Shed Seven

TOTP 21 MAR 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

In the last post I mentioned that Ricky Gervais had been the music advisor on the BBC2 show This Life and that much of its soundtrack featured artists that could have been categorised as Britpop. Well, it looks like Ricky could have been advising on the tunes for this TOTP with nearly half of the acts of that genre. Also very much riding that zeitgeist are tonight’s hosts, the then achingly right on Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley.

We start with one of those Britpop acts Shed Seven who are at the top of their arc popularity wise with their biggest ever hit “Going For Gold”. To mark the occasion, lead singer Rick Witter has channeled his inner Martin Fry from ABC and turned up in a gold lamé outfit (see what he did there?). A few weeks later, as part of the BBC’s Euro 96 coverage, the band would find two of their songs (this one and “Getting Better”) being used to soundtrack trailers for England games. Just as “Going For Gold” was reaching a much wider audience than ever before due to its adoption by BBC Sport, conversely Going For Gold their daytime quiz show hosted by Henry Kelly came to the end of its nine year run just days after the end of the football tournament.

We stick with Britpop as Oasis get another outing despite the fact that “Don’t Look Back In Anger” is no longer at No 1. As with Technohead the other week however, staying in the same position for two weeks as you descend the charts is seen as reason enough to bag a spot on the show. As such, in spite of falling from No 1 to No 2 to No 3 in consecutive weeks, staying at No 3 sees Noel, Liam, Bonehead et al back on our screens. I like the way that Jo Whiley refers to them as “Our friends in the North” thereby giving a nod to the fact that this song was used in the closing scene of the BBCs drama series of the same name that had aired a couple of weeks previously. I seem to be warming to Jo a bit retrospectively having not had too high an opinion of her in the past. This would be the last time we saw Oasis on TOTP for nigh on 18 months when they returned with the “D’You Know What I Mean?” single.

Apart from “Lucky Star” in April 1984, Madonna had an unbroken run of Top 10 hits in the UK stretching all the way until December 1994 and then she had three in 15 months or three out of her last six single releases if you prefer. Starting with “Take A Bow” which only made it to No 16, there then followed “Oh Father” that matched it and finally there was “One More Chance” that peaked at No 11. Another track from her “Something To Remember” ballads collection, this was actually one of three new songs recorded for the project. It’s all very stripped back with only three instruments used on it – acoustic guitar, cello and keyboard. The composite effect is Madge does “More Than Words” by Extreme.

As she was filming for the Evita film when the single was released, there wasn’t time for Madonna to promote the song nor even to shoot a video so we just get a promo of clips from her previous videos slung together, hence Jo Whitley’s comment “A brief history of Madonna, hairdo by hairdo”. I find the whole thing a tad underwhelming if I’m honest. Now, if she’d covered this instead, then I would have taken a lot more notice…

There were perhaps none more Britpop than Menswear and like Shed Seven earlier, this was the peak of their success. After three medium sized hits the previous year, “Being Brave” would give the band their only Top 10 hit. It took a big ballad to do it, dripping with strings and a big ‘bah, ba ba, bah’ chorus but they manage to pull it off. I remember thinking at the time that they were somehow selling themselves and their fans short by releasing a ballad as if they were playing along with the record industry game and not sticking to their principles but on reflection, why shouldn’t they record such a song? They’re the artist, the creative ones, not me – I was just selling their wares working in a record shop.

Johnny Dean looks like he’s been inspired by Bowie’s ‘Thin White Duke’ era image here but, as with the song he’s singing, it all just about works. Menswear would only have one more hit single later in 1996 before they embarked on the disastrous country rock – tinged second album “Hay Tiempo!” which only got released in Japan at the time though it is available on Spotify now. They split in 1998 with a brief relaunch in 2013 but with only Dean as the original member of the new line up. He would subsequently disown that period of the band and having started a new group, it seems that Menswear are officially closed until further notice though a career spanning four CD box set – “The Menswear Collection” – was released in 2020.

There now follows a pair of very middle of the road ballads performed by two very mainstream artists. For all his success both as part of The Commodores and as a solo artist, Lionel Richie hadn’t released a studio album for a whole ten years by 1996. The only material made available under his name in the intervening years had been his incredibly successful Best Of album called “Back To Front” in 1992 and accompanying hit single “My Destiny” but other than that, nowt. In fairness to Lionel, he’d spent much of that time dealing with a highly publicised divorce plus the loss of his father and a close friend. By 1996, he was ready to resume his career and joined forces with those go to soul / R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The result was the album “Louder Than Words” and its lead single “Don’t Wanna Lose You”. However, Lionel did lose me (if he ever had me in the first place) as this was a sluggish, ambling, slow walk to extinction song whose only possible hope of redemption was that it had a whiff of “No Woman No Cry” about parts of its melody. The album sold moderately at best (ten times less the amount than “Dancing On The Ceiling” did in the UK) prompting his next release to be yet another Best Of in the form of “Truly: The Love Songs” in an attempt to reverse Lionel’s commercial fortunes which it did until his subsequent studio album in 1998 which absolutely bombed. I guess people are just stuck on you(r) old songs Lionel.

The second of those two ballads is “Falling Into You” from Celine Dion. In his intro, Steve Lamacq refers to her as “the skinniest woman in the world”, a comment I don’t think he would get away with today. It was probably ill-advised back then given the rumours of eating disorders that had followed Celine around most of her life. In any case, Steve Lamacq was hardly on the portly side or a picture of glowing health himself back then was he? In 2022, Celine revealed that she had been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome, a neurological condition affecting her muscles. An Amazon Prime documentary chronicling her illness has just been released.

Were Garbage Britpop? On the one hand you’d have to say absolutely not given that 75% of their line up were American. On the other, their lead singer and focal point of the band was Scottish. Whether they were or not, what is sure is that they were the third band on the show tonight experiencing their biggest ever hit after Shed Seven and Menswear. “Stupid Girl” was the third single to be released from their eponymous debut album and would peak at No 4. It’s also surely their best known song. Built around a drum loop from “Train In Vain” by The Clash, it’s an hypnotic four minute tale of wasted potential with Shirley Manson’s strident, powerful vocal frogmarching rather than leading us through it.

Given that their previous two Top 40 hits had peaked at Nos 29 and 13, “Stupid Girl” going straight in at No 4 must have been a shock to both band and record label especially as the album had been out for a good six months by this point. It would set something of a standard with four of their next five singles going Top 10. Shirley looks great here with her pink dress reviving images of their debut TOTP appearance and that pink feather boa wrapped around her mike stand. So, returning to that original question, to be or not to be Britpop? I don’t know but great pop? Definitely. No maybe about it.

Boxing and pop music are not natural bedfellows. Sure, there’s “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor from Rocky III which will be forever synonymous with the fight game and that song “In Zaire” by Johnny Wakelin which was about ‘The Rumble In The Jungle’ match up between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman but generally I would argue, no good can come of them sparring with each other. I’m not talking about the walk on music that boxers enter the ring to as they’re proper tracks that have been co-opted for a different use. Nor do I mean the various boxing playlists to be found on streaming platforms for the same reason. No, I’m talking about when the two worlds properly collide like here…Kaliphz featuring Prince Naseem and “Walk Like A Champion”. This was a hip-hop outfit from Rochdale teaming up with the holder of the WBO Featherweight title, the flamboyant (some may say arrogant) Prince Naseem Hamed. Presumably both thought that they could benefit from such a symbiotic relationship – Kaliphz bagging themselves a bona fide chart hit and furthering their career and Prince Naseem…well…making a few quid I suppose.

The resulting track is, of course, appalling. Naseem was so high on confidence by this point that he even believes a vocal contribution from himself was not just valid but valuable. It wasn’t. Who bought this rubbish? I’m guessing there must have been some hard selling into record shops by the promotion team behind it to get it to No 23. Kaliphz did gain some traction from its success though. At the prompting of DJ and FFRR Records label owner Pete Tong, a move to Jive Records brought a pairing with Pete Waterman. Under his guidance and a name change to Kaleef, they secured a second chart hit when their version of “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers peaked at No 22 later in 1996. Prince Naseem would continue boxing for a further six years winning 36 of his 37 professional bouts.

Prince Naseem wasn’t the first boxer to release a record though. Discounting Billy Joel who was a boxer before moving onto making music, Nigel Benn aka ‘The Dark Destroyer’ released “Stand And Fight” in 1990 with an outfit called The Pack. It wasn’t a hit but I would wager it was a better record than the Kaliphz/Prince Naseem effort. I could be biased though as I have my own personal memory of this track. Back then, I’d just started as a Christmas temp at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester. Just a few weeks into my time there, we had a personal appearance from Nigel Benn himself to promote the record. He signed a load of publicity shots (I got one for my brother who was a fan) and we played his song continuously on the shop stereo not that it sold much. There was a photo of him with the shop staff (including a 22 year old me) that appeared in the WH Smith staff magazine which I kept for years but I’ve no idea where it is now.

Of course, there is one example of boxing snd pop music dovetailing beautifully and it comes courtesy of Everything But The Girl whose song…erm…”Boxing And Pop Music” from their 1991 album “Worldwide” is rather beautiful.

It’s a third and final week at the top for Take That with “How Deep Is Your Love”. As this blog will come to an end with the 1999 TOTP repeats, it’s also the last time I’ll be reviewing them. So farewell Gary, Mark, Jason, Howard and Robbie. I couldn’t stand you when you first appeared on the scene even before you were having hits. Working in Manchester at that time, everyone knew about the group’s failed attempts at stardom to the point that when Gary Barlow came into the Our Price store I was working in, a colleague followed him round mouthing “Nobody buys your records” behind his back. How we all laughed. Then, when the joke was on us as they started notching up the hits, I really detested them, dismissing them as manufactured teeny weeny idols only getting success by resorting to 70s cover versions. When “A Million Love Songs” came out, I begrudgingly admitted it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever heard and had to acknowledge that Barlow had written it himself at least. Following that, their Barry Manilow cover of “Could It Be Magic” was actually pretty good – what was happening? Having got into their stride, the flood of No 1s arrived. Most of them I could do without to be honest though they at least tried for a more mature round on “Sure”. Then came their finest moment for me with “Back For Good” – a truly great pop song with follow up “Never Forget” also…well…memorable. Their reunion ten years later brought more well crafted pop songs and they deservedly reaped success a second time around. I even saw them live at the Old Trafford cricket ground with my sister, standing in for a friend who’d let her down and it was a very enjoyable show. Even losing another member in Jason Orange hasn’t killed them off. Fair play to them I say.

One last thing, we never got to see the frankly bizarre video for “How Deep Is Your Love” on these TOTP repeats so a quick word about it. We may have thought that we’d get a commemorative promo for their ‘last’ single, maybe a montage of their hits or a farewell-themed plot reassuring their broken hearted fans that everything would be OK in the end. How wrong we were.

What we actually got was a tale of kidnapping, the implication of torture and ultimately murder. The band play their parts well as the kidnapped performing the song under duress (especially Barlow) but the video is stolen by the blonde kidnapper played by Paula Hamilton. With disturbing heavy Whatever Happened To Baby Jane eye make up, she makes for a convincing deranged, obsessed fan. Paula has had her own demons in her real personal life. You can read up about her yourself if you want but besides the Take That promo, she is also best known for this memorable advert from 1987:

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Shed SevenGoing For GoldThought I might have but singles box says no
2OasisDon’t Look Back In AngerYES!
3MadonnaOne More ChanceNah
4MenswearBeing BraveNope
5Lionel RichieDon’t Wanna Lose YouAs if
6Celine DionFalling Into YouNever
7GarbageStupid GirlCould have but didn’t
8Kaliphz featuring Prince Naseem Walk Like A ChampionHell no!
9Take ThatHow Deep Is Your LoveNo but my wife had their Greatest Hits CD

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zyvh/top-of-the-pops-21031996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 25 JAN 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

Oh God! As The Boo Radleys once sang…”It’s Lulu”. Yes, the diminutive Scottish singer has been handed the ‘golden mic’ presenter slot this time around. I can’t really be doing with Lulu – firstly I can’t stand her most famous hit “Shout” and secondly, she just doesn’t seem like a nice person. I’m not the only one with this opinion – the late Dale Winton once said of her whilst hosting music panel show Never Mind The Buzzcocks that he would “gladly dance on her grave”. Ouch!

Anyway, let’s not obsess about Lulu and turn our attention to the music and we begin with another band who were very much associated with the Britpop movement. They seem to be coming thick and fast now don’t they? Shed Seven (for it is them) were about to have the best year of their career. Their five UK Top 40 hits in 1996 were more than any other artist in that calendar twelve months. Yes, things were certainly “Getting Better” (sorry!) for the lads from York as this single became their highest charting at the time when it peaked at No 14. Taken from sophomore album “A Maximum High” (which went Top 10 and is their biggest selling studio album), this was the sound of a band really hitting their stride. I’d not really got wholly on board with their early stuff but “Getting Better” was a belter. It sounded like they’d really tightened up their sound and decided on a defiantly more commercial style which was about to pay off. They would follow this up with the equally good “Going For Gold” and round the year off with possibly one of their most well known hits “Chasing Rainbows”. If that sounds like this post is so far just a list of Shed 7 songs, well, let’s just say I’m not the only one to have done that. Look at this from @TOTPFacts…

Coincidence my arse! The article says the guy used to be a regional manager for Our Price (for whom I worked in the 90s) so that only makes it more likely that he knew what he was doing. Anyway, my own personal go to memory of this song is when the BBC used it to soundtrack a clip for the Euro 96 football tournament. After an indifferent start, the England team had beaten Scotland and thumped Holland to qualify for the knockout stages and the Beeb used “Getting Better” as the music for a montage of England goals. As England progressed to the semi-finals, they then used the aforementioned “Going For Gold” to promote their coverage of the match. There was definitely a Shed 7 fan working for BBC Sport back then!

Now I absolutely remember “Whole Lotta Love” by Goldbug and thinking it was wild at the time but listening back to it some 28 years later, it sounds like a bit of a mess. Reworking the famous Led Zeppelin tune to incorporate the Pearl & Dean cinema music (pa-pa per pa per pa pa-pa pa per pa) might have seems like a good idea at the time but it doesn’t hold much water in retrospect. Released on the achingly trendy Acid Jazz label, the single was championed by Radio 1 DJ Chris Evans (makes a change from Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo) and went straight into the chart at No 3.

I’m not saying anything very profound nor insightful by stating that Led Zeppelin weren’t keen on releasing singles in the UK and “Whole Lotta Love” was another case in point. Despite being hugely well known thanks to the instrumental version by CCS that was used as the theme to TOTP for years during the 70s, it didn’t get a release in this country despite being a hit just about everywhere else. As I’ve said before, I never got the boat to Led Zep island and so my knowledge of their catalogue is paper thin but even I can appreciate the rock majesty of “Whole Lotta Love”. The Goldbug version though? Let’s just say it makes the Far Corporation’s take on “Stairway To Heaven” seem celestial by comparison. All those people on stage during this performance just seemed to add to the chaos. Goldbug would release just one further single which barely scraped into the Top 100 before the group split up amongst a dispute with Acid Jazz over unpaid royalties.

Back in 1993, with “All That She Wants” topping our charts, I reckon you’d have got very long odds on Ace Of Base still having hits three years later but here they were with their seventh such smash “Beautiful Life”. Now, if you’re wondering what the story behind this tune is (and I know you are!), here’s @TOTPFacts…

Hmm. OK. I get that your muse could appear to you watching a beautiful sunset whilst in the Canary Islands but then inspiration gives rise to that song?! Not a beautiful ballad or feel good anthem but a nasty, Eurodance track?! Nah, come on! You came up with a song that sounds like a prototype for “Barbie Girl”. Let’s move on…very quickly…

…to The Saw Doctors. What an anachronism this lot were. A good time Irish rock band in a UK chart of the mid 90s informed by a record buying public obsessed with dance music and Britpop? That was never going to fly. But it did somehow. Lulu seemed very enthused by the whole prospect of them being on the show and even adopts an Irish accent in support of them.

So how do we account for this single – “World Of Good” – becoming a No 15 hit and securing the band a slot on TOTP? Was it just a natural extension of a loyal fan base garnered by their reputation as a great live band? Surely it can’t have been off the back of a very long tail of popularity for The Commitments project? They were all the rage years before this. Mind you, the guitarist with the glasses does have a look of the piano player in the film. Maybe it was a simple as the song being a pretty good tune? No, I’m being naive. Since when has a song being good guaranteed it being a chart hit? Whatever the reason, The Saw Doctors would repeat the feat when their next single peaked at No 14 but they would return to the UK Top 40 just once more in 2002. It was a different story in the Irish charts though in which the band continued to have massive hits – three No 1s including the biggest selling Irish single ever “I Useta Lover” – way into the new millennium. They are still a going concern despite numerous line up changes though mainly as a touring band rather than a recording artist.

The 90s was a boom time for boy bands. They were everywhere beginning with America’s New Kids On The Block through to our own Take That and onto those nice Irish lads Boyzone and Westlife. They were some of the Champions League names but, looking lower down the table, there were some more mid ones as well such as 911, Let Loose and 5ive. Down in the relegation places were the likes of OTT, Gemini and the execrable Bad Boys Inc. Most of those bands were put together deliberately to appeal to the young female market, sometimes quite cynically and more often than not it seemed by Louis Walsh. However, in a league of their own when it came to manufactured boy bands were Upside Down. Put together by independent record label World Records (who, it would transpire, weren’t exactly the ‘global’ player their name suggested when they subsequently went bankrupt), this quartet looked like being yet another failed group when their debut single “Change Your Mind” only scraped into the Top 40 at No 35. The came the story of how they came into existence as told by the BBC documentary series Inside Story. Detailing the audition and selection process and the marketing strategy for such a group was compelling viewing and I did indeed watch the programme. It also exposed the utter cynicism and manipulation at the heart of the music business. In short, Upside Down were the antithesis of the likes of The Saw Doctors whose own origins were so organic you’d expect them to be on display in an aisle at Sainsbury’s.

The four band members were picked from 8,000 hopefuls and apart from the lead singer, didn’t seem like anyone you’d look twice at in the street but then I wasn’t the project’s target audience. The short guy I recall was interviewed about the prospect of pop stardom and him saying something like “If there’s any fans out there for me, I’ll find them” which sounded vaguely threatening! As for their song, it was clearly a rip off of “Careless Whisper” and was originally meant to be Bad Boys Inc’s next single until they were dropped by their label but, with the exposure that followed the broadcast of the documentary, would ultimately rise to No 11. Three more Top 40 hits followed (including a cover of Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now”) before World Records went bankrupt and Upside Down regrouped and relaunched with the worst band name ever Orange Orange. Inevitably, they flopped and split.

Around this time, I was pondering on the idea of arranging a personal appearance by an artist at the Our Price store where I worked to try and raise our profile (there was a HMV in the same precinct). I even went as far as speaking to someone at Head Office about my plan and asked about the possibility of getting Upside Down to come to the store. I was told very politely by the lady in marketing that “I think they’re very busy at the moment” meaning “You’ve no chance mate”. Some of my female work colleagues had got very excited about the prospect of being in close proximity to the lead singer of Upside Down, the other guys in the group not so much though.

OK. This is very strange. Just seven days ago, we had the video for Coolio’s new single “Too Hot” on the show which had debuted inside the Top 10 in its first week on the chart. Despite that exposure, it fell ten places to No 19. As such, there was no way it would be on the programme again this week. However, that didn’t mean Coolio wouldn’t be on the show as we got a repeat of him in the TOTP studio performing “Gangsta’s Paradise”! As Lulu said in her intro, the single had been on the charts for fourteen weeks by this point and was no longer No 1 so what gives? Well, in this week, it actually moved up the chart from No 18 to No 11 so the TOTP producers could make a case that its reappearance was legitimate but come on! Surely there was another track inside the Top 40 they could have showcased instead?

*scans that week’s Top 40*

Erm…well…it was actually pretty slim pickings. Most of the new entries were indeed featured on the show. Due to the fast moving nature of the charts back then with singles entering high in the first week and then falling away dramatically the following week (as Coolio had done), there weren’t that many records actually climbing the charts. These were the only artists that were also new entries that week which didn’t make the cut:

  • Culture Beat (No 32)
  • Xscape (No 31)
  • Meatloaf (No 23)
  • Chemical Brothers (No 13)

I think you could make a case for Chemical Brothers though could you not?

Oh now this is a tune! “Weak” by Skunk Anansie almost rips your ears off. That chorus! That vocal! Unfairly and inaccurately lumped in with the Britpop crowd – they were more Britrock* if anything – Skunk Anansie were fronted by the magnificent Skin with her striking look and stunning voice.

*Skin described their sound as “clit-rock”!

Deceptively simple in its construction around just three chords, it veritably exploded when the chorus was reached, so powerful was it. Why this didn’t get beyond No 20 in the charts is beyond me. As much as I liked “Weak” however, I have to admit to not following through on my initial interest with Skunk Anansie. More and bigger hits came in “Weak”’s wake but I can’t say I recall that many of them. My potential familiarity with their canon of work wasn’t helped by their second album “Stoosh” needing a parental guidance sticker because of some of its lyrics meaning we couldn’t play it on the shop stereo despite at least one of my colleagues really wanting to hear it. Still, that didn’t affect the band’s sales – they spent 142 weeks on the singles and album charts up to 2003 and have sold five million records.

Is it that time already? Not my teatime but 3T-time! Yes, the offspring of Tito Jackson (Taj, TJ and Taryll – see what they did there?) were amongst us in 1996 to the tune of four hit singles and a gold selling album. With their uncle Michael having huge success at this time, it was impossible to avoid the family connection being mentioned. Did it go as far as accusations of nepotism? Well, Jacko did sign them to his record label MJJ Music, mentored them and even appeared with them on one of their hits. Yeah, it’s hardly paying your dues playing the pub and club circuit is it?

“Anything” was their debut single and what a drippy ballad it was – wetter than Rishi Sunak’s suit the other day. There were no suits on display in this performance though as all three were wearing baggy shirts and what look like pyjama bottoms. And what on earth was the rucksack accessory all about and why did he take it off and fling it to the floor at the song’s climax? Was he trying to beef up their image or the song’s sound? Actually, the optics on Sunak’s General Election announcement could only have been worse if he’d taken his soaking wet suit jacket off and thrown it down in anger.

After selling half a million copies in one week*, Babylon Zoo are unsurprisingly No 1. “Spaceman” would go on to sell 1.15 million copies in total and no, I don’t know how many of those were returned to shops under the trades description act after people got past the first 20 seconds or so. To be fair, although a lot is made about how the song didn’t sound like it did on the Levi’s advert, it’s maybe a misconception that everyone who bought it felt cheated. Given those huge numbers and its exposure on radio and indeed TOTP, a lot of people must have actually liked the way it sounded all the way through.

*According to Lulu and the TOTP caption though Wikipedia says 383,000

Has it stood the test of time? I’d have to say no and that it was very much an ‘in the moment’ hit. Certainly Babylon Zoo themselves (or more correctly Jas Mann) hardly left a legacy of work behind after the fame of that hit finally faded. I wonder how many people who bought it would admit to it today?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Shed SevenGetting BetterNot the single but I must have it on something surely?
2GoldbugWhile Lotta LoveNah
3Ace Of BaseBeautiful LifeNever
4The Saw DoctorsWorld Of GoodNope
5Upside DownChange Your MindAs if
6CoolioGangsta’s ParadiseNo
7Skunk AnansieWeakNo but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations I think
83TAnythingNot likely
9Babylon ZooSpacemanI am going to admit to buying it but not for me for a friend who was obsessed with it so she could use my staff discount – honest!

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/m001z1vp/top-of-the-pops-25011996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 11 MAY 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

We’ve arrived in May of 1995 here at TOTP Rewind and we know what happens in May – finals. The day before this TOTP aired, Arsenal lost the European Cup Winners Cup Final to Real Zaragoza when Nayim famously lobbed Seaman (ahem) from the halfway line and a week later Everton would upset the odds to triumph over Manchester United in the FA Cup final (more of that later). And then there was the annual music final. This year’s Eurovision Song Contest took place on the Saturday following this TOTP (more of that later). Before any of that though, I bring bad news – tonight’s host is Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo. Expect a procession of oblique and unfunny references to news stories of the time that Simon thinks make him sound clever but which in fact make him look like a prick.

We begin with Supergrass and their second UK Top 40 hit “Lenny”. One of the names that always comes up when Britpop is mentioned, Gaz, Mick and Danny also suffered from being associated with one song in particular despite achieving fourteen Top 40 hits including six inside the Top 10 and two No 2s. That song is, of course, “Alright” which will be along in a few weeks on these TOTP repeats. So damaged were they by its notoriety that when I saw them live in York in 2003, they didn’t include it in the set list which seemed a bit churlish if I’m honest. For now though, they were just trying to follow up their Top 20 hit “Mansize Rooster” from the year before and did so ably with “Lenny” which made it to No 10. A muscular, driving guitar heavy track with a galloping drum backing, it’s a thrilling if short ride – we get just over two minutes worth in this performance.

Visually, I was struck by the band’s three person guitar/bass/drums set up which immediately put me in mind of that other famous UK trio The Jam. Paul Weller would never have sported Gaz Coombes’ lamb chop sideburns though. He went in for those carefully shaped side strands of hair grown from the head rather than the face that curled into a point. Very modish and a look my Weller obsessed brother would sport for years. Anyway, as I said, Supergrass will be back soon enough smoking a fag and putting it out whilst keeping their teeth nice and clean whether they like it or not.

The first Simon Mayo ‘gag’ is here – something about Rugby Union administrators. I can’t be bothered to research what he was blathering on about but fortunately here’s @TOTPFacts so I don’t have to:

Hysterical work from Mayo there. The second act tonight is Montell Jordan who is the latest (or perhaps he was the original?) to use that nah-ner-ner-nah-nah-ner-ner- nah-nah hook that also featured in MN8’s recent hit “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” and would pop up again on Peter Andre’s “Flava” a year later. “This Is How We Do It” was the first R&B release on the legendary Def Jam label and was No 1 in the US for seven weeks. It didn’t do quite as well over here peaking at No 11.

Instead of being a basketball player (he really was 6’8”), Montell chose a career in music and rather cannily came up with a tune that he himself describes as a “universal idea”. Said idea was that the chorus could apply to doing an unspecified activity by an unspecified group in an unspecified location thereby meaning the song could be adopted by anyone for any project or endeavour. As such, “This Is How We Do It” has been used in numerous films and TV shows such as Glee, The Nutty Professor, 8 Mile, Pitch Perfect 2 and Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Montell would have further hits both here and in the US though none as big as his debut hit albeit that “Let’s Ride”, his collaboration with Master P and Slikk The Shocker (no idea) made it to No 2 over the pond.

And so to the first ‘final’ reference of the night. The 1995 FA Cup final was contested by Manchester United and massive underdogs Everton. The previous year they had completed the league and cup double by beating my beloved Chelsea 4-0 in a rain soaked day at Wembley. This season though hadn’t quite gone to plan. Unfashionable Blackburn Rovers would pip them to the league title and they would lose the cup final 1-0 to Everton to finish the season trophy less for the first time in six years. I watched the cup final in a pub in Chester as a group of us were having a Poly reunion there. It was an unpleasant experience as the pub seemed to be full of horrible racist Everton fans spoiling for a fight and going around asking people who they supported. When one of them approached my mate Robin he defused the situation by replying “Carlisle United”* which totally wrong footed the thug. Just as well he wasn’t as well versed about Carlisle as Eric Morecambe:

*Robin does actually support Carlisle United by the way

Anyway, as it was the cup final, back in the 90s that still meant cup final songs. United’s was officially credited to Manchester United 1995 Football Squad featuring Stryker and was called “We’re Gonna Do It Again”. Unlike last year’s execrable effort with Status Quo*, this time they went rap-tastic with this Stryker character. I’d never heard of him before and nobody else has heard from him since it seems. The fact that United lost the cup final meant that there would not only be no repeat of last season’s glory on the pitch but also the chance of another No 1 record was gone as well with “We’re Gonna Do It Again” peaking at No 6.

*Having said that, the bit that goes “again, again, again” does remind me of Quo’s “Down, Down”.

Next something that goes beyond even the realms of novelty offered up by the genre of the football song. How the hell did jazz scatting get into the charts?! Scatman John was John Larkin, a jazz pianist from LA who suffered from a stutter which had blighted his childhood but which he found didn’t hamper him from scat singing – the art of vocal improvisation to turn the voice into an instrument. Now I can’t really be doing with jazz of the freeform kind and don’t understand at all the appeal of an artist like Dame Cleo Laine so just adding some house beats and a bit of rapping to jazz scatting was never, ever going to win me over. What a racket!

I wasn’t alone in my opinion. My aforementioned friend Robin did a nice send up of Scatman John on that weekend in Chester I mentioned but then I was once on holiday in New York with him where there was nearly a jazz incident. We were over there for my wife’s 30th birthday with him and our friend Susan. On the Sunday afternoon, we’d walked for miles after doing a helicopter tour of the Manhattan skyline and were in need of sustenance and a rest for our feet. After deliberating for ages about which diner or bar to go in, we finally decided on one but as we entered the chosen establishment, Robin came to an abrupt halt and said “We can’t go in there! They’re playing live jazz!”. As a consequence, we all turned around and walked out again. Even allowing for my own mistrust of jazz, the other three of us were none too impressed by Robin’s musical proclivities that day. Another group of people who disagreed with him were the record buying public who took Scatman John (the scat Gareth Gates) and his tune “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” to their hearts and made it a No 3 hit, despite the fact that he looks like a Chuckle Brother at the ambassador’s reception in this performance.

Who are this lot? Blessid Union Of Souls? Nope, I’ve got nothing. Their only UK hit was “I Believe” which went Top 10 in America but only made No 29 over here. Listening to it, I’m surprised it wasn’t a bigger hit. A piano led ballad with a pleasant melody and some social conscience lyrics, it reminds me of “You” by Ten Sharp. Ah yes, those lyrics. Obviously the ‘N’ word is not sung during this performance by vocalist Eliot Sloan though it’s clear that’s what the word is. Sickeningly, that word was used by one of those Everton fans I mentioned earlier in that pub in Chester whilst he was shouting about Paul Ince. All very horrible. One of the few times in my life when it made me root for Manchester United.

The second band inextricably associated with Britpop on the show tonight are Shed Seven. Having broken into the charts in 1994 with three Top 40 singles and their gold selling album “Change Giver”, 1995 saw them release just one new song – “Where Have You Been Tonight?”. The first single off sophomore album “A Maximum High”, this was the sound of a band preparing to enter the peak period of their commercial success. I’d have to say though that this track in particular didn’t quite get them there. It’s not a poor song per se but compared to what came after it, well it was a bit underwhelming and in my mind, remains a somewhat forgotten Shed Seven single. The fact that the album didn’t come out for nearly another year perhaps adds to my perception. It almost feels like a stand-alone single.

By the time “A Maximum High” appeared, Britpop, lad culture and Euro 96 were happening and Shed Seven entered Shed Heaven hits wise – no artist had more Top 40 hits in 1996 than the five the York indie rockers racked up. The BBC’s Euro 96 coverage used two of them to soundtrack some England montage pieces as the national team progressed through the tournament. It was a heady mix and a case of being in the right place at the right time for the band. They might not now where they had been tonight but they had a good idea where they were going.

The second of the ‘final’ themed songs on the show tonight now with the inevitable appearance of the UK’s Eurovision Song Contest entry. With the competition final just two days away, there was no way that Love City Groove would not have been given one last promotional push via TOTP. Whilst this may have helped propel the song “Love City Groove” up the UK charts, it had no effect on the band’s appeal at Eurovision where they trailed in a disappointing tenth place. “The experiment has failed” Terry Wogan infamously quipped. Also failing was any prospect of a career post-Eurovision for the band. Subsequent single releases failed to break the UK Top 40 and even that fail safe plan of a cover version (Fatback Band’s “I Found Lovin’”) couldn’t reverse their fortunes and the group split for good in 1996. A small part of the UK’s Eurovision history will always belong to those people who sang (and rapped) about the the sun shining in the morning though.

Here comes Celine Dion who’s attempting to follow up a huge, big ballad with…yep…a huge, big ballad. “Think Twice” topped the UK charts for seven weeks having taken an eternity to get there and would end the year as the fifth best selling single in the UK. Following that was always going to be a big ask and “Only One Road” didn’t despite the decent showing of a No 8 peak. It’s all very formulaic and power-ballad-by- numbers which Celine can do in her sleep but which was always more likely to induce zzzzs than ££££s.

The staging of this one is slightly odd. It would appear that the TOTP floor managers have shepherded every studio audience member in grey or pastel coloured clothing to stand at the front of the circle around Celine thereby making her blood red top standout even more than it does naturally. The effect resembles that scene from Schindler’s List with the little girl in the red coat during the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto. Comparing the holocaust with a pop music TV show feels offensive but I guess it does serve to demonstrate the power of that scene and its sustained effect upon me given that it can be brought to mind by even the most banal of incidents.

And so to the No 1 and it’s a third consecutive single to debut at No 1 after Take That and Oasis in recent weeks. At the time, this was only the second occurrence of such a sequence but by the end of the decade, a record going in at No 1 had become a weekly event. Widespread first week discounting by the major labels whereby CD singles were £1.99 instead of £3.99 and the cassette version 99p rather than £2.29 was the major reason behind this with punters cottoning on pretty quick to the strategy and creating huge sales in the first seven days before tailing off immediately in subsequent weeks. Was this the point when that practice started? I can’t remember for sure. Nor can I recall the exact time when record companies started to allow new releases to be delivered to stores ahead of their official release date rather than on the day they came out but I think that was maybe also a factor in driving sales with new singles hitting the ground running from 9.00 am Monday morning.

Whether these factors were in play with making Livin’ Joy the No 1 artist with “Dreamer” or not we’ll never know but No 1 they are despite this single having already been a Top 20 hit the previous Summer. After trundling along the bottom reaches of the Top 100 at the end of 1994, it suddenly crashed back into the top spot when rereleased the following May. I was never a fan of Italo House so the track didn’t do much for me. Nor did I care much for “Show Me Love” by Robin S to which it was compared so it really was a personal non-starter but its legacy is substantiated by those Best Of polls where it regularly turns up in the 90s dance varieties.

The play out track is “Can’t Stand Losing You” by The Police and when I initially saw this on the running order, I assumed it was to plug sister show TOTP2. I was wrong for this was a legitimate chart record despite it having already been a No 2 hit in 1979. How? Because this was a live version. There had never been a live album by The Police though it had been mooted twice before; once in 1982 to plug the gap between “Ghost In The Machine” and “Synchronicity” and again in 1984 after the Synchronicity tour but it was shelved in place of the 1986 “Every Breath You Take: The Singles” Best Of album. A live album finally arrived in 1995 and it was called…”Live!”. Well, it did what it said on the tin I suppose. “Can’t Stand Losing You” was chosen to promote it and made No 27 on the charts – not bad for a ‘live’ single. The original is a classic Police track which I remember my brother having I think (or maybe he taped it off the radio). The lyrics about a teenager committing suicide after losing his girlfriend are entrenched in my brain. It was kept off the top spot by “I Don’t Like Mondays by Boomtown Rats, another song with some pretty dark lyrics.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1SupergrassLennyNo but we had the album ‘I Should Coco’ with it on
2Montell JordanThis Is How We Do ItNo
3Manchester United 1995 Football Squad featuring StrykerWe’re Gonna Do It AgainAs if
4Scatman JohnScatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)What do you think?!
5Blessid Union Of SoulsI BelieveNope
6Shed SevenWhere Have You Been Tonight?No but I had a live album called ‘Where Have You Been Tonight?’ with it on.
7Love City GrooveLove City GrooveI did not
8Celine DionOnly One RoadNever happening
9Livin’ Joy DreamerNah
10The PoliceCan’t Stand Losing You (Live)Negative

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/m001s1j2/top-of-the-pops-11051995

TOTP 23 JUN 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the final week of June 1994 and the World Cup is well under way. Republic of Ireland have already pulled off an unlikely 1-0 win against Italy and Diego Maradona had shocked the world with that bulging eyes goal celebration. Two days after this TOTP aired, he failed a drug test after the Argentina v Nigeria group game and was expelled from the tournament. He never played for his country again. The England team were watching at home like the rest of us after failing to qualify for the first time since 1978. Did we not like that! The World Cup provides the perfect opportunity for tonight’s host Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo to play to the camera by wearing a different country’s football shirt every time he does a link. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – what a nob!

We start with a band who had history when it came to rustling up a big hit out of nowhere. In 1988, Aswad bagged themselves a No 1 with “Don’t Turn Around”. There previous highest chart peak had been No 70. They would spend the next six years as infrequent visitors to the Top 40 clocking up a handful of medium sized hits. By the Summer of 1994, their last chart entry had been a rather desperate career reviving attempt – a cover of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. I, for one, did not see them plundering a Top 5 single any time soon but that’s what they did with the release of “Shine”. Why did this particular track spark with the record buying audience? If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a super wealthy songwriter rather than an impoverished blog writer. For what it’s worth, “Shine” (to me) seemed much more aligned with their reggae roots than the likes of the out and out pop of “Don’t Turn Around” and given the then recent trend for ragga/dancehall songs and reggae-fied pop classics in the charts, maybe this was the apposite time for an Aswad comeback. Whatever the reason, “Shine” certainly had some legs – it spent three months in the Top 40 of which half of that time was in the Top 10. I’m sure we’ll be seeing Aswad again on these repeats.

Just to prove my point about the proliferation of reggae and its various sub genres in the charts at this time, here’s Dawn Penn with “You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)”. And if that wasn’t enough evidence to prove how parochial the charts were becoming and this TOTP in particular, here’s @TOTPFacts with a further tidbit:

If Aswad’s comeback was surprising then what can be said about the success of this single? Originally recorded in 1967 and based around a Willie Cobb 1960 song (which itself relied heavily on a 1955 Bo Diddley track), somehow in 1994, it was deemed essential Summer listening. NME put it at No 24 in their list of the 50 best songs of the year. However, it was a case of ‘yes, yes, yes’ for the single and ‘no, no, no’ for the accompanying album which was received much less favourably and it got no further than No 51 in our charts.

Oh this is just getting silly now. How much more Aswad can one blog post take?! The next act is Ace Of Base whose latest single is a version of the aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around”! Why?! Why did they think this was a good idea? Well, apparently it wasn’t the band’s brainwave but their record label Arista’s who wanted some extra tracks laid down for the release of the US version of their debut album. One of those tracks had been previous single “The Sign” and now it was the turn of a song written by songwriter extraordinaire Dianne Warren and Albert Hammond. It was originally recorded by Tina Turner as the B-side to her 1986 single “Typical Male” before Aswad got their hands on it. Six years later it resurfaced in the hands of Swedish hitmakers Ace Of Base who wanted to give it a makeover and reworked it in a minor key to lend it an air of melancholy. I guess they should be given some credit for trying to do something different with what was clearly a straight up and down, uptempo pop song but it’s still a big, steaming pool of piss. I think it’s the nasally vocals on it (and indeed all their records) that grate. That plus the god awful rap in the middle. Oh, and the nasty, tinny production. Yeah, I think that covers it.

Arista clearly knew their markets though and “Don’t Turn Around” went to No 4 in the US and No 5 in the UK as well as being a hit all around the world. Ace Of Base would return with yet another cover version in 1998 with their take of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer”.

Pretty sure there’s no Aswad association with this next artist. Whilst the UK was experiencing the second coming of Bryan Adams in the form of Wet Wet Wet being No 1 for weeks on end, America also had its own version of chart purgatory in the shape of All 4 One whose single “I Swear” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eleven consecutive weeks. Inevitably, it became a massive success over here as well and surely would have risen to the summit were it not for Marti Pellow and chums. It got wedged in at the No2 position for seven weeks unable to dislodge “Love Is All Around”. I think this was my sister and her then boyfriend’s song as I recall. No doubt it held that status for many a couple in 1994.

Not quite a one hit wonder in the UK (they had a No 33 single in 1995), they had more success in the US though no chart entries there either past 1996. Despite that, the group are still together with the original line up with their most recent album coming in 2015.

Well before Yorkshire rockers Terrorvision were singing about ‘whales and dolphins’ on their 1996 hit single “Perseverance” there was Shed Seven and their first foray into the Top 40 “Dolphin”. I seem to remember there being a lot of fuss about the emergence of this lot (who were also Yorkshire lads hailing from York itself) and the release of their debut album “Change Giver”. I hadn’t been an early adopter of the Shed buzz though. I hadn’t noticed their debut single “Mark” (to be fair, it only made No 80) and this one also seemed to have passed me by. Not sure why as it’s a decent tune and I was open to the idea of a guitar band playing a form of jangly pop. The music press seemed open to it as well, at least initially. Comparisons with The Smiths and an article in the NME describing them as ‘the UK’s brightest hopes’ alongside positive gig reviews fuelled expectations. Within months though the press had turned and the band were even criticised for their names. Not the band’s name but their actual names. Look at this:

“Do they really expect to make it big with a singer called Rick Witter?”

Sullivan, Caroline. “Feature: Blurred Vision”. The Guardian G2 (Thursday 10 November 1994): 5.

Ridiculous. Anyway, the album made a short lived but significant splash reaching No 16 but only spending two weeks on the chart. It was a start though and within two years they were cranking out some quality tunes like “Getting Better” and “Going For Gold” both of which were used to soundtrack some BBC montages of the England football team during Euro 96 at the height of lad culture. Perhaps their pièce de résistance though was “Chasing Rainbows”, the lead single from third album “Let It Ride”. They were up there with the big boys of Britpop briefly. Ah yes, Britpop. Blur Vs Oasis and all that. Except for a while it was Shed Seven Vs Oasis, a rivalry which I must admit to not being aware of at the time but which seems to be heightened by both bands releasing debut albums within a week of each other. The rivalry became a feud that was played out in the music press with comments like this from Noel Gallagher:

“If we’re The Beatles, where are The Rolling Stones… it’s not f***ing Shed Seven’.”

Simpson, Dave. “Feature: More Songs About Puberty And Power”. Melody Maker (10 September 1994): 32–34.

Ultimately, “Change Giver” couldn’t compete with the record breaking “Definitely Maybe” but it wasn’t for a lack of confidence. Rick Witter is wearing a Shed Seven T-shirt in this TOTP performance with a picture of himself on the front! “Dolphin” peaked at No 28.

Live action films that use cartoons as their source material are rarely a good idea in my book. As far back as 1980 when Robin Williams took on Popeye, they never seemed to work. Leslie Nielsen’s turn as Mr Magoo in 1997 didn’t live long in the memory and neither did Matthew Broderick’s as Inspector Gadget in 1999. And then there’s The Flintstones. A staple of many a child of the 60s and 70s televisual schedule, the live action film starring John Goodman as Fred Flintstone actually did pretty well at the box office but it was still awful. With songs from films being big business in the 90s (think Bryan Adams / Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Whitney Houston / The Bodyguard and Wet Wet Wet / Four Weddings and a Funeral), it was no surprise that Universal Pictures wanted a huge hit to promote the film. Enter The B–52’s to record a version of the cartoon’s well known theme tune.

In many ways they were the perfect vehicle for a reworking of “(Meet) The Flintstones” having an almost cartoonish image themselves and being at the kitsch end of New Wave but on listening back to this today, it sounds horrific. Renamed as The B.C. 52’s (how amusing), they put their trademark stylings to the song like the over emphasised vocals of Kate Pierson and some wah wah guitar but it just doesn’t work for me. Shoehorning in some of the sound effects from the original into the mix like the canned drum roll that accompanies ‘Fred’s two feet’ in the cartoon sounds completely incongruous. What did I know though as the single went all the way to No 3. It would be the band’s final UK and US chart hit.

Some more pissing Eurodance next. I’m so fed up of this now. At the risk of sounding like my Dad when he used to pass judgment on the music of my youth, it all sounds the same and the bigger the crap the longer it goes on. Cappella seemed to be a poor man’s 2 Unlimited but with an obsession with inserting ‘U’ instead of ‘you’ in their song titles. “U & Me” was the third of their singles to follow this trend after “U Got 2 Know” and “U Got 2 Let The Music”. I can’t remember how they went but I’m guessing they sounded pretty similar to this one. Do you think Eurodance is just a dead form of music now? Like Latin is a dead language that nobody speaks anymore, is Eurodance a genre of music that nobody makes nor listens to any longer? We can only hope. “U & Me” peaked at No 10.

The 90s had been pretty good to Elton John so far. The decade had furnished him with his first ever solo UK No 1 in “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”, his album “Sleeping With The Past” (1990) was also a chart topper whilst “The One” (1992) went to No 2. Meanwhile, his collaborations album “Duets” had given him two Top 10 singles on the bounce. I hadn’t liked any of it though. In fact, I’d thought it was all terrible pretty much. However, that period’s success had lifted Elton out of his late 80s malaise when everything had gone a bit awry post “Too Low For Zero” and its radio friendly singles like “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” and “I’m Still Standing”.

What came next in 1994 some would say was his best work in years and it was all due to a Disney film. The Lion King would become an international phenomenon becoming the second highest grossing film of all time at one point behind the original Jurassic Park but also spawning a musical, sequels, a prequel and TV series. The man behind its soundtrack though was Elton and he fashioned a record that would go diamond in the US alone, achieving 10 million sales. The two big singles from it were “Circle Of Life” and this one, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Both were heart strings tugging ballads the like of which Elton was more than capable of composing once he’d weaned himself off the overly saccharine which he was want to indulge in. I could appreciate the musicality of both hits from the soundtrack though I preferred “Circle Of Life” if I’m honest as did Elton who is on record as stating it’s the better song. It was “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” though that won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1995.

The single was also a big hit in the US where it made No 4 though the reception to it in this country was somehow only worthy of a chart peak of No 14. Elton would return in 1995 with the platinum selling “Made In England” album.

It’s week four for Wet Wet Wet at the chart summit. What can I say about it this week? How about our perception of what exactly was going on here at the time? Did we have any idea that we were witnessing the genesis of a 15 weeks run at No 1 for “Love Is All Around”? Four Weddings And A Funeral was pulling in huge numbers at the box office to help promote the song in much the same way that Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves did for “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” so maybe we should have seen it coming? Or had we consigned the whole Bryan Adams debacle to history as a one off and therefore in our minds there was no way such a run could happen again or at least certainly not within three years?

And what of chart rivals? Were there any records that looked likely to depose the Wets in those early weeks? Was it inconceivable that someone like Big Mountain (with their own song from a film) could get to No 1? How about Dawn Penn or US chart toppers All 4 One? Or even Ace Of Base who’d already scored a chart topper of their own the previous year and whose current single was a song that had been No 1 for Aswad just six years before? Marti Pellow and co would see them all off to achieve fifteen weeks atop the charts before getting bored themselves and deleting the record so that sales would eventually and inevitably decline. At least that put them marginally above Bryan Adams in the credibility stakes.

The play out song is “Night In My Veins” by The Pretenders. I’d completely forgotten that there was a follow up to “I’ll Stand By You” but here it is and it’s not bad if nowhere near as memorable as its predecessor. A catchy, melodic rock work out, it would make No 25 and was the band’s penultimate UK Top 40 entry.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1AswadShineNope
2Dawn PennYou Don’t Love Me (No, No, No) No and indeed no, no
3Ace Of BaseDon’t Turn AroundAs if
4All 4 OneI SwearNo but I bet my sister did
5Shed SevenDolphinNo but I have a live album of theirs with it on
6The B-52’s(Meet) The FlinstonesNever happening
7CappellaU & MeNegative
8Elton JohnCan You Feel The Love TonightNah
9Wet Wet WetLove Is All AroundI did not
10The PretendersNight In My VeinsAnd 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/m001krc9/top-of-the-pops-23061994