Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #66 (Pt 2): 15.3.90 – De La Stoke

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Taylor Parkes, Sarah Bee and Al Needham commence their excavation of this episode and rapidly uncover an extremely knackered Simon Mayo introducing some Pub Goth, New Kids On The Block playing some exceedingly futile basketball and trying to show off to some girls, and stare aghast as Candy Flip herald the dawning of the Age of Nadirius...Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Um... Chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop crazy youngsters And welcome to part two of episode 66 of Chart Music Here I am, Al Needham And here are my lovely dear friend Sarah B And Taylor Parks We're about to rip into this episode Here I am, Al Needham, and here are my lovely dear friend Sarah B. What's up? And Taylor Parks.

Hello there. We're about to rip into this episode. Never touched 1990 before. I'm a bit excited and a bit tremulous with anticipation. Control yourself. We've already touched upon this, chaps. We're at 1990, you know, a new decade, a new era. And there is a bit of a new era feel to this episode of Top of the Pops, isn't there? You know, there is one or two old bastards

still knocking about, but the smell of newness pervades the air on this one. Yeah, but this is definitively 90s, isn't it? This is quite clearly not the 1980s anymore. Yes. Equally, it's not the 90s that we remember. No. Is that interregnum like in full effect.

Alright then, pop craze youngsters. It's time to go back to March of 1990. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget they've been on top of the pops

more than we have. It's 7pm on Thursday, March 15th, 1990, and Top of the Pops has entered its fourth decade firmly maintaining its position as the most popular music show on British TV. It's still holding down 9.8 million viewers, just a few hundred thousand less than the

Yellow Hurl era and seeing off all contenders in the new multi-channel world. The Tube, gone. The Rocks, eh? off all contenders in the new multi-channel world the tube gone the rock set gone old grey whistle test dead the only other music shows at the moment are niche stuff like big world cafe or cheapo graveyard slot ramble like the hitman and her in america's top 40. Yes, MTV is fully operational in the UK, but there's only so many times you can sit through loving a fucking elevator

by Aerosmith. Chaps, I'd like you to peruse an article that was published in The Guardian three weeks ago. When Gene Pitney had a hit last year with the revival of Something's Got On Hold Of My Heart, he was nervous about appearing on Top Of The Pops again after all those years. Would the technology

be too complex? Would he feel out of place amongst the teenage scene shifters and stars? Arriving for rehearsals, he was swiftly reassured by the sight of a cameraman he had worked with 15 years earlier. Little has changed in the hermetically sealed environment of Top of the Pops in his 26 years. Trundling forever on, it has neither the compunction nor the momentum to change, but the format of hit after hit remains as secure as its advanced position in the ratings. You probably couldn't remove it from the schedule with two tonnes of TNT. That article, chaps, goes on to point out that the only other music show to dare encroach upon the patch of Top of the Pops is The Chart Show,

which is only available on ITV on Saturday morning and late night on Sunday. And the BBC's new batch of music TV shows, which are Rocksteady and Snub TV, are squarely aimed at cue and melody maker readers, respectively. You know, to sum it all up, chaps, in 1990, Top of the Pops continues to own

the streets of Pop Television City. Despite all the new groups and these exciting new styles, it is amazing how little has changed on Top of the Pops and Radio 1 at this point. Sarah, you're 11. This is pretty much your Top of the Pops, isn't it? Well, yeah, I mean, I would still definitely watch it every week religiously because that's what you did, you know, that was how you lived your life. But I was very much into the chart show at this point. I'm sure we've talked about it before,

but it had that slightly kind of smash-it sensibility of sort of cheek, but, you know, sort of celebration and a slight piss-take. And the format was so great, you know, it was a video and then like little captions flying up as a sort of precursor to the experience of trying to use the internet in the later 90s where if you clicked on the wrong thing there would just be a mass of pop-ups flying at your brain but you know in a good way yes just loved it it was one of those things where there's kind of there's no presenter but there's this kind of benign digital presence behind it you know so it was kind of the anti-top of the pops in some ways yeah and in in in lots of you know very good

ways it was essentially mtv in pill form wasn't it for those who didn't have the time or the dish to actually watch mtv yeah we are now two years into the reign of pauliarne, the BBC light entertainment lifer who started his BBC career directing the early 70s kids shows Zocco and Ed and Zed, who joined Top of the Pops directly from the Kenny Everett television show and Call My Bluff in 1988.

This is one of the few chances we've taken so far to see what changes is instigated. What did you notice, if anything? I mean, I've got to say the changes is instigated what did you notice if anything um i mean i've got to say the set is uh this is a great era for the set which is all kind of blue and pink his full bisexual lighting at this point you know everyone's still miming uh well the main change is made is to maximize the 30 minute slot he's been given to bung in as many acts as possible so under his watch all studio performances are no longer than three minutes and there's a two minute limit on videos it's very jive bunny in

fact in the way that it's like well if you don't like this something else is coming along in 20 seconds unfortunately he's also tried to create even more of a party atmosphere by getting the kids to granny clap incessantly throughout every fucking performance, as we're going to see as this episode plays out. Your host this week is Simon Mayo, who has been in the alpha male position on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show since May of 1988, and his 1990 has already seen decidedly mixed fortunes. Two months ago, he was voted third best DJ of the year by the readers of the Birmingham Mail,

behind Steve Wright and Bruno Brooks. That same poll voted Erasure the band of the year, and Mikhail Gorbachev the most wonderful human being in the world, just beating David Platt. He's been putting himself about on the BBC, presenting the game show Scruples and the best of magic with Anthea Turner and the great Soprendo.

But at the moment, his only bit of telly is being part of the Top of the Pops talent pool, which currently includes Jackie Brambles, Mark Goodyear, Gary Davis, Nicky Campbell and Anthea Turner. And he's been doing that job for over three years. And, chaps, to my mind, he pretty much sums up what Radio 1 wants to be in 1990. You know, he's a smartly turned out, reliable, safe pair of hands.

Yeah, and here he is hungover looking, sort of all puffy and pale and sallow, one arm tight across his stomach as though trying desperately to keep something terrible in. Quite literally holding the mayo. That is because he was doing his, if I could say he was spreading himself somewhat thinly, was Mayo at this point. He was doing the breakfast show, so he's been up since 4am. So he's just really, because I was like, blimey, Mayo looks a bit tired. And then it's like, oh yeah, no, he's doing breakfast show. He's just really, really tired.

Yeah, although it's hard to tell because the defining characteristic of Simon Mayo, in as much as he had such a thing, is that he's too smug and aloof to bring excitement or enthusiasm. And he's too straight and polite to bring any disruption or provoke any thought. You know, he is just margarine man. Yes. Or perhaps unsalted and unsweetened porridge to which neil once compared his face although al i think you provided the definitive line on a previous episode of this podcast where you said that mike smith handing over the breakfast show to simon mayo was like peter davison regenerating into

peter davis which is about right virtually no change my dear and it seems not a moment too soon don't worry the spots will get that but this is a this is a strange time for radio one and top of the pops as you were saying and simon mayo is a kind of bridge between the pipe smoking motorist djs yes and the early 90s pseudo-freshness. We're still a couple of years away from the Bannister reforms. Yeah. And Radio 1 finally saying, see you later, pig masturbator.

In a wild paedophile. And, hey, come on in to the pastel pink cotton sports jackets over paisley shirts and all that lot, you know. But when you look at it, I had a job in a factory in the summer of 1990 making carpet tiles. Right. And unfortunately, you couldn't sit there in earphones all day listening to an audio book of M.R. James collected ghost stories, which is what I'd done at my last job to escape the sexual harassment from the fag-smoking middle-aged women. But you couldn't do it,

because if you missed a bleep off the machine, you'd become underlay. So you had to listen to Radio 1, which they had playing in the factory all day, from Simon Bates' Golden Hour through Gary's unpleasant bit in the middle to the the wild anarchy of steve wright's afternoon posse and when you were listening to radio one all day it was still essentially 1974 yes you know everything was still exactly

the same every day and you did the same records on a loop all day for a couple of weeks i used to measure out my day in plays of where are you baby by betty boo which was i think the only good record they had playlisted at the time and it would come on three times a day as regular as the conveyor belt in front of me and the third play was the charm because that meant i was on the home stroke yeah and another wished away eight hours of my young life was almost gone forever woohoo so i'd be there laboring through craig mcclachlan and check one two oh and you know deacon blues necessary cover of i'll never fall in love again um river city people's necessary cover of california trip sweet memories and timmy mallet ever so necessary cover of itsy bitsy teeny

weeny yellow pocket and every time i heard betty boo it was like getting a mental tea break yes a blown kiss from a better world in the knowledge that a few more hours had been used up but simon mayo was already very present at this point yes he got the breakfast show presumably because of the association between him and porridge and looking at him now he's clearly the advanced guard of the banister years yes you know he's a little bit more intelligent than what went before him but not to the point of being able to transcend the sea of sludge in which he's set and not really bringing anything with him except a non-dlt. Yes. You know, which is a relief in the same way as someone ceasing to prod you in the ear with an unwashed, hairy wanger. But, you know, he never really seemed like his heart was in it.

No. You know what I mean? He just swans about as if all this is slightly beneath him, but only slightly. slightly beneath him but only slightly and you know it really you'd rather be watching a middle brow costume drama or buying a tart o citron from m&s or embarking on a pilgrimage to the holy land oh yes for that clip on the video playlist because of course as the years pass it only becomes more amazing oh my god no i'm you see i'm fine with that i'm fine with you know the the the relief that you feel every time it cuts back to him where you know that you're not going to be made to feel uncomfortable yeah you know he's nobody's favorite top of the pops

presenter but there aren't the kind of wanky flourishes there's no making a thing of how he's simon mayo and this is his top of the pops yes you know he's got a nice easy relaxed kind of presenting style which is fine he's got that slight dryness he's got that slight sort of reserve he's not a sort of capering buffoon but a guy in a suit standing slightly apart from what's going on which like i said with you know considering what the alternatives can and have been it's fine by me i think that only one person in the history of tough the pops ever succeeded in synthesizing the kind of capering buffoon and dry guy personas and that was julian cope oh sarah let it go he's not coming back he was so good at it his

contemporaries um you know bruno brooks and mark goodyearis but they had that zany whizzy chart rundown delivery that just made you tired god yeah and you know just it tired me from from the ears inwards and so yeah i'm quite pro mayo really even with his kind of amazing bart simpson square hair yes i mean he is one of the next generation of djs who who scaled the career path that had been laid out by the Utrecht generation. And yeah, the only vaguely wacky thing he ever did on Top of the Pops was when he did an episode a couple of months ago in sunglasses

because he was suffering from conjunctivitis and was therefore hiding his puffy, weeping eyes. Yeah, he followed that career path right to the point of being 65 and doing an interview with the Daily Mail about how awful the PPC is. Welcome to the Pops, a good rock and roll edition for you tonight.

We have three debut performances before 7.30. And now we start with a band who are appearing at Manchester Apollo tonight. And then they're at Wembley next week. They're at number 27 doing Deliverance. We're at number 27, doing Deliverance. Would you welcome, please, the top of the pubs, The Mission. We're treated to the rolling, roiling, synthetic stab of The Wizard by Paul Hardcastle, which is approaching its fifth anniversary and sounds as much of a relic of the wrong half of the 80s as an SDP rosette.

And a bit of graphical trickery which was introduced in early 1989, where the computer-generated saxophophones cassettes and guitars have been replaced by a neon 3d maze with the only graphical nod to the show being assorted flying death stars with numbers on them underwhelming as always the theme and the graphics both of them could have been tacked on to pretty much any kid show of the time and no one would have noticed, would there? Yeah. The logo spins away to be replaced by another spinny effect that gives us the point of view of a fly with a damaged wing,

uncontrollably hurling towards Mayo, who was turned up in a horrible dark suit and blue shirt with paisley bits on it, buttoned right up, holding the mic in his right hand with his left hand clutched to his stomach as if he's about to suffer a monumental attack of diarrhoea. Simon Mayo looks like he's just put his headless bass down and walked away from the rest of Johnny Hayes jazz, don't you think? As assorted very young- looking kids stand around him already clapping

and whooping he says welcome to the pops we've got a rock and roll episode for you tonight after pointing out that there are going to be three debut performances in this episode he introduces us to a band who have got to get their arses up to Manchester the minute they lay their instruments down. It's the mission with deliverance. Formed in Leeds in 1985, the Sisterhood were a splinter group formed by Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams after they left the Sisters of Mercer and took their road crew and equipment with them. They named the band after their previous group's fan community and then recruited Mick Brown from Red Laurie Yellow Laurie and Simon Hinkler from the Sheffield

post-punk band Artery. While they prepared to play their first gig in London and do a session on the Janice Long Show at the beginning of 1986, their former front person Andrew Eldridge, who was well dischuffed with their band name, registered the name The Sisterhood for himself, recorded a single called Giving Ground under that name, and released it on the day of the new band's gig. and Craig Adams band for a couple of weeks until they settled upon The Mission, which was either a nod to Hussie's upbringing as a Mormon in Bristol or the band's favourite brand of speakers, depending on who you talk to. They were immediately recruited as a support act for the Cult's European tour and put out two LPs on the Chapter 22 label, which got to number 70 and number 49 on the singles chart respectively. But after they signed a seven-album deal with Mercury in the autumn of 1986, their next release, Stay With Me, got to number 30 in October of that year. This, their ninth

single, is the follow-up to Butterfly on a Wheel, which got to number 12 in January of this year. It's the second cut from their new LP, Carved in Sand, which came out last month. It entered the charts at number 30 last week, and this week it's nipped up three places to number 27. And here they are, fresh from two nights at Bradford St. George's Hall on their latest tour to get the party started. Poor Mission. They've had to be straight into bed after their gig

and forgo the pleasures of Bradford at night, then up in the morning, schlep it down to London, sit about in Television Centre all day, and then straight off to the next gig. Didn't get to see the Trocadero or buy any souvenirs of lady die or nothing poor bastards well they'd have been so drunk it wouldn't have made any difference to them at all so the mission gotta say they meant absolutely fuck all to me then or now i mean at a push i'd have said they were shaking model army they had too much of the whiff of stale snake bite for for

my liking oh just a bit yeah what a fucking mess i mean he looks like he was in bed and amazon banged on the door to get there in the six seconds before they left but at every level here it's the overwhelming sense of people just not trying which can be okay when it's talented people but when it's slovenly piss hot it's god bless them pumping out this cloud of nothing and of course it's the worst of both worlds as is so often the case with these bands it's it's wearyingly grandiose but that grandiosity is so thin a facade you can actually smell the piss and vomit coursing behind it i mean i appreciate this is very much the low end of goth but it's like putting gargoyles on an outside toilet it's like first of all are we just

supposed to not notice that this is gimme shelter stripped of everything that's stupendously great about it or even stripped of everything that's not complete shit about it because we are going to notice i'm sorry the spirit of the stones hangs over this episode doesn't it it's more that this episode is splattered with the droppings of the Rolling Stones. Yes. The guano of the Rolling Stones in a cave. The first Gulf War, children. It's just a belt, children. It doesn't

help that Wayne Huss is turned up as if he's going on copycats to take off late period Ozzy Osbourne. There's him, there's loads of pink and blue neon, there's loads of dry ice, there's loads of leather jackets blue neon. There's loads of dry ice. There's loads of leather jackets with fringe in it. This isn't the 1990 I ordered.

Send it back. Yeah. He's barefoot as well. Barefoot on top of the pops. Don't be barefoot. What do you think you're doing? Yeah, even Sandy Shaw wasn't barefoot the last time she was on top of the pops. Right.

And if she can be bothered to put shoes on so should you young man little sticky prints being left on the shiny oh everyone else going on there's got to wear a veruca sock now haven't the thing is that this is meant to have clearly the chorus is meant to be epic and big and sweeping but it's not how it works right you can't just go gimme three times and say something biblical twice and call it a day. You just can't. This presumes to stand among the great gimmies of our time. Yes. Gimme, gimme shock treatment.

Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight. Yes. Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues. Gimme more. Gimme all you're loving. Gimme that thing. Gimme that thing. And it's a powerful command.

If you're going to invoke the rock and roll gimme you better have the chops yes to back it up which clearly they they do not have although i mean i'll hand it to him wayne hussey great name it's like garth's trumpet oh wayne he's in a bit of a subversive mood this week isn't it as we'll discover and on top of the pops he's being subversive by a flicking the v sign which he cunningly alters to the p sign and b not noticing or pretending not to notice that his mic slipped off the top of the stands and drooping down which to me ruins the effect of a skillful and passionate live performance but but you know the bbc can cover all that up because they've got a new box of tricks they've got a still new quantel paintbox v series which provides a thrilling diorama of close-up twanging of strings and hitting of drums and and also the

lads on the floor they've got a new toy haven't they a handheld camera which means they can get right up the front without plowing through the kids as if they were in a panzer but it also means that they can jump up on stage give us a lingering view up the nostrils of wayne husset and then leg it off when the camera view changes which gets in the way of everything yeah yeah i preferred it when they were just rolling through the audience like tiananmen, you know, just sending the kids scattering. If you had Top of the Pops now, you could just fly drones about the place.

Gotcha. When there's not much to say about a performance, you end up kind of, you know, thinking around it. And in the course of looking up songs with Gimme in them, obviously there's a lot, I discovered that Gimme Shelter was covered by both Puddle of Mud and Stone Sour, which is an upsetting fact that you now know.

It's like they heard Gimme Shelter and went, this is all right, but I think we can improve it. Yeah. Fucking hell. It's one of those things where there's no need for this to exist at all. Nobody there looks like they really have a burning desire to be there. But the kids are already granny clapping though, aren't they? They're all being cattle prodded to do the granny clapping. as one one gentleman kind of had his own take on it which is sort of

like tory party conference applause yes it's kind of appropriate for this record though i don't know the the whole goth thing meant nothing to me no when i was growing up it was pretty much the default for kids who didn't want to dress off the high street, you know, or didn't want to listen to whatever was in the charts. But it just seemed obviously worse than either of those things to me. It meant nothing to me because I couldn't see that it meant anything full stop, apart from a dress up, which is fine. But a dress up's meant to be fun. And I'm sure a lot of these goths had a whale of a time. But to me, it just seemed like neither one thing nor the other.

It was mopey and gloomy. But at the same time, there was a fundamental lack of seriousness about it. You know what I mean? And I never liked the music or the feeling I got off the music. I just couldn't see the appeal. I've had it on good authority that for a lot of goth girls, the appeal was creating a look. that for a lot of goth girls the appeal was creating a look and for a lot of goth lads the appeal was that look of the girls because in the 80s it wasn't really the done thing for women who consider themselves a bit alternative man to go with the elaborate makeup and corsets and lace

and heels and all that stuff and you can't really blame hormonal young men for being drawn towards that and when i was a teenager i copped off with quite a lot of gothy girls despite being resolutely anti-goth because out in the sticks if you weren't 100 mainstream in your tastes you had to stick together and i think a lot of these girls just looked at me because I got like a leather jacket on and Chelsea boots. And I just thought, oh, that's close enough. You know what I mean? And I always had some respect for the full-on goths who got into the black magic and the weird lifestyles

and actually made their own lives much more difficult because at least that's the direction of travel. And if you get to go to an orgy in a broken-in-two church or something like that, who's complaining? You know what I mean? It's more constructive than getting into level 42, isn't it? Or it's less evil than joining the young farmers. But for the most part, I couldn't understand it.

And if they were all so obsessed with death, how come they all smoked silk cut? I couldn't see it. Have some courage of your convictions i thought you know smoke smoke filthless camels and end up wheezing through your ears when you're 35 like i do i mean the mission to these eyes then and now they look massively out of date by the spring of 1990 but no they're quite go ahead they cultivated a rabidly dedicated audience who would go out and buy anything they put out on week one which got them into the charts and for the past year or so they've been dropping a phone number

in their fan club newsletter and a date and every other month the band meets up in someone's house for the day and set a load of phones up and whoever rings them up they'll answer and they'll talk to them so you know people will ring them up asking them questions about their songs when they're touring next they'll be asking wayne hussey for relationship advice and you know find out what cars are driving at the moment and in some cases asking wayne hussey if he'd write a song for someone's wedding it was no 0898 two pound a minute bollocks you just ring up and talk to a member of the mission for a bit some of the other members used to get really fucked off because they could hear the the disappointment in people's voices when they realized they weren't talking to wayne yeah people ring up what's james whale really like

so this is there was high goth and there was low goth and the mission are the classic example of the latter you know at least with the high end like maybe what the sisters of mercy there's like some attempt to sculpt an aesthetic structure which could realistically be described as gothic you know like elaborate and intense rather than graceful but this is the low. It's just people trying to look solemn and mysterious while pissing cheap lager into a bus shelter. You know what I mean? Who needs it? It's what got my goat in the old days,

like the low end of goths, just imbeciles stumbling around in army boots and faded black jeans and a band T-shirt with their hair dyed black and hair sprayed up you know i mean i'd always give props to a goth who's made an effort right regardless of whether they look magnificently vampiric or you know like somebody works at b and q who's tripped over a tin of paint and rolled through the neck curtain because at least it's something you know what i mean but this stuff it's just about not trying at all and expecting people to think you're something you know with your spooky finger waggling on stage you know give me a break and it's the most insultingly

easy music as well it's a very pernicious influence on bands or it was you know this sort of stuff you don't have to work out an arrangement you don't have to really write a song you certainly don't have to generate any heat or funk when you play there's no musical ideas necessary you just switch on the flanger pedal just hit a big minor chord and let it ring and hope you're carried along on the dry ice you know it's shameful really i'm all for music that doesn't require skill when it's a way to enable people with great ideas and limited musicianship to create something beautiful or funny or exciting or thought-provoking but this shit at best enables people with fuck all to say and fuck all to offer to get up on stage and pose and to pollute the culture with even more windy narcissism while pulling a face like they're dispensing the secrets of the great beyond.

You know, there's a reason why nobody listens to this music these days. It is just sludge. It's the lowest level of rock and roll it's lower than the holiday camp circuit because at least there you need something to make you stand out even if it's just a dog that barks every time you do a magic trick yes the mission should have had a roomy old whip it on stage that shats itself after every song. Although I guess if you were at a Mission gig, it probably felt like they did.

It is definitely pub goth as opposed to, like, dungeon goth. Like, it's the drip tray rather than the goblet. And if you're doing a single called Deliverance and there's no banjo on it, what the fuck are you playing at? Or Wayne Hussey's not squealing like a pig?

Bad start to the show, this is. So the following week, Deliverance stayed at number 27 before dropping to number 55 and they're right out of the charts. The follow-up, Into the Blue, got to number 30 in June and they'd rammed off 1990 with Hands Across the Ocean getting to number 28 in November. But one night after this episode was aired, a massively K-like Wayne Hussey was driven from a mission gig in Sheffield to the Radio Air Studios in Leeds to appear live on the Jamesames whale radio show on late night itv where he swigged from a bottle of black tower took offense at having his horoscope done on a computer and dropped three

fucks three fuckings two fuck offs two shits and two pillocks in four minutes and 20 seconds before being escorted off the premises by whale after he lopped both of his shoes at a camera or brazen hussy if you will we've seen this haven't we is that why he was barefoot on top of the pops he'd just come from throwing his shoes at someone who was trying to interview him yeah he went and asked for them back. James Whale went, no. The two famous ones was this, and the other was Rob Newman of Newman & Baddiel getting escorted from the studio for mocking James Whale's mother's terminal illness or something. It was a...

Class act. Yeah, I know. Well, people thought it was a great idea to sort of load the green room with cans of lager, I suppose. Yeah. Or maybe it's just putting a live show on that late at night. People turn up, you know, having pre-loaded. But great fun for the viewers. Somebody said, fuck off. Yeah, if you were 12 years old and you saw this, fuck, you know, you'd have been the king of the playground on Monday morning.

this. Fuck you know you'd have been the king of the playground on Monday morning. The funniest bit was when the astrologer turned up to do his reading on the computer and Hussey took his hat off and put it on top of James Whale. James Whale just looks like the fucking shopkeeper in Mr Ben. In an interview on the Channel 4 Robo Chat Show Star Test a year later Hussey said that he was convinced he was going to be stitched up by whale so he went in hard with the swears as soon as the interview started because i i don't fucking know Let's dance together Let's dance together Great start to the mission of deliverance Now everybody eventually goes to a big ballad phase We kids on the block have gone exceedingly early It's a new entry at number 11

And I'll be loving you forever I love you, I love you, I love you I love you, I love you, I love you Mayo, standing amongst the kids, tells us that every band eventually goes through a big ballad phase, punctuating the words with splayed fingers in the ear like he was explaining fireworks to a toddler he then tells us that the next group have entered that phase surprisingly early it's new kids on the block and i'll be loving you open brackets forever close brackets we chanced upon Nakotba in chart music number 30

when they scored their first number one with You Got It, The Right Stuff in November of 1989. And this is the follow-up to their re-release of Hanging Tough, which also got to number one for two weeks in January of this year. It's the third cut to be released in the UK from their second LP, Hanging Tough, and was their first number one in America last June. And it sees the rapping Osmonds

taking a break from throwing down hardcore lyrics and electing instead to lay down some smooth R&B for the tenderonis. It's a new entry this week at number 11. And as they've got a gig on at the Nassau Coliseum in New York tonight, here's the video, which was shot in and around the Xavier High School in NYC. And chaps, in the last episodes, we had a good laugh at the Colonials, didn't we, for being half a year behind us when it came to the new style, even on their own records.

But, oh dear, the tables have considerably turned and we're still coming to grips with the kids, aren't we? Yeah, but they're still living in the 80s. That's the thing. It's like, so for a couple more years, it's still the 80s in America. Yes. it's still the 80s in america yes you know in the same way that it was the 70s in america until about 1983 because they didn't have punk not as a as a national novelty yeah with a an even more immediate and obvious effect on clothes than pop music right it's the same it's it took until a few years into the 90s for america to cut off itsullet, you know. Because fashions don't move that fast in America because it's too big.

Yeah. If you look at American mass culture in the early 90s, it was still stuff like America's Top Ten with Tommy Puitt. Do you remember him? Did you ever see that guy? He was like this American heartland caricature. He was still dressed like the Breakfast Club. Right. He might as well have

been sucking on chili dog outside the tasty freeze he had snow washed jeans high top trainers spiky mullet cap sleeve t-shirt rigid adherence to corporate agenda to the max dude um and he's like you know he's giving it all the sort of old school smarm but with attitude so he'd say like uh that was rock set taking a joy ride it just that really hung on in the states for a few more years and it just slowly evolved from i love my corporate agenda to uh my corporate gender makes me very sad i think I'll have some tasty heroin. But it was a slow process. Yeah, Jordan is sporting a Batman sweatshirt under his leather jacket. Yes.

A really up-to-the-minute film ref. Yeah. Although, however out of time they feel here, they're actually more of a clue to the future than the heralds of the Daisy Age who turn up later. If you want to know where pop music and pop culture are going in the medium term this tells you a lot more you know this is like hunks you like like providing that strange kind of comfort and just non-threatening boys yeah their

career just happening like a rock thrown into a pond that disappears under the water without leaving a ripple you know they're following a plan and the arrow points straight at the wall but they have to keep following it just bumping off again and again until they finally knock themselves out and are heard no more

this is where all that begins you know that kind of boy band so over here they've had two number ones on the bounce with their hardcore stylings but like their equal ll cool j the kids are not afraid to display their soft ass side and you know when this came out i thought they'd made a right mistake going all slushy but in actual fact this what we're listening to here was the single that put them over in america so what the fuck did i know it's a slow jam you know this is a um it's a school disco

shuffle yes it's quite a sort of um gloopy american sunday somehow they've they've managed to cram more sugar into one dessert than you could ever imagine was possible some sort of ultra synthesized corn syrup yes in musical form yeah i mean by this time they are the ultimate boys in a bag aren't they sarah are you concerned with them at the time i had hopefully i still have like a japanese bootleg set of their first album which is just an excellent object you know don't know how i ended up with that but yeah that was a thing that is cooler than i was at the time in a weird way but um boys in a bag i always think of as distinctly british yes americans it's different even if they're shit there's always a certain sharpness and ease and assurance about

americans doing show business it's like it's their thing you know this kind of looks really sloppy now to our eyes because we know what came after just became more and more and more super sharp and super tight you know and you know the choreography and the the songwriting everything just entered like a new era so yeah they they do look very 1988 in yes american terms you know it's almost like acid house never happened um but you know fine were they a big deal at your school i don't think they were really no i mean they were american i don't remember them being a big deal at all oh yanks coming over here oh no we don't we don't take kindly don't take kindly to them them americans chewing gum or did they appeal to like even younger kids i know what you mean though the like at this point

british boy bands even the pretty ones still have that slightly dickensian undernourished look you got from kids that have been raised in the austerity years you know i mean whereas these look healthy i mean this might be the introduction of developed musculature into teen pop you know i mean like we've already seen bobby brown going shirtless to show off the fact that his stomach looks like a Klingon scalp. But these have got to be the first white bread pop stars who look a bit gymmed up, you know, in this genre. I mean, I'm not counting Man O' War. But I mean, like, Bross were just sort of skinny rather than beef.

Yeah. You know, and A-Ha certainly looked like they couldn't tell one end of a barbell from another. Not that actually it really matters, because both end of a barbell from another not that actually it really matters because both ends of a barbell are identical that's kind of the point but you know what i'm saying i mean prior to this the only way you'd have found yourself using the word abs in connection with any of these teenybop stars was if it was short for abnormalities. Abnormalities of a sexual nature. I mean, it's Donny, really, who is bringing that energy

and the sort of the rippedness. There is the sort of emergent, you know, each one of them is a different kind of character. Really? Yeah, I think so. I mean, Donny is kind of the bad boy. Right. Obviously, Donny Wahlberg.

To me, they all look like a load of potsies waiting for the Fonz to come along and tell them what to do well it's funny because they are the other ones are kind of all the sensitive guy there's kind of the one who looks like ross from friends and jordan who is your main guy out front who is quite you know kind of not a hard lad you know but also joey who was 17 here i think he was only 13 when he was signed to new kids on the block right it's all he's ever known oh pop fact born in needham massachusetts was he now oh yeah there you go but yeah he really looks in this video um he's he's very baby-faced anyway and he he looks like he's just wandered in from the set of bugsy malone like you know they're in the pool hall and it's

like you're even old enough to be in here you expect him to start going we could have been anything that we wanted to be shooting up the pool hall with like gobs of whipped cream from a massive tommy gun so you wanna be in a boy band there can you help me out here because like i've had a good old look at new kids on the block here in an attempt to tell them apart um i didn't want to google them because i felt that would demean me and by extension the listeners so if i just give you the evidence of my eyes um maybe you could tell me which one's which right because i don't know there's the one who looks like if you fed all the levi's jeans models of the late 80s into a neural network along with a handful of human feces and asked it to work out

an average there's the one i remember most from the time with the big shield shaped face who looks like ross from friends if he'd just woken up from 34 hours sleep. And he's got a big block head and a rat's tail hanging out the back of it. So it looks like the rat is wedged into his skull, gnawing at the part of the brain that controls not being a cheesy douchebag. I think that's Danny. Okay. He's the one who looks like a photograph of ollie gunner solshar

taken on the day his parents bought him his first pair of proper boots i think that's donnie right there's the big one with a side parted mullet um which is an often forgotten variation on the theme that one's donnie okay that's donnie. Donnie looks like Mark Wahlberg, the actor, who was in New Kids on the Block for about five minutes and then was booted out unceremoniously. Went to the gym. Yeah. And then there's the fair-haired one

with the sort of blow-wave Roberto Baggio haircut, like non-divine ponytail and nutty hamster cheeks. The one that's got curly hair people some people have curly hair taylor and that's like weird and wacky and stuff but you know that's just what some people have to work with they haven't done it on purpose to annoy you 30 years later so basically they're all donny no it's it's funny because i was never you know i did have i had i had their first album i wasn't like a squealing fan but i i somehow because that's kind of how it works with boy bands i do

remember i i had to look up some a couple of the names but i remember jordan joey and donnie so i was like who are the others roly and and Craig, except it's American, so you pronounce it Craig. But no, I believe it's Jordan, Joey, Donny, Danny and John. Confusingly. Have you ever screamed at anyone at a gig? I have, you know, I have bellowed my appreciation in the time-honoured fashion. Oh, you're a woman, you're allowed to. Oh, yeah, of course.

I've always wanted to scream at a gig and i can't bring myself to do it actually no i tell a lie i tell an absolute lie 1992 earls court prince oh yeah of course and he did his usual pieces obviously didn't want to go back to the 80s but he thought oh you know what i'll do a bit of a sex you know i'm here now might as well get on with it and he uh he went down on his mic stand and he laid the mic stand down and started crawling on all fours you know with his tongue wiggling and this scream just went up amongst a load of people who were too old and too cool for that shit and one of them was me i just went ah it's fucking brilliant i've never wet myself at a gig but you know there's still time it'll probably happen if i can start going to gigs in a few years time

eventually those two axes are going to meet in the middle and i've never thrown a knicker it's just not my it's not ideal. No. I crowd surfed once. Really? One time I did a, yeah, I fucking crowd surfed. Yeah, yeah, because I wanted to do it one time. Who to? It was to my fave Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. And you'd think, you can't crowd surf to them, but whatever.

It was at Glastonbury. Fortunately, I didn't get groped or dropped on my head or any of the things that could happen. So, and that was the one time and I will never do that again. At least I have done it the once. But anyway, new kids on the block. According to this week's NME, the deluge of Nakotba is only just beginning in the UK

because they've announced a new line of action figures that are fully poseable, so you could break into your little sister's bedroom and create a gay orgy tableau or make a human centipede out of them. According to the NME, the dolls come fully equipped for the good life. They sport earrings, ponytails, rings, hats and bracelets,

while also on display is a toy instrument playset along with girls' fashion accessories, a new kid's telephone, a play microphone and a cassette player but not everyone in the uk is succumbing to the new kids invasion in the singles review section of smash hits in january of this year matt goss was given hanging tough and said i think this is one of those records where, unfortunately, white boys are trying to sound black and not succeeding. I know them and I like the guys, but I just feel that their managers make them work so hard

and at the end of the day, they don't write, they don't produce, they were auditioned for the band and I think it's unfair sometimes on them as people. But they're nice chaps. Sorry. And as you can imagine, there's been an absolutely massive backlash on the Smash Hits letters page. I'm writing to tell you that Matt Goss is a total prat. How dare he slag off new kids on the block writes a nakotba

fan fighting against racism apart from being rude he was also racist what happened to this all colors are equal stuff he sang correction screeched in black and white on their new LP. What a hypocrite. All I can say is I hope none of your fans, very few considering you couldn't fill Wembley Stadium, ever scream for you again. I hope you lose all your fans for being a racist hypocrite. Ross's latest single, Madly In Love, entered the charts at number 15 last week.

This week, number 14. The accountant's about to find out that they've overspent by three quarters of a million pounds. They owe American Express 58,000 quid. Their former management are about to put in a damages claim for 1.2 million. And Matt's attempt to sell off his flat in Maida Vale has been commented on by the Daily Mirror thusly. Matt has spent £240,000 on the flat

and unrealistically expects to sell it for more. But the truth is, no grown-up would want it. He painted the entire flat in his favourite sky-blue colour, a shade so lurid that no-one can stomach looking at it for more than a few minutes. Oh, dear. Poor Bross, forgotten about. Anyway, the video.

So, they're all malingering around a school, loping about in front of some traditional graffiti, which is, you know, just scrawling. And then they have a bit of a sing while some teenage models look on. And then they remind you how urban they are by flinging a basketball at each other or against a really high wall, which is fucking stupid, man. That really upset me, that did.

They're not even playing Wall-E or Kirby or anything. There's no basket either, so they can neither win nor lose. Stupid. Someone's cheaping out on the video here man that really upset me that did they're not even playing wall-e or kirby or anything there's no basket either so they can neither win nor lose stupid someone's cheaping out on the video here because they're in that same studio that they always use like there's another whatever video they had out last time this is exactly the same setup and the same cat and stuff yeah yeah and they only have three microphones to go around i mean maybe they're doing that kind of classic thing where you know there's guys yeah yeah there's only three microphones and there's no basketball basket and you know i bet they couldn't they probably weren't old enough to drink in america because america is insane god no

so you know they go to the pool hall and just drink mineral water yeah showing the ladies how to play pool yeah they sort of mooch about a bit and then they all share a pizza at the end to prove that, despite their success, they've not forgotten how to put food into their own mouths and chew it. And you remember the last Nacotiba video we saw on here, one of them was wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt. Yes. In this video, one of them's wearing a T-shirt

which looks as if it says, South Today, the name of the BBC regional news programme for the south of England. Wow. Which is an even hipper. Regional news in your area. Fucking hell. An even hipper and more niche Anglophile reference. God, yeah.

I think that's what it says. It's got those words and there's a picture of someone underneath, which I assume is Sally Taylor. Yes. Can't be 100% sure. That's kind of like Japanese T-shirts that have sort of random English words on them, isn't it? Just completely out of context.

Yeah, if they were being hipster and ironic, it would be a picture of Tom Coyne or Bob Warman. The thing is, you can tell what they're supposed to look like and what their image is meant to be. But in terms of how it actually connects when you watch it it feels more like a compare has come on and said ladies and gentlemen please give him a warm hand here to tap dance for you little bastard and on comes a kid with a bowl cut in a bow tie and a velvet jacket with a fixed grin and fear in his heart the problem is not that

they're a manufactured group man or any of that stuff it's just a matter of what's here and what comes across when you're pure showbiz there's stuff you can do there's a lot of stuff you can do and get away with and then there's stuff that you just can't get away with. And New Kids on the Block always very, very keen on the stuff that you just can't get away with if you're this sort of group. And it's a bit depressing, you know. It's stuff like this that gives exploitation a bad name. It's like what Neil said before. When you love pop, you want the top band of the era to be fucking astonishing.

And I'm not feeling that here with this lot no no although speaking of the smash hits letters page i was looking at the smash hits for this very week that this top of the pops went oh yes and there's a bit of a mini war between swallow anything pop fans and sort of snobby little indie kids who haven't yet made the jump to the inkies quite um yes so there's a letter from an un-stereotyped stone roses and house of love fan west germany who uh doesn't reckon new kids on the block and lives up to their pen name by busting those stereotypes and writing what really flipped me was that letter from the West Coast posse that reckon the Stone Roses are unoriginal.

I can only say one thing to them. Crap! Crawl back into your sheds, look stupid, rip out your voice boxes, form a group and become famous. After all, that's what New Kids on the Block did. Oh, yes. What sort of idiot you'd have to be to think the Stone Roses were unoriginal. But directly underneath, there's an instant fight back

from Jordan's Lucky Charms in Gwent, who writes, May we just say to the Stone Roses fan from the real world that it is not hanging tough, which is crap, but fool's gold. At least gorgeous John Knight hasn't got hair like hippies, as the Stone Roses do. Good point, well made. At least new kids don't jump around wearing flares, which were only popular in caveman days. The Stone Roses song portrays them perfectly.

Fools! So to the first letter I would hold up two cards saying six and eight, and to the second letter I would hold up two cards saying seven and nine oh if only barry took had read out the fucking music press letters pages man yeah all those uh voices they used to use on yes who all sounded posh because nobody else wrote a letter to points of view i always wanted to write a letter and say dear BBC, I live on a council estate in East London And just to see what kind of voice they'd read it out in Yeah, at least what the papers say had a bit of range to them

Oh yeah, for the tabs Well the only way to do it really is the Eurotrash way Which is just to do the broadest possible regional access Yes Dear BBC, points of view Fuck off So the following week Dear BBC points of view, fuck off. So the following week, I'll Be Loving You Forever jumped six places to number five, but no further, oh dear.

The follow-up and the final single release from the Hanging Tough LP, Cover Girl, got to number four for two weeks in May, and then there was an absolute deluge of nakoppa. They started their magic summer tour in the weeks in May, and then there was an absolute deluge of Nakopa. They started their magic summer tour in the UK in May, selling tour programmes at £10 each, released their third LP Step By Step in June, and banged out four UK top ten hits during the rest of the year. After dropping off the radar in the UK at the end of 1991 they split up in 1995 reunited in 2008 are still going today and have just announced a summer tour with salt and pepper on vogue and rick astley that is in fact the new super group. Yes. New Kids on the Block, Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue and Rick Astley together at last with a new single.

Very familiar to viewers of Mike Reed's Heritage Chart Show. Yes. Yes, indeed. This was one of the actual highlights of the Heritage Chart Shows that I've seen. This new single called Bring Back the Time, which is a comment on nostalgia that is also nostalgic in itself. They haven't spent an awful lot on the video but they have spent you know some certainly nothing on it so it does it looks like it belongs on the heritage chart show because it just looks like it's been lit by

supermarket overhead lights they've got rick astley as as david burn and jordan as billy idol and joey as robert palmer with um on vogue as his lady backing band. The kind of sultry ladies at the back. And it is both ironic and sincere which is a hell of a thing to pull off especially given most of the people involved are American. They're very niftily doing a post-modern song about

nostalgia and desperation and they've actually sent themselves up quite nicely. And it's a good song. I am actually full of admiration for them at this point i think they've played an absolute blinder and you know if i was going to stuff then i would definitely consider going to see this tour because you know holy shit what a line although it is a bit like a pop version of the wild geese back together for one last job but i mean it's less humiliating

than talking to Mike Reid over Zoom in a hat with a straight face and pretending your new record is going to have some kind of impact beyond your wife giving you a kiss on the cheek and telling you she's a million for you. It's just so much. And they're very nice to their grandparents as well, apparently.

That's new kids on the block. Okay, our first look at the charts now, 40 to 31. And our first new entry there at number 40, Read My Lips from Ginny Somerville. White Snake and the Deep of the Love, this week's number 39. Kate Bush and Love and Anger goes up to this week's 38.

At 37, Advice for the Young at Heart from Tears for Fears. You at 36, Everything Starts With an E from the EZ Posse. Lonnie Gordon, Happening All Over Again. This week's number 35. And you at 34, Birdhouse In Your Soul from They Might Be Giants.

Electrive 101, Talking With Myself. At 33, this one. 32, Dude Looks Like A Lady from Aerosmith. And up to 31, Hold Back The River from Wet, Wet, Wet. Okay, now pay attention, please. Here comes a band who've never

ever been on television before. Not just not top of the pops, never been on television. It's their first hit single, Candy Flip and Strawberry Fields Forever. Let me take you down Cause I know it's It's not how it feels May I take you down? Mayo, on the balcony flanked by two females, one of which is sporting one of them techly T-Folk hats that are the style in the spring of 1990, studded with what looks like the bathroom tiles in the Banana Splits house,

remarks that nakoppa are very nice to their grandparents as well before whipping us into the first quarter of the brand new top 40 yeah that girl's hat looks like she smashed a rubik's cube in frustration yes and all the pieces flew up in the air and embedded themselves in a cow's bladder that she had on her head. Is this the sort of Mondrian shower cap? That's what I've got on my nose. By the way, females. Yes.

Put in deliberately to rile you, Sarah. Thanks. That's all right. Look, the only people who are allowed to call women females are cops and the narrators of nature documentaries. Right. I'll bear that in mind so think on okay the band picks alas are tediously adequate jimmy soverville white snake tears for fears aerosmith kate bush welcome to the new decade everyone back on the balcony mayo tells us that the next band have never been on any sort of television before.

Not Police 5, not the Bandung File, not even Supermarket CCTV, but by God, they're here now. It's Candy Flip with Strawberry Fields Forever. Formed in Stoke-on-Trent in 1988, Yin Yang were a Pet Shop Boys-influenced duo who originally met at a music production course in Manchester called Danny Spencer, a house DJ and former Midlands breakdancing champion otherwise known as Dizzy D, and Rick Peat, whose man was in the Vernon's Girls, the 60s group that mutated into the Ladybirds, the in-house backing singers for Top of the Pops in the 70s. As Spencer was already part of a house collective called This Ain't Chicago, who were signed to a phonogram offshoot label, they were picked up by them. But after they discovered that the head of A&R thought they were cat shit and had lobbed their latest demo tape out of a window they signed to debut records the home of Toto Coelho and MC Micah G and DJ Sven and changed their name to Candy Flip because drugs their first single Love Is Life came out

late last year but failed to get any airplay, possibly due to the lads shouting, It's mental, it's mencle, in a Cockney accent. So they went back to the drawing board, put out their next single, and started to cast around for a B-side. One fateful night, they were driving back to Stoke after a night at the Hacienda, were driving back to Stoke after a night at the Hacienda, found a French radio station, heard it play the 1967 Beatles single that was held off number one by Release Me by Engelbert Humperdinck, looked at each other with their mouths presumably hanging open and knew exactly what they had to do. Get their arse back to Dizzy D's dad's garage in Stoke, and spend eight hours doing a soft lad cover of it, with a funky drummer sample whacked over the top.

After being rinsed in clubs, but not the hacienda to the chagrin of the lads, it was released last week, and it's immediately shot into the charts at number 18, and they've immediately been hustled into the top of the pop studio to caper about like emissaries from a future eden holy shit here we are this would be the definitive holy shit this is yes the tsar bomber of horrified disbelief it's like the beatles on acid yes 23 years of progress has led us to this moment i mean bearing in mind that whether intentionally or not this is less a pop record than a piece of trolling. Yes.

I can remember at the time being pointlessly and predictably vocal about this record. Not surprised. Walking straight into it, as it were. And I remember someone saying to me, and not for the last time, yeah, but kids have never heard the original. This is all new to them.

Like, as if the Beatles' back catalogue was some hidden jewel. And as if I wasn't 17 myself, you know what I mean? Yeah. But more than that, I thought, yeah, but this is like giving someone an asbestos sandwich because they've never tasted cheese. Yes. On top of which, I couldn't quite get with the idea

that the appropriate attitude to musical history and heritage was not to learn from it and move on, or to ignore it, or to try and tear it down, but to keep on repackaging it a little bit weaker and a little bit worse every time to meet the cultural and commercial demands of a deteriorating society now call me old-fashioned but you know and all these decades later it doesn't matter and i'd like to look at candy flip and just chuckle and applaud demonically you know but you remember that conceit of uh the doruti column they put their first album but an idea they borrowed from the futurists right they released

their first lp in a sandpaper sleeve so that when you filed it away it scratched and it ruined all the sleeves of the albums around it as a as an artistic statement and a gesture of contempt towards uh you know like the historians or the librarians concept of pop music it was like they were getting ready to fuck over jiran jiran isn't it but the thing is this is like that except the sandpaper is also on the inside. Yes. Against the soul. I mean, yeah, you're right, Taylor. It's put an absolute cat amongst the pigeons, hasn't it? According to the news section of this week's NME,

the chairman of the Beakles Appreciation Society has given a wacky Mac a thumbs up, but Matt Goss has said, this record should never have been made. A cat amongst the pigeons indeed this is basically the reason ultimately that uh that taylor voted for this yes of course it is he wanted to talk shit about candy flip more than he wanted to rhapsodise about killer or Groover's in the Heart. Yes. So here we are. Yes. But he was drawn to it, like, you know, like a moth to a really bad pop record. To a bin fire.

The thing is that this is named after, obviously I didn't realise at the time, but I now know that it was named after the popular ritual of taking MDMA and LSD. Yeah. Why have three letters when you can have seven? Exactly. That's a candy flip, is it? That's what a candy flip is. It's a very weirdly named thing because you'd think, I don't know, candy flip sounds more like, you know, MDMA and... Chew it.

Yeah, it doesn't. But that's partly the reason. That's partly the thing, isn't it? It just sounds like a lovely, fluffy, innocent thing. I assume they were called candy flip because that's a baudelarised version of the words that come out of your mouth the first time you hear them. Actually, a surprisingly sensible combination of substances. You know, it sounds like, bloody hell, I'd never do that.

Holy shit, what the fuck are you doing? It's like, no, they go really nicely together, you know, because, like, like bloody hell i would never do that holy shit what what the fuck are you doing it's like no they go really nicely together you know because like the lsd kind of fills out what can be quite a small bubble of mdma and the mdma takes the existential edge of the lsd so it works really well but um these people are i fail to see any evidence of them ever having had transformative psychoactive substances in their lives this is one of the least drugs records i've ever heard i mean at the time you know before i commenced ruining my life with with these things i didn't know what to make of it it probably was the first time that i heard strawberry feels forever was in this form there you go taylor the kind of weird milkshake version it's very odd apparently according to your wikipedia it is now considered

a rave classic how by whom citation needed like i don't understand this is not rave by any definition that that i have heard you can't dance to it because it kind of it stops and starts but without there being a build-up or a drop no it's too fidgety for chill out and it's too boring for like the main room. You know, I mean, obviously the funky drummer is, yeah, we all love. There's a comfort inherent in hearing that break. You know, it's so familiar to you that it's just like a lovely soft. Even at the time, that's the thing. I think that break was more familiar to me at the time than Strawberry Fields Forever by the Beatles.

But I did not enjoy it even as an 11 year old because it's got that sort of slightly magic roundabouty feel to it but not in a pleasant way yes there's just something sort of off about it it starts with like 10 to 15 seconds of like weird dead air and you can kind of feel that in the studio when when they perform it like there's four of them like there's no reason for there to be four of them yeah they're being billed as a two-piece but on that stage there are four people one on a keyboard one singing one with some maracas obviously because it's 1990 and someone with a tambourine what's going on also it isn't psychedelic either no like it's not dancy right it is neither of the drugs that they are claiming to invoke with their name it's not dancy it's not ecstatic and it's not psychedelic i mean the thing about the psychedelic experience and especially british psychedelia is there's lots of humor and absurdism in it yeah and kind

of cartoonery it's very daft because in fact acid is very silly it's not just very silly it also forces you to confront all kinds of large things and this doesn't have any of those things it doesn't have any of those elements it's just this sort of very strange vacuum yeah and it doesn't invite the listener to be sort of transported or transformed just sort of a bit weirded out by what it isn't yes it's sort of like if you pulverized the shaman in a Nutribullet with some celery and some antihistamine that they told you was an absolutely top-draw pinger. This is what you get. It's proto-trip-hop, isn't it? Is it?

If you take my definition of trip-hop, which is really fucking boring hip-hop. But it's supposed to be dark, though. I mean, there isn't any darkness in it. It's not really sunny. No. There's something beatific about it, but not bl yes you know what i mean there's like a pose and i can't figure out for the life of me and nor did i want to spend any time trying to figure this out how cynical an operation this is like whether it's purely naive and awkward or the opposite or

maybe both somehow they're essentially madchester jedward aren't they jedchester if you will it's like east 17 babies or if you want to be geographically correct they're de la stoke if this evokes an altered state at all it's the feeling of half waking from a wrong nap you know the kind of liminal state where you've napped for too long at the wrong time and you regret having it and you can't move and you've got like sleep paralysis and you've just dipped into unconsciousness at the wrong time and like your arms numb and you've drooled onto your cuff

and it's like, oh no, what have I done? It's that. So who are these boys? Well, in an interview with the NME next week, we learned that they fully bought into this gimmick. In 1990, people have needed to develop a hippie attitude, says Dizzy D. Things had to move away from that whole 80s thing of me, me, me. Now it's us, us, us. Not just people, but the whole planet.

People are striving for harmony meanwhile rick feels that the 60s have been neglected by modern music as a source of inspiration fucking hell didn't he live through the 80s at all and both of them feel that rave is the only new scene that has happened since punk when he gets pointed out to them that rave is doing nothing but desensitising people to reality, they counter that rave has done what punk tried to and failed, which was create a scene without heroes. According to them in this interview, punk was alright until the Sex Pistols came along. That's what they actually fucking said. Well, they're certainly doing their best to turn it into a scene without heroes.

Even in this era, it's quite strange to see a band with two scene without heroes. Yes. Even in this era, it's quite strange to see a band with two Bezzes. Yes. That's what I've got here, a brace of Bezzes. Yes. Really, it's a whole band of Bezzes, of course. Yes. What if you just copied and pasted Bez for a title?

If Catchafire was entirely populated by Bezzers, this is what we'd get. Because they've got those kind of like ethnic hooded tops. Yeah. Those double bezzers, I can name the guilty boys because thanks to the sounds check column in the Stafford Sentinel, which was the Bible of the Potteries rave scene, in an article dated November the 10th, 1989, we can name those bezzers.

Budding stars signed big deal. Four budding young potteries pop stars have been snapped up by one of the world's biggest music publishers. The friends, all from Bradley, Staffordshire, have signed a contract with London-based Polygram Music to make one album and two singles. Calling themselves Candyflip, the band are Kelvin Andrews, Richard Scott,

Carl Johns and Dizzy D, alias Danny Spencer. Richard Scott is Rick Pete. So yeah, that's Kelvin and Carl up there shaking a maraca and a tambourine. It's a shame that the baggy era was so limited in their choices of percussion instrument, don't you think? You know, they could have mixed in a baudrin or a massive gong or a scrapey fish. Yeah.

No, damn shame. Yeah, or a twisty cheese grater thing. Yes. Some spoons. Yeah. But anyway, back to the article. Dizzy's father, Tony Mould, is acting as manager for the boys and is planning to have recording equipment so his son can work from home.

Yes. Keep an eye on him so he doesn't take any of them bloody drugs. The four boys have called themselves Candy Flip and the album they're doing will be called Ice Pops and Global Grooves. Oh, my God. It was not, in fact. It was called... Yeah, we'll come to that later.

An even worse title for an album. Imagine the brainstorming sessions that went into that. We can sit here and sneer, as we did back in the day, but no to the mainstream media. These boys are the representatives of rave in 1990. They're about to be invited onto Wogan and Blue Peter until someone had a word about what candy flipping is, and those invitations were withdrawn pretty sharpish,

but they get two smash hits covers in 1992. Yeah, and the one on the 4th of April with your man making the classic pub cat's arsehole face. Yes. The cover line being peace and love and rave on, man. And because it's Smash Hits in 1990, you can hear the tone in which that has been put on the cover. Yes.

That edition also featured Adamski, Sydney Youngblood, D-Mob, Happy Mondays, Easy Posse, Andrew Ridgely and Snap. Every man jack of whom is more rave than they are yes at least they're keeping up one top of the pops tradition which is to piss off dads all over the country yeah by this point beacles fans would have kids of a top of the pops watching age and they would have been so fucked up yeah i mean it's a very boringly traditional view that strawberry fields forever with penny lane on the double a side is the greatest single of all time you know like there could be such a thing but the thing is that's a traditional view according to

the tradition that pop isn't just a practical joke and should be imaginative and stimulating and courageous you know but there are also aspects of pop music like essential elements that that view doesn't allow for like cheapness stupidity trashiness pointless mischief and an opposition to the very idea of objective artistic worth. So in a way, this record is like a giant, horrendous corrective that strips away all the worthy qualities of the original and replaces them with all the shitty and shoddy things that it's missing. But however amusing that looks, and whatever else you can say about Candy Flip, never let it be said that they don't

look amusing no god it's not in the end a very rewarding thing to do and ultimately the struggle is to not let him take you down you know people do these compilations of terrible beatles covers right it's always the obvious kitsch ones it's like the barking dogs doing hard days night yes sort of thing but what would really hurt would be a compilation of beatles covers which are supposed to be good but which actually systematically drain away everything magical from the original as though that were the point you know if you had a cd and it was the thompson twins version of revolution uh U2 doing Helter Skelter, Dollars version of I Want to Hold Your Hand,

Oasis doing I Am the Walrus and this, I mean, that would take a heart of steel. I can't imagine how you'd feel about the world by the end of it and what thoughts it might inspire. There is basically no humour in this at all and no mischief, but he does have that slightly cheeky look, almost as if he's stepped off the set of Bugsy Malone. We're the very best at being bad.

He's more like Brilliant Lad in the Fast Show. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's he got around his neck? He's got a little, it's a pouch. It's a little pouch. Yeah, it looks like a 19th century condom.

I'm assuming it's got his change in it for the vending machine or, you know, unless it's his LSD and his ecstasy. Yeah, or some unidentifiable ashes. I don't like this bloke. He gives me the creeps to look at him i mean the whole group it's like regardless of the musical vivisection that they're performing it's that blend of all blonde nordic purity and sort of arm swinging soft lad mopiness it's like if the hitler youth had been indoctrinated to believe that they were the inferior race they just stood around sort of with slumped shoulders you know simpering like too scared to take up any space but also chillingly psychopathic uh it's like no wonder simon mayo

seems so keen on him that lead singer what, what's his name, Rick Pete? Yes. He's got that very innocent, milky look to him. He's like a small boy in a historical drama whose one line is, Soldiers came, they took my father. And frankly, I'm surprised he's quite so cavalier about boasting publicly of his drug use

because he doesn't look to me like a lad who would save a prison life. No. It's like after the show he flew away on the back of a giant pelican to lollipop land and ruined that and all. Yes. No, that's what they want you to think, though. Like, I just didn't get anything like that off it at all. No.

I don't see any imagination really going into it or coming out of it, you know. It's like the end of music. It's like turn back now. It's like we've done, you know, that's it. You can't do anything else. Also, a resident synth nerd here pointed out that that is a Juno 60. Oh, yes. On the stage and it is not plugged in.

And also, there isn't a Juno 60 on that record. Good Lord. That's not the sound it makes. The way they lie to the kids they lie it's lying liars the giveaway is that bears number one is wearing mum jeans i mean i'm guessing they've all gotten from you know affleck's palace or somewhere you know like you're supposed to but fucking hell there's flares and then there's flares he's got these jeans with, they're all gathered up just below the beltline. Yes. It doesn't look very good. The BBC have enhanced this somewhat

by bunging loads of dry ice on, which means you don't see the width of those Saxons. But you know the proper swinger-lingers because they've appeared in the media as advocates of flares. Back to sounds check, everyone. everyone headline rick's flare for fashion stoke-on-trent's latest pop celebrity has given a top fashion tip to all those trendies rick pete one half of chart sensations candy flip reckons that flared trousers are where it's at and he added when you're buying

your flares make sure they're really tight at the top and round the back side so the overall shape looks better make sure that they're tight at the top and round the back side and then continue that way all the way to the ankles where you stop. Yes. And be thankful that we don't give you a slap for your terrible fashion ideas. Because, you know, I'm 22 now. There's no way I'm ever going to wear flares, man. I did that when I was eight in 1976. Fuck that shit.

Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, is that Rick P is fucking same age as me, I believe. Ah. What's his excuse? Drugs. Drugs, yes. The kids are going fucking hysterical though, or at least Paul Ciani and his henchmen have goaded them into being hysterical. Yeah, what do the kids know? It sounds like Jimmy Osmond being lowered into

a tank full of piranhas in 1974. I'm sure this is just the beginning of a long and rewarding pop career for Candy Flip. They're already landing some huge bookings, Taylor. Don't look down your nose. Adverts in the Burton Daily Mail. Attention, Burton and surrounding area. Dance Arena Part 1,

featuring live on stage, Candy Flip. Currently in the national charts with their massive hit single, Strawberry Fields Forever. Support by Mr Freestyle. Guest rapper, Cliffy White Boy. Also appearing, Burton's first and exciting dance crew, Lafitte. Supplying beats and bass lines, spelt B-A-S-E, DJ Magic Touch, Party Man, a newcomer, Chuck E. Bad Boy, Drill Hall, Burton, tickets £2 from Oasis, £3 on the

door, live video shooting, whistles and horns essential. £5 each for the wackiest male-female dressers. So be there or be rectangular. Don't miss it. Mickey Muck and DJ Mr Bronson. Ladies free after a first time. I miss those nights. Al, you've somehow inadvertently become the keeper of the Candy Flip archive. I know, I know.

Can you handle that responsibility? Yeah, wait till all them Candy Flip documentaries turn up on BBC 4, man. Get out of my fucking way, Stuart McConaughey. This is my patch. They've struck the first chord in something that's hanging over this episode and this year, which is a fucking hankering for it to be the late 60s. That's the great thing about the 60s, when you get bored with one bit of it,

you can start craving for another bit of it. I mean, because this generation, and I'm speaking as one who was part of it, had a real proper sweet tooth for the late 60s. You know, all those episodes of the banana splits and Scooby-Doo. Yeah, I have perhaps more to say in connection with that in relation to something that's coming up a little later but yeah no it's true it is true so where are the beacles at the moment well paul's halfway through 103 date world tour and finally bulking

out his sets with beacles songs george is about to reconvene with a travelling Wilburys and Ringo is busy at home, presumably Ringo-ing. John's still dead, but Yoko and Sean are flying into London tomorrow and stopping here for two weeks for her first exhibition in the UK since 1967

and presumably they'll have a bit to say about Strawberry Fields Forever by Candy Flip. A magical mystery tour and uh help are being released for the first time on vhs next week so yeah beetles still churning along when you say ringo's ringoing i guess by ringoing you mean filling up a tumbler with brandy pouring it into his mouth and then refilling the tumbler go to tent. It's hard to feel sorry for the 80s Beatles because they weren't that likeable at that point. But you listen to this and you just want to pat them on the head.

You know what I mean? There's actually a long history of jaw-dropping, question mark over the head, cover versions of classic records like the 70s was full of them when you look closely all these monstrous manglings of great old rock and roll songs manglings or straightenings out of great old rock and roll songs made dull and flavorless you know but there were always limits there was always crown jewels that you just didn't touch, right? You didn't mess with strawberry fields. Some angel or demon would be after you, you know.

And, yeah, it's sort of nice that these clueless cunts just don't give a toss. They don't have any sense of what's a good idea and what's an unthinkably terrible idea. And they just stomp wherever they please, you know. And it is nice to imagine all those Mojo subscribers in waiting going around the corkscrew over this shit. But the fun only lasts for as long as you don't have to hear it yourself. It's like if somebody lobbed a stink bomb into the tape, right?

You can appreciate the symbolism but also you can't pretend that it's anything more than dumb kids being dickheads and you just hope the smell is cleared by the time of your next visit yeah i'll tell you what the the legacy of this is um this might just be the algorithm going from my dubious taste, but when I looked up Strawberry Fields Forever on Spotify, this was the top result. Fuck. No. Is the original on Spotify?

Yeah. Oh, for fuck's sake. Jesus. So I looked up Candy Flip on Spotify, and it's like they've got 20,000 monthly listeners. And I thought they had a new single out. I was like, oh, what the fuck is this? But it's somebody else called Candy Flip with someone called Claude Stieskat.

And Spotify has just done the thing that it does by and lumped them in together into the one page, even though they're two different artists, which is what happens when, you know. So someone else thought it was a good idea to call themselves Candy Flip. And that track is also very bad, in the modern way right you know the way that things are bad now when they're bad um yeah it's one of those um by the way steeze cat is a i should say claude steeze cat but the s in steeze cat is a dollar sign right of course it is so there you go i hope candy flip got really outraged at somebody just fucking with musical heritage like this you can't do that they are basically the poor man's jaw valley um and you have to stick another of his tone deaf and disturbed reimagining of beatles classics on the video playlist and demonstrate that it is

actually possible to desecrate the canon while adding to the number of interesting things on Earth. So, the following week, Strawberry Fields Forever soared 12 places to number 6 and a week later, it spent two weeks at number 3. A fortnight after this performance, they put out their LP, Madstock, The Continuing Adventures of Bubble Car Fish. three a fortnight after this performance they put out their lp madstock the continuing adventures of bubble car fish which fails to chart i know i know you just wouldn't ask for that at the record shop would you i knew what that was and also crucially there's an ellipsis in there dot dot dot and i knew that was coming anyway but just somehow hearing you say it has just has delighted me although they announced to the music press that their next single

would either be a cover of brace yourself the land of make-believe or calling occupants of interplanetary craft. They decided not to become show baggy bag air and put out their own composition. This can be real in July, but it only got to number 60. Have you heard that? No. Oh, it's fucking cat shit.

It's the sort of thing that Thames Television would have chucked back in the faces of Rod, Jane and Freddie for being too childish. It's awful. And after two more singles which lingered around the murky depths of the top 100, the octopus's garden of the top 100, if you will, they split up in 1992. Pete went on to engineer and produce for the likes of The Charlatans and 6x7

while Dizzy D teamed up with his brother Kelvin Andrews, one of the Maracas Shakers, to form the production duo Soul Mechanic which knocked out four tracks for Robbie Williams on the 2006 LP R Rootbox. Oh dear, this episode of Top of the Pops is a bit catchy so far, isn't it, Pop Craze Youngsters? Never mind, tomorrow is a new day, and tomorrow brings part three of Chart Music 66 maybe it'll pick up you never know anyway until then on behalf of taylor parks and sarah b this is al needham and if you're

not staying pop crazed i want to know why Chart music.