Simply the vest
26/03/87 (Mike Smith)
Terence Trent D’Arby – “If You Let Me Stay” (22)
Making his debut with his first of three top ten hits when it peaked at number 7.
U2 – “With Or Without You” (4) (video)
This first single from their mammoth number one album The Joshua Tree peaked at number 4.
Alison Moyet – “Weak In The Presence Of Beauty” (6)
At its peak.
Janet Jackson – “Let’s Wait Awhile” (9)
Peaked at number 3.
Peter Gabriel – “Big Time” (15) (video)
This third single from his number one album So peaked at number 13.
Nick Kamen – “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever” (16)
At its peak.
Mel & Kim – “Respectable” (1) (video)
With their only week at number one.
Club Nouveau – “Lean On Me” (24) (video/credits)
Their only hit, and it peaked at number 3.
Next up is April 2nd.
Peter Gabriel with a nice video in the realms of Sledgehammer, with the story of a country boy moving to the big city for the big time. Would have been nice to see more of the video.
ReplyDeleteNick Kamen with a decent sound that was very 1977 in sound and feel, rather than 1987!
Mike Smith introduced the new No.1 as Mel & Kim being from South London, whereas in fact they were from East London when interviewed on The Story of 1987 a few weeks ago on BBC4!
The Club Nouveau playout this week I'm sure wasn't shown in this fullness in the original 1987 broadcast, but thanks to Anonymous for furnishing this show for us, as the fullest version of the show.
Smitty is in a suit once again, and he continues here to up his game in the presentation as well as the sartorial stakes, the pointing and the ducking in and out of shot being the only things that irritated me about him this time. What a debut record this is from Terence Trent D'Arby, a superb melding of a classic 60s soul sound with 80s production, enhanced in this performance by TTD's obvious charisma; he even gets away with that slightly cack-handed attempt at doing the splits. Introducing the Hardline still stands up today as a great album, and it's a shame he burnt out so fast, but he did at least burn very bright indeed for a time.
ReplyDeleteThe Joshua Tree was another of the year's mega-albums, and here is the first single from it, though better would follow. While atmospheric, this one is a bit of a plodder in its early stages, and unfortunately it gets cut here just as it finally explodes into life. The video is a bit dull as well, and the moody way it is shot, while matching the song, feels rather self-important, though that is hardly unusual for U2! Smitty makes a jest about Alf's Showaddywaddy-like level of availability, and here she is with her band again, but it would have been nice to see one of her promos for a change. Janet Jackson, meanwhile, turns up in the studio for the very first time for a rather atypical single that ditches her normal robotic sound in favour of a pleasant ballad. For that reason she is plonked in a chair rather than showing us any moves; this does have the effect of emphasising the limitations of her singing voice, but the song is nice enough all the same.
Peter Gabriel certainly spaced out the single releases from So, as it was now almost a year since Sledgehammer's release. This song and the video feel very much like Sledgehammer Part 2, but are still enjoyable for all that. Nick Kamen returns, wearing jeans this time, and shakes a tambourine for a bit, before Mel & Kim enjoy their only week at the top - funny how the memory cheats, as I could have sworn this was at number 1 for longer. Perhaps unexpectedly they are not in the studio to celebrate, so we get to enjoy a sassy video with the sisters alternating between "street" wear while tormenting a cop, and their classic suit look while strutting the catwalk. Club Nouveau make for a dismal playout, as they smother Bill Withers' classic in a deadening beat and drain all life, meaning and poignancy out of the song. This is yet another video from the time that makes extensive use of ancient b/w footage - were the people putting these promos together fans of The Old Grey Whistle Test, by any chance?
terence trent darby: it was quite obvious that this guy had both charisma and a more-than decent voice, although i never really got into him as i felt his music fell between the two stools of soul and rock (hence the prince comparisons ha ha). the backing singer in the "die hard"-style vest is a guy known as ebo, who was one of only two people from the early 80's bournemouth music scene that i was a part of that later managed to grab themselves an appearance on the show
ReplyDeleteU2: it's shark-jumping time! well musically anyway (bonzo hadn't yet started his ludicrously hypocritical mission to "end world poverty" as his offshore banking accounts got ever-more bloated), as it seems turning one of their lesser album tracks into an interminable live jam at a certain charidee event rather than doing four of their biggest hits as most others did sadly inspired them to carry on in that vein
janet jackson: boring ballad alert. and i don't think i could name anything else she ever did after this, despite her ascending to bro wacko's level as a global superstar (unlike poor old toyota, who ended up doing things like visiting bubbles in his retirement cage!)
peter gabriel: more muscular white funk and a claymotion video a la his big hit. but unlike "sledgehammer" this hasn't been played to death, so is a preferable listen. that is until it loses its way about 3 minutes in, as peter decides to remind us of his prog roots
club nouveau: a clunky dance cover of a tedious bill withers tune. just what the world needed - not! i think given the choice i would rather listen to classix nouveaux (even though they were rubbish too)
Terence Trent Water Authority as he was dubbed at the time, and for a while it looked like we had another global megastar arriving. A short while. But this single remains great stuff, with impassioned delivery and top notch production, slick as you like but evoking the past of soul in an inspiring way.
ReplyDeleteErk, crunching gear change into U2's yawnfest, a lot of people believed they were as important as U2 believed they were themselves when The Joshua Tree was released, but I found it difficult to see what the fuss was all about, it was all very po-faced and ponderous. Bongo tries yoga in the video (in black and white, natch).
Alison Moyet, almost swamped in dry ice fumes at the beginning but she gets over it. At least she seems to be having a nice time on stage, though soon a mental breakdown struck her which took her out of the music scene for some years (she's OK now).
Aw, isn't Janet sweet? She reminds me of Robin doing Halfway Up the Stairs here with this ode to sexual abstinence. The audience look at a loss of what to do, you can't really dance to this, it's too slow.
Ah, Peter Gabriel, I loved this at the time (the Big Time) and can still sing all the words. The video might have been something to do with that, it's a lot slicker and more adventurous than the Sledgehammer one, and I was a sucker for a great video back then.
Pity we only got half of it, I would have preferred the rest to Nick Kamen again, even if he did appear to have Tia Carrere on backing vocals. Really working that tambourine, Nick (i.e. tapping it twice then hanging it on the mic stand. Great).
We get the video for Respectable, of which I remember a classmate noting sagely "The orange jumper..." Still don't mind this, SAW weren't all bad and even in their reign of terror there were records of theirs I liked. It's just that there were so many of them, and too many sounded formulaic. This doesn't, so much.
Club Nouveaux, and they sound so 1987 it hurts, you can practically date this to the month. I remember Dave Lee Travis saying this was better than the original, if anyone has faith in his opinion. Yet another one hit wonder. Even the video looks like a cover version.
my work colleagues and i used to refer to TTD as terence trent tavern, after a boozer that was just down the road!
DeleteA fairly rotten show this one that didn’t take me too long to watch as I kept skipping tracks.
ReplyDeleteTerence Trent Darby – If you let me stay – Couldn’t stand this song at any price…he did some better tracks later.
U2 – With or without you – Dirge. “Have you got the Joshua Tree album, its superb?” people used to ask me. Nope.
Alison Moyet – Weak in the presence of beauty – Nice song and jaunty performance.
Janet Jackson – Let’s wait a while – Ugh!
Peter Gabriel – Big Time – My least favourite track from the otherwise excellent ‘So’ album. The video is such a rip off of ‘Sledgehammer’ it’s unreal. The much superior ‘Red Rain’ was released afterwards but that failed to trouble the scorers.
Nick Kamen – Loving you is sweeter than ever – It’s Ok but nothing special, and not sure what the appeal of Nick was.
Mel and Kim – Respectable – Decent enough no1 I suppose. The Appletons came along later of course continuing the fruity surname theme (Jason Orange anyone…. Strawberry Switchblade…The Raspberries…Bananarama….)
Club Noveau – Lean on me - …as opposed to Classix. I actually really liked this version although you never hear it these days, just the rather lifeless Bill Withers version. Me, I prefer Mud’s rendition with that wonderful extended instrumental outro.
Fruity acts? Okay, there's Shaun Ryder's post-Happy Mondays band Black Grape, "Green Tambourine" hitsters The Lemon Pipers, Fats Domino sang about "Blueberry Hill", and who could ever forget the once omnipresent Cherry Gillespie?
Deletea friend of mine sold CD's at car boots for a while about 15 years or so back (you can't give most of them away now ha ha), and we always found the black grape one he had for sale amusing as it had a couple of "moving" plastic eyes stuck on the front of it:
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/Black-Grape-Stupid-Stupid-Stupid/release/1808602
the other thing i remember us chuckling over was the name of a then-trendy alternative band whose somewhat bland-sounding name began with a "K" instead of a "C" and also had a backwards "R" in it (can you guess who it was?)
ps - arthur you overlooked a rather obvious "fruity" act in the form of the cranberries!
How about The Applejacks, and Strawberry Alarm Clock?
Deletewilby - later copies of that Black Grape album didn't have the plastic eyes on the front, but given how much the album tanked I doubt if the earlier version is rare in any way!
DeleteAnd I know who you're referring to - Kula Shaker....
well noax that black grape CD certainly never flew out of the stall, despite the limited edition stick-on eyes. as for the other band: good guess, but no cigar! regarding kula shaker: i remember one minute they were mega-hot, and then the singer made some comment about the nazis and suddenly charity shops were heaving with copies of their CD's!
DeleteKula Shaker's lead singer was of course Crispian Mills, son of Hayley - that must be one of the poshest names in pop!
DeleteFor some reason these BBC Archive copies won't play without glitching and going out of synch on my computer - If anyone else is having similar problems, I've found an alternative copy : https://wetransfer.com/downloads/1c768bd7eab82bb49d5d4f910fd61b0d20190207184826/b41520
ReplyDeleteHi All - I found this by chance - 10CC with 'Rubber Bullets'. The same edit as in the 1973 Christmas show to chop out the 'We all got balls and brains' line. But I do recall seeing this on transmission, especially the bit where Kevin sings the quiet middle section and the camera pans in from afar.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIEVvu-IAVk
One of the comments aludes to the fact that this show survives apart from the Slade track. Is it one that Anonymous is able to make available please, as I certainly haven't seen it - would be great to see the Hotshots with the 'bouncing' singer I recall!
Easily the best show of 1987 so far with some great tunes and a chirpy presenting slot from Smithy.
ReplyDeleteA big welcome to Terence, one of the sounds of 87. Such a great vocal and a quality song. Very odd backing singers, looks like they grabbed a couple of extras from the canteen. Great start to the show.
U2 with one of their iconic numbers from the peak of their powers. Obviously no studio appearance but they were probably half way around the world. Video does its job but nothing special.
ALF still weak in the presence of beauty. Still fabulous.
Amazingly a real live Jackson makes it into the studio although the effort has clearly worn her out as she needs a sit down. Great song but a fairly pointless appearance as she doesn't bring anything to the show. Video might have been better.
Have to disagree with Smithy, the Peter Gabriel video is nowhere near as good as Sledgehammer but the song is much better than I remember probably due to it being less over played.
Nick Kamen back in his full Elvis look with a song that has a much better verse than chorus. Surprisingly I found myself quite enjoying this.
Mel and Kim deservedly at number one and it's a good video as well.
A cast of thousands play out with at least 5 of them part of Club Noveaux. It's a fantastic song, very well produced. Might have to dig this one out on Spotify.
the other backing singer for terence td was frank collins, who had been active in the biz for nearly two decades by this point - primarily as one of the lead singers in the blue-eyed soul band kokomo. the odd couple were actually credited as the trent tones on ttd's debut album
DeleteThanks again to The Archivist.
ReplyDeleteShitty on much better form here, but still telling us who’s coming up later and combining that with a pointless session of hide and seek.
What a dynamic Soul Revue debut there by young Terry. I couldn’t quite get into his smoky, shouty style but it was just right for this song, unlike the backing vocalists who look like they’re going to a fancy dress party as Peter Cox from Go West and Paul Simon.
With or without U2? Definitely without, please, I’ll throw in Bonio as another nickname for that pompous singer.
Nicely choreographed balcony pointing in this show, first executed for another deft mime for Alison Moyet and her band, Alf now looking like a pineapple head with that hairdo.
Very American 80’s style keyboard backing which spoils what is actually a cute little ballad by Janet, who did at least turn up in the studio so fair play.
“Big Time” was faster and funkier than “Sledgehammer” and the video was nothing like as good.
Ah. Nick Kamen and his awful voice. FF.
Was Mike referring to the Appleby sisters’ upper body jiggling (especially Mel’s)when calling their number bouncy? Funny how they used to have Kim screen left so you were looking at Kim and Mel – compare and contrast with Ant and Dec, with Ant always to our left when he can actually turn up.
Club Nouveau with an awful rehash of a song better covered by Mud, whose hit version was also omitted from these re-runs, in their case all three studio appearances were wiped.
Arthur - here are wiped editions of Leaning Mud:-
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fXsczxZWcU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvXPIVFuyqs
My my! Thanks. Well played!
DeleteTTD - We had a different name for him in our University Radio Nottingham record library - Terence Trent B'Uilding. A great song of course.
ReplyDeleteU2 - zzzzzz
Alison Moyet - I'm going to see her in concert tomorrow as support for Tears For Fears. Looking forward to her more than the headline act to be honest!
Janet Jackson - Nap time again...
Peter Gabriel - I think this one passed me by at the time but I like it now, though you never get to hear the 'Hi there!' vocal at the start on the rare occasions it gets played. Oh, and the song is about the falseness of fame more than moving to a big city Dory....
Mel & Kim a bit short changed by the video playout (and not all of it at that) unless they simply weren't available.
Club Nouveau - I recall loving it at the time but boy, has it dated really badly.
2 shows in a row without Breakers featured means that my favourite Tina Turner song, 'What You Get Is What You See' isn't featured at all sadly.