Seal

TOTP 27 JUL 1995

Posted on December 22, 2023 by 80stastic

Right, that’s Christmas and New Year celebrations well and truly over with for another year and a return to normality beckons. However, that isn’t on the cards for these BBC4 TOTP repeats. As far as I can tell, we won’t be returning to these 1995 shows until late January at the earliest as the 60th anniversary commemorations of the show via a series of retro programmes focusing on performances from the 60s, 70s and 80s continue. So, after being behind with my reviews for weeks, I now have ample opportunity to catch up. Hurray!

Tonight’s episode is hosted by Craig McLachlan, probably still best known at this time as Henry from Neighbours though he had carved out a brief career for himself as a pop star at the turn of the decade with his No 2 UK hit “Mona”. Quite why he was perceived to be a big enough name to host TOTP in July 1995 though is a question that’s not immediately obvious to answer to me. He’d left Ramsey Street long ago and his last chart hit in this country – a version of “You’re The One That I Want” with Debbie Gibson as part of the cast of Grease – had been two years prior. However, he had just finished starring in the BBC crime drama series Bugs so that could be the reason behind his appearance here. I never watched that show so maybe that’s why I didn’t quite understand the height of his profile. Whatever the reason for his ‘golden mic’ slot, he turns in a pretty lacklustre performance. Giving a pretence of what you perceive to be cool and actually being cool are two very different things though why he thought he could pull off an all-in-one leather singlet outfit with shades accessories, only he will know. Maybe he was trying on a future look for size as there’s something a bit Frank-N-Furter about it, a role that McLachlan would play more than once in productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Looking remarkably ordinary in comparison (thank goodness) are opening act The Boo Radleys who have clocked up a third consecutive Top 40 hit. After the ubiquitous airplay hit that was “Wake Up Boo!” at the start of the year, the band had followed it up with what I believed was an infinitely better tune in “Find The Answer Within” but once again I was in the lower percentile of the record buying public when it peaked at No 37. Undeterred, a third single from the “Wake Up!” album was released and “It’s Lulu” would fall between two stools, peaking a whole 12 places higher than its immediate predecessor but nowhere near the Top 10 position of the (almost) title track.

As much as I liked it, I believed there were better tracks on the album (which I’d bought) and had hoped “Twinside” or the beautiful ballad “Wilder” would have been chosen as the third and final single from it. Sadly it was not to be and the perfectly decent but rather obvious “It’s Lulu” was given the shout (ahem). I’m guessing it wasn’t actually about the diminutive Scottish singer as the lyrics seem to tell the story of a teenage girl who feels the angst of her age group admitting that she can’t buy any clothes that fit, gets her facts from Smash Hits and is only understood by the posters on her walls. OK, they’re a bit clunky but they beat the pants off Lulu shouting endlessly about not very much.

Now it’s never occurred to me before but is there something in the verses to “It’s Lulu” that’s reminiscent of a certain cult classic advert from the early 80s?…

OK, this was just getting silly now; silly and confusing. “Stuck On U” was the sixth consecutive Top 40 hit for those cheeky scamps PJ & Duncan including one inside the Top 10 and four registering respectable chart peaks of either No 15 or No 12. Quite how they were mining these hits from a very narrow vein of pop/rap material…well…I can only assume that the people buying their records were actually buying into their likeable personalities as the music was formulaic at best. But was it their personalities or their characters because – and this was where the confusion came in – the lines between the real duo (as in Ant & Dec) and their Byker Grove constructs were really blurred around this time. You see despite still continuing to release records as PJ & Duncan (a trend that would carry on until 1996), they were doing a side hustle as TV presenters (having left Byker Grove well behind them) under their own names. Indeed, just three months before this TOTP aired, the first episode of their own show entitled The Ant & Dec Show (!) was broadcast on CBBC. Identity crisis at all?

To add to the confusion, “Stuck On U” was the lead track from their second album “Top Katz” (an awful, dreadful title) which Wikipedia informs me only made it to No 46 in the charts despite containing four hit singles and yet it went gold selling 100,000 copies. No 46 but it sold 100,000 copies? That can’t be right can it? This is a case of advanced orders from record shops masquerading as actual customers sales isn’t it?

Next, what would be called a collaboration these days but back in 1995 it was probably…what? A duet? Maybe not. Anyway, whatever it was, it featured…oh that was probably it wasn’t it? One of the artists featuring the other.

*checks cover of single*

Yes! Officially, it was Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige. Method Man was one of those rap artists that definitely required a temporary insert in place of the actual CD sleeve when on display in any of the Our Price stores I worked in along with Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, 2 Pac, NWA etc. This single “I’ll BeThere For You / You’re All I Need To Get By”, released on the legendary Def Jam label, was supposedly one of the first examples of the ‘Thug-Love’ genre which I wasn’t aware of at the time but which I understand now to be the combination of a rapper doing the verses and an R&B soul singer doing the chorus (I think). Said chorus plunders heavily the melody from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s hit 1968 hit “You’re All I Need To Get By” which is the only bit which appeals to me I have to say. The track did appeal in its entirety to a lot of people though going to No 3 in the US and Top 10 in the UK. Was it from a film as that might have had an influence on its success?

*checks Wikipedia*

It doesn’t seem so but it was the biggest hit for either artist at the time. Mary J. Blige is one of those names which I know and who have been extraordinarily successful even earning the moniker of the ‘Queen of R&B’ but whom I’m not sure I could name even three of her songs. The same without doubt applies to Method Man. That clearly says more about my musical tastes than either’s profile.

We’re only three songs in and already Craig McLachlan is becoming insufferable in his role as host. In his link to the next act he says “Yo! Top of the Poppers!” Oh dear. I tried out that greeting affectation once when I was a student at Sunderland Poly. My wife (then girlfriend) was with me at the time and nearly dumped me on the spot. I’ve never used it since. McLachlan then goes on to say that people are always asking him what his favourite type of music is. There’s a couple of things about both this revelation and his answer that don’t ring true to me. Firstly, that anyone would be that interested in his musical preferences in the first place and secondly that he would reply with The Lightning Seeds. Yes, I know it was just a lame line, a construct to segue between artists but couldn’t the scriptwriters have done better here?

Anyway, this was the point where Lightning Seeds really got into gear as a chart hit making machine with “Perfect” being their third Top 40 single of 1995, all of them from their “Jollification” album which would achieve platinum sales by the end of the year. Unlike its high speed predecessors “Change” and “Marvellous”, “Perfect” was a much slower, reflective tune, some may even say melancholy. In fact, listening back to it now, it strikes me that perhaps this was actually Ian Broudie’s attempt at writing his own version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”. Now I’m not suggesting that his song is on a par with the classic track from the iconic “Transformer” album – of course not – but it does have a feel of it, possibly.

As for the performance here, the TOTP producers obviously felt that, despite ex-Icicle Works drummer Chris Sharrock doing his best Keith Moon impression, Ian Broudie sat at a keyboard wasn’t the most interesting spectacle. As such, they came up with a special effect that saw his head, detached and blown up in size dangling over the stage like some pop music version of the Wizard Of Oz (before we got to see the real Oz behind the curtain).

A rerelease of “Lucky You” would see Lightning Seeds clock up four hit singles in 1995 before returning in 1996 with the enduring football anthem “Three Lions” the following year and there was nothing cowardly about that song.

Craig McLachlan does some awful Guinness referencing intro for the next act who are, of course, Irish boyband Boyzone. Unlike the Lightning Seeds who followed up two uptempo hits with a slower song, the pretenders to Take That’s crown did the reverse, releasing a pop tune that bounces along after two consecutive ballads. I made the point previously that the group’s second hit “Key To My Life” was surely a forgotten Boyzone hit. Well, if that one is forgotten then “So Good” must be consigned to oblivion. It’s basically just a chorus with some other bits thrown in as an afterthought. Now, I can’t help noticing the dancing on display here (because the music is hardly captivating is it?) and it occurred to me that though there is definite progress from this…

…most of their moves involve wiggling a leg around Riverdance style and generally just jumping on the spot. Yes, at least they do it in time and their matching outfits lend the whole thing a sense of synchronicity but it’s not that slick is it? Still, maybe it was better that they weren’t super tight. I always admired Bananarama for their amateurish dance steps (earlier in their career at least) and couldn’t stand the synchronised swimming precision of some of the boy bands that emerged later in the decade.

After two hits that they’d had a hand in writing themselves, Boyzone would return with a cover in Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” that would give them another enormous festive hit just as their version of “Love Me For A Reason” by The Osmonds had done the previous Christmas.

Now I could have sworn that I didn’t know this song by REM but having watched the video for “Tongue”, it does ring a fair few bells and so it should as it has a very distinctive sound. The fifth and final single from the “Monster” album, Michael Stipe sings the whole song in falsetto and it seems to my ears that there’s very little instrumentation to the track save for the sustaining sound of a dominant organ. It’s quite striking so how it seems to have escaped my accessible memory banks is bemusing.

Something else that seemed to have slipped my mind (if I ever knew it in the first place) was the song’s subject matter. Michael Stipe is on record as saying that it is about cunnilingus. Off the top of my head, I can only think of “Turning Japanese” by The Vapours as a pop song that is inspired by a particular sexual act though I’m sure there will be more. I wonder if host Craig McLachlan knew the story behind the song. It would certainly have made his intro take on a complete different tone. Replace every mention of Rapid Eye Movement here with the word ‘cunnilingus’ and see what difference it makes:

“Let me talk to you about Rapid Eye Movement . Do you know what that is? Rapid Eye Movement – have you experienced it? You’re about to…R…E..M!”.

It’s time for another appearance by Seal as his single “Kiss From A Rose” is up to No 5. Somewhat surprisingly, despite his profile, Seal would only have another two UK Top 40 hits under his own name. In fact, his chart success fell away pretty spectacularly. Despite his first two albums going to No 1, his third, 1998’s “Human Being”, only made it to No 44 selling 10x less than its predecessor. He did have more of a return to form with “Seal IV” making No 4 appropriately in 2003 but he has not had another Top 10 album since. We won’t see him in the UK singles chart again for nearly 18 months when another song from a film – his cover of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” from Space Jam returned him to the Top 20.

It’s the album chart slot now which means a chance for Supergrass to plug their debut album “I Should Coco” which has risen to the top of the charts off the back of the success of their No 2 single “Alright”. To celebrate the achievement, the band are live by satellite from Vancouver performing “Caught By The Fuzz” which was their first ever single which failed to make the Top 40 on its release in the autumn of 1994.

Wikipedia tells me that a mugshot of Hugh Grant – who had been caught by the fuzz (and indeed his short and curlys) receiving oral sex from prostitute Divine Brown on Sunset Boulevard exactly a month before this TOTP aired – was intended to be the artwork for the sleeve of the US release of the single. However, Grant’s lawyers complained and the idea was dropped. Not completely it would seem though as bassist Mick Quinn is wearing a T-shirt in this performance with that infamous Grant mugshot emblazoned all over it. I wonder if Hugh’s lawyers were watching?

As for the song itself, I’m slightly surprised that it never got a rerelease off the back of the band’s subsequent success. Maybe they thought they’d plundered the album enough by this point and wanted to avoid over exposure seeing as “Alright” had been all over radio and TV. Good tune though.

Oh dear. Inevitably, Craig McLachlan has got a guitar out and is singing the next intro (and I thought Mike Read was bad back in the day). Quite who the two blokes with him are or why they are dressed as Arabs I’m not sure. Could the disguised duo be any of the artists that were in the studio that day? Well, having inspected the footage, it’s clearly not PJ & Duncan / Ant & Dec nor any of Boyzone – could it be any of the Lightning Seeds or The Boo Radleys? I’d like to think they wouldn’t have lowered themselves.

Anyway, said intro is for Julian Cope who is enjoying his first UK Top 40 hit since the rather lovely “Beautiful Love” from 1991. “Try Try Try” was the lead single from his twelfth solo studio album “20 Mothers” – wait, his twelfth was in 1995?! So how many has he done in total?

*checks his discography*

My God! He’s up to 36 now! Like him or loath him (and I very much like him), you have to admire the prolific frequency of his output. Listening back to “Try Try Try” now, I’m struck by how conventional a sound it is which is at odds with his outlandish appearance (he does look like a knacker in that druid hat). It sort of reminds me of The Who in places, something about the melody perhaps? I’d sort of lost track of Julian by this point having kind of drawn a line under him when buying his 1992 compilation “Floored Genius” though I’m sure I went to an exhibition he curated at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester around this time.

There’s an episode of Rock Family Trees about the post-punk scene in Liverpool in the early 70s where Pete Wylie talks about Cope having been in the short lived but near legendary Crucial Three with him alongside Ian McCulloch. His relationship with Julian has been antagonistic over the years and he describes him as being this rather unwanted, weirdo type figure tutting “Here comes Julian” whenever Cope arrived. My wife and I still use this phrase today usually when our cat is pissing us off referring to him as Julian even though his name is Peter Pan.

The Outhere Brothers are still at No 1 with “Boom Boom Boom”. Fear not though as their four week reign at the top will be ended in the next show by *SPOILER ALERT* Take That who also ended the run of their other chart topper “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)”. This, in some way, almost makes up for the fact that they couldn’t depose Mr. Blobby as the Christmas No 1 in 1993. Almost.

The play out video is “Violet” by Hole. Apparently the lyrics relate to Courtney Love’s past relationship with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and it got me thinking about how many other songs are about relationships that have gone bad. Off the top of my head there’s “A Good Heart” by Feargal Sharkey which was written by Maria McKee about the end of her relationship with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. Then there’s the follow up single “You Little Thief” which is written by Tench and is supposedly his response to McKee’s song. Perhaps the most famous example though is Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”. For years there was speculation about who the song was about but Carly has finally admitted that it was about ex-lover Warren Beatty – well, the second verse at least if not the whole song. There must be many more out there though surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	It’s Lulu	No but I had the album
2	PJ & Duncan	Stuck On U	As if
3	Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige	I’ll BeThere For You / You’re All I Need To Get By	No
4	The Lightning Seeds	Perfect	Nope
5	Boyzone	So Good	Never happening
6	REM	Tongue	Nah
7	Seal	Kiss From A Rose	I did not
8	Supergrass	Caught By The Fuzz	See 1 above
9	Julian Cope	Try Try Try	Sorry Julian but no
10	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Hell no!
11	Hole	Violet	Not for me thanks

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/m001tdmj/top-of-the-pops-27071995

TOTP 13 JUL 1995

Posted on December 13, 2023 by 80stastic

We’ve reached the middle of July 1995 in these BBC4 TOTP repeats and there was a lot going on in the world of pop music at this time. Four days on from this broadcast, hearts of teenage girls everywhere in the UK were breaking as the news that Robbie Williams had left Take That! Shock! Horror! More of that later though as there’s another musical separation that rocked the industry just a day after this TOTP beamed into our homes when George Michael finally parted ways with Sony Music after being in dispute with them for over a year. As if all of that wasn’t enough, get this…Dale Winton was the guest host on TOTP! I know! It’s hard to be sure with these ‘golden mic’ hosts how big a name they were at the time that might have informed the decision to invite them on the show. Having checked Dale’s Wikipedia entry, it looks like he’d been presenting Supermarket Sweep for a couple of years by 1995 which, if my memory serves, started out as cult viewing for students but which rapidly grew in popularity. I could be wrong about this but, assuming I’m not, Dale may or may not have been instantly recognisable to TOTP viewers depending on which demographic you fell into. Sadly, Dale died in 2018 aged just 62 but I shall always remember him fondly for completely trashing Lulu whilst he was on an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Excellent work Mr. Winton!

We start tonight with yet another song and artist that I have obliterated from my memory. It turns out that Jinny wasn’t a person but a band (just like Toyah and Nena) and this track – “Keep Warm” – was the first and biggest of their two UK chart hits. Now, listening to this it sounds very much like Black Box to me which makes it a bit of an anachronism in 1995. Its back story supports my theory. It was originally released in 1991 and failed to chart presumably as the Italo House phenomenon spearheaded by the likes of the aforementioned Black Box and Starlight had run out of steam. However, it was given a second chance when the UK went mad for Eurodance in the mid 90s – meh, Italo House, Eurodance…what’s the difference?* – and it became a No 11 hit.

* I’m sure the dance heads out there will tell me that there is and what it is but I’m really not that interested

Now I believe that the blonde woman fronting this performance is one Carryl Varley who would go on to have a TV career presenting quiz shows and featured on the children’s Saturday morning show Scratchy & Co. Just like the woman from Black Box, it’s rumoured that she didn’t actually sing on any of the Jinny records and that it was the woman behind the Corona hits that supplied the vocals. Not the woman who did the TOTP appearances and whose face was on the artwork of the singles and albums though as she didn’t do the actual singing either! Confused? You will be…a point to anyone who knows which US sitcom that tagline is from**. We should probably ask queen of the quizzes Carryl Varley. She’ll know.

Oh don’t tell me I’ve got to find something to say about MN8 again! OK, well “Happy” was their third consecutive Top 10 hit and it turns out that it wasn’t actually their single at all. It was originally recorded by British funk band Hi-Tension in 1984 and then by American R&B group Surface in 1987. What do those previous two versions sound like? I don’t know and to be honest, I can’t be arsed to find out either it being such a dreary, lifeless thing.

Oh and Dale? Mate, it’s M-N-8 (as in emanate) not M – and – 8! Got that? Great! Or should that be GR8?

Next, the first of two songs on the show tonight that the artist behind them doesn’t like that much. And it’s another bloody rerelease. “Kiss From A Rose” was originally out in 1994 as the second single from Seal’s sophomore album “Seal II” when it made No 20. That chart placing always seemed quite low for such an accomplished, fulsome and lavish ballad and fate determined that its story wouldn’t end there. Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher asked Seal for permission to include it in the film and its soundtrack and once given and the song rereleased – Holy Heidi Klums! – a tsunami of sales engulfed the charts. It went to No 4 in the UK and topped the Billboard Hot 100 in America.

A second promo video was hastily put together for it featuring clips from the film and Seal singing next to the Bat Signal. With “Kiss From A Rose” and U2’s song from the film in the charts at the same time, it made for a nice little display in the Our Price store I was working in at the time when you needed to fill a tower with something. That was if you could get hold of the stock of course. I seem to recall there being some availability issues with the supplier for both singles.

So why doesn’t Seal like possibly his most well known hit? Well, apparently it was written in 1991 but Seal felt embarrassed by it and never even showed it to producer Trevor Horn when it came to recording his debut eponymous album. He still wasn’t very enamoured by it when his sophomore follow up was being laid down but quite liked the fact that Horn turned it into an eight million selling record. You don’t say.

The first of two bands who are associated with the Britpop movement now as Cast make their debut. I seem to have rather a connection with this lot despite hardly being a superfan. Rising from the ashes of The La’s after they imploded, Cast were an outlet for the creativity of their bass player John Power. Switching to rhythm guitar, he went through a number of different line ups before settling on the one in this TOTP appearance. So my connection with Cast was really a connection with Mr. Power. I’d caught The La’s live twice before they self-combusted; once as the support for Fine Young Cannibals when I confidently but ignorantly informed my wife that they were called The LA’s (as in the abbreviation for Los Angeles). The other time was when I saw them as the headline act in Manchester (must have been around 1991) when I’m pretty sure one of the band walked off stage in a huff never to return. Fast forward three years and I’m at the Manchester Opera House awaiting Elvis Costello on stage as my wife is a big fan. Who should be the support band that night? Yep, Cast. I’m not sure I twigged that this was John Power’s new band despite being sat a few rows from them as they watched Costello after their set was done but as I recall they were pretty good.

I’m guessing that they played “Finetime”, their debut single that they perform on this TOTP. Now, I may have refuted the notion of being a superfan earlier but I did buy this single. Some melodic, indie-ish guitar rock? I’m in. Someone I worked with at the time reckoned it sounded like Abba but I couldn’t understand what he was on about. If you were a scouser watching this TOTP then you might not have understood what Dale Winton was on about either when he pronounced their name as ‘Carst’. Oh dear. Incidentally, the drummer looks like he could be a mate of Damon Grant’s from Brookside. Boss!

It’s Dale’s favourite Summer ballad now (according to the man himself) and it’s “Grapevyne” by Brownstone. I really haven’t much to say about the song or group on this one. Sultry R&B was never really my bag and it wasn’t high on the list of priorities to listen to in that aforementioned Our Price store as I don’t remember hearing it played at all. My colleagues were more likely to put on Aphex Twin or Autechre or DJ Shadow – something like that anyway (yes, I was the uncool member of staff). Still, Brownstone’s performance here is very…erm…competent I guess, especially the a cappella bit at the end. Not sure why they spelt ‘grapevine’ with a ‘y’ in it though unless it’s the American spelling? Where’s Carryl Varley when you need her?

Before we move on to the next video, a momentary pause to highlight the fact that, yes, that is a young Iain Lee in the studio audience behind Dale’s left shoulder. Iain would have just turned 22 years old at the time but he was presenting The 11 O’Clock Show by the end of the decade which would give the world Ali G. Iain would enjoy a career as a writer, comedian and broadcaster and is currently working as a counsellor.

Back to the music and it’s time for a video exclusive from Hole. The follow up to their first ever UK hit “Doll Parts”, “Violet” was supposedly written about Courtney Love’s chaotic relationship with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins. It’s a riot of raucous guitars, power chords and Love’s strangulated vocals. As you might guess, this wasn’t for me. Far too…well…loud. The spooky video just served to alienate me from the song even more. Look, I know that some people swear by her but I think I’m with Dale when it comes to Courtney Love; she’s a bit of a worry.

So to that Take That news that both Dale and I promised earlier. Dale plugs the fact that they will be on the show next week to plug their new single (“Never Forget”) but as I said at the top of the post, Robbie Williams would leave the group three days before that TOTP appearance. Did they show up without him? I can’t remember so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, it’s a third (by my calculations) outing for Edwyn Collins and “A Girl Like You” on the show and yet again it’s the same clip of Edwyn’s first TOTP performance from about a month previous. I assume Edwyn was too busy touring or promoting his hit in other territories to come back on the show?

Now, whether you love it or hate it, you have to admire a song that features the words ‘acknowledge’, ‘metaphorically’ and ‘allegorically’ in its lyrics. I think it’s only outdone by “This Kiss” by Faith Hill which includes the phrase “centrifugal motion” in its song words. No, really…listen…

And so to one of the songs that will forever scream “Britpop!” at the top of its voice. Just as Pulp had had a couple of polite knocks at the door of the UK charts before smashing them in with a sledgehammer with their seminal “Common People” single, so Supergrass did the same with “Alright”. Both songs enjoyed almost identical chart trajectories, crashing in at No 2 on the first week of release, staying there for a week and then slipping to No 3 and spending a month inside the Top 10. It’s a great, knockabout song that, like “Wake Up Boo!” before it earlier in the year, had radio stations playing it endlessly it seemed. It became the band’s calling card, their signature tune – call it what you will – but it would become their albatross as well. As with Seal earlier, the band would come to dislike “Alright”. They stopped playing it live before the end of the decade; something I can confirm as I saw them in York in the early 2000s and it certainly didn’t make the set list then.

Unlike Pulp for whom “Common People” was the lead single from their seminal album “Different Class”, “Alright” was actually the fifth and final single from Supergrass’ “I Should Co Co”. Strange that the last release from an album should also be the biggest hit off it. I wonder why they kept it back so late? Given the band’s subsequent misgivings about it, maybe they were never that sure of its hit potential? And yet bassist Mick Quinn is on record as saying that he knew the song would be enormous because its backing track was “bulletproof”. Who knows the truth but release it they did and Supergrass made a super fast leap to superstardom.

“We’re baaaack!” they hollered at the message to camera piece at the top of the show and that’s exactly what I would like to see – the back of them. The Outhere Brothers are still No 1 with “Boom Boom Boom”. What more do you expect me to say about these two berks? OK, how about this? Their real names were Keith ‘Malik’ Mayberry and Lamar ‘Hula’ Mahone. The latter see seems rather apposite in the year that we lost Shane MacGowan as The Pogues took their name from the expression ‘Pogue Mahone’, an anglicisation of the Irish phrase ‘póg mo thóin’ meaning ‘kiss my arse’ – The Outhere Brothers certainly can.

The play out track is “Love Enuff” by Soul II Soul. I lost sight of Jazzie B and co after the “Joy” single in 1992 so I have no recollection of this track which was the lead single from the band’s fifth studio album “Volume V Believe”. It featured ex-Snap! vocalist Penny Ford and its peak of No 12 meant it was Soul II Soul’s biggest hit since the aforementioned “Joy”. And that rather dry, fact based analysis is all I have to say about it.

** Yes, it was of course from Soap

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Jinny	Keep Warm	Nah
2	MN8	Happy	No thanks
3	Seal	Kiss From A Rose	I didn’t
4	Cast	Finetime	YES!
5	Brownstone	Grapevyne	Nope
6	Hole	Violet	No
7	Edwyn Collins	A Girl Like You	Liked it, didn’t buy it
8	Supergrass	Alright	No but I had the I Should Co Co album
9	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	As if
10	Soul II Soul	Love Enuff	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/m001t61j/top-of-the-pops-13071995

TOTP 19 MAY 1994

Posted on March 28, 2023 by 80stastic

Right, after banging on about football in what’s supposed to be a retro music blog last time out, I promise there’s nothing about the beautiful game in this post. It’s straight to the music and the direct to camera message at the top of the show this week comes from a snake. No really. An actual snake but it’s no ordinary snake. Not only does it talk but it’s owner is ‘The Godfather of Shock Rock’ himself Alice Cooper who is on the show as both performer and host tonight. Blimey! Iggy Pop last week and Alice Cooper the next. There’s two ways of looking at this. Either new producer Ric Blaxill was trying to restore some credibility to TOTP by demonstrating that the show was still a pull for some of the most iconic names in music or he was totally misreading the room and not giving the kids what they wanted at all. Alice Cooper was 46 at the time this show aired and his biggest hit “School’s Out” had been No 1 22 years prior. Or was their a third view? Was he trying to reel back in those disaffected viewers who thought that they had outgrown the show? All I know is that was two ‘Godfathers’ on the show in consecutive weeks after ‘The Godfather of Punk’ Iggy Pop seven days before. It surely wasn’t just coincidence was it?

To completely blow my theorising above out of the water, we start with an act that surely couldn’t have existed and been successful at any other time other than the early to mid 90s. 2 Unlimited must have been one of the most prolific artists to appear on the show in this period. “The Real Thing” was their 10th consecutive UK chart hit of which only two didn’t make the Top 10. Unlike most of their previous offerings, Ray actually gets to do some prolonged rapping in this one rather than having to settle for shouting out “Techno, techno techno techno” every now and then.

The track reminds me of another song that I can’t quite put my finger on…

If you're thinking that "The Real Thing" reminds you of something (apart from every other 2 Unlimited track), it's probably Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor: https://t.co/2eUw8dCmjV #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 17, 2023

No, @TOTPFacts, not that (although clearly, that as well). Got it! It’s this…

Just me then. Oh well. By my reckoning there’s at least a couple more occasions when Ray and Anita will be on TOTP so we’re not quite done yet but the end is coming.

While the end of 2 Unlimited is nigh, we’re just at the start of something very lengthy and for some interminable and intolerable. Yes, Wet Wet Wet are here for the first time with (gulp) “Love Is All Around”. Yes, just three years since Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at the top of the charts, the UK was about to embark on another splurge of record buying that would create another long term resident at No 1, Chart Street. How could we have let this happen again so quickly?! Well, like “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, Wet Wet Wet’s single was also from a popular, mainstream film but for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves read Four Weddings and a Funeral. Richard Curtis’s rom-com was a runaway success topping the box office’s chart for 9 weeks and making it the second highest grossing film ever in the UK at the time. Although the song only features over the end credits (a version is sung by the hippy looking couple at the first wedding in the main body of the film), such exposure and promotion was always going to make it a big hit. Did any of us envision 15 weeks at No 1 though? I’ll need to keep something back for that lengthy a run on the show so for the moment, here’s some stats:

It was the best selling single in the UK for 1994 (obviously)
It went double platinum in the UK
It was No 1 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Holland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden
It has the joint third longest reign at the top of the UK chart only behind Bryan Adams and Frankie Laine
It spent 26 weeks in the UK Top 40 of which 20 were in the Top 10

In short, it was a monster with teeth. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Right, who’s this? Bad Boys Inc? They were still a thing in mid 1994? If that seems unbelievable, guess how many hits these stinkers had? Two? Three at a push? Uh-uh. Six. SIX! How? Why? What the hell was going on? “More To This World” was the fourth and biggest of them giving the group their only Top 10 hit. Filling the gap as an alternative to Take That for the teen market until Boyzone turned up a few months later, this lot were the template of how to be a second rate boy band. A frontman with a passable voice at best backed by some grinning no marks whose only contribution to the project was cheekbones, styled hair and dancing. Dreadful stuff from every body involved. We shall detain ourselves no longer with this shallow nonsense.

Proving just how bonkers the charts of 1994 were, we move from a lower league boy and to ambient world music in the blink of an eye. Well, not quite a blink but it’s a pretty short segue featuring occasional host Bruno Brookes and tonight’s superstar Alice Cooper. Oh, and that snake as well. It actually works quite well. Brookes keeps a straight face and Alice delivers his line effectively. And not a gold disc presentation on sight. Please take note Simon Mayo.

Back to that ambient world music though. Its two main protagonists, in the charts at least, were Enigma and Deep Forest and by happy chance they are next to each other in the Top 40 this week. The former is at No 21 with “The Eyes Of Truth” whilst the latter is in the No 20 position with their eponymous track “Deep Forest”. It doesn’t quite have the charm of its predecessor “Sweet Lullaby” but was still an exponent of the growth of World Music that had come to mainstream attention via Paul Simon’s “Graceland”, Peter Gabriel’s Real World label and experiments in the genre via Brian Eno and David Byrne. Deep Forest (and Enigma) seemed to me to create their own strand of it though by adding electronica sounds to the most unlikely of samples – Gregorian chants in the case of Enigma and field recordings of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia by Michel Sanchez and Eric Mouquet of Deep Forest. Nearly 30 years on, maybe the depth of the impression their material made upon the mainstream public has diminished but it really felt quite out there at the time. And mainstream it certainly was. Deep Forest’s debut album sold nearly four million copies worldwide and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Global Music in 1994 but lost out to Ry Cooder. It might not have been to everyone’s taste but when you consider that the UK No 1 in this particular chart was by a football team and was based on a horrible Status Quo track, maybe everyone’s taste wasn’t always the best barometer.

It’s the return of Seal next with his first new material since his massive selling debut album stormed the charts in 1991. His second album (also just called “Seal” or sometimes referred to as “Seal II”) is the album that “Kiss From A Rose” is from right?

*checks Seal’s discography

Thought so. That track was huge after featuring in the Batman Forever film but it wasn’t the album’s lead single. That honour went to “Prayer For The Dying” which has become a bit of a lost Seal track. Ask most people to name one of his songs and I’m betting the titles offered up would be either the aforementioned “Kiss From A Rose” or “Crazy” or “Killer”. “Prayer For The Dying” though? Not so much. I couldn’t have dragged it out of my memory banks unaided. It’s actually a very smooth and accomplished track though and did make No 14 in the charts but it lacks the edginess of something like “Killer” or “Crazy”. Trevor Horn was still at the mixing desk so of course it was well produced but it sounds like it’s been crafted to appeal to multiple US genre radio stations and spreads itself bit too thin. I mean, compared to 2 Unlimited or Bad Boys Inc, it’s a towering colossus of musical quality but somehow it’s not one of his best or indeed best remembered tunes.

The album sold well though, topping the chart as its predecessor had done and it went four times platinum in the US thanks to “Kiss From A Rose” being a No 1 record over there. I recall the initial scale out of it for the Our Price store I was working in not being that big (a poor decision by the buying dept it would seem) and the Area Manager telling us to hunt stem the advanced promo copy we had to add to stock. Funny the things you remember.

An occasional feature now with something from the album chart. Presumably these sections weren’t weekly because of the changing nature of artist availability? If the show could be populated by artists promoting a single did they take priority? The album chart slot started with Stanley Appel’s ‘year zero’ revamp but it seems subsequent show producer Ric Blaxill hasn’t ditched it yet. Maybe he does down the line – I can’t remember off the top off my head.

Anyway, the occupant of the slot this week is Julia Fordham who seems a rather obscure choice given that her album “Falling Forward” never hit any higher than No 21. In fact, as much as I quite like Julia Fordham, she’s never pulled many trees up chart wise. Two hit singles (Nos 19 and 27) and her best placing in the album chart was No 13 for sophomore collection “Porcelain”. She really should have had more hits given her talent. She remains a live draw and has toured with Beverley Craven and Judie Tzuke as part of the “Woman To Woman” project. This track, “I Can’t Help Myself”, was released as a single in the July making No 62.

Bruno Brookes is back to present the next act but he looks like he’s been smeared with shit since he’s been gone. The explanation for his appearance is that he’s been in an off screen fight with Alice Cooper’s snake. OK, the joke is wearing thin now and I think they’ve overcooked it. There’s no snakes anywhere near the next act who are East 17 though they did seem to shed band members as regularly as a snake sheds it skin after the hits dried up. Look at this timeline:

1997 Brian Harvey sacked (drugs comments)
1997 Tony Mortimer leaves (creative differences)
1998 Brian Harvey reinstated and group renamed as E17
1999 Band splits
2006 Original line up reforms for reunion gig
2006 Tony Mortimer leaves (after altercation with Brian Harvey)
2010 Tony Mortimer returns for a second time
2010 Brian Harvey leaves for second time (commitment to band questioned)
2011 Blair Dreelan joins band
2011 Blair Dreelan leaves band (contractual obligation)
2013 Tony Mortimer leaves band for third time
2014 Robbie Craig joins band
2018 Original member John Hendy leaves (personal reasons)
2018 Terry John joins band
2019 Terry John leaves band
2019 Jake Livermore joins band

Blimey! There’s so much coming and going in that lot that they should have been called E20 (the fictional postcode for EastEnders location Walford). “All Around The World” peaked at No 3.

It’s finally time for Alice Cooper to be onstage as a performer rather than to the side of it as a presenter. He’s here, of course, to promote his latest single which is “Lost In America” from his concept album “The Last Temptation” album. I’m not much of an Alice aficionado I have to say. I know his real name is Vince Furnier without looking it up and that he’s a golf fanatic. Musically, I’m familiar with “School’s Out” and “Elected” from his 70s era and “Poison” and “Hey Stoopid” from his late 80s early 90s revival but not a lot else and that includes this track.

Ah crap! I promised there’d be nothing about football in this post after last week’s was hijacked by my talking about the 1994 FA Cup final but the No 1 is “Come On You Reds” by The Manchester United Football Squad so what can I do? Five days on from their demolition of my beloved Chelsea in said final, they have moved to being the best selling single of the week in the UK. It would stay there for two weeks. This achievement was quite remarkable given the fact that it’s a football record. Sure, this niche genre has had big hits before – Liverpool FC got to No3 with “Anfield Rap” in 1988 and the England World Cup squad (in conjunction with New Order) also got to No 1 in 1990. Hell, my beloved Chelsea got to No 5 in 1972 with “Blue Is The Colour” – but No 1 for two weeks?! With that song?! As cup finalists, Chelsea also released their own single – “No One Can Stop Us Now” (oh the irony!) – which made No 23. I believe it was quite unusual for both teams to have cup final songs in the Top 40 simultaneously. Obviously it was dreadful as well but I bought it as a souvenir of the day thinking we might never get to the final again (how wrong I was).

The play out song is “Absolutely Fabulous” by Pet Shop Boys. Or is it? I think officially it’s credited to just Absolutely Fabulous and is produced by Pet Shop Boys but we all know it’s them really. This was the 1994 Comic Relief single and as much as I didn’t like the track, it was an upgrade on the likes of “The Stonk” by Hale & Pace and “Stick It Out” by Right Said Fred. There is, of course, a link to Alice Cooper here with the 1992 Comic Relief single being a cover of their (Alice Cooper was the band’s name at this point) 1972 hit, the aforementioned “Elected” by Mr Bean and Smear Campaign. “Absolutely Fabulous” made No 6 and was the second time that Jennifer Saunders had featured on a Comic Relief single after 1989’s “Help” as part of Lananeeneenoonoo alongside Bananarama.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I but it?
1	2 Unlimited	The Real Thing	No
2	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	I did not
3	Bad Boys Inc	More To This World	As if
4	Deep Forest	Deep Forest	Nah
5	Seal	Prayer For The Dying	Nope
6	Julia Fordham	I Can’t Help Myself	It’s a no
7	East 17	All Around The World	Another No
8	Alice Cooper	Lost In America	Sorry Alice – no
9	The Manchester United Football Squad	Come On You Reds	Are you kidding?!
10	Pet Shop Boys	Absolutely Fabulous	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

TOTP 14 NOV 1991

Posted on November 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Mid November 1991 – what were you doing? Me? I was gearing up for a second consecutive retail Christmas with Our Price having been working for the company for just over a year now. I didn’t know it then but it was probably one of the more stable years of my working life. A permanent job working with an exciting ‘product’ (I’d take music over baked beans any day) and I’d even been given some ordering responsibility in the form of being the chart cassettes buyer. Yes, there was that time earlier in the year when it looked like the shop would be sold off and some of us might lose our jobs (gulp!) but that likelihood had withered and withdrawn and things were back on course. For TOTP though, things were not quite as smooth. The show was six weeks into a new format courtesy of new producer Stanley Appel and it was still finding its feet. The new presenting duo of Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin seemed functional rather than flourishing and the live vocal policy was definitely catching some artists out. More seismic changes were afoot in the football world as on the day of this broadcast, the Football Association confirmed that the Premier League would start next season with 22 clubs. What would that mean for all us footy fans? Was it a good thing? Would we get to see more matches on TV? Like the new TOTP revamp, it was uncharted waters.

What we needed was some faith and happily for us, it was provided by tonight’s opening act Rozalla with her latest single “Faith (In the Power of Love)”. Having hit big with her previous single “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”, Rozalla clearly felt the the best thing she could do to maintain her momentum was to stick to the exact same formula that had brought her initial success. Consequently, “Faith (In the Power of Love)” sounds very like its predecessor and even mimics its inclusion of brackets in the song title. I’ve never really understood the need for brackets in song titles. Does their presence really add anything to the song title or are they just an affectation to add an element of perceived depth and mystery to the song? Anyway, Rozalla has decided to come dressed as…well..what has she come dressed as? It’s like some sort of mash up of Princess Leia from Star Wars and the red Power Ranger. Were people dressing like that back in 1991? Maybe it was just to distract us all from the fact that (as with a few before her), Rozalla’s singing wasn’t quite on point. Not far off but not actually on it. “Faith (In the Power of Love)” peaked at No 11.

As Tony Dortie emerges seemingly from nowhere out of the throng of the studio audience (he seems to do that a lot – he was the TOTP equivalent of the shopkeeper from Mr Benn), he says something that I’ve had to rewind three times before I’ve understood what it was. I think it was that Rozalla wanted to do a duet with Seal. The first two times I heard it as wanting to do a duet with Cyril but Seal makes more sense (especially as he’s on the show next). Before that though we have the Top 10 rundown or as Dortie says, “Let’s check those crisp biscuits which are slamming in style inside this week’s Top 10 boiii like this…” Did he really say that?! He’s such a mumbler it’s hard to tell but I think those were his actual words. Crisp biscuits? Was that slang for something? I checked it out on the urban dictionary. It’s either a very thin reefer or… something else entirely which you’ll have to look up yourself to find out. Either definition was surely not what Dortie meant. And what was the ‘boiii’ thing about? I’m guessing that was also an urban along thing but the only time I’ve heard it used is by those white posh boy twats on Made In Chelsea. Anyway, Dortie then does an actual voice over for the Top 10 countdown which we haven’t had in this new era before when it’s just been the new theme tune payed in the background. Head producer Stanley Appel must have reacted to feedback that the countdown had become an abomination and tried to restore some tradition to it. Even though it was now mid November, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams is still in there at No 6 despite being released back in June.

As with last week’s show, we get a new disembodied voice doing the next intro. Last week it was Elayne Smith and this week we get another new presenter in the form of Claudia Simon. We don’t actually get to see Claudia’s ‘form’ though until two whole performances later. I didn’t really get what the TOTP producers were hoping to do with this voice first policy for its new presenters. Build tension? I don’t think we were that bothered about the presenters, it was the music we were after! The act that Claudia introduces is Seal (definitely not Cyril) who has released this own solo version of the hit that announced him to the pop world the year before when he and Adamski took “Killer” to No 1. To try and convince record buyers to purchase it all over again, record label ZTT have wisely made it into the “Killer EP” with a William Orbit remix of the track added alongside some live versions. Does Seal’s re-recording of the song sound that different to the original? Not to my ears I have to say. To try and emphasise the point that it is a different version, Seal is wearing (and occasionally strumming) a guitar which I’m pretty sure he never did back in 1990. Maybe the whole exercise was all about claiming some justice for Seal who was not actually officially credited alongside Adamski on the original. It’s still a great track but I don’t think the re-release in his own name was really warranted. Case dismissed.

In any other week, Tina Turner would no doubt have been bigged up in the ‘exclusive’ feature of the show but this wasn’t any other week. There is a huge exclusive coming up (no spoilers) so Tina has to make do with being…what is this section? The US chart? There’s an American flag graphic next to her name so I’m guessing so. She’s singing a song called “Way Of The World” which is a new track added to promote her first greatest hits compilation “Simply The Best” (which is what the TOTP title graphic goes with rather than the name of the single which is a bit confusing). We’d already had a horrible 90s reworking of “Nutbush City Limits” to help sell the album recently so surely anything released after that would be an improvement? Well, just about I guess. “Way Of The World” directly pinches the intro from Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” (which, of course, Tina herself covered back in ’83 to relaunch her singing career) but then just sort of meanders off into an unexceptional mid tempo soul ballad. Hardly living up to the “Simply The Best” tagline it was meant to promote. In the end, the album would do pretty well anyway going 8 (EIGHT) time platinum in the UK! For some reason, there’s no backing band up there behind Tina so when the sax solo arrives in the middle eight she has to improvise and rely on her famous legs and her new shaggy hairdo to compensate. Tina’s nothing if not an old hand at this sort of thing and does a professional job of filling. “Way Of The World” peaked at No 13.

There she is! Yes, we finally get to see Claudia Simon as she awaits her cue to do the next link. She literally is waiting, tensed like a cheetah ready to pounce at the optimum moment. Is it just me or does she come across like the female version of Pat Sharp here? I think it’s the hair. So who was Claudia? Like Tony Dortie, she had a background in children’s TV having worked for CBBC and after her stint on TOTP she moved into the world of sports with Sky TV. She moved to the US and was a Fox Sports anchor until the early ’00s but there’s little else about what she’s up to now on the internet. She seems a bit over eager to please here and ends up shouting a lot of her links, the first of which is into Altern-8. These Staffordshire ravers had already had a Top 40 hit earlier in the year with “Infiltrate 202” but it was this single “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” that really made their name. Infamous for wearing face masks (with an A imprinted on them) and Hazmat suits, they also had a penchant for including the number 8 in their song titles (they would release a further three singles with this theme).

On reflection, “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” seems very much to be jumping on the bandwagon that the The Prodigy had set rolling with their “Charly” single and its samples of the 1970s BBC Public Information Film Charley Says. The Altern-8 boys bypassed any copyright restrictions by getting the three year old daughter of the boss of their record label Network to record the ‘top one, nice one. get sorted’ bit which would prove to be the track’s hook. Were people already using those phrases in real life? By people I guess I mean ravers. Certainly the phrase ‘top one’ was in everyday use in Manchester where I was living at the time. Also, was this the point where the phrase ‘hardcore, you know the score’ came into being as per the legend emblazoned above the stage for this performance or was it already in existence? I’m pretty sure that the major labels pickled up on it and ran with it as a tagline to advertise various rave/dance compilation albums at this time. OK, so I guess we have to address the live vocal again here. Without wishing to be harsh, I think it’s fair to say that the female singer here doesn’t give her very best performance though having to follow Tina Turner probably didn’t help her nerves. “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” peaked at No 3.

I’m not sure what the mumbler supreme Tony Dortie says at the end of Altern-8’s performance but it’s something about ragga or rave pressure or …oh God knows. Anyway, it’s the Breakers now starting with Sonia and her version of The Real Thing’s “You To Me Are Everything”. You have to hand it to Sonia, this was her ninth consecutive Top 40 hit in just over two years, all but one of which made the Top 20. None of them came anywhere near replicating the success of her debut single “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You” though which went to No 1 in 1989 of course. Still, it’s an impressive run all the same. On closer inspection though, three of the last four hits (including this one) had been cover versions which suggested that she was running out of steam and her record label out of ideas. Her next single would also be a cover; Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights”. “You To Me Are Everything” was the third and final single to be released from her eponymous sophomore album and would peak at No 13. She would have to resort to the Eurovision Song Contest to secure one final chart hit in 1993 with “Better The Devil You Know” (not the Kylie Song) in 1993.

The next Breaker was basically record company Warners reminding us that their artist REM had one of the most successful albums of the year in “Out Of Time” and that if we hadn’t already bought it then Christmas is just around the corner you know? To that end, they saw fit to release a fourth single from it in “Radio Song”. This must have been one of the songs that I heard most in 1991 as it was the opening track on “Out Of Time” meaning that even when we’d all got tired of it being played in the Our Price store I was working in and somebody finally pulled it off the shop stereo, this track probably would have had a spin in full. It’s OK but certainly not up there with some of my personal favourites from the band. Even after all those plays, I’d still somehow forgotten about the closing rap from KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions.

A fourth release of the album proved one too far and the song peaked at a lowly No 28 but I guess sales of the single came second in priority for Warners after the album which no doubt benefited from the extra exposure. Unbelievably, ‘Radio Song” wasn’t the last REM single of 1991 as “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” was re-released in December by former label I.R.S. to cash in on their “The Best Of R.E.M.” album that had been released in September, itself a cash in on the success of “Out Of Time”.

Can a single be classed as a Breaker when it’s already inside the Top 10? Well, that’s what happened here with “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Bassheads. Following near geographical neighbours Oceanic into the charts, this Wirral-based house duo went to No 5 with this dance tune. I don’t remember thinking it at the time but there’s definitely some steals from Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” and The Osmonds’ “Crazy Horses” although they weren’t sampled as they weren’t copyright cleared by the original artist and were in fact recreated by session players. There’s also a bit of Afrika Bambaataa’s “Just Get Up and Dance” in there for which he received 25% of the publishing as a result.

It all sounds like a strange brew that should be interesting but then that familiar Italia house piano riff kicks in and it reverts to sounding like all those other dance ‘anthems’ to me. The track’s title is just about a mash up of two Duran Duran songs – “Anyone Out There” and “Is There Something I Should Know?”. I think I’d rather have the Brummie lads to be honest.

And so we arrive at the moment the whole show has been building up to…so much so that we even had a mini advert for it at the start before we’d even had the first act on. I suppose some context is required here. Michael Jackson hadn’t had an album out for four year since 1987’s ‘Bad” which was a lifetime in pop and hadn’t even had a single in the charts since 1989. Therefore any new Jacko material was bound to cause a stir in the music industry. And so it did. “Black And White” was the lead single from his ‘Dangerous” album and the anticipation for the much heralded video for it was heightened by the simultaneous worldwide broadcast of it across international platforms. So whilst Tony Dortie’s claim that the video hadn’t been shown anywhere before was true, I’m not sure the ‘exclusive’ tag that he adds to it holds water. TOTP weren’t the only broadcaster in the world showing it. The promo actually premiered simultaneously in 27 countries with an audience of 500 million viewers. Maybe he just meant in the UK then.

So, what was the new video going to show us. There’s a lot to unpack here so for starters it was directed by John Landis who also made the “Thriller” video so no doubt big things were expected of it. Could that ground breaking promo be topped in terms of its legacy? It starts with a heavy rock guitar solo soundtrack before locating the action in the home of one Macaulay Culkin who’s loud playing of said music on his stereo has upset his Dad who is Norm from Cheers (who knew?). After a rebuke from Norm, Caulkin’s character sets up some gigantic speakers in the room where his parents are watching TV, hooks them up to an amplifier, turns the volume up to the setting ‘Are You Nuts?’ (no really – that’s what it says – I guess the ‘this one goes to 11’ joke had already been done by Spinal Tap), utters the words “Eat this” and blows his Dad (still in his chair) into orbit with one play of a power chord. It’s quite an opening but on reflection, it’s also all a bit silly. I recall a lot being made of the fact that Caulkin was in the video. He’d been in the film Uncle Buck with John Candy and then had achieved superstardom via Home Alone in 1990. Around that time he became friends with Jackson and would get caught up in the child sex abuse trial that engulfed the singer in 2005, testifying that he had slept in a bed with Jackson but that no molestation had ever taken place and dismissed the allegations as “absolutely ridiculous”.

Meanwhile back in the video, Norm and his chair have landed in Africa where the song proper starts and we see Jackson at last who begins performing surrounded by African warriors. From there, the action moves quickly through multiple scenes with Jacko dancing with people of various nationalities and cultures. After alighting on an image of a black baby and a white baby sitting on a representation of planet earth, Jackson re-emerges through a scene of flames before we get to the rap part of the song which Culkin returns to lip sync. The part of the video that everyone remembers is up now, the face morphing. The collective reaction of the audience to the faces of people of different nationalities and skin colour changing seamlessly into each other before our eyes was one of dumbstruck awe. One big huge wow! It was certainly impressive but hadn’t it been done before by Godley and Creme for their 1985 video fro ‘Cry”? Had people forgotten that already? Yes, the effects in “Black And White” were far superior but the idea was surely stolen by Landis.

For many of us I’m guessing this is the point that our memory tells us that the video ended but in its full, original form, it didn’t. A black panther emerges from the set and morphs into Jackson who pulls out all of his moves before embarking on a dancing rampage of destruction smashing windows, destroying a car and causing a building to explode whilst all the time grabbing his crotch repeatedly. He then morphs back into the panther before the video is finally drawn a close by Bart and Homer Simpson when the latter turns off the TV. These final four minutes caused great controversy with accusations made against Jackson that he was promoting violence and vandalism. Subsequently, this footage was removed from the video to make it more palatable for younger audiences but as this was the global premiere, it’s shown in full here.

Phew! All in all, the video was allocated approximately 10 and a half minutes of the TOTP running time which seems extraordinary but I guess this really was a big deal and the type of event TV that the show’s new producer Stanley Appel would have been looking for. Watching it back in its entirety 30 years on, it all seems like one big mess to me. Very little cohesion and with anything that was culturally popular at the time (Culkin, The Simpsons) thrown in for good measure. “Thriller” is by far the better promo and blows “Black And White” out of the water. Yes, it has some noble intentions but what was all that stuff at the end about? Well, that was the video but what about the song? Ah, it’ll be No 1 next week. I’ll deal with the music then.

Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff hold on to the No 1 spot for a second and final week with “Dizzy”. It’s the video again and for all “Black And White”‘s special effects and drama, I’d rather watch Vic and Bob arseing around to be honest. Supposedly, Vic had approached Mark E. Smith to ask if The Fall would do the record with him initially but the band weren’t sure and so The Wonder Stuff got the gig. That really would have been a collaboration worth seeing and hearing. Vic would achieve one final Top 40 hit when he teamed up with EMF for a cover of “I’m A Believer” by The Monkees which went to No 3 in 1995.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rozalla	Faith (In the Power of Love)	Nah
2	Seal	Killer EP	No but I had the album
3	Tina Turner	Way Of The World	Nope
4	Altern-8	Activ 8 (Come with Me)	Not my bag
5	Sonia	You To Me Are Everything	Oh dear Lord no
6	REM	Radio Song	No and I’d heard the album so may times in store I didn’t even buy that either
7	Bassheads	Is There Anybody Out There?	See 4 above
8	Michael Jackson	Black And White	No
9	Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff	Dizzy	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/m0011f4t/top-of-the-pops-14111991

TOTP 01 AUG 1991

Posted on September 15, 2021 by 80stastic

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I f******g love The Proms! I’m not a classical music buff or anything (though I have been once and actually rather enjoyed it) but the real reason for my appreciation of this peculiarly British and currently devisive institution is that they completely hijack the BBC4 TV schedule and ride roughshod over all the usual programming. The consequence of this is that last week the TOTP repeats didn’t happen at all meaning I get a week off from this blog! Except that I’m always behind so I still have this one to do before it all starts again in earnest meaning if I want to kick back for a few days before this Friday’s resumption, I need to get a shift on with it.

Just before I get into the music though, a little context. Wikipedia tells me that the day after this TOTP aired, a little trumpeted and even less remembered comedy show premiered on Channel 4 that me and my wife used to love. Anybody else remember Packet Of Three? It was a very early vehicle for Frank Skinner and Jenny Eclair and also featured Henry Normal who would go on to write for the Mrs Merton Show and set up Baby Cow Productions which would give us such celebrated comedies as Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh and Gavin And Stacey.

Packet Of Three was a mixture of sit com and stand up set in the fictional Crumpsall Palladium showcasing real life stand up comedians whilst behind the scenes the three main protagonists played characters who ran the theatre. Normal was the theatre owner, Skinner the stage manager and Eclair the kiosk attendant. The opening titles festered the three of them as Gerry Anderson style puppets and had a pretty funky sounding theme tune. The whole thing had the feel of The Muppet Show I guess and it certainly helped to fill out many a Friday night when we were skint and had no money for going out. Here’s an episode featuring a very young Steve Coogan…

Anyway, back to the music and we start with one of the most infamous songs of the whole decade. “I’m Too Sexy” would go on to become ingrained in the nation’s collective mind over the course of the Summer – one of the most insanely catchy yet annoying ear worms of all time I would suggest. Remarkably however, the people behind the song would somehow manage to forge a career off the back of it and are still managing to achieve media coverage to this day though not perhaps for the best of reasons. Right Said Fred were of course named after the novelty single by Bernard Cribbins in 1962 and I have to admit that I could only see “I’m Too Sexy” in the same vein – a novelty hit like all those other intensely annoying examples of the genre from charts gone by. Yet what the Freds did to make their hit more durable was that they made it danceable. Now I’m certainly not admitting to ever having strutted my stuff on the catwalk or otherwise to its beats but I can imagine it was a hit at office parties and family dos the length and breadth of the country.

Consolidating its musical credibility (two words I never thought I would have typed about Right Said Fred) is the group’s musicianship that I was not aware of until now. It transpires that Richard and Fred Fairbrass had proficient enough chops to have played with some of the biggest names in the business. They don’t get much bigger than David Bowie who Richard played with as a session bassist in the mid 80s on tracks like “Blue Jean” and “Loving The Alien” whilst Fred appeared as a guitarist in the Bob Dylan drama Hearts Of Fire. No really. Look, here’s @TOTPFacts with the pictorial evidence:

Fred Fairbrass, meanwhile, played guitar for Bob Dylan in the 1987 film Hearts Of Fire. Dylan gave him the leather jacket he wore in the movie. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/Ur2jAf1Jla
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 3, 2021

I know. Bloody Hell!

“I’m Too Sexy” was written as a piss take of the narcissistic behaviour of preening body builders at the gym that the Fairbrass brothers ran in the early 90s and was originally recorded as an indie rock song before being turned into a dance track at the behest of radio plugger Guy Holmes. The lyrics supplied as many if not more hooks as the tune itself with suggestive lines like ‘No way I’m disco dancing’, ‘I shake my little tush on the catwalk’ and of course ‘I’m too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my cat, poor pussy, poor pussy cat’ pressing the big red double entendre button. It would spend a record six weeks at No 2 behind Bryan Adams (the jury is out on whether that was a good or bad thing) but made it to No 1 in the US.

A substantial career was to follow for the band but nowadays Richard Fairbrass is most well known for being a prominent anti-vaxxer. Presumably he is too sexy for Pfizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD68Ln0d0m4

Now I don’t think the word ‘substantial’ probably does justice to Will Smith’s career. A massive TV and film star (he’s been in over 40 movies) he also, of course, has a long and successful music history with multiple hit records on both sides of the Atlantic. It all started though with his collaboration with DJ Jazzy Jeff with Smith assuming the moniker of The Fresh Prince that would make his name in the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I think that show was probably on UK TV screens at the time so I’m guessing Smith would already have been known on these shores in 1991. He had of course had a small hit in our charts back in 1986 with “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble” but that seemed a million miles away from the cool vibes of “Summertime”. Even allowing for the obvious connection of its title, this track was just perfect for the Summer with its lilting beats drifting out from transistor radios.

The parent album “Homebase” didn’t make the necessary improvements and no further singles released from it were hits in the UK. However, the duo would return in 1993 with the No 1 single “Boom! Shake the Room” before Smith would release a plethora of hits under his own name throughout the rest of the decade racking up three No3s, three No2 s and another chart topper in “Men In Black”.

Voice Of The Beehive now with their “Monsters And Angels” single and wha a pleasant ditty it is too. There was much debate on Twitter after this repeat aired about Tracey Bryn’s guitar which appears to be the wrong way round. The answer to this strange behaviour though lies in the writing on it which the Twitterati’s consensus was that it was an autograph from Morrissey who is on the show later. I can understand Tracey wanting to show it off but why did he sign it on the back? Apparently the band were on tour following this TOTP appearance and Tracy mentioned the signed guitar at nearly every gig apparently. I have to admit that I missed this detail when I first watched this back as I was more struck by how Tracey had the look of Britney Spears. Is it just me or could she be Britney’s Aunt?

“Monsters And Angels” peaked at No 17.

Whilst a student during the late 80s, I’d developed quite the liking for Deacon Blue. Their debut album “Raintown” was an instant classic (in my opinion) and they became hugely successful pop stars on the back of follow up album “When The World Knows Your Name”. However, I’d begun to lose interest a bit by 1991 and, being employed by a Manchester record store (albeit a chain), I kept my liking of them down to a minimum when at work. However, I couldn’t deny that “Twist And Shout” was a great pop song, familiar yet nuanced, unconventional yet radio friendly, it just worked for me and also for the people who bought it in enough amounts to send it to No 10 in the charts.

As ever with any Deacon Blue performance, my eyes are drawn to Lorraine McKintosh and her energy and presence. And those eyes of course. Erm…anyway…err…the band would achieve a further seven Top 40 singles but never again returned to the Top 10.

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

If ever a band should have been a one hit wonder surely it was this next lot? Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, Color Me Badd had more than one hit and here they are with the other one “All 4 Love”. Given that there is an abrupt cut away from host Simon Mayo to this studio performance and we don’t actually see the band behind him at any stage, I’m willing to bet that this was recorded when they were in the TOTP studio in person for their No 1 “I Wanna Sex You Up”. Having checked out that clip on YouTube, although some of the band have changed their outfits for “All 4 Love”, I’m still of that opinion.

If “I Wanna Sex You Up” was all about New Jack Swing, then “All 4 Love” harked back to 60s soul and the performance the band gives here puts me in mind of some of the great groups of that era. There’s a reason for that. The song was pretty much a direct rip off of another song. Here’s @TOTPFacts once again:

"All For Love" has, er, similarities to "Patch My Heart", a 1966 track by '60s vocal group The Mad Lads – enough for its composers (one of whom was Isaac Hayes) to receive credit. https://t.co/glNmhvjuSy #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 3, 2021

The first time I saw that tweet I read it as The Macc Lads rather than The Mad Lads but that would have been a different type of song altogether!

“All 4 Love” would give the band a second US No 1 but it didn’t quite achieve that in the UK peaking at a still healthy (and totally undeserved) No 5.

Earlier in this year, my friend Robin had found himself marooned at a TOTP recording after mistakenly believing that Morrissey was going to be on the show. He wasn’t and instead found himself being forced by the studio floor team to clap along to the likes of Kenny Thomas instead. The show he should have been at was this one as Mozza is here and up next. After the video for “Pregnant For The Last Time” the other week, here he is in the flesh and if you look closely you can see his nipples through his sheer shirt!

The song has a rockabilly sound to it and that is backed up by the presence of a double bass player on stage with Morrissey. As with the guy on accordion witnessed earlier in the Deacon Blue performance, you didn’t get many of those on TOTP in the 90s.

Morrissey’s solo chart statistics were pretty predictable out turns out. Look at this tweet from Gareth Windibank:

This was one of only three of those 33 top 40 hits (after “Suedehead” and “Everyday Is Like Sunday”) to reach its chart peak in the second week rather than the first. #TOTP
— Gareth Windibank (@eightiespopkid) September 3, 2021

Very much a case of a loyal fanbase dutifully buying everything their hero released immediately but then the single falling down the charts as it failed to find a wider market methinks.

Of course, Morrissey’s stock is not that high these days thanks to some unpalatable views that he now holds. Very similar to Richard Fairbrass. I wonder who would win this particular fat-headed arse -off?

Despite being “a day out of date already” as Simon Mayo quips, Bomb The Bass is next with “Winter In July”. On vocals here is Loretta Heywood who also wrote the lyrics. Loretta is still recording material and she even laid down an acoustic version of this track on an album called “The Boy Across The Road” and I have to say I much prefer the sparser version…

After giving up making music, Tim Simenon relocated to Prague where he opened a bistro called Brixton Balls with a menu based around meatballs. I wonder if he was so into meatballs back in 1991? If so, I hope he didn’t let it slip to Morrissey in the BBC bar after this show.

“Winter In July” peaked at No 7.

Just when I was powering through this, they go and chuck in four Breakers in a two minute slot right at the death! Bastards! We start with Beverley Craven who, after the surprise success of “Promise Me” earlier in the year, looked like she could become a global superstar in the shape of perhaps Carly Simon or even Carole King. Her record label Epic went for a re-release of her first single “Holding On” as the follow up. Peaking at a very lowly No 95 at the start of 1991, it very much followed the “Promise Me” blueprint and I guess the strategy was to keep hold of the fan base that she had built so spectacularly. No point in putting out something from left field that would have confused and potentially lost her audience. It was a sensible move.

Somehow though, the single didn’t seem to take off in the same way that its predecessor had and it stalled at No 32. Maybe people had splashed out on the album instead which had been out for around two months by this point and spent every one of those weeks in the Top 10. A similar fate would await another single in October when “Woman To Woman” peaked at No 40 whilst the album was in the middle of a 50 week run on the charts. Even so, it seemed like a surprise when neither single could gain any traction in the Top 40.

Simon Mayo never missed an opportunity to plug himself and his Radio 1 Breakfast Show did he? He makes a point of telling us that Marillion‘s “No One Can” is the show’s Chart Beater that week. Not sure that choosing Marillion from this week’s Breakers was the smartest move in terms of credibility Simes. After the departure of Fish they seemed to be a completely different and less interesting entity. Replacement vocalist Steve Hogarth was a decent singer but the material the band were recording had lost the spark that differentiated them from other acts. Maybe it was just Fish’s ungainly and unlikely rock star persona that was missing or the element of the band being deeply unfashionable? Whatever it was, Marillion sounded more accomplished and radio friendly to my ears but ultimately more predictable and boring for all that.

“No One Can” peaked at No 33.

Whenever I think of Saturdays in 1991, my mind immediately fills with images of long days working the counter at the Our Price store in Market Street in Manchester whilst trying to find a reason to go up stairs to the stock area to try and find out the football scores from the radio up there. I also think of this song, “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” by De La Soul. This was another track from their “De La Soul Is Dead” album and was one of the lighter tracks on it, proclaiming, rather obviously, the joys of roller skating and the weekends. It includes a prominent sample from Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park” and you have to acknowledge De La Soul’s vision to be able to base a hip-hop song around such an unlikely source. Something about the track has stuck with me all these years and it’s this – me and my wife will still sometimes quote the song’s ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ lyric to each other come the weekend.

“A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” peaked at No 22.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqI5PTYmF3w

The final Breaker delivers us some Acid Jazz courtesy of Young Disciples. Is Acid Jazz still a thing? It certainly was in 1991 with acts such as Omar and Incognito having broken through into the mainstream with Top 40 hits already this year. Both of those artists as well as Young Disciples (like Eurythmics there is no ‘The”) were on the legendary Talkin’ Loud label and its latest chart busting act hit it big with “Apparently Nothin” which peaked at No 13.

Although it would prove to be the band’s only chart hit, it was important in launching the career of Carleen Anderson who would secure a solo deal off the back of it and would indeed release her own version of the song in 1999. alongside The Brand New Heavies (who did have a preceding definite article).

My wife really liked this one and I think she must have bought it as it’s in the singles box.

It’s still Bryan Adams at the top obviously with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” – this is only week 4 of 16 – and according to Simon Mayo, the last five UK No 1 singles in this year were taken from movies. Is that right?

*checks Wikipedia*

Well, not quite true. The list is as follows:

Artist	Title	Film taken from
Chesney Hawkes	The One and Only	Buddy’s Song
Cher	The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)	Mermaids
Color Me Badd	I Wanna Sex You Up	New Jack City
Jason Donovan	Any Dream Will Do	Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The problem is that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat wasn’t a film was it Simon? It was a stage musical. Yes, they made some sort of film of the stage show years later in 1999 with Donny Osmond as Joseph but even that was a direct to video release. And yes, there was a soundtrack album to the stage show featuring Jason Donovan but again it wasn’t a movie soundtrack. OK, I’m being a pedant but when you’ve reviewed hundreds of these TOTP repeats covering a nine year period, presenters getting things wrong (or at least not quite right in this case) tend to get on your wick.

Seeing as I’ve got another 12 weeks worth of having to say something about this record, I’m leaving it at that for this one.

The play out video is “The Beginning” by Seal. Ever the wag, Simon Mayo doesn’t let the opportunity for a wry comment pass when he remarks that “The Beginning” coming at the end of the show is “kind of logical”. Yeah, whatever Mayo. The video has Seal messing around with a chain and a bird of prey while dressed in a pair of leather trousers. Did he ever wear a pair of kecks that weren’t leather?

“The Beginning” peaked at No 24.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	Of course not
2	DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince	Summertime	I did not
3	Voice Of The Beehive	Monsters And Angels	Nope
4	Deacon Blue	Twist And Shout	No but I have it on a Best Of CD I think
5	Color Me Badd	All 4 Love	Hell no
6	Morrissey	Pregnant For The Last Time	Nope
7	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	Nah
8	Beverley Craven	Holding On	No
9	Marillion	Not One Can	Never going to happen
10	De La Soul	A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”	Liked it, didn’t buy it
11	Young Disciples	Apparently Nothin	Yes but I think it was my wife actually
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Negative
13	Seal	The Beginning	Not the single but I had their album

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/m000z8dd/top-of-the-pops-01081991

TOTP 25 JUL 1991

Posted on September 9, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and it’s a pivotal period for the grand old show which was in its 28th year. The ‘year zero’ revamp is just around the corner and we have already seen a flurry of cosmetic changes to the programme in the weeks prior to it. Various bits of tinkering with the chart rundown had led to inconsistencies in the show’s core concept and in the last few episodes we have seen a nasty green screen backdrop employed behind the presenters. However, that now seems to have been ditched as tonight’s host Mark Goodier is seen against a background of the real set. However, they do seem to have positioned him away from the studio audience who are all facing towards the stage area and not looking at Goodier at all. This gives the whole thing a rather sparse look, as if this is the dress rehearsal rather than the actual show.

The first act on tonight are making their debut in person performance on the show (I believe) but this landmark event is shot through with tragedy. The Shamen had been building a reputation on the club scene following the release of their “En-Tact” album the previous year but mainstream success had so far eluded them (bar one Top 30 entry for the single “Hyperreal”). However, the decision to remix and releases their “Pro-Gen” track from that album and retitle it as “Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)” would prove to be a masterstroke as it crashed into the charts at No 9 this week. All of this chart activity however had come heart breakingly late for bass and keyboards player Will Sinnott who had tragically drowned whilst on a trip to Tenerife to film a promo video for “Move Any Mountain”. Founder member Colin Angus decided to carry on under The Shamen name with rapper Mr C promoted to the position of full time band member. I have to say that I prefer the original track “Pro-Gen” where Mr C’s rapping is dialled down a bit. However, if you didn’t like either of those mixes then there were plenty of others to choose from as apparently there were as many as 35 versions of the track circulating in Europe and the band themselves released a whole album (“Progeny”) dedicated to mixes of the track – 19 remixes of “Move Any Mountain (Progen 91)” plus 16 samples and loops according to Wikipedia. Phew!

I worked with someone at Our Price in later years who had a massive crush on Mr C which took me by surprise a bit. He never struck me as the hereat throb type. “Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)” would peak at No 4 unable to dethrone Bryan Adams but they would return a year later to claim that No 1 spot with the infamous “Ebeneezer Goode” single. Naughty, naughty!

C+C Music Factory again?! How many times is this that the video for “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” has been on? Three? Four? How am I supposed to keep coming up with stuff to say about this one?! Oh, hang on…there’s a cover version of it you say by a band called Stooshe? Never heard of them. Well, that could be an oasis for my word count desert. Let’s have a listen then…

…well that was ghastly! Harrowing even. Who the hell are these people?

*checks Wikipedia*

So, they’re a British girl group from London formed to be an urban and soulful Spice Girls! The name is pronounced as in ‘pushy’ and originates from the word ‘stoosh’ which is urban slang for either something expensive, a girl who thinks she’s nicer than she is or being stoned! WTF?! The suffix -she was added on the end to represent female empowerment (oh you mean ‘girl power’ then?). The resulting name is pronounced like the Scottish word ‘stooshie’ which means ‘the disruption caused by a disagreement or misunderstanding’. What a load of old ‘tosh’… that’s ‘tosh’ as in ‘what a lot of old bollocks’.

C+C Music Factory’s version of “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” peaked at No 4.

Still enjoying 1991 was Dannii Minogue who is back on TOTP with her third hit in the last four months. “Jump To The Beat” was of course a cover of the Stacy Lattisaw No 3 hit from 1980 and it completed a peculiar little pop palindrome for Dannii when it peaked at No 8 meaning her three Top 40 entries so far had achieved the following chart peaks:

8-11-8

Stacy Lattisaw was only 13 when she had her hit but Dannii was a whole six years older at 19 when she took it back into the charts. Someone who was younger than both of them was the daughter of a guest at a wedding that I attended around this time. It was the evening do of a friend from school of my wife’s and there was a little girl there who clearly loved this record and was throwing herself around the dance floor as the DJ played it. As the night drew to a close and the DJ announced there was only one song left we all begged him to play “Jump To The Beat” again for this young girl but the jobsworth refused and played “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” instead as he had clearly decided well in advance that would be his final record of the night. Instead of at least one guaranteed person on the dance floor, he got nobody as everyone walked off as soon as the first strains of Bryan Adams came over his disco speakers. Nobhead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry8fTptf2AU

Having introduced themselves to UK audiences with the funk metal of “Get The Funk Out”, Extreme threw us all a curve ball when they followed it up with the spare and brittle sounding acoustic ballad “More Than Words”. Despite Mark Goodier’s warning not to be fooled by the gentle song and that they were a serious rock band, many a pop fan was duped into buying the band’s “Pornograffitti” album on the strength of “More Than Words”. Such a deception had not been put into practice since 1986 when the Doctor and the Medics album “Laughing At The Pieces” was bought by many a chart follower expecting an LP full of “Spirits In The Sky”s.

The joke was on Extreme in the end though as the song became an albatross around their necks and they became known as ‘the More Than Words guys’ (see also 4 Non Blondes and Berlin whose biggest hit was more famous than the band). It’s a pleasant enough rock ballad though I guess and went to No 1 in the US and would surely have done the same over here but for the Bryan Adams effect.

1991 wasn’t all about acts making their first breakthrough into the charts like Dannii Minogue, The Shamen and Extreme that we have seen on the show so far. It was also about this who rose phoenix like from the ashes to rekindle former glories like Feargal Sharkey and Mike and the Mechanics who both returned to the charts in this year after a big gap away from them. And this lot. OMD (who seemed to be basically Andy McCluskey at this point) were enjoying not one but two Top 10 hits in 1991 with the second being this one “Pandora’s Box”.

It was hard not to believe the band were all just about McCluskey to be fair when you watched performances like this and all you can see are his extraordinary ‘Dad Dancing’ moves which have been described as ‘a geography teacher with ants in his pants’ and ‘an epileptic windmill’. My brother-in-law looks a bit like Andy McCluskey I always think (although my wife can’t really see it). I have never witnessed him dancing though.

“Pandora’s Box” peaked at No 7.

After getting Bette Midler into the TOTP studios the other week, the producers have pulled off another coup by twisting the arm of Cher into making a visit. She’s here to promote her latest single “Love And Understanding” and as with Andy McCluskey’s dancing, all you can see in this performance is Cher’s hair. Presumably that was a wig? It’s not as shocking as Madonna’s pink fright-wig back in 1984 for her performance of ‘Like A Virgin” but it was still a bold statement.

Just like Madonna, Cher is up there all on her own with no backing singers / dancers / band which I’m kind of surprised about. You would imagine she would have a whole Mariah Carey style entourage with her. The following single release from Cher was a song called “Save Up All Your Tears” which was the opening track of the “Love Hurts” album and which I recall was also recorded by Robin Beck of “First Time” fame (that cola advert song from 1988) but which tonked when released as the follow up to her surprise No 1. They are almost exactly the same! Here’s Robin’s version…

And here’s Cher’s…

Apart from Cher’s more throaty vocals, almost indentical.

“Love And Understanding” peaked at No 10.

This next bloke is “a bit of a musical genius” according to Mark Goodier. Why? He’s only the ‘The Godfather of House Music’ that’s why! Even a dance tune dodger like me knew the name Frankie Knuckles and of his legendary status within the genre. “The Whistle Song” must be his best known tune in his own right but he has also remixed some massive chart hits like “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson, “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton and “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan. Such is his influence that he even has another nickname which is ‘The Man Of The House’ which immediately makes me think of this:

Despite acknowledging his indisputable legacy, “The Whistle Song” did very little for me. A performance that included a key-tar and a flute on the same stage?! Come on! No wonder the TOTP producers got in four backing dancers in hot pants to liven things up a bit. The single peaked at No 17.

Three Breakers this week starting with “Twist And Shout” by Deacon Blue. Obviously not that “Twist And Shout”, this was the second single to be released from the band’s “Fellow Hoodlums” album and was easily the biggest hit from it. In fact, it would turn out to be the last of their only three Top 10 singles. I think there was just something simple and joyful about this song that made UK record buyers sit up and take note. The fact that it was released in the Summer also added to its appeal. There’s plenty of hooks in it as well which always helps and none more so than Lorraine McIntosh’s high pitched squeal on the word ‘upside’ in the lyric ‘turned the big world upside down’.

The single’s success, as with OMD and “Pandora’s Box” earlier in the show, would initiate a welcome spike in sales of the parent album which although a No 2 record, had failed to shift the units that its predecessor “When The World Knows Your Name” had done. The basic but colourful video enhanced the feel good factor of the song with the bond between the band obvious to see.

Despite the phenomenal success of his debut album, Seal‘s single releases were suffering from a dose of the diminishing returns. “Crazy” had been a huge hit just missing the top spot by one place but follow up “Future Love Paradise” hadn’t made the Top 10 and this one, “The Beginning”, didn’t make the Top 20. Maybe it was because so many people had splashed out on the album that had already been out for six weeks and which had gone straight to No 1 that there was little demand to buy more tracks released from it? Maybe Seal was an albums artist? His first two albums both went to No 1 after all whilst he only ever had three Top 10 hits under his own name and one of those was a re-recording of “Killer” (which was officially credited to Adamski). “The Beginning” was a pretty decent tune although were they all starting to sound just a little bit samey by this point?

I really didn’t see this next hit coming. Bomb The Bass? As in “Beat Dis” Bomb The Bass? Tim Simenon’s alias hadn’t been seen ins the charts since 1988 when they had racked up three consecutive Top 10 hits and been one of the breakout sensations of the year. Three years is a long time in the music industry though and I had just about forgotten all about Bomb The Bass. They had also been rather hamstrung to be fair when they had been caught up in the BBC / Radio 1 Gulf War censorship controversy with their band name being deemed far too politically sensitive leading to an airtime black out (see also Massive attack).

Undeterred, they released new single “Winter In July” after the conflict had ended to positive reviews. This new direction seemed much less frenetic than the likes of “Beat Dis” with a more soulful feel (surely the single’s title was a nod in the direction of Stevie Wonders’ “Hotter Than July”) and helped to return Simenon to the Top 10 where it peaked at No 7. Parent album “Unknown Territory” perfumed steadily rather than spectacularly but this would prove to be their commercial peak. Simenon would go on to produce material for the likes of Gavin Friday and Depeche Mode before taking an extended break from the music industry due to physical and mental exhaustion. He returned to the business in 2008 with his “Future Chaos” album.

We’re only into week 3 of Bryan Adams‘ 16 week reign at the top of the charts. How are we all holding up? Given the amount of projected posts that I will have to find content for about “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, I’m allowing myself to use one @TOTPFacts tweet a week to help me out. Here’s this week’s :

Bryan Adams had competition: Chicago's Peter Cetera also submitted a version. Michael Kamen: "In all honesty, Cetera's was too pretty. I write sweet melodies, and sometimes they need someone to deliver them with enough authority to make sure that you don't fall asleep." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 27, 2021

Well, Cetera did have a proven track record for soundtrack compositions. His 1986 hit “Glory Of Love” was featured in The Karate Kid II for which it received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe in the category of Best Original Song and a Grammy Award in 1987 for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Male Artist. It was also a US No 1 and UK No 3 song. Cetera’s effort doesn’t seem to have ever seen the light of day and even in this digital age of leaks and spoilers, I can’t find a trace of it anywhere online.

In addition to “Glory Of Love”, he also had a song on the hugely successful Pretty Woman soundtrack so the guy had chops when it came to film music. It wasn’t to be but I find it hard to believe that we would have had Peter Cetera at No 1 for 16 weeks in the Summer of 1991.

The play out video is “Pregnant For The Last Time” by Morrissey. This was a non album single that I have no memory of whatsoever. It sounds quite rockabilly and actually listenable which you can’t always say about Morrissey (especially these days). Not sure if Mozza himself still likes it though as he hasn’t played it live since the 1991 Kill Uncle tour apparently.

“Pregnant For The Last Time” peaked at No 25.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	Move Any Mountain (Progen’91)	No but I easily could have done
2	C+C Music Factory	Things That Make You Go Hmmm	Nope
3	Dannii Minogue	Jump To The Beat	Never going to happen
4	Extreme	More Than Words	Bit too formulaic for me
5	OMD	Pandora’s Box	No but it’s on their Best Of CD that I have
6	Cher	Love And Understanding	Nah
7	Frankie Knuckles	The Whistle Song	Not for me
8	Deacon Blue	Twist And Shout	See 5 above
9	Seal	The Beginning	No but I was one of those who had the album
10	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	No
11	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	Negative
12	Morrissey	Pregnant For The Last Time	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/m000z2j4/top-of-the-pops-25071991

TOTP 09 MAY 1991

Posted on July 30, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s early May 1991 and UK comedian Bernie Winters (of Schnorbitz fame) has just died. During his career, he portrayed vaudeville entertainer Bud Flanagan whilst Bud’s comic partner Chesney Allen was played by Leslie Crowther…and guess what? It turns out that Chesney Hawkes is named after Chesney Allen! And that, dear reader, is one of the most tenuous links I have ever come up with to tie together the news of 1991 with the charts of that year. It’s especially tenuous as Chesney’s reign at the No 1 has just come to an end the other week and effectively also his time as a pop star. So who was in the charts then around now? Let’s find out….

Tonight’s host is Gary Davies who had been a TOTP presenter for nigh on a decade by this point. You have to give him points for longevity. However, before the year’s end, he would lose that gig as the ‘year zero’ revamp kicked in. In fact, he was the last Radio 1 DJ to host the show in its old format. Tonight’s he’s got some sort of yin and yang design top on which probably looked pretty cool in 1991. Probably.

The first act he introduces are Electronic with “Get The Message” but for some inexplicable reason, the version they choose to mime to here is a remix of the single and not the radio edit. The remix in question is a DNA Groove Mix (yes those blokes who remixed “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega in 1990) but it sounds limp next to the radio version. I’d even go as far as piss weak. Whose idea was this?! Bernard Sumner doesn’t seem to know how to deliver this version of the song so we get a lot of arms raised with a clenched fist and some really loose noodling around dance steps. He looks as unsure what to do as I did on my one and only (gets another Chesney reference in!) visit to The Haçienda.

“Get The Message” peaked at No 8 and was the first of just two Top 10 hits for the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfh4r1goyHE

One of the biggest stars of the last 12 months is up next as Seal is back in the studio with his new single “Future Love Paradise“. This was his second solo single after “Crazy” at the end of the previous year and was actually the lead track from an EP called “Future Love EP”. It was very much in the same vein as its predecessor although not quite as immediate I would suggest. Not content with sounding a bit like “Crazy”, Seal also went back to his uncredited No 1 with Adamski “Killer” for some inspiration, repurposing the line ‘Don’t you know that racism has a minimum future kids, Can only lead to no good’ for inclusion in the lyrics to “Future Love Paradise”.

Seal is still rocking his leather trousers for this performance though he has added the affectation of a guitar as well. As the song kicks in, he finally uses it as a musical instrument rather than a fashion accessory to do some fairly unimpressive fake strumming. Still, it was a pretty solid follow up I always thought. An Our Price colleague called Mark loved this, purchasing it on the day of release. No messing about for Mark. However, its sales in general were decent rather than spectacular and it shuddered to a halt outside the Top 10 at No 12. A bit of a comedown from the No 2 high of “Crazy” and, of course, that No 1 in “Killer”. Maybe punters were waiting for the album that Gary Davies plugged in his intro.

Another follow up to a recent huge hit next as Roxette attempt to repeat the success of their No 4 record “Joyride” with new single “Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave)“. This one had much more of a rock ballad feel to it than the pure pop moment that was “Joyride” – almost “Listen To Your Heart Pt II” in fact. All the usual soft rock elements are present and correct including some guitar licks that sound a bit like “Wind of Change” by Scorpions and the obligatory final flourish key change. It’s all very professionally done and that but a little too formulaic maybe?

As with Seal, it couldn’t replicate the success of its predecessor and exactly like Seal, it also peaked at No 12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNm5pgRHpI8

*How much longer is this Top 5 albums feature going to go on for?! The premise of TOTP is that it was based around the singles chart! It’s not that hard is it?! Oh well, the Top 5 albums for April 1991 were

Eurythmics – “Greatest Hits”
Simple Minds – “Real Life”
Roxette – “Joyride”
Rod Stewart – “Vagabond Heart”
REM – “Out Of Time”

Pretty mainstream stuff I guess (if you are counting REM as part of the establishment now). Personally I had got very excited about the release of the first ever Eurythmics Best Of album though. It sold and sold throughout the year and looked nailed on to be the biggest seller of 1991 until Simply Red released “Stars” and it was pipped at the last. Bloody Hucknall! So much to answer for.

A live performance next from a new act now as Beverley Craven‘s time in the spotlight has arrived. Although she seemed to appear overnight as a fully fledged singing star, she’d actually been paying her dues for some years before this point. She’d been playing London pubs and writing songs since she was 18 (she was 27 at the time of this TOTP performance) and having finally been picked up by Epic Records, she had been sent to LA to work with some established songwriters and to learn her craft playing in bars and restaurants over there. Her first attempt at recording her debut album was with one Stewart Levine who was the man responsible for producing the Simply Red albums “Picture Book” and “A New Flame”. He was also the guy behind the aforementioned “Stars” album. Another man with so much to answer for then. A little bit of cosmic karma struck Levine though when Beverley didn’t like what he had done with her songs and with Epic also rejecting the recordings, a new producer was hired. Ha! Go on Bev!

New producer Paul Samwell-Smith met with more approval and the album, simply titled “Beverley Craven”, was released in July 1990….and nobody even noticed. Four singles were released from it and they all sank without trace. However, she had gone down well in Europe and so a British tour was arranged to capitalise. The single “Promise Me” was re-released in the wake of this and with heavy promotion behind it, the charts were finally cracked. The single went Top 3 which led to the inevitable public clamour for her album that had been ignored initially. Epic however employed that annoying practice of withdrawing it from sale before re-releasing it with a fanfare and a TV advertising campaign. Cue lots of frustrated punters.

Singing the song live on TOTP was a very clever decision though, imbuing Beverley with an immediate credibility as a singer-songwriter rather than a pop star. The piano playing also helped to establish her musicianship. For a while, Beverley was huge. A further two of those early singles were re-released both becoming hits and the album (when it was finally available again) spent nearly a year in the charts. The following year, she won The Best Newcomer award at the BRITS. However, after giving birth to her first daughter Mollie, the quick follow up album that Epic required was not forthcoming, eventually arriving a year later in 1993. Although a gold seller, “Love Scenes” didn’t perform as well as her debut and after a five-year hiatus due to giving birth to two more daughters, Beverley didn’t release a third album until the 90s were nearly over. By this point, she had almost gone back tho the same public profile she had had at the start of the decade. In later years, Craven has toured with Julia Fordham and Judie Tzuke as part of the Woman To Woman show and in 2018 had to take time out to recuperate after surgery for breast cancer.

Me? What did I think about it? Yeah, I quite liked “Promise Me” in the same way that I quite liked “Get Here” by Oleta Adams. I quite liked it – is that damning with faint praise? Sorry Bev, Didn’t meant to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL3wbj4Y_Ok

UPDATE: This bloke on Twitter says that was the last one. Hurray!

That was the final album chart on #TOTP by the way
— Gareth Windibank (@eightiespopkid) July 23, 2021

Ah bollocks! It’s the return of Michael Bolton and we all know wha that means. No, not his monstrous hair but that I have to fess up, once again, to having seen him live. I know, I know. Do I have to go over this all again in detail? I was drunk in a nightclub when I agreed to accompany my work colleague Andy to see him in Sheffield but before I could check with Andy what I had agreed to, he had purchased the tickets. Honest truth that! And yes, the support was Kenny G (or as Michael referred to him, ‘The G Man’). OK. Happy now?

Right. Well, “Love Is A Wonderful Thing” was the lead single from his “Time, Love & Tenderness” album and as I remember, Andy was quite enthralled by it. Not so enthralled were The Isley Brothers who filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement against Bolton and his record company due to the similarity between his song and their own also called “Love Is a Wonderful Thing” which had been released in 1966 and was a minor hit. Like very minor. No 110 in the charts minor. Bollers denied all knowledge of The Isley Brothers’ song but in 1994, a Los Angeles jury ruled in favour of the plaintiff and against him. Aghast at the decision, the hairy one appealed the verdict and the court fight continued for nearly seven more years but to no avail. Bolton, his co-writer and Sony Publishing were ordered to turn over more than $5 million in profits from the sales of his version of the song to The Isley Brothers.

The weird thing is, the two songs don’t really don’t sound that similar at all to me. See what you think. Here’s The Isley Brothers….

…and here’s the Bolton song…

I’m really not convinced. “Love Is A Wonderful Thing” (by Michael Bolton) peaked at No 23.

If you thought you were going to get away with out some horrible dance music on the show, think again. It was 1991 after all! Your weekly dose of crappy bpm is courtesy of somebody/thing called T99 and is called “Anasthasia”. Now according to Gary Davies, it was a somebody and his name was Olivier Abbeloos who was one half of Quadrophonia who supplied last week’s dose of crappy bpm. This isn’t him though. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Olivier Abbeloos had no idea about this #TOTP! "They did a remix with a rapper and a vocalist, and I didn't like the vocalist, so I said to Nick [Halkes, co-founder of XL Recordings], 'Sorry, but this can't happen'. He called the vocalist back and we re-recorded the vocal…"
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 23, 2021

"I went back home. Four days later I was watching Top Of The Pops & they announced, '… his name is Olivier Abbeloos and he's live in the studio…' But I wasn't! I was in my seat at home. And there was Nick Halkes performing in my place, without letting me know anything!" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 23, 2021

Yeah, I couldn’t really care less either. The track and performance here comes over like a poor man’s KLF. Somehow though it peaked at No 14.

Still Cher at the top of the heap with “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” but what’s Gary Davies telling us in his intro? The film it’s taken from Mermaids, hadn’t even opened in the cinemas at this point? It wasn’t even due its premiere for two weeks with general release a further week away after that? So why was the song so popular? I was assuming that people had picked up on it from flocking to the cinema. Maybe it was being hammered on the radio. Well, if The Simpsons could have a No 1 song when hardly anybody in the UK had access to their TV show, then I guess Cher could have a hit from a film that wasn’t out yet. As cheesy as it is, I’d have “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” over “Do The Bartman” any day.

The play out video is “There’s No Other Way” by Blur. Now of course, the most striking thing about this video is Damon Albarn’s horrific bowl haircut. However, the rest of the band aren’t much better apart from drummer Dave Rowntree who has a sensible short style that he maintains to this day. A bit like when Peter Best didn’t get The Beatles haircut when John, Paul and George when in Hamburg. Luckily, for Dave he didn’t get kicked out of the band for not joining in like Pete did.

However, the other thing I have noted is those Japanese style blue willow plates that the meal is served on. They were everywhere in the 70s and early 80s. My Mum certainly had some (probably still does). Although it’s clearly meant to be very interesting, the rest of the video isn’t really. It’s just trying to be too clever by half. What was with the scarily huge trifle at the end and the shots of the worm? Pseuds! At least they were talked into changing the band name from Seymour to Blur.

“There’s no Other Way” peaked at No 8.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMdrpmcgsC4

Order of Appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Electronic	Get The Message	No but I must have it on something surely?
2	Seal	Future Love Paradise	No but I had the album
3	Roxette	Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave)	Nope
4	Beverley Craven	Promise Me	I did not
5	Michael Bolton	Love Is A Wonderful Thing	I promise you I didn’t
6	T99	Anasthasia	No
7	Cher	The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)	Yes but it was all an honest mistake!
8	Blur	There’s No Other Way	Don’t think I did

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/m000y2fg/top-of-the-pops-09051991

TOTP 19 JAN 1991

Posted on June 3, 2021 by 80stastic

Less than three weeks into 1991 and the hopes for a good year to one and all are already in tatters as the Gulf War has escalated with the commencement of Operation Desert Storm two days prior to this TOTP being broadcast. I knew it was serious as the night before, the League Cup quarter final highlights were bumped from the TV schedules to make way for the extra news coverage of the unfolding events. Nothing got in the way of the football. I got the same feeling in 2020 when the pandemic struck – if the football is gone then we are in trouble. Indeed, TOTP itself was shunted to the Saturday night from its regular Thursday slot to allow for extended BBC news coverage.

I remember turning up for work on the Thursday morning and making an enormous faux pas. I was on the counter (as usual) and decided to put some Warren Zevon on the shop stereo as I fancied hearing “Werewolves Of London”. As if that song with its ‘Little old lady got mutilated late last night’ lyric wasn’t unsuitable enough, it all went horribly wrong when we got to track 4 of the album which was “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner”. If you don’t know this song (and I didn’t at the time), here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

The fictional character Roland is a Norwegian who becomes embroiled in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War and Congo Crisis of the 1960s—the lyrics mention a “Congo war” and the years 1966 and 1967, which correspond to the mercenary-led Kisangani Mutinies after the Congo Crisis. He earns a reputation as the greatest Thompson gunner, a reputation that attracts the attention of the CIA. Roland is betrayed and murdered by a fellow mercenary, Van Owen, who blows off his head. Roland becomes the phantom “headless Thompson gunner” and eventually has his revenge, when he catches Van Owen in a Mombasa bar and guns him down. Afterward, he continues “wandering through the night”. Other violent conflicts of the succeeding decade are said to be haunted by Roland, including Ireland, Lebanon, Palestine, and Berkeley, California…

Oh.

Thankfully a colleague did know what the song was about and whipped it off the CD player sharpish and averted any customer complaints about insensitivity. Phew! Incredibly, “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” was not on the blacklist of songs that were banned by the BBC that were deemed inappropriate whilst the conflict raged. Want to know some that were? Here’s just a few choice examples from a list of over 60…

“(I Just) Died in Your Arms” – Cutting Crew : OK, it has the word ‘died’ in it but even so…
“I Don’t Want to Be a Hero” – Johnny Hates Jazz : One of the least offensive groups in history surely?!
“I’ll Fly for You” – Spandau Ballet : What?!
“A Little Peace” – Nicole : A Eurovision winning cry for world peace sung by a 17 year old?
“When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” – Billy Ocean : Just a little tenuous don’t you think?
“Boom Bang-a-Bang” – Lulu : Oh f**k off! Another Eurovision winner whose ‘offensive’ lyrics include “my heart goes boom bang-a-bang boom bang-a-bang when you are near”!

They were all banned but not “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” and not the show’s opening song which is “Hippychick” by Soho. This is a great one hit wonder but its lyrical subject matter was hardly non political. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Tim London: "'Hippychick' was written from the perspective of a young woman arrested by her boyfriend (who is a policeman) on a demonstration. She is basically telling him it's over, because, as a cop, he supports an establishment she wants to get rid of." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 28, 2021

Not only that but the band were threatened by TOTP producers with not being allowed to perform unless they lost the anti war sticker on founding member Tim London’s guitar and the CND emblazoned dresses worn by identical twin singers Jacqui and Pauline Cuff. Somehow, they convinced the producers to let the offending articles stay and “Hippychick” would go on to be a Top 10 hit. It hadn’t started out life quite as successfully though. It had missed the Top 40 altogether when first released in 1990 but it had crucially been a dance floor success in the US where it had sold the best part of a million outselling Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart” which was No 1 (the US charts were collated based on radio-play and not just sales). It was this that convinced their label Savage Records to give it another shot over here.

Of course you can’t talk about “Hippychick” without mentioning that Smiths sample in the intro. The start of “How Soon Is Now” must be one of the most distinctive openings to a song ever and yet it it seemed to fit perfectly into this quirky, shuffling dance track. Genius! Johnny Marr supposedly received 25% of the track’s royalties as payment for the use of the sample.

I really liked this one an had already been introduced to it by its inclusion of the near legendary “Happy Daze” compilation album that got hammered in our store over Xmas. Sadly for the band, they were unable to recreate the success of “Hippychick” despite having sone great tunes on their album “Goddess” (including follow up single “Love Generation” which sounded like the B52s crossed with Lone Justice).

So we’ve established that neither Soho’s anti war messaging nor Warren Zevon’s “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” warranted being banned by the BBC in the light of the Gulf War and now we have a video from Belinda Carlisle that clearly depicts a soldier leaving his partner to go off to fight in a war! The lyrics even include the lines ‘I can hear the whistle, military train’! The BBC censors clearly hadn’t learned their lesson from the ‘chicks’ll cream’ “Grease Megamix” debacle the other week.

“Summer Rain” was the sixth and final single to be lifted from Belinda’s “Runaway Horses” album. The chart performance of said singles were the most inconsistent and frankly bizarre since those taken from Fleetwood Mac’s “Tango In the Night ” album. Look at this:

“Leave A Light On” – No 4
“La Luna” – No 38
“Runaway Horses” – No 40
“Vision Of You” – No 41
“(We Want) The Same Thing” – No 6
“Summer Rain” – No 23

Just weird. Looking at her discography overall, I hadn’t quite realised before that although Belinda would carry on having hit albums and singles here in the UK for the duration of the 90s, “Summer Rain” (and the “Runaway Horses” album) which was pretty much where her success ended in her native US. Check this out:

US Top 40 singles 1991 – 1999: 0
UK Top 40 singles 1991 – 1999: 11
US Top 40 albums 1991 – 1999: 0
UK Top 40 albums 1991 – 1999: 3

Not sure why that would have been. I would have thought her brand of radio friendly soft rock would have been perfect for the genre formatted US airwaves. She would return in the Autumn of 1991 with the “Live Your Life Be Free” album and single and is in October of this year bringing her The Decades Tour to the UK to celebrate 35 years as a solo artist.

Someone who’s an “All True Man” next (whatever that is). Alexander O’Neal seemed to have been trading off his past glories for the past few years before finally returning with some brand new material in 1991. Some of his releases since his massive selling “Hearsay” album of 1987 included the singles “Fake ’88”, “Hearsay ’89” and a medley of his old hits called “Hit Mix (Official Bootleg Mega-Mix)”. His only album releases had been a Xmas album and “Hearsay – All Mixed Up” which was, unsurprisingly, a remix album of “Hearsay” tracks. I guess it would have been his record label squeezing every last drop out of his recent back catalogue rather than Alexander himself but even so. He finally got around to recording some songs for his new album (also called “All True Man”) and released the title track as the lead single. It was written by the go to R’n’B songwriters/ producers of the day in Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and sure enough they supplied O’Neal with what would be his last ever Top 20 hit.

I have to say that Alexander O’Neal’s music has never really done anything for me. I could just about stand “Criticize” but the rest of it? Nah, I’m good thanks and “All True Man” wasn’t going to sway me otherwise. He clearly had a sizeable fab base in this country though as the album peaked at No 2 in the charts and achieved gold status sales although those paled in comparison to “Hearsay”. I did like the way he always dressed in a suit and tie for TOTP though. Standards and all that.

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

Now here’s a clam from host Nicky Campbell. That Dirty Dancing is the most popular film soundtrack of all time – is that right? Would it have been right in 1991? And what does he meant by popular anyway? The best selling is surely a more quantifiable criteria? In his intro he dismisses the advances of South Pacific, The Sound Of Music and Saturday Night Fever before introducing the re-released “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. According to Wikipedia, the best selling soundtrack album of all time is The Bodyguard but that didn’t come out until 1992 so that can be dismissed in terms of Campbell’s claim. The second biggest selling on Wikipedia’s list though is Saturday Night Fever with Dirty Dancing third. Given that Saturday Night Fever had 10 whole years in existence and therefore years worth of sales before Dirty Dancing was even released, I’m backing it to have been in the lead sales wise back in 1991. It’s all academic anyway as presumably Campbell just needed a link into the song and could have made up anything as long as it segued neatly into the video clip.

“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” was back in the charts having been re-released to cash in on a second wave of the film’s popularity after it had received its terrestrial TV premier over Xmas 1990. That sort of occurrence couldn’t happen today because of streaming services. Want to hear that song from the film you’ve just watched over and over again? I’m sure it’ll be on Spotify. Back in 1991 though, once releases were out of the charts, they were deleted very quickly and you could only buy an old single from second hand shops or if it was on the Old Gold series via Pickwick Records and the like. This could also be true of albums that weren’t seen as being classics or perennial best sellers. Nowadays just about everything has received the deluxe box set re-issue treatment. Want a double CD expanded edition of ex-Dollar singer Thereza Bazar’s only solo album with 19 bonus tracks even though nobody bought it first time around? Sure – no problem. Your’s for just £11! The mind boggles.

“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” peaked at No 8 second time around.

OK, 1991 just got a bit more interesting. The time of The KLF is upon us. Although they’d already become chart stars the previous year with “What Time Is Love?”, for me, “3 a.m. Eternal” was when I really started to think that something of great importance was happening. It just sounded sound otherworldly – who the Hell were the Ancients of Mu Mu and what did they want? In reality it was, of course, just Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond playing with the music industry again as they had done before with The Timelords and “Doctorin’ the Tardis” but what a game they played. In the light of “3 a.m. Eternal”, demand for their album “The White Room” rocketed and it hit No 3 in the album chart (well according to Wikipedia – I could have sworn it was a No 1 but maybe that was just in the in-house Our Price chart).

A year later they would perform a version of the track with punk band Extreme Noise Terror at The BRIT awards – yes that one with the machine guns – before announcing their retirement from the music industry but that’s for another post.

Oh and what did it mean, “3 a.m. Eternal”? According to the songfacts.com website, it referred to chucking out time at the Spectrum Acid House club in London.

It will be No 1 soon enough…

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

Now that the post Xmas slump is over and the record company release schedules have awoken from their slumbers, the Breakers are back starting with The High and “Box Set Go”. I seem to recall a lot of buzz around this lot at the time (well they were in the Breakers section, home of the ‘happening’ records in the charts!). I’m sure their album “Somewhere Soon”, with its distinctive diamond symbol against a mostly black cover, was a Recommended Release at Our Price. The other thing I remember about them was that they had an ex-Stone Roses member in their ranks – one Andy Couzens. For all that though, The High sounded more like The La’s or even The Byrds to me.

Infamously signed to London Records after only one gig, the album was critically well received but could only make it to a..ahem…high of No 59. They’d already had three Top 40 near misses before “Box Set Go” was remixed by the legendary producer Martin Hannet and re-released to give them their only chart hit when it peaked at No 28. Hannet had worked with Couzens before during his Roses days. I worked with another ex-Stone Roses member, the original bass player called Pete later on in my Our Price career and he once told me that Hannet had spent ages trying to get a particular sound on one of their early tracks and when it was finished, Pete said “but I can’t hear it in the mix Martin”. Hannett’s reply was “Ah yes Pete but you know that it’s there”. Marvellous.

Now here’s a great track. A Tribe Called Quest had been around since 1985 but their debut album “People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm” wasn’t released until 1990 from which “Can I Kick It?” was the third single released. Heavily sampling Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” amongst other tracks, it sounded fresh and innovative to me although you could argue that it wasn’t a million miles away from De La Soul’s D.A.I.S.Y. Age sound (indeed, De LA Soul feature in the video). The previous year we had suffered a terrible, terrible cover version of “Walk On The Wild Side” courtesy of Jamie J. Morgan but this was a different flavour altogether.

At the time of its release, I had been given the weighty role of being the Best Sellers CD buyer in the Our Price store I was in, responsible for making sure all those classic albums were always in stock. However, we’d just had a new manager installed after previous manager Greg had left and he wanted to shake things up a bit. To that end, he asked me to order in some extra copies of the “People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm” album for the Best Sellers section on the back of the single’s success as it wasn’t in the chart and therefore would only be stocked in limited numbers. Wikipedia tells me that the album peaked at No 54 so that punt probably didn’t pay off.

Bizarrely, we would get another “Walk On The Wild Side” influenced single later on in the year via Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch which was the follow up to their “Good Vibrations” single but it only made it to No 42 in the charts whereas “Can I Kick It?” would get all the way to No 15 in the UK.

What do you do if you run out of toilet tissue? There’s “Always The Sun” quips Nicky Campbell about the final Breaker from The Stranglers. Ooh, bit of politics as Ben Elton used to day on Friday Night Live (or was it Saturday Night Live?). I wonder if Campbell got into hot water with the BBC bosses for that? So what was this 1986 hit doing back in the charts? It was to promote a Best Of album of course (“Greatest Hits 1977–1990”) which sold surprisingly well going platinum and reaching No 4 in the charts. I think it got a TV Ad campaign behind it which caught a lot of retailers out (I remember our shop selling out of it one Saturday afternoon).

Supposedly the 1990 version is a remix but it sounds pretty similar to me apart from some extra guitar noodling. Hugh Cornwell (who had left the band by this point) had originally though that “Always The Sun” could have been another “Golden Brown” in terms of sales but it peaked at No 30. According to his his book The Stranglers Song By Song he’d been amazed by its poor chart position stating “We’d given CBS something great to work with and I could see in this guy’s face that he knew he hadn’t delivered”. Maybe CBS felt bad about that and tried to repay the debt five years on with that promotional campaign for “Greatest Hits 1977–1990”? Maybe not.

The1991 version peaked one place higher than its 1986 counterpart at No 29.

Sting again next and after last week’s play out video position in the show’s running order, he’s been promoted to a place in the main body of the programme as befitting his rock star status (ahem). Not that it did him much good as “All This Time” would actually go down form its peak here of No 22 the following week.

I’m sure I’ve told this story before but it’s worth another outing. My friend Robin has a friend who is a professional musician and he has toured with some major names including Sting and erm…Westlife. Anyway, he found himself at a dinner party at Sting’s gaff through this work connection and in the middle of the meal, all the guests were asked to relocate to another room and where a TV was. Sting then proceeded to get them to all watch a documentary…about Sting! I did say last week that he could be a right knacker.

Something out of the ordinary now. No, not the fact that this is the third different studio appearance for Seal and his “Crazy” single (although that does seem like unusual overkill). Rather, it’s that the Top 10 countdown stops at No 3? Why? So that Nicky Campbell can introduce Seal at No 2. Why not just have Seal on before the countdown. Unless there was some sort of race to be that week’s No 1 that had gripped the nation Oasis v Blur style, I can’t understand why they would do that.

Anyway, the heightened exposure didn’t work for Seal as his hopes of climbing to the top of the charts were torpedoed by *SPOILER* the returning Queen and their chaotically mad “Innuendo” single which went straight in at No 1 the following week. He can’t have been too disappointed though as his debut album would similarly go to No 1 when released in May achieving double platinum sales (including one bought by me).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bo4jDhrrKw

So it’s definitely not Seal at No 1 meaning it must be Enigma and “Sadness (Part I)”. It’s taken 6 weeks for the record to make it to the top (including 4 in the Top 10) yet it would only get 1 week at the pinnacle. It would stay in the Top 40 for another 5 weeks though demonstrating the longevity of its appeal. Curiously though, it would only be the 37th best selling single of the year. That 6 week long run up to becoming No 1 would become an almost extinct practice by the end of the decade as discounted pricing by the record companies in a single’s first week of release to drive sales would mean records going in at No 1 immediately before falling away dramatically. I have to say I wasn’t a fan of discounting new releases. It created a false sales history and, if you worked in a record shop like I did, it was a bloody nightmare to ensure you never sold out of anything.

I started this post talking about my potential incident of insensitivity when I played “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” on the shop stereo the day after the commencement of Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War. By way of contrast, here’s a man full of “Sensitivity” – it’s Ralph Tresvant! This guy was the latest former member of Jackson 5 rip off merchants New Edition to try and further his musical career following the success of Bobby Brown and Ronnie DeVoe, Michael Bivins and Ricky Bell (Bell Biv DeVoe collectively).

As with Alexander O’Neal earlier on, this track was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and can’t you just tell by the song’s intro. Those tumbling, percussive drum beats are the exact same ones they used when producing “Human” for The Human League back in 1986. Waste not want not I guess. The rest of it is pretty unremarkable 90s R’n’B to my ears but then I’m no expert.

“Sensitivity” was the lead single from Ralph’s eponymous debut album which featured his old pal Bobby Brown on one track. It also includes a track called “She’s My Love Thang” – of course it does. “Sensitivity” peaked at No 18 in the UK but was a Top 5 hit in the US and also an R’n’B No 1 single over there.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWpdtyDZMH8

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Soho	Hippychick	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	Belinda Carlisle	Summer Rain	Nope
3	Alexander O’Neal	All True Man	I didn’t buy this – tru dat
4	Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes	(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life	Nah
5	The KLF	3am Eternal	Don’t think I did
6	The High	Box Set Go	Box Set No
7	A Tribe Called Quest	Can I Kick It?	Though I might have but it’s not in the singles box
8	The Stranglers	Always The Sun ‘91	No but I bought that Greatest Hits 1977-1990 CD
9	Sting	All This Time	I did not
10	Seal	Crazy	No but I bought the album
11	Enigma	Sadness (Part 1)	No
12	Ralph Tresvant	Sensitivity	Definitely not

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000wfdn/top-of-the-pops-19011991

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.

TOTP 03 JAN 1991

Posted on May 26, 2021 by 80stastic

After being stuck in the world of TOTP 1990 for what felt like much longer than 52 weeks, we have finally arrived in 1991! I approach it with a great deal of caution – too many times during these repeats have I been tricked by my memory into thinking that *insert year here* was pretty good only to be utterly let down by the paucity of tunes on offer each week. C’mon 1991 – don’t let me down!

I would have just come through my first Our Price Xmas around now. After working some long hours and serving queue after queue of customers, both Xmas and Boxing Day were days off. Back then Boxing Day still saw just about every store closed unlike today when it is one of the biggest trading days of the year. We had been briefed by the store management that it was the 27th Dec that was the busiest (and most horrible day) of the year in retail as that was the day everybody bought back those unwanted gifts. Back then, the company had a no cash refund policy for items that were not faulty. Swapsies or vouchers were the only things on offer which could lead to many a confrontation with a disgruntled customer. I wonder how many of the acts on tonight’s show would have had their wares brought back that day?

The year starts with someone who surely nobody would have been disappointed to find in their Xmas stocking (obviously I mean her album!). Betty Boo had been one of the biggest stars of 1990 and her single “24 Hours” was her fourth consecutive hit to be plucked from her debut album “Boomania”. So the first thing to note about her performance here is that Betty has lost her Booettes since her last TOTP appearance. Where were the two ladies with the matching black bob hairstyles? Had they all fallen out? According to Betty in a Guardian interview in 2006, those girls liked a good night out and were always pissed when they were touring the world with Betty back in the day so maybe they both had hangovers? With all due respect to Ms Boo, she looks a bit isolated and lost up there on her own. Secondly, what’s with the zebra style plastic mac look? It doesn’t fit her at all does it? As for the song, in truth, it was easily the weakest thing she had released up to this point so it was no surprise that, unlike her other hits, it got nowhere near the Top 10 peaking at No 25. We would not see Betty in the charts again for nigh on two years by which point her time had passed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOWEsuhmR8o

OK, so second song into the brand new year and what are we served up? Something that had already been a massive hit as recently as 1987 that was somehow back in the Top 40 again! What a swizz! So why was “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes back in the charts four years on? Well, we have to remember that this was 30 years ago before the digital age of streaming and catch up services – we still only had four TV channels! They hadn’t even invented DVDs! So when a ‘big’ film was finally screened on terrestrial TV, it was a huge deal. Just a few weeks before, the premiere of Top Gun on UK TV had seen “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin become a hit all over gain and so it was also the case with this song from the film Dirty Dancing which had premiered on ITV on Boxing Day pulling in 12.2 million viewers. This was appointment TV – not quite The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show but it was up there. According to the song’s co-writer Franke Previte, it only just made the cut for the film as it was “…the last song on the last tape submitted on the last day for the movie’s final scene”. A bit like Will Young who sneaked onto Pop Idol after being the very last person the judges had seen in the preliminary auditions.

Bill Medley, of course, had already made an unlikely chart comeback of his own a few weeks prior to this as part of The Righteous Brothers whose “Unchained Melody’ was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1990 off the back of its inclusion in the film Ghost. Jennifer Warnes also had her own film soundtrack history having scored a huge hit back in 1983 as part of another duet, this time with Joe Cocker with the song with “Up Where We Belong” which featured prominently in An Officer And A Gentleman. Her only other UK chart entry had been with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan” which peaked at No 74 also in 1987 which I’d quite liked.

“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” peaked at No 8 second time around just two places lower than its 1987 original release.

Not a brilliant start to the new year – so what’s next? Are you f*****g kidding me?! Gazza?! Yes, contrary to popular belief, Paul Gascoigne managed not one but two chart hits in the wake of ‘Gazzamania’ following Italia ’90. After “Fog On The Tyne” came “Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)” which played up to the Newcastle stereotype with its lyrics such as :

Newcastle Town,There’s Geordie Brown
Cheers to the lads who sup it down
They’re Geordie boys, Tough and proud
They take their music strong and loud
North and South, it’s all the same
Gazza’s here to play the game.
Move your body,Tap your cap
Keep on going to the Gazza Rap

Dear oh dear. Had record company BMG really had plans to turn Gazza into a proper pop star? As well as his two singles, he also released an album (albeit one that was universally panned and which failed to make the Top 100 in the charts). And after all, Kevin Keegan had scored a hit back in the late 70s with “Head OVer Heels” and Glenn and Chris (Hoddle and Waddle) had nearly got into the Top 10 with “Diamond Lights” back in 1987 so why not Gazza? The truth was though that Gazza the celebrity was already in decline by this point – his business advisers, on the advice of Spurs manager Terry Venables, had already begun winding down his non-football activities when they cancelled six PAs back in Sep 1990 and there would be no further appearances. The constant limelight was also beginning to take its toll on his performances on the pitch. Even TOTP host Gary Davies has a dig at him with his “He’s doing better in charts than he is on the football pitch” quip. He wasn’t wrong. Spurs had just lost all three games over the Xmas period and had only won three times since October.

However, just two days after this TOTP was broadcast, they would win 1-0 away to Blackpool in the FA Cup to start a run to the final that was powered almost single handedly by Gazza. He scored six times on the way to Wembley but the final itself (despite a Spurs win) would end in personal devastation. Over pumped and high on adrenaline, Gazza charged around the pitch with no self control until injuring himself in a terrible challenge on *Nottingham Forest’s Gary Charles. If he hadn’t have been stretchered off he would surely have been sent off. For me, he was never quite the same player again.

“Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)” peaked at No 31.

*Talking of Nottingham Forest, if you really want the story of a footballer becoming a rock star, look no further than Paul McGregor. Not only was he a striker for Forest in the 90s scoring this winning goal in the UEFA cup in 1996…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JCsOjfW144

…he was also the lead singer of a Britpop band called Merc who attracted the attention of Creation’s Alan McGee and went onto form post-punk band Ulterior and performs under the stage name of Honey.

Oh not this again?! Despite what host Gary Davies says in his intro, this record was Black Box‘s first four (not three Gary) hit singles all mashed together into one track which they called “The Total Mix”. I think there is an official video for this single but I can’t find it online and in any case, TOTP don’t show it here – instead just playing the track over the video for previous single “Everybody, Everybody”.

I’m guessing this must have been popular in the clubs to have generated enough sales to take it to No 12 in the singles charts. You’d think that releasing a megamix of your previous four hits all taken from the same album (“Dreamland”) would have been the final act of milking said album dry but no! They released another three singles after “The Total Mix” although only one of them (“Strike It Up”) made the Top 40. So that’s a charge sheet of fleecing the record buying public, a lip synching scandal and a lawsuit brought against them for unauthorised sampling. How did this lot sleep at night?

Finally a decent record courtesy of Seal and his hit “Crazy”. In an unlikely turn of events, this would not be the only song featured on the same show to have this title. His first truly solo single after the collaboration with Adamski on “Killer”, this track would cement him in the public’s collective mind as a proper pop star to be taken seriously. Seal always seemed to have a gravitas to him to me, that he wasn’t just another throwaway singer that would be here today and forgotten by Xmas. He delivered on this perception with a No 1 album (which, by the way, was not called “Deep Water” as Gary Davies advised but just “Seal”). Admittedly there is a track called “Deep Water” on it – maybe there had been plans for that to be the title track at some point in fairness to Davies.

Seal was perfect for TOTP studio performances, setting many a young girl’s pulse racing with his rippling muscles, cool dread hairstyle and those intriguing facial scars. He was born to do this shit. Not sure about his little man bag stuck down the front of his leather trousers though.

“Crazy” would just miss the top spot peaking at No 2.

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

A new act now as we get a first look at C+C Music Factory and their single “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)“. This lot were essentially songwriting and record producing duo David Cole and Robert Clivillés (C + C geddit?) who stormed the international charts with this relentless dance thumper. That block busting back beat was like a hammer to your head and once imprinted on your brain, it could not be forgotten or ignored. The vocals were supplied, yet again, by ex -Weather Girl Martha Wash and yet again she was not credited for her contribution on the track. That’s not her in the video but one Zelma Davis. Martha defo needed a better lawyer back then. She finally got a settlement in 1994 when Sony requested that MTV add a disclaimer to the video that credited Wash for vocals and Zelma Davis for ‘visualization’ of the track. Visualization? God, you wouldn’t want that credit would you?! All of this means that essentially, C+C Music Factory were just a US version of Black Box. Still, you can’t argue with their success. I hadn’t realised quite what a big deal this record was at the time. It peaked at No 3 over here but it was No 1 in Austria, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and biggest of all, in their native US. In 2000, it was voted by VH1 into position No 9 in their 100 Greatest Dance Songs poll.

It has been used in countless films and TV shows including the live-action/animated basketball comedy Space Jam whose soundtrack coincidentally also features the aforementioned Seal whose version of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” incorporates some lyrics from “Crazy” into it (‘In a sky full of people, Only some want to fly, Isn’t that crazy?’). I’m pretty sure the phrase ‘Everybody Dance now’ also became the title for a series of dance compilation albums around this time.

I wasn’t a massive fan of “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” though. I much preferred the poppier “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” which was a No 4 hit in the Summer.

Still with this Best selling albums of the month feature? Give it a rest lads. OK so, the Top 5 albums of Dec 1990 in the UK were:

1. Madonna – “The Immaculate Collection”

2. Elton John – “The Very Best Of Elton John”

3. Phil Collins – ‘Serious Hits Live”

4. Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti – “The Three Tenors In Concert”

5. Cliff Richard – “The Event”

This lot were hardly cutting edge were they?! Things That Make You Go Hmmm indeed…

Righto, who’s next? Anthrax?! For the love of God! Why?! These US thrash metal arses had not been higher than No 26 in the UK Top 40 before but somehow got to No 16 with “Got The Time”. I’m guessing it was a case of careful release scheduling (much less sales were required to register a hit in the week immediately following the Xmas rush when everyone is skint but more of that later).

I don’t recall this at all so I was amazed to discover it’s actually a cover of a Joe Jackson song! Yeah, that Joe Jackson of “Steppin’ Out” and “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” fame. It was a track from his debut album “Look Sharp” and should sound like this…

Ah, that’s much better than that racket Anthrax were making.

Now to that second sing of the night called “Crazy” but this time it’s by Patsy Cline. Country music legend Patsy has a legacy that completely outstrips her chart statistics. She only ever had one Top 10 hit (the original release of “Crazy” in the US back in 1961) and yet she is known and revered throughout the world. A bit like the musical reverse of my beloved Chelsea’s German striker Timo Werner – his stats say he’s had a decent season (12 goals and 15 assists in all competitions) but I am never confident that he is going to score. Please prove me wrong on Saturday in the Champions League final Timo!

I have to admit I couldn’t tell you any other Patsy Cline songs apart from this one and yet, despite only recording four studio albums before her untimely death in a plane crash in 1963, I counted 42 Greatest Hits compilation albums in her discography page on Wikipedia. I’m guessing the reason for this re-release was to promote one such Best Of package or was it used in yet another film soundtrack maybe? I’m not sure. Anyway, it peaked at No 14 this time around.

Attention Anthrax! This is how you play release schedules against sales patterns to your ultimate chart advantage. I remember the idea that Iron Maiden had some how pulled off some sort of chart-based sleight of hand being a big deal at the time. Presumably releasing a single at the optimum time when the least amount of sales were required for a No 1 record whilst also knowing you had a loyal (and crucially big enough) fan base must have been a deliberate act and wasn’t happy circumstance. The band and their record label must have known what they were doing for them to knock Cliff Richard off the Xmas No 1 spot after just one week. Have their ever been two such polar opposite records to be consecutive No 1s? The juxtaposition of saintly Sir Cliff giving thanks to God followed by a heavy rock band instructing their followers to bring their female offspring to a horrible death was frankly bizarre! Or was “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter” about something else entirely? Originally written for the film A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Bruce Dickinson had this to say about it on the songfacts.com website:

‘Here I tried to sum up what I thought Nightmare On Elm Street movies are really about, and it’s all about adolescent fear of period pains. That’s what I think it is – deep down.’

How lovely of you Bruce to write a song about the subject in such a sensitive way! Jeez!

Despite it being banned from BBC radio playlists, it spent two weeks at No 1 and in 2005, it was voted the second best No1 single of all time behind Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” by…yes you’ve guessed it…BBC Radio 1 listeners.

From “Bohemian Rhapsody” to “Turtle Rhapsody” by some…thing called Orchestra On The Half Shell. As you may have guessed, this was yet another association with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon. It was actually the third hit single to be released from the soundtrack to the film following “Turtle Power” by Partners in Kryme and “Spin That Wheel” by Hi Tek 3 (aka Technotronic). Yet again, I have zero recall of this and am actually surprised the whole franchise was still having hits into 1991. “Turtle Power” was a No1 in the previous Summer wasn’t it? When did the film come out in the UK then?

*checks internet*

Huh. Not until Friday 23rd November 1990 so I guess it was still doing the rounds at the cinemas? It’s utter hogwash of course and would peak at a lowly No 36.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qO-hwTu1jM

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Betty Boo	24 Hours	Nope
2	Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes	(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life	Nah
3	Gazza	Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)	Great footballer, terrible pop star – no
4	Black Box	The Total Mix	Total shit – no
5	Seal	Crazy	No but I bought the album
6	C+C Music Factory	Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)	No
7	Anthrax	Got The Time	I really haven’t – not for this shite
8	Patsy Cline	Crazy	Negative
9	Iron Maiden	Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter	Definitely not
10	Orchestra On The Half Shell	Turtle Rhapsody	As if

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000w6t7/top-of-the-pops-03011991

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.

TOTP 13 DEC 1990

Posted on May 14, 2021 by 80stastic

And we’re back! After a two week hiatus due to BBC4’s coverage of the snooker, TOTP Rewind is back in the groove as we hoover up the last couple of shows from the year 1990. This episode picks up the story of the year with just 12 days to go until Xmas and I am working my very first Our Price yuletide retail season. Despite being frenziedly busy, I’m enjoying it.

I was working in the Market Street store in Manchester which was a three floor unit (two of them trading) so the number of staff employed there was pretty sizeable – although this was certainly not the case in future years – meaning there was always somebody to chat to. This was especially true if you got yourself to work early. An early arrival you see meant that you could grab yourself a place at the processing table upstairs, set yourself up with a brew and a fag (yes in 1990 you could still smoke in work premises kids!) if so inclined, a stash of stock for processing and settle in for a comfortable day off the counter chatting to your processing neighbour. Hell, if you were really organised, you could commandeer the staff cassette player and relax with some tunes of your choice as well. The store seemed to run itself to a point (or that’s how it seemed to me). There was very little delegation of tasks. If you were a temp (like me) then you were counter fodder whilst the permanent members of staff would only come down if buzzed due to a customer queue build up. Ah yes, the buzzer system. I’m pretty sure it went like this:

1 buzz = it’s busy, help serving required

2 buzzes = management required (refund, swap etc)

3 buzzes = a very attractive woman has entered the shop. Cue a stampede of male staff members rushing down the stairs for a look.

It sounds horrendous to me now but that sort of thing seemed to be much more prevalent and tolerated back in the un PC early 90s. I can honestly say that I never used the three buzzes signal!

Right that’s enough record shop reminiscences for now, back to TOTP and if it’s Xmas it must be Shakin’ Stevens right? Sadly, this was the case as despite it being five years since his Xmas No 1 record “Merry Christmas Everyone”, Shaky still thought it was worth a go bunging a festive ditty out there again. Somebody would buy it wouldn’t they? Apparently so as here is the Welsh Elvis with “The Best Christmas Of Them All”.

This really was bottom of the barrel stuff. Shaky’s chart career had been in decline for a while by this point. This was only his second hit of the calendar year and also only the second time he had made the Top 20 in three years. There would be only a further three Top 40 singles after this one – yet another Xmas effort in 1991, a collaboration with Queen’s Roger Taylor in 1992 and a cover of Pink’s “Trouble” in 2005 which I think was linked to him winning ITV’s entertainment show Hit Me, Baby, One More Time.

“The Best Christmas Of Them All” was utter crud with Shaky phoning it in over a formulaic 50s honky tonk rhythm and some banal festive lyrics about Santa Claus, Rudolph, presents and peace in the world. Just horrible. He’s backed in this performance by some bizarre looking characters. There’s two fellas dressed as waiters one whom looks like Jason Donovan (if you squint) and the other who seems to have modelled his hairstyle on Francis Rossi of Status Quo. The rest look like they should be down the Queen Vic pub for a right old cockney Xmas knees up except for the drummer – isn’t that Boabby the landlord of The Clansman from Still Game?

“The Best Christmas Of Them All” peaked at No 19.

The most predictable re-release of the year up next as following the phenomenal success of The Righteous Brothers‘ “Unchained Melody” due to its use in Ghost, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” was hastily put out into the market place as a follow up. One of the most recognisable songs of all time (in 1999 it was ranked by performing rights organisation the BMI as the most-played song of the 20th century), this was always going to be a surefire hit all over again and it duly sped up the charts all the way to No 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DHI-g4Fq4w

I had no idea until now that this track was at the centre of one of the most bizarre chart battles ever back in 1965 when it was first a hit for The Righteous Brothers. Apparently Cilla Black had recorded her take on the song as well and both versions were released in the same week. Cilla hit the front early and maintained a lead over Bobby and Bill until peaking at No 2. with The Righteous Brothers right behind her at No 3. In the heat of the battle for No 1, the US boys were flown into the UK to spend a week promoting their version and it tipped the balance in their favour as they won the battle for top spot with Cilla falling away to No 5. Forget your Oasis V Blur, this was the mother of all chart battles.

As with “Unchained Melody”, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” was also heavily featured in a hit film (albeit a few years previously)…

It’s been covered by just about everybody – aside from Cilla, it’s also been recorded by Dionne Warwick, Elvis and Hall & Oates to name a few. Oh and this lot…

Yazoo? In 1990? What was this all about? I really don’t know and despite searching the internet I can’t find a reason why “Situation” was released in 1990. There was no Best Of compilation to promote (the first Yazoo Greatest Hits album didn’t arrive until 1999) and it wasn’t featured in a film Righteous Brothers style. Originally hurriedly recorded as the B-side to their debut hit “Only You” (the only other song they had was “Don’t Go” which was deemed to good to throw away as a B-side) it was actually released as the duo’s first single in the US and although only a minor hit, on the Billboard Hot 100, it topped the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart there. This 1990 incarnation was named the Deadline Mix and was produced by French DJ, producer, remixer and label owner Francois Kevorkian and it was he that also produced that original 1982 12″ mix for the US market back in the day.

My abiding memory of the 1990 version is watching a work colleague called Scott getting ribbed mercilessly by the rest of the staff for dancing to it while listening on headphones on the shop stereo after the store had shut for the day. He was really going for it (in silence to the rest of us) before he eventually realised that he had attracted a crowd. Scott’s reaction? “Fuck you, it’s a great track”. Well said Scott.

“Situation ’90” peaked at No 14.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvsOYx8_NyU

Right, who’s this then? Malandra Burrows? Oh yeah, I remember this. In an attempt to prove that it wasn’t just Aussie soap stars that could have chart hits in our country, a star of one of our own soaps was pushed into the world of pop. Malandra played a character called Kathy Glover in Emmerdale (or Emmerdale Farm as it was when she first appeared in it) and by 1990 had been on our screens for about 5 years (her character was called Kathy Merrick by this point). With that established profile, perhaps she was seen as a safe bet for popularity and appeal with UK pop fans?

“Just This Side Of Love” was the song with which she debuted as a pop star and incidentally is also very nearly the same title as the aforementioned Yazoo’s third single release. Apparently the song was actually featured in an Emmerdale plot line as it was sung by Malandra’s character at a village concert. In that respect, it was more Letitia Dean and Paul Medford than Kylie and Jason. Malandra gives a confident performance here and she would go onto release three more singles before the decade was out but none of them made the Top 40.

My abiding memory of this song was that when copies of the 7″ single arrived in store and we opened up the box, they were all damaged in a rather peculiar way as the silver bit in the middle with all the song credits on seemed to have spilt over onto the actual grooves of the record. It was like a thermometer had exploded and there was mercury everywhere.

Oh and that was a terrible pun Simon Mayo on Emmerdale Farm and The Farm. Idiot.

Blimey, these next four songs were leaving it late for a title at the Xmas No1 spot. Breakers they may have been but time was against them if they wanted to get anywhere near the summit of the charts. We start with INXS and “Disappear”. The second single from the band’s “X” album, I always preferred it to the more organic (yes I do sound like a knacker!), frantic “Suicide Blonde”. It was a more polished production and the track had room to breathe – a good , sold, proper record. The difference between the two reminded me of my feelings towards the U2 singles “Desire” and “All I Want” from “Rattle And Hum”. I guess it was the pop kid in me coming out again.

In the US, “Disappear” was a much bigger hit where it went Top 10 but it was left stranded at No 21 over here. I think it just got lost in the Xmas rush. The fact that it was released a whole three months on from “Suicide Blonde” (and indeed the album) seems like an error of judgement by the record company in hindsight.

The mostly black and white video showcases Michael Hutchence at his lithe, rock god peak. There would be terrible tragedy to come but for the moment, INXS were maintaining their status as one of the world’s top rock acts just nicely than you very much and it would lead to perhaps the band’s ultimate high of performing at Wembley Stadium in July of the following year to a sold-out audience of 74,000 fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKAa20ukR-s

Oh God! Remember this? The Gregorian chant phenomenon? This was truly strange wasn’t it? The Enigma project was the brainchild of producer Michael Cretu who wanted to create a new form of music that didn’t follow the traditional blueprints and that had an added element of mysticism. He found the ingredient he was after in Gregorian chant which he combined with an almost hypnotic, downbeat rhythm and some whispered vocal parts in both French and Latin on the hit “Sadness (Part I)”. Who would have though that those disparate parts would make a huge No 1 record? In the wake of Enigma’s success, a plethora of Gregorian chant albums were suddenly released and became massive sellers. The one I remember the most was called “Canto Gregoriano” by Coro De Monjes Del Monasterio Benedictino de Santo Domingo de Silos. It was a double album but the cassette version came in individual cases which was a bugger to display on the shelves. Cue the sellotape!

Having been a No1 hit all over Europe, it was inevitable that “Sadness (Part I)” would make its way to these shores and indeed it did but with one small difference – for the UK release the title was changed from its original spelling of ‘Sadeness’ to ‘Sadness (Part I)’ dropping an ‘e’ like a late 80s raver. I recall this being pointed out to me by an Our Price colleague called Sarah though I had no idea that it was all to do with the sexual desires of Marquis de Sade! This makes more sense when you realise that the French bits roughly translate to ‘Sade tell me’ (‘Sade dis moi’) and ‘Sade give it to me’ (‘Sade donne moi’). It’s kind of like a Gregorian chant version of “Je t’aime… moi non plus” by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Pure filth in other words!

The parent album “MCMXC a.D.” was also a No 1 and a 3 x platinum seller in the UK seller despite neither of the subsequent singles issued from it making the Top 40. Enigma returned in early 1994 with a Top 3 hit in “Return to Innocence” which had a more world music flavour to it and another No 1 album in “The Cross Of Changes” before a dose of diminishing returns set in. Oh and by the way, any idea how long it took before “Sadeness (Part 2)” was released? 26 years! Yes, it wasn’t until their 2016 album “The Fall Of A Rebel Angel” was released that part II came into existence as its lead single. Truly an enigma.

Despite its near iconic status these days, George Michael‘s “Freedom ’90” only achieved a chart high of No 28 in the UK (No 8 in the US). Was it third single from the album syndrome? The Xmas rush? We’ll never know for sure but it does seem a very meagre peak for a song that has had so much written about it over the years. My contribution to the word count (for what its worth) is that clearly George was in turmoil at this point. Legally trying to disentangle himself from record company Sony and artistically trying to free himself of the “Faith” era image, “Freedom ’90” was a statement in more ways than one. Intensely autobiographical charting his career from Wham!…

Heaven knows we sure had some fun, boy
What a kick just a buddy and me (what a kick just a buddy and me)
We had every big-shot good time band on the run, boy
We were living in a fantasy (we were living in a fantasy)

via “Faith”…

I went back home, got a brand new face
For the boys on MTV

and onto a declaration of intent to move away from all that into his next phase as an artist…

But today the way I play the game is not the same, no way
Think I’m gonna get myself happy

The lyrics were backed up by the hard hitting video. After not doing one at all for “Praying For Time” and with something cobbled together off a South Bank Show documentary for second single “Waiting For That Day”, a video was produced for “Freedom ’90” but George refused to appear in it. Instead a quintet of super models (Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford) were the stars of the show lip synching the lyrics while the storyline literally dismantled George’s “Faith” persona image by image.The iconic jukebox was usurped by a CD player before being blown up whilst the leather jacket was set on fire. Powerful stuff. Michael would use the promo video format to make an even more explosive point when his “Outside” video depicted him dressed as a police officer kissing another male officer in retaliation to his arrest by an undercover police officer for ‘engaging in a lewd act’ in a public toilet in Beverly Hills.

The comments about the “Freedom ’90” video on the songfacts.com website include one which states

‘I have heard that Michael added “90” to the title so that it would not be confused with the song by Wham! with the same title. Yeah, like that would ever happen!’

Well, I can confirm that this did actually happen. How do I know? Because it was me that made that error. Sitting in the staff room at the Our Price store I was working in I was checking out the official chart rundown in Music Week (the go to trade paper for the UK record industry). Seeing the title “Freedom” against the name George Michael, I had a senior moment (despite being aged just 22 at the time) and exclaimed to my assembled work colleagues ‘Why is “Freedom” by Wham! back in the charts?’. After much guffawing and comments from the assembled throng such as ‘Oh shit, have Wham! broken up?’, I finally realised my mistake. What a schmuck.

The song was covered in 1996 by Robbie Williams to celebrate his emancipation from boy band Take That. I remember looking at the single’s track listing and thinking ‘So there of the four tracks on here, one is a remix, one is an instrumental and one is an interview?! Where are your songs Robbie?’. He would confound me a year later with his mega successful “Life Thru A Lens” album with its five hit singles. Who knew? Well, Guy Chambers probably.

I have no recollection whatsoever of The Carpenters being in the charts again in 1990. I an only assume that the re-release of “(They Long to Be) Close to You” was part of the promotion campaign for greatest hits compilation “Only Yesterday” which was released in 1990. Or was it a cynical Xmas cash in by label A& M as it seems to have been a double A-side with “Merry Christmas, Darling”. Whatever the reason, it was statistically their first UK Top 4 hit since 1978’s “Sweet, Sweet Smile”.

You have to love The Carpenters don’t you? C’mon. This track has been covered by many an artist including Stevie Wonder, Dian Ross and Gwen Guthrie but I also want to give a shout out to Rick Moranis who gamefully took the song on in the film Parenthood…

The 1990 release of “(They Long to Be) Close to You” peaked at No 25.

Now then, here comes Seal throwing off his Adamski / “Killer” cocoon to emerge beating his wings as a fully fledged pop star in his own right. “Crazy” sounded like a hit instantly, from the very first time I heard it. Boasting a tight yet atmospheric production courtesy of Trevor Horn, it was packed full of hooks, a propulsive beat and Seal’s soulful vocals tying it all together. It seemed like a great deal of thought had gone into its composition but not in a cynical, let’s just pour all the currently popular ingredients into the pot and see what concoction brews way; it was more organic (there’s that word again!) than that.

It was also the first single from his debut album that appeared 6 months later and which would become a No 1, double platinum seller. Indeed, I bought it myself and I even caught him in concert where he was as confident as he was in this performance. He’s definitely giving off a vibe that says ‘look, being a pop star is the only thing I could possibly do – I have no choice’. Adamski who?

“Crazy” peaked at No 2 , the highest charting single of his career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSM3psgx6sQ

Oh come on! This is really taking the piss! After Technotronic had released a megamix of their previous hits called…erm…”Megamix” just a few weeks earlier, now Italian house outfit Black Box were jumping on the bandwagon! Ah, but they weren’t totally stealing the idea. Yes, it was a mash up of their previous chart hits just like Technotronic but there’s was called “The Total Mix” – different eh? See? Bloody snake oil salesmen the lot of them. Oh and you can add Snap! to the list of shysters who released “Mega Mix” the following year.

“The Total Mix” peaked at No 12.

Right, home stretch now as after ten hits that were new to the show, we end with three that we had seen before. We start with Chris Isaak who is up to No 10 this week with “Wicked Game” (it will rise no further however). I have to say that I’ve always admired Chris’s hair – always immaculate. Only potentially bettered by Mark Ronson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K38ZwN_8crg

What? The music? Oh, well, yes…I liked “Wicked Game” and I think my wife bought the album. So atmospheric was its sound that it was always destined to be used as the soundtrack to a car commercial and director Jeffrey Darling duly delivered in 2001 with this advert for the Jaguar X-Type.

It’s still Vanilla Ice at No 1 with “Ice Ice Baby” and it’s become one of those songs that’s taken on a life of its own way beyond the parameters of its original release. Not convinced? OK, here it is being ‘officially paroled’ on US TV show Glee in 2010…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33vZFEpy4AU

and here’s the song coming full circle with Jedward and Vanilla Ice! Yikes!

Back to 1990 though and could Mr Ice keep all opposition at arm’s length in the battle for the Xmas No 1?*

*SPOILER ALERT!

No he couldn’t – Cliff toppled him at the death obviously

The play out video is Dimples D with “Sucker DJ”. Who was Dimples D? Well, she was only the first female hip hop artist to achieve a No 1 record in Australia. That’s who. As for the phrase ‘Sucker DJ’, well it was used by Cameo in their “Word Up” single. Witness:

Now all you sucker DJ’s
Who think you’re fly
There’s got to be a reason
And we know the reason why

but were Run DMC the true originators with their “Sucker M.C.’s” track back in 1983?

You try to bite lines but rhymes are mine
You’s a sucker M.C. in a pair of Calvin Klein
Comin from the wackiest, part of town
Tryin’ to rap up but you can’t get down

Or was it in fact Dimples D all along…

"Sucker DJ" was first recorded in 1983, when Dimples D was still in school. Here's the original version: https://t.co/G87HCd7Ghs #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 7, 2021

“Sucker DJ” (the 1990 version) peaked at No 17.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl8GEsW0V1k

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Shakin’ Stevens	The Best Christmas Of Them All	The word ‘Best’ and Shaky don’t really belong together do they? Of course not!
2	The Righteous Brothers	You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’	Nope
3	Yazoo	Situation ‘90	I did not
4	Malandra Burrows	Just This Side Of Love	The wrong side though Malandra – no
5	INXS	Disappear	Not the single but I have it on something somewhere I think
6	Enigma	Sadness (Part 1)	No
7	George Michael	Freedom ‘90	No but I have the Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 album
8	The Carpenters	They Long To Be (Close To You)	No but we all have a Carpenters Greatest Hits CD don’t we?
9	Seal	Crazy	No but I bought the album
10	Black Box	The Total Mix	Total shit more like – no
11	Chris Isaak	Wicked Game	I think my wife had the tape of the “Wicked Game” compilation album once upon a time but no idea where it would be now
12	Vanilla Ice	Ice Ice baby	No No baby
13	Dimples D	Sucker DJ	Nah

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000v4b6/top-of-the-pops-13121990

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.

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 27 JUL 1995

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TOTP 13 JUL 1995

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TOTP 19 MAY 1994

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TOTP 14 NOV 1991

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TOTP 01 AUG 1991

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TOTP 25 JUL 1991

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TOTP 09 MAY 1991

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TOTP 19 JAN 1991

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TOTP 03 JAN 1991

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TOTP 13 DEC 1990

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Some bedtime reading?