Guns ‘N’ Roses

TOTP 31 AUG 1989

Posted on by 80stastic

As August 1989 comes to an end, I am 21 years old, living back home with my family in Worcester after finishing polytechnic. I have a temporary job as an insurance clerk and my girlfriend lives in Hull some 170 odd miles away. It’s all taking some getting used to after three years as a student and adjustment is taking its toll. Still, it’s not all bad news – my beloved Chelsea are back in the First Division and currently sit top of the table after just three games. I’ll bet there were also some cracking tunes in the charts – this was the 80s after all….

….and some of it was total shit! Take Big Fun for example. Three dancers masquerading as pop stars courtesy of Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s magic wand / shitty stick (delete as appropriate) doing a cheesy cover of an old Jacksons number. Some members of the Our Price Facebook group to which I belong had some nice words to say about the trio in that they were all pretty decent blokes when they met them doing in store PAs around this time and I don’t doubt it. However, did we really need them shaking their arses around (and that does seem to have been their appeal  – a fascination with their backsides by the country’s female teenage population) to “Blame It On The Boogie”? The answer is an irrevocable and resounding no.

Nobody listened to me though. Big Fun were voted Most Promising New Group in the 1989 Smash Hits readers poll finishing ahead of the likes of The Beautiful South and Soul II Soul. However, the same readers also voted Bros the Best Group and the Worst Group while Jason Donovan was deemed to be simultaneously the Best Male solo singer and also the worst so their judgement, like Boris Johnson, probably doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.

Another Debbie Gibson hit? I really thought the game was up for her by this point. I have to say that “We Could Be Together” doesn’t sound familiar at all. Or rather it does but only because I have been forced to sit through at least one of the High School Musical films in which it could easily have turned up to soundtrack yet another dance routine scene from that particular film franchise.

This was Debbie’s last UK hit of the decade peaking at No 22 and there was only one more Top 40 appearance in the early 90s when she released “You’re The One That I Want” with Craig McLachlan as they were both performing in Grease at the West End at the time.

“We Could Be Together” was also the title of Debbie’s 2017 thirteen (!) disc retrospective box set – that’s ten CDs and three DVDs….just of Debbie. Can you imagine?!

Guns N’ Roses convoluted release schedule continues apace. After dipping into mini album “G N’ R Lies” for previous single “Patience”, the band have returned to the mega selling “Appetite for Destruction” for “Nightrain”. To add to the confusion, it had already been released in the UK as the flip to “Welcome To The Jungle” in November of ’88 when it peaked at No 24. Got all that? Good.

Allegedly inspired by the band’s liking of a very cheap fortified wine called Night Train Express, Axl Rose would regularly introduce the song live with the following advice…

‘In these liquor stores that the winos hit up, right beside Thunderbird, you’ll find the Nightrain. That’ll f–k up you twice as bad as Thunderbird and it’s a lot cheaper.’

Wise words indeed. Of course, in the UK we had already had our own wino inspired hit song when Bad Manners brought us “Special Brew” in 1980. As for “Nightrain”, it pretty much stuck to the same formula that had brought Axl and co so much success already although for me it didn’t have quite the same appeal as “Paradise City” or “Sweet Child O’ Mine”. We wouldn’t see a new single from Guns N’ Roses for nearly two years.

Oh and I can’t find the video that TOTP showed so here’s a live version of it where Axl introduces the band but doesn’t do his wino chat. Indeed Slash says the song is about a ‘walk in the park’….which presumably led to sitting on a bench with some special brew with a wino.

A second studio appearance for Black Box now as they close in on the No 1 spot of not just the weekly chart but also the chart of the year. The band’s public face (though not actual singer) Katrin Quinol seems to have covered up a little since her last appearance. Maybe Mary Whitehouse had been in touch with the BBC with a complaint about the lowering of standards and polluting the minds of young people and such like.

“Ride On Time” was far from being their only hit though. They in fact notched up nine UK Top 40 hits with another four coming from their debut album “Dreamland” alone. Aside from their take on Earth, Wind And Fire’s “Fantasy” though they all sounded like poor imitations of the original Ride On Time” template to me.

One of the most recognisable and enduring hits of the decade next….neither of those qualities make this a good record though. Tina Turner‘s 80s renaissance (starting with “Let’s Stay Together” in ’83) had long since withered by the time that the decade was nearly over. Whilst her last studio album “Break Every Rule” in ’86 had sold well enough, it had done nowhere near the business that “Private Dancer” had. Singles wise, she hadn’t had a Top 10 hit for nigh on four years so her success with “The Best” was somewhat unpredicted.

So first things first, what is its actual title ? Is it “The Best” or “Simply The Best”? Well. the erm…simple answer is the former but confusingly, Tina also recorded a version of it with Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes called “(Simply) The Best” in 1992. She also released her first Best Of compilation in 1991 called “Simply The Best”  – no brackets this time – so you can see where people’s confusion comes from.

Apparently first released by Bonnie Tyler in ’88, it was actually written by Mike Chapman and Holly Knight with Paul Young in mind but he passed on it. After Paul dissed it and Bonnie missed with it, it ended up being offered to Tina who dismissed any fears about the song’s potential and made it a massive hit all around Europe including the UK where it peaked at No 5.

I’m guessing there must have been a period when we heard it for the first time that it didn’t sound like the hackneyed, clunky, nasty piece of soft rock that we all know it to be today but I can’t remember it. Overly used to soundtrack sporting events (it’s even in the Top 10 most played songs at funerals according to Co-op Funeralcare!) that its legacy is almost beyond parody. Not quite though…

After going a bit bonkers with experimental yet critically well received album “Savage”, Eurythmics are back with the lead single from new album “We Too Are One”. I have to admit that despite being a fan of Annie and Dave’s, I was mostly underwhelmed by “Revival”. It didn’t seem to be that clever or sophisticated sounding but then maybe that was the intention after the avant garde eccentricity of songs like “Beethoven (I Love to Listen To)” which was the first single from “Savage”.

It’s very bluesy in tone with lots of added brass parts but even if I wasn’t overly keen, you can’t dismiss a song that has Annie’s vocals all over it. In his autobiography, Dave Stewart describes this period in the band’s history as them ‘slowly unravelling’ and I have to say that most of the album’s singles I found to be some of their weakest material with the one exception of  “Angel” which is possibly my favourite Eurythmics track ever.

“Revival” peaked at No 26.

The second Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit on tonight’s show now (well it is 1989) as Donna Summer takes her bow of the decade with “Love’s About To Change My Heart”. I never knew this before but like many of her contemporaries, Donna’s music was so popular that a musical based on her catalogue of songs was produced – the unimaginatively titled Summer: The Donna Summer Musical – and guess what? None of her SAW output is included in the 23 strong collection of tracks that feature in it. I think that pretty much spells out what we were all thinking then.

“Love’s About To Change My Heart” peaked at No 20. 

Jut like Eurythmics, here was another mammoth name of the 80s returning with some new material but unlike Annie and Dave, Tears For Fears had been away much longer. We hadn’t seen Roland and Curt for almost four tears (a lifetime in pop music) bar a pretty dreadful repurposing of their “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” for Sport Aid in 1986. As a result, there was a lot riding on their long awaited new material – indeed more than any of us knew at the time.

The length of time it took to record the “Seeds O Love” album and its production costs (reportedly £1 million) meant that the band’s management company, who had financially over-extended themselves in other business matters, were starting to feel the pinch. Their mood won’t have been improved by a story I heard whilst listening to a documentary about the making of the album. Apparently one session musician who had been involved early on recording of the album but who had left due to other work commitments admitted that when he returned to the “Seeds Of Love” sessions some two years or so later, he found Roland and Curt still embroiled in a debate about that one sound effect on that one track  – the same sound effect that they had been arguing about when he had left the project two years earlier!

This level of attention to detail was very evident in lead single “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”, a track that redefined the phrase ‘everything but the kitchen sink’. Widely criticised at the time for being a psychedelic era Beatles pastiche, for me it still stands up today. A total anthem with a powerful vocal and intriguing lyrics, it ticked all the boxes for me. I wasn’t the only one – I’m sure I’ve heard Howard Jones pick it as one of his favourite tracks of the 80s.

The video was made by Jim Blashfield who had also done very stylistically similar promos for Michael Jackson (“Leave Me Alone”) and  Paul Simon (“Boy in The Bubble”). It won two MTV Music Video Awards for Breakthrough Video and Best Special Effects.

“Sowing The Seeds Of Love” peaked at No 5 in the UK and was a No 2 hit in the US.

The state of this! Yes, the moment of Damian‘s 15 minutes of fame has arrived. Not to be confused with Damon from Brookside nor Damien the antichrist from The Omen trilogy (although looking at this performance you can see where confusion with the latter may arise), Damian was Damian Davey who had already tried to have a hit with his version of “The Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Show three times before finally gaining entry to the Top 40 with this release. It’s a horrible version I have to say and you won’t be surprised to read that Stock, Aitken and Waterman had their grubby mitts all over it as it was remixed by PWL’s Pete Hammond.

Describing himself as a showman rather than an artist, Damian somehow took this to No 7 but his follow up (a version of The Sweet’s “Wig Wam Bam”) ensured he would remain a one hit wonder.

Damian died in 2017 aged 52 following a three-year battle against cancer.

Top 10

10. Kylie Minogue – “Wouldn’t Change A Thing”

9. Tears For Fears – “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”

8. Lil Louis – “French Kiss”

7. The Beatmasters and Betty Boo – “Hey DJ / I Can’t Dance (To That Music You’re Playing)”

6. Big Fun – “Blame It On The Boogie”

5. Martika – “Toy Soldiers”

4. Alice Cooper – “Poison”

3. Cliff Richard – “I Just Don’t Have The Heart”

2. Black Box – “Ride On Time”

1. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – “Swing The Mood”: Piss off now yeah? We’ve all had enough….

The play out video is “Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt” by Malcolm McLaren. Actually make that Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra featuring Lisa Marie. This was the second single to be lifted from his “Waltz Darling” album and you have to admit it’s got a quirky appeal if nothing else. Although I’m sure he was a monstrously difficult person, I find myself endlessly fascinated by Malcolm. I could listen to his bullshit for hours even knowing that it was indeed bullshit. It was his unshakeable confidence that appealed I think.

The premise of the album was a merging of 3/4 time waltz music with rock ‘n’ roll’s solid 4/4 beat. In his damning take down of McLaren in his book The Wicked Ways Of Malcolm McLaren, Craig Bromberg describes an incident in the production of the album when one producer had been driven do crazy by Malcolm’s interference that he developed a severe skin condition and came at McLaren fists flying! Makes the recording process of “The Seeds Of Love” sound like a breeze!

For al his faults, Malcolm was very often ahead of the curve. “Waltz Darling” for example features a song called “Deep in Vogue” which introduced the vogue style of dancing to the mainstream nearly a whole year before Madonna got hold of it.

“Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt” was supposedly about the startling pains a teenage girl experiences when her breasts start to blossom (don’t tell Mary Whitehouse!). When I worked in Our Price in Manchester, a top bloke called Justin used to organise the lunch rota and every day he would use a different theme. I recall one day he requested that we all quote a song featuring an item of clothing. I went for “Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt” and got much kudos from Juzzer for my choice.

“Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt” peaked at No 29.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I Buy it?

1

 Big Fun Blame It On The Boogie Blame it on Stock, Aitken and Waterman more like! No!

2

 Debbie Gibson We Could Be Together No we couldn’t Debbie

3

 Gun N’ Roses Nightrain No but I think I had the album

4

 Black Box Ride On Time I didn’t

5

 Tina Turner The Best Not even close

6

 Eurythmics Revival Nope

7

 Donna Summer Love’s About To Change My Heart Nah

8

 Tears For Fears Sowing The Seeds Of Love No but it’s on my Best Of CD of theirs

9

 Damian The Time Warp No

10

 Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers Swing The Mood F**k off!

11

 Malcolm McLaren Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt No but I think my wife may have had the album

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jb8f/top-of-the-pops-31081989

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?

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http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/08/august-23-september-5-1989.html

 

 

TOTP 29 JUN 1989

Posted on by 80stastic

Tim Smith anyone? I don’t remember this guy at all. He’s (sort of) co-hosting this TOTP with the dependably over excited Anthea Turner and has got the gig presumably to introduce him to the UK’s pop fans as he’s just joined the Radio 1 roster of DJs as their latest recruit. I say ‘sort of’ because Anthea proceeds to do all the links after Smith is formally introduced at the top of the show. He’s finally given something to do when he runs through this week’s Breakers for us. A quick search of the internet reveals that he presented the weekend early show from 5 to 7 am on Radio 1 for about a year before hosting the UK Top 20 Chart Show on the BBC World Service for nearly 14 years! He’s co hosted the Steve Wright In The Afternoon show as well apparently. I wouldn’t know as I can’t stand Steve Wright and haven’t listened to him on the radio since about 1987. Let’s see how Tim’s TOTP debut went then….

Now I know that there was a third hit from Holly Johnson in 1989 and I also remember it being called “Atomic City”. Could I tell you anything about what it sounded like without watching this latest TOTP repeat first? Not a chance. Time to correct that then. See you in about three minutes…

…hmm. Well, it ain’t no “Love Train” (nor “Americanos” for that matter). Where was that easy flowing, lush pop production of those first two singles? It’s all a bit frenetic and desperate sounding to my ears and, dare I say it, comes over like a poor man’s Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The bass line (written by Dan “Instant Replay” Hartman apparently) seems to borrow very heavily from “Livin’ In America” by James Brown whilst Holly’s lyrics are still very preoccupied with game shows although I think the song’s main theme is some sort of anti-pollution, pro -environment message so probably ahead of its time. Presumably that’s why the guy on keytar is wearing a bio-hazard hazmat suit. Noble sentiments but the whole thing just comes across as a bit of a mess to me.

Also in a bit of a mess were Holly’s chart fortunes. After the double No 4 salvo that were his first two singles, “Atomic City” only made it to No 18. Worse was to follow. a fourth single from his “Blast” album called “Heaven’s Here” failed to make the Top 40 at all and Holly’s solo career was pretty much dead in the water. He would return to the UK charts once more time in 2012 as part of the Justice Collective single “”He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” which was a Xmas No1.

Queen are back in the charts with a second track pulled from their “The Miracle” album. Whereas previous single “I Want It All” had been of a much more traditional rock sound, to me, “Breakthru” was much more like the Queen style that the band had been pedalling since “The Works” in 1984. In fact, it reminded me of the “It’s A Hard Life” single from said album in that both start with a slow vocal harmony before the rest of the track kicks in. In the case of “Breakthru”,  that intro was actually from a different song altogether called “A New Life Is Born,” an unreleased piece written by Freddie Mercury whilst the rest of the song is a Roger Taylor composition.

I recall a lot of fuss about the video at the time and I suppose it is quite memorable with the steam engine bursting through that brick wall with the band onboard atop it. According to Wikipedia:

‘The group was dissatisfied with this part because polystyrene could not stand the enormous air pressure buildup in the tunnel from the incoming train and the wall started breaking before the physical impact’.

If you watch it closely you can see why the band were miffed with the effect but I don’t recall anybody pointing it out at the time.

For me though, the band seemed to be treading water with “Breakthru” (which peaked at No 8) but then, in retrospect, it was astonishing that the band were releasing any new material let alone putting the effort into making visually memorable videos given the deteriorating state of Freddie Mercury’s health.

“Well we like these guys. It’s their third time on TOTP…” warbles  Anthea as she introduces Double Trouble And The Rebel MC next and their single “Just Keep Rockin”. A third time?! And the song still hadn’t even made it into the Top 10?! Something doesn’t seem right about that. Their record plugger must have been very persistent. “And the single is still climbing..” protests Anthea just a little bit too much methinks. They should have been renamed ‘Triple Trouble And The Treble MC’.

Despite this over exposure, “Just Keep Rockin” failed to improve on its No 11 position where it found itself this week and never did crash the Top 10. I blame the white guy on keyboards who looks ridiculous with his pieces to camera*. I assumed he was saying ‘riddim’ but the official lyrics have it as ‘breathed in’. Hmm. Not sure about that. Undeterred, they did breach the Top 10 when follow up single “Street Tuff” did the business for them by peaking at No 3.

*This, from @TOTPFacts, explains everything…

Talking of three-peats, is this the third time that Donna Allen has been on the show? I think it is if you include her spot in the Breakers. Unlike Double Trouble, Donna’s appearances did the trick in terms of bagging her a Top 10 hit although it was a close run thing as “Joy And Pain” peaked at No 10.

I’ve got nothing left to say about this one except that it was heavily sampled by nineties electronic dancesters Strike for their 1995 No 4 hit “U Sure Do” …which I despised.

Finally it’s time for Tim Smith to have his moment in the spotlight as he introduces the Breakers starting with Monie Love and “Grandpa’s Party”. This then 18 year old was briefly a rap / hip hop sensation when she racked up a handful of Top 40 singles as the decade closed and the 90s opened. The ‘Grandpa’ of her single was apparently Afrika Bambaataa, “The Godfather” of hip hop…err…so not actually a grandfather but a godfather and I’m guessing not strictly speaking her grandfather either. Genealogy aside, was it any good? Well, I quite liked it but it wasn’t really my thang thing.

Monie described hip -hop at the time in a Smash Hits article as being “a school  – the teachers are Public Enemy, my classmates are the likes of The Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, Boogie Down Productions, MC Lyte, MC Mellow…”. Nah, you’ve lost me now Monie.

“Grandpa’s Party” peaked at No 16.

Now I would have sworn that this lot were just a couple of ‘here today gone tomorrow’ purveyors of limp, anodyne pop like but it turns out that Waterfront were a much bigger deal than that but mainly in the US. This Welsh duo had been knocking on the door of the charts for a while with a couple of single releases that the likes of Smash Hits magazine had carried adverts for but which had failed to dent the Top 40. The release of “Cry” hit paydirt for them though. It was a respectable but medium sized No 17 hit in the UK but over the water (front) it was a much bigger deal. The single went Top 10 there and they became the first Welsh duo to achieve this feat in the US. At performing rights organization Broadcast Music Inc’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations, “Cry” was recognised as one of the ‘most played singles on US radio’ with nearly one million plays clocked up. And I just thought it was a pretty feeble, soppy pop song.

After Stock, Aitken and Waterman had done the seemingly impossible by making certified chart stars out of two unknown teenagers in The Reynolds Girls, we might have been forgiven for thinking that the whole Hit Factory phenomenon couldn’t get any more ridiculous but then we hadn’t bargained on Sonia. Appearing from nowhere, this diminutive Liverpudlian took the whole ludicrous story onto another chapter and this one included yet another No 1 single. The story of how she got her big break is well known  – rocking up unannounced at a Radio City show at the Liverpool Hippodrome and insisting that Pete Waterman hear her sing and then being invited onto his radio show and given the chance to perform live. She did though already have an Equity card and had appeared in the sitcom Bread which she informed Waterman of according to Sonia so “he knew I wasn’t messing or a lunatic or anything like that…”. Well, quite.

As was their way, her debut single was written and recorded in a matter of hours and then before we could process who this bouncing, red haired, giggling Scouse lass was, “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You” was bounding its way up the charts on its way to No 1. More (but less successful) hits followed and Sonia became the first female UK artist to achieve five top 20 hit singles from one album. These were very strange times indeed.

Next up is yet another re-release of an old song that I don’t remember being in back in the charts nor why. I remember the song “Pop Muzik” by M of course as it was played constantly on the radio it seemed when it was originally a No 2 hit back in 1979. I would have been 11 or so and not fully converted to the weekly ritual of TOTP and therefore couldn’t have told you exactly what Mr M (or Robin Scott to give him his real name) looked like before his return to the TOTP studio 10 years on. On reflection, he looked a bit like John Waite  but I’m guessing the “Missing You” singer never performed in a suit made of CDs. It probably seemed very decadent back in ’89 as I’m not sure what CD penetration levels were like in UK households at the time. Seen through 2020 eyes it all looks a bit naff with the then cutting edge format now reduced to an historical artefact almost.

The whole performance is a bit naff actually. Not sure what the deal with the woman in the day-glo pink and yellow swim suit and tutu skirt was all about whilst the giggling backing singers seem to be doing their own thing entirely somewhere left of stage. As for the song itself, I’m not sure that this ’89 remix sounded much different to the original and in any case, the latter was am almost perfectly formed illustration of how pop music could be. I think it still stands up as a marker in the timeline of pop.

“Pop Muzik ’89 Remix” peaked at No 15.

A confusing link from Anthea Turner now as she introduces Guns N’ Roses by saying       “They’ve managed the hat trick. They’ve got two singles in the charts in the same week…”. Eh? A hat trick with two songs? How does that work then? I’m assuming she means that this is the band’s third hit single in a row after “Paradise City” and “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” had both made No 6 but even then, to be strictly accurate, “Patience” was their fifth hit single on the spin if you include “Welcome To The Jungle” and the original release of “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” back in ’88. Or does she mean their third in ’89? Oh FFS Anthea, you could have made your links clearer for the pedantically inflicted amongst us.

As for “Patience” itself, this was quite a departure after the all out ‘rawk ‘n’ roll’ sound of their previous hits. Taken from the mini album “G N’ R Lies”, its acoustic nature showed that the band had a sensitive side (sort of!) as well. I found this all a bit confusing, not just this softer sound but also the band’s release timeline.I’m guessing that the record company wanted to capitalise on their huge profile at the time and were keen to get any product into the market place but I’m not sure I was aware of the “G N’ R Lies” album so wondered where this track had come from. To add to my disorientation, they then went back to the “Appetite For Destruction” album for one final single release (“Night Train”) before the calendar year was up. Two years later they kept up the release schedule shenanigans by putting out two albums on the same day!

Apparently “Patience” is a karaoke favourite but maybe shouldn’t be. Here’s the songfacts.com website:

“Kimberly Starling of The Karaoke Informer says it’s one of the top 5 songs that tends to bomb: “It just eludes the average ear and when you get off key on this one it sounds to the ear like a turd in a punch bowl looks to the eye.”

How do you follow up an unexpected Hi-NRG Euro disco hit? Well if you’re London Boys you just put out the same song out again with a different title and bingo! Seriously though, “London Nights” was just about exactly the same as their first hit “Requiem” wasn’t it? Not content with recreating their formula sound, the duo then rocked up at the TOTP studio and did a near identical performance from the outfits to the dance steps. What a swizz as Smash Hits might have commented. Inevitably the UK record buying public fell for this shit all over again in their droves despite the fact that “Requiem” had only just fallen out of the Top 40 and it did even better than its predecessor by peaking at No 2. For the love of God!

Top 10

10. Donna Allen – “Joy And Pain”

9. D-Mob – “It Is Time To Get Funky”

8. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

7. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

6. Sinitta – “Right Back Where We Started From”

5. Jason Donovan – “Sealed With A Kiss”

4. U2 – “All I Want”

3. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

2. Prince – “Batdance”

1. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”: In a bizarre quirk of fate, the band at No 3 in the charts this week would go on to have female vocalist in their line up with the surname Wheeler just as Soul II Soul owe a massive debt to the uncredited Caron Wheeler on this track. Alison Wheeler joined The Beautiful South in 2003 after the departure of Jacqui Abbott and stayed with them until they disbanded in 2007. She is currently a member of “The South” (formerly “The New Beautiful South”).

Caron Wheeler on the other hand left Soul II Soul in 1990 to pursue a solo career and released her LP “UK Blak” and semi successful single “Livin’ In The Light”  in 1990. However, she returned to the fold in 2007 just as her namesake Alison’s time in The Beautiful South (original version) was coming to an end. None of this is especially interesting but I’m running out of things to write about “Back To Life”!

The play out video is by Monie Love’s teachers otherwise known as Public Enemy with “Fight The Power (Do The Right Thing)”. Have I already used my Flavor Flav story up? Damn I think I have. OK, different tact then…

I was a white UK kid just finishing three years of higher education at the time of its release so I’m not going to try and make out that Public Enemy spoke to or for me at the time but there is no denying the irresistible force that they were and continue to be. “Fight The Power (Do The Right Thing)” was as it sounds from the soundtrack to the film Do The Right Thing and indeed features prominently in the film. Written at the request of director Spike Lee who wanted an anthem to reflect the racial tensions of the time in the US, it is publicly acknowledged by Chuck D as “the most important record that Public Enemy have done”. And you have to say its power is blistering. An incredible song in any age.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I Buy it?

1

 Holly Johnson Atomic City No but my wife had his album

2

 Queen Breakthru Nope

3

 Double Trouble and the Rebel MC Just Keep Rockin’ Nah

4

 Donna Allen Joy And Pain No

5

 Monie Love Grandpa’s Party Negative

6

 Waterfront Cry No but I think it was on some Radio 1 Mark Goddier compilation album that I had.

7

 Sonia You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You Of course not

8

 M Pop Muzik I did not

9

 Guns N’ Roses Patience Not the single but I think I’ve got it on CD somewhere

10

 London Boys London Nights Hell no

11

 Soul II Soul Back To Life No but I think my wife had their album

12

 Public Enemy Fight The Power (Do The Right Thing) 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/m000h3d6/top-of-the-pops-29061989

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?

31305266964_ca46746da1_n

 

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

TOTP 08 JUN 1989

Posted on by 80stastic

I am 21 years old! I’m not obviously (I’m a very middle aged 51) but back in 1989 I had just obtained the key of the door when this TOTP aired with my birthday having been two days earlier. Those intervening 30 odd years have taken their toll on my memory banks so I’m not entirely sure now how I celebrated the day although I do have an image in my mind’s eye of my housemate Ian crafting a makeshift canopy out of plastic shopping bags in our student house’s back garden so I think a barbecue was involved. As for the songs that were in the charts around my 21st? Let’s have a look see….

First up tonight are Transvision Vamp with their new single “The Only One”. After really enjoying the brattish, cartoon punk pop of “Baby I Don’t Care”, I found myself being completely underwhelmed by this one. I wasn’t…err… the only one (ahem). Smash Hits magazine’s review of the single said:

“To me, it sounds very much like their last single except that there’s less of a tune”

I knew what the reviewer meant. It was full of bluster and posturing with Wendy James yet again proving herself to be a bit of a ‘growler'(!) when it came to the vocals but it was all very repetitive and just didn’t seem to go anywhere to me. Ah yes, Ms James. Quite what was going on with her delayed entrance in this performance. The rest of the band are frugging away like good ‘uns for a fair few seconds before Wendy walks on stage triumphantly with arms loft. And what had she been doing just before arriving as she’s absolutely glistening from head to toe in sweat?! Had she been for a run? A session down the gym? Or …err…some other strenuous activity? Best not dwell on that any longer.

“The Only One” peaked at No 15.

For all the fuss about “The Best Of Me” being Cliff RIchard‘s 100th single, I don’t recall it at all. All the promotion for it must have passed me by though to be fair I probably wasn’t the target market. This was Sir Cliff’s first single since ’88’s Xmas No 1 “Mistletoe And Wine” and it’s No 2 peak (it went straight in at that position) was probably seen as a decent return for a follow up but I’m guessing I’m not alone in it having passed me by. From the title I assumed it had been released to promote some sort of Greatest Hits album but Wikipedia tells me that wasn’t the case and it was just a track from his latest studio album “Stronger”.

Listening to it now it reminds me of another ballad that was a big hit a couple of years later. Maybe it’s just that it also has a similar title but does it not sound a bit like “Save The Best For Last” by Vanessa Williams? “Best Of Me” was a cover and had originally been written and recorded by someone called David Foster (no idea) while Richard Marx (I do remember him) also had a hand in it. Apparently neither had anything to do with Vanessa’s tune though.

Guns N’ Roses have been promoted from the play out video slot in last week’s TOTP to a place in the main body of the show this time around with their rock classic “Sweet Child O’ Mine“. Presenter Nicky Campbell describes the track as being from their “brand new album” but as that album was actually “Appetite For Destruction”  which had been released on July 21, 1987 I’m not sure that’s the best use of the phrase that there’s ever been. Yes, it had taken UK audiences a while to catch onto the band’s appeal (hence “Sweet Child O’ Mine” having to be released twice for it to become a Top 10 hit over here) but even so.

On October 15, 2019 this became the first music video from the ’80s to reach one billion views on YouTube. The previous year, the band’s “November Rain” promo also became the first ’90s video to reach the one billion mark on that platform.

A first TOTP appearance now from a band who would become a fixture of the UK charts for the next 20 years and indeed so entrenched in the nations’s psyche that its reported that one in seven UK households own a copy of their 1994 Greatest Hits compilation “Carry On Up The Charts”. They are , of course, The Beautiful South who as Campbell rather grandly advises “rose like a phoenix out of the ashes of The Housemartins” after the latter split in 1988. Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway were the members of that band that remained together and alongside Dave Rotheray, Dave Stead and Sean Welch formed a new venture who would specialise in thoughtful, melodic and often bittersweet pop perfection.

Debut single “Song For Whoever” was a calling card for their sound and a sublime statement of their intent. Written from the view point of a cynical songwriter using the names of past conquests to inform his PRS cheque bringing compositions, it was a subversive kick in the eye for the charts stagnating with Aussie soap stars and the already stale sound of house music. I was in from the opening line “I love you from the bottom, of my pencil case”.

This early band line up was yet to feature what would become a succession of female vocalists but the unusual double lead singer structure still made them stand out, as if the music wasn’t enough itself.

“Song For Whoever” peaked at No 2 in the UK charts.

The Breakers are back! Having been missing for the past few shows, those ‘happening’ records are back! Not sure if Vixen really fall into that category though. Described in the music press as ‘the female Bon Jovi”, this glam metal outfit had achieved a minor chart hit in the UK earlier in the year with “Cryin” but they were a bigger deal in the US where there was more of an appetite for their brand of soft rock anthems. “Love Made Me” was the follow up and was more of the same. I’m guessing that their record plugger had to do a lot of pushing to secure the a slot on TOTP given that they were hardly a household name over here. If The Bangles were genetically merged with the Wilson sisters from Heart then Vixen would have been the result of the experiment.

In a curious little TOTP footnote, Richard Marx, responsible for Cliff RIchard’s “Best Of Me” song earlier in the show, also co-wrote one of Vixen’s most well known songs (in the US anyway) “Edge Of A Broken Heart”.

“Love Made Me” peaked at No 36 in the UK.

Donna Allen next with the second of her two hit singles “Joy And Pain”. The chorus to this one sounds familiar but it’s not really my cup of tea at all and Donna’s Wikipedia page doesn’t have much of interest on it at all. So I think I’ll move on….

…oh…hang on….it does say that in 2013 she attempted a career comeback (after having pretty much given up on music by the end of the 90s) by appearing on talent show The Voice. Didn’t the UK version of the show have a similar story of an ex pop star relaunching themselves as well?

*checks Wikipedia*

Yes! That bloke from Liberty X (remember them?). He went on The Voice and won it. Using that springboard, he became the lead singer of Wet Wet Wet replacing Marti Pellow when he left the band. Rather less successfully, Jay Aston of Bucks Fizz also auditioned on the show in the same year. None of the judges turned their chairs round for her. There’s probably a joke to be found in there that ties in with her also less than successful attempt to be an MP when she stood as a Brexit Party candidate in the 2019 General Election (oh the irony of someone who owes their whole career to The Eurovision Song Contest supporting the Brexit Party) but I won’t go there. Or maybe I just did.

Back to Donna Allen though. “Joy And Pain” peaked at No 10 in the UK charts.

The final Breaker is…what? New Model Army? Again? This lot seem to constantly be on the Breakers section. Right, I’m checking their discography to clear this up…

…OK so I was right. “Green And Grey” was the band’s third Top 40 single of the calendar year all from the album “Thunder And Consolation” though none of them made the Top 30. I recognise the title of this one at least. Let’s have a listen to it again…

…no don’t remember this one either. Quite good though. Unlikely as it sounds, as genuine chart stars, they sneaked their way into Smash Hits magazine under an article called ‘Ten Really Interesting Facts About New Model Army’ one of which was ‘They’ve got a great new single in the charts called Green And Grey” and the last one was ‘sounds interesting eh?’. Not what you would call top quality investigative journalism then.

As MC Skat Kat once rapped, ‘It’s my home girl, Paula Abdul‘! Yes, it’s one of the breakout phenomenons of the year back with a follow up to “Straight Up” and it’s the title track from her album “Forever Your Girl”. Whilst its predecessor had been quite an accomplished and well produced dance /pop crossover, this one just sounded like twee nonsense sung in a high pitched caterwaul to me. Paula would admit herself that she wasn’t he strongest vocalist out there but then neither was Madonna to be fair. Even so, this track sounded so inconsequential as to hardly be there at all. The use of young girls in the promo to parody the notorious “Addicted To Love” video seems ill judged at best, especially viewed through 2020 eyes.

Unlike over here where the song only made No 24, our American counterparts were much more enthralled by Ms Abdul and sent this to No 1 (the second of four from her album). I think we got this one right.

Possibly a fact dulled by the passage of time but a reminder here that there was more to D-Mob than just “We Call It Acieed”. The rather belated follow up to that tabloid baiting single was “It Is Time To Get Funky” this time with the London Rhyme Syndicate (LRS) and DC Sarome. Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t be doing with this nonsense. There didn’t seem to be anything original going on here at all. A load of rapping and then a cliched slogan of a chorus. No thanks.

After this No 9 hit, D -Mob or Dancin’ Danny D as he was sometimes known decided to turn his attentions to launching the career of Cathy Dennis who would very briefly become a chart sensation at the start of the next decade before developing into a songwriter for other artists. Her pretty impressive track record includes eight UK number ones including “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” for Kylie Minogue and”I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry and five Ivor Novello awards.

A big moment in 1989 next as Soul II Soul go big time. Yes they had already had a Top 5 hit with “Keep On Movin” but if that song lit the the blue touch paper on their career, then “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” blew the doors off. Not only was it a UK No 1 but it also made No 4 in the US.

The original album version was an a cappella track but the single release which we all know had that crucial shuffling, reggae / hip hop hybrid backing that made it so distinctive. That and of course Caron Wheeler’s vocals.

The video, though essentially just a basic performance promo also became iconic. There was something about that jungle setting (actually Epping Forest) and the carefree dancing that just worked.

Mention should also go to Claudia Fontaine (prominent in the video) who was Wheeler’s band mate in Afrodiziak who provided backing vocals for many an act throughout the 80s including The Jam, Elvis Costello, Special AKA , Heaven 17 and Howard Jones. Claudia sadly passed away in 2018 aged just 57.

 

Top 10

10. Donna Summer – “I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt”

9. Neneh Cherry – “Manchild”

8. Guns N’ Roses – “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

7. Lynne Hamilton – “On The Inside”

6. Sinitta – “Right Back Where We Started From”

5. Madonna – “Express Yourself”

4. Natalie Cole – “Miss You Like Crazy”

3. The Christians, Holly Johnson, Paul McCartney and Gerry Marsden – “Ferry Cross The Mersey”

2. Cliff Richard – “The Best Of Me”

1. Jason Donovan – “Sealed With A Kiss” : Scream! It’s Jason! And the TOTP studio audience certainly do as the nation’s favourite heart throb goes straight in at No 1 with his version of the Brian Hyland hit. You can actually hear some young girl sighing ‘Jason’ in the instrumental break.

I guess it was a clever move on behalf of Stock, Aitken and Waterman to get him to release a cover of a big slushy ballad at this point in his career, capitalising on his teen audience following who could buy the single and listen to it in their bedroom fantasising that it was all about them and Jason. The valedictory blown kiss in his performance here couldn’t have been better scripted. For those of us who weren’t obsessed school girls, it was all a bit toe curlingly awful. There are still two more hits to come from the Aussie boy wonder before 1989 is through. For the love of God….

The play out video is “Cruel Summer ’89” by Bananarama. This was the trio’s last UK release and hit of the entire decade and it’s a strange one for sure. I remember it being out again around this time and certainly remember it being a Top 10 hit on its original release back in ’83 but I cannot recall nor find anywhere on the internet quite why the song was re-released in ’89. Was it featured in a film or advert? Maybe they just wanted to maintain their profile while they were busy doing a world tour. It was a stand alone single and the only album it is on is 2005’s “Really Saying Something: The Platinum Collection” so that supports the theory.

I say the song was  ‘re-released’ but its actually a new version of the song with newbie Jacqui O’Sullivan ‘s vocals replacing Siobhan Fahey. More than that though, it’s got some horrible, clunky production all over it which references to it on the web are calling a New Jack Swing version. I thought New Jack Swing was an early ’90s thing no?

Anyway, the video for it is a compilation of previous promo clips as the girls were too busy with their aforementioned world tour to shoot a specific one themselves. Supposedly Siobhan Fahey is included on the video (albeit just a couple of frames worth) but I’ve sat through it and can’t spot her.

“Cruel Summer ’89” peaked at No 19 whilst the original ’83 release was a No 8 hit.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I Buy it?

1

 Transvision Vamp The Only One Not the single but I have it on their Best Of Collection CD

2

 Cliff Richard The Best Of Me Hell no!

3

 Guns N’ Roses Sweet Child O’ Mine No but I have the album somewhere I think

4

 Beautiful South Song For Whoever No but I had the album it was from

5

 Vixen Love Made Me It may have but it didn’t make me buy this

6

 Donna Allen Joy And Pain Nope

7

 New Model Army Green And Grey No

8

 Paula Abdul Forever Your Girl Another no

9

 D-Mob It Is Time To Get Funky Nah

10

 Soul II Soul Back To Life No but I think my wife had their album

11

 Jason Donovan Sealed With A Kiss No but my younger sister was obsessed and had his album

12

 Bananarama Cruel Summer ‘89 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/m000gp1h/top-of-the-pops-08061989

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?

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http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-31-june-13-1989.html

 

 

TOTP 01 JUN 1989

Posted on by 80stastic

June 1989 is amongst us here at TOTP Rewind. By this point I was switching on a daily basis between soiling my pants at the thought of having to leave my student bubble and go out into the real world and become a fully functioning adult and…well… getting pissed most probably. What songs were in the charts during this decidedly odd period of my life I wonder?

Well, Sinitta is still holding on grimly to her time as a genuine pop star, a career that she fashioned from out of pretty much nothing in the second part of the decade. As the 80s finishing line comes into view, she has given her faltering status a shot in the arm of pure chart elixir by doing what any failing pop star always does by releasing a cover version. “Right Back Where We Started From” was originally a hit for Maxine Nightingale some 14 years earlier peaking at No 8. Sinitta managed to top that chart placing by taking her version all the way to No 4 – I had no idea she’d had such a big hit with it.

Clearly thinking she was on to something (“Right Back Where We Started From” was the joint second biggest hit of her career after “So Macho”), she released a further two cover versions from her album “Wicked” in “Love On A Mountain Top” by Robert Knight and Vanity Fare’s “Hitchin’ A Ride”  but neither got anywhere near the Top 10. Sinitta’s time as a pop star was coming to an end and “Right Back Where We Started From” was not only a temporary reprieve but its title was also a portent of where she would find herself as the new decade dawned.

Yet another run out for the video to “Miss You Like Crazy” by Natalie Cole now. I think the reason that this song was such a big hit is that the songwriters and the producer absolutely nailed the timings of the key changes to produce the optimum emotional response whilst remaining just the right side of being overwrought.

Apparently there is a Filipino film of the same name which unsurprisingly is a romance and which features not one but two cover versions of “Miss You Like Crazy”. One of them is a pretty faithful run through of the original whilst this one by Aiza Seguerra at least has some nice strings on it…

Fresh from the controversy of the video for her “Like A  Prayer” single, Madonna follows it up with “Express Yourself”. Very much an anthem to female empowerment, a lot was made of this song at the time in terms of its message and its Metropolis themed video and that would have been just what the record company wanted given that it had a total budget of $5 million which made it the most expensive music video in history at the time it was made.

I liked it from the first time I heard it with its sonic similarities to “Open Your Heart” which to my ears was no bad thing. Visually, Madonna had creative control over everything we saw in the video including finding the right cat that we see early on in the promo. There’s a line to be had about Madonna’s pussy in there but I’m not going anywhere near it probably because Madonna already beat me to it when exclaiming that the cat represented  the concept of “pussy rules the world” in a 1990 Omnibus interview.

Madonna’s muscular physique, pinstripe suit and monocle caused much discussion around notions of gender and subverting traditional roles. Did I pick up on this at the time? Probably not but it’s all too evident watching the video back some 30 years later.

“Express Yourself” was a No 5 hit in the UK and reached No 2 in the US.

I’m hardly the first to comment on this but Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” single of 2011 is a complete rip off of “Express Yourself”.

Ah…Double Trouble and the Rebel MC. This lot were briefly tipped as being the next cool thing to hang your hat on, especially when they followed up “Just Keep Rockin'” with “Street Tuff” that went Top 3. Actually, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure most of the hype came courtesy of Simon Mayo who seemed to bang on relentlessly about them on his Radio 1 show. So, I’m assuming the Rebel MC was the guy doing the rapping out front and Double Trouble were the fellas on the keyboards in the background.

I probably should have liked this one more than I did as it samples “The Liquidator” by The Harry J All Stars which is used as the soundtrack to the players running out at my beloved Chelsea’s home matches but it never really caught my imagination. I preferred “Street Tuff” but neither track was really my bag in truth.

OK – what was the deal here? I’m assuming that one of the TOTP producers was a massive W.A.S.P. fan. How else do you explain how many times this lot were on the show?! “The Real Me” was their take on the classic track by The Who and came from their album “Headless Children”. This was their fourth studio album and the first to not feature overtly sexually explicit songs (according to Wikipedia). Well bully for them! They still called their album “Headless Children” so I’m not entirely sure that they had retreated fully from their shock rock tactics. What?! Wikipedia says that the album displayed “a new level of maturity from the band compared to their previous three albums” with the themes of politics and social issues running throughout. Oh do fuck off!

Here’s an eyeful of Neneh Cherry now (ahem!) with “Manchild”.

I think @TOTPFacts sums this whole performance up quite succinctly…

In a Smash Hits interview, Neneh described the aforementioned Madonna as:

“…one of the few women in the 80s who has taken control of her own sexuality and her own person.”

In the same publication, the also aforementioned Sinitta had a different view:

” I think that Madonna’s video for “Like A  Prayer is insulting for people who are deeply religious and who lead a deeply religious life. I think it’s bad”. 

I think I’m team Neneh on this one.

Right  – Cyndi Lauper next with “I Drove All Night”. I always get confused about this song. I know it has something to do with Roy Orbison and that he also had a hit with it but over the years all the details of the origin of the story have been buried in an inaccessible part of my brain (probably under 30 years worth of football results) and I can’t quite recall what it was all about. So I looked it up….

It turns out that it was written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg who had already written Cyndi’s last UK hit (1986’s “True Colours”) for her and were also responsible for one of the year’s biggest songs in “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles. It had been written deliberately in the style of something Orbison would have sung and even before Cyndi got her vocal chords around it, a fortunate set of circumstances had led to a meeting with The Big O who had recorded a demo of it in 1987. However he was without a recording contract at the time and his version lay idle for a while and remained so throughout his subsequent phoenix from the flames renaissance with the “Mystery Girl” album. Inevitably the song found its way to Lauper who recorded it for her “A Night To Remember” album and released it as the lead single which became a Top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

The video has Cyndi in a number of different looks starting with Madonna circa “Who’s That Girl” before moving onto a cross between Cruella de Vil and Gwen Stefani. By the time she’s just naked with only movie projections to cover her modesty all bets are off.

A few years later, and after his death, Roy Orbison’s version finally surfaced and was given a commercial release as part of the posthumous “King of Hearts” album which was a collection of remastered demos of songs left over from the “Mystery Girl” album. “I Drove All Night” was released as a single from the album and matched Lauper’s chart performance by peaking at No 7.

Which version did I prefer? Probably Orbison’s although it wasn’t my favourite song by either artist by a long way.

Enjoying the most successful year of their career are Fuzzbox who have gone and gotten themselves another bona fide chart hit in “Pink Sunshine”. The follow up to “International Rescue”, this was more of the same in that it was exuberantly silly with a killer chorus hook.

Showing their musical versatility, keyboardist Magz is on guitar for this one thereby giving evidence to the claim that they are the UK’s most successful instrument-playing-all-female band. Not sure if that clam has ever been substantiated but what is certainly true is that they were on the now legendary NME C86 cassette compilation which writer and broadcaster Andrew Collins has described as “the most indie thing to have ever existed” so there was more to them than just lead singer Vickie Perks and her provocative midriff.

For a short while Fuzzbox (or their label’s marketing department at least) seemed to have struck upon a winning formula and were here to stay. Sadly there was only one more Top 40 it after this and the band spilt in 1990 due to that old chestnut ‘musical differences’. They reformed a couple of times and have been a going concern again since 2015. Tragically, founding member Jo Dunne died of cancer in 2012.

Top 10

10. Madonna – “Express Yourself”

9. Bobby Brown – “Every Little Step”

8. Edelweiss – “Bring Me Edelweiss”

7. Donna Summer – “I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt”

6. London Boys – “Requiem”

5. Neneh Cherry – “Manchild”

4. Kylie Minogue – “Hand On Your Heart”

3. Lynne Hamilton – “On The Inside”

2. Natalie Cole – “Miss You Like Crazy”

1. The Christians, Holly Johnson, Paul McCartney and Gerry Marsden – “Ferry Cross The Mersey”: The football season has been and gone but the aftermath of the Hillsborough tragedy is still brutally fresh in the conscience of the nation so “Ferry Cross The Mersey” retains its place at the top of the charts.

Twenty three years on from this, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson and Gerry Marsden alongside a huge amount of other artists including Robbie Williams, Melanie C and Paul Heaton (all organised by Peter Hooton of The Farm) released a version of “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” by The Hollies to raise money for the various charities associated with the Hillsborough tragedy. It would go on to be the Xmas No 1 of 2012 beating that year’s X Factor winner to the coveted title. For once, all was correct and aligned in the world of pop.

The play out video is “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses. This was one of those unusual cases of a single being re-released despite having been an authentic Top 40 hit already. It was a No 24 hit in the UK when originally released in September of the previous year but was given a second commercial release after the success of “Paradise City”. There are myriad examples of songs being hits the second time around following a re-release after flopping initially but a single being re-released despite having already been a hit just 9 months earlier? I’m saying that there are much fewer examples of that.

There seem to be two videos for the song which are essentially the same depicting the the band rehearsing but one version is filmed entirely in grainy black and white whilst the edit that TOTP show is this one which includes colour shots.

“Sweet Child O’ Mine” (the ’89 re-release) peaked at No 6 in the UK. It had already been a No 1 in the US on its original ’88 release.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I Buy it?

1

 Sinitta Right Back Where We Started From Of course not

2

 Natalie Cole Miss You Like Crazy Nope

3

 Madonna Express Yourself No but my wife had the album

4

 Double Trouble and the Rebel MC Just Keep Rockin’ Nah

5

 W.A.S.P. The Real Me And no

6

 Neneh Cherry Manchild See three above

7

 Cyndi Lauper I Drove All Night I did not

8

 Fuzzbox Pink Sunshine No but I easily could have

9

 The Christians, Holly Johnson, Paul McCartney and Gerry Marsden Ferry Cross The Mersey Yes! Finally a single that I bought!

10

 Guns N’ Roses Sweet Child O’ Mine No but I have the album somewhere I think

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/m000gp1d/top-of-the-pops-01061989

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?

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http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/05/may-31-june-13-1989.html

 

TOTP 30 MAR 1989

Posted on by 80stastic

The relentless BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule continues a pace and we find ourselves already a quarter through 1989 with this episode. It’s bloody brutal especially when you have committed to reviewing each one. There’s no time for a ponderous intro though, let’s get to it.

Tonight’s presenters are old hands at this game and pretty big names at the time in Gary Davies and Bruno Brookes. Who had the biggest profile? I’m not sure and  I haven’t worked it out but I’m guessing that nobody hosted the show more than Davies during the 80s if that is any measure. Who else was on so regularly?

Well, bizarrely, one of tonight’s opening act has some previous in that field as it’s ex Radio 1 DJ and some time TOTP host Pat Sharp as one half of the singing DJ duo Pat and Mick. Sharp had long since left the nation’s favourite radio station by this point and was happily ensconced at Capital FM where he teamed up with colleague Mick Brown (and yes I had to look up his surname) for a series of charity records in aid of the ‘Help A London Child’ appeal. If Bruno was ever so slightly overshadowed by Davies (and not just in the height stakes) then Mick Brown was totally eclipsed by Pat Sharp. Mick doesn’t even seem to have his own Wikipedia page! To try and combat this, Mick has distanced himself from his partner by wearing a suit and tie for this performance of “I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet” as opposed to Sharp’s casual threads. Mick, you could have walked on stage in a mankini (had they been invented then) and people would still have been talking about Pat Sharp’s hair. The ultimate indignity came when Pat and Mick appeared on the identity parade section of Never Mind The Buzzcocks but the teams were only asked to identify Mick! 

This was the second of a string of dreadful cover versions of disco type tunes in aid of charity that stretched all the way to 1993 when the pair finally saw sense and stopped (dancing).

Future No 1 incoming. “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles was up to No 13 by this point having jumped a massive 20 places after its appearance in last week’s Breakers. It’s interesting to note that this was was a real (ahem) slow burner.  Yes it had been No 1 in the US as Gary Davies advises us but if you check its UK chart performance (and I have) it took an age not just to get to No 1 but to even break into the Top 40. Check out these placings over its 20 weeks chart life from its release on 4th February 1989:

81 – 79 – 72 – 60 – 53 – 52 – 47 – 33 -13 – 5 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 7 – 11 – 27 – 27 – 38

Seven weeks before it even got into the Top 40! In a way it’s not so surprising though. Since their last UK Top 10 hit “Walk Like An Egyptian” in 1986, they’d released four further singles none of which had got higher than No 11 and, most significantly, the last of which was “In Your Room” the lead single from their latest album which had pretty much bombed at a very lowly No 35. It didn’t bode well for further releases from the album but “Eternal Flame” reversed that trend and then some.

The first of the show’s live performances now (I’m assuming Pat And Mick weren’t live!) from Roachford with “Family Man” and Andrew has brought his key-tar with him! The blues influence on his music – which is much more prevalent on this track than previous hit “Cuddly Toy” I think – was instilled in him from an early age via his gigging experience as a 14 year old in his Uncle Bill’s blues band which Andrew admits rather ostracized him for his mates who “didn’t really care for” it. The only parallel I can draw would be someone at my school back in the day declaring a special affiliation for the work of say Bucks Fizz. Immediate social exclusion and ridicule would surely have followed. I’m not talking about myself here obviously. No really I’m not!.

“Family Man” peaked at No 25.

Some Breakers now and unbelievably Brother Beyond are still having hits! This latest one is called “Can You Keep A Secret?” which Wikipedia tells me was a re-release of their initial 1988 flop. I guess it made sense for the record label to shove a track previously been deemed worthy of being a single back out into the marketplace once they had become bona fide charts stars but this one really was piss weak. Absolutely nothing of musical interest going on here at all.

Around this time, stories about the health of Bros’s Craig Logan started to appear in the papers  after he had collapsed during the band’s European tour with rumours circulating that he was too ill to carry on in the band. Bros’s press officer even arranged for a piece refuting the claims to be published in Smash Hits magazine. Would it be too cynical to think that their fierce rivals Brother Beyond saw a chance to topple Bros in the teeny bop stakes and so, in their chart absence, did a full on publicity onslaught (single release, Smash Hits covers etc) to usurp them? If there ever was a conscious decision to do so it didn’t work. Brother Beyond would be back to releasing flop singles before the year was out whilst Bros were still having hits. As for poor Ken Craig Logan, he never did make it back into the band and the next Bros release would see the band relaunched as a duo.

Now whilst I certainly remember who the next act Adeva was, I’m hard pressed to recall quite how some of her songs went. This one “Musical Freedom” is a case in point. Let me have a retrospective listen…

…hang on a minute. That line ‘sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air’ sounds very familiar but not from this Adeva track. Give me a minute, it’ll come to me…

*think, man, think*

Yes of course, it’s this one…

Also, the ‘movin’ on up’ chorus…did M People just completely rip that off then? Some definite liberties been taken here. For the record, Adeva’s “Musical Freedom” peaked at No 22.

And she’s back! It’s time for Wendy James to conquer the world! Yes, Transvision Vamp have returned to the planet pop and this time it’s serious. After finally achieving chart star status with “I Want Your Love” and a re-released “Revolution Baby” in ’88, Wendy and the lads would now crank it up a few more notches. Returning with “Baby I Don’t Care” they made a statement that if it wasn’t broke then don’t fix it. To me, it was an exact replica of “I Want Your Love” which wasn’t a bad thing at all but it didn’t show much progress in their musical direction. But so what! As Wendy says in a recent Classic Pop magazine interview:

“The zeitgeist of the end of the 80s. We were perfect and you couldn‘t have stopped us being successful. You could have put us out there in ape suits and we would have made it.“ 

Hmm. Not sure that statement rings quite true Wendy. Exhibit 1 to the contrary would be the official promo video below…

Anyway, “Baby I Don’t Care” was a huge success (No 3 and the band’s biggest ever hit) whilst the parent album “Velveteen” went to No 1 and spawned a further three hit singles. Transvision Vamp were officially big news. We’ll be seeing lots more of Wendy (if that were possible) in future TOTP repeats I’m sure.

Now then, an actual critically acclaimed artist next and let’s be fair, you didn’t get may of those to the pound on TOTP in 1989. The The first came to my attention in 1983 when I saw the cover of their “Uncertain Smile” single in the record section of WH Smiths. Its distinctive and arresting style caught my eye immediately but as I had no idea who they were I didn’t buy it. I would later hear the song on radio (presumably something like David ‘Kid’ Jensen’s early evening show) and thought it sounded great. At some point after that I purchased the “Soul Mining” album it was taken from and when I went to Sunderland Poly in ’86 it took pride of place at the front of my album collection as the coolest item in there.

Fast forward three years and The The (essentially Matt Johnson for much of that time) were back and this time with a reconvened proper band line up.  It’s hard not to notice his greatness Johnny Marr in this performance but if you peer closely through the dry ice then you can also see ex-ABC drummer David Palmer as well. “The Beat(en) Generation” was the lead single from the “Mid Bomb” album and was (at the time) only the band’s second Top 40 hit and also their highest peaking at No 18.

Years later whilst working in Our Price, I would routinely use The The as the exception to prove the rule of the shop’s filing system when training new members of staff. My filing training patter was  basically ” The system always starts at Aaliyah and ends with ZZ Top. Never look for a band whose name begins with ‘the’ under ‘the’ except for The The”. Job done!

Did Bruno Brookes just describe that The The performance as ‘fabbo’? Bloody hell! I’m pretty sure such an expression would have sounded lame even in 1989. Just to compound his lack of credibility, he then manages to get the title of the Guns N’ Roses song wrong when he announces it’s called ‘Paradise’ as opposed to its actual title of “Paradise City”. Put the following words into a sentence… job – had – one – you.

Obviously Guns N’ Roses aren’t actually in the TOTP studio so we have to make do with the video again. Taken from the “Appetite For Destruction” album, the band were pretty prolific in releasing material around this time and into the early ’90s including two albums released on the same day in the “Use Your Illusion”s albums in ’91. And then….pretty much nothing. After “The Spaghetti Incident?” covers album in ’93 no new material was released for 15 years until the infamous “Chinese Democracy” album appeared in 2008.

Back in my Our Price days, each shop received a weekly blue sheets info pack that included a forthcoming releases section. “Chinese Democracy” had a permanent place in that list for years with a perpetual release date of ‘unknown’. The band imploded in the mid 90s and haemorrhaged  four members including Slash which all added to the rumours about the album. It attained almost mythical status. A musical unicorn or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. By the time it finally appeared, all momentum was lost and sales were ultimately disappointing. I don’t think it was helped by one of the worst covers in rock history. But for now, as Bruno Brookes states (he got something right for once!), they were one of the biggest bands in America.

He’s soon back to sounding idiotic though. ‘Long hair is back!’ he trills after the Guns N’ Roses video. Have you looked in the mirror lately Bruno?! Sheesh!

Calling “International Rescue”! It’s only Fuzzbox again and since their last appearance on the show they’ve had a bit of a move around of the stage positions. Keyboard player Magz has been moved from the wings to a more prominent camera position. There’s no displacing lead singer Vickie Perks though who remains centre stage with that very revealing costume. When pressed about their sleek, racy new image and the intentions behind it (Perks told Smash Hits that she had just wanted to wear a bra top and knickers for the video!), the band infamously defended it by saying that every band in history had sold themselves with sex …’except Marillion’. Hard to disagree with that statement.

“International Rescue” peaked at No 11.

Returning goth rockers The Cult next with their new single “Fire Woman”. Not seen around TOTP parts for two whole years, they were back with not just this track but a new album (“Sonic Temple”). As well as recording that, the band seem to have spent the intervening years all growing their hair to rock god length (Bruno was right!). Predictably, the show’s production team have arranged some pyrotechnics for the band’s performance because…well… the song’s called “Fire Woman” yeah? Fire Woman, get it? Yes, we all get this most obvious of effects, There’s links from The Cult to two other acts on this particular broadcast. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the first…

The second is that Guns N’ Roses opened for The Cult on their North America tour of 1987. Yep, that’s right. Axl, Slash etc opened for The Cult. Not the other way round.

For me, “Fire Woman” wasn’t breaking any new ground although I liked it enough. Their next single “Edie (Ciao Baby)” was infinitely better for me and one of their best tunes though. Just one more thing, their drummer looks like he could have been in  Spinal Tap. All those pyrotechnics must have been making him feel very nervous!

Top 10

10. Kon Kan – “I Beg Your Pardon”

9. Bananarama with Lalaneeneenoonoo – “Help”

8. The Reynolds Girls – “I’d Rather Jack”

7. Gloria Estefan – “Can’t Stay Away From You”

6. Guns N’ Roses – “Paradise City”

5. Soul II Soul – “Keep On Movin”

4. Paula Abdul – “Straight Up”

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

2. Jason Donovan – Too Many Broken Hearts”

1. Madonna – “Like A Prayer”: So much has been written about Madonna over the years (even her Wikipedia entries are enormous) that it’s hard to know what else can be said about her. I’ve talked about the video, the controversy, the song…what else is there?

Its legacy! Of course! First off its lasting popularity. In the NME‘s “The Greatest Pop Songs In History” list in 2011, “Like A Prayer” came in at No 3. In 2003, Q Magazine asked Madonna fans to vote for their “Top 20 Madonna singles of all-time”. In this poll, the track did even better coming in at No 1. Polls are two a penny though. Look at the Smash Hits end of year polls when the likes of Boy George could be voted as both the best and worst singer in the world (ever!). For a true perspective on the impact of the song how about this? In 1999, The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance held a  seminar on the different implications and metaphors present in the song! I can’t imagine such a scholarly study of “Holiday”. And what about this for evidence of the song’s everlasting appeal…

I think “Like A Prayer” has at least one more week at No 1 so I’m going to have to think of something else to say about if for the next post.

Hands up – who thought this was New Order the first time they heard it?  It was of course Kon Kan, a Canadian synth duo (bet they knew Men Without Hats then) who took the late 80s craze for sampling and instead of using it to create yet another lazy house music track, came up with a shimmering synth pop gem. ” I Beg Your Pardon” relied heavily on the source material that was country singer Lynn Anderson’s 1970 hit “Rose Garden” (which I’m pretty sure my Dad had bought back in the day) but tied it to a stomping electronic back beat and some Bernard Sumner style deadpan vocals. The result was pretty arresting the first time I heard it. I still think it stands up today actually. 

The single was a big hit all across Europe (No 5 in the UK) and also a sizeable success in the US (No 15). Around, a pretty credible entry into the cannon of one hit wonders I would say. 

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I buy it?

1

 Pat And Mick I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet Do you have to ask?

2

 The Bangles Eternal Flame It must be on their Best Of CD that I have

3

 Roachford Family Man No

4

 Brother Beyond Can You Keep A Secret? Jeez no!

5

 Adeva Musical Freedom Nah

6

 Transvision Vamp Baby I Don’t Care It’s on their collection CD that I own

7

 The The The Beat(en) Generation Apparently not

8

 Guns N’ Roses Paradise City Not the single but I think I have the album somewhere

9

 Fuzzbox International Rescue Liked it but didn’t buy it

10

 The Cult Fire Woman Think its on their Pure Cult album that I have

11

 Madonna Like A Prayer No but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD

12

 Kon Kan I Beg Your Pardon Why didn’t I buy this?!

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/m000fjbr/top-of-the-pops-30031989

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?

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http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/03/march-22-april-4-1989.html

TOTP 16 MAR 1989

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re back to the usual format after last weeks Comic Relief special and it’s another outing for the Radio 1 Breakfast Show team of Simon Mayo, Sybil Ruscoe and Rod McKenzie as joint presenters.

First on tonight are New Order whom we find in the middle of their balearic period. Latest single “Round And Round” was not an unlikely cover of the Spandau Ballet track but was taken from their “Technique” album and is supposedly written about the band’s increasingly fragile relationship with Factory Records owner Tony Wilson. Indeed, the band didn’t even want “Round And Round” released as a single; they preferred the track “Vanishing Point” but were overruled by Wilson.

In this performance, we see lots shots of the studio audience which, as mentioned in a previous post, seemed to be part of the new staging and look of the show. It was as if the TOTP producers were trying to create the impression that we were actually witnessing a concert rather than a pop music show.

This period in New Order’s history didn’t so an awful lot for me – maybe because I wasn’t likely to find myself out clubbing in Ibiza till all hours. “Round And Round” has all the New Order sonic trademarks but it just doesn’t seem to go anywhere to me.

Now I never knew this before but “World In Motion” wasn’t the first time that New Order had attempted a football themed song. No, the B-side of “Round And Round” was a song called “Best And Marsh” which was the theme tune to a Granada TV show hosted by the aforementioned Tony Wilson called Best And Marsh – The Perfect Match. The show was pretty much as it sounded with Wilson interviewing ex-footballers George Best and Rodney Marsh about their 1970s glory years. As for the track, it isn’t much kop in my opinion.

“Round And Round” peaked at No 21.

Talk about getting your money’s worth! This is the third time that the show has used the same clip of Gloria Estefan performing “Can’t Stay Away From You” in the TOTP studio. Maybe its usage was linked to the song’s length. Certainly in this version (which may well have been edited for the show) it clocks in at a just under two minutes. No wonder they showed it a few times!

“Can’t Stay Away From You” was at its No 7 peak.

Yet another song (and performer in this case) that I just can’t recall at all. Chanelle? Did she do a couple of singles with Alexander O’Neal?

*checks internet*

Nope – that was Cherrelle apparently. I can’t actually see much about Chanelle online at all. All my searches keep finding Chanelle Hayes from Big Brother who was one half of the ‘Chiggy’ couple and who also confusingly had a go at being a pop star in 2008.

The 1989 Chanelle is in the charts with “One Man” which sounds like it could easily have been a Ce Ce Peniston hit from the early 90s. Apparently it got to No 16 but it clearly passed me by.

The Breakers are back and start off with Alyson Williams and “Sleep Talk” and guess what? I don’t remember this one either! I know her name (probably because of the unusual spelling of her first name) but this track? Nada. Did she have another hit?

*checks internet again*

Yes she did with something called “I Need Your Lovin” in 1990.

*plays “I Need Your Lovin”*

OK – That one sounds familiar but “Sleep Talk”? I must have (ahem) sleep walked through it.

This next one I do remember as my wife (girlfriend in ’89) is a big Elvis Costello fan and she bought the album that “Veronica” is taken from (“Spike”) on the day of release. Now she won’t like me saying it but in my opinion, this was still a period  in his career  when Elvis wrote proper songs with discernible melodies before it all went a bit too earnest and he forgot to add a tune to his lyrics.

Around this time, there was also a big fuss made about the collaboration between Costello and Paul McCartney who co-wrote a number of tracks on the album including this lead single. In return, Elvis helped write three tracks on McCartney’s next album “Flowers In The Dirt” including his lead single “My Brave Face”. It was a symbiotic relationship that bore fruit for both parties. “Veronica” saw Elvis return to the Top 40 for the first time in three years whilst “Spike” achieved gold status sales. Meanwhile, McCartney’s album did even better going to No 1 in the charts and going platinum with sales of 300,000 units.

I quite liked this era’s material from both these musical giants. In 1994, I saw Elvis live in concert at Manchester (alongside my wife obviously) and he put on a great show I have to say.

Kim Wilde‘s purple patch that had lasted since the Summer of ’88 and included three Top 10 hits and a platinum selling album was just starting to over ripen by this point. It was probably pushing it a bit for label MCA to have released a fifth single from that album (“Close”) and therefore its peak position of No 32 shouldn’t have been a big surprise. “Love In The Natural Way” isn’t a bad pop tune with its almost euphoric chorus but it didn’t have the immediate appeal of something like “You Came” to my ears. Although probably one of Kim’s least remembered hits, it does have its own little unique place in her career as it was her last release and hit of the 80s, the decade that launched her and saw her become the biggest selling British female solo artist.

Another New Model Army single?! Weren’t they in the Breakers just the other week? Well I’ve checked and they were with the “Stupid Questions” single. Like its predecessor, this one (“Vagabonds”) was taken from the “Thunder And Consolation” album and also like its predecessor, it peaked outside the Top 30 (No 37 if you’re counting). In a case of remarkable consistency , the album would spawn one further single release and guess what? That did exactly the same chart wise peaking at No 37 as well (I did say exactly).

As with “Stupid Questions”, I don’t recall “Vagabonds” at all and whilst not really something I would have been listening to back then, it sounds pretty good to me now. I may have mentioned this before but I have a friend who met her husband via a New Model Army fan forum. I’ve also got a friend who met their partner via a shared disliking of ex Man Utd midfielder Paul Scholes. However, I don’t know anybody who loves New Model Army and hates Paul Scholes.

How about this for a transformation?! Not only have this next lot had a complete image overhaul but they’ve even changed their name (well shortened it anyway). I first became aware of Fuzzbox back in ’86 when they went by the name of We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Going To Use It and their single “Rules And Regulations” somehow found its way onto Radio 1’s playlists. I say somehow because it was quite an anarchic sound with its punky guitars and Poly Styrene style vocals. Then there was their image  – all day-glo coloured , gravity defying hair and DIY dress sense. They were very unlikely pop stars which may explain why they’d only breached the Top 40 once before this point with their “Love Is The Slug EP”.

Fast forward a couple of years and they looked and sounded unrecognizable in this performance to promote their new single “International Rescue”. Where were the crazy haircuts and what was with the co-ordinated outfits? Yes, I got it that it was in keeping with the Thunderbirds theme but even so. They looked so groomed and stylized. Plus, there had obviously been a deliberate decision to promote singer Vickie Perks as some sort of sex symbol, pushing her out front with a distinct amount of flesh on display. When asked in Smash Hits magazine if the rest of the group got fed up with her getting all the attention, Vickie replied “Um, well, I don’t think so. I think they prefer it” before telling the readers that the rest of them weren’t arsed about having their photos taken and anyway, she wanted to go on and do solo stuff and acting so it was good practice for her. Perhaps an insight here into why the group never lasted.

As for their new sound, it was so polished compared to the rough and readiness of their earlier material. It seemed liked a very conscious decision to finally make them into the proper charts stars that their newly signed to major record label WEA  clearly believed that they could be. It all seemed to be panning out swimmingly as well. “International Rescue” missed the Top 10 by just one place and follow up single “Pink Sunshine” went Top 20 as well. One further chart hit and a Top 5 album (“Big Bang!”) were achieved before their time in the (possibly pink) sunshine was over.

Watching this performance back, whilst Vicky seems to have taken to her new role effortlessly, the rest of the band seem a bit bemused by it all and unsure of what they should be doing to me. Eventually though they relax a bit and certainly drummer Tina O’Neill has got her countdown cameo down to a tee.

I liked this new version of the band and thought they probably should have got even more success than they did. The new music was definitely poppier but with an edge to it as well. Sybil Ruscoe describes the band at the song’s end as being “Possibly the best thing to come out of Birmingham since Aston Villa I think”. One in the eye for all Birmingham City fans there then.

After a year’s sabbatical throughout the whole of 1988, Madonna finally re-emerged and brought a shitload of controversy with her. In a previous post I mentioned that the Pepsi sanitized commercial to promote her comeback single “Like A Prayer” had aired around the world one day before the release of the official promo for the track on MTV. The multinational corporation had been pleased with the viewer response and all boded well for their commercial tie in with Madge. Fast forward 24 hours and they found themselves caught up in a worldwide backlash against the singer and were forced to drop their entire association with her. Madonna was accused of blasphemy and looking to sell her music on the back of it. Even the Pope got involved and urged fans to boycott her shows scheduled for Italy.

I’m not sure where I was when I first saw the “Like A  Prayer” video (it may have been on this very episode of TOTP) but whenever and however the circumstances, the video itself was unforgettable. That’s not to say it was good but the imagery used in it and the controversy it evoked have stayed with me these past 30 odd years.

Watching it back from that temporal distance, it strikes me as what my old Poly friend John would have described as a ‘confused mess of a film’. Quite what was it trying to say? There’s so much going on in the video that it’s hard to process it all. You’ve got all the religious imagery, racial tension and stereotyping themes and of course possibly the most controversial element of all, the burning crosses.

The song – yes there was an actual song in among all this which tends to get overlooked – indeed it was Madonna’s first new material in nearly three years so should have been a big enough deal anyway – would quickly go to No 1 here and in the US so there’ll be ample more opportunity to dissect it all but for now I’ll let the people at Everything Wrong With give their take on the video…

‘A happy face, a thumpin’ bass, for a lovin’ race!’ Yes! It’s Soul II Soul time. At the forefront of the UK soul funk scene, the band would leave a legacy of ground breaking work that it still revered to this day. I say band but they were more of a collective really with Jazzie B and Caron Wheeler its two most recognizable faces. “Keep On Movin” was actually their second single (though the first I had ever heard) and took them direct into the mainstream with a Top 5 hit. Debut album “Club Classics Vol. One” would become a No 1 seller whilst also achieving critical plaudits as well. Indeed , in 2004 Q Magazine voted the album No 28 in its list of the 50 Greatest British Albums Ever.

I wasn’t a big Soul II Soul fan though I have to admit. I quite liked follow up single and No 1 hit “Back To Life” but I would be lying if I said I was really taken by them. Just being honest.

Top 10

10. Living In A Box – “Blow The House Down”

9. S’Xpress – “Hey Music Lover”

8. Michael Ball – “Love Changes Everything”

7. Gloria Estefan – “Can’t Stay Away From You”

6. Paula Abdul – “Straight Up”

5. Sam Brown – “Stop!”

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

3. Bananarama and Lalaneeneenoonoo – “Help”

2. Madonna – “Like A Prayer”

1. Jason Donovan – “Too Many Broken Hearts”: Right, I’ve double checked the facts with my friend  Robin and his/my Jason Donovan story is cleared for take off. So, I’ll begin…

Robin worked for the BBC for many years and in that time came to know the CBBC presenter Andi Peters. When Peters left the BBC to take charge of music and youth programming at LWT, one of the shows that he made in that role was called The Noise which aired in the Autumn of 1996 for 12 episodes in the slot just before ITV’s The Chart Show. The Noise was a pop music show featuring live in-studio performances, interviews and features and Peters invited my mate Robin to help out on the show behind the scenes.

On one show, Robin happened to walk past the green room and saw a guy looking very perplexed at the coffee machine, tapping the sides of it, frustratingly pushing buttons etc. Actually managing to get some coffee out of it seemed beyond him. Robin went over to help him and it turned out that the confused individual was in fact Jason Donovan who had been booked as a guest on the show. Jason was not in the best of states as he’s been out on a ‘bit of a bender’ the night before* and had turned up at the LWT south bank studios with sick still in his beard. Robin decided the best course of action was to escort Donovan to make up where they de-fooded his stubble and made him presentable for national TV. Apparently it wasn’t his finest TV appearance – he couldn’t remember the names of any of his hit singles and didn’t realize when the live broadcast had actually finished. Oh dear.

*On a serious note, Donovan admitted to having had a drug habit in the mid to late 90s but has been drug free since the birth of his first child in 2000. 

Fortunately for Jason, there doesn’t seem to be any footage of his appearance available on the internet. Fortunately for Robin, neither is there any footage of him doing the conga with The Spice Girls who also appeared on a later show. Indeed, all I can find is the show’s title sequence below:

Including his duet with Kylie, Jason would notch up four No 1 singles during his pop career whilst his debut album “Ten Good Reasons” was the biggest selling LP of 1989.

For me, “Paradise City” was the point where Guns N’ Roses really became a big deal in the UK. They had already long since achieved this status in the US but over here, we had a been a bit slower on the uptake. Previous singles “Sweet Child O’Mine ” and “Welcome To The Jungle” had both been Top 40 hits but both had only managed a peak of No 24 (with the latter song needing to take two attempts to achieve even that). “Paradise City” changed all of that as it went Top 10 (No 6 to be exact). Supposedly Slash’s favourite Guns N’ Roses song, it would kick start a run of 13 UK Top 20 hits (including 11 Top 10 and 4 Top 5).

Having been previously impervious to the band, I have a memory of seeing the video on ITV’s Chart Show and thinking ‘OK, I get it now. These guys are in it for the long haul’. I think it was the double time finale to the track where it all goes a bit apeshit that finally convinced me.

In the aftermath of the single’s success, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was duly re-released in the UK and it matched the success of “Paradise City” by also peaking at No 6. Guns N’ Roses were here to stay …until they weren’t but that’s a whole other blog in itself.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I buy it?

1

 New Order Round And Round Nope

2

 Gloria Estefan Can’t Stay Away From You But I could stay away from you Gloria – no

3

 Chanelle One Man Never heard of it

4

 Alyson Williams Sleep Talk Yawn – no

5

 Elvis Costello Veronica No but my wife had the album

6

 Kim Wilde Love In The Natural Way Nah

7

 New Model Army Vagabonds No

8

 Fuzzbox International Rescue Don’t think I did

9

 Madonna Like A Prayer No but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD

10

 Soul II Soul Keep On Movin’ That would be another no

11

 Jason Donovan Too Many Broken Hearts No but my younger sister had his album

12

 Guns N’ Roses Paradise City Not the single but I think I had the album

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000f8x5/top-of-the-pops-16031989

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?

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http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/03/march-8-21-1989.html

 

TOTP 03 NOV 1988

Posted on by 80stastic

Ooh we’re getting close to that rarely glimpsed moment in the world of TOTP repeats where we are in sync! Twice a year the month in which the show originally aired in the 80s correlates with the month in the present day when they are being shown on BBC4. Here we are then just about to celebrate Bonfire night back in 1988 so only about 3 weeks out from being in total synchronisation.

Definitely not in total synchronisation though are presenters Nicky Campbell and Mark ‘yawn’ Goodier. There is a terrible lack of chemistry between the misfiring pair. To be fair to Campbell he is having to work with the personality vacuum that is Goodier but he is overcompensating rather in my book. Whoever paired these two together must have had a dressing down from their BBC bosses afterwards. Definitely not dressing down is Goodier – what the fuck is that outfit he’s wearing? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

The first act on tonight are Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine with  “1-2-3”. Gloria was entering her imperial phase about this time having made a major breakthrough in the UK with syrupy ballad “Anything For You”. To ensure she wasn’t known as a one trick pony, she would alternate single releases between the big love songs and a Latin sounding dance track. “1-2-3” was definitely in the latter category. A No 3 hit in the US, it also made the Top 10 in the UK. Here’s the thing though – why is it called “1-2-3” when the lyrics of the chorus are ‘1-2-3-4 come on baby say you love me’? Why isn’t it called “1-2-3-4”?

Here’s Robert Palmer with “She Makes My Day”. I have been advised by the good folk on Facebook that the very best Palmer track is “Johnny And Mary” (as any fool knows one person said). Well, I’m not going to dispute that but in terms of his best known songs, surely this one deserves a shout? It’s his equal second highest charting hit after “Addicted To Love” in the UK and must be one of his most played songs on the radio? No? OK – well I stand corrected. In my defence, Record Collector magazine described it as ‘arguably the sweetest few minutes in his entire catalogue’. Seems reasonable to me.

Tanita Tikaram‘s last ever Uk Top 40 hit was the No 22 placing “Twist In My Sobriety”. I don’t think may of us would have predicted this eventuality just two single releases into her career. She was one of the breakout stars of 1988 with great things predicted for her so why didn’t she achieve more commercial success? Was the choice of “Twist In My Sobriety” as a second single a fatal decision designating her with the profile of a miserable, angst ridden teenager?* Was she the female Morrissey?

Subsequent single releases from her debut album “Ancient Heart” were a wistful ballad (“Cathedral Song”) and an upbeat retread of “Good Tradition” (“World Outside Your Window”). Had the record label gone with either of those instead of “Twist In My Sobriety” maybe things would have been different. For her part, Tanita is still recording and releasing new material with her last album appearing in 2016 so if longevity means anything, she did alright.

*to be fair she was exactly that

Just a couple of Breakers this week but back in their mid programme slot after last week’s earlier appearance. First up is a re-release of “Let’s Stick Together” by Bryan Ferry. This was originally a No 4 hit for Ferry back in 1976 so why was it back in the charts again? It was to promote a compilation album called “The Ultimate Collection” bringing together some of Ferry’s and Roxy Music’s best known tunes which went Top 10 and triple platinum in the UK.

Although officially entitled “Let’s Stick Together 88”, the video to promote the re-release is clearly the original ’76 video looking at the state of Ferry’s pencil moustache and the clobber he has on.

A weird one next. “First Time” by Robin Beck started off life as a soundtrack to a coca-cola advert that somehow made it all the way to No 1 in the UK. I’m fairly certain that nobody in the UK had the faintest clue who Robin Beck was prior to this and the fact that she never had any further hits over here gives her the status of the ultimate one hit wonder – came from nowhere, one hit that was No 1 then nothing ever again. That wasn’t quite the case in the rest of Europe where she had already had a hit with “Save Up All Your Tears” (which would make its way onto a Cher album in the early 90s) but in the UK? She was a nobody.

The song itself was pretty standard power ballad fare but the extra promotion afforded it by the cola advert turned the heads of many a punter who suddenly felt like their life was incomplete unless they owned “First Time”…and possibly a coke as well.

I was pretty damning of “Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi” by Kylie Minogue the last time it was on the show. Have I changed my opinion? Have I bollocks! It’s a terrible record.

In his intro, Mark Goodier can’t understand how the video was made. Why? I can only assume it’s because Kylie appears in full technicolor against a completely black and white backdrop which includes the bloke she is dancing with. Look, I don’t assume to understand the technological boundaries of what was possible in 1988 (I even skipped my IT classes on my degree course because they scared the shit out of me) but was it such a stretch to imagine this was possible Goodier?

As for the song itself, I’ve made my feelings absolutely clear but don’t just go with my opinion – hiddenunderheadphones.com did a list of Kylie’s 50 best tunes and “Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi” doesn’t make the cut. Q.E.D.

Here come Yazz with her second biggest hit ever “Stand Up For Your Love Rights”. Watching this back, and this has never occurred to me before, doesn’t it have a feel of “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” by Eurythmics? Yes I think it does. It also incorporates that spiralling backwards sound effect that Pet Shop Boys employed on “Left To My Own Devices”. Well it sound like it does to me at least.

Quite why Yazz didn’t sustain as a credible chart act past this peak, I’m not really sure. Maybe the world just moved on. You can’t, for example,  see her fitting into a pop world dominated by ‘Madchester” just two short years after this. Was it just a case of fine margins? Had Enya not denied her a second consecutive No1 record, would things have been different? Would an undeniable wave of momentum crushed us all into ensuring that Yazz would be with us for years to come? We shall never know.

The Top 10:

10. Erasure – “A Little Respect”

9. Wee Papa Girl Rappers – “Wee Rule”

8. Robert Palmer – “She Makes My Day”

7. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman – “We Call It Acieed!”

6. Whitney Houston – “One Moment In Time”

5. Art of Noise and Tom Jones – “Kiss”

4. Yazz – “StandUp For Your Love Rights”

3. Milli Vanilli – “Girl You Know It’s True”

2. Kylie Minogue – “Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi”

1. Enya – “Orinoco Flow”: Nothing to do with The Wombles of course, ‘Orinoco’ was the name of the recording studio where the track was laid down. The stratospheric success of the song had a massive knock on effect for parent album “Watermark”. In a 2008 Guardian interview, the then chairman of Warner Music Rob Dickins said:

‘In the week of release, Tower Records phoned up to say that when they played the album in the shop they sold 45 copies—almost everyone in the shop had bought the record’

That tale reminded me of the great scene Beta Band scene in High Fidelity…

Famously reclusive, even Enya’s official Twitter feed only contains 53 tweets (the last of those coming in 2016) and none of them of a personal nature (presumably the account is run by her management company).

“Welcome to The Jungle” is not just one of Guns ‘N’ Roses most well known songs but in 2009, VH1 voted it the the greatest hard rock song of all time! The second single off their “Appetite For Destruction” album, it took a re-release to make it a bona fide hit in the UK where it (Axl) rose to No 24. 

I always felt it was much more of a frenzied rock wig out than its predecessor single “Sweet Child o’Mine” which I much preferred. It was completely raw sounding and a full on assault of your senses  – very in your face. Supposedly the immortal line “You know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby; you’re gonna die!” came from a real life encounter between a young and very green Rose and a homeless man a she got off the bus arriving into New York. I had a slightly less intimidating encounter with someone on the streets of the Big Apple once when a guy said to me and my friend Robin “Wiener schnitzel? What’s a God damned Wiener schnitzel?”. Robin’s unhelpful reply was “Dunno mate”.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I Buy it?

1

 Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine 1-2-3 Nah

2

 Robert Palmer She Makes My Day No but it’s on my Collection CD of his

3

 Tanita Tikaram Twist In My Sobriety Intriguing but not enough to buy it

4

 Bryan Ferry Let’s Stick Together Not the single but it’s on my compilation LP Street Life

5

 Robin Beck First Time And the last time – no

6

 Kylie Minogue Je Ne Sais Pourquoi Hell no

7

 Yazz Stand Up For Your Love Rights Negative

8

 Enya Orinoco Flow No

9

 Guns ‘N’ Roses Welcome To The Jungle Sure I’ve got it on something

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/m000bhfp/top-of-the-pops-03111988

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?

 

32134470105_fc38af48c6_n

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2018/11/november-2-15-1988.html

TOTP 01 SEP 1988

Posted on by 80stastic

Well here was an exciting TOTP development – a simultaneous stereo broadcast of the show on Radio 1! Yeah! Yeah…big deal. I don’t recall anything about this event but the BBC saw fit to get Mr Tedious (Mark Goodier) and Mr Twat (Steve Wright) to promote it by co-hosting the very first simulcast. Check out their nasty matching FM jackets that look like the wardrobe department knocked them up whilst having a fag break. Why does Goodier just keep repeating the frequencies after Wright has announced them and they are displayed at the bottom of the screen anyway?

Right – sod those two prats and on with the music. Returning after a small hiatus time wise (it was only 9 months since their last single release Goodier – hardly a ‘long time’) but a significant one are Level 42 with “Heaven In My Hands”. Significant how? Well, this was the band’s first new material since the brothers Phil and Boon Gould had departed the ranks. Mark King and Mike Lindup are still there but the rest of the group’s roll call features a load of new names including one Steve Sidwell on trumpet. Surely not the same Steve Sidwell that played for Reading, Chelsea and Fulham? I’m presuming not.

As for the music, well it was hardly a massively different direction for the band despite the influx of new contributors but I always quite liked it. It rattles along at a furious BPM compared to some of their more mid tempo numbers like “Lessons In Love” and “Running In The Family” and was certainly catchy enough  to generate plenty of national daytime airplay. The single reached a respectable No 12 placing and parent album “Staring At The Sun” reached No 2 so it seemed to be business as usual despite the loss of the Gould siblings. Tragedy was lurking around the corner though. One of the replacement musicians Alan Murphy would die of AIDS related pneumonia just over a year on from this performance which would cause the band to take a much longer hiatus and re-think how they wanted to proceed. “Heaven In My Hands” would be their final Top 20 hit of the decade.

Not “My Love” by Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder again! Who was buying this garbage?! Oh God it’s so worthy and sickening.

Actually’ is Julio still alive?

*checks Wikipedia*

He is and he’s now 76. I thought he would be much older than that. So that means…

*does some mental arithmetic*

…he was 45 when he made this record. That’s six years younger than I am now and he looks ancient in this video! The very definition of having had a hard paper round! To be fair, he had been in a serious car crash when he was 19 that ruined his potential professional football career and left him bed -ridden for two tears so maybe I’m being ever so slightly harsh.

Womack and Womack are in town to perform “Teardrops” and Linda does look pretty cool here I have to say….until she gets all lovey dovey with husband Cecil in the instrumental break. Now I’ve never been a massive fan of this song (I know – heresy) but compared to some of the cover versions out there it is heavenly. Check this lot out…

That was German pop quartet No Angels and it is nasty, nasty, nasty. Womack and Womack’s version of “Teardrops” would be their biggest ever hit peaking at No 3 in the UK and was a No 1 record in Belgium, New Zealand and The Netherlands.

This week’s Breakers include a stone cold classic rock track but it’s interesting to remember that it didn’t immediately have that status on its initial release. Guns ‘N’ Roses hadn’t hit the ground running and their first two single releases had not been hits. Debut album “Appetite For Destruction” had been released the year before to little interest but third single “Sweet Child O’ Mine” changed everything. Whilst touring as support for Aerosmith, MTV picked up the video for the track and it got heavy rotation on their playlists. By the end of the tour, Guns ‘N’ Roses had a bigger profile than the main act. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” went to No 1 in the States and the album became a huge seller having shifted 30 million units worldwide to date. The band, in short, became an institution albeit not one built on solid foundations.

And yet in the UK, we still weren’t sure to begin with. On its initial release in 1988, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” peaked at No 24 and it wasn’t until “Paradise City” made the Top 10 over here the following year that we caught up with all the fuss. In the wake of that hit, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was re-released and followed its predecessor into the Top 10.

I must admit to not picking up on the band first time around and it was that second wave in ’89 when I really became aware of them. Fast forward three years and I’m working in Our Price Manchester when the band came to town for a gig as part of the  ‘Use Your Illusion’ tour at Maine Road (I think). Internal band troubles were starting to surface by now and a reputation for being unreliable and coming on stage very late had been forged. Fans were already in the venue and had bought all their T-shirts and merchandise when the gig was called off due to a problem with Axl Rose’s voice. With nothing else to do, the hoards of fans streamed into Manchester centre whereupon just about every other person there that day had a Guns ‘N’ Roses T-shirt on. We were very busy in the shop to say the least.

At some point around now in the annals of music history it came to pass that Miami Sound Machine would henceforth be known as Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine (and ultimately just Gloria Estefan). For me, I think this was the first time I became aware of that change with the release of “Anything For You”. The song also marked a change in musical direction being a huge, sleekly produced ballad that was a million miles away from their uptempo Latin tinged numbers like “Dr. Beat” and “Bad Boy”. The song was so popular (a US No 1 and UK No 10) that they even re-named its parent album from “Let Loose” to “Anything For You” which I wasn’t aware of until now. Looking back, this seemed to be a watershed moment for Estefan when she finally went completely global and indeed mainstream in her appeal breaking previously impervious territories like the UK which had always been lukewarm in its reception of her releases. From this point on in it was pretty much hit after hit for her over here. It also seemed to start a release schedule of alternating a huge ballad with an uptempo dance number. Get ready for “1-2-3” in the coming weeks.

During my Our Price years, I worked with a guy called Justin in Manchester in the early 90s who loved Yello and who I managed to impress by being able to name a Yello song other than “The Race”. That song was their 1983 ever so nearly a hit single “I Love You” and from that moment on me and Juzzer got on just fine. I also knew their song “Oh Yeah” from its use in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Secret Of My Success but I guess “The Race” is possibly their best known song which as well as being their biggest UK hit (No 7) has also been used as the soundtrack to a whole catalogue of chase / race montages over the years.

It’s hard not to like the eccentricity of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank who always seemed like a Swiss version of Sparks to me. The samples used heavily in their electronic sound are all originals that Blank has re-engineered and he now has a library of over 100,000 named and categorised sounds. The duo are still together and recording music with their last studio album being released as recently as 2016.

Another case of ‘you had one job’ next as Mark Goodier claims in his intro to A-ha that “Touchy” is the second hit from their current album  – it is in fact the third after “Stay On These Roads” and “The Blood That Moves The Body”. Didn’t these people do any research?! It’s not hard is it especially for a national disc jockey who probably played all of these songs on his show to boot.

Anyway….”Touchy” seemed to me like a return to the out and out pop sound of “Take On Me”. With that simple, annoying yet effective chorus, it seemed to be written as a sure fire radio friendly little ditty that would ensure a chart hit. It was almost brutal in its cynicism. Chuck out an infernally catchy pop tune and the masses won’t be able to resist seemed to be the plan and I found it more than a little disappointing  after the sweeping grandeur of the album title track. Maybe they were more than aware of the threat posed to their pop idol status by the likes of Bros and (heaven help us) Brother Beyond that drove them to release such annoying drivel – ‘we are still here and can do pure pop songs as well’ seemed to be the statement being made with this release.

This performance sees Morten in dress down Friday mode and all three members gathered around the same microphone for some ‘yeah yeah’ backing vocals before Morten links them all with an arms around the shoulders in an uncharacteristic show of togetherness. Despite none of them being related to each other, Steve Wright makes a case at the song’s end that they are the Norwegian Bee Gees. How exactly?

“Touchy” did the job is said it would on the tin by peaking at No 10.

Here come Bomb The Bass next and now that hey have added a proper vocalist for their hit “Don’t Make Me Wait”, they are starting to resemble S’Express more and more. And if you’re thinking said vocalist looks familiar, here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why…

I always get “Don’t Make Me Wait” confused with Paul Hardcastle’s ‘Don’t Waste My Time”. Why? Well…

  • The title is pretty similar
  • Both acts had a sample heavy debut hit (“Beat Dis” and “19”)
  • Both followed it up with a track that employed a black female singer to the fore (Mackintosh and Carol Kenyon)

Top 10:

10. Fairground Attraction – “Find My Love”

9. Phil Collins – “A Groovy Kind Of Love”

8. B.V.S.M.P. – “I Need You”

7. Womack and Womack – “Teardrops”

6. Bomb The Bass – “Don’t Make Me Wait”

5. Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder – “My Love”

4. Breathe – “Hands To Heaven”

3. Kylie Minogue – “The Loco-motion”

2. Brother Beyond – “The Harder I Try”

1. Yazz and the Plastic Population – “The Only Way Is Up”: A fifth and final week at No 1 for Yazz and I’ve very little left to say about it. When short on inspiration, I can always turn to @ TOTPFacts. Don’t let me down now….

Perfect! God it sounds nothing like Yazz’s version…

After ’85’s solo “No Jacket Required” and ’86’s Genesis album “Invisible Touch”, Phil Collins had been pretty much ubiquitous for the mid part of the decade but he kind of disappeared for 18 months or so before reappearing with a re-release of “In The Air Tonight” and his final ever No 1 record “A Groovy Kind Of Love”. Originally recorded by The Mindbenders some 22 years earlier when it had been a No 2 hit in the UK and the US, Phil’s version went one better in both territories and was of course part of the soundtrack for his movie project Buster about the great train robbery of ’63. The movie received mixed reviews although Collins himself emerged from it with his acting chops intact.

The soundtrack was probably more successful providing Collins with a further Top 10 hit in “Two Hearts” and a writing credit for “Loco in Acapulco” which The Four Tops took to No 7. Why did the public go for this cover version in such a big way? Maybe the promotional vehicle of the film helped plus there seemed to be an appetite for classic songs from the 60s at that time. Add to that the popularity of Collins mixed with a familiar tune (albeit done in a much more wistful style) and there you have it.

Order of appearance Artist Song Did I Buy it?

1

 Level 42 Heaven In My Hands No but it was on my wife’s Now 13 cassette

2

 Julio Iglesias / Stevie Wonder My Love As if!

3

 Womack and Womack Teardrops Not really my thing – no

4

 Guns ‘N’ Roses Sweet Child O’ Mine Not the single but I think I have the album somewhere

5

 Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine Anything For You Nah

6

 Yello The Race Don’t think so

7

 A-ha Touchy No but it’s on my Greatest Hits CD of theirs I believe

8

 Bomb The Bass Don’t Make Me Wait / Megablast No

9

 Yazz And The Plastic Population The Only Way Is Up See Level 42 above

10

 Phil Collins A Groovy Kind Of Love Nope

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 as I can’t find the full programme on YouTube.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0009m8d/top-of-the-pops-01091988

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?

31985474302_b4eff0f2e4_n

 

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2018/08/august-24-september-6-1988.html