Fab tune, Milady
16/03/89 (Simon Mayo, Sybil Ruscoe & Rod McKenzie)
New Order – “Round & Round” (22)
Getting us underway tonight and the song went up one more place.
Gloria Estefan – “Can’t Stay Away From You” (7) (rpt from 16/02/89)
They're getting their value for money with this clip, aren't they? This is its third outing. But the song was now at its peak.
Chanelle – “One Man” (25)
Her only hit and it peaked at number 16.
Fuzzbox – “International Rescue” (23)
They shortened their name from We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It, and this song became their biggest hit when it peaked at number 11.
Madonna – “Like A Prayer” (2) (video)
Will be number one next week.
Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler – “Keep On Movin’” (15)
Making their studio debut and the song peaked at number 5.
Jason Donovan – “Too Many Broken Hearts” (1) (video)
Second and final week at number one.
Guns N’ Roses – “Paradise City” (21) (video/credits)
Became their first of twelve top ten hits when it peaked at number 6.
23rd March is next.
One of these days they'll give Rod his own microphone...
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime Boy Mayo and Shouty Sybil take charge of proceedings this week, and it's not a bad show at all.
First up New Order once again proving why they are a great studio band with one of their lesser hits "round and round". Don't mind this at all but not a patch on some of their other hits.
Glo is back yet again...just buy the album people...
Chanelle up next with a nice slice of 1982. Nicely sung, decent tune but instantly forgettable unfortunately, and forget her we did.
Breakers:
So which one is Alyson Williams? I think there is a tune buried under all this production but I'll be damned if I can make it out.
Elvis Costello tells us the story of Veronica. Nice idea. Wasn't overly impressed with the tune.
Kim Wilde - Don't remember this one at all. Can't have been a big hit. Quite liked what I heard of it though, fingers crossed it gets a full outing.
Punk survives into 89 with New Model Army singing about Vagabonds. No thank you.
Speaking of post-punk. (We've Got A) Fuzzbox (And We're Gonna Use It) go all short named and pop for a rather fun take on "International Rescue" long before Anthea Turnoff got her hands on their island. Vix, Magz, Jo and Tina in rather fetching fake-Thunderbirds outfits. Every 15 year old boys dream. And certainly mine...had posters all over my wall and all the singles and album "Big Bang" this year. Their cover of Yoko Ono's "Walking on thin ice" is a very odd tune indeed.
Tragically Jo died in 2012 aged 43, only 6 weeks after being diagnosed with Cancer. Life can be cruel.
A snippet of Madonna next. "Like A Prayer" I think was her breakthrough from Pop stardom to Super-Stardom and didn't this video cause a fuss, black Jesus and all. She loved to shock didn't she. This is a quality song though, easily one of her best. The album is also one of her finest pieces of work. Queen of Pop and Number one next week.
The launch of a brief chart career for Soul II Soul but their influence reached much much further. A real breath of fresh air and their future number one was a massive summer hit.
Da Donovan just about survives at the top for a second week.
Finally Guns N Roses show us how a concert video should be done. Brilliant song as well. One of their finest moments.
Just listened to the Fuzzbox version of Thin Ice again on YT, and it's not as good as the original, but it's pretty decent. Stopped their pop career in its tracks, though, nobody wanted serious Fuzzbox.
DeleteMy not so favourite female presenter here but it’s not a bad pairing I guess even if Simon is curiously enthusiastic about the racket that is Guns n’Roses.
ReplyDeleteNew Order – Round and Round – Upbeat offering for the introspective indie band. The crowd love it – reminds me of the old ‘dance’ playouts.
Gloria Estefan – Can’t stay away from you. Third time of this truncated live rendition. OK folks, they could easily have shown this:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYweHGwASKU
Chanelle – One Man – The name ‘Chanelle’ conjured up someone entirely different for me. As for this, I lost interest rapidly.
Fuzzbox – International Rescue – Speechless! I honestly don’t know what to say about this! Just so unexpected and I have never heard it before. Words fail me…
Breakers – There were four breakers of which I really like Elvis Costello’s ‘Veronica’ but it only reached no31 so I guess we won’t see it again. Kim Wilde’s ‘Love in the natural way’ just doesn’t hit the heights….and the Bangles with ‘Eternal Flame’ still haven’t penetrated the top40, sitting at no47 this week after 7 weeks on the chart, ready to burst in at no33 next week on their way to the top.
Madonna – Like A Prayer – For me Madonna’s finest album (bar that awful Prince duet). This was where Madonna peaked and what a cracking opening single this is. We get the latter ‘gospelly’ part in this excerpt but I feel sure we’ll see the song’s beginning if they don’t clip that like they did for the likes of ‘Papa don’t preach’. I’ll think I’ll stick the cd on in the car tomorrow… Great stuff.
Soul ii Soul – Keep on movin’ – Just who was Caron Wheeler to be ‘featured’? This stuff went right over my head then and still does.
Jason Donovan – Too many broken hearts – Final week of one of SAW’s greatest staples.
Guns n’ Roses – Paradise City – People I work with in their 20s wear t-shirts with G&R on them. They were not even born when this came out and yet the band seem to transcend generations. I really can’t work out what all the fuss is about.
Elvis Costello's track was co-written with Paul McCartney and was taken from Elvis's album "Spike", which features the word 'bastard' in the first song's chorus and another song ("Chewing Gum") where a tuba plays the bassline. An eclectic album but worth a listen.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBugger, more typos! Take two...
ReplyDeleteWe've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It! were originally on Vindaloo Records, an indie label from their native Birmingham, and made number 41 with their debut EP featuring the buzzsaw classic "Rules And Regulations". They'd already been in the mugshots before this current hit. Interesting to see the first four chart hits of Fuzzbox under any name all reached a different two-digit number ending in 1.
The Vindaloo label also had dry witted teddy-boy suited comic Ted Chippington on its roster - he was most famous for a spoken word version of "She Loves You" on "Pebble Mill At One" which left the audience absolutely bemused.
Ted Chippington is best known by me for his brilliant I'm Not the Wanderer, his take on the Dion classic. Stewart Lee cites him as an influence.
DeleteI'd forgotten that, prior to this hit, We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It! were actually on a collaboration single with Ted Chippington and The Nightingales under the alias of Vindaloo Summer Special, their "Rocking With Rita" making number 56 in 1986.
DeleteTed Chippington's finest moment (well, part of it) - obviously interviewer Paul Ciani had been laughing so hard during the act he'd put his neck out!
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmupmNbupMs
What was the point of Rod McKenzie being there, exactly? TOTP doesn't really need two presenters, let alone three, and he just stood there for the most part like the proverbial spare part while his breakfast show colleagues did nearly all the work. Mayo was as good as always, Sybil had lots of enthusiasm but still felt like she was presenting the wrong show, and she was too shouty again.
ReplyDeleteAfter their dismal previous hit, New Order are back with something more tuneful and probably their best live performance yet. Hooky sports a fine head of hair, while Bernard looks like the poorest of poor man's rappers with his gold chains. Chanelle comes after the Glo repeat (wasn't there a video they could have shown for that?), big of hair and tight of dress, and purveying pleasant but anonymous dance pop. The breakers furnish us with records we won't hear again from Elvis Costello and New Model Army. Veronica was a good comeback single from Mr McManus, and I am surprised it didn't do better - it certainly got quite a bit of airplay at the time, I seem to recall. Vagabonds doesn't have much of a tune, but the rock & fiddle combination does make it stand out to some degree.
Some of the biggest shoulder pads you will ever see adorn the attractive bodies of Fuzzbox, who give us an enjoyable pop tune alongside the camp costumes. Madge is next, putting her very quiet 1988 behind her as she storms quickly and deservedly towards the top of the charts. Although her masterpiece is savagely edited here, at least we do get the best bit, that soaring and rather inspirational climax. She really didn't need such a controversial video to sell such a great song, but in Madge's world it has always been a case of the more attention, the better.
Something rather more sedate next from Soul II Soul, with Caron Wheeler performing in the TOTP studio for the first time as the main attraction rather than a backing singer. This is a very sophisticated, seductive tune, and it did sound very fresh and distinctive at the time. Guns N' Roses, now at the height of their imperial phase, play us out with a typically posturing video and a storming rock tune, which didn't quite fulfil Mayo's prediction of reaching the Top 5 but deserved to do so.
Daft artistes link number 27 - Caron Wheeler was one half of Afrodizziak, a backing singer combo who appeared on Elvis Costello's album "Punch The Clock".
Deletepresumably with 80's totp perennial backing singer claudia fontaine?
DeleteClaudia didn't feature in this performance.
DeleteSorry, something went wrong with that last comment! I meant to say that Claudia Fontaine was indeed in Afrodizziak, and will shortly feature in the Back to Life video, but did not feature in this studio performance.
DeleteAmazing, that's two of Gilmour's Pink Floyd backing singers around in the charts at this time. Sam Brown, Claudia Fontaine and the third being Durga McBroom.
DeleteIt's only really the lead singer on Fuzzbox with an attractive body John. I checked out the video, and its really quite good, with more of Vix, and also with a shiny silver outfit being caught captive, more like Dale Arden or Princess Aura out of the Flash Gordon series. Certainly makes for a brighter day among todays storms:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF0aHzNtYsk
New Order, supposedly live but if so singing and playing along to a very extensive backing track. Anyway, one of their lesser-recalled songs, but with its punchy keyboard stings its should be better known as it deserved to go higher up the charts.
ReplyDeleteNot this again... Alright, Glo, ninety second version, bloke in white shirt dancing like a berk on the outskirts of the audience, etc.
Not Sherelle, not Shanice, it's Chanelle, I just about remember this one but would never have been able to pick her out of a lineup. Nice enough, but lacking any great hook, kind of odd it went Top 20.
Hey Fuzzbox with their non-copyright infringing interpretation of Supermarionation's finest moment. Although I will stick up for The Secret Service as the great, lost Gerry and Sylvia Anderson show. Back to the music, and this lot were a ray of (pink) sunshine wherever they showed up, funny and smart, and should have caught on more than they did. They had been around for a while (and had recorded a marvellously disrespectful cover of Bohemian Rhapsody!), but at least they had a little time in the sun. Always nice to see indie go mainstream in a weird way, rather than dulling their sound.
Madonna with a brutal edit of her "Bringing Christ to life with the power of her cleavage" video for her epic Like a Prayer, impeccably produced track but after a while it got to be the preferred Madonna track for people who are indifferent to Madonna and the lustre wore off somewhat.
Aaaand relax, it's Soul II Soul with their laidback groove in full effect, you can tell why they quickly found their niche, which makes it all the odder their success only lasted about a year. Maybe they ran out of ideas? Jazzy B is always good value interviewed on clip shows.
Jase in the place, he held off the might of Madge for one week, at least, but he never did anything as good as this again.
Guns N Roses, I suppose it's a miracle they managed to stay together as long as they did given how off their faces they were for most of the time. That's the rawk lifestyle for you. But this is one of their biggest tunes, and gets in there, does what it needs to do and gets out again, so there's that in its favour. And it's not as bloated as they would become.
Oh - Angelo left out the Breakers! I'll just say Elvis Costello's Macca collaboration was an anti-climax as far as sales went, I believe, but it did give us the anecdote that while they were writing, Macca got scared of Declan because he would sing all the lyrics they were composing at full volume. Anyway, Veronica, songs about old folks could go either way, and the '89 public weren't interested in retirement home pop (Eleanor Rigby had nothing to worry about).
ReplyDeleteOh, and NMA were their usual dog on a string nonsense.
We all forgot about Rod McKenzie being the other new presenter of 1989 as this could be his only one of the year and there is the other two Jenny Powell and Jakki Brambles are still to come in the repeat run.
ReplyDeleteThere was no breakers in the episode, as this was the episode broadcast in the week before Easter �� and luckily to see Gloria Estefan to get another outing, surprisingly Soul II Soul performing on Top of the Pops with Keep on Moving as this would remain their only performance until Joy in 1992, despite they was supposed to perform Back to Life but they wouldn’t mime to the song in the studio of TOTP in a prerecorded episode so the video had to be shown on several outings.
Surprisingly Fuzzbox made their TOTP debut after the name change and we had the first of the GNR hits of the year with Paradise City as the play out track and Jason Donovan refused to perform Too Many Broken Hearts as he was too busy on recording his Ten Good Reasons album and his final episodes of Neighbours were been filmed.
I would also that as 1989 progresses, we will see TOTP gradually move back to a one-presenter format that was more commonplace earlier in the decade and further back, and by the start of 1990, it will be fully back to only one presenter per show. I was never a big fan of having two presenters, so it will be interesting to see how the one-presenter format succeeds into the new 90s decade...
DeleteCould the sound department only provide two mics for the hosts? Poor Rod having to hotdesk all the way through.
ReplyDeleteIn Angelo’s defence, I cut and paste the list of artistes for each edition from the Popscene website to help me compile notes about the shows and, when I came to print the details around New Year, the breakers for this edition weren’t listed, though Popscene now shows them.
Had New Order Bernie raided a jewellers? Concentrating so much on his vocals you rarely see his eyes open. Nice low slung bass as usual from hippy hair Hook before Simon lurks stage left to us.
If Gloria’s studio turn had been a video, we’d have had the entire song in three parts by now.
Chanelle, an attractive singer with slinky moves in a slinky dress, but a forgettable track (“call your preacher” indeed) and I think this was her only single, as part of the Blaze consortium conveyor belt of house disco releases.
I couldn’t sleep through that “Sleep Talk” clattering din.
Elvis Costello obviously singing over the backing track on a strange video for this okay but not earth shattering tune. He’ll only make the mugshots with two more singles.
Kim Wilde looking sultry but the tune went in one ear and out the other.
New Model Army, old model racket.
Wahay! I don’t remember any puppet in “Thunderbirds” looking like Vicki. Poor Jo enjoying every second, and a very catchy chorus – F.A.B. indeed. Sybil immediately alienating all the supporters of Birmingham City at the end.
Quelle surprise, a Simon Mayo record of the week next, and what an outfield gamble he took there. We get the bit of the tune closest to the run-off groove, not that it mattered to me.
The first sighting of Jazzy B and a lovely vocal by Caron Wheeler, which just makes you scratch your head as to why TOTP pissed them about next time round. Unusual battle belts adorning the string section, and the second Pet Shop Boys stylee PC of the evening.
A fine old juxtaposition between Jason’s clean cut chart topper and video and the last act. I was never a fan of Axl Rose’s vocals, but this rocker does the job big time. So close with that chart forecast, Simon.
Never mind Comic Relief, where’s the fund to get Rod his own mic for next time? Ah.
talking of new order being ostentatious: by chance last week i noticed a flashy ferrari parked around the corner from where i live that had the number plate H20 OKY. i wonder who that belonged to?
DeleteOoh, that makes you a neighbour of mine!
DeleteNew Order - This was less shambolic than usual, which makes me think that not much of it was actually live. Certainly not Gillian's keyboards I suspect. I prefer 'Fine Time' but this is still decent.
ReplyDeleteChanelle - I really like this one, no surprise I guess given that I'm one of the few here who actually likes house music. The 12" of this one is a corker.
Breakers - Nice to see Elvis Costello's song, the only Top 40 hit to share its name with my wife! Shame he didn't get a studio spot. Thank goodness New Model Army didn't though, they're one of the worst groups ever.
Fuzzbox - Barmy Brummies alert! Maggie Dunne used to co-host a show on the same radio station as me and kindly did me a voiceover. Vix still looks amazing today by the way. Oh yes, the song - it's brilliant.
Madonna - He's not really Jesus in the video you know, not that anyone paid any attention to the actual facts. It's one of Madge's best but this is yet another case of 'video doesn't have the single mix' which always annoys me.
Soul II Soul - I prefer this to their bigger 89 hit. The drumbeats from this song were copied on so many other songs. Given that this is one of 3 live performances on this show (albeit one was a repeat) it makes me wonder exactly why, as Jazzie B claims, they weren't allowed to do 'Back To Life' live....
G'N'R - I cannot stand Axl Rose's voice. Having said that, this song is at least one of their better efforts.
Yes, that Jazzie B anecdote about why they didn't do Back to Life on the show was odd. He usually seems like an easygoing guy, so something obviously rankled with him, but I wonder if there was more to this than he admits? I don't think they did Get a Life on the show either.
DeleteNew order - good start.
ReplyDeleteEsterfan again!!
Channelle - biffety biffety bscking dull I’m afraid
Breakers - dull (same biffety beat - was this a new drum machine sample?), elivis finally puts s bit of life into, kim liked hervher love titles, don’t remember the new Model army track
Fuzzbox (sans I’ve got a... and I know how to use it) - quite liked this
Soul 2 soul - again a dull drum beat...
GnR to finish... tick