TOTP 09 AUG 1990
It’s the height of Summer in 1990 here at TOTP Rewind so that can only mean one thing – nasty, tacky novelty records! Previous years had seen the charts flooded with some of the most brainless musical ditties ever committed to vinyl from the likes of Black Lace (“Agadoo”), The Tweets (“The Birdie Song”) and Spitting Image (“The Chicken Song”). Surely this sort of thing wouldn’t continue into the new decade? Oh yes it would (sorry went a bit pantomime there although that might actually be appropriate). I’ve been dreading this moment ever since I started posting about 1990. I knew it was there, waiting in the wings ready to ambush the nation – a heinous, wicked entity. Shield your eyes as we have arrived at the time of Bombalurina and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini“!
In 1990, was there a more annoying choice to front a horrible novelty record than the guy who actually did? Timmy Mallett was known to most of us as that berk with the giant, pink foam mallet from children’s morning TV programme Wacaday and he was the most irritating twat that TV had seen for years. Everything about him was vexatious from his ‘bleugh!’ catchphrase to his boundless energy for leaping about on screen. And now here he was with stinking out the pop charts! Whose f*****g idea was this? Well, it was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s actually. Here’s @TOTPFacts:
Unbelievably, the Bombalurina project (named after a character from his musical Cats) wasn’t even the biggest crime on Lloyd Webber’s charge sheet. Twenty five years later he would outdo himself by flying into the country from abroad on his personal plane to vote in the House of Lords over proposed cuts to tax credits – he voted with the Government in favour of the plan. Wanker.
Back to Mallett though who was clearly having the time of his life playing at this pop star lark. In a Rick from The Young Ones moment he declared to Smash Hits magazine that:
“I’m going to be the most utterly, utterly famous pop star ever”
And yet, unimaginable as it may seem, Mallett did have a more credible music background than the utter embarrassment that Bombalurina was. I clearly recall him as a presenter on the Oxford Road Show pop music magazine show back in the mid 80s. Here he is trying to interview the ever evasive Terry Hall…
OK, he was fairly useless and unconvincing but still. Fast forward five years and all credibility has been flushed down the khazi – the performance here is like the pantomime from Hell. Excruciating doesn’t come anywhere near describing the horror on view. It sounded horrendous back in 1990 and yet, in an occurrence that seems to be against all auditory science, it sounds even worse today. I wonder if any of the ‘proper’ pop stars that he interviewed on Oxford Road Show caught this performance and thought to themselves “Yeah, not surprised. I always knew he was an arsehole”.
Mallett will be at No 1 soon enough. FFS!
Some proper music next…or is it? “Tom’s Diner” by DNA and Suzanne Vega sounded otherworldly to me back then and still unsettles me now. The lolloping Soul II Soul backbeat that Bath duo DNA added to the original a cappella song that Vega recorded for her 1997 album “Solitude Standing” sparked a mass of covers and re-interpretations of the song. So many were there that Vega’s record label compiled some on an album simply called “Tom’s Album” including a live version from Michael Stipe with Billy Bragg beatboxing and incorprating Madness’s “Baggy Trousers” and EMF’s “Unbelievable” into the mix…
More recently, Giorgio Moroder recorded a version of it for his 2015 album “Déjà Vu” featuring Britney Spears on vocal duties…
Back in 1990 though and DNA’s treatment of the track struck a massive chord with music fans who sent it to No 2 in the UK and No 5 in the US. The single’s B-side was Vega’s a cappella original – I wonder how many people who bought it actually listened to that version though? Someone who really did listen to it was one Karlheinz Brandenburg, a German electrical engineer, who developed the widespread MP3 method for audio data compression. Brandenburg used “Tom’s Diner” (the a cappella version) as a template for refining the sound quality of MP3 audio, a tale which has earned Vega the informal title “The Mother of the MP3”.
Not “Naked In The Rain” again? Is this the third time Blue Pearl have been on the show? I’ve covered all the Pink Floyd connections, the fact that legendary producer Youth was behind the project and the implausibility of singer Durga McBroom’s name – what else is there left to say? Well, apparently Durga’s favourite ever album is “Court And Spark” by Joni Mitchell. There – that’s it. That’s the comment. I’ve got nothing else.
Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 were still in the Top 40 with “Mona” when their next single “Amanda” followed it into the charts. They were on a roll! I always thought this was a passable attempt at a soft rock ballad although you could argue that the world already had quite enough of that sort of thing courtesy of American rockers Boston. So who was the titular Amanda? Why, it was a girl called Rachel of course! Eh? Well, Rachel was actress Rachel Friend who McLachlan had met on the set of Aussie soap Neighbours when she played a character called Bronwyn Davies. Rachel? Bronwyn? Where the Hell does Amanda fit into all this?! Easy really – Amanda is Rachel Friend’s middle name and her and Craig were married in 1993. They were divorced in 1994. Ah. The break up shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise to the two of them though – they wrote a song together for the debut Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 album called “Can’t Take It Any Longer”. Ahem.
By the way, Check 1-2 is a terrible name for a band isn’t it? Well, originally they were called The Y Frontz so I guess it was an upgrade on that. In 1996, in another act of predicting the future via song title, Craig released an album called “Craig McLachlan & The Culprits”. This was unfortunate as in 2018, he faced sexual harassment allegations from several actresses during his performing career. Craig was however acquitted of all charges in 2020.
Three Breakers next and for once, they are all from some very established artists. Roxette were riding the crest of their commercial wave having just scored a huge global hit with “It Must Have Been Love”. As that single had come from the soundtrack to Pretty Woman and the band were in between albums, EMI needed to revisit their back catalogue to unearth a follow up. “Listen To Your Heart” had been originally released back in October of 1989 from the”Look Sharp” album and although it had been a No 1 song in the US, it had failed to dent the Top 40 over here. Indeed, both it and “Dressed For Success” had failed to capitalise on the success of their UK breakthrough hit “The Look”. With Pretty Woman pulling in the crowds at the box office though and “It Must Have Been Love” receiving massive airplay, “Listen To Your Heart” couldn’t fail this time.
Much more of a traditional soft rock ballad than their previous more poppy output, the change of direction was entirely deliberate. In the liner notes of their 1995 greatest hits compilation “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!”, Per Gessle described the song as:
“This is us trying to recreate that overblown American FM-rock sound to the point where it almost becomes absurd. We really wanted to see how far we could take it.”
They absolutely nailed that sound (absurd or not) – you could easily imagine that when listening to “Listen To Your Heart” you were actually listening to…erm…Heart. Following Elton John’s “Sacrifice / Healing Hands” lead, the single was actually a double A-side with the other track being something called ‘”Dangerous”. I have no idea how that one went though as daytime radio hammered the crap out of “Listen To Your Heart” and totally ignored ‘”Dangerous”.
The re-release of “Listen To Your Heart” peaked at No 6 in the UK.
Now then, I said these Breakers were all from established artists and they are but this second one is actually the debut single from the act in question. How so? Well, it’s a Jon Bon Jovi solo single of course. “Blaze Of Glory” was the title of both the lead single and parent album that included songs from and inspired by the movie Young Guns II. With Bon Jovi (the band) on hiatus after touring the world twice to promote the “Slippery When Wet” and “New Jersey” albums and with no firm plans for further recordings at that time, Jon was open to other projects. Star of Young Guns II Emilio Estevez had approached him about using Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” song for the film’s soundtrack. You can see why – its cowboys theme title a seemingly perfect fit for the second instalment of the Young Guns story that was breathing new life into the Western film genre. However, Jon didn’t think the track’s lyrics were fit for that type of usage – the cowboy stuff was all a metaphor to describe the life on the road of a touring rock band (‘steel horse’ = tour bus, geddit?). Instead he wrote Estevez and the film’s screenwriter John Fusco a brand new song. I say ‘brand new’ but I actually mean ripped off / just re-wrote “Wanted Dead Or Alive”. It’s basically the same song for heaven’s sake! And that was fine by me. Bon Jovi had been a guilty pleasure of mine for a few years by this point and “Blaze Of Glory” fitted in perfectly with their previous catalogue.
The video is absolutely epic with Bon Jovi strutting around atop thousand-foot cliffs outside Moab, Utah. I always liked the way he threw his guitar around when he was really going for it in the chorus. See Jason Donovan, if you’re going to wander about of cliff tops with a guitar, this is how you do it and not as you did with your shallow attempt in the “Too Many Broken Hearts” promo.
As for the film itself, Young Guns II never really lived up to the appeal of its predecessor for me. The new characters just weren’t that likeable whilst Alan Ruck’s Hendry William French seemed completely pointless. Without that same sense of camaraderie that was a feature of Young Guns, it just didn’t work for me. Whilst watching the first film as a student in Sunderland, somebody in the audience actually stood up and shouted “Charlie!” when Charlie Sheen’s character got shot.
“Blaze Of Glory” peaked at No 13 in the UK and was a No 1 in the US.
Definitely an established artist was Sting although he hadn’t had a Top 40 single since “Russians” in late 1985. His second solo album, 1987’s “…Nothing Like the Sun”, had though been a platinum selling No 1 record but none of the singles from it had been hits. One of those was “Englishman in New York” which had stalled at No 51 on its original release. Fast forward to 1990 and for some reason, Sting’s record label A&M allowed Dutch DJ and producer Ben Liebrand to remix the track and it finally became a chart hit peaking at No 15. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this decision was other than to raise Sting’s profile ahead of the release of his third solo album, “The Soul Cages”, which hit the shops six months on from this.
I’m not entirely convinced that the 1990 remix is that different from the 1987 original to be honest but its an intriguing tune all the same. Famously written about eccentric and gay icon Quentin Crisp who features in the video, it’s possibly one of Sting’s most well known solo efforts I would suggest and even inspired this 1993 version by reggae singer Shinehead.
Enough with all these old fogeys though, what the kids wanted back in the Summer of 1990 was….a load of bleeps set to a heavy bass sound? WTF? Yes, for all 1990 is remembered for ‘Madchester’ and the baggy movement, there was also a significant invasion of the Top 40 by a genre called ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ – or was it ‘Electro Bleep’? Look, I don’t know; it wasn’t my bag at all but I do know that there was a dance compilation series called ‘Breaks, Bass & Bleeps’ that showcased this sort of thing. And just as ‘Madchester’ had its holy trinity of The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets so ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ had its trio of chart stars in LFO, Together (more of whom later) and this lot, Tricky Disco. Behind the name were husband and wife duo Michael Wells and Lee Newman who used a plethora of aliases to release their music the idea behind which was that the press would not write about so much material all coming from the same act but they would review releases by supposedly distinct artists with completely different names. Some of their other identities included GTO, John + Julie, Church of Extacy, Signs of Chaos, Salami Brothers, Killout Squad and Technohead the last of whom gave them their biggest ever hit with 1996’s “I Wanna Be a Hippy”.
To me though, the bleeps in “Tricky Disco” sounded like my Binatone video game from when I was about 11 and I couldn’t be doing with it. What? Binatone? It was a huge clunky piece of hardware that, when plugged into your TV, allowed you a choice of 10 game including football, hockey, tennis and something infuriating called gridball.
However, they were all based around very limited graphic capability so pretty much all you got on screen was a paddle and a dot for a ball…and I loved it…for a while but eventually all the fuss around setting it up on the TV (there were no separate monitors back in the 70s) kind of squeezed all the excitement out of it.
Anyway, the sound of the paddles continually hitting the dot ball back and forth was just like the bleep noises on “Tricky Disco” and the like and that wasn’t music to me. Sorry.
This was though! By my reckoning, this is the third time that “I’m Free” by The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid has been on the show but the first time we have seen the video. The promo is basically a straight band performance but set against spiralling, fluorescent psychedelic colours and was directed by someone called Matthew Amos who went onto work with artists as diverse as Blur, Elton John and erm…Slipknot.
It reminds me of the old 60s sci-fi series Time Tunnel or when late night Channel 4 magazine show The Word had live bands on. Look, like Stereo MC’s here…
So after Blue Pearl and The Soup Dragons earlier in the show, here’s yet another track which has been on TOTP multiple times now. I think this might be the fourth occasion for MC Hammer and “U Can’t Touch This” but to enable these repeat performances to be squeezed onto the show, their air time has been vastly reduced. The Soup Dragons got about 1minute 20 seconds on screen whilst MC Hammer came in at 1:10!
Such is the legacy of “U Can’t Touch This” that it has been parodied time and time again. The obvious suspects like lampooner-in-chief Weird Al Yankovic have gone there but it has also been sent up by NFL American football team the Miami Dolphins, in an episode of Family Guy and to promote social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Oh and this one as well…
We’ll be seeing more of MC Hammer before 1990 is done with I’m sure.
Finally a song we haven’t seen/heard before! Well, sort of. “I Can See Clearly Now” was well known to music fans from the Johnny Nash original which hit No 5 in 1972 but it was reactivated here by Irish rockers Hothouse Flowers. The second (and most successful) single to be taken from their album “Home”, was its release just and open and shut case of needing a cover version to secure them a hit? Possibly. Lead single from the album “Give It Up” had peaked at a lowly No 30 so it could have just been a cynical record company move. I have to say that they did a nice job of it, injecting some gospel vibes and before letting it rock out in the song’s finale. However, if they were hoping to break the Top 10 with it, they were to be disappointed as it struggled to No 23. A third and final single taken from the album called “Movies'” didn’t even make the Top 40 and we would not see the band for another three years when they returned with the “Songs From The Rain” album.
In November 2016, their version of the song was featured in the premiere episode of the Amazon Prime Video motoring show The Grand Tour which was the new (ahem) vehicle for massive bell end Jeremy Clarkson after he had been sacked by the BBC from his previous show Top Gear. The exposure for the song sent it to No 1 on the iTunes’s Top 40 UK Rock Song chart in late 2016.
It’s the third of four weeks at the top for Partners In Kryme with “Turtle Power“. So popular were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that they actually went on tour! A proper concert tour playing live gigs! The Coming Out of Their Shells tour premiered at Radio City Music Hall in August of 1990 and featured live-action turtles playing music as a band. In case you were wondering, this was the line up:
- Michelangelo – guitar
- Leonardo – bass guitar
- Donatello – keyboards
- Raphael – drums and saxophone
Like I said, a proper band! Never mind the story of The Monkees starting out as a fictional band and becoming real pop stars, this was next level stuff! To be fair, The Banana Splits had kind of beaten them to it with the performing as a band schtick by a good 20 years but I’m not sure if they ever went on tour! What I am sure about is that their tune was infinitely more funky than the one those turtles were playing…
That’s all my turtle trivia for another week. Spare a thought for me though as I’ve got another week of this nonsense to have to comment on!
So back to that bleeping ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ stuff for the play out video which is the aforementioned Together with “Hardcore Uproar”. I have no recollection of this at all, so much so that I assumed that the name of the act was Hardcore Uproar and the song was called “Together” when I came to review it. I think I was getting confused with Stockport based indie imps Northern Uproar on reflection. Together on the other hand were a pair of Hacienda regulars whose white label recording of “Hardcore Uproar” was so popular that hit qualified for an official release and climbed to No 12 in the charts. Supposedly the tracks title was the inspiration for a series of compilations featuring house, techno and rave tunes released on the Dino Entertainment label. I do remember that compilation series from my time in Our Price if not the band Together.
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
| 1 | Bombalurina | Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini | How does f**k off sound as an answer? |
| 2 | Suzanne Vega featuring DNA | Tom’s Diner | No but my wife had the original version of the song on Suzanne’s Solitude Standing album |
| 3 | Blue Pearl | Naked In The Rain | It’s a no |
| 4 | Craig McLachlan and Check 1-2 | Amanda | Nope |
| 5 | Roxette | Listen To Your Heart | I did and it said don’t buy this record |
| 6 | Jon Bon Jovi | Blaze Of Glory | No but it’s probably on my Bon Jovi collection CD |
| 7 | Sting | Englishman In New York | No |
| 8 | Tricky Disco | Tricky Disco | Tricky Disc-NO |
| 9 | The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid | I’m Free | Thought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe |
| 10 | MC Hammer | U Can’t Touch This | And I didn’t – no |
| 11 | Hothouse Flowers | I Can See Clearly Now | But I couldn’t see my way clear to buying this – no |
| 12 | Partners In Kryme | Turtle Power | This as a crime…against music. No |
| 13 | Together | Hardcore Uproar | Harcore! You know the score! Erm…no |
Disclaimer
OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rxpk/top-of-the-pops-09081990
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Some bedtime reading?
https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 