Status Quo

TOTP 04 AUG 1994

Posted on May 8, 2023 by 80stastic

Due to BBC4’s relentless schedule of broadcasting two TOTP repeats a week (which is killing me by the way), we’ve already reached August of 1994. And we know what August means…the start of a new football season. On the very day this show aired, Spurs bought Jürgen Klinsmann from Monaco and despite playing for them for just one season, would become a fan favourite, rebuilding his reputation in England as being a ‘diver’ thanks to this celebration on his debut…

Thank God tonight’s presenter isn’t Spurs fan Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo or we’d have to suffer a whole show of him making endless ‘hilarious’ football references. Instead it’s Mark Goodier who I don’t think has ever even attempted to make a funny quip in his life. Looking at the running order for this show, it’s pretty underwhelming I have to say. So underwhelming that to try and big it up, Goodier announces as a future ‘highlight’ that Status Quo will be making their 100th appearance on the show. TOTP seemed to have a weakness for and reliance on The Quo when it came to creating a buzz about the show. In the first show of the ‘year zero’ revamp, they had them on to perform “Let’s Work Together” as a track from their latest album which seemed counter productive to an attempt to relaunch the show for a younger audience. That tie between the BBC and the band was severed though in 1996 when Radio 1 blacklisted their single “Fun Fun Fun” (a collaboration with The Beach Boys) on the grounds that they were repositioning themselves as a youth station and Status Quo were…well, no longer the status quo. The band took it badly and launched an unsuccessful legal action for a judicial review of the ban on their records. In 1994 though, they were still seen as a draw by the Beeb and they’ll be along soon enough.

If Messrs Rossi, Parfitt et al would find themselves in a metaphorical boxing ring with Radio 1, we start the show in an actual boxing ring as Maxx have decided to perform their new single in one. The follow up to No 4 hit “Get-A-Way”, “No More (I Can’t Stand It)” was more of the same, in other words a huge steaming pile of Eurodance dung. Has there ever been a more apt song title? So why the boxing ring? I’ve no idea but the track certainly doesn’t deliver a knockout punch. As it’s nearly 30 years ago, there’s still some sexual stereotyping going on with the boxers being men and the women on stage (apart from singer Linda Meek) are styled as ring girls announcing what round it is. Actually, is that still how it works in 2023? I know that the profile of women boxing is much higher these days but are ring girls still a thing? I’m not a big fight fan. Definitely still a thing are Maxx who reactivated in 2016 after initially folding in 1995, although Linda Meek now goes by the name of Elyse G Rogers and rapper Gary Bokoe has been replaced by someone called Twitch.

Right, I’m calling it. This must be the very last appearance on TOTP by Level 42. Not only is “Love In A Peaceful World” their very last UK Top 40 hit (it made No 31) but the band broke up in the October of this year and didn’t reform until the new millennium and didn’t release any new material until September 2006, two months after the last ever TOTP aired. I think that’s a cast-iron defence of my opening statement. Despite metamorphosing from Britfunk pioneers into a mega-hit making machine, the band have often been pigeonholed as vapid and bland. I have to admit to liking a handful of their songs – “Hot Water” is a great track – but I’ve never been tempted to actually buy any of their stuff.

Looking at their career in terms of a story arc though, a decent documentary could be made of it. A group of friends from the Isle of Wight relocate to the big smoke where one of them learns the bass and becomes one of the world’s most renowned bass guitarists. They start playing a brand of jazz funk fusion attracting record company interest before a change of musical direction towards pop brings huge mainstream success. Alas, the march of time catches up with them and they find themselves marginalised in the musical landscape. Add to that relationship breakdowns within the band causing line up changes (over 20 people have been band members at some point over the years) and finally tragedy with a founding member committing suicide and it’s quite a tale.

As a valedictory single, “Love In A Peaceful World” isn’t the worst way to bow out. A pleasant tune with an admirable message, I could imagine it being used in a rom com film to great effect. Sadly, and as an indication of where the band were, it only got to No 31. They remain, however, active within and a big draw of the live circuit.

https://youtu.be/vk2v6F7i_Gw

Right who’s next? Ce Ce Peniston with a song that isn’t “Finally”? Eh? Yes, well she did have more than the one hit – in fact, she had seven of which “Hit By Love” was the sixth. I think most of us would struggle to name more than “Finally” though wouldn’t we? What? “We Got A Love Thang”? Oh yeah. It made the Top 10. Surely no more than that though? Sorry? “Somebody Else’s Guy”? That’s Jocelyn Brown’s big hit! Say again? Ce Ce Peniston had equally as big a hit with it in 1997 to promote her Best Of album? Oh come on! Nobody associates that song with her! “Hit By Love” sounds like a rewrite of “Finally” to me, trying to recreate that winning formula but not quite getting there. A bit like in Breaking Bad when Todd takes over the production of the blue crystal meth and can’t get the content as pure as Walter White. Erm…anyway, Ce Ce doesn’t need a methamphetamine hit as she is high on love according to her song but the biggest chart high she could achieve with it was No 33. Unlike Roxy Music, love was not the drug for her.

And so to Status Quo who are in the studio for the 100th time with a little ditty called “I Didn’t Mean It”. I don’t remember this one at all and have to admit that my expectations for it were low. It was the lead single from their 21st studio album “Thirsty Work” and was written by one John David, a Welsh producer, songwriter and musician who had performed with some big names like Springsteen, Clapton and Sting and written for the likes of Cliff Richard, Shakin’ Stevens, Alvin Stardust and Samantha Fox. Hmm. I’m noticing a slight disparity between the calibre of artists he performed with and those he wrote for but never mind. He also worked with Dave Edmunds which is not surprising as “I Didn’t Mean It” has a flavour of Edmunds about it or maybe Nick Lowe with some honky tonk piano to the fore. Now I like both Edmunds and Lowe so I’m probably doing them a disservice by associating them with this track which isn’t really worthy of their name. It’s all very predictable and what I would have expected Status Quo to have been churning out at this time. It seems very anachronistic compared to their chart peers at the time. Maybe they should have seen the BBC bust up writing on the wall.

The cover of the single is more interesting than the song with images of famous people that maybe had regrets about what they had done (I didn’t mean it -geddit?) so there’s Ken Dodd (tax evasion court case – acquitted) Diego Maradona (‘Hand of God’ goal – cheated ) Lester Piggott (tax fraud case – guilty), Richard Nixon (Watergate scandal – resigned) Robert Maxwell (Mirror Group Pension Fund scandal – fraudulent misappropriation), Mike Tyson (rape conviction – guilty) Graham Taylor (failed to get England to World Cup in USA) and Ben Johnson (disqualified for doping in 1988 Olympics and stripped of gold medal). The inclusion of some of those names seems a little ill judged, especially Mike Tyson and Robert Maxwell given the damage they did to people’s lives. Sadly for Status Quo, Radio 1 did mean it when it came to not playing their records any more when 1996 rolled around.

Another diminutive dance diva who’s probably best known for just one song next. After Ce Ce Peniston earlier comes Rozalla who is surely best known for her “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)” hit from 1991 but who was still knocking about the charts three years later with this track “This Time I Found Love”, the second single from her “Look No Further” album. I haven’t got that much to say about this one – not really my bag but I will comment on the solo male dancer up there with Rozalla. I’m not sure that he really adds anything to the performance with his Marcel Marceau routine. In short, he looks like a prat. While we’re at it, did the two keyboard players need to be there either? Couldn’t Rozalla have just done her turn on her own? Maybe some rules about musician unions were at play. “This Time I Found Love” peaked at No 33.

What the hell are Whitesnake doing on TOTP in 1994 with a song from 1987?! It’s no great mystery really. “Is This Love” was rereleased to promote a Greatest Hits album that was presumably to plug a gap in the band’s career – they hadn’t had a studio album out since 1989. The Greatest Hits package was a reasonable success peaking at No 4 and going gold in the UK. It essentially covered their final three albums of the 80s but curiously didn’t include the two singles from 1984’s “Slide It In” that were actual UK Top 40 hits – “Guilty Of Love” and “Give Me More Time” though the former did feature in a 2022 reissue of the album.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – the intro to “Is This Love” always catches me out as it sounds like the start of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer”. That slowly rising synth fade in is almost exactly the same in both. The 1994 rerelease of “Is This Love” made No 25 (it peaked at No 9 in 1987) and was Whitesnake’s final UK Top 40 entry. Oh, one final thing, why isn’t there a question mark at the end of the song title? Bugs the hell out of me!

It’s PJ & Duncan next with “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble”. Although this is probably their most well known tune, the duo clocked up an impressive thirteen Top 40 hits in the UK before the end of the 90s with eleven of them peaking between Nos 16 and 10. The last four were released under the names Ant & Dec. They would return to the charts twice more, once in 2002 with the official England World Cup song “We’re On The Ball” (No 3) and again in 2013 when “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” was rereleased and went to No 1 with sales being donated to the charity ChildLine.

Of course, these two weren’t the only pop band to come out of the children’s TV series Byker Grove. There was also Byker Groove (clever) featuring Donna Air, Jayni Hoy and Vicky Taylor who got to No 48 with “Love Your Sexy…!!”. Two years later, they returned without Taylor and rebranded as Crush with the single “Jellyhead” which should have been a huge hit but which stalled at No 50. With its name checks for Bros and The Prodigy in its lyrics, it’s what The Reynolds Girls should have sounded like and perhaps what Girls Aloud would go on to sound like. It did well in America where it was promoted without any reference to their acting past. Donna Air would go on to have a career as an actor and TV presenter but you’d have to say that she didn’t quite scale the same heights of fame as her two Byker Grove chums.

Finally a record of interest. Even if you didn’t appreciate it sonically, you could hardly ignore this single, probably because you couldn’t avoid it – “7 Seconds” by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry was the second most played song on UK radio in 1994. The very definition of a sleeper hit, it took nine weeks to break into the Top 10 before rising to a peak of No 3. Such a chart trajectory was unusual around this time and would become almost unheard of as the 90s progressed and record companies discovered heavy discounting of singles in their first week of release to create high chart entry positions. Yet there was something about the summer of 1994 which saw a swathe of records that had incredibly long stays within the Top 40. I’m thinking “Crazy For You” by Let Loose, “I Swear” by All 4 One and of course Wet Wet Wet’s 15 weeks chart topper “Love Is All Around”.

Whilst all of the above though were propelled by a traditional momentum (a classic piece of airplay friendly pop, a big swoonsome ballad and a cover version of a well known song given huge exposure by a runaway box office hit film), “7 Seconds” was different. For a start, the artists involved were not chart guarantors by any stretch of the imagination. Youssou N’Dour was a huge name in World music but had never had a hit single before (his collaboration with Peter Gabriel on “Shakin’ The Tree” was the closest he had ever come). Meanwhile, Neneh Cherry was a long way from the huge breakthrough star she had been in 1989 when the likes of “Buffalo Stance” and “Manchild” were huge Top 5 hits. Her second album “Homebrew” had not done anywhere near the numbers of her debut “Raw Like Sushi” and had provided just two minor hit singles. The combination of the two of them on a track seemed an unlikely proposition for huge chart success. And yet…there was something about this haunting, rich synth heavy ballad that was sung in three different languages that gave it global appeal. A huge hit around Europe (it was No 1 in France for 16 weeks – have that Marti Pellow!), it was a monster both on the airwaves and the cash registers. Youssou would never have another UK hit single whilst Neneh would score a No 1 with “Love Can Build A Bridge” in 1995 as part of the charity collective for Comic Relief and a Top 10 single in “Woman” the following year.

It’s week 10 for Wet Wet Wet and “Love Is All Around” which means we are two thirds through their reign at the top. I struggled to say anything else about this record in the last post and things haven’t improved since. I’ve got some things to say about its demise but I need to keep those back for use in a few posts time. OK, how about addressing one of the record’s most distinctive bits, the guttural sound that Marti Pellow makes as the song heads into its climax. I think he growls “yeah!” and it sounds like that on the version that was released but I’m sure in some of the performances we’ve seen on the show over the weeks it sounds more like a “hey!”.

Whatever. It did get me thinking about songs with grunts, growls, screams or generally unusual vocal noises in them. First to come to mind was the “Ohhh!” by John Travolta in “Summer Nights” quickly followed by the “Ooo!” by Lionel Richie in “Easy” by The Commodores. Then there’s Paul McCartney’s strangled yelp in “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” and who could ignore Robert Plant at the start of “Immigrant Song”? think my favourite though comes at 1:43 in this clip…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Maxx	“No More (I Can’t Stand It)”	I couldn’t have said it better myself
2	Level 42	Love In A Peaceful World	Nope
3	Ce Ce Peniston	Hit By Love	No
4	Status Quo	I Didn’t Mean It	As if
5	Rozalla	This Time I Found Love	Negative
6	Whitesnake	Is This Love	Not in 1987 nor 1994
7	PJ & Duncan	Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble	Nah
8	Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry	7 Seconds	I did not
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ldnz/top-of-the-pops-04081994

TOTP 08 OCT 1992

Posted on April 9, 2022 by 80stastic

By 1992, TOTP was into its 29th year. The very first show had been broadcast on New Year’s Day 1964 and was produced in Dickenson Road Studio in Manchester which was just a short walk from where I was living in 1992. Anyway, whilst the show could boast an enduring longevity a new music vehicle debuted on this very day. Yes, a few hours after this TOTP had finished, the very first Later…with Jools Holland hit our screens. Whilst TOTP would eventually peter out and be deemed unwanted in 2006, Later… is still part of the BBC’s broadcasting schedule today albeit that it had undergone some changes of format, times of transmission and even some tinkering with its name in that time. Its remit was vastly different from TOTP in that it was not bound by charts or hit records (mind you those time honoured rules seem to have gone by the by in recent TOTP repeats as well). Showcasing a wide variety of musical genres, its circular arrangement of stages, jam sessions with the host and a studio audience of 300 meant that you couldn’t really mistake Later…for its older sibling. Musical guests on that first show were The Neville Brothers (Gary and Phil!), The Christians, Nu Colours and D’Influence – I’d have maybe been interested in The Christians but nothing else. Over the years it has received accolades and criticism alike both for its choice of artists and its host but whatever your opinion of it, you have to give credit to a show that has lasted that long. I wonder if any of the acts on TOTP tonight ever received an invite from Jools?

We start with M People. They must have been on Later…surely? I’m going to have to check the list of episodes for 59 series to be sure. Hmm. Not sure about this post’s theme all of a sudden.

*checks anyway*

Yes! They first appeared in series 4 nearly two years on from this TOTP broadcast alongside Nick Lowe and an all female Bulgarian state choir. By 1998, they were so successful that they qualified for their own Later…Special with the whole show dedicated to them. Back in 1992 though they were struggling to establish themselves as a consistently successful chart act. They had achieved three consecutive Top 40 hits but diminishing returns had set in and each one peaked at a lower chart position than the one before. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, the band returned to the studio to record two new tracks to not only reverse that trend but to add to their debut album “Northern Soul” for a re-release. One of those tracks was “Excited” which was put out as a single. It did what it was designed to do but only just when it peaked at No 29.

In his intro, host Tony Dortie (more on him ‘laterz’) encourages us to jump about to the song which is the exact opposite of what plays out as the band give the most static of performances with certainly no jumping going on. The track is all about the chorus which is perfect for Heather Small’s enormous, swooping vocals. The rest of it is a bit meh – yes, not the most articulate of critiques but then I’m writing 6,000 words a week on this blog so I’m allowing myself the odd bit of lazy writing OK?

The band should probably have just gone straight to Plan B which is what they ended up doing eventually anyway. In the February of the following year they rereleased “How Can I Love You More (Mixes)” which did what it said on the tin and remixed their debut single (including a mix by Sasha) and the combination of radio and club versions was enough to take then into the Top 10 for the first time. Then came the Mercury Music Prize winning “Elegant Slumming” and the rest was history.

It’s the mini chart rundown from 20 – 11 next over the video for “Sentinel” by Mike Oldfield. He’s a big name, he’s surely been on Later…Yes, of course he has on series 12 in 1998 appearing alongside Fun Lovin’ Criminals amongst others. He played the intro from “Tubular Bells” – of course he did. We’ve seen both the video for “Sentinel” and an ‘exclusive’ performance of the song before so do I have to comment on this one again? I do? Erm…well, obviously this was from “Tubular Bells II” and six years later Oldfield released “Tubular Bells III” and then a year later “The Millennium Bell”. It didn’t stop there though as he re-recorded the original album for its 30th anniversary in 2003. And I thought Later… had some longevity.

Next up are Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. Did they ever appear on Later…? What do you reckon? Well, they didn’t as far as I can tell. Their stock was pretty high in 1992 though. They’d headlined the NME stage at Glastonbury in the Summer and had toured extensively in the US where MTV had picked up some of their videos for heavy rotation. Indeed, this single “Not Sleeping Around” topped the Modern Rock / Alternative chart over there. The lead single for second studio album “Are You Normal?”, it peaked at No 19 in the UK making it their second biggest hit ever. Apparently Jools Holland wasn’t a fan though.

As for the song itself, I don’t remember this one but listening back to it now it has hints of EMF, The Wedding Present and Jocks Wa Hey. Who are the last name on that list you say? Only the greatest band that never existed! Still not sure? The Young Person’s Guide To Becoming A Rock Star? Channel 4? Late 90s? Here they are in all their glory…

What a time the next artist was having around now. Not only was Tasmin Archer on her way to No 1 with “Sleeping Satellite” but by the time it got to the top of the charts she was also appearing on the third ever edition of Later…and who was she sharing the bill with for that show? Only Motown legend Smokey Robinson! She must have been pinching herself. Nobody had ever heard of her six weeks before that.

Although her fame was fleeting, she isn’t the one hit wonder many may think. Her album “Great Expectations” provided her with a further three hit singles including the dark but powerful “In Your Care” which was written about child abuse and raised money for the Child Line charity. The song’s subject matter showed that Tasmin wasn’t one for shying away from issues and was a brave choice as a follow up single to a No 1 record.

Two years later she demonstrated her self belief by covering not one but four songs by one of the most respected songwriters of a generation when she released the “Shipbuilding EP” which included four Elvis Costello songs. It took some balls to record her version of the EP’s title track . Not only was it written by Costello but there was already a version in existence that was recognised as the definitive take on the song by Robert Wyatt. My wife is a big Costello fan and she liked Tasmin’s version enough to buy it. There really was more to Archer than just “Sleeping Satellite”.

Now a tricky one to predict for many reasons next but I’m specifically referring to whether they ever appeared on Later… Prince was certainly a big enough name to have done so but did his schedule ever allow it? It didn’t according to Wikipedia and Jools Holland never got to accompany the great man but there is this rather lovely tribute to him by Gregory Porter from the show:

The follow up to “Sexy MF” and the second single from the “Love Symbol” album, “My Name Is Prince” peaked at No 7 on the UK Top 40. Oh the irony of that song title given his battles with his nomenclature! The naming of the song was surely deliberate. It’s a typical, full on Prince funk out of a track and I quite liked it at the time but it’s not up there amongst the very best of his work on reflection. Apparently that is actually Prince in the video behind that chainmail face covering sending fans wild as he performs in an alleyway which is quite appropriate as the full video features Cheers actress Kirstie Alley. I’m guessing that wasn’t deliberate though.

The next artist we last saw on the show as part of Quartz performing their dance version of Carol King’s “It’s Too Late” back in 1991. The following year she was back in her own right, striking out on her own as Dina Carroll (Dina bring short for Geraldine). She’d already clocked up one Top 40 single in 1992 called “Ain’t No Man” but it didn’t make it onto TOTP. She’s made the cut this time though with her second single “Special Kind Of Love”. This was a jaunty little number if a little generic. I could imagine Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey belting this one out – in fact it does sound a bit like the latter’s “Emotions” track come to think of it. There’s even a little bit of vocal dynamics Mariah style in the middle. Not unpleasant though. Dina would go supernova the following year with her Top 3 hit “Don’t Be A Stranger” propelling sales of her “So Close” album through the roof. Said album would eventually furnish Dina with six chart hits.

She looks ever so slightly uncomfortable in this performance up there on her own like she’s not entirely sure where to put herself. At one point she nearly misses her vocal cue and at another seems to look to the side of the stage as if hoping for someone behind the scenes to tell her where to stand. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have noticed anything at the time but writing a blog makes me look for the slightest details now.

As for her Later…credentials, she appeared on the very first Hootenanny in 1993 which would have coincided with the height of her success. Ah yes, Hootenanny, Jools’ annual New Year’s Eve shindig. My wife and I used to watch this religiously but our commitment has waned in recent years. I think it was when we found out it wasn’t live and was in fact recorded some time in October I think. You can’t trust anything or anyone these days can you?

“Special Kind Of Love” peaked at No 16.

Next a bloke who really should have been a none hit wonder rather than the one hit variety but here he is with a second Top 40 entry. Billy Ray Cyrus was responsible for one of the year’s cringiest songs in “Achy Breaky Heart” but here he was trying to prove that he was a proper artist really and not a novelty song singer. “Could’ve Been Me” was his follow up to that ~~turd~~ song and he’s doing his best Merle Haggard impression to convince us of his credibility. That ain’t working for me at all and neither is the fact that his performance is being broadcast live from Nashville, the home of country music. This guy was pure (Dwight) hokum surely?

Cyrus never had another UK hit despite releasing 53 singles and 16 studio albums during his career. The figure for his appearances on Later….? That would be a big, fat zero. Oh and a final quiz question before we’re done with Billy Ray. Can you name another artist who is only known really for one hugely successful song but who had a follow up hit that included the words ‘Could’ve Been’ in the title? Yep, it was the shopping mall princess herself, Tiffany.

Four Breakers this week two of which we’ve already seen in full before. Why did the producers keep doing this? It seems like such a waste especially when you consider that one of those two songs is by Status Quo!

Yes, we’re stuck with the Quo putting in a halfhearted shift at the money for old rope factory. Even Jools Holland couldn’t be doing with them and they were never invited on Later…The video for “Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz – Part 25)” seems mainly to just be the promo for their 1984 single “The Wanderer” which is one of the tracks in the medley intercut with some live gig footage but really, who gives a s**t?

The second artist who’s already performed in full on the show previously is Sade who, we must remember, are a band not a singer. At least the video for “No Ordinary Love” has singer Sade Adu costumed as a mermaid to…erm…retain our interest (as opposed to some blokes in denim arseing around on a bus as per Quo’s video). And Later…?What do you reckon? Yes, of course they’ve been on but not until November 2000 presumably to promote their “Lovers Rock” album.

Now here’s a real forgotten song – “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” by Patty Smyth and Don Henley. Hands up who remembers this? Well, if anyone is reading this in the US or Canada they might well have raised an arm as this was a No 2 record in America and the biggest selling single of the year in Canada. Over here though, it petered out at No 22.

So who is/was Patty Smyth? That’s Patty Smyth not Patti Smith the legendary US punk rock icon. Well, Patty was in a band called Scandal (never heard of them) who had one major hit in America in 1984 but it didn’t translate to the UK. By far her biggest hit was this one as discussed above but that shouldn’t define her career. She has written multiple songs for film soundtracks, worked with bands like The Hooters and – get this – she was invited by Eddie Van Halen to join the rock giants as a replacement for singer David Lee Roth but she declined as she was pregnant at the time with her first child. That was with her first husband Richard Hell of Richard Hell & The Voidoids fame. I only really know about this guy through my wife who’s elder brother listened to a lot of Hell’s music when they were growing up. As if that partner wasn’t interesting enough, guess who Patty is married to now? John McEnroe the tennis legend! I know! John is also a musician having been taught to play the guitar by his friend Eric Clapton. And I thought my guitar teacher was good.

Back to the music though and “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” is a nice enough country rock ballad that you could imagine The Eagles having recorded (no surprise given Henley’s involvement). I could also picture it being on the soundtrack to a romantic drama probably starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock.

Neither Don Henley nor Patty Smyth (nor John McEnroe!) have ever appeared on Later…though Patti Smith has.

The final Breaker comes from Simple Minds who are back in the charts but not with new material. Back in 1992, the band were at the start of a four year hiatus between albums. Record label Virgin wisely decided that now would therefore be a good time to raid the band’s back catalogue and release a Best Of album. “Glittering Prize 81/92” was that album but as it was a Virgin endeavour it precluded the inclusion of tracks from the band’s first three non-Virgin albums. Sadly this meant marvellous songs like “I Travel” were missing from the track listing. Still, you couldn’t say it wasn’t jam packed with hits. Sixteen of them were on the album and the appeal of that was enough to send it to No 1 and triple platinum.

To promote it, a double A-side single was released, that being “Love Song/Alive And Kicking” The former was a track from 1981 that had been a minor hit peaking outside of the Top 40 whilst the latter was that well known behemoth of a rock anthem that went to No 7 in 1985. Interesting that Virgin chose the lesser known “Love Song” to promote the album (it’s that song that TOTP play) though in my memory it was “Alive And Kicking” that picked up all the airplay.

We sold loads of this album in the Our Price in Rochdale where I was working whilst the single also sold well peaking at No 6. There’d already been an unofficial Greatest Hits album by the band in the form of live album “Live In The City Of Light” from 1987 – Phil Collins did a similar thing by releasing “Serious Hits Live” before a formal Greatest Hits – plus the “Themes” box sets from 1990. Subsequent years would see the band release multiple Best Of albums including an acoustic one in 2017.

Despite their status and longevity, Simple Minds have never been on Later… though Simply Red have. Where’s the justice?

And so we arrive at the moment that I realised that this Take That thing wasn’t going away anytime soon. Having achieved the status of genuine pop stars with bona fide hits, it was time to consolidate and how do you do that after your first two hits have been uptempo numbers? With a ballad of course and Gary Barlow had just the thing. Written when he was 15 and presumably when he knew little about the whole love thing, “A Million Love Songs” was perfect for cultivating the affection of thousands of teenage girls up and down the country. Tuneful yet simple, there was nothing very complicated going on here although the self referential use of the phrase ‘love songs’ did add an extra layer to it. Kind of like the innocent, wide eyed younger sibling to “Song For Whoever” by The Beautiful South.

It’s not often mentioned but the single wasn’t actually a single at all but an E.P (“The Love Songs E.P.” to be exact). The CD single and vinyl formats all contained three other songs in addition to “A Million Love Songs”. The cassette version only had a different mix of it. There was also a limited edition 7” that came with transfer tattoos that had the same track listing as the cassette. So what were the other songs on the E.P. and were they any good? They were “Still Can’t Get Over You”, “How Can It Be” and “Don’t Take Your Love”. As for their quality, I have no idea (nor wish to find out) as they lay largely redundant and attracted very little radio play. The group themselves can’t have been that enamoured with them as none made the cut for their debut album though one of them was included as a bonus track on a 2006 expanded edition.

This TOTP performance seemed designed to establish two things. One, that the band could do more than just dance about like pop puppets to some disco-lite tracks and two, that Gary Barlow was the talent here. I defy anybody watching this back then to have looked at the group and say that the guy second left in the hat doing backing vocals will have a bigger solo career than the bloke on the piano. The fact that he did also led to Robbie Williams appearing on Later…something that neither Gary Barlow nor Take That managed.

“A Million Love Songs” peaked at No 7.

Before we get to the No 1, a little more on presenter Tony Dortie. Tony has been revisiting his past and tweeting along with some of these TOTP repeats. He seems like a decent sort, quite self deprecating. Anyway, he announced that last week’s repeats would be the last he would engage with but promised to bow out with a story that couldn’t be shown on any of The Story Of…TOTP documentaries. He also promised to reveal the real reason why the much reviled Adrian Rose refused to give consent for his TOTP presenter shows to be aired again. There was much build up to Tony releasing this video and he prefaced it with an explanation that all the legals had been cleared and the story was ready to go. Wow! This was surely going to be explosive and blow the lid on the show’s secrets. Are you ready to hit that play button? Go for it!

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for the loss of 10 minutes and 35 seconds of your life that you won’t get back if you do.

Thanks for nothing Tony. Laterz!

It’s a final week at the top for The Shamen and “Ebeneezer Goode”. With the single deleted by the band to clear the release schedule for the next single, they would be back near the top of the charts again soon enough when “Boss Drum” went to No 4. A final trip to the Top 5 was squeezed in when “Phorever People” was released just before Xmas. The Shamen were never anywhere near as big again.

P.S. They never appeared on Later…either.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	Excited	No but I think my wife bought the album
2	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Nah
3	Ned’s Atomic Dustbin	Not Sleeping Around	I did not
4	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Nope
5	Prince	My Name Is Prince	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
6	Dina Carroll	Special Kind Of Love	No
7	Billy Ray Cyrus	Could’ve Been Me	Hell no!
8	Status Quo	Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz – Part 25)	Never!
9	Sade	No Ordinary Love	Nah
10	Patty Smyth and Don Henley	Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough	Negative
11	Simple Minds	Love Song/Alive And Kicking	No but I’ve got one pop those Best Of albums
12	Take That	A Million Love Songs	Never happening
13	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	Don’t think I did

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001648s/top-of-the-pops-08101992

TOTP 01 OCT 1992

Posted on April 6, 2022 by 80stastic

The new ‘year zero’ TOTP format isn’t so new anymore as this show marked its one year anniversary. Host Mark Franklin makes reference to this in his off screen intro and also mentions the shift of location from Television Centre to BBC’s Elstree base in Hertfordshire. All of the changes involved in the new format were meant to reconnect the then nearly 28 years old TOTP with its traditional youthful audience who were embracing a dance revolution that the show was struggling to showcase. In a case of perfect symmetrical timing, the first act on tonight is performing a song called “Connected”. I refer, of course, to Stereo MCs.

Along with Suede from last week’s show, for a short while this lot were the epitome of hip. Not the same sort of hip that Brett and the boys exuded though. No, this was a more grubby, deep down and dirty type of hip. Not that I’m suggesting that Suede were a bunch of Mummies Boys. No, it’s just that the face of Stereo MCS, Rob Birch, had the look of someone who’d seen some things that you definitely wish you hadn’t. Well, that and Catweazle (Google him if you’re too young to know who that was). I wrongly assumed that they were a Manchester band due to their image and sound and although they had toured with Happy Mondays, they were in fact from Nottingham. They’d also been around since the end of the last decade and had already released two albums before they came up with “Connected”. The lead single and title of their third album, it hit a chord with both the dance heads and the indie crowd with its skanking beat and ‘aa-aa-ye-ah’ chant. It was perfect for lumbering around the dance floor Ian Brown / King Monkey style.

Just like Sade before them on last week’s show, the band were prolific at releasing material early in their career (three albums in three years) but then took nine years to record a follow up to “Connected”. The world felt like a very different place by then (9/11 was only a few months away from happening) and it didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor which went platinum, won a BRIT award and peaked at No 2 in the charts. They have released another three albums since with the last coming in 2011.

Some Antipodean rock/pop now as Crowded House continue to mine the wealth of tunes from their “Woodface” album with the release of fifth single “It’s Only Natural”. The LP had come out 15 months earlier but sales of it only really took off after “Weather With You” was a Top 10 hit in February /March of ‘92. I loved this album and got a signed copy when the band did a PA at the HMV megastore in Manchester. I think they did a small set before playing a gig at Manchester Academy on the evening (which I also went to). It was a fine show, probably one of the best I have ever witnessed.

As for this TOTP performance, clearly the producers didn’t know what to do with the band and so they’ve ended up playing against a completely white backdrop with the only concession to props being the dry ice machine being put into top gear. Or maybe it was a deliberate statement that said these guys are all about the music and don’t need any cheap gimmicks getting in the way?

As for the song itself, you have to admire any song they gets ‘this mortal coil’ and ‘circumstantial’ into its lyrics but what was it actually about? Could it be that Neil Finn was singing about his hair? Neil’s barnet must be one of the most odd in music. Not flashy odd (Billy Idol) or designed to shock odd (Sigue Sigue Sputnik) but naturally odd. It’s got a life of its own, stubbornly growing at odd angles and generally behaving in an unruly way. Neil of course has previous in the hair stakes. He was in art rockers Split Enz (get it?) and his hair was even more mental then. “It’s Only Natural” peaked at No 24.

There have been a few changes to the ‘year zero’ format over the past 12 months one of which has been a return to a chart countdown (sort of). They started off just listing the Top 10 but over the last few weeks they’ve expanded that to include the rest of the chart. Here we get Nos 20 to 11 over a video by Chaos for their cover of “Farewell My Summer Love”. Who were these guys? Well, they were Sinitta’s backing dancers who were put together into a pop group by her then boyfriend Simon Cowell and included a 9 year old in their ranks, Don’t remember them? You can forgive yourself as firstly, just like with Omar’s “Music” single that soundtracked this feature last week, their song never actually made the Top 40 peaking at No 55. Secondly, their name. Does Ultimate Kaos ring any bells? That’s what they changed it to two years on from this and it worked as they clocked up six Top 40 hits. The power of the word ‘ultimate’ and some misspelling in evidence there.

If the staging for Crowded House was minimalist, then the producers have gone all Laurence Llewelyn- Bowen for the next act. Hear that noise? That’s the sound of the bottom of the music barrel being scraped. Or possibly it’s the annoying sound of one of the most iconic computer games of the decade. Tetris was that descending blocks puzzle game that was Nintendo’s top selling title and that came as the default game with their Game Boy console bundle. OK, so who’s idea was it to release a song based on the game? Nintendo themselves? Oh no. If you thought about it for long enough I reckon you would come up with the scoundrel’s name. The aforementioned Simon Cowell? Good guess but no. Need a clue? OK – Bombalurina. No, not Timmy Mallett but Andrew Lloyd Webber. The good lord (!) released a Eurodance version of the “Tetris” theme under the name of Doctor Spin and the idiotic British public bought it in enough quantities to take it to No 6.

Obviously the ex-Mr Brightman wasn’t going to perform this atrocity himself so for the sake of TOTP some dancers have been drafted in and dressed in costumes resembling blocks from the game. The absolute state of this. Unbelievably, this wasn’t the only record that was a hit based on this ludicrous idea as simultaneously in the charts came “Supermarioland” by Ambassadors Of Funk. What a time to be alive!

Some Breakers now starting with The Sundays. This is a band I really should have massively been into but yet again somehow they slipped under my radar and through my grasp. I eventually cottoned on when they released their (so far) final album “Static & Silence” five years on from this point but I really should dive deeper into their back catalogue. “Goodbye” was taken from their second album “Blind” and marked their first release on the Parlophone label after Rough Trade had entered receivership leading to the band relocating labels. Their debut album “Reading, Writing And Arithmetic” had been released with the indie legends and had been a huge success going Top 5 despite the lack of a hit single. That statistic was amended in 1998 when “Here’s Where The Story Ends” was covered by London dance act Tin Tin Out and taken into the Top 10. Somehow I always get that confused with Electribe 101’s “Tell Me When The Fever Ended”. Damn my fading memory.

I can name the first three singles from Neneh Cherry with no prompting whatsoever but ask me for anything after that and I’m struggling. There was “7 Seconds“ with Youssou N’Dour and…something on the “Red Hot+Blue” album? I remember the front cover to her second album “Homebrew” but nothing else about it and certainly not this lead single from it called “Money Love”.

Back in 1989 she’d been a huge breakout star with her “Raw Like Sushi” album achieving platinum status for sales of 300,000 units. Three years in pop music is a long time though and by the time “Homebrew” came out though, her era of glory felt like a long time ago. Did she still have the ear of pop fans? Sales of the album suggested no. It crawled to a high of No 27 despite the inclusion of a track featuring REM’s Michael Stipe. The single “Money Love” fared little better not even making the Top 20. Not that it wasn’t any good but how could Neneh expect to compete with a single based around the music used in a hand held computer game? Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber – you truly are an arse sir.

We had an ‘exclusive” performance of “Sentinel” by Mike Oldfield just last week but that hasn’t stopped the TOTP producers including it in the Breakers seven days later. I’m really not sure the video which seems to be a montage of various different takes on the “Tubular Bells” graphic warranted another outing. If you Google Mike Oldfield some of the entries in the People Also Ask section include ‘How long is Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells?’, ‘How much is Mike Oldfield?’ and ‘What did Mike Oldfield?’. Eh?

By the end of the fourth of tonight’s Breakers we will have achieved optimum capacity for shoehorning the most songs into the smallest amount of time. Eight songs in less than 12 minutes! I really think this was TOTP trying to compete with ITV’s entirely video based music vehicle The Chart Show. This last track really deserved more airtime. REM had gone truly global with the previous year’s “Out Of Time” album. Not resting on their laurels, they released their third album in four years “Automatic For The People” with the lead single being “Drive”. For me this is one of those songs that leaves an impression on you after just that first listen so heavy is its sound. A dark, brooding, menacing track, it’s marked out further by its odd structure- it doesn’t really have a chorus.

There’s various online theories about what the lyrics mean especially around who Ollie is but according to Michael Stipe, one of its influences comes from an unexpected source. The line “Hey kids, rock ‘n’ roll” was inspired by David Essex’s “Rock On”. Actually, I’m sure there’s a scene in his film Stardust when his character Jim MacLaine is doing a gig with his band The Stray Cats and he shouts out “Hey, rock ‘n’ roll!” during it now I come to think of it. As good as “Drive” is, for me it’s not best track on the album with at least three or four other songs ahead of it. It peaked at No 11, the band’s second biggest UK hit at that point in their career yet, unusually for an album’s lead single, it doesn’t feature on subsequent Best Of albums.

Right who’s next? Oh great, it’s Dr Alban who’s up to No 2. Look man, if I need a song called “It’s My Life” in my…erm…life then I’ve got that wonderful song by Talk Talk. Hell, at a stretch I’ve even got the cover version by No Doubt. I have zero need for this Eurodance-ified house track with some terrible rapping tacked onto it. Apparently the track was re-recorded in 2014 by the good doctor and some bloke called Chawki and retitled “It’s My Life (Don’t Worry)” but I really can’t be arsed to check it out not even for the purposes of this blog. Look, it’s my life OK?

Another song now that totally transports me back to this era when I had just started working at the Our Price store in Rochdale. “Iron Lion Zion” was the third posthumously released single by Bob Marley following his death in 1981. We’d already had “Buffalo Soldier” in 1983 to promote the “Confrontation” album of unreleased recordings which went to No 4. A year later came “One Love/People Get Ready” to promote the “Legend” compilation album. Fast forward to 1992 and “Iron Lion Zion” was put out to advertise the “Songs Of Freedom” box set. Like its two predecessors it went Top 5.

Espousing Rastafarian beliefs of Zion as the Promised Land of Ethiopia and the Lion Of Judah representing Haile Selassie, it also featured legendary jazzer Courtney Pine. Appealing to both daytime radio and the clubs via its 12” mix, it was a timely reminder of Marley’s talent and legacy. Apparently his final words to his son Ziggy on his death bed were “Money can’t buy life”. A wise man indeed.

If it’s the early 90s then there’s always room for one more dance tune and here it is – “I’m Gonna Get You” by Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown. This was the third hit on the spin for these Staffordshire techno ravers following “Such A Feeling” and “Playing With Knives” and it would prove to be the biggest of the lot when it peaked at No 3. This time they had roped in a female soul singer with the surname of Brown to help but it wasn’t Jocelyn. Nope, but Angie Brown had been recruited to sing like her namesake. “I’m Gonna Get You” featured lyrics from Jocelyn’s song “Love’s Gonna Get You” and rather than pay to sample the original, Angie filled in and re-recorded that part of the track.

So who is Angie Brown? Well, she’s worked mainly as a backing singer with some huge names like The Rolling Stones, Happy Mondays, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry. She’s also on Mark Morrison’s 1996 No 1 “Return Of The Mack” but her first taste of chart success in her own right came in 1992 with Bizarre Inc. Despite having Angie to front the record, there are five blokes up there with her on stage (two dancers and three keyboard players) at least half of which have the regulation ponytail for these times. For all that, I didn’t mind this one.

As it’s an anniversary show, it’s a perfect opportunity to squeeze in a mention that Radio 1 celebrated their own 25th birthday the day before this broadcast. Fair enough so how to mark this event on TOTP? Bit of a video montage of clips featuring past and present DJs perhaps. Maybe back in the day when Radio 1 and TOTP were so inextricably linked you couldn’t see the joins that would have been what happened. This was a new era though where Radio 1 ties had been severed so just a three second clip of all the DJs together on the steps of Broadcasting House (?) saying “Happy Birthday Radio 1 FM!” was deemed more than adequate.

Also celebrating 25 years of existence (just about) were the next act Status Quo. Hang on! Weren’t they on the first show of the ‘year zero’ era? Yes, they were playing a horrible version of “Let’s Work Together” from their “Rock ‘til You Drop” album. One year on almost to the day and they’re still seen by TOTP producer Stanley Appel as the go to party band when you’re having a knees up. Had he learned nothing from the past year?! So what are they playing this time? A medley of course! Just about everything they released around this time was a medley wasn’t it? This one was called “Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)” and featured tracks including “The Wanderer”, “Marguerita Time” and “Living On An Island”. Bigging up the performance by it being live from Amsterdam was neither here nor there as the band were just in a room that could gave been anywhere. What a horrible, pointless waste of everyone’s time!

The Shamen still rule the roost with “Ebeneezer Goode”. Remember when Wet Wet Wet deleted “Love Is All Around” after 15 weeks at No 1 because they were bored of the whole thing by then? Well The Shamen did the same thing two years before them with this single but you don’t hear much about it. There were rumours it was because of the constant press attention about the supposed drug references in the track but the band themselves said it was that its prolonged run at the top was mucking up their schedule for subsequent single releases. Naughty naughty!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MCs	Connected	Don’t think I did
2	Crowded House	It’s Only Natural	No but I had the Woodface album it was from
3	Chaos	Farewell My Summer Love	Hell no!
4	Doctor Spin	Tetris	I’d rather have eaten my own arm
5	The Sundays	Goodbye	No
6	Neneh Cherry	Money Love	Nope
7	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Nah
8	REM	Drive	Not the single but I bought the Automatic For The People album
9	Dr. Alban	It’s My Life	Definitely not!
10	Bob Marley	Iron Lion Zion	I did not
11	Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown	I’m Gonna Get You	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12	Status Quo	Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)	Are you joking?!
13	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	It’s a 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/m0015x90/top-of-the-pops-01101992

TOTP 03 OCT 1991

Posted on October 20, 2021 by 80stastic

For the first time in what seems like forever, the stars have aligned and the BBC4 TOTP repeats and therefore the TOTP Rewind blog is in sync with the real world! Yes, it is October in 2021 and we have finally entered October in 1991. Come the broadcast of the repeats next Friday, we will almost be in exact parallel to the day with 30 years ago.

For now though, it isn’t exact timings that preoccupies the world of TOTP but the ‘year zero’ revamp. The 03 October 1991 show brought about the biggest changes to the show’s format in years. Radio 1 DJs as hosts? Gone! Paul Hardcastle’s “The Wizard” theme tune that had soundtracked the show’s opening credits for the last 5 and a half years? Gone! Indeed, said opening credit graphics? Gone! The option to mime to a backing track? Gone! Acts had to sing live from hereon in. Even the set was new with the show having been shifted from BBC Television Centre in London to BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood. All of these changes were the brainchild of incoming new producer Stanley Appel whose associations with the programme extended back to 1966 through various roles as cameraman, production assistant, director and stand-in producer. Despite his long standing connections with the show, I’d have to say ‘talk about a new broom’!

The concept behind all these changes was to make the show appear ‘cool’ again and install within in it a sense of it being fit for purpose as a music show reflecting the trends and taste of youth. So why get in someone who had been kicking around the show for the past 25 years? Appel was 58 at the time of being put in charge of the show! 58! That’s even five tears older than I am now and I am sooo middle aged!Given all of the above, could the new format work work? Did it succeed? Let’s see what happened in the very first show in this new era of TOTP…

Yeah well, straight off the bat I wasn’t keen on the new theme tune which was composed by somebody called Tony Gibber (who?). At least the previous theme tune was written by a bona fide pop star. Tony Gibber sounds like the name of a weatherman on local radio. In all of the online polls I have seen as to the best ever TOTP theme tune, nothing comes close to “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin and certainly not Tony Gibber’s effort! As for the new graphics, it looks like they were trying just a little but too hard to prove that this was the show for the kids and that new dance music they liked by having silhouetted figures dancing in…what was that supposed to be ? A generic warehouse setting seems most likely (it was actually The London Museum of Water & Steam). Meanwhile, the new metallic logo was widely ridiculed as looking like a weather vane.

Once all of that was out of the way, instead of the usual grinning fizzog of the host doing a to camera intro, we get a disembodied voice introducing the first act who are Erasure with their single “Love To Hate You”. I guess it was a solid and sensible choice of act to open the new look TOTP. Vince and Andy were in their imperial phase and the song itself is an upbeat number to help set the mood for the show. Andy seems to have come wearing striped, sleeveless pyjamas but it’s the backing dancers who cause you to gawp the most as they appear to be be dressed as four fortune tellers (possibly called Madame Zelda). Not sure what that was all about but someone should have asked them to look into a crystal ball to ask if this new TOTP format would be a success or not. Definitely a success was “Love To Hate You” which would become one of the duo’s biggest ever hits when it peaked at No 4.

Finally we get to see the new presenters who this week are Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin. Dortie had first been seen on 24-hour cable and satellite television channel Music Box before moving onto work for Children’s BBC on a show called UP2U which I think was meant to be a hip version of Blue Peter. If so, Dortie’s recruitment would tally with the strategy of trying to update the show’s image to be more ‘cool’. Mark Franklin was just 17 at the time of his elevation to national TV having previously worked on BBC Wiltshire Sound. By the end of his time on the show, Franklin would have presented more TOTP episodes than the likes of Bruno Brookes and Mark Goodier but that stint has hardly made him a household name I would argue. Still, they both seemed keen and enthusiastic although neither actually introduce themselves preferring to allow the on screen text below them to tell us their names. Dortie then gives some blather about the show going to reflect the changing trends in the UK music scene before saying something unintelligible about the Top 10. Here come those what Tony? I’ve rewound this a number times and still can’t understand what he’s saying. Being a mumbler is probably not great if you’re a TV presenter!

The Top 10 countdown then appears on our screens with nothing but the new theme tune playing over it. There’s not even any voiceover announcing the songs. It just looks weird. Back in the mid 80s the producers introduced a video Top 10 which played snippets of every song. This is like that but you can’t hear the actual songs! They even just throw away the No 1 reveal within the first five minutes of the show but then it is only Bryan Adams for the 13th week in a row so I guess there wasn’t much of an element of surprise anyway.

Then we’re onto the next act which is again in the new studio and its Voice Of The Beehive with “I Think I Love You”. I’m just putting this out there right now – I always liked this lot. A bit like a poppier B52s. Good songs and an enthusiastic delivery which is exactly what they give here. As markers for what we could expect from the new show, Erasure and Voice Of The Beehive weren’t bad choices at all.

Of course, “I Think I Love You” wasn’t actually a Voice Of The Beehive song and was in fact originally by The Partridge Family. I was just a little bit too young to remember this fictional family group that, like the Monkees before them, went on to have real life pop hits. Their TV show aired between 1970 and 1974 (so when I was between the ages of two and six) but it made a superstar out of David Cassidy who played eldest son Keith. “I Think I Love You” was The Partridge Family’s first hit peaking at No 1 in the US and No 18 over here.

The legacy of the song was strengthened by the reference to it in this clip from the film Four Weddings And A Funeral. A marvellously written speech expertly delivered in Hugh Grant’s characteristic bumbling, self deprecating style…

Although Voice Of The Beehive’s version would peak at a lowly No 25, I think they turn what many might see as a cheesy 70s pop song into a bouncy, jump-around-your-living-room radio friendly hit and it was a great choice of cover for them. Sadly, they would only have one more Top 40 UK hit and the band split after 1996 album “Sex And Misery” failed to chart. They still play the odd reunion gig and have a healthy community of fans on Facebook.

We go into the next studio artist with just a voice over link. As the camera switches stages to the new act you can see him awkwardly clapping along to Voice Of The Beehive. This just isn’t working for me. Is it meant to be seamless? It just looks awkward. That next act is Kenny Thomas or ‘Ke-aaaaarnny Thomas’ as Tony Dortie pronounces his name. Dortie seemed to do this sort of thing a lot as I recall, playing up to his London roots and regularly used phrases like ‘Peace out’, ‘Laterz’ and ‘Respect’. Sometimes he used to mix it up and say ‘Laterz. Much laterz!’. Was he encouraged to do it so as to try and up the show’s hip credentials? I wasn’t a fan.

As for dear old Kenny, “Best Of You” was his third consecutive hit of ’91 and like his first hit “Outstanding”, was actually a cover version. It was written by Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & the M.G.’s back in 1980 but, like “I Think I Love You” / Voice Of The Beehive earlier, it was a pretty good choice of song for Kenny to cover. Not that I liked it of course, I had an irrational dislike of Kenny back then, but the song fitted in with the brand of UK soul he was peddling.

I have since apologised in this blog for my aversion to Kenny as he seems like a very decent guy and has suffered some pretty horrendous stuff in his private life with his four year old daughter being diagnosed with a brain tumour. In the last week, Kenny himself was hospitalised with COVID and was very unwell. Thankfully he has recovered enough to be allowed to return home but he has had to cancel the 30th anniversary tour of the release of his debut album “Voices” as a result. That album was released eleven days after this TOTP performance so no doubt Kenny would have been on the promotional trail this time 30 years ago. Unlike Erasure, Kenny ‘s promotional budget could only afford a lone dancer up there on stage with him and you have to feel sorry for her as she seems to be freestyling desperately. “Best Of You” peaked at No 11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HthvH7xgChs

Remember when TOTP presenters used to occasionally produce incongruous interviews out of nowhere with some of the acts on the show. I can recall The Police and Genesis being asked some truly mindless questions up on the gantry by the likes of Steve Wright for no good reason. Then of course there’s this from 1982. Was Debbie in on the joke or not?

Well, the interviews are back as Mark Franklin takes to the stage himself to chat to the next act who is Belinda Carlisle who is here to perform her new single “Live Your Life Be Free“. Before that though, Franklin starts meandering about how the show can now play any song from the US Top 10 now if it wants to …except they’re not going to as there are no British acts in the US Top 10 that week! WTF?! Why make a big deal of a new feature and then not actually, you know, do the feature? Plus, why did the act in the US chart have to be British? Surely the point was to play something that wasn’t in our charts anyway?! Madness.

Franklin is undeterred though and uses the fact that Belinda is American to shift from the US charts (where she hasn’t had Top 10 hit for three years) to her performance. All we get out of Belinda is the name of her new album (same as the single) and when it’s out. I guess that is the point of her performing on the show in the first place but none of this was really making any sense. Also nonsensical was Belinda’s decision to perform the song whilst wearing what appear to be marigold washing up gloves. To say it’s a live vocal (supposedly), I don’t think Belinda’s notoriously warbly and derided vocals sound too bad.

Oh and whilst we’re talking about promotional tools, check out the guy on guitar in the Monty Python T-shirt. Surely this was a deliberate plant by Virgin to advertise the fact that Monty Python’s “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” song had been released as a single and is in the charts and on the show later. “Live Your Life Be Free” (the single) peaked at No 12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcMU0GIhUxE

Next, Tony Dortie emerges from the throng of the studio audience to announce another innovative feature of the new format as he promises us “exclusive videos from all the big stars”. Brilliant! So who’s first then Tony? “Fun Day” by Steve Wonder? Obviously Steve is a legend of music but this song? Never heard of it! Taken from the soundtrack album (all Stevie originals) for Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, the single peaked at No 63. whilst the album fared little better with a high of No 56 in the UK. Given that Stevie’s last UK hit had been three years earlier (and even that was a duet with Julio Iglesias) and that his reputation had taken a big hit after the colossal turd that was “I Just Called to Say I Love You”, were UK kids that bothered about Stevie’s latest song? I know, I know – his 70s stuff is fantastic but his 80s and 90s work? Maybe it was the Spike Lee connection that made Stanley Appel think it was a good idea. Hip film director making gritty urban movies. That’s giving the kids what they want. I wonder who else will show up in this feature?

The video prompted lots of online comments about the fact that it appears to depict Steve driving a car despite his blindness though none of the tweets I saw had the wherewithal to paraphrase the title of one of his 80s dud singles “Don’t Drive Drunk” to “Don’t Drive Blind”.

Oh God! Mark Franklin is back with another cringeworthy interview. This time his victim is Julian Lennon who is asked about why he wrote eco-anthem “Saltwater”. To be fair, Julian’s answer (“In my view the world has a bit of a problem because of us and I think we need to do something about it”) resonates even more loudly today and had we listened more to what he and others like him were saying 30 years ago, maybe we would be looking at a better world future. After nearly tumbling over his keyboards, Julian gives us a run through of his song which prompted a lot of undeserved ‘he’s just imitating his father’ type comments on Twitter. He can’t help the genetics he was born with. Although not a riveting performance, it does include a nice bit of slide guitar. Not sure he needed all that dry ice though and was that the best way to advertise his green credentials?

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

Meanwhile, in a BBC office somewhere, a few days before this broadcast:

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: Stanley! How’s the new look TOTP going? Got some good artists booked for the very first show of this exciting new era?

Stanley Appel: Oh yes! We’ve got Erasure and Voice Of The Beehive and Kenny Thomas…

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: OK sounds…erm…good. Who else?

Stanley Appel: Julian Lennon…

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: Not that hippy! Never could stand his farther either!

Stanley Appel: Oh…sorry…but the final act in the studio is a huge name!

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: Excellent! Whitney Houston? Madonna? If the next word that comes out of your mouth is ‘Bros’ I’m not going to be happy Stanley…

Stanley Appel: No, they’re huge I promise! Think Live Aid…

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: Not the f*****g Boomtown Rats?!!

Stanley Appel: No, think about it. We’ve got a brand new show the likes of which the world has never been seen before…just like Live Aid…and who opened Live Aid?

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: The Prince and Princess of Wales?! You’ve got Charles and Diana? Not just pop royalty, the actual Royal Family. That’s amazing Stanley. Unbelievable. Well done!

Stanley Appel: No, it’s Status Quo

*tumbleweed*

Stuffy but very important BBC boss: Tony…YOU’RE FIRED!!!

Status Quo?! STATUS “F*****G QUO?! That’s who Appel decided would be a good act to help relaunch TOTP and convince the nation’s youth that they were still a credible music show reflecting new and emerging trends?! In what universe was that a good decision?! This unfathomable choice is passed off as acceptable by use of a graphic that indicates that the Quo are included on the show as part of the album chart feature (their latest release “Rock ’til You Drop” is at No 10) but I doubt many of the watching audience were buying that – the reason for their inclusion I mean and not the album; clearly some people must have bought the album with it being at No 10 and all.

The band give us a horrible version of that old rhythm and blues standard “Let’s Work Together” made famous by Canned Heat (and later as “Let’s Stick Together” by Bryan Ferry) but just look at them! Francis Rossi is wearing a leather jacket over a collar and tie and jeans with a pair of black leather shoes! It’s just all kinds of wrong. And check out bass player John “Rhino” Edwards’ shaggy hair! Who had hair like that in 1991? Even Tony Dortie’s voice over intro is wrong as he says that the’ve had 25 hit albums but Wikipedia tells me that “Rock ’til You Drop”is their 20th studio album – unless he was including Best Ofs or live albums in that figure? Oh, who cares? This was just dire. In fact, I think the terminally uncool Dire Straits would have been a ‘cooler’ choice than Status Quo. Horrible.

They’ve retained the Breakers section for now but there’s only two acts in it this week as opposed to the four that have been crammed into this feature recently. First off is DJ Carl Cox with “I Want You (Forever)“. I have to admit that I didn’t think of Carl Cox as having hits under his own name but rather as a legendary remixer of other people’s tunes and a ‘superstar DJ’ which is probably why I don’t remember this track at all. That and the fact that I’m not really a dance head anyway so it probably just passed me by completely. As you can imagine, there’s lot of samples included here but I don’t know any of the original tracks so I’m not going to linger around here any longer.

As mentioned earlier, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by Monty Python was in the charts and we all know who was to blame when a novelty record got into the charts around this time. No, not Timmy Mallett (for once) but Radio1 DJ Simon Mayo. Using his breakfast show to promote them, he’d already made unlikely hits out of “Kinky Boots” by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman and “Donald Where’s Yer Troosers?” by Andy Stewart and now was at it again.

I can’t recall exactly why the irritating little tit decided he would turn his attention to the closing song from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian but turn it he did and so it came to pass that “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” would finally become a hit. It was originally released as a single to coincide with the film’s opening in 1979 but failed to chart. It was re-released in 1988 to help promote the film’s release on VHS but once again it flopped. Mayo clearly thought he had the golden touch by now and I guess he did when he inspired its re-release by Virgin and it became a No 3 hit. Thinking about it, was it intentional by Mayo to try and launch a campaign to knock Bryan Adams off the top spot and somehow make himself out as ‘the saviour of music’ in his eyes? I wouldn’t put it past the smug git.

Now I love Life Of Brian the film and a school mate taped the soundtrack for me when it first came out but did we need to have its most famous song in the charts in 1991? I don’t think we did. Its renewed popularity has led to it being voted the most popular song to be requested to be played at UK funerals in a 2014 poll by The Co-operative Funeralcare. It has also been taken up as a crowd favourite at sporting events and was sung by Eric Idle at the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

We end with the No 1 and it’s still “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams. How Stanley Appel must have been hoping and wishing with his whole being that there would be a new No 1 to coincide with new format of TOTP. Out with the old and in with the new and all that. The UK record buying public weren’t having that though and were still purchasing it in massive quantities. Tony Dortie is sat at a drum kit for no discernible reason before Mark Franklin does his intro sat behind Julian Lennon’s keyboards and what an intro. It’s totally non -sensical:

“Now 13 weeks ago, who would have thought 13 weeks later he would still have been No 1 but he is for the 13th week breaking all records it’s Bryan Adams…”

So that’s 13 weeks – got that everyone? That intro doesn’t make any grammatical sense does it?

There’s no play out video only the credits soundtracked by the new theme tune (just like with the Top 10 countdown) but of course there’s always time for a ‘”Laterz!” from Tony Dortie.

So what did we think of the new format? I can’t recall what my opinion was at the time of its original broadcast but watching it back 30 years later, it was a right old shambles.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Erasure	Love To Hate You	No but I have it on their first Best Of Pop!
2	Voice Of The Beehive	I Think I Love You	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Kenny Thomas	Best Of You	Obviously not
4	Belinda Carlisle	Live Your Live Be Free	Nope
5	Steve Wonder	Fun Day	No
6	Julian Lennon	Saltwater	See 2 above
7	Status Quo	Let’s Work Together	F**k right off!
8	DJ Carl Cox	I Want You (Forever)	Not my bag at all
9	Monty Python	Always Look On The Bright Side of Life	Negative
10	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010k2p/top-of-the-pops-03101991

TOTP 20 DEC 1990

Posted on May 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Xmas 1990 is upon us meaning that we are just days away from finding out that year’s festive No 1 record. This also means that there is precious little time for record companies to stimulate enough sales to get their particular act to the coveted top spot. Activity is frenzied and to paraphrase David Bowie, you can almost see the record pluggers sliding down chimneys.

As for me, I’m working my first Xmas at Our Price and am just longing for some time off after day after day of huge queues of customers all needing serving. Back then, Our Price still had what must now been seen as an archaic ‘masterbag’ system where the contents of a CD, tape, VHS etc were kept filed behind the counter with just the empty case on the racks. This meant serving someone could be quite labour intensive as you had to go and find what they wanted behind the scenes first. If you were on the counter all day, it felt like a long shift.

Added to this was the impending pressure that all the temps felt which was who (if any of us) would be kept on after Xmas was over. As it stood, I had nothing lined up work wise if I wasn’t kept on and we had the rent on our flat to make. My wife was also in temporary employment at a toy shop but we knew that was definitely ending as the store was to close after Xmas. This was proper adult stuff. It came to pass that I did end up being offered a permanent job by the store manager whist I was out for a drink one night in the achingly trendy Dry bar with my wife one evening. I think it was the first time we’d been in there as we were skint most of the time. The manager (Greg) happened to be there as well and he just sidled up to me and said did I want to stay on after Xmas. I immediately accepted and that was that. The biggest phew of all time (or at least it felt like it)! Was it just a case of serendipity that secured my employment (and our rent)? That I just happened to be in the right bar at the right time? I guess I’ll never know now but I will always be grateful to Greg. It turned out that only a couple of us got permanent jobs so the relief was even bigger once this became apparent.

Back to the music though and we start with “Mary Had A Little Boy” by Snap! The fourth and final single to be lifted from their “World Power” album, it extended their run of Top 10 singles by peaking at No 8. Although superficially based around the Mary Had A Little Lamb nursery rhyme, there’s not actually much of the source material on display save for the chorus the lyrics of which paraphrase its opening couple of stanzas. The rest of it seems to be about Turbo B working up the courage to chat up the titular Mary. It’s all pretty nasty stuff as well with him rapping about Mary’s ‘fantasy body’ and describing himself as a ‘ruthless chiller’ and a ‘ladies killer’. Was there a more objectionable pop star this year than this guy? Oh yeah, there was Timmy Mallett of course but even he wasn’t sure about this track, describing it in Smash Hits (as the guest singles reviewer) as sounding “as though they’re scraping the barrel by doing what is basically a nursery rhyme.” Having your music dissed by Timmy Mallett? Ouch!

Three songs now that were all Breakers on the previous show starting with The Carpenters and (They Long To Be) Close To You”. Although their songs are instantly recognisable to us, I hadn’t checked out their chart history before nor realised quite how many of their songs had actually been hits over here. I was thinking it would resemble Barry Manilow who, for all his fame, only ever had one Top 10 record in the UK. Not so Richard and Karen. Although not as successful as in the US where they had three No 1 singles, a haul of seven Top Tenners (of which two were No 2 hits) in this country is pretty impressive.

Oscar Wilde famously said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that is true of many a music artist. Perhaps the biggest indication of your standing is if you are so well respected that you have your own tribute album. The Carpenters achieved this in 1994 when “If I Were A Carpenter” appeared featuring covers of their songs by artists including Sheryl Crow, The Cranberries and Sonic Youth. This one was my favourite though…

Some INXS now as “Disappear” does the very opposite by climbing three places to No 21. This was peak INXS in many ways, consolidating on the staggering commercial success of “Kick” by pretty much repeating the formula and thereby keeping the record company and fans alike happy. This was pre-grunge and before the mainstream emergence of Nirvana that overnight seemed to make every other contemporary rock band irrelevant. Things were pretty sweet in the band’s world. Michael Hutchence even had a nice, steady girlfriend in Kylie Minogue.

In a review of “Disappear” on the songmeanings.com site, there is a comment by a user that says the song sounds like the theme tune to a kids TV show called Super WHY!. OK then, lets’s see if there’s anything in this….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkDe5ZMy72E

…no, that claim is just utter nonsense.

Enigma now and there’s no disputing it that “Sadness (Part 1)” is going to be massive as it rises from No 27 to No 6 in one week prompting ideas of it even being No 1 for Xmas. It didn’t quite achieve that but it did rise to the top spot eventually in the New Year for one week whilst spending an impressive seven whole weeks in the Top 10. I have to admit that I thought it was at No 1 for much longer than that. This Gregorian chant inspired piece of ambient, new age pop (if there is such a genre) was soon seen as a massive cash cow by Virgin records who proceeded to flood the market with a series of ‘mood’ music compilations, the most successful of which was “Pure Moods” featuring artists like Vangelis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Enya and, of course, Enigma. Included in the comments on YouTube for the video to “Sadness (Part 1)” was this lovely little observation:

If you’re here because you remember this from the Pure Moods CD as a kid – I regret to inform you your parents definitely were banging to this song

Dear me! Thankfully this statement does not apply to me. I must stop reading these user comments!

Oh, I neglected to mention that the host for this one is Bruno Brookes who displays some shocking musical ignorance by declaring “The 80s return and remember this film…” before introducing the “Grease Megamix”.The 80s Bruno? The pissing 80s?! Are you out of your mind?! Grease came out in 1978 you cretin! It was based on a musical that opened in 1971 depicting life in a US High School in the 50s – what on earth is 80s about Grease?! What’s that?! Bruno also says it was mixed by Pete Waterman so maybe he was referring to him? No, not having that. Let me listen to his intro again…

…no he’s clearly referring to the film Grease. Just unforgivable. Oh and on checking , it wasn’t remixed by Pete Waterman but by Phil Harding and Ian Curnow of PWL.

Enough of Brookes and his inaccuracies though. Why were John Travolta and Olivia Newton John back in the charts in 1990? It was to celebrate / promote the release of the film on home video. OK, that makes sense but why, if it’s a megamix, does it only feature one song? The actual record featured three songs from the soundtrack ( “Summer Nights” / “You’re The One That I Want” / “Greased Lightnin'”) but TOTP just showed “Summer Nights”. I’m guessing it was a timing issue as the full megamix is 4:46 in length so maybe they just showed the end of it which happened to be solely “Summer Nights”? It does look odd I have to admit.

“Grease Megamix” peaked at No 3. Xmas party anyone?

Back to the songs we’ve already seen now as MC Hammer brings us “Pray”. Taken from his album “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em” which went diamond (note, not platinum but diamond) in the US. Now either I didn’t know or I had erased from my memory but in conjunction with the album, there was a film imaginatively entitled Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Movie. Ye Gods! I looked it up on IMDB and the storyline is listed as:

MC Hammer returns to his hometown and, with the help of some funky tunes, defeats a druglord who is using kids to traffic his stuff.

WTF?! That sounds…no, I’ve got no words. And of course, you know what’s coming next…user reviews! Yes, I had to go there again didn’t I? Now these reviews were either deeply ironic or deeply insane. I’m not sure which. Here’s one…

“This movie is clearly about the epic, nay, cosmic struggle of good and evil, that films like Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now can’t even begin to address. Even though Hammer is a rapper, and generally that would be a bad thing, this film depicts him as the sword of justice fighting the evil drug dealers of Oakland with his “posse”. Hammer plays dual roles in this film: one as himself (i.e. MC Hammer) and another as the Reverend Pressure who is known for his jaw dropping performances. This leitmotif is similar to the star turns of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in films like “Coming to America” where they play multiple characters except that Hammer is clearly better. This film also has a really important message: say yes to Jesus and Hammer, no to drugs and violence. I cannot imagine a film that does a better job of capturing the essence of the nineties, except perhaps Cool As Ice. Sadly, however, this film was overlooked by the Academy.”

Wow! A lot to unpack there but basically Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Movie is better than Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now according to somebody called cindi0724. Not only that but it can only be eclipsed by the film Cool As Ice which of course was Vanilla Ice’s acting debut. Starting to see a theme in cindi0724’s thinking yet? I like the way she notes that the film was ‘overlooked by the Academy’. Overlooked?! Completely disregarded and ignored and with good reason more like.

Want to hear another review? Here’s someone called Pilgurn’s take on MC Hammer’s film:

“Without a doubt sending out an inspiring message to the youth of all our great cities around the globe. Just to free your legs and to dance and rap your way through disputes and even into a girls heart. Absolutely fantastic bombastic, watch it any time you wanna get jiggy.”

As a mantra for life, it’s hard to argue against freeing your legs and dancing and rapping your way through disputes isn’t it?

“Pray” peaked at No 8.

After the “Grease Megamix”, we now get another 50s inspired medley, this time courtesy of Status Quo. Unlike Enigma who took 26 years to record “Sadeness (Part II)”, the Quo only took 80 days to release “The Anniversary Waltz (Part II)” as the follow up to Part I. To put this in context, Michael Palin managed to circumnavigate the world in 80 days back in 1989 whilst it took Rick, Francis and co the same amount of time to come up with some money for old rope, Jive Bunny style medley bullshit. Quite the achievement.

Following Part 1’s formula to the letter, this was some rock ‘n’ roll standards from the likes of Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry all cobbled together but unlike Jive Bunny – and this was the band’s crucial differential – they were all recorded live. There was even a a small sketch of a rabbit on the record sleeve to make the point. You weren’t fooling anybody boys – this was unmitigated shite. Even so, their army of fans still bought enough of it to send it to No 16 in the charts proving you can actually fool all of the people all of the time if they are Quo fans.

OK so this was the last TOTP to be broadcast before the Xmas Day show (which I won’t be reviewing as there’s nothing in there that I haven’t already passed comment on) but when did we actually find out the Xmas No 1 for 1990? Well, it was officially announced on Sunday 23rd December 1990 meaning the chart run down featured in this programme did NOT tell us who it was. All of which was just as well for Cliff Richard as he was only at No 2 by this point with “Saviour’s Day”. Was it this this TOTP performance that ensured he got enough last minute sales to get over the line? Possibly. We know that he also did The Des O’Connor Show in the run up to Xmas which Andy, the singles buyer at the Our Price store where I was working, put great stock in and predicted it would win Cliff the race.

Aside from being his 13th No 1 record, “Saviour’s Day” was also the single that meant that he was the first recording artist to achieve a chart topper in five different decades – a fact that was much trumpeted at the time I recall. He would only last one week at the top due to some dastardly, cunning ploy by Iron Maiden to manipulate the singles sales in the slowest week of the year after the Xmas rush but that’s all for a future post.

Close but no cigar time for Vanilla Ice as “Ice Ice Baby” will fall just short of becoming the Xmas No 1 by one week despite it spending its fourth week at the top here. He would follow up that single’s success by releasing a cover of Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” in the new year which would make the Top 10 but it was all down hill from then on in with no subsequent releases even making the Top 20 over here….until that Jedward mash up thing in 2010 but let’s not go there again.

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

Inevitably after two megamix singles already on the show, we end with the most famous medley transgressors of them all. “The Crazy Party Mixes” was the seventh (!) hit for Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers who couldn’t resist the lure of Xmas and just had to release a festive party single to delight us all. It was taken from an album called “It’s Party Time” (of course it was) and, like all their releases, it was hateful.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM5pmNpxCxw

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Snap!	Mary Had A Little Boy	Nope
2	The Carpenters	They Long To Be (Close To You)	No but we all have a Carpenters Greatest Hits CD don’t we?
3	INXS	Disappear	Not the single but I have it on something somewhere I think
4	Enigma	Sadness (Part 1)	No
5	John Travolta and Olivia Newton John	Grease Megamix	Negative
6	MC Hammer	Pray	Nah
7	Status Quo	The Anniversary Waltz (Part II)	Are you joking me?
8	Cliff Richard	Saviour’s Day	Hell no!
9	Vanilla Ice	Ice Ice baby	No No baby
10	Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers	The Crazy Party Mixes	And once again Hell no!

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/m000v4b8/top-of-the-pops-20121990

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?

TOTP 11 OCT 1990

Posted on March 19, 2021 by 80stastic

Hello and welcome back to 1990, the year when the charts were infested by cruddy Eurodance pop, the Bleep ‘n’ Bass phenomenon, old pop standards of yesteryear revitalised by their use in adverts and mega hits propelled to massive sales off the back of their inclusion on box office breaking film soundtracks. Oh, and ruddy New Kids On The Block and those pesky ninja turtle creatures. However, giving a massive pale (and possibly black nail varnished) middle finger to all of this are Goth gods The Sisters Of Mercy who stride back into the TOTP studio this week with their latest hit “More”. Yes, proving that Goth was still relevant, Andrew Eldritch and co released their first single since 1988’s ‘Lucretia My Reflection”. It’s actually the lead single off their album “Vision Thing” talking of which – get this. How many albums do you reckon The Sisters Of Mercy have released during their 40 odd years career? I mean proper, studio albums, not Best Ofs nor EPs. It’s three.THREE! And this one, “Vision Thing released in November 1990, is the most recent one! Not keen on hard work our Andrew is he? in November 2016 when interviewed by the TeamRock website, he said of his release slumber:

“I can tell you one thing – if Donald Trump actually does become President, that will be reason enough for me to release another album. I don’t think I could keep quiet if that happened.”

Well, Andrew, ‘The Donald’ has been and gone (thank God!) and still no new album from you laddie. They seem to have committed themselves to being a perennial touring band from what I can work out but if they never have any new material to play, have they made themselves a nostalgia circuit band by default?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NafWJoWk0MA

“More” must have passed me by at the time as I have no recollection of it at all but it has all their usual Sisters trademarks. Eldritch’s unearthly vocals, the dark, chugging guitar sound and the cauldron of shrieking vocals emanating from the almost Macbethian trio of backing singers. Apparently the track was co-written by Jim Steinman, he of Meatloaf fame. Want to hear The Loaf’s version of it? If you must…

Enough of all that! What we need now is something completely wholesome to counteract the creepy, gothic stuff and what could be more wholesome than Cliff Richard?! Cliff was still plundering tracks from his “From A Distance: The Event” live album and after “Silhouettes ” just the other week, came the title track. It was originally recorded by Nanci Griffith of course (though not actually written by her) on her “Lone Star State Of Mind” album. Listen to her restrained and pure rendition of it here on the Letterman show….

and then contrast it with the pig’s ear that Cliff makes of it below…

He’s ruined it with all that grandstanding and those lumbering drum fills and synth refrains – very similar to the desecration he inflicted on traditional Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” when he did his own arrangement of it called “Little Town”. Nasty. And who are all those people up there on stage with him? It looks like the worst episode of Glee you’ve ever seen!

Cliff’s treatment of “From A Distance” made No 11 but it was topped by Bette Midler’s version a year later which peaked at No 6.

Ah. I wasn’t expecting The Chimes to be back on the show with “Heaven” after it was a Breaker last week. Consequently, I’ve very little left to say about it (and I didn’t have much in the first place). Singer Pauline Henry of course went on to have a string of hits in the mid 90s on her own, the biggest of which was a cover of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Making Love”. If you search for The Chimes on Amazon, as well as the original and Cherry Red deluxe edition of their album, you also get a result for something called “Heaven – Very Best Of Pauline Henry And The Chimes” which seems like a very cynical marketing trick to me. Surely both artists stood independently of each other without needing to mash them together. I recall A&M doing a similar thing with a Sting / The Police Best Of album. I’m trying to think of other examples now. Oh yes, there’s one for David Grant & Jaki Graham as well but I guess they did record two actual duets together at least. A tenner says that there must be a Best Of Kajagoogoo and Limahl in existence as well.

“Heaven ” peaked at No 24.

The year of New Kids On The Block still has some legs in it yet I’m afraid. This was their seventh hit of the year and after the 70s soul sound of The Chi-Lites returned to the UK Top 40 in 1990 courtesy of Paul Young and MC Hammer covers, now we had some Philly Soul with T’KNOB’s take on “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” by The Delfonics.

This was actually a double A-side single with the other track being “Let’s Try It Again” which was taken from their “Step By Step” album. Presumably, the two songs were twinned together to help stimulate sales of two of the band’s albums as “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” was from their 1986 self titled debut album. Those dastardly record companies at it again! Apparently, “Let’s Try It Again” (which I don’t think I’ve ever heard as all the airplay went to “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)”) was the beginning of the end for the band’s phenomenal appeal. It was their first single since 1986’s “Stop It Girl” that failed to peak within the US Top 40. Many put their decent down to over saturation – did the world really need the New Kids animated cartoon series that tonight’s host Bruno Brookes mentions? Talking of Bruno, he gets into a right muddle with his intro for them when he forgets to mention the song title and when he corrects this in his outro, he name checks the wrong A-side. Piss poor as ever Bruno.

“Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” / “Let’s Try It Again” peaked at No 8 in the UK.

The final six songs on this week’s broadcast have all been featured on the show before starting with The Beautiful South and “A Little Time”. They’re in the studio this week but where is Paul Heaton? Oh there he is! On the keyboards right at the back. We don’t really get to see him until at least a minute in. I like the fact that he steps into the shadows for this song and gives the spotlight rightfully to Brianna Corrigan and Dave Hemmingway. Both had underrated voices I think. Dave had a very pure, ballad vocal whilst Brianna had a most unusual tone that completely suited those bittersweet Heaton tunes. It was a great shame in many ways that she felt that she couldn’t stay in the band but then, without her departure, we wouldn’t have had Jacqui Abbott which in turn of course led to all those marvellous Heaton and Abbott songs.

I saw The Beautiful South live in 1997 (I think) at the Manchester Arena and have also seen Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott back in 2017 at the Hull KR stadium gig. I’ve even seen The South who were what the band morphed into when the original incarnation split in 2007. I think Hemmingway was still in the line up at that point (although he has since retired) alongside the final female vocalist Alison Wheeler who replaced Abbott in 2000. It seems I’m a bit of a fan. Maybe it’s the Hull connection.

“A Little time” will be at No 1 within a couple of weeks.

Another of last week’s Breakers now as Neneh Cherry returns to the TOTP studio for her version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”. The AIDS charity record “Red Hot + Blue” that this track was taken from would go on to sell over 1 million copies worldwide. Its success would lead to a number of releases by parent organisation the Red Hot Organization throughout the 90s including “Red Hot + Dance” (which would include the one-off George Michael single “Too Funky”) and “Red Hot + Country” which featured such heavyweights as Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and the aforementioned Nanci Griffith. As for that original album “Red Hot + Blue”, my favourite track from it was definitely this one by David Byrne…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJV_MOwas7s

Neneh Cherry was still a massive name in 1990 off the back of the success of her platinum selling debut album ‘Raw Like Sushi”. However, it would take her three years to release the follow up (1992’s “Homebrew”) by which point grunge had happened and the musical landscape had shifted. The album performed poorly sales wise (peaking at No 27) whilst none of the singles from it made the Top 20. However, she would return in 1996 with the more popular “Man” album which included the huge worldwide hit “7 Seconds” with Youssou N’Dour.

Monie Love again? I think this is the third time that “It’s A Shame (My Sister)” has been on the show. Not bad for a single that didn’t even make the Top 10. In a Smash Hits article, Monie (real name Simone Johnson) described the art of writing raps thus:

“Er..well you just write it down. You just put what is exactly in your head down on paper. All it takes is being able to pronounce your words and if you’re a good English student then you could write a good rap.”

That’s it?! OK, well I’ve got an English ‘O’ level and I write a lot of words doing this blog so let’s give it a go…

*spends half an hour trying to write a good rap*

Nah, that’s bollocks Monie. I’m crap at writing rap lyrics it turns out. I followed your advice about putting exactly what is in my head down on paper and it came out like this…

My name is Dickie B, I’m looking at a tree

My cat wanted to pee, so he did it up against the tree

“It’s A Shame (My Sister)” peaked at No 12.

Talking of crap, here’s Status Quo with the “Anniversary Waltz Part 1”. Oh come on, even the most committed of Quo fans must have known this was a pile of shite and cringed in embarrassment when it was released. It’s horrible. Bruno Brookes introducing it by saying that the band celebrated their 25th anniversary with a massive party at Butlins in Minehead just about sums it up! Of all the venues in the country to book for such a celebration, that was the optimum one?! What? Minehead was where Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt met all those years ago? Oh. Well, I don’t care. The “Anniversary Waltz Part 1” was a terrible idea and remains the last time that the band were in the Top 10. Even a re-release of their ‘party tune’ that was “Marguerita Time” would surely have been a better idea?

Maria McKee is still at No 1 with “Show Me Heaven”. Although she never came anywhere near to repeating the commercial triumph of this single, Maria has continued to write and record material. She wrote two songs for the aforementioned Bette Midler on her 1995 “Bette Of Roses” album whilst The Chicks (previously known as Dixie Chicks) recorded her song “Am I the Only One (Who’s Ever Felt This Way)” for their “Wide Open Spaces” album. Of course, we all know that Feargal Sharkey took her song “A Good Heart” to No 1 in 1985 but he also recorded the McKee penned “To Miss Someone” on his “Songs from the Mardi Gras” album. She has also contributed to numerous tribute albums for the likes of Blind Willie Johnson and T-Rex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5G6_z7Ze8

“Show Me Heaven” wasn’t her only soundtrack album hit. After that song was recorded for Days Of Thunder, she also contributed “If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)” for the Pulp Fiction soundtrack.

The play out video is “World In My Eyes” by Depeche Mode. This is supposedly Andy Fletcher of the band’s favourite song that they have ever recorded. Fletcher’s career is an unusual one in that opinion is divided as to what he actually does in the band. In the 1989 “101” documentary about the band, Fletcher himself had this to say on the subject:

“Martin’s the songwriter, Alan’s the good musician, Dave’s the vocalist, and I bum around.”

Whilst that may be tongue in cheek, it remains the case that Fletcher is the only member of the band (past and present) who has never received a songwriting credit. He is also the only member of Depeche Mode who does not sing although he does do something with synthesizers on stage during live gigs. Apparently he is very active in Depeche’s business affairs and has assumed the role of band spokesperson.

Are there any other examples of band members who don’t contribute much musically? Bez of course in Happy Mondays is an obvious one and isn’t there somebody in Coldpay who doesn’t do much (or is that all of them apart from *Chris Martin?). How about journalist Fiona Russell Powell (aka Eden) and photographer David Yarritu who joined the ranks of ABC for their “How To Be A Zillionaire” album?

“World In My Eyes” peaked at No 17.

*Sorry Coldplay fans!

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

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Sisters Of Mercy	More	Less actually – no
2	Cliff Richard	From A Distance	…is where I wish to remain from Cliff – no
3	The Chimes	Heaven	Negative
4	New Kids On The Block	Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)	This was not a mind blowing cover – no
5	The Beautiful South	A Little Time	Not the single but I have it on their Best Of album
6	Neneh Cherry	I’ve Got You Under My Skin	It’s a no
7	Monie Love	It’s A Shame (My Sister)	Nope
8	Status Quo	The Anniversary Waltz (Part One)	Sod off
9	Maria McKee	Show Me Heaven	Nah
10	Depeche Mode	World In My Eyes	I did not

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t134/top-of-the-pops-11101990

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?

TOTP 27 SEP 1990

Posted on March 12, 2021 by 80stastic

Hello there – if it’s some (very) early 90s musical nostalgia you’re after, you have arrived at your destination. We are just about three quarters of the way through these TOTP repeats from 1990 and we see out September in the company of host Anthea Turner. Wait! Come back! I won’t mention her again…except for this. In the week where Piers Morgan stormed off the set of GMB and ultimately left the show, let us remember that Anthea also had an ITV breakfast show incident. No, not Piers slamming her for breaching lockdown rules; hers occurred back in the mid 90s when she was co-hosting GMTV with Eamon Holmes. So bad was their working relationship that Holmes issued an ‘its me or her’ ultimatum to GMTV management which resulted in Anthea being sacked. I can’t stand either of them to be honest so enough of all that and on with the music….

…and we start with Monie Love and her single “It’s A Shame (My Sister)”. A Breaker last week, Monie has made sufficient strides up the charts this week to merit a studio performance this time around and she’s invited everybody she knows to get up on stage with her. I’m guessing that’s actually R’n’B vocal outfit True Image who are credited on the record alongside Monie. It’s not all those people on screen that’s caught my attention though but the top that Monie is wearing or more specifically the logo on it. What is that? My best guess is that it’s the badge of American basketball team the Chicago Bulls. Whilst trying to confirm it, I came upon this little nugget online:

If you turn the Chicago bulls logo upside down it’s a robot having sex with a crab pic.twitter.com/KGfsqyr3Ml
— Chaos Agent 1 June 2nd! (@DenizCamp) September 14, 2019

OH. MY. GOD.

Monie’s debut album “Down To Earth” included a track called “Swiney Swiney” which was a protest against the eating of pork and included the lyrics ‘High blood pressure, blame it on the swine’. As far as I can tell she has never written a song highlighting the fate of that poor crab.

Back on less carnal and more sensible ground now as we get the latest Depeche Mode single “World In My Eyes”. This was the fourth and final single to be lifted from the “Violator” album and you have to say that alongside “Personal Jesus”, “Enjoy The Silence” and “Policy Of Truth”, that quartet of tracks must be one of the best group of singles taken from one album, quality and consistency wise.

Did I say ‘less carnal’? It seems I was wrong as when researching the meaning behind the song, the theories I found online were overwhelmingly of the opinion that it was about the sexual act. Here are just a few of the more printable ones:

‘Very erotic song, and it moves me in more ways than one.’

‘It’s a sex song.’

‘This really is one of the most erotic songs out there. It’s so addicting.’

And finally…

‘I always thought it was about showing someone your “world” eg, your outlook on life, your personality, everything, by having sex with them….in a good way.’

Well…erm…ahem. “World In My Eyes” ~~climaxed~~…PEAKED I meant peaked at No 17.

Right, please can we move away from all the salacious stuff?! Who’s next? Londonbeat? They’re pretty safe and inoffensive surely?! “I’ve Been Thinking About You” is on its way to a high of No 2. Many of the music press reviews of the song stated that they detected a Fine Young Cannibals influence in its sound production. I can hear that but it was no real surprise as band members Jimmy Helms, George Chandler & Jimmy Chambers all sang backing vocals on the FYC tracks “Good Thing”, “Tell Me What” and “It’s OK (It’s Alright)” from their “The Raw and the Cooked” album. In a bizarre coincidence there is a song in this TOTP that was produced by Andy Cox and David Steele of FYC but it wasn’t this one. No, they handled production duties for “It’s A Shame (My Sister) by Monie Love at the top of the show.

Oh OK, I’d been waiting for this one to come up (and see me). Why? Well, this is the performance where back in 1990 I could have sworn that was me up there fronting The Wedding Present. I seem to have one of those faces you see. I spent three years at polytechnic being called Dan after my resemblance to the actor Dan Ackroyd. In current times, rather more unfortunately, I have been likened to football manager Sam Allardyce. Back in the early 90s though, I did look like David Gedge and the lookalike factor is no more on display than it is in this clip. I swear that people who had never made the connection before, when seeing this footage, have said ‘but…that was you up there wasn’t it?’. There was just something about the way Gedge smiled and his dark floppy hair that once seen by people who knew me could not be unseen. Nowadays of course, never mind me not looking like Gedge anymore, Gedge himself no longer looks like Gedge. He’s more ‘gadge’ than Gedge. I once spent an uncomfortable evening in a pub in Manchester with Mark E Smith’s sister saying how much I looked like Gedge, what a sex god (her words not mine) he was and asking me to sing some Wedding Present tunes for her.

Watching this clip back is reminding me how old I’ve become – it’s a bit depressing. Anyway, back to the music and “Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)” was one one of the tracks on their “3 Songs EP”* which would make No 25 in the UK charts. I’m guessing it was a ploy by their new record label RCA to maintain the band’s profile in between the album releases of “Bizarro” in 1989 and “Seamonsters” in 1991. Come 1992 and you wouldn’t be able to move for Wedding Present product as they embarked upon their project of releasing 12 x 7″ singles in one year. Each single was limited to a pressing of 10,000 copies which all reached the Top 30 thereby equalling Elvis Presley’s record for the most UK Top 30 hits in one year – those dastardly major labels with their cynical marketing strategies!

I love this performance and not just for the lookalike reasons. The false ending is great, Gedge’s knowing smile is a winner and this, which was spotted by an eagle-eyed viewer:

Oh https://t.co/A6iEFZ9bjr
— David Gedge (@weddingpresent) March 5, 2021

*What was it with the functional titles of EPs back in 1990? Deacon Blue were also in the charts at the same time as The Wedding Present with their “Four Bacharach & David Songs EP”.

Whatever you think of The Cure, you can’t deny their longevity nor how prolific they are/were. By this point in their career, they had already recorded 8 studio albums in 10 years and this single, “Never Enough” was already their 15th Top 40 hit. This one though wasn’t from a studio album but a remix album called rather obviously “Mixed Up” and featured extended mixes of some of their previous hits. I really remember this track being played a lot in store when I started with Our Price the following month. I really liked “Never Enough” and its creeping, unnerving sound and Robert Smith’s manic, tortured, imploring vocals.

The video does rather seem to be a retread of the claustrophobia theme of their promo for 1985 single “Close To Me” though which would duplicate “Never Enough”s No 13 chart peak when released as the follow up single in remix form.

Status Quo had released some right old crap during the 80s. I’m thinking “In The Army Now”, “Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)” and an excruciating cover of the Dion standard “The Wanderer”. If we thought that was bad though, stand back as here’s 90s Quo declaring ‘Hold my pint’. Yes, to mark the 25th anniversary of the meeting of Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi at a Butlins holiday camp (it’s hardly when Lennon met McCartney is it?), they decided to release “The Anniversary Waltz – Part One” which was basically their take on the whole Jive Bunny phenomenon. Within the medley of old 50s hits shoe horned together were Chuck Berry’s “No Particular Place To Go”, Dave Edmund’s “I Hear You Knocking” and unbelievably, “The Wanderer” by Dion – again. This embarrassing crud-fest somehow convinced enough punters to buy it that it rose all the way to No 2 in the charts! Not satisfied with fleecing people once, the band followed it up with “The Anniversary Waltz – Part Two”. Talk about money for old rope. Just unforgivable.

By the mid 90s, they had defaulted to releasing cover versions as their modus operandi most notably Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” and The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun”. Even Radio 1 decided enough was enough and refused to playlist “Fun, Fun, Fun” leading to a public and rancorous dispute with the band. All of this and I haven’t even got started with “Come On You Reds”, their 1994 No 1 single with Manchester United. Bah!

From some right old tosh to something bang up to date (in 1990) with the dance hit “Fascinating Rhythm” by Bass-O-Matic. I’ve always found this track very intriguing – it just has that something ‘other’ about it which made it stand out from the rest of the dance tunes that took residence in the Top 40 throughout 1990. However, by most accounts, the album it came from, “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Bass”, wasn’t anything like the single and a bit of a let down if you were a punter expecting an album full of similar blinding anthems.

“Fascinating Rhythm” peaked at No 9 and was their only Top 40 hit. Founding member WIlliam Orbit would of course go on to be a legendary producer working with everyone from All Saints to U2 but most famously with Madonna on her “Ray Of Light” album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zomA9spRNcU

After just two weeks at the top, Steve Miller Band has been toppled by the almighty power ballad that was “Show Me Heaven” by Maria McKee. Despite only achieving two chart hits in her varied music career (the other came in 1993 courtesy of the No 35 hit “I’m Gonna Soothe You”), Maria still has had quite an impact on the UK charts. How so? Well, she wrote Feargal Sharkey’s 1985 No 1 “A Good Heart” and was also the subject matter of his follow up single “You Little Thief” which was written by her former lover Benmont Tench as a riposte to “A Good Heart”. Not only that, she was also the inspiration behind Deacon Blue’s Top 10 hit of 1988 “Real Gone Kid” which was penned by Ricky Ross after seeing McKee’s wild, on stage antics during a gig with her former band Lone Justice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5G6_z7Ze8

The play out video is “Taste” by Ride. Yes, after some proper indie heroes earlier in the show in the form of The Wedding Present, we got another lot before the half hour was up. Ride were from Oxford and were associated with the ‘shoegazing’ scene that was characterised by guitar distortion, feedback, ethereal vocals and the gig etiquette of the bands who stood motionless during live performances in a detached, introspective state with their heads down and not acknowledging the audience.

“Taste” was one of four tracks on the “Fall EP” (what another EP?!) and is actually pretty melodic to my ears rather than harsh and distorted as befitting the scene. The band’s profile and success escalated quickly and tours of Japan, Australia and America widened their appeal. This led to their commercial zenith in 1992 when their single “Leave Them All Behind” made the Top 10 whilst parent album “Going Blank Again” went Top 5. My favourite tune of theirs also came from that album; the sublime “”Twisterella”.

Sadly for Ride, they found themselves out of step with the cultural shift that BritPop brought and they split in 1996 before reforming in 2014. Oh and just when I thought I had gotten away without any more filth in this post, @TOTPFacts reminded us all of this lovely image*:

If you have trouble telling 1990-period Mark Gardener and Tim Burgess apart: Mark is on the left in this photo and Tim is on the right. Or is it the other way round? #TOTP pic.twitter.com/kaYA7r5HAf
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 5, 2021

*That’s a stick of rock by the way!

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YDQ0q2WBA

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Monie Love	It’s A Shame (My Sister)	Nope
2	Depeche Mode	World In My Eyes	I did not
3	Londonbeat	I’ve Been Thinking About You	But I didn’t think about buying this
4	The Wedding Present	Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)	No but I should have
5	The Cure	Never Enough	No but I’ve got it on a Greatest Hits CD of theirs
6	Status Quo	The Anniversary Waltz (Part One)	Sod off
7	Bass-O-Matic	Fascinating Rhythm	Could have but didn’t
8	Maria McKee	Show Me Heaven	Nah
9	Ride	Taste	No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000st49/top-of-the-pops-27091990

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?

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 04 AUG 1994

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TOTP 08 OCT 1992

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TOTP 01 OCT 1992

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TOTP 03 OCT 1991

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TOTP 20 DEC 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 11 OCT 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 27 SEP 1990

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Some bedtime reading?