The Boyo from Pontypridd
30/04/87 (Peter Powell & Steve Wright)
The Jesus & Mary Chain – “April Skies” (19)
Hola! Getting tonight's show underway are 'Jesus and the Mary Chain' with what became their first of two top ten hits when it peaked at number 8.
Starship – “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (3) (video)
Their fourth and final hit of an unusual chart career, and it will be number one next week.
Labi Siffre – “(Something Inside) So Strong” (16)
In the studio to perform his first hit since 1972, and this powerful song also became his only top ten hit when it peaked at number 4.
Level 42 – “To Be With You Again” (14)
Became their penultimate top ten hit when it peaked at number 10.
Spear Of Destiny – “Never Take Me Alive” (23) (breaker)
Their biggest hit, peaking at number 14.
Fleetwood Mac – “Big Love” (21) (breaker)
The first single from their mammoth number one album Tango in the Night, and it peaked at number 9.
Tom Jones – “A Boy From Nowhere” (7) (video)
From the musical Matador, although it would not open for another four years yet. The song peaked at number 2.
Madonna – “La Isla Bonita” (1) (video)
Second and final week at number one.
Duran Duran – “Meet El Presidente” (24) (video/credits)
A video to play us out, but this lesser known hit got no higher. Hasta la vista mis amigos!
May 7th is next, but it is another Mike Smith edition.
There was a Spanish flavour to this episode, wasn't there?!
ReplyDeleteBut very much a Scottish flavour to the opener, and one in the eye for those who say The Jesus and Mary Chain couldn't write any tunes, this has a very decent one, and could pass muster as a perfectly acceptable pop song. A deserved Top 10 hit, and no feedback to be heard.
Starship with a song that was everywhere back then, which is more than can be said for the film it came from, Mannequin came and went pretty quickly, though like many things naff and 80s, it became a cult movie. An early hit for soon-to-be multi-millionaire Diane Warren, of course. I've heard this too many times for it to make an impression now, but will note the best bit of the video is the clip where Kim Cattrall drops her togs and Andrew McCarthy goes to cover her up, and she pulls a snuggly expression. Probably the best bit of the film, too.
Labi Siffre with a song everyone thought was about apartheid at the time, but latterly he said it was about his homosexuality. Still a powerful effort, and it's almost embarrassingly sincere, couldn't have been put together better, though. Not sure there's a saxophone on the record, mind you.
Level 42 with a forgotten hit, and it was really nice to be reminded of it, I like the melody and counter melody in the chorus, it's very well done. Not sure why Mark has the bass around his neck at all, given he mimes about a quarter of the song.
Always remember Mark Radcliffe's advice for how to be Tom Jones: paint yourself orange, put a Brillo pad on your head and spoil songs by shouting through them. Our hosts seem to think this is one for the mums - not for my mum, thank you. Very obviously aiming for the Green Green Grass of Home vibe, only Spanish. The Orange Orange Oranges of Home?
Madonna's last week at the top - for now - and a reminder of her original eyebrows.
Duran Duran to end on, and a weak single with another Spanish (or Latin American) lyric. Easy to hear why it didn't crack the Top 20. The spiky production swamps a mediocre tune.
Ah, I didn't realise Labi Siffre had said that. Still, as with any great song it can acquire many different meanings.
DeleteWell, Labi says it now, he didn't mention it back then and as the South African-style choir on the record indicates, it's easy to see why everyone thought he was on about apartheid then.
DeleteWell indeed, not to mention the fact that apartheid was front and centre of the news at the time. The video also carries a clear anti-apartheid message.
Deletei'm 99% sure that the pic sleeve for the labi siffre single showed a sign saying "no blacks allowed" or something similar. so even if the man himself was trying to allude to something different in his song, his record company obviously thought it was all about apartheid!
DeleteTHX, your comment on Starship is so spot on. The clip of the video you mention was just so cool. I would have liked to have been the one to cover her up when the togs dropped down. Grrrrrr! Anyway, the video was just so much fun, whichever way you look at it, and thoroughly deserving of No.1 after Madonna finished her stint there.
DeleteHere is the sleeve for 'So Strong'.
Deletehttp://www.45cat.com/record/wok12
Note that the label uses more brackets saying '(Something inside) So Strong' which is how it is listed in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles.
Wrighty's jumper looked a bit out of date, as that style of BBC1 globe had been dropped in 1985; indeed, I am pretty sure he wore it on the show once before. Anyway, he seemed marginally more engaged than normal, even going so far as to diss the Tom Jones record, albeit hardly with Peel-like levels of disdain. Inevitably PP plays the straight man, humouring his co-host but looking as if he would much rather be presenting with somebody else.
ReplyDeleteThe Jesus and Mary Chain do not exactly make for a lively start, but this song does have an understated power and is quite tuneful. Unfortunately, the music gets overshadowed a bit by Jim Reid's onstage antics as he refuses to look at the camera or the audience and appears to be on the verge of braining somebody with his mic stand - I imagine the term "shoegaze" originated from performances like this! A complete contrast next, with some cheery AOR from Starship that came from the pens of those reliable hitmakers Diane Warren and Albert Hammond. As is the case with We Built this City, this is automatically reviled by those who regard the band as a bunch of "sellouts," but it is just a good pop record - ironically, when Jefferson Airplane reformed a few years later they ended up winning some kind of award for least welcome comeback of the year! The video contains plenty of clips from Mannequin, which I saw years ago and enjoyed, though it's fair to say that Andrew McCarthy's acting career didn't exactly flourish in the same way as Kim Cattrall's...
As Angelo mentions, this powerful anti-apartheid anthem was Labi Siffre's first hit in 15 years, and it would also be his last. During the 90s it endured a period of overexposure where it always seemed to be used in documentaries focussing on people who had overcome some kind of adversity, but in recent years it has been played less and I can appreciate its quality again. Nice performance too, as the stage gradually fills up with the backing singers and then the saxophonist. Level 42 next, on a garish looking set but with a decent tune featuring some nice harmonies on the chorus - a definite step up from their previous hit, for me.
More from the breakers next time, so we now come to that one-dimensional bellower "Sir" Tom Jones - presumably the knighthood was bestowed for services to mediocrity? The unwelcome chart comeback that started here was masterminded by his son, who had recently taken over from Gordon Mills as his manager. The song is an overwrought piece of tedium, and as with Joy Boucher's big hit I find its success baffling. Duran Duran play us out again, with a song that sounds a bit like an amalgam of previous hits but lacks a clear identity of its own. I guess from the song title and the shots of flags that appear in the video that it is trying to make some kind of political point, but I'm not sure what.
By the way Angelo, I enjoyed your Spanish-themed post - highly appropriate given the number of songs in the show with a Spanish connection!
Andrew McCarthy directs TV now - you don't hear much about the Brat Pack now, not even Demi Moore, so maybe they were right to hate their nickname, it did trivialise them!
DeleteMuchas gracias :-)
Deletei've just seen andrew mccarthy do a turn as a guest villain in a few episodes of season 2 dvd of "white collar"!
DeleteAh, that well known Scouser (yes, really) Kim Cattrall, who spent many years in a US sitcom whose lead actess had a face which was part Bruce Forsyth and part Sophie Ellis Bextor in length and width.
ReplyDeletedid you know that along with jamie lee curtis, kim cattrall was one of the last-ever "contract players"? that was something that in the "golden era" of hollywood had been standard procedure whereby actors only ever worked for whatever film studios they were contracted to, rather then be free agents for hire. in her case it was for universal, where among other things she appeared in a 70's episode of "columbo"!
DeleteI think her finest screen moment came alongside Leonard Nimoy as a fellow Vulcan on Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country. She performed very well on it, but somehow had more sex appeal on Mannequin, and of course this week's video at No.3 and on the way to a big 4-week No.1 with Starship for the whole of May 1987.
DeleteDory, I thought your favourite Kim Cattrall film would be Porky's, when she played Lassie!
DeleteShe can't do the Scouser accent anymore, incidentally - she was on the Graham Norton Show a while ago and tried to lapse back into it, and she sounded awful!
hosts: i was in a shop yesterday when i heard steve wright on the radio, and i was thinking he still sounds exactly the same as he did over 30 years earlier!
ReplyDeletejesus & mary chain: okay so no feedback this time, but it still a three-chord dirge that does nothing to question my opinion that they were just talentless oiks and a classic case of the emperors new clothes
starship: i always thought that grace slick was a most striking woman, although as the only survivor from the jefferson airplane days she must have been at least mid-40's by this point and a bit long-in-the-tooth for this sort of thing (making debbie harry look like a teenager in comparison). i never liked this at the time, but having listened to "sara" a lot recently (thanks for that one sct) i have a few-found respect for it now as a slice of slick (sorry!) stadium AOR - rather this than the jesus and mary chain any day of the week. as regards the film it was linked with: at the time i never knew that kim cattrall had some kind of hollywood career prior to "sex and the city", as watching "weird science" on video back then put me off seeing anything brat pack-related as a result. however i do remember passing the local cinema and some woman looking at what was on mentioning "manni-kWin" ha ha. btw, who are the two blondes in the video, and were they resident members of the band? if i'd have been grace, i certainly wouldn't have had them hanging around!
labi siffre: i remember him as "the musical turn" on 70's entertainment shows such as "the two ronnies". but apart from appearing in the video for madness's cover of "it must be love" it appeared that his time as a bona fide pop performer was well past. this unexpected hit was pleasant enough i suppose, but i'm not going to bother refreshing mt memory with it again now. for those interested, he did actually record a few quite funky things back in his earlier career that now make his albums quite desirable to acquire. anyway, talking of has-beens suddenly re-appearing out of nowhere:
tom jones: i liked "it's not unusual" from a very young age, but i do remember really despising this when for no apparent (or good) reason it rescued him from spending the rest of his professional life churning out the old hits on autopilot whilst dodging underwear thrown at him by ageing female fans in las vegas hell. then as now it sounds like some crap that lloyd-webber was serving up for west end theatre goers that otherwise had no interest in contemporary pop music. of course mr woodward took advantage of this to re-boot his career as godfather to da kidz (and is doing so to this day apparently), although i still laugh at someone describing him in his advancing years of having the eyes of a goat!
level 42: i've got the vast majority of their 80's recordings in my mp3 collection, but this isn't one of them. i couldn't even remember how it went, and a brief burst on yt reminds me that it was just a poor man's version of "lessons in love". by far the weakest track on their otherwise consistently-strong "running in the family" album, and unbelievable that it was chosen for single release before the likes of "it's over" and "children say". perhaps mark king felt likewise if his non-playing bass efforts are anything to go by?
duran duran: once more relegated to the end of the show as the credits roll, although at least they didn't have to suffer that indignity in person this time. i have no recollection of this at all, but it's certainly better than their last effort, however its still not really offering anything we've not heard by them before, so no surprise it met a similar fate
Well folks, this is probably my favourite show of 1987 so far! It’s amazing how (for me) the shows lurch from one extreme to another!
ReplyDeleteJesus and Mary Chain – April Skies – Would not have expected to keep my hand off FF but I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and although the weak point of the show, it wasn’t too bad. I note that it became ‘The Chain’s’ biggest hit.
Starship – Nothing’s going to stop us now – Nice to see that my nudge towards their fabulous previous single ‘Sara’ (and US no1) is keeping Wliberforce happy! This is another priceless piece of pop that still sounds powerful and strident all these years later. Love the joint vocals between Grace and the male singer and then that soaring chorus. Second bestselling single of 1987 (behind Rick Astley) and deservedly so, which is all the more reason for my surprise at its being ignored on the 1987 Preview show. A far cry from ‘White Rabbit’ but no lesser for it. Lots of comment about ‘Mannequin’ on here already so I won’t add anything more other than to say I enjoyed the film at the time and haven’t seen it since.
Labi Siffre – (Something inside) So strong – ToTP just call it ‘So Strong’ but the sleeve and label differ on whether the parenthesised bit exists or not. I don’t care what the subject matter was meant to me, it’s just a great song. Labi’s biggest hit ever – previously the moving ‘Crying, laughing, loving, lying’ was his personal peak at no11 in 1972. Labi, of course had a shot with ‘Solid Love’ at being Britain’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1978, but only finished 5th to the eventual winner, Co-Co with one of our favourites on this forum ‘The Bad old Days’.
Level 42 – To be with you again – Nice to hear this ‘again’ as I haven’t given the album a spin for some years. I like the double vocals with Mark and Mike on the chorus…and the band’s feet have vanished in a pool of dry ice.
Breakers – Spear of Destiny – Who? Fleetwood Mac – At last the Mac get a short slot on ToTP with this breathy debut single from ‘Tango in the Night’. Good though this is, better was to come once Christine McVie’s output reached a 45. There seemed to be a pecking order for singles releases from the album as why would ‘Everywhere’ be released as 5th single after the much inferior ‘Family Man’ written by Buckingham? In fact the writers order from ‘Tango in the Night’ goes – Buckingham, Nicks, McVie, Buckingham, McVie, McVie.
Tom Jones – A Boy from Nowhere – OK….nobody seems to like this, but, like Judy Boucher, I am going to go once more against the grain (and Steve Wright) and proclaim that I love it! I found myself singing along to this as, so many times have I played the 12” single that I recall buying from the Oxford Street HMV shop on the same day that I bought the Beatles ‘Sgt Pepper’ CD in a special HMV box set on the day that it was released (on its 20th anniversary – sigh!). The show ‘Matador’ from which this was taken was co-written by Mike Leander who co-wrote most of Gary Glitter’s big hits.
Madonna – La Isla Bonita – Once again, no bongo intro shown. On the strength of all these fabulous Madonna hits I went out and purchased the ‘True Blue’ album from HMV yesterday, whilst wishing the shop assistant all the best for the future of the company.
Duran Duran – Meet El Presidente – Haven’t heard this for years and it was a pleasure. Will have to track down a copy of the ‘Notorious’ album now.
It's all subjective. For me, the preceding week's show was one of the best of 1987 and this edition very average.
DeleteAnyway, just a couple of howlers of note from the overworked Peter Powell when reading the chart, referring to The Jesus And Mary Chain as Jesus And The Mary Chain, and referencing Mel and Kim's former number 1 hit 'Respectable' as 'Respectful'.
it wouldn't be a pp show without a howler or two ("jesus and the mary chain" is actually very funny if unintended that way)! but rather him presenting it than the likes of shitty and slimy any day of the week
DeleteJesus & Mary Chain - One of the few songs of theirs that I don't mind listening to.
ReplyDeleteStarship - Nominally a housewife song given that it gets played a lot, but I actually I don't mind this one at all.
Labi Siffre - I liked it, then went off it as it too went through a phase of being overplayed, now I don't mind it again.
Level 42 - Very much the forgotten single from that album, and I think it's a very good one.
Tom Jones - Utterly dreadful song I'm afraid. I went to see Tom perform in a TV studio for a now forgotten ITV series he did and let me tell you, he really was quite something live.
Duran Duran - Hardly one of their finest, but I don't mind hearing it again.
It looks like 2 of the songs I really like lower down are not going to get shown at all so let me say how much I like 'Alone Again Or' by The Damned and especially No.32 smash 'Twilight World' from Swing Out Sister - for some reason the 7" version of that never appears on their 'best of's.
Normally I'd be resistant to a cover of such an iconic track, but The Damned's version of Alone Again Or is actually really good, the shimmering guitar distinguishes it.
DeleteI'm pretty sure I heard a Radio One documentary about protest songs where Labi Siffre said he tried to offer the song to various black artists of the time only to find that none of them were prepared to record it as they thought the controversy could harm their careers. As nobody else would touch it he decided to record it himself and ended up with the biggest hit of his career.
ReplyDeleteI want the BBC 1 jumper..
ReplyDeleteUnusual opening act. Jesus and Mary Chain are hardly the popiest band around. This isn't the worst thing we've heard this year, it's actually quite tuneful if not memorable.
Starship. Really memorable video although I've never seen the film. Like the song as well. Does she come alive at night? Might have to dig this film out one rainy afternoon.
Labi with a monster hit from 87. I could have sworn this was one of those bracketed jobs. (Something inside) so strong but always referred to as So Strong. Maybe the memory cheats.
Anyway it's a fabulous record although this sounds like a re recording.
How many backing singers does he need.
Loads of new entries at the bottom end of the charts. Bet we miss a load of those. Wet Wet Wet have arrived I see.
Are we ever gonna see Fleetwood Mac or Spear of Destiny.
Level 42 back again. Having a great chart run at the moment. This is pleasant enough. Not as good as Running In The Family. Seems to be a lot less of them as well.
Breakers :
Finally Mr Destiny. Not what I was expecting. Its quite good. Very broody.
And the Mac. Love this one. Not quite as good as Everywhere but a very similar sound.
Tom Jones during his "housewives favourite" stage and just before his Kiss/Full Monty/RE-loaded revival as a legend of pop. Great voice. Video just Tom and some lights, cheap but it works.
Madge video again.. Enough already.
Still amazed I had no recollection of this video at all from 1987.
Duran Duran video to play us out. Who would name this on Pointless as a Top 40 DD hit? It's not very good either. Best forgotten I think.
Morgie - see above comment I made earlier in this thread about the intermittent brackets for Labi's hit.
Deletewhy wasn't it simply called "something inside so strong"?
Delete...or even 'Something inside (so strong)'?
DeleteCheers. Seen that now, thought I was going mad
DeleteIt’s Peter PowELL and Pointy Prat again.
ReplyDeleteJesus and the Mary Chain inn the top 20 with a stable hit. Ahem. If ever a singer was crying out for balloons and streamers. What a drumkit! “Making love on the edge of a knife”? Ouch!
Nice comedy look from Starship Blokey when Grace comes alive. I saw “Mannequin” at the time and quite enjoyed it – more than this song.
Labi SIFFRAY, Steve? I was never a fan of this earnest track. Never mind the number of backing singers, how many camera zoomouts were there?
A funkier tune than of late from Mark King and the lads but not one of their level best. Ahem again.
Coming up next for Steve’s Mum… it’s Spear Of Destiny! They even mention “mother” in the lyrics!
Lindsay’s big video. Whenever I hear this song title I think of Lenny Henry’s track of the same name under the guise of Teddy Pendergrass tribute act Theophilus P. Wildebeest.
Tom Woodward there with a simple but effective video which does what it says on the tin. He’s got a good voice, that lad – I see a future for him.
I much prefer “El Presidente” by Drugstore with
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on guest vocals than The Durrannie’s turgid white boy funk.
Great start with the excellent JAMC (Bassist and drummer didn’t look overstretched)
ReplyDeleteGrace Slick looked like she was miming with an invisible microphone at one point :-)
Much busier bass from Level 42 but was never a fan. Time has not changed my opinion.
Fleetwood, labri, starship, tom jones - lot of oldies in this episode. Corny doublet Nowhere/ go there
La isla could have been featured those memorex adverts - i dreamt of potato, drop a gooly