TLC

TOTP 07 MAY 1999

It’s early May 1999 here at TOTP Rewind and that can only mean one thing – the culmination of the football season! Despite only losing three games all season, my beloved Chelsea have blown the league by drawing too many matches and would finish third to a Man United team on their way to an historic treble. However, it was in League Division Three where all the drama was the day after this TOTP aired. Specifically, at Brunton Park, Carlisle where a near legendary game would play out. Carlisle United were fighting a dire relegation battle which, if lost, would condemn them to demotion to non-league football. It would be either them or Scarborough who would fall through the trap door. Carlisle needed a win but with time running out, the score in their game was locked at 1-1. Scarborough’s match had finished and they were safe as things stood but a Carlisle goal would reverse that situation and relegate Scarborough. With just 10 seconds left on the clock, the home team won a corner and Carlisle’s goalkeeper, one Jimmy Glass, was given the signal from his manager to go up the pitch to join in one last attack. Glass was only playing after being loaned from Swindon Town after a Carlisle goalkeeping emergency and this would be the last of three games he ever played for them. As the corner came in, this happened…

…pure, chaotic drama with a fairytale ending (for Carlisle at least). It’s the stuff of legend. However, for Glass, this wouldn’t be the fillip to his career that some might have assumed. There was no big money move to an elite club following his heroics; in fact, Carlisle United didn’t even sign him permanently and he only played a handful of professional games for a couple of clubs before drifting into non-league football and ultimately retiring from the game aged just 27. I wonder if any Glass related parallels can be drawn with the acts on this episode of TOTP?

Our host is Kate Thornton, and just as Jimmy Glass’s time at Carlisle United was coming to an end, this would be her final TOTP appearance. She only got to present ten shows which is a shame I think as she seemed a fairly safe pair of hands. Her first duty on her valedictory programme is to introduce Phats & Small on their fourth appearance on the show with “Turn Around”. There really can’t be anything else to say about this one can there? Well, it was back on TOTP as it had risen from No 8 to No 7 having already peaked at No 2. Yeah, that’s not exactly riveting reading material is it? I did notice that Phats & Small (the blokes on the decks as opposed to the singer) were wearing Skint Records T-shirts despite not being on that label – they were on Multiply, the people who brought us Sash! Skint was the home of Fatboy Slim and was based in Brighton which is where Phats & Small were from hence the connection I’m guessing? Russell Small is a big Brighton fan and they were in the same division as Carlisle United in 1998/99 finishing 17th out of 24, with only seven more points than bottom club Scarborough.

Jimmy Glass moment: You can’t get a bigger ‘turnaround’ moment than a last ditch winner to save your team from relegation can you?

It’s four consecutive appearances for Martine McCutcheon on the show but two of them were while “Perfect Moment” was at No 1 so I can’t argue with that. She was still in the Top 5 by the time of this final outing. Even so, it seems a little bit like overkill to me but then I wasn’t writing a TOTP blog back in 1999 and not watching two shows back to back as per the BBC4 schedule of repeats in 2026 so maybe I wouldn’t have noticed back then. As with Phats & Small, I’m struggling to find anything else to say about this one. Let me trawl the internet for a minute…

*blogger trawls internet*

Oh this is brilliant! No, really. Martine once went on a date with Mick Hucknall. She was very nervous, was drinking continually, hadn’t eaten anything and when she got in a car with him and the engine turned over she spewed all over him! Just fabulous work!

Jimmy Glass moment: Is there a more ‘perfect moment’ in football than Jimmy’s last minute winner?

If any of us thought that The Offspring’s chart topper “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” was destined to be a one-off, well we were right and wrong. The US pop-punk rockers never did have another UK No 1 but they came within a whisker of bagging another when follow up “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” debuted at No 2 meaning that they certainly weren’t one-hit wonders. However, avoiding that status didn’t come without criticism. Nobody with even a perfunctory knowledge of The Beatles could listen to “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and not immediately think “Hang on, that’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!”. And it was although the lyrics were very different to the Fab Four’s original, detailing two miserable sounding relationships from the point of view of both a man and a woman complaining about the laziness of their partners and their lack of any discernible income. The opening two lines include the word “bitch” which the BBC censors decided to muffle for this TOTP appearance. I don’t think they did that when Meredith Brooks was on the show but then I think the gender of the singer was pivotal there. Given the song that it was based on, “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” was always going to be a catchy tune which certainly didn’t harm its chart chances though Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland’s strained live vocals in this performance might have adversely affected them. He really couldn’t hit those higher notes. It’s a very scratchy affair altogether.

Of course, Scottish band Marmalade beat The Offspring to it by over 30 years with an actual cover of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!” which went to No 1 in the UK though this little known pop song from the 80s always makes me think that Owen Paul had been listening to The Beatles’ original when he recorded it.

Jimmy Glass moment: When Jimmy’s football career ended, he needed to go and get a conventional job and worked as both an IT salesman and a taxi driver.

With another airing for “No Scrubs” by TLC, it means that three of the first four hits on this show were clocking up their fourth TOTP appearance. Come on Cowey! Sort it out! And no, I don’t care that TLC were up to No 3, their highest position in six weeks. However, the chart trajectory of this single is interesting. A debut at No 7 followed by an immediate drop out of the Top 10 to No 13. An expected descent down the Top 40 failed to materialise as “No Scrubs” lurched back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven weeks. Even within that time period it moved up and down before finally reaching its peak of No 3 having fallen as low as No 9 the week before. How to explain this? It may be something to do with the delayed release of the its accompanying video. An MTV Award winning, sci-fi themed promo featuring the group in different coloured space suits, was its eventual delivery to video channels linked to its rise up the charts? If so, TOTP clearly didn’t get the memo/video as they stuck to showing that same satellite performance for every one of its four appearances on the show. Am I overstating the importance of this video? Maybe but there is some context to this situation, specifically that the group weren’t allowed into Europe for promotional duties possibly due to Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez’s criminal record following an incident in 1994 when she set fire to her boyfriend’s trainers which led to their mansion burning down.

One more thing, the intro to this one from Kate Thornton is a bit inappropriate. “Now going up the charts, those bad girls from Atlanta. No scrubs, no scrubbers – it’s TLC!”. No scrubbers Kate? And I thought she was a safe pair of hands!

Jimmy Glass moment: “No Scrubs” is from an album called “Fanmail” and I’m sure that Jimmy Glass got some fan mail after his last minute heroics in 1999.

Well, this is a damn shame. Of the three singles released from the sophomore album “100% Colombian” by Fun Lovin’ Criminals, the one which I bought – “Big Night Out” – is the only one that failed to warrant a TOTP appearance. Boo! Not that the two that did make it were worthless – they weren’t – but..you know. Anyway, the third of those releases was “Korean Bodega” which does sound pretty cool compared to most of its chart contemporaries but also very familiar. It’s something about that guitar riff that runs through it. I can’t place which song it reminds me of but it’s certainly recognisable.

Despite it happening in 2021, I’m not sure that I was aware that Huey Morgan had left the band. They are still an ongoing entity but it’s kind of hard to imagine them without their charismatic frontman. The band have released one album since Huey’s departure but continue to perform live.

Jimmy Glass moment: There is a track on the “100% Colombian” album called “All My Time Is Gone” which was so nearly true for Carlisle United that day in 1999 until Jimmy Glass strode forward into the box with ten seconds to go…

It’s the return of Cast next whom we had not seen in the Top 40 for 18 months. Indeed, it had been two years since their last album “Mother Nature Calls” which, though a commercial success, had divided critics. Third album “Magic Hour” therefore had a lot riding on it. The lead single from it was “Beat Mama”, a relentlessly upbeat track with a looped guitar riff and sparse, almost non-specific lyrics. Maybe the latter didn’t matter though as it was all about the feel. I liked it I have to say.

However, when I think about “Beat Mama”, its sound isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Let me explain. The week that it came out, the shop stereo in the Our Price store I was working in suddenly stopped working one morning. That’s pretty much a disaster for a record shop. As a last resort, we brought down to the shop floor the only thing we had that could play music – a tiny, portable CD player/radio that was in the stock room that staff working in there could listen to. It sounded tinny and pathetic as we opened the doors to the public. The first CD that we put on to play through it? “Beat Mama”. We couldn’t spend the whole day with this as the output for our in-store music so I decided to try and fix the shop stereo’s misfiring speakers. Quite why I thought I had the knowledge to do this I don’t know. Somehow I did get them working again though – it must have been something simple like a loose connection. However, at one point I had the speakers wired up so that two different songs were playing out of them at the same time. How did I manage that? To this day I’m wary of doing anything technical in our house beyond changing a light bulb on account of this.

Jimmy Glass moment: Cast hail from Liverpool. In May 2021, Liverpool FC’s goalkeeper Alisson scored a 95th minute winning goal versus WBA with a header prompting immediate comparisons with Jimmy Glass.

Despite this being its second time on the show, you still couldn’t actually buy “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell in the shops as it wasn’t released until the Monday after this TOTP aired. The promotion on this one was huge but then it was always going to be. The first official solo single by an (ex-) Spice Girl was big news. After being served up the official promo video on its last outing, we get an exclusive performance of the song this time, again introduced by Geri herself. It’s all very over the top with Halliwell backed by four male dancers on a set that includes an elaborate staircase and chaise longue as props. It all seems a bit forced to me, trying a bit too hard to make it look like Geri was this kooky, zany character that we hadn’t really been aware of before. In the end, all that promotion couldn’t quite deliver the expected and presumably desperately wanted No 1 with “Look At Me” debuting in second place.

*Mel B’s “I Want You Back” had featured Missy Elliott whilst Melanie C had duetted with Bryan Adams on “When You’re Gone” before “Look At Me”.

Jimmy Glass moment: After his legendary winning goal, the whole world was looking at Jimmy.

Westlife remains at No 1 with “Swear It Again” and if that wasn’t annoying enough, for this performance, they’ve ditched the stools I said they always sat on therefore making me look like a lier! Apart from one of them, they’re all dressed in white which was another affectation of theirs but no doubt the next time they’re on, they’ll be dressed as goths just to spite me again! I swear it!

Jimmy Glass moment: Westlife had a No 1 with a cover of ABBA’s “I Have A Dream” and there was no more dream like moment in football than Jimmy Glass’s last second winner.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Phats & Small	Turn Around	I did not
2	Martine McCutcheon	Perfect Moment	No
3	The Offspring	Why Don’t You Get A Job?	Nah
4	TLC	No Scrubs	Nope
5	Fun Lovin’ Criminals	Korean Bodega	Not this one but the one before it
6	Cast	Beat Mama	Good song but no
7	Geri Halliwell	Look At Me	No thanks
8	Westlife	Swear It Again	Never

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/m002rxqk/top-of-the-pops-07051999

TOTP 23 APR 1999

Posted on 21 Days Ago by 80stastic

Of the eight songs in this TOTP, four of them have been on the show before, some of them many times previously. The running order has the four ‘new’ hits sandwiched together in the middle, bookended by two repeated performances at either end of it. Was this some sort of shit sandwich in reverse technique being employed by executive producer Chris Cowey? Let’s see…

Disclaimer: I’m not saying that if a song had been on the show before it was necessarily shit in terms of its quality but rather that Cowey was shitting all over our expectations of being fed some new hits rather than those we were very familiar with.

Our host is Gail Porter and we start with…and this is truly ridiculous…Whitney Houston with “It’s Not Right But It’s OK”. Just..why Cowey? WHY?! Look, these are the facts about this one:

TOTP appearances: Five
No of repeats of original studio performance: Four
Date of first appearance: 26 Feb 1999
Weeks in Top 40: Twelve
In every week but one after debuting at No 3, it moved down the charts.

Why was it on the show so often? Was it part of the contract between Whitney and her people and the BBC that if she did an in person performance that TOTP had to show it a certain amount of times like five maybe?

Right, let’s have a look at Phats & Small and their hit “Turn Around”. Here are their facts:

Total TOTP appearances: Four (this was the third)
No of consecutive appearances: Three (four over a five week period)
Weeks in Top 10: Seven
Chart run: 3 – 4 – 2 – 8 – 7 – 8 – 7

So three of those four appearances coincided with the single going back up the chart which seems justified but four times in five shows still seems like overkill to me. Maybe though I was/am just a dinosaur, a relic of a past time having been brought up on the Top 40 of the 80s which was much more sluggish and intransient, when songs would take weeks to move up the charts and instant, week one Top 3 hits were rare to non-existent. Record company practices had changed by the end of the 90s and maybe TOTP was just reacting accordingly to a new way of the charts operating. I’m not sure how regular a viewer of the show I was by 1999 so cannot recall being as frustrated as I am now with all these repeat performances but I wasn’t doing a write up of each show back then either. Oh it’s all relative isn’t it?

From two artists with prolific TOTP appearance stats to one whom I would have thought had a much better record but then, I could have sworn that Electronic had actually released more music than their discography tells me they have. From their debut in 1989, they released a total of eight singles and three albums. Is that a decent amount of material over a 10 year period? I’m not sure. Certainly that singles figure seems a tad on the low side and resulted in just six TOTP appearances over the course of their career. Back in 1991, not long after I’d started working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester, the duo of Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr had released their eponymous debut album to critical appreciation and commercial success (it made No 2 in the album charts and sold a million copies worldwide). I recall their being such a buzz about the album which was magnified in Manchester obviously given the background of its two protagonists. There was even a demand for the import version of the album which included the single “Getting Away With It” which the UK version did not.

However, a gap of five years until the next album proved to be too long for that momentum to be maintained and sophomore effort “Raise The Pressure” was nowhere near as well received, neither commercially nor critically. By 1999, were they seen as, if not irrelevant, then as an anachronism? Too harsh? Maybe but the truth was that third album “Twisted Tenderness” spent just two weeks inside the Top 40 chart. Its lead single “Vivid” was…well…OK and that seems a damning description when you consider the quality of the cannon of work of Sumner and Marr. Was their heart not really in it anymore? That didn’t seem to be the case watching this performance and more specifically Sumner’s energetic-pogoing, arms-flailing, air-punching, woo hoo-ing antics. Maybe a decision to dissolve the project had already been made and he wanted to go out with a flourish? If so, we couldn’t have known that at the time but retrospectively we got the message.

Fancy a flamenco guitar themed dance anthem? No, nor do I but I haven’t got any choice as the author of this blog so you’re coming with me! According to Wikipedia, Ruff Driverz had six Top 40 hits. Six! I couldn’t have named one of them without looking at their discography but “La Musica” was the fifth of them and the second highest charting peaking at No 13. It was officially credited to Ruff Driverz presents Arrola but who was Arrola? Well, she was Katherine Ellis who came from a very performing arts background. Look at this from her Wikipedia page:

“…her mother Elizabeth was trained as an actress at the Royal Academy for dramatic art, her grandmother Joy was a violinist and pianist, and her great grandmother Elizabeth Haslam was a opera singer who won a competition at the Royal Albert Hall in 1893.”

Blimey! Katherine continued that lineage by becoming one of the go to vocalists in the UK house scene, working with the likes of Freemasons, Soul Avengerz and Cherrone. As for “La Musica”, I’m sure it was popular in the clubs but its repetitive “Di-O-Lo-Le-La” line didn’t make for a very engaging TOTP performance, even allowing for the distraction of the troupe of backing dancers. As for the ‘Arrola’ moniker, whoever thought it up was only one letter away from making a tit of themselves.

Before the Sugababes and their revolving door recruitment policy, there was Honeyz who set the mould for girl groups and continually changing line ups. However, I’ve talked about that story in all its detail before so I don’t propose to go through it all again. Suffice to say that, as Gail Porter comments, this was the first time for most of us seeing new member Mariama Goodman who had recently replaced Heavenli Abdi. The timing of Abdi’s departure was really off though coming as they were preparing to embark on a promotional campaign for the release of their third single “Love Of A Lifetime”. The original trio had already shot the video for the track including scenes with Abdi but her decision to quit after that shoot and before a promotional trip to Australia meant that the promo was now effectively redundant and so would have to be reshot. A temporary, second cut saw Heavenli heavily edited out of the video before a third was produced with shots of Goodman included. I wonder if the Honeyz management billed Abdi for all that re-shooting?

“Love Of A Lifetime” was more of the slick R&B/ pop sound we’d come to expect and duly returned another sizeable hit when it peaked at No 9. As far as I can ascertain, Abdi’s original vocals remained on the track and it wasn’t until follow up “Never Let You Down” that Goodman’s own singing featured. A fifth single from their album “Wonder No 8” appeared in early 2000 at which point Goodman promptly left the group to be replaced by a returning Abdi and the line up shenanigans began in earnest. Honeyz are still a going concern today operating as a trio of Célena Cherry, her sister Candace and Abdi (now known as Heavenli Roberts). In conclusion, I can’t say if they finally found the perfect line up and share a love of a lifetime or if the end of the line might still be in sight.

We’ve arrived at the final ‘new’ single of the show and it’s from Suede who we hadn’t seen nor heard of since August 1997 when “Filmstar” was released as the final single from their “Coming Up” album. In the interim time, Brett Anderson had developed a serious drug problem whilst keyboardist Neil Codling’s health was affected by chronic fatigue syndrome. As such, the environment for writing and recording a new album wasn’t ideal. Plus, there was a decision to be made about which direction the band should head musically. After divisive sophomore album “Dog Man Star” had drawn acclaim as a work of genius and criticism as one of the most pretentious albums ever recorded, a more mainstream sound was pursued with the glam-pop of “Coming Up” that furnished the band with five Top 10 singles. That run was continued by “Electricity”, the lead track from fourth album “Head Music”. However, subsequent singles released from it would form a picture of diminishing returns and indeed, Suede have not returned to the Top 10 since.

“Head Music” would top the charts but would spend just two weeks inside the Top 20 suggesting large early sales due to a sizeable fan base but a lack of crossover appeal. In terms of its sonic properties, it had a more electronic sound with producer Steve Osborne, who had worked with the Happy Mondays, imbuing it with a dance music vibe. As for “Electricity”, it sounded a bit more raw/garage-like to me than anything on “Coming Up” though some reviews heard a connection to “Trash”. It didn’t grab me I have to say and, as with Electronic earlier, left me a little underwhelmed but compared to some of the other rubbish in the charts, it was…well…electric but just on a lower wattage than before. Definitely not displaying low wattage was the visual effect of an electric charge coming from Brett’s microphone. Maybe it looked clever back in 1999 but it looks a bit naff in 2026.

Right, that confirms it. The fact that Westlife are clearly seen in the backstage area next to Gail Porter during the next segue and they haven’t even had a hit yet and won’t perform on the show for the very first time for another seven days is definitive proof that some of these performances were definitely not recorded the same week that the show was broadcast. This explains why the host is sometimes not seen in shot when doing the link and we just get a cutaway instead. Finally!

Right, rant over. We’re back to the repeated performances and we get TLC with “No Scrubs” again. Here are the details for this one:

Total TOTP appearances: Four (this was the third)
No of consecutive appearances: Two
Weeks in Top 10: Eight
Chart run: 7- 13 – 8 – 6 – 9 – 3 – 5 – 5 – 9

OK so, having cross-referenced its chart positions with the group’s TOTP performances, there does seem to be some clear, logical correlation with each appearance synchronised with a corresponding rise up the chart. That’s all fine but why did we have to have this satellite performance video every single time? Couldn’t we have had the promo video one time at least? After all, it did win the MTV Video Music Award For Best Group Video at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards.

Right, I can’t really complain about this repeat performance seeing as it is actually the No 1 single for the second week running. Yes, this week’s highest new entry from Suede (No 5) proved to be no serious competition in the end for Martine McCutcheon and her hit “Perfect Moment”. With a No 1 straight off the bat, the only way was down for Martine and she would never have that level of success again but that chart topper can never be taken away from her (even if it was a cover version).

One thing that was taken off her though was any potential return to EastEnders. Supposedly, Martine was not happy with her character Tiffany Mitchell being killed off by the writers to allow her to pursue her pop star ambitions as she would have liked the chance to return once her music-orientated spleen had been vented but they used to call that having your cake and eating it didn’t they?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Whitney Houston	It’s Not Right But It’s OK	No
2	Phats & Small	Turn Around	No thanks
3	Electronic	Vivid	I did not
4	Ruff Driverz presents Arrola	La Musica	Never
5	Honeyz	Love Of A Lifetime	Nah
6	Suede	Electricity	Negative
7	TLC	No Scrubs	Nope
8	Martine McCutcheon	Perfect Moment	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 agre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rlpg/top-of-the-pops-23041999

TOTP 16 APR 1999

Posted on 25 Days Ago by 80stastic

In the previous show, Jamie Theakston made a reference to Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs in his intro to Catatonia as the Welsh international had scored an important equaliser for his club in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final versus Juventus. His goal scoring form continued into another huge game – the FA Cup semi-final replay against title rivals Arsenal two days before this TOTP aired. Whilst the goal itself was pretty special, it was his celebration of it that remains uppermost in the memory. Removing his shirt and twirling it around his head, the full extent of the hairiness of the Giggs chest was revealed. Many gagging reflexes were put into operation at the sight. I think it was the shock factor more than anything else. Fancy that lath-thin, whippet-like Ryan Giggs having a big, manly, hairy chest like that. I wonder if any of tonight’s acts had hairy chests or failing that a connection to hair (other than the obvious one on their heads)?

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss (pretty sure she didn’t have a hairy chest) and the first artist on tonight is Phats & Small with their dance anthem hit “Turn Around”. This was only just on the previous show so I’m struggling to find anything else to say about it. I’ve said about vocalist Ben Ofoedu being engaged to TV broadcaster Vanessa Feltz, I’ve referenced their amusingly named album “Now Phats What I Small Music”…what else is there? Oh, the track itself. Well, yeah there is that I suppose. Well, I can hear why it was a success. It was a very accessible tune which crossed over from the dance floor to daytime radio which presumably helped prolong its chart life which clocked in at seven consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Its legacy includes being voted in at No 38 in MTV Dance’s 2011 list of ‘The 100 Biggest 90’s Dance Anthems of All Time’. That do?

Hairy connection: DHT (a byproduct of testosterone) causes body hair to grow and head hair to shrink sometimes leading to the paradox of hairy men being bald on their heads. Testosterone is sometimes nicknamed ‘phat’.

Meatloaf was still having hits in 1999?! I know the 90s had been a renaissance decade for him what with “Bat Out Of Hell II” being a humongous sales phenomenon but that had been back in 1993. What’s that? He also had a big seller with the follow up “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” two years later? Well, yes he did and yes it delivered him three hit singles including the No 2 hit “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” but that was still years prior. By the end of the 90s, he (or his record company) had resorted to yet another Best Of album (the 13th of 20 according to his discography) which was released the previous November just in time for the Christmas sales rush. How convenient/cynical. Ah, so that’s where this song comes from. The practice of releasing a Greatest Hits album but trailing it with a new track was well established by this point and Meatloaf wasn’t going to buck the trend. “Is Nothing Sacred” had originally been recorded for the “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” album but hadn’t made the cut at the time. It was recycled though for “The Very Best Of Meatloaf” when it was re-recorded as a duet with his go to female singer Patti Russo. It was, in fact, not originally scheduled for that role though as there was another song on that Greatest Hits album that was earmarked for that job which was “A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste” which had been The Loaf’s contribution to the Jim Steinman penned Whistle Down The Wind soundtrack. Indeed, Meat had been rumoured to be locked in as the artist to record “No Matter What” but that particular golden egg landed up in Boyzone’s laps. Had it gone the other way, I wouldn’t have been asking the question I posed at the start of this paragraph.

As for “Is Nothing Sacred”, despite its place in that Greatest Hits album, it certainly wasn’t one of his very best, being a piss poor imitation of some of those classic hits. There would be a few more charting singles into the new millennium but Meatloaf’s death in 2022 aged 74 meant that 2016’s “Braver Than We Are” would be his last ever album and there would be no more and that’s the truth.

Hairy connection: Well, apart from the obvious long hair he sported in the “Bat Out Of Hell” era, Meatloaf also appeared in the musical Hair on and off Broadway.

It’s a repeat of that satellite performance by TLC of “No Scrubs” next. This was another of those remarkably hardy hits that enjoyed an extended chart life, spending two months inside the Top 10 eventually peaking at No 3. However, looking in more detail at its chart stats, there was a moment when things might have panned out differently. After debuting at No 7 it actually dropped to No 13 the following week and at that point you would have been forgiven for thinking that it would continue to spiral down the charts. Not so though as a third week reversal of fortunes saw it climb back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven consecutive weeks. Even then, there were undulations within that period with the single moving to No 6 then dropping to No 9 before vaulting back to No 3 and spending two weeks at No 5. What was all that about? Well, it would be featured on TOTP twice more so maybe that exposure helped propel it up the charts? I’m not sure but what I do know is that I’m going to have to find something to write about it at least twice more in this blog for which my creativity might require some tender loving care.

Hairy connection: The follow up hit to “No Scrubs” was “Unpretty” which featured a lyric about hair extensions – “You can buy your hair if it won’t grow”.

In the three years since they’d last released an album, The Cranberries had found themselves rather usurped in the rock band fronted by a charismatic female lead singer with a strong, Celtic influenced accent stakes. Catatonia had ripped up the charts with hits like “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage” going Top 5, eclipsing the highest peaking singles of their Irish contemporaries who rather unbelievably and certainly unjustly would never have a Top 10 hit. Come 1999, after Dolores O’Riordan had given birth to her first child, The Cranberries were back with fourth album “Bury The Hatchet” preceded by lead single “Promises”. It was a strong, aggressive sounding comeback (though there was a lot of reliance on lyrics like “Oh-woah, oh, oh” and “Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo”) but the truth was that five years on from their commercial heyday, the band’s sales were in decline. “Bury The Hatchet” sold a tenth of the copies which debut “Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can’t We?” did. The album’s cover artwork probably didn’t help. Whilst the first three featured standard but effective poses of the band, their fourth went in an altogether more arty direction. It was designed by Storm Thorgerson who was school mates with most of Pink Floyd and would go on to design the iconic cover for their legendary “The Dark Side Of The Moon” album. However, “Bury The Hatchet” would not garner such an illustrious reputation. You could see glimpses of Thorgerson’s work on, for example, “Wish You Were Here” in the concept but a naked man being observed by a suspended giant eye against a desert background looked outlandish rather than creative.

A fifth album followed within two years but its perceived lack of promotion by their record label pushed the band to split from MCA and ushered in an eight year hiatus. Three more albums would arrive (one posthumously) but the death of O’Riordan in 2018 brought a permanent end to the band’s story.

Hairy connection: Consuming dried cranberries is associated with promoting hair growth due to their vitamin C and antioxidant content.

Now I remember the name Glamma Kid but can I tell you anything about the artist behind that name? No I can’t. Not without the aid of the internet anyway.

*checks internet*

OK, well that’s not his real name obviously. That would be Iyael Lyases Tafari Constable…yeah, not as snappy as Glamma Kid is it? Anyway, he was/is a toaster – of the musical kind obviously not a relative of the artificially intelligent electric bread toaster variety that was a recurring character in Red Dwarf with an obsession with making small talk exclusively about toast. Of course not. Hailing from Hackney, he initially made a name for himself by appearing on Tim Westwood’s Radio 1 rap show in 1996. By the following year, he was being awarded a MOBO Award for Best Reggae Act and by 1999 he had two Top 10 hits. The first of those was “Taboo” which interpolated the 1985 Sade hit “The Sweetest Taboo” and was a duet (of sorts) with Shola Ama.

I was never the biggest fan of the original but what they’ve done to it with this treatment is nothing short of criminal and when I say they I mean Glamma Kid. What is he doing here? Bent down on his haunches, stalking the stage in an all white suit? I think he was going for a Mark Morrison vibe but he actually looks like Vic Reeves during one of his rubbing his thighs, over excited by a female guest episodes of Shooting Stars. Then there’s the noise that he’s making. It’s just horrible caterwauling! It’s even worse than Shaggy! Who could possibly want to listen to it more than once or am I missing something?! You know what, I don’t think I am.

Hairy connection: Glamma is presumably short for ‘glamour’ which conjures up images of luxuriously coiffured hair plus Glamma Kid featured on a 1998 remix of David Bowie’s “Fashion” which again has connections with hairstyles.

Yay! It’s the New Radicals again! This was the third time in the show for Gregg Alexander’s band and their hit “You Get What You Give” but you won’t find me moaning about repeat performances in the Chris Cowey era as I have done for month after month, post after post as I’m a complete hypocrite and I liked this one so the more the merrier for me!

However, it does leave me with the problem of what else I’m going to say about it. Well, this appears to be a live vocal performance as Gregg does seem to be straining somewhat with his singing in places. Actually, there also appear to be some technical issues as well with echoing vocals and a definite bit of feedback towards the end of the song. We just about have time for the infamous “Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson” line but not for the word “ass” right at the death though I think the BBC censors might have blanked it out. Hard to tell.

Hairy connection: Although Gregg Alexander wore his trademark hat to cover his face to hide the fact that he was not enjoying promoting a hit record via the rules of the music industry, it also concealed the fact that he was bald that was only revealed in the video that accompanied the song.

Talk about creating a buzz about a forthcoming release! There was always going to be great deal of interest in the debut solo single by ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell but the promotion around “Look At Me” really went into overdrive. Look at this TOTP exclusive showing of its promo video a whole month before it was actually released! And that was just part of the marketing story. Halliwell embarked on a short promotional tour in support of the single visiting cities such as Rio de Janeiro, New York, Tokyo, Sydney and Milan. Remember, she only had the one song at this point that you could actually buy (even the extra tracks on the CD single were just remixes of “Look At Me”) yet she was straddling the globe to sell it! Was it all worth it? Yes and no. A No 2 hit is nothing to be sneered at but surely after all that promotion a chart topping debut would have been expected. In the end, Geri was beaten by Boyzone doing yet another cover version. That must have stung a bit.

So what about her actual song – was it any good? Well, I give Geri credit for not doing an obvious big ballad (I’m not sure she had the vocal chops for that anyway) or indeed, going the Boyzone route and releasing a cover version. However, “Look At Me” was accused of sounding very similar to another late 90s hit – “History Repeating” by Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey and you can hear why though I’m not sure I made that connection myself at the time. The structure of “Look At Me” does work with as opposed to against Geri’s rather limited vocals enabling her to sing in snatches or phrases rather than seamlessly not that there’s anything wrong with that but then what the hell was that middle eight breakdown?! Were the Spice Girls fanbase ready for that or was Geri looking for a new, more mature audience?

I guess I should comment on the video. First off, the fact that it’s nearly all shot in black and white was a bold move from someone who once sang “Colours of the world, Spice up your life”. Again, was that designed to show she was now a serious artist in search of a new type of fan? If that wasn’t a clue then the funeral scene killing of her ‘Ginger Spice’ persona couldn’t be see as anything but a desire to leave behind her former group. This was backed up by the caption at the start of the promo asking “Who is…Geri Halliwell?” suggesting that we perhaps had not seen the real version of her yet. The rest of the video has Halliwell playing around with female stereotypes which she nominated as vamp, bitch, virgin and sister. I’m not quite sure if she succeeded in her observations of said stereotypes nor indeed what those observations might have been.

Whatever you thought of her debut single, and on reflection my judgement would be ‘could’ve been worse’ or even “not without merit”, it paved the way for a run of four consecutive No 1 hits three of which came from her debut album “Schizophonic” and that could in no way be seen as a disappointing return.

Hairy connection: You mean apart from the whole ‘Ginger Spice’ persona being based on her red hair colour and apart from Geri referring to her look as “hair power” and apart from her hair being considered to have altered the course of 1990s beauty history, with fans often emulating her look? Nah, nothing really.

You’d have thought that as the new millennium dawned, we’d have gotten a bit bored with the whole soap star to pop star schtick but here was Tiffany from EastEnders to prove that we still had room for more. I think it’s fair to say that Martine McCuthcheon has moved on from that role not in the least part because of her much loved turn in Love Actually but back then she was Tiffany so big and well liked had her character become. Only a few short months prior, Tiffany Mitchell was written out of the soap when she was killed off on New Year’s Eve after being knocked down by a car driven by Frank Butcher (hence Jayne Middlemiss’s quip about her not being very good at road safety). Twenty-two million people watched that episode and a book about the character of Tiffany was a bestseller!

Given all of that, it’s perhaps no surprise that McCutcheon’s debut single went to No 1. What people did seem to be surprised about though was shown in their reaction to “Perfect Moment” which went along the lines of “It’s quite good innit”. I guess it was a similar response to that which another soap star’s debut single had received not so long before – “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia. However, whereas the ex-Neighbours star had gone for a shimmering piece of pop perfection, Martine gave us the full, dramatic big ballad treatment. Just as Geri Halliwell surprised us with her almost jazz-pop first solo song, perhaps we might have expected a bit of pop fluff from Martine or a cover version like previous EastEnders star Sophie Lawrence had and Sid Owen would go on to do. Not a bit of it…or rather a little bit of it as “Perfect Moment” was a cover but I’m pretty sure most people were completely unaware of the original. Recorded in 1997 by Polish singer Edyta Górniak, that version was little known outside of Poland and so, again as with Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”, most of us thought it was, if not Martine’s song, then it had been written specifically for her. It starts off sounding a bit like “A Different Corner” by George Michael with a some serene strings being plucked before Martine delivers a perfectly adequate vocal. There’s no doubting that she could sing a bit but then she had been in little known, mid 90s girl group Milan who spent one week at No 82 with a single called “Lead Me On” – I did say they were little known! Anyway, “Perfect Moment” came over as quite a classy tune in the style of Barbra Streisand or at least Celine Dion and great things were predicted for Martine McCutcheon the pop star. A No 2 album duly followed and a pair of No 6 singles but by 2000, diminishing returns kicked in and her next two albums didn’t produce anywhere near the same numbers. Then came a return to acting and the role of Natalie in Love Actually though I have to say I can’t think of much else I e seen her in recently and Love Actually is now 23 years old.

*checks her filmography*

Martine’s most recent TV appearances have been as herself in shows like Loose Women, Celebrity Gogglebox and The Masked Singer in which she came 10th dressed as a swan. Probably not her perfect moment then.

Hairy connection: Martine has openly discussed her struggles with scalp sensitivity and dandruff endorsing Polytar medicinal shampoo to treat these issues and has become a scalp health advocate using her platform to discuss the impact of stress and health issues on her hair.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Phats & Small	Turn Around	Negative
2	Meatloaf	Is Nothing Sacred	I did not
3	TLC	No Scrubs	Nah
4	The Cranberries	Promises	Nope
5	Glamma Kid / Shola Ama	Taboo	No chance
6	New Radicals	You Get What You Give	YES!
7	Geri Halliwell	Look At Me	I did not
8	Martine McCuthcheon	Perfect Moment	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 agre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rlpd/top-of-the-pops-16041999

TOTP 02 APR 1999

Posted on February 19 by 80stastic

We have a new host on display in this TOTP, one who seemed to buck the trend of presenters being recruited by executive producer Chris Cowey from a non-radio background. Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss were from youth TV programme The O-Zone whilst Kate Thornton had a journalism background and Gail Porter came from Children’s BBC Scotland. However, Scott Mills was a radio person, a good, old fashioned DJ, the likes of whom you don’t get on the airwaves much these days apart from…well, Scott Mills. With Radio 2’s schedules populated by celebrities rather than professional disc jockeys including such names as Paddy McGuinness, Romesh Ranganathan, Michael Ball and Rylan Clark, Mills still carry the torch for time served DJs who haven’t just adopted radio as another string to their bow off the back of existing fame. Mills began his career at 16 working for commercial radio until, in 1999 at the age of 26 he was presenting the early breakfast show (4-7 am) on Radio 1. Cowey obviously thought this qualified Mills for a shot at hosting TOTP and so here he was with his face on our TVs in full technicolour rather than just a disembodied voice on our radios. All power to him and his continued high profile career which has taken him to the coveted position of presenting the breakfast show on Radio 2.

Having said all of that, I’m not the biggest Scott Mills fan. I just don’t warm to him. When I have seen him on TV such as on the celebrity version of Race Across The World, I found him almost unlikeable. He seems to me to have been very lucky to have reached the heights he has in his chosen career. Maybe I’ve misjudged him though. Let’s see how he did all those years ago as a debutant TOTP host…

Well, you’ve got to feel for the guy here. His debut on the BBC’s legendary pop music show and the first act on that he has to comment on are this pile of shite! I’ve had executive producer Chris Cowey pegged as many things but cruel wasn’t one of them…until now. I must have blanked this lot from my memory as an act of mental self-defence and to save my mortal soul from torment. “Witch Doctor” by Cartoons must be up there as one of the worst hits of the decade if not of all time. Originally a hit in the 50s for Ross Bagdasarian under the stage name of David Seville, the song was given an extra dimension when Bagdasarian created a trio of singing chipmunks who would become Alvin And The Chipmunks and inflict their squeaking voices on the world. If that wasn’t enough, novelty Danish band Cartoons whose USP was to update 50s songs with their self-styled ‘technobilly’ sound (basically adding a Eurodance backing) and wear ridiculously OTT stage costumes based on the old ‘Teddy Boy’ look, got their hands on “Witch Doctor” in the late 90s. Sensing that the track’s nonsensical “oo-ee-oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang” chorus would fit perfectly with their outlandish image and brand of cartoonish pop music, the band recorded a version and released it to huge success in the UK where it landed at No 2. What were we thinking?! Was anybody who bought this thinking at all?! Who was buying this slop and why?! Was it all just tiny kids and weeny boppers?! If so, where were the parents and why didn’t they stop them?! The single really should have come with ‘Parental Advisory’ warning stickers that stated ‘Allowing your young child to buy this record will rot their brains and significantly damage their credibility rating once they grow up’. Talking of which, Devo did a version of this which featured on the soundtrack to The Rugrats Movie which I based the whole of my last post on. I don’t think either Devo or myself should ever mention that again.

I’m no Des’ree expert but I’m sure that this single – “You Gotta Be” – had been a hit before 1999.

*checks official charts website*

I was right! Not only had it been a hit before but it had been a hit twice before! Look at this:

April 1994 – No 20
March 1995 – No 14

and now this

April 1999 – No 10

What was all this about then? Well, it was originally released as the lead single from Des’ree’s second album “I Ain’t Movin’” but after being a modest hit, it was given a second chance after it became a Top 5 hit in America resulting in an improved chart position of six places. Then five years, five singles and one album later, it was back again, this time making the Top 10. So what happened in 1999 that made it a hit for the third time? Do I really have to tell you? I do? OK, it was used in an advert of course and yet again it was a car advert:

Off the back of that exposure, record label Sony decided to strike while the iron was hot and rerelease “You Gotta Be” for a quick cash in and fair enough. However, the decision to the add the track to Des’ree’s current album “Supernatural” was cynical in the extreme. As a means of maintaining Des’ree’s momentum following the success of its lead single “Life” it made sense but to blatantly tack a five year old song onto to an artist’s new album? Nah, that, as the kids today would say, was stinky. There’s probably loads more to say about the song itself so I will refer you to my earlier comments from when it was a hit in 1995:

TOTP 09 MAR 1995

Next up is one of the few songs that I ever bought on day one of its release. This means it must have had loads of pre-sale airplay for me to have been aware of it so early I’m guessing. That promotion clearly worked on me as I love “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. In many ways it is the crystallisation of what appeals to me in a pop/rock song – a synthesis of a hook laden melody, a propelling rhythm and intriguing lyrics (more of which later). This one was a winner from the off for me and I was always going to fall for its charms. If this debut single was anything to go by then the band, centred around the songwriting duo of Greg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois, seemed destined for greatness. It didn’t turn out that way. One album and one follow up single was all that they released prior to splitting before 1999 was up.

Alexander is an interesting character. Raised in a conservative Jehovah’s Witness household, he joined his first band aged just 14 before signing to A&M Records two years later and released two solo albums to little acclaim or profile. However, the formation of New Radicals, which was essentially a vehicle to platform his and Brisebois’s songwriting, proved to be a stars-aligning moment. Their album “Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too” would go platinum in the US and reach the Top 10 over here. Some of the song titles within it indicated that the Alexander/Brisebois partnership operated outside of the norms of musical composition. Look at these:

“Mother We Just Can’t Get Enough”
“I Hope I Didn’t Just Give Away the Ending”
“Jehovah Made This Whole Joint for You”
“Crying Like a Church on Monday”

Music press reviews of the album were overwhelmingly positive and cited a host of musical influences including Hall & Oates, Phil Spector, Style Council, Prince, Todd Rundgren and even Chumbawamba whilst noting lyrics that challenged the commercialisation of the Western world and the influence of the media and religion. None of this seemed to mean much to Alexander though who, within three months of this TOTP appearance, called time on the New Radicals in favour of concentrating on songwriting and production for other artists. It proved to be a financially beneficial decision with Alexander going on to work with the likes of Geri Halliwell, Rod Stewart, Enrique Iglesias and Texas. Some of his most notable co-authored hits include Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On The Dance Floor” and Ronan Keating’s “Life Is A Rollercoaster”. Artists definitely not on his list of collaborations would be Beck, Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson whom he infamously called fakes and threatened to kick their asses in the closing lyrics to “You Get What You Give”. Here are those lyrics in full:

“Health insurance, rip off lying
FDA, big bankers buying
Fake computer crashes dining
Cloning while they’re multiplying
Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson
Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson
You’re all fakes
Run to your mansions
Come around, we’ll kick your ass in”

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Gregg Alexander / Rick Nowels

You Get What You Give lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Spirit Music Group

Alexander wrote those words to test whether the media would concern themselves with the serious political issues of the opening lines or the faux celebrity bashing that followed. Predictably, it was the latter which captured the headlines proving Alexander’s suspicion about media manipulation and priorities. Supposedly the celebrities mentioned in those lyrics didn’t take permanent umbrage though Marilyn Manson reportedly commented that he didn’t mind that Alexander said he’d kick his ass in but objected to being named in the same sentence as Courtney Love!

In the end, despite all his pushback against the media and music industry operations, Alexander found himself jumping through the same hoops to promote his hit that he’d rallied against and lost any remaining faith in the project. His adoption of a low worn hat to cover his face whilst performing (as per this TOTP appearance) was to hide his lack of enthusiasm for what he was doing. Ultimately, he’d gotten back what he’d given to the New Radicals and chose another path leaving us with one memorable hit and an album that deserved more recognition.

After three uptempo, dance-pop tunes on the spin, it was time for Billie to stop revolving and deliver a more mature sounding, slower song. Partly to mix things up a bit but also because, you know, she wanted to. Probably. Anyway, the almost* title track from her album was chosen for the job and so “Honey To The Bee” became her fourth consecutive hit.

*The album was actually called “Honey To The B”.

Now, perhaps the obvious thing to do here was release a big, string laden ballad to showcase Billie’s range and diversity but what we actually got was her best impression of All Saints as, and there’s no getting away from this, “Honey To The Bee” is essentially “Never Ever Pt II”. I suppose it wasn’t the worst idea in the world to copy one of the most successful singles of the past 18 months but when even Scott Mills described Billie as having gone “all saintly” in his intro, well, it can’t have been any more obvious. Ms Piper pulls off the steal/homage (delete as appropriate) competently but it’s peak of No 3 and subsequent spiral down the charts and out of the Top 40 within a month suggests it was never destined to have the enduring appeal of “Never Ever”. I guess you just can’t beat the original sometimes.

We’re at the midway point of the show so let’s do a half-term report on Scott Mills and his performance so far. Well, he hasn’t done anything wrong but he’s hardly got a scintillating screen presence has he? Must do better in the second half. A grade of C minus I think is appropriate. Back to the music and a song that was very popular with the staff at the Our Price in Altrincham where I was working at the time and when I say the staff I mean the female staff. Having reached commercial and critical mass with second album “CrazySexyCool” and its attendant hits “Creep” and “Waterfalls”, TLC were faced with the task of making good on that success and they gave it decent shot with third album “Fanmail”. Though it only achieved half of what its predecessor sold, 10 million copies shifted worldwide is not to be sniffed at.

Its lead single was “No Scrubs”. An American No 1 and double Grammy winner, the song’s lyrics seemed to describe the position of a woman who wasn’t going to just settle for any man just to avoid being single which sounds fair enough to me. However, the term ‘scrub’ and the perceived demonising of men with limited money and romantic vocabulary sparked a divisive response and even triggered a series of answer records , most notably by Sporty Thievz and their hit “No Pigeons”. Personally, I think that strand of reaction is a bit rich considering the misogyny that persisted in some R&B and rap music. “No Scrubs” was the first time that Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas sang lead vocals on a TLC single and its tone, rightly or wrongly, brought comparisons with Madonna’s “Material Girl” and Gwen Guthrie’s “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent”. It’s also the second song on this particular TOTP that my wife really liked alongside Billie’s “Honey To The Bee”. I’m not sure if anything should be read into that.

An ‘exclusive’ performance now from Mariah Carey who is still plugging her Best Of album “#1’s” with another new track called “I Still Believe”. Her last single, a duet with Whitney Houston from the soundtrack to The Prince Of Egypt movie, was called “When You Believe” – it’s like she was constructing a conversation between two people about their belief systems. Anyway, Mariah was still going through an identity crisis by this point in terms of whether she was a power balladeer or an R&B dance diva which is reflected in the fact that the album version of the track conforms to the former whilst the performance of it she gives here is definitely of the latter persuasion. Having listened to both, I’d have to say I’m not arsed about either construct.

The video for the ballad version sees Mariah recreate Marilyn Monroe’s 1953 performance for US troops stationed in Korea. It’s not very convincing despite Mariah being styled to look like Marilyn. However, I did note one detail that completely dates it which is someone in the crowd trying to take a picture of Mariah with a disposable camera. Remember them? Are they still a thing? They seemed to be predominantly used at weddings where one would be put on each table at the meal for guests themselves to take photos which would then go into the the happy couple’s photo album of the day. Of course today, everyone at that Mariah video shoot would just have their mobile phones out. They were simpler times back then.

I have moaned and criticised, criticised and moaned in this blog about the Chris Cowey era and the practice of repeatedly reshowing hits that were coming down the charts. It’s maybe because I grew up watching TOTP in the late 70s and 80s when the rules were that you couldn’t secure a place on the show’s running order if your song was going down the charts. I have tried to see the arguments for it – week one record company discounting subverting the charts and creating false peaks and troughs – but this example of the exercise really is unfathomable and inexcusable. “Blame It On The Weatherman” by B*Witched was No 1 last week and so rightly featured on the show. This week, it’s been torpedoed from its reign at the top and resides at No 9. Quite the fall down the charts. So why was a performance of it on our TVs again?! Come on Cowey? Explain yourself! Talk your way out of this one! From No 1 to No 9! Surely such a downward motion did not deserve more exposure?! It equalled the decade’s biggest fall from the top previously held by Iron Maiden’s “Bring Your Daughter… To The Slaughter” in January 1991. Even if it was some sort of quid pro quo arrangement, said promotion didn’t stop the single’s slide down the Top 40. These were its next four chart positions:

14 – 19 – 24 – 35

Neither did its parent album benefit much in terms of a resurgence up the charts so what was it all about? Well, looking at the new entries this week, maybe there weren’t that many viable other options. Of the other four entries in the chart (not counting the new No 1), three were dance acts – System F, Sash! and Aphex Twin – which the show had historically struggled to get the staging right for whilst the fourth was a bit niche – the Brian Setzer Orchestra with their swing revival hit “Jump Jive N’ Wail”. Furthermore, given the…erm…unusual nature of the new No 1 and the fact that there’s already been a novelty hit opening the show, perhaps that topping and tailing required something a bit more mainstream in the middle. Hang on…am I making an excuse for Cowey here when I should actually blame it on him?

Having worked in record shops since late 1990, by April of 1999, I was less than 12 months away from leaving it all behind me and becoming a civil servant (what was I thinking?!). I was nearly 32 by the time I finally left but I really should have read the signs much earlier that it was time for me to go. One of those signs was “Flat Beat” by Mr. Oizo. I just didn’t get it. How could a track that was basically anti-music inspire such adoration and sales, enough to take it to No 1?! Yes, of course there was the fact that this sparse track, which was basically a repeated bass loop and drum sample, was backed by the weight of the huge promotion machine that was a Levi’s ad campaign (to promote their new range of Sta-Press clothing) and yes, it was fronted by a yellow puppet (put together by Muppets creator Jim Henson) which added to its novelty value but the track itself was almost unlistenable wasn’t it? Well wasn’t it?! Was it being played in clubs? Did it make more sense in that environment? How could anyone listen to it in the privacy of their own home for enjoyment? As I said, I just didn’t get it.

So who was Mr. Oizo? He was Quentin* Dupieux, a French electronic musician, record producer, songwriter and filmmaker who used the pseudonym of Mr. Oizo to promote his musical output. Apparently, it only took him two hours to come up with “Flat Beat”, a claim I can well believe.

*Hence the only ‘lyric’ in it being “Oh yeah, I used to know Quentin…He’s a real…he’s a real jerk”

The one thing I did like about this whole nonsense was that Scott Mills managed to raise his debut TOTP performance up a notch by re-enacting one of those Levi’s ads and featuring alongside Flat Eric. Worthy of a B grade I think.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cartoons	Witch Doctor	I’d rather eat my own arm
2	Des’ree	You Gotta Be	No
3	New Radicals	You Get What You Give	YES! On day one too!
4	Billie	Honey To The Bee	Nope
5	TLC	No Scrubs	I didn’t
6	Mariah Carey	I Still Believe	I don’t though – no
7	B*Witched	Blame It On The Weatherman	Nah
8	Mr. Oizo	Flat Beat	Never

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/m002r8hj/top-of-the-pops-02041999

TOTP 28 SEP 1995

Posted on March 8, 2024 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 appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cast	Alright	No but easily could have
2	Garbage	Only Happy When It Rains	See 1 above
3	Wet Wet Wet	Somewhere Somehow	No
4	The Pretenders	Kid ‘95 live	Nope
5	Bon Jovi	Something For The Pain	I did not
6	TLC	Hits Medley	N/A
7	Menswear	Stardust	Call the police! Where’s my copy of this?!
8	Def Leppard	When Love And Hate Collide	Nah
9	Simply Red	Fairground	Never
10	Meatloaf	I’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 10 AUG 1995

Posted on February 4, 2024 by 80stastic

The BBC4 commemorative shows celebrating the 60th anniversary of TOTP are finally over meaning a return to the schedule of the 1995 repeats. If you recall, we’d just entered August of that year with the Blur v Oasis Battle of Britpop rapidly coming into view. However you feel about that time now with nearly 30 years perspective, it was a heady experience for me personally, feeling right at the centre of it working in a record shop in Greater Manchester. However, neither band are on this TOTP with both their singles being released the Monday after it aired. Blur performed “Country House” in an exclusive slot the week before – “Roll With It” will get one in next week’s show.

Anyway, tonight’s host is Lisa I’Anson and we start with…who? Mary Kiani? Well, I should show a little humility after bigging up my record shop credentials earlier as Mary clocked up four solo UK Top 40 hits in the 90s plus three (including a Top Tenner) as the vocalist for dance project The Time Frequency. That’s not a bad career. In comparison, how many chart hits have I ever had? None obviously though my rendition of Nick Cave and Kylie’s “Where The Roses Grow” in guitar class back in the day was pretty special. Back to Mary though and her journey to the UK Top 40 wasn’t via your usual route. As a session singer, she toured with the credibility sapping Donny Osmond. Mary clearly didn’t care about any of that though. Post chart success, she would contribute her vocals to “The Simpsons’ Yellow Album”.

Yet in 1995, she was riding the dance tidal wave. This single – “When I Call Your Name” – went to No 1 in the UK Dance charts. I don’t remember it at all but listening to it now, it’s a pleasant enough ditty which wouldn’t sound out of place on an M People album. That’s either a compliment or an insult depending on your opinion of M People I guess. I’m not sure about the ‘white out’ special effects in this performance though – all a bit too Dr Who in the 70s.

Kiani has continued to release material sporadically over the years but remains a big draw on the gay club circuit and in Australia where she now lives.

Yes! This is what the kids want! Music played by a bunch of teenagers for teenagers! Ash were indeed teenagers having started the band back in 1992 when lead singer Tim Wheeler was only 15 years old. This performance of their first Top 40 hit “Girl From Mars” came just four weeks after the band had sat their final ‘A’ Level exams! Imagine that! I’d love to think that the band sat around saying “What shall we do in the Summer while we’re waiting for our exam results?” and one of them pipes up “Well, we could take a single to No 11 in the charts and appear on TOTP. Anyone fancy that? Or we could get a job fruit picking or even just bum around doing nothing. I’m easy”. Of course, Ash were much more involved in the music industry than that scenario suggests by this point. They’d already released a mini album called “Trailer” on indie label Infectious Records and three singles from it. In March 1995, they put out “Kung Fu”, the lead single from their full debut album “1977” which just missed the Top 40. Momentum was building and with the championing of them by Radio 1’s Steve Lamacq and the station giving major airplay to “Girl From Mars”, the inevitable big hit ensued. And quite right too. It’s a great tune, one of many the band would record. “1977” would go to No 1 but in many ways they are the perfect singles band. Indeed, in 2009/2010, they took The Wedding Present idea of releasing a single every month but upped the ante by making the cycle every two weeks. Over those two years, they released 27 singles.

I caught them live in 2011 in Manchester on the anniversary tour for their “Free All Angels” album (also a No 1) and they were great. However, my abiding association with “Girl From Mars” belongs to someone I was working with at the time. Cara was/is one of the nicest people you could meet but she had a reputation for being…erm…in a world of her own at times I think is the best way to put it. This state of being caused her to be known on the lunch rota as ‘Cara – on loan from Mars’. The description stuck rather and when she left after getting a job with Head Office, we bought her the single as a leaving present. I am always reminded of Cara whenever I hear “Girl From Mars” to this day.

It’s a second outing for the award winning video for “Waterfalls” by TLC next. The song was nominated in two categories at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards in 1996. As I type this, we’ve just had this year’s – the 66th – and there are a couple of parallels between the 1996 and 2024 shows. Both featured performances by Annie Lennox (and both songs she sang were cover versions) and both had Celine Dion presenting an award. Whatever you think of her music (and it all sounds hateful to me), it was a good news story to see her in public after all the reporting of her recent health problems.

Although “Waterfalls” didn’t win the gong for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, they did walk away that year with the award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (blimey what a mouthful!) for “Creep”.

It’s a second song that has been on the show before next and perhaps rather surprisingly it’s another studio outing for Julian Cope with his single “Try Try Try”. Surprisingly? Well, the single only spent three weeks on the chart and only one of those (this week when it debuted at No 24) inside the Top 40. So how did it come to be on the show twice? Well, Julian was afforded an ‘exclusive’ slot a couple of weeks before the single was released. Although that explains the maths of it, a second studio appearance did seem a bit like overkill – Julian was hardly a mainstream pop star in 1995. Indeed, was he ever a mainstream anything? Apart from a brief spell in 1986/87 when Island Records tried to promote him as a more traditional rock star for the “Saint Julian” / “World Shut Your Mouth” era, Cope has always chosen a path less travelled. Conversely, maybe that was why the TOTP producers wanted him back on their show; as an antidote to the more generic, manufactured pop acts of the time. I mean just look at him here! Utterly bonkers with his Gandalf style hat and oversized hi-vis jacket with leopard print lining. Maybe it was just a case of counting though. A chart entry of No 24 was probably a big enough number to justify another go on the show.

A bigger mystery than the appearance of Julian himself on the show though is the person in the studio audience with the giant paper mache head that looks like the Mekon from the 2000 AD and Eagle comics. What was that all about?! Fortunately, @TOTPFacts is here with the answer:

That's Julian Cope's seven-foot alter-ego Sqwubbsy. #TOTP (thanks to @wadeywade for the memory prompt) https://t.co/RXq3TR0xaW
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 2, 2024

Breaking free from the chains of being a potential one hit wonder comes Tina Arena who clocks up a second Top 40 entry with “Heaven Help My Heart”. Whereas her debut hit was intense and brooding, this one was a paint-by-numbers country ballad that, unlike Julian Cope, went straight down the middle of the road. Indeed, so bland was it that when Radio 1 DJ Chris Evans played it, he took it off air after a minute or so declaring it too easy listening for his zeitgeist riding, lad culture fawning, Britpop following show and despatched a (presumably all too willing) lackey to hand deliver it to Terry Wogan over at Radio 2. What a prick! Evans that is, not Terry. Ironically, within a couple of years, ballads like “Heaven Help My Heart” would become big chart hits in the UK from the likes of Shania Twain and LeeAnn Rimes as the last vestiges of Britpop played out.

Tina’s next single also featured the word ‘heaven’ in the title as she released a cover of Maria McKee’s “Show Me Heaven”. Gulp! Heaven help us all.

There have been some terrible cover versions to besmirch the charts over the years. More specifically, there have been some terrible Beatles covers. I’m thinking “Strawberry Fields Forever” by Candy Flip, Tiffany’s approximation “I Saw Him Standing There” and, of course, Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo’s take on “Help!” (no I don’t care that it was for charity, it’s shit). Despite the dreadful stink caused by all of these, this version of “I’m Only Sleeping” by Suggs also reeks to high heaven. Taken from his first solo album “The Lone Ranger”, it somehow went Top 10. As shown in the examples above, covering The Beatles isn’t for everyone and to my ears, Suggs makes a porcine one of it here. Did he really think he could just add his usual layer of ska pop over the original and get away with it. He doubles down on the error in the performance by doing his Suggs shtick of juddery movements (even doing a staged fall at one point) just to make sure we all knew that we were residents of Suggsworld for three minutes.

Incredibly, he managed to out-shite himself with another cover taken from the album the following year when he took on “Cecilia” by Simon & Garfunkel which led to the infamous Chris Eubank intro but that’s for a future post.

Another year and another controversial Madonna video. After the press backlash she received following the release of her “Erotica” album and coffee-table book Sex, in 1992 when she was deemed by some to have gone too far with her sexual explicit material, Madge seems initially to have decided to tone things down a bit. “I’ll Remember” was an unthreatening big ballad from the film With Honors with a more classic looking and dare I say it tasteful video. Her next studio album “Bedtime Stories” addressed subjects that were more about love than sex but then came the fourth and final single to be released from it. “Human Nature” was a direct response to the criticism she had received for “Erotica” and Sex – an answer song, a musical middle finger. Look at some of these lyrics:

“Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex…You punished me for telling you my fantasies…I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me”

Songwriters: Dave Hall / Madonna Ciccone / Kevin Harold Mc Kenzie / Shawn Mc Kenzie / Michael Deering
Human Nature lyrics © Wb Music Corp., Emi April Music Inc., Webo Girl Publishing Inc., Stone Jam Music, Wize Men Music Publishing, Webo Girl Publishing, In

Blimey! Then there’s the aforementioned video with Madonna and her dancers decked out in S&M gear (hell, even her pet chihuahua is dressed in leather!) and cavorting in small boxes which on reflection looks like a kinky version of Celebrity Squares! Clearly it’s about Madonna retaking control of the narrative but hadn’t we seen all this before and in a more provocative way? Remember the X-rated promo for “Justify My Love”? Talking of that track, the intro of “Human Nature” seems to mirror it with its hypnotic trip-hop beat opening with Madonna repeating the line “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself” over and over. All in all, I found the whole thing rather tiresome but what did I know? The single still made No 8 in the UK though it was notably not a big hit in America.

A week before the Battle of Britpop, we had another contest of the charts though not with the same levels of rivalry nor media attention. The Battle of the Boybands (which nobody called it at the time) saw the pretenders to the throne Boyzone on the same show as current kings Take That though I don’t think the latter were in the studio together as the clip is just a previous appearance re-shown. First up though are those nice Irish lads with their third hit single “So Good” which is up to No 3. Whilst Take That’s “Never Forget” lived up to its name as being one of the group’s most memorable songs even being performed at the Coronation Concert for King Charles III, “So Good” really didn’t fulfil the claim of its title being one of the band’s least remembered hits – in short, it’s so bad.

And so to the boyband winners. Take That are at No 1 for a second week with “Never Forget”. Although Boyzone would eventually amass a comparable amount of chart topping singles themselves, to my mind they always came up short when in a straight competition with Gary, Mark, Howard, Jason (and never forgetting Robbie of course!) for the title as the nation’s favourite 90s boyband. Maybe not the gulf in popularity that we saw in the 80s between Bros and Brother Beyond but a clear distance nonetheless. Just my personal view of course. Other opinions are available. What’s that? What about those other Irish lads Westlife? Oh feck off!

The play out track is “Don’t You Want Me” by Felix and if it sounds familiar then that’s probably because it was a hit three times in the UK during the 90s. This was its second incarnation making No 10. The original release was a No 6 hit in 1992 and in 1996 it returned to the charts peaking at No 17. Obviously, each release had a different mix but this practice of recycling dance tracks that had already been a chart success before was really prevalent around this time. “Don’t You Want Me” was on the Deconstruction Records label but given its release history, Reconstruction Records might have been a more apt name (chortle).

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Mary Kiani	When I Call Your Name	Nope
2	Ash	Girl From Mars	No but I have theirBest Of album Intergalactic Sonic 7″s with it on
3	TLC	Waterfalls	I did not
4	Julian Cope	Try Try Try	No No No
5	Tina Arena	Heaven Help My Heart	Nah
6	Suggs	I’m Only Sleeping	Dear me no
7	Madonna	Human Nature	Negative
8	Boyzone	So Good	So bad – no
9	Take That	Never Forget	It’s a no
10	Felix	Don’t You Want Me	No I don’t

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/m001vvzc/top-of-the-pops-10081995

TOTP 03 AUG 1995

Posted on January 9, 2024 by 80stastic

Back in August 1995, our lives were about to change. Well, for those of us who were partial to a pint or two. You see, the Sunday after this TOTP aired, public houses in the UK were permitted to remain open throughout Sunday afternoons for the first time ever. Wa-hey! Get the beers in! I have to say it’s hard to recall the effect that this may have had on the nation given our current all day licensing laws but I assume it was quite the seismic cultural shift. I wonder if I can get some alcohol references into all of the artists on this TOTP? Anyone fancy a pint?

We start with my nemesis Therapy? Now, it’s not that I can’t stand them but rather that they kind of passed me by at the time and I never really know what to say about them when they appear on these TOTP repeats which feels like it’s all the time. It makes sense chart-wise –“Loose” was the band’s ninth UK Top 40 hit in under three years but even given how prolific they were at releasing hit singles, I kind of get the impression executive show producer Ric Blaxill must have been a fan for them to have been invited on the show so regularly. Anyway, here they are but they don’t sound like I was expecting. “Loose” – to my ears at least – seems almost…well, like a Busted tune. OK, I’m exaggerating – call it artistic licence – but it’s certainly more Green Day than Nirvana but then Therapy?, according to my online research, forged a career of longevity out of adapting their sound to challenge their fanbase and indeed themselves so maybe nobody should have been surprised.

Perhaps what did take people by surprise though was lead singer Andy Cairn’s appearance. Quite the change from his previous trip to the TOTP studios – he’s gone full on rocker complete with greased back barnet, facial hair and sideburns. It’s a look that is used as the cover art of their album “Infernal Love” so a change in image that was presumably part of a bigger promotional rebrand. I’m probably reading far too much into it – he probably just got bored of his old look. We’ve all experimented with different styles haven’t we? I tried growing a goatee beard myself around this time. When I tired of it, I booked myself an appointment with a hairdresser to shave it off. When I got to the salon, I was greeted by hoots of derision by the guy who was going to do it. He pointed at my face and exclaimed “That’s not a beard!”. I never felt so emasculated!

Alcohol association: Well’ ‘loose’ can be slang for being inebriated can’t it?

It seems to me that Italian Eurodance project Corona managed to amass more UK chart hits than they had any right to. “The Rhythm Of The Night” was a decent example of the genre but did we really need subsequent watered down facsimiles of it that got weaker with each release? No, no we didn’t and yet the hits kept coming. “Baby Baby” made No 5 whilst this one – “Try Me Out” – would peak at No 6.

“The Rhythm Of The Night”, of course, shared its title (save for a definite article) with a famous hit from the 80s. DeBarge took their song to No 4 in the UK but unlike Corona, had the decency to be one hit wonders (over here at least). As well as a link to the 80s, the group also share a connection with the 00s. Do you remember the ITV show Popstars that gave us Hear’Say? Yes? OK, do you recall the five hopefuls that fell at the final hurdle but decided to form their own group anyway (or more likely at the prompting of a rival record label) called Liberty? Still with me? Good. So Liberty had to change their name to Liberty X as there was already a band called Liberty who objected. So what has any of this to do with Corona? Well, they amended their moniker in 2001 to…yep, Corona X. It’s not a great anecdote I admit but then Corona weren’t a great act so it’s all they deserve in my book.

Alcoholic association: Has to be the Mexican beer called Corona.

Next, the first of two tracks on the show that were originally recorded in the 80s. The life and times of “Blue Monday” by New Order is quite the tale. We all know the track but here’s some facts and stats behind it:

Originally released March 1983 on 12” only peaking at No 12
Returned to the chart in August 1983 surpassing its previous chart high by making No 9
Remixed by Arthur Baker in 1988 and released in UK in 7” format for first time. Peaks at No 3
Remixed by Hardfloor and released in 1995. Peaks at No 17
Spent 89 weeks on Top 100 chart over three releases spanning 12 years selling 1.16 million copies
Best selling 12” record of all time

This 1995 release was, rather unimaginatively, officially titled “Blue Monday–95” and was released as a single to promote “The Rest Of New Order” compilation. The band themselves were on a hiatus following the difficult recording of the 1993 album “Republic” and were showing no signs of wishing to work together again anytime soon. Their new record label London clearly wouldn’t have been too jazzed about the lack of any new material from their artist so turned to the back catalogue that they brought with them. We’d already had “The Best Of New Order” album in 1994 which had been a big seller so London wasted no time in trying to repeat the trick with an album of remixes. Having used “True Faith” and “1963” to promote the first compilation, it made sense that they would look to their best known track to advertise the follow up. What a horrible incarnation of an iconic song this remix was though. Maybe that sound was where it was at in 1995 but for me, this version strips away all the power and intrigue of the original replacing it with fuzzy bleeps and beats and turns Bernard Sumner’s vocal into a disembodied, distant ghost of itself. As I write this, we’ve just had the other ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday in January which has come to be known as the most miserable day of the year but even that day has nothing on the misery of the 1995 remix of New Order’s classic song.

Alcohol association: In 2016, New Order launched their own brand of beer called Stray Dog after a track on their album “Music Complete”.

Black Grape are back with their second single “In The Name Of The Father”. The follow up to their debut “Reverend Black Grape”, this was very much more of the same which was no bad thing in my book. Some funky grooves and nonsensical lyrics (Neil Armstrong having bigger balls than King Kong indeed!)? Yes please!

Kermit’s crutch (he’d broken his ankle at the T in the Park festival) puts me in mind of the infamous Extreme Noise Terror / The KLF BRIT Awards performance…but without the machine gun fire at the end obviously.

Just as I was writing this whilst listening to Radio 2 (no, you do one! I’m 55!), Shaun Ryder appeared as a guest on the Dermot O’Leary show and they were talking about this incident on TFI Friday from back in the day. God, I miss being young(er).

Alcohol association: Black Grape? Wine? Cabernet Sauvignon? Yeah, that’ll do.

Something out of leftfield now from…well…Leftfield. Despite having a No 3 album in debut “Leftism”, huge single success had eluded the electronic duo of Neil Barnes and Paul Daley. “Afro–Left” couldn’t change that though it was pretty interesting. Featuring gibberish, African sounding spoken vocals and a trippy, hypnotic backbeat, it wasn’t your average chart entry. The supplier of those vocals was listed on the record as Djum Djum. In my first draft of this review – and I swear this is true – I referred to Djum Djum as the African Stanley Unwin, the comic actor who was famous for creating ‘Unwinese’ (essentially a gobbledygook version of English). I deleted the comparison though thinking it might be too niche but on researching Djum Djum further, I came across a piece which suggested that he was, in fact, the son of Stanley Unwin! Other ‘facts’ about him was that he also went by the name of Neil Cole and that he was the originator of Jum Jum which is the sound you make whilst chewing an elastic band! I’m not sure I’m having any of this though. I mean, come on! Jum Jum? I should Coco!

Alcohol association: I thought I might struggle with this one but it turns out that there is not only a Left Field Beer company but also a Leftfield vineyard and a Left-Field whiskey distillery.

Next, the second of those songs that were recorded in the 80s. Originally released as the B-side to their 1986 hit “Suburbia”, I first became aware of this Pet Shop Boys track around 1987 when my girlfriend (now wife) bought me a cassette of their remix album “Disco”. “Paninaro” was the fourth of just six songs on said album but always stood out even against the remixes of all the singles from their debut long player “Please”. Starting off with a drum sound that is reminiscent of the J. Arthur Rank gong, it then takes off with an excoriating synth sound before the almost unique happens – a Pet Shop Boys vocal by Chris Lowe. OK, he’s speaking rather than singing but it works perfectly as the normally motionless one of the duo recites just eight words on a loop that speak of the very essence of the human experience interspersed with name checks for Italian designers like Armani and Versace. How so? It turns out that the ‘paninari’ were a 1980s Italian youth subculture who were into designer clothing, pop music and hanging out in fast food restaurants (‘panino’ is Italian for sandwich). Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe identified with the movement which inspired the song.

All very interesting but why was it put out again in 1995 you might well ask? Well, “Paninaro ‘95” was a bunch of remixes including one by Tin Tin Out that was used to promote the B-sides compilation album “Alternative” that was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. Very much like New Order before them I guess.

The performance here is obviously memorable for the role reversal which sees Neil behind the keyboards and Chris up front and centre. The latter clearly isn’t used to the spotlight and looks like he doesn’t know where to put himself even turning his back on the studio audience at one point. To make up for Chris’s shortcomings as the focal point, there’s some serious overcompensating going on with the two oiled up male dancers behind him. Was that really necessary? They could have done with some more clothes on them and talking of clothes, that “Alternative” album that I mentioned earlier featured the track “In The Night” which was adopted as the theme tune to the old BBC fashion programme The Clothes Show…

Alcohol association: Tricky one this…the only thing I’ve got is that in the book Literally which documents the duo’s first ever tour in 1989, there’s plenty of references to the consumption of alcohol with champagne being a favourite tipple.

Talking of tricky…in 1995, trip-hop was a big deal spearheaded by the holy trinity of Massive Attack, Portishead and, yep, Tricky. Having been an early member of Massive Attack but not fancying the idea of fame and fortune, Tricky (real name Adrian Thaws) branched out on his own and found…fame and fortune. His seminal debut album “Maxinquaye” went gold and made No 3 in the charts. The music press lavished it with praise and it topped many a publication’s album of the year poll. It received a Mercury Music Prize nomination losing out to, you guessed it, Portishead’s “Dummy”. As a consequence of this success, Tricky’s face adorned the covers of magazines like…erm…The Face and Wire but he was never comfortable with his celebrity though he did rather court publicity by dating Björk. He also had a relationship with the vocalist on “Maxinquaye” Marina Topley-Bird.

This song- “Hell Is Around The Corner” – was taken from “The Hell E.P.” which was a collaboration with US hip-hop group Gravediggaz though they didn’t contribute to this particular track. It would prove to be Tricky’s biggest ever hit peaking at No 12. The man himself stated that he didn’t like the term ‘trip-hop’ and shied away from claims that he invented the genre. His stance was reinforced by him releasing a song that sounded very similar to Portishead’s “Glory Box” that was released six months earlier. The fact was though that both artists had sampled the same track – Isaac Hayes’s “Ike’s Rap II” – though who actually recorded their song first (as opposed to releasing it) is disputed.

Alcohol association: There is a dessert cocktail called The Grave Digger which is a coffee liqueur comprising brandy, Grand Marnier and is topped with crushed Oreo biscuits on whipped cream with a tiny shovel accessory to signify a freshly dug grave. Tricky stuff.

And suddenly it is upon us. When people talk about the pop music story of 1995, one event dominates. Not just the biggest story of the year but possibly the whole decade. We have arrived at a defining moment in time – the ‘Battle of Britpop’ is here! Now I don’t intend to rehash this story in detail – so much has been written about it already that it’s all out there and easily accessible from just a basic search of the internet. However, I was working in a record shop at the time (Our Price in Stockport) and during that week in the middle of August that saw the dual release of “Country House” by Blur and “Roll With It” by Oasis, I stood in for the singles buyer who was on leave which brought a certain amount of pressure – to run out of either release would have been unforgivable. I was checking stocks of both on what seemed like an hourly basis.

It was though an unbelievably exciting time to be working in record retail with news crews dispatched to shops (not ours sadly) to film pieces that would make headlines on the national evening news. Such was the intense media speculation that the story transformed from the tale of two singles to a class war with Oasis cast as working class northerners and Blur as arty, southern softies. The narrative constructed was that you were either on the side of one or the other and your choice of which single to buy was akin to casting a vote with record shops remodelled as polling stations. The truth is, of course, that plenty of people bought both though not necessarily in the same purchase. I worked with someone who bought one in the first week of release and the other in the second – she liked both tunes but had a preference for one to be No 1 over the other. I can’t recall which way round it was but I guess this was the record shop equivalent of tactical voting.

Anyway, it’s Blur we’re concerned with in this show who have the ‘exclusive’ performance slot to promote the lead single from their new album “The Great Escape”. Now the TOTP caption says that “Country House” was to be released on 14th August which was also the date that “Roll With It” was due in the shops. As such, the decision by Blur (mainly Damon from what I can ascertain) to go head to head with their rivals had already been taken. Reportedly wrong footed by Creation pushing forward the Oasis release date by weeks and fearing that they would trail in the wake of a second successive No 1 for the Mancs, the battle was set up by “Country House” having its own release date shifted to 14th August as well. I’m guessing I would have been aware of all this what with working in a record shop and all but it’s hard to recall at a distance of nearly twenty-nine years.

So what of the actual song itself? Received opinion is that “Country House” is not actually very good and certainly is not a good representation of the band’s canon. Whilst there is some credence to that conventional wisdom, I think history has shown that there was more to the tune than it being what Liam Gallagher described as ‘chimney sweep music’. Yes, the band themselves seemed to disown the song, refusing to play it live for many years but accusations of it being a throwaway pop song are wide of the mark I feel. There’s a sense of unruliness to it but it also has layers. The knockabout fun coexists with some standout melancholy moments like the “blow, blow me out, I am so sad I don’t know why” line when the song pauses for breath. Whether it can ever escape the connotations of that time or not I don’t know but it’s probably better than it is remembered as. We’ll get the whole denouement of the ‘Battle of Britpop’ soon enough but then we all know who won don’t we?

Alcohol association: Bassist Alex James developed more than a liking for champagne to supplement his cheese obsession and he did call his autobiography “Bit Of A Blur”.

Take That are No 1 this week with “Never Forget”. I went into all the Robbie Williams leaving the group stuff the last time I wrote about this one so I’m not going to go over all that again. Suffice to say, due to a clause in his Take That contract, he wasn’t allowed to release any solo material until six months after the band was officially dissolved meaning that the first Robbie Williams single – a rather weak cover of George Michael’s “Freedom” – didn’t see the light of day until the end of July 1996. That will either be a relief or totally infuriating to viewers of these BBC4 TOTP repeats depending on your inclination. I will say though that I recall catching Williams appearing on a breakfast TV show (possibly The Big Breakfast) not long after he had left the group where he was his usual bullish self (no sign of any regret or self reflection) where he kept going on about how brilliant his little bit of singing was on “Never Forget”. What a class act!

Alcohol association: Gary Barlow launched his own range of organic wine in 2021.

The play out video is “Waterfalls” by TLC. I don’t think I ever quite realised quite how much of a big deal this trio was until I checked their discography. Four American No 1 records! Wow! Their level of success over here was a bit more tempered but they still racked up four Top 10 hits including this one which made No 4. A groundbreaking track in many respects, its lyrics made reference to drugs related violence and HIV/AIDS which was one of the very first mainstream chart songs to do so. It’s hard not to fall for the sonic charms of “Waterfalls”. It’s the very definition of ‘slinky’ with a smooth beat that oozes class aligned with some gorgeous vocal stylings and a killer rap from Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. Those attributes earned it two Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Vocal Performance and a Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B / Soul single.

If the song itself wasn’t enough to tempt you to dive right into it, then there was the video. A combination of literal retelling of the lyrics visually and special effects, it would win four gongs at the MTV Video Music Awards. If the image of the trio performing whilst seemingly standing on water in an ocean wasn’t striking enough then their liquefied, ‘water sprite’ forms dancing in front of a waterfall couldn’t help but make an impression. This seemed like cutting-edge stuff in 1995.

Lopes would tragically die in a car crash just seven years on from “Waterfalls”. The lyrics of her rap from it were engraved on her casket.

Alcohol association: There is a sobriety support group called The Luckiest Club who use the abbreviation TLC as part of their identity. There’s also a non-alcohol beer company called Tropical Lager Coral’ation.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Therapy?	Loose	No
2	Corona	Try Me Out	As if
3	New Order	Blue Monday – 95	I did not
4	Black Grape	In The Name Of The Father	No but I had the album
5	Leftfield	Afro-Left	It’s a no from me
6	Pet Shop Boys	Paninaro ‘95	Nope
7	Tricky	The Hell E.P.	Nah
8	Blur	Country House	See 4 above
9	Take That	Never Forget	Negative
10	TLC	Waterfalls	Liked it, didn’t buy it

Disclaimer

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

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

TOTP 18 JUN 1992

Posted on March 4, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve missed yet another show due to the Adrian Rose issue and so find ourselves well into June of 1992 here at TOTP Rewind. The Euros international football tournament is well under way but England are already out having lost 2-1 to hosts Sweden two days before this episode aired. After the excitement of Italia ‘90, it was a huge disappointment for the nation but in truth the team had massively underperformed not having won a single game and scoring just one goal. Graham Taylor was vilified in the press especially by The Sun and their infamous ‘turnip’ campaign. I would never endorse anything in that publication but Taylor was not, by any metric, a successful appointment.

I was still working at the Our Price store on Market Street, Manchester at this time. There was another store in Manchester at Piccadilly above which there was office space which was used by area and regional managers for admin work. I had my initial interview as a Xmas temp there. It was also used for company events where directors were invited to come and address store employees and take questions from them about company policy, initiatives etc. At one point it also housed some unsaleable stock that needed sending back to the central warehouse in Heston, Greater London and I recall spending a day up there packing up all sorts of crap albums. It was soul destroying. The person I spent the day doing this with was called Matt who went onto be a senior product manager at EMI and now runs a campaign management company for music artists. Meanwhile, I’m currently…unemployed. I seem to remember Matt was much more conscientious in his work that day boxing up loads more than I did. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Anyway, that’s enough of my personal stuff…on with the show! We start with Utah Saints and their Kate Bush sampling hit “Something Good”. Watching this back, it’s interesting to note how much the performance comes over like that of a conventional rock/pop band due to the fact that there’s some actual instruments on show. There’s the energetic bass player, someone on keyboards and the bloke with the megaphone thwacking some drums. The Kate Bush vocal is taken care of via a guy on the decks spinning a picture disc of her. As such, despite it undoubtedly being a dance anthem, the TOTP producers don’t feel the need for all that garishly coloured special effects wash to be deployed as it has been in the past for dance acts on the show. It makes for a much more enjoyable experience or maybe it’s that it just appeals to my more traditional tastes. As you know I was never a ravehead.

Tonight’s presenters are Mark Franklin and…WTF? Bob Geldof?! Why?! What was going on here?! It’s true that just a few weeks before they had Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as Smashie and Nicey guest present but that was a tie in to promote Enfield’s comedy show that was returning to BBC2 later that evening. Was Geldof there to promote something? He released his third solo album in 1992 called “The Happy Club” but it can’t have been to do with that surely? It seems there were some other guest presenters during the ‘year zero’ era. In December, Tony Dortie was joined by Mr Blobby (I kid you not) whilst several EastEnders actors took a turn but here’s Tony Dortie to explain that connection:

One of the things that isn't mentioned much is how old School #Eastenders and #totp got on so well @westbrookdanni Sid Owen wld always come n hang out for rehearsals they were also good and fun guest hosts. @deangaffney1 ledge. Albert Sq used to always have Pop star set visits
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

So what was the deal with Sir Bob? Perhaps the more pertinent question is what the hell did he think he was doing with some of the comments he proceeds to make on the show? He comes across as a creepy, bitter, old bellend. Witness his first segue which is into one of those satellite link performances from the US this time with Sophie B Hawkins. “I don’t want to ask you any questions I just want to look at you” Geldof pervs. Eeeewww! Sophie just laughs nervously. What was he thinking?! Sadly it won’t be the last inappropriate comment he makes during the show. Here’s Tony Dortie again with his take on what went down:

#totp 2Bob Geldof was thoroughly unpleasant about the artistes appearing as well, just the worse ….being rude has never been in style. At the time nobody said anything cz Sir Soap dodger got given his "I'm Privileged pass"
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) February 25, 2022

There’s more…

#totp I'll say it you SEXIST PIG 2Bob Geldof..you are just the worst ….you were a grown man at the time as well …
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) February 25, 2022

Tony telling it how it was there. Anyway, back to the music and Sophie B Hawkins. Who was she and where had she come from? Well, she was a bit of a cultural all rounder being a singer -songwriter, musician and painter and hailed from New York City(baby!). As well as being a song title Shania Twain would pay good money for, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” was her debut single and was a worldwide smash. This was one of those songs that’s all about the hook of the chorus with the verses actually being quite pedestrian. It works though; there’s even a false ending in there just to mix things up a bit. I don’t think that I picked up on the fact that the object of her affections in the lyrics is actually a woman and that the whole song is written from the perspective of the singer observing said woman in an abusive relationship and wanting to rescue her from it. Sophie comes across as quite the bohemian her bio suggests she was/is in this performance which does a good job of engaging the audience. As Mark Franklin says (and in a much more appropriate way than Geldof would have I’m sure), she seemed like a lot of fun. Not quite a one hit wonder (she had three more UK Top 40 hits), this is probably the one she is best remembered for though. It peaked at No 14.

Now if we thought that Utah Saints were subversive earlier when it came to being a dance act on TOTP when acting more like an archetypal rock band…well, we hadn’t seen anything yet! This ‘performance’ from The Orb must be one if the most outlandish in the show’s history. These ambient house innovators had already made a splash with their debut album “The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld” but they would become a sensation with the release of “U.F.Orb” which would go to No 1. It was previewed by the single “Blue Room” which would make history as the longest track to ever enter the UK singles chart. Clocking in at a mammoth 39 minutes, it took advantage of a change in regulations when the chart compilers allowed a maxi single to run to 40 minutes (alongside the existing 25 minute limit) as long as only one title was listed amongst the single’s tracks. It duly entered the Top 40 at No 12 before climbing to a peak of No 8.

Enough of the statistics though, let’s get to what was going down on screen. No DJs nor ponytailed fellas jigging about behind keyboards here. No, the best way to promote the track in the eyes of The Orb’s Alex Paterson and Kris Weston was to have the pair sat playing a sci-fi version of chess whilst passing a cross bearing orb between the pair of them. To pad it out a bit there’s some kaleidoscopic imagery of dolphins and some strobe lights flickering about. How to describe this performance? Avant- garde? Leftfield? Eccentric? Or maybe just plain old weird. Apparently it had a cosmic effect on Robbie Williams. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

“He thought it was so radical. He’d never seen a band come in and just dictate and piss people off so much and get away with it.” A collaboration resulted: this 1997 cover of The Bee Gees' "I Started A Joke" https://t.co/tJ0jwGircR #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 25, 2022

“Blue Room” features the guitar playing of Gong and System 7 member Steve Hillage. When working at the Our Price store in Stockport in the mid 90s, Steve was the inspiration for a saying we used if someone had a mishap with a brew. If anyone spilt their drink a cry of ‘Steve Spillage!’ could be heard. Well it amused us.

Geldof is back now having a dig at Elton John whose latest video is up next. We all knew that Elton’s hair wasn’t real but to bring it up by going on about his new wig seemed unnecessary at best especially coming from a man who was criticised himself over his appearance at the time of Band Aid/Live Aid (he was too busy for a haircut if you remember). As Elton was on just the other week, I’ll return to Tony Dortie and his tweets to cover this one…err…”The One”:

We need to do more to celebrate Elton John he is truly one of the most talented Living Musicians in the history of music since time began @eltonofficial there is nobody who doesn't like Elton #totp
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) February 25, 2022

Ah. You see the thing is Tony that’s not quite true. I refer you to my comments last week about my friend Robin who dismissed all of Elton’s back catalogue as unlistenable bollocks. I was wrong about him not having a favourite Lionel Richie song though. “Three Times A Lady” was his choice which is presumably three times the song that “The One” is.

Despite 1992 being awash with dance anthems, there was still space in the UK pop landscape for a boy band. Enter Take That. Actually, was the term ‘boy band’ in use back in 1992 or am I using it retrospectively? Certainly there were groups* that attracted a predominantly female teenage fan base before then. Bay City Rollers in the 70s, Duran Duran and Bros in the 80s but were they referred to as boy bands at the time? I’m not so sure. The 90s was a boy band boom time though. Off the top of my head and not counting US groups there were the big three of Take That, Boyzone and Westlife but there were also 5ive, 911, A1, Bad Boys Inc, Upside Down, East 17 and many more probably including a number in their moniker. All of these (with the exception possibly of East 17) followed a template of pretty boys singing catchy but lightweight tunes and doing some nifty dance steps while they were at it. Their catalogue of songs would almost certainly include some cover versions.

*I’m not counting The Beatles on the grounds that the connotations of what it meant to be a boy band certainly didn’t apply to them.

I guess New Kids On The Block had shown what that set up could achieve sales wise as the new decade dawned. It was probably inevitable that the UK would find its own version of them eventually. It was just that Take That got there first. Anyway, here they are in the studio again performing “It Only Takes A Minute” again and judging by the screams of the audience, they know they’re on to a good thing. Interesting to note that even at this early stage the only other band member to get a vocal line and their own personal camera close up is Robbie Williams. Hmm. “It Only Takes A Minute” peaked at No 7.

Four Breakers this week starting with U2 and “Even Better Than The Real Thing”. The fourth single from their “Achtung Baby” album of the previous year, its original version was later eclipsed by the Paul Oakenfold Perfecto dance remix both in terms of chart peak and, for many a music lover, its artistic merit. I always liked the version as it was originally intended though. It sounded angular and dynamic propelled by another great guitar riff from The Edge, the distinctive sound of which was created by a DigiTech Whammy pitch shifter pedal which created a double octave sweep (for all you tech enthusiasts out there). The video was a Godley & Creme production with the continuous rotating footage created by a 360 degree camera rig. They certainly liked to innovate those guys. Remember the face morphing “Cry” video from 1985? “Even Better Than The Real Thing” peaked at No 12 whilst the dance mixes did even better than the real thing by going to No 8.

One of my favourite albums of 1992 was “0898” by The Beautiful South which spawned four great singles yet we hadn’t seen any of them on TOTP until now. We may have missed some appearances due to the Adrian Rose scenario I guess. That situation was finally rectified when third single “Bell Bottomed Tear” made it into the Breakers. Despite it being the biggest hit of the four peaking at No 16, we would not see it again on the show. After two faster paced singles with Paul Heaton as the main vocalist, it was the turn of Dave Hemmingway to come centre stage what with it being a ballad and all which seemed to be his forte. I say ballad though it seems to be more of a lament for a one night stand that didn’t turn into a relationship.

The final single released from the album (“36D”) was the least successful missing the Top 40 completely though was possibly the most notorious. Supposedly it was a trigger for Briana Corrigan to leave the band as she objected to it reflecting negatively on glamour models when it should have been the media that gave them the platform that was criticised. There was probably more to it than that but that was the story I heard.

A first sighting now of the best selling US girl group of all time. Yes, before Destiny’s Child, SWV and the rest came TLC and they were bigger than them all with sales of 85 million copies. With four No 1 singles and a No 1 album in America alone, no wonder the group were inducted to the Black Music & Entertainment Hall Of Fame this year alongside the likes of such legendary names as Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding and Michael Jackson. It all started with debut single “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” though I have to admit to not being particularly aware of it at the time despite it making No 13 in our Top 40. By the time the likes of “Creep”, “Waterfalls” and the “CrazySexyCool” album came around you couldn’t fail to notice them and I didn’t. Apparently the group’s them manager Pebbles (yes she of “Girlfriend” fame in the late 80s) makes an appearance at the end of the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”. Tragically Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes died in a road traffic accident in 2002.

When I think about Diana Ross in the early 90s (not that I do very often you understand) the only song that comes to mind is her No 2 hit “When You Tell Me That You Love Me”. Taken from the album “The Force Behind The Power”, it was a huge hit over Xmas of ‘91. I was therefore taken aback to learn that the album actually generated five UK Top 40 singles. “One Shining Moment” was the third of those and even made No 10. It’s a smoother sound than WYTMTYLM which always seemed just ever so slightly hysterical in its yearning but it’s also fairly unremarkable and I’m surprised it was such a big hit.

Diana (or Ms Diana Ross to use her full title) would continue to have medium sized hits in the UK throughout the decade though interestingly not in her native US – none of the singles from “Force Behind The Power” were hits there. She even had a No 1 Best Of album in this country in 1993 when “One Woman: The Ultimate Collection” was a huge seller that Xmas.

Ah shit! Geldof’s back making more asinine comments although I can’t really quibble about his target here. When Def Leppard were on the show recently with their “Let’s Get Rocked” single, I derided it as one of the dumbest songs of the decade and I was right. However, they came pretty close to topping that ‘achievement’ with its follow up “Make Love Like A Man”. I can hardly bear to hear the lyrics on this but if I have to listen to them then you can read them. Look at this horseshit:

‘Make love like a man, I’m a man that’s what I am’

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert John Lange / Stephen Clark / Joseph Elliott / Philip Collen
Make Love Like a Man lyrics © Out-of-pocket-prod. Ltd., Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave), Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

Or:

‘I’m the one (I got it) I’m Mr. Fun, (you need it) I’m Captain Cool’

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert John Lange / Stephen Clark / Joseph Elliott / Philip Collen
Make Love Like a Man lyrics © Out-of-pocket-prod. Ltd., Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave), Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

And then there’s:

‘Don’t call me gigolo, don’t call me Casanova, just call me on the phone and baby come on over’

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Robert John Lange / Stephen Clark / Joseph Elliott / Philip Collen

Make Love Like a Man lyrics © Out-of-pocket-prod. Ltd., Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave), Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

What. The. Fuck?! Lead singer Joe Elliott has stated that they weren’t trying to be macho with this song but rather funny. Remind me never to invite Joe round to my house if I need cheering up with a laugh. Even Elliott seems to have seen the light though. In a 2014 interview he admitted he would rather not play this song live anymore as the lyrics are a nod too stupid. No shit. Despite all of the above, did Geldof really need to introduce it with the following words:

“Here’s their new single I’d quite like to give you one big girl otherwise known as Make Love Like A Big Girl’s Blouse”? No he didn’t. What’s that? He was trying to be funny too? Add him to the list of people never to be invited around to my gaff. “Make Love Like A Man” peaked at No 12.

Erasure are No 1 with their “ABBA-esque EP”. It’s the video this week for the “Take A Chance On Me” track with Vince and Andy dressed up as Agnetha and Anna-Frid in their 70s pomp. I wonder if they argued about who would be who? Vince looks quite convincing as Agnetha, Andy not so much as Anna-Frid. I seem to remember there being a lot of praise about how amusing the video was at the time but I’m not sure if it’s retained that humour.

Geldof and Mark Franklin are reunited for the show’s ending and we discover that unbelievably the former was there to promote his latest release – a single called “Room 19 (Sha La La La Lee)”. You’ll be glad to hear that it didn’t make the Top 100.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Utah Saints	Something Good	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	Sophie B. Hawkins	Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover	Nope
3	The Orb	Blue Room	Not really my bag
4	Elton John	The One	Nah
5	Take That	It Only Takes A Minute	No
6	U2	Even Better Than The Real Thing	No but I had the album Achtung Baby
7	The Beautiful South	Bell Bottomed Tear	No but I had the album 0898
8	TLC	Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg	Negative
9	Diana Ross	One Shining Moment	It’s another no
10	Def Leppard	Make Love Like A Man	God no!
11	Erasure	Abba-esque EP	No but my wife did…maybe

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/m0014rlm/top-of-the-pops-18061992

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 07 MAY 1999

Disclaimer

TOTP 23 APR 1999

Disclaimer

TOTP 16 APR 1999

Disclaimer

TOTP 02 APR 1999

Disclaimer

TOTP 28 SEP 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 10 AUG 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 03 AUG 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 18 JUN 1992

Disclaimer