We’ve moved into May 1989 and the new month has brought with it a new host in Jennie Powell. No it wasn’t Peter ‘Hello Mate’ Powell’s younger sister but the up and coming presenter who had made her name on Jonathan King’s BBC2 music show No Limits. For her debut on TOTP she has been paired with another relative newbie in Andy Crane who starts the show in a majorly creepy way by proclaiming “Lots of pretty ladies on the show tonight and making her debut is one of them” as he points at Jennie. Eeewww!
Anyway, the first act on tonight are also making their TOTP debut and they are Edelweiss with “Bring Me Edelweiss”. This lot were completely bat shit! I know there had been a lot of inexplicable stuff in the charts around this time from the likes of London Boys and The Reynolds Girls but this outfit took it to another level entirely. Hailing from Austria, Edelweiss came up with a sound that could only be described as ‘yodel house’. Supposedly following the template set out in the KLF book The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) which was published in the wake of their 1988 No 1 record as The Timelords, this bunch of alpine nuts sampled ABBA’s “SOS” and Indeep’s “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” to create a huge hit all around Europe.
Their performance here is pure pantomime including lots of thigh slapping (and even some arse slapping!) and lots of cliched ‘traditional’ Austrian costumes. Look, they could have done something much more credible with a sample of an old pop song. There was even a contemporary example in the charts they could have taken inspiration from in “I Beg Your Pardon” by Kon Kan. Instead all they did was add to the tradition of novelty records. Never mind following KLF’s template, Edelweiss created their own blueprint for a hit record that was followed by the likes of Rednex in the mid 90s with “Cotton Eye Joe”.
“Bring Me Edelweiss” peaked at No 5.
1989 saw the UK’s fascination with all things Australian continue at a pace with Kylie and Jason, INXS, Neighbours and new soap Home And Away all capturing our attention. We can add to that list Midnight Oil whose “Beds Are Burning” single went Top 10 in the UK.
Taken from the album “Diesel And Dust”, I always quite liked their follow up single “The Dead Heart” as well but it seemed our Aussie preoccupation didn’t quite extend to bestowing a second Top 40 hit on the band as it stalled at No 62. The album itself shifted some decent numbers over her though being certified Gold and peaking at No 19 in the album charts. The band are still together to this day with new material expected at some point in 2020.
Debbie Gibson now with a very energetic performance that seems to be all about a very choreographed dance routine rather than the actual song which was “Electric Youth” (the title track from her second album). Debbie isn’t even going through the motions of pretending that she s singing this live as she dashes headlong through some nifty steps and arm waving all in perfect synchronization with her two backing dancers.
The song was supposedly about empowering the younger generation and ensuring they were heard but the lyrics were a bit oblique to say the least talking about ‘zappin’ it to ya’ and ‘the future only belongs to the future itself’. Eh?
In a Billboard magazine interview in 2014, this is what Debbie had to say about how she came up with the song:
“I never really put any thought into coming up with it. Literally, it, and the song, dropped in and I looked up to the sky, waved and said ‘thank you! To me, that’s how anything inspired comes. If you and your thinking get out of the way, the universe provides what is supposed to be and it comes on through.”
Well quite. That explains that then. As for me, I felt it was listenable but it was all a little bit too forced and frenetic – on reflection, the whole thing was bloody exhausting.
“Electric Youth” peaked at No 14 over here and No 11 in the US.
OK – we enter huge power ballad territory next with “I’ll Be There For You” by Bon Jovi. The third single to be lifted from their “New Jersey” album which I bought (no, you can do one!) it stands up as a towering epic of the genre for me. Yes it’s lyrics are pure corn and it’s very self knowing in terms of what it was trying to do but for me it had an authenticity that contemporaries like Poison and Def Leppard didn’t. It’s also well constructed with just the right amount of lead in before that monster of a chorus. The no frills basic performance video is pretty dull though. I’ve seen some fans make comments on YouTube arguing that guitarist Richie Sambora should have been promoted from backing to lead vocals for best results on this track. Apparently this has happened on occasion when the band have performed it live.
Not unexpectedly, it was a much bigger hit in a rock obsessed America (a No 1 no less) than the house music enthralled UK where it clambered to a peak of No 18.
Next an act who never seemed to get much credit for their achievements and who never really got away from the naff tag. Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle had been established stars in their native Sweden in their own right before they were put together X Factor style by the head of their record label to form Roxette. Success was limited initially to their own country but a chance occurrence led to “The Look” being picked up on a local Minneapolis radio station where its popularity led to an official national release in the US. It would go onto become a No 1 record over there. With that American success inevitably came a UK release which resulted in a peak position of No 7 over here.
I quite liked it at the time. It had enough interesting elements and hooks to draw me in and was a definite ear worm. Arriving at the very end of the decade meant that the majority of their success would come in the 90s but they quite often seem to be referred to as an 80s act it seems to me. Certainly “The Look” is still (quite legitimately) played on the likes of Absolute 80s radio.
And those achievements? Well, whatever you think of their sound and style, they sold 60 million records and had four US No 1 hit singles. “Dressed For Success” indeed.
The Kylie Minogue bandwagon thunders on with the release of “Hand On Your Heart” that would become, at the time, her third No 1 song (including her duet with Jason Donovan). It was pretty much business as usual in terms of the single’s sound as well with “Hand On Your Heart” very much a Stock, Aitken and Waterman production. Her performance here is peak 80s Kylie but who had the better moves / routine on this particular show? Kylie or Debbie Gibson? I’m going Kylie.
The single sounded a bit twee to me and I was quite dismissive of it at the time. However, the 2012 re-working of it is for her “The Abbey Road Sessions” album certainly is different and gives a whole new dimension to the song.
Ah, the aforementioned Poison are back on the show again with “Your Mama Don’t Dance”. Viewed in close proximity to Bon Jovi, this seems even more awful than it did the other week which is saying something.
Both bands’ lead singers have pursued acting careers in addition to their music ones – Jon Bon Jovi has appeared in TV shows such as The West Wing, Ally McBeal, 30 Rock and Sex And The City as well as starring in films alongside the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Gwyneth Paltrow. Poison’s Brett Michaels’ most recent film role was in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. Just saying.
Relax! It’s not an American jazz fusion band! That’s Weather Report. No this is Live Report – a totally different thing altogether though perhaps not necessarily any better. This lot of no marks were our entry for the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest with a track called “Why Do I Always Get It Wrong” and not as Andy Crane says ‘Why Does Everything I Do Go Wrong’. One job Crane, one job.
Now I do remember this one as after the previous year’s contest’s nail biting finale, myself and a few friends made sure that we booked in to watch the whole shebang again. It didn’t quite live up to expectations as despite Live Report coming a very respectable second, the awarding of winners Yugoslavia just one point by the German panel in the penultimate round of voting meant the UK could have got two lots of maximum points and still would have not won. Also, the song was a right dirge, a sort of crappier version of “No More The Fool” by Elkie Brooks if that were possible.
Top 10
10. Fine Young Cannibals – “Good Thing”
9. Midnight Oil – “Beds Are Burning”
8. Beatmasters featuring Merlin – “Who’s In The House”
7. Natalie Cole – “Miss You Like Crazy”
6. Holly Johnson – “Americanos”
5. London Boys – “Requiem”
4. Transvision Vamp – “Baby I Don’t Care”
3. Simply Red – “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”
2. Kylie Minogue – “Hand On Your Heart”
1. The Bangles – “Eternal Flame”: Last week at the top for this one. It had a chart run of 20 weeks in total and was still in the UK Top 40 (at No 38) as late as June 17 at which point the single was deleted to clear the way for follow up single “Be With You”. That got me thinking about other examples of huge hits having to be deleted by the record label as they wanted to get the artist’s next single out. I’m sure there must be loads but I couldn’t come up with any specifically. Wet Wet Wet’s 15 week chart topper “Love Is All Around” was famously discontinued by the band themselves as they were sick off it but it wasn’t to clear the decks for a new single. Did that other never ending No 1 “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams have to be deleted so that they could release “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” to promote his new album “Waking Up the Neighbours”? Somebody out there will no doubt know.
The play out video is “I’m Every Woman” by Chaka Khan. Why was this 1978 dance classic back in the charts? Apparently it was re-released to promote Chaka’s “Life Is a Dance: The Remix Project” album which took tracks originally recorded between 1978 and 1984 and remixed them in the style of the day (i.e. they added a horrid house music back beat to them). It seemed to work though as “I’m Every Woman” (remixed by someone called Dancin’ Danny D) got all the way to No 8 in the UK charts.
I watched an interview with Simon Le Bon once when he said he really liked “I’m Every Woman” because he originally though the lyrics said ‘climb every woman’. Dirty sod!
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I buy it? |
|
1 |
Edelweiss | Bring Me Edelweiss | Please no |
|
2 |
Midnight Oil | Beds Are Burning | Thought I did but I didn’t apparently |
|
3 |
Debbie Gibson | Electric Youth | No |
|
4 |
Bon Jovi | I’ll BE There For You | No but I had the album “New Jersey” |
|
5 |
Roxette | The Look | Nope |
|
6 |
Kylie Minogue | Hand On Your Heart | Nah |
|
7 |
Poison | Your Mama Don’t Dance | Very poor – no |
|
8 |
Live Report | Why Do I Always Get It Wrong | Hell no |
|
9 |
The Bangles | Eternal Flame | Presume it’s on their Best Of CD that I have |
|
10 |
Chaka Khan | I’m Every Woman (’89 Remix) | I did not |
Disclaimer
OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000g6lj/top-of-the-pops-04051989
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/2019/05/may-3-16-1989.html
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 