Hits 21 - 2000 (9): Destiny's Child, S Club 7, Eminem

Episode Date: September 25, 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] Independent Women Part 1 - Destiny's Child Never Had a Dream Come True - S Club 7 Stan - Eminem

All right there everyone and welcome back to Hits 21 where All right there, everyone, and welcome back to Hits 21, where me, Rob. Me, Andy. And me, Lizzie. 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 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 some UK number one singles from the year 2000, but we are going to be looking at our smallest number of number ones ever so far. We'll be covering the period between the 26th of November and the 16th of December in the year 2000. Before we get going, I just want to mention that last week Andy

did want to put Can't Fight the Moonlight in the vault. We need to get better at remembering that and so we've found a new way to do it and you'll find out in this episode what our new way is, not to give it away that at least one song this week will at least get in the vault for at least one of us. at least one song this week will at least get in the vault for at least one of us I really thank you there Rob as well for using the royal we that I need to remember

to say it if I want to put something in the vault I'm sure I've forgotten too and we both forgot to remind you and I'm sure that I think it was like Groovejet or something like that we all had a chat afterwards and we were all sat there thinking like did we want to put that in the vault I can't remember so like, Groovejet or something like that. We all had a chat afterwards, and we were all sat there thinking, like,

did we want to put that in the vault? I can't remember. So, you know, I think it's only fair enough, to be honest. The other thing that I also need to mention was the favourite song amongst our audience from the last episode, Can't Fight the Moonlight got 100% of the vote It's not just me It's fantastic

I think it would have been mine too Thank you very much for the people who voted on that, you all voted for the same song It's good to know that our audience still feel the same way as we do about basically every song we cover at least in relation to the favourite song of that week

There's one person right now sat listening horrified at home, realising that they forgot to vote for same old brand new you Shit! Oh dear Anyway, alright then, on to this week's episode and as always we're just going

to give you some news headlines from around the time period that these songs were number one damilo the tailor a 10 year old boy from nigeria is stabbed to death in peckham in south london it would be 2006 before the two brothers responsible for his death were found guilty of manslaughter. A group of seven prisoners escaped from the John B. Connolly maximum security prison in Texas. The group dubbed the Texas Seven committed a robbery the next day and then disappeared for a week. The group then robbed a sporting goods shop before shooting and killing police officer Aubrey Hawkins. It would be over a month until the Texas Seven were captured when an episode of America's Most Wanted inspired hundreds of reported sightings. The police eventually found six members of the group, with the final seventh

member having committed suicide after a standoff. And back in the UK, the UK snooker championships are won by John Higgins after he beats Mark Williams in the final, while Steve Redgrave wins the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Yeah, that's hardly a surprise actually. No, not really. Given that he's got so many medals. What is it, it was his fifth consecutive gold at the Olympics and so... Yeah, at a time when we weren't used to winning gold at the Olympics, let's just say. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas for two weeks, Meet the Parents, which I watched for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas Again for a third week. Meanwhile, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas tie the knot in New York, and to this day they are still married. Good for them. They are still married. Well done to them. Meanwhile, Coronation Street celebrates its 40th anniversary with its first live episode since 1961.

During the hour-long episode, the residents, led by Ken Barlow, launch a Save the Cobbles campaign on the street as the dreaded tarmacers arrive. And just more on that, the episode contained guest appearances from Trevor MacDonald, Noddy Holder and the then Prince Charles himself, and introduced Chris Gascoyne as Peter Barlow. And don't worry, the cobbles were indeed saved, and the success of the episode inaugurated a soap anniversary tradition,

with further live episodes to follow over the years to celebrate milestones for all three of the main soaps. Do you know, I grew up watching Corrie every single day, I never ever missed it, and I remember this really, really well. And I have since revisited it, a few years ago I went back and watched it, and it's really good. I have since revisited it a few years ago, I went back and watched it and it's really good. It's really, really clever that the way they do this episode, it's all, it starts early in the morning, like in December, so it's dark outside and then all the daytime scenes happen inside and then they go outside again for the night time, even though it's all live, it's all being filmed over the course of an hour. They managed to make it look like a whole day. And it's a really, really great episode and um i'm glad it inaugurated that tradition because it means we

get the tram crash in 2010 which was fantastic yeah well we'll give you the floor to talk about that one uh when the time comes because i in 10 years i remember the tram episode i'd stop watching cory long before the tram episode but everybody remembers the tram episode. Yeah. Where it sent poor Ashley Peacock to be back with his uncle Fred. Yeah. How are the album charts looking at the moment?

They are looking very very quiet is the answer to that question. For the first time in a hits 21 first there are no new entries at all during this whole period so one by the beatles which you may remember me mentioning last week that remains at number one for the entire period that we are covering this week and it doesn't leave the top spot until january which for those of you keeping track amongst us will realize that that means i

will have the same conversation next week um that we still got another episode in 2000 so the beatles are still at number one for a long time um and it's not just a run at number one that's so impressive about this album as of 2022 it has spent nearly 400 weeks in the top 100 um which is just under eight years in the top 100 it's spent which is unbelievable oh my god does it keep falling out and coming back in yeah i think i think maybe it's that sort of modern effect that especially around christmas as well when people get compilations as gifts i think it's one of those effects that it's such a low bar these days to get into the top 100 albums um in terms of sales i think you probably need to sell a few thousand days to get into the top 100 albums um in terms of sales i think you probably

need to sell a few thousand now to get into the top 100 that it just bobs in and out um every couple of weeks it's also like yeah like with streaming like mr brightside has just been persistently in the top 100 singles for about six years at this point and it's also also over the last 20 years there have been a sort of nicely spread out series of events that would have helped this album along. First of all,

you get George Harrison dying a few months after this. Yeah, that's true. And then you get a sort of revival of the Beatles in the late noughties where all the albums

get re-released on CD again and the Beatles rock band is released. And then there's all sorts of stuff with the Olympics and things like that. But yeah, they sort of kept the fires burning over the last 20 years yeah so i'm not that surprised but it's

still an impressive statistic that how are the states looking um yeah speaking of won by the beatles it's also the number one album in the us at the beginning of december and it would finish at number one on the billboard year-end list for 2001. To date it sold over 13 million copies in the US and it would also feature in the year-end catalog albums list for all but one year since 2000. The only year it didn't feature on the year-end list was 2015 when it was reissued and remixed in November of that year. So here's a fun fact. Since Nielsen's sound scam began tracking US album sales in January 1991,

Won by the Beatles is the fourth best-selling album in the US, the best-selling album of the 2000s decade in the US, as well as the best-selling album of the decade worldwide. Wow. Wow. Do you want to have a guess at the top three? album of the decade worldwide. Wow. Wow. Do you want to have a guess at the top three? Yeah, I'm trying to guess. Does Eminem have one of those?

No, I was going to say you're not going to get any of these. Of the decade worldwide, I would have to have a guess at... These are US, sorry. The best-selling album in the US since 1991. Oh, since 1991. Right album in the US since 1991. Oh, since 1991. Right. Yeah, released since 1991. Possibly Jagged Little Pill.

Come On Over by Shania Twain, maybe. Okay. Wow. Come Away With Me. Norma. What's her face? Norma Jones, is that her name? Okay. Yeah, Nora Jones, yeah. Have we got face Norma Jones is that her name okay

yeah Nora Jones yeah Nora Jones that's it Andy you've got two what oh my god I really genuinely

didn't know yeah genuinely at number three Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill with 15.2 million copies and number two Shania Twain

with Come On Over that's 15.7 million copies wow there's no way you would ever get number one, though. It's the Black Album by Metallica. No way! With 17 million copies. Gosh, that's amazing. No way!

Yeah. How many million? 17.3. Jesus. But anyway, back to the charts. One would spend one week at number one before being overtaken for two weeks by the backstreet boys album black and blue which would go eight times platinum and would finish at number three on the 2001 year end list and then one would then jump

back up to number one to finish off 2000 and would stay there until early february and as i mentioned in the previous episode independent Independent Women by Destiny's Child is still at number one on the singles chart and will be until the first week of February. One more thing before we go in there. Lizzie, did you say it was 13 million copies that it sold? Or 17, did you say? 13 million for the Beatles.

13 million. So I've just had a quick look at some figures and that's the equivalent to it being bought by everyone in Zimbabwe. Also everyone in Belgium, everyone in the Dominican Republic or everyone in Greece or everyone in Sweden. For a time it did feel like everyone in England owned a copy. Yeah. My parents owned a copy. The one that everyone in England owned a copy. The one that everyone in England has a copy of is Abergold.

I don't think I've ever been to a house that doesn't have Abergold in it somewhere. Yeah, you're right. Or have owned it at some stage. And rightly so.

Absolutely. All right then, let's get into the number ones for this week. There's only three of them and this is the first Question, tell me what you think about me I buy my own diamonds and I buy my own rings Only ring your celly when I'm feeling lonely

When it's all over, please get up and leave Question, tell me how you feel about this Try to control me, boy, you get dismissed Pay my own car note and I pay my own bills Always 50-50 in relationships The shoes on my feet, I fall The clothes I'm wearing, I fall The rock I'm feet, I bought it The clothes I'm wearing, I bought it The rock I'm rocking, I bought it Cause I depend on me

If I wanted the watch I'm wearing, I bought it The house I live in, I bought it The car I'm driving, I bought it I depend on me, I depend on me All the women, when you're pinning Throw your hands up at me All the hunnids, making money Throw your hands up at me All the mamas, rockin' dollars Throw your hands up at me All the ladies, truly feelin'

Throw your hands up at me Girl, I didn't know you could get down like that Charlie, how your angels get down like that Girl, I didn't know you could get down like that Charlie, how your angels get down like that Girl, I didn't know you could get down like that Charlie, how your angels get down like that Okay, we've just heard it mentioned. It's Independent Women Part 1 by Destiny's Child. Released as the first single from the Charlie's Angels official soundtrack

and the lead single from the group's third album Survivor, Independent Women Part 1 is Destiny's Child's seventh single overall in the UK and their first ever UK number one. Independent Women Part 1 went straight in at number one as a brand new entry selling 109,000 copies in its first week of sales. It stayed at number 1 for one week, beating Competition From, Walking Away by Craig David, which got to number 3, Operation Blade by Public Domain, which got to number

5, and The Way You Make Me Feel by Ronan Keating, which got to number 6. When it was knocked off the top spot, Independent Women Part 1 fell one place to number 2, and by the when it was knocked off the top spot, Independent Women Part 1 fell one place to number two. And by the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks. Andy, how are we feeling about Independent Women Part 1?

Well, I'm just sat here patiently waiting for Part 2. Was there ever a Part 2? Is there an album track? Yes, there is a part two? Is there an album track? Yeah. I think first of all, the first thing about this is that I had completely forgotten that this was the song for that terrible Charlie's Angels movie. I feel like that's a really good quiz question of Independent Women part one was the song released for which movie? And I feel like people wouldn't generally know that. Or is that just me who's forgotten that completely about it?

Well, they do sing about Charlie's Angels quite a lot in the song. I don't usually listen to it as actively as that where I'm picking up every lyric. I just completely forgot about that. Anyway, yes. So I really, really like this. I really, really like it. Obviously,

we're no stranger already on the podcast to girl band songs that are very, very feminist, that are all about girl power. I wonder who started that trend. But this is a very different take on it, and it's a very specific, very intelligent take on it. And I think that early seed of why Queen Bee is so popular, along with all of Destiny's Child, is that specific brand of femininity and feminism, which is kind of owning yourself and not just not needing a man, but also being able to sit down and give specific examples of the things you did for yourself and that a man didn't do for you and i feel like there is some you know real genuine substance to this plus it's really really catchy and it has you know some fantastic writing in it as well i think it has that wonderful call response call and response thing in the bridge with the

i bought it i bought it which manages to accomplish both things at the same time, it does that lovely trick of putting a message across while also making it in a sing-along way that will catch people's ear it is really the very definition of a mission statement for your group really, this is what we're

all about, this is what we want you to believe of us, this is how you want this is how we want to be enjoyed as independent women. And I really, really enjoy it. I think if I had a slight criticism of it, I think I'd like it to develop a bit more musically. But I don't think this is a song that's really about that. This is a song that's very heavily focused on the lyrics

and heavily focused on hooks. And it does have fantastic hooks in it there's about five of them there's the question tell me what you think about me and there's the and then the chorus of course um yeah i i think listening to this i can see immediately you know in context now why they would have caught people's eye so much destiny's child and particularly beyonce why she would have caught people's eye her voice stands out from the three to such a degree that it's almost ridiculous really you know you could immediately see that she was going to be the one that was going to break out of the group um i don't think you would have expected her to raise quite as high um up the chart as charts as she did and

become the cultural icon that she is but you can see why from songs like this, that's the highest praise that I can put on it really, so literally the only criticism I would have of it is that it sort of remains sort of the same throughout quite a lot of it but it's still a fantastic song

really, really like this Lizzie, how about you? Yeah, really, really like this. Lizzie, how about you? Yeah, I find it funny that you said the three of them because there was actually four singers on this track. Really? Yeah, this is when they had a fourth member, Farrah Franklin, but she left the group before they did any of the promo material, so you don't see her on the cover or in the video,

but she does the, you know, the, I bought it, she does that call you know the i bought it she does that call and response what an interesting fact wow yeah there you go it's kind of like um what's her face carrie katona on some of atomic uh kittens stuff isn't it where she's on the record but she's not in any of the videos that's true yeah yeah um yeah with regards to this, for the first time on Hits 21, not only can I vividly recall the music videos for each of the songs we're covering, but I associate the songs themselves

with the main colour palette of the videos themselves in like a synesthesia kind of way. So Never Had a Dream from True is like this icy shade of white or blue. Stan is this dark, murky grey. Sort of green, yeah, like green. Yeah. And Independent Women is, you know what I'm going to say, it's that warm, orangey red.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm glad I remember that about the video for this song because I don't remember the film that this song was produced for at all. You're not missing much. No, I'm sure I'm not. We do still get hit songs released for movies. I'm thinking like Happy by

Pharrell was meant for I think Despicable Me 2. Yeah. But I'm struggling to recall a recent one where the title of the movie forms part of the song's hook. Write it on a postcard if you have any suggestions listeners um i mean that surprisingly makes this song very similar in some respect to against all odds it's obviously a much better song though i could tell by that

offended silence i was wondering where that was going yeah yeah it's not a comparison you were keen on um and it's yeah this is much better than the film version of charlie's angels seems to have deserved like this feels like the blueprint for beyonce breaking out with the group and expanding on that theme of like you mentioned andy like empowering women and feminism but the rest of Destiny's Child I think elevate this track above a lot of her later solo work in my opinion like the call and response between Kelly Rowland and Farrah Franklin is instantly memorable but it also feels more natural than something like the one in Run the World by Beyonce, which feels just like, I don't know, someone screaming in your face.

And I like that it's kind of a sly, humble brag about financial control rather than just flexing for flexing's sake. And the group harmonies are great in this too, particularly in that gorgeous little bridge section, which is apparently an interpolation of the chorus to rapture by blondie and then it goes back into that fist pumping call and response chorus one more time really good stuff and i think i kind of had the same complaint in that um maybe doesn't develop much musically but that's fine i think the biggest complaint i have is that

they lay on a bit thick with the charlie's angels stuff yeah and i'm very i'm definitely glad that style of like blatant cross promotion in pop music seems to have died out in more recent years but you know it's easy enough to look past that i'd appreciate this for what it is though it's not just a great pop song but it's a signpost for the future of pop music yep yeah yeah i wouldn't disagree um yeah it's just sort of laughing at what you've mentioned there this is a great example of what the uh corporate heads are probably called brand synergy yeah jesus christ yeah like like because if you think about it this song was dominating the singles charts on both sides of the atlantic yeah charlie's angels film was doing quite well at the time um on both sides of the atlantic as well um i think this is i think this is a big year in general for movie songs that are far better than they have any right to be.

Don't forget that Pure Shores was a movie song. And some that are far worse than they have any right to be. Like American Pie. American Pie, of course, yeah. But I just find it kind of strange that the film didn't have more of a lasting cultural impact, maybe because

it wasn't any good. Or maybe it did, and I've just not noticed I thought it feels like independent women part one has never properly gone away whereas I feel like if it wasn't for the song constantly referencing Charlie's Angels you'd be like oh yeah what who yeah what film did they oh yeah that one from three years ago with Christian Stewart in it no no, no, the one from, like, 20 years ago with Lucy Liu in it and Cameron Diaz. Oh, no, no, you didn't remember either.

Okay. But, yeah, you know, it's... The song is super smooth and packed with lots of very, I would say, iconic hooks, not just memorable. Like, it's loaded with great ideas that like you said andy the question and the um shoes on my feet and you've also got the that great third verse that completely cuts out any and all instruments and has those really luscious harmonies

and vocal arrangements and obviously the um girl i didn't know you could get down like that, which is that post chorus that kind of doubles as an outro. Yeah. But yeah, I also kind of sit there wondering why I don't love this. I like it a fair bit, but I think kind of struggles against the lack of progression. It doesn't grow much in size. I think you two kind of picked up on it by saying it doesn't grow much in size i think youtube kind of picked up on it by saying it doesn't expand much musically and like once you get past the first chorus the the only new section that really arrests me and kind of stops me is that cut into that third verse when everything drops out and it has loads of ideas but it all feels a little front loaded with them um i think it's really cool and it's slick um great r&b record feels really emblematic of a particular time

and like you say lizzie three times this week where a song starts and i instantly remember the video yeah and this like all three songs this week and that's a really good example of like good aesthetic management where the music video and the song kind of become synonymous with each other even when neither of them are particularly playing it's just you know if a song is if the song's playing you you'll you'll immediately your mind will jump to i mean i like you say lizzie without watching the music video this week I still knew what colours you were going to say because it's that burning orange with the

black outfits and like I just seem to remember them sitting at a table doing like a fist in the air kind of like swaying from side to side like doing the cool thing I guess that was the poster too for the film where they all dressed up like the stars of

the movie and that sort of thing. Yeah they're doing the pose where it's like two of them have the back to each other and one of them's just in the middle with like a gun pose kind of thing. Yeah but yeah like the pointing straight at the camera that sort of thing. But yeah I think it's a really strong and memorable song but as much as i understand why everybody remembers it and loves it um there's just something inside of me that normally flips on emotionally when i'm listening to a song i you know have a really strong connection to and this just never i don't know there's a little flicker but not much because you're not a feminist yes that must be uh must be why i mean i do sort of listen to this song and sort of wonder like you know with the vast amounts of wealth that

beyonce has now whether like she's sort of sitting there and sort of accepting like okay you know i you know became part of the system and won or gained the system to win or whether she's still like you know she kind of does it as an ex like you know my personal wealth is an extension of a feminist cause kind of thing because i do sort of sit there and wonder about the vast amounts of money that her and jay-z have and then like i listen to this and i'm just sort of like hmm just going through like everything in their house like i bought it i live in the caribbean i bought it it's like i think this song works up to a point of about having a salary of about 50 grand a year because once you get beyond

that point it's just like it's no longer you working for it. It's just money that's coming to you because of things you've done. Yeah. Like it's, it's, you know, I feel like there is a certain salary cap where once you go beyond that cap, you stop earning anything beyond that. That's just money that comes to you from somewhere else. And loads of artists have tried ways to justify how the money comes to them. Like with Kanye West in recent years, it's like, Oh, loads of artists have tried ways to justify how the money comes to them like with kanye west in

recent years it's like oh he's gone from making songs like all falls down about like you know the the traps of consumerism especially in like the african-american and black communities and stuff like that to now saying that all the money i have is divine justice and god put me here to make all this money and so i sit there listening to this thinking about like the money that beyonce now has and it's like it doesn't ring hollow but it just leaves a bit of a a sour taste if you know what i mean it's not massive and it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the track at all because that would be unfair that's what i'm projecting onto it but yeah it's just a question i sit and ponder about

um speaking of question i have a minor nitpick about the lyrics i don't know if either of you two picked up on this where they say question tell me what you think about me it's not a question it's a command but yeah again that's just a minor nitpick yeah um i don't know if either of you have anything to say i have anything else to say? Yeah, I have one small anecdote. Nothing to do with the song itself. My sister was quite a big fan of Destiny's Child, so this was good news for her. But

basically for this, it would have been this Christmas probably or the one after it, because we're in November, December now. My sister asked for a dance mat for Christmas off my parents. They were all the rage then. You know, your little plug-in soft foam dance mats

that you plug into the telly. And bless my parents' hearts, we couldn't really afford one. So the one that we got was fairly jarg. It was fairly, you know, it was not exactly up to date and every single song on it was from the 70s or the 80s and we didn't know any of those songs except for, randomly, Independent Women Part 1. That was

like the one modern song on there that we knew. And so a lot of the time when I hear this song, I hear the awful tinny monophonic ringtone version that was on the dance mat like da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da full tinny like monophonic ringtone version that was on the dance floor like i have um a slight follow-on note about finances um rob just because i found it interesting this week that two of the artists we're covering have a combined network of about 750 million whereas the other act left when their careers finally

fizzled out they had made about 600,000 each. I mean that's not a small amount of money. It's not a small amount but it's not enough to live off if you're 24 like you can't retire

on it but who is it well we'll just have to find out up next it's this Everybody's got something they had to leave behind One regret from yesterday that just seems to grow with time There's no use looking back or wondering How it could be now or might have been

All this I know but still I can't find ways to let you go I never had a dream come true Till the day that I found you Even though I pretend that I've moved on You'll always be my baby I never found the words to say You're the one I think about And I know no matter where life takes me to A part of me will always be with you

Alright, this is Never Had a Dream Come True by S Club 7. Released as the last single from the group's second album, imaginatively titled Seven. Never Had a Dream Come True is S Club 7's sixth single overall to be released in the UK. It is also their second number one after Bring It All Back reached the summit in 1999. The song is also the only hit S Club 7 ever had in the United States,

reaching number 10 on the Billboard 100. It is not the group's last number one in the UK. Never Had A Dream Come True went straight in at number one as a brand new entry, knocking Destiny's Child off the top and selling 144,000 copies in its first week of sales. It stayed at number one for one week, beating competition from Don't Tell Me by Madonna, which got to number four, I Put a Spell on You by Sonic, which got to number eight, and Fat Base by Warp Brothers vs. versus aquagen which got to number nine when it was knocked off the top spot never had a dream come true dropped one place to number three no

it didn't that's maths dropped two places to number three and by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for 25 weeks which is a big number I think I'm just so used to typing dropped one placed number two that when something else happens I'm like autopilot kicks in I guess

but never mind Lizzie so the members of S Club 7 I guess were the ones who were left with 600 grand to their name and then that was it yeah I think I've told you in the group chat

that I've become a little bit obsessed with the S Club phenomenon over the last couple of weeks I'm so ready for this yeah, and like, because Rob we recently finished Game of thrones right and i thought well what better time to revisit some of those peak tv classics so like you know the sopranos and the wire and mad men and miami 7 in which a group of young Brits are sold off to

a despotic hotel owner in Miami they are literally sold and they just make plenty of points at that there's a contract and everything and like they're forced to perform menial work by day and

to entertain the locals by night doing like song and dance renditions on stage of tie a yellow ribbon by um tony orlando and dawn like this like this this show goes to some weird places i've i've binged the whole thing in like a weekend just because i've just missed that's amazing that is commitment I've done that a few times as well it's a really easy watch and a really fun watch I love it yeah it goes down easy

but it's so stupid like I think there's one episode where they they have to free an alligator yes while the girls go shopping with the hotel owner in preparation for like I think it's a date or something and they do this song and dance routine in the shop itself but the shop just looks like

debonams in stockport it looks really grotty and they're like it looks like that's it looks like that shop from in between is where the guy goes to jesse it looks like it's probably the same one like oh god there's another one where they have to go to court and like this this whole thing like the immigration inspectors come to the hotel and it's like oh no you can't be working you've only got entertainment visas and there's this whole discussion about visas you know for kids and i remember isn't that somehow resolved by they all get up in the courtroom and perform S Club Party and that resolves the case in some way

exactly that, the judge is like well how can you prove you're a band and one of them just whips out a CD player and it's like S Club and like all the members of the jury all just getting down like yeah this is the best case I've ever been on oh god and then right anyway This is the best case I've ever been on. Oh, God.

And then, oh, God. Right, anyway. You know what? No, I'm going to stay on Miami 7. We're not letting this conversation go. You know what I really love about Miami 7 is the surrealness of it, like the fact that it takes place on a level of reality

that is neither fantasy nor real. It's sort of neither one thing or the other. And I've always loved that about it. And you told me, because I said, this really reminds me of spice world like it has that weird oddness to it with sort of yeah you know it's got like monty python humor to it which is really strange considering these are supposed to be like cool top of the land top of the line pop stars and you told me it was written by the same person Kim Fuller yeah Kim Fuller the brother of Simon

oh brother of Simon I should say sorry yeah yeah and it does have that same strangeness to it like the absolutely where they can all create lightning with their hands and that's just unremarked upon but well they do that for the first couple of episodes

and then they just forget about it for like the middle of the show and then it comes back at the end and to get around this on let's go on to get around the censors as well they invent their own swear word yeah it's a load of pop there's one episode where they go to the bermuda triangle and they end up back in the 70s like oh i remember that one! Like, sneaky wigs. This is the one I remember!

Yeah. Oh, my God. The only other thing I remember from the S Club TV shows was when Paul left the group and they had to make a whole episode about how Paul had left. Well, he stayed to film it. He actually did film an exit. Yeah.

And they also, for real, did his relationship with Hannah because he was going out with Hannah while the band was going out and they wrote that into the shows and gave them an on-screen romance as well, which then they had to break up when he left the group, even though they hadn't broken up in real life. So it was very surreal what was happening at the time. Again, we're not sure what level of reality that show was taking place on. Yeah, and it's like, you know how the Spice Girls

all had their own individual characters, like you had Sporty and Baby and Scary, but in the show, they try and get around that by just giving them vague characteristics. Like, I think Paul's always hungry. Bradley's like a raging sex pest. No, Bradley's just stupid. They make Bradley stupid, really.

Yeah, John's really intelligent for some reason, and yet he shows up in the first episode in a suit that looks like it's from 1973. It's got collars that could take a kid's eye out. My favourite scene in the whole of Miami 7 is his day on the job, where he gets that office job, and that boss keeps walking over to him

going, whack, whack, oops! This is Angela. She's mad. This this is Angela she's mad she's mad genuinely very funny that scene it predicted the office yeah anyway I really want to go back through that now

oh Rob you need to the characterisation they gave to Jo was that she was just a knobhead like she's just horrible oh yeah she's really aggressive, yeah. Well, not to go into it too much, but when we reach January 2007, I think we'll have a lot to say about that. I am going to start referring to these kinds of songs

as chime ballads from now on because they all sing from basically the same hymn sheet they all make very similar moves like the chimes they all do the key change they all seem suited to groups um but as chime ballads go this is kind of sweet um there's got to be a reason why this is the only S Club song to reach the charts in America. Reach? Reach. A. I missed that.

Good thing you caught it. If it connects with that many people, then something must be right. Maybe it's just Christmas. I'm a big fan of how they rephrase every drop into each chorus, even if that key change is a little awkward at the end. But it does only go up by a semitone, I think. So like the change isn't that bad and Joe's voice can actually compete with it.

So it keeps that sense of wintry romance that I think that they're trying to put forward with the music video and like the strings and this kind of big epic christmasy feel to it where they've kind of done the e17 trick where they have a non-christmas song giving lots of christmas sprinklings including the big white fur coats in the video yeah um and i think the audio and visual aesthetics they all match up quite nicely with this you know it's not a a christmas ballad that kind of snuggles up next to the fire you know next to the someone that you love and it's all about like looking at the you know looking at the snow outside from inside

your warm log cabin or anything like that it's more it reminded me more of like a scene from say um eternal sunshine you know where they go and do the snow angels on the ice like under the bit you know everyone's in woolly hats and scarves and that sort of thing um and you know s club weren't exactly known for ballads at this point you know they'd had two in a million which was kind of a ballad but it was more up tempo than your typical kind yeah so yeah but it has a beat, you know? Whereas ballads tend to have a very, you know,

slower than a dying person's heart rate kind of speed to them. Whereas, like, with Two in a Million, it does at least have a, you know, there's a bit of a you can click to it or something like that. You can't sway to Two in a Million. You'd get dizzy pretty quickly. This is a swaying

song yes um you know the s couple kind of known for that upbeat jolly almost annoying brand of 90s pop you know bring it all back to you you know doing like uh reach for the stars you know it's all very optimistic and oh isn't life great sort of thing um but it's as much as like you know so it's a nice kind of pivot for them for the new millennium i guess but my main issue with it is just how much it repeats a formula that feels pretty predictable like its progressions don't really arrive as surprises or releases of emotion they just kind of do the thing they're engineered to do and every time it makes a change or a transition i'm like yeah fine sure you do that like you know more power to you i'm not gonna be annoyed with you but i'm not gonna be taken away by anything

you're doing right now either um it's funny though like um we were talking about you know brand synergy with films and things like that. I can't believe that out of the songs that we're covering this week, this is the only one without an accompanying film. Be it a blockbuster or a short film. Not true. Yeah, go on Andy. Well, they did Christmas specials every year, I think, while they existed. Well, they did Christmas specials every year, I think, while they existed.

This is another sort of fond childhood memory of mine. The year before this, they appeared in a Christmas TV drama called The Greatest Store in the World, which was about a family who sleep in a big department store over Christmas because they're homeless and they have to sort of not be noticed by the staff. And during the events of that film they are nearly caught by S Club 7 who are there to do a photo shoot and who sing You're My Number One for a bit

anyway this year though they did have an actual Christmas special didn't they I think which was is it the one that it's like out in the country after they've left Miami and they're on the way to LA there is an actual Christmas special that took place around this time yeah yeah because i know there was one like called i think it's back to the 50s or something but i don't think that was the christmas special and i was i was going to say that this song does appear in seeing double their actual

yes it does full-length feature film so yeah ah well that's that actually adds a little bit of weight to what i'm about to say next which is that a lot of these ballads kind of like the ones we've had with west life as well they feel like hangovers from the 90s a little bit like it just kind of reminds me of like the big you know films like you know the big hollywood productions from like the last days of non-digital filmmaking you know like from the 80s and 90s where it's like things like my heart will go on you'll be in my heart or even something even like as far back as where we belong or something you know like those massive oscar winners yeah where the music video randomly cuts to like dramatic moments from the film and things like that which is to say

that i think this formula is kind of tried and tested and in the bigger picture of pop music in general this kind of song is about to die a death like it's it's about to die on its ass like we're not far away i don't think we're in the grand scheme of things, you know, in terms of this show we're quite a bit away yet, but by the 2010s, this kind of song would be hard pushed. It gets colonised by X Factor for a bit but then after that, yeah, it just vanishes off the face of the earth.

Yeah. And outside of X Factor and stuff like that, I just don't think these kind of songs really have much sway in the near future. And so it's fine, this one. It's sweet. It's okay.

But it's all right, I think. And I think S Club were a favorite of mine when I was really small. Like, I remember the TV show and stuff and had all their albums and whatnot. But, yeah, it's all right. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. What about you two? Go on, Andy.

I've kind of, I will talk about the song in a bit, I promise. No, I'll let you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you. We both just kind of got carried away about Miami Seven there, didn't we? So that's fine. I have to immediately disagree with you on one point Rob this is not

a Christmas song and I will go to my grave saying that no no it isn't I said it's not it's not a Christmas song but it has it's a Christmas video

I don't agree that there's anything musically about it that's Christmas at all no no next to Bugger All yeah

I'm saying entirely Bugger All you know it's got that little descending chime thing that you sometimes hear in the ballads around this time. You know, the... Yeah, but that's just almost nothing. It really kind of bothers me that there seems to...

It doesn't bother me that much, obviously. I've got a life to live. But, you know, it bothers me a little bit that there seems to have been this industry consensus that this is a Christmas song. And every Christmas that every time, like there seems to be this industry consensus that this is a Christmas song. And every Christmas, every time all the music videos come on at Christmas, this is always there. And it's like, it's just not, it's not.

It's different to Stay Another Day because Stay Another Day is more over the top with it. We've got do, do, do, do, do, do, like at the end of the last chorus and stuff. Whereas this, it's literally just the video. Like it's just the video. I just don't see it at all and that's just a minor point, that just really annoys me, but anyway, yes

as you may have gathered, I loved S Club loved them they supplanted Steps, I think the order of hierarchy for me, when it was Spice Girls then they got replaced by Steps, then Steps got replaced by S Club you can cast all your judgement

on my opinions as much as you want there, but anyway I did love them but I don't love this, and I never did love this I think it's pretty straight down the line, straightforward ballad and to be honest as an adult that's the main criticism I would make of S Club in general is that they are the very epitome

of playing it safe, manufactured pop bands who are more of a product than they are a band. And that's not as scathing a criticism as it sounds. You know, that's been true of bands ever since, you know, the Monkees, who made a success of that with, you know, did the same thing of singing songs with their own names in and things like that. And Spice Girls made a huge success of that as well. I don't think there's anything wrong with that but I think there's just not enough character in almost any of S Club songs really to really elevate it above that bubblegum pop scene. Certainly not Jo, I don't think she's as good a front woman as they like to believe that she is. Although she's a good singer,

won't deny that, but I don't think, I completely agree with you Rob, that I just don't think the character is there, I don't think any of them come out in the way that you'd expect. In terms of this song though, it's okay, it's fine, I don't really have anything specific to say about it musically other than that the key change is really unnecessary,'s pointless it really really is clearly sort of cribbed from Westlife who are doing it so often at the moment it's

fine I wish that the other six had anything to do in this I understand that you need a lead singer and they can't share it out seven ways in every song but you can share it out two or three ways surely and this seems to happen in almost every s club song i believe the only singles of theirs where someone else takes a

lead is don't stop moving where bradley um sort of has a duet with joe yeah and natural which rachel sings other than that i believe every single other s club single is almost entirely joe um yeah which is strange really because i don't think it merits it, but yeah. It's fine. It's nothing special. It's not a Christmas song, and I won't really listen to it very often, but a tiny, small, special place in my heart for S Club means I'm going to go fairly light on it, because otherwise it's pretty meh, yeah. Just with mentioning there about joe being sort of like a front woman of the band and stuff even when she's not on lead they still give her the big note that transitions into the final chorus yeah that's true you get that on don't stop moving where it's like

listen to the sound and it make it come alive and she carries on while the chorus starts. And you also get, follow that rainbow, and your dreams will all come true. And, like, she always gets the big moment. Spice Girls always used to do Mel C. True. I don't know if that's what... But I don't think it's spotlighting her.

I think it's more that they're reliant on her. I think that there's no question that her voice is the strongest. No question at all. I think the other three have very thin voices. I don't think they would have any chance of hitting the notes that Jo is able to hit. So she just gets given them every time. A bit like Mercedes in Glee, for people who get that reference, just got wheeled out at the end of every song

because she was by a million miles the best singer. Lizzie, what about you? Yeah yeah it's fitting that you mentioned glee because miami 7 is kind of like a british version of glee like glum you could call it because everything's really fucking gray for some reason um but yeah i i totally agree with you both i think this is decent but unremarkable um it's a tough sell after the bubbly Motown-inspired Sunshine pop. Bring It All Back is kind of inspired by I Want You Back by the Jackson 5. You can maybe say You're My Number One is inspired by Chain Reaction or something like that. Yeah.

And yeah, this seems to me like Simon Fuller looked at Westlife's success in the past year and decided he wanted a piece of that pie because this has pretty much all the same beats as the Westlife tracks we've covered previously like it's it's got the quiet contemplative opening big sweeping single on chorus stool abandoning key change just before the end it never gets faster than a gentle sway or just it doesn't take any unexpected turns and they bellow their way to the finish line and like you both i wish the backing singers had more to do on this i feel a bit feel a bit bad for them they've just got to stare longingly into the camera and meander in their big fur coats in the

video yeah they just look like a gang of youths who are just sort of hanging around and loitering it's quite awkward yeah but yeah i do like this song more than most of the westlife tracks we've covered because i think the chord progression is pretty nice especially in the chorus and i find there's more restraint in the vocals than the shout-offs you usually get towards the end of a Westlife single. So I don't think this is anywhere near the best S Club single, but it's definitely not the worst. What is the worst?

Stay tuned for both of those. Ooh, there's some real stinkers coming up next year, Andy. There's Alive. I always hated Alive. I think that's rubbish. I think You's terrible. Oh, You is quite bad. Yeah. It's funny that, you know,

they sort of slightly tried to mature their sound after the 90s ended, but then they release You, which is like, oh Christ, it's too sickly sweet for Barbie. It's just... Yeah, I'm looking forward to LA7.

It's going to be a fun time. All right, then. Our last song for this week is this. I can't see it all. Even if I could, it'd all be grey. But your picture on my wall, it reminds me that it's not so bad. It's not so bad. My tears come cold, I'm wondering why. But now I've had it all.

The morning rain cloudsved up my window And I can't see at all Even if I could It'd all be grey But your picture on my wall It reminds me That it's not so bad It's not so bad

Dear Slim, I wrote you But you still ain't calling I left my cell, my pager, and my home phone at the bottom I sent two letters back in autumn, you must not have got em There probably was a problem at the post office or something Sometimes I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot em But anyways, fuck it, what's been up man, how's your daughter? My girlfriend's pregnant too, I'm about to be a father

If I have a daughter, guess what I'ma call her, I'ma name her Bonnie I read about your uncle Ronnie too, I'm about to be a father If I have a daughter, guess what I'ma call her I'ma name her Bonnie I read about your Uncle Ronnie too, I'm sorry I had a friend kill himself over some bitch who didn't want him I know you probably hear this every day But I'm your biggest fan I even got the underground shit that you did with Scam I got a room full of your posters and your pictures, man I like the shit you did with Rockets too, that shit was fat

Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back, sister chat Truly yours, your biggest fan, this is Stan My tears come cold, I'm wondering why Got out of bed at all The morning rain clouds up my window And I can't see at all Even if I could, it'd all be grey But your picture on my wall Okay, this is Stan by Eminem, released as the last single from Eminem's second major

label album, the Marshall Mathers LP. Stan is his fifth single overall in the UK and his second number one after The Real Slim Shady hit the top of the charts earlier in the year 2000. Stan went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking S Club 7 off the top of the charts and selling 203,000 copies in its first week of sales. It stayed at number one for one week, beating competition from can we fix it by bob the builder which got to number two yes we can more on that later yes we can um stronger by britney spears which got to number seven and nine one one yes a bit too low for me uh and nine one

one by wycliffe jean and m. Blige, which got to number 9. When Stan was knocked off the top spot, it fell one place to number 2 and drifted out of the top 100 after 20 weeks. However, Stan would re-enter the charts twice in 2004 and then again in 2011. As of today, Stan has spent a total of 25 weeks inside the top 100. Andy, I don't know where we really begin with Stan, because I feel like it's looming over the words I've written about it, and it may loom over everything we say, but you know, you first. Yes, well apparently we begin with me.

This feels like a bit of pressure because this is maybe a bold statement. I think there are other songs that could possibly take this title, but I think in terms of a sort of cultural moment, in terms of a piece of music that you would look back on, regardless of its quality, that you would look back on as important. I think this is the biggest, probably, so far. It's brilliant. It's really, really brilliant. I think it's one of those songs that really you'd have to be a huge hipster, a huge contrarian to not enjoy, because it just gets everything right, absolutely everything right. The choice of sample is so perfect and I think what is often not remarked upon is I think

people forget what a different song Thank You is to this. The Thank You doesn't have this mood to it, it doesn't feel like, because they use that one set of lines that is, you know, oh despair, I don't want to go on and stuff, they forget that Thank You is actually about, oh well, you know, things will be okay, you know, oh, despair, I don't want to go on and stuff. They forget that Thank You is actually about, oh, well, you know, things will be okay. You know, it's much more hopeful than that, and it's completely unrecognisable here, even though all they've really done is put a bit of, you know,

record scratch over it and used it in a better context. I say better context, it's an infinitely better song than Thank You. I also have to feel slightly sorry for dido and that i think this is probably the most famous thing she's done even though she didn't contribute to it other than providing her sample um did they ever perform this live together they did yes oh i'd love to see that that's great anyway yeah um it really is fantastic and i think it does a really great thing with the story that I think often story songs you know the really bad ones are because it's just silly and it's outlandish and you can't relate to this story the really good

ones are ones that manage to have a fine balance here and that yes this is an extreme story this is something that is specific to Eminem's experience but also it's something that in a small way we can all relate to as as Stan as the writer of the letter and I think all of us have had a brief moment where we've idolized someone so much that you feel sad that they don't know you you feel sad that they don't know what what they mean to you um you know I've certainly had that at times as a kid and stuff when I really, really, you know, wanted to meet my idols and stuff. And it would feel a little bit unfair that you can't. And, you know, for most people that passes very, very quickly and it's not a

big thing in your life, but it easily could be if you didn't rein that in. And I think it has that slightly relatable element to it. Not to say that I would ever do this, that I would ever be a stan for someone. There's that aspect of it as well, of course, the word stan. You know, it's not many songs that create both a verb and a noun all of their own. And I think that fact is possibly sometimes forgotten as well because that's such a common part of language now

that there are kids born using the word stan who might not know this song, which is a very sobering thought. But anyway, it deserves all the praise that it gets, and I think the great thing about the story is it takes its time. It's a gradual build. At no point is there any kind of stupid logical leap where it feels like a pastiche, where it feels like an insincere story. I don't know. Maybe one of you two can film in on this, I don't know whether this is a true

story or whether it's based on a true story but I feel like it was. He's managed to convince me that this is in some way real, that he was getting these kind of letters and it does have that sense of authenticity to it and it has that sense of there was just nothing to be done about this situation. This is sad for everyone. This is sad for Eminem because there's nothing he can do. He gets too many letters. He's too busy to reach out to this guy.

It's very, very sad for Stan because obviously he's, you know, extremely troubled in so many ways. And it's sad for the listener to just listen to this unfold. so many ways and it's sad for the listener to just listen to this unfold and it it taps into another genre of song which can sometimes be terrible and cringy as well which is the oh it's being famous genre um which usually i really can't stand because i think it's just such a sort of first world problem but this articulates it so well in that you have such a weight of responsibility as a pop star something that is not what you do it's not something you train for you know you're a musician and suddenly you have people who are staking their whole lives on you and it's it's something that I think most

makes most celebrities deeply uncomfortable it's why so many of them stay off social media why so many of them don't look at their fan mail because it it's so toxic once you dig into it. And that's the thing that really sort of sticks with this, is that it's just very, very sad. It's very deeply and very, very seriously sad that even if this isn't entirely true, certainly this will be happening to so many celebrities around the world. And it's very, very poignant, and it sticks with you. And I and it's very very poignant and it sticks with you and i think it's such a simple story that is told over such a long five or six minutes in such an articulate way that i think everybody could instantly say oh that's the song about this you know everybody still remembers um what this song is about even people who aren't particularly into eminem and it has that immediacy

it has that power that i think is sort of timeless. It's wonderful. It's a really, really, really great song. And I think, for me personally, by far, Eminem's greatest piece of work, definitely. Lizzy? Yeah, I have to say, I totally echo your thoughts on this, Andy. You put it really beautifully. And I suppose I just want to briefly talk about Dido as well, because, yeah, this song is, like, you can't really picture the song without the samples.

That sample is just perfect. And I think I'm maybe a bigger fan of Thank You than you are, Andy, but it's interesting to note, like, I don't really feel sorry for her because she was huge. She had albums which sold, sold like 15 million copies worldwide and i think she was kind of getting to the point of stardom like before stan but this kind of elevated her to like superstardom more or less overnight and it's interesting to note really that she doesn't have any uk number ones on her own but she has two as a featured artist

interesting i'm sure what's the other one it's uh do they know it's christmas 2004 but yeah um i'm glad you mentioned real slim shady as well because seeing the what seeing hearing these two eminem songs in hits 21 is kind of like it's like going back and watching an old Simpsons episode and just remembering what you loved about it in the first place and like finding jokes and little moments in it that you you never even noticed all those years ago and for a minute you can almost forget about the decades upon decades of near total rubbish that they've put out since. But yeah this is like near perfect it's more or less as good as hip-hop can get really and you don't

hip-hop can get really and you don't like you don't see stuff like this in hip-hop in general let alone the pop charts where usually it's only you know who can throw the most money at it and that's who wins the race it's like this is a short story in song form and it's brutal and it's sad and as much as i i've not seen that it's based on anything I totally agree with you Andy in that it's probably been something that Eminem's been through like fans who get a little bit too close and it's sort of and don't really understand boundaries and it's like this is you know this was written like what 22 years ago this is still something that's happening now and obviously like mega fandom was a thing before Eminem you know you look back through like Elvis or the Beatles you'll find those super fans but

I think it's that very specific brand of like assuming that you're you're kind of in with them and like you're their best friend because I don't know they happen to meet you once or you know you they sent you a reply to a tweet or something and yeah it's just this this warped cold depressing tale about obsession and guilt and fear and yeah I think it's I think it's incredible and it's in case you haven't guessed it's very hard to write about because like what more is there to say about this song that hasn't already been said it's it's legendary yeah I think I think I mean absolutely absolutely right Lizzie definitely and I think maybe the only aspect of that that I sort of got to touch on was that it is actually a although it's more brief

although they don't get to go into this with as much detail as they could I do think it's also a fairly good examination of mental health as well that this yeah this is not it's it's not just about the celebrity factor here. You feel like it could have been anything. He could have become obsessed with anything, and Eminem was the target. But this kind of behavior, it has a sort of very, very progressive,

for the time, mental health message as well, which is that, yes, this guy's done an awful thing, and he's being incredibly nasty to Eminem and he's also you know harming his family but also this roots from mental illness and you shouldn't judge these people you know there's there's a lot to unpack here um and the fact that it's about Eminem and that it's got this showbiz factor to it is almost ephemeral to the story that we've got Eminem's side of it Eminem's view of it but stan's view of it you know it's it's i feel like it's not specifically about eminem it's just a sad mental health story as well

um which certainly again has huge timelessness has huge relevance um you know this is a good one to look back on i think he was very ahead of the curve of that yeah it's a song about like loneliness and isolation how that can sort of warp your worldview and it yeah like the fact of the matter is he's writing a letter to this guy he barely even knows if at all and yeah it's just the the lack of a reply suggests that there's there's kind of nothing else in his life sustaining him. Yeah, I do think that Stan, the character, is, like you were saying there, just about how if it's not Eminem,

it would be something else. You know, Eminem just happens to fill the hole that's in his life, and it could be something else. But yeah, with great power comes great responsibility absolutely that's kind of how I feel about this before I begin just like you two

just want to shout out Thank You by Dido which I think is a lovely song Stan would not exist without it thanks to Dido for allowing Eminem to use it she appears in the video she also performs it live with him

on like Top of the Pops and stuff adds a bit of weight to the performance yeah all cool like you were saying there Andy

like the the uplift into the I want to thank you it's weird to think about yeah it just feels like a totally different song it's more like an

Enya song or something yeah you know because that's the beginning of the song in Thank You because that's the beginning of the song

have you ever had the same experience that I've had where it starts and then it moves into the chorus of Thank You and people are startled

people are like oh oh I thought this was Stan that's happened like so many times when I've heard that song oh you know what that is that's the jump around

thing you know where you hear the It's like am I gonna hear Harlem Shuffle or am I gonna hear Jump Around? To refer back to Destiny's Child the opening of Edge of Seventeen sounding like yeah well it's the same sample as Bootylicious, isn't it? And that catching people out as well. Yeah, with this, where to start? I think this is something else. I feel like this being number one is like an accident that a

lot of people are responsible for. It's not commercial in any way. It's like this nearly seven minute long descent into madness that ends in tragedy. It's a sign of how powerful eminem was in the year 2000 i think that this could get to number one like he's just talking about a you know a slightly fictitious embellished version of something that

he may or may not have experienced or thought about at some point or another and 200 000 people went out and bought it like that's crazy like that's really really huge figures um i have looked at this song from so many different angles over the years and like i feel like i've interrogated it like as much as i can like lizzy was sort of saying that you don't often get stuff like this in hip-hop generally and especially not in pop hip-hop is a genre that means a lot to it a lot to me like i've studied it and like i've written about it so much and i've just listened to so many records i'm always reading about it and always trying to learn more about the genre and where it originated and how it originated and how it's developed and changed and And like, other than maybe power pop,

I think hip hop is like my favorite genre to like listen to and read about and observe how it develops. And like throughout hip hop history, there are very, very, very few songs that are like this where you have, I mean, obviously there are loads of hip hop tracks that are just stories, you know, from start to finish,

but hip hop tracks that are just stories, you know, from start to finish. But hip hop tracks that are just stories that get this big and define culture this much to the point where when literally anybody dyes their hair blonde and has it short, loads of people just take a picture of it and go, dear I wrote you but you still ain't calling like whenever Justin Bieber when Justin Bieber did it years ago or like when or even all the way through to something like in this new Lord of the Rings show there's a picture of what Sauron looked like as a child and it's a small child with bleach blonde shaved

head and it with a bleach blonde shaved hair and like tell you what I always think of Rob that actually was based on Eminem is Anthony and the Royal Family oh yeah yeah exactly you know it's just it has become such a titan of pop culture

that like it's like you say it spawned this Stan thing which I'll talk about a little bit towards the end but like where the real Slim Shady was like, one side of Eminem responding to fame like, ha, you know, you all hate me but you love me, you're all hypocrites, you know, like, you know, it's like, that kind of thing, this is the other side of the coin of what it's like to be shot to fame so fast that you are still recognizable and relatable to millions of people but still

end up selling millions and millions and millions of copies like you know Eminem's probably like the most famous person in the world at this point and literally two years before this like no one had ever heard of him he was just like a like, a battle rapper from Detroit, like, it just, that's how fast it all changed overnight for him, and so, I imagine, like, you know, in his head, you know, a lot of things go through it, and I imagine Eminem imagines how this is some, some, some of his many millions of fans might respond to his fame, I think this is one of the most perceptive songs I've ever heard, like, the, the lyrical detail and, like, the weight of responsibility that sits on Eminem's shoulders, it's like, he's, he's not exactly making himself blameless for it either, because he doesn't say, like, I didn't ask for any of this to happen, like, you know, stop having a go at me if

anybody, you know, if somebody wants to project onto me, that's their fault like you know stop having to go at me if anybody you know if somebody wants to project onto me that's their fault you know but it's kind of like he takes responsibility for him in especially in the last verse where it's like he does take the time down take the time out to write down like how he might respond to somebody like this and but then the whole tragedy is that like the letter never reaches him because Eminem's been too busy with fame and too busy with like the money that he's making and too busy with like the records that he's got to make and all the video shoots that he's got to do and like you know and it's kind of like Eminem Eminem comes to the mainstream

as a fully formed character I always think that like you know you know how much of a legend a rapper is if they have more than one name besides their own i always think like you know eminem has slim shady and people refer to him as marshall mathers i mean that's his actual name but like you know he's got like three characters on the go and like people always say that about you know the notorious big biggie biggie smalls you know that they've always at tupac some people just refer to him as pac you know kanye west it's yay yeezy you know the you know they all when you get like one or two nicknames over time it's like okay this guy's a really big deal and eminem has like three nicknames that you could recognize him

by before his second albums even come out and like when you arrive that fully formed i imagine that does something to a lot of people and it's something that eminem tackles on through his first three major label records slightly diminishing returns with the next record that he does but i still think that the m&m show is a great record um i think it's just as good as marshall mathers and slim shady lp i know not a lot of people would agree with that but like i'm thinking about songs like white america where he kind of goes back round to the real slim Shady side of things. So with this one it feels like it stands alone a little bit in his discography because I think it's the only time and it's his magnum opus so you know why the hell would you ever do another song like this but I think it's the only time

where he kind of sits down kind of literally with a pen and kind of writes through all of the anxieties that come with suddenly being shot to fame and still being recognized you know you still see a lot of yourself you know fame hasn't detached you from the people you grew up around just yet and so you're given all this responsibility but without really the ability to actually deal with it but in i just think with the song as well like the the little details in the in the production that sit you right down in the scenario and kind of keep you locked there like the erratic pencil scratches while and the rain while stan is writing and the screaming from the boot of the car in the third verse and then the car crash itself

and then the slightly softer pencil scratching when it's eminem's turn to write like it's really cinematic you know they use a lot of you know he uses pathetic fallacy there's a second act twist where stan realizes that the message that he said into eminem will never be heard if he crashes his car and into the river and stuff like that and they do little things to the vocal edits as well um they they on m m's sorry no on stan's first two verses um there's a teeny teeny bit of reverb as if we're reading the words in our head you know like whenever it's depicted on a tv show whenever somebody reads a letter in their own head and you get that slight echo bouncing off it just to so just to sort of I guess you kind of like give

weight to the fact that the words are bouncing off the inside of the skull but then when you get to Stan's third verse when he's not writing anymore he's now shouting into this recorder there's no reverb at all it's completely raw as if we're sat in the car with him and then we go back to eminem's um back to eminem's uh his final verse um where the reverb comes back and it's as if we're reading the words off the page again um which is a really lovely little touch um and like i said before where dido's thank you rises up from like a minor tone into a major chorus stan stays right down in the dumps of that minor key verse and stretches the chord sequence out all the way to the end um the way that m raises the volume of his voice ever so slightly

as Stan's descent into madness continues, you know, by the point he's getting, like, to the, I hope he can't just eat you, you can't sleep without me, and stuff like that, and whatever he's saying. Like, it goes up the scale ever so slightly, and then it brings it right back down when Eminem's back. You know, even in the video, just something simple as eminem wearing glasses while he writes it's that perfect connection between how the song makes you feel eminem kind of comes in as like a calming voice of authority

at the end of the song but then when it comes to the end of the song you realize that eminem's kind of made a mistake as well he doesn't absolve himself of responsibility for Stan really and I think like Eminem's performance as Stan is so convincing that you do kind of forget that it's not

well you don't exactly forget that it's not Eminem but like you can separate the characters in this song really well like really really well i think you know the the video also really helps with that the fact that they were so close so closely associated with each other and obviously like stan ended up being like a nine minute short film where it like stops and starts and you know even the music video builds in a part of it but not much um but you do allow yourself to think that like it's the guy from the music video builds in a part of it but not much um but you do allow yourself

to think that like it's the guy from the music video doing all these verses because whenever you come to um you know um this is the last message i'll ever send your ass and stuff like that yeah i'm in my head i'm just imagining the guy in the car screaming while a dido's character is in the boot of the car yelling although obviously the music video cuts out a lot of the the description of what actually is happening like there's all the remember as a kid like the lines that were sort of like I didn't slit a throat and stuff like that it's just the the music video cuts out the I didn't slit a throat and like that's my girlfriend in the trunk and stuff like that and when it comes to Eminem's verse it completely cuts out that line where it's like um a guy drove his car over a

bridge and the girlfriend was in the trunk who was pregnant with his kid and that line is completely silent in the music video and when i was a little kid i was like so there's no lines in this bit okay that's fine but i was so captivated by that video and then when i grew up and found eminem on my own i was like oh there were words there and so um but and then when you reach the end of the song talking about eminem not absolving himself of responsibility exactly when it's the it was you damn like it really hammers home that like in a world where like this isn't the this isn't a song but is an actual news story nobody ever hears stan's verse from the car like it's just something that in the world of the song is just kind of lost to history we hear it yeah i quite like that

you don't know for sure which letter he's replying to. That it's left sort of ambiguous. Eminem doesn't seem to have all the facts. And it's like, which one is he replying to? Which I guess is, that's an interesting thing to think about. Yeah. And the third verse never reaches Eminem. Yeah. It just never reaches him.

The dictaphone is probably destroyed and washed away. And like, God, it's just it's also it's so believable and it's such an like you were saying lizzie it's a really excellent example even without the song without it being such a big hit it's a really excellent example of short form storytelling with all these fine little details that constantly blur the lines between like fiction and reality between eminem and stan between us and the people depicted in eminem songs this is why just kind of going off on a tangent this is why i always defend songs like kim um yeah because i think that comes from a similar place to this albeit

with a few characters and perspectives changed changed around where it's like it's not eminem saying like i want to kill my wife it's more Eminem analysing the part of his psyche that probably exists for a second whenever him and Kim are arguing with each other. He's the ultimate unreliable narrator in that sense. Yes, exactly. And it's the same with, even at the start of Marshall Mathers' LP, on it kill you, where there's that line about,

it's the, put your hands down, down bitch I ain't gonna shoot you I'm gonna put you pull you to this bullet and put it through you shut up you're causing too much chaos just bend over and take it like a okay ma and then in um quotes it's like oh now he's raping his own mother abusing a snorting coca we gave him the rolling stone cover and like he's you know he's he's doing that kind of like you say he'll plant you in a moment where it's like jesus did he just say that and then he'll whip the rugger out from right underneath you and it's like oh so he wasn't really saying that but he did he said it with his mouth but he didn't mean it and it was yeah not just that he didn't mean it but he wasn't even doing it it was a joke joke on us. And it just, it's, that's why I think

across those first three records, at his best, Eminem, I think, is, I said this when we did the Real Slip Shady, but he's in the conversation as being, like, the best to ever do it. I think that, I mean, he really, really falls off after the Eminem show. Oh, yeah.

And I don't think he's ever ever got back to like being close to that kind of artist ever again and like i think you know it's impossible to sustain this level of creativity and like so when you take a song like kill you and i mean it was all written around the same time it's all on the same record and then you put something in like this and it's like which character is he playing in this because eminem has been stan you know stan's life is empty it's devoid of any kind of internal meaning you know he has a girlfriend and a a girlfriend that's pregnant and like he has a home and stuff like that but he's become obsessed with eminem because there's an emptiness there

there's a hole that's not filled and i think the song kind of doubles as a condemnation of celebrity culture but written from inside the circle this is the danger that's posed by basically raising a society that starves people financially and doesn't nurture them properly you know it lets them fall out the bottom and it gives them nothing but celebrities to cling to nothing but projection onto famous people to live for you know we talk about stands and stuff like that but there are so many people whose entire online identities are just supporting the person that they stan and flaming the person that is going up against the stan. And I think sometimes the celebrities kind of feed into this because it helps them with their, you know,

it helps them with their money and like, you know, how many feuds in rap history have actually just been started by two record label managers like, i'll do you a favor if you do me a favor let's put this in a newspaper let's create a feud let's create a battle for number one like you know that sort of thing oh you know everybody goes home happy and like there are people like stan at the bottom who get left behind in all of this and i think there's a later song that we'll cover um because eminem was always kind of like a distant from the feuds you know he never really got that involved in he got involved in some but like by the point you reached like toy soldiers i think he's always kind of written as an observer of the culture rather than someone who really partakes

in it because i mean at this point maroni what like three years on from biggie and tupac both being killed so like you know it's and again they were killed by that they were friends biggie and tupac weren't enemies they liked each other they got on with each other but they were both killed by respective members who put more meaning into tupac and biggie's lives than they did their own and they killed people over it and so and those people have never been found and like with stan it just sort of feels like he's in a similar sort of situation because it's like you know i mean it's not lucky obviously because in this song you know stan mean it's not lucky obviously because in this song you know stan and his girlfriend and the unborn child they all end up getting killed but like if it's not stan's girlfriend who else is it gonna be you know what if like five or six

people i don't know run the stage at an m m concert and push them all over to stand track them all down you know it's just he creates such a real and believable person and yeah it's now responsible for this word to describe people who are very very intensely into fandom that it kind of consumes everything about who they are on the internet and it's such a shame that like this kind of warning hasn't you know this warning hasn't warned people off behaving like that it's just that we now have a word to describe people who behave this way yeah um yeah this this is this is incredible this is one of the best songs we'll talk about on this show if not not the best, I strongly disagree, but I do still love it.

I can think of a couple of others. But for me anyway, I think, yeah, it will be among a very, very, very select group of songs that I'll give double digits to. Well,

wonderful. Thank you. I don't know if either of you have anything to follow up with on that, but. Well, wonderful, thank you I don't know if either of you have anything to follow up with on that, but Well, I'm glad that Stan has entered the dictionary as, you know a term for an overly obsessed fan of someone, because that's like the good side of the legacy of this song

The bad side is did you know that Eminem released a series of NFTs as part of his ShadyCon event? And there's an alt-right rapper called Tom McDonald who bought one. One of them was an Eminem-produced instrumental called Stan's Revenge, which he bought for $100,000. And Tom McDonald used the instrumental to create his song Dear Slim,

on which the music video paid homage to the music video for stan so that's where we're at with eminem in the current day and age kind of yeah i was going to mention as well like you know we were talking about beyonce before in that way and yeah um but there's just so much of eminem to come oh yeah it feels like oh jesus there are going to be so many times where we sit and talk about eminem and just sit there and go what the fuck man so yeah probably save them for next time when he inevitably pops up again before we go this is our new way of making sure that we uh make sure we we put songs in the vault or the pie hole, you know, whichever ones we're nominating the songs for. So my vault inductions for this week,

well, it's just one, Stan. I don't know about you two. Stan for me as well, and also Independent Women, please. I will also go for Stan and Independent Women and also Miami Seven. Only one of those is a joke. The collective works of kim fuller um yes as well yeah so that is the end of this week's show and we're almost at the very end of the year

2000 next time we'll be covering the race for christmas number one for christmas 2000 um the format will be a little different next week but we hope you like it and if you do then we'll carry on with that format for the race for Christmas number one in 2001 and 2002 etc and if you don't then well it's back to the drawing board

we'll have to think of something else it'll be great but we'll see you later see ya