And the next time Mike Flowers was heard of, he was responsible for a version of the Radio 4 UK theme released as part of the campaign to stop Radio 4 scrapping it.
Actually there were two follow-up singles, which I loyally bought but unfortunately neither my nor Kevin Greening's championing of them made them substantial hits. The follow-up in the new year was a double-A side of Light My Fire and Release Me, I think one of those was in an advert at the time (not related to the latter being the theme to The Fast Show) but they were both done pretty straight and you didn't have the fun of it being a modern song, and it got to number 39. Then the following Christmas they did a cover of Don't Cry For Me Argentina at the same time as Madonna's version, which was actually produced by Stock and Aitken, sounded more Eurodisco than easy listening, and got to number 30.
This was all part of the brief easy listening revival of the mid-90s that saw artists like Count Indigo getting radio play and the This Is Cult Fiction albums being big sellers, and Kevin Greening presenting an evening devoted to it on Radio 1.
Although I enjoyed the 1995 music a lot, probably the first full year I was absolutely obsessed with the chart and pop music, the first presentation reminded of how frustrating that era of the show was. Looked amazing - great to see those titles on tv again - but awful presenters (baffling Paul McKenna gag by Jack Dee into N-Trance and Bjork clearly out of her comfort zone). And the way during the run through of each month they mentioned who was first guest presenting TOTP that month! As if anyone gives one!
One thing I don't miss now Top of the Pops is only an annual affair is the requirement to do heavy brand-building to convince anyone who only watched it at Christmas to do so the rest of the year. I love the thought that grandparents who were only interested in Robson and Jerome might be thrilled to learn The Wildhearts did an exclusive peformance that April.
That was a rare appearance by Jack Dee on the Beeb at the time, that Christmas he was halfway through his first series for ITV, the disastrous Jack Dee's Saturday Night. This was one of the first, but by no means the last, attempts by ITV to pull in a young audience but they did it incredibly badly, a baffling mix of Jack's stand-up interspersed with Stomp, veterans like Freddie Starr and bands like Pulp and Menswear, which was supposed to appeal to all ages, but in the end appealed to nobody at all.
I reviewed the 1999 special on another website a few years now, it’s unintentionally funny for a fair few reasons - we’re at peak Cowie era reading-from-a-script style presenting from the hosts, complete with some sneery sarcasm whenever there’s some Europop on as if it’s some inferior form of music to Blokes With Guitars. Cliff Richard has a bizarre extended spoken intro to his song as if he’s one of the presenters, there’s some odd editing at points as mentioned (including a bit in the middle where the hosts disappear completely for a while and we just jump cut straight from song to song) and a moment when it all goes completely mad at the end of The Offspring’s song and the rowdy audience invade the stage, only to be abruptly interrupted by Boyzone straight after with an 80s cover version.
Yes, that 1999 Christmas show has the strangest edit, as you say the hosts abruptly disappear in the middle of a link into Robbie Williams - which is clearly not what they were actually introducing - and then three songs back to back with no further linking. Absolutely baffled me at the time.
As I said, the guest presenters were Ric Blaxill's idea - and he stuck with it even as the viewing figures went down.
One wonders how much of a factor it was in the show's move to Fridays in mid-'96...
You can probably say Top of the Pops reflected Radio 1 at the time, in that the show was clearly more credible than it had been for many years, and it was much more popular among the younger audience, and it was probably a better programme, but the mainstream audience didn't really want to know and within six months it would be dumped on Fridays. That said, of course, the original slot on Fridays between June and September was 7pm when it was only opposite ITV quizzes so it may well have been a genuine attempt to find a more sympathetic new slot for it away from Emmerdale, which was well on its way from pensioner fodder to the big soap it is today. Seemingly it was only after it didn't do any better in that slot than they shoved it to 7.30 in September.
The guest presenters were quite a good idea, but when they started doing them in 1994 it used to be that there'd be the DJs most weeks and then a guest host when it was really special, like Take That or Reeves and Mortimer. But after a while it was a guest presenter most weeks and the DJs only rarely, so they started to become distinctly less special and virtually everyone got a go at it, and it was no more interesting than the DJs half the time.
It also felt like there was a bit too much going on, you'd have a big exclusive and it would be chucked away a bit because it would be introduced by a comedian in character or an inarticulate pop star, who wouldn't be able to explain why it was a big deal. The obvious example is when Bis appeared when they were unsigned, and were introduced by MN8, so the audience would just go "well, who the hell are these?". I mean, you don't need Simon Bates to supply suitable gravitas, but there had to be a happy medium. Some of them really didn't work, either, I love The Fast Show dearly but doing a Ted and Ralph sketch in the middle of an audience of teenagers is just the weirdest concept.
Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but with Christmas Day falling on the same day the chart is revealed (Friday), Top of The Pops is on at 11:55am but the chart isn't revealed until 2pm. Does this mean that they won't show the Number 1 in the show?
It's certain they'll include the number one having had a bit of a steer, they certainly did in 2015 which was the same scenario. Actually I remember in 2015, the New Year's show was on at lunchtime on New Year's Day which seemed a useless slot, and the suggestion was that it was so they could include the new number one on that, which seemed a bit of a waste of time given they didn't do it at all for the other fifty weeks of the year. I see they're not bothering this time.
I must say, I admired Boyzone more on this show than I did 25 years ago, for their ability to kneel down for several minutes and then immediately stand up straight without struggling.