It's me again yes, how did you guess, cause last time you were really impressed with the 14th of June 1990 edition of Top of the Pops!
Boo-tylicious
14-6-90: Presenter: Bruno Brookes
(32) GURU JOSH – Whose Law (Is It Anyway)?
Getting us underway with his second and final hit and it peaked at number 26.
(38) MAUREEN – Thinking Of You
This Sister Sledge cover became her second and final top 40 hit and it peaked at number 11.
(13) SNAP – Oops Up (video)
Became their second of nine top ten hits when it peaked at number 5.
(36) MAXI PRIEST – Close To You
Became his second of three top ten hits when it peaked at number 7.
(22) BOBBY BROWN – The Free Style Mega-mix (video)
Peaked at number 14.
(9) THE CHARLATANS – The Only One I Know (video)
At its peak.
(7) BETTY BOO – Doin’ The Do
In the studio tonight with the Boo-ettes but this catchy tune got no higher.
(2) NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK – Step By Step (video)
Got no higher.
(1) ENGLAND/NEW ORDER – World In Motion (video)
Second and final week at number one.
(31) 49ers – Girl To Girl (video) (and credits)
Got no higher.
22nd June is next
Ah, poor old Guru Josh, out of ideas already. This isn't very good, and apart from showing how difficult it is to dance while playing the saxophone, affords little entertainment. Two keyboards and he barely plays either.
ReplyDeleteThe exotically named Maureen with a truly superfluous cover of the Chic classic, and to add insult to injury she's interrupted by David Baddiel doing a rap. I don't think we really needed this.
Another underwhelming cover - or is it? There's a snatch of the original's chorus, but apart from that it's the rap from The Power extended to unimpressive degrees. Amazing how many hits this lot had when all anyone remembers is their first (though Welcome to Tomorrow was their best, if you ask me).
Maxi Priest, you couldn't get away from this one in 1990, it was everywhere. Not a cover, to his credit, but desperately tepid otherwise. Amazed he didn't trip over his dreads.
Bobby Brown gets the Stars on 45 treatment, this trend lasted a lot longer than you think, didn't it? Anyone hoping to get away from a certain criminal President for a while will be disappointed in the choice of clip.
The Charlatans' video again, but it's still a top tune, then Betty Boo "Doing the Doo" according to the caption writers, which means she's doing a pigeon where I come from. Anyway, she's having fun, it's a fun ditty, and if it wasn't for a microphone malfunction later on in her career she might have stuck around.
New Blocks on the Kids with a concert video? You do surprise me! Nothing else about this is surprising other than how they managed to spin out this low effort pap for so long. I suppose what the records sounded like wasn't so important as the merchandising.
New Order enjoy their only No.1 for one more week, then the 49ers with what appears to be an actual song, though whether that's madam singing I have no idea. Eh, I've heard worse, at least it's peppy.
Oh dear, Betty dropping the mic while miming at a live gig, resulting in the audience Doing The Boo! She's actually made sackloads now as a successful songwriter for other artists in the style of Little Mix.
DeleteYes, she "did a Cathy Dennis" as I believe they call it in the business.
DeleteYes! Someone else rates 'Welcome To Tomorrow'. Fantastic single that one. Seemed to appear and go in a flash, maybe because Snap! In '94 would've meant very little. I thought it was great.
DeleteIt's good, isn't it? Nice, wistful little pop tune. The video is peak pop video science fiction too!
DeleteMuch weaker episode. What. On. Earth. Was. Bruno. Wearing?!!
ReplyDeleteGuru and Maureen both fairly unremarkable.
Snap - loved Penny Ford's voice (if it was really her? It got a bit confusing with all these Euro groups and their various miming scandals) and this would almost be peak-Turbo B nonsense rap if we didn't know he's going to be serious as cancer later in the decade.
Maxi Priest - I actually really like this, even though at the time I didn't pay it much attention, it was one of those background songs you always used to hear in shops etc.
Bobby Brown - the megamix trend continues apace. Its most ubiquitous point, the Grease megamix, is still a year away, I think?
The Charlatans - best song of the night, but not sure why it was labelled as a new entry when it wasn't.
I liked Betty Boo plenty at the time, but I preferred the next two singles to this one, even though this is probably the one people remember more (along with Hey DJ).
NKOTB - one of their better singles even though they're about to see their popularity dipping.
Englandneworder - Yeah bored of this now.
49ers - Girl, bye.
I think we can blame J*ve B*nny for the resurgence of the megamix craze.
DeleteBetty's Do was covered by Geoffrey Howe on the Mary Whitehouse Experience radio show. At least I think it was him...
How soon we forget the Grease Megamix!
DeleteYou're a bit ahead of the game Arthur, as the Grease Megamix charted after the Bobby Brown Megamix, but also in 1990 I believe, so it should be coming up very soon on these TOTP repeats.
DeleteWe've got the Technotronic megamix to come as well, followed by a SNAP! one as well
DeleteOh god. When will it end. :(
DeleteOh god. When will it end. :(
DeleteOh god. When will it end. :(
DeleteGuru Josh - I don't recall this single at all, but it does come across very well, and with mesmerising and hypnotic saxophone throughout. Perhaps like most people, I can only remember him for Infinity 1990 and 2008, but this follow up to Infinity is very good, and a great opener to this week's show. Another sad passing of Guru Josh, along with Marie of Roxette, and Sweet Pea Atkinson of Was Not Was, so three singles on the chart this week with their lead singers no longer with us.
ReplyDeleteSnap - don't you just love this follow-up to The Power? Good Lord, I found my least favourite of theirs was The Power, yet it was their most remembered one, as THX correctly mentions. But this one Oops Up, and their later single Mary Had A Little Boy were certainly right up there with the best of Snap.
Betty Boo - I must say that I preferred the video to this studio appearance, as the comic book strip video had so much fun and lots going on in the school and classroom. More Betty Boo please!
The 49ers - playing us out this week, this was much better than their first hit at the start of the year, but less successful on the chart. At least TOTP played a fair amount of the video, not least cos there's lots of fit girls on it. Well I guess it would have to be, considering the song title!
Did the 49ers' Girl to Girl become Beverley Craven's Woman to Woman when it grew up?
DeleteBoom boom tish!
DeleteGuru Josh - very minimal track, with a bizarre ‘chorus’....TBF I didn’t FF it...
ReplyDeleteMaureen - don’t remember the original, but this was very dull... ah, a rap FF
SNAP - too me a while to realise what the original was. It’s no The Power is it?!
Maxi Priest - for some reason I thought he was a Reggae singer. Just when I thought the programme couldn’t get any duller..
Bobby Brown - mega mix eh? I always thought they all sounded the same, but this proved it. Losing the will to live...
Don’t usually mention repeats, but thank god for the Charlatans and Betty Boo, I was about to fall into a coma..
NKOTB - best of their efforts so far...
49ers - ...and this wasn’t bad either, at least it had a tune.
Snap's next single should really have been called Side Your Head to complete the reference, but er, it wasn't.
DeleteTHX, good knock!
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DeleteIt’s good to be back, but I’ll admit I haven’t missed Trevor or, as we see this time, Sergeant Trevor without his Lonely Hearts Club Band.
ReplyDeleteFirst up, Guru Josh with “Who Bought This Bilge Anyway?”.
Next, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman would enjoy this, a pointless cover by Maureen, who gave up music to become a premium phone line.
Snap Bloke in Elton head gear (i.e. looking a knob) with a big gap (band) between this cover and the admittedly lowest common denominator track it’s cribbed from. Horrendous screech loop while I’m at it.
Our third song out of four in the lowest mugshot quarter next, and Skipping Rope Maxi Hair gives us a nice mellow summery MOR tune.
Oh dear, not a Bobby Brown megamix. Next.
Ah, The Only Charlatans Song I Know (not really) with Tim beating Claudia Winkleman to the ‘you can’t see my eyebrows’ fringe look by decades.
Betty Boo and her wonderfully not quite co-ordinated Booettes. Not a rap fan but I can dig this. Don’t ask Betty to ‘drop the mic’, though. She might take that literally. Oops!
KNOB next. FF.
Engerland still at number one. I didn’t realise until yesterday that the Charlton brothers told Alf Ramsey they were retiring from international football on the plane home from the 1970 World Cup, Bobby furious at being subbed (apparently to keep him fresh for the semi-final!) during the fateful loss to West Germany.
Wall to wall girl to girl either side for Sergeant Trevor immediately before “Girl To Girl”, the 49’ers best track thus far but with the worst chorus.
As Kent Walton used to say at the end of the wrestling on “World Of Sport”, have a good week till next week.
Hope you saw the Runaround repeat on Talking Pictures TV last weekend, which for no good reason whatsoever staged a wrestling bout featuring Giant Haystacks, with Mike Reid as the referee. Strangely, Mike was even more out of breath than Mr Haystacks. Kent was on commentary duties.
DeleteWasn't aware that Runaround was back on Talking Pictures since it stopped in September. Will have to start looking out for it again!
DeleteDoes anyone have a clip of this Runaround clip with Haystacks, as it's not on Utube?
Delete@Dory: Sadly the Runaround repeats have finished because they ran out of episodes to show. It was good while it lasted.
DeleteBruno, that jacket. What. Possessed.
ReplyDeleteGuru Josh; I know let's redo 'Infinity' and remove the hook! All we need is head guru murmuring. Surely the previous single is the only reason this got anywhere near the charts, maybe the title as well, 'Whose Line..' was essential viewing in our house at the time.
Maureen; Due to the age I am I knew this version first so still like it though of course I prefer the original now. Only just though. More chic 98bpm with those teasingly minimal synth strings that to me are like a polaroid of that year. Lovely to hear.
Snap!; Turbo B dominating just a little too much here so a bit of a disappointment. Is that the sound of The Shadow from Blackadder's shot squirrel going through the track? Pretty good but no 'The Power'. The xmas single I've always had a soft spot for.
Maxi Priest; Oh. Not much love for this on the blog. For me this is one of the singles of the year! A classic piece of summer city music.
Anecdote: I saw Maxi headline on Friday at Gully stage at Glasto 2014. He overran wildly (a few less 'make some f***in' noise!!! exclamations may have helped his cause) and was just starting 'Close To You' when the power was cut. He led us through an unplugged acapella version bless him.
Absolutely love this single.
Bobby Brown; Isn't this just a re-issue of 'Every Little Step'?
Oh look, some pointless meglomaniac's showed up.
The Charlatans; Just love this though the groovier than thou vid is asking for a pastiche which I think 'The Mary Whitehouse Experience' sort of supplied.
For me it just has that special something that makes it their best single although 'One To Another' is perhaps more powerful. Love 'Tellin' Stories' too.
Betty Boo; I'll always prefer the follow up but you just can't not be charmed by this and one of the best performances so far this year. Just brings to mind great performances from '70s shows.
New Kids; Not a bad one for them and probably the hardest one to take the piss out of at school. Live again, putting it in the net again, Donnie made out to not be an arsehead again...
You think they were on the slide at this point? You weren't watching 'The 8.15 From Manchester' then which was treating New Kids stuff that summer like it was the Moon landing.
England/New Order; I'll leave this behind with a memory. That Autumn our G.C.S.E Graphic Design class went on a trip to the newly opened Design Museum in London. Coming back this came on the radio and all of us, the kids, the coach driver sang along. I think the teachers did too. It really was a uniting single.
49ers; Well the lady has certainly learnt some serious miming / acting skills in a short time. Going from being like someone shoved in front of a camera and asked to mime to whatever they think is playing to a very cool and sexy performer. The chorus is obviously nicked from 'More and More' but its a great sounding record with Erasure's video trip into space enhanced dramatically. So much more of this to come. Sadly not by these people.
I wonder if the Guru adapted his title from the pro-euthanasia play/film Whose Life Is It Anyway? I think Whose Line's title was half a pun on that, and half a dig at panel quiz What's My Line?
DeleteOh yeah, and other great Charlatans singles include Can't Get Out of Bed and Come Home Baby. In fact I think they rarely put a foot wrong on their singles.
Delete'Just When You're Thinking Things Over' is a great shuffling single. They were the first band I ever saw at a rock festival. Pheonix '95 (me and my mate missed the right junction on the motorway and ended up missing the opening act Spearhead!) and I think that was the current single. They are a truly great band.
DeleteAgreed, that's another great single. They're so much more than Madchester survivors (granted not all of them survived, sadly).
DeleteWhat the hell is that shirt Bruno?
ReplyDeleteRogan Josh with his second and final hit. Wondered why I'd forgotten what this was called and now I know why. Not a patch on infinity. Ego the size of a planet by the looks of it.
Maureen. I adore most of this version of Thinking Of You. Beautifully sung. Had completely forgotten about the rap. Such a shame. It's not needed at all.
SNAP! are back. Rapping their way through Oops Up. I actually don't mind this but the rap has aged badly. Good video as well.
Maxi Priest is back with a classy tune here. Very chilled and a great summer vibe. Could listen to this again. Class.
Bobby Browns best bits up next. Seamlessly worked together and could almost all be the same song…. Trump and Hasslehoff back again unfortunately.
Bit of a top ten clearout this week!
Charlatans not a new entry at Number 9 but a climber..oops. Quality tune though. Video dull as dishwater.
Betty Boo and her rather cute, space-age Boo-ettes at Number 7. Some happily spent 16th birthday money.
Knobs nearly crashing in at the top of the chart. Thank goodness for the World Cup..Kids at their peak here with their fanbase. Shame the songs are so forgettable.
Massive climb for Elton but New Order still Number One.
49ers with more of the same Italian House to play us out. This is not too bad actually.
Mention of the top 10 clearout reminds me of what I heard about the current chart, which I profess to having no knowledge of usually. The last top 100 of 2020 contained a boggling 56 Christmas songs, which all dropped out of the first chart of 2021, including the previous week's number 1, thus "Last Christmas" by Wham! becomes the first ever UK number 1 to completely disappear from the next chart.
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DeleteI actually listened to a bit of the chart show for the first time in about 10 years (that's what unemployment does for you) and any song that entered the chart from outside the Top 100 was classed as a new entry.
DeleteWhole chart was like a best of 2020 with barely a new tune in sight!
Delete
I think the last current chart I listened to was when 'Rage against the Machine' was somehow parachuted into no1 at Christmas just to stop Simon Cowell!
DeleteI know it's just how it is now but I think it's tragic. I was listening to Pick of the Pops yesterday. This week in 1979 and I was gobsmacked by the diversity on offer. It was so good. The xmas chart really did once mean something. This last one was just a xmas compulation.
DeleteAnd another thing. If there is such freedom of choice in what we can now listen to, how is it that the same track seems to be played everywhere on tv for months on end?
The main reason all those Christmas tunes took over the charts is people switching on their streaming service and playing pre-compiled Xmas playlists which nearly all contain the same songs.
DeleteYeah, the charts are a pale shadow of what they once were. People just stick on playlists which leads to the same records hanging around for months, rather than making the effort to, say, buy physical media.
DeleteCan you even buy singles anymore? I still have a load of CD singles in boxes!
There used to be a character in Viz called 'Roger Irrelevant' and that is how I view today's charts and sadly most of the music in them!
DeleteMy this was a largely rotten show!
ReplyDeleteGuru Josh – Whose law (is it anyway) – A while ago we raged about titles with brackets and they persist! Bryan Adams of course gave us one of the most famous. Anyway, this sounds like a vain attempt to repeat the formula of the previous hit without the same hook.
Maureen – Thinking of you – Why bother with a cover? The Sledges were back in the charts with the definitive version a couple of years later.
Snap – Oops up – Speaking of covers…. Not keen on the original (although I get the dance floor appeal), but from Snap it just sinks…
Maxi Priest – Close to you – A popular title. I like this one though. The Carpenters song had good old brackets before it so doesn’t really count, but those old Saturday Nighters Whigfield also released a song of this title a few years later.
Bobby Brown – Free Style mega mix – Aghh!!!! More Bobby Brown. Surely no more to come…? Wrong; loads, including a US chart topper no less…
Charlatans – The only one I know – Not a bad debut. I thought I recognised the riff from Deep Purple’s ‘Hush’ in there. I don’t know if that was intentional or not. Co-written by someone called Brookes….
Betty Boo – Doin’ the Doo – One of the few highlights – nice to see Betty (and her sisters?) in the studio performing this lively little ditty.
New Kids on the Block – Step by Step – As with Mr Brown, I can’t believe we’re still getting hits by this lot. Another check and there’s plenty more to endure yet. No2? Same position as ‘The Air that I Breathe’ for example? Not quite in the same league methinks. Would anyone even remember this were it not for these repeats?
New Order / England Football team – World in Motion – Final week at no1 mercifully.
49ers – Girl to Girl – Gary Moore doesn’t get shown but this does.