TOTP 26 SEP 1991

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase ‘end of an era’? Alex Ferguson finally retiring as manger of Manchester United? The Beatles splitting? Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts sadly passing away the other week? How about the character of Mike Baldwin being killed off in Coronation Street? Or…the ‘Year Zero’ revamp of that great pop music institution TOTP? I think tonight’s host Gary Davies has justification for describing the 26 Sep 1991 show as the end of an era. This was the final show (until the changes were reversed in 1994) of that grand old programme being presented by Radio 1 DJs. They were replaced by a group of younger unknowns by incoming executive producer Stanley Appel who was hoping to bring about a new youthful feel to a show that had struggled to accommodate the new trends in popular music surrounding dance / house / rave genres. There were more cosmetic changes in a brand new theme tune (“Now Get Out of That”), title sequence and logo and, as Gary Davies advises at the end of the show, the entire programme was moved from BBC Television Centre in London to BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood.

I do feel a twinge of sympathy for Davies. He’d been hosting TOTP since about 1983 I think (not long after he joined Radio 1 anyway) and had always been a safe pair of hands* and must have thought he had a shot at stardom across the pond in the US in October 1987 when the CBS television network decided to try an American version of the show. There were link ups with the UK version which were always hosted by Davies. Sadly for Gary, the experiment was short-lived and the US TOTP was cancelled. By the time the old guard of presenters were reinstalled in 1994, Davies had moved to Virgin Radio meaning this is his very last regular TOTP show.

*Except for the Dixie Peach suntan comment of course

Well, enough of the sentiment and on with the show and we start with …who the hell is this? P.J.B. featuring Hannah And Her Sisters? I have literally never heard this in my life before and thank the Lord I hadn’t because now I’ve had their version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” inflicted on my ears, life in this wretched country at this horrible period of history just got even worse. This is vile – beastly even. Just 100% crapola. Who’s idea was it to do a dance version of the Simon & Garfunkel classic? Well, it turns out it was a bloke called Peter John Bellotte (the titular P.J.B.) who actually had quite an impressive CV. Most notably, he’d worked with Giorgio Moroder producing the peak era Donna Summer sound of “I Feel Love”, “Love to Love You Baby” and “Hot Stuff”. He went on to work with the likes of Janet Jackson, Cliff Richard, Shalamar and Tina Turner and in 2004 was honoured at the Dance Music Hall of Fame ceremony where he was inducted for his many outstanding achievements and contributions as producer and songwriter.

Back in 1991 though, he was responsible for this shit. As for Hannah and Her Sisters, as wells being the name of Woody Allen’s 1986 comedy drama flick, they did actually feature a Hannah who was Hannah Jones who would achieve some hits on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart at the end of the 90s. This dreadful nonsense however peaked at No 21 and whoever bought it should conduct their own root and branch investigation into exactly what occurred here.

Could there be a more appropriate song to help bring the curtain down on this era of TOTP? It can only be “Wind Of Change” by The Scorpions. Of course, it was a curtain of a different kind (the iron one) that was the behind the origin of the song. Written during a visit to Moscow in 1989, these German rockers were amazed at how different the political and cultural climate felt just 12 months on from their previous visit there. The opening lines:

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change

were a literal running commentary of a boat trip that the band took down the Moskva river that runs through Moscow, passing the sights like Gorky Park which sits on the shore of the Moskva and witnessing first hand those changes occurring. Lead singer Klaus Meine started whistling that melody and the rest of the song came quickly. Apparently, the band’s record label weren’t keen on that infamous whistling intro and the band tried to record the song without it by reverting to a traditional heavy rock intro akin to the band’s reputation but when that wasn’t working they returned to the original song opening. I seem to recall the song getting a bit of stick for that intro, that it somehow undermined it. I’m not sure why as their are loads of examples of songs with whistling in them that are credible. There’s even a direct rock comparison in the form of “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses and then there’s the classic “Dock Of The Bay” by Otis Redding. Maybe their label were concerned it might take the song in more of an almost novelty direction like Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” or “Walk Like An Egyptian” by The Bangles.

Whatever their reasoning, between them and the band, they arrived at the correct decision commercially speaking as the song went on to sell 14 million copies worldwide. More than the sales though and whatever you think about the sound of the song, its legacy was its cultural and political significance becoming a clarion call for freedom and a message of hope.

As for me, I don’t think I knew anything about The Scorpions before “Wind Of Change” despite them having been around since the mid 60s. Did I like the song? About as much as liked the nasty scorpion spider graphic that the TOTP producers shoved over the start of the video. Let’s hope that sort of nonsense disappeared in the ‘year zero’ revamp.

It’s the tiny person with a massive voice and an even bigger hit next as we get a live vocal from Rozalla on “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. So ubiquitous was this tune that I could have sworn it was a much bigger hit than its actual No 6 peak. Maybe my confusion is because it hung around the charts for so long – ten weeks in total on the Top 40 and four consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Eight years later, it did become a bigger hit of sorts when it was slowed down and sampled by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann on his Number 1 hit “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”.

After starting a trend for female vocalists fronting rave anthems to remove their tops in her last performance that was copied by Jorinde Williams of Oceanic, Rozalla tweaks the routine this week by suggesting her outer garment is about to come off but then keeping it on for the duration of the song. Maybe the stuffy TOTP producers had warned her off that type of thing!

REM are next with “The One I Love“. When it comes to misunderstood songs, this one must be up there with the best. If you didn’t know this song, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a heartfelt love letter to a loved one judging by its title but one listen or perusal of the lyrics would tell a different story of manipulating people.

Any discussion of misunderstood songs must include “Born In The USA” by Bruce Springsteen and “Every Breath You Take” by The Police of course. The Boss’s song is often misconstrued as an anthem of patriotism when it’s actually telling the story of the difficulties and marginalisation Vietnam veterans felt when returning from the war. The song’s fist pumping sound led to many a politician asking if they could use the song to soundtrack an election campaign starting with Ronald Reagan in 1984. Bruce refused. Had Reagan heard this version of the song, maybe even his little brain would have realised it wasn’t really an appropriate song choice:

As for “Every Breath You Take”, my favourite misunderstanding of this song is the time when dumb as mud X Factor judge Louis Walsh told some hopeful after they had performed it on one of the live shows that they had ‘made it their own’. It’s a song about stalking you imbecile!

REM would release one final single (“Radio Song”) from their “Out Of Time” album before 1991 was up returning just a year later with the stunning “Automatic For The People” album.

Poor Gary Davies is having to introduce some right old shit on his valedictory TOTP appearance. After the car crash of the “Bridge Over Troubled Water” cover version at the top of the show, here’s that dreadful danced up remix of “Nutbush City Limits” by Tina Turner. Released as “Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)”, even the song’s new title grates.Why did it need the word version in there? Surely ’91 remix’ is what it should have been called? Also, the video is so lazy as well. Some old footage of Tina performing the song back in the day intercut with her jigging about to the track in the present day. Throw in some shots of lorries driving about (on their way to the city limits perchance?) and that was all the video director thought was needed.!

“Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)” peaked at No 23.

Back on a dance tip now with Bizarre Inc who are ‘avin’ it large with their hit “Such A Feeling”. By ‘avin’ it large, obviously I mean having two dancers at the front of the stage doing some arm-waving whilst the three guys in the band mime playing keyboards. Literally that’s all the performance is. Fine if you’re off on one in a club but a bit ridiculous looking for a prime time TV music show. I wonder if Davies was secretly relieved not have to present this type of thing anymore. Leave it for the kids and all that. He himself was approaching 34 by this point. which seems very young to the 53 year old me looking back but he might have been pushing it a bit as a purveyor of what the youth were into. I think I went to a nightclub just once after I turned 30.

“Such A Feeling” peaked at No 13.

Now here was an antidote to all that pesky dance music doing the rounds. Since his surprise No 1 single “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart” with Gene Pitney at the end of the 80s, Marc Almond had not been a frequent visitor to the UK Top 40. He’d only racked up one No 29 hit (“A Lover Spurned”) from his “Enchanted” album in 1990 since then. So what do you do if you need a comeback hit single? You record a cover version of course! Being Marc Almond though, this was no ordinary cover. “Jacky” was a Jacques Brel song originally recorded by the Belgian singer-songwriter as “La chanson de Jacky” in 1965 and Marc was a massive Brel fan having already released an album of covers of his songs back in 1989 (although curiously it didn’t feature “Jacky”). The version that was more known to UK audiences though was the English translated one by Scott Walker who released it as his first solo single in 1967.

Marc’s version is definitely more Walker than Brel albeit with an obtrusive backbeat stapled onto it and a synthesised choir effect tagged on the end. It’s gloriously ridiculous and rather splendid for it. The lyrics are exquisitely bonkers and therefore wholly memorable. For example:

I’d have to get drunk every night
And talk about virility
With some old grandmother
That might be decked out like a Christmas tree
And no pink elephant I’d see
Though I’d be drunk as I could be

Excellent! Then of course, there is the killer hook in the chorus of Cute in a stupid ass way or rather Cute (pause for dramatic effect) in a stupid ass way. I’m sure this caused a trend amongst some young men to wear very skinny T-shirts with the legend ‘Cute in a stupid ass way’ emblazoned across them. The only thing that disappoints me about Almond’s version is that he doesn’t do the Scott Walker phrasing of ‘Jacky’ where he softens the ‘J’ which I always found very affecting.

“Jacky” peaked at No 17 and was the lead single from his first and only album for Warner Brothers “Tenement Symphony” which would implausibly spawn another hit single the following year with another cover version, this time “The Days of Pearly Spencer” which was originally recorded by David McWilliams. Despite including those hits, the album was not a big seller peaking at No 39.

A third TOTP appearance for Sabrina Johnston and “Peace” next. Interesting to note the difference in her performance here and that of Rozalla earlier. Sabrina’s backed by four dancers behind her whilst Rozalla was up there all on her tod.

With the greatest respect to Sabrina, maybe she needed to be helped out in the dance moves department as she comes across like Tina Turner meets Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques when she’s wigging out.

Not only was she outdone by Rozalla’s much more impressive dancing, Sabrina also lost out to her in the chart positions as “Peace” peaked two places lower than “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”at No 8.

Three Breakers next and we start with Fish. I never fail to be amazed about just how many solo hits this guy had and also how few of them I recall. “Internal Exile” was his fourth and, like all his others, it must have passed me by at the time. Taken from the album of the same name, it had a very obviously Celtic folk feel to it and was about his desire for Scottish independence (still relevant as a subject today of course). The album included a version of “Something In The Air” by Thunderclap Newman. Want to hear it? Nah, nor me.

Another very tall man who used to front a rock band next as we see Ozzy Osbourne back in the charts for the first time in five years. He’s also released the title track from his new album as a single in “No More Tears”. Apparently, Ozzy considers this song to be ‘a gift from God’. Really?! Hell’s teeth! There really was nothing here for me though I do remember the Our Price Store I was working in getting the album in early on import and the only way you could distinguish it from the UK release was that the cover had a slightly different colour tint to it. I think I was (ahem) ‘paranoid’ about selling the wrong version.

It’s a trio of new album title tracks released as singles on the Breakers as Belinda Carlisle returns with “Live Your Life Be Free“. The hits had dried up in her native US by this point in Belinda’s career but here in the UK we were still happy to consume some more of her pleasant if formulaic soft rock. “Live Your Life Be Free” certainly fell into both of these categories and was hardly anything much different from what she had served up on her last two albums “Heaven On Earth” and “Runaway Horses” to my ears but it was eminently listenable. The album would spawn four Top 40 hits (of which the title track was the biggest) and would achieve gold status but it was a definite tailing off of sales compared to its two predecessors.

The video sees Belinda dressed up to look like Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolitte from My Fair Lady or possibly Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward for Pretty Woman (same film basically) at the races. All together now…”Come on, Dover, move yer bloomin’ arse!”

For 36 years Slim Whitman’s chart topping statistics were unrivalled but they’ve finally been brought down by the ‘Groover from Vancouver’ as “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams clocks up a twelfth consecutive week at No 1! I think when we’d reached this point and a 36 year chart record had been broken, maybe we were all believing that the spell it held over the UK public would also have been broken. Surely now it had beaten everything else in chart history, that would have been enough, job done or as Roy Castle would have said “You’re a record breaker!”. Alas no, Bryan was good for another four weeks after this meaning his single was responsible for the following chart feats courtesy of officialcharts.com:

  • With 16 consecutive weeks at the summit, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” scored the longest ever run at No 1 in UK chart history, a record which still hasn’t been bettered. Just one song has more total weeks at No 1 – Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” which enjoyed 18 weeks at the top across 3 different stints.
  • “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” is the UK’s 15th best-selling single of all time with over 1.87 million paid-for sales to date including 340,000 on digital download.
  • Even in 2021, nine people have picked up a physical copy of the song!
  • To date it’s clocked up over 55 million streams in the UK since chart records began – including 10 million in the first 6 months of 2021 alone
  • It was the best-seller of 1991 earning 1.43 million sales that year alone. It even outsold the second biggest (Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” which was re-released following Freddie Mercury’s death) by more than twice as many copies in that year.

The play out video this week is “Try” by Bros and I guess it’s a fitting end to both the current format of the show and Gary Davies’s time as a presenter that they both finish with a song that was also the final ever chart entry for the Goss twins. Bros would split the following year with Matt Goss forging a solo career before making a name for himself in the US where he had his own Vegas Residency at The Palms, Caesars Palace and The Mirage singing the swing classics. As for Luke, he briefly formed a group called Band of Thieves who released a pretty good single called “Sweeter Than The Midnight Rain” before embarking on an acting career that would see him land roles in such films as Blade II and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

As for Gary Davies, he bows out with a fairly unemotional goodbye although he does give an extra long stare right down the lens before the Bros video kicks in. I wonder who’s benefit that was for?

Order of appearance ArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1P.J.B. featuring Hannah And Her SistersBridge Over Troubled WaterNever going to happen
2The ScorpionsWind Of ChangeNope
3RozallaEverybody’s Free (To Feel Good)Nah
4REMThe One I LoveNot the single but I must have it on something
5Tina TurnerNutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)See 1 above
6Bizarre IncSuch A FeelingNo
7Marc AlmondJackyLiked it, didn’t buy it
8Sabrina JohnstonPeaceSee 7 above
9FishInternal ExileNegative
10Ozzy Osbourne No More TearsNothing here for me
11Belinda CarlisleLive Your Life Be FreeI did not
12Bryan Adams(Everything I Do) I Do It For YouIt’s another no
13BrosTryAnd 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/m0010b3m/top-of-the-pops-26091991

TOTP 12 SEP 1991

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”.

“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.

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.

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?

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 appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Bizarre IncSuch A FeelingBizarre Inc? Godawful stink more like! No
2Marc Bolan & T. Rex20th Century BoyNo but I have a Best Of CD with it on
3Roxette The Big L.No
4Sabrina JohnstonPeaceLiked it, didn’t buy it
5The Stone RosesI Wanna Be AdoredNo but I’ve got the album
6Crystal WatersMakin’ HappyIt didn’t make me happy – no
7Cliff RichardMore To LifeGod no!
8Marky Mark & The Funky BunchGood VibrationsNah
9Rozalla “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”I did not
10Julian LennonSaltwaterNo but I didn’t mind it actually
11Shabba Ranks/ Maxi Priest HousecallNO!
12Bryan Adams Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve StartedNegative
13Bryan Adams (Everything I Do) I Do It for YouDouble negative
14Right Said FredI’m Too SexyIt’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 06 SEP 1991

CORRECTION: In the post relating to the TOTP broadcast on 22 Aug 1991, I mistakenly reported that this was Bruno Brookes’ last ever appearance as a host on the show as he was removed along with all the other Radio 1 DJ presenters in the ‘year zero’ revamp. I also stated that we would see valedictory appearances by Mark Goodier, Jakki Brambles, Simon Mayo, Nicky Campbell and Gary Davies in the following weeks. Whilst it was true that the above names were replaced by a batch of new presenters from Oct 1991 onwards, it has been brought to my attention that four of those six would return to the TOTP family in 1994 as the year zero revamp was reversed. Only Gary Davies and Jakki Brambles did not reappear. Consequently, my claim about the show not being presented again by Bruno Brookes, Mark Goodier, Simon Mayo and Nicky Campbell is not true although we won’t be seeing them for over two years. Thank you to Matthew James for pointing this out.

Right, now that’s cleared up, I can say that this show was Jakki Brambles final TOTP appearance. Jakki always gave off the impression to me that she was quite disinterested in all this pop music lark and I never found her that convincing as a host. She also seemed to have an issue with the temperature in the TOTP studio with many a Winter coat being worn when surely it must have been boiling under those hot studio lights. She emigrated to the US in 1994, changed the spelling of her name to ‘Jackie’ and stayed there for eleven years as a news radio morning anchor and occasional television news anchor for the CBS network. She returned to the UK in 2005 and presented Loose Women until 2009 and owns her own digital media business called Broadstance Digital Media Production. She currently works on Greatest Hits Radio which seems to be some sort of retirement home for ex Radio 1 DJs as their roster also includes, yes you guessed it, Simon Mayo and Mark Goodier alongside other ‘star’ names as Andy Crane (has no brain) and Pat Sharp.

Right on with the show as we have 14 (FOURTEEN) songs to get through in this one. We start with Oceanic and “Insanity”. I’m pretty sure that this one would have been labelled as a ‘banger’ back then (and maybe even today). A huge anthem, it started life on a short run promo 12″ sending crowds of North-West ravers erm…insane.. whenever it was played. Inevitably, it was picked up for a wider commercial release by Dead Dead Good records and would go on to spend four months on the Top 40 and three months in the Top 10 including three weeks at No 3. Could it have made it to No 1 if that Bryan Adams song had never been released? Possibly although it would probably have got stuck at No 2 behind Right Said Fred. We’ll never know. What I do know however, is that around this time, rave music seemed to be taking over the world or at least the UK anyway. Just about anything that was a ‘dance’ track seemed to attract the ‘rave’ label. Oceanic obviously came under that umbrella but there were also Bassheads (from the same neck of the woods as it happened), K-Klass, Bizarre Inc, Altern 8 etc. Predictably, the scene became homogenised when all these club anthems started to be lumped together on compilation albums like Virgin’s “The Ultimate Rave”. Was that the point where it all started to go wrong? Look, when it comes to dance music, I freely admit that I don’t really know what I’m talking about despite having spent the majority of the 90s working in record shops.

As for Oceanic, despite two further Top 40 hits, they were never able to move on from the success of “Insanity” but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for the band. Back in 2012, in an interview with The Liverpool Echo in a piece about the reopening of a Liverpool nightclub called The State where the band were due to play a set, singer Jorinde Williams said:

“I love getting the metaphorical rave horn out now and again and singing Insanity. It still gives me shivers to see a crowd of grinning, dancing strangers singing back these words I wrote 20 years ago, and that it means something to them.”

The metaphorical rave horn?! That either sounds like something very rude or a band that did a session for John Peel in 1993.

Talking of rave, this next lot were also one of the acts that must have featured on that “The Ultimate Rave” compilation. The Prodigy were up to No 3 by this point with their Public Information Films themed hit “Charly”. Famously sampling the 1973 cut out animation warning children of the dangers of strangers, falling in the water, matches etc via the characters of a boy called Tony and his ginger cat, I notice that the spelling of the cat’s name originally was ‘Charley’ but The Prodigy dropped an ‘e’ (ahem) for the title of their single. That must have been deliberate and an in joke within the band surely?!

Sonia was still having hits into the Autumn of 1991?! That was over two years since her Stock, Aitken and Waterman produced No 1 single “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You”! In the intervening period she’d eked out a further six hits all of which had gone Top 20. Clearly Sonia wasn’t going to give up on this pop star lark easily. “Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy” however would break that run of Top 20 singles when it peaked just outside at No 22. Our Sonia’s got a band of seven up there on stage with her to deliver the song but no amount of hired hands can distract from the notion that this seemed so incongruous with the rest of the contemporary charts acts. A rave anthem this was not! However, it was a firm favourite amongst the Northern Soul scene – no not Sonia’s version obviously but the version by The Tams which was a minor UK hit in 1970.

Looking at Sonia’s discography (not something I would have thought I would ever be doing) I can see that she still has another three Top 40 entries stretching into 1993 to get through before her well of chart hits finally ran dry. However, two of those were more cover versions and the final one was the UK’s Eurovision entry – so much for Jakki Brambles comment about ‘self-penned tunes’ on Sonia’s second album called …erm…”Sonia” that was released a month after this TOTP appearance. Jakki also refers to her as ‘a good old girl’ at the song’s end. She was 20 when this show was broadcast!

It’s the video for “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt ‘N Pepa next. In a Rolling Stone magazine article in 2017, Salt (Cheryl James) made the distinction that:

“The song was about talking about sex. The song was not about sex. The song was about communication and talking about a subject that nobody wants to talk about”

Pepa (Sandra Denton) added:

“It wasn’t a dirty song. It was an enlightenment song”

So powerful was the song’s message that it was re-worked in 1992 to help promote discussions about AIDS and HIV. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

However, the song has also been used in a much more light hearted way. After Liverpool had secured their sixth European Cup when winning the Champions League in 2019, manager Jurgen Klopp was so overjoyed that he couldn’t help bursting into a rendition of it with the lyrics altered to reflect his club’s achievement. Someone then mixed it with the original track and….

In direct contrast to Sonia earlier with her seven piece backing band packing out the stage, here’s Zoë with with just a sole guitarist for company as she performs her hit “Sunshine On A Rainy Day”. Was Zoë’s style of dancing a thing back then? You know, feet rooted to the floor with the arms supplying all the movement? I guess Susanne and Joanne from The Human League made a 40 year career out of a similar thing.

As the track is coming to an end there’s a shot where you can see Jakki Brambles in place to do the next link in the gantry. What surprised me was that she isn’t even looking at the stage as Zoë is still performing. Look I know she had a job to do but it’s a good 20 seconds before the camera actually comes to her. Remember earlier when I said Jakki always seemed disinterested in the whole pop music thing…? “Good to see that one in the charts at long last” she tells us as she segues into the next act. Well, you didn’t see it Jakki, you weren’t even looking in the right direction! “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” peaked at No 4.

So that next act is Martika with the video for “Love…Thy Will Be Done”. As Jakki tells us, her latest album “Martika’s Kitchen” (terrible, terrible title) has four songs on it that were co-written with Prince including the current single which I think we were all meant to take on board as meaning that she was leaving her pop past behind and becoming a serious artist.

We also knew this because the accompanying video was shot in black and white, that classic trick to ensure that we understood what we were watching had some gravitas to it. No pop fluff this you know. When I was a student at Sunderland Poly we had to make a video short for one of the modules and my group employed the black and white tactic for ours. The point we wanted to make though was that black and white meant dull and boring before the film came alive with the introduction of colour. Out of our way Federico Fellini! Our video was entitled Wet Dream but it’s not what you might think. The black and white footage had a guy called Ian falling asleep in a particularly dull lecture before he went into a dream in colour where he is kidnapped and thrown into a swimming pool. As he awakes from his dream back in black and white he is soaking wet. Genius! We were all do pleased with ourselves! Ah, the folly of youth. I must get around to uploading it one day. “Love…Thy Will Be Done” peaked at No 9.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find some more ravers in Utah Saints with a guy up front on bass guitar looking like what I’m sure Boris Johnson (but not me) would describe as a ‘crusty’. Their performance of “What Can You Do For Me” illustrates perfectly the issues TOTP was facing with showcasing this new fangled rave music. There are no vocals apart from the short samples from Gwen Guthrie, Eurythmics and an intro from a Kiss concert. That leaves the four members of the band having to fill the time somehow. So we have the aforementioned bass player strutting about, a drummer, someone on keyboards and a DJ scratching like his life depending on it. No wonder the show’s producers decided to pad it out with some images from the promo video. To be fair, the track was good enough to not be undermined by the performance and would go up the charts the following week.

Jakki Brambles’ comment on Utah Saints? “They’re a good bunch of lads”. Hang on didn’t she say something similar about Sonia? Yes she did (“ a good old girl”). Presumably this was her default style of phrases she would go to to fill time. A bit like a Tory politician being asked a difficult question and replying “I don’t accept your characterisation of ***”.

Kylie Minogue is up next adding to the female pop star count for this show. We’ve already had Sonia, Zoë, Martika, Salt ‘N Pepa plus Oceanic fronted by Jorinde Williams and now here’s Kylie with her latest single “Word Is Out”. As Jakki says it was her fourteenth consecutive hit but it was also the first to fail to reach the Top 10. Were UK pop fans getting bored of her? No I don’t think so – it was just a shit song. Really weak. It was the lead single from her fourth and final album with Stock, Aitken and Waterman and she seemed to be a bit lost in this stage of her career. Maybe she was just finding her feet in the creative process (she shared song writing credits on six of the tracks). The album had a mixed reception both critically and commercially (it also failed to make the Top 10, her first album to do so). Very much a forgotten Kylie single (when was the last time you heard it on the radio?), its failure to rack up massive sales wasn’t due to a lack of effort on Kylie’s part as she gives the usual energetic performance here, crammed full of more dance moves than Zoë could wave her arms at. That would all be gone come her next single though which (psst… pass it on) was a big R’n’B ballad with Keith Washington. The word was out.

This is totally unfair! Just six minutes left of the show and they cram in another six songs in that time! My poor fingers! This is due to there being four Breakers this week starting with Mötley Crüe with a song called “Primal Scream”. What? I’d rather that sentence read Primal Scream with a song called “Motley Crue”.

This blog appears to have gone umlaut crazy. After the nonsense of the Marc Bölan story the other week and the appearance tonight of Zoë, we have the LA hair metallers with a single to promote their first Greatest Hits album. Hang on, what hits? They’d had just three Top 40 entries before this in the UK and none had hit higher than No 23. To be fair, they were more successful in the US where they’d had six including two Top 10s but I’m not about to let something like the truth get in the way of a petty swipe at them! According to the band’s Nikki Sixx, the song was written about Arthur Janov’s 1970 book The Primal Scream. Yeah, maybe or maybe they just stole the idea off Tears For Fears who named themselves after said book. “Primal Scream” the Mötley Crüe song kept their run of UK singles that failed to breach the Top 20 going when it peaked at No 26.

Another dance anthem now. Sabrina Johnston may only be known for this single “Peace” in this country but she’s not without musical pedigree. She toured with The Sugar Hill Gang in the 80s and was signed to Sugar Hill Records as part of West Street Mob so you know…respect and all. “Peace” was just a huge, uplifting chunk of positivity in the form of a gospel -ish dance track that was written during the Gulf War as an antidote to the feelings of dread and horror that conflict engendered. It was a tune! Peaking at No 8, it returned to the charts the following year as a double A-side with a remix of “Gypsy Woman” by Crystal Waters to promote the “Red, Hot + Dance” charity album.

Talking of whom….now I would have laid money on Crystal Waters having been a one hit wonder but no as here she is with the follow up to No 2 hit “Gypsy Woman” with a song called “Makin’ Happy”. I didn’t much care for her first hit and this one wasn’t going to do it for me either seeing as it was very much in the same mould – indeed it was described as ‘Gypsy Woman, Part II’ in some of the music press. Even in this short clip it just seemed so damn repetitive. Her discography tells me that she had nine Top 40 hits in this country. NINE?!! Don’t panic though, I don’t think we’ll be seeing her again until these TOTP repeats hit 1994 (assuming that they carry on that long).

Roxette complete the Breakers with the third single from their third studio album “Joyride” called “The Big L.” (no punctuation after the ‘L’ , no points). It’s a bit bland this one and it really reminds me of another song (who said anything else by Roxette?!) but I can’t put my finger on it. An ABBA song maybe?It wasn’t released in the US for some reason – not sure why their American record company wouldn’t have had faith in it given their last seven singles released there had peaked at:

1 – 14 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 2

Now, remember that guy who interviews Jurgen Klopp in that ‘Let’s Talk About Six’ video. Well, his name is Jan Åge Fjørtoft (the theme was umlauts Jan not…whatever they are) who is an ex-professional footballer who turned out for Swindon Town, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United and Barnsley in this country but that’s neither here nor there. Look at him again. He could be the guy in Roxette surely?

OK, what week are we onto now with Bryan Adams and “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”? Nine? Ten? I’m struggling for any more content on this song now. What has @TOTPFacts got for me…

Oh, great, thanks very much! Balls! Well, in a Smash Hits interview (Bryan was not only in the magazine but on the front cover -who’d have thought it?!) he was asked:

Are you mightily chuffed with the single then?

His reply was:

“You could say that”

Bryan Adams there with a magnificently downbeat show of being chuffed about something that has only been matched by David Batty when he was interviewed in Lee Chapmans’ house in Boroughbridge when Leeds Utd won the league in 1992. Asked how he felt about the achievement he replied:

Well, it’s a bonus”.

Who’s this? Runrig? Oh yes, I remember them. Like a celtic Dire Straits weren’t they? Too glib? OK, well “The Hearthammer EP” was their first Top 40 hit despite having been around since 1973 and as I recall they were a very popular live draw. Indeed, there are almost as many live Runrig albums as studio albums. To prove the point, the video shows the band playing what seems to be a massive outdoor gig. The single was taken from an album called “The Big Wheel” which went gold in the UK. This really does sound like Dire Straits though.

And that’s it from Jakki Brambles. Her comment at the show’s end “Right, I’m off to the Darby and Joan Club” suggests maybe she knew she was for the bullet?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1OceanicInsanityI didn’t
2The ProdigyCharlyNope
3SoniaBe Young, Be Foolish, Be HappyAs if
4Salt ‘n PepaLet’s Talk About SexLiked it, didn’t buy it
5ZoëSunshine On A Rainy DaySee 4 above
6MartikaLove…Thy Will Be DoneNope
7Utah SaintsWhat Can You Do For MeSee 4 above
8Kylie MinogueWord Is OutNah
9Mötley CrüePrimal ScreamNever happening
10Sabrina JohnstonPeaceSee 4 above
11Crystal WatersMakin’ HappySoundin’ crappy more like – no
12RoxetteThe Big L.F******g ‘ell more like – no
13Bryan Adams(Everything I Do) I Do It For YouI did not
14RunrigThe Hearthammer EPNo

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/m00103fv/top-of-the-pops-06091991