So that’s it. BBC4 has screened all the repeats of TOTP from the decade that was the 80s and I have no more to review. For the record, I’ve been writing this blog for just over three and a half years resulting in the following stats:
Word written: 654,066*
Posts: 288*
Shows reviewed: 273
*Not including this post
I covered the years 1983-89 as 1983 was really the starting point of my obsession with pop music and when I became a fully paid up pop kid. I’ve tried to sprinkle in some personal stuff into the posts – as much for me to help me address my mid life crisis and remind myself that I was once a young man starting to make his way in the world as anything but also to try and arrive at some sort of narrative structure that wasn’t just an overblown list that basically said “I liked this one, I didn’t like this one” etc. And it was fun …and also a ball ache at times, especially when the relentless BBC4 repeat schedule went into overdrive and I was constantly playing catch up with my posts. To anyone who took the time and interest to read even just one word of what I wrote, I thank you enormously. To those who engaged even more (there were some!) and who went as far as to comment and like my posts, I am truly humbled.
What did I find out from all of this? Well, from about 1986 onwards, I bought very few chart singles. I think I must have been making the transition into a different sort of music fan, the sort that bought albums and not singles. More likely, I was just a skint student who recklessly spent his grant on beer and going out. My girlfriend (now wife) however seemed to spend a lot of money on albums judging by the amount of titles I have remembered /checked that she had /has in the writing of this blog.
Taste-wise, I clearly wasn’t a big fan of dance or soul music; pop’s talons still had a tight hold on me well into the decade. Not just any old pop though, I had a penchant for the non-mainstream form of the genre which is a rather overblown (and possibly pretentious) way of saying songs that didn’t make the Top 40 charts. Yes, I liked to think that I was impervious to the whims and trends that the media would press upon us for I could see through all of that and would seek out those songs that were deemed unworthy of a chart placing – what a complete arse I was back then.
In terms of the actual TOTP shows themselves, there were a few changes to the format over the decade. From ill advised features covering the charts in other countries (usually courtesy of Jon Peel or David ‘Kid’ Jensen) through to the short lived Video Top 10 and onto the Breakers section detailing those ‘happening’ tunes (as the presenters liked to label them) that had just entered the Top 40, we witnessed them all.
Ah yes, those presenter types…my God some of them were hopeless. The amount of times I must have written the phrase “you had one job” as yet another host got the name of the song or even the artists themselves wrong. And that’s before we even get onto the way that some of them would use the show to try and promote their public profiles and feed their fragile egos with some truly woeful attempts at humour – yes Mike Read I mean you although you certainly weren’t on your own. By the end of the decade, the usual monopoly of Radio 1 DJs was being infiltrated by other BBC presenters like Anthea Turner, Andy Crane and Jenny Powell. Come the 90s, the axe would fall completely to sever the Radio 1 connection to the show with the ‘Year Zero’ revamp but that’s for another day and blog.
Another blog you say…..yes, now that the TOTP repeats from the 80s have been exhausted, “what happens to the blog now?” you may ask (you probably don’t but artistic licence and all that). Well, there is very little info online about whether BBC4 will continue with their schedule of re-broadcasting shows from the 90s but the most substantial rumour suggests that they may well restart the project in September with the year 1990. If that is true then could I carry on reviewing them? Should I carry on reviewing them? It’s been a big commitment in truth these past three and a half years – do I want to commit to more of the same? Well, my current circumstances dictate that I am not in paid employment at this time so in terms of available time, yes I probably could. Also, it would tie in with my Our Price career which I would like to revisit so….I think I may have just convinced myself to carry on TOTP-ing! Who’s with me?
With 1988 having been retrospectively positioned as a year when a seismic change happened in the UK’s musical landscape bringing with it the huge sinkhole that was house music opening up and swallowing youth culture whole, what would the aftermath be? Would 1989 be more of the same or would another transformative movement appear to shake things up yet again? On reflection I would have to say that, for the majority of the year, it was all a bit of a let down. There was very little change and the status quo (not Francis Rossi and co!) was mainly preserved with some very unchallenging acts and songs ruling the charts. Stock, Aitken and Waterman accounted for over a third of the UK’s total No 1 records for the year (7 out of 18) and when they weren’t at the top of the charts we had the utterly dispicable and inexplicable sales phenomenon that was Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers clogging up the charts placing them alongside Gerry and the Pacemakers and Frankie Goes To Hollywood as the only acts (at that point) to have their first three releases go to No 1. What the Hell was going on?!
We did see some previous chart sensation return with the likes of Wet Wet Wet, Bros and erm…Curiosity Killed The Cat back in the Top 40 with new material but none managed to match their previous heights I would suggest. Certainly in the case of Bros, they managed not only to shed a band member but also layers of their popularity to a new and emerging menace from across the pond – the appropriately named New Kids On The Block. Only Madonna truly showed her superstar credentials by returning in a maelstrom of publicity and controversy (and more importantly huge sales) with her “Like A Prayer” album after her gap year of ’88.
Of the list of No 1s below, I bought one (a charity record but not Band Aid II) and liked hardly any. Of the new acts to achieve a chart topper, only Soul II Soul and Lisa Stansfield had any credibility in terms of being able to consolidate on having a No 1 record and build themselves a career of longevity I would argue. On reflection, it’s a very piss poor collection of chart toppers, possibly one of the worst of the decade I would posit.
We didn’t miss any episodes of TOTP this time around as every show was repeated by BBC4 hence there weren’t many Top 40 entries that we missed. Indeed, they seem to play any old shite including niche stuff like W.A.S.P. at every available turn. However, I have found a few that I think we missed that made the charts but didn’t get the TOTP producer green light to appear on the show…
Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – The Rattler
Peak UK Chart Position: No 37
Haling from Bathgate, Edinburgh (as referenced in The Proclaimers hit “Letter From America”), Goodbye Mr Mackenzie first came to my attention with their eponymous debut single in 1988 which could and perhaps should have been a Top 40 hit but it peaked at No 62. Also piqued though was my attention so when “The Rattler” came down the line (to paraphrase its lyrics) in early 1989, I took note.
A re-release of a very early recording from three years prior and made before they signed to major record label Capitol, it took the band into the Top 40 (just) after a 4 week preamble. For me, it should have been a much bigger hit with its ‘rattling boy’ refrain and rootsy rock sound. Sadly, despite debut album “Good Deeds And Dirty Rags” achieving a very respectable No 26 chart placing, “The Rattler” would prove to be their commercial zenith. Moving across EMI from Capitol to Parlaphone as they began recording their second album in Berlin probably didn’t help and after the first two singles from it failed to chart, Parlophone refused to release the album. A further change of label enabled it to finally be released but by this time (1991), all momentum was lost.
Keyboardist and backing vocalist Shirley Manson would eventually leave the group and end up fronting 90s grunge popsters Garbage to huge commercial success. That pop footnote looked like being the thing that Goodbye Mr Mackenzie would be most remembered for but they reformed in 2019 against all odds (including one member having MS) to perform a number of shows (sans Manson) culminating in a sold out gig at Glasgow Barrowlands.
ABC – One Better World
Peak UK Chart Position: No 32
By the end of the decade, ABC had already achieved one successful comeback but pulling off a second proved to be too big an ask. After their sensational debut album “The Lexicon Of Love” had swept all before them, the band had come up with a second album in “Beauty Stab” that I loved but which the majority of their fan base had decidedly rejected. After haemorrhaging two band members and returning as cartoon characters for third album “How to Be a … Zillionaire!”, it looked like the game was up. However, they returned to form in 1987 with “Alphabet City” and attendant hit single “When Smokey Sings” bringing back glories of old.
By 1989 however, they were starting to seem irrelevant against the explosion of dance music and needed something special to bring them back to public awareness so they adopted an ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude and released a dance album of their own in “Up”. It tanked hideously peaking at No 58 on the album chart.
Lead single “One Better World” though wasn’t half bad – I liked its positive message and jagged house style back beat. Martin Fry and Mark White also went out of their way to embrace the late 80s house look – all pastel coloured clothes and floppy hair (White’s in particular is a perfectly sculpted example of young raver locks). “One Better World” remains ABC’s last Top 40 hit to date.
Duran Duran – Do You Believe In Shame?
Peak UK Chart Position: No 30
I’d kind of lost the plot and any lingering will with Duran Duran by this time to the point that I don’t really remember this single at all. It was actually the third and final track to be lifted from their 1988 album “Big Thing” and it turns out that there was more to it than I first imagined. Unfortunately, it’s all negative….
Firstly, there was a successful legal challenge made over its similarity to the song “Suzie Q” by Dale Hawkins which was made famous by Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Rolling Stones. Duran Duran denied any deliberate plagiarism and insisted it was all down to an unintentionally similar basic blues progression. Listening to the Creedence Clearwater Revival version, you can see why the courts found in favour of the plaintiff.
Secondly, the band’s waning chart fortunes weren’t helped by the revelation that the CD single format of the track had an overlong playing time that disqualified it from chart sales. The CD single was recalled and the issue rectified before being reissued a few days later but it meant that for several days during its initial promotion, the CD was unavailable in shops.
The video for “Do You Believe In Shame?” was the usual arty nonsense we’d come to expect from the band by this point with references to Andy Warhol, a falling dominoes sequence and Nick Rhodes and John Taylor looking all gaunt and gothic. Simon Le Bon on the other hand looks like a Hell’s Angel reject with a hairstyle that the possession of which should have been tantamount to a criminal offence.
The Jesus And Mary Chain – Blues From A Gun
Peak UK Chart Position: No 32
As the end of the decade came into sight, The Jesus And Mary Chain were starting to become Top 40 regulars. After a number of near misses at the start of their career, they had scored five consecutive Top 30 hits since their breakthrough EP “Some Candy Talking” in 1986. “Blues From A Gun” made it six on the spin and was the lead single from their much panned third album “Automatic”.
I wasn’t a die hard fan by any stretch of the imagination but I could appreciate their doomy yet melodic indie rock noise and I distinctly remember having this single in my hands in a record shop in Worcester (possibly Magpie Records) but it didn’t quite make it to the counter for purchase. Great song title though.
Arthur Baker & The Backbeat Disciples – The Meesage Is Love
Peak UK Chart Position: No 38
Legendary US DJ and producer Arthur Baker didn’t just work with some of the biggest names in music – I’m thinking Hall & Oates, Pet Shop Boys, Afrika Bambaataa and New Order for a start – but he also dabbled in releasing records under his own name (albeit he didn’t actually do any singing on them). Using the umbrella term Arthur Baker And The Backbeat Disciples, he released a number of tracks between 1989 and 1992 including “The Message Is Love” featuring the sumptuous vocals of Al Green. A Top 10 hit in four other countries, it got lost in the Xmas rush over here hence it only just breaking into the Top 40.
There was also an album called “Merge” that featured a host of guest artists including ABC, Andy McCluskey of OMD and Jimmy Sommerville in addition to the aforementioned Reverend Green. I liked this one so much I actually bought it (on cassette single no less).
N.B. Not to be confused with Al Green’s duet with Annie Lennox on 1988’s “Put A Little Love In Your Heart” from the movie Scrooged.
Hits That Never Were
It turns out that I hardly bought any of 1989’s hit singles that appeared on TOTP and I was left with having to find multiple ways to say so at the end of each blog post – you can only say ‘nope’, ‘nah’ or just a basic ‘no’ so many times. It seems I was more interested in songs that didn’t make the Top 40. Here are a few that I either bought, convinced me to buy the parent album or just caught my ear…
1927 – That’s When I Think Of You
Peak UK Chart Position: No 46
Asked to name an Australian rock band, no doubt many of us would come up with one of INXS, AC/DC or Crowded House as our answer. If we were being really clever and pedantic, maybe The Bee Gees or if we were looking for a cheap laugh then possibly Men At Work. 1927 though? Surely a pointless answer.
For a while though back in 1989, they looked like they had a shot at the big time with a five times platinum album in their own country in “…ish” – shocking title by the way – and a No 6 hit there as well with debut single “That’s When I Think Of You”. I’m not sure how I became aware of this song but it was very much my kind of thing at the time – bit of melodic rock with a great key change at the song’s finale. It reminded me of “Your Love” by English rockers The Outfield who made it big in the States but never amounted to much back home.
Just like their more successful countrymen INXS, 1927 also had siblings in their line up in the brothers Bill and Garry Frost. That’s where the similarities end though as they were unable to build on that initial success and they split in 1993 although a version of 1927 was still going as recently as 2019 (and that’s far too many years in one sentence).
Danny Wilson – Never Gonna Be The Same
Peak UK Chart Position: No 69
After showing steely commitment to their act throughout ’87 and ’88 by releasing and therefore promoting “Mary’s Prayer” three times before it became a hit, Virgin Records couldn’t pull a second rabbit out of the hat for Danny Wilson when it came to the next stage of their career. Despite having already secured a Top 40 hit in the calendar year in “The Second Summer Of Love”, the rest of ’89 became a sorry tale of missed chances and diminishing returns for the band.
“Never Gonna Be The Same” was the second single to be released from their excellent “Bebop Moptop” album and was a perky pop tune about a very non -perky subject, that of the break up of a relationship. What was clever about the lyrics though was that it also referenced not just the main protagonists but also those associate members, the collateral damage of when a relationship ends – the siblings and family members and friends who also have to come to terms with things having changed irrevocably. As Gary Clark sings:
Tell your brother and your sister ray That I probably won’t be round again But I’d always give them the time of day Tho it’s never gonna be the same
None of that seemed to strike a chord with the UK’s pop fans though who were still enthralled by Italo House or whatever specific genre of dance music was flavour of the month at that time and so a perfectly weighted piece of pop was consigned to the musical dustbin. Apparently Virgin struggled to find enough airplay for the song given that Radio 1 especially seemed inescapably gripped in a dance music fever. Tossers.
For my part, I bought the album on the strength of this single so my conscience is clear.
It Bites – Still Too Young To Remember
Peak UK Chart Position: No 66 (1990 reissue No 60)
Perennial members of the Hits That Never Were gang, this year’s entry from It Bites was the lead single from their “Eat Me In St Louis” album which saw them follow a much harder rock direction than previously. Gone were the overblown noodling of their prog-rock influences and in came shorter, more direct guitar orientated songs aimed at breaking the US market. The band backed this up with a full on, all out hard rocker look – long hair, leather jackets and in the case of keyboard player John Beck, a Slash style top hat.
“Still Too Young To Remember” was a great song I thought. An interesting mix of guitar riffs, intricate melodies and plaintive vocals, I could even forgive the seedy lyric “there’s a woman in my head, she should be in my bed”. Despite Record label Virgin’s best efforts, the single stalled at No 66. Subsequent singles from the album faired even worse (“Sister Sarah” made No 79 whilst “Underneath Your Pillow” crashed out at No 81). Desperate to not let their endeavours be in vain, Virgin returned to “Still Too Young To Remember” and re-released it in 1990. Its peak position of No 60 was the final nail in the coffin. Amid tension strewn recording sessions for their fourth album, the band announced in November 1990 that lead singer Francis Dunnery had left the band.
It Bites recruited a new singer but despite two band name changes (including the dreadful Navajo Kiss), they quietly split in 1991 before reforming in 2003. After several line up changes, they seemed to have finally given up the ghost in 2019.
The Call – Let The Day Begin
Peak UK Chart Position: No 42
This single was massively championed by Simon Mayo I seem to remember. He had a habit of doing this. He did the same for “Street Tuff” by Double Trouble and the Rebel MC and who could forget his campaigns to make a hits out of Andy Stewart’s “Donald Where’s Your Troosers?” and Monty Python’s “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”? Cheers for that Simon!
Anyway, this was one of his better calls (excuse the pun) I would suggest. I always thought this lot were Irish but it turns out that The Call were from Santa Cruz, California. Maybe my flawed perception of their non-celtic roots comes from their close alliance to Scottish rock gods Simple Minds for whom The Call opened on some of their tours. Indeed, the similarity between “Let The Day Begin” and the former’s “Waterfront” had to be ran by Jim Kerr for fear of plagiarism claims but Jim was cool with it (perhaps the only time in his life he was ever cool some might say – not me though). Listen to the intro of “Let The Day Begin” and close your eyes and you could well believe you were listening to the opening bars of “Waterfront”. Bizarrely, when Simple Minds covered the song for their their 2014 album “Big Music”, they made it sound nothing like “Waterfront”.
The song was also covered by Los Angeles-based rockers Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as one of their band members was the son of Michael Been who sadly died of a fatal heart attack in 2010. Despite not being a big hit in either the UK or the US, the song continued to have a life of its own when it was used by Al Gore to soundtrack his ultimately unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign against George W. Bush.
Viewed retrospectively from 2020, lead singer Michael Been reminds me of the character of Father Stack from enduring 90s sit com Father Ted. Not sure The Call would have been on Father Stack’s playlist of banging house tunes though…
Spandau Ballet – Be Free With Your Love
Peak UK Chart Position: No 42
If they weren’t sure before, then they must have been by this point. For Spandau Ballet, their 80s ride of success was pulling into a final and full stop. The game was up. It was all over. After the failure of “Raw” to make the Top 40 the previous year, the band really needed the next single to be a hit. Their album “Heart Like A Sky” hadn’t been released at the same time as “Raw” but was held back until September of ’89 – were the record company nervous? Probably. They would undoubtedly have liked, nay needed, a hit single to promote it and put all their chips on “Be Free With Your Love” – a much more radio friendly sound than its predecessor with its free wheeling, joyous chorus and samba style middle eight. Yes, this was just the ticket you could almost her the record company big wigs saying.
Sadly for the band, it was all too little to late. Their imperial phase had ended long ago together with Duran Duran, Culture Club and the other new pop big hitters. It probably died the day that Wham! played their The Final concert in ’86. Also too late was Gary Kemp’s mullet hair. Yes, after years of resisting the urge to follow suit with his fellow band mates, he finally grew his hair long at the back just as the rest of them had cut it all off. This visual representation of the split between the band would play out in a much more sinister way in the courts in the 90s when the rest of the band (except brother Martin) sued Gary Kemp for songwriting royalties.
Sadly, I was one of the few that was still keeping the Spandau faith and bought “Be Free With Your Love”. I think I was trying to convince myself that I was still 15 and not the 21 year old having to face up to working out what to do with my life. That’s my excuse anyway. Two more singles were released from “Heart Like A Sky” but neither got higher than No 94 in the charts.
The River Detectives – Chains
Peak UK Chart Position: No 51
There seemed to be a fair few Scottish groups around the end of the decade all jostling for a shot at chartdom. I’m not talking those established stars who had already made it like Deacon Blue, Wet Wet Wet and Aztec Camera but those who wished to follow in their footsteps. Like who? Well, off the top of my head there were The Big Dish, The Silencers and Love and Money (of whom more later). And this lot. The River Detectives were a folk rock duo hailing from Craigneuk, North Lanarkshire who briefly built up some momentum surrounding themselves with the release of their debut album “Saturday Night Sunday Morning” which scored a respectable No 51 in the album charts.
Four singles were released from the album but the one I knew best was “Chains”, a lovely piece of jangly guitar pop (the intro even has a whiff of The Stone Roses about it) and a chorus with such a whopper of a hook that no river detectives were required to provide evidence of its existence. Sadly the single could only match its parent album in terms of chart placings and I lost track of The River Detectives after that despite them leaving a trail of clues to be followed in the form of follow up album “Elvis Has Left The Building” in 1992. They carried on into the new millennium before finally calling it a day in 2009 leaving behind one of the unsolved mysteries of 80s pop – namely why “Chains” wasn’t a huge chart hit.
Love and Money – Up Escalator
Peak UK Chart Position: No 79
Ah yes, the aforementioned Love And Money. I’d first heard of this lot in 1986 when their debut single “Candybar Express” gained some traction via consistent airplay on Radio 1. Sadly it failed to make the Top 40. Despite debut album “All You Need Is…” being produced by Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor, that also failed to make any impression on the UK record buying public.
Undeterred, they returned with sophomore album “Strange Kind Of Love” in 1988 with an even more stellar list of contributors including Toto’s drummer Jeff Porcaro and Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen with the whole thing overseen by the latter’s producer Gary Katz. It racked up 250,000 sales world wide and yet still they were unable to buy a hit single in the UK. It wasn’t for the lack of trying. Four radio-friendly singles were released from the album and I liked them all but my favourite was the final one “Up Escalator” with its slinky back beat and biting chorus.
Despite releasing another fine album in 1991’s “Dogs In The Traffic” including the terrific single “Winter”, the band couldn’t break through the chart barrier that prevented them from becoming mainstream pop stars. They broke up in 1994 before reforming in 2011 and are still headed up by lead singer James Grant who, back in the day, had a quiff to rival Morrissey’s.
Ellis, Beggs And Howard – Big Bubbles, No Troubles
Peak UK Chart Position: No 41
Unfairly dismissed at the time due to his background, this Nick Beggs project saw the ex-Kajagoogoo bassist and occasional Chapman Stick player collaborate with the titular Simon Ellis (keyboards) and Austin Howard (vocals) to fashion a wonderfully eclectic yet musically proficient sound that was lost on many of the UK’s music fans. For those of us that did stumble upon it, we were richly rewarded.
“Big Bubbles, No Troubles” was the debut single that was initially released in 1988 when it topped out at No 59 but it was reactivated 8 months later when it couldn’t have gone closer to breaking into the Top 40 by peaking at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41. It’s got an almost filthy sounding funk vibe going on which brings to mind Prince allied to some very strong vocals from Austin Howard who on reflection, was Seal before there ever was a Seal.
Their album “Homelands” was one of the 80s best kept secrets. Wildly varied in style from riff laden rock to their own twisted version of Motown to sensitive world music ballads. If those sound like unfathomable descriptions, it’s because I don’t quite have the words to describe them. Two further tracks were released as singles (“Bad Times” and “Where Did Tomorrow Go”) but neither got any higher than No 98. The basis of a second album was recorded but never finished but was eventually made available under the title ‘Ellis Beggs and Howard – The Lost Years Vol 1’ as a digital only release years later via Beggs’ website.
Simon Ellis opted to pursue a much more out and out pop career after the band split writing hits for the likes of The Spice Girls, S Club & and Westlife whilst Beggs has continued to work in music on various and varied projects including a reformed Kajagoogoo in 2004. As for Austin Howard, he suffered from a rare form of cancer in 1991 but recovered to return to the music industry with rock band Ruff As Stone in 2011.
Terry, Blair And Anouchka – Missing
Peak UK Chart Position: No 75
I’m not sure that I knew about this song until the early 90s when I was working for Our Price and I bought a CD called “Terry Hall : the collection” and it was on there. I was aware that there had been this group (or possibly collective is a better word) called Terry, Blair and Anouchka and that the titular Terry was indeed Mr Hall but I never heard any of their stuff at the time.
“Missing” was the lead single from their “Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes” album and it does indeed have a nursery rhyme quality to it and that’s not a criticism. It manages to combine a whimsical even chirpy sound to some relentlessly miserable lyrics about a couple going through a separation leading to divorce. Quite a feat but then Terry always has been a gifted songwriter in every phase of his career. I love the unusual way that he changes the lyrics of the chorus around constantly rather than having a static text so we get…
the kids are crying the dog is dying and I just got the flu
and…
the snow is falling it’s christmas morning it might as well be June
Very simple but they work perfectly. What I didn’t know until now is that Anouchka is Anouchka Grose who is listed in Wikipedia as being a Lacanian psychoanalyst and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research. Wow! I’m guessing she didn’t write those lyrics otherwise they would have been much more deep and academic in nature.
The Terry, Blair and Anouchka project folded not long after its inception. Terry continued to record some phenomenal work either as a solo artist, collaborating with others like Dave Stewart for Vegas and of course with a reactivated The Specials who scored a No 1 album in “Encore” in 2019. The previously unmentioned Blair went onto form Oui 3 who had some brief chart success in the mid 90s.
Tin Machine – Under The God
Peak UK Chart Position: No 51
The late 80s had not been kind to David Bowie. His 1987 “Never Let Me Down” album had been critically panned and under performed commercially. As the decade closed, he was left feeling disillusioned with trying to make music for the fans he had acquired after the mainstream success of “Let’s Dance” rather than the music he wanted to make himself. His remedy was to go in a completely different direction and form a band. And not a band playing remakes of “Let’s Dance” but one which would turn out some heavy rock sounds that weren’t always the most easy to listen to.
Tin Machine comprised the unconventionally named Reeves Gabrels and the Sales brothers Tony and Hunt as well as Bowie himself. I remember there being a lot of commotion about the coming of Tin Machine and not all of it was positive. To me, a lot of the negative reaction seemed to be that people didn’t much like David Bowie with a beard which he had grown for the project but I’m sure the inkies music press had much more valid reasons for their caution. The style of music being peddled didn’t suit a lot of his fan base of which lead single “Under The God” was a prime example. Too rough and heavy seemed to be the main criticism but time has been kinder to the project with critical revisits declaring them ahead of their time and trailblazers for the likes of Nirvana and the grunge explosion.
As for Bowie himself, he was very keen to point out that Tin Machine were a band and not his band and that all four members had equal input and should receive equal levels of publicity. Yeah, that was never going to happen David. And me? What did I think? Nah, far too noisy for my liking.
Tin Machine lasted for two years and two albums before dissolving.
One 2 Many – Downtown
Peak UK Chart Position: No 43
It wasn’t just Simon Mayo who could use his Radio 1 profile to champion a specific song or two. Mark Goodier was at it as well in 1989. He even put his name to an album full of songs that he shouted up as being quality tunes. I should know, I bought the thing. It was smugly entitled “The Hit List: cuts above the rest”. Its sleeve notes included this arse clenchingly pompous statement from Goodier:
The Hit List is for the discerning music lover. It is a unique collection of sharp songs from bands who are right at the cutting edge of today’s music.
And I fell for this crap! Shame on me! And who pray were these bands at the cutting edge of today’s music? Why, there was Wet Wet Wet, Texas and erm….Waterfront?? OK, it’s easy to criticise in hindsight and with a good 30 odd years worth of perspective to confirm your opinions but I’m not sure Marti and the lads were ever considered cutting edge were they? And as for Waterfront…to be fair though, there were some decent bands and tunes on there such as the aforementioned Love And Money, The Beautiful South and the much loved but cruelly unrewarded commercially indie rockers House Of Love.
Goodier (I’m presuming these were his words) saw fit to pontificate some more with individual sleeve notes for each track. They really are quite insufferable and sycophantic. Here’s his view on The Alarm’s “Sold Me Down The River”:
If ever a band deserve huge success, it’s The Alarm. Mike Peters leads the group who never fail to deliver a stunning live set and a very strong album – this song is a fine example from their latest album Change.
There’s more. What do you think about Wet Wet Wet Mark?
The Wets are a good example of how much a group can achieve if they possess real talent. In five years they have gone from being unsigned to one of Britain’s best live bands. “Sweet Surrender” was the curtain raiser for their recent “Holding Back The River” album.
Oh OK. My favourite though is his take on And Why Not?
Not many groups start their career in the top 40 with their debut single, but it is nothing less than And Why Not? deserve. They may be young but they’re a musical force to be reckoned with as you’ll hear on their album “Move Your Skin“.
Yeah that prediction didn’t pan out too well.
There was another artist on “The Hit List” that I wanted to reference in One 2 Many. Goodier loved this lot and their catchy song “Downtown” (nothing to do with Petula Clark by the way). They hailed from Norway and one of their number had toured with A-ha as the keyboardist. However, it’s not the “Take On Me” hitmakers influence that can be heard on “Downtown” but the unmistakeable sound of one trick pony Bruce Hornsby on the piano riff. It wasn’t actually Bruce who played on it but the Bee Gees keyboard guy who were recording an album in the studio next door. He was asked to add a flourish to the song that was reminiscent of “The Way It Is”. He didn’t let them down (town) with a textbook copycat solo.
Originally released in 1988 it peaked at No 65 in the UK but was reissued the following year when it was a No 37 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100. Despite huge airplay support, it just missed the Top 40 again and before you could say ‘Who’s round is it?’, One 2 Many had split. And what did Goodier’s sleeve notes have to say about them? This:
“Downtown” was a huge turntable hit – in its time, one of the most played records on the radio. It was also an American number 1 and started a promising career for One 2 Many
It wasn’t an American No 1 and it didn’t start a promising career – an epic fail there Mark.
The Bible – Honey Be Good
Peak UK Chart Position: No 54
Bringing together a few different strands of the Hits That Never Were section come The Bible, surely the most tipped band for superstardom of the whole decade who never actually had a Top 40 hit – not for the want of trying though as we shall see. The first connection is that they were also on “The Hit List” album with Goodier reserving perhaps his most pompous of sleeve notes comments for them:
Loved by true music fans, The Bible still wait for the hit they deserve. Their self-titled album contains many outstanding songs – including “Honey Be Good”.
True music fans Mark? As opposed to those of us labouring under the impression that we like music but are in fact fooling ourselves with the falsehood of our preferences? Talk about elitist!
Luckily for me, I passed Goodier’s true music fan test as I did like The Bible, having first come across their single “Graceland” a couple of years before. To be fair, it was hard to avoid that single as it was eventually released three times, including one last failed attempt by their record label to make it a hit in May 1989 when it peaked at No 51. Three months later they released “Honey Be Good” (itself a re-release I think). When that avoided the Top 40 by 14 places, things started to go horribly wrong. According to Wikipedia, in scenes that would have been deemed to ridiculous for a comedy movie, the band flew to Germany to perform “Honey Be Good” on a music TV show which turned out to be a talent show and found themselves competing against a man calling himself Mr Gadget who wore a spinning bow tie with lights on it. Against all laws of probability, they lost and the humiliation proved too much and the band split.
They reformed briefly in the 90s and created another link to the Hits That Never Were section by writing an album with former Danny Wilson front man Gary Clark. Since 2011 they have been active on the live music circuit mainly doing concerts to celebrate release anniversaries of their back catalogue.
Norman Cook featuring Lester – For Spacious Lies
Peak UK Chart Position: No 48
This one was a bit confusing. Officially released under his own name but featuring vocalist Lester Noel, “For Spacious Lies” would ultimately end up on the Beats International debut album “Let Them Eat Bingo”. Norman was clearly having a bit of an identity crisis around this time, something that would stay with him into the 90s with his Fatboy Slim alter ego.
“For Spacious Lies” was much more in a pop vein than the dance output that Cook would make his name on and remains therefore somewhat of a anomaly in his canon. Including the memorable line ‘and Freedom’s just a song by Wham’, its joyous horns and Spanish guitars are juxtaposed with a rather more heavy lyrical subject matter of living through a cynical world built on lies and corruption.
Come the new decade, Cook would formalise his songs under the banner of Beats International with his previous hit “Blame It On The Bassline” joining “For Spacious Lies” on that project’s album. After scoring a huge No 1 with “Dub Be Good To Me”, a re-release of “For Spacious Lies” was issued under the Beats International moniker but only in France.
Les Negresses Vertes – The Fly (Zobi La Mouche)
Peak UK Chart Position: No 93
This lot were truly bonkers or seemed so to me at least. Categorising them proved difficult for the music press but they had a go anyway coming up with the likes of ‘gypsy punk’ and ‘world folk’ but no amount of description could have prepared me for “Zobi La Mouche”. A quite extraordinary noise full of energy, humour and erm…a fair amount of accordion. Lead singer Helno’s voice had something of John Lydon about it on reflection – sadly he would die from a heroine overdose just four years on from this.
The chaotic brew that Les Negresses Vertes served up proved too unpalatable for most of the UK audience who preferred the flamenco sound of fellow French musicians The Gipsy Kings but the band carried on after Helno’s death and into the new millennium but by then their style had drifted off into a more ambient dub concoction. I’m sure I had a promo copy of one of their singles once upon a time from my Our Price days though I’m not sure I ever played it more than once. I must dig it out one day and give it another spin.
Baby Ford – Children Of The Revolution
Peak UK Chart Position: No 53
And finally, just to prove that I wasn’t totally out of step with what was popular in 1989, a dance tune I quite liked. Admittedly, it’s based on 70s glam rock anthem “Children Of The Revolution” by T-Rex which I already knew and liked but this was, well…evolution for me, of a kind.
I didn’t know anything about Baby Ford at the time nor do I know much about them now (I haven’t bothered to check out their Wikipedia entry) but this track has stuck with me over the years. I think it was the ‘B-b-b-b-b-ump and griiiind’ scratched hook in the intro that made me notice it. Where did I first hear this? No idea. A club? Possibly, but if it was released after I’d left Sunderland Poly then probably not as my lack of finances seriously curtailed my club going habits. Would it have been played on daytime radio? Again possibly but I have no memory of hearing it on the airwaves. I guess sometimes you just get music that inexplicably drifts into your life and just as inexplicably stays there for the duration. This is one of mine.
1989 – their year in the sun
Big Fun
The Stock, Aitken and Waterman Jackson 5 …except there were only three of them. Three of these berks was more than enough though as they stank out the TOTP studio with their rancid version of “Blame It On The Boogie” and the woeful SAW original “Can’t Shake The Feeling” on multiple occasions. They rustled up a couple more middling hits into 1990 (including one for charity with stablemate Sonia) but thankfully for all our sakes then fucked off forevermore.
Jason Donovan
The Stock, Aitken and Waterman David Cassidy, our Jase was already a well known face on UK TV screens thanks to his starring role as Scott Robinson in Aussie daytime soap Neighbours. After fictional and briefly real life love interest Kylie Minogue struck gold with some insanely catchy SAW tunes the year before, it made sense to wheel out Donovan to exploit the teenage girl market while he was still hot property. Four Top 5 hits in the calendar year including two back to back No 1s laid the foundations for him to secure the best selling album of 1989 in the UK with his “Ten Good Reasons” debut.
It couldn’t last though and his popularity started to wane as the world moved onto the ghastly New Kids On The Block to fill up the poster space on their walls into the new decade. A final hurrah with 1991’s chart topper “Any Dream Will Do” from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in which he starred in the West End rather aptly brought down the curtain on his brief but brightly burning time as a bona fide pop star.
Sonia
The Stock, Aitken and Waterman Cilla Black, the diminutive scouse firecracker leapt to fame when she secured a No 1 record with her very first single in this year. Plucked from obscurity by Pete Waterman who seemed to be trying to convince us all that he was some sort of pop music King Midas, Sonia looked like she could scarcely believe her luck whenever she performed on TOTP. Despite notching up a string of Top 40 hits into the early 90s, she never got anywhere near that coveted top spot again.
That ignominious route to career resurrection that is the Eurovision Song Contest salvaged one final Top 20 hit for her before it was off to the graveyard of reality TV when she appeared alongside Todd Carty, Tony Blackburn, Colin Baker and Sherrie Hewson in Channel 5’s Celebrity 5 Go Caravanning.
Black Box
The autumn of ’89 was completely owned by Black Box and their ubiquitous “Ride On Time” No 1 single. Six weeks at the top and the best selling single of the year in the UK, these flag wavers of the Italo House phenomenon were hot property. Yes, there had been that controversy over who actually did the singing on the record (it wasn’t striking French fashion model Katrin Quinol who did all the promotional performances) but I’m guessing the clubbers dancing themselves into a frenzy over this huge tune cared not a jot.
Though certainly not a one hit wonder (they actually clocked up a further six chart hits between 1990 and 1991), they were never more in sync with the zeitgeist than in 1989.
A version of the act were still releasing music as recently as 2018.
Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers
As bizarre as it was heinous, this fluctuation in the pop music time continuum was staggering in its audacity and in its simplicity of concept. Quite how the nation was fooled into giving some DJs from Rotherham three consecutive No 1 records in return for a cut and past montage of 50s songs fronted by a shitty animated rabbit remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. How? Why? Who f**king bought the records? These questions are yet to be answered.
In my mind, Jive Bunny disappeared as soon as Christmas 1989 was over but Wikipedia tells me that they had another three hits the following year but thankfully I have blitzed them from my memory. If we have learned anything from this horrible experience it is that sometimes you really cannot trust the Great British public to do the right thing.
London Boys
They came, they saw, they mimed to some camp as tents Euro pop whilst performing back flips and they conquered the charts. One of the oddest sensations of the year, Edem Ephraim and Dennis Fuller briefly dominated the charts with back to back Top 5 hits and were clearly favourites of the TOTP producers who were only too glad to repeat book them for the show. I guess they did bring a sense of spectacle with them but the music was dire.
Tragically, the pair were killed in 1996 when their car was hit by a drunk driver in the Eastern Alps in Austria.
Last Words
I probably didn’t think so back then, but on reflection, 1989 seemed very much like killing time until the 80s were done – just treading water awaiting the new decade and all that it may bring with it. Yes, there was the Italo House phenomenon which helped to establish the dance music explosion of the previous year but there weren’t many exciting new acts and genres in this year. Obviously there were some notable exceptions like The Stone Roses, De La Soul and Soul II Soul but if Gene Pitney could have a No 1 then that tells you an awful lot about 1989.
There was an awful lot of ‘as you were’ going on with the likes of Erasure, Simply Red and Kylie Minogue all maintaining their chart runs (to varying degrees). There were also some major comebacks in the offing with Fine Young Cannibals returning with a massive hit album and re-inventing themselves as huge stars in America whilst 1989 also saw three established female stars back in the charts in a big way in Madonna, Cher and Tina Turner. There were also some solid innings from reliably classy acts like Depeche Mode, The Cure and REM.
Classic rock music was represented this year by Bon Jovi who consolidated on their global commercial breakthrough although they were seriously challenged in the popularity stakes by Guns N’ Roses who were The Rolling Stones to their Beatles. Hoary old 70s rocker Alice Cooper pulled off a surprisingly successful resurrection but Queen’s return after three years away sounded dreadful to me on the whole.
And so we turned our backs on the 80s and looked towards the 90s. What delights (or disappointments) would the new decade hold?
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.
IT’S XMAS 1989! Well almost. The Top 40 chart featured in this TOTP wasn’t the actual Xmas chart as there was one more to be announced on Xmas Eve based on record sales from Monday 18th to Saturday 23rd December but – and I don’t think this is news to anybody – there was no movement in the No 1 record so whatever was in top spot at the end of this TOTP was the actual Xmas No 1.
The presenters tonight are Bruno Brookes and Anthea Turner. I’m not sure if they were still together at this point (although the Xmas kiss at the end of the show might be an indication) but if they were, it didn’t last much longer as she married her manager and former Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell in 1990. Plenty has been written and reported about Anthea (and her relationships) over the years so there’s no need for me to add to the collection other than to say that this seemed to be the point where she adopted her shorter bob style haircut with her rock chic long locks gone and never to return. Anyways, the pair have twelve ‘new’ songs for our delectation tonight so let’s get started with…..
… TheFPI Project and a cover of “Going Back To My Roots” a song that I knew from Odyssey’s 1981 version. This take on it was created by three Italian DJs so, of course, this meant it had to have an Itala House twist to it. Watching the performance back, I was amazed that there was hardly any singing on it! I kept waiting for the vocal to kick in thinking ‘those two women centre stage aren’t just going to jig about for the whole thing are they?’ – but they did. I must have got it confused with the Odyssey version in my ever deteriorating memory banks. There really isn’t anything much to it at all – except for the annoying ‘Woo! Yeah!’ loop. Poor fare indeed.
“Going Back To My Roots” was the only hit for The FPI Project peaking at No 9.
After Odyssey (almost) comes an oddity. “Burning The Ground” was basically a promotional tool for Duran Duran‘s first greatest hits album “Decade” in the form of a megamix single. It doesn’t actually appear on said album (I know because I bought it – yes I did, deal with it) and I have to admit to not really being conscious of its existence back in ’89. Maybe radio was just overdosing on festive tunes so close to Xmas. Featuring samples from their back catalogue of singles including “Save A Prayer”, “View To A Kill”, “Rio”, “The Reflex” and “The Wild Boys” its title was taken from another single’s lyrics in “Hungry Like The Wolf”. There’s also some snippets of dialogue from the film Barbarella which inspired their band name thrown in for good measure.
Apparently the band enjoyed mixing this track together and I think it works pretty well actually. The video follows the same cut and paste ethos as the song with various bits of their previous singles promos all thrown into the cooking pot. The single peaked at No 31 – I’m not sure if that was above or below band expectations back in 1989 but it certainly ushered in a fallow period in their fortunes until the career resurrecting “Ordinary World” single in 1993.
After her chart topper “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You” earlier in the year, things had stalled a bit for Sonia. Follow up single “Can’t Forget You” had proved to be quite…erm…forgettable and only made it to a disappointing No 17. When third single “Listen To Your Heart” (no, not the Roxette song) debuted on the charts at No 42, alarm bells must have been ringing down at Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s Hit Factory. Presumably after some intense promotional work (including this TOTP slot), the trend was reversed and the single managed to clamber up to a rather more encouraging No 10.
It always felt to me that after pulling off the trick of taking somebody off the streets (literally) and making them a No 1 selling pop star, Pete Waterman et al kind of lost interest in Sonia and would give her any old trash for her subsequent career that wouldn’t have been considered B-side worthy material for the likes of SAW royalty Kylie and Jason. To be fair to Sonia, she always seemed so enthusiastic when performing (even if the song was crud) and as Anthea rather condescendingly says “She’s always got a lovely smile on her face hasn’t she?”.
1989 really was an excellent year for De La Soul – a critically acclaimed and commercially successful debut album in “3 Feet High And Rising” was followed up by four UK Top 40 hits released from it. “The Magic Number” was the fourth of said singles and was based on “Three Is A Magic Number” by Bob Dorough which he wrote for US educational TV series Schoolhouse Rock!. It also features samples from sources as unlikely as Led Zeppelin and Johnny Cash whose 1959 track “5 feet High And Rising” was the inspiration for the hip-hop trio’s album title. The three in De La Soul’s version of the song refers to the three members of the group rather than the multiplication tables of the original.
I have to admit that of those four De La Soul 1989 singles, this was the one I least remembered despite being the biggest hit of the lot when it peaked at No 7. Maybe my memory of it had been shunted aside by this version by Embrace…
The track has been used for many a TV advert and campaign including The National Lottery and the launch of BBC3…
Who? Silver Bullet? As in Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band of “Hollywood Nights” fame? Nope, this was Silver Bullet the UK rapper (real name the rather more pedestrian sounding Richard Brown) who had a No 11 hit with this Robocop sampling track “20 Seconds To Comply” …
…nope, I got nothin’ for this one. I thought I knew it but then realised I was just getting it confused with this 2001 track by So Solid Crew…
Silver Bullet released an album called “Bring Down the Walls No Limit Squad Returns” in 1991 which was nothing to do with Blazin’ Squad and then relaunched himself as Silvah Bullet in 1998 (of course he did).
Four Breakers?! Right up against Xmas?! OK well, the first two are just the latest singles to be released from the current albums of two very different bands. Beginning with “Living In Sin” by Bon Jovi, this was the fifth single to come from their “New Jersey” album and was easily the worst performing of the lot in the UK where it peaked at No 35. In fact, despite the album going double platinum over here (including a copy purchased by myself), the singles from it didn’t pull up any trees chart wise in the UK. In the US it was a completely different story. Check out this chart placings comparison:
SINGLE
US
UK
Bad Medicine
1
17
Born To Be My Baby
3
22
I’ll Be There For You
1
18
Lay Your Hands On Me
7
18
Living In Sin
9
35
Pretty clear that there was more of an appetite for rock in the US than in the UK at this time I think. Well, we had Jive Bunny and Stock, Aitken and Waterman – we weren’t daft were we?
Also releasing another track from their album but in a completely different style were The Beautiful South. Having scored Top 10 hits with their first two singles, the band must have had high hopes for “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”. I did as well. I hadn’t particularly warmed to “You Keep It All In” (though I’d loved “Song For Whoever”) but this sounded pretty special to me.
I wasn’t the only one. I remember being in a record shop in Hull (can’t remember which one) in the run up to Xmas and overhearing two young women talking about the song with one of them remarking that Paul Heaton had done it again and written his first No 1 song in “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”. She was sadly very wrong as it peaked at No 31. However, she was only about 10 months out for her Heaton penned No 1 prediction as ” A Little Time” from the band’s second album would top the charts in October the following year. The video is completely charming as well.
Next a song that gave yet more evidence to the direction that the UK was taking in its choice of preferred musical genres at this time. I initially assumed that 49ers were a US outfit (as in the San Francisco 49ers American football team) but of course, with it being late ’89, they were actually yet another Italo House act. Their track “Touch Me” was very much in “Ride On Time” territory and was a huge hit all over Europe including in the UK where it peaked at No 3.
The front woman featured in the video was one Dawn Mitchell who sounds like she should be an Eastenders character – she didn’t last that long and was replaced by Ann-Marie Smith. Presumably the band didn’t keep the plot line open to allow Dawn to return in the future.
During 1988, I’d quite got into All About Eve (without actually buying any of their stuff) and had liked a lot of the singles from their eponymous debut album but by the end of 1989 I’d totally lost track of them despite them releasing a second album in “”Scarlet And Other Stories”. “December” was the second single to be released from that album (I’d been totally oblivious to lead single “Road to Your Soul” despite it skirting the outer reaches of the Top 40) and on reflection it seemed a bit of a cynical move by their record label. Yes, it didn’t sound very much like a Xmas song but when they presented the album and it had a song called “December” on it, I’ll bet that it was immediately penciled in for release during the festive period by their marketing people.
This track only made No 34 despite the album going Top 10 and there was one further single release from it that also peaked at No 34.
Now then, according to Anthea, this lot were Britain’s best group in late ’89. It’s quite a claim for I’m pretty sure that the appeal of Bros was very much on the wane by this point. Second album “The Time” had been critically panned and a massive backwards step in terms of sales compared to their debut “Push”. “Sister” was the third single to be released from “The Time” and it just about managed to pierce the Top 10 (it was literally a No 10 record) but it was the last time they would ever get that high in the charts.
And yet, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, maybe we should cut them some slack and give them some credit here. Why? Well, “Sister” was actually written about their younger sister Carolyn who died in a car crash at the very height of their fame. It’s referred to briefly in their notorious When The Screaming Stops documentary showing that Matt and Luke had to appear on the Wogan show just as they were receiving the dreadful news and then the press gatecrashed the funeral. Pretty devastating stuff to have to deal with as 19 year olds, let alone 19 year olds in the eye of a whirlwind of intense media attention and teenage girl screams.
I think I heard this track for the first time in the canteen of Debenhams where I was working and at the time I dismissed it as their Xmas single just as they had released a big ballad the previous Xmas in “Cat Among The Pigeons”. I may have judged them too harshly.
Top 10
10. New Kids On The Block – “You Got It (The Right Stuff)
9. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – “Don’t Know Much”
8. Tina Turner – “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”
7. Madonna – “Dear Jessie”
6. Andy Stewart – “Donald Where’s Your Troosers”
5. Kaoma – “Lambada”
4. Soul II Soul – “Get A Life”
3. Jason Donovan – When You Come Back To Me”
2. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – “Let’s Party”
1. Band Aid II – “Do They Know It’s Christmas”: To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Band Aid II is straight in at No 1 and will remain there for three weeks ensuring it was the Xmas No 1 also. I remember there being a lot of fuss about this at the time (though nowhere near the same amount that there had been the first time around in 1984) and yet it hardly ever gets played at Xmas on the radio (the original is always preferred) and it rarely appears on any Xmas compilation album.
Why? Personally, I just don’t think it’s any where near as good as the first one. Maybe it could never hope to equal the impact that Sir Bob’s original made but musically, it sounds like the lift music version of its predecessor, all tinny production and whiny vocals. I mean, they gave the legendary Bono line of ‘”Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” to Jason Donovan and Matt Goss! Who’s idea was that?! OK, of the available artists there wasn’t much of a choice – I think maybe Chris Rea’s growl would have had more gravitas than Matt and Jase though.
Maybe it’s that the roster of stars looked like pale imitations of the titans of British pop on that first record – I mean Big Fun and Sonia?! Even the elder statesman of pop Cliff Richard seems an incongruous choice. The record gave rise to that pub quiz question that surely we all know the answer to now. Who were the only act to appear on both the ’84 and ’89 versions? Bananarama of course, or to be strictly accurate Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin as Jacquie O’Sullivan wasn’t on the original.
The song was revisited again in 2004 as Band Aid 20 and in 2014 as Band Aid 30 and I’m pretty sure they don’t receive much airplay either. Sometimes the original really is the best.
And finally….the last song of the night is the new song by The Christians who had hadn’t released anything since their cover of “Harvest For The World” over a year prior. “Words” was the lead single from their second album “Colour”. I quite liked the celtic feel of this one and it certainly struck a chord in France where it was No 1 and spent 19 weeks on their chart. Reception to it here though was more lukewarm and it made only No 18. It would be the band’s last ever visit to the Top 20.
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
The FPI Project
Going Back To My Roots
Nope
2
Duran Duran
Burning The Ground
I had Decade but this track wasn’t on it
3
Sonia
Listen To Your Heart
As if
4
De La Soul
The Magic Number
No but my wife had their album
5
Silver Bullet
20 Seconds To Comply
No
6
Bon Jovi
Living In Sin
Not the single but I had their album New Jersey
7
The Beautiful South
I’ll Sail This Ship Alone
No but I had their album
8
49ers
Touch Me
Nah
9
All About Eve
December
I did not
10
Bros
Sister
That would be no
11
Band Aid II
Do They Know It’s Christmas
I bought the ’84 version but not even charity could make me part with my cash for this one
12
The Christians
Words
One word – 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.
Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…
Eleven days until Christmas and the race to be the festive No 1 of 1989 has been completely hijacked. No, not by The X Factor (that wouldn’t enter the UK’s popular culture for another 15 years) but by the news that the Band Aid project from five years previous was being revitalised with a new recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” by the stars of 1989, produced (inevitably) by Stock Aitken and Waterman. From the moment on Friday 1 December when Bob Geldof called Pete Waterman to ask if he would consider producing a new version of the song, all bets were off for what would be Xmas No 1. It was recorded just two days later with a first airplay coming on the Tuesday of that week. It was officially released into the shops on Monday 11th so would not be eligible for inclusion in this week’s TOTP (not being in the Top 40 by that point) but we all knew what would happen the following week.
So where did this leave this week’s chart hopefuls? Well, pissing in the wind in terms of retaining any hopes of being the Xmas No 1 but there are another 39 Top 40 places to be filled so let’s see who did just that.
Tonight’s presenter is a solo Nicky Campbell and he turns in a weird and sometimes spiteful performance. The weirdness is on show from the off as he introduces tonight’s opening act. To start with he’s got a vile psychedelic style shirt on which he has somehow coerced two male studio audience members to adopt as well. Then he starts babbling about saunas in reference to Rob ‘N’ Raz featuring Leila K hailing from Sweden before making the connection that they, like saunas, are hot, steamy and enervating. Wait, enervating you say Nicky? I think that’s where your simile falls down a bit. ‘Enervating’ means ‘to make (someone) feel drained of energy or vitality’. Is he saying that Rob ‘N’ Raz will drain you of energy due to the excessive dancing you will do to their tune “Got To Get”? Or is he saying that the act are already looking a bit lethargic before they’ve even performed? I just don’t think it works Nicky. I bet he was really proud of that intro as well. To top it all off he gets the name of the song wrong by calling it “Got To Give It”. It’s a poor start I have to say.
As for the song, if you close your eyes you could imagine it being sung by one of 1989’s biggest stars Neneh Cherry. Well, almost. Of course, it was actually sung by Leila K who was discovered by Rob and indeed Raz at a rapping talent contest at which they were both judges. So she was a bit like the Swedish Sonia in a way – albeit without the squeaky scouse voice and red hair.
“Got To Get” peaked at No 8.
Next we see the catty side of Campbell as he makes a snide remark whilst referencing Madonna‘s forthcoming movie. “Madonna’s back! Watch out for her forthcoming film Dick Tracy. She’s made it with Warren Beatty…but then again, who hasn’t”. Again, I bet he was so pleased with himself for that one. Now of course, Beatty was well known for his womanising ways and indeed, he and Madonna did date whilst getting together during the filming of Dick Tracy but it still sounds like a cheap shot from Campbell to me.
Back to the music though and “Dear Jessie” was the last single (in the UK) to be lifted from her “Like A Prayer” album and it was all swooping strings and lullaby lyrics tied to a sugar coated melody. Probably just the wrong side of cutesy but I guess it was a nice enough tune for the Xmas market. Also, it was perfect for any parent with a child called Jessie (I used to work with someone who fell into just that category). The track was never released in the US where the record label instead went for two other album tracks in “Oh Father” and “Keep It Together”.
The video is predominantly an animation with Madge depicted as a Tinker Bell type fairy figure. The animation looks pretty basic compared to today’s standards but was probably perfectly acceptable back in 1989. I’m sure Gabriel the Frog from Bagpuss is in there somewhere. It also got me wondering if it could have been the inspiration for the video for the 1998 Spice Girls single “Viva Forever”.
As predicted by Campbell, “Dear Jessie” did indeed go Top 5 in the UK when it peaked at exactly No 5.
Now then, if it’s Christmas it must be time for Cliff Richard right? Well, yes but this year he was playing supporting actor to legendary grump Van Morrison who had enticed Cliff to duet with him on his single “Whenever God Shines His Light”. Before the Band Aid II announcement, this was briefly being talked about as an outside bet for the Xmas No 1 – well Cliff had form in that area having bagged the previous year’s top spot. It’s a well…pleasant (is that the right word?) number and there was a lot of talk how their two voices together shouldn’t work but somehow they do. I’m not sure about that at all. Cliff’s out and out pure pop voice seems completely at odds to Van’s more authentic growl to me.
“Whenever God Shines His Light” ultimately stalled at No 20 but Cliff got his Xmas No 1 anyway as part of the Band Aid II project. Not wishing to share the limelight with anyone else, he produced another Xmas No 1 the following year with “Saviour’s Day”.
It’s that “Deep Heat ’89” thingy again by Latino Rave who were less a group and more a marketing tool to promote the Telstar “Deep Heat” compilation series. I suppose I can understand why this might have worked well in a club environment and was a quick win for any DJ playing it but personally I was sick to the back teeth of hearing “Pump Up The Jam” et al by this point. Nice use of Rocky Horror Picture Show lips in the video though.
“Deep Heat ’89” peaked at No 12 and there were no further hits accredited to Latino Rave.
Very much a forgotten Wet Wet Wet single I would imagine, “Broke Away” was the second single to be released from their “Holding Back The River” album. Described in Smash Hits as having a decent chance of being a No 1 at any other time of the year, like its predecessor “Sweet Surrender”, it always seemed a bit lightweight to me. It’s all very atmospheric and well crafted and all that but it never seems to really get going. And what a curious performance this is. Drummer Tommy is strumming a guitar, Graeme has swapped his standard bass guitar for a double bass and what’s with Marti Pellow’s hat? He also drops a thousand yard stare into the outro which seems ever so slightly inappropriate in a wistful ballad. Surely the experience wasn’t that traumatic Marti?
Possibly very disappointingly for the band, “Broke Away” peaked at No 19.
Another particularly snide barb from Nicky Campbell in his next intro when he has a pop at Tina Turner‘s age. Referring to her upcoming concert at Woburn Abbey he trills ” She’ll be playing to an audience of 50,0000 people which is one for every year of her life”. There really wasn’t any need for that surely?! At the time of this TOTP, Campbell was 28 years old whilst Tina had just turned 50. He is now 59 – by his 1989 standards, he’s fair game for people making ageist remarks about him.
Anyway, I’m sure Tina had more important things on her mind than Nicky Campbell at this time like playing to 50,000 people at Woburn Abbey for one and a new single in “I Don’t Wanna Lose You” for two.
Oh this is perfect! I hadn’t realised this before but the opening lines to the track are:
Women of a certain age They learn to rely and judge all his responses
Consider yourself judged Campbell!
“I Don’t Wanna Lose You” peaked at No 8.
A genuine 80s supergroup up next as Electronic make their debut. While Nicky Campbell correctly points out the “triumvirate” of Bernard Sumner, Neil Tennant and Johnny Marr, he omits a name check for the drummer up there on stage with them who is none other than ex-ABC drummer David Palmer. Bit rude Campbell. To be fair though, it was the other three that that generated the excitement about this project which came about in a very loose way but which would exist as a going concern (on and off) for the whole of the next decade. With Sumner looking to start a solo career outside of New Order and Marr looking for projects following the demise of The Smiths, they collaborated to produce the track “Getting Away With It”.
Apparently looking for a quintessentially English singer for the song, their initial choice was Nick Heyward – I would have loved to have seen Nick back in the charts with such a credible venture but when asked, he was going through a period of low esteem and didn’t have the confidence to put himself out there. Neil Tennant was seen as a viable alternative to fulfill the brief and his affected vocals certainly work well with the song’s structure and sound (at least much better than Cliff’s on Van Morrison’s tune earlier!). Anne Dudley of Art Of Noise conducted the orchestra to be found on the record whilst its lyrics (penned by Tennant and Sumner) supposedly are a wry swipe at the public image of Marr’s ex-band mate, Morrissey.
The Electronic working arrangements were so loose that it took them 18 months after “Getting Away With It” was in the charts before they released their debut self titled album and when it did finally appear their first hit wasn’t even on it! I was working in Our Price by then and I’m sure that we got in some import version of the album that did include “Getting Away With It” in the track listing but the original standard UK edition didn’t. Subsequent reissues of it have consistently righted that wrong.
The single was a sizeable hit peaking at No 12 in the UK (and it also made No 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US) and it was easily one of the better songs in the charts at this time (albeit the competition wasn’t up to much).
Top 10
10. Andy Stewart – “Donald Where’s Your Troosers?”
9. Madonna – “Dear Jessie”
8. Tina Turner – “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”
7. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – “Don’t Know Much”
6. Jeff Wayne – “The Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand Remix)”
5. Kaoma – “Lambada”
4. New Kids On The Block – “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”
3. Soul II Soul – “Get A Life”
2. Jason Donovan – “When You Come Back To Me”
1. Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers – “Let’s Party”: Ye gods! The horror continues! Not content with two consecutive No 1s, the UK public decided that what we really needed this Xmas was a third Jive Bunny chart topper! The people behind the rabbit (I won’t dignify their existence with a name check) must have been incredulous that they could pull off this shit trick for a third time!
This was probably the easiest of the lot to concoct with it being Xmas and all. At the time, the notion of Xmas compilation albums was just a fledgling concept and households didn’t have access to all those Xmas faves of yesteryear as we do now. I think there was the original “Now – The Christmas Album” (they played that continually in the toy department of Debenhams where I was working that Xmas) and that was probably about it.
So… just shove a couple of well known festive tunes together (Slade and Wizzard in this case) and use something called “March Of The Mods” (a hit in 1964 for Joe Loss and his Orchestra) to string it all together and bingo! It’s so lazy and cynical and yet people fell for it …again! Even Nicky Campbell refers to it as a Xmas Turkey! Incidentally, they didn’t have permission for the original Wizzard track so they got Roy Wood to re-record it if you were thinking that the sample doesn’t sound quite like the original. Shame on you Roy!
Thankfully, “Let’s Party’ only lasted one week at the top due to Band Aid II thereby giving us all a valid (and the only) reason for being thankful for its existence.
In a strange turn of events, Alexander O’Neal is the play out track for the second week running with his “Hit Mix (Official Bootleg Mega-Mix)” single. I’m not sure having the same track as the play out video in consecutive weeks has ever happened before in these TOTP repeats but I could be wrong. To complete his rather bizarre performance as host, Sarky Campbell doesn’t even bother to announce it.
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Rob “N” Raz featuring Leila K
Got To Get
I didn’t heed the instruction in the title of their single I’m afraid – no
2
Madonna
Dear Jessie
No but I think my wife had the Like A Prayer album
3
Van Morrison and Cliff Richard
Whenever God Shines His Light
No but I think it’s on my wife’s Best Of album of the grumpy one
4
Latino Rave
Deep Hest ‘89
Big no
5
Wet Wet Wet
Broke Away
Nah
6
Tina Turner
I Don’t Wanna Lose You
Nope
7
Electronic
Getting Away With It
Seems not but I really should have
8
Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers
Let’s Party
Let’s not – NO!
9
Alexander O’Neal
Hit Mix (Official Bootleg Mega-Mix)
And no
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…
We’re into December ’89 in these BBC4 TOTP repeats and all thoughts start turning towards Xmas. I myself am certainly very festive focussed as I am working in the toy department at Debenhams in Hull where I am staying with my girlfriend at her parents home. A large percentage of the UK are not thinking about presents, wrapping paper and decorations though as they are consumed by the drama going on down in Coronation Street where perennial nasty Alan Bradley finally gets his comeuppance when he is run over by a Blackpool tram. That particular episode of the long running ITV soap was broadcast the day after this TOTP aired.
Over on BBC though, it’s all about the music and we start with…well, I “Can’t Shake The Feeling” that this isn’t music at all. Yes, it’s those jokers Big Fun who are still (still) doing the exact same dance routine as they have done every time they’ve performed this single. Cue lots of twinkle-toed dance steps, gyrating arms and a bucket load of buttock shaking. They finish off with a show of unity by coming together with their arms around each others shoulders. It’s unwaveringly grim.
Unbeknownst to me at the beginning of this post, it turns out that there was a fourth member of the band who left before they hit the big time called Keith Davies who pursued an acting career after leaving Big Fun and who appeared in…yep…Coronation Street.
Having observed tonight’s TOTP host Mark Goodier over a number of these repeats, it strikes me that he is rather fond of employing the ‘royal we’. “Now an album we really like is the Kate Bush album called ‘The Sensual World’…” he pontificates in his intro to “This Woman’s Work”. Does he mean ‘we’ as in him and his colleagues at Radio 1? So he spoke for everyone employed there back then did he? Was there a poll conducted asking the work force to share their current favourites that can confirm Goodier’s claim?
As for Kate, after taking four years to come up with “The Sensual World” as the follow up to ’85’s “Hounds of Love”, she then took another four years to record her next album “The Red Shoes”. She wasn’t for being rushed was she? Apparently there was a third single released from “The Sensual World” in early 1990 called “Love And Anger” but I have to say I wasn’t even aware of its existence until now. It only reached No 38 so I can perhaps be forgiven.
In between “Love And Anger” and the lead single from “The Red Shoes” called “Rubberband Girl”, Kate released just one other new song which was in fact an old song, her version of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” as part of the “Two Rooms’ tribute project which reached No 12.
Next up are a group who Goodier introduces as “one of the best band’s of the year in my view”. In my view Mark? What happened to the ‘royal we’? Soul II Soul weren’t really a band though according to their founder Jazzie B who described them thus in Smash Hits magazine:
“It’s a way of life, not a group“.
He goes onto expand that he wants Soul II Soul to inspire black people to “fulfill their desires and ambitions and dreams“. A truly noble statement and intention – sadly 31 years on equality is still so out of reach that the Black Lives Matter campaign is necessary.
Having scored a No 1 last time out with “Back To Life”, the band erm…collective have released a new song called “Get A Life” and until this moment, I’d never noticed how similar its title was to its predecessor’s. What is different about it though is that vocalist Caron Wheeler has moved on and has been replaced by Jazzie B’s cousin Marcia Lewis with the man himself more prominent with his (mainly) spoken word vocals well up in the mix. I quite liked this although the children’s chorus of “What’s the meaning of life?” did grate a bit.
“Get A Life” was a No 3 hit and also the lead single from second album “Vol. II: 1990 – A New Decade” about which I thought two things at the time. Firstly, ‘Wow this lot are prolific! Two albums in under a year!’ (take note Kate Bush) and secondly, that title will age terribly.
More weirdness from Goodier now as he introduces the next act as “a man who’s a very brilliant musician but also a very funny guy”. Who on earth could he be talking about? Well, it’s that well known stand up comedian Sydney Youngblood of course! Yeah, when I think of Sydney Youngblood I don’t immediately think ‘funny guy’ I have to say. Still, I’ve never met him I suppose.
Laughing boy Syd is here to promote “Sit And Wait” his follow up to No 3 hit “If Only I Could”. I always found this one a bit flat and pedestrian I have to say. Watching this performance back though, I’m struck by a couple of things. In the second line of the lyrics, he uses the phrase ‘hangin’ tough’ thus beating those pesky New Kids On The Block To It by a good few weeks. Secondly, I don’t remember the Vision On style xylophone instrumental break in the middle nor Sydney’s actually quite odd dance moves that he busts to it.
The fact that he follows on from Soul II Soul is actually quite interesting given that he was accused of plagiarising their style. Ever the joker, Sydney responded by releasing a remix of an earlier hit “Feeling Free” called “The Jazzy Who? Remix” in reference to Jazzie B. Wonder if Jazzie saw the funny side?
“Sit And Wait” made No 16 and was the last time we saw Sydney in the UK charts.
I always get a bit confused around Dusty Springfield‘s late 80s resurgence courtesy of the Pet Shop Boys. “In Private” was her third hit on the trot that Neil and Chris had written and produced and like its predecessor “Nothing Has Been Proved” was written for inclusion on the soundtrack to the film Scandal. You can see why with its lyrics about a hidden relationship that one of the protagonists is ashamed to admit to but…and this is where I get confused…it isn’t on the soundtrack as it was rejected for sounding too contemporary. But “Nothing Has Been Proved” written and produced by the same people was fine? I don’t get it. As it happens, both were included on Dusty’s album “Reputation” that appeared the following year selling 60,000 copies in the UK.
Whilst I didn’t mind the song, the video is as dull as you like with its revolving, conveyor belt shots of Dusty performing intercut with models gossiping on the phone. The video does not feature Joanne Whalley who was one of the stars of the film Scandal and guess what? Yes, she also appeared in Coronation Street – twice no less playing someone called Pamela Graham in 1974 and a customer in Sylvia’s Separates in 1976.
“In Private” peaked at No 14.
I just can’t get my head around this one. Firstly, I can’t really remember it being in the charts and secondly, now that I know that it was, I cannot for the life of me see why. “The Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand Remix) from “Jeff Wayne‘s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds” in 1989 you say? Nope – no idea. Did it get loads of airplay at the time? I can’t imagine that it did. Was it big in the clubs? It’s a really bizarre footnote to the history of 80s pop music. It peaked at No 3 so some people out there clearly dug it but it should have remained buried in 1978 for me.
Three Breakers this week and we start with something called “Deep Heat ’89” by Latino Rave. So it turns out that this release was linked to the popular late 80s/early 90s Deep Heat house music compilation albums series on the Telstar label. I remember this series from my early days at Our Price and this single was basically a marketing tool to promote the latest album in the series called “Deep Heat 89 ~ Fight The Flame”. It featured excerpts of remixed hits such as “Pump Up The Jam” by Technotronic, “Stakker Humanoid” by Stakker and “Numero Uno” by Starlight.
It strikes me now as a nasty, cynical corporate measure to fleece the punters but it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. “Deep Heat ’89” reached No 12 in the UK charts.
Hell’s teeth! How many singles did Queen release from their “The Miracle” album. Well, the title track here was the last of five that were released in the following months in 1989:
May
June
August
October
November
That’s quite the schedule. I hadn’t minded lead single ” I Want It All” but from thereon in each subsequent track released was just the band going through the motions to me. The lyrics for this one were so trite and vapid. Check these out:
‘The one thing we’re all waiting for Is peace on Earth and end to war’
I could have written better than that in junior school! They also don’t make any sense. Since when were The Golden Gate and the Taj Mahal miracles and as for Jimi Hendrix being a wonder of the world …I could never hear Jimi I’m afraid.
The video with the our mini me band members is just nausea inducing. Apparently the guy playing Freddie Mercury – one Ross McCall – did go onto be a professional actor and starred in Band of Brothers and the football hooligan film Green Street among other projects. He is yet to appear in Coronation Street as far as I can tell. By comparison, the kid who played the part of Brian May is currently a facilities manager at LegoLand in Windsor.
“The Miracle” peaked at No 21 and we would not encounter Queen for another two years when they came back with their last proper studio album (“Innuendo”) before Freddie Mercury’s death.
Simple Minds covered Prince?! I don’t remember this at all! Their version of“Sign O’ The Times” was part of “The Amsterdam EP” which did include a fourth track released from their album “Street Fighting Years” which was “Let It All Come Down”. Why did they feel the need to release an EP instead of the track as a single its own right? Maybe a fourth single from the album was pushing it or maybe the track was considered to weak to stand on its own merits so it was beefed up with an ‘interesting’ cover version? So let’s have a listen to their take on Prince….
…that really wasn’t worth their or my time and effort. The EP peaked at No 18 and, just like Queen, we would not see The Minds again for two years when they returned with their “Real Life” album.
The 80s had been brilliant for Erasure with this single, “You Surround Me”, being their tenth consecutive Top 20 hit. The second single from their “Wild” album, it felt like a bit of a nothing release to me at the time but listening back to it now, I find it quite beguiling with its gently building structure and Andy Bell’s falsetto vocals.
Supposedly Vince Clarke’s attempt at writing a James Bond film theme, it was described by Miranda Sawyer in her Smash Hits singles review as being the first Erasure tune that you could not dance to and I get what she meant. It was also the smallest hit of the four singles released from the album peaking at No 15.
Whilst I seem to have taken my eye off the charts in December ’89 in terms of the amount of songs that I have little to no recall of, sadly I do remember the latest Jason Donovan release “When You Come Back To Me” mainly because it was so ghastly.
This was the lead single from his second album (his first “Ten Good Reasons” was the biggest selling album of the year in the UK) called “Between the Lines” and this really did sound like money for old rope. It was just a piss weak version of all his other hits wasn’t it? An why is Jase wearing a coat that’s at least a size too big for him in this performance and why wasn’t it multi coloured eh?
Donovan’s popularity and profile were still big enough at this point to score him a No 2 hit with “When You Come Back To Me” but the writing was on the wall (and not between the lines – chortle) for his singing career.
Top 10
10. Lisa Stansfield – “All Around The World”
9. The Stone Roses – “Fool’s Gold”
8. Big Fun – “Can’t Shake The Feeling”
7. Jason Donovan – “When You Come Back To Me”
6. UB40 – “Homely Girl”
5. Soul II Soul – “Get A Life”
4. Kaoma – “Lambada”
3. Jeff Wayne – “The Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand Remix)”
2. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – “Don’t Know Much”
1. New Kids On The Block: – “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”: I had no idea that this was No 1 for so long. I would have thought one week (two at a push) tops. This is their third week but it’s the last one. There would be two more No 1 singles before the year was out despite already being into December by this point.
“You Got It (The Right Stuff)” has been referenced in many a TV show and film including Family Guy.…
Did the world really need an Alexander O’Neal megamix single back in ’89? Apparently it did as “Hit Mix (Official Bootleg Mega-Mix)” reached No 19 on the UK Top 40. Yet again I have no memory of this at all. Mixing up six of Alexander’s songs, it was the work of Ben Liebrand’s sister Rita! Strewth! Oh and can a bootleg ever be official?
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Big Fun
Can’t Shake The Feeling
God awful shite -no
2
Kate Bush
This Woman’s Work
No but I think my wife has the album
3
Soul II Soul
Get A Life
Nope
4
Sydney Youngblood
Sit And Wait
I did but nothing of note arrived – no
5
Dusty Springfield
In Private
No
6
Jeff Wayne
The Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand remix)
Nah
7
Latino Rave
Deep Heat ‘89
Big no
8
Queen
The Miracle
Very poor effort – no
9
Simple Minds
The Amsterdam EP
Buy it? I couldn’t even remember it ever existed!
10
Erasure
You Surround Me
No but I think my wife had the album
11
Jason Donovan
When You Come Back To Me
Of course not but I suspect my younger sister may have
12
New Kids On The Block
You Got It (The Right Stuff)
Hell no!
13
Alexander O’Neal
Hit Mix (Official Bootleg Mega-Mix)
And no
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Whole Show
Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…
There is only one month left of the whole decade that was the 80s! Nowadays when you get to the end of a decade, there is a whole raft of nostalgic revisiting of the previous 10 years in terms of TV scheduling with documentaries and various countdown shows of the greatest songs, sporting moments, and erm…live TV cock ups of the decade. I don’t remember anything like that in late ’89 but then the world was a different place back then and the media a different beast I guess. There probably were such shows (I’m pretty sure there was a TOTP special on New Year’s Eve itself) but there can’t have been anywhere near as many as the deluge that there are now.
Anyway, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself as we haven’t got to Xmas yet and what does Xmas mean? Well, yes presents, Farther Christmas, carol singers and all that but also parties! Could the first act on tonight’s show have been a big Xmas party favourite this year? Not at any parties I went to (to be fair I didn’t go to any) but I’m sure works dos across the country will have seen its labour force doing the “Lambada” as more and more alcohol was consumed. Lucky for them mobile phones with cameras had yet to be invented. Kamoa‘s version of this Bolivian folk tune is supposedly the biggest selling single in Europe of the whole of the 80s and so on the back of its success, a whole album of versions of the song were issued as a compilation album. In fact, I’m sure there were loads of them out there.
As for Kaoma’s version, to answer presenter Gary Davies’s query of whether it will get to No 1 in the UK as it had done in every other country in Europe, the answer was no as it peaked at No 4. Good old British exceptionalism eh?
Here come Inner City with “Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin”. Not only was this their last hit of the decade but also their last Top 20 hit for 10 years before a remix of “Good Life” made the Top 10 in 1999. In the intervening period, they clocked up a further three Top 30 singles but there were a fair few flops as well.
However, they are still a going concern and founder Kevin Saunderson has been joined in the ranks by his son Dantiez. There can’t be that many examples of a group featuring both the parent and their offspring can there? Off the top of my head, I think the current incarnation of Big Country features Bruce Watson’s son on guitar. Clearly I’m not counting The Partridge Family as they were a fictitious family (although Shirley Jones was the step mother of David Cassidy in real life).
“Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin” peaked at No 12.
A second visit to the TOTP studio for unlikely pop stars 808 State now with their tune “Pacific 707” though I doubt they considered themselves as pop stars. Or did they? In an article in Smash Hits magazine, band founder Martin Price was asked to bust some myths about house music. This was Myth No 5:
Smash Hits: People who make house records don’t want to be stars
Martin Price: That’s just rubbish. I do. I could cope with stardom and being on the cover of Smash Hits…
For the record and unsurprisingly, they never did make the cover of Smash Hits although “Pacific 707” was named as the 5th best track of 1989 in an NME poll. I’m guessing it wouldn’t have featured very high in the Most Played Tracks at a Xmas Party in 1989 had such a poll existed though.
After her last release of the Latin dance track “Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)”, Gloria Estefan should really have been putting out a ballad next as per her usually set in stone release schedule of an uptempo dance number followed by a big sloppy love song. However, “Get On Your Feet” was more of the same (clue was in the title I guess). I never gave it that much attention but supposedly its lyrics are actually about much more than just cutting some rug on the dance floor and are actually a call for action to do something with your life and to not let inertia smother you…or something. Well, I suppose you could read that into “get on your feet / get up and make it happen / stand up and take some action” in a very cheesy ‘let’s do the show right here’ type of way.
The song also inspired the title of Gloria’s jukebox musical On Your Feet! The story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan. Could it have also been a mainstay of that 1989 Xmas party play list? Well here’s a man who certainly would have enjoyed it had it been…
…that was Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer at his company’s 25th anniversary event in 2000. Steve looks like a fun guy don’t he?
“Get On Your Feet” peaked at No 23 in the UK Top 40.
Just like 808 State, here are Jimmy Somerville and June Miles Kingston back for a second TOTP studio appearance as they perform their single “Comment Te Dire Adieu”.
Having not listened to this song very much at all in the intervening 31 years since it was on the show the other week, it’s been a bit of an ear worm. I can’t quite work out why to be honest. Is it the disco beat backing or that annoying keyboard riff? Could it even be those unwieldy French lyrics? It’s an unlikely concoction but it all comes to the boil nicely.
June seems to have lightened up a bit since her first TOTP outing and actually seems to be enjoying herself second time around whilst Jimmy just can’t stop wiggling his tush. He would follow this hit up with his take on the Sylvester disco classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” in early 1990 which went Top 5. Whilst parent album “Read My Lips” could only make it to No 29 in the album charts, the UK record buying public had much more appetite for his first compilation album “The Singles Collection 1984/1990” which was released the following year and was a No 4 hit and a huge seller in my first Xmas working for Our Price.
In last week’s TOTP repeat, we saw an all female presenting team of Jakki Brambles and Jenny Powell and I posited the thought that wouldn’t it have been better if Jenny had spelt her name Jenni and then they could have formed a cheesy pop duo. Well, my desire for some snappy alliteration and 80s style spelling in pop names has been sated this week as we see Rob ‘N’ Raz featuring Leila K with their hit “Got To Get”.
Unlike Salt ‘N’ Pepa, Rob ‘N’ Raz were actually a duo, a pair of Swedish DJ / producer types in fact who teamed up with 17 year old wild child Laila El Khalifi to create “Got To Get”. The song’s ‘der-der-dah’ hook sounds almost Prince-esque but the rest of it is definitely hip-house or whatever they were calling the genre that week.
This was their only hit together (although Leila K managed another on her own in 1992 called “Open Sesame”) and it reached No 8
I have to admit that I always get “Got To Get” mixed up with fellow purveyors of Eurodance tosh Culture Beat who had this hit in 1993 with a remarkably similar title….
I was working in Our Price Stockport when this was out and when a young girl asked me for the Culture Beat song, I replied “Got To Get It?”. Her response was “I just really like it”. Bless.
Two Breakers now and we start with Kate Bush and her second single from her ‘The Sensual World” album. Now I didn’t know this at all until now but “This Woman’s Work” was actually written for the soundtrack of the film She’s Having a Baby starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern. It’s even included in the film’s climax when Bacon’s character is awaiting news of his wife and unborn baby as their lives are in danger due to a complicated birth. I’ve never seen the film in its entirety but the clip below demonstrates how well the song works within this scene. Perhaps not surprising as Kate wrote the song specifically for this scene with the latter playing on a monitor as she composed at her piano at the same time. Even so, it’s a very affecting piece I think.
Kate’s own promo video (and I mean her own as she also directed it) for the song is also very dramatic depicting a husband having dinner with his wife (Bush) who then collapses and is rushed to hospital. As with the She’s Having a Baby scene, there follows lots of flashbacks of their life together as the husband agonises. All very heart wrenching but completely undermined by the fact that the actor playing the husband is Tim McInnerny aka Lord Percy Percy and I’m half expecting him to make the following announcement at any time….
Oh, Edmund, can it be true, that I hold here in my mortal hand a nugget of purest green?
“This Woman’s Work” peaked at No 25 and was also the name of her 1990 box set “This Woman’s Work: Anthology 1978–1990”.
From a woman at work to a “Woman In Chains”. This was the second single from Tears For Fears‘ third album “The Seeds Of Love” and featured someone other than Roland and Curt. Lending her soulful vocals to the recording was Oleta Adams who two years later would score a massive worldwide hit herself with her version of Brenda Russell’s “Get Here”.
On first hearing it would appear to be about a woman trapped in a damaging relationship with a dominant male partner but Roland Orzabal is on record as saying that it is also about how men traditionally play down the feminine side of their characters and how both men and women suffer for it. Musically, the key change as the song enters its final lap must be up there with one of the greatest of the decade.
I was amazed to discover that this single could only get as high as No 26 in our Top 40 but then realised that I hadn’t bought it either. I blame being skint at the time (probably). It was re-released in 1992 to promote the band’s “Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92)” collection presumably specifically selected to cash-in on Oleta’s aforementioned early 90s success. I didn’t buy it then either but I did by their collection CD.
Back in the studio we find Tina Turner with the follow up to her recent Top 10 hit “The Best”. Also taken from her “Foreign Affair” album, “I Don’t Wanna Lose You” sounded just like “What’s Love Got To Do With It” to me and there was good reason. It was co-written by Graham Lyle who had also penned “What’s Love….”. It’s very slickly produced and all but it’s as empty as a Tory promise in terms of having anything approaching vital about it.
Tina seemed to have a liking for songs that included the words “I Don’t Wanna…”in the title as she recorded one called “I Don’t Wanna Fight” from the soundtrack to her 1993 biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It which was also released a single and reached No 7 in the UK charts which was one place higher than “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”.
As Gary Davies advises, Tina had just turned 50 here which must have seemed ancient to the 21 year old me watching at home. I am now older than Tina was here (52 if we’re counting!). FFS!
Top 10
10. 808 State – “Pacific 707”
9. Big Fun – “Can’t Shake The Feeling”
8. The Stone Roses – “Fool’s Gold”
7. Kaoma – “Lambada”
6. UB40 -“Homely Girl”
5. Phil Collins – “Another Day In Paradise”
4. Jeff Wayne – “The Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand Mix)”
3. Lisa Stansfield – “All Around The World”
2. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – ‘Don’t Know Much”
1. New Kids On The Block – “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”: So who exactly were these guys who had appeared from nowhere to wrestle the No 1 spot away from our Lisa (Stansfield)? Well, they included two guys with the same surname but unlike Duran Duran before them who had three Taylors in their ranks, these two were actually related being brothers Jon and Jordan Knight. Then there was the obligatory cute one called Joey who wasn’t even 17 by this point (but even he is 47 now – ha!). The guy who looks familiar but whom you can’t put your finger on it as to why is Donnie Wahlberg aka acting royalty Mark Whalberg’s elder brother. Apparently Mark was in the group’s original line up but quit only to reappear as the Calvin Klein wearing Marky Mark (and his Funky Bunch) in ’91 with his hit “Good Vibrations” before becoming a world famous actor. Talking of rears, bringing up the group’s was the Andy Taylor of NKOTB (i.e. the one nobody fancied) – Danny Wood.
OK? You …erm… got it? Good ‘cos you’ll be seeing plenty more of them if these TOTP repeats go on into the 90s.
The play out video is “Homely Girl” by UB40. The start of this sounds like the lift music version of their ’84 hit “If It Happens Again” to me and the way Ali Campbell sings it sounds like he’s serenading some bloke called Miguel …”Oh Miguel”…
“Homely Girl” peaked at No 6.
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Kaoma
Lambada
I’d have rather had a lamb tikka – no
2
Inner City
Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin’
I have no idea but I don’t want it
3
808 State
Pacific 707
I didn’t
4
Gloria Estefan
Get On Your Feet
Nah
5
Jimmy Somerville and June Miles Kingston
Comment Te Dire Adieu
No but it’s on my Somerville / Bronski Beat / The Communards Best Of CD
6
Rob ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K
Got To Get
I really didn’t need to get this – no
7
Kate Bush
This Woman’s Work
No but I think my wife has the album
8
Tears For Fears
Woman In Chains
No but it’s on their Best Of CD which I have
9
Tina Turner
I Don’t Wanna Lose You
I’m quite prepared for that eventuality though – no
10
New Kids On The Block
You Got It (The Right Stuff)
Hell no!
11
UB40
Homely Girl
Nope
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.
Whole Show
Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…
And so we arrive at one of those ‘legendary’ TOTP shows. You know like the one where New Order perform “Blue Monday:” live and its sounded awful. Or that one where All About Eve can’t hear the playback and just sit there motionless for the first minute and a half of “Martha’s Harbour”. Or the one where Culture Club made their first appearance and the whole world went into meltdown about whether Boy George was actually Girl George. And who could forget the infamous ‘Jocky Wilson’ episode when a backdrop of the grinning Scottish darts player as Dexys Midnight Runners performed “Jackie Wilson Said” below it. Or…well…there’s been a few down the years and 23rd November 1989 was another for that was the night that not one but two of the most influential UK bands of the 90s brought their previously underground talents directly into the mainstream via the great British public’s front rooms.
The presenters for this monumental broadcast were Jakki Brambles and Jenny Powell (if only the latter had spelt her name the 80s way like Jakki then they could have been Jakki and Jenni and sound like some awful, cheesy pop duo).
You wouldn’t have guessed how ground breaking this show was from the act opening it. Yes, it’s those dancing clowns Big Fun with their second hit single “Can’t Shake The Feeling”. I mean just look at these arse -wiggling simpletons! Simpletons? Is that fair? Well, in a Smash Hits magazine interview in which they were asked ‘serious’ questions about ‘proper’ issues, they revealed that they never vote and that they read The Sun. So yeah, simpletons.
I’ve seen comments on Twitter saying that “Can’t Shake The Feeling” is potentially the best Stock, Aitken and Waterman tune ever. WTF?! Talk about gaslighting! Somehow this unforgivable scrotum scratch of a song went Top 10 but after just two more Top 40 hits, Big Fun were gone and the world was a better place overnight.
If New Edition were a just a copy cat version of the Jackson 5, then it follows that Bobby Brown was their Michael Jackson in that he broke out from the group to become a superstar in his own right. That might be a stretch too far for some but Brown certainly followed in Jackson’s footsteps when it came to releasing multiple tracks off an album as singles. “Roni” was a fifth and final single from his “Don’t Be Cruel” album and although I’m finding it hard to locate any trace of this song in my memory banks, it is credited with popularising the phrase ‘tenderoni’ and establishing it as part of hip-hop lexicon. Indeed, Big Daddy Kane referenced Brown himself when he rapped on his 1990 track “I Get the Job Done”:
‘I’m Browner than Bobby so won’t you be my tenderoni’
But what did it actually mean? From the songfacts.com website, here’s R&B songwriter/producer and Bobby Brown collaborator Daryl Simmons regaling a story about his songwriting partner Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds:
“Kenny wrote this song called ‘Roni,’ about this girl we met in Florida that loved Kenny… she loved Babyface, but she was too young. We were saying, ‘She’s a Roni. Man, she’s a Tender Roni, you can’t mess with her.”
Tenderoni was also a brand of macaroni that was popular in the 1950s and discontinued in 1981. Eddie Kendricks released a song in 1976 called “Sweet Tenderoni” about a girl he was infatuated by whilst Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” also uses the term in its lyrics.
Who would have thought that this nothing song would have had such a cultural impact?! “Roni” peaked at No 21 in the UK
I’m pretty sure the next performance is a valedictory one as we wave goodbye to Fine Young Cannibals. Having first graced our TV screens in 1985, they would give us a marvellous collection of pop tunes with a a twist (the twist mainly being Roland Gift’s extraordinary vocals and the bendy leg antics of David Steele and Andy Cox) but “I’m Not The Man I Used To Be” would be their last of the decade. Always more about quality than quantity – there was a three year gap between their debut album and follow up “The Raw & The Cooked” – they were never able to give us a third album. That really wasn’t in their record company’s plans who decided that, to plug the gap, they would release a remix album called “The Raw & The Remix” (awful, awful title) in late 1990.
I remember this album as I had not long stared work at Our Price and I was surprised to find out whilst researching this post that it was a commercial flop. I could have sworn that it received plenty of in-store promotion but maybe I’m wrong (at a distance of 30 years it’s very feasible). The album was basically a collection of the band’s 12′ remixes of their last album’s songs (plus a couple of earlier tracks) including two different versions of “I’m Not The Man I Used To Be” – one was a remix by trip hoppers Smith & Mighty and the other was by Nellie Hooper and Jazzie B (of Soul II Soul). The collection was a flop commercially speaking only reaching No 61 on the album charts. It was a sad end to a career that burnt brightly yet briefly. The band would return to the Top 20 one final time seven years later with brand new composition ‘The Flame” to support their first official Greatest Hits package “The Finest”.
So what was the deal with this one? Why was “The Eve Of The War” from the 1978 album “Jeff Wayne‘s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds” being released as a single in 1989? And why was it remixed by Dutch producer Ben Liebrand? I do not have the answer as I don’t recall being aware that it was even in the charts at the time. I can only assume that as Liebrand was in demand at this point – he had turned his hand to revitalising both “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers and “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins into being Top 5 hits all over again in ’88 – he thought he would turn his attention to a more left field project. It seemed that his midas touch was unbeatable as “The Eve Of The War” was a bigger hit even than either of those peaking at No 3.
During my whole 10 years at Our Price, “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds” was always one of those albums that turned over steady sales throughout. Whether it was classified as ‘core stock’ or ‘bestseller’, it could always be relied upon to be bought by some punter at some point. The two-disc album, featuring the likes of Richard Burton, Justin Hayward, Phil Lynott and David Essex has sold 15 million copies worldwide. In 2018, it was named the 32nd best-selling studio album of all time in the UK.
OK, so we arrive at the first of the two performances that make this particular broadcast so memorable. Having appeared for one week in the Breakers section back in the Summer with “She Bangs The Drums”, The Stone Roses were now on the show in person with latest double A-side single “Fools Gold / What the World Is Waiting For“. Originally, the latter track was planned as the only A-side but the group’s label Silvertone wanted the former as the main track. A compromise was reached with that double A-side release though I have to admit that on the radio stations I was listening to at the time, “Fools Gold” got the lion’s share of the airplay. Very much seen as the standard bearer for the emerging new music genre hybrid of indie dance, “Fools Gold” introduced the rest of the country to the ‘Madchester” movement and overarching subculture of ‘baggy’.
The band’s performance here with Ian Brown’s Sgt Pepper-esque military get up and lo-fi vocals allied with the rest of the band’s effortless cool was a strident image to behold. Except, I have no memory of watching this show at all. What the hell was I doing that was so important at the time? As with The Smiths, I was to miss out on the rise of The Stone Roses for no discernible reason that I can fathom.
Despite this being the band’s mainstream breakthrough, neither “Fools Gold” nor “What the World Is Waiting For” were on their seminal debut album’s track listing of its 1989 UK release. Such was the strength of the single though that, after its original peak of No 8, it re-charted the following year reaching a high of No 22 whilst further remixes of it charted at No 25 in 1995 and 1999.
Apparently the band were not keen on miming on the show and nearly boycotted it but the promise of some amps convinced them to stay. And so they performed on the same show as Happy Mondays….
…or Happy Monday in the singular as Jenny Powell introduces Shaun, Bez and the boys. In the TOTP – the story of 1989 programme, even to this day, Jenny berates herself for cocking the intro up but hey, she’s Jenny Powell so I can forgive her that. Their performance of “Hallelujah” from the “Madchester Rave On” EP sealed the deal – ‘Madchester’ was here to stay and The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were the official poster boys.
The appearance of Kirsty MacColl with the band on backing vocals (her then husband producer Steve Lillywhite had done one of the “Hallelujah” remixes) lent the shambolic, shuffling performance an ounce of professionalism – certainly she came over as the only adult on stage. However, I’m sure ‘professional’ was not the word that leapt to mind for the majority of the watching millions on their very first introduction to Bez.
I have a distinct memory of dancing to “Hallelujah” in a Worcester nightclub about six months later during a phase of unemployment and feeling a very real sense of release. As I say, this was six months on and during that intervening period I hadn’t really gotten on board with Madchester scene at all. Bizarrely my elder Weller obsessed brother seemed more in tune with it than me. Fast forward another six months and I was living in Manchester and working in a record shop (albeit the very mainstream Our Price) but I always felt like I had arrived too late to experience the crest of the ‘baggy’ wave. I certainly had no money to be frequenting its unofficial HQ The Hacienda nightclub.
Nearly 30 years later I did see Happy Mondays live at the wonderfully named Zebedee’s Yard outdoor venue in Hull. It wasn’t great experience though mainly due to the dickhead crowd of coked up, pissed up middle aged blokes who were trying to reclaim their youth.
Not this pair again! Once more for your delectation come Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville with “Don’t Know Much”. This seems to be a repeat of their live vocal performance from the other week and having watched it then, my mate Robin pointed out to me the unfortunate opening line that Aaron Neville sings. “Look at this face” he warbles so Robin did and from that moment on, he was completely distracted by the birth mark that Aaron has above his right eye. He also has a tattoo of a cross on his left cheek that he got when he was 16 years old but the TOTP make up team seem to have airbrushed that out of the performance.
“Don’t Know Much” peaked at No 2.
Top 10
10. The Mixmaster – “Grand Piano”
9. Martika – “I Feel The Earth Move”
8. Milli Vanilli -“Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”
7. UB40 – “Homely Girl”
6. Iron Maiden – “Infinite Dreams”
5. Kylie Minogue – “Never Too Late”
4. Phil Collins – “Another Day In Paradise”
3. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – “Don’t Know Much”
2. Lisa Stansfield – “All Around The World”
1. New Kids On The Block – “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”: Oh blimey! This didn’t take very long did it? T’KNOB are No 1 already and the UK’s population of teenage girls have new poster materials for their bedroom walls. By comparison, last year’s pin ups Bros’s latest single (“Sister”) would struggle to just about make The Top 10. “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” would usher in a slew of New Kids On The Block releases come the new year which would total seven Top 10 singles for the band by the end of 1990 including a further No 1 plus No 2, No 3 and No 4 placed records. Matt and Luke Goss you say? Who are they?
The play out track is “The Arms Of Orion” by Prince featuring Sheena Easton. I’m amazed that this got a second airing given that it was only at No 31 in the charts and even with this exposure would only peak at No 27. I can’t find the video that is used on TOTP I’m afraid but it’s pretty dull stuff anyway just like the song.
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Big Fun
Can’t Shake The Feeling
God awful shite -no
2
Bobby Brown
Roni
No
3
Fine Young Cannibals
I’m Not The Man I Used To Be
No but my wife had their album
4
Jeff Wayne
The Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand remix)
Nah
5
The Stone Roses
Fool’s Gold / What The World Is Waiting For
Shamefully it’s a no
6
Happy Mondays
Hallelujah
See 5 above
7
Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville
Don’t Know Much
…but I know I wasn’t buying this tripe
8
New Kids On The Block
You Got It (The Right Stuff)
Hell no!
9
Prince featuring Sheena Easton
The Arms Of Orion
It’s no again
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.
Whole Show
Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…
The end of the decade is just a few short weeks away now and the music industry is starting to eye that coveted Xmas No 1 spot. There are plenty of runners in this year’s race as well including Bros, Wet Wet Wet, Jason Donovan, a duet between Cliff Richard and Van Morrison and rather predictably Jive Bunny. God, that’s a roll call of crap and no mistake. In fact, none of those contenders would be Xmas No 1 as that went to….well…that’s for a later post.
As for me, I was once more looking for work as my temporary insurance clerk job had come to an end. I was to find employment in my girlfriend’s home city of Hull as Xmas staff in the department store Debenhams which was handy as it killed two birds with one stone – as as well as earning some money, I could also see my girlfriend as I was staying at her family home. I was put in the toy department which was pretty good as it was busy so no time to get too bored.
It also led to me doing the weirdest job I’ve ever done which was to be Father Christmas at the store’s Xmas grotto. I was 21 years old! I performed the role when the regular guys were on their breaks but the store didn’t want to shut the grotto down. They put talcum powder in my eyebrows to make me look more believable and then I was left to it. The suit stank of sweat and BO ( I don’t think it got cleaned in between Xmases, just mothballed) and I was surrounded my mechanical penguins and snowmen in the grotto itself leading me to question what I was doing with my life at times. At one point when I was Santa’d up the bloody store fire alarm went off and I had to troop out of the building with everyone else dressed as Father Christmas! Ho ho ho! How we laughed! There’s a photo of me in my Santa outfit that I had for years but can’t find it at the moment or I would have included it in this post. Honest I would!
Anyway, back to the music and we start with a group who have never been on the show before. 808 State‘s origin story was located in the achingly trendy Manchester record shop Eastern Bloc when owner Martin Price joined forces with customers Graham Massey and Gerald Simpson to form hip hop outfit Hit Squad Manchester. After this brief flirtation, they shifted to the acid house sound coming out of Chicago and recorded under the name 808 State for the first time.
After a disagreement over the track “Day Ride” that would ultimately become “Pacific State”, Simpson left the group to become A Guy Called Gerald and found success before his previous band mates with “Voodoo Ray”. Undeterred, 808 State eventually released “Pacific State” and took it to No 10 in the charts. I say, “Pacific State” but according to Massey there are about 42 different versions of “Pacific”. The one put out as the radio edit was called “Pacific 707” as referenced by host Simon Mayo. On their album “90”, it’s listed as “Pacific 202”. Confusing eh?
Apparently Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies was the champion of this record as he gave it daytime airplay after hearing it played in the clubs of Ibiza (see also Bruno Brookes’ connection with making “Stakker Humanoid” by Humanoid a chart hit). File both under unexpected tales of Radio 1 DJs of the 80s.
I have a memory of 808 State’s 1991 album “ex:el” being released the same day as “The White Room” by The KLF. Both albums had been long anticipated by fans and we couldn’t get them out onto the shelves quick enough to satisfy demand in the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester.
The 80s had been very kind to UB40 but by the last two months of the decade, they were in serious need of a fillip. They hadn’t had a No 1 nor platinum selling album since their covers project “Labour Of Love” in ’83 and none of their last three singles had made the Top 20. What to do when you need a big hit? Do a cover version of course! Or yetanother cover version in the case of UB40.
“Homely Girl” had been a Top 5 hit for The Chi-Lites in 1974 and was chosen for inclusion on the Brummies next covers album called, of course, “Labour Of Love II”. I don’t think I knew of the original of this song back in ’89 though. Indeed, I’m struggling to recall UB40’s version of it. The cover version route proved to be a profitable decision though as “Homely Girl” went Top 10 and the album went three times platinum in the UK.
I can see how it was a clear daytime play list hit but it’s hardly up there with their cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers To Cross” for example. It strikes me now as cynical and lazy.
Four years later they repeated the trick even more successfully by taking a cover of “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” to No 1 both here and in the US. Five years after that they did a third covers album (“Labour Of Love III” natch). Some of their early tunes were great so it’s a shame I think that some of their biggest hits were cover versions.
Back in the studio is a man beginning his solo career but he had been troubling the charts compilers since 1984. Jimmy Somerville‘s rise to pop stardom via the vehicles of Bronski Beat and The Communards had been filled with success including three Top 10 albums and a No 1 single which was also the year’s best seller in “Don’t Leave Me This Way”. Could he maintain that success as a solo act? Well, he decided to mitigate any associated risk by starting out on this new phase of his career by becoming a duo temporarily – so not solo at all!
His chosen duet partner was June Miles – Kingston who sounds like she should have recorded that song from The Snowman but who actually had been around the 80s pop scene as long as Somerville himself, having been a member of post -punkers The Mo-dettes, supplying backing vocals to “Our Lips Are Sealed” by Fun Boy Three and doing drumming duties for the likes of Everything But The Girl, Feargal Sharkey (she was one of his duo of drummers I think) and of course The Communards.
Sommerville had shared vocals on the aforementioned “Don’t Leave Me This Way” with Sarah Jane Morris so he clearly wasn’t averse to the practice of duetting. I think my favourite duet of his is this one though…
Jimmy was also not adverse to the art of the cover version. So it was again with his choice of single to launch his solo career. “Comment Te Dire Adieu” had been originally recorded by French singer-songwriter Françoise Hardy with lyrics supplied by well known perv Serge Gainsbourg but it seemed an odd choice of song to me. A French language song given a disco beat? That won’t work surely?! Well, it kind of does somehow. Jimmy and June’s rather charming performance here instills just the right amount of self knowledge that this is all rather strange to get away with it. And those lyrics? I shoved the chorus into Google Translate and it came out with this…
‘Under no circumstances do I want to Before you overexpose my eyes Behind a kleenex I will know better How to say goodbye to you How to say goodbye to you’
Charming indeed.
Before the Macarena appeared in the latter half of the 90s to blight our lives, there was the “Lambada”. A dance as well as a song, it was brought to the attention of the UK record buying public by the French-Brazilian recording act Kaoma but the story of its inception was much bigger than just them.
Bolivian group Los Kjarkas recorded the original song called “Llorando Se Fue” in 1981 which was so popular in Latin America that it prompted multiple cover versions including one by someone just called Wilkins who caught my eye as he shared the same name as my first football hero Ray Wilkins. Anyway, getting back to the point, one of those covers was by Brazilian singer Márcia Ferreira who retitled it as “Chorando Se Foi” and it was this version that Kaoma plagiarised and took to No 1 around the world. They were successfully sued by Los Kjarkas in 1991.
I’m guessing nobody knew nor cared about that back in ’89 as the “Lambada” dance sensation swept the nation. But what was the dance exactly? Is it the moves seen in Kaoma’s video because they don’t seem very distinctive? Ah yes, the video. I don’t recall seeing it at the time but watching it back in 2020, the, the young boy / girl plot seems very unpalatable. Far too young to be doing all that gyrating against each other. Apparently the children concerned, Chico and Roberta, went onto have a successful recording career together with big hits in France whilst also performing on television programmes in various countries including Brazil, France and Italy. After their showbiz careers ended, Chico became a priest whilst Roberta is now a vet.
Needless to say, “Lambada” didn’t stir my stumps into action at all and the whole phenomenon passed me by somewhat.
Here’s another airing of the studio performance of D-Mob featuring Cathy Dennis and “C’mon And Get My Love”. As she got older and her pop princess halo waned, Cathy sensibly turned her focus to writing for other artists and has become a hugely successful and in demand songwriter for major acts like Britney Spears, Kylie and Katy Perry. If only some other artists had been so sensible. Yes, I mean you Madonna!
Whilst researching Cathy to find something / anything else to say about this song, I found this clip from TV show Surprise Surprise which was a light entertainment programme hosted by Cilla Black that ran from 1984 to 2001 (no really, it did – for that long!). Its premise involved surprising members of the public by making their wishes come true alongside pranks and reuniting guests with long-lost loved ones. In this episode, Cilla surprised young pop fan Steven by arranging for him to meet his idol Cathy Dennis. So far, so good. And what song does she sing for him on the show? Something called “When Your Dreams Turn To Dust”. Err…doesn’t that kind of fly in the face of the show’s concept Cathy?! This particular show must have been from the late 90s as Cilla talks about her new hobby of ‘surfing the net’. Young Steven had set up an early website dedicated to Cathy which leads to an excruciating exchange when Steven, having met his idol, is asked by Cilla “You can’t wait to get home and use your internet now can you?” The poor lad.
Are you shitting me?! Iron Maiden are still clogging up the charts like a turd that won’t be flushed? “Infinite Dreams” was a live single from their “Maiden England” album and was their usual load of old bollocks. According to Wikipedia, it’s about ‘how the character of the song sees disturbing visions about afterlife and other mystic things in his dreams, but is scared about if he will ever be able to wake up again’. Like I said, same old bollocks.
Apparently this was the last single to feature “The Trooper” era line up as founding member Adrian Smith (not a very heavy metal name is it?) left in January 1990 as he didn’t approve of the band’s musical direction. They should have listened to Adrian. Quick! Someone get that shitty stick! The bog’s blocked again!
Just the two Breakers this week and we start with a third single to be lifted from Prince‘s “Batman” soundtrack album. I must admit to not remembering how “The Arms Of Orion” went at all. Its very release seems like a bit of an afterthought as the album had been out since June with the film premiering in June also in the US and in August in the UK.
Having listened to it again, it does seem very forgettable. Recorded as a duet with previous collaborator Sheen Easton, it’s a real plodder with some hokey lyrics about constellations and the moon. According to the Prince Vault website, the track is credited both on the album and single as “Prince with Sheena Easton”, one of only a few times that co-credit has been given to anyone other than Prince’s bands the Revolution and the New Power Generation. Maybe Prince knew it was a duff tune and wanted to share the blame.
“The Arms Of Orion” peaked at No 27 in the UK.
Outdoing Prince in the number of singles to be released from an album stakes come Fine Young Cannibals with the fourth track from their “The Raw And The Cooked” album in “I’m Not The Man I Used To Be”. This was a very slow paced lament of a song with some very introspective lyrics. Despite that, the song’s backing features some almost house music like beats. It’s basically a confused mess of a song but not one entirely without merit.
“I’m Not The Man I Used To Be” peaked at No 20 and the band would release a fifth single from the album early next year but that really was taking the piss and it failed to make the Top 40. Meanwhile, if you want an alternative song that has (roughly) the same title as the FYC one, I can heartily recommend this ….
What a revelation from Simon Mayo this is! Phil Collins‘s latest album “…But Seriously” is not being released on vinyl format in the US. They’re only making it available as cassette or CD! Well I never! This must have been quite the big deal back then. When I joined Our Price a year on from this, we still had a sizeable vinyl offering. By the end of the 90s though it had all but disappeared from the chain’s racks and indeed nearly everywhere else. Of course it is making a big comeback today (at ridiculously inflated prices). Even the cassette is making small in roads into building bigger sales apparently. What next? A comeback for the 8 track cartridge?
Anyway, back to Phil. Look I’ve got nothing else to say about him and “Another Day In Paradise” so I’m going to trot out my Phil Collins anecdote again. I once attended a wedding when, as we all sat in the registry office awaiting the bride’s arrival, the music being played while we waited was a Phil Collins compilation. That would be bad enough you may think but the track listing gave this wonderfully unsuitable trio of songs one after the other:
“I Wish It Would Rain Down” (on your wedding day!)
“Against All Odds” (as in ‘you coming back to me is against all odds’!)
“Separate Lives” (with its ‘now that we’re living separate lives’ lyrics!)
Top 10
10. Double Trouble And The Rebel MC – “Street Tuff”
9. The Mixmaster – “Grand Piano”
8. Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like”
7. Martika – “I Feel The Earth Move”
6. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – “Don’t Know Much”
5. Milli Vanilli – “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”
4. Kylie Minogue – “Never Too Late”
3. New Kids On The Block -“You Got It (The Right Stuff)”
2. Phil Collins – “Another Day In Paradise”
1. Lisa Stansfield -“All Around The World”: Still at No 1 is Rochdale’s finest. Back in the early 90s, I spent a year working in the Our Price store in Lisa’s hometown and although it was clearly suffering from the effects of recession, I really enjoyed my time there. We were one of the most popular shops in the town and the staff formed a great little team. Sadly, I was not at work the day that Lisa came into the shop though I was assured that she was absolutely lovely. I was in the day that Rochdale’s most famous actress came in though. Ann Friel wanted to return a CD without the receipt. I think I relented and gave the refund – I must have been starstruck.
As with Iron Maiden, so it is with Inner City. They were still having hits this late in the decade? “What Cha Gonna Do With My Lovin’” was actually a cover version I have only just now learned, with the original being released by Stephanie Mills of “Never Knew Love Like This Before” and “The Medicine Song” fame. I’m not familiar with Stephanie’s version nor can I even recall Inner City’s take on it. The video surprised me though as it places an emphasis on the band performing with actual proper instruments – and there was me thinking all their stuff was done by drum machines and synths.
“What Cha Gonna Do with My Lovin'” peaked at a respectable No 12.
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
808 State
Pacific 707
Had I been living in Manchester then I may have but I arrived a year later and so I didn’t.
2
UB40
Homely Girl
A big no
3
Jimmy Somerville and June Miles Kingston
Comment Te Dire Adieu
No but it’s on my Jimmy Somerville / Communards / Bronski Beat Best Of CD
4
Kaoma
Lambada
F**k right off
5
D-Mob featuring Cathy Dennis
C’Mon And Get My Love
No
6
Iron Maiden
Infinite Dreams
The stuff of nightmares more like – no
7
Prince featuring Sheena Easton
The Arms Of Orion
Nah
8
Fine Young Cannibals
I’m Not The Man I Used To Be
No but my wife had their album
9
Phil Collins
Another Day In Paradise
Another day in Hell more like – diabolical. NO!
10
Lisa Stansfield
All Around The World
It’s a no from me
11
Inner City
What Cha Gonna Do With My Lovin’
Nope
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.
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.
It’s 9th November 1989 and one of the events of the decade, nay any decade is occurring. No, it’s not that my beloved Chelsea sit atop the old First Division table for the first time in I don’t know how long. Nor is it Nigel Lawson resigning from his position as the Chancellor of the Exchequer (that was the week before). It certainly wasn’t that the last ever episode of Yorkshire Television soap Emmerdale Farm was broadcast before it was retitled as just Emmerdale from the week after.
No, some 26 minutes before TOTP begin its broadcast, German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur issued a bulletin stating that East German citizens would be able to cross the inner German border ‘immediately’. The fall of the Berlin Wall was imminent. By the time that Nicky Campbell was announcing the new UK No 1 record, crowds were gathering at the six East/West Berlin checkpoints and by 10.45 those checkpoints were officially opened and swarms of people were allowed through with no identity checking. The concrete barrier that had physically and ideologically divided Berlin for 28 years would soon be gone leading to the unification of Germany, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of The Cold War. Phew! Makes reviewing some old pop songs from 31 years ago seems a pretty pointless and trivial activity by comparison.
Still, if David Hasselhoff can sing a song about freedom stood in a bucket crane at the Berlin Wall wearing a piano-keyboard scarf and a leather jacket covered in motion lights (as he did on New Year’s Eve in ’89), then I guess anything is possible and that certainly includes reviewing an old TOTP show.
This particular broadcast has a load of ‘new’ songs in it and we start with one in “Tell Me When The Fever Ended” by Electribe 101. Set against a backdrop of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman conveyor belt, Jive Bunny and a host of sub standard house records that made up the charts, this lot came across as achingly trendy. Indeed, when I started my time at Our Price a year or so later, their album that had come out in the June of 1990 was a shop stereo favourite with the hipper section of the staff.
Fronted by Berlin girl Billie Ray Martin (in my mind it was that European influence that gave them an air of exotic otherness), their brand of lush sounding electro soul seemed destined to make them huge stars. Being managed by Pet Shop Boys and Bros impresario Tom Watkins meant they also had someone steering the ship who knew a thing or two about chart success. “Tell Me When The Fever Ended” was a a Top 40 success (peaking at No 32) whilst follow up “Talking with Myself” did even better making it to No 23. A support slot with Depeche Mode on their World Violation tour was secured to widen their appeal but things started to unravel. Some Mode fans didn’t take kindly to them and let them know via a combination of boos and bottles. Watkins made ever more demands of them and they split in 1992 with a second album (after debut “Electribal Memories”) left unreleased. Billie reappeared in 1995 with the Top 5 hit “Your Loving Arms” whilst her ex bandmates formed Groove Corporation.
I always confuse “Tell Me When The Fever Ended” with “Here’s Where the Story Ends”, the Sundays track that was converted into a dance hit by Tin Tin Out in 1998. Well, I suppose the titles are a bit similar in my defence.
One of the most consistent chart residents of the whole decade now as Eurythmics return with another hit song in “Don’t Ask Me Why”. The second single to be lifted from their “We Too Are One” album, it isn’t one of their strongest for me but it was still so far ahead of the rest of the garbage in the charts that it should have easily been a Top 5 hit rather than peaking at No 25 as it did. A very bitter song with some savage lyrics (“don’t ask me why / I don’t love you any more / I don’t think I ever did”), its spiky strings only added to the acidity.
As the 80s came to an end, so did the duo’s immensely successful time together. There were two more singles released from “We Too Are One” but after their world tour finished, Annie and Dave went on a nine year hiatus before returning at the end of the following decade for one final hurrah with gold selling album “Peace”.
If Annie and Dave were struggling with being asked questions (“Don’t Ask Me Why”) then this next duo were also having problems in that direction as they admitted that they “Don’t Know Much”. Earlier I said that I always confuse “Tell Me When The Fever Ended” with “Here’s Where the Story Ends” – well here’s another one of those confusticating songs as I always get “Don’t Know Much” mixed up with “Somewhere Out There”. This muddle is more understandable though as they both feature the same singer in Linda Ronstadt, both are duets (this one is with Aaron Neville) and both are big weepy ballads. There’s one other little thing about Linda Ronstadt that used to trip me up all the time and that was that I used to mistake her for Linda Lovelace but let’s not go there.
Taken from Linda (Ronstadt not Lovelace)’s preposterously named “Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind” album, the critics were almost obsequious with various reviewers describing it as ‘heavenly’, ‘brilliant’ and my personal favourite from People Magazine that Linda and Aaron’s “…voices fuse like sunlight beaming through a stained-glass window.” Really?! REALLY?! OK, let’s have another listen to this live performance that they give on TOTP….
….well, that sounded…horrible. A right pair of caterwaulers. Talk about ‘howling like the wind’! Still, I obviously…erm…don’t know much as the song won Ronstadt and Neville the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was a No 2 hit both here and in the US.
Oh great. As if 1989 hadn’t been a big enough disappointment already, here come the latest teen sensation and this time they’re from America. New Kids On The Block or NKOTB for short (T’KNOB in my book) were of course a boy band put together by Maurice Starr who had been the guy behind New Edition of “Candy Girl’ fame earlier in the decade. Seeking a white version of his previous charges, he found this lot and after a relative failure with their debut album, he finally got the formula right with second album “Hangin’ Tough” which spawned five hit singles (four in the UK ). “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” was not only the first to break big over here but also the first of two No 1s both sides of the Atlantic. They had been a massive deal in America for the best part of ’89 so it was (sadly) inevitable the screaming would make its way over here.
“Some people saying they’re better than The Beatles, some people saying they’re even better than Bros” quips Nicky Campbell in his intro but it has to be said that the demise of the Goss twins did run in parallel with the rise of NKOTB so maybe there was something in it.
“You Got It (The Right Stuff)” sounded horrible to me with its annoying ‘Oh, oh, o, oh, oh…’ hook and one of them is wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt in the video! Yeah right! Bet he was a real fan of Northampton’s goth finest! That’s up there with One Direction wearing Ramones T-shirts. T’KNOB!
From one all B/W video to another but this one is infinitely better. “New South Wales” was the last Top 40 hit for The Alarm in their original line up. Taken from their album “Change”, it was the follow up to lead single “Sold Me Down The River” which I had liked but which failed to make the Top 40. A desire to be true to their Welsh roots saw the band release a Welsh language version of the album and when “New South Wales” peaked at No 31 it became the first ever bilingual Welsh / English Top 40 hit.
The song itself with its clever use of the Australian state name in its title was a powerful lament for the collapse of the mining industry and communities in Wales. The collaboration with the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir promoted the sense of national identity whilst also lending the song a grandiose, epic feel. The first time I heard it I was taken aback. It was so not what I was expecting from a song by The Alarm.
Why wasn’t this a huge hit? Was it too political in its subject matter? Was it too out there for an audience being stupefied on a diet of pop crap that was the state of the charts at the time? In a parallel universe where creativity and substance rise to the top, “New South Wales” was one of the biggest hits of the year.
A couple of Breakers now starting with a long forgotten act who briefly looked like they may go onto huge success but who fell by the roadside alongside so many other next big things. I think their name didn’t help to be honest – And Why Not is a crap name for a band. Hailing from Birmingham, their infectious blend of reggae and pop briefly graced the charts. I can’t find the official promo video for “Restless Days (She Screams Out Loud)” but watching this live performance back, they come across like a poppier version of Living Colour. Quite interesting really. They toured with fellow Brummies UB40 and also Transvision Vamp but somehow it didn’t quite happen for them.
“Restless Days (She Screams Out Loud)” is the only song of theirs that I remember but their discography shows that they had a further Top 20 hit called “The Face” which appears to have been wiped from my memory banks completely. My wife really liked them to the extent of buying their album “Move Your Skin” I think but clearly I didn’t listen to it much.
One other thing, their bass player had one of the best names ever seen in the pop world – Hylton Horatio Hayles.
Having seen Dogs D’Amour on the show a few weeks previous, we now get The Quireboys who in my book were a slight upgrade and were certainly the more successful of the two blues rock outfits. Both were clearly influenced by The Faces but surely there was only room for one such act in the charts of 1989? It’s almost the VHS / Betamax battle of 80s retro blues rockers with The Quireboys as the VHS format. For a while they seemed set for superstardom – their album “A Bit Of What You Fancy” was a No 2 gold selling record and they supported the Rolling Stones at St James’ Park, Newcastle before appearing before 72,000 people at the Monsters Of Rock festival.
“7 O’Clock” was their debut hit and it steams along with some pace powered by that harmonica refrain and tinkling piano intro. It’s a good time, rock ‘n’ roll party anthem and it does its job well. They followed it up with Top 20 hit “Hey You” which coincided with their orbit being at its highest point.
By the time of their 1993 follow up album “Bitter Sweet & Twisted”, grunge had become the dominant rock sound and The Quireboys were left behind. They are still a going concern to this day though and released an album as recently as 2019.
If it’s late ’89 then there must be some shitty Italian house track on the show so here’s The Mixmaster with “Grand Piano” right on cue. The mastermind behind all this, one Daniele Davoli, described the genre as “Romantic house…It is a mixture of the roughness of house and the romantic melodies with the strong voice”. Funny that because it just sounds like a big dollop of crap to me or as @TOTPFacts rightly described it on Twitter ‘The house Jive Bunny’.
Wow! Quite a coup here with Janet Jackson in the studio to perform her latest single “Rhythm Nation”. The second track from her “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” album, this one is quite the banger. Propelled by a relentless beat that samples Sly And The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” to great effect, it lifts you up from the first note and doesn’t put you down until the last. A very hard record to ignore.
Also hard to take your eyes off is the performance here. You get the impression that everything about it has been planned to the nth degree. Not only is the choreography precision tooled, it’s also very economical with a lot of the moves happening above the waste. The shoulder shrugs are especially effective whilst the military style uniforms just add to the spectacle.
As with the rest of the album, the track’s lyrics promote social responsibility and racial harmony, with the ‘nation’ being the dance community that “would have a positive message and that everyone would be free to join” according to Janet herself. Despite only making No 23 in the UK, it was a No 2 hit in the US kept off the top spot only by another social conscience song, the ghastly “Another Day In Paradise” by Phil Collins.
Top 10
10. Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”
9. Belinda Carlisle – “Leave A Light on”
8. Phil Collins -“Another Day In Paradise”
7. Martika – “I Feel The Earth Move”
6. Living In A Box – “Room In Your Heart”
5. Double Trouble And The Rebel MC – “Street Tuff”
4. Kylie Minogue – “Never Too Late”
3. Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like”
2. Milli Vanilli – “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”
1. Lisa Stansfield -“All Around The World”: She’s done it! And not a moment too soon! The rabbit has been felled and we have a proper song at No 1 again! I have a distinct memory of hearing this go to the top of the charts whilst staying at an old Poly friend’s house in Sunderland. I had gone back up to the North East for my graduation ceremony and stayed on a couple of days afterwards. There was much relief in the room when we learnt that Jive Bunny had been toppled.
This performance see Lisa’s kiss curl in full effect alongside that hat which Martika looked like she’d borrowed the other week. What I don’t understand about this song is why it’s called “All Around The World”. Surely it should have been titled “Been Around The World” or ” I Can’t Find My Baby”? Not once does Lisa sing the words “All Around The World”.
The play out video is “Golden Green” by The Wonder Stuff. This was the band’s fourth Top 40 hit on the trot and, like previous hit “Don’t Let Me Down Gently” was taken from their album “Hup”. Featuring violin and banjo courtesy of new band member and multi-instrumentalist Martin Bell, it’s a cracking little tune that knocked most of the other chart dregs into a cocked hat. Again, it should have been a much bigger hit than its No 33 peak.
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Electribe 101
Tell Me When The Fever Ended
Nope
2
Eurythmics
Don’t Ask Me Why
I didn’t
3
Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville
Don’t Know Much
…but I know I wasn’t buying this tripe
4
New Kids On The Block
You Got It (The Right Stuff)
Hell no!
5
The Alarm
New South Wales
Not the single but it’s on my Best Of CD of theirs
6
And Why Not
Restless Days (She Screams Out Loud)
No but my wife had their album
7
The Quireboys
7 O’Clock
Nah
8
The Mixmaster
Grand Piano
Of course not
9
Janet Jackson
Rhythm Nation
No
10
Lisa Stansfield
All Around The World
It’s a no from me
11
The Wonder Stuff
Golden Green
Should have but didn’t
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Whole Show
Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 