Living In A Box

TOTP 26 OCT 1989

Posted on June 24, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

“Street Tuff” peaked at No 3.

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

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

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

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

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

Agreed Roger, agreed.

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

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

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

*checks internet*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10

10. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”

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

8. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”

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

6. Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”

5. Black Box – “Ride On Time”

4. Belinda Carlisle – “Leave A Light On”

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

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

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

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

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

Nigel Lawson: Hold My Beer…

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

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

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Whole Show

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

Some bed time reading?

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

TOTP 12 OCT 1989

Posted on June 17, 2020 by 80stastic

It’s mid October 1989 and what a different place the world is. On the very day this TOTP was broadcast, Manchester United were spared the fate of having football juggling, UFO spotting Michael Knighton as their owner after he drops his bid to buy the club. The day before, the England football team had qualified for the following year’s World Cup after a 0-0 draw in Poland without which result we would not have had Italia ’90, Gazzamania and the start of our dark relationship with penalties. I was surprised to see that after TOTP, In Sickness And In Health featuring the character of Alf Garnett was still on our TV screens and then I looked at the news reports about the trouble in London this weekend…maybe the world isn’t such a different place after all.

I’d have to say looking at the acts featured tonight, it’s not a vintage show by any means. Oh well, once more unto the breach, dear friends…

…where we find Chris Rea stuck in a traffic jam. Not content with his perennial festive hit “Driving Home For Christmas”, Chris showed quite how obsessed he was with writing songs about driving and cars with the release of “Road To Hell”. Or should that be “The Road to Hell (Part 2)” as this song was so epic (in its length at least) that it came in two parts. The first was the opening salvo of his album of the same name and introduced Rea’s concept of being stuck in traffic on the M25 and having an epiphany about the route his life has gone down. We get a cavalcade of sound effects including rain, windshield wipers and a series of disjointed traffic reports in different languages before he gets a visitation from his deceased mother. It’s all pretty heavy stuff I guess and when the lone slide guitar kicks in, we are left in no doubt that this isn’t going to be a chirpy three minute pop song. It reminds me a bit of “Private Investigations” by Dire Straits.

Finally Part 2 arrives which is the version released as a single and which continues to be played on the radio to this day. Once again I am reminded of Knopfler and co – something about Rea’s guitar and that piano riff. I think I was most struck when watching this at the time though by how Rea’s look had changed since we last saw him on the show. Back then, performing “On the Beach” (Summer ’88), he was clean shaven, his hair had blonde highlights and he was even sporting an ill advised pony tail (of sorts). One year later he looks much more gnarled and menacing with his dyed back barnet and facial hair bordering on the unkempt. It was all a bit much for me and I couldn’t really get onboard with it. It was so much darker than something like “Stainsby Girls” or “Let’s Dance”.

Chris would not have cared a jot about my indifference though as the single became his biggest ever hit peaking at No 10 whilst the album was an actual No 1 record, the first of his career. He followed it up with more car themed songs with next album “Auberge” (also a chart topper) which had a motif based around his Lotus Seven sports car, an illustration of which appeared on the album cover. He went one step further in 2017 by releasing an album called “Road Songs for Lovers” whose songs were inspired by seeing couples in cars whilst out driving and wondering about “people’s love stories inside cars”. Give it a rest Chris!

Presenter Gary Davies seems to have got Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers mixed up with KC And The Sunshine Band in his next intro as he advises the watching millions that the infernal rabbit’s new single is called “That’s The Way I Like It” when it is of course called “That’s What I Like”.

Obviously the shithouses behind this skid mark of project were going to rush out a follow up to “Swing The Mood'” after it had been so successful but Jeez they could have put a bit more thought into it. Sticking to the exact same cut and paste formula as the last one, they used not only some of the same artists (Chubby Checker, Little Richard) but even reused one of the same tunes in “Let’s Twist Again”. The only thing that made it slightly less stomach cramp inducing was the inclusion of the “Theme from Hawaii Five-O” by The Ventures which is a great TV theme but I really didn’t need to hear it bastardised like this.

My wife (then girlfriend) was working in a temporary job at Jackson’s bakery around this time and when she went out for a drink with some of her work colleagues, “That’s What I Like” came on the pub jukebox. Her fellow drinkers immediately put down their glasses and started doing an impression from the credits to Hawaii Five-O of the outrigger canoeists battling the surf. You know, this…

It’s hardly “Oops Upside Your Head” but it must have been quite a sight all the same! “That’s What I Like” will be No 1 imminently. You have been warned.

From Little Richard to Cliff Richard as the perennial hitmaker is in the charts again with his 102nd single release “Lean On You”. After experimenting with Stock, Aitken and Waterman with previous single ‘I Just Don’t Have The Heart” (the experiment failed to my ears at least), Cliff was back with long time collaborator Alan Tarney for this one. Tarney had been responsible for such Cliff hits as “We Don’t Talk Anymore’ and “Wired For Sound” so he was a safe bet for similar success. “Lean On You” is dreadful though. So insubstantial as to hardly be there at all, it’s all breathy vocals and a plodding back beat until Cliff cuts loose (if you could ever describe Cliff as cutting loose) in the chorus.

In this performance, he resorts to his usual swaying arm movements to bring the song to life but despite the studio audience whooping and hollering, it all seems very flat to me which possibly contributed to a lacklustre chart peak of No 17. Cliff would round off his 80s by joining forces with famous grumpy old bastard Van Morrison on “Whenever God Shines His Light”.

Staying in the studio now for Belinda Carlisle and her new single “Leave A Light On”. When I started working in the Rochdale branch of Our Price in 1992 after transferring from Manchester, the outgoing manager told me he’d been to see Belinda play live recently and had said that her band had been full of musos pulling out every rock cliche under the sun as they performed with her. I wonder if it was the guys on this show. They look like the band that undeservedly won the Battle of the Bands competition in the School Of Rock film. Were they called No Vacancy?

“Leave A Light On” peaked at No 4.

Back to Gary Davies for a chart run down and there ‘s a studio audience member to his right dressed in white shirt and tie who is the spit of Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. It obviously can’t be him as that would make Pickford well into his 40s now but could it be his Dad? Jordan was born in 1994 so it’s mathematically possible…

Anyway, back to the music and we find Milli Vanilli (so not music at all really) and their latest effort “Girl, I’m Gonna Miss You” .

We all know about the controversy of them not singing on their records and the tragedy of Rob Pilatus dying aged just 33 after an overdose. However, I didn’t know until I researched it that there was a bizarre resolution of the story in the shape of Face Meets Voice: A Milli Vanilli Experience which is a project that combines surviving member Fab Morvan and the guy who actually did sing on the records and whose voice Morvan once lip synched to in John Davis. Their show features all the old hits plus brand new songs. No really, look….

There was even talk of a Milli Vanilli film but the funding for it never appeared – a bit like Fab and Rob on those early songs then.

Again with Sinitta?! She’s not finished having hits yet? Well, clearly not. “Love On A Mountain Top” was her last hit of the 80s though, if not quite her last ever hit. Having disentangled herself from Stock, Aitken and Waterman by this point, Sinitta had decided upon a strategy of releasing high tempo cover versions of old 70s hits as a way forward so before this 1974 hit by Robert Knight, we’d had Maxine Nightingale’s 1975 hit “Right Back Where We Started From” and she would collect her first hit of the next decade by covering Vanity Fare’s 1970 chart entry “Hitchin’ A Ride”.

All of these hits came from her second album “Wicked” but this cover versions malarkey would only last so long. She tried to extend the trick into the 90s but an album solely made up of cover versions called “Naughty Naughty” was only released in Asia such was the lack of interest in her by then despite it yielding one last UK hit in 1992’s “Shame, Shame, Shame” (originally by Shirley & Company) .

Unbelievably, that “Naughty Naughty” album included Sinitta’s take on “Hotel California” by The Eagles. Wanna hear it? No, me neither…

Whilst my wife was working in a bakery in Hull, I was still employed (I won’t say working, I had no idea what I was doing) as an insurance clerk down in Worcester. It was a small team, the manager Andy, Linda and Karen plus me dicking about in the back room whilst they did all the customer facing stuff. Linda had a boyfriend who looked just like Living In A Box‘s Richard Darbyshire according to her work colleague Karen. I think this was the performance where Karen must have noticed the resemblance as she was talking about it all morning the next day at work.

For his part, Darbyshire doesn’t seem comfortable being the centre of attention here. He hardly looks down the camera lens once, preferring to busy himself by noodling away on his guitar instead whilst at all times seated.

The band disappeared after “Room In Your Heart” dropped out of the charts. A solitary final single was released (“Different Air”) but failed to chart and the group disbanded in 1990. After a hiatus of 26 years, they reformed minus Darbyshire who was replaced by Kenny Thomas (of “Outstanding” and “Thinking About Your Love” fame) and still do the nostalgia circuit to this day.

Top 10

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

9. The Beautiful South – “You Keep It All In”

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

7. Wet Wet Wet – “Sweet Surrender”

6. Erasure – “Drama!”

5. Double Trouble and the Rebel MC – “Street Tuff”

4. Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like”

3. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”

2. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”

1. Black Box – “Ride On Time”: And finally…it’s the end of the road at the top of the charts for the year’s biggest selling single. After a six week run at the pinnacle, “Ride On Time” will be toppled by Jive Bunny on the following Sunday’s Top 40 countdown. In a poll dominated by The Stone Roses, the single finished in position No 40 in the NME Top 50 Tracks of the Year poll for ’89, somewhat belying their commercial exploits but then it was the NME and not Smash Hits. Hang on though, it didn’t even feature in the latter publication’s Best Single Top 10 at all. Popularity is a complicated beast it seems when even shifting as many copies as this song did and pioneering a whole new music genre doesn’t guarantee you universal acclaim.

“Wishing On A Star” by Fresh Four featuring Lizz E is the play out track and is another of those singles that I could have sworn was a hit in the 90s but it turns out it wasn’t after all. Hailing from Bristol, they were a collective of DJs and their cover of this Rose Royce classic was produced by Smith and Mighty who also produced the very first Massive Attack single. Fast forward to the mid 90s and Bristol would be the epicentre of the Trip Hop movement that garnered huge mainstream success via the likes of the aforementioned Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky and Roni Size & Reprazent whom the Fresh Four’s DJ Suv and DJ Krust would go onto be a part of. Small acorns and all that.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Chris Rea	Road To Hell	Nah
2	Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers	That’s What I Like	But not what I do – massive NO
3	Cliff Richard	Lean On You	Nope
4	Belinda Carlisle	Leave A Light On	Another no
5	Milli Vanilli	Girl I’m Gonna Miss You	Huge no
6	Sinitta	Love On A Mountain Top	Of course not
7	Living In A Box	Room In Your Heart	Negative
8	Black Box	Ride On Time	I didn’t
9	Fresh Four featuring Lizz E	Wishing On A Star	One final no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Whole Show

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/10/october-4-17-1989.html

TOTP 05 OCT 1989

Posted on June 12, 2020 by 80stastic

80s slang vocabulary could be really cringeworthy at times. I’m sure we all have our own personal recollections of phrases or words that we used to say. I certainly said things like skill and ace and of course there was the never to be forgotten phrase chinny reck-ON (usually accompanied with a gesture of beard stroking). Indeed, I’m pretty sure one of tonight’s TOTP presenters Steve Wright was guilty of saying stuff like wacky and zany. However, I never described anything as wicked like tonight’s other co-host Jakki Brambles does.”We are talking a wicked tune” she says as she introduces Double Trouble and the Rebel MC performing “Street Tuff” and there is not a trace of tongue in cheek about her delivery. She means what she says!

So was “Street Tuff” what passed for ‘wicked’ in 1989? Well, it was certainly catchy with its relentless reggae / house hybrid groove which was basically “54-46 That’s My Number” by Toots and the Maytals at high speed. The call and response type chanting that runs throughout it and Rebel MC’s quirky yet quotable lyrics like ‘Rough like a ninja, stinging like a bee’ and ‘Is he a Yankee? No, I’m a Londoner’ all bring the mix to the boil.

Aided by extensive airplay on the likes of Simon Mayo’s Radio 1 Breakfast Show (Mayo loved this record!), “Street Tuff” went all the way to No 3.

And now. One of the most talked about videos of the year….it’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher. This was only Cher’s third chart hit in the UK of the entire decade but a sizeable one peaking at No 6. The lead single from her “Heart Of Stone” album, it was written by hitmaker extraordinaire Diane Warren who had composed “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” for Starship two years earlier.

It was definitely of that soft rock genre complete with chugging guitars and simple melody but nobody cared about that. No, we were all mesmerised by the video or rather what Cher was wearing in the video which seemed to be not much at all. The promo was recorded aboard the USS Missouri with permission for shooting given due to its potential for boosting Navy recruitment. However, the delivered cut of the video was not what had been expected by the Navy who received criticism for allowing the shoot especially from World War II veterans who took umbrage that such a historically significant site should be disrespected – the USS Missouri was the site of the Empire of Japan’s surrender in 1945 thus ending World War II.

Amid the furore, a second video was produced which was heavily edited to remove footage of Cher’s buttock flashing fishnet body stocking outfit which seems to be the version TOTP showed. Shockingly, Cher’s son (who was 12 at the time) appears in the video. The cost of the therapy he must have been through to obliterate the scars of seeing his mother dressed so!

And yet, more shocking than any of the above is the revelation that I think I bought this single! What mental stress must I have been under to resort to such an action? I could have simply omitted this heinous detail from the blog but I am nothing if not honest. Please do not judge me.

Hey, how you’re doin’? Yes, years before Joey from Friends made the phrase famous, Curiosity Killed The Cat pioneered it with their No 14 hit single “Name And Number“. One of the stories of 1987, Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot and chums had been absent from the pop world for two years but some things hadn’t changed when they finally returned. For a start, Ben was still hiding his rumoured male pattern baldness under some trademark head gear and he was also still doing that bendy dancing that he had become known for.

There were some new developments though – they had employed a female vocalist to beef up their sound for this performance and bass player Nick Thorp had grown his hair long ( I was still following such trends even so late in the decade).

Sadly for the band, “Name And Number” proved to be their last hit of the 80s as follow up single “First Place” only made No 86 on the charts. Three years later a truncated version of the group – they had lost Thorp from the line up and reduced their moniker to just Curiosity – somehow recorded their joint biggest ever hit when their version of Johnny Bristol’s “Hang On in There Baby” made No 3.

Billy Joel now with his world history list song “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. The video attempts to show the passage of time in parallel with the song’s chronological list of events and personalities by depicting a young couple getting married, having children, grandchildren etc. All of this is set against a backdrop of the family home which shows the passing fashions of the decades via its decoration. Throughout the video, Billy sits there amongst the protagonists unchanging and unseen. It’s a bit creepy and totally unrealistic – he doesn’t even begin to lose any of his now long gone hair!

The song’s legacy has been its universality for being parodied and appropriated for use in many popular culture settings and TV shows including The Simpsons and Parks And Recreation. I think Family Guy is my favourite though…..

Now I knew that Sonia had more hits than just her debut No 1 “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You” but I would have been hard pressed to name any of them. It turns out that “Can’t Forget You” (oh the irony) was her follow up single but it only rose as high as No 17 in the UK singles chart. Presumably that was seen as a failure compared to its predecessor by her record label but let’s be fair, given the song’s lack of quality, it was hardly a surprise.

For some reason, Sonia is given the Yazz treatment here where she is allowed her own little spotlight when being introduced much like “The Only Way Is Up” hit maker seemed to be granted the previous year.

Although her No 1 can never be taken away from her (as much as some of us would like to), Sonia’s chart career isn’t that impressive. Yes there are eleven Top 40 singles over the course of four years but only twice did she return to the Top 10 after “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You” (and then only just – both were No 10 hits). To be honest , she always seemed more like a light entertainment star than a pop star to me but maybe I’m being unfair.

Some Breakers next and we start with Living In A Box who have finally released a track that doesn’t sound exactly the same as all their other songs. “Room In Your Heart” was their big ballad moment and when I say ‘big’, I mean f*****g enormous! Its everything but the kitchen sink production allied to Richard Darbyshire’s almost operatic warbling made for a huge sound. There’s even a choir and a wailing guitar solo chucked in for good measure with a final note fade out which goes on and on and on.

Peaking at No 5, it became their joint biggest hit alongside their titular anthem “Living In A Box”.

The return of Belinda Carlisle next. After her massive global success with her “Heaven On Earth” album nearly two years prior, producing an equally commercially well received follow up was probably not a foregone conclusion for Belinda given that her solo career had started slowly rather than spectacularly (certainly in the UK) back in 1986.

“Leave A Light On” was the first single from that follow up album entitled “Runaway Horses” and was a solid Top 10 hit around Europe (No 4 in the UK). Featuring George Harrison on slide guitar (maybe the record label thought some stellar collaborations on the album might improve its chances), it didn’t deviate too much from the “Heaven On Earth” formula.

Whilst not as successful as its predecessor, “Runaway Horses” was still a sizeable hit going platinum in the UK and spawning six singles. However, apart from “Leave A Light On” and bizarrely the final single to be lifted from it (the No 6 hit “(We Want) The Same Thing”) the other singles were relatively small hits with none of them making the Top 20.

When I first started working at Our Price in Manchester just over a year later, there was a huge poster of the album sleeve on the wall of the kitchen area. Some wag had drawn a thought bubble on it coming from Belinda’s head with the words ‘Hmm…did I leave a light on?’ scrawled in it. The wet behind the ears new recruit that I was found it highly amusing.

Ah Milli Vanilli – what’s not to like? Well, pretty much everything I guess seeing as they were a sham and didn’t sing on any of their records which were all pretty cruddy in the first place. “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” was a US No 1 song (their third on the trot over there) but we hadn’t seen much of them since “Girl You Know It’s True” twelve months prior. What was it with them and songs that began with the word ‘girl’? This one was a monumental dirge to my ears and I could not fathom how it managed to make it to No 2 in our charts.

The whole lip synching debacle hadn’t really surfaced by this point but by the end of the year rumours were circulating and the storm was well and truly brewing.

Possibly one of their least remembered hits, “Chocolate Box” was the second Craig-less hit for the now duo Bros. I certainly couldn’t have told you how it went before re-hearing it on this TOTP repeat.

In their documentary When The Screaming Stops, there’s a clip where Matt and Luke are discussing the set list for their upcoming reunion gig with their manager. “Chocolate Box” is mentioned as being out of the set list as things stood at which point Luke says that he never liked it anyway. Matt responds that a lot of the fans do love it though and that it is one of their favourite Bros songs.

“Chocolate Box” was permanently dropped from the set list and not performed at the gig which I think says it all about the song’s quality and legacy. It peaked at No 9 in the UK, their worst chart position since they became huge stars nearly two years prior.

Top 10

10. Madonna – “Cherish”

9. Bros – “Chocolate Box”

8. The Beautiful South – “You Keep It All In”

7. Tina Turner – “The Best”

6. Wet Wet Wet – “Sweet Surrender”

5. Richard Marx – “Right Here Waiting”

4. Erasure – “Drama!”

3. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”

2. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”

1. Black Box – “Ride On Time”: Week number 5 at the pinnacle of the charts so what else is there left to say about it? OK – how about this…apparently the DJ guys in Black Box were asked to produce an album for Duran Duran but they declined as Le Bon and co had been the biggest band of the decade whilst they had only just learned to use a sampler so they didn’t think they were worthy of being asked!

Just before we play out with S’Express and “Mantra For A State Of Mind”, mention must be made of Steve Wright before we go. Not just because this was his 56th and final TOTP appearance (and thank f**k for that I say) but also to stare in horror at the ponytail that he had adopted for the occasion. At the show’s end, I was struggling to see what that was that he was twirling around in his hand. Was it a glove? When I looked closer it was the bloody ponytail. It had been a fake all along. What a laugh he was right to the end! OK Steve, thanks for all the memories. Now, f**k off over there and when you get there f**k off some more.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Double Trouble and the Rebel MC	Street Tuff	Nah
2	Cher	If I Could Turn Back Time	Oh Christ I did! If only I could turn back time….
3	Curiosity Killed The Cat	Name And Number	Nope
4	Billy Joel	We Didn’t Start The Fire	No but I bought another single from his album Stormfront which had it as an additional track
5	Sonia	Can’t Forget You	I can and I did – no
6	Living In A Box	Room In Your Heart	Negative
7	Belinda Carlisle	Leave A Light On	Another no
8	Milli Vanilli	Girl I’m Gonna Miss You	Huge no
9	Bros	Chocolate Box	And no
10	Black Box	Ride On Time	I didn’t
11	S’Express	Mantra For A State Of Mind	One last no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Whole Show

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/10/october-4-17-1989.html

TOTP 22 JUN 1989

Posted on April 10, 2020 by 80stastic

Simon Mayo and Gary Davies are our hosts for tonight’s TOTP and they seem to spend the majority of the show in very close proximity to each other (almost leaning into each other’s necks at one point) and start the show by brandishing their bare legs together. I think it was to make a point that the Summer of 1989 was a hot one but if they were trying to promote themselves as the new Wham! they failed dismally.

Opening the show tonight are Living In A Box with the title track of their second and final album “Gatecrashing”. It must have been a lean week for booking acts as they’d only moved up two places from No 39 to No 37 and yet still managed to bag themselves a studio appearance. The extra exposure made little difference as the single moved up just one place the following week before tumbling out of the Top 40 altogether. In its defence, it was probably doomed from the start. It was initially scheduled for an April release to consolidate on the success of previous Top 10 single “Blow The House Down” but had to be pulled after the Hillsborough disaster (in their hometown of Sheffield) due to its unfortunate title. By the time an acceptable amount of weeks had been deemed to have passed, all momentum had been lost. That’s one theory. Mine is that it wasn’t much cop as a song in the first place.

Undeterred, the band would return with their joint biggest hit ever later in the year, the polished ballad “Room In Your Heart”.

Next the last great Bond theme in my opinion. Licence To Kill was the second and final film to feature Timothy Dalton as 007 and Gladys Knight‘s theme tune has all the classic hallmarks of a Bond song. Yes, that’s probably because it was based on the horn parts from the Goldfinger theme but for me that doesn’t detract from it and it deserves a high place in the list of Best Bond songs ever. I’m assuming there is one….

*checks internet*

…OK, I found this list from Esquire magazine which ranks all 24 James Bond tunes (including the latest by Billie Eilish) and “Licence To Kill” comes in at No 13. Respectable but I would have thought it would be higher. “Live And Let Die” is of course No 1.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/g26729930/james-bond-theme-songs-ranked/

Maybe I just an old giffer but some of the songs that have been recorded by today’s artists just don’t even sound like Bond themes to me. Even when I was a younger man and the likes of Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Tina Turner and Garbage took on the chalice, I didn’t like any of them either. So that for me is why Gladys Knight (sans pips) remains the last great Bond song. You are free to disagree of course.

“Licence To Kill” peaked at No 6.

Simon Mayo goes all intellectual next when he makes reference to Italian film maker Federico Fellini and his movie La strada whilst introducing the new video from U2. Bloody pseud! Anyway, the video is to promote “All I Want Is You” which was the fourth and final single to be released from their “Rattle And Hum” album and was probably the best of the four in my opinion.

Supposedly written about his wife, the quiet verses are Bono talking to her whilst the guitar refrains (which are archetypal The Edge creations) at the end of the verses are her reactions. Bloody pseud!

The video (which barely features the band) caused some debate amongst the band’s fans as to who is supposed to have died at the culmination of it. The dwarf or the trapeze artist. You’ll have to watch it yourself to form your own opinion*

“All I Want” peaked at No 4 making it the second highest placed single of the four released from the album.

*Spoiler alert! The Edge is quoted as saying it is the trapeze artist who dies.

Ooh! The Bangles are live in the studio! After being on video for every one of their TOTP appearances for “Eternal Flame” of which there were many, they have finally made it to London to perform follow up single “Be With You”. Despite not being on lead vocals for this one, Susannah Hoffs still manages to steal the limelight in her sparkly mini dress.

This was pretty much their last single release as a band first time around (they split in 1989 before a reunion in 1998). Their discography tells me that there was one final single released from the “Everything” album called “I’ll Set You Free” but it did nothing and was not really anything more than a goodbye to the fans. Talking of which, it is now time to say goodbye to The Bangles in this blog as I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again. Thanks for everything!

Clannad and Bono next with “In A Lifetime” and its one of those studio performances intercut with parts of the video appearances. This seemed to be a family thing with Clannad as that format was used previously for sibling and one time band member Enya when they combined her sat at the piano in the studio with her official promo for “Orinoco Flow”. Back then I assume it was either because the show’s producers thought Enya on her own would be too boring or because her record label wanted to get the most for their money out of the rather expensive looking video. Or both.

In the case of Bono and Clannad, I think it was just because Bono was too busy to join the folksters in the studio so they had to shoehorn him in via the video otherwise it would have looked weird. Which raises the question of why didn’t they just show the video again anyway? What did having Clannad in there in person add to the performance? I may be being harsh here but they don’t look the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen on stage. That said, Maire Brennan does have very piercing eyes.

Over the course of this blog, I’ve found many examples where a song taken from a film soundtrack has ended up being far more enduring than the film itself. Off the top of my head there’s “Against All Odds” and “Together In Electric Dreams”. I’m sure there are others. In the case of Prince and the very first Batman film (if you discount the film made out of the Adam West TV series), it’s a case of the opposite I’m afraid. I could never understand the appeal of “Batdance”. It doesn’t even sound like a cohesive song in that it seems to be a load of riffs, grooves and bits of film dialogue all spliced together and just shoved out there to promote the film rather than being a properly composed song. It doesn’t even feature in the film itself.

Oh yes, the film. Starring Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as The Joker, the hype around it was enormous but for me it was just about justified and certainly the movie did the business at the box office taking in over $250 million in America alone. It didn’t come out in the UK until August, so long after “Batdance” had been and gone. Given the interpretations of The Joker that have come since (Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger for two), it seems strange now to think that we were all in awe of Nicholson’s rather cartoonish portrayal.

Despite being a No 2 in the UK and a No 1 in the US, I’m guessing that “Batdance” is not one of Prince’s most fondly remembered tunes, not even by diehard fans, and only features on the most comprehensive of his compilation albums.

In the long running serial of rappers with not very ‘in the hood’ real names, we have another entry in Rapper KG Demo of the London Rhyme Syndicate who D-Mob collaborate with on “It Is Time To Get Funky” who are up next. The name he was given at birth? Basil Reynolds.

I hated this track then and I still hate it now. Bloody rubbish as my Dad would say. And yes, I do realise I have actually become my Dad when talking about today’s music as that’s bloody rubbish as well.

“It Is Time To Get Funky” peaked at No 9 (somehow).

The Beautiful South released a total of 34 singles over the course of their career but only achieved one No 1 record – there should have been many more including this their debut “Song For Whoever” that fell just short at No 2. Paul Heaton’s vocals are so distinctive. I can’t imagine anyone could ever have impersonated him on Stars In Their Eyes for example.

*checks to make sure*

WHAT! Someone did in 1997 singing “One Last Love Song”. I can’t find a clip on YouTube but I can only assume it sounded nothing like him!

Someone who rarely gets any accolades for his voice is fellow band member Dave Hemingway whose vocals I have always found to be very pure and perfectly pitched.

There’s a great video compilation of their first ten or so singles called “The Pumpkin” that I used to own on VHS that included some very funny bits in between the songs that’s well worth looking out for. My own personal Beautiful South claim to fame is that I used to work with bassist Sean Welch’s partner up until recently. I think he’s into photography now.

Top 10

10. Madonna – “Express Yourself”

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

8. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

7. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

6. Cliff Richard – “The Best Of Me”

5. U2 – “All I Want Is You”

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

3. Prince – “Batdance”

2. Jason Donovan – “Sealed With A Kiss”

1. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”: They’ve knocked Jason Donovan off his perch (no mean feat in 1989) and are set for a long Summer of ‘A happy face, a thumpin’ bass, for a lovin’ race!’.

The iconic ‘Back to life, back to reality’ line was used as the inspiration by the aforementioned Paul Heaton to base one of his songs around, the rather wonderful “My Book” whose lyrics include ‘Back to bed, back to reality’. Sadly it only made No 43 in the charts unlike Soul II Soul’s blockbuster of a tune.

The play out video is that weird combo of Placido Domingo and Jennifer Rush with “Till I Loved You”. I thought I recognised the song title but not the pairing of Domingo and Rush (almost Liverpool’s front line in the 80s there) so I checked it out. I was right! A version was also recorded and released by another bizarre duo, this time Barbara Streisand and Don Johnson (yes Miami Vice‘s Don Johnson).

Hang on…Wikipedia says then girlfriend Barbara Streisand. Don Johnson went out with Barbara Streisand?! I never knew that!

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Living In A Box	Gatecrashing	Nah
2	Gladys Knight	Licence Top Kill	Don’t think I did
3	U2	All I Want	No
4	The Bangles	Be With You	No but I assume it’s on their Best Of album which I have
5	Clannad and Bono	In A Lifetime	No but I think my wife bought it first time around in 1986
6	Prince	Batdance	Nope
7	D-Mob	It Is Time To Get Funky	Negative
8	Beautiful South	Song For Whoever	No but I had the album it was from
9	Soul II Soul	Back To Life	No but I think my wife had their album
10	Placido Domingo and Jennifer Rush	‘Till I Loved You	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/m000gx1t/top-of-the-pops-22061989

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-14-27-1989.html

TOTP 02 MAR 1989

Posted on February 12, 2020 by 80stastic

We’ve made it all the way to March 1989 in this journey through the TOTP archives. I’m a 20 year old student at Sunderland Polytechnic approaching the final few months of my time there and in complete denial that my three years in the higher education bubble was coming to an end. I had no idea what I would do once it all finished; I had no career plan, no temporary job lined up even and as it stood, I would be returning to my parental home in Worcester once my student house contract was up.

Never mind though, I’m still with my girlfriend of the last two years and I’m actually quite busy writing my final year dissertation which is all about the mechanics of the music industry and trying to identify the criteria that makes a pop song commercially successful. All that other grown up stuff can wait for now. Given my pressing dissertation deadline, I would probably have been taking a very keen interest in the pop charts at this time and no doubt TOTP would have been a part of that. Wonder if any of these acts made it into my final draft…

Tonight’s presenters are old pro Gary ‘Safe Hands’ Davies and the increasingly excitable Anthea ‘Line Fluffer’ Turner. Bet she can’t make it through the show without messing something up. There’s no errors in the intro to the first act though who are Living in A Box with “Blow The House Down”. When they first burst onto the pop scene I’m sure they used to wear suits but they’ve relaxed the dress code here with some absolutely horrible togs. The jackets they are all wearing aren’t quite as revolting as Bruno Brookes’ catastrophic creation of last week but they’re pretty nasty all the same.

Not that I gave it much thought at the time but lead singer Richard Darbyshire really had quite the voice. On the band’s official website, they describe him as ‘one of the greatest blue-eyed soul voices of all time’ – I assume they mean Darbyshire and not his replacement and current vocalist Kenny Thomas who I thought was dreadful – which may be overstating the case rather but there’s no denying the strength of his voice nor his range. Later in the year they released their big ballad “Room In Your Heart” which was a Top 5 hit and demonstrated that Darbyshire wasn’t all about stomping uptempo pop tunes but could also handle the slower stuff as well.

The band are still on the nostalgia circuit (sans Darbyshire) playing those 80s package tours where each artists gets three songs long slots and I’m guessing that their set list writes itself and is pretty much the same for every gig. Start with a bang with “Blow The House Down”, bring the mood down with the aforementioned “Room In Your Heart” and end with their biggest and most well known hit, the titular “Living In A Box”. Job done! If that sounds reductive and dismissive, it’s not meant to be. At least they have three big hits to play and a paying audience still.

“Blow The House Down” peaked at No 10.

Some studio trickery next as Gary Davies introduces Sam Brown performing “Stop!”. “At No 4 in the charts, over there …” he advises us as he points over his shoulder but I’m pretty sure this is just the same clip from the other week and that Sam is in fact not in the studio at all. The cut away from Davies to her gives it away rather as there is no long tracking shot from presenter to performer. Why did the TOTP producers feel the need to do that? To create the impression that every artists was desperate to appear on the show and would drop everything to do so? Maybe but we all know that wasn’t true.

I saw Sam Brown live a few years at legendary Hull venue The Adelphi as part of her group Homespun whom she formed with ex-Beautiful South guitarist Dave Rotheray and they were great. Of the two Browns in this week’s Top 10, I certainly preferred Sam. And how’s this for a musical peculiarity – the titles of all of her six solo studio albums so far partly spell out her surname:

Stop!
April Moon
(43) Minutes…
Box
ReBoot
Of the Moment

Sam says it was unintentional but vowed to continue the trend but has not released an album since 2007’s “Of The Moment”.

And there it is! Just two songs in and Anthea Turner makes her first cock up as she introduces Jason Donovan singing “Too Many Lonely Hearts”. Err, that’s “Too Many Broken Hearts” actually Anthea.

Ah yes, the moment we all knew was unavoidably coming has arrived. Jason Donovan, high on his Neighbours profile and that duet with Kylie, becomes a fully fledged pop star. Yes he’d already had one solo hit with “Nothing Can Divide Us” (originally earmarked for Rick Astley fact fans) but it was “Too Many Broken Hearts” that sealed the ~~kiss~~ deal. As with Kylie’s “I Should Be So Lucky”, the first time you heard this song you just knew it would be massive. That ridiculously catchy Stock, Aitken and Waterman sound meant that once heard, it was injected straight into your brain where it would remain as an ear worm for the rest of eternity whether you liked it or not. Resistance was futile.

My wife has always had a problem with the video for this one, specifically the part where Jase wanders around outside with that epic looking backdrop of mountain range and valley casually strumming a clearly unplugged electric guitar! Now whether he could actually play the damn thing or not is another matter entirely but who did the video director think they were kidding by making him mime with an electric guitar not plugged into an amp?!

“Too Many Broken Hearts” would not only go to No 1 but also end up as the fourth best selling UK single of 1989.

Anthea finally gets the song title right as we move into the next segue and we also see some rather unnecessarily insistent display of heterosexuality from Gary Davies in this exchange:

AT: “Too Many Broken Hearts” for Jason Donovan. Don’t you think he’s looking really hunky?

GD: I’m glad you think so, I don’t

Alright Gary! ! We get the picture! Look, I don’t know anything about Davies’ sexuality but thankfully, we now live in a world where TV presenters can out themselves on national TV and get masses of support from the public.

Before we get to the Breakers, if you were wondering what might have been on the other channels on this night back in 1989, you may well have seen this advert…

Yes it was just an advert for Madonna’s new single “Like A Prayer” but this was a very big deal at the time with a release being globally advertised before its actual release – the first time something like this had been done in the music industry. The Pepsi tie in was due to the fact that they were sponsoring her next world tour. An estimated 250 million people around the world viewed the commercial. The day after its premiere, Madonna released the actual music video for “Like a Prayer” and then the shit really hit the fan but that’s for another post…

Back to the Breakers and first up are Depeche Mode with a live version of their 1983 hit “Everything Counts”. How so? It was to promote the release of their live album “101” with the actual recording having been made at a gig at the Pasadena Rose Bowl as part of the Music for the Masses Tour in ’88. Whilst I recall there being a live album, I don’t really remember this version of “Everything Counts” being in the charts to be honest. Maybe it didn’t get that much airplay? It’s a great track though and I bought the studio version on its initial release when it made No 6. The live version didn’t sell as well peaking at No 22 in this country and it wasn’t a massive seller in the rest of Europe either although the album was.

I like the fact that played live, the band added some extras to the song like Alan Wilder, Martin Gore and Fletch interjecting ‘the graph’ and ‘the handshake’ backing vocals to counterpoint Gahan’s delivery. I think these were included on the original 12″ mix of the track six years previous. The huge crowd carrying on singing the song (which closed the set) long after the music has finished is really quite affecting.

Another Anthea gaffe next as she mispronounces “Wages Day” by Deacon Blue as “Wage Day”. One job Anthea, you had one job. Anyway, I much preferred this one to the band’s previous hit “Real Gone Kid”. It always sounded like a good, solid, proper record to me without all the distracting ‘ooo ooo’s of its predecessor. Although it only peaked at No 18, it paved the way for the release of No 1 album “When the World Knows Your Name” the following month which of course is what it was meant to do. I have a distinct memory of Annie Nightingale playing it as the first track on one of her Sunday night shows after the Top 40 chart rundown. The first song on her show was always a bit more mainstream than the rest of the playlist as I recall.

The special edition of the single included the band’s take on Julian Cope’s “Trampolene” which always seemed an odd choice to me but which works quite well I think.

Some more SAW treatment now as they turn their attention to disco diva Donna Summer. There’s a long standing perception that Mr Waterman and his mates resuscitated Donna’s career but in truth, the 80s hadn’t been a total washout for her. She’d had five UK Top 40 hits by this point in the decade one of which “She Works Hard For The Money”) had been also been a US Top 3 hit. However it is true that none of her hits in this country had gone Top 10. Enter SAW who not only wrote and produced “This Time I Know It’s For Real” for her but also all ten tracks on her album “Another Place And Time” (although Summer did have three co-writing credits as well).

As with “Too Many Broken Hearts”, you couldn’t get away from this song as it was played to death on radio. To me though, it was so safe and comfy compared to some of her groundbreaking material from earlier in her career like “I Feel Love” and “State Of Independence” that it did nothing for me. Revisionism has been kind to the SAW / Summer project though with Classic Pop magazine describing the album in 2018 as “a pop masterpiece”. Yeah, thanks but I’ll stick with her non Hit Factory (hot) stuff thanks.

“This Time I Know It’s For Real” peaked at No 3.

Not this lot again! Why were TOTP so keen to keep plugging god awful thrash rockers W.A.S.P.? They’ve definitely been on the show previously with one of their other singles (no I don’t remember which one and I don’t want to). This track is “Mean Man” and I’m sure that if I could be bothered to look it up, it sounded exactly the same as that previous hit.

What a weird intro from Anthea though! “Do you know a mean man?” she trills. WTF? Oh and is that the right pronunciation of the band name?

The final five songs have all been on before starting with Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady and “Turn Up The Bass”. If you think that ‘boyeeee’ sample sounds familiar, it’s not just because you’ve heard it on reality TV soap Made In Chelsea where every annoying male cast member seems to say it constantly. No, it’s because, oh look here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why…

That's Flavor Flav saying "boyeeee", sampled from Public Enemy's "Cold Lampin' With Flavor" #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 7, 2020

“And you have just met the man who employs Mike Tyson’s hairdresser” advises Anthea at the track’s end. Cue Gary Davies trying his arm at comedy with a “Know what I mean Tyree” in a Frank Bruno accent. Did I say he was a safe pair of hands at the top of this post? He’s causing me to revise my opinion on that one. Yes, you could say he was trying to be topical as the famous Bruno v Tyson fight (the first one) had only just taken place five days prior to this broadcast against a backdrop of monumental media hype but it’s just not funny.

Some more studio sleight of hand next as Anthea introduces Gloria Estefan singing “Can’t Stay Away From You” (live no less) and points to her left but again it’s just a repeat of the performance she did the other week.

In 1992 Gloria released her first Best Of collection which proved to be a big seller at Xmas in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working at the time. So much so that we ran out of the cassette version on the day before Xmas Eve; a cardinal sin in the world of record retail. However, we knew we had some on order and we put our faith in Warren our Securicor delivery guy to deliver the goods…literally. Warren, who was a massive rock fan from Oldham (he probably liked W.A.S.P. actually) came through for us on Xmas Eve morning with the delivery we’d been hoping for. We were saved and the good people of Rochdale would not go Gloria-less that Xmas. Except…the bastards at Sony were out of stock so we got nishters from them. My manager Ian was stoical about it saying “Well, they won’t get it anywhere else in Rochdale today”. He was right as we turned away customer after customer in search of Gloria telling us that no retailer in the town had it.

If I felt any shard of sympathy for those disappointed souls it was knocked out of me by the end of trading as we got absolutely slaughtered by our customers who had clearly been sent insane by the pressure of Xmas and lost not just any semblance of manners but also their own sense of humanity as they cussed, swore and insulted all of our staff from start to finish. Peace and good will to all? What a load of bollocks!

Clearly the TOTP producers were putting a lot of faith in the attraction of artists performing live on the show around this time as here’s another one from Texas with “I Don’t Want A Lover”. If you watch closely you can see Sharleen Spiteri take a big intake of breath to compose herself before she launches into her vocal. She needn’t have worried as she nails it with this performance.

That “Southside” album that Gary Davies refers to in his intro would enter the charts at No 3 when released and achieve gold status sales but “I Don’t Want A lover” was the only hit single to come from it. Though not as strong as it’s lead single, I always quite liked “Everyday Now” which was the third single from it but peaked outside the Top 40 at No 44.

Anthea is still not finished with this awful example of presenting when she blunders in all over Davies’ link to lead us into the Top 10 countdown. To his credit, Gary just stops talking and tries to style it out but that look of surprise on his face gives him away,

Top 10

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

9. Jason Donovan – “Too Many Broken Hearts”

8. Texas – ” I Don’t Want A Lover”

7. Bobby Brown – “My Prerogative”

6. S’Xpress – “Hey Music Lover”

5. Bananarama with Lalaneeneenoonoo – “Help”

4. Sam Brown – “Stop!”

3. Michael Ball – “Love Changes Everything”

2. Michael Jackson – “Leave Me Alone”

1. Simple Minds – “Belfast Child”: After affording them just two and a half minutes worth of airtime last week, the TOTP producers have given them the standard three minutes this time. When I was younger, as well as wanting to look like the obvious pop star candidates like Simon Le Bon (slim chance) George Michael (no chance) and Morten Harket (who the fuck was I kidding?!), I also had a more left field choice of pop star look that I would like to have achieved and that was Simple Minds guitarist Charlie Burchill. I know, I know but I still think he looks pretty cool in this video.

How many times has this one been on now? Three? For a song that peaked at No 13, that seems a bit like overkill.

Is there anything left to say about “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison? I got nothin’ (but a good time?) so I ‘ll leave it to Bill and Ted…

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Living In A Box	Blow The House Down	Don’t think so
2	Sam Brown	Stop!	No!
3	Jason Donovan	Too Many Broken Hearts	No but my younger sister had his album
4	Depeche Mode	Everything Counts (Live)	No – I bought the original version in ’83 though
5	Deacon Blue	Wages Day	Not the single but I bought the album
6	Donna Summer	This Time I Know It’s For Real	Nope
7	W.A.S.P.	Mean Man	Oh please!
8	Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady	Turn Up The Bass	No chance
9	Gloria Estefan	Can’t Stay Away From You	But I could stay away from you Gloria – no
10	Texas	I Don’t Want A Lover	Don’t think I did
11	Simple Minds	Belfast Child	Not the single but I have it on one of their collection CDs
12	Poison	Every Rose Has Its Thorn	Not for me

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000f1lv/top-of-the-pops-02031989

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-22-march-7-1989.html

TOTP 23 FEB 1989

Posted on February 10, 2020 by 80stastic

What the Hell is that?! I’m referring of course to Bruno Brookes’ jacket. Wow! That is hideous even for the 80s! I don’t know why the camera man seems to be having trouble finding Brookes and fellow presenter Susie Mathis in the opening tracking shot – how could you miss that thing he’s wearing?! In fact, Brookes’ diminutive stature gives the impression that the jacket is actually wearing him.

The first act on tonight’s show were also renowned for some rather oddball sartorial choices. S’Xpress had a penchant for loud and garish 70s gear but none of what any of them is wearing for this performance can out do Brookes in the tasteless stakes. The ‘black furry horrible thing’ (as Smash Hits described it) that Mark Moore is wearing was made by someone called Rosie for about £50 and is definitely not made of real fur fact fans.

They are here are of course to promote their latest single “Hey Music Lover”, their third hit on the bounce. Quite why S’Xpress seemed to fade away after this run of hits I’m not sure. Maybe Moore got bored with the project but given that an act like Dee-Lite (who weren’t a million miles away from the S’Xpress sound and style) would be having huge success 18 months after “Hey Music Lover”, it makes their demise seem even stranger.

Another Michael Jackson track pulled from the “Bad”album next…or is it? I never knew until now that “Leave Me Alone” wasn’t on the original LP and was just included as an additional track on the CD version of the album, I guess as an added incentive to purchase that format which was still in its early days at the time. I knew maybe two people that had a CD player back then. Subsequent re-releases of the album have included “Leave Me Alone ” as standard although weirdly it wasn’t released as a single in the US.

I couldn’t really be doing with the song at all. It sounded far too hysterical for my liking and quite formulaic of Jackson’s material at this time. The video was kind of interesting though – not its style which we had seen before from the director Jim Blashfield on his collaborations with Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel etc and who would go down the same route again later in ’89 for “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” by Tears For Fears. No, it was the content more than the visual style with Jacko taking a swipe at some of the press and its more ludicrous claims about his personal life such as his chimp Bubbles, plastic surgery rumours and the claim that he had tried to buy the Elephant Man’s bones.

Were some of Jackson’s vocal ad libs on “Leave Me Alone” the inspiration for his lampooning by surreal TV sketch show Bo Selecta? I’m thinking of all the shrieks, yelps, ‘hee hees’ and ‘owww’s…

“Leave Me Alone” peaked at No 2 in the UK.

And now here’s Paul Simon’s missus. I think I’d forgotten that Edie Brickell is married to Art Garfunkel’s mate but they are still together to this day. Apparently they met on the US TV show Saturday Night Live in Nov ’88 so they would have been together at the time of this TOTP performance. No sign of him on this show though as Edie takes centre stage with her band. On that, apparently the band existed as The New Bohemians before she was a member but after she joined and signed a recording contract, the label (Geffen) changed the name, of the band to Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. I wonder how that went down with the rest of the band? They can’t have minded too much as they are still together and releasing albums to this day but they have never managed to eclipse the success of their debut album “Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars” from which “What I Am” was lifted.

I quite liked the song with its was-wah guitar effect but I think I preferred its follow up “Circle” which failed to crack the Top 40.

And just for the sake of completeness , here’s the Tin Tin Out version featuring Emma Bunton which made No 2 in 1999…

Next it’s Rick Astley again with his last chart hit of the 80s (in the UK anyway) “Hold Me In Your Arms”. I think it’s just the same studio performance clip from the other week so not an awful else to see here. Indeed, we wouldn’t see anything else of Rick for the next two years when he returned with his gospel tinged ballad “Cry For Help” before he promptly disappeared again and basically retired for the rest of the ’90s.

As the new century dawned, Astley’s re-emergence as a major recording artist and live performer seemed as likely as him turning into an internet phenomenon but with a No 1 album to his name and the popularity to sell out tours, Rick has rolled back into the music world. Hell, he’s even got a credibility to him these days….

Some Breakers now and I have to admit I don’t remember Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady at all. I mean, the sound of their hit “Turn Up The Bass” is familiar but only in that it sounds to me like a lot of other Hip Hop / House records of the time. As I didn’t recall it at all, I googled them and apparently they were very well thought of in the dance world and ascribed by some as being responsible for kicking off the whole Hip-House movement. Was that an actual thing? Hip- House?

Tyree´s Scratch It Up Mix (not sure if this is the version that TOTP played) was mixed by one DJ Fast Eddie? Wasn’t he the guitarist in Motorhead? Either that or the main character in that Paul Newman film The Hustler. Clearly I’m well out of my depth here so I’ll move on…

As I type this, Storm Ciara is still in the vicinity so what more an apt song to be up next than “Blow The House Down” by Living In A Box. As with Then Jericho who also recently returned to the Top 40 after a two year absence, this lot similarly had issues following up on their debut hit and after a couple of very low ranking singles and a complete flop they disappeared and at the time, I for one, thought it was terminal.

Not so though as they came storming (ahem) back in this year with two Top 10 singles and a Top 30 album. “Blow The House Down” wasn’t a million miles away from the sound of their previous material and it was perfect Radio 1 playlist fodder with its very urgent rhythm track and almost frenetic chorus. Richard Derbyshire’s histrionic vocals were the prefect accompaniment. There’s even some squealing guitars thrown in for good measure.

Listening back to it now, it seems to me that glam rockers Slade may have taken lyrical inspiration from “Blow The House Down” for their 1991 single “Radio Wall Of Sound” single with their “Radio Wall Of Sound, comin’ up from my tower; Radio Wall Of Sound, twenty-four hours of power” seemingly aping The Box’s “We have got the power to build the highest tower”. Or perhaps both band’s just realized that ‘tower’ rhymes with ‘power’.

I recently got into a debate on Twitter about this track with an Absolute Radio DJ. Even Living In A Box themselves were amused.

Err … except that in your blog you call it amateurish, ploddy and tedious. Not masses of love there. https://t.co/zoHxnOaYd3

— Richard Bayliss (@Dickiebliss) December 9, 2019

“Blow The House Down” peaked at No 10.

Tone Lōc is probably as well known for his acting and voice over work as he is for his musical output but for as while there back in ’89 he was a very big deal in the US. This single “Wild Thing” was a No 2 hit over there whilst its parent album “Lōc-ed After Dark” hit the top spot eventually going double platinum. We were a little more cautious in our acceptance of old Tone with this single peaking at No 21 in the UK.

I mistakenly thought it was something to do with The Troggs song of the same name but it actually samples a Van Halen track for which Mr Lōc $180,000 in an out of court settlement with the Californian rockers. I always quite liked this one and its follow up “Funky Cold Medina” but not enough to actually buy either single you understand.

Despite her stellar 60s career, Dusty Springfield began the 80s in the middle of an already decade long commercial drought. None of her recordings from 1971 to 1986 charted on the UK Top 40 or Billboard Hot 100. That all changed once the Pet Shop Boys entered her life of course. Their collaboration on the 1987 No 2 hit single “What Have I Done To Deserve This” brought Dusty back from the dead.

Two years later that partnership was further expanded by the single “Nothing Has Been Proved” which Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe wrote for the soundtrack of the film Scandal. I don’t think I’ve ever watched the film which depicts the Profumo affair but if its cast is anything to go by, maybe I should. John Hurt, Sir Ian McKellen, Britt Ekland and not forgetting Hilda Ogden herself Jean Alexander. Then of course there was the face of the film Joanne Whalley Kilmer who I definitely had a thing for. There’s even an appearance by Fine Young Cannibals’ Roland Gift who seemed to be everywhere at this time. Why didn’t I see this film?

As for the song, its lyrics make some very specific references to the story’s protagonists including Mandy Rice -Davis, Christine Keeler and Stephen Ward but I’d never picked up on the Beatles reference (“Please Please Me’s number one”) before although it seems pretty obvious to me now. I thought it was a pretty decent tune but it certainly didn’t inspire me to go and and buy it (nor see the film seemingly). Yet another Dusty / PSB collaboration would grace the charts before the year was out (“In Private”) whilst “Nothing Has Been Proved” itself would peak at No 16.

So well did their last live performance go down on the show that the TOTP producers have invited Hue And Cry back to do the whole thing all over again this week! It’s another accomplished rendition of “Looking For Linda” with Pat Kane in good voice still. Apparently, when the single went Top 40, Greg Kane stayed out for 36 hours non stop and ended up in the bar of a Holiday Inn hotel! Rock ‘n’ roll!

I wonder why they chose the name Hue And Cry for their band? Well, the obvious choice would have been The Kane Gang but that had already been taken so instead they went for a legal phrase that refers to a common law process where bystanders are summoned to help apprehend a criminal?! That can’t be right surely? More likely is perhaps they were named after the Ealing comedy film starring Alastair Sim. That film starts with a young boy reading aloud from a comic about the adventures of fictional detective Selwyn Pike. That would tie in with Pat Kane’s revelation in Smash Hits that he once wrote to Esther Rantzen’s Big Time TV show (which launched Sheena Easton) saying he wanted to start his own comic magazine. That must be it surely? Not according to @TOTPFacts though…

Hue & Cry were essentially a duo – brothers Pat Kane (vocals) and Greg Kane (music). Pat came up with the band name by scanning through a dictionary. #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 31, 2020

Oh come on! Really?!

Also singing live on the show tonight is Michael Ball performing “Love Changes Everything”. It turns out that Michael grew up in a small Dartmoor village called Crapstone (no sniggering at the back!) and nearly became an estate agent but instead became an actor and singer with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Company. As for his time as a chart star and appearing on TOTP, Ball reckoned that he “stuck out like a sore thumb” compared to his contemporaries but to be fair to him, nobody stood out more than Bruno Brookes and his sick inducing multi coloured jacket in this particular show.

“Love Changes Everything” was at its No 2 peak.

Top 10

10. Rick Astley – “Hold Me In Your Arms”

9. Yazz – “Fine Time”

8. Holly Johnson – “Love Train”

7. Mike And The Mechanics – ” The Living Years”

6. Bobby Brown – “My Prerogative”

5. Sam Brown – “Stop!”

4. Michael Jackson – “Leave Me Alone”

3. Marc Almond and Gene Pitney – Somethings Gotten Hold Of My Heart”

2. Michael Ball – “Love Changes Everything”

1. Simple Minds – “Belfast Child”: And there it is, Simple Minds’ first and so far only No 1 single. Is it their best song? Not by a country mile in my book but as No 1 records of the 80s go, I can think of many a less deserving track / act who have topped the charts so it remains OK in my book.

Interesting that Susie Mathis introduces it as a cameo of “Belfast Child” – she’s right of course as we get a very truncated 2:26 worth of the song which clocks in at a whopping 6:39 in total. I wouldn’t have expected the TOTP producers to honour the song in its entirety but surely it would have been fairer to give it at least the standard three minutes that most songs would get?

The tradition of the Comic Relief single was still in its infancy by the time Bananarama took their turn at producing one. Of course thy had some… err…help in this from Lananeeneenoonoo aka Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Kathy Burke. Their irreverent cover of The Beatles track “Help” was only the third official Comic Relief single after “Living Doll” by Cliff Richard and The Young Ones in ’86 and “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” by Mel Smith and Kim Wilde (Mel And Kim) a year later.

French and Saunders had already spoofed Bananarama in their ’88 Xmas Special show hence this collaboration but it wasn’t the first time that the band had been sent up on national TV as they had already been given the Tracey Ullman treatment on Three Of A Kind…

A lot was made of the comedic video and interjections on the record at the time but I always found the whole thing a bit lame I have to say. Still it was all for a good cause and the single made No 3 on the charts and a lot of money for charity.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	S’Xpress	Hey Music Lover	No but my wife had their album on cassette
2	Michael Jackson	Leave Me Alone	Nah
3	Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians	What I Am	Liked it but didn’t buy it
4	Rick Astley	Hold Me In Your Arms	That would be a no
5	Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady	Turn Up The Bass	No chance
6	Living In A Box	Blow The House Down	Don’t think so
7	Tone Loc	Wild Thing	No
8	Dusty Springfield	Nothing Has Been Proved	Nope
9	Hue And Cry	Looking For Linda	No but again my wife had the album
10	Michael Ball	Love Changes Everything	Not a prayer
11	Simple Minds	Belfast Child	Not the single but I have it on one of their collection CDs
12	Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo	Help	Not even being for a good cause could make me buy this one

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000dt76/top-of-the-pops-23021989

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-22-march-7-1989.html

TOTP 16 APR 1987

Posted on March 5, 2019 by 80stastic

Hello there! There’s been a crisis of health at TOTP Rewind recently and I have been laid low for 10 days with a particularly nasty bout of flu. As such, old TOTP repeats from 1987 haven’t really been at the forefront of my mind although I’m sure that, at my most delirious, Mel & Kim swam past my eyes at least once. Consequently I now have a massive backload of shows to work through so I many need to skimp on the word count to get back in the game.

Right – better get on with it then. Ex-lovebirds Janice Long and Peter Powell are the host for this one and touchingly they’ve come in the same Shaky double denim outfits. Aww…or should that be Aaarrgh!

First act tonight are Fine Young Cannibals with their version of “Ever Fallen In Love” by The Buzzcocks. It’s another studio performance just as they gave the other week but unlike that show, David Steele has ditched hiding behind some keyboards and is back on jelly legged bass guitarist duties. It’s still a turgid fart of a cover and is probably my least favourite FYC song ever. The original of course is brilliant but this?! Not even Roland’s “Walk Like An Egyptian” moves can save it.

By the way, I can’t find this particular performance on YouTube so it’s the original Steele-behind-the- keyboards clip included below.

A venerable superstar next with the return of David Bowie. Spearheading his first new album since 1984’s “Tonight” is a song called “Day In Day Out”. Generally accepted to be to be the nadir of Bowie’s 80’s output, the “Never Let Me Down” parent album was a bit all over the place and despite strong initial sales, received mixed (at best) reviews in the music press. Bowie always stuck to the belief that there were good songs in there but that the production was at fault. The album was re-recorded in 2018 by musicians hand picked by Bowie before his death and re-released as part of the Loving the Alien (1983–1988) box set project.

Now I’m no Bowie aficionado but I’m happy to go along with the general consensus on this one. “Day In Day Out” sounded laboured to me, a production in search of a song. I liked the next single “Time Will Crawl” better but there were some stinkers on the album none more so than the song that gave the accompanying tour its name “Glass Spider”. Talking of which….

David Bowie was to play live…in Sunderland! This was almost incomprehensible to us Poly students when the news broke that Bowie would be playing Roker Park, Sunderland as part of his ‘Glass Spider’ word tour. The only other UK dates were London, Cardiff and Manchester. It was unbelievable. A rock legend playing Sunderland (and crucially NOT Newcastle). Sunderland was a very depressed place in the 80s and just didn’t get gigs like this. But it was true! I got my ticket (from HMV in Newcastle!) and was set to go. My girlfriend (now wife) had her’s and even a friend from my hometown of Worcester was coming to the gig and staying with me. The scheduled date of the gig was Tuesday 23 June 1987….which is way off in the future (if you know what I mean) and I’m meant to be keeping the word count down. I’ll come back to Bowie in Sunderland nearer the time…

Meanwhile, a band with one of the most memorable (and silly) names of the decade….it’s Living In A Box with “Living In A Box”. This much maligned lot from Sheffield certainly caused a brief stir and it wasn’t just the band’s name that people were talking about. Their self titled debut hit sounded fresh and had that killer chorus that once heard was never forgotten. Hunky front man Richard Derbyshire made up for the fact that the other two guys in the band looked like faceless business suits and the formula was a winner… for a while. The rest of the material on their debut album (also called “Living In A Box”) was nowhere near as strong as the single and subsequent releases barely scraped into the charts. Undeterred, the band dusted themselves off and returned two years later with a brace of hit singles and accompanying album but that, like Bowie at Roker Park, is a story for another day.

What did I think? I liked the single. It was memorable and enough to get me out of my student pit in a morning so what’s not to like. By the way, I can’t find the TOTP clip so heres one from what looks like a European music TV show.

Herb Alpert will be remembered for many things, not last being the ‘A’ in legendary record label A&M but the ill advised piece of R &B / jazz hybrid that is “Keep Your Eyes On Me” is surely not one of them.

Breakers time….

Now this was a strange one. Kim Wilde doing a duet with Junior Giscombe on the title track to her latest album “Another Step (Closer To You)”. Kim of course had made a successful return to the charts with her cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and she didn’t want to lose that momentum so a follow up was required. A duet was probably not what pop fans were expecting though. She hadn’t ever done one before and yet here she was teaming up with Junior of all people. Mr Giscombe hadn’t been seen anywhere near the charts since his massive Top 10 hit of 1982 “Mama Used To Say” so this was quite a left field choice. Apparently Kim’s brother Ricky thought the song needed a more soulful vocal and thought of Junior.

For me though, added soulful vocals or not, the song wasn’t great. It was a bit mechanical sounding and pop music by numbers to my ears. The chorus was ever so slightly jarring and jagged and it just didn’t hang together that well. Obviously my opinion counted for nought and “Another Step (Closer To You)” went all the way to No 6 thereby justifying Ricky Wilde’s judgement.

It can’t be Five Star again! It just can’t be! When will it ever end?

*checks Five Star discography*

Jeez! They had another five Top 40 hits after this before they were done! Ok – “The Slightest Touch” sounded like all their other songs pretty much and yet despite being the sixth(!) single release from their “Silk And Steel” album, it still made it all the way to No 4! What was wrong with people back then?!

Here come Bon Jovi with their third hit single on the spin with “Wanted Dead Or Alive”. Fast becoming my guilty pleasure by this point, I thought this was great. A departure from the formula for the similar sounding “You Give Love A Bad Name” and “Livin’ On A Prayer”, this wild west themed ballad consolidated the band’s success in the UK by making No 13. The rock star as cowboy / outlaw metaphor was one that Jon Bon Jovi would return to in spades when he wrote the soundtrack album to the film Young Guns II which included the “Blaze Of Glory” which is basically “Wanted Dead Or Alive” part II.

For many years I would sing the lyrics “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all” as “I’ve seen a million pints and I’ve drunk them all” for some reason and is surely not humanly possible.

Not. A. Clue. Now granted the Eurovision Song Contest of 1987 would not have been high on my list of things to be bothered about at the time but I don’t think I have ever been aware of Rikki and “Only The Light” until this moment. Certainly I didn’t watch the show that year but Wikipedia tells me that Rikki (real name Richard Peebles) came 13th and was the worst UK showing until 2000. Easy to see why when you listen to the song. Typical Eurovision fodder but without the winning gimmick of a Bucks Fizz skirt routine to retain our interest. It sounds like something Cliff Richard would have rejected for being too piss weak.

Rikki himself looks like he would be more at home presenting Pebble Mill. Check out his threads! That white belt! Oh hang on a moment….I’m having a flash back to 1987….

Err…anyway….moving on…is that Russell from “Butterflies” on keyboards?

Top 10

10. Living In A Box – “Living In A Box”

9. Fine Young Cannibals – “Ever Fallen In Love”

8. U2 – “With Or Without You”

7. Terence trent D’Arby – “If You Let Me Stay”

6. Mel & Kim – “Respectable”

5. Janet Jackson – “Let’s Wait A While”

4. Judy Boucher – “Can’t Be With You Tonight”

3. Club Nouveaux – “Lean On Me”

2. Madonna – “La Isla Bonita”

1. Ferry Aid – “Let It Be”: Still at No 1 – taking closer look at some of the pop stars involved in this, I noticed Paul King of King with a cropped hairdo obviously gearing himself up for his shot at a solo career (it failed spectacularly). Also Boy George seems to have had a costume change half way through. Either that or it’s some shoddy editing.

The play out video is Madonna with “La Isla Bonita”. This week saw the 30th anniversary of the release of the “Like A Prayer” single and its controversy courting and pope baiting video. Thirty years on we have the likes of Brexit and Donald Trump to worry about. I would trade both those two for some Madonna furore any day of the week.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Fine Young Cannibals	Ever Fallen In Love	Not a chance
2	David Bowie	Day In Day Out	Nope
3	Living In A Box	Living In A Box	Thought I may have but singles box says no
4	Herb Alpert	Keep Your Eyes On Me	I had my ears definitely off him. No
5	Kim Wilde / Junior	Another Step (Closer To You)	Nah
6	Five Star	The Slightest Touch	NO!
7	Bon Jovi	Wanted Dead Or Alive	No but I have it on a CD somewhere no doubt
8	Rikki	Only The Light	Our panel said nil points
9	Ferry Aid	Let It Be	I think I did you know
10	Madonna	La Isla Bonita	No but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0002k6h/top-of-the-pops-16041987

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2017/04/april-8-21-1987.html

TOTP Rewind – the 80s

My memories of 80s chart music

TOTP 26 OCT 1989

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TOTP 12 OCT 1989

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TOTP 05 OCT 1989

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TOTP 22 JUN 1989

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TOTP 02 MAR 1989

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TOTP 23 FEB 1989

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TOTP 16 APR 1987

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