Feeling flash
20/03/86 (Simon Bates & Janice Long)
Jim Diamond – “Hi Ho Silver” (5)
At its peak.
The Rolling Stones – “Harlem Shuffle” (13) (video/chart)
Also at its peak.
Pet Shop Boys – “Love Comes Quickly” (21)
This follow up to West End Girls peaked at number 19.
Stevie Wonder – “Overjoyed” (36) (breaker)
Peaked at number 17.
Siouxsie & The Banshees – “Candyman” (34) (breaker)
Got no higher.
Cliff Richard & The Young Ones – “Living Doll” (4) (video)
The first 'Comic Relief' single and it will be number one next week.
The Real Thing – “You To Me Are Everything” (19)
Another re-mix making the 1986 charts, this one peaking at number 5.
Diana Ross – “Chain Reaction” (1) (video)
Final week at number one.
Mr Mister – “Kyrie” (15) (video/audience dancing/credits)
Peaked at number 11.
March 27th is next but it features Mike Smith so will not be shown on BBC4.
totp 27th March 1986 is here:https://we.tl/t-VS7FSuAEbL
ReplyDeleteThanks gia. It is on YouTube as well, though that version has poor picture quality:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9GeSoHNq1o
In my version better sound, picture, but missed openning "yellow pearl" link(last)
DeleteHow much longer is the Yellow Pearl intro on TOTP? I must say it has already had around 4-5 years since 1981/82 I think as the theme tune, so a damn good run so far.
DeleteThe 27 March show is the last hurrah for Yellow Pearl.
DeleteNeil B has also made a link available for this show, so take your pick:
Deletehttps://we.tl/t-espcmjSjX0
When is it going up on here?
DeleteI don't think these new voiceover opening links are working too well - the one this week felt particularly abrupt. When our hosts do finally appear on screen, Janice is her normal enthusiastic self while a rather hirsute and leather-jacketed Master Bates seems to be on autopilot for most of the show. They would have done better to get that other, fresh-faced young Simon to co-host the whole thing; curiously, despite the competence he shows in introducing PSB here, Mr Mayo would have to wait until October before getting his first proper gig.
ReplyDeleteJim Diamond sports a new and much-improved haircut for what I suppose is his last TOTP appearance, but otherwise everything seems the same as in his previous one, mother-and-daughter backing singers included. The Stones next, at the nadir of their career. Mick and Keef were barely on speaking terms at the time, while Charlie was just emerging from a three-year "lost weekend" of smack addiction. The result was a creative void that they tried to fill with this pointless, second rate cover version. The video has a nice Toontown vibe, though the animation itself doesn't look that great to my eyes. The chart rundown over the top of it is worse than ever this week, thanks to the inexplicable decision to have both Janice and Bates trying to do it. They audibly struggle to keep up with the climbers and chart entries as they scroll up the screen, and Michael Hurll must have realised by this point that this was one innovation that should be chucked in the nearest bin.
You don't tend to hear this second PSB hit very often, and that's a shame because it has a pretty, delicate tune and lots of atmosphere; admittedly it stands out less than West End Girls, which probably helps to explain the lowly chart peak. Visually there is not much of interest going on here, though Neil's shirt is quite baggy and Chris appears to have his flies undone in one shot. Stevie will be on again, but this is all we will see of Siouxsie's latest offering. I don't know the song, but I think it could be a grower with more than one listen, and there was some good guitar in it.
On to Cliff, about to have his first number 1 of the 80s with his first ever chart-topper from 1959. I suppose it was inevitable that he would team up with The Young Ones at some point, and as Bates mentions this was the first product of the embryonic Comic Relief. I thought it was hilarious at the time, but it all feels a bit forced now - perhaps I have become too jaded by all the charidee comedy singles that have followed in its wake. The one bit that does still raise a smile is Hank Marvin emerging from behind Rik during the guitar solo. Another old song next, as The Real Thing join Tavares in having a 1976 hit remixed. Suffice to say the new version sounds as flat as a pancake, but it's nevertheless interesting to see the Thing in their 80s guise, looking considerably smarter and slicker than they had ten years previously. Mister Mister play us out with their other hit, which we get in full. A reasonable tune, but for me blander and less memorable than Broken Wings - an unimaginative video too.
Yeah, I can't help but agree that Mister Mister's finest moment was Broken Wings. I just couldn't get into Kyrie I'm afraid.
Deletejohn you've reminded me of that ad for something called red rock cider in the early 90's - leslie neilsen was making the most of his new-found fame via "the naked gun", and at one point in his voiceover he says something like "i noticed a man in the shadows" and hank marvin steps out of the gloom! despite that and the strapline "it ain't red, and there's no rocks in it!", the product still stiffed to my recollection
DeleteI remember that ad campaign well, though I'd forgotten the Hank Marvin cameo!
DeleteJim Diamond with a practically identical performance to last time's starts us off, though he has a different look (a jacket two sizes too big will do that). The guitar solo was curiously foreshadowing the Young Ones Hank Marvin appearance, I thought.
ReplyDeleteDid someone tell Bates the animation in the Stones' video was by Ralph Bakshi or was he a huge fan of Fritz the Cat (happy birthday Robert Crumb) and Coonskin? Yeah, what do you think? Maybe he liked to settle down with Bakshi's Mighty Mouse toons. I note "John K." on an animated gravestone: John Kricfalusi, one assumes, the recently disgraced creator of Ren and Stimpy? Anyway, all that's more interesting than this limp cover.
The Pet Shop Boys' actual second hit, no, it wasn't Opportunities, and a (unintentionally?) suggestively-titled ditty with high notes you wonder if Neil can reach these days. Nice enough, but second division from them.
Breakers, Stevie with a Lately-sounding effort and Siouxsie and the Banshees with a tune I had totally forgotten, but it all came flooding back with that chorus. Recall hearing Janice Long playing this, aptly enough.
Cliff and the Young Ones, an actual funny charity record, though it was better on vinyl as the video features an overabundance of acting up for the camera. The late, great Rik Mayall's intro is one of the great speeches in pop history.
The Real Thing jumped on the remix bandwagon, though at least they took advantage and united to perform it and its follow up on TV. Smart casual, gentlemen? Crufts awaited...
Diana Ross has her final week at number one (ever?) then the whole of the Mr Mister video, oh, they were a bunch of lads, weren't they? They liked a laugh! But this should have been top ten, it's an infectiously rousing pop rock item with a real earworm of a joyous chorus. Even if I had no idea what he was singing at the time.
Oh, and Simon Mayo makes his debut - my favourite Radio 1 Breakfast Show host. I used to listen to that Saturday night show, too.
I really loved this Rolling Stones track at the time, purely because of the video and nothing else. This is the most extreme example where a video can change the whole outlook of a song, as the song itself was not very 80s appealing, but my, how Jagger and the team were able to lift an old dreary song to being featured on a 1986 edition of TOTP, it's just pure genius. Whats more, I just love the colours in the video, just so full of brightness and candy to the eye. It makes the Tom & Jerry cartoon animation look very simple. Pity that we had to have the top 40 rundown splurged all over the video!
DeleteI didn't know that Siouxie & The Banshes were still going at this stage. Considering their first hit was in 1978 with Hong Kong Garden, they had by now clocked up 8 consecutive years of singles in the charts, in Siouxie's various guises and outfits through that time. How much longer did they continue I wonder?
Was Simon Mayo short for mayonnaise?
i had forgotten about chris amoo winning a trophy at the crufts dog show! going from memory, wasn't the breed in question an afghan hound?
DeleteDory - Siouxsie and the Banshees kept going until 1996, though they had no more Top 20 hits after 1988.
Delete@Dory: Bob and Earl's original Harlem Shuffle is a bit of a soul classic, though sadly it's opening brass sting was sampled for the start of Jump Around by House of Pain, a song I detest. So every time I hear that sting on the radio, I'm crossing my fingers it'll be Bob and Earl! Needless to say, you never hear the Stones version at all.
Delete@Wilberforce: Yes, Chris Amoo bred Afghan hounds, I remember him showing up on Blue Peter to show them off. Think he did a dog food ad too.
DeleteShame Chris didn't do a moosical too. Amoo- sic... harumph.
DeleteHe really should have had a sideline in dairy farming.
DeleteMayo is favorite radio 1 breakfast DJ too THX.
DeleteHe was the first one to bring a whole collective to breakfast I seem to recall.
hosts: janice pulls the short straw for a change with her co-host. i would imagine she thought slimy was utterly odious (as allegedly many of her colleagues did), although no doubt in keeping with her chummy personality she at least pretended otherwise. the question has to be asked: what in the hell is slimy still doing on radio 1 and presenting totp? he should have been transferred to radio 2 long before now!
ReplyDeletestones: this is a decent-enough cover of an old tune, if nothing to get excited about. however this was the moment the stones became a nostalgia act, despite desparately trying to convince people otherwise with later self-penned efforts such as "mixed emotions". john has mentioned that charlie watts somewhat explicably picked up a smack addiction at this point having resisted the temptation for the previous two decades (was he hanging out with boy george?), and the front pic of the album this came from more-than suggests that
pet shop boys: i always preferred this to both what came before it ("west end girls") and after (either "opportunites" or "suburbia" - can't remember which one came first now), yet unlike those it seems to have been washed away in the tides of time. i however i only really started taking notice of them as a force to be reckoned with was as a result of their impending collaboration with dusty springfield
real thing: i can't remember a single one of these 80's remixes of 70's disco tunes that i didn't think was was complete garbage and a waste of time. and this wasn't even a particularly good disco track in the first place
mr mister: a great atmospheric intro and verse, but then (unlike "broken wings") it goes downhill fast when the journey-style chorus kicks in
Heck, Simon Bates was still at Radio 1 in the 90s!
DeleteThere's quite some way to go still until Dusty Springfield gets to the Pet Shop Boys, at least 1987 I think, or possibly 1988.
DeleteA couple of answers to questions above - yes, this was Jim Diamond's TOTP swansong and yes, this was Diana Ross's last week at number one in the UK charts. She reached number 2 twice later on with the same song, "When You Tell Me that You Love Me", solo and performed with Westlife.
ReplyDeleteWell I was quite surprised by this show. Good one.
ReplyDeleteJim Diamond – Hi ho Silver – Lively start to the show. Unusual these days to get two appearances unless you’d hit the top.
Rolling Stones – Harlem Shuffle – Impressive video and cartoon (although Charlie looks bored) but although a great song this just lacks the punch of Bob and Earl’s version.
Pet Shop Boys – Love comes quickly – You don’t hear this one a lot these days. Rather understated and good to hear again. No comment on the performance, it’s just them.
Breakers – No time for Stevie (complex lyrics?) or Souixsie (though Sammy Davis Jnr was the Candy Man?)
Cliff Richard / Young Ones – Living Doll – Sorry, this one’s totally lost on me. Not a favourite show of mine I just find their interruptions tiresome.
Real Thing – You to me are everything – Ah, you can’t keep a good song down, even if someone has tried hard to lessen its impact. Of all the mucking about that has been done to this classic the thing I find most annoying is the removal of the counterpoint vocals near the end. Just feels gappy. But still a great song, just not as great as it was in 1976!
Diana Ross – Chain Reaction – still a great song too..
Mr Mister – Kyrie – “Lord have mercy” this means. A nice piece of AOR and Mr Mister’s swansong really. Vanished without trace after these two massive US chart toppers.
Now then, I was hoping to have ELO ‘Calling America’ on the show but they’ve sadly ignored it bar the chart rundown. Folks, if you like good songs and like to hear them in a different light, then start with this ELO classic and listen how this amazing guy has augmented it. Then check out some of his other postings. He’s done wonders on the likes of ‘Mama Mia’, ‘Reflections of my Life’, ‘Because’, ‘Have you never been mellow’ and ‘In the Year 2525’ to name but a few. I spent a whole evening listening to these songs given a whole new treatment with the ‘phones turned up loud…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_wV5yf_gF4
Roy Orbison had a fine song called Candy Man (the b-side of Crying), and in 1991 Swedish oddballs Army of Lovers would give us the equally good, if very different, Candyman Messiah.
DeleteI remember the Army Of Lovers big hit in 1991 called Crucified, and their band member with the thick lips and huge knockers in the video:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di18hTFTwIw
Suffice to say that this was the track that did the best in the charts, and made a fine addition to my pop video library on iTunes!
The female singer was certainly striking, and Crucified is a great track - the parent album, Massive Luxury Overdose (which also features Candyman Messiah) is well worth a listen too.
DeleteI liked Army Of Lovers too - for the music, not for any other reason - and it's a shame that 'Crucified' was their only hit (and not actually a massive one Dory, only No.31) - my favourite of theirs was the brilliant 'Obsession'.
DeleteA couple of big tits in that Army Of Lovers video - and you can take that either way. Boom boom tish! When they changed female vocalist, the group elected another woman not built like a stick insect!
DeleteThe Army of Lovers was in the same era as the TV show called Eurotrash, if anyone remembers this Channel 4 show in the early 90s with Antoine de Caunes.
Deleteit looks like there were actually three female members of army of lovers in their ranks at one time or other. plus when the dark-haired guy was not done up like a fop, he was not averse to a spot pf cross-dressing himself
DeleteWow Army of Lovers. I remember Crucify very well. IiRC it had C couple of goes at getting into the chart. A fine song.
DeleteThe opening link to this edition was so abrupt that I briefly wondered whether Bates had been relating an amusing anecdote about Savile, DLT and Jonathan King and BBC4 had to get their scissors out again!
ReplyDeleteJim Diamond was lucky to get on twice really, with this performance being slightly more entertaining I think.
The Stones track is dreadful.
Then a new DJ! Simon Mayo did say in the documentary on 86 that he made a schoolboy error in not looking at the camera while introducing PSB so maybe that's why he didn't come back until October?
As for 'Love Comes Quickly', I like it so much that it was the song I walked in to at my wedding ceremony! It should have got higher, and I know that Neil Tennant has said that when it stopped at No.19 he did wonder if that was it for their career. Happily not.
The Stevie Wonder song is bland, the Siouxsie song is OK but I can't help thinking that it may have been Janice's influence that it was included!
Cliff & The Young Ones - One of the few charity songs that still stands up. To think that 5 years later we would get served up 'The Stonk'....
Oh, and it's good to see a clean copy of the video - when it turns up on music channels it usually looks like it's been taken from someone's VHS.
The Real Thing - A complete waste of time, other than to remind me just how much more exciting the TOTP repeats were when they started with the 76 shows.
Mr. Mister - The better of their 2 hits.
An effervescent Janice and a laid back and less annoying Slimes who seemed to have beefed up his bouffant.
ReplyDeleteA better haircut and nice cape for Jim Diamond (though he wasn’t singing about Batman), but “Hi Ho Silver” didn’t make silver medal spot and just missed out on the podium. A John Lydon lookalike in a leather flat cap on keyboards there.
Here’s the only time the spoken roller chart rundown actually improved the song / video it swamped. Dreadful cover by the Stones.
Simon Mayo already showing his sense of humour there. Probably nervous and excited, two traits which cause “Love Comes Quickly”. Ahem. A low key but lovely and almost forgotten Pet Shop Boys hit.
Stevie Wonder with a wordy but nice track ruined by the patented Rolf Harris dripping tap noise in the background.
Siouxsie in white? Blimey! Not one of the band’s best but still intriguing in my book.
I preferred Motorhead on “The Young Ones”. Fies my soul!? Christopher Ryan’s tiny, isn’t he? Born Christopher Papazoglou, he was a late replacement for Peter Richardson in the comedy.
Another crap remix of a disco shuffler for The Real Thing, who smallest member always looked bemused and happy to be on the show.
An FF for the chart topper again, then let’s rock! Mr. Mister with some standard AOR, which stands for adult orientated rock but can probably also mean any old rubbish.
Christopher Ryan was so small he ended up playing Kiv a small slug like slimy baddie in Dr Who
DeleteHe also played a Sontaran in the revived series.
Deleteoh yes. forgot that one
DeleteHi ho. Its a man in a big mac..
ReplyDeleteSeen this before so no further comment.
Janice doing most of the heavy lifting in the first link. Wakey Wakey Slimes.
The Rolling Stones get their song and video vastly improved by the Top 40 countdown. Not a lot to say about this one.
It's the best Radio 1 Breakfast Show DJ ever.. MAYO...SIMON MAYO...
Who is Mayo looking at? Camera is this way Simon.
PSB finally get a BBC4 outing with a nice song. Not a massive hit and probably one of their weaker singles though I've always quite liked it.
Breakers :
Stevie back with Overjoyed. Although listening to this you'd be hard pressed to notice. Video not up to much. Now if they'd had Stevie driving the taxi.
Banshees up next. Odd song, not great but a solid video.
Poor Keith Cheqwin. The young ones don't approve.
Remember this very well. It's actually quite cleverly done. The video is great. A charity triumph. Well done Comic Relief. Wonder who was at the concert.
A blast from the 70s next. This is a great disco record. The Real Thing indeed.
SLIMES really is making hard work of this week's show. It's painful.
Miss Ross still at the top.
Kyrie play out with a bloody concert video. How i hate these. Oh look they are on tour. How original.
Love the song though.
OK show. PSB the best. 😀