U2 | TOTP Rewind

TOTP 22 JUN 1989

Posted on April 10, 2020 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

*checks internet*

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

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

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

“Licence To Kill” peaked at No 6.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*checks to make sure*

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

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

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

Top 10

10. Madonna – “Express Yourself”

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

8. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

7. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

6. Cliff Richard – “The Best Of Me”

5. U2 – “All I Want Is You”

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

3. Prince – “Batdance”

2. Jason Donovan – “Sealed With A Kiss”

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

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

Some bed time reading?

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

TOTP 13 APR 1989

Posted on March 6, 2020 by 80stastic

It’s mid April 1989 and the end of my three year stay in Sunderland Polytechnic is not far away now. I’m still burying my head in the sand about this impending eventuality with no plan whatsoever about what I will do next.

However, all of these concerns were put into perspective two days after this TOTP aired when the tragic events of 15th April 1989 that occurred at Hillsborough football stadium became known to the world. Like millions of others, I was tuned into Grandstand that afternoon to follow the day’s football scores including the two FA Cup semi final matches that were being played. By 3.05 that afternoon, it was becoming apparent that something was dreadfully wrong at the Liverpool v Nottingham Forest game. I’m pretty sure there were other people in my student house with me at the time but all those details have been scorched from my brain by the images that were being relayed on our TV.

In 1985, I’d watched the Heysel Stadium disaster in my family home – I remember that I should have been revising for a school exam the next day but that all went out of the window as the night’s events unfolded – so I knew that football and tragedy had a history but Hillsborough seemed so unreal. How was this happening? The fact that simultaneously, some 90 odd miles away, the other semi final was being contested between Everton and Norwich City at Villa Park to a conclusion in favour of the Merseyside team just seemed to add to the feeling of unreality. It felt like the outcome of that game really didn’t matter at all. How could it?

In early January I had traveled to Cumbria to watch my mate Robin’s beloved Carlisle United play Liverpool in the FA Cup 3rd round. Despite them knowing that I was a committed Chelsea fan, this led my parents to be concerned that I somehow may have been at Hillsborough as well. In a time before mobile phones, I really should have found a payphone to reassure them I suppose but it never really occurred to me that they may think I would somehow have been at the game. I can’t remember what I did on the night of that fateful Saturday but I’m sure my mood, like the nation’s, would have been very sombre.

SERIOUS NEWS CONTEXT: On the Saturday after this #TOTP aired, 94 people (later rising to 96) were killed at Hillsborough Stadium during the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool. Here are short profiles of them all: https://t.co/ZSGdEl6K4H

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 28, 2020

OK, let’s go back 48 hours earlier though to a time before the events of Hillsborough changed the world where we find a solo Mark Goodier on presenting duties. There’s no explanation given as to why there aren’t two hosts this week but there aren’t any Breakers either so maybe they thought two presenters for just the nine acts this week would have been overkill or something.

The first act tonight are Cookie Crew with “Got To Keep On” and despite the fact that he doesn’t get an official credit on the record, the Clapham rappers have managed to persuade Edwin Starr to appear with them. Well, I suppose it was a nice day out for him at least. So what were they actually rapping about? I looked up the lyrics for this one and it seems to be some sort of mission statement about the Cookie Crew and their sound.

‘That we’re down from the southside so you can confide, In the Cookie Crew, cause we’re true’

Was Clapham the southside? Well, it’s south-west London so I suppose….maybe? What say you Wikipedia about Clapham?

‘By the 1980s, the area had undergone a further transformation, becoming the centre for the gentrification of most of the surrounding area. Clapham’s relative proximity to traditionally expensive areas of central London led to an increase in the number of middle-class people living in Clapham’

Hmm…it doesn’t really sound like Cookie Crew were from the hood exactly then. Look, rap and hip hip wasn’t really my thing so maybe I should look for a more valid source when evaluating Cookie Crew …like the heroes of UK hip hop website which had this to say about them:

‘They were a borderline commercial rap group who gained respect from the hardcore hip hop heads for some of their harder tracks.’

There you go then. They were bad asses it seems. Or something. Moving on…

…to a remarkable gaff from Goodier.

“The Cookie Crew showing the Americans a thing or two. Now another… American band.”

Fine work there Mark – not sure attempting to slur their nationality is the best way of introducing the next act though who are Ten City with “Devotion” and it’s yet another song that I cannot recall at all. I just about remembered their previous hit “That’s The Way Love Goes” when it was on the other week but this one? Nothing.

When Goodier introduced the song as “Devotion” I thought it was going to be that “I Want to Give You Devotion” song but it turns out that was by Nomad and in any case wasn’t in the charts until 1991. This “Devotion” did/does absolutely nothing for me. It just sort of meanders along with a house beat and that falsetto vocal over the top. Where’s the tune in it? Maybe it was a club thing? Can’t recall it being played much down at my Sunderland nightclub of choice Rascals though.

“Devotion” peaked at No 29 and Ten City never troubled the UK chart compilers again.

Did Goodier just say ‘It’s Top Of The Baps’ in the intro to the next act?! That’s a completely different type of show surely?! Right, this must be the last time we see T’Pau on the show in the 80s? By this point the band had adopted a full on rock star look. Carol Decker has a studded leather jacket on (complete with fringed sleeves no less) whilst her partner Ronnie Rogers has a well cultivated rock god mop of hair atop his head. Meanwhile the lead guitarist clearly thinks he is playing in U2 rather than some pub rockers from Shrewsbury and has even adopted an image to make him look like The Edge.

Going back to Rogers, he always had that strange stance where he would push the neck of his guitar out at a right angle to his body as if he was trying to measure a distance. Either than or it was his Corporal Jones impression and he’s pretending to wave a rifle about whilst shouting ‘Halt! Who goes there?’. His straight arm technique might have worked better for him if he had been a goalkeeper but it looks bizarre for a guitar player.

“Only The Lonely” peaked at No 28.

Next up are INXS with “Mystify” which also happens to be the title of the recent Michael Hutchence documentary. Around this time, Hutchence had a rather drastic haircut and all his trademark long locks disappeared overnight. In the documentary, this is referenced when one of the band recounts a story of Michael attending an awards ceremony with his new hairstyle. The band member (Tim Farriss I think) turns to his wife sat in the audience and says ‘you can stop spending on the credit cards now, we’re done’ such was the concern about how Hutchence’s new image might damage the band’s commercial fortunes.

This Sampson effect had been seem before I think when Marc Bolan lopped off some of his curls and it made headline news so maybe Farriss was thinking of that when he made his comment. As it turned out, INXS returned with another huge selling album in “X” the following year by which point though Hutchence had regrown his hair so maybe there was some direct correlation between the length of his hair and the band’s chart positions.

It seems strange to recall now but there was a time (and that time was 1989) when Fine Young Cannibals were superstars in the US. In that year, they recorded two No 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart – previous single “She Drives Me Crazy” and this one “Good Thing”. I was never the biggest fan of the latter. I mean, it was good but I didn’t quite get the fuss about it. It seemed a very simple tune based around a version of a 12 bar blues structure but Roland Gift’s unique vocal stylings added on top do make it stand out I guess. His cartwheel over to David Steele on piano in this performance was typical of his stage craft which often included star jumps and the splits and it certainly elicits some squeals of delight from the studio audience.

I thought it must have been at least a Top 3 hit over here but was surprised to discover that it got no further than No 7 in the UK charts. It certainly had the profile of a much bigger hit given that it seemed to be played every other hour on the radio. A total of six tracks were released as singles from the parent album “The Raw And The Cooked” but none of those that came after “Good Thing” made the Top 10.

After that guy from T’Pau earlier in the show trying to convince himself that he was in U2, here comes the real thing. What was with all that fuss that Mark Goodier is making about the video that TOTP are showing for their latest single “When Love Comes To Town”about though? Something to do with a re-edited version that includes footage that isn’t in their “Rattle And Hum” film? Was that such a big deal? Maybe I’m too used to YouTube and streaming platforms these days – is it possible that I could have forgotten how the thrill of seeing something exclusively on TV felt back then?

As for the song itself, I really wasn’t arsed about it. For me, the singles from the “Rattle And Hum” album fell into two distinct camps. There were the strident, bluesy songs (“Desire and “When Love Comes To Town”) and the more typical U2 sound of “Angel Of Harlem” and “All I Want”. I was definitely more in favour of the latter camp.

Did I know who B.B.King was back in 1989? I’m ashamed to say I probably didn’t. Fast forward a couple of years to the start of my Our Price days and we would have specialist music mornings when the shop would have an allocated musical genre (not rock/pop) and only artists from the particular chosen genre could be played on the sound system. B.B. King would feature heavily whenever it was blues morning.

“When Love Comes To Town” peaked at No 6 in the UK charts.

Adeva is next with “Musical Freedom”. Now I mistakenly believed that the “sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air” line had been pinched by The Source featuring Candi Staton for their huge 1991 hit single “You Got The Love”. What I didn’t realize was that “You Got The Love” was originally released in 1986 (the 1991 version was a remix) so it tuns out that Adeva stole it from them!

Either way, “Musical Freedom” didn’t liberate me musically at all and certainly didn’t open my eyes to expanding my sonic horizons.

Top 10

10. Soul II Soul – “Keep On Movin”

9. Holly Johnson – “Americanos”

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

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

6. Jason Donovan – “Too Many Broken Hearts”

5. Kon Kan – “I Beg Your Pardon”

4. Paula Abdul – “Straight Up”

3. Madonna – “Like A Prayer”

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

1. The Bangles – “Eternal Flame”: The LA quartet have usurped the Queen of Pop for their first and only UK No 1. I began this post writing about the Hillsborough disaster and there is a connection with “Eternal Flame”. The Hillsborough memorial at Anfield which features the names of the 96 who lost their lives also has an eternal flame. I listened to a BBC documentary about Hillsborough a few years back and I’m sure Brookside actress Sue Johnston made reference to “Eternal Flame” (the song) in it. The memorial was located next to the Shankly Gates before it was moved to the front of the redeveloped main stand in 2016.

The play out video is “Of Course I’m Lying” by Yello. Despite a career lasting over 40 years, somehow this song is one of only two Top 40 singles that Dieter Meier and Boris Blank ever achieved in the UK. “Of Course I’m Lying” peaked at No 23 and features one of the UK’s best ever (and most underrated) singers, the much missed Billy Mackenzie on backing vocals.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I buy it?
1	Cookie Crew	Got To Keep On	Nah
2	Ten City	Devotion	Nope
3	T’Pau	Only The Lonely	And no
4	INXS	Mystify	Sure it’s on the Greatest Hits CD which I have
5	Fine Young Cannibals	Good Thing	No but my wife had their album The Raw And The Cooked
6	U2 and B.B. King	When Love Comes To Town	I did not
7	Adeva	Musical Freedom	No
8	The Bangles	Eternal Flame	Presume it’s on their Best Of CD that I have
9	Yello	Of course I’m Lying	Don’t think I did

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000frf9/top-of-the-pops-13041989

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

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/04/april-5-18-1989.html

TOTP 15 DEC 1988

Posted on December 19, 2019 by 80stastic

If you were going to make move to be the Xmas No 1 of 1988, now was the time to make it. With just days to go before the festive chart topper was revealed, a spot on this TOTP would have been very sought after. I have to say though, with the possible exception of Erasure, none of the other songs on the show stood a chance of challenging Sir Cliff. That’s not to say they were crap songs, they weren’t (well not all of them anyway) but it would have taken a gargantuan leap of faith to believe that anything other than “Mistletoe And Wine” would have been top of the heap come Christmas Day.

Take for example the first act tonight who are Bon Jovi with “Born To Be My Baby”. Now I was in a bit of a Bon Jovi phase at this point so I was quite receptive to this second single release from their “New Jersey” album but the idea that it could topple Cliff was fanciful at best. Its starting position of No 22 meant it would have taken Formula 1 type acceleration to get anywhere near the top of the tree. It was very reminiscent of “Livin’ On A Prayer” in terms of subject matter dealing as it did with the struggles of a blue -collar couple trying to make their way in life but believing that it was God’s will that they would somehow. It was very familiar territory sound-wise as well with its wailing rock guitars and a ‘na ne nah na ne na nah’ refrain running right through it.

Now apparently there is an acoustic version of this which Jon Bon Jovi thinks is the better version of the song than the rockin’ wig out that we are all familiar with. I wonder what it sounds like….

Nah (na ne na nah) – not for me. Much prefer the souped up version.

“Born To Be My Baby” went Top 3 in the US but didn’t get past this No 22 peak in the UK despite yet another personal appearance in the TOTP studio, something the band seemed very committed to, having done the same for nearly all of their preceding singles. Oh and the hats look ridiculous guys.

A live vocal up next from unlikely 1988 chart star Petula Clark. She was 56 at the time but she still knew how to turn on the star quality up on stage. Her voice sounded pretty good as well despite having to battle with the dreadful remixed backing track. I love the way she didn’t need anything else up there with her – no backing singers, no dancers, no band – just her, a microphone and her talent.

“Downtown ’88” made it all the way to No 10 despite being a complete bag of shite compared to the 60s original whose legacy extended to an appearance in an episode of Seinfeld in which George Costanza and Jerry try to decipher where George’s boss’s project is happening by analysing the lyrics to “Downtown”…

When U2 toped the charts a few months prior to this with “Desire”, I hadn’t been that impressed. I couldn’t quite get to grips with the song’s strident edge. Follow up “Angel Of Harlem” was much better to my ears. Like its predecessor, it was taken from their live/studio hybrid album “Rattle And Hum” and seemed so much more melodic with its swooping and soaring counterparts. It’s the rolling brass parts that really make it for me though.

The lyrics reference John Coltrane, Birdland jazz club, JFK airport and of course the Angel of Harlem herself Billie Holiday or rather her nickname ‘Lady Day’, all culled from the band’s first visit to New York City. The look of the band in the video perfectly captures in time this period in their career with its links to the “Rattle And Hum” album cover.

“Angel Of Harlem” peaked at No 9 in the UK and No 14 in the US

After Petula Clark’s live turn earlier, we have another next courtesy of New Order who had infamously been down this route before five years prior with a live rendition of “Blue Monday” – a performance which has gone down in the annals of pop music history as why sometimes it’s better to just mime. Did they make a better job of it with “Fine Time”? Well, overall it’s a bit more cohesive but not sure it was really worth the effort and what was up with Hooky? Why is he just stood there motionless, the bass guitar at his side for the opening minute or so. OK, maybe his bass parts didn’t feature until later on but it looks distinctly odd.

Ultimately the single did rise from its position of No 15 here to a peak of No 11 so maybe it was worth it after all.

Up to No 4 are Erasure with “Crackers International EP” or “Stop” as most people knew it as that was pretty much the only track that received any airplay. Fair play though as it was a stomping pop track which was a guaranteed floor filler at most Sunderland nightclubs that I frequented. Around this time I got a local school to ask some of its pupils to complete a questionnaire that I had complied as part of my third year dissertation about the music industry and what made some songs hits and others not. No doubt it was just given out to those unfortunates in detention after school one day but it was still pretty useful data. One of the questions was ‘What was the last 7″single you bought?”. I’d just put it in there to try and retain their interest really but of the 30 answers that I got back, “Stop” was easily the biggest with 20% of the responses. Not up there with Gold discs and the like but if you’re reading this Andy and Vince (they might be!), you had the approval of at least one Sunderland secondary school.

A week or so after the release of the EP came “Crackers International Part II” which had a much more Christmassy cover and included the duo’s version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”. I’d never heard this before so I sought it out on YouTube…

…is that really Andy Bell singing?! I know he has a high pitch but that falsetto is Aled Jones-esque! In 2013, they went full on Santa and released a whole album of Christmas songs called “Snow Globe”. It’s OK actually if you want a slightly different festive playlist to the usual suspects.

Some Breakers next starting with The Four Tops and “Loco In Acapulco”. Yet another track taken from the Buster soundtrack, the fact that the song was co-written by huge Motown fan Phil Collins and legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier meant a further Motown link up was perhaps always going to happen. Sure enough, The Four Tops were given the song to record and it would prove to be their last hit pretty much anywhere in the world.

For me, the rhyming of ‘Loco’ with ‘Acapulco’ was always a bit too cheesy and therefore was never going to stand up against some of their 60s Motown canon favourably but I guess you cannot deny its joyful exuberance.

“Loco In Acapulco” made No 7 on the UK chart.

Kim Wilde‘s annus (steady) mirabilis that was 1988 was still going strong come December when she scored her fourth Top 40 and third consecutive Top 10 hit with “Four Letter Word”. Amazingly, some seven or so years into her career, this was Kim’s first straight ballad single release and also the last single that was written together by her father Marty and brother Ricky.

I always thought it was a decent enough attempt at a ballad if a little slight and perhaps a style of song didn’t best suit Kim’s vocals. The instrumentation on it sounds like it wouldn’t have been out of place soundtracking the ‘Our Tune’ section of the Simon Bates show. There’s a bit towards the end of the video where I’m sure she’s standing against the same red sky backdrop that was used for Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love’ video.

“Four Letter Word” peaked at No 6 and was Kim’s last Top 10 hit of the decade.

Londonbeat were a curious thing weren’t they? They had a terrible name and they never seemed to quite find their audience but some of their tunes were OK I thought with “9 AM (The Comfort Zone)” being a case in point. With sweet vocal harmonies to the fore, this retro yet classic sound really stood out against the rest of the charts and certainly made my ears prick up. I seem to recall a lot of the media predicting big things for them but unable to produce an immediate follow up, it would take another two years before they really got into their stride with the No 2 hit “I’ve Been Thinking About You”.

“9 AM (The Comfort Zone)” was written about the experiences of the blond guy with the dreadful haircut (Willy M) when travelling back on the New York subway after clubbing all night, stinking of gin and sweat and being sat next to the suited and booted commuters on their way to work.

Despite a few personnel changes over the years (including Willy M moving on), they are still a going concern.

Last week a Breaker, this week the chart’s highest climber and it’s keytars ahoy in this performance of “Good Life” by Inner City. Two on the same stage? That must be a record surely? One of them looks a bit like Nile Rodgers. It isn’t is it?

*searches Nile Rodgers Inner City on the internet*

I don’t think it is but I did get a result for my search. Nilerodgers.com includes this post from 2012:

http://www.nilerodgers.com/blogs/planet-c-in-english/1172-in-da-house

So there you go. Nile is defo a fan of Inner City. Look, it’s better than anything I’ve got to say about the record so let’s stick with this eh?

The Top 10 looked like this:

10. U2 – “Angel Of Harlem”

9. Status Quo – “Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)”

8. Rick Astley – “Take Me To Your Heart”

7. Phil Collins – “Two Hearts”

6. Inner City – “Good Life”

5. Bros – “Cat Among The Pigeons / Silent Night”

4. Erasure – “Crackers International EP”

3. Angry Anderson – “Suddenly”

2. Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan- “Especially For You”

1. Cliff Richard – “Mistletoe And Wine”: Cliff and Christmas have become so entwined as to be almost inseparable.Was it always thus? Well, we could probably all quote “Mistletoe And Wine”, “Saviour’s Day” and “The Millennium Prayer” as Cliff’s most obvious and heinous dalliances with the Christmas market. However, there is also an oft overlooked Christmas song that he recorded back at the start of the 80s which is actually much more palatable than any of the aforementioned atrocities. “Little Town” was released in 1982 as a contemporary reworking of the traditional Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and was actually included as an extra track on the 12″ and CD single versions of “Mistletoe And Wine” and I personally much prefer it to that massive stinking piece of shit.

“Mistletoe And Wine” doesn’t even make sense. I’m pretty confident that in any word association exercise ‘mistletoe’ would be associated with ‘kissing’ wouldn’t it? Or maybe I haven’ thought this through properly. I guess, it could certainly be argued that many a kiss under the mistletoe at any given Xmas party across the breadth of the country was enabled by the consumption of wine I suppose. Pretty sure Cliff didn’t have that particular scenario in mind when he rewrote the song’s original lyrics though.

The play out song is “You Are The One” by A-ha. This was the fifth and final single to be lifted from their “Stay On These Roads” album and would also be the trio’s last hit of the ’80s. For me it was very much in the same vein as the previous single “Touchy” and not one of their finest tunes. I mean, it bounced along quite nicely but it was hardly a stand out career moment like “The Sun Always Shines On TV” or the album’s title track.

For a third time this show there is a New York tie in with the video filmed in and around the city with Morten, Mags and Pal (perhaps unwisely) recreating the sailor outfits look from the the Frank Sinatra / Gene Kelly / movie On The Town.

“You Are The One” peaked at No 13.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bon Jovi	Born To Be My Baby	Not the single but I had the album New Jersey
2	Petula Clark	Downtown ‘88	Not the horrid ’88 remix but I think my wife may have the original on something
3	U2	Angel Of Harlem	Don’t think I did
4	New Order	Fine Time	Nope
5	Erasure	Crackers International EP	Not the EP but “Stop” is on their first Greatest Hits collection CD which I have
6	The Four Tops	Loco in Acapulco	Nah
7	Kim Wilde	Four Letter Word	Nope
8	Londonbeat	9 AM (The Comfort Zone)	No but I did find it intriguing
9	Inner City	Good Life	Not my thing at all
10	Cliff Richard	Mistletoe And Wine	Cliff can shove his mistletoe up his arse – NO!
11	A-ha	You Are The One	No but it’s on their Greatest Hits CD which I have

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000c5y9/top-of-the-pops-15121988

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/2018/12/december-14-27-1988.html

TOTP 06 OCT 1988

Posted on November 14, 2019 by 80stastic

It’s finally October – in 1988 – and the country is in rapture to ….well…men’s hockey. Yes, just five days prior to this TOTP being broadcast, the Great Britain team took gold at the Seoul Olympics by beating West Germany in the final 3-1 and a bloke from Whitstable by the name of Sean Kerly was the talk of the nation. Which was probably just as well for Radio 1’s Richard Skinner otherwise his monstrous hair would surely have been what we were all obsessing about. Just look at it! What was he thinking?! I’m pretty sure that we haven’t seen Skinner for a while now on these TOTP repeats -presumably he was hibernating in a dark, cool place cultivating that hairdo. Co-presenter Simon Mayo seems genuinely intrigued by it and can’t stop touching the Skinner locks but enough of that – to the music.

The Pasadenas again! I’ve run out of things to say about this lot. Presumably their record plugger must have been pulling some all nighters to get them this amount of exposure. How many times have they been on the altogether now? Five? Six? I’m not entirely sure which market they were appealing to. Their sound was quite retro and their performance here calls to mind The Jackson 5 with their co-ordinated dance moves and matching outfits. The studio audience are lapping it up mind so maybe it was a teenage girl thing? Look, I was no fan but compared to the likes of Brother Beyond, they were musical geniuses.

“Riding On A Train” was at its No 13 peak.

What a peculiar thing this was! “Don’t Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin was the first a cappella song to make it to No 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and all the sounds on the record were made by McFerrin. Now I had never heard of this guy before but it turned out he was a jazz vocalist with an reputation for scat singing and beat boxing and he had an established audience for that niche genre. How the hell did he have a massive transatlantic hit then? Well, being on the soundtrack to hit Tom Cruise film Cocktail helped (it also spawned a US No 1 for the Beach Boys with “Kokomo”) but there was something about the simple message in the lyric that appealed to people. One of the guys who I house shared with in my third year called Ian loved this song and for a while “Don’t Worry Be Happy” became a stock phrase around the house every time one of us wound someone up or pulled some ‘hilarious’ trick on them.

It wasn’t just Ian who liked it though. George Bush liked it so much that he used it in his 1988 US presidential campaign but was forced to desist after McFerrin (a Democrat) objected. A bit like when Johnny Marr banned David Cameron from liking The Smiths but funnier. *

Not everyone approved of the song’s simple positive thinking message though. Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” included the line ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy was a number one jam. Damn, if I say it you can slap me right here‘ whilst for some it only served to lend the song that novelty hit feel.

The song became an unofficial anthem in Jamaica after Hurricane Gilbert struck the island in September 1988 causing mass destruction and devastation (more of that later) and just missed out on being a UK No 1 as well as a US one by peaking at No 2. It also won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Vocal Performance and Song Of The Year in 1989.

* Breaking update: Boris Johnson’s favourite band are The Clash? Fuck right off!

There’s a Richard Skinner cock up in his intro to the next act who are The Wee Papa Girl Rappers. It’s OK until the very last word but unfortunately for Skinner that word is the second one in a two word song title that he can’t remember:

“They’re here in the studio tonight. Its The Wee Papa Girl Rappers. The song, “Wee…”

‘We’ what Richard? You couldn’t even remember the title of a song that on has two words in it? You had one job etc.

Anyway, The Wee Papa Girl Rappers were sisters Sandra and Samantha Lawrence from London who had already had one Top 40 hit in ’88 with “Heat It Up” which we didn’t see in these TOTP repeats but which was a sort of acid house/rap/hip hop hybrid which I couldn’t really be doing with. “Wee Rule” on the other hand was much more catchy and likeable and actually nothing like its predecessor. It was far more in a reggae dance hall style and actually reminded me of “Uptown Top Ranking” by Althea and Donna. The nation got behind it and catapulted it to a No 6 chart placing. For a very short while The Wee Papa Girl Rappers were riding the zeitgeist, a reggaefied Mel & Kim if you will – I bet it was a rare chart hit that John Peel would have liked. It didn’t last though and “Wee Rule” was their last hit and they split in 1994.

Oh and one of them was caught up in the previously mentioned Hurricane Gilbert whilst filming the video for “Wee Rule” but thankfully was not injured.

Some Breakers then and first up is a song I can’t remember at all. “So In Love With You” was the second of only two hit singles for Spear Of Destiny (the other being “Never Take Me Alive”) and even then it only just made it into the Top 40 peaking at No 36. Such a small haul doesn’t seem right given some of the great songs they had like “Liberator” and “Prisoner of Love” but there you have it. I have to say that I do like the way that Kirk Brandon handles his guitar – it looks like it should be too big for him but there’s no way he’s not getting the better of it.

Coincidentally the line “I’m So In Love With You” will be making another appearance in a completely different song before the show is finished.

All I knew about P.P. Arnold in 1988 was that she’s had a hit in the 60s with the Cat Stevens penned “The First Cut Is The Deepest”. Having checked out her career though, this woman has worked with some of the biggest names in music both before and after this collaboration with The Beatmasters. In the 60s and 70s she toured with The Small Faces and Eric Clapton. In the 80s she worked with reggae giants Steel Pulse and did the backing vocals for Peter Gabriel on “Sledgehammer” and in the 90s she worked with KLF, Ocean Colour Scene and Primal Scream. Not a bad CV you’d have to say. So, back to The Beatmasters who were making a pretty decent living out of dance music team ups with other artists. They’d already done “Rok Da House” with The Cookie Crew (No 5) before they hooked up with P.P. Arnold for “Burn It Up”. Very much in the style of S’Express or Coldcut, it wasn’t my thing really although I did like their hit “Hey DJ!/I Can’t Dance (To That Music You’re Playing” that introduced the world to Betty Boo.

“Burn It Up” peaked at No 14.

Kim Wilde was really on a roll in 1988. After a massive hit with “You Came” she followed it up with another Top 10 single in “Never Trust A Stranger”. The third single to be lifted from her album “Close” (a further two singles would be released from it), it had a harder and faster sound than its predecessor with that synthesized voice effect on the chorus. It was still though perfect fodder for daytime radio playlists an that exposure sent it Top 10 peaking at No 7.

The video seems to pay homage to that scene from Bladerunner with Kim running through the rain with a lot of flesh on display at one point but without her being shot and falling through a plate glass window.

That second song to feature the line ‘I’m so in love with you’ on tonight’s show next and also a third act to have be linked to Hurricane Gilbert as Simon Mayo tells us that Erasure’s Andy Bell was caught up in its devastation.

“A Little Respect” is one of the three songs that my mate Robin would dance to during his three year period as a student at Sunderland Polytechnic. The other two that he would cut some rug to down the local nightclub? “Sweet Little Mystery” by Wet Wet Wet although I’m pretty sure he was no fan of the Wets and “Soul Man” by Lou Reed and Sam Moore from the soundtrack to the film of the same name. If you’ve never seen the film, it’s plot concerns a rich, white American college kid who pretends to be black to gain a scholarship to get into Harvard after his father blows the family fortune partying. It received much criticism for having a white actor wearing blackface including protests from within the black community. To be fair it did try to highlight the ridiculousness of racism using the medium of comedy but as one critic put it, Soul Man was

‘a genuinely interesting idea, filled with dramatic possibilities, but the movie approaches it on the level of a dim-witted sit-com’

So, a big screen version of Love Thy Neighbour then?

Rick Astley now with “She Wants To Dance With Me”. Despite his massive popularity at this point, not everyone was a fan. The Wonder Stuff penned this little ditty about Mr Astley featuring the lyrics:

Oh Astley it’s the truth
My patience at it’s roof
It’s at it’s ceiling
It’s just this feeling
That given half a choice
A life without your voice seems more appealing

Ouch! Asked about how he felt about the song in a Smash Hits interview, Rick replied ‘Who is the Wonder Stuff then?’. Ouch (again)!

Top 10…

10. Inner City – “Big Fun”

9. Pet Shop Boys – “Domino Dancing”

8. Bill Withers – “Lovely Day (Sunshine Mix)”

7. Rick Astley – “She Wants To Dance WIth Me”

6. Jason Donovan – “Nothing Can Divide Us”

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

4. Womack and Womack – “Teardrops”

3. Whitney Houston – “One Moment In Time”

2. The Hollies – “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”

1. U2 – “Desire” – ‘They’re here tonight” trills Richard Skinner ‘yes but on video’ advises Simon Mayo. So, not here at all then actually. I find it quite odd that none of U2’s first three No 1 singles are really what you would call classics from the band’s canon. Starting with “Desire” in ’88, we then had “The Fly” in ’91 and “Discotheque” in ’97. I’m betting that you don’t even hear them played on the radio much anymore. I think their rise to the top of the charts owed much to the fact that all three songs were the lead singles from a new album and therefore were gobbled up by a devoted fan base hungry for new material.

The play out video is “I Don’t Want Your Love” by Duran Duran. In his autobiography, the band’s John Taylor describes this period in their career as ‘chasing the wave’ referring to the idea that the band were trying to recapture former glories by following the zeitgeist but instead of things getting better they were getting worse.

“We were not making up ground, we were not getting closer to the wave; if anything, it felt to me we were getting dragged farther away from it…..the empty seats and relative lack of interest from the media really started to hit home”

Their 1988 LP “Big Thing” is often referred to as their ‘house music’ album where they tried to latch onto the explosion of dance music happening but really, tracks like “I Don’t Want Your Love” sound more like the band doing their best Prince impression. Things would get worse for the band before a renaissance period arrived in 1993 in the shape of worldwide hit “Ordinary World”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Pasadenas	Riding On A Train	No
2	Bobby McFerrin	Don’t Worry Be Happy	A hit with my student housemates but not for purchasing
3	Wee Papa Girl Rappers	Wee Rule	No but my wife had it on her Now 13 cassette
4	Spear Of Destiny	So In Love With You	That’s a negative
5	The Beatmasters and P.P. Arnold	Burn It Up	I did not
6	Kim Wilde	Never Trust A Stranger	Nope
7	Erasure	A Little Respect	No buy my wife had the album
8	Rick Astley	She Wants To Dance With Me	As if
9	U2	Desire	No – I had little desire for this one
10	Duran Duran	I Don’t Want Your Love	Another no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000b1sn/top-of-the-pops-06101988

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/2018/10/october-5-18-1988.html

TOTP 29 SEP 1988

Posted on November 11, 2019 by 80stastic

The final TOTP of September ’88 saw presenters Gary Davies and Mark Goodier still banging on about the newly rolled out Radio 1 national FM stereo frequencies. As for me, I’m pretty sure I would have been about to travel back up to Sunderland to begin my final year as a student at the polytechnic there. I wonder what songs were in the charts to send me on my way….

…not the best of starts to be honest. “I Don’t Believe In Miracles” was Sinitta‘s fifth Top 40 single on the spin and her last to be totally written and produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman. I’d forgotten what this one went like but guess what? It sounds like all the other crud that she released. I’d thought from the title that it might have been a cover version (didn’t Colin Blunstone do a song with that title plus Sinitta did a load of covers towards the end of her chart career) but no, it’s pure 100% SAW bollocks.

I saw Sinitta in London once (in the street of course – I wasn’t attending one of her gigs!) and she was tiny. Anyway, “I Don’t Believe In Miracles” peaked at No 22.

The ‘greatest band in the whole wide world’ next – well according to Gary Davies anyway. I’m not about to get into that debate but certainly around this time, U2 would certainly have been one of the biggest bands in the world. Following the phenomenal success of their “Joshua Tree” album, their next project was the ambitious (some may say over indulgent) “Rattle and Hum”. An album and film, it seemed to some that the band were biting off more than they could chew with the former being a sprawling 17 song strong collection of new material, covers and live versions and the latter a rockumentary capturing the band during their “Joshua Tree” world tour. Whilst reviews were mixed, the album performed strongly selling 360,000 copies in the UK in its first week alone and 14 million copies worldwide to date. The film fared much worse commercially only making £8.6 million at the box office.

I must admit to having never seen the film and not owning the album either but there were some good new recordings on there I thought. Lead single “Desire” didn’t really do it for me though. Maybe it just sounded too raw next to their sweeping, grandiose epics like “With Or Without You” or “The Unforgettable Fire” – indeed the version released was the original demo that the band preferred to a re-recording of it made in Los Angeles. The Edge said of “Desire” at the time that:

“What I like about Desire is that if there’s ever been a cool #1 to have in the UK, that’s it because it’s totally not what people are listening to or what’s in the charts at the moment. Instead it’s going in exactly the opposite direction. It’s a rock and roll record – in no way is it a pop song.”

Maybe that was my problem with “Desire”. Maybe my senses and critical faculties had been so dulled by the constant conveyor belt of over produced pop that had come to the fore in the latter part of the decade that I just couldn’t appreciate this organic, bluesy, Bo Diddley inspired song ripping up the charts. Or maybe it was just that Bono’s a dick.

“Desire” would be U2’s first ever UK No 1 record soon enough.

Blimey! Hazell Dean again?! A third hit of the year for the high priestess of Hi-NRG, “Turn It Into Love” it seems was actually a track first cut by Kylie Minogue for her debut album that was never released as a single in this country. Instead, Stock, Aitken and Waterman gave it away to Ms Dean and she took it to No 21. Having checked both versions out, there’s not that much difference between them although Kylie’s is less frenetic sounding than Hazell’s. However, for a vastly different take on this, have a read of Niall McMurray on the Into The Pop Void website:

Kylie Minogue – Turn it Into Love

Say what you like about Hazell but her TOTP performances always seemed to illicit a rapturous response from the studio audience – or maybe that was just some out of shot TOTP flunkey wandering around with a ‘Cheer Now ‘ placard. Anyway, she looked like she was having a good time and so did the audience.

“Turn It Into Love” was Hazell’s last ever TOP 40 appearance.

Three Breakers this week starting with Alexander O’Neal. “Fake” had been a minor hit only the previous year but it was re-issued as “Fake ’88” as part of the “All Mixed Up” project which was an album of remixes of tracks from his “Hearsay” album of ’87. Why was a remix album required so soon after the original studio one? No idea. Maybe it was a club thing. I’ve never been into new jack swing R&B so I don’t understand the nuances of the genre. Maybe it was just the record label trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of O’Neal’s then popularity. Anyway, second time around “Fake” faired much better peaking at No 16 as opposed to its original No 33 spike. As I say though, it wasn’t my thing at all and I didn’t really pay it much attention then or since.

It’s the third coming of Duran Duran! If the classic line up of the Fab Five was their first period and the jettisoning of two Taylors from the band that led to the funkified “Notorious” album their second, then surely their third was ushered in via their ‘house music’ album “Big Thing” and its lead single “I Don’t Want Your Love”? The band’s popularity was nowhere near their early 80s peak by this point so in order to retain some relevance to the record buying public, the band made a dance -based album tuning into the nation’s burgeoning obsession with rave culture and bpm. Let’s have it right though, this was Duran Duran so it wasn’t really house music at all but it was certainly a million miles away from the likes of “Rio” and “Hungry Like The Wolf” and a logical extension to the change of direction that was “Notorious”. It failed to halt the band’s sales slide though selling about half of what “Notorious” had done whilst the single only made it to No 14 although it was No 1 for six weeks in Italy and was the biggest selling single of the year there.

I didn’t mind it. It had a incessant feel to it and a hooky chorus. I really wasn’t sure about Simon Le Bon’s hair though.

Not only is ” A Little Respect” one of Erasure‘s most successful (No 4) and well known hits, it’s surely also one of the most played songs of the whole decade by anybody. The third single to be released from their album “The Innocents”, it was also the biggest hit of the three, not bad going to say the album had been out for nearly six months by that point.

Why has it been so enduring? Well, it’s a good tune for one and it has a strong message that can be applied as the soundtrack to many a TV or film scene I would have thought. Or maybe it’s just a really could song to sing along to…

As well as being her last No 1 hit of the 80s, “One Moment In Time” was also Whitney Houston’s last hit of the entire decade. Originally recorded for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, it has since been used to soundtrack endless sporting montages put together by TV sports channels. Indeed, Whitney herself performed it live at the following sporting events’ opening ceremonies:

1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona
1997 US Open Tennis Championships
2006 Winter Olympics in Turin

Yeah…I’d rather have “We Are The Champions” by Queen if it’s all the same.

For God’s sake! This show was almost a prime time advert for Stock, Aitken and Waterman! Here’s another one of their acts – the third tonight. “Love, Truth And Honesty” was essentially a promotional tool for Bananarama‘s “Greatest Hits Collection” album. Similar to Sinitta, it was their last songwriting collaboration with The Hit Factory and also the only track that ever acknowledged any creative input from new girl Jacquie O’Sullivan. Although all three members have synchronised their stage outfits in this performance, Jacquie is still the odd one out as she hasn’t got the shorter hairstyle sported by Sara and Keren.

Honestly, the truth is that “Love, Truth And Honesty” is pretty lame stuff and only managed a high of No 23 but that “Greatest Hits Collection” was a Top 3 album and went three times platinum.

The Top 10:

10. Rick Astley – “She Wants To Dance With Me”

9. Inner City – “Big Fun”

8. Whitney Houston – “One Moment In Time”

7. Pet Shop Boys – “Domino Dancing”

6. Jason Donovan – “Nothing Can Divide Us”

5. Bill Withers – “Lovely Day (Sunshine Mix)”

4. Womack and Womack – “Teardrops”

3. U2 – “Desire”

2. Phil Collins – “Groovy Kind OF Love”

1. The Hollies – “He Ain’t Heavy, He”s My Brother”: How many times is this in the TOTP studio for The Hollies? The third? And that’s three separate performances. None of these are just reshowings of the previous week’s. I bet they couldn’t believe their luck – a first hit since the mid 70s which gets to No 1 off the back of an advert for a brand of US beer – talking of which they must have been regulars in the BBC Green Room.

As for the song’s title, it comes from the motto for Boys Town, a home for homeless boys in Douglas County, Nebraska. Here’s @TOTPFacts with more details:

… Its founder, priest Father Edward saw a magazine illustration of a boy carrying a younger boy on his back, with the caption "He ain't heavy Mr, he's my brother", and commissioned a statue with the inscription. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/BPB0hbFfHe

— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 7, 2019

There you go then. Absolutely nothing to do with “Two Little Boys” by Rolf Harris thank God.

The play out video is “Secret Garden” by T’Pau. This was the lead single from their second album “Rage”. After No 1 single “China In Your Hand”, subsequent single releases had not faired anywhere near as well in the charts which may explain why the band had been pressed into hurriedly recording new material by the record label to capitalise on the success of debut LP ‘Bridge Of Spies” before their appeal started to wane even further.

“Secret Garden” had a rockier sound than their previous efforts and did a good enough job of consolidation by peaking at No 18 whilst the album made it to No 4. However, all was not well. Lead singer Carol Decker and guitarist Ronnie Rogers had been signed on a record contract as a songwriting duo. The rest of the band were hurriedly pieced together after that singing. Feeling very much like second class citizens and getting tired of the attention that Decker received as the face of the band, they insisted on more creative input into future projects. This led to a massive gap of three years before the next album “The Promise” appeared in 1991. By that point Madchester had happened and T’Pau were very much seen as dinosaurs that belonged to the last decade. The end wasn’t far away form then on in.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sinitta	I Don’t Believe In Miracles	Neither do I and it would have taken one for me to buy this – NO
2	U2	Desire	No – I had little desire for this one
3	Hazell Dean	Turn It Into Love	And no
4	Alexander O’Neal	Fake ‘88	Absolutely not
5	Duran Duran	I Don’t Want Your Love	Nope
6	Erasure	A Little Respect	No buy my wife had the album
7	Whitney Houston	One Moment In Time	Nah
8	Bananarama	Love Truth And Honesty	I did not and that’s the truth. Honest!
9	The Hollies	He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother	Not the single but I have their Greatest Hits CD with it on
10	T’Pau	Secret Garden	No but my wife had it on her Now 13 cassette

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000b1gy/top-of-the-pops-29091988

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/2018/09/september-21-october-4-1988.html

TOTP 10 SEP 1987

Posted on May 2, 2019 by 80stastic

After a run of thirteen consecutive TOTP repeats stretching back to the start of June, the lucky streak is finally interrupted as we skip one due to the Mike Smith factor. There’s worse to come though as we miss out on four episodes on the trot (basically the rest of September) due to the TOTP producers pairing Gary Davies with Smith for all four shows! What does that mean we won’t get to see? Well, the record that some people would describe as the most important No 1 of the year in M/A/R/R/S with “Pump Up The Volume” and some great pompous goth rock from Sisters of Mercy with “This Corrosion”. It’s not all bad news though – we are also spared Cliff, Shaky and Gary Numan. Happy days then!

Tonight’s hosts are Peter Powell who looks very casual with his pastel coloured short sleeved shirt and jeans whilst his presenting partner, Simon Bates, is still wearing that jacket and yellow tie combo. Has he not got any other ties?! He’s been wearing that one for weeks now! His concession to casual is to have his top button undone and said tie loosely knotted. Bates knew how to make an outfit work didn’t he?

First on tonight are new faces T’Pau who are having a massive hit with “Heart And Soul”. They very much fell into that category of band where all the attention centred upon the female lead singer. Blondie had come before them (and Toyah if you want to be really pedantic) and No Doubt would come after them, all acts where the other band members were ignored as Debbie Harry, Toyah Wilcox and Gwen Stefani grabbed the headlines. Add to that list T’Pau’s Carol Decker. The guys in the band don’t help their case by all dressing the same in matching leather jackets making them virtually interchangeable. I do remember that the tall guitarist was called Ronnie and was Carol’s boyfriend and co-songwriter but I think I used to mix his surname up with FA Cup folklore hero Ronnie Radford. The T’Pau guitarist is actually called Ronnie Rogers.

This man never played guitar for T’Pau!

T’Pau were famously named after a character in Star Trek and for a long time I thought it was supposed to be Spock’s mother but Wikipedia tells me that wasn’t the case and that T’Pau was actually a matriarch figure and the only person ever to refuse a seat on the Vulcan Federation Council. It turns out that loads of Vulcans had similar sounding names so Carol and co could easily have been T’Mir, T’Pring or even my favourite T’Pan.

From a band just beginning a successful pop career to a band that was coming down the other side of the hill. Level 42‘s peak period was arguably some point around the mid 80s but as the end of the decade was coming into view so their powers were starting to wane. Not only that but their classic imperial phase line up was about to be split asunder with first guitarist Boon Gould* and then his drummer brother Phil leaving by the end of the year.

In a cruel twist of fate, the title of the band’s latest single even seemed to signal what was to come. “It’s Over” was the fourth single to be lifted from their “Running In The Family” album and whilst its peak of No 10 mirrored that of previous single “To Be With You Again”, it would be the last time the band ever visited the Top 10. Unusually it was a ballad (as opposed to their usual high tempo pop funk hybrid) and for me it never really worked that well. In fact, I thought it was a bit boring. Even Mark King looks bored and can’t be bothered to mime his bass with his usual thumb slapping vigour.

A few weeks after this, on my return to Sunderland Poly after the Summer holidays, I remember asking the Poly radio station if they had any new singles that I could review as the co- music editor of the student newspaper. They gave me a bunch of singles that had already been hits and were on their way down the charts making any review of them redundant. One of them was “It’s Over” which kind of sums the whole record up for me. That and the fact that King’s hair would never look as luxuriant and bouffant again.

*Breaking news: before I had even completed this post, the sad news came through that Boon Gould had been found dead at his home at the age of 64. RIP Boon.

W.T.A.F.? Anyone remember W.A.S.P.? I know the name of the band but I couldn’t have told you the name of any of their songs or how they went. Nor would I have known that they looked like this but I guess being heavy metal merchants from Los Angeles, their image is hardly a surprise. I’m trying but ….Oh God, it’s just embarrassing bollocks. I can’t really bring myself to watch it. A few posts ago, I was slaughtering Motely Crue for being pathetic hoary old rockers but they look like The Who compared to W.A.S.P.

The lead singer is called Blackie Lawless apparently. The only person called Blackie I’ve

BlackieGray76 — This man was never the lead singer of W.A.S.P.!

ever heard of before is Roy Race’s best mate Blackie Gray from the legendary comic Roy of the Rovers that I used to read as a boy. A fine footballer and one of my earliest heroes. I can’t imagine Blackie Lawless being anyone’s hero but his band are still together to this day and have released 15 albums since 1984 so I guess someone must like him. Quite why the TOTP producers saw the need to book them for the show though I have no idea unless it was to fill a gap vacated by the Breakers slot which is mysteriously missing for the second week running. Quite what T’Pau and Level 42 made of them Lord only knows.

The band ran into trouble with the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) for their song “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” which was on the Filthy Fifteen list. Given that title, it kind of makes a mockery of Madonna’s “Dress You Up” also being on the list.

And what did W.A.SP. stand for? There are numerous theories including We Are Sexual Perverts and White Anglo Saxon Protestant but I prefer VoiceOfTheMysterons suggestion on Twitter…

W.A.S.P ?

We Are Stupid Pricks ?

🤔🤔🤔#TOTP
— VoiceOfTheMysterons (@Mysteron_Voice) April 26, 2019

“Scream Until You Like it” was their first ever hit in the UK peaking at No 32.

Back for another trip to the TOTP studios are Wax to promote their hit single “Bridge To Your Heart”. I wonder if Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold thought that this would be a stepping stone to a period of sustained success for their partnership? Sadly it wasn’t to be and the parent album “American English” did very little sales wise and subsequent singles lifted from it did even less making them a one hit wonder. They should have re-leased early near miss single “Right Between The Eyes” on the back of this. That might have done the trick.

As it was, Gouldman rejoined a reactivated 10cc whilst Gold restarted his solo career releasing material as recently as 2008 before his death from heart failure in 2011 at he age of 59.

Here’s a jaunty little number. We’d seen Jonathan Butler in our charts before back in 1985 when he teamed up with Hootenanny fixture Ruby Turner on a version of The Staple Singers err…staple “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)” but here he was in his own right with a single called “Lies”. Taken from his self titled album, I always found this quite pleasant if unremarkable. Smash Hits magazine reviewed said album which was a double LP like this:

“So if you really enjoy listening to a full four sides of ‘woah, woah, ooh baby, you’re my everything ooh, no, no, no, no’ this could be the album you’re after and you’re probably a bit off your head.”

Ouch!

“Lies’ made No 18 in the UK and No 27 in the US.

Top 10 time…

10. Levert – “Casanova”

9. Black – “Wonderful Life”

8. Wet Wet Wet – “Sweet Little Mystery”

7. Cliff Richard – “Some People”

6. Sinitta – “Toy Boy”

5. T’Pau – “Heart And Soul”

4. U2- “Where The Streets Have No Name”

3. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield – “What Have I Done To Deserve This”

2. Fat Boys /Beach Boys – “Wipe Out”

1. Rick Astley – “Never Gonna Give You Up”: In the early days of Rick’s fame, broadcasters and fans alike couldn’t get his name right apparently and he was constantly being called ‘Nick’ or ‘Dick’. So often did this occur that Rick even went along with the gag and often referred to himself as ‘Dick Spatsley’ and would be booked into hotels under the pseudonym of ‘Dick Axeman’. Quite a leap then from not knowing his name to the phenomenon of ‘Rick rolling’. Not sure what Rickrolling is? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer for you….

"Never Gonna Give You Up" is the song you hear when you get Rickrolled. Here’s a fascinating article about the history of this internet phenomenon. https://t.co/tBiQ9s1AD6 #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 26, 2019

Heh…

Not only was “Never Gonna Give You Up” No 1 for five weeks it was also the biggest selling single of 1987.

The third in the trilogy of singles from their milestone album “The Joshua Tree”, here’s U2 having their Beatles playing live on the roof moment with the video to “Where The Streets Have No Name”. The band so obviously copied the Beatles famous Apple Records rooftop concert of 1969 that they even went as far as wanting to be busted by the cops just as the Liverpool legends were. They actually achieved their aim with the video’s producer nearly being arrested. Filmed on a specially reinforced roof of an LA liquor store, the band played the song four times plus four other songs to a crowd of around 1,000 fans and confused onlookers.

As for the track itself, I said earlier that “Where The Streets Have No Name” was part of a trilogy of singles lifted from the album but that isn’t strictly true as there was a fourth single released called “In God’s Country” but that failed to make the Top 40. As such, for me I’ve always thought of “With Or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “Where The Streets Have No Name” as the public face of this era of the band’s story which is dominated by that distinctive guitar sound. Apparently it’s a D-chord delay arpeggio (I have no idea) created on The Edge’s home 4-track recorder. I remember seeing Bill Bailey send that sound up as part of one of his live shows once which was very funny…

That sketch didn’t deter the fans love of the song though and in 2002 Q magazine named it the 16th-“most exciting tune ever”! The song’s gestation was a painful process though and according to producer Brian Eno, the recording of it absorbed over 40% of the time spent on the album.

So which version do you prefer? U2’s or Pet Shop Boys?

“Where The Streets Have No Name” peaked at No 4 on the UK Top 40

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	T’Pau	Heart And Soul	No but I had the album. I did – really!
2	Level 42	It’s Over	I didn’t
3	W.A.S.P.	Scream Until You Like It	Just like Just William’s Violet Elizabeth, I could scream until I was sick and I still wouldn’t like this shit
4	Wax	Bridge To Your Heart	No but maybe I should have
5	Jonathan Butler	Lies	Nah
6	Rick Astley	Never Gonna Give You Up	No but I recognize the single sleeve from its image on Wikipedia so maybe my sister bought it
7	U2	Where The Streets Have No Name	Singles box says no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0004j89/top-of-the-pops-10091987

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

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2017/09/september-9-22-1987.html

TOTP 05 JUN 1987

Posted on March 20, 2019 by 80stastic

It’s the day before my 19th birthday! In 1987. To put that into context, I will be 51 years of age on my birthday this year. There’s no avoiding it, I’m an old git. I wasn’t back then though. I was a young man with the rest of my life ahead of me. What happened? How did I get to be this old? It’s a familiar lament of many a middle aged man. I started doing this blog to avert a mid life crisis by wallowing in some nostalgia. I’m not sure that the plan has worked. The only comforting thing is that everyone on this TOTP is also middle aged (if they’re not dead).

For example, host Gary Davies, who has been resurrected by the BBC to host their Sounds of the 80s programme, now looks wizened and creased. His once flowing locks now shorn and with flecks of grey everywhere. His stubble look is also peppered with white hairs. It comes to us all.

Tonight’s first act Erasure were enjoying their third Top 40 hit single at this time in ’87. Once more, to put that into context, they are now up to 35 at the last count. “Victim Of Love” was again taken from their “The Circus” album and was a sensible choice I thought. It was another lively number but for me, it had much more about it than previous single “It Doesn’t Have To Be”. It has a deceptive rhythm to it, undeniably uptempo and yet it almost slithers its way through the song. I always found that to be its greatest hook.

Despite its heavy reliance on synthesizers, there’s no sign of one on stage with Vince and Andy. In fact, the only instrument on show is the former’s acoustic guitar and yet they somehow they still look credible. Maybe that sheen of credibility was why I used to try and copy Andy’s dance steps at my fave Sunderland nightclub ‘Rascals’ back then too. “Victim Of Love” made No 7 on the UK singles chart and they would release one more single before the year was out.

We didn’t get to see U2 perform “With Or Without You” on any previous shows presumably because they were Mike Smith’d but here they are with follow up single “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. The second single from their game changing “The Joshua Tree” album, this gospel influenced track made it to No 6 in our charts.

SHIT ANECDOTE KLAXON!

Around this time, I went to Sheffield with a friend from Poly as it was her home city. Along with my girlfriend (now wife) we spent the afternoon trawling around Sheffield centre looking for a pair of new shoes for me. I couldn’t find anything that appealed and every shop I went in seemed to be playing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. How we all laughed! I’ll get me coat.

Ye gods! Pepsi and Shirley had more than one hit? After the god awfulness of “Heartache” came “Goodbye Stranger” which is essentially the same song. Once again, P&S have gone for some odd stage outfits. Are they camouflage puff ball dresses they’re wearing? I don’t know why I’m asking as I’ve no idea what I’m talking about. What I do know is that this is dreadful shit and should never have got anywhere near the No 9 chart placing that it achieved.

Here come the Breakers and some big news! Jody Watley is leaving Shalamar behind her and launching her own solo career. Yeah…I know…meh. I genuinely can’t remember how “Looking For A New Love” goes. Wait there for 4 mins 32 secs….

Hmmm….well it didn’t ring any bells at all. The intro sounds like the X Files theme tune and then it goes a bit Sheila E and after that it just flatlines into a very dull R’n’B tune. Wikipedia tells me that this song was a very big deal in the US though where it was No 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. I had no idea.

A catchy song with a dark subject matter next. “Luka” was a track from Suzanne Vega’s second album “Solitude Standing” and was written from the point of view of a child who was suffering abuse. The lyrics were very much at odds with the light melody of the song which Vega explains as:

“I felt I had to make it accessible because it was such a dark subject.”

I’m not sure that I understood the dark nature of the song on initial hearing as I was probably focussing on the musical hooks but at some point I must have become aware of what it was all about and it’s now impossible to divorce one from the other.

A massive No 3 smash in the US, we were a bit more luke warm about it making it a No 23 hit in the UK.

A hit straight out of left field next but one which has achieved enduring popularity to this day. Back in 1987 though nobody but nobody had heard of John Farnham outside of Australia. Born in Dagenham but emigrating to Australia at the age of 10, he had been a teen idol throughout the ’70s but once that period was over, he struggled to retain his appeal. Fortune struck though when he was offered a demo of “You’re The Voice” co-written by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band singer Chris Thompson. Knowing he was onto a good thing, Farnham snapped up the song whilst rejecting the chance to record “We Built This City”. How different would the world have been if he’d reversed his choices? Probably not that different at all to be fair.

Anyway, “You’re The Voice ” became a huge international hit (No 1 in Australia, Germany and Sweden and No 6 in the UK) and its inclusion on Farnham’s album “Whispering Jack” helped it to become the 2nd biggest selling album in Australia of all time with only Meatloaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell” ahead of it.

Although essentially an AOR power ballad, the song has something about it that means it can’t just be simply defined in those terms. Is it the clickety clap intro or maybe the memorable lyrics like “We’re all someone’s daughter, we’re all someone’s son, how long can we look at each other down the barrel of a gun?” Nope, it has to be the bagpipes that make an appearance as the song reaches its climax. Bizarre? Certainly. Baffling? Indeed. Stroke of genius? Unquestionably.

The story of 1987 wouldn’t be complete without at least one viewing of the Beastie Boys. Recalling that period of the band’s history, it’s almost as if they were an entirely different entity back then and nothing to do with the act that they became. Signed to fledgling label Def Jam and ditching their punk origins for rap, the trio of Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D released the best selling rap album of the 80s in “Licensed to Ill”. The fourth single from the album, “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)”, broke them in the UK and they became public enemy No 1 in the press overnight when their tour reached our shores. The gigs were plagued by controversy with women dancing in cages and a huge inflatable motorized penis. What I remember the most about their notoriety though was the outrage caused by the craze of their fans pinching the VW badges from Volkswagen cars in an attempt to emulate the look popularised by Mike D who had one hanging from his neck on a gold chain. The papers really went to town on that story with there even being calls for the band to be deported. Reportedly, in the first weeks of June 1987, Volkswagen were replacing as many as 250 badges a day for their customers.

“No Sleep Till Brooklyn” was the follow up single to “Fight for Your Right” and it was very much in the same vein as its predecessor. Some shouted rap lyrics over the top of a basic back beat with a Deep Purple -esque guitar riff holding it all together. The band’s sound would change drastically over the course of the next 20 years with explorations in sampling, multi layering, funk and jazz.

Did I like them? Err…I didn’t really get it at the time and I guess I dismissed them for many years. During my Our Price days during the 90s, just about everyone I ever worked with loved the Beastie Boys and I began to appreciate them a lot more. The band effectively disbanded after the death of Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch in 2012.

Another trip down to London from Clydebank for the boys from Wet Wet Wet next. Their original performance of “Wishing I Was Lucky” saw them adopting a very casual approach to their outfits and they’ve gone for something similar again here. To be honest, the rest of the band would have had to appear stark bollock naked for the TOTP female audience to have gazed at them over Marti Pellow.

I always liked the “He would swear by his mouth almighty” line but their next two single releases would see them get into hot water for plagiarism. That’s for another post though.

Top 10 time…

10. Pespi and Shirley – “Goodbye Stranger”

9. Tom Jones – “A Boy From Nowhere”

8. Donna Allen – “Serious”

7. Erasure – “Victim Of Love”

6. Wet Wet Wet – “Wishing I Was Lucky”

5. Johnny Hates Jazz – “Shattered Dreams”

4. Mirage – “`Jack Mix II”

3. Johnny Logan – “Hold Me Now”

2. Starship – “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”

1. Whitney Houston – ” I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”: This record going to No 1 was a foregone conclusion from the moment it first leapt out into the nation’s consciousness from their radios. After the coup of Whitney being in the actual studio the other week, we get the video this time around. As with the song being basically “How Will I know” regurgitated by the same song writers, so it is with the video which was produced by the same people who made …wait for it…”How Will I Know”. Its the same video! Well, once the coming off stage black and white intro is over it’s Whitney in glorious technicolour messing about whilst some backing dancers do some over exaggerated dance steps. Don’t fix something that isn’t broke though eh?

Like many of us, I assumed that ex-page 3 model Sam Fox‘s foray into the world of pop music would be a fleeting, one-off single type exercise. How wrong we all were. Not to be confused with Starship’s concurrent hit, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now” was the fourth of nine (!) Top 40 hits for ‘Our Sam’ and was produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman as if you couldn’t already tell. It’s relentlessly ghastly and we shall never speak of it again.

Oh and my birthday celebrations? How did they go? I got absolutely shit faced in the student bar and honked all over the place. I vowed never to drink again and I lasted a whole 6 days. Not bad going.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Erasure	Victim Of Love	No but my wife had the album
2	Wet Wet Wet	Wishing I Was Lucky	See above
3	Pepsi and Shirley	Goodbye Stranger	Goodbye Pepsi and Shirley. Please never darken our doors again
4	Jody Watley	Looking For A New Love	Nah
5	Suzanne Vega	Luka	No but my wife’s record collection to the rescue one more
6	John Farnham	You’re The Voice	Guilty pleasure but never bought it
7	Beastie Boys	No Sleep Till Brooklyn	No – I didn’t really get it
8	Whitney Houston	I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)	Not for me
9	Sam Fox	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now	Unbelievably bad record – no!

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00030wm/top-of-the-pops-05061987

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

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

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-3-16-1987.html

LIVE AID 13 JUL 1985

Posted on April 4, 2018 by 80stastic

Before we leave the TOTP world of July 1985, I think we cannot let any discussion of that particular month pass without mentioning Live Aid. On 13th July 1985 the world was transfixed by Bob Geldof’s vision and execution of a “global jukebox” to raise ongoing funds for the Ethiopian famine relief operation that Geldof had initiated with Band Aid in December 1984.

For a 17 year old lad growing up in Worcester and obsessed by pop music and whose only regular fix of seeing actual pop stars on the TV was that 30 minutes from 7.30 to 8.00pm when TOTP was broadcast on a Thursday night, the idea of a whole consecutive 16 hours of pop (and rock) acts was indescribably exciting. I couldn’t wait. I would be perched on the family sofa waiting for 12.00 pm to come around and for the whole shebang to begin. Except I wasn’t. I wasn’t at home. Nor was I even in front of a TV screen. For I, inexplicably, had decided to go into town (possibly with a mate) at exactly the same time that the show started! Why? I have not a clue. Why was I prepared to miss out on this historic event just to go to Worcester city centre which I could do on any old Saturday? It is unfathomable to me. I have no recollection of which shops I went in or what I bought (if anything). All I can remember is walking past a clothes shop and hearing the shop’s radio blaring the live broadcast out and hearing Status Quo bursting into “Rockin’ All Over The World”. That seemed to jolt me into coming to my senses and I suddenly realised that I had made a dreadful error and I skidaddled back home on the first bus I could find.

So I missed that iconic opening moment when Radio 1’s Richard Skinner (Why did he get the gig? It always seemed an odd choice to me) uttered those immortal lines ” It’s 12 noon in London, 7 am in Philadelphia and around the world its time for Live Aid!”. I missed Charlie and Di taking their seats (wasn’t arsed about that to be fair) and I missed the Quo. Going back to the presenters, given the power that TOTP and Radio 1 held over pop music in the UK, it was surprising to me that more of them were not delivering the broadcast. The actual presenters were:

Richard Skinner
Andy Kershaw
Mark Ellen
David Hepworth
Andy Batten-Foster
Steve Blacknell
Paul Gambaccini
Janice Long
Mike Smith

Of those, only Richard Skinner, Janice Long and Mike Smith were regular TOTP presenters / Radio 1 DJs. If anything there seemed to be an Old Grey Whistle Test bias.

Anyway, I can’t recall exactly who was on stage by the time I got home and got to the TV set but I’m betting it must have been second act on The Style Council and I’m also betting my Weller obsessed older brother would have been watching. Years later, I found myself working with a guy who knew the band’s keyboard player Mick Talbot who once told my work colleague that minutes before the show started, he had noticed that the wiring for the sound system was set up wrong (something about the voltage being calibrated for the US and not the UK or something) and he switched it over just in time otherwise nothing would have worked. I don’t know if this is true but I’d like to think that it is and that the day was saved by an ex Merton Parka.

Anyway, by the time Bob Geldof came on with the rest of the Boomtown Rats I was in position. It always seemed to me like Bob was rushing ever so slightly and that performing on stage to a global audience of millions was the least important thing he had to do that day…and maybe it was. However who can forget the iconic “And the lesson today is how to die” moment (go to 3.20 in this clip) where he holds the whole world in his hand and let’s the moment sink in. Incredibly, he would get to do this again some 20 years later at Live 8.

After The Rats came the anachronism that was Adam Ant and he chose to do his latest single (“Vive Le Rock”) that wasn’t even a hit despite the massive promotional tool of being seen by millions of people on prime time TV! If Adam didn’t know his time had been and gone before, he certainly did now.

After Adam came Ultravox with Bob’s partner in sainthood Midge Ure. I’m sure there was some controversy about a late change to the running order made by Geldof that bumped Ultravox further down the bill so his own band could go on earlier but Midge, being the mild mannered guy he is, I’m sure he didn’t mind.

Next up were Spandau Ballet who I would have been keen on catching. As with Adam Ant, they decided to do a new song in their set and played the unreleased track “Virgin” (which would eventually surface on the “Through The Barricades” album over a year later). Not a great decision by the band that. Nor was their choice of outfits that day, especially Tony Hadley’s. Look at that full length leather coat he’s got on. He must have been sweltering in it. The rest of the band have gone for some awful garish colured togs and the whole look of the thing is just wrong.

Much was made on the day of the part Phil Collins would play when it transpired that he was ambitiously going to play at both the Wembley concert and the one in Philadelphia by taking a supersonic flight on Concorde. He did and it actually worked and Phil played two sets (although they were almost identical for some reason) in both venues. Apparently Cher was on the Concorde flight and was oblivious to the whole Live Aid event but asked Phil how she could get involved. He said just turn up at the JFK stadium. She did just that and did get on stage as part of the ensemble for the closing song “We Are The World”.

Back to Wembley and Nik Kershaw is on stage shortly after the Spands and he gets to do four songs whereas Howard Jones (you can’t mention Nik Kershaw without mentioning Howard Jones remember) only gets to do a paltry one which seems odd. If you watch the performances back, you’d have to say that Howard seems irrefutably better and therefore deserving of some of the stage time that Nik was allowed.

Checking that running order, there are some acts that I can’t recall seeing at all like Sade so I think that I may have dipped out to the garage for a quick session on my newly acquired dart board. Hardly the act of the pop obsessed young man I am trying to portray is it but I can only be honest and I definitely have a memory of throwing some arrows that day.

I would have been back in front of the TV for Paul Young and Bryan Ferry and then came one of the day’s iconic moments when U2 took to the stage and Bono did his legendary walkabout during the song “Bad”. There are a lot of things to be said about this and the first is that I don’t think I had any idea when watching it live that the girl that Bono pulled out of the crowd was actually being overwhelmed by the sheer pressure of the Wembley crowd that day and was in danger of suffocating. I just thought Bono had plucked her out at random. Kal Khalique was just 15 at the time and could not have known that the iconic moment she unwittingly found herself at the centre of would still be being talked about all these years later. There were another two girls who were pulled from the crowd that day and they were waiting on stage for Bono when he resurfaced. They got a kiss and a hug and were escorted back to the crowd and have almost been written out of history when it come to retelling the story of that moment which is all about the girl who nearly suffocated. I wonder what reaction those other two women get now when they tell their story of being on stage at Live Aid with Bono?

“Oh you were that girl that Bono saved from suffocating?

” Err no actually I wasn’t. I was just sort of hanging about a bit on stage waiting for him”.

Doesn’t quite have the same power does it?…says the man who was sat watching at home in between practising darts after he’d missed the start of the show for no good reason. Hmmm…I think those girls on stage waiting for Bono might have had a more memorable experience of Live Aid day than me on reflection. Still, where’s their blog about the day eh?

Apparently the rest of the band were furious with their lead singer as they had no idea what he was doing and from their point of view had just disappeared mid-song! Drummer Larry Mullen was about to stop playing at the very moment Bono reappeared. The whole thing wouldn’t have been quite so memorable if that had actually happened I don’t think.

And the final thing to say about this? Bono…your hair…what were you thinking?

The second iconic moment of the whole day was not far off – the rebirth of Queen. Despite having returned to the charts with the album “The Works” and its attendant four singles in 1984, these were still uncertain times for the band after their imperial phase in the 70s. Live Aid would be their watershed moment. Their performance on the day is now almost unanimously recognised as the one that stole the show with a six song set that saw Freddie Mercury give a masterclass in how to enthral an audience. In truth its all about Freddie and his white singlet outfit has become the staple look for every Queen / Freddie tribute act since. It’s easy to forget, in the light of their set, that not much had been expected of the band and that they were sandwiched in between Dire Straits (riding high on the back of “Money For Nothing”) and David Bowie (rejuvenated sales wise after the success of “Let’s Dance”) but Queen blew everyone away.

Around this time, the infamous “give us your fucking money” incident occurred. The reported outburst by Geldof of course never actually happened. He did swear but he never said the words that have been attributed to him and which have now passed into legend. What he actually said was “Fuck the address, let’s get the numbers” after presenter David Hepworth tried to give out the address for people to send cheques to rather than the phone line numbers for people to donate via credit card. Apparently, Sir Bob was disappointed by the amount raised so far and decided to intervene personally. It worked and the donation increased to £300 per second after his appearance. We’re all so used to telethons to raise money for charity now and the ways to give are so easy (text, online etc) but the idea of people ringing a telephone number and donating by a credit card in 1985 seemed brand new back then.

I’d forgotten that Ian Astbury from The Cult was on the sofa at that moment and he’s smoking a cigarette on set! Nobody would have batted an eyelid back then but now it would seem controversial to the point of being antagonistic. Quite why Billy Connolly and Pamela Stephenson are also on the sofa is lost in the mists of time.

The previously mentioned David Bowie did a grand job though with his set which comprised of “TVC 15”, “Rebel Rebel”, “Modern Love” and “Heroes”. I think I was transfixed by his mercurial quiff that day. In the intro to “Heroes” in the clip below he introduces the band to the crowd. I’d forgotten that Thomas Dolby was on keyboards.

Now looking at the timings, I think Bowie would have been the last act I saw before I went out again. What…the…f**k? I went out again in the middle of all this?! WHY?! Well, you see my 6th form, in all its wisdom, was having some sort of disco / dance that night and I duly went along. Yes, my school arranged a social event on the night the rest of the world would be at home glued to their TVs. I can’t recall anything about the actual disco. I’m guessing that I went along because:

a) my mates were going

b) there may have been some girls from the girl school next door there as well

I don’t know for sure. I certainly wasn’t a regular face down town on a weekend at this point so it wasn’t like me. All I can remember of the evening is walking home from the disco with my mate Dave and calling in on his older brother who was partial to a toot (of the illegal substance variety not the one Denise LaSalle was singing about at the time). Dave’s elder brother, like every other sane person, had Live Aid on his TV and was, indeed, enjoying a reefer at the same time. By this time, the UK concert had finished and we were into the US concert from Philadelphia. In my head it would have been Neil Young on stage by this point of the evening but I could be making that up. Anyway, we didn’t stay long and I might have caught some more of the US show when I got home including that bum note from Simon Le Bon in Duran Duran‘s set but I can’t be sure.

That’s the problem with revisiting something 33 years on – you just can’t be sure of the details as they happened. History records that Queen were mesmerising that day but did I realise what an iconic moment this was as I watched them live on TV? I don’t know. In the intervening years your recall gets informed by how something has been reported in the media and not by how you actually experienced it at the time. Your memory shifts and re-edits and mashes images together to form something that never actually happened but I have done my best to piece the day together as I experienced it.

A few years later I bought the official DVD of Live Aid. I have dipped into it but have yet to fully re-immerse myself in that July day from all those years ago by sitting through the full 16 hours in one go. Maybe there are some things that we should just cherish our memories of as they happened.

Some bed time reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2015/07/july-17-30-1985.html

TOTP 09 MAY 1985

Posted on February 28, 2018 by 80stastic

Welcome back to 1985 where we are now into the month of May in the world of TOTP repeats. Everton have just become 1st Division champions for the first time since 1970 and new BBC sitcom Three Up, Two Down starring Michael Elphick is on TV. It also stars Lysette Anthony who featured in the recent Bryan Adams video for his hit single “Run To You” but I’m not sure I made that connection at the time. And talking of the charts, the UK had a new and rather radical No 1 but more of that later….

Tonight’s show is hosted by Janice Long and John Peel who continue their double entendre presenting style throughout. First up are The Style Council with “Walls Come Tumbling Down”. Paul Weller and co were in the middle of a rich seam of hits since their inception in 1983 after the demise of The Jam and this was the first single off their soon to be released second album “Our Favourite Shop”. Its a right old stomper as well. The swirling hammond organ intro goes straight into a full-on soul backing and then Weller comes in with those killer first lines “You don’t have to take this crap, you don’t have to sit back and relax“. Now I always assumed this was an anti-Thatcher / Tory protest song but @TOTPFacts advises that it wasn’t….

Paul Weller: “’You don’t have to take this crap’ was about Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and all those crappy fuckin’ bands who were like the pop aristocracy, with their suits and pearls.” (Hence the line “You don’t have to sit back and RELAX”…) #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 23, 2018

Well I never! However on following the thread to this tweet, this is disputed by none other than Council drummer Steve White who says…

To be fair he didn’t think all of those contemporary bands were crap . The Frankie thing was just a play on words .
— Steve White (@drummerwhitey) February 23, 2018

Well there you go then. Anyway, this felt like quite a statement from Weller and a return to form after “Shout To The Top” which I never really liked and “Soul Deep” by the Council Collective which was politically laudable but musically awful. As Janice Long advises, the album was out at the end of the month and obviously my Weller mad elder brother bought it. I remember him saying to me at the time that he didn’t think that the first Style Council album “Cafe Bleu” could be topped but that Weller had done it again.

Paul’s hair is almost Phil Oakey-esque by this point and partner D.C. Lee is sporting a classic soul sister outfit that would no doubt have been copied by modettes across the land (certainly in my hometown of Worcester). I’m pretty sure her nifty dance moves would have been copied too. “Walls Come Tumbling Down” would make No 6 in the UK singles chart.

Next it’s that Freddie Mercury video again for “I Was Born To Love You” that we saw in the Breakers section the other week. I said in the last post that it just sounded to Queen to me back in 1985 (albeit a disco version of Queen) and to back up my judgement I have learnt that the band did in fact record a version of it after Freddie’s death for their “Made In Heaven’ album. To be fair, it’s a much rockier version of the song compared to the original. Anyway, you can check it out for yourself below….

And now compare it to the original (if you have a spare 3 minutes or so)….

So what do you think? Can’t say I’m into either version to be honest. Apparently the Mercury video was choreographed by Arlene Phillips. Yeah, her that used to be on that Strictly Come Dancing.

“Now from America one of the great voices” ….not my words but those of John Peel. Who can it be? Prince? Springsteen maybe? Daryl Hall even? What?! Steve f*****g Arrington?! You’ve got to be kidding me?! In the last post I said I’d had an irrational hatred of Steve Arrington and his single “Feel So Real” back in ’85.. Let me watch this back and see if I’ve mellowed at all in the intervening 33 years…

…nope! Firstly, what on earth was he wearing?! Some sort of customised kaftan? Secondly, what’s the deal with the flip flops?! Why is he wearing them and does he mean to fling them off halfway through or did they just slip off by accident and he tried to style it out? Thirdly, couldn’t they have had someone miming the trumpet during the instrumental break instead of a close up of the TOTP dancers? And finally, it’s still just shit. Dreadful.

Ooh! Now who remembers the fuss about the next video? It’s Godley and Creme with “Cry”. Yes it’s that face morphing video. Remember everyone telling you that you must see this video because it was amazing? Well it kind of was at the time. It still has the power to draw you in even now I think but in 1985 this seemed really ground breaking. I say face morphing but Kevin Godley puts me straight…

Godley: “I should stress: it wasn’t morphing. These were just straight bits of old broadcasting technology… The technology wasn’t new. I don’t think it had been applied in quite this way before, so when you saw it you thought you were seeing something quite magical.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 23, 2018

Well anyway, whatever technology it was, the effect they created was very striking. Of course, Michael Jackson would pinch the idea and update it for his 1991 single “Black or White” but I still prefer Godley and Creme’s original. How many ‘famous’ faces did you spot? I saw Mr T and Michelle Pfeiffer lookalikes and doesn’t Kevin Godley look a bit like Eric Cantona when the guy with the shaved head morphs into him? Just me then.

“Here’s another of those great American voices” advises John Peel as he introduces the next act. Brilliant! This must be Prince this time. No? Stevie Wonder? No? Hell I ‘d even accept Lionel Richie. Curtis Hairston! Who the f**k is Curtis Hairston?! Sadly, the question I should be asking is who was Curtis Hairston as the poor fella died from kidney failure in 1996. So who was he? I don’t remember this guy or his song “I Want Your Lovin’ (Just a Little Bit)” at all? Apparently it made No 13 in the charts and he also did the vocals for B. B. & Q. Band’s hits “Genie” and “(I’m A) Dreamer” around this time. Nope. Don’t remember them either. Listening to him here, it’s no wonder I had blanked him from my memory as his brand of bland soul was not my bag at all.

Right we’re into the Breakers section. and we start with a great song by Bryan Ferry – it’s “Slave To Love”. It was 3 years since Roxy Music’s last album the divine “Avalon” but Bryan was obviously still clinging onto that sound with this hit. It benefits from a superbly slick and lush production and of course Ferry’s lounge lizard vocals. It was the lead single from his solo album “Boys And Girls” which made No 1 on the UK album chart whilst “Slave To Love” would make the Top 10 on the singles chart. Typically of Bryan, the video features a number of beautiful models cavorting about. He’s not had a bad life has he?

From “Slave to Love” at No 30 to “Rage To Love” next door at No 29. Its Kim Wilde! Despite still appearing regularly in the charts , Kim was suffering from a bad case of diminished returns by this point in her career, The massive “Kids In America” era hits from the start of the decade had dried up so the fact that this single would make the Top 20 was quite a surprise. Especially so as it was the third single to be released from her “Teases And Dares” album which bombed in the UK. The secret ingredient for this hit appears to have been the Dave Edmunds remix of it from its album version and you can certainly hear his influence with that Stray Cats guitar twang hook. I liked it and thought Kim looked great on the video. Err…best move on….

…to someone who definitely did nothing for me looks wise. I had totally forgotten that Divine had another hit apart from the previous year’s “You Think You’re a Man” but here he is again with “Walk Like A Man”. This of course was a cover of The Four Seasons classic but I think the joke was wearing a bit thin by now. Next!

Ah! The curious case of Jimmy Nail‘s pop career. Jimmy had come to the UK public’s attention as one of the stars of the hit TV show Auf Wiedersehen, Pet but it was still a surprise to see him in the charts playing it straight with a cover of the old Rose Royce classic “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”. Credit to him for not doing some Gazza style comedy record in character as his TV persona Oz and he made this serious tilt at the charts work. This single would go all the way to No 3 and he would continue to have massive hits into the 90s including a No 1 with “Ain’t No Doubt”. Coincidentally, Madonna also did a cover of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore ” on her “Like A Virgin” album but it was never released as a single in the UK maybe because Nail beat her to it.

10. Phil Collins – “One More Night”: Phil! I told you last post. Just clear off will you!

9. DeBarge – “Rhythm Of The Night”: Crashing into the Top 10 on their way to No 5…

8. Simple Minds – “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”: On its way down already. Still surprising that this wasn’t a bigger hit over here.

7. Steve Arrington – “Feel So Real”: Already done this one and I have no desire to comment further.

6. U2 – “The Unforgettable Fire”: Right then, here’s a band that we have’t seen on these repeats for a while. We catch them here at a time just before they become global superstars which would occur just two months on from this after their iconic Live Aid performance. I liked this song though not enough to buy it. I think my brother had bought “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” which was the first single from”The Unforgettable Fire” LP but we didn’t get to see the TOTP show that it featured on.

I tend to think of this song as the gateway to the band’s megastardom. You could kind of seeing it coming with this single which was certainly epic sounding if a little sprawling. It would go no further than its No 6 position here but the writing was on the wall.

5. USA For Africa – “We Are The World”: No 1 it may have been but the sales in the UK were nowhere near that of Band Aid.

4. Tears For Fears – “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”: On its way down but there will be more TFF singles to come before 1985 is done

3. Bronski Beat / Marc Almond – “I Feel; Love (Medley)”: This is shown again as a studio performance but I did this one in the last post.

2. Phyllis Nelson – “Move Closer”: She’s nearly there….

1.Paul Hardcastle – “19”: One of the most memorable No 1s of the decade next. Paul Hardcastle was a 27 year old (at the time) multi instrumentalist producer who was inspired by a Vietnam war documentary to create his world wide smash hit “19” which introduced us all to the condition of post traumatic stress disorder. The titular title was a reference to the average age of the American combat soldier during the conflict.

It was a very affecting song for its sound and the accompanying video which both drew heavily on spoken word and images from the documentary (‘Vietnam Requiem’). The distinctive ‘N-n-n-n-nineteen’ hook really made it stand out from the rest of the charts even though we had already sent ” I Feel For You” to No 1 recently with its similarly stuttering ‘Chaka Khan’ refrain.

Like the rest of the planet seemingly, I liked it and it added to the now burgeoning cannon of socially aware pop songs following in the footsteps of Band Aid, USA for Africa and The Council Collective.

The play out music is The Untouchables with “Free Yourself”. This lot were mod /ska revivalists from Los Angeles. It wasn’t really my thing but my mod brother bought it I think. They always seemed a bit of an oddity to me.

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Style Council	Walls Come Tumbling Down	No but my brother will have bought it
2	Freddie Mercury	I Was Born To Love You	I wasn’t
3	Steve Arrington	Feel So Real	NO! Just horrible.
4	Godley and Creme	Cry	No but it’s on my 10cc / Godley and Creme collection CD
5	Curtis Hairston	I Want Your Lovin’ (Just A Little Bit)	Buy it? I don’t even remember it!
6	Bryan Ferry	Slave to Love	Not the 7’ but I bought the Roxy Music / Bryan Ferry retrospective “Street Life” on LP the following year and it was on that
7	Kim Wilde	Rage To Love	No
8	Divine	Walk Like A Man	And no
9	Jimmy Nail	Love Don’t Live Here Anymore	Nah
10	Phil Collins	One More Night	One more shite more like. NO!
11	DeBarge	Rhythm Of The Night	Nope
12	Simple Minds	Don’t You (Forget About Me)	Oh yes
13	Steve Arrington	Feel So Real	NO! Just horrible.
14	U2	The Unforgettable Fire	No but I think I’ve got the album on CD somewhere
15	USA For Africa	We Are The World	I didn’t – was that wrong of me? I did buy Band Aid though so I think I’m OK karma wise
16	Tears For Fears	Everybody wants to Rule The World	Not the single but I bought the album “Songs From The Big Chair”
17	Bronski Beat with Marc Almond	I Feel Love (Medley)	No but it’s on my Jimmy Somerville / Bronski Beat / Communards ‘Best Of’ CD
18	Phyllis Nelson	Move Closer	Not likely
19	Paul Hardcastle	19	Meant to but can’t find it
20	The Untouchables	Free Yourself	No but my brother did

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09sw7zx/top-of-the-pops-09051985

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/2015/05/may-8-21-1985.html

TOTP Rewind – the 80s

My memories of 80s chart music

U2

TOTP 22 JUN 1989

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 15 DEC 1988

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 06 OCT 1988

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 29 SEP 1988

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 10 SEP 1987

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 05 JUN 1987

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?

LIVE AID 13 JUL 1985

Some bed time reading?

TOTP 09 MAY 1985

Disclaimer

Some bed time reading?