Tin of paint of the pops
02/11/89 (Andy Crane & Anthea Turner)
Martika – “I Feel The Earth Move” (12)
A very lithe and energetic start to tonight's show and this Carole King cover peaked at number 7.
Luther Vandross – “Never Too Much ‘89” (19) (video)
Perhaps one of his best known songs but it had only peaked at number 44 back in 1983, this time around it made it to number 13.
D Mob introducing Cathy Dennis – “C’mon & Get My Love” (21) (video)
Peaked at number 15.
Deborah Harry – “I Want That Man” (13) (rpt from 19/10/89)
Now at its peak.
Milli Vanilli – “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” (2) (video)
Also at its peak.
Phil Collins – “Another Day In Paradise” (22)
He's back in the studio with that pot of paint he's had since 1981, and this first single from his number one album But Seriously was on its way to number 2.
The Beloved – “The Sun Rising” (26) (breaker)
Their first of eight top 40 hits but it got no higher.
Mixmaster – “Grand Piano” (23) (breaker)
It's the Black Box gang again, and this one got to number 9.
Kylie Minogue – “Never Too Late” (17)
She's inteh studio tonight and this third single from her second number one album Enjoy yourself peaked at number 4.
Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers – “That’s What I Like” (1) (video)
Third and final week at number one. Ok, I must confess here that I'm actually quite enjoying these Jive Bunny singles. I know. Age is finally catching up with me!
Transvision Vamp – “Born To Be Sold” (31) (video/credits)
Yum yum. Peaked at number 22.
November 9th is next.
Another show with highs and lows. The hostess looks pleased to be there.
ReplyDeleteMartika – I feel the earth move – Spectacular visually maybe, but I’ll be playing the ‘Tapestry’ version for a lot longer than this.
Luther Vandross – Never too late ’89 – Neither this nor the ’83 version was a particularly big hit proving it’s not a particularly great song.
D Mob featuring Cathy Dennis – C’mon and get my love – In Clifford T Ward’s words….’the best is yet to come’.
Deborah Harry – I want that Man – Gosh Debbie, sorry Deborah is enjoying herself with her safari outfit and drummer having a crack at Clem Burke drum stick twiddles at one point. Nice to see this again.
Milli Vanilli – Girl I’m gonna miss you – Second week in a row for this haunting piece of music…never too much you know.
Phil Collins – Another Day in Paradise – Another one of Phil’s classics. We’re missing the dramatic intro and oddly, I was looking for a pot of paint on the keyboard…and there it was! Timeless.
Kylie Minogue – Never too late – After never too much we get never too late (title of a Status Quo album no less). D’ya know what? I really enjoyed this! One of Kylie’s lesser known hits. The co-ordinated dance routine got me with that instrumental bit with the hand rotations a bit like Neil and Rachel do in the Comic Relief episode of ‘The Office’.
Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers – That’s what I like – So we get even less this week and we’re never gonna hear or see the rest of this. I notice the first record is going back up the chart!
Transvision Vamp – Born to be sold – Don’t recall this but the continued changes of outfit keep one interested. Not the best of tunes perhaps.
Andy makes his last appearance, which is a shame as he was a real asset to the presenting team during his time on the roster; I wonder if his exit from TOTP was a factor in his decision to abandon the Broom Cupboard for ITV Saturday mornings a few months later? He was certainly more deserving of a longer run than his co-host for this one, but she isn't too bad here and they work quite well together.
ReplyDeleteMartika is back again, power dressed to the nines this time, and doing a decent job of selling her cover. Never Too Much was probably the best song Lucifer Dross ever did, not that that is saying much, but this remix adds little to it. The video looks like a cheap cut and paste job, and the picture quality of the monochrome shots of Luther singing makes them seem as if they were filmed in the 60s. The D Mob/Cathy Dennis promo is more fun with its mock film set shenanigans, but the record is still quite mediocre to my ears.
Did we really need Milli Vanilli again, for the third time in four weeks? Still, I'd rather listen to that than Phil Collins lecturing us on the plight of the homeless. The song has a pretty melody, for sure, but multi-millionaires parading their social conscience and wagging their fingers at the rest of us seldom sits well with me. Not sure why the paint pot is back - get over it, Phil! It's a shame we won't hear any more of that Beloved song, as it has quite a hypnotic sound which reminds me a bit of Army of Lovers. More to come from Mixmaster - Andy understandably confuses them with the Mastermixers in his intro.
Kylie is down to two dancers this time, but tries to make up for this with her purple bra and orange trousers. Quite a fun a dance routine, and a decent chorus makes this stand out more than her previous couple of singles. One final week at the top for the Bunny, and we end with the Vamp's penultimate Top 30 hit, and a video in which Bet Lynch seems to loom large as one of Wendy's fashion inspirations. The name-checking of various celebs at the start seems to prefigure Madge's Vogue by a few months, but this song is nowhere near as good.
Remember 1989 viewers would not have seen Milli Vanilli three times in three weeks, they wouldn't have seen the video last week because the episode was truncated by the news.
DeleteIt's also a pity at Milli Vanilli couldn't have got any closer to the No.1 spot with this, had Jive Bunny not been in town. In fact when checking the performance of Girl I'm Gonna Miss You, it got to No.1 in five countries, including America!
DeleteTHX - yes, fair point, I suppose they showed it again to make up for not doing so the previous week. Dory - Milli Vanilli did become big international stars for a time, which made their fall from grace when it came all the bigger!
DeleteThe Milli Vanilli song is so good I looked the whole video up on YT and found it was different to what they've been showing on 'The Pops'.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbUENJ5FjBk
Having last watched this on a DVD-R in 2010, it was a pity that UK Gold should've repeated this episode in the mid 90s and in this case, at the last minute they replaced it with a classic 70s episode, the highlights include:
ReplyDeleteMartika - Another live energetic performance of a cover of the Carole King classic and in which Big Fun covered during the summer of '89, which failed to reach the top 75.
Luther Vandross - a re-make of the 1981 classic gets a update courtesy of Justin Strauss, despite the video hasn't changed, the lyric has 'A thousand kisses from you', we'll be seeing more of Mr Vandross in 90s TOTP repeats as he had more chart success, this is the first we'll be seeing him on BBC4 re-runs.
D Mob & Cathy Dennis - We get the video this week with the big 'D Mob' letters with backing choreographer dancers in a white background...
Deborah Harry - Another showing of the repeat performance from two weeks previous...
Milli Vanilli - The fourth (and final) showing of the video was already held off by the cartoon bunny to where one of their videos was filmed in the U.S. and the next time we'll be seeing this would be part of the TOTP Christmas special, where it looks back at snippets of the number one and number two records. The video features an art gallery museum in one segment, most of this was monochrome and in colour, their next single 'Blame It on the Rain' reached number one in the U.S. Hot 100 which was already two weeks away and failed to reach the top 40 here in the U.K.
Phil Collins - His first TOTP studio appearance since 'A Groovy Kind of Love' last September and this time again he's on a piano instead of a synthesizer or a backing band, the song is dedicated to poor homeless people and beggars of the world and despite it became the final number-one hit of the 1980s in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on the 13th of December 1989.
Breakers - The Beloved's first UK Top 40 hit, they would have more success when they did reach the 90s with their next hit 'Hello' which will be coming up on BBC Four this August, this was one of their chilled tracks, meanwhile the Black Box gang are back again with a Mixmaster dance medley with shadowed choreographers in a music video.
Kylie Minogue - The third track from the 'Enjoy Yourself' album as she makes it to the studio for the third consecutive time (this year) and in the video, she has backing choreographers and she wears a cowboy hat.
Jive Bunny - The final week at the top, the cartoon bunny won't have his last hurrah it would be a few weeks he'll back on top with a medley of Christmas hits, the next five weeks of the two number one hits would be based on pop-based hits owned by RCA and CBS.
Transvision Vamp - Play-out track time, Wendy does her best on this song, didn't make it to the studio with this one neither, the song is named after a budget made-for-TV 80s film and it was two thumbs up for Transvision Vamp to end the 80s on a high with celebrity name-checks.
Have to say that the D-Mob video with Cathy Dennis was just as good as the studio performance a couple of shows ago, as Cathy was looking just fine in both showings.
DeleteI just loved the orange trousers on Kylie this week. Highlight of the show for me, she's just wonderful. Better less said about her upper features though, I mean there's not much to cover with that top.
Quite a few repeats again - did someone have shares in Milli Vanilli?
ReplyDeleteLuther vandross - a dull song not enhanced by the bifta bifta drum beat
Phil Collins - I like these Phil Collins songs better now than I did when they came out. Must be my age...
Breakers:
Beloved - now familiar dance tune, albeit a little slower and more interesting...
Mixmaster - ..unlike this!
Kylie - now standard SAW tune
Transvision Vamp - TV slow it down with a ripoff of Spanish Stroll...
Ally Sheedy - sorry, Martika is back, flinging herself around to her ear-bothering cover, and now it will never be heard ever again...
ReplyDeleteLovely lyrics in Luther's Never Too Much, and it's sung as smooth as silk, so of course someone decided to remix it and make it considerably worse in 1989. There's a reason the remix is never heard, but you still hear the slick original.
D-Mob and Cat take a leaf out of Erasure's book and hire some giant blue letters for their video. The effect is amusing enough, and makes for an entertaining three minutes, its nice they have a sense of humour. Cathy really needs a stylist, though.
Deb and the tragic mimers we've seen before, so onto one of the most rancid, sanctimonious and hypocritical hits of any year, Phil Collins telling us all off about the plight of the homeless. This unbelievable gall came from the man who said he'd leave Britain if Labour got into power, thus giving the game away that there was no chance in Hell he was going to put his money where his mouth was and do something constructive. Plus it sounds really weedy. Rank. Pour the paint pot on his head.
I thought The Sun Rising did better than this, but it's all we see of The Beloved's debut hit on the show. The high pitched wail can grate a bit on the nerves, but it had a laidback vibe, even if they were a bit too cool for school in the future.
Kylie wearing the barest minimum, just about, and for some bizarre reason replicating John Travolta's dance moves from Saturday Night Fever. Was this an in-joke we humble viewers wouldn't get? Anyway, she was still doing well off this album, though this one was a little uninspiring.
Where did the Unfunny Bunny get his sample for Hawaii 5-0? It sounds like it was a cover recorded in a cupboard. Going as cheap and nasty as possible was par for the course for them, of course.
Transvision Vamp lift from Jive Bunny to rip off the guitar melody of Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues and Wendy drawls different lyrics over it. She should have tried rapping. Maybe she was?
I think the Hawaii-5-0 section of the Jive Bunny video came from the original by The Ventures:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcvo4U33_L4
I remember vividly as a child growing up in the 70s when LWT showed Hawaii-5-0 every week with Jack Lord as main actor, the distinct theme tune intro for each show where he suddenly turns from his back to his front on some way-up balcony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR8RHBXjMlE
It's quite astonishing that the show ran for 12 years from 1968 to 1980, such was it popularity at the time.
Nah, The Ventures' version of Hawaii 5-0 is a stone groove, the cover version Jive Bunny use is a muddy, brass-based sham. Probably off one of those cheap knock-off TV themes compilation records you used to get.
Deletenothing ever changes with regard to the sentiment (for want of a better word) expressed on the phil collins track - one wonders exactly how much free school dinners crusader marcus rashford will be donating to the cause out of his own astronomical salary as a premiership footballer? answer: probably nothing!
DeleteYou could argue it was the Government's place to provide for our nation's children rather than some sportsman who justifiably highlighted the issue (though I believe Marcus is donating to charity, yes).
DeleteI'd forgotten all about the crash zoom of Jack Lord and his turn around on the opening credits. Nice to watch it again after all these years.
DeleteApparently Jack Lord's second wife was 15 years older than him, apparently giving up her career to devote her life to him, and despite the age difference, they stayed married for 49 years till he died in 1998, and she lived another 7 years, till the age of 100 in 2005.
DeleteFor once Anthea Turnoff is given a run for her money in the shouty intro stakes by Craney, but they worked well together.
ReplyDeleteWho was working Martika’s shoulder pads? An energetic performance for this Tiffany-style scout hut disco.
I loved the original version of “Never Too Much” , but this horrible remix put the dross in Luther Vandross.
Great, an annoying ‘humorous’ video for D Mob’s identkit rave lite. Unusual design on Cathy’s top there.
Milli Vanilli get a reprise after getting Lawsoned the previous week.
Oh God. Phil Collins, with an horrendous track to boot. FF FFS.
The Beloved with some relaxing chillout groove. Fitting I watched this clip of “The Sun Rising” on the longest day of the year.
Mixmaster, or Mixmasters according to Andy, or The Mixmaster as shown twice in the mugshot picture. Couldn’t hear any grand piano on this piece of rubbish.
Fair play to Kylie, she was always up for a night out at TOTP. A psychedelic coloured outfit can’t disguise the generic SAW formula, though.
I half expected a Spanish rap midway through Transvision Vamp’s rip-off of Mink Deville’s hit. Ironic that the last we ever see of Wendy James on the show is when she’s got the most clothes on.
Your time was brief but enjoyable. Bye and thanks, Andy and Wendy.
Wendy was in just her bra and pants and a feather boa in that video!
DeleteDon't think I didn't notice! Still more than Wendy wears on the cover of her latest album!
DeleteHer latest album cover's quite tasteful, it was the one before that was boobtastic. Although checking out the track listing, she's done a new song called Ratfucking (!). That's not very nice, Wendy.
DeleteAccording to Radio Times, there is only one TOTP episode scheduled this week, unless there is a last minute change to the schedules to show two, however I don't think lighting strikes twice in this case.
ReplyDeleteThe Glastonbury bandwagon is the reason for that. Even when the bloody thing's not on. At least we're spared Wimbledon moving everything round in the schedules this year.
DeleteLooks like BBC2 are still managing to rustle up about 4 hours' worth of Wimbledon nostalgia every day next week...
DeleteI remember a few years ago when the BBC had to put the live Wimbledon coverage on BBC3, because BBC1 and BBC2 were otherwise busy. Of course BBC3 has long gone as a TV channel, and only exists online nowadays.
DeleteHi Anonymous! Here's this week's request for the original archive versions of the following shows, this week all from 1979. They are 8/02, 31/05 and 4/10. Cheers!
ReplyDeletesorry brie, don't have origs of those.
DeleteOK, Thanks again, mate. I'll try again next week!
DeleteLuther Vandross - I think this remix is actually quite restrained, just a dew drumbeats on top, and it deserved to be a hit after somehow missing out the first time round.
ReplyDeletePhil Collins - Homelessness is bad, m'kay. An absolutely dreadful maudlin load of old rubbish, and the paint pot dig at the missus is getting really tired now.
Breakers - 2 songs I like have been ignored entirely. Raoul Orellana with his Iggy Pop sampling invention of Spanish House (as opposed to the usual Italian) and Arthur Baker / Al Green should both have featured. I'm glad that The Beloved do here though it's a shame that's all they get. The sample is of 'O Euchari' also used in a song by Orbital later.
Kylie Minogue - Here's the single that was the first of hers not to peak at either No.1 or No.2. You can see why, as it's not entirely top drawer PWL material. Decent enough though.
Transvision Vamp - Anyone else reminded not just of Eddie Cochran but 'Spanish Stroll' by Mink Deville? Sadly this isn't much cop, however much Wendy is(n't) wearing.
Into November and look - A Smash Hits award for best music show (was there any competition?)
ReplyDeleteAndy & Anthea seem quite pleased.
Martika is back again, but in red this week for “I Feel The Earth Move”. Not getting a lot of love on here but I was a huge fan of this one. Still like it today.
Nice tune next from Luther. Not quite sure about the remix and it's a naff video. How did this only get to Number 44 first time around? It's a radio favourite.
D Mob introducing Cathy Dennis with a nice fun video to quite a fun tune.
Deborah is back with Harry the bear (I'm just guessing) and she still “Want(s) That Man”.
Milli Vanilli are still stuck behind the bunny but get another outing as they they got cut-off last week.
I must admit Anthea does put some enthusiasm into reading the charts and she does a good job.
Swing The Mood back up AGAIN!
Phil and his Paint Pot enjoy “Another Day In Paradise” next. Huge tune this. Think it was in aid of Shelter/Homeless? About to enjoy a good run of hits from his But Seriously album.
Be warned there is a dance version by Jamtronik on it's way!
Breakers: Back to short clips.
The Beloved an Ooh Gary favourite from his Ibiza gigs. “The Sun Rising” getting played as the Sun was rising....wonder where they got the idea.
They had 8 hits? Sweet Harmony, Hello......Nope can't think of any more..
The law of diminishing returns brings us Mixmaster/Starlight/Black Box with “Grand Piano”. I didn't recall what this sounded like and now I know why..it's not very good is it? Number 9...Sheesh!
Speaking of diminishing returns it's SAW by numbers next. Kylie tries her best to sell this tune but it's not great. It was “Never Too Late” to change direction though and luckily SAW upped their game of her next album or this may have been the last we saw of her. Number 17 quite a low entry for her but a lot of radio plays will see her right.
Top Ten and Billy is up and down like a yo-yo
Jive Bunny throws everything but the JFK assassination at the video but thankfully the end is nigh for this tune.
Some serious hair going on, on that balcony. Look up and I bet there's a hole in the Ozone layer. Maybe that's where they got the idea for the Beebs kiddie Pop Show "The O Zone" Sure this was a late 80s summer holiday show...
Last up Transvision Vamp. Just 2 things to say.
Loving watching Ms James
The song is bloody awful...
Yeah, that Smash Hits award - in your face, The Roxy! Actually the competition would have probably been The Chart Show. Don't think Snub TV was on yet. Not that it would have won.
Delete