Hits 21 - 2000 (1): Westlife, Manic Street Preachers, Britney Spears, Gabrielle, Oasis

Episode Date: July 3, 2022

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the very first episode of Hits 21, the show that's going to take a look back at every single UK #1 hit of the 21st century - from January 2000 right through to the present day. You can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hits21UK You can email us: [e-mail] Songs for this week: I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun - Westlife The Masses Against the Classes - Manic Street Preachers Born to Make You Happy - Britney Spears Rise - Gabrielle Go Let It Out - Oasis

All right there everyone and welcome to the very first episode of Hits 21 Where me, Rob, me, Andy, and me, Lizzie Will look back at every UK number one of the 21st century from January 2000 right through to the present day If you want to give us your two pence, you can find us over on Twitter We are at hits 21 uk that is at hits 21 uk and you can email us as well just send it on over to hits 21 podcast at gmail.com thank you so much for joining us for this first of episodes um before we get to the number one singles which i'm sure you're all eager to

hear our comments about, it's probably a good idea to actually let you know who we are and introduce ourselves. Who are we? Why are we even doing this? And other such questions. Lizzie we'll start with you. Why would you want to do something like this? To be honest with you Rob, I genuinely don't know. I mean, I put myself through the pain of Game of Thrones and I figured, well, what could be more controversial and more kind of divisive than Game of Thrones? It's the UK pop charts.

So I figured this was a natural home for us both. But yeah, I'm looking forward to revisiting a lot of these. I do have, I want to say I have quite strong memories of some, but like some even in this episode, I genuinely have no recollection of. So yeah, very much looking forward to having a chat about them. Yeah, I think we will, as we go through year by year, I think we're going to get to points where it becomes very obvious when we were listening to the charts and then when we kind of drifted off. Yeah, for sure.

So I think, yeah, the memories of certain songs and certain episodes, it might get a little longer as we go through, say, the mid-2000s or something. Andy, what about yourself? Why would you want to do something like this? Hello. I mean, that's a very big question. It kind of feels like they should start job interviews with that, really. Like, why? Why do you want to do this? I'm a glutton for punishment, basically. It's funny that the previous podcast I did, we watched the whole of Lost, and I thought about what I want to do after it finished, and I thought,

OK, well, the only thing I don't want to do is I really don't want to binge through every single one of something again funny how things work out but yes no I'm absolutely delighted to be doing this because noughties and tens pop music I mean it's my jam it's quite literally the soundtrack to my life um it's it really is i think that old cliche about how revisiting old music puts you back in an old time and place for me at least it really is so true and it's just i'm really doing this just for the opportunity to go through the charts again and just revisit all that old stuff and all the analysis that's icing on the cake i'm mainly here to just enjoy the music i'm not gonna lie okay um myself i introduced myself as rob at the beginning um i think the reason i want to do this mostly as i've got older i'm 27 now i'm nearly 28

oh you're so old as i've got well as i've gone through my 20s I've realised that I love a lot of pop music that I thought I hated I love pop music more than anything, as I've grown up from being 14 and 15 and getting into more alternative styles of music and stuff I can go to the farthest

ends of the universe of the musical universe but i always always come back to verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus outro and pop music is the one pop music is the genre that's every genre you know and everything always comes back to pop music and the charts and music has always been really really really important to me um i'm a big stickler for stats and numbers and music history and looking back through it and paying attention to it and learning about things that i didn't know and even the songs that we're going to cover in this episode that I thought I knew quite well, because I was about five and six years old when these songs were top of the charts,

I thought I knew them. And then you go back and listen and it's like, ah, you didn't really, did you, Rob? And I'm thinking to myself, no, I didn't know them. And so it'll be about finding something new. There are loads of songs that are sticking out in my mind that we're going to explore not just in this episode but in the future that i'm thinking to myself i hated these songs when i was a kid and i am really curious to see whether i feel the same way about them so on to the first episode everybody everybody. Hurrah. Yeah, well done for making it this far at the very beginning. Got a few rules and regulations first.

We'll be covering roughly five songs per episode just because we want to give every number one it's due, have a proper discussion about it. This episode starts on the 1st of January 2000, New new year's day and it runs up to the 19th of february of that year and there are a few other interesting and intriguing aspects to the show but we'll tell you about those when they become important right now we've got your teas your tea yeah yeah well you know you've got to give people a hook and then not quite tell them what it is and then they'll go oh um you've got to trick them into listening further. But right now we've got to go back 22 years to the first six weeks of the year 2000

to find out what was going on in the world while these songs were at the top of the charts. So I was five years old when these songs were number one. Lizzie, how old were you? Ooh, January 2000. God, it's really bad that I don't know this off the top of my head. I would have been eight years old. Andy, how old were you in January 2000?

Oh, rude to ask someone their age. I wasn't born yet. No, I was, obviously. I was January 2000. I would have been seven and a half. Yeah. Okay, then, yeah. So I'm the youngest of the three.

Oh. Maybe it'll take a little while longer for my memories of the charts to become clear. You never know. To the listeners. Yeah, because I would say this period is clear for me, actually. I wasn't really listening to the listeners I would say this period is clear for me actually I wasn't really listening to the charts but I was buying singles

by this time, I was actively engaging in the industry as it were this is a time period I remember so that's interesting I bought one of the singles in the top 10 at the moment oh which one was that? it was Steal My Sunshine by Len.

Great song. I thought you were going to say Running Up That Hill. I was like, you're not that old. Can't be Running Up That Hill. I saw it coming. Okay. Yeah, because my only memory of the year 2000 is just on, I think it's probably actually from New Year's Eve 99. I just remember coming downstairs in my grandma's house

while all the lights were out because we had the TV on in the front room waiting I think it was Jules Holland or something like that my entire side of my mum's family in the living room to bring in the new millennium which brings

us on to a few headlines from this little period while these songs were in the charts, these things were happening, just to put you all in the time. So the world welcomed a new century and a new millennium. The Y2K bug caused a few problems here and there, but it was nothing that the world's tech geeks hadn't already anticipated and handled for us wonderfully. weeks, hadn't already anticipated and handled for us wonderfully. Okay, so a slightly sadder one, and probably means more to you Rob than it does to me as

the football fan amongst us, that footballing legend Stanley Matthews passes away at the age of 85. Also this time, Whitney Houston is caught with 15 grams of marijuana at Hawaii airport, but bought a flight to San Francisco before the police can catch her. To which I say, good on you Whitney. Well done Whitney. The last one is probably the darkest headline of the lot. It's that Harold Shipman was sentenced to life in prison for murdering at least 15 people.

The suspected number of victims was said to be over 350. In pop culture at the time, Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is number one at the UK box office. Not seen that. Anyone seen that? Nope. No. Heard of it, not seen seen it i was a bit young so the first ever installment of the sims has just been released on pc which i think we probably all are familiar with that og sims oh definitely i probably still have a copy somewhere me too actually yeah yeah

everyone had that game apart from me or it felt like apparently apart from you yeah also on January 3rd 18.96 million people tuned into Coronation Street to see if Leanne Bathsby has survived an attack by

drug dealers in the Rover's return spoiler alert yes she has she did and Leanne's still around Leanne's still at the centre of Corrie

just to say as a formerly big Corrie fan as a kid I was kind of brought up on it this was kind of a peak era

so I'll throw in a few more Corrie facts along the way oh no I mean the peak is coming up for me give it three years

oh yeah yeah yes yeah Richard Hillman we all remember Richard Hillman. If the UNE song gets number one at some point, it doesn't. But never mind. I know. Damn it.

And on the first day of the new millennium, the final episode of Gladiators airs on ITV and a tearful Andy cries into his poster of Hunter. How could you possibly know that? Yeah, I was massive massive on Gladiators I really don't know why because it's quite a sort of straightforward show

where every episode is literally exactly the same where it's just a bunch of people in the minimum possible amount of clothing demonstrate strength to the unstrung masses and I don't know maybe that was the appeal to me as a kid clothing demonstrate strength to the un-strong masses. And I don't know, maybe that was the appeal to me as a kid.

Or maybe it was all the muscles and exposed flesh, but either way, when it ended, I remember this too, I remember it was New Year's Day and you know what it's like on New Year's Day, it's all family and people having parties. And I was in a little quiet room on my own, like, the last episode of Gladiators is on, will you show some respect?

And I was really upset when it ended oh no god bless it well hopefully we can perk your spirits up ever so slightly with the fine array of number one singles that we've got coming up in front of us and I guess without further ado we'll go

into the first number one of our show that we're going to be talking about. And here it is. I have a dream, a song to sing To help me cope with anything With anything If you see the wonder Of the fairy tale You can take the future Even if you fail I believe in angels something good in everything i see i believe in angels

when i know the time is right for me i'll cross the street Okay, so of course that is the unmistakable sound of Westlife with their single I Have a Dream, which was a double A side of Seasons in the Sun. Both songs are covers. And what better way to start our journey through the number one singles of the 21st century than by starting with the number one from 1999 and a double veil of Westlife to kick us off which is quite indicative

as well I must pull you up on one point there Rob where you said the unmistakable sound of Westlife given that these are two very straight covers of other people's songs definitely in more ways than one they added their unmistakable charms to them though given that these are two very straight covers of other people's songs. Definitely, in more ways than one. They added their unmistakable charms to them, though, Andy.

Their unmistakable charms. So, this double A-side single was released as the fourth single from Westlife's self-titled debut album. This was Christmas number one for 1999. It beat Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer to the top spot. It's the group's fourth consecutive number one single after Swear It Again, If I Let You Go, Flying Without

Wings, and it's going to be number one for four weeks. Four weeks! Four weeks, yeah, four whole weeks by the time it gets knocked off the top. It kept S Club 7's You're My Number One off number one. That's an absolute crime. Which would have been a bit of a shame.

And it also kept off number one Craig David and the Artful Dodgers. Reap, reap, wide. And the crowd say bull. Sully. That's less of a crime as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, but still having You're My Number One as our first number one would have been quite something. When this did get knocked off the top it dropped to number four and by the time it left the chart it had been on the chart for 17 weeks so quite a long time. So we're gonna have some

thoughts on these two songs we're gonna talk about them one at a time so the first one up is I Have A Dream Lizzie I'm gonna throw to you what have you got written down on your notepad for I Have A Dream by Westlife yeah it's it's alright. Is that your bit done? Is it though? Is it alright though? Okay, I'll elaborate. So it doesn't really add anything

to the ABBA original, but it doesn't totally bastardise it either. I noticed that both of them use a children's choir, but they're both quite low in the mix compared to something like Grocer Jack by Keith West, or the end of I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day by Wizard. It's like nothing against the children, of course, but it adds to this feeling that there's no real need for this cover

because it doesn't build on the original in any way. It just kind of lovingly imitates it. And as much as I love ABBA, even the original doesn't move me the way something like Knowing Me Knowing You or Dancing Queen does. Dream doesn't have that sense of bottled up pain and melancholy like so many of their other songs have and it's something that most other pop bands or artists can't pull off so effortlessly. So, yeah, maybe Dream is a more natural fit for Westlife, but both versions never really ascend above Pleasant.

Yeah. Yeah, I kind of agree. Andy, what about you? I fully agree with everything Lizzie has said there, particularly about how even for ABBA, and to be fair with ABBA it's a very high bar they've got so many amazing singles but this is not one of their finest um yeah I do think one thing we should acknowledge is that this was in terms of why this

was chosen as as a single for them this was a period for whatever reason I don't really remember why but this was a period of renaissance for ABBA, there was a lot of ABBA stuff around, we just had that Thank ABBA for the Music performance which was Billy Piper Honey's, Steps, a few others I think and there was, I think

the musical Mamma Mia had launched around that time Beyond Again were at their height they were just very much back in the zeitgeist so I can see why they chose to do this for a Christmas single because it does sound very Christmassy as well but it's not one of ABBA's best and given that Westlife do

virtually nothing with it at all it's hard for me to elevate it anything above average really the one thing they do add to it is that horrible Backstreet Boys drum beat that kicks in about halfway through. Oh, thank God you mentioned this as well.

For God's sake. The only thing I wouldn't agree with Lizzy on is when you say they didn't bastardise it. I think they did bastardise it by adding in that horrible, horrible NSYNC hand clap, you know, firework-ridden drum beat. And I don't like it at all

yeah that snare sound it's and thank god it's out of fashion now because there are other songs that we're going to be covering quite soon

on this show that have the same kind of really bland lifeless approach to songs from the 70s refashioning them in some kind of way for a

quote-unquote modern audience and all that seems to be is just adding little synthy electronic bells and whistles in the background of the mix for no particular reason and that god-awful snare sound that sounds like a snare being hit a finger clip and a hand clap at the same time and it somehow sounds really cheap and it's i mean everybody who is listening to this will already know what i mean it's that proper like late 90s early 2000s that and it just sounds horrible it's so horrible it's probably the most offensive bit of the song because it it makes it feel it makes it feel so cynical yeah to me like yeah I I maybe like passed it by just because there's a much more horrible moment

on seasons in the sun but yes I know exactly what you mean by that drum beat it was ubiquitous for boy bands at the time yeah tell you what though this was I mean this this was a big hit if you don't mind me quickly telling an anecdote about this song. I know it's the very first song, but... Oh no,

anecdotes are exactly what we need. This is what we're here for. So this is, right, this is, honest to God, I swear to you,

this is completely true. So, I, when I was at uni, I studied music and I got myself onto this charity project, which was basically

newly arrived migrants in the UK who wanted a community, wanted to get to know people. They had a kind of community group and different people were coming in to do activities and they wanted a choir. So I came in to teach a choir and we had a concert to plan for. And I said I said to them, basically, look look you pick whatever song you want, I'm not going to choose it, it's fine, you pick whatever you want as long as it's sort of happy and hopeful and it will make people feel good, we'll go with it, you tell me what it is, I'll arrange it, we'll figure it out. And bear in mind most of these are, you know, non-English speaking African migrants so I expected to get something back that was like,

you know, not something I would know particularly well. And after about five minutes discussion, the kind of leaders of the group came to me and said unanimously, Obi-Wan, I have a dream. And I said, what? I said, you mean the one by ABBA? And they all looked at each other and were like, no, it's by Westlife, isn't it? Oh, I actually find that kind of sweet I just think that's extraordinary

that this random Westlife cover that was clearly thrown together in about five minutes had that kind of penetration that people who

had barely set foot in the UK knew all about Westlife but they didn't know about ABBA and I thought that was just wow an incredible thing

yeah oh my god that's I'm gonna feel really bad slagging this off now off now because that's a nice But that was just, wow, an incredible thing. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm going to feel really bad slagging this off now because that's a nice story. They did a lovely job with it, to be fair, as well. It did sound nice. It's a shame that no recording exists of that. Unless there is.

There is. It does exist. Oh, my God. We're not releasing that. It's fine. It does exist. But, you know I suggested other things that I thought they might know

I said what about Imagine have you heard of that it's sort of similar sort of tone not heard of Imagine hadn't heard of that but they had heard of

Westlife's cover of I Have A Dream Westlife's I Have A Dream yeah my god more global reach than John Lennon yeah

you can't say fairer than that, really. To be honest, I'm like Lizzie, not a massive fan of the Aboriginal. It's one of their more kind of inoffensive songs. But I think when you listen to it, though, like I did this week,

at least it grows as a composition. It develops, it changes, it announces new sections. I think, yeah, it changes, it announces new sections. I think, yeah, as much as it uses the children's choir, it's kind of tasteful in a way that the Westlife one's just kind of cloying and irritating and really saccharine. And, oh my God, you can tell it was a Christmas single kind of thing.

It's really easy points that they're winning, isn't it? Really easy. Even the video with all the children there. Christmas single kind of thing. It's really easy points that they're winning, isn't it? Really easy. Yeah, even the video with all the children there. Of course you'd use a children's choir for Christmas. Of course you'd talk about dreams and hopefulness. Come on. I mean, anyone can do that.

That's just kind of how I feel about it. You talk about dreams and hopefulness until you listen to the other side. And that's true. Well, yeah. To kind of transition onto that, because Seasons in the Sun has exactly the same issues as this, which is that the thing with Seasons in the Sun and I Have a Dream is that they are, in the way that the original versions kind of grow in volume as they get closer to the end

the Westlife versions are just loud from the first like two seconds it's like the audience has got no patience apparently so it's just, it's straight in with the volume and the just oh Jesus, it's just proper loudness

war stuff that bothers me about both of these but more on that later yeah seasons in the sun um how are we yeah i know what you mean about how they they can't afford to wait to like waste any time they immediately get up off the bar stools straight out yeah straight out. Right, yeah, Dream is clearly the better song of the two but that might just be because I think Seasons is a horrible little song. I can't stand it. I think this rendition in particular is like, they're all these, what, 21, 22 year old lads and they're singing this for a christmas release yes right sorry sorry sorry to interrupt you on that but guarantee you none of them have ever heard of this song before they've

recorded it guarantee you none of them even knew it like probably not that i did but it's just it is quite indicative isn't it you know yeah going back to your anecdote it'd be like you know the song by terry jacks who you know the song by jack brell who yeah i mean i'm not even a big fan of the jack brell original and i love jack brell but like compared to some of his other stuff it's i don't okay it's clearly more acidic than the terry jacks rewrite which gets rid of the whole point of the song which is you know the narrator saying goodbye to the people around him including his friend Antoine who is having an affair with his wife and yeah the Westlife version doesn't restore this obviously and you're left wondering what the point is again I don't know maybe Louis Walsh had a bet with another producer that he could get the Christmas number one with a funeral dirge.

I don't know. I can't think of any other explanation for this. It is an odd selection, because I Have a Dream was the bonus track on the first album, and then it got remixed and put on Coast to Coast. But it was very, very effective and successful, and it did very well.

But all I can think of with Seasons in the Sun is that episode of phoenix knights where jerry jerry gets the all clear from his bowel cancer screening just as brian plans to do that fundraiser by pretending that jerry's been diagnosed as being terminally ill and then they do they do the big reveal at the end of the episode like they're getting they get a boop a gold envelope that's um and then someone in the audience says, oh, gold envelope, must be Booper. And they do the whole...

And he makes Jerry stand up there and go, goodbye my friend, it's hard to die. And that's just all I can think of when I hear this song. The one thing I do kind of like about this version compared to the original which

is um you know it's very slim pickings is that at least they avoid doing the second key change at the end of the terry jacks version which is a hideous hideous decision yeah i have no idea why they decided to do the second change and i'm glad that westlife went no one's enough for us you know we can't stand up twice you know once we're stood up we can't stand up again so you know we all should decide say gentlemen bring me 10 stilts um but the only thing I really have to say other than this is to do with the music video and it's right at the beginning and it's the way that Brian McFadden

says the line good Brian my friend it's hard to die with the biggest most adorable smile on his face it's almost evil the way that he looks into the camera with this big smile on his face saying goodbye my friend it's hard to die it's that's a that is a moment uh that i'm maybe very

very glad that we're doing this actually so that i can see things like this and go oh my god i can't believe it i didn't realize he was that brian mcfarren connected you with you on such a visceral level. I'm quite moved by that. Well, he's the one who left eventually, which we'll definitely talk about when that comes around. But maybe that's why he sticks out in my mind. Do we have anything more to say about the double A side of I Ever Dream and Seasons in the Sun?

Well, we didn't ask Andy. It's fine, because I've not got much to say about seasons in the sun to be honest except that I do want to just kind of have it in there as a caveat that I mean I was one of those kids slash teenagers slash adults actually that Westlife

I just condemn just like ugh Westlife are rubbish aren't they everything they do is rubbish and as my tastes have matured i must admit there are some westlife songs that i actually secretly quite like um i'm not going to reveal to you what they are because they're coming up um but this one no genuinely it really is awful like i just don't like it at all it's just and i do think you both you have hit the nail on the head with this already that it that they're just onto a loser from the start

because they've picked such a dreary, dreary song. And Westlife, bless them, are not known for adding energy to songs. They're not known for turning dirges into bangers. I've made a note here which is quite harsh, but I said it's like trying to polish a turd with a second smellier turd and that's sort of how I feel sums it up actually I don't hate either of these I must say

but I think it's just because they're so inoffensive that like they can't annoy me they they're just kind of there sorry I've just thought of something you know what Seasons and Son is This cover

It's when Boyzone did Father and Son It's exactly that It's like look at me I am old It's like no you're like 21 mate you're fine Quick trivia question Before we move on Easy one Well I say easy you can do it between you

Name Westlife Who have we got in Westlife? Ryan Brian, I want to say Kieran, no no he was in Boyzone, the one who ended up in Corrie Kian? Kian is correct, Kian Egan, yeah

can't tell you which one that is but Kian Egan is one of them well I'm thinking of Boyzone here, no not Keith Duffy, no Keith Duffy is the one who then played Kieran in Corrie of Boyzone here. No, not Keith Duffy. No, Keith Duffy is the one who then played Kieran and Corey from Boyzone. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm stuck.

No? Lizzie, any advance? I feel bad for that. So, Brian, Kian, Ken. I don't know. Ken? I've no idea. I've no idea. Most of them have got quite Irish sounding names

there's Shane Phelan who oh yeah I should have known that not a clue there's Nicky Byrne who was the quite sort of

blonde mop top one he did Strictly yeah oh yeah and there's Mark Feely who he was the gay one that's all I know about him

yeah so oh yeah there we go. That's Westlife. We will see them again, I'm sure. Wink, wink. Really?

Come on. Okay, so we're done talking about Westlife for now. We're going to move on to the next single to hit number one, the one that knocked it off the top of the charts, and it's this the country was founded on the principle that the primary role of government is to protect property from the majority and so it remains Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Yes, we're so in love with you Hello, it's us again We thought you were our friends

Success is an ugly word Especially in your tiny world The monsters Against the crisis I'm tired of giving up the time When the future is what we believe in Alright then, yep, it is Manic Street Preachers, The Masses Against the Classes. This was released as a standalone single, not on any album. It was a limited edition release,

and it was removed from wholesale supply on the day of release. It was number one for a week, though, and it sold 76,000 copies, despite being that whole wholesale, removed from wholesale supply thing. Yeah. And it beat You Know What's Up by Donnell Jones to the top spot. Lizzie I know that you expressed some indignation about that while we were discussing this earlier

this week. It is the Manix second number one single after if you tolerate this then your children will be next it's also their last number one single in the uk they reached number two several times after this but never got to the summit again uh after this was knocked off the charts it dropped to number four same as westlife and it spent seven weeks on the chart same as Westlife and it spent seven weeks on the chart in total. Only seven and the whole top 40 that that's quite a drop actually that's a fairly... I think it might even be in the top 75 you know that's that's low that's I know I know that we've only got a small sample size so far but I do know that that's low seven weeks out of the chart altogether that's I mean if it hadn't hit number

one that would be considered a bit of a bomb. Well, it got deleted, right? Yeah, yeah. That's true, that's true, yeah. Well, deleted from wholesale, which means it was probably in the shops, but no new copies were coming in afterwards. Exactly, yeah. Once it sells out, it's gone. Yeah, strange.

I mean, you know, it's the Mannix. They were going to do things like that, I suppose. First new number one of the 2000s, it must be said. So Andy, I threw to Lizzy first for Westlife, so what about you for The Manics? I mean, I just can't get past, regardless of the song itself, I just can't get past how did this get number one? It's just, I think it's a few factors to be fair. And that's not a criticism of the song, by the way. But I think it's a few factors. First of all, it sounds like it was a bit of a quiet week on the chart.

No offence to the one that you like, Blizzy. I don't mean it that way. But it sounds like it was a fairly quiet week where we've had four weeks of Westlife at the top. Come on, let's have something else. Yeah, yeah. And that whole stunt with the, you know, buy it for one week only

thing it's i can see how it happened but it's quite remarkable isn't it really because even like the biggest biggest rock bands now and i say rock bands very mildly you know even people like coldplay like they would struggle to get a number one with even their biggest singles now and this random manics you know off cut basically manages to get the first number one of the noise and it's just that is just extraordinary to me and i don't really recall this song at all i like i i know it very vaguely but i didn't really recall it when i first listened to it and that is quite remarkable i think it's it's it's a nice song i quite enjoy it it's um it's got that typical turn of the millennium sorry turn of the millennium let's lash against

the establishment but in no specific way with no specific goals kind of vibe um it's nice enough i i remain perplexed that it's number one and that's that's all I have to say, really. Yeah, Lizzie, what about you? Yeah, I will say that I can confirm I do like the number two better, which is You Know What's Up by Donnell Jones, but it does have the worst lyric of any song we're going to discuss this week, which is, where is it now? Looking fly with the sundress on, I think I feel a bone coming on. Oh!

Yeah. That just makes me think of Wheezy in Toy Story 2. I think I feel a bone coming on! Yeah, thank God for Lisa Left Eye Lopez, is all I'm going to say. But, yeah, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that the Mannix are a band that have passed me by for the most part. Like, I'm only really familiar with their hits you know, A Design for Life

If You Tolerate This some of their Richie Edwards era stuff, you know, the Holy Bible mainly, which this song seems to be hearkening back to. Yeah, I was going to say it reminds me of that stuff like there's a huge gap between

the Holy Bible and this is about six seven years where they do this is my truth tell me yours and everything must go which are very different to their really really early days and this feels like they're getting close back to that yeah yeah and looking back at the common theme of this week's selection like westlife are revisiting pop tits of the 70s, Britney's wishing she could go back to her last relationship, Gabrielle's reflecting on her own last relationship but trying to move on with a Bob Dylan sample for backing and Oasis being Oasis but the Manics are taking a kind of back to basics approach to their sound maybe trying to like say assuage some of those fans who are disillusioned by their

more post-brit pop sounds on this is my truth and everything must go and it's not just oasis who give a nod to the beatles in this week's tracks like the manics do that you know the end harmonies from twist and shout as they oh yes but yeah the song itself I like it but I don't love it I'll always appreciate something as uncommercial as this getting to number one like I don't I mean correct me if I'm wrong

but I don't think we'll be covering many other songs on this podcast that invoke Noam Chomsky and Albert Camus we've got Britney up next you never know but yeah it just seems more like an album track than a single it's something that you'd have as like the first track on an

LP or the first track on a second side it's like Birthday by the Beatles yeah it's kind of a statement of intent rather than direct action. It's a sneak preview rather than a showpiece. And also, I'm not sure how I feel about bands writing entire songs to stick it to music critics either. Like, it's more listenable than the stereophonics effort a year later,

but it seems odd to me that the manics would take criticism of this is my truth to heart the way this song suggests you know like hello it's us again you thought you are our friends success is an ugly word especially in your tiny world particularly as as time went on the manics very much have become like a critical darling that you know absolutely that they're sort of i wouldn't tar all manics fans with know absolutely that they're sort of I wouldn't tar all Maddox fans with this brush

but they're certainly a favourite of kind of pretentious want to sound cool kind of critics like they are it's very odd that they would

pick that as a point for a song when they're very much the shoe is on the other foot there yeah yeah and like even in the short term

it didn't save them because critics at the time called this song a return to form but the album that came out after this was met with a pretty lukewarm reception and one review of that album reads provocative well done but not quite focused enough to take the listener anywhere in particular which I think applies here. Yeah, agreed. I think this gets a thumbs up from me, but I don't think it's quite enough to have me fight in its case to get into,

and I think this is a good time to mention this, the Hits 21 vault, which we'll be nominating songs for along the way. If we come across a song that we think is particularly special, one of us will nominate it, and then hopefully we can convince the other two that it can go in the Hits 21 Vault as well. And then when we come to the end of the year or the show or whatever, we'll look back and go, oh, what's in the Hits 21 Vault?

This won't be in it. It's pretty good, though. I think once it gets to the chorus it finally gets to the point but then once you go past that first chorus there aren't any more points to meet or to make I feel like the emotional climax is the start of the first chorus and that's not really where I would want my emotional climaxes to be in songs I normally prefer mine to be in songs I normally prefer mine to be end of the second chorus or something like that you know a bit further in but it's got a good I like that it's especially after Westlife I think you know it's a bit of a kick in the door for the new millennium sort of

thing but yeah I think that singles they released either side of this that didn't get to number one have probably had a bit of a longer impact. Like a Design for Life, for some reason I always seem to remember Your Love Alone is Not Enough. They both got to number two. Oh yeah, yeah. In 2006 was that or 2007? Yeah, 2007. So those are the ones I kind of remember more, even though they're either side of this. In 2006 was that or 2007? Yeah, 2007. Yeah. So those are the ones I kind of remember more, even though they're either side of this. So, yeah, I think that's, it's good, but not my favourite.

Yeah. All right, then our next one on the countdown or the count forwards or the count up on the count is this I'm sitting here alone up in my room And think about the times that we've been through Oh my love I'm looking at a picture in my hand Trying my best to understand I really wanna know what we did wrong With a love that felt so strong.

If only you were here tonight. I know that we could make it right. I don't know how to live without your love. I was born to make you happy. Cause you're the only one with any right mind. I was born to make you happy. So, it is Britney Spears' Born To Make You Happy, the fourth single from Britney's debut album, Baby One More Time, and the second from that album to reach number one in the UK after Baby One More Time. Interestingly, Born To Make You Happy never charted in the States. It just, I don't know why.

It just never charted. This was number one for a week, becoming the second song in a row to beat You Know What's Up by Donnell Jones to the top spot. But after that, it dropped to number two, and by the time it left the charts, it had been there for 12 weeks.

Lizzie, does this song make you happy? Did Britney fit her... did Britney achieve her mission? I mean, it seems strange to say it, but this is the Britney number one from this period that I always seem to forget about. Not because it's a forgettable song, I should add, but it just happens to fall in between two massive era defining hits that elevated her from pop star to pop icon and all before she even turned 20 years old like I wasn't aware of um the there's apparently quite a bit of controversy around this both with um Britney herself asked for a rewrite to tone down some of

the sexual overtones and some critics noted the chorus in particular veered a little bit too hard into subservience territory almost like geisha-esque but yeah despite that I'd say this is probably the best of this week's crop of singles it like it's not a status quo shattering juggernaut like, you know, Hit Me One More Time. The two that bookend this one, the two number ones. But she manages to pull off a song like this without coming off as clingy which it absolutely would do in the wrong hands like it's um it's the first of two breakup songs we're covering this week as well if we're going by the stages of grief model this is pretty firmly in the i thought this may be in the denial

phase you know if only you were here tonight i know that we could make it right even though you know to the listener this relationship is is over it's just you know to her it's yeah um i don't have the same complaint about the lyrics being too submissive purely because i place it in that very early stage after a breakup where the feelings of longing are so intense that you reach for sentiments which would be impossible to deliver on in a real relationship. So all that's left is pure fantasy. But yeah, luckily for Brittany, next time we discuss her on this podcast,

the tables have turned. Stay tuned, folks. Yeah, Andy, what about you? It's an interesting one, this. A very interesting one. As a 20-something gay man, I am of course a fan of Britney. It's the law.

But this, if I was to rank the Brit-ography, this would be somewhere in the middle possibly the lower middle, it's very unusual for Britney this one

it's very against type especially with what Lizzie was saying about how this falls right in between two absolute behemoths of singles in Baby One More Time and Oops I Did It Again but also you had to they didn't reach number one in the uk but they were two big hits as well sometimes and you drive me crazy as well yeah yeah

and this for me as well this is the one i forget about from the early days and i think one of the reasons why is that generally with with early britney at least you you very much know what you're getting it's very very straightforward pop and that's by no means, at least, you very much know what you're getting. It's very, very straightforward pop. And that's by no means a bad thing. But, you know, with all of the other songs of this era, they're either big pop bangers or they're gentle ballads. And those are the two types of Britney song.

And this isn't really either. It's got this mid-tempo sort of rhythm to it this mid-tempo vibe that i was really racking my brains and i can't think of any other britney songs that have that sort of tempo apart from not a girl not yet a woman which is yeah designed to be quite a sort of emotionally mature against the green kind of song and it works on that level i don't think this one does work on that level i think it's neither it's neither fish nor fowl really and and it falls in between those two cracks that's not to say that you can never do anything different obviously but it is interesting that this is the last i believe it's the last single to be released off baby one more time because i think it is sort of a case of hmm let's try that like we've got our

big hits out of the way let's try that and see how it goes in the US didn't take at all in the UK it did um but it is definitely something a little bit different for her and not something you hear very often in terms of the lyrics I did I was slightly uncomfortable with the lyrics just for a different reason that knowing what we do now about Brittany and everything she's gone through. She has lived a very subservient life. She has always been in someone else's thrall. And the idea of her being born to make someone else happy is almost literally true. And so I think this is probably one that she may have.

This may be a sort of trigger point for her. I't know obviously I won't speak for it but I do think this may be one that she probably doesn't tend to do much anymore because it is a little bit close to the bone yeah it's an odd one because I think it's got this kind of rawness to it in the lyrics that is very very different from everything that's come before and most of the songs that come immediately after but it also doesn't quite have the either the balladry hook or the banger hook that most of the other songs of this era do i mean if we were to take a vote would you call this a ballad because i don't really know whether it is it's a bit up tempo for a ballad but yeah but you can't dance to it that's for sure. You can't dance to it. It's R&B, surely. I keep picturing, if she

was to do this in an arena, what would the crowd do? And I think they would kind of sit down and wait for it to stop. Really. Because what, no, I don't mean, now I've said that, that sounds much more harsh than I meant it. But you can't dance to it, and it's not really a grab your partner by the hand and sway along

to it, either. It's just sort of your partner by the hand and sway along to it either. It's just sort of there. It's a sort of third option. I'm not the hugest fan of it, but I do still like it. But it's definitely, definitely not a vintage Britney hit for me, no. Yeah, well, I can't add to anything that you two have already said other than to say that like as soon as britney starts with the oh yeah oh and all that like it's just she well as the fact that i've just done an awful impression of it um there's only you do you don't give yourself

enough credit there is only one person in pop who sounds like that and that's enough for me to kind of think yeah this is pretty like this is decent actually because britney is such an easy artist to kind of like rag on for like vocal correction and auto-tune and being managed and all this stuff but you know pop is so this is something of you know it's something i think when you're a kid you're kind of like you're militantly against things that seem inauthentic but then you sort of grow up a bit and realize that pop isn't what it is without the extracurricular stuff the product and britney as as lizzie said as an icon whether it's just hearing her voice or seeing her

it's unmistakable every single time could not be anyone else when she starts singing which I think is probably what lets this song down a little bit because it feels like Britney putting her identity onto a song that maybe some other artist could do I feel like

baby one more time it's like that's Britneyney all over yeah yeah um from start to finish like oops i did it again cannot imagine any other solo female singer doing anything like that around the time whereas with this i i don't think this is just britney's if you know what i mean she does her absolute best with it because god is she talented but it just yeah I think I think this is decent but I think it lacks

a unique identity in Britney's discography what may be a factor in lacking that unique identity is that this is the only one up to oops I did it again up to that point this is the only one up to oops i did it again up to up to that point this is the only one that i don't think has a kind of instantly memorable music video um i think i mean certainly

baby one more time obviously one of the most famous ever and oops i did it again has that incredible classic red outfit and sometimes has that one on the beach which is a little bit generic but i feel like it's still quite well remembered this doesn't really have an iconic music video and this was in an era where for everyone but particularly for britney her music videos were very very important very very important a little bit a little bit comparable to perhaps to the spice girls who very much relied on getting people with the music video as well um i do think that might be a factor that they sort of dropped the ball a little bit with the video on this one i say dropped the ball like i say it's the last single off the album

again so i think at this point it's just kind of all gravy um i don't know i i thought the video was pretty memorable like you know the sort of futurist well the futuristic imagined by 2000 decor and like you know it doesn't have that legacy though it doesn't have no i know i know and there is that guy who comes in who looks like i don't know they spent all the money on the the room and they couldn't afford a model so they had to go to the nearest hollister and just get the assistant manager to come in It's a pie face bloke Who's like, I don't know why I'm here

But alright, I'll do a Britney Spears video Sure Okay Our next single Our next number one single Is this I know that it's over That I can't believe with you They say that times are healer

And I'm better without you It's gonna take time, I know But I get over you Look at my life, look at my heart Take time, I know, but I'll get over you. Look in my life, look in my heart, I have seen them fall apart. Now I'm ready to rise again. Just look in my hopes, look in my dreams, I'm building bridges from the seams. Of course, this is Gabrielle's Rise. This is the second single released from Gabrielle's album of the same name. It's her eleventh single released in the UK in total and the

first to reach number one since her debut single Dreams reached the summit in 1993. This is apparently notable for a rare authorized use of a Bob Dylan sample and it takes extensively from his 1973 song Knocking on Heaven's Door. Dylan apparently liked this song so much that he allowed Gabriel to use the sample for free but he does receive a co-writer credit for the chord progression and the vocal sample. It knocked Britney Spears off the top and stayed at number one for two weeks holding off competition from REM's The Great Beyond as well as Andreas Johnson's Glorious which is a shame because i i like that

one and adelante by sash when it was knocked off the top it dropped to number two and by the time it was done on the charts it had been there for 15 weeks healthy run healthy run yeah i just want to give a shout out i just want to give a shout out to Glorious That's a song I remember That I remember discovering years later Yet for some reason And just really really enjoying it Me and a friend of mine from school Used to kind of trade old pop songs Between each other

And by this point I think He was about 7 or 8 years old When we became friends The song and we traded He sent me this one And I was like oh yeah I remember this From the radio So shout out

to Andreas Johnson wherever you are Lizzie did Rise work for you? has it risen in your estimations? did it make me rise? no I'm not going to do that

yeah this no pun intended this has grown on me over the past week or so I'm not going to do that. Yeah, this... No pun intended. This has grown on me over the past week or so. At first, I would have said that it's a bit too simplistic and that it doesn't really do anything with the Dylan sample other than just, you know, repeat the same three-chord loop over and over and over again. But then I thought maybe that's the point.

Like this is a breakup song after all and after a painful breakup you do tend to go over the same thoughts and feelings over and over again fruitlessly trying to find a way out of that cycle of complicated ruminating often trying to remind yourself that everything will turn out okay as a means of

passing through the fog and like going back to that stages of grief thing i mentioned with the previous song this sits somewhere between depression and acceptance like you're still not out of the woods but there's a ray of light at the end of it. There's an admission that it won't be this way forever. Like, yeah, this is a simple song for sure, but I'd much rather have this reflective and cautiously optimistic flavour of a breakup song than the bitter and self-pitying kind that we will eventually get to at number one.

Yeah. I think that you're totally right when you say that it hangs somewhere between depression and acceptance because there's that line that she keeps coming back to the um it's going to take time i know but i'll get over you yeah i think it's quite a a nice acknowledgement of her own sort of internal uh internal psychology i psychology. I don't have many notes about this. Andy, what have you got down for it? I just sort of was thinking about Gabrielle in general, really. I think she has a sort of,

I guess it's fair to say the reputation that Gabrielle has is that she has a gorgeous voice. Nobody really dislikes her. Everybody has respect for her, but there's this kind of vibe that her songs tend she has a gorgeous voice. Nobody really dislikes her. Everybody has respect for her, but there's this kind of vibe that her songs tend to be a bit dull, which I don't disagree with that, if I'm honest, but I did enjoy this song,

and perhaps controversially, I think I would say this is probably my favourite of the week. I think that's fair. Yeah, I can see that. I really don't think you can overstate quite how lovely her voice is, it really is so rich and just

oh, it's so soft and lovely to listen to the song itself I completely agree that musically it goes nowhere, like it really doesn't do anything with it and I think the same is true of Dreams that's always been the problem I've had with that song, is that you can listen to the first verse, first chorus,

you've heard the whole song. I think with Gabrielle, she tends to... It's firstly the voice, and it's also the lyrics that she kind of talks about quite universal themes that people can really hook onto. And I just thought it was really interesting that although she has this reputation of being quite dull, you know, you have to remember that back in these days,

you had to actively seek out seedy singles. You had to go and spend money on them and bring them home with you for a song to get to number one. So she clearly does connect with people. And I think that must be something to do with either her voice or the fact that she has quite relatable and quite universal themes. And I do wonder what it is,

because these days, I don't think anything like this would be any kind of success at all. And even at the time, you don't really hear many songs like this. Getting to number one, you know, a lot of the stuff of this era, era you know there's a lot of different genres of play but we don't get much sort of soft soul r&b type thing you know it's quite a rare genre to hear at the top so there is clearly something about gabrielle that people did particularly like um and i'm quite fond of this i don't think it really deserves to have a bob dylan sample i think that's just weird to be honest I think you could have very easily done this song without that and got around it just do it in a different

key use some different instruments hope you avoid a lawsuit and Bob's your uncle well Bob's your songwriter in this case that was completely intentional but yeah I quite like this one

I think it has a gentleness to it and a genuinely uplifting feel to it that I think would have appealed most of what I've been talking about there is figuring out how this got to number one because I do think it is quite surprising once again that this got to number one but

yeah I thought this was quite lovely I quite enjoyed it I think Andy I may be able to offer an explanation with my memories of this because I came to Gabrielle through my mum. My mum was 39 when this was number one and she bought Gabrielle's album album rise that that rise was on um we used to play it in the car a lot i was like i think it was on tape actually um and then about a year later she bought

the bridget jones diary soundtrack which gabrielle is also on and i think that gabrielle i think this is the major difference. This is something else I was hoping to get out of this, which is major differences between the pop charts 20 years ago or 22 years ago and the pop charts today. And I think the big difference is that the adult slash family market is still a big player in the charts in the early 2000s

when it's kind of not anymore like it seems to me that the charts are now reflected by people's streaming habits and the majority of people who have things like spotify and things like that the majority of them are 25 and under and it means that quite a lot of the songs are geared towards that whereas the idea of going out and buying a single or going out and buying an album that was still something the adult contemporary songs that we're going to talk about on this

show they drift way out of view by like the early 2010s like they're basically gone and you could maybe argue Adele I think you could maybe Adele's like maybe the only one left maybe Ed Sheeran possibly

do you know what I mean with Gabrielle I do think that she did appeal to over 25s at this point mainly over 25s women who could understand because Gabrielle seems quite her music seems you know we've just

come out of one breakup song with uh britney and now we're moving into rise and it's more mature if you will doesn't make it a better song it's just its themes and its perspective are more you know like lizzie said it's further on in that stage of grief it's it's a little bit more grown up where britney spears song is from the perspective of a heartbroken 19 20 year old you know gabrielle's that little bit older that little bit wiser and so she appeals to people who have the same kind of sensibilities um and i always kind of remember that album because the next song on the album after this is i think it's called when a woman and it has that hook that's the... Oh, I like that song. Oh, yeah. I didn't know

that was Gabrielle. I like that song. I need to dig that out again. Yeah, those are the ones I always remember. So, yeah, I think this is sweet and I think it's nice, but it's not... I don't think it's vault material. No. Me neither. It may get winner of the week,

but I don't think it's vault material. For me, the vault is going to be for would i have gone out and bought this um the answer for all of these songs so far is no um but this this one comes the closest for me i think this is a genuinely quite sweet nice song that um i can definitely see myself listening to more often now that it's come back in again in my listening sphere. Yeah, agreed. All right then, moving on from Gabrielle, as Gabrielle moves on from whoever she was with. Up next is this. Ain't no illusion

Try to click with what you got Taste every potion Cause if you like yourself a lot Go let it out Go let it in And go let it out. Go let it in. Go let it out. Pickle the bass. Life is precocious in the most peculiar way.

Sister Psychosis don't got a lot to say. She go let it out She gon' let it in She gon' let it out She gon' let it out She gon' let it in She gon' let it out Is it anyone now? Are princes and kings?

Are clowns and paper Little men, sword or sprees? Ordinary people That are like you and me We're the keepers of their destiny We're the keepers of their destiny So of course, it is Oasis' Go Let It Out. This was released as the lead single from Oasis' fourth album,

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. Yes, Shoulder of Giants. It was an unfortunate spelling mistake because Noel Gallagher misread the side of a coin. It's Oasis' first single for two years and their 13th single overall. It's their first to reach number one since All Around the World got to number one in 1998 and it's their fifth number one in total. Noel reckons that this is the closest Oasis came to sounding like a modern day Beatles, we can debate that if you want. The video has Liam singing on a

double decker bus, then he gets off, then he goes to a field, the rest of the band are there. It knocked Gabrielle off the top and stayed there for just one week, fighting off competition from Eiffel 65's Move Your Body. And when it did finally drop off the number one spot after seven days, it dropped to number four and it was on the charts for another 12 weeks, meaning that by the time it left the chart, it was on a total of 13 weeks spent in the top 75, I think it was. So, yeah, calling it out. So, Andy, go ahead. Glad you've come to me first on this one. Yeah.

Okay, so full disclosure, when I was at the age of about 15, 16, Oasis were my favourite band, full stop, my actual number one favourite band, I just loved them. I went through a phase, we all do, I think everyone goes through a bit of a phase of really loving Oasis, and I don't feel that way anymore. I do still think of their first two albums at least, and a few songs later on, they do have some really good, really, really, really high quality songs. This is not one of them, as far as I'm concerned. The Beatles thing really makes me roll my eyes,

because it's easy to say you sound like the Beatles when you were just directly referencing them. There's a difference between sounding like the Beatles and just copying the Beatles. If I was to say size matters not, I sound like Yoda because I'm copying Yoda. Come on!

You have the Strawberry Fields Forever thing going on in the background. You have drums that sound a lot like Ringo. Bear in mind, they will eventually hire Ringo's son as the drummer. You know, the Beatles thing is just laughable. And it's also got the whole nonsense lyrics thing that wrangles me with Oasis as well. Because you've been dissecting the lyrics, Lizzie. I'll be interested, because you've been

dissecting the lyrics Lizzie, I'll be interested to see what you make of these ones because I think this is one of the more meaningless sets of lyrics and that's saying something. This is one of the more meaningless sets of lyrics that Oasis have come out with. I think this is a good example of a band getting to number one on their name alone. Yeah, I think so. Oasis are back, yeah. This is the only song that we've had this week that quality-wise is not worthy of number one

as far as I'm concerned. I think it's low in Oasis' back catalogue and I also think it's just a generally uncreative and uninspired era for them that they somewhat got away with because they were still riding that 90s wave they were still selling like hotcakes and so that dry period

was sustained for far longer than it should have been because they never got the wake up call in terms of sales that they should have had so there were two possibly three albums that were largely disposable that they should have had. So there were two, possibly three albums that were largely disposable that came after What's the Story of Mourning Glory

and this is a good example of it. So in short, I don't like it. I don't hate it either. I don't absolutely condemn it. But I do think this is sort of like proper straight out of the middle shelf standard Oasis and it shouldn't be number one really. It shouldn't be number one, I just don't think so.

Lizzie, what about you? Do you think that Eiffel 65's Move Your Body would have been a preferable song to talk about? I mean, yes, but let's not talk about that. Let's talk about this. Throw in a proper straw man had us there Rob I couldn't say that yeah I completely agree with Andy

and yeah this isn't good this tries to invoke this message of revolution with the chorus, the RL Sharp line lift, is it any wonder why princes and kings are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings?

But it doesn't commit to any idea beyond, well, go let it out. It's like, go let what out? The dog? The spare bedroom? Like, what? What am I supposed to be going to let out? They do this sort of thing a lot

where they lift a line from usually John Lennon but sometimes other poets without fully exploring what the words actually mean then they combine them with their own asinine observations like the same album this is from standing on the shoulder of giants play with your toys even though they make noise and other clumsy non-sequiturs like also from the same album i can see a liar sitting by the fire trouble in his heart laughing at the thought coming as he goes into overdose i wonder what he thinks of me like that's not to say that you can't pull off this kind of thing if you embrace the absurdity of your own music like t-rex for example like i have never never kissed a car before it's like a door like you you can do that if you if if you have the courage of your convictions you can

absolutely do that but with oasis there's always this sense that they're making music for the people. It's like music with meaning and purpose, even though more often than not, it just sounds like this. It sounds like this slow, sludgy, tired, mouldy old shite. It's just, yeah, I fucking hate this song. And one last note on this by the way the production is horrible on this it is you mentioned before rob the loudness wars still

still going on at this point oh yeah and this song like many other rock songs at the time think like californication for example it has very little aural breathing room it's this really headache inducing effect that I'm sure they'd attempt to fix if they went back and remastered this album but there's the small problem of Noel having pretty much disowned it and neither brother wanting to talk about Oasis anymore so we're stuck with this half rock song, half jet engine stuff, it's fucking nasty

I really don't like this Well they went back in and did Be Here Now didn't they? That sounds a bit better, although I kind of like aspects of Be Here Now because I always, whenever i listen to it these days i always imagine the producer turned into nolan liam who were coked out of their minds saying how many layers of guitars do you want and nolan liam just turned to him and go yes yes and

like it's and so this doesn't quite have that same kind of like dizzying soundscaping effect that Oasis I think definitely maybe a Be Here Now you've got an argument there that they are shoegazy noise records on just on the fringes of the guitar sound whereas with this feels like it's picking up a little bit more from What's The Story rather than Be Here Now um where they've kind of gone for that you know the slightly more anthemic sound if you will rather than the studio sound it's well documented amongst people who know me that I'm not a big Oasis guy I'm from Stockport near Manchester I'm a Manchester City fan so it's kind of expected of me to love them but

after their debut I think they've got some pretty good singles and mostly average records. This is fine I think. I don't hate it. I can see why Noel thought this sounded like the Beatles but it is literally just because of that flute underneath the chorus which is like a nice idea and it kind of sounds like a mixture of something like Hey Bulldog um around maybe maybe mixed with something else that the Beatles did like a couple of years before but that's not to say it's anywhere near as good um I think the other thing as well is that this is about as good as the album gets because the one massive problem I have with this album and most of Heathen Chemistry is that they are just so mid-tempo. They're so slow. They're really, really slow.

Liam's the better vocalist of the two of them and I prefer him as a front man. But I don't think that this is anywhere near as good as their previous number ones that they got. I know that people don't really like All Around the World because it goes on forever, but I kind of like that it goes on forever. But it's not as good as something like Some Might Say or anything from that. I guess you're just not an Oasis fan, full stop.

Credit where credit's due, I can appreciate that some of their songs are good but others like, I would happily never hear Don't Look Back in Anger again I fucking hate that song but yeah, I think some of their like, I'm trying to think of a good one, yeah some might say

Whatever, even though it's a rip off of a Neil In yes some might say um whatever even though it's a rip-off of um a neil innes song um what else well i mean i i generally like definitely well actually i really like definitely maybe from front to back i just feel a bit sad about that record listening back to it because they were on the same label as my bloody valentine at the time and you can tell I think in the way that the guitars sound but I know that they weren't getting picked up in the way that they expected and so their management started advertising the album in football magazines and in pubs and by the time you come out the other side it just feels like they make music for football fans and that's not necessarily to say that

football fans can't like music or anything like that but i think this idea that oasis sound like the beatles is a very easily repeated soundbite but it's it's a myth it is i think it is a myth they don't sound anything like the beatles what they sound like is a slayed i was gonna say slayed or t-rex or you know yeah it's just but kind of like if slayed and t-rex weren't any fun yeah you know they only sound like the beatles when they are directly referencing the beatles and it's not only this song that does it. They also have one of those, what's it called? There's an album track on this album,

which has the same melody of I want to be your man by the Beatles. I can't remember what that song is called. It's only an album track. But yeah, they, I feel like the people who most talk about Oasis sounding like the Beatles are Oasis themselves. I feel like it was a total self-perpetuating thing

that they clearly had this mission statement that they wanted to be the next Beatles. Forgetting that one of the keys to the Beatles' success was that they were not trying to be the next of anyone else. You know, and I think that point has always been lost. What really wrangles me about Oasis these days is the Emperor's New Clothes aspect to it, which is that so many of their songs

have this thing with the lyrics that sounds like it means something profound, but it means sod all. Like, Wonderwall being the classic example, what the hell does it mean? You know, go let it out, bring it on down. You know, there's just so many songs that just, well, do you know does it mean? Go let it out, bring it on down. There's so many songs that just, well, do you know what I mean?

There's so many songs that just don't really talk about anything. And I think when you realise that about Oasis and realise, oh, it's just drugs and trying to sound like the Beatles, that's sort of all that there is, really. I find it very, very hard to look past that. Having said that, I love Some Might Say. I hard to look past that having said that I love Some Might Say I'm glad you mentioned that

I absolutely love that song there's a few others like She's Electric I Have A Soft Spot For and a lot of them sort of have nostalgic value for me like Live Forever but yeah they are really not to my taste these days and I think they really did get away

with a hell of a lot of cheek tricks and this song is quite an emblem of and I think they really did get away with a hell of a lot of cheek tricks and this song is quite an emblem of it I think What I will say though is that Oasis this is not the last time we're going to be talking about them and the number ones that they have in the future I have quite a high opinion of a couple of them

I agree, I think this is the bottom amount point I think I think they turn it around from here this is their weakest album, this is probably one of their weakest singles and they do turn it around from here If I'm remembering correctly, there's one I don't remember, one I quite

like and one which is a blatant knock-off, but we will discuss that at the time. Andy, you were just saying that there's nothing really profound in here, I think the most profound thing that any of the Gallaghers have said about this song is in, have you seen the video of Noel Gallagher doing the DVD commentary for the music video DVD? No. And at the end, you know, there's that bit where they're on there when Liam gets off the bus and, you know, they're all just jamming along with their instruments.

Noel says, that was supposed to look like a spaceship taking off. It looks like scaffolding sinking. That's Oasis. Do check that out if you get a minute. Well, that's the end of the very first show. The end of this week's show. Thank you, everybody everybody if you've listened this far

it's not easy to do a first episode of a podcast you often find that when you do the first episode there's lots of stuff that will get

refined later I don't like this level of self-awareness next time we'll be covering the 20th of February through to April Fool's Day

in the year 2000 we will be back as soon as we can get there and we'll hopefully give you more of our Hits 21 goodness

so goodbye everybody bye bye see ya