Hits 21 - 1995 (4): Blur, Michael Jackson, Shaggy

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every single UK #1 hit.You can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hits21UKYou can email us: [e-mail] 21 DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY MUSIC USED IN THE EPISODES. USAGE OF ALL MUSIC USED IN THIS PODCAST FALLS UNDER SECTION 30(1) OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT 1988.

It's 21 Hi there everyone and welcome back to HITS 21, and welcome back to HITS 21, the 90s, where me, Rob, me, Andy. And me, Ed, are looking back at every second. single UK number one of the 1990s. If you want to get in touch with us, you can. You can email us it hits 21 podcast at gmail.com. We're back over on Twitter. It hits 21 UK. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are currently looking back at the year 1995 and this week, it's a bit of a shorter period than last week, but we are covering the period between the 20th of August and the 23rd of September. So a month and three days. Just a little note. Here.

It's 21 does not own the rights to any music in this episode, but usually of all the music in this podcast falls into section 30 calls, one of the copyright act, 1988. All right then, it is time to press on with this week's episode, and Andy, you are going to let us know about the album charts. How are they doing? We've got a pretty exciting bunch, considering the week that we're in,

and one of the events in music chart history that we're covering this week, it's kind of indicative of that, because we have some up-and-coming British bands that are dominating the charts over the... this period. Yes, so we start this period with Black Grape, um, who spent two weeks at number one with their album. It's great when you're straight ellipsies. Yeah. Does it make it better or worse, if you imagine Sean Ryder saying it? That spends two weeks at number one and goes platinum before it's replaced at the top by Boyzone with their debut album said and done, which went number one

for one week and went triple platinum. Then we've got the charlatans. with the Charlottons, which went number one for one week and only went gold. And it's the same one week and gold for the last album of this period. It's Levelers with Zeitgeist. In the news, as Sony unveils the very first model of the PlayStation Games console, Microsoft unveils its brand new operating system. Windows 95. In sports news, Frank Bruno wins the World Heavyweight title in boxing,

and that's as Middlesbrough FC move into the digital. newly built Riverside Stadium, and in America, the Unabomers Manifesto is published in the Washington Post and New York Times. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows, die hard with a vengeance while you were sleeping, and Braveheart, and in US TV, this past summer, the whole of America was trying to solve the mystery of who shot Mr. Burns. Then they found out it was the baby. Ed, what were they listening to in America while they were trying to solve the mystery of who shot Mr. Burns. I can answer that.

It's, send your burns. And the blowfish. Again. I'm sure that's the last week. I can't in all conscience finish that sentence. They will be back on the album's charts. But there's more big bucks soundtrack's work with four weeks of the score to a movie in which, for all I know, Michelle Pfeiffer sits respectfully for two hours at a table and watches a very

tiny desk concert featuring Culeo, Wendy and Lisa, and many, many more. Have either you seen Dangerous Minds? No. No. It was number one for four weeks, the soundtrack, purely obviously, by the power of Culeo, because it's not going to be for any of these other fucking artists. I'll be quite honest with you. But interestingly, that Wendy and Lisa track,

which I trust is the Prince affiliates, Wendy and Lisa, it was produced by one Trevor Horn, who does get around, speaking of which singles. Kiss from a Rose by Seal does what it failed to do in the UK and lands at the number one spot, if only for a week.

Next up, a song written by a convicted paedophile and sung by an alleged one. You are not alone tickles the fancy of America for a week before we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Take a look at our lives and realize there's nothing left because we've been blazing and laughing so long that even our mummers think our minds are gone. But, and forgive me for speaking for my co-hosts here,

we ain't never crossed a man who didn't deserve it and it is unheard of for us to be treated like punks you better watch how you're talking and where are you walking or you and your homies might be lined in chalk we really hate to trip I'm sure I speak for us all here but we got a loke as they croak

we see ourselves in the pistol smoke fool. It's Mariah Carey with fantasy. No, just kidding. You'll have to wait for that lengthy treat. It's Gangsters Paradise by LV featuring Culeo for three weeks. All right, thank you, Ed, for that American report. And we are going to move on now to the first of three number ones that we're covering this week. And it's a big one, isn't it? It's this. I'm going to sit-te dweller, successful fella.

Thought to himself, oops, I've got a lot of money. Card in a ramp race, terminally. I'm a professional cynic, but my heart's not in it. I'm paying the price of living life at the limit. Caught up in the centuries That's a deity Yes, it rates on him They're trying to sit songs

In a house Very big house in the country Watching up the new repeats In the third in the age In the country He takes a man at a peels And piles of found out of spells In the country

Oh, it's like an animal farm That's a rural charm in the country He's got morning glory And life's a different story Everything's going Jack and Jockey Chonery Touch with his own for

Palettes Okay, this is Country House By Blur Released as the lead single From their fourth studio album titled The Great Escape

Country House is Blur's 12th single To be released in the UK And their first to reach Number 1 And it's not the last time We'll be coming to Blur during our 90s coverage.

Country House went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for two weeks. In its first week atop the charts, it sold 274,000 copies beating competition from, rather famously, roll with it by Oasis, everybody by clock and human nature by Madonna, and in week two it sold 135,000, Copies, beating competition from You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson, The Sunshine After

the Rain by Berry, I'll be there for you by the Rembrandts and Hide Away by Delisey. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Country House dropped one place to number two. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 14 weeks. The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK. of 20, 25. So, Lizzie, what do you make

of country house? I thought you were never going to introduce me. I've just been sat here all the time. Hello again. We had to bring you back for a special episode didn't we? You really did. Yeah, I'm here because I love blur,

but I don't love this. In fact, if I'm honest, I think I actively dislike this. As I get older, I find myself revisiting Blur's Back catalogue, I've noticed that I'm far more likely to skip this sort of Blur song, the kind of wide-eyed, tongue-in-cheek caricature of Britishness. It's all very knowing, very arch, and makes absolutely no effort to hide its debt to the kinks. Even the title of this is a lift of an album track from 1966.

And it suffers from the same problem that dogs a lot of Blur's characters. study songs, the assumption that a couple of quirky observations are enough to carry a fully formed narrative, but they're not. So instead of a compelling story, we get a flimsy sketch propped up mostly by Blur's musicianship trudging on in the hope we won't notice the lack of actual substance. In the context of the Great Escape, I'd say that the Universal is one of Blur's best singles, full stop. I think it's nuanced, cinematic, ambitious. Everything this song isn't.

Unfortunately, I don't think it ever would have stood a chance in the Battle of Brit Pop, especially against a beloved Oasis single like Wonderwall. I'd say that stereotypes and charmless men share a lot of the same problems with this single, like overly self-aware and ultimately quite hollow. But still, I do mean it. when I say that I love Blur. I think had Oasis triumphed in the Battle of Brit Pop, I probably wouldn't be here talking about this.

I don't like Oasis at the best of times, and I think, roll with it, is Oasis by numbers. It's got nothing to say. It's got nowhere to go. It's like Gale Force rubbish, just running at the speed of nothing. Pointless music. Blur, on the other hand,

never really settled on a single sound. I think that restlessness made their discography a bit of a roller coaster full of dizzying highs and terrifying lows. And this particular single release is a perfect example. You've got this A side, which, okay, not for me, but fair enough if you're into it. Then on the first B side, there is one born every minute, which is a bit of a monstrosity. It kind of lurches from side to side on a stomping beat like someone needing a piss with duck whistles and kazooze layered on top because why the fuck not it sounds like

it sounds like sunday sunday on quailudes it's a very ugly sounding record you're selling this i don't know if that's the intention well if that's your thing then go for it you do you but blurs b-sides always were a bit of a hot mess even at the best of times which makes the inclusion of the other b-side here all the more confounding to the end brackets lack is, by contrast, one of the most beautiful things they ever recorded. This newer version brings in Francois Hardy on vocals, singing in French, with an honest-to-god accordion solo in the middle. It's an example of what Blur could achieve when they leaned into their more artistic impulses. Where country house is all bathos, led by an unsympathetic

non-entity of a protagonist, La Comédidi builds on the emotional way. the original to the end, deepening its theme of letting go with quiet dignity. Hardy's additions to the lyrics are devastating. Like in the final chorus, she sings, Je ne'ne vous ferre by the honor de la Jue Jusko Bout. I won't do you the honor of playing it to the end. It's a refusal to keep pretending and taking pride in walking away before fully submitting to the performance. And in a way, I feel like that sentiment would come to horn blur not long after this single. A few years ago, Graham Coxon revealed that during champagne party to celebrate this single hitting number one, he threatened to jump out of a six-story window. Damon Albarn, thankfully, managed to talk him down,

but in hindsight, I think this single represents a kind of breaking point. It's a moment where the shiny facade of Brit Pop really began to crack and the emotional reality underneath started to seep through and it had to because this just wasn't sustainable. So when we next meet Blurr on this podcast, they are a different band altogether. They're stripped back, they're more honest, they're less interested in character studies

and more willing to confront their own vulnerabilities. and honestly, that is the blur I fell in love with in the first place, certainly not this. Yeah, it's interesting you sort of say that actually, that, you know, at the moment where it maybe gets exposed to the largest number of people is the moment where a lot of, I think a lot of bands that were at the very forefront of Brit Pop kind of went like, okay, we can either go in one direction or the other direction, and I think bands like Blur, Oasis and Pulpaw went in their direction an oasis kind of went

oh we could just do this again but bigger why not yeah I'm also how do I put this I am way keener on the second half of Blur's discography than the first like the first half but the second half when they do self-titled

and 13 and think tank and even to be honest portions of the magic whip as well which I know not everybody's keen on and I'm less fussed about the ballad of Darren but those kind of four records I always think yeah they're when they become the band that I have a lot of affection for I think that like how do I put this I've always kind of say you know whenever anyone asks like who do you prefer oasis or blur which is really weird because I feel like that question only exists because of this one week or two weeks in pop history because they feel

in my head totally separate from each other. They play similar music and they were part of a larger overarching monocultural thing, but they operate very differently as musicians and as styles that they go for and stuff. But I would say that I prefer Blur because they're more consistent. I just don't think Blur ever did an album that I like as much as definitely maybe, but Oasis never did another album that I think even is as good as like, I'm not that, I'm keen on Park Life, but not massively, and I don't think Oasis did an album that beats that, and I would say that Part Life is like my sick favorite

blur album, so yeah, that's kind of where I stand on them. Ed, Country House. Yeah, there are four singles off The Great Escape, the album, this is off. I mean, I think

Lizzie's already nicely couched this in its context, but that's an album that's, you know, generally acknowledged, and I also feel is on the lower end of a pretty patchy album hierarchy to begin with. And I would say this is probably the third best single off that album. I do like it more than stereotypes, which is an album that they themselves have consistently left off best of. And I don't know if they wouldn't have left off country house as well if they had the choice. But it's so ubiquitous. It represents

such a however hollow a cultural moment quote and quote that they can't really um still it is a bit alarming that on the best of blur or what was it called no not the best of blur they did a later compilation called midlife if you remember that it was like a mid-price compilation uh on two discs and it had this on it but it didn't have no distance left to run on it yeah and they'd released a documentary at the same time called No Distance Left to Run. So it's like an enormous middle finger. I know why they did that. But anyway, I'm going off piece here. I'm basically, you know, it was going to be a bait and switch. Oh, this is a load of shit. But the problem is I still really like this song. Or at least admire it as a piece songcraft. Because after all these

years, I listen to it a bit differently. And I just pick apart the different elements. And nowadays, I just find myself noticing, my God, Graham Coxon just had so many fucking ideas. It was unreal. On this track, I mean, there's like four or five different wacky things he does that actually fit the song. I'm not just talking about that. Unutterably bizarre solo that kind of goes

and then harmonizes with itself and then goes bittaloo again and sounds fine. It's completely in tune with the lardy-dardy, oh, I have a banana, that sort of tone of the song without our actually representing that in any obvious way. Even his dive-bombing little sort of spy slash surf rock guitar intro is cool. You know, the da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-da-da.

I mean, I don't know why you would have that idea to connect it to the song, but it bloody works. And it means that the first horn hit sounds like a bomb going off for better or for worse. And I say better or for worse, because as much as I like this song, song, it is perfectly clear to me why people would find this annoying and vacuous and punchably smug and arrogant and oversized. Because it is a lot of those things, to be quite frank. It just also has some great counterpoint. It's very dynamic. It's got a cool coda that grows organically out of the last chorus. There's interesting textures everywhere, not just from Greene Coxon, but the use of horns, his little guitar interjects and Stuart in the verses.

Damon Albarns sort of adding backing vocals to himself and extra hooks. There's hooks everywhere. This isn't just some sort of fucking buy the numbers thrown together thing that a bit like roll with it, it just makes roll with it sound a bit simplistic by comparison. And I know you could say, well, they're not going for that vibe, they're going for straight rock and roll, but it just sounds like they don't have any idea. on that song. As you say, Lizzie,

it's like it's Oasis by numbers, which is, I mean, it's okay. It's okay. I've never had a problem with Role with it. It's just like, oh, it's oasis, and it's the hardest song to place on which album it's from, if you get what I mean,

if you can sort that into an English sentence. Yeah, no, I get that. Because it's like, is this off the first album? It could be, a little bit low key, but it could be. It's off the second one. Oh, right. Yeah, it's somewhere there.

And I forget it's on the second one as well. because it's just Oasis, the single, for better or for worse. I prefer this to Park Life, if I'm honest. It does, Rob, you mentioned in the chat earlier on, that you felt this was like Park Life 2. It takes on a life of its own, and it's very much in that kind of cockney-ri commentary kind of approach they're going widescreen with.

But this feels less gimmicky. It's no less shallow, But at the same time, it feels like a full song, not just a bunch of choruses and a novelty act in between, which is why I find Park Life so difficult to listen to nowadays, even though, granted, it was pretty refreshing at the time. Fucking nothing sounded like Park Life in the charts. And nothing really sounded much like it afterwards, but it did spawn a lot of questionable Cockney-themed novelty songs, to be honest. it's not as smug and snarky as that track with its Worshbrung Deutsch technique stuff but it's not really saying anything either it's not got that smug dissociative sense of social commentary

that Balbon liked to put into his music at this point but it's not saying anything it's and also it's just not really aged that well as a caricature, not just in how unbarbed it is, but also because nowadays it wouldn't be that this person has upped sticks and moved to the country, is that they've bought a second fucking home in the country. So second home in the country would probably have aged better, I think.

Oh, he's not at home, his second home in the country. He keeps the locals out with financial clout in the country. It's a circular post and it's a social ghost in the country. Opposed a housing plot just in case it was a blot in the country. Oh, la, la. But anyway, it's not as annoying as a lot of their hits of this ilk. And why I'm using that as my big justification to put it into the fucking vault, I don't know. But I think, yeah, underneath all of this, I think there's a very,

good song and so many good ideas and it's perfectly assembled it doesn't really outstay its welcome because it keeps shifting up the textures but it's just if you can get past that potential pulling something out of the freezer that's

stuck at the back effect of all of the cartoony cockney social commentary shtick because it is shtick going on over the top the second surprise of this episode eh I bet you didn't think Lizzie coming back

could be matched but there we go Andy Country House Blur Well yes Before I get into that Let's get back to the first surprise

Welcome back Lizzie It's so nice to have you here Thank you And I'm just sort of Fanboying over The few times over the last few minutes That we've heard interactions between Ed and Lizzie Because it feels like

Watching the 10th and 11th doctor Have a conversation It's very fun Why don't one of you make fun of what each other's wearing or point fun of each other's idiosyncrasies. That's what the listeners want to hear. Yes, but who's who? Well, I mean, chronologically, Lizzie's David Tennant and Ed's Matt Smith.

So, I guess, Lizzie would be the universally popular, you know, hits 21 at its height, and Ed would be the still beloved, but slightly more oblique, follow-up. But, you know, I think you're both wonderful. So, yes, wonderful to have you both here. I mean, with this, I come in it from a very different angle from probably all three of you because I'm really, like, shockingly uneducated on Blair. Part of that's because when I was a teenage and I was really discovering music, I became a massive oasis, like, madman, basically, and so, you know, Blur was the enemy, so I didn't

really get into Blur. But part of that's just because, like, I was a little bit too young to catch them at the time, and I'm not, I just haven't really got around to be visiting them yet. So, like, my experience of Blair is quite scattershot. For this song in particular, the main thing that always comes to my head is my friend Jay and I used to sing a version of this song about the show Lost, the character Desmond from Lost. We used to sing, he lives in a hatch, a very big hatch on an island, etc. You'd be a robot like that one.

And in terms of Oasis, you know, roll with it is not one of my favorites. and so I thought oh maybe Blair will just like completely easily come out on top and actually I think they're pretty equal to be honest I kind of nominally prefer role with it if I'm honest just because I think it's tighter

like it's not trying to do much but what it does do it does it very solidly I think it's got a quite interesting structure to it where what sounds like a bridge is actually just an embedded part of what turns out to be a bigger overall refrain where it's like they're not really choruses and verses in that there's just like big two minute

sections that kind of swallow up a bridge within them. I think that's quite an interesting structure. And it's kind of my biggest problem with Country House that I think it's not very tight. I actually disagree with Ed. I think this really outstays it's welcome, which is weird considering they're basically exactly the same length, this and roll with it. But I was a bit shocked the first time I listened to this and it finished the second chorus before the halfway point.

And I was like, I don't remember what else happens in this song. Like, this seems very odd. and I think that bridge really saps a lot of momentum and then it just goes into like a minute and a half basically of playing that chorus over and over again and I just thought oh this is not the tightest thing in the world but I think the Battle of Bripop is a really interesting showpiece

of both the differences and the similarities between oasis and blur I think a lot of the stereotypes that set in about the two of them you can kind of understand why to be honest because the whole stereotype of Oasis as a kind of working class, working man's, accessible, you know, having it large kind of thing for Northerners

does very much come through with roll with it. You know, it's all quite kind of low-register lyrics, it's all noisy, and it's all about vibes. Nothing wrong with that. That's not a criticism. Obviously, it has a huge audience. And then on the other side, with Country House,

it seems a little bit more middle-class. It does seem very southern. It seems like, you know, they're talking about things that are, for me, grown up as a northerner, lifelong northerner, you know, seem very distant and singular issues that seem a bit more abstract, and has more diverse instrumentation in it as well. It just seems a little bit posher, if I may use the phrase. And that's the stereotype that set in, which I know isn't true, that Oasis and Blair are actually far more

similar than people tend to believe. And the whole kind of North versus South, working class versus middle class thing doesn't hold water with their discogravies in general. Indeed, Oasis far, far more pretentious than Blair, I think, as the years go by. But I think the main similarity that's really interesting to me here is that you can kind of hear DNA of both of them from an earlier point. I thought this was really, really weird to me this, that I don't know what the opposite is of having a baby, because the thing I'm going to say, it sounds like, came before them, where it basically ignore the fact that it came before, but I feel like if you put

country house and roll with it together, mash them into one song, you would get whatever by Oasis like that's almost exactly what you would get and that came about a year before this but it feels like that song has diversed into several different paths where you've got roll with it which obviously is still Oasis

has that Oasis sound it shares a lot of kind of lyrical intent with whatever you know do whatever you like roll with it they basically mean the same thing just said in different phrasing and country house has sort of the same rhythm and metre as

whatever it has a lot of the same instrumentation as whatever as well and it's far too long just like whatever so it kind of feels like the basic DNA of britpop sits more deeply than these two songs put against each other would suggest that there is shared there is shared musical um i'm not going to say iconography but this sort of shared musical symbols and musical touch points between the two of them um which i find really interesting really because that's kind of how you define a genre and listening to these two things they kind of sound like entirely different genres at times but not really not really and it makes me wonder how much of this was manufactured and how much of this is just happy coincidence that they picked two very different songs um for this battle here

i wonder about an alternate battle of brick pop really where i think i think it's a bit of a shame because obviously hindsight's 2020 you don't know that you don't know what your most successful material is going to be you don't know what your best material is going to be but i do wonder about different versions of how huge this could have been if, you know, if they'd pick their most commercially successful thing, like if this was Wonderwall versus Park Life, can you imagine, you know, like the month's long battles that might have gone by for something like this? Or if they pick their very best material, which for me personally, if I had to pick like my favourite, both them, it'd probably be something like, some might say versus to the end, something like that, which again would

be probably one of the best top twos that we've had in the 90s so far. Um, it. Um, it's, um, it's, And what we've got is neither of their best. But like I said, I think it's really interesting in showing how they're similar but different as well. And I don't really have much to add other than that. Country House has a song. I think it's fine, but it is a bit annoying. And I've never really got it. I've never really got with it at all.

But I really like that brass in the background, that ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, which again is quite similar to the strings from whatever. It sounds like you can leave your hat on when you do it. then as well. I think I did do with the Yulia out of then. I think that's what I sang.

But, you know, it is genuine. It's kind of the same. No, it's not, you weren't wrong on either count, actually.

Yes, that actually is what I sang there, I've just realized. But never mind, yeah. But if I may just defend the, um,

the middle eight, that's one of the, when I said the track was dynamic, which is the word I use every fucking review that I do, I realize,

but I love a bit of dynamism. Um, I think it's a necessary. part of the song to slow it down. Imagine if it was just the fucking chorus again. But also, what I've always really appreciated about it, I thought was a clever move, is that it's introduced in the background

to the previous chorus. So before the element of sadness has actually been, you know, laid on top, it's actually there in the background, which is, admittedly, it's far more subtle than this song deserves, really, because it's very, basic commentary, but I think I could, if I pick apart the musical elements, which is all I'm doing,

I just appreciate how much effort has been putting into layering this and at least trying to make it all, you know, sustained through its length. I mean, it obviously doesn't work for everyone, but it just about works for me, I think. I admire it. Yes, and I do think this is musically more interesting than roll with it. I don't really think there's any doubt about that, to be honest, but it sort of staggers under its own way to think. I accept that there needs to be a middle eight that's quite different because you get to the end of the second chorus at like one minute 50 and you think, oh, something else has got to happen here. You're getting through this song too fast. But I just think, I don't know, it feels like too much of a left turn.

But I admire the confidence with it, to be honest. And I do think that that really stands out about both songs as well, is that this is both bands in supreme confidence here. They're both just like going for it and doing what they do and that's interesting as well because both them to some extent at different rates will lose their confidence and by the end of this decade you know they're both a bit no one really knows to be honest but this is like it's just the peak happening at the peak of their confidence the peak of their mainstream appeal it's just not the peak of quality and it's just oh if it was the peak of quality this would be something truly genuinely special

but it's not bad it's not bad I do like this I just think overcooked in some ways and undercooked in others been put in the microwave that's what it is

yeah aren't they just both slapable at this point let's be honest both Damon Albon and the Gallagas in each way

are just so in your goddamn face you just want to just give them a quick belt around the cheek I don't actually want to hurt

Damon Albarn's lovely lovely cheeks but well read into that what you will You could put either of these songs on in any indie bar or any kind of lads, lads, lads bar, anywhere in the country, any city for any age group, either north or south, and it would bring out the same, like, drunken roars from the same people everywhere, you know, like, they're really not so different. No, that's a good point. Well, it should be mentioned, we are roughly 30 years on from the Battle of Brick Pop, almost of the day, actually, because of the delaying.

recording because of all the copyright shit that we've had to go through. It's actually kind of worked out nicely and serendipitously really. And listening to both songs, 30 years on, kind of exposes, it kind of exposes the whole thing as a bit of a charade, you know, two solid but lesser hits from Blur and Oasis's fourth and second albums, respectively, one of which wasn't even going to be released on the same day as the other initially, but then they got put together in a battle in order to signify, I don't know, something. Like maybe something about the North-South divide, which doesn't exist.

Or the Oasis were working class and that Blur were middle class, which they sort of were, but also sort of weren't. Or that Blur were better than Oasis, which they mostly were. Or that Oasis were better than Blur, which they were for one album at the beginning, and then, in my opinion, never again. And maybe to take Brit Pop out of the hands of bands like Sanetian, Swade, Adorable, Elastica, Placebo, and into the hands of Blur, Oasis, and a load of fucking imitators that would still be cropping up 20 years later.

And then it happens. You know, Blur win the battle, but Oasis win the war. I actually think that the Battle of Britpop helped Blur more than it helped Oasis, but only for about that two-week period. Because Blur had had a couple of top 10 hits, and girls and boys have been a big hit. But I don't think they were capable of a number one without this battle. without this argument blowing up.

It felt like they were kind of piggybacking a little bit on the success that Oasis had seen over the past sort of three to four months. This, you know, then becoming a real, like, you know, the size that they became and the size that they still are now. And then kind of land in a small victory and then Oasis, the juggernaut of Oasis, just kind of carried on and blew up with them be here now.

But then afterwards everyone kind of gets on with their lives, except of course for the millions of people for whom 1995 lasted forever even when Albarn went off to do guerrillas and even during the 15 years that Oasis were inactive in a way I think a lot of the music press

and media in general are still stuck there thinking that it's either still 1995 or that it should simply be 1995 again. You've seen it a lot over the past year or so since Oasis came back like, oh my God, Oasis are back. Labor are back. Oh my God. is it the 90s again? And it's like, no, no, 9-11 happened. The Iraq war happened. The banks did crash.

We have been under 10 to 15 years of austerity and England still lost the Euro 2020 final. Like, Country House is good, I think, but I think that's because Blur are good. Even when they're trying to imitate Park Life, their most annoying hit of all, I agree, Ed. They still can't resist showing good songcraft and musicianship. I'll always prefer Blur to Oatis overall because blur were all right with showing their feelings, even if they don't like to show their feelings much here, and even if you can hear the braces twanging from here, and even if you can smell the jellied eels, me old mucker. But hey, you know, I guess that's the point, because this is about those smug bank manager motherfuckers who grow tired of city living in London and start

to overwhelm the populations of places like St. Albans and Woking and Rochester. And then it turns out they weren't tired of city living. They were just tired of living at all because no matter where you go, you're always going to be near people who you have to share space with and you can't run away from your own prejudices. The great unwashed who used supermarkets and cinemas and buses just like everybody else and just like you do. And it feels like blur are poking fun at this caricature they've built. So a lot of the stuff that annoys me about part life is here, but I feel differently about it. Like warmer, maybe. It's just if you were going to imagine though, in your head, the song that Blur entered into the Battle of Britpop, it would just be this,

wouldn't it? Like, you would, after part life, you would just be like, yeah, it would probably open with a line like, city dweller, successful fella. The same goes for Oasis with roll with it as well, which is why I think ultimately, as much as this is weaker than the universal, I think if you're going to make a big splash in a big splashy populist music battle, you're going to have to go with something that's more typical of people's ideas of you. Like, Lizzie, you mentioned something in the chat, which I don't recall you mentioning in your spoken analysis, which is that Country House has the kind of beat. What was it?

It sounds like somebody walking on a bouncy castle holding two pints of beer, which is a fantastic description that you could apply to a lot of Brit pop songs of this type. and yeah, Country House fits that bill. I'm never quite sure whether I prefer a role with it or this. I think there are stronger singles to come from both albums, and I think there's something about this that you get now sometimes where people are anxious that pop culture isn't at the forefront of everyone's mind anymore, where you think about big pop culture moments from the past in a vacuum,

and you think, shit, there's nothing like that nowadays. And so everyone feels the need to force themselves to live through something so that they can pretend that it was exciting to the next generation and they force an argument or they convinced themselves that everyone was watching, the world held its breath. And then you look at the figures and not even 1% of the population of England bought these singles in total.

It's like, you know, it's a bit, the Beatles and the Stones for the 90s, but it's just for people who wanted it to be, ultimately. And it turns out that that wasn't as many as we thought. You know, you'll see it in a few. few years when they try to like in 20 years two movies will be released on the same day and it'll be like it's barbenheimer for the 2040s and that where barbenheimer kind of developed on its own and became an organic meme and everybody kind of got involved there have been little attempts to

like this is the next barbenheimer and it's like a horror movie that like five people go and see mixed with a low budget romcom which isn't even directed by Paul Fee, like, you know, it's like, and then it kind of, you know, they make combined about 20 million at the box office and then that's it. And I feel like we, they've tried to do this a few times. I will say, though, that this, I think take that largely responsible for what I'm about to say. I don't know if I credit them for it or blame them for it, but like, depending on your perspective, but the idea of a song going straight to number one as a brand new entry feels like a thing that really becomes like the regular thing in the 90s.

Like, you know, that's what labels try to do as opposed to dropping it out, getting it on the radio, building up some momentum. Whoa, there you go. It's in the charts. It feels like from about take that onwards. And especially with the Battle of Britpop, it's like every week, so war, there's five new entries and who's going to win. And like, you know, that's the context that we started the podcast in.

Actually, with, you know, the songs from the 2000s and hits 21 and stuff. So yeah, there's a lot to There's, I think there's a lot to blame this for There's a lot to look back on and sort of go like It was kind of, you know, glorification of As Neil Korkani kind of said, it was the cunts taking over Which I, and to be honest,

those cunts are still kind of around in the media And they'll do talking head bits on like, there's probably been a documentary on BBC 4 this week where Justin Morehouse will turn up or something because that's where Justin Morehouse only ever turns up on these kinds of documentaries. But there'll be somebody else, like someone who works several ranks below, you know, like one of the NME editors in the 90s or one of the maker editors or something, be like, oh, yeah, this was like generation defining.

And it's one of those things where, like, you know how nothing that really happens on Twitter really matters? But because the entire world's media and journalists are all on Twitter, that happen on Twitter actually kind of do matter because it's just the people who talk about news, they're all in the same space and so they think this thing happening in a very small space is very important. And so people who were writing about music and really buy music and stuff during the Battle of Britpop and covering it and forcing all this media coverage because print media is in the beginning process of dying out as well and it gets killed off about

15 years later. Like I think it's very important for them to sort of like say that they were involved in something important. And I feel like that's all it, that's the legacy, really, where for two weeks, everybody's kind of like, oh, yeah, let's see what happens. And then for years afterwards, the people who were kind of right in the center of it think that like no one's forgotten about it when everyone kind of has forgotten about it. I don't know. The interesting thing is that just you mentioning that about the manufactured battle, it must

have been very, very specific in terms of age and demographic, even beyond what you're indicating there with the stats. Because to be quite honest, you know, I was, by the time this came out, I was enjoying the charts. I liked country house. I didn't buy it. I liked it. But I never put Oasis and Blur together, as in not in a sense that they're opposed, but I wasn't aware that I were aware there was a competition. between two songs, but I wasn't aware there was any sort of fucking stake there and it seemed to evaporate immediately.

You know, my friend Tom, when I went to secondary school, the biggest Oasis fan ever. And I was like, I never got them really, but I was like, oh, you like it's Oasis. And I didn't, it wasn't a thing. And so I'm curious, was this just a teenage invention? Was it aimed specifically towards the teenage market?

Was I just dim? I don't know, but I don't remember there being any blur versus oasis arguments, had an Eric Clapton versus Michael Jackson argument once. All these things, anything that's trying to tap into the immediate zeitgeist is always going to be aimed at teenagers or kids because they are the people who hold the immediate zeitgeist. And, you know, there have been things like this in the future.

Like, Barbenheimer is a good example. But it's also weird to think that without the Battle of Britpop, we might not have girls allowed because pop stars the rivals is basically trying to create its own battle of pop. That's what that was about, only about five, six years on from this. So, like, yeah, I think it's always going for that teenage Ikegeist

where you think things like this are momentous and it's like the biggest thing ever this rivalry when actually, you know, there's no rivalry at all and 90% of the public won't care. Yeah, definitely happening in a little bit of the sphere. But that's, I don't think that's anything new and it never went away after this either.

That's always how these things work. Many, many questions, I think, that will remain unanswered from that little period. So, I think it's time for second song this week? What'd you say? Yes. If you must. So, yeah, the second song up this week is this.

Another day is gone. I'm still all alone. How could this be? You're not here with me. You never said goodbye Someone tell me why Did you have to go And leave my world so cold

Every day I sit and ask myself How did I sleep away There's something whispers in my ears and says And you are not alone I am here with you Though you're far away I am here to stay

But you are not alone I am here with you You're always in my heart. Why? Why? Law. Okay, this is You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson. second single from his ninth studio album titled History, Past, Present and Future, Book 1. You Are Not Alone is Michael Jackson's 47th single to be released in the UK and is fifth. To Reach Number 1, and it's not the last time we'll be coming to Mr Jackson during our 90s coverage. You Are Not Alone first entered the UK charts at number 3, reaching number 1 during its second week, and it stayed at number 1 for two weeks in its first week.

top the charts, it sold 83,000 copies beating competition from I Feel Love 95 by Donna Summer and Scatman's World by Scatman John. And in week two, it sold 100,000 copies beating competition from Staying Alive by Entrance, Can I Touch You There by Michael Bolton, to Mem Encore by Celine Dion and Who the Fuck is Alice by Smokey and Roy Chubby Brown. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, You Are Not Alone, dropped one place to number two. It originally left the charts in December 1995, but re-entered twice more in 2006 and 2009, and spent 23 weeks inside the top 100. The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK. As of 2025, Ed, you can go first on this one. No, you're all right. It's all right, Ed, you're not alone. We'll get you through it.

There's four of us here this week, so you're definitely not alone. Good. Now, I'm good. Seriously, someone else can go. I'll go if I didn't want to. Second time I'm going to reference Doctor Who this week, because you are not alone. That phrase means something else to Doctor Who fans.

I will just leave that one in the air. Go watch Series 3, if you haven't already. This is really odd to listen to because I'm thinking back to, I don't know who said it. I think it's like some historian of the Beatles, but it was going through sort of all the early beings. Beatles material, everything that's on the anthologies and stuff like that. And when the Beatles were forced to do, how did they do it? Because whoever it was was just convinced

that that's what they needed to do to get a number one. And so they had to record a version of it. And it came out as very kind of plain and by the numbers because they were being forced to do it and they didn't want to. But there was a comment that like, even though they're being forced to do it, they just, they're still the Beatles. They can't resist putting a little bit of their magic into it. And so it's still got that Beatles magic because it's still. still the Beatles doing it, there's still that spirit in there. And that's what I think with this, that this is like the most plain, beige, inoffensive, boring ballad ever.

But it's still Michael Jackson. And he can't resist doing some things that are very ill-advised and some things that are genuinely quite interested. Because he's not someone who can just sit and do a completely plain ballad. He's got to put something in it. And some of that's really like superficial and doesn't work at all. like it's such a bad idea when a few times before the chorus is when he does a little

like that that just doesn't fit with this song at all it's really out of place but then there's other musical choices made that I'm just like what what is that what's that doing in a song like this where there's those fake key changes where he starts building up to a key change as that I'll be there

I'll be there but then skips that key change and goes another key up instead so he sets up a key change that never happens and does a surprise higher key change and then there's another one obviously later on so it visits four keys in total and that feels really weird and it's like there's a certain

sort of well of creativity that can't help but be mined because it is still Michael Jackson at the end of the day and I just wish there was a bit more of that like just cut loose a bit more you know just have a bit more fun you don't have to be as sincere as this

because there is a far more interesting pop star who we've seen many times before who's yearning to get its hands on this song and do something more interesting with it. But it's just, oh, it's so kind of a languid and just kind of stuck in first gear all the time. And the reason it's stuck in first gear all the time is because the verses are the same as the choruses,

which is death, I think, to any song. Like, the thing I really always, the song I always come to with, this is We Found Love by Rihanna, that I can't get into that song because it's just the same, all the way through the verses are the same as the choruses and I just hate it when any song does that and it's a big mistake for this and it essentially turns songs into nursery rhymes it turns them

into lullabies essentially when it's the same all the way through it basically just becomes like da da da da da da da da da da da da da it's the same all the way through and that bothers me so much with this and I think by far the most interesting part of the song by far the most pleasant part of it is that pre-chorus that every day I see it and ask myself because that hits on some real interesting chords. And that's far more reminiscent of something like, she's out of my life or something like that, which again takes some interesting turns. Again, there's a more interesting song yearning to break free from this, but for whatever reason, whoever was working on this as well as Jackson himself, wants to make a drippy, boring ballad for babies, and that's

what we get, despite the fact that there's so much else, like, obviously trying to get out of this. So I just find this really kind of frustrating in its boringness, because it doesn't need to be boring at all. And the moments where it decides to do something more creative are really good. But no, this is just just a waste of time, basically. It's a waste of time. Lizzie, what about you? I mean, I was going to do an Ed and just be like, no, I'm good, you know, given my personal feelings on Michael Jackson, but I'm only here for a short time, I suppose, and I've also got to the point of accepting that you can't really talk about pop music without talking about Michael Jackson. I think he's just too important. Unlike the writer of this song,

who can talk about pop music without talking about R. Kelly. Like, who cares? I don't much like this one either, sadly. I personally feel that this is to Michael Jackson, what I just called to say I love you is to Stevie Warner. Oh, yeah. I think it's a bit, it's a bit harsh on I just called to say I love you but I do see what you mean I do agree I don't think it is I think I just called to say I love you is a terrible song but we might disagree on that I don't I don't think it's anywhere near as bland

as this but I mean I'm always you know you know when I'm like with Stevie Wonder I'll just stay silent I'll stay silent I'm sorry but yeah I think it's a moment like you know regardless of your feelings on the song I think it's a moment where an artist who defined the previous decade releases

kind of a sappy ballad seemingly for no other reason than to shift units. I should point out that it being a ballad is not the main problem, though. I think if I had to give you a personal favourite Michael Jackson song, I would probably say human nature, which to me is like a warm, shimmering ocean of sound combined with a vocal that's tender without being cloying. In comparison, the overall sound of this is like cold and emperienced,

It's like a puddle of sound and I think adding the coral layers towards the end only emphasises that emptiness and the fact that it has to do that fake out like key change thing again just adds to the overall feeling of just there's nothing here this was a frequent problem with Simon Cowell's productions about a decade later including the X Factor cover of this song that we discussed at the tale of 2009. Well, but a few of us discussed. One of us just snored through it. Literally snored all the way through it. Well, of course. So rather than the innovative approach is to production that characterizes earlier work, this sounds like Jackson trying to play catch-up with the likes of boys to men,

rather than carving out his own path and pointing the way forward for pop music. Compared to his earlier work, this comes off as sterile and lifeless. His next single is an improvement, sure. but I think by this point we were past the point of no return with regards to Jackson's place in pop music I see a Jarvis Cocker moon rising Ed, are you going to

I mean I can see on the document that you pie hole in this you want to say why well I mean it's not I don't even think I need any of the context behind the writer or any of the you know potential context behind the vocalist Lizzie put it quite well

I mean it's it's mawish and insincere in a way it's like somebody has copied the idea of what a ballad is supposed to sound like and it comes off

completely disingenuous and I was going to say wait a minute all of Michael Jackson's ballads are shit but Lizzie reminded me Lizzie reminded me human nature is good

it is good I like that track and I'm sorry I just kind of the thing is it's a bit of a dichotomy because I think he had a lovely voice for it

but I didn't believe a goddamn word of any of his ballads ever it sounded like someone doing an impression of a ballad he's no fucking Stevie

I'm honestly as annoying and novelty as it is I think I would take I'll just call to say I love you over this as well, because at least it's got a bit of, PEP, at least the joy

as bludgeoned as it is by the 80s production, seems kind of genuine. This is just an awful construct. Stevie is a ballad singer. Like, you know, he's not just a ballad singer, but he's done a million of them, and he's done plenty of

absolutely amazing. He's one of the best. Michael Jackson, I think fundamentally, is just, and Michael Jackson fundamentally is not a ballad singer as far as I'm concerned. He's done relatively few. that have been notable and, you know, even fewer that have been actively good. He's just not a ballad singer, and so he's out of his depth here. In that sense, is it not more disappointing when someone takes a step down

and does a ballad that is beneath them, as opposed to, if you know, a ballad isn't their strong suit anyway? I don't know how much of that is just like what the market dictates and what's successful, because I think, you know, I just called say, I love you and sunshine of my life. Like, I've always sounded it really frustrating that those are the two. most famous Stevie Wonderballads when neither of them are even in my 10 or 20 really

that they're both infinitely more famous than the likes of as or Mr. Anoidol or something and I just think it's dead annoying but that's the market deciding to some extent I don't think this is quite the same I think like I think he really was quite passionate about this for some reason and I don't really

know why yeah then why does it come out so creepy and hollow it sounds so stage managed Yeah, this, I mean, to be honest, it's weird that we've all kind of centred on the same thing, which is like, I don't think most people who like this song see that, I wouldn't say quality, see that bug in it. I think it is a bug rather than a feature. You know, for, Lizzie, what you were saying there about this presence of the choir that comes in, but it still sounds cold. The thing I kept coming back to in my head when I was just like when I was listening to it this week, weirdly was. Was. Specifically, Jesus' King, the Kanye West record from 2019. That's a good call. For those that don't know, Jesus' King was an album that Kanye West released in 2019, and it was his big, like, explosion into like, oh, I'm Christian now,

and I'm going to change my name to yay soon and all this stuff. And it was, like, it was billed as Christian hip-hop and, like, the opening track is this choir, this Sunday service choir thing. and it is the coldest fucking record. It's so sterile. There's no centre to it. There's no emotional centre and it's all basically

just Kanye like justifying his assimilation with capitalism as if it's some kind of like divine rightism. You can, over the 2010s the love and smiles disappear from behind Kanye's eyes and you can

feel it in Jesus's king. And I think in the same way Michael Jackson doesn't exactly go in the same place to the same place as Kanye West has gone but that kind of Forth and Grace worshipped figure who has a massive cult who believes that he cannot do anything wrong

as arguably shaped and made huge imprints on pop music more than like 99% of people and all this stuff but then scandal after scandal after scandal the energy comes out of the music and that sort of thing. So yeah, for more reasons than one, I think it's actually quite,

I found it quite sad and honestly a little eerie listening to this. I think in a lot of Jackson's late 70s and early 80s material, there's so much youthful freedom and exuberance. Even I think in some of the slower numbers, like, I mean, Ed, you were saying you think human nature is good.

I think it's my favourite Michael Jackson's song. I think it's fucking gorgeous. I'm also a defender if she's out of my life. I do like she's out of my life. but I could give or take literally, yeah, any other ballad that he does. It's not, it's like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, thankfully he was limited to very few, but it's like if, you know, I will always love you and greatest love of all were the only ballads that Whitney did,

and the rest of her stuff was more want to dance with somebody, you know, how will I know, you know, that that sort of thing. But around the mid to late 80s in Michael Jackson's music, something creeps in from about bad onwards. and then it gets a lot worse through dangerous. And by this point, Jesus, there's a spikiness mixed with a sadness, sort of like antagonistic, like he's anticipating the arguments against the song before it's even released.

It's kind of there on bad, and I remember saying on black or white, it sounds like the beginnings of Marta Michael, which we will definitely get in it two episodes time. His songs start to sound paranoid and antagonistic, like he's lost his innocence in a way. Even the ones I really enjoy, like scream or who is it, there's this sense of angst to them,

but it feels deeper than angst. It feels like this constant and unending frustration. And obviously by this point, his, shall we say, physical transformation is complete. You know, this is unfortunately the Jackson I have only experienced as a living human being. The almost completely white face, the thin nose, the straight black hair

that covers a lot of his face. he looks and sounds isolated a lot of the time in a lot of his music from this point onwards and this is the kind of world that you are not alone is dropped into which even today i think sounds strangely frosty as though he's trying to sing it to someone else but there's nobody else there that it's him kind of singing to himself his voice is still soft and tender like it was on human nature 12 years earlier but that sense of isolation and pain is there it's weird for a song about intimacy and caressing somebody to sound so distant and sort of detached, I've never really been a fan of this. I think it's going for something that R. Kelly will repeat on, I believe

I can fly. You can, you know, as I sent you in the group chat and as a couple of people have done remixes on on YouTube, you can just sing this over, I believe I can fly, because it does that same thing of that soft iambic pentameter, both choruses use basically the same progression. I can't really get around where, you know, this unintentional, you know, this unintentional sense of personal torture coming out of both song and performer in this as well. I also can't stand either of those key changes for the same reason that Andy said, but I think with me or saying all this, history in hindsight's definitely affected my opinion of it because ultimately this is a love song, but it's just written by two very strange men with a lot of

personal demons, and you're sort of given a window into that strangeness here. Like even when both of them are sort of denying that there's any kind of strangeness there, dripping this song onto you, this love and affection and all this stuff, and it's just, there's just an emptiness there. I don't know, this is a curious one. It sounds immaculate, but maybe too immaculate, and that's where the distance comes in. It sounds nice, but then you listen to some ballads between sort of like 87 and sort of like around this period, and I just think of the old hi-fi system I had in my house growing up, which was the CD record and tape player, the massive, like, you know, Panasonic sort of thing that used to sit in the living room in the corner and take up half the room.

I've always thought Jackson was blessed with his voice, but even with this, I think there's just something cold and weird about this that I can't look past. And I was a little bit hesitant as to, you know, I didn't know if we were going to all focus on this kind of sense of like this emotional kind of, there is a doth of something, you know? it's just like there's an absence and I can't place my finger on it but I think we've all kind of got there anyway I don't know if anyone else has any more to say and it's boring and crap it is a bit boring yes

yeah as we reach the end of this segment I'm just going to I'm just going to breathe a sigh of relief because we had a little meeting before we started the episode saying oh are we all right talking about Michael Jackson and we said well as long as we don't bring up R Kelly and Kanye West in the same segment will probably be fine so I'm just going to breathe the size of relief

So that Rolf Harris, eh? I mentioned him once but I think I got away Bill Cosby, eh? Anyway, so the third and final song of this bumper episode

which is probably going to end up being shorter than some episodes we've done anyway. It's this. Mr. Bombastic We are there's a bombastic romantic, fantastic lover. Shunny!

Mr. Lover, Lover. Mr. Lover. Mr. Lover. Mr. Lover. Her girl. Mr. Lover. Mr. Lover. M.

Mr. Lover. She called me Mr. Bombastie. She said me fantastic. Touch me on me, but she says a Mr. Ro. Romantic. Come me fantastic. Touch me on me, but she says a Mr. Roe. Smooth.

Just like a seal. Saff and coolly hug me up like a quilt I'm a lyrical lover Now take me fin or fill with my sexual physique You know me well bill Do me, oh my, well, can't you tell And just like a turtle crawling out of my shell Can you captivate my body

Put me under a spell With your cuss-cust perfume All of your sweet smell You're the only young girl Who can ring my bill And I can take rejects And so you tell me good to well I'm bombastic

Turn me fantastic Okay, this is a Mr. Roe, oh, Oh, man, take me fantastic. She touch me on me box. She says a Mr. Boom, boom, boom, boom, bum pasty. Released as the second single from his third studio album titled BoomBastic. Bumbastic is Shaggy's fourth single to be released in the UK and is second to reach No. 1.

It's Shaggy's last chart topper of the 90s, but do check out our Nauties episodes about him. Bumbastic went straight in at number 1 as a brand new entry and it stayed at number 1 for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 93,000 copies, beating competition from Fantasy by Mariah Carey, runaway by Janet Jackson, Janet Jackson and La La Hey Hey by the Out Here Brothers. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Boom Bastic dropped one place to number two. 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.

This may be the shortest song intro I've ever done on Hits 21. I'm going to ramble on for a little bit further and then I'm going to introduce Lizzie for boom bastic you can start off our final segment of the episode this got me thinking of a broad question this week what's the unsexiest sex jam you've ever heard

you could say Marvin Gay by Charlie Puth for example Is that a sex jam? Is it really? Kind of. Let's Marvin Gay and get it on get it on you know I was possibly going to nominate

C-Bats by Hudson Mowhawk based on that infamous Reddit post but it could be unfair I know that it's not explicitly about sex go on mysterious girl that's so not sexy good shout yeah not a bad shout there oh okay yeah

color me bad I don't think any of us found that that sexy no we actually joked about that the time didn't me but like imagine actually putting that on during sex it was just you just start laughing oh fucking um that I want to love you I want to fuck you ACON thing from the late 2000s I want to fuck you

Yeah that might be it Loving this club Loving this club That sucks up That's a good one Fuck you tonight Which is unfortunately R Kelly and Notorious BIG

That's not good That's one of those things That P Diddy insisted Oh it must go on the album We must make this a double album And put this on it Oh Christ

Yeah I mean back to Boombastic This is a song Very much about sex and yet I think it's definitely on the unsexy side of the sexy music spectrum my mental image of this song is less Shaggy as a sex god and more like

you know that bit of Mr. Bean where he's at a nightclub and start aggressively thrusting at that man more sex pest than sex god yeah essentially but that's not to say I don't like this though I think Shaggy's charisma and unique vocal style mostly carries this one through

despite running out of steam a little bit towards the end and nudge nudge, wink, wink. That chorus in particular is irresistible, I think. The way it kind of trails off and trails back in again. Roll. And then, yeah, I'd probably go as far

to say it's my favourite of the shaggy tracks we've encountered on the podcast, which I know is high praise for something that I've just called unsexy. but I do think it sort of it hooks its claws into you there is something very engaging about it

it's almost like a striptease or something like yeah I'm glad I was here to discuss this because I have found myself listening to this quite a bit this week so yeah I've got something to take away from this given the other two I'm happy for you yeah how do I put this I think the fact that it's turned into

a bit of a meme song and a bit of a laugh has probably taken all the sexiness out of it over the years. Maybe. I mean, surely, surely it was always a meme song. Or like the equivalent of that in the 90s. Surely it was always intended to get some last. I mean, it's always been a bit, yeah. The Mr. Love a Lover thing is like took on instantly.

And then, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it even turns up in that, I mean, it was a bit later, obviously. But the, um, oh my God, we're as far from the third season as the thick of it as bombastic is just further back in time. We're actually further away. But that, um, the, Mr. Lover. love uh full marks of floor play there glen from holly oh i've forgotten that so ed bombastic how we

feeling i think lizzie's pretty much said all i was going to say there yeah it is carried a lot by the unexpectedly imaginative and charismatic vocal turn uh by shaggy here because he's just got loads of ideas and even when the rhymes are silly that almost makes it more enjoyable i think the one problem i have with this. It's like if it were two minutes long, I think it was great. I love the, I love the bassy background and how crude and chop. It's aged pretty well. It's kind of abrasive and grindy. And even if it is unsexy, it's so in your face, it's fun and it knows what it is and it doesn't give a shit and it's got a big smile on its face. But the problem is it's more of four fucking minutes long. And it's struggling at the two minute mark. It doesn't do anything after that point,

really. It's just the rhymes become more abstract and he just really milks the romantic. I'm like, yeah, that's awesome the first five times. But come on now. Songs, songs really were too long, weren't they? Singles at this point. They could really have done with some trimming. You know, there's no nostalgia for me for the length of these fucking songs or the length of the fucking albums by this point. Great Escape. Another example of an album that's two bloody. long. Even the titles are too long. It's great when you're straight. Yeah.

Even the fucking titles. It just won't stop. We have a lot of time in the 90s. I mean, we had 10 years. Yeah. I basically, I think it's brilliant for a minute. I think it's decent for a minute and a half. Two minutes is pushing it and then the remainder is

just unnecessary ground. For that minute, minute and a half, I really dig this. Andy. Shaggy. Yeah, I mean, I don't really disagree with what either of you've said but I'm definitely less kind to this than both of you are

I don't ever think it's amazing and I very rarely think that it's good or decent to be honest like it's just sort of fine I definitely think that all three songs this week really out today they're welcome but none more so than this I've been more kind

to Blair and Michael Jackson because of this because this really outstays it's welcome to an almost farcical degree like just Shorten the song. Just shorn the song. You're still selling the single. You're not losing out anything.

They're not paying you per second. So like, just shorn the song. I don't understand. But yeah. I really, really thought that we'd already done this song another week. I thought, why do I really think that we'd already done this? And obviously we've had O'Carolina and me and Lizzie had a conversation about, is it maybe just because of the four shaggy songs we've done?

We've actually only really had two songs because this. and O'Carolina are basically the same really, you know, they're doing a lot of similar stuff, and it wasn't me and Angel, hugely similar formula, they're very similar to each other as well. I thought maybe it's that. But then I realized why

I thought we'd already covered the song before, something deeply lodged in my memory. We haven't done this song before, but we have done an album before that I've mentioned that this song is sort of on. Do you remember when we did No Limit? And I said

No Limit reminds me of Track 1 of the album The Smurfs Go Pop Where they do a version of it that goes No, no, no, no, the Smurfs are back now You'll never guess what track two is Track 2 is Mr Smurf-Tastic Oh, I'm a genius

Yeah So I instantly in my head, I'm like Hang on, we've done this before And it's because we've talked about the Smurfs go pop Before And yeah, it's Mr Smurf-Tastik, Smurf-Tastik, Smurphy Fantastic it's as bad as I'm making it sound

it really is oh my god guess what's playing us out this week I bet that's only two minutes long you know what I can have a look I bet it's shorter than this I'll tell you that they've got about 40 songs on that Smurfs album so it'll definitely be a bit shorter I do basically think exactly what I said about

O Carolina which is that yeah it's fun for a bit I can see why it caught on definitely hooks the attention but I remain uncomfortable with the thought of how many people buying this and how much of Shaggy's fan base think his appeal, such as it is, is having a funny voice and liking to imitate that voice at home. And I just, I don't like it. It just makes me feel a bit queasy.

How many people are just like, they just like her with the funny voice or like that? And I just, I'm not keen on that at all. No, it feels a bit like sort of, you know, playing up to the white crowd a bit, you know, sort of playing Tom a bit, I don't really like that. That feels a bit uneasy in a modern context. I think it's less, I can see where you're coming from.

It's probably less the voice for me than it is the lover man concept, which is like the, one of the oldest sort of black stereotypes in the history of the universe. But the thing is, the voice, almost is what distracts from that for me. Because he's so weird

by this point. Like, nobody really sounds like this. I mean, who he's doing not like, oh, oh, what is this?

It's sort of like his voice is just degenerating over the years. By the time we get to Angel, by the time we get to Angel, he's just sat down

and decided to abandon consonants by the time we get there. Everything just becomes a sort of plaintive sound. But here he's in a very similar space to Sean Apala. You know, he's in that kind of space here.

And that's, to some degree, that's part of Sean Paul's appeal as well but I think he has more appeal than that to be honest but yeah I'm just not I'm not keen with what this is trying to market and like what this is actually selling but it is bloody catchy and you know the Mr. Loverman thing yeah I got totally see why that's popular you know I'm not going to get on my high horse and try and take down boom Bastic because that's I'm not going to do that like I yeah obviously it's one of those sort of easy hits really where you think

yeah that's a slam dunk obviously that's going to take off I just am not on board with it at all so it's my least favorite of the week partly because it's just epically out today as it's welcome but also because this is like this is just so not for me this is just so not the type of thing

I look for in my pop music but like it's not a bad song at all it's um yeah it's all right it's all right so Mr Smurf Tastic four minutes and 27 seconds fucking out

it may be longer than the original yeah dear me I mean at least there's more of them Maybe they have to share the vocals a bit because, you know, you've got, oh, I'm not going to Amy Smurfs characters because I've actually never I've actually never seen the Smurfs. I don't know why we had that album.

So I don't know who the different voices are, but I assume there are a lot of them. Did they do, do they weld in motion? You can be Smurf or Smurf that you must get to the Smurf. Let me go through, because obviously the episode's running a little short, so I'm going to go through. So we've got the noisy Smurf, which is based on It's Oso Quiet by Bjork.

They do a version of O'S so quiet um they do i want to be a hippie by tecno head they do love is all around they do living next door to alice um they do don't stop wiggle wiggle they do saturday night can i joe they're basically just doing our show really um yeah smurf pain and they do an original song about the olympics called smurfland olympics and they do mr blobby and mr blobby appears on the song the description of track 14 football forever an original football anthem with no reference to Smurfs other than it's a smurfing good game

in the chorus that's like England a jolly deed like you just these aren't words oh my god there's an Australian track listing oh they've got dancing queen yeah a straight cover with no altered

lyrics of dancing green by Abba oh they've got one of being as well oh no smurf macarena that's not a pun on anything That's just macaroni, you put the word smurf in front. That's Simpsons Christmas bookie.

3-1-524, based on 5-4-3-2-1 by Anfred Man. What? That's bizarre. I'm listening to that. 1997, folks. So all these songs are actually really old by then. You know, doing a Smurf's cover of No Limit in 1997, that's just... Jesus.

That's really... Yeah, but if you've seen a cheerleader, though, you've heard that song, regardless of any... age. Yeah. So basically for this, I'll just get through mine really quickly. Just take my review for O'Carolina, but maybe add in the two years since Shaggy has did that, he's really come into the Shaggy character, the unmistakable Shaggy character.

He's here now. But yeah, much like O'Carolina, for the first 90 to 120 seconds, I'm well into this. The sex might not be within me, but the funk is. it's weird how you can make sound gyrate and I guess this kind of does that the scuzzy boom bomb call and response with the dun dun dun dun dun dun piano

I think the UK has kind of moved on from its mini kind of dance hall and ragger obsession of the early 90s you see in less of it in the charts but Shaggy's still here as I kind of called him I think people do when we did O'Carolina

I think people kind of see him as a bit of a Jamaican jester and they kind of yeah Andy they kind of it's partly like because they like the song and partly because hey hello mr funny voice oh it's just there you know like that they like the funny voice i think when i was a kid and he was out with you know me julie and stuff everybody did the voice like you know kids were like oh yeah this guy's got a different voice he stands out but that's it you know it really does stand

out you know he has charm and personality you know that mr lover lover you know that mr rolandic like his voice is an elastic band that's going to snap. Or the genuine whiz, baby, please. It's amazing, you know, but this has the same issue as O'Carolina, listen up, Ed, which is that it's a too-minute idea stretched beyond the point where it starts getting a little tired. You know, it doesn't know when shaggy's doing the, um, to feel the spark. I'm just, I'm done.

Like, he's adding new things in and I'm like, nope, mate, this should have ended 40 seconds ago. Like, it's good fun for two and a half minutes. and 15 seconds of that should be a fade out. Like, it's, Shaggy is undeniable here and five years on he will be doing this exact thing and he'll open his mouth and everyone will go, oh, we're going to buy millions of those. Like, but, I don't know, the stuff around him, I just think at some point you just have to know when to stop. And this going past four minutes says that he doesn't know when to stop, which is ironic because we are past the 90 minute mark on this episode.

episode um so i will quickly just say thank you very much to lizzie for popping on thank you lizzie anytime it's been it's been amazing having you back and i think we can kind of maybe tease and let people know that you'll probably feature on some more 90s episodes a bit sooner than people think um maybe not all the time but i think yeah you'll be you'll be around for some 90s episodes i'll certainly try yeah so we're just gonna we're just going to check so lizzie we'll actually, we'll go with you, honorary for this week. Country House, you are not alone, and Bumbastic. Where would you put them?

Country House would be teetering on the pie hole. I still haven't decided, so I'll leave it out for the time being. You are not alone would go in the pie hole, and Mr. Bumastic would not go anywhere. So, Ed, we know that you're putting country house in the vault, and we know that you are not alone is going in the pie hole, but what about Bumbastic for Shaggy? Yeah, as I say, it moves further away from what is actually quite an advantageous position near the vault at the beginning of the song to a fair distance away.

The length of it is a bit of a crippler, really. No way near the pie hole. It's kind of still in the middle somewhere, but bloody hell, get some scissors, folks. Or get another vocalist. Let's be honest, he started having big hits when he could have songs at about three minutes long because there was someone else singing and he would just sort of. spice up their track you can't have four minutes as just him

you go a fucking spare so Andy Blur Michael Jackson and Shaggy Well I will just be pithy And someone all up in one go By saying that you are not alone Has achieved its wish And is not alone

Because all three are staying in the middle Yeah they're all friends forever In the middle I mean I say friends forever I mean if Blair Michael Jackson and Shaggy Had to just hang out That would be awful they wouldn't get along

they just wouldn't no I'm the same with you Andy this week yeah all three are staying in the middle country house

got fairly close to the vault but not really you are not alone got fairly close to the pie hole but not really and Boombastic

was just kind of yeah in the middle but on the fence leaning towards yeah liking it for Shaggy alone

so we will be back next week and we'll be continuing our journey through 1995 or almost at the end of 1995 already

and Lizzie came back for a week as well your first episode since Hail and Pace where you actually have a song you like but yeah that is it for this week's bumper episode we hope you've enjoyed it and we will see you next time bye bye see ya bye

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