Whitney Houston | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 19 NOV 1992

Posted on May 8, 2022 by 80stastic

As Springtime approaches its end for another year, back in 1992 and the world of TOTP repeats, Xmas is coming into view. Bonfire night has been and gone and for all of us working in retail back then, the days were getting busier. I was working as Assistant Manager in the Our Price store in Rochdale having been promoted for the first time in my working life a couple of months previously. Despite the lengthy commute from our rented flat in Manchester, I was enjoying the job immensely. After previous manager Adrian had departed for pastures new (the Manchester Virgin megastore as I recall), a new boss arrived in the form of Ian from the Burnley store. Ian had worked at Rochdale before so knew the score which was helpful for the wet behind the ears me. Ian turned out to be a top bloke and one of the best people to work alongside. Around this time we recruited two Xmas temps called Chris and Lee who fitted in perfectly with the rest of the team. We were known as the ‘good time’ store by the Area Manager as every time he rang us, he could hear laughter in the background. It couldn’t have gone much better for a first time managerial role for me. Sadly, it also lulled me into a false sense of security that all shops were like this. There were darker times ahead in other stores.

That’s enough about my personal circumstances for now though. You’re not here for that. On with the show! One of the breakout stars of 1991 had been Cathy Dennis who had stepped out of D-Mob’s shadows into a solo spotlight to notch up four Top 20 singles and a Top 3 album in the UK and a pair of Top 10 hits in the US. Once you’ve ridden so high of course, the challenge is to stay there. Her initial success had been based on out and out dance tunes like “Touch Me (All Night Long)” and “Just Another Dream” but in the fast moving world of early 90s dance music, was it wise to just repeat that formula or should she go in another direction? After all, she had dabbled with balladry on hit single “Too Many Walls”. If it’s not broken, why fix it though? In the end she kind of fudged it with the single “Irresistible”. Both uptempo but with a definite pop touch it kind of fell between two stools. Taken from sophomore album “Into The Skyline”, it ended up sounding like Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby”. Pleasant enough but so, so lightweight as to be almost ephemeral, disappearing from your memory banks as soon as the last beat had sounded.

Chart wise it did OK returning Cathy to the Top 40 over here though it stalled at No 61 in the US. However its No 24 peak made it the biggest hit of four singles taken from the album. Despite the absence of any monster hits to promote it, “Into The Skyline” managed to go Top 10 which surprised me as I thought it had disappeared without trace. Talking of disappearing, what was the score with Cathy’s jumper in this performance? Its threadbare, tatty appearance suggests she may have had a case of moths in her wardrobe.

Now when I saw this next track on the show’s running list, I assumed they were carrying on with the nostalgia section which had been used in recent weeks to promote the 1,500th show even though that particular milestone had been passed last week. However I was wrong in my assumption as the retro clip of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher was actually in the album chart slot to promote Cher’s “Greatest Hits: 1965-1992” which was at No 1. Though there had been Cher Best Of albums in the past, there hadn’t been one since 1974 and so this one that had grouped together all her soft rock hits of the late 80s to ‘92 was justified I guess though maybe not ancient. Only four tracks predated the 80s although she had done brand new recordings of some covers from before then. The majority of the album though was made up of hits from her later successful albums like “Heart Of Stone” and “Love Hurts”.

And yet…TOTP chose her most well known song with one time partner Sonny Bono to broadcast. Maybe the producers felt that there hadn’t been enough distance of time since her most recent hits or perhaps they’d had good feedback on the nostalgia section? Either way, “I Got You Babe” was not given an official re-release at this time so the choice presumably was the producers?

I never liked this song much probably because of UB40 and Chrissie Hynde’s lame cover in 1985 or possibly because of its explainable but irritating overuse in Groundhog Day.

Another oldie next as we welcome back Heaven 17 to the show for the first time in eight years. Yes, incredibly we hadn’t seen these Sheffield electro pioneers on TOTP since they performed “This Is Mine” in 1984. To be fair, that was the last time they’d had a Top 40 hit in this country so I guess it’s not that surprising.

After the “How Men Are” album from which that single came had run its course, the group had gone into a commercial collapse. Mid and late 80s albums “Pleasure One” and the spookily entitled “Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho” had missed the charts completely but suddenly they were back! Why? Well, I’d like to be able to say it was due to the public rediscovering them due to some brilliant new material they’d released but sadly it was, like Cher, due to a Greatest Hits album. “Higher And Higher: The Best Of Heaven 17” didn’t do nearly as well as Cher’s peaking at a lowly No 31 despite it being a reasonable retrospective covering all their singles plus a few album tracks and the inclusion of a Brothers In Rhythm remix of their biggest hit “Temptation”. Well, it was 1992 after all.

That remix nearly matched the success of the original peaking just two places shy of the 1983 version’s No 2 position. I know it’s a great track and I love “The Luxury Gap” album but I still found it surprising and confusing that it could be a hit all over again nine years on. 1983 felt like forever ago. I’d been a 15 year old who’d never had a girlfriend back then. I was now 24 and had been married for two years. I guess it must have been the Brothers In Rhythm association that sold it to the masses. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see it back in the charts it’s just that those 1983 memories of it were so strong and definitive that this new version almost felt wrong somehow.

Another dance remix of “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” returned Heaven 17 to the Top 40 (just!) the following year but that would prove to be their final chart entry though they are now ironically a big live draw – they never toured at all during their glory years.

Something that you very rarely used to see on TOTP but which seemed to creep in more and more during this era of the show was a single that wasn’t a hit. We have another example here as Madness release a live version of the old Jimmy Cliff song “The Harder They Come”. Taken from their live album “Madstock!” which captured their legendary live shows at Finsbury Park in August of this year, it failed to make the Top 40 peaking at No 44. After managing to squeeze three more hits out of their back catalogue already in 1992 with rereleased singles to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album, maybe they thought another hit just before Xmas was a shoo-in?

Quite why this performance comes from Red Square, Moscow seems to be lost in the mists of time. It doesn’t add much to proceedings apart from some obligatory Russian Ushanka hats being worn by the band and some half hearted attempts at traditional Russian dancing which almost allows Suggs and Chas Smash to fulfil the prophecy of the song title. I guess Saint Basil’s Cathedral in the background must make for one of the most impressive TOTP backdrops ever though.

Wait, what? I’m sure I’ve already announced at least twice before in this blog that this must be the final TOTP appearance for The Pasadenas but here they are yet again! This time though is the last time and I think that they knew the game was up. Why? Well, they’d resorted to a cover version to reverse the downturn in their commercial fortunes, that well known and used trick for dredging up a hit when your career depends on it. What makes it even more desperate is that they’d already released a whole album of cover versions earlier in the year called “Yours Sincerely”. They pulled it off once- “I’m Doing Fine Now” was a Top 5 hit for them – but subsequent single releases from it had bought diminishing returns. So when the cover version technique ran out of steam, surely you don’t try and rectify it by doing another cover version do you? You do if you’re The Pasadenas as their version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” did make the charts (unlike Madness and “The Harder They Come”) but it was only delaying the inevitable. A No 22 hit wasn’t enough to stop them being dropped by Columbia/Sony Music and they ignored the advice of their last ever hit single and disbanded a couple of years later.

In a frankly bizarre coincidence, their last time on the show was to perform a song that had a link to a band making their first appearance in eight years. Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory both performed on Tina Turner’s career resurrecting version of “Let’s Stay Together” in 1983. Indeed Ware also helped produce it.

Some Breakers next starting with INXS and “Taste It” who were on the show two weeks ago in their first ever in person appearance. This time it’s just the promo video though.

I haven’t got that much else to say about this one other than I really like the fact that the band used the same font for the parent album “Welcome To Wherever You Are” and all the singles from it. A simple yet effective band of white across the cover with the title of the album/single in black and the band’s name in red. It reminds me of those label printers you got in the 70s where you pushed the sticky backed tape through the device, selected the letter you wanted (normally via a wheel) and then literally punched the impression onto the tape.

The Prodigy are next with “Out Of Space” and I was surprised to discover that this short clip in the Breakers was its only time in the show given the success the last fifteen months had brought them. In that time they’d had No 2 and No 3 hits plus a further Top 20 entry and their debut album “Experience” had been released to great acclaim. “Out Of Space” would add another Top 5 single to that haul.

Featuring samples from Max Romeo and Ultramagnetic MCs, the track cemented the band’s status as premier league electronic rave pioneers. That was maybe something that had appeared unlikely when they first appeared with the public information film sampling single “Charly” which saw them cast initially as novelty record merchants. They were still four years away though from being the heavy techno behemoths of “Firestarter” and “Breathe”. Did anyone see that coming? Or the ostriches?

The other week I noted how Metallica were still releasing singles from an album that had been out for well over a year. This week we have another example of a hard rock band doing exactly the same thing – step forward Guns N’ Roses. Their two “Use Your Illusion” albums had been released on the same day back in September 1991 yet five single releases across both albums later, here they were with another one. “Yesterdays” was taken from the second “Illusion” album and I always felt like it stood alone from the rest of the singles from the project in that it eased back from all the heavy rock bluster, especially in that almost sprightly opening guitar riff. You could make a case that it harks back to the opening of “Paradise City” even I guess. Of course it reverts to type eventually in the middle eight when Slash goes back to his usual ways but even so.

Every single from the “Illusions” albums made the UK Top 10 bar the final one “Civil War” and that only missed it by one place. Pretty impressive stuff. There would be a monumental gap of 17 years between the “Illusion” double pack and the next album of new material when “Chinese Democracy” came out in 2008. That album gained almost mythical status during the wait for it. It was forever listed in the new release info we used to get weekly in Our Price as date ‘To Be Confirmed’. Those 17 years were punctuated just once by 1993’s covers album “The Spaghetti Incident?” but it didn’t really satisfy the fan base selling only a third of both “Illusion” albums.

The final Breaker is by Simply Red with their “The Montreux EP”. The track played is called “Drowning In My Own Tears”. Ah, make your own jokes up!

A genuine titan of a tune next. No seriously, it was enormous, a monster, a leviathan. It came, it saw, it conquered and then it shat over everything else in the charts combined. A gargantuan hit. OK, I’ve run out of words now. I can only be talking about “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. I already knew this song as my wife had a Dolly Parton Best Of CD with it on before Whitney got her mits on it and I much prefer her version but you can’t deny the reach of Whitney’s take on it which is now the definitive recording for many. This is going to be No 1 for ages so I’m not going to say loads about it straight away. For now though, here’s some facts and stats about it:

It topped the US charts for 14 weeks and the UK for 10
It was the biggest selling single of 1992 and the 10th best selling single of the 90s in the UK
By 2013, it had sold 20 million copies making it the best selling single by a female artist ever
It won the 1994 Grammies for Record Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
For a time it was the second biggest selling single of all time after “We Are The World” by USA For Africa but was bumped into third place in 1997 by Elton John’s new version of “Candle In The Wind”
It is taken from The Bodyguard soundtrack which is the biggest selling soundtrack of all time

Phew!

From Houston to Houston we have a problem as Genesis are inflicting a live single on us. Yes, after Madness earlier and their live single came “Invisible Touch (Live)” which was taken from the accompanying live album “The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts” which documented the band’s 1992 We Can’t Dance tour. The track listing was basically the singles released from their last three studio albums so all the radio friendly pop hits hence ‘shorts’. There was also a ‘longs’ live album featuring songs from their prog rock days but the less said about that the better. Live versions of the poppier end of their catalogue was concern enough.

I guess it made sense to choose a track that had been a US No 1 as the single to promote the album if a little obvious. “Invisible Touch” must surely have been and remain one of their most played songs on radio. One question though, is this the version heard on the single or just Phil Collins doing a live vocal as per TOTP policy? I’m guessing the latter as wouldn’t we be able to detect noise from the concert crowd otherwise? It follows then that when Phil does his audience response bit with the studio audience that is actually the latter repeating “yeah-uh” back to him and not them miming along to the original gig goers as that would just be too weird. Yeah, you’re right – I’m overthinking it. Who cares?

Boyz II Men have come to the end of the road at No 1 (come on, it’s an open goal!) and been replaced by Charles And Eddie with “Would I Lie To You”. At the time I couldn’t believe that this had happened as I hated this pair and what I perceived as their insipid, stupid tune. Thirty years on and I can’t quite understand what I was so enraged about. I still don’t like the song but I don’t have any hatred for it either. If anything it’s bland and inoffensive but then I guess that might be the biggest crime of all for some.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cathy Dennis	Irresistible	Nah
2	Sonny & Cher	I Got You Babe	Wasn’t released as a single
3	Heaven 17	Temptation	Not the 1992 remix but my wife has The Luxury Gap on vinyl
4	Madness	The Harder They Come	Nope
5	The Pasadenas	Let’s Stay Together	Definitely not
6	INXS	Taste It	Not the single but I bought the album
7	The Prodigy	Out Of Space	No
8	Guns N’ Roses	Yesterdays	No but I have it on there Best Of album
9	Simply Red	The Montreux EP	Never!
10	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	No but my wife had the Dolly Parton original
11	Genesis	Invisible Touch (Live)	As if
12	Charles And Eddie	Would I Lie To You?	Never happening

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/m00170d6/top-of-the-pops-19111992

TOTP 04 JUL 1991

Posted on August 24, 2021 by 80stastic

Well, that’s the first 6 months of 1991’s TOTP repeats viewed, reviewed and posted. Somehow it doesn’t seem to have been quite so much of a slog as 1990 but I’ve a feeling it’s going to get a whole lot denser to wade through from hereon in. As we enter July, Steffi Graff is about to claim her third Wimbledon singles title whilst Michael Stich (remember him?) will win his one and only by defeating Boris Becker. I recall it being very hot around this time and on the day of the men’s final, myself and my wife decided to go for a Sunday afternoon stroll around nearby Whitworth Park in Manchester. The temperature wasn’t the only thing that was hotting up that day as we stumbled across a young couple getting very enamoured with each other as they canoodled under the sun’s rays whilst stretched out in the park! Bloody hell! Get a room!

I wonder if there were any hot tunes in the charts back then? Let’s see…

The show kicks off with the week’s highest climber Incognito with “Always There”. After last week’s nonsense show opener Cubic 22, this made much more sense as being first on the running order. For a start, there’s a proper singer up there belting the tune out and when I say proper I mean proper as it’s soul legend Jocelyn Brown. Added to that, the track is a genuine breezy Summer anthem with some definite feel good vibes unlike that techno crap the week before.

Despite only having 5 Top 40 singles in the course of their career, Incognito have worked with some of the biggest names in the business (according to their very swish website) and are still a going concern with a cast of previous band members that would rival The Fall and The Waterboys.

One of those names listed is Duncan McKay which if you are a football / comic fan of a certain age like me can only bring one image to mind, that of the legendary Melchester Rovers left back, he of the ferocious tackle. Duncan appeared in the Roy Of The Rovers story for 15 years and not once did he change his image of full beard, and shaggy, shoulder length hair kept in place by a headband. Eat your heart out Mark Knopfler.

“Always There” peaked at No 6.

A “spooky little record’ as host Gary Davies describes it is up next as we get the father and daughter collaboration of Nat King Cole duetting from beyond the grave with his daughter Natalie Cole on one of his best known tunes in “Unforgettable”. This virtual duet was certainly a novel idea back then but there seems to be a distinct movement for this type of thing now. Maybe it was the inevitable advancement of technology coupled with the accelerated death rate of some of the music world’s biggest stars (remember 2016?) that brought this about but there is now a definite world of departed pop stars still giving concerts after they have shuffled off this mortal coil. Whitney Houston has definitely been brought back to life in hologram form whilst my own mother has been to see her beloved Elvis ‘live’ as it were with only The King’s original touring band actually being up there on stage. I think ABBA are due some sort of virtual reunion as well? OK, the Cole family reunion wasn’t quite up to those standards but it was pretty revolutionary in 1991.

Was it any good though? Well, despite his undoubtedly smooth crooner voice and the fact that he probably helped deny Rick Astley the Xmas No 1 spot in 1987 thanks to the re-release of his version of “When I Fall In Love” pinching sales for Astley’s version, Nat King Cole wasn’t somebody who I was ever going to explore beyond his most famous songs. The fact that his daughter had re-recorded them with his vocals as a duet therefore wasn’t going to bring about any lightbulb moments for me. Yes, them as there is a whole album of Natalie and her Dad together. Entitled “Unforgettable… With Love”, it sold steadily in the UK going gold but it went through the roof in the US racking up sales that achieved 7 x platinum status!

The ultimate sadness about the project is that Natalie herself would die before her time, passing away in 2015 aged 65. Her Dad died even younger in 1965 aged just 45. “Unforgettable” the duet peaked at No 19 on the UK Top 40.

A bizarre one hit wonder next from Cola Boy and their single “7 Ways To Love”. Bizarre how? Well, it was a dance tune that had a vocalist fronting it but the only words she sings are ‘7 Ways To Love’. If you were gong to do that why not just find a sample and not bother with a singer? Oh yes, the singer is television presenter and radio DJ Janey Lee Grace best known as being part of the posse on Steve Wright in the Afternoon. What I hadn’t realised is that she had also been as a backing singer with the likes of Kim Wilde and Boy George and also toured with Wham! including their ground breaking dates in China. In a bizarre coincidence given that last fact, the bloke in Cola Boy was called Andrew Midgeley. Weird.

Another part of the Cola Boy story that I had no idea about until now is that the people behind it were actually Saint Etienne who recorded it as a white label for dance specialist shops. In a Mojo magazine interview, the band’s Bob Stanley recalled: “It was a period when you could drive around to record shops in London, give them 20 and see what might happen. It worked. We went to a party and heard Andy Weatherall playing it”. They were singed to Arista Records off the back of the track’s success in the clubs but due to contractual issues couldn’t promote it themselves hence Janey Lee Grace and Andrew Midgeley being roped in.

The single rose to No 8 which is a higher peak than any Saint Etienne single managed* which must have been annoying for the band but maybe not as annoying as not being allowed into the TOTP studio to watch their charges on this show as, according to Stanley in that Mojo interview “They wouldn’t let us in. We got to the gates- your name’s not on the list”.

*This reminds nine of Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran producing Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” and it going to No 1 before the Duran boys themselves had achieved that feat. They rectified it weeks later when “Is There Something I Should Know” went straight into the charts at No 1.

Following on from the rather odd father and daughter virtual collaboration that was Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, here’s another bizarre partnership as Anthrax and Public Enemy join forces for “Bring The Noise” (and not “Bring On The Noise” as Gary Davies mistakenly says twice). This, of course, was a Public Enemy track that had already been released as a single peaking at No 32 back in 1988. When thrash metallers Anthrax recorded a version and asked Chuck D to see if he would add his vocals on it, their request was refused by Def Jam label co-founder Rick Rubin so the band added Public Enemy’s vocals from the original master anyway. Once the track was finished, Rubin must have seen sense and the release was promoted by both bands leading to a joint tour.

I’ve told my Flavor Flav story before haven’t I? Oh well, it’s due another outing. A year on from this release, U2 were playing a gig at the G-Mex centre in Manchester entitled “Stop Sellafield” as part of the Greenpeace movement to protest the nuclear factory. On the bill with them were Kraftwerk and Public Enemy. On the afternoon of the gig, Flavor Flav wondered into the Our Price store on Market Street where I was working with an entourage of people with him and caused chaos as he meandered up and down the shop floor. He clearly had no idea where he was or what he was supposed to be doing. My colleague Justin who was a huge Kraftwerk fan and was going to the gig just to see them tried to establish contact with him in an ‘earth to Flav’ type of way but I don’t think he got very far. I think he might have been after an autograph as he was prone to that sort of thing. He once got Dion Dublin’s autograph when he came in the shop shortly after he had signed for Man Utd on the back of a picture of Bryan Robson.

“Bring The Noise” (the Anthrax/ Public Enemy mash up version) peaked at No 14.

Kim Appleby‘s time as a solo star was coming to an end in mid 1991. Having read some interviews with her, I think the allure of the whole thing was starting to wane anyway. She had worked up the songs for her debut eponymous album in tribute to her sister Mel with whom she had been writing and who had passed away at the beginning of 1990 as she wanted to create some sort of legacy for her. The success of the album and specifically the single “Don’t Worry” had achieved that. It sounds like she kind of lost her drive and purpose after that. “Mama” was the third single taken from that album and was the smallest fo the three hits off it peaking at No 19. It was also her last Top 40 hit. It was pleasant enough if a bit twee. The chorus had an endearing nursery rhyme quality to it but the verses were a bit slow. It was nowhere near as impressive as “Don’t Worry” which was nominated for an Ivor Novello in the best contemporary song category (it lost out to Adamski’s “Killer”). That nomination action though did lead to Kim being involved with the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers And Authors who co-ordinate the Ivor Novello awards and she chaired the judges panel for them for 15 years.

There was a second album in 1993 but it only received a limited release and the singles from it all failed to chart so it became a lost album. Kim has returned to live performing recently for the first time in over 20 years and was also seen co-presenting a three-part series on BBC Four called Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland with Midge Ure.

This next song screams the summer of 1991. The dance /rap version of “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D & the Boyz seemed inexplicably popular to me. I didn’t get it at all. It came across as so lazy, straight out of the ‘OK, let’s get an old tune that people will know, house it up a bit, write a rap for it and the masses will lap it up’ school of thought. Hadn’t we seen this all before from the likes of The Fat Boys when they covered “Wipeout” and “The Twist” in the late 80s?

I already knew the Third World version of “Now That We Found Love” though admittedly not from the original 1978 but its 1985 re-release. To say that I’m really not a big reggae fan, I’d always quite liked it. This take on it by Heavy D & the Boyz (obviously spelt with a ‘z’ as it was the early 90s!) sounded like a travesty to me. There was an album called “Peaceful Journey” that Our Price had made a Recommended Release meaning it was discounted by wasn’t actually in the charts but I don’t think it sold very well at all as people were only interested in the single which would go all the way to No 2.

Some Breakers now and we start with Queensrÿche who I knew back in 1991 were a heavy rock band but that’s about all I knew of them. Fast forward 30 years and that’s still pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I certainly couldn’t name you any of their songs but here they were back in the day with a bona fide chart hit called “Best I Can“. Checking them out on Spotify, that song isn’t even in their most listened to Top 10 tracks . However, the single released after it called “Silent Lucidity” has nearly 47 million plays. So I checked it out and it was pretty good actually and certainly not the hoary old formulaic rock I was expecting. The clip of “Best I Can’ that they play on TOTP though is exactly what I would have expected it to be and nothing that I would want to linger over.

Not that it’s a massively high bar really but “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” is without doubt my favourite C+C Music Factory song. The third single from their “Gonna Make You Sweat” album, it fair fizzes along with an infectious rhythm and a driving rap all of which combine to propel the track into the furthest corners of your brain from which it can never be vacated. See Heavy D (and your Boyz), that’s how you do a rap pop crossover!

The lyrics concern honey traps and infidelity were not anything new per se – we’d already had “The Rain” by Oran ‘Juice’ Jones – but they would prove to be a popular subject with future songs like Shaggy’s 2000 No 1 single “It Wasn’t Me” creating a little sub genre of their own almost. The song’s title apparently came from a catchphrase used by US chat host Arsenio Hall:

The final Breaker is by a man who hadn’t had a hit in his own right since 1986. OK, if we’re being pedantic he did feature on a No 1 single no less (he contributed “She’s Leaving Home” to the Childline charity single in 1988 but everybody played the Wet Wet Wet cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends” instead). And yes, he featured on Beats International’s double A side “Won’t Talk About It” / “Blame It on the Bassline” which made the Top 40 in 1989 but I’m not counting either of those. I am of course talking of Billy Bragg who is back with “Sexuality” the lead single from his sixth studio album “Don’t Try This At Home”.

The track found Billy in a poppier vein than we might have expected but that was probably due to the influence of Johnny Marr who took Billy’s demo of the song and turned it into a brilliant pop song. As well as Marr’s undoubted talents, the song also featured Billy’s long time collaborator Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals. The lyrics are typically idiosyncratic Bragg, for example:

A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches when I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade
He said some things are really best left unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open

He’s not everybody’s cup of tea but I love Billy’s values and approach to life which is reflected in his music.

The video was made by yet another long time mate in Phil Jupitus who’s connection with Billy stretched back to the days of Red Wedge in the mid 80s and am I losing my mind but does The Bard of Barking have a look of Andrew Lincoln about him in it? OK, I am going mad but he looks more like The Walking Dead star than Robert De Niro as the lyrics would have us believe.

“Sexuality” peaked at No 27.

Now surely this next single was a prime contender for having been included in the Breakers section we have just seen but somehow the TOTP producers decided that it deserved a spot on it own in the running order despite only being at No 37 in the charts. “Generations Of Love” was the follow up to “Bow Down Mister” by Boy George’s side project Jesus Loves You. It had flopped on its initial release the previous year but had been given a second chance in the light of the chart performance of “Bow Down Mister”. Whilst you couldn’t call a Top 40 hit a flop, its peak of No 35 (even with is TOTP appearance) was hardly a resounding success either.

I didn’t mind it but it didn’t have the quirky, goofy appeal of its predecessor and would I call it a dance track as Gary Davies did? I don’t think so. I quite like the gallic accordion part in it and George’s vocals were as pure as ever but it didn’t really have any oomph to my ears. It would be the last chart entry for the band who broke up the following year.

Wait! Vanilla Ice had three hits?! Yes, yes he did. Well, actually he had four in total but “Rollin’ In My 5.0” was the third. This was just garbage and six months on from “Ice Ice Baby”, we all knew it as well (apart from those few, poor misguided souls that bought this in enough quantities to make it a No 27 hit of course). The titular 5.0 was Vanilla Ice’s 5.0 Liter Foxbody Mustang car and didn’t he also use that phrase in the lyrics to “Ice Ice Baby”? I think he did.

Supposedly Limp Bizkit’s 2000 chart topper “Rollin'” makes reference to “Rollin’ In My 5.0” but I’ve had a look at the lyrics to it and I can’t see any link unless it the line ‘And the people who don’t give a f**k’ as surely nobody did about Vanilla Ice at this point.

Jason Donovan is still at No 1 with “Any Dream Will Do”. Now I failed to mention this last week when taking about Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine but I was reminded of it by a friend on FaceBook. So after Donovan’s stint in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, he was replaced by Philip Schofield who seemed to be everywhere at that time. One place he had definitely been was the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party where he was the host. CUSM were only on the show as their new label Chrysalis (them again!) had pushed for it but things started to go wrong after the duo’s performance of “After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)” had been cut short when Fruitbat had kicked a microphone stand into the audience. In response to not being able to finish the song, Fruitbat started knocking over equipment on stage which led to Schofield’s sarcastic comment about smashing things up being original behaviour for a rock band. Then….a tremendous rugby tackle on Schofield by Fruitbat. I think at the time I believed it was all a bit of knockabout fun but Fruitbat really takes him out and his partner in the band Jim Bob was really pissed off with him and fearful for the band’s future after the incident. Yeah, but it was Philip Schofield after all Jim Bob so Fruitbat does deserve some credit.

As for Jason Donovan, this would be his second and final week at No 1.

The play out video is “My Name Is Not Susan” by Whitney Houston. This confusingly titled single was actually about Whitney confronting a lover who has mistakenly called her by his ex-girlfriend’s name Susan (according to Wikipedia). Relationship mis-steps seems to be all the rage for song subject matter in 1991 after the honey trap of “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” and now this. Sadly for Whitney, the choice of this track as a single also proved to be a mis-step as it peaked at No 29 but she would be back the following year with her gargantuan selling version of “I Will Always Love You” from The Bodyguard.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Incognito	Always There	Nope
2	Nat King Cole / Natalie Cole	Unforgettable	No
3	Cola Boy	7 Ways To Love	Negative
4	Anthrax / Public Enemy	Bring The Noise	I did not
5	Kim Appleby	Mama	Nah
6	Heavy D & The Boyz	Now That We’ve Found Love	Definitely not
7	Queensrÿche	Best I Can	Another no
8	C+C Music Factory	Things That Make You Go Hmmm…	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Billy Bragg	Sexuality	No but I have it on his retrospective Must I Paint You A Picture
10	Jesus Loves You	Generations Of Love	Not for me
11	Vanilla Ice	Rollin’ In My 5.0	Hell no
12	Jason Donovan	Any Dream Will Do	See 11 above
13	Whitney Houston	My Name Is Not Susan	And a final 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/m000ypcb/top-of-the-pops-04071991

TOTP 10 JAN 1991

Posted on May 29, 2021 by 80stastic

Already 10 days into the new year of 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and yet tonight’s host Jakki Brambles still takes the opportunity to wish us a Happy New Year. Keep up Jakki! This show mainly features songs that were ‘new’ to us back then and we start with one from Bananarama and “Preacher Man”. Not to be confused with Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man”, this was the second single to be released from the nanas fifth album “Pop Life” but actually came out a whole six months after lead single “Only Your Love” due to Sara Dallin contracting meningitis which delayed its release. Despite its difficult birth, it would end up being the most successful of the four singles released from the album when it peaked at No 20.

The single was well received critically as being a strong, hooky pop song but for me it doesn’t stand out as being one of their most memorable tunes. I think it’s the reedy sounding vocals that let it down. The “Karma Chameleon” style harmonica solo in the middle doesn’t help either. As ever with Bananarama TOTP performances, Keren and Sara mark themselves out as the power couple of the trio by wearing the same outfit while Jacquie is still very presented as the new girl and odd one out three years on with her alternative togs. This sartorial separation was also evident even when Siobhan Fahey was still in the group and the signs had been there for some time that she was not on the same page as the other two – it wasn’t the biggest shock ever when she departed.

Bananarama would not return to the Top 20 for another 14 years.

Here’s Whitney Houston next with one of her trademark power ballads. After the uptempo “I’m Your Baby Tonight”, it wasn’t a surprise that she reverted to this genre and indeed, “All The Man That I Need” didn’t seem that different to the likes of “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. Oh, check this out – on the The Bodyguard World Tour of 1993–94, she performed the song as part of a love song medley that included …yep…”Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. Well there you go – identikit Whitney. You have to admit though that she had the pipes to be able to pull it off.

In the US, it gave her a 9th No 1 single from 11 releases but it stalled at No 13 over here. Maybe we didn’t like the video which is as dull as a night down the pub with George Eustace. It’s just Whitney mooching around various rooms in a big house (one of which includes a John Lennon “Imagine” type white piano) before she is joined by a gospel choir for the climax.

The song had already been recorded by Sister Sledge and someone called Linda Clifford before Whitney got her mitts on it and then, in 1994, Luther Vandross preformed a gender swap on it by recording at as “All The Woman That I Need”. There can’t be that many songs where that has occurred can there? Top of my head I can think of “I Saw Him Standing There” which was Tiffany’s version of The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” and sticking with the Fab Four, there’s The Carpenters take on their “Ticket To Ride” when Karen Carpenter changes the lyrics from ‘the girl that’s driving me mad’ to ‘the boy that’s driving me mad’. Oh and Tracey Ullman converting “My Girl” by Madness to “My Guy’s Mad at Me”.

This is more like it! This is what the kids wanted! Some grebo rock! Or were they a hip-hop/dance/rock sample heavy hybrid? Whatever, “X, Y & Zee” became Pop Will Eat Itself’s biggest ever hit up to his point when it peaked at No 15. It was also their fourth Top 40 hit as well after “Can U Dig It?”, “Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina” and the delightfully entitled “Dance Of The Mad Bastards”. Oh and I make it their 10th single Jakki, not their 13th as you suggest in your intro.

Part of the extraordinary story of how the West Midlands market town of Stourbridge became the epicentre for…whatever we’re calling this genre…when it spawned not one, not two but three bands in The Wonderstuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Pop WIll Eat Itself. How did this happen? I’m not sure but there’s surely a film to be made out of this phenomenon (if there hasn’t been one made already). There is definitely a book on the subject in existence – the rather wonderfully titled of The Eight Legged Atomic Dustbin Will Eat Itself.

Back to “X, Y & Zee” and I always quite liked this wistful track with a twist and its brilliantly quirky lyrics like:

Mother Nature and Father Time
Used to be good friends of mine
But now we’ve put them in a home
Filed them under “uses unknown”

Apparently, lead singer Clint Mansell went onto become a Hollywood film score composer creating soundtracks for the likes of Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan. I haven’t been that surprised since a lovely lad I used to work with at Our Price called Scott ended up being a bank manager. Scott was a right laugh and the most unlikely future bank manager I could ever imagine.

We’re back with that “Grease Megamix” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John next. Presumably its sales had been helped by Xmas and New Year’s Eve parties across the nation. The last time this was on TOTP, they only played the “Summer Nights” section of the mix but this time they feature the other two tracks in “You’re The One That I Want” and “Greased Lightnin'”. Now of course, the latter song has some lyrics that probably wouldn’t be suitable before the watershed and indeed the following line has been edited out.

You know that it ain’t shit, we’ll be gettin’ lots of tit, greased lightnin’

However, the censors clearly didn’t know what they were doing as they left in:

You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream, for greased lightnin’

and

You know that I ain’t braggin’, she’s a real pussy wagon

What did they think Travolta was singing about FFS?!

“Grease Megamix” peaked at No 3.

Right, don’t remember this one at all. “I Can’t Take The Power” by Off-Shore anyone? Even the ever reliable @TOTPFacts could only come up with this info about it.

Off Shore was the project of German DJs/producers Jens Lissat and Peter Harder. A couple of other DJs/producers were involved in this single release: Eric Kupper provided some keyboards, and Justin Strauss remixed it. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 21, 2021

Oh and apparently the titular sample is from “Love’s Gonna Get You” by Jocelyn Brown. Was it supposed to be some sort of response record to Snap!’s “The Power”?

Whatever. “I Can’t Take The Power” peaked at No 7.

Yes! TOTP on it tonight with what the kids like! After Pop Will Eat Itself comes Jesus Jones and although not from Stourbridge, they were definitely in the same musical universe. “International Bright Young Thing” ushered in an era of a band at the peak of the powers.

No doubt about it – Jesus Jones were big…for a time

Taken from their forthcoming second album “Doubt”, it would become their biggest ever hit whilst said album would go to No 1. It had, without… erm…doubt…been one of the most enquired about albums over Xmas (along with “Spartacus” by The Farm) in terms of when it was coming out. The world really did seem to be at their feet. Sadly, the band suffered a press backlash (maybe the ‘International Bright Young Thing’ tag was too much for some publications) and they would wind up being seen as very irrelevant very quickly especially after grunge happened.

For the moment though, they are leading the gang of dance/rock groups who are in the charts with their long, flicky hair and wayward keyboard players – look at the state of the Jesus Jones ivories tinkler here; a total dereliction of playing duties and clearly under the influence of something.They’d have been banned from the show back in the early 80s for much less (Pigbag were for a very similar offence).

“International Bright Young Thing” peaked at No 7.

A couple of videos we’ve seen before next starting with MC Hammer and “Pray”. I’m sure this has been on a couple of times already but it’s a climber of two places within the Top 10 to a peak of No 8 so I guess its presence again could be justified by the TOTP producers.

There were numerous remixes of this track including:

Slam The Hammer Mix
Slam The Hammer Piano Dub
Jam The Hammer Mix
Hit ‘Em Hard Mix
Nail ‘Em Down Chant

The titles of the remixes sound like they more belong to an Iron Maiden track than the pious Mr Hammer. Check out this from @TOTPFacts again:

Speaking of praying: MC Hammer was previously in a Christian rap group called The Holy Ghost Boys. He became a preacher in the late '90s, with a Christian ministry programme on Trinity Broadcasting Network. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 21, 2021

The second previously seen video is for “Sadness (Part 1)” by Enigma. This is up to No 2 and will be top of the heap soon enough. Watching the video back, it’s all a bit Wicker Man. For a start, the scribe encounters Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (depicting a scene from Dante’s Inferno) which kind of relates to Police Sergeant Howie’s discovery of all the pagan Celtic imagery on Summerisle. Even more of a parallel though is the fact that the scribe seems to be being tempted by the undressed woman on the other side of the gate who whispers all that ‘Sade, donnes moi’ (‘Sade, give it to me’) Marquis de Sade malarkey to him. Remember that scene in Wicker Man when the Britt Ekland character tries to seduce Edward Woodward through the walls of his room in the pub? Come on! It’s the same thing! Well, almost.

The ever suave Robert Palmer is up next with his Marvin Gaye mash up single “Mercy Mercy Me / “I Want You”. It was a brave move to cover not one but two Marvin Gaye tracks (Palmer himself admitted to being very nervous when he debuted the song on US Television during an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show) but I think he gets away with it.

Palmer was becoming quite the regular hit-maker by this point. This would be his second consecutive Top 10 hit following his UB40 collaboration on “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” at the back end of 1990 and would help propel parent album “Don’t Explain” into the Top 10 as well. It would be the last time he would have either a single or album in such upper echelons of the charts though.

Oh, and is that Boon Gould from Level 42 on bass up there with Robert? Could be.

The aforementioned Iron Maiden are still at No 1 with their sneakily released “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter” single. I’ve commented before on that book that Jakki Brambles mentions at the end of the song written by Bruce Dickinson (Lord Iffy Boatrace) – it’s complete bawdy filth including a character who invents the ultimate sex machine. Didn’t mention that did you Jakki?

A musical heavyweight is the play out video. For all his success with The Police, Sting‘s solo career had not resulted in anywhere near the size of hits that his band had generated. By the 90s, he had yet to achieve a Top 10 hit and in fact, of the 10 solo singles he released in the 80s, only 3 of them made the Top 40. However, he had begun the new decade in better shape when a Ben Liebrand remix of “Englishman in New York” made the Top 20 in 1990 to be followed by this, “All This Time”, the lead single from his new album “The Soul Cages”.

I remember the release of the album being seen as a big deal and the Our Price store I was working in certainly had lots if stock of it. Big sales were expected but although it went to No 1, I don’t recall selling many. It would achieve gold status for 100,000 copies sold but was far less than his previous solo albums “…Nothing Like the Sun” (platinum – 300,000 sales) and “The Dream Of The Blue Turtles” (double platinum – 600,000 sales).

For all that talk of disappointing sales figures, I quite liked “All This Time”. Despite its dark lyrics referencing the recent death of his father, it had an uplifting melody and although he can be a complete knacker at times, I’ve always quite liked Sting’s voice. Interesting that he’s only the play out video though, not deemed worthy enough of kicking off the show or having his own little premiere moment in the middle of it. Sting would regroup and return in 1993 with the much more successful “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album when he would also finally get that Top 10 hit when “All For Love” from The Three Musketeers soundtrack went to No 2 in the charts…but it was with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams so I’m not sure if that actually counts.

“All This Time” peaked at No 22.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bananrama	Preacher Man	Nah
2	Whitney Houston	All The Man That I Need	Nope
3	Pop Will Eat Itself	X Y & Zee	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	John Travolta and Olivia Newton John	Grease Megamix	Negative
5	Off-Shore	I Can’t Take The Power	Buy it? I don’t even remember it!
6	Jesus Jones	International Bright Young Thing	No but it was on that first Q magazine album that I did buy
7	MC Hammer	Pray	It’s a no
8	Enigma	Sadness (Part 1)	No
9	Robert Palmer	Mercy, Mercy Me / I Want You	No but it’s on my Robert Palmer Best Of CD I think
10	Iron Maiden	Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter	Definitely not
11	Sting	All This Time	I did not

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/m000w6t9/top-of-the-pops-10011991

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 01 NOV 1990

Posted on April 1, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s November 1990 and having got married just 12 days earlier, another huge moment in my life has occurred – we’ve moved to Manchester! Yes, despite knowing only two other residents of Manc land between us, my wife and I have chosen to move to that great city to begin our married life together. We arrived back from our honeymoon exactly one week after the wedding day and moved that very day to Manchester. I hadn’t even seen the rented flat we were going to be living in as my wife had sorted that out. That small studio flat would be our home for the next four years and we loved it. The big events kept coming as after the wedding, the honeymoon, moving city, moving into a flat, I then started work on the Monday at Our Price. After two days training in the offices above the Piccadilly store, I was despatched to the Market Street shop down the road. By the time this TOTP was broadcast, I would have completed two whole days there (If my dates are correct). Given that this was such a momentous time for me, I must surely remember all the songs that were on the show?

Tonight’s host is Simon Mayo who I don’t recall being so smug but that’s the exact word I would use to describe his performance here. Certainly not smug though is the opening act – if anything I would think she was the exact opposite – unsure and apprehensive. Kim Appleby was of course one half of Mel & Kim who had torn up the charts in the late 80s with their SAW dance tunes and ‘up yours’ attitude. Tragically, Mel had died of cancer-related pneumonia at the start of 1990 but Kim resolved to carry on and record some of the songs that they had been working on during her sister’s illness. “Don’t Worry” was the first of those to see the light of day but Kim’s hesitancy about going it alone was revealed in a Smash Hits interview:

“I don’t know how people are going to react to my record but all I can say is I’m doing my best.”

She needn’t have… erm…worried because “Don’t Worry” was a fantastic pop song. Was it a million miles away from her Mel & Kim era? No, of course not (even though it was not produced by SAW) but it had an added sense of maturity to it from that unexpected, gentle fade in to the uplifting lyrics promoting positivity – there was no showing out or getting fresh going on here.

If Kim was nervous about her return to the world of pop music, she disguised those anxieties with an energetic performance here although quite what she thought being dressed like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would add to the overall effect, I’m not sure.

“Don’t Worry” surely exceeded Kim and her record label’s expectations after being away for so long by peaking at No 2.

Robert Palmer already had a reputation for being a musical chameleon with his back catalogue combining elements of soul, jazz, rock, pop, reggae and blues. Quite what he hoped to get credibility wise out of a collaboration with UB40 then I’m not sure. Not only that but it wasn’t even an original song that they might have cooked up between them but a cover version. “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was a Bob Dylan song from his “John Wesley Harding” album and given how many artists have interpreted Dylan songs down the years*, was Palmer just jumping on a well ridden bandwagon? To be fair, the version he and the Brummie reggae boys came up with didn’t sound much like Dylan with its calypso lilt and jaunty rhythms. It still doesn’t explain the reason why the two acts chose to record it though. It wasn’t as if either had been languishing in the chart doldrums for a sustained period. Indeed, both had clocked up Top 10 singles within recent memory. Maybe they just knew each other and got along?

Palmer’s album “Don’t Explain” (from which “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was the lead single) would go onto be certified Gold although the only other chart hit from it was another cover version – “Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” whilst “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” would peak at No 6.

*The history of recorded music is littered is with Dylan covers by a multitude of artists but if you want a really out there one, how about “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Lofty from Eastenders?

After coming over all smug and superior with his ‘look at how much I know about pop music’ tone when advising us all that “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was actually a Bob Dylan song, Simon Mayo is at it again when introducing Black Box.

“Well, cover versions are all the thing. We’ve already had one, that was the UB40 song. Here’s another one…” he starts off. He’s like the most patronising Jackanory presenter ever. ‘Let me tell you a story about cover versions…’ he might as well have said. Git. Technically he is right of course in that “Fantasy” is the song by Earth, Wind And Fire but his tone is so condescending.

This was Black Box’s fourth consecutive UK chart hit but it would prove to be the last time that they would visit the Top 10 when it peaked at No 5. I’m not sure that their version actually adds anything at all to the original being a fairly faithful reproduction of it. Also, surely the cat must have been out of the bag by this time that the woman up there front of stage (Katrin Quinol) wasn’t the actual vocalist on any of these hits. The singer on this one was Martha Wash who did most of the vocals on their “Dreamland” album. Apparently the guys behind Black Box didn’t care a jot though and were boldly brazening it out like Boris Johnson shamelessly disregarding yet another cronyism scandal. In ‘Borisworld’, the PM would no doubt have Jennifer Arcuri up there lip syncing away whilst declaring that all her vocals had been laid down in complete propriety and that the recording sessions were all there on public record for anyone to see.

More ‘look how clever I am’ – ness from Mayo next as he references Robert Palmer / UB40’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” (yet again) with Whitney Houston‘s “I’m Your Baby Tonight” as the song titles sound very similar. Well done Simon, what an amazing insight you provided. In all honesty though, whilst I’m criticising Mayo, I’ve very little else to say about this one myself other than I have a memory of selling the “I’m Your Baby Tonight” album on tape whilst working at Our Price that Xmas and the shop chart cassette buyer (a guy called Steve who I am still friends with all these years later) sitting near the chart cassette filing one Saturday afternoon trying to order some more as we had almost sold out and asking me to go away and sell something else as he was nearly out of stock. Yeah, right, not sure how that was supposed to work Steve? I don’t think I had an ‘Actually, would you mind awfully buying something else otherwise the buyer’s going to have a breakdown’ in me. Oh, hang on – was it the Jimmy Somerville Best Of album now I come to think of it? Amazing insight from your blogger there I’m sure you’ll agree.

“I’m Your Baby Tonight” (the single) peaked at No 5.

Some Roxette next with a re-release of their “Dressed For Success” single. When I started at Our Price there wasn’t much of a dress code; certainly there wasn’t a staff uniform (although that would come in later years). You could pretty much wear what you wanted within reason. One woman turned up in a catsuit one day and asked me if I thought it was a bit much for work. I didn’t know where to look! I’ve no memory of what I’d chosen to wear for my first day in the shop but I do remember being mercilessly ribbed the day I decided to come in wearing a white shirt and a black waistcoat. Cue lots of comments about Ray Reardon, snooker and…erm…cues.

Back to Roxette and Mayo is still shoehorning in references to Bob Dylan b-sides (even though there is no relevance here whatsoever). Some eagle eyed viewer reckoned that this performance must have been recorded for the initial release of the single back in ’89 (you could tell by the BBC logos or something) and that does make sense as the cut to the duo clearly indicates that they were not there for the actual recording of the show. This of course raises the question of why a performance would have been recorded for a song that didn’t get in the chart on first release? I thought the show was meant to have a strict Top 40 only policy? What? They had ‘the look’ and were ‘dressed for success’ and that got them the gig? Sorry – that was lame.

Another song we’ve seen before recently now as Rita MacNeil sings us a tale of a “Working Man”. Although the song’s sentiments were very worthy, there was very little here to hold my attention. It was all a bit Lena Martell (who had been a favourite of my parents during my childhood) meets “Every Loser Wins” by Nick Berry. Rita never had another UK chart hit and sadly died in 2013.

When I think of The Cure‘s remix compilation album “Mixed Up”, the track that comes to mind is “Never Enough” which was the single chosen to promote it. I had totally forgotten that a second single was released from it. “Close to Me – Remix” was that single and of course was a remix of their 1985 track from their “The Head On The Door” album. I really cannot see the point of this 1990 version though. It sounds exactly like the original but just slowed down a bit doesn’t it? Or am I missing something? The gentle intrigue of the 1985 original gets lost in the mix for me.

It took me a little while to realise that the video for the remix single was a continuation of the original promo which I thought was very clever, playing on the theme of claustrophobia with the band performing under duress within the confines of a wardrobe. Unfortunately, the second video doesn’t really work as well. Carrying on where the first video ended with the wardrobe (and its content of band members) falling off the edge of a cliff into the sea Young Ones style. The story board of the second video had the band escaping from their potential watery grave only to be attacked by an octopus and a starfish. The 1985 video was genuinely ingenious – there didn’t seem to be much thought gone into its 1990 counterpart although I’m guessing they were both directed by the band’s long time collaborator Tim Pope. The sea creature costumes make it all look a bit Mighty Boosh but without the laughs. Actually, maybe the video was was a source of inspiration for Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt. I can imagine Fielding in particular being a big Robert Smith fan.

“Close to Me – Remix” peaked at No 13 (as did “Never Enough”) which was 11 places higher than the much better original. We would not see The Cure in the charts for another 18 months when they would return with their “Wish” album.

OK, for me, this next song is peak Kylie Minogue. I might be looking back through nostalgia-tinted glasses of a much happier and simpler time but “Step Back In Time” was a great pop-dance track and yes, I realise that means I am commending a SAW produced track! Essentially one of those tribute songs like “Nightshift” by The Commodores and… erm…”Tribute (Right On)” by The Pasadenas with its 70s disco referencing lyrics, it’s got a great hooky chorus whilst the bridges that lead into them (‘Remember the O’Jays…’) are brilliant. One of my Xmas co-workers at Our Price in 1990 was a girl called Lucy who loved this track and she was bang on the money. Also, the dance routines on show in this performance really are impressive. Say what you like about Kylie but she really was very good at jumping in time.

“Step Back In Time” was the second single from Kylie’s “Rhythm Of Love” album and peaked at No 4.

Well that didn’t take very long did it? “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers is No 1 after just two weeks! Know-it-all Mayo feels the need to once more furnish us with his pop music knowledge by giving us the details of other artists who have recorded the track by name checking Jimmy Young, Harry Secombe and Des O’Connor (all the greats then). Look Mayo, if you wanted to dazzle us with charts statistics then here’s how you do it courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

"Unchained Melody" was first a UK hit for Les Baxter in 1955, peaking at 10. The top 20 for 17-23 June 1955 included four different recordings of the song: Al Hibbler's version at 2, Jimmy Young at 3, Les Baxter at 17 and Liberace at 20 – a record! #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 26, 2021

Last week I mentioned that the video for this had confused me when I first saw it as there was only one person (Bobby Hatfield) singing and I wondered where the other Righteous Brother Bill Medley was. Well, Simon Mayo, the guru of pop trivia , had the answer for me in his closing link. At the song’s end, he says “the other one was in the loo or something, I don’t know”. Simon Mayo there doing his best Mike Read impression.

The play out video is George Michael with “Waiting For That Day”. Another video mystery with this one as last week I posited the notion that I didn’t think George had done a promo for this (much as he had refused to film one for previous single “Praying For Time” due to his dispute with Sony). All that I could find was a clip from The South Bank Show which showed George discussing the song’s origins in the studio. However, TOTP seemed to have secured a video which was solely a performance of the track in the said same studio. I’ve worked out what the deal was here though. If you go to the final minute of that South Bank Show clip, there is that very performance. Bit of clever editing going on there then I think by the TOTP producers.

“Waiting For That Day” peaked at No 23.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Kim Appleby	Don’t Worry	Don’t think I did – great pop song though
2	Robert Palmer / UB40	I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight	No but it might be on my Robert Palmer Best Of CD
3	Black Box	Fantasy	Nope
4	Whitney Houston	I’m Your Baby Tonight	Negative
5	Roxette	Dressed For Success	Nah
6	Rita MacNeil	Working Man	No
7	The Cure	Close To Me – Remix	Another no
8	Kylie Minogue	Step Back In Time	No but I think my wife has her Greatest Hits with it on
9	The Righteous Brothers	Unchained Melody	It’s a no
10	George Michael	Waiting For That Day	No but my wife had the album

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000th90/top-of-the-pops-01111990

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?

Page 1 - Smash Hits - Issue 311 - 31st October - 13th November 1990

TOTP 18 OCT 1990

Posted on March 24, 2021 by 80stastic

I’m getting married in two days time! Well, back in 1990 I was – I’ve been married for 30 years now but yes, on Saturday 20th October of that momentous year, my wife and I tied the knot at the tender age of 22. Consequently, I’m not entirely sure that I would have had the time to watch this particular episode of TOTP on the Thursday, less than 48 hours before the big day. Wedding preparations and all that. However, I was still sufficiently engaged with the charts back then to know most of the songs featured here although a couple do escape me. Let’s see what I missed out on….

Goodier had over done it in the Green room pre show and it finally caught up with him

First of all, it should be noted that, for some reason, tonight’s host, Mark Goodier, has decided to come dressed looking like a redshirt from Star Trek – you know, those disposable characters that wore red tunics to signify they were security personnel that would almost always end up dying within the first few minutes, usually after transporting down the the surface of an alien planet and probably before the opening titles had played. Let’s hope Goodier doesn’t make any howlers that leads to him dying on stage as it were.

Tonight’s first act are A-ha, not seen in the charts for nearly two years and by the point that they made it back, it seemed that maybe their time had passed. Their cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Crying In The Rain” was the lead single from their fourth album “East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon” but unlike their previous three albums which had all peaked at No 2, this one topped out at No 12. Not a disaster but definitely going in the wrong direction. “Crying In The Rain” was the only cover version on the album with the rest being either Pål Waaktaar or Magne Furuholmen originals or collaborations between the two. Did the fact that they had chosen to announce the album with a cover version indicate a lack of faith in their own songs or am I reading too much into that?

I think they actually make a fine job of “Crying In The Rain”, imbuing it with some Nordic atmospherics and a fjord full of drama. Morten Harket was born to sing this sort of stuff. However, as with the album, the public’s reaction was lukewarm and it failed to make the Top 10. Again, not a catastrophe – only the title track of the four singles lifted from previous album “Stay On These Roads” had made the Top 10 – but it was a far cry from the days of their ’85 to ’87 peak when pretty much every single release went Top 10.

I spent a lot of those A-ha glory years paying close attention to what Morten was doing with his hair with many an unsuccessful attempt to recreate his look befalling my bonce. Here though he looks like he’s got what we would call today ‘lockdown’ hair, all overgrown and loosely styled. Had I caught the show at the time, I’m not sure I would have been convinced.

A-ha would not have another Top 40 hit for three years.

A marmite song next or at least it seems to be for many people, you either love it or hate it. I fall into the former category but I know people (my mate Robin for one) who think it is beyond awful. Aztec Camera had enjoyed a remarkable and unexpected upturn in commercial fortunes at the back end of the 80s with their sleek, well polished soul-pop album “Love” which brought them (I mean Roddy Frame really of course) their biggest ever hit single in “Somewhere In My Heart” which was also their worst in my book but we don’t need to go there.

However, in a move reminiscent of ABC recording the rock-influenced sophomore album “Beauty Stab” when the smart money would have been to come up with “The Lexicon Of Love” part II (which they ultimately did in 2016), Frame retreated from putting out another overly commercial album as the follow up to “Love” and instead came up with “Stray”. Not that “Stray” was a straight up rock record despite it including their best Rolling Stones impression on “How It Is” ; no, it was more….’organic’? I hate that word but what I mean is that it was lacking in the big production sheen of its predecessor and was a bit more back to basics, the Roddy Frame of those early 80s years. The album is pretty eclectic actually with most musical genres on display including smoky jazz ballads (“Over My Head”), doomy rock (“Get Outta London”) and the sparkling indie-pop of lead single “The Crying Scene” (which I bought but everybody else seemed to ignore).

However, it’s second single “Good Morning Britain” that everyone thinks of, for better or worse, during this phase of the band’s career. Quite why people seem to hate it so much I’m not sure. In the case of my friend Robin, it seems to be about Roddy choosing to wear bondage trousers in the video (presumably as some sort of acknowledgement of his collaborator Mick Jones’s punk past) that offends so. Mind you, Robin was massively offended by the Steve character (played by Campbell Scott) in the 1992 Seattle based rom-com film Singles because Steve, urban planner by day but DJ by night, kept his record collection in see through PVC sleeves! The horror! Once that scene played out early on in the film, Robin was done and paid little attention to the rest of it. Ironically, I think the record that caused Robin to nearly self combust with rage was “London Calling” by The Clash.

Back to “Good Morning Britain”, and another person who cannot stand the song is 6 Music DJ Shaun Keaveny who I’m pretty sure made a commitment on air once that he would never allow it to be played on his show. For me though, it fair throbs along and the interplay between Frame and Jones singing alternate lines adds another layer to it. The politicised lyrics calling for better equality and treatment of citizens from all four corners of the United Kingdom seems a rallying call worth making. It’s pretty damn catchy as well of course.

It would prove to be Roddy’s last ever trip to the Top 40 when it peaked at No 19.

“The No 1 dance record in the UK at the moment” is up next according to Mark Goodier. Wow! Who could that be?! The KLF? Bass-O-Matic maybe? MC Hammer even? No, it’s Innocence with “Let’s Push It”. Really?! This was the No 1 dance record?! OK, I was never a massive dance fan so I don’t really know what I’m talking about but was this meandering, chill-out, soul/jazz confection really that much of a big deal?! I mean it’s inoffensive enough but that’s the problem, it doesn’t really go anywhere or cause any sort of reaction (well, not in me at least). I didn’t and still don’t really get it. I didn’t mind their next single, the more melodic “A Matter Of Fact” but this one? Nah, not for me.

Some more soul incoming but this was much more bold and brassy sounding to my ears. Behold the return of Whitney Houston! “I’m Your Baby Tonight” was the name of her new single and album and was apparently a deliberate attempt by her record label Arista to reconnect her with her black fan base. As such, after the all out pop sound of her “Whitney” album, her third studio album had more of an R&B edge. If there had been any fear at Arista about her success continuing after a record-breaking string of seven consecutive No 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 prior to this release, then they would have been allayed by the title track making it eight on the trot. The second single of the album (“All the Man That I Need”) would extend the run to nine.

However, although the album sold well, it only did half the business that her first two LPs did. Furthermore, the newly emerged foe who was Mariah Carey meant that laurels could not be rested upon, especially when she beat Whitney to the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her “Vision Of Love” single which trumped “I’m Your Baby Tonight”.

Fast forward two years though and Whitney would return with the biggest selling album of her career – “The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album” which would sell a whopping 45 million copies worldwide. For now though, back in October 1990, she was doing OK just about. She was however, just weeks away from a pre-recorded vocals controversy when she sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XXV. Controversy and Whitney would be forever entwined throughout her life it seemed.

Mondays in the area! Yes, with my own move to Manchester happening just 9 days on from this TOTP, here were one of the kings of ‘Madchester’ back in the Top 40. Happy Mondays were bona fide charts stars now after the huge success of “Step On” earlier in the year. “Kinky Afro” though was the first big hit that they would have that was their own tune (“Step On” had been a cover version).

A Happy Mondays original it may have been but its sound was certainly shaped by some exterior influences. Apparently, the bass line was inspired by Hot Chocolate’s Brother Louie” whilst the ‘yippie yippie ya ya yeah yeah’ chorus was their take on ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi’ from the Labelle hit “Lady Marmalade”. And check this out from @TOTPFacts about the song’s title:

Shaun Ryder: "We were gonna call it 'Groovy Afro' but we changed it to 'Kinky' after The Farm came out with 'Groovy Train.'" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 19, 2021

That new album that Goodier makes reference to in his intro is of course the band’s iconic long player “Pills ‘n’ Thrills And Bellyaches”. It was released just as I was starting in my position of Xmas temp at Our Price in Manchester and I can still see the seemingly endless amount of copies of the vinyl for it behind the counter and thinking ‘are they really going to see all those?’. I think they did.

“Kinky Afro” matched its predecessor “Step On” by peaking at No 5.

Right, who’s this lady? Well, Rita MacNeil was a Canadian country singer who very briefly was one of the genre’s biggest names. Her international hit was “Working Man” which was a tribute to the endeavours of coal miners in Nova Scotia (hence Goodier’s pathetically weak quip “Yep, that song is suitable for minors”). On the back of the success of the single, she embarked on a European tour including one night at the Royal Albert Hall.

There really wasn’t much here for me I have to say although she is a big favourite of my country music loving Dad and he has even been known to belt out a version of “Working Man” himself.

Rita MacNeil died in 2013, from complications of surgery.

Some Breakers now and so much was the appetite for songs from film soundtracks in 1990 that even those that had been No 1 just four short years before were able to rise up the charts again. Yes, not content with one song from a Tom Cruise movie already being No 1 in this week’s chart courtesy of “Show Me Heaven” by Maria McKee, it seemed that we needed two as “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin from Top Gun had a second Top 40 life after it had already scaled the summit of the charts back in 1986! Talk about doubling down!

So what the crap was this all about?! Well, apparently Top Gun had its UK TV premiere earlier this month back in 1990 and such was the reaction to this happening that “Take My Breath Away” was re-released. I had just been starting my time as a student when it was first a hit and I was now about to begin another phase of my life as a married man when it reappeared. Had I had time to take this in back then, it would probably have freaked me out. Not only did it tick the film soundtrack box but it also represented the TV advert methodology of scoring a hit by being on the latest Peugeot promo for their 405 model range. You know, that one with the burning, exploding row of trees? Come on, this one…

The reissue of “Take My Breath Away” made it all the way to No 3 which seems faintly ridiculous for a song that had already been No 1 in recent memory. It was backed by “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins on the b-side. When I started at Our Price a couple of weeks later, the wall of the men’s toilet in the store I was working in was daubed with graffiti of hilarious poo related musical artists. I can’t recall them all but they included Deacon Poo, The Ruthless Crap Assassins, Iggy Plop and of course, Kenny Loggins.

Another Tina Turner single? Didn’t she have one out just the other week? Yes she did! “Look Me in the Heart” had only been released in mid August and yet a few weeks later here she was back for more with something called “Be Tender With Me Baby”. Like its predecessor, this was also taken from Tina’s “Foreign Affair” album (this was the fifth single lifted from it to be released in the UK!). I don’t recall this one at all so when I saw the title of it I thought it might be a cover version of that soul classic that always seems to be sung by Ruby Turner on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny but it turns out that is called “Stay With Me Baby” and is a different song altogether.

“Be Tender With Me Baby” is more of a rock ballad and not a very good one in my opinion. It peaked at No 28 but incredibly, Tina will be back in the charts the following month with “It Takes Two”, a duet with Rod Stewart. FFS!

After one music icon, here comes another. Like Tina Turner, Paul MccCartney had also spent some of 1990 still flogging his last studio album to death. “Flowers In The Dirt” had arrived in June of 1989 but he was releasing singles from it into the new decade with the fourth and final one being “Put It There”. “Birthday” was nothing to do with that particular project though being, as it was, a Beatles song that had originally been on the “White Album”.

So why was Macca releasing his own version of it some 22 years after it was originally recorded. There’s no great mystery really – it was a live version to promote his “Tripping The Live Fantastic” album which documented The Paul McCartney World Tour which was the first tour under his own name. It seems an odd choice of single given the 37 songs that could have been selected from the album’s track listing. Even the “Tripping The Live Fantastic: Highlights!” single album with just the 17 tracks on it included some legendary stuff like “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be”. Maybe they would have been too much of a crowd sing-a-long? OK, then how about “Get Back” or “Back In The U.S.S.R.” or even “Coming Up”?

The video for this is also a bit strange. If you want to promote your live album wouldn’t it be a good idea to just have the video showing you… erm…live in concert? Yes there is some of that but what’s with all the staged vignette scenes that pad it out? They are all very obvious themes around having a birthday that add little in my book and actually the scene with the all male party of braying toffs (clearly Tories) and a young woman (potentially a stripper?) bursting out of a birthday cake looks distinctly unpalatable at best through todays eyes.

Paul McCartney’s live version of “Birthday” peaked at No 29.

Still with those bleedin’ turtles?! “Spin That Wheel (Turtles Get Real)” was originally released at the start of 1990 and failed to get anywhere near the UK Top 40. Back then, there had been no tie-in with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film – the (Turtles Get Real) suffix was added for the re-release – and had included references to drug taking in the lyrics. These were all removed and a sanitised version was included on the movie soundtrack.

Hi Tek 3 featuring Ya Kid K were, of course, all part of the Technotronic family tree which was quite the tangled oak with branches everywhere – significantly its roots weren’t solid and it would succumb to powdery mildew disease (I had to look that up for the purposes of the metaphor)….

Technotronic was essentially just one person Jo Bogearet who had the original seed of an idea for the group, owned their record company and produced their records. It all got more complex when it came to promoting their releases. Bogeart was a recluse who spoke to nobody so he was never going to be the public face of Technotronic. That turned out to be a singer with blue lipstick called Felly (who didn’t actually sing on the records at all) – no, the singer was Manuela Djogi aka Ya Kid K who didn’t join the group initially because she didn’t want to sign a contract. Then she did and Felly was ousted but vowed to get some singing lessons and rejoin the group. She never did. Enter Welshman MC Eric as the rapper on third single “This Beat Is Technotronic”. While that was being a hit, “Spin That Wheel'” was released becoming a hit in the US and Australia but not over here. Then a support slot on the Madonna tour was announced – however Ya Kid K wanted to sue Technotronic’s record company for unpaid monies. A fourth single “Rocking Over The Beat” was released with next to no promotion from the group presumably because of the Madonna tour commitments though this seems unlikely as Ya Kid K and MC Eric had pulled out of the European tour dates as they didn’t want to promote the Technotronic name anymore. Then Ya Kid K announced she was pregnant – the father was MC Eric, obviously. There followed a counter court case against Ya Kid K and MC Eric brought by Jo Bogearet to stop them using the Technotronic name even though they said they didn’t want to use it anyway and that was the reason for them pulling out of the Madonna tour in the first place. Then…oh bollocks to it….who cares?!

“Spin That Wheel (Turtles Get Real)” peaked at No 15 in the UK.

A final week then at No 1 for Maria McKee with “Show Me Heaven” which also makes it the record that was No 1 when I got married. Or was it? I always got a bit confused about this as when we got back from our honeymoon the following Saturday, The Beautiful South were No 1. I’m trying to recall on what day the new charts were announced back then. Was it still on a Tuesday? Or had it moved to Sunday by then. The officialcharts.com website shows that for the week 14 October to 20 October (our wedding date), the No 1 record was indeed “Show Me Heaven” whilst for the week 21 October to October 27th it was The Beautiful South. So, I think that proves it was Maria Mckee. Either way, I’m just glad it wasn’t the song in the No 2 position which was “The Anniversary Waltz – Part 1” by Status Quo.

The play out video is “(We Want) The Same Thing” by Belinda Carlisle but before we get to that, what’s going on with Trekky Gooider? Surrounded by studio audience members for the final cut away shot, he seems disturbed, looks to his left and announces ” What’s going on here? I love it – it’s so warm” WTF?! That sounds wrong on so many levels.

Anyway, back to Belinda and this was a hit that made no sense at all. Why? Well, also like Tina Turner before her, she was still releasing tracks from an album that was 12 months old but apart from lead single ‘Leave A Light On”, none of them had pulled up any trees chart-wise. See?

Leave A Light On – No 4
La Luna – No 38
Runaway Horse – No 40
Vision Of You – No 41

Then, “(We Want) The Same Thing”, with its bizarre use of brackets, released as a fifth single from a year old album, goes all the way to No 6! How do you explain that? Well, apparently the single mix was very different from the album version so maybe Carlisle completists would have bought it for that reason? Plus, there was a deluxe 12″ vinyl boxed set with free stickers and a picture disc single on CD (according to Wikipedia) for the real Belinda obsessives but even so.

I’ve just listened to that album version and it is indeed very different. Where are the ‘Hey!’ shouts at the beginning for a start? Ah, that must have been its USP and the reason behind its success – you can’t beat some good old ‘Hey!’ yelps can you?

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	A-ha	Crying In The Rain	No but it must be on my Greatest Hits CD of theirs
2	Aztec Camera	Good Morning Britain	No but it was on that first Q Magazine album that I bought.
3	Innocence	Let’s Push it	Let’s not..no
4	Whitney Houston	I’m Your Baby Tonight	Negative
5	Happy Mondays	Kinky Afro	No but I did buy the album
6	Rita MacNeil	Working Man	No
7	Berlin	Take My Breath Away	No – not in 1990 nor 1996
8	Tina Turner	Be Tender With Me Baby	Nope
9	Paul McCartney	Birthday	It wasn’t and I didn’t
10	Hi Tek 3 featuring Ya Kid K	Spin That Wheel (Turtles Get Real)	Hell no
11	Maria McKee	Show Me Heaven	Nah
12	Belinda Carlisle	(We Want) The Same Thing	Not sure we did Belinda because I didn’t buy this

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t884/top-of-the-pops-18101990

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?