The Beautiful South

TOTP 21 DEC 1989

Posted on July 24, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10

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

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

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

7. Madonna – “Dear Jessie”

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

5. Kaoma – “Lambada”

4. Soul II Soul – “Get A Life”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

Some Bed Time Reading?

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

Whole Show

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

TOTP 28 SEP 1989

Posted on June 10, 2020 by 80stastic

The word ‘unprecedented’ has been much overused in recent times but this particular TOTP show really was worthy of such a description. This was the first time that the programme had been presented by two female hosts with no men in evidence at all. That the show should be in its 26th year before such an occurrence is probably not one of the BBC’s proudest moments. The two hosts given the honour were Sybil Ruscoe and Jenny Powell. Let’s hope they had some decent tunes to introduce…

….hmm. Not a great start in my book. I could never see the appeal of “If Only I Could”. It was musical wallpaper to me – I barely registered that it was playing if it came on the radio. Also pretty anonymous at the time was its singer Sydney Youngblood. So little was known about him that when Smash Hits ran an article, it was entitled ‘Great Sydneys Of Our Time” and lumped him in with Sid Vicious, Sydney Australia and Carry On legend Sid James!

Undeterred, Sydney did develop some notoriety when he was accused of plagiarising the sound of Soul II Soul for his use of soul vocals over hip-hop rhythms. He responded by releasing a remix of his earlier hit “Feeling Free” (featuring Elaine Hudson) called “The Jazzy Who? remix” in reference to Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B. The track featured a piano lead that sounded similar to the UK soulsters’ “Happiness” and used a beat identical to “Jazzies Groove”. Was there anything in it? Judge for yourselves….

Now here’s someone we haven’t seen around these parts for ages! Not since 1985 had Kate Bush released an album of new material and she hadn’t been in the Top 40 singles chart since 1986 when “Experiment IV” was released to promote her “Whole Story” Best Of album. “The Sensual World” was the title of not only her first single since then but also of the parent album and was originally intended to be just the words from the closing soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses put to music. However, Joyce’s estate wouldn’t give permission for their use at the time so some original lyrics were written based upon the book’s character Molly Bloom.

When I was a wet behind the ears first year at Sunderland Poly I tried to impress my new found course mates by making out that I had read Ulysses, all 730 pages of it. I hadn’t at all but it had been name dropped by Stephen ‘Tin Tin” Duffy who I considered to be a massive intellect at the time (I know!) so I thought I’d try it. My gambit failed when my friend John asked me what it was like. What could I say ? I didn’t have a clue. I opted, of course, for ‘It’s alright’ and John seemed to accept that. Phew! I still haven’t read it 34 years later.

Anyway, back to Kate and “The Sensual World” – the single would peak at No 12 whist the album would go platinum in the UK and achieve a chart high of No 2. I quite liked the song. The celtic instrumentation on it sounded intriguing and I liked the bells at the beginning of the song although it’s not my favourite track to begin with the sound of pealing bells. That would be this….

A new look for The Beautiful South next who have recruited vocalist Briana Corrigan to their ranks. Also adopting a new look is Paul Heaton who is sporting some very peculiar optical eyewear. Whilst “You Keep It All In” wasn’t one of my fave tracks of theirs, watching this performance back I am struck by the fact that the band employs three different singers to deliver solo spots within the song’s structure which strikes me as pretty unusual.

Corrigan stayed with the band until 1992 when she left to pursue a solo career. There were also reports that she fell out with the band over the lyrics to “36D” which criticised British glamour models. Dave Hemingway later admitted that “We all agree that we should have targeted the media as sexist instead of blaming the girls for taking off their tops”.

“You Keep It All In” peaked at No 8.

This next song was once described by Bob Stanley (he of Saint Etienne and DJ-ing fame) in Melody Maker like so:

“not only was it a compelling dance track with a chorus so contagious it could keep you awake at night, it also formed part of the best Top Three in years when it was sandwiched between Black Box and Sidney Youngblood.”

He was of course referring to “Pump Up The Jam” by Technotronic and he was also of course wrong as it was and remains a terrible record…in my humble opinion of course.

P.S. I’m guessing that Top 3 sandwich is due very soon in these TOTP repeats as this weeks’ chart has Black Box and Technotronic enduring a sandwich with Richard Marx as the filling. Yuk!

Having been absent from the charts for nigh on 12 months, Wet Wet Wet are amongst us again. “Sweet Surrender” was the lead single from new album “Holding Back The River” and I was very….underwhelmed by it I have to say. It’s always seem like a bit of a throwaway, nothing of a song to me. I was perpetually waiting for it to get going but it never really did. In a Smash Hits feature at the time, even the band themselves said of it:

‘It’s not the obvious one is it. But it’s a nice wee number, we wanted a sort of… lovers rock feel’.

Wet Wet Wet and lovers rock?! Really?! Retrospective wisdom suggests that “Holding Back The River” should really have been the band’s third album and not their second*. “Holding Back The River” was quite a leap in terms of a more mature sound from its much poppier predecessor. With a the title track that was supposedly about alcoholism for example, were their fan base struggling to appreciate this more grown up sound? Certainly the singles released from it achieved rather disappointing chart showings:

SINGLE	CHART PEAK
Sweet Surrender	6
Broke Away	19
Hold Back The River	31
Stay with Me Heartache	30

You could tell the band were clearly taking themselves more seriously as some of them had grown their hair long whilst Marti Pellow had grown a little beard as displayed on the front cover of that Smash Hits issue under the tag line ‘Och Aye Jock McKay! Look at the state of the Wets!’

In hindsight, third album “High On The Happy Side” with its lush No 1 single “Goodnight Girl” was a more logical choice of sophomore album with “Holding Back The River” being perfect ‘difficult third album’ material. Ah well, I guess it all turned out alright in the end

* I’m dismissing any claims that “The Memphis Sessions” was their second album despite its chronological release date claims. on the grounds that it was just a collection of initial recordings and demos for their first album “Popped In , Souled Out” which were subsequently aborted.

Just the two Breakers this week starting with “We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Billy Joel a song that is routinely panned as utter shite but which is still worthy of more discussion than that I propose.

For the defence:

Yes it’s one of those ‘list’ songs (see also “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by REM, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan and even “Nothing Ever Happens” by Del Amitri) which seems to be the main complaint that people have about it in that it’s perceived to be a very lazy genre of songwriting. ‘We could all do that!’ they cry but could they? Could anybody just cram a sizeable list of world events / figures into a three minute pop songs structure and get them all to make some sort of rhyming sense? Not sure I could. And there is a structure. Until the final stanza, every two lines represents a year with the song opening in 1949, the year Billy was born.

Then there’s the accusation that the majority of the events listed are very American based. Where are all the UK references? Well, there are some including:

England’s got a new queen
British Beatlemania
British politician sex

In any case Billy is an American so it seems reasonable for him to write about his own country’s history.

And it’s educational. The fifth grade class at the Banta Elementary School in Menasha, Wisconsin used the lyrics of the song to select topics for their history reports. Joel’s record label responded by issuing cassettes containing the song and a 10-minute talk by Joel to 40,000 students.

For the prosecution though, I call….Billy Joel. Yes, Billy himself isn’t a massive fan. “It’s terrible musically. It’s like a mosquito buzzing around your head.” he has said of the song.

I’m somewhere in the middle – I don’t mind it but I can see why it bugs the hell out of some people.

“We Didn’t Start The Fire” peaked at No 7 over here and was a No 1 in the US.

Hans up who thought Curiosity Killed The Cat were down the dumper when their last single “Free” in 1987 did’t even make the Top 40?

*Your blogger raises his hand*

Well, we were all wrong as here they are two years later back in said Top 40 with a new single called “Name And Number”! And according to the band they were never down the dumper in the first place. No, according to guitarist Julian Brookhouse “We didn’t go down the dumper”. See I told you. He carries on… “We’ve only been away for 16 months and to us that didn’t seem like a very long time”. 16 months not a long time in the world of pop music?! Come off it mate! Anyway, they’d actually been away recording a second album to follow up their No 1 debut “Keep Your Distance”. However, “Getahead” was a huge commercial disappointment peaking at No 29.

I always quite liked the only hit single from it though. Yes, it was immensely cheesy with that answer machine message motif but it had a good beat and you could dance to it. No! That’s far to middle aged Dad like. Strike that from the post. It was …funky? No, that’s no good either. Look. I just liked it OK. I wasn’t the only one either. De La Soul sampled it for their 1991 Top 10 single “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)”…

Whatever you may think of Erasure ( I like them) you cannot deny how prolific they were in the 80s (and beyond). “Drama!” was their twelfth single release since 1985 of which nine were Top 40 hits. It was also the lead single from forthcoming album “Wild!”, their fourth studio album of the decade! Like I said, prolific.

But was it any good? While it has to be admitted that “Drama!” was hardly a radical new direction for Andy and Vince, it was still a solid enough tune to my ears. Building slowly and atmospherically (with Andy’s vocals very low key) before bursting into the usual snappy dance track that includes an almost neurotic chorus. The shouts of ‘guilty!’ were supplied by The Jesus And Mary Chain who were recording in the next door studio. Top trivia!

The video isn’t up too much although it’s one which includes the rarely spotted sight of Vince Clarke sporting a relatively standard haircut. “Drama!” peaked at No 4 whilst the “Wild!” was another No 1 album for the duo producing four Top 20 hits and ensuring Erasure started the next decade in the same successful fashion as the one they left behind.

Officially a solo Gloria Estefan effort, you could have been forgiven for thinking “Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)” was made with her usual collaborators Miami Sound Machine given that it sounded very much like some of their other Latin tinged efforts like “Conga”, “1-2-3′ and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You”.

This one was a huge hit across Europe but fared much less favourably in the US. I could imagine it featuring heavily in a film directed by Pedro Almodóvar and possibly starring Penélope Cruz. Oh, there is such a film and it’s called Volver.…which I’ve seen….and “Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)” isn’t in it. Yeah, doesn’t really work that previous comment does it?

Top 10

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

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

8. Damian – “The Time Warp”

7. Madonna – “Cherish”

6. Erasure – “Drama!”

5. Tina Turner – “The Best”

4. Sydney Youngblood – “If Only I Could”

3. Technotronic – “Pump Up The Jam”

2. Richard Marx – “Right Here Waiting”

1. Black Box – “Ride On Time”: How many weeks is this now? Did Sybil say four? We all know about the scandal, behind who actually sang the vocals on “Ride On Time” but I didn’t know until now that the guys in the band haven’t seen front woman Katrin Quinol since about 1992 but they did some sort of deal that allowed her to do PAs under the name of Black Box in Europe but not in the UK. Guess that means a trip abroad if you want to see her perform this song again. Given the current state of the world, I’ll pass thanks.

The play out video is “Secret Rendezvous” by Karyn White. Apparently this track was written by hitmakers Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and Antonio “LA” Reid to sound like Prince and I can kind of hear what they were trying to do I guess although it sounds more like Janet Jackson to me.

“Secret Rendezvous” peaked at No 22.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sydney Youngblood	If Only I Could	But I really couldn’t – no
2	Kate Bush	The Sensual World	No but I think my wife had the album
3	The Beautiful South	You Keep It All In	No but I had the album
4	Technotronic	Pump Up The Jam	Techno-bollox more like – no
5	Wet Wet Wet	Sweet Surrender	Nah
6	Billy Joel	We Didn’t Start The Fire	No but I bought another single from his album Stormfront which had it as an additional track
7	Curiosity Killed The Cat	Name And Number	Nope
8	Erasure	Drama!	No but again I think my wife had the album
9	Gloria Estefan	Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)	I do hear it Gloria and I don’t like it
10	Black Box	Ride On Time	I didn’t
11	Karyn White	Secret Rendezvous	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/m000jqyf/top-of-the-pops-28091989

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 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

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 06 JUL 1989

Posted on April 17, 2020 by 80stastic

Now I can’t be sure of the exact date but I’m pretty certain that by early July 1989 my cosseted life as a student had just about come to an end. I was bereft. I had no idea what I was going to do, no career plan and I certainly wasn’t in any rush to start getting on with the rest of my life. Worst of all I had no firm idea when I would see my girlfriend again. She was heading back to Hull whilst I was Worcester bound. I travelled back to my hometown on a coach with the final lap having to be completed by taxi when the coach broke down. And then there I was. Back in my parents house. Back in my childhood bedroom. How had this happened? How had three years whizzed past so quickly?

My immediate aim was to get some sort of employment so I would at least have some money to pay off my overdraft, give my Mum some for housekeeping and fund travelling the length of the country to see my girlfriend at some point. I nearly got a job as a bin man but backed out at the last minute out off by the early starts and also by the scary man with a spider’s web tattooed all over his face in the employment office who was after the same position. I was directionless, cashless and thoroughly unhappy.

Surely there must have been some decent tunes on TOTP on a Thursday night to cheer me up….

…it’s not a good start. The Stock, Aitken and Waterman version of Cilla Black – other wise known as Sonia – is first up on this particular show. Her Breakers appearance last week has caused her to move all the way up to No 12 whilst becoming at the same time the week’s biggest climber. We all could see what was going to happen here. “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You” was bound for the top and those pesky Hit Factory people had inflicted another of their roster of pop puppets upon us – the UK was seemingly unable to resist. What was her appeal? Was it her perkiness? Was it the catchy piece of pop fluff that was her single? Or was it The Beatles effect of her scouse accent? I never really got it. I could see how Kylie and Jason would appeal to a certain section of the record buying public but Sonia?

And still Stock, Aitken and Waterman weren’t done with manufacturing pop stars. The dreadful Big Fun will be along on these TOTP repeats soon enough. Even worse than that though, they will turn their attention to Cliff Richard and make a dog’s dinner out of the Band Aid record before the year is out.

The next song is decent though. Gladys Knight‘s Bond theme “Licence To Kill” was a worthy addition to the canon I think and of the five Bond songs released in the decade I would rank it probably in the top three and certainly above Rita Coolidge’s “All Time High” – officially the worst ever UK chart performer of the genre.

It was a different kettle of fish for the film itself though. Unlike Alan Partridge, I’m no Bond aficionado and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Licence To Kill but the perceived wisdom is that it nearly killed off the franchise altogether. Up against that Summer’s blockbusters of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman, its gritty realism and the fact that Bond had gone rogue for the first film ever meant that audiences were less than impressed. Whilst UK box office receipts were respectable, across the water it was the least financially successful James Bond film in the US. It would be another six years before the franchise was rebooted with Pierce Brosnan as 007.

From Alan’s Bond party to “Grandpa’s Party” courtesy of Monie Love. Amongst the pretty big names that Monie (real name Simone Johnson) has worked with are Prince, Queen Latifah and Whitney Houston…..

…however, she missed a trick by not hooking up with this fellow. Imagine the mash up they could have made….

There have been a lot of R’n’B soul singers on these TOTP repeats over the course of the last three and a bit years that I’ve been writing this blog and we haven’t got to the bottom of the barrel yet. Karyn White was only 23 when she hit big with “Superwoman” and was a much bigger deal in the States than over here where she racked up four Top 10 hits including a No 1 in 1991 and won two Grammy awards. In the UK she scored a couple more Top 30 hits but I’m guessing that “Superwoman” is what she is best remembered for on these shores.

Did I like this one? I found it all a bit ‘meh’ to be honest. “Superwoman” peaked at No 11 in the UK.

Some Breakers now beginning with Bette Midler‘s first ever UK Top 40 hit. I didn’t realise until now that “Wind Beneath My Wings” wasn’t actually written for the film Beaches from which Midler’s version is taken but had been composed in 1982 and already been recorded by the likes of Sheena Easton, Lou Rawls, Gladys Knight and the Pips and erm…Roger Whittaker before Bette got her mitts on it.

I caught the film in Newcastle (I think it must have been one of my last trips to the cinema before my time in the North East was up) with my girlfriend and another friend called Bev. The slightly mawkish tale of two young girls who meet by chance and whose lives are then intertwined over the next 30 or so years to various degrees of relationship and drama was all too much for poor Bev (spoiler alert – there is a sad ending) who cried all the way back to Sunderland on the train.

“Wind Beneath My Wings” has become quite the standard over the years and in a 2002 UK poll was found to be the most-played song at British funerals. It was a No 1 record in the US and a No 5 hit over here.

Ooh this is much better! The return of Danny Wilson! After finally managing to get a hit with “Mary’s Prayer” after three attempts, the trio had lost ground rather when subsequent single releases did diddly squat. After retreating to lick their wounds, they returned a year later with “The Second Summer Of Love” from their sophomore album “Bebop Moptop”. I liked the song immediately but was delighted to find out that the whole album (which I bought on the strength of it) was full of even better tracks. Indeed “The Second Summer Of Love” is probably one of the weaker cuts on it for me. That didn’t detract from it being far better than most of its peers in the Top 40 at the time.

I recall seeing them interviewed about the video and them advising the reporter that they’d had to learn the song backwards so that when the film is shown backwards, they appear to be miming it as normal. A simple trick but quite effective.

“Bebop Moptop” is most likely to be found in charity shops these days I wouldn’t wonder but it really is worth shelling out a couple of quid for if you see it. “The Second Summer Of Love” was the band’s second and last hit peaking at No 23. If there was any justice in the pop world, subsequent singles released from the album “Never Gonna Be the Same” and “I Can’t Wait” would have been massive hits but they weren’t and the band split not long into the next decade with only a couple of brief reunions since.

Another classic song from De La Soul next. “Say No Go” was the follow up to “Me Myself And I” and was taken from the seminal “3 Feet High and Rising” album. A cautionary tale about the use of drugs, it famously samples the Hall and Oates hit “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” as well as a few other tracks. It has maximum ear worm power and sounds as good today as it did back then.

Of course, they weren’t the first to ride on the back of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti drugs campaign though….

Rivalling Danny Wilson for my personal favourite song on this TOTP is “Song For Whoever” by The Beautiful South. Five years on from this debut, the band released a Greatest Hits collection called “Carry On Up The Charts” which was so popular that it was claimed that one in seven British households owned a copy. Somehow I didn’t but over the years I seem to have purchased most of the band’s albums as well as seeing them live. In fact I’ve seen The Beautiful South, their second generation version The South, Dave Rotheray offshoot Homespun and Paul Heaton solo. I never managed to see The Housemartins live but I did once meet their original drummer Hugh Whittaker.

P.S. What was going on with Paul’s hair in this performance?!

Don’t Panic! “It’s Alright”…Pet Shop Boys are back! It’s amazing the things you learn researching this blog. For instance, I never knew that this wasn’t actually a Tennant / Lowe original but is in fact a cover. The original was by Sterling Void (no idea). To be fair to Neil and Chris though, they did add an extra verse about environmental issues to it.

I’d also forgotten that this was actually a track on their “Introspective” album and remembered it being a stand alone single which it isn’t. To be fair, it isn’t one of my favourite PSB tracks by a long way. I mean, its not terrible or anything but it kind of washed over me back then and still does a bit today. As for the that striking, baby fest video, Neil Tennant recounted to Spin magazine in 2013 that “We got there, and all the babies were asleep — all the 50 babies. And then one of them cried [and] they all fucking woke up!”. What was that old saying about working with children or animals?

“It’s Alright” peaked at No 5.

I’m guessing that this re-release of “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan and Rufus was part of her “Life Is a Dance: The Remix Project” album that also gave us the re-release of “I’m Every Woman: earlier in 1989. As with a lot of these re-releases, I don’t recall this one being back in the charts – my go to memory for this song is definitely the original 1984 version. Apparently this ’89 vintage is the Frankie Knuckles re-mix but it sounds very similar to the original to me.

Chaka looks absolutely sweltering in that outfit she’s gone with for this performance. I can’t work out which would have been heavier, the clothes or her hair. To be fair, the sweating may have been for another reason as she doesn’t look fully compos mentis to me here. Maybe she’d had a very nice time pre-show in the green room.

The ’89 version of “Ain’t Nobody” peaked at No 6 thereby eclipsing the chart performance of the original by two places.

Top 10

10. Guns N’ Roses – “Patience”

9. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

8. U2 – “All I Want”

7. Queen – “Breakthru”

6. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

5. Pet Shop Boys – “It’s Alright”

4. Prince – “Batdance”

3. London Boys – “London Nights”

2. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

1. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”: Another week at the top for a song that has enjoyed numerous accolades and a very respected legacy down the years. Q magazine voted it as No 67 in their 2003 poll “100 Songs That Changed the World” and in 2015 it was voted by the British public as No 18 in ITV’s “The Nation’s Favourite 80s Number One”.

Most significantly though, it was one of the songs included in the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. If you ever wanted to learn those dance moves…

“Voodoo Ray” was a hit in the 80s? I could have sworn that it was a 90s track but no A Guy Called Gerald (amazingly he was actually called Gerald) was a certifiable 80s hit and spent a whole 18 weeks in the charts peaking at No 12. Maybe I’m getting confused with “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)” by Guru Josh which was a hit in early 1990 despite officially being released in the previous decade (18th December).

One of the most recognisable house records ever made, it wasn’t really my thing but I could appreciate its significance which is made abundantly clear in this clip from 24 Hour Party People.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sonia	You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You	Of course not
2	Gladys Knight	Licence To Kill	Don’t think I did
3	Monie Love	Grandpa’s Party	Negative
4	Karyn White	Superwoman	Nah
5	Bette Midler	Wind Beneath My Wings	Nope
6	Danny Wilson	The Second Summer Of Love	No but I bought the album Bebop Moptop
7	De La Soul	Say No Go	No but my wife had the album 3 Feet High And Rising
8	Beautiful South	Song For Whoever	No but I had the album it was from
9	Pet Shop Boys	It’s Alright	No but I presume it’s on their Pop Art compilation which I have
10	Chaka Khan and Rufus	Ain’t Nobody	No
11	Soul II Soul	Back To Life	No but I think my wife had their album
12	A Guy Called Gerald	Voodoo Ray	It’s a no I’m afraid

Disclaimer

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

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

Whole Show

Some bed time reading?

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

TOTP 22 JUN 1989

Posted on April 10, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

*checks internet*

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

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

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

“Licence To Kill” peaked at No 6.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*checks to make sure*

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

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

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

Top 10

10. Madonna – “Express Yourself”

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

8. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

7. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

6. Cliff Richard – “The Best Of Me”

5. U2 – “All I Want Is You”

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

3. Prince – “Batdance”

2. Jason Donovan – “Sealed With A Kiss”

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000gx1t/top-of-the-pops-22061989

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

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

Some bed time reading?

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

TOTP 08 JUN 1989

Posted on April 5, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

“The Only One” peaked at No 15.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*checks Wikipedia*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10

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

9. Neneh Cherry – “Manchild”

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

7. Lynne Hamilton – “On The Inside”

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

5. Madonna – “Express Yourself”

4. Natalie Cole – “Miss You Like Crazy”

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

2. Cliff Richard – “The Best Of Me”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Transvision Vamp	The Only One	Not the single but I have it on their Best Of Collection CD
2	Cliff Richard	The Best Of Me	Hell no!
3	Guns N’ Roses	Sweet Child O’ Mine	No but I have the album somewhere I think
4	Beautiful South	Song For Whoever	No but I had the album it was from
5	Vixen	Love Made Me	It may have but it didn’t make me buy this
6	Donna Allen	Joy And Pain	Nope
7	New Model Army	Green And Grey	No
8	Paula Abdul	Forever Your Girl	Another no
9	D-Mob	It Is Time To Get Funky	Nah
10	Soul II Soul	Back To Life	No but I think my wife had their album
11	Jason Donovan	Sealed With A Kiss	No but my younger sister was obsessed and had his album
12	Bananarama	Cruel Summer ‘89	No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000gp1h/top-of-the-pops-08061989

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

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

Some bed time reading?

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

TOTP Rewind – the 80s

My memories of 80s chart music

TOTP 21 DEC 1989

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Whole Show

TOTP 28 SEP 1989

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TOTP 21 SEP 1989

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TOTP 06 JUL 1989

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Whole Show

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TOTP 22 JUN 1989

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TOTP 08 JUN 1989

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