The world is turning, moving so fast, let me show you the 25th of November 1993 edition of Top of the Pops!
Klassy lassy
25-11-93: Presenter: Mark Franklin
(13) K-KLASS – Let Me Show You
Getting the show underway but the song got no higher.
(2) ELTON JOHN & KIKI DEE – True Love (video) (and charts)
At their peak.
(28) THE WONDERSTUFF – Full Of Life (Happy Now)
In the studio but it got no higher.
(19) HEART – Will You Be There (In The Morning) (via satellite)
Their eighth and final top 40 hit and it got no higher.
(6) JANET JACKSON – Again (video)
Got no higher.
(32) APHEX TWIN – On (video) (Breakers)
Got no higher.
(26) KATE BUSH – Moments Of Pleasure (video) (Breakers)
Got no higher.
(10) THE DOOBIE BROTHERS – Long Train Runnin’ (video) (Breakers)
Their only top ten hit and it peaked at number 7.
(33) BELINDA CARLISLE – Lay Down Your Arms
Performing in the studio and the song went up six more places.
(1) MEAT LOAF – I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) (video)
Sixth of seven weeks at number one.
December 2nd is next.
A little space for your comments on the 23rd November 1978 edition -
ReplyDelete23-11-78: Presenter: Mike Read
(24) MUSIQUE – In The Bush (and charts)
(64) RACEY – Lay Your Love On Me
(2) OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN – Hopelessly Devoted To You (video)
(30) DOLLAR – Shooting Star ®
(29) SYLVESTER – Dance (Disco Heat) (danced to by Legs & Co)
(28) ELKIE BROOKS – Don’t Cry Out Loud ®
(4) ROD STEWART – Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? (video)
(NEW) EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER – All I Want Is You
(25) SARAH BRIGHTMAN & HOT GOSSIP – I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper (video)
(19) X-RAY SPEX – Germ Free Adolescence ®
(NEW) DAVID ESSEX – Goodbye First Love
(1) THE BOOMTOWN RATS – Rat Trap ®
(23) CHIC – Le Freak (and credits)
Why did they have to go and chop Dollar and X-Ray Specs - the best two songs on there!
DeleteThanks again Angelo for putting this up for comment. Very enjoyable but would've been much more so if they'd included X-Ray Spex. Heavy on the dance routines then. Hard to complain about that.
DeleteMike Read anticipating 2 Unlimited's look. Motor racing pit lane chic. Maybe Mike was adopting a bit of Radio 1 DJ stereotype at this early stage. The impersonations and factoids all still to come.
Musique, 'In The Bush' ; apparently totally single entendre classic to go with the charts. Just trying to imagine if 3 year old me was still up and asking, "Daddy, what does that mean?".
Racey; Always liked 'Lay Your Love On Me' mainly because it so much reminds me of the theme to 'Kick Start'. Already getting at least one member of Legs & Co to flatter them in the studio. Fun start but Richard Gower slappable from the very first close-up.
Olivia Newton John; I wondered if the re-repeats would be a chance to show video/movie clips as a one off but obviously not. The 'Grease' clip I've seen a hundred times but not seen this Legs & Co routine before so that's a good extra. The ladies doing the kind of routine you'd probably guess almost exactly right if you had 5 goes; dizzy '50s style teenagers lovingly clutching books (though oddly they more resemble menus) in a posh house in the middle of the night. A bit literal then but I'm not complaining.
Sylvester; Okay. Another Legs & Co routine. Assume this was the weekly routine for them and the Olivia one was another retrospective re-edit. If not then what has Sue done right or wrong to get so much work this evening? Not as good as the previous one, badly lit with the ladies adorned with lilac ribbons and throwing their arms about between what looks like giant '70s cake stands. Not much formation there but plenty of smiles and certainly plenty of leg and Gill's hairstyle. Still would've preferred to see that go and X-Ray Spex put on instead.
Elkie Brooks; Another fabulous hairstyle for one of the great female voices. A treat to see that. 'Don't Cry Out Loud' a fantastic song given a full live rendition. She was also on the repeat of the 'Kenny Everett Video Show' a couple of nights ago, brilliant edition with Renaissance and Justin Hayward so I've been very happy.
Emerson Lake & Palmer; I'd have thought a studio appearance by the prog titans would've been remarked upon by Mike but he didn't seem to say much about it. ELP clearly were able to move with the times, no capes or cannons hired from Warwick Castle (no, I don't know their stuff very well) but casual wear and some anthemic pop for the audience. Enjoyed that.
Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip; In addition to back to back Legs, here are the rivals! Hot Gossip backing Sarah although the Kenny Everett repeats suggest that she was at one stage a full member of the troupe. Great song and incredibly dated, like the dance routine.
David Essex; A gloomy looking lady in the audience stares at the camera while it's in her direction. It's 1978 and you're yards away from David Essex for gawd's sake! Nice slowie with Dave in the Che Guevara beard. Mike Read at the end was also just yards away which must have been slightly off putting.
The Boomtown Rats; The tearing up the pictures intro for 'Rat Trap' which is an odd choice for a repeat clip. Surely that only works for their first week at the top? I do love this though and I have the vaguest memory of a gangly scruffy bloke in a suit swigging something on the show and it may have been Bob with his candleabra
Good to get a formative blast of a disco classic at the end but as is the way of these repeats, it gets abruptly curtailed. Great edition though. More please.
Like Angelo, I’m quite cross that Dollar and the Spex were chopped (and Rod).
DeleteRacey - 'Lay Your Love On Me' – Love the dancing girl entrance. Racey were one of Mickie Most’s RAK bands and all their hits were on that label. This is the best of the lot for me although their first release ‘Baby it’s You’ was label mate’s Smokie penned (and sounds like them too) which was featured on a Tony Blackburn hosted ToTP. It didn’t chart. No larking about from Gower and Co on that performance.
Olivia Newton John – Hopelessly devoted to you – Not one of my favourites of hers but obviously riding high on ‘Grease’ mania. ‘Sam’ anyone?
Sylvester – Dance – Some interesting moves here from the girls took my mind off the rather rubbish song.
Elkie Brooks- 'Don't Cry Out Loud' as per Mic “a fantastic song given a full live rendition”. The ToTP arrangement is a bit tepid compared to the actual recording. Co-written by Carol Bayer-Saga.
Emerson Lake & Palmer – All I want is you – Prefer Bono’s song of the same name (unusual for me to actually like something by U2). The track by ELP was taken from their flop album ‘Love Beach’ which reached the dizzy heights of No48 in the album charts. Not quite in the ‘Brain Salad Surgery’ league. ELP released another even less successful album ‘Black Moon’ in 1992 which I really like and from which a fabulous single ‘Affairs of the Heart’ was released.
Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip - Starship Trooper – Didn’t Yes record this? Not a particular favourite (Sarah not Yes).
David Essex – Goodbye First Love – Don’t recall this dreary song at all and I note it failed to trouble the scorers.
The Boomtown Rats – Rat Trap – When I first heard this I thought ‘album track’. Wrong!! An album track called ‘I can make it if you can’ is well worth checking out however…
Chic – Le Freak – Freak out abruptly!
I think that Racey was the first ever single that I bought, as I was still 10 years old in 1978, and only got into pop music in the summer of that year following the Grease soundtrack singles dominating the charts in the summer, as my route of entry and interest in pop music. I still have the Racey single in my collection along with its RAK cover.
DeleteOlivia Newton John - I'm assuming the original TOTP show had the video from the movie, rather than this Legs & Co routine, so was it a case of the show being doctored by BBC4 for this repeat showing on the 44 years anniversary of the show? Good Lord, I don't recall any TOTP show having two consecutive Legs & Co routines!
Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip - this video as such for the song was not shown on The Kenny Everett Video Show on Thames TV in 1978 or 1979, as the repeats are regularly on the That's TV channel, and neither have they been edited out like some other singles, so I wonder why this video was kept off Everett's weekly TV shows at the time?
The Boomtown Rats - Good Lord I remember watching this TOTP show in 1978 when they had just knocked off Summer Nights from the top spot, and started their performance by tearing a picture of Travolta & Newton John. In those days a little harmless humour was allowed, but can you imagine nowadays the furore that would have ensued on social media!
And back to the future of 1993...
ReplyDeleteMark pretending to be American again judging by his wearing yet another high school type coat. Yawn.
K-Klass, sounding like if M People did rave pop. Vibrant, I liked this.
Elton and Kiki again, Zzzzzz.
Non-mugshots: The only top 40 week for an act actually called Nu Colours (Letraset cockup there), the second and final hit for Messiah, and ditto for Onyx.
Huge podium for The Wonderstuff’s drummer. Oo, a mariachi bass. Liked this, shame Mark’s forecast was way out.
Wahay, and exclusive from Canada. Bigger Heart sister staying in the shadows. The sound was a bit thin if you ask me.
“Again” again? Sheesh.
I enjoyed the video clip for Aphex Twin. Didn’t like that row I heard.
Didn’t hear enough of Kate bush’s track to make an opinion, but she looked sublime.
Doobie Brothers – song yes, remix yuk.
Crawly bumlick time as Belinda Carlisle performs in front of a ranch backdrop which namechecks the prick who ruined TOTP for three years. Another unremarkable end of chart career effort.
Loaf again with “ I wouldnae do that, hen”.
BBC does adverts! And Tony refused to name them the previos week, Look at that tickertape of retailers for those 3D glasses, including Northern Ireland’s Crazy Prices, famous for their Ulster TV adverts featuring (if I remember correctly) the company MD who was always uncomfy in front of a camera.
K-Klass song title reminded me of the same by The Jacksons in the 70s, but completely different tune, but I must say, it was a great show opener this week.
DeleteWas surprised that Heart were still going at this point, and yes I always preferred blonde sister Nancy, cos her lips were just amazing. to go with her good looks and hair. Kind of the perfect woman.
Heart - although this live-by-satellite performance from Canada was their first single in two years since 1991, it was also their last, so we will not see them again on TOTP, as the curtain comes down on a chart career going back to 1985 with These Dreams/Never as a double A-Side.
ReplyDeleteJanet Jackson - as last week with U2, TOTP opened up one more video slot on the show, aside from the chart rundown video, No.1 slot video, and any sick note video. This week Janet Jackson was not due to perform in the studio, nor at No.1, and not even the chart rundown, so seeing her on video with 'Again' was truly amazing.
Meat Loaf - 6th week at No.1, and we get the same 4:45 video edit of the 2nd week at No.1, which in my opinion was the best edit of them all if we were not to get the full 7-and-a-half minute video that we did on week 1. Good Lord, we got nearly 5 minutes of the video this week, and more than last week's show!
Heart's song was written by the prolific Robert John 'Mutt' Lange. B Side was a live version of the aforementioned 'These Dreams'. Great stuff.
DeleteHas anyone please got The Smash Hits Poll Winners Party (06/12/1992).
ReplyDeleteI loved Long Train Runnin’ by The Doobie Brothers and always great to see Belinda Carlisle on TOTP. The The Wonderstuff always came out with some catchy tunes andMeat Loaf still there at number one, great song!
ReplyDeleteAre you new here? If so, welcome and feel free to join in anytime!
DeleteRIP "Fame" and "Flashdance" alumnus Irene Cara. Just 63.
ReplyDeleteVery sad, people leaving us too early. When she sang Fame, she sang "I'm gonna live forever......"
Delete"Flashdance" by Bjorn Again was a new entry and at peak position of No.65 on the week of this 1993 chart, as well as Air Supply one place lower at No.66 with "Goodbye", and sadly Irene Cara died on the 29th anniversary off this chart with these song titles at adjacent positions.
DeleteTop Ten rundown - Janet Jackson at peak at No.6 with "Again", and Mariah Carey going back up to No.9 with "Hero", would go on to have No.1 status in the US charts with these singles, as the two consecutive singles at No.1 over the Christmas period after Meat Loaf's I'd Do Anything For Love fell off the top spot in the US charts after 5 weeks at No.1.
ReplyDeleteChart Rundown - Barry Manilow at a peak of No.36 this week with a re-releases of Could It Be Magic, looked like it was released on the back of Take That's cover version of Manilow's classic.This would be Manilow's last Top 40 single in a glittering career.
K-Klass kicking the show off in style. Bringing back the vibe of 1991 with pony-tailed keyboard players and c-classy female lead singers. K-Klass’s debut album was finally released this week(ish) in 1993 as well, including the previous TOTP performed classic Rhythm is a Mystery.
ReplyDeleteAphex Twin was becoming very prolific in his releases at this time after not bothering to put out his earlier works up to now (collected on Selected Ambient Works 85-92). Releasing (as many techno artists did) under many aliases, Caustic Window, AFX, Polygon Window, Power-Pill (with a boners Pac-Man sampling techno tune), Bradley Strider, as well as here as just Aphex Twin.
Interesting to watch the full video for “On” on YouTube, directed by none other than Jarvis Cocker. Jarvis coincidentally makes his Pulp debut in the top 50 next week (at 50) with Lip Gloss, their 12th single! Things are about to take off for Pulp.
The Doobie Brothers presumably getting their best selling chart entry with this re-release down to some remix reworkings. Remixes allowing it to appear at number one in the UK Dance Chart.
RIP Christine McVie - Songbird by Fleetwood Mac is the definitive version for me.
ReplyDeleteJust seen the news. That is a shock. Just such a great voice. Some amazing records going right back to 'I'd Rather Go Blind' in '69. 'Little Lies' will always be hugely special for me. 'You Make Loving Fun', 'Songbird'. Rip Christine.
DeleteThe songbird in the group was Christine McVie and the second to leave us, following Peter Green who died a couple of years ago. Only three from the golden years line up remain, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Stevie Nicks, as Lindsey Buckingham left the group in 2018.
DeleteSorry I'm a bit late to this one. Pretty dull I thought with nothing really standing out although good to see Heart on the show one last time.
ReplyDeleteMark once again dressing like Salt 'n' Peppa's road manager circa 1988. Not many editions left for him and Tony.
K-Klass a very underwhelming start. Presentation was clearly not a big concern for this group, dressed plainly and in front of a backdrop of images that you could only define as 'stuff'. Didn't recognise the song until the chorus which does have a pretty good hook.
The charts to a charming and mildly bonkers video to Elton and Kiki's cover of 'True Love'. The setting where everyone dances looks like either St.Pancras or Kings Cross both before re-development. I assume the duo are given a glittery aura due to the 'guardian angel' in the lyrics and it could be a little pretentious if it wasn't for the nice sight of the two old friends singing together.
The Wonderstuff pedalling some average indie but another good performance. Liked Miles' shout of "guitar hero!" just before the guitar solo.
Farewell to Heart then with this satellite appearance. Really good that they managed to get one totally live appearance on the show and they're reliably classy with a decent song and perfect harmonies. Never forgotten hearing 'These Dreams' on 1st issue on 'No Limits' and thinking it was fantastic.
The video for 'Again' which is predictably sepia and cuddly then the breakers which are a real random mix of old and new. Any appearance of Aphex Twin welcome. Never seen the video before. Kate Bush, "superb" indeed Mark so stop talking and let's hear what few seconds we get of it. The Doobie Brothers; almost making up for 'What a Fool Believes' not getting a feature on the show in 1979.
Belinda Carlisle continuing her rootsy change of direction but it's also a direction marked 'not much of a tune'. She looks great of course and it's a rousing performance. Double denim on the women either side of her. Mark I'm sure was looking on approvingly.
Meat Loaf; Oh. He won't cut his fingernails!
K-KLASS are back but "Let Me Show You" really missing any kind of hook. Guy at the back in the checked shirt looks completely disinterested and out of place, did they just drag him off a farm?
ReplyDeleteWell I suppose this is something to do whilst waiting for train during the strikes. ELTON & KIKI with the charts and Guns N Roses fall so I guess we won't be seeing them at all now.
THE WONDERSTUFF are " Full Of Life" and I'm "Happy Now" as this is the highlight of both shows this week. Really great song. Enjoyed that immensely.
Next up we try to stay awake as HEART bore us to death. No Mark they have not returned to the music industry, just the charts. Not surprised this was they're last hit. What we need now is something to wake us up again from JANET JACKSON. Oh well. This song is growing on me though.
Breakers:
APHEX TWIN – OFF
KATE BUSH - Was she not allowed on the Pops or just refusing?
THE DOOBIE BROTHERS – Why?
Even lesser BELINDA CARLISLE is welcome but this one won't stay long in the memory.
Mr LOAF still at the top.– I'm off to Radio Rentals for my 3D glasses so I can watch Doctor Who Dimensions in Time in 3D. On YouTube if you can fancy it, but be warned it's not great.