Sonia | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 23 AUG 1990

Posted on February 25, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s late August in 1990 and the new football season is to kick off two days after this TOTP was broadcast. After a rousing performance by the England team at Italia ’90, the country seems to have fallen back in the love with the national game which is experiencing a surge in popularity as it rises phoenix like from the ashes of its nadir in the mid 80s. The same description could be applied to tonight’s opening act who are The Human League. After massive commercial success at the start of the previous decade with the “Dare” album, Phil, Suzanne, Jo and co struggled to replicate that commercial peak and 1984 follow up “Hysteria” was a big disappointment. Licking their wounds, they decamped to the US and hooked up with legendary R’n’B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for the 1986 “Human” single which was an American No 1 and retuned the band to the Top 10 in the UK. However, their resurrection proved to be a false dawn and by the end of the 80s, they were in massive decline. The dawn of the 90s saw the band regroup with a new line up and intentions to re-establish themselves in the pop hierarchy. “Heart Like A Wheel” was the lead single from new album “Romantic?” and whilst it did gain them entry back into the Top 40, it was hardly a glorious return to form. The single peaked at No 29 whilst the album struggled to a high of No 24. Its perceived failure led to their long time record label Virgin unceremoniously cancelling their recording contract and the band were out in the wilderness for five years before being picked up by EastWest Records and launching the most unlikely of comebacks just as Britpop was taking hold with the hit single “Tell Me When” and parent album “Octopus”.

Watching this performance back, the band do seem to be in the midst of an identity crisis. Apart from the fact that there were two new band members on view, the core trio of Oakey, Catherall and Sulley appear to be on very different pages image wise. Phil, in the days when he still had hair, has resorted to his early 80s shoulder length cut albeit without the lopsided bit on one side whilst Susan Ann has gone all rock chic with her golden, cascading tresses. Joanne has her hair up but part from that looks pretty much like she always did. Not a lot of cohesion going on there I would argue.

What? Oh the song? Well, to me it doesn’t sound that different to “Tell Me When” which would return them to the Top 10 in 1995. Clearly the 1990 record buying public wasn’t quite ready to embrace The Human League back into their lives at that point in history but give it five years guys. Nowadays of course, the group are stalwarts of the live circuit and indeed, I caught them in concert back in 2019 at an open air gig in Hull where they performed “Heart Like A Wheel” plus just about every other song you could have wished for from their back catalogue. The band were on good form but the crowd were seemingly more interested in getting annihilated on booze and other substances which kind of made for a bad atmosphere. It did strike me though that Joanne and Susan Ann had made a career from basically ‘arm-dancing’ for nearly 40 years – you know, all that rhythmic arm waving they do. It’s a living I suppose.

Move over Whitney Houston – you’ve got competition! Yes, there was a new kid on the block (not not them!) in the huge, pop/soul ballad stakes come 1990 when Mariah Carey appeared seemingly from nowhere with her debut single “Vision Of Love”. Little did we know then that this 20 year old would become one of the biggest selling artists of the whole decade. Not only did this track become her breakthrough commercial moment but it also provided Mariah with her first husband in Tommy Mottola, the then head of Columbia Records who signed her after he had heard the demo of “Vision Of Love” at a record company bash. Has anybody ever punched above their weight in the relationship/looks stakes more than Tommy Mottola?

Anyway, “Vision Of Love” was a huge hit (No 1 in the US and No 9 over here) and introduced us to Mariah’s legendary five-octave vocal range. Ah yes, that voice. The technical terms for her vocal stylings are ‘whistle register’ and ‘melisma’ otherwise known to some of us as screeching. Too harsh?! Ok, how about ‘warbling’? Look you know what I’m referring to – the Mariah Carey effect that influenced a generation of would be singing stars to over emphasise notes and prolong them just that bit too long. I’m not saying she can’t sing – clearly she can – but I always found that element to her vocals to be the wrong side of grating.

Despite the success of “Vision Of Love”, it took Mariah a while to establish herself in the UK. Follow up singles “Love Takes Time” and “Someday” barely made the Top 40 here whilst they were No 1 records in the US. Yes, the album sold well in the UK (300,000 units) but nowhere near what it did in the US where 9 million copies were sold. It wasn’t really until her 1993 album “Music Box” did she really start shifting massive numbers over here when the album went to No 1, went five times platinum and included the No 1 single “Without You”. Incidentally, if there was any fierce rivalry between Mariah and Whitney, there was a show of unity in 1998 when the pair duetted on the single “When You Believe” from the animated feature The Prince of Egypt.

OK, I’ve got nothing in the memory banks for this one. “Look Me In The Heart” by Tina Turner anyone? Apparently this was the fourth single to be released from her “Foreign Affair” album which was pushing it a bit considering the album was initially released just under 12 months previously. Unsurprisingly it didn’t do anywhere near as well as its predecessor singles peaking at No 31. Incredibly, record label Capitol didn’t think even that was enough fleecing of the public for one album and released a fifth single (“Be Tender with Me Baby”) in October.

As for “Look Me In The Heart” itself, apart from being completely banal it also has an embarrassingly awful title. Can you imagine two people being in the midst of an emotional discussion about the state of their relationship and one of them saying ‘Look me in the heart and say that’? I can’t – nobody would come out with that would they? They’d say ‘Look me in the eye…’ surely? Oh well, artistic licence and all that – maybe I’m missing the point. Sadly, Tina was not finished in the cringe stakes for 1990. By the end of the year she was back in the Top 5 duetting with Rod Stewart (!) on a version of “It Takes Two”. Come on Tina. You’re better than that. Look me in the heart* and tell me that wasn’t just money for old rope?

*Oh

My God! I’ve just realised that this particular TOTP includes two of the most heinous crimes against popular music on the same show! Not only do we have a complete git at No 1 (Timmy Mallett /Bombalurina) but incredibly, some 12 months after their first musical misdemeanour, it seemed that the UK record buying public still hadn’t had enough of Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers! You could possibly excuse one novelty record becoming a hit by blaming it on some sort fever that induced a national loss of taste but this was their fifth hit on the trot! What was happening to us? I can only assume that the success of “Can Can You Party” was the result of some illegal chart tactics that involved a massive buying in operation by unscrupulous record company reps.

The monsters behind Jive Bunny didn’t even see the need to tinker with the formula at all. It’s still just a load of hits of yesteryear cut and pasted together and then supported by a video featuring nonsensical and unrelated black and white footage with that f*****g horribly animated rabbit superimposed over the top. And talking of “It Takes Two” as we were before re: Tina Turner and Rod Stewart, if I thought that was bad, Jive Bunny declared ‘hold my beer’ and were involved in a version that featured Radio 1 DJs Liz Kershaw and Bruno Brookes! Thankfully that one didn’t make the charts unlike “Can Can You Party” which peaked at No 8.

Some Breakers now and we start with the Steve Miller Band. The only thing I knew about Mr Miller (and indeed his band) at the time was that song “Abracadabra” from 1982 which I hadn’t even liked that much. So what was this “The Joker” song and why was it in our charts? Well, it had been a No 1 record for the band in the US in 1974 but had never been a hit over here. Cue its strategically well placed use in a Levis advert and…I don’t ned to write anything else do I?

Much was made of the song’s lyrics and in particular the phrase ‘the pompatus of love’. What was that when it was home? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

What the hell is "the pompatus of love"? Miller heard this nonsense word in "The Letter" by doo-wop band The Medallions, which includes the lyric, "Let me whisper sweet words of dismortality and discuss the pompatus of love". https://t.co/FfdpU92eoX #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 19, 2021

Oh, OK – thanks. Anyway, some of the other lyrics, referenced songs including Miller’s own “Space Cowboy” (nothing to do with Jamiroquai then) and The Clovers’ 1954 song “Lovey Dovey” whilst I’m guessing we all knew what he meant by being a ‘midnight toker’.

“The Joker” would go onto become involved in one of the most controversial chart battles ever when it went up against Deee-Lite (more of whom later) and their “Groove Is In The Heart” single for the No 1 spot. Supposedly sales for each single were so tight that a dead heat was called and using a rule that had never been instigated previously, “The Joker” was instilled a the No 1 song that week on account of its sales having increased most from the previous week. This ruling was disputed by Deee-Lite’s record company WEA and it was subsequently scrapped. Chart compilers Gallup later released data that showed that the Steve Miller Band had sold a mere 8 (EIGHT) copies more than Deee-Lite and so were the rightfully crowned chart toppers. All seemed a bit of a rum do to me. Jive Bunny probably had something to do with it as well!

Right, after all that controversy, we need something relaxing to calm us down and here’s a track that fits that particular bill well. “Release Me” by Wilson Phillips was their follow up to smash hit “Hold On” and it sounded like it. It was almost exactly the same song! OK, its got a slightly slower bpm to it and they all seem to sing the whole song in harmony unlike its predecessor which I think had separate vocal parts but its pretty damn similar. For once the record buying public were too aware than to fall for the ‘buying the same song twice’ trick again and it only made No 36 on the UK Top 40. Our American counterparts however had no such discernment and sent it to No 1 for the second consecutive chart topper after “Hold On”.

Look out! It’s “The End of the World”! Not literally of course but this version of the old Skeeter Davis song by Sonia did signify the end of something – this was her last ever single with Stock, Aitken and Waterman. It was also the last single released from her “Everybody Knows” album and after four high tempo, poppy hits before this point, a slowie was well overdue. Sonia had dipped her toe in the ballad market recently with her collaboration with Big Fun on the Childline charity single “You’ve Got a Friend” but this was her first time in that territory on her own. It’s a decent choice of song but Sonia’s version is hardly dripping with the emotion of the original and sounds more mechanical than melancholic in comparison.

I could have sworn that Cilla Black did a version of this (which would have made even more sense of the decision to get scouser Sonia to record it) but she didn’t. I think I was getting confused with “You’re My World”. My abiding memory of Sonia’s version is hearing it piped over the instore sound system in Debenhams in Hull some weeks later. I was back working there as a Xmas temp (after my legendary stint as stand in Father Christmas the year before!) but I knew I had a job at Our Price waiting for me to start in October so I wasn’t there long this time. And no I didn’t let on to Debenhams that I would be leaving as I needed a few weeks work before I could start at my record shop ‘career’ and deliberately misled them. If, by any remote chance, any management from Debenhams in Hull from circa 1990 are reading this, I am so sorry but let’s face it, it wasn’t the end of the world.

That time worn pop tradition of a singer leaving a band to court solo fame was still in evidence as the 90s began. After Nick Heyward leaving Haircut 100, Limahl departing Kajagoogoo and George Michael leaving Wham! behind in the 80s, here comes Lindy Layton ditching Beats International to pursue independence. To be fair, she wasn’t kicked out of the band like Heyward and Limahl were – it was much more amicable by all accounts (Norman Cook even helped produce her debut solo album “Pressure”) but jump ship she did after Cook et al had given her an initial pop platform. It seemed to be the right move when she scored an immediate hit with a cover of Janet Kay’s “Silly Games” teaming up with …erm…Janet Kay to do so. However, subsequent single releases from “Pressure” all failed to dent the Top 40 and by 1993 she did what many others previously had done to revive a career – came calling at Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s door (well, they did have a Sonia sized vacancy on their artists’ roster to fill). Two SAW singles failed to do much business chart-wise and Lindy had all but disappeared from the pop world by the mid 90s.

You can tell from this TOTP performance that this was meant to be a new start for Lindy – she’s got a new short hairstyle and changed her wardrobe dramatically from her Beats International appearance. Her version of “Silly Games” was pretty slick as well. She looked a good bet for a prolonged solo career at this point. Ah, the fickle nature of pop – silly old game innit?

In 1990, Cliff Richard was celebrating the 30th anniversary of his recording career and to commemorate this milestone, he released a live album called “From A Distance: The Event” which was recorded in June 1989 at his The Event concert, held at Wembley Stadium over two nights. Cliff’s version of “Silhouettes“, a No 3 hit for Herman’s Hermits in 1965, was plucked from said album to promote it. It reached No 10 in the UK Top 40. It is also, undeniably, horrible. Not content with inflicting this upon us, the album also contained his next Xmas No 1 in “Saviour’s Day”. Have you ever seen such cruelty?!

I’m guessing that the next tune was intended by the band’s record company as a stop gap release between albums to maintain their profile. It ended up becoming their biggest ever hit. Deacon Blue‘s only release this calendar year so far had been their New Year anthem “Queen Of The New Year” back in …erm…January as the fifth and final single from their “When The World Knows Your Name” album. With the rich seams of tunes having been exhausted from that album and the new one not to be released until June 1991, something was needed to ensure fickle pop fans didn’t forget about them in the meantime. The answer of course was a cover version (the answer is always a cover version) but Deacon Blue took things further by releasing an EP of four Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs called… well….the “Four Bacharach & David Songs” EP.

The track that got all the airplay though was “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”. There was something about the crystal clean production and the vocals of Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh that bewitched UK pop fans to purchase it in enough quantities to send it all the way to No 2. I was one of them. This EP of cover versions idea obviously resonated with Everything But The Girl who released their own EP in 1992 featuring “Love Is Strange”, Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than The Rest”, Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” and Elvis Costello’s “Alison”. I bought that as well.

As for Deacon Blue, although it would be harsh to say this was the pinnacle of their popularity, they would only have one more Top 10 single in their career although they continue to tour and record new material to this very day with their last album “Riding On The Tide Of Love” being released *performs some basic maths calculation* 20 days ago!

If Jive Bunny was the bread in this show’s shit sandwich, here comes the filling and it really reeks! Timmy Mallett / Bombalurina have leapt to No 1 with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” and consequently he’s been invited back on the show for another studio performance. What makes it all the worse is that Mallett seems to take it seriously in that he mimes the lines correctly and has learnt his little dance moves. If he’s done it all a bit more free form and tongue-in-cheek ,would it have been less odious? Nah, you’re right. Nothing could save this turd from stinking the place out.

The play out video is a huge tune. Sorry, that should be HUUUUGE TUUUUNE! Appearing fully formed from out of nowhere came Deee-Lite with the barnstorming dance floor legend that was and remains “Groove Is In The Heart”. I know this will make me sound like a knacker but the groove on this tune is immense! These self proclaimed ‘groovniks’ hailed from New York City and were composed of Lady Miss Kier, Supa DJ Dmitry and Jungle DJ Towa Tei and had an image as wild as their hit song. Dayglo colours, psychedelic patterns and huge 70s style platform shoes somehow seemed totally appropriate despite being at least two decades out of fashion.

That track though! Listed in in Gary Mulholland’s marvellous book This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk And Disco as one of the tracks of the year, I think I’ll let Gary do the talking for me:

“If I was ever asked to play some crazy DJ version of Russian roulette, where you had one chance and one chance only to make a roomful of disparate people dance or you die – I would play ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ and book my cab home”.

Well said Gary.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Human League	Heart Like A Wheel	Nah
2	Mariah Carey	Vision Of Love	Nope
3	Tina Turner	Look Me In The Heart	As if
4	Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers	Can Can You Party	Can can you piss off please?
5	Steve Miller Band	The Joker	It’s a no
6	Wilson Phillips	Release Me	After “Hold On” you now want releasing? Make your mind up! No
7	Sonia	End Of The World	No
8	Lindy Layton and Janet Kay	Silly Games	Negative
9	Cliff Richard	Silhouettes	Silhouettes? It was enough to give me Tourettes! No
10	Deacon Blue	Four Bacharach And David Songs	Yes, yes I did
11	Bombalurina	Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini	How does f**k off sound as an answer?
12	Deee-Lite	Groove Is In The Heart	Where’s my copy of this?! I must have bought this surely?!

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000scfy/top-of-the-pops-23081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 22 JUN 1990

Posted on January 20, 2021 by 80stastic

If a week can be a long time in politics then that is also true of football (and quite possibly music). When last week’s TOTP was aired, the England national team had made a sluggish start to Italia ’90 and were being widely criticised in the media. Fast forward eight days and they have turned things around and qualified for the knockout stages after defeating the might of Egypt in the last group game. Hang on, eight days you say? Yes, this particular TOTP went out on the Friday rather than in its regular Thursday night slot so as to clear the schedules for that England v Egypt game the day before. Suddenly hopes were revived and the nation looked forward (albeit with some trepidation) to the next game versus Belgium.

Those eight days have also proved to be a long time in the pop music world as tonight’s show has nine (!) ‘new’ songs on it and only four that we have seen before in no small part due to the return of the Breakers section. Tonight’s host is Jakki Brambles whose previous recent appearances on the show have been dominated by her wearing of big Winter coats even under TV studio lights. With it being the height of Summer though she peeled all her layers off and gone for a white t-shirt and ripped jeans look topped off with an embroidered baseball cap. The T-shirt proclaims the legend that is The Royal Findhorn Yacht Club (I have no idea) and Jakki seems to be in a rush to get off (possibly to do some tacking on a schooner or something – as I said I have no idea) judging by the speed with which she is talking.

We start tonight with Brummie rockers Magnum who were last seen in the Top 40 back in ’88 with a trio of medium-sized hits from their “Wings Of Heaven” album which was the peak of their commercial success. I have no recollection of them still having chart hits into the 90s but here they are with a little ditty called “Rockin’ Chair”. Taken from an album called “Goodnight L.A.”, it sounds pretty unexceptional, rock fodder to me but supposedly the album was meant to be an attempt to break the band in the US and was seen by critics as taking the band in an ‘Americanised’ and more commercial direction. If anything, to my ears, it sounds less commercial than their previous hits like “Start Talking Love” and “Days Of No Trust”. Anyway, what do I know? So did Magnum manage to break America? No, no they didn’t and you know why they didn’t? The album was never released in the United States! Right, scratch that comment about what do I know because I may not be a record company executive but I do know that if you want to break America, it’s a good idea to release your album there so that people can, you know, actually buy it!

The album did OK in the UK (where it was released) peaking at No 9 and presumably it did well in Germany judging by Jakki’s comments about the band entertaining 50,000 East Berliners recently.

“Rockin’ Chair” peaked at No 27 but their last single previous to that was a No 33 hit called “It Must Have Been Love” talking of which…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUdS4Zy0OMk

…here come Roxette enjoying the biggest hit of their career with “It Must Have Been Love”. Often dismissed as insubstantial and not deserving of any credibility claims, it’s fair to say that the duo rarely get referenced as being the musical influence of…well…anybody really. Having said that, they racked up a smorgasbord of hit singles throughout their career which, incidentally, spanned 33 (!) years. I always got the impression that they were not that bothered by the criticism that dogged them, steeled by the knowledge that they were good at what they did – writing, recording and performing well crafted pop tunes. Indeed, so comfortable were they with their image that they even called one of their compilation albums “Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus!”. If that doesn’t display a healthy degree of self knowledge then I don’t know what does!

“It Must Have Been Love” peaked at No 3 in the UK and was a Top 10 hit in just about every country around the world going to No 1 in the US, Australia, Denmark and Spain to name but a few.

Well here’s a treat – two acts for the price of one! Never has the acronym BOGOF been more apt though as said acts are Sonia and Big Fun! What?! Why?! What possible justification could there be for this unholy pairing?! What? It was for charity? Which charity? Childline? Oh..well…I can’t really…oh OK, it seems there was some credible justification but it doesn’t mean I have to like the song does it? And I don’t. It’s not even a cover of the James Taylor classic “You’ve Got a Friend” but another Stock, Aitken and Waterman composition.

Watching this performance back, it looks just wrong for them all to be sat down for the duration of the song Westlife-esque when we were used to seeing Big Fun jumping around the TOTP stage wiggling their arses for all their worth and little Sonia doing her rolling shoulders nerdy dance moves. It’s not that easy to transform yourself from pop puppets to serious artists surely? Just by the addition of some stools? *Insert your own jokes*

In a Smash Hits interview around this time to promote the single, when Big Fun’s Jason John was asked if they dreaded ‘the dumper’ and what would they do if they fell into it, he replied:

“I don’t think about the dumper because we’re really only just beginning our careers…”

Hmm. After “You’ve Got a Friend” peaked at No 14, Big Fun never had another Top 40 single. After disbanding, one of them became a painter and decorator whilst Jason ‘we’ve only just begun’ John decamped to the US to run a nightclub in New York.

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

It’s those famous musical offspring Wilson Phillips next who are bounding up the charts with their single “Hold On”. The group En Vogue also had a hit with a song called “Hold On” in this year – they were on the show only the other week – and it got me thinking whether “Hold On” was a popular song title of choice for recording artists. I found a website that listed 45 cover versions and distinct songs that happen to share the title “Hold On”. They included artists as diverse as Tom Waits through to Donny Osmond via Santana and KT Tunstall. And whose song called “Hold On” was the most commercially successful? Why, Wilson Phillips of course (En Vogue came in second).

Some Breakers now starting with Red Hot Chili Peppers and “Taste The Pain”. Despite being around since 1984, I have to admit that they hadn’t been on my radar at all in that time and I can’t say I remember this track either. I wouldn’t really become aware of them until the following year and the release of their “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” album and attendant singles “Give It Away” and the anthemic “Under The Bridge” which I bought. “Taste The Pain” was from their previous studio album “Mother’s Milk” and became the band’s first UK hit single peaking at No 29. I hadn’t realised before but they actually had a track on the multi platinum Pretty Woman soundtrack album called “Show Me Your Soul”. Given the film and soundtrack’s popularity and seeing what it was doing for the career of Roxette whom we saw earlier, I can’t help wondering if they wouldn’t have been better off releasing that as a single?

I can’t move on though without a mention for Celtic ‘bagrock’ outfit Red Hot Chilli Pipers whose lineup features three highland bagpipers and traditional marching snare backed by a more traditional rock band. Their live show even features highland dancing! I’ve yet to catch them live myself yet but a friend who has say they are quite the experience.

Bruce Dickinson covering “All The Young Dudes”? Even if this was for charity* as per Sonia and Big Fun (which it wasn’t) it would still be inexcusable. This David Bowie penned tune that was turned into a massive hit by Mott The Hoople really didn’t need the Dickinson treatment. I couldn’t see that it added anything to the original being a pretty straight cover. I suppose it was a canny marketing move by Bruce’s label to release a well known song to help promote his “Tattooed Millionaire” album but still.

*Two years later, Dickinson did record a song for charity when he combined with Rowan Atkinson in his Mr. Bean alter ego to record Alice Cooper’s “(I Want To Be) Elected” for Comic Relief which went to No 9 which was 14 places higher than “All The Young Dudes”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu4uzJsqIxE

And talking of Alice Cooper, completing a trio of rock-related Breakers, are Dogs D’Amour who once toured with Alice around the start of the new millennium. Back in 1990 though, they were in the Top 40 again for the second and final time. Having finally breached the chart ramparts in ’89 with ‘Satellite Kid”, “Victims Of Success” was the lead single from their album “Straight??!!” and I have to say the title didn’t ring any bells with me. Having given it a listen, it sounds like a rather unremarkable blues rock song full of guitar twangs and hackneyed lyrics like these:

“Yesterdays punks on the cover of the rolling stone
Yesterdays punks could buy a Beverly Hills home”

I’m kind of surprised it managed to sneak into the charts to be honest. Maybe they were riding on the coattails of the success their good buddies The Quireboys were enjoying around this time?

“Straight??!!” would be the last studio album to feature the band’s ‘classic’ line up (it says on Wikipedia) before they split. Top Dog Tyla (real name Timothy Taylor) would resurrect the brand in various different formats and line ups over the years as well as collaborating on a project entitled Hot Knives with long-time friend *checks notes* ah yes, Spike… from The Quireboys.

“Victims Of Success” peaked at No 36.

A return to the show for the break out star of ’88 next as we witness the return of Yazz with her new single “Treat Me Good”. Just two short years since her massive No 1 single “The Only Way Is Up”, Yazz was at a crossroads. Her debut album “Wanted” had gone double platinum but the singles released from it had all peaked at a lower chart position than the one before. Her next move was career crucial. “Treat Me Good” was to be the lead single from an album initially entitled “Revolution Of Love” (presumably the album due out “at the end of the Summer” as advised by Jakki Brambles) but it never appeared and was canned when Yazz left her record label Big Life. Were they disappointed by the commercial performance of “Treat Me Good”? Despite a 10 place move up the charts after this TOTP outing, the single would get no further than that No 20 peak and would be in and out of the Top 100 in five weeks. To be fair, it didn’t really sound to me like it had that ‘Wow!’ factor that “The Only Way Is Up” had and was a pretty sub-standard R’n’B pop number.

Re-emerging with Polydor Records, Yazz once again found herself in the position where a proposed second album was shelved when “One True Woman” failed to appear in May ’92. After one final return to the Top 40 in ’93 with Aswad with a cover version of Ace’s “How Long”, her sophomore album finally emerged more than five years after her debut. It bombed completely. Yazz continued to release singles and one further album into the 90s but she then found herself at another crossroads (this time of a more personal nature) when her marriage to her husband (who was also her manager and publisher and father of baby Rio mentioned by Jakki Brambles in her intro) broke down. After finding Christianity, Yazz now spreads the gospel message in prisons and released a record called “This Is Love” which was inspired by her experiences.

And yes Jakki, she did look incredible just eight weeks after giving birth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJQQXg2CdLk

After the decade that was the 80s had seen fit to allow Aussie soap Neighbours to spawn bona fide chart stars in Kylie, Jason Donovan and (for the love of God!) Stefan Dennis, you would have thought that the 90s would have brought a stop to that but no! There was still another of the cast that felt that the world of pop had space for one more…all hail Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2. As referenced by Jakki Brambles in her intro, Craig had played the role of Henry Ramsey (the brother of Kylie’s character Charlene) in Neighbours for nearly three years but by the time of his foray into music and subsequent hit with “Mona” he had swapped allegiances and transferred to the other Aussie soap Home And Away. I have very distinct memories of Henry Ramsey whilst I was still a student at Sunderland Poly – nasty mullet and dungarees worn without a T -shirt which the women that I was friendly with at the time were quite taken with – but I had no idea that he had pop star pretensions.

Now admittedly it was a very low bar but I didn’t mind “Mona” (compared to Stefan Dennis, he was the height of credibility) and it was a tune that was written by blues rock ‘n’ roll legend Bo Diddley which had been performed previously by the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Troggs and Bruce Springsteen so Stock, Aitken and Waterman this was not. I’m pretty sure I didn’t realise the song’s origins at the time but fourteen years after it was a hit in the UK, I saw a band perform their own version of this in whilst on holiday in San Francisco. I can’t remember the name of the band but the venue was called the Biscuits And Blues Bar and I remember thinking there’s no way this can be a Craig McLachlan original if this authentic blues band are performing it!

After peaking at No 2 in the UK, it seem that Craig might have a shot at usurping his one time co-star Jason Donovan in UK pop fans’ affections given that old Jase seemed to be on a downward commercial trend but after one more single (the No 16 hit “Amanda”) he was pretty much gone. He did follow Donovan’s trick of releasing a song from a stage musical three years later when “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease in which he was starring with Debbie Gibson made No 13 in the UK Top 40 (Donovan had scored a No 1 with “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) but he would never again return to our charts.

Inevitably, and very much seen as the classical antidote to New Order’s “World In Motion”, here is the BBC’s Italia ’90 theme tune “Nessun Dorma” by Luciano Pavarotti. Now inextricably linked in the psyche of every English football fan with the events of June /July 1990 and the fortunes of the national team, how many of us had ever heard of it (or indeed Pavarotti) before?

The BBC really pulled it out of the bag when it came to soundtracking their coverage of this World Cup. Does anybody recall the ITV opening titles and music? I didn’t and had to look it up. Here’s their opening titles….

…just dreadful. Apparently it was entitled “Tutti Al Mondo”, was written by Rod Argent and Peter Van Hooke and …oh nobody cares do they? ITV’s theme tune was crushed by the BBC and Pavarotti’s weight as easily as Gazza’s tears started to flow after that booking in the semi final. A few words about the opening title graphics before we move on which were awful as well. The crass image of the statue of David nonchalantly nodding some footballs around and the official mascot stick figure player called Ciao added in to ensure the full tacky horror couldn’t be missed. Comparing the two is a bit like on The Apprentice when the two teams do the advert task and one team has understood the brief completely and delivered something concise and on message and the other team has just came up with a slogan that they thought was a clever word play and completely missed the point of what they were trying to sell. Somebody in the ITV creative team should have got fired.

“Nessun Dorma” was a No 2 hit on the UK Top 40 and after the Three Tenors concert in Rome the night before the final was played featuring José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and of course Pavarotti spawned the classic live album, the world went classical music mad. That album became the best-selling classical album of all time and even changed the way the music industry marketed its classical catalogue with a whole new category called ‘strategic classical’ set up to try and reach new audiences via huge marketing campaigns.

My own personal memory of the whole Nessun Dorma / Three Tenors phenomenon was that my future father -in -law was so enthused by the concert that he taped it off the TV (remember when we used to do that?) to keep for posterity but my future mother-in- law taped over it with an episode of Eastenders by mistake. Once the incident had been discovered I was dispatched into Hull town centre to ask around the music shops to see if anyone knew when the official video would be coming out. There was no release date forthcoming so we had to pretend that the precious VHS tape couldn’t be found whenever my father-in-law asked about watching the concert over again for many months until the official release could be bought for him.

MC Tunes in the area! The Moss Side rapper is back on the show with his hit single “The Only Rhyme That Bites” although this week we get the video. @TOTPFacts has unearthed this about the promo:

The video for "The Only Rhyme That Bites" was shot in the then-disused Daily Express building on Ancoats Lane in Manchester. It was directed by Ken Horn (Trevor's brother), also a director on Emmerdale at the time. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 15, 2021

Hmm. Well, it just looks to me like a load of guys skateboarding and not especially impressively. I suppose we all have to start somewhere and Ken Horn did go onto produce a number of successful TV shows including the Jimmy McGovern drama The Street and the fifth series of the superb Line Of Duty. Back in 1990 though, it looked like brother Trevor had the monopoly on the family talent.

By the way, if you’re wondering whatever happened to MC Tunes and wanted to know more about what sort of person he was/is, don’t go looking to Wikipedia for the answer. Under the category Personal Life, it just says:

Tunes still lives in Manchester.

“The Only Rhyme That Bites” peaked at No 10.

And so it came to pass that Elton John‘s first ever solo No 1 would be with the brain stupefying “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”. After his ridiculously flamboyant outfits of yesteryear (Donald Duck anyone?), Elton has completely toned it down and gone for an all black ensemble topped off with a BOY cap. Were they popular at the time? I’m pretty sure Chris Lowe of the Pet Shops Boys used to wear one back in the day but were they still a thing in 1990?

The single was taken from the album “Sleeping With The Past” which in a Smash Hits feature where pop stars named their favourite ever albums, that man from Big Fun Jason John (whom we heard from earlier) was at it again giving us the benefit of his wisdom. Here he is:

“Sonia actually gave me this LP as a present a few weeks ago…It must be one of the best albums he’s ever done…Personally I’ve become a big Elton fan after listening to this album. It’s been a big inspiration to me.”

Hmm. Not “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” then? “Too Low For Zero” maybe? “Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player”? No? OK, Jase, you know best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy67a8MPs9Y

At the song’s end, there’s a weird interaction between Jakki Brambles and Elton where she strides across the stage, offers her had to Elton to shake and then kisses his! There then follows an excruciating exchange where Jakki asks Elton how he is and which charities the royalties from the single are supporting. Elton is almost monosyllabic in his replies. Now if you really want to see a proper Elton John interview, may I recommend this…

So put off her stride is Jakki that she forgets to introduce the play out song which is one of the biggest and most talked about hits of the year – it’s MC Hammer with “U Can’t Touch This”. This tune was absolutely massive back in the day but more seemed to be made in the press about Hammer’s baggy loon pants (that tapered to the ankle) in the video.

Famously based on “Super Freak” by Rick James, “U Can’t Touch This” made Hammer a huge star briefly. Parent album “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em” stayed at No 1 in the US album charts for 21 weeks and was the best selling album of 1990 there. Multiple awards followed and his extensive tours raked in the money. It’s 1990 and the living is good for MC Hammer. It wouldn’t last though but that’s all for another post.

“U Can’t Touch This” peaked at No 3 in the UK Top 40.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAn-Dar1jyU

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Magnum	Rockin’ Chair	Nah
2	Roxette	It Must Have Been Love	Negative
3	Sonia and Big Fun	You’ve Got A Friend	But it’s not me!
4	Wilson Phillips	Hold On	No
5	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Taste The Pain	Nope
6	Bruce Dickinson	All The Young Dudes	As if
7	Dogs D’Amour	Victims Of Success	It’s a no from me
8	Yazz	Treat Me Good	It was really weak sounding to me – no
9	Craig McLachlan Check 1-2	Mona	I did not
10	Luciano Pavarotti	Nessun Dorma	For all the memories it always invokes, I didn’t but it
11	MC Tunes versus 808 State	The Only Rhyme That Bites	Liked it, didn’t buy it
12	Elton John	Sacrifice /Healing Hands	Certainly not!
13	MC Hammer	U Can’t Touch This	And I didn’t – no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000r6hy/top-of-the-pops-22061990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 19 APR 1990

Posted on December 4, 2020 by 80stastic

I tell you what, having to write about two BBC4 TOTP repeats week in week out is proving to be a relentless schedule to stick to. Fortunately, this particular show only has nine acts as there are no Breakers again this week and six of them have been on before so I might be able to get away with saying not very much about them. Fingers crossed!

It’s Jakki Brambles in the presenters hot seat this week and talking of hot, she does seem to have a constant need to wrap up warm when she’s on. She’s got a black overcoat on this time which she seems to be hugging into herself giving the impression that she’s freezing in the TOTP studio. She did this the last time she was on as well I think. Mark Goodier on the other hand complained about how hot it was when he was the host last time but then he didn’t help himself with a jacket, shirt and tie outfit. Whatever – let’s hope for some ‘hot’ acts on the show tonight….

…not quite what I was hoping for as we start with Sonia and her latest single “Counting Every Minute”. This was just the musical equivalent of watching paint dry. I tried staring at the walls once to try and slow down time when I really didn’t want to go back to work – it didn’t help. I should have just listened to Sonia as this garbage seems to go on forever, endlessly filling the silence with its own pop vacuum – counting every minute indeed. When asked in Smash Hits for her take on the state of the charts at this time, she replied that as well as liking all her SAW stablemates like Kylie, Jason and Big Fun, she’d also just bought the Phil Collins album. What was I saying about watching paint dry?!

Another song that we saw just last week now as “I Don’t Love You Anymore” by The Quireboys gets another airing. Apparently, such was the band’s riotous reputation that before their first TOTP appearance (they were actually the very first act on the show in the the 90s), the producers contacted their management to see if the rumours that they would vomit over the cameramen and set fire to Bruno Brookes were true. Of course they weren’t and the only reason their video is being shown instead of the band in person is because they were touring Japan. At least that’s the story Jakki Brambles has been told to tell and she’s sticking to it.

“I Don’t Love You Anymore” peaked at No 24.

For all the terrible, terrible records that 1990 has given us so far in these repeats, it has also given us some of the decade’s most seminal and creative works as well. After Sinéad O’Connor and Happy Mondays comes Adamski and Seal with “Killer”. I say ‘and Seal’ but he wasn’t actually credited officially on the record despite his obvious input. It’s seems strange to acknowledge in 2020 given the career that Seal has had in the intervening years but there was a time when the world didn’t have a clue who he was and that time was now. We knew who Adamski was – that odd little DJ bloke who’d had a hit with the dance track “N-R-G” earlier in the year but “Killer” didn’t sound anything like “N-R-G”to my ears. It was almost devastating the first time you heard it. The hypnotic bassline that builds until that voice enters the fray. Given his latter canon of work is very much more of a soulful bent, it was an unusual route into the world of music for Seal – supplying the vocals for an out and out dance tune.

As well as his obvious singing talents, he also supplied the visual focus for the record which I don’t think can be underestimated. With his striking looks – aided by his scars which are the result of an autoimmune skin condition – and his mid length dreads, he cut an imposing figure. Having said all of that, you can’t ignore the power of the actual music. Did I expect it to be a No 1 record? I’m not sure but it was always destined to be a big hit. In the end it was one of two massive records to soundtrack the Summer of 1990 with the other one being “World In Motion” by New Order – I’m disqualifying another No1 record (“Sacrifice” by Elton John) on the grounds that it was crap.

By the end of the year, Seal was a major star in his own right notching up a massive hit in “Crazy” which peaked at No 2. By the time that his debut album came out in June of 1991, he was huge and it topped the album charts. Said record included a re-recorded version of “Killer” which meant he did get his overdue star billing and credit for the song in the end. His version peaked at No 8 and its M. C. Escher themed video won British Video of the Year at the 1992 Brit Awards.

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

George Michael performed a version of “Killer” at the The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 which was included on the “Five Live” EP and took the song back to No 1 in 1993.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2-YIGZas_8

It’s The Blues Brothers up again next with “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”. I really should make the time to watch the film from start to finish one day. Actually, there’s probably a whole load of ‘must see’ films that I’ve yet to get around to watching. Let me see….there’s Das Boot, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cinema Paradiso and perhaps the biggest crime of all (and very timely) It’s A Wonderful Life! Alright, alright – I know! I’m a film philistine and a terrible person to (das) boot. Still, that’s added a bit to the word count for this post. Is that enough for The Blues Brothers? No? OK, well in 1998, an ill advised sequel came out called Blues Brothers 2000 without, obviously, the sadly departed John Belushi. It received mixed reviews. I’ve never seen that either.

Alannah Myles is on the rise with her single “Black Velvet”. It’s up top No 2 this week which requires not just a re-showing of the promo video but an actual in-the-studio appearance by Alannah herself! Presumably her record company thought that this would give the record that extra push to get it over the line and score her a UK No 1 to add to her Canadian and US chart toppers. Sadly for Alannah the marketing ploy didn’t work and she would remain tantalisingly one place short.

There are a few theories as to what the song is about. It seems pretty obvious to me that it’s about Elvis given the lyrics include lines like

“Love Me Tender leaves ’em cryin’ in the aisle”
“Up in Memphis the music’s like a heat wave”
“The boy could sing, knew how to move ev’rything”

However, according to some of the comments posted on the Songfacts.com website it could also be about any of the following:

Led Zep’s Robert Plant (unlikely)
Cheap Canadian whiskey (possibly)
A woman’s crotch (WTF?!)

However, my favourite post is from one Ashley Jade from Cleveland who just says:

“This song scares me“

Blimey! I hope Ashley never gets to hear any of experimental industrial noise makers Throbbing Gristle’s work – she’ll never sleep again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z3rv62alU8

Finally a dance record that I remember…though sadly not one that I liked. “Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” by The Adventures of Stevie V was a huge crossover hit being massive in both the clubs and the pop charts where it would peak at No 2. The intriguing sounding act were put together by producer Steve Vincent (the titular Stevie V) and also included Mick Walsh and singer Melody Washington. I seem to recall the press getting very worked up about this record and declaring it ‘hiphouse’ and that the music world would soon be falling at the feet of The Adventures of Stevie V. It didn’t quite work out like that despite Vincent himself stating that he wanted to be “bigger than Salman Rushdie. As big as The Pope”. They had just one more Top 40 hit and Vincent teaches music technology at Bedford College these days.

As for the single itself, it reminded me of “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent” by Gwen Guthrie which I hadn’t liked either. The backing dancers in this performance look like they might have been getting some tips from The Blues Brothers when it came to their moves whilst their baggy pants look was clearly inspired by MC Hammer.

Ooh some US rock now but not the AOR stuff that the likes of Heart were peddling but what some critics were calling ‘alternative metal’ at the time – a fusion of alternative rock and heavy metal. Given that genre description, then we can only be talking about Faith No More right? Look, I have to come clean and admit that I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. If I had to describe Faith No More’s sound I’d have maybe gone for ‘funk metal’ but I’m sure that will sound like heresy to their loyal fan base.

I knew of the band via their major label debut single “We Care A Lot” a couple of years before this but that was the extent of my knowledge. This single, “From Out Of Nowhere” was taken from their third album “The Real Thing” and was actually a re-release after it had completely bombed on its first outing in October 1989. However, after the band breached the Top 40 (albeit in a minor way) with No 37 hit “Epic”, it was re-issued and consolidated their chart success by peaking at No 23. “Epic” itself would be re-released before the year was out and made it a worthwhile exercise by peaking at No 25, twelve places higher than its original chart placing and becoming possibly their best known song.

Actually, scratch that, a lot of UK pop fans will know the band for their pretty straight cover of ‘Easy” by The Commodores which made No 3 early in 1993. Quite why they chose to release a cover of that song I really don’t know nor do I know why music fans felt they needed the Faith No More version in their lives rather than the existing Commodores original but that’s the great British public for you. I recall that the original release of parent album “Angel Dust” didn’t have “Easy” on it but it was re-issued with it added to the track listing hoping to trick some mainstream pop fans into buying a rock record. Too cynical? Unlike Faith No More, I don’t care a lot.

Madonna is still at the top of the charts this week with “Vogue”. The black and white video caused some controversy due to ‘nipple-gate’ when MTV initially refused to air the promo because of the sheer lace blouse Madonna wears at one point through which viewers got a big flash of the Ciccone chest and specifically, if you peered close enough, her nipples. Crikey!

We also got a first view of the iconic ‘cone bra’ in the video which would come to be the lasting image of her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. That tour was chronicled in the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside of North America) which spawned the infamous scene below or, in the spirit of ‘nipple-gate’, neat-gate’ if you will…

The play out video is “Ghetto Heaven” by The Family Stand. Apparently Jeffrey in the band could play any musical instrument and at school was so far ahead of the rest of the class that his music teacher would let him go into another room and do his own thing. All of this reminded me of a similar situation in our music lessons at grammar school.

There was a guy called Nick who could play piano whilst the rest of us were complete doughnuts musical ability wise so Nick was allowed to go and practice piano in a side room. What did the rest of us get up to? Well, memorably Paul Dukes managed to convince our frankly wet behind the ears music teacher Mr Wilderspin to play “Friggin’ In The Riggin” by The Sex Pistols as part of musical appreciation! I think we maybe got to the end of the first verse before Wilderspin raced over to the turntable to yank the needle of the record. To be fair to him, even just the first verse was maybe slightly pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable for a bunch of school kids to be listening to in class…

It was on the good ship Venus
By Christ, ya should’ve seen us
The figurehead was a whore in bed
And the mast, a mammoth penis

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-QV9r3JXVY

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sonia	Counting Every Minute	Huge no
2	The Quireboys	I Don’t Love You Anymore	…don’t think I ever did
3	Adamski	Killer	No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on
4	The Blues Brothers	Everbody Needs Somebody To Love	No
5	Alannah Myles	Black Velvet	Nope
6	Adventures of Stevie V	Dirty Cash (Money Talks)	Not for me thanks
7	Faith No More	From Out Of nowhere	I did not
8	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
9	The Family Stand	Ghetto Heaven	Nah

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pr1z/top-of-the-pops-19041990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 12 APR 1990

Posted on December 1, 2020 by 80stastic

It’s nearly Easter already in 1990 where TOTP Rewind currently resides – the day after this TOTP was broadcast was the Good Friday – but the 21 year old me doesn’t have chocolate eggs or bunnies on my mind. No, I’m more concerned with finding a job as I am in my fourth month of unemployment. What’s more, this very day (12th April) is my girlfriend (now wife)’s birthday so I would have needed to get her a present. I seem to recall that I decided for some reason that a brass ornament of a vintage style camera (one of those ones where the photographer ducked underneath a black cloth covering to take the picture) would be just the sort of thing she would like. I saw it in a shop that specialised in that sort of knick-knacker but in truth, she would rather have had my original idea which was a VHS tape of The Beatles Help! film. She really wasn’t taken by the brass camera and I’d even haggled about the price with the shop owner to get it for her! Oh well, let’s see what tunes that the charts had to offer that week – there’d better be some good stuff in stock!

Not a bad start at all! In my head, Jesus Jones didn’t appear on the charts until much later in the year but I’m clearly getting my facts skewed as here they are in mid April with “Real Real Real” which was their first Top 40 hit peaking at No 19. Very much seen as being part of that indie /dance crossover movement, they were one of the first (alongside Happy Mondays simultaneously) to make the big commercial breakthrough and opened a gate to chartdom that acts such as EMF, The Shamen and Pop Will Eat Itself would also stride through.

I think I may have heard of Jesus Jones previous to this via their nearly hit “Info Freako” from the year before but I didn’t know much about them. By the start of 1991 however, they would be genuine chart stars and the future of rock ‘n’ roll according to some. When I did my first Xmas working at Our Price in 1990 there were two albums that we were asked for all the time that hadn’t even been released yet. One was The Farm’s “Spartacus” and the other was “Doubt” by Jesus Jones. I think they were delayed possibly to heighten the clamour for them to fever pitch and when they were finally released within a month of each other in 1991, they both reached no 1 in the album chart.

I always get a bit confused about Jesus Jones’s timeline in terms of their hits, possibly because they racked up a few in quick succession over the course of a year or so. After “Real Real Real”, they scored another four Top 40 hits including “Right Here, Right Now” being released twice and peaking at No 31 on both occasions. I hadn’t realised until now that the band had also briefly been a very big deal in the US with “Real Real Real” going to No 4 over there whilst “Right Here, Right Now” peaked at No 2. I had always assumed they were a peculiarly British phenomenon.

The band are still together having gigged throughout the years when they were being referred to as residing in the “Where are They Now” files. Indeed, I recall them receiving some very derogatory press about resorting to playing corporate gigs as the entertainment for big conglomerate firm events although I’m guessing such gigs probably pay pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhUT8IAz0_U

Like Gloria Estefan, Janet Jackson has always seemed to me to be capable of only two types of song. The big, lush soul ballad like “Let’s Wait A While” and “Come Back To Me” and the uptempo R’n’B dance tune like “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “Miss You Much”. Completely unfair I’m sure but it’s my blog and that’s my opinion when I think of her (see what I did there? No? Oh forget it!).

“Escapade” was very much in the latter category and was one of seven (!) singles taken from her “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” album. As with all the other videos for her uptempo songs, it’s all about the choreographed dance routines. Whilst undoubtedly impressive as a spectacle, it always seems to me as if the tracks are written with a routine in mind rather than for any musical reasons. Yet again, this was a Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production and they came up with the name “Escapade” as it was one of many potential song title ideas that they kept in a little notebook which sounds overly cynical and not very organic at all to me. Aside from Jam and Lewis, the track also features ‘finger snaps’ contributed by former New Edition member Johnny Gill. Finger snaps?! If you’re going to get an official credit for that, I should maybe have bigged up my triangle playing in my Junior school concert back in the day!

“Escapade” peaked at No 17 in the UK but was a No 1 song in the US.

“It’s hot in here” informs this week’s host Mark Goodier referring to the temperature in the studio – so why are you wearing a jacket, shirt and tie then Mark? I’m sure you’ve done enough shows by this point to be able to make informed wardrobe decisions surely?!

OK, the next act is Technotronic. When I was putting this post together, my wife (she of the unwanted birthday present!) remarked, “God, you haven’t got to review this have you?” referring to “This Beat Is Technotronic”. Yes, I’m afraid so. This was the third single from their “Pump Up the Jam: The Album” erm…album and saw someone called MC Eric take the mike while previously used vocalist Ya Kid K took a rest. It still sounded the same as all the rest to me though apart from perhaps even more annoying and repetitive if that were possible.

Apparently the two dancers up there on stage with him are his old school mates called Gary and julian who he plucked from being on the dole in Cardiff to come and be in Technotronic with him. If any of my old school pals are reading this, fancy joining me for another go at perfecting the triangle?

“This Beat Is Technotronic” peaked at No 14.

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

“It’s the way they move that makes you want to groove” remarks Goodier at the end of Technotronic’s turn in one of the cringiest segue ways ever which leads us into “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” by Heart. Again. Really? I think this is the third time this has been on the show in recent weeks. Look, I’ve talked about the ridiculous lyrics, I’ve commented on the nasty video…what else is there left for me to say about it?

Well, it was taken from an album called “Brigade” that managed to rise all the way to No 3 in our charts but the band would only achieve chart action one more time in this country when their 1993 single “Will You Be There (In the Morning)” made No 19 from the album “Desire Walks On’ which was also their last long player to make any impression on the Top 40. There. Now please go away.

The Breakers are back after being missing in action for the last two shows and we start with David Bowie and “Fame 90”. So why was a 15 year old Bowie track being released again? It was all part of the promotion for his “Changesbowie” retrospective album that was released in March of this year which included all his biggest hits from 1969’s “Space Oddity” to 1984’s “Blue Jean”. I remember the album being a staple of the ‘Core Stock’ / ‘Best Seller’ section when I first worked for Our Price which were titles that you should never sell out of (although I’m sure we did of course).

Bowie was also embarking on a career spanning greatest hits world tour called the Sound+Vision Tour in support of the album. In what was seen at the time as quite ground breaking, fans were asked to vote for which songs should be included in the set list by phoning a number to log their votes with proceeds from the calls going to charity. In a world where telephone voting for everything from The Eurovision Song Contest to Strictly COme Dancing is second nature to us all today, this seemed like a revolutionary idea back in 1990. I’m sure there was some sort of counter campaign to rig the vote by encouraging people to vote for “The Laughing Gnome” thereby forcing Bowie to have to perform it live but I think he twigged what was going on before committing to the idea.

The video for “Fame 90” featured clips of previous Bowie promos alongside the man himself throwing some shapes with a blonde female dancer which supports the idea of the Changesbowie retrospective but seems a little short of inspiration to me.

“Fame 90” peaked at No 28, 11 places lower than its original 1975 release.

The scouse Kylie next as Sonia is back with “Counting Every Minute”. This was the fourth of five tracks released as singles from her debut album “Everybody Knows” with each one making the Top 20, a feat that made Sonia the first ever British solo female artist to achieve this. Quite how she managed to do this remains a mystery though. “Counting Every Minute” in particular is especially weak. I’ve had dumps with more substance to them.

The video is as half-hearted as the song. Just Sonia and some backing dancers going through the motions in front of a clock face back drop. How long did the video director take to come up with that concept?! You can almost hear him saying “Right then Sonia. Just smile and do that rolling shoulders move you do and we’ll fill in the rest afterwards in post production. No, don’t worry – it’ll look great. Promise. ACTION!”

Right, so quite why was “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love’ by The Blues Brothers in the charts? It seems to be because the film of the same name was re-released on VHS for its 10th anniversary by MCA/Universal Home Video. The movie has garnered cult status over the years – the movie poster was a mainstay of student room walls when I was one of at Sunderland Poly back in the 80s. However, I was surprised to discover that it was also a sizeable commercial success. It was the 10th biggest film in the US in the year of its cinema release (1980) and is the ninth-highest-grossing musical of all time.

Where The Monkees had gone before and The Commitments would follow, the film spawned a real life band who toured in support of the movie. Its celluloid stars John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd retained their roles as front men / brothers Jake and Elwood with a supporting band of established musicians from the likes of Blood, Sweat & Tears and Booker T and the M. G.’s. The whole thing had started out as a sketch on legendary US TV entertainment show Saturday Night Live and spiralled once a film based on the characters was proposed. Here’s a 1978 clip from SNL showcasing the Blues Brothers:

Despite its legendary status and the stars it made of Belusihi and Ackroyd (thanks in part to those amazing dance steps of theirs), The Blues Brothers isn’t what I will forever associate the latter with – in fact I don’t think I’ve even seem the film from start to finish. No, I will always think of my time at Sunderland Poly where I spent three years being called Dan due to my resemblance to Ackroyd at the time.

Some more bpm nonsense now as we see Bizz Nizz and their hit “Don’t Miss The Party Line”. The phrase ‘party line’ is not associated with some crappy dance tune for many people who grew up in Hull in the 70s and 80s (of whom my wife was one). No, it referred to the type of telephone service you had and in the case of a ‘party line’, it was a local telephone loop circuit that was shared by more than one subscriber. Yes kids, this meant that there was no privacy on a party line! If you were chatting with a friend, anyone on your party line could pick up their telephone and listen in! Unbelievable! Think you’ve go a problem because you want to upgrade your phone and you’re still under contract for your existing phone? Try dealing with someone listening in while you’re exchanging tales of drunken exploits with your bestie! Or, heaven forbid, on a booty call!

What? The Bizz Nizz record? Oh, that was shit as well.

Despite all the fuss over Paula Abdul in the US (four No 1 singles and a No 1 album). reaction to her in the UK had been more muted. Yes, “Straight Up” had been a Top 3 single for her over here but that was 12 months back and her only chart entry since then had been the No 24 hit “Forever Your Girl”. What was needed was a gimmick to reinstate our attention – how about her duetting with an animated cat? Purrfect! (sorry). “Opposites Attract” would become her biggest ever UK hit charging all the way to No 2 and is probably her best known song.

So this cat business? What the f**k was that all about?! Well, there had been a big reaction to the Who Framed Roger Rabbit film at the end of the 80s with its live action / animation mash up so maybe that was an influence. The cartoon cat in question was MC Skat Cat who was voiced by a duo called The Wild Pair who get the official credit on the record as the collaborators. The guy who wrote the song, Oliver Leiber (son of legendary songwriter Jerry Leiber), came up with the title after browsing a second-hand bookstore after his car broke down and he had four hours to kill. He wrote down titles of a number of pulp fiction novels like A Bloody Moon or Midnight Mistress but the one he plumped for was Opposites Attract. Hang on, didn’t we see this method of songwriting earlier with Janet Jackson’s “Escapade”? Is that all it took to come up with a song title? What have i got on my book shelves I could use to inspire me as a song writer? Hmm. Chelsea: 100 Memorable Matches is probably a little niche in all honesty.

Back to Paula though and the song is basically a play on the Gershwin tune “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” made popular by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It all seemed very calculated and lacking in any authenticity to me and I couldn’t really be doing with it at all.

Ah, good to see that The Cure were still ploughing their own particular furrow into the new decade. “Pictures Of You” wasn’t a new song as such though as it was the fourth single to be released from their “Disintegration” album and was very much immediately recognisable as a Cure song. Doomy? Sure. Dark? Yep. Quality tune? Undoubtedly. I’ve always admired the way Robert Smith has never given a shit about following trends or chasing the zeitgeist, an attitude perfectly summed up by this clip of him at the ceremony where the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019…

“Pictures of You” peaked at No 24 and was voted No 278 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list in 2011.

So it took just two weeks for Madonna to hit the top spot once again with “Vogue”. I saw some online opinion criticising the lyrics of the song last week, specifically the name call section in the song’s bridge where Madonna references sixteen Hollywood stars from the 1920s to the 1950s. It seemed to be all about the ‘Harlow Jean’ line in that her name was reversed to shoe horn it into the lyrics to make a rhyming space for the following line ‘picture of a beauty queen’. I’m not sure that I agree with the negative opinions to be honest. After all, there is a precedent for this type of wordsmithery. Here’s the opening lines of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”:

“It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old man sitting next to me
Makin’ love to his tonic and gin”

His tonic and gin?! Have you ever gone into a bar and asked for a tonic and gin as opposed to a gin and tonic? Well, if it’s good enough for Billy…Madonna could have avoided all of this if she used Norma Jeane as in Marilyn Monroe instead of Harlow Jean but she’d already used Monroe in a previous line to rhyme with DiMaggio. Oh I give up!

After two fast hits in “Seven o’Clock” and “Hey You” came the inevitable ballad from The Quireboys in “I Don’t Love You Anymore”. I’m not sure that I remember this one. Let me have a listen…

Hmm. Pretty nondescript stuff really. Reminds me a bit of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison. I can imagine it got lighters waving in the audience when they performed it live but it’s got as much longevity as lighter fuel.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwDogcM_d7s

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Jesus Jones	Real Real Real	Don’t think I did actually
2	Janet Jackson	Escapade	Nah
3	Technotronic	This Beat Is Technotronic	No, this beat is metronomic and dull
4	Heart	All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You	It’s a no from me
5	David Bowie	Fame 90	Not the 90 remix single but I’m sure my wife must have the original somewhere
6	Sonia	Counting Every Minute	Huge no
7	The Blues Brothers	Everbody Needs Somebody To Love	Nope
8	Bizz Nizz	Don’t Miss The Party Line	Miss it? I gave it a massive wide berth!
9	Paula Abdul	Opposites Attract	I was repelled by this though – no
10	The Cure	Pictures Of You	No
11	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
12	The Quireboys	I Don’t Love You Anymore	…don’t think I ever did

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pr1x/top-of-the-pops-12041990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

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https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 04 JAN 1990

Posted on October 14, 2020 by 80stastic

YES! A brand new decade! Out with the old stuff and in with the groovy new tunes! 1990 is here at last in the world of TOTP Rewind and what fresh out of the box new acts, songs and musical directions await us? Well, it all looks very much the same as the show starts – same theme tune, same opening graphics and a very familiar presenter in Gary Davies. In an attempt to add some sparkle to the proceedings, Davies informs us that tonight’s show marks TOTP’s 26th birthday and also informs us that the show is live and that it will be “fast” and “frantic”. Ooh (Gary Davies)! The girl to Gary’s left in his intro has gone full on Lisa Stansfield in her choice of hat to top of her outfit that includes a Madonna style crucifix. All still a bit 80s sartorially then.

So who gets the honour of being the show’s first act on of the new decade? Oh, well…it’s The Quireboys. Hmm. Look, I didn’t mind their flavour of retro blues rock but maybe ‘retro’ wasn’t what was required when it came to the first act of a new decade. There was a lot of traffic on Twitter about this when BBC4 aired the repeat last week with many people comparing The Quireboys unfavourably to the opening act on the first TOTP of the 80s who were Madness apparently. The Nutty Boys were seen as much more deserving of the accolade. A bit unfair on The Quireboys maybe but I guess I can see where the Twitterati were coming from.

As for the song itself, “Hey You” would prove to be their biggest ever hit reaching No 14 paving the way for the parent album (“A Bit of What You Fancy”) to go all the way to No 2 in the charts. I didn’t buy the single but it did appear on a compilation called “Q The Album” (as in the magazine) that I purchased that had a very eclectic and not altogether coherent track listing. I think it was the first release in a long list that the publication lent its association to. To be fair most of the tracks were pretty decent but I couldn’t quite see the connection between, for example, Jesus Jones, Cowboy Junkies and erm..Elton John!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVhAJ1ZhT-w

Well, say what you liked about The Quireboys but at least they had a ‘new’ tune we hadn’t seen on the show before unlike the majority of the acts on tonight with them. Yes, despite my trumpeting of a new start with a new year, a new decade and indeed a new blog, the majority of the songs on this show I have reviewed before in my old 80s blog. Bah! Here’s one of the blighters now – Madonna with “Dear Jessie”…

The fourth and final single to be released from her “Like A Prayer” album (in the UK at least – it wasn’t issued as a single in the US), it always seemed very out of synch with the rest of the album. All strings and whimsical lyrics, its nursery rhyme quality was nothing like “Express Yourself” or indeed the album title track. It would prove to be a passing affectation as her Madgesty came storming back later in the year with one of her best known and funkiest grooves ever in “Vogue”.

The animated video doesn’t help to tone down the cute-o-meter but if you do keep watching until the end and the (love) parade of characters including teddy bears, clowns and erm…roller skating bananas (WTF!) you get a glimpse of what looks very suspiciously like Gabriel the Toad from Bagpuss.

“Dear Jessie” peaked at No 5.

Another act that’s been reviewed before I think next in Silver Bullet. Adding to the never ending list of rappers with ordinary real names, comes one Richard Brown aka Silver Bullet who with his DJ (Mo) forged this rap track “20 Seconds To Comply” around the infamous Robocop sample. Supposedly their record company EMI wanted to make them into a “rap version of Bros” – the phrase ‘the mind boggles’ hardly does justice to the ludicrousness of such an idea.

I hardly remember Silver Bullet at all (always confusing them with So Solid Crew and their similarly entitled hit “21 Seconds To Go”) but online opinion suggests that they were responsible for something called ‘Britcore’ which was a faster, harder version of hip-hop and for influencing the likes of Prodigy and initiating the rise of jungle music in the 90s. Meanwhile Bros’s legacy was some distinctly average pop tunes and that documentary. Hmm.

Oh man! It’s another song I’ve already reviewed and another dance tune to boot! Latino Rave weren’t even a proper act at all but just a promo tool to flog the newly conceived “Deep Heat” dance compilation album issued by Telstar that would flood the market in the late 80s and early 90s. The clue was in the single’s title “Deep Heat ’89” just to make it absolutely clear what was going on here. Mixing together recent dance hits from the likes of Technotronic, Starlight and A Guy Called Gerald, it did what it was supposed to do I guess by climbing all the way to No 12 in the charts and establishing the “Deep Heat” brand in the process. All very cynical and manipulative in my book but then I wasn’t a clubhead so maybe I wasn’t the target audience.

Another song we’ve seen before and that was reviewed in my 80s blog now courtesy of Sonia who implores us to “Listen To Your Heart”. The Scouse Kylie has been shorn of her usual back up dancers for this performance and is up there selling the song all on her own – bless. It’s OK though as she’s beefed up her look by clearly having a look in Ms Minogue’s wardrobe and has half inched one of her trademark hats. She should have just asked that Lisa Stansfield wannabe lass from the top of the show if she could have borrowed hers.

Later in the year, an entirely different song but with exactly the same title would become a No 6 hit via Swedish soft rock peddlers Roxette thereby eclipsing Sonia’s effort by a whole four chart places. Arr ay!

And another! Yes, we’ve seen / heard this tune on the show before as well! This version of “The Magic Number” by De La Soul doesn’t seem to be the radio edit though – not entirely sure why TOTP chose to go with this remix.

I’ve always been very partial to this version though….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG_xCP3xMSw

This was the last single to be released from the seminal album “3 Feet High And Rising” and would be the last we would see of the trio for over a year before they would return with the rather unwieldly entitled single “A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays”.

A new song! Hallelujah! It is yet another Italian house tune though…49ers were co called, according to Gary Davies, because vocalist Dawn Mitchell (didn’t she used to be in Eastenders?) was the 49th vocalist to audition for them. Really? Surely the band’s name must have had something to do with American football team the San Francisco 49ers?! Surely?! Even if we believe Davies’s story, that must mean that there were 48 singers worse than Dawn Mitchell?! I’m not even sure she was the singer on the track as the original vocalist was someone called Ann-Marie Smith but Dawn Mitchell was brought in to ‘front the band’. Ah that old chestnut! Like the woman who fronted Black Box then. Talking of whom, “Touch Me” very much has the feel of “Ride On Time” to me with its statutory component parts of pounding beats and uplifting piano. No wonder it made No 3 in the charts.

49ers followed this up with a single called “Don’t You Love Me” which I don’t recall at all while DJ and producer Gianfranco Bortolotti would go onto have multiple hits with house act Capella in the mid 90s.

Yay! Another ‘new’ song! Oh, it’s by New Kids On The Block though. Yes, the NKOTB (or T’KNOB as I like to call them) phenomenon was just getting into full flow by this point. To follow up their No 1 success with “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”, they re-released “Hangin’ Tough” which had flopped outside the Top 40 in September of ’89 but which would become their second consecutive No 1 single in the UK this time around whilst also being the first ‘new’ No 1 of 1990.

After the American sports connection of previous act 49ers, we now get another one immediately as “Hangin’ Tough” was written to be a sports anthem, specifically a theme tune for basketball team Boston Celtics. Oh right – hangin’ as in hanging on the basketball hoop after a slam dunk? Is that what they meant all along? Anyway, it was meant to be their version of “We Will Rock You” by Queen but isn’t “We Are The Champions” Queen’s sports anthem? Whatever, as well as possibly their most well known song for its dumb ass “oh oh oh oh oh” chant- a- long refrain, “Hangin’ Tough” also sucked big time (seeing as we seem to have dived head first into American culture). Just awful.

OK, back to the previously seen hits and it’s yet another dance track, this time by Rob ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K with “Got To Get”. Leila was a bit like a Swedish Betty Boo it strikes me watching this back – “Got To Get” isn’t a million miles away from the likes of “Doin’ The Do” is it?

Hang on, Swedish you say? Yes, all three of them hailed from Sweden which presumably is the prompt for Gary Davies to advise us to “Watch out for some good music coming out of Sweden this year” at the song’s end. Who could he have meant? Swedish music acts? Well obviously there’s Abba but he can’t have meant them. Who else? Ace Of Base wouldn’t appear for another three years and in any case , nobody would have described them as good surely? Far too early in the decade for The Cardigans. Hmm…Army Of Lovers of “Crucified” fame? Maybe. Oh, I’ve got it. The aforementioned Roxette – it must be them. Hardly a Swedish invasion was it? To be fair to Davies, as the decade progressed, the Swedes did make an impression on the UK charts with the likes of The Wannadies, Whale and erm…Rednex all having hits on our shores whilst The Hives continued that run into the new millennium. Maybe Gary was on to something after all.

“Got To Get” peaked at No 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmSKk4BVtZc

So to the No 1 which, as it’s only a week or so since Xmas, is still the festive chart topper which in 1989 was Band Aid II with “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. I’ve said everything I want to say about this in my 80s blog but serendipitously there is a timely tie in as one of the guest vocalist on the track was of course Sir Cliff Richard and it just so happens that as I write this post, I note that today (14th October) is his 80th birthday. I’ll type that again… His. 80th. Birthday! Unbelievable. So he was how old when he did Band Aid then?

* performs some basic mental arithmetic*

My God he was 49! That’s younger than I am now. I am as old as f**k!

The play out track is yet another dance track in “Going Back To My Roots” by F.P.I. Project feat. Sharon Dee Clarke. This was of course an Italian house version of the Odyssey 1981 hit and as with De La Soul earlier, this appears to not be the radio edit as it is an instrumental version. Just weird. Why bother having the act perform in the studio if it’s basically just two dancers up front going through some very perfunctory dance moves. Where was vocalist Sharon Dee Clarke? As result all we get basically 1 minute and 40 seconds of the TOTP studio audience constantly labouring through the ‘Woo! Yeah!’ chant that was de rigueur for any commercial house tune at this time. Ever wonder where that all originated from? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

That ubiquitous "Yeah! Woo!" loop comes from "Think (About It)", a 1972 track by Lyn Collins. The "Yeah!" is Bobby Byrd and the "Woo!" is James Brown: https://t.co/bK0VTyGnbf
#TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 9, 2020

I’m assuming that the three waist coated geezers in the background trying to gee up the crowd are Marco Fratty, Corrado Presti, and Roberto Intrallazz, whose surname initials spell out the act’s name (F.P.I. Project- geddit?). Yes, Gary Davies that’s F.P.I. Project and not “Rich In Paradise” which was the name of one of the songs that are sampled in the track, specifically by Honesty 69. I take it all back. Davies wasn’t onto something – he didn’t have a clue what he was on about.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart rundown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmbPXZ1zhA

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Quireboys	Hey You	No but as I say, it was on that Q Album compilation that I bought
2	Madonna	Dear Jessie	No but my wife had the album
3	Silver Bullet	20 Seconds To Comply	No
4	Latino Rave	Deep Heat ‘89	I’d have rather covered my genitals in Deep Heat muscle rub than bought this
5	Sonia	Listen To Your Heart	As if
6	De La Soul	The Magic Number	No but my wife had their album
7	49ers	Touch Me	Nah
8	New Kids On The Block	Hangin’ Tough	No but I think my younger sister may have been into them and bough it
9	Ron ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K	Got To Get	I really didn’t feel the need to get this at all
10	Band Aid II	Do They Know It’s Christmas	I bought the ’84 version but not even charity could make me part with my cash for this one
11	The FPI Project	Going Back To My Roots	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000n7g4/top-of-the-pops-04011990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/12/december-27-1989-january-9-1990.html