Topic: Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Thread Two.

[Satchmo Distel]

That's a good line-up, although that's partly to do with two remixes of classic singles (Cars and Valerie) and a Motown cover, rather than new original material. 'You Win Again' has some great harmonies; a belter.

[Chriddof]

Very annoying how the episodes with M/A/R/R/S have been Smitty editions. Is the following week clear? (I know they just put on the video, but I want this to be on BBC Four. This is cultural censorship from beyond the grave, dammit!)

[daf]

Extended bonus!!

1 October 1987 (with 20 minutes of Gary Davies twisting slowly in the wind doing links for TOTP USA with assorted Bee Gee's & Audience Punks at the end)

[buzby]

10 September 1987: Presenters: Simon Bates & Peter Powell

Urgh, when are these charisma-free dinosaurs going to be put out to grass?

(5) T'PAU – Heart & Soul”

Carol demonstrating the problem they always had performing this track live - if they couldn't afford backing singers she had to sing a hybrid of the two vocal lines. That element of the track was a fairly late addition - the 1985 demo is similar musically to the finished track, but only having a single vocal line makes it sound a lot flatter and less interesting.

Nice to see two generations of Roland''s synths too - an almost-vintage Jupiter 8 and a spanking new D50. It' s the closest we come to seeing the gear hire company's logo on the Jupiter 8 too - it's three musical notes that seem to be forming a 'd' of the first word

(24) LEVEL 42 – It's Over

Jesus this is a struggle to sit through - so dreary. Why has King even got a bass (it's back to the Status Series 2 again)? It seems to be purely some kind of comfort blanket. Lindup has the now-standard DX7/Emulator II combo.

(32) W.A.S.P. – Scream Until You Like It

whart the actual fuck is this? Are they some kind of 'Bad News' comedy band? one thing these repeats have reminded me of was how much shite hair metal was in the charts in 87 that I'd totally blocked from my memory. It does make sense as to why New Order decided to take the piss out of it in the video for their next single.

(12) WAX – Bridge To Your Heart

The Emax and fake sax again. Gold is clearly having a whale of a time with this second bite fo the pop cherry.

(29) JONATHAN BUTLER – Lies

It's Carlton from the Fresh Prince! This is so cheesy, and not in a good way. There's another example of a fake sax with the backing singer ,though despite having it round her neck she doesn't even try to mime to the sax interjections on the song. The keyboard rack has a Roland Alpha Juno 2 above the inevitable DX7.

(4) U2 – Where The Streets Have No Name (video / credits)

Bono really is insufferable. One of the U2 songs that they have always had to play to a click track so Mullen and Clayton keep in time with Edge's delayed guitar arpeggio, but in the supposed 'live performance' video there's no evidence of Mullen wearing headphones. The police shutting them down was also faked - they actually let them extend the shoot past it's permit a number of times (including 4 runthroughs of the song) before it was closed down.

[Jockice]

.Bono really is insufferable. One of the U2 songs that they have always had to play to a click track so Mullen and Clayton keep in time with Edge's delayed guitar arpeggio, but in the supposed 'live performance' video there's no evidence of Mullen wearing headphones. The police shutting them down was also faked - they actually let them extend the shoot past it's permit a number of times (including 4 runthroughs of the song) before it was closed down.

Can I just use the word 'twats' here? Thanks.

[buzby]

17 September 1987: Presenters: Gary Davies & Mike Smith

(31) DEF LEPPARD – Pour Some Sugar On Me

Fucking hell, there's more of it! This is one genre of music I have absolutely no connection to at all. Besides everything else, the awful single entendre lyrics really are the pits.

(24) LUTHER VANDROSS – Stop To Love (video)

It's no great shakes, but it's infnitely better than J. butler or that other no-mark that was on a couple of episodes ago.. Obviously this was before the infamous 'Luther burgers' took their toll on him.

It's amazing how much more glamourous riding round LA on the back of a truck than Status Quo riding round south London. Backing vocal star Lisa Fischer sings on the track and also appears in the video (in the blue jacket with the gravity-defying hairdo).

(12) HOUSE MASTER BOYZ & THE RUDE BOY OF HOUSE – House Nation

It's Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk back again under a pseudonym, so the 'coming from London' story doesn't hold up I''m afraid Gary. No Daryl Pandy this time though, so we have the complete pointlessness of a bassist and drummer onstage. We have that Akai MX73 master keyboard that was on the first Hue & Cry performance and an Ensoniq Mirage (which was likely the sampler used on the track due to that Orch Hit)

(25) THE COMMUNARDS – Tomorrow

Nice to See June Miles-Kingston and the Venomettes string section back, though the song isn't one of The Communards better ones. This was the lead single off their second (and ultimately final) album Red, produced by Steven Hague. Like Jonathan Butler's keyboard player in the last episode, Coles has an Alpha Juno 2 alongside the inevitable DX7.

(20) KAREL FIALKA – Hey Matthew

A bt of an oddity - Czech-Scot Fialka had been knocking round since the late 70s in the electronic new wave scene, just missing out on a Top 40 hit in 1980 with The Eyes Have It. By 1983  1987 he was signed to Miles Copeland's pseudo-indie I.R.S. label, and had a minor hit on Germany with Eat, Drink, Dance, Relax.  After a few years away from music he came up with this single after observibg how his young son watched television (and yes, that's his son on the record and in the video).

As to how it ended up as a hit, it was being heavily-promoted by I.R.S. but I detect the dead hand of BBC radio DJ patronage here somewhere It also apparently is the first (and only, I think) father-son duet to reach the Top 10.  He's still going, putting out the occasional-self-released album via his website.

(2) M/A/R/R/S – Pump Up The Volume (video / credits)

Look out Rick, they are coming for you (and Waterman's got the lawyers on the phone...). Ironically te offending samples of Roadblock only appeared on the 12" remix that was released on the 7th of September to help get it up the charts, but i'll get to that in the next episode.

[Satchmo Distel]

Father and son duets - I can only think of Bing and Gary Crosby (if we include Billboard). No Lennon or Iglesias recordings AFAIK, let alone hits.

Mother and son - Larry Hagman appeared on one of Mary Martin's b-sides; again not a hit

Father and Daughter - Frank and Nancy Sinatra No. 1

[DrGreggles]

Father and son duets

McManus & Son?
https://youtu.be/lK26bP0M7BQ

[Norton Canes]

The police shutting them down was also faked - they actually let them extend the shoot past it's permit a number of times (including 4 runthroughs of the song) before it was closed down

Plus, how big is the crowd, actually? Few hundred?

Depeche Mode got 20,000 at an LA book signing a few years later. Just saying.

[buzby]

Father and son duets - I can only think of Bing and Gary Crosby (if we include Billboard). No Lennon or Iglesias recordings AFAIK, let alone hits.

If you include the Billboard Country chart, Hank Williams Jr. did a posthumous duet with his dad on the unreleased 1951 demo There's A Tear In My Beer , which got to #7 in 1989.

Father and Daughter - Frank and Nancy Sinatra No. 1

Also Natalie Cole did a posthumous duet with her father in Unforgettable in 1991 which got to #14 on the Billboard chart and  #19 over here. Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus have recorded a number of duets, with Ready, Set, Don't Go reaching #37 in the Hot 100 in 2008 and Butterfly Fly Away reaching #56 in 2009. Neither were hits here though.

Plus, how big is the crowd, actually? Few hundred?

Depeche Mode got 20,000 at an LA book signing a few years later. Just saying.

There were about a thousand people there. They recreated the sign for the Million Dollar Hotel in the background behind the liquor store so that if nobody turned up they would have something to film.

[boki]

As to how it ended up as a hit, it was being heavily-promoted by I.R.S. but I detect the dead hand of BBC radio DJ patronage here somewhere

Probably Batesy hoping for a bit of synergy with his 'sexual swearwords' gig.   I see the 'E-Team' in mild peril.

[daf]

8 October 1987: Presenters: Gary Davies & Mike Smith

(29) JELLYBEAN feat. STEVEN DANTE – The Real Thing
Hi Five, On the side . . . On the wrist, Ooh, just missed
(12) KISS – Crazy Crazy Nights (video)
Revolting Tongue Waggle



(5) JAN HAMMER – Crockett's Theme
Mahavishnu Vice
(21) ERASURE – The Circus
Andy's got a Squeezebox (Vince never sleeps at night)
(9) LL COOL J – I Need Love (US TOTP clip)
She-e-e-e-'s Everyday Peeples
(22) STEVE WALSH – I Found Lovin'
The Fatfront Bloke
(1) M/A/R/R/S – Pump Up The Volume (video / credits)
"The Silly Voice Sketch"

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https://wetransfer.com/downloads/391695076e0839e4595e0d4c9fd1560c20190501113119/aaa651

[buzby]

24 September 1987: Presenters: Gary Davies & Mike Smith

(11) JOHNNY HATES JAZZ – I Don't Want To Be A Hero

More beige wine bar soul from Clark 'Punches Air' Datchler and co. Featuring an Emax and a Beatle bass.

(31) ABC – The Night You Murdered Love
Boy Scouts with the horn

The performance is basically a recreation of the performance scenes from the video. Fry was a cub scout as a child, so that might be the link. as for the song, like their previous single When Smokey sings it was produced by Bernie Edwards, and it shows - he's recycled the tubular bell motif from Chic's I Want Your Love. This was hammered home by the 12" 'Sheer Chic' remix.

(4) MADONNA – Causing A Commotion (video)

Blimey i'd forgotten about the 'conveyor belt' dance routine. It looks ridiculous. Her vocal performance is awful too.

(19) JAN HAMMER – Crockett's Theme

Jan and his Lync LN-4 are back, this time with a Fairlight Series III. It's clear from the screen that it's not doing anything and is just in 'screensaver' mode (would t have hurt to bring some disks along so we could get the hired one playing on Page R?). Sod Miami Vice though, it's more famous for scoring the NatWest 'It's not all work work work!' advert, starring the least scouse lad in Liverpool.

(41) MICK JAGGER – Let's Work

Jesus, this prize plum gets the whole studio to himself to put on a full production number for this dreck. Co-written and produced by David 'A' Stewart (like half of it's parent album Primitive Cool), it does hare some sonic traitswith th elast Eurythmics album Revenge. Jagger's obviously been given special dispensation for being rock royalty despite the song currently being outside the Top 40. All this bluster only managed to get it to #31 though. It features Jeff Beck on guitar and current Eurythmics live band member (and future Curve co-founder) Dean Garcia on bass.

As bad as this is, the promo video is even worse - Despite being an early use of HDTV video it is all green-screened (it was directed by Oscar-winner Zbigniew Rybczyński, who had recently directed the similarly dreadful green-screen fest video for Herb Alpert's Keep Your Eye On Me).

[kaprisky]

Sod Miami Vice though, it's more famous for scoring the NatWest 'It's not all work work work!' advert, starring the least scouse lad in Liverpool.

Absolutely spot-on. I preferred this to the Miami Vice main theme.

[buzby]

This turned into a bit of a megapost, but there's a lot in this episode worth mentioning.

1 October 1987: Presenters: Gary Davies & Mike Smith

(13) THE SISTERS OF MERCY – This Corrosion

Spiggy Eldritch is back _{back back}. After the implosion of the last Sisters lineup, there was the debacle of The Sisterhood album. a project Eldritch undertook out of spite purely to stop his ex-bandmates Wayne Hussey & Craig Adams using the name. He was still under contract to Warners, but needed to put a record out quickly to claim the name, He did this by issuing a single called Giving Ground on his own Merciful Release label. This meant he couldn't sing on it so enlisted his friend James Ray on vocals, and called ex-Gun Club bassist Patricia Morrison, who was currently touring the UK with Fur Bible supporting Siouxsie and The Banshees. Around this time a version of This Corrosion was also recorded with Alan Vega of Suicide on vocal duties, but it was never released as Eldritch wanted to keep the song for the nexr real Sisters album.

There was also an offer of a £25k advance against royalties from their publishing company RCA for whoever published an album's worth of songs in 1986 (they had been contracted for an album a year), so Eldritch decided to extend the life of The Sisterhood by recording an album of half-baked ideas purely to get the money. He was still contractually obliged not to sing, so he again called on James Ray, his friend (and ex-Motorhead drummer) Lucas Fox and Morrison to do some spoken-word vocals (lead track Jihad had Morrison reciting '2-5-0-0-0', referring to the publishing advance).

Once The Sisterhood was out of the way, Eldritch started work on what would be the Sisters' second album proper. He enlisted producers Jim Steinman and Larry Alexander in New York for what would become the Floodland album, and the aborted This Corrosion was reworked for it and would become the lead single. It bears all the hallmarks of Steinman's overblown production style, Eldritch having said to him that he wanted it to sound 'like the high-point of a Borgia's disco evening'. Steinman used six backing singers and 40 members of the New York Choral Society for the choral backing on this and next single Dominion, for which he managed to get a $50k recording budget from the label just for the two tracks. The guitar solo was played by Steinman's friend Eddie Martinez, who had also been the guitarist on Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love.  Morrison's contribution to the album was minimal and she was basically hired to look good in the promo photos and videos.

There was no tour to support the album (and no band), so for TOTP (and the hilariously over-the-top video, set in post-apocalyptic London) Eldritch enlisted James Ray and his band The Performance to act as the backing band.

(22) THE BEE GEES – You Win Again
Mo Diddley

The Gibbs finally uncloak after spending most of the 80s in hiding, writing and producing for other artists. Maurice with the Stepp DGX guitar MIDI controller, cheaper brother of the DG1 guitar synth (basically the same thing with an integrated polyphonic synth engine)

It was launched in the 1986 NAMM show (a year after the DG1), and the company would be bankruot by the end of 1988, due in part to Roland and Casio's cheaper guitars with MIDI converters occupying that niche of the guitar market.

(16) GARY NUMAN – Cars (E Reg Model)

Always welcome to see Cedric Sharpley, though this Zeus B. Held remix of the song sounds all wrong with it's digital synths It was remixed to promote the Exhibition compilation album. DX7 Corner is back, though this time one seems to have a third-party memory expansion box attached via a ribbon cable. It's position is a bit odd as it's sitting on top of the volume and data entry sliders.

(36) STEVE WINWOOD – Valerie
Unleash the bum-squats!

DX7 Corner putting another shift in, though on the right we have our first sighting of the DX7IID,the 'Mk 2' DX7 with more memory, better front panel design and bi-timbral capability (the keyboard could be split between two patches).

This was Yamaha's attempt at upgrading the DX7 to compete against the new Roland D50. On the left-hand DX7 Mk1 we get a closeup of that 'three notes' gear hire label - if this had been on BBC4 I would have been able to read the text! Winwood has a venerable MiniMoog Model D for the solo.  Like Numan's single, this remix (by Tom Lord-Alge) was created to promote Winwood's Chronicles compilation.

As discussed in this thread last October, the Eric Prydz song uses a replay of the track by Replay Heaven rather than a sample, though Winwood did volunteer to re-record the vocal for it. It was a rip-off of a bootleg made by Thomas Bangalter and DJ Falcon under the name Together commissioned by Ministry of Sound when Falcon and Bangalter refused them permission to release it.

(1) M/A/R/R/S – Pump Up The Volume (video / credits)

Well, what can be said about this? i'm sure everyone knows it's origin from a failed collaboration between Colourbox and A.R. Kane instigated by 4AD label boss Ivo Watts-Russell, and how the Young brothers of Colourbox got DJs C.J. Mackintosh and Dave Dorrell involved.

By 1987, the Youngs had become disillusioned with the music business due to the commercial failure of Colourbox's album in 1985 and the 'Official Colourbox World Cup Theme' single in 1986. To get them interested in working again, Ivo suggested a collaboration with new label-mates A.R. Kane. As it turned out, they didn't really get along musically or personally so they decided to each produce a track and hand them to each other to work on afterwards, and it would be released as a double A side (A.R. Kane added the distorted guitar to Pump Up The Volume and Colourbox added programmed percussion to Anitina). When the finished tracks were handed over, the Youngs weren't happy with the double-A arrangement and wanted Pump Up The Volume released on it's own under the Colourbox name, but Ivo overruled them and released it as M/A/R/R/S (the first initials of the members of both bands). The fallout of which was that the Youngs never recorded as Colourbox or for 4AD again.

Promo copies went out to clubs in July, and the 12" single was released on the 27th of August. It entered the charts at #35 on the 5th of September, and to help push it a 12" Remix (containing more samples) and 7" edit were released the following week, which got the track onto the radio and assisted it's climb as predicted. It reached #2 on the 19th of September, threatening to knock Rick Astley off the top spot the next week. At this point Pete Waterman turned to the lawyers....

Despite SAW's liberal pinching of bits of other people's tracks, news had got to them of a radio interview where Dorrell mentioned that the 12" Remix of Pump Up The Volume used a transformer-scratched snatch of Dee Lewis's vocal from the lesser-known Rare Groove remix of Roadblock. When it looked like it was going to knock Astley off the #1 spot, Waterman sent the lawyers in , demanding the single was withdrawn (he also started a campaign in the music press against the scourge of unauthorised sampling) . 4AD were able to argue that only the Remix version used the SAW sample, so it was wihdrawn and a replacement was hurriedly created which omitted the offending sample plus a couple of others that lawyers from other record companies had started sniffing around.

In effect, all the SAW lawsuit did in the UK was to extend Astley's #1 by a week. However, 4AD had a licensing agreement with Island in the US, and by the time the single was due to be released there on Island's 4th & Broadway label the lawyers were already lying in wait over the uncleared samples, To 'head them off at the pass' a US Remix was commissioned that stripped out or replaced large swathes of the original samples (including all of the James Brown ones).

[The Culture Bunker]

The fallout of which was that the Youngs never recorded as Colourbox or or for 4AD again.

As a little postscript, a few years ago Martyn Young did produce an album by fellow 4AD alumni Modern English. No idea if it's any good, mind you.

[Jockice]

Buzby, you're brilliant.

Incidentally, Karel Fialka was my first pop star interview (I'd spoken to Richard from Cabaret Voltaire before but I'm not sure if he counts). It took place in a caravan, he smoked very smelly roll-ups and seemed very surprised that I remembered The Eyes Have It. Matthew wasn't there.

[Jockice]

He's also reminded me that I bought The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme but for reasons lost in the mists of time never played it. I've just had it on youtube though, and I do recognise it. So I must have heard it somewhere.

(It's one of only three records I've actually bought (ie not got as freebies) and never played. The others were Infected by The The and an album by an American band called The Primitons after hearing a track from it in a record shop and momentarily thinking I was in High Fidelity.)

[Satchmo Distel]

The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme got extensive airplay on Janice Long and John Peel but never charted, criminally, even though the vastly inferior BBC and ITV 1986 themes scraped the lower end of the Top 50.

[Norton Canes]

'Aztec Lightning'? Inferior? May Montezuma's Revenge swiftly visit you.

[Jockice]

The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme got extensive airplay on Janice Long and John Peel but never charted, criminally, even though the vastly inferior BBC and ITV 1986 themes scraped the lower end of the Top 50.

Yeah, I'm presuming I had heard it previously. I'm just not sure why I never played it or why I can remember so vividly not playing it. As for The The, wasn't there a late night-thing on Channel 4 featuring songs from the album? I can vaguely remember seeing that and not being too impressed, especially since I thought - and still do - that Soul Mining is one of the greatest albums ever made. I'd gone off them/him by such an extent by the end of the decade though that I and one of my best mates didn't speak for almost a year after falling out over the merits of the follow-up.

I've played a couple of tracks by The Primitons on youtube this morning. They sound okay.  Not brilliant but certainly not bad. I can see why I bought the album, but not why I never played it.

[PinkNoise]

Even in 1987, aged 16, I knew Pete Waterman was a cunt for going after M/A/R/R/S. Even though I didn't know he was only doing it to keep Rick Astley in the public eye, I knew he was a cunt. 

I knew at the time the whole story that Waterman had created "Roadblock" as a ruse to fool people who thought SAW were manufactured shite. I knew that he created a rare groove to trick the hipsters. I knew he wanted to trick people into sampling it and then fucking sued someone when they went ahead and sampled it. I was a mere child, but knew this was, as they say, a "dick move".

Fuck you, Pete Waterman. Fuck you, Stock and Aitken, too. Fuck you, the "Hit Factory" and all you stood for. Fuck you, Big Fun.

PWL were an indie label that stepped all over another indie label in the fucking chart wars. If you want to sum up the ruthlessness of the 80s, don't show a yuppie on a massive mobile phone, show a photo of Pete Waterman's big face, smiling.

This is where indie starts to crumble, finishing when McGee sells Creation to Sony. I HOPE YOU'RE SATISFIED, PETE WATERMAN. Buy yourself another model train with your ill-gotten gains.

And we haven't even got to the ocean of hypocrisy that was "I'd Rather Jack" by The Reynolds Girls.

[Phil_A]

Remember when Belle & Sebastian won a Best New Band phone in vote at The Brits over Steps, leading to a massive strop from Waterman? He made such a stink over it they had to invent a new award the following year called something like The Steps Award for Best Band Called Steps just to appease him. What a baby.

[jamiefairlie]

The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme got extensive airplay on Janice Long and John Peel but never charted, criminally, even though the vastly inferior BBC and ITV 1986 themes scraped the lower end of the Top 50.

It was very popular in the indie scene, was in the festive fifty that year too. It's one of those rare tunes that always cheers me up, it has a great spirit.

[Bobtoo]

Father and son duets - I can only think of Bing and Gary Crosby (if we include Billboard). No Lennon or Iglesias recordings AFAIK, let alone hits.

Mother and son - Larry Hagman appeared on one of Mary Martin's b-sides; again not a hit

Father and Daughter - Frank and Nancy Sinatra No. 1

I think the only mother and son No. 1 was Mouldy Old Dough. Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne got to No. 1 with Changes.

[daf]

15 October 1987: Presenters: Gary Davies & Peter Powell (with brief appearance from Liz Kershaw & Ro Newton)

(29) UB40 – Maybe Tomorrow
Bonus Banjo String
(16) FIVE STAR – Strong As Steel (video)
ITC Stunt Jag
(20) THE ALARM – Rain In The Summertime
Even Better than the Rhyl Thing
(30) TERENCE TRENT D'ARBY – Dance Little Sister
Ooh, me balls!
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(26) LOS LOBOS – Come On Let's Go
(22) BANANARAMA – Love In The First Degree
(21) FLEETWOOD MAC – Little Lies
(18) WAS (NOT WAS) – Walk The Dinosaur
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157678678305846

(7) THE FATBACK BAND – I Found Lovin'
Cubular Bonce
(1) THE BEE GEES – You Win Again
ZX Spec-strum
(17) BILLY IDOL – Mony Mony (video / credits)
Tune in for exciting Sam Fox sister update!!

[buzby]

8 October 1987: Presenters: Gary Davies & Mike Smith

(29) JELLYBEAN feat. STEVEN DANTE – The Real Thing

Steven Dante had been signed to Chrysalis in 1985 and prior to this had issues a couple of singles on their Cooltempo sublabel, the second of which, Give It Up For Love, had reached #78 in April 1986. It seems the A&R at Chrysalis decided to get him to work with Benitez, who was also signed to the label, providing vocals for a track on his 1987 album Just Visiting This Planet.

Jellybean would release 3 further singles from this album, all of which would reach the Top 20. For Dante, this was the peak of his chart success - he released further singles, but only one would get into the Top 75 (i'm Too Scared, which reached #34 in September 1988). After that he went into writing and worked as a backing vocalist, most notably providing vocals for The Lighthouse Family's Ocean Drive album.

Benitez has the new DX7IID and Emulator II (plus cowbell). The synths have those hire labels on them again. A bit of investigation and an email conversation seems to confirm they belong to a rental company called Octave Hire. They are still going, having merged with fellow hire company Alpha Entek. The instrument hire business became The Hammond Hire Company, with Alpha Entek continuing as the servicing and restoration  arm.

(12) KISS – Crazy Crazy Nights (video)

Fuck off you bunch of wizened ballbags.

(5) JAN HAMMER – Crockett's Theme

A VT of the performance from the previous episode (you can see Johnny Hates Jazz's gear not he stage as the camera pans across at the start). In classic Nik Kershaw style, the director has tried to liven it up by icutting in scenes from the promo video, which features clips from the feature-length season 2 premiere episode Prodigal Son, where Crockett and Tubbs go to New York to assist a DEA investigation.

(21) ERASURE – The Circus

Like the time he brought his System 100M master keyboards, Roland fan Vince has dug out a classic 1978 SH-09 for this performance:


The song contest Davies is blathering on about in his intro was the Yamaha Music Festival, also known as the World Popular Song Festival. 1987 would be the last year is was run (it was cancelled the following year due to Emperor Hirohito being on his deathbed), and it was won by that bunch of Aussie chancers Pseudo Echo with Take On The World. Erasure's The circus placed fifth.

(9) LL COOL J – I Need Love (US TOTP clip)

Cool James' lyrics in this song are cringeworthy, sorry.

(22) STEVE WALSH – I Found Lovin'

This idiot - the Jethro of the London soul scene. He might have done great things promoting soul and funk as a dJ, but he's no singer - who on earth was buying this shit? Unlike the promo video  there's no Tony Blackburn or Edwin Starr in the TOTP audience. At least this explains why the Fatback Band's original was re-released.

He followed this us a year later with a similarly awful cover of Ain't No Stopping Us Now, but died from injuries sustained in a car crash on Ibiza while filming the promo video.

[Chriddof]

Remember when Belle & Sebastian won a Best New Band phone in vote at The Brits over Steps, leading to a massive strop from Waterman? He made such a stink over it they had to invent a new award the following year called something like The Steps Award for Best Band Called Steps just to appease him. What a baby.

God, I remember that. On that second year's ceremony, one of the man Steps - not H (aka HP, aka Hyperactive Prick), but the other one - sneered at a not-present B+S from the podium about how they had won the award this year so ner-ner-nerner-ner, or something along those lines. I think one of the blonde women laughed hysterically behind him at this entirely humour-free bit of spite. I wasn't even a massive fan of Belle & Sebastian, but it still struck me as astoundingly shitty, and it's more than a bit ironic from the perspective of about 20 years in the future.

[buzby]

God, I remember that. On that second year's ceremony, one of the man Steps - not H (aka HP, aka Hyperactive Prick), but the other one - sneered at a not-present B+S from the podium about how they had won the award this year so ner-ner-nerner-ner, or something along those lines. I think one of the blonde women laughed hysterically behind him at this entirely humour-free bit of spite. I wasn't even a massive fan of Belle & Sebastian, but it still struck me as astoundingly shitty, and it's more than a bit ironic from the perspective of about 20 years in the future.

it was the BRITs 2000, where they won Best Live Act - it's on youtube. Lee makes the sarcastic comment that B&S aren't up against them in this category this year, and it's H who cheered the comment (if you watch from the start, you get some bonus slightly tipsy Cerys Matthews presenting the award).

[Chriddof]

I should have realised it would be on Youtube - officially uploaded too!