Eastenders

821. ‘Perfect Moment’, by Martine McCutcheon

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

If ‘Levi’s #1s’ is a niche chart-topping genre – see Mr. Oizo last time out – then this next chart-topper falls into an even rarer category…

Perfect Moment, by Martine McCutcheon (her 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 11th – 25th April 1999

Not just ‘TV stars’ (alongside the likes of Telly Savalas and David Soul) or ‘Soap Stars’ (alongside Kylie and Jason), both of which would be niche enough. No, after Nick Berry, this is just the second ever Eastenders number one.

And if this were a competition, then Martine McCutcheon wins the Battle of the Eastenders Pop Stars hands down. That is more to do with how crap Nick Berry’s effort was than any particular strengths that this record has, but still. A win’s a win. And ‘Perfect Moment’ starts off interestingly enough, with a grandiosely old-fashioned intro, and some early-eighties, Ultravoxy synths.

Yes, it’s a gloopy ballad. But it sounds quite out of place against the late-nineties pop landscape. This sounds like it could have replaced Nick Berry at the top back in 1986. I don’t want to use the word ‘experimental’ on a record as average as this, but at the same time McCutcheon’s producers were clearly trying a couple of things out.

By the second verse, though, order has been restored. That pre-set late-nineties drumbeat has kicked in, while the middle-eight (And if tomorrow brings a lonely day…) sets a template to be followed by every X-Factor winner’s single from here to eternity. Blandness wins, but for a minute or so something a little more interesting was threatened.

And what of Martine McCutcheon, AKA Tiffany Mitchell, who a few months earlier had been mown down in Albert Square by Frank Butcher’s car? She has a pretty decent voice here, on her solo debut, and by the end is trying her best to compete with the big ‘90s divas. She is ultimately, though, no Whitney Houston. She had made earlier attempts at a pop career, as part of failed girl-group Milan in at the start of the decade, and on a minor dance hit not long after she had joined ‘EastEnders.

‘Perfect Moment’ had originally been recorded by Polish singer Edyta Górniak in 1997, and this cover set McCutcheon up for a couple of years of chart success. Colour me surprised to discover that she managed four more Top 10 hits! None of which I have any memory of… She has gone on to acting success on stage and screen – perhaps most famous to an international audience as Natalie in ‘Love Actually’ – while the fact that she was killed off and unable to return to EastEnders has apparently always rankled with her.

578. ‘Every Loser Wins’, by Nick Berry

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

Another novelty on top of the UK charts… Unless I’m forgetting someone obvious, Nick Berry becomes the first singer of dubious talent to top the charts thanks to starring in a popular soap opera. We’ve had TV detectives (Telly Savalas) and TV themes (The Simon Park Orchestra), now this…

Every Loser Wins, by Nick Berry (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 12th October – 2nd November 1986

Having already seen the birth of the comedy-charity single earlier in the year, is it time to declare 1986 as the year that destroyed the charts…? Well, I was expecting this to be truly horrific, but to be honest it’s mainly just bland. We nearly made it… Nick croons. He’s not a bad singer, though it’s the sort of voice that you instantly forget, even as the record is still playing… Every loser wins, Once the dream begins…

The worst bit is the horrible three-note synth flourish that pierces the mellow mood every few lines, and on which the song ends. The second worst are the limp lyrics, twisted together to make ungainly lines. The best bit is the moment the big eighties drums come thumping in, raising hopes that this might reach a bombastic finish. But it doesn’t; it slips to an unmemorable, flaccid ending.

Nick Berry played Simon ‘Wicksy’ Wicks in ‘Eastenders’, which had only been on air for a year or so before this record made #1. (While ‘Coronation Street’ had been around almost thirty years without troubling the charts…) The reason I thought that this was going to be horrendous is that I was vaguely aware of a record based on the ‘Eastenders’ theme… That was Anita Dobson (AKA Mrs Brian May’s) disco-lite ‘Anyone Can Fall in Love’, which had made #4 just a few weeks earlier. And again, listening to that for the first time, it isn’t quite as awful as I was anticipating either… I must be in a good mood tonight!

There is a hint of the ‘Enders’ theme in the intro to ‘Every Loser Wins’, too, if you listen close enough. Berry was the show’s first pin-up, his character a happy-go-lucky lad – which makes you wish they’d given him a livelier song to launch his singing career with. I use the term ‘career’ lightly, though he did make #2 a few years later, with a cover of Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’, theme song to the programme of the same name. He retired from acting, and presumably singing too, in 2019.

So. This is far from our one and only soap star chart-topper. It’s not even our one and only ‘Eastenders’ chart-topper… (And, if we’re being thorough, we have already had an one, years before the show was even a twinkle in a producer’s eye, from Wendy Richard in 1962.) Meanwhile, Down Under, a soap had just started airing, one that would go on to dominate our charts during the final few years of this decade. With, it must be said, largely better songs than this!

(Apologies for the quality of the video below… We’re not spoiled for choice with versions of ‘Every Loser Wins’ on YouTube.)

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