Hello there! There’s been a crisis of health at TOTP Rewind recently and I have been laid low for 10 days with a particularly nasty bout of flu. As such, old TOTP repeats from 1987 haven’t really been at the forefront of my mind although I’m sure that, at my most delirious, Mel & Kim swam past my eyes at least once. Consequently I now have a massive backload of shows to work through so I many need to skimp on the word count to get back in the game.
Right – better get on with it then. Ex-lovebirds Janice Long and Peter Powell are the host for this one and touchingly they’ve come in the same Shaky double denim outfits. Aww…or should that be Aaarrgh!
First act tonight are Fine Young Cannibals with their version of “Ever Fallen In Love” by The Buzzcocks. It’s another studio performance just as they gave the other week but unlike that show, David Steele has ditched hiding behind some keyboards and is back on jelly legged bass guitarist duties. It’s still a turgid fart of a cover and is probably my least favourite FYC song ever. The original of course is brilliant but this?! Not even Roland’s “Walk Like An Egyptian” moves can save it.
By the way, I can’t find this particular performance on YouTube so it’s the original Steele-behind-the- keyboards clip included below.
A venerable superstar next with the return of David Bowie. Spearheading his first new album since 1984’s “Tonight” is a song called “Day In Day Out”. Generally accepted to be to be the nadir of Bowie’s 80’s output, the “Never Let Me Down” parent album was a bit all over the place and despite strong initial sales, received mixed (at best) reviews in the music press. Bowie always stuck to the belief that there were good songs in there but that the production was at fault. The album was re-recorded in 2018 by musicians hand picked by Bowie before his death and re-released as part of the Loving the Alien (1983–1988) box set project.
Now I’m no Bowie aficionado but I’m happy to go along with the general consensus on this one. “Day In Day Out” sounded laboured to me, a production in search of a song. I liked the next single “Time Will Crawl” better but there were some stinkers on the album none more so than the song that gave the accompanying tour its name “Glass Spider”. Talking of which….
David Bowie was to play live…in Sunderland! This was almost incomprehensible to us Poly students when the news broke that Bowie would be playing Roker Park, Sunderland as part of his ‘Glass Spider’ word tour. The only other UK dates were London, Cardiff and Manchester. It was unbelievable. A rock legend playing Sunderland (and crucially NOT Newcastle). Sunderland was a very depressed place in the 80s and just didn’t get gigs like this. But it was true! I got my ticket (from HMV in Newcastle!) and was set to go. My girlfriend (now wife) had her’s and even a friend from my hometown of Worcester was coming to the gig and staying with me. The scheduled date of the gig was Tuesday 23 June 1987….which is way off in the future (if you know what I mean) and I’m meant to be keeping the word count down. I’ll come back to Bowie in Sunderland nearer the time…
Meanwhile, a band with one of the most memorable (and silly) names of the decade….it’s Living In A Box with “Living In A Box”. This much maligned lot from Sheffield certainly caused a brief stir and it wasn’t just the band’s name that people were talking about. Their self titled debut hit sounded fresh and had that killer chorus that once heard was never forgotten. Hunky front man Richard Derbyshire made up for the fact that the other two guys in the band looked like faceless business suits and the formula was a winner… for a while. The rest of the material on their debut album (also called “Living In A Box”) was nowhere near as strong as the single and subsequent releases barely scraped into the charts. Undeterred, the band dusted themselves off and returned two years later with a brace of hit singles and accompanying album but that, like Bowie at Roker Park, is a story for another day.
What did I think? I liked the single. It was memorable and enough to get me out of my student pit in a morning so what’s not to like. By the way, I can’t find the TOTP clip so heres one from what looks like a European music TV show.
Herb Alpert will be remembered for many things, not last being the ‘A’ in legendary record label A&M but the ill advised piece of R &B / jazz hybrid that is “Keep Your Eyes On Me” is surely not one of them.
Breakers time….
Now this was a strange one. Kim Wilde doing a duet with Junior Giscombe on the title track to her latest album “Another Step (Closer To You)”. Kim of course had made a successful return to the charts with her cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and she didn’t want to lose that momentum so a follow up was required. A duet was probably not what pop fans were expecting though. She hadn’t ever done one before and yet here she was teaming up with Junior of all people. Mr Giscombe hadn’t been seen anywhere near the charts since his massive Top 10 hit of 1982 “Mama Used To Say” so this was quite a left field choice. Apparently Kim’s brother Ricky thought the song needed a more soulful vocal and thought of Junior.
For me though, added soulful vocals or not, the song wasn’t great. It was a bit mechanical sounding and pop music by numbers to my ears. The chorus was ever so slightly jarring and jagged and it just didn’t hang together that well. Obviously my opinion counted for nought and “Another Step (Closer To You)” went all the way to No 6 thereby justifying Ricky Wilde’s judgement.
It can’t be Five Star again! It just can’t be! When will it ever end?
*checks Five Star discography*
Jeez! They had another five Top 40 hits after this before they were done! Ok – “The Slightest Touch” sounded like all their other songs pretty much and yet despite being the sixth(!) single release from their “Silk And Steel” album, it still made it all the way to No 4! What was wrong with people back then?!
Here come Bon Jovi with their third hit single on the spin with “Wanted Dead Or Alive”. Fast becoming my guilty pleasure by this point, I thought this was great. A departure from the formula for the similar sounding “You Give Love A Bad Name” and “Livin’ On A Prayer”, this wild west themed ballad consolidated the band’s success in the UK by making No 13. The rock star as cowboy / outlaw metaphor was one that Jon Bon Jovi would return to in spades when he wrote the soundtrack album to the film Young Guns II which included the “Blaze Of Glory” which is basically “Wanted Dead Or Alive” part II.
For many years I would sing the lyrics “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all” as “I’ve seen a million pints and I’ve drunk them all” for some reason and is surely not humanly possible.
Not. A. Clue. Now granted the Eurovision Song Contest of 1987 would not have been high on my list of things to be bothered about at the time but I don’t think I have ever been aware of Rikki and “Only The Light” until this moment. Certainly I didn’t watch the show that year but Wikipedia tells me that Rikki (real name Richard Peebles) came 13th and was the worst UK showing until 2000. Easy to see why when you listen to the song. Typical Eurovision fodder but without the winning gimmick of a Bucks Fizz skirt routine to retain our interest. It sounds like something Cliff Richard would have rejected for being too piss weak.
Rikki himself looks like he would be more at home presenting Pebble Mill. Check out his threads! That white belt! Oh hang on a moment….I’m having a flash back to 1987….
Err…anyway….moving on…is that Russell from “Butterflies” on keyboards?
Top 10
10. Living In A Box – “Living In A Box”
9. Fine Young Cannibals – “Ever Fallen In Love”
8. U2 – “With Or Without You”
7. Terence trent D’Arby – “If You Let Me Stay”
6. Mel & Kim – “Respectable”
5. Janet Jackson – “Let’s Wait A While”
4. Judy Boucher – “Can’t Be With You Tonight”
3. Club Nouveaux – “Lean On Me”
2. Madonna – “La Isla Bonita”
1. Ferry Aid – “Let It Be”: Still at No 1 – taking closer look at some of the pop stars involved in this, I noticed Paul King of King with a cropped hairdo obviously gearing himself up for his shot at a solo career (it failed spectacularly). Also Boy George seems to have had a costume change half way through. Either that or it’s some shoddy editing.
The play out video is Madonna with “La Isla Bonita”. This week saw the 30th anniversary of the release of the “Like A Prayer” single and its controversy courting and pope baiting video. Thirty years on we have the likes of Brexit and Donald Trump to worry about. I would trade both those two for some Madonna furore any day of the week.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
|
1 |
Fine Young Cannibals | Ever Fallen In Love | Not a chance |
|
2 |
David Bowie | Day In Day Out | Nope |
|
3 |
Living In A Box | Living In A Box | Thought I may have but singles box says no |
|
4 |
Herb Alpert | Keep Your Eyes On Me | I had my ears definitely off him. No |
|
5 |
Kim Wilde / Junior | Another Step (Closer To You) | Nah |
|
6 |
Five Star | The Slightest Touch | NO! |
|
7 |
Bon Jovi | Wanted Dead Or Alive | No but I have it on a CD somewhere no doubt |
|
8 |
Rikki | Only The Light | Our panel said nil points |
|
9 |
Ferry Aid | Let It Be | I think I did you know |
|
10 |
Madonna | La Isla Bonita | No but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD |
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 as I can’t find the full programme on YouTube.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0002k6h/top-of-the-pops-16041987
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Some bed time reading?
http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2017/04/april-8-21-1987.html
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 