Hat's the way to do it!
30/10/86 (Janice Long)
Mel & Kim – “Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend)” (24)
Looking like an 80's version of Baccara, the Appleby sisters get tonight's show underway with what became their first of four top ten hits when it peaked at number 3.
Berlin – “Take My Breath Away” (7) (video)
Will be number one next week.
Catherine Stock – “To Have & To Hold” (17)
Mike Stock's sister performing her only hit, and it got no higher than number 17.
Gwen Guthrie – “(They Long To Be) Close To You” (25)
This disco version of the classic Bacharach and David song got no higher than number 25.
Bon Jovi – “Livin’ On A Prayer” (27) (breaker)
Became their first of eighteen top ten hits when it peaked at number 4.
The Smiths – “Ask” (16) (breaker)
Went up two more places.
Duran Duran – “Notorious” (14) (breaker)
Peaked at number 7.
Kim Wilde – “You Keep Me Hanging On” (15)
In the studio to perform the Supremes cover which would become her first top ten hit for over five years when it peaked at number 2.
Nick Berry – “Every Loser Wins” (1) (video)
Third and (thankfully!) final week at number one. Shame he didn't make it into the studio.
Status Quo – “In The Army Now” (2) (video/credits)
At its peak.
November 6th is next.
Girls Night on TOTP this episode, Mel & Kim, whenever you see them you think, aw, what a shame, but maybe you have trouble remembering which one died. For a SAW production it sounds like they were actually trying, unlike the phoned in efforts they would go on to do. No idea why the ladies don't mime the middle eight.
ReplyDeleteBerlin, one of the most unfortunate-looking women in all of 80s pop videos with her two-tone hair and shit-stained, ripped flying suit. At least Moby likes it. And the song is a lot better than the obnoxious movie.
No memory of Catherine Stock and her clunky, awkward tune. Check out the coterie of girls at the right of the stage, completely ignoring her and deep in discussion - I can sympathise.
Gwen Guthrie, maybe this was the studio performance I remembered, only it wasn't for Rent. Taking enormous liberties with the lyrics, there, Gwen. You wouldn't have had Karen Carpenter going on about "sexy moves". Really rather naff.
Presumably we see the Breakers again? Maybe not The Smiths, with one of their most pop-friendly tunes and an actual video, cheap as it is.
Kim Wilde has the right idea about this Motown cover, don't slavishly copy a classic, make it your own, and this dynamic power pop version isn't half bad, if perfectly pinpointed to 1987. Didn't mind hearing this again.
Nick at the end of his reign of terror, and if you're wondering why he didn't do a Chris De Burgh and show up in the studio, apparently it's because he was too embarrassed since he didn't like the song.
Status Quo again? We get the whole thing this time around, but familiarity is breeding, not contempt, then weariness.
Thanks THX, you have answered my Nick Berry question below!
DeleteDon't mention it, John. Although reading my comment over, I seem to be under the mistaken belief that we're in 1987, not 1986.
DeleteNo men performing this week in the TOTP studio, so a girls night on TOTP. My favourite one was Kim Wilde, and if it took 5 years to get another top ten hit with this on, then boy was it worth it.
DeleteI think with Gwen Guthrie, if this was released a month or so later, then she could have been a strong contender for the 1986 Xmas No.1, as the start of the song was as good as Karen Carpenter, as Guthrie had a decent enough voice to match Carpenter somehow.
Janice has a beatnik cap on, and a top which I would say makes her look more like a dalmatian than a duvet. She seems a bit nervy again here, which is becoming a recurring theme of her solo shows - she evidently felt more comfortable in front of the camera if she had a co-host to bounce off.
ReplyDeleteAs Janice mentions, an all-female line-up in the studio tonight, and most unusually not a single musical instrument to be seen, with no backing bands to accompany the singers. This does have the unfortunate effect of making many of the performances a bit samey, but Mel & Kim do better than the others thanks to their iconic 80s style and decent dance moves. I have barely heard this song since 1986, as ever since it has been overshadowed by their next hit, but I think it is superior to that one and up there as one of SAW's best productions, when their sound was still fresh. It's always a bit sad to see the Applebys in action, however, knowing how tragically young Mel was when she died - she had undergone cancer treatment even before they broke through to the big time.
I have never seen Top Gun (or indeed any Tom Cruise film, come to that), but so parodied has it been over the years that I feel I have done. The big song from the movie still sounds pretty good, actually - I have always liked that squelchy synth backing, and it is quite an evocative ballad. I know nothing whatever about Berlin themselves, but at the time I thought the singer had engine oil in her hair as well as on her dress! I have never heard of Catherine Stock, so interesting to read that she is Mike Stock's sister. Apparently she was married to Les Vandyke aka Johnny Worth, who wrote the song and had penned Adam Faith's big hits more than 25 years previously. It's pleasant enough but all a bit dull and forgettable, and Catherine (who apparently is no longer with us) looks a bit lost while the guitar solo is playing.
Gwen Guthrie is another performer on this show who is now deceased. She certainly had a large (ahem) stage presence, and I suppose deserves some credit for trying to do something different with this classic song, but it doesn't work at all. This is all we will see and hear of Ask, which does not sound like one of The Smiths' better moments. Back in the studio Kim Wilde performs a much more creditable cover, taking The Supremes' finest record and giving it a highly effective synth pop makeover. Not only did this restore her to the upper reaches of the British charts, but it also gave her an American number 1.
Curious that Nick never turned up in the studio during his run at the top - perhaps he was too embarrassed? Quo's video once again plays us out, giving a blokey conclusion to a show otherwise dominated by women.
Never seen a movie starring The Cruiser? I can't say I blame you, he plays exactly the same cocky maverick in them all, no matter what the role. Whenever a new Mission: Impossible movie comes out and gets great reviews, I think, hmm, maybe I'll like this one, but I never do.
Deletei have actually seen him in one film: "rain man", where i grudgingly admit that his cocky persona acted as a decent foil to the main character. but certainly never any where he plays the lead. as for "mission: impossible": the whole point about that tv series (which i still think is brilliant btw) was a team using their respective skills and abilities to get the job done. but as i understand it, mr cruise plays some kind of all-in-one action hero a la james bond in the film franchise. so why did they even bother calling it that?
Deletei remember when the first one came out and the guys from the original tv series were invited to the premier - greg morris (the electronics expert barney) walked out well before the end, and was later quoted as saying "it's an abomination"!
and not to mention "jack reacher" - it's an intrgral part of the book series that the titular character is a rough and ready man mountain who uses his immense physical stature to his advantage when it suits him. and who do they get to play him? some shortarse pretty boy!
Come to think of it, I did see about 10 minutes of Legend once, but that is all I have seen of Mr Cruise's oeuvre. I find him a singularly unappealing personality, so I am in no hurry to check out any more of his films...
DeleteYou hit the nail on the head, there, Wilberforce, Re: Mission Impossible, the pleasure of watching the original series was seeing the plan play out like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slot into place. The Cruise movies are basically him living out his James Bond fantasies, and struggling with his midlife crisis as he's not getting any younger, but still feels the need to fling himself out of planes for some weird idea of getting respect. And that's not even getting into the criminal cult he's the figurehead of.
DeleteAh. The weird cult. Also his refusal to come out. All strange. My favourite piss take of the man midget was in South Park, when he was trying to escape the paps and hid in Cartmans wardrobe...everybody shouting out" come on Tom, you cant hide in there forever..come out of the closet".
Deletelast week i was at a choir rehearsal where someone said we should "do a cliff richard" and sing "congratulations" to one person there who had just got a new job. to which i responded: "i thought doing a cliff was pretending to be heterosexual"!
Deletei did think afterwards that my comment might have been seen as homophobic (not to mention another one on similar lines when we were later asked to sing a song called "has any found a lad" ha ha). but it's not cliff's gayness i have a problem with, just his refusal to admit to it. for all his faults, at least reg finally bit the bullet in that respect. and as a result, if anything he seems even more loved than he was before! so why can't cliff do likewise?
@Wilberforce, I think the issue with Cliff and The Cruiser is that they belong to organisations of faith which are explicitly anti-gay, and they are hypocrites for promoting them (assuming Tom really is gay, who knows?). So they're ripe for parody for that reason (as South Park demonstrated).
Deletethanks thx - i hadn't considered that. cruise's fellow scientology follower john travolta has also had similar questions asked about his sexuality without ever answering them - no doubt for the same reason!
DeleteNoticed this show was in stereo. Was this the first time for TOTP? Wonder if it was a try-out for NICAM.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI noticed this too. This really is a landmark in the shows history that not many people are commenting on surprisingly! Obviously the BBC didnt have Janice Long mention the show was being broadcast in stereo at the start and there were no on screen graphics mentioned the fact so presumably they were quietly testing their new NICAM service and what better way than on TOTP!
DeleteHopefully all future shows will be in stereo! Maybe stillthe odd video here or there that will still be mono until stereo videos become the norm.
mel & kim: oh dear, i think this is the official moment that SAW plans for world domination officially kicked in. i seem to remember thinking this was okay at the time, but then again i wasn't fore-armed with the knowledge of what was to follow
ReplyDeleteberlin: there are certain movie superstars of whom i refuse to watch their films as i just don't understand what all the fuss is about. john travolta is one and julia roberts is another. but i think the worst with regard to that syndrome is tom cruise. and of course it was this that really kick-started what has been for me an unfathomably long career as hollywood royalty. so i hate this record as a matter of course
catherine stock: i don't remember this one at all, or even her. and on a listen it certainly didn't sound as if brother mike and his chums were involved, but rather something knocked up for some crap tv series for people who don't like telly that much. and blimey, when i checked it out on discogs i discovered that was exactly the case!
gwen guthrie: i wasn't aware that she'd had a go at one of bacharach's standards - the carpenters of course recorded the definitive version (even burt admitted that it pissed all over his own original arrangement), but this dance/club treatment of it is surprisingly good. sadly though i can't even think about this tune without the abiding image of alan partridge trying to impress a would-be paramour by serenading it to her karaoke style, and then finding it's out of his vocal range!
smiths: i may have mentioned this before, but i read or heard somewhere that the smiths' new recruit craig gannon was messing about with a riff on his guitar when johnny marr asked him to show what he was doing. it then ended up as the basic riff for this tune (which to be frank has little else other than that), and solely credited to morrissey and marr! despite that i still think it one of their better efforts, and the line "spending warm summer days, indoors, writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in luxembourg" still makes me smile despite now thinking of mozzer as a complete git
kim wilde: having failed to staunch her flagging career with a dose of her dad's old rock n roll, kim tries her luck covering an old motown chestnut where the crunching snare makes her singing sound even weedier than before. unbelievably though not only was it a massive hit despite that, but it was also apparently popular with the kids in america (as arthur would say: see what i've done there?) too. however, thankfully in the end it was a last hurrah (other than with the other mel) as gardening leave beckoned
Kim Wilde continued to have big hits well up to the end of 1988! She had a new album out recently where she seems to have gone cuckoo bananas, but not in a bad way necessarily.
DeleteKim also managed a number 12 hit as late as 1993, with a cover of If I Can't Have You.
Deletewell in that case, she did remarkably well for herself given she was hardly any more than a pretty face!
DeleteI think 'Ask' is one of The Smiths finest too - it was by far the best thing on this show and a shame that it didn't get a full showing. Not that it's a long song in any case!
DeleteJanice looking a little different on this show.
ReplyDeleteMel and Kim – Showing out – One of those records like ‘I can’t wait’ by Nu Shooz that got on my nerves and stills does. FF
Berlin- Take my breath away – Ah marvellous. What a track! Bounced back into no3 a few years later to show the quality. For the second time it’s called ‘You take my breath away’ by the Presenter. Queen fans will recognise that title as the sumptuous second track on ‘A Day at the Races’.
Catherine Stock – To have and to hold – I looked up Catherine Stock on 45cat as I’d never heard of her. Just the one single listed; this one. It’s OK I suppose with a nice guitar solo.
Gwen Guthrie – (They long to be) Close to you – First of two covers on here tonight and this one is an absolute stinker in my view. There’s a new release of the Carpenters with the RPO just out and this track is on there. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m sure it’s miles ahead of this.
Breakers – Bon Jovi – we’ll hear more of this US chart topper, but they played a good chunk here for a breaker. Smiths – Ask – I thought Janice said ‘a**e’! Duran Duran – Notorious – we’ll hear more of this.
Kim Wilde – You keep me hanging on – The second cover on the show and this time a stonking one! Number 8 for the Supremes in 1966, 20 years later this version packs a real punch, so much so, Lamont Dozier (one of the co-writers) sent a telegram to Kim a few days after the song reached no1 in the States (in June 1987) saying he really liked the fresh sound she’d given to his song and thanking her for making him look good. Can’t have better endorsement than that!
Nick Berry – Every loser wins – I’m probably alone here in saying even after hearing this song “over and over and over again”, I still like it! I note we have yet another Eastenders song in the charts.
Status Quo – In the Army now – Once again, the roller credit song! I don’t think I’ve seen the final scenes before…didn’t realise it ended on that note.
Finally….did anyone notice the new entry from ShakING Stevens?!
Incidentally folks, back to 'The Singing Ringing Tree' diversion from a few weeks ago. This clip gives an idea of the type of production it was. The comments submitted make interesting reading as they all echo my memories of being scared of this when I was young.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAF3fWo8aoM
I didn't notice initially, but according to the chart rundown "The Smiiths" were at number 16...
Deleteha ha john you should have put the smiiths (sic). i remember seeing that tag in brackets quite often in the weekly music rags i read in my teens and early 20's, not really having any idea what it meant - i realised it was some kind of criticism, but i thought it had something to do with feeling nauseous ha ha
DeleteI absolutely adored this Berlin song and video at the time, and still do now, and like John G mentions, the synth backing and evocative tune, makes for an awesome ballad, possibly ballad of the year, and thoroughly deserving No.1 the following week.
DeleteI wonder whether the female vocal lead in the video was actually the singer on the record, and does anyone know who she is on the video at least, as she really does it for me in song and video!
That's Terri Nunn, lead singer of Berlin with the multi coloured hair, featuring prominently in the video. Love the bit at around 02:50 where the song moderates up a few tones. Just fabulous. These 1986 charts do have such contrasts in them, but songs like this keep me watching.
Deletesct i watched the "singing ringing tree" clip without the soundtrack, and it made me think of two things
Delete1 - i wish i'd seen it back when i used to smoke the odd joint or three
2 - if i had my own nightclub, then it would definitely get shown as part of a silent video montage on the walls
Wilberforce - yes, I should have included the "sic" really, considering I studied Latin at school!
DeleteJanice auditioning for Strawberry Switchblade there. What a balls-up she made of telling us there wasn’t a new number one and Nick Berry was on later.
ReplyDeleteThe original Mel and Kim there (only Mel Smith missing from this show, actually) with choreography of Five Star proportions and an Only Fools And Horses “Cwying” vibe to the chorus which sounded like “Get Fwesh”. I just wish the gals had worn completely contrasting black and white outfits for full effect, though. Channeling my inner Gok Wan again!
Berlin’s Hit always reminds me of an episode of “Phoenix Nights” where there’s a quiz and the competitors are played this tune up to the title line and have to guess the song’s name. Everyone in the room sings the title, but the dopey doorman at the entrance who’s taking part thinks it’s “Walking On The Moon”. I wonder if Tom ever went ‘cruising’? Boom boom tish!
Was Janice checking her watch before Catherine Stock, checking how long it would be before her horrible thin sounding mush would finish? As mentioned previously, Mike Stock’s sister got the gig on this song instead of Marti Webb for contractual reasons. I think Marti Caine would have done it better.
The rest of the show only deserves shorter critiques.
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s photos the wrong way round in the mugshots. Peter first, for goodness’ sake!
A rapid FF for Gwen Guthrie’s dreadful murder of that track. Janice’s duvet look was much better.
Bon Jovi, larking about for the video, including ‘rude’ bass playing. Ha-ha-hilarious.
No Smiths on show for their joyous (for once) song. Bit of a strange video, that.
Janice, the reason Duran Duran’s song has entered the chart lower than usual efforts is because it’s rubbish.
Kim Wilde, at most a quarter of the size of the previous stage botherer and with just as thin a voice for a cover I have little time for.
I liked Janice’s Old Vic “Boozer” quip after Nick Berry, and the depressing end to The Quo’s video set viewers right up for another half hour of black lightbulb viewing.
Not much to say about this one since it contains 2 HOUSEWIFE CLASSICS (Berlin, Bon Jovi) and what is probably the worst song of 86 - and boy, is there a lot of competition - in Gwen Guthrie's murderous treatment of a great song. When I was doing my NOW album marathon I came across that at around 5 or 6am and I just couldn't cope. Quite why Ashley Abram plumped for that instead of her bigger hit anyway I don't know...
ReplyDeleteSo here come one of SAW finest acts. I bought this Mel and Kim single in France the following summer and my main memory is that the vinyl had no middle so my Dad made me something so I could play it. Love Showing Out especially the 12" mix. They had such a great look as well. Such a shame we lost Mel so young. One of the best songs of the year.
ReplyDeleteNice hat Janice
And to possibly the best movie song of all time, this song is just beautiful, emotional and one of my all time faves. Love the video as well. A well deserved number one. Whatever happened to Berlin?
Catherine who? Well this completely passed me by in 1986. Did she win a competition to sing this crap? Oh dear. This is not good at all. The production on this is awful.
Who's SHAKING Steven. Lol 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
Gwen has shown up to plug Close To You. Not a patch on her last effort. About 20 other songs I'd rather have seen that this. This is turning into a FF fest tonight. ..
OMG I have just realised it's THAT "CLOSE TO YOU " What has she done to this song. Terrible.
Breakers:
Bon Jovi. This is better. Love it or hate it , a massive 80s hit. I love it, singalong now..
The Smiths with more of the same. Not bothered by this at all.
Duran Duran. Indeed not the Top Ten band of old, would normally get a prime slot on the show. How times have changed. Good song though.
Some proper big 80s production behind this Kim Wilde track. Proper party tune and a lot of fun. I am singing along. ..just as I was when I was 12. Pop Kim has arrived,
TOTP to Nick Berry....where the hell are you please. ...
Quo video plays out again.
A couple of good tracks to start followed by a couple of stinkers and a no show from Nick. Nice try from Janice to inject some life into this one but after Berlin she was on a hiding to nothing..