Sister Sledge

TOTP 17 JUN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid June 1993 and the big news story on this particular day was that Manchester United bought Nottingham Forest midfielder Roy Keane for a then record £3.75 million. And yes, you’re right this is meant to be a music blog so here’s a Roy Keane inspired ditty…

This Morrissey single never made the Top 40 and so this TOTP performance was never broadcast until a viewers vote got it played on retro show TOTP2 in 2003. Mozza would often change the lyrics to “never seen a keener midfielder” when performing it live and the track was played over the closing credits of Keane’s 2002 documentary As I See It.

Right, that’s the 1993 news done. On with the show and we start with, as per usual, a high tempo dance track courtesy this time of The Time Frequency and a track from their “The Power Zone EP” called “Ultimate High”. This all feels a bit 1991 if not 1989 with a definite whiff of Italian House about it. On first glance I actually thought there might be a Germanic influence as it looked like one of the obligatory anonymous blokes at the back on keyboards was dressed like a member of Kraftwerk circa “The Man Machine” era but he’s actually just wearing a red jacket over a black T-shirt.

I’m kind of intrigued as to why they called themselves The Time Frequency and not just Time Frequency. The addition of the definite article seems incongruous somehow. Time Frequency seems to fit better for a dance music project to my mind. I wonder if the band naming process went something like the scene in 1991 film The Commitments? In a discussion about what the band should be called, manager Jimmy Rabbitte, in response to suggestions like ‘Free Beer’ (always draws a big crowd) and ‘A Flock Of Budgies’ says:

We have to be “the” something. All the great sixties bands were “The Somethings”

Looking at this performance from The Time Frequency, I don’t think they look half as much fun as The Commitments…

When I think of 1993, I don’t immediately bring to mind a disco revival but there was one in amongst all the Eurodance nonsense. We’ve already seen Boney M (or at least a version of them) back in the charts and in a week or so Gloria Gaynor will go Top 5 with a remix of “I Will Survive”. And then there’s Sister Sledge who are into their third hit of the year with a remix of “Thinking Of You”. I was just 16 years old awaiting my ‘O’ Level results when it was first a hit in the Summer of 1984. Nine years later and I’m a married man working in a record shop in Rochdale.

I’m not sure I had that sort of perspective at the time though. It was probably just another single to be sold to the punters. I never minded this though either in 1984 or 1993. And what’s a true test of a good song? If it can be covered in a completely different style by an artist outside of the originator’s genre of course. I present Paul Weller…

Did someone mention Eurodance? Yes, I did of course but that doesn’t mean I wanted to hear any and certainly not from this bloke. For some reason, in my head, Haddaway has become the pin up boy for all the musical shite that 1993 threw our way with his song “What Is Love” being the biggest, stinking turd in the toilet bowl. I’m sure he’s a nice guy but I just hated this. Hadaway and shite!

Bizarrely, just like Cliff Richard who was a Breaker on the show last week, Haddaway’s album was also just called “The Album” meaning there were two albums on the album chart at the same time called “The Album”. Got that? Good.

The circular spotlights in this performance look familiar. Oh yeah, the Mysterons. That’s it…

From Captain Scarlet to Dr Who now as we find good, old Sting doing this week’s live by satellite performance (from Pittsburgh) which features what appears to be the opening titles of the Jon Pertwee era doctor on the walls in the background.

https://youtu.be/1OV64UUxICY

Anyway, it looks like, after weeks of coming close, we have arrived at the actual most boring satellite performance in TOTP history. There is literally nothing going on here (if you discount the Dr Who lighting) with Sting sat down throughout whilst he sings “Fields Of Gold”, the third single taken from his “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album. So unenthusiastic is Sting about the whole prospect of performing that he hasn’t even learned the words to the song as he appears to have a lyric sheet in his hand. He just sits steadfast and motionless on his chair with a wry smile on his face as if he’s in on some band in joke or has just farted and knows it’s going to be a bad one that will linger. Or maybe this was some sort of preparation for a bout of tantric sex that he is infamous for. Meanwhile, the only other camera shots we get are of the guitarist fingering the strings of his instrument. Hmm. Maybe it is something to do with tantric sex? After all, look what the man himself says of the song courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

The song itself tends to divide opinion. As this TOTP repeat aired, Twitter comments ranged from “brilliant song” to “absolute shite”. I don’t mind it I have to say and it took on a whole new lease of life when the now departed Eva Cassidy did a version of it which was played on the radio extensively by Terry Wogan. Though never released as a single in the UK, Cassidy’s posthumous career was based largely around this song and “Over The Rainbow” which saw her compilation album “Songbird” go to No 1 in the UK in 1998.

Sting’s original peaked at No 16.

One of the biggest hits of the year now from a complete newbie. I’d be lying if I said I’d heard the original Tracy Chapman sampling promo of “Dreams” by Gabrielle before the official release sans sample came out on Go! Beat in 1993 but there was one and here it is…

Apparently it was played in the clubs a lot around ‘91/‘92 but I was not really frequenting clubs much at the time on account of being permanently brassic. It must have reached quite a few people though as when the officially sanctioned (some may say sanitised) version came out, pre-demand was so high that it entered the chart at No 2, the highest position ever at the time for a previously uncharted act*.

*That record would be broken just a year later when Whigfield went straight to No 1 with “Saturday Night”.

Who was Gabrielle though? This was the second time in under a year that a young, female singer appeared from nowhere to score a huge smash hit following Tasmin Archer in 1992. Well, she was Louise Gabrielle Bobb and she hailed from Hackney, London. She’d had the condition ptosis causing the drooping of the upper eyelid since childhood hence the eye patch she wore in all her public appearances and performances. I can’t remember what the general reaction to the eyepatch was at the time, whether people saw it as an affectation or not but it certainly added an element of intrigue to her. Where Tasmin Archer had her ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ poster campaign to raise her profile, Gabrielle had her eyepatch.

The thing about “Dreams” that I never understood for years was what the words to the second line of the chorus were. It was almost unintelligible. Thankfully, the world is digital these days and so a quick Google reveals them to be:

Look at me babe, I’m with you

Hmm. Bit of an anticlimax that.

Right I’m really behind with these TOTP reviews so let’s whip through these Breakers starting with Kingmaker. This lot should have been a lot bigger than they were and indeed looked they would be for a while but record company interference did for them. Their legacy was a back catalogue that was been given a deserved revisit in the form of 5 CD box set “Everything Changed” courtesy of reissue specialist label Cherry Red a couple of years ago. This single, “Queen Jane”, was the follow up to “10 Years Asleep” and would make No 29 in the charts.

Now I’m writing this a few days after the Queen passed away which has resulted in all the TV schedules being rearranged to accommodate coverage of the aftermath and also to ensure nothing deemed inappropriate at this time is broadcast. What has this got to do with Kingmaker? Well, there’s their band name for a start. Could well be deemed to be in bad taste. Then there’s the case of their 1992 single “Armchair Anarchist” with its lyrics about bombing the House of Lords was deemed too insensitive for daytime radio and failed to make the charts. Fast forward thirty years and I’m wondering that if the Queen had died a week earlier, would this edition of TOTP have been allowed to be broadcast? Look at these lyrics in “Queen Jane”:

A funny thing happened on the way to here, the headlines read like the end was near for Queen Jane

They say your vacant face, helps the tourist trade, If they could see you in your leisure time, well!

Queen Jane, you’ve got everything to die for

Considering that radio stations are currently tying themselves up in knots over coming up with sombre pop songs to play, I’m pretty sure “Queen Jane” wouldn’t make the cut.

What I remember about Brian May and the early 90s is as follows:

  • “Driven By You” and that Ford car advert
  • Freddie Mercury’s death and the memorial concert
  • “Too Much Live Will Kill You”

What I don’t remember is a song called “Resurrection” with legendary rock drummer Cozy Powell. From the few seconds it’s afforded as a Breaker, I have no wish to get to know the song better as it sounds like a dreadful noise.

I’m sure I say this every time Thunder are on the show but they have a remarkable singles chart record. Eighteen Top 40 singles points to incredible consistency and yet none of them got any higher than No 18. I guess they had a sizeable, loyal fanbase but never managed to crossover with a huge single like, say, Extreme did with “More Than Words”. This single “Like A Satellite” is a case in point. The fourth and final track to be lifted from their “Laughing On Judgement Day”, it peaked at No 25.

This year’s Eurovision winner next and in 1993 it was Ireland’s Niamh Kavanagh with “In Your Eyes”. This was the first time that a winning song in the contest had featured on the UK chart since 1987 when Johnny Logan made No 2 with “Hold Me Now”. Ireland was in the middle of a run of three consecutive Eurovision wins between ‘92 and ‘94 (they also won it in ‘96) but the unlikely truth is that the United Kingdom has won the contest more recently than Ireland.

Niamh had some musical chops though having performed as lead and backing vocalist on the soundtrack to the film – and I genuinely didn’t know this when I referenced it earlier – The Commitments! “In Your Eyes” though is nothing like any of the soul songs found in that film. It’s a straight up, big ballad that sounds like it could have been a hit for Gloria Estefan. Predictably it was No 1 in Ireland and peaked at No 24 in the UK.

1993 was pretty good to Terence Trent D’Arby. He’d recovered from the false step that was sophomore album “Neither Fish Nor Flesh” to comeback with a Top 10 LP in “Symphony Or Damn” and four Top 20 hit singles. “Delicate” was the second of them and was a duet with Des’ree who’s only chart entry to that point had been her Top 20 hit “Feel So High” from the previous year. An (ahem) delicate ballad, it showcased the diversity of TTD’s talent. Whether you liked him or not, the guy could sing and write a decent tune. Featuring a groovy, Eastern sounding melody, it was a nice antidote to all that Eurodance nonsense.

The careers of Terence and Des’ree went in opposite directions after this coming together. The former would release his “Vibrator” album in 1995 which failed to consolidate on the success of “Symphony Or Damn” and he would not release another for six years before ultimately changing his name to Sananda Matreiya. Des’ree would go on to sell a million copies in the US of her 1994 album “I Ain’t Movin’” and achieved a No 1 record in Europe (and No 8 in the UK) in “Life” in 1998.

Despite working in a record shop at this time, there have been a substantial number of singles from this year that I have nothing down for in my memory banks. Here’s another one – “I Can See Clearly” by Deborah Harry. Nothing to do with Johnny Nash, this track was the lead single from Harry’s fourth (and so far final) solo album “Debravation” and was written by legendary record producer Arthur Baker. All of those solo albums followed a pattern in that each produced just the one hit which in every case was the lead single. For the completists out there the others were:

1981 – “Backfired” from “KooKoo”

1986 – “French Kissin In The USA” from “Rockbird”

1989 – “ I Want That Man” from “Def, Dumb & Blonde”

I have to say that I don’t know “Backfired” but “I Can See Cleary” doesn’t match up to the other two songs for me. All very unremarkable. What is remarkable is this performance and I’m not talking about the lead singer of Blondie having brown hair. I haven’t checked but is this the first time an artist has appeared on TOTP with a magician? Perhaps a more pertinent question would be why did Debbie (sorry Deborah!) feel the need to do it? The guy doing the magic tricks is surely the most incongruous addition to an act since Howard Jones’s dancing mime Jed in 1983?! It all looks so lame. First he makes a candle appear then disappear, then a pair of glasses (presumably to help Debbie – Deborah damn it! – see clearly) then a flaming torch and finally he sets fire to a flower. All very underwhelming. Now if he’d have changed her hair colour from brown back to blonde on stage, I would have been impressed.

“I Can See Clearly” peaked at No 23 but she reactivated Blondie in 1999 notching up a No 1 record with “Maria”.

UB40 remain at No 1 with “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” but they surely must have been looking over their collective shoulders at Gabrielle gatecrashing the charts at No 2. They would have been right to as this would prove to be their last week at the top of the pile. It was a different story in the US where it was No 1 for seven weeks. Parent album “Promises And Lies” also went to the top of the charts and was the seventh best selling album of the year in the UK. The band would never be as big again. Only twice have they revisited the Top 10 of the singles chart since (follow up “Higher Ground” made No 8 whilst 1998’s “Come Back Darling” just snuck in at No 10). The band splintered in 2008 when Ali Campbell left to form his own version of the group with fellow departees Mickey Virtue and Astro. Rumours abounded that ‘Mr Ubiquitous 1993’ Maxi Priest was to replace Ali Campbell but in the end it was his brother Duncan Campbell who stepped into that role. Tragedy struck the UB40 family in 2021 with both founding members Brian Travers and Astro passing away.

Ghj

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The Time FrequencyThe Power Zone EPNever happening
2Sister SledgeThinking of You (RAMP Radio Mix)Nope
3HaddawayWhat Is LoveI say again, ‘Headway and shite!’
4StingFields Of GoldNo
5GabrielleDreamsNah
6KingmakerQueen JaneI did not
7Brian May and Cozy PowellResurrectionResurrection?! It should have been buried deep in the ground never to be heard of again! That’s a no by the way.
8ThunderLike A SatelliteNegative
9Niamh KavanaghIn Your EyesNot likely
10Terence Trent D’Arby and Des’reeDelicateNice tune but no
11Deborah HarryI Can See ClearlyNo it was crap
12UB40(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With YouAnd 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/m001bm8s/top-of-the-pops-17061993

TOTP 10 JUN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

June 1993 saw the demise of two big names in the world of comedy – one a performer and one a TV show. The former was comedian Les Dawson who died on the same day this TOTP aired aged just 62. The latter was US sitcom Cheers which ended this year after 275 episodes over 11 seasons. Channel 4 broadcast the final three shows over the weekend following this TOTP. Both had a musical element to them. Dawson included his wonky piano playing in his act whilst Cheers had one of the greatest theme tunes of all time…

Let’s see if any of the tunes on this TOTP are anywhere near as good as Gary Portnoy’s famous song…

Certainly not this one! As I said in the last post when confronted by Eurodance merchant Haddaway opening the show, I’d totally had enough of that particular genre of music by this point. This time it’s the turn of Snap! to be the first act on with their new single “Do You See The Light (Looking For)”. The TOTP producers often seemed to top the show’s running order with a dance act. In recent weeks we’ve had Stereo MCs, Felix and 2 Unlimited in addition to Haddaway. I guess it made sense to try and begin proceedings with a bang. The year zero revamp hadn’t quite let go of the party atmosphere era of Michael Hurll. Having said that, the performance here of Snap! featuring Niki Harris seems to suggest a soirée rather than a massive rave-up. I have to say that as objectionable as his views were, the group seemed to lose something when rapper Turbo B left. The performance here seems very lacklustre. Maybe if the set hadn’t been so sparse it might have sparked things into life a bit. And why do the backing singers resemble water nymphs?

This track was taken from “The Madman’s Return” album and the album version of it is quite different with vocals by Thea Austin instead of Niki Harris, a rap by the aforementioned Turbo B and even a (slightly) different title in “See The Light”. The single version peaked at No 10 and No 14 in 2002 when it was remixed and rereleased.

Spin Doctors are still going up the charts? Checking its stats, “Two Princes” remained on the chart for 18 weeks so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a pretty nifty tune all said and done and there was a brief moment in time when the band seemed to be the next big thing. Parent album “Pocketful Of Kryptonite” went to No 2 and achieved platinum sales in Europe and yet somehow it all seemed to stall and fall away on both sides of the Atlantic.

If I’m honest, the follow up singles just weren’t as good. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” just didn’t capture the imagination in the same way as “Two Princes” although in the case of the latter, in a three way race of Superman themed singles, they definitely finish above Laurie Anderson and Black Lace.

“Two Princes” peaked at No 3 in the UK.

A proper pop moment next as TOTP brings us the return of Pet Shop Boys. Neil and Chris had been away for only 18 months or so but their last release had been their first official Best Of album “Discography” which on reflection felt like a line in the sand drawing to a close the first part of their career. What would the first material of their next phase be like? Well, not too dissimilar to their previous work to be fair. “Can You Forgive Her” didn’t feel like a massive departure from what had gone before but then Neil Tennant’s voice is so distinctive that it overrides sometimes any potential musical deviation on their behalf. Not always of course. For example, something like “Jealousy” or “Se A Vida É” sound nothing like “West End Girls” but in the case of “Can You Forgive Her”, it didn’t seem, to me anyway, like a radical new sound. Not that it wasn’t any good either though. It had a strident feel to it, enabled by a punchy chorus that demanded to be heard. And heard it was as it gave the duo their first Top 10 hit in two years after their previous three singles all failed to make that achievement.

Somehow though it always feels overshadowed by the second single to be lifted from parent album “Very” which was the enormous hit that was the cover of Village People’s “Go West”. Initial copies of the album came in an orange CD jewel case featuring raised bumps which resembled Lego. In those days, the Our Price chain I worked for didn’t use security tagging and so the CDs we sold weren’t ‘live’ on the shelves as it were. The actual CDs were filed away behind the counter so the cases were empty. However, the manager of the store I was working in when the album came out thought the Lego case so nickable that we kept those behind the counter as well and had a dummy case on display that used the inner back sleeve to say what it was. Genius! Except it was a pain in the arse to put together when selling it to a customer and we also had a few people ask if our dummy sleeve was somehow a different version of the album. It would be another five years before I worked in an Our Price that displayed CDs live.

Anyway, back to the show and this performance really does give us the pop moment I referred to earlier. There’s so much to unpack here. The over exaggerated pointy dunce hats, Neil Tennant in a high chair, the cricket bat wielding space cadet backing dancers, a huge egg on stage for no reason but most of all there was Chris Lowe. The perennially motionless man moved more in that one performance than in all his previous ones added together. What had got into him? There were even what passed for dance moves! Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps this really was a different Pet Shop Boys to what had gone before.

1993 really was the year ragga/dancehall took over the charts. After Shaggy, Shabba and Snow came the ludicrously named Chaka Demus And Pliers. Opening themselves up to all sorts of tool related jibes, this pair of toasters joined forces in 1991 and released “Murder She Wrote” the following year in America to great acclaim. The follow up was “Tease Me” and the hordes lapped it up sending it to No 3 in the UK Top 40. The lyrics were fairly clear about the song’s subject matter with references to ‘reaching climax’ and its title of course. There’s also that shout out line which seemed to encapsulate the whole movement – “Number One In The World”. I’m sure that seemed to feature on every song of this type after that.

Chaka Demus and Pliers have bought all their mates with them to the TOTP studio for a jolly up whilst the camera man seemed very intent on giving us multiple views of the gyrating female backing dancers. Ahem. We’ll also be seeing lots more of CD and P before 1993 is out.

And the fascination with all things erotic thriller continues. I’m guessing Indecent Proposal must have been performing well at the box office to generate this much of a profile. It’s another outing for “Ordinary Love” by Sade which was featured heavily in the film but was not actually on the soundtrack. After last week’s glimpse of the mermaid promo video, we get a live by satellite performance from New York this time. Sade Adu looks stunning as ever but it’s the two guitarists in the background who have caught my eye. They spend the first half of the performance not even bothering to mime playing their instruments but doing the nerd shuffle together whilst clicking their fingers in unison. It doesn’t really seem appropriate for an artist as sophisticated as Sade. Bet they got a bollocking when the cameras were turned off.

Therapy? were enjoying a huge breakthrough year in 1993. After the “Shortsharpshock EP” featuring lead track “Screamager” made the Irish rockers bona fide Top 10 artists in March, the follow up was also an EP. “Face The Strange” featured four tracks of which “Turn” was chosen to promote it. Clearly the EP’s title is a David Bowie reference being a lyric from his song “Changes”. I learned recently that I know someone who met Bowie and not just met but took him out for a drink around about 1972 just as he was launching his Ziggy Stardust era. I know! There’s a few Bowie super fans that I know who would be blown away by my friend’s recollections. What’s that? The Therapy? song? Oh, I didn’t like it much. Sorry.

The Breakers are their usual eclectic/bonkers mix of artists starting with the evergreen Cliff Richard. Despite being 52 at the time and having had his first hit 25 years ago, Cliff was showing no signs of slowing down in 1993. In fact, the decade was going pretty well for him so far. He’d already clocked up a No 1 in “Saviour’s Day” and four other Top 10 hits. Also having a fine old time of it around now was Maxi Priest who’d had a hit twice with Shabba Ranks (albeit with the same song in both cases) and who’d supplied the ‘Shabba!’ sample for the massive selling “Mr Loverman” single. To add to his collection of chart connections came “Human Work Of Art”. You see, Maxi had released this as a single from his “Bonafide” album three years prior but it had failed to chart.

It was recycled for Cliff’s 1993 album called…erm…”The Album” and this time made No 24. It sounds every inch a Cliff record and you’d be hard pressed to guess at its reggae-fied earlier incarnation. It’s also utterly awful under his guardianship. Yes, it’s a polished production but then you can polish a turd of course.

I can’t find the official video online so here’s it being performed on Surprise Surprise.

From the despair of another banal Cliff record to…where? Well, fortunately it’s Manic Street Preachers with their new single “From Despair To Where” (ahem). OK, firstly weren’t they have meant to have split up by now? Wasn’t that their mission statement to make one blow your socks off, anarchistic album then dissolve the band? Clearly that was just bravado then. What they actually did was to record second album “Gold Against The Soul” which I liked enough to buy but which the fan base has always dissed as the worst album in their back catalogue. I’m sure I heard an interview with James Dean Bradfield once where he was asked to rank the band’s albums in order of merit and even he put it bottom of the list.

Maybe debut “Generation Terrorists” had raised the bar and expectations too high but the music press gave it mixed reviews at best. Maybe fan favourite and third album “The Holy Bible” would have been a more acceptable choice with its themes of human suffering and bleakness. Was “Gold Against The Soul” seen as too radio friendly, too (gulp) corporate rock? It sounded alright to my ears with the lead single ticking all my aural boxes. It swoops and soars but bites as well with lines like ‘there’s nothing nice in my head’. It had all of that and yet wasn’t even the best track on the album for me. I liked this version of the band a lot but then I’m not a paid up member of the Manics army who could shoot my opinion down in flames I’m sure.

What I’m not sure about is the video which is basically some moody shots of the band (Richie looks especially cool) intertwined with some sepia tinted clips which seem to suggest a sci-fi /horror film but it’s all a bit blurry to make a clear judgement although that look like an alien autopsy in the thumbnail below.

The Manics of course did do a TV show theme tune when they covered “Suicide Is Painless” – the theme tune from M*A*S*H. Better than the theme to Cheers? It’s a tough call but yes possibly.

The Sister Sledge revival bandwagon continues apace with a rerelease of their 1984 hit “Thinking Of You”. Remixed as the (RAMP Radio Mix), it was the last of three singles taken from the Greatest Hits compilation “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge 1973-93” following “We Are Family” and “Lost In Music”. It would peak at No 17 just six places lower than its 1984 counterpart. However the song dated back to 1979 when it was a track on the “We Are Family” album and issued as the B-side to the initial release of “Lost In Music”.

Reading that paragraph back it seems like the group made a 40+ year career based around just three songs that have been recycled over and over again. Lead singer Kathy Sledge even did her own cover version of “Thinking Of You” with house duo Aristofreeks in 2015. OK look, I know there’s also “He’s The Greatest Dancer” and “Frankie” in their repertoire but the former is very similar to the “Family/Lost/Thinking” trilogy and the latter is one of the worst recordings of all time (and I’ve just had to listen to Cliff Richard’s “Human Work Of Art”). I doubt even the Sledge sisters want to be remembered for that one.

Sister Sledge have only released one more single since this. And guess what? It was a rerelease of “We Are Family” in 2004 which made No 93 on our charts.

Who? The Time Frequency? Sounds like a phrase Dr Who might say. Have we seen this lot before? Can’t remember now. So many of these dance acts about. Anyway, “The Ultimate High” was a track off their “Power Zone EP” and sounds very much like a knock off version of “Insanity” by Oceanic to me but then, as I’ve said many times before, I’m no dance music aficionado.

The Time Frequency were from Scotland so I wonder if they knew fellow Scottish dance acts Primal Scream and The Shamen or is that a bit like an American, who on meeting someone from London, asks them if they know their cousin who lives in Notting Hill?

Lisa Stansfield? Again? It can’t be! She seems to be on every week at the moment. Given the high level of exposure it got, I’m surprised that “In All The Right Places” didn’t get higher than its No 8 peak. She’s back in the studio this time and has gone full on Louise Brooks with her haircut. No messing about like the other week with that half hearted Brett Anderson-esque wedge style. The way the stage has been set up with her first name and first name only in lights gives it a feel of a residency at Las Vegas. In fact, I could just imagine Liza Minnelli up there belting this one out.

Lisa will be back in October with her “So Natural” album and single.

UB40 have made it to the top spot deposing Ace Of Base in the process. Were they on tour at this time as it’s the video for “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” yet again this week? I’m guessing that the director got the band to perform emerging into a tight corridor to link in with the themes of claustrophobia and paranoia that the film it was taken from (Sliver) clearly was based around. Ironically, a few years down the line, the band fractured into two different identities due to internal arguments and there’s no way that Ali and Robin Campbell would ever be in such close proximity to each other like that again.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Snap!Do You See The Light (Looking For)Never happening
2Spin DoctorsTwo PrincesLiked it, didn’t buy it
3Pet Shop BoysCan You Forgive HerNo but I have it on their Pop Art Best Of
4Chaka Demus And PliersTease MeAs if
5SadeNo Ordinary LoveNope
6Therapy?Face The Strange EPNah
7Cliff RichardHuman Work Of ArtOf course not
8Manic Street PreachersFrom Despair To WhereNo but I bought the album
9Sister SledgeThinking Of YouNo
10The Time FrequencyPower Zone EPNot likely
11Lisa StansfieldIn All The Right PlacesNegative
12UB40(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With YouAnd 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/m001bdx3/top-of-the-pops-10061993

TOTP 11 MAR 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

1993 was not a year I was looking forward to reviewing and one of the main reasons for that has now arrived in this TOTP – the unholy trinity of the three S’s. I speak of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks and Snow. The first two are both on tonight’s show whilst the latter makes his debut entry into the Top 40 this week. Somehow these three crystallised for me everything they was wrong with the charts around this time. The fact that they all arrived together at the same time probably had something to do with it. Could I have been wrong in my initial assessment? Let’s see if a gap of twenty-nine years has changed my perspective.

Opening the show though are another act who were all about the S’s so much so they had two of them in their name – it can only be Sister Sledge. Well, it could also have been Sam Smith or Sandie Shaw or Shakespear’s Sister or (God forbid) Shakin’ Stevens but let’s not go there. Seriously.

After they’d scored a hit for the third time in fourteen years with yet another remix of “We Are Family” earlier in 1993, perhaps the most obvious rerelease of all time was unleashed upon us – yes it was time once more for “Lost In Music”. Why obvious? Well, every time one song was released as a single, the other came out shortly after. Look at this lot:

  • 26 May 1979 – “We Are Family”
  • 21 Aug 1979 – “Lost In Music
  • 07 Sep 1984 – “Lost In Music”
  • 17 Nov 1984 – “We Are Family”
  • 24 Jan 1993 – “We Are Family”
  • 13 Mar 1993 – “Lost In Music”

I mean they’re both disco standards but is that just a teeny bit of overkill? Couldn’t they have mixed it up a bit? How about a rerelease of “Thinking Of You” instead? What? They did do that as well! It was their third hit single of 1993 when it came out again in the June. Oh come on! Wait…

*blogger is gripped by sudden panic*

They didn’t rerelease “Frankie” as well did they?! Please God no!

*checks Sister Sledge discography*

Oh thank f**k for that. They didn’t. I couldn’t have hoped with a second helping if that on the show. I’d have barfed for sure.

The 1993 version of “Lost In Music” peaked at No 14.

What’s that you say Tony Dortie (in your daft hat)? Bruce Dickinson is leaving Iron Maiden? Did he? I have to say that this piece of blockbusting news must have passed me by at the time. Having read up on the story, it seems that Bruce had announced he was leaving the band before they headed out on a forty-six date world tour. It doesn’t sound like a good idea and indeed it wasn’t. Both his band mates and their fanbase were pissed off with Dickinson for putting the group’s future in doubt. Maybe keeping schtum about leaving to pursue your solo career until after the tour is done may have been the way to go Bruce?

Anyway, this live single “Fear Of The Dark” wasn’t from Dickinson’s final tour as it hadn’t yet happened. Instead it was, rather obviously, from the previous year’s Fear Of The Dark tour which was enshrined forever in the resultant album “A Real Live One”. Now, I wouldn’t need every finger of one hand to list the number of Iron Maiden songs that I like but this one starts off in a rather un-Maiden-esque style with Dickinson laying off on the over the top throaty vocals and with a low key intro but then they resort to type and it loses my interest immediately. It peaked at No 8 thanks to that newly pissed off but still sizeable fanbase.

And so we return to those pesky S’s now as we find Shaggy on his way to the top of the charts with “Oh Carolina”. Up to No 2 this week and with 2 Unlimited now in their fifth week at the pinnacle, Tony Dortie’s prediction of it being No 1 the following week was hardly the stuff of Nostradamus. Yet it was, at the same time, an unlikely chart topper. Apparently “Oh Carolina” would be the first ‘reggae’ No 1 since Aswad’s “Don’t Turn Around” in 1988 if you can classify that as a reggae track and if you ignore the dub reggae of “Dub Be Good To Me” by Beats International in 1990. The following week, Snow’s “Informer” would storm to No 8 meaning there would be three reggae influenced singles in the Top 10 simultaneously for the first time ever. It was a strange time in the UK charts but why and how had this shake up of the charts come to be? Maybe it was just the law of averages and probability – it had to happen some time.

I worked for Our Price throughout the 90s and we used to source the majority of our reggae stock from the supplier Jetstar. In my memory, they are who we ordered the Shaggy single from though I could be wrong about that. Whenever you used to ring their telesales team with an order, you were guaranteed to talk to someone effortlessly cool on the other end of the line. It always sounded like the atmosphere in the Jetstar office was just one long, chilled out sesh with the occasional bit of work done now and then if they felt like it. I’m sure they are all really hard working but that was the vibe that was projected. I was jealous. Also having a good time is Shaggy who is clearly enjoying himself in this performance probably riding on the confidence of knowing he’ll have a No 1 record soon enough.

And so we come to easily the most objectionable of the three S’s of 1993 – “Mr Loverman”, Shabba Ranks. I hated everything about this; the song, its success and of course Ranks himself not least of all because of this interview on The Word:

https://youtu.be/8WQ_xoCkSds

Let’s have it right, what a f*****g arsehole! Thankfully Mark Lamarr was on hand to call him out unlike Dani Behr who wanted to sweep it all under the carpet and move on. That took place in 1992 and by March 1993, Ranks had put out a public apology for his grotesque words. Funnily enough it coincided with the rerelease of the “Mr Loverman” single. Do you think his record company Sony put some pressure on him to retract what he had said so that their product wasn’t dead in the water before it started? Yes, I did say rerelease as the single had already been a hit once the previous August when it got to No 23. Presumably the rising profile of dancehall and the success of Shaggy convinced Sony to roll the dice again and so it became a No 3 hit second time around.

The track became infamous for the use of the ‘Shabba!’ shout out which became a catch all catchphrase for just about any situation. My favourite use of it though was by Ray Von from Phoenix Nights…

It’s a third time on the show for Bryan Ferry and his treatment of “I Put A Spell On You”. Now originally I had thought that this might be just a rebroadcast of the first time Ferry did a studio performance as the staging is almost exactly the same but it isn’t as the cut away to the next act reveals. This raises the question of quite why Ferry just gave an identikit performance again? I mean I think there’s less dancers this week but everything else including the performers outfits are the same. I guess I expected a bit more creativity from Bryan than that.

“I Put A Spell On You” peaked at No 18.

I find it hard to remember but there was a time when Jamiroquai’s sound was regarded as fresh and new and exciting. That sensation didn’t last long as petty soon everything they released sounded exactly the same as..well…everything else they’d ever released. Back in 1993 though Jay Kay was a hip, young groover bringing his brand of acid jazz, soul/funk vibes to the nation. I guess he’s always been a divisive figure though. Early on he suffered from accusations of plagiarising Stevie Wonder and of being a hypocrite for espousing environmental themes in his lyrics whilst having an obsession with the collection of fast, expensive cars. Subsequent misdemeanours like being charged with assaulting a photographer and waxing lyrical in concert about how great his then partner Denise Van Outen’s breasts were didn’t do his image any favours.

I always thought “Too Young To Die” was Jamiroquai’s first single but there’d been one before it called “When You Gonna Learn” in 1992 which had made No 28 on the charts but which had escaped my attention completely. It was their first single for Sony though which may account for my confusion. As for the performance here, you have to admit that Jay Kay (it’s all about him really in much the same way that Simply Red is all about Hucknall) makes quite the impression. His vocals are good (though the ‘de de de de do’ chorus is unmistakably Wonder-esque) but it’s his look which grabs the attention. Watching him now, the first thing that springs to mind is how hot he must have been under the studio lights in his oversized clobber. Ah yes, the clothes or more specifically that hat! It would become Kay’s signature look and inform the ‘buffalo man’ logo that would be the face of the band’s brand featuring on the art work for the covers of their first four albums. Some thought had clearly gone into this from a marketing point of view.

Did I like their sound? Yeah, initially. My wife liked it so much she bought that first album “Emergency On Planet Earth”. I think I got bored with it quite quickly though. “Too Young To Die” made it all the way to the Top 10 and the album was a platinum selling No 1. The time of Jamiroquai had begun.

Next a band who, like many before them, suffer from the misguided belief by many that they were a one hit wonder. PM Dawn really weren’t though their biggest and most memorable success did rather overshadow the rest of their back catalogue which is a shame. The Spandau Ballet sampling “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” was that huge hit of course from the Summer of 1991 and we hadn’t heard that much from the duo since. The follow up single “Paper Doll” had been scrunched up and binned when it failed to make the Top 40 whilst two further singles had at least charted though neither got further than No 29. “Looking Through Patient Eyes” would correct that though when it peaked at No 11.

Turning from Spandau Ballet to George Michael for inspiration on this one – the track heavily samples “Father Figure” – it was another great example of their wordy rapping (hood) allied to a mellow yet catchy sound. It was taken from their second album the title of which confirmed their verbose credentials – “The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations Of Love And Anger And The Ponderance Of Life And Existence)”. They really did have a thing about word heavy album titles. Their debut was called “Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience” whilst their fourth carried the title of “Dearest Christian, I’m So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here. Love Dad”. Like the Ferry album “Taxi”, Our Price got a promo copy of the album which ended up in my possession. My wife even made a cover for it.

Sadly, Prince Be died in 2016 after suffering for years from diabetes related conditions including having one of his legs amputated at the knee due to gangrene.

If it’s…we’ll any year since 1958 actually…then there must be a Cliff Richard single out. 1993’s first offering of that particular year was a song called “Peace In Our Time”. This is yet another song I don’t recall at all. I wonder what it sounds like?

*watches Cliff’s performance back*

Oh this is just a glorious tune. So full of life and positivity and…nah, you got me. It’s just the same old Cliff shite that he’d been peddling for years. Apparently a hit for Eddie Money in the US in the late 80s, it’s just sanctimonious crap about having faith, putting songs in our hearts and building a heaven on earth. It even goes on about turning water into wine! Just horrible. If I want a song called “Peace In Our Time”, there’s always this…

Cliff’s got all his usual mates with him here backing him up – Janey Lee Grace, that bloke from Modern Romance – whilst the main man himself does his usual weird arm movements. At one point he’s only a flick of the wrist away from doing a Bruce Forsyth pose. Cliff, of course, was at Wimbledon last week doing his usual cringe fest crowd singalong. For the love of God Cliff, give it a rest and grant us some peace in our time! By the way, I can’t find the TOTP performance so here’s a clip from some German pop show:

It’s the final week at the top for 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. After positing the theory the other week that dance acts couldn’t sell albums, Ray and Anita completely debunk this by having a No 1 with parent album “No Limits” (note the plural). Released on the PWL label in the UK, Pete Waterman made the decision to remove Ray’s raps from the tracks which only increased the ‘there’s no lyrics’ jibes in the press. The ribbing was continued in later weeks by some unlikely critics – the Scottish popsters The Bluebells who had some fun at 2 Unlimited’s expense by shouting out ‘Techno, techno, techno, techno’ during a TOTP performance of their rejuvenated hit “Young At Heart”. Those cheeky scamps!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I Buy It?
1Sister SledgeLost In Music ’93Nope
2Iron MaidenFear Of The Dark (Live)Never
3ShaggyOh CarolinaNah
4Shabba RanksMr LovermanHell no!
5Bryan Ferry I Put A Spell On YouNo but I had a promo of the album
6JamiroquaiToo Young To DieNo but my wife had the album
7PM DawnLooking Through Patient EyesSee 5 above
8Cliff RichardPeace In Our TimeWhat do you think?!
92 UnlimitedNo LimitNegative

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/m0018zst/top-of-the-pops-11031993

TOTP 21 JAN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

There’s a new president in the White House as the day before this TOTP aired, Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd POTUS. I can’t really think about Clinton without this coming to mind…

And then this of course…

Politicians lying. Fast forward thirty odd years and literally nothing has changed. If anything, it’s got worse. And that’ll do for the intro this time. I’ve done a few lengthy ones lately so I’m due a more succinct start to a post.

We start the show with yet another 70s disco revival. After Boney M and their recent megamix single and Greatest Hits album returned them to the charts for the first time in well over a decade, now strode Sister Sledge straight into the Top 10. What was going on?

The last time we saw the sisters in the UK charts was eight years previous with a No 1 hit that was, for me, one of the worst hits of…well…ever. I refer of course to the execrable “Frankie”, a song so bad that it didn’t just stink the place out but dissolved its foundations with its foul stench. After that inexplicable chart topper, nothing, zip, nada. And then this comeback with a remix of 1979 hit and their signature tune “We Are Family”. Entitled the ‘Sure Is Pure Remix’, this is was to promote, like the aforementioned Boney M, a Greatest Hits compilation simply called “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge 1973-93”. Well, I guess you couldn’t blame their record label for wanting a piece of the retro action but this wasn’t the first time that there’d been a Sister Sledge revival. Back in 1984, Chic remixes of “Lost In Music” and “We Are Family” had graced the Top 40 to the tune of Nos 4 and 33 respectively yet here they were back again for another go. It seems you really can’t keep a good tune down and “We Are Family” is a good tune no doubt. The 1993 version peaked at No 5 and inevitably led to a follow up which was a re-release of, yes of course, “Lost In Music”. A bit less obviously there was a final rerelease of their 1984 hit “Thinking Of You” which would give the group their third hit single of the year.

As for the performance here, the first thing that I noticed is that there’s only three of the group on stage immediately rendering untrue the lyrics “I got all my sisters with me”. I’ve tried to work out who is there and who is missing. Kathy is definitely doing the lead vocals and I think that’s Kim and Debbie up there with her meaning it’s Joni who was missing (I think). Was it Joni who did most of the singing on “Frankie”? Sadly Joni passed away in 2017 but the group is still going via the family’s next generation as the sisters’ kids are now involved. Their website welcomes visitors with the intro:

Welcome ”FAM”, to the official Sister Sledge website! Keep it real, keep it “SLEDGENDARY®​”!

They’ve copyrighted the word ‘sledgendary’. Excellent!

https://youtu.be/FXCh52YR9l8

It’s the 40-11 chart rundown next over the top of the video for Faith No More’s cover of “Easy” by the Commodores or “I’m Easy” as they have inexplicably taken it upon themselves to retitle it. The band are on record as saying that even though their version is very faithful, the video featuring some transvestites shows that they were ‘up to something’ in their decision to record it and that it was all very tongue in cheek. Was it the case then that they were trying to subvert and expose the mechanisms of the music industry by releasing the song and were in fact some sort of US version of The KLF?! I’m not sure I get nor am buying this.

“I’m Easy” peaked at No 3 in the UK but was only a minor hit in the US where it stuck at No 58. Cultural differences and all that.

Here’s a thing. I would never have thought that there was a connection between UK blue eyed soul merchants Go West and US West Coast rapper 2Pac but there is and it’s this song called “What You Won’t Do For Love”. Nothing to do with Meatloaf and his similar sounding single that would be the year’s best seller, this was actually a cover version (another one) of a 1978 track written by US singer-song writer Bobby Caldwell.

The 2Pac connection is courtesy of it being sampled for posthumous single “Do For Love” whist Go West recorded it for their “Indian Summer” album.

Peter Cox and Richard Drummie were on a bit of a roll come 1993. This was their third Top 20 hit on the bounce after “King Of Wishful Thinking” and “Faithful”. Who could have predicted that when the hits had dried up in the late 80s? I’m surprised it was a hit though as the duo’s version is a real plodder and sounds lumpen next to the original. To be honest I’m more drawn to their backing band than the song. There’s a sax player who looks like Eric Catchpole from Lovejoy and a guy on keyboards who resembles Just Good Friends actor and “Dancing With The Captain” hitmaker Paul Nicholas.

Go West saw out 1993 with two more UK hits both taken from their Best Of collection “Aces And Kings”. Their cover (another one!) of “The Tracks Of My Tears” by The Miracles reached No 16 whilst a re-release of debut hit “We Close Our Eyes” just scraped in at No 40. The band gave never returned to the UK charts since.

https://youtu.be/ipLKucGoT9Y

Snap! are waiting on the next stage to perform their hit “Exterminate!”. They were really keen on the use of exclamation marks weren’t they? I say ‘they’ but this seems to be mostly being promoted as a Niki Haris single if the on screen graphics and host Mark Franklin’s intro are anything to go by. She has had quite the career though. As well as her time with Snap!, she’s toured extensively with Madonna and collaborated with the likes of Anita Baker, Prince, Ray Charles, Tom Jones and Luther Vandross to name but a few. That Billie Holiday tribute thing that Franklin mentions though, well I struggled to find much online about that at all. Was it a film, TV special, album, concert? I found a listing on the BFI database but only scant details about it. Did it ever happen? Maybe it was exterminated? I’ll get me coat.

Yay the Breakers! This is where I have to comment on a load of songs some of which we may only ever get to see/hear for 30 seconds or so. Seems like a good deal. We start with a song for Bill Clinton – “Dogs Of Lust” by The The. Just as I have previously posted about XTC and Prefab Sprout, The The really don’t get the commercial success their catalogue deserves. Not in terms of the charts anyway and with TOTP being a show predominantly based around the Top 40, we rarely got to see them on our screens. I say ‘them’ but I mean Matt Johnson as the band really are basically a vehicle for his creativity.

This single was his first chart hit since 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation” and only his third ever at the time. It feels wrong to say that “Dogs Of Lust” was typical The The fare as if the word ‘typical’ could ever be applied to Matt Johnson but it was in the respect that it was as uncompromising, startling and in your face a track as everything he does always is. The opening harmonica riff which becomes a repeating refrain is reminiscent of the theme tune from The Old Grey Whistle Test and came courtesy of everyone’s favourite in demand collaborator Johnny Marr.

The track was the lead single from the album “Dusk” which, in a chart statistic that seeks to undermine my earlier claims about lack of commercial success, peaked at No 2. It produced three hit singles in all though none were bigger than “Dogs Of Lust” and its No 25 chart high.

Matt’s next two albums achieved very modest sales and he busied himself with creating film soundtracks as the new millennium dawned though he has recently released a No live album of his comeback gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

I’d totally forgotten that there was a fourth single release from Del Amitri’s “Change Everything” album despite it being the second biggest of the lot with a chart peak of No 20. The title of this one is almost a single by The Jam (“When You’re Young”) and very nearly a Bucks Fizz hit (“When We Were Young”) but “When You Were Young” it was and a pleasant little ditty it was too if a little formulaic.

There had been a gap of five months or so since their last single “Just Like A Man” but that was a marketing strategy decision apparently as “When You Were Young” was kept back to avoid the Xmas rush. I think the plan worked.

Alice In Chains? To quote Roy Chubby Brown, “Who The F**k Is Alice?”. Well, they were one of those grunge bands of course that were meant to flood the UK music scene in the wake of Nirvana but which never really materialised. “Would?” was actually from the soundtrack to the film Singles which I loved but which my friend Robin who I saw it with hated. In essence, it was your basic romantic comedy/ drama but set in Seattle against the backdrop of the grunge movement. Following the love lives of two couples and one single person, its soundtrack featured big grunge hitters like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and of course Alice In Chains as well as alternative rockers like Paul Westerberg and The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m pretty sure I even gave it a play on the shop stereo of the Rochdale Our Price I was working in. “Would?” is a heavy sound that wouldn’t normally have floated my boat but then I had liked “Alive” by Pearl Jam so maybe my tastes were changing back then.

Alice In Chains would rack up a string of minor hits in the UK during the 90s though none as big as “Would?” which peaked at No 19. They also had songs feature on two other films, Arnie’s Last Action Hero and slacker comedy Clerks. Oh, and the reason Robin hated Singles? There’s a character called Steve in it who is a town planner but who used to be a DJ. In a scene in his flat with new girlfriend Linda, they’re perusing his record collection and the vinyl is in PVC sleeves. Even his punk records. This disgusted Robin so much he barely paid any attention to the rest of the film.

A lot of the dance anthems that have featured on these TOTP repeats have failed to ring any bells with me but I do recall “Open Your Mind” by U.S.U.R.A. This piece of Italian techno sampled “New Gold Dream (81–82–83–84)” by Simple Minds and was a dance smash around Europe including over here where it peaked at No 7. I even recall that it was on the very hip Deconstruction Records label because it had that generic red and yellow single cover with a band looping a ‘d’ and ‘c’ together.

The face morphing video caused a bit of a stir not for its effects – it was no “Black And White” – but because of the faces chosen which included Joe McCarthy, Benito Mussolini, Richard Nixon, Ian Paisley, Ronald Reagan, Josef Stalin, Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse. Interestingly no Bill Clinton though.

Now to a very underrated band with a song that’s actually a bit of a banger in a very understated way. The Beloved had come to popular attention in late ‘89/early ‘90 with the hit singles “The Sun Rising” and “Hello” and an album “Happiness” which gained positive reviews for its fusion of house and pop music. Fast forward three years and the band had been through a seismic shift with founding member Steve Waddington having left the fold. Remaining original member Jon Marsh replaced him with his wife Helena. Nothing like keeping it in the family eh?

This new line up returned in 1993 with “Sweet Harmony” the lead single from new album “Conscience”. It was still that combination of dance beats and a pop structure on which they’d made their name but this time that sound had been refined right down to the most precise of details. This was so slick that it worked as a club anthem and as a great pop song as substantiated by its Top 10 chart placing. Clearly the TOTP producers didn’t quite know what to do with this genre bending hit as exemplified by that classic default strategy of flooding the stage with dry ice.

However, it wasn’t their appearance on the show that everyone was talking about but rather the single’s accompanying promo video. You know, the nudity one. Yes, the staging of a naked Jon Marsh surrounded by similarly nude women (infamously including then unknown but future TV presenter Tess Daly) was meant to promote the idea of human unity but instead got the likes of the aforementioned Mary Whitehouse outraged at the indecency.

There were at least two people who did like it though…

What was it this week with acts who felt the need to turn their names into faux acronyms. After U.S.U.R.A. earlier, we now have T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Didn’t these people realise I’d be writing a blog thirty years later and have to type this nonsense out?!

After being a Breaker last week, this Clivillés and Cole project were in the studio seven days on to perform “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”. Yes, that’s TV’s Michelle Visage up there with the Nosferatu talons and she’s giving me some heavy PM Dawn / “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” vibes with her rapping style.

Taken from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, it was already at its No 17 peak which was 13 places lower than the chart high achieved by a Ben Liebrand remix of the Bill Withers original back in 1988.

Now I knew there were at least two singles taken from Def Leppard’s “Adrenalize” album in the odious “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man” but I had no idea that it had gifted the world six! “Heaven Is” was the fourth of those and lead singer Joe Elliott is on record as saying the song was ‘more Queen than Queen’ and that the backing vocals sounded like The Beach Boys. Hmm. Let’s have another listen then…

*3 minutes 37 seconds later*

…nah, that’s just the same old Def Leppard shite.

“Heaven Is” peaked at No 13.

Is this week eight at the top for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You”? I’m losing count now. I’m also running out of things to say about it so instead, here’s Dolly Parton’s original…

…and Whitney’s version for comparison…

*So which is best?

*It’s Dolly. Obviously.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Sister SledgeWe Are Family (Sure Is Pure Remix)Nope
2Faith No MoreI’m EasyNo
3Go WestWhat You Won’t Do For LoveI did not
4Snap!Exterminate!Nah
5The TheDogs Of LustNo but I maybe should have
6Del AmitriWhen You Were Young
Not the single but it’s on my Best Of of theirs that I have
7Alice In ChainsWould?Negative
8U.S.U.R.A.Open Your MindRemembered it, didn’t buy it
9The BelovedSweet HarmonySee 5 above
10T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.It’s Gonna Be A Lovely DayAnd no
11Def LeppardHeaven IsNot this – no!
12Whitney HoustonI Will Always Love YouShe’ll never beat Dolly for me

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/m00183ds/top-of-the-pops-21011993