Hits 21 - 1996 (6): The Prodigy, Peter Andre, Boyzone, Dunblane

Episode Date: November 14, 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

Hits 21 Hi there, Hi there everyone, welcome back to Hit's 21, the 90s, where me, Rob, me, Andy, and me, Ed, Ed, are looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. Email us at Hits21 podcast at gmail.com, Twitter us at Hits21 UK. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are currently looking back at the year 1996,

and this week we'll be covering the period between the 17th and November and the 21st of December we are taking you right up to, but not quite including Christmas of that year. Hits 21 does not own the rise to. any music in this episode, but usage of all the music on this podcast falls under Section 30 Clause 1 of the Copyright Act 1988, it is time to press on with this week's episode, and Andy, the album charts towards the end of 96, how does the gear sort of close out?

The Spice Girls opened this period, with their debut album Spice finally landing, and going straight in at number one, for one week, before it's knocked off for two weeks, by Robson and Jerome, with take two, their second album, which went number one for two weeks, managed to knock the spice scales off after one week. And that went four times platinum for some reason, but don't despair because after those two weeks, spice scales are back on top for another eight weeks through Christmas all the way through January and into February 1997. So nine weeks in total with an interruption by Robson and Jerome. Spice would eventually go 10 times platinum, a massive massive storming success.

I personally don't think it's as good as Spice World as an album, but it's still pretty amazing, pretty iconic for the time, and I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me. So, Spice is here, yeah. In the news, so in the UK, travel chaos in shoes when a fire on a train closes the channel

tunnel. John Gourst, who's the Tory MP for Hendon, resigns from his position, and that leaves his party without a majority. An unemployment falls below 2 million for the first time in six years. In a In America, Kobe Bryant becomes the youngest player in the history of the NBA, making his debut at the age of 18. And in world news, 125 people are killed when are playing crashes in the Indian Ocean.

The plane had been hijacked and ran out of fuel. 50 people, though, luckily, very luckily, managed to survive the crash. In TV news, the Spice Girls present a special episode of Top of the Pops. Only Fools and Horses returns for its original three-part finale, and the National Lottery draw. is thrown into complete chaos when the machine that draws the balls fails to turn on, delaying the draw by an hour

on a Saturday night and the films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows Dragonheart, Michael Collins, the first Wives Club, the Long Kiss Good Night,

jingle all the way and 101 Dalmatians and 101 Dalmatians closes out the year. God, I love that film. So I just have to say how amazing that film is. It's so, so good. Watch it everybody.

Ed, the US charts, how are they doing at the end of 96? We have two weeks of Death Row releases at the top, with the seven-day theory, becoming seven days of chart-topping reality, as Tupac Dunn's the McAvelli mantle for his final album, meaning his first, sadly posthumous, and I would argue best LP, is not even in his own name,

which is always struck me as odd, but there you go then there's an obligatory week at number one for the dog father the long-awaited follow-up to Snoop Doggy Doggy Doggy style the dog lay being largely dog to the dogs being dogged by Murdoog charges

in case we forget that this was the 90s for a minute returning to the albums Americans were faced with two weeks of the album Razor Blade suitcase by Bush released on trauma records of the album frontman Gavin Rostale who I will assume in my mind looks like grungier than thou ECW star Raven said of the album

I was trying to write songs while my life was falling apart while my longtime girlfriend of five years was leaving and packing in one room I was riding in like the other room to which the interviewer responded. Why are you talking like that? You're from London. But anyway, finally, more records on trauma records. And that's no joke.

It's another record on the same record label, but completely different. It's the debut of Transatlantic Smash, Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt, which is the big famous one that has just a girl and don't speak on it. And yes, singles. Again, comparatively quiet. No Diggity completes a full month at number one, the end of November, before one of the three chanteurses America seems to have on rotation at the moment steps in to replenish the missing bags and restore law and weepy order.

Yes, Tony Braxton unbreaks her heart for a good deal of December. Robert. Thank you very much. We are going to carry on now with this week's episode and jump into the first song of the week and it's the first of four again don't say we don't treat you it is this

we do treat them we do We do Breathe with me Breathe to pressure Can't play my game, I'll test you Psycho-Somatic attitude seen Breathe to pressure Can't play my game my attention

Chalko, Psycho, Cervatic, Attic inside Can I find my time Inhale, inhale, you're the victim Exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. This is Breathe by The Prodigy. Released as the second single from the group's third studio album titled The Fat of the Land. Breathe is the prodigy's 11th single to be released in the UK and their second to reach number one. However, as of 2025, it is their last.

Breathe went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. and stayed at number one for two weeks. In its first week atop the charts, it sold a hundred and ninety-five thousand copies, beating competition from What's Love Got to Do With It by Warren G, Govinda by Cooler Shaker, and Milk by Garbage and Tricky, and in week two it sold 95,000 copies, beating competition from No Woman No Cry by Fugees, Child by Mark Owen, and one kiss from heaven by Louise.

When it was knocked off the top of the charts Breathe dropped one place to number two By the time it was done on the charts It had been inside the top 100 for 27 weeks The song is currently officially certified Two Times Platinum in the UK As of 2025 Ed

Breathe always remember to do that It's good for living It is I strongly recommend it However, on a contradictory note, I recommend that listeners play an air-based drinking game. Every time I say the word dynamic in this episode, take a shot, every time I make a covert wrestling reference, take a shot, and then have a stomach pump prepared at the end. So breathe by The Prodigy, I've actually been waiting for this one. It is probably my favourite Prodigy song off my favourite Prodigy album. Um, I do prefer it, um, a shade to, uh, fire starter. I think it has more dynamic contrast.

I love that quieter section, which would be kind of mournful if it wasn't so agitated. And this is a track that I think I probably mentioned it when they came round last. It's got a kind of colourful, graphic novel darkness to it. It's like the dance equivalent of the Wu-Tang clan. It's dark, it's grimy, it's aggressive, but it's also fun and almost comic book crazy with it. And it's a great experience. It really stands up this, and I do think it's my favourite of theirs. It's more rocky and tuneful in a way than Firestarter.

And again, it has those dark corners where it goes down to a sort of subdued, menacing hush. before it comes back up again. Yeah, I think this is a terrific single. And yeah, spoiler, it's a pretty easy vault for me. Just going by the ratings that we've done, the numerical ratings on the little spreadsheet that we keep, I say little, it's the biggest spreadsheet I think I have going in my life. I think I might be in the opposite camp to you two

in the sense that I prefer a fire starter to this, not by much. I just think this achieves slightly less while taking longer to get there. But I'm splitting hairs here because, you know, it's between two tracks that I'm going to put in the vault anyway

because, yeah, this is great. I love how at the moment the charts are basically a battle between boy bands and acts like them and then Big Beat acts. And it's like two parts of the British music public have gone to war with each other

ideologically and we're watching them trade blows each week that you know that goes by it feels like the old battle between 080s and take that has kind of been handed over to the prodigy chemical brothers and boy's own and it means you get a lot of contrast which is great for

us on this show because it means you drop out of something like this which is sinister and aggressive and loud and then you drop into Peter Andre trying his best we're all God's children it's fine this is a mix of so much and

a display of what the Prodigy we're all about, you know, everything under one roof, that guitar line sounds like its roots are in surf rock, but also new wave punk, and then you get funk and rock and roll drum samples, the overdrive of something like metal or full punk, and then you get Keith Flint's kind of Johnny Rot and snarl again. And it all feels cohesive, like the environment it belongs in has brought all of its disparate parts together for a reason. This is propulsive. It has a great grasp of get the shots ready dynamics with the samples being allowed to run on their own sometimes you know the guitars being allowed to take center stage alone before the drum brakes threatened to

destroy them again you know a lot like spice girls last week there's very little that sounds like this in the charts right now you know they're using modern recording technologies and studios to their fullest effect or at least you know there's very little like them that's connecting with the public in this way while sounding the way that it does what i would give for anything like this to come along when we get to the 2010s, or even now really in a decade, I think, the 2020s, which is much improved from the last one. Like I said before, this maybe achieves less than Fire Starter in more time,

but that's not going to prevent me from vaulting this. I think, you know, this is quite special. The Prodigy were something special. Fat of the Land is a great album. Big Beat was a great movement, a very exciting movement, and we've still not seen the end of it on this show by any stretch of the imagination. but the prodigy were a leading light of it

and they definitely show its best attributes in singles like this, Andy, breathe. Okay. I do prefer this to Fire Starter and I think I said that when we did Fire Starter that basically the only thing that was holding that back for me was that I knew I preferred breathe or I needed to leave some breathing room

for that in our scores, so to speak. The reasons why I prefer this are pretty simple really. I think partly the hooks in this are just that bit hookier because Firestarter's got their but this seems to have like four or five different things in it. It's got the vocals. It's got the sort of scratchy guitar line running through it. It's got that drumbeat which just like does all sorts of different things to your head.

It just is sonically even more interesting, I think, than Firestarter. And I think it also has a bit more of a structure to it that is a little bit more reminiscent of a pop song. And if you're a bit of a sort of basic bitch on dance like I am, then, you know, it's a bit comforting to have clear sections, whereas I think Fire Starter, that's like a soundscape, you know, that's really, there's not much structure to it, which isn't a criticism at all. It's, you know, it's a big sprawling beast. Whereas with this, I feel like you can segment this off into, not necessarily verse chorus, but certainly into A sections and B sections. And I think it just creates what for me feels like a tighter vision.

this song. So I think this goes the extra mile compared to Fire Starter, to be honest. The only thing that I would mark it down for, the only thing that stops here from being a 10 out of 10 is that like virtually all music that sits in this space, it's a shade too long. It doesn't need to be five and a half minutes. But, you know, there's always got to be something, really.

I'm always told by people who love Prodigy, you know, that it's an incredible experience to see them live, which I never have done. I have heard this song live, not by The Prodigy. I heard this song performed live by Bimini Bombulash, the noted vegan drag queen. Was it good? Who did this at Manchester Pride. And it was actually, it was really good.

And it really turned me on to this song, because that is bloody good live. And everybody was raving to it as if it was the prodigy, which it wasn't, obviously. But she's got the perfect tonality for that down play. It's just like perfect for Bimini. So it really works. That's quite a happy memory for me this. Yeah, I think this is just like, it's like fire starter, but even more so is how I would sum it up really. And I love that this is holding the line against the wall of beige that we tend to get at this time of year, which definitely is a feature of this episode, unfortunately.

But yeah, this is this is great. This is really, really great. Oh, and just so everybody gets drunk, Dynamics, Dynamics, Dynamics, Dynamics. dynamics. Well, well, well, well. They will need to be drunk for the next one, I think. Well, well, well, well. Macho man, Randy Savage.

Machu man, Randy Savage. Matryman, Randy Savage. Believe me, it's for your own benefit. You don't know what's coming. Peter Andre sounds like a bit of a wrestler name, in a way. Pete Andre. Wackman Pete Andre. I think it sounds like a gay porn star, but then that's my area.

So, you know, but it, yeah. Ed has his wrestling. I have gay porn. And with that, I didn't expect to end this segment. this way, so let's move on. Yes, the second song up this week is this one. I'm so proud to say you're mine oh mine why you leave me standing like a fool is there something that I said or done to you you know I wonder or I wonder if you're coming home tonight

get you off my mind I've opened up the door but in my heart I feel you're running away from my love why you're running away from my love it's cool and we're running away from my heart and it's playing in my heart

The moments that we shared will stay in my heart eyes. Okay, this is I Feel You by Peter Andre, released as the sixth single from his second studio album titled Natural. I Feel You is Peter Andre's sixth single to be released in the UK and his second to reach number one. And it's not Peter's last ever number one, but it is his last number one of the 90s. I Feel You went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 87,000 copies, beating competition from I Need You by 3T, Cosmic Girl by Jamiroquai, and Secrets by Eternal.

When it was knocked off the top of the charts, I Feel You fell four places to number five. Beautiful alliteration there. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks. The song has never received any official certification from the British phonographic industry. I feel you fell four places. Oof.

That's nice. I'm going to keep saying that. I feel you fell four places. Andy, I feel you. Peter Andre. It's just an odd sentence to say that, isn't it? Say someone's name and they say, I feel you, Peter Andre.

It kind of feels. It feels like you're summoning something from the underworld, like you're sort of, you know, calling out to a great mythical creature, which Peter Andre is not. Anyway, I'm going to start this with a reference to, have you ever heard Repeat Stuff by Bo Burnham? Oh, yeah. Which is, it's not doing this type of song.

That's a parody, a very, very pointed, extremely incisive parody of, not naughty, like sort of Tens boy band material, stuff like One Direction, five seconds of some of the vamps, that sort of thing, where it's, you know, that cheeky chippy, who tries to be all relatable, and you know, you want to take them home to your mum. But anyway, he goes through all the different tropes, and then there's a little line in that song where he says, it's something like, oh, I'll make you believe that I love you.

And then he puts this voice and he goes, I love you. And it's just incredibly, like, creepy, like horrible way. And just call it it, I feel you. and the whole thing I get from the song is exactly that bad that I love you. That's what I'm getting from this. This can fuck off, to be honest. I don't like this at all.

It's just, there's very few things that we've had ever, including our naughty's coverage, that I think the sole reason to buy this is nothing to do with the text itself. The only reason anybody I feel could be interested in this is because they fancy Peter Andre. And I think the same is true of his previous number one that we've covered.

And I don't think we've had anything else. That's like, I can't see how, I really can't see how anybody could connect to this musically that they could hear this on the radio and think, God, what a good song. I'm going to go down to my Virgin Megastorm by the CD single of that, because that's a good song.

Like, I just don't believe it, to be honest. This is another one, like I said about wannabe in a good way that I thought that was close to being objective in terms of that quality. I think this is close to being objective. to be honest that I think people have got ears. I think people have a sense of value about music

and can listen to something like this and they know this isn't good. People are going out to buy this just because they fancy Peter Andre. So this is just like, this could have been anything. This could have been him farting. This could have been him, you know, reading out the Communist manifesto. It could have been

white noise. You know, it's a Peter Andre single. And this is the first time that I think that is the one and only reason why anybody bought this, which is a real condemnation of it because it's tacky as hell. It sounds really smeltsy.

It has this horrible combination and it manages to sound sickly sweet, but also incredibly creepy at the same time, which is a really nasty combination. And it's basically giving me the vibes of the sex scenes from the room. You know, when they play the music over the top? It's like, got that one,

you are my rose, you are my rose. Or the end credits of a 19. 80s action film where you sort of pan out onto a blue sky over the final action scene and something like this plays usually by Tina Turner or Gladys Knight and neither of those things are compliments like it's just

it's just music to switch your brain off to and music to think about other things to and music to fantasize about too it's sort of anti-music it's not like as offensively bad as some other stuff that we've covered but this is I think like I say

the only thing we've ever covered that I think this barely qualifies as music because nobody has bought this for the music, not one person. So I'm questioning whether we should even be covering it because this isn't a musical number one. This is a person getting to number one, and that's it.

Yeah, hated this. You know what? I listened to this once and I thought, well, this is shit, probably going to end up in the pie hole after a few more listens. Because I'd never heard this song before this month. It's been forgotten pretty quickly

by the sounds of things. things, if the certification or lack thereof is anything to sort of go by. My first experience with it wasn't a positive one. It just sounded like a flatter, colour me bad or something, you know, of things that we've covered before. All the kind of bouncy energy of flavour that may be kind of compensated for Peter not being the most charismatic vocalist in the world. That's kind of gone too. So I thought I'd return to this a couple more times and eventually stick it where I thought it initially belonged. But each time I return. I returned. to it, I warm to it a little bit more. Not much, not much. This isn't going anywhere near

the vault. It's barely made it to halfway between. But there's something here that brings me back to Return of the Mac in a different way, because I said that flavour took me back to Return of the Mac in a less favourable way in comparison. And this does too, but like this is a pretty shoddy attempt at soft 70s soul. You know, that Isley brothers, where, where, where, you know, the delicate at the beginning, that just makes me laugh. But that sense of haze, that sense of being lost in something warm and comfortable, it is there. You have to squint to make it out, but it's there. You know, Peter's not the best vocalist I could have found for this, but the stuff around him is fine. I thought I'd keep thinking that this was drab and offensive, but it's sort of just

middle of the road which I'm taking as a positive it is a positive 5 out of 10 if such a thing exists Ed where do you land on this well well

it's just like it doesn't get the cadence quite right it just reminds me of the chat from the sheep episode of Father Ted well what a pretty picture Peter Ant has painted

how dare you bring shame upon this celebration of sheep but yeah oh look it's lukewarm

Pete Andre take a shot doing his stevie waxen thing um look I I get where you're coming from

Rob that's very kind of you um I'll be honest, I don't think I had the patience that you did for this. I just don't. I just don't anymore. But the thing is, it is so inoffensive and smooth and, you know, properly rendered that it's hard to hate.

But I think it's so unimaginative and calculated and sort of vacuum. that it's kind of detestable to me in principle, and it's more than five minutes long, which, like a Goldberg match, just spells trouble. Take a sip. Yeah, that seems to be a recurring theme this week, that all of the songs we've covered this week have versions of themselves,

being well over four minutes, being quite close to five minutes, and in the case of the album versions of each of the songs, they really do start to extend a fair distance beyond the songs that we've kind of had recently, especially coming after like wannabe, which gets everything it does into three minutes and would have qualified for Eurovision. You know, I don't understand why songs need to be so long in the 90s. I feel like we kind of get, you know, we get our shit together with that eventually.

But yeah. Yeah, I definitely understand the hatred that both of you have for it. But I think if this was taken purely as an instrumental, I might find this to be decent. Lyft music, you know? Not bad lift music, at least decent lift music. More muzac, I suppose. But this is a number one single, Rob. But I know. Yeah, exactly. I think Andy's right that it is a name getting to number one rather than a song. I would have maybe disagreed if you'd raise that point about flavour. But yeah, this is, it's hovered ever so close. It is actually, it is closer to the pie hole than it is to the vault because I tend to start. pie-hulling things when the score is four out of ten and I only tend to start vaulting things when the score is eight or above but this is five so it's kind of

halfway between one and ten but much closer to the pie hole bits I don't know I'm kind of on the fence with it I don't I didn't find myself hating it I kind of did initially but then maybe it's because the more I listen to this the less attention I paid to it, if this was the only thing I was focusing on when I was listening to it, I may hate it more. Or if you were overthinking it, because this is a track that's not meant for overthinking. That's not necessarily a criticism. It's not meant for thinking.

It's meant for feeling, feeling, clearly. Feeling what, though? Valiated? But the thing is, I, you know, I'm putting aside my fair hyperbole, it's as a product in isolation as you say it's actually fine there's technically there's nothing wrong with it and do you know what I find I think he's got a very pleasant voice I really do I think he was a good singer

um it's not the most you know it's very very very very I absolutely adore and want to be Michael Jackson kind of yeah stuff but but it's it's does all the right moves it sounds nice but it's just again

when you step away when you actually do start to think your way out of the trap

it is like this is a fucking this is just a calculated nothing it's just

it has no imagination and no ideas but anyway did you know by the way I was looking

up the music video for this do you know that this song has a Christmas

music video. That's, again, that's another extremely cynical thing to do to this. Like, it's just, indefensible, really. He shakes a snow globe at the start. You know, the chimes at the start of the song. He shakes a snow globe at the same time.

Oh, isn't he adorable? But then it turns out that actually inside the little figures is his partner who's desperately trying to escape from this figurative trap. And then at the end, the song title, Snow blows off it, and it actually says, I fear you. Please tell me that's what happens. Otherwise, there's nothing to do with this.

I don't think that does happen, unfortunately. All right, so the third song up this week, it's this. Let's not forget this place Let's not neglect our race Let unity become Life on earth be won Take your end We are the grains of sand

Born through the winds of time Giving a special time So let's take a stand and look around us now People And the world around us now, people. Okay, this is A Different Beat by Boysome. Released as the second single from the group's second studio album titled, A Different Beat, A different beat is Boy's own seventh single to be released in the UK and they're second to reach number one

and it's not the last time we'll be coming to Ronan and Co on this podcast during our 90s coverage. A different beat went straight in at number one as a brand new entry and it stayed at number one for one week. Shocking. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 90,000 copies beating competition from Forever by Damage, Australia by Manick Street Preachers Don't Marry Her by the Beautiful South and Live Like Horses by Elton John and Pavarotti when it was knocked off the top of the charts

a different beat fell three places to number four by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for 16 weeks the song is currently officially certified silver in the UK as of 2025 Andy the title is apt because because this is definitely different, the boy's own.

Yes. Different is the word. You ever seen those TikToks of the woman commentating on people doing absolutely awful cookery? And she just commenting goes, wow, doesn't that look different? And yeah, it's that kind of shady different I would describe to this, to be honest. They've seen the Lion King, haven't they? I think that's fair to say. Because they decide to just make a song about Africa.

That sounds like something out of the Lion King, more like the Stage Meets. musical, but they also have heard the Earth song, and they've decided to do that to some extent as well. But they're also a boy band, so there's some producer somewhere, tearing his hair are going, what are we doing? They're a boy band. What's this? And attempt to marry those three disparate influences create something that is deeply strange, but certainly memorable. I will remember this, whereas words I certainly won't remember, and all the other shit they've had so far, like, love me for a reason.

no way and most of their latest stuff is completely unmemorable as well they are at least trying to do something here but come on like they're five young just like privileged white men who are singing this song with extreme African influences references Africa what are they doing they're not in their lane here like people have lanes for a reason like they don't need to do this um I think it's actually quite pleasant to listen to sonically I think it's like a pretty nice piece of music to listen to um all the bits that i like about it are not them like the back and vocals the production the overall kind of meter and cadence of i think it's pretty nice stephen gaitley's vocals bless him they're just like they really really

don't suit the material i know bless his heart you know i like nothing but love for him but like comes in with that sort of sub gareth gates delivery where he can you about that yeah it's like Gareth Gates and Mark Owen got together in a lab and did something really bad with music. You know, it's a, yeah, it's a bit of a dumpster fire of a song, to be honest. But I have to give it quite a few points for at least trying to do something. It's come out with a very average score for me, but like, I actually think this is anything but average. This is quite a wild swing, to be honest, one that I don't understand why they made. I don't think it works, but considering how utterly dull boys.

Zone have been through their whole career up to this point. Got to give them credit for at least trying to do something like this. I reward creativity. I reward ideas. This is an idea, but maybe the world would have been better off without this idea.

You know, it's funny, Andy, that when you said Stephen Gately, bless him, those exact four words verbatim are written in my notes somewhere. Stephen Gately, bless him. He does his best, doesn't he? He does do his best. Yeah, he does.

This is a lot like I feel you for me, just in the sense that I listened to it once after never really encountering it before and instinctively kind of made a gagging sound upon contact with it because it's drippy boy zone doing a drippy song with a drippy message and the drippiest drip that ever drips, like, you know, but then I listened

to it a second time and I started forgiving it a little. First, because hey, at least this is Boyzone trying something different. They're shaking off their usual cloak trying on something else, trying to add a bit of world beat into their sound and managing to make it sound not as crass as I thought and also kind of warm and comforting. Second, because it's got a similar ideology and sense of scope compared to something like the Earth song, but it's just got a smile on its face about it.

And I appreciated that. It definitely feels like it's going for wintertime coziness, but with a sort of worldly influence, I suppose. and I was absolutely fine with that. And third, because I did start getting caught up in the repeated sort of mantra like the... Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, you know. And suddenly I felt the song being lifted out of the piehole

and into mid-table territory again. But only to mid-table territory. This is still very much what it is, even if it's attempting to be a pretentious and elevated form of it. Here we go. Stephen Gately, bless him, sings through his beautiful note, through the entire song. Ronan is beginning to honk as well.

Don't get me started on the Band-Aidisms as well. I've seen the rains fall in Africa. Just again, perpetuating this idea that Africa is just Eritrea, Sudan and like other bits of the Sahara and that's it. It's just people living in huts miles away from each other. If you've seen the rains fall, good sign. If you've been there and it wasn't raining, bad sign. You've been there and it was raining.

Cool. no problem surely like that's not that line isn't saying what it wants to say so and then even and then even worse is that for other locations to signify the breadth and the depth of knowledge and connection that he has with planet earth he just picks Alaska and Niagara Falls talking about them like they're not just bits of the US and Canada that are very popular tourist destinations that a lot of people have seen and despite being an attempt at something more pretentious something grander, something as I apparently coined during our coverage of Never Forget, progressive boy band. This is still operating within very, very, very limited lines for what it can be. They have said

since, Boyzone, that this was their attempt at something like Never Forget and it sails comfortably underneath that. It's almost like a magician revealing his tricks and inviting comparison in the process, which was a big mistake. But somewhere in the liner notes of this, and I only found this out today because I only look this deep into it today. I think there's a reason why I find this slightly warm and comforting and not as crass as it could have been

and that is because deep buried within the credits of this song is friend of hits 21, Trevor Horn. He was a co-producer during the later stages of the song apparently and we can't be making enemies of him now, can we? Save this, Trevor. Save it.

Ed, boy's own. Okay, we're going to have to add Father Ted references to the drinking game. Yeah. Do you folk, I've mentioned this before, not in relation to this song, but do you folk remember the song for Europe episode Father Ted? Oh, God, yeah. I've never seen Father Ted, so, no. Well, basically, with the utterly shite song, Ted and Dougal get on a song for Ireland. and actually win it.

My lovely horse. Yeah, my lovely horse. But on the Song for Ireland show, you'll see behind the presenter is the big list of all of the artists and songs that are going to be played that evening. And one of them, which always makes me gut myself,

is the drums of Mother Africa are calling me home by Sean O'Brien. Now, this episode, It came out in 1996, and I thought for a minute, were they thinking of this exact song? But shockingly, no, that would have been even funnier had it come after this song, but it actually predates the release of a different beat by a few months. Now, people give this song a hard time, and I'm not bloody surprised. But I think it is genuinely funny.

So that's my opinion there, right? I can't listen to that intro without cracking up. There are very few songs in this world that actually make me crack up every time I listen to them. And I thank them eternally. For whatever reason, they make me do that. I will, you know, I praise their existence because comedy is so, so, so, objective and so difficult to tie in to music often with comic timing. You know, some of the candidates for this include I Got Your Money by Old Dirty Bastard,

which is just the most over the top, wacky vocal performance you'll ever hear, and it makes me laugh every time I hear it. So thank you, ODB, for that. The intro to reinforcements by Sparks is, kind of along with the rest of the song. One of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard. One of the a do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And it just ends with that, dare, dare, dare, like.

And it ends on this multi-tracked chorus of the least sort of sibilantly, poetically pleasing word on the planet, reinforcements that they turn into this meaningless jam. It's glorious. But anyway, it doesn't always have to be deliberate, however. Both of those examples, they knew it was funny. They knew it was ridiculous. ODB and Sparks are funny artists, and they know it. A different beat is not supposed to be hilarious, but I will give it a pass because every time they get the Burundi drums, those possibly faux field recordings, and the lightning. And then you just get... And it's like, ah, fucking fake out.

Ballad chimes. And then that, oh, out of tune somehow, even though there's only two notes, intro with the lines, let's not forget this place. Let's not neglect our race. Oh, my goodness. It's wonderful. It's a treasure trove of naive misguidedness.

And I can't, I don't hate this song even slightly. As you've both said, it just tries so hard to do something profound, but it's just so miscued. But it just, it doubles down. It adds, you know, layers. It adds dynamics, take a shot. And, you know, more backing vocals and counter melodies. And it is trying to be different. I mean, I do raise a little bit of, I do take a little bit of, I do take a shot.

a bit of umbrage with the name a different beat. Because after the kind of striking intro, it's not exactly a rump shaker, is it? It's the same beat as every other fucking boy's own song. Now, it tries to me different, and I think it fails horribly. It's tone deaf, both figuratively, I think,

and in some cases quite literally. Some of the singing is really bad. But it is funny and it is different and it is striking. And so I still don't know whether this is going to go in the bin or in the vault because I don't want it to be fine. It doesn't deserve to be on land in the middle. So just as a bit of a spoiler, what I've done for this song because I've gone ping ponged back and forth on it,

but it makes me crack up every time. I've developed a special device called the Pai Volta, which is a sort of heavy-duty rubberised perpetual motion engine that uses the weight of the song and the group's profound fundamental wretchedness which sort of pushes it naturally to sort of sub-stunk levels in the pie hole. I honestly think they are that fucking bad listening back to them. But obviously that creates massive tension in this sort of this massive rubber a chord, and so it

pushes right to the bottom, then gets whipped right back up, completely misses the on the level part, and goes right up to the vault at the top. But of course, it lands on there like a big splatter of puke, and so they quickly get rid of it, and then

it falls right back down, doubling the effect of its return to the bottom of the pie hole, and so the cycle continues anew under its own weight. It's a bit like it's a bit like Jeff Jarrett in the 90s

being batted between promotions take a shot so yeah I don't hate this at all it's very unique it's very charming and it's also one of the worst things I think I've ever covered

on this show certainly and from my recollection possibly in the whole history of the show God bless it I really could have used that machine this pie vaulter machine of yours when we were covering boom boom

pow back in 2009 in our naughty's era I know what you mean yeah because I did both pie hole and vault that song and up to now I think it's the only song to have received that treatment I do also feel the same I mean I

vaulted and pie holed I kissed a girl because I hate Katie Perry yes but it's it's this is yeah I think this the first one where all three of us feel this way all I keep coming back to with this is that I can't engage with it and analyze it critically because all I can think of is, what are they doing?

What is going on? Why did they do this? It's just the strangest thing. I just, I feel like I'm having a dream and I'm listening to this. I'm like, what are they doing? And I still, obviously, they never forget comparison. Like, I thought that's probably it. But I'm still not sold on what this even is.

It's the strangest thing this. Shall we read through the list of Euro song 96 entries? From Father Ted. Please do. The miracle is mine by Father Dick Byrne and Father Cyril McDuff. My lovely horse by Father Ted Crilly and Father Dougal McGuire. If I could wear my hat like my heart by the grand girls, you dirty English bastards by the hairy boutsies.

The drums of Africa are calling me home by Sean O'Brien. And shalala, la la la la la la la la la la by... deaf pigs Oh dear Unfortunately we only get to hear two of the songs Goodness me That beats the Clockwork Orange top ten

Any day Anyway we will move on now To the final song This week And it is this This Oh, take this badge off of me I can't use it anymore

It's been too dark, too dark to see Heavens doors. Knock, knock, knock on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. I feel I'm knocking on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knock, knocking on heavens's snow. I feel I'm knocking on heaven's Oh

Thought these guns I've caught too much pain This town will never be the same So for the bands I've done blame We ask please never again Okay, this is Knocking on Heaven's Door

Double A-side with Throw These Guns Away by Dunblane Released as a standalone charity single Knocking on Heaven's Door with Throw These Guns Away is the only UK single to ever be credited to Dunblane and therefore the less from Dunblane to reach number one. The first single is a cover of the song originally recorded by Bob Dylan which got to number 14 in 1973.

Knocking on Heaven's Door, we throw these guns away, went straight in number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 189,000 copies beating competition from Horny by Mark Morrison or by myself by Celine Dion, Your Christmas Wish by the Smurfs,

and Salver Meier by Faithless. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, knocking on Heaven's Door, we'd throw these guns away, dropped one place to number two. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 16 weeks. The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK as of 2025.

Andy, Dunblane. How do we feel on this one? Bloody Smurfs again, eh? They just can't be stopped. Yeah, never going away. The Smurfs are back, yeah, as they kept saying. they should have done a cover of a different beat like a different smurf or something

a smurfing beat they would have called it a smurfing beat yeah that's the one yeah so with this I mean obviously there's the context to it which is that it's in response to the horrible tragedies of Dumblaine and I think obviously context is key

with something like this but I think particularly so for this because charity songs are a difficult thing to get the measure of really because there's a lot of different factors that feed into them but it's such a careful line that they tread that it can either be sincere or very insincere it can be relevant and needed and called for or it can be not relevant and look like you're piggybacking on something it can also be musically worthy and generally genuinely good or it can be musically worthless and it's just being used as a vehicle for the charity and so there's lots of factors to consider with charity music

and I've ummed and hard about this because we had loads in the noughties with like Band-Aid 20 and the X Factor things etc etc and all the comic relief stuff and children need stuff as well and something that I said over and over again is why don't you just make good songs because they'll sell more and you'll do more for the charity and the fact that they didn't bother to make anything good gives the lie to the idea that it's all about raising money for the charity

it's like well it's about raising some money for charity but mainly you just want to get a quick hit at number one and stroke your own ego is for having been seen to have done something with this I don't get that sense at all this feels genuine to me this feels authentic and it feels heartfelt in a way that I wouldn't say about almost any charity song from the noughties and beyond that as well it's I mean both both sides of the double a side

are essentially exactly the same like if I wasn't really listening and I wasn't told that this was two songs I'm not sure I would have noticed the track changing to be honest but both delivered very nicely I think the choice of song is very good for this that you know thematically it fits with the events of Dunblane

you know with the kind of pondering over the purpose of this and whether any kind of meaning can be ascribed from it and how just senseless and awful it was but also you know a bit more urgently that we need to get rid of guns and

We need to stop gun violence happening in this country. And I think it meets the moment, is the phrase I'm going to use. It meets the moment. Because there are lots of these charity singles that have happened that are sort of fitting into generic spaces. But then there's other things like this and like candle in the wind, which is not so much a charity thing, but sort of responding to a national event thing that happens, that I think sometimes there are people at home who need. to channel their grief and their sense of feeling, whatever it is, they need to channel it into

something. And charity songs can be a very, very good and productive vehicle for that. You know, you're going and raising money for something. You're using your two-pence to do something to help after this. And I think a lot of people felt that when Diana died, that they just felt so sad that they needed to channel it into something. And I think it happens with all sorts of events, really. I think it's a bit of an effect that we witness today. it's in the present day where people need to have outlets for their rage and their grief and their sadness at the injustices of the world. I see it happen a lot with the way people respond to the events going on in Gaza these days that like obviously there's just nothing we can do

about that, like the average person can do about it. It's so awful. And so people are desperate to find ways to do something, desperate to find ways to like find an outlet, just sort of siphon off that feeling that they're feeling about it. And it's very, very hard to do. all felt that to some extent after 9-11. A lot of us sort of felt that for many years after 9-11, I would imagine. And this is an example of that, but like something horrible has happened. Lots of people, like my mum, certainly, would have been one of those people who's just sat there feeling sad about this, I'm wondering what's it all about, what can we do? You know, I want to go down there and hug these people. So, well, you can't do that, but you can give

a couple of quid, and here's some songs in return, and we'll raise a lot of money for these people and, like, create lobbying campaigns and parliaments as well as a result of this. It serves a genuine, meaningful, positive purpose that I think should be applauded. And so in this particular circumstance, I think all power to this, this is great. And I think it looks very unfavourably on things like Hero by the X Factor Finalists, which is, you know, help for heroes. It's a sort of, nothing wrong with Help for Heroes as a charity, but there's no particular event that that's, like, addressing.

It's just, oh, we're going to raise some money for soldiers and pat ourselves on the back for it. no particular reason why it has to be right now or when, you know, when big artists get together to, for some reason, do something for like Great Ormond Street Hospital or something, you know, these ongoing charitable efforts and it's like, you just, there's no reason why you do this right now, you're just trying to make yourself feel a bit better. This, like I say, meets the moment. This is a horrible tragedy that has a genuinely authentic and it's all right. It's not the best song in the world, but it's all right, but like there's some effort been put into this. Everybody kind of wins out of this. And so I think,

Charity music, as much as I've complained about it, this is an example of what I think charity music should be, and this is the form that I'd like it to take in the future, which is that when something happens that we as a nation or as a planet feel we need an outlet to respond to in a productive way, music is there to give us that outlet. And this is a great example of that, and I think the people behind this can be very proud of it. I still have huge, huge reservations about charity music in the present day, because I think it's taken on a very different form and a much more cynical form and a much more business-led form.

This isn't that. This is something genuinely quite nice happening in response to the most awful thing. So, yeah, I'm happy to see this here. This was quite good. Well said. Yeah, Ed, what about you? Just speaking on the most surface level appraisal,

it's actually, as charity covers go, it's really not bad in itself as a piece of music. It's not a song that is new to being covered. we had to butt heads with the fucking awful Guns and Roses version two years back with that which is atrocious

it's embarrassing and this guy I don't know who he is you know but it's not it's a decent vocal he does try and mix it up a bit vocal

he's definitely modelling this more on the Bob Dylan original more than anything but he does mix it up a bit melodically you know he can definitely sing, and he definitely has an ear for melody, a tasteful articulation of melody, so I think he does a good job. I think, you know, Mark Knopfler, yeah, he's a very good

guitarist. I mean, I think probably just because there wasn't much instruction given to him here, he just basically just plays over the top of the whole song, which I think is a bit OTT, but something wrong with it. He's a good guitarist, but it's, you know, It's fine. You know, as a piece of music, I think, it's, it's an above average cover, actually, I think. Which when you add to the fact that it is, you know, it's a charity single marking a, you know, a really horrible event. This is, this is really not bad as the charity singles thing goes. So, yeah, this gets a rare pass for a charity single from me.

yeah i think of all the singles we've ever had on this podcast i've maybe found this to be the hardest to approach or talk about because i think you know that this is one that i think justifies that feeling of having to talk about it very very carefully and i'll get to that but i think to start i'll just say you know done blaine that this this song this single has helped me really distinguish the difference actually between what a song and a single is you know at least in pop chart context because the song is, you know, just the audio that you're hearing. And I guess the single is the package that it, you know, it's part of. And in this particular instance, you know, that package contains a hefty amount of context, a lot of very weighty context too. Because I think

in the hands of celebrities or TV famous people, you know, or record producers that are, you know, known to the public, this could have very easily come across as awfully tasteless, like the worst example of vanity in a sea of charity singles stained by celebrity vanity, sending our love down the well and all that, you know, you can imagine the scene of a massive London circus descending upon a quiet little town in Scotland as the people in the town try to recover from the tragedy while rich, famous people visit the school and lay flowers and cry for the cameras in the music video and all this shit. Like, you know, that episode of Succession where they go to Dundee in Scotland

and you have these massive Hummer 4 by, you know, 4 by 4 truck kind of things like, you know, driving down these little streets with double parked cars and like little pebble-dashed houses while these like secret service guys in suits walk at the streets.

It's fucking weird. And that is how I imagine it would have felt had a circus descended upon Dunblain for a pop single. But for a charity single, this is remarkably, and I think this is the big difference between this charity single and quite a lot of others, this is dignified. It's an independent singer-songwriter from Scotland, putting together a couple of songs

to raise some money and give it directly to the family of the children who were killed. The Bob Dylan cover is reworked to support the campaign for disarmament and the banning of unlicensed handguns and even licensed ones too. And the original song here also does the same, which is an incredibly, you know, throw these guns away being the original. original song, you know, an incredibly important piece of legislature that arguably saved all of our lives, potentially while we were at school. You know, there were lots of kids in the schools that we went to, and there were lots of people who probably lived near the schools that we went to as well, who could have done things that happened in America basically all of the time and every single day. And I thank God that they at least finally, even though it was too late, they did finally see this as the moment where after Hungerford and then now this, they were like, okay, right, fine.

And I do think this song played a part in it. Ted Christopher, the guy behind all this, did the song raise the money, handed it all over. And I think the reason it's dignified is that he just kind of went back to his life. He didn't use it to extend his own personal fortune. He didn't use it to have a string of TV deals and book deals. He just did a thing for a bunch of people and then walked away. He went on top of the pops a couple of times and put it out near Christmas,

but I think that was just so he could make the money pop bigger before handing it back to the community that the song is credited to. I think you could also argue that delaying it a few months meant that the raw shock of the tragedy would have healed a bit instead of having celebrities hijacked the grieving process in the immediate aftermath during the summer of 1996 instead. And I think something that's very, very special about this is that you immediately and can never forget and you know what this is about. We've had charity singles go by on this podcast where if you were put on the spot and said, right, what was this to raise money for? You'd go, um, starving children or some,

because I think sometimes the vanity of some charity singles takes away from the message. This is a problem that we have always had on this podcast. I think this has all the honest good intentions of something like Band-Aid, but without all the hubris and ignorance that always comes with something associated with Bob Geldof. You know, this is just as principled. as Band-Aid, but without the mistaken belief that the people involved could skillfully alter the face of geopolitics. The only famous face involved with the new recordings here seems to be Mark Knopfler, who was a child of Glasgow, which is about a 40-minute drive from Dunblane, and he's just on guitar. And he's not buried in the background. He is kind of over the whole thing, but again,

you would have to be told that it's him. If you listen to it by itself, you would just feel, oh, nice guitar line going along there. Ted Christopher didn't even name this. after himself. He didn't say, you know, throw these guns away by Ted Christopher. He named it after the town that was so affected by this awful tragedy. You know, the musicians playing on the song aside from Knopfler, they're all from Dumblaine. The children singing on throw these guns away are actual survivors of the attack from the school. I don't think that this is just an exploitative cash grab. This seems to come from a place of tragedy and a sense, a place of confusion because what else can you feel after so much death? You know, it's like,

I don't know who came up with its theory or who propagates it or whatever, but there is a number. No one knows what the number is, but there is a number where you stop feeling debt. You stop feeling grief to the amount of people that have been killed. It's like you don't grieve 17 people 17 times as much as one person. You know, it's not like how you feel in yourself. it's not 17 times the grief. It's just after there is a certain point where the feeling becomes incalculable

and the number becomes incalculable. It's like once you get into numbers of double figures, it's like 17 feels the same as 12, feels the same as eight perhaps. You know, it's like you can't actually quantify or really qualify that feeling.

It's just confusion and bewilderment, especially in this case, specifically with Dunblain, especially that the killer was previously one of their own. He was of their community. People knew him. You know, the only thing you can do in a situation like that is hope that it won't happen again to anyone else.

And I think that Dumblaine and the single is fresh in the minds of everyone when handguns are eventually banned in 1997. So you sort of have to hold your hands up there. There's not much occurring musically that I can really pick out. The songs sound exactly like you expect them to. They sort of sound exactly the same, actually. And they don't do much to challenge your perceptions of them. They're a tad on the kind of dismal, dirgy side,

but they're simple in a way that's charming. It's just an amateur trying to do his best for his neighborhood, trying to make sense of a tragedy. And this is the result. And I don't think the result could be anything else. This kind of, weirdly, a bit of a tangent, this kind of reminds me of the song, Where Were You, when the world stopped turning,

that Alan Jackson's song, which was really popular in 2001 at the end of 2001, but was swallowed up by Toby Keith's courtesy of the red, white and blue, in brackets, the angry American, where Toby Keith's song responds to 9-11 with all the tactfulness and subtlety of a whoopey cushion filled with bullet casings, Alan Jackson's song was kind of just plaintive and sad and simple, definitely ignorant, and I think Team America were fair enough to Pope Pope, fun at him with the freedom isn't free the what would you do song he's still very american about it in the only way in the way the only americans can be but jackson admits to that in the lyrics

you know he the lyrics are very self-deprecating is ultimately a song and he says himself i am a simple man with a simple mind and i don't understand what happened on nine eleven but i felt like my world stopped turning i'm not very worldly i'm not very knowledgeable i have a very small life. And I live a long way away from New York and even further away, as he says from Iran and Iraq and so far away that he probably wouldn't know the difference without CNN, you know, watching CNN. But it's just an upset man who's confused strumming on his guitar to try and make sense of it. Toby Keith immediately jumped into a military helicopter and threatened to kick Qasama bin Laden's face in personally. And I think Ted Christopher was going down the

Alan Jackson route with this one, which is that, okay, a tragedy has happened. We can react angrily, but what we can do actually is react with compassion for the victims. Let's not focus on the enemy here. The enemy is something that's actually a bit more existential than that, and maybe we can deal with the existential matter by passing a bit of, passing a law that means that this might not happen again. And that's why it was safe, I think, for so many of us to go to school after this. So, yeah, hard to discuss because the songs are what they are, but they cannot be divorced from their context,

which I think is a big strength. It is impossible to divorce this from the context of what it, in which it was created. And that's very, very valuable. I won't be vaulting it or anything like that. I feel like even vaulting it would be slightly, not like unfair or crass, but you know what I mean?

I feel like a science, assigning a value to something like this is really difficult. And so it's just kind of, I mean, not to like give it all the way to everybody, but we've all just gone straight down the middle with this. We've all given it the exact same score. And I think pretty much for the exact same reasons. Yeah, definitely. Agreed.

I think we're in board agreements about this one. Yeah. All right then. So that brings us to the end of the episode. Just going to check though. Ed, breathe, I feel you, a different beat and Dumblaine. How are we feeling? The fat of the land.

like the green of the crap rises to the top take a shot uh yeah it always rises to the top an easy vault for me for the prodigy um peter andre's song i can never remember the name of which i think is somewhat apt i feel you uh is yeah look it's only at the crust level but a pie is a pie now isn't it let's let's be candid uh boys own long may they bounce up and down in my head like a baffling curiosity made of shit it's like that escalator to nowhere um I honestly that kept running through my head well I'm trying to think of where to put this because like it is a folly it's a classic like Victorian folly

like a completely worthless house done in the style of like a gothic church that nobody wants to look after and yeah done Blaine it's fine as a piece of music

it seems apt and as kind of you've both mentioned particularly Robb it does seem intractably connected to its source and what it's working from and for a charity single, that's pretty high praise. It's staying put, but again, by my system of standards,

that's pretty high praise for a charity single. It really doesn't irk me this one. Andy, the prodigy, Peter Andre, Boyzone and Dun Blaine. Well, take a deep breath, breathe, because you're going to be flying into the vault at stratospheric heights. So, yeah, a different beat. It's, I mean, it is different. I'm going to put it in the different place.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it's not going in either the pie hole or the vault, but it's also, in a way, it's going in both the pie hole and the vault. It's sitting in the middle in an extremely uncomfortable, restless state, and I think that's what will always become of it, to be honest. I feel you, more like I pie you. That's going straight into the pie hole.

I absolutely hated that. And knocking on Heaven's door doesn't need to knock on any doors. That's staying exactly where it is. It's already home. So for me, yeah, the prodigy that's comfortably going into the vault, I feel you in a different beat are sitting exactly in the middle and actually a little closer to the pie hole. And I don't know if there's anywhere that you can put Dumblain.

Really? I don't know if that seems like a cop-out. I don't know if that seems a bit like, oh, you're just being too sensitive or whatever. But yeah, the more and more I've listened to it, the more and more I'm just like... But it's not bad, though. It's not like the song is bad,

and it's not like it's not bad. No, genuinely, if you're in anywhere, it's fine. No, totally fine. So then, when we come back, next week, it'll be the race for Christmas number one in 1996. And we'll also look back at the year that was with our, you know, our contest like Beat Room. And we'll find out our favorite song of the year.

But until then, just have nice. weeks and we'll see you next time. Thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. I'm just a singer of simple songs. I'm not a real political man. I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference in I rock and I rent. But I know Jesus and I talk to God and I remember this from when I was young. Faith, hope, and love are some good things he gave us And the greatest is love