Top of the Woh Ooh Woh Ooh Wohs!
10/11/88 (Bruno Brookes & Sybil Ruscoe)
Brother Beyond – “He Ain’t No Competition” (8)
Became their second and final top ten hit when it peaked at number 6.
Bryan Ferry – “Let’s Stick Together” (12) (video)
At its 1988 peak.
Robin Beck – “The First Time” (5)
In the studio and on her way to number one.
Salt ‘N’ Pepa – “Twist & Shout” (22) (breaker)
Became their second of five top ten hits when it peaked at number 4.
INXS – “Need You Tonight” (18) (breaker)
Became the band's only top ten hit when it peaked at number 2.
Chris De Burgh – “Missing You” (15)
In the studio to perform what became his second and final top ten hit when it peaked at number 3.
Deacon Blue – “Real Gone Kid” (10)
A second studio performance and the song went up two more places.
Enya – “Orinoco Flow” (1) (rpt from 20/10/88)
Third and final week at number one.
Prince – “I Wish U Heaven” (26) (video/credits)
Went up two more places.
November 17th is next.
The Empress Ruscoe makes a very shouty, grating debut – we’ll be seeing her again, so I hope she has calmed down a bit when we do. Bruno forms the other half of a diminutive duo, and perhaps it is due to his co-host’s overenthusiastic manner, but he seems quite detached and uninterested for the most part. Brother Beyond first up this time, and Nathan’s t-shirt suggests he was willing to embrace the “heartthrob” label! He is a bundle of energy again here, and the song is definitely more muscular and lively than their previous hit, relatively speaking.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember rightly, Let’s Stick Together was reissued at this point to promote a new Ferry/Roxy compilation album. This sounds like the original recording to me, with the original 1976 promo to boot, which BBC4 viewers have already seen in the early stages of this repeat run. It’s a good song, of course, but probably the most overplayed and overfamiliar in Ferry’s oeuvre. Next, Coca-Cola repeat their chart-topping success with I Like to Teach the World to Sing courtesy of Robin Beck, who was technically not quite a one-hit wonder as her follow-up made it all the way to no. 84! Even now, when I hear this I keep thinking she should be singing "Coca-Cola is it" on the chorus, but as AOR power ballads go it is respectable enough. Judging from her headgear, I would guess that Robin was a Stevie Nicks fan.
Chris De Burgh is back, essaying some annoying Cliff-style arm moves as he emotes to this smooth, pleasant ballad. You can tell from the production tricks that this was intended to be Lady in Red part 2, and in fairness it was almost as successful. Deacon Blue certainly give this new performance some welly, though Ricky somewhat spoils the effect by borrowing his dad's jacket for the evening. One final week for Enya at the top, and then the Purple One serenades us with a pretty tune that unfortunately doesn't go anywhere. It's short too, so much so that the bleached-out video goes all the way to the end, complete with copyright credit.
The main studio stage was perfect for the very pretty Robin Beck coming over from the States. I think the multiple TV screens, now a regular on that stage every week was likely to have been there since the Pet Shop Boys performed in the studio earlier in the year to that background of small TV sets all stacked up next to each other, and I guess TOTP must have liked it so much to keep it there every week for new performances. I wonder how long it will stay there before being taken out?
DeleteIf I remember rightly, we first saw the stacked TV set backdrop at the very end of 1987, when Krush did their first performance of House Arrest. I've no idea how much longer it will last, but I guess we will find out...
DeleteBad dancing alert, ver 'Yond are back with a sitar-infused copy of their first hit, only with an even more obvious dig at Bros. The screaming in the audience sounds like someone's being attacked. Maybe their ears are under assault.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ferry with the old, unremixed video for his new remix, can't tell if what we're hearing has been tampered with, but if it has they didn't do very much with it. Jerry "He must be dead soon, FFS!" Hall contributes whoops and "arriba!" Not a bad cover, but I kind of prefer the down and dirty original.
Groo, Robin Beck, corporate shill, with a record that screams "session musician". "For a very high voice!" Coca-Cola tastes exactly the same as Pepsi, you know. Anyway, we never got New Coke over here, so the brand had not been tainted at this point. Why is she wearing a plant pop on her head?
Breakers will be on next week, so onto Chris De Burgh for a performance that looks really exciting if you turn the sound off, but if you turn it on, it's the safest, never out of first gear blandfest imaginable.
I remember reading a review of a Deacon Blue comeback a few years ago, and it described Lorraine as "still singing like your auntie at a wedding", which sums this up.
Enya's final week at the top, she must know what the Wombles are, mustn't she? And then finally something decent, Prince with the swoonsome I Wish U Heaven, a rich soundscape of dreaminess with a video featuring some very big apples. Not a great episode, but this made up for it, and nice to see Sybil, but a bit shouty, tone it down next time.
Prince just keeps on churning out top videos through the 80s, and this was certainly one of them. I just loved the sexy girl in bridal white in the video, as well as the big green apples. It was quite easy for TOTP to play the video in full on the playout, because it was quite a short one anyway, much like the Bryan Ferry video earlier in the show.
DeleteJust noticed my typo: Robin Beck had a plant POT on her head, like Bill and Ben. Now there's a double act who should have recorded a single, but I suppose Pinky and Perky beat them to it.
DeleteMy Mums very fine collection of 60s 7" singles that I was reared on as a kid has a few howlers. Namely a Pinky & Perky cover of Consider Yourself from Oliver! I kid ye not.
DeleteChris De Burgh's second and final British Top 10 hit, which Val Doonican would cover on his BBC1 Christmas show that year, deserved to be the huge hit that it was. Whatever you may think of the Bard of Wexford (i.e. Chris - dear Val having hailed from Waterford), it cannot be denied that he produced a vast catalogue of melodic, lyrical soft rock and art-rock before his romantic aberration set him on the slide towards covers albums.
ReplyDeleteThe title 'Missing You' had previously been used at least three times - by John Waite, Diana Ross and a duo who once toured the world with Mr De Burgh and Supertramp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6zyAHoJi7k
Deacon Blue's offering - written about 'Show Me Heaven' hitmaker Maria McKee - was exuberant enough, but Ricky Ross needs to concentrate on verbs. Not content with vowing to do what he should have "did", he offers to show us the photographs he "got took". He and Lorraine McIntosh are still happily married, in case you were wondering.
Sybil who? Don’t go much on her voice either.
ReplyDeleteBrother Beyond – He ain’t no competition – Did I miss something here? Loud shrieks throughout. Sounds like SAW fodder to me nothing more. I keep thinking Supertramp with this band’s title.
Bryan Ferry – Let’s stick together – A classic Ferry solo hit. Remixed? Sounds no different to my ears. Nice tache and highlight of the show seeing Jerry Hall in her slinky 70s prime. Really foxy.
Robin Beck – (The) First Time - …in the studio. Very funny! Seems to be a discrepancy about the title. The Single sleeve says ‘First Time’ as does the paper label of the record whilst the ‘plastic’ record label says ‘The First Time’, as do books I have. But what a treat though. Robin in the studio with her top hat, black mini and many rings on her fingers. A powerful song with a great guitar solo which in retrospect amongst all the ’88 dross is a surprise it even charted, but that’s the power of advertising for you I guess. Love it. Robin’s first UK single was Sweet talk’ back in 1979 which sounds absolutely nothing like this but well worth checking out is the follow up ‘ Save up all your Tears’ which is fabulous and really should have been a hit – classic Desmond Child/Diane Warren composition also recorded by Cher and Bonnie Tyler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvMibEK5opg
Breakers – Salt and Pepa – Was this meant to be taken seriously? INXS – I guess this was the only song of note that I can think of from this lot, and I did quite like it.
Chris de Burgh – Missing you – I had the pleasure of seeing Chris live last month. He’s still a damn fine live act and musician. He played the ‘Moonfleet’ and ‘Into the Light’ albums in full, the latter being particularly impressive with ‘The Lady in Red’ included and the superb trio of tracks that closed the album forming a powerful climax to the show. This track is his only other big hit of note from the ‘Flying Colours’ album, which wouldn’t lend itself so well to a live run through. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable single and good to see Chris heading back to the top10.
Deacon Blue – Real gone Kid – High quality again; the show tonight has been really good and this is an excellent second outing for the band with Lorraine McIntosh this time wearing lots of makeup and what looks like leggings.
Enya – Orinocco Flow – Seems Enya didn’t want to record another performance of this, so we get the rose laden piano along with snatches of the video again. Nice to keep hearing it though.
Prince – I wish u heaven – Prince had an obsession with using the letter ‘u’ in place of the full word ‘you’. This looks a surreal video with a song I don’t recall hearing before, or if I did it went in one ear and out of the other.
Good to see Donny Osmond on the show. How far away he’d gone though from those glorious no1s ‘Puppy Love’, ‘The Twelfth of Never’ and ‘Young Love’ as this latest single peaked at no70.
Sybil was from Shropshire which she mentioned every weekday on Radio 1 for about three years.
DeleteI can target that even more, THX. Sybil's from Wem, which got several mentions on the breakfast show at the time!
DeleteMore inclined to agree with Arthur below, regarding this Prince final record for 1988, now ending this first phase of his career of 1984-1988 with individual masterpiece songs and videos to match, all with the sexy perfect-figure girls theme.
Delete1989 would see Prince moving into music for Hollywood movies with the Batman/Batdance sequence of hits, moving towards much more expansive as well as expensive videos of which would would never see their like again, apart from Meat Loaf's 1993-1995 period of videos which also took on productions of epic proportions.
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ReplyDelete(A couple of lazy mis-types last time, so here's take two...)
ReplyDeleteNice early height gag, Trevor. If only they’d booked John Cleese in character as Basil Fawlty to co-host with Screeching Sybil!
Brother Beyond with a snippet of the chorus tune to “Let’s Hang On” early doors and bilge thereafter. Surely the slightly catty lyrics should have included the line ”wipe your feet on the Matt”?
Slowest playing of a Flying V ever in Bryan Ferry’s video. Easy, tigress!
Early mugshots: Womack and Womack with “Tearbomb”, Sybil?
If only Robin Beck had booked Pepsi and Shirlie as backing singers! She probably thought “I don’t get a video to myself, Hell, I’ll fly to the studio and give them a fashion statement complete with virtual knuckleduster”. The sort of song I could imagine Heart having a crack at, and a ‘first time’ on the re-runs as the lead solo guitarist concentrates on playing / miming and is absolutely gurn-free. Now where did I put that can of Top Deck shandy?
Salt ‘n’ Pepa should have done a mash-up of this with Tanita Tikaram’s hit. Meanwhile, The Fat Boys look down and laugh at this risible cowpat of a cover.
I hated INXS, apart from one single, I think it was “Heaven Scent”. Nice 'concentrating on miming' tongue out posing early in the vid by one of Kyie’s boyfriend’s minions.
Chris De Burgh, master of the ballads? Master of the b#ll#cks, more like. If this song was food, it would be tofu on crispbread.
Deacon Blue live, Sybil? You’re new to this, aren’t you? The band have scrubbed up well for one of their better songs, not that they actually had that many.
Enya there, comtemplating her imminent EP “Wellington Whoosh”.
You’d have thought Prince was from the Big Apple given that vid. If I start a band, I want that drummer.
Heaven Sent is my favourite INXS song too! A proud boast.
DeleteA friend of mine went to see the Michael Hutchence documentary last week, and despite having no interest in the band (he calls them the most successful pub band in the world) said it was excellent.
I was going to wait till the next show to comment on Salt 'n' Pepa, also to say that they took the idea from the Fat Boys where they came off very well with Chubby Checker reviving his Twist record, so Salt 'n'Pepa went for the other Twist tune from the 60s, ie The Beatles Twist And Shout, wearing Beatles suits. There is no way they would have cooked up this tune if not for The Fat Boys coming up with the idea for themselves first.
DeleteSuffice to say that Salt 'n' Pepa did not not make it as high as No.2 like the Fat Boys, but No.4 wasn't bad either, so the British public seemed to like these mixes of 60s tunes meets 80s rap, even though the Fat Boys tune and video was far superior to Salt 'n' Pepa's one.
We see the motorbiking womble Chris Spedding in B Ferry's film of course - but just a brief glimpse of R Beck's keyboard player who did resemble Pete Wingfield - was it him or merely a lookalike dies anyone know?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to answer that question 100% NBD, but looking on the net, the inner sleeve of the parent 'Trouble or Nothing' album shows the band named in the inner sleeve. The keyboard player appears to be someone called Greg. I can't find a clear enough scan to be sure, but certainly doesn't look like Pete Wingfield. Assuming of course that different players weren't roped in to mime for this ToTP performance.
DeleteHi xrayfour! Just a comment on 4/10/73 that you uploaded for me last week. Wow, where did you get that! I've never seen any of the 500th show footage before. One question though. Why are the two Dawn songs missing and why are they in colour on the Google drive version when the show is in black and white? Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteBrie please, can you got 22/06/72 not Google drive version
Delete04/10/73 is around a while now brie. I think Javier uploaded a vob copy here a while back. I gave a copy of it to Amanda for Mega earlier this year. Robert Bates uploaded that copy to You Tube recently. I've since upscaled it & the one you have is better quality. The Dawn footage of Tie A Yellow Ribbon survives in colour because it was repeated on the 25/12/73 show. I've never seen the other Dawn clip but apparently it exists. Has anyone got it? Colour footage of David Cassidy from the show turned up recently also:
Deletehttps://youtu.be/oEcEy8Gz-VY
Thanks for the info mate. My mistake as I thought both Dawn tracks were on the Google drive show when in fact there's only one!
DeleteYes gia I got the original from Anonymous (without the timecode) I'll ask him to re-upload it.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteWhy do the women presenters have to shout and gabble?...
ReplyDeleteBrother Beyond - took me a while to realise it was a different song.. FF
Bryan ferry - beaten to the punch by an earlier post mentioning one of my guitar heroes, chris “womble” spedding. Our band recently acquired a singer who plays the sax, so we now have this in our set :-)
Salt n pepa - like the segue with white lines...
never saw the appeal of INXS...
Chris de burgh - cf Brother Beyond, Lady In Red reworked...
Don’t remember the Prince video, but it is similar in style to Alphabet Street and Raspberry Beret...
Hi Anonymous! Could you upload 22/06/72 for gia please and have you got 6/03/69 as well? Cheers!
ReplyDelete22/06/72 https://we.tl/t-ymb9lOFzGW
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Anonymous!And you brie
DeleteHow come that 1972 episode survived? (albeit with Litte Willey by the Sweet and Rock n'Roll 2 by Gary Glitter missing, as well as the first bit of Elvis) ?
DeleteGreat to watch this though. I probably saw it on broadcast as I recall my Mum being aghast at the 'hairy' members of the Move !
The copy of 22/06/72 with the start missing was discovered in the BBC Scotland archive around 15 years ago.
DeleteThanks xrayfour. I wonder why they kept (some of) that one? Good that they did!
DeleteCan I say how much I enjoyed The Move doing California Man on that 1972 show. It seemed that Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood were still co-operating and keeping The Move going, despite already having launched ELO together with Bev Bevan who was also on that Move performance on TOTP. Brilliant trio of musicians on The Move there. Thanks Anonymous for this great piece of TOTP history.
DeleteI also recall Steve Wright introducing that very same Move performance on TOTP2 some years ago, so this TOTP episode must have been found at around the turn of the century.
California Man was The Move's very last single - ELO had their first hit with 10538 Overture soon afterwards.
Delete'California Man' had two tracks on the B Side, one of which was 'Do ya' which, of course appeared in a re-recorded version on the ELO album 'A New World Record' in 1976.
DeleteDo Ya is just as brilliant as California Man
DeleteJust seen that ELO will be on BBC4 tonight on Radio 2 In Concert, so I would expect that there will be a rendition of Do Ya for 2019. Can't wait!
Delete060369 https://we.tl/t-a8yujCKZ7d
ReplyDeleteThanks Anonymous!
DeleteRare appearance by Stevie Wonder in the TOTP studio on that 1969 episode. Didn't know he was charting that early in pop music history. I thought he came through at around 1973 or so on the colour TV shows.
DeleteBest part of the show was the studio audience dancing which was a big feature of the show until around 1985-86 for highlighting fashions of the day. Clearly the shortening of the show to 30 minutes around 1985 meant that this feature could no longer be sustained at the expense of showing a video squeeze in another performance at the end of the show.
Stevie had his first American number 1 in 1963, and his first British hit, Uptight, in 1966. Here he is performing it on TOTP:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZK5tH7J_0g
I note Prince's single was the last from the Lovesexy album, which he appeared bare naked on the cover. And how nice to see Charlie XCX continue that noble tradition of pop star exhibitionism on the cover of her latest album.
ReplyDeleteSo Radio 1s tie up with TOTP means even the Breakfast Show newsreader gets a turn at hosting. And she's in full on "shouting Anthea" mode throughout. Sorry Sybil but not a great start. Delighted that Bruno has finally found someone shorter than him to co-host!
ReplyDeleteBrother Beyond. I remember “He Ain’t No Competition" and I think I prefer this to their previous top ten hit. Lots of screaming girlies and some very tight white trousers means this is Top Ten material.
I gave this (slight) remix of “Let’s Stick Together” some stick last week but I really enjoyed the whole song. Movember in full effect (ditch the moustache Bryan) and Jerry Hall pouting make a nice little video.
So Robin Beck actually exists and yes Sybil this is “The First Time” she's made it to the studio. A bit older than I remembered but quite cute and I loved the stylish outfit. Someone needs to teach her drummer to mime though.
Breakers:
I absolutely love this Salt ‘N’ Pepa track. They do an excellent job of “Twist & Shout” even though we don't get any of the rap part in this short clip. A great example of how to do this sort of thing well.
INXS – “Need You Tonight” probably their most well known song and a cracking video as well. Song is so good it even survived a "re-imagining" by Professor Green.
What can I say about this Chris De Burgh song.
Thank goodness it's not Lady In Red! Next!
Deacon Blue back with “Real Gone Kid” and hitting the top ten.
A second studio performance and still potentially the best song of 1988.
Couldn't make the guitarist smile not matter how hard they tried!!!
Bye Enya. Enjoyed your “Orinoco Flow” for the last three weeks. Beautiful.
Finally a Prince song I had never heard before.
“I Wish U Heaven” was quite funky, interesting Adam and Eve video and I was impressed.
All in all quite a good show.
That's 6 today....wowzers….I'm off to see if I'm needed to help form a minority government...
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ReplyDeleteJust to mention a superb American No.1 this week, for one week only, was the brilliant Wild Wild West by The Escape Club, and knocking off The Beach Boys Kokomo from the No.1 slot. I remember seeing it every week on Kasey Kasem's America's Top 10, shown on late night ITV every week in 1988, and came with a brilliant video, singing "living in the 80s, heading for the 90s, living in the wild wild west....."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vE5ewvxdfo
One of the very best videos of the decade, and can't believe this did not chart at all in Britain. Hmmm......