Top of the Pops 1991 - A Year in Review
Oct 25, 2022 12:24:12 GMT
Del Boy, Perfect Pseudonym, and 4 more like this
Post by Dirty Epic on Oct 25, 2022 12:24:12 GMT
After seeing Perfect Pseudonym’s review’s of the 1980 TOTP’s I thought I’d put my own review of the year for 1991’s TOTP episodes. Again what I may like or not may be what others don’t and I get the period and the music may be a bit lost or not be relevant to some of you as much as it is for me and a few others on the forum. TOTP also gets a ‘makeover’ from the Radio 1/Television Centre style that had been around for a fair old while to a supposed… erm ‘slicker’ and ‘trendier’ version at Elstree…
So we kick off 1991 with Betty Boo and pretty much a forgettable pop/rap/R&B ditty ’24 Hours’ which didn’t hit the heights chart wise that her 1990 hits (good or bad) did. In many ways this would represent a change of scene and pace for the Dance scene going forward as styles would change and by the end of ’91 things would seem very different from those which emerged in ’88. You still had some of the sample influenced tracks from the likes of C&C Music Factory too but the influence of Hip Hop & R&B which was massively popular in the States and did sometimes throw up a few big hits in the year in the UK like Heavy D, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam etc. on the Dance scene in the UK seemed to wane (and there may be a reason for that) a much faster paced, electronic and club culture focused scene that got lazily tagged together as ‘Rave’ took hold even if some tracks and artists sounded different and had different ideas, ways and audiences for the music they were making.
The impetus for this Rave-focused scene and it’s influence on the charts in ’91 came at first from the Belgium New Beat scene, although it took a few months for tracks which had been around for a while to hit on the UK charts, we’ll come back to these later. In the meantime The KLF began preparing the ground for this with ‘3AM Eternal’ which hit number one in January and was a much more commercial version of a track they made as part of their Pure Trance series in ’88. They followed this up with ‘Last Train to Trance Central’ which went to number two and the album ‘The White Room’. The KLF for rest of ‘91 and early ’92 they seemed to take the charts and music industry by storm treading a VERY fine line between creditability and pure tosh and engaged in as many (deliberate) antics along the way which would excite and exasperate in equal measure before their infamous Brit Award appearance. Again we’ll cover some more KLF a bit later.
808 State would come back for one last big hit in February with ‘In Yer Face’ and never quite hit these heights again. Still they’d be back in 1992 with a remixed/reimagined version of UB40’s ‘One in Ten’ and would go on to have a fairly long and successful career in this scene albeit more underground and eclectic style than what they were doing up to this point.
The cheesier side of Dance was represented in early ’91 with DJH and Steffy, Offshore and 2 In A Room generally not the worst but nothing you’d go out your way for – especially looking back at them now. You could sort-of say the same of Nomad and their big hit ‘Devotion’ but it just does enough to lift it up a rung from these tracks they’d have a follow up ‘Just a Groove’ later that Spring and their featured singer Sharon Dee Clarke would have a successful career in theatre and acting in recent years too.
The Rave tracks start to come in the form of Quadraphonia’s ‘Quadraphonia’, T99’s ‘Anasthasia’, Cubic 22’s ‘Night in Motion’ and later in the year Human Resource’s ‘Dominator’ mostly from Belgium and some of which got licenced to a new label which would have (and still is) immense success over the years with a variety of different artists and gernes – XL Recordings. Also around this point in the Spring/early Summer of ’91 British acts like Xpansions ‘Move Your Body’ and N-Joi ‘Adrenalin’/’Anthem’ who scored sizeable chart hits too. N-Joi were sort of also part of a Essex scene which would include The Prodigy who also signed with XL Recordings and would score the big hit ‘Charly’ (draw your own conclusions what that means) later in the summer and again depending how you view it they brilliantly or awfully sampled the PiF ‘Charly Says’ to great effect over a driving Hardcore Rave backdrop which would hit the Top Three. A very interesting thing about The Prodigy is the never ever appeared on TOTP in fact apart from a one off appearance on Dance Energy they didn’t really appear on TV in this sort of format.
Another big hit from that summer again perhaps more on the cheesier side of things was Oceanic’s ‘Insanity’. We’ll come back to these Rave tunes later on but not all Dance music that year was Rave and there were some various styles and tempos around that year too.
One hit wonder’s Soho sampled the guitar from The Smiths ‘How Soon Is Now?’ in a good way/with the band’s blessing for their Top 10 Indie Dance track ‘Hippy Chick’ and a more chilled out version of Dance would see hits from acts like Praise (‘Only You’) and to some extent Enigma’s number one ‘Sadness (Part 1)’ take some of the frenetic pace of the Dance scene down a touch during ’91. However one band in particular would have perhaps the biggest impact and be considered the creators of what journalists (lazily) termed ‘Trip Hop’ that year – Bristol’s Massive Attack.
Backed in the early days by Neneh Cherry, Massive Attack began life as a DJ soundsystem known ‘The Wild Bunch’ and had strong Jamcaian Dub, Neo Soul and Hip Hop influences. However their sound came from a variety of other sources including Bristol’s Post Punk scene and the band The Pop Group – it’s member Mark Stewart has a loose connection, graffiti and art from band member 3D/Robert Del Naja and fuzzy electronic and other eclectic musical influences which were used in their debut album Blue Lines.
The previous Autumn Massive Attack’s single Daydreaming featuring singer Shara Nelson was well received by the music press but didn’t make the Top 40 but from that momentum was building for the release of perhaps their best and best known tracks ‘Unfinished Sympathy’. Also featuring vocals from Shara Nelson a string section and a cinematic music video filmed in LA’s badlands ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ may have only reached Number 13 in the charts but it’s impact would be felt throughout the decade and on other artists like Portishead, Bjork, DJ Shadow, Lamb, Broadcast, Unkle, Howie B and a whole host of others as the decade progressed.
Massive Attack or ‘Massive’ as they were briefly known as due to imposed Gulf War censorship by the BBC would also score another Top 40 hit in 1991 with ‘Safe From Harm’ and the building blocks of Blue Lines would be refined, pulled apart and taken further with the albums Protection and Mezzanine later that decade which would feature collaborations from Cocteau Twins Elizabeth Frazer (who would also work with Future Sound of London) and Everything But the Girl’s Tracey Thorn, the effect of which would radically change EBTG’s sound later that decade too.
Massive Attack are a group I’ve grown to like over the years and certainly it’s one where your tastes change (mature) over the years and are definitely a good counterpoint to the higher tempo, electronically based Dance tracks I also enjoy.
With similar stylings Bomb the Bass returned in 1991 with the Top 5 single ‘Winter in July’. One of the original acts to emerge from the ’88 Dance explosion it’s main member DJ/Producer Tim Simenon had been producing for other artists like Seal – who’ll we’ll mention later, and had moved things on a touch from his ’88 debut with the album ‘Unknown Territory’. This saw him work not only with singer Loretta Heywood but guitarists and musicians Keith Le Blanc, Guy Sigsworth, Gota Yashiki, Doug Wimbish and Kenji Suzuki and this complimented and as said moved on the sampling based work Tim Simenon had been previously known for.
The single ‘Love So True’ was released in early 1991 but suffered badly due to the Gulf War breaking out and was retitled to Simenon before being voluntarily withdrawn. Also a track intended for Unknown Territory ‘Crash Landing’ (which I’ve never heard) had to be pulled from and delayed the release of album when Pink Floyd refused permission to sample ‘Money’ but this would not stop them from Bomb the Bass finally making it’s mark in the Summer.
‘Winter in July’ was perhaps a reaction to these setbacks featured soulful vocals from Loretta Heywood and at it’s core featured a heavily rearranged sample of Japan’s ‘Ghosts’ which seemed to combine aspects of Neo Soul, downtempo Electronica and the emerging Trip Hop sound to good affect and gradually climbed into the Top 5 ironically that July. Unknown Territory too was fairly successful making number 19 on the Album Chart’s that summer too, bucking a trend for Dance related albums and it’s mix of tracks on there featured some which were high(ish) tempo breakbeat lead tracks which bore some similarities to the ‘Big Beat’ style the likes of Fatboy Slim and (lesser extent) The Chemical Brothers would employ with great success five or so years later.
Subsequent singles like ‘The Air You Breathe’ and ‘Keep Giving Me Love’ (a remix of Love So True) narrowly missed the Top 40 later that year and again Tim Simenon would concentrate on producing other artists for a while. 1994’s William Burroughs inspired ‘Bug Powder Dust’ and subsequent 1995 album ‘Clear’ would give Bomb the Bass a last taste of chart action before Tim Simenon rescued Depeche Mode from (their own) self destruction by producing the Number One ‘Ultra’ in 1997. After a break for almost a decade Simenon reactivated Bomb the Bass in collaboration with musician Paul Conboy with the much more electronically focused albums ‘Future Chaos’ (2008), ‘Back to Light’ (2010) and ‘In the Sun’ (2013) before quietly calling quits on the music business a few years later.
Another artist Tim Simenon had involvement with was Seal who also working ZTT’s Trevor Horn had a fairly successful year in ’91 ‘Crazy’ was an early year hit which climbed the chart to Number 2 and with much more of an eclectic mix than the post Acid House ‘Killer’ he went to Number One with Adamski with in 1990 released a self-titled Number One debut album that year too. Singles ‘Future Love Paradise’ ‘In the Beginning’ and a remixed ‘Killer’ followed but again like so many artists Seal – in my opinion, hasn’t quite had the same success he had early doors although he is still producing sometimes good tracks in my opinion too.
Another alternative Dance hit in ’91 was Gary Clail On U Soundsystem’s – Human Nature. Originally a warm up act forementioned the On U Soundsystem featuring members of Industrial/Rap/Dub band Tackhead, including it’s producer and producer of this track Adrian Sherwood ‘Human Nature’s’ socially challenging lyrics and backing vocals from… erm Al Pelay – who fans of The Comic Strip TV programmes would be no stranger too, was one of those Top 10 records which naturally shouldn’t be there but when something like this does make an impact if fully deserves to in my opinion. It’s opening had already become the de-facto theme tune to BBC 2’s Indie focused SnubTV by the time of ‘Human Nature’s’ release in the Spring of ’91 and on the whole it’s got something which I feel still makes it an interesting track to listen too (and arguably relevant) today. Imagine a more musically focused, srious and political version of what Renegade Soundwave were doing around this time, you’ve got ‘Human Nature’ and Gary Clail would be back in the chart in ’92 with the more Dance focused ‘Who Pays the Piper’ and is still known to be active in the Bristol music scene too it’s a track I still like to hear all these years on too.
Another more alternative Dance/Soul act were Young Disciples. They’d been around since 1990 and were one of the first signings to Giles Peterson’s ‘Talkin’ Loud’ label too. On a Acid Jazz/Alternative Rap/Neo Soul direction and featuring vocalist Carleen Anderson who would go on to be a successful solo artist in the ‘90’s too the single ‘Apparently Nothin’’ had a slow burn effect being just outside the Top 40 when originally released in the February but it re-entered the chart and Top 40 that July and eventually climbed to Number 13 that August which got them a TOTP studio appearance. A bit more on the Soul/Jazz vibe Young Disciples would release a fairly successful album too ‘Road to Freedom’ and have some underground success in the ‘90’s and have produced for a variety of other artists too.
A bit more in a pop-vein was Zoë, who’s track ‘Sunshine on a Rainy Day’ cracked hit Number 4 that Summer. Again another 1990 re-release it’s Soul II Soul beats mixing with Indie/Dance guitar’s became a big hit that Summer and naturally a TOTP performance too with a fairly decent sounding outing from producer Mark ‘Spike’ Stent who has gone on to become a very successful producer to a wide variety of artists over the last three decades. Zoë followed ‘Sunshine…’ up with ‘Lightning’ which also got her a TOTP later that Autumn but like many such artists from that period became a bit of a one hit wonder and sort of faded away after ’91 and has instead become more of a session singer and alternative artist since.
Other more Soul-orientated acts to have TOTP outings included Mantronix, Tongue n’ Cheek, Lisa Lisa + Cult Jam, Quartz (with erm Dina Carroll), Frances Nero, Driza Bone, PM Dawn and Omar. Hip Hop from Public Enemy and the rather current/aptly named ‘Can’t Truss It’, De la Soul ‘Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)’ and 'A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays''/and erm Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince ‘Summertime’ also got a look in mostly with promos on TOTP too. I like some of this more than others and some of it is not really for me but can see why they have their fans.
1991 was not all Dance, Rave and Electronica mind you. The first Number One of the year was Iron Maiden being erm Iron Maiden with ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’… I don’t mind them to be fair. Indie – albeit a sometimes blurred version with Dance, still had huge popularity that year too.
Pop Will Eat Itself had a few decent chart outings with ‘X, Y and Zee’ perhaps being their best and most memorable. Not in a bad way the similar styled/sounding Jesus Jones also had some decent chart action with ‘International Bright Young Things’, ‘Who? Where? Why?’ and ‘Right Here Right Now’. EMF too built on their 1990 hit ‘Unbelievable’ with ‘I Believe’, ‘Lies’ and ‘Children’ but perhaps started to fade in popularity as the year drew on.
Carter – The Unstoppable Sex Machine however grew in popularity during 1991 with their in your face Punk/Funk, Indie/Dance sound which grew out of a scene based in South East London and scored decent hits that year with ‘Sheriff Fatman’ and ‘After The Watershed’. I liked them then and like them now even if I’m not a die hard fan and anyone who gives Philip Schofield a thump is fine by me.
The Happy Mondays had one last hurrah before Madchester and (heavy) drug use caught up with them with ‘Loose Fit’ perhaps with one of the best guitar and drum led intro’s from that Madchester/Baggy period too. Again it’s subject matter is pretty obvious unless you’re very naïve and as said it was the last real blast of Madchester – the album it come from, ‘Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches’ had come out almost a year earlier and as said the Mondays, Stone Roses, Factory and Madchester all seemed to implode on itself from this point on for me a shame as I feel it had more to say, more to do than it ultimately achieved.
Primal Scream who did not appear on TOTP that year would sort of pick this baton up with the Mercury Music Prize winning ‘Scremadellica’ and singles ‘Don’t Fight It Feel It’ and ‘Higher Than The Sun’ in ’91.
Sort of related to the Happy Mondays as she lent her lyrics to the original version of Hallelujah Kirsty MacColl had a Top 30 hit with ‘Walking Down Maddison’ a Folksy, Indie number which mixed with Hip Hop beats and attitude to good effect. This earned Kirsty a TOTP appearance in June and it’s a track that’s aged fairly well from all that Indie/Alternative/Dance etc. fusion that was around at the time – some haven’t.
The Mock Turtles ‘Can You Dig It?’ was a big hit that year but for me it just seems to plod along, inoffensive enough but not really going anywhere interesting. Perhaps it feels more like a again I hate the term a ‘Brit Pop’ tune from a few years later. However ‘Sit Down’ by James was a lot more interesting and should have reached the top spot instead of the Number Two it did achieve. James had been around the Manchester music scene for a few years and had initially been connected to the Factory set up. By 1989/90 however they like many similar Manc bands were getting a popular following and singles like ‘Come Home’ were starting to hit the Top 40 a year earlier. ‘Sit Down’ which had originally been released in 1989 was a simple but affective slice of Indie that I feel has stood the test of time and many a night out has probably seen people singing along and “sitting down” with James when it’s played.
I know I’m biased but I felt this period of Indie was a lot more interesting than the ‘Brit Pop’ period a few years later most likely due to it mixing the Dance sounds with guitars and a more relaxed feel to things than the ‘Blur v Oasis’ thing had. Blur did emerge around this period with ‘There’s No Other Way’ which does sound and look a lot different from their ‘Parklife’ period. For me it’s okay if nothing really special and it certainly never gave no clues that they’d go on to be a major act as the decade drew on. I’ve actually liked what Blur/Gorillaz/Damon Albarn have done in more recent years than the earlier and ‘Parklife’ stuff and as a whole. Again it’s one of those things your tastes change and bands styles and tastes also change too.
TOTP does through up some anomalies sometimes and on paper during this period a weird and wacky Indie band like The Wonderstuff shouldn’t have worked, yet they had some big hits in 1991. I was not really a fan of theirs but ‘Size of a Cow’ did have something quirky about it and was something a bit different from the drugs and Dance beats that were running through Indie at that point. However their cover of ‘Dizzy’ with Vic Reeves probably is their most notable piece of work and like any big Number One hit it’ll be what they’re remembered for… even if other things they’ve done may be better?
Other Indie acts on TOTP some more memorable than others were The High’s ‘Boxed Set Go’, The Railway Children’s ‘Every Beat of the Heart’, The Farm’s ‘Mind’, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s ‘Happy’, The Charlatans ‘Over Rising’, Inspiral Carpets ‘Caravan’, Flowerd Up’s (subtly titled) ‘Take It’ Ride’s ‘Unfamiliar’ and Northside’s ‘Take 5’.
Another unusual hit that year came from Sydney band Divinyls with ‘I Touch Myself’. Originally released in 1990 this pop rock track had a slow burn effect and made the Top 10 in the summer and if perhaps nothing radical was pleasant enough and is still played out today.
REM also (via promos) also made appearances on TOTP with ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Shiny Happy People’. A weird one for me I don’t like or hate REM they’re just there for me I probably prefer ‘Religion’ out of the two hits they had that year.
1991 also marked the return of Prince with the fairly well put together Soul/Funk/Rap album ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ and the promos for the sexually referenced tracks ‘Get Off’ and ‘Cream’ got airings on TOTP that year too. Arguably ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ was maybe Prince’s last real-classic album but he has done a lot of good stuff which went under the radar in the years since and to his death too.
1991 marked the return of U2 who shook off the Sun Studio styling of ‘Rattle and Hum’ with the Berlin-esque ‘Achtung Baby’. A bit hit and miss for me and arguable the last (half) decent thing they did the Number 1 single ‘The Fly’ got a promo outing/premier on TOTP.
Rock and Metal fans were also fairly well represented in ’91 with (mentioned earlier) Iron Maiden hitting the top spot in January, Anthrax, The Almighty, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Little Angels and probably the most popular Guns ‘n’ Roses with their Terminator 2 outing ‘You Could be Mine’ and Paul McCartney/Wings cover ‘Live and Let Die’ all having a presence on TOTP even if it’s just in the form of promos. Even Bowie tried his hand again at this with the second outing for his Tin Machine project too.
It’s not really a genre I’m into and tend to prefer more Indie based guitar stuff but some of it was good some of it bad and like anything there’s something good in every form of music.
I suppose ’91 wasn’t the best of times to be a Rock or Metal fan although I remember they were around in fairly significant numbers back then but things were changing and one band from Seattle and a ‘Grunge’ scene they were part of would perhaps give Rock a perhaps needed reset in 1991 – Nirvana.
Arguably their performance of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was deliberately messed up with Kurt (Cobain) singing the vocals in a deliberately deep way and their appearance on The Word may have been much more iconic of the period but Nirvana and the album that followed ‘Nevermind’ certainly upset the apple cart in Rock perhaps injecting a Punk and alternative attitude to it which had been lacking in it in recent years – especially within the Metal scene in the US. They certainly paved the way for bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Mudhoney etc. to emerge in the ‘90’s – perhaps with more success in the US than in the UK/Europe and again regardless of what would happen with Nirvana/Kurt Cobain they’d leave their mark quite well in my opinion too. Their legacy was taken up by the Foo Fighters and many Rock and Metal acts incorporated a ‘Grunge’ sound in the ‘90’s too.
Sort of in between all this and a generation apart were Goth favourites Siouxsie & The Banshees who returned with the Hip Hop sampling track ‘Kiss Them For Me’ generally to good effect. This track perhaps acquainted themselves and spin off The Creatures to a new generation. I like good old Sioux!
Given their roots in New Order and The Pet Shop Boys came perhaps the most Dance of the Indie/Dance acts in 1991 – Electronic. Mostly a side project of New Order’s Bernard Sumner and The Smiths Johnny Marr, Electronic returned to the Top 10 after the success of 1989’s ‘Getting Away With It’ with ‘Get The Message’ released on Manchester’s Factory label (before it all went tits up) and one of my own personal favourites from the year – combining the Indie/Dance/Electronic sounds, with something a bit more unique, more unusual and to good effect. Electronic had a couple of TOTP outings in April/May and subsequently a Number Two album with their self-titled debut. Another Top 40 single for them that year the guitar tinged ‘Feel Every Beat’ didn’t have a TOTP outing but I sort of like that one more. For me ‘Feel Every Beat’ sort of perfectly distils the Madchester/Indie/Dance/House culture that was around them then in an almost perfect four minute song… sort of deserved to be a bigger hit. Arguably the best of the New Order ‘side projects’ Electronic would be back on TOTP in ’92 with the Neil Tennant vocal led ‘Disappointed’ and would make a couple more albums ‘Raise The Pressure’ in ’96 which featured collaborations with ex-member of Kraftwerk Karl Bartos and ‘Twisted Tenderness’ in ’99 which featured Jimi Goodwin from Doves (Sub Sub) too.
Speaking of Kraftwerk they too reappeared on TOTP albeit in video form with a remixed version of ‘The Robots’ which was in Top 20 in May. A remix album ‘The Mix’ followed in June and perhaps due to the influence their sound had on House, Techno and other forms of Electronic music they were sort of back in the limelight after some disappointing sales and reviews for 1987’s ‘Electric Café’ (later to go under it’s original title ‘Techno Pop’). A ‘live’ TOTP performance would have been interesting and strangely enough they preferred to do this on Tomorrow’s World than TOTP that year!
I’d known about Kraftwerk before all this but with this re-release and release of The Mix made me get all their albums that year and have been a fan ever since too.
Synth Pop came back in 1991 in the form of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Now the project of vocalist Andy McClusky OMD would appear on TOTP that year with ‘Sailing on the Seven Seas’ and ‘Pandoras Box’ which were sizable hits in the Top 40 and came from the album ‘Sugar Tax’ a Number 3 in the albums chart. Personally the tracks are good but not brilliant and certainly don’t quite hit the heights their classic material which featured Paul Humphreys did – but could they? Generally what OMD did with ‘Sugar Tax’ is on the whole good and enjoyable electronic pop music and this wasn’t drenched in the high tempo Dance music of the time and it’s interesting OMD resisted the temptation to go all out House/Techno that some of the ‘80’s Synth Pop acts did at that time. Either with their original bands or with new projects. On personal reflection ‘Sugar Tax’ was a fairly good album perhaps with Andy McClusky stamping his authority over the OMD project, it’s dated but not in a bad way and these tracks do work in a live setting with OMD’s older material and played by Paul Humphreys in recent years too.
Other Synth Pop acts on TOTP were Pet Shop Boys (promos only) and Erasure with the flamboyant ‘Love to Hate You’, Marc Almond and Kraftwerk and OMD then neatly bring us back to the Dance side of things from that summer onwards and although a lot of it was not all of it were Rave based hits.
Crystal Waters had a big hit in May with the House anthem ‘Gypsy Woman’ allegedly written about a homeless woman Crystal knew of and intended for House artist Ultra Nate who’d have a big chart hit in 1997 with ‘Free’. With a Hammond Organ hook (from the Korg M1 synth used on quite a lot of House/Techno/Rave in the ‘90’s) and a memorable video and vocals from Waters ‘Gypsy Woman’ made Number 3 in May and has gone on to become one of House Music’s anthems. Waters would have Top 40 hits with ‘Makin Happy’ and ‘100% Pure Love’ in ‘91/’92 but perhaps again didn’t quite hit the same heights she did with ‘Gypsy Woman’ until lending her vocals in more recent years to Alex Gaudino’s Top Five single ‘Destination Calabria’ in 2008.
Another House track that has taken on “anthem” status over the years is Alison Limerick’s ‘Where Love Lives’. Originally released in 1990 it’s fairly simple but affective mid-tempo House rhythms built around a piano riff had a slow burning effect and became one of the UK House anthems of the ‘90’s. ‘Where Love Lives’ still gets frequent play on various radio station today and it came back as a Top 10 in remixed form in 1996. Alison would also contribute vocals to ‘Magic’s Back’ a collaboration with Malcom McClaren on his ‘Ghosts of Oxford Street’ project later in 1991 which very narrowly missed out on the Top 40 and had a couple of hits like ‘Make it on My Own’ too although nothing quite had the same impact as ‘Where Love Lives’. She’s continuing to record and perform live today.
Jazz-funk band Incognito got on the House vibe with ‘Always There’ recruiting legendary Soul singer Joycelyn Brown again to a mid-tempo funky House track that to good effect and scored a Top 10 that July. This reintroduced Joycelyn to a new audience and somewhat reinvigorated her career and again like the previous couple of tracks mentioned it’s a House track that has stood the test of time and is still getting radio play today.
Quirky retro Indie/Dance starlets Saint Etienne also tried their hand at pop House/Dance in ’91 under the moniker “Cola Boy” and the track ‘7 Ways to Love’ and appeared on TOTP also in July. Very much on the “cheesy” end of Dance music member Bob Stanley admitted it was "too cheesy for Saint Etienne. We'd have been finished overnight" but it’s repeated chorus lyric and House by numbers piano and drum riffs are certainly effective in the club environment it was designed for and I’ve heard a lot, lot worse Dance tracks than this over the years! There follow-up ‘He is Cola’ did not have the same success but interestingly Saint Etienne had a Top 40 entry that summer with an Indie/Dance cover of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Will Break Your Heart’ that summer too which has certainly become one of their most revered tracks over the years.
Considered the “Godfather of House Music” Frankie Knuckles had a fairly big Top 20 hit with ‘The Whistle Song’ again with a slowish House tempo and quite a simple riff based around a whistle (sample) and the House piano stylings and Frankie also appeared on TOTP in that July. Perhaps not as well remembered as other tracks we’ve mentioned for me it’s a good slice of House and sometimes keeping things simple works and Frankie’s contribution to House doesn’t need a mention/questioning. Sadly Frankie died in 2014 but leaves a massive legacy to House music and his collaboration with Jaimie Principle ‘Your Love’ finally made the Top 40… it should have done in the mid ‘80’s in my opinion.
Speaking of ‘Your Love’ the synthesizer/drum riff from it was sampled as the background track to a massive House/Dance hit in 1991. UK act The Source added a bootleg of Candi Staton’s vocals from a 1986 Gospel song ‘You Got the Love’ and it became a massive club and chart hit that year reaching Number 4 in that February. The promo video was the only airing of the track on TOTP and like with Incognito the track introduced Candi Staton to a new audience too. The track has been remixed and released a fair few times since this version and the 1997 release went one place better to Number 3 in the Charts too.
Another re-release from 1990 was Brothers in Rhythm’s ‘Such A Good Feeling’ again another piano based House track with perhaps more UK and clubbier stylings than those mentioned earlier. Made up of club DJ’s Dave Seaman, Steve Anderson and Alan Bremner they had a TOTP outing in early September and again it was another Dance anthem track you’d hear throughout that summer.
Brothers in Rhythm would go on to be fairly successful remixers in the ‘90’s too but one such track they produced in ’91 was with US singer Sabrina Johnston’s ‘Peace’ again another of those House tracks from that year that was a massive anthem that summer and hit the Top 10 in September and was arguably a better and bigger hit than their own ‘Such A Good Feeling’. Generally I like it – if perhaps don’t love it, but can see its impact back then. Sabrina didn’t quite have the same success again as she did have with ‘Peace’ as subsequent singles didn’t quite make the Top 40.
A quirkier Dance hit from ’91 was Latour’s ‘People Are Still Having Sex’ which had a TOTP that June. A slice of Electro Disco it was a bit more unusual than the House and Rave hits which were dominating Dance that year.
However Rave wasn’t that far away and as the year drew on a fair few tracks would see TOTP airings.
Kicking things off are The Shamen who morphed from the Psychedelic Rock outfit that formed in Aberdeen in the mid ‘80’s to a “full on” alternative Dance London-based Rave and Acid House group by the time of ‘Progen ’91 (Move Any Mountain)’ which had two TOTP outings that July/August. The building blocks for their success had been forged with the albums ‘Phorward’ and ‘En-Tact’ (which was released originally in 1990) and in addition to ‘Move Any Mountain’ had singles ‘Make it Mine’ ‘Omega Amigo’ and ‘Hyperreal’ along with a series of “Synergy” live shows which built their profile considerably by the summer of ’91. Whilst filming the promo video for ‘Progen’ band member Will ‘Will Sin’ Sinnott was killed in a diving accident but the band carried on and enjoyed the success ‘Progen’ had that summer. The Shamen would go on to have much bigger success and that’s probably best discussed in a 1992 thread but ‘Progen’ for me was perhaps when they were at their best here.
Next up is Utah Saints who with ‘What Can You Do For Me’ showed what the Rave scene and a sampler can do to and reconstruct 1980’s hit singles into a massive Dance record. Sampling Eurythmics ‘There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)’ with heavy distortion along with the ‘What Can You Do For Me?’ lyric from Gwen Guthrie’s ;Ain't Nothin' Goin' on But the Rent’ it was another massive Dance track which climbed the charts into the Top 10 that late summer and had a couple of live TOTP outings.
Shades of Rhythm also got a few promo outings on TOTP with the classic Dance track ‘The Sound of Eden’ and a studio performance with the subtly titled ‘Extacy’ that December and like 808 State were another Dance act ZTT had become interested in – a sign of changing times. It’s a shame ‘Sweet Sensation’ also a Top 40 hit that year never got an airing on TOTP.
Stafford Dance outfit Bizarre Inc also brought more of the Rave sound into the mainstream with ‘Such A Feeling’ with a similar sample that was used on N-Joi’s ‘Adrenalin’ that September – on the last TOTP which featured the Radio 1 DJ’s at Television Centre more on that later on, but it was ‘Playing With Knives’ (again this means something to those who know) that was their bigger Rave hit in 1991. Released originally earlier that year ‘Playing With Knives’ made Number 4 in the Autumn and it’s another one of those Dance anthem tracks as time has gone on. Bizarre Inc would go on to have further hits in the ‘90’s and ‘Playing With Knives’ reappeared as a remix in the Top 40 in 1999.
Even more with their colours nailed to the Rave mast than Bizarre Inc and also from Stafford were Altern-8 who had began life as the more Techno sounding Nexus 21 and were on Network Records who’s founder Neil Rushton had been responsible for releasing early Detroit Techno tracks from artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins in the UK. Altern-8 with day glow yellow A8 masks, biological suits and unashamed Rave theatrics took the sound to the mainstream and unlike their Nexus 21 material added breakbeats to the sound (others would follow) and scored a Top 40 hit with the 808 State sampling ‘Infiltrate 202’ the promo of which was played as a ‘Breaker’ on TOTP that July. However it was ‘Activ-8 (Come With Me)’ which gave them their big chart hit a Number 3 that November and a TOTP performance too which with live vocal didn’t quite work. For me the track is cheesy as hell and it’s not pushing the boundaries of electronic music other artists that decade would but it represents that Rave period perfectly – you cringe and love it in the same way if you like that sort of music. Altern-8 would be back in ’92!
Birkenhead’s Bassheads come next with ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ and unlike Altern-8 it’s a bit more restrained and focused as a Rave/Dance banger one of which I like and a like a few other tracks mentioned in this thread is still remembered and gets radio play today. Combining Acid House, Rave and subtle-breakbeat stylings with samples from artists as diverse as Afrika Bambaataa, Talking Heads (‘Once in a Lifetime’) and erm The Osmonds (‘Crazy Horses’) to great affect ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ went Top 5 that November too and like Altern-8 they were back in 1992 too with ‘Back to the Old School’.
Breakbeats were very much in evidence for SL2’s single ‘DJ’s Take Control’. Mostly a DJ duo of Matt ‘Slipmatt’ Nelson and John ‘Lime’ Fernandez they came out of the Rave and party scene Raindance and their breaks-led Hardcore tracks drew the attention of label XL Recordings. They were also a part of a Essex Rave scene that (sort-of) included The Prodigy, Sonz of a Loop Da Loop Era and the Suburban Base label/Boogie Times record shop in Romford. Sampling and mixing up House classic ‘Someday’ by Ce Ce Rodgers in a Rave and breakbeat style ‘DJ’s Take Control’ hit Number 11 that Autumn and got them a ‘live’ TOTP performance that October with some curious looking audience members that looked way out of place and were seemingly oblivious to it all. Again in the scheme of things this has become a Rave/Hardcore classic within that scene and SL2 would like some of the other acts here be back with a even bigger hit in 1992.
Well known and now world famous DJ Carl Cox had a TOTP outing in October with the absolute banger ‘I Want You (Forever)’ which again was showcasing the breakbeat style that was starting to come into Dance and Rave that year. Again another track that is still well received and gets radio play today and this Hardcore and “Breakbeat Rave” generally would evolve into the likes of Jungle and Drum & Bass as the ‘90’s progressed and some artists like Carl himself would explore further the boundaries of electronic music and Techno too.
The Dutch and Belgian scene’s were represented too. Erm erm… 2 Unlimited with the only (and I’m being kind here) half-decent track they did, scored a Number 2 with ‘Get Ready for This’ before they got seduced by PWL and went cheese factory commercial. Ho Hum! Only titled as “Digital” Digital Orgasm’s ‘Running Out of Time’ had a TOTP outing that December again something time has forgotten but Human Resource’s ‘Dominator’ got a TOTP performance later that month and from stalwart label R&S Records it was a slow burn underground Techno/Rave record which was remixed by the likes of Joey Beltram and it’s ‘Mental Speed Mix’ got into the Top 30 as ’91 drew to a close. I wonder if TOTP had have aired the promo, complaints would have gone through the roof?
R&S Records would go on to carve a very respected niche in underground Techno and electronic music too and like most things with Dance music it goes from the good, bad and the ugly.
There’s the return of The KLF, firstly as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu with ‘It’s Grim Up North’ the only Top 10 they had under their “The JAMs” moniker. Name checking a list of Northern English towns/cities delivered in a walkie-talkie vocal from Bill Drummond and over a pounding Techno beat which gives way to a (probably sampled) instrumental section ‘Jerusalem’ on a black & white motorway in the rain promo video they performed the track on TOTP that November in a period when it seemed almost all of the chart was Dance or Dance-related artists. It was the beginning of things getting bigger, bolder, madder and wackier for The KLF and they somehow managed to convince, sweep along and assimilate to their will Country & Western singer Tammy Wynette to do vocal duties to a remixed ‘Justified & Ancient’ which hit Number 2 as 1991 drew to a close. Just wait for they had in store for 1992!
Taking things down a notch was Moby and ‘Go’ the Twin Peaks ‘Laura Palmer’s Theme’ sampling Rave track that has since become a very well know Dance anthem. Like some of the other Dance tracks we’ve mentioned here ‘Go’ was originally released earlier that year and the momentum for it grew with it eventually making the Top 10 in late October and getting him a TOTP appearance which in line featured a ‘live’ vocal. Moby one of the first artists from the US to embrace Rave and Dance culture would continue in this style with many other releases throughout the ‘90’s before changing tack and embracing an eclectic mix of styles over the years including music used in film and television. Moby would go on to be a multi-million selling artist which compared to the other Rave artists we’ve featured here would have seemed unthinkable but in-spite of all this Moby has still kept a place for Dance and electronic related music in the work he has done and is still doing.
‘Everybody’s Free’ was a big Dance hit for Rozalla and can see why but it’s not really one for me a little too poppy and cheesy but again compared to other Dance records which have come and gone I have heard worse and I suppose it deserved the two TOTP outings she had in September. Again it was a re-release that built momentum over the late summer/autumn that year and she’d have further hits during the end of 1991 and in 1992.
Falling in between House and Rave was ‘Rhythm is a Mystery’ by Chester/Wrexham based Dance outfit K-Klass who were snapped up by Deconstruction Records one of that year’s leading Dance labels. Again a slower and more simple House track and again having had a re-release it made Number 3 that November they has a TOTP outing that month too and would go on to have further chart hits with similar “Piano House” tracks in the years to come and lend themselves as respected remixers to a variety of artists throughout the ‘90’s too.
Another Deconstruction act like K-Klass and Bassheads were M-People who perhaps did the only track of theirs I’ve really liked the original ‘How Can I Love You More’ based around Manchester/Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering and vocalist Heather Small they’d have a lot of success chart wise in the ‘90’s and they’d get a TOTP outing in November too. For me though they seemed to lose some of the initial class this track had when you got to the ‘Elegant Slumming’ and later material periods.
Other Dance acts to feature on TOTP included Love Decade, Control, Dream Frequency, Shaft, Congress, Anticapella, Ce Ce Penniston and erm East Side Beat. In my opinion some good, some bad and some more forgettable than others but on the whole the Dance stuff which came out in ’91 did move things on quite significantly from what had originally emerged in the original explosion in ’88. This would allow other artists in this area to have a lot of commercial and critical success throughout the ’90’s and beyond.
Rightly or wrongly TOTP was reflecting what was in the chart which in ’91 was a large proportion of Dance music and again right or wrong it looked more like a episode of Dance Energy than Dance Energy did at times. The Radio 1 DJ’s too looked out of place with this sort of stuff and changes were afoot. The show moved from Television Centre to Elstree the Radio 1 DJ’s were gone replaced by new face presenters like Tony Dortie, Mark Franklyn, Adrian Rose (who blocked recent repeats on BBC Four), Claudia Simon and a host of others. A so-called ‘slicker’ style was also in evidence and to perhaps counteract the success of Dance around that time – it didn’t, a live vocal/performance policy was initiated. For some this was when the classic TOTP died and it was now competing not only with ITV’s The Chart Show but a wider variety of programmes including Channel 4’s The Word which featured varied live performances in the studio and multi-channel TV which had brought MTV Europe to a wider UK audience and a more focused reach of music programming too.
Was this the beginning of the end for TOTP? Maybe? However it still managed to continue on for a decade or more and still at it’s heart it had that varied mix of chart music – commercial and underground, which brought a variety of pop sounds to the general public. The new format with its insistence on live vocals didn’t always work for me – especially when a Dance act were in the studio, and perhaps showing a prejudice/bias towards Dance TOTP did give time to artists not in the Top 40 or a plethora of old-guard artists which for me didn’t have a lot to say as it was simply things which were not Dance music.
That’s not to say the bland wasn’t still fairly represented in the Top 40/on TOTP in 1991. Again this is subject opinion (no disrespect if you’re a fan) but the likes of Sting, Robert Palmer, Gloria Estefan, Cathy Dennis, Phil Collins, Chris Rea, Stevie B, Roxette, (sad to say) Midge Ure, Marc Cohn, Kim Appleby, Fergal Sharkey, Rod Stewart, Extreme, Martika, Deacon Blue, Voice of the Beehive, Marillion, The Scorpions, Status Quo, Mariah Carey, Enya, Diana Ross, Lisa Stansfeild and Genesis who all had big-ish hits in ’91 didn’t really have a lot to say to me back then, simply felt like they were past their sell-by date and when I watched these repeats on BBC Four I certainly switched off from them again too… sometimes I was glad I forgot about some of their output then too!
Bland pop will always be around and I’m sure for fans of these acts the Hardcore Rave of say Altern-8 would be just as alien… maybe hated as what I’m discussing here. If anything the bland pop scene has intensified in the years since with the likes of X-Factor, BGT, The Voice etc. producing identikit acts that seem to fit that market which can be very lucrative if you hit it right.
Back to ’91 and Chesney Hawkes debut’s and get’s a Number 1 with ‘The One and Only’ from the film he’s in ‘Buddy’s Story’ which also featured The Who’s Roger Daltrey too. Son of The Tremeloes Len "Chip" Hawkes ‘The One and Only’ is a plodder of a pop song which isn’t bad, isn’t good and perhaps the debut hitting the top spot and the nepotism links Chesney had to the business ultimately didn’t do his career much favours after his TOTP time in the sun that Spring. A follow up also from the film ‘A Man Not A Boy’ wasn’t as big a hit and Chesney’s long term career didn’t really progress beyond that of a one hit wonder. Still it’s remembered and Chesney does fairly well on the ‘Revival’ circuit too.
Amy Grant’s ‘Baby Baby’ was a big hit in the US and this piggybacked into the UK hitting Number 2 in June. But… it sound like the soundtrack to a crap TV Advert for me very bland and even in 1991 I was mystified why it was such a big hit and captured the attention – but it’s one of those that you know why it does.
Julian Lennon’s ‘Saltwater’ was another borderline plodder again one you don’t like or hate but doesn’t set the world alight for me and got a couple of promo airings on TOTP. I’m not sure it was being too sincere either with it’s eco-political undercurrent nor the John Lennon stylings which for me was odd considering Julian didn’t exactly have the best of relationships with his father before his tragic death. I preferred Julian’s ‘Too Late for Goodbye’ from ’84 more but ‘Saltwater’s’ passable… not all bad I suppose.
What can you say about Bryan Adams ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ other than maybe, just maybe it was Number One way, way too long. Bryan get’s a TOTP studio in July and for the next few months you’ll see the cynically marketed ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’ film marketed in that… the arrow, the (sic) best bits from the film on TOTP that Summer long. The song itself isn’t actually the worst thing around in ’91 – we’ll come to some of that to wrap things up later, but even the UK Chart on Radio 1 presented by Mark Goodier cut it short when they used to play the whole Top 40 when it started going down that Autumn with a few comments “that we’ve heard enough!” too. Again it’s film score ballad fair which ultimately has it’s fans but I’m not one of them… more so after it’s 16th week at the top spot too!
Speaking of film and TV soundtracks they’d have a impact on the Top 40 too and the likes of Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes, The Doors, Patsy Cline, Chris Isaak, T-Rex, Jimmy Barnes & INXS, John Travolta & Oliva Newton John, Monty Python, Free and Blondie all benefited from their appearances – even if the film and TV programme was something shown on terrestrial television in 1990/91, too. Arguably best of these re-issues however came courtesy of a Levi’s TV advert with The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ finally hitting the top spot in March… ironically it also gave Big Audio Dynamite (as BAD II then) a Number One single too ad it was a Double-A with their Dance/Dub cut up and paste version of the track ‘The Globe’ too but being honest no one was interested in the BAD II track here.
Tragically Freddie Mercury would succumb to AIDS that year and Queen also managed to release the album ‘Innuendo’ in early 1991. It featured the title track Number One hit. ‘Headlong’ and ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ which would be a Double-A single with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which was re-released in December after Freddie had passed away that November. Generally I’m glad Queen were able (somehow) to get this last true album released with Freddie and considering the situation they did a fairly good job, certainly better than Brian May’s ‘Driven by You’ which single also from ’91 which came from a Ford TV Advert and perhaps (for me) should have stayed there. Overall Queen are one of those bands I don’t really have a liking or hatred for – suppose I don’t mind them, arguably Freddie died before his time and perhaps they’d have had much more left in them if he’d not succumbed to such a tragic illness too and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ deserved to have another tilt at the top spot in my opinion too.
Perhaps in between the bland, the quirky and the bad are Right Said Fred who’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was a big Number 2 hit that summer and as annoying as it is it you can see how it wormed it’s way into the public consciousness that year. A bit of an alternative from the Rave which was all around that summer it’s obvious camp/gay stylings combined with a pop sensibility I suppose gave it all it needed to be a big hit that year. They’d be back on TOTP with a more Dance inspired ‘Don’t Talk Just Kiss’ that December with Jocelyn Brown who as we’ve already mentioned had a big hit in ’91 with Incognito and 1992 would lead to bigger things for them too.
TOTP went all exclusive crazy for Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’ promo that Autumn too… beginning of his end for me started getting a bit too weird from then on and not in a good way lets say. Regardless of the track’s merits or sentiment it doesn’t work for me like much US R&B pop from that period just washes over you with no substance.
So to round things off we have the tosh the things which make you hit the mute button or ffwd when these were shown on BBC Four recently. Whether they’re novelty songs from things like The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles etc, personalities like Gazza, Vic Reeves or Hale ‘n’ Pace or pony pop from the likes of MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Sonia, Danni Minogue, Zucchero & Paul Young, Michael Bolton, Wilson Phillips, Beverley Craven, Color Me Badd, Natalie Cole… doing a cash-in ‘duet’ with her late father ‘Nat King’ Cole, (sic) Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch can all sink without trace for me. However the worst for me were Cher’s ‘Shoop Shoop Song’ from the film ‘Mermaids’… pass the sick bag, a long haired Rick Astley’s ‘Cry for Help’ hmm maybe it should have been named ‘Hell’ a bland ballad about how shite his time with the PWL machine was – okay and speaking of PWL Jason Donovan’s outings like ‘Any Dream Will Do’ (nightmare) and the p***-poor cover of The Turtles ‘Happy Together’ – no, no NO! Strangely enough Cher and Jason Donovan hit Number One in ’91 so perhaps music wasn’t all the great years ago we’ve always had and always will have the good, the bad and the ugly and TOTP reflects this and my personal favourites here may be absolute crap for others and again no offence if you like any of the artists I’ve slated here as much as I’m happy for people to call out the stuff I like too. Still I’d happily live the rest of my life never to hear this stuff again!
Well that’s a wrap for TOTP 1991. I know it goes on a bit but there’s so much to pack in and I hope I’ve given a bit of an insight into how things were for TOTP and musically in ’91. Sorry for anyone I’ve missed (there’s probably plenty) too and whether you agree, disagree, love it or think I’ve talked a lot of rubbish here I hope you’ve got a bit of a insight into the scene that year and maybe from a biased perspective some of the stuff I liked and bought back then too.
DE’s TOTP 1991 Top 20 (appearance on TOTP only)
1. Kraftwerk – The Robots (The Mix Version)
2. The Shamen – Progen ’91 ‘Move Any Mountain’
3. Electronic – Get The Message
4. Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy
5. T99 – Anasthasia
6. 808 State – In Yer Face
7. Moby – Go
8. Bomb the Bass – Winter in July
9. Bassheads – Is There Anybody Out There?
10. Alison Limerick – Where Love Lives
11. The Source featuring Candi Staton – You Got The Love
12. Carl Cox – I Want You (Forever)
13. The Prodigy – Charly
14. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu – It’s Grim Up North
15. Utah Saints – What Can You Do For Me?
16. N-Joi – Adrenalin
17. Human Resource – Dominator
18. SL-2 – DJ’s Take Control
19. Xpansions – Move Your Body (Higher Elevation)
20. Cubik 22 – Night in Motion
So we kick off 1991 with Betty Boo and pretty much a forgettable pop/rap/R&B ditty ’24 Hours’ which didn’t hit the heights chart wise that her 1990 hits (good or bad) did. In many ways this would represent a change of scene and pace for the Dance scene going forward as styles would change and by the end of ’91 things would seem very different from those which emerged in ’88. You still had some of the sample influenced tracks from the likes of C&C Music Factory too but the influence of Hip Hop & R&B which was massively popular in the States and did sometimes throw up a few big hits in the year in the UK like Heavy D, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam etc. on the Dance scene in the UK seemed to wane (and there may be a reason for that) a much faster paced, electronic and club culture focused scene that got lazily tagged together as ‘Rave’ took hold even if some tracks and artists sounded different and had different ideas, ways and audiences for the music they were making.
The impetus for this Rave-focused scene and it’s influence on the charts in ’91 came at first from the Belgium New Beat scene, although it took a few months for tracks which had been around for a while to hit on the UK charts, we’ll come back to these later. In the meantime The KLF began preparing the ground for this with ‘3AM Eternal’ which hit number one in January and was a much more commercial version of a track they made as part of their Pure Trance series in ’88. They followed this up with ‘Last Train to Trance Central’ which went to number two and the album ‘The White Room’. The KLF for rest of ‘91 and early ’92 they seemed to take the charts and music industry by storm treading a VERY fine line between creditability and pure tosh and engaged in as many (deliberate) antics along the way which would excite and exasperate in equal measure before their infamous Brit Award appearance. Again we’ll cover some more KLF a bit later.
808 State would come back for one last big hit in February with ‘In Yer Face’ and never quite hit these heights again. Still they’d be back in 1992 with a remixed/reimagined version of UB40’s ‘One in Ten’ and would go on to have a fairly long and successful career in this scene albeit more underground and eclectic style than what they were doing up to this point.
The cheesier side of Dance was represented in early ’91 with DJH and Steffy, Offshore and 2 In A Room generally not the worst but nothing you’d go out your way for – especially looking back at them now. You could sort-of say the same of Nomad and their big hit ‘Devotion’ but it just does enough to lift it up a rung from these tracks they’d have a follow up ‘Just a Groove’ later that Spring and their featured singer Sharon Dee Clarke would have a successful career in theatre and acting in recent years too.
The Rave tracks start to come in the form of Quadraphonia’s ‘Quadraphonia’, T99’s ‘Anasthasia’, Cubic 22’s ‘Night in Motion’ and later in the year Human Resource’s ‘Dominator’ mostly from Belgium and some of which got licenced to a new label which would have (and still is) immense success over the years with a variety of different artists and gernes – XL Recordings. Also around this point in the Spring/early Summer of ’91 British acts like Xpansions ‘Move Your Body’ and N-Joi ‘Adrenalin’/’Anthem’ who scored sizeable chart hits too. N-Joi were sort of also part of a Essex scene which would include The Prodigy who also signed with XL Recordings and would score the big hit ‘Charly’ (draw your own conclusions what that means) later in the summer and again depending how you view it they brilliantly or awfully sampled the PiF ‘Charly Says’ to great effect over a driving Hardcore Rave backdrop which would hit the Top Three. A very interesting thing about The Prodigy is the never ever appeared on TOTP in fact apart from a one off appearance on Dance Energy they didn’t really appear on TV in this sort of format.
Another big hit from that summer again perhaps more on the cheesier side of things was Oceanic’s ‘Insanity’. We’ll come back to these Rave tunes later on but not all Dance music that year was Rave and there were some various styles and tempos around that year too.
One hit wonder’s Soho sampled the guitar from The Smiths ‘How Soon Is Now?’ in a good way/with the band’s blessing for their Top 10 Indie Dance track ‘Hippy Chick’ and a more chilled out version of Dance would see hits from acts like Praise (‘Only You’) and to some extent Enigma’s number one ‘Sadness (Part 1)’ take some of the frenetic pace of the Dance scene down a touch during ’91. However one band in particular would have perhaps the biggest impact and be considered the creators of what journalists (lazily) termed ‘Trip Hop’ that year – Bristol’s Massive Attack.
Backed in the early days by Neneh Cherry, Massive Attack began life as a DJ soundsystem known ‘The Wild Bunch’ and had strong Jamcaian Dub, Neo Soul and Hip Hop influences. However their sound came from a variety of other sources including Bristol’s Post Punk scene and the band The Pop Group – it’s member Mark Stewart has a loose connection, graffiti and art from band member 3D/Robert Del Naja and fuzzy electronic and other eclectic musical influences which were used in their debut album Blue Lines.
The previous Autumn Massive Attack’s single Daydreaming featuring singer Shara Nelson was well received by the music press but didn’t make the Top 40 but from that momentum was building for the release of perhaps their best and best known tracks ‘Unfinished Sympathy’. Also featuring vocals from Shara Nelson a string section and a cinematic music video filmed in LA’s badlands ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ may have only reached Number 13 in the charts but it’s impact would be felt throughout the decade and on other artists like Portishead, Bjork, DJ Shadow, Lamb, Broadcast, Unkle, Howie B and a whole host of others as the decade progressed.
Massive Attack or ‘Massive’ as they were briefly known as due to imposed Gulf War censorship by the BBC would also score another Top 40 hit in 1991 with ‘Safe From Harm’ and the building blocks of Blue Lines would be refined, pulled apart and taken further with the albums Protection and Mezzanine later that decade which would feature collaborations from Cocteau Twins Elizabeth Frazer (who would also work with Future Sound of London) and Everything But the Girl’s Tracey Thorn, the effect of which would radically change EBTG’s sound later that decade too.
Massive Attack are a group I’ve grown to like over the years and certainly it’s one where your tastes change (mature) over the years and are definitely a good counterpoint to the higher tempo, electronically based Dance tracks I also enjoy.
With similar stylings Bomb the Bass returned in 1991 with the Top 5 single ‘Winter in July’. One of the original acts to emerge from the ’88 Dance explosion it’s main member DJ/Producer Tim Simenon had been producing for other artists like Seal – who’ll we’ll mention later, and had moved things on a touch from his ’88 debut with the album ‘Unknown Territory’. This saw him work not only with singer Loretta Heywood but guitarists and musicians Keith Le Blanc, Guy Sigsworth, Gota Yashiki, Doug Wimbish and Kenji Suzuki and this complimented and as said moved on the sampling based work Tim Simenon had been previously known for.
The single ‘Love So True’ was released in early 1991 but suffered badly due to the Gulf War breaking out and was retitled to Simenon before being voluntarily withdrawn. Also a track intended for Unknown Territory ‘Crash Landing’ (which I’ve never heard) had to be pulled from and delayed the release of album when Pink Floyd refused permission to sample ‘Money’ but this would not stop them from Bomb the Bass finally making it’s mark in the Summer.
‘Winter in July’ was perhaps a reaction to these setbacks featured soulful vocals from Loretta Heywood and at it’s core featured a heavily rearranged sample of Japan’s ‘Ghosts’ which seemed to combine aspects of Neo Soul, downtempo Electronica and the emerging Trip Hop sound to good affect and gradually climbed into the Top 5 ironically that July. Unknown Territory too was fairly successful making number 19 on the Album Chart’s that summer too, bucking a trend for Dance related albums and it’s mix of tracks on there featured some which were high(ish) tempo breakbeat lead tracks which bore some similarities to the ‘Big Beat’ style the likes of Fatboy Slim and (lesser extent) The Chemical Brothers would employ with great success five or so years later.
Subsequent singles like ‘The Air You Breathe’ and ‘Keep Giving Me Love’ (a remix of Love So True) narrowly missed the Top 40 later that year and again Tim Simenon would concentrate on producing other artists for a while. 1994’s William Burroughs inspired ‘Bug Powder Dust’ and subsequent 1995 album ‘Clear’ would give Bomb the Bass a last taste of chart action before Tim Simenon rescued Depeche Mode from (their own) self destruction by producing the Number One ‘Ultra’ in 1997. After a break for almost a decade Simenon reactivated Bomb the Bass in collaboration with musician Paul Conboy with the much more electronically focused albums ‘Future Chaos’ (2008), ‘Back to Light’ (2010) and ‘In the Sun’ (2013) before quietly calling quits on the music business a few years later.
Another artist Tim Simenon had involvement with was Seal who also working ZTT’s Trevor Horn had a fairly successful year in ’91 ‘Crazy’ was an early year hit which climbed the chart to Number 2 and with much more of an eclectic mix than the post Acid House ‘Killer’ he went to Number One with Adamski with in 1990 released a self-titled Number One debut album that year too. Singles ‘Future Love Paradise’ ‘In the Beginning’ and a remixed ‘Killer’ followed but again like so many artists Seal – in my opinion, hasn’t quite had the same success he had early doors although he is still producing sometimes good tracks in my opinion too.
Another alternative Dance hit in ’91 was Gary Clail On U Soundsystem’s – Human Nature. Originally a warm up act forementioned the On U Soundsystem featuring members of Industrial/Rap/Dub band Tackhead, including it’s producer and producer of this track Adrian Sherwood ‘Human Nature’s’ socially challenging lyrics and backing vocals from… erm Al Pelay – who fans of The Comic Strip TV programmes would be no stranger too, was one of those Top 10 records which naturally shouldn’t be there but when something like this does make an impact if fully deserves to in my opinion. It’s opening had already become the de-facto theme tune to BBC 2’s Indie focused SnubTV by the time of ‘Human Nature’s’ release in the Spring of ’91 and on the whole it’s got something which I feel still makes it an interesting track to listen too (and arguably relevant) today. Imagine a more musically focused, srious and political version of what Renegade Soundwave were doing around this time, you’ve got ‘Human Nature’ and Gary Clail would be back in the chart in ’92 with the more Dance focused ‘Who Pays the Piper’ and is still known to be active in the Bristol music scene too it’s a track I still like to hear all these years on too.
Another more alternative Dance/Soul act were Young Disciples. They’d been around since 1990 and were one of the first signings to Giles Peterson’s ‘Talkin’ Loud’ label too. On a Acid Jazz/Alternative Rap/Neo Soul direction and featuring vocalist Carleen Anderson who would go on to be a successful solo artist in the ‘90’s too the single ‘Apparently Nothin’’ had a slow burn effect being just outside the Top 40 when originally released in the February but it re-entered the chart and Top 40 that July and eventually climbed to Number 13 that August which got them a TOTP studio appearance. A bit more on the Soul/Jazz vibe Young Disciples would release a fairly successful album too ‘Road to Freedom’ and have some underground success in the ‘90’s and have produced for a variety of other artists too.
A bit more in a pop-vein was Zoë, who’s track ‘Sunshine on a Rainy Day’ cracked hit Number 4 that Summer. Again another 1990 re-release it’s Soul II Soul beats mixing with Indie/Dance guitar’s became a big hit that Summer and naturally a TOTP performance too with a fairly decent sounding outing from producer Mark ‘Spike’ Stent who has gone on to become a very successful producer to a wide variety of artists over the last three decades. Zoë followed ‘Sunshine…’ up with ‘Lightning’ which also got her a TOTP later that Autumn but like many such artists from that period became a bit of a one hit wonder and sort of faded away after ’91 and has instead become more of a session singer and alternative artist since.
Other more Soul-orientated acts to have TOTP outings included Mantronix, Tongue n’ Cheek, Lisa Lisa + Cult Jam, Quartz (with erm Dina Carroll), Frances Nero, Driza Bone, PM Dawn and Omar. Hip Hop from Public Enemy and the rather current/aptly named ‘Can’t Truss It’, De la Soul ‘Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)’ and 'A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays''/and erm Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince ‘Summertime’ also got a look in mostly with promos on TOTP too. I like some of this more than others and some of it is not really for me but can see why they have their fans.
1991 was not all Dance, Rave and Electronica mind you. The first Number One of the year was Iron Maiden being erm Iron Maiden with ‘Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter’… I don’t mind them to be fair. Indie – albeit a sometimes blurred version with Dance, still had huge popularity that year too.
Pop Will Eat Itself had a few decent chart outings with ‘X, Y and Zee’ perhaps being their best and most memorable. Not in a bad way the similar styled/sounding Jesus Jones also had some decent chart action with ‘International Bright Young Things’, ‘Who? Where? Why?’ and ‘Right Here Right Now’. EMF too built on their 1990 hit ‘Unbelievable’ with ‘I Believe’, ‘Lies’ and ‘Children’ but perhaps started to fade in popularity as the year drew on.
Carter – The Unstoppable Sex Machine however grew in popularity during 1991 with their in your face Punk/Funk, Indie/Dance sound which grew out of a scene based in South East London and scored decent hits that year with ‘Sheriff Fatman’ and ‘After The Watershed’. I liked them then and like them now even if I’m not a die hard fan and anyone who gives Philip Schofield a thump is fine by me.
The Happy Mondays had one last hurrah before Madchester and (heavy) drug use caught up with them with ‘Loose Fit’ perhaps with one of the best guitar and drum led intro’s from that Madchester/Baggy period too. Again it’s subject matter is pretty obvious unless you’re very naïve and as said it was the last real blast of Madchester – the album it come from, ‘Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches’ had come out almost a year earlier and as said the Mondays, Stone Roses, Factory and Madchester all seemed to implode on itself from this point on for me a shame as I feel it had more to say, more to do than it ultimately achieved.
Primal Scream who did not appear on TOTP that year would sort of pick this baton up with the Mercury Music Prize winning ‘Scremadellica’ and singles ‘Don’t Fight It Feel It’ and ‘Higher Than The Sun’ in ’91.
Sort of related to the Happy Mondays as she lent her lyrics to the original version of Hallelujah Kirsty MacColl had a Top 30 hit with ‘Walking Down Maddison’ a Folksy, Indie number which mixed with Hip Hop beats and attitude to good effect. This earned Kirsty a TOTP appearance in June and it’s a track that’s aged fairly well from all that Indie/Alternative/Dance etc. fusion that was around at the time – some haven’t.
The Mock Turtles ‘Can You Dig It?’ was a big hit that year but for me it just seems to plod along, inoffensive enough but not really going anywhere interesting. Perhaps it feels more like a again I hate the term a ‘Brit Pop’ tune from a few years later. However ‘Sit Down’ by James was a lot more interesting and should have reached the top spot instead of the Number Two it did achieve. James had been around the Manchester music scene for a few years and had initially been connected to the Factory set up. By 1989/90 however they like many similar Manc bands were getting a popular following and singles like ‘Come Home’ were starting to hit the Top 40 a year earlier. ‘Sit Down’ which had originally been released in 1989 was a simple but affective slice of Indie that I feel has stood the test of time and many a night out has probably seen people singing along and “sitting down” with James when it’s played.
I know I’m biased but I felt this period of Indie was a lot more interesting than the ‘Brit Pop’ period a few years later most likely due to it mixing the Dance sounds with guitars and a more relaxed feel to things than the ‘Blur v Oasis’ thing had. Blur did emerge around this period with ‘There’s No Other Way’ which does sound and look a lot different from their ‘Parklife’ period. For me it’s okay if nothing really special and it certainly never gave no clues that they’d go on to be a major act as the decade drew on. I’ve actually liked what Blur/Gorillaz/Damon Albarn have done in more recent years than the earlier and ‘Parklife’ stuff and as a whole. Again it’s one of those things your tastes change and bands styles and tastes also change too.
TOTP does through up some anomalies sometimes and on paper during this period a weird and wacky Indie band like The Wonderstuff shouldn’t have worked, yet they had some big hits in 1991. I was not really a fan of theirs but ‘Size of a Cow’ did have something quirky about it and was something a bit different from the drugs and Dance beats that were running through Indie at that point. However their cover of ‘Dizzy’ with Vic Reeves probably is their most notable piece of work and like any big Number One hit it’ll be what they’re remembered for… even if other things they’ve done may be better?
Other Indie acts on TOTP some more memorable than others were The High’s ‘Boxed Set Go’, The Railway Children’s ‘Every Beat of the Heart’, The Farm’s ‘Mind’, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s ‘Happy’, The Charlatans ‘Over Rising’, Inspiral Carpets ‘Caravan’, Flowerd Up’s (subtly titled) ‘Take It’ Ride’s ‘Unfamiliar’ and Northside’s ‘Take 5’.
Another unusual hit that year came from Sydney band Divinyls with ‘I Touch Myself’. Originally released in 1990 this pop rock track had a slow burn effect and made the Top 10 in the summer and if perhaps nothing radical was pleasant enough and is still played out today.
REM also (via promos) also made appearances on TOTP with ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Shiny Happy People’. A weird one for me I don’t like or hate REM they’re just there for me I probably prefer ‘Religion’ out of the two hits they had that year.
1991 also marked the return of Prince with the fairly well put together Soul/Funk/Rap album ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ and the promos for the sexually referenced tracks ‘Get Off’ and ‘Cream’ got airings on TOTP that year too. Arguably ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ was maybe Prince’s last real-classic album but he has done a lot of good stuff which went under the radar in the years since and to his death too.
1991 marked the return of U2 who shook off the Sun Studio styling of ‘Rattle and Hum’ with the Berlin-esque ‘Achtung Baby’. A bit hit and miss for me and arguable the last (half) decent thing they did the Number 1 single ‘The Fly’ got a promo outing/premier on TOTP.
Rock and Metal fans were also fairly well represented in ’91 with (mentioned earlier) Iron Maiden hitting the top spot in January, Anthrax, The Almighty, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Little Angels and probably the most popular Guns ‘n’ Roses with their Terminator 2 outing ‘You Could be Mine’ and Paul McCartney/Wings cover ‘Live and Let Die’ all having a presence on TOTP even if it’s just in the form of promos. Even Bowie tried his hand again at this with the second outing for his Tin Machine project too.
It’s not really a genre I’m into and tend to prefer more Indie based guitar stuff but some of it was good some of it bad and like anything there’s something good in every form of music.
I suppose ’91 wasn’t the best of times to be a Rock or Metal fan although I remember they were around in fairly significant numbers back then but things were changing and one band from Seattle and a ‘Grunge’ scene they were part of would perhaps give Rock a perhaps needed reset in 1991 – Nirvana.
Arguably their performance of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was deliberately messed up with Kurt (Cobain) singing the vocals in a deliberately deep way and their appearance on The Word may have been much more iconic of the period but Nirvana and the album that followed ‘Nevermind’ certainly upset the apple cart in Rock perhaps injecting a Punk and alternative attitude to it which had been lacking in it in recent years – especially within the Metal scene in the US. They certainly paved the way for bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Mudhoney etc. to emerge in the ‘90’s – perhaps with more success in the US than in the UK/Europe and again regardless of what would happen with Nirvana/Kurt Cobain they’d leave their mark quite well in my opinion too. Their legacy was taken up by the Foo Fighters and many Rock and Metal acts incorporated a ‘Grunge’ sound in the ‘90’s too.
Sort of in between all this and a generation apart were Goth favourites Siouxsie & The Banshees who returned with the Hip Hop sampling track ‘Kiss Them For Me’ generally to good effect. This track perhaps acquainted themselves and spin off The Creatures to a new generation. I like good old Sioux!
Given their roots in New Order and The Pet Shop Boys came perhaps the most Dance of the Indie/Dance acts in 1991 – Electronic. Mostly a side project of New Order’s Bernard Sumner and The Smiths Johnny Marr, Electronic returned to the Top 10 after the success of 1989’s ‘Getting Away With It’ with ‘Get The Message’ released on Manchester’s Factory label (before it all went tits up) and one of my own personal favourites from the year – combining the Indie/Dance/Electronic sounds, with something a bit more unique, more unusual and to good effect. Electronic had a couple of TOTP outings in April/May and subsequently a Number Two album with their self-titled debut. Another Top 40 single for them that year the guitar tinged ‘Feel Every Beat’ didn’t have a TOTP outing but I sort of like that one more. For me ‘Feel Every Beat’ sort of perfectly distils the Madchester/Indie/Dance/House culture that was around them then in an almost perfect four minute song… sort of deserved to be a bigger hit. Arguably the best of the New Order ‘side projects’ Electronic would be back on TOTP in ’92 with the Neil Tennant vocal led ‘Disappointed’ and would make a couple more albums ‘Raise The Pressure’ in ’96 which featured collaborations with ex-member of Kraftwerk Karl Bartos and ‘Twisted Tenderness’ in ’99 which featured Jimi Goodwin from Doves (Sub Sub) too.
Speaking of Kraftwerk they too reappeared on TOTP albeit in video form with a remixed version of ‘The Robots’ which was in Top 20 in May. A remix album ‘The Mix’ followed in June and perhaps due to the influence their sound had on House, Techno and other forms of Electronic music they were sort of back in the limelight after some disappointing sales and reviews for 1987’s ‘Electric Café’ (later to go under it’s original title ‘Techno Pop’). A ‘live’ TOTP performance would have been interesting and strangely enough they preferred to do this on Tomorrow’s World than TOTP that year!
I’d known about Kraftwerk before all this but with this re-release and release of The Mix made me get all their albums that year and have been a fan ever since too.
Synth Pop came back in 1991 in the form of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Now the project of vocalist Andy McClusky OMD would appear on TOTP that year with ‘Sailing on the Seven Seas’ and ‘Pandoras Box’ which were sizable hits in the Top 40 and came from the album ‘Sugar Tax’ a Number 3 in the albums chart. Personally the tracks are good but not brilliant and certainly don’t quite hit the heights their classic material which featured Paul Humphreys did – but could they? Generally what OMD did with ‘Sugar Tax’ is on the whole good and enjoyable electronic pop music and this wasn’t drenched in the high tempo Dance music of the time and it’s interesting OMD resisted the temptation to go all out House/Techno that some of the ‘80’s Synth Pop acts did at that time. Either with their original bands or with new projects. On personal reflection ‘Sugar Tax’ was a fairly good album perhaps with Andy McClusky stamping his authority over the OMD project, it’s dated but not in a bad way and these tracks do work in a live setting with OMD’s older material and played by Paul Humphreys in recent years too.
Other Synth Pop acts on TOTP were Pet Shop Boys (promos only) and Erasure with the flamboyant ‘Love to Hate You’, Marc Almond and Kraftwerk and OMD then neatly bring us back to the Dance side of things from that summer onwards and although a lot of it was not all of it were Rave based hits.
Crystal Waters had a big hit in May with the House anthem ‘Gypsy Woman’ allegedly written about a homeless woman Crystal knew of and intended for House artist Ultra Nate who’d have a big chart hit in 1997 with ‘Free’. With a Hammond Organ hook (from the Korg M1 synth used on quite a lot of House/Techno/Rave in the ‘90’s) and a memorable video and vocals from Waters ‘Gypsy Woman’ made Number 3 in May and has gone on to become one of House Music’s anthems. Waters would have Top 40 hits with ‘Makin Happy’ and ‘100% Pure Love’ in ‘91/’92 but perhaps again didn’t quite hit the same heights she did with ‘Gypsy Woman’ until lending her vocals in more recent years to Alex Gaudino’s Top Five single ‘Destination Calabria’ in 2008.
Another House track that has taken on “anthem” status over the years is Alison Limerick’s ‘Where Love Lives’. Originally released in 1990 it’s fairly simple but affective mid-tempo House rhythms built around a piano riff had a slow burning effect and became one of the UK House anthems of the ‘90’s. ‘Where Love Lives’ still gets frequent play on various radio station today and it came back as a Top 10 in remixed form in 1996. Alison would also contribute vocals to ‘Magic’s Back’ a collaboration with Malcom McClaren on his ‘Ghosts of Oxford Street’ project later in 1991 which very narrowly missed out on the Top 40 and had a couple of hits like ‘Make it on My Own’ too although nothing quite had the same impact as ‘Where Love Lives’. She’s continuing to record and perform live today.
Jazz-funk band Incognito got on the House vibe with ‘Always There’ recruiting legendary Soul singer Joycelyn Brown again to a mid-tempo funky House track that to good effect and scored a Top 10 that July. This reintroduced Joycelyn to a new audience and somewhat reinvigorated her career and again like the previous couple of tracks mentioned it’s a House track that has stood the test of time and is still getting radio play today.
Quirky retro Indie/Dance starlets Saint Etienne also tried their hand at pop House/Dance in ’91 under the moniker “Cola Boy” and the track ‘7 Ways to Love’ and appeared on TOTP also in July. Very much on the “cheesy” end of Dance music member Bob Stanley admitted it was "too cheesy for Saint Etienne. We'd have been finished overnight" but it’s repeated chorus lyric and House by numbers piano and drum riffs are certainly effective in the club environment it was designed for and I’ve heard a lot, lot worse Dance tracks than this over the years! There follow-up ‘He is Cola’ did not have the same success but interestingly Saint Etienne had a Top 40 entry that summer with an Indie/Dance cover of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Will Break Your Heart’ that summer too which has certainly become one of their most revered tracks over the years.
Considered the “Godfather of House Music” Frankie Knuckles had a fairly big Top 20 hit with ‘The Whistle Song’ again with a slowish House tempo and quite a simple riff based around a whistle (sample) and the House piano stylings and Frankie also appeared on TOTP in that July. Perhaps not as well remembered as other tracks we’ve mentioned for me it’s a good slice of House and sometimes keeping things simple works and Frankie’s contribution to House doesn’t need a mention/questioning. Sadly Frankie died in 2014 but leaves a massive legacy to House music and his collaboration with Jaimie Principle ‘Your Love’ finally made the Top 40… it should have done in the mid ‘80’s in my opinion.
Speaking of ‘Your Love’ the synthesizer/drum riff from it was sampled as the background track to a massive House/Dance hit in 1991. UK act The Source added a bootleg of Candi Staton’s vocals from a 1986 Gospel song ‘You Got the Love’ and it became a massive club and chart hit that year reaching Number 4 in that February. The promo video was the only airing of the track on TOTP and like with Incognito the track introduced Candi Staton to a new audience too. The track has been remixed and released a fair few times since this version and the 1997 release went one place better to Number 3 in the Charts too.
Another re-release from 1990 was Brothers in Rhythm’s ‘Such A Good Feeling’ again another piano based House track with perhaps more UK and clubbier stylings than those mentioned earlier. Made up of club DJ’s Dave Seaman, Steve Anderson and Alan Bremner they had a TOTP outing in early September and again it was another Dance anthem track you’d hear throughout that summer.
Brothers in Rhythm would go on to be fairly successful remixers in the ‘90’s too but one such track they produced in ’91 was with US singer Sabrina Johnston’s ‘Peace’ again another of those House tracks from that year that was a massive anthem that summer and hit the Top 10 in September and was arguably a better and bigger hit than their own ‘Such A Good Feeling’. Generally I like it – if perhaps don’t love it, but can see its impact back then. Sabrina didn’t quite have the same success again as she did have with ‘Peace’ as subsequent singles didn’t quite make the Top 40.
A quirkier Dance hit from ’91 was Latour’s ‘People Are Still Having Sex’ which had a TOTP that June. A slice of Electro Disco it was a bit more unusual than the House and Rave hits which were dominating Dance that year.
However Rave wasn’t that far away and as the year drew on a fair few tracks would see TOTP airings.
Kicking things off are The Shamen who morphed from the Psychedelic Rock outfit that formed in Aberdeen in the mid ‘80’s to a “full on” alternative Dance London-based Rave and Acid House group by the time of ‘Progen ’91 (Move Any Mountain)’ which had two TOTP outings that July/August. The building blocks for their success had been forged with the albums ‘Phorward’ and ‘En-Tact’ (which was released originally in 1990) and in addition to ‘Move Any Mountain’ had singles ‘Make it Mine’ ‘Omega Amigo’ and ‘Hyperreal’ along with a series of “Synergy” live shows which built their profile considerably by the summer of ’91. Whilst filming the promo video for ‘Progen’ band member Will ‘Will Sin’ Sinnott was killed in a diving accident but the band carried on and enjoyed the success ‘Progen’ had that summer. The Shamen would go on to have much bigger success and that’s probably best discussed in a 1992 thread but ‘Progen’ for me was perhaps when they were at their best here.
Next up is Utah Saints who with ‘What Can You Do For Me’ showed what the Rave scene and a sampler can do to and reconstruct 1980’s hit singles into a massive Dance record. Sampling Eurythmics ‘There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)’ with heavy distortion along with the ‘What Can You Do For Me?’ lyric from Gwen Guthrie’s ;Ain't Nothin' Goin' on But the Rent’ it was another massive Dance track which climbed the charts into the Top 10 that late summer and had a couple of live TOTP outings.
Shades of Rhythm also got a few promo outings on TOTP with the classic Dance track ‘The Sound of Eden’ and a studio performance with the subtly titled ‘Extacy’ that December and like 808 State were another Dance act ZTT had become interested in – a sign of changing times. It’s a shame ‘Sweet Sensation’ also a Top 40 hit that year never got an airing on TOTP.
Stafford Dance outfit Bizarre Inc also brought more of the Rave sound into the mainstream with ‘Such A Feeling’ with a similar sample that was used on N-Joi’s ‘Adrenalin’ that September – on the last TOTP which featured the Radio 1 DJ’s at Television Centre more on that later on, but it was ‘Playing With Knives’ (again this means something to those who know) that was their bigger Rave hit in 1991. Released originally earlier that year ‘Playing With Knives’ made Number 4 in the Autumn and it’s another one of those Dance anthem tracks as time has gone on. Bizarre Inc would go on to have further hits in the ‘90’s and ‘Playing With Knives’ reappeared as a remix in the Top 40 in 1999.
Even more with their colours nailed to the Rave mast than Bizarre Inc and also from Stafford were Altern-8 who had began life as the more Techno sounding Nexus 21 and were on Network Records who’s founder Neil Rushton had been responsible for releasing early Detroit Techno tracks from artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins in the UK. Altern-8 with day glow yellow A8 masks, biological suits and unashamed Rave theatrics took the sound to the mainstream and unlike their Nexus 21 material added breakbeats to the sound (others would follow) and scored a Top 40 hit with the 808 State sampling ‘Infiltrate 202’ the promo of which was played as a ‘Breaker’ on TOTP that July. However it was ‘Activ-8 (Come With Me)’ which gave them their big chart hit a Number 3 that November and a TOTP performance too which with live vocal didn’t quite work. For me the track is cheesy as hell and it’s not pushing the boundaries of electronic music other artists that decade would but it represents that Rave period perfectly – you cringe and love it in the same way if you like that sort of music. Altern-8 would be back in ’92!
Birkenhead’s Bassheads come next with ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ and unlike Altern-8 it’s a bit more restrained and focused as a Rave/Dance banger one of which I like and a like a few other tracks mentioned in this thread is still remembered and gets radio play today. Combining Acid House, Rave and subtle-breakbeat stylings with samples from artists as diverse as Afrika Bambaataa, Talking Heads (‘Once in a Lifetime’) and erm The Osmonds (‘Crazy Horses’) to great affect ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ went Top 5 that November too and like Altern-8 they were back in 1992 too with ‘Back to the Old School’.
Breakbeats were very much in evidence for SL2’s single ‘DJ’s Take Control’. Mostly a DJ duo of Matt ‘Slipmatt’ Nelson and John ‘Lime’ Fernandez they came out of the Rave and party scene Raindance and their breaks-led Hardcore tracks drew the attention of label XL Recordings. They were also a part of a Essex Rave scene that (sort-of) included The Prodigy, Sonz of a Loop Da Loop Era and the Suburban Base label/Boogie Times record shop in Romford. Sampling and mixing up House classic ‘Someday’ by Ce Ce Rodgers in a Rave and breakbeat style ‘DJ’s Take Control’ hit Number 11 that Autumn and got them a ‘live’ TOTP performance that October with some curious looking audience members that looked way out of place and were seemingly oblivious to it all. Again in the scheme of things this has become a Rave/Hardcore classic within that scene and SL2 would like some of the other acts here be back with a even bigger hit in 1992.
Well known and now world famous DJ Carl Cox had a TOTP outing in October with the absolute banger ‘I Want You (Forever)’ which again was showcasing the breakbeat style that was starting to come into Dance and Rave that year. Again another track that is still well received and gets radio play today and this Hardcore and “Breakbeat Rave” generally would evolve into the likes of Jungle and Drum & Bass as the ‘90’s progressed and some artists like Carl himself would explore further the boundaries of electronic music and Techno too.
The Dutch and Belgian scene’s were represented too. Erm erm… 2 Unlimited with the only (and I’m being kind here) half-decent track they did, scored a Number 2 with ‘Get Ready for This’ before they got seduced by PWL and went cheese factory commercial. Ho Hum! Only titled as “Digital” Digital Orgasm’s ‘Running Out of Time’ had a TOTP outing that December again something time has forgotten but Human Resource’s ‘Dominator’ got a TOTP performance later that month and from stalwart label R&S Records it was a slow burn underground Techno/Rave record which was remixed by the likes of Joey Beltram and it’s ‘Mental Speed Mix’ got into the Top 30 as ’91 drew to a close. I wonder if TOTP had have aired the promo, complaints would have gone through the roof?
R&S Records would go on to carve a very respected niche in underground Techno and electronic music too and like most things with Dance music it goes from the good, bad and the ugly.
There’s the return of The KLF, firstly as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu with ‘It’s Grim Up North’ the only Top 10 they had under their “The JAMs” moniker. Name checking a list of Northern English towns/cities delivered in a walkie-talkie vocal from Bill Drummond and over a pounding Techno beat which gives way to a (probably sampled) instrumental section ‘Jerusalem’ on a black & white motorway in the rain promo video they performed the track on TOTP that November in a period when it seemed almost all of the chart was Dance or Dance-related artists. It was the beginning of things getting bigger, bolder, madder and wackier for The KLF and they somehow managed to convince, sweep along and assimilate to their will Country & Western singer Tammy Wynette to do vocal duties to a remixed ‘Justified & Ancient’ which hit Number 2 as 1991 drew to a close. Just wait for they had in store for 1992!
Taking things down a notch was Moby and ‘Go’ the Twin Peaks ‘Laura Palmer’s Theme’ sampling Rave track that has since become a very well know Dance anthem. Like some of the other Dance tracks we’ve mentioned here ‘Go’ was originally released earlier that year and the momentum for it grew with it eventually making the Top 10 in late October and getting him a TOTP appearance which in line featured a ‘live’ vocal. Moby one of the first artists from the US to embrace Rave and Dance culture would continue in this style with many other releases throughout the ‘90’s before changing tack and embracing an eclectic mix of styles over the years including music used in film and television. Moby would go on to be a multi-million selling artist which compared to the other Rave artists we’ve featured here would have seemed unthinkable but in-spite of all this Moby has still kept a place for Dance and electronic related music in the work he has done and is still doing.
‘Everybody’s Free’ was a big Dance hit for Rozalla and can see why but it’s not really one for me a little too poppy and cheesy but again compared to other Dance records which have come and gone I have heard worse and I suppose it deserved the two TOTP outings she had in September. Again it was a re-release that built momentum over the late summer/autumn that year and she’d have further hits during the end of 1991 and in 1992.
Falling in between House and Rave was ‘Rhythm is a Mystery’ by Chester/Wrexham based Dance outfit K-Klass who were snapped up by Deconstruction Records one of that year’s leading Dance labels. Again a slower and more simple House track and again having had a re-release it made Number 3 that November they has a TOTP outing that month too and would go on to have further chart hits with similar “Piano House” tracks in the years to come and lend themselves as respected remixers to a variety of artists throughout the ‘90’s too.
Another Deconstruction act like K-Klass and Bassheads were M-People who perhaps did the only track of theirs I’ve really liked the original ‘How Can I Love You More’ based around Manchester/Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering and vocalist Heather Small they’d have a lot of success chart wise in the ‘90’s and they’d get a TOTP outing in November too. For me though they seemed to lose some of the initial class this track had when you got to the ‘Elegant Slumming’ and later material periods.
Other Dance acts to feature on TOTP included Love Decade, Control, Dream Frequency, Shaft, Congress, Anticapella, Ce Ce Penniston and erm East Side Beat. In my opinion some good, some bad and some more forgettable than others but on the whole the Dance stuff which came out in ’91 did move things on quite significantly from what had originally emerged in the original explosion in ’88. This would allow other artists in this area to have a lot of commercial and critical success throughout the ’90’s and beyond.
Rightly or wrongly TOTP was reflecting what was in the chart which in ’91 was a large proportion of Dance music and again right or wrong it looked more like a episode of Dance Energy than Dance Energy did at times. The Radio 1 DJ’s too looked out of place with this sort of stuff and changes were afoot. The show moved from Television Centre to Elstree the Radio 1 DJ’s were gone replaced by new face presenters like Tony Dortie, Mark Franklyn, Adrian Rose (who blocked recent repeats on BBC Four), Claudia Simon and a host of others. A so-called ‘slicker’ style was also in evidence and to perhaps counteract the success of Dance around that time – it didn’t, a live vocal/performance policy was initiated. For some this was when the classic TOTP died and it was now competing not only with ITV’s The Chart Show but a wider variety of programmes including Channel 4’s The Word which featured varied live performances in the studio and multi-channel TV which had brought MTV Europe to a wider UK audience and a more focused reach of music programming too.
Was this the beginning of the end for TOTP? Maybe? However it still managed to continue on for a decade or more and still at it’s heart it had that varied mix of chart music – commercial and underground, which brought a variety of pop sounds to the general public. The new format with its insistence on live vocals didn’t always work for me – especially when a Dance act were in the studio, and perhaps showing a prejudice/bias towards Dance TOTP did give time to artists not in the Top 40 or a plethora of old-guard artists which for me didn’t have a lot to say as it was simply things which were not Dance music.
That’s not to say the bland wasn’t still fairly represented in the Top 40/on TOTP in 1991. Again this is subject opinion (no disrespect if you’re a fan) but the likes of Sting, Robert Palmer, Gloria Estefan, Cathy Dennis, Phil Collins, Chris Rea, Stevie B, Roxette, (sad to say) Midge Ure, Marc Cohn, Kim Appleby, Fergal Sharkey, Rod Stewart, Extreme, Martika, Deacon Blue, Voice of the Beehive, Marillion, The Scorpions, Status Quo, Mariah Carey, Enya, Diana Ross, Lisa Stansfeild and Genesis who all had big-ish hits in ’91 didn’t really have a lot to say to me back then, simply felt like they were past their sell-by date and when I watched these repeats on BBC Four I certainly switched off from them again too… sometimes I was glad I forgot about some of their output then too!
Bland pop will always be around and I’m sure for fans of these acts the Hardcore Rave of say Altern-8 would be just as alien… maybe hated as what I’m discussing here. If anything the bland pop scene has intensified in the years since with the likes of X-Factor, BGT, The Voice etc. producing identikit acts that seem to fit that market which can be very lucrative if you hit it right.
Back to ’91 and Chesney Hawkes debut’s and get’s a Number 1 with ‘The One and Only’ from the film he’s in ‘Buddy’s Story’ which also featured The Who’s Roger Daltrey too. Son of The Tremeloes Len "Chip" Hawkes ‘The One and Only’ is a plodder of a pop song which isn’t bad, isn’t good and perhaps the debut hitting the top spot and the nepotism links Chesney had to the business ultimately didn’t do his career much favours after his TOTP time in the sun that Spring. A follow up also from the film ‘A Man Not A Boy’ wasn’t as big a hit and Chesney’s long term career didn’t really progress beyond that of a one hit wonder. Still it’s remembered and Chesney does fairly well on the ‘Revival’ circuit too.
Amy Grant’s ‘Baby Baby’ was a big hit in the US and this piggybacked into the UK hitting Number 2 in June. But… it sound like the soundtrack to a crap TV Advert for me very bland and even in 1991 I was mystified why it was such a big hit and captured the attention – but it’s one of those that you know why it does.
Julian Lennon’s ‘Saltwater’ was another borderline plodder again one you don’t like or hate but doesn’t set the world alight for me and got a couple of promo airings on TOTP. I’m not sure it was being too sincere either with it’s eco-political undercurrent nor the John Lennon stylings which for me was odd considering Julian didn’t exactly have the best of relationships with his father before his tragic death. I preferred Julian’s ‘Too Late for Goodbye’ from ’84 more but ‘Saltwater’s’ passable… not all bad I suppose.
What can you say about Bryan Adams ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ other than maybe, just maybe it was Number One way, way too long. Bryan get’s a TOTP studio in July and for the next few months you’ll see the cynically marketed ‘Robin Hood Prince of Thieves’ film marketed in that… the arrow, the (sic) best bits from the film on TOTP that Summer long. The song itself isn’t actually the worst thing around in ’91 – we’ll come to some of that to wrap things up later, but even the UK Chart on Radio 1 presented by Mark Goodier cut it short when they used to play the whole Top 40 when it started going down that Autumn with a few comments “that we’ve heard enough!” too. Again it’s film score ballad fair which ultimately has it’s fans but I’m not one of them… more so after it’s 16th week at the top spot too!
Speaking of film and TV soundtracks they’d have a impact on the Top 40 too and the likes of Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes, The Doors, Patsy Cline, Chris Isaak, T-Rex, Jimmy Barnes & INXS, John Travolta & Oliva Newton John, Monty Python, Free and Blondie all benefited from their appearances – even if the film and TV programme was something shown on terrestrial television in 1990/91, too. Arguably best of these re-issues however came courtesy of a Levi’s TV advert with The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ finally hitting the top spot in March… ironically it also gave Big Audio Dynamite (as BAD II then) a Number One single too ad it was a Double-A with their Dance/Dub cut up and paste version of the track ‘The Globe’ too but being honest no one was interested in the BAD II track here.
Tragically Freddie Mercury would succumb to AIDS that year and Queen also managed to release the album ‘Innuendo’ in early 1991. It featured the title track Number One hit. ‘Headlong’ and ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ which would be a Double-A single with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which was re-released in December after Freddie had passed away that November. Generally I’m glad Queen were able (somehow) to get this last true album released with Freddie and considering the situation they did a fairly good job, certainly better than Brian May’s ‘Driven by You’ which single also from ’91 which came from a Ford TV Advert and perhaps (for me) should have stayed there. Overall Queen are one of those bands I don’t really have a liking or hatred for – suppose I don’t mind them, arguably Freddie died before his time and perhaps they’d have had much more left in them if he’d not succumbed to such a tragic illness too and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ deserved to have another tilt at the top spot in my opinion too.
Perhaps in between the bland, the quirky and the bad are Right Said Fred who’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was a big Number 2 hit that summer and as annoying as it is it you can see how it wormed it’s way into the public consciousness that year. A bit of an alternative from the Rave which was all around that summer it’s obvious camp/gay stylings combined with a pop sensibility I suppose gave it all it needed to be a big hit that year. They’d be back on TOTP with a more Dance inspired ‘Don’t Talk Just Kiss’ that December with Jocelyn Brown who as we’ve already mentioned had a big hit in ’91 with Incognito and 1992 would lead to bigger things for them too.
TOTP went all exclusive crazy for Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’ promo that Autumn too… beginning of his end for me started getting a bit too weird from then on and not in a good way lets say. Regardless of the track’s merits or sentiment it doesn’t work for me like much US R&B pop from that period just washes over you with no substance.
So to round things off we have the tosh the things which make you hit the mute button or ffwd when these were shown on BBC Four recently. Whether they’re novelty songs from things like The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles etc, personalities like Gazza, Vic Reeves or Hale ‘n’ Pace or pony pop from the likes of MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Sonia, Danni Minogue, Zucchero & Paul Young, Michael Bolton, Wilson Phillips, Beverley Craven, Color Me Badd, Natalie Cole… doing a cash-in ‘duet’ with her late father ‘Nat King’ Cole, (sic) Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch can all sink without trace for me. However the worst for me were Cher’s ‘Shoop Shoop Song’ from the film ‘Mermaids’… pass the sick bag, a long haired Rick Astley’s ‘Cry for Help’ hmm maybe it should have been named ‘Hell’ a bland ballad about how shite his time with the PWL machine was – okay and speaking of PWL Jason Donovan’s outings like ‘Any Dream Will Do’ (nightmare) and the p***-poor cover of The Turtles ‘Happy Together’ – no, no NO! Strangely enough Cher and Jason Donovan hit Number One in ’91 so perhaps music wasn’t all the great years ago we’ve always had and always will have the good, the bad and the ugly and TOTP reflects this and my personal favourites here may be absolute crap for others and again no offence if you like any of the artists I’ve slated here as much as I’m happy for people to call out the stuff I like too. Still I’d happily live the rest of my life never to hear this stuff again!
Well that’s a wrap for TOTP 1991. I know it goes on a bit but there’s so much to pack in and I hope I’ve given a bit of an insight into how things were for TOTP and musically in ’91. Sorry for anyone I’ve missed (there’s probably plenty) too and whether you agree, disagree, love it or think I’ve talked a lot of rubbish here I hope you’ve got a bit of a insight into the scene that year and maybe from a biased perspective some of the stuff I liked and bought back then too.
DE’s TOTP 1991 Top 20 (appearance on TOTP only)
1. Kraftwerk – The Robots (The Mix Version)
2. The Shamen – Progen ’91 ‘Move Any Mountain’
3. Electronic – Get The Message
4. Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy
5. T99 – Anasthasia
6. 808 State – In Yer Face
7. Moby – Go
8. Bomb the Bass – Winter in July
9. Bassheads – Is There Anybody Out There?
10. Alison Limerick – Where Love Lives
11. The Source featuring Candi Staton – You Got The Love
12. Carl Cox – I Want You (Forever)
13. The Prodigy – Charly
14. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu – It’s Grim Up North
15. Utah Saints – What Can You Do For Me?
16. N-Joi – Adrenalin
17. Human Resource – Dominator
18. SL-2 – DJ’s Take Control
19. Xpansions – Move Your Body (Higher Elevation)
20. Cubik 22 – Night in Motion
