Head Girl
12/10/89 (Gary Davies)
Chris Rea – “The Road To Hell” (26)
Getting tonight's show off to a gravelly voiced start, this title track from his soon to be number one album became his only top ten hit single when it peaked at number 10.
Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like” (4) (video)
Will hop to number one next week.
Cliff Richard – “Lean On You” (28)
In the studio impressing the girls with his leanography, this new whispery song of his peaked at number 17.
Belinda Carlisle – “Leave A Light On” (14)
Also gracing the studio tonight and her latest power ballad went up ten more places.
Milli Vanilli – “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” (10) (video)
Peaked at number 2.
Sinitta – “Love On A Mountain Top” (23)
Leading a school trip into the studio and this energetic tune went up three more places.
Living In A Box – “Room In Your Heart” (18)
Time to get the lighters out! This weepy ballad became their third and final top ten hit when it peaked at number 5.
Black Box – “Ride On Time” (1) (rpt)
Sixth and final week at number one for the year's biggest selling single.
Fresh 4 featuring Lizz E – “Wishing On A Star” (22) (video/credits)
Their only hit and it peaked at number 10.
19th October is next.
Blinda Carlisle - not a fan of her videos, but this TOTP studio performance was very good, on account of the glamorous dresses by the girls on stage, and the superb effort they put in to look good, especially Belinda herself. Great stuff!
ReplyDeleteMilli Vanilli - if being at no.10 this week was some achievement, and soon to reach a peak of No.2 with this soft-centred ballad, you'll be pleased to know that they got No.1 in America for two weeks with this tune the previous month in September 1989, so we were already lagging behind in Britain by a few weeks.
Living In A Box - easily the best song on the show, and also by their own standards their best hit across their relatively short career in the 80s. There couldn't have been much more from them after this cracking number.
Fresh 4 featuring Lizzie E - one of those covers that you could just about excuse by means of the fact they they experimented with a house music background riff for us to see how it sounds. Apart from that, the original by Rose Royce in 1978 was in a class of its own, and not to be tampered with.
Gazza very capably guides us through a very eclectic show, which does seem to have pretty much something for everyone. First up, Chris Rea unveils a dark new look which I remember being surprised by at the time, so used was I to him being blond, though he has more or less looked like this ever since. The Road to Hell and its successor album, Auberge, probably mark his creative peak, and this title track from the former was of course inspired by a bad journey on the M25. This is just part 2, of course - while it is a nice, easy on the ear pop-rock tune, the more moody and bluesy part 1 is the superior part of the song.
ReplyDeleteOh no, the Bunny's back already! I don't remember this one as well as Swing the Mood, but it's basically more of the same both aurally and visually, except that the time period for the featured songs moves forward from the 50s to the early 60s, and we get a female bunny in the video as a bonus. Another relic from that bygone era next up, as Cliff whispers his way through a dull song while appearing to channel Marcel Marceau. For some reason the girls scream as if it is still 1959...
Belinda Carlisle's bouncy tunes have aged very well, and this is another winner. I think she is making her first UK studio performance here, but she should have resisted reaching for the curling tongs, as that look doesn't suit her. Milli Vanilli are all moody and sexy on video, but despite some nice production the song never catches fire. By this point people were starting to have their suspicions about who was really singing on the records, and the duo's downfall was approaching.
It's schoolgirl Sin this time, with another flimsy cover of an old Northern Soul hit, though she was going to the well once too often with this kind of thing and would never reach the Top 20 again afterwards. A somewhat curious performance from Living in a Box to follow, with Richard very reluctant to lift his eyes up either to the camera or the audience. Was this indicative of the tensions in the band that would lead them to split not long after? Whatever the reason, this is an accomplished ballad and probably their best single. Another cover to finish, a rather depressing house-influenced version of the Rose Royce classic with a lifeless vocal. It looks as if they filmed part of the video in someone's garden...
Hey this was the best edition for a long time! Only one FF (and you can guess what that was). Gary introduces a great line up with lots of quality.
ReplyDeleteChris Rea – The Road to Hell Part 2 – Haven’t heard part 1, but this is a superb bit of driving music, written I think about the M25 which had just been completed by this stage. Ah well, soon be time to go driving home for Christmas!
Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers – That’s what I like – C’mon Bunny…get moving to the top spot and knock off that screaming racket!! Love the way this is such a facsimile of the first record but is still so flippin’ good!
Cliff Richard – Lean on you – Written, produced and arranged by the prolific Alan Tarney, this is a lesser known Cliff hit which seems to go down well with the crowd.
Belinda Carlisle – Leave a light on – Classy lady in her long dress and high heels and her backing singers have dressed for the occasion too. A great first single from a great album (Runaway Horses). I looked up the de luxe edition recently and it’s selling for silly money, so I declined. This performance just cuts before someone gets to mime George’s guitar solo.
Milli Vanilli – Girl I’m gonna miss you – A US chart topper and what a great sound this is. Nice video too.
Sinitta – Love on a Mountain Top – Ah, the old Robert Knight hit which I remember most for the lovely Pans People Routine in late 1973. It’s on YT but beware the host who does an overlong intro to it. Sinitta doesn’t make a bad job of it despite her strange outfit.
Living in a Box – Room in your Heart – Wonderful! Love this record. The best LiaB song for me. Just gets in your head and builds to a climax.
Black Box – Ride on time – For the last week, hooray!!!
Fresh 4 featuring Lizzie – Wishing on a Star – Nice cover of the old Rose Royce hit with some skateboarding enthusiasts on show in the video.
Well worth listening to Road to Hell part 1 sct - it's a very moody and atmospheric piece of music.
DeleteThe curse of the upcoming episode highlights from the 12th of October 1989 show as follows:
ReplyDeleteChris Rea - Inspiring guitar-feel song, there was a long version of this in the album edit, gracefully when radio stations played the single edit version - in the video, Chris Rea is driving along in his car through a motorway, all the cars grid to a stand still, well Part 1 has a instrumental piece and Part 2 has the vocal piece compared to Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall' ten years previous.
Jive Bunny - Not this again... This would be the eighth time, that the cartoon bunny made its appearance with a different song, was on its way to the number one spot, we got the sound of the Hawaii Five-O theme tune this time around with the 'C'mon everybody, everybody' which will settle around for four more showings and possibly a fifth showing as a snippet for the Christmas special, the video shows more old 50s footage compared to 'Swing the Mood'.
Cliff Richard - Nah never heard this song, i'll will watch it later tonight to see what I think of this, possibly it's a follow-up to 'I Just Don't Have the Heart' and 'The Best Of Me', this is his 102th single.
Belinda Carlisle - One of Belinda's best songs and she makes it to the main TOTP studio stage for the first time in the U.K. despite she performed 'Heaven is a Place on Earth' on the American version of the show and despite we only had her in video form for the rest of the year in 1988, but she came back with the 'Runaway Horses' era for 1989, as it was the first of the tracks from that album.
Milli Vanilli - This time the video has Rob Pilatus on a yacht boat (to be miming), only to that his fake girlfriend doesn't want him and the only reality it's in a music video, despite this track got to the U.S. charts before entering in the U.K. charts over six weeks, despite the song was mimed at the MTV Music Video Awards.
Sinitta - Another cover this time round of a Robert Knight classic, re-done SAW style.
Living in a Box - The band now try a ballad, only to become one of their last top ten hits, when the 90s approached they continued their support on doing original songs and cover versions.
Black Box - The last final week of this number one and the next time you'll see this probably at Christmas, as it was now the biggest-selling single of the year.
The Fresh Four - Play-out is yet good, a re-make of the 1978 Rose Royce classic is perfect, well Lizz E tries to do not better than Gwen Dickey, but far even worse...
Chris Rea, the (Part 2) bit always seemed a bit pretentious, even though it really was part 2 of the whole album track. He'd obviously cheered up about those traffic jams by Christmas. Doomladen, miseryguts rock lite, not bad by his standards.
ReplyDelete...But nowhere near as bleak as the latest Jive Bunny shite. They were so hamfisted on the mixing that they should have been called Jive Walrus or Jive Rhino.
Cliff is back, still doing that weird, clipped singing that marked his later releases, and taking the lyrics literally in his performance, though he should have had a dancer or someone to lean on, ideally. Bit of a nothing.
Belinda Carlisle with her best single, by my reckoning. Despite the tonsorial disaster on display, it doesn't detract from a fantastic, wistful but hopeful pop song, one of the best of the year - should have been at the top.
This Milli Vanilli record takes bloody ages to get anywhere, and their gazing glumly into the camera lens during the video doesn't make it speed by either. A real plodder, and in light of the way they ended up, even more depressing.
Sinitta once again is given a Northern Soul cover to murder, and one which sounds like it's been mixed in with Numero Uno by Starlight, oddly. The sexy schoolgirl look is joined by a sexy schoolboy look, and frankly I would rather not have sexy either, thanks but no thanks.
MOR flair from Living in a Box, one of their better efforts thanks to a nice little chorus that builds to a gospel-flavoured crescendo. Richard does look weirdly shy, even reluctant. If you had seen him backstage you'd be asking if everything was all right.
Black Box's reign of terror finally draws to a close. Then to end on a creepy, eerie version of the old Rose Royce classic, not really suited to the sight of blokes on skateboards. I have no memory of this in the charts, never mind at number 10.
Chris Rea - plods along pleasantly enough - poor man’s dire Straits
ReplyDeleteJive Bunny - on its way to number one, usually heard at wedding evenings whilst you raid the buffet...
Cliff - looked like he was trying to mime the song. Still didn’t keep me off the FF
Belinda - very easy on the eye and a fine tune. Guitarist was trying a bit too hard.
Sinitta - I like Sinitta, but this doesn’t touch the original.
Living in s box - a full outing this week, but still didn’t imptess
Fresh 4 - another cover. This time with the scant tune of the original almost entirely removed.
A 9 out of 10 from reliable Gaz there.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t realise this was Part 2 of Chris Rea’s motorway rant. Strange screen shrink on the iPlayer for this song. I agree, similar to Dire Straits but this was way more palatable for me.
Gaz gets the intro wrong (hence the point lost) but the outro right for the next piece of shit.
Oh dear. Cliff’s 102nd hit and the song and performance scored 102 out of 1,000 for me.
An opt-in for Belinda’s fine tune though, as mentioned before, Stars In Their Eyes George gets his moment chopped. Had Belinda put a few (and I mean only a few) pounds on? Still looks lovely, and I can talk.
Mid-mugshots: a great recovery by Gaz from numbers 22 to 21.
We see Milli Vanilli’s vid in longer form for the first time here and, if we’re lucky, for the second time next week for the first time, if we get the correct version of the show. I’ll explain. Thanks to TV Cream, I didn’t realise till this week that the second video showing at the end of another TOTP was cut due to a news report that Nigel Lawson (one of at least two Chancellors who fucked our economy – yes, I’m looking at you, Gordon Brown) had resigned.
Schoolgirl Sinitta with an almost punk tempo abomination of Robert Knight’s hit. Love on a mountain top? Wear thermals and be quick on the job for goodness’ sake!
Main Living In A Box bloke looking intently at his chords, while miming. Go figure. Appreciate the audience, man! Oh, the tune? Fine ballad.
I thought Gaz said Richard Marx was in Living In A Box. No, it was Richard and Marcus!
A top number 1 stat from Gaz after Katrin’s nicest outfit. Eat that, Felly!
For the outro, Mr. Mister meets Rose Royce meets a doomladen vocal. Horrible.
Chris's "widescreen" effect was on the BBC4 broadcast last night, so I think it was part of the original showing.
Deletethose who remember belinda carlisle's band the go-gos from the early 80's will also probably recall that she was somewhat on the chubby side back then. so perhaps no surprise that she was struggling to maintain her solo svelteness? particularly if she had stopped using cocaine as an alternative to food!
DeleteArthur - my principal memory of Nigel Lawson's resignation isn't TOTP getting cut, but my intense annoyance that Blackadder Goes Forth started late that night because the Nine O'Clock News was extended!
DeleteWhat a pity it wasn't "Not The Nine O'CLock News" which got delayed!
DeleteWhy is there a fountain on top of a mountain? Impractical to set up, I would have thought.
ReplyDeletewell, what else can one rhyme with "mountain"? plantain perhaps, although i believe that is pronounced with the emphasis on the last syllable as opposed to the first...
Delete... which reminds me of this amusing album cover pic featuring the recently-deceased millie:
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/Millie-Time-Will-Tell/release/1681521
Almost as illogical as that Donovan lyric - "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is". High quality sherbet taken there, I reckon!
DeleteDonovan would have had his head deep into Eastern mysticism, to be and not be, all that. Robert Knight was just desperate for a rhyme. Surprised he didn't start countin' while drinking from his mountain fountain.
DeleteJust seen this edition, and watching Belinda Carlisle, the bass player looked a lot like Paul Raven, who took over from Youth in Killing Jokel later played with Ministry. Trivia note - I saw him in Neon Hearts in 1978 or 1979
ReplyDeleteOooh Gary up this week with another professional performance.
ReplyDeleteThe first CR of the night is Chris Rea who has come as Ming The Merciless. What happened to Part One of “The Road To Hell”. One of those songs where the instrumental part is more important than the vocal. It's a decent tune and I've always liked this.
Jive Bunny is back and he's NAKED!
“That’s What I Like” is by far the best of the 3 Number Ones and hopefully we will get more of this next week.
CR mark 2 is Cliff Richard with an appalling dance to “Lean On You”. We get it Cliff - "LEAN!"
How much was the audience paid to scream to this old fart? Single 102...Are we counting constantly now.... Is this a SAW tune? Despite all of the above it's not a bad tune at all.
Belinda Carlisle makes it to the UK. As I said last week I adore “Leave A Light On”. Interesting performance with 2 heavy metal guitarists and what looks like Sara Cox on backing vocals.
Milli Vanilli deserve their Grammy just for miming with a lisp! Really don't get how “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” became such a big hit, it really is poor.
Sinitta with Numero Uno...oh no, hang on it's morphed into “Love On A Mountain Top”. Bouncy pop music and she's done worse...not much worse....at least it's fun!
Oi Richard, over here....coo-ee...LOOK UP! He's clearly spent to much time Living In A Box to engage with the public. “Room In Your Heart” is a grower even despite this underwhelming performance.
Black Box – Still loving it!
Who ? Fresh 4 featuring Lizz E (again Who?). Does this count as garage? Maybe Garbage! “Wishing On A Star” for this to end...
Their only hit and it peaked at number 10.
Cliff reminded me of that Tim Vine joke: he goes to the butcher's and asks for some bacon. The butcher says, "Lean back?" so Tim stands at an angle at asks for some bacon.
DeleteThis won't take long, as it was one of the worst shows of 89...
ReplyDeleteChris Rea - He released so many better singles that either got nowhere or just to the lower reaches of the Top 40 yet it's this plodder that makes the Top 10. No accounting for record buyers taste.
Jive Bunny - I suppose objectively, this is done a little bit better than the first one, but it's still a Jive Bunny record.
Cliff Richard - Very dull indeed.
Belinda Carlisle - This is nothing to write home about either, with her sheep vocals very much to the fore sadly.
Milli Vanilli - I bought the album (yes, I know...) and while the upbeat songs are really good, regardless of who's really singing them, the ballads are cheesy beyond belief, so I hate this.
Sinitta - Another utterly awful cover from her.
Living In A Box - Thank goodness for something decent! I love the vocal on this, it raises what could've been an average ballad to something special.
Fresh 4 - I love this too! A very young Tricky is in there somewhere, and this lot were part of the lineage that led to Massive Attack, one of my favourite acts. At least they've done something different with this cover, even if you don't like what they've done!
Jive Bunny on paper actually did better with their first single, having 5 weeks at No.1, with the second single only 3 weeks at No.1. Having said that, the 5 weeks at No.1 for Swing The Mood was in the month of August which traditionally is a slow month for record sales in those days, and with people away on summer holidays and so forth, the charts really only get going at full throttle when the schools are back in September and the holidays are over.
DeleteHowever, I agree with you that That's What I Like was the better of the two singles, albeit only 3 weeks at No.1, but in October, a more vibrant month for record sales, and which probably sold more records than Swing The Mood, and of course the superb Hawaii-5-0 intro and finale, which for me made it the best of all their singles that charted in the 1989-1990 period.