London Boys

TOTP 21 SEP 1989

Posted on June 5, 2020 by 80stastic

One day after this TOTP was broadcast, the film Dead Poets Society was released into UK cinemas causing the Latin phrase carpe diem (‘seize the day’) to be circulated into the nation’s vocabulary.

A further day after that, it seemed that newly promoted Manchester City employed a bit of their own ‘carpe diem’ and seized their day back in the big time by thrashing neighbours United 5–1 at Maine Road in one of the most infamous football matches of the decade. I wonder who were the acts on TOTP seizing their day to be chart stars?

Well, London Boys were nothing if not committed in their performances and they threw everything at trying to maximise their short time as pop stars including some twinkle -toed dance moves, back flips and handstands. Also a fair mount of sweat if their glistening torsos are anything to go by. Ugh!

“Harlem Desire” was their third and final hit and would no doubt have been one of the songs they performed on the Coca-Cola Hitman Roadshow tour that they were part of in October and November of this year. Yes, according to Smash Hits, they were one of the roster of SAW acts doing their thing in some ‘prestigious’ venues around the UK like Mr Smith’s in Warrington, Goldiggers in Chippenham and the oxymoron that was Japanese Whispers in Barnsley. They even played in my adopted city of Hull at Romeos and Juliets or ‘Rermiers’ as the locals would have pronounced it. What a night that must have been (ahem).

What on earth is going on in this video for “Love In An Elevator” by Aerosmith? Yes, there’s a basic core of the band performing the song live but it’s all the other elements that are woven into the promo that are a bit disturbing. Set in a department store, there seems to be some sort of homage to the film Mannequin going on with showroom dummies transforming into living, scantily clad women. There’s a topless Joe Perry getting down to it with his equally topless real life wife. Then there are numerous characters included for no obvious reason such as a woman with dwarfism, a butcher, a lion tamer and even the Tin Man and Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz. The basic message seems to be sex anywhere, anytime with anyone. Well, as NIcky Campbell said in his intro “Aerosmith have been playing the epitome of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for twenty years now…”

“Love In An Elevator” peaked at No 13.

A possibly forgotten single next from S’Express. Having burst into the charts 18 months previously with a No 1 single in “Theme from S-Express”, Mark Moore and co followed it up with two more Top 10 singles and a Top 5 album in “Original Soundtrack”. “Mantra for a State of Mind” was the first single from their second album “Intercourse” but here’s where it all went decidedly constipated. That album would not appear for another two years and yet four singles were released from it over a period of three years! Check their discography out:

Single	Release date
“Mantra for a State of Mind”	1989
“Nothing To Lose”	1990
“Find ‘Em, Fool ‘Em, Forget ‘Em”	1991
“Let It All Out EP”	1992

All taken from the same album! I can only assume that Mark Moore had lost interest in the whole S’Express project come the new decade but that his record label were determined to squeeze every last penny out of it with multiple single releases. Talk about flogging a dead horse.

“Mantra for a State of Mind” peaked at No 21.

After Nicky Campbell’s too clever by half introduction where he references Karl Marx and Groucho Marx, we finally get to Richard Marx and his song “Right Here Waiting”. Marx was unable to follow up on this success until he unexpectedly returned to our charts in 1992 with the fairly creepy story song “Hazard”. Despite pretty much just being known for these two songs in the UK, Marx has released 12 studio albums and 54 singles in a career spanning over 30 years. And yet would you recognise him if you bumped into him in the street?

“Right Here Waiting” has been covered by all the music greats like err…Cliff Richard and …oh yes Barry Manilow and…hang on…this guy….

…like I said, all the music greats.

Some proper music now with The Wonder Stuff and “Don’t Let Me Down Gently” and not ‘Let Me Down Gently’ as Nicky Campbell introduces it. Kind of changes the meaning completely Nicky don’t you think?

Hailing from my original neck of the woods the West Midlands, they were a part of the ‘grebo’ scene along side other Black Country acts Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin but were by far the most commercially successful of the three.

My mate Robin had been into the Stuffies whilst we were at Sunderland Poly together so I was aware of a couple of their earlier minor hit singles “A Wish Away” and “It’s Yer Money I’m After Baby” but this was their first ever appearance on TOTP. They didn’t like it much either. Here’s lead singer Miles Hunt courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

"From the moment that we arrived at the BBC the production staff gave the impression that simply by us being there we were inconveniencing them in some way… I hated every minute of it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 29, 2020

Hunt also admitted that it felt like selling out but that he was compelled to comply otherwise record label Polydor would withdraw their touring and recording budgets. I think you can tell from watching their performance back that they weren’t having the best time. Hunt doesn’t look directly at the camera once and indeed seems to be trying to obscure his face with his hat pulled down low over his eyes. He even tries to cover his face with his arm deliberately at one point.

“Don’t Let Me Down Gently” is a great, high-speed almost folk -pop workout. Some of the tracks on the album “Hup” featured fiddle and banjo especially follow up single “Golden Green”.

What I always liked about The Wonder Stuff was their brilliant song and album titles such as “The Eight Legged Groove Machine”, “Construction for The Modern Idiot”, “Welcome to the Cheap Seats” and “Change Every Light Bulb”.

After hitting the big time with the Top 3 1991 album “Never Loved Elvis”, the band split in 1994 before reconvening in 2000 and are still a going concern today although Hunt is the only remaining original member.

“Don’t Let Me Down, Gently” peaked at No 19.

Four Breakers this week! I wish they were a bit more consistent with this feature. Some weeks nothing at all, this week four (which means four extra songs that I have to write about). First out of the traps are The Beautiful South who have acquired a new member since we last saw them in vocalist Briana Corrigan. I was never that fussed about “You Keep It All In” I’m sorry to say. I’d loved “Song For Whoever” but I couldn’t get on board with this one. It just sounded too chirpy and knowing. I get that it had interesting lyrics and all that but it just didn’t do it for me. I much preferred the final single from their debut album which was “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone” but that didn’t do nearly as well as “You Keep It All In” with the former peaking at No 31 whilst the latter was a No 8 hit.

If there was no consistency within the Breakers section, Gloria Estefan was a model of regularity in her choice of single releases. Her golden rule was fast dance number followed by a slow ballad then repeat ad infinitum. So after big drippy love song “Don’t Wanna Lose You”, we got the samba beat of “Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)“.

Gloria was pretty canny as she did an English language version, a Spanish version and loads of mixes with an eye on the club scene with a Pablo Dub Mix, a Def Dub Mix and a House Mix. Talk about spreading your bets. None of these versions appealed to me I’m afraid and this one wafted past me like one massive bout of flatulence.

“Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)” peaked at No 16.

Nope – don’t remember this one at all. “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be” should have been a marketing dream. The Queen of Soul paired with a solid gold chart breaking sensation and yet it didn’t really come off. Whitney Houston was still at the top of her game in ’89 although she hadn’t released a single since last year’s Olympic anthem “One Moment In Time” nor an album since ’87’s “Whitney”. Aretha Franklin meanwhile had spent the second part of the 80s recording duets with some major artists like Eurythmics and George Michael. She followed that up with an album called “Through The Storm” released in ’89 which included collaborations with the likes of Elton John, James Brown, The Four Tops and of course this track with Whitney.

However, “It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be” peaked at a lowly No 29 in the UK and fared even worse in the US where it stalled at No 41. So what went wrong? My diagnosis? It was a crap song.

Finally, we find Deacon Blue still ploughing a rich seam of hits from their “When the World Knows Your Name” album with this one, “Love And Regret” being the fourth of five. I really liked this one. Yes, it has a soft rock, chuggy guitar -ness to it and it does plod a bit, but it’s a nicely crafted song and suits Ricky Ross’ vocals perfectly. The fourth single from the album was pushing it a bit though and “Love And Regret” limped to a peak of No 28.

I met Ricky Ross once at an playback event for his first solo album. It was at some bar in Manchester and the whole of the Our Price shop where I was working got invited via some record company rep or other. Pretty sure I was the only member of staff remotely interested in Ricky. The others all just went for the free bar and I have never seen so many people so monumentally drunk in one place. It was carnage. Anyway, Ricky was a lovely fella and we chatted about Deacon Blue and football for a good few minutes. Hopefully I was still coherent by that point.

I say this every time W.A.S.P. are on but how else do you explain their flood of appearances on TOTP other than one of the show’s producers must have been a big fan. According to officialcharts.com, “Forever Free” is their last UK Top 40 hit of the 80s peaking at No 25. Yes! We are forever free of them in this blog!

Top 10

10. Alyson Williams – “I Need Your Lovin”

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

8. Jason Donovan – “Everyday (I Love You More)”

7. Damian – “The Time Warp”

6. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”

5. Tina Turner – “The Best”

4. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”

3. Madonna – “Cherish”

2. Richard Marx – “Right Here Waiting”

1. Black Box – “Ride On Time”: Blimey, this is getting to be like an episode of Play School! Which window will we look through today? Or for Black Box, which studio performance will it be this week? OK, so it’s the dungarees one…

The play out video is “Miss You Much” by Janet Jackson. Like her brother Michael, Janet wasn’t averse to releasing nearly every track off her album as a single. “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” had seven globally released singles lifted from it (plus one that was only released in Australia) of which “Miss You Much” was the first. However, whilst in the US, all seven were huge hits including four No 1s and two No 2s, in the UK the highest any of them made was No 15 for “Black Cat”. Why was that? How should I know? I spent weeks of my life writing a dissertation on the subject of why some songs were hits and others not and I didn’t come up with any sort of answer.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	London Boys	Harlem Desire	Big no
2	Aerosmith	Love In An Elevator	Going down I’m afraid – no
3	S’Express	Mantra For A State Of Mind	Nah
4	Richard Marx	Right Here Waiting	Nope
5	The Wonder Stuff	Don’t Let Me Down Gently	Didn’t I buy this? Why not?!
6	The Beautiful South	You Keep It All In	No but I had the album
7	Gloria Estefan	Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)	I do hear it Gloria and I don’t like it
8	Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin	It Isn’t, It Wasn’t, It Ain’t Never Gonna Be	And indeed it wasn’t – no
9	Deacon Blue	Love And Regret	Not the single but I had the album
10	W.A.S.P.	Forever Free	Forever shite more like
11	Black Box	Ride On Time	I didn’t
12	Janet Jackson	Miss You Much	Another 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/m000jjjc/top-of-the-pops-21091989

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/2019/09/september-20-october-3-1989.html

TOTP 14 SEP 1989

Posted on June 4, 2020 by 80stastic

What was happening on 14th September 1989? Well if you were Paul Ince, you had just completed your highly controversial transfer to Manchester United having become loathed by the fans of your former club West Ham after a photo of Ince posing in a Man Utd shirt had been leaked well ahead of the transfer actually being completed. Oops!

If you were me (and I was), you were working in a temporary position as an insurance clerk in Worcester with very little plan for what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Yeah well, at least I wasn’t Paul Ince. On with the music….

I think I first saw the film of The Rocky Horror Picture Show sometime around 1985 when I caught it as the late night Friday film on ITV. It kind of blew my mind at the time. I’d never seen anything like it before (I didn’t even know that it had been a stage musical initially). What the f**k was going on in this film?! Fast forward 35 years and it all seems a bit tame to me now but nevertheless still entertaining. That Friday night would have been the first time I heard “The Time Warp” with its dance step instructions and celebratory chorus. I’m sure I found it utterly beguiling on first hearing / viewing.

Damian‘s horrible 1989 cover version on the other hand I found contemptibly artless. A cynical, contrived attempt to score a hit on the back of an established popular song (we’ve all heard it played at weddings or parties before surely?) and fronted by someone made up to be a cross between Dr Frank-N-Furter and The Joker (cashing in on the phenomenon surrounding Tim Burton’s first Batman film release no doubt). It all smacked of desperation to me. Hopefully this will be the last we see of this particular incarnation of the song.

After the controversy of “Like A Prayer” and the powerful message of “Express Yourself”, Madonna resorted to a bit of light relief for the choice of her next single “Cherish”. Described by Madge herself as one of the “most retarded songs I’ve written”, it was a straight forward tale of love and devotion built around a fluffy pop melody with a nod towards doo-wop. Obviously not one of her own favourites, I’ve always found it to be quite enjoyable and charming. I think even my Guy Mitchell loving future father -in-law liked this one.

The black and white video works pretty well with its theme of mermen and Madonna paying homage to From Here To Eternity (or is it Splash?). She looks great here as well and not just because of the wet t-shirt look I should add!

“Cherish” peaked at No 3 in the UK and No 2 in the US becoming Madonna’s 16th consecutive Top 5 single over there, a record by any artist in Hot 100 chart history.

Next a sound that I associate with the very early 90s more than the late 80s but here is the first TOTP appearance of Technotronic in Sep ’89 with “Pump Up The Jam”. Apparently this was one of the first ever hip-house records (a fusion of house music with elements of hip-hop obvs) to originate outside of the US (they were from Belgium as Simon Mayo advises in his intro).

As with their Italian house counterparts Black Box, the woman fronting this performance – Felly Kilingi – didn’t do the vocals at all. They were supplied by Ya Kid K who would eventually appear (credited) on future Technotronic releases. If you add in the case of Milli Vanilli then 1989 really was the year of fake pop stars.

For about a 12 month period, Technotronic would be consistent chart stars with a string of hit singles all of which sounded just like “Pump Up The Jam” (at least to my ears). It could be said (by me at least) that they paved the way for the likes of Snap, 2 Unlimited and Culture Beat to go on and have huge No 1 hits in the early 90s all of which was just more evidence as to why they were dreadful.

“Pump Up The Jam” peaked at No 2.

According to host Andy Crane, we’d heard nothing from Tears For Fears for two years. Err…more like four in terms of new material Andy but do carry on….well he did get the album release date right (according to Wikipedia) so I’ll let him off.

“Sowing The Seeds Of Love” was at its No 5 peak and when you consider that some of the acts above them in the charts this week included Jason Donovan and Jive Bunny it gives more weight to the argument that it really should have been a No 1 record.

For those interested in TFF trivia, it turns out that the B-side was an instrumental called “Tears Roll Down” which would resurface in 1992 as “Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)” with added lyrics and vocals to promote their first Best Of collection called “Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92)”.

The band released a further three songs from “The Seeds Of Love” album which should have been bigger hits than they were, namely “Woman In Chains” (No 26), “Advice For The Young At Heart” (No 36) and “Famous Last Words” (No 83). And for what it’s worth, in my opinion, “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” remains a great record and I’ll fight anybody who says otherwise.

Sydney Youngblood now. Sid seemed like a nice guy and his tune “If Only I Could” was inoffensive enough but I just couldn’t be doing with him or his song. It was all so inconsequential to my ears. Maybe I was missing something back then. Hang on while I check it out again….

….nope, nothing. I’ve completely flat-lined. It’s like a musical sedative to me.

Before becoming a pop star, Sydney served with the US army in Germany which is a nice segue into the first of tonight’s Breakers who are London Boys with a third (!) consecutive hit in “Harlem Desire”. These guys were born in Greenwich but relocated to Hamburg in 1981 where they were based at the time of their brief stardom. Wonder if they knew Mr Youngblood?

This track didn’t stray at all from the formula of their previous two hits but its No 17 peak maybe indicated that the record buying public had cottoned onto their little game and had frankly had enough. Certainly the duo had no further hits in the UK.

I knew this track reminded me of something else equally as camp and I’ve finally worked out what it is…

Rock legend incoming….the latter part of the 80s had not been peak period Rolling Stones. Without a Top 40 hit since their pants cover of “Harlem Shuffle” in ’86, their last album “Dirty Work” had been seen pretty much as a nadir in their career. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ relationship was in tatters so the “Steel Wheels” album of ’89 was a watershed moment.

The lead single was “Mixed Emotions” and I kind of liked it. Apparently referred to by Richards as “Mick’s Emotions” with Keef believing it was about his feud with Jagger, it sounded to me like a return to the more classic Stones sound. US audiences took to it by making it a No 5 hit but we remained unconvinced in the UK where it stalled at No 36.

My abiding memory of this era of the band is travelling on a train from Birmingham to Worcester (possibly returning from a trip to Hull to see my girlfriend) and listening to two young lads discussing the merits of the album in detail. Bearing in mind that I was just 21 and these guys were clearly younger than me by a good few years, it just didn’t sound right. I know this is my peculiar prejudice but had it been two wizened, rockers having that discussion I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. The two young lads in question will be mid to late 40s now. I wonder what their thoughts on the album are today?

Is this actually for real? Another W.A.S.P. single in the Top 40? How many is this now? I reckon this is at least three that have been on TOTP! This latest one was called “Forever Free” and it starts off like a bad re-write of “Wind Of Change” by The Scorpions before drifting into their bullshit brand of heavy metal. Sorry, I just didn’t / don’t get this lot.

“Forever Free” peaked at No 25.

After one legendary act in The Rolling Stones, almost immediately we get another in the form of Tina Turner and she’s actually in the studio! This performance of “The Best” is stereotypical Tina with her trademark jerky dance moves in full effect. The more I hear this song, the more my dislike of it seems to increase. I don’t think I felt like this about it at the time – maybe it’s the cumulative effect of 31 years worth of airplays.

Top 10

10. Tina Turner – “The Best”

9. Starlight – “Numero Uno”

8. Alyson Williams – “I Need Your Lovin”

7. Damian – “The Time Warp”

6. Big Fun – “Blame It On The Boogie”

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

4. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – “Swing The Mood

3. Richard Marx – “Right Here Waiting”

2. Jason Donovan – “Everyday ( I Love You More)”

1. Black Box – “Ride On Time”: Blimey! It’s yet another studio performance and yet another change of outfit for Katrin Quinol. This time she’s gone for a complete cover up with white top and stripy dungarees. In a Smash Hits article, she described her favourite fancy dress party costume as being that of Cinderella, basically wearing a fabulous dress to meet her prince. Funny then that she chose to go for dungarees for this TOTP appearance. I blame Mary Whitehouse (again).

The play out video is “Love In An Elevator” by Aerosmith. Despite their Run DMC inspired renaissance in 1986 with “Walk This Way”, it’s perhaps surprising to learn that they didn’t get another UK Top 40 entry until this track became a No 13 hit three years later.

Taken from their 7 x platinum (in the US) album “Pump”, this tale of Steven Tyler’s sexual encounter with a fan in a hotel lift was musically very much in the same vein as “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” that we’d ignored in this country until it finally became a hit in early 1990 on re-release.

I didn’t mind it but it didn’t elevate me (ahem) to anywhere near the heights of actually buying it.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Damian	The Time Warp	No
2	Madonna	Cherish	No but it must be on my ‘Immaculate Collection’ CD
3	Technotronic	Pump Up The Jam	Techno-bollox more like – no
4	Tears For Fears	Sowing The Seeds Of Love	No but it’s on my best of CD of theirs
5	Sydney Youngblood	If Only I Could	But I really couldn’t – no
6	London Boys	Harlem Desire	Big no
7	The Rolling Stones	Mixed Emotions	Nah
8	W.A.S.P.	Forever Free	Forever shite more like
9	Tina Turner	The Best	Not even close.
10	Black Box	Ride On Time	I didn’t
11	Aerosmith	Love In An Elevator	Going down I’m afraid – no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jjj7/top-of-the-pops-14091989

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/2019/09/september-6-19-1989.html

TOTP 20 JUL 1989

Posted on April 24, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, quite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And another….

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

Top 10

10. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

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

8. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

7. Pet Shop Boys – “It’s Alright”

6. Chaka Khan – “Ain’t Nobody”

5. Bette Midler – Wind Beneath My Wings”

4. Bobby Brown – “On Our Own”

3. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”

2. London Boys -“London Nights”

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

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

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

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000hbdz/top-of-the-pops-20071989

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

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/10/july-12-25-1989.html

TOTP 29 JUN 1989

Posted on April 15, 2020 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…

Double Trouble's Leigh Guest (on the left) previously worked as a children's magic entertainer. Yeah, he looks the type. #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 10, 2020

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

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?

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

TOTP 11 MAY 1989

Posted on March 24, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ouch! There’s more…

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

Deary me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10

10. Holly Johnson -“Americanos”

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

8. Chaka Khan – “I’m Every Woman”

7. Edelweiss – “Bring Me Edelweiss”

6. Midnight Oil – “Beds Are Burning”

5. Natalie Cole – “Miss You Like Crazy”

4. London Boys- “Requiem”

3. Queen – “I Want It All”

2. The Bangles – “Eternal Flame”

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

TOTP 27 APR 1989

Posted on March 15, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10

10. Inner City -“Ain’t Nobody Better”

9. Morrissey – “Interesting Drug”

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

7. Fine Young Cannibals – “Good Thing”

6. Kon Kan – “I Beg Your Pardon”

5. The Cure – “Lullaby”

4. Holly Johnson – “Americanos”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-19-may-2-1989_19.html

TOTP 20 APR 1989

Posted on March 11, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

“This Is Your Land” peaked at No 13.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10

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

9. Fine Young Cannibals – “Good Thing”

8. Madonna – “Like A Prayer”

7. Paula Abdul – “Straight Up”

6. U2 – “When Love Comes To Town”

5. Kon Kan – “I Beg Your Pardon”

4. Holly Johnson – “Americanos”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-19-may-2-1989_19.html

TOTP Rewind – the 80s

My memories of 80s chart music

TOTP 21 SEP 1989

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TOTP 14 SEP 1989

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TOTP 20 JUL 1989

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TOTP 29 JUN 1989

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TOTP 11 MAY 1989

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TOTP 27 APR 1989

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TOTP 20 APR 1989

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