Can I have an E please Bob?
20/10/88 (Caron Keating & Steve Wright)
D Mob featuring Gary Haisman – “We Call It Acieed” (3) (video)
We kick off with a video this week and this was the first of three top ten hits for D Mob and it was now at its peak.
The Christians – “Harvest For The World” (9) (video)
Went up one more place.
Enya – “Orinoco Flow” (5)
Making her studio debut here with a song that will sail away to number one next week.
Deacon Blue – “Real Gone Kid” (29) (breaker)
Became their first of three top ten hits when it peaked at number 8.
Milli Vanilli – “Girl You Know It’s True” (20) (breaker)
Became their first of two top ten hits when it peaked at number 3.
Erasure – “A Little Respect” (4) (rpt from 06/10/88)
At its peak.
Kylie Minogue – “Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi” (11)
I don't know why the title of this song is in French, but Kylie is in the studio tongith and the song peaked at numero deux.
Whitney Houston – “One Moment In Time” (1) (video)
Second and final week at the top.
The Wee Papa Girl Rappers – “Wee Rule” (6) (rpt from 06/10/88 + credits)
At its peak.
Next up is October 27th
It's sad seeing Caron Keating all cheery and lovely here, knowing how she isn't around any longer, and hasn't been for some time now. She never made it as a TOTP presenter, either, possibly because of the controversy of a TOTP presenter introducing a song that was blatantly about getting kids onto teh drugz. Those who complained about that must have had their heads aploding when the Richard Bacon scandal hit. Anyway, the song itself was guaranteed to annoy your parents, and therefore quite amusing - they even say it's NOT about teh drugz in the lyrics! Video very reminiscent of The Residents, bizarrely.
ReplyDeleteThe Christians lend their pipes to a rather basic cover of the old 70s soul tune, to accompany the animation equivalent of Band Aid, i.e. a too literal interpretation of the lyrics allied to anti-capitalist sentiment. Fine as far as it goes, but I wish the band's biggest hit had been one of their originals.
Enya, someone who has always struck me as having zero sense of humour, and her music is pretty humourless and po-faced too. Still, this has an appealing enough melody and pretentious orchestral production that made it stand out in 1988.
We see the Breakers again, we've seen Erasure before, so onto Kylie. I recently found out what a kylie is, what a curious name for a little girl. Anyway, she goes tres chic for this affected lapse into French, only in the title and nowhere else, bien sur, and another of her hits to stall just before the top. Nice enough.
Then two we've heard before to end on, not even a video for the Wee Papa Girl Rappers - was it my imagination or were there no acts in the studio with Steve and Caron? Is that why Steve did the chart rundown for a change?
I agree THX. Very sad to see the beautiful Caron in her pomp given her very premature death. I admit to being very biased, given that she was from Northern Ireland like me and went to the same school as my son, but I thought this was an extremely competent debut. I don't ever recall TOTP commencing with a video before this episode - very strange
DeleteStarting the show with a video was indeed quite strange, but I guess that the Beeb were afraid that viewers would switch off the show on their TVs had it been shown further up the show, because of its wailing rather than singing on Dmob, as well as the message of the song, so they probably thought that by having it on first, the viewers were less likely to switch off as they would want to see what else was coming up on the show.
DeleteFurthermore, when you consider such a terrible tune being able to get to No.3, and where pop music was heading, I could see why Peter Powell left the show a few weeks earlier in September, considering his debut in the late 70s when romantic singers like David Soul, and romantic dancers like Legs & Co were the darlings of the TOTP viewers, and when pop music was at a much slower pace than it had no got to now with the likes of DMob a decade or so later.
A somewhat notorious show thanks to that ubiquitous smiley face and a Blue Peter presenter saying "acieed!" I don't remember Caron doing TOTP at the time, but this was an impressive debut - like Andy Crane, it's obvious that she benefited from her prior TV experience. She worked surprisingly well with a relatively restrained Wrighty too - it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he had absolutely no idea what those smiley faces adorning his torso actually symbolised...
ReplyDeleteA weird start to the show, with two consecutive videos. The liberalisation of the Beeb must have begun in earnest by this point, as it's something of a miracle the first track of the night had escaped a ban - I believe it was banned soon after this show because of tabloid hysteria. It does make for quite an amusing listen, and those yellow masks in the video are highly memorable and vaguely unsettling, but this isn't something I would rush to play out of choice. An earnest charidee cover next from The Christians, with a video that feels more like a party political broadcast for the Labour Party. It's OK, but lacks the warmth and dynamism of the original, and it's weird that this was their biggest hit when something like Forgotten Town was so much better.
I was already familiar with Enya's music when Orinoco Flow came along, as the previous year Dad had bought her self-titled debut album, containing the soundtrack for the BBC series The Celts - indeed, it would be re-released as The Celts in the 90s. I still regard that album as Enya's finest work, but this song and the parent Watermark LP continued in a similar vein, albeit with a more commercial sheen. Although she is widely sneered at and dismissed by critics nowadays, back then her music did seem very fresh and different; she did end up repeating herself as time went on, and her sound ultimately became cliched, but to me the earlier work still stands up very well. I wouldn't say this song is one of my absolute favourites, not least as it has been overplayed, but it does make for an accessible introduction - an inventive and colourful video too, interspersed with a carnation-strewn studio performance, which given Enya's notorious shyness was probably a bit of a challenge for her to record.
The last new song of the night, breakers excluded, sees Kylie sing some French to doubtless make her seem more seductive. She looks quite chic in her short dress, and the fact she is back in the studio so soon suggests either that she had now left Neighbours or was on an extended break. This is quite a pretty little tune, slower than normal for a SAW production, but not one of her best. We have seen everything else before.
I think that Caron Keating's previous TV experience was presenting Blue Peter since 1986, so by now in 1988 she was a well enough known face on the BBC. Tend to agree with THX in describing her as cheery and lovely, and Steve Wright seemed to think so too, with an embrace just before the Top 40 countdown section of the show, and also at the end of the show. Brought him out of his shell I thought.
DeleteFunnily enough, I was thinking exactly the same when watching The Christians video, as a sort of present-day Labour manifesto, particularly seeing the cartoon images of the fat cats and rich people portrayed as bloated and being slaved to by ordinary people.
20-year old Kylie at No.11 in the charts in a beautiful minidress this week, did seem to be appearing more regularly in the TOTP studio since her Locomotion appearance, when you consider that her first couple of hits earlier in the year on the show were in video only.
A few interesting observations this week:
ReplyDeleteThe Jungle Brothers climbing up the charts at No.32 with a song called I'll House You. What exactly did they mean?
Chart rundown section part two had Steve Wright calling out the No.25 song as "Sexy Sabrina" in front of Caron Keating who I thought was more sexy, so how could he?
U2 fell this week from No.2 straight to No.17. Could this be the biggest from grace for a former No.1, and was it the biggest drop ever from a No.2 position? It certainly was a shock to see it fall that badly, considering it was a worthy No.1, but it could be that there were not enough records cut for stock in the shops, because singles in the charts were still only available in 7-inch vinyl in 1988, and if there was not enough stock in the record shops, people can't buy the record, so I would think this is the most likely reason for such an unusual tumble.
I remember some track deleted on release which entered at 2 and dropped the next week to 22. Similarly, "There Goes The Fear" by Doves was deleted on release and had a chart career of 3 - 34 - 70.
DeleteThe latest re-issue of “Three Lions” re-wrote the record books last year, dropping from number 1 to 97 the next week.
DeleteI also gave some examples in reply to your identical comment in the previous week's show Dory!
DeleteHaha U2 bettered this in November 1991 with the ghastly track 'The Fly' which somehow entered the chart at no1 (it was still quite unusual then, and let's face it, it's not quite in the Slade 'Merry Christmas Everybody' league is it?). Anyway after a single week at the top it flew away down the charts 2 - 5 - 27 - 52 - buzzed off. Bye Bye Bono indeed.
DeleteThat was supposed to be (not sure if it really was, there were rumours it was record company hype to ensure Bryan Adams lost top spot) a limited edition release though, which would explain why it dropped down pretty quickly.
DeleteAs I mentioned above, we have to take into consideration that there could have been an out-of-stock situation in the record shops for U2 records, that contributed to a such a sharp fall down the charts. I do remember that on some occasions in the 80s and early 90s when looking to buy a particular 7-inch single on vinyl, that you would sometimes see no stock in the shop against a particular chart position.
DeleteDMob - The beginning of the acid tracks, and one of thecleast tedious.
ReplyDeleteEnya wombling free - pleasant ditty - what was the significance of all the red flowers / poppies (bit early for remembrance day)?
Kylie - beginning to feel like ‘churning out’ now (and SAW button on ‘very slow’)...
Nodding Dog becomes Acieed Dog tonight, and a nice Blue Peter pun intro from a sadly missed daughter to someone I couldn’t stand (Gloria Hunniford) due to her ubiquitousnes on telly and radio at one time. I agree Caron seemed to calm Steve down, and it looked like he enjoyed her company.
ReplyDeleteThe answer to the potential question “When was the last time a video started the show?” was the 2nd June 1988 show, which was all videos due to the asbestos problem, though I do remember way back an edition starting with a very poor quality video for “Do Anything You Wanna Do” by T-Connection and we’ve had one much closer, maybe in the last year of the repeats. Apparently, those smiley faces were invented by New York road workers to denote whether gas and electricity cables and water pipes were near the vicinity of their intended digging.
Which charity did The Christians’ single help out, then? A very worthy and thus offputting video, but at least we didn’t get to see those miserable bastards in the band.
Mugshots shock – Steve Wright’s doing some of the numbers! A first?
First time on TOTP for Enya? Solo maybe, but was she part of “Harry’s Game” era Clannad? The piano flowers made me thirsty for a make of tinned milk. My wife’s from Bosnia, where carnatians are the flower of choice for funerals. Just thought I’d share that with you.
Why those annoying colured scrawls in the Deacon Blue video?
Milli Vanilli with a sky blue clad gal I’d have preferred to see on TOTP any time. Funny to see two supposedly cool dudes on a bus.
No, Acieed Dog, Erasure are NOT live! Sheesh!
Kylie, what’s French for duck? At least she was game to keep popping over to be in the studio. Apart from the horrible loud booming drums, this wasn’t as bad as I remembered.
No, Acieed Dog, the plastic soul wailer isn’t here!!! Sheesh part 2.
So now we see what the Wee Papa Girl Rappers have in common with Bananarama and Scott Fitzgerald – a studio turn outro repeat.
Enya was almost part of "Harry's Game" era Clannad, but not quite - she left shortly before they recorded it.
Deleteso was enya active in the seven years between leaving the family band and having this solo hit? also was there any explanation for her suddenly rising out of obscurity to the top of the charts?
Deletebtw i do remember carol decker implying that enya had ripped-off "china in your hand"... which is probably why i hated it so much!
She recorded soundtrack music for a film called The Frog Prince in 1985, before doing the soundtrack for The Celts TV series two years later, which became her first official album.
DeleteInteresting that, although there were six songs already in it, every song on the show made the top 10.
ReplyDeleteD Mob / Gary Haisman - Presumably they couldn't make into the studio rather than being banned or they wouldn't have shown it at all. Such a shame that Caron Keating became a scapegoat when all the nonsense kicked off (including from The S*n who in typical fashion had acid house T-shirts on sale before being outraged by the whole thing) as she seems to do quite well here, and I'd certainly rather have had her become a regular than Anthea bloody Turner.
ReplyDeleteThe Christians - Monumentally dull song with a monumentally 'right on' video certainly doesn't tick any of the boxes for me. Their least interesting single is also their biggest hit.
Enya - I remember this sounding amazingly different at the time so no surprise that it went to the top. I'm still quite fond of it now.
Kylie - I think this is one of her best SAW singles, and I really like the unusual intro.
Pot calling the kettle black me as I am really late this week! Can’t believe Caron Keating has been gone over 15 years….presumably no issue with repeats as with Smithy. She was really good I thought. Lovely presentation style.
ReplyDeleteMixed bag this week.
D Mob – We call it acid – truly dreadful rubbish that I skipped. What was that acid craze all about?
Christians – Harvest for the World – One of the ‘message’ videos but I found this incredibly boring.
Enya – Orinoco Flow – Well it’s hard not to conjure up the Wombles with this title. I like this song very much actually, something different for 1988. But I also rate ‘The Orinoco Kid’ with its growling bass line and ‘clip clop’ accompaniment as one of Mike Batt and co’s very finest. Cruelly relegated to the B Side of ‘Super Womble’.
http://www.45cat.com/record/scbs3480
Breakers – Deacon Blue – this was quite good, but I always think of Queen’s shy bass player. Milli Vanilli – no3? Really?
Erasure – A little Respect – Still sounds damn fine. Maybe they could have shown the video in full but who cares.
Kylie – Je ne sais pas pourquoi – Enchantant in that ra-ra skirt (I think that’s what you call it). I really don’t recall this song but it’s pleasant.
Whitney – One moment in time – Last week zzzzzzzz
Wee Papa Girl Rappers – Suitable placed for a swift exit. Gosh I loathe this.
Deacon Blue were named after a Steely Dan song a hundred times better than anything they ever came up with.
Delete"They got a name for the winners in the world, I want a name when I lose..."
"deacon blues" was on "aja", which was one of the few albums released that i could listen to all the way through without being tempted to skip a track. the same applied to the follow-up "gaucho", plus donald fagen's debut solo LP "the nightfly" (i think of them as "the holy trinity")
Deleteand yes i totally agree thx that deacon blue never came to close to steely dan in terms of musical excellence - despite setting the bar extremely high by lifting one of the dan's song titles for their name!
Pity that TOTP didn't show the Wee Papa Girls Rappers video as playout, as it is quite good, and reminds me of Chaka Demus and Pliers who came on to the scene a few years later with a similar type of video, no doubt from the Caribbean too. The prettier of the two Wee Papa Girl Rappers sings about her ballpoint pen, so I wonder if she was a student at the time? Anyway, the video is worth a look, even though we got none of it through this chart run:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNNnHWHPrCY
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is my drug of choice (caffeeeeeeeeeeeineeee...) and an iced topped mince pie for show 3...
ReplyDeleteWrighty in his Acid House t-shirt (surely he should have a cardigan by now). "Here's one I made earlier"very good Caron and welcome to the pops.
Love the D-Mob video. Big eyes, smiley faces, like I'm on some kind of trip.. 😀
It's a charidee video next. This used to seriously creep me out as a kid.
Always hated the song as well but it's OK I suppose if a little bland.
I've obviously missed the memo about this being a video show!! Think I need to go back and read the comments and find out what's going on.. 😀
Enya... On video... Oh and now in the studio but clearly a pre recorded bit.
I absolutely ADORE this song. So classy, great lyrics and music and builds to a fantastic climax.
One of my all time faves and going all the way. Got to be the full album version though.
Breakers :
14 year old me thought this was the best song of 88. End of. Deacon Blue with Real Gone Kid. Such an amazing song.
Miming Vanilli next. For all the scandal they made some decent records. I like this. Hey if it worked for Boney M.
Erasure "live on TOTP" hey Steve. A Little Repeat me thinks.
A pre recorded Kylie with one of her finest SAW tunes. I don't know why I like it but I do.. 😀
She's looking rather hot as well in that dress.. Bit a Kylie crush I had here.. The video to this is really good as well.
Whitney gets a second week at the top. Think I'll turn off now and watch Remembrance of The Daleks again for the 10th time this week....😀
Wee Rule... Ooh.. Not a video. But a repeat..
Right gonna read up thread and find out what's going on then I might go and vote in the general election...
Might just watch one more TOTP first.. 😀
Apparently this episode wasn't all pre-recorded acts at all, it was just really badly directed!
Delete