This is the naked truth, there's only one place left to go ~ the 21st of February 1991 edition of Top of the Pops!
Tu-ba ~ quiero bailar la salsa
21-2-91: Presenter: Mark Goodier
(23) CHRIS REA – Auberge
Getting the show underway with the title track from his number one album, and it peaked at number 16.
(13) KENNY THOMAS – Outstanding
A second time in the studio and the song went up one more place.
(25) D.J.H. feat. STEFY – Think About…
In the studio to perform what became their first of two top ten hits when it peaked at number 22.
(22) THUNDER – Love Walked In (video)
Peaked at number 21.
(32) JULIAN COPE – Beautiful Love (video) (Breakers)
Got no higher.
(35) STEVIE B – Because I Love You (The Postman Song) (video) (Breakers)
His only hit and it peaked at number 6.
(33) ROCKY V feat. JOEY B. ELLIS & TYNETTA HARE– Go For It (Heart And Fire) (video) (Breakers)
Peaked at number 20.
(28) XPANSIONS – Move Your Body
Crikey - this was energetic! And it became their only top ten hit when it peaked at number 7.
(21) M.C. HAMMER – Here Comes The Hammer (video)
Peaked at number 15.
(4) OLETA ADAMS – Get Here
A repeat showing but the song got no higher.
(1) THE SIMPSONS – Do The Bartman (video)
Second of three weeks at number one.
(30) LIVING COLOUR – Love Rears It’s Ugly Head (video) (and credits)
Peaked at number 12.
February 28th is next.
DJH ft Stefy - when this got started I thought it was naff, but as it got going I really got to like it, not for the skinny Stefy, but for DJH's very clever background theme coupled with some clever experts of various house music classics, to make it a new classic of its own. Good stuff, and welcome to your debut hit DJH! Although I recall this tune, I don't recall this TOTP show, so I must have missed it at the time.
ReplyDeleteThunder - although their last hit only a few weeks earlier peaked in the 30-40 segment and missed out on a TOTP feature, this one was so much better, probably their best ever single, and I think their most successful. It was a sort of Jon Bon Jovi on vocals, coupled with a Guns 'n' Roses guitar section. Fabulous stuff!
Breakers - just love the Rocky V theme, especially in the breakers clip when the main base goes silent and we hear a teasing ruffle of some sort of instrument. Absolutely brilliant, and I must watch the whole video this weekend, as it looks a cracker!
XPansions - Angelo is right about it being incredibly energetic, and I immediately thought they were getting dance move inspiration from 24/7 featuring Captain Hollywood a couple of months earlier in December with I Can't Stand It No more. With so much concentration of very fast dance moves, the girl on lead vocals mimed very badly and was so out of synch.
MC Hammer - having sampled Prince on his last hit Pray, we now have him sampling James Brown on this one in the background, and it didn't come off so well, as he could have easily succeeded just as well with this single without the sampling, but really only Hammer knows.
Oleta Adams - beautiful lady and beautiful singing voice - I would have her sing and play piano in my house any day, but she would have to bring her own piano, cos I haven't got one. I wonder what she is doing nowadays, and if she still sings?
"In the studio to perform what became their first of two top ten hits when it peaked at number 22". Erm, sorry, Angelo? :-D
ReplyDeleteAll this sunshine must be getting to me :-)
DeleteFirst of two top 40 hits I think it should say.
He comes across as a bit mundane and earnest, but proof here with the video for "Auberge" that Chris Rea wasn't averse ti a bit of surreal comedy. After all, he's from the same manor as Reeves and Mortimer...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuevw6218F0
Is that Number 6's car from The Prisoner in the background?
DeleteIt looks the same model, THX. I forgot to mention my mirth at an early line of Chris Rea's song mentioning 'telling bone', a phrase used in "Catweazle".
DeleteTHX, just discovered the car in the "Auberge" video was Chris Rea's very own Caterham Super Seven. A similar model, the S2 Lotus Seven, was used for the opening titles of "The Prisoner", so good knock!
DeleteHooray! Chris does like his cars, so it doesn't surprise me he owns that model. He even made a film about how much he loves classic cars that nobody remembers (and I haven't seen).
DeleteDreadful jacket Mark's wearing this evening. Even once I'd realised it was a jacket. Thought initially it was a leather top and a waistcoat! Apart from that he's his normal unassuming self for a patchy edition.
ReplyDeleteChris Rea; Good start though. The rollicking title track of Chris's album. Always make me smile this one. He's far more engaged in this appearance than he was for 'The Road To Hell', ie, fairly into it, so no need to switch to the video every so often. I did love the video whenever it appeared on 'The Chart Show', it's so comically half-arsed.
The keyboardist btw is Max Middleton who played on Jeff Beck's 'Blow By Blow' as well as Kate Bush's 'Never For Ever' album. He's also from Amersham very near where I grew up.
Kenny Thomas; Yuppie straining to make sense of this 'caring '90s' thing. Good to see Shovell with hair.
DJH feat. Stefy; It's pretty catchy but you don't need a woman pretending to sing Aretha Franklin's cut up vocals when you've got the likes of 'Unfinished Sympathy' right around the corner. Did enjoy the keyboardist during the lyrics about right and left who illustrated it by pointing to HIS right and left. Very funny.
Thunder; Didn't do anything for me. Regulation blokeish metal despite the singer dressing like Miles Hunt.
Julian Cope; Very brief snatch of a great tune. Don't remember ever seeing the video before.
Stevie B; More of this on next week so will comment then.
Rocky V; I can't honestly recall a single thing about that.
Xpansions; Great single this one. It should be annoying but the looped vocal cut up has always sounded vibrant and very new. There's a distinct sadness in that voice and how it's conveyed. The performance isn't though. The singer has dressed like she's come for a job interview and bounds around jovially. Would rather have had the video.
M.C Hammer; He's decided to drop the philosophising tone for a while and gone back to wearing silly trousers and being backed by men shouting 'whoah!'.
Oleta Adams; A shame such a great singer couldn't come back for a 2nd performance and a live one but still really good to watch. She looks amazing and it's such an elegant song. To Spring we go.
The Simpsons; I suppose it's a good thing that the charts could have an annoying novelty like this. Can you imagine 'Family Guy', a show with many original songs, being allowed to gatecrash the current Top 40 with something that isn't serious and ultra stylised? Me neither though I would like this one to disappear down a manhole cover soon if that's ok.
Living Colour; Wow! What a single to finish with. That is a fabulous record. Great to see so much of the video. Vernon Reid had such a strong voice and guitar talent, it's amazing that he was only a one hit wonder in the UK. I love the intro to this and that cinematic string part. I suppose his mantle as '91's groovester in chief got taken by Lenny Kravitz but a brilliant one off single. Look forward to seeing it once more.
Family Guy was another cartoon sitcom that went seriously off the boil. Might have been fun to have Shipoopie (sp?) in the charts, though.
DeleteLiving Colour did get a second Top 40 hit with Solace of You later in the year, but they did deserve more than that.
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ReplyDeleteMark Goodier presides over yet another 1991 mixed bag…I fear it is the shape of things to come (hey I like that – Yardbirds)
DeleteChris Rea – Auberge – An excellent start to the show however. Some slight similarities to ‘Let’s Dance’ perhaps but none the worse for that.
Kenny Thomas – Outstanding – Could do much better…
DJH featuring Steffi – Think about.. - …your costume next time perhaps?
Thunder – Love walked in – I was expecting a typical HM style ballad and that is exactly what I got. Just not one of the best ones ever recorded…
Breakers- Julian Cope – Teardrop Explodes having gone quiet for ages we now see Julian back with a quirky video that is more interesting than the song. Stevie B. Ah, this is the other track that is on the ‘Wings of Love’ compilation and Oleta Adams later on the show is the other. Again, this song and the compilation are forever connected for me. Rocky V etc. I don’t think Survivor would have been too worried about having the accolade of ‘best ever Rocky Theme’ pinched from them having heard this!
Xpansions – Move your body – Energetic it certainly is…. However the song is not that great.
MC Hammer - Here comes the Hammer – Next…
Oleta Adams – Get here – As mentioned before, pure class this. Shame TFF didn’t hit higher with the excellent ‘Woman in Chains’ featuring Oleta’s vocals.
Simpsons – Do the Bartman – Surely Mark is embarrassed introducing this as no1?
Living Colour – Love rears its ugly head – I gave this a minute and then hit the stop button.
Finally, in at no79 and bafflingly peaking there is one of my favourite singles of 1991. ‘Secret’ by Heart is an excellent power ballad in the vein of ‘Alone’ – certainly preferable to Thunder’s effort, but next week it is down to no88 and then out. No accounting for the record buying public who obviously preferred the likes of Bart and his pals. Take a look and listen to the excellent video filmed on tour in Japan…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-JpBjLXVkI
I remember Mark being VERY enthusiastic about Bros when he started on Radio 1, so basically he'd say anything for money.
DeleteThe Julian Cope clip on The Breakers was also peak position, and went down the week after, so no full feature on a future TOTP for Cope.
DeleteJust watched the Heart video at a peak of No.79 this week, and it's like a song at the end of a long world tour, relaxing and retrospective.
DeleteThere wasn't that much more to come from Heart, just one more in September 1991 that could only make no.56, and then a last ever single in 1993 which did much better at a peak of No.19 with an unsurprisingly named tune called Will You Be There In The morning.
Bravo on the photo caption, Angelo! I got the joke if nobody else did!
ReplyDeleteGet your hand out of your pocket, Mark, or we'll get it sewn up!
Chris Rea is back with a jaunty little number that kind of belies his usual gravel-voiced delivery. Might have been more fun with a different vocalist, but always good to hear a tuba on a pop single.
Kenny's back, like the champion farmer, outstanding in his field, that field being sales rep soul (you imagine that suit jacket was hung up in the back of his car).
DJH and Stiffy (or something), almost Brechtian in its disregard for conventional stagecraft, Aretha's voice being so identifiable. Nowadays this performance would be banned for cultural appropriation.
Thunder blunder in attempting to tackle the soft rock wave, and despite all the earnest hair-tossing, it leaves little impression on the uninitiated.
Breaker, Stevie will be back, but Julian's charming ode will not. Nice to see some of his beloved standing stones and runes making it into what looks like a home video, but it's just a really nice, unironic song. Then - they wonder why Rocky V flopped! Exhibit One: the pathetic theme song. Fun fact: the guy who played the opponent Rocky fights in this one died shortly after. OK, not fun.
Xpansions, got the groovy name misspellings well in place, it must be 90s dance. It motors along and would get the little fish big fish cardboard box brigade moving, but it's adrift on TV all these years later.
Stifling a yawn for Oleta, then we get the start of the Simpsons video for a change. Voice of Bart Nancy Cartwright gave many of her Simpsons millions to Scientology, which makes the toon less enjoyable somehow.
To end on, Living Color who were intriguing in that they were a black rock band at the time African Americans were supposed to be all into R&B and rap. They were pretty decent, as this single shows, but never caught on like they should have.
i seem to remember q magazine enthusing about living color, but it seemed no one else in this country got excited about them. did the metalheads give them a go on the strength of q's hype and think "well, they're not really up there with metallica and twisted sister"? or did they give them a wide berth without even listening, as they didn't fit the stereotype HM image criteria of the era? i suppose you'd have to ask them to find out...? btw the only other black rock act from that era i recall was roachford, whose hit singles i felt utterly indifferent about - regardless of the colour of their skin
DeleteAha! Now I get it! The photo caption's a play on the Gibson Brothers hit "Cuba". Estupendo, Angelo!
DeleteChart rundown - two songs at their peak this week on the TOTP rundown but never got a showing at all:
ReplyDeleteNo.29 - Our Frank - Morrissey
Had a look at the video, but don't understand what it was all about, probably another controversial theme, as his last single which got to No.18 a few months earlier, also got ignored by TOTP.
No.31 - Heal The Pain - George Michael
Another one of late that got ignored by TOTP, as it seemed to be a recurring theme for George Michael getting ignored by TOTP in the 1990-91 period. Perhaps like Morrissey he was getting too risqué in song and video for TOTP.
One tune of note peaking outside the top 40 this week was Dee Lite with How Do You Say Love, so their first tune to fail to make top 40 after their first two singles charted quite well in 1990, so it seemed that 1991 was a different story for them, despite this tune being released as a double A-Side with Groove Is In The Heart.
I also had a look at the Our Frank video, having never seen it before. And to think people were surprised when Moz went all far right on us! There's bloody skinhead bootboys in the video!
DeleteAnyway, a more pleasant listen is George's tune, though he obviously couldn't be bothered to show up to film new footage for the video. Is that what the girl is crying about? She didn't get to meet George?
Nicest thing I can say about that Deee Lite single was that it was... minimalist...
In a nutshell, a quick check on "Our Frank" reveals it's about open, frank conversations and the singer's inner frustrations with himself. The single had Bedders from Madness on bass and Mark E. Nevin of Fairground Attraction on guitar.
DeleteMark not on best form sartorially or with his presenting, more on the latter later.
ReplyDeleteChris Rea starts us off with a jaunty little number. Yes, it does sound a bit like one of his previous hits, except for tuba replacing bass (as Elvis Costello also used on “Chewing Gum”, a track from hs album “Spike”). Van Morrison lookalike on keyboards.
A different and less skinny backing vocalist for Kenny’s ‘sales rep soul’ – great description, that!
Next it’s a miming model type in a semi-clad “Cabaret” vibe and a dreadful rap from a bloke dressed like wallpaper.
This is where our host becomes Mark Badier. He fails to namecheck Thunder before their hit and then forgets to tell us the acts behind the first two breakers.
Thunder give us something sounding like a male Heart. Metal band rule one - the member with no / least hair gets put behind the drumkit.
Julian Cope's track was okayish but it was no "World Shut Your Mouth", was it?
Stevie V’s slop was awful. I remember “Record Mirror” tearing into him for sounding out of tune repeatedly during the song.
Rocky V not boxing clever. First round defeat.
Xpansions were colour co-ordinated, and that’s the best I can give them.
Meanwhile, over at MC Hammer’s record company - “Do we have any scraps left of “You Can’t Touch This” and its video to make a new single? Hang on, what’s that on the floor?”
A nice rewind for Oleta Adams’ big moment. Not my fave soul ballad by any stretch but plenty to admire here.
FF the number one for Living Colour with a great slow burning lolloping R&B /rock track. The sort of tune Thunder could only dream of having.
I'll see you on The Rocky V theme (Go For It), as it eventually pulled in three weeks in a row of solid punches on TOTP:
Delete21 Feb - The Breakers at No.33
28 Feb - Playout at No.23
7 Mar - Main feature at No.20
So hang on to the ropes, as we are about to absorb the second and third punches from Rocky V on next Friday's two TOTP shows, in a somewhat Rocky V night on BBC4!
Dodgy judges marking the rounds! :-D
DeleteIronically I'm sure that was Skin from Skunk Anansie backing Kenny Thomas on his 7 June appearance. Sounds like her too.
DeleteOn the same week in America, C&C Music Factory had their second of two weeks at No.1 with Gonna Make You Sweat, despite only getting to No.3 in Britain with it and no match for The KLF for the No.1, so well done to The C&C over the waters in the US for making it to the top there.
ReplyDeleteChris rea - a real foot tapper to begin the show with, but didn’t understand what it was about :-) (the switch to ‘this is the naked truth..’ reminded me of something else.) [pre post comment - this turned out to be the highlight of a very dull show]
ReplyDeleteDJH - thought about… pass
Breakers:
Julian cope - ok. Reserve judgement until we see it again
Stevie v - average slow love song, but really slow.
Rocky v - not much to what see saw.again, reserve judgememt…
Xpansions - dreadful! singer tried hard, but yet another one riff sample repeated to distraction… ride on time has a lot ro answer for!)
MC Hammer - he certainly churned them out. As above, too little too long…
Living color - didn’t do anything for me
I've never been fussed one way or the other on Chris Rea, but dang is Auberge an earworm and a half.
ReplyDeleteIt's Goody-Bags with this weeks show with a load of new tunes and a new look from Del Boy
ReplyDeleteCHRIS REA – Auberge
His finest tune. You may disagree. You are wrong.
One of the very few musical tunes my Dad and I agreed on.
KENNY THOMAS – Outstanding
Enjoyed this much more this time around. I'm mellowing.
We calling it The Pops now then Mark?
D.J.H. feat. STEFY – Think About…
Sample Time. Hope Aretha doesn't mind. Miming model must have been embarrassed with Goody Bags just telling everyone she's not singing on the record. Personally I loved all this Italian House stuff. And I quite like Stefy too 😜
THUNDER – Love Walked In
Don't tell us who the band are then Mark.
Perfectly serviceable ballad with a crap concert video. Nothing to get excited about.
Breakers:
JULIAN COPE – Hippy Rock. Not for me thanks.
STEVIE B - Pass the sickbag.
ROCKY V - One word. Shite. Hope the film was better.
XPANSIONS – Move Your Body
Workout time. Another cracking club tune. Some energy on stage as well. A 1990 flop remixed for 1991.
M.C. HAMMER – Here Comes The Hammer
To the UK in May apparently. Remind me to be out.
OLETA ADAMS - Get Here
Should have been Number One however….
THE SIMPSONS keep doing The Bartman
LIVING COLOUR – Love Rears It’s Ugly Head
OMG I love this tune. Pure class. So smooth. Shame it faded out. Always on my list of all time favourite songs if people ask me..
I believe Rocky V is the least successful in the franchise. It doesn't even end in a boxing match, just a brawl in the street!
Delete