Ancients of Mu Mu are you ready for the 19th of January 1991 edition of Top of the Pops!
Double trouble
19-1-91: Presenter: Nicky Campbell
(26) SOHO – Hippychick
Getting tonight's show off to a leapy start with what became their only top ten hit when it peaked at number 8.
(25) BELINDA CARLISLE – Summer Rain (video)
Went up two more places.
(18) ALEXANDER O’NEAL – All True Man
He's in the studio but the song got no higher.
(10) BILL MEDLEY & JENNIFER WARNES – (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life (video)
Went up two more places.
(5) THE KLF – 3 a.m. Eternal
In the studio to perform what was soon to become their one and only number one.
(28) THE HIGH – Box Set Go (video) (Breakers)
Their only top 40 hit and it got no higher.
(27) A TRIBE CALLED QUEST – Can I Kick It? (video) (Breakers)
Became their biggest hit when it peaked at number 15.
(29) THE STRANGLERS – Always The Sun (video) (Breakers)
Had made number 30 in 1986, this time around 29 was its peak.
(22) STING – All This Time (video)
Got no higher.
(2) SEAL – Crazy
In the studio for a third time but he couldn't quite make it to number one.
(1) ENIGMA – Sadness Part 1 (video)
Finally making it to number one, but only for a week.
(21) RALPH TRESVANT – Sensitivity (video) (and credits)
Peaked at number 18.
January 24th is next.
This edition went out on a Saturday afternoon, although I can’t recall why.
ReplyDeleteI remember people contemplating at the time whether, if it had gone out in the usual slot, it may have given impetus for Crazy to take the top spot the following week, or for Sadeness to remain there.
Instead, Innuendo went straight in at Number One.
Gulf War coverage on Thursday was the reason for this edition moving to Saturday.
DeleteThat makes sense. I remember watching this edition on the portable TV upstairs, my Dad most likely watching the football below!
DeleteI wonder what that would've replaced then. 'Stay Tooned' with Tony Robinson perhaps?
DeleteLooking at previous comments then, an edition that went out at the possibly unique time of Saturday afternoon. What an edition it is too! '91 truly kicking into gear with the best edition for ages. Some fabulous singles and a rare double header indeed; The current Top 2 featured in order. It helps that they are two of the most moment defining singles of the era.
ReplyDeleteNicky in charge and he is on good form. I have to say I've nothing but respect for the guy after his appearance on 'Loose Women' last month.
Soho; A cracking start, definately recall first hearing this on 'Tonight With Jonathan Ross' on Channel 4 and it still sounds strong. The mother superior of baggy rhythms ('more cowbell!') and a melody so casually infectious it seems astonishing no one ever came up with it years before. The two girls do a great routine in their black and white CND outfits (the oversized ties come out for next week's appearance) and it's a perfect start.
No I have no problem with them taking the guitar part from 'How Soon Is Now'.
Belinda Carlisle; Another great song from Belinda, maybe not as thunderous as 'Same Thing' but a beautiful glowering bit of pop. You won't see this again so well done show for having so much of the video. Part of it seemed to suggest soldiers going to Vietnam or did I miss something? Interesting, considering.
The uk public really did blow hot and cold over this woman. Only No. 23. Her chart career in this country is all over the shop.
Alexander O'Neal; Some sensitivity on show from the big soul man. I love his voice so its good to see him but not the best song. No 'Criticise' but he shows his sensitive side with some authority so I won't, er, criticise.
Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes; Complacent ear threadworm to follow. Sorry never liked this one.
The KLF; The heroes from Trancentral (Cauty's squat) return to blast us back to the now and the future. What a fantastic single! And they don't disappoint in the studio. So looking forward to this being at No.1.
The High; The first time I've ever seen them on TV unless I saw about 3 secs on 'The Chart Show' back in the day. The title doesn't suggest much. Neither does the music really.
A Tribe Called Quest; It still sounds great and innovative but I've heard it so many times over the years that its lost most of its impact. The video not quite as fun as I'd expected.
The Stranglers; In two releases it only got as high as 29? Blimey I thought that was one of their biggest. Love this record and saw them perform it at the Albert Hall as part of the BBC6 music prom about 5 years ago.
A gold star to Nicky for his quip afterwards.
Sting; Forgotten how much I liked this one at the time. Love the tune and the jangly guitar part in the chorus. This edition is so enjoyable.
Seal; No .2 then and it is a total classic for me. Everything about this record, the endless wah wah licks, the whiplash 'ha' that leads into the choruses, that tune. Pity they didn't show the vid which couldn't be more hip if the words, 'I attend the Milk Bar on a thrice weekly basis' were shown on the screen in big helvetica bold letters. Oh well. Seal doesn't get the coat off this time, the tease.
Enigma; No. 1 for a week and another big slice of the video. Another moment in time, it's wintry ambience still casts a spell. Just can't hear this without assuming its snowing outside.
Ralph Tresvant; More new men showing their feelings. Ralph takes the whispery Jacko route and it's a little underwhelming until it gets to the chorus where you get some wayward, very '91 chords. I wonder what his former bandmate in New Edition made of that.
That was a brilliant show!
perhaps "only the sun" barely creeping into the top 30 two times over was the catalyst for hugh cornwell to call time in his band membership after over 15 years?
Deletein the 30 years since, both he as a solo act plus his ex-bandmates have managed to sustain careers without total reliance on the nostalgia ticket, although of course the latter are essentially now down to only one original member in jj burnel (who was always the mainman for me anyway) after the death of dave greenfield and quasi-retirement of jet black
The KLF were making their first personnel change after What Time Is Love, and this new lead singer on 3am Eternal I think stayed on till the end, as Last Train To Transcentral was released later in 1991, and not before this one Mic1,2,1,2. Certainly this lead singer was the only one I remember of The KLF, as I don't recall the other one on the debut single What Time Is Love.
DeleteI think it was desperation for The Stranglers at this stage of their career, as this was their final top 40 single. They even re-released Golden Brown a couple of months after this one, reaching only No.68, and then one final new single called Heaven And Hell in 1992 peaking at No.46, and so this week's feature on The Breakers section is their last ever appearance on TOTP, as the curtain finally falls on a group going back as far as the late 1970s and from pretty much the start of these TOTP reruns 10 years ago.
You're right Dory, 'Last Train..' came next. I was just talking about the place of recording. 'Chill Out' has the legend 'Recorded Live At Trancentral' and released Feb '90. I treasure my pre deletion LP copy. I think '3am Eternal' preceeds 'Last Train To Trancentral' but precise dates with them of course are so difficult to know as they issued reworked and reissued music so many times.
DeleteThe superb Last Train to Trancentral is my favourite KLF track, and it was the second most successful single after 3AM Eternal, and ahead of What Time Is Love.
Delete'Last Train...' is just the business isn't it. Also a great 'what the hell is this?' parental moment. My Mum's shocked expression watching them do it on Totp with the sitars being thrashed and the big horns and everything.
DeleteAlexander O'Neal - I always thought that O'Neal was confined to the 1980s for his music, so I was surprised to see a new single and new TOTP studio appearance as late as 1991. Another one flying in from America to be on TOTP, so the trend was not abating yet it seems.
ReplyDeleteSting - interesting video, and more in the style of Captain Pugwash than what I would have expected from Sting!
Enigma - I remember being so chuffed for them getting to No.1 with Sadeness Pt 1, only to be thwarted out of their top position a week later by Queen. You could say that Enigma were very unlucky to have come through on a very busy January chart with so many surprises and contenders for No.1, as both Iron Maiden and Queen went straight in as a new entry at No.1 on either side of Enigma's solitary week at the top spot.
Alexander O'Neal has lived in the UK for some years now, I believe he currently stays in Manchester.
DeleteBut was he already living in the UK in 1991 on this performance, or did he have to fly in from America for the show?
DeleteI think he's stayed here since the late 80s, but I could be wrong.
DeleteBest show for a while! How nice to hear the intro from How Soon is Now? and find out it's actually Hippychick. Could have been irritatingly quirky, but somehow it all meshes together and becomes a bit of classy pop, no matter how wacky the sisters were. Always hear the Miners' Strike line.
ReplyDeleteBelinda Carlisle, we only hear one of the choruses, but enough to know this is a very decent effort from her, kind of wistful as the title suggests. Black and white in the video is a cliche, mind you.
Alexander O'Neal with a somewhat forgotten hit I remembered once it had reached the chorus, and it's surprisingly good. Can't tell if he's singing live or not, he seems to be ad libbing a lot near the end.
Bill and Jen, overplayed even then, and then one of the highlights of '91, certainly one of the best No.1s, the KLF continue their singular domination of the cultural conversation. Also love the Extreme Noise Terror version (as heard on the sheep-flinging Brit Awards performance).
Breakers: The High with an oft-forgotten indiepop ditty, but it was quite pleasant and makes you reflective on times past if you hear it now, it's very evocative of a specific point in music, like The Mock Turtles. Then A Tribe Called Quest - on next time, and The Stranglers have another go at Always the Sun, a fine track that never quite caught on. Had we moved past nuclear Armageddon in '91?
Sting video again - is that Lionel Jeffries as the old geezer? - then Seal taking up residence in the TOTP studio with another go at Crazy, and lastly from madness to sadness as Enigma claim the top spot with their slightly unnerving, state of the art CGI-covered video.
Ralph to end on, smooth little number emphasising the loverman persona of the new soul boys with a hooky chorus and aspirational video.
A couple of interesting things to point out on the chart rundown this week:
ReplyDeleteNo.3 - C&C Music factory going up from No.10, did not get played unusually, as they first got played two weeks ago at No.25, so why no second play two weeks later at No.3, especially as it was now contesting for a No.1 position? A little unfair to the Factory!
No.32 - David Lee Roth at peak position with A Lil' Ain't Enough - back with another lavish video in his usually sexy girls theme, but like Prefab Sprout the week before, also got no Breakers slot, as TOTP did not show anything under No.29 this week, so Roth was unlucky not to get even a playout slot.
A funny last minute of the video shows Roth going to a clairvoyant to predict the future in 30 years time, and then shows what happens to him in October 2021 (yes 2021!) on his 'Absolute Final Tour' as Diamond Dave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=konUjNnCy14
Soho - do not remember this. Pleasant enough. What is the guitar riff? [pre post look at comments reveals ‘how soon is now’ - ta]
ReplyDeleteBelinda Carlisle - again, pleasant enough, but the chorus was much better than the verses. Weird hand waving.
Alexander o’neill - not my cup of tea. Nice voice, dull song
KLF - excellent! Hitting their stride here...
Breakers:
The high - bought this at time. Sounds very much of the time... [pre post look at comments - yeah, I hear mock turtles here]
A tribe called quest - bog standard trance track
Stranglers - one of my favourite late era stranglers tracks
Ralph tresvant - zzzzzzzz
The Stranglers going back to the late 70s were mentioned a couple of times in a 1979 episode of George & Mildred called A Driving Ambition, where Tristram asks his father for extra pocket money to send off for a poster of The Stranglers.
DeleteSome interesting peaking positions outside the top 40 this week from previous top 40 regulars:
ReplyDeleteNo.42 - Deborah Harry & Iggy Pop - Well Did You Evah - unusual pairing doing a Cole Porter classic, but it came off well with Iggy looking unusually smart in a tuxedo taking Debbie Harry for a day out. The single release was apparently in aid of AIDS. A controversial ending to the video where Harry gives her position on the matter, so just as well it didn't make top 20, cos TOTP would not be able to show it on a family show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC_bFDPiqYA
No.49 - Donna Summer - Breakaway - no, not the Tracey Ullman classic, but Donna's own tune quite late in her career and going nowhere it seemed.
No.79 - The Associates - Just Can't Say Goodbye - ironic naming for their single considering this late stage of their career, and better known in the early 80s than here in the early 90s, but in terms of the video, it was very much 90s all the way through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4OQC_Comhs
If only Bing Crosby had told Frank Sinatra to "fuck off" in High Society, like Debs does to Iggy. He probably would if they made it now.
DeleteOh dear, it’s Soupy. I wonder if his over elaborate reading of the mugshots caused the decision to remove the downers from the rundown soon? (Oops – spoiler alert!)
ReplyDeleteI was a big fan of The Smiths and, though I was never that keen on “How Soon Is Now”, I thought it was sacrilege that its opening riff was completely lifted for this rubbish, apparently about a woman struggling with her relationship with a policeman. Surprised they didn’t nick the idea of Morrissey’s gladioli while they were at it. For me, Soho was short for so horrible.
Belinda Carlisle with a song which would have suited Stevie Nicks better. Muddy production, not one of her best.
Here comes Big Alex, with the crowd whooping over a fairly nondescript bit of what they now call R’n’B in the ‘hood.
I didn’t leave Baby in the corner, I left her with an FF.
Ah. Now. This is more like it. How to stage and choreograph a floor burner. KLF peak of the week by the longest of chalks.
The High give us shoegazey Britpop with a doubleneck. Blimey! I see this was as, erm, high as they got in the charts!
Right, yes, Quest lads, let’s get a great big ‘it’ made so you can kick it in that video which cost cents to make.
Soupy’s satire after Huge Cornwell cramming in two lines of lyric into each line of verse. Dave with a keytar? Just doesn’t look right.
Sting’s Paul Simon rip-off again. I wish he’d still had writer’s block.
Seal oozing charisma again. He gets the seal of approval (harumph) with a third studio outing.
Shame we didn’t have Bob Monkhouse hosting tonight so he could introduce the chart topper, probably big in Convent Garden.
Right, some female backing singer’s doing her bit before Ralph Tresvant joins in. Erm, hang on, that’s his voice? He makes Orville sound butch.
Soho did hold a couple of posies, which I took to be a Moz tribute.
DeleteWell that was largely underwhelming. Broadcast on a Saturday too due to the Gulf War as pointed out earlier. I was in the Canary Islands at the time on my honeymoon so missed out on this show and a lot of the GW coverage. Anyway Mr ‘rrrr’ is back and as unfunny as ever.
ReplyDeleteSoho – Hippychick – Ugh!
Belinda Carlisle – Summer Rain – The great ‘Runaway Horses’ mystery continues. The 6th single and a hit for some reason. Not bad, but just an album track for me.
Alexander O’Neal – All True Men – Next
Medley and Warnes – Time of my Life – More Dirty Dancing trading on that TV premiere! Hooray!
KLF – 3am Eternal – For some reason I blotted this one out of my mind…this seriously got to no1?
Breakers – The third one sounded OK at least. Ah yes it was that punk band the Stranglers!
Sting – All this time – Nice but light.
Seal – Crazy – Two single word artists beginning with ‘S’ in a row, and I prefer this one!
Enigma – Sadness Part 1 – Lovely soothing and refreshing….just a great unusual chart topper.
Ralph Tresvant – Sensitivity – I quite like this actually. Not heard it before.
Good episode overall. How Soon is Now? is my favourite Smiths track although feels more of a guilty pleasure these days, given, well, everything Morrissey. Always enjoyed Hippychick too. I feel like Soho deserved a bit of a longer stint at fame than they got.
ReplyDeleteBelinda Carlisle - is this tiny clip all we're getting? I thought this one was a bigger hit but maybe it was just played on Radio 1 a lot?
AON - Was OK, he was always a bit 'just there' for me.
Bill'n'Jen - I love it, but it is so firmly 1980s it seems wrong to have it here.
KLF - The KLF 1991 era is easily my favourite Drummond/Cauty era, love this one.
The High - well this is something that I had completely forgotten existed. See also Raplh T at the end of the show.
ATCQ - has gone on to be a bit of a classic, but should have been a summer hit really!
Stranglers - was this in an ad? Did someone just die? Seems a random rerelease otherwise?
Sting - eh
Seal - still his best solo moment.
Enigma - still original, still creepy as all hell.
I think The Stranglers had run out of material, so were resorting to rereleases. Surprised they didn't do a megamix.
DeleteCheesy Campbell makes his first appearance of the year and bumped to a Saturday due to the Gulf War. Next couple of editions lose 5 minutes for News Bulletins. Even the Radio 1 Top 40 couldn't escape and has bulletins every 30 minutes.
ReplyDeleteLead of course to a couple of band name changes on the Beeb for Bomb The Bass and Massive Attack.
SOHO – Hippychick
Proper Marmite song. You either hate The Smiths butchering sample OR you love a great sample used well to create a quality dance tune.
Obviously I'm the latter. 😂
BELINDA CARLISLE – Summer Rain
Well it's summer in Australia in 1991. It's 24 degrees outside my window.
Always on my summer playlist. Beautiful tune.
ALEXANDER O’NEAL – All True Man
You can't fske true class. Quality tune with great production.
THE KLF – 3 a.m. Eternal
THE band of 1991 for me. I cannot express how much I loved (and still love) all 3 massive hits they pumped out this year. Dance music and sampling at its very next. Never matched or bettered.
Breakers:
THE HIGH – Big Hit No
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST – Can I Kick It? Yes please. Awesome tune.
THE STRANGLERS – Always a great tune..no idea why it's back.
STING – All This Time
More larking about on the boat. Gorgeous record.
SEAL – Crazy
So close to Number One. Gutted for him. Great tune. He's got his raincoat on him tonight. Has he nicked it from The KLF?
ENIGMA – Sadeness Part 1
The E is important.
RALPH TRESVANT – Sensitivity
One hit wonder? If you discount New Edition.
It's inoffensive but bland.
The peak for The KLF came with Last Train To TransCentral which was their best offering. Although 1992 brought America:What Time Is Love, it was essentially a reworking of their 1990 debut single What Time Is Love, and with a new video, and then Tammy Wynette's collaboration called Justified And Ancient, but neither of these 1992 hits reached the heights of the 1991 output up to TransCentral, which is still to come on these repeats.
DeleteYes Last Train is my favourite single I think. It's just builds and builds and is a real anthem. Really enjoying revisiting their work on Spotify this year.
Delete