It's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky, it's no secret that this is the 31st of October 1991 edition of Top of the Pops!
Head of music
31-10-91: Presenters: Tony Dortie & Mark Franklin
(24) SL2 – D.J.’s Take Control
Getting this Halloween edition underway with their first of four top 40 hits and it peaked at number 11.
(17) DON McLEAN – American Pie
Performing live in the studio and this re-release peaked at number 12.
(26) CONGRESS feat. LUCINDA SIEGER – 40 Miles
Here tonight with their only hit and it got no higher.
(37) ZOË – Lightning
In the studio with her second and final top 40 hit but it got no higher.
(40) CONTROL – Dance With Me (video) (Breakers)
Their only hit and it peaked at number 17.
(28) INXS – Shining Star (video) (Breakers)
Went up one more place.
(10) MOBY – Go
Doing his own dance routine but the tune was now at its peak in the charts.
(19) KYLIE MINOGUE & KEITH WASHINGTON – If You Were With Me Now (video)
Peaked at number 4.
(9) GENESIS – No Son Of Mine
From their number one album We Can't Dance, and this single peaked at number 6.
(1) U2 – The Fly (video)
Finally, after sixteen weeks, a new number one! For its first and only week.
7th of November is next.
Sheesh, this was dreadful. Was the idea to terrify the viewers for Halloween? Because I was certainly unsettled.
ReplyDeleteSL2, you can just about hear the record, but there's this bloke nattering away over it. He's not even rapping! He's just talking inanely! No wonder the dancers are trying to elbow him in the face. Not a bad dance track ordinarily, but this performance is horrendous.
To follow that, someone who at least has some experience with concerts, but its with the whingiest, most entitled tune of all time, telling us off for liking any music after about 1959 in oh-so-clever "cryptic" lyrics. I remember Nicky Campbell interviewing Don when promoting his Greatest Hits LP (two tracks on it, then?) and he was making a big thing about not explaining the words. Now nobody cares.
It says something when Lucinda's hair upstages her singing. There was a tune in there somewhere, but she only gave it glancing acknowledgement. My, this new format is harsh. Down the charts the next week...
Someone else who it turns out has a not very good voice live, it's Zoe, bursting out of her leathers to deliver the tricky second hit that promptly... went down the next week. Seeing a pattern here.
Could they not have given Moby one of SL2's dancers? I thought he was going to do himself a mischief. Anyway, rock solid dance track offered the unforgiving new TOTP treatment which makes it look very naff. The hair wouldn't last much longer.
Kylie and Keith, this sounds like the theme song to a soap opera, perhaps appropriately. No real melody, just a collection of MOR ballad cliches, with a video to match - do they meet up at the end like Kylie and Jason did? No wonder nobody remembers this.
Genesis with a song that takes ages to get to the point, then isn't worth it when it gets there. They were well past their prime here, and I don't even mean the Peter Gabriel material. Always be suspicious of a ditty that uses a cliche as a title.
U2 end Bry's reign of terror, and deleted the single apparently as a joke so it would spend one week at the top instead of sixteen. They were well into their world domination egomania phase.
And that's it, worst revamp episode so far.
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DeleteThis was Genesis's comeback single after parting ways in mid-1987 to leave Phil Collins to concentrate on a solo career, and it was a bit surprising to see them back as a group. On the other hand, when you consider that Collins released five solo singles in 1990 with declining success with his last two solo singles only making No.34 and No.57 successively, it is perhaps not surprising that he called upon Genesis to come back and work together, and it certainly paid dividends with a top ten single this week with their first single since 1987.
DeleteIf they'd dropped that unlistenable openinng number they'd had enough time for Don McLean to do the full length version of one of the greatest songs ever written. Can't see a downside there.
ReplyDeleteSo here we are with 2 shows making us all caught up with 30 years ago this week. Meaning my TOTP viewing and Top 40 Chart listening are in the same week!
ReplyDeleteLet's see if tonights show can provide some light relief from the 10 month Adrian Rose hole that has just been landed on us this week.
As you were with the presenters. Dortie seems to loving plugging his reappearances on Twitter (with a hint of embarrassment) which is all good fun.
The DJs take control in the form of SL2. Lots of energy but not much talent. Live vocals do these tracks no favours do they? Audience seems to like it. Probably sounds great in a club. Come on (repeat)......
Don McLean in the studio, that's a surprise. Nice tune and a proper musical performance. Really enjoyed that. Think the full version is about 8 minutes long.
Congress (who?). Never heard of the singer either. Can we have SL2 back please?. Terribly out of tune vocals. Ouch
Nice to see they've found employment for the special effects department now Doctor Who has been canned. Keyboard guys Mum straight on the phone (you didn't iron your yellow trousers).
Here comes Zoe again, trying and failing to follow up her weather related hit with...another weather related hit. Follow up singles Snowing and Gentle Breeze both flopped.
Joking aside this is ok. Chorus is fairly catchy. Vocals are ok as well. Still looking rather hot as well which helps.
Breakers:
Control: haven't we had them.. oh that was congress. I'm getting confused.
INXS. Average from them.
Now this is great from Moby. He's got ants in his pants and he's ready to GO! I have photos when I had hair as well. Always seems odd looking back. Again difficult to bring this type of music into the studio but it's the best of the 3 dance performances by quite a long way
Kylie still fighting her SAW image with a lovely little ballad with Keith Washington (never heard of him before or since). Shame we didn't see more as the public liked this and was a big hit for Kyles.
This seems to be the new show rules, unless you are a big star with an exclusive, show up or you're out.
Genesis on a final tour right now and poor Phil is not well at all but keeping on. I really like the singles from this album although this sounds more like a Phil solo single than a Genesis number. Enjoyed this one.
The worst number one of the year (bring back Bart) knocks Bryan off the top but thankfully only for one week. I don't mind this heavier U2 sound but they will do it much better than this.(I'm thinking Hold Me, Thrill Me… which is magnificent)
Hit and miss tonight. Happy Halloween...
Interesting tune by Congress. If you add their 40 miles to the 500 miles of The Proclaimers in 1988, and the 2000 miles of The Pretenders in 1983, you would have travelled a total of 2540 miles in 8 years between 1983 - 1991.
DeleteI’ll bite. Who is Adrian rose please and what has he done???
DeleteHe's a TOTP presenter from Nov 91 to Sep 92..he is now a TV exec called Adrian Woolfe and he has not signed the necessary release for his episodes to be shown. We will miss something like 15 episodes in the next few months
DeleteGoad someone asked - I was to embarrassed 😊
DeleteThanks morgie
DeleteI didn't know either! Many thanks Morgie.
DeleteThe last in a sequence of shows presented by Tony and Mark together. Also they seem to have dispensed with the album slot and the "Sung your last note? Good. When's the tour then?" section. Good that those have been dropped but this edition was mostly awful.
ReplyDeleteSL2 start proceedings and ably demonstrate why they are only ever remembered for 'On a Ragga Tip'. That was enjoyable, this was dreadful. Please hand back control straightaway.
Repeat of the theme tune then Don McLean who does seem to serve up a totally live performance of his classic single. Again I've no idea why it was rereleased but it's a sign of how far things have changed in several months that a reissue seems fairly novel. Don is thoroughly professional if a little detached from proceedings and hits most of the notes. On the other live BBC clip of this ('Sounds For Saturday', 1972) he looks behind him and shouts, "Ok!, you too" before one of the choruses. Surveying the robotic clappers in front of him this evening he probably decided not to bother saying something similar.
Congress feat someone trying their hardest follow and it's actually quite a nice, earnest tune but the singer is dreadfully flat. The treble clef hairstyle is the most impressive thing about the performance and that looks daft.
Zoe also badly off key though I noticed that she sounded perfectly fine on the choruses. Another elementally titled single but a very undistinguished tune. No amount of new age dancing or air punching can save this one from stalling way down in the charts. Very disappointing.
Breakers; Control; Stick to the comic Brummie interjections and leave the melodies to Car 67. INXS; Decadent video, shiny shirt. Enjoyed what little I saw of that. More of it next time.
Moby; Another rave tune that comes across underwhelmingly in the studio although for me it's such a great single that it's still good to see it 'performed' live. Enjoyed the merging of artiste / audience (still with that annoying lighting effect) and video. Those disembodied heads are nice and creepy for Halloween night. Less impressive is Moby's, um, vocal. On record the crowd yelling the title is spooky and unnerving, here he just sounds like a dick shouting 'go' for no reason. Still, weird to see him with hair.
After all the sex obsessed records during this year a dramatic change of tone with an old fashioned romantic number. Heartfelt vocals from both singers but oddly it sounds even more dated than 'I Should Be So Lucky'.
Genesis in the studio for the first time in a while and for me the highlight of the show. I do genuinely like this one despite that dreaded gated reverb that almost everyone else had left behind. You're right THX, it's one of those songs that takes an age to reach the chorus and another age to reach it again but for me the tune is so good and the lyric so riveting that you don't really notice.
Also when this was out, I'd bought 'Record Collector' magazine for the first time and there was a feature detailing the early years of Genesis and I was fairly stunned reading it, having no idea that they were once so weird. I remember looking at the hairy, greasy crew on the picture sleeve of 'The Knife Pt.I and II' and trying to imagine how they could have anything to do at all with the band that did 'No Son of Mine' and concluding that, yeah, actually they sort of could.
New No.1!!!! Still a classic single I think and although Bono is at his most self obsessed here it still looks and sounds truly compelling. Still love that guitar break. Bono don't walk along that high building in those shades you fool.
Mark mentions the end of Bryan Adams' reign and Tony looks like he's about to offer some quip then appears to decide against it. That sort of sums up the lack of chemistry between these two. Tony saying his catchphrase with all the enthusiasm of someone who's got to go and unblock the toilet.
End credits. Ok, laters then.
Was thinking the same about SL2, as I certainly don't recall this debut hit, let alone being on TOTP to open the show. I always thought they were a one-hit wonder with On A Ragga Tip which was one of 1992's most famous tunes and a dancefloor essential of the time, but what was this 'DJs Take Control'? Hardly.
DeleteIt's interesting that at this time in pop music history where the new generation of house and techno dominating the late 80s and early 90s music scene, that 70s legends like Don McLean and Genesis made the effort to come to a 90s TOTP new studio in Elstree to mix it up with their next generation youngsters who were only just born or a few years old when they were first in the original London studios in the 70s. Kudos to McLean & Genesis for toughing it out with new performances when well into their 40s.
SL2 would have come over better in the studio if they’d left MC Jay-J at home. Probably more used to “bringing up” hundreds / thousands of buzzing ravers, almost comical in front of a few bemused happy clappers. The record itself is an instrumental affair blending a few previous dance classics. Part of the new breakbeat hardcore genre that would morph into jungle and drum and bass.
ReplyDeleteCongress, loved this tune, although used to confuse with Cola Boy’s Seven Ways To Love and the Better Days track it is based on. Same sample would appear later on the opening track of Fatboy Slim’s debut album. Lucinda Sieger has a YouTube profile with this performance included in her videos. She explains why she was struggling to find the right notes, first time on TV nerves, also it was halloween so she made a treble clef music note for it (?).
Manic Moby getting the crowd clapping whilst being his own metronome. One of my favourite bands at this time were Ultra Vivid Scene, for some reason Moby, with even more hair, had been playing bass with them the previous year.
U2 bringing a welcome change at the top, got me listening again to Achtung Baby for the first time in thirty years. Some great singles to come in 1992 from the album.
Wow. Lucinda is brave putting this on her YT channel, the performance really doesn't show her in a good light! Good on her for owning it, I suppose.
DeleteI couldn't wait to see 'One' by satellite performed during a soundcheck in the States. Among my favourite memories of this era of the show. Guess who's co-presenting that edition.
DeleteIt's nice to have ver Pops back, and to be in sync with the calendar. And I agree with you all that this isn't a great episode, BUT they've jettisoned the stupid video pre release and album track performance gimmicks so that's a great decision.
ReplyDeleteSL2 - I have no memory of this at all, it's no On a Ragga Tip. Buy the dancers are funny, as is the very prim, mumsy looking girl in the front of the audience trying to rave out.
Don McLean. Of all the things 1991 is the year of (Rave, Sex, Baggy, Bryan Adams etc), the year of re-released stuff is one of the least fun. Is flogging a greatest hits a better or worse reason than flogging jeans? Can't decide. Also a reminder that Madonna's cover version of this is going to exist in a few years' time. (Other than the Evita songs, was that Madge's only cover version? I'm struggling to think of another - I'm not counting Hung Up as that was a sample).
The top 10 flung out at the start with still NO VOICEOVER rather diminishes the biggest moment of the year, where Uncle Bry is not only dethroned, he drops a whole 3 places. In the old format that moment would have had all the drama it deserves.
Congress - another one I don't remember. And it's one that doesn't benefit from ths live vocal. The hairpiece would also be way more impressive if it blended with the singer's hair colour.
Zoe - Shaky vocals at the start though ahe gets better. Another long forgotten track, but she looks like a prototype for All Saints, so she was clearly ahead of her time.
Breakers - both average although the man in the INXS video could play Ted Hastings' lecherous brother in Line of Duty as he looks quite like Adrian Dunbar. The woman in the video looks familiar too, I might have to check the video out in full to see if I can place her (I'm a big watcher of Aussie stuff and they all have the same people in, so if she's Australian she'll have been in something)
Moby - Aww look at him with hair and a baby face. One of the better tracks tonight although not the most interesting to film Bless the VFX people for trying their best by chucking everything at it. Also the floor dots on the stage would work really well today for social distancing.
Kylie and Keith -Aww I quite like it even though no-one else, including Kylie herself, seems to. And I'd rather have heard more than 15 seconds of this than...
... what feels like twenty minutes of bloody Genesis. God that was a slog.
U2 - Hooray, he's been vanquished etc.
I think Madonna covered/revamped the old 1950s standard Fever too. Not one of her best.
DeleteRe madonna Anerican Pie - don mcclean on 70s hits yesterday saying he was happy that Madonna covered it - it’s his pension! 😊
DeleteShe covered 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore' as well.
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ReplyDeleteSpooky how Don McLean and ‘American Pie’ featured on this and on the 1972 Top30 show on the same evening (more on that later). Mixed bag this…some highs and lows.
ReplyDeleteHIGHS
Don McLean – American Pie – indeed. Timeless. Singing live too. I had ‘Disco 45’ at the time this came out in ’72 and they printed the lyrics to parts 1 and 2 on the first page. I never heard part 2 until many years later.
Kylie and Washington – If you were with me now – Not too bad although I don’t recall it.
Genesis – No Son of Mine – The highlight! (and I am glad a number of you concur). This probably was partly live. Phil is definitely singing and it looks like Chester’s drumming is not faked…but who is singing backing vocals and harmonies? This was a classic live track…just made for concerts with its slow crescendo. Phil had to change the key later on for the 2007 Tour as he couldn’t sing as high anymore and Ray Wilson gave a good rendition on the ‘Calling all Stations’ tour.
LOWS
SL2 – Quickly skipped…awful. Congress – Repetitious and weird hairdo. Zoe – Not a patch on the first hit. Both Breakers – yuk!. Moby – Completely uninspiring lyrics and ‘tune’. U2 – buzz off…oh yes the record company deleted the single after three weeks..and the album wasn’t out…so it got to no1….
Now then, the top30 of 1972. Anyone fall off their chair when Jakki Brambles announced that the No1 of the year was The Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards with ‘Amazing Grace’? I knew it was coming. What a diverse selection though.
David Cassidy and ‘Cherish’ was in there but in fact the A Side was ‘Could it be Forever’ so that was a bit of a surprise. Perhaps they had no footage of Cassidy singing that song? There was no official top30 for 1972 only a Top20 so it gave the producers artistic license to include what they believed might have made the 30. Surprised Peter Skellern’s wonderful ‘You’re a Lady’ wasn’t there as that was a pretty big seller and didn’t get a mention on the nearly runs either. Ditto for Lindisfarne’s ‘Lady Eleanor’. I loved some of the footage that I hadn’t seen before of some acts; nearly all not from ToTP given little exists still. Even Lieutenant Pigeon for ‘Mouldy old Dough’ (No2) got a performance taken from elsewhere even though the Christmas 1972 ToTP showing does exist. However there was clearly no footage for the Chiffons, Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs (although Jona Lewie was interviewed), Nilsson and of course a certain ‘he who cannot be named’ got just a brief couple of seconds to hear the song title before moving swiftly on – good they don’t airbrush it out though.
This show is the best thing on TV for me at the moment and I’m lapping it up each week….I even enjoyed ‘Mother of Mine’ which got sympathetic appraisal from the pundits.
I think the Lieutenant Pigeon video was from Top Pop which was a Dutch equivalent of TOTP in Holland, and I loved the fact that the lead singer's mother was invited to play piano/keyboard on stage with them. If she was around 60 years old in that clip from 1972, she would have been born in the 1910's, and would be over 100 by now if still alive.
DeleteI particularly liked at No.27 the fact that the fun video for Ringo Starr's Back Off Boogaloo was filmed in the same grounds as the John Lennon video for Imagine, as Lennon allowed Starr to make the video at his Tiittenhurst Park estate. Never knew this fact. Ideally it would be best to watch the Lennon video followed straight after by the Starr video to get a feeling of Lennon's home at the time, and the two contrasting videos on the same site conveyed 'the magic of the 'era".
DeleteAlso at No.23 on the TOTP studio performances of Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs all being wiped in 1972, the caption described it as " all three of the band's appearances on TOTP were wiped by a junior tape operator." Good Lord, how many of these people were there at the BBC from 1964-1977 during the 'wiping' era of TOTP?
I well recall the Ringo video being shown on ToTP and my Dad exclaiming how he looked so long haired! Never knew it was filmed at John's Place until this programme...I can see it now.
DeleteAfter the unfortunate 'Junior wiping' of the ToTP appearances (which I recall), Dactyl's act is only really visually documented by this German performance of the follow up single 'On a Saturday Night' which reached No45 in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKT_RdXvzpM
I am really loving the 70s hits series. Nice to see some not often seen footage.
DeleteWhat I really like about these 70s charts is that they are the real thing; i.e. not one of these contrived 'Greatest Hits of the 70s' shows where there is a 'public vote' on a shortlist drawn up by 'experts'. This way, we're getting everything, warts and all! The songs that were big hits in those years....classics through to novelty hits through to, um, hits that you can't play these days. On that note, 1973 is going to be interesting as by my reckoning there's going to be four of those 'quick skip' moments!
DeleteSome interesting tunes from pop music icons that peaked outside the Top 40 this week, and failing to get to the TOTP stage:
ReplyDeleteNo.43 Kraftwerk - Radioactivity
New entry and re-release of their original 1975 single with seemed to be a sort of precursor to Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene in 1978, but why it was released now in 1991 is somewhat strange. Original video is superb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyXeJZJUFHE
No.48 Tin Machine (David Bowie) - Baby Universal
Despite an appearance on TOTP in the studio earlier in the month as an 'Exclusive' before charting, a No.48 position is all it could manage.
No.55 Dire Straits - Heavy Fuel
Follow-up to Calling Elvis which got to a more respectable No.21, but this new one failed to make an impression, especially as the new video concentrated mainly on the roadies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EExahMsBoWM
No.60 The Apple (EP) - Various Artists
Four songs on this EP as a new entry this week; Mary Hopkin, Billy Preston, Jackie Lomax and Badfinger making up the EP, it subsequently fell out of the top 75 the following week:
https://www.discogs.com/release/3719714-Various-Apple-EP
Poor choice of second single from Dire Straits I always thought..."If you wanna run cool, you've got to run on heavy heavy fuel". Not the best Knopfler lyrics.
DeleteThe third single however was a classic 'On Every Street' the title track from the album...perhaps they should have done a U2?
No video seems to exist, but someone has had a good go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5KpLRWY8sA
I was also perplexed with the Kraftwerk single then recalled picking up their The Mix album at about this time (released earlier in the summer).
DeleteNothing strange about the Kraftwerk track, or no more than usual, it was a remix off their The Mix album, with added "relevant" nuclear names.
DeleteBeat me to it, Sidders! For a remix album, The Mix is pretty darn good.
DeleteThe ITV Chart top ten following this TOTP edition propelled Kylie Minogue's duet with Keith Washington to No.9 already, and with more of the video than shown on TOTP this week:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoQQtS1rVWw
In the specialist Rock Chart of the same week, Metallica's new single The Unforgiven was featured, and entered the following week's TOTP chart at No.35 as a Breaker. Here's the Chart Show Rock chart Top Ten with this, as well Queen at No.1 with The Show Must Go On:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI6rIFj6SeE
The Lack Of Chemistry Boys are back. A horror of an edition indeed.
ReplyDeleteFirst up it’s DJ Incessant Prattle taking control of ruining the opener.
Bye bye American Pie. I hate this so a hasty FF.
A brave showing of Monty Python’s nude instrumentalists in the reduced rundown.
How ironic that a singer who’s lovingly crafted her hair into a musical clef has left her proper vocals 40 miles away in a cab.
Windmill Arms is back with an intriguing outfit. Taking the weather theme on, the public rained on Zoe’s parade by never buying enough singles to get her on the show again.
Pounds spent on Control’s video. Obviously no control over the budget.
Interesting champagne bottle hose effect in the video for INXS’s unshining dull song.
Great lyrics from Moby, complete with headache inducing screen effects.
Did Dorky really call Kylie “The Foxtress”? He really is shit. Unfortunate protruding moustache hair on Keith’s side-on shots. Okay song, MOR but not more for me, thanks.
Genesis with the best thing on the show but flattened out by a rolling pin to an excruciating length. I had enough time to microwave and eat a ready meal and wash the cutlery up while this was on.
No fan of Bonio so it was The FFly for me, but at last we get rid of Pub Shutting Acne Canuck.
Laughed at the Genesis comment! But to be fair on Moby (which not a lot of folks are these days) Go is pretty much an instrumental. He did sing later in his career, but his vocals are weedy.
DeleteTruly dreadful episode. Nearly wore my FF finger out
ReplyDeleteSL2 - Audience tried, but, zzzzzzzz… FF
Congress - owwwwwwww, where is autotune when you need it? Gets worse the longer it goes on. Put it out of its misery FF
Zoe - another dodgy vocal. Were the fold backs not working this week? No Sunshine. Yet another FF
BREAKERS
Control - possibly got potential
INXS - what was it called again?
Moby - not my cup of tea, but at least it was a decent performance. Took even less time to write the lyrics than 2 unlimited from a few weeks ago.
Kylie - don’t remember this, and I think I know why - FF
genesis - sounds more like a Phil Collins solo track - I kept expecting the drumming gorilla to turn up. That tom tom works then…