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

[Better Midlands]

Acieed is a stylistically a weird intro for D Mob, whose later album had a wodge of really decent housey dance-soul tracks on it (very nicely produced by yer man too). Worthy chart botherers IMO.

Danny D did the house instrumental remix of 2 Hype by Kid N Play in this period too which was massive (sampled by Altern 8 a couple of years later)

https://youtu.be/VXGQ8q5h6ig

[boki]

Harvest For The World reminded me that the lyrics aren't actually, "Love's powerful anus."

Far too many are feeling the strain.

[daf]

3 November 1988: Presenters: Nicky Campbell & Mark Goodier

(24) GLORIA ESTEFAN & MIAMI SOUND MACHINE – 1-2-3
Splendid Chaps, all of them
(8) ROBERT PALMER – She Makes My Day (video)
Bit of a Long Shot
(26) TANITA TIKARAM – Twist In My Sobriety
Ace Oboe
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(28) BRYAN FERRY – Let's Stick Together
(17) ROBIN BECK – The First Time
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(2) KYLIE MINOGUE – Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi (video)
Goodybags Video Bamboozler
(4) YAZZ – Stand Up For Your Love Rights
Pumpin' with Gas (PARRRP!)



(1) ENYA – Orinico Flow
Pizzicato Dive
(25) GUNS N' ROSES – Welcome To The Jungle (video / credits)
Going out on the Pith

[Norton Canes]

(26) TANITA TIKARAM – Twist In My Sobriety
Ace Oboe

Are you sure it's not a

[daf]

10 November 1988: Presenters: Bruno Brookes & Sybil Ruscoe

(8) BROTHER BEYOND – He Ain't No Competition
Wearing Haring
(12) BRYAN FERRY – Let's Stick Together (video)
Hall's Soother
(5) ROBIN BECK – The First Time
Anyone fancy a Pepsi?
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(22) SALT 'N' PEPA – Twist & Shout
(18)  INXS – Need You Tonight
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(15) CHRIS DE BURGH – Missing You
Sybil Smoocher
(10) DEACON BLUE – Real Gone Kid
New Jacket! Pet hate : "Ooohs" *
(1)  ENYA – Orinico Flow
The Donny Osmond Sketch



(26) PRINCE – I Wish U Heaven (video / credits)
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 4004 BC

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* (New Jacket Potatoes!!)

[DrGreggles]

(5) ROBIN BECK – The First Time

Always a nice tricky addition to a number ones round when compiling a pop quiz.

[Egyptian Feast]

Haven't caught up with the latest, but I'm excited to finally find out why Alice Cooper has such a problem with Sybil Ruscoe.

[non capisco]

For such a megastar Prince really wasn't arsed with making expensive looking videos in the Lovesexy era. I've long thought that the Alphabet Street one looks like dogshit but I Wish U Heaven is even more of a cut price eyesore.

"What do you reckon to the video for this one, Prince? I hear Anton Corbijn has a concept he's quite excited about."
"Nah, eye'll just get my mate Keith 2 do it again."

[The Culture Bunker]

INXS with their only top 10 hit in the UK, there, which seems a little surprising looking back, but it seems we preferred our Aussie acts (at least in terms of the singles chart) to be of the SAW ilk rather than, say, Crowded House, the Go-Betweens, the Triffids, the Church etc etc.

[DrGreggles]

INXS with their only top 10 hit in the UK, there, which seems a little surprising looking back

Nah. It was their only hit-worthy single.

[Gulftastic]

Sheila E. Oh yes.

[Better Midlands]

Nah. It was their only hit-worthy single.

Never Tear Us Apart deserves a top 10 spot, it could be arqued it's their most popular legacy single and only got to 24.

[Dr Rock]

INXS had about six good singles.

[DrGreggles]

'Need You Tonight' has BIG HIT written all over it in a way none of their other singles did - to my ears anyway.
They probably had lots of other songs that went top 40, but it doesn't surprise me that they were never massive hits.

Never been keen on 'Never Tear Us Apart' either, to be honest.
I think the sax solo put me off.

[McChesney Duntz]

I'll go to the mat for "The One Thing" any day of the week.

[Catalogue Trousers]

I find INXS pretty rubbish, but Suicide Blonde at least has a lovely thumping great riff. Vastly preferable to the sleazy wimpishness of Need You Tonight.

[The Culture Bunker]

I think I preferred 'Don't Change', one of their earlier numbers, to anything that was later a big hit. But my comment was more in relation of them having seven top ten hits in America - just a tad surprised they didn't score more of that size here too.

[non capisco]

The slightly gauche, vaguely new wave-y 'Just Keep Walking' off their 1980 debut album is the top INXS deep cut, I reckon.

[buzby]

3 November 1988: Presenters: Nicky Campbell & Mark Goodier

(24) GLORIA ESTEFAN & MIAMI SOUND MACHINE – 1-2-3

Gloria singing Live! Not sure about the blatant Madonna ripoff/Gay Leather new image though. This was the third single off Let It Loose, her final album with Miami Sound Machine before going solo (though the MSM' name appears in very small print beneath hers on the sleeve, so it was basically being billed as a solo album). The album was also a year old by now, but there was still a fourth single to be mined from it before she began her solo career proper.

(26) TANITA TIKARAM – Twist In My Sobriety
Ace Oboe

Ah, the one I've been waiting for. I wholeheartedly love this song, it's so atmospheric, partially due to the cryptic lyrics which might sound like stream-of-consciousness rambling but apparently do actually mean something, if even only to Tikaram herself. The haunting oboe motif was played by classical oboist Malcolm Messifer (not present here - he's replaced by a female player along with an E-Mu Emax) and adds to the melancholic feel of the song. It was added late in Argent an Van Hooke's production process, so Messifer never got to meet any of the other musicians involved.

The sepia-tinted video was shot by Gerard De Thame, in a similar style to his previous work on Black's Wonderful Life video. For this video he swapped Southport and New Brighton for the Altiplano region of Bolivia and it's native Aymara people (though Tikaram's inserts were shot in a studio in Wembley). It also features a brief glimpse of a Curtis C-46 Commando, a WW2 transport aircraft that had the same role as the much more famous Douglas DC-3 Dakota. Post war C-46s seemed to gravitate to South America, probably due to their better high altitude performance. The example in the video looks like it was the C-46 owned by Frigorifico Santa Rita, a refrigerated meat transport company, and seems to have crashed on takeoff in 1992.


Sadly the single did not do quite as well as Good Tradition in the UK, and marked her last entry into the Top 40 after only two singles.  It was a massive hit throughout mainland Europe, however, so much so that Norwegian TV produced a half-hour documentary about the background and making of the track, which is well worth a watch (it also features Tikaram discussing the meaning of some of the lyrics).

(4) YAZZ – Stand Up For Your Love Rights

Coldcut have been traded in for the distinctive TB303 burblings of The Beatmasters for this second single from her Wanted album.

10 November 1988: Presenters: Bruno Brookes & Sybil Ruscoe

FOR CHRIST'S SAKE PLEASE STOP SHOUTING, SYBIL!!!

(12) BRYAN FERRY – Let's Stick Together (video)

Pointless remix by long-time Eno collaborator Rhett Davies to promote the Roxy/Ferry compilation album The Ultimate Collection

(5) ROBIN BECK – The First Time

CONSUME
Another bloody advert soundtrack, though for extra shamelessness the video is comprised of clips from Coke adverts. Beck had spent the 10 years since the release of her unsuccessful debut album in 1979 as a backing vocalist (for the likes of Elton John, Chaka Khan and Leo Sayer) and as a singer on advertising jingles. When the Coke gig took off, she got a second bite fo the cherry, but in the Uk at least it didn't amount to anything. Her only other Top 40 entry was the shitty 'EDM' remake of First Time with Swedish producers Sunblock in 2008.

- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(22) SALT 'N' PEPA – Twist & Shout

Drums nicked from Toni Basil's Mickey.

(18)  INXS – Need You Tonight

A re-release, with the song having originally stalled at #58 a year previously. Since then, both New Sensation and Never Tear Us Apart had been mid-20s hits. The single's renewed success boosted the Kick album back up the charts again, peaking at #2 (it's original chart run a year earlier had peaked at #58). I would agree that this is INXS's signature tune as it's their biggest hit, even though it sounds nothing like anything they produced either before or after (it was actually the last track recorded for the album).

The video by INXS's regular video director Richard Lowenstein is clearly copying Jim Blashfeild's animation style (cf. Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, Paul Simon videos), with the photocopied 35mm frames of Hutchence composited with multiple layers of digitised video of the other bandmembers.

(26) PRINCE – I Wish U Heaven (video / credits)

For such a megastar Prince really wasn't arsed with making expensive looking videos in the Lovesexy era. I've long thought that the Alphabet Street one looks like dogshit but I Wish U Heaven is even more of a cut price eyesore.

"What do you reckon to the video for this one, Prince? I hear Anton Corbijn has a concept he's quite excited about."
"Nah, eye'll just get my mate Keith 2 do it again."

You are correct on the Alphabet Street video, which was made as a last-minute decision on a Sunday afternoon by Prince to shoot a video for the song (he had earlier decided not to shoot any videos for the singles from Lovesesy). Alan Leeds, the manager of Paisley Park, had to ring round round trying to find a director and crew who were available that day, eventually getting local Minneapolis filmmaker Michael R. Barnard and it was shot using equipment rented from a local cable TV station.

I Wish U Heaven, on the other hand, was directed by French fashion photographer and video director Jean Baptiste Mondino (who had also shot the cover photographs for Lovesexy). It was filed at S.I.R. Studios in Hollywood in June 1988, with some additional pickups shot at the Met Center indoor arena in Minneapolis in September, so it wasn't a cheap video make by local yokels to make despite what it ended up looking like.

[kaprisky]

Blimey! When Gary Davies said he knew Susie Mathis from 20 years before I thought he was joking but she was 44 in 1988!

[Gulftastic]

So, Bomb The Bass was Jason Mendoza?

And my beloved Bangles in their last phase as their troubled third album hoves into view. Eternal Flame can't be far off, then Su's short lived attempt at solo stardom.

[Natnar]

I always thought of INXS as the Australian Status Quo, nearly all their singles sounded exactly the same.

I Wish U Heaven is probably my favourite Prince single, it's definitely one of his most underrated ones.

[daf]

17 November 1988: Presenters: Gary Davies & Susie Mathis

(2)  YAZZ – Stand Up For Your Love Rights
Dim Down For Your Strobe Lights
(29) ALL ABOUT EVE – What Kind Of Fool
. . . risks miming twice
(4) INXS – Need You Tonight (video)
The 'Roo Nile
(28) MICA PARIS – Breathe Life Into Me
Gorge Mica
(22) TANITA TIKARAM – Twist In My Sobriety
Twisting my Sobriquet
(1) ROBIN BECK – The First Time
The Big Topper



(12) SALT 'N' PEPA – Twist & Shout (video / credits)
See you in 2008!

[the]

You can tell by the ink flow and stroke width that the "First Time" there was written with a Pentel Correction Pen. Possibly onto a pencil case.

That is a fucking terrible still though, looks like she's sniffing the bottle top for evidence of his residual halitosis.

[Jockice]

What I remember most about INXS in the late 80s was their record company/publicity people's absolute determination to push them. I (as a mere regional press music reporter) seemed to be offered phone interviews with them on a monthly basis. I even did them a couple of times just to stop being asked again for a while. I never spoke to Hutchence though. it was their guitarist Kirk Pengilly on both occasions. Quite a nice chap from what I remember.

I can't even remember if they played Sheffield around that time though and it they did I didn't see them. They fitted into my lengthy list of bands who I thought were sort of okay but I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to them. They certainly had the hardest-working press officers in showbusiness though. And I suppose it did pay off in the end.

[kaprisky]

"Ooooh wee, you bugger!" So the Hithouse track was used by The Mary Whitehouse Experience and itself contained a sample of a house track that was later used in The Prodigy's No Good (Start the Dance). Impressive pop culture borrowing.

[Better Midlands]

"Ooooh wee, you bugger!" So the Hithouse track was used by The Mary Whitehouse Experience and itself contained a sample of a house track that was later used in The Prodigy's No Good (Start the Dance). Impressive pop culture borrowing.

Kelly Charles - You're No Good To Me from '87
https://youtu.be/AMCIXZWrieg

Peter Slaghuis/Hithouse was a talented guy who died in in a car crash in 1991. As well as many club/rave tracks he did THE mix of Nu Shooz - I Can't Wait (check out the original to see how much he added https://youtu.be/3n5-VNZD8yE)

Older viewers might also remember novelty hit Woodpeckers From Space in 1985.

[the]

"Ooooh wee, you bugger!" So the Hithouse track was used by The Mary Whitehouse Experience and itself contained a sample of a house track that was later used in The Prodigy's No Good (Start the Dance). Impressive pop culture borrowing.

Historically you often get multiple uses of the same sample popping up when an acapella section (or a whole acapella) is available for a particular vocal.

The Prodigy song began as an instrumental track, Start The Dance, which was later changed a bit and augmented with the Kelly Charles sample. It was noted in their official biography that Liam was unsure of his decision to include the vocal:

"I almost felt like I had let myself down by putting that female vocal on it. It was such a fine line, and I wasn't sure if it worked on not."

You can hear the original played out live at Universe in August 1993, which is interestingly followed by a live-triggered sequence that includes the Kelly Charles sample. The single No Good wasn't released until the following May, so I wonder if the idea to incorporate the vocal hook into the instrumental track came about during touring.

I thought it was a slightly corny inclusion at the time (mainly due to being familiar with the sample via Hithouse), but the vocal hook definitely turned it into a hit (got to number 4).

[Better Midlands]

the vocal hook definitely turned it into a hit (got to number 4).

Absolutely.

Interestingly enough Kelly Charles is on Next Plateau, home of Ultramagnetic MCs whom Liam loved and sampled many times (famously on Smack My Bitch Up) - I wonder if he bought the KC 12" on sight because of this and discovered the accapella at the beginning.

[daf]

24 November 1988: Presenters: Andy Crane & Simon Mayo

(21) TIFFANY – Radio Romance
I think we're in FM Stereo Now
(19) BOMB THE BASS FEATURING MAUREEN – I Say A Little Prayer
Real, too Real
(8) DEACON BLUE – Real Gone Kid
Deacon Woo
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(12) MICHAEL JACKSON – Smooth Criminal
(7) PET SHOP BOYS – Left To My Own Devices
(6) IRON MAIDEN – The Clairvoyant
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



(20) BANANARAMA – Nathan Jones
Biggest Womans Band
(3) CHRIS DE BURGH – Missing You (video)
Rockin' Titchmarsh
(1) ROBIN BECK – THE FIRST TIME
The Second Time
(25) HITHOUSE – Jack To The Sound Of The Underground (video / credits)
Oo-weee, you Bugger!