Hits 21 - 1997 (1): Tori Amos, White Town, Blur, LL Cool J

Episode Date: November 28, 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 everyone back to hit's 21, and welcome back to hits 21, the 90s, where me, Rob, me, Andy. No. Looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. Email us, Hits21 Podcast at gmail.com, Twitterers at Hits21 UK. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are now looking back at the year, 1997, and this week we'll be covering the period between the 1st of January and the 8th of February.

So, it's time to press on with this week's episode, Andy, the UK album chart. How are they doing in the first month or so of 97? Outside of the Christmas charts, it's very rare for us to have an episode where there's no new albums at number one at all. We nearly had that because if you remember, Spice by Spice Girls went to number one a few weeks before Christmas and dominated all the way through December and January 1997.

So we just have one new number one for one week when double platinum. The first of 97 is, of all things, the original cast recording of Evita. That's all we've got this week. Don't cry for me, I'm already dead. In the news, Tony Bollimore, a British businessman feared dead after his yacht had capsized near Antarctica, is found alive and well after surviving on chocolate and water for four days. In a world first, Diane Blood, who was a widow from Nottingham,

wins the legal right to be artificially inseminated with her dead husband's sperm. It was frozen while he was alive. In international news, Princess Diana calls for a global ban on landmines during a visit to Angola, and the Japanese embassy in Peru is besieged for four months, and it eventually comes to an end. That was by the guerrilla terrorist group, MRTA. And in America, a civil case finds OJ Simpson liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. And in pop culture news, Brian Harvey is sacked from E-17 after claiming the ecstasy is safe to use. Chris Evans resigns from BBC Radio 1 after a request to reduce his working hours is turned down.

And as Brass Eye debuts on Channel 4, John Foshanoo presents his final episode of Gladiators. John Fasharno. I hope people got that and they don't think it was just a mistake. I got it. Even though it's not Brassi, it is the day to day. But yes. And the film to hit the top of the UK box office during this period was Evita. So Evita dominating the album and films charts.

Ed, in America, how are they doing? Well, a bit like you, folks, it's not exactly a tough job for me. There's a grand total of one album and one single at the respective top slots for the duration. So, albums first, if you've got nothing to say, don't speak. Tragic Kingdom by no doubt holds up in Weeping Beauty's Castle for a a further six weeks. I didn't realize it was quite so huge in the States. Well, on the singles chart, Tony Braxton gives useful tips on repairing organs. That summary was provided by YouTube AI. So thanks for that. Rob, I could be silent for a whole minute and I think

it would still be the earliest we have ever reached the first song of the week on an episode if it's 21. We'll be finished within 25 minutes, I'm sure, knowing us. Yes, I won't torture them with dead air for a minute. So the first song up this week is this. I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah. I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah. I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, I honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, a honey bring it close to my lips, yeah, a honey,

bring it close to my lips, yeah, a honey, bring it close to my lips, yeah, a honey, Okay, this is Gotta be big, got to be big, got to be big, got to be big, got to be big, got to be big, got to be big, got to be big. Okay, this is professional widow, and in bracket, it's got to be big, by Tori Amos and Armand Van Helden. released as the sixth single from her third studio album titled Boys for Pella. Professional Widow is the 13th single to be released by Tori Amos in the UK and her first to reach number one. However, as of 2025, it is her last. The single is a remix of the song originally released by Miss Amos in 1996.

Professional Widow first entered the UK charts at number two, reaching number one during its second week. It stayed at number one for one week In its first and only week Atop the charts it sold 80,000 copies beating competition from Quit Playing Games by Backstreet Boys Hey Child by East 17 People Hold On by Lisa Stansfield Say What You Want by Texas

And where do you go by no mercy? When it was knocked off the top of the charts Professional Widow dropped one place to number two by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks the remix is currently officially certified silver in the UK

as of 2025 and the original is also certified silver so I don't know an honorary gold Andy got a big big but what do you think of it

it has got to be big I can confirm which is just it doesn't that say everything really that's like the main thing you come away from this song is just that because I find it hard

to be objective about this I was asking you too how much are we going to talk about the original are we definitely definitely sure that it was just the remix that got to number one because they are so so different from each other

you know I don't think I've ever known an original and a remix that are as far from each other as this where one of them has actually got big you know there are a few examples I think where something has tended to an entirely new song like this while still claiming to be just a remix of the original song

usually if something's as radical as this they just call it something new and sample it you know that's what you know acts like daff punk have done which is they take tiny little bits out of songs and call it a new song I think this is kind of bordering on that to be honest and I think as a song in its own right this is fine I'll come to that in a minute but as a remix of that Tori Amos song I imagine that this is kind of sacrilegious and not particularly popular in fact I sort of know that to be true

for at least one Tori Amos fan who I asked about this who I know who I'm friends with and he said yeah this is generally considered by the Tori Amos fans he knows of to be like the most shameful horrible thing that nobody talks about in a career

because it's so absurdly unreflective of her as an artist. It's a bit like how I felt when the Calvin Harris remix of Spectrum got renamed to say my name and made that to number one, where that's wholly unrepresentative of her as an artist as well. And I don't like that. That leaves a little bit of a bit of taste. And it's one of the reasons why I generally don't like remixes at all. There's a few that I really like, but they have to be very, very good and they have to have a real vision to them, where they have to be really kind of sumptuous and have a lot to them in their own right for me to really get on board with them. This doesn't have a lot in its own right. It's perfectly fine and that it's got to be

big thing. I can see why that caught on. It is fun. It is catchy. It is silly. And I can see why on the dance law, you just get people kind of singing along to that with like no other thoughts in the head other than how that's a bit funny. It's got to be big. You get some weird lines in dance music that just catch on like that song, what's she gonna look like with a chimney on her? The late 90s was a good song for just like odd little ditties that you get on the dance floor and this is one of them. Do I think it's worthy of number one?

No, not really. I think like this is perfectly fine as a dance song, but for this to be the number one that Torrey Amos gets and for this to be like probably because of that the most well-known thing she's done, I feel icky about that. I feel horrible about that. And there's nothing about this that strikes me in any particular way other than, yeah, this is kind of all right.

Yeah, this is an odd one for me, to be honest. Don't love it, don't hate it, feel very weird about it. Yeah, I feel kind of weird about remixes and remix albums too. You know, I've listened to a fair few over the years, and there's only really in my head, although I'm not as well versed in DJs and white label DJ stuff. you know, like, and club music and stuff as I should be. But I think over the years, the only two that have really stood out

is Jamie XX's We're New Here, which was a remix of I'm New Here, which I think was one of the last albums that Gil Scott Herron ever did, that actually produced the song, I'll Take Care of You, which Drake and Rihanna covered about a year later. It was such a vivid, I think, reimagining that in the end, Jamie XX kind of laid down the basis for that that guitar tone and the careers of Drake and Rihanna in the 2010s. The other one is a bit of a curious one.

Soul Wax in the mid-2000s. I was listening to them earlier this week, just based off the back of this, where they took their album any minute now and remixed it themselves. You know, at the beginning, they were kind of like a dance punk kind of, you know, mid-noughties kind of indie slees group and then they decided to ditch all of their equipment I mean it's the um I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables and they did that they remixed their album into a dance album that was called night versions and that's generally considered to be an improvement but most of the time yeah remixes and remix albums

I always think like uh okay like I do struggle a little bit little bit with like just adjusting to the old material that I recognize in an environment that is very, very tough to adjust to. With regards to this getting number one, I think the first line of my review hopefully explains it's just, hey, it's January, fuck you, if any red letter media fans are listening. But before I start, you know, I have really enjoyed the early episodes of each nighties year that we've done, even if we don't always get the most consistent. consistent set of songs because we're definitely in the period where random songs can pop up at number one in January when the general public hasn't really woken up to the new year yet. It's like they sneak in under the door before the rest of the country wakes up. 1990 was a disaster to be fair, our first episode. But in 91 we had really randomly, it was like maiden. We had a proggy queen thing. We had that enigma thing. In 92, we got Shakespeare's sister in 93. We got Shaggy's first big hit. We got Shakadamus in 94. Rednecks in 95. We got Babylon's.

zoo last year. And in 97, we get Tori Amos and then next White Town. You know, it means we get a lot of variety. It means we get to flex different muscles in our ears and so okay. But yeah, this remix of professional widow, it's probably the first thing of its kind we've covered so far on the show, really tightly wound and sort of minimal dance track, where the baseline's really prominent, the vocal samples from Tori Amos are really chopped up and spliced. And it's happy to kind of tease you with the prospect of more. But without ever really going bigger than, that this feels like a bit of a response to the maximalism of you know big beat the kind of everything under one roof kind of approach and maybe hints towards the sleek kind of french house future

we're heading for as the millennium turns over but as much as i've really tried to get fully on board with this i have found myself struggling a little to really absorb what it's doing i think instead of becoming lost in the constant looping i actually just become a bit impatient and a bit irritated if I'm honest. My favorite section of the song is the bridge, if you can really call it that, just that the beautiful angel section where Tori's voice is really heavily echoed and drowns everything else out. And I think it's because it's a moment of respite against that kind of fidgety backbeat. I think, though, this is, you know, it is a commendable remix of a song that almost feels unremixable in its original form. So it succeeds at what it is. You get three vocal lines

at most, which have all been sped up and obscured. You get that three-note bass line. that keeps hitting and keeps looping back around. I just keep waiting for the development and the progression, but apart from that bridge, it never quite arrives. But I am broadly positive about this. I think for 90 seconds to two minutes, I think this is great. It just starts poking me a little by the end. And I'm a bit, but anyway, Scada-D-Saturday gig.

Ed, what do you think of professional widow? Well, I think I'm rather more positive than either of you about this. though I can't deny. It's not exactly, yeah, it's not fundamentally substantial. And if you are coming off the launching pad of the original track, this is probably going to feel like a slap in the face, if not a slight insult. But I came to it the other way round. And so looking at it in isolation with that perspective, I think it's kind of wonderful how much it was transformed. Because it's not just the, you know, the structure of the song or the style of the song. It's the feel. It's the tone. It's the speed. It's the fact that something very almost sort of sinister and grimy in the original. It's got this really kind of off-kilter, you know, greasy arrangement to it with this sort of muffled clavichord in the background. And this is just completely opposite. It's got a very sort of perky house disco bass line. And just, Just hearing those vocal samples in the original context, it's like it does take some ears to find a completely new place for them and work this around that. I think one of the main mistakes probably is calling it a bloody Toriamos song. Because it should be at the most, Armand Van Helden featuring Toriamos.

Because basically there's loads of artists that have sampled other artists more extensive. extensively than this, used passages of the original song more extensively than this, and they've not even been credited. So credit to him, I don't know whether it's partly a publicity thing. I don't know how big Armand Van Helden was at the time. I know he was a pretty big name in dance. I'm not sure where he was at that point or whether his commercial cred was any higher or lower than Tori Amos is, but it does feel a bit misleading, I think. However, for whatever it's worth, as much as I admire the original and the unique arrangement, I enjoy this more. It is repetitive. But I think, Rob, you will mention the fact that it does gradually needle you

and become irritating in a certain way. And I think it's one of those ones where you can just be on the cusp of it, whether it's going to annoy you, or it's actually going to be suitably mesmeric. and I find it strangely compelling. I've not actually skipped it in any of my listeners, whereas a lot of the songs, I'm like, yeah, yeah, all right, two and a half minutes, you've had your bit,

now you're just milking it, and then I skip onto the next track each time. This one, it does mix it up just enough, I think. And because it phases in and out all of the different sections, it doesn't sound kind of as cut and copy as a lot of other sort of chart-ready dance tracks we've had. It does have more of a kind of... The comparison that I put in my notes was it is a bit like being driven somewhere quite quickly

in a way that you simultaneously feel secure, but you're a little bit, you know, excited by the fact that there's a fair whack going on and there's a sense of purpose. But at the same time, it's sufficiently smooth that you're sitting in the passenger seat, just a little slightly nodding. but just being aware that you're being carried somewhere at high speed now take that as you will that is the vibe I get off this song which is a bit of a sort of jet enginee phasey sort of a dance track but yeah I really like this and I really do give extra credit to anybody who does they call it a remix does a cover or another version of a song that uses elements of something and transforms it so completely.

I mean, I consider this at least a cover. But, yeah, I mean, I put it in a similar sort of space to say the Cizor Sisters version of, I mean, not necessarily quality-wise here, but in terms of how much it transforms the track and the feel of it, Cicester's version are comfortably numb, which I think is one of the great cover versions. a Judas Priest's version of diamonds and rust, for instance, another transformative one. You could say, Aretha Franklin's version of respect. But the original version of that is really good.

But she was like, no, we're going to amp it up, make it a party track. We're going to add a whole new section to it. This is mine now. No one will remember you, Otis Redding. So, fuck you. It is weird that. It's like nobody remembers it because it was Otis Redding that wrote it. Bizarre.

Anyway, yeah. I love this as a kid. That got a baby. It's been stuck in my head for years and years and years. And when I first saw Tori Amos Professional Widow remix in the chart, I'm like, what the fuck is that? Now, I'll pants up. I'm not the biggest Tori Amos fan. I've tried.

I had this album, Boys for Pello recommended to me. Like, oh, that's the one. You know, forget Little Earthquakes. That's the one. I'm like, yeah. Yeah, it's just not for me. kind of, you know, intense, but quite sort of histrionic, Paliap piano ballads and things like that.

I'm like, it has, it just wasn't for me. It was surprisingly big, and it got a lot of radio play. And I think Tori Amos, for a lot of people, especially my age and older, was just a kind of name that you were aware of in a kind of Jules Holland-y sort of live-session space, rather than actually knowing who she was and what she did. And on its own, somebody just turning her unique and pretty special voice, it's got to be said, into this. I don't think that's a discredit.

I think it's finding new texture and new music in her voice, even as it completely subverts and transcends the original feel of the track. Yeah, I really like this. I've not got much more to say than that. I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it after all this time because it should annoy the shit out of me. But it doesn't because I think it's very carefully and organically crafted. Well then, on to the second this week.

Second of this week is this. Just tell me what you've got to say to me I've been waiting for so long to hear the truth It comes as no surprise at all you see So got the crap and tell me that we're through Now I know your heart, I know your mind You don't even know you'll be a kind so much for all your hypermoxist ways just use me up and then you walk away boy you can't play me that way

well i guess what you say is true i could never be the right kind of go for you Okay, this is Your Woman, I could never be Your Woman by White Town. Released as the lead single from his fifth EP, titled Abort, Fail, Fail, retry and his second studio album titled Women in Technology. Your Woman is White Town's first single to be released in the UK and his first to reach number one. However, as of 2025, it is his last. Your Woman 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 120,000 copies beating competition from Saturday night by Swade

and Come Back Brighter by Reef When it was knocked off the top of the charts Your Woman dropped one place to number two By the time it was done on the charts It had been inside the top 100 for nine weeks The song is currently officially certified gold in the UK As of 2025 Ed kick us off with Your Woman

Well I said in the previous track that I loved it as a kid. I certainly enjoyed it, like tearing on the radio. But if there was a track that really hit me in the head around that era, I think it was probably this one. I'd never heard anything like it. And that loop was just so captivating. I loved the kind of combination of this sort of creepy, creaky old sound file with something so almost deliberately synthetic and modern and quantized over the top of it didn't sound like anything else still doesn't really um i've not got a huge amount to say about this which is very strange um partly because it it still has an air of mystery about it it's very veiled there's almost something

apologetic in how subdued and quantized as i say the lyric sound. I don't mean in an actual way that it's been, you know, digitally pushed into rhythmic place. I just mean it's kind of, it keeps very cleanly, very quietly to the melody

and it's got a vocal effect on the top of it. While it aren't almost to the effect of the song, it's almost to a fault, I feel. Because one of my criticisms of this track is that it doesn't really let itself loose at any point

and while I'm okay with the sense of claustrophobia because that's how the other song feels and how that loop from the al-bole version of my woman feels I do kind of wish he would

cut loose a little bit with his vocals and not follow so strictly the pattern he's set all the way through because it just lacks a sort of lightning bolt Unless, of course, you're looking for that really cool, quirky kind of pong break in the middle, which sounded very unique at the time. But listening to this now, I'm like, yeah, I can hear guerrillas over the hills here. Yeah.

I think Damon Albemann must have fucking loved this. I really do. I can't imagine he wasn't influenced by it. but yeah how unique and how I love how ambiguous the lyrics are

I think maybe to some degree too much has been read into them like oh is it is it a trans song is it pro trans is it anti-trans

it transforming it's like no it's just somebody has had the you know either not thought about it as much or just had the

balls to do a song that's just from the woman's perspective that's it they're not necessarily making a huge statement, but maybe the fact that it is from a slightly different vantage point just adds to

that air of this being a slightly different statement and a slightly different viewpoint from a different place we've not heard before. It is, and I am really, really happy that this real kind of DIY sort of homegrown oddity got to number one, because it was exciting. I just don't think people really immediately knew what to do with it or where to put it. It took a little bit of time. This might be, for me, the most January song we've covered since Enigma in the St. you know, it's a proper curious little oddity that shouldn't be at number one and yet here it is and it only could be in January. I have really taken to this. Similarly repetitive, kind of like professional, you know, to professional widow, but I do get myself a bit lost.

in this. I find it easier to soak into its atmosphere, lie there with my eyes shut for a bit while the song kind of happens around me. Its textures and aesthetics are pulling from all over the place, you know, from 1930s samples to 1980s keyboard drum loops to like 1940s vocal effects. But with this weird kind of trip-hop sensibility that sounds a bit new millennium, does sound a bit guerrillas, sounds a bit port his head, you know, things that gorillas might pick up on in three of four years time. It's strange and intoxicating. It moves quite a lot, I think, underneath, without really feeling like it has. Various parts of it sort of sneak up on you, because, you know, the bass progression changes during the chorus just to elevate it very, very subtly. New effects

and samples get layered on top as the song progresses. You end up in a very weird place where you get what sounds like an ice cream truck driving by towards the end. There's all sorts of things here that alternative bands in the 2000s would get a lot of credit. for innovating when the foundations were maybe sort of here or before. You know, what's fully established now as bedroom pop or home studio music is all here, using lots of basic equipment and pretty cheap materials to get something that sounds sophisticated and at times pretty expensive. And that's without getting into the wonderfully weird and androgynous lyrics, the kind of gender swap perspectives. Joti Mishra, the guy behind it, has said that it's a song

A, from the perspective of someone trapped in a movement with a load of hypocritical Marxists, being a straight man in love with a lesbian, being a gay guy in love with the straight guy, being a girl who's falling in love with a fake Marxist, and quote, the hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals. Just, what the fuck? We're talking about a number one single here? Like, only in January would this happen, and I love that.

It should also be mentioned, I think, that this is the second of, I think, three UK one-hit wonders in the 90s that are done by British Indian or British South Asian artists. You've got Babylon Zoo with Just Been to Sing Man. You've got this guy, Jotimishra, and then you've got Tijinda Singh of Corner Shop. So, yeah, you know, I think this maybe runs a little long. By the time those ice cream van sounds come in, I'm ready for it to slow down and finish. I don't think it needs one more go-round of the chorus. It doesn't need to be over four minutes.

I'm not sure what it adds. But I think this, you know, professional widow and, Beatable next, they're all on their way to start of like forming their own path, I think, as the early 2000s are going to come into view and what kind of path they're going to take. You know, tight house tracks with funk and disco influences are back in as Big Beat kind of slides a bit by the wayside. British Asian music's about to get more than a little peek into the charts. And I also think this being like one of the first instances of someone who's nerdy and

using the internet allowing like Web 1.0 aesthetics to influence. it's the packaging that this gets transported to us on. And obviously with Beetlebaum, it's more the question of like, okay, where do we go now? Britpop is over. And I think that that question also applies to this, too, where it's like, okay, maybe that cycle is over. What else are we looking for?

And I think this was given a big push by Mark and Lard in the late 90s, and that's how it ended up at number one. And I think it was people trying to race to find the next sound and find the next thing. and it turns out that they tried to find people on Usenet who were releasing little EPs. Like, again, even the title, like, abort, fail, retry, like, I don't know, it's not like, you know,

I think it's probably say, like, I don't know, Arctic Monkeys were maybe the first number one artist to sort of, like, have their fan base entirely come through the internet rather than radio and TV and stuff. But abort, fail, retry, like actual computer codes being applied to, things that have number one singles on them. It all feels a bit fresh, a bit fresh, a bit new.

Andy, what about you? For starters, this full always, for me, from childhood, will be the Imperial March song. Yeah. Just because I heard that in the early 90s on top of the pops or something, can I ask my mom? Like, what? That's Darth Vader's theme.

What's that doing in a piece of music? And obviously, that's not just me. And it made me total. It really did when a few years ago when future nostalgia came out. dulyper's album and I was looking at love again which samples the same riff again and the production notes say the Jewelieper commented on it saying

well my first reaction was to ask people why we were using music from Star Wars on my album so it's still to this day people still think that's the Imperial March I feel so fortunate that I didn't actually see the Empire Strikes Back until later this year in 1997. So I didn't have that connection at the time. I can't, yeah, I can't imagine how seeing Empire Strikes back first

would have ruined this, I'm not sure. You can't, I mean, as much as I know this is in like five different songs and that it's absolutely nothing to do with the Imperial March and vice versa. It's just one of those things you can't ever on here. So it's just, it always just speaks me chuckle when I hear this. Anyway, I completely agree. with what Ed was saying about this sort of mystica creates just by taking a different perspective.

I always really like it when a song takes a perspective that is very clearly not your own and plays a protagonist that is very clearly not yourself where you're making it quite explicit in the song that you're not using yourself as a protagonist avatar, which virtually all pop music does to some extent. You play a character that could conceivably be you. That's where your artistry comes from.

That's what your persona is. and in this, you know, it's something as simple as a audibly male voice playing a seemingly unambiguously female character. It's just like, it instantly creates this feeling of mystique where, you know, like I'd said, you know, it's like, is this a trans metaphor? Is this a queer metaphor in some way? Or is it saying something else? Is it making some other point?

And I don't think it is. I mean, maybe it is. And certainly, sometimes that is true. Sometimes, you know, there are songs that have a sort of gender swapped, like, or genderqueer perspective that are making a point about that. But I think there's just something that's just rare

about a man explicitly singing as if he is in the eyes of a woman that it's just unusual to hear it. And so we instantly kind of put meaning onto it and are struck by it just for its mere existence. And it's not as rare the other way around. Like I can think of, certainly, it's quite a big thing with like big,

strong female pop divas. I can certainly think of a few Lady Gaga songs where she refers to something. as like a big guy or like a macho man or something like that where like it kind of you know just just slips by and it's just sort of part of the character whereas the other way around it tends to really attract notice and start conversations which i think it's quite a good thing because it shines a light on how toxic masculinity is that a man can't even pretend to be a woman without it starting some sort of conversation um but it's just i don't know it's just a curious effect about pop music

that songs like this always capture the attention and I'm not excluding myself from that. It is interesting. It is an interesting perspective to see in pop music. I really like the sound of this, not just that riff, but just that kind of melancholy vocal line that sits underneath that has that very kind of

like plodding tone to it, like very rhythmic, but very kind of relaxed and chilled against what is quite a sort of spicy beat in the background. And it kind of, to me, well, more than kind of, to me, it quite vividly makes me think of guerrillas. It's like it really sort of feels like an early guerrilla song. It feels quite similar to something like Clint Eastwood or when it's got that, you know, vocal trick that Ed was talking about. That sounds a lot like feel good ink to me.

So I think there's quite a lot of inspiration there, which is funny because, you know, something else coming up this week. Obviously, you think that that would be the reference point for gorillas. but no this this to me is like sort of vaguely the sound of the future not to like a massive extent because as Rob said you know sort of British Indian fusion music will go in a very different direction to this but it does sort of feel like this is sound of the future it's an exciting thing to listen to it is striking it is something that you think oh I need to listen to that again and listen to the lyrics more closely it's very catchy

it's got a great central motif at the middle of it I think it's a little bit slight I would have liked it to just sort of go to some more places and go a bit further but I think maybe the slightness of it is the point that it's supposed to be just a little you know little curate egg of the song but I find it hard to get too excited

just because I think it's just a bit small in scope but it's a minor point really I did really enjoy this and it's just shining a light I think as well on the other side of the January effect which is that you can get some really good like stuff that would never have otherwise got number one in January. It always seems like, especially in the December fallow period,

it's always terrible stuff. And in January, it's often terrible stuff. But sometimes you get something like this that's really, really quite lovely and really unexpected at number one. And to be fair, I would say the same about the Tori Amos remix, just I didn't think that was that good. But yeah, it's nice to have something like this at number one that otherwise wouldn't have made it.

I guess it might have made it into Born to Runner Up, but it wouldn't even have done that well there because it's a hell of a year for Born to Runner Up, just some spoilers. So it's nice to be able to get the chance to actually sit and talk about this because of when it was released, because it would have just been swallowed up otherwise. All right, the third song up this week is this. what you done

she's a gun now what you done beetle bum get nothing done hey you know you beat a bum love

now what you've done in a month and when she lets me sleep away she turns me grounded all my father's gone I think it's like I just slip away I am gone

Nothing is wrong She tells me I just live I am gone Okay, this is Beatlebum by Blur. Released as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, titled Blur. Beetlebum is Blur's 17th single to be released in the UK and their second to reach number one. However, as of 2025, it is their last.

Beetlebum 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 120,000 copies as well, beating competition from Older by George Michael, Nancy Boy by Placebo, Walk on by by Gabrielle, and Remember Me by Blueboy. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Beetlebum fell six places to number seven. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 10 weeks.

The song is currently officially served. certified gold in the UK. As of 2025, I do like Beat Upum a lot, but oh, what I wouldn't give to talk about Nancy Boy, but never mind. I think because we're doing four songs this week, I'll go first on this one. So, Brit Pop is over then. For everyone except Oasis, apparently, as we'll find out. I guess that question from before about where Brit Pop is, you know, where are we going after Brit Pop doesn't just apply to blur, you know, it does apply to all four. more acts this week in a way. It feels like lots of different things fighting for space. But space is still afforded to the first band to come back after the Battle of Brit Pop. And it turns out Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon have used their success with Brit Pop to immediately pivot away towards more American styles of alternative rock. It's like they've panicked. You know, they've had all the success with the Brit Pop sound and all, you know, what that's become known for. And instead of going, right, we're just going to double

down on that. We'll play it easy. They've gone. oh no we can't be known for this um i would argue that with songs like the universal they were already kind of hinting at where british mainstream rock was going to go anyway with bands like dugs and cold play at this point though blur are probably listening to a load of nirvana and smashing pumpkins and pavement they're all hanging out with the rentals as well and there's a great youtube video which i've shared with you guys before of them covering the song friends of p by the rentals with Matt Sharp of the rentals and Matt Sharp had left Weezer

to focus on the rentals by this point. And of course, Damon is also at this point dating your one from Elastika, Justine, that guitar tone at the beginning of this, even the style of playing with the slightly looped effect that Coxon has going on just with his fingers, but it has that effect of a loop.

It's all very Siamese dream, melancholy all of a sudden. Even Albarns sort of softened his tone a bit, you know, a bit like Billy Corgan, does in the softer moments before he goes into that kind of raspy snarl that he has. I remember the first time I heard this and being quite shocked. You know, I was pretty uncultured and uncurious in like my early and mid-teens. And then I kind of came out of that phase when I was about 17 or so.

And a friend of mine was waiting for me, armed to the teeth, with Spotify playlists for bands like Radiohead and Blur and acts like Bjork and Beastie Boys and a whole bunch of others. They were all done semi-chronologically, and I remember listening to the Blur one thinking, oh, I know Park Life and the Universal and Country House and the Woo-Hoo song. And then this started. And I remember being immediately transfixed by that introduction. Then, you know, the, the, dude, dude, very, very unusual effects. It's kind of like what Cox it in this song is kind of does with the intro what Tom

Morello does with Rage Against the Machine, where he doesn't, he treats his guitar more like a set of desk, a deck, really, a DJ deck. It's scratching and doing things to it to deliberately fuck it up. It's like, it's the kind of effect. But if you listen to something like any fucking rage against the machine song, you'll see Tom Arello's doing anything but playing it. He's just like, he's just scratching it, pulling it, doing whatever. But he won't do anything conventionally.

There's a load of hip-hop influences coming in there too. and then the sudden stop and launch into the chorus with the and I was having a great time. And then it reached the extended coda section and I realized I'd heard bits of this song before years earlier when I was still an uncultured and uncurious kid at school because a friend of mine a few years earlier had sent this to me on YouTube

and told me to skip to the end where the singer started saying, as he put it, piss on, piss on, piss on me. And we just called it the piss on me song for about a week. And then we forgot all about it, not knowing that we had the wrong lyrics in our heads. I'm sorry, Kerry. I think Beatlebum is just about fantastic. I think, you know, it's despondent and melancholic, but sort of about nothing specific and nothing particular. It's about experiencing, I think, just a general sense of.

malaise. You know, if you're going to make a piece of art about heroin use in the mid-90s, I guess years down the line, it's going to evoke images of train spotting. And this reminds me of all the scenes between the drug use in train spotting, where it's very obvious that their lives are small and destined to remain small, so they take heroin to feel something, anything. You know, they will live, exist and die without many people knowing that they were even there. And I mean, you know, Al Barne is on the train spotting soundtrack twice. And there are edits on YouTube where people have played this song over footage from the film. But, like, that's the feeling that I do get from this more than anything.

You know, it's kind of tracing the emptiness of loneliness and drug abuse, but not towards anything specific, not down any particular specific path. In a good way, I find this to be kind of listless and vague, like its eyes have glazed over. After that sharp intro with the stabbing, like, looped guitar playing, it suddenly goes very languid and horizontal again until that sudden change of direction in the coda but that then immediately finds its own languid atmosphere and just kind of drifts away for two minutes before slowly falling apart and now after all these years i know it's he's on it not piss on me i kind of wish the coda faded out a bit sooner i think the early bars of the song could be slightly tighter

uh while still retaining the same atmosphere but yeah i think you know this i think this is really marvelous. I think this is great. And may I say in the video for Beatlebum during that live performance of Friends of P as well, Damon Arban, at this point in history, is so beautiful. This is the most beautiful he ever gets. He was already looking some kind of way in the country house video, but I think he's got something going on here with a slightly more rugged and unkempt look with that, you know, kind of beard, five o'clock shadow sort of thing he's got going on. It's very piercing eyes as well at this stage. It makes it very very. very, very easy, I think, to get lost in the video for this.

But really magnificent song as well, one of my first sort of proper introductions to Blur when I was kind of old enough to properly understand them, I think. Ed, Beatlebum, Blur. Yeah, this is more a grower than a shower for me compared to the first couple of songs. Because when I was, you know, 10 or 11, this went over my head. And to be honest, it didn't have much time to stick because, as Lizzie pointed out in the chat earlier on, I think it was Lizzie who said this was in the charts for three weeks altogether. That's it. Yeah, the top 40.

Yeah. And it's gone from the bloody charts, which is amazing. I mean, it does sadly make you think that it probably got up to the top on the back of brand recognition and the fact that disappointing as it had been at the Great Escape and it. its accompanying singles were absolutely huge and was like they were the big manufactured Brit pop victory if you get my drift. But I am so pleased

that this, albeit fleetingly, did get to number one. And I'm pleased that of all of the singles off blur, which is an interesting and bold album, I don't think it's a particularly solid album. I'm glad that this is the one that did.

song two is a hell of a lot of fun. I'm kind of surprised that didn't get to number one. But this just seems to play to so many of the group's strengths. And as you say, Rob, this is almost, it sounds a bit like the death knell, or at least that's a bit melodramatic, the sort of the baton passing to the next phase of British alt and guitar-led music. Because it is, there's got a lot of Britpop.

DNA in there, not least the basically sing-along chorus with the, and then she lets me slip away. That's not a million miles away from Oasis, that. But at the same time, it's slow, it's sad, it's menacing, and it's quite corrosive. I mean, if you break it down, that coda, the chord sequences and things, if they were played a bit quicker, and if that guitar line was played a bit more quickly, it does in many ways, not sound too different from some of the more, you know, Sunday Sunday style songs on the previous couple of albums. It's got that kind of slightly manic cardiacs adjacent sort of evil clown sound to it in some ways. Only here, it's not all for show and it's not for wackiness. It just

sounds on settling and sort of murky and unpredictable. But it's like a lot of the ingredients are the same, but they've just slowed down and they're viewing it through a different lens. And it works so well. And I think as a result, it's aged a lot better than their big, you know, suspenders and cockneyed hits of previous years. Not that they aren't enjoyable. Well, some of them. but I do like the sense of decay going on here because that coda I, you know, it's something that when I first heard it, when I was younger, it's like, well, this goes on a fucking bit, doesn't it?

But it does have a gradual growth to it. You know, it gets slightly louder that guitar line, but it also becomes more fractured, there's more delay. And this interference, which sounds like radio broadcasts and TV broadcasts, coming from both sides, becomes its own instrument and then gradually takes over the song and then there's just that click like someone turning the telly off it's great it's just a last little bit of humor almost but it could be taken as something far darker than that because in the video as i recall

over that scene they've been in this room this sort of very almost train spotting sort of environment it's kind of grim in a tower block and then at that point the camera sort of start moves out of the window and just starts flying around the the adjacent tower blocks so you can read into that what you like but yes i think there are certainly drugs underneath this i will say i was i confess slightly disappointed to find out what he is actually saying over that coda because i always assumed when i finally got round to listening to this properly when i got into the band when i was in my mid-teens, I assumed it was disarm, disarm, disarming, and I thought, oh, that's clever, because it's like the drug, you know, it's like it's a gun, but it's also disarming in a sense that

it puts you at ease. I'm like, oh, fucking hell, that's good, that is. So I was a bit like, oh, well, yeah, I suppose the actual vocals are cool, but kind of preferred my fantasy vocals a little bit, but anyway, blowing my own trumpet there. But yeah, it might not be their best and most out there song. It's one of my favourites of theirs, but as I say, I think it does play to their strength so well, and it provides a sort of a two-way passage to each side of their career. And yeah, they were well ahead of the game here. I mean, this will be the year of OK computer, which is kind of slightly further down this track of kind of corrosive electronic combined with sort of stadium.

Sort of, it's not really Britpop anymore, but it grew out of that. But they would do it again the following, well, in a couple of years' time, with 13, where they would kind of predict the track that artists like Radiohead would go on. And yeah, I gotta hand it to blur. I was not on board with everything, certainly not at the time, but they never stopped moving. And they became somehow more interesting as their career went on, which, you know, I hate to bring it back to the same old manufactured comparison. You can't fucking say that about Oasis, go here.

But anyway, yeah, I love this track. I think it's special. I'm very, very pleased it got to number one. on. What you said there, Ed, at the beginning about this may be being one of the nails or one of the death knells for Brit Pop. It did get me thinking that, like, is, can we conclusively say that a scene is over when its big players move on or when it's big players try to do the same thing and don't get it right with the same enthusiasm? Because it's like, you know, or maybe it's both where like, the artists have, you decided they don't want to do it anymore, so they move on to a different style, or you have the artists trying to do the same style and the public then saying, well, we don't want that anymore. And yeah, we're in 97 now. Three big things, well, two big things at least are going to happen that kind of gets everybody thinking, hmm, maybe Britpop has morphed into Cool Britannia

and Cool Britannia has more to do with Pop than Rock. If you sort of, if you know what I mean, like a different set of artists are going to come through and represent Britain. And we've kind of had Spice Girls, you know, muscling in on the end of 96 and we'll be back later this year with a big explosion in 97. I don't know if, I don't know if it's necessarily, I think Blur moving on is part of it, but I think Oasis is coming back with more of the same. And it's selling a bucket load because it's them, but everybody kind of going, oh, right, it's only been two years. but I feel like a lot of time has passed sort of feeling. It's an interesting one, because I don't think that's... I think it's definitely true in this case

that the person who set the trend is who we look to to know when it's over. But I don't think that's always the case. I think there are certain genres and certain trends that the artist gets tired of and moves on from, but the public refuses to let go, and so others take their place and others slot into that space instead. I think particularly in the tens,

where things seem to get very slow, where, you know, years felt like months or vice versa. I don't know which I mean, where basically it's like, you know, trends would start, and then they'd stick around for about five years, long after several albums after the places where it had started. Yeah. So I don't think that's always the case,

but I think definitely in this case, it's like, yeah, you know, whoever starts the story gets to end the story, really, yeah. I think they knew they'd kind of shot it, as in they'd jump the shark a little bit with the Great Escape. Because one thing I'll say for Oasis is that there is sufficient difference in the feel of those first couple of albums that they don't they compliment each other it doesn't feel like a retread what's the story morning glory whereas great escape does have the effect of feeling like

oh it's park life but bigger and louder and lesser on the whole unfortunately and all the subtlety had gone. And the thing is they were, they started earlier. So they were already, this is their fifth album they're on now. And Oasis, as I recall, had not yet released their third. No. So they hadn't had time to get into that rut. Whereas, you know, there are songs on the Blur's second album that could actually feature

on the Great Escape without much tweaking. So they, I think they must have got bored of it before people did, to be quite, honest because they'd been doing it before they were successful if you listen to things like modern life is rubbish i mean that's not too far away from park life really is it no not a million miles and suffers from very much the same issues that run for blur i think all the albums that modern life is rubbish part life and the great escape and blur to be honest and the self-titled they all suffer for me from the exact same issue which is that they're like you know you pick a third of each album slap that on a greatest hits

and it might be the greatest album you've ever heard but they're all too long they all have too many songs and not enough of the ideas are strong enough to justify the amount of time it takes. Modern Life is rubbish. It's 70 minutes long and it does not need

to be that long. There's no way it needs to be that long. There's so many songs that you could cut from basically all of those albums. You know, just these little things that add up time and part life itself is over 50 minutes. Great Escape as well. I think that's, yeah, that's, that's an hour. The filler is just louder on Great Escape as well. The annoying aspects are ramped up, so he gets stuff like Top Man, which is bloody awful. Top Man and Dan abnormal. Oh God, what kind

of a chorus is that? Bernal Same. Yeah. Look, they were trying. It's clear. But it's just, I don't think it's a coincidence that my two favorite blur records well they're much shorter for a start in terms of the tracks you know that they build more ideas into the tracks they have as opposed to trying to spread as many ideas out over as many tracks you know because 13 still has 13 songs and it's still over an hour but that's because you have songs like tender and coffee and TV and battle and trimtrab and caramel which all run over five six

minutes, but they're all basically excellent. Yeah, they need that time because they kind of, they evolve slowly, they're built out of group interplay, they kind of change their entire approach and aesthetic to songs. And that worked. I still think that that album

could do with a bit of a trim, but a trim trap. A trim trap, yeah. Yeah, but, you know, for me though, about the fact that about seven tenths of that album is pretty stunning and considering it's so

experimental as a whole album. I'm like, nope, fair do's. That might be for me, you know, they're, yeah, because they never quite pulled it together consistently on a studio LP. That's probably the best they do. Yeah. It's an essential record, I think, but they, yeah, they're a magnificent singles band, no question though, just remarkable. Andy, Beatlebaum. Yes, I mean, I've remained silent because I have, I have relatively little. to say about Blair in general because I'm just woefully uneducated that completely passed me by

and not too much to add to this one actually I was quite relieved that I got more on board with this as the week went by really I hesitated to put my score in for this one in our super secret scoring system because I could see what you two had given it and I was like oh

I don't like this nearly that much that this is kind of average for me And it took a while, and it very much is a grower, not a shower. And I think it's very uncommercial, like oddly uncommercial to listen to, really. And definitely the three weeks thing tells me, you know, confirms me that, no, there's no way the great British public en masse were on board with this. Like, this was, no, this is not a goer. It's just it got the number one and then it was gone again.

And it's probably been forgotten by a lot of people, which is quite sad, because it is very interesting and it won me around mainly because the amount of ideas on display I think is very impressive but most of all because of the confidence that that five minutes runtime it never feels like they're struggling

to fill the five minutes it never feels like they kind of trying to pace themselves a bit and trying to figure out what do we do next it feels very assured it has like big periods of downtime that are being used deliberately and it has that big co-eastern

at the end. It just feels like there's a real vision to this, a real sense of this is what we want to do with this song. Funnily enough, I made that criticism of professional widow of like, well, that didn't have any vision. I didn't have a sense of what they were trying to do with that. It was just a nifty number. This is what I mean.

This is a piece of music that, like, it's not for me. It's not really particularly my genre. And I don't know much about Blair, but it's like, okay, I'm definitely getting why people are into Blu. from this I'm very happy to say by the way that I was very close

to the disarming thing because I thought it sounded quite a lot like Adamant saying Prince Charming so I was fairly close on that one I won't pretend to have grasped

much of what this is actually about I think that's something that you really have to sit with and really have to think about and you two have really helped elucidate that for me so thank you very much but I really love the sense of atmosphere in it

that it does have that OK computer Radiohead in general it does have that kind of quality to it it's very of the moment it is very much setting the scene for that to come and it is amazing that this is the follow-up number one not the follow-up single of course but it's the follow-up number one to Country House it just sounds like an entirely different band

and it's only 18 months-ish on you know very very impressive it is making me want to actually take the time to go deeper into blur and listen to them properly because I suspect I would like them based on what everyone has told me and based on the fact that this is interesting and I'm not sure I would go as far as saying I love this

but I'm being relatively giving a relatively high score because I do think this is intriguing enough that I'm going to keep on listening to this and dig more into the album because there is some real juice here there's some real substance that I think I first kind of took me a back and I didn't know what to make of this

but is growing on me rapidly so kind of watch their space I might sort of cheat and put it up by a point or something if I feel that way at the end of the year but yeah yeah another very interesting thing to get at number one what an odd week this is we're getting such unusual songs at number one can it be January all the time obviously not don't want it to be January all the time I want to occasionally feel some sun but yeah musically let's keep it

January for a bit, shall we? Yeah. So, the fourth and final song this week is this. girl I'm a lazy real tight go deep till a full moon turn the sunlight till the darkness is gone love remains strong like the barn sweet mother a child you're so warm till the touch passionate interludes as such when you're gone your body's what I yearn the clutch just imagine ecstasy floating in the cloud animal attraction burning through the crowd heaven on earth paradise for a price it's cool though I'll pay it for the rest of my life you know why

You can make me feel in your body. Ain't nobody. Don't need better. You can take it, girl, stop running on. You can take it, girl, stop running on. You can take it, girl, stop running on. You can take it, girl, stop running on. I'm exploring your body in your erogenous zones,

like a black tiger caged up till you come home. Lovely, you make a man swoon like a boy. The love is so sore for gets hard to enjoy, because the mind flies, and sometimes the sex lies. Smoved little girls fall in love with rough guys But you could chop a big heart down the pipe size I guess that's what it sounds like when a dove cries The whole world is trapped up in a maze

But you say this real good loving for rainy days The Lord works in mysterious ways He must have put you on his earth for all men to pray Okay, this is Ain't Nobody by LL Cool J Released as the third single from the soundtrack album To Beavis and Butthead Do America 8-Nobody is L.L. Cooljay's 15th single to be released in the UK and his first to reach number 1. However, as of 2025, it is his last.

The single is a reinterpretation of the song originally recorded by Rufus and Shaka Khan, which reached number 8 in 1983. Ain't Nobody went straight in at number 1 as a brand new entry. It stayed at number 1 for one week in its first and only week at top. the charts it sold 80,000 copies, beating competition from Toxygen by Orb, Do You Know by Michelle Gale, and I finally found someone by Barbara Streisand and Brian Adams. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Ain't Nobody fell four places to number five, by the time it was done on the charts that had been inside the top 104, 12 of weeks. The song is currently officially certified silver in the UK. As of 2025, for

episode for a while I think where every single song has got to number one in its first week every single number one has only been number one for one week a couple of them have fallen more than one place off number one basically all of them are done inside two or three months and none of them are certified platinum so a bit of a weird week you know January giveth january taketh away in certain ways ed the ladies love cool james how you feeling of That's about that guy. I was going to try and crowbar the actual one. The acronym in there somewhere.

I can't believe that's the real thing. It was the 80s, come on. What thing I'll say about Elkoal, Jay? You listen to his early stuff. I think he was great. You know, he listened to like radio. Yeah. And you listen to, Mama said, knock you out.

Really, really good albums. Killer production. Yeah, he's not the most like lyrically astute brother need I actually comment on that given the single recovery but he had a great sound confident flow, good voice

he was a you know a bit of a bit of a pioneer it's easy to forget and I always do just how big he was through the 90s because it seems to me that nowadays people's conception of him runs out

in about the you know 1992 or something when he starts pretending to be gangster and it kind of backfires. But he was actually arguably more successful in the 90s. He was having constant number one albums and he was having just number one hit like this, which isn't very good. I love AitNobody, the original track with Reufus and Shaka Khan. It's a bloody classic.

It still sounds monumental now. I'm kind of glad he kept the cross-rhythm, because you do lose something without that, even though it's so distinctive to the original. I remember there was a recent version of this track. There have been several by someone called Felix Jan. Felix Jan. It's a producer, and they got an English female vocalist

in to do a version about five or so years ago. Fucking awful. it just basically took all of the interesting bits out of the original track and it was obviously a fucking production project and he'd got some young vocalist who'd probably never sung anything before to sound like she was just sort of singing to herself at a bus stop on a cold night it's got that kind of creepy studio project vibe to it it's bollocks anyway this is better than that

however all right no no I've got some more nice things to say he has a nice flow oh I've already said that I don't have I don't have more nice things to say yeah this is a song that it appears to be about sex I think

I have actually looked over the lyrics but it's not sexy at all it seems to be trying to say several things at once and it comes out like a complete cluster fuck of tone and imagery and it doesn't really mesh together

even though all of the imagery is borrowed I was trying to think, well, what is, what does this remind me of? And then I thought, oh, the return of chef. Have you seen the South Park episode? The Return of Chef? And do you know where I'm going with this? Yes, yeah. Andy, you familiar with this episode?

No, I'm not familiar with South Park, so no. Well, basically, as you're probably aware, and as we, you know, we'll be increasingly aware as the 90s go on, perhaps. yet the character of chef, the school chef, was voiced by Isaac Hayes and was a fan favourite. He was a really good character, actually, but he was kind of like a, you know, he was, that all the kids liked him, but basically he would just talk all the time about his sort of sexual conquests and sort of what's a lethario he was, basically. And then he started complaining much later in the show's run.

about the creators of the show making fun of Scientology. And they were like, we have made fun of everything, everything in the whole world, and now you're having beef with us because of Scientology. And he left the show because of this,

well, there's several possible reasons, but it seems that that was the big fallout. And so they did this episode where he, quote unquote, came back. And they basically brought him back to decisively kill him off, literally. At the end of the episode, he gets dropped off a cliff, falls several

times, and basically all sorts of things happen to him. So he ends up as like a bloody splatter on the ground. It's like, oh, well, he's never, ever going to come back from that. But what they did through the rest of the episode was they made his dialogue out of previous episode's dialogue of his. And they tried to reframe it to make him sound like a paedophile. So basically, It's like, hello, children, why don't you come and sodomize? My black ass, I want to make love to the children. And it basically, that's the gist. But it's kind of the vibe I got from this track.

Because, right, it, yeah, a bit of a mix and match of imagery, isn't it? I mean, you've got your prostitution imagery. Throw your butterscotch body beneath the red light. Heaven on earth. Paradise for a price. It's cool, though. I'll pay it for the rest of my life. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it kind of, it's not a great look back, because it's basically like saying that the sex is a separate transaction.

And if you're, quote, unquote, good in the marriage, then you can have a bit, if you know what I mean. It's not actually part of the same relationship. It's something that the partner begrudgingly gives him in a way. And like the bond between mother and child, you're so warm to the touch passionate interludes is such

and it's like yeah that's not really the vibe I got before especially when it's like you know you can take it and keep it coming and all this stuff and it's getting critical son

it's bananas ain't it and the bizarre line lovely you make a man swoon like a boy and I'm like we don't want this cluster fuck of images

and ideas mush together this is just this is a total turn off and it's supposed to be it has one job and it's to be a sexy song I get the impression he's very he's been very careful

not to offend anybody but it just comes off as like a sort of a disclaimer and a bizarre disclaimer as that at that it's enjoyable enough to listen to it doesn't really do anything

musically the original didn't and as I say his voice is decent, you know, he's got a nice effortless flow, he always did, but as a sex hip-hop track, it's bollocks, really, isn't it? Andy, ain't nobody, how are we feeling? Yeah, it's not great, this one. While I've been listening to your talk, I've decided to lower this in my ranking slightly, because, yeah, the lyrics, like, there was a few that didn't quite, like, escaping my notice the first listen, because I'm not good with the lyrics. especially in hip-hop,

like usually it takes me a few runs through to, like, notice particularly good or bad lyrics. I'm the same, but you can't ignore them. Exactly, and that was a bad sign to me that there was a few that I was actually walking down the street, so, you know, should be looking where I'm going and stuff, and I thought, oh, yeah, that line just caught me a little bit, just saying things that you just don't expect to hear.

There's that line about erogenous zones. It's like, oh, I'm going to touch you in your erogenous zones. Like, can you really not find a better phrase? Like, a more poetic, like, a more, frankly, a more cool way of saying it. Nauty bits. It's so clinical. It's so clinical. It's like, you know, oh, you know, let's manifest an erotic charge between the two of us.

It's just so unsexy. And I do think that the source material doesn't lend itself to sexiness. Like, it's a good, I'm not going to, it's not a ballad, and I'm not really going to even call it a love song either. It's just a nice kind of atmospheric, you know, flirtatious kind of a song. where, like, though, there's something between us. Don't know what it is, but it's like, there's something here. I don't know why I'm doing this voice. Like, I'm a bit of a New York gangster.

I don't know where that's come from. But it's like the something... Keep it going. Oh, certainly not. No. But there's like, there's something in the middle there. But, like, this isn't the right combination of things. Like, you've got a song that, as a source material, like, is kind of cool, but I wouldn't

say it's particularly sexy. You've got a rapper here who, lyrically, can't do sexy like really really can't but you have an ethos that this is trying to project and kind of in terms of the sound of this it is sounding quite sexy so the whole thing is kind of awkward it feels less than the sum of its parts and it just feels not properly put together this to be honest like it needs to go back to the drum ball with it i admire the attempt because you know who isn't in the 90s who isn't in the business of you know trying to do a get freaky with you

kind of song like who isn't in that business in the 90s so LL Koolj has got to do one but like this is poor this is poor and like

I don't think it's pie hole poor because I think it's still got that gorgeous synth bass line there's not even a bass line is really that boom

beep beep bit it's still got that gorgeous line from the original which is like it sounds too good for me to ever put this in the pie hole

but although it might be good source material it's a wrong source material for something like this it could have been lifted if LL Cool J was going to completely sweep me off my feet and make me feel you know hot and to the collar for him but no I mainly feel a bit sorry for him listening to this to be honest

and you should never feel sorry for the singer when they're trying to woo you that's a very bad sign but yes it just not good didn't enjoy this although I did enjoy the most unexpected comment that I've ever heard any one say on this podcast, which is Ed saying, sodomize my black ass. So it was worth it just to have that quote come out.

And I'm looking forward to seeing whether Spotify will have the balls to put that in the transcript as what was said, or if it might change it. I have three things to say about this. And one of those things is to say that LL Cool J's most recent album, The Four, is actually very good. There's some great stuff on that, especially the track that he's done with Eminem, that murder gram d'ur.

That's great. That's really excellent. And I would say maybe not his most influential album, because obviously time has gone by. Radio and bad will always be, and Mama said knock you out, will always be his big three in most people's estimations. But the force gets Q-tip behind the desk.

It's good. The second thing is that there is almost nothing to say about this. I tried typing notes about this and the words would not leave my brain. I was a bit stumped, to be honest. The third thing is that I can't believe this got past so many people without anyone wondering whether LL Cool J asking a girl to stop running would have the desired effect with the public. I mean apparently nobody seemed to give a shit

because it went to number one but that's just the thing I keep thinking about it's just stop running like this is supposed to be some kind of romantic trist and it's just stop running oh it's critical son oh god yeah quite quite bad

I think it has enough of the bones of the original to be fine I don't think it's a total mistake but it yeah he's a very important figure LL Cool J it's a travesty that this is his only number one and that's all I have to say about it

because oh mama said knock you out or you know anything more recent that he's done you know from this The Force album you know the one with Eminem should have got somewhere in this country but it didn't it was really fantastic I liked it so much

I've tried to learn it for any future karaoke performances I might do because it's a it's a very fun and very challenging thing to put together when you're having to be both M&M and LL Cool J in the space of about three and a half minutes but it's yeah it really really is something his most recent record but this uh honestly I pay attention to you know the careers of rap artists and stuff like and even I had like it seems like people lots of people consider this a footnote it's just a very very large footnote, but a footnote all the same.

So, before we go, Ed, Tori Amos, White Town, Blur, LL Cool J, how we feeling? It might not land with a big bang, more a little earthquake, but Tori Amos and the almonds do just make the vault for me, just, they're just edge in, because I really rather like that. and Joti means divine light Well, Mishra means Mishra. That concludes your in-depth explanation on why Jotie Mishvah's Whitetown project is going into the vault.

Now, there's nothing wrong with Beetlebum, and it turns me on a fair bit. So it shoots up, groan, to a pretty high vault placing. And rather like the track it's. my feelings about ain't nobody aren't clearly pitched anywhere. It floats like a lovely prostitute

boy. Take it hard my caring mistress. Hello children. Goodness me. Andy. So professional widow, is that going anywhere? Professional with no. Comedy.

And I could never be your woman. Well, if you replace the word woman with Vol and the word you're with Inver, then that's accurate, because I am putting it in the vault. As for Beetlebum, well, they're going to be Beetle bummed out

by me harshly choosing not to put it in the vault, just because I didn't love it that much, and like I say, it's a grower, we'll see. So maybe this bum will grow, like a Kardashian or something. We'll see. And ain't nobody, it's, oh, it certainly ain't no vault, but I don't think it ain't no pie either

I don't think it ain't no pie I'm turning back into my gangster again I don't know why that's that effect on me you just can't help being gangster can you handy in the vault just keeps pulling your back so for me

professional widow is going nowhere that's just kind of staying in the middle your woman white town I'm happily just about vaulting that I'm nice to be able to sneak that in beetle bum is a pretty yeah pretty definitive vault for me

and ain't nobody LL Cool J is close to the pie hole but I think it has enough about it I think just to prevent itself from slipping in so when we're back next time we'll be continuing our journey through 1997

and we will see you for it bye bye bye bye hello children Oh boy, find out what's up with me Oh yeah, oh yeah, what's that you see Tell me, moron, what's going to be With your friends with me Don't think your friends with me

Come back you down with me Friends of me Somebody's fainted fortune He's going to come to Goode