The Bangles | TOTP Rewind – the 80s

TOTP 18 FEB 1988

Posted on July 14, 2019 by 80stastic

Seeing Nicky Campbell as a co -presenter on this TOTP show just doesn’t compute somehow. It’s hard to think of him as a Radio 1 DJ but he was back in the day before becoming more well known as a presenter of much weightier programmes like Watchdog and The Big Questions in his later broadcasting career. Tonight is his TOTP debut alongside old pro Gary Davies.

First on tonight are one of the acts that contributed so much to establishing 1988 as the year of house music. Bomb The Bass was basically DJ and producer Tim Simenon (not to be confused with the bassist of The Clash Paul Simonon) who created “Beat Dis” around a whole host of samples – some musical and some clipped pieces of dialogue. There didn’t seem to be much of a link between the samples with them coming from sources as disparate as Thunderbirds, Dragnet, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, James Brown and Public Enemy. The ‘this is a journey into sound, stereophonic sound’ sample seemed to be on just about every dance anthem of the year or at least that’s how I remember it. Where was it from? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

The voice saying "This is a journey into sound" is Geoffrey Sumner (an actor and commentator for British Movietone News), from 1958 stereo demonstration record "A Journey Into Stereo Sound": https://t.co/3236c1H6FW #TOTP pic.twitter.com/YnTRW6X3q1

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 5, 2019

The performance of such a dance orientated, sample heavy track on TOTP was always going to present some problems but I think they just about get away with it here. The three black guys with the peroxide blonde hair provide a striking visual image even if their guitar miming is the most redundant use of a musical instrument on any song in the decade.

For all I wasn’t sure about this new fangled house music, I always quite liked this one. but I could have sworn that “Beat Dis” was a No 1 record but apparently it only made No 2.

One of the worst song titles of all time up next. “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” was Billy Ocean‘s third US No 1 and a No 3 hit over here. For me, it’s always been a bit of a stinker though. That title alone should have been enough to condemn it to an everlasting place on the shittest songs of the decade chart. Added to that, the actual song is really weak. It’s basically a very lazy rewrite of ‘When The Going Gets Tough”. The chorus even scans the same. It’s also deeply creepy. ‘Touch my bumper’ croons Billy. It’s almost a song about abduction. Utter rubbish.

After, Gary Davies’s stuttering intro when he stares blankly into the camera when he loses his thread, we get T’Pau with their third consecutive Top 10 hit “Valentine”. Why they chose this for single release I really don’t know. It’s a right old chugger that never gets out of first gear. The title track from their “Bridge Of Spies” album was so much better and should have been the follow up to No 1 “China In Your Hand”. How would I know that? Because I had that album. No I did, really. The recurrent riff that runs throughout “Valentine” is surely pinched from “Pretty Vacant” by the Sex Pistols isn’t it? I’d have probably forgiven Carol Decker for anything though at this point. Ahem.

A re-release up next. On the back of the success of their “Walk The Dinosaur” single, Was (Not Was) gave their track “Spy In The House Of Love” another shot at chart glory. Having originally stalled at No 51 the previous year, the decision to put it out again was vindicated when it secured a chart peak of some 30 places higher at No 21.

I quite liked it but it didn’t have the same cartoony catchiness of “Walk The Dinosaur” and had a lot slower bpm which didn’t work for me. Much more interesting was the completely out there B-side “Hello Dad, I’m In Jail”. It’s only 1minute 24 seconds long. Give it a try….

The Breakers are back after last week’s sojourn and if you thought Billy Ocean’s track was creepy, get a load of this! Vanessa Paradis was just 14 when she recorded “Joe Le Taxi” which created quite a fuss in the press of the day. As with “Get Outta My Dreams. Get Into My Car”, the song is very vehicle based and there was something very disturbing about the whole affair. I think it was the juxtaposition of the idea of a taxi cruising around Paris with the image of a clearly underage girl writhing around on screen. The gap in Paradis’ teeth just seemed to emphasise quite how young she was.

The song itself is pretty awful to my ears. It sounds like the incidental music to a Inspector Clouseau film. French music fans cared not a jot about any of my reservations about the song and sent it to No 1 in France for eleven weeks! Vanessa saved herself from one hit wonder status by having a second hit in 1992 with the much more creditable “Be My Baby” which was a stylish piece of 60s pastiche written by her then partner Lenny Kravitz.

“Joe Le Taxi” made No 3 on the UK Top 40.

If I really had to pick one, I think “Man In The Mirror” would be my favourite song on Michael Jackson‘s “Bad” album. An anthem to self discovery and improvement, I always found it very tuneful. The song’s start is actually very similar to the album’s lead single “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” with that echoey, spacey note slowly introducing the track but without that creepy dialogue that Jackson added to the former. The similarity is not that surprising when you consider “Man In The Mirror” was co-written by Siedah Garrett who also duetted with Jackson on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”.

It was a No 1 in the US but strangely only reached No 21 over here. However it did go to No 2 when re-released in the wake of Jackson’s death in 2009. The video barely features the artist himself but instead is a montage of clips of influential world figures and events. It probably seemed incredibly thought provoking back in 1988 but viewed today, although the world doesn’t seem to have moved on that much in terms of war, famine and hate, the video makes its points in a rather obvious and predictable way it seems to me.

Just checking Wikipedia and it says another five singles were lifted from the “Bad” album after “Man In The Mirror”! Is that right?! So nine of the album’s eleven tracks were issued as singles?! If that seems like overkill, we didn’t get a new Jacko album until 1991’s “Dangerous” to balance it out a bit.

The Bangles take on the Simon and Garfunkel song “Hazy Shade Of Winter” is widely regarded as one of the decade’s better cover versions – an opinion that I concur with. A stand alone single that was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Less Than Zero (which I’ve never seen), it’s a beefed up, rockier take on it than the original. They also removed the word ‘A’ from the title of their version which puts me in mind of when “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” by The Icicle Works was bizarrely reframed as “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)” for the American market.

The Bangles took their cover all the way to No 2 in the US where they were now becoming regular massive hit makers whilst it was a smaller though respectable No 11 in the UK.

A first glimpse of one of the faces of the year next. “Doctorin’ the House” was the first hit for the electronic dance outfit Coldcut who were duo Matt Black and Jonathan More – not that anyone knew their names then or now ( I had to resort to Wikipedia again). No, that’s because they wisely got guest vocalists in to front their sample heavy tunes and none were more visually memorable than Yazz. Real name Yasmin Evans, she would of course end up having one of the most enduring hits of the decade later in the year and the No 2 best selling single of 1988 in “The Only Way Is Up”. For now though, she was strutting her stiff with Coldcut and her TOTP debut is quite a performance. The moves with her male dance partner are almost in perfect synchronisation. Add to that Yazz’s peroxide blonde cropped hairstyle and her amazonian figure and it’s not hard to see why she made quite a splash in the pop world.

As with Bomb The Bass at the top of the show, “Doctorin’ the House” was laden with samples, this time sourced from the likes of Thunderbirds (again) and Justice League Of America. No doubt the use of the word ‘house’ in the track’s title was very deliberately chosen to ride the zeitgeist. “Doctorin’ the House” peaked at No 6 and Coldcut would repeat the trick of jumpstarting a female solo artist’s career when they returned to the Top 40 with “People Hold On” featuring Lisa Stansfield the following year.

The Top 10:

10. Debbie Gibson – “Shake Your Love”

9. T’Pau – “Valentine”

8. Jermaine Stewart – “Say It Again”

7. Elton John – “Candle In The Wind Live”

6. Bros – “When Will I Be Famous”

5. Bomb The Bass – “Beat Dis”

4. Billy Ocean – “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car”

3. Taylor Dayne – “Tell It To My Heart”

2. Tiffany – “I Think We’re Alone Now”

1. Kylie Minogue – “I Should Be So Lucky”: The Kylie story has begun and with a bang as she’s No 1 with this insanely catchy Stock, Aitken and Waterman number. Who would have thought back in ’88 that some 31 year later, the world would not just still be talking about Ms Minogue but enthralled by her as the crowd were at her recent Glastonbury set?

This video, as Gary Davies tells us, was especially recorded for TOTP and is not the original promo where she’s seen singing in the bath. It looked cheap and tacky at the time and it hasn’t improved with age. We could also have done without the crap Aussie accents from Mssrs Campbell and Davies.

The play out video is yet more Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced R’n’B from Alexander O’Neal and this time he has again linked up with Cherrelle as they did two years prior to this for “Saturday Love”.

Needless to say, “Never Knew Love Like This” did nothing at all for me. Talking of ‘never knowing’ stuff though, I never knew this courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Cherrelle is the cousin of Pebbles, who had a no 8 hit in 1988 with “Girlfriend”: https://t.co/5F6ZJ9rvy0 #TOTP

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 5, 2019

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bomb The Bass	Beat Dis	I still wasn’t on board with the dance music explosion by this point to actually buy any of it
2	Billy Ocean	Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car	God no!
3	T’Pau	Valentine	No but I had the album. No you f**k off!
4	Was (Not Was)	Spy In The House Of Love	No but its on my Best Of Collection of theirs.
5	Vanessa Paradis	Joe LE Taxi	No – far too creepy
6	Michael Jackson	Man In The Mirror	No but its on my Jacko Greatest Hits promo CD that I got when working in Our Price
7	The Bangles	Hazy Shade Of Winter	Not the 7” but its on my Best Of CD of theirs
8	Coldcut with Yazz and the Plastic Population	Doctorin’ The House	No – see Bomb The Bass above
9	Kylie Minogue	I Should Be So Lucky	Nope
10	Alexander O’Neal and Cherrelle	Never Knew Love Like This	A big fat 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 as I can’t find the full programme on YouTube.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006gzf/top-of-the-pops-18021988

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/2018/02/february-10-23-1988.html

TOTP 23 OCT 1986

Posted on December 8, 2018 by 80stastic

It’s late October 1986 and I have been a full time student at Sunderland Polytechnic for just about a month. My devotion to Thursday nights and TOTP is being tested to the limit by other distractions – getting drunk basically – and I must be fast approaching the time when I stopped watching the programme altogether. In tandem with my changing lifestyle, the pop charts are about to undergo a huge change with the advent of house music and the dominance of Stock Aitken and Waterman’s Hit Factory but for the moment, TOTP are ploughing on blissfully unaware of the forthcoming moves in the musical landscape.

So it’s business as usual and it’s very regular presenter Gary Davies in the chair tonight. He’s gone for a suit and tie rather than one of his chunky jumpers sporting some lame slogan about him being ‘young free and single’. Inexplicably, the producers are playing Julian Cope’s ‘World Shut Your Mouth” in the background in between acts even though arch druid Cope isn’t even on the show.

Here’s a great song to start us off with though. “Don’t Get Me Wrong” by The Pretenders was the band’s first foray into the Top 40 since their Christmas single of 1983 “2000 Miles”. Uptempo and melodic, it was a strong lead single from their album “Get Close” and would be rewarded with a peak position of No 10 on the UK charts. However the band was in a state of flux. Their line up had been constantly changing since the death of two members at the start of the decade and by the time 1986 rolled around, Chrissie Hynde had jettisoned founder member and drummer Martin Chambers for basically not being up to it whilst bass player Malcolm Foster quit in support of his pal. The album was recorded using various session musicians and a new rhythm section was drafted in. If you look carefully in this TOTP performance you can see that the new drummer is one Blair Cunningham previously of Haircut One Hundred. In effect it was basically ‘The Chrisise Hynde Band’ now rather than The Pretenders.

Whilst I liked “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, I preferred the lilting ballad “Hymn To Her” which was the follow up single released early the next year.

Seriously, this lot again?! Midnight Star are on the show once more with their Top 10 hit “Midas Touch”. Look, if you really want to listen to a song with Midas in the title, may I recommend “King Midas In Reverse” by wonderful 60s beat combo The Hollies. Please don’t waste your time on this crap.

Here come The Housemartins with their song about the disenfranchisement and breakdown of community in modern living “Think For A Minute”. Somehow Gary Davies seems to think that the song is “smoochy”! Come on Davies! Open your ears!

The lads seem to be having fun up there on stage though. I like Norman Cook’s feigned bewilderment at where the brass part is coming from when there is nobody on stage playing the trumpet. Also enjoyable is Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore’s Status Quo head banging dancing at the climax of the song. Such irreverent playfulness was not the norm on TOTP at the time and was an antidote to the likes of Five Star and their over rehearsed choreography.

“Think For A Minute” peaked at No 18 but a huge No 1 was on its way to The Housemartins and arriving just in time for Christmas…

Pray silence for the return of Sir Billiam of Idol! Yes it’s the peroxide blonde ex punk rocker Billy Idol back with a new single “To Be A Lover”. We’d last seen Billy back in the Summer of 1985 when he made his major breakthrough in the UK with the re-issued hits ‘White Wedding and “Rebel Yell”. Since then zip but here he was with the lead single from a new album and…I was completely underwhelmed by it. It seemed to go nowhere but went on forever trying to get there. Plus his vocal sounded awful. As the 90s got into their stride, I would come to realise that he sounded just like Vic Reeves doing his club singing routine on Shooting Stars.

I liked his follow up singles “Don’t Need A Gun” and “Sweet Sixteen” much better and on the back of those even contemplated buying the parent album “Whiplash Smile” but probably more so because I liked its title. Thankfully I decided not to.

“To Be A Lover” reached No 22 in the UK charts but was much more popular with US fans who made it a No 6 hit over there.

Fancy some Breakers? First up are Leeds goth types The Mission with “Stay With Me”. I have a dim recollection of seeing this on TOTP so I’m guessing that I must have caught this episode. I’m pretty sure that this was a favourite of my old pal Rob the Ho Jo super fan who had ditched Howie as soon as he moved to Manchester to study and became a goth overnight. I think there was a dance that accompanied it that he showed me incorporating hand gestures that simulated throwing petals into the air. Or did I just make that up?

Lead singer Wayne Hussey was an interesting character having been in goth gods Sister Of Mercy previously but also bizarrely Dead Or Alive. This was their first Top 40 hit and kickstarted a remarkable run of 11 straight Top 40 hits that went on into 1992. Granted they were mostly minor hits but even so – that statistic took me by surprise somewhat.

I quite liked it – it was melodic for a goth song and it would make No 30 on the charts. I can’t find a clip of the promo video that TOTP show so here’s a plain old audio clip instead.

Here’s another chart oddity – an R’n’B version of a Bacharach and David song made famous by The Carpenters. Gwen Guthrie‘s version of “(They Long To Be) Close To You was her follow up to her Top 5 smash “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent” which everyone I have ever spoken to about loved but which I couldn’t stand. I refer you to Tom Baker’s turn as Captain Rum in Blackadder on this point.

Anyway, back to Gwen and I remember her version being much closer to The Carpenters version than this. Clearly my memory has failed me. Obviously I didn’t like this one much either and did it start a trend for nasty R’n’B versions of classic songs? I’m thinking Quartz doing Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” in the early 90s and …oh they’re must be loads that I can’t think of right now.

“(They Long To Be) Close To You” made No 25 on the UK charts and Gwen herself sadly died of cancer just 13 years later at the age of 48.

Unbelievably I don’t think we have see the next artist on these TOTP repeats before. Her appearances must have coincided with some unpalatable Radio 1 DJs presenting those weeks. Cyndi Lauper (for it is she) burst onto the pop scene in 1984 with her ode to girl power “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” while the Spice Girls were still playing with their Barbie dolls. Her debut album “She’s So Unusual” went six times platinum in the States and housed four top 5 US singles including the No 1 ‘Time After Time”.

Her success in the UK wasn’t quite as phenomenal but she was still a known name before she disappeared for two years to record her follow up album “True Colors”. The title track was the first single from it and it’s a delicate, sparse piece and far superior to the likes of the aforementioned “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and ‘Time After Time” to my ears. Cyndi’s voice isn’t to everyone’s tastes but I think this song is the perfect vehicle for her and she does an admirable job on it showcasing an understated and fragile vocal performance.

The song would lend its name to a charity that Cyndi founded in 2008 to educate people regarding LGBT issues and to end LGBT youth homelessness. Who says pop music is vacuous and pointless?

The song has been covered by many artists including Phil Collins but in my book the Aztec Camera version of this song is definitely worth a listen. Much like his cover of Van Halen’s “Jump”, Roddy Frame does a great job of it I think.

Cyndi’s version was a No 12 hit over here but a No 1 record in the US.

The Top 10 was as follows…

10. Midnight Star – “Midas Touch”

9. The Communards – “Don’t Leave Me This Way”

8. Pet Shop Boys – “Suburbia”

7. Five Star – “Rain Or Shine”

6. The Bangles – “Walk Like An Egyptian”

5. Paul Simon – “You Can Call Me Al”

4. Status Quo – “In The Army Now”

3. Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman – ‘All I Ask Of You”

2. Madonna – “True Blue”

1. Nick Berry – “Every Loser Wins”: Wicksy is still at the top of the tree. I was a wet behind the ears student at this time and one of my memories of this record evolved around the Sunderland Poly newspaper ‘Monopoly’. A few of us from my course were trying to secure ourselves positions on the editorial team and myself and a friend Richard had blagged our way into being the Music editors. Another friend John was the Arts editor. As I remember, there was also an audacious campaign by a mate called Roy to be the actual editor-in-chief. I think there was a vote and Roy lost out to a third year student or somebody. On the way back to halls, I recall a lovely guy called Dave trying to cheer Roy up by serenading him with a version of “Every Loser Wins”. I’m sure Roy appreciated it.

The play out video this week is The Bangles and “Walk Like An Egyptian”. This video helped to establish the band as big hitters in the pop arena after heavy rotation on MTV. But were the band themselves happy with their new status? Having been part of the Los Angeles Paisley Underground movement, they had left all that behind them and the songs that were becoming big hits for them weren’t their own “Walk Like An Egyptian” included. The recording of the song caused fractures in the band when producer David Kahne decided that drummer Debbie Peterson’s vocals were not required on the track. Neither were her drumming skills as a drum machine was used. It’s a familiar tale of success and fame coming at a price.

The Bangles continued to have hits (big ones too) until their initial break up in 1989.

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Pretenders	Don’t Get Me Wrong	No but I’m sure I must have their Greatest Hits CD somewhere
2	Midnight Star	Midas Touch	An Aladdin’s cave full of gold wouldn’t have convinced me to buy this
3	The Housemartins	Think For A Minute	No but my wife has the album London 0 Hull 4
4	Billy Idol	To Be A Lover	I came close to buying the album but no – phew!
5	The Mission	Stay With Me	Pretty sure I don’t own any Mission records
6	Gwen Guthrie	(They Long To Be) Close To You	No
7	Cyndi Lauper	True Colors	No but I have Aztec Camera’s version of it
8	Nick Berry	Every Loser Wins	No! No! NO!
9	The Bangles	Walk Like An Egyptian	No but I have their Greatest hits CD

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bt49k7/top-of-the-pops-23101986

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

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

Some bed time reading?

01-smash-hits-22-october-4-november-1986-225x300

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-22-november-4-1986.html

TOTP 09 OCT 1986

Posted on November 28, 2018 by 80stastic

It’s early October 1986 and to paraphrase Paul Young (more of whom later) everything has changed! I am a fully fledged, Union card -carrying student at Sunderland Polytechnic and have been so for a whole 12 days! As such I would have already discovered the Union bar which is so close to my student halls that I could (and did on occasion) pay a visit there in my slippers (Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll!). Indeed I was probably in there when this TOTP was broadcast as I have no memory of seeing new boy Simon Mayo making his first appearance as a presenter.

I therefore also missed The Bangles performing “Walk Like An Egyptian”. I liked The Bangles – still do – but in truth this isn’t one of their best efforts. It was, however, a very important record for them. After the massive global success of “Manic Monday”, follow up single “If She Knew What She Wants” didn’t pull up any trees sales wise. It was a crossroads moment for the band. “Walk Like An Egyptian” restored their good fortunes and was a No 3 hit in the UK and a No 1 in the US. Originally offered to Toni Basil and randomly Lene Lovich, it very nearly strays into novelty record territory but watching this performance by the girls, it was hard not to fall for their charms – at least the 18 year old version of me found it a struggle. Ahem.

Inspiring many a stupid dance amongst punters at local nightclubs across the country, it remains one of their most well known songs perhaps only topped by worldwide No 1 “Eternal Flame”.

As Simon Mayo says, it’s yet another EastEnders linked record in the charts next and this one would be the most successful of the lot. Nick Berry played likeable Queen Vic barman Simon ‘Wicksy’ Wicks in the soap opera and by late ’86 was an established character and heart throb. The song “Every Loser Wins” was a written by Simon May (not to be confused with TOTP host Simon Mayo) and had been incorporated into one the show’s story lines. It was something to do with Wicksy and a band he’d put together called ‘The Banned” after they had been barred from performing in the pub (see what they did there?). Or was it something to do with Michelle jilting Lofty at the altar? Oh I can’t remember! Does this help?….

No? Oh well. They made a proper promo video to support the release which is what TOTP shows. The director has blatantly pinched some of the staging from the George Michael “Careless Whisper” video where he has Berry standing around near a pole crooning. The song would be the second best selling single of the year after The Communards and I read somewhere recently that at the time it was the fastest selling single since Band Aid which in the days before X Factor and the like was quite something.

Don’t think Mary the punk agreed though – “You’re not crying over that crap are you?”!

Look out, here comes Julian! Julian Cope that is with his biggest ever solo hit single “Word Shut Your Mouth”. I found this all very confusing at the time as I knew that Julian had recorded an album called “World Shut Your Mouth” previously but this song is not on that album. It was in fact off his “Saint Julian” album. I knew a bit about Julian already – obviously his Teardrop Explodes background but also I had liked his “Greatness And Perfection Of Love” single which had been on the “World Shut Your Mouth” album. Bloody Hell! This is exhausting to write about but that’s Julian for you.

“World Shut Your Mouth” (the single) is a great song and would have been a stand out moment of his career even without the added factor of that microphone stand. Coming on like a mid 80s Jim Morrison armed with a tune that sounded like a mid 80s version of The Stooges (I might be stretching it a bit there), Cope turned the art of hanging off a microphone stand on its head. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts has his words on the prop:

Julian Cope on his climbable mic stand: “I’ve always thought of the mic stand as the altar, and the lectern, and a phallic symbol. It’s almost like sucking your own cock onstage.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 23, 2018

Well, quite. If you fancy reading Cope’s autobiography ‘Head-On/Repossessed’ (and who wouldn’t after that quote!), it’s one strange but interesting read.

Mayo’s co-presenter Gary Davies drops his first dreadful limp joke of the night after Cope’s performance by saying “Apparently he’s gong to perform his next single on a trapeze”.

*winces*.

To be fair to Davies, Julian’s next was called single ‘Trampolene” which peaked at No 31 so he wasn’t that far off. I would have stayed in to watch Julian perform “Trampolene” on a trampoline.

*Checks YouTube*

He didn’t though. Shame.

After someone making their first TOTP appearance for five years, here comes someone who has been a part of the fixtures and fittings on the show these last three years but it’s all about to change. We last saw Paul Young in the charts with “Tomb Of Memories” the previous year and now he’s back with a brand new song. “Wonderland” was the first track released from his third album “Between Two Fires”. In a recent post I mentioned how three of the decades’ biggest stars all ran adrift commercially around the same time as each other with third album releases – Paul Young, Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw. In the case of Paul, his slip from the affections of the nation’s record buyers seemed unlikely and I’m guessing his record company would have been quietly confident that Paul would soon be racing up the charts again. “Wonderland” was a modest success reaching no 24 but subsequent single releases from the album failed to halt the downward trend and did not make the Top 40 at all. On first hearing of the track I could kind of understand why. It seemed sluggish and sprawling and took an age to get going but on repeated listens I find it’s actually got a quiet power to it building up to a rousing ending complete with wailing guitar, a bounding bass line and drum fills.

Unlike his previous two albums that were mostly cover versions, “Between Two Fires’ was nearly all self-penned Paul Young originals (although “Wonderland’ wasn’t) and was written more specifically for the US market. It’s actually a pretty good album (good enough for me to have bought it anyway) and although it performed reasonably well (300,00 copies sold) it was nowhere near the sales of his earlier long players.

No doubt had I seen this performance at the time (no iPlayer on those days kids) I would have clocked Paul’s new short haircut (no more the mullet although mine would last a few months longer). Also check out the keyboard player making the weird hand gestures. It’s like he was trying top invent the ‘big box, little box’ style of dancing that house music would later inspire.

Paul would not visit the Top 40 again until a new decade had dawned.

The second of tonight’s acts that are just about to disappear out of the charts (but not our hearts) forever is Howard Jones with “All I Want”. I genuinely didn’t think we would be seeing Howard on TOTP again but then I’m pretty sure I never saw this show first time around so would have missed what was surely his valedictory turn on the programme.

Having been in the charts just the once before in ’86 when record company Warners slung out a version of “Nobody Is To Blame” from second album “Dream Into Action” a whole 12 months on from that album’s release – presumably just to maintain his profile before new material came out – “All I Want” was the lead single from third album “One To One”. Sadly for Howard, this was the point where his magnificent run of success was about to come to a juddering halt. Was it third album syndrome that took Howard down or had his fan base outgrown him? Or was it just that the new material wasn’t that great?

My abiding memory of this song comes from my mate and HoJo super fan Rob from school. By this point Rob was ensconced as a student in Manchester and he had undergone a huge transformation in his appearance literally within hours of stepping foot in Manc land. For Rob had become a goth! Yes, it was all black hair dye and crimpers for Rob but a little part of him couldn’t let go of Howard as he told me when he wrote me a letter during the first few weeks of term. Yes kids, if we wanted to contact someone back then we either had to use a public pay phone or physically write some words down on a piece of paper and post it. None of your texts, emails, messaging or FaceBook. Imagine that! Anyway, back to Rob’s epistle and he referred to the new Jones single by saying that the verse was nothing very exciting but what about that chorus! He had a point, the chorus is pretty much the whole song. In fact, its almost a chorus in search of a song.

In this performance, Howard’s had a new haircut – it doesn’t look great to me – and has re-employed one of the most annoying people of the decade (in my humble opinion), his mime artist Jed who is in the African style mask apparently. If Jed was trying to make the song a bit more interesting, it doesn’t work for me. There’s a weird bit where he and Howie get up close and personal in an almost erotic way but most of the time he’s just arseing about like he always has done.

“All I Want” made a very disappointing No 35 on the charts and was his last ever Top 40 appearance although he is still very active in the world of music to this day and regularly tours and releases new material.

Another pathetic attempt at humour from Gary Davies follows where he tries be funny using the prop of a mask similar to the one used in Howard’s performance. Simon Mayo just doesn’t know where to look it’s so embarrassing and refuses to join in at all.

The Top 10…

10. Pet Shop Boys -“Suburbia”

9. Status Quo – “In the Army Now”

8. A-ha – “I’ve Been Losing You”

7. Eurythmics – “Thorn In My Side”

6. Cameo- “Word Up”

5. Paul Simon – “You Can Call Me Al”

4. Nick Berry – “Every Loser Wins”

3. The Communards – “Don’t Leave Me This Way”

2. Five Star – “Rain Or Shine”

1.Madonna – “True Blue”: She’s at it again! Madonna is No 1 for the second single in succession. The title track from her latest album, it was in marked contrast to the previous singles from it “Live To Tell” and “Papa Don’t Preach”. Basically a very simple throwback pop song recalling the days of 60s girl groups, it divided critical opinion with comments ranging from “schmaltzy nostalgia” to “pop-song confection perfection” in the music press. For what it’s worth (which isn’t much), I liked it. It was light, bouncy fun and I’ve always thought of it as a kind of companion piece to “Material Girl” in terms of its pop song feel.

I recall hearing the chart rundown on Radio 1 (must have been skiving off a lecture already!) that declared that Madonna was No 1 and Dave Lee Travis was positively overjoyed that The Communards had finally been toppled. Sadly for Madge, she only managed one week at No 1 but there would be plenty more to follow before the decade was out.

The play out video is Paul Simon with “You Can Call Me Al”. Chevy Chase’s lip synching on this video is word perfect I have to say. The whole thing is very effective and so simple. See you don’t have to chuck thousands of pounds at a video for it to be memorable Duran Duran! Simon would go onto release five singles in total from the “Graceland” album only one of which would make the UK Top 40. I think my favourite was “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes”mainly for that guitar strum after the brass blasts of the chorus. Weird that such a tiny part of a whole song can be its main hook. Another example is the ringing guitar bit in “She Sells Sanctuary ” by The Cult that finishes off the lead guitar power chords.

“You Can Call Me Al” peaked at No 4 in the UK Top 40.

One final mention for Simon Mayo who it turns out was getting married on the Saturday after this TOTP went out. I love his retort to Gary Davies which is perfectly summed up in this tweet from Neil Miles:

"This is great banter" #totp pic.twitter.com/KASVteAdcx
— Neil Miles (@neilsmiles) November 23, 2018

I checked and Simon is indeed still married to the lady he wed on that Saturday. Congratulations sir!

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Bangles	Walk Like An Egyptian	No but it’s on my Bangles Best Of CD
2	Nick Berry	Every Loser Wins	No! No! NO!
3	Julian Cope	World Shut Your Mouth	No but its on my “Floored Genius” Julian Cope Best Of CD
4	Paul Young	Wonderland	No but I bought the album it was taken from
5	Howard Jones	All I Want	No
6	Madonna	True Blue	No but its on my “Immaculate Collection” CD
7	Paul Simon	You Can Call Me Al	No but my wife has the “Graceland” album on vinyl I think

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bsqck6/top-of-the-pops-09101986

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?

01b-smash-hits-8-21-october-1986-225x300

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-8-21-1986.html

TOTP 27 FEB 1986

Posted on August 23, 2018 by 80stastic

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you recall the pop music of 1986? I’m betting that the first act on tonight’s TOTP is not necessarily the first name that you come up with and yet they were promoted as the future of not just popular music but popular culture! Yes, the moment has arrived! Behold the fifth generation of rock ‘n’ roll! Worship at the altar of space alien pop! For the time is now and the band is Sigue Sigue Sputnik! Wow! Such a lot of fuss was created about this lot and history has been very unkind to them. Widely dismissed as puppets, an experiment in marketing and ultimately a joke, this lot were far more than any of those accusations…but they did get a lot of things wrong.

In last week’s show we saw the original pop agitator in John Lydon and Sigue Sigue Sputnik were very much cast as the 80’s Sex Pistols. With their talk of designer violence, ultra vixens and hi-tech sex they really wanted to sound dangerous and something that your parents would disapprove of. In reality they were just pinching concepts and imagery that the world had already seen before from films such as A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner and Terminator. In some cases they had literally just stolen uncleared samples of lines of dialogue from said films and added them to the cauldron of controversy they were so carefully brewing.

I say ‘they’ but Sputnik was really the brain child of one man, former Generation X bassist Tony James. It was James who became the band’s unofficial manager and svengali figure. A sort of Malcolm McLaren but if Malcolm had also been Sid Vicious at the same time. It was he that came up with the band’s sound and image. As garish and ridiculous as they look and sound by today’s standards, they also received a fair amount of criticism at the time. I’m pretty sure my Dad wouldn’t have understood what the fuss was all about but me? I kind of dug it.

Debut single “Love Missile F1-11” was a heady mix of bleeps, cult film dialogue and a Giorgio Moroder produced Donna Summer influenced rhythm track. It sounded like nothing we had heard before and yet at the same time it sounded derivative and amateurish. I bought into it and can remember having a heated discussion with my mate Paul on the way to school one day about the single. He thought it was crap whilst I tried to defend it hoping that I was somehow making myself cool. Paul, with his Elton John albums, was too unhip to understand it I reasoned (Oh dear!) And yet I didn’t actually buy the single. Maybe deep down I knew that the band weren’t what they claimed to be – the Messiahs of pop – and that it really was just an elaborate joke. Or maybe I was too scared to ask for it at the counter of my local record shop. Years later at polytechnic, I was friendly with a guy called Chris who had remodelled himself as a goth during his student days but it became known to those in his circle that he had the Sigue Sigue Spunik album “Flaunt It” in his record collection. The abuse he got! Phew! I dodged one there I remember thinking.

Ah yes “Flaunt It”. The band had infamously sold the spaces between songs on their debut LP as advertising space and so in between tracks you could hear adverts for L’Oréal and i-D magazine and the like. Genius! A second single “21st Century Boy” was released and by this time I was going out with a girl called Clare and distinctly recall being on the phone to her as Sputnik opened that week’s TOTP with a performance of the song. I told her I had to cut the call short as I really needed to see this. She wasn’t that impressed. In my defence this was in a time before iPlayer and YouTube – if I missed it that was it. Even so, what was I thinking?

Ultimately all the endless interviews and hype couldn’t sustain interest in the band – the ‘Fleece The World” sloganeering backfired spectacularly – and despite “Love Missile F1-11” making No 3, subsequent releases failed to sell and they were all but forgotten come the year end. And yet for me, a tiny bit of 1986 will forever belong to Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

OK – after that Sputnik-athon, lets move on to Talking Heads with their follow up to “Road To Nowhere” called “And She Was”. This was another cracking little pop song I thought at the time and it stands up well today I believe. Supposedly about an out of body experience brought on by an acid trip that happened to a girl David Byrne once knew, it stuck very much to the “Road To Nowhere” winning formula it seemed to me and earned the band a No 17 hit.

The distinctive look of the video was courtesy of filmmaker Jim Blashfield who used the same technique to great effect later in the year on Paul Simon’s “Boy In The Bubble” promo.

The band’s next project would be the “True Stories” film and album which is where I really started to take an interest in Mr Byrne partly due to the influence of a guy I met at Polytechnic called John who was a big fan.

Every now and again a song pops up on these TOTP repeats that reminds me that maybe I don’t remember as much as I think I do about the music of my youth. This next song “One Dance Won’t Do” by Audrey Hall is one such record. I have no recollection of this at all and am none the wiser after watching it back. In my defence, it is a completely slight and anonymous lovers rock track that goes absolutely nowhere….in my humble opinion of course.

Here’s another song that wouldn’t have ben my cup of tea at all back in the day. Alexander O’Neal had only just had a smash hit with “Saturday Love” (duetting with Cherelle) and here he was again out on his own with “If You Were Here Tonight”. Wikipedia describes it as a ‘melancholy ballad’ and it certainly made me feel morose whenever I heard it. Its so slow and laboured but tonight’s Radio 1 presenter Steve Wright describes it as “such a sexy song” (I apologise for the use of the words Steve Wright and sexy in the same sentence). I was not in the habit of slow dancing with girls at this point and had I have been, maybe this song would have had more appeal but it had zip for me.

So the Breakers are back then…having gone missing last week, they are suddenly back on the show with no explanation as to their omission previously but there are only two as opposed to the usual three songs. First up is Kate Bush with “Hounds Of Love”. The title track from her seminal album of the previous year, it sounded to me like a slowed down version of “Sat In Your Lap” and had the feel of emerging from the radio as a fully formed grandiose song. It sounded pretty good to me but not as good as “Cloudbusting” or “Running Up That Hill”. The video has a 39 Steps theme apparently although the “Oranges and Lemons” children’s game bit is definitely more Wicker Man in my opinion.

The “Hounds Of Love” single reached No 18 in the UK charts.

This is an oddity. Quite why Tavares were back in the charts with “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel” some 10 years after it had already been a No 4 hit in the UK I don’t know. There seemed to be a trend for disco hits being re-released back into the charts around this time. Scouse soulsters The Real Thing also scored hits all over again this year with remixed versions of their 70s smashes “You To Me Are Everything”, “Can’t Get By Without You” and “Can You Feel The Force”.

I didn’t care much for “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel” and of course they are guilty of providing the source material for Take That to finally crack the charts with their cover of “It Only Takes A Minute” in 1992. Without that hit, maybe Take That would have disappeared and we would never have heard of Gary Barlow or Robbie Williams again. A good thing or a bad thing? You decide.

Now here’s a record that I did buy. “Manic Monday” was famously written by Prince (under the pseudonym of Christopher) but it was The Bangles who took it into the charts. I was already familiar with The Bangles via their small hit from the previous year when they took a cover of a Katrina and the Waves song “Going Down To Liverpool” to No 79 in the charts. “Manic Monday” was a different story altogether and would go all the way to No 2 heralding a run of hits in the latter part of the decade for the band that would reach its apex with No 1 “Eternal Flame” in 1989.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves though so back to ’86 and I thought this was a great pop song. A sparkling melody allied with Susannah Hoffs reedy but perfect pop vocal and when I saw that the 12″ also included “Going Down To Liverpool” then it was a definite purchase for me. And of course, they looked pretty good to the 17 year old version of myself. Although a lot of attention focused around Hoffs as lead singer, I always liked bass player Michael Steele. She wrote and sang on subsequent single “Following” which was an extraordinary choice of single with lyrics about obsession and stalking wrapped around an acoustic folk ballad musical style.

This week’s Top 10 was as follows:

10. The Bangles- “Manic Monday”

9. Five Star – “System Addict”

8. Paul Hardcastle – “Don’t Waste My Time”

7. Sigue Sigue Sputnik – “Love Missile F1-11”

6. Whitney Houston – “How WIll I Know”

5. Survivor – “Burning Heart”

4. The Damned – “Eloise”

3. Su Pollard – “Starting Together”

2. Diana Ross – “Chain Reaction”

1. Billy Ocean – “When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going”: The good news? This is the last week at the top for Billy you’ll all be pleased to know. The bad news? He’s replaced next week by Diana Ross with “Chain Reaction”.

The play put music is Colonel Abrams with “I’m Not Gonna Let You”. Yes he did have another hit after “Trapped” and yes it’s awful. Although the increasingly irritating presenter Paul Jordan (how did he get to co-present so many shows?!) can’t work out what the song is about (“I’m Not Gonna Let You do what?”) the answer is actually in the chorus (“get the best of me”). The single would only make it as far as No 24 in the charts and that was it for the Colonel who sadly died homeless and broke in 2016.

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sigue Sigue Sputnik	Love Missile F1-11	No – I lost my nerve coward that I was
2	Talking Heads	And She Was	No but my wife had the album it was from “Little Creatures”
3	Audrey Hall	One Dance Won’t Do	Buy it? I couldn’t even remember it!
4	Alexander O’Neal	If You Were Here Tonight	Not a chance
5	Kate Bush	Hounds OF Ove	No but it’s on my “Whole Story” Best Of CD
6	Tavares	Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel	No
7	The Bangles	Manic Monday	Yes! The 12” no less!
8	Billy Ocean	When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going	It’s a no from me
9	Colonel Abrams	I’m Not Gonna Let You	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bg9f8g/top-of-the-pops-27021986

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

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

Some bed time reading?

01-smash-hits-26-february-11-march-1986-225x300

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2016/02/february-26-march-11-1986.html