Alan displays his shadow puppet skills
29/09/83 (Dave Lee Travis & Tommy Vance with brief appearance from Mark Paige)
Black Lace – “Superman (Gioca Jouer)” (29)
A live vocal and the first of three top ten hits for Black Lace, this one peaking at number 9.
David Essex – “Tahiti” (13) (video)
Getting all wet here on his way to number 8.
Tracey Ullman – “They Don’t Know” (31)
A genuine pop classic on its way to number 2.
George Benson – “In Your Eyes” (30) (video)
His final top ten hit peaking at number 7.
Monyaka – “Go Deh Yaka (Go To The Top)” (14) (video)
At its peak.
Kajagoogoo – “Big Apple” (8)
Also at its peak.
Jonathan King – US chart rundown: From LA.
Naked Eyes – “Promises Promises” (video clip)
Air Supply – “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” (video clip)
Men Without Hats – “The Safety Dance” (video clip)
Billy Joel – “Tell Her About It” (video clip)
Unique – “What I Got Is What You Need” (27)
Zoo are let loose for the very last time but could not help this song get any higher.
Siouxsie & The Banshees – “Dear Prudence” (17)
This Beatles cover was by far Siouxie's biggest hit, peaking at number 3.
Culture Club – “Karma Chameleon” (1) (video)
Second of six weeks at number one.
Public Image Ltd – “This Is Not A Love Song” (15) (audience dancing/credits)
Another band having their biggest hit, this one peaking at number 5.
Back to BBC4 next for October 6th 1983.
black lace: guilty of making one of the most-despised recordings of all time by music lovers in the shape of "agadoo", it's overlooked by many (myself included) that this duo had a few other hits as well. including this that i have only the vaguest recollection of. take out the extremely annoying aerobics class instruction voiceover and this isn't actually too bad as lightweight danceable synth-pop. i'd still like to smash both of them in the face with a lumphammer though - especially the "guitarist"! i'm surprised that dlt didn't join in (remember him gate-crashing a mud performance a few years back?), but less so that tommy chose to sit it out
ReplyDeletedavid essex: i speed-watched the video just to see if sinitta (billed on the soundtrack album - where i was reminded that the captain bligh role was taken by highly respected actor frank finlay - as "sinitta renet"). but she wasn't, as dave's on-screen love interest and co-singer was apparently a much lighter-skinned woman (ironically) called nicola blackman. listening a bit more closely than before as a result of watching this, i was somewhat scarily reminded of the goombay dance band! i also wondered if the frolicking in the surf was inspired by bowie's recent "china girl" video (that was in turn inspired by the 50's film "from here to eternity"). and on a related note, i have a memory of an actual descendant of fletcher christian's appearing on one of those then-new-fangled morning shows as a chef!
tracey ullman: the hairbrushes were the only things that remotely suggested that she was a comedian moonlighting rather than a proper pop singer. and now even they've disappeared, thus rendering her continued efforts utterly pointless and (literally) beyond a joke. was this the one with neil kinnock in the video? perhaps he should have chosen to appear in something with a bit more musical credibility in order to avoid a drubbing at the national election that was held around that time
george benson: yet another case of how the mighty have fallen, to the point where i decided not to even bother watching the video on youtube
I thought that Black Lace got too much airtime this week, when it was really a music workout for the gym, but in 1983 gyms were not really available outside of schools, and perhaps it had some novelty value for TOTP. But DLT goes on to describe it later in the in the chart rundown as 'a silly record', so I rest my case.
DeleteWith regard to David Essex, this was a good song to go out on as West End Musical, but its video theme was revisited a number of times in the 80s, with the ones coming to mind being All I Ask Of You by Cliff Richard in 1987, and Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You by Glen Madieros in 1988, where love on the beach took centre stage.
George Benson may have indeed fallen with this by means of it being his last hit, but by no way fallen in terms of quality, as it was also his most famous one, so you could say a good one to go out on. I thought that the video background effects were very similar to the video for Heartbreaker by Dionne Warwick about a year earlier in 1982.
Kinnock appeared in Tracey's cover of My Girl by Madness (retitled My Guy) in 1984. It certainly did him little good come the next General Election in 1987...
Deletedory i very definitely meant that george benson had fallen a long way in terms of musical quality. if you need any convincing of that, then just compare the sublime "in flight" album to the lightweight commercial dross he was churning out at this point. i think even the man himself acknowledges what he recorded in the 80's was complete crap, and that he only did it for the money!
DeleteSome will like the more smooth jazz sound of George Benson, some will like the pop. I do like his pop sound and all his Love Songs compilation that had the 80s hits.
DeleteTracey Ullmsn did good music in this period with a voice as good as most of the early 60s girl singers she was emulating.
#smartarse mode on
DeleteIt wasn't Neil Kinnock who had the electoral drubbing in 1983, it was Michael Foot (the Jeremy Corbyn of his day). Foot resigned afterwards and Kinnock won the Labour leadership ballot, doing much better (but not winning) the 1987 and 92 elections.
#smartarse mode off.
i concede to your superior knowledge aidan! i'm sure i am correct that the scum's headline the day before the (1987) kinnock election: "if labour win, will the last person to leave please turn the lights off!"?
Deletesadly the labour party don't seem to be learning the lessons of history because as you suggest, they have as little chance of winning the upcoming general election with the loose cannon corbyn at the helm (however idealistic his views may be) as they did with foot over 30 years earlier! there is another election coming up in a couple of days where i live for the newly-created (and probably superfluous) post of "mayor of greater manchester", and i was somewhat saddened to see that the labour candidate is andy burnham - in my opinion he should have been chosen to lead the labour party as a moderate blair-style candidate, and that is the only way they are likely to prevail in these times. but it would seem that he's now lost to them...
Sorry Wilberforce, that Sun headline comes from the 1992 election! It's somewhat ironic that Andy Burnham is standing as mayor of Manchester, given that he has always been very keen to remind everyone of his Liverpudlian roots...
Deletearrgghh - wrong again! i should check these things before i post them. but then again my interest in politics is a pinprick compared to that of pop music...
Deleteaccording to the leaflet i got (wherein mayoral candidates were given the opportunity to promote themselves at a cost of £5000), mr burnham has been MP for leigh (which although in greater manchester does border merseyside) for many years. however, according to wiki he grew up in cheshire. so if he does allude to being a scouser, then you could say it makes him the peelie of politics!
pt ii...
ReplyDeleteunique: in my review of the last edition i was enthusing over a couple of brilliant post-disco/club/dance records, one of which appeared on that show. and now much against my expectations the other one gets an airing as well - although like the first not surprisingly there's no sign of the artists themselves. considering their low profile (in unique's case the totp producers couldn't even seemingly locate a mugshot of the act for the chart countdown) and the high probability that these tracks rarely if ever got radio play, it was quite an achievement to break into the top 30 singles chart
siouxsie & the banshees: afer a cover version with their side project, now swiftly follows another for siouxsie and budgie in their day job. perhaps suggesting that they (and colleagues severin and smith with their offshoot the glove, not to mention the latter's own outfit) were spreading themselves a bit too thinly? a competent if unspectacular stab at a rather dull beatles tune (who in my view should have been killed in a car/plane crash in 1966, so they hadn't ruined their reputation with all that drug-fuelled self-indulgent bollocks they recorded afterwards), the only thing of some interest i suppose (not that i realised at the time as i never listened to lyrics) is the saphic connotation. siouxsie and smith battle it out to see who can pretend to be most apathetic, but despite siouxsie's eye-rolling and completely missing the beginning of the second verse, smith wins that particular contest with his "upside-down" guitar chording
public image: the recollection of this i had was johnny rotten (sorry - john lydon) reciting the title over and over again in his trademark tuneless wail, with some scratchy indie-type noise underneath. but a fresh listen reveals that by their standards it's positively accessible, with a strong dance rhythm and john(ny) even singing properly from time to time! no perhaps in a way not that surprisingly that it got as high as it did?
My initial thought on watching Unique at No.27 danced by Zoo this week, is that it should have been left to the playout instead of Public Image Ltd (PIL) who were unlucky not to get a main list play on the show going straight in at No.15.
DeleteIt was little staggering as to how quickly Siouxie goes from The Creatures to The Banshees in no time at all. We only just had Right Now by The Creatures the previous month in Aug 1983!
Monyaka - this one really hits the spot, and a pity that the video got a very short play this week, considering it was moving nicely towards the top ten. I'll watch it in full on Utube no doubt.
ReplyDeleteKajagoogoo - this seemed to be their last top 20 hit in an eventful debut year, where the lead singer had changed after only a few months. There was no question that the loss of Limahl had a negative effect on the band, as a couple more releases in 1984 made no impact on the charts whatsoever.
JK section - probably one of the best JK pieces on the show for a while, with Jim Steinman (while still in a spat with Meat Loaf) having two singles in the US top 5, with Air Supply and Bonnie Tyler. He does seem to roll them in thtough his door to sign up with him, doesn't he? You could have swapped artists for these two top 5 songs, and no-one would have noticed the difference, having sounded so similar between Air Supply and Bonnie Tyler.
On the subject of Meat Loaf, didn't I see a brief glimpse of him at the end of this WeTransfer recording after the playout? Well, it looks like we will see him on next week's TOTP with his new single from new album Midnight At The Lost And Found. I think the brief glimpse this week was his appearance on The Late Late Breakfast Show, as I don't think he did the TOTP studio, and there is certainly no video for this I think.
Indeed Dory. Bonnie Tyler released her own version of 'Making love out of nothing at all' in the mid 90s. I recall seeing her perform it on the National Lottery Show.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIup5g0nCQQ
The jury is out on which is the better recording.
My vote goes to Air Supply hands down. Bonnie Tyler's voice can be too hoarse at times.
DeleteThe Black Lace performance really was tremendous viewing. Great audience participation. I don't remember Mark Paige at all. Was he a supply DJ?
ReplyDeleteI've looked up Mark Paige on Wikipedia. It seems that he replaced Pat Sharp on the weekend early morning shift, and stayed at Radio 1 for three years, before moving on to an award-winning career on local radio. I can't say his rather irritating cameo appearance with DLT here would have encouraged me to listen to him at the time!
DeleteI remember Me Mark Paige, the only memorable thing about him was his way of telling us he was Me Mark Paige at every opportunity. His early weekend show was the first place I ever heard Star Trekkin' by The Firm, however. I liked it at the time!
DeleteShocked and saddened to hear of the death of Erin Moran today, who played Joanie Cunningham in Happy Days.
ReplyDeleteHappy days and TOTP were my favourite shows in the late 70s and early 80s, and really Happy Days for me would run side by side with TOTP as must-watch shows, even when there was only one television in our house during those days, and the honours were shared between BBC1 and ITV for these two shows every week. Very sad in that she was only 56.
by chance i saw erin morgan in some early 80's roger corman low budget sci-fi schlock on dvd earlier this year. unlike her screen brother ron howard, who was just getting warmed-up career-wise, that was pretty much as good at it got for her as she was pretty much washed up once her association with the "happy days" franchise came to and end. and according to wiki her last residence was a trailer park! it comes as news to me that that before her time in "the fonz show... sorry - happy days" she was also in "daktari", that i fondly remember watching as a kid and would very much like to do so again now. but sadly even though it's now available on dvd, the prices are far too rich for my blood!
DeleteThe news reports indicate Erin Moran had a very sad post-sitcom life. Mind you, appearing in Corman's Galaxy of Terror hints the offers were not exactly pouring in (spoiler - she's squeezed till she explodes in that one! Cheers, Rog!). Mind you, at least she wasn't in the infamous worm scene.
DeleteI think - unlike TOTP - Happy Days' scheduling used to vary depending on which part of the country you lived in. Being a cheap import (therefore considered "filler" material) the ITV regions scheduled it individually depending where they needed a few half hour slots to fill. My own region - Yorkshire Television - used to put it 5 days a week at 5:15pm for some weeks of the year, but very shortly before this TOTP episode aired, that ended because Blockbusters started its 11 year run in those weekday 5:15pm slots in September 83...
DeleteInteresting Aidan, as my local ITV region, LWT, would always show Happy Days on early Saturday evenings in the 5.30-6.30pm slot, always after the football final scores and before the prime time Saturday evening telly, and so it took in a lot of the football audience while they were still at the television, i.e., the majority of the population!
DeleteI remember Happy Days being shown at the weekends on TV-am in the mid 80s. They also broadcast the short-lived spin-off, Joanie Loves Chachi.
DeleteSTV would show Happy Days on Sunday afternoons, if I recall rightly, before stuff like Barriers or that drama with the girl obsessed with Munch's The Scream on the wall of her flat.
DeleteYou know the one, it had sped up footage of a trip along the Thames for its opening titles.
DeleteSomething of a landmark edition, this one, as it officially marks the end of the era of the TOTP dance troupe, with Zoo making their final appearance and Flick Colby being credited for the last time after 15 years' involvement with the show. As if in acknowledgment of the occasion, "Smooth Brothers" DLT and Tommy both don suits, though Tommy's choice of a turtleneck sweater to wear under his jacket is unfortunate, to put it mildly. Seeing the excellent chemistry between the pair - which had already been demonstrated on the New Year's Day 1981 show - it seems strange that they hadn't been paired together before now. Even more oddly, they would never work together on the show again...
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard Superman in more than 30 years, but as with The Birdie Song and Agadoo I have painful memories of being made to dance to this and do all the moves at primary school discos and Christmas parties. I hated it then and find it practically unlistenable now, though I guess the staging of this performance was fairly impressive. This is the first time Black Lace had been seen on TOTP since they were Smokie-copying Eurovision hopefuls in 1979, but they had now metamorphosed into the puveyors of supremely irritating novelty pap that we all know and despise...
I've no idea where this David Essex video was shot, but I suspect it probably wasn't Tahiti. It's competently done, but Dave does look a bit silly in his Fletcher Christian costume. Tracey and her backing singers are back for another hit cover, with writer Kirsty McColl contributing the high pitched "baby" bit as apparently Tracey couldn't manage it. It's a great song and very slickly done, but I do prefer Kirsty's original as the vocal is more vulnerable and it feels more poignant.
George Benson then proceeds to send us to sleep with his gloopiest ballad yet and an equally boring video, before we head to New York for Monyaka's promo, which is clearly designed to show off their urban and contemporary take on reggae - I still think this is pretty dreary, though I did enjoy Tommy's pronunciation of artist and song title on this show! Kajagoogoo are back in the studio for a performance very similar to the last one, though I don't know why the keyboard player isn't stationed behind his instrument at the start, instead running to it after a few seconds - very odd...
Part 2 - From the Big Apple to LA, as JK despatches his latest report, which was rather more interesting than usual. I've never heard of Naked Eyes before, but on the basis of this rather bland track I am not altogether surprised. Air Supply's Jim Steinman collaboration is considerably better, bearing the maestro's production hallmarks, and we then get a pleasingly large extract of the delightfully bucolic and bonkers Safety Dance video, which features one of the dwarf stars of my favourite film, Time Bandits. It's a great song too, and listened to in context you can hear how fresh and distinct it was at the time. A considerably less fresh sound from Billy Joel, with this rather tiresome and irritating pastiche of 50s Rock 'n' Roll and Doo-Wop, complete with Ed Sullivan lookalike and Billy doing his Elvis impression.
DeleteWe then finally reach Zoo's swansong, and while I have been less than enthusiastic about many of their routines during their short tenure this is impressively energetic and entertaining - I especially like the bit where the blokes start jumping over each other while lying on the floor. This is a pretty good dance track too, certainly one of the better examples that we have had on recent shows. Another good song next, as Siouxsie and co make this old Beatles tune their own, thanks to some hypnotic production and a great vocal from Siouxsie. A simple, effective and unsmiling performance too, with Robert Smith adding to the 60s vibe by playing what appears to be a Vox teardrop guitar. PIL are an odd choice as playout artists, but this is a fairly upbeat tune and the crowd do a pretty good job of dancing along to it.
i don't know how long new york had been known as "the big apple" at this point. but there was another single around at this time by grace jones called "the apple stretching", so presumably it was a then-trendy affectation? jones' take on what was originally written for a musical by melvin van peebles is notable (and amusing!) for an expletive which was rarely heard on records at the time ("there's a flasher over there - shit!"), which presumably was a reason for it being a non-hit? it's just one of several great tracks off her "living my life" album by the way...
DeleteI think Big apple comes from a jazz club in the 30s...
DeleteIf anyone wants to get ahead of BBC4, the 6th October show is on Vimeo, courtesy of D42:
ReplyDeletehttps://vimeo.com/155936081
I do, thanks John G. It's been a long gap for Meat Loaf on the show, i.e. a year-and-a half since the brilliant Deadringer for Love, and now in late 1983 with a new Steinman-free album called Midnight At The Lost And Found, with the debut single of the same name on TOTP 6th Oct.
Deletehere's a related personal story that you might find of interest: shortly after the unique track had been a hit, i was given a demo cassette by a local band of my acquaintance. and realised there was enough space at the end of it to record "what i got is what you need" on it. so i did so, and only discovered afterwards i had recorded on the wrong side of the cassette and thus wiped out most of the demo! for various reasons i was never able to get hold of another copy of it, and it wasn't for lack or trying over the years. that was until a couple of months ago, when one of the band contacted me via facebook and actually sent me the errant tracks as wav files!!
ReplyDeleteWhat was the track you wiped over. Anyone we might have heard of?
Deleteno - it was just a local band that never made it. but i collected as many recordings of that scene as i could at the time, and i have since put up a webpage dedicated to it - complete with soundclips. so it was really rather annoying that i had inadvertently let those ones go. but as they say: all's well that ends well - even if it is over 30 years later!
DeleteAs General Zod would have observed, this "Superman" is nothing of the kind, I believe it was a cover of a Continental tune. Black Lace's finest three minutes remain "We're Having a Gangbang" from the timeless 80s classic Rita Sue and Bob Too. I'd like to have seen that on TOTP - it had actions as well!
ReplyDeleteDavid Essex hits the beach with a non-Sinitta singer, there was a movie remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (the Clark Gable-Charles Laughton original) shooting at the time the musical was flopping, wasn't there? Mel Gibson was the lead in that. Was it an anniversary or something? Sadly, the crew of the ship spawned a horrible culture of sexual abuse on the island that supposedly continues to this day, it crops up as a scandal on the news every so often.
Tracey Ullman does a perfectly fair cover of the Kirsty MacColl tune and manages to avoid Saturday night TV light ent shiny floor production values.
George Benson far more animated (especially facially) in his video for In Your Eyes than he really needed to be. Laid back but earnest at the same time, Luther Vandross would do this sort of thing better, and pretty soon too.
Monyaka seem to be telling us something in their video, but it's cut off before we can be sure of what. A comment on the music industry, perhaps? Anyway, light but unmemorable dance reggae.
Kajagoogoo just making it to the stage in time. Had they ever been to New York? For some reason Frank Sinatra never thought to cover this one.
Most entertaining aspect of JK's segment were the film posters: Roy, sorry, Yor: The Hunter from the Future is a very funny film, just a pity it's meant to be serious. Hard to believe it had its own billboard. Krull, well, everyone my age saw that but Lysette Anthony aside I could never see the appeal. Brainstorm finally released after its star Natalie Wood was killed, and it didn't do very well, even with its fancy photography process. Oh, the music? Men Without Hats the only interesting one, and that's mainly down to the ludicrous video.
Unique, well at least we saw what they looked like this time, in their mugshot rather than the studio. Eh, it's basic dance soul post-disco stuff, whatever you want to call it. Farewell Flick and Zoo, we hardly knew ye. We hardly knew Zoo, anyway.
Siouxsie and the Ban-SHEES (so say the hosts) Goth up the Fab Four, and manage to make Dear Prudence sound even trippier than the original. A strong cover, her voice really suits the melody. You don't meet many women called Prudence these days, do you? Did anyone ever? I know the inspiration was Mia Farrow's sister, who's still alive I think, so you could meet her.
Skipped CC to get to about ten seconds of PIL with one of their greatest singles, fantastic, insistent bassline and superb guitar riff ideal for Lydon's vocals.
thx i'm fairly sure that's the correct way to pronounce the word banshee(s). and probably the first time anyone had done so regarding siouxsie and her chums since their emergence in the late 70's. according to wiki the mythical creature in question is actually female, so i wonder if they knew that when they were debating what to be called?
DeleteI thought we were in Depech-ay Mode territory! But yeah, a banshee is a female spirit of Irish myth. Probably the amount of noise she makes was the motivating factor for the band name choice.
DeleteNot too much that I was sad to miss on this one, with a solitary exception.
ReplyDeleteBlack Lace - Blimey, the second show in a row where the opening act allows me an anecdote about my career in radio. Lucky you, eh?
In this case I can say that I've done 'Agadoo' live on stage with Black Lace. In Carlisle. In the pissing rain. This was when they did a new version of it in 1998. Of course Alan had passed away by then. As for this song, it's less annoying than their others probably, based on an Italian song I believe.
Tracey Ullman - Here's the one true pop classic on this show. A great Pete Waterman production, and I just adore the harmonies provided by Kirsty from the 'BABY!' bit to the end of the song. Brilliant stuff.
George Benson - Oh god, has he not buggered off yet?
Monyaka is nothing special, then the unlucky Kajagoogoo, Yewtreed yet again.
JK segment - I do know the Naked Eyes song, though I don't think it's particularly good. Air Supply is overproduced bollocks of the type than Jim Steinman usually comes up with. I had thought that the Men Without Hats song (which I love) I had first encountered on Saturday Superstore but it's possible it was on this show since they show a fair bit of it. Billy Joel's tune is average.
Unique, like Hot Streak previously, does nothing for me.
Siouxsie & The Banshees - One of those that I have to be in the right mood to like, it's odd that a cover gave them their biggest hit really.
PIL's tune is pretty good, not as good as 'Rise' though!
It was unusual that the Americans had Tell Her About It released before Uptown Girl, whereas we had Uptown Girl first in late 1983, and then Tell Her About It as Billy Joel's follow-up single at the start of 1984.
DeleteThis is one of the great aspects of watching these TOTP reruns 34 years later with the JK slot, as I had always thought that Uptown Girl was the first release on both sides of the atlantic, considering its huge success in the UK with 5 weeks at No.1, immediately following 6 weeks at No.1 for Karma Chameleon by Culture Club. Billy Joel is a legend!
I checked and it doesn't seem to be Pete Waterman involved.
DeleteYeah, I think 1983 was way before Waterman arrived on the music scene. I think the first contributions he was making was in 1987 with Kylie Minogue in his 'hits factory'.
Deletepete waterman arrived on the music scene as a writer and producer as early as the mid-70's!! in the wake of pop music being laid to waste by he and his colleagues messrs stock and aitken in the late 80's/early 90's, i was rather shocked to discover that (as peter waterman) he was the producer of what was a favourite of mine in my youth - a brilliant (and superior) cover of the fatback band's street dance by the jaln band!
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i52jcb01yKo
How strange, I could have sworn that it was a Pete production, but it appears not. Either I'm getting mixed up or he's claimed credit for it in the past.
DeleteI did know that his pop career started in the 70s, orginally as a promoter for the likes of Susan Cadogan I believe. Dory - your guess of 1987 doesn't even cover the early PWL work with Divine, Hazell Dean & Dead Or Alive!
FWIW I am a huge Hit Factory fan, unfashionable though that no doubt is.
In fact 'Tell her about it' was the first single taken from 'An Innocent Man' in the UK as well, but it flopped and only became massive on the back of 'Uptown Girl' when it was repromoted. A bit like Toto's 'Rosanna'.
DeleteAlso in 1975 Waterman appeared on TOTP to sing Good-bye-ee (as part of 14-18 (an enterprise with Peter Shelley).
DeletePete was also one of the powers behind Musical Youth's throne.
Deletehaving previously made some waves as a club jock in the early 70's, pete's first association in the record industry was with magnet records (as in-house producer and seemingly general dogsbody). hence being involved with the likes of susan cadogan, the jaln band and peter shelley, all of whom were on said label (the latter actually being the original "alvin stardust" before bernard jewry aka shane fenton assumed the role!)
DeleteHairy Cornflake time again, this time with Mr Vance. I do feel sorry for regular BBC4 viewers as they are missing another pretty good one, not that they’d have seen the JK slot. Thanks again to Neil B.
ReplyDeleteBlack Lace – Superman – Well well well Smokie have morphed into something that defies categorisation. Mr Motivator did this kind of stuff to help people get fit. The Superman connection is quite apt for me as I’m mid-way through watching all the box sets of ‘Smallville’ and damn fine some of those episodes are, especially when snatches of well-known tunes feature near the end.
David Essex – Tahiti –This is the version that was included on the Greatest Hits CD and is all the better for the female vocals and chorus and, er, frolicking in the sand.
Tracey Ullman – They don’t know – Nobody has commented on the frocks that Tracey and her pals are ‘wearing’ - unusual miniskirts! As noted by everyone already, this is a classic pop tune which I heard on the pub jukebox over and over again at the time.
George Benson – In your Eyes – A smooth classic. Not the best of videos though.
Monyaka – Go deh yaka – Hmmm…..next.
Kajagoogoo – Big Apple – Rotten!
JK slot – Some great songs here. Forgetting Naked Eyes we get going with Air Supply’s Jim Steinman classic which amazingly failed to trouble the scorers over here despite me buying the 7” and the (now rare) 12” version. It was the lead track on the excellent ‘Greatest Hits’ album released at the same time. Men without Hats are Canadian but look like English Country Bumpkins in this amusing video which would soon catch on over here. Finally we get Billy Joel’s ‘Tell her about it’ which also failed to trouble the scorers initially but was granted a ‘second innings’ after the massive success of ‘Uptown Girl’.
Unique – What I got… - The last ever Zoo? Won’t miss them as much as Legs & Co.
Souixsie & Banshees – Dear Prudence – I hated this cover! ‘Back in the USSR’ nicely segues into the Beatles definitive version with the jet engines and that’s how it should have stayed. Sorry, Souixsie and Co are no Joe Cocker.
Culture Club – Karma Chameleon – More of the song’s domination at the top. More to come. Actually I have a nice sub-thread to compose off the back of this which I’ll save for now….
PIL – This is not a love song – It certainly isn’t.
I presume your reference to Black Lace being formed out of Smokie is a joke, as they surely weren't! (even if their Eurovision song WAS a carbon copy of them)
DeleteChris Norman from Smokie did end up fronting Black Lace later on though.
Noax - yep, I missed the quotes off 'Smokie'!! Actually I really liked 'Mary Ann'.
Deletedon't forget that racey were originally smokie clones as well - in my view it's hard to believe that anybody would actually want to aspire to such tedious crap!
DeleteNoax - Chris Norman didn't join Black Lace, but BL's Alan Barton replaced Chris as Smokie's lead singer, and remained with them until his tragic death in 1995.
DeleteAh yes, wrong way round - thanks for correcting that John!
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