It’s 19th October 1989, it’s a Thursday and it’s time for TOTP! OK, I’m overplaying the intro a bit – I was probably more concerned with pulling together some sort of plan for the rest of my life at the time than about who was in the charts. I was fresh out of Poly with a temporary job which was not far off from finishing and my girlfriend was 170 miles away in Hull. I needed to sort out what was going to happen next. Little did I know it at the time but in one year and one day’s time, I would marry my girlfriend and we are still together to this day so it all turned out OK in the end. Twelve months earlier though, one thing that was definitely imminent was the release of the fifth Star Trek film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier which was released in UK cinemas the following day so to paraphrase Captain James T. Kirk, lets’s boldly go and explore some strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilisations…or the UK Top 40 as it is also known….
We start with our first glimpse of a singer who would enjoy a relatively successful pop career in her own right but who is surely best known as being the writer of some globe spanning pop hits for other artists. Having already collaborated with Gary Haisman for “We Call It Acieed” and LRS and DC Sarome on “It Is Time To Get Funky”, D-Mob plucked 20 year old singer Cathy Dennis of Norwich to spearhead their next Top 20 hit “C’mon And Get My Love“. Cathy had been discovered by pop svengali Simon Fuller when she was 17 performing in a covers band in a Mecca ballroom and it would prove to be a fateful and lucrative meeting as she has gone on to pen songs for multiple artists affiliated with his 19 Entertainment company including his roster of Pop Idol and American Idol acts.
Back in ’89 though, she was strutting her stuff on the TOTP studio stage in de rigueur house music clothes and unlike some of her predecessor D-Mob ‘featured artists’, she was determined not to fall by the wayside but to go on and forge her own career. It took her another 14 months or so before she broke through with No 5 hit “Touch Me (All Night Long)” from her debut No 3 album “Move To This”. A further three singles were successfully released from that album and for a brief while Cathy was big news with her angular, red bob and her catchy dance tunes. I distinctly recall selling plenty of her “Move To This” album in my fledging days at Our Price.
Despite two more albums and a clutch of middling sized chart hits, Cathy disappeared from the pop world as the 90s began to close only to resurface in the new millennium as an in demand songwriter penning some of the biggest selling tunes around like “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ for Kylie, “Toxic” for Britney Spears and “I Kissed A Girl” for Katy Perry. She’s also got five Ivor Novello Awards and two Grammys. In many ways, her career matches that of another female pop star who broke into the charts around the same time who has similarly flourished as a songwriter of repute. Of whom do I write? Betty Boo of course who also went down the talent TV show route by penning “Pure And Simple” for Hear’Say.
“C’mon And Get My Love” peaked at No 15.
It’s Billy Joel again next (is this the third time he’s been on?) with “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.
I don’t think I’ve got much left to say about this one that hasn’t already been discussed by many more qualified than I so I’ll leave it to the most qualified person, Billy himself…
Here comes Martika with her follow up to “Toy Soldiers” which is an uptempo version of Carole King’s “I Feel The Earth Move”. Or is it Lisa Stansfield? I’m sure the hat she has on is the same as the one that Lisa sports on the front cover of her debut album “Affection” which was released just a month after this TOTP aired. Maybe Lisa took inspiration from Martika’s look?
What was definitely not very inspiring was Martika’s take on “I Feel The Earth Move”. I think I first became aware of Carol King’s original when my wife used to play her tape of “Tapestry” in her room at Poly when we were first seeing each other. When I first heard Martika’s version, I thought it was passable but it hasn’t aged well at all and the production on it sounds very dated. Her voice is a bit screechy as well (especially the ad libbed bits at the end) and on reflection it seems like she’s sucked all the joy out of the track.
The Martika version of “I Feel The Earth Move” peaked at No 7 but despite that success, she only returned to our Top 10 once more in 1991 with “Love… Thy Will Be Done” thereby making a mockery of host Mark Goodier’s instruction to ‘Keep your eye on that lady, she’s gonna be a big star’.
Three Breakers next and is it my imagination or do they all get a much longer airing than normal? I’m sure we normally just get around a minute tops for songs in this section but they all seem to go on much longer in this particular week. Anyway, we start with “I Thank You” by Adeva so it must be time to bring out that trusted bit of pop trivia that is that this was one of three chart hits that Adeva had from her debut album that peaked at No 17. Spooky.
Adeva’s run of hits never did much for me personally I’m afraid but if I had to pick one of them then I guess it would be “I Thank You” which I can well imagine got heavy airplay up and down the country’s cheesier nightclubs around this time.
Not to be confused with the 1989 film of the same title, “Scandal” was yet another release from Queen’s “The Miracle” album and was written as a retort to the intrusive gutter press Brian May was on the receiving end of around this time as his marriage ended and his relationship with Eastenders actress Anita Dobbs came to light.
May’s motive behind the song’s inception is totally understandable. He described the tabloids in an interview in Hard ‘N’ Heavy magazine as:
‘They really are the scum of the earth. You can’t exaggerate it too much’
Fair enough Brian. However, I thought the track itself sounded terrible. Just an awful dirge. I’m not alone in my opinion either. Here’s the band’s drummer Roger Taylor…
‘It’s not one of my favourite songs. One of the most boring videos we ever made’.
“Scandal” peaked at No 25 thereby becoming the album’s worst performing single.
The final Breaker is the third consecutive hit for De La Soul off their “3 Feet High And Rising” album. Following “Me Myself And I” and “Say No Go” came “Eye Know” and if anything, this was my favourite of the three. Based heavily around a sample from Steely Dan’s “Peg”, it glided along effortlessly before employing a killer hook based on yet another sample, this time the whistling bit from “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding.
It sounded great even just coming out of a bog standard radio and I imagine it would have formed part of the soundtrack to many a person’s Summer of ’89. Possibly one of them was the person who chose the track as the background music for Match of the Day 2‘s Saturday’s goals section from 2004 until 2008.
I got a fair amount of shit for my recent revelation that I had bought “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher and rightly so. What was I thinking? Despite Mark Goodier describing it as ‘a real slice of good rock n roll’, I still think I am guilty of a crime against music appreciation with this one. However, I was made to feel slightly less bad about the whole sorry affair when my mate Steve admitted that back in the day, he had paid money for a Bruce Willis single! Jesus Steve! At least I could argue that I was brainwashed into my purchase by Cher’s arse in the video, what was your excuse?!
Fast forward to June 1990 and I am temping in the payroll office at Kingston Communications in Hull. One day, a discussion about music arose and the payroll manager announced that his favourite album of all time was Cher’s “Heart Of Stone” (from which “If I Could Turn Back Time” was taken). Assessing the mood of the room in response to this proclamation from, I kept absolutely shtum about my recent Cher transgression.
The world of music is riddled with artists who changed their look and sound over the course of their career – none more so than arch chameleon David Bowie of course. Hell some of them even changed their name – I’m thinking Cat Stevens becoming Yusuf Islam after converting to the Muslim faith and Terence Trent D’Arby evolving into Sananda Maitreya because …erm…he had some dreams that told him to according to Wikipedia. Slightly amending your name though? I can’t think of many. That’s exactly what Debbie Harry did though when she released “I Want That Man” as Deborah Harry. The only slightly related example I can think of is when ex – Man Utd striker Andy Cole insisted on being called Andrew Cole in his later career.
Why did Debbie Deborah opt for the change? Her given name at birth was Angela Trimble but that was changed to Deborah Ann Harry when she was adopted aged 3 months. At the time I guessed it was to try and project a more mature image but as I say, it was just a guess. In any case, her comeback single sounded much less sophisticated than her last solo hit “French Kissin in the USA” to my ears.
Written by Thompson Twins couple Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie, it was a straight up, out and out pop tune. Nothing wrong with that in my book but it didn’t have many levels to it. The lead single from her album “Def, Dumb & Blonde”, it was also the only single from it to chart, peaking at No 13 in the UK.
Whichever era of Ms Harry’s career you watch clips from, there’s something very captivating about the way the studio lights bounce of her platinum blonde hair I always find…..erm…anyway….moving on….
Next up is Sybil. Hang on – Sybil? The same Sybil that had a couple of chart hits in early ’93 with “The Love I Lost” and “When I’m Good And Ready”? That Sybil? Was she having hits as early as ’89? Well yes, apparently. “Don’t Make Me Over” was of course a cover of the Bacharach and David song made famous by Dionne Warwick but it must have walked on by me at the time. Talking of which, encouraged by her No 19 hit with “Don’t Make Me Over”, Sybil repeated the trick with, yes you guessed it, another cover of another Dionne Warwick tune in “Walk On By” the following year. Talk about a one trick pony.
Top 10
10. Fresh Four featuring Lizz E – “Wishing On A Star”
9. Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”
8. Belinda Carlisle – “Leave A Light On”
7. Billy Joel – “We Didn’t Start The Fire”
6. Double Trouble And The Rebel MC – “Street Tuff”
5. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”
4. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”
3. Milli Vanilli – “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”
2. Black Box – “Ride On Time”
1. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like”: Noooo! You idiots! What have you done?! Bring back Black Box! Oh what’s the use….
The play out video is “Oh Well” by Oh Well and what a curious thing this was. Originally a No 2 hit for the Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac in 1969, it was turned into this electronic dance hit by a trio of Germans who called their project after the name of the track. Well, it worked for Living In A Box I guess.
Did I know the song’s history at this point? Nope. Didn’t have a clue. Did I like Oh Well’s version. Not really. As with Sybil earlier, Oh Well were also pretty much a one trick pony as they followed up this No 28 hit with another dance version of a hoary old rock record when they released “Radar love” by Golden Earring. Thankfully it was ignored by the UK’s record buying public. Oh well.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
| 1 | D-Mob featuring Cathy Dennis | C’mon And Get My Love | Nah |
| 2 | Billy Joel | We Didn’t Start The Fire | No but I bought another single from his album Stormfront which had it as an additional track |
| 3 | Martika | I Feel The Earth Move | Nope |
| 4 | Adeva | I Thank You | I did not |
| 5 | Queen | Scandal | No it was rubbish |
| 6 | De La Soul | Eye Know | No but my much hipper wife had the album 3 Feet High And Rising |
| 7 | Cher | If I Could Turn Back Time | Oh Christ I did! If only I could turn back time…. |
| 8 | Deborah Harry | I Want That Man | I didn’t want your song though Debbie…err… Deborah |
| 9 | Sybil | Don’t Make Me Over | Don’t make such awful records then – no |
| 10 | Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers | That’s What I Like | But not what I do – massive NO |
| 11 | Oh Well | Oh Well | Oh…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/m000k3zh/top-of-the-pops-19101989
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/2019/10/october-18-31-1989.html
TOTP Rewind - the 80s 