The Charlatans | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 20 SEP 1990

Posted on March 10, 2021 by 80stastic

We’re pushing on through 1990 now and find ourselves entering the final third of September. The year has brought us a dramatic World Cup, a Summer heatwave and a seemingly endless conveyor belt of awful, awful records in the Top 40…but all of those things would pale into insignificance for me as I was exactly one month away from getting married! Yes, my girlfriend and I had been reunited over the Summer when I secured some temporary employment in her hometown of Hull and now we had decided that we weren’t going to be separated again. We were only 22 by this point and none of our friends and peers had got married or were even talking about such a happening that I was aware of but we were determined and confident in each other and our relationship.

We had decided we would move to Manchester. We had very little connection to the city other than we both knew one person each who lived there. To this end, I had applied for jobs in record shops there to have some employment set up for our arrival. Why record shops? I loved music and thought that I would be working in a field that engaged me. I also figured that somehow it would be a springboard into some sort of career in the music business, that I would be headhunted to some record company position and end up running a record label or some such other fantasy. In my defence of this folly, I was very young, just starting out in life and I didn’t have a f*****g clue! The first record shop that I heard back from was the Our Price chain and they invited me to interview for a temporary Xmas sales assistant position. So it came to pass that in this very week of September 1990, I travelled over to Manchester and rocked up at the offices above the Manchester Piccadilly store where I was interviewed by a very pleasant guy (whose name I forget), sat a music quiz and was told that I would be a suitable person to work for Our Price. I remember him asking me if I though the money they were paying was enough (£100 a week as I recall) and I said absolutely! I wasn’t going to talk myself out of the opportunity before I’d even begun. Success!

My other brief whilst I was over in Manchester was to try and find some accommodation for us to live in once we’d moved across the Pennines. On this point I was less successful and I returned to Hull with nothing in place on that subject. Still, one out of two wasn’t bad. I had a start date for late October agreed and had familiarised myself with Manchester a little at least whilst I was staying with one of the two people we knew there for a couple of days. I recall travelling back to her flat on the bus on the Saturday afternoon and wondering how my beloved Chelsea had got on that day. This was before the days of mobile phones, live score apps and the rest. I was unsure about outing myself as a Chelsea fan on public transport in the centre of Manchester but fortunately they had been playing Man City that afternoon so I simply asked somebody on the bus who had a pink ‘un (remember them) sports paper the City result*. Bingo! I was already getting used to this living in Manchester lark!

*It was a 1-1 draw by the way.

As a consequence of all this grown up stuff, I had taken my eye off the ball as to the pop charts and am pretty sure I didn’t even watch this particular TOTP. Let’s see what I missed….

….we start with one of those awful, awful records I referred to earlier. Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood were one of those Eurodance outfits that we’d seen so much of in this year like 49ers and Bizz Nizz. The Captain himself was a guy called Tony Dawson-Harrison who earned his nickname when stationed with the US Army in Germany. Hang on! Wasn’t that the same back story as Turbo B from Snap!?

*checks Wikipedia*

Yes, it was! And didn’t Sydney Youngblood of “If Only I Could” fame follow the same route to chart glory?

*checks Wikipedia again*

Yes! What the hell was the deal with American army soldiers based in Germany becoming pop stars in the early 90s?! Anyway, he was joined by vocalist Nancy “Nance” Coolen (not hard to work out where her nickname came from) and a couple of dancers and hey presto! A massive hit called “I Can’t Stand It”. After that single hit big, Captain Hollywood left to pursue a solo career (he had a couple of minor hit singles in the UK in the mid 90s but was a much bigger deal in the rest of Europe) and was replaced by Stacey “Stay-C” Seedorf (they really needed to work on those nicknames a bit more!). From that point on it became a carousel of band members and line up that would put The Fall to shame (well, The Sugababes at least). Apparently they are still a going concern to this day. As for me, I couldn’t stand “I Can’t Stand It” which peaked at No 7 over here.

Wait a minute! What’s going on here? The Stone Roses in the charts with “Fools Gold”? Again? It had already spent 14 weeks in the Top 100 between Nov 1989 and Feb 1990 – why was it re-released so quickly afterwards? Well, after the band’s commercial breakthrough in 1989 with “Made Of Stone”, “She Bangs The Drums” and of course “Fools Gold”, there was a rush to get more of their product out into the marketplace, not all of it with the endorsement of the band. Early single “Sally Cinnamon” on their ex-label Revolver came out again with a video that the band hated. They tried to stop the release and when they couldn’t, it led to the legendary office trashing incident when the band, on route to the recording studio, stopped by the FM Revolver headquarters and trashed the offices by hurling paint all over them and former manager Paul Birch. The inevitable court case followed with the band fined £3,600 each.

After “Elephant Stone” was also released from their iconic debut album came the much heralded single “One Love”. Tipped to be No 1, the band’s mythical aura had slipped after the debacle of the Spike Island concert and it stalled at No 4, unable to dislodge Elton John or indeed get the better of Craig McClachlan! Given its relative failure, was “Fools Gold” re-issued to remind us of their former glories? Its original release had seen it double A-sided with “What The World Is Waiting For” but was it just a standard A -side this time? Or was it just the original release propelled back into the charts by demand? I’m not sure. he waters are muddied further by the fact that it has been re-released at least a further two times since. I’m pretty sure that the debut album was re-released with “Fools Gold” included as an extra track at some point in the early 90s as well.

The 1990 release made it to No 22 in the charts whilst the 1989 original release made it all the way to No 8. I have to say it’s not my favourite Stone Roses tune by some distance, whilst Ian Brown seems to be making quite the fool himself these days without any recourse to gold.

I had to jinx it by mentioning Snap! before didn’t I? Here’s Turbo B and co with their third hit of 1990 “Cult Of Snap”. After “The Power” and “Ooops Up”, this one at least had a differential to it in the form of the African sounding drumbeats and chanting. Indeed, it proved to be popular in that territory as it peaked at No 2 in Zimbabwe. When this TOTP repeat aired, a few social media commentators said that it reminded them of that “In Zaire” song by Johnny Wakelin which I just about remember from my childhood. Let’s see if they had a point then…

…ooh yeah, maybe. Anyway, back to “Cult Of Snap” and I found this one a little less irritating than their previous efforts (maybe it was Johnny Wakelin subconsciously drawing me in from the 70s). It turns out though that Snap! didn’t have the very first release of this track. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Although "Cult Of Snap" was a Snap! composition, this wasn't the track's first release. An Italian outfit called Hi Power rushed out a version, which charted as high as no 73, before Snap! got theirs out. https://t.co/9FBOyfjPCp #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 5, 2021

The ever generous Turbo B (who had already been involved in a homophobic instigated nightclub incident by this point) declared of Hi Power’s version in a Smash Hits interview:

“These people, they’re ridiculous. If he was a good rapper, it would be OK but he was a shit rapper, he has no timing. “

What a pleasant man! It’s a bit rich anyway given that “The Power” included the unauthorised sampling of vocals by Jocelyn Brown which led her to commence legal action. The legally complex world of sampling eh?

“Cult Of Snap” peaked at No 8 in the UK.

One of the constants of this blog throughout the 80s and now the 90s has been the persistent existence of hard rock acts within the UK Top 40 whatever the current musical milieu dictated. House music? Not a problem? Overblown ballads from film soundtracks? Out of our way, we’re coming through! Boys bands and teeny bop idols? We give zero f***s! We’re here to play loud rock music and nobody will stop us! The likes of Megadeth, Skid Row and Whitesnake had steadfastly refused to budge from the Top 40, presumably propelled their in the first pace by a sizeable, loyal fan base. Another such act were AC/DC for whom “Thunderstruck” was already their 14th UK Top 40 hit and followed the likes of “Who Made Who” and “Heatseeker” into the Top 20. As I’ve said many time previously, I never got the boat going to AC/DC island and this did nothing for me. I can’t be doing with their song titles for one thing – they all seem to just constant variants on the whole ‘power’ theme.

The song inspired a whole movie called Thunderstruck which was released in 2004 and was a comedy about five guys who go to an AC/DC show in 1991 and agree to bury the first one who dies next to Bon Scott. No really. Look, here’s the trailer….

…yeah. It looks well shit doesn’t it?

Some Breakers next and we start with the return of S’Express. Despite cornering the market as the commercial face of house music when arriving with a bang back in 1988 with the No 1 single “Theme from S-Express”, Mark Moore and co had suffered from a case of diminishing returns ever since with each subsequent single release peaking lower than its immediate predecessor. Their fortunes were not helped by a two year gap between album releases with sophomore long player “Intercourse” not arriving until a whole three years after the bomb that was “Theme from S-Express” had exploded into the charts.

“Nothing To Lose” was actually the second single to be lifted from “Intercourse”, the first had been “Mantra For A State Of Mind” nearly a year before – see what I mean about them not being fussed about maintaining momentum with regular release schedules? Indeed, the four singles that were released from the album covered a period of three years!

I have to say that I didn’t mind “Nothing To Lose” though and my wife liked it so much she bought the 12″. However, their appeal was definitely on the wane. It peaked at No 32 and became their last ever Top 40 hit until a remix of “Theme from S-Express” retitled as “Theme from S’Express – The Return Trip” made the Top 20 in 1996.

Is this the same DNA who were just in the charts with Suzanne Vega with that remix of “Tom’s Diner”? It is apparently. I had no idea they had more than one hit. A quick check of their discography shows that they had five Top 40 entries although this one, “La Serenissima”, seems to be the only one in their own right. Including “Tom’s Diner”, all the other ones were with additional artists with the most successful and famous being Kylie Minogue whom they remixed “Shocked ” for as “Shocked (DNA Remix)” (it did what it said on the tin) in 1991 which peaked at No 6.

Featuring that ubiquitous James Brown “Funky Drummer” sample, “La Serenissima” was actually a cover of a piece by Rondò Veneziano who Wikipedia tells me are ‘an Italian chamber orchestra, specialising in Baroque music, playing original instruments but incorporating a rock-style rhythm section of synthesiser, bass guitar and drums’. That sounds…erm…like an Italian version of ‘Hooked On Classics’?

“La Serenissima” – the Byzantine title for Venice if you’re asking – peaked at No 34.

Who’s up for some Monie Love? Last seen in the charts at the back end of 1989 with her Top 20 single “Grandpa’s Party”, she was back there again with “It’s a Shame (My Sister)” which was her hip-hop take on “It’s a Shame”, the old 70s hit by The Spinners. Is it my imagination or was Monie Love briefly tipped to be the next hip-hop superstar? Well, there’s still a lot of love for Monie online where she is routinely referred to as a hip-hop icon. Interviewed by http://www.pbs.org and asked what her greatest contribution was to hip-hop, she replied:

“Oh, wow, that’s easy for me. My greatest contribution to Hip-Hop was allowing the United States of America to know and understand exactly how far they reach, and how influential they are to children in completely different countries because I am the import. I’m one of the first successful imports on the Hip-Hop tree of life.”

Import? Ah, you see Monie was born Simone Johnson in Battersea in 1970 before relocating to the US permanently where she carved out a successful career in radio. Oh, and I’ve no idea who True Image are/were who are also credited on the record. Sounds like one of Louis Walsh’s X Factor boy bands to me.

After The Stone Roses earlier in the show, we get another of those acts closely associated with the baggy sound of Manchester (although they were actually from a combination of the West Midlands and Northwich in Cheshire). The Charlatans were bona fide pop stars by this point but this was actually their debut appearance on TOTP never actually having made it on the show for previous single “The Only One I Know” despite it going Top 10 (the promo video had to suffice instead). “Then” was a worthy follow up and very nearly made it two Top Tenners on the bounce, peaking just outside at No 12.

Lead singer and now near National Treasure Tim Burgess has obviously been to the barbers with his bowl cut look replaced with something altogether more sharp. The decision to lop off his locks was made because Tim felt that too many people trying to copy his floppy fringe look apparently. These days of course, he has adopted a hairstyle that seems to be a mash up of Andy Warhol and Purdey from The New Avengers. Haircuts aside, he remains a rather wonderful human being.

If this TOTP was a football match, it would be between the indie/dance baggie sound and heavy rock and this would be the match report:

“After The Baggies (no, not WBA!) went 1-0 up early doors via a strike from The Stone Roses, Heavy Rock equalised via the ever reliable AC/DC. Shortly after the break(ers) however, The Baggies were back in front via a good follow up from The Charlatans. Not to be out done, Heavy Rock fired a second equaliser from veterans Iron Maiden.”

Yes, just like AC/DC earlier, Iron Maiden were still rampaging up the charts as the 80s became the 90s. We could have been forgiven for thinking they were on a sabbatical given the solo career of Bruce Dickinson earlier in the year but they were back with new single “Holy Smoke” which was the lead single from their “No Prayer For The Dying” album. By this point, the band’s fan base was so big that they could guarantee a high chart placing for anything they released as demonstrated by “Holy Smoke” which entered the charts at No 3. The band (or possibly their record label) saw a way to exploit this to the max with their next single “Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter” which was released in the week after Xmas when there was traditionally a lull in sales after the Xmas rush. This meant that far fewer copies need to be sold to have a massive hit and so it came to pass that Iron Maiden would score their first and only No 1 single as 1991 dawned.

I don’t really recall “Holy Smoke” at all and on hearing it on this TOTP repeat iI did wonder if it was an instrumental. It isn’t but the reason for my confusion was that the show’s producers started the playback of the track from the point of a guitar solo which I’m guessing was a strategic move to omit some of the song’s more profane lyrics which occur early on such as ‘Flies around shit/bees around honey’ and ‘I’ve lived in filth/I’ve lived in sin/and I still smell cleaner than the shit you’re in’. Ooh, they were scary rebels weren’t they Iron Maiden?

Breaking News! There’s a last gasp winner in The Baggies v Heavy Rock match as the former seal the win with a goal from late substitute The Farm. Hang on, it’s gone to VAR! There’s a debate about whether the goal should stand as Stockley Park look at evidence that The Farm were not actually a baggie band and therefore they should be disqualified from playing. According to a Smash Hits interview with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, he had this to say about the “Groovy Train” hitmakers:

“I saw them live five years ago and they were a crap R’n’ B band.”

Damning stuff. The decision is in though and the goal stands on the basis of this angle from @TOTPFacts:

A few weeks after this, Happy Mondays released their single "Kinky Afro". The track was originally titled "Groovy Afro", but the Mondays changed the title after finding out about "Groovy Train". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 5, 2021

If holy trinity indie /dance member Happy Mondays were concerned about The Farm, then they must have been baggy! However, I’m pretty sure that I saw an Expedia advert on the TV the other day that used “Groovy Train” as the soundtrack to it which kind of undermines its indie credentials a bit in my book. Apparently, Duran Duran have turned down multiple lucrative requests over the years from various food outlets asking to use “Hungry Like The Wolf” in an advertising campaign but they have always refused. So there you have it – Duran Duran have more credibility than The Farm. Maybe.

Steve Miller Band are still at No 1 with ‘The Joker” holding off Deee-Lite’s tilt at the top for a second week. The previous week of course had raised the whole chart controversy of the two acts being tied for the No 1 position. Using a clearly unfair ruling, “The Joker” was given the number one as its sales had increased more from the previous week. To diffuse chart rigging accusations, the compilers Gallup subsequently announced that “The Joker” had actually sold 8 (EIGHT!) copies more than “Groove Is In The Heart”. How convenient. Did someone have to look for those 8 sales a bit like Donald Trump going looking for missing votes in the US presidential election?

Wanna hear Homer Simpson singing “The Joker”? Of course you do…

Confirming that he wasn’t a one hit wonder, the play out video is “Tunes Splits The Atom” by MC Tunes and 808 State. This track also confirms, Geoff Hurst in the final minute style, the victory for The Baggies over Heavy Rock with both MC Tunes and 808 State hailing from ‘Madchester’. As if that wasn’t enough, “Tunes Splits The Atom” samples a bass riff from “I Am The Resurrection” by The Stone Roses. Done and indeed dusted.

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

eqwrt

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood	I Can’t Stand It	…and therefore I didn’t buy it
2	The Stone Roses	Fools Gold	No but I must have it on something
3	Snap!	The Cult Of Snap	I was not a member of this cult
4	AC/DC	Thunderstruck	Clusterfuck more like! No
5	S’Express	Nothing To Lose	No but my wife bough the 12”
6	DNA	La Serenissima	Nah
7	Monie Love	It’s A Shame (My Sister)	Nope
8	The Charlatans	Then	No but it’s on my Melting Pot Best Of CD of theirs
9	Iron Maiden	Holy Smoke	They could blow their smoke out of their arses for all I cared -no
10	The Farm	Groovy Train	No but I easily could have
11	Steve Miller Band	The Joker	It’s a no
12	MC Tunes / 808 State	Tunes Splits The Atom	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/m000st47/top-of-the-pops-20091990

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 14 JUN 1990

Posted on January 16, 2021 by 80stastic

We are less than one week (and only one game in the case of England) into the Italia ’90 World Cup and already the nation is gloomy about the team’s chances of progressing. A scratchy 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland in the first group match wasn’t the start that we’d hoped for and the game itself was a bit of a stinker. Cue Gary Lineker…

Ahem. Another draw (this time 0-0) with Holland followed two days after this TOTP was broadcast meaning qualification into the knockout stages hung in the balance. The drama, the tension. How about some music to calm our nerves….

Well, for a start off, presenter Bruno Brookes’ jacket of many colours would have been flashing me up and setting me on edge. Look at it! If Shakin’ Stevens and Adam Ant’s wardrobes had ever got together and sired a sprog, this would be it. Just revolting. There should have been a law to prevent such a jacket being worn on national TV. Talking of the law, here’s Guru Josh with his second consecutive hit “Whose Law (Is It Anyway?). Having conquered the charts earlier in the year with “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)”, here he is again with a single whose title sounds like it was inspired by a certain long running, satirical Channel 4 improvisational comedy series. However, I’m guessing was probably about the Entertainment (increased Penalties) Act, that the government introduced this year allowing fines of up to £20,000 for hosting illegal raves or parties. As you can probably guess by his appearance and performance here, Guru (Mr. Josh?) was very anti this legislation and its curtailing of rave culture.

As for the track itself, it’s pretty similar to “Infinity” to my ears with that distinctive saxophone sound to the fore again although the vocals (if you can call them that) are very grating and distracting. The engineer on this track was someone called Chinito Bandito whose sounds like a character from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Wacky Races.

After this single only made it to No 26 in the charts, Guru Josh decamped to Ibiza to concentrate on art and running a promotions company. He returned to the Top 40 one more time with a re-release of “Infinity” in 2008 but tragically committed suicide in December 2015.

Right. Who’s this? Maureen? Nothing to do with telephone directory services but in fact the woman who sang on Bomb The Bass’s cover of “Save A Little Prayer” back in ’88. She’s back on the show with another cover version but this time of the 1984 No 11 hit “Thinking Of You” from Sister Sledge. There seemed to be a rush of hit singles around the early ’90s that was based around the practice of taking an original well known song and covering it in a different musical style, usually of a dance orientated nature. Hell, there’s another one along straight after this! Here Maureen (full name Maureen Walsh but probably Mo to her friends don’t you think?) gives a Soul II Soul style treatment of this Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards penned disco classic. I’m not sure it was worth the effort to be fair.

The look of the performance here is very odd. Maureen at 5′ 10″ cuts an imposing figure on a small stage whilst the two guys backing her on keyboards look so out of place that they remind me of Raw Sex from French and Saunders. That’s before we even talk about the guy who comes on in the middle to do the seemingly obligatory but wholly incongruous rap.

“Thinking Of You” was as good as it got for Maureen when it peaked spookily at exactly the same chart position as the Sister Sledge original at No 11. She did release an album called “Take It From Me” in ’91 but you’d be hard pushed to find it anywhere today.

Another old tune given a musical refurbishment now as Snap! bring us their second hit of the year in “Ooops Up”. Not exactly a cover per se but it was certainly inspired by The Gap Band’s dance floor classic “Oops Upside Your Head” whilst also managing to shoe horn references to the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet”. Now I never knew this before but the full title of that Gap Band hit is actually “I Don’t Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops!)”. Hmm, bit of a mouthful – I can see why it is better known by its truncated moniker. Penny Ford, who does the vocals on this track, was actually a back up singer for The Gap Band earlier in her career although she wasn’t responsible for choosing it to for the Snap! track.

The original Gap Band lyrics ‘Everybody say oops up side your head, say oops upside your head’ were added to by the addition of the line ‘somebody say opala.’ So, ever wondered what an opala is? Well, obviously it’s the German for ‘Oops’ what with Snap! being the brain child of German producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti and nothing to do with Opal Fruits sweets (and yes I mean Opal Fruits and not the wanky Starburst re-brand). When I was at Poly, I knew a girl who thought the lyrics to “Oops Upside Your Head” were ‘Oops swap sides again, I said oops swap sides again’ because of the dance that went with it. The one where you have two lines sat on the dance floor who lean backwards, forwards and sideways together? You know the one. She had a point.

This next song sounds like it should be a cover version but it isn’t. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Maxi Priest had done a version of The Carpenters classic “Close To You” seeing as he’d already done reggae-fied covers of “Some Guys Have All The Luck” made famous by Robert Palmer and “Wild World” by Cat Stevens but it’s actually a Maxi original. I say reggae but Wikipedia tells me that Maxi’s music was actually reggae fusion as it has an R&B influence mixed in there as well. Whatever.

“Close To You” was (almost unbelievably) a Stateside No 1 which I never knew until now making Maxi (known as ‘The happiest man in pop’ according to Smash Hits magazine) only the second ever UK reggae act to achieve that feat after UB40 with “Red Red Wine” in 1988. The Brummie lads repeated the trick in 1993 with their cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. Maybe British reggae was quite the thing in the US at the time then.

For the completists out there, yes there was a cover of The Carpenters “(They Long to Be) Close to You” (to give it its full title) recorded by soul singer Gwen Guthrie in 1986 which made No 25 in the UK charts. So definitely not by Maxi Priest.

Some ropey old shite next as we get the “Freestyle Mega Mix” by Bobby Brown. This was a medley of Brown’s previous hits “Every Little Step”, “On Our Own”, “Don’t Be Cruel” and “My Prerogative” which was released as a single to promote his remix album “Dance!…Ya Know it!” although it wasn’t included on the album itself.

Presumably the whole project was an attempt by his record company MCA to keep Brown’s profile high while he was in between albums (his follow up to 1988’s multi-platinum “Don’t Be Cruel” didn’t appear until 1992) and it reeks of cynicism. Somehow this steaming turd got all the way to No 14 in the UK Top 40.

Another run out for the video for “The Only One I Know” by The Charlatans next. Taken from the album “Some Friendly”, I didn’t realise until now (not having bought it) that it actually didn’t appear on the vinyl version of the album initially as the band wanted to take only one single from each album with follow up “Then” being the designated single.

20 years on from its release, “The Only One I Know” appeared in a Cadbury’s chocolate advert which would have been unthinkable back in the day. At least it wasn’t used to advertise Revels the orange flavour of which was the inspiration for the lyrics to their song “Polar Bear” which was also on “Some Friendly” and was gave the title of Charlatans fanzine Looking For The Orange One.

“The Only One I Know” peaked at No 9.

Pretty sure this is the third time Betty Boo‘s “Doin’ The Do” has been on the show but that this is the first time she has made a studio appearance after the promo video was broadcast twice previously. Now apparently, Betty used to work in Dorothy Perkins on a Saturday before she was a pop star and guess what? Maureen who we saw on the show earlier used to work in Miss Selfridge. This made me wonder if any other pop stars had worked in clothes shops before finding fame. Didn’t Kaiser Chiefs front man Ricky Wilson used to work in Next? I’m sure he admitted this in an interview once and managed to avoid using the till for a whole year as he hadn’t been trained on it. His time there paid off though as he won the Shockwaves NME Award For Best Dressed Person in 2006.

Not sure if Betty won any awards for her dress sense but she’s rocking that space cadet look in this performance. She should have gone for a purple wig though in the style of the female Moonbase personnel in the old Gerry Anderson space series UFO. She would really go for the space theme in a big way though with the video to her next single ‘Where Are You Baby?”

“Doin’ The Do” peaked at No 7.

Oh Lord! As if we haven’t seen enough of this lot already in 1990, New Kids On The Block are back with a new single and another album! “Step By Step” was the title of both lead single and parent album and is their biggest selling record going to No 1 in the US for three weeks and being certified platinum. I obviously wasn’t the target audience but even allowing for my unreceptive ears, this was utter, utter drivel. Bland by numbers dance pop of the most anonymous kind, what did people see in it? I’m missing the point though by looking for any musical merit. The fact was that the group’s popularity was at such a high by this point that they could have released some rectal discharge in a branded NKOTB plastic bag and it would have sold. The Step One, Step Two etc parts where the individual members get a solo bit are especially repugnant though. Worse than all of the above though is that this is only the fifth of eight chart hits that they racked up in 1990 alone! Gulp.

The World Cup is in full flow (even if the England team weren’t by this stage of the tournament) so predictably New Order are still No 1 with “World In Motion”. I say New Order but I think it was officially credited as ‘England New Order’. Unlike the Euro ’96 “Three Lions” anthem which was created by actual football fans in David Baddiel and Frank Skinner that was reflected in the lyrics, New Order weren’t massive football fans and the lyrics to “World In Motion” are suitably vague as to not specifically centre them in the sphere of football. Apparently the FA wanted to avoid anything that could be construed as a football hooligan chant. Yes, Keith Allen was a footy nut but despite his influence, I think there is a huge difference in the tone of “World In Motion” compared to “Three Lions”. New Order were not in a good place as a band (they would split three years later) and so maybe the whole football song experiment was seen as some sort of light relief and a bit of a laugh. Their expectations were low and mirrored the nation’s lack of hope for a successful campaign by the football team. Both perspectives were to be triumphantly turned on their heads by performances both in the charts and on the pitch.

Conversely, by the time Euro ’96 rolled around, football had gone through a transformation and was popular again and not just with the working classes. Under Terry Venables and with home advantage, England were expected to go all the way whilst the “Three Lions” song featuring two well known comedians who had already tied their football colours to the post with the Fantasy Football League TV show, was seen as a potential huge hit right from the off. Ultimately the record would indeed be a smash hit going to No 1 on two separate occasions during its ’96 run alone whilst the football team would fall tantalisingly short again.

The play out video is “Girl To Girl” by 49ers. I barely remembered their biggest hit from earlier in the year “Touch Me”, so this one had no chance, especially with it peaking at a lowly No 31. I don’t think I missed out on much in retrospect.

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Guru Josh	Whose Law (Is It Anyway?)	Nah
2	Maureen	Thinking Of You	Not for me thanks
3	Snap!	Ooops Up	No
4	Maxi Priest	Close To You	Not my bag
5	Bobby Brown	Freestyle Mega Mix	Big no
6	The Charlatans	The Only One I Know	No but it’s on their Best Of Melting Pot CD that I have
7	Betty Boo	Doin’ The Do	No but my wife had it on a Smash Hits Rave album
8	New Kids On The Block	Step By Step	What do you think?
9	New Order	World In Motion	Call the cops! There’s been a robbery. This isn’t in my singles box!
10	49ers	Girl To Girl	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000qzml/top-of-the-pops-14061990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 31 MAY 1990

Posted on December 28, 2020 by 80stastic

As we get to the last day of May in 1990 in TOTP Rewind world, I’m just going to have a quick check-in with myself about what I was up to personally before getting into the music. After five whole months of unemployment since I left my temporary Xmas job, I think it was at this point that finally something happened to rouse me from my stupor. I got a call out of the blue about a job! On my last visit up to Hull to visit my girlfriend I had registered my details with an employment agency not expecting anything to come of it. My ‘details’ (such as they were) weren’t up to much. I had very little employment history and very few abilities (the term ‘skills set’ had yet to be invented). And yet, I was deemed viable by the agency to go and work at Kingston Communications in Hull on a temporary contract helping on some project to convert a whole load of info currently residing on paper into a computer format – yes, VDU input in other words. I got the call mid morning and was on the train up North by lunchtime such was my desire to make a change to my husk of a life. This was fantastic – not only would I be earning money but I would be living at my girlfriend’s parents’ home so would get to see her all the time as well. I arrived early evening in Hull and was to start my temporary job the next day. I wonder what tunes were doing the chart rounds to send me on my way…

…hmm. Well, it’s not a great start. Despite it being well over six months since Black Box took the UK charts by storm with No 1 and best selling single of 1989 “Ride On Time”, it seemed that they still had some pull on the nation’s tastes as they are back in the Top 40 with a third consecutive hit single from their “Dreamland” album. This one was called “Everybody, Everybody” and on the contrary to it being so good they named it twice, I found this a rather drab affair.

Proving themselves to be shameless in the pulling a fast one stakes, they are still persisting with having French model Katrin Quinol front the act despite the fact that this was the third single to feature someone else entirely doing the singing. I’m pretty sure that particular cat had been out of the bag for some time as well but it didn’t seem to matter a jot to Black Box. This single (as had the previous single “I Don’t Know Anybody Else”) featured the vocals talents of ex-Weather Girl Martha Wash without proper credit (Loleatta Holloway was the singer wronged for “Ride On Time”). Weren’t we bothered about this sort of thing back then? There was outrage when it turned out that The Monkees hadn’t played on their early 60s hits and similar furore was unleashed when it became known that the Bay City Rollers were found to be less than completely present on their recordings. And what about the Milli Vanilli miming scandal? All hell broke loose when that story found its way into the press. The great Black Box hoax though – not so much, at least not enough to make any difference to their continuing success.

“Everybody, Everybody” would peak at No 16 but we haven’t seen the last of Black Box in 1990 yet I fear.

As the Italia ’90 World Cup is only a few days away from starting, presenter Simon Mayo has jumped on the football bandwagon and is doing tonight’s show in a whirl of ever changing football shirts to highlight the different countries involved. Why does he call them ‘outfits’ to begin with though. ‘Kit’ is the word you’re looking for Simon. I’m pretty sure Mayo is a Spurs fan – I’ll leave that there without further comment. He then makes a pathetically lame line about Ireland manager Jack Charlton’s favourite band being Talk Talk to shoe horn in a link to the next song. Woeful Mayo. Woeful.

Nothing woeful about “It’s My Life” though. Re-released and now a deserved bona fide chart hit, we established in the last post that this 1984 track was promoting the band’s “Natural History: The Very Best of Talk Talk” album, although they wanted nothing to do with the whole campaign.

In truth, they had long since moved on from the sound of “It’s My Life” when they released 1988″s “Spirt Of Eden” which has been described by the music press as ‘ambient’, ‘minimalist’ and as veering towards ‘free-form jazz’ (!!). Crucially, it was defined by their record company EMI as not being ‘commercially satisfactory’ and was the precursor to a legal dispute that would see Talk Talk depart EMI to sign with Polydor. Only one final album called “Laughing Stock” was released on their new label which was regarded as even more musically extreme than “Spirt Of Eden” and the band spilt after that. I’ve never delved into “Spirt Of Eden” nor “Laughing Stock”. Some of the reviews that basically describe them as taking music into another dimension feel like they should be worthy of investigation but I have to admit that the free-form jazz description has put me off big time. Furthermore, I’ve been stung before on a similar theme when I watched the Scott Walker: 30th Century Man documentary. Now I love Scott’s voice and his 60s catalogue of work but boy did he lose the plot big time in later life. Here he is deciding that a dead pig would be the best form of percussion instrument for the ‘song’ he was working on:

In fairness, to Scott, as mad as it looks, it’s a better use of a dead pig than David Cameron came up with in his infamous extra curricular activities.

Back to Talk Talk, and it struck me that the band’s two biggest hits have a very definite existential fixation – “It’s My Life” and “Life’s What You Make It”. As statements about why we are all here and what to do with our time on the planet, I guess they are better song titles than ’42’. There was a cover version of “It’s My Life” in 2003 by US Ska Punk band No Doubt to (coincidentally) promote their own Best Of album but it always sounded like a poor man’s version of the original to me.

Sadly, Mark Hollis dies in February 2019 aged just 64.

Well I didn’t expect to see Sam Brown on TOTP again but a move of just one place up the charts from No 24 to No 23 for her single “Kissing Gate” this week was enough to get her on the show again. I say again but I think it’s just a re-showing of her initial appearance.

It struck me given the time of year (Xmas 2020 if you are reading this way down the line) that Sam Brown’s musical trajectory is a little like that of the late, great Kirsty Maccoll. Both had recording artists as fathers (Joe Brown and Ewan Maccoll), both had great voices, both probably didn’t get the recognition they deserved (certainly at the time) and both had their singing careers cut short – Kirtsy was tragically killed in a powerboat incident in Mexico in December 2000 whilst Sam lost her singing voice in 2007 explaining in a 2013 interview that “I can’t get vocal cord closure and achieve the proper pitch simultaneously. It feels like there are some muscles that aren’t working.”

I wondered if their similarities extended to them ever working together but the closest connection I could find was them being on the same bill together at a Children In Need charity gig in November 1991.

Make the most of this Erasure single “Star”as it’s the last time we’ll be seeing Andy and Vince on TOTP for a whole year. This was the fourth and last single to be released from the duo’s “Wild!” album and its final chart resting place of No 11 shows how strong a fan base they had at that time. No 11 for a fourth single from an album that’s already been out for seven months? Those are pretty respectable numbers.

For me this was the poppiest of all four of those singles and was a throw back to that sound that broke them with “Sometimes” back in ’86. The lyric ‘From Moscow to Mars’ would supply the title of their 13 disc 2016 box set retrospective whilst the song also contains references to ‘pretty in pink’ and ‘satellite of love’.

Erasure would return in 1991 with their third consecutive No 1 album “Chorus”.

OK 1990 – you’ve got me again. Who on earth was Jane Child? Not only do I not remember Jane nor her single “Don’t Wanna Fall In Love” but I’m struggling to see why she made the charts in 1990 at all. She sounds sooo 80s! It’s as if the chart compilers found this track left alone in a locked cupboard marked 1986 and had no idea what to do with it. “Just smuggle it into this week’s charts; nobody will notice” you can imagine them saying to each other. Just to hammer home the point, Jane’s wearing a Sigue Sigue Sputnik ‘Rambo Child’ T-shirt in the video whilst her hairstyle wouldn’t have been out of place on the noggin of one of the members of the aforementioned “Love Missile F1-11” hit makers.

Due to my lack of Jane Child knowledge, I’ve had to rely on Wikipedia to fill in the gaps for me. It turns out she is Canadian, that control of her musical style was very important to her (leading to the press labelling her ‘the female Prince’) and that she refused to appear on TOTP considering the show a “sell out”! That decision backfired on Jane however. After her promo video was shown instead, the single only moved from No 25 to No 22 where it would peak. Jane never had another UK chart hit again.

Time to ‘Get Wicked!’ next with Chad Jackson and his one and only hit “Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)”. The first time I heard this it sounded instantly familiar and I assumed it must be a reworking of some old standard but no – it was just packed full of samples instead. The ‘deedle eedle eedle eee eee eee’ bit (as Smash Hits described it) sampled 60s soul sister Marva Whitney’s recording “Unwind Yourself”. No I didn’t know it either but here it is in all its glory…

There were loads of other samples on the record from the likes of Kool And The Gang, The O’Jays and even Soul II Soul. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story behind some of the sampled vocal parts that the guy doing the Bob Dylan “Subterranean Homesick Blues” impression signposts in the performance:

The voice saying "Hear the drummer get wicked" is Public Enemy's Chuck D, from "Welcome To The Terrordome" by Public Enemy, while the "Peace, unity, love and havin' fun" is sampled from "Unity" by Afrika Bambaataa and James Brown. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) December 18, 2020

The writing on Bob’s sign looks very reminiscent of De La Soul’s “3 Feet High And Rising” album typography but then as Simon Mayo says, Chad Jackson had worked with the American hip hop trio (on “Three Is The Magic Number” to be specific) previously. Oh yes, Chad himself – who was he exactly. As Mayo* stated, he was a Manchester DJ (real name Mark Chadwick) who had won the annual Disco Mix Club (DMC) DJ World Championships competition in 1987. According to Smash Hits, he’d also previously worked with Public Enemy (presumably hence the Chuck D sample). Like chart peer Stevie V (of “Dirty Cash” fame), he now teaches music technology. His single would peak at No 3.

*Interesting how Mayo introduces the track as ‘Hear The Drummer’ and not “Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)”. I bet he thought he was above saying ‘Get Wicked’ and considered it naff.

From getting wicked to “Doin’ The Do” now as we get Betty Boo‘s video again.

Just like Chad Jackson before her, Betty had worked with Public Enemy before becoming a chart star when she was in an all female hip-hop outfit called the She-Rockers. After a chance meeting at McDonalds in Shepherd’s Bush with Professor Griff, Betty and her mates ended up having their debut single produced by the Prof and touring with Public Enemy!

Can you imagine that? You just nip into McDonalds for an egg McMuffin and end up touring with the biggest rap act on the planet?! I realise there must be plenty of ‘sliding door’ moments in pop history but as chance encounters go, that’s right up there. Off the top of my head I can think of Paul Heaton meeting Jacqui Abbott at a house party and her going on to replace Briana Corrigan in the Beautiful South and then reuniting with Paul years later as a recording double act. I suppose the ultimate chance rock meeting occurred on July 6, 1957 at a church fete at St. Peter’s Church in Liverpool when Paul McCartney met John Lennon for the first time. However, the technology to record the event hadn’t been invented and, in Betty’s moment in history, she reckons that afterwards she bumped into LL Cool J in the kebab house so for the purposes of this blog, Betty steals it!

Such was the impact of her sound and image that when the Spice Girls were being put together in the mid 90s, the casting advert for the group stated that it was looking for ‘five Betty Boos’. Despite all of this though, if you put ‘Betty Boo’ into Google it will always default to ‘Betty Boop’ so she’ll never be more famous than a 1930’s cartoon character.

“Doin’ The Do” peaked at No 7.

One of the song’s of the Summer next as we get to the climax of Simon Mayo’s football shirt campaign with the first view of the official England 1990 World Cup song. Surely there is no debate that this is the best football song ever is there? I mean, I know “Three Lions” holds a place in the nation’s hearts and you can chant it at actual games but in terms of musicality, nothing beats “World In Motion” by New Order does it? To put how good it was into context, here’s the previous England World Cup campaign song from 1986…

Or how about the one before that from 1982…

and now compare them to “World In Motion”…

It’s a completely different…erm…ball game. The reaction to it initially I seem to recall was pretty much WTF?! People couldn’t get their heads around it. A legitimate band with some heavy gravitas being associated with a football song – why had they done it? It’ll ruin their career. And then when people heard it their reaction changed to something like ‘But this is a pretty good tune – this can’t be the official England song can it?’

Famously, only six squad members turned up to the recording of the song but fortunately one was John Barnes whose once heard never to be forgotten rap in the middle of it is something he continues to dine out on to this very day. Never mind being asked about playing for Liverpool or that goal against Brazil, it’s always a case of ‘Do the rap Barnesy!’. Supposedly Gazza was given a go at doing the rap but it was a complete disaster probably because he was absolutely plastered on champagne at the recording session.

I always felt that the video lets the song down a bit. Not the bits with Keith Allen or New Order in them but the montage of football action clips. They look like they are all taken from an England v Brazil friendly from March earlier in the year and there all fairly nondescript – you don’t even get to see the game’s only goal scored by Gary Lineker, just the fairly muted celebrations afterwards and Brazil are playing in blue instead of their iconic yellow shirts. There is quite a lot of footage of Chris Waddle’s magnificent mullet though.

There’s loads more to say about this song but fortunately there’s plenty more tome to do so as it will be No 1 in next week’s show.

Meanwhile, this week’s No 1 is still Adamski featuring Seal with “Killer”. After four weeks at the top and six TOTP appearances, I’ve very little left to say about this. OK, what about what happened next? Well, we all know that Seal went onto have a lengthy and successful solo career that continues to this day but what about Adamski? Well, he did go on to have another Top 10 single in “Space Jungle” and a Top 10 album with the rather unwieldy title of “Doctor Adamski’s Musical Pharmacy” but despite continuing to release new music into the new millennium and beyond, he has never returned to the UK charts.

Along with “World In Motion” though, “Killer” remains synonymous with the Summer of 1990 for me.

After The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets had all been in the Top 40 recently, The Charlatans also scored a chart hit with “The Only One I Know” at this time. Although widely associated with the Madchester movement, the origins of the band actually lay in the West Midlands where they were formed by bassist Martin Blunt. So how did the Manchester link happen? It was after the band recruited new singer Tim Burgess who was from Northwich in Cheshire and then relocated to Burgess’s hometown. Burgess had been born in Salford but lived in Northwich from an early age. I went to Northwich once to see my hometown football team Worcester City play Northwich Victoria in the FA Trophy quarter final. We lost 2-1. It was a very long journey home during which I learned the Mary Hopkin song “Those Were The Days” whose lyrics we reconfigured to be about drinking pints. I had no idea what I was singing about being 13 at the time but just as that memory has stuck with me, so did the Madchester tag to The Charlatans and it didn’t do them any harm it has to be said. “The Only One I Know”, with its swirling Hammond organ sound and Burgess’s 60s zeitgeist nailing vocals, went Top 10 while parent album “Some Friendly” was a No 1 record. Despite struggling to reach such heights with their immediate follow up material, the band really hit their stride in the mid to late 90s (my favourite era of theirs) with two consecutive No 1 albums and some stonking singles like “Can’t Get Out of Bed”, “Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over”, “One to Another” and “North Country Boy”.

However, I wasn’t sure about “The Only One I Know” to begin with – I think I was still struggling to come to terms with a fast changing pop world and they seemed like one new act too many for me at the time. I think it’s great now of course.

During the shit show that has been 2020, Tim Burgess has emerged as one of the year’s heroes with his Tim’s Twitter Listening Party project helping to keep us all entertained and sane. He better get some recognition in the Queen’s New Year Honours list 2021 – that’s all I’m saying.

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Black Box	Everybody Everybody	Nah
2	Talk Talk	It’s My Life	No but I have it on a compilation CD of theirs (not Natural History though)
3	Sam Brown	Kissing Gate	It’s a no
4	Erasure	Star	No but I’m guessing it’s on their Pop! The First 20 HIts CD that I have
5	Jane Child	Don’t Wanna Fall In Love	And I didn’t with this
6	Chad Jackson	Hear TheDrummer (Get Wicked)	No but my wife had it on a Smash Hits Rave album
7	Betty Boo	Doin’ The Do	See 6 above
8	New Order	World In Motion	Call the cops! There’s been a robbery. This isn’t in my singles box!
9	Adamski	Killer	No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on
10	The Charlatans	The Only One I Know	No but it’s on their Best Of Melting Pot CD that I have

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000qcx4/top-of-the-pops-31051990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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