Chaka Khan

TOTP 20 JUL 1989

Posted on April 24, 2020 by 80stastic

Back to a solo presenter for this TOTP and it’s old pro Gary Davies who decides to enlist the help of various studio audience members to help him out with the links in the absence of a co-host…including Sonia’s actual sisters one of whom seems to be a Dolly Parton tribute act. The first of those links is to introduce London Boys who are riding high in the charts with “London Nights”. I’m guessing their record pluggers didn’t have to work hard to secure their clients a slot on the programme as those guys were a mini show in themselves. No run of the mill lip syncing for these two as flamboyant dance moves, a strip routine and acrobatics are all featured. None of that could really disguise the fact that the song was shite though. What did I know though as “London Nights” peaked at No 2. As a Smash Hits review of their album remarked ‘London Boys, they’re so crap they’re brilliant!’. No, they really were just crap.

Now here’s a curious collaboration. Bronski Beat had not been in the charts for over three years and since that last hit (“C’mon C’mon”) had lost singer John Foster who himself had been a replacement for the departing Jimmy Somerville. They’d also been dropped by their record label London Records. Despite extensive touring in Europe, they seemed to have been forgotten by their home country which was in the middle of an obsession with all things Stock, Aitken and Waterman so to reverse that trend they released “Cha Cha Heels” with the indomitable legend that was Eartha Kitt. It was an odd choice of partner if the ultimate goal of the project was to secure a chart hit as Eartha’s track record was sparse to say the least with just two UK Top 40 hits to her name the last of which had been five years previous. And yet it worked (sort of) with “Cha Cha Heels” peaking at No 32.

It’s a pretty frantic Hi-NRG run through beefed up with Eartha’s trademark growls and distinctive vocals which was probably a big hit in the gay clubs I’m guessing. Also, that really sounds like Jimmy Somerville on backing vocals but he seems to be uncredited.

Sadly Eartha Kitt died in 2008 whilst Bronski Beat’s Larry Steinbachek passed away in 2017 both from cancer.

Seriously? Again with this one? I think I’m right in saying this is a third time on the show for Monie Love with “Grandpa’s Party” though I think this clip is just a repeat of her previous studio appearance. As such, I thought I didn’t have much else to say about this one but when I googled her debut album called “Down To Earth’, the sleeve looked decidedly familiar and it turns out it was released just as I embarked upon my 10 year career with Our Price so no wonder I recognised it.

When the album was reviewed on Amazon, one fan commented:

“Yo Monie is so dope she can rhyme herself out the Middle Fly”

Well, quite.

Ah shit. Look, I knew this was coming, you knew this was coming but it still feels genuinely shocking that in 1989 the British public could have fallen for this piece of crap in such large numbers. Yes, it’s time for that fucking rabbit…the era of Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers is upon us. Quite how you explain this collective dereliction of senses on such a widespread scale is still beyond me. Who the fuck was buying this shit?! Apparently this was the ‘work’ of a couple of Rotherham local DJs but I’m not going to name them as they don’t deserve even the tiny amount of recognition that my blog would give them.

Mixing together a load of (mainly) old rock ‘n’ roll standards around a Glenn Miller motif and using a crappy graphic of a rabbit to front the project, “Swing With Mood” inexplicably went to No 1 for five (!) weeks in the Summer of ’89 and was the second best selling single of the whole year. The UK fell for this cheap garbage not just once, not even twice but three times before the end of the year delivering Jive Bunny and his mates three No 1 records! Even the US market fell for it making it a No 11 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Just barmy.

We’re going to have weeks of this stinking turd so you’d better get used to it….

Quick! We need a decent tune to provide an antidote to Jive Bunny…ah, this will do nicely. We couldn’t be in better hands than with a doctor and here’s Dr. Robert with his Blow Monkeys and “Choice?”. The last time we saw the good doctor on TOTP was earlier in the year with the single “Wait” featuring soul singer Kym Mazelle. I was confused at the time why it had been promoted as a solo single by Dr Robert and not a Blow Monkeys release. This was another collaboration with a featured vocalist in Sylvia Tella and yet this single was officially credited to The Blow Monkeys. All very baffling.

“Choice?” was a previously unreleased track that was put out to promote the band’s first greatest hits collection called “Choices” and it did a good enough job I guess by peaking at No 22 though it isn’t one of my favourites by the band. By this point in their career, they had embraced the the new dance revolution and I wasn’t that keen on their new direction. They would explore that route further in the following year’s “Springtime for the World” album before splitting. They would reunite in 2007 and are still together to this day.

Bobby Brown up now with his Ghostbusters II track “On Our Own”. Brown’s profile at the time made him an obvious choice to contribute to the film’s soundtrack and he was invited to the movie set where he met the cast and the crew. The film’s music supervisor, Kathy Nelson, suggested he record this song for the movie. Brown agreed to record a song as long as he got a small part in the film. Here it is in all its 20 seconds worth of glory….

…real blink and you miss it stuff. “On Our Own” peaked at No 4 in the UK charts but he wouldn’t return to such exalted heights for another six years when “Two Can Play That Game” made No 3.

Who? Doug Lazy anybody? No idea at all about this one. Wikipedia tells me that his track “Let It Roll” was a big deal on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart but I couldn’t really care less. This sounds horrible. Next!

Another airing for “Ain’t Nobody” again now. When this was originally a hit in 1984 for Rufus and Chaka Khan I had no idea who or what Rufus was. Wasn’t there a rufus character in The Dukes Of Hazzard? Rufus the Dufus or something? I could be wrong. Of course, Rufus was actually the name of the funk band that Chaka fronted.

Fast forward three decades and “Ain’t Nobody” has been adopted as a football chant by supporters of many different clubs. No really. Look…

And another….

Somebody even went and recorded a whole song for this Aston Villa player…

Top 10

10. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

9. Gloria Estefan – “Don’t Wanna Lose You”

8. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

7. Pet Shop Boys – “It’s Alright”

6. Chaka Khan – “Ain’t Nobody”

5. Bette Midler – Wind Beneath My Wings”

4. Bobby Brown – “On Our Own”

3. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”

2. London Boys -“London Nights”

1. Sonia – “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You”: Is it time to tell my ever so tenuous Sonia story? Yes, I think it is. So, four years on from this moment, Sonia was trying to revive her career via the bottom of the barrel route more commonly known as the ‘UK Eurovision Song Contest entrant’. Singing a track called “Better The Devil You Know” (not the Kylie song) she did a pretty good job too coming in second place. It would almost certainly be described as a tide turning moment set against our current dismal record in the contest. And how does any of this relate to me? The song was co-written by one Dean Collinson from Hull where my wife grew up and where I now live. Not just that though, my wife actually knew the bloke back in the day. That’s nearly up there with my ‘I was once in the same room as Chesney Hawkes’ drummer’ story.

This is a cracking tune to play out with. “Edie (Ciao Baby)” by The Cult was inspired by the American socialite, actress, fashion model and Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgwick. The ‘Ciao Baby’ part of the song’s title refers to Ciao Manhattan one of Warhol’s films in which Sedgwick starred. I had no idea about any of that at the time though. I just loved its stirring string build up and grandiose, wide screen epic chorus. Not quite my favourite song by the band (that will always be “She Sells Sanctuary”) but its definitely in the Top 2. It deserved a much higher chart placing than its No 32 peak in my opinion.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	London Boys	London Nights	Hell no
2	Bronski Beat with Eartha Kitt	Cha Cha Heels	Nah
3	Monie Love	Grandpa’s Party	I didn’t RSVP for this one – no
4	Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers	Swing The Mood	Christ no!
5	The Blow Monkeys with Sylvia Tella	Choice?	No but I have their Greatest Hits CD
6	Bobby Brown	On Our Own	Nope
7	Doug Lazy	Let It Roll	Let it roll? Toilet roll more like. In fact I wouldn’t wipe my arse on it. Just to clarify, that’s a no
8	Chaka Khan and Rufus	Ain’t Nobody	No
9	Sonia	You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You	Of course not
10	The Cult	Edie (Ciao Baby)	No but its on my Cult Best Of album

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/m000hbdz/top-of-the-pops-20071989

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/july-12-25-1989.html

TOTP 06 JUL 1989

Posted on April 17, 2020 by 80stastic

Now I can’t be sure of the exact date but I’m pretty certain that by early July 1989 my cosseted life as a student had just about come to an end. I was bereft. I had no idea what I was going to do, no career plan and I certainly wasn’t in any rush to start getting on with the rest of my life. Worst of all I had no firm idea when I would see my girlfriend again. She was heading back to Hull whilst I was Worcester bound. I travelled back to my hometown on a coach with the final lap having to be completed by taxi when the coach broke down. And then there I was. Back in my parents house. Back in my childhood bedroom. How had this happened? How had three years whizzed past so quickly?

My immediate aim was to get some sort of employment so I would at least have some money to pay off my overdraft, give my Mum some for housekeeping and fund travelling the length of the country to see my girlfriend at some point. I nearly got a job as a bin man but backed out at the last minute out off by the early starts and also by the scary man with a spider’s web tattooed all over his face in the employment office who was after the same position. I was directionless, cashless and thoroughly unhappy.

Surely there must have been some decent tunes on TOTP on a Thursday night to cheer me up….

…it’s not a good start. The Stock, Aitken and Waterman version of Cilla Black – other wise known as Sonia – is first up on this particular show. Her Breakers appearance last week has caused her to move all the way up to No 12 whilst becoming at the same time the week’s biggest climber. We all could see what was going to happen here. “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You” was bound for the top and those pesky Hit Factory people had inflicted another of their roster of pop puppets upon us – the UK was seemingly unable to resist. What was her appeal? Was it her perkiness? Was it the catchy piece of pop fluff that was her single? Or was it The Beatles effect of her scouse accent? I never really got it. I could see how Kylie and Jason would appeal to a certain section of the record buying public but Sonia?

And still Stock, Aitken and Waterman weren’t done with manufacturing pop stars. The dreadful Big Fun will be along on these TOTP repeats soon enough. Even worse than that though, they will turn their attention to Cliff Richard and make a dog’s dinner out of the Band Aid record before the year is out.

The next song is decent though. Gladys Knight‘s Bond theme “Licence To Kill” was a worthy addition to the canon I think and of the five Bond songs released in the decade I would rank it probably in the top three and certainly above Rita Coolidge’s “All Time High” – officially the worst ever UK chart performer of the genre.

It was a different kettle of fish for the film itself though. Unlike Alan Partridge, I’m no Bond aficionado and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Licence To Kill but the perceived wisdom is that it nearly killed off the franchise altogether. Up against that Summer’s blockbusters of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman, its gritty realism and the fact that Bond had gone rogue for the first film ever meant that audiences were less than impressed. Whilst UK box office receipts were respectable, across the water it was the least financially successful James Bond film in the US. It would be another six years before the franchise was rebooted with Pierce Brosnan as 007.

From Alan’s Bond party to “Grandpa’s Party” courtesy of Monie Love. Amongst the pretty big names that Monie (real name Simone Johnson) has worked with are Prince, Queen Latifah and Whitney Houston…..

…however, she missed a trick by not hooking up with this fellow. Imagine the mash up they could have made….

There have been a lot of R’n’B soul singers on these TOTP repeats over the course of the last three and a bit years that I’ve been writing this blog and we haven’t got to the bottom of the barrel yet. Karyn White was only 23 when she hit big with “Superwoman” and was a much bigger deal in the States than over here where she racked up four Top 10 hits including a No 1 in 1991 and won two Grammy awards. In the UK she scored a couple more Top 30 hits but I’m guessing that “Superwoman” is what she is best remembered for on these shores.

Did I like this one? I found it all a bit ‘meh’ to be honest. “Superwoman” peaked at No 11 in the UK.

Some Breakers now beginning with Bette Midler‘s first ever UK Top 40 hit. I didn’t realise until now that “Wind Beneath My Wings” wasn’t actually written for the film Beaches from which Midler’s version is taken but had been composed in 1982 and already been recorded by the likes of Sheena Easton, Lou Rawls, Gladys Knight and the Pips and erm…Roger Whittaker before Bette got her mitts on it.

I caught the film in Newcastle (I think it must have been one of my last trips to the cinema before my time in the North East was up) with my girlfriend and another friend called Bev. The slightly mawkish tale of two young girls who meet by chance and whose lives are then intertwined over the next 30 or so years to various degrees of relationship and drama was all too much for poor Bev (spoiler alert – there is a sad ending) who cried all the way back to Sunderland on the train.

“Wind Beneath My Wings” has become quite the standard over the years and in a 2002 UK poll was found to be the most-played song at British funerals. It was a No 1 record in the US and a No 5 hit over here.

Ooh this is much better! The return of Danny Wilson! After finally managing to get a hit with “Mary’s Prayer” after three attempts, the trio had lost ground rather when subsequent single releases did diddly squat. After retreating to lick their wounds, they returned a year later with “The Second Summer Of Love” from their sophomore album “Bebop Moptop”. I liked the song immediately but was delighted to find out that the whole album (which I bought on the strength of it) was full of even better tracks. Indeed “The Second Summer Of Love” is probably one of the weaker cuts on it for me. That didn’t detract from it being far better than most of its peers in the Top 40 at the time.

I recall seeing them interviewed about the video and them advising the reporter that they’d had to learn the song backwards so that when the film is shown backwards, they appear to be miming it as normal. A simple trick but quite effective.

“Bebop Moptop” is most likely to be found in charity shops these days I wouldn’t wonder but it really is worth shelling out a couple of quid for if you see it. “The Second Summer Of Love” was the band’s second and last hit peaking at No 23. If there was any justice in the pop world, subsequent singles released from the album “Never Gonna Be the Same” and “I Can’t Wait” would have been massive hits but they weren’t and the band split not long into the next decade with only a couple of brief reunions since.

Another classic song from De La Soul next. “Say No Go” was the follow up to “Me Myself And I” and was taken from the seminal “3 Feet High and Rising” album. A cautionary tale about the use of drugs, it famously samples the Hall and Oates hit “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” as well as a few other tracks. It has maximum ear worm power and sounds as good today as it did back then.

Of course, they weren’t the first to ride on the back of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti drugs campaign though….

Rivalling Danny Wilson for my personal favourite song on this TOTP is “Song For Whoever” by The Beautiful South. Five years on from this debut, the band released a Greatest Hits collection called “Carry On Up The Charts” which was so popular that it was claimed that one in seven British households owned a copy. Somehow I didn’t but over the years I seem to have purchased most of the band’s albums as well as seeing them live. In fact I’ve seen The Beautiful South, their second generation version The South, Dave Rotheray offshoot Homespun and Paul Heaton solo. I never managed to see The Housemartins live but I did once meet their original drummer Hugh Whittaker.

P.S. What was going on with Paul’s hair in this performance?!

Don’t Panic! “It’s Alright”…Pet Shop Boys are back! It’s amazing the things you learn researching this blog. For instance, I never knew that this wasn’t actually a Tennant / Lowe original but is in fact a cover. The original was by Sterling Void (no idea). To be fair to Neil and Chris though, they did add an extra verse about environmental issues to it.

I’d also forgotten that this was actually a track on their “Introspective” album and remembered it being a stand alone single which it isn’t. To be fair, it isn’t one of my favourite PSB tracks by a long way. I mean, its not terrible or anything but it kind of washed over me back then and still does a bit today. As for the that striking, baby fest video, Neil Tennant recounted to Spin magazine in 2013 that “We got there, and all the babies were asleep — all the 50 babies. And then one of them cried [and] they all fucking woke up!”. What was that old saying about working with children or animals?

“It’s Alright” peaked at No 5.

I’m guessing that this re-release of “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan and Rufus was part of her “Life Is a Dance: The Remix Project” album that also gave us the re-release of “I’m Every Woman: earlier in 1989. As with a lot of these re-releases, I don’t recall this one being back in the charts – my go to memory for this song is definitely the original 1984 version. Apparently this ’89 vintage is the Frankie Knuckles re-mix but it sounds very similar to the original to me.

Chaka looks absolutely sweltering in that outfit she’s gone with for this performance. I can’t work out which would have been heavier, the clothes or her hair. To be fair, the sweating may have been for another reason as she doesn’t look fully compos mentis to me here. Maybe she’d had a very nice time pre-show in the green room.

The ’89 version of “Ain’t Nobody” peaked at No 6 thereby eclipsing the chart performance of the original by two places.

Top 10

10. Guns N’ Roses – “Patience”

9. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

8. U2 – “All I Want”

7. Queen – “Breakthru”

6. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

5. Pet Shop Boys – “It’s Alright”

4. Prince – “Batdance”

3. London Boys – “London Nights”

2. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

1. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”: Another week at the top for a song that has enjoyed numerous accolades and a very respected legacy down the years. Q magazine voted it as No 67 in their 2003 poll “100 Songs That Changed the World” and in 2015 it was voted by the British public as No 18 in ITV’s “The Nation’s Favourite 80s Number One”.

Most significantly though, it was one of the songs included in the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. If you ever wanted to learn those dance moves…

“Voodoo Ray” was a hit in the 80s? I could have sworn that it was a 90s track but no A Guy Called Gerald (amazingly he was actually called Gerald) was a certifiable 80s hit and spent a whole 18 weeks in the charts peaking at No 12. Maybe I’m getting confused with “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)” by Guru Josh which was a hit in early 1990 despite officially being released in the previous decade (18th December).

One of the most recognisable house records ever made, it wasn’t really my thing but I could appreciate its significance which is made abundantly clear in this clip from 24 Hour Party People.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sonia	You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You	Of course not
2	Gladys Knight	Licence To Kill	Don’t think I did
3	Monie Love	Grandpa’s Party	Negative
4	Karyn White	Superwoman	Nah
5	Bette Midler	Wind Beneath My Wings	Nope
6	Danny Wilson	The Second Summer Of Love	No but I bought the album Bebop Moptop
7	De La Soul	Say No Go	No but my wife had the album 3 Feet High And Rising
8	Beautiful South	Song For Whoever	No but I had the album it was from
9	Pet Shop Boys	It’s Alright	No but I presume it’s on their Pop Art compilation which I have
10	Chaka Khan and Rufus	Ain’t Nobody	No
11	Soul II Soul	Back To Life	No but I think my wife had their album
12	A Guy Called Gerald	Voodoo Ray	It’s a no I’m afraid

Disclaimer

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.

Whole Show

Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-28-july-11-1989.html

TOTP 11 MAY 1989

Posted on March 24, 2020 by 80stastic

Yet again there was only one presenter for our weekly dose of TOTP back in May ’89 and furthermore, once more, there was no Breakers section. What had happened to all those ‘happening’ records? Bruno Brookes is the host for this particular show which starts with the return of Swing Out Sister. Not seen in our charts for nigh on two years, some may have presumed that we would never see them again but rumours of their demise proved to be premature for here they were back in our lives with their single “You On My Mind”, the lead single from new album “Kaleidoscope World”.

Someone definitely not on their minds was Martin Jackson, the band’s drummer, who left during the recording of the album due to that old chestnut ‘musical differences’ or as singer Corrine Drewery put it “It became apparent that he didn’t really like the direction things were going so we parted company”. Definitely ‘musical differences’ then. And which direction was that exactly? Well, it was a more retro easy listening direction than previous album “It’s Better To Travel” according to Wikipedia anyway. I’m not sure that I arrived at the same conclusion back in ’89 but listening to it now I can hear those influences.

“You On My Mind” has a definite feel of something like “Up, Up And Away” by The 5th Dimension which wasn’t a surprise as its composer Jimmy Webb had been brought in to help out on arrangement duties on a coupe of tracks on the album. It’s a very polished sound which seemed quite the anachronism up against all those house records in the charts. Corinne looks every inch the stylish pop star in this performance with that immaculate bob of hers.

Whilst the album was a success (reaching No 9) and “You On My Mind” a Top 40 hit, they never quite managed to scale the commercial heights of their debut album again although they are still together to this day last releasing a crowd funded album called “Almost Persuaded” in 2017.

Heeeere’s Chaka! Yes it’s the ‘Queen of Funk’ herself Chaka Khan back in the charts with a re-mixed version of “I’m Every Woman” which apparently was her debut solo single back in 1978 released as a side project to her work with Rufus.

It of course re-appeared in our charts some four years later when Whitney Houston released her version of the song (taken from The Bodyguard soundtrack) as the follow up to the all conquering “I Will Always Love You”. Contrary to popular belief, a 14 year old Whitney did not sing backing vocals on the original Chaka Khan recording (presumably that was a myth concocted by her record label to help promote the single) but Whitney pays her dues to Chaka by giving her a shout out on the outro of her version…which was nice.

Was this the last time that we saw Yazz on TOTP in the 80s? I believe it was. Although she did have a couple more Top 40 hits into the 90s which may have resulted in further appearances (I haven’t checked), “Where Has All The Love Gone” was pretty much it for Yazz.

So what are we to make of her musical legacy? Well, “The Only Way Is Up” continues to stand the test of time in terms of airplay and of course was introduced to a whole new generation of listeners via its use as the theme tune to long running reality TV series The Only Way Is Essex. As for the rest of her material, well you rarely hear anything still played on radio that isn’t “The Only Way Is Up” but if you’re really interested there is a three (three!) CD deluxe edition of her debut album “Wanted” available and a greatest hits collection called “At Her Very Best” of which there is a quite funny (if cruel) review of on Amazon by a card calling himself Mr Hardy. He writes:

“Few female singles have had the major impact on the international pop charts that Yazz has. Since her smash hit “The Only Way Is Up” (a cover of the George Formby classic) with the `Plastic Population’ back in 1988 she has rivaled the likes of Gina G, Aneka and Tasmin Archer and continues to tour selling out venues to literally 10’s of people night after night”

Ouch! There’s more…

“It was a hard choice to pick out Yazz’s career’s highlights, a task which took seconds, but here they are – all 19 tracks sequenced in chronological order. All the favourites are present and correct; `Love Hangover’ tells the tale of Yazz’s 207th one night stand where she woke up in an alley way in Croydon, `Stand Up For Your Love Rights’ dedicated to frustrated wheelchair bound lotharios across the world and `One on One’ see’s Yazz recalling her days as bare knuckle fighter on the underground fight club scene.”

Deary me!

One of music’s heavyweights returned in May ’89 with their first new material for three years. Queen had been on hiatus since 1986’s “It’s A Kind Of Magic” project with the only material released to appease their fans in the meantime being Freddie Mercury’s solo output “The Great Pretender” single, his “Barcelona” collaboration with Montserrat Caballé and Roger Taylor’s poorly received side project band The Cross. Now though they were back with a new album “The Miracle” and lead single “I Want It All”.

Although there had been rumours in the press for a couple of years about the state of Freddie Mercury’s deteriorating health, presumably only the Queen inner sanctum really knew the true picture. As far as the public were concerned this seemed like a muscular return with “I Want It All” and its rock anthem sound.

As for my personal response to it, I thought it packed a punch when I first heard it and Brian May’s guitar solo was almost Guns N’ Roses-esque. I much preferred it to the likes of “A Kind of Magic”. Subsequent singles that were released from the album though all suffered from a case of diminishing returns in terms of quality in my opinion.

“I Want It All” peaked at No 3 in the UK but at only No 50 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

A song that really should have been a bigger hit in my opinion up next. At this point, Hue And Cry were ‘doing well for themselves’ as Bruno Brookes rather understates in his intro. This was the band’s commercial peak with a second Top 40 hit on the bounce and an album that would rack up sales of 300,000 in the UK. “Violently (Your Words Hit Me)” was taken from that album (“Remote”) and was actually an EP that included their rather wonderful version of Kate Bush’s “The Man With The Child In His Eyes”.

I love the lilting quality this song has and Pat Kane’s vocals are at once both controlled and joyful. I could do without the clod hopping hand clapping that the studio audience have clearly been encouraged to do by a TOTP floor manager though. While we’re at it, they could also have lost the nausea inducing special effects graphics that whirl the drummer and trumpet player around and around. Who wanted to see them anyway?!

I had a friend at Poly called Bev who had been on at her then boyfriend as to why he never bought her any flowers. To try and appease her he bought her a bag of flour (geddit) but buried in it was the CD single of “Violently”. The 20 year old me was very impressed by this sharp practice but I have never tried the same trick on my wife.

Natalie Cole again now with her biggest UK hit “Miss You Like Crazy”. If you look up the Wikipedia entry for this track it says this:

“The song is a moving ballad in which the singer describes how she is feeling lonely and is longing for the one she misses “like crazy” (or, in other words, very much).”

Err…OK. I don’t think we really needed the meaning of the phrase ‘like crazy’ explaining to us!

I had no idea at the time but Natalie had been releasing albums since 1975 with “Good To Be Back” (the album “Miss You Like Crazy” was taken from) being her 12th at that point. In my defence, she hadn’t had a UK hit in the 80s until “Pink Cadillac” in the previous year so my lack of knowledge of her was excusable. She would not be seen in our charts until the new decade dawned and she took “Wild Women Do” from the Pretty Woman soundtrack to No 16 in 1990.

An incredibly famous artist next but one whose UK chart record is surprisingly nothing to write home about. Stevie Nicks is of course part of the legendary classic Fleetwood Mac line up but her solo career, whilst substantial in the US, never pulled up any trees over here. Indeed, “Rooms On Fire” was her first ever entry into the UK Top 40 peaking at No 16.

I’d quite liked some of her previous solo material specifically “Talk To Me”, “I Can’t Wait” and “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?” from her “Rock A Little” album in ’85 but none of them had charted over here. From there she returned to her band’s fold to record and promote their monster album “Tango In The Night” before releasing “The Other Side Of The Mirror” album in her own right. I have to say, although “Rooms On Fire” is instantly recognizable and still an AOR playlist staple today, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you which year it was released.

The Songfacts website’s review of this song also has some reader comments one of which from Christopher L in Texas states:

“I’ve always been a Stevie fan including her years with Fleetwood Mac…I don’t however care for that bitch Christine Mcvie”

Wow! And I thought that Amazon review of Yazz was harsh!

OK – London Boys continue to rise the charts with “Requiem” which is now at its No 4 peak. Before their big chart break, they had been called The Roxy Rollers which wasn’t some heinous hybrid of Roxy Music and Bay City Rollers but the lads as a roller skating duo who toured all over Britain and Europe. They even turned up on Blue Peter…

Unsurprisingly, the duo were linked to Pete Waterman in that they appeared on the Hitman And Her show which I admit to having caught a few times after a drunken night out (so did you!) but isn’t something that I made a habit of.

Top 10

10. Holly Johnson -“Americanos”

9. Transvision Vamp – “Baby I Don’t Care”

8. Chaka Khan – “I’m Every Woman”

7. Edelweiss – “Bring Me Edelweiss”

6. Midnight Oil – “Beds Are Burning”

5. Natalie Cole – “Miss You Like Crazy”

4. London Boys- “Requiem”

3. Queen – “I Want It All”

2. The Bangles – “Eternal Flame”

1. Kylie Minogue – “Hand On Your Heart”: Well that escalated quickly. Two weeks in and Kylie is No 1 again, this time in her own right without any help from then beau Jason Donovan. We get the official video this week which was the usual mix of Kylie wondering about a set in some gaudy coloured dresses with some pretty basic special effects for company. Literally nothing of aesthetic interest going on here apart from Kyile herself.

“Hand On Your Heart” would end up being the 10th best selling single of the year in the UK.

If ever there was a time when the expression ‘What fresh Hell is this ?!’ was invented for then this was it. In the year of our Lord 1989, we saw fit to allow Stefan Dennis to become a pop star. What the actual fuck?! This guy of course played Paul Robinson (Jason Donovan’s character’s brother in Aussie soap Neighbours) and he shamelessly (though he denied it) cashed in on the UK’s obsession with the programme to follow Kylie and Jason into our charts with the execrable “Don’t It Make You Feel Good”. This was just completely rank – the song was shit, he couldn’t sing and to top it off he takes himself so seriously throughout the whole debacle with his George Michael rip off leather jacket. Apparently his character is still in Neighbours – a UK equivalent would have been William Roache (Ken Barlow) having released a pop single that wasn’t a novelty record that he wanted us to take seriously! Just ludicrous.

Somehow, and this really does defy explanation, “Don’t It Make You Feel Good”was a No 16 hit in our charts.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I buy it?
1	Swing Out Sister	You On My Mind	Nope
2	Chaka Khan	I’m Every Woman (’89 Remix)	I did not
3	Yazz	Where Has All The Love Gone	Nah
4	Queen	I Want It All	That’s a no
5	Hue And Cry	Violently	No but my wife had their album “Remote”
6	Natalie Cole	Miss You Like Crazy	Nope
7	Stevie Nicks	Rooms On Fire	Negative
8	London Boys	Requiem	Of course not
9	Kylie Minogue	Hand On Your Heart	No
10	Stefan Dennis	Don’t It Make You Feel Good	No Stefan it really doesn’t! NO!

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000g6ll/top-of-the-pops-11051989

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-3-16-1989.html

TOTP 04 MAY 1989

Posted on March 18, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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 22 NOV 1984

Posted on November 15, 2017 by 80stastic

We’re on a real run of consecutive repeat showings of TOTP at the moment – this is the third one on the bounce without any presenter issues causing us to miss weeks. However this particular show does bring to an end Tommy Vance’s long running streak of presenting the show as this is his last one ever. I always quite liked how he seemed so enthusiastic about all the different acts and the types of music featured on the show despite his natural leanings towards rock music. Sadly, Tommy died in 2005 aged just 64 and when you consider that his fellow presenter tonight John Peel had died 6 months earlier in October 2004 at the age of 65 it’s a sobering thought.

After such a sombre beginning to the post we need a tonic and here it comes in the form of Nick Heyward with his new single “Warning Sign”. This seemed to be a new funked-up version of Nick. Not only did this new song have a completely different groove to his other solo work, it had rapping in it! Well if it could get Chaka Khan to No 1…..

This would be the second time in the same show that we would be seeing someone on TOTP for the last time as this was Nick’s last ever outing (sniff). Despite continuing to release some great stuff throughout the 80s and 90s, Nick would not see the Top 40 singles chart again (save for 1 week at No 37 in 1996) and therefore no more TOTPs (sniff, and indeed sniff). “Warning Sign” was a stand alone single trying to bridge the gaps between his first and second album and despite some reservations on first hearing I grew to like it. My Heyward obsession was starting to wane by this point though and I’m not sure I even bought it but it’s great little tune in its own right.

Nick gives an energetic performance on his valedictory appearance and yes that’s Haircut 100’s Blair Cunningham still with him on drums. Talking of haircuts, if you seek out the promotional video for the single then you can catch him with one of the sharpest haircuts ever. Right, that’s probably enough of my fawning over Mr. Heyward. Farewell (but not goodbye) Nick.

P.S. Pop trivia question for you…with which song does “Warning Sign” share its opening line “I’m coming home I’ve done my time”? Answer at the end of the post.

The first video of the night is one we have seen before in a recent TOTP – here’s Chicago with “Hard Habit To Break”. There’s not a lot else to say about Chicago that I didn’t already post the last time this song was on but i dug this bit of info up….apparently three of the band were inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame this year for their work as members of the band. So they received an award for writing the same song over and over again? Nice work if you can get it. Even the video is as dull as Peter Cetera’s outfit….except…..in the very last still is that actress Joanne Whalley?

Brilliant! A song we haven’t seen in these repeats before …here comes “the Newcastle posse” (as John Peel puts it)…it’s The Kane Gang with “Respect Yourself”. I’d really liked their previous hit, the gorgeously lilting ballad “The Closest Thing To Heaven” but this was a much more “punchy little number” (to quote Peel again although he was being sarcastic about Chicago). The song was of course a cover version of that soul staple by the err..Staple Singers (sorry!) but not unsurprisingly I didn’t realise that at the time. It’s a great track though and the Kane Gang show plenty of err.. respect (sorry again) to the original with their version. It made No 21 in the charts but should have been a much bigger hit. Probably much to their chagrin, another cover version was released 3 years later and did outperform their chart placing by making it all the way to No 7. And that version was by….? Yes, it was Bruce Willis. It seems a completely bizarre notion now but back in 1987, riding high on the back of his success in the TV show Moonlighting, Bruce briefly became a pop star but that’s all for another day’s post much further down the line in TOTP repeat land.

Around the same time as Willis’s success, The Kane Gang were releasing some rather great singles such as “Motortown” and “Don’t Look Any Further” from their second album but yet again the UK chart buying public showed their ignorance by ignoring them meaning that “Respect Yourself” would be the band’s last ever Top 40 hit.

Oh and just one more thing,. I love the way that two of the band in this performance look like they have just hot footed it from the 6th form common room to be on the show!

Now here’s an interesting one – it’s Human League with “Louise”. This was the third single to be taken from their “Hysteria” album an on first hearing I thought it was a fairly unremarkable song but after a few listens it really grew on me.

What I didn’t know at the time but which @TOTPFacts informs me is that the song was actually a sequel to “Don’t You Want Me” and tells the story of the main characters from that era-defining hit bumping into each other accidentally 15 years on and the guy still getting it all wrong. The video (artily shot in black and white) supports this with little nuances like Susan Sully wearing the same coat that she did in the “Don’t You Want Me” video.

Note that Susan Sulley is wearing the same coat she wore in the “Don’t You Want Me” video (shot by the same director). #TOTP pic.twitter.com/XzqGVB3hJv
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 9, 2017

Its a nice idea and the song deserved better than a No 13 chart placing. Perhaps Phil Oakey’s “Together In Electric Dreams” hit with Giorgio Moroder that was in the charts simultaneously stole some of the single’s profile and sales. We’ll never know. However what I do know and what I really remember this single for is the fact that my mate Rob (the Howard Jones superfan) was seeing a girl called Louise from the girls school next door at this time and he got mercilessly teased about this song. Sorry Rob.

Bloody Hell! It’s Billy Ocean again. How many time has he been on now? Checking back it looks like this is only his second appearance on the show but it feels like about four at least! By this point he is up to No 6 but despite this performance the single would go no further than that.

There seems to be an awful lot of whooping and hollering coming from the studio audience when Billy does his little dance moves in the song’s instrumental break but they really don’t warrant it from what I can see. Even the 16 year old me who had never been to a night club at this point could have pulled something more dynamic out of the bag than Billy’s pedestrian steps!

Something straight out of the left field next…here’s “One Night In Bangkok” by Murray Head. This was a song from a concept album and musical called “Chess” written by ABBA’s Benny and Bjorn. As well as doing the rapping (if you can call it that) on the single, Murray Head would go onto perform the role of world chess champion Frederick “Freddie” Trumper in the London West End stage production when it premiered in 1986.

Now I don’t think I had grasped the framing of the song back in 1984 and I certainly had no idea who Murray Head was but I kind of liked it. It was unusual, with that incongruous, orchestral Russian intro that builds to a crescendo and then leaps into Head just coming straight in with “Bangkok, Oriental setting, And the city don’t know that the city is getting”. Ah, those lyrics which made very little sense taken out of context of the musical (apparently the setting of the song is a TV interview by Head’s character) but which I found exotic and intriguing.

All of the above doesn’t really translate to an outing on TOTP though and Head doesn’t help himself with his stumbling performance. He misses his cue for the start of the song and then forgets the lyrics missing out “the Philippines” from “It’s Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings or…or this place!”. Have you ever seen a more awkward performance on the show? Murray seems totally defeated from the very off and spends his time wandering around the stage head bowed in abject horror at the situation he finds himself in. At one point he looks for solace in the company of his female backing singers who do the chorus bits but he doesn’t seem to know the words well enough to mime them convincingly. The end of the song seems almost like a mercy killing.

Oh and if you think he looks familiar it’s because he’s the brother of Anthony Head (see some more great trivia from @TOTPFacts below):

Murray Head is the older brother of Anthony Head, aka Giles from Buffy/him off the Gold Blend Ads. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/XxQb926XqY
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 9, 2017

Now given this guy’s ubiquity during the decade, we seem to have dodged him quite well during these repeats so far but he’s found us again this week…here’s Shakin’ Stevens with “Teardrops”. Now, I don’t remember this one at all but, and don’t judge me for this, it’s actually not a bad take on a classic 50s ballad. Apparently this was actually written by Shaky himself and you can imagine it being sung by Eddie Cochrane or appearing on the Grease soundtrack.

Right snap out of it now!

*slaps himself around the chops*

Its the Top 10 run down next and watching it back suddenly transported me back 33 years to a Tuesday lunchtime when me and my mate Rob had ventured into town to the Music Market shop to see what the new chart was (yes kids, the new chart used to be announced on a Tuesday lunchtime and Music Market would rearrange their singles display to match the new chart placings). The juxtaposition of Nik Kershaw at No 5 next to Limahl at No 4 suddenly came right back to me and I recall Rob saying to me “well done” as Kershaw had risen from No 17 the previous week as if I had done something worthy of congratulation. Rob was probably in the shop buying “Louise” by Human League for his girlfriend “Louise” (Sorry Rob! Again!).

Anyway, enough of all that. The No 1 is yet again Chaka Khan with ” I Feel For You”…

Talking of Limahl, he is the play out music this week with “Neverending Story”. Keep watching and you’ll see the male dancer with the monstrous mullet and poncho miss his hand catch with his female co-dancer and fall of his podium. Excellent stuff.

And that quiz answer? It was of course “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree” by Dawn

http://www.metrolyrics.com/tie-a-yellow-ribbon-round-the-ole-oak-tree-lyrics-tony-orlando-and-dawn.html

For the sake of postrity, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Nick Heyward	Warning Sign	I didn’t think I had done but apparently I did
2	Chicago	Hard Habit To Break	Hell no
3	The Kane Gang	Respect Yourself	I liked it but no
4	Human League	Louise	No but it’s on a Greatest Hits CD
5	Billy Ocean	Caribbean Queen	And that would be a no
6	Murray Head	One Night In Bangkok	It may have been intriguing but not enough for a trip to Music Market
7	Shakin’ Stevens	Teardrops	Of course not
8	Chaka Kahn	I Feel For You	Chak, Chak Chaka…NO
9	Limahl	Neverending Story	And again that’s a no from me

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09dx3lx/top-of-the-pops-22111984

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?

01-smash-hits-22-november-5-december-1984-226x300

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2014/11/november-22-december-5-1984.html

TOTP 15 NOV 1984

Posted on November 9, 2017 by 80stastic

Bonfire night has been and gone and Christmas is starting to appear on the horizon – not only in the here and now but also back in TOTP repeat land where we are currently spending some time in 1984.

After coming through the torture that was “Agadoo” and “I Just Called To Say I Love You” we thought we were safe for a while. Think again for what Hellish notion is this? Way scarier than Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video comes a double-headed beast dressed in tuxedos and dickie bows…dear Lord it’s Mike Read and Bruno Brookes…together! Brace yourselves – this could be a very distressing experience.

Fortunately Matt Bianco are on hand to calm our nerves with the rather gentle and whimsical “Half A Minute”. This was one of the band’s irregular visits to chart land that occurred throughout the decade. After their debut hit “Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed” at the start of the year, things had rather trailed off for this jazz-influenced beat combo with the following two singles missing the Top 40 altogether. So it was a bit of a surprise to see them back on TOTP with this latin-tinged number. It didn’t have the urgency of “Lazy Bed” and seemed so…laid back I suppose to me.

Basia is on vocals for this one and she does a good job although it doesn’t seem to test her range very much. You get the impression she was singing within herself almost. Compared to other songs in the charts at that time it seemed quite incongruous and of another era – you could imagine it soundtracking some French black and white comedy film and when I heard it on the radio it always seemed such a quiet sound. Although not devoid of charm, it didn’t pull up any trees and the band would alight from their trip around chartsville at No 23.

It’s a biggie next….here are Duran Duran with “Wild Boys”! Where do you even start with this behemoth of a song? Well, the origin of it revolves around the vision of one time Duran video director Russell Mulcahy to make a full length film based on the William S. Burrough’s apocalyptic – themed novel The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead. The band came up with the song “Wild Boys” after Mulcahy suggested they create the music for the project. I remember thinking it seemed like quite a departure in sound for Duran after the slick synth pop that they had made their name with. It was rough sounding with some heavy tribal drums in the mix. It was produced by Nile Rodgers who the band kept faith with after his No1 production on previous single ‘The Reflex”. In the 2000 documentary “Wild Boys: The Story of Duran Duran”, Rodgers claims that it was almost a punk rock song and that he “could have done Wild Boys with The Clash”. Look they’re his words not mine OK? Don’t look at me like that!

I also remember a lot of discussion about the quality of Simon Le Bon’s vocals on the track and that they sounded a bit strained as if he didn’t really have the range to sing it. The single was packaged in 6 (SIX!) different picture sleeves each one depicting a member of the band and one group shot. I recall listening to disgraced Bay City Rollers manager Tam Paton being interviewed once and saying he wished that sort of marketing had been around when his band were the nation’s heart throbs. After my wife’s slagging of “The Reflex” in a previous post, it turns out she liked this one as she had the 7″ single. To her horror, a friend bought her the Andy Taylor cover though. Oh dear.

And that video? It was a £1,000,000 production designed to impress the movie studios that Mulcahy was courting for his full- length project but it never came to fruition and all we are left with is this staggering video. Yes staggering was the word back in 1984. I know all the prosthetics, make up and computer graphics look laughably dated now but they were spell-binding back then. Except for the pathetic Alien type creature in the water that attacks Simon – that always looked crap. Supposedly Le Bon nearly drowned when the windmill he was strapped to stuck with his head under the water but the singer himself plays down the story. Apparently the choreography was the work of one time Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips. I wonder if Le Bon would ever consider going on the show? Probably not.

There’s some cringeworthy intro from Bruno Brookes next where he encourages us all to hold hands with the person next to us as the next song is…yes…“All Join Hands” by Slade. This was a shamelessly cynical attempt to repeat the success of the big ballad “My Oh My” that had been a huge hit for the band at Xmas the previous year. It’s almost an identikit version of that song and they’ve even given the studio audience those nastily cheap looking Slade banners to wave again as per 1983. Thankfully, even the notoriously easily deceived UK record buying public saw through this sham and the single only made No 15. Noddy turns in an awful gurning performance here and the lyrics that rhyme “time” with “wine” and “Auld Lang Syne” are hateful. Be off with you!

After last week’s show featured the controversy -courting song “Blasphemous Rumours” by Depeche Mode, this week the outrage turned from religion to the subject of sex…here’s “Sex Crime 1984” by Eurythmics. In many ways this is almost a forgotten Eurythmics song compared to “Sweet Dreams” or “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)” and yet it is their fourth highest ever placing single on the UK chart reaching No 4. It was, of course, written for the soundtrack for the film Nineteen Eighty-Four based on the novel of the same name by George Orwell. The song is certainly not well known in the US as it performed poorly there due to negative reaction to the single’s title from MTV and American radio.

More controversy followed when the film’s director Michael Radford publicly protested about Virgin Films who financed the flick’s decision to get Eurythmics to compose the soundtrack preferring an orchestral score that had already been written for the film months previously. Radford publicly disowned Virgin’s edit of the film featuring the Eurythmics songs and maybe off the back of this the band’s album for this project “1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)” has almost been written out of the band’s history.

For my part, I wasn’t sure about the single at the time. It was all a bit jumpy and I couldn’t deal with the stuttering vocals and the vocoder effect. Annie does look gorgeous in the video though.

More creepiness from Brookes follows where he says he is thinking of taking three teenage looking girls from the studio audience out with him and Mike Read on a night out after the show. Just horrible.

Last week I said I hadn’t foreseen “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan becoming a No 1 single but I’m betting that nobody saw this next song as a future No1. It’s “I Should Have known Better” by Jim Diamond. “Who?” we all asked at the time. The now sadly departed Jim was the lead singer with PhD who had a No 3 hit with “I Won’t Let You Down” in 1982 but he branched out on his own in 1984 with this ballad full of sorrow and longing an amazingly it made it all the way to No 1 (albeit just for one week).

I seem to remember that Gary Davies used to call it the “I,I,I,” song in reference to the memorable chorus. Jim does a convincing in character performance here but watching it back now I wonder whether it would have suited David Essex. I’m sure he could have pulled off the Marti Pellow style “Ooh yeah” before the final chorus with aplomb.

I secretly quite liked it at the time but of course I never let on at school.

Hands up who remembers The Dazz Band? Thought so. They were an American jazz/funk fusion outfit (hence the band’s name: Dance + Jazz= Dazz – geddit?) It strikes me they were a poor man’s Herbie Hancock of “Rock It” fame but somehow they managed to have a Top 40 hit over here. Next!

More bizarre mutterings from Brookes and Read follow where the concept of the ‘joke’ seems to be that the latter has taken some magic mushrooms making him think the former is taller than he actually is. Hilarious I’m sure you’ll agree.

A real oddity next. In the year that brought us the phenomenon that was Frankie Goes To Hollywood, there was still room in the charts for not one but two Alvin Stardust singles! Yes, the 70s glam star of “My Coo Ca Choo” fame was still having hits in the 80s. Mercifully we didn’t get to see his first success of the year “I Feel Like Buddy Holly” due to presenter issues but there’s no escaping the second one which is “I Won’t Run Away”. It’s pretty dire stuff about a guy facing up to his parental responsibilities but its pure cheese on toast. Somehow both singles managed to reach No 7. Unlike Alvin, I will run away and at great speed from this shocker….

…to arrive at a bona fide 1984 pop star..here’s Nik Kershaw with ‘The Riddle”. This song forms one third of the trinity of Nik’s most famous songs (the other two being “Wouldn’t It Be Good” and “I Won’t Let The Sun go Down On Me”in my humble opinion) and revived his fortunes after previous single “Human Racing” hadn’t performed as well as expected.

It was the lead single from his second album of the same name and would reach No 3 in the charts. Now whatever you might think of Kershaw (and I liked him) you have to give the lad credit for his work ethic. He released two albums and five singles alone in 1984.

There was a lot of (presumably record company generated) fuss about the song’s meaning and I recall Bruno Brookes had a long-running listener competition on his radio show to guess the true meaning. At the competition’s climax he got Nik onto his show to reveal the answer…turns out it was all a load of bollocks (Kershaw’s word not mine). It had just been a non sensical guide vocal for the demo recording but he ended up sticking with it. For the record, I thought it was great.

The No 1 this week is still Chaka Kahn‘s “I Feel For You”. At the end of the video, we see that Chaka is actually in the studio with Read and Brookes. Why on earth didn’t they get her to do a studio performance of the song?

The Play out music is “I’m So Excited” by The Pointer Sisters which was the fourth single to be pulled from their “Breakout” album . I recall when I worked in Our Price in Manchester that some local artist recorded a version of it to coincide with Man Utd reaching the final of the European Cup Winners Cup final in 1991. It was called…”I’m So Excited, it’s Man Utd”. Of course it was.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Matt Bianco	Half A Minute	Nah
2	Duran Duran	Wild Boys	No but my wife had it
3	Slade	All Join Hands	As if
4	Eurythmics	Sex Crime 1984	No
5	Jim Diamond	I Should Have Known Better	No – I was intent on preserving the little credibility I had at school
6	Dazz Band	Let It All Blow	The Dazz Bland more like. And no…
7	Alvin Stardust	I Won’t Run Away	Are you completely mad?!
8	Nik Kershaw	The Riddle	No but I had the album. Don’t you judge me!
9	Chaka Kahn	I Feel For You	Chak, Chak Chaka…NO
10	Pointer Sisters	I’m So Excited	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09dbvl0/top-of-the-pops-15111984

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?

01-smash-hits-8-21-november-1984-226x300

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2014/11/november-8-21-1984.html

TOTP 08 NOV 1984

Posted on November 7, 2017 by 80stastic

And we’re back in sync! Yes, like a broken clock, the TOTP repeats schedule normally allows for a synchronisation of months twice a year so here we are corresponding almost exactly to the day (give or take one or two) with 33 years ago.

The presenters tonight are the permanently middle -aged looking Richard Skinner (he was only 32 when this show broadcast!) and Simon Bates with his standard utterly irrelevant patter. True to form Simes starts off by introducing the first act who is Limahl and immediately puts his foot in it by getting the song title wrong – it’s “Neverending Story” Bates not “Neverending Song”! – and then goes off on a tangent by saying that the female co-vocalist is a Spurs supporter. What?!

Yes its the ex-Kajagoogoo-er back for one last fleeting turn in the spotlight. His vehicle for this was the theme tune for the film of the same name and it was written by Giorgio Moroder as just about everything in the charts seemed to be at this point. It actually performed very well across Europe and would reach No 4 in the UK charts. The aforementioned Mandy doesn’t actually sing on the record (apparently that was someone called Beth Anderson) and in fact the Spurs supporting vocalist was just one of Limahl’s backing singers. Given it’s success, it probably makes it one of Limahl’s two best known songs (the other of course being the No 1 hit “Too Shy” from his time with Kajagoogoo).

Limahl still has his trademark bedraggled skunk haircut at this point and combines it with an all leather outfit. It’s quite the ensemble. It’s a very tactile performance as well with him and our Mand intertwining hands and getting all smoochy with each other while the studio audience whoop it up. And the song? It’s got all the usual hallmarks of a Moroder production, all shimmering synths and soft vocals and it’s kind of sweet I suppose if not a little sickly.

More bizarreness from Simon Bates next as he introduces the first video of the night by Status Quo who have covered the old Dion song “The Wanderer”. Bates advises the watching millions at home that the video is “really good fun”. OK – if you say so Simon. But then he follows it up by saying ” I mean, that’s all it is”. What? Why did he feel the need to add that bit? It would have made much more sense if he’d said that the whole thing “was money for old rope. I mean, that’s all it is” because it was. It’s literally a tired old record company strategy to keep their act’s profile high whilst they don’t have any new material. Just shove a cover version out – that’ll do. And indeed it did as this steaming heap went to No 7 on the charts.

And the “really good fun” video? It’s just the band performing on the back of a wagon as it rides around London with some filmed reactions from the watching public. It’s a direct rip-off the the Beatles on the roof concert from 1969. It’s also completely dated as if a band did the same thing today, the public would be filming the whole thing on their mobile phones. As it is, we get some Quo super-fan trailing the wagon on a motorbike recording the whole mockery of a sham on a massive cine camera.

Even a wide eyed innocent like the 16 year old I was back then knew this was cynical horse shit. What a stinker.

A great song next and one that really pushed the boundaries back in 1984 – here’s Depeche Mode with “Blasphemous Rumours”. It’s the haunting tale of a 16 year old who attempts suicide but survives and embarks upon a spiritual awakening only to die aged 18 in a car crash. The gloomy aural soundscape that the band wrap the lyrics in makes for a completely immersive experience and yet they also made it accessible with that catchy chorus which includes the lyrics:

“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour and when I die, I expect to find him laughing.”

Apparently the potential religious backlash convinced the band and their label to make it a double A-side with the gorgeous ballad “Somebody” sung by Martin Gore as the other track. When you consider that the following year Kate Bush released her seminal single “Running Up That Hill” which was originally called “A Deal With God” but dropped it for fear of offending potential markets in religious territories (thanks to Classic Pop magazine for that snippet), then it gives you some idea of how daring a release this was. I thought it was great and yet I never heard “Somebody” until I met my wife at Poly some two years later and she played it to me which suggests that Radio 1 didn’t shy way from playing “Blasphemous Rumours”.

Alison Moyet is up next with the video to “All Cried Out”. To be fair the video is pretty dull and doesn’t add much to the song. It’s basically Alison moping about in a cafe and in various London locations with only a slightly more upbeat interlude when she is laughing and spinning around (holding hands out of shot with the lyric’s lost love possibly) during the “round around ” refrain.

Richard Skinner introduces the next act and gets his words in a twist (“For the first time in ever in the history….) over telling us that Billy Ocean (for it is he) is the first man to top the US pop, soul and R’n’B charts with “Caribbean Queen”. Quite an achievement for such an unremarkable song. Oh, I mean it’s all right but it always struck me as a bit pedestrian.

However it did feature the quite clever marketing ploy of releasing the song with a different title depending on the sales territory (there’s that soul destroying word again). So we had “European Queen” in Germany and Switzerland and “African Queen” in South Africa. Billy would be a regular on the charts throughout the rest of the decade even making No 1 with the lamentable “When The Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” and No 3 with the equally dire “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car” whilst “Caribbean Queen” made it to No 6.

Now here’s a band that seem to make a career for themselves in the 80s by recycling the same song over and over again. It is, of course, Chicago with “Hard Habit To Break”…or is it “Hard To Say I’m Sorry”… or “You’re The Inspiration” …or “If You Leave Me Now”. OK – you get my point. They all sound the same don’t they? Even when lead singer Peter Cetera went solo in 1986 he went and released the the same old song again this time called “Glory Of Love”. Yes I know that they had a previous life when they were known as Chicago Transit Authority with a much heavier sound but it’s this massive lush power ballad style that they will always be remembered for.

Did I like it? Not really but my brother bought and played the follow up “You’re The Inspiration” over and over when he broke up with a girlfriend. I guess that’s what Chicago songs are for though.

Blimey! Was Gary Numan still having Top 40 hits in late 1984? Yes he was and here’s the proof – it’s the man himself with “Beserker”. I didn’t remember this song at all but actually I don’t mind it and I’m not a fan usually. What I do recall though is his stage look especially the blue hair and make up. There were two die hard Numanoids at school and I’m sure I had conversations with them along the lines of “Why has he dyed his hair blue when he’s only just had a hair transplant? Surely that’s not wise?”

What is this crud? Bonus points if you remember Eugene Wilde and his song “Gotta Get You Home Tonight”. However, like me, you’re more likely to want to forget this piece of cliched R ‘n’B. The lyrics basically consist of the following phrases repeated over and over:

Ooooh baby
Oh come on lady!
Gotta hold you body tight
Gotta get you home with me tonight

Just horrible.

Its a new No 1! Wham! have been toppled by “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan. I have to admit that I didn’t see this one coming back in 1984. I just didn’t think it was a No 1 song. In the last post I mentioned that one of the dancers was called Shabba Doo. Turns out there’s also one called Boogaloo Shrimp. That’s Boogaloo Shrimp. And one more time… Boogaloo Shrimp. Thanks to @TOTPFacts for that marvellous trivia.

The play out music this week is “Gimme All Your Lovin'” by ZZ Top and if you watch the show to the very end you will see some of the most unlikely people to have ever danced to this song including…is that really Su Pollard in the last frames?

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Limahl	Neverending Story	Oh dear God no – credibility suicide right there
2	Status Quo	The Wanderer	Bleeeeugh!
3	Depeche Mode	Blasphemous Rumours	It’s in the singles box but it’s my wife’s copy although I do have the original Greatest Hits LP on vinyl from 1985 that includes it.
4	Alison Moyet	All Cried Out	No
5	Billy Ocean	Caribbean Queen	And that’s another no
6	Chicago	Hard Habit To Break	And there’s the hat trick…no
7	Gary Numan	Beserker	I was not nor have ever been a Numanoid
8	Eugene Wilde	GoTta Get You Home Tonight	See Status Quo comment
9	Chaka Kahn	I Feel For You	Chak, Chak Chaka…NO
10	ZZ Top	Gimme All Your Lovin’	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09d9ftw/top-of-the-pops-08111984

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/2014/11/november-8-21-1984.html

TOTP 18 OCT 1984

Posted on November 2, 2017 by 80stastic

It’s Thursday night and time for TOTP again – TOTP from 18th October 1984 to be precise. Just six days prior to this broadcast, the bombing of the Conservative Party conference in Brighton had taken place and a mere five days after it went out, a report on the Ethiopian famine by BBC journalist Michael Buerk was broadcast in the UK. Among those watching was Bob Geldof….

…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Tonight’s show is anchored by Janice Long who has an Elaine Paige style haircut which is an explosion of red and orange and Gary Davies who has done everything within his power to fashion a look which plays up to his ‘medallion man’ persona.

First act on tonight is Spandau Ballet with their third single release of the year “Highly Strung”. Yes it’s that song. The one you can’t discuss without mentioning the following lyric:

She used to be a diplomat, now she’s down the laundromat

It’s their “You’re about as easy s a nuclear war moment” and still jars some 33 years later. After the last single “I’ll Fly For You” had not really done the business it was expected to by only reaching No 9 in the charts, this quickly issued follow up was flung out into the market. It races along at a pace with an attendant scratchy guitar riff for company. It’s not bad but it could be a contender for a Pointless TV programme answer to the question name a Spandau Ballet hit. For my part I liked it back in 1984 and it would be just one more reason to buy the “Parade” LP it was taken from.

Watching this performance, I find myself asking how many cans of hairspray were used to keep Tony Hadley’s hair in place and is one of the dancers actually Batman’s enemy The Riddler on the podium at the front? There’s a lot of screaming going on and the band are lapping it up with a lot of dashing to and fro from the back to the front of the stage to whip up the hysteria some more. Given that the single would only reach No 15 (continuing the band’s run of diminishing returns ) it kind of feels like fiddling (or tooting a sax in Steve Norman’s case) while Rome burns especially when you consider the trees George Michael and Wham! were pulling up at this time.

At the song’s end, Gary Davies advises us that the band are rehearsing for a world tour that starts in three weeks time in Japan. I would catch then on that tour (in Birmingham not Japan!) and it would be my first ever gig.

Here’s a song getting another airing on the show – it’s Paul McCartney with “No More Lonely Nights”. I mentioned the last time this was on that there were two versions of this song, the ballad version and a dance remix. Want to hear that remix? OK….

Yeah – told you the ballad version was better.

Proving that they didn’t just sling this show together, we go from McCartney to Lennon next (not a line that fellow scouser Janice Long was going to miss the opportunity of saying)…Julian Lennon to be precise with his debut single “Too Late For Goodbyes”. Oh there was so much fuss over this release, most of it surrounding the fact that he looked and sounded like his Dad. What a shocker! Son looks like his Dad! Of course, it wasn’t just any Dad but only one of the most famous men ever (certainly in the sphere of pop music) so I guess it was inevitable. The music press went to town over him being the next big thing. And the record buying public bought into it – he was voted the Most Promising New Act in the Smash Hits magazine end of year poll.

43-smash-hits-20-december-2-january-1985 — Paul Rutherford wasn’t a fan though!

But was his song any good? Well, I thought it was pleasant enough but it was all a bit bland. And you couldn’t get past the fact that he did sound like his Dad and that indeed had John lived he may well have made a record like this in 1984. None of this of course was Julian’s fault and as the Radio 1 DJ Mike Read stated in his review of the single in Smash Hits magazine:

It seems pretty natural that the son of one of the world’s greatest songwriters and singers should want to make music.

Sadly for Lennon junior, the early promise petered out and although “Too Late For Goodbyes” was a No 6 hit, the album didn’t sell as well as expected and the follow up single didn’t even make the Top 40. He would return to the charts in 1991 with the rather nice tune “Salt Water” which also made No 6. I saw him do a PA at the Virgin megastore to promote it – he was ridiculously late and I had to forego any lunch that day. Cheers Julian.

An almighty 80s tune next – here comes Chaka Khan with “I Feel for You” on her way to No 1. Yes, we all know it is a Prince song but Chaka’s version is surely the definitive one. That stuttering start (which was a mistake apparently but producer Arif Mardin liked it and kept it in) that leads into the Melle Mel rap and then that Stevie Wonder harmonica – wonderful isn’t it? Well, no actually – I never really liked it that much. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about and I found it a most unlikely No 1 record. I much preferred her previous hit with the band Rufus “Ain’t Nobody”. Apparently one of the break dancers in the video is called Shabba Doo – there has to be a joke in there somewhere surely?

John Waite with “Missing You” is next. It’s the video this time after a studio performance previously and it’s a pretty lame affair. Lots of literal enactments of the song’s lyrics and moody shots of John. There is a truly awful bit where he is chatted up at the bar by a lady who is obviously meant to not be as attractive as his lost love and the lyric that plays over this is segment is “You don’t know how desperate I’ve become”! Poor woman!

The charts really were all over the place at this point of the decade – how else do you explain the presence of Meatloaf in the charts alongside the likes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Ultravox for example? He always seemed a bit of an anachronism throughout the whole of the 80s and yet here he is again turning up like a bad penny (he probably wrote a song called that) with “Modern Girl”. It’s just the same old stuff he always peddles and yet it still managed to make No 17 in the charts. It was taken from the “Bad Attitude” album which included the track “Nowhere Fast” which just about sums this up.

Did someone mention Ultravox? 1984 was a busy year for Midge Ure and the boys. They released an album (“Lament”) and three singles from it and now here they are with a fourth of the year that was the prelude to a Collection CD and all this before you even mention the Band Aid project. That fourth single was “Love’s Great Adventure” and it would mark the end of the band’s imperial phase. It’s a marvellous romp through the pop gears and was apparently written to display the band’s lighter side after doomy songs such as “Vienna”, “Visions In Blue” and “Lament”. Hopefully we’ll get to see the Indiana jones style video in a future show.

Finally “I Just Called To Say I Love You” has been toppled and we have the exuberance of Wham!‘s “Freedom” at No 1. Its the same performance as shown the previous week as surprisingly there was no accompanying video for the single. Eventually something was cobbled together using clips from the band’s history making trip to China for the US market but here? Zip. No that it needed any more promotion. It was at No 1 – job done.

The play out music this week is “Together In Electric dreams” by Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Spandau Ballet	Highly Strung	No but I did get the “Parade” LP it was taken from
2	Paul McCartney	No More Lonely Nights	No but it’s on my Wingspan Best Of
3	Julian Lennon	Too Late For Goodbyes	Nah
4	Chaka Khan	I Feel For You	Nope
5	John Waite	Missing You	I didn’t actually
6	Meatloaf	Modern Girl	What do you think?
7	Ultravox	Love’s Great Adventure	No but I had that Ultravox Collection album it was taken from
8	Wham!	Freedom	No but we all have the Greatest Hits don’t we?
9	Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder	Together In Electric dreams	The vinyl police are still investigating the whereabouts of my copy

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09bklkn/top-of-the-pops-18101984

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?

01-smash-hits-11-24-october-1984-226x300

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2014/10/october-11-24-1984.html

TOTP Rewind – the 80s

My memories of 80s chart music

TOTP 20 JUL 1989

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TOTP 06 JUL 1989

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Whole Show

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TOTP 11 MAY 1989

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TOTP 04 MAY 1989

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TOTP 22 NOV 1984

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TOTP 15 NOV 1984

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TOTP 08 NOV 1984

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TOTP 18 OCT 1984

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