It’s still August 1987 here at TOTP Rewind and tonight’s presenters are Steve Wright (oh shite) and a pregnant Janice Long! No it wasn’t ex-beau Peter Powell’s baby but her partner Paul Berry whom she married as recently as September 2017. Belated congratulations Janice! Now, on with the music….
At the time that Wax were having a hit with “Building A Bridge To Your Heart”, its composers had a combined age of 78 and there were only two of them! Graham Gouldman was 41 whilst partner Andrew Gold was 37. As the former admitted in a Smash Hits interview “Curiosity Killed The Cat we ain’t”. Gouldman also was of the opinion that ‘it is rather impertinent of us to carry on making records. But what else am I supposed to do? I’m just a humble songwriter’. And a damned fine one in my opinion. Now 72, he began his career as a tunesmith way back in the 60s writing songs for the likes of The Hollies, The Yardbirds and Herman’s Hermits before becoming one of the main songwriters in the hugely successful 70s band 10cc.
A few years back I watched him on one of those BBC Songwriters Circle programmes along with Roddy Frame and Neil Finn where they all performed acoustic versions of their songs together. I have to admit I was more interested in seeing Roddy and Neil perform but I was blown away by Gouldman and had no idea that he had written all those songs made famous by other artists. “Building A Bridge To Your Heart” will no doubt never be talked about in such revered tones as the likes of “I’m Not In Love” but he and Gold look they are having a great time being back on TOTP in this performance.
If you thought we must have seen the last of Five Star by now then think again. We are still not a Five Star-free zone yet. However, if the writing wasn’t on the wall just yet then their pop career demise could certainly be sighted if you read between the lines. Ironically, “Between The Lines” was the name of their third album which did indeed precipitate their fall from the affections of UK pop fans. “Whenever You’re Ready” was the first single from it and while its No 11 peak was hardly a disaster, I’m sure their record label would have expected another Top 10 hit especially after a run of six out of their last seven single releases that did just that and given that it was a brand new song not yet available on any album. Not only did the single under perform, so did the album which spent only two weeks in the Top 10. Two further releases from the album formed a diminishing returns pattern to the point that by the end of the year plans to promote the album any further were shelved. Some minor hit singles in the following year and that was it for the Pearson siblings.
How did their commercial collapse come about? I honestly think it was a case of overkill. They had released a single every two to four months since 1985 (11 in total before “Whenever You’re Ready”) with most of them, if not identical, then definitely sticking to a formula. Did their audience just get bored of them? It’s either that or their fans just grew up and moved on from that squeaky clean sound and image. My wife’s cousin’s kids certainly fell into that category. Or could it be that people finally realised that they were just crap? Eliot Fletcher (courtesy of @TOTPFacts) knew the score…
It’s a cool, handsome dude on next according to Steve Wright’s introduction. Who can he mean? Yes it’s that man Sherrick again with his totally forgotten hit (at least by me) “Just Call”. In the studio this time, he chances his arm with a few dance moves for good measure. If Colonel Abrams had ever attempted a Luther Vandros impression he would have been Sherrick.
I think the following tweet sums it all up nicely:
Sadly, Sherrick and indeed the good colonel are no longer with us.
Can I just say yet again at this point that Steve Wright was just dreadful at presenting TOTP. His cry of ‘Yo!’ as he introduced Sherrick was arse clenchingly excruciating. To think a few years earlier I’d thought he was hilarious on Radio 1, poor misguided fool that I was.
Back to the show though and here’s Bon Jovi doing a….ballad? A soft rock ballad but a ballad nonetheless. After the driven rock of their first two hits “You Give Love A Bad Name” and “Livin’ On A Prayer” and the dramatic cowboy themed “Wanted Dead Or Alive”, this seemed like new territory for the band. It would be a genre they would keep coming back to faithfully over the next couple of decades though. Being the fourth and final single to be released from the massive selling “Slippery When Wet” album, perhaps predictably, “Never Say Goodbye” didn’t perform as well as its predecessors topping at out No 21.
Did I like it? Yeah I liked it enough at the time although it’s not one of their better songs but it will always be about this lyric for me:
“Remember when we lost the keys and you lost more than that in my back seat baby”
Dear oh dear! What a sleazy line!
Apparently it was based on “Hearts Of Stone’ by Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes. Let’s have a listen then….
It’s almost the same song! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that I suppose. We wouldn’t see Bon Jovi in our charts again for nearly exactly a year as they struggled to write a follow up album to ‘Slippery WhenWet” but finally did so when they basically just rewrote it and called it “New Jersey”.
“He was wearing one of my old vests” quips Wright at the song’s end. Steve…listen mate…just do one will you.
Here’s the Breakers….after the sweeping epic that was “Sign O’ The Times” and the downright weird “If I Was Your Girlfriend”, Prince was back with a cracking three and a half minute pop song in “U Got The Look”. The 1987 version of me saw this as returning to much more familiar ground after pushing the barriers of expectation with those previous two releases. Sheena Easton’s involvement came about after the Purple One had asked her to do some backing vocals on the track but he liked her contribution so much he made it a full blown duet and a lustful one at that. Featuring lines such as:
Your body’s heck-a-slammin’
If love is good
Let’s get to rammin’
we all knew what he was singing about. However, it was nothing compared to the frankly filthy “Sugar Walls’ he had written for Sheena a couple of years before.
“U Got The Look” made No 11 in the UK but was a No 2 hit in the US.
We’re getting towards the end of The Smiths recording career now but it’s not over just yet. As well as being one of their most provocative and well known song titles, “Girlfriend in a Coma” was also the lead single from their fourth and final studio album “Strangeways, Here We Come”. It was also the first release since the devastating news for Smiths devotees that Johnny Marr had left the band. Why did he leave? Wikipedia suggests it was all to do with Cilla Black! Eh? Well, the B-side to “Girlfriend in a Coma” was a cover of Cilla’s “Work Is A Four Letter Word” which Marr hated:
“That was the last straw, really. I didn’t form a group to perform Cilla Black songs.”
Many years later I read the Douglas Coupland novel Girlfriend in a Coma which was named after The Smiths’ song and a fine read it was too. Around the same time, I actually met Johnny Marr! I was working on the counter at Our Price in Altrincham, Cheshire and Johnny popped in to buy the Ali G video that had been released that day. Unfortunately for Johnny we’d sold out but he insisted we had some as he’d just rung up and been told by a colleague that we had it in stock. Sadly said colleague hadn’t checked and so, coward that I was, I rang her upstairs in the office from the counter and said to her “Well you’ll have to come and explain to Johnny Marr that he’s left the studio early for no good reason as we’ve sold out because I’m not doing it”. To her credit, my colleague did just that. I’ve felt bad about it ever since.
“Girlfriend in a Coma” reached No 13 in the UK charts.
The Pet Shop Boys No 1 single that never was? Possibly. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe had just entered their imperial phase with the chart-topping success of previous single “It’s A Sin”. They followed it up in a very un-obvious way. Whilst many in the music press confidently predicted that “One More Chance” from the album “Actually” would be the next single release, Neil and Chris instead went for their collaboration with 60s icon Dusty Springfield “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”. Dusty had been in the pop wilderness for nigh on two decades (none of her recordings from 1971 to 1986 charted on the UK Top 40 or Billboard Hot 100) until her renaissance was ushered in by the unlikely saviours of this synth pop duo. Tennant was already a huge Dusty Springfield fan and so the chance to record with her couldn’t be allowed to pass by.
The resulting song would be a No 2 hit both here and in the US. It was kept off the top spot only by Rick Astley (who would have the biggest seller of the whole year) in the UK and by George Michael (who had whipped America into a ‘Faith” frenzy) Stateside.
It took me a while to get used to it. Their previous two singles had been such huge sounding songs. From the swashbuckling “Suburbia” to the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production on “It’s A Sin” – once heard, you couldn’t ignore them. “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” felt like it was almost understated next to them but it was a grower. Tennant’s deadpan vocals – so isolated and remote sounding on their previous hits – miraculously gelled with Springfield’s velvet tones to great effect and by the end of the Summer I thought it was great. I wasn’t sure about Dusty’s 80s hair though.
Heeere’s Sinitta! The woman who never seems to age is enjoying a huge hit with “Toy Boy” and despite the salacious nature of the song, her backing dancers have resisted the urge to follow the recent trend of oiling up semi naked and have their chests fully covered.
Apparently written by Pete Waterman in just five minutes, I think Carl Savage summed the whole thing up succinctly on Twitter recently:
“Toy Boy” peaked at No 4 on the UK charts
Top 10 time…
10. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield – “What Have I Done To Deserve This”
9. Wet Wet Wet – “Sweet Little Mystery”
8. Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram – “Somewhere Out There”
7. Los Lobos – “La Bamba”
6. Def Leppard – “Animal”
5. New Order – “True Faith”
4. Sinitta – “Toy Boy”
3. Rick Astley – “Never Gonna Give You Up”
2. Spagna – “Call Me”
1. Michael Jackson – “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”: For the second week running, TOTP is unable to show the culmination of its programme as Jackson didn’t make a video and he wasn’t in the country to drop into the studio. Taken from the album “Bad”, this was the first of five singles to go to No 1 in the US. It wasn’t quite the same story in the UK with “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” being the only single to top the charts over here but the pattern was very nearly replicated with the other releases securing the following positions 1 – 3 – 3 – 2 – 4.
Fast becoming the proxy No 1 in Jackson’s absence is Spagna with “Call Me”. Here she is yet again in the studio. If I wasn’t sure about Dusty Springfield’s hair then Spagna’s was positively unnerving. This style is never making a comeback! She’s still knocking about though and released a single as recently as 2016. I’ve just checked out the video for it on YouTube and she doesn’t have the same hair. Phew!
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
|
1 | Wax | Bridge To Your Heart | I think I’ve got it on a CD somewhere |
|
2 | Five Star | Whenever You’re Ready | Hell No! |
|
3 | Sherrick | Just Call | I’ll pass thanks |
|
4 | Bon Jovi | Never Say Goodbye | No |
|
5 | Prince / Sheena Easton | U Got The Look | No but I have it on CD somewhere |
|
6 | The Smiths | Girlfriend In A Coma | Nope |
|
7 | Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield | What Have I done To Deserve This | No but it’s on my Pop Art Best Of |
|
8 | Sinitta | Toy Boy | As if |
|
9 | Michael Jackson | I Just Can’t Stop Loving You | No and I didn’t have the album either but it’s on my promo HIStory CD which I got when working at Our Price. |
|
10 | Spagna | Call Me | I didn’t even pick up the phone – no |
Disclaimer
OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show as I can’t find the full programme on YouTube.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00048qj/top-of-the-pops-20081987
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/2017/08/smash-hits-july-29-1987.html
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 