Hits 21 - 2001 (3): Destiny's Child, S Club 7, Geri Halliwell, DJ Pied Piper

Episode Date: November 13, 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]

Hits 21 Alright there everyone and welcome back to Hits 21 where me, Rob me, Andy and me, Livvy 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're at Hits21UK that is at Hits21UK and you can email us over on Twitter. We're at Hits21UK. That is at Hits21UK. And you can email us as well. You can 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 taking a look back at four number one singles from the year 2001. And this time, we'll be covering the period between the 15th of april

and the 2nd of june so we're almost halfway through the year gosh yeah there are you know we're going at a slower rate but there are not as many songs that are number one this year songs that actually managed to get to the top do seem to hold on thankfully uh not like last year where it seemed like we were just covering a it was a new song every single week wasn't it? Yeah, I felt like we were going through that year in real time to be honest. Yeah, legit. Oh dear.

Before we come on to this week though, we just have to cast our eyes back to last week's episode and we made a bit of an effort to publish our and promote our poll that we'd like our listeners to vote on and would you believe

it was a unanimous winner this time last week really? I'm surprised the unanimous winner was Shaggy and Rick Rock it wasn't me, that was the unanimous winner over Uptown Girl, Pure and Simple

and What Took You So Long I thought there might be a few votes for Pure and Simple out of nostalgia maybe a few for others but can I be the first to say congratulations to Rick Rock proud of you mate should we let him know? We can tweet him and we'll let him know

he's now a two hit wonder anyway and we'll let him know. I wonder if he still uses that account. He's now a two-hit wonder. Anyway, like always, we're going to give you some news headlines from around the time period of the songs that we're covering on this week's episode. Billionaire Dennis Tito becomes the first paying passenger to go to outer space.

The 60-year-old former NASA employee paid £14 million for the pleasure. Tito spent a week orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station, and upon returning to Earth, Tito, who had recently divorced his wife of almost 30 years, then broke up with his new girlfriend and described the experience as a major crossing point in his life. Details about

his life after that point are kind of scarce. He sounds pleasant, doesn't he? All we know is that he was five inches shorter. He sounds like a lovely guy. What a relatable story that is. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott punches a

protester who threw an egg at him during a visit to Rhyl in North Wales. I'm sure we all remember this, the egg punch. Yes I actually remember this. So the events were thus Prescott was stepping off his campaign bus which was named the Prescott Express when he was hit on the side of the face with the egg. He then with lightning speed retaliated by physically confronting the person responsible with Express when he was hit on the side of the face with the egg. He then, with lightning speed, retaliated by physically confronting the person responsible with his fists. The public largely defended his actions, and neither Prescott nor the protester were charged with any offences.

And how timely this is, by the way, because I'd literally just finished typing that out and finding that news story and doing the research when I went over to Twitter and found out that someone had tried to throw eggs at King Charles. Not as successful with hitting the target. No nothing really does change but yeah it's just I can't believe it. The two things it was just so serendipitous. Lovely words. Yeah, if only King Charles had a mean right hook.

Meanwhile in football, Liverpool beat Arsenal 2-1 in the FA Cup final to lift the trophy for the sixth time. It was the first final to be held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, with the old Wembley Stadium now having been demolished. The final became known as the Michael Owen final, named after Liverpool's Michael Owen, who scored twice in the last ten minutes to win the game. I think that's the second or maybe the first FA Cup final that I actually have vivid memories of, like watching it on TV. I've got no recollection of this

don't remember much about the the first one the last one at the old wembley um i think that was chelsea and aston villa last year um but this is the first one i think that it's kind of weird that like you know everyone who's ever really grown up in this country and is over the age of 35 will have only ever associated the fa cup final with wembley and the the trips to the millennium stadium are sort of like an aberration in history whereas like with me growing up watching football every major final was at the millennium stadium and so all of my early football memories of watching it on tv and getting dead excited they're all associated with the millennium stadium because the new Wembley took so long to build.

It's really, really odd. Yeah, I thought that the closure of the old Wembley and the move to Cardiff happened much later in time than this. So did I. Because I remember Cardiff being used up until I was a teenager, which is way past this. So I didn't realise there was such a big transition period. Yeah, because that seems like a completely different era of history. That's really weird.

The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period are as follows. Bridget Jones's Diary for five weeks. I think that's going to come back up later in this episode. And The Mummy Returns for two weeks. The Mummy Returns was actually referenced in a speech by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the time, who said, On my way here, I passed a local cinema

and it turns out that you were expecting me after all. For the billboards read, The Mummy Returns. Sorry, just doing it. Don't know what that was that came over me. Well, because she's evil, decrepit and terrifying. Yeah, something along those lines. Yeah, and also dead and buried.

Yes, now, anyway. Meanwhile, when Elton John pulls out of a recording of Have I Got News For You at the last minute, the BBC replaces him with Ray Johnson, a professional Elton John lookalike. Credited as Elton Johnson, Ray was referred to as Elton throughout the entire episode and stayed completely silent

for the full 28 minutes. Have you seen this episode? No, I haven't. It's fantastic. It's so funny. They refer to him as Elton throughout and it's like it's elton john everyone and he doesn't say a word throughout the whole episode he just sits there completely silent and occasionally smiles and laughs at things that people say and they don't draw they don't draw attention to it at any point like and then at the end at the end of the episode angus

dayton is like and ladies and gentlemen it was was Elton John. And everybody goes, hey. And he just sort of smiles and waves and says, thanks, you know, thanks for having me on. It's very, very funny. It's like when Preston walked off Buzzcocks and they just got someone from the audience. I can't wait for that classic moment. That was just incredible there.

It's out of order. It's out of order, that. Also, Eminem is sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty to a charge of carrying a concealed weapon. He also faced charges of brandishing a firearm. He escaped a full five-year prison sentence on account of having no previous criminal record. Around the same time, Eminem and his wife, Kim Scott,

finalised their first divorce. Yes, first divorce. First, yeah. Doing a lot of... The operative words. Yes, definitely. Andy, the album charts, how are they looking? Yeah, they're a mix back again this week.

It's kind of the reverse of the singles chart compared to 2000 so far this year in that in 2000 everything was very quick and ephemeral and changed but the album chart was a little bit more steady. This time around the album chart is just all over the place this year. Nothing is really hanging around for more than a week or two and that's very evident for this couple of months as well. We start with the album Free All Angels by Ash.

Good album. It's a good record. I have nothing I can contribute to that. I don't know anything by Ash. I can't really believe that that was a number one. Is it good though, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, you should have been listening to the homework playlists.

They're on there all the time. I know. It's a long playlist. The homework playlists are on there all the time. I know! It's a long playlist. It's quickly kicked off the top spot after one week by Destiny's Child with Survivor. Interesting name. I wonder if we'll ever revisit that. Which stays at number one for two weeks.

Very successful album, got three times platinum. After that, we have R.E.M.'s latest studio album, Reveal. And again, maybe I'm just being a little bit naive, but I feel like the charts were so different then that REM was still getting number one albums in the early noughties. It feels like we're well past REM's capability to do that. I'm very surprised they were still managing that in the early noughties, to be honest. That's kind of in the same realm as U2, I think. Around this point, yeah.

Well, fair enough then, yeah. And that spends two weeks at number one before being replaced by Hotshot by Shaggy, which finally is echoing the success that it's had in the US.

I wonder why it took so long to do well in the US. But yeah, and that's got one week at number one. Lizzie, how are things looking over there on the other side of the Atlantic? Yeah well as mentioned in the last episode

Janet Jackson is dominating the singles chart for this entire period with All For You eventually being dethroned on the 2nd of June by a song we'll be covering in our next episode so I will say no more on that you'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, in the albums charts,

Tupac's one-week reign at number one was ended by Now That's What I Call Music 6, which went triple platinum and featured some hits we've already covered, such as Love Don't Cost to Think by Jennifer Lopez, Independent Women Part One by Destiny's Child, It Wasn't Me by Shaggy and Beautiful Day by U2

as well as some other assorted shite It would stay at number 1 for 3 weeks before being overtaken by Janet Jackson's All For You for 1 week Double Platinum, number 25 on the year end list Destiny's Child Survivor for 2 weeks 4 times Platinum, number 12 on the year-end list, and finishing us off this week with a

one-week reign at number one, Lateralis by Tool, which went triple platinum and ended at number 47 on the year-end list. Blimey. Wow. Wow. Fucking hell, you forget how big they were. Tool and number one in the album's charts

in 2001. Yeah. Yep. Then again, kind of in the back end of their height, I guess, aren't we? So, okay, that's album charts done. That's US stuff done. So we're going to come back over to the UK and press on with this week's episode.

And the first song up this week is this. Thank you. You thought that I'd be sad without you, I left harder You thought I wouldn't grow without you, now I'm wiser You thought that I'd be helpless without you, but I'm smarter You thought that I'd be stressed without you, but I'm chillin' You thought I wouldn't sell without you, so not millions I'm a survivor, I'm not gon' give up I'm not gon' stop, I'm gon' work harder I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it, I want survival, keep on surviving, I'm a survivor, I'm not gonna give up, I'm not gonna stop, I'm gonna work harder, I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it, I want survival, keep on surviving.

This is Survivor by Destiny's Child. Released as the lead single from the group's third album of the same name, Survivor is Destiny's Child's ninth single to be released in the UK overall. It is their second song to reach number one, after Independent Women Part 1 reached the top of the charts in the year 2000. Go back to our episode if you want to hear more of our thoughts on that one. And it's their final song to reach number one in the uk oh wow survivor went straight in at number one as a new entry knocking emma bunton off the top it sold 104 000 copies in its first and only week atop the charts and it stayed at number one for just that one week beating competition from loving each day by ronan keating

which got to number 2. Jesus Andy we've spared you there. Liquid Dreams by O-Town which got to number 3. Get Your Freak On by Missy Elliott which got to number 4. I wish we were talking about that. And What It Feels Like for a Girl by Madonna which got to

number 7. I like that as well. When Survivor was knocked off the top of the charts, 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 15 weeks, which is a decent stay, I think. It's not bad. I think things are kind of reverting to type after a fairly heavy four or five week period. Well, more than a four or five week period well more than a four or five week period more like a two or three month period actually of those four songs hearsay shaggy atomic kitten

yeah you know the big million sellers that were around forever um andy yes survivor destiny's child how do you feel uh i feel good about it i won't beat around the bush i i do really like this one um it's i I do really like this one. I mean, I really like Destiny's Child in general, to be honest. I think they just have it. They just have a certain X factor, if you will, not to sound too Louis Walsh about it. Look like a pop star, you sound like a pop star. Yeah, I really, really just like Destiny's Child in general. They just have this factor about them that I think they can really kind of sing the phone book,

perform the phone book, and they just do it with such flair and with such style that I can't help but be swept up in it. But this song, as much as I do enjoy it, I don't think it's up there with independent women. I think there is just a little bit less meat on the bones this time. I think this is just a little bit less meat on the bones this time. I think this is just a little bit less interesting. And that would be probably my main criticism of it. If I was to give a really, really minor point,

which I think somewhat holds it back in general as a piece of music, I think it comes in too hard, too fast. I've always thought that that verse, the after hours... I always felt like that sounds more like a pre-chorus or like a chorus even that to come in straight with that as a verse it kind of it just feels like a bit hard you know you're quite high at the top of the of beyonce's range quickly it's quite heavily orchestrated with that um with those strings in the background i feel like it comes in at quite a high level

and doesn't really grow too much from there and again it makes it feel like there's not enough meat on the bones but having said that that's pretty much my own my only criticism of it really I do really really like this what I like is that although it doesn't really go that in many places musically they do throw in a lot of little effects to this a lot of little I'm not sure if they're ad-libs or not and they're probably pre-written bits just made to sound like ad-libs but there is at least a little bit of curiosity going on here the one i particularly like is the um what i've been referring to as the about to spill my cup of tea bit the whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa but there's a lot of little bits like that in it

Which again there is in Independent Women as well And there is in Bootylicious And in Say My Name That's kind of what they're known for And I think this is one of the best One of the best Destiny's Child Examples really Of the way they do things

Of what their style actually is So I think it's kind of the quintessential Destiny's child song um and i do love the theme of it you know i think that the especially when you combine it with the music video that imagery of them being actual survivors like they are on the tv show survivor compared with you know surviving a terrible relationship or surviving um a bad breakup yeah it's it's a very timeless theme and it's a very, very good theme for them to explore. It's right on brand for Destiny's Child. I don't have a huge amount to say about the song other than that.

What I mainly want to tell is this really funny story from my childhood that I remember very, very well and my sister is going to kill me for telling this if she listens to this episode. My sister was a huge fan of this song. She had Destiny's Child's album, Survivor,

and she really, really loved this song. And at the time, she had this, I think it was a baseball cap that she wore every day and was obsessed with it. And I dropped a bit of chocolate on it or something that stained and she was grief-stricken. She was beside herself. And then my mum did of chocolate on it or something that stained. And she was grief stricken. She was beside herself. And then my mum did some magic with it. She put some vanish oxy action on it or something, left it for an hour or two.

And it was gone. Magically, it was gone. And she picked it up in her hands, looked at it. And with all sincerity, just went, out of all the darkness and sadness, soon comes happiness. of all the darkness and sadness soon comes happiness and it was like the cringiest memory looking back like only a child would do that but it's so adorable and whenever i hear that line i always picture my sister with a cap in her hand singing it to the cap oh it's wonderful your heart rate finally slowing down as you now realize that she won't come and get you in your sleep yeah as revenge i know i know yeah i was worried for those few hours but then yeah i mean even at the

time i found it cheesy but now looking back i'm just oh lovely what a lovely lovely story but yeah um i do think it has that to be fair the sort of serious point from that it has that sort of penetrating factor that it it's quite universal this song you know it covers universal themes but it does it in destiny's child's specific style it does it in their way which i think is a really kind of golden ticket for them really and it's something that beyonce has really taken into her solo career as well this way of expressing very universal very generic themes but doing it in a way that only she can do i think that's sort of starting to emerge at this point now um there really is something quite special about beyonce isn't there so i'm not surprised we'll be seeing a lot more of her but

yeah i really really like this it's not quite as great as independent women just because i think it's a little bit less interesting but yeah still gets a big thumbs up from me this i was just before i um go into my notes in a minute um this feels like a bigger vehicle for Beyonce than Independent Women Part 1. I agree. Yeah totally. Yeah definitely. Lizzie how are you on Survivor? Yeah I agree with a lot of what Andy Huss says

I like this but I don't like it as much as Independent Women because I don't think it kind of goes to some of those more interesting little motifs that independent women does you know the the little mid-late bit of that song which we've already talked about I'm not going to cover it again here but it's just I do kind of agree that it does come in a little bit heavy and also at times I feel like it almost sounds a bit petty you know that one bit

where it's like you thought I wouldn't sell without you sold 9 million like who could that possibly be about is it about there's a very specific number that isn't it is it about the one or two members that have left the group in very recent months it's one of those

things where the lyrics themselves in the verses feel kind of like very specific and then the chorus they do that kind of clever thing where they make it generic so you'll hear it like when they're talking about i'm a celebrity get me out of here on loose women and that'll be playing in the background because the survivor it's that kind of thing yeah yeah definitely i know what you mean though yeah but yeah just the lyrics because the survivor it's that kind of thing yeah yeah definitely i know what you mean though yeah but yeah just the lyrics of the verses it's just i don't know it it feels more

than just a kind of generic song about overcoming adversity or you know a toxic relationship it just feels like it must be about someone and i feel that what we know about beyonce now and some of her recent work like you think of lemonade for example and how it's very obvious who that album is about and what that album is about and you're kind of thinking it's an interesting choice to go in with something this kind of barbed as you know the lead single for an album so it does feel kind of like it's a bit of a coming out party for Beyonce in general because I feel like not that they give her more to do on this because obviously she does pretty much all the verses in Independent Women as well but I feel like she has a lot more room to, you know, show off in a sense, like flex her vocal gymnastics and do all that sort of thing.

But yeah, that's about all I have to say about it. I do like it, but yeah, it's oddly, yeah, it's quite spiky for a pop song. And it seems kind of funny that this is the way they would go out if you were to listen to this you would guess that there was like infighting in the group itself like we've known from All Saints and

things like that I think the lyrics are so broad that like it can be applied to basically anything that you have to sort of get through like you see people on the youtube video for this yeah and like in the comments it's like this goes out to all the people who have broke recently broken up with someone gotten out of an abusive relationship survived cancer and it's like made nine million dollars yeah yeah

and it's like these are very very different things to be discussing and then you realize that like the lyrics are so broad that like i don't know you could use this when you get home and you've been stuck in traffic and it's like oh well i survived that and so yeah i'd like it to maybe be a little bit more specific lyrically but never mind um the really love the string intro on this because they sound like they're from a quite a dramatic and climactic scene from some kind of soap opera it's like you've walked into the middle of something it doesn't start at the beginning of the story and you know here's how this started and here's how it developed it picks up right towards the end

and what we end up listening to is like the final act yeah so it's constantly emotionally intense that's exactly you know i'm sorry i'm sorry to interrupt but that's exactly what i was trying to get at you've articulated it really well there that it feels like the way the song starts it feels like i've already missed part of the song it's like whoa bam straight in with the heavy emotion and it's it's i'm not sure i like that do you do you actually like that as an effect because i don't think that that's i don't think that's a positive thing i will come to it again um i will go through my positives but it does lead into a negative okay um i think emotionally this feels like a logical progression from independent women part one feels like a bit

of a sequel. You know, women trying to survive, make it on their own. No need for a man in their life, that sort of thing. I love the constantly chattering and ticking percussion. It's like a bit of a ticking time bomb. You know, the... And it has a lot of speed and momentum because of that. I like that it's kind of comprised of lots of short, repetitive sections that begin and end quite quickly.

You know, because, like, you get through three verses and three choruses, and I looked at my phone and I was like, we're not even three minutes through here, which gives loads of space for that, as you say, Andy, that amazing description of the gonna-drop-me-cup-of panning from left to right which is a decent bit of much needed variation i think by that point because i like the repetition up to a point um i do like that in those three verse sections you can have a lot of a lot of fun trying to guess what the next yin yang is gonna be you know there's a lot of thought that i'd be x without you but i'm y and so it's a lot of fun to kind of guess what they're gonna say next when you've not

heard it for a while and then like after the song's finished you can sort of make up your own like i did you know thought thought i would be orange without you, but I'm apple. Thought that I'd be bread without you, but I'm butter. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And then by the time that particular lyrical dynamic has run out of steam, it's back to the chorus again. So, yeah, I think it has all the elements to make a very strong pop single, and I totally understand why it was number one. But I'm going to, gonna first of all talk about the

fact that I think that third verse the not gonna compromise my Christianity not gonna dish you on the internet because my mum would tell me better than that and stuff like that feels subpar compared to the rest of the song because I think you know sometimes when you watch a deleted scene from a tv show or a film and you're like this feels like a deleted scene it a TV show or a film, and you're like, this feels like a deleted scene. It's like they didn't complete the last take of this. It all feels slightly, oh. Or like when you hear the album version of a radio edit, of a song you've only ever known the radio edit for,

and you're like, this doesn't sound like it fits. There's one from later years where the bit in Just Dance by Lady Gaga, where she's going, and you're thinking, was this on the radio edit? And if you were coming to the radio edit, it's like, oh, this is the bit I'd get rid of first. And it's just the same with this compromise my Christianity thing, where it's like, this is the first bit I would be like, well, if we need to get this under three and it's just the same with this compromise my christianity thing where it's like this is the first bit i would be like well if we need to get this under three and a half minutes

this is the first bit i'm getting rid of yeah that's like the thing that everybody knows least well probably isn't it yes yeah absolutely but yeah andy what you said before about maybe not liking the fact that you get dropped into this song kind of halfway through the conversation, halfway through the point. The thing with me is that I like being dropped in like that, but it never goes any further. It doesn't take it a step further. You know, melodically and dynamically, it's very repetitive and it keeps leaning on that same interval time and time again because you get the and you get that as the the main hook in the chorus i'm a survivor but then you also get it in the verse yeah where you get the thought i couldn't

breathe without you and it's the same. And so the lack of development begins to become a problem for me. And then you sit and think about it a little bit more, and it's not just that it's not adventurous enough melodically for me to love this when it comes to the vocal melodies, but I would argue that emotionally the song stays in the same place. And that's not necessarily a, you know, I'm not saying that songs always have to move. You know, I'm not saying that they have to start tackling

a slightly different subject by the end. But it does mean that, like, a song like this that's very much about moving on, by the end of four minutes we're still where we were at the start yeah and it yeah it doesn't feel like an exorcism in the way that i think that it wants to it just feels like a song that's stuck in the present moment and like it's a cool moment to be stuck in you know i like songs about defiance and strength in moments of adversity that feel genuine, driven by proper emotions, as petty as they are, but I'm not saying it has to have an

arc, but comparing it lyrically to something like, I don't know, something from later years like Take a Bow by Rihanna, which isn't a stronger song by any means but at least lyrically that does go from one step to another and by the end of the song it's like oh i've been left in a different place to where i was at the beginning same with irreplaceable yeah from down the line a little bit by beyonce or something from beforehand uh like um all cried out you know alice and moye. Oh yeah. Because even towards the end of the song, she even drops in that line where it's, you go

your way and I'll go mine. And it's like, it's this, oh it's this, it creates this image of two people kind of walking away from each other and that's it. And it gives a sense of, I think what this song is maybe lacking is finality. And I think that could be helped along by

more variation in the composition I think it's really solid but I wish it was slightly shorter and slightly more adventurous with that time Do you know, I bet it's really boring to sing really boring to perform because it is just the same thing all over again because I've never performed this

because I'm not Beyonce obviously but one of the songs that I used to do in a pub band sometimes was Can't Stop by Red Hot Chili Peppers which is like I pretty much all the way through apart from the chorus and it was really boring to sing and I feel like this is probably

quite similar really that it's just not much yeah I think that's sorry to much yeah but um i think that's i just sorry to interject that but i just want to say on that point i wonder if that's maybe because like the simplicity of the vocal rhythm is like i was saying before it's it's an excuse for beyonce to flex a bit it's a bit of room to breathe and so she can you know do a bit of that she can i don't want to keep saying vocal gymnastics but you know what i mean right the oh well the oh intonations are just that all over yeah and even just like it's not always like i'm a survivor sometimes you'll go i'm a survivor

and like sort of move it up and down a bit and modulate it's not just a kind of because the song itself is quite static i agree but yeah i think that's perfect for someone like that or like a mariah carey or even a whitney or someone like that to just i don't know show off a bit yeah yeah she plays with the rhythms a bit as well which I think is the more kind of fascinating thing, really. Because we're used to Beyonce doing, you know, anything she wants with her voice. But when she kind of holds back some of the notes, when it's like...

Like she sort of plays with the rhythm a little bit, which I quite liked. That's really this obvious talent on display, obvious ingenuity. You can see that she's just a born performer and that really elevates it, I think this is one of those songs that in lesser hands

this would be a really boring song but it's elevated massively yeah, I agree yeah, I do like this a fair bit it's just that it's I was more talking about the stuff that stops me from loving it because I do think this is decent and I was more talking about the stuff that stops me from loving it. Yeah. No, I get it.

Because I do think this is decent, and I do agree with you, Lizzie, that this is a good vehicle for Beyonce going forward. Next up, we have this. This. Yeah, come on. Oh, oh. We'll see you next time. Let it take you there And just go with the magic, baby I can see it there in your eyes Let it fly Don't stop the waiting Right here on the dance floor

Is where you gotta let it go Don't stop moving Can you feel the music? DJ's got us going round and round Don't stop moving, find your own way to it Listen to the music, taking you to places that you've never been before Baby now Okay, this is Don't Stop Moving by S Club 7, released as the lead single from their third album entitled Sunshine.

Don't Stop Moving is S Club 7's seventh single overall to be released in the UK. It is their third single to reach number one after Bring It All Back and Never Had A Dream Come True reached the top of the charts in 1999 and 2000 respectively but it is not their last time at number one. Don't Stop Moving went straight in at number one as a new entry knocking Destiny's Child off the top spot in the process and it stayed at number one for just the one week but it did sell 179,000 copies in its first and only week atop the charts beating competition from dream on by depeche mode which got to number five and star 69 by fatboy slim which got to number 10. when it was knocked off the top of the charts don't Stop Moving dropped one place to number two.

But for reasons that will become clear later in this Hits 21 first, this is not the last time that we will be discussing Don't Stop Moving's chart exploits in this episode. So, Don't Stop Moving by S Club 7. Lizzie, how are we on this sort of disco turn for S Club? Yeah, I'm actually going to spoil it. So the really interesting fact about this song is that it was actually covered by Anton Deck as part of a challenge on Saturday Night Takeaway and it got to number 79 on the UK Singles Chart.

So there you go. If that's all you tuned in for then. No, that's not what I was referring to, but I had no idea about that. Yeah, yeah. Although that probably had something to do with what happens. You think? After this point.

Maybe. We'll see. Yeah, okay. All right. Anyway, the song. I really like this. I love this, actually. It might be my favourite S Club single and I think as I mentioned when we discussed Never Had A Dream Come True, that it does feel like more just a showcase for Joe.

And it's like, this is a seven-piece group. Why did none of the others get to do anything? But it's the addition of Bradley in this one. Like, it's that duo of Bradley and Joe that play off each other so well. And, yeah, just really put this over. Like, this is the sort of thing that features in, like, guilty pleasures lists now, which i think is bollocks there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure it's either a good song which is not in my opinion this is a really good song i feel like

if this was by i don't know sophie ellis beckster or something people would really put this over but it's just that association with s club that kind of makes people denigrate it a bit um i do actually have a story for this one as well because i've not got much to say about it in the same way that i don't for singles i love quite often because there's not really there's often not really reason other than it's just a really good song with a really good rhythm and the production is great and it sounds fun and uplifting. And yeah, but my story of this is that this came on while me and my mum were in the car on the way back from Cadbury World in Birmingham. And we were stuck in traffic for about four hours. And it became a thing where we would sing this song and the traffic

would nudge just a little bit there was like some magic in the living yeah don't stop moving yeah as you're stuck on the m6 it's like that's all you have to get you through it just don't stop moving it's like it kind of worked it got us a couple of feet. It got us somewhat closer to the exit slip road for the M62. And, yeah. Yeah, I really love this. And this is just proof that I think S Club overall deserved a lot better. But that's a discussion that I'm going to come to when we next visit them, I think. Yeah.

Really good stuff. Yeah, it's a shame. It's a shame. I don't have a story. I didn't bring a story to this episode, but once we hit about 2004, you'll be drowning in my story. Oh, mine too.

So, like, because that's where my memories of pop music really sort of go solid and crystallizes. It feels like everything before 2004, i kind of look at it through smoke my memory is you're like my recollections of memories in relation to specific songs they don't get that vivid and that easily you know they're not so easily recalled until about 2004 but when 2004 hits or you better believe that you are in for it. We may have to go down to two songs a week for the rate I'm going to chat about them.

As for me, I think Don't Stop Moving has all the pace and tempo of all those kind of new disco hits from last year. Yeah. You know, like you were saying, something like that Kylie would have done, or Sophie from last year yeah you know like you were saying like you know something like that kylie would have done or sophie ellis beckster like you were saying lizzie it's got a punch and a kick that drives it along at a good speed it's nice to have an s club song that uses joe in a less is more fashion she's the strongest vocalist of the group but that

doesn't mean she has to hog the spotlight all the time so here's Bradley doing his disco rap and it works it's something else for the group to offer and it means that when Jo does come in you get quite excited for all these new sections that she's introducing like the melodies that she's singing really raise the tension deliver the kind of emotional and physical release you'd expect from a song like this and then it's only enhanced when the group vocals come in for the chorus right down to the clap matching with the word stop where you get the uh don't stop it's great yeah you get that nice onomatopoeic effect on the group vocals um staying with the chorus i love the strings in the background that flourish and dart and fly

everywhere all around the mix and all around your head um unusually for me i'm going to kind of break form i don't really see the need for much variation with this because it progresses so nicely each section is really compact and tight and like its own little world you know it separates each section very very nicely each of them is developed and rendered really carefully and you end up enjoying the repetition a little bit because when you come back around to each you know bridge or each chorus you're like oh yeah i remember this from you know each section is long enough on its own terms as well that it doesn't feel like um where survivor felt like lots of short pieces stapled together. This feels like longer sections that feel more fluid between themselves.

And then you get that third verse where Joe's voice really rises up. And I think of all the times where they give Joe license to wail over the first few bars of the final chorus. This is the best one. I think they do it a few times, and I think this is the best one. But for me, where this falls slightly short of me loving it, unfortunately, just like Survivor, it just kind of falls short of being vault-worthy for me,

is in the rhythm section, specifically in the bass line. It feels like they're going after something like Billie Jean or White Lines, where you have like a walking, strutting bass line. Yeah. But when I listen to it, it feels a bit robotic and quantized, as if any imperfection or imprecision during the performance has been polished and cleaned away. Like it's really stiff when it should be much looser and it turns it from a walking bass line into a sort of like marching bass line which means that it doesn't really match up with the lyrics you know the lyrics are all about just go with the magic go with the flow lose yourself in the moment or whatever and then you've

got this very strict adherent bass line that's like do do do do do do do do do do do do do and it just it's not got the the swing it doesn't have the funk it doesn't have the groove that they're after i don't know if you remember lizzie just to kind of randomly give a shout out to chart music it's quite a recent episode i think where taylor taylor park was talking about the difference between start by the jam yes man by the beatles yeah yeah yeah and he says the space at the end of the bass line at the end of the bar that's left by the bass line in tax man with the beatles he said that space is where the groove is yeah that emptiness that that gap is where the

funk is whereas with start by Jam, they play in that space and it makes it sound more upright and sort of uptight where you feel like their guitars are much higher up against their chests when they're playing it compared to Taxman, which feels a bit looser and a bit groovier. And because the bass line underpins the whole song, I think it takes away from the feel ever so slightly i think the atmosphere and the aesthetics of this are bang on and i agree with you that this is s club's best song because i think stylistically this is a bit of a risk for them because up to

this point they've kind of made their name being sugary sweet you know whether it's ballads like never had a dream come true or it's up-tempo things like reach and bring it all back and things like that you know it's a bit of a deviation from their norm and i can imagine there were a few you know when this was suggested as a single i imagine there were a few nervous eyes around the table just sort of going hmm let's see shall we no I disagree not in a way that they didn't think that it was a good song just in a sort of

is this what people expect of us that's the thing though like because I think Andy you'll probably know this as well like they were pitched as kind of a more grown up pop group and then they got saddled with this kiddie stuff. It's like, oh, fucking hell.

It probably contributed to Paul leaving in the end. Yeah, maybe this is kind of a benefit of being able to slightly remember it more than you are, but they really pushed this single. It was their TV series at the time. This was the lead song from it. This was track one on the album. They kind of really really like

really pushed this song so i think they had full confidence in it yeah but fair enough maybe they knew they were onto something then i mean it like now i'm thinking about it their first single was it their first single maybe second single s club party second single yeah they tried to be pretty like you know let's go party you know gang vocals and stuff like that really trying to beef it up a little bit but so maybe it's not as much I mean it is a deviation from their norm but maybe it's not as much of a risk as I'm

thinking that it is kind of looking at it with a bit of hindsight but yeah this is good I enjoyed this a fair bit I think this is the one where like you say Liz, music heads feel okay with liking this. Yes. For sure. Quietly.

But whatever. Get over yourselves. Just enjoy it. Andy, how are we on Don't Stop Moving? Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you two have said. I really really like this and I think this is the first song we've covered in 2001

that I think you could describe as a banger. Like, this is, like, possibly the first one we've covered so far that there's any realistic chance of me sitting down and listening to after this, apart from maybe Hole again. Yeah, it's easily, easily the best song, no doubt, to a degree where it's kind of weird how much better this is than everything else. I think it's like you listen to this knowing the context of the kind of kiddie cheesy pop stuff they did before. And you're just like, where did you pull this from?

Wow. And I think maybe the reason they pushed it so hard is I think it was something of an accident, to be honest. Everything just kind of came together on this song. And I think there's a real sense of, whoa, we've got something here. Wow, we've really come up with something good here. Let's push this. Because I think even the band were taken by surprise by what a hit this was and that it had a real sense of legitimacy.

I've done some reading around it, and you are right that the people who generally would be more snooty about this sort of thing were kind of critically looking at this song and were like, actually, this is not bad. This has got some great disco elements to it. This has got some really great production elements to it.

It's really cleverly put together. It's actually a really good song. And that Eskob label really does hamper it this should be a classic and it is a classic in my book um but yeah you you wouldn't ever see this really um talked about in an unironic way and let's change that this is a great song this is really really good um because it does kind of frustrate me. But it is really, really good, and there are only a few problems that I have with it that stop it from being absolute cast-iron 10 out of 10 for me. The main problem I have with it is this ongoing

issue that S Club have where it's just the Joe show, and obviously it's different this time in that it's Bradley more than Joe but really Joe sort of takes over the chorus the other five still remain completely anonymous it's a real problem that I think you can be you could tell that this is a band from listening to it I don't think you'd guess that it's more than two or three people I don't think you would maybe four I don't think you would ever suspect that this is a band of seven people who are putting this out. And I know that you sometimes can't audibly hear that,

but I really think that's the case in almost every S Club song, apart from S Club Party, which is that the other five are just completely anonymous. They just stand there and sway. In this one, they stand there and do some disco dancing. And we said the exact same thing

about Never Had a Dream Come True as well, didn't't we that that was just basically a joe solo song and this one is basically just a joe and bradley duet and the funny thing is that since s club split up that well they briefly toured as s club 3 which was joe bradley and paul i believe now that's slimmed down further and it's just jo and Bradley, apparently, who tour together, like student unions and stuff. And it's like, well, that kind of seems laughable, but then you think, actually, they can do the whole catalogue because they sing everything anyway. But then all the people there,

they weren't even born when they split up. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Think about it. Okay, yeah, that's fair enough. That's quite horrible to hear, yeah thanks for that um but yes it's it is a really really great piece of music and the other thing i don't like about it which i would just knock a point off for is the the the s club beat thing it's like this song has so much authenticity it's so it's so credible as a piece of pop music it's so cool other than

that other than throwing the s club beat thing into there like stop with your branding stop reminding us that this is the product of your multimedia project to make s club happen that's not going to help with people buying into it you know when you have other big pop culture phenomenons like spice girls or one direction yes spice girls did spice up your life but other than that you don't remind people of the product that they're buying into you make it breathe you let it live for itself you don't constantly be like welcome to verse two of this song by s club welcome to the chorus of this song by S Club, it's just that bothers me, it really really bothers me

I have a thing in general that I hate it when people drop the name of the artist in songs I really really hate it, like Hey Hey We're The Monkees and stuff like that Oh, just you wait till we get to Jason Derulo Yes, oh I know, I know, but like I don't like it when Gaga does it either, I don't like it when anyone does it, but particularly

when like the whole product is Oh hang on, what about Britney Spears? Which one? Oh, yeah I'm talking about when it when like the whole product is oh hang on you should be glad which one oh yeah oh i'm talking about when it's like the whole song like you should be glad we're not covering our exception you should be glad we're not covering s club party because that that's like oh that song is literally just an advert um oh come on it's good it's it's fun but it's oh my gosh like it's it's sort of you're being sold to as you're listening to that song. I know, but yeah. And this isn't so much a problem,

but that's just kind of a little bugbear, which I had to mention. Fair enough. But otherwise, it's great. It's got a hell of a beat to it, an S Club beat, if you will. And I love the strings. I love those old disco effects that are put on it.

I love the kind of combination of styles that are in there. Joe is a great singer in this. Bradley actually is really good in this. Why didn't they let him sing more often? He's actually... I was going to say, yeah. Yeah, he really actually has a nice voice in this, a really nice tone that suits this kind of music really well.

There's so much potential here, and I kind of wonder what happened. I know that they split up two years after this, but in terms of the two years after this how did they not recapture this they go back to doing shit like you after this and have you ever why didn't they capture this lightning in a bottle again why didn't they think yes okay we're a modern disco group we're like the new abba you know go for that but they didn't which is a real shame but um we'll always have this, which is a really, really great song,

which I really want to cast off that horrible chain of uncoolness from it. It's great. Get over yourselves. Yeah. I think the bleakest thing of all is that they did a sound-alike of this song on their 2002 album

Seeing Double. Did they? They just recorded it again not they didn't record it again but they did a song that sounded just like it it's kind of like when you know carl douglas did kung fu fighting then he did dance to kung fu it's essentially the same thing yeah that's true yeah yeah but yeah i think I wanted to kind of bring it back to a point I made last week about hearsay and the end of the road

for this kind of group because I do kind of wonder we're going to see the end of S Club at least as a chart fixture quite soon and you wonder if

like because this was a hit in the UK but you must be thinking why wasn't this a hit in America but never had a dream come true was? I don't get that. Yeah, that is strange. I don't know.

I guess if we compare the charts, as you've been doing, obviously, Lizzie, you know, look at the charts in America at this time. It's really, like, we're not on the same page, I guess. I think maybe that just plays a part in it. But then, having said that, Never Had a Dream Come True feels even more not on the same page with America. That feels like something that would just not take off

in America at all. It's really weird. It feels so English, you know. Not even British, just English. Yeah. Whereas this, I mean, it was a big hit in Europe, so English you know not even British just English yeah whereas this I mean it was a big hit in Europe

because of course it was but yeah you'd think that like like we were saying before you think you've got solid gold on your hands here

but you wonder if they see that this isn't a hit in America and Simon Fuller kind of he's got his eye on pop idol as it is. And he's thinking, well, if that's not a hit, then what is? You can't just be a UK sensation forever. Yeah, actually, that's a really good point.

I hadn't thought about that, that if there was going to be a moment where they really broke out globally, this was it. And I don't know. I don't know what that, that if there was going to be a moment where they really broke out globally, this was it. And I don't know. I don't know what more they could have done because they did all the TV series in America. They really marketed the hell out of themselves. I think it just wasn't going to sell. I think there was something about them that just didn't connect.

And I don't know what it was. I really don't have an answer to that question. And it's a really good point. Really good point. Yeah, I'm really curious. Is it post-Spice Girls fatigue? Is is it just there's too many of them is it because they were working them to the bone they were on like you know transatlantic flights every other week like you've got to go over there then film show then you've got to come back and do a and promote a single and do a gig it was non-stop for them and i'd love to like be able to talk to at least

one of them about it because i feel like there's some fascinating and bleak stories in there about yeah what was going on at this time and what the reaction to this single was and how they felt because i'm sure i'm sure they were probably thinking, this is it, this is the big moment. And it is and it isn't. Yeah, I mean, it is the big moment in that comparatively compared to everything else, this is the biggest moment, but it was not the starting point that they hoped for.

It was the peak, which is, yeah, I'm sure it's really disappointing to them. I'm sure if you told them at the time that in 18 months you'll be split up and wrapped up and that will be it and no solo careers for any of you bar Rachel, they would have been like, oh my God, really? That's not what they signed up for. All right, next up, third song this week is this. This. Humidity's rising Paramedics getting low

According to all sources The street's the place to go Cause tonight for the first time Just about half past ten For the first time in history It's gonna start raining men It's raining men Hallelujah, it's raining men

Amen It's raining men Hallelujah, it's raining men Amen Hallelujah, it's raining men Okay, this is It's Raining Men by Geri Halliwell Released as the lead single from her second album Entitled Scream If You Wanna Go Faster It's Raining Men It's Geri Halliwell's fifth single overall to be released in the UK.

It is her fourth single to hit the top of the charts, and it's also her fourth consecutive number one. However, it is her last. The song is a cover of the Weather Girls original hit from 1982, which reached number two in the UK charts and sold over 400,000 copies. It's Raining Men went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking S Club 7 off the top of the charts in the UK charts and sold over 400,000 copies. It's Raining Men went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking S Club 7 off the top of the charts in the process, and it stayed at number one for two weeks.

It sold 154,000 copies in its first week at number one, beating Competition from Play by Jennifer Lopez, which got to number two, and Cold As Ice by M.O.P., which got to number four. In its second week at the top it sold 78,000 copies and beat competition from Ride With Me by Nelly which got to number 3 and You Are Alive by Fragma which got to number 4. When it was knocked off the top of the charts it's Raining Men dropped one place to number 2 and by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 just like Survivor 15 weeks first of all i want to talk about the original okay um really like the original

listening back this week it's the first time i've listened to it for a long time i didn't realize just how unconventional its structure was it progresses in such a strange way you know it goes in quite a conventional fashion until about midway through the second chorus at which point it starts bolting on all these new hooks and new ideas to the point where like the last three minutes of the song is just a series of it's like it plays its own hits over and over again

it like it jumps into these new sections and new ideas and in a way where you kind of lose track of where you are in a way that's quite hypnotic and propulsive at the same time. The bones of what Jerry's working with here are dead solid. I think it's one of the best and most iconic tracks of that kind of post-disco, pre-high-energy era. So if Jerry had done a straight cover, I'm not sure she could have gone much

wrong with this. It's great material, and if you do it well, then you're on to a bit of a winner. This isn't quite as good as the original, because it doesn't feel as human to me. It feels a little

sterile and clean to me. I think it's just an issue I have with pop around this time. The kind of CD, car stereo, small little stereo player kind of era that I associate with all my music listening, where it's all treble, a bit of mid and not much bass. But I've got to say, this has grown on me quite a bit over the past sort of week or so. Um, this isn't just a straight cover, which I kind of remembered it as being, which it's not. They've increased the tempo, which is a great idea.

Um, it gives it, this version, like, a sense of urgency. Like, the original definitely has a sense of urgency, but this felt like it has a a sense of urgency like the original definitely has a sense of urgency but this feel like it has a greater sense of urgency where it feels like the it's raining men thing like the image feels quite the way this song makes it sound it's like a mixture between incredibly sexual and also incredibly apocalyptic where it's like like jesus there's men raining from the sky and like they're crushing buildings and oh jesus christ not all of them are surviving and you know it's like this sort of thing it makes it feel like there's a sense of panic to this which i always associate with like

listening to it as a kid i always associated it as like a panic like you know it's like a four minute warning like shit it's about to rain human beings like it's this weird cataclysmic weather event that we've never experienced before those strings that they've added in give it a real sense of drama as well the the running strings that go behind all the uh the sort of like the additional added value choruses the um like they're kind of running off in the background three songs in a row that we've had this week they all have really prominent strings um just a little production note there yeah um and in bridget jones's diary this song gets used in a fight scene yeah and i think that makes total sense it's a great fight scene by the way if you haven't watched it just go on youtube and type in

i mean a lot of people have seen it i'm sure everybody has that's listening but the fight scene in bridget jones is fantastic it's colin firth and uh hugh grant fighting each other and they stumble into a greek restaurant and there's a happy birthday routine it's very funny um and i think this has tried to update the original it's tried to be bigger and it's tried to be louder, I think Jerry is, I mean I think just based on a discussion we had about this specific thing earlier today and sort of like throughout the week, I'll let you two kind of take the floor on this next bit I'm going to talk about, but Jerry's very open to the fact that the original

became something of a big camp hit slash queer anthem um and she's leaned right into it i think where the original has a lot of class this version has a lot of camp and that's not that's not used in a pejorative sense that's not to say no i don't agree no do you not think that the original is quite classy yes Yes. No, I do. That's not the bit I disagree with. Okay. How come? The camp. The classiness I agree with.

I don't know if you do, Lizzie. I agree that the first one has a certain class and sass to it. I'd say sass. I don't think it's classy. I think it's deliberately ridiculous. Well, but I see the point with that. It's got soul. It's got soul.

It's got character to it. The performance, yeah. Whereas this version, I don't agree with you on the camp. I don't know if you've got other things to say, Rob, but I will pick you up on that point later on if you've got other things to say. Well, it's the line. I don't think it's summed up any better

than the one great idea that I think this version has compared to the original, which I wish was in the original, which is the go get yourself wet girl. I know you want to. It's, it's great. I think it's a wonderful ad live.

It's one of the more memorable ad lives in modern pop. It made me think that this is more of a, I discovered this week that apparently RuPaul did a version of this in the nineties with one of the members of the Weather Girls Martha, Martha Wash and it made me think is the Jerry version more of a cover of the

RuPaul version because the RuPaul version is much dancier and it's a bit more up-tempo and it has more space for ad-libbing between RuPaul and Martha. Not sure. But, yeah, I think also I quite like the fact that

even though it's go-get-yourself-wet-girl, it's very much like a... I think it's whatever that means to you listening. I don't know if it's a specific kind of, you know, directed at girls kind of thing. I think it's just more like, you know, this has become a very, very big hit in the 80s and 90s sort of LGBT club scene in between the original and this cover version. And I'm not saying like she's gone totally for it, but it feels like she's leaned into it quite a lot. And that go get yourself wet girl i can i don't know i just think that it it can apply to lots of lots of different demographics um and just to kind of

finish off um i think what's lost here by there being no two vocalists and you know those two and three part harmonies that are in the original that honestly kind of remind me of the muses from hercules like i love the interplay between the vocalists in um the original that's the way that they're kind of chatting to each other and have we got news for you and all of these little things um i think it's made up for by Jerry giving this as much as she can compared to, I don't know if it's Izora or Izora, but Armstead and Martha Walsh. I think it's Izora, yeah. Izora, yeah. Jerry's a limited vocalist compared to those two.

Oh, yes. But that's more to do with those two because, my God, Izora Armstead has a voice like ten trumpets, like God Rester like yeah powerful stuff and there's so much depth and i mean like she didn't have much of a career in the weather girls but i mean it went on for a long time but she didn't have a lot of success with it aside from this but she did have a lot of um success singing with uh was it in sylvester she was part of? The two of them? Yes, I think it was.

At least, I think Martha Wash was back in vocalist on You Make Me Feel Mighty Real. Great song, that. So, yeah, wonderful stuff. And Geri tries to take them on and she has a lot of character.

She doesn't quite match them up, but fair play to her for giving it a go. You know, we had Westlife doing Uptown Girl last week. Similar gap between the release of Uptown Girl and the release of Westlife's cover to the original release of the Weather Girl song and this. But this is much stronger than the cover of Uptown Girl last week for many reasons.

Don't love it. Like I said, feel like I'm stuck in this many reasons. Don't love it, like I said. Feel like I'm stuck in this era of pop at the moment where, like I say, too much treble. It's a bit loud for me. But I think there's an urgency to this and I think it leans in to things that were sort of extra textual about It's Raining Men that kind of came to be after the original was uh released

but andy sounds like you're gonna disagree with me a bit about the camp factor on this i do i mean first of all i agree with you on the that it's better than uptown girl as a cover but that's a low bar um yes so the thing right so in terms of the camp i think this is slightly there's a nuance to this it's slightly off like camp camp is something that i feel quite strong oh god i hear myself saying that campus of the guy feels strongly about christ i'm so pretentious anyway um but i feel like it's really easy to mistake it for other things right and i think this song mistakes high energy for camp which are not the same thing right throw in everything at it at the throw in the kitchen sink had it throw in every instrument at it being very loud is not the same thing right direct

comparison for jerry right she's in the spice girls for my money the campus song the spice girls ever did was the lady is a, which is one of their more chilled out songs, right? I think the nuance of it is that it has to have a sense of indulgence, has to have a sense of fun, like the artist has let themselves go and is expressing their spirit

I don't think that's here at all and I think the thing that the main problem I have with this song is that I think Jerry doesn't well maybe not Jerry herself actually but whoever produced it or whoever arranged this version of it there's just a sense of unease with the original

that they don't know what to do with this song that it sort of seems a little bit beyond them you make that point about the ad-lib that she does at the end Rob which yes that adds some pizzazz to it but then why did she cut out every other ad-lib from the original, which were sort of some of the most fun bits of that song?

Like, this is... I'm kind of making a point of this because I know that my husband will be listening, and this is one of his favourite songs from the era. He absolutely loves It's Rain and Meth, the original. And the bit he loves most about it is those really silly comedic bits in the middle where they overly seriously are like,

oh, that barometer's getting low. It's so low you know where's all that where's the sense of ridiculousness where's the sense of fun where's the sense of this is silly isn't it but let's just go for it and like you say instead by accident because it's so high energy because there's so much drama put into this it hits the wrong. And I don't think that sense of fun is quite there, which means for me, the sense of camp is lost. Yes, it's very cheesy. And you might say it's very kind of aimed at the gay market. But I don't really think it has that camp factor to it, which Bag It Up really did have, because that did have that sense of Jerry could just do anything here. She's let herself go, and I don't think that's here.

You know, there's a few really odd choices that kind of give that feeling for me. The first one is that she cuts the absolutely soaking wet bit from the first line. She just says it's raining men again. And I just don't know why, because she then does do the soaking wet bit in the second chorus.

And then, like you said before, Rob, where they just kind of abandon the structure at the end and they just do It's Rainin' Man all over again. And then they throw in the Soak and Wet bit and then It's Rainin' Man again. There's a sense of discomfort about they don't know what to do. They don't know whether to do this as a straight cover or whether to completely reinvent it.

And it ends up as this really uncomfortable mid-ground where it's like, hmm, we kind of like this bit of the song but only a bit so let's just do it once and the rest of it well we don't really know what we're going to fill it with um let's have jerry do some different ad-libs but just the one at the end it's just there's a sense of inauthenticity to this which kind of robs it of the magic that the original had having said that you know the original is such a great song that i do still really really like this and just because i don't think it's that camp doesn't mean i don't really love the high energy factor of it like it's silly and it's really fun for what it's worth um it just doesn't live up to the potential that it had i don't think um yeah and i've been maybe

a little bit overly harsh on it but i just think think that that's like... Again, I come back to this point that I made last week, is that if you're going to tackle an existing classic song, you have to know what you want to do. You have to commit to it to make it a success. And I don't think this manages that. I think this is another failure on that point, unfortunately. And I really don't like the strings, by the way. Diddle-a-liddle-a-liddle-a-liddle.

Hate that. Really, really hate that. I think that is just too much. It's too much. The song doesn't need that. But there are good points. You know, Jerry sings it pretty competently. She's got a really good range, and she does let herself go slightly towards the end, but not enough.

So, yeah, disappointed for me, unfortunately. Lizzie? Yeah, I agree with a lot of what both of you have to say i do think it you know i think it's a pretty good performance all things told like you're not like you're never gonna live up to the original because the original like vocal performance especially by um is our armstead just you're not going to top that and i think you'd be a fool for even trying but it is a kind of mark a difference like when you listen to the original you think of the chorus for example just it's in jerry hallowell it's kind of it's raining and in the original it's it's raining man because it really puts over that it is this ridiculous phenomenon

and it is just a it's a ludicrous concept and it all builds to you know that gag about gonna go out and gonna let myself get absolutely soaking wet and like yeah they they know what they're doing with that but yeah i think the way jerry delivers it it's a little bit matter of fact like um i don't think either of you've seen the u.s office but there's a bit where dwight throws a birthday party and he puts a sign up saying it is your birthday it is your birthday i've literally just watched that episode this week yep with the tiny brown and silver balloons yes like half inflated like it is raining men like i suppose i will go out and i i will get slightly damp you know it's yeah i think i do kind of i like your point rob about how this kind of amps up the speed and the drama of it but

i don't know i don't know if that's what the original intent was and I'm not saying you can't change the intent of a song or the message because well the message is there really a message it's kind of just a it's a bit of a gag but it's kind of endearing because of that but um yeah, I think in terms of the speed, I think, Robbie, you mentioned that this might be more of a cover of the RuPaul version. I'm guessing that sped-up versions of this song appeared in clubs for, like, decades before this.

Well, the two decades before this. Because, yeah, it is kind of a turning point for, like, high energy energy it's one of the first big hits and then obviously later on you get like hazel dean and there's sylvester before that but it wasn't it wasn't the kind of the start of high energy in a sense anyway that's not really what we're talking about i'm trying to think well like i mean there like there's little earlier examples of this just sort of like I'm thinking of number one in heaven Sparks, that's 17-9

well as I feel love I feel like that's the kind of break, the beginning yeah that's definitely also Marauder yeah but then later on it gets kind of colonised by Sissets for like New Order and that sort of thing Pete Waterman

yep thanks yeah anyway I'll get back to the song now I do like it I just the performance I don't know I would much rather listen to the original and I think that's as much as I really have to say about it

but as far as covers go it's not bad it's actually pretty good it's pretty listenable like considering some of the ones we've had previously this is miles better yeah not disagreeing okay it's time for

hits 21 first because next up to be number one in the UK but not necessarily next up on our show because we've already discussed it it's this okay so what happened was it's raining men was knocked off the top of the charts by don't stop moving by s club 7 which jumped back up from number 2 and returned to the top of the charts by Don't Stop Moving by S Club 7, which jumped back up from number two and returned to the top spot for one more week.

It sold 64,000 copies on its return to the summit, beating competition from Up Middle Finger by our mates Oxide and Neutrino, which got to number seven, Still On Your Side by BB Mac, which got to number eight, and Upside Down by A-Teb mac which got to number eight and upside down by 18s which got to number 10 when it was knocked off the top spot for a second time it dropped one place to number two and by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for a total of 23 weeks so we have nothing to discuss because we've already discussed don't stop moving so bye-bye everyone see ya yeah that's it bye um but next up is this enter the dragon Do you really like it?

Do you really like it? We're loving it, loving it, loving it We're loving it like this Do you really like it? Is it, is it wicked? We're loving it, loving it, loving it We're loving it like that Do you really like it?

Do you really like it? We're loving it, loving it, loving it We're loving it like that. Do you really like it? Do you really like it? We're loving it, loving it, loving it. We're loving it like this. Do you really like it? Is it, is it wicked? We're loving it, loving it, loving it. We're loving it like that. Hardcore, you know the score. Rhyme so good I deserve an encore. All about the style we bring. We make you laugh like when you was a little child again Smooth, that's how I roll I got so much soul, I wanna step into the party I wanna move somebody, I wanna move somebody

Where the masters of the ceremony What does it take to be a Gary Jimcee? Personality, originality On a microphone, it got to be The capital U and the KNO, we'll get down Represent South London town Pied Piper's on the decks Rock the discotheque and I'm back in his sack

This one's for the heads out there Party people, can you hear me clear? If you like it, let me see your hands in the air If you don't, y'all get the hell out of here Bass is kicking, drums is drumming When you hear do-do-do, I'm coming Sharpie represents the west of London DT, Pied Piper, melody and unknown

Okay, so this is Do You Really Like It? by DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies. Released as the group's debut single, Do You Really Like It? is also a non-album single for DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies. To date, it is their first and only UK number one single in the UK and the only single by the group to make the UK charts Wow Do you really like it went straight in at number one as a new entry? Knocking s club seven off the top of the charts in the process and it stayed at number one for one week. It sold 149,000 copies first and only week as a number one single as huge Yeah First and only week as a number one single That's huge Yeah Beating competition from Thank You by Dido

Which got to number three Oh wow All Rise by Blue Which got to number four Pyramid Song by Radiohead Which got to number five Yeah I know

I kind of wish we'd talk about that But never mind No More by 3LW Which got to number six And Heard It All Before by Sunshine Anderson, which got to number 9. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Do You Really Like It dropped one place to number 2,

and by the time it was done on the charts, much like It's Raining Men and Survivor, it stayed inside the top 100 for 15 weeks. So, that's a first anyway, that don't stop moving managed to be number one twice that happens a lot between now and the present day well between 2002 and the present day um so that's how we're going to do it that's how we're going to present that kind of phenomenon as we go forward. I hope it went down okay.

Andy, I'm not going to say, do you really like, do you really like it? I'm just going to ask you how you feel about it. Oh, yeah, I really, really like it. It is wicked. No. Actually, that's probably putting my feelings a little bit too strongly. I just wanted to do that joke. Yeah, I do like it, though um what a hook that is like that just well the fact that it's

like sort of three lines that they extend that hook over that do you really like it and then i'm loving it loving it loving it that just gets in your head there and the fact that they also kind of double the length of the hook by changing the line from do you really like it to is it is it wicked in the um second time around it's just really clever it's a really good hook that i think is pretty much the sole reason this took off and got to number one um it's just a really really good hook that everyone at home can get in their heads um for the rest of it, I don't really know because I think the kind of garage stuff in the middle is really generic, really, really generic. I don't have an awful lot to say about that at all. And my problem overall with this song is that the rap sections

and the vocal sections, the rap sections and the song sections are completely disconnected. I really don't feel like there's any relationship between the two. It really feels like both sections have to come to an absolute halt to accommodate the other. I just don't feel like there's any kind of leading from one to the other. I think the thing that gives it away is that when the rap sections are going on, I don't ever feel like the chorus is coming. I don't ever feel like I can feel it about to arrive, which I think is a bad sign. You know,

I want to kind of get taken along with a song. Um, and that's, that's a bit of a problem for me. Um, but other than that, I do quite, I do actually quite like this.

Um, at the artwork, I have to say for the single is one of the worst pieces of single artwork I've ever seen in my life it's genuinely awful you'll be able to see it while you're listening to this if you're listening to it with the artwork visible

because we've put that on there, it's so awful, it's like been done in Microsoft Paint, it's so bad yeah I really really don't have a lot to say about this to be honest because i think it is quite a small song you know there's not that much in it the chorus has kind of go on and on and on for quite a while and like i say the the rap sections i think are quite generic but it's really catchy i don't deny that um and it's very very pleasant to listen to it has a

nice sound to it um and i might revisit this in the future i feel like this is a grower and i potentially haven't given it enough time so i'd be interested to see if either of you feel any more strongly than i do about it but i don't really really like it um i i i somewhat like it and it is somewhat wicked um lizzie how about you yeah i'm just looking at the artwork now there's one guy on there who looks like like he'd be on crime watch it's like this man was caught stealing scratch cards from the Farringdon

branch of Budgins have you seen him? If so call this number like yeah it's really bad but luckily the single's really good I think when we were talking about Bound for the Reload, I think Rob, it was you who picked up on something

that I didn't really get about the single the first time. It's that it's like kind of a live MC type thing. And I think once I've noticed it on this, I'm like, oh, okay, I get it now. Because this is what this is. It's like a live MC performance and they're just blending the two parts of the track together and it does feel disconnected but i think that's

kind of the point um i don't think it's the best example of like uk garage that we're gonna see i think i maybe jumped the gun a bit on the christ Christmas episode by saying that it's on the way out I think it maybe peaked in this sort of period but the best is still yet to come thankfully the actual bars themselves they're not amazing or anything but I think it kind of does

lend itself to that spontaneous feeling of it like you are witnessing this as it's happening and you're kind of there in the crowd and yeah the hook is obviously great you know do you really like it is it weird it gets stuck in your head because of course it does um but i do actually i really like this overall i think i'd maybe i was gonna say I'd want to see more of this, but given that this is their only single,

you get the sense that maybe this is something that grew quite organically. I wish I'd done more research on this, because I want to know where this came from. I get the feeling that this originated in small London clubs, or even like pirate radio, something like that, and just grew organically. And people wanted more of that hook, and it just got stuck in their heads.

Like, what is that song? I need it. I need to have it. And that's how it ends up at number one. And I think it's, yeah, I love that kind of rags to riches sort of story I just I almost wish there was more of it but in terms of the song yeah pretty good but as I say in terms of UK Garage just you wait

yeah I think this has a kind of I don't know whether things mix together in this so much as they clash this has such a lovely vibe in the chorus. The acoustic guitar is a great idea. It's warm and welcoming and subtle. It's melodic and obviously acoustic and it's pretty and it's modest which means that the verses by the various masters of ceremonies aren't the greatest really and they kind of butt into the atmosphere. I'm not a huge

fan of how the atmosphere changes, a bit like you, Andy, but it feels a little bit like Bound for the Reload and Craig David kind of bumped into each other, and this is what happened. We've had two really big UK Garage hits around this point, well, just before this point, and this feels like a combination of them both, like, oh, let's see, let's see what they get.

And yeah, I think, Lizzie, I've taken basically the same thing down in my notes which is like you know this reminds me of how us hip-hop began like how hip-hop actually itself began where it was house parties and block parties and pirate radios and you know it was live performances somebody controlling the music on the turntables handed the mic to someone whose job it was to keep the crowd going you know i'm reminded of like um not massively but in a little way i'm reminded of songs like uh well there's two tracks actually from the wild style compilation from 1982 which is the soundtrack to that um one of the earliest kind of like um feature-length documentations of hip-hop culture in new york in the late 70s and early 80s called wild style it's a great um really really great document to

seek out and the soundtrack's fantastic the soundtrack has been sampled by basically every big name you can think of in hip-hop like um the track fantastic freaks at the Dixie, just that track has been sampled by Public Enemy, Kanye West, Black Moon, DJ Shadow, Busta Rhymes. There's another one called Double Trouble at the Amphitheater that was sampled by Beastie Boys, The Roots, Big Daddy Kane. Like anyone who's anyone in hip hop has listened to that record, watched that film, like taken a lot of inspiration from it. And I think if you transpose those kinds of songs like fantastic freaks at the dixie and stuff like that if you transpose them over to the uk and you stick it in a uk environment this is what you get i feel the same way about this the the

verses in this as i do about um bound for the, which is like the image I get in my head is of a really, really loud, throbbing, sweaty flat in London somewhere that's about 10 floors up. Like the cover of Original Pirate Materials, something like that. Exactly, yeah. Or even just like, I don't know, something like in Peep Show in Croydon.

Yeah. Just something like that. I feel like if you transpose those kinds of really early hip-hop like late 70s early 80s stuff if you transpose it where it was like dj parties at clubs and radio stations and stuff if you transpose it into a uk setting you get this and i think uk garage and uk hip-hop i mean it's been bubbling under for about 15 years at this point but it's definitely having a big big moment over the last kind of three or four years and i think a lot of these songs of this type they are geared towards massive gatherings with massive speakers and i think that means that yeah like you said andy um i don't think these are the kinds of verses where i'm going gonna sit down and peruse the

lyrics you know I'm just gonna be like oh he's doing rhythm with his mouth that's cool um I'm just enjoying myself oh yeah buster move like that kind of thing you know that's it's not really something to concentrate on it's just kind of something to occupy your mind for four minutes until we get back to the chorus and i love what this song does for its chorus not just for the hook which is the like you say andy one of the most infectious hooks of the 21st century i think this calls out to me from a very very long time ago this reminds me of a very specific person and friend i had at high at primary school because his mum was a little well she was a lot younger than mine um and he could get away with things and listening to certain kinds of music that i not necessarily wasn't

allowed to but my parents just didn't listen to you know like all of his mum's cultural references were the 80s and the 90s whereas my mum's and dad's were all 70s and early 80s possibly late 60s and so the music in his house was very different to the music in mine and he I think being eight, eight years old at this time, maybe six, seven years old at this time, I think he introduced me to this. Because at school, we always used to discuss pop songs in the playground, even when we were like seven or eight years old.

It was like seven, eight, up to being like 11 years old in primary school. And this was one of the ones, I seem to remember there being like a school disco or something like that for year two i think i was at this point and i seem to remember him knowing basically every word wow this because because he was able to listen to it all the time and so he was introducing this to and maybe not like you know every word verbatim but like he knew the general vibe and where the song was going to go like even to the point where like the little ad-libs and stuff that you get in the song like even at the start where you get the enter the dragon you know stuff like that he would be right on with it and he knew the song when it came on when the dj played it and stuff like that and so i think that this is a world i've never experienced but it feels like a window into it, you know?

It felt a little bit more that way with Bound for the Reload, but this feels more accessible. This is way more commercial. But the thing I really love about this song's chorus, beyond how catchy it is, is the fact that it ducks down for the chorus and it strips everything away it goes for a big dynamic shift but in the opposite direction it takes everything out

instead and so you're just left with the very essential elements of what makes the chorus work you know like choruses the choruses i love more than any other are the ones that go big they go skyscraper they go loud they go from a quieter dynamic into a bigger one but i always love songs that duck out for you know for their chorus and this is a really good example another song from a totally different genre that i really love that does the same thing is holiday um by the get up kids off um something to write home about where the get up kids off um something to write home about where you go for a quite a big opening and a big open-hearted verse but then it just takes all the elements out and it goes for something quieter in in the chorus you could say about holiday by madonna as well and it influenced

the song i wrote as well oh yeah which i put on an ep or an album I did about three years ago two years ago and taking direct inspiration from like oh what if we went down for the chorus instead what if we focused on melody rather than volume and yeah I don't love this

I think that like I say the various elements don't necessarily complement each other so much as they bump into each other and just exist in the same space, but I do like this and I've enjoyed going back to it, definitely. Did you mention Craig David there as well a minute ago? Yeah, just the acoustic guitar. Right, well, we have a link to the present from this. We have a link to the present from this Yes, I read this too but go ahead So the song was interpolated in

Really Love by KSI featuring Craig David which reached number three in the UK in October 2020 and DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies are credited as co-writers of the song

It has lasted. It has endured in its own way. Yeah, 20 years on. Renewed interest for a new generation. Yeah. Good for them. Yeah. All right, then.

So we're going to go through the songs that we've done this week, and we're just going to check whether any of us want to induct either of them into either the vault, where we all want to be or the pie hole where we don't so Survivor by Destiny's Child is that a vault song for anybody? nah, narrowly missed out

I think Don't Stop Moving by S Club 7 is a yes from me for the vault is a yes from me as well can I say by the way this is the first song of 2001

that I've put in The Vault it's taken a while it's taken until our third episode for me to get there with that it genuinely nothing else

has felt like it's worthy up to this point so I'm really glad to have finally put something in yeah also given that it was

number one twice does that mean I can put it in twice two votes it's Raining Men Jerry Halliwell

no no not for me either do you really like it DJ Pied Piper and the Master

of Ceremonies is that going in either no no but again it's close yeah narrowly

misses out for me. Just narrowly, though. Okay, that's the end of this week's show. Next time out, we'll be covering the period from the 3rd of June to the 14th of July. Things have slowed down ever so slightly, haven't they?

We will see you next time. It'll be in a couple of weeks, because we're taking a little bit of a break. Andy, you're going away, aren't you? I am, yes. And I'm going to see Kendrick Lamar on the night that we usually record. Nice. Bit busy. Going to flex that.

Yeah, there you go. I'm going to see Florence and the Machine. Oh, lovely. Fantastic. We'll tell you all about those gigs when we come back and we'll see you soon. See ya. See ya.

Bye-bye. Remember it's not helping you yet Say goodnight, mean goodbye Know you think my life will stop in your way Maybe I can see you on holidays Worlds away I've never forgotten all our yesterdays Lucky if we're speaking on the holidays