million albums in the US, I can’t find anything online to corroborate that but certainly they were a big deal over there with “Unbelievable” going to No 1.

As well as being commercially successful across the pond, they also attracted controversy and notoriety surrounding the track “Lies”. Initial pressings of “Schubert Dip” originally had the song beginning with 8 seconds of a sample of the voice of John Lennon’s assassin, Mark Chapman, reciting the first two lines of the lyrics to Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels”. Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, objected to its inclusion and as a result all subsequent pressings of the album have omitted the sample. Apparently pressings that include it are very rare and much sought after. Not up there with the A&M pressing of “God Save The Queen” by The Sex Pistols a mint copy of which sold for £13,000 in 2019 maybe but worth keeping an eye out for all the same.

EMF would return with their second album “Stigma” in 1992 but it seriously under performed – it was only on the charts for two weeks while its predecessor reached No. 3 and charted for 19 weeks. It would take a link up with Vic Reeves for a cover of “I’m A Believer” by The Monkees to take them into the Top 3 one last time in 1995.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tP1ZkqpFVY

Now I don’t think I would ever have described Prince as a ‘tough guy’ but he certainly didn’t flinch when it came to courting controversy. “Gett Off” was the first single to be released under the public billing of Prince And The New Power Generation and was the lead single from the “Diamonds And Pearls” album. It was also filthy. So filthy in fact that it had to undergo a drastic edit before it could be shown on TOTP. So, the first line of the chorus “Gett off, twenty three positions in a one night stand” was deleted for starters. Next, the lyric “Now move your big ass ’round this way, so I can work on that zipper, baby” hadn’t a hope of making the cut and finally the couplet “She said you told her a fantasy, that got her all wet (wet)” was included but had the word ‘wet’ drowned out by …a woman moaning?! How did that work?! In the immediately preceding lyrics, Prince used the word ‘jizz’ that also got past the BBC censor so maybe they weren’t on top of their game that week. Or maybe they just didn’t know what the word ‘jazz’ meant? I know I once worked with someone who’s never heard of it before.

As for the sound of the song, I wasn’t that impressed at the time much preferring subsequent singles off the album “Cream”, “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night” and the title track. However, listening to it in 2021, I can hear how it really was damn funky.

However, I can’t actually hear it without thinking of this sketch from The Fast Show...

Dear God no! Not Steve f*****g Wright with another of his ‘hilarious’ comedy records. FFS! There he is with the tin hat on miming with a guitar. Bellend! Of course he had previous for this sort of shit. As way back as 1982 he’d released a single called “I’m Alright” under the name Young Steve And The Afternoon Boys and follow it up a year later with “Get Some Therapy” as Steve Wright And The Sisters Of Soul. “The Gay Cavelieros” followed in 1984 (no, not at all offensive!) and finally in the 80s “I’m So Angry” by Mr Angry featuring Steve Wright. All were based around catchphrases or characters employed by Wright on Radio 1 afternoon show and they were all f*****g awful. Not content with having tortured us with this crud throughout the 80s, he decided we needed some more of his ‘humour’ in the 90s with “I’ll Be Back” by Arnee And The Terminaters. Obviously playing on the current popularity of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day film, this just stank the studio out. Not funny, no musical talent, it was idiotic and anyone who bought it must have been as well. Some f*****s did though as it went all the way to No 5. Completely and utterly inexplicable.

Simple Minds with a third single from their “Real Life” album next. This one was called “Stand By Love” and one generous soul tweeted while watching the BBC4 TOTP repeat that it was ‘The Most meaningless song ever written’. Ouch! To be fair, this was stadium rock by numbers by this point. All the ingredients for a Simple Minds song seemed to be there but it tasted as bland as the guy introducing it, Mark Goodier. Even the video is anonymous with it just being yet another in concert promo of the band.

“Stand By Love” was already at its peak of No 13.

The story of a band starting from humble indie beginnings before scoring a huge hit and bagging a major record deal is one that permeates the history of pop music. Yet for every James who switched to major Fontana from Rough Trade in the wake of “Sit Down” and set themselves up for a career of longevity and success, there is also the other side of the coin as exemplified by The Farm. Their 80s indie singles garnered them acclaim but no sales but when “Groovy Train” and “All Together Now” hit as the new decade broke, their popularity was enough to earn them a No 1 album in “Spartacus”.

Taking note of this success were Sony Records who signed the band and even gave them their own record label called End Product. With the backing of a major, what should have been a continuing tale of hits and fame turned into a footnote in the story of 90s music as the band struggled to re-establish themselves in the charts. Second album “Love See No Colour” bombed whilst the only Top 20 hit from it came from that ever desperate ploy of doing a cover version, this one being “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League.

Before all of that though came “Mind”, the lead single from that sophomore album. It’s not that it’s a terrible record, it’s just that it’s not a very good one either. The chorus is pleasant enough but the rest of it is as sluggish as its progress up the Top 40 (where it petered out at a peak of No 31). And those shockingly awful lyrics like these:

Remember all the good times that we had
Some of them happy, some of them sad

Seriously though, what were they thinking?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COZMoVjni4

A genuine rock legend now as David Bowie is back in the TOTP studio after what seemed like forever but this time with his new(ish) band Tin Machine. This appearance was part of a big publicity push to relaunch the project with the release of their second album due out on the following Monday. They had already done Wogan in the week. For me though, once you’d got past the fact this was yer actual Bowie up there, the music just didn’t cut it. “You Belong In Rock ‘n’ Roll” was dull, dull dull. It actually belonged in the bargain bin (which is probably where it ended up). I even preferred Bowie’s much maligned late 80s output to this. Then of course there was all that nonsense with the chocolate eclair being shredded by guitarist Reeves Gaberels. What was that all about? Well, here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer:

No, you didn't imagine that: Tin Machine guitarist Reeves Gabrels DID just shred a chocolate eclair against his guitar. That's nothing: during Tin Machine's appearance on Wogan, he played it with a vibrator. https://t.co/TVb9D8WTjA #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 24, 2021

Gabrels did actually use a vibrator – bought from a Sydney sex shop – on the record (after experimenting with an electric razor first). Top Of The Pops were having none of that, though. Hence the eclair. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 24, 2021

Just ridiculous. What a load of jizz! Talking of which, how overexcited must the other acts in the studio that night have been to be appearing alongside David Bowie?! Let’s remind ourselves who they were again. Well, there was EMF (could be worse) The Farm (dreary), Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch (oh deary) and Steve Wright (Dear God!). Bowie must have felt like he’d stepped into a parallel universe. I hope he thought it was all worth it.

“You Belong In Rock’N’ Roll” peaked at No 33.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDV55U5UAps

Third time on the show for Right Said Fred and “I’m Too Sexy” but first time for their promo video. Had they been in the studio alongside Bowie*, Richard Fairbrass could have had a reunion with him as he worked with David as a session bassist in the mid 80s and appeared in the videos for “Blue Jean” and “Loving The Alien” alongside him.

As for the video for “I’m Too Sexy”, well, it’s all very knockabout fun made on a cheap budget by the looks with the scenes within it a direct correlation to the lyrics. There’s catwalks, shirts being pulled off, cars, images of Milan, New York and Japan, and of course a hat. According to IMDB database that bit where Fred Fairbrass pulls off his brother Richard’s hat as the three Freds walk down the street was improvised and Richard’s reaction of surprise is genuine. Oh come on! There’s a string attached to the back of the hat which Fred used to yank it off. Was Richard really not aware of that and not in on the joke?

“I’m Too Sexy” stayed at No 2 for six consecutive weeks.

*Late update:

According to Fred Fairbrass, David Bowie came up to them during the recording of a #TOTP and said "What the hell are you two doing here?". This was the only show I could find with both of them on. But it was a Right Said Fred video, not a performance… Odd.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 24, 2021

There’s only time for two Breakers this week but they were both memorable for different reasons. “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt ‘N’ Pepa would be another of those records that peaked at No 2 behind Bryan Adams and would surely have been a No 1 if the UK record buying public weren’t behaving so bizarrely as to keep the same record at the top of the charts for 16 weeks.

With AIDS very much acting as its backdrop, this was basically an upfront discussion about the dangers of unprotected sex in the form of a pop/rap song. The track was originally released on the trio’s “Blacks’ Magic” album but in the UK, it is more well known as being on their “Greatest Hits” album that seemed to appear very rapidly in October, possibly rush released to cash in on the single’s success?

The lyrics included some memorable lines none more so than the three way conversation in the middle 8:

Yo, Pep, I don’t think they’re gonna play this on the radio
And why not? Everybody have sex
I mean, everybody should be makin’ love
Come on, how many guys you know make love?

The brilliance of the track was the dichotomy at the heart of it. Whilst the subject matter was decidedly heavy, it was addressed in such a playful manner and backed up with an insanely catchy sound. A very clever rerecord all round. A huge hit globally (though not especially in there native US), it went to No 1 in eight countries including Germany where it was the first original song by an American hip-hop act to achieve that feat.

The second Breaker was significant mainly because of who it was by. Dire Straits had not released an album since the all conquering “Brothers In Arms” in 1985, an album so massive that it is the eighth-best-selling album in UK chart history. More than its commercial feats though, it was its cultural influence that made its legend. It was the first album to be recorded entirely digitally which perfectly lent itself to CD and would promote sales of that format within the rock/pop genre like never before. Despite being around since 1982, CDs had mainly sold within classical music markets but “Brothers In Arms” changed everything and became the first album to sell a million copies in that format. It became the default demonstration disc used by shops to persuade customers to turn to CD players. So huge was its perceived connection to the CD technology that it almost became a well worn joke.

Up against that legacy, anything the band released next was on a hiding to nothing. “On Every Street” was the album they came up with and despite going to No 1 and achieving double platinum sales in the UK, it was still dwarfed by “Brothers In Arms” which had gone 14 times platinum in this country.

“Calling Elvis” was the lead single and I have to say I found it a particularly drab affair. The Gerry Anderson themed video is fun though and reminds me of the Team America: World Police film from the makers of South Park. Very bad taste but very funny as well. “Calling Elvis” the song on the other hand was just very bad. If I wanted a song about Elvis Presley then there are loads of other songs that are more worthy of attention. How about “Blue Moon Revisited (A Song For Elvis) by Cowboy Junkies or “Tupelo” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. Hell, I’d take “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn over “Calling Elvis”! Mark Knopfler seemed very preoccupied by Elvis as he would write a song called “Back To Tupelo” as a solo artist.

Anyway, the single that announced the return of Dire Straits wasn’t a big hit peaking at No 21 but then I guess they weren’t really a singles band and the record company would have been more concerned about sales of the album. I was slightly more tolerant of the follow up single “Heavy Fuel” which was a very obvious but desperate attempt to rewrite “Money For Nothing” but that missed the Top 40 altogether. I did say they weren’t really a singles band.

We’ve reached the halfway point of its reign at the top as “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams racks up its 8th week at No 1. It’s hard to recall what the reaction of the press and media to this astonishing chart story that was unfolding was. I suppose by week 8 there must have been talk of and reference to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and “Two Tribes” which was No 1 for 9 consecutive weeks in the Summer of 1984. Once that milestone was passed, I’m guessing all bets were off.

Looking at the songs that have been No 1 for the longest (discounting anything this century like Drake and Ed Sheeran) then once Adams got into double digits then he really was out on his own. Queen had been No 1 for 9 weeks with “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 1975 and indeed spent another 5 weeks atop the UK charts on its re-release in 1991 after Freddie Mercury’s death but that was obviously not a consecutive run. Apart from that, Slim Whitman spent 11 weeks at No 1 with “Rose Marie” in 1955 but that was so long ago that any reference to it felt like talking about another universe. By the time Adams’ run was into the teens it felt like nothing would ever dislodge it.

Of course, rather than being a once in a lifetime event, the phenomenon of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” started a mini trend. The following year, Whitney Houston took “I Will Always Love You” to the top for 10 weeks with yet another song from the soundtrack to a Kevin Costner film in The Bodyguard and two years after that Wet Wet Wet were No 1 for 16 weeks with “Love Is All Around” from Four Weddings And A Funeral. I believe they would have even eclipsed Bryan Adams had the band not asked for the single to be deleted so sick of it themselves were they. None of them though could match the feats of “I Believe” by Frankie Laine which spent 18 weeks at No 1. Initially at the top for nine weeks, after a week at No 2, he went back up to spend a further 6 at the top. He was then toppled by Mantovani before Frankie struck back by regaining the top spot for a further 3 weeks. Quite remarkable.

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

The play out video is the re-released “20th Century Boy” by Marc Bolan & T.Rex. My favourite story about Marc is that he chose the surname Bolan (he was originally born Mark Feld) because he liked the name of a young actor that he was flat sharing with in Landale Road in Barnes – a certain James Bolam of The Likely Lads fame. Apparently James wasn’t too keen on the idea.

Marc had been going by the name of Toby Tyler before this which would have been great alteration for his act had he stuck with it (Toby Tyler & T.Rex). Mark became Marc after a trip to Paris and at one point he adopted an absurd affectation of adding an umlaut to the ‘o’ of his new surname making it Bölan. Thankfully it dropped off somewhere in the mists of time.

“20th Century Boy” (the 1991 version) peaked at No 13.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch	Good Vibrations	Nope
2	PM Dawn	Set Adrift On Memory Bliss	Yes on cassette single! No idea where it is now mind
3	EMF	Lies	I didn’t and that’s the truth
4	Prince And The New Power Generation	Gett Off	Negative
5	Arnee And The Terminaters	I’ll Be Back	Get to f**k!
6	Simple Minds	Stand By Love	Nah
7	The Farm	Mind	Thanks but no thanks
8	Tin Machine	You Belong In Rock ‘n’ Roll	Definitely not
9	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	No
10	Salt ‘N Pepa	Let’s Talk About Sex	Don’t think I did
11	Dire Straits	Calling Elvis	100% no
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	It’s a no
13	Marc Bolan & T.Rex	20th Century Boy	Not the re-release but I have it on a Best Of CD

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/m000zwr1/top-of-the-pops-29081991

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 07 OCT 1993

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TOTP 18 MAR 1993

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TOTP 04 MAR 1993

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TOTP 30 APR 1992

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TOTP 23 APR 1992

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TOTP 09 APR 1992

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TOTP 26 MAR 1992

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TOTP 12 DEC 1991

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TOTP 12 SEP 1991

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TOTP 29 AUG 1991

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