One day after this TOTP was broadcast, the film Dead Poets Society was released into UK cinemas causing the Latin phrase carpe diem (‘seize the day’) to be circulated into the nation’s vocabulary.
A further day after that, it seemed that newly promoted Manchester City employed a bit of their own ‘carpe diem’ and seized their day back in the big time by thrashing neighbours United 5–1 at Maine Road in one of the most infamous football matches of the decade. I wonder who were the acts on TOTP seizing their day to be chart stars?
Well, London Boys were nothing if not committed in their performances and they threw everything at trying to maximise their short time as pop stars including some twinkle -toed dance moves, back flips and handstands. Also a fair mount of sweat if their glistening torsos are anything to go by. Ugh!
“Harlem Desire” was their third and final hit and would no doubt have been one of the songs they performed on the Coca-Cola Hitman Roadshow tour that they were part of in October and November of this year. Yes, according to Smash Hits, they were one of the roster of SAW acts doing their thing in some ‘prestigious’ venues around the UK like Mr Smith’s in Warrington, Goldiggers in Chippenham and the oxymoron that was Japanese Whispers in Barnsley. They even played in my adopted city of Hull at Romeos and Juliets or ‘Rermiers’ as the locals would have pronounced it. What a night that must have been (ahem).
What on earth is going on in this video for “Love In An Elevator” by Aerosmith? Yes, there’s a basic core of the band performing the song live but it’s all the other elements that are woven into the promo that are a bit disturbing. Set in a department store, there seems to be some sort of homage to the film Mannequin going on with showroom dummies transforming into living, scantily clad women. There’s a topless Joe Perry getting down to it with his equally topless real life wife. Then there are numerous characters included for no obvious reason such as a woman with dwarfism, a butcher, a lion tamer and even the Tin Man and Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz. The basic message seems to be sex anywhere, anytime with anyone. Well, as NIcky Campbell said in his intro “Aerosmith have been playing the epitome of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for twenty years now…”
“Love In An Elevator” peaked at No 13.
A possibly forgotten single next from S’Express. Having burst into the charts 18 months previously with a No 1 single in “Theme from S-Express”, Mark Moore and co followed it up with two more Top 10 singles and a Top 5 album in “Original Soundtrack”. “Mantra for a State of Mind” was the first single from their second album “Intercourse” but here’s where it all went decidedly constipated. That album would not appear for another two years and yet four singles were released from it over a period of three years! Check their discography out:
| Single | Release date |
| “Mantra for a State of Mind” | 1989 |
| “Nothing To Lose” | 1990 |
| “Find ‘Em, Fool ‘Em, Forget ‘Em” | 1991 |
| “Let It All Out EP” | 1992 |
All taken from the same album! I can only assume that Mark Moore had lost interest in the whole S’Express project come the new decade but that his record label were determined to squeeze every last penny out of it with multiple single releases. Talk about flogging a dead horse.
“Mantra for a State of Mind” peaked at No 21.
After Nicky Campbell’s too clever by half introduction where he references Karl Marx and Groucho Marx, we finally get to Richard Marx and his song “Right Here Waiting”. Marx was unable to follow up on this success until he unexpectedly returned to our charts in 1992 with the fairly creepy story song “Hazard”. Despite pretty much just being known for these two songs in the UK, Marx has released 12 studio albums and 54 singles in a career spanning over 30 years. And yet would you recognise him if you bumped into him in the street?
“Right Here Waiting” has been covered by all the music greats like err…Cliff Richard and …oh yes Barry Manilow and…hang on…this guy….
…like I said, all the music greats.
Some proper music now with The Wonder Stuff and “Don’t Let Me Down Gently” and not ‘Let Me Down Gently’ as Nicky Campbell introduces it. Kind of changes the meaning completely Nicky don’t you think?
Hailing from my original neck of the woods the West Midlands, they were a part of the ‘grebo’ scene along side other Black Country acts Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin but were by far the most commercially successful of the three.
My mate Robin had been into the Stuffies whilst we were at Sunderland Poly together so I was aware of a couple of their earlier minor hit singles “A Wish Away” and “It’s Yer Money I’m After Baby” but this was their first ever appearance on TOTP. They didn’t like it much either. Here’s lead singer Miles Hunt courtesy of @TOTPFacts:
Hunt also admitted that it felt like selling out but that he was compelled to comply otherwise record label Polydor would withdraw their touring and recording budgets. I think you can tell from watching their performance back that they weren’t having the best time. Hunt doesn’t look directly at the camera once and indeed seems to be trying to obscure his face with his hat pulled down low over his eyes. He even tries to cover his face with his arm deliberately at one point.
“Don’t Let Me Down Gently” is a great, high-speed almost folk -pop workout. Some of the tracks on the album “Hup” featured fiddle and banjo especially follow up single “Golden Green”.
What I always liked about The Wonder Stuff was their brilliant song and album titles such as “The Eight Legged Groove Machine”, “Construction for The Modern Idiot”, “Welcome to the Cheap Seats” and “Change Every Light Bulb”.
After hitting the big time with the Top 3 1991 album “Never Loved Elvis”, the band split in 1994 before reconvening in 2000 and are still a going concern today although Hunt is the only remaining original member.
“Don’t Let Me Down, Gently” peaked at No 19.
Four Breakers this week! I wish they were a bit more consistent with this feature. Some weeks nothing at all, this week four (which means four extra songs that I have to write about). First out of the traps are The Beautiful South who have acquired a new member since we last saw them in vocalist Briana Corrigan. I was never that fussed about “You Keep It All In” I’m sorry to say. I’d loved “Song For Whoever” but I couldn’t get on board with this one. It just sounded too chirpy and knowing. I get that it had interesting lyrics and all that but it just didn’t do it for me. I much preferred the final single from their debut album which was “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone” but that didn’t do nearly as well as “You Keep It All In” with the former peaking at No 31 whilst the latter was a No 8 hit.
If there was no consistency within the Breakers section, Gloria Estefan was a model of regularity in her choice of single releases. Her golden rule was fast dance number followed by a slow ballad then repeat ad infinitum. So after big drippy love song “Don’t Wanna Lose You”, we got the samba beat of “Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)“.
Gloria was pretty canny as she did an English language version, a Spanish version and loads of mixes with an eye on the club scene with a Pablo Dub Mix, a Def Dub Mix and a House Mix. Talk about spreading your bets. None of these versions appealed to me I’m afraid and this one wafted past me like one massive bout of flatulence.
“Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)” peaked at No 16.
Nope – don’t remember this one at all. “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be” should have been a marketing dream. The Queen of Soul paired with a solid gold chart breaking sensation and yet it didn’t really come off. Whitney Houston was still at the top of her game in ’89 although she hadn’t released a single since last year’s Olympic anthem “One Moment In Time” nor an album since ’87’s “Whitney”. Aretha Franklin meanwhile had spent the second part of the 80s recording duets with some major artists like Eurythmics and George Michael. She followed that up with an album called “Through The Storm” released in ’89 which included collaborations with the likes of Elton John, James Brown, The Four Tops and of course this track with Whitney.
However, “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be” peaked at a lowly No 29 in the UK and fared even worse in the US where it stalled at No 41. So what went wrong? My diagnosis? It was a crap song.
Finally, we find Deacon Blue still ploughing a rich seam of hits from their “When the World Knows Your Name” album with this one, “Love And Regret” being the fourth of five. I really liked this one. Yes, it has a soft rock, chuggy guitar -ness to it and it does plod a bit, but it’s a nicely crafted song and suits Ricky Ross’ vocals perfectly. The fourth single from the album was pushing it a bit though and “Love And Regret” limped to a peak of No 28.
I met Ricky Ross once at an playback event for his first solo album. It was at some bar in Manchester and the whole of the Our Price shop where I was working got invited via some record company rep or other. Pretty sure I was the only member of staff remotely interested in Ricky. The others all just went for the free bar and I have never seen so many people so monumentally drunk in one place. It was carnage. Anyway, Ricky was a lovely fella and we chatted about Deacon Blue and football for a good few minutes. Hopefully I was still coherent by that point.
I say this every time W.A.S.P. are on but how else do you explain their flood of appearances on TOTP other than one of the show’s producers must have been a big fan. According to officialcharts.com, “Forever Free” is their last UK Top 40 hit of the 80s peaking at No 25. Yes! We are forever free of them in this blog!
Top 10
10. Alyson Williams – “I Need Your Lovin”
9. Tears For Fears – “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”
8. Jason Donovan – “Everyday (I Love You More)”
7. Damian – “The Time Warp”
6. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”
5. Tina Turner – “The Best”
4. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”
3. Madonna – “Cherish”
2. Richard Marx – “Right Here Waiting”
1. Black Box – “Ride On Time”: Blimey, this is getting to be like an episode of Play School! Which window will we look through today? Or for Black Box, which studio performance will it be this week? OK, so it’s the dungarees one…
The play out video is “Miss You Much” by Janet Jackson. Like her brother Michael, Janet wasn’t averse to releasing nearly every track off her album as a single. “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” had seven globally released singles lifted from it (plus one that was only released in Australia) of which “Miss You Much” was the first. However, whilst in the US, all seven were huge hits including four No 1s and two No 2s, in the UK the highest any of them made was No 15 for “Black Cat”. Why was that? How should I know? I spent weeks of my life writing a dissertation on the subject of why some songs were hits and others not and I didn’t come up with any sort of answer.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
| 1 | London Boys | Harlem Desire | Big no |
| 2 | Aerosmith | Love In An Elevator | Going down I’m afraid – no |
| 3 | S’Express | Mantra For A State Of Mind | Nah |
| 4 | Richard Marx | Right Here Waiting | Nope |
| 5 | The Wonder Stuff | Don’t Let Me Down Gently | Didn’t I buy this? Why not?! |
| 6 | The Beautiful South | You Keep It All In | No but I had the album |
| 7 | Gloria Estefan | Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice) | I do hear it Gloria and I don’t like it |
| 8 | Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin | It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be | And indeed it wasn’t – no |
| 9 | Deacon Blue | Love And Regret | Not the single but I had the album |
| 10 | W.A.S.P. | Forever Free | Forever shite more like |
| 11 | Black Box | Ride On Time | I didn’t |
| 12 | Janet Jackson | Miss You Much | Another 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.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jjjc/top-of-the-pops-21091989
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/2019/09/september-20-october-3-1989.html
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 