De La Soul

TOTP 21 DEC 1989

Posted on July 24, 2020 by 80stastic

IT’S XMAS 1989! Well almost. The Top 40 chart featured in this TOTP wasn’t the actual Xmas chart as there was one more to be announced on Xmas Eve based on record sales from Monday 18th to Saturday 23rd December but – and I don’t think this is news to anybody – there was no movement in the No 1 record so whatever was in top spot at the end of this TOTP was the actual Xmas No 1.

The presenters tonight are Bruno Brookes and Anthea Turner. I’m not sure if they were still together at this point (although the Xmas kiss at the end of the show might be an indication) but if they were, it didn’t last much longer as she married her manager and former Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell in 1990. Plenty has been written and reported about Anthea (and her relationships) over the years so there’s no need for me to add to the collection other than to say that this seemed to be the point where she adopted her shorter bob style haircut with her rock chic long locks gone and never to return. Anyways, the pair have twelve ‘new’ songs for our delectation tonight so let’s get started with…..

… The FPI Project and a cover of “Going Back To My Roots” a song that I knew from Odyssey’s 1981 version. This take on it was created by three Italian DJs so, of course, this meant it had to have an Itala House twist to it. Watching the performance back, I was amazed that there was hardly any singing on it! I kept waiting for the vocal to kick in thinking ‘those two women centre stage aren’t just going to jig about for the whole thing are they?’ – but they did. I must have got it confused with the Odyssey version in my ever deteriorating memory banks. There really isn’t anything much to it at all – except for the annoying ‘Woo! Yeah!’ loop. Poor fare indeed.

“Going Back To My Roots” was the only hit for The FPI Project peaking at No 9.

After Odyssey (almost) comes an oddity. “Burning The Ground” was basically a promotional tool for Duran Duran‘s first greatest hits album “Decade” in the form of a megamix single. It doesn’t actually appear on said album (I know because I bought it – yes I did, deal with it) and I have to admit to not really being conscious of its existence back in ’89. Maybe radio was just overdosing on festive tunes so close to Xmas. Featuring samples from their back catalogue of singles including “Save A Prayer”, “View To A Kill”, “Rio”, “The Reflex” and “The Wild Boys” its title was taken from another single’s lyrics in “Hungry Like The Wolf”. There’s also some snippets of dialogue from the film Barbarella which inspired their band name thrown in for good measure.

Apparently the band enjoyed mixing this track together and I think it works pretty well actually. The video follows the same cut and paste ethos as the song with various bits of their previous singles promos all thrown into the cooking pot. The single peaked at No 31 – I’m not sure if that was above or below band expectations back in 1989 but it certainly ushered in a fallow period in their fortunes until the career resurrecting “Ordinary World” single in 1993.

After her chart topper “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You” earlier in the year, things had stalled a bit for Sonia. Follow up single “Can’t Forget You” had proved to be quite…erm…forgettable and only made it to a disappointing No 17. When third single “Listen To Your Heart” (no, not the Roxette song) debuted on the charts at No 42, alarm bells must have been ringing down at Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s Hit Factory. Presumably after some intense promotional work (including this TOTP slot), the trend was reversed and the single managed to clamber up to a rather more encouraging No 10.

It always felt to me that after pulling off the trick of taking somebody off the streets (literally) and making them a No 1 selling pop star, Pete Waterman et al kind of lost interest in Sonia and would give her any old trash for her subsequent career that wouldn’t have been considered B-side worthy material for the likes of SAW royalty Kylie and Jason. To be fair to Sonia, she always seemed so enthusiastic when performing (even if the song was crud) and as Anthea rather condescendingly says “She’s always got a lovely smile on her face hasn’t she?”.

1989 really was an excellent year for De La Soul – a critically acclaimed and commercially successful debut album in “3 Feet High And Rising” was followed up by four UK Top 40 hits released from it. “The Magic Number” was the fourth of said singles and was based on “Three Is A Magic Number” by Bob Dorough which he wrote for US educational TV series Schoolhouse Rock!. It also features samples from sources as unlikely as Led Zeppelin and Johnny Cash whose 1959 track “5 feet High And Rising” was the inspiration for the hip-hop trio’s album title. The three in De La Soul’s version of the song refers to the three members of the group rather than the multiplication tables of the original.

I have to admit that of those four De La Soul 1989 singles, this was the one I least remembered despite being the biggest hit of the lot when it peaked at No 7. Maybe my memory of it had been shunted aside by this version by Embrace…

The track has been used for many a TV advert and campaign including The National Lottery and the launch of BBC3…

Who? Silver Bullet? As in Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band of “Hollywood Nights” fame? Nope, this was Silver Bullet the UK rapper (real name the rather more pedestrian sounding Richard Brown) who had a No 11 hit with this Robocop sampling track “20 Seconds To Comply” …

…nope, I got nothin’ for this one. I thought I knew it but then realised I was just getting it confused with this 2001 track by So Solid Crew…

Silver Bullet released an album called “Bring Down the Walls No Limit Squad Returns” in 1991 which was nothing to do with Blazin’ Squad and then relaunched himself as Silvah Bullet in 1998 (of course he did).

Four Breakers?! Right up against Xmas?! OK well, the first two are just the latest singles to be released from the current albums of two very different bands. Beginning with “Living In Sin” by Bon Jovi, this was the fifth single to come from their “New Jersey” album and was easily the worst performing of the lot in the UK where it peaked at No 35. In fact, despite the album going double platinum over here (including a copy purchased by myself), the singles from it didn’t pull up any trees chart wise in the UK. In the US it was a completely different story. Check out this chart placings comparison:

SINGLE	US	UK
Bad Medicine	1	17
Born To Be My Baby	3	22
I’ll Be There For You	1	18
Lay Your Hands On Me	7	18
Living In Sin	9	35

Pretty clear that there was more of an appetite for rock in the US than in the UK at this time I think. Well, we had Jive Bunny and Stock, Aitken and Waterman – we weren’t daft were we?

Also releasing another track from their album but in a completely different style were The Beautiful South. Having scored Top 10 hits with their first two singles, the band must have had high hopes for “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”. I did as well. I hadn’t particularly warmed to “You Keep It All In” (though I’d loved “Song For Whoever”) but this sounded pretty special to me.

I wasn’t the only one. I remember being in a record shop in Hull (can’t remember which one) in the run up to Xmas and overhearing two young women talking about the song with one of them remarking that Paul Heaton had done it again and written his first No 1 song in “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”. She was sadly very wrong as it peaked at No 31. However, she was only about 10 months out for her Heaton penned No 1 prediction as ” A Little Time” from the band’s second album would top the charts in October the following year. The video is completely charming as well.

Next a song that gave yet more evidence to the direction that the UK was taking in its choice of preferred musical genres at this time. I initially assumed that 49ers were a US outfit (as in the San Francisco 49ers American football team) but of course, with it being late ’89, they were actually yet another Italo House act. Their track “Touch Me” was very much in “Ride On Time” territory and was a huge hit all over Europe including in the UK where it peaked at No 3.

The front woman featured in the video was one Dawn Mitchell who sounds like she should be an Eastenders character – she didn’t last that long and was replaced by Ann-Marie Smith. Presumably the band didn’t keep the plot line open to allow Dawn to return in the future.

During 1988, I’d quite got into All About Eve (without actually buying any of their stuff) and had liked a lot of the singles from their eponymous debut album but by the end of 1989 I’d totally lost track of them despite them releasing a second album in “”Scarlet And Other Stories”. “December” was the second single to be released from that album (I’d been totally oblivious to lead single “Road to Your Soul” despite it skirting the outer reaches of the Top 40) and on reflection it seemed a bit of a cynical move by their record label. Yes, it didn’t sound very much like a Xmas song but when they presented the album and it had a song called “December” on it, I’ll bet that it was immediately penciled in for release during the festive period by their marketing people.

This track only made No 34 despite the album going Top 10 and there was one further single release from it that also peaked at No 34.

Now then, according to Anthea, this lot were Britain’s best group in late ’89. It’s quite a claim for I’m pretty sure that the appeal of Bros was very much on the wane by this point. Second album “The Time” had been critically panned and a massive backwards step in terms of sales compared to their debut “Push”. “Sister” was the third single to be released from “The Time” and it just about managed to pierce the Top 10 (it was literally a No 10 record) but it was the last time they would ever get that high in the charts.

And yet, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, maybe we should cut them some slack and give them some credit here. Why? Well, “Sister” was actually written about their younger sister Carolyn who died in a car crash at the very height of their fame. It’s referred to briefly in their notorious When The Screaming Stops documentary showing that Matt and Luke had to appear on the Wogan show just as they were receiving the dreadful news and then the press gatecrashed the funeral. Pretty devastating stuff to have to deal with as 19 year olds, let alone 19 year olds in the eye of a whirlwind of intense media attention and teenage girl screams.

I think I heard this track for the first time in the canteen of Debenhams where I was working and at the time I dismissed it as their Xmas single just as they had released a big ballad the previous Xmas in “Cat Among The Pigeons”. I may have judged them too harshly.

Top 10

10. New Kids On The Block – “You Got It (The Right Stuff)

9. Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville – “Don’t Know Much”

8. Tina Turner – “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”

7. Madonna – “Dear Jessie”

6. Andy Stewart – “Donald Where’s Your Troosers”

5. Kaoma – “Lambada”

4. Soul II Soul – “Get A Life”

3. Jason Donovan – When You Come Back To Me”

2. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – “Let’s Party”

1. Band Aid II – “Do They Know It’s Christmas”: To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Band Aid II is straight in at No 1 and will remain there for three weeks ensuring it was the Xmas No 1 also. I remember there being a lot of fuss about this at the time (though nowhere near the same amount that there had been the first time around in 1984) and yet it hardly ever gets played at Xmas on the radio (the original is always preferred) and it rarely appears on any Xmas compilation album.

Why? Personally, I just don’t think it’s any where near as good as the first one. Maybe it could never hope to equal the impact that Sir Bob’s original made but musically, it sounds like the lift music version of its predecessor, all tinny production and whiny vocals. I mean, they gave the legendary Bono line of ‘”Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” to Jason Donovan and Matt Goss! Who’s idea was that?! OK, of the available artists there wasn’t much of a choice – I think maybe Chris Rea’s growl would have had more gravitas than Matt and Jase though.

Maybe it’s that the roster of stars looked like pale imitations of the titans of British pop on that first record – I mean Big Fun and Sonia?! Even the elder statesman of pop Cliff Richard seems an incongruous choice. The record gave rise to that pub quiz question that surely we all know the answer to now. Who were the only act to appear on both the ’84 and ’89 versions? Bananarama of course, or to be strictly accurate Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin as Jacquie O’Sullivan wasn’t on the original.

The song was revisited again in 2004 as Band Aid 20 and in 2014 as Band Aid 30 and I’m pretty sure they don’t receive much airplay either. Sometimes the original really is the best.

And finally….the last song of the night is the new song by The Christians who had hadn’t released anything since their cover of “Harvest For The World” over a year prior. “Words” was the lead single from their second album “Colour”. I quite liked the celtic feel of this one and it certainly struck a chord in France where it was No 1 and spent 19 weeks on their chart. Reception to it here though was more lukewarm and it made only No 18. It would be the band’s last ever visit to the Top 20.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The FPI Project	Going Back To My Roots	Nope
2	Duran Duran	Burning The Ground	I had Decade but this track wasn’t on it
3	Sonia	Listen To Your Heart	As if
4	De La Soul	The Magic Number	No but my wife had their album
5	Silver Bullet	20 Seconds To Comply	No
6	Bon Jovi	Living In Sin	Not the single but I had their album New Jersey
7	The Beautiful South	I’ll Sail This Ship Alone	No but I had their album
8	49ers	Touch Me	Nah
9	All About Eve	December	I did not
10	Bros	Sister	That would be no
11	Band Aid II	Do They Know It’s Christmas	I bought the ’84 version but not even charity could make me part with my cash for this one
12	The Christians	Words	One word – no

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.

Some Bed Time Reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/12/december-13-26-1989.html

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…

TOTP 26 OCT 1989

Posted on June 24, 2020 by 80stastic

We arrive at the fag end of October 1989. If I am remembering correctly, my temporary job as an insurance clerk came to an end the day after this TOTP aired and I was once more returned to the ranks of the unemployed. Once again I would be directionless and skint. It wasn’t the best of times. Hope there were some decent tunes to send me off to work on my last day….

….well, I didn’t mind “Street Tuff” by Double Trouble And The Rebel MC to be fair. In many ways it was a surprise hit given the state of the charts at this time. With its reggae rhythms and house beats hybrid attached to those catchy as hell toasted lyrics that burnt their way into your brain, it seemed to be massively at odds with its chart peers.

Rebel MC was actually one Michael West who would go onto be a big name in jungle music in the 90s (under the new pseudonym of Natty Dread) and is actually often referred to as the guy who coined the phrase ‘jungle music’ after adopting the chant ‘all the junglists’ from a Jamaican sound system tape. Ah right; so is that the source of the ‘jungle ist massive’ slogan that seemed to be adopted as a brand when the genre went mainstream and the majors got hold of it? Well, if you google it, “Jungle Is Massive” is a song by ragga deejay General Levy so maybe it was a combination of the two?

West himself (now known as Mikail Tafari after converting to Rastafarianism in the mid 90s) says of jungle music in a 2013 Guardian interview that “It was about breakbeat, reggae, rap and soul all coming into one” and expanded further to say that “Black and white, they should be taken out of the dictionary, in regards to people”. Wise words that have never been more important than in today’s current climate of racism.

As for me, as a dyed in the wool pop kid, jungle wasn’t something that I understood at all so in an effort to improve my appreciaton of it, I went to a jungle night the Hacienda hosted by drum and bass legend LTJ Bukem with some of my Our Price colleagues and had a great time. It all made so much more sense in a nightclub environment than being blasted out of the shop speakers on a cold, wet Tuesday afternoon to a handful of shoppers in Stockport’s Merseyway centre.

“Street Tuff” peaked at No 3.

From an exciting new sound to some total pish by hoary old rockers Queen. OK, a little harsh maybe but “Scandal” really is sub standard. Nothing dynamic or interesting going on here at all. I’m surprised it even got a run out on the show seeing as it had climbed just one place on the chart that week to a peak of No 25.

The video is so laboured as well. Yes we get the paparazzi theme guys! Even the song’s writer Brian May wasn’t sure about it. In 2003 he said this:

“I don’t think it’s totally successful, this video, as a portrayal of what’s in the song. It’s a kind of brave attempt, but it’s a little cold, and you don’t really see the band interacting as a band. It’s a bit stagey. But at least it makes you think of what the song’s really about.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement. I think Roger Taylor sums it up best by saying:

“I think we were going through the motions here.”

Agreed Roger, agreed.

Any chance of finally getting through one of these shows without one of the presenters cocking up somewhere along the line? Bruno Brookes is this week’s guilty party when he refers to Belinda Carlisle’s latest hit single as ‘Turn a light on’ and not just once but twice. Leave A Light On! It’s “Leave A Light On” you dumbo! Sheesh!

Whilst researching this post, I found out that there is another song called “Leave A Light On” which was released by somebody called Tom Walker in 2007. 2007! Blimey, that’s very nearly contemporary in my book! My wife’s always telling me to get out of the 80s and listen to something new so forgive me while I do so….

…hmm…yeah it’s OK. I wouldn’t go overboard about it though. According to Wikipedia, Tom was born in Kilsyth in Scotland but moved to Knutsford in Cheshire aged three. My mate Robin also moved to Knutsford aged 53 and he can’t stand the place. What has any of this got to do with Belinda Carlisle? Err nothing really. Oh, hang on my mate Robin is from Cumbria originally and supports Carlisle United! There you go! I wonder if Belinda has ever been to Carlisle herself?

*checks internet*

It’s a no. Nor Knutsford. I’ll stop now. “Leave A Light On” was at it’s No 4 peak.

Yet another song that we have already seen before in these TOTP repeats. This time it’s Chris Rea with “Road To Hell (Part 2)”. As with his previous outing, Chris is in the studio but unlike his original appearance, bits of the video for the single have been woven into his performance. Why was this done? It couldn’t be that Chris isn’t actually that riveting a watch just stood there on his guitar with his lockdown hair (31 years before lockdown hair was a thing) could it? Yes, I think it could be.

To improve the knowledge of their readership, Smash Hits magazine ran an article that was a guide to the difference between Chris Rea and Chris De Burgh who were obviously lumped together on the basis that they were both old fogeys so what were they doing in the pop charts. In a 1988 interview with Q Magazine whilst on tour in Germany, Rea was asked why he spoke no German to the audience, even though he’s spent so much time out here. He replied:

“You know, you start the tour, you try to be nice to the Dutch, then the Belgians, then it’s the French. In the end you just think, ah, fuck it. I understand Chris de Burgh speaks very good German. Chris De Burgh. Annoying little bastard…”.

The interview went onto say that comparisons to Chris de Burgh baffled and appalled Rea as he regarded the Irish troubador with the scorn accorded to a teacher’s pet. Well, there you have it. The difference between the two was that one one was a gruff, belligerent man from Middlesborough and the other was an annoying little bastard.

“Road To Hell (Part 2)” peaked at No 10 thereby becoming his biggest hit single ever.

Finally a brand new track! Well, brand new in 1989 obviously. Today it is a probably Lisa Stansfield‘s best known song. “All Around The World” would of course go on to be a No 1 record and it didn’t really come as much of a surprise I have to say. The momentum behind Lisa’s career had been building all year since her collaboration with Coldcut on “People Hold On”. Once she broke out in her own right on “This Is The Right Time” the writing was on the wall. Neither of these singles had been Top 10 hits but there was something about her down to earthiness allied with her star quality that made massive commercial success seem inevitable (to me anyway).

Having said all of that, I wasn’t much of a fan of “All Around The World” with its homage to Barry White and nonsensical lyrics (“Been around the world and I, I, I, I can’t find my baby”) but you know, given the choice of this or Sonia or (heaven forbid) Jive Bunny at No 1, I’m Team Lisa every time.

Well, that’s the one and only new track on tonight’s show over with so it’s back to the more familiar hits beginning with “Room In Your Heart” by Living In A Box. A change of tactics from the Sheffield band for this appearance as lead singer Richard Darbyshire elects to be standing for the duration of the song after spending the whole of his last visit to the TOTP studio sat on a stool. Do you think they watched it back X Factor style and analysed what went wrong and what could be improved for the next time?

You know, I don’t mind “Room In Your Heart” at all. The word I would use is accomplished. Yes, a very accomplished ballad. After the band split, Darbyshire pursued a solo career which never quite came off. An album called “How Many Angels” was eventually released in 1994 but didn’t pull up any trees and of his four listed solo singles, the highest charting peaked at No 50. Was one of them used on that coffee advert? You know, the one with the annoying ‘will they won’t they?’ couple (the bloke was in Buffy The Vampire Slayer)? Or am I making that up?

Anyway, in later years Darbyshire became an in demand songwriter penning songs for artists including The Temptations, Level 42 and the preceding act on tonight’s show Lisa Stansfield.

De La Soul are back now with another showing of the video for “Eye Know”. Neither this track nor its follow up “The Magic Number” were released as singles in the US which, seeing as they were No 14 and No 7 hits over here, seems curious to say the least.

Both the song and the video make heavy references to the D.A.I.S.Y. Age (‘da inner sound, y’all’) as does the cover of parent album “3 Feet High And Rising” which features fluorescent flowers in its design. By the time of second album “De La Soul Is Dead” in 1991, the trio had rejected the D.A.I.S.Y. Age concept and produced a more mature body of work with the artwork of a broken flower pot and wilted contents hammering the message home.

I loved their performance at Glastonbury in 2014 where they refused to carry on with their set unless everyone present raised their hands in celebration including the stage security team. One lone member of security (242) refused to join in…

From “Eye Know” to “I Thank You” now as we see Adeva back in the TOTP studio once more. It wasn’t really my thing at all but you can’t deny Adeva’s powerful voice or those pumpin’ basslines. Apparently the track was re-released seven years later as the entirely unoriginal “I Thank You ’96” as part of an “Ultimate Adeva” compilation album . I don’t remember that at all but then it did only make No 37 on the chart.

Top 10

10. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”

9. Billy Joel – “We Didn’t Start The Fire”

8. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”

7. Living In A Box – “Room In Your Heart”

6. Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”

5. Black Box – “Ride On Time”

4. Belinda Carlisle – “Leave A Light On”

3. Double Trouble And The Rebel MC – “Street Tuff”

2. Milli Vanilli – “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”

1. Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like”: I looked up the Jive Bunny CD on Amazon* to check out the customer reviews on it to try and understand what the appeal of this phenomenon was. I was amazed to find that of 186 ratings, 82% of them were 5 star! Most of the comments seem to suggest that it was a great party CD – if you were at a party and this came on, what would be your reaction?!

* Shit! I’ll get loads of recommendations based around Jive Bunny now won’t I?!

The play out video is those Milli Vanilli boys again with “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”. What a truly awful song this was. Best thing they could have done would have been to somehow get away with not playing it at all.

Nigel Lawson: Hold My Beer…

The original broadcast of this edition of #TOTP was faded out immediately after Jive Bunny, as BBC One cut to a newsflash announcing the resignation of Nigel Lawson as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 19, 2020

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Double Trouble and the Rebel MC	Street Tuff	Nah
2	Queen	Scandal	No it was rubbish
3	Belinda Carlisle	Leave A Light On	Another no
4	Chris Rea	Road To Hell (Part 2)	I did not
5	Lisa Stansfield	All Around The World	Nope
6	Living In A Box	Room In Your Heart	Negative
7	De La Soul	Eye Know	No but my much hipper wife had the album 3 Feet High And Rising
8	Adeva	I Thank You	It’s a no
9	Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers	That’s What I Like	But not what I do – massive NO
10	Milli Vanilli	Girl I’m Gonna Miss You	Huge no

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/10/october-18-31-1989.html

TOTP 19 OCT 1989

Posted on June 19, 2020 by 80stastic

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 13 JUL 1989

Posted on April 22, 2020 by 80stastic

It’s mid July in the long, hot Summer of 1989 and TOTP has a new co-host making her debut on the show. Jakki Brambles had actually been a Radio 1 DJ for a whole year before she got her shot on TOTP having presented the weekday early evening show initially before progressing to the drivetime show and finally replacing Gary Davies in the lunchtime slot. I also have definite memories of her working with Simon Mayo on his breakfast show after replacing Sybil Ruscoe as the weather and travel reporter.

I wasn’t a fan possibly due to her conscious decision to brand herself as Jakki with two ‘k’s and an ‘i’. Could she have been any more 80s?! At the end of her time at Radio 1, she relocated to San Francisco to try her hand at American broadcasting and decided to adopt the rather more mature and professional looking Jackie spelling of her name. Following a move to Los Angeles, she became GMTV’s showbiz reporter and eventually returned to these shores to become one of the Loose Women.

She’s been paired with Bruno Brookes for her TOTP debut, let’s see how it went….

…ah, the lesser spotted Danny Wilson are in the studio. Probably very much seen as being of the same ilk as The Kane Gang, Love & Money and Deacon Blue (sometimes rather lazily labelled as ‘sophisti-pop’), the Dannys also had a bit of quirkiness about them I always thought which ensured that they didn’t take themselves too seriously. Take for example “The Second Summer Of Love”, written on a short break between promotional interviews by Gary Clark as a joke after some friends of his had gotten into the acid house rave scene that the press had given the label the second summer of love. Originally just a-minute-and-a-half long, the band’s US label bosses heard something in it that they thought would make an airplay hit and asked the trio to expand it. A bridge and harmonica solo were added and suddenly they were back in the charts (though not in the US where ironically it was never released as a single). My point remains though that the track wasn’t consciously composed as a hit single, they were a bit more organic than that.

I stated in my last post that parent album “BeBop Moptop” was most likely to be found in charity shops these days but I’ve just checked and it is now on Spotify (it wasn’t until very recently) so fill your boots. All it requires now is the deluxe re-issue treatment on Cherry Red Records…

As for their performance here, I’m not sure why the other two guys (Kit Clark and Ged Grimes) were instrument less and wearing white gloves but, not for the first time in this blog, it reminded me of this…

Some weird segue shit from Bruno Brookes next as he thanks the audience at home for staying in to watch their ‘favourite rock show and all that’….’favourite rock show’ Bruno? I’m pretty sure to was a pop music show – the clue’s in the title. Yes you could sometimes get rock acts on like Guns N’ Roses and Bon Jovi but the premise of the show was that it was based around the national charts that were a broad church to say the least and certainly not just rock orientated. Ok, well let’s test Bruno’s theory and see how many genuine rock acts are featured on the show then starting with…

…Bette Midler with “Wind Beneath My Wings”! Well, you can’t get much more rock chick than Bette can you?! Apparently ‘The Divine Miss M’ wasn’t too jazzed about the song initially. In a Times interview from 2009 she said:

“It’s really grown on me. When I first heard it, I said, ‘I’m not singing that song,’ but the friend who gave it to me said, ‘If you don’t sing it I’ll never speak to you again’, so of course I had to sing the damned song. Whatever reservations I might have had I certainly don’t have any more.”

Not surprising really as it gave her a US No 1 record and the country’s 7th best selling single of the whole year.

Eighteen years later, some tosser from London’s Burning jumped on the Robson and Jerome bandwagon, released his own version of the song and bagged himself a no 3 hit…

OK, eyes down for a Bruno Brookes rock act….and we have No 22 which is De La Soul with “Say No Go”. Hmm, I’m not sure a hip hop trio who were a driving force behind the jazz rap movement could really be described as rockers do you Bruno? Oh and look at him gurning and saying “Real funkyyyy!” behind Jakki Brambles as she introduces them. Dickhead.

Parent album “3 Feet High and Rising”, with its fluorescent flowers artwork and cartoony text, introduced the world to the group’s concept of ‘D.A.I.S.Y. Age’ which was meant to symbolise a withdrawal from the prevalent gangsta rap image of the times. And what did ‘D.A.I.S.Y. ‘ stand for? According to Wikipedia it was an acronym standing for “da inner sound, y’all” which sounds far more hip than Bruno Brookes’ “Real funkyyyy!” description.

“Say No Go” peaked at No 18.

This is a really bizarre video and probably the wrong side of creepy as well. Unbelievably, Michael Jackson was still releasing tracks from his “Bad” album as singles some two years after it first came out! Indeed, “Liberian Girl” was the ninth to be pulled from it (although it wasn’t released in the US). For me, it was an absolutely nothing song, devoid of any substance or interest. Even the Swahili phrase at the song’s beginning is a load of baloney as Swahili is not spoken in Liberia. The star studded video only substantiated my opinion as, for me, it was just one almighty distraction from what was basically a substandard song.

I’m not going to list all the celebrities included in the video (I’m sure you’ll be able to name most of them yourselves) but there is something distinctly unsettling about the fact that Jacko essentially cast himself in the role of voyeur, especially given everything we now know about him subsequent to 1989. I hate all the sycophantic applauding and “Michael , we love you!” shouts from the ensemble as he reveals himself (as it were) at the denouement. Just excruciating.

“Liberian Girl” was Jackson’s final single of the 80s and peaked at No 13 in the UK.

My friend Robin described the next act to me recently as a ‘quintessential 80s coffee table wankfest’. I make him right on this one. Waterfront were just paint-by-numbers pop pap weren’t they? “Cry” was their only UK chart hit (it was a much bigger deal in the US as Jakki advises in her intro) but thankfully for all our sakes, despite releasing a string of other singles, none of them got anywhere near the Top 40.

Oh and doesn’t the lead singer look like the flashy, male chauvinist Kirk St Moritz character from 80s sitcom Dear John? See him at 0.45 seconds into the clip below and judge for yourself…

The never ending saga of Gloria Estefan’s nomenclature trundles on until the very end of the decade it seems. I’ve written many times about the convoluted tale of quite when and how Gloria lost her Miami Sound Machine without ever really getting to the bottom of it and now another twist. Apparently “Don’t Wanna Lose You” was the first official solo release by Gloria being the lead single from her also debut solo album “Cuts Both Ways”. I’m sure some of her previous recent releases didn’t have the Miami Sound Machine brand attached to them though. Certainly when she performed “Can’t Stay Away From You” on TOTP she did so entirely solo and without backing. Oh whatever. All I do know is that there is no way that Gloria could be considered a rock act therefore denying any grist to Bruno Brookes and his rock mill nonsense.

“Don’t Wanna Lose You” is a nice enough ballad I suppose but for me it didn’t stray too far from the original blueprint of Gloria’s catalogue of romantic love songs. Previous hits “Anything For You” and “Can’t Stay Away From You” sounded just the same to me. They even all included ‘you’ as the last word in the title! Talk about formulaic! Her fans around the world didn’t seem to mind though. “Don’t Wanna Lose You” was a No1 song in the US and a Top 10 hit over here with the album going platinum in both territories.

So we all knew what Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway had been doing since the demise of The Housemartins due to The Beautiful South’s immediate impact on the charts with “Song For Whoever” but what about Norman Cook? The cheeky faced bassist reappeared with one MC Wildski (not to be confused – as I did – with Janet Street Porter’s ex-boyfriend Normski) and a very danceable tune called “Blame It On The Bassline”.

Norman was taking his new career in a totally different direction to his old bandmates with samples a plenty woven into the basic premise of “Blame It On The Boogie” by The Jacksons. For me, it worked pretty well but could any of us have foreseen the career in dance music that would take off for Cook at this point? He would of course go onto huge success under an army of aliases and band names including Beats International, Freak Power and most famously Fatboy Slim. Indeed, it was reported in 2008 that he held the Guinness World Record for the most Top 40 hits under different names! Makes the whole Gloria Estefan / Miami Sound Machine saga look like very small fry indeed. “Blame It On The Bassline” was the only release to be promoted under his own name and yet confusingly, it turned up on the debut album by his collective Beats International called “Let Them Eat Bingo”. It peaked at No 29.

The video was a bit of knockabout fun with some very random famous faces in it including Janice Long, Tom ‘Lofty’ Watt and most bizarrely Arsenal footballer Paul Davis.

Despite her wonderful, critically regarded legacy, Kirsty MacColl only ever had seven Top 40 hits …and three of those were “Fairytale of New York”! “Days” was the fourth of those and was of course a cover of The Kinks 1968 track. I remember being surprised that this was a hit at the time, not because it wasn’t any good (it certainly was) but because, ignoring her Xmas renaissance moment with The Pogues, she hadn’t been anywhere near the charts for over four years. Her lack of commercial success is absolutely criminal – so many good songs, so few sales.

The video is very Mary Poppins but kind of suits her wistful treatment of the song. “Days” peaked at No 12, exactly the same position that the original achieved. A Smash Hits article of the time led with the headline ‘So who is this woman who looks like Madge from Neighbours?!?’. It’s not the first time that the publication had been less than reverential to a huge talent but this really did show a lack of knowledge, if not by the editorial team but at least on behalf of their readership. Not a headline that has aged well.

Right, a check on how Jakki B’s TOTP debut is going. Is it me or does that not seem to be an awful lot of chemistry between her and Bruno? The Kinks reference at the end of Kirsty’s video seems a bit frosty to me. Onwards though and from Jakki B to Jazzi P who is the featured artist on the new LA Mix single“Get Loose”. I’ve got very little to say about this one, mainly because I can’t remember it. Not my thing at all but I did learn the other day that apparently the ‘LA’ part of the act’s name is nothing to do with Los Angeles and is actually the initials of founding member Les Adams. You can see why they didn’t go with Les Adams Mix which sounds like the resident DJ at a working men’s club disco night.

A non sensical intro from Bruno Brookes next….

“All this running around we’re doing here like nobody’s business but there’s a very good reason for it now because we’ve got the best view of the new entry at number 33, here comes Simply Red‘. OK, I’ll go with it Bruno…yet instead of cutting to Hucknall et al in the studio, we get the official video! Eh? Why would you need to run about in the studio to get to the gantry to watch a pre recorded video? Yes, it is essentially a basic performance of the song on a stage but it’s not the TOTP stage. Weird.

“A New Flame” was indeed the title track of the band’s latest album as Jakki Brambles informs us and of all the singles released from it, I thought this was the best for what it’s worth. When I say ‘best’ I of course mean ‘least objectionable’.

I have a distinct memory of this song which involves the first job I finally managed to get having left Polytechnic a few weeks earlier. Having dejectedly gone to the Job Centre one Friday morning expecting very little, there was a job as an insurance clerk for AA Insurance Services going. I asked for details and was told to get myself to their office that afternoon for an interview. To my amazement I got it and was told to start the following Monday. Some time later as I was walking to work one day, my boss pulled up and gave me a lift to the office. The song that he was playing on his tape deck? “A New Flame” of course. In fact he had the whole album as I could see the cassette case on his dashboard. I knew then that a career with the firm was not for me.

“A New Flame” the single peaked at No 17 but the album was a massive success going 7 x platinum in the UK and being the second best selling album of the whole year.

Top 10

10. Prince – “Batdance”

9. Bette Midler – “Wind Beneath My Wings”

8. Bobby Brown – “On Our Own”

7. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

6. Chaka Khan – “Ain’t Nobody”

5. Pet Shop Boys – “It’s Alright”

4. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

2. London Boys – “London Nights”

2. Sonia – “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You”.

1. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”: A fourth and final week at the top for Jazzie B (any relation to Jazzi P?) and the gang. It tuns out that my aforementioned friend Robin (the Waterfront hater) used to know one of the women dancing in the video. They worked together at the BBC. The one in the red top in the jungle setting maybe? That’s nothing though. I was once in the same room as Chesney Hawkes’ drummer.

The play out video is Bobby Brown‘s fourth consecutive hit of the year. “On Our Own” was taken from the soundtrack to Ghostbusters II and was a No 2 smash in the US and a No 4 hit over here. I’ve been very uncomplimentary about Mr Brown in this blog in the past but I have to say I didn’t actually mind this one. I always quite liked the opening lyric ‘Too hot to handle, too cold to hold’.

As with the Michael Jackson and Norman Cook videos earlier, the promo for “On Our Own” features several guest appearances by celebrities including Donald Trump alongside scenes from the movie and of course it means a second appearance on the same show for Dan Ackroyd. Its his third TOTP outing in total though as he was on the USA For Africa “We Are The World” video in 1985. I spent three years at Polytechnic being called ‘Dan’ due to my resemblance to Mr Ackroyd at the time. I can think of worse people to look like I suppose, like Mick Hucknall for example.

P.S. That final count on rock acts on tonight’s TOTP? I’m saying zero.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Danny Wilson	The Second Summer Of Love	No but I bought the album Bebop Moptop
2	Bette Midler	Wind Beneath My Wings	Nope
3	De La Soul	Say No Go	No but my wife had the album 3 Feet High And Rising
4	Michael Jackson	Liberian Girl	A big no
5	Waterfront	Cry	No but I think it was on some Radio 1 Mark Goddier compilation album that I had.
6	Gloria Estefan	Don’t Wanna Lose You	Nah
7	Norman Cook and MC Wildski	Blame It On The Bassline	I didn’t but it I had the Beats International album it’s on
8	Kirsty MacColl	Days	No but its on my Best Of compilation of hers called Galore
9	LA Mix featuring Jazzi P	Get Loose	Get real more like. No
10	Simply Red	A New Flame	It’s a no from me
11	Soul II Soul	Back To Life	No but I think my wife had their album
12	Bobby Brown	On Our Own	No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000hbdw/top-of-the-pops-13071989

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

Some bed time reading?

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

TOTP 27 APR 1989

Posted on March 15, 2020 by 80stastic

The day before this particular TOTP aired, Paul Gascoigne scored his very first international goal against Albania. Within 18 months amid scenes of ‘Gazzamania’, he would be a chart star appearing on TOTP with his version of “Fog On The Tyne”. They were truly strange times. Back to April ’89 though and we’ve returned to the single presenter format that we saw a couple of shows ago. This time the solo host is Gary Davies and again there is no Breakers section. To emphasize his solitariness, Gary has got two female audience members to stand with him on the gantry and even gives them some lines. Lazy sod!

Whatever, the first act tonight are London Boys with “Requiem”. Now if we thought the performance of “Male Stripper” by Man To Man meets Man Parrish a couple of years previous was daring, these two guys were just putting it all out there straight from the get go. The outfits! A decision about which specific market to appeal to had clearly been made!

There is a fan website dedicated to them my research revealed and it says that they sold 4.5 million records which seems unbelievable. It also revealed that they made four albums of this stuff! And what does the website say about the music itself? Well it says this….

“London Boys music is very optimistic upbeat Eurodisco at its best, with a roots going to back to High Energy Disco. People who like Modern Talking, Bad Boys Blue, Joy, Silent Circle and other similar bands are sure will not be left indifferent to its appeal.”

Hmm. Not sure I was part of that market that they were trying to reach. I thought it was all a gimmick at the time in that the record company had just found two guys who could high kick and back flip to promote a one off song. Did they even sing on the record? Four albums and a career that lasted six years before their tragic demise seems to suggest I may have got that wrong.

A huge ballad incoming! Natalie Cole’s last hit (“I Live For Your Love”) had also been a big old sentimental love song but if anything “Miss You Like Crazy” was an even more epic example of the genre. Coming from the pen of the songwriting team that included Gerry Goffin and that were responsible for “Saving All My Love For You” and “Greatest Love Of All”, it was always going to be one of those tracks designed to tug at the heart strings and wring every drop of emotion out of the listener. It pretty much succeeds in its objective I think being a serviceable ballad (although I doubt ‘serviceable’ is the adjective the songwriters would have hoped for when writing the song).

“Miss You Like Crazy” proved to be Natalie’s biggest UK hit peaking at No 2 and was also a Top 10 song in the US.

A Breaker last week but worthy of a studio appearance now are De La Soul with “Me Myself And I”. In a 2016 retrospective of their career, The Guardian described the trio as having ‘allied an Afrocentric, boho bent with a nerdy, recording room exuberance’ to create their sound. I’m not sure about any of that but as Gary Davies rightly said, “Me Myself And I” was a knock out song.

However, if you want to check out the track and its parent album “3 Feet High And Rising” on Spotify you’ll be disappointed. Apparently it all to do with the many samples that they used in creating their songs. – there are more than 70 on “3 Feet High and Rising” alone. Their record label secured clearance for most (but not all) of them in 1989 but their technology crystal ball was misfiring and they failed to predict the rise of the internet and online services so their contracts on those early albums said specifically ‘vinyl and cassette’. Oops! “Say No Go” indeed.

Fine Young Cannibals with “Good Thing” next and the cut away intro means that it’s just a re-showing of the last studio performance clip. Maybe they were busy ‘taking America by storm’ as Gary Davies advises. So did any of us actually refer to the band as ‘FYC’? I know I didn’t but to be fair the acronym is emblazoned in huge letters on the album’s cover so….

I do recall Peter Powell referring to Tears For Fears as ‘TFF’ on his show and on TOTP err…Top Of The Pops but I didn’t think it really caught on. Was it the same with ‘FYC’…damn! I mean Fine Young Cannibals? For me, it certainly wasn’t a case of FYC being just like OMD. You know what? I think that’s enough pop acronyms for one post. Moving on…

…to Morrissey! The title of this one – “Interesting Drug” – didn’t ring any bells with me and neither did I recognize the song when I when I watched this back. As with previous single “The Last of the Famous International Playboys”, Mozza is backed by an all Smiths line up bar Johnny Marr and is even augmented by the wonderful Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals. It seems like pretty standard late 80s era Morrissey fare to me and is definitely listenable but doesn’t have enough hooks to become any sort of ear worm.

Apparently this No 9 peaking hit was a stand alone single not featuring on any studio album although it is on his compilation LP “Bona Drag”. Interesting.

Back in the studio are The Beatmasters featuring Merlin performing their hit “Who’s In The House”. Merlin was lucky to make it at all as he was serving a six month sentence in a youth custody centre for burglary at the time*. Talking of sentences, he was given the nickname Merlin on account of his “ability to change words, to make anything out of a sentence” according to the man himself. Did Merlin make something out of himself after his own (custodial) sentence? No idea. Wikipedia says he released his own solo album later in the year and then a follow up in 1992 but shows nothing else after that. To be honest I don’t remember him at all although I do recall the track “Who’s In The House”. As for its title, I’ve checked a few times and despite my gut feeling that surely it was actually called “Who’s In Da House” it seems it wasn’t.

*It turns out that Merlin’s uncle was actually Smiley Culture of “Police Officer” fame – oh the irony.

Ooh Yazz looks a bit different to the last time we saw her! Are they dreadlocks on her head and what’s with the bow in her hair? According to a Smash Hits article at the time, she had been warned to stop bleaching her hair and wanted to grow it long. The dreads were actually something called ‘sticks’ (no idea).

“Where Has All the Love Gone” was the fourth and final single to be lifted from her album “Wanted” and I much preferred it to her last effort (the sultry jazz ballad “Fine Time”). I think it was the sound effect that producer Youth seemed to have blatantly nicked from Pet Shop Boys No 1 song “Heart” from 12 months previous that hooked me in. On reflection, the rest of the song is actually fairly uneventful.

As it was the fourth single from an album that had been out for six months by this point, the logic of diminishing returns kicked in and it was the smallest hit from “Wanted” peaking at No 16. Although there were a couple more moderately sized Top 40 entries into the next decade, for me this really was the watershed moment for Yazz when the orbit of her fame started to decay. Maybe there was too much of a gap between releases and the subsequent lowering of her profile was the reason for her demise? We’ll never know I guess.

Top 10

10. Inner City -“Ain’t Nobody Better”

9. Morrissey – “Interesting Drug”

8. Beatmasters featuring Merlin – “Who’s In The House”

7. Fine Young Cannibals – “Good Thing”

6. Kon Kan – “I Beg Your Pardon”

5. The Cure – “Lullaby”

4. Holly Johnson – “Americanos”

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

2. Simply Red – “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”

1. The Bangles – “Eternal Flame”: A third week at the top and I’m running out of things to say about it. I’m not going to have to resort to the which one was your favourite Bangle am I? A stupid question anyway as it’s obviously Susanna Hoffs…or is it? I always had a soft spot for bassist Michael Steele actually. She always seemed cool and aloof – she had been a founder member of The Runaways so her credibility credentials certainly pass muster. Michael is not in the current Bangles line up having officially left the band in 2005.

Proving there was more to Poison than just “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, here are the hairy US glam rockers with “Your Mama Don’t Dance”. Apparently this is a cover version (I had no idea) with the 1972 original being by Loggins and Messina as in Kenny ‘Footloose’ Loggins.

This always sounded really lame to me and decidedly weak compared to what the likes of Guns N’ Roses were doing at this time*. Apparently written about Jim Messina’s mother and step father’s very different relationships with music – his Mum loved Elvis and Rock ‘n’ Roll whilst his step father didn’t and thought the Beatles were just “screaming, long haired idiots” – Poison’s version reached No 13 in the UK and No 10 in the US.

*Apparently Poison once poured ice water over Guns N’ Roses’ publicist – must have been their Chumbawumba moment!

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I buy it?
1	London Boys	Requiem	Of course not
2	Natalie Cole	Miss You Like Crazy	Nope
3	De La Soul	Me, Myself And I	No but my wife had their ‘3 Feet High And Rising’ album
4	Fine Young Cannibals	Good Thing	No but my wife had their album The Raw And The Cooked
5	Morrissey	Interesting Drug	No
6	Beatmasters featuring Merlin	Who’s In The House	As if
7	Yazz	Where Has All The Love Gone	Nah
8	The Bangles	Eternal Flame	Presume it’s on their Best Of CD that I have
9	Poison	Your Mama Don’t Dance	Very poor – no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000fzm0/top-of-the-pops-27041989

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/2019/04/april-19-may-2-1989_19.html

TOTP 20 APR 1989

Posted on March 11, 2020 by 80stastic

I’ve said it before in this blog but it’s hard to think of Nicky Campbell as a Radio 1 DJ and all that meant when you consider how his broadcast career panned out. I very much see him as a broadcaster of some gravitas thanks to his Radio 5 Live time breakfast programme with its focus on news and current affairs. I have to admit to not recalling listening to him when he was at Radio 1. Wikipedia tells me that he presented both late night and early morning shows which possibly explains why I don’t remember catching him – I was a student doing my best to uphold their lazy good for nothing stereotype at the time after all. Anyway, he’s one of the TOTP hosts for this show alongside Sybil Ruscoe who was at the peak of her fame as part of Simon Mayo’s breakfast show crew.

Also at the height of her fame is Wendy James who, as part of her band, Transvision Vamp, are the first act on tonight. “Baby I Don’t Care” was the band’s biggest hit (No 3) and Wendy herself was rivaling the likes of Kylie Minogue in pulling in column inches in the press. Within the calendar year that was 1989, her band had racked up a No 1 album and four Top 40 singles to their name. Fast forward two years and their label MCA, unsure of the band’s sound and direction, wouldn’t even release their third album “Little Magnets Versus the Bubble of Babble” in the UK preferring to see how it was received in other territories. By the time they had decided to give it a full commercial release, the band had already split. I’m sure that we had an import CD of the album at the Market Street, Manchester store and we actually sold it to a guy who was still very much obsessed with Ms James.

That’s all in the future (past) though. For now, Wendy is the ultimate bundle of peroxide, attitude and glam pop tunes and she’s selling it for all her worth. There’s an awful lot of flesh on display here which Wendy is quite happy to tantalize the audience with via some revealing glimpses of shoulder. Literally nobody is watching the guys in the band at this point. This was real peak of her powers stuff. Inevitably there was a backlash. The press turned on her viciously with headlines like ‘Wendy James is a woman everybody loves to hate’ (The Face) whilst Time Out magazine had her on the front cover of their ‘Hated 100’ issue. And we think Meghan Markle gets a rough deal!

Why is Nicky Campbell referring to Simple Minds as The Simple Minds?! Surely nobody at any point in history has ever done that before?! What was he thinking?! Anyway, the definite article * less band are back with the follow up to surprise No 1 record “Belfast Child” with another cut from their “Street Fighting Years” album called “This Is Your Land”. I don’t think I realized at the time but the album was produced by Trevor Horn but instead of taking the band back to their arty synth pop origins, he went off on a tangent turning them into folk rockers (albeit ones that could fill a stadium). That album was a watershed for many fans. Some loved the overtly political nature of the songs and the new folk direction but for others it was a massive turn off. In America especially, a lot of their fan base just didn’t get it and the album languished at a lowly peak of No 70. It was also a landmark for the band personnel wise as the recording of it cost two group members including original keyboards player Mick MacNeil who left their ranks shortly afterwards.

As for this particular track, it didn’t sound as strong to me as “Belfast Child” but it had an intriguing and engaging enough melody and a serious eco message in the lyrics to boot. The topless guy on the horse at the very beginning of the video looks a bit like Oliver Tobias in a TV series that was on when I was a very small child called Arthur of the Britons – it’s not him is it?

“This Is Your Land” peaked at No 13.

*Got me thinking – has there ever been a band called The Definite Articles? Yes there has and they are (were?) an orchestral rock outfit from San Francisco.

After previous singles “Big Gun” and “Good Life” had both been Top 10 hits for Inner City, their third release “Ain’t Nobody Better” maintained this sequence (just) by peaking at No 10. Sadly it wasn’t a cover of the Rufus and Chaka Khan tune but was in fact just very much more of the same to my ears. I just didn’t get that Detroit techno sound at all. I was much more likely to get my rocks off on the dance floor to the likes of Transvision Vamp than this lot….err if you know what I mean. OK – for the sake of clarity I meant enjoying dancing and nothing else. Honest.

Inner City would go on having hits into the new decade but never again returned to the UK Top 10.

Just the two Breakers this week and we start with an act with a huge legacy in De La Soul. Now I wasn’t and have never been a huge hip hop fan but even I could appreciate the genius of these guys. Hailing from Amityville, Long Island NY, these three high school friends came up with possibly the most influential debut album ever in “3 Feet High and Rising”. “Me, Myself And I” was the lead single from it and established their own take on hip hop with its pioneering use of samples and positive messages of peace and harmony in direct contrast to the prevalent and violent gangsta rap. Their style and the ‘Hip Hop in The Daisy Age’ artwork of their debut album led to them being described as hippies in the music press which the trio didn’t take kindly to. “Me, Myself And I” was their very articulate response to that. The video in which the group rally against having to endure a class given by Professor Defbeat promoting an image-driven, mainstream style of hip-hop just adds to their resistance to being labelled.

The first time I heard about this record, I foolishly believed it was something to do with the Joan Armatrading hit “Me, Myself, I” but it doesn’t even sample it! Once I finally heard it, it was a definite ‘well, this is different’ moment. As ever though, it was my much cooler girlfriend (now wife) who actually had the album!

From the sublime to the ridiculous…London Boys were actually based in Hamburg although they originally met at school in Greenwich hence the name. They were kind of like a camper version of Milli Vanilli with their gymnastic dance routines as prominent as their sound.

Ah yes, that sound. Quite why the UK decided what it really needed in Spring ’89 was some over the top, Hi-NRG eurobeat nonsense cannot be explained by rational thought. “Requiem” with its over the top intro that borrows heavily from Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” made previously sane people lose their heads completely and buy it in enough quantities to send it to No 4 in our charts. It seemed to be a peculiarly British phenomenon as the song only performed moderately across the rest of Europe. Did it not have a Europe wide release? Not content with that, the duo released a follow up single “London Nights” that did even better peaking at No 2. When parent album “The Twelve Commandments of Dance” also made No 2, all bets were off. What on earth was going on?!

Tragically, the London Boys story didn’t have a happy ending as both Edem Ephraim and Dennis Fuller were killed in 1996 when their car was hit head on by a drunk driver on a mountain road in the Austrian Alps.

Heeeere’s Holly! Yes, Holly Johnson is back again with his latest hit “Americanos”. I say back but it’s actually just the same performance from the other week re-used. As such, I’ve already reviewed this once so I’ll have to resort to tenuous links of which there are two between Holly and other artists on tonight’s TOTP. The first is to do with Holly’s name. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the background story on that…

Holly Johnson was christened William. He took the name Holly from transvestite Holly Woodlawn, part of Andy Warhol’s “Factory” crowd (the “Holly from Miami FLA” in Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”), after seeing a Warhol film. #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 6, 2020

…and of course , as Nicky Campbell informed us earlier, Lou Reed sang backing vocals on “This Is Your Land” by Simple Minds.

Secondly, around this time Holly was the guest singles reviewer in Smash Hits and one of those records that he had to make a judgement on was “Lullaby” by The Cure who we will see later in the show. Holly wasn’t that complimentary about Robert Smith and co stating that it reminded him of Mantovani and that he would have expected the band to come back with a much stronger song. Given though that he refused to comment at all on singles by Texas, Kylie Minogue, Bon Jovi and Cher as they were so awful (in Holly’s opinion), that actually sounds like a glowing, 5 star review in retrospect! OK that’ll do…next!

Metallica?! I don’t remember them being in the charts in ’89. Curiously the first line of their single “One” is ‘I can’t remember anything’. Metallica’s heavy metal sound really wasn’t my thing back then (and indeed still isn’t) so I probably hadn’t noticed that they’d already done four albums by this point.

When I think of Metallica, I think of their “Enter Sandman” single from 1991. Why? As well as being one of their biggest hits, it reminds me of when I was working as Assistant Manager in Our Price in Altrincham during Xmas 1993. One late night opening I was trying to talk to the manager about something in the back office upstairs but could still hear what the rest of the staff were playing on the shop stereo. This was right up against Xmas so we should have been hammering a Xmas album or a big selling mainstream chart title. What I heard was some awful heavy metal so I rang down to the counter and told them to change it. After a couple of equally dodgy choices, they put on “Enter Sandman” to wind me up which was the final straw – a third phone call down was withering enough to convince the team to put on something more appropriate. Not my finest hour but it is my first thought when I hear the name Metallica.

A magnificent entry into the cannon of 1989 next in the shape of Australian rockers Midnight Oil. Although we had never seen them in our charts before in their Antipodean homeland they had been a pretty big deal for quite a few years by this point. Indeed, this hit, “Beds Are Burning”, was a massive hit all around the world.

As a rather solemn Nicky Campbell advises in his intro (after he’s made a crappy boomerang joke of course) the song was about aboriginal land rights but that doesn’t really tell the whole story behind it. In 1986 the band had toured outback Australia playing to remote Aboriginal communities and seeing first hand the seriousness of the issues in health and living standards in those communities. Deeply affected by this, they wrote about their experience in the songs for their next album “Diesel And Dust” which promoted the need for appreciation by white Australia of the injustices in Aboriginal history and the band’s desire to put them right. Did I realize all of this at the time? I don’t think so although I think I was aware that there was some depth to the song without knowing all about the subject matter – at the very least I knew that this wasn’t another “I’d Rather Jack”.

As for the sound of the song, its verses and bridge structure are actually pretty pedestrian but its that which makes the song as it builds up perfectly to its unrestrained chorus. The little percussive interlude just before the chorus kicks in was a genius touch. The lyric ‘The time has come to say fair’s fair, to pay the rent now, to pay our share’ always reminded me of that famous and rather odd David Coleman line in the 1974 FA Cup final when Kevin Keegan scores the first goal for Liverpool (‘Goals pay the rent and Keegan does his share’). I think I was probably missing the point though.

“Beds Are Burning” peaked at No 6 in the UK Top 40.

Next up is ~~Mantovani.~~ Sorry, it’s that single by The Cure that Holly Johnson reviewed actually. “Lullaby” was the lead single from latest album “Disintegration” and would prove to be the band’s biggest ever UK hit peaking at No 5 – the only time they ever made the Top 5 which seems incredible given their the band’s catalogue of work. The album was also a huge commercial success as well as critically well received. “Lullaby” was typical of a conscious decision to move way from their more poppier side of the likes of “The Love Cats” and “Inbetween Days” to a more introspective and gloomy sound.

As with Simple Minds earlier in the show, the recording of the album had incurred band casualties with founding member Lol Tolhurst fired from the band due to problems with alcoholism.

I have to admit that my knowledge of The Cure’s discography timeline gets a bit foggy towards the end of the decade and if I’d been asked before this TOTP repeat had aired when “Lullaby” had been released, I’m not sure I could have answered ‘1989’ with any confidence despite knowing the song.

Top 10

10. Donna Summer – “This Time I Know It’s For Real”

9. Fine Young Cannibals – “Good Thing”

8. Madonna – “Like A Prayer”

7. Paula Abdul – “Straight Up”

6. U2 – “When Love Comes To Town”

5. Kon Kan – “I Beg Your Pardon”

4. Holly Johnson – “Americanos”

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

2. Simply Red – “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”

1. The Bangles – “Eternal Flame”: Still burning bright at the top of the tree I wonder if any of the band used to object to the amount of attention that Susanna Hoffs got / gets? Although they didn’t have a lead singer technically with vocal duties equally shared out, Susanna’s profile was by far the biggest of the group so did it cause any friction? Wikipedia seems to suggest that was the reason behind the breakup in 1989. Indeed, history records that “Eternal Flame” was the straw that broke the camel’s back with the rest of them being cast as backing band to Hoff’s superstar status. There was a happy ending though with the group reforming in 1998 and still a going concern to this day albeit without original bassist Michael Steele.

The play out video is “Who’s In The House” by Beatmasters featuring Merlin although that promo appears to be blocked on YouTube so here’s a copyright avoiding reversed version.

We’d already seen Beatmasters score hits with Cookie Crew and P.P. Arnold previously but this one was with someone called Merlin whom I really don’t remember. At the time I thought it was a lazy cash in on the whole ‘house’ phenomenon but apparently it had more of a back story than that. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

“Who’s In The House?” was a response to American producer Tyree Cooper's claim that he'd released the first "hip-house" record. Hence the lyric "Watch out Tyree, we come faster." Not sure that's a proud boast, lads. #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 6, 2020

This one never did much for me although I did like their next and final hit which was released later in the year with Betty Boo called “Hey DJ!/I Can’t Dance (To That Music You’re Playing)”. “Who’s In The House” peaked at No 8.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I buy it?
1	Transvision Vamp	Baby I Don’t Care	It’s on their collection CD that I own
2	Simple Minds	This Is Your Land	Nope
3	Inner City	Ain’t Nobody Better	A definite no
4	De La Soul	Me, Myself And I	No but my wife had their ‘3 Feet High And Rising’ album
5	London Boys	Requiem	Of course not
6	Holly Johnson	Americanos	No but my wife had his album ‘Blast’
7	Metallica	One	No
8	Midnight Oil	Beds Are Burning	Thought I did but I didn’t apparently
9	The Cure	Lullaby	Don’t think so
10	The Bangles	Eternal Flame	Presume it’s on their Best Of CD that I have
11	Beatmasters featuring Merlin	Who’s In The House	As if

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000fzly/top-of-the-pops-20041989

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/2019/04/april-19-may-2-1989_19.html

TOTP Rewind – the 80s

My memories of 80s chart music

TOTP 21 DEC 1989

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TOTP 26 OCT 1989

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TOTP 19 OCT 1989

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Some bed time reading?

TOTP 13 JUL 1989

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Some bed time reading?

TOTP 06 JUL 1989

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Whole Show

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 27 APR 1989

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Some bed time reading?

TOTP 20 APR 1989

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Some bed time reading?