Hats the way I like it
12/01/89 (Simon Mayo & Sybil Ruscoe)
The Darling Buds – “Hit The Ground” (33)
Transvision Lite get us underway with what became their biggest hit when it peaked at number 27.
Will To Power – “Baby I Love Your Way-Freebird” (10) (video)
Their only top ten hit and it peaked at number 6.
Milli Vanilli – “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” (32)
In the studio with a song that peaked at number 16.
Duran Duran – “All She Wants Is” (9) (video)
This saucy song had already reached a premature climax of number 9.
Boy Meets Girl – “Waiting For A Star To Fall” (12)
In the studio to perform their only hit and it peaked at number 9.
Marc Almond & Gene Pitney – “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart” (19) (breaker)
On its way to number one.
Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock – “Get On The Dance Floor” (30) (breaker)
Peaked at number 14.
Mike & The Mechanics – “The Living Years” (17) (breaker)
Became their biggest hit when it peaked at number 2.
Roachford – “Cuddly Toy” (31) (breaker)
His only top ten hit and it peaked at number 4.
Fine Young Cannibals – “She Drives Me Crazy” (8) (breaker)
Became their biggest hit when it peaked at number 5.
Roy Orbison – “You Got It” (24) (breaker)
He'd died just a month earlier and this song became his first top ten hit since 1966 when it peaked at number 3.
Freiheit – “Keeping The Dream Alive” (14)
It was good to see this pretty tune performed in the studio but it was the band's only hit and it got no higher.
Cookie Crew – “Born This Way (Let’s Dance)” (29)
In the studio doing live vocals and the record peaked at number 23.
Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan – “Especially For You” (1) (video)
Second of three weeks at number one.
Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine – “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” (16) (video/credits)
At its peak.
19th January is next.
Paul Ciani continues to tinker with the show, as this is the week which sees the start of the policy of brutally cutting records off in their prime and editing bits out in order to cram as many as possible into the programme. While I am all for including more songs, it would have been much better if they could have extended the length of the show rather than hacking everything to pieces; I remember not liking this new approach at the time, and it is part of the reason why I stopped watching TOTP by the end of the year. Anyway, Mayo and Sybil are our hosts this time, dragging along their Radio 1 breakfast sidekick Rod McKenzie, who I see is a bigwig at the Road Haulage Association these days. Mayo was his normal professional self, and Sybil was a lot calmer this time, though she still feels out of place.
ReplyDeleteThe Darling Buds start us off, clearly following in the footsteps of Blondie and The Primitives, as well as the Vamp. They certainly have a good-looking singer, and the song’s not bad, but they are not doing anything here we haven’t seen or heard before. A savagely short clip of the snoozesome Will to Power video next, accompanying an inexplicable easy listening melding of Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd – I’m not sorry we didn’t hear more of this! Back in the studio, Milli Vanilli treat us to the sight of what would soon be termed a “lunchbox” thanks to those skintight leggings, ensuring that all memory of an average slice of dance-pop soon fades…
God knows how this very poor, repetitive Duran Duran song got into the Top 10, as it is the worst thing we have heard from them in the whole of their hit-making career up to this point. The video looks quite innovative, but it seems as if poor old Warren Cuccurullo still wasn’t being treated like a full member of the band at this point, given his absence from it. We get even less of this than Will to Power, and we have probably had longer clips from breakers in the past. I hadn’t realised until tonight that Boy Meets Girl wrote both How Will I Know and I Wanna Dance With Somebody for Whitney, so that’s a new piece of pop trivia for me to bore people with! Their one hit of any significance in their own right has held up well, a sparkling pop ballad which never gets too sickly. The duo also have good on-stage chemistry, which is not surprising given they were actually married at the time.
We get a bumper crop of breakers, all to appear again, before moving on to the band whose full name is Munchener Freiheit. They are not the most telegenic bunch, but this stirring Fabs-indebted anthem is very powerful, and in retrospect it almost seems to prefigure the fall of the Berlin Wall later that year, not that anyone had any idea in January 1989 that that historic moment was just around the corner. Cookie Crew provide a big contrast, and not in a good way thanks to their shouty in-yer-face rapping. On the plus side they have a lot of energy, and I liked the musically-themed dresses. Glo closes the show with what sounds like a live version of this effective slice of MSM’s trademark catchy Latino pop, with a standard-issue concert video to go with it.
All the way from Wales to kick us off, Andrea and The Darling Buds before that TV series had been thought of. Pop Said (as seen on her shades) was the name of their album, and I bought it, a perfectly decent, jangly little indiepop effort, part of the short-lived "Blonde" movement. The Shop Assistants were never on TOTP, were they? So ver Buds had that in their arsenal.
ReplyDeleteA brief burst of the extremely odd-looking Will to Power, equally oddly mashing up Peter Frampton and Lynrd Skynrd for a middle of the road, electric piano-drenched meander through them both. I mean, if you really have to do this, then it's fine, I guess. But don't do it again.
The morning after this someone phoned into the Radio 1 Breakfast show to congratulate "Willy Vanilli". Ahem, you didn't know where to look, did you? As for the song, in one ear and out the other hip hop lite with a Europop flavour.
This Duran Duran video must have taken ages to make, or a lot longer than writing and recording the song did. Not so much a chorus as a placeholder for a better idea that never arrived. But congrats for hanging on in there, even one more man down.
Boy Meets Girl, by all rights I should hate this with its precision tooled FM radio friendly production, but I really like it, its a lovely little tune sung in slightly too high voices with a pleasing, wistful quality. Also sampled by Mylo for In Your Arms, his mighty Kim Carnes remix from two decades after.
Fifteen hundred Breakers later, we return to the action, and find Freiheit with a song that always reminds me of having one of the worst colds I ever suffered. It always seemed to be on the radio as I lay there in misery in my bed. Anyway, it's all very European Union, inspirational "we're all in this together" business, fine as far as that went. Rather this than The Scorpions.
Cookie Crew, like Tom Browne they're funking for Jamaica! They were a bit one note, but kudos for their energy and flow, in full effect for an impressive live vocal that kind of drowns out the backing track. Got the dance moves, too!
We're offered the video for Kylie and Jason, topical as there may not be anything of Australia left by the end of 2020, so this keeps the place in our thoughts.
This Glo tune always reminds me of The Brit Awards '89, where Mick Fleetwood intoned funereally "Tonight, we guarantee the rhythm is going to get you!" (or something like that). But it's one of her jauntier numbers, so fine by me.
Lastly for now, big up to Rod McKenzie! They should have had him present solo! "Inside her body!"
Although this was the first time we saw South London's The Cookie Crew in the TOTP studio for their own hit, they had previously charted the year before on "The Beatmasters featuring The Cookie Crew" with Rock Rock Rock Rock Da House, which was on the Breakers on a 1988 TOTP show, as well as the video being on playout during the same chart run.
DeleteWill To Power - named after a phrase coined by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche - was essentially a studio project led by Miami-based producer Bob Rosenberg, though singer Elin Michaels also appeared in the accompanying video. The contemporary blend of two treasured rock ballads from the previous decade deservedly brought WTP a worldwide smash; further major hits would follow on the US Dance Play chart, but not on any country's mainstream pop listing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with John G that 'All She Wants Is' was not one of Duran's strongest efforts, but they were not through yet; 'Ordinary World' would follow within a few years.
FOUR facts about Freiheit:
1. Their name means 'freedom'.
2. They took their name from a tube station in Munich.
3. They were at No.14 that week.
4. They were ELO copyists, as were 'I Don't Mind At All' hitmakers Bourgeois Tagg.
Sounding more authentically like ELO was, unsurprisingly, the late and great Big O - who sadly never lived to see 'You Got It' become a Top 10 hit all over the globe. ELO leader Jeff Lynne produced and co-wrote the hit with another of Roy's fellow Traveling Wilburys, the equally missed Tom Petty, and would reap further commercial rewards from the song in '95 when Bryan Adams' chum Bpnnie Raitt covered it on the soundtrack of the film 'Boys On The Side'.
Freiheit may have been copying ELO, but as Jeff Lynne's principal influence was Lennon & McCartney all roads still lead back to a certain Liverpudlian beat combo!
DeleteI'm just pleased that 'Jeff Lynne's ELO' which performs present-day in 2020 have continued with some new music and new albums, albeit with none of the original band members apart from Lynne himself. He did have Richard Tandy when they resurfaced in 2014, but he has now also retired it seems.
DeleteWill to Power’s cover of I’m Not In Love reached no.29 in early 1991.
DeleteTrue - but that can hardly be described as a MAJOR hit.
DeleteGary Davies' Sounds of the 80s has been great tonight!
ReplyDeleteNot 80s, but Chris Packham did a very fine punk rock documentary on BBC4 last night (he was in a band called The Titanic Survivors - !). Featuring old punks like Jordan, Pauline Murray and Jimmy Pursey (really!).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete*** Deleted the above as I missed a couple of acts **
ReplyDeleteSome real quality on this edition and there was me saying 1989 was time to bail out! Didn’t like the hosts much and their over exuberant championing of the worst record on this show got on my nerves somewhat. But what a line up!
Darling Buds – Hit the ground – Gets the show ‘running’ off to a good start although I wouldn’t say that this was perfick.
Will to Power – Baby I love your way / Free Bird – Wow! Take two songs and bolt them together and a great combination. A bit like Carly Simon with ‘Itsy bitsy Spider / Coming around again’. Face it, nothing will top the original version of ‘Free Bird’ which was in the top 10 of practically every listeners chart I heard in the 70s, but the blending with one of Frampers ‘Comes alive’ tracks is a mouth-watering combination. So we got just a snatch on this show but a look on YT shows that later in the video the lead female singer managed to squeeze into one the tightest pairs of trousers since Sandy in ‘Grease’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79r_XaUU7yE
Milli Vanilli – Baby don’t forget my number – What was it?
Duran Duran – All that she wants is – One of the worst singles they ever released.
Boy meets Girl – Waiting for a Star to fall - My this is good! Rereleased in 1991 when it featured in the wonderful ‘feelgood’ movie ‘Three Men and a little Lady’. Gosh I loved those films.
Breakers – Five out of six are top drawer (one is even top of the top drawers!). I think we’ll see all again, so I’ll refrain from comment, only to note that Roachford following M&tM was quite ironic!
Freiheit – Keeping the Dream alive – Something special here. Great song and performance.
Cookie Crew – Born this way – By far and away the low point of the show.
Kylie and Jason – Especially for you – Quite outstanding. Just love this video and song.
Gloria Estefan – Rhythm is gonna get you – Was this live or an ‘in concert’ video such as ‘We are the Champions’? I suspect the latter. Speaking of Queen, just realised that 1989 saw the long awaited release of ‘The Miracle’, so yes, more reasons to hang in. Of course, at the time we knew nothing of the reasons for the lack of tour to promote it, but thank goodness that the band had another couple of years to lay down more timeless music.
I'm proud to have the full 4:11 Will To Power video in my iTunes library, and the best £1.89 I have recently spent on the iTunes Store, so it will be a feature of my viewing on the iPad for years to come, especially the gorgeous lead female singer in those white trousers.
DeletePity that TOTP only showed 1:20 of the video, but hey, the likes of UTube and iTunes came to the rescue years later for admirers of great music like ourselves.
I just love the piano intro on this song.....just fantastic!
As soon as I saw that video, I thought 'Dory will be very excited about this!'
Delete£1.89 for that though? Think they saw you coming....
Ooh Baby I Love Your Way (everyday), wanna tell you I love your way (everyday), wanna be with you night and day, heyey, I love your way.....
DeleteI just love the way the show ends with the male presenter saying "who needs Kylie & Jason when you have Jason & Sybill", which then made Sybill Ruscoe really happy it seems. Nice piece of TOTP history/nostalgia there!
ReplyDeleteSo how mang songs can we squeeze into 29 minutes?
ReplyDeleteNo - not enough, cram in 2 more!
Well 89 TOTP moves fast doesn't it - I don't recall it being this manic at the time but obviously this was aimed at my teenage attention span.
Boy Mayo brings his brekkie crew with him, Sybil really not great at this presenting lark and Rod's inclusion a bit pointless.
As for the music:
New tunes for 89 arrive in the form of The Darling Buds. Very early Indie sound that doesn't seem to trouble the radio at all these days. They didn't really “Hit The Ground” running and not surprised they weren't more popular. Not sure about the Vamp comparisons other than having a female lead.
A snippet of a very cheesy Will To Power video. Shame as the song is lovely. A nice mash up of Baby I Love Your Way and Freebird
Milli Vanilli back again. “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” takes a while to get going and the chorus is fine but the rest is a bit poor. Not one of their better numbers.
Duran Duran – “All She Wants Is”
A bit more of the video this week which is difficult to watch with all the effects. I still like this song but I think I'm in a minority here.
Boy Meets Girl up next in the studio with a whole verse missing from “Waiting For A Star To Fall”.
Quality song and one of the best of 89.
Breakers: How many????
Marc Almond & Gene Pitney – Future number one and a contender for the best number one of the year.
Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock – Average dance record, not aged well.
Mike & The Mechanics – “The Living Years” is a powerful, emotional song that always brings a tear to my eye - easily vying for my Top Ten of the year.
Roachford – The superb “Cuddly Toy” another early 89 quality hit. Their were some great tunes in January 89 and hopefully we will get to see this one again.
Fine Young Cannibals – And yet another great record. Roland's voice really suits this song. “She Drives Me Crazy” really great pop music.
Roy Orbison – One of my all time favourite singers. Such a great voice. This is a decent, if now overplayed tune, but it doesn't outstay it's welcome.
Nice to see Freiheit in the studio and surprised (but delighted) “Keeping The Dream Alive” went back up the chart, if only for a week. Should have been top ten.
Live vocals cannot save the awful racket that is the Cookie Crew. Absolute garbage.
Couple of videos to finish up from Kylie & Jason and Gloria.
I'm exhausted!!!
Yes, Andrea Lewis of The Darling Buds was a lot less pretentious than Wendy James, but it seemed every indie band with a Debbie Harry influence was grouped together back then.
DeleteThe band had the bad luck of calling their final album Erotica shortly before Madonna released her album of the same name. People were more interested in Madge being erotic, it seemed.
I sense a game here - how many albums by different artists can you think of that share a title? The one that leaps to mind for me is Tapestry, which was the name given by Don McLean to his first album before the much more famous Carole King record came out a year or so later. There's also Judy Collins and Tom Petty, who both called one of their LPs "Wildflowers."
DeleteApart from the obvious "Greatest Hits" or "Live" monikers, I'll go with "What's Wrong With This Picture?", an album title used by both Van Morrison and Andrew Gold.
Deletethe first four peter gabriel albums were all somewhat confusingly called "peter gabriel". but i recently discovered that a brazilian group called MPB4 did exactly the same over a decade earlier!
DeleteRick Wakeman and Anthony Phillips both released an album called '1984'. Continuing the Genesis theme, Peter Gabriel once again scored in the duplication stakes by releasing an album called 'Up' as did Shania Twain; although Shania included one of those irritating and unnecessary '!' in her title...just like 'Man! I feel like a Woman!'.
DeleteSir, Sir, I know this one! Right Said Fred released an album called "Up" without an apostrophe.
DeleteBlimey yeah! Topped the lot Arthur! reached no1 no less, and on the chart for 49 weeks. Never saw RSF as an albums band myself, but there's no disputing the facts.
Deletethe eurythmics also released an album called "1984" although for some reason it had "for the love of big brother" in brackets afterwards
Deleteearth, wind & fire also released an album with an exclamation marked title ("raise!", which featured the magnificent "let's groove")
DeleteJoe Jackson and Roxette both had albums called "Look Sharp!", complete in each case with the exclamation mark. You can add Van Halen to the list of acts with an LP called 1984, and Art Garfunkel released an album called Watermark 11 years before Enya.
DeleteDon't forget Elvis....Costello and the Attractions with the two exclamation marked 'Get Happy!!'.
Deletehuey lewis & the news: "fore!"
DeleteThere's also Erasure's 'Wild!'
DeleteHi xrayfour! I'm on to ask if you've got any parts of the following shows that Popscene says are wiped but the performances still exist. I've already asked Anonymous quite a while ago and he hasn't got any of them. I don't expect you have many of them either but I thought I'd ask you. They are 25/12/69, 20/09/74, 27/09/74, 5/12/74 and 30/01/75. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteSorry brie, haven't forgotten you. Will be back with whatever I have in a day or two.
DeleteThanks mate, I'll look forward to it!
Deletehi guys Xrayfour when you are looking here can you see if you also have 21.11.74 as most of this also exists Thanks Meer
DeleteHere's my reconstruction copies of the first three brie. I've had to duplicate or replace a handful of clips that I cannot locate. There's also one TopPop clip for completion. I'm still working on the others. GJB's recent chart rundown clips of 27/09/74, 21/11/74, 30/01/75 & 03/04/75 indicate that all 4 shows may now be complete & in great quality. I've not got the following clips that are in blue on Popscene if anyone has them: 21/11/74 (Alvin & Hot Chocolate), 05/12/74 (Alvin), 30/01/75 (Alvin-Have 24 seconds!), Mac & Katie Kissoon-Have 38 seconds!) & Cockney Rebel). I can use the Queen clip from the documentary. Big thanks to Shearer118 for his help with the clips. I will continue to work on the others & post them here but it's gonna take a few days. Any missing clips or even shows would be greatly appreciated!
Deletehttps://we.tl/t-a80gVWLWIt
Brilliant work xrayfour! Thanks for your efforts in compiling these. I'll look forward to anything you can get from the rest of the missing shows!
DeleteHere's 05/12/74.Rest to follow hopefully at the weekend. Thanks again to Shearer118:
Deletehttps://we.tl/t-EpD3vWwv7d
Brilliant mate! Thanks.
Deletethanks for those xrayfour I had a look in my orphans file but I don't have any of the ones you where looking for ,sorry Meer
DeleteXrayfour, it is a MK4 file that I cannot open. Traditionally we get these shows as MP4 files from Anonymous, so any chance you could convert this to MP4?
DeleteHere's an MP4 Dory. Converting to MP4 sometimes knocks the audio out of sync. I've had a look & there's a small dip in quality also but it's not too bad. Can you download VLC Player? It will play just about any type of file for you.
Deletehttps://we.tl/t-cqtEbyJRW0
Thanks, will try that!
DeleteThis episode is really quite good, apart from omitting the presenter Tony Blackburn between the songs. However I like the Rubettes at No.3, where the group got onto the audience area off the stage and danced with the girls. Also interesting that there was no footage of Barry White at No.1, so Pan's People got the No.1 slot to dance to it.
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DeleteReady for the roller coaster? Here we go!
ReplyDeleteThe Darling Buds (the not so lush Primitives) are one of a number of also-ran 80’s indie groups who’ve recently come out of retirement to do some shows.
I don’t agree with Simon’s assessment of Will To Power, the bloke’s voice definitely doesn’t match his persona, and Sybil’s outro doesn’t match the full song title.
For a change, Maureen’s name gets shown but not mentioned in the mugshots this week.
Milli Vanilli definitely miming to what sounded like “Girl You Know It’s True” part 2 at the start.
All I want is the FF button for Duran Duran.
Sybil goes AOT in the intro to Boy Meets Girl’s criminally guillotined cracker. George breaks the record for most pre-song audience bows, and nice blouse and tights match there by Shannon.
Marc and Gene. Little did we know at the start how this would turn out.
Great, a rip-off of a Wacko tune next. Just what the world needs.
Oh God, quite possibly the most depressing song ever next. This makes Leonard Cohen sound like “Agadoo”.
Roachford with a chart hit. Didn’t he do well? Good game good game! The follow-up “Give Us A Twirl” wasn’t as successful, though.
Great acting in the FYC video. Oscar material.
A bit of class next from The Big O, followed by another ELO sounding song, but I wasn’t a fan of Freiheit’s effort.
Good dancing early doors from The Cookie Crew and then... ah. FF.
There’s Rod! He’d disappeared for the last 12 songs.
Somehow I felt compelled to watch that last video. What was Gloria’s track called again?
And... relax!
Has anyone noticed the new 'Now 70s' TV channel on Sky 373? Full of 70s rare videos that I never knew existed, like this one from Dawn in 1971. Absolutely love this one which has somehow survived:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT5ms2Nvpco
Suffice to say that this channel is somewhat addictive unsurprisingly.
Miles better than the previous show (mind you that was a very low bar)
ReplyDeleteDarling buds hit the ground running... the rest of the world catch up 5 singles in...
Not usually my cup of tea, but the Will To Power track is a great cover of the Frampton track, shame they faded it as it segued into freebird...
Milli vanilli - were they singing live, or was it just originally rubbish
I must be in a mellow mood, because I also quite liked the Boy Meets Girl track.
lot of Breakers - good, bad, good, bad, good, good...
Another slowie but goody with Freiheit (more ELO than Beatles
Cookie Crew - Rap lite
Surprised that they never mentioned it was on FM radio at the same time...
I am so far behind due to personal reasons that I'm here a full 10 days after the previous comment!
ReplyDeleteThe Darling Buds - Nice enough pop without doing anything amazing.
Will to Power - So inconsequential it's barely there, and it's amazing to think that Big Mountain managed to cover 'Baby I Love Your Way' in an even more terrible style later on.
Milli Vanilli - I've said before I think how much I genuinely liked them, and bought the album. So therefore I really like this. Apparently they 'forgot their underwear'. Hmmmm....
Duran Duran - Dreadful song, for once I don't mind the massive edit here.
Boy Meets Girl - I've always liked this, even if it is no way cool to admit it. Just a damn fine tune, and good on them for keeping it to themselves (though I think Whitney turned it down first?)
Freiheit - A simply wonderful song, and when they released the album this comes from (their only English language album) in deluxe form last year I snapped it up. 2nd single 'Kissed You In The Rain' I thought was even better, but sadly it got no support and wasn't helped by Sarah Greene on Going Live baffingly claiming that people could copy the band playing instruments in the rain and get electrocuted. Cow. It's not like it's the only video where that happened!!
The Cookie Crew - Kudos for doing it live, and doing it vey well too. But the follow-up is a better song.
Gloria Estefan - Standard fare from her, with a pointlessly live video.