Evening, #TOTP family.
Looks like we're still able to influence the charts: after last week's show, "Sit down" by James and Five's "Until the time is through" have both returned to the top 40 download chart.
Don't think Lutricia McNeil will be in the festive 40 next week. Ickle Billie Piper might...
Wait, is that R.E.M. in the #TOTP studio? Which of their many memorable hits will they be playing tonight!
"Lotus".
From the forgotten album "Up".
Which i've probably got somewhere upstairs, in one of the Doc Martens bootboxes i stashed my CD collection into circa 2007 and haven't removed it since.
Pleasant, but it's not exactly "Oh, life".
"To you i belong" - B*Witched
So, who has the better eyeshadow game: B*Witched, or Michael Stipe?
It's a really weird presentation: a soft and lilting love song, performed by young women in baggy jeans and thick coats. Only in 1998...
Christmas 1998, when the "news"papers tried to work out the cost of doing Twelve Days of Christmas. Just under £10,000, apparently.
Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss are your hosts, with the work experience placement also contributing.
"Viva forever" - Spice Girls
Was this a repeat from the summer, or something? Looks about as festive as a sandcastle on Brighton beach.
"Feel it" - The Tamperer ft Maya
For the first time since the invention of handwriting, it's a song you can actually get out of your seat! have a boogie! tap your pencil on the desk excitedly!
Maya is a lick of green paint away from being cast in the forthcoming musical "Wicked!", while Bill and Ben throw some "shapes" in the backdrop.
More of this, purlease!
"Especially for you" - Denise Van Outen & Johnny Vaughan
From "The Big Breakfast", a popular breakfast show on Channel 4.
Denise makes a passable attempt at emulating the singing abilities of Kylie Minogue. Johnny needed vocal lessons to be half as good as Jason Donovan, which isn't terribly good at all.
"Angels" - Robbie Williams
Year's biggest-selling album act, BPI single of the year for 1997, and the most-played song on radio.
Love him or loathe him, Robbie was *the* biggest star of 1998, and this was always going to be his signature song.
"C'est la vie" - B*witched
All the innocence of being Boyzone's kid sisters! All the acrobatics of dancing in a grassy field like elves!
All the fun of a first-degree brilliant pop song! With completely unremarkable lyrics that certainly don't bear any double meanings!
Performance of the episode, probably.
"Goodbye" - Spice Girls
Burying the Christmas number one half-way through? An interesting production decision.
Having the Spices sit on stools? Don't let Ronan Keating see this, he will get ideas, and that would be very very bad.
Next week's chart was led by "Chocolate salty balls" by Chef, which never got played on #TOTP.
"Never ever" / "Under the bridge" - All Saints
"Never ever" is one of very few songs to appear on two #TOTP Christmas shows.
The live performance of "Under the bridge" was certainly different. Can't say i love it.
"How do i live" - Leann Rimes
(unmutes)
(hears one of the classiest vocals of the year)
(dreams of gentle spring days sat in the sunshine by a babbling brook)
Ah. That's better.
"No matter what" - Boyzone
Voted Record of the Year by ITV viewers, the closest the other ever got to the excitement of Junior Eurovision, except without the good songs or dancing or staging or anything.
Anyway, Stephen and Mikey and Graham and The Other Two are on the turntable of the world's most ineffective microwave, and in no more than four minutes our brains will be cooked to a frazzle and we'll all be fast asleep zzzzzzzzzzz.
"My heart will go on" - Céline Dion
1.3 million sales.
One point three million sales.
"Titanic" has a blimmin' great soundtrack, this is one of the weakest parts of it.
And it's still very good.
"Cruise into Christmas" - Jane McDonald
We have a choice: this, or a second performance by Boyzone.
The star of BBC1's fly-on-the-wall documentary "The Cruise", Jane was taken to heart - here, at last, is proof that a middle-aged woman can be successful on her own terms and without a dance remix. Straight in at number 10 on this week's chart, and she's probably on Channel 5 right now.
"Believe" - Cher
Yes, we can believe that she looks so good. And sings so well. 1.5 million copies sold by year-end.
Biggest hit of 1998, besting Céline and "It's like that" by Run-DMC and Jason Nevins, which we didn't see here in spite of selling a million.
And that's the problem Chris Cowey created: by promoting so much narrow pop music, he blew up the excuse for #TOTP to be a mass-appeal programme.
1999 begins in two weeks. 1990 in about four minutes.
Back to 1990, when the "news"papers tried to work out the cost of doing Twelve Days of Christmas. Just under £9900, apparently.
Mark Goodier is in a smart black suit, Anthea Turner in a just-off-the-shoulder bluey-purple velvet dress.
"Don't worry" - Kim Appleby
A great opening number, upbeat, reasonably familiar, and while it might startle anyone who's fallen asleep during the comedy triple-bill they've just shown, sleeping uncle Jim will not be shocked too much.
There's also a Prop, what looks to be a polystyrene stone carving of Santa Claus, which looms at the back of the far right of the stage as we look at it. They were to 1990 as Jane McDonald was to 1998.
"Hangin' tough" - New Kids on the Block, not so much Joan Jett as May Spluttering-Turboprop.
"Tears on my pillow" - Kylie Minogue. "You don't remember me" sang Kylie. That's showbiz!
A few weeks ago, raiders stopped a lorry in Romania. It was carrying a donation to help Challenge Anneka renovate a Romanian orphanage. When the thieves found the contents was 10,000 Jive Bunny cassettes, they sent it on its way.
Andi Peters is here, giving away tat that fell off the back of a lorry.
"Dub be good to me" - Beats International
Lindy Layton looks like she's come off a shift at the warehouse, wears a tan overcoat on top of jeans. The immobile statue is Norman Cook; there's also a Santa sculpture stage right.
"Dub be good to me" has 1990 running through it like a stick of rock: the fusion of beats and classic soul couldn't have happened before, and felt old hat by year-end.
1990 has been a year for lots of revivals, with re-recordings and re-releases and covers popping up everywhere.
Here are three from the #TOTP vault: Slade with "Merry xmas everybody" from 1973, Mud's "Lonely this Christmas" from 1974, and St Winifred's School Choir performing "There's no-one quite like Grandma" from 1980.
Mark and Derry from EMF say their year has gone "brilliant, great", such in-depth interviews from Anthea. She learned nothing from Gary Davies last week.
"A little time" - The Beautiful South
They did a brilliant singing at cross-purposes look earlier in the year, and never quite got the cameras right again; bright blue lights and the audience clapping along distract from the intense verbal battle between Paul and Brianna.
It'll win the viewer vote for Best Video at next year's BPI awards, and it'll be one of the group's calling cards throughout their career.
"World in motion..." - Englandneworder, proving that *some* footballers can rap. (Gazza does not appear on the show, they'd rather show old clips than some number twos.)
"Turtle power" - Partners in KRYME, a former Simon Mayo Record of the Week. Not that he'll admit it.
The one of Candy Flip who looks like Ed Sheeran tells Mark Goodier that he's not had his Christmas turkey yet. Care to fix that, Mark?
"Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini" - Bombalurina
Timmy gives it his all, of course, and revels on the incongruity of someone who cannot sing appearing on stage here, today.
By now, it's clear that the Bombalurina joke had run its course; album "Huggin' and Kissin'" had spent its solitary week in the chart at number 74, and Timmy had retired to spend more time being brilliant on other shows.
Our group declare to be true
Ian K Tindale
Girl about village