This edition of Top of the Pops from the 19th of March 1992 will not be shown on BBC4 becasue of Adrian Rose. So once again a big thanks goes to Anonymous for making it available here at WeTransfer.
Rock of the pops
19-3-92: Presenters: Adrian Rose & Femi Oke
(18) LIQUID – Sweet Harmony
(7) CROWDED HOUSE – Weather With You (via satellite)
(11) BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Human Touch (video)
(21) LISA STANSFIELD – Time To Make You Mine
(8) MR. BIG – To Be With You (video)
(6) CE CE PENISTON – Finally
(NEW) DEF LEPPARD – Let’s Get Rocked
(1) SHAKESPEAR’S SISTER – Stay (video)
26th of March is next.
Femi Oke's debut as presenter, and seemed to be trying to out-animate Claudia Simon in style. A little surprised that there were two Top 10s on the show, the second one being a TV personalilty Top 10 of some sort, and surprised they kept in Gary Glitter at No.2, and not edit it out for 2022.
ReplyDeleteMr Big - no, not the famous villain in Live And Let Die, but an American rock group, and not sure why they made the video in black & white, and also surprised that there wasn't a feature girl in the video which is usual with such lyrics, but it was just the group of guys on the song.
Def Leppard - British rockers this time, and last of the long-haired rock star look that was now on the decline since it arrived at the start of the 70s, as that generation were also starting to bow out to the new generation of rave and dance taking over. I mean even Meat Loaf soon ditched the famous long hair a couple of years later at the end of 1994 at the end of the Bat Out Of Hell 2 tour.
Dory, Femi debuted on TOTP a couple of weeks previously. We critiqued her last week. Shame she was on less than Anthea Turnoff.
DeleteOh and the Trading Places competition link in 26/3 with Glitter was cut out in it's entirety.
Deletehttps://we.tl/t-HMBJKrW4qO
DeleteOh yes of course, the Trading Places competition on this show with Femi Oke was not a BBC4 shown episode. Good Lord, it's the sheer volume of episodes coming thick and fast, that I'm getting totally confused, as the original episode was uploaded for us having been skipped by BBC4!
DeletePlenty of grunge rockers had long hair.
DeleteWho wants to trade places with Gary Glitter, then? Er, I'll pass, thanks all the same.
ReplyDeleteLiquid up first and the TOTP dance act formula is well in place. Singing the samples, pretending to play the keyboard riff, although the dancer is different for looking like a skellington. I remember this one for the weird vocal, I guess that was him we saw.
Crowded House we've already seen in the studio, so not sure why we needed to see them doing the same thing again via satellite.
Tiny little Bruce on video, bit of a dull effort from him though it picks up as it goes on. Video apparently summing up the American experience in one go. I suppose Bruce would feature.
Lisa Stansfield with a slinky number that hits an obstacle when the synth brass comes in. Wasn't she naked in the video? Something like that. Not sure about the "just got out of bed" hairdo, but at least TOTP made a friese for her.
Mr Big again, in backstage "we're fun guys but we can be serious" mode for their video.
Ce Ce Peniston with her rude name and singing live. I'd forgotten what she looked like, that leather jerkin is somewhat unforgiving. Doesn't sound like much now, but a pop hit singing the praises of her ideal man as having "brown cocoa skin and curly black hair" really stood out back in '92, in a positive way. Nice enough tune.
As opposed to the lumbering embarrassment from Def Leppard. You're middle aged blokes from Sheffield, not teenage boys from suburban USA! Those lyrics are so cringey it's almost - almost - amusing. I guess they knew their market.
Then Siobhan and Marcie, still hanging on in there.
I've had real issues with the file this week and it doesn't sound like the best episode so I'm giving up persevering!
ReplyDeleteThere's also this Utube upload I found, so it might be easier for you to check it out, albeit with some narrative from the uploader:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGZ62G6Jkfs&t=545s
Three songs at peak position this inside and outside the Top 40 this week, and no TOTP plays or mentions for them:
ReplyDeleteNo.25 Joe Cocker - Feels Like Forever
This new one and 8 more new singles to come up until 1996, so Cocker was by no means done, and had lots more to come with most of them charting well into the Top 40.
No.48 Rebel MC - Rich Ah Getting Richer
No wonder, did he really need a Top 40 breaker? Overspill from the 1989 scene where he did a lot better with Double Trouble, and persevered solo until 1992, with one more single to come, which also failed to make Top 40, so we'll soon be saying goodbye and so long to Rebel MC.
No.68 Gary Numan - The Skin Game
Hardly makes it to the TOTP stage with his singles by now, but kept going into the next century with new singles every so often, but not appealing to the new generation looking for a different kind of sound.
This week I feel I need to come in and do some damage limitation on that Liquid performance. Listed this recently as one of my favourite dance music releases, the Liquid EP from the previous year gave us Sweet Harmony and Liquid is Liquid, two tracks that still sound great today (to me at least). The singer on the show tonight (I think) is Ce Ce Rogers (no relation to Ce Ce Penistown), who is the original singer of the sample, taken from his 1987 classic Someday (often cited as one of the most influential house music recordings).
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is, no matter how good it sounds in a club or at a rave, the TOTP studio placed too many demands on the dance acts to show them at their best advantage. They'd even have been better off showing the videos.
DeleteSometimes it works, thinking Oceanic, K-Klass, maybe you have to have a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus song and a good singer. Otherwise video would be best, particularly if video is of some fuelled up sweaty rave. Shows such as Dance Energy and The Word similarly failed for me as they focused on the poseurs in the audience dancing to a vibe they weren’t really feeling.
DeleteJust remembered I meant to post this documentary link for Everybody in the Place (an incomplete history of Britain 94-92), worth a watch. https://youtu.be/Thr8PUAQuag
That’s 84 to 92 btw 😃
Delete@THX1139 @Sidders agree. You may, or may not, have noticed I have stopped commenting very often. That’s because so many of the dance tracks get the same comment - monotonous and FFed.
DeleteCheck this out Charlie:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL7OVvrBjdA
To be fair I tend to only have something positive to say on one track per show, although this has been the case since the reruns started from 1976 (although relatively late to this blog). Just keep posting at least once Charlie and we’ll get through these doldrums :-)
Delete@dory interesting. I suspect Meat Loaf may have been imbibing…
DeleteI think it is the earliest known interview with Meat and Steinman alone or together, when they were in Frankfurt doing the original Bat Out Of Hell world tour in 1978 when they were both about 30. I doubt if there would have been any earlier interviews as they were not known before this album!
Delete@charlie: Listen to Sidders, this two year period is a dark one for the show (not just because of the lighting), but it does pick up again once dance music finds its feet and gets over its early 90s need to be edgy (well, mostly).
DeleteThere were some notable exceptions THX, for example Meat Loaf's big No.1, holding the top spot for 7 weeks in the lead up to Christmas 1993 with I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That).
DeleteIt gave us a temporary respite from the dark vibe of the early 90s dance/rave music dominating the charts from 1991 to 1995, which then fizzled away in favour of boy bands and girl bands that were the new trend in the late 90s.
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ReplyDeleteThe ITV Chart Show Top Ten this week had over-predicted Bruce Springsteen, Crowded House, Eric Clapton at No.9, No.6 and No.4, and even Ce Ce Peniston as No.1 instead of Shakespeare's Sister, when these records only reached No.11, No.7, No.5, and No.2 respectively on the official chart.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJQmGbL3jm8
Thanks once again to Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteExcitable Oki teamed up with Adrian Ponce. Poor woman.
Liquid give us fast but redundant rave disco. Next.
Subtle dry humour from Tim Finn. Why didn’t they record this in New Zealand? And if it’s five in the morning there it must be five in the afternoon when that was recorded in Elstree. That performance finally made me fully enjoy the song for the first time.
Broooce with a faster bus-driven version of “Downtown Train”, and no bad thing.
Ay up, Rochdale Gal gets all foxy. Good groove, well sung, enjoyed this a lot.
What was that Trading Places shite? Help, they’ve mentioned Gary Glitter!
Mr. Big, I don’t want to be with you.
Spoiler alert - wait till Smashie and Nicey mention Ce Ce Peniston in the rundown! Nice pun by Femi about rising from Phoenix. Give it some, Cecilia! Work that crowd!
Def Leppard, a bit more successful than some other, ahem, ‘exclusives’. Watch and learn, Gun.
Femi hits us with another pun (she’s a card), then the chart topper, then an unexpected cameo from Jazzie B. Blimey.
Apparently Femi is on Al Jazeera now, I wonder if she's changed her presenting style?
ReplyDeleteAt the end as the audience crowded round the presenters,it looked like the blonde girl behind them was being Savile'd by the creepy guy behind her.
ReplyDeleteIt's Showtime!
ReplyDeleteRequisite 92 rave/dance tune up first. And this time not a female singer.. shocking! Another one that sounds better in the clubs but at least the singer does a half decent job here until he has some kind of breakdown in the middle of the tune.
5 o'clock in the morning! Good for them. Crowded House with their signature song. Still a fabulous tune. Throwing rocks, very rock and roll 😃 I blame a lack of sleep.
Boy Mayo's favourite BS with a lovely AOR song Didn't he do the 2 albums at the same time thing that Guns N Roses did? I'm not a huge fan of Bruce's 80s output but his 90s tunes I do quite like. This is a good one.
They've all got Rose's hair style. Aaahh.
It's Lisa "no lessons required" Stansfield with a gorgeous ballad. And in a gold mac, brave choice.
Really, really like this one.
Trading Places day. WTF? Gary Glitter! Oh dear. I'm afraid to google it.
Mr Boring up next.. seriously who bought this rubbish..zzzzz
FINALLY! A quick remix and a well deserved Top Ten hit for Ce Ce. Bit of audience participation as well..very nice. Great performance as well even if she runs out of puff a bit by the chorus.
Been looking forward to this from Def Leppard. Storming tune. Loved it then. Love it now.
Replace the word Rock for F@#k and get a full on heavy metal version! Not that we ever did that at the time of course 🤣🤣🤣
God Femi is so annoying! Bless her..another chance to watch the SS video..very nice.
Lisa and Leppard Top of the Pops for me tonight…I'm off to google trading places…wish me luck.
Knowing what we know now, perhaps most people would have liked Trading Places Day to involve Mr Glitter being shagged by a gorilla.
Delete