Hits 21 - 2001 (5): Robbie Williams, Atomic Kitten, So Solid Crew, Five

Episode Date: December 4, 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]

David Gray White Ladder. That's mine. Um, excuse me, I think you'll find that I bought that for myself last summer. Look, I'm not getting into this. I bought it myself when I got promoted last year. No, I bought it for myself the day I decided I was gonna get rid of you! Yeah, well that was like a year ago. Nibbity-nibbity-nibbity! Hand it over! No!

Give it me! Give it me! Give it me! Give it me! Give it me! Give it me! I was the one who took us to his concert! Do I fancy him? No, do I! Hi. Hi. Oh, you got a new David Gray album. Yeah, well, I fancy it! No, do I! Hi. Hi. Oh, you've got a new David Gray album. Yeah, well, it helps.

I'll put the kit on. You put David Gray's head over my face. No, no, that's just an accident. That's our anniversary photo! Are you still underneath? What is going on in your head? Look at us. No, look at you. Freak! That's our anniversary photo! Are you still underneath? What is going on in your head? Liquid or snow? Look at you!

FREAK! Help me! David Gray, White Ladder. Help yourself. Hit 21 Alright there everyone, and welcome back to Hit 21 Where me, Rob Me, Andy And me, Lizzy Look back at every single UK number one

Of the 21st century From January 2000 right through To the present day If you want to get in touch with us You can find us over on Twitter We are at Hits21UK That is at Hits21UK You can email us too

Just send it over to Hits21podcast At gmail.com. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. Just like our previous episodes, we're going to be looking back at four number one singles from the year 2001 in the UK, and this time we're going to be covering the period between the 15th of July and the 2nd of September. Before we look at the songs that we've got coming up for you this week, we're just going to cast our minds back to the last episode, just have a look at the poll that we put on.

So out of Angel, Lady Marmalade wasn't far behind uh but it was behind unfortunately it's a bit of a shame because that's the first yeah that's the first poll winner i've slightly disagreed with i really was kind of rooting for Lady Marmalade but whatever. Okay as always we are going to take you back in time to when these songs were number one. We're not just going to talk about the songs that reached the top of the charts we're going to have a look at some news headlines from around the period as well. Tory politician and novelist Geoffrey Archer is jailed for four years after being found guilty of lying in his 1987 libel case against the Daily Star. He was found guilty on two counts of perverting the course of justice and two counts of perjury. He was eventually released two years into

his sentence in July 2003 and returned to his career as an author, leaving politics behind. Meanwhile, in Akashi, Japan, 11 people are killed and over 100 people are injured when a pedestrian footbridge collapses. The bridge, which formed part of a local train station, gave way due to overcrowding. Five civic and security officials were later convicted of professional negligence for not preventing the disaster. Meanwhile in the Bahamas, R&B singer Aaliyah dies in a plane crash at the age of 22, along with nine other people. Aaliyah and her entourage had just finished filming the music video for her new single, Rock the Boat. The single would eventually reach number 12 in the

UK and number 14 in the US. A subsequent investigation determined that the aircraft had attempted to take off while heavily overloaded and that the pilot had falsified records about his experience of flying light aircraft. Do either of you remember this happening? Yes I do. I do remember it but I didn't know who she was. To be honest we should perhaps slightly park the discussion of earlier because of potential future events on the charts. But yes, I was vaguely aware of it, but didn't really know who she was. So I didn't really have any feelings about it at the time.

But it's an awful, awful story. Yeah, and I actually remember, I do sort of remember as a kid, the rumour going around that she had died In the September 11th attack Which is obviously not true Oh gosh The shit ten year olds say Yeah

The films to hit the top of the UK box office During this period were as follows Shrek for one more week Jurassic Park 3 For two weeks Cats and Dogs for two weeks Planet of Jurassic Park 3 for two weeks Cats and Dogs for two weeks Planet of the Apes for two weeks and A Knight's Tale for one week

again I've seen all I didn't go to see all of them in the cinema the only one I didn't go to see of those was Jurassic Park 3 the other four I think I went to see them all I used to love Cats and Dogs obviously used to love Shrek,

and I do have a slight soft spot for that Planet of the Apes Tim Burton remake, although it's not that good, really. I know that it's just nostalgia. It wasn't very good. They're all staples of the CEX DVD collection. Definitely. Yeah.

In TV, the Premiership debuts on ITV which we've of course discussed before with that theme tune Beautiful Day by U2 the former number one single it's presented by Des Lynham and occasionally by Gabby Logan and the series showed highlights from

each weekend's Premier League matches similar in style to Match of the Day the series would run until 2004 when the BBC retained the rights to show highlights from Premier League games and revamped Match of the Day. The series would run until 2004, when the BBC retained the rights to show highlights from Premier League games and revamped Match of the Day, which I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, is still the rights holder to this day.

Yes, it is. It never went back. Yeah. Hmm. And in the United States, a one-off 10th anniversary special of Rugrats airs on Nickelodeon. Entitled All Growed Up, the one-time 10th anniversary special of Rugrats airs on Nickelodeon. Entitled All Growed Up,

the one-time broadcast eventually spawned a spin-off series called All Grown Up. I'm assuming their proofreader was on network. I really love the way you had to just like audibly grimace when you were saying All Growed Up there. All Growed Up, yeah. Meanwhile, Samurai Jack premieres on Cartoon Network

and PBS Kids broadcasts the last ever episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. End of an era. Yeah, really. I was showing... And beginning of a new one, I guess. Yeah, I was... Well, I was showing some episodes of that

to my partner the other week because she wanted to watch Bear in the Big Blue House because that appeared on disney plus and i'd never seen it before and so she showed me a couple of episodes and i thought this really really reminds me of mr rogers neighborhood but just with more puppets and costumes and so we watched a couple of episodes of mr rogers neighborhood and i remember like at the start of the first episode I showed her, which I think was from 1981, maybe a little bit later than that, um, it was broadcasting colour, um, and she just sort of, like, spent the first five or ten minutes thinking,

there's something up with this guy, like, there's something weird going on, and then by the end of the episode, you realise that there's actually nothing sinister below the surface he's just that sincere and it says an awful lot i think how we sort of well i mean to be honest there is a a fantastic um film with tom hanks in it um that came out about two or three years ago which is called called A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I really liked that movie. And that movie is also about how, like, when you think about Mr. Rogers, you think, no, he can't be that nice all the time, surely. And, like, the movie is about, I think it's a New York Times columnist

who goes to interview Mr. Rogers, played by Tom Hanks, thinking, like, he's not going to be that nice in person, is he? He's not going to be the way that he is in person. And it's a really, really interesting movie. It was a lot better than I expected it to be. Because you know how films of that type can be a little, you know, Oscar-baity and a bit mawwkish but this really wasn't um andy how are the uk album charts looking at this point in time it's quite a brief segment for for me this week about the uh the album charts everything sort of hangs around for one week or two um we've got well at the start of this period we've still got um survivor by destiny's child um hanging on but that is swiftly replaced by white ladder by david gray which is is not an album i've ever listened to and i i i know that david gray was big but i didn't know he was so big that this album sold

10 times platinum he was huge he was huge yeah curious case this um my mum had a copy of this so did mine it was one of those that a workmate of hers ripped for I think or that may have been his next one which was A New Day at Midnight but yeah White Ladders quite a curious

thing because it was originally released in 1998 and it didn't really get any traction and then i'm not sure how it happened i think it might have been because babylon got picked up um the single but it just sort of went stratospheric and everybody had a copy of it and yeah i sent you guys that amazing advert with michelle from peep Show in it that was nuts that was one of the strangest adverts I've ever seen in my life it wasn't an advert at all

it was like a short film inspired by the album White Ladder by David Gray it was very strange yeah and that's number one for one week, only one week considering it's ten times platinum.

That's quite strange. And it's replaced by Right Now by Atomic Kitten, their debut album. But then they're knocked off again by David Gray, who returns to number one for a week. But that is his last week at number one with that album, actually. So it's a very brief visit to the top for such a huge seller. And it's replaced by none other than Stained with Break the Cycle

with one week at number one how unbelievable is that that that got to number one and knocked off a huge seller as well fuck me yeah crazy but yeah that's it for this period, only a few albums and a few other completely random ones

next week which I'm looking forward to discussing, but yeah. It's the time of grey at the moment. It's all hail King David at the moment. Lizzie, how are things in the States? Yeah, after Usher's four weeks at number one with You Remind Me, Destiny's Child

would return to the number one spot with Bootylicious, which stayed at number one for two weeks, went platinum, and finished at number 42 on the year-end list, but was narrowly beaten to the number one spot in the UK by a song we're covering on this very episode. Stay tuned. The next number one single, Fall In by Alicia Keys, got to number one for three weeks in mid-August and would return to number one for three weeks in late September. It went three times platinum and finished at number two on the year-end Hot 100,

just behind Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse, which we've already discussed and none of us remember, and number 29 on the decade-end Hot 100. But it only got to number three in the UK in early November, behind a song we'll cover in a later episode.

In the album's charts, meanwhile, Alicia Keys and D12 would trade the number one spot for four weeks in July with Alicia Keys' album Songs in A Minor eventually winning out and staying at number one for two weeks. It went seven times platinum and finished at number 13 on the 2001 year end list number 23 on the 2002 year end list number 32 on the decade end list and number 107 on the all-time billboard 200 this album was big yeah so big wow also um around this time that was overtaken by n-sync's album celebrity which sold almost two million copies in its first week, but only spent a week at number one. Again, it's a lot like David Gray.

I don't know what's happening there, but still, it hit number nine on the year-end list for 2001, as well as number 54 on the 2002 year-end list, and number 42 on the decade-end list. After that, the number one spot would be occupied for three weeks by Now That's What I Call Music 7, which featured a couple of tracks that we've already covered. Survivor by Destiny's Child,

and Never Had a Dream Come True by S Club 7. Ah, yeah. And that finished at number 24 on the Year End list for 2001. Wow. Yeah. All right, then. Back over to the UK. 24 on the year end less than 2001 wow yeah alright then back over to the UK back to

well July 2001 and let's go first song up this week is this close your eyes so you don't feel them

They don't need to see you cry I can't promise I will heal you. But if you want to, I will try. I'll sing this summer serenade. The past is done, we've been betrayed. It's true. Someone said the truth will out I believe without a doubt in you You were there for summer dreaming

And you gave me what I need and I hope you'll find your freedom for eternity for eternity For eternity Okay, so I said first song but it's first songs Technically it's double a side eternity and the road to Mandalay by Robbie Williams Released as the fifth single from his third studio album sing when you're winning Eternity double a side with The Road to Mandalay, is Robbie Williams' 15th single overall to be released in the UK. It is his fourth single to reach number one after Millennium, She's The One, It's Only Us, double A-side there, and Rock DJ, all reached the summit in 1999 and 2000 respectively. It is not the last time we'll

be discussing Robbie on this podcast. Eternity and The Road to Mandalay went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking Roger Sanchez off the top of the charts, and it stayed at number one for two weeks. It sold 70,000 copies in its first week atop the charts, beating competition from Purple Pills, which was released as Purple Hills by D12 which got to number two, Perfect Gentlemen by Wyclef Jean which got to number four, Castles in the Sky by Ian Van Dahl which got to number five, and Pop by NSYNC which got to number nine. In its second week at the summit it sold 64,000 copies and beat competition from Elevation by U2, which got to number 3, and Dance For

Me by Sisqo, which got to number 6. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Eternity AA Side with The Roads of Mandalay dropped two places to number 3, and by the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 22 weeks um i suppose the people listening if you were coming here expecting something really in depth about the road to mandalay sorry um because i think what we'll probably do is we'll talk mostly about the single that is leading the double a side if you know what i mean so So we'll talk mostly about Eternity, and then we may pay some decent lip service, but lip service all the same to the Road to Mandalay.

Andy, how are we on Eternity? On Eternity? Well, it's quite unusual, really, because it's sort of... The thing is with Robbie Williams is that at this point in his career, there are two very distinct facets of Robbie's personality. He's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde really, where you have the cheeky chappy laddish, you know, sing when you win kind of guy who does songs like Rock DJ and Let Me Entertain You and more recently stuff like Candy.

And then you've got this extremely earnest balladry that comes out sometimes, like Angel's most prominently, but also She's the One, and now this. And I find this version of Robbie to be far less interesting. I don't think simple ballads are his strength, to be honest. And that's probably because his strength is not as a vocalist, it's more as a performer, more as a showman. vocalist it's more as a performer more as a showman um and so when you really expose him like this i think it's quite difficult it puts robbie in a position that he's not particularly designed for but nevertheless all these types of songs tend to get number one they're really popular i think people like it when robbie shows a bit of heart when he shows that uh side um and i will say straight off the bat that that's not particularly for me that's not what i would ever listen to robbie williams for um but it's not what I would ever listen to Robbie Williams for.

But it's not that bad. I think what I really like about it is the idea of the song, the lyrical content, that it's a little bit more of a deeper topic than he would usually tackle. I think the direct comparison that I would make is with She's the One, really, where it feels very similar in tone and it feels very similar in terms of what he's trying to do. This is just very straight down the line, very, very simple, win the hearts of the audience. I think as a song, I prefer She's the One.

I think that's more interesting musically. They kind of do more with it. And this is a very, very straightforward ballad, which is a little dull as a song. But in of lyrics i think this is way more interesting and i think it's nice to hear robbie doing something slightly different um i will say from what you've said about the songs that this beat to number one seems like it was a pretty naff couple of weeks on the chart to be honest seems like it was a pretty quiet time, at least for my tastes. And so that sort of explains why it got to number one,

because I'm not sure that Eternity is worthy of getting number one, and Road to Manderley certainly isn't. But I like it when he shows a little bit more heart, when he shows a little bit more of an emotional side, and I do think there are songs where Robbie does this much, much better. I've always liked Strong, I've had quite a soft spot for that. I do think there are songs where Robbie does this much much better I've always liked Strong I've had quite a soft spot for that I do think Angels is quite good although

it's massively overhyped for what it is and I think this is one of those songs that people perhaps tend to forget about that it's not got that much of a legacy and as for The Road to Mandalay if you want me to talk about that which I'll briefly touch on it's I mean I'd forgotten this existed had no memory of it at all's i mean i'd forgotten this existed had no memory of it at all and when i listened to it i still had no memory of it at all i genuinely don't think i'd ever heard this song before um and i thought it was rubbish i didn't like it at all um it really reminded me of you know that song shame that he did with gary barlow when they when they swallowed their beef about five,

no, about 10 years later, actually, when they swallowed their beef, and it really did sound quite a lot. Saw you through the television. But the verses, that kind of faux pop country thing they do with the verses, sounded quite similar to Shame, and I'm not sure if that was just a coincidence,

but it was very reminiscent. The Road to Mandalay was just absolutely throwaway. I can't believe it was a double A side. You know, double A sides have just a coincidence, but it was very reminiscent. The Road to Mandalay was just absolutely a throwaway. I can't believe it was a double A side. You know, double A sides have quite a good kind of history, quite a good reputation that you use them for songs that are equally credible, that are equally worthy of an assault on the charts. You know, I'm longing for Thunderbird slash 3AM here,

or for Who Do You Think You Are slash Mama. Instead, we've got Eternity, which is like, okay. And then the Road we've got eternity which is like okay and then the road to mandalay which is like barely a b-side really it's just like rubbish and it's completely forgotten these days completely forgotten um so it's a strange one a strange couple of songs to listen to um robbie's sort of approaching the height of his powers here not he's not quite at the height i think that's when he releases the Escapology album is when he really hits his creative peak, I think. And he's not quite there yet. But I think it's a phase where Robbie is so popular

that he can just sort of try things out, probably get to number one with it, and he will have the goodwill of the audience. And I think looking back on it, that's sort of fairly clear because I don't think Eternity particularly justifies a place at number one. But maybe I'm being a bit unfair. Maybe you two will disagree. It is sort of okay, but I wouldn't go any further than okay.

Lizzie, how do we feel about, well, both of them, but Eternity first, I suppose? Yeah, I agree with a lot of points. I definitely agree that I think I do prefer like fun Robbie to sort of soppy ballady Robbie but I don't think Eternity

is bad at all it sounds kind of like the it's like the slow pared down number that both Gallagher brothers have been desperately trying to perfect for the past 20 years ago with increasingly mixed results yeah and yeah i feel like nowadays this sort of thing comes with

like four chords just a piano and it wears this out it's welcome very quickly but i think this kind of benefits from its lavish expensive sounding production and i kind of assume the lyrics at first to be about childhood trauma you know the stuff about you talked about your ma and dad of what they did that made you happy what they did that made you sad it's not a brilliant lyric but you combine that with like I will heal you and the past is done we've been betrayed i thought maybe robbie was trying to channel like philip larkin especially given road to mandalay i assumed he was maybe into his british poetry at the time but turns out it's actually a tribute to hits 21 favorite jerry halliwell they became close

friends um after she quit the spice girls and she credits him for helping her overcome bulimia I did not know that well I didn't until I read up on this the quote from her in 2010 was when I was really struggling with an eating disorder he pointed me in the right direction of how to sort it out, he told me to go to a 12 step program, it saved my life

I'm incredibly grateful to him so yeah I think because of that I can't hate this song well I can't hate this song. Well, I can't hate the song because it's pretty good. You know, it's maybe not something I'll listen to a lot after this. But yeah, I think it's decent. Did you want me to talk about Road to Mandalay now as well?

Yeah, yeah. You can throw in your thoughts about the Road to Mandalay. Okay, because I think I like this more than Andy. I think, again, it's Robbie wearing his influences proudly on his sleeve, like he did with Rock DJ and Ian Jory and hip-hop, obviously. Like, this has more hints of the Divine Comedy or even The Smiths. And that kind of self-reflection isn't something you saw a lot of in the charts around this time. You know, Everything I Touched Was Golden, Everything I Loved Got Broken, On the Road to Mandalay. It's a pop song about the pressures of fame and the strain it adds to

relationships which is hardly a new thing but I think it's pretty nicely done musically and lyrically. It's like some quite unusual chords, like lots of minor sixths and major sevenths with that add to that international feel. Like to quote Robbie, I just picked up on French vibes and started singing a French sort of melody, which I'm assuming means he heard a Charles Aznavour song somewhere and started having ideas. Also, there's a little fun fact about this. There is a version of this song on Sing When You're Winning, which is 28 minutes long. Oh, sod off.

Oh, just go away. But there's loads of silence, right? I was going to say. And I seem to remember my mum had this CD. Yeah. And it, I mean, did you know, I think I should have mentioned how it ends. Yes I was, I was going to say it's not a psychedelic

prog freak out in the vein of Pink Floyd but yeah, after like 28 minutes there's not even a track it's just Robbie saying no I'm not doing one on this album, referencing the fact that there isn't a hidden song on the album

unlike his previous two. That is so Robbie. That is really so him to do that. I kind of like that, as obnoxious as it is. I kind of like that, to be honest. It's a big fuck you to a stupid gimmick, which I'm glad has gone. Yeah, definitely.

Although, the only thing worse than the hidden tracks after half an hour of silence on CDs around this time were the ones where you had to press rewind as soon as you put the CD in to get those ones the hidden tracks at the start of the album the last one I remember was from 2013

when Arcade Fire did Reflector oh yeah Reflector's like a great album opener and then and, like, Reflector's, like, a great album opener, and then you go, like, oh, I wonder what this hit track is, and it's just 10 minutes of fucking nonsense, and you're like, well,

I just want to get to Reflector now. Yep. As for myself about Eternity, I'm quite surprised by how much this has grown on me over the last week or so. Well, maybe even more than that, actually, because when I first listened to this a few months ago, because I knew we were going to be covering it eventually,

and I thought, oh, well, I might as well see what we've got coming. I wasn't that keen on it. It sounded different to what I'd remembered in my head, and because I didn't have to focus on it at the time, I was kind of listening a bit passively, it just sort of passed me by um but i don't know i think like as much as i still don't love this i don't think it's got enough to justify how long it is i think as soon as like big mainstream pop songs go beyond like five minutes or even four minutes i think it does invite scrutiny into its ideas, whether it can keep finding ways to build towards a climax

or a final point or a resolution, and I'm not quite sure it sustains itself as well as it wants to. I appreciate the minimal arrangement of this because it's given a lot of room and space, but I think it begins to run a little thin just during those last 50 to 60 seconds yeah that's fair everything before that though um is pretty pretty lovely like i read somewhere like and then lizzie you've reiterated that this was written like as a tribute to to jerry and like whatever the circumstances were behind their friendship, it feels quite carefully considered and sensitive

because sometimes you can get songs like this and it's like they can be slightly autobiographical but about somebody else and they can maybe confess a little bit too much. It reminds me a little bit of... It's not a Weezer song I dislike necessarily um but there's a song they have on their fifth album make believe it's called the other way which was written for a woman called uh jennifer shiba or uh chiba but i think it's shiba um after elliot smith died because um

jennifer shiba was elliot sm Smith's partner at the time, and there are some accusations that she was more involved with his death than initially seemed to be the case, but I'm not really here to comment on that. I'm more just here to say that Rivers Cuomo of Weezer and Jennifer Sheba, they dated previously, about four or five years before Elliot Smith died. And so Rivers wrote the other way as if to say i want to help you through your grief jennifer but i can't because we've broken up and it feels a little bit like how do i make this about me

um no it's it's it's written from a personal place about, you know, people whose relationships with each other we'll never know, but I felt like I didn't need to know that much. Whereas Eternity is written from a similar sort of perspective. Cause I imagine it's, you know, quite a lot about Jerry's grief and maybe realizing that, you know, one of her parents is dead. And like, I read into like the fact that she was one of the people that found her dad and like she was only 22 23 around the time that he died um because he died in 1993 um so she's only a little older than that now and it feels like it's written from a very personal position it's like we've been invited into their relationship in a nice way

there were lots of um i love that image that he crafts where he says and we picked a star before we lost the moon that's great that's a really good way of like trying to capture like something that's fleeting um and andy what you were saying a little bit about sort of like country um i detected a little hint of country in this too i know um just from reading the wiki page that brian may actually play guitar on this but i kind of half expected it to turn into like a pedal steel guitar like you know you just feel those little sort of like that lovely texture that steel guitars have that pedal the sort of like the thing where you sit and play it on your lap yeah um i kind of expected that to come in yeah um in that in that sense it kind of reminded me a little bit of um

lonely coming down uh by dolly parton which is a much superior song in my book, but there's a little part of me that thinks this Eternity may have made, in another time, with maybe in slightly different hands, this may have made a decent Nashville sound song. Ooh, yeah, definitely. Just, you know, maybe like 30, 40 years earlier. But, yeah, so it doesn't sustain itself all the way, but I'm

into what it wants to do. Road to Mandalay got a lot less to say about this, mostly because I don't want to dedicate that much time to it, because you know, our existences are only finite. It's just that I remembered this more than I thought, and it's pretty pleasant.

Not a song I'll think about much going forward, but if it ever does pop back into my head again, I won't be irritated by it. I'll just sort of think, oh, yeah, that's the road to Mandalay. And like you were saying, Lizzie, it does a lot of unexpected... Some of the progressions are a little bit unexpected. Very unexpected. And I always like that so yeah yeah

doesn't have as much personality as eternity but it's fine i think it's okay i did question why he's put an album track on uh the double a side but i'm guessing it's just hey buy my album please yeah but that's just weird that's what b-sides are for you can put b-sides on an album you know there's no rule against that. It's just really strange. Can I say as well, the thing I forgot to mention about Road to Mandalay, I don't know if this is just me, but when I see that title,

I just can only think of Nearly the Elephant. It's just always, always there. And actually, there was a small part of me that was like, before I listened to this for the first time, I was like, that's not the name of the Nearly the Elephant theme tune, is it? He's not gone and done that, which would the Nelly the Elephant theme tune, is it? Like, he's not gone and done that,

which would be amazing. I would have enjoyed that far more. Maybe, thankfully not. Bullet dodge there. But yeah. And by the way, Rob,

can I commend your Herculean effort to get Weezer involved in the podcast this week? I really admire that. Well done. And genuinely, genuinely quite week I really admire that, well done and genuinely quite a good story about that actually, but can you try and involve them every week? I'm enjoying the involvement of Weezer I did feel like

if I mention this, is it going to feel like I've shoehorned it in, but I feel like it was relevant enough, but I'll try and get a tenuous link in every week Yeah, become like our Bob Carol G's. And like, people at home can just be like, oh, he's done that again.

And then just at the point where it gets really annoying, it'll start being funny again. If the Sideshow Bob Steps on Rakes routine is anything to go by. Next week we've got a song by Blue. Has there ever been an album with Blue in the title? I wonder.

We'll have to see. Right, okay. From Eternity to... Call my name Call my name Close your eyes Give me your hand Darling Do you feel my heart beating?

Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Or am I only dreaming? Is this burning an eternal flame? I watch you when you are sleeping. You belong with me. Do you feel the same? Or am I only dreaming? Is this burning an eternal flame? Semenade, Sunshine through the rain I've been like so lonely

And coming needs the pain I don't wanna lose this feeling Oh Okay, this is Eternal Flame by Atomic Kitten, released as the lead single from the reissue of their first studio album right now, and also technically as the sixth single from the album overall. Eternal Flame is Atomic Kitten's sixth single overall to be released in the UK. is Atomic Kitten's sixth single overall to be released in the UK. It is their second single to reach number one after Hole Again hit the top of the charts earlier in the year 2001.

It is not the last time we'll be discussing them on this podcast. This song is a cover of the Bangles' 1989 hit, which also reached number one. Eternal Flame went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking Robbie Williams off the top of the charts, and it stayed at number 1 for 2 weeks. It sold 142,000 copies in its first week atop the charts, beating competition from Bootylicious by Destiny's Child, which got to number 2, All or Nothing by O-Town, which got to number 4, and Firewire by Cosmic Gate, which got to number 4 and Firewire by Cosmic Gate which got to number 9 in it's second week at number 1 it sold 70,000 copies in total

and beat competition from Scream If You Wanna Go Faster by Jerry Halliwell which got to number 8 and Drops Of Jupiter by Train which got to number 10 one of my dad's favourite songs yeah have you ever seen Kit Harington covering that?

No On Kimmel or Fallon or whichever Jimmy it is I think the idea is that they get a celebrity on to do like They call it the gives it their all section or something like that And he has to act out playing piano and he belts the song out And it's cute, I'll give him that. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Eternal Flame fell one place to number two,

and by the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 20 weeks, so a good stay in the charts there for the girls of Atomic Kitten. Lizzie, how are we on this? Yeah, I mean this is the reason why I assumed Whole Again was a cover for the best part of a decade because of this song and like, right

I don't know what it is about Atomic Kitten but I find their music much more affecting than I ever did before or ever thought I would and I wonder if part of that is that they aren't particularly great singers and their looks aren't particularly clever and their production isn't very good but the music they made feels genuine and even like close to me you know like it's hard to explain this but like with say Mariah Carey,

who I always seem to single out for this sort of thing. It's nothing personal, I promise. But I feel like there's a kind of impenetrable distance between me as a listener and the music she makes. Not because it's difficult or repellent, but because it's often recorded with this pinpoint precision everything's got to be as tight as a drum engineered to perfection not a single note out of place just technically faultless but emotionally mute like this cover of eternal flame is the opposite of that to me like whole

again the production sounds a bit cheap. The vocals are okay but not breathtaking. There's some nice flourishes with the sampled strings and soft organ backing but they get buried too low in the mix beneath the overly punchy drum loop. I'm pretty sure it's the same one. The lead vocal seems to be much louder than the backing harmonies towards the end and that last that last flame high note is kind of flat. She doesn't hit that note. I'm sorry, Jenny, but you don't. An eternal flurm, as she says.

A flurm! Yeah, this song is just completely so-so. It's so average. It's so British. It's so humid and damp and rubbish and yet there is a sort of warmth and authenticity in it that i find really touching like connecting with someone who you used to love dearly knowing full well that too much time has passed and things can never be the same as they once were because you've both fundamentally changed as people,

but you appreciate that there's still joy to be had in unexpected places. And after all, the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. It's like, I don't know if it's just, am I just being nostalgic or is it just that I've kind of started to appreciate this song more than I

previously did because I don't think the production is very good on the Bangles version either no I thoroughly thoroughly agree with you that there is something about Atomic Hittin there's this sense of innocence and rawness that this is just kind of cobbled together that is really quite endearing and yet

the fact that they're straining at the notes sometimes but they're still going for it is nice to hear. I think as well you know I wanted to ask you really what do you think of the original you know what do you think of it as a song because I actually think the original song and this version but the original song is just gorgeous like I absolutely love it perhaps for reasons that I'll go into shortly in my segment but I do think the original song is one of those songs that it's sort of hard to get wrong because it's just so nice to listen to and I don't know do you like the original aside from the production yes I would I'd agree it's gorgeous but it's gorgeous in a really creepy way okay you know

what I mean because I think especially the lyrics about I watch you while you're sleeping, it's kind of, it feels, again, it feels genuine, but it's also like you've got to pitch that right. You can't be someone like Robbie Williams singing that because you'd be like getting out of a restraining order. It's almost too close, but I think it's just just enough i think the only thing that really lets the original down is that late 80s production that ruined so many songs from that time yeah but yeah i do i do mostly agree that it is really good before i start my comments about it i would just say lizzie that even if you were just feeling nostalgic for this, your nostalgia would still be very

valid. Yeah, I agree. That is still a totally valid reason to be well into something. I don't know what it is, but we've fallen into this trap of thinking that nostalgia is a trick. And sometimes it can be, but other times it can't be. And isn't, rather. I don't think it's a trick, but it can

be a mask. I think it can really kind of shield things from criticism that they actually deserve um and that we can go very lightly on things because of nostalgia but i don't think that makes it invalid as a reason to like something you know if it's nostalgia that means that it resonated with you at the time for some reason that is still with you to this day so that's in itself a valid point of grace. It may only become clear until now. Yeah, and it's kind of a lot of the same things I've just said I've seen elsewhere on the internet as genuine criticism.

I've seen people say it sounds like karaoke. It does. But I think that's why it kind of hits me. I feel like I'm there in a dingy bar and Jenny Frost is kind of singing at me after one too many G&Ts and everyone's a bit weepy and you've got to go for the cab ride home and this is playing on the radio and you're just sort of looking out the window. It's a bit of the condensation on it from the rain a couple of hours ago and you're just kind of reflecting on the past and what you've what you've gained but also what you've lost

anyway well no the thing is but like i mean i was gonna say you know it you could be as nostalgic as you want about this because you'll have to make up for the fact that i'm not really nostalgic about this at all i don't know wait till you get to me well i was kind of you know i was kind of looking at our like our spreadsheet and stuff just sort of like you know seeing how you guys both felt about it before i kind of put my score in but like i can't get away from the feeling with this that it's so very obviously something that was put together like in a weekend after the success of yeah yeah it's like yeah this isn't on the original version of the album it's a cover of a song that's between 10 and 20 years old by this

point which is a big thing in these only two years of the 21st century and it's something that they can use to push another go-round of the album like it's a bit like shit right god we've already put the singles out and people didn't connect with them that much because we can't exactly re-release one of the earlier ones that we did because you know they were the ones that when we released them the label were going to drop us you went for Alien Out Farm do this have this

yeah well yeah you just mentioned Alien Out Farm there yeah because they released movies and then they released Smooth Criminal which was a huge hit and then they they released movies and then they released Smooth Criminal, which was a huge hit, and then they just released movies again. It's like someone's going to buy it. And like,

the other thing I was sort of thinking about as well is that the next time we discuss Atomic Kitten, it's another cover. And so I'm like, ah, so the idea is... Their career, unfortunately, is sort of remembered as Hole Again, and then two covers, and then they kind of go away. And I think this goes for a really similar vibe to Hole Again, like it tries to add new parts to the arrangement to make it sound like Hole Again.

It's the thing you knew from before, but just kind of different. But none of them are particularly convincing the new arrangement bits like the call my name and like the the little guitar lick that's like i really like that i like that guitar lick it's it's i mean it's a new idea i'll i'll give them that um i like the fact that it's not a totally straight cover. You know, at least they tried to update it, you know, a bit for the 21st century. Yeah.

Make it sound like something familiar that you got to know quite recently, but, ooh, we've not got a second album coming around yet, so have this instead. But, yeah, I prefer the slightly ambient energy in susannah hoff's vocals on the original like i'm always kind of surprised that the cause didn't cover this first you know like the yeah i can see that like but with the vocals on this they're slightly i kind of agree with you lizzie which is that they're pitchy but i don't mind really i mind it even less on something that feels small and modest like whole again yeah this kind of tries to soar in a couple of places and so you do end up with eternal flumes um everywhere so yeah i'm i'm on

the fence about this i think i don't mind it as an arrangement and as a piece of music but I think as a, I think with the gift of hindsight it's a bit like, ah they sort of had to do this quickly didn't they? Yeah, if your second hit single is a cover, that's already like

you're in murky waters. Andy, it sounds like you have something worth gearing up for so go ahead it's just a story basically so I'm not going to talk too much about the song partly because you two have covered it really really well and I don't have that much to add but

just briefly my thoughts on the song is that I kind of love any version of this song just because I think as a piece of writing I don't think there's any version of it which is sort of perfect I agree that both the bangles and this version are kind of a bit shitty in the production um but it I think it's just such a gorgeously written song that I just love it for what it is really um I totally agree with you that it sounds like it was cobbled together in about a week but I also agree with Lizzie that that in itself is quite endearing that it's nice to hear musicians just sort of having

a go at it and just putting something out there and sod it if it sounds like it cost about 10p let's just do it and I like that but that's about my, I mean I like this version of the song, wouldn't really go much further than it but that's about all I have to say about the song because this

it's really really interesting that we've had this conversation about nostalgia um because this actually for me it's it's nostalgia but it's kind of more than nostalgia this song actually means something to me and this version of it at least um around six months before this my um my younger cousin Liam was born actually well not my cousin, my cousin's baby and she was very very young when she had him and we all kind of as a family were all kind of there together

in the first few years of my cousin's life and we although I was only 8 years old myself we were all kind of there all the time and so I kind of saw him as a little brother really and it was very very hard to get him to sleep throughout this winter of 2001 um and a lot of 2002 and so we all had a rota doing the one thing that would get him to sleep which is put him in the pram in a dark room and sing eternal flame um that was his lullaby to get him to sleep.

And literally every other, me, my sister, my mum, his mum, his grandma, you know, between all of us, we must have sung it about 50 times each. It became like a sort of like ballad of the whole family because we sung it so much to him to get him to sleep and it always, always worked. It has that lullaby effect as a song anyway. But it's just the second I heard this, I'm just transported.

It's funny that actually this came up in conversation because he's 21 now because he was born in 2001. And we mentioned this at his 21st birthday party because someone put this song on and asked him, do you actually know about this? Do you remember it? And he said, weirdly, he sort of does remember it. It's kind of in his head.

Like it's just like a sort of core memory. He weirdly sort of does remember the song, even though it was way before he could really have remembered it. So this is the first song really that when I've listened to it for this show, when I've revisited it for the first time in years, I've really kind of had a sort of

vroom, Hitchcock Zoom effect on my face where I've been like, oh my God, wow, I'm back in time here. And it really made me feel quite emotional listening to it. So I really can't separate this song from that. And so it's interesting that we've had this conversation about nostalgia

because I can't separate this song from my own experience. I mean, as a song, it's probably nothing special, but it it is very very special to me because of that and special to my family because of that um and it's just a it just it's just it just fills me with happiness to hear this song it's just a lovely happy memory um and it's i don't know i i agree with rob that really like it's not a criticism to say that something is powered by nostalgia um but I don't really know how I feel about that with this song because to me it's so powered by nostalgia that like as soon as I hear this I'm just like oh those memories of singing in the pram um I think it's it actually is genuinely quite nice but it just means a lot

to me because of that um so I had to sort of mention that as a story, really. Yeah, very, very happy memories of this song. But I do actually really like it anyway. When I listened to it today, as soon as I got past the nostalgia in the first minute or so, oh, that chorus, it's so lovely. Again, not particularly this version of it, but when it makes that chord change into the same a name bit,

oh, it's so unexpected. It's such a different thing to do with a chorus it's such a lovely lovely song and because it had been quite a while and this was sort of coming to a new generation um to cover this song um you know i think a lot of people were newly enraptured by the song when they heard it um anatomic kitten got quite a lot of credit for that that they perhaps didn't deserve but in any case, it's a beautiful song it's got a very special place in my heart so yes, it gets a big thumbs up from me Can I horrify you a bit?

Go on The song was 1988 This is 2001 So only 13 years It's like someone now covering Poker Face by Lady Gaga. Well, yeah, but I didn't know. I was eight, nine years old when this came out

and I didn't know the original. It was sort of for a new generation because Atomic Kitten were kind of aimed at sort of slightly younger than teenagers, probably. So I think it was the right choice of song for the right market, really. That's a fair point and i think do you think it's possibly fair to say that most people would think of atomic kitten with this song now rather than the bangles i kind of think they would i think this is an atomic kitten song yeah maybe not most people but enough people for the decision

to be justified i think i I think if you're under 40 in the UK you would probably associate it more with Atomic Kitten than anyone else really Yeah that's a really good point Also did you say the story you just told then did you say 21?

He's 21 now 21 why does that ring a bell? What's up next? Yeah, next up is this. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha The last thing that you saw was icy, bitch. Say niggas wanna see nigga get rich, but niggas don't really want nigga to be rich. Say niggas wanna see nigga get rich, but niggas don't really want nigga to be rich. Asher D's never fading. Sugglin' stays strong till I'm fading.

P.H. with the D's never phasing. I run the time my enemies have been racing. So solid that I'm mazing. And Gucci's were bound to be lacing. Addicted to this life that we're tasting. You blame me for the life you've been wasting. You're hatin' but there's money to be making. Act to MC and then we're raking. Smoking mad G's like a Jamaican. So when you're looking at me, you start takin'. We'll see you next time. Ladies come around and they're buggin' Make G's like if I was rubbin' Playhead is there watchin' and they're pluttin' and they're watchin' my skops

Watchin' and they're pluttin' and they're watchin' my skops Watchin' and they're pluttin' and they're watchin' my crops Never gonna stop, never gonna stop I got 21 seconds to flow I got 21 seconds to go Cause if you like me let me know, let me in the studio I got 21 seconds before I got to go Did you see me on the video?

Oh no, did you see me on the video? Oh no, so if you like me let me know, let me in the studio I got 21 seconds before I got to go Did you see me on the video? Oh no, did you see me on the video? Oh no So if you like me, let me know Let me in the studio I got 21 seconds before I can't go Did you see me on the video? Oh no Did you see me on the video? Oh no So if you like me, let me know Let me in the studio I got 21 seconds before I can't go

21 seconds This is 21 Seconds by So Solid Crew Released as the first single from their debut studio album They Don't Know 21 Seconds is So Solid Crew's first single to hit the UK charts. It is of course their very first number one single. However, this is the one and only time we'll be discussing them, at least in depth, on this podcast, so we've got to make it count. 21 Seconds went straight in at number one

as a brand new entry, knocking Atomic Kitten off the top of the charts and it stayed at number one for one week it sold 118 000 copies in its only week at number one beating competition from ain't it funny by jennifer lopez which got to number three anti-up by mop which got to number seven and one minute man by missy elliott which got to number 10, I know. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, 21 seconds dropped two places to number 3, and by the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 18 weeks, which is another

pretty decent stay. Yeah, not bad at all. I'll open with this. Obviously, because it's been 20 years now, or 21 years, this can't sound as fresh or as exciting as it did at the time. But I still think it retains a big degree of it. The 21 seconds thing is a great gimmick. It's a great idea. is a great gimmick. It's a great idea. It's a hook not only into like the you know the chorus where you're sort of like it's like this idea like what can they do with their 21 seconds and it means that you get mixed results in terms of the quality of MCs but it means that you've got to stay on

your toes just as much as the MCs themselves. It kind of challenges you to pay attention for 21 seconds in little bursts as much as they've got to perform in 21 seconds. And every now and again you'll get the verses where it feels like some of them, their verses aren't necessarily showcases for themselves. They're more... I'm trying to think of the female vocalist that comes in. Lisa Mafia? It's just to say, like, all I have is 21 seconds, 21 seconds.

And I'm like, you've only got 21 seconds and you're just saying the same words over and over again. So, like, clearly your job wasn't to write a great verse in 21 seconds it was to just kind of remind everybody of the concept again and that's fine but you also the flip side of that you get the instantly iconic 2 x 10 plus 1 Romeo done awesome that is so good so so good I love that. Negative the last minute feels like a bit of waste of everyone's time but by that point all the best attributes of the song is still fizzing in your memory so that's not much of a

crime and obviously like the radio edit which is the thing that people heard before they went out and bought it doesn't have that last instrumental section but i think what really gets me about this overall 20 years on 21 years on is this sounds like a bunch of kids making something that they're excited about yeah trying to convince us that they're a bunch of kids worth listening to and i think they are because i've never ever gone and done they don't know until this week um but there's a couple of tracks maybe more than a couple of tracks off that that are going to go back into my regular rotation especially stuff like um haters um and ride with us they're like they're two really really great great songs and but listening to it kind of makes me feel a bit sad because it's it's kind of

fizzing and exciting and it feels like a genuine i mean there's a great uh review of this that you sent us lizzie by uh that blog that freaky trigger where he sort of says like this maybe feels like the last shock of a number one where it was like whoa what the fuck like something coming up from the underground and just immediately connected with absolutely shitloads of people. Because I remember being like seven, eight years old at the time that this came out and just being like desperate to get to see it on the music channels and stuff.

Because this type of thing did not come into my household very much when I was a kid. Not that it was ever banned it's just that you know i lived a relatively peaceful and quiet childhood in a in stockport and not even in a particularly good or bad area of stockport it was just very very average and so when something like this that feels like oh it, it's from that there London that's come up, and it's like, whoa. And I remember being a kid like,

oh, God, this is well exciting. And I didn't even like the song. It was just like, you wanted to watch the video with the guy with the contacts in, who looked like he had no eyes, and all the people jumping up the fence and coming forward in the black clothing and the leather jackets

and looking like something really exciting was going on. And I think it's retained a good degree of that as I've gotten older. And I think something that's been missing from, or at least been gradually disappearing from especially pop music over the last 20 years. And when I say pop music, I don't just mean the charts. I mean like popular music in general is,

especially from the UK, is proper working class voices from proper estates talking about themselves or about other people who you may know from your own life, but if you don't, you still recognize talking about the kind of life you know rather than a life you can just imagine yourself having like you know the you know like the garage rock and indie rock revival scenes in the 2000s kind of gave it a go but it wasn't long

before we all found out that half of them were privately educated and that a black and white photo shoot of them smoking a cigarette on a cobbled street does not a working class musician make and like i'm not saying that there aren't any other kind of urgent working class voices out there in music because there always are you just have to find them rather than these days i find you have to find them rather than having them be given to you but i feel like uk hip-hop and grime and drill and stuff like that, to my ears, feels like the most exciting working class music of the past two decades. We're not that far off boy in the corner at this stage, which I think is like the ultimate document of, I would say, second term Blair. I think it is the ultimate document of like the horrible and original pirate material, the first season of peep show that hangover

of cool britannia where everything kind of withers away and you realize that a lot of the 90s brit pop optimism has kind of faded into a little more than like a war in iraq and little else and no one's really actually benefited this this was great this reminds me of the kids not from the estate i grew up on but from the estates i was always told to stay away from as a kid until i actually went there and started making friends and met some great people and had some great experiences that's who this reminds me of yeah so yeah go ahead you two well yeah i mean i don't have cards on the table i don't have a relationship with this song you know it i think it says everything about me as a person that i have such a special place in my heart for some atomic kit

and cover whereas something like this is like oh no no no idea you know i don't I think as a you know fairly well a very white a very gay man this is not really made for me to be honest but you know

there's a few things I wanted to say about it first of all you know I've done Name Westlife and Name Atomic Kitten can we name So Solid Crew

by any chance I'm guessing not well Asher D who's one of these rap singers you have now name Westlife and name Atomic Kitten. Can we name So Solid Crew by any chance? I'm guessing not. Well, Asha D, who's one of these rap singers you have now. Yeah. Is there anyone else you remember? Lisa Mafia. Asha D, Mega Man.

Our mates Oxide and Neutrino. Oxide and Neutrino. Kaish. Is that one of them? Kaish is one, yeah. And you may remember MC Harvey. Of course, MC Harvey, yeah. MC Harvey is actually friends with an up-and-coming MC from Manchester called Lady Ice,

who I would recommend everybody go out and listen to. She name-drops him in a couple of her songs. Up North is great. I really like Up North by her, so shout-out to her. Well, you got nearly all of them. The only ones you missed were AM Sniper, AC Burrell, Akira, Carl Morgan Danderman, DJ Mex, DJ PDS DJ Swiss, Face, Frost G-Man, JD, Codeine

MC Mac, Money, Mr Shabs PDs, Radical, Romeo, Scatty Stampede, Statix, Squammy, Synth Thug Angel, Tiger S, Timeless, The Twins Trigger and TW7 they're the only ones you forgot so you're nearly there really you got four out of

36 members of Solid Crew There was also around the time where, you remember when people would just vandalise their Wikipedia page and just add random names like Bill Neville, David Cameron, Steve

Palpatine Thor Andy what you've just done there Andy what you've just done there it reminds me of that scene where Cletus introduces all of his children I must say I must pay credit that once Simon Amstel did the same thing, never mind the buzzcocks

so I'm paying tribute to that because it was very funny when he did it. But yes, suffice it to say that So Solo Crew is not really my area. And it's one of those songs that I certainly, when I listen to it, I know it's good and I kind of respect that it's quite creative and it's quite clever, but it's certainly not my sort of thing really and I don't want to mark it down because of that. And to be honest, when I saw that it was like five minutes long and i got 20 seconds in should i say 21 seconds into it and i was like really five minutes

of this i don't know um but i weirdly kind of got taken away with it like it really sort of took me in in a way that i was not expecting at all i thought it was going to find this quite tiresome and i didn't at all um it's genuinely so full of ideas and so full of creativity and it moves along at a hell of a pace which you would not expect such a long song to do and you would expect it to be a mess, you know, completely ununified, completely just like a bunch of ideas thrown at the wall and it's not. It actually manages to have some sort of cohesion to it. So I think as a piece of work, it's actually really, really good. It's just not my genre at all. And I want to throw my hands up to that. And I don't have a huge amount to say about it other than that.

As an example of this genre, which I am pretty much not in tune with, it's a very good example. But that's really all I can add to the conversation, to be honest. Lizzie? I had to mute myself for a minute because I just dug out that Wikipedia thing again and I saw the name Donna Kebab on the list. It's beautiful. Put that on Twitter, please, Rob. Yeah. Anyway, this song. Actually, I'm glad you mentioned the video because that just kind of unlocked a memory for me like you Rob I was really excited to see the video again like with the cage and the blue

fog and like all of them emerging and going back into the shadows and I remember it was an episode I think of CD UK and they did you know on top of the pops they used to do the breakers where I'd be like here's what else is in the charts this week and they'd show like a clip

of music videos and one of those videos was Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches and I remember seeing there was two old guys with microphones then there was a guy with like a turtle body but the head of a

human and like a cowboy fighting and like someone chasing a bird around i saw that video i was like what is that i need that song so i have a vivid memory of dragging my mum around like all the the cd shops in stockport one random saturday so we went to R-Price and HMV it's like have you got that song with the guy with the turtle like none of them had it and it took a few years to

discover Since I Left You but glad I did anyway side note while all the other kids were buying 21 Seconds you were out there getting he's crazy in the coconut, that boy needs therapy he was wide of the sheet, that boy needs therapy. He was wide of the sheet and he also made false teeth.

Anyway, this song. This to me feels like the bridge between UK Garage and Grime. Yeah. I would agree with that. You could maybe say the same for Bound for the Reload from last year but that seemed a bit more primitive to me whereas this feels fully formed right out of the gate it's big it's confident it's bold it's

exciting it's expressive it's full of hooks and it's one of those increasingly rare chart moments like you wait like you mentioned Rob where an act breaks through from the underground out of nowhere to give you a glimpse at the future of not just the genre but of music as a whole like safe in the knowledge that it's going to make an impact whether or not people like it it's like it's it's a sort of anarchy in the uk moment of the 2000s i think and yeah yeah this is the last time we'll be able to talk about any of So Solid Crew at the number one spot. Like, Lisa Mafia gets the closest with her number two hit in 2003, but this is almost too ahead of its time for its own good.

But, like, okay, it still got to number one, still sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and it still cemented their legacy in British music by paving the way for the next generation of British rappers and you can still hear its impact 21 years later which I can't say for many other number ones we've covered this year also I just wanted to ask like do you have a favorite moment in this because Rob you mentioned the last up I think Andy you might have mentioned the last minute as well where it kind of drags a bit but it does have my favorite moment which is um the beginning of ghost faces verse like some of them are slipping are some of them begrudge me are so solid vampire see me on the telly are face getting popular uh i love that moment mine's still romeo done think I like Romeo Dunn purely because

that was then used as a joke in Gavin and Stacey so I was like, that's where that comes from that's more my area so yeah yeah, this is it's really good and yeah, thank you SoSalticCrew for your

contribution you did, you know, you changed music for the better yeah, thank you SoSaltTheCrew for your contribution you changed music for the better yeah, I think so, I think this is one of those moments where the future was kind of laid out in front of the UK and they just didn't take it if you know what I mean

when you were saying it felt like an anarchy in the UK moment, it feels like the UK kind of took to the Sex Pistols and stuff. But it feels like they took to So Solid Crew for a bit. And maybe it's just because the charts move so fast at this point. They're so fast at the moment that it feels a bit like a social media or Twitter feed or something like that where nothing's ever really

the main headline on Twitter for more than 15 to 16 hours and the singles charts kind of feels like that at the moment where something can sell over 100,000 copies in its first week and then not be number one in the second week it's

a measure of I think just how fast things are moving just before the mp3 i wonder if they maybe got stuck in the kind of um the backlash against uk garage because i think especially around like 2000 2001 it felt like it was just everywhere and just wouldn't go away and then obviously like like Dizzy Rascal and Wiley and a couple of others showed up, Lethal Bizzle and kind of blew UK Garage out of the water. It was done. And I wonder if So Solid got lost in that.

Hmm. Yeah, possibly. Anyway, we have one more song to bring you this week and it is this. If you wanna dance, this is our chance. If you wanna dance, let's take our chance. You can jump to the beat and keep bouncing. 30 seconds and counting. Hot one. This choice critical. Situation is difficult. My caliber won't allow me to rhyme on a level where your people can't hear me, see me. Guess I know you want to be me. In the meantime, bounce to the bass. And music is my life, because my life is music. The beat of the drum in your heart. Let's dance.

You need it, can't you feel it, don't you know? Let's dance. Need it, better believe it, here we go. Let's dance. Get it all when we're coming together on the floor. Let's dance. You know dance You got what I like Check it out Our last song this week is Let's Dance by Five.

Released as the first and only single from the group's third studio album, King Size, Let's Dance is Five's tenth single to be released overall in the UK and their third to reach number one, after Keep On Movin' and We Will Rock You both reached the summit in 99 and 2000 respectively. It is their last song to reach number one in the UK and their penultimate single. Let's Dance went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking So Solid Crew off the top of the charts, and it stayed at number 1 for two weeks. It sold 85,000 copies in its first week, beating competition from Take Me Home by Sophie Ellis-Bexter, which got to number 2, Nevermind, Let Me Blow Your

Mind by Eve, which got to number 4, Little L by Jamiroquaiai which got to number 5, Crystal by New Order which got to number 8. So, yeah, good decent selection in the top 10 there. In its second week at number 1 it sold 52,000 coffees and beat competition from Turn Off the Light by Nelly Furtado which got to number 4, and Hi-Ju by Koshin which got to number 6. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Let's Dance dropped one place to number two, and by the time it was done on the charts,

it had been inside the top 100 for 16 weeks. Andy, how are we on Let's Dance? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'm so frustrated at all the songs that we don't get to discuss because of bloody Five. Thanks for that, Five. I'd love Take Me Home. I'd love Turn Off the Light.

Oh, that's really annoying. Yeah, I remember from the time the main buzz around this song was what the hell is the deal with the music video where one of Five is a cardboard cutout who they're all sort of playing with and kind of making fun of. And I remember at the time the explanation that my sister gave me was that, oh, he's left and they're all sort of playing with and kind of making fun of. And I remember at the time, the explanation that my sister gave me was that, oh, he's left and they're covering it up, which I've read up on this, and I know you two have read up on this as well,

and that was not actually the case at the time, or at least the band didn't know that he'd left. It was all kind of in transition. Like, there was a weird kind of limbo phase going on with them, and I think that was part of the reason why this song got some extra attention. I just, there's this thing about Five where I think they're trying so hard to be cool all the time. Like, they really kind of want to be like,

yeah, we're like the kids on the street. You know, they did that really badly with We Will Rock You last year. And they did that with Five Will Make You Get Down. You know, this kind of, sort of like, they're a sort of thuggier version of the backstreet boys which is just never gonna work you know if you're a boy band you're a boy band you know kind of choose which set of cards to play really and especially when you compare it with the song we've had previously with 21 seconds it's like yeah five you are not cool you're not you are

not the future of anything you're're the end of something, unfortunately. And that maybe sounds a bit harsh, but I do think they are a relic of a bygone age at this point, which that bygone age is only a year or two ago. But as Rob said, things have moved so fast on the charts, and Five really stick out like a sore thumb now. I'm not a big fan of this song to be honest like it's a little bit more creative than five usual stuff it's something a little bit dancier as the

title suggests um and it has some nice elements to it like i do like i do like the rhythm of it i like some of the choices in it in terms of where it goes musically I really hate the music is my life my life is music bit which they repeat like four times it's like oh that's a really clever lyric we need to keep on repeating that it's so clever isn't it no not really it's kind of a live laugh love

lyric that to be honest yeah it's okay I think this definitely sounds like a band that has started to run out of steam and are losing what little identity they did have because that identity doesn't hold water um you know if you compare it to the big beasts who they are so obviously trying to emulate which is backstreet boys primarily but also n-sync you know they've they've both sort of wrapped up at this time.

The US charts have sort of moved on from them and Fiverr is sort of a little bit in the wilderness and it's interesting to me that they didn't stop because they fell out of favour because they were unpopular anymore. Things were sort of going that way anyway but they split up because of personal issues.

There was, I can't remember which one it was, or five who had left at this point, sort of behind closed doors, and they sort of split up from there. And I kind of got myself to wondering, would they have continued to be successful? Would they have had some more hits? And I think probably not.

I think their time was kind of over, to be honest. And a few of them seemed to be quite itchy to start solo careers, none of which would ever be successful, really. But, yeah, it kind of seems like a last gasp of a band that never really got going, as far as I'm concerned, which may sound really, really harsh, but when you compare it to who they are trying to be and other boy bands that have been so successful,

whereas Five have sort of been mildly successful, and yes, they've had a couple of number ones, but they don't have any hits that 20 years later, people are like, yeah, remember Five? Not really. Keep on moving, potentially. And yeah, they kind of go with a little bit of a whimper with this one. It's a solid song, but it's not any kind of big finale. And I'm quite grateful that we're moving on from five after this week, to be honest.

So, yeah, sorry, boys. You did your best, but not for me, really. I'll just sort of interject and say I don't mind this. You get the sense that they want to mature. They're using a bit of electro disco trying to be fun and sophisticated yeah i think it works to a point but it's very repetitive and it runs out of new ideas pretty fast like yeah by the two and a half minute mark i'm like i'm done yeah i think it is sort of overshadowed a little bit just on this show by the fact that this is basically it for them for reasons that

were unfortunately beyond their control yeah um just yeah the whole cut out in the video and i know the fact that one of them was gonna leave because one of the babies were born prematurely and then like the three of them that were left were doing some promotion but then one of them broke his foot or snapped an Achilles or something so yeah bit of a cursed end in the end really for Five but you know it's

it's okay I think of the two songs we've done by Five on this show this is the one I much prefer oh yeah that's a low bar. That's a low, low bar. Yeah.

Lizzie, so to round us off. Yeah, I totally agree with you both. I think it's amazing how one kind of tumultuous half year can just blow the whole thing up. And it kind of raised a question for me, which I put to you, but I'll also put to the listeners. Are there any five piece acts that continued on after one of their members left i'm talking like specifically pop acts because

as far as i can see it's a kiss of death like five split up not long after one member left spice girls limped on for about another year eventually split up One Direction Zayn left and that was they limped on for a bit but that was kind of it there's so many examples of hearsay as well as soon as one member leaves it's just like

it's like a house of cards it all comes sort of tumbling down it makes you realise quite how fragile it all is really isn't it that when you've got that to get any kind of successful because there's so many artists out there and so many labels and so many producers that to get any kind of success you have to have magic uh lightning in a bottle basically into some extent something has to just work and if as soon as you tamper with the formula even slightly, then it all just falls apart.

And it makes you realize really how fragile basically everybody's fame is in music. The example I always come back to, like you've said, is the Spice Girls. It was one tumultuous half year for them. They finished the 90s, well, sort of. They finished the 90s basically fine. But pretty much at that moment, Jerry left. And by the end of 2000

they were just off the map completely gone and adults on solo careers and that was the spice girls arguably the biggest pop group in the world at that time and so if it can happen to them it happens to anyone really and i think it's i think that's what it is it's just it must be just a really fragile formula that has to be held on to when you reach popularity. Yeah, and I think it's also that combined with the fact that it sounds like a pretty miserable experience. It's just a non-stop grind. Like Sean Conlon had to leave the group because he was,

you know, he pretty much had a nervous breakdown. Poor guy. I know, and it's kind of the same with jerry like we mentioned before like she was struggling with um bulimia and i think mel sees that a similar thing and that was actually um that's sorry to interrupt that was actually the reason that paul left s club as well not not specifically mental health because that wasn't what he cited but he said basically the way they were worked like workhorses all the time he said he got to a point where he realized that was never going to change and they were never going to reach

the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so he for his own sake he needed to walk away and i think that's a factor in a lot of bands as well that as soon as one of them goes they all start thinking all right well that's it then really isn't it yeah and i wonder if they were sort of looking at this and thinking you know what we had a pretty good run to to do what we did when you know it's you know it's a it's a tough kind of market out there you have to really fight for your position and they did and they did pretty well out of it but this is just as much as this has all the makings like we're back and we're brand new and we're better than ever. This is just kind of, I don't know, like you say, Rob,

you've heard two minutes and you've heard it all. Also, like, I was trying to think there's a song that this really reminds me of. I was sort of looking at the credits thinking, was anybody else credited on this? But I've realised what it is. It's Cake by the Ocean yes remember that song my partner um from her teen days is still quite a large fan of the jonas brothers and one of the jonas brothers was in that band yeah yeah it's cake by the ocean yeah yeah i totally get it there's also is it an intentional I mean I assume it is is it an intentional

Bowie reference with the let's dance you know is that intentional oh yeah so there's that as well yeah but I mean yeah

it definitely isn't the most original sounding song I've ever heard it feels like there are quite a variety of influences and I think it's one of those you know like how some people

have one of those faces I think this is a song that it just has one of those sounds that it's like it sounds like a million things. So, yeah. Yeah, pretty much. But yeah, it's a shame,

but they had a good run. They did. All right then, that's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Before we go, we're going to do some piehole and vault inductions. So, Eternity, the Road to Mandalay, is that going in the piehole for anyone or the vault?

No. No. Eternal Flame by Atomic Kitten. No, not quite. I do really like it, but... I've really thought about putting it in the vault just because it's nice for me.

It's special for me but I think that can only go so far. So no, I'm not going to put it in the vault. I'm going to resist. 21 seconds by SoSolidCrew. I'm putting that in. I'm not but fair enough.

You shouldn't stress. So two vault votes for 21 seconds. And last up, Let's Dance by Five. No. Dancing in the space between the pie hole and the vault. Thank you very much

again, everyone, for listening to us throughout the year there were a few people who got in touch with us on Twitter just to say that our podcast was in like their top five most listened to podcasts of the year and that's

very humbling thank you I know we only talk about number ones on this show but you know the top five is also wonderful so thank you very much everybody um hope that we can keep your ears for 2023 when we get there uh next time we'll be covering the period between the 3rd of september and the 20th of october 2001 so we will see you then kit harrington see you then. Bye-bye. in the atmosphere with drops of Jupiter in her hair.

She acts like summer and walks like rain. Reminds me that there's a time to change. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Since her return of her stay on the moon She listens like spring and she talks like June Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

But tell me, did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights are fading? That heaven is overrated? Tell me, do you fall for a shooting star? One without a missing scar? Did you miss me while you're looking for yourself out there? You ain't letting no love fry, deep fried chicken Your best friend always sticking up for you