The Smiths

TOTP 10 SEP 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s a rare consecutive TOTP after weeks of skipping shows due to the Adrian Rose issue. I think we might be getting to the end of his 14 episodes that we are having to miss. We’re exactly a third of the way through September of 1992 and the biggest album release of the week is “The Best Of Belinda Volume 1” by, unsurprisingly, Belinda Carlisle. Singles wise, the two new releases doing the briskest trade are probably Bob Marley’s “Iron Lion Zion” and “Theme From M.A.S.H (Suicide Is Painless)” by Manic Street Preachers.

As for me, I’m pretty sure I’d have started my new post as Assistant Manager of the Our Price store in Rochdale by now. I got off the bus that first morning and went into the first newsagents I saw to ask where the shop actually was. Once I found it, I realised how much smaller it was than the two trading floor store I’d left behind in Manchester. So small in fact that they had sale stock on display in cardboard boxes shoved under the racking. Behind the scenes there was a small processing area and staff kitchen but quite a large, cavernous stock room that wasn’t really used other than as a dumping ground for various unsold stock that had accumulated over the years. Nobody spent much time in there. The staff consisted of Adrian the manager who was about to leave for Virgin, Emma and Rachel both of whom I’d worked with briefly at Manchester and Phil who was also about to leave the company for pastures new. And then there was newbie me. It was a time of significant change for the store.

I spent much of that first morning serving customers on my own whilst the regulars sorted out the new releases upstairs. However, as I didn’t know where anything was filed I kept having to buzz them to help me out. I probably didn’t make the best first impression. Presumably the product I sold that first morning would have included some of the songs on this TOTP. Let’s see if I remember…

Opening the show are a band who were very much billed as the anti-Take That and a rivalry was developed (or at least created by the press) between the two that brought back memories of Duran Duran vs Spandau Ballet from the 80s. East 17 were the brainchild of former Pet Shop Boys manager Tom Watkins who came up with the genius idea of launching this tougher, more street wise version of Take That after song writer Tony Mortimer was offered a recording contract on the condition that he form a band around himself as a vehicle to sell the songs. Taking their name from the postcode district of their hometown Walthamstow (after which they then named their debut album), they scored an immediate hit with first single “House Of Love”. Mortimer’s version of a rave anthem, I thought this sounded great. Think of the twee, cynically put together hits Take That started their career with and then listen to this. There’s no comparison. It put me in mind of the chart battle between Girls Aloud and One True Voice that same out of the Popstars: The Rivals TV show in 2002. The former’s single “Sound Of The Underground” was so superior to the latter’s…I can’t even remember what it was called it was so forgettable…it was almost embarrassing.

For a while these boys from Walthamstow traded blows with their nemesis and matched them punch for punch. They even bagged themselves a No 1 (a Xmas chart topper no less). Ultimately though they would lose the pop war and imploded after singer Brian Harvey encouraged drug taking on a late night radio interview. The ramifications included both Mortimer and Harvey leaving the group and returning multiple times and a change of band name. A number of tabloid headlines including the frankly bizarre incident of Harvey being run over by his own car after eating too many jacket potatoes damaged the band’s reputation beyond redemption. Currently they perform as a trio with only one original member (Terry Coldwell) in their ranks.

Back in 1992 though, they were fresh faced lads who looked like they could just as likely be working in McDonalds as performing on TOTP. Somehow though, instead of dying on their arses in this frankly ludicrous performance (what the hell was the washing line all about?) it all somehow just worked. Instead of being laughed off stage, we took them on face value as proper pop stars. Things were just starting to get interesting in the boy band stakes.

I’d totally forgotten that The Christians were still having chart hits this far into their career. It had been over five years since they burst onto the scene with their eponymous debut album (the biggest selling debut album in their label Island Records’ history) but here they were still in the Top 40 and still on TOTP in the Autumn of 1992. Listening to “What’s In A Word” it sounds vaguely familiar though I couldn’t have told you how it went before reacquainting myself with it. Didn’t their last chart hit feature ‘word’ in the title?

*checks The Christians discography *

I was right! “Words” made No 18 over Xmas/ New Year in 1989/90. They seemed to be as fixated on the subject of the lexicon as Martin Fry. I bet they were elated when that bloke invented Wordle.

Anyway, it’s a nice enough tune though hardly outstanding which may explain its lowly peak of No 33. Lead singer Garry Christian feels the needs to hold a drum stick throughout this performance that comes live from Paris for no obvious reason. Meanwhile, it seems Henry Priestman was still with the band at this point as I’m pretty sure that’s him on keyboards. I saw him as a solo artist live at Beverley Folk Festival in 2010. He was great. Barbara Dickson was also there and I stood next to her at one point watching the worst game of football I’ve ever seen on TV (England 0-0 Algeria in the World Cup). She was tiny.

The Christians, like East 17, still exist today (albeit not in their original form) and released a single in December 2021 called “Naz Don’t Cry” in support of the recently released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who had been detained in Israel since 2016.

Here’s a question. If you’ve made your name by covering other people’s songs, is the decision to call yourselves Undercover genius or incredibly lame? I’m going for the latter. The ‘drum and bass’ version of “Baker Street” as host Tony Dortie ridiculously describes it is up to No 3 so another trip to the TOTP studio is in order for the band. Vocalist John Matthews looks like he should be playing in midfield for Newcastle United (I think it’s the slight resemblance to Gazza) but he’s actually a massive Arsenal fan. Look at this interaction with a Spurs fan on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired:

Ha! Talking of fans, someone who wasn’t a fan of Undercover at all was the man responsible for “Baker Street” Gerry Rafferty. According to Wikipedia, he had this to say about it:

“Dreadful- totally banal. A sad sign of the times”

Presumably he was happy to pick up the writer’s cheque their version brought in though that Tony Dortie refers to in his intro which was for £1.5 million! Like East 17 and The Christians before them, a version of Undercover featuring John Matthews are still a going concern today.

Freddie Jackson hadn’t been seen in the UK charts for six years before he turned up rather randomly with a cover of Billy Paul’s “Me And Mrs Jones”. Taken from his album “Time For Love”, this could be the most pointless cover version of all time. Firstly, he gives a completely straight take on it hardly deviating from the original at all. Secondly, he was never going to rival Billy Paul’s original. I’m putting this out there – I suspect some chart rigging was afoot getting this into the Top 40. Even if there was, it wasn’t that successful as it only made No 32 and the album bombed just about everywhere.

One of my favourite albums of 1992 was “Welcome To Wherever You Are” by INXS. The eighth album by the Aussie rockers was meant to be a rejection of the more polished studio sound that they had perfected on previous album “X” with an emphasis on a rawer sound. To my ears though it still had plenty of hooks to draw me in and includes one of the great album segues from opening track, the Eastern sounding “Questions”, into the album’s lead single “Heaven Sent”. We haven’t seen the latter on TOTP – I’m not sure why. It only made No 31 on the chart so it could be that it never made the cut at all or maybe it was in the Breakers on a show that we skipped because of the whole Adrian Rose debacle? Happily, second single “Baby Don’t Cry” has made it onto the show and it’s an unashamedly bold and out there stadium rock anthem with an exuberant, singalong chorus. Apparently it was recorded with the 60 piece Australian Concert Orchestra – so much for that raw sound the band was supposedly going for.

I thought this was going to be a massive hit but it stalled at No 20 and wasn’t even released in America. The album debuted at No 1 here making INXS the first Australian act to have a UK chart topper since AC/DC with “Back In Black” in 1980. However, that success was not repeated in the US and the album marked a decline in their commercial fortunes over there. The decision not to tour the album was probably not the correct one in hindsight.

Back in the studio we find Del Amitri who are in the midst of probably their most commercially successful period of their career. Their “Change Everything” album had been as high as No 2 in the charts and it would furnish them with four hit singles which all made the Top 30. “Just Like A Man” was the third of those and though I rather dismissed it as ‘just another Del Amitri song’ at the time, it’s actually a pretty decent tune. Do they get enough credit for their back catalogue? I’m not sure they do. My perception is that they’re somehow not seen as cutting-edge enough, not quite the real deal, perhaps even too…comfy? Also, for all that I said about the success they were having at this time, they never had one Top 10 single in this country. They’re not alone in that of course. Goth rockers The Mission clocked up 12 Top 40 singles without ever getting any higher than No 11. I guess they were more album than singles bands. “Just Like A Man” peaked at No 25.

Four Breakers now but we’ve seen three of them before as ‘exclusive’ performances/videos. To quote Ian Dury, “what a waste”. First up is Sinéad O’Connor with “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home”. This was the lead single from her covers album “Am I Not Your Girl?” which I don’t think I’ve ever heard properly. Looking at the track listing, there a few songs I know like “Secret Love” (Doris Day), “Love Letters” ( Ketty Lester/ Elvis /Alison Moyet) and of course “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from Evita. The latter was released as the second single from the album and I would have thought it was a safe bet for another chart hit given that it is surely better known than its predecessor. After all, it had been a No 1 for Julie Covington in 1976. Sinéad’s version didn’t even make the Top 40. Four years later, Madonna did what Sinéad couldn’t and had a massive No 3 hit with it over Xmas 1996 but then she was starring as Eva Perón in Alan Parker’s film version of Evita so a hit was almost guaranteed. “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” peaked at No 18.

Even the only Breaker we haven’t seen on the show before we actually have. What am I going on about? I mean it’s a rerelease of a song that was a hit back in 1985. “How Soon Is Now?” was the latest element of WEA’s release strategy for their newly acquired back catalogue of The Smiths. Possibly the greatest song in their canon, it’s certainly one of their most well known. Johnny Marr himself describes it as their “most enduring record”. It was originally released as the B-side to “William, It Was Really Nothing” alongside “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” which surely must make it the best B-side of a record ever.

The 1992 rerelease peaked at No 26, eight places higher than its 1985 outing. Maybe it benefited from a younger audience knowing it from it being sampled in Soho’s hit “Hippychick” of just one year earlier. The band detested the promo video for the song which was made by their US label Sire and which Morrissey described as “degrading”. I wonder what he thought of this one made for Psychedelic Furs spin off project Love Spit Love’s cover of it for TV series Charmed and movie The Craft?

Oh come on now! How many times have I had to find something to write about yet another Michael Jackson video recently?! OK, well there is a school of thought that says the video for “Jam” was the inspiration for the 1996 film Space Jam starring Michael Jordan. Is that likely? Well, Jordan was in the “Jam” promo in which he teaches Jacko to play basketball while in Space Jam MJ teaches some Looney Tunes characters to shoot some hoops to win a b/ball match against invading aliens so there might be something in it I suppose.

The final Breaker is “Rest In Peace” by Extreme. The video for this one really should have been prefaced with a warning about flashing lights. If the stop motion sequence of two neighbours fighting over a TV set didn’t induce queasiness then the band performing against that flickering black and white backdrop would surely bring on a migraine. It’s a real sensory overload. It was also litigious as it copied rather too closely the 1952 anti-war film Neighbours by Norman McLaren and the band got sued but settled out of court. “Rest In Peace” peaked at No 13.

Time for another ‘exclusive’ now as we see yet another return of Boy George, this time with a cover of the sixties hit “Crying Game” So was this the third time George had been on the comeback trail? After Culture Club imploded in the mid 80s, George had fashioned himself a swift and initially very successful solo career with a No 1 single with his take on Ken Boothe’s “Everything I Own”. Three more smaller hits followed but the album “Sold” didn’t sell well and he disappeared from the charts for four years. He reappeared in 1991 under the pseudonym Jesus Loves You and the gloriously quirky “Bow Down Mister”. Again the parent album (“The Martyr Mantras”) failed to shift many units and another George revival had finished almost as quickly as it had started. You couldn’t keep a good Boy down and George was back on TOTP once more.

His rendition of “The Crying Game” was recorded for the soundtrack of the film of the same name, a thriller starring Stephen Rea set against the backdrop of of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The real pull of the film though was the plot twist which I won’t reveal for those who have never watched it but which was seen as very controversial at the time. Maybe it would be today but no way am I getting into that subject on here.

I didn’t mind George’s version – he seemed like a good choice to sing it to me (not that he was serenading me personally Romeo And Juliet style you understand). Was this the start of him always being seen in public with a hat on? He’s permanently got some design of chapeau on his bonce these days. Actually, he always wore a hat when he was with Culture Club didn’t he? Am I talking bollocks again?

That’s it! I knew there must be a reason. When I said earlier that Undercover vocalist John Matthews looks like he should be playing in midfield for Newcastle United because he looked a bit like Gazza, there was a memory lurking in my mind that was the trigger for my observation. I couldn’t put my finger on it before but I have it now. Do you remember The Comic Strip Presents… The Crying Game? It came out in 1992 like the Stephen Rea film but it was a football based tale of a young English player called Roy Brush (clearly a parody of Paul ‘daft as a brush’ Gascoigne aka Gazza) with the world literally at his feet after scoring an important goal for England. He is also gay and a tabloid paper tries to out him. Keith Allen stars as Brush and at one point in the story he records a single – yep you guessed it – a cover of “The Crying Game” (Gazza’s tears and all that). He even appears on TOTP and is introduced by Mark Franklin! Go to 11.45 in the YouTube video below:

After all that excitement, the No 1 brings us back to earth rather than takes us to a peak as it’s Snap! yet again with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. I think this is the last week though. Don’t worry though! They’ll be back before the year is out with another big hit and another line up change. You lucky people you!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1East 17House Of LoveNo but my wife had the album Walthamstow.
2The ChristiansWhat’s In A WordNope
3UndercoverBaker StreetNah
4Freddie JacksonMe And Mrs JonesDefinitely not
5INXSBaby Don’t CryNo but I bought their album Welcome To Wherever You Are
6Del AmitriJust Like A ManNo but I have their Best Of with it on
7Sinéad O’ConnorSuccess Has Made A Failure Of Our HomeNo
8The Smiths How Soon Is NowNo but I have Hatful Of Hollow with it on
9Michael JacksonJamI did not
10ExtremeRest In PeaceNah
11Boy GeorgeThe Crying GameDidn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12Snap!Rhythm Is A DancerAnd 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/m0015nq2/top-of-the-pops-10091992

TOTP 13 AUG 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

The curse of Adrian Rose has struck again meaning we have missed another show and therefore gone straight to the middle of August 1992 and what an exciting time it was. Two days after this TOTP aired, the all new, singing and dancing (literally in the case of Sky Sports cheerleaders the Sky Strikers) FA Premier League started. My beloved Chelsea prepared for this new era by signing striker Robert Fleck from Norwich City for a club record £2.1 million just 24 hours previously. It would prove to be a disastrous waste of money as Fleck scored just 4 goals in 48 appearances for Chelsea and started a ongoing trend of the club buying big reputation forwards that would turn out to be flops.

Tonight’s opening act similarly came with a big reputation as pop’s next big thing and although they suffered a few flops initially, they would eventually find the form to bag themselves a shed load of massive chart hits and certainly more than the four times Fleck rippled the net.

Having scored their first chart hit with “It Only Takes A Minute” just a few weeks before, Take That weren’t hanging around when it came to a follow up. Now I always thought that like its predecessor, “I Found Heaven” was a cover version but it isn’t. It was written by producer Ian Levine and singer Billy Griffin, the guy who replaced Smokey Robinson as lead vocalist of The Miracles. It turns out that the band always hated the track with a passion. Gary Barlow described it in his autobiography as “truly fucking awful” and “the worst song of my and Take That’s career”. Ouch! It is the only song recorded by the group, aside from covers, that was not written by themselves. It features both Barlow and Robbie Williams on joint lead vocals hinting at the competition that was to define their relationship as the band’s fame grew. Poor old Jason Orange didn’t get to sing on it at all apparently as his vocals weren’t considered good enough. Bit like when Robert Fleck didn’t play for Chelsea for six months after being dropped as he was basically pants.

“I Found Heaven” peaked at No 15. Though not completely disastrous, given that “It Only Takes A Minute” had gone to No 7, this probably wasn’t the result that their management team and record label had hoped for. At the very least it must have increased the pressure on their next single release to outscore its predecessor. In the end, they turned to the Gary Barlow penned ballad “A Million Love Songs” to provide another winner and it duly did the business returning them to the Top 10 and securing their continued success. Their cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” would give them a fourth consecutive hit when it went all the way to No 3 over Xmas. In comparison, it took Robert Fleck the best part of two years to put the ball in the net four times for Chelsea.

Fleck wasn’t the only striker involved in a high profile transfer around this time. On 7th August, Manchester United signed Dion Dublin from Cambridge United for £1 million. Like Fleck, the future Homes Under The Hammer presenter didn’t have a great time at his new club as a broken leg restricted him to just 12 appearances for them. He still scored more than double the goals Fleck did in those games but that’s not the point. The reason I mention him is because I was working in the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester at the time of Dixon’s signing and one day he came into the shop! My colleague Justin was a big United fan and soon came onto the shop floor to ask him for his autograph. For some reason Justin decided to get him to sign a picture of Dublin’s team mate and England star Bryan Robson. Why Justin thought that was appropriate or why he had a picture of Robson with him at work I know not. Dion seemed to take it all in good humour though and duly signed.

Back to the music and we find one of the more curious hits of the year. A dance version of a Gerry Rafferty easy listening classic? Are you sure? It seemed an insane proposition but then I have personally witnessed in the flesh Robert Fleck score for Chelsea so anything is possible. Seen by some purists as the lowest form of dance music, the masses disagreed and sent “Baker Street” by Undercover spiralling up the charts to No 2.

So who were these chancers? Well, they were a London trio consisting of vocalist John Matthews plus Steve Mac and John Jules who rode a wave to short lived fame much in the same way that KWS did with their cheesy cover of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” earlier in the year. What with those two and, as referenced by host Tony Dortie in his intro, East Side Beat’s danced up treatment of Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like The Wind” in ‘91, this was fast becoming a very lucrative craze.

The unlikely nature of these hits could not be explained by watching the acts performing them on TOTP. Look at this appearance by Undercover for example. Jon Matthews is hardly shimmering with star quality though he has turned up in his best grown up party clothes bless him. The whole thing reeks of the entertainment on a ferry crossing. Actually, I’m not that far off from the truth with that observation for Undercover were a part of the story of that inaugural Premier League season. Whilst watching the documentary Fever Pitch: The Rise Of The Premier League, I noticed that amongst the razzmatazz that Sky brought in to help launch their coverage which included cheerleaders and giant inflatable sumo wrestlers, they also had pop acts do a turn at half time. The idea was that they could do better than the traditional military band that was wheeled out for cup finals during the break. Guess who is clearly sighted as the entertainment in one of the clips? Yep, Undercover.

They would repeat the trick with their next release, their version of Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away” which would be a No 5 hit. One final chart entry (Gallagher and Lyle’s “I Wanna Stay With You”) followed before the game was well and truly up.

One final thing – when Tony Dortie describes it as the “drum ‘n’ bass version of Baker Street“ – what was he thinking?! Here’s Tony with the answer:

From football to the Olympics as the one chart hit that everyone could have predicted happening this year did indeed…erm…happen. I couldn’t stand “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé first time around in 1987 and its inevitable rerelease for the ‘92 Olympics in Barcelona didn’t change my opinion. What I had never realised was that the track had always been intended to soundtrack the games but had been recorded as early as it was as the selection process for the Olympic theme took place in 1988. As well as being the official song of the games, the BBC used it for the music to their coverage of the action. It was inescapable.

The video shown here has some inserted sporting footage highlighting Team GB successes including Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent and the Searle brothers Greg and Jonny and their very emotional cox Garry Herbert.

There is a football connection with “Barcelona” as it was performed by Caballé along side a video of the sadly departed Mercury before the 1999 Champions League final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. I didn’t see that performance though as I was working in Our Price in Altrincham that day and was rushing from pub to pub to try and find one that wasn’t packed out already to watch the game.

And another Tony Dortie conundrum – why does he call it Basss–er–lona?

Breaking news! Check this out! More Dortie madness! Dion Dublin and Tony Dortie joined together by the power of #Laterz!

Stand by for another Twitter outpouring of swooning and lust as it’s time for Betty Boo again! “Let Me Take You There” is her latest single but little did we know it would be her last ever chart hit. I think I’ve commented on what happened to Betty (real name Alison Clarkson) before but in the light of her return to making music under her own name this year, The Guardian did an interview with her just days ago. They asked her about disappearing from the world of pop and the circumstances behind it. She’d lost her Mum, Dad and Aunty within a short space of time and so retreated into family life, looking after her Gran. As Alison described it:

“To be a pop star you have to be full-whack all the time and I just melted.”

The last time she was on the show, Betty had an all female backing band but this time the TOTP producers have got her completely solo and performing against some sort of Summer beach background complete with palm trees, a deck chair and sea shells. They’ve obviously decided it’s a Summery song and should be styled accordingly. Would you wear that check outfit Betty has on to the beach including high heels though?

“Let Me Take You There“ peaked at No 12.

We might all have been forgiven for thinking this would be the last we would see of 2 Unlimited. A run of three Top 5 singles all taken from their “Get Ready!” album was brought to an end when a fourth single release “The Magic Friend” didn’t make the Top 10. Had we finally got fed up of their brand of brainless Euro techno rave? This one was particularly banal with it seemingly just consisting of a collection of disparate synthetic noises held together by a headache inducing synth riff, some Jean Michel Jarre flourishes and Ray chanting “The magic friend is what I am”. To mix it up a bit Anita would chime in with “The magic friend is what he is”. Ah, I see what she did there. I for one did not predict them returning the following year with a No 1 album and single in “No Limits”. The year of TOTP repeats for 1993 is shaping up to be utterly dreadful.

There’s five Breakers this week – one more than Robert Fleck’s two year total goal tally for Chelsea! We start with Queensrÿche who I knew little of then and my knowledge hasn’t improved over the last 30 years. What I did know though was that they weren’t from Germany as Tony Dortie informs us – they’re from Bellevue, Washington in the US Tony!

Apart from sounding like a song title Muse might come up with, “Silent Lucidity” was a single from their “Empire” album which is the only album of theirs that I could name but I certainly don’t remember how it went. Let’s have a listen now…

…hmm. A lot more melodic sounding than I was expecting. I thought they were a heavy rock act. Must have been one of their more reflective moments. “Silent Lucidity” was the band’s biggest hit peaking at No 18.

For the first half of 1992, if you were browsing the racks in your record shop of choice, the chances were that when you got to the divider that said The Smiths on it you’d find an empty space. They was certainly the case in our shop anyway. After Rough Trade went bankrupt at the end of the 80s, the band’s back catalogue was purchased by WEA Records (later to become Warner Music). As they planned a whole re-issue strategy for the band’s music, once any existing copies were sold they could not be reordered. I guess the plan was to aggrandise The Smiths material thereby creating a whole new appetite for it.

The first release that WEA put together was a compilation called “Best…1”. At the time, one of my work colleagues was Our Price legend ‘Knoxy’ who’s brother worked for Warner and who was heavily involved in The Smiths re-issue project. He may have even been responsible for choosing which tracks would go on “Best…1”. It was a thankless task as the band’s fan base were/are very protective of and precious about their heroes’ material. These things mattered. The album was finally released the Monday after this TOTP aired and despite mostly unfavourable reaction from fans and press alike to the track listing which seemed a bit random and included B-sides and album cuts as well as singles, it went straight to No 1 on the album chart. A second volume followed in November but only managed a high of No 29.

“This Charming Man” had been decided upon as the single to promote the album – their first chart hit and one of their most recognisable songs. It made sense I guess. So much has been written about the track (including by me in my TOTP 80s blog) that I don’t intend to regurgitate its history again here. Suffice to say that the 1992 rerelease went to No 8 in the singles chart making it, at a stroke, the band’s biggest ever hit.

Who’s this? Felix? Felix da Housecat?

*checks Wikipedia*

No, that’s someone else apparently. This Felix was a guy from Chelmsford, Essex called Francis Wright and who was responsible for this dance anthem “Don’t You Want Me”. Unlike Betty Boo’s recent return to pop music with her “Love Action (I Believe In Love)” sampling new single, this was nothing to do with The Human League. As with many these dance tunes, I remember the riff but I couldn’t have told you the artist or track details. Maybe that was the whole point – if you were off on one in a club, just recognising the riff might be enough to trigger you into action on the dance floor? Did you need to know who was behind the tune or what it was called? I dunno. I wasn’t in any clubs at this time as I was skint.

“Don’t You Want Me” was a hit three times in the 90s in various remixes but none were bigger than this 1992 original which made it to No 6.

They’re doing that weird thing with the Breakers again in allocating one of the slots to an act we’ve already seen on the show in full due to an exclusive performance or in the case of Jon Secada, the US charts feature. “Just Another Day” is up to No 8 this week which surely makes it a bona fide big hit rather than a Breaker?

The video is Jon performing with his band mainly in black and white apart from when he’s cavorting about on a beach when the film turns a sepia tone. Apparently Gloria Estefan turns up at the end of the video but I can’t be arsed to watch the whole thing just to confirm or deny this on account of the whole thing being terminally dull.

The final Breaker is a duet from Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson taken from the soundtrack to a film I never got round to seeing – Mo’Money. People seemed to go crazy for “The Best Things In Life Are Free” as it soared up the charts to No 2 though it did very little for me. It was one of those songs that also hung around the charts for ages clocking up 13 weeks in total. Apparently this was a New Edition reunion of sorts with Bell Biv DeVoe and Ralph Tresvant appearing on the track (the latter’s involvement though was restricted to one spoken line).

The video doesn’t actually feature Luther or Janet (even though the lyrics do when they name check themselves) but instead has the leads from the film Damon Wayans and Stacey Dash lip synching to it set against the backdrop of a fairground.

The best things in life are free eh? Someone should have told Chelsea in 1992 – Robert Fleck wasn’t free at £2.1 million and he certainly wasn’t the best.

It’s another ‘exclusive’ performance again and a second one this year for Annie Lennox I believe. “Walking On Broken Glass” was the third single from her “Diva” album (we seem to have missed her second single from it “Precious”) and like lead single “Why”, it was a huge airplay hit. Radio ubiquity aside, there were no other similarities with its predecessor certainly not in musical terms. Sprightly where “Why” was downbeat, its spiky, jagged strings lay down an engaging foundation for Annie to layer her soulful vocals on.

The staging for this one with orchestral string backing and a shed load of candles works pretty well. The show did seem to throw some resource at these ‘exclusive’ slots I have to say. Annie herself looks great. She recently released a no filter/no makeup photo of herself at 67 years of age and she still looks amazing.

BBC4 had a mini Annie evening last Friday showing a gig of hers from 2009 at LSO St Luke’s and an interview from 1992 to promote her “Diva” album. In the interview she said that she wasn’t missing Dave Stewart after two years of not working with him but give it another seven years and the two would reconvene for one final Eurythmics album in 1999 called “Peace”.

“Walking On Broken Glass” would go Top 10 just as “Why” had and as I recall helped instigate another wave of sales for an album that had already been out four months.

There’s a Top 10 countdown in the proper place in the show finally as we segue in a timely fashion into the No 1 record which is Snap! with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. Taken from the group’s “The Madman’s Return” album, I had always assumed it was the lead single from it but it wasn’t. There was a single before it called “Colour Of Love” which was a massive hit all around Europe…except here. In the UK it was a flop peaking at a lowly No 54.

Not even we could resist the follow up though which went to No 1 in a dozen or so countries. Apparently rapper Turbo B had insisted on “Colour Of Love” being the lead single as he hated the ‘serious as cancer’ lyric in “Rhythm Is A Dancer” but the group’s producers had disagreed. They won the battle for the follow up single though and the rest is history. Turbo B would leave the band before the third single “Exterminate!” was released.

Postscript: Robert Fleck left Chelsea in 1995 to return to Norwich City. He played four times for Scotland scoring zero goals (obvs). After a spell in football management , he now works as a Teaching Assistant at a school for children with special needs. He also funded trips for 18 months for a child with a terminal condition. Robert Fleck then. Terrible Chelsea striker but one of life’s good guys.

Laterz!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Take ThatI Found HeavenOf course not!
2UndercoverBaker StreetNo
3Freddie Mercury and Montserrat CaballéBarcelonaBarce-no-na
4Betty BooLet Me Take You ThereNo but I had a promo copy of the album
52 UnlimitedThe Magic FriendHell no!
6QueensrÿcheSilent LucidityNah
7The SmithsThis Charming ManNo but I have Hatful of Hollow with it on
8FelixDon’t You Want MeNo I didn’t
9Jon SecadaJust Another DayNope
10Luther Vandross and Janet JacksonThe Best Things In Life Are FreeNegative
11Annie LennoxWalking On Broken GlassNo but my wife has the album Diva
12Snap!Rhythm Is A DancerAnd 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/m0015f8z/top-of-the-pops-13081992