Suede | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 27 MAY 1993

Posted on August 25, 2022 by 80stastic

When I started doing this TOTP blog five and a half years ago I never imagined it would last this long. My starting point was January 1983, the year that saw music competing as my chosen interest alongside football. I was 14 years old in January 1983 and by the time of this TOTP show in late May 1993, I was just about to turn 25. Funny how the gap between those ages seems like a chasm in terms of maturity and growing up and yet the same ten year period between the ages of say 44 and 54 (how old I am currently) doesn’t seem anywhere near as seismic.

And what if you look at those ten years in terms of the charts comparing 1983 to 1993 – how different were the Top 40s? Sure, the names will have changed but how about the music trends and movements? I guess the biggest difference is the predominance of dance in all its myriad forms within the charts but in terms of quality? Well, I’m not getting into that in one short intro to be honest. Suffice to say, I have watched, listened to, dissected and given verdict on hundreds of artists, songs and genres after rewatching these old TOTP shows and the whole thing has been frankly bewildering. Let’s see if anyone on this episode can make sense of it for me…

I don’t think I’m going to get any answers from the opening act. Stereo MCs are one of the most mystifying bands ever. A platinum selling No 2 album that yielded four Top 20 singles and then nothing for nine years. The gap until “Deep Down & Dirty” meant that the album gained almost mythical status about whether it would ever come out (see also “Chinese Democracy” by Guns N’ Roses). And yes I know that their career didn’t start with “Connected” and that they had released two albums before it but unless you’re a really committed fan of the band, surely they don’t register with most people.

“Creation” was the fourth and final of those “Connected” singles and it’s of a very similar vein to its predecessors but I have to say I don’t recall it. To be fair, I bet I’m not alone. I kind of like the way that they found a formula that worked and just stuck to it – no mixing things up with a slower ballad for this lot.

“Creation” peaked at No 19, the same position as its immediate predecessor “Ground Level” and one place lower than “Connected” – they were pretty consistent you have to admit. And then they weren’t in terms of releasing music at least. Why the nine year wait for “Deep Down & Dirty”? Well, the band toured “Connected” until 1994 and had gone back into the studio after finishing the dates but inspiration failed to strike. Instead of recording they busied themselves by forming their own label and signed and released music by new artists. They also did remixes for the likes of U2 and Madonna and then things like starting families were also a factor. Basically, life got in the way to paraphrase John Lennon’s famous quote. However, a small part of 1992/93 will always belong to Stereo MCs.

Are you kidding me?! Tina Turner with “I Don’t Wanna Fight” again?! Is this the third week on the trot?

*checks BBC4 schedule*

It is! Seriously, what am I supposed to say about this record for a third consecutive time? Well, supposedly the song was originally offered to Sade but I really can’t imagine what a version of it by the makers of “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love Is King” would have sounded like. This had happened before with another of Tina’s biggest ever hits and the title of the biopic from which “I Don’t Wanna Fight” was taken. Here’s Bucks Fizz with the story (no really – Bucks Fizz!)

What else? Oh yeah, it was written by Lulu more of whom later. The What’s Love’s Got To Do With It soundtrack would give Tina two further hit singles and she would return in 1995 with the theme tune to the James Bond film Goldeneye.

If it’s 1993 then Suede must be along in a minute and, right on cue, here they are with their new single “So Young”. The bright new hope for British music were confident enough in themselves to release a fourth and final single from their debut album that had already been out for two months and to be fair to them, they were right to have faith in the track. This was pure anthem, so sky-scraping in its stature that the press didn’t seem to notice the ‘chase the dragon’ heroin reference in its lyrics (wonder what The Shamen thought given the fuss over “Ebeneezer Goode” the previous year).

Watching this performance back, the band don’t radiate zeitgeist other than via Brett Anderson’s effortless other worldliness. Matt Osman’s enormous frame was always an obstacle to the notion of cool whilst Bernard Butler shakes his mane vigorously whilst rocking back and forth in away that suggests he might benefit from being sedated. Two years later though, he would let rip in similar fashion whilst performing “Yes” with David McAlmont on Later With Jools Holland and I would think it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen. Such are the vagaries of music, taste and opinion.

“So Young” entered the Top 40 at No 22 and exited it the following week suggesting that they were a fan base phenomenon but by 1996, they would release the No 1 album “Coming Up” which would generate five Top 10 singles. The moral of the story? Don’t believe the hype but do trust the process.

Back to the aforementioned Lulu now as we find Louchie Lou & Michie One with their version of the Scottish singer’s most famous tune “Shout”. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again – I despise “Shout” and have little time for Lulu. As such a ragga version of the song was not going to enthral me. Retitled as “Shout (It Out)”, I would have placed this as being released years earlier, say 1986, if asked but I think that’s my brain playing tricks on me again as that’s when a re-release of Lulu’s version was a hit all over again. If I’d thought about it and indeed listened to the track again then surely I would have come to the conclusion that 1993 was the optimal year for the Louchie Lou and Michie One version to have been a hit seeing as it was a ragga/rap restyling of it. Ragga had a grip on the UK charts in this year thanks to the deadly three ‘S’s of Shaggy, Shabba and Snow. In fact, it was probably a bit of cynical marketing from their record label – jump on the bandwagon but use a well known record to get a head start on the rest of the field. Or maybe I’m being too harsh on Louchie Lou and Michie One, casting them as record company puppets. After all, I don’t know anything about them and how they came to be on TOTP with a hit record. Wikipedia just says they met at a Rebel MC concert in 1991.

What I did find out though was that their album was full of similar ragga-fied treatments of well known songs with versions of Kool And The Gang’s “Get Down On It” and “Somebody Else’s Guy” by Jocelyn Brown. Their only other major hit though was when they appeared on Suggs’ hit cover of Simon And Garfunkel’s “Cecilia”. It might have been crap but it did give us this rather memorable TOTP intro from Chris Eubank:

I’m still in pursuit of some insight into how the musical changes over the course of the ten years of these TOTP repeats came to be but I’m not sure I’ll get any sense out of Lenny Kravitz given the psychedelic tip he seems to be on with his latest single “Believe”. This is a full blown, trippy wig out with Lenny channelling his inner “Hey Jude” and singing about the power of positive thought, self belief, God and, of course, love. The BBC producers have picked up on the vibe and added some kaleidoscope effects for good measure.

Lenny’s really thrown the kitchen sink at this one with strings and a lush orchestration all in the mix. It’s not that it doesn’t work or isn’t a decent tune but for me it just fails to be the soaring anthem it strives to be. Maybe I wasn’t the only person to think this judging by its chart peak of No 30. I’m guessing that wasn’t the high that Kravitz was hoping for given the effort and time that seems to have gone into its creation. Still, the whooping studio audience seemed to enjoy it but maybe that was less organic and more at the floor manager’s direction.

Three Breakers this week starting with the second cover version on the show tonight. Bryan Ferry wasn’t averse to doing his own version of other people’s songs – his first ever solo album “These Foolish Things” was a collection comprised entirely of covers – and in 1993 he returned to that blueprint with his “Taxi” LP. After lead single “I Put A Spell On You” had made decent head way up the charts by peaking at No 18, the follow up would surely have been expected to do the same. It nearly did when “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” made it to No 23.

It wasn’t the first Gerry Goffin /Carole King song Ferry had covered. The aforementioned “These Foolish Things” album contained his take on their song “Don’t Ever Change” and he revisited their canon of work for this single. The Shirelles scored a No 1 with it in 1961 but the version I prefer is Carole King’s herself as it appeared on her iconic “Tapestry” album. And Bryan’s take on it? Yeah, he does it justice I think.

As it’s Ferry, there is of course a glamorous model in the video with not many clothes on whilst he mooches about the set. This particular model was Anna Nicole Smith. If that name rings a bell it’s probably due to the 1993 Playmate of the Year’s controversial marriage aged 27 to 89 year old billionaire J. Howard Marshall who died just eighteen months after their wedding. Smith herself would die aged just 39 after an accidental drug overdose.

Yeah, look I’m behind with these reviews so I haven’t got the time to ponder about Megadeth and their “Sweating Bullets” single OK? I will say this though. If you’ve ever wondered what might have become of Ed Sheeran had he been into trash metal instead of his stultifying brand of pop music, here’s your answer.

We arrive now at the seventh and final* Guns N’ Roses single to be pulled from their “Use Your Illusion” albums a whole 22 months after the first single “You Could Be Mine” appeared. Amazingly, all six singles to this point made the UK Top 10 and this final one only missed completing the set by one place. “Civil War” was that track although it was actually the lead song from a UK only EP.

*The song “Estranged” from “Use Your Illusion II” was released after “Civil War” in January 1994 but not in the UK

“Civil War” had been in existence for a while initially featuring on the 1990 charity album “Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal”, but it would also be included on the track listing for “Use Your Illusion II”. An anti war protest song, it features a sample from the film Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman in the titular role in its intro:

Feeling that the song still needed more embellishment, Axl Rose whistles the tune from American civil war song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” in the intro and coda. In a presumably unintentional but rather neat act of symmetry, this final “Use Your Illusion” track was originally made available as the B-side to the aforementioned “You Could Be Mine”, the very first single released from that double album project.

The song itself is another epic sounding rock track which almost leaves you exhausted by the end of it. The spare, whistled opening could deceive on first listen that this was going to be a wistful, acoustic affair akin to “Patience” but it’s actually more in common with “November Rain” or “Don’t Cry”. Yes, you could level accusations of being overblown, bloated and lyrically naive at it but it works pretty well for me, even the corny, dumb closing line “What’s so civil ‘bout war anyway?”.

The band would release an album of punk covers called “The Spaghetti Incident” in November of 1993 and then there was precisely nothing (bar their much derided cover of “Sympathy For The Devil” from the Interview With A Vampire soundtrack) until that aforementioned “Chinese Democracy” album fifteen years later.

Look out Suede! You might be the hip, young band for disaffected youth in 1993 but here come the original purveyors of angst flavoured, doom pop who recorded the album for miserable, misunderstood and introspective teenagers in 1983 with “The Hurting”. Well, here they come sort of anyway. It’s not quite the Tears For Fears we knew and loved on show here for this is TFF without Curt Smith who left the band acrimoniously in 1991. I guess he was burnt out after the mind numbingly laborious process that was the recording of the “Seeds Of Love” album.

Left to his own devices, remaining member of the duo Roland Orzabal decided to carry on under the band’s banner and delivered the “Elemental” album and its leading single “Break It Down Again”. In direct contrast to the song and album titles, Roland didn’t break it down into elements, he threw everything at it including…what…is that five cellos being played on stage up there? And, unlike Lenny Kravitz earlier, he pulled it off. In fact, not having listened to “Break It Down Again” for a good while, it’s actually a far better tune than I remember. It’s got an interesting, choppy structure (shame the producers used it as a marker to cut the song off in mid flow in this performance) and Roland’s voice is bloody good. I don’t think he gets the credit probably for his vocal talents. Back in the 80s, I always preferred the softer, purer voiced Curt Smith to take on singing duties but I think he’s won me over finally here. As an aside, conversely I liked the idiosyncratic tones of Andy McCluskey’s voice to the angelic sounding Paul Humphreys’ in OMD.

Ah yes, that phrase ‘back in the 80s’ brings me full circle to the question in the intro as to how chart music had changed in the decade between 1983 and 1993. Maybe Tears For Fears encapsulate the whole discussion. Ten years on from “The Hurting” they were still going out to bat and knocking it out of the park. All that had really changed was the personnel and hairstyles. Too simplistic a view? Yeah probably.

“Break It Down Again” made the Top 20 (just) and the album went Top 5, a good enough return to convince Orzabal to carry on and release another Curt-less album, the much less well received “Raoul And The Kings Of Spain” before Smith returned to the fold in 2000. Their current album “The Tipping Point” is possibly my favourite of 2022 so far. And yes I think that’s the ubiquitous Gail Ann Dorsey up there on bass who was on the show with the aforementioned Bryan Ferry the other week.

1993 was turning out to be quite the year for Lisa Stansfield. She started it with a Top 10 hit in “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” from The Bodyguard soundtrack, scored a No 1 as part of the “Five Live EP” duetting with George Michael on “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” (still in the Top 5 at this point by the way) and now here she was with another hit from another soundtrack.

“In All The Right Places” was the song chosen to promote the film Indecent Proposal, an erotic drama starring Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford. Erotic dramas were all the rage at the time with Basic Instinct and Sliver also doing the business at the box office in this period. It’s rumoured that Lisa Stansfield herself was considered for the Demi Moore role but that could be cobblers I suppose.

Certainly not cobblers was Lisa’s performance here as she just dons her stylish black dress and gets on stage alone to belt out the song. She appears to have copied Brett Anderson’s Bob haircut though (or is it the other way round). The song is an accomplished, sultry ballad that suits Lisa’s voice perfectly. As well as appearing on the soundtrack, it also made it onto her third studio album “So Natural” which was released in the November.

Oh and was there some actual thought put into the running order for this TOTP? Bryan Ferry’s version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” was also on the Indecent Proposal soundtrack.

Ace Of Base are at No 1 for the second of three weeks with “All That She Wants”. Just like the TOTP producers who seemed to have planned their running order this week, I’ve also put some thought into this post and not just thrown it together. Ace Of Base recorded a song called “Cecilia” (which I referenced earlier) for their third album “Flowers” which was written by them as a deliberate continuation of the Simon And Garfunkel song. Want to hear it? Nah, me neither.

The show ends with a weird outro from host Mark Franklin. Why on earth is he sat at a table with a random woman whom he does not introduce, both with a glass of red wine poured out before them whom he ‘cheers’ just before the credits roll. Wait. What? How? Why? Etc etc…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MCs	Creation	I did not
2	Tina Turner	I Don’t Wanna Fight	No
3	Suede	So Young	No but I had the album
4	Louchie Lou & Michie One	Shout (It Out)	Never happening
5	Lenny Kravitz	Believe	Nope
6	Bryan Ferry	Will You Love Me Tomorrow	No but I had a promo copy of the album
7	Megadeth	Sweating Bullets	Sod off!
8	Guns N’ Roses	Civil War EP	No but I have a Greatest Hits album with it on
9	Tears For Fears	Break It Down Again	Didn’t but probably should’ve
10	Lisa Stansfield	In All The Right Places	Negative
11	Ace Of Base	All That She Wants	See 7 above

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/m001b6p1/top-of-the-pops-27051993

TOTP 04 MAR 1993

Posted on July 5, 2022 by 80stastic

When did you first become aware of the term ‘Reality TV’? It’s hard to recall the exact moment so ingrained has it become in our cultural terms of reference. Myriad examples of it infest our TV programming schedules of ever more ludicrous concepts and content. I have to admit at this point that I am no TV snob and have watched (and continue to watch) my fair share of Reality TV but when did it actually enter our lives? Received wisdom would suggest it all began with Big Brother back in 2000. Nasty Nick and all that. I for one was hooked back then and for a number of subsequent series until it disappeared up its own arse.

However, there was an earlier Reality TV show that beat Big Brother to our screens by a whole seven years. Three days after this TOTP aired, The Living Soap entered our lives. I say our lives but I’m not entirely sure how many people were actually aware of its existence let alone how many people were watching it. It centred around the lives of six students sharing a house in Manchester which was of specific interest to me as I was living there at the time (though working in Rochdale) and my wife was working at the University library so often saw the cameras recording around campus. I’d been a student myself as recently as 1989 so a chance to revisit that period of my life, even remotely, was also appealing.

The show’s gimmick was that it was aired immediately after it had been filmed and was edited using the very first Avid editing technology. It was essential viewing in our house and Simon, Spider, Karen etc became celebrities in the student body of Manchester. It even had a groovy, contemporary theme tune – “Renaissance” by M People which was eventually released as a single and became a big hit. Predictably, the attention and intrusion of the cameras forced four of the six housemates to leave the show before its culmination being replaced by other ‘famous for fifteen minutes’ wannabes chosen by a public vote.

I wonder what became of them all? They’ll just about be in their early 50s now (I certainly am). The only two I can trace online are Simon McEwan who ended up as a BBC producer and Karen Bishko who has had an unbelievable career. She studied History of Art at Manchester but went onto become a singer songwriter who would be the support for Take That in 2007 and would end up writing a musical that was performed in New York! Anyway, M People aren’t on TOTP tonight but let’s see who are….

We start with a to camera piece by veteran radio DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman. Why? Well, it’s in aid of Comic Relief and if it’s that time of year then that can only mean one thing – another terrible charity record. Recent years had seen the likes of Bananarama, Mr Bean with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and Hale & Pace on single duty. The 1993 vintage was a rather obvious choice – everyone’s favourite fun chart act Right Said Fred. I mean this was an open goal surely? Who else was even in the running?

As with Hale & Pace two years earlier, the song was written specifically for the cause and was based around that year’s theme which was “Stick It Out”. Oo’er and indeed missus. The single was officially credited to Right Said Fred and Friends with the latter being various celebs of the time adding their ‘hilarious’ contributions. I know I’m stating the bleeding obvious here but this song is really, really terrible. An absolute stinker. Completely devoid of any merit – I’m talking musically of course. It’s good that it raised some money for Comic Relief although you’d have to ask who on earth bought this shite?!

As it’s the Freds, there’s the obligatory bit of double entendre in the lyrics where they sing about ‘a tall erection’ and sticking it out ‘on the doctor’s couch’ (which sounds a bit creepy) and the the rest of it seems to be a rewrite of Spitting Image’s “The Chicken Song” with lines like ‘clean your teeth with your feet’, ‘take a sprout for a walk’ and ‘make a sand igloo’. The studio performance is intercut with the official video for the celebrity interventions and almost inevitably, Bernard Cribbins, whose 1962 novelty song gave the band their name, turns up. Not you too Cribbins. Say it ain’t so! “Stick It Out” peaked at No 4.

https://youtu.be/DIcnd3A4DCU

One of only three songs in tonight’s show that we’ve seen before now as we get the video for “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz. It’s a basic performance promo but it’s the staging of it that makes it memorable. The circular, tiered arena set has a Rocky Horror Picture Show vibe recalling that scene with Meatloaf as Eddie on his motorbike but it’s the overhead lighting that is the money shot. Consisting of 983 incandescent tubes that could be brightened and dimmed to form patterns of light, it’s a pretty cool effect, certainly for 1993.

Although the parent album was a big success, Kravitz struggled to replicate the title track’s sales with any of the subsequent singles released from it. The “Circus” album followed in 1995 but couldn’t match its predecessor’s numbers but Lenny finished the decade with a surprise UK No 1 single in “Fly Away”.

Well this is confusing. When I saw All About Eve on the running order for this show, I automatically thought it was referring to the “Martha’s Harbour” hitmakers but no. “All About Eve” was the name of the song with the artist being Marxman. I have zero recollection of them or their track so I was surprised to see that they have a decent sized Wikipedia entry. It turns out that they were quite the trailblazers. Perhaps rather lazily referred to as the Anglo-Irish Public Enemy, it’s certainly true that their music was informed by their militant socialist values and their message of ending economic and social injustices. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story behind the slogans on their T-shirts in this performance:

The slogan on Marxman's t-shirts, "Self defence is no offence", was used in campaigns for the release of women such as Sara Thornton, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990 after being convicted of murdering her abusive husband. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 1, 2022

Wow! Do you think the TOTP producers were aware of what they we’re putting on our screens? I’m sure the show had shied away from such political messaging previously. As for Marxman’s sound, I quite like this track though I am getting some heavy Love City Groove vibes. Who were Love City Groove? This was Love City Groove…

OK, that’s possibly a bit too irreverent a comparison. I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read, that Marxman’s legacy is a sight more substantial than Love City Groove’s. They toured with both U2 and Depeche Mode and collaborated with artists like The Pogues and Sinéad O’Connor and producers such as DJ Premier of Gang Starr.

“All About Eve” peaked at No 28 and was the band’s only chart hit.

Now here’s a seminal song if ever I heard one. Now hear me out but is there a case for saying that Suede were the indie Take That? No, wait! Come back! Don’t go! Listen, by that I mean they both bands had experienced the unusual career trajectory of generating more press column inches than record sales in their early days; Take That in the teen mags and Suede in the inkies. Both bands would curiously finally correct that with their biggest hit singles to date that both peaked at No 7. For Take That see “It Only Takes A Minute” and for Suede it was “Animal Nitrate”. That’s the end of the Take That comparisons honest!

Despite their media profile, Suede’s first two singles had peaked at No 49 (“The Drowners”) and No 17 (“Metal Mickey”). There were no such brakes on the progress up there charts for “Animal Nitrate”. It just sounded so fresh, so new, so…dangerous. It was an enormous, snarling sound with Brett Anderson’s androgynous vocals allied to Bernard Butler’s irresistible, epic opening guitar riff a potent combination.

Like most of us, I think my first hearing of the song came a couple of weeks before this TOTP on 16th February when Suede performed it at the BRITS. The NME had campaigned for the new indie press darlings to perform on the show despite not being nominated for anything. Their performance that night felt important. They were introduced as “the already legendary Suede” and despite their fledgling career, that didn’t sound like hyperbole. Obviously the focus fell on Brett Anderson with his provocative image of naked chest, bobbed haircut and the slapping of his own arse. It was a genuine WTF? moment.

There was no looking back after that with the single going Top 10 and their much anticipated eponymous debut album going to No 1 on its release later in March. It felt like something significant was happening. In the end something did happen though, for many, the movement that followed Suede’s success would be ultimately unfulfilling.

This week’s live satellite broadcast comes from Hawaii and features k.d. Lang who thus far was best known in the UK for her duet with Roy Orbison on their re-recording of “Crying”. k.d. (it stands for Kathryn Dawn) had, however, been around for years on the country circuit before her 1992 album “Ingénue” (a more commercial and less traditional collection of songs) brought her mainstream recognition and success. The lead single from it was “Constant Craving” which would become both her most successful and recognised song. It took a couple of attempts though to make it a hit. It stalled at No 52 when it was originally released in 1992. I’m pretty sure that I’d heard it then and was aware of who she was but I can’t be sure. It’s thirty years ago!

Anyway, it was a No 15 success the second time around and deservedly so – it’s a good tune. I can’t be sure if it was 1992 or 1993 but in one of those years, some poor sod in the Our Price North West region was tasked with compiling every employee’s favourite musical choices of the year including single. So wide ranging were the replies in this category that the winning song only needed four votes to top the poll. The winner? Yep, “Constant Craving”.

My wife was a big fan and bought the “Ingénue” album. At some point in the decade (I’m not sure of the year and can’t be arsed to check) we even went to see her live at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Her voice was amazing as I recall. As an out lesbian artist, her audience reflected that. As we entered the venue, we were behind one lady with a very short haircut who was wearing a Harrington jacket and big Dr Marten boots. The young guy checking the tickets called her ‘sir’ and got an earful back in reply. I did kind of feel sorry for him. I think he wasn’t very culturally aware and that it was a genuine mistake.

The mix on the performance here is very odd with k.d. drowning out what I presume is a backing track easily. It feels like she’s singing accompanied by a cheap karaoke machine. Although the album sold well going to No 3 in the charts, k.d. never had another UK Top 40 hit. Follow up “Miss Chatelaine” got decent airplay but only got as far as No 68.

https://youtu.be/0CcQ3x82g04

Nah, I’ve not really got anything much to say about this next act. Had host Mark Franklin not introduced them I wouldn’t have known just by looking at them that this was Runrig. I mean I was aware that there existed a band called Runrig and that they played Celtic rock music but I didn’t really know any of their stuff at all. To be fair to me, “Wonderful” was only the band’s second charting single after the “Hearthammer EP” in 1991.

Watching this back, I kind of feel sorry for the band. Their first time on TOTP after being in existence since 1973 and they deliver that performance. I mean I know it’s not fair to expect an over the top, all singing and dancing extravaganza when they’re a bunch of forty something guys playing a rather average rock song but come on! They’re like Big Country’s more sensible, straight laced elder brothers. Do you think the lead singer had always been planning on wearing a leather jacket if he ever got on TOTP whenever that might be – the 70s, the 80s whenever? I guess it is a classic item of clothing but it just seems to jar somehow.

Anyway, “Wonderful” peaked at No 29 and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Ah shit. We’re back to four Breakers this week after none on the last show. More content for me to have to come up with then. Super! Now, one political activist group on the show was quite daring but two? What was going on?! Like Marxman before them, Rage Against The Machine’s music was all about political messaging and anti-authoritarian views. Not that I understood any of that at the time. I thought it was all a bit of an unholy racket. Anyway, “Killing In The Name” was their debut single and although it would achieve a respectable peak of No 25 on the UK Top 40, that was by no means the end or indeed the highlight of its chart story.

Fast forward sixteen years and the singles chart is unrecognisable from its heyday with the once much celebrated race for the Xmas No 1 now hijacked and debased by TV talent show The X Factor. Two members of the public had had enough and formed a Facebook group to campaign for people to buy “Killing In The Name” instead of that year’s X Factor winner’ song. The campaign went viral and, with a physical release of RATM’s track not required as it could be downloaded online and still count as a sale, “Killing In The Name” was duly crowned Xmas No 1 for 2009. I felt a little bit for that year’s X Factor winner little Geordie Joe McElderry who got caught up in the whole media frenzy and was asked about whether such galvanising campaigns should be allowed to subvert the chart compilation in that way but ah, what the hell.

After doing a studio performance last week, Bryan Ferry’s cover of “I Put A Spell On You” is now officially a Breaker at No 22. As you’d expect, the video is set in a nightclub and populated by gorgeous models with Louise Brooks hairstyles looking glamorous and seductive whilst Bryan lurks in the shadows. It’s all very Ferry.

I suggested in a previous post that Annie Lennox had done a superior cover of the song but there is also this by the much underrated Alan Price as well. I do like a bit of Alan Price now and again I have to say…

There was definitely something up with TOTP producer Stanley Appel this week. Not only did he put two political activist groups in the show but he also sneaked The Jesus Lizard into the running order! These Illinois noise rockers (yes, ‘noise rock’ was a thing apparently) were surely one of the unlikeliest of bands to ever appear on the Beeb’s prime time music show but here they were riding on the coat tails of Nirvana’s success with a split single release of their song “Puss” along with Kurt Cobain’s “Oh, The Guilt”. I seem to remember that this was only available on a limited edition 7” but I could be wrong. If I didn’t get Rage Against The Machine then I certainly wasn’t going to be swayed by this lot.

Three years later though I did have my own peculiar little Jesus Lizard moment. It came when I was serving a customer in the Our Price in Stockport who was enquiring about the new George Michael single and wanted to know what it was called. My confident reply? “It’s called ‘Jesus To A Lizard’ madam” before correcting myself to “Jesus To A Child”. Talk about a brain fart. How we laughed!

“Puss / Oh, The Guilt” peaked at No 12.

The final Breaker is the latest single from Madonna. The third single taken from her “Erotica” album, “Bad Girl” is an almost forgotten Madge hit – well, I’d forgotten all about it anyway. To be fair to myself, she’s released eighty-nine singles to date so some of those were bound to skip through my memory cells. I’d also forgotten about the video featuring Christopher Walken who plays the role of Madonna’s character’s guardian angel thereby predating his infamous dancing appearance in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice” by some eight years.

“Bad Girl” kept up Madonna’s run of UK Top 10 singles in the 90s by just creeping in at No 10 itself but in the US it became her first single to fail to make the Billboard Top 20 thus breaking a run of twenty-seven hits starting with “Holiday” in 1983 and ending with “Deeper And Deeper” in 1992. Tellingly for Madonna though, this brief Breakers appearance was the only time we saw “Bad Girl” on TOTP. Back in the 80s, wouldn’t a new Madonna single and video have warranted a much bigger fanfare than this?! We weren’t (gulp) getting bored of her surely?

Just to rub salt into Madge’s wounds, here comes a performance from a legendary female artist that does get the full bells and whistles treatment with host Mark Franklin even going so far as to say he was proud to introduce her. He was talking, of course, of (Miss) Diana Ross. If “Bad Girl” is a forgotten Madonna single though, what does that make “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)”? This was yet another single to be lifted from her “Force Behind The Power” album that had already been out eighteen months! It’s one of those songs that you’ve forgotten about as soon as the last note has disappeared into the ether. So vacuous was it that it was hardly there at all. A bit like Michelle Donelan being Secretary of State for Education for thirty-six hours or however long it was. As I say, hardly there at all.

There was one thing to note here though. Diana’s clearly borrowed that bloke from Runrig’s leather jacket for this performance – maybe I was wrong to ridicule him after all. “Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)” peaked at No 31 – don’t ask me how it even got that far up the chart.

Still top of the pile are 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. I think they’ve got one more week after this but that won’t be the last we’ll see of them as there’s at least another four Top 10 hits to come from them in the next couple of years.

What do you think the pinball themed video was all about? Was it some sort of Elton John / Tommy / The Who tribute?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I Buy it?
1	Right Said Fred And Friends	Stick It Out	Not even for charity
2	Lenny Kravitz	Are You Gonna Go My Way	No
3	Marxman	All About Eve	Nope
4	Suede	Animal Nitrate	No the single but I had the album
5	k.d.Lang	Constant Craving	Not but my wife had the album
6	Runrig	Wonderful	Never
7	Rage Against The Machine	Killing In The Name	Nah
8	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had a promo copy of the album
9	The Jesus Lizard / Nirvana	Puss / Oh, The Guilt	Negative
10	Madonna	Bad Girl	I did not
11	Diana Ross	Heart (Don’t Change My Mind)	As if
12	2 Unlimited	No Limit	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/m0018s7p/top-of-the-pops-04031993

TOTP 24 SEP 1992

Posted on April 2, 2022 by 80stastic

OK, the relentless BBC4 schedule of two TOTP shows a week combined with 14 episodes that we missed due to Adrian Rose’s unwillingness to sign a repeats waiver has delivered us into late September back in 1992. On the day this particular show was broadcast, Conservative MP David Mellor resigned from government in the light of his adulterous affair with actress Antonia De Sancha. Remember that? Can that really be 30 years ago?! I actually find myself longing for the days when a sex scandal dominated the news rather than the utter existential misery that we have these days. What I found must upsetting and shocking about this little tale of sleaze wasn’t the revelation that the wretched Mellor claimed to be a fan of my beloved Chelsea (though the shame of association with this vile man was bad enough) but that he apparently made love in a Chelsea strip. Eeewww! The Sun mocked up a picture of Mellor in said kit with the tag line ‘Night he scored four times with actress’. The whole thing was repulsive! Now of course, those stories of existential misery I mentioned before also apply to Chelsea – life was so much simpler back then David Mellor and all.

We start tonight’s show with an act called Messiah who have covered Donna Summer’s shimmering Giorgio Moroder co-written and produced disco classic “I Feel Love” (one for David Mellor there – eeewww!). Yet again, despite the real possibility that I may have sold this record to an eager punter while working at Our Price in Rochdale, I have zero recall of this track. The Donna Summer original? Obviously. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond’s cover from 1985? Of course. This techno rave up? Not a flicker.

Apparently that’s Precious Wilson doing the vocals who was in Eruption of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and “One Way Ticket” fame back in the 70s. Backing her up is a man playing a fiddle who seems to be doing an impression of Jerry Sadowitz’s “Ebeneezer Goode” character, a guy on keyboards at the back channelling his inner Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys (even down to the very tall hat) and, randomly, two people in Star Wars stormtrooper headgear. It looks a bit of a mess visually. The ‘Hail the Messiah!’ sample is from Life Of Brian.

Messiah’s version of “I Feel Love” peaked at No 19.

Reminder to self: Sade is the name of the band not the singer. Same as Toyah. Do not forget this when writing the next few paragraphs.

Sade is a bit of a mystery isn’t she? DOH!! I mean, Sade are an enigmatic band aren’t they? Making huge waves in 1984 with their BRIT award winning, four times platinum selling debut album “Diamond Life”, their sound seem to be completely fully formed immediately and created the cultural trope of the ‘coffee table album’. Two more albums followed in the next four years peaking at Nos 1 and 3. They played Live Aid. And yet…what do we really know about them and why, given their popularity, have they only ever had one Top 10 hit?

Well, aside from the fact that they are a band not a singer that I addressed before, three of them were from my home of the last 18 years Hull while the band’s singer Sade Adu was from Nigeria originally. They were like the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars of sophisti-pop. Sade (the individual) had worked as a part-time model and fashion designer before settling on music as her career of choice. I think she was part of the Blitz scene at the start of the 80s hanging out with New Romantic heroes Spandau Ballet who didn’t realise she could sing. By 1983, the buzz about her and her band was enough to attract the attention of Epic Records and contracts were duly signed.

Then came that genre defining first album and the whole world seemed to know their name. Or rather Sade Adu’s name. Could anyone name any other member of the band without googling them? As for their lack of singles success, maybe they’re just an album artist but the truth is that apart from debut single “Your Love Is King” going to No 6, none of their singles got higher than No 14. Which brings us to 1992 and “No Ordinary Love”. As well as having a song title that could make a David Mellor/Antonia De Sancha playlist (eeewww!), this would prove to be their second biggest hit ever (yep that No 14 hit) and was from the band’s fourth album “Love Deluxe”.

The release of that album made it four in eight years giving a rate of one every two years which was pretty consistent. However, it would be eight years before the next long player (2000’s “Lovers Rock”) and a further ten years after that before their sixth and so far last album (2010’s “Soldier Of Love”). Back in 1992 though, the fanbase had little idea that this batch of new songs would have to sustain them throughout the rest of the decade.

Despite having been away for four years during which there had been a dance music explosion, the TOTP producers still believed in Sade’s blend of sophisti-pop / neo soul enough to give them an ‘exclusive’ slot on the show. To be honest though, they did rather dish them out as prolifically as fixed penalty notices to a Conservative government. Sade (the individual) gives her usual sultry performance and doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the eight years since she first burst into the charts.

“No Ordinary Love” was originally a No 26 hit but achieved that No 14 peak when rereleased eight months later in June of 1993. I have no idea why that was.

Right, there’s two ‘what’s going on here then?’ moments in one next. Firstly, there’s a change of format with an extended chart rundown now included which covers places 20 through to 11 – previously we’d had to make do with the Top 10. It’s just a rolling ticker tape display over the top of a video but still. It’s a nod towards the format of old I guess.

Secondly, said video this week is from Omar but it’s for a song that isn’t “There’s Nothing Like This”. Eh? What gives? Omar had more than one Top 40 hit?! Well, he did but one of them wasn’t this single “Music”, the title track from his second album which peaked at No 53! What was going on here?! Singles that weren’t actually hits being given airtime on the show? And then irony of ironies, they play it as the backdrop of a new Top 40 centric feature! To top it all off, the track is only given 40 seconds before it’s yanked off screen. I’m guessing that the producers negotiated with Omar’s label and came up with a way of getting him on the show but the payback was it was for a very small amount of airtime. It’s basically a Breaker slot but they couldn’t call it that as it wasn’t actually in the Top 40 and so technically couldn’t be said to have ‘broken’ into the charts. What a mess!

Ah, that’s unfortunate. It’s Boy George next with “The Crying Game”. Not unfortunate because I didn’t like the record – I didn’t mind it really – but because it was literally the second to last song reviewed in my last post so I’m completely spent when it comes to saying anything else about it. OK well, George’s version of this song that was originally a hit in the 60s for Dave Berry (not that bloke on Absolute Radio in a morning) was taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name and and was produced by Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant.

I like the nod to George’s past with his twangy guitar player dressed like the Culture Club singer from ten years previous.

This is more like it *TOTP! This is what the kids wanted! In Autumn of 1992, you couldn’t be more achingly hip than Suede were. Lauded as many things including the antidote to grunge and the spearhead of a new wave of British rock music, they rode the zeitgeist hard with Melody Maker dubbing them “The Best New Band in Britain”. They appeared on the publication’s front cover before they even had a recording contract. They weren’t just big news, they were the news.

Inevitably given lead singer Brett Anderson’s androgynous image and the band’s glam rock influences, Bowie comparisons abounded. Impact wise, they were talked of in the same breath as The Smiths. Retrospectively, they have been allocated the status of the John the Baptist of Britpop, paving the way for the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp et al to dominate the mid 90s. It’s a role the band don’t sit comfortably with. Not everyone was sold on them initially though. My friend Robin who was living in London at the time caught an early gig of theirs and his three word review was “Suede – I wasn’t”. Clever sod.

“Metal Mickey” was the band’s first Top 40 hit though not their first single released. That’s honour went to “The Drowners” which had come out a few months before but failed to make the Top 40 despite being a great tune. By the time their debut eponymous album was released in March the following year, they had clocked up a Top 10 single in “Animal Nitrate” and the album duly went to No 1 becoming, at the time, the fastest selling debut album in UK history in a decade. It won the very first Mercury Music Prize and went on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK. I can remember playing it very loudly in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working before opening.

Four years later I saw the band live myself in Blackburn with my mate Steve on the tour for the “Coming Up” album. They were supported by Mansun. Both bands were good as I recall. We’ll no doubt be seeing lots more of Suede in these TOTP repeats.

“Metal Mickey” peaked at No 17.

*Interesting how in his intro host Mark Franklin actually says “TOTP” rather than “Top Of The Pops”. I just use the acronym to save on typing in my blog. What was Mark’s reason for using it?

Today may have been the end of the road for David Mellor’s political career but it was the start of a journey for one of the biggest selling singles of the year and indeed, one of the biggest selling of the decade in the US. “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men was No 1 over there for 13 weeks straight and was certified platinum for shifting a million units and won two Grammy awards. It topped the charts in the UK for three weeks and was the sixth best selling single of the year here. In short, it was a monster.

As with Boy George’s hit earlier, it was from a film soundtrack but unlike George’s one I’ve never seen, at least not all the way through. Boomerang was the latest Eddie Murphy in which he plays a character who is an advertising executive, a womaniser and male chauvinist. Hmm. I think made the right choice.

Anyway, so popular was “End Of The Road” that Boyz II Men’s debut album “Cooleyhighharmony” – which didn’t include the song initially – was rereleased with it now on the track listing. Their sound has been described as ‘hip-hop doo wop’ and helped establish R’n’B as the dominant music genre into the new millennium. For me though, “End Of The Road” was quite a straight forward big ballad albeit that unusually it featured all four members taking the lead vocal at various points in the song.

The performance here was from New Orleans and the most striking thing about it was their wardrobe. What were they thinking?! Matching suits and ties is fine but with baseball caps and shirt trousers?! It just looks weird. I mean not disturbing like David Mellor in his Chelsea kit but weird all the same.

“End Of The Road” will be No 1 soon enough so I’ll keep the rest of my powder dry until then.

An artist who is remembered for one song next though she really wasn’t a one hit wonder. The rule of diminishing returns after soaring the highest highs with her debut single was the possibly unfair fate that befell Tasmin Archer. That single was of course “Sleeping Satellite” and I definitely remember the advertising strategy for the single included a bill poster campaign which asked the question ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ with very little other information. Loads of these posters just started appearing overnight. Quite clever in terms of building anticipation I guess.

The single was perfect for daytime radio. A well crafted pop song built around a swirling piano riff and a swooping chorus, the record buying public’s resistance was futile. This was always going to be a hit and a big one. I’m not sure even the most committed of Archer’s record label team could have predicted a No 1 though. Surely Tasmin herself couldn’t have expected that outcome first time out despite her debut album being called “Great Expectations”. In a way, “Sleeping Satellite” flew decidedly in the face of its chart peers with the Top 40 being populated by dance track after dance track but then hadn’t Chesney Hawkes scored a huge No 1 with a decidedly pop record the year before? Was it just a case of history repeating itself?

My wife and I saw Tasmin live years later kind of by accident or at least it wasn’t planned. We were in Glasgow for a birthday weekend away and wandering around the city centre stumbled across the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and saw that she was playing there that night. We decided on a whim to go and bought tickets. Tasmin’s star had fallen a fair way by this point though (1996 I think) and the Strathclyde Suite in the venue was half full. She did her best but the audience reaction to her set suggested that they were just there for one obvious song. She told us punters that she’d been watching Stars In Their Eyes in her hotel room before the gig and let it slip that “I’d just die if someone did me”. I’m pretty sure nobody ever has.

Three Breakers now beginning with Def Leppard and a third single from their “Adrenalize” album called “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”. I don’t recall any singles from this album after the first two, the execrable duo of “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man”. I probably couldn’t handle any more after those two and deliberately avoided them. The soul searching title of this one sounds like it should be a ballad. OK, just for you lot I’ll break the habit of 30 years and give it a listen…

Well, I was right it is a ballad but it’s hardly a thing of delicate beauty is it? It’s all very soft rock by numbers sounding with crunchy guitars and Joe Elliott’s strained vocals. It’s sort of like Nigel Tufnel’s “Lick My Love Pump” in reverse if you get my drift.

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” peaked at No 16.

Some proper rockers now as we get the video for “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam. I didn’t know the back story to this one nor about the controversy surrounding the video until now. Written about 15 year old Texas high school kid Jeremy Delle who shot himself in front of his classmates in 1991, it was the third single to be released from the band’s all conquering “Ten” album and peaked at No 15 in the UK.

The video follows the source material pretty graphically and caused MTV to order that the scene showing ‘Jeremy’ with a gun in his mouth to be edited out. The network’s outrage didn’t stop the video from picking up four MTV Video Music Awards including video of the year though. The controversy surrounding the video caused the band to recoil from them and didn’t make another one for six whole years. MTV rarely broadcast the promo after the Columbine High School massacre of 1999 though the uncensored version was released on Pearl Jam’s YouTube channel in 2020 to mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

If you asked the average punter to name a tune by The Prodigy that had the word ‘fire’ in it, I’m betting the vast majority would respond with “Firestarter”. There is another possible answer though. “Fire/Jericho” was the band’s third single and paved the way for their debut album “Experience” which was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. A double A-side, it’s “Fire” that gets an airing on the show tonight. Sampling The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” amongst others, it was written to reflect that not all ravers were off their heads on ecstasy but some were blazing up on weed as well. One in the eye for Mary Whitehouse there.

The band seemed to have disowned the track in that it does not feature on their Best Of album “Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005” and that they hated the video that was made to promote it. Apparently it was the quality of the computer graphics that really irked them. Viewed by 2022 standards then yes, they look prehistoric but we’re they really so bad in 1992? I suppose it depends what you are comparing them to. Alongside the video for “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits then they hold up. Viewed against A-ha’s “Take On Me” or Michael Jackson’s face morphing “Black And White” then they do appear amateurish at best.

“Fire/Jericho” peaked at No 11.

From rave to…Mike Oldfield? Yes, you can criticise the show for many things but you have to admit that TOTP did its best to reflect all musical genres. Oldfield of course had just released “Tubular Bells II” but, inverting the release schedule, hadn’t trailed it with a lead single. This was rectified by the release of “Sentinel” a couple of weeks later.

Was I excited about “Tubular Bells II”? Hardly. Though I did have a dark Mike Oldfield secret – I’d bought his “Moonlight Shadow” single almost 10 years before – I’d never been inspired to seek out his back catalogue. Obviously I knew of the original “Tubular Bells” album from 1973 but my knowledge of it was limited to the introduction theme from it that was used in the film The Exorcist. That brings us nicely back to “Sentinel” which was a re-imagining of that piece. The performance in Edinburgh that Mark Franklin references in his intro was a live concert at Edinburgh castle on 4 September with 6,000 people in attendance. Oldfield’s performance here though really is that of the stereotypical muso even down to his carefully coiffured but meant to look carefree hair. He’s playing guitar and keyboards but still has two other keyboard players with him as well as a guy on piano. Alright we get it Mike! Your art is so elaborate and complex that you need all that entourage with you.

Researching Oldfield’s discography, I had no idea he’d made so many studio albums- 26 and counting! Mind you he does go in for big numbers. He’s been married four times and has seven children. I didn’t know that he wrote the score for The Killing Fields, a film that had a profound effect on me the first time I saw it. Presumably it wasn’t Oldfield’s choice to use John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the film’s denouement? Having said that, there were rumours that the aforementioned “Moonlight Shadow” was written about Lennon’s murder in 1980. Oldfield had arrived in New York on the same day and was staying just a few blocks from the Dakota building so…

“Sentinel” peaked at No 10.

We arrive at the No 1 and it’s still “Ebenezer Goode” by The Shamen. I wonder if there is/was a real person called Ebeneezer Goode? There must be surely? I know someone who has an uncle Ebeneezer but there surname isn’t Goode. When you Google the name, if you scroll down enough you get to a result that talks about a Methodist chapel in Suffolk that has been converted into a weekend retreat and it’s called Ebeneezer Goode! Either the owner used to be a raver in his youth or it’s named after a person who really did exist surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Messiah	I Feel Love	Nah
2	Sade	No Ordinary Love	No
3	Omar	Music	Never happening
4	Boy George	The Crying Game	Nope
5	Suede	Metal Mickey	No but I bought the album
6	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	I did not
7	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
8	Def Leppard	Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad	Hell no!
9	Pearl Jam	Jeremy	It’s a no
10	The Prodigy	Fire / Jericho	Jeri-no
11	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Sent me to sleep more like – no
12	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	He’s ever so good…but I didn’t buy it

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/m0015x8y/top-of-the-pops-24091992