We’re still stuck in the Summer of 1998 here at TOTP Rewind but we’re not the only ones who are stuck as TOTP executive producer Chris Cowey is stuck in a rut of accommodating hits that have been on at least twice before within the show’s running order. I know I keep banging on about this but it seems so extreme and unnecessary. Look at the opening act in this episode for example. This was the seventh week on the chart for “Got The Feelin’” by Five and after debuting at No 3, most had seen the single descending the chart. However, in its fifth week, it had arrested that trend by climbing one place from No 14 to No 13 and they were immediately back on the show! Its next chart position saw it fall to No 20 but a two place climb to No 18 seven days later and slam dunk! – back on the show again! Patently ridiculous. We don’t even get to see a different studio performance nor the official video as it’s always just that very first appearance with the football shirts re-shown. A regular reader to this blog sent me a message asking me if I thought that, in the scenario of TOTP still being on TV in October 2025 and Cowey still being executive producer, would he still be showing “Got The Feelin’”? That’s certainly the feelin’ I’ve got.
Here’s another hit that we’ve seen twice before already but at least this one is still selling well, holding at No 3 and having spent its entire chart life inside the Top 5 to this point. We did only see it on the previous show though and again, it’s just a repeat of the last appearance for “Ghetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)” by Pras MichelfeaturingOl’ DirtyBastardandintroducingMýa. By the way, our host is Jayne Middlemiss again who is making up for lost time by making consecutive appearances after having gone missing for a month. They’re doing that super imposing thing again that they did recently with Jamie Theakston by attempting to make Jayne look like she’s in the studio with Pras et al but which just makes the whole thing look cheap and nasty. Now, is it fair to describe “Ghetto Superstar” with those same words? Is it a bit lowest common denominator? A bit dumb-downed? A bit lowbrow? Or am I being a musical snob? I can’t decide so I suppose it’s unfair to expect anyone else to know. What I do know is that it was the 9th best selling single in the UK in 1998 which must mean something mustn’t it?
Right, who’s this? Lovestation? Don’t remember them at all. Nothing to do with the high numbers on the TV guide on your remote (a direction which I won’t be pursuing further), they are a UK garage outfit who had a couple of hits most notably with this cover of “Teardrops” by Womack And Womack. Despite its almost universally rapturous legacy, I was never that fond of the 1988 original and always found it quite dull so a housed-up version for the late 90s was never going to win me over. However, I have to say this is exceptionally drab. It sounds so tinny next to the original, almost as if it’s the demo version that was released by mistake. And what is with the two over enthusiastic dancers in this performance who movements and steps seem wildly incongruous to the actual song? Lovestation seemed to only have about three songs that they kept on releasing and re-releasing according to their discography. “Teardrops” appears three times, a track called “Love Come Rescue Me” was released thrice and “Shine On Me” had a hat-trick of releases as well. Funnily enough, they did have three Top 40 hits though two were courtesy of “Teardrops” and another wasn’t either of the other songs mentioned.
TheSupernaturals are back with the lead single from their second album “A Tune A Day” called “I Wasn’t Built To Get Up”. It was also their last Top 40 entry when it peaked at No 25 meaning that all five of their hits registered between Nos 38 and 23. That sounds fairly modest but a numbers approach maybe doesn’t tell the whole story as The Supernaturals were once the darlings of the music press with their debut album “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” receiving very positive reviews whilst their song “Smile” was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. As is the way of the press though, it wasn’t long before they were tearing the band down describing them as ‘ordinary’, ‘unambitious’ and generally lambasting them for not realising that the Britpop sound was dead in the water. One review noted of their “A Tune A Day” album that if you:
“crossed a hint of Blur’s mid 90s upbeat output with a Scottish-flavoured twist of The Beach Boys and their sunny melodies, you’d probably end up with something a bit like The Supernaturals”
“REWIND: Revisiting the Best of July 1998 + Playlist | XS Noize | Online Music Magazine”
Hmm. Then there’s @TOTPFacts who said on X rather harshly of this TOTP performance:
Ouch. Both of these got me thinking about my own comparisons and I came up with The Supernaturals being the missing link between Ash and Scouting For Girls and that this song title was like a mix of “Can’t Get Out Of Bed” by The Charlatans and “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” by Brian Wilson. Yeah, I’m not sure any of the above is helpful. Writing about music never really does anyone justice. As Frank Zappa famously said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.
Wh-wh-what?! Who was Charli Baltimore and why was she in our charts and on our TV screens? Well, she was actually Tiffany Lane, a name which sounds like one of Charlie’sAngels but was deemed not exciting enough for launching a music career so Tiffany stole the name of the character played by Geena Davis in TheLongKissGoodnight, a film that was a big VHS rental hit back in the day as I recall. Charli was also the partner of legendary rapper the Notorious B.I.G. at the time of his death and it was he that had encouraged Charli in her rap music ambitions. I have to be honest and say I wish he hadn’t bothered because her debut single “Money” was just a horrible noise, a monotonous and relentless horrible noise. Look, I’m no rap expert so maybe her ‘flow’ was magnificent but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable or even listenable. And why did so many rap records back in the day all feature lines about ‘waving your arms in the air like you just don’t care’ or variations of it?! Oh I can’t be arsed to linger any longer on this one. I’d rather listen to Charli XCX and I have no idea what she sounds like at all.
One of the bands of 1998 now as Catatonia release a fourth single from their No 1 album “International Velvet”. I’m not sure I remember “Strange Glue” – it certainly didn’t leave the same impression that “Mulder And Scully” or “Road Rage” did which have lasted nigh on three decades inside my brain. Not that it’s not a good song now that I’ve re-listened to it. It’s got a strong melody and ambitions to be epic sounding but it just doesn’t seem like an obvious choice for a single. It sounds like an album closing track (which it nearly was save for the solo piano accompanied and 2:22 long “My Selfish Gene”) rather than the surefire airplay hit that its predecessors were. Maybe it would have been wiser to go with a rerelease of nearly-flop single (it reached No 40) “I Am The Mob”? There was a fifth and final single taken from “International Velvet” in “Game On” but that really was stretching it as a peak chart position of No 33 demonstrated. Maybe I was on to something with that “I Am The Mob” idea?
In a very rap heavy show, we’re not done with the genre yet as here comes a special performance by Will Smith with a track inspired by the Grover Washington Jr. / Bill Withers song “Just The Two Of Us”. Instead of treating it as a love song between a couple though, Smith subverts the traditional narrative and makes it about the love between a father and his young son. It’s an intriguing idea and well executed with Will adding layers to the father character by informing us that things didn’t work out between him and the child’s mother and that they are separated. There’s some nice touches in the lyrics with lines such as :
“It’s a full-time job to get a good Dad, you got so much more stuff than I had”
Writers: William Salter, Will Smith, Ralph MacDonald & Bill Withers
However, it’s also dated by cultural references and practices with mentions of CD-ROMs, putting CDs in PCs and hitting your kids (“but I will test that butt when you cut outta line”). There’s also a lot of unnecessary grunting for want of a better word in this performance from Smith with multiple “Ha-ha”, “uh-uh-uh” and “whoo” noises forthcoming. Overall though, it’s a decent attempt to do something different within a rap context with the father trying to be a good role model for his young son. Coincidentally or perhaps intentionally, the single’s release was in sync with the fact that Smith had become a father for the first time in real life following the birth of his son Jaden.
It’s yet another new No 1 with the Spice Girls at the summit with “Viva Forever”. Given everything that had transpired within the group over the last two months, I have to say I was surprised that they’d managed to pull this latest chart topper off. There was a school of thought that said that after the departure of Geri Halliwell from the line up, the group might implode from the fracture and the end might be nigh but it seemed that the public were happy to accept a four piece Spice Girls just as they had accepted a Robbie Williams-less Take That. It was an especially impressive return given that their last single “Stop” had been their first in eight releases not to go to No 1 so the doom merchants would have jumped on “Viva Forever” falling similarly short.
We first saw the group performing the track on TOTP way back on the 5th June edition in the aftermath of Halliwell’s statement that she had left when executive producer Chris Cowey realised what he had on his hands with the footage including all five members. This performance saw the now slimmed down group on tour in America meaning that there was a definite decision by someone (be it Cowey, the label, management or the Spice Girls themselves) not to show the stop motion promo video featuring the group (including Geri) as fairies. Presumably the five months that it took to put it together weren’t wasted though as no doubt it featured on programmes like TheChartShow and other pop music platforms around the world.
Around this time, whilst I was working at the Our Price store in Stockport, a young man who I would now recognise as being neurodivergent, attached himself to me after I’d served him one day. His name was David and he was obsessed with the Spice Girls. He was a nice lad but took quite a lot of time serving when he came in as he would want to talk about the Spice Girls continuously. He would always ask for me which took me away from whatever I was doing which wasn’t necessarily convenient but I would always try and make the time for him if I could. When I transferred to the Altrincham branch in 1999, he followed me over there even though it was out of his way and involved multiple trips on public transport. The day that “Viva Forever” was released, we were playing it in the store just as David came in and he wondered around the shop in a sort of dream, lost in his own little world. I often think of that moment and wonder what happened to David and whether his Spice Girls obsession ever burnt itself out.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Five
Got The Feelin’
I did not
2
Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa
Ghetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)
Negative
3
Lovestation
Teardrops
Never
4
The Supernaturals
I Wasn’t Built To Get Up
No
5
Charli Baltimore
Money
Not if you paid me
6
Catatonia
Strange Glue
Nope
7
Will Smith
Just The Two Of Us
Nah
8
Spice Girls
Viva Forever
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
So there goes 1997 – and what a seismic year it was. Labour won the General Election to form a government for the first time in 18 years whilst the end of the British Empire was finally signalled by the return of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China. In other UK news, we got a new terrestrial TV channel for the first time since 1982 when Channel 5 launched. Just beating that event in the time elapsed stakes was the United Kingdom’s victory at the Eurovision Song Contest making us the winners for the first time in sixteen years. Trumping them all though in terms of time past was my beloved Chelsea winning a major trophy for the first time in twenty-six years when they beat Middlesbrough 2-0 in the FA Cup final.
However, one news story would overshadow just about every other as the Summer drew to a close – the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris. Its reverberations were felt in every corner of the planet – one of those global events where you can remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. It would, of course, have an historic impact on the pop charts as well in the form of the Elton John single “Candle In The Wind 1997 / “Something About The Way You Look Tonight” both the fastest and best selling single of all time in the UK overtaking Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in the process.
Of course, there was more to the world of pop music in this year than that one single (no matter how many copies it sold). What else happened in the charts? Who were the movers and shakers and which musical trends were in the ascendancy? Well, there is a school of thought that says the Britpop movement officially came to an end this year with the release of the third Oasis album “Be Here Now”. Music critic Jon Savage certainly made that claim citing the weight of expectation crushing both the album and any lingering momentum Britpop may have been clinging on to. The decision of Noel Gallagher to attend a drinks reception at Downing Street at the invitation of newly installed Prime Minister Tony Blair may have also been a final nail in the coffin for what had ostensibly been seen as a working class movement previously.
So if Britpop was fizzling out, what was catching fire? Well, it’s time for a look at those year-end charts again to see if we can make head or tail of them. Here’s the list of the 50 best selling singles of the year:
Well, as ever, it’s hard to draw any cast iron conclusions from that about what on earth was going on in the charts in that particular year. My first observation is that the Spice Girls only had one entry in the Top 10 but I think that was a scheduling issue with “2 Become 1” and “Too Much” suffering from having sales over two calendar years as Christmas No 1s. It certainly didn’t mean the UK were bored of them yet – they had two albums in the Top 5 best selling albums of the year. However, 1998 would be a difficult year for the group with the departure of Geri Halliwell and negative reviews of their Spice World film.
Looking more closely at the make up of the Top 10, I think they break down like this:
two charity records in “Candle In The Wind 1997” and “Perfect Day”
a novelty record (the Teletubbies) which could be two if you include “Barbie Girl” in that category which I think I do
a hit from a successful film (“Men In Black”)
a rap tribute track that was based around a No 1 from a 1983 No 1 hit (Puff Daddy)
a debut single from another Australian soap actor turned pop star (Natalie Imbruglia)
a ska-punk/ new wave band who turned up a mainstream crossover monster (No Doubt)
a most unlikely drinking anthem courtesy of an anarcho-punk band who’s been around for 15 years by this point (“Tubthumping”)
I would argue that the two most unexpected artists in that list are Chumbawamba and No Doubt in terms of ‘who saw them coming?’. The rest of the Top 50 includes over a dozen hits by artists whom I would qualify as being dance acts which seems to accurately reflect the weekly content of the charts. Special mention should go to Sash! for having three entries in the Top 50. As for Britpop, it is noted only by its absence. Oasis have two entries (“D’You Know What I Mean?” at No 12 and “Stand By Me” at No 46) whilst the only other artist that could possibly be put in that bracket (however much they may not have wanted to be) was The Verve who also had two songs on the list in “Bitter Sweet Symphony” (No 43) and “The Drugs Don’t Work” (No 32). In more general terms, sales of the single format remained healthy with each No 1 single in every week from late June onwards selling at least 100,000 copies per week. There were also 24 different No 1s, the same as the previous year and twice the amount in 1992 and that’s allowing for the fact that Puff Daddy was at the top for six weeks (over two separate periods), Elton John for five weeks, Aqua for four and Will Smith for four.
If we examine the best selling albums chart, you’d be forgiven for discounting everything I said about Britpop being over as Oasis and The Verve took the top two positions. It didn’t feel like that though. The former’s “Be Here Now” numbers seemed like the final hurrah of a sales phenomenon – certainly the album’s legacy doesn’t match its commercial performance. As for The Verve’s “Urban Hymns”, the presence of two of the most iconic singles of the decade in its track listing caused a massive crossover into the mainstream that few would have foreseen based on their previous back catalogue.
The rest of the Top 10 seemed more predictable on first glance but actually wasn’t. Sure, both the Spice Girls albums are in there but who saw such a successful return by Texas coming? The same can’t be said for Celine Dion for whom the services of a crystal ball were not required but both The Prodigy and Radiohead (the latter with one of the most revered albums of all time) were most definitely not conventional chart stars. The final two places went to the only Greatest Hits albums in the Top 10 courtesy of Eternal (presumably helped by the popularity of their No 1 single “I Wanna Be The Only One”) and, in a retro style, Wham! despite the fact that they split up eleven years prior. Elsewhere in the list, it was all very as you were with established artists like M People, Jamiroquai, The Beautiful South, Madonna and Enya all featuring via their latest album. A mention in dispatches for the Lighthouse Family who had two albums between Nos 11 and 14. Rubbing salt in Blur’s wound was the fact that, after being crushed by the sales of “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” in the war with Oasis, their eponymous fifth album could only manage a year end position of No 29 (despite having topped the charts on release) whilst “Be Here Now” was the best seller of 1997 with 1.5 million units shifted.
And what of TOTP? Well, 1997 saw a change of Executive Producer with Ric Blaxill departing after three years at the helm to be replaced by Chris Cowey who had made his name at Channel 4 working on The Tube and TheWhiteRoom. A new name at the top meant a new approach and Cowey would ditch the ‘golden mic’ celebrity presenters in favour of a rotating roster of fixed presenters pulled from the BBC’s youth entertainment show TheO–Zone. Enter Jayne Middlemiss and Jamie Theakston to join the retained Radio 1 DJs Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. Further changes would be made in 1998 with more new presenters, a revitalised theme tune plus a 60s inspired logo and title sequence but that’s all for another time.
Hits That Never Were
Not as many entries in this section as in past years. Not sure if that is significant or not.
Edward Ball – “The Mill Hill Self Hate Club”
Released: Apr ’97
Chart Peak: Did not chart but peaked at No 57 on first release in ’96
Not to be confused with Ed Balls the ex-politician, TV presenter and initiator of ‘Ed Balls Day’ via an erroneous tweet, Edward Ball was the overlooked man of Creation Records. Whilst an infatuated UK couldn’t get enough of Oasis, Edward was quietly releasing some quality tunes that were shamefully ignored by the public. I include myself in that category as I have only discovered his music in the past couple of years but it was worth the wait.
“The Mill Hill Self Hate Club” was initially released in 1996 when it made it to No 57 in the charts but was given a rerelease in 1997 hence its presence here. A marvellously tuneful pop romp that should have been perfect for daytime radio in the style of Dodgy but somehow it never happened. The video features a number of well known faces including Creation founder Alan McGee, Hurricane #1 guitarist and future Oasis member Andy Bell, *Chelsea footballer and indie music enthusiast Graeme Le Saux and – hallelujah – the greatest living Englishman Nick Heyward who was signed to Creation at the time. As if that wasn’t enough, the wonderful Anna Friel makes a cameo at the video’s beginning and end!
*I’m wondering if Edward is a fan of my beloved Chelsea FC as the video features a picture on the wall of their 1970 FA Cup win plus the presence of Le Saux of course. In addition to that, Nick Heyward has a song on his “Apple Bed” album called “The Chelsea Sky” and Edward’s single before this was called “Love Is Blue”.
Nick Heyward – “Today”
Released: Jun ’97
Chart Peak: Did not chart
So, it’s time for the usual check-in with the aforementioned Nick Heyward to see what he’d been up to this year. Well, he hadn’t been testing on his laurels. After releasing his second album of the 90s in 1995 with “Tangled” (which had given him his first UK Top 40 single for twelve years in “Rollerblade”), he left Epic Records and signed to Creation (hence his appearance in the Edward Ball video presumably). Surely being on the coolest label, the label that helped Oasis achieve so much success, would mean Nick would regain his rightful place in the hearts and charts of the UK. Not a bit of it. He released two singles in this year to trail his wonderful “Apple Bed” album and they both sank without trace.
“Today” was the first of those, a blistering power-pop track complete with wah-wah guitar solo in the instrumental break – it was a bold statement. That it floundered completely says everything about the record buying public and nothing about Nick’s songwriting. How he failed to find commercial success with any of his three 90s albums in the age of Britpop is staggering especially with the last of those released on the ultimate Britpop label. Nick continues to tour constantly both as a solo act and as part of the reactivated Haircut 100 but has only released three albums in the last 27 years with the most recent being 2017’s “Woodland Echoes”.
ABC – “Skyscraping”
Released: May ’97
Chart Peak: No 93
By 1997, ABC hadn’t released an album for six years and were now down to just one original member of the classic line up – lead singer Martin Fry after Mark White had left the band to pursue interests outside of the music industry. Teaming up with Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory, Fry came back with the album “Skyscraping” which was a critical success but a commercial flop. I’m not sure why as the three singles lifted from it were all good, solid, proper pop tunes. The title track gets the nod for this section as it’s a typically grandiose ABC number with sweeping strings and a poised vocal from Martin. I have to say that Fry doesn’t maybe get the credit he deserves sometimes. He’s still out there touring constantly and has even found time to revisit the classic “Lexicon Of Love” album to produce a second volume. In spite of all this, his voice still sounds on point unlike some of his contemporaries. I caught him on tour around this time at the Manchester Academy and he was great with this song a highlight. Good on you Martin!
Goldblade – “Strictly Hardcore”
Released: Mar ’97
Chart Peak: No 64
This one made the cut not because I was a particular fan but because I was working at the time with the sister of one of the band members so I heard a lot about them. Goldblade were/are a hardcore art punk band from Manchester formed in 1995 by John Robb, once of The Membranes and now a respected and published author and journalist. He also makes occasional appearances as a music commentator in the media – I say ‘occasional’ but he seems to be the resident go to talking head on these retrospective music list shows that are normally on Channel 5. He’s always on – it’s become a standing joke in our house. I find him a bit annoying if I’m honest and his book about The Stone Roses was repetitive and not well edited in my opinion. However, he is credited with coining the phrase ‘Britpop’. Or was that Stuart Maconie?
Anyway, back in 1997, Rob’s band Goldblade featured Jay Taylor on guitar whose sister Beth I worked with at the Our Price in Stockport. Beth had her own band Dumb who were regulars on the live music scene in Manchester in the 90s whose sound was compared to that of US hardcore band Fugazi. I think Jay may have even been a floating member of Dumb as well. They released a few singles and a couple of albums and did a session for John Peel too. I saw them live once and although the music wasn’t really my bag, they were exhilarating to watch.
Goldblade had two UK chart entries the highest peaking of which was “Strictly Hardcore” which, in fairness, is actually a great song. Octane-fuelled and relentless of pace, it belts along cracking the whip as it goes. There’s even some Dexy’s style horns at the end. They are still an on-off entity, occasionally playing live gigs though they have gone on the back burner whilst Robb reactivated the Membranes.
Hits We Missed
We missed loads of TOTP repeats for this year due to the Puff Daddy/R Kelly issue and consequently lots of performances so I’m going to have to be selective about which ones feature in this section else I’ll never get this post finished. Some of the hits we missed were some of the most prominent of the decade like Blur’s “Song 2” and “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve but so much has been written about them already that I’m not going to add my insignificant tuppence worth. Instead I’ve picked out five, four of which we didn’t see because they didn’t warrant a TOTP appearance as opposed to the show not being repeated.
Candyskins – “Monday Morning”
Released: Feb ’97
Chart Peak: No 34
Just as Edward Ball was the overlooked man of Creation Records, so The Candyskins were the almost forgotten men of the ‘Oxford scene’ that brought us Radiohead and Supergrass. By 1997, despite being hailed by the music press as one of the seminal bands of the early stages of Britpop, The Candyskins had already released two albums to limited interest from the record buying public. After leaving record label Geffen due to a dispute over royalties, their album “Sunday Morning Fever” was released on Ultimate and gave the band their only UK Top 40 single “Monday Morning”. As with Edward Ball, this should have been massive on the radio but I don’t remember hearing it much back then. A breezy, guitar driven track with a jaunty chorus, it could certainly have lived with “Alright” by the aforementioned Supergrass.
Bizarrely, the title “Monday Morning” seemed to be a flame to the moths of Britpop. Not only did The Candyskins write a song of that name but Rialto had a minor hit in this year also called “Monday Morning 5.19”. And we’re still not done. There’s a track on Pulp’s “Different Class” album called “Monday Morning” too.
Lamb – “Gorecki”
Released: Mar ’97
Chart Peak: No 30
If you think of the trip-hop movement, where and who comes to mind first? Bristol and Portishead? Tricky? I bet it’s not Lamb and Manchester but they definitely deserve a name check. OK, I m not sure that they would want to be definitively defined as a trip-hop artist per se as there were elements of jazz and drum and bass in their work but if you listen to their biggest hit “Górecki” you can understand why they are categorised as such. Inspired by Henryk Górecki’s “Third Symphony”, check out some of the comments on YouTube about it. Superlative after superlative – ‘timeless’, ‘perfection’, ‘incredible’, ‘beautiful’, ‘unparalleled’, ‘masterpiece’…my wife was one of those using such descriptions as she bought the single (well, I did for her on my staff discount). It is certainly an affecting track and one that you can hear being a left field ‘our tune’ for the want of a better phrase.
And yet…what I remember most about this track is punters asking for that song ‘Goreki’ as opposed to ‘Goretski’. And yes I realise how snobby that sounds! The track would go on to be used in various TV shows, movies and video games including Torchwood, Moulin Rouge and TombRaider. Lamb spilt in 2004 before reconvening five years later. Three studio albums later, they are currently inactive.
Travis – “Happy”
Released: Oct ’97
Chart Peak: No 38
It’s my understanding that in 1999, Scottish band Travis almost single-handedly kept record shop chain Our Price (for whom I was working) from going to the wall with the sales of their sophomore album “The Man Who”. So perilous were the company’s finances that the cash injection supplied by the phenomenal success of the album was crucial in keeping the wolf from the door. Of course, that could all just be a myth but it’s what I heard. If it seems a like an unlikely tale then so is the rise of Travis from Britpop also-ran to multi platinum selling band within two years.
Back in 1997, they’d just released their debut album to mixed reviews and inconsistent sales. Their first four singles had peaked at Nos 39, 40, 30 and 38. It was hardly ground breaking stuff. “Happy” was the last of those and is a robust and at times soaring rock/pop track that maybe fell between the gaps when it came to airplay. Too rocky for daytime but not rock enough for the specialist stations. We had a promo sampler of the album to be played in store which I nabbed and would lead me to purchase the proper album eventually. It’s a far harder sound than the one which they conquered the UK with on their follow up but I think I actually prefer it (although I did like “The Man Who” as well).
I’m pretty sure I caught them live before they made it big supporting Nick Heyward at the Manchester Academy but I definitely saw them just as they were taking off at the same venue which must have been a couple of years later. Nowadays, they’ve become a byword for naff which seems unfair as Fran Healy is a decent songwriter although he did nick the chords from “Wonderwall” for the hit “Writing To Reach You” albeit that he does acknowledge that with a reference to the Oasis classic in the lyrics.
Ben Folds Five – “Battle Of Who Could Care Less”
Released: Mar ’97
Chart Peak: No 26
In 2004, much was made of Keane’s debut album “Hopes And Fears” and quite rightly too as it’s a fine album full of swooping, epic pop songs. However, what people mostly seemed to be talking about was the fact that the music was very heavily piano-led leading to the band being dubbed ‘the band with no guitars’. It seemed to me that this approach was being described as revolutionary and yet they weren’t the first band to adopt such a style. Ben Folds Five were from Chapel Hill, North Carolina and opted to exclude lead guitars from their music to focus on piano, bass and drums. This, allied to their quirky humour (there were only three members of Ben Folds Five for example), clever arrangements and vocal harmonies, made them standout in the 90s alt-rock scene. They crossed over into mainstream success with second album “Whatever And Ever Amen” which featured lead single “Battle Of Who Could Care Less”. I was immediately drawn to the song’s unusual title and was rewarded for my interest by a clever, biting yet melodic track which sounded like nothing else in the charts. It shouldn’t really have been a hit given its polarity to its contemporaries but thankfully it was. The band have split and reformed numerous times with Folds pursuing a solo career in between.
Echo & The Bunnymen – “Nothing Lasts Forever”
Released: Jun ’97
Chart Peak: No 8
Finally, we end this section with a hit we should have see as it made it onto TOTP but were denied due to the Puff Daddy/R Kelly issue. As with Texas this year, the revitalisation of Echo & The Bunnymen was surely not on anyone’s 90s bingo card. After Ian McCulloch left the band in 1988, the three remaining members had committed to carrying on but having recruited a replacement singer (as if McCulloch could ever be replaced) their plans were destroyed by the death of drummer Pete de Freitas in an RTA aged just 27. A psychedelic tinged album called “Reverberation” was released in 1990 to apathy from the fanbase and just about zero sales. As guitarist Will Sergeant observed, it seemed that the world wasn’t interested in Echo & The Bunnymen without Mac there and the band duly split.
McCulloch would record two well received though equally poor selling solo albums before reuniting with Sergeant to record new material under the name Electrafixion but it would take bassist Les Pattinson’s decision to rejoin the fold to prompt the return of Echo & The Bunnymen and what a return it was with the album “Evergreen” going Top 10 as did lead single “Nothing Lasts Forever”. This was one of those songs that felt like an instant classic the very first time you heard it. An indie rock anthem with a hint of melancholy about it, this was such a strong comeback. Its poignancy was confirmed by the fact that both Janice Long and Christian O’Connell played it as the final song in their last ever shows for Radio 2 and Absolute Radio respectively. Not that it needed it but the presence on backing vocals of Noel Gallagher probably added to its appeal for some. The band have released six albums since then and remain a big pull on the live circuit.
Their Season In The Sun
Hanson
A classic case of ‘the only way is down’ after their first single went to No 1 around the world. “MMMBop” was one of the catchiest hits of the decade but all anybody wanted to really talk about was how young the trio of brothers were. Two more hits followed before the year was out but nothing they released could top their debut. The band are still together though and in 2023 collaborated with Busted on their cover of that song which was retitled “MMMBop 2.0”. It isn’t the only cover in existence – as of 2016 there were 93,000 versions of it on YouTube.
No Mercy
Not as controversial nor as successful as German producer Frank Farian’s other group projects Boney M and Milli Vanilli, this American trio briefly found fame in 1997 when they combined flamenco guitars with a Eurodance beat which saw their song “Where Do You Go” become a hit in the UK, the US and Europe. We especially couldn’t get enough of it and bought enough copies for it to spend nine consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Two more charting singles followed before the craze burnt out and the hits dried up.
Chumbawamba
It seems unfair to include these anarcho-punks in this section but the truth is that their 30 year career can be condensed into just one hit for the vast majority of people. “Tubthumping”was everywhere in the late Summer and Autumn of 1997 and even its lyric about being ‘knocked down’ set against the backdrop of the death of Princess Diana in a car crash couldn’t dent its popularity. In truth, there were a couple more hits including a World Cup song meaning they weren’t a one hit wonder but really their legacy to everyone outside of their fanbase is that No 2 hit. Indeed, it is so well known that the far right have attempted to hijack it for their political campaigns (Trump in 2016 and New Zealand’s Winston Peters in 2024) resulting in cease and desist letters being sent from the band. Quite right too.
White Town
Now this lot definitely were a one hit wonder and a definitive example of it at that- a solitary smash that was a No 1 and then absolutely nothing. I say ‘this lot’ but it was really just Jyoti Prakash Mishra who gave the world “Your Woman”, a distinctive dance number that didn’t sound like anything you’d ever heard before despite sampling British bandleader Lew Stone’s treatment of the 1932 song “My Woman” featuring vocals by Al Bowlly – not that many who bought it would have been familiar with a 65 year old song. The gender identity swapping lyrics allied to its insanely catchy hooks caused a brief sensation but a follow up single failed to make the Top 40 and White Town’s fame was over almost before it had begun. However, “Your Woman”’s legacy was given a boost in 2020 when Dua Lipa sampled the same trumpet hook featured in it in her song “Love Again”
The Supernaturals
Some of the finest power pop melodies of the year were provided by this Glasgow outfit who scored three Top 40 hits and a Top 10 album in this year. Sadly, they couldn’t consolidate on that success and it was a case of diminishing returns from there on in and they split in 2002. However, since reforming in 2012 they have continued to be active on the festival scene and have supported the likes of Sleeper and Embrace. Their two most well known songs “The Day Before Yesterday’s Man” and “Smile” have outlived their initial chart lives by being used to soundtrack banking TV adverts and appeared in TV series like Teachers and Peter Kay’sPhoenixNights and the film ShootingFish.
Last Words
So, 1997 – we are done with you but you were quite the year. On a personal level, it was pretty significant. I went to China (!), I was the manager of a record shop (albeit for a few months as a stand in until somebody else was appointed permanently) and I finally witnessed my beloved Chelsea win a major trophy. It wasn’t all good though. This was the year my mental health started to dip and it would turn into a full blown crisis in 1998…
We’re in the midst of a huge run of ‘golden mic’ hosts in these TOTP repeats. So far in 1997, the only Radio 1 DJ to have presented the show is Nicky Campbell back at the start of January. Since then we’ve had Rhona Cameron, Phil Daniels, Noddy Holder and in the next three shows we’ll see Peter Andre, Ant & Dec and Ian Wright before Jo Whiley waves the flag for Radio 1 again on 7th March. For this week though we have Ardal O’Hanlon aka Father Douglas Maguire from FatherTed. A Christmas special for that show (the one with the lingerie department scene) had recently aired so Ardal’s profile was in the ascendancy at the time. His approach to hosting is to claim propriety for the charts for this week and therefore TOTP as well and he pulls it off successfully I think.
The opening act are TheSupernaturals who were a sort of nearly men of Britpop. Hailing from Scotland, they’d done the ‘paying their dues’ route of touring to create a fan base and independently releasing their early material until they were eventually picked up by major label Food in 1995. They then did a load more touring but not as headline act in their own tour but supporting the likes of Dodgy, Ash, Menswear, Sleeper, The Bluetones and in a rather unlikely move Tina Turner (must have been another support artist in after them surely?). Putting in the miles on the road paid off when their second single release “Lazy Lover” pierced the Top 40 peaking at No 34. The follow up was “The Day Before Yesterday’s Man” which was a nice play on words and an incredibly catchy bit of piano led but guitar based rock/pop. Despite this TOTP appearance though, it would only make No 25 in the charts. A re-release of their debut single “Smile” was deemed necessary to try and build on their first hit which it did but, despite being perhaps their best known tune, could only make it two places higher up the charts. Their album “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” did go Top 10 (just) but that would be the band’s commercial peak and it was a case of diminishing returns after that. Why weren’t they bigger than they were? Was it a case of bad timing with their arrival on the scene coming just as Britpop was burning out? Were they ahead of their time? They may not thank me for the comparison but were they a prototype Scouting For Girls? Or were they just always destined to be the bridesmaid and not the bride? For my part, I liked them and even bought their album though it was a few years after the event in a sale in a record shop in Madrid bizarrely whilst on holiday there.
After splitting in 2002, they reformed in 2012 and are still an ongoing entity today. If you think you don’t know or remember them, you might actually know some of their songs by osmosis as a number of them have been used to soundtrack advertising campaigns for the likes of Sky Movies, Arnold Clark Automobiles and Smile bank (guess which song they used for that one!). They’ve also featured in films and TV shows such as ShootingFish, Hollyoaks, Clarkson’sCarYears, FastFood and HomesUnderTheHammer. With such demand to licence their work, maybe they aren’t the nearly men I thought they were.
When you think of Michelle Gayle, who do you think of? Hattie Tavernier in EastEnders? Or perhaps as half of rap duo Fresh ‘n’ Fly from her time in Grange Hill? Or the rather accomplished singer that she turned out to be during her brief music career? It perhaps should be the latter as she probably doesn’t get the credit she deserves for the decent stab she made of it. Sure, her best known song “Sweetness” was a bit sleight and throwaway but it was bright, bubbly and fun. Some of her other hits weren’t your average soap star turned pop star fare; she was no Stefan Dennis! No, my impression is that she took it seriously and wanted to be taken seriously rather than giving this opportunity her existing fame had afforded her a whirl. And some of her songs were OK. Take this one – “Do You Know” – for example. It’s a smooth as silk, sleekly produced R&B/pop song that was perfect for daytime radio and Michelle co-wrote it.
So why didn’t her time as a pop star last longer? I think it was to do with the perception of her as a singles artists as opposed to one who could shift lots of albums. She clocked up seven chart hit singles (including two inside the Top 10) but her two studio albums failed to sell in copious amounts peaking at Nos 30 and 17. She was also unlucky with record company machinations. After leaving RCA after her second album she joined EMI but a third album she recorded the them was never released. There was then an attempted comeback in 2004 when another album went unreleased after her label folded. She has had better luck and more success after becoming an author and a return to acting but this time treading the boards at the theatre. In 2023, she made a surprise if very fleeting return to her pop star days by appearing on stage with Louise at a Shepherd’s Bush gig singing her hit “Sweetness”.
So how is Ardal doing? Not bad actually. He has resisted doing a turn in character as Father Dougal Maguire whilst sneaking in some FatherTed references (“we’ll be having an exclusive from the British band Bush who are huge in America but very small here”) and channeling the spirit of Dougal by projecting the image of a man who is nominally in charge of the show but who doesn’t really have any control or know what’s going on (“we’ll be having some music, some counting, young people screaming and here’s Michelle Gayle singing a song…”). In his segue for the next video, he doesn’t hold back in his distaste for the duo involved by saying he doesn’t know how they got into his charts and then appearing to have had headphones on for the duration of it when the track is over. To be fair to Ardal, he had a point. “I Finally Found Someone” by Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand was hardly down with the kids was it?
Taken from the soundtrack to Babs’s latest film TheMirrorHasTwoFaces (which I’ve never even heard of let alone seen), it’s perhaps what you would expect if you put these two together to record a song for a romantic comedy/drama – a big, rather overwrought ballad that ticks all the boxes of cinematic requirements. It wasn’t for me though Bry’s raspy rock voice does blend better than expected with the more refined tones of Babs. However, I’m not sure Adams is at his best when in the vicinity of movie soundtracks – often pilloried for that Robin Hood song, he was also part of the unholy trio that also included Rod Stewart and Sting that sicked up the bilious “All For One” from TheThreeMusketeers movie. “Have You Ever Really Lived A Woman?” from Don Juan DeMarco was similarly awful and then there’s this. Barbra and movies, on the other hand, are synonymous with each other. Tell me this though. How have I, in 2025 and at 56 years of age, only just noticed how she spells her name?!
And now for something completely different. I say completely different but, although the year had changed, the make up of the charts hadn’t as they were still home to multiple dance hits of which “Passion” by Amen! UK was just one of many. The correlation between banging tunes filling the dance floors and filling up the Top 40 was still dominant as the decade turned the final corner and headed for the finish. Who was buying these records in the shops? Was it club goers who wanted to recreate that top night they’d had last weekend in their living room? Was it DJs needing a track to complete their next set playlist? Most dance records of this time left me cold but I could appreciate their appeal and power in the setting of a nightclub but not so much being played at home. Maybe punters were practicing their dance moves in the safety of their homes before daring to present them to fellow club goers? Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about at all? Anyway, these are the facts for this one. The guy behind it was Irish DJ Paul Masterson who would go on to have more hits under the pseudonym of Yomanda and it was released on the painfully hip Deconstruction label reaching No 15 in the charts. It made No 40 when rereleased in 2003.
Another dance tune though this one is completely different to Amen!UK. Nuyorican Soul was a side project by American garage house producers ‘Little’ Louis Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez aka Masters at Work. This single – “Runaway” – was a fairly faithful cover of a 70s disco track by the Salsoul Orchestra featuring the vocals of Loleatta Holloway who supposedly is the most sampled female singer in popular music history (remember the whole Black Box/“Ride On Time” debacle?). Vega and Gonzalez didn’t sample Loleatta in their version though choosing instead to have Puerto Rican singersongwriter India do the actual heavy lifting vocally. Some 90s production values made the whole thing sound retro yet current and it was duly a hit going to No 24 in the UK Top 40 and No 1 in our Dance Chart.
After a rather oblique Father Ted reference earlier when he referred to Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand as “Lenny* and Petula Clarke”, Ardal O’Hanlon veers off into random-ville for his next link by name checking Toyah Wilcox, noting that it’s been 427 weeks since she’s been in the charts? That can’t be actually true can it? 427 weeks is what? Just over eight years. Right, I’m checking Toyah’s discography…
…Oh My God! He was nearly right. In fact, Ardal underestimated Toyah’s absence from the charts. Her last visit to the Top 40 was in May 1985 so a gap of nearly 12 years by this point! “Why can’t you be more like EnVogue?” he asks Toyah looking straight into the camera before we get the video for “Don’t Let Go (Love)” which is back up to No 5 this week. However, this would be the final time that the group would visit the UK Top 10. Good song as it is, it’s another of those tracks that has brackets in the title for no discernible reason. They don’t sing the word ‘love’ in the chorus – in fact, that word doesn’t appear in the lyrics at all (though ‘lovers’ does). For balance, Toyah wasn’t adverse to the use of brackets in her song titles. There’s “Be Loud, Be Proud (Be Heard)”, “Don’t Fall In Love (I Said)” and the marvellously ridiculous “Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel In You)”.
*Recurring character Bishop Brennan’s first name was Leonard or Len as Father Dougal would call him much to his annoyance.
And here it is again. The problem for TOTP producers as to what to do with an almost instrumental dance hit. On this occasion it is The Orb with “Toxygene” and the decision on staging for their performance was to have the duo (Alex Paterson and Andy Hughes I think) each sit on a revolving mini platform tinkering with their keyboards and equipment set up. It looks ill-conceived at best and laughable at worst. What astonishes me is why the band themselves agreed to do it. Did they really think this was the best way to promote their single? Wasn’t there a video to go with it that could have been shown thereby killing two birds with one stone – a better showcase for the track and a solution for the show about how to stage it?
The track itself was supposed to be a remix of Jean Michel Jarre’s “Oxygène 8” from his “Oxygène 7–13” album though it doesn’t really sound anything like it at all which apparently Jarre wasn’t too happy about. I’ve wondered why there weren’t more uses of Jarre’s work in 90s dance tracks (there could well have been for all I know but this is the first I’ve come across) seeing as he was The Godfather of electronic, ambient and new-age sounds. There were people I knew at school who swore by him though it didn’t do much for me and my youthful pop sensibilities. Maybe Jarre’s reaction to The Orb’s treatment of “Oxygène 8” was a reason why there weren’t more samples of his work in existence.
Next an example of that curious phenomenon of when a UK artist is huge in America but can’t get arrested in their own country. In the 80s we had The Escape Club and Wang Chung. Bush were the 90s equivalent. Their debut album “Sixteen Stone” went Top 5 in the US but could only peak at No 42 over here. However, they finally broke through in the UK with the lead single from their second album “Razorblade Suitcase” which was called “Swallowed”. Listening to it now, it really does sound like a Nirvana tribute act, an accusation that was levelled at them constantly back then. I thought it was OK but I was never going to fall for them hook, line and sinker. I’m guessing though that their record company would hope that some female punters would do exactly that for lead singer Gavin Rossdale. They were out of luck if they did as he was going out with Gwen Stefani of No Doubt at the time and they would later be married for 13 years. No doubt we’ll be seeing…erm… No Doubt on these TOTP repeats very soon.
In the last post, I talked about “Walk On By” being one of the most recorded songs in history. However, “Ain’t Nobody” must be up there as well. Originally recorded by Rufus and Chaka Khan, it has also been recorded by Jaki Graham, Scooter, Richard X versus Liberty X and had been in the charts as recently as 1995 courtesy of Diana King. The there’s this version by LLCoolJ. Recorded for the soundtrack of the BeavisAndButt–HeadDoAmerica film, it was a somewhat surprising No 1 in my opinion. It wasn’t as big a hit anywhere else in the world (including the US apart from their Rap Chart) and I don’t recall the film being a big hit over here (though Wikipedia tells me it did good business in America) so I’m not quite sure why it proved so popular in the UK. LL Cool J’s next hit also came from a film soundtrack as he was one of the artists on “Hit ‘Em High (The Monstars’ Anthem)” from SpaceJam.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
The Supernaturals
The Day Before Yesterday’s Man
No but I had their album
2
Michelle Gayle
Do You Know
No
3
Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand
I Finally Found Someone
Never
4
Amen! Uk
Passion
Not my bag
5
Nuyorican Soul featuring India
Runaway
Negative
6
En Vogue
Don’t Let Go (Love)
Nope
7
The Orb
Toxygene
I did not
8
Bush
Swallowed
No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
9
LL Cool J
Ain’t Nobody
Nah
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.
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 