Top Twenty Spit
04/12/86 (Mike Smith)
The Communards – “So Cold The Night” (14)
Getting the show underway with their follow up to Don't Leave Me This Way, and it peaked at number 8.
Oran ‘Juice’ Jones – “The Rain” (12) (video)
His only hit, and it peaked at number 4.
Erasure – “Sometimes” (3)
Went up one more place.
Genesis – “Land Of Confusion” (20) (video)
Peaked at number 14.
Jaki Graham – “Step Right Up” (26) (breaker)
Became her final top 40 hit when it peaked at number 15.
The Housemartins – “Caravan Of Love” (23) (breaker)
Became their only number one hit.
George Benson – “Shiver” (21) (breaker)
Peaked at number 19.
Gregory Abbott – “Shake You Down” (15)
His only hit and it peaked at number 6.
Europe – “The Final Countdown” (1) (video)
Ther first of two weeks at number one.
Bruce Springsteen – “War” (18) (live clip/credits)
Got no higher.
December 11th is next.
Thanks once again to our mysterious BBC Archive benefactor for the opportunity to watch this show. It was a pretty decent one too, despite Smitty's annoying determination to let us know the identity of everyone coming up on the show while doing the chart rundown - he seemed to be positively wetting himself about the prospect of seeing the Springsteen clip too. Having said that, this was still one of his more tolerable outings.
ReplyDeleteYou never hear any Communards records these days aside from the number 1, so it was good to hear this very classy follow-up, made memorable by the Middle Eastern vibe, a strong chorus and some particularly high-pitched vocal stylings from Jimmy. Lots of musicians on stage, once again making the Rev Coles look like a session player rather than 50% of the act. Oran "Juice" Jones has a cringey nickname, but this soulful tune still sounds pretty good, at least until that awful talky part starts. That bit of the video felt a bit uncomfortable, actually, with the Juice adopting quite a threatening posture towards his lady friend. Incidentally, I don't think we see any rain falling either, despite the profusion of macs in the video.
Erasure return with a performance pretty much identical in every way to their first, down to Vince once again preferring to mime with a guitar. I think Smitty was justified to assume that Land of Confusion would challenge for the Christmas number 1 - the video is highly memorable, and this politically-charged rocker is perhaps the best single they released in the 80s, with some excellent impassioned singing from Phil. Quite why it only got to 14 here is a mystery (it went ten places higher in the States), but maybe UK record buyers had had enough of Spitting Image puppets for one year, or a lot of people already had the album. The Tony Banks puppet looks quite similar to Mick Jagger.
The breakers will all feature again next time, so on to some very smooth soul courtesy of Gregory Abbott, who tries to wow the ladies by taking off his shades at the very start of this performance. This is a very pleasant, romantic little tune, and Greg has a great voice - surprising really that no other hits materialised for him. Europe hit the top and we get to see their bog-standard "in concert" promo. At least Bruce is actually singing live, but this cover of the old Edwin Starr hit, while well done, sounds a bit anonymous, and less memorable than the Frankie cover from a couple of years previously. Bruce really looks like he is straining on the loo here...
The Communards were certainly a good start to the show on that main stage, with Sarah-Jane back again as Jimi's sidekick, but not singing her own words this time. I guess Jimi figured on keeping the winning formula of male-female lead after their successful last outing at No.1 in September. Certainly Sarah-Jane's fantastic evening dress on this studio performance (albeit dreary black) was quite tasty I thought.
DeleteThe main theme of this TOTP show was war, with three songs, ie, Land Of Confusion, The Final Countdown, and War by Bruce Springsteen (playout in full), giving the episode a bit of a doom-and-gloom feel to it.
ReplyDeleteCertainly on the Genesis video, it seemed that Collins was banking on Ronald Reagan to bring peace to the world, with lyrics like ' Oh superman where are you now", with Reagan in a Superman costume in the second half of the video, and the British concern about despots and dictators like Gaddafi and others, and we see them being given the Spitting Image treatment. It seemed the Brits, or at least Genesis and Phil Collins were clearly worried about world peace at the time, and saw the Americans and Reagan as key to providing it somehow with Thatcher.
communards: i do remember liking this at the time with its exotic/eastern feel. but then again i wasn't aware of "hava nagila", which i am now guessing they ripped off. listening again now, as long as one tries to blank that out then the best bits are when the ethereal female vocals harmonise with jimmy on the chorus
ReplyDeleteoran "juice" jones: i remember the west indian contingent in my office really being into this at the time, but although you should by now already know that i also love a lot of 80's black dance music, this never did a thing for me. nor does it now
genesis: another indifferent track from them that sounds like phil collins had more input than the other two members put together. perhaps that's why they approached the "spitting image" team for the video in the hope it would distract from that?
boss: doesn't really add anything to the original other than his horrible strained vocals
opps - i overlooked gregory abbott this time! decent-enough soul smooch stuff i suppose if a bit limited melodically, but i suspect his name as much as anything else stymied any consequent career. what exactly was the point of wearing a pair of shades, only to take them off and throw them away the moment he started singing?
DeleteGregory should have worn another pair of shades underneath so he could recreate the Robert Stack gag from Airplane.
DeleteJust about everything on this show reminded me of lying in bed in the dark morning, listening to the radio before I got up for school. Especially the Communards track, full of Eastern promise as it was, proving they could conjure up very decent tunes on their own without resorting to covers.
ReplyDeleteOran "Juice" Jones with a very memorable one hit wonder, though I don't believe the prelude to spousal abuse talky bit featured on the record, thankfully. He really wasn't taking the break-up very well, was he? But aside from the uneasiness of the lyrics this was a slinky soul number, with an edge of menace.
Erasure back, but is that a new trumpeter? And was that an off-brand Mickey Mouse on Andy's T-shirt? Or was it Jerry?
1986 was certainly the year of Spitting Image, wasn't it? Despite the beefed up production to deliver this scathing attack on East and West taking us to the brink of nuclear war, there's something of Genesis' hippy-dippy roots about the whole thing. Reagan sent up something rotten in the video with his Superman fantasies about as far from reality as it was possible to be, but I don't know if Spitting Image really suited being deadly serious.
Hey Abbott! I remember this guy, despite the massive cheesiness of the track, and indeed Mr Abbott's performance, this is a bit of fun that should have parlayed into a bigger career, but maybe the glory days of Theophilus P. Wildebeest were drawing to a close.
Europe hit the top, and we get the video played out in front of millions of screaming fans and one rather bored-looking, elderly cameraman. At least they rhymed "Venus" with "seen us".
Who listened to Edwin Starr's War and thought, eh, it's OK, but needs to be more bombastic? Why, little Brucie Springsteen, of course! I suppose we should be thankful this only lasted four minutes.
'Land of Confusion' was actually one of Mike Rutherford's offerings for the 'Invisible Touch' album. By this stage in their career, Genesis were composing most of their music in the studio and recording it as they went along, but ideas and lyrics were provided by the individual members at the start of the process and then worked on as a group. I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that 'Land of Confusion' was originally meant to go on the first Mike and the Mechanics album, but Rutherford kept it back as he thought it would work better as a Genesis track. Either way, the song is very much his composition and Collins had very little to do with the song prior to actually recording it. At least I seem to remember that being the case. I could be completely wrong, of course. It's been a long day.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right Matt. The B Side 'Feeding the Fire' was superb too. I don't know whose offering that was; possibly written in the studio.
DeleteThe prime ToTP host is back and thanks to anonymous again for letting us see, even if some of his links aren’t all that..
ReplyDeleteCommunards – So cold the night – Started off ok but after a while the high pitched whining got on my nerves.
Oran ‘Juice’ Jones – The Rain – Ugh! Horrible. Nasty aggressive talking as well. Much prefer ‘Walking in the Rain’ by the Partridge Family.
Erasure – Sometimes – As noted by others, same type of performance; even the same guitar.
Genesis – Land of Confusion – Great song, awful video. Superb live number with the crowd encouraged to sing the ‘ah –ha’ bits and an excellent concert opener on the ‘We can’t dance’ tour. I’d be happy never to see the video again though.
Brekaers – Jaki Graham – no thanks, Housemartins – are the Flying Pickets back? George Benson – ugh. Not my greatest love of all…
Gregory Abbott – Shake you down – Greg went on to top the US charts with this. I like the song. One of those like ‘What can I say’ by Bozz Scaggs where the chorus is as much sung by the backing singers as the lead.
Europe – The Final Countdown – Wow! The dubbed cheers on the video really liven up what is already a powerful and storming tune. Great no1.
Bruce Springsteen – War – Don’t really recall this and not keen at all.
Mike Smith here in super irritating mode with lots of terrible jokes and his usual insistence on leaving nothing to surprise by flagging up every single forthcoming act during the chart rundown.
ReplyDeleteThe Communards - This is a great song and really unfairly forgotten. Given that it was a Top 10 hit it really should be heard more often.
Oran 'Juice' Jones - Not for me at all, in fact it makes me feel kind of icky listening to it.
Genesis - It's my favourite from the 'Invisible Touch' album and the video is of course interesting too. Spitting Image famously did a serious pretend video for 'Every Breath You Take' at the end of one of their shows which may have convinced Genesis that they could make something good for their song.
Gregory Abbott - Dull.
Bruce Springsteen - Just what the world needed, a bellowed hideous version of a soul classic...
Thanks to The Uploader again. Not out of time for this contraband, unlike the last one! I enjoyed the first two-and-a-half minutes more than that last song.
ReplyDeleteSo we lose Peelie soon but still suffer this arsehole, advertising Brooce relentlessly and spoiling the show by telling us who’s coming up during the countdown.
Was Shitty actually wearing denim for Jimi Somerville? Fair play, you couldn’t really get any further away for a follow-up to a cover version number one. I’ve got one of those afuchés held by Sarah Jane.
Please hide your face more often, Shitty!
Oran “Juice” Jones should have released “Rip It Up” as the next single. I don’t know about him being cool, he looked and sounded a bit of a psycho if you ask me.
Erasure with a great song, no originality from Vince, and Andy’s dancing getting very grating very quickly.
Shitty, we’re never told what’s disappeared from the chart. Wish you would!
I loved Mike Rutherford’s multi-neck guitar in the Genesis vid.
Wahay, a bit more of a raunchier look for our Jacqueline this time.
Another gently humorous video for The Housemartins, complete with crucifixes shorn above their ears.
George Benson with a sickly soul sound, though roller skating backwards while holding a guitar takes some doing.
Never mind Gregory, I’d have preferred “Atmosphere” by Russ Abbot myself.
An interesting fact there – I didn’t realise Europe had been formed for the Eurovision Song Contest. A bit of a meatballs and mash video there, though.
A blustery, overdone Bruce Springsteen cover. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
Bit of a mixed bag tonight with a very video heavy show and Smithy slightly OTT
ReplyDeleteCommunards get us off to a decent enough start. Not a patch on their last effort unfortunately.
First video of the night with Oran Juice Jones stalking and then yelling at his cheating woman. Not sure you'd get away with that song and video in 2018.
Good to see Erasure again with one the Top 10 songs of 1986.
Genesis with a great song and a video that thinks it's cleverer than it actually is.
Breakers:
Jaki Graham - an improvement on her last effort, at least it has some momentum and the video looks OK
Housemartins - Hated this at the time, now I thinks its OK, but still not a huge fan. Amazed it got to Number 1
George Benson forgotten it as soon as it finished.
Gregory Abbot - oh dear, oh dear. Was this written by a five year old - dross of the highest order.
Europe deservedly top of the pile.
Great concert video (and I NEVER thought I would say that) from Bruce and a quality song. After Sometimes easily the best thing on the show tonight.
Not one of 1986s finest half hours...