Hits 21 - 2000 (5): Eminem, The Corrs, Ronan Keating, Five & Queen, Craig David

Episode Date: July 31, 2022

Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every UK #1 hit single of the 21st century - from January 2000, right through to the present day. Twitter: @Hits21UK Email: [e-mail] The Real Slim Shady - Eminem Breathless - The Corrs Life is a Rollercoaster - Ronan Keating Five & Queen - We Will Rock You 7 Days - Craig David

Hello and welcome to the beautiful world of the beautiful course you know a lot of people say to us hey you you're beautiful yeah beautiful course is your beauty skin deep we say course not even our internal organs are beautiful beautiful even our pets beautiful. This is my beautiful poodle. Beautiful. Beautiful. This is my beautiful budgie. Beautiful. Beautiful.

And this is my beautiful pet tortoise. Beautiful. Beautiful. Hey, what about my pet hamster? Can I show him to the nice boys and the girls? Well, okay, Jim. Be quick, though, because you're not very beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. the girls well okay Jim be quick though because you're not very beautiful

HITS21 Alright there everyone and welcome back to HITS21 where me, Rob me, Andy and me, Lizzy look back at every single UK number one of the 21st century from January 2000

right through to the present day If you want to get in touch with us you can find us over on Twitter we are at Hits21UK that is at Hits21UK and you can email us as well just send it on over to Hits21podcast at gmail.com. Thank you so much for joining us again just like our previous episodes we're going to be looking back at five UK number one singles from the year 2000. This time we'll be covering the period between the 2nd of July through to the 5th of August of that year. Before we get going, Andy, you let us know in the week that we'd had a message, a from from a lovely listener out there in the world we did we had a lovely lovely um comment about pure shores which i think we all agreed was an

absolute classic and it seems we were not alone in that and so the comment reads that this song is such powerful this is 2000 energy i don't particularly remember liking All Saints much. I don't even remember that song specifically at any point, but it must have been everywhere, because the second I hear it, it's a teleport back in time. Instantly, I'm in Woolworths buying Pokemon cards. I'm in game, wishing for a PS1, and I'm in the back of the car playing my Game Boy on the way to Blackpool.

I'm at a school fair eating an ice pop. How lovely is that? Yeah. Well, thank you very much. And thank you for reading it out, Andy. That was a lovely retelling of that lovely story. And I completely agree with that, by the way. That is definitely a moment in time.

Yeah. All right, then. On to this week's episode. And as always, we are just going to give you some headlines From around the period that these songs were all at number one Colin Fallows, driving the Vampire Turbojet Propelled Dragster Sets a British land speed record A mean 300.3 mph

Which is 483.3 km an hour at elvington in yorkshire wow i'm gonna i'm gonna refer to myself as a turbojet propelled dragster from now on meanwhile the queen mother elizabeth celebrates her 100th birthday on the day itself more than 40 000 well wishes gathered on the mall to watch the queen mother and her two daughters to celebrate her 100th birthday. On the day itself, more than 40,000 well-wishers gathered on the Mall to watch the Queen Mother and her two daughters step onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Happy birthday, Queen Mum. Meanwhile, in West Sussex, police find the body of missing eight-year-old Sarah Payne. Chief suspect Roy Whiting is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. News would

then emerge that Whiting was a convicted sex offender at the time of Sarah's abduction, prompting the News of the World to campaign for Sarah's Law, which would allow increased public access to the sex offender registry and expose the identities and addresses of known sex offenders. This resulted in rioting in Portsmouth, when more than 100 people proceeded to block a flat allegedly housing a convicted sex offender. That was the Paul's Grove riots of 2000. Yeah I didn't know about this. When you told me that I completely forgot about it but I guess you were a couple of years older than I was at this time.

Yeah I definitely remember the sort of moral panic and the return of the stranger danger mood around. Because I was around the same age as Sarah Bain at the time. So, yeah, it was quite a legitimate worry that this was going to fuel more of the sort of... A crime wave. Yeah, yeah. more of the crime wave. Yeah. In pop culture, the films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period that we're

covering in this week's episode are as follows. Chicken Run, Mission Impossible 2, Stuart Little and The Perfect Storm. I saw Chicken week's episode are as follows chicken run mission impossible to stewart little and the perfect storm i saw chicken run in cinemas and stewart little in cinemas i think chicken run is fantastic chicken run is like a 10 out of 10 for me love that film lisa tarbuck presents her final episode of the big breakfast later that same day it is confirmed that denise van outen will be returning to co-host the show with johnny vaughn i should have chimed in a minute ago just to say that the the chicken run game on ps1 is hard as nails it's like a kid's version it's really scary yeah super scary yeah and also

stewart little was the first dvd i owned at this time when we bought a DVD player for around £400, which is too much. Wow. Yeah. And the very first episode of reality series Big Brother airs on Channel 4. The first season is marred by controversy when contestant Nick Bateman, known to the public as Nasty Nick, is evicted after 34 days for attempting to influence the public vote by attempting to turn the other housemates against one another.

The series was eventually won by Craig Phillips, and this is definitely not the last time that we'll be coming back to Big Brother. Oh no. Definitely not. No, no, no, no. Big moment. Big moment. Andy, how are the album charts looking? The album charts are looking very healthy Thank you Rob, thanks for asking

This week the albums chart It's very much mirroring the singles chart In terms of a lot of who's appearing But not an exact mirror There are some differences We start with The Verve's Richard Ashcroft Making a number one At the start of this period

With his solo effort Alone With Everybody before the monster hit The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem returns to number one for one more week. Then we have the debut of Coldplay at number one the week later with Parachutes for just one week and then we're into familiar territory for what we're covering in this episode as first of all the cause reached the top for two weeks with in blue and then ronan keating then follows them to the top for another two weeks with the imaginatively titled ronan by ronan keating an album which defies all sense of logic and taste and achieves four times platinum okay okay how are the uh how are the us faring at the moment um the us albums charts were still being dominated by the marshall mathers lp which was continuing its eight week run at number one before finally being dethroned by

now four which is of course the fourth entry in the now that's what i call music series to be released in the us it would stay at number Music series to be released in the US. It would stay at number one for three weeks in August of 2000 and featured the likes of All the Small Things by Blink-182, It Feels So Good by Soneek, and Blue Dabber D by Eiffel 65, which was almost two years old at the time of Now 4's release. So thanks for that one, guys. In the singles charts, it was a much busier affair.

Enrique Iglesias continued his three-week run at number one with Be With You, which would eventually give way to Everything You Want by Vertical Horizon for one week. Anyone? No. No idea. Followed by Matchbox 20's Bent for one week.

Anyone? I know Matchbox 20, but yeah. I know the band, I don't know that. No. And finally, NSYNC topped the charts with It's Gonna Be May. Oh, well, we know that one. May! May!

Which held up to the top spot for two weeks between July and August. Okay, then. All right. Thank you very and August. Okay, then. All right. Thank you very much for those reports, guys. We're going to get on back over to the UK, and we're going to look at the number one singles on our show this week. And the first one up is this. May I have your attention, please?

May I have your attention, please May I have your attention please? Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? I repeat, will the real Slim Shady please stand up? We're gonna have a problem here. Y'all act like you've never seen a white person before. Jaws all on the floor like Pam, like Tommy just burst in the door. They started whooping her ass first and before they first were divorced. Sewing her over furniture

It's the return of the Aw, wait, no, wait, you're kidding He didn't just say what I think he did, did he? And Dr. Dre said Nothing, you idiots, Dr. Dre's dead He's locked in my basement Feminist women love him and them Chicka, chicka, chicka, Slim Shady

I'm sick of him, look at him Walkin' around, rappin' his you-know-what Flippin' the you-know-who Yeah, but he's so cute, though Yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose, but no worse than what's going on in your parents' bedrooms. Sometimes I wanna get on TV and just let loose, but can't, but it's cool for Tom Green to hump a dead moose. My bum is on your lips, my bum is on your lips, and if I'm lucky, you might just give it a little kiss. And that's the

message that we deliver to little kids, and expect them not to know what a woman's clitoris is. Of course they're gonna know what intercourse is. By the time they hit fourth grade, they got the Discovery Channel Don't think we ain't nothing but mammals Well, some of us cannibals who cut other people open like cantaloupes But if we can hump dead animals and antelopes Then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope But if you feel like I feel, I got the Canada Women, wave your pantyhose, sing the chorus, and it goes

I'm Slim Shady, yes, I'm the real Shady All you other Slim Shadys are just dimmer-tating So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up. Cause I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady, all you other Slim Shadys are just demotating. So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up. Alright, this is Eminem with The Real Slim Shady, released as the lead single from Eminem's second major label album and his third album overall, the Marshall Mathers LP. The Real Slim Shady is just his third single to chart in the UK and is the first to reach number one, after My Name Is reached number two and Guilty Conscience

reached number five in 1999. The Real Slim Shady jumped from number 84 all the way to number one, knocking Kylie off the top of the charts and staying there for one week, beating off competition from Gotta Tell You by Samantha Mumba, which got to number two, and Yellow by Coldplay, which got to number four. When it was knocked off the number one position it dropped one place to number two and by the time it was done on the charts on that particular run it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks. It then re-entered the top 100 in February 2004 for two weeks peaking at number, before re-entering the charts again in May of this year, 2022, peaking at number 97 after Eminem was inducted

into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And to date, it has spent 18 weeks inside the top 100. Lizzy, going to come to you first. Okay. How are we on The Real Slim Shady and Eminem? I feel like it's going to be hard to talk about The Real Slim Shady without talking about Eminem as well, but we've got so much of Eminem to come, I think, on this show.

Inevitably. And, like, I can't lie, I was absolutely dreading this one. I fully expected to listen to this for the first time in about 20 years, maybe? And I was expecting it to have aged like fine milk. You know, in the first verse alone, there's an uncomfortable bit about Tommy Lee assaulting Pamela Anderson. And there's a comparison between gay male relationships and having sex with dead animals.

It's like, usually internet edgelord types who do this dodge the issue by claiming it's satire. And you could make the case that that started with Eminem in this period, but the difference with Eminem is that Marshall Mathers, the person, and Slim Shady, the character, are clearly two entirely different entities. Rather than simply a nasty extension of the real person behind it, Slim Shady is this overblown Frankenstein's monster created jointly by Marshall Mathers and the media's response to his music. Well whoever the artist is here, let's go with Eminem for the sake of convenience.

They're on blistering form. It is a welcome reminder of what made Eminem such a potent force in both pop and rap music at the time, and why his legacy is still held in such high regard despite much less impressive output in the past decade and a half. And it's a good thing that Eminem's flow is on point here because like some of the sharpest bars of Eminem's entire career show up in this track like Rob there's one you mentioned to me this week which really stands out you know there and there's a million others just like me who cuss like me who just don't give a fuck like me who dress like me walk talking out like me and just might be the best i can't even do it like it's because it takes skill to do that that's a great bar and it just sums up the whole ethos of the song and like he's got really good comic timing as well you know the

whole bit about and dr dre said nothing you idiot dr dre that pregnant pause like how often do you hear that in like even like modern hip-hop when you know you you hit a beat perfectly and the instrumental is really good too it's like a more cartoonish take on what dr drake was doing in the early 90s g-funk scene so it's that yeah the combination of the dense witty lyrics which i don't want to go into because I will just end up reading all the lyrics and you can do that yourself. But yeah, those funny, sharp, witty, acerbic lyrics and that irresistible like electro funk beat just makes this a total success. I've really enjoyed listening to this one yeah yeah me me too

uh andy what about you because i from some of our sort of chats over the past couple of weeks while we've been listening to these songs and stuff you sort of mentioned that eminem's maybe not someone that you're that up on in terms of like you're you know like that interested in really i mean i know as much as you know the average person would you know he obviously eminem is of my generation and i was i would say i was a fan at the time it never really went beyond that and i do think as a general point about eminem i do think that for many people, he was the very definition of an artist that you grow out of, that he is your absolute favorite when you're at a certain age, and then you move on to other artists. That's not a criticism of Eminem, but I think that he

filled that slot for many people. And he certainly filled one of those slots for me. And I've not, I must say, I've not revisited him basically since his height. I've not revisited him at all. So I wouldn't really have the same level of authority to talk about it as perhaps you guys would. But nevertheless, it was a great nostalgia hit for me, this. I do enjoy this song. I think lyrically, I absolutely agree with what Lizzie said,

that it's absolutely full of content. You kind of see the full pantheon of what Eminem can do, really, that you've got great comedy, you've got some really, really good wordplay and some genuinely clever writing as well, and you've got a sense of who he is. You can listen to this one song and know what Eminem is about. It's a manifesto of a song, really, which is something that it's a manifesto of a song really yeah which you know it's something

that it's a great time in his career to be doing because it's not the very first song you know where we're all sort of familiar with my name is by this time but it is you know from the stats you gave earlier this is alarmingly early in his career this is really really early on so he sort of hit the ground running with this that we all know what he's about straight away and I really respect that I think that's really really admirable I wish it developed a little bit more musically I know that that's something about the genre in general and I know that that's not really what this song is trying to do but I just wish it there was a little bit more development in that bass line and in that riff that it just kind of stays there all the way through um but that's that's that's my personal taste i'm not going to hold it against it really

and i do like those very slightly out of tune sirens at the end which really really catch the ear i do really enjoy that um it's kind of abrasive deliberately that it kind of annoys you deliberately it's really kind of grabbing your attention, which I do really, really like. I think that speaks to Eminem in general, really, that he has what parents perhaps would have called a dangerous quality back in the day, that he was not someone who parents wanted their kids to like, that he had a sense of excitement about him.

And what is excitement to kids perhaps is danger to parents and he I definitely remember in my household that my mum would kind of disapprove of me having Eminem videos on and certainly this because I would have been very young at the time perhaps the reason I'm not as familiar with this as I am with some later Eminem hits is because it was kind of censored in my household I do think it's interesting though that not to open up a whole separate topic but I do think despite the fact that there was a bit of a sort of moral guardian aspect about shutting kids off

from Eminem I do think he was still the one and only rapper who you could get away with listening to you could just about manage it. And yes, he had a more mainstream sound. Yes, he had a more mainstream approach. But I do think as well, it's not a coincidence that the one rapper who kind of made it into most households at this time was pretty much the only well-known white rapper. I don't think that's a coincidence at all.

And I do think that's something that we should all look back on with some contemplation. I will just think that's a coincidence at all. And I do think that's something that we should all look back on with some contemplation. I will just say that. That's something that I don't think a black rapper as fresh on the scene with as much excitement as this about them would have had a relatively easy ride in the way that Eminem did. Despite the fact that people disapproved of him, he was still a huge success.

You only have to look at the treatment that Lil Nas X gets these days who's not only black but gay as well and very very upfront about both of those things and the way the right-wing papers talk about him you know imagine 20 years ago how hard it would have been then so I do think that's something to think about as well but um yeah I really do like this I'm not an enormous fan of it just because it's like I say it's not really part of it, just because it's, like I say, it's not really part of my oeuvre. It's not really kind of my field. But I do really, really enjoy this.

I have no specific criticisms of it at all, except that I wish it slightly developed musically. The only other thing about this that I thought I would mention is that because I'm the kind of cool, trendy person who does this sort of thing, I recently re-watched all of the original series of The Twilight Zone from the early 60s

and there's an episode it really shocked me when I saw the title of the episode which was called Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up and me, perhaps naively that was the first time I'd ever realised that that phrase existed before Eminem, that he didn't invent that phrase

and there's a whole history about this that we've talked about, haven't we? Lizzie, you found this out, didn't you? That it comes from a game show in the 50s that the real blank, please stand up, was this old phrase that we now associate exclusively with M&M, but it was a phrase before that, which I don't think any of us remember now.

It was from before The Twilight Zone, even. It was a show called To Tell the Truth that debuted in 1956 yeah it's just it's a great little idea to use

and he took full ownership of it and deserves credit for that yeah yeah great stuff I will try and get

through my stuff as quickly as possible because I have got a lot that's a good caveat right at the start. I've got a lot on this. Yeah, take the floor. Well, looking back at this,

this was probably the first Eminem song I ever knowingly heard and recognised it as Eminem because I wasn't really aware of the actual pop charts when he was releasing singles from Slim Shady LP. I'd just reached the age where I could start to actually recall stuff and have opinions about things, like music wasn't just sound to me anymore, I could actually start to have a very basic appreciation of things like melody and tempo and rhythm and things like that. So looking back, yeah, the gap between

me listening to Eminem as a kid and how I kind of consumed him up until about being like 19 was normally just through like the radio seeing him on tv like the big singles that he had out that we're going to talk about and when everybody except me on my street went out and bought curtain call in 2005 and everybody was talking about that but it just wasn't a thing that was going on in my house i don't think he was ever censored it just wasn't encouraged either um you know in like 2005 i think i was sort of into like whatever was on radio one and eminem was kind of you know just as i really started to get into pop music eminem went on that sort of short hiatus and then by the time i was kind of leaving the radios behind that was when he was coming back so i had to go to eminem after the

fact and i've only really picked eminem up in my 20s like properly um the entire marshall mathers album like this song i think lizzie was sort of saying that it's written in response to the reaction that the slim shady lp got yeah plus a couple of songs about how much he hates his wife album like this song i think lizzie you were sort of saying that it's written in response to the reaction that the slim shady lp got yeah plus a couple of songs about how much he hates his wife or how much the character hates his wife we'll never know of course that's part of what makes him very interesting well they did divorce so yes um yes um but and so a lot of the songs on that album explain how he feels and what he's learned from being in the public eye. Like the title track is like, he's sort of saying,

I'm a regular guy, don't know why there's all this fuss about me. Nobody ever gave a fuck before. Now everyone tries to take shots at me. Like, why is everybody concerned about me? My actual thoughts on the real Slim Sh shady are that it is uh excellent like really excellent as you two have both said this is the essence of early m&m like he somehow manages to capture the zeitgeist pierce the zeitgeist laugh at the zeitgeist and be the zeitgeist in the same song and i think the martial mothers lp and as we find out later the m&m show they

both display exactly what happens to a person's mind when they become the center of attention and not just in a room or on a stage but across a whole country maybe across two or three continents like his rise was so extreme and so steep and so fast that his life basically changed overnight from like 1997 through to about 2000 his life just completely did a 180 um and the real slim shady covers a lot of this ground i think like um i think the song is about america's hypocrisy at least as eminem sees it like yeah eminem came out from the underclass of Detroit. Like, growing up, like, he saw some shit. Like, he moved around a lot.

He didn't have any money. And to make it in the game, because he was white, he had to be meaner and braver and sort of more vulgar than the people around him because it was, I mean, 8 Mile is all about the fact that it was hard for him to be taken seriously as a rapper because he was white. He's sort of like, you get the Beastie Boys in the mid- mid 80s there's a big gap and then eminem pops up um it's not it's not racism it's just like you know you have a perception about you because you're white it's like oh this kid won't be any good and so he finally makes it to the top and he offers

this reflection of himself the slim shady lp and then he gets a negative response from some quarters and it's the kind of negative response that if i was eminem it would make me sit there and think now hang on a minute like you're coming at me for things i say in my songs when much worse xyz are happening daily in this country and i've seen it all like i've come from the underground like i've seen what america's really like and now i'm at the top down on a vantage point and you're telling me that my things are vulgar and disgraceful when you know i move schools about once a month because my family never had any money and etc etc um and i think like you know we'll find out kind of later

this year with another song of his that being someone that everybody has an opinion about or feelings about comes with major negatives. But in this moment for the real Slim Shady, he's having a lot of fun with it. I think he's happy to play the comedian that people hate because he knows that enough people love him to send him to the top of the charts like this. And as we find out, this album eventually to like diamond status and it was number one forever um i imagine that like the majority of the comments that make it through to eminem and actually resonate with him are to do with the censorship and the genuine kind of panic amongst middle america that he was going to turn everything that was secure and safe about the world upside down and at least on this song he likes playing that role basically laughing in

the faces of people like tipper gore and timothy white who was like the head of billboard magazine at the time the various pressure groups that were trying to shut him down get his music off the radio um and i think he uses this to great effect because he is so funny in this his flow is unpredictable it's hard to actually pin down a rhythmic pattern in any of his verses yet it never sounds uncomfortable, he's constantly changing it up to the point where nobody I've never really heard anybody effectively

imitate or cover this he sounds completely in control of the whole environment there is an episode of Brass Eye where Chris Morris does a great parody of this there's an episode of Phoenix Nights where Jerry where Chris Morris does a great parody of this There's an episode of Phoenix Nights Where Jerry Sinclair does a great cover of it Yes But within about 20 seconds of him starting this song

He's already done the Nothing you idiots, Dr Dre's dead You know that sort of thing When Em really gets going on those first three major label records I do think he's in the conversation for like the greatest to ever do it his output after the m&m show puts a huge dent in that but for me at his best as a protagonist he is just as unpredictable and controversial and entertaining as your likes of kanye and ice cube um i always want to know exactly what he's going

to say next i'm never quite sure if know exactly what he's going to say next. I'm never quite sure if this is what he thinks or if it's a character. Never know whether to be frightened of him or enticed by him. The verses are full of so many couplets and triplets and individual little moments that get, like, burned into my brain.

Like, there's the Dr. Dre's line that we've already mentioned, the, um, chicka-chicka-chicka-slim-shady-I'm-sick-of-him and the line you mentioned to us Lizzy in that message Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his rap to sell records well I do so fuck him and fuck you too like the way he sets that really bizarre

scene at the Grammys with all the references to Christina Aguilera and Britney and Fred Durst of all people I was gonna say with Fred Durst like this whole thing about like who is the real Slim Shady and all of these people who think they might be. If that's anyone, that's Fred Durst. Yes, possibly.

I'm preparing a defence of Fred Durst for a later episode, but we'll come to that. That line you mentioned, you know, the ones about the people who copy him but they're not quite me and then maybe my favorite rhyme scheme in the whole song is the um i'll be the only person in the nursing home flirting pinching nurses asses while i'm jacking off with jergens and i'm jerking but this whole bag of viagra isn't working and every single person there's a slim shady lurking he could be working at burger king spitting on your onion rings like it's oh i i watched it i mean that top of the pops performance like the audience is dead but oh yeah watching him do that is just incredible even even with top of the pops decided to reverse the audio to censor what he says um it still doesn't ruin it um and then you get to that chorus when he double tracks his vocals and he sounds like

he's shooting darts great really catchy hook just uh please stand up please stand up um and when you get into that final chorus you are begging for him to do something different or like andy said and yet add something else into the mix and you get those screaming over produced like i i thought it was like a a guitar or something like that you get those screaming overproduced, like... I thought it was like a guitar or something like that, but it's so overproduced that it does sound like some kind of whatever noise it is. You don't know what's originating it. But just a bit of variety.

That's all I asked for, and I got it. If I was going to criticise the song for anything, it's the Cannibals' Cantaloupes couplet, which is a bit lazy to my ears compared to everything else on the song. Yeah, I think like he probably means well. But yeah, a quite in same sex marriage to humping dead animals kind of sticks out as something that's definitely very 22 years ago. Yeah, I think he sort of means well because he's sort of saying, you're all up in arms about you know gay marriage but like look at what's going on on tv and it's like yeah i get the point but like you still kind of tripped over yourself there a bit um but i do have to admit that

rhyming cantaloupe with can't elope can't work if it can't work out if it's either genius or terrible and i'll never answer that question to myself let it be both let it be both yeah it can't work out, if it's either genius or terrible, and I'll never answer that question to myself. I think it's both. Let it be both. Let it be both, yes. Yeah, it can be both. Yeah. And I think it's a measure of how much of an excellent pop song this is that it ends up being used on Phoenix Nights

because Peter Kay, like, whatever you think of him as a comedian, that guy is a cultural connoisseur when it comes to, like, the top of the pop charts. That guy has got an excellent memory and affection for pop music and it informs so much of his comedy like not just all the performances in phoenix nights but i'm also thinking about the copy of nine now 48 that turns up in car share oh yeah a lot of his live performances are based on songs that get played at weddings and things like that um a lot of his sketches are about how pop

music intersects with his life and i think that eminem making an appearance on phoenix nights less than two years after this point where dave spiky dressed up in the dungarees and the chainsaw mask is probably just about the best tribute this song could get and it's very worthy of it and i'm hoping that well i'm to slam it right into the vault, I don't know about you two I'm not, I was going to say I would but I'll

open the floor to Andy well I mean it doesn't really matter, if you two want to put it in then it's in but I don't feel that strongly about it I just don't but if you want to I won't stop here, yeah so Lizzie is that a second vote oh yeah for sure cool there we go then all right next up is this Come on The daylights fade slowly But time in the year is standing still

I'm waiting for you only Your slightest touch and I feel weak I cannot lie From you I cannot hide And I'm losing will to try Can't hide it Can't fight it So go on, go on Come on, leave me breathless

Tempt me, tease me Till I can't deny this love and feeling Make me long for your kiss So go on, go on Yeah, come on me along for your kiss okay so this is breathless by the cause released as the lead single from the cause third album in bloom breathless is their 13th overall single to be released in the uk and their first and only uk number one while they were a successful albums band in the 90s, the Cores initially had a pretty slow start on the singles charts, with their first seven singles all

failing to make the top 40. But when the band's cover of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams reached number six, and when a Tin Tin Out remix of their song What Can I Do reached number three, the Cores capitalised on their newfound success. They re-released a special edition of their second album Talk on Corners in 1999 which contained another remix by Tintin' Out, this time of the band's first single Runaway which got to number two and was only held off the top spot would you believe it by Baby One More Time. Breathless went straight in as a new entry at number 1 in July 2000 Knocking Eminem off the top spot

And holding off competition from Limp Bizkit's Take a Look Around Theme from Mission Impossible 2 Which got to number 3 And Sunday Morning Call by Oasis Which got to number 4 When it was knocked off number 1 Breathless fell one place to number 2 And by the time it was done on the chart

It had been inside the top 100 for 16 weeks. Andy, go on, tell us how you feel about the song. Well, I'll go on, go on then, yes. I really, really like this. Really nice, really, really pleasant sound to it. Clearly inspired by the pop country wave that was sweeping the early 90s and the early noughties. Shania Twain, the obvious comparison, but I think the really pertinent comparison

would be with the Chicks, then known as the Dixie Chicks, with the whole female-led country band with a very, very similar sort of sound as well. Of course, there is a man in this group as well, which is something I'll come back to. But yes, really, really enjoyed this. It's got a lovely hook in the chorus. It's just got a really nice beat to it throughout. And it has momentum to it. It's very strange that this was...

The chorus in general, they were extremely uncool to kids at the time, I think. They were really not someone you ever, ever heard about in the playground. Like, it was just not a thing, for me, at least. But much, much more enjoyable as an adult. They certainly fill in that adult contemporary kind of category of this era that we've mentioned before. I think, for me, part of that is that, I don't know if you guys ever watched smtv

oh they had a they had a running thing where they relentlessly took the mick out of the cause they just had a thing with them where they'd all work the three of them would all wear wigs and just keep like advertising their songs as where are the beautiful cars here we are the beautiful cars we just like do all the time and we're constantly in front of them then they'd have a fourth guy with a bag over his head to represent the man in the band he would just be completely silent throughout all of these sketches and i think that kind of colored it that they were just sort of figures of ridicule um back in the day yeah the other thing about this which um as soon as i heard this song is i don't know if this is a

common thing i think i feel like it probably is but my husband at least said he really thought for the longest time like until recently he genuinely thought that the lyrics were leave me bradley come on leave me bradley i don't know if that's a common thing but i can certainly hear it i sort of can't unhear it now but. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed this. It's got the right balance of pop with a slight sort of country hint to it while still being, I hate to use the word authentic, but I guess that's the word I am going to use here. Lovely vocal performance.

Just really, really nice. I don't think it's anything particularly special. I think it could be elevated. I think it's one of those songs that I'm not going to listen to all of the time i've enjoyed revisiting it and i enjoyed the nostalgia of hearing it but i'm not going to be revisiting it that much um but as a kind of time capsule of a genre that very briefly had a really big moment but there weren't that many british or irish in this case artists piping out this sort of thing i think it's a really really nice little moment for us to cover and it was

something entirely different from real slim shady how lovely is it that something like this could follow the very week after what a period of variety in our pop charts and i kind of have to admire that as well yeah really nice yeah um absolutely i actually kind of agree i'm not i'm sure everyone will be relieved to know that i don't have anywhere near as much to say about uh about this one um but it's interesting that you mentioned there that the the cause were thoroughly uncool to kids around this time i think they just didn't exist to be honest i think i was being a bit unfair they just didn't exist to be honest i think i was being a bit unfair they just didn't exist at all to kids i don't think yeah well i was introduced to the

cause and i knew about them thanks to that re-release of talk on corners because my mum bought that and then immediately bought the best of the cause which comes out like a year after this so beautiful chorus so i'm gonna keep doing that so like this song as well as their surrounding singles have probably been in my life for about 20 years like seriously thinking about it their cover of dreams might well be the first version of that song that i heard um but yeah i think that this is a very pleasant piece of pop rock. And just like you, Andy, I noticed a tiny hint of Shania Twain, her poppier material somewhere beneath the surface.

I felt there were little flecks of Irish folk in there as well. Yeah, definitely. But it's that they know at the start of the song, the go on, go on, is a very easy hook to get somebody involved in this like the way that andrea's voice kind of floats into the falsetto and then back out of it in a really short space of time really sticks in my head and it's like a lovely siren call and i love the overlapping vocals in the chorus as well i'll always have time for any group that understands the value of vocal harmony and they get treated with warm vocal production and vocal is the sticking point and to kind of come into my criticisms of it though i find it kind of strange that quite a

lot of the aesthetics of the cause promotional material around this time like the videos and album covers and posters and pictures and live performances and stuff they go for really cold color combinations like blue and white and black and all the various like silvers and bits in between like if you google the cause 2000s or go to google images a lot of the pictures of them from this time are all they've all got jet black hair, dark clothes, they're normally backed by like cold blue lighting, like the name that, you know, obviously the album that Breathless comes from is called In Blue, and the reissue of Talk On Corners changed the cover from like loads of autumnal browns and greens and stuff to this fully washed out sky blue, and then when they perform this on top of the pops,

they all wear black and they all have really heavy blue lighting. And I don't think any band made a stronger case for the colours black and blue until Evanescence came along. But I don't think the colours and the promotional stuff suits the song. And I think it speaks to a confusion that's inherent in quite a lot of the core's most successful music especially those tinting out remixes because the original version of what can i do for a full minute it sounds like something that like the flying pickets might have

done in the 80s and runaway is a really sparse and quite gentle ballad with barely any percussion but then they both get souped up and they both have all these trinkets added to them and like as it happens I kind of prefer the updated version of What Can I Do but the contradiction is also present in Breathless because its true nature feels slightly trapped i think behind the super clean studio production the the the vocal production is gorgeous but the the production on the backing track it's very slick and it's like a big budget interpretation of what was probably once a very small and quite intimate song once upon a time it's like don't get me wrong like you know studio bells

and whistles like they can often enhance small songs turn them into something really glorious uh the fear by lily allen is a really good example of that i think but i'm rarely able to grab onto anything this song does behind the vocals that that bass i can hear it wandering off in really interesting directions but it feels like that should be the proper backbone of the song but i think it's just got too much gloss on it to feel completely real to me i do agree with that when i was talking about how i wish it was a little bit more elevated i think that definitely you've hit the nail on the head there rob that's what i was getting at that the Everything except the vocals is sort of generic

and is just kind of standard, kind of pub band sort of performance, really. And yeah, I would have liked a little bit more points of interest apart from the vocals because the vocals are gorgeous, really gorgeous. Lizzie, what about you? Yeah, it's a very successful week for the Irish artist this you know you've got the cause you've got Ronan Keating you've got Eminem I'm sure he's Irish as well but yeah no I

have to agree with both of you I think this is really nice like maybe nice is the operative word but like I hadn't heard this one for a long time before this week and I was much more familiar with the Caroline Polderchuk cover like compared to that the production of this is quite I agree it's quite flat and it's dated in parts and the lyrics are fairly standard country pop fair for the most part but there's some really nice hooks in this and there's some lovely like vocal harmonies which help to elevate it a bit more than what it usually would be. Like I'll have another note later on about songwriters relating to, you know, the selection we have this week. And with this, I should note that it was written by Robert John Lang, who co-wrote many of Shania Twain's late 90s hits.

Of course. Yeah. So, like, if not for the tin whistle in the verse, this could very easily be another Shania Twain hit, and I'm sure she probably would have done a great rendition of it. However, I think Andrea Corr has this particularly beautiful quality to her voice. Like, she has a similar effortless style that twain had around the time but she also has that you know that yodel that she does in the choruses which would usually stand out

like a sore thumb but it just blends in seamlessly because you know that's the power of a good singer it's like it's something you very rarely hear in pop outside of say dolores or Riordan in have I said that right Dolores or Riordan yeah Cranberries yeah yeah in the Cranberries yeah who was who was actually involved in a feud with the cause around this time like as as far as I can see from reports Dolores said in an interview that she wasn't a fan of the cause but then Jim Corb bumped into Dolores at a nightclub in Dublin and confronted her about her remarks they patched things up a year or so later but I found it interesting

like I would have maybe assumed that this song and even you know the kind of cover art style and the blues and the blacks that you were talking about a minute ago Rob I thought that was an homage to the Cranberries and to Dolores Arion. I thought that was the whole kind of point.

They were just taking that sort of foundation and making it more pop and more accessible. I think it depends where you draw the line between homage and bandwagon jumping, because I think the context for this is that, you know, we've just come off the back of what had been a very big decade for Irish music in general, you know, in the 90s. There were loads of breakout stars. There was Cranberries. There was Bewitched, if we want to go down the more kind of pop end. But, you know, we even had artists like, well, U2, sort of a peak in the 90s as well.

Yeah, Westlife, Boyzone, you know. Westlife and Boyzone, exactly. There was all sorts, even the Pogues at the very start of the decade. That's true, yeah. It was Irish music was definitely having a bit of a moment in the 90s and it was slightly tailing off at this time. And I do think it might have been an attempt at bandwagon jumping, especially because Bewitched and Sailor V

made such a shameless song and dance about their Irishness. Literally, yeah. And it worked, and that was a big hit because of that. So I do think there's an element of, let's just throw that in there because it sells, which may well have pissed off the Cranberries because they weren't doing it purely to sell records. I think that's maybe my take on it, yeah. Yeah, I mean because they weren't doing it purely to sell records. I think that's maybe

my take on it. Yeah. I didn't have much else to say other than that I think it's a really lovely pop song which does, for the most part, successfully manage to balance gentle affection and that burning desire for so much more.

Hmm. Yeah. Okay then. Next up is this. Here we fucking go. Hey baby, you really got my tail in a spin Hey baby, I don't even know where to begin But baby I got one thing I want you to know Wherever you go, tell me cause I'm gonna go I found love, so don't fight it Life is a rollercoaster, just start riding

I need you, so stop hiding Our love is a mystery Girl, let's get inside it This is Ronan Keating with Life is a Rollercoaster, released as the second single from his debut album, Ronan. Life is a Rollercoaster is Ronan Keating's second UK number one since going solo from Boyzone after his cover of Keith Whitley's When You Say Nothing At All hit the summit in 1999.

The song was not Ronan Keating's final number one, however. We will be revisiting him on this show fairly soon. Life is a Rollercoaster went straight in at number one as a new entry knocking the cause off the top spot and staying at number one for one week. It fought off competition from Aaliyah's Try Again which got to number five. When it was knocked off number one it fell one place to number two and by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for are you ready for this 22 weeks jesus christ lizzie what do we make of uh life is a roller coaster it's unfathomably dull like you would

expect a song with roller coaster in the title to have some energy about it and take some like exciting twists and turns but if this song were a roller coaster it'd be one of those roller coasters they have for children that like never goes above five miles per hour and has a maximum throttle of about 30 centimeters and like i've never liked ronan keating's slimy baritone honk you You know, much like with Rick Astley and other pop baritones that we're bound to encounter, he has so little emotional range as a singer but insists on singing these drippy ballads and love songs. So the only way that they can express a strong emotion is just to sing it

slightly louder and just do it over and over again and beat you over the head with it. Which it isn't the same as conveying emotion. And so like the voicing is always going to be a hurdle for me with this song but the actual lyrical content is so thin that you could pierce it with a feather. Like I was genuinely shocked to discover that this was written by Greg Alexander and Rick Knowles of the band The New Radicals,

who wrote a little song you may have heard of called You Get What You Give, which is an amazing pop song. Arguably one of the best of the 90s. It didn't get to number one, it got to number five, but if it did get to number one, and we were covering that period, it would be in the vault guaranteed like no questions asked so like i spent the better

part of this week wondering like how the same duo could produce something so brilliant and then write something as tepid as this with only about two years between the two of them but then i realized that the two songs are pretty similar composition wise, like they both have a fairly simple verse, they have a pre-chorus which introduces some tension, then into that pleading chorus, then repeat again, then the bridge which adds another layer of tension before a repeat of the chorus and then one more hook in the outro to see us out. It's the exact same structure, but where you get what you give is carried by Greg Alexander's desperate, exasperated vocal style and urgent lyrics. This trudges along with Ronan Keating's signature caterwaul

and sentiments straight out of a cheap Valentine's Day card bought out of a sense of obligation rather than true affection. Like, if you get what you give is deceptively simple, then life is a rollercoaster is insultingly simple. And so it boggles the mind to see Ronan in the press at the time acting like a big shot. Like, I've shown you too this article where he's moaning about how, quote, cheesy pop was dominating the charts and having a pop at

singers who mimed on live shows like anybody gives a fuck and then having the gall to talk about how his new album has quote a bit of an edge like sure we've we've all said stupid things in our mid-20s but when you're putting out something as tedious as this and acting like it's somehow superior to what was happening in the pop charts at the time, you really ought to start considering your life decisions up to that point and wondering where it all went wrong. Like, it smacks more of bitterness and jealousy than it does of a genuine ambition to make pop music better. Like, artists who reach such a high level and they get there and all they do is complain about others

while clearly doing nothing to advance the form themselves should be reminded that the people you meet on the way up are often the same people you meet on the way down. I guess you could say life is a rollercoaster. Well, the thing is with that, though, with him trying to say that he's got a bit of edge, who is he appealing to? Because the people who buy his music don't want edge.

No. And the people who want edge don't buy his music. Just to play Slydell's advocate with it, I've never listened to the album Ronan. I'm guessing you two haven't either. Maybe there is more interesting stuff buried. I'm guessing you two haven't either. Maybe there is more interesting stuff buried... I'm not saying, you know, every other song is like, welcome to the Black

Parade, but, you know, I... Possibly there is a bit more of an edge in there, but it's not showing in the single, that's for fucking sure. Yeah, he does a cover of Real Slim Shady. Yeah. I'm the real Ronin Keating. Yeah. Andy, I'll give you final word on this

so I'll skim through my notes because I have less to say about this just that I think this is only slightly annoying and I kind of wish it was more annoying the repeated kind of squeaky hey baby is the most kind of irritating bit of the song

and I kind of hate how like that is the most kind of irritating bit of the song. And I kind of hate how, like, that is the crux point of every verse, because it just goes... HE SINGS HE SINGS And it just goes on. The rest is just kind of...

You make him sound like the annoying orange. HE SINGS rest is just kind of you make him sound like the annoying orange the rest to me is just kind of pretty inane inoffensive pop rock like it's very lightweight doesn't really want to be anything other than what it is find it hard to come up with words the song just makes me think of somebody sighing like it's forever destined to be on those Sounds of Summer compilation albums or forever to be played at two minutes past five on Radio 2. And it's drive time and here's Ronan Keats. The other one of those is Have a Nice Day by Stereophonics. Oh, God, yeah.

But I think this manages to offend ever so slightly so slightly, by being so inoffensive. Like, it exists to be lifeless. Like, I know basically every song is a promotional vehicle for the artist that's performing it, but this feels like a pretty egregious case of that. Like, it doesn't feel like it wants to be a terrific song on its own terms. It kind of wants people to hear that it's Ronan Keating so that they can go, oh, it's Ronan Keating so that they can go oh it's Ronan

Keating and then buy it like and I can never tell if the chorus is actually memorable or if I've just heard it so much over the years and it's that yeah and the only bit of the song that sticks out to me is the fade out because the way that the song fades out makes me think of a universe where Ronan Keating never stops going. Fade it, fade it, fade it, fade it.

There is a universe where that song just goes on forever and that's, it's just the fade out. And if they didn't fade it out, that would just be what the rest of the song was for like the rest of time. Uh, something that maybe the caretaker might have had an experiment with over the course of six hours and slowly degrading the sound until it resembles static but um yeah don't hate it don't have any feelings about it it's just

um so andy have the floor oh i will thank you i'll have the floor. Oh, I will. Thank you. I'll have the whole theme park that this roller coaster sits within. Presumably it's boring towers. Um, you know, sometimes I don't like going last because like last week with, um,

it feels so good where we all matched on the notes we'd written. It's happened again where you've just used Rob. You just use an exact quote that I've got written down here which is so inoffensive that it's offensive. So well done. We're on the same page with that. Oh boy oh boy. This is the most middle of the road, bland

beige twee bit of fluff imaginable. There have been some songs on the podcast so far that I don't like this is the first song that i hate like i hate this song i was really depressed when i saw it coming up next week last week when i looked up what have i got next week i was like oh fuck's sake life is a roller coaster great okay there's four minutes so i'll get back and you know it's what's interesting

is that you said probably sounds like a sigh and Lizzie you said as well that it sounds so compared to you get what you give it sounds so empty and low energy and it does kind of have that feel of I'll just phone it in just to quote peep show oh we're doing the fucking song when's it gonna end it sounds like that and you're like this is so phoned in this is so like whatever but then you think no it, whatever. But then you think, no, it's not that. This is probably Rowan and Keating's idea of a huge banger. When he's doing that interview, like, oh, I'm sick of cheesy pop, making it to the top. I'm going to do stuff with a real edge, like life is a roller coaster.

Isn't this an exciting song? Like, he's such a boring man that this is an idea of excitement yeah and i feel quite sad for him on that part this is not just me being mean like there it's been backed up by other people i remember an episode of never mind the buzzcocks where simon amstel commented that ronan keating was the most boring man he's ever met in his life and i can totally believe that i don't think anything sums up ronan keating more than the fact he's now a backup presenter for The One Show which just, yeah

I can see that I think if there's a piece of music that rivals Life is a Rollercoaster for insipid boringness, it's the theme to The One Show, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Ronan Keating wrote that but anyway to the song itself,

and to stop the character assassination slightly. But come on, how can you think that this is going to be, oh, this is going to be exciting. You know what will really knock my listeners' socks off? Why don't we have a tempo of 90? Why don't we have hand claps? Why don't we do it in C major? Why don't we have no key changes other than C, F, G and A minor?

Why don't we have my thin nasal baritone? Why don't we just try saying every word sounding like it's spelt with only the letter R? Why don't we top that off with lyrics so banal and empty that they're almost an art form? It's just... I agree. I was going to make the same analogy about a rollercoaster

that you did, Lizzie, that if it's a rollercoaster it's that Wallace and Gromit one for babies except that it's insulting to Wallace and Gromit to say that and to the brilliant work of Nick Park which required more imagination than the entire output of Ronan Keating you know what's the

worst thing about this though is that he's right he's bang on people buy this. People bought this song. It got four times platinum, this album. This song is still so well known even to this day. And it genuinely angers me that he's absolutely right. This is what people want.

And it's proof, if proof were needed, that getting a number one is neither a sign of quality nor is it a badge of street cred. Sometimes rubbish gets to number one is neither a sign of quality nor is it a badge of street cred sometimes rubbish gets to number one and i do think this is this is the first song we've had so far i will perhaps come back to this in a later song in this episode but this is the first one we've had so far that i'm like yeah this is actual crap that's got to number one like this should not be there but the fact that it is so bland that it's so middle of the road seems to be actively its selling point it's it's really bizarre that it's sort of like you know the way elections are won from the center ground in politics it's like if

we just offend as few people as possible maybe that will win maybe we will win maybe we will become popular based on that and i just i just despair absolutely despair at this um and i don't care if this doesn't work i've got to make my feelings known i am nominating this for the pie hole this is awful so am i right it's in there i'm i'm not as i'm not as impassioned about it um i'm not going to vote for it to be in the pie hole, but I think it's, Andy, clearly it's been around in your life so much that it's a personal vote for the pie hole this week, and I'm not going to stand in your way.

It hasn't been in my life that much, to be fair. It's just that whenever I hear it, I'm just like, i could be listening to anything else right now anything else there are a few other songs i feel the same way about i feel the same way about lady in red like that's just the same so i feel the same about true by spandau ballet you know but those two are like famous for that those two are the ones that people say but and i think this should be in that echelon of ones people always talk about it's like the most boring song ever written because i think this really runs Lady in Red close

for boringness. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you were looking for Edge, it's coming up next. Oh, boy. Here we go. It's this. You can see we're gonna rock and never stop And here we go again Hit you with the flow again Kick it up the second time around

We bring it on again Shout it out Buddy or a boy Make a big noise Playing in the street Gonna be a big man someday Got blood on your face Your big disgrace

Kicking your can all over the place We will, we will rock you We will, we will rock you. We will, we will rock you. Come on. How about a little something get you in the mood. Know what I mean? Watch your back. We got Queen on his track.

Bring the feedback and let it drop. As long as five bring the funk. Queen bring the rock and it don't stop. Buddy, you're a young man, hard man, shutting in the street. Gonna take on the world someday. You got blood on your face, you big disgrace Waving your banner all over the place

We will, we will rock you We're gonna rock, we're gonna rock you, baby We will, we will rock you We're gonna rock, we're gonna rock, we're gonna rock, yeah We will, we will rock you We're gonna rock, we're gonna rock you, baby We will, we will rock you. We're going to rock, we're going to rock you, baby. We will, we will rock you. And this is We Will Rock You by Five with Queen. Released as the fourth single from Five's second album, Invincible, We Will Rock You is Five's tenth overall single and their second number one after Keep On Moving reached the summit in 1999.

The original version of We Will Rock You, performed by Queen, has never charted in the UK, although it has been reworked and released as a single on four separate occasions since the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991. We Will Rock You went straight in at number one as a new entry and stayed at number one for one week, knocking Ronan Keating off the top. That's it, rollercoaster off the tracks. And it fought off competition from Two-Faced by Louise, which got to number three, and Jumpin' Jumpin' by Destiny's Child, which got to number 5. When it was knocked off number 1, it fell two places to number 3, and by the time it was done on the chart,

it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks. This is fucking hysterical. This is just baffling and confusing and very, very annoying. Like, I'm not a fan of the original song, I've got to be honest. How do you two feel about the original version of We Will Rock You? I don't think it deserves the level of fame that it has. I think Queen have so many classics, and this is, you know, We Will Rock You, it's got that whole shtick that you do live,

obviously, with the claps and hands. Like, I get why it's so famous, but I don't think it's anything special musically. I'd never kind of listened to it on a playlist. I'd always skip it, really. It's fine, yeah. Yeah, Lizzie, what about you? Like, the original isn't one of my favourite tracks

of theirs either, but I can at least recognise that there's something unusual about it compared to the rest of their songs. Like it's just over two minutes long and about three quarters of it is essentially an acapella track. There's no physical instruments played on it until

Brian May strums that power chord signalling the start of a quite angular guitar solo which plays until the fade out. It's arena rock in its purest sense you know using the audience itself as a musical instrument and trusting them to be the rhythm section until brian can burst in with his solo yeah um i'm not a fan of the original but like like you were saying i can appreciate how confrontationally sparse an audience geared it is it's made to fill

two minutes of a long live set and keep the crowd going that was the sort of thing that freddie really specialized in so fair play to him on that one so of course it's ready made for the various members of five to come in and apparently the surviving members of queen to just shit all over the the memory of it. The guy that they bring in to do Freddie's bits, I think it's Richie. Fucking hell. He has a lot of trouble with those high notes, doesn't he?

Do you know what's the sad thing? That he's probably the best singer in Five. That's what's really sad. That's why they got him to do it. It's just the way that he's going like, that's our day. You can really feel him pulling his voice. the production is so loud and overbearing like there's a lot of empty space in we will rock you and so they've decided to fill it with all these stupid little record

scratches and the ad libs the oh my god the ad libs like the the guy that keeps going ha ha ad-libs, like the guy that keeps going Ha ha! Ha ha! Woo! Come on! And the guy goes, we're gonna rock you baby! And all the theatricality of the original has been replaced with volume and fuck all else. Like, the

verses are rubbish. You know, we step into the place and it's just, it's the same beat all the time. And occasionally they might switch it up with a little triplet where they go, better believe! Like that, and it's just, it's the same beat all the time. And occasionally it might switch it up with a little triplet where they go, better believe, like that. And it's just, oh. And I don't know how Freddie would have felt about this.

I'm sure he would have just taken the paycheck and been very happy with the fact that he was still alive, probably. But I get so uncomfortable with how the other members have treated Queen. Like, the other members of Queen have treated Freddie's memory ever since he died. Definitely. I saw them live about two months ago, and they put on a really good show. And Adam Lambert is a good standing for Freddie Mercury. They're all very open about the fact.

Adam Lambert's like, look, I know I'm not Freddie, but we're here to have a good time. Hope you can carry me as much as i carry you etc they pay nice little tributes to freddie and everybody feels like they're on the same page and you go away and you sort of think and think like brian may and roger taylor consulted on bohemian rhapsody things like this and i just sit there and i just wonder like why like i don't know how they feel i don't know whether they're comfortable with everything that kind of happens with the way that it just feels a bit like they're kind of ringing out as much of, like, ringing with WR, I mean, of Queen's 70s and 80s output as they possibly can. Just to... Because even, like, recently there was a... They've gone into the vault and found an old recording

of Freddie singing something or other, and it's just... If Freddie didn't want it out there, then why are you putting it out there now? And why are you doing this? And this honestly feels like a sketch from Comic Relief that just went too far. Like, it just, that's how it feels to me.

It's like somebody was spitballing for Comic Relief or Children in Need. Oh, wouldn't it be funny if we got Five and Queen to do it? And then it just turned into a song. And by that point, it was some Frankenstein's monster that was already just out of control. Lizzie, what about you? Yeah, I completely agree with what he said.

It's easy to see where the cover went wrong. Where the original is, like you say, it's initially sparse before building to that power chord blast this one starts off loud with what sounds like a gunshot before going into the drum beat which replaces the like authentic stomp of the original with like a dull synthetic thud like closing a cupboard then you get the obligatory record scratching because hey it's 2000 and you get the generic brag rap horrible squawking rendition of the verse chorus with some mad lad vocalizations on top of it which sound like i think we mentioned a couple of episodes ago like

the settings on those old keyboards where you press a key and it's like DJ DJ woo yeah yeah it's and like five claims to bring the funk but I've yet to find any evidence of this in their back catalogue um the guitar bleeds in like just like the original and you think it might be enough to save the song but then it just gets bigger and louder and stupider and it builds to that horrible final group wank of a chorus as Brian beats his guitar to death and the fake audience cheers out of politeness so yeah it's pretty wretched and this would be a saying on Queen's legacy but let's be honest this isn't Queen on the record this is Five featuring Brian and Roger like by thisreddie's been dead for almost a decade and john deacon has retired from public life in 1997 so why are they still using the queen

name it's like if andy rourke and mike joyce got back together and started doing gigs as smiths like you're pivotal you're pivotal members of the original band for sure but it creates this kind of philosophical question where you start to wonder how many members of a band have to leave either by choice or by nature before the band is considered non-existent is it like looney tunes or the muppets where the original actors are just replaced for as long as there's an interest in the product it's the name of oh what's that old philosophical problem where if you replace every single part of a ship, is it still the same ship? Yeah, yeah.

The sugar babes, this got brought in with the sugar babes of are they still the sugar babes anymore? Yeah. Or napalm death as well. Yeah, definitely. Like, yeah, we might be stuck with Queen for a long time yet if that's the case, but as far as I'm concerned, like you,

Freddie Mercury was Queen, and the band died with him. Like, nothing Queen did after Freddie Mercury matters, and especially not this pointless collaboration. So, Andy. Ship of Theseusus by the way is what I was referring to ship of Theseus if you replace every single part of something

is it still the thing interesting question for another time anyway so this I'm not going to afford it any more air time than it deserves which is very little oddly although I think this is even worse than Life is a Rollercoaster,

oddly, I must say, it doesn't anger me in the same way. It doesn't anger me as much because Life is a Rollercoaster, it really hits a specific nerve of me that if you're at the top of fame, to be so boring is such a crime. Whereas I have to at least, I'm not going to say admire, but I can at least acknowledge that Five have gone for it

and tried to do something a little bit interesting, shall we say, with this. Oh, what if we add rap to Queen music? Oh, that's everything that people are calling for. Especially when that rap, as you've said, is so insipid that it's so generic. It's like, yeah, oh, we're such thugs, even though we're like a 90s boy band. We're such thugs. Yeah, we rap instead of sing. And we've all got a big penis. And that's because it's just it's like to put that with something that I know we will. Rocky was not one of Queen's finest, but it does at least have that sense of awe that, like you say, it encapsulates arena rock in two minutes.

That it's you are in a time and place and to tinker with it even slightly takes away from the effect of the song. That song is what it is. Like it just you can't really change it or you change the effect of it. You change the intent of it. You change the impact of it. change it or you change the effect of it you change the intent of it you change the impact of it and that has been completely lost here that if you start turning it into this weird genre hybrid that i can't see that anybody would have asked for what you get is as as rob said a total frankenstein's monster where this is far too poppy and rappy for anyone who likes rock music and also far too bad for anyone who likes music as simple as that really yeah i think really it's just so ill-conceived and i i completely agree with well another thing that you said rob as well that i assumed like you said

that you said that you thought this was for children in need or comic relief or something. I assumed this must have been from a movie because I thought nothing as specific and odd as this just exists. It must have been from a movie. It's not. They genuinely set out to do this. It's absolutely crazy. Shame on

Queen for being associated with this. I say Queen, shame on Brian and Roger for being associated with this. It's awful. shame on Brian and Roger for being associated with this. It's awful, really, really awful. And I think it's dated so badly, so, so badly. Oh, yeah. I know that in the present day, people still do ill-advised covers and they still step over the legacy of songs.

But to do it in this specific way, where you add 90s British pop rap from a boy band to Queen it hurts me just to say that and it's that specific kind of British pop rap, you know like Daz Sampson

yeah exactly, it's really like you know that's the thing, I don't have a problem with rap being put over the top of it, if it was Eminem quality to hark back to the start, or if it was... Yeah, like Jay-Z. If it was Jay-Z or Kendrick Lamar quality, let's try that. That could be interesting if you put that with the Queen song.

To have it be five... Come on. I really hate this thing in general where it happened a few times in the early noughties where i assume the boy bands sometimes had enormous bottomless pits of financial backing because this happened a few times where blue managed to get a duet with elton john for sorry seems to be the hardest word they also managed to get a duet with stevie wonder for sign seal delivered yeah now you have five getting a duet with queen i assume it's just they just throw money at these artists so that they get the seal of approval and that's awful

and we shouldn't endorse that at all it's really awful and it's, yeah I have nothing good to say about this at all except that it's not boring at least I remember that this happened because I cringed listening to it so it gets a point or two for that

but other than that this is just awful really terrible sorry Rob, can i just quickly interject because i have another phil like another philosophical question like is it worse to aim for something big and completely miss or aim for mediocrity and hit like you know like a bullseye. Oh, definitely the latter, I think. So that would make Life is a Rollercoaster worse. I

think it's better to try and fail than it is to not try. I would usually agree, but I still, like, this is unlistenable. But, yeah, I would... There's at least something in this that there isn't in life as a roller coaster but don't get me wrong this is worse because they fail so badly oh yeah this

yeah this is definitely pie hole material like um i don't know if you agree oh god yeah yeah definitely in the pie hole okay here's here's a nightmarish thought to keep you awake tonight, right? Imagine this, but it's Rowan and Keating. It'd be like that. Have you ever seen them take that dude a cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit? Oh, my God, no. Oh, Andy. Andy, Andy, Andy. I'm going to ruin your evening after this.

Thanks. The only other thing I sort of have to say is that they're kind of going for that really early... I think they're going for that really early Beastie Boys, Run DMC, kind of like rock instrumental, well, pop rock instrumental, but with, like, gang vocals, where, like, one of them will go... And then the other two or three members will say the last word of every line and it's like but that's so over at this point that's so yeah it was like 10 years ago it's even longer died with i don't know it's like that maybe it's like the the death

of that really even earlier really run d DMC is sort of the end of that I think they're going for like the foundations of how hip hop hit the mainstream but I yeah, this is not great, so we have one more song this week

and it is this. Got something to say, yeah Great David, 70 days, check it out, yeah On my way to see my friends She looked a couple blocks away from me As I walked through the subway Must have been about quarter past three In front of me Stood a beautiful honey with a beautiful body She asked me for the time

I said it cost her a name, six digit number And a date with me tomorrow at nine Did she decline? No Didn't she mind? I don't think so But was it for real? Damn sure But what was the deal? A pretty girl at 24 And so was she king

She couldn't wait The cinnamon queen Let me update What did she say? She said she loved you The girl is 24, so is she cute She couldn't wait Cinnamon queen Let me update What did she say? She said she loved to Rhyme every who, she asked me what we were gonna do So we stopped with a bottle of Moet 14 Monday, took her for a drink

On Tuesday, we were making love By Wednesday, and on Thursday And Friday and Saturday We chilled on Sunday I met this girl on Monday Took her for a drink on Tuesday We were making love on Wednesday And on Thursday and Friday and Saturday

We chilled on Sunday Okay, this is Seven Days by Craig David. Released as the second single from his debut album Born To Do It, Seven Days is Craig David's second solo single overall and his second to reach number one after Fill Me In topped the charts earlier in the year. Check out our third episode for more on that one. This was also his final number one in the UK with Rise and Fall featuring Sting coming closest when it reached number two in 2003. Seven Days went

straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking five off the top of the charts. It was number one for a week, holding off competition from Freestyler by Bomb Funk MCs, which I think is a bit of a shame that got to number two. And funnily enough, Maria Maria by Santana and the Product GMB, which got to number six. Am I just imagining this or is that Maria Maria by Santana and the product GMB, which got to number six. Am I just imagining this or is that like the fourth Santana song that hit number two now? At the moment. We seem to always mention them. Yeah, it's a big, big, big domination of the American charts. And obviously the smooth as well with Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20.

When it got when it was knocked off number one, it fell one place to number two. And by the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 19 weeks. It finished the year as the 17th biggest selling single overall and eventually went on to sell 1.2 million copies. So it's a million seller. Fair play to him. Wow. Nice.

I'm going to let you two kind of take the lead On the actual song discussion on this one Because I have a story that's going to take up too much time And if I add that in with my actual critiques of the song We'll be here for seven days So, Lizzie, how do we feel about seven days? Or Andy, do you want to take the one I'm conscious of That I've led the last couple of times?

That's fine I don't want to steal all your notes no it's fine I appreciate that, that wasn't me being passive aggressive no no no nice how we all have so much in common with our notes yeah but anyway for this one it's quite nice, it's very very listenable I think it's really

a lot similar to say to what I said about fill me in a few weeks ago which is that it is a game of two halves music and lyrics that musically i think it's really really nice to listen to i maintain as i said a few weeks ago that craig david knows how to write pop music he's really really good at getting a tune stuck in your head really good at it he's a rare talent to that especially considering his young age at this time very very talented guy um but the lyrics yeah it's it's funny i i think the lyrics for fill me in are worse that i really gave him hell for that a few weeks ago but this is the one that is kind of famous for it this is the one that people tend

to joke about the chorus in particular yeah it's just it is another example of how he's really like focuses on things he doesn't need to focus on that he he's overly literal and overly prescriptive to the point where it does kind of defy basic sense really that few people would bother to recite the events of every day of the week as part of their track especially not when one of those days doesn't have anything on the agenda that seems really bizarre that i know that chilled on sunday thing that's you know it's oh yeah we chilled that's cool and stuff but it just kind of inescapably sounds like he ran out of ideas it just kind of sounded like oh we did this on monday we did that tuesday and then on sunday we just kind of chilled yeah yeah it just kind of feels like wait and i know

that's not the intent but you know i think that's a fair cop it's a fair criticism really that you know your intent is not coming across well there it kind of sounds bad also interesting i don't know if i'm maybe reading into something that isn't here but i do find it quite odd that he like on the seventh day he rests like is he intentionally trying to invoke the creation of man and follow god's schedule in this song it does be like six days of intense action and then on the seventh day craig rested. It does seem a little bit like that. And I really don't know if he intended that, but I thought that was interesting, at least.

Other than that, lyrically, it's not that bad. Although, shout out to Cinnamon Queen, let me update, whatever the hell that means. That's really, really strange. Some fairly gross flirting at the start, where there's this whole bit where she's like, can you tell me the time? And he's like, well, I'll tell you the time

if you give me your name, number, and address and confirm the time for our date, like at their first meeting, which is a bit weird. But, you know, that's just kind of part and parcel with sort of flirty lyrics in this sort of song. It's really, really nice overall. Once again, let down by the distinctive oddness of the lyrics, but it's a really good

tune. I remain committed that I am going to give Craig David another chance. I'm going to listen to that album to do it, and I'm going to really give him a try, because as a musician and as an artist, I would say, he's very interested and he's very fresh for the period,

but his lyrics really do let him down um and that's a bit of a shame but yeah I like this I do like this it's good yeah yeah Lizzie what about you yeah I have to echo a lot of what Andy said about this and you know I will say that I like this song I don't have again I don't have a lot to say about it other than you know beyond what I already said about Fill Me In a couple of episodes back. Because it's the same kind of formula as that one, but with Craig David talking about enjoying a week of hedonism

with an older woman rather than having to sneak around his girlfriend's overprotective parents. Like, I maybe slightly prefer Fill Me In just because I feel like there's a bit more personal drama in it to keep me invested in the story. And it's more relatable than this angle of meeting an impossibly beautiful woman in a subway. And I'm assuming he's referring to a subway

as in, like, the footpath under a busy road rather than the sandwich, Shane. Even though neither is a particularly realistic or appealing place to meet a new partner. Knowing Craig, I can totally see it being Subway. Like, oh, we met in a Costa and then we went to B&M. I can totally see it.

We got a meatball marinara on Sunday. We had points to redeem on a sub-spot. We had points to redeem on his son's front Yeah, like, maybe the idea here isn't to be relatable or realistic Like, I might be reading this wrong But this song sounds like pure fantasy to me It's the sort of thing that young lads that age Make up or exaggerate to impress their friends Yeah, I think the music video kind of clues you in about that

because he's just relaying the story to his barber and they're all just kind of sat around going, oh, what happened next? And I think that's kind of, it is just a dream. Yeah, because it has that call and response part as well, where his mate inquires into, did she decline? Did she mind? Was it for real? Tell it for real tell me more

imagine texting your mates did she decline did she decline i know like it's like you probably could have gathered by the way i was speaking but no she didn't like yeah i don't mind that angle at all and like i said about fill me In the lyrics aren't amazing or anything but they feel genuine like they're almost sort of conversational at times which I guess was kind of his thing around this time it does run out of steam quite a lot towards the end when Craig starts to talk about how he's not the kind of guy to play around and how he can't get the special lady off his mind. Like from the first couple of verses in the chorus, I expected this to end up being a song about meeting a girl who was out of his league and having a great time but inevitably getting his heart broken because, you know, she's more of an outgoing kind of party girl

or because she doesn't want to commit to someone being so young herself and with someone as young as Craig David. So while I do think it's a fun and occasionally clever little R&B track, I can't help but think that this tells a story which doesn't really have a climax. And like, sure, there's nothing wrong with pop songs about finding a person who you fall madly in love with and that's that but to me Seven Days suggests a relationship that's far too good to be true and is bound to crash and burn so it's like it's still a decent song but it's lacking something in the latter parts that

I feel could have easily been remedied you know just introduce some tension like some doubt and like something that fractures that relationship because clearly this isn't built to last the only kind of comments i have that are different to yours is that i'm surprised this wasn't the first single i just that you'd think so wouldn't you yeah that instant guitar the That guitar lick is just... I don't know, it has something that Fill Me In doesn't, instrumentally, which I always... If she wasn't an older woman,

it could be the prequel to Fill Me In. Yeah, just something like that. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just because I remember it more and I just always imagine that this was his big breakout. But I think the song is nice but I don't really have anything different

to say to you two. But I do have a very odd story. I won't identify the people involved except my mum, who is crucial to this. What I will say before I start the story

is that nobody was hurt. Oh, wow, that's a great way to start a story. Yeah, as far as I'm aware, everybody's fine. So my mum had this friend that she knew. Let's call her, I don't know, Alison. And Alison had a son about my age. We'll call him Stephen. Ronan Keating.

Ronan Keating. Yes, okay, Ronan. Right, okay, yeah. And I think Ronan was a little older than me, maybe by like a couple of years. I was about seven. I think Ronan was about nine, ten. Anyway, sometimes, like, you know, we we went away together as a group of four.

Me, my mum, Alison and Ronan. My mum and Alison became really, really good friends. Like I say, we went on holiday together and it got to the point where on any given Saturday morning, we would meet up and just go shopping and just have coffee and tea or whatever um and allison and ronan they loved craig david i remember them talking to each other like oh it was like this shared thing like oh we both you know love craig david like mother and son kind of thing and they love seven days and walking away and all those songs and i remember them singing it

a lot on a particular holiday that we went on um i actually nearly drowned on that holiday because i thought i could swim and i couldn't and i got saved by a lovely lifeguard everything but um it was like a haven butlin's thing you know um she was a little bit younger than my mom by about five or ten years maybe but you know they liked each other and we all got on really well. And so on one of these any given Saturdays where we all went and met up and went shopping, Alison and my mum were walking in front of us. My mum was nearest the road and Alison was nearest the wall on the pavement. And Ronan turned to me and said, watch this.

I'm going to go and run out into the road. We should both do it. And I looked at the road and there wasn't any traffic. I just said, no, I don't think I'm going to do that. And so he just kind of like, I don't know, call me a chicken or something. And he just ran out into the middle of the road, like just halfway across to the other side of the road it was a pretty wide road where we were he just ran straight out and was running in circles in the middle of the road and my mum saw him first because she was nearest the road and she turned around

and she realized what was happening obviously she was like in complete shock and so she was like ronan what the dude what are you doing get out of the road what the hell are you doing and so ronan runs back to the pavement and allison my mom's friend is obviously a bit shocked and shaken up by this and doesn't really know what to say but my mom is also just the stun but she's responding in quite a different way and she's she keeps asking ronan like why did you do that like how could you do something like that and ronan instead of like responding or something something like that it just went crazy like he just went he started trying to actually full-on lunge at my mum and allison had to hold him back and to stop him from, like, wailing on my mum. And anyway, Alison dragged Ronan away and my mum took me back to our car

and I just never saw them again. Ever. What? Just never. Just never saw them again. They just didn't meet up after that. It was enough to kind of break the friendship between Alison and my mum.

Wow, that's a dark ending. And every single time I hear seven days, I am reminded of the moment when Ronan turned to me and just said that, and then severed a year-long friendship.

It was so so so odd and then you chilled on Sunday yes then we chilled on Sunday exactly and I always wonder where Alison and Ronan are I always wonder where they are and what they're doing I might ask my mum and see where they are

because I don't know the end a lot like Seven Days I don't know the end to that story you should send them a friend request and then we can say did they decline? no but like I need to ask my mum about the ending to that story

because I imagine she thought Ronan is an older boy who does things like that and I don't want Rob following on doing silly things like this and I don't want Rob following on doing silly things like this and maybe we just shouldn't hang out anymore but yeah I'm going to have to work out

what actually went on there and I'll try and come back with an actual conclusion let's get him on let's get Ronan on let's prove that not every Ronan is that boring because he sounds more interesting than the Ronan we talked about today. He's got a lot of edge. Yeah.

He likes dangerous music like Craig David. But yeah, anyway, that's it for this week's show. That's it for Craig David as well. We never see him again. No, yeah. See you, Craig. It's so strange. He's defined these early episodes so much and yet we won't see him again no yeah see you Craig it's so strange he's defined these early episodes so much

and yet we won't see him again but yeah next time we'll be covering the 6th of August through to the 9th of September in the year 2000 we will get out of this year eventually eventually but yeah thank you very much for

listening and we'll see you next time thank you bye much for listening, and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Bye-bye. See you. See you.