One week at number one on 25th June 1988
Their reasons for doing so made absolute sense at the time. The Doctor Who theme is one of the most enduring and haunting musical products of British television; a track whose peculiar oscillations, screeching electronic pronouncements and menacing hissing sounds are understood by multiple generations. It had been released several times as a single, initially by Decca then the BBC themselves, but it only charted once in 1978 – on Pinnacle Records no less! - when that distributor and label found a mob called Mankind performing it to a disco beat, saw an opportunity and took the track on. It subsequently reached number 25 in the national charts, a huge accomplishment for an indie product at the time.
Mankind’s version has become somewhat forgotten in the years since. Far from being an uptempo disco monster, it’s one of those reserved, twiddly affairs with fussy basslines and clinical guitar-work, the kind you suspect was created by people who would rather have been in a prog rock group. More unforgivably still, the theme tune itself is reduced to a weak signal, a dying star, a fragile echo of the howling original – all its threat has been defused to turn it into a comfortable, undemanding and shuffling club number.
Whether it was fresh in either Drummond or Cauty’s minds when creating “Doctorin’ The Tardis” is hard to say – though I suspect Drummond at least would have been aware of the track – but just as Mankind manipulated vougeish disco beats, the KLF were clearly trying to jump on board the current trend for huge House hits using retro-samples. House rhythms just weren’t working for them, though; the odd thing was that no matter how hard they tried to move away from it, the only thing that seemed to gel was a huge, unsubtle glam rock beat. In the end, they gave in. The stomp and thwack worked its way beneath the theme tune, and the track built its way up from there. Current trends be damned. The single made its way to number one in the national charts anyway.
An entire book (“The Manual – How To Have A Number One The Easy Way”) was subsequently published about the pair’s experiences, in which both tried to claim that every single step in the single’s creation was careful, deliberate and almost scientific in its approach to becoming a chart-topper. It’s a fantastic read, but accepting the contradictions – even with Drummond’s coaxing – can be difficult, and it’s better treated as a shaggy dog story combined with some telling insight about the music business in 1988. The biggest contradiction of all is that the duo were masters of their destiny, a lie made bare by the presence of its glam rock rhythm; a relic of the unfashionable close past in 1988, a steal nobody would have used out of choice.
Still, what was built from there, with the scratching and additional samples of The Sweet’s “Blockbuster”, Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll” and the chant of daleks screeching “Bosh bosh bosh Loadsamoney” and “You what, you what, you what”, was an absurd record which was both of its time and out of time; current, in that it adhered to the principles of samplemania we’ve already seen with Bomb The Bass, Coldcut (whose song title “Doctorin’ The House” is partially borrowed here) and S’Express. Retro, to an incredible agree, by dint of its dated rhythms and also to an extent its core obsession. “Doctor Who” may have still be going in 1988, but it was dimly floating towards its temporary demise. The “Doctor Who” of yore was the meat many of its older viewers wished was still on the menu*.
What Drummond and Cauty ultimately created, then, was something for everyone – the thirty-something boozers in the pub nostalgic for the seventies, the sci-fi nerds, the children who still watched Doctor Who, and the teenagers aware of a current musical revolution. It’s a volatile brew and one which might have stank the room out if the formula drifted even slightly awry, but what’s most surprising is that “Doctorin’ The Tardis”, for all its cynicism, silliness and brashness, slaps so peculiarly that I’ve never been able to successfully diagnose why I actually love it.
A big part of it is surely childhood memories – of Doctor Who, of glam rock on Top of the Pops, of being able to enjoy daftness for its own sake – but that’s not the whole story. It’s something about the bizarre alchemy at play; the hooks, of both a musical and televisual nature, piled on top of one another, yet carefully and craftily. There’s sense and symmetry behind the madness here. While Bomb The Bass and Coldcut bombard their records with all kinds of samples, Bill and Jimmy stick to two eras here, never using anything that could be seen as random or out of place. The catchphrases are current, none-more-1988, while the tunes are pure early seventies pop. The past meets the present and realises that beery boorishness is an active part of both worlds – that people wanted to stomp their feet and repeat call-and-response slogans in the late eighties just as much as they did fifteen years before. A drunk in the pub in 1988 wouldn’t dream of embracing a Gary Glitter record, of course (and not for the reasons we now wouldn’t dream of doing so; too unhip). When married to the Doctor Who theme and some silly comedy catchphrases though? Why not! The guard is down, and the boots are on the dancefloor. If we're being deliberately preposterous, let's have a party.
As Drummond and Cauty state in “The Manual”, the construction of “Doctorin’ The Tardis” may be unorthodox by the standards of previous years, with barely a live instrument in sight, but it does at least stick to The Rules – a clear chorus, verses (of a kind) a neat fade-out, a quick under-three minute performance, a neat order that is undoubtedly more Pop than House.
How appealing you find it will probably depend on your temperament and your tolerance for (among other things) novelty daffiness, glam rock, unapologetic stupidity and - the elephant in the room - Gary Glitter. “The Manual” speculates that The Timelords may have had a second week at number one in the national charts if the record had communicated as much to women as it did men and boys; they sensed that the combination of beeriness and sci-fi reverence offered nothing to the ladies (this, of course, is a generalisation, but one somebody in marketing would probably agree with). To me, though, it was catnip; one of the only novelty records I return to again and again, entranced by that breezeblock beat and the howl of the “Doctor Who” theme which, this time, actually sounded not only eerie but as if it was being backed up with a marching army.
This single is also where the KLF’s career really begins. In some senses it was a false start - they didn’t manage to produce another hit for a while, and indeed would blow the money they initially earned from this on an aborted road movie. However, it moved them from their cultish, marginal space into the mainstream, which they eventually realised they could choose to revisit if they truly tried.
Next time round, of course, their Ford Galaxy car - which in this case was the star - would be given a background role only.
(*One of the Doctor’s foes to appear in the 1988 series of “Doctor Who” was the Kandyman in “The Happiness Patrol”, a giant Bertie Bassett type creature. Coincidentally, Bill and Jimmy included a track called “The Candyman” on the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu’s final album “Who Killed The Jams?”, which also seemed to be about killing some vague foe with the same name. The critic Marc Sidwell later speculated that “The Happiness Patrol” might have partly been an expression of national unease about rave culture. Please note I'm not trying to build a case for the two things being connected here, just marvelling at the coincidence.)
(*One of the Doctor’s foes to appear in the 1988 series of “Doctor Who” was the Kandyman in “The Happiness Patrol”, a giant Bertie Bassett type creature. Coincidentally, Bill and Jimmy included a track called “The Candyman” on the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu’s final album “Who Killed The Jams?”, which also seemed to be about killing some vague foe with the same name. The critic Marc Sidwell later speculated that “The Happiness Patrol” might have partly been an expression of national unease about rave culture. Please note I'm not trying to build a case for the two things being connected here, just marvelling at the coincidence.)
New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts
18. MC Buzz B – Slap Head / Hard To The Core (Playhard)
Hard to understand why any aspiring rapper would have named themselves after British Telecom’s wire-stretching seventies mascot Busby, but yer man here was from Manchester and eventually became famed (albeit only cultishly so) for his environmentally conscious work – an incredible rarity in music generally, never mind hip-hop.
“Slap Head” is a wee bit more frivolous, however, feeling closer to Doug E Fresh’s “The Show”, being almost vaudeville in its comedy wordiness.
25. The Parachute Men - Sometimes In Vain (Fire)
Peak position: 24
The Parachute Men were from Leeds and were Fire Records’ great commercial hopes; at one point, the label even got into a protracted row with Radio One on their behalf, feeling that the radio station’s lack of support for the single “Leeds Station” was due to an anti-indie label bias.
“Sometimes In Vain” doesn’t sound like daytime radio, though. I've never been able to make up my mind whether the hazy production is a deliberate choice to convey the confused anguish of the track's subject matter, or just the outcome of a low budget. It does work well, though, whether by accident or design - chiming guitar licks almost smother Fiona Gregg's vocals so she sounds appropriately lost, and the track has a very peculiar, almost Bronte-esque melodrama to it which is unbelievably effective.
This is sixties styled pop laced with an eighties darkness; as soon as the organ kicks in towards the end, you know you're not dealing with a standard piece of tossed off indie-pop. "Sometimes In Vain" is ambitious and atmospheric as well as having the kind of hooks Sandie Shaw would have deemed beautiful in 1966. They never did make it out of the indie ghetto, but The Parachute Men did produce some fine moments nonetheless.
Peak position: 24
The Parachute Men were from Leeds and were Fire Records’ great commercial hopes; at one point, the label even got into a protracted row with Radio One on their behalf, feeling that the radio station’s lack of support for the single “Leeds Station” was due to an anti-indie label bias.
“Sometimes In Vain” doesn’t sound like daytime radio, though. I've never been able to make up my mind whether the hazy production is a deliberate choice to convey the confused anguish of the track's subject matter, or just the outcome of a low budget. It does work well, though, whether by accident or design - chiming guitar licks almost smother Fiona Gregg's vocals so she sounds appropriately lost, and the track has a very peculiar, almost Bronte-esque melodrama to it which is unbelievably effective.
This is sixties styled pop laced with an eighties darkness; as soon as the organ kicks in towards the end, you know you're not dealing with a standard piece of tossed off indie-pop. "Sometimes In Vain" is ambitious and atmospheric as well as having the kind of hooks Sandie Shaw would have deemed beautiful in 1966. They never did make it out of the indie ghetto, but The Parachute Men did produce some fine moments nonetheless.
26. fIREHOSE - Sometimes (SST)
Peak position: 19
28. Meat beat manifesto - Strap down (Sweatbox)
Peak position: 28
Meat Beat Manifesto, on the other hand, came from Swindon and never seemed to be able to make up their minds whether they were industrialists, techno kids, or common-or-garden ravers, sometimes flitting between the different genres in one song (or at least feeling as if they did).
“Strap Down” is their first indie entry and is a fair introduction to their chaos, sounding in places as if they’ve skipped the House Music revolution entirely and foreseen early nineties rave with its rough beats, jarring discords and furious rapping. They eventually ended up supporting The Prodigy live, who of course didn’t even exist at this point and were presumably still at school.
For the complete charts, please go to the UKMix Forums
Number One In The Official Charts
Bros: "I Owe You Nothing" (CBS) - interestingly, The Timelords vacated the National Number One spot the same week their single reached number one in the indie chart
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