Just Say Zammo
24/04/86 (Janice Long & Dixie Peach)
The SOS Band – “The Finest” (17)
Flying in to just be good to us with their second and final top twenty hit, which was already at its peak.
Grange Hill Cast – “Just Say No” (5) (video)
It got no higher.
Five Star – “Can’t Wait Another Minute” (8)
The suits were not the most flattering but the song went up one more place.
Princess – “I’ll Keep On Loving You” (26) (breaker)
Peaked at number 16.
Level 42 – “Lessons In Love” (23) (breaker)
Became their biggest hit when it peaked at number 3.
Madonna – “Live To Tell” (10) (breaker)
Peaked at number 2.
Aurra – “You & Me Tonight” (20)
Flying in from New Jersey to sing a live rendition of their only top 30 hit, which peaked at number 12.
George Michael – “A Different Corner” (1) (video)
Second of three weeks at number one.
Queen – “A Kind Of Magic” (3) (video/audience dancing/credits)
At its peak.
May 1st is next, but it's a Mike Smith edition.
There's getting less and less to comment on as the 1986 year draws on. The only clip I liked on this show is the Grange Hill video, as it was a gentle number with only few words, and was in the fashion at the time of having USA For Africa style of choir singing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Queen seems to be forever at No.3, and I think the third time on the playout with the same song. I wonder if that ever happened before, and why they did not get a main feature play, having been in the top ten for several weeks?
A Kind of Magic got a main play on the final Yellow Pearl episode four weeks earlier which was Smithed.
DeleteSome interesting material in this SOS Band performance - and that's just their clothes. Not quite as good as their biggie, but a pretty decent track all the same. The cover two decades later by Richard X and Kelis is not bad as these things go, either.
ReplyDeleteThen the Grange Hill video that I'm absolutely sure all of the participants are able to watch without industrial strength cringing. OK, maybe not. The rap in the middle is curiously reminiscent of England New Order, were they suitably inspired? Anyway, well intentioned, hearts in the right place nonsense and it must have worked because I watched ver Hill every week and never took heroin.
Five Star back in the studio, does this count as Dixie's "soul"? Hope Patrick Moore wasn't watching, he'd have been mightily confused. At this point they were more shoulder pads than human, of course.
Breakers, guessing we don't see Princess again, this was pleasant enough but obvious why she never bothered the Top Ten again, purple hair and all. Pretty sure Level 42 will be back, and I hope we see Madonna in full because it's one of my favourites of hers, from one of the bleakest movies of the 80s.
No memory of Aurra (that spelling can't be right, can it?), and no wonder, it sounds like it was written by a computer. Well done for singing live, though Mr Aurra is too quiet in some places and TOO LOUD in others.
In Italy for a while there were films called White Telephone movies, because said device was considered an object of desire to make your home look tres chic (or whatever Italian for tres chic is). Which is presumably why there's one in the George Michael video.
Queen again? No matter how often you play this video, guys, it still won't go to Number 1.
Think this is Dixie's final bow as a presenter, farewell, gentleman, we can truly say you made more of an impression than Paul Jordan.
John Barnes' rapping sounds pretty credible next to this effort!
Deleteaurra is the right spelling as far as the above musical act was concerned (that had in fact been releasing albums since 1980 without previously making any impression on the great british public), but of course it's normally spelt "aura"
DeleteDixie heads off to join Paul Jordan in the "where are they now?" file, but ironically his final TOTP turn is perhaps his best, as he finally looks semi-comfortable in front of the camera; Janice, meanwhile, looks like the girl next door. This isn't a great line up to see Dixie off, unfortunately, with too many songs we have heard before and new stuff that is either dull or just plain dreadful.
ReplyDeleteThe SOS Band set the tone with a tune that is such a textbook example of a mid-80s soul/dance sound there are no distinguishing features to it whatsoever, and it doesn't half go on too. The performance is equally boring, the only memorable moment coming when the green-jacketed keyboardist briefly leaves his position to duet up front. I remember the Zammo-on-smack Grange Hill storyline vividly, and it terrified the 6-year-old me. I well remember the spin-off hit too, but it failed to stir the same horror in me at the time, when it should have done because it is bloody awful! The video does at least have its comic consolations, notably Roland's impassioned bellowing into the mic, and interesting to see Todd Carty's in it when he had long since left the show. It is of course fun to speculate how many of the kids would go to say yes - John Alford certainly did, and I'm sure he wasn't the only one. Zammo, ironically, didn't sing on the record as his voice was deemed too bad - given the vocal standard on display here, he must have been truly terrible...
Five Star are back, this time in ultra-sparkly costumes seemingly designed to induce epileptic fits. We are back to a normal Top 40 rundown (maybe Janice insisted?) but I trust whoever compiled it was fired forthwith, as we are treated to "Gary Newman," "Duane Eddie" and "Atlantic Star" for the umpteenth time. Worth noting too that TOTP never featured Sam Cooke's reissued Wonderful World, despite it climbing to number 2 - perhaps there was no suitable video or archive footage available?
We will see all the breakers again, but I was struck by Janice implying that Madge would soon be playing Eva Peron, when it would take another 10 years for the film of Evita to be released - was it stuck in development hell for a whole decade? Back in the studio, Aurra come over like a cut-price Ashford & Simpson, coming up with another snoozesome soul track that the crap talky bits miserably fail to enliven. We conclude with George and Queen yet again, while BBC4 unceremoniously shorten Dixie's last link as he doubtless dares to mention next week's host...
Sam Cooke was reissued because of a jeans ad - you'll notice Marvin Gaye was back in the charts too, for the same reason, except in the actual ad they couldn't get the rights to Marv and had to use a rubbish cover instead.
DeleteI guessed Wonderful World was probably back in the charts due to an ad - not all that long now until Nick Kamen turns up on TOTP...
DeleteThe vocal ability of the Grange Hill cast reminds me of the song’s playing in the Tuesday lunchtime pre-rundown top five. It was followed by Gary Davies saying something like “The singing leaves something to be desired but the intention’s very worthy ”.
DeleteIt's still pretty cool that The Grange Hill Cast made it to No.5 in the charts this week, and at their peak as quite rightly mentioned above. I certainly don't remember this tune being in the charts, let alone getting to No.5!
DeleteI’m not sure Todd Carty was in the Just Say No video...
DeleteI think you're confusing Todd Carty with Ricky Simmonds who played Ant Jones.
Delete...or George Christopher, who played cheeky chappy Ziggy Greaves!
DeleteI stand corrected - yes, I think I was confusing Todd with George Christopher. They do look quite similar, but it did seem strange to me that Todd would be in the video when he was no longer in the show!
DeleteWe should be getting those great EastEnders spin-off singles soon. Well, I say "great", I mean "grate"...
Deletei remember john alford being one of the few "grange hill" pupils that managed to get some success as an adult actor, becoming a regular in "london's burning" before pressing the self-destruct button. i wonder just how many of the kids in the series had serious aspirations to carry on in the profession once they had outgrown it (if so, then most were destined to be disappointed it seems), and how many just saw it as a piece of fun before going into the real world and getting a normal job?
DeleteI’m going off piste here before I eventually critique this edition, but I’d like to point out something obvious by its glaring omission, to some forumites’ obvious delight. Have a guess? Our Eurovision entry.
ReplyDeleteBy this stage in 1986 we’d already chosen our song to blitz Europe in the big gig, and for decades our Song For Europe winner had been given a showcase TOTP studio outing, regardless of how good or bad the song was, before it was foisted upon the European public in one go. In 1985, though, for some reason our contestant Vikki was given just a worthless ten-second studio interview then video transmission of less than half her song in the next edition. Compared to the next two years, that was a feast.
Our 1986 entry was “Runner In The Night” by Ryder, a band formed by the son of comic actor Bill Maynard with the sole intention of performing in the grand final. They achieved their aim, but the song didn’t get any mention on TOTP at all. Possibly because, in the sunrise of Song For Europe contests featuring an entire line-up you didn’t know before or after, Ryder won with a song so bland it made Vikki sound like “Waterloo” and, even worse, it was our first entry to miss the UK charts since Matt Monro’s effort in 1964, when the chart was smaller. Ryder’s effort unofficially peaked at 98.
The following year some bloke called Rikki (no relation to Vikki) represented us with another turkey which also scraped into the top 100 with no TOTP outing. The year after that, our entry missed out on winning Eurovision by one point thanks to the final jury vote from Yugoslavia, which gave a big career push to Celine Dion. I must remember to tear my Yugoslav wife off a strip as to what her compatriots did to us and the world in general.
yes arthur i'm certainly one forumite that isn't lamenting (or even noticing until you pointed it out) the absence of eurovision entries - the standard's generally bad enough as it is at this point, without having to suffer that piffle!
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ReplyDeleterather a strange voiceover from janice instead of the usual show intro (plus what sounded like rather obvious canned applause) for what for me is in fact quite possibly the finest musical moment of this year - certainly as far as this show is concerned, anyway. jam & lewis are right on top of their game here, and even though the full-length version is over 6 minutes long it still always seems to end too soon every time time i hear it (and i listen to it a lot). that's how good it is. given that this never went any higher in the charts as a result of their appearance (presumably on the basis that they were too anonymous visually?) the band probably felt their efforts to fly all the way over the atlantic to promote it on the show was a waste of time and money. but had they not done so, then there could well have been a good chance that this might never have been featured on the show a la bowie and metheny's "this is not america". and consquently i wouldn't have had the chance to list it as one of top 10 crackers of this year. so good on you sos band - your striving wasn't in vain after all
ReplyDeletegrange hill: zammo! ro-LAND! mr bronson! mr bronson's wig! i watched the show for a good 10 years from it's inception in the late 70's, and i think that most would agree with me that zammo's was arguably the finest generation. sadly the series' no.1 bad guy gripper's not in the video - had he left by then? also i note zammo himself doesn't get any solo lines (unlike heart-throb ant and scouse eric - wasn't that the character's proper forename?) which suggests he was tone-deaf. i don't know how much the heroin addiction storyline was based on real life, but to my knowledge the only drugs desired at my school 10 years earlier were the legal ones from the age of 18 that are just as likely to kill you if not more-so i.e. fags (if you were hard enough - i wasn't - then you smoked behind the bushes at the far end of the playing fields, where you could spot the teachers and dinner bags coming a mile off and chuck your tabs into the field next-door accordingly) and booze (i started drinking in pubs when i was in the 6th form at age 16 - ironically no one asked me my age until i was legally allowed to do so ha ha). i certainly didn't know if anyone in the 6th form smoked dope or not, despite the popularity of records by the likes of u-roy on the common room turntable. however times change i suppose, and some of the kids' somewhat glazed-expressions in the video suggests they might have been on drugs regardless of the message. i remember watching a doc on the show a while back where one cast member (the mixed-race guy who does the "rap") claimed some were on drugs, and they even took some when somewhat bizarrely that well-known grange hill fan nancy reagan invited them to the white house! oh yes, regarding the actual record: if it wasn't associated with the programme and had some professional singers on it, then in my opinion it wouldn't be regarded as quite as naff as the musical backdrop is well produced-if-somewhat bland wine bar music a la shakatak
princess: her first single made my top 10 crackers list of the previous year, and the follow-up (that sadly failed to be anywhere near as successful) almost did likewise. however i remember being rather disappointed by this and wiping it from my memory accordingly, and another listen confirms that although it's pleasant enough it's instantly-forgettable identikit soul/dance with none of the appeal or identity of the first two singles
aurra: more homogenous soul/dance/club music. sadly their greatest moment had already been and gone (and not made anywhere near as much of an impression in the singles charts) in the form of "like i like it" from the year before
Erkan "Roland" Mustafa boasted some years later that he smoked dope during that White House visit, though subsequently he retracted the claim.
Deletei remember a good few years after this that i was on a tube station and recognised mr mustafa (his name in the credits always intrigued me, as i assumed he was white anglo-saxon rather than of arabic/middle eastern ethnicity) sitting on a bench on the other side. as did a group of teenaged kids, who started shouting "ro-LAND! ro-LAND!" across the tracks. to which he responded with a rather sheepish wave!
DeleteThe school bully in my year died of a heroin overdose... that's my only heroin anecdote. Screws you up, as the government ads said.
Deletei remember those "heroin screws you up" ads from the late 80's - i was employed in a division of the nhs at the time and i think some of those posters were sent there to be distributed. so some wag there (it might have been me) modified one to suggest it was the place we worked in that screwed you up, and put it up on the office wall!
DeleteWilberforce - it seems Erkan Mustafa is of Turkish Cypriot descent.
DeleteI've just seen that the Grim Reaper has said "gertcha" to Chas Hodges - he and Dave were meant to be playing in my locality during the summer but had to pull out because Chas was ill. RIP.
ReplyDeleteIt’s sad, because he’d seemed to have beaten the Big C.
DeleteMy favourite Chas n Dave fact is that they backed Eminem on his breakthrough hit My Name Is (as they played on the Labi Siffre song that the rapper sampled).
I remember when Chas n Dave were the driving force on the song called Snooker Loopy which also happened to be released in 1986, which we should see very shortly on these TOTP re-runs.
DeleteHere's that Labi Siffre track Chas and Dave played on, an absolute monster called I Got The:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKISdd2mKzU
Eminem was, and always will be, a whinger, and didn't deserve Chas and Dave.
Anyone got the 1st May edition, as BBC4 will be launching straight into 8th May on Thursday?
ReplyDeleteI see that there’s 21 comments on here already! I’ll write this without reading them for so apologies for any repeats…
ReplyDeleteSOS Band – Finest – So when you hear me darling can’t you hear me SOS….er no. FF
Grange Hill Cast – Just say no – Surprisingly good. I quite enjoyed it trying to name check the various members of the cast, did I see Michelle Tully perhaps? Otherwise, null points!
Five Star – Can’t wait another minute – I gave it a second. FF
Princess – I’ll keep on loving you – REO Speedwagon this ain’t! FF
Breakers – A couple of crackers here. Level 42 Lessons in Love is right up there amongst their level best. Strange to start the video near the end of the song but I expect we’ll see more of it soon. Madonna – Live to tell – The start of her golden run of track after track released as singles that were just fabulous. I count myself lucky to have been around in this era. We were spoilt. Mercifully Penn doesn’t appear in this clip, but he’ll be there when they show it in full.
Aurra – You and me tonight – Another hasty FF
George Michael – A Different Corner – Saving the best two ‘til last….
…Queen – A Kind of Magic – Precisely.
RIP Chas Hodges. I’ll forgive him the Spurs songs, but ‘Ain’t no pleasing you’ still sounds great.....I see John G and David Hutt have already commented above this post. Sad news indeed.
The Sideboard Song is unbelievably catchy, too!
Deletetotp 1st May 1986 is here:https://we.tl/t-tuub4Z1UQq
DeleteMany thanks Gia!
DeleteNice one :-)
Deletei'm pretty sure chas also contributed to the blistering version of "light my fire" by shirley bassey as part of the combo heads hands and feet that he was a member of at the time (somewhat confusingly playing bass, although it was dave who played the bass in c&d. well, i think that's right)
DeleteSo, bye then, Dixie. You hardly gave us a complete peach of a performance but you were never a lemon like that bloke Jordan and a couple of others.
ReplyDeleteThe SOS Band there with some oh-so-80’s sample-sounding backing but a decent mellow groove and some nice synchronisation. I love the backing bloke’s clobber.
“Just Say No”? Please, no! Actually, amateurish sounding yet well constructed and with good intentions. I always thought Melissa Wilks (Jackie Wright) was the one pleasant looking young actress who’d go on to bigger things, having already made her mark years earlier on a regional kids’ show on London Weekend by misreading a script reference to a motor car race and calling it the Grand Pricks!
Turn the volume on those costumes down, Five Star! And slow down! This would have been better in typical Tavares style with a lead singer up front and the others in a row behind doing their thang. I like this a song a lot more than I really should.
Proper charts again! Hooray! Dixie making a right hash of the entry for BAD. That’s bad. Boom boom tish!
The attractive Princess with a song not as memorable as her biggie but still enjoyable. No running water in that chap’s flat, I assume, or was it a cell?
What position for “Lessons In Love”, Janice? You naughty minx! Obviously the one between 68 and 70 if I read your mind and heard your giggle properly. I’ve always thought this level 42 track could have been a proper ballad. Try hearing the song in your head without the instruments and imagine the backing pared back and at half pace.
One of Madge’s better medium pace ballads there, complete with either a mirror image part to the video or someone put the tape in wrong, as her above-lip mole / beauty spot suddenly moves to the other side of her face at one point.
Who was Aurra’s female singer waving to at the start? That was a brave choice of shiny swimsuit undergarment. Chicken-in-a-basket soul which was at least performed live so fair play.
Janice not willing to name the titles of two of her top ten callouts. On strike, are we?
See you next time, Dixie? By ‘next time’, do you mean the re-runs?
As a post script, three years ago I saw Chas and Dave at that most un-Chas and Dave venue, Richmond Theatre. Naturally, they nailed it. Personally, I think "Ain't No Pleasing You" is a very under-rated heartfelt ballad.
wasn't the "grand pricks" moment on "tiswas"? i seem to remember a clip of it on "it'll be all right on the night" (rip denis norden btw) and lenry henry in particular corpsing in reaction. sadly we never got "tiswas" where i gre up in the west country (if we were lucky we got farming probgrammes instead - it was that bad!) so i only ever heard it was supposed to be miles better than "saturday morning swap shop". i did watch the short-lived adult version that chris tarrant launched in the early 80's, that it think only have lasted a couple of episodes if that before it was pulled due to poor audience response?
DeleteMelissa's second most celebrated TV series where her "It's got 'ere Grand Pricks" faux pas came from was called Our Show, where kids presented a Saturday morning programme. This outtake is the only reason it's ever remembered.
DeleteLike most kids, I switched between TISWAS and Swap Shop, because they both had good stuff in them, though my mum banned me from watching TISWAS (I would sneak a look at it anyway, mostly for Batman).
The adult version was OTT, which I definitely wasn't allowed to watch, but hearing about it at school it sounded fascinating (mostly because of the naked ladies in it). Saw an episode someone put on YouTube a few years back and it was... absolutely revolting. I didn't miss much. Apart from the boobs (no internet back then!).
"OTT" was dreadful, but it somehow staggered to 12 editions and a compilation episode. One ITV programme which did only last two episodes, shown one after the other on the same evening, was a Central school comedy called "Hardwicke House". Its humour was post-watershed and its transmission before that time slot caused something of an outrage.
Deletedrykid, Any chance of you re-posting your restoration of 20/3/86? I've been on holiday and missed X-Ray Four's posting of the missing bit. I've been on your restoration site but when you click on the date it comes up as a deleted WeTransfer file.
ReplyDeletedrykid i missed a few of your fine jobs any chance of putting them on vimeo or 4shared as it is a pity that once the we transfer page finishes your work is lost
DeleteThere's a Google Group associated with Popscene where my restorations are getting uploaded, although not by me personally:
Deletehttps://www.tapatalk.com/groups/popscene/google-drive-link-to-totp-shows-t14370.html
Although for some reason the 20/3/86 one isn't there. But all the other '86 ones I did are.
Anyway have re-uploaded 20/3/86 as brie has been very helpful in the past:
Deletehttps://we.tl/t-3iIPwCOUce
(Bear in mind that no-one had the complete final link for 20/3/86 so this is a very rough job indeed using all that was available.)
As I said though the others should still be available via the popscene link.
Thanks,drykid. I still can't access it as when I type the address up it comes back as 'no results found'. I've had this problem every time and the only way I can access them is by the addresses that you just click onto. Many thanks anyway.
DeleteDon't know why you would "type" it, you should just be able to copy and paste it into your browser. But here's a hyperlink if it makes any difference:
DeleteTOTP 20-3-86
Brilliant,drykid ,got it straight away! Thanks again for doing it for me.
DeleteSOS Band - Unless I missed something, their best known song 'Just Be Good To Me' never got a play on the show did it (except possibly an end of show dance?) so it's good to see them on this edition with another nice track with a slightly more restrained production.
ReplyDeleteGrange Hill Cast - I remember the Zammo storyline being a big deal, with a Newsround specialmto discuss the issues on immediately after the episode where roLAND finds him in the arcade. I'm pretty sure that we had a classroom discussion at school too. As for the song, it's not too bad and certainly more memorable than whatever that Hear'n'Aid thing is lower down the chart which I have no recollection of at all.
Five Star - Middling song from them, and the costumes have got a bit more money spent on them this time. Amazing what a couple of big hits can do!
Aurra - Not so impressive singing live when half of your song is a chinwag anyway. Awful stuff.
Very sad to hear about Chas Hodges leaving us (not due to cancer, as Dave has made clear today) as I've always loved their music, even the Spurs songs are well made - and it takes a lot for a Hammers fan to say anything nice about that mob - and I think I've said before that 'Stars Over 45' is a brilliant deconstruction of the medley format popular at the time. I was amazed when Chas posted on Twitter recently that he'd played guitar on John Leyton's No.1 song 'Johnny Remember Me'.
Meant to say that it's a shame that in its 2 opportunities to feature in the breakers, 'Some People' by Belouis Some was passed over as I think it's a decent tune and deserved better than it's low 30s placing.
Deletenoax i had a listen to "some people" on your advice - the chorus came back to me as a piece of regular radio airplay at the time, but the tune is far too lightweight and jolly (despite the muscular production) for my liking. rather confusingly, the "some" in the artist's name was pronounced as in "the battle of the the somme" to my recollection!
DeleteNot sure this looks a stellar line up on paper but here goes..
ReplyDeleteSOS Band get us underway and they have just flown in...are their hold bags underneath the set?
This isn't a bad little number but quickly forgetable, certainly not the finest thing we will see tonight. Quite a static performance. Think the show opener should be a big act or a thumping pop song and this is neither.
What does Janice look like, Andy Pandy.
A proper "Where Are They Now" from the mini Kids From Fame....sorry Grange Hill.
Applaud the message, naff record. Dated badly.
Five Star back again looking very shiny. Why couldn't this open the show. The boys at the back practically in the dark. Can anyone remember their names without google...Other than Denise ..
Breakers:
Princess with the other hit no one plays anymore. Nowhere near as good as number one, radio filler really
Level 42 with their best song. Love this song. Remember the video very well. Quite basic but works really well as it cuts quite fast.
Madonna proving she can sing. Nice song. Oh look it's from ANOTHER film...
Aurra up next with more soul lite. Sorry but this is awful even sung live. Heading into the bottom ten list with Tippa Irie
Noel still at number one (yes I am using the same gag three weeks in a row😀😀😀) and we get the lovely video again. Phone still not ringing, has he been cut off?
One swift edit and Queen play us out.
Not much to write home about this week.
somewhat sadly i can remember most of five star's forenames: pearson, lorraine and doris (even more sadly, i also remember that despite the dreadful name, the latter was the best-looking one who did all the choreography). fortunately though the fifth member's name escapes me!
DeleteNo love for Steadman? Not as much love as Steadman had for Steadman, obviously.
Deletei've just realised that pearson was the family surname ha ha! so i can't remember the name of the other male member either (phew!). i do remember that after their 15 minutes of fame that one of them was prosecuted for importuning though
Delete