After a run of thirteen consecutive TOTP repeats stretching back to the start of June, the lucky streak is finally interrupted as we skip one due to the Mike Smith factor. There’s worse to come though as we miss out on four episodes on the trot (basically the rest of September) due to the TOTP producers pairing Gary Davies with Smith for all four shows! What does that mean we won’t get to see? Well, the record that some people would describe as the most important No 1 of the year in M/A/R/R/S with “Pump Up The Volume” and some great pompous goth rock from Sisters of Mercy with “This Corrosion”. It’s not all bad news though – we are also spared Cliff, Shaky and Gary Numan. Happy days then!
Tonight’s hosts are Peter Powell who looks very casual with his pastel coloured short sleeved shirt and jeans whilst his presenting partner, Simon Bates, is still wearing that jacket and yellow tie combo. Has he not got any other ties?! He’s been wearing that one for weeks now! His concession to casual is to have his top button undone and said tie loosely knotted. Bates knew how to make an outfit work didn’t he?
First on tonight are new faces T’Pau who are having a massive hit with “Heart And Soul”. They very much fell into that category of band where all the attention centred upon the female lead singer. Blondie had come before them (and Toyah if you want to be really pedantic) and No Doubt would come after them, all acts where the other band members were ignored as Debbie Harry, Toyah Wilcox and Gwen Stefani grabbed the headlines. Add to that list T’Pau’s Carol Decker. The guys in the band don’t help their case by all dressing the same in matching leather jackets making them virtually interchangeable. I do remember that the tall guitarist was called Ronnie and was Carol’s boyfriend and co-songwriter but I think I used to mix his surname up with FA Cup folklore hero Ronnie Radford. The T’Pau guitarist is actually called Ronnie Rogers.
This man never played guitar for T’Pau!
T’Pau were famously named after a character in Star Trek and for a long time I thought it was supposed to be Spock’s mother but Wikipedia tells me that wasn’t the case and that T’Pau was actually a matriarch figure and the only person ever to refuse a seat on the Vulcan Federation Council. It turns out that loads of Vulcans had similar sounding names so Carol and co could easily have been T’Mir, T’Pring or even my favourite T’Pan.
From a band just beginning a successful pop career to a band that was coming down the other side of the hill. Level 42‘s peak period was arguably some point around the mid 80s but as the end of the decade was coming into view so their powers were starting to wane. Not only that but their classic imperial phase line up was about to be split asunder with first guitarist Boon Gould* and then his drummer brother Phil leaving by the end of the year.
In a cruel twist of fate, the title of the band’s latest single even seemed to signal what was to come. “It’s Over” was the fourth single to be lifted from their “Running In The Family” album and whilst its peak of No 10 mirrored that of previous single “To Be With You Again”, it would be the last time the band ever visited the Top 10. Unusually it was a ballad (as opposed to their usual high tempo pop funk hybrid) and for me it never really worked that well. In fact, I thought it was a bit boring. Even Mark King looks bored and can’t be bothered to mime his bass with his usual thumb slapping vigour.
A few weeks after this, on my return to Sunderland Poly after the Summer holidays, I remember asking the Poly radio station if they had any new singles that I could review as the co- music editor of the student newspaper. They gave me a bunch of singles that had already been hits and were on their way down the charts making any review of them redundant. One of them was “It’s Over” which kind of sums the whole record up for me. That and the fact that King’s hair would never look as luxuriant and bouffant again.
*Breaking news: before I had even completed this post, the sad news came through that Boon Gould had been found dead at his home at the age of 64. RIP Boon.
W.T.A.F.? Anyone remember W.A.S.P.? I know the name of the band but I couldn’t have told you the name of any of their songs or how they went. Nor would I have known that they looked like this but I guess being heavy metal merchants from Los Angeles, their image is hardly a surprise. I’m trying but ….Oh God, it’s just embarrassing bollocks. I can’t really bring myself to watch it. A few posts ago, I was slaughtering Motely Crue for being pathetic hoary old rockers but they look like The Who compared to W.A.S.P.
The lead singer is called Blackie Lawless apparently. The only person called Blackie I’ve
ever heard of before is Roy Race’s best mate Blackie Gray from the legendary comic Roy of the Rovers that I used to read as a boy. A fine footballer and one of my earliest heroes. I can’t imagine Blackie Lawless being anyone’s hero but his band are still together to this day and have released 15 albums since 1984 so I guess someone must like him. Quite why the TOTP producers saw the need to book them for the show though I have no idea unless it was to fill a gap vacated by the Breakers slot which is mysteriously missing for the second week running. Quite what T’Pau and Level 42 made of them Lord only knows.
The band ran into trouble with the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) for their song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” which was on the Filthy Fifteen list. Given that title, it kind of makes a mockery of Madonna’s “Dress You Up” also being on the list.
And what did W.A.SP. stand for? There are numerous theories including We Are Sexual Perverts and White Anglo Saxon Protestant but I prefer VoiceOfTheMysterons suggestion on Twitter…
“Scream Until You Like it” was their first ever hit in the UK peaking at No 32.
Back for another trip to the TOTP studios are Wax to promote their hit single “Bridge To Your Heart”. I wonder if Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold thought that this would be a stepping stone to a period of sustained success for their partnership? Sadly it wasn’t to be and the parent album “American English” did very little sales wise and subsequent singles lifted from it did even less making them a one hit wonder. They should have re-leased early near miss single “Right Between The Eyes” on the back of this. That might have done the trick.
As it was, Gouldman rejoined a reactivated 10cc whilst Gold restarted his solo career releasing material as recently as 2008 before his death from heart failure in 2011 at he age of 59.
Here’s a jaunty little number. We’d seen Jonathan Butler in our charts before back in 1985 when he teamed up with Hootenanny fixture Ruby Turner on a version of The Staple Singers err…staple “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)” but here he was in his own right with a single called “Lies”. Taken from his self titled album, I always found this quite pleasant if unremarkable. Smash Hits magazine reviewed said album which was a double LP like this:
“So if you really enjoy listening to a full four sides of ‘woah, woah, ooh baby, you’re my everything ooh, no, no, no, no’ this could be the album you’re after and you’re probably a bit off your head.”
Ouch!
“Lies’ made No 18 in the UK and No 27 in the US.
Top 10 time…
10. Levert – “Casanova”
9. Black – “Wonderful Life”
8. Wet Wet Wet – “Sweet Little Mystery”
7. Cliff Richard – “Some People”
6. Sinitta – “Toy Boy”
5. T’Pau – “Heart And Soul”
4. U2- “Where The Streets Have No Name”
3. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield – “What Have I Done To Deserve This”
2. Fat Boys /Beach Boys – “Wipe Out”
1. Rick Astley – “Never Gonna Give You Up”: In the early days of Rick’s fame, broadcasters and fans alike couldn’t get his name right apparently and he was constantly being called ‘Nick’ or ‘Dick’. So often did this occur that Rick even went along with the gag and often referred to himself as ‘Dick Spatsley’ and would be booked into hotels under the pseudonym of ‘Dick Axeman’. Quite a leap then from not knowing his name to the phenomenon of ‘Rick rolling’. Not sure what Rickrolling is? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer for you….
Heh…
Not only was “Never Gonna Give You Up” No 1 for five weeks it was also the biggest selling single of 1987.
The third in the trilogy of singles from their milestone album “The Joshua Tree”, here’s U2 having their Beatles playing live on the roof moment with the video to “Where The Streets Have No Name”. The band so obviously copied the Beatles famous Apple Records rooftop concert of 1969 that they even went as far as wanting to be busted by the cops just as the Liverpool legends were. They actually achieved their aim with the video’s producer nearly being arrested. Filmed on a specially reinforced roof of an LA liquor store, the band played the song four times plus four other songs to a crowd of around 1,000 fans and confused onlookers.
As for the track itself, I said earlier that “Where The Streets Have No Name” was part of a trilogy of singles lifted from the album but that isn’t strictly true as there was a fourth single released called “In God’s Country” but that failed to make the Top 40. As such, for me I’ve always thought of “With Or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “Where The Streets Have No Name” as the public face of this era of the band’s story which is dominated by that distinctive guitar sound. Apparently it’s a D-chord delay arpeggio (I have no idea) created on The Edge’s home 4-track recorder. I remember seeing Bill Bailey send that sound up as part of one of his live shows once which was very funny…
That sketch didn’t deter the fans love of the song though and in 2002 Q magazine named it the 16th-“most exciting tune ever”! The song’s gestation was a painful process though and according to producer Brian Eno, the recording of it absorbed over 40% of the time spent on the album.
So which version do you prefer? U2’s or Pet Shop Boys?
“Where The Streets Have No Name” peaked at No 4 on the UK Top 40
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
|
1 | T’Pau | Heart And Soul | No but I had the album. I did – really! |
|
2 | Level 42 | It’s Over | I didn’t |
|
3 | W.A.S.P. | Scream Until You Like It | Just like Just William’s Violet Elizabeth, I could scream until I was sick and I still wouldn’t like this shit |
|
4 | Wax | Bridge To Your Heart | No but maybe I should have |
|
5 | Jonathan Butler | Lies | Nah |
|
6 | Rick Astley | Never Gonna Give You Up | No but I recognize the single sleeve from its image on Wikipedia so maybe my sister bought it |
|
7 | U2 | Where The Streets Have No Name | Singles box says 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/m0004j89/top-of-the-pops-10091987
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/2017/09/september-9-22-1987.html
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 