The Pretenders

TOTP 28 SEP 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

The last couple of shows have been very poor quality-wise for me – too many anonymous or fly-by-night dance acts and, in the case of one particular standards drop (on many levels) a loathsome novelty record. Well, tonight’s episode sees a definite upturn in the calibre of tunes but…there’s also a tendency for very established acts and mainly those of a rock persuasion. Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Meatloaf are all on the show tonight as are Wet Wet Wet and Simply Red. Was this what the kids wanted from the UK’s most watched music programme? Or did they want to see and hear more from the Britpop scene that was dominating the musical landscape? Well, it would seem that the TOTP producers were aware of the need to strike a balance. The show had always been structured around the Top 40 singles chart so that needed to be reflected and so, in the case of Simply Red for example, they were always going to be featured as this week’s No 1 record. However, there are also what could be considered Britpop artists on tonight so you can’t say that the genre wasn’t represented.

In a further effort to promote TOTP as being on trend, the chosen presenters this week are Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. The pair presented The Evening Session on Radio 1 together from 1993 to 1997 with its emphasis on indie and non mainstream music. Indeed, Lamacq seemed to me like the natural successor in waiting to John Peel whilst Whiley…hmm…well, I never really warmed to Jo Whiley. I didn’t think she had much credibility somehow. She seemed to me like she’d just found herself in the right place at the right time and got to where she was rather fortuitously. That’s probably completely unfair of me and I find myself on very dangerous ground by highlighting my misgivings about the female member of the presenting duo but I can assure you I have no such agenda. I just didn’t buy into Jo’s “I love all of this music” persona. In later years, she moved to Radio 2 and seemed as comfortable introducing the likes of Billy Joel as Billy Joe Armstrong (of Green Day fame). I’ve never found her convincing when she’s hosted at the Glastonbury Festival either. However, her work highlighting the struggles of her sister Frances, who has learning difficulties and diabetes, during the COVID pandemic and the need for her and anybody of a similar status to be a priority to be vaccinated led to the shaping of government policy. I had to reassess my opinion on Jo and I find myself being much more disposed to her these days.

Anyway, we start with one of those Britpoppers in Cast. I quite liked this lot, having seen John Power’s original band The La’s live twice, I guess I was always going to. I dutifully bought their debut single “Finetime” and I’m surprised I didn’t buy the follow up “Alright” which was just as good. Jangly, 60s influenced pop with a 90s twist – yep, sign me up. Although it only reached No 13 in the charts, it was enough of a hit to maintain the band’s momentum and ushered in a run of six successive Top 10 singles. As with Supergrass before them, clearly being a Britpop band and having a hit called “Alright” was a more than ‘alright’ strategy for continuing success.

I love the energy and style of drummer Keith O’Neill in this performance which I don’t think we’d seen the like of in the TOTP studio since Talk Talk’s Lee Harriss powered his way through “Life’s What You Make It” a decade earlier. One final thing, I’m pretty sure the lads in Cast didn’t pronounce their band name as ‘Carst’ Jo Whiley!

A marked strand of the whole Britpop movement was the concept of a band that was fronted by a distinctive female singer. I’m thinking Sleeper, Elastica and Echobelly. Add to that list Garbage. The TOTP caption said that the singer was from Edinburgh with the rest of the band from Madison, US. Whilst that is factually correct, to me it illustrated a laziness on the part of the researchers. That singer was Shirley Manson who had started her musical career as backing vocalist and keyboard player in the marvellous but mostly ignored Scottish rockers Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. The band’s label decided that Shirley had star quality and wanted to launch her as a solo artist. A side project under the name of Angelfish fronted by Manson was put into action and one of their videos came to the attention of the three members of Garbage (one of whom was Butch Vig who had produced Nirvana’s iconic “Nevermind” album). An invitation was sent by Garbage to audition for their band and despite initial reactions not being especially positive, Shirley got the gig. Debut single “Vow” received airplay from the aforementioned John Peel and tonight’s co-host Steve Lamacq (which explains why he introduced them as “the excellent Garbage”). The limited release of “Vow” meant that it wasn’t a big commercial hit but by the time of third single “Only Happy When It Rains”, the momentum of and buzz about the band was enough to propel it into the UK Top 40.

Whilst I liked and appreciated those other indie bands that had women lead singers, Garbage’s sound was much more rock and somehow bigger than their contemporaries to me. I guess that was always going to be the case bearing in mind that Nirvana connection. This track was a great example of the band’s style which would bring them huge success and a long career. Their debut eponymous album would sell 4 million copies worldwide and go double platinum here in the UK propelled by subsequent hit singles “Queer”, “Stupid Girl” and “Milk”. The pink, feather boa adorned Mike stand in this performance is presumably a nod to the album’s cover artwork. The band are still going strong with their most recent album released in 2021 whilst they also announced their first tour for five years with dates confirmed for later this year.

The most interesting thing about this next song by Wet Wet Wet is what Jo Whiley points out in her intro – that its video shows us that Marti Pellow has had his hair radically recut. Gone are the luscious long locks that he’s been sporting since about 1992 and that were certainly still in place for previous single “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now”, replaced by a much shorter (some might say sensible) style. And once you’ve taken that on board, you can effectively switch off watching the rest of the video as the song is soporific. “Somewhere Somehow” sounds to me like a slowed down version of their 1988 hit “Temptation” with a country tinge added to it. Pellow adds a “Love Is All Around” -esque ‘Hey!’ shout into it during the middle eight to try and liven it up but nothing could shake awake this snore fest. Not sure what the woman wandering around with Angel wings attached to her was all about but it probably wasn’t the best idea for her to be walking near a cliff edge – what if a gust of wind had got under those wings!

Was this a new section on the show? The ‘Acoustic Exclusive’ slot or had it just been made up for The Pretenders? After the success of their last studio album “Last Of The Independents” which had given the band their first UK Top 10 single for eight years in “Stand By You”, their record company Warners clearly wanted to keep the band’s profile raised. Rather than waiting for the next studio album to be delivered (which wouldn’t be for another five years), a live, televised performance showcasing the band in acoustic mode formed their next release. Recorded at the Jacob Street Studios in London and accompanied by the Duke Quartet, “The Isle Of View” album was clearly based on the MTV Unplugged concept which was popular in the 90s and featured artists such as Eric Clapton and Nirvana. Its title was a pun on the words ‘I Love You’, a practice no doubt inspired by the film This Is Spinal Tap. You know that bit where the band claim they once played a jazz/blues festival on the Isle Of Lucy? No such place existed and it was a play on words of the title of the US 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy starring Lucille Ball. Apparently, fans of the film didn’t initially pick up on the joke and I didn’t pick up on the reference when my mate Robin bought me a T-shirt with ‘Isle Of Lucy’ emblazoned on it and I love that film! Bah!

Chrissie Hynde performs “Kid” for this TOTP which would end up being released as a single retitled as “Kid ‘95 live” though it would only make No 73 in the charts. The acoustic version is a revelation which lays bare how amazing Chrissie’s voice is (as if it needed pointing out any further). The verse almost sounds like “Unchained Melody” done in this way. Not sure what her red evening gloves were all about though.

It wasn’t the first time that “Kid” had been performed in a stripped back style though. Check out this from Everything But The Girl from 1985…

The pursuit of ever more unusual locations for Bon Jovi to perform on TOTP continues. After Niagara Falls for “Always” and an American Football stadium for “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night”, we get a runway at an airport in Dallas for “Something For The Pain”. I’m not sure I’m buying Jo Whiley’s explanation as to how this came about – they were just about to get on a plane when the phone call came in from TOTP – as this looks very staged to me – they’ve even got TOTP logos handy for display.

However, watching this back, it wasn’t the location that struck me as odd as much as the very un -Bon Jovi looking bass player they had performing with them. Who the heck was that guy?! Well, I think his name is Hugh McDonald and he was the replacement for Alec John Such who left the band in 1994 after not taking too kindly to his bass playing being criticised by Jon Bon Jovi supposedly. McDonald would tour and record with the band for 21 years before finally being made an official member in 2016. That’s quite the probationary period! Such sadly died in 2022 from a heart attack aged 70. As for the song, it was a pretty standard Jovi composition – a jaunty, little rock number that they probably could have knocked out waiting for that plane to take off.

Is this another new slot? An ‘exclusive performance’? Not just an ‘exclusive’ and certainly not a ‘satellite performance’ but an ‘exclusive performance’. What gives? Well, it appears to be something created bespoke for the next artist who are TLC. According to Jo Whiley, the TOTP family had been waiting for a long time to get the trio on the show (was this their first time in the studio then?) and fortunately they must have been in the country. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a hit single that was rising in the charts to justify an appearance according to TOTP law, so the show producers shoehorned them in anyway, I’m guessing. To give TLC something to perform, a “Hits Medley” was dreamed up comprising “Creep” / “Waterfalls” / “Diggin’ On You” the last of which hadn’t actually been released and wouldn’t be until October. This makes me wonder why they didn’t just perform the final track as an ‘exclusive’ preview of said single? Why the need for a medley? It all seems a bit odd. Nothing wrong with the tracks or performance of course, just that the thinking behind them didn’t seem in alignment with the show’s traditional concept of reflecting what was popular in the UK singles charts. I guess though that the show had changed over the years (and we’d seen plenty in the 90s what with the ‘year zero’ reset and the replacement of Stanley Appel with Ric Blaxill as the show’s executive producer). Maybe this was just another one.

In the whole cannon of Britpop bands, there was perhaps none more Britpop than Menswear. For those who denigrated the movement, they were such an easy target. “They’re not a real band are they?” or “They’re a music press construct” or ultimately “Who do they think they are?”. I get all that and yet I still liked them and this single – “Stardust” – is a banger!

In some ways, they were like the Britpop equivalent of Spandau Ballet. A band who emerged out of a short lived, uniquely British music movement and who were the pin up boys and face of said movement. Gary Kemp is on record as saying that the New Romantics needed a group to rally around that were theirs rather than clinging to Bowie and Roxy Music and Spandau were in the right place at the right time. Menswear kind of performed a similar role – where Spandau were talked about because of their cultish wardrobe in their early days (all kilts, highland sashes and deer stalker hats) so Menswear took inspiration from their name and went for an image influenced by the classic mod look. Melody Maker ran a cover story that labelled them as “the best-dressed new band in Britain”. Indeed, check out Jo Whiley’s sartorial comments in her intro.

Then there’s the bidding war parallels. Spandau became hugely sought after by record labels after a highly publicised early gig aboard the cruiser HMS Belfast. Fifteen years later, Menswear played their debut gig at a club called Smashing on Regent Street which kick started a ruck amongst labels desperate to sign the next big thing. They eventually signed with London Records on an unheard of contract offering the band 18.5% gross revenues. They then signed a publishing deal worth £500,000 despite only having a repertoire of seven songs at the time. However, where the two bands diverge is that Spandau managed to adapt and outgrow the New Romantic scene once it had run out of steam to become bona fide, mainstream pop stars whereas Menswear couldn’t escape the Britpop tag after that movement petered out and they imploded with band infighting and a second album that was only released in Japan. They literally just came to a full stop.

Back in 1995 though, they were where it was at for all the groovy, young Britpoppers. I wasn’t particularly young at the time (I was 27) and had never been groovy but I could still appreciate “Stardust” for the tune it was. It fair gallops along driven by Matt Everett’s on point drumming with Johnny Dean’s affected vocals being punctuated by lots of “ba, ba baaas’ backing vocals. Yes, the piano outro could be accused of plagiarism from “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones but I didn’t care. The aforementioned Dean trod a thin line between swagger and being a dick in this performance with his dramatic, angular posing but I think he just gets away with it. Even The Who-like set destroying nonsense at the end didn’t put me off nor Dean’s silly styling out of having to omit the word ‘fucker’ from the lyrics – at least it gave Jo Whiley a nice line in her intro describing them as “groovy little muckers”. I’m definitely warming to her you know.

From groovy muckers to legends of rock (Steve Lamacq’s words not mine). Def Leppard seemed to be following in the career footsteps of Bon Jovi who were on earlier. The New Jersey outfit had come to a crossroads and decided a new direction was needed. Drawing a line under what had gone before, (including sacking their bass player) they released a Best Of album in 1994 called “Crossroads” (geddit?) before releasing an album that was supposedly darker in its themes than what had gone before but which was critically acclaimed in “These Days”.

Def Leppard were similarly assessing their options. Without an album of new material since “Adrenalize” in 1992, they found themselves in a dark place. Divorce, ill health, arrests for spousal abuse and assault and the death of guitarist Steve Clark meant the band were intent on writing some songs that were more from personal experience and mature than their standard “Let’s Get Rocked” rubbish. Also like The Jovi, they had a line up change following Clark’s passing with the addition of new guitarist Vivian Campbell. Perhaps more significantly though, sixth studio album “Slang” would be the first since 1980 without the involvement of producer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange.

Before that though, they put down their own marker to delineate their career in Greatest Hits collection “Vault”. To promote it was a new song, a rock ballad called “When Love And Hate Collide”. Possibly not renowned for their slow songs, they had a hit with at least one to my knowledge – “Love Bites” in 1988. However, this new track seemed more epic. It sounds like it was written to order for a blockbuster movie. In fact, it sounds like a template for Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” which was written for the sci-if disaster film Armageddon.

I always quite liked the name of that Best Of – “Vault” sort of implied that there were sacred treasures inside though whether that meaning should apply to Def Leppard’s back catalogue rather depends on your opinion of the band I guess. My mate Steve who’s from Bolton swears that they were huge there in the 80s. Hmm. There’s a show on Sky Arts called Guy Garvey: From The Vaults which is a veritable treasure trove of fabulous musical clips taken from the archives of shows like The Tube, Razzmatazz, So It Goes and Tiswas. Based around a specific year and curated by Garvey, it’s a little gem of a programme and if the word ‘vault’ is good enough for Guy Garvey, it’s good enough for me.

Simply Red are this week’s new No 1 with “Fairground” which knocks Shaggy off the top spot after just one week. It remains the band’s only chart topping single to date. My first impressions on hearing it went along the lines of “Hang on, he’s just nicked that beat from “Give It Up” by The Goodmen. What a swizz!” OK, I maybe didn’t say ‘swizz’ but my point remains. It seemed to me like Hucknall was just jumping on the dance bandwagon in an attempt to remain relevant. After all, it had been four years since the last album, the all conquering “Stars”. However, lots of people didn’t seem to mind the sample and bought it in enough quantities for it to spend four weeks at the chart summit. At least we don’t get that clip with him wearing his PVC outfit like we got last week. Whoever advised him to don that costume really weren’t ’good men’ and should have told him to ‘give it up’.

The play out video is “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” by Meatloaf. After the gargantuan success of the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” album and “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” single, delivering a follow up was always going to be an almost impossible task. “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” was no flop but it couldn’t hope to match the sales of its predecessor. Like Def Leppard before him, the Meat also had a change of producer and some may argue that was the reason for not being able to replicate the success of “Bat Out Of Hell II”. Meatloaf without Jim Steinman was like Ant without Dec (or the other way round as happened in 2018) – it just wasn’t right.

Having said all that, “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” sounded right out of the Steinman playbook. Epic sounding rock ballad, huge production, paradoxical title – all the ingredients associated with the legendary writer and producer were there. And yet, it didn’t perform as well commercially. I mean, a UK No 2 was damn good going for a guy who had been nowhere near the top of the charts for years pre- “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” but in America it only got to No 13. A sizeable hit sure but nowhere near being a No 1 record. It was a similar story with the album. Big sales but dwarfed by those of its predecessor.

In an unlikely turn of events I’m going to reference Spandau Ballet again in a post about pop music in 1995. Having made a connection between them and Menswear earlier, I’m jumping the shark now and relating them to Meatloaf. Gary Kemp said in a 2000 BBC documentary about the band that nobody else could play their songs and that you could get a new guitarist or singer even but really people just wanted to see the five original members performing on stage. Maybe it was a similar theme with Meatloaf and Steinman? That the former’s audience mostly wanted him and Steinman together?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1CastAlrightNo but easily could have
2GarbageOnly Happy When It RainsSee 1 above
3Wet Wet WetSomewhere SomehowNo
4The PretendersKid ‘95 liveNope
5Bon JoviSomething For The PainI did not
6TLCHits MedleyN/A
7MenswearStardustCall the police! Where’s my copy of this?!
8Def LeppardWhen Love And Hate CollideNah
9Simply RedFairgroundNever
10MeatloafI’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)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/m001wkgl/top-of-the-pops-28091995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 07 JUL 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the middle of the Summer 1994 and the UK singles chart is stagnating. Of the ten songs on tonight’s TOTP, we’ve already seen seven of them on a previous show. I’m pretty sure that was nothing out of the usual though as record companies kept huge releases back for the Autumn schedules and the Christmas sales period. They probably also figured that the public was spending its money on holidays rather than CDs and cassettes. The only beneficiaries of this would be those annoying hits that the travelling hordes had heard whilst holidaying in Europe that would inevitably end up being huge sellers in the UK. 1994 was not immune to this phenomenon but we won’t get to that particular record for a while yet.

In the meantime, we start the show with a single that I think had only featured so far as the play out song a couple of shows back but was now residing in the Top 10 and so qualified for a studio appearance. I mentioned Gun in my last post when discussing my peculiar superpower for missing the zeitgeist completely and lumping my affections on the wrong horse. The Stone Roses or Gun? Well, I quite like the sound of those Scottish rockers and I’m not sure about all this ‘Madchester’ stuff…dear oh dear. Anyway, whilst King Monkey and co would release one of the most iconic debut albums of all time, Gun did have a few hits the biggest of which was their cover of Cameo’s “Word Up”. Pretty much just a straight up rock treatment of the original stone cold 1986 classic track, it still worked pretty well I thought. Nothing fancy, just a load of squealing guitar riffs where the funky Cameo bass was, a standard rock vocal instead of Larry Blackmon’s idiosyncratic voice and a Genesis “Mama” style cackle when the “W.O.R.D. UP” bit comes along. The lead singer had undergone quite the image change since the last time we saw him. Gone are his long, pony tail locks and in their place a short, spiky peroxide blonde hairdo. He also seems to have taken up the singing with your arms behind your back style which would become Liam Gallagher’s trademark. In fact, I don’t recall Liam striking that pose when Oasis made their TOTP debut on the last show. He couldn’t have copied it off the bloke from Gun surely? Maybe I was ahead of the zeitgeist for once!

One of the few new tracks on the show next and I’m guessing this was one of those dreadful holiday hits imported from Europe that I was talking about before. “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” by Italian dance outfit 2 Cowboys is just an abomination but sadly would prove not to be a one off as there was a flurry of these…how would you describe them? A techno-hoedown? A Eurodance square dance? How about pure, unadulterated shite? Where did all this start? Was it with the line dancing phenomenon driven by Billy Ray Cyrus and his “Achy Breaky Heart”? We certainly seemed to stock a load of cheap line dancing CDs on budget labels in the Our Price store where I was working (we even had to create their own section in the racks). Surely you couldn’t line dance to “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” though? Not without breaking your neck anyway. So, was it with Doop and their Charleston gimmick No 1 from earlier in the year? How about The Grid and their banjo fuelled dance sensation “Swamp Thing” that was riding high in the charts at the time? Or even Bravado and their “Harmonica Man” single? Whoever was responsible for it needed a kick in the Gonfi-Gons. This abhorrent nonsense would lead to one of the worst No 1s of the decade in 1995 when Rednex took “Cotton Eye Joe” to the top of the charts. Shocking stuff. And one final thing, what does ‘Gonfi-Gon’ even mean? I assumed it was Italian for ‘do-si-do’ but according to Google Translate it means ‘swollen swollen’. Nobs.

It’s The B–52’s next (or The B.C. 52’s if you’re being pedantic) with “(Meet) The Flintstones” from the live action film version of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The post-punk art rockers from Athens, Georgia are finally calling it a day this year when they play a residency in Las Vegas starting in May with their final ever show in September bringing the curtain down on nigh on half a century of adventures in American kitsch culture and bubblegum punk beats. And no I’m not sure if those are the right words to describe what they did but how would you describe their career and legacy?

To be honest, I don’t come at that question from a position of much authority nor knowledge. I was hardly aware of anything much about The B-52’s until 1986 when a re-release of “Rock Lobster” made No 12 in the UK charts and the track was played at my nightclub of choice Images On Glass (wanky name) in downtown Worcester. My ever more hip wife already had a copy of “Planet Claire” I think. Then “Love Shack” made them mainstream pop stars in 1990 (though I always hated that song) and then this…let’s face it…truly awful Flinstones single that really didn’t do their legacy justice. Apparently. they were an influence in convincing John Lennon to return to making music with the “Double Fantasy” album. That should be how they are remembered. If you really need a Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme sung by a band in your life then there’s always The Dickies…

Aswad are back in the TOTP studio again performing “Shine”. This was one of those records that refused to conform to the growing trend that would come to dominate the mid to late 90s that saw singles in and out of the charts within two to three weeks. “Shine” completely bucked this trajectory by spending twelve weeks in total on the Top 40, six of which were consecutive within the Top 10 where it made steady progress to a peak of No 5, even going back up the charts when it had fallen the week before. Maybe it was the seasonal thing I mentioned earlier because there were a few singles that hung around the charts for what seemed like the whole of this Summer – “Crazy” by Let Loose, “Swamp Thing” by The Grid and “I Swear” by All 4 One spring to mind. Or maybe the public just really liked these records?

“Shine” would be Aswad’s second biggest hit after “Don’t Turn Around” and they would only grace the UK Top 40 twice more with two minor hits one of which was a cover version of “You’re No Good” which was a big hit for The Swinging Blue Jeans amongst others. Aswad were pretty keen on cover versions in their later career. The aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around” was a cover of a Tina Turner B-side and they also did a version of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. They also took part in a reggae tribute album to The Police recording their take on “Roxanne” which Sting must have liked as he subsequently teamed up with them for a version of “Invisible Sun”. I’ve listened to it so you don’t have to and it doesn’t do anything for either artist’s credibility or legacy. It certainly doesn’t ‘shine’ but then what do you expect from an ‘invisible sun’?

Here’s yet another song we’ve already seen courtesy of Elton John with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Apparently, this was the most played song on radio and TV in the US in 1994. Want to take a guess at who held that position in the UK? Yes, Wet Wet Wet’s version of “Love Is All Around” of course. DJs just couldn’t resist sticking it to us despite the fact that it bored everybody to death by being at No 1 for 15 weeks. Interestingly, the rest of the Top 5 airplay hits of this year included three that were all in the charts around this time – Let Loose, Big Mountain and the afore discussed Aswad. Presumably all that exposure goes some way to explaining their chart longevity. The only one that really surprised me was the second most played record which was “Seven Seconds” by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour but then it was a huge hit around Europe including here where it peaked at No 3 spending four and a half months on the Top 40 and six weeks inside the Top 10.

I sometimes wonder if The Pretenders get the credit they deserve. Their back catalogue is full of good tunes and in Chrissie Hynde, they have a charismatic lead singer with a unique voice. Their chart stats stand up to scrutiny – 13 UK Top 40 singles of which 5 made the Top 10 plus, of course, a chart topper in “Brass In Pocket” (the first new No 1 single of the 80s). It strikes me though that they never really get talked about as one of the great rock/pop bands. Yes, their eponymous debut album regularly appears in Best Of polls and Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 but do you hear their music much on the radio these days? Sure, “2000 Miles” gets airplay every Christmas and “I’ll Stand By You” gets a spin every now and again. I guess you’ll hear “Brass In Pocket” on one of those 80s themed radio stations. It doesn’t seem like much though. Clearly, I haven’t done any statistical breakdown of this theory (it’s all just based on my own perception) so I’m at risk of being shot down in flames but I’m pretty damn sure that this hit – “Night In My Veins” – you will not hear on any station any time soon. And that’s a shame as it’s a good song. The almost forgotten follow up to the aforementioned “I’ll Stand By You”, it’s a nice slice of melodic rock that should have got higher than No 25.

Chrissie looks cool as in leather trousers and high heels in this performance but sadly I fear this might be their last ever appearance on the show as they only had one subsequent Top 40 hit when “Human” got to a lowly No 33 in 1999. They have continued to release new material though with their last album “Hate For Sale” released as recently as 2020.

And yet another song that was huge over the Summer of 1994. I’m pretty sure this is the third time for All 4 One with “I Swear” on the show so to shake things up, they’ve gone for a live by satellite set up from Malibu as opposed to the two previous TOTP studio performances.

This optics in this with the four members of the group walking along the beach with microphones in hand looks completely mad. They’re fooling nobody. Was it to try and keep in line with the show’s live vocal policy? They’re surely miming?! I’ve not seen anything so unconvincing since Jason Donovan wandered along that mountain range strumming his unpowered electric guitar in the video for “Too Many Broken Hearts”! They should have just embraced the completely ludicrous nature of this and gone full New Order on Venice Beach, California performing “Regret” in the company of the cast of Baywatch, David Hasselhoff and all.

Hold the front page! Take That release a single that doesn’t go straight to No 1! Yes, after four consecutive chart toppers, the lads have to settle for the relative failure of a No 3 hit in “Love Ain’t Here Anymore”. Now you could make a reasonable case for this outcome as being down to the song being the sixth single released from their “Everything Changes” album (who did they think they were, Michael Jackson?). However, it is my firm belief that it missed the top spot on account of it not being very good. A big, sloppy ballad deliberately written to make their teenage female fans swoon, it’s basically a rewrite of “A Million Love Songs” but with some awful lyrical rhymes. I mean “It’s gone away to a town called yesterday”? Please.

Two questions about this performance occur to me. What the hell are they wearing and what on earth was that squeal that Gary Barlow let out at the song’s…erm…climax?! Might be a poor choice of word that on reflection.

Wet Wet Wet clearly disagree with Take That’s assertion that “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” as they are still No 1 with “Love Is All Around”. As with All 4 One earlier, the TOTP producers have tried to alleviate the monotony of a persistent chart botherer by getting in a guest presenter just to introduce this one song. Consequently, alongside regular host Mark Goodier, appears Reg Presley on his shoulder. Reg, of course, was the guy who wrote “Love Is All Around” back in 1967 for The Troggs. He does a nice little turn as well, not fluffing his lines and seemingly well chuffed to be back on TOTP. If you listen carefully, as the camera cuts away to Wet Wet Wet, you can hear Goodier call Presley a star to which Reg replies “Thanks”. Obviously, he’s also on the show to plug a Troggs Greatest Hits album that has been released in the wake of the success of the Wets’ cover version but let’s ignore that.

Marti Pellow, alongside his two guitarists, look like they belong in 1967 and its Summer of Love that Reg references in his intro with their hippy length hair. I recall a headline on the front cover of Smash Hits when they first started growing their hair that said “Och aye Jock McKay, look at the state of the Wets!”. Not sure that would be allowed these days. Sadly, Reg Presley died from lung cancer in 2013 aged 71.

The play out song is another cover version but an unlikely and rather heinous one – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Abigail anyone? What? Sorry…who?! Well, her full name is Abigail Zsiga who, despite the exotic name, hailed from Warrington and she supplied the vocals for a minor hit called “I Feel You” by Love Decade in 1992 (no me neither). After that, she carved out a rather niche career of recording Hi-NRG versions of popular songs including k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving”, REM’s “Losing My Religion” and this Nirvana classic. It’s all rather nasty but at least you can hear far more clearly what the actual lyrics were as opposed to the original. It’s not much of an endorsement though is it?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1GunWord UpLiked it, didn’t buy it
22 CowboysEverybody Gonfi-GonAs if
3The B-52s(Meet) The FlintstonesNope
4AswadShineNo
5Elton JohnCan You Feel The Love TonightI did not
6The PretendersNight In My VeinsIt’s a no from me
7All 4 OneI SwearNo chance
8Take ThatLove Ain’t Here AnymoreNah
9Wet Wet WetLove Is All AroundAnd no
10AbigailSmells Like Teen SpiritCertainly not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kyvr/top-of-the-pops-07071994

TOTP 23 JUN 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the final week of June 1994 and the World Cup is well under way. Republic of Ireland have already pulled off an unlikely 1-0 win against Italy and Diego Maradona had shocked the world with that bulging eyes goal celebration. Two days after this TOTP aired, he failed a drug test after the Argentina v Nigeria group game and was expelled from the tournament. He never played for his country again. The England team were watching at home like the rest of us after failing to qualify for the first time since 1978. Did we not like that! The World Cup provides the perfect opportunity for tonight’s host Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo to play to the camera by wearing a different country’s football shirt every time he does a link. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – what a nob!

We start with a band who had history when it came to rustling up a big hit out of nowhere. In 1988, Aswad bagged themselves a No 1 with “Don’t Turn Around”. There previous highest chart peak had been No 70. They would spend the next six years as infrequent visitors to the Top 40 clocking up a handful of medium sized hits. By the Summer of 1994, their last chart entry had been a rather desperate career reviving attempt – a cover of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. I, for one, did not see them plundering a Top 5 single any time soon but that’s what they did with the release of “Shine”. Why did this particular track spark with the record buying audience? If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a super wealthy songwriter rather than an impoverished blog writer. For what it’s worth, “Shine” (to me) seemed much more aligned with their reggae roots than the likes of the out and out pop of “Don’t Turn Around” and given the then recent trend for ragga/dancehall songs and reggae-fied pop classics in the charts, maybe this was the apposite time for an Aswad comeback. Whatever the reason, “Shine” certainly had some legs – it spent three months in the Top 40 of which half of that time was in the Top 10. I’m sure we’ll be seeing Aswad again on these repeats.

Just to prove my point about the proliferation of reggae and its various sub genres in the charts at this time, here’s Dawn Penn with “You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)”. And if that wasn’t enough evidence to prove how parochial the charts were becoming and this TOTP in particular, here’s @TOTPFacts with a further tidbit:

If Aswad’s comeback was surprising then what can be said about the success of this single? Originally recorded in 1967 and based around a Willie Cobb 1960 song (which itself relied heavily on a 1955 Bo Diddley track), somehow in 1994, it was deemed essential Summer listening. NME put it at No 24 in their list of the 50 best songs of the year. However, it was a case of ‘yes, yes, yes’ for the single and ‘no, no, no’ for the accompanying album which was received much less favourably and it got no further than No 51 in our charts.

Oh this is just getting silly now. How much more Aswad can one blog post take?! The next act is Ace Of Base whose latest single is a version of the aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around”! Why?! Why did they think this was a good idea? Well, apparently it wasn’t the band’s brainwave but their record label Arista’s who wanted some extra tracks laid down for the release of the US version of their debut album. One of those tracks had been previous single “The Sign” and now it was the turn of a song written by songwriter extraordinaire Dianne Warren and Albert Hammond. It was originally recorded by Tina Turner as the B-side to her 1986 single “Typical Male” before Aswad got their hands on it. Six years later it resurfaced in the hands of Swedish hitmakers Ace Of Base who wanted to give it a makeover and reworked it in a minor key to lend it an air of melancholy. I guess they should be given some credit for trying to do something different with what was clearly a straight up and down, uptempo pop song but it’s still a big, steaming pool of piss. I think it’s the nasally vocals on it (and indeed all their records) that grate. That plus the god awful rap in the middle. Oh, and the nasty, tinny production. Yeah, I think that covers it.

Arista clearly knew their markets though and “Don’t Turn Around” went to No 4 in the US and No 5 in the UK as well as being a hit all around the world. Ace Of Base would return with yet another cover version in 1998 with their take of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer”.

Pretty sure there’s no Aswad association with this next artist. Whilst the UK was experiencing the second coming of Bryan Adams in the form of Wet Wet Wet being No 1 for weeks on end, America also had its own version of chart purgatory in the shape of All 4 One whose single “I Swear” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eleven consecutive weeks. Inevitably, it became a massive success over here as well and surely would have risen to the summit were it not for Marti Pellow and chums. It got wedged in at the No2 position for seven weeks unable to dislodge “Love Is All Around”. I think this was my sister and her then boyfriend’s song as I recall. No doubt it held that status for many a couple in 1994.

Not quite a one hit wonder in the UK (they had a No 33 single in 1995), they had more success in the US though no chart entries there either past 1996. Despite that, the group are still together with the original line up with their most recent album coming in 2015.

Well before Yorkshire rockers Terrorvision were singing about ‘whales and dolphins’ on their 1996 hit single “Perseverance” there was Shed Seven and their first foray into the Top 40 “Dolphin”. I seem to remember there being a lot of fuss about the emergence of this lot (who were also Yorkshire lads hailing from York itself) and the release of their debut album “Change Giver”. I hadn’t been an early adopter of the Shed buzz though. I hadn’t noticed their debut single “Mark” (to be fair, it only made No 80) and this one also seemed to have passed me by. Not sure why as it’s a decent tune and I was open to the idea of a guitar band playing a form of jangly pop. The music press seemed open to it as well, at least initially. Comparisons with The Smiths and an article in the NME describing them as ‘the UK’s brightest hopes’ alongside positive gig reviews fuelled expectations. Within months though the press had turned and the band were even criticised for their names. Not the band’s name but their actual names. Look at this:

“Do they really expect to make it big with a singer called Rick Witter?”

Sullivan, Caroline. “Feature: Blurred Vision”. The Guardian G2 (Thursday 10 November 1994): 5.

Ridiculous. Anyway, the album made a short lived but significant splash reaching No 16 but only spending two weeks on the chart. It was a start though and within two years they were cranking out some quality tunes like “Getting Better” and “Going For Gold” both of which were used to soundtrack some BBC montages of the England football team during Euro 96 at the height of lad culture. Perhaps their pièce de résistance though was “Chasing Rainbows”, the lead single from third album “Let It Ride”. They were up there with the big boys of Britpop briefly. Ah yes, Britpop. Blur Vs Oasis and all that. Except for a while it was Shed Seven Vs Oasis, a rivalry which I must admit to not being aware of at the time but which seems to be heightened by both bands releasing debut albums within a week of each other. The rivalry became a feud that was played out in the music press with comments like this from Noel Gallagher:

“If we’re The Beatles, where are The Rolling Stones… it’s not f***ing Shed Seven’.”

Simpson, Dave. “Feature: More Songs About Puberty And Power”. Melody Maker (10 September 1994): 32–34.

Ultimately, “Change Giver” couldn’t compete with the record breaking “Definitely Maybe” but it wasn’t for a lack of confidence. Rick Witter is wearing a Shed Seven T-shirt in this TOTP performance with a picture of himself on the front! “Dolphin” peaked at No 28.

Live action films that use cartoons as their source material are rarely a good idea in my book. As far back as 1980 when Robin Williams took on Popeye, they never seemed to work. Leslie Nielsen’s turn as Mr Magoo in 1997 didn’t live long in the memory and neither did Matthew Broderick’s as Inspector Gadget in 1999. And then there’s The Flintstones. A staple of many a child of the 60s and 70s televisual schedule, the live action film starring John Goodman as Fred Flintstone actually did pretty well at the box office but it was still awful. With songs from films being big business in the 90s (think Bryan Adams / Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Whitney Houston / The Bodyguard and Wet Wet Wet / Four Weddings and a Funeral), it was no surprise that Universal Pictures wanted a huge hit to promote the film. Enter The B–52’s to record a version of the cartoon’s well known theme tune.

In many ways they were the perfect vehicle for a reworking of “(Meet) The Flintstones” having an almost cartoonish image themselves and being at the kitsch end of New Wave but on listening back to this today, it sounds horrific. Renamed as The B.C. 52’s (how amusing), they put their trademark stylings to the song like the over emphasised vocals of Kate Pierson and some wah wah guitar but it just doesn’t work for me. Shoehorning in some of the sound effects from the original into the mix like the canned drum roll that accompanies ‘Fred’s two feet’ in the cartoon sounds completely incongruous. What did I know though as the single went all the way to No 3. It would be the band’s final UK and US chart hit.

Some more pissing Eurodance next. I’m so fed up of this now. At the risk of sounding like my Dad when he used to pass judgment on the music of my youth, it all sounds the same and the bigger the crap the longer it goes on. Cappella seemed to be a poor man’s 2 Unlimited but with an obsession with inserting ‘U’ instead of ‘you’ in their song titles. “U & Me” was the third of their singles to follow this trend after “U Got 2 Know” and “U Got 2 Let The Music”. I can’t remember how they went but I’m guessing they sounded pretty similar to this one. Do you think Eurodance is just a dead form of music now? Like Latin is a dead language that nobody speaks anymore, is Eurodance a genre of music that nobody makes nor listens to any longer? We can only hope. “U & Me” peaked at No 10.

The 90s had been pretty good to Elton John so far. The decade had furnished him with his first ever solo UK No 1 in “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”, his album “Sleeping With The Past” (1990) was also a chart topper whilst “The One” (1992) went to No 2. Meanwhile, his collaborations album “Duets” had given him two Top 10 singles on the bounce. I hadn’t liked any of it though. In fact, I’d thought it was all terrible pretty much. However, that period’s success had lifted Elton out of his late 80s malaise when everything had gone a bit awry post “Too Low For Zero” and its radio friendly singles like “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” and “I’m Still Standing”.

What came next in 1994 some would say was his best work in years and it was all due to a Disney film. The Lion King would become an international phenomenon becoming the second highest grossing film of all time at one point behind the original Jurassic Park but also spawning a musical, sequels, a prequel and TV series. The man behind its soundtrack though was Elton and he fashioned a record that would go diamond in the US alone, achieving 10 million sales. The two big singles from it were “Circle Of Life” and this one, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Both were heart strings tugging ballads the like of which Elton was more than capable of composing once he’d weaned himself off the overly saccharine which he was want to indulge in. I could appreciate the musicality of both hits from the soundtrack though I preferred “Circle Of Life” if I’m honest as did Elton who is on record as stating it’s the better song. It was “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” though that won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1995.

The single was also a big hit in the US where it made No 4 though the reception to it in this country was somehow only worthy of a chart peak of No 14. Elton would return in 1995 with the platinum selling “Made In England” album.

It’s week four for Wet Wet Wet at the chart summit. What can I say about it this week? How about our perception of what exactly was going on here at the time? Did we have any idea that we were witnessing the genesis of a 15 weeks run at No 1 for “Love Is All Around”? Four Weddings And A Funeral was pulling in huge numbers at the box office to help promote the song in much the same way that Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves did for “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” so maybe we should have seen it coming? Or had we consigned the whole Bryan Adams debacle to history as a one off and therefore in our minds there was no way such a run could happen again or at least certainly not within three years?

And what of chart rivals? Were there any records that looked likely to depose the Wets in those early weeks? Was it inconceivable that someone like Big Mountain (with their own song from a film) could get to No 1? How about Dawn Penn or US chart toppers All 4 One? Or even Ace Of Base who’d already scored a chart topper of their own the previous year and whose current single was a song that had been No 1 for Aswad just six years before? Marti Pellow and co would see them all off to achieve fifteen weeks atop the charts before getting bored themselves and deleting the record so that sales would eventually and inevitably decline. At least that put them marginally above Bryan Adams in the credibility stakes.

The play out song is “Night In My Veins” by The Pretenders. I’d completely forgotten that there was a follow up to “I’ll Stand By You” but here it is and it’s not bad if nowhere near as memorable as its predecessor. A catchy, melodic rock work out, it would make No 25 and was the band’s penultimate UK Top 40 entry.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1AswadShineNope
2Dawn PennYou Don’t Love Me (No, No, No) No and indeed no, no
3Ace Of BaseDon’t Turn AroundAs if
4All 4 OneI SwearNo but I bet my sister did
5Shed SevenDolphinNo but I have a live album of theirs with it on
6The B-52’s(Meet) The FlinstonesNever happening
7CappellaU & MeNegative
8Elton JohnCan You Feel The Love TonightNah
9Wet Wet WetLove Is All AroundI did not
10The PretendersNight In My VeinsAnd 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/m001krc9/top-of-the-pops-23061994

TOTP 21 APR 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

So I’m 500 not out in TOTP Rewind posts but there’s no time for patting myself on the back as I’m behind with the BBC4 repeats schedule so it’s on with No 501 and we start with Bitty McLean. I’ve genuinely run out of things to say about Bitty – mate of UB40? Tick. Penchant for reggae-fied versions of classic songs? Obvs. What he did post fame? Yep, been there done that. Little Britain joke? Yeah, yeah. He is the uncle of a retired professional footballer called Aaron McLean who spent his career in the lower leagues and played for the England C team (yeah, I didn’t know there was such a thing either) but is that really such an interesting fact especially in a music blog?

OK, how about the song he’s singing here? Well, “Dedicated To The One I Love” was originally recorded by an American R&B group called The “5” Royales in 1957 and then by girl group The Shirelles who took it to No 3 to in 1961. Surely the best known version though is that of The Mamas & The Papas who had a No 2 hit with it in 1967. The track features Michelle Phillips on lead vocals for the first time as opposed to Cass Elliot. Phillips would go on to have an acting career after the band broke up in 1970 and starred in the acclaimed crime biopic Dillinger earning a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. Roles in TV films followed until she joined the cast of US soap Knots Landing in 1987 where the tale of “Dedicated To The One I Love” comes full circle. In a 1992 episode in which Phillips featured, the Mamas & The Papas’ version of the song plays in the background. The producers even called the episode Dedicated To The One I Love. Yeah, that’s it for this one – that’s all I’ve got.

Right, what’s next? Oh no. Not another ragga version of a pop standard?! Unlike Bitty McLean who specialised in putting an almost lovers’ rock sheen on his covers, C. J. Lewis fancied himself as the UK equivalent of Shaggy as he takes on classic 60s pop song “Sweets For My Sweet” by festooning it with loads of ‘toasting’ including the classic cliche shout out “Hear Me Now!”. Oh gawd. This was just a racket both sonically and artistically. Horrible stuff.

The version we all now by The Searchers from 1963 was a UK No 1 and is it immeasurably better than this load of nonsense. Whilst I prefer Manchester rivals The Hollies, it’s hard to resist the charms of this Merseybeat combo – “When You Walk In The Room”, “Don’t Throw Your Love Away”, “Needles And Pins”, “Sugar And Spice” and of course this one are all great 60s pop tunes…all of which makes C.J. Lewis’s dreadful cover even more heinous. Even the single’s artwork adds to the nastiness of the thing as it appears to depict a woman lifting up her skirt as Lewis looks on from his sofa. WTF? Everything about this guy was wrong including his stage name. Why did he go by the moniker of C. J. Lewis when his actual name was Steven James Lewis? He would stick with the formula of applying a ragga tip to established hits when he followed up “Sweets For My Sweet” with a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Everything Is Uptight (Alright)” and The Emotions’ “Best Of My Love”. Heaven help us.

Yes! Finally a proper song made by a proper artist! Despite being a huge name, The Pretenders hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit since “Hymn To Her” in 1986. In their defence, they’d not actually released much material in that time with their only album since “Get Close” (from which “Hymn To Her” came) being 1990’s underwhelming “Packed!”. There had also been a successful Best Of compilation in 1987 (“The Singles”) and Chrissie Hynde had renewed her relationship with UB40 to guest on 1988’s “Breakfast In Bed” single. Oh and not forgetting that Moodswings song “Spiritual High (State Of Independence) Pt.II” that featured Chrissie on vocals and samples Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. It’s not a lot though in an eight year period. Having said all of that, it seemed a bit churlish of the TOTP caption person to just put ‘Back after 8 years’ as their comment. They couldn’t have put something about how many records they’d sold in their career or the fact that they had the first new No 1 record of the 80s with “Brass In Pocket”? 1994 though did see the band return in good form with Top 10 album “Last Of The Independents” and its storming lead single “I’ll Stand By You”. Supposedly, Chrissie wasn’t sure about the song initially. Written specifically to be a hit with songwriters Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, she doubted her motivations about the song when it was finished. However, having played it to some friends outside of the music industry who were reduced to tears by the track, she relented and let it be released. It’s not a million miles away from “Hymn To Her” to my ears which is a compliment by the way. I like both songs. “I’ll Stand By You” has a power to it I think and Chrissie’s vocals are always right on it.

They say you can tell the quality of a song by how many times other artists have covered it. If so, “I’ll Stand By You” is a tune a few times over. It was done by Girls Aloud in 2004 as that year’s Children In Need single and three years later was also chosen as a charity record when American Idol artist Carrie Underwood recorded it for the Idol Gives Back campaign. Three years after that it was again recorded for a charitable concern when Shakira released it as a fundraiser for the Hope For Haiti Now effort after the earthquake there in 2010. I guess the track’s meaning had a major crossover quality which leant itself to supporting people in crisis as well as its original intention of describing being loyal and faithful to a person.

There’s something very appealing I think about this TOTP performance of the song; something to do with Chrissie’s dress down image and the fact that you can see her panic ever so slightly when she struggles to pick up her guitar halfway through. Nice to see founding member Martin Chambers up there on drums who had rejoined the band after leaving in 1986 after problems with his drumming after cutting his hand badly on tour and also struggling to deal with the deaths of band members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon in 1982 and 1983 respectively following issues with drug use. I guess that caption was pretty accurate in the case of Chambers then. “I’ll Stand By You” peaked at No 10 whilst the album went gold for selling 100,000 copies.

It’s the video for “Always” by Erasure next and it’s quite a thing. Set against an ancient China backdrop with Andy Bell dressed as some sort of mythical spirit, the plot revolves around the passing of the seasons as metaphors for good and evil with a battle ensuing between Bell’s character and a bad dragon type dude with the former trying to protect a Mother Nature type figure. Sheesh! The length of that sentence shows how much was going on in the video. It works pretty well though I think but then Vince and Andy always seemed to want to put some drama into their promos. Actually, I don’t think Vince is in this one at all unless he’s under that bad spirit costume which seems unlikely given Vince’s slight frame. “Always” would peak at No 4 and would also provide the title for their fourth Best Of compilation from 2015 celebrating the 30th anniversary of the formation of the band.

A new name appears from nowhere with a dance smash that gives them the highest ever UK chart entry for an unknown artist when it crashes in at No 3, enjoys a huge hit with the record and then pretty much disappears again bar a couple of minor follow ups. A footnote in musical history is created and that’s the end of the story. Right? Wrong. Who had money on a Crystal Waters comeback? No you didn’t! I’m sure even Crystal would have been surprised. Back though she was with “100% Pure Love”. Yes, the artist who brought us “Gypsy Woman (La Da Dee La Da Da)” had set her sat nav for the Top 40 once more and with a track that didn’t stray too far from the blueprint of her monster hit. As with Chrissie Hynde earlier, Crystal’s voice is distinctive to the point of being beyond replication but unlike with The Pretenders’ singer, that wasn’t a positive for me. I could never get on board with her vocals, catchy hook or not. Plenty of people disagreed with me though and the single was a sizeable hit in the US and around Europe (it went to No 15 in the UK).

I have to admit to not really remembering this one. If I think of the phrase ‘100%’ in the mid 90s, I think of the Telstar compilation series which started with the title “100% Dance Hits” and expanded out to cover musical genres such as Acid Jazz, Christmas, Blues & Soul, Reggae etc. There must have been one called “100% Pure Love” surely?

Now here’s a song that divides opinion. “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies received a lot of positive reviews at the time for being original, melodic and taking on the difficult issue of the suffering and humiliation that children can experience if there was something in their life that marked them out as different. Retrospectively though, the track regularly appears in various ‘worst song ever’ type polls. For what it’s worth, I’d place myself in the former group. It seems to me that much of the criticism it receives is about its title and by extension chorus. What is it that people object to? That it’s lazy? Silly? That doesn’t really add up though. There have always been songs with nonsensical titles – some by major artists. Look at “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” by The Beatles or “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da Da” by The Police. Or is it vocalist Brad Roberts’ deep singing voice that offends listeners so? Again, there have always been singers with low registers whose work people love. Look at Johnny Cash for example.

Anyway, the song was a huge international success including the UK where it made No 2. Bizarrely though, it was probably least successful in their home country of Canada where they’d already had a huge hit with “Superman’s Song” in 1991. Subsequent releases from parent album “God Shuffled His Feet” were more successful there than “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”. All very curious. One of those releases, “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” gave the band a No 23 hit in the UK whilst a cover of “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead” by their heroes XTC for the movie Dumb And Dumber supplied their final hit over here when it made No 30.

Talking of dividing opinion, this next band have always been rather good at that. Some see them as master crafters of intelligent pop music whilst for others, they are the antithesis of that, inauthentic chancers with an overblown sense of their own worth. I’m talking about Deacon Blue -and I’m firmly in the former camp. Some people really do hate them though. I found someone online who’s written a piece about how he’d been reminded about how much he hated them when he saw them live. Eh? Well, in his defence, they were the support band for Simple Minds so he hadn’t chosen to catch them in concert per se, he was there for the headline act. He despised them so much that when they were on stage, he took the opportunity to delete some emails off his phone rather than raise his head to look st them. Simple Minds though we’re great according to him. Hmm. Another who shared this view was my Our Price manager at the time who commented on the band’s TOTP appearance here that it was the most cliched, hackneyed performance they could possibly have come up with. Again, hmm. Show some dignity guys.

Ah yes, “Dignity”. Ricky Ross, Lorraine McIntosh (swoon) and…erm…the others were on the show to plug their first Greatest Hits album “Our Town” which would be a platinum selling No 1 (so there were quite a lot of us who liked them after all). The album featured all but two of their singles and three new tracks including “I Was Right And You Were Wrong” (another song title for the doubters) which had been released as a single and made No 32 but which didn’t generate a TOTP appearance. Instead, we get “Dignity” which was actually given a formal rerelease as a single (its third time in total) and it made No 20, its highest ever position on the UK charts. Deacon Blue would split up in this year only to return in the new millennium from which point they have released six further studio albums.

It’s that Tony Di Bart fella now, possibly the most unlikely and unconvincing pop star since…well, who? Chesney Hawkes? Glenn Medeiros? At least they had pin up appeal. Is it too harsh to suggest that you couldn’t say the same thing about Tony? Maybe it was all about the song in this case and not the guy who was delivering it? Time has been kind to “The Real Thing” with it being seen as a genuinely great pop record as opposed to part of the handbag house brigade that was all the rage in 1994. I can’t say that I share that opinion though. I found its success bewildering. Maybe I wasn’t going to the right type of clubs? Host Mark Goodier (who seems to have spent the whole show lurching about like he’s got a bad back) was wrong in his rather insensitive (given who was standing next to him) chart prediction – Di Bart wasn’t No 1 the next week though he was the week after.

Wait! What? Was that bloke stood next to Mark Goodier and who did the personal message to camera at the top of the show not Prince?! Was it just a very good lookalike?! I ask because at no point does Goodier actually refer to the guy nor acknowledge his presence and in that VT clip he does send himself up for the whole symbol moniker. If it was a lookalike, what was the point? Just to mess with our minds?

On the other hand, maybe it was the real thing as we don’t get the standard video promo but an exclusive pre-recorded performance. But then, if he was actually in the country and at the studio, why wouldn’t he have done a regular run through of “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” like all the other artists on the show did with their songs? This was just weird as was the version that Prince recorded for the show. The slowed down, sexy take might have been the bedroom choice but it wasn’t the song that everyone was hearing on their radios and buying in the shops was it? Anyway, it was Prince’s first and only UK No 1 having missed out twice before when the 1985 reissue of “1999/Little Red Corvette” and 1999’s “Batdance” both peaked at No 2.

The play out song is “Back In My Life” by Joe Roberts but who was/is Joe Roberts? Well, he’s English and had a handful of minor hits in the mid 90s before disappearing whence he came. Ironically, the single that came out after this No 39 hit was a cover of Prince’s “Adore” so not only did he follow the Purple One on the TOTP running order but his singles release schedule also followed him. He sounds a bit like a poor man’s Curtis Stigers whilst one promo shot of him that I found sees him looking like Bo Selecta’s characterisation of David Blaine. Shazam!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Bitty McLeanDedicated To The One I LoveNo
2C. J. LewisSweets For My SweetGod no!
3The PretendersI’ll Stand By YouLiked it, didn’t buy it
4ErasureAlwaysNope
5Crystal Waters100% Pure LoveNah
6Crash Test DummiesMmm Mmm Mmm Mmm See 3 above
7Deacon BlueDignityNo but I had the original Raintown album with it on
8Tony Di BartThe Real ThingNot my bag – no
9PrinceThe Most Beautiful Girl In The WorldI did not
10Joe Roberts Back In My LifeAnd 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/m001jn48/top-of-the-pops-21041994