Hits 21 - 1992 (4): Boyz II Men, Charles & Eddie

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21: The 90s.At the roundtable this week it's Rob, Ed, and Andy!This week - both Boyz II Men and Charles & Eddie take us back through different eras of Motown.Email: [e-mail]

Music Hi there everyone and welcome back to Hits21 The 90s where me, Rob, me, Andy and me, Ed are looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. If you want to get in touch with us, you can, just email us at hits21podcast.gmail.com. Thank you ever so much for joining us again, we are currently looking back at the year 1992 and this week it's the penultimate episode of 1992 and the last normal episode of 1992 already because we'll be covering the period between the 25th of October and the 28th of November. The poll winner from last week, it was very close but Tasman Archer's Sleeping Satellite was the winner amongst our listeners. So time to press on with this week's episode now and here are some headlines from Octobery Novembery time in 1992.

In America Bill Clinton beats George HW Bush in the 1992 presidential election. The Church of England votes to allow female Anglican priests. Antoni Bland, a victim of the Hillsborough disaster, is legally allowed to die after spending three years in a coma and Tony became the 96th person to be killed as a result of the disaster and that number stood for a very very long time. In royal family news the Queen becomes the first monarch in 60 years to pay income tax. Days earlier the Queen had been alongside 200 firefighters helping to rescue priceless pieces of art after a fire at Windsor Castle. And British Steel announces a 20% drop in production after numerous factory closures and diminishing demand from customers.

A large collection of Roman Empire coins is discovered in Suffolk and given the name the Hoxney Hoard. An IRA bomb is detonated in Parsonage Gardens in Manchester, but no injuries are reported. Labour lead the Tories by 17 points in an end-of-year poll, and a study reveals that ethnic minorities now make up 5% of the British population for the first time in recorded history. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows. Beauty and the Beast for three weeks. The Last of the Mohicans for two weeks.

Single White Female for one week. Sister Act for one week. Death Becomes Her for one week. Home Alone 2 Lost in New York for two weeks. Before the year is closed out. By the Bodyguard. For one week. BBC2 dedicates the bulk of its Halloween coverage to The Vault of

Horror, a collection of horror films including Creepshow, Werewolf, The Bride of Frankenstein, Death Line and Abbot and Cosello meet Frankenstein. BBC1 is the 1500th edition of Top of the Pops featuring Charles and Eddie, Michael Bolton and Boys to Men. And Trevor McDonald becomes the sole presenter of ITV's News at 10. An unseen episode of Star Trek The Next Generation is broadcast on Sky 1 after the BBC refuses to show it. This is due to references to the IRA under United Ireland. It's fine.

The final episode of The Sooty Show is broadcast on ITV with the long-running puppet series replaced by Sooty and Co. in 1993. And the long-running detective series A Touch of Frost begins on ITV starring David Jason. Andy, the UK album charts, how are they? Yeah, I've not got too many to talk to you about this week, I've just got four. One of which is hanging over from last week which was Simple Minds with Glittering Prize 81.92 which went number one for three weeks and Triple Platinum. That is eventually toppled from the top spot by Bon Jovi with Keep The Faith which went

single platinum and was number one for one week. After that we've got Share with greatest hits 1965 to 1992 which went number one for one week and went triple platinum and it's another greatest hits that takes out off the top spot. It's Erasure with pop! the first 20, which went number one for two weeks and went triple platinum. Yeah, but that's your lot. You've got Simple Minds, Bon Jovi, Cher and Eurasia. Another good dinner party there. Yeah, that's it for this week. Yeah. Ed, America. Is there a good enough dinner party over there as well? Largely, I have no idea. Because, oh, whoa, it's Garth Brooks.

Oh, again. Starting off on the albums with three more weeks of The Chase, followed by a single week of a Michael Bolton covers album. Ooh. Well, Brooks breaks off from The Chase, presumably for a wee and a cup of tea, only to return. Brooks-ally and Garth-ally to his now seemingly rightful place at the top of the billboard

totem for the rest of November. In summary, Garth Brooks. And now, on to singles. After two more weeks, Boyz II Men don't know what they're going to do. They don't know what they're going to do because they know they've come to the end of the road, the end of the road, oh my god, oh my god. The Heights are of little help, spending two weeks at the number one spot asking, how do you talk to an angel? The answer, of course, is pick up the phone and give him a wing before finally...

Whose turn is it? It's Houston's turn. Whitney Houston with the vowel orgy of I will always love you taking us into December. More importantly though, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is released. My justification for including this fact? It was DEVELOPED in America? So... That's justification enough for me! Yep, so that's... Thank you, that was Ed's Sonic Corner, I'll see you again next week.

Can I ask that we do a cover of the Proclaimers' Letter from America, just from the way that you said that Ed, like, did you know that Sonic 2 was developed in America? We could get the chap from Boys to Men to sing it because he pronounces more of the same. Right then, so onto our first of just two songs this week, which is... This. Which is... This! Played with my mind Said we'd be forever Said it'd never die How could you love me and leave me and never say goodbye? Been a kiss sleep at night without holding you tight At least I'm not trying to break down and cry

Pain in my head, oh I'd rather be dead Spending the night rolling around Although we love to the end of the road Still I can't let go It's unnatural You belong to me I belong to you Girl, I know you really love me Okay, this is End of the Road by Boys To Men.

Released as the second single from the movie soundtrack album for Boomerang, and as the fifth single from the deluxe edition of the group's debut studio album titled Cooly High Harmony, End of the Road is Boys To Men's first single to be released in the UK and their first to reach number one, however as of 2025 it is their last. End of the Road first entered the UK charts at number 36, reaching number 1 during its 9th week. It stayed at number 1 for 3 weeks. In week 1 it sold 39,000 copies, beating competition from Piece of My Heart by Irma Franklin, which climbed to number 9, and Run to You by Rage, which got to number 10. In week 2 it sold 62,000 copies, beating competition from Boss Drum by The Shaman, which got to

number 6, Super Mario Land by Ambassadors of Funk which climbed to number 9, and Who Needs Love Like That by Erasure which got to number 10, and in week 3 it sold 49,000 copies, beating competition from Would I Lie to You by Charles and Eddie which climbed to number 2, Be My Baby by Vanessa Paradis which climbed to number 2, Be My Baby by Vanessa Paradis, which climbed to number 6 and Never Let Her Slip Away by Undercover, which got to number 7. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, End of the Road dropped 1 place to number 2. By the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 104, 26 weeks. The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK as of 2025. Could

be based on that pre-cantar data. Unsure. Andy kick us off with Boys To Men. End of the road, more like middle of the road. Am I right? Oh shit. Oh, here all week. Anyway, yes, that is pretty much how I feel, to be honest. It's hard to get too excited about this, isn't it, really? Because, you know, when you were saying, Rob, that this took nine weeks to get to number one, that's typical of this song, really, isn't it? It doesn't do things quickly. I don't think anybody could accuse this song of rushing through what it has to do.

It has a pace that I would describe politely as gentle, but I would describe impolitely as boring. It's really hard for me to not get distracted during this because it's one thing having a slow tempo, it's one thing being long, but to do that and not make any effort to kind of keep it spicing up throughout because there are long songs that we've covered like Bohemian Rhapsody for example, you know, that keep some spice in there, they keep it going and there are also songs that are extremely slow,

but they don't outstay their welcome. To do both and then to not really have anything happening except very slow verse very slow chorus very slow verse Very slow chorus bit of a bridge. That's very slow Then a very slow chorus and then an acapella very slow chorus Just I feel like you can take your headphones out for like the middle three minutes of the song and not miss anything at all Except some of the lyrics you know there are there are some fairly interesting lyrics to this to be honest just in the sense of oh well again I say interesting but I think some of them are about kind of on the

edge of what I would describe as problematic to be honest because like I think some of the things that I really don't like about boy band lyrics throughout All of history really, you know things that have echoed right through to like the 2010s and onwards I think there's a lot of that in this to be honest this kind of this development of Ernest man pain really where it's more like a kind of sickly, you know Devastatingly lovesick male that's like my life can literally not go on if we break up, like I will be forced to die

if we break up, you know, like sort of getting into kind of emo vibes, but doing in this incredibly like mainstream commercial kind of way. And I hate that when you get like sort of lovesick puppies like in boy bands that are, you know, not to get too serious about it, but I saw contributing to the types of young people

who, and older people as well, who really, you know, take breakups too far and get really over the top about it and get really possessive about it. Like, I don't like the, you belong to me, I belong to you. And like the, you know, the it's unnatural thing about moving on from a breakup. I think it's just, oh no, no, no. None of what you're saying is true.

You don't belong to each other and it's not unnatural to move on. It's, and I get that they're playing characters in songs, but that means just that's just they're not very likeable protagonists in this I'm not on board with this and then couple it with the fact that this just goes on for so long it's like yeah I'm not with you either thematically or musically so can we just reach that end of the road please it's ironic that it's called end of the road because it seems to never bloody get there I just I'm quite misdivide as to why this is considered such a classic, to be honest, like I've known this like the sort of the whole time that it's been out.

I mean, I know I was a baby when this came out, but I remember knowing this in the early 90s, like one of my earliest memories. And then they came and did it on the X Factor at one point in like 2007 when they were much, much older. And they did this as a kind of like throwback thing on the X Factor at one point in like 2007 when they were much much older and they did this as a kind of like throwback thing on the X Factor and I remember watching it then and my mum and dad were like oh it's Boys To Men I was like okay alright I'm just gonna go and listen to Green Day on my iPod like I always do and then listen to it now again I'm just like all right okay that's that's like

it's a song that exists fine it is and I just have nothing more to say about it than that and I'm mystified as to why the US market in particular we're just obsessed with it well what was it in the US Eddie you're probably best place to answer this was like 12 weeks or something at number one in the US In a million yes, it's absolutely farcical numbers and I Just don't see that at all like I think this is it's not like the most boring thing We've ever had and it's not that lowest common denominator, but it's also just like what is inspiring about this What is really hooking people like it's got really nice harmonies I'll give it that but really nice harmonies aren't

enough to propel something for that long like it does have a nice sound to it and it's very inoffensive I don't know if this is just a case of like the middle ground like the most inoffensive thing just takes off but that seems weird in the UK because last week we had three really different, really interesting songs all in their own right. So it feels weird that we then go for something like this. Just feels like an unwelcome guest at the party

that we've been having in 92. A really tedious thing to listen to. And I'm not that down on it. Like I say, like it's fairly catchy. Like, you know, it does have nice harmonies in it as well, and they're going for it with the vocals, I tell you that, they can't always reach the notes that they're trying for and it's positively painful to listen to sometimes with them just going so high right in the very first verse. But I don't want to be too harsh to it because

it is trying to do something, like a long form big ballad where they're really really busting it out and I'm sure this is probably great live. I'm sure it's probably great on stage if they can actually hit those notes you know but as I listen I'm just like whatever whatever like I say middle of the road so yeah this is about all I have to say about it really which is just that it outstays its welcome. It's okay in a basic sense, but like, people of 92 needed to get over this, they really did. And in 2025, let's all be over this. Yeah? Let's reach the end of the road with it. Let's move on. Yeah, I don't feel that differently to you, Andy. I find this quite puzzling because songs that are this popular and this well remembered should get more feelings out of me than this does.

I feel like this should be something I put in the pie hole or the vault but I'm not going to do either of those things because I don't feel anything. This is the biggest selling Motown record ever. Like ever. Arguably set the template for what boy bands were supposed to do years down the line when they sang sad songs like this because we're still very much in the early days of what a boy band is supposed to look like in the modern world and behave like in the modern world. And this sets the trend of firework rain and clutching your chest and pleading at the camera while the other guys click their fingers and sway in the background. You know, Westlife definitely do this about 10 to 15 years from now this

penetrated basically every demographic in America and you can still feel that today if you look at the YouTube comments under the video it's not just oh I used to love this song I loved it when I was 15 and now I'm in my 40s and it takes me back it's people remembering their parents and grandparents loving the ever-living fuck out of it It's such a sacred cow of American pop because the kids of the 90s loved it Parents born in the 60s and 70s loved it and grandparents born Before or during World War two they love it as well because it has all the hallmarks of a new jack swing hit Late 80s early 90s, but it also has all the hallmarks of an New Jack swing hit for late 80s early 90s but it also has all the hallmarks

of an oldie, a Motown oldie, not only that but a Philly soul oldie like Lizzie said to us in the chat this week you can imagine Teddy Pendergrass singing this but also Luther and Donny Hathaway you know that boys to men can't sing as well as those guys but they give it a good enough go and they remind people enough of something that it's just familiarity i think is what it kind of gives out and even at the end when one of their voices cracks it sounds affected and strained in a way that's natural and very 70s and as to the sense of story that the song's trying to put across so like i don't get it, but I get why other people would get it I'm just so bored of the arrangement in this by like the first minute like the end of the first minute

You can tell it's gonna go nowhere and that it's gonna go nowhere very slowly I don't mind the lack of pace or the relatively minimal approach with the arrangement But I think it's got to start adding things in it's got to start showing little touches and flourishes here and there. But instead of we just kind of plod through the song, doing the same one or two things throughout, you wouldn't take the vocals out and just listen to the instrumental to this, which is a shame because I think the bones

of a really lovely ballad are here. I don't think the single version has a huge problem with the lack of movement and development instrumentally because it cuts itself short enough, but the album version is obscene, touching nearly six minutes while adding nothing at all throughout. It kind of takes me back to Brian Adams actually where the extended album version adds nothing at all except to convince people to buy the album as well so that you get like more music, it just teases longer stuff.

But more music isn't really worth it if all you're doing with it is what end of the road does this is frustrating and slightly befuddling although maybe it's the point that it goes nowhere because it's at the end of the road or something oh i think you're giving it too much credit there yeah yeah not not not going to piehole this but not really a fan to be honest and how about you? Yeah, I'd like to say that I could offer a counterpoint here, but I can't really much like the song Rob I think you might be the only person ever to describe boys to men using the word obscene

Maybe that fact in itself is is as you would indicate, key to its sort of squeaky late 50s appeal. You mentioned kind of like a Motown oldie feel. I don't think this has much classic Motown in it at all. I think it reaches back to that, the late 50s kind of do-wop. More do-wop, yeah. Dreamy sort of slope. There weren't many Motown waltzes to be honest, at least, you know, not in the 60s and 70s prime era,

as it were. So this kind of misses out that entire thing. It's going back even further to that lineage, which as you say, I think quite rightly, it's got a cross-generational appeal and it was very clean and I think maybe for a lot of people it was seen as more quote unquote acceptable for that reason but I'm conjecturing here. Now this track, it's so strange because it is so you know middle of the road again, god it's so hard to move away from that. So unfortunate.

It's almost like they winkingly know. It's so much, it's like, it becomes almost like the archetype. Is this what, when I think of like a cheesy manufactured R&B ballad, this is kind of what I imagine. But it's specifically this in a way. So it's like, is this the perfect squeaky clean flat no sharp edges R&B ballad that is almost self-parody? I mean, it's just, I think in order to make it just almost calculatedly pure squeaky ballad cheese, it would have to have like a woody woo melodic synth line

at the beginning. Like, woody woo woo woo woo woo. Like the beginning of You and I by Stevie Wonder or After the Love is Gone by Earth, Wind and Fire, which became like a cheesy boy band ballad trope later on. It also, unless I'm missing this, it doesn't

have a chime run in it although thinking about it is that did that tend to be gender coded I would definitely associate them more with women yes yeah definitely the only reason why it's not in here maybe you have to have a woman on the track for the yeah I would be thinking Mariah Carey, like, we belong together kind of sound. You might be right. You might be right there. But what this does have is over singing to a like a histrionic degree, a spoken word section, a really long one as well, tacky MIDI instrumentation, which does sound like the ready packaged karaoke version. I mean, how the hell does this sound so cheap? I mean, these are tacky VST samples for 1992.

They would be tacky in 1988. I mean, it sounds like a Yamaha keyboard from the mid 80s. That isn't hyperbole. I think the only actual live instrument, not that this is inherently an issue, is the bass guitar, which actually just sounds like it's got a bit of, you know, fret slide to it, which they probably wouldn't have been able to do

at this time. And as I say, if it was all synth, no fucking problem at all. But it's all MIDI replicas of real instruments, a bit like that. It reminds me of the very first 90s episode we did with the, like, the Kylie track where it was all just cheesy samples of actual instruments that were like, just made it sound like it's come out of a factory in plastic, if you know what I mean. It's got, yeah, Andy, you mentioned this, it's kind of, it's borderline cuck, isn't it,

to use the modern sort of terminology. Where it's so far into the, oh my God, oh my God, oh, I saw you going with another man and I didn't mind because my love is every ass and you could do whatever you want to me and it's like really really all four of you really remember from like 2008 or something that picture on social media whatever of that teenage lad with the screen cup feel like pure shit just miss us so much with a crying face in the camera it's that yeah but even beyond that it's like it's just it almost reaches a place of like it there's no

sex in this is there really that's another aspect not much romance for me either although if you don't know American they would say something different it would help if it got into like oh I miss your body and stuff like that like okay that might come across a little bit lecherous but at least it'd be something it'd be a bit like well what do you miss about her you just seem to miss the idea of her. It's like I'm completely dependent on you, I have no personality and I'm unhinged. So it's like it feels completely disingenuous to me, which isn't helped by the instrumentation,

which isn't helped by the fact that it feels like it's been artificially extended, where the song is over. And this isn't the only time I'm going to say this, unfortunately, this episode after, you know, about three minutes. Then there's the spoken word section. And then not only does the chorus cycle forever until someone decides to have an idea eventually where they just sort of turn the instrumental track down, just any break in this just flat vista of sound.

But also, you know, that whatever, I don't know any of their names I'm sorry I didn't do my research but they sound an awful lot like copy pasted vocals over the last chorus because there's that very specific kind of histrionic oh my god oh my god we come to the end of the road, oh my god, what are we going to do, what are we going to do? And it's like exactly the same inflection again. Now if it isn't copied, that sort of seems doubly disingenuous, like he can repeat this apparent emotional outburst on cue to the note. And if it is, it just makes the whole song seem even more like a kind of production line job than it already does which is quite a lot. Now I actually forgot this was Motown until you said. Yeah. But credit to them they

adjusted to the times. They had a rough time in the 80s adapting, wasn't a particularly lucrative time and boys to Men kind of saved them from something of a precipice I gather. But their original tagline was the sound of young America. Do you folk think that this is the sound of young America in 1992? Goodness no. No. Not this but Motown Philly. Yes. Motown Philly's decent. Which is a much superior song to this. Yeah. I'll grant you that. I don't know much of their other stuff.

But I mean, to be honest, I've heard more Jodeci than I have Boyz II Men. Jodeci are pretty good, actually. Yeah, Jodeci are not. Because they do have a romance thing, but there's a bit of sexiness. There's a bit of, you know, a bit more hip hop to it. But they sing great and they're ballad based. And I just think it feels just, they get the balance better than this, which there's something slightly creepy about this. It's like it's too chaste and

too wimpy and mithering and it's so tacky and heavily produced and flattened. And it is a shame because it's almost like none of the criticism here is really of the folk singing. And you might say, yeah, it's trite, it's cheesy, it's disingenuous, it's tacky, it's mass produced, but it is solid. And as you said, Rob, there is a solid song under here. That chorus is pretty, you know, indelible.

It's been flowing in and out of my head, whether I like it or not. And it is big and grandiose and weepy in the way I think it's intending. But yeah, there's a bit of Prince about this. If you listen to a lot of the way that the verses are articulated, a lot of the little vocal trills and things, it reminds me a lot of a track called Slow Love

off Sign of the Times, which I think is fantastic. It's a really lovely song, which is, it's slow, it's again waltz time. It doesn't really raise above a whisper a bit like this but it just has more of a sinewy natural feel so if you want an idea of this track kind of done in a more convincingly intimate way listen to slow love by Prince I don't dislike the song there's just too much treacle pre-packaged treacle covering it for

me to actually really endure it for its full length. It does feel like it's just come at the end of many committee sessions and fine-tuning sessions and anyway, that's the end of that I've been finding it quite funny that both of you and this is not a criticism by the review because I see why you might have thought this book both of you have kind of wondered if the the placidness and the emptiness of this like means something if it's deliberate and I Get that because like it's hard not to try and think of it that way because I think what just what this is is like it's it's so boring but it's like almost profound like accessing levels of boring that I

didn't realize what possible to be honest. The goal of its tedium. Yeah you think you think how would that get out there and hook people if it wasn't deliberately doing something if this wasn't some kind of minimalist statement I don't really think it is but I see why you both went there because like it is so boring that you have to wonder If that in itself is a source of interest, but I think it's just no it's just it's just a bit crappy Yeah, but the chorus is good and it does repeat it a lot So it's I think that's entirely calculated to get into people's heads as quickly as possible. Just you mentioning that Ed, Jodeci, it's just kind of got me thinking again, though,

about like all of the other kind of hip hop soul and new jack swing groups from kind of around this time, that Boys To Men really, really pale in comparison to, because I think Boys To Men really really pale in comparison to because I think Boys To Men ultimately just based on their singles they kind of forgot to be fun. Boys To Men although Boys To Men I feel like you know they they kind of laid the template down for what JLS would eventually turn into. Oh yeah I mean Everybody In Love sounds exactly like this. Yes it really does. Whereas Joe DeSede I feel like they influence more like blue from a British perspective and I think that groups like Mystique were always trying to go off what SWV were doing as well in the early 90s but again like with the New Jack Swing kind of hip hop soul like this year

SWV they release It's About Time which is the album that's got like right here on it and anything and I'm so into you and stuff and then right here gets remixed, The Human Nature, Michael Jackson thing, which is one of the best 90s R&B hits, I think. It's a fantastic, really, really fantastic song and they're still a massive deal over in America. I was in America over Christmas and on the street, on the strip in Vegas in front of a Chick-fil-A, they play music just like, you know, over the pavement, you know, like you're just outside and right here, human nature was playing.

And then I was in Florida in a Tommy Hill figure at an outlet mall and right here, human nature was playing and he listened to that and it's like compare it to something like what boys to men are kind of putting out by this point and where SWBV are kind of beginning boys to men have already slowed down for me well like you know Motown Philly is back again and then my best Caitlin Olsen impression with the And then my best Caitlyn Olsen impression with the You know, I just it's a shame that they don't really do much in that vein Again, they kind of slow everything down and they continue to slow everything down because the next sort of big single that they have

after this is the I'll make love to you obviously and yeah and it's so hard to say goodbye came before this as well so yeah because I think this was Boyz II Men's first single to be released in the UK and then Motown Philly was released afterwards in the US it was the other way around because Motown Philly had already been out for about a year by this point and Cooley High Harmony had been out for a while as well. But yeah, Unbended Knee, yeah. How the fuck's that one of the songs on there? Oh, I can imagine what Unbended Knee sounds like.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, but yeah, I think yeah, Jodeci, they're pretty, yeah, for me they're the more kind of flagship example of this kind of stuff that would British pop would eventually learn from Alright, then so the second and last song up this week is this Oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, baby, oh, I lie to you baby, would I lie to you? Oh yeah! She know it's true, girl there's no one else but you Would I lie to you baby, yeah Everybody wants to know the truth

In my heart is the only thing I have in my heart that I know better now Now it's something I can't ignore I'm telling you baby you will never find another girl in this part of my life Okay, this is Would I Lie To You by Charles and Eddie. Released as the lead single from the group's debut studio album titled Duophonic, Would I Lie To You is Charles and Eddie's first single to be released in the UK and their first to reach number one, however, as of 2025 2025 it is their last. Would I Lie to You first entered the UK charts at number 34, reaching number one during its fourth week. It stayed at number one for two weeks.

In week one it sold 69,000 copies beating competition from I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston which climbed to number four, Invisible Touch Live by Genesis which got to number seven and Temptation 92 by Heaven 17 which got to number nine. And in week two it sold 80,000 copies beating competition from Out of Space by The Prodigy which climbed climbed to number 6, and Yesterday's by Guns N' Roses, which climbed to number 8. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Would I Lie To You dropped 1 place to number 2. By the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for 17 weeks. The song is currently officially

certified platinum in the UK as of 2025 Could be pre-cantar data could have been updated since who knows Ed Well, you will you are apparently one half of this group. So how do you feel? This is oddly going for some retro soul Nostalgia a bit like the previous track only kind of splitting the difference time wise and going very much for the early 70s Philly soul sound which is nice because you didn't hear it that often at this point at least kind

of not till Take That bring a little bit of it back on their first couple of albums. I do prefer this to Boyz To Men. Its restraint is very welcome after the last track. It's not histrionic in its delivery with the possible exception of the backing vocals which are a bit hectoring and high in the mix. But Charles and Eddie have very pleasing, you know, smooth voices. They never draw too much attention but they're good singers and they certainly do the job. There's not that ring of artifice that comes from the Boys To Men track. It has a bit of pep and a bit of space to it in terms of an instrumental track. I'm sorry, I'm going to keep comparing this to End of the Road but it's just very

odd to have this little sort of island of deliberately kind of retro evocative tracks next to each other particularly in a loosely soul idiom but and another comparison and this is an unfortunate one because well I like the track more if anything this feels even more artificially extended than the boys to Men track because there is a point at literally about two minutes and 25 seconds where it's like and they've repeated the chorus again and That's the end of the song and this is the fade point and your brain says and that's the fade point Because it's laid out Not necessarily like a Philly soul song, you know

Some of those OJ's tracks are about like seven or eight minutes long, but they can sustain it because they ride a groove or they have big verses that last quite a long time. This is a very short verse and a very short chorus and a very short bridge. And that's all of the bits are kind of done within about 45 seconds. So it's like, and yet the track is again, over the four minute mark. So basically the song stops and they're like, well, what do we do now?

Breakdown, just make the track go dead, do the percussion and then just say some bollocks over the top, work for boy's men. I know that wasn't a thinking here, but it's just again, too many repeats of the chorus at the end. It feels like there was some kind of edict or a perceived edict that either from the label

or radio stations that songs had to be longer than a certain length, which seems counterintuitive to me, especially having worked fleetingly with producers before, where it's like, no, cut it down, two and a half minutes maximum. And I get that logic. I do not get the logic of artificially extending a single by two minutes.

I don't understand, who does that benefit? The only thing I can possibly see as an advantage of that is that you get to repeat the chorus and force people to listen to it more times on first listen to try and get as much penetration into their skulls as possible first time round. But boy, does it reduce the replay value. And I don't know, did DJs have,

were they more constipated at this point? Did they need longer songs just to have longer loo breaks? I don't know. Did cigarettes burn more slowly? I'm not entirely sure, but I don't know. Have you folks got any thoughts on that? Why? Why are all of these songs too long? I mean, I do remember it being a trend of the time, but it just is a problem.

It's not just a feature, in my opinion. I don't know why it is. So I've not got any thoughts on why, but I have definitely noticed it. I mean, our Christmas number one is the same. That's a really long song, or like longer than it needs to be. And I've definitely noticed it about stuff like,

Please Don't Go, when we've had that. Sleep and Satellite was a bit too long. To be honest, that was my one and only criticism about that song. Definitely noticed it and I don't know what's propelling it, except that there must be something to do with people's tastes and probably yes, something to do with radio, something to do with the way it was structured. That maybe there was less of an appetite for radio edits and more of an appetite for DJs to be able to get up and stretch their legs. I don't know. My theory behind this has always been about the... well, albums and music and singles and stuff, they have ultimately always kind of been defined by the space that is available to the people creating the music. And I think that in the age of CDs, albums get infinitely longer. Hidden tracks start appearing after like 25 minutes of silence,

just because. And the reason that those tracks appear in the first place is that we are currently in an era of very well developed, but very cheaply available hi-fi systems like Panasonic and things like that, you know, making like, you know, good quality sound systems, proper speakers, tape decks, CD, record players kinds of things, and making them available, you know, at a decent price. You know, I was, I didn't exactly grow up poor but my parents got a hundred percent mortgage you know they weren't exactly swimming in cash and we were living in a little sort of two up two down in stockport and even we had like a decent you know a decent system yeah and i think we did live in an era of people just putting on the cd and just letting it play

of people just putting on the CD and just letting it play, just leaving it while they invited their friends over. And I think that the available space to artists because of the CD, they're not limited by the constraints of needing to fit two songs on one side of a seven inch single and then two songs on the other, or trying to keep an album under 45 minutes or whatever. It's like, right, let's go for it. Let's just make these big coder sections.

Let's do this. I mean, yes, okay, you could just explain it by saying that it's a current trend that's been set by a couple of big ballads in the 80s. People want longer, bigger things. People like key changes and in order to have a key change we have to build up to it so we have to take a while. Ballads are just big at the moment. I think that just sort of explains it itself. Ballads are just big big massive power ballads are just huge at the moment and People like long songs that get left for a little while they build up And then there's a as we'll find out with the Christmas episode a bit of silence and then a doom doom But it's almost like it's not the length that is actually the issue. It's the length in relation to the material

Yeah, the rest of you. It's unjustified. So many early 90s non-chart albums have really long songs on them that justify their length because they take their time, they're built on slow growth or big sections, or you'll have a big riff section on a rock album and then it'll go into the verse and then will be the pre-chorus, then the chorus, then the tail, then will be a... So these songs naturally kind of go to four or five minutes

because it's the way that the song feels like it should go. Here, and especially with Charles and Eddie, where it does feel like they've got very little material, all they're doing is just doubling up the song like they've been told to. Like somebody has said, you have to make this longer because it doesn't have a discernible middle eight. They just they do a breakdown and then just go back to what is increasingly sounding to me in a lot of these tracks

like a literal drag-and-drop, which they could of course do by this point on an audio workstation. I think your point actually about constipated radio DJs or radio DJs with you know like bladder issues or whatever I think like kind of going off that having double and triple repeated choruses at the end does allow more time to fade out without causing any kinds of issues Mmm, you know like if you repeat the same section two and three times at the end which gives you an extra minute in the runtime but it's just the DJ can just kind of pick when to fade out and You know, it's not kind of like that's a good point They wouldn't have to necessarily play the whole thing and they can say whatever promotional crap they want to over that 15th chorus. Yeah they can use it as a bed which just for anybody

listening who might not know about like the jargon of radio production but like a bed is literally just the song they play under the DJ while he's talking like sometimes it's musax sometimes it's not but industry term is a bed I don't know if that is particularly well known out there. I only remember it from doing radio journalism at university. That's the only place I've ever heard it mentioned. It could be public knowledge and I've missed out on it. I didn't know that, to be fair.

I think it's very specific to that idiom. I mean, as I said, I did some audio production, but it wasn't radio related, so that sort of obviously didn't come about. For me, with Would I Lie to You, this is another song this year that is like absolutely solid, mostly stood the test of time, but just, I don't know, doesn't move that much within me emotionally. I have no memories of this, or it doesn't make me think of anything other than the song itself. You know, I love all the close vocal harmonies, and I'm into the obsession that the Brits seemingly had at the end of 92 with like You know bit of pop soul having a moment This feels ironically

Like something that's had a lot of success off the back of someone taking a chance on Charles and Eddie because of simply red success with stars But it also feels like something that Mick Hucknall wishes he'd written, so desperately wishes that he'd written this and there are actually mislabeled videos on YouTube attributing Would I Lie to You to Simply Red with a picture of Mick Hucknall in the thumbnail image. He's a genuine belief that he wrote it according to this person because a lot lot like Boyz II Men, this feels like it looks back for inspiration and has that classic kind of pop soul sound to it, especially with those climbing strings in the chorus.

And yeah, apparently Charles and Eddie Form, when they met each other on a subway train, one of them was carrying a copy of Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man, and you can see how they get inspiration from his lovely kind of floating falsetto on the titular song from that album. But beyond that, I just have no real sentiment to this. I think it's just a pretty little pastiche that's very well constructed, up to a point, and that's about it, you know? I just, you know, the only other kind of nice bit

of affection I feel towards this is that apparently Eddie made a return to music about five years ago and has released a collection of some pretty well rated psychedelic soul records in the last sort of four or five years, long after the dearly departed Charles, because Charles of Charles and Eddie died in the early 2000s. He was still quite young, he was diagnosed with cancer and died only about 10 years after this song's success but Eddie has kept the flame burning for the two of them which was quite nice. Andy, would I lie to you? I don't think you would, no, no I trust you. I Find that although I definitely like this more than end of the road Definitely. I do think it's odd that it's not just not just you head with you know

You how you were comparing the two I do find it odd that this actually inherits a lot of the same issues That I have a lot of the same problems with this just a little bit less So I think the overall package is better. Like it has a little, little bit more pace to it. It's just a more likable song in general, like it's catchier and you know, it's a bit more fun, which I think was the big fundamental element that was lacking from end of the road is there's just zero fun in that song. And this is at least a little bit bouncy and a little bit happy at least but

I think The thing that's really been bothering with me with this the last couple of weeks is that Getting going from analysis at all like it just purely just on a description level if I just have to just describe this Without analyzing it without like comparisons to things, I would find it really hard to just describe this song like I would find it really hard to sort of say what genre specifically it fits into because yes it's kind of a pop soul thing but it's also like it sounds so artificial and so 90s that it's kind of hard for me to really feel like it's defined as that.

And I think the reason for that is that there's an emotional void in the middle, like Rob was saying, like I don't feel anything from this. And so I find it quite hard to really describe what this song is. Like it sort of bypasses genre walls and bypasses tonal walls, what bypasses tonal walls for me because I'm not feeling anything, I'm not connecting with anything with this. It's really odd and that's the same thing that happened with End of the Road that I just didn't feel anything at all so I found it hard to know what to say and that's what it is with this. It's really like again so inoffensive and so bland to be honest

that it is almost profound and I find that really strange because like how do things like that take off if they're that bland? It's just been bothering me, it's been bothering me to sit down and think right okay what instruments can I hear? What kind of voice is that? You know what setting would you use this for? And I couldn't answer any of those questions. I think the main setting would you use this for? And I couldn't answer any of those questions. I think the main setting I would use this for is like, if I was making a movie set in the 90s, maybe the noughties, and two characters were sat in a bar having a chat

and quite a big chat where you don't want the music of the scene to distract, so you'd have this all in the background. And I don't think in my whole life, I don't think I've ever heard this before in a setting that wasn't in the background of something I've never sat down and put this on myself and I don't think I've ever seen anyone sit down and put this on like in their house when you don't need to because you can hear in the background at Tesco it's that kind of song it's a song it's a trolley song

it's like pipes from ghost watch where like you sort of pan across and occasionally Oh, there it is. Then you've missed it. Like no one's ever like it's never there in the foreground. It's just this kind of ghost that lingers in the background of British culture and no one actually ever like foregrounds it. And that's strange. Again, it's a song that I feel like its success is partly down to the fact that it's so inoffensive that again it offends no one and so it's like well enough people will like it that it will hang around. There's just a bit of a lack of ambition there to be honest. I don't think it helps that the voice, I don't know whether it's Charles already but that voice that's very kind of pulled back and quite high pitched

and quite nasal and I'm struggling to get anything out of that. I don't think it's the most emotive voice in the world, but it does have some good stuff going for it. I do think it is a very catchy chorus, just the chorus to be honest. I think everything else is quite loose to be honest, but the chorus does pull this together and it is quite catchy and I can imagine like if you were hearing this in a bar performed live, like say if you were hearing this in like a jazz bar or something, it'd be quite good actually. I don't think that

90s production and headphones really serve it well to be honest and I don't think radio would have served it well either to be honest. I think this is a nice thing to hear in a small venue performed by a proper band to be honest. So I think this is a nice thing to hear in a small venue, performed by a proper band, to be honest. So I think this is sort of at the wrong time for it, and it sounds oddly muted because of that. So, bit of a shame for me this, because I do think there is like the bones of a good song in this, but I just, again, it's the same as Rob, I just feel nothing. It's blood from a stone with this. And I would like to posit that We've had a few weeks ago

We said the strangest couple of songs that we've ever covered which was the one with Jimmy Nail and we had the Aberesky P And please don't go and Gameboy and ain't no doubt I mean that we said that was probably the strangest three songs that we've ever covered and we've had like the worst Week that we've ever had I think was probably back in 2008 where we had that X Factor Ballads x 3 episode which I think was probably the weakest bunch of songs we've ever covered. I think this is the blandest pair of songs that we've ever covered in an episode I think this is the most mid selection we've ever covered on Hits 21. I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing but it's striking to me, it's striking to me how unpassionate I am

about either of these songs. Yeah so I'll just leave you with that thought. I do think that Charlton Eddy track is, it sounds a lot like an early 70s sort of poppier end of Phic soul kind of track. Something like a mid-tier like Spinner's song or something, not putting anything against the Spinner's because I think this has a great chorus and I think the Spinner's were great with those as well. But it is like the other track we've done, done in a very overly slick flat way that does a lot, it sort of loses all urgency and it does not have any direction to it, it just sort of cycles and again that

probably adds to the impression that this is just background music, whether it's a bed for a broadcast or it's just a bed for a garden centre. You know that bit of a family party like in a conservative club or something before people have really arrived and there's music on but you're not supposed to be on the dance floor yet? That's what this is. I know what you mean. Alongside stuff like that's what friends are for or country like there's that kind of has to make a playlist for this of like stuff that like plays at family parties but please don't dance to it

all right then so before we go we're just gonna check andy boister men charles and eddie piehole vault what are we doing it is indeed the end of the road for end of the road which means it won't be either turning left for the pie hole or turning right for the vault. It's come to a stop. It's out of gas. It's staying where it is. They'll have to call for assistance to get themselves off the road.

They'll have to call the AA. And as for would I lie to you? Well, I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. So it's staying exactly where it is. Yeah, so two middle of the road ones for me this week. Yeah. Alright then, Ed, end of the road, what'd I lie to you?

Well, the road in fact stretches on forever, straight and without gradient. Like in the parody video game Desert Bus. So no, it's not going anywhere. And Charles and Eddie they don't ascend to the throne like Charles nor do they abdicate and get chummy with Hitler like Eddie. They just kind of hang around like the ghost of Lady Jane Grey. That was a fucking stretch, wasn't it? So yeah, no, two Horizon level ones for me. Yeah, as for me, End of the Road is, yep, I revealed before, is going absolutely nowhere.

And with Charles and Eddie, I guess one of us has to make the would I pie to you pun. Oh, how did we miss that? I'm not going to pie to that and I'm not gonna vault it either. It's just kind of yeah is that you know are we you know six votes there all of them just in the middle we're not sending them anywhere. Yeah that does sort of support the most made episode ever theory I'm not sure how often that happens that nothing goes anywhere in an episode. Yeah. Yeah So next week we will be back for the race for Christmas number one in 1992 and we will see you all for it. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye now. Bye. Bye