Hits 21 - 2001 (8): S Club 7 and Daniel Bedingfield

Episode Date: December 20, 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]

Right, well, that's it then. Yep, that's it. We are out of here. You know what? We did have some good times here, didn't we? I mean, I know there were bad times. There were the murders and the fights and the arguments and everything. But there were good times too, like the parties and the wedding and... Remember when we went to pick out our rings? We had to cut this line. No, you were right, you know can't help thing and we've forgotten

something so enough everybody in the country talks about but I can't for the life of me put me finger on what it was was it no no, it's gone, gone. You two remember what it was. Second cast all alone in the flat. I think, well I think, that's the end. Go on guys, we're out of here. Bye bye. all right there everyone and welcome back to hits 21 21, where me, Rob, me, Andy, and me, Lizzie, look back at every single UK number one of the 21st century from January 2000 right through to the present day. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us over on Twitter.

We are at Hits21UK, that is at Hits21UK that is at Hits21UK and you can email us too. Just send it on over to Hits21Podcast at gmail.com Thank you so much for coming back and joining us again. Just like our previous episodes, we'll be looking back at some number one singles from the

year 2001, but this time I think we're looking at our shortest ever episode. We'll be covering just two number one singles from the period between the 25th of November and the 15th of December 2001 the reason we're doing this is because when we were putting our schedule together for 2001 I realized that we would have a choice between doing one episode containing five songs or two episodes with one containing three and one containing two and i decided to go for the latter because this podcast is going to take a long time to complete anyway so what's one more episode and also i quite like

the idea that out there somewhere when we've done hundreds of episodes one of them will be just indisputed the shortest this will definitely be the shortest one and i like the fact that this one may be almost an hour shorter than some episodes that we've done previously i mean i'll try my best to elongate it as much as possible but i mean don't worry rob there will be a shortest one you know it's it's a fact we can get it's like how oh yeah everyone in the world that for one brief moment is the youngest person in the world everyone's been the youngest person at some point which is nice that's true one of those things i've never thought about it like that before yeah that's cool yeah yeah before we get ahead uh with this week and before we get on with the episode we're just going to take a look back at the previous episode

last week's poll winner I think more people were on my side well then again actually no because you did rate this song the two of you highest out of the three it was just that I rated it higher than you two but

if you come back by blue was our poll winner last week but I think up against Afro Man and Westlife I think Blue were just the least worst for you two and maybe for other people listening as well so

I don't know, I would have assumed Afro Man would have had some kind of residual love but apparently not maybe the novelty vote but apparently not so um just like always we're going to give you some news headlines from around the time that the songs we're covering this week were at number one george harrison one of the founding members of the beatles dies of lung cancer in los angeles at the age of just 58 he was was later cremated at Hollywood's

Forever Cemetery and his ashes were spread in Varanasi in India. His final message to the world as relayed by his wife Olivia and son Darnie was everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait and love one another. I sort of remember this. I didn't know who George Harrison really was. I knew who the Beatles were because we had a CD that was of a rip-off Beatles medley by Stars on 45, which was lovely. That was how I knew most Beatles songs as a kid. So I knew who the Beatles were,

but I didn't know who George Harrison was. But it was a very, very big deal. Like, I sort of remember this story, apart from 9-11, I remember this story more than any other from around this time. And yeah, I kind of put into context now as an adult how big it would be to lose a beetle, but even bigger at that point

because he was so young, as was John, of course. And yeah, it's one of those things that, again, I think as an adult, really it would be so, so much bigger than it has been to us when we were all children at the time. Do you have any memory of this at all? Yeah, I remember this vividly. I remember it was a freezing cold morning and the station we'd listen to, Key 103, was playing

non-stop George Harrison and Beatles songs. That's odd odd and then obviously the news broke in it was very somber like George Harrison passed and I don't think I really had any context for the Beatles at that point I kind of knew of them but I wouldn't have been able to name more than like two or three of their songs it was only later on that I kind of came to appreciate them but yeah this is very vivid memory of hearing the news on the radio i just can't believe he was so young yeah i don't really have any memories of when the news broke or anything but you know coming to put the research together and obviously i knew that george harrison may or may not be coming up on the show in the future so i was looking into him and i honestly

didn't remember that he was 58 when he died like my dad's 62 my mom turned 59 last week like it just you know that the the concept of being of dying at 58 when you're seven years old like i was feels like forever away but when you actually come to be, you know, when you actually come to be an adult and you think like, Jesus, you know, I'd be dead 30 years from now if I was him. I think a lot of that is that we forget sort of how young they were when they were in The Beatles. It's like, especially George, because he was the youngest of the four.

And he, I think it's shortly after they got back from the Ed Sullivan show, after they got through the initial American wave, only after that did he turn 21. He was that young, which is just crazy to think about. It's like Carrie Fisher a few years ago, when I couldn't believe Carrie Fisher was only 60. But then you think, oh, well, that's because she was 19 going on 20 when she filmed the first Star Wars

which everybody thinks of them as much older than they were at the time it's a weird thought you think of how much they'd achieved by the time they were 30, the Beatles, and then here's me but yeah yeah, oh well Now now Andy, the Beatles never ran the number

four most popular music commentary podcast in Slovenia and Hungary now, did they? No, they did not. Yeah. Thanks for that. Meanwhile, the United States government indicts Zacharias Moussaoui after he pleads guilty to his involvement in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Moussaoui had been arrested in Minnesota in August 2001 after suspicions were raised by the FBI, but he wasn't charged after requests to search his personal laptop were turned down.

I think there's going to be a lot of stories like this over the next year or two, aren't there, of things that developed in the aftermath. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of this, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Meanwhile in the UK, it's announced that up to 30,000 postal workers could lose their jobs after the post office announced a cost-cutting package worth £1.2 billion. In March 2002, the company proceeded with job cuts but still posted losses of over £1 billion. The company reverted to the name Royal Mail Group, PLC, and split into three divisions, Royal Mail, Parcel Force and Post Office Limited.

I had no idea that Parcel Force was part of the Post Office Group. It just sounds like an independent company. Yeah, you will not be able to... I will not be able to describe the difference between those three companies. I had no idea that they are all different functions within the same conglomerate. What's the difference between the Royal Mail and the Post Office? I mean, you know, this is not what people are tuning in for, so it's fine. I had no idea that they are all different functions within the same conglomerate. What's the difference between the Royal Mail and the Post Office? I mean, you know, this is not what people are tuning in for, so it's fine.

You don't have to answer me on that. But what's the difference? At the UK box office, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is continuing its run at the top of the UK box office, facing and beating competition from Osmosis Jones Zoolander, The Princess Diaries and Mulholland Drive Wow ITN reporter Andrea Catherwood is injured in the knee by shrapnel

when a Taliban prisoner explodes a concealed grenade that kills himself and two other men close by Catherwood was reporting from Mazar-e-Sharif, where she was watching captured Taliban prisoners disembarking from lorries. As of December 2022,

Catherwood presents the feedback programme on BBC Radio 4. Meanwhile, Richard and Judy debuts on Channel 4, while Ant and Dec present their last ever episodes of SMTV and CDUK. However, they are there to present the 2001 record of the year to S Club 7, who beat Composition from All Rise by Blue,

Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue, and Do You Really Like It by DJ Pied Piper. Did either of you two watch the last episode? Not live, but I've seen it since. The last episode of Chums within the last episode of SMTV was probably the biggest deal where Dec and Cat finally had their kiss. They did it as a Ross and Rachel sort of thing. But this was before Friends had finished. So it was weird that Chums had to come to a conclusion before Friends did. And it had

a similar kind of vibe of the will they won't, it was resolved with a yes they will. Well, you know, on the record of the year the best club 7 I'm going to hope that that was don't stop moving and not anything else oh good yes yes it was don't stop moving alright then Andy how are the album charts looking in this very short period

well I've got very little to tell you this week because as listeners of last week's episode will know, Swing When You're Winning by Robbie Williams is at the top of the chart from mid-November all the way through to mid-January, which boxes this period off completely. Still number one throughout this entire period that we're covering this week. So what I did instead was I thought, oh, let's have a look at what else was out at this time that it beat to number one. And that got me nowhere either.

Would you believe that for the entire period that we're covering, the UK top 40 in the albums chart had just two new entries in the entire top 40 for this whole period? Yeah. One of them... I know, I know. I mean, well, one of them was Everybody by Hearsay, which debuted at number 24, so the writing is on the wall for them there.

And the only other one is Mariah Carey's Greatest Hits, which understandable why that would get big at this time of year. Good time to release that. But that's it. Literally nothing else made it into the chart. I mean, there's stuff lower down, but nothing else made it into the top 40. No new entries at all. It's a really quiet run up to Christmas. In terms of what nearly got there, though, Gabrielle's greatest hits, Sunshine by S Club 7, All Rise by Blue,

our greatest hits by Madonna, Russell Watson's album Encore. They were amongst the albums that didn't make it to number one during this period. But it's a very quiet time. Very quiet, yeah. Lizzie, are things any busier in the states i mean kind of like okay so i've mentioned in the previous episode that family affair by mary j blige dominates the single chart for this period but it's overtaken on december 15th like right at the end of this period by Usher who scores his

third US number one single with You Got It Bad it finished at number nine on the year end list for 2002 number 15 on decade end list

and number 126 on the all time list just make sure I've got that right yep but it only got as high as number five on the UK charts in October 2001 during Kylie Minogue's reign.

Wow. It was also unable to hang on to the top spot for the US Christmas number one, but you will have to wait until next time to find out what that song was. God damn it. Good teasing, Lizzie. Getting back for next week. Well done. In terms of going back to albums,

Britney Spears eventually lost her number one spot to... And it's a good thing I caught myself because I initially wrote Garth Crooks and his album Scarecrow. It's actually Garth Brooks. Yeah, he unfortunately did not have a US number one album. I would have loved to have heard that. But yeah, in terms of Brooks, Scarecrow was his eighth number one album in the US, where

it eventually went five times platinum, but only charted as high as number 82 in the UK. Wow. I only know who Garth Brooks is because of a friend of mine, him and his mum, really into like country and a lot of American kind of like stadium rock from the 70s through to the 90s stuff like meatloaf and things like that and yeah so the only reason i know who he is is because of one of my best friends from uh from school which is quite something the only one i seem to know um than uh of I think, Wrapped Up In You. And he's Cowboys and Angels, one of his.

And If Tomorrow Never Comes as well, which Ronan Keating eventually did. Oh, no. But I think Wrapped Up In You. I seem to remember my friend and his mum getting quite drunk at a party and singing that at me. Really? Yeah. The other one they used other one the other one they used to like to do was Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back by

Meatloaf. They used to enjoy singing that at parties as well. After Garth Brooks Creed would score their second number one album with Weathered. It finished at number two on the 2002 year-end list behind An Artist We'll Be Discussing Again in a Few Months Time, as well as finishing at number 22 on the decade-end list, and it stayed at number one for eight consecutive weeks between December 2001 and February 2002, the longest consecutive run since the Beatles' album won the year prior. Despite that, it only got as high as number 44 on the UK Albums Chart. Thank God. I never want to talk about Creed again.

Is that the one where all their faces are in that tree? Yeah, that one. Yes, that's the one. I've never listened to that album, but I've always found their album covers to be quite funny. There's a lot of value in that. At least something about them is. Yes.

Okay then, just the two songs this week. me there's a lot of value in that at least something about the mist yes okay then um just the two songs this week so the first one up is this sometimes it's wrong to walk away Though you think it's over Knowing there's so much more to say Suddenly the moment's gone And all your dreams are upside down And you just want to change the way the world goes round

Tell me Have you ever loved and lost somebody? Wish there was a chance to say I'm sorry Can't you see? That's the way I feel about you and me, baby Have you ever felt your heart was breaking? This is Have You Ever by S Club 7 Released as the second single from the group's third studio

album entitled Sunshine Have You Ever is S Club 7's eighth single to be released overall in the UK and their fourth to hit the top of the charts after Bring It All Back, Never Had A Dream Come True and Don't stop moving all reach number one in 1999 and the year 2000 respectively it is their last single to reach

number one have you ever went straight in at number one as a new entry knocking blue off the top of the charts it stayed at number one for one week selling3,000 copies in that one and only week at the top. It beat competition from Who Do You Love Now by Reva and Danny Minogue, which got to number three, Walk On by U2, which got to number five, and Do Wah Diddy by DJ Otzi, which got to number nine. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, have you ever dropped 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 quite a modest stay by S Club standards.

Yes, Lizzie, I would also like to repeat and express my disapproval at Do What Diddy by DJ Otzi. Yeah, glad we're not covering that. Andy. Disapproval at Do-Wa-Diddy by DJ Otzi. Yeah, glad we're not covering that. Andy, I was going to say, Have you ever loved a monster? But I'm just going to ask you how you felt about it, so go ahead. Oh, I was enjoying the singing there, never mind. But yes, so a few interesting things on this before we get started, because I'm going to need them.

The first thing is that when they performed this on Children in Need, which I do actually remember weirdly enough, they were joined on stage by S Club Juniors in their first ever television appearance. The production line keeps on rolling. S Club Juniors, I don't think we will ever discuss because I don't think they ever

get close to a number one. But they were a weird pop phenomenon of their own right to be honest. Very, very odd. They get very close but they don't get a number one um but they were a weird pop phenomenon of their own right to be honest very very odd they get very close but they don't get a number one oh bless them yeah um and the other interesting thing about this is that it was such a like i say such a conveyor belt such a production line for s club that they filmed their music videos in batches. So this was actually the last music video that Paul shot with S Club. But the music video for You had also been done earlier,

and that came out after this. So he kept on appearing in videos long after he left the group because they filmed them all in batches, which is really weird. It's very strange. You rarely see things like that in music because generally when someone leaves, they leave. But because they were basically more

of a TV show than they were a band, Paul kept hanging around for a while, long after he'd actually left, which is really strange. So, bye Paul! Yeah. So as you can probably tell, I'm not hugely enthusiastic about this one. I don't think it's a very interesting song.

I think in almost every sense, it's an inferior copy of Never Had a Dream Come True, which, you know, we were all fairly lukewarm on at the time, but I thought that was okay. You know, it had a certain kind of nice, snowy, Christmassy quality to it that, you know, it just kind of, you get swept up in it a little bit, even though it's absolutely nothing special. You know, it has some of, you get swept up in it a little bit, even though it's absolutely nothing special.

You know, it has some just general niceness to it, you know. But this doesn't at all. I think this is a really standard, you know, just by the numbers, S Club 7 ballad, really. And we've had, well, not on the show, but in general, you know, in their career, we've had quite a few of these by this time. You know, Two in a Million was the original, which I actually think is quite decent. I'm sorry. Yeah. And then we've had never had a dream come true and a few more along the way. And now we

get this, which is just really kind of a low energy, really. It's another one yet again, that is basically a Joe O'Meara solo single with six rather enthusiastic backing singers, which they never really seem to get away from, apart from Don't Stop Movin', where that was really finally starting to break. They just snapped back into the same old S Club. We don't seem to have moved on at all from where we were with Never Had a Dream Come True last year, which is weird because Don't Stop Movin' was something brand new for them.

And that's one of the reasons why at the time i was saying that you know i think they accidentally fluked a fantastic single with don't stop moving i don't think it they realized they were onto something so great there um it wasn't in the game plan and it was just a one-off and then they just reverted to type right afterwards and we've got cheesy rubbish like you coming out next year which thankfully we won't have to talk about but it's disappointing to have to come back to this sort of thing um the other thing about it that i really don't like although i always defend them you know as you know but the key change in this is oh it's really really bad it's a really heavy key change when i say heavy

it's like i think the the best key changes are the ones that they've persuaded you to want to happen you know they're kind of willing it to happen as a listener because they've tricked you into you know jumping over that cliff yourself whereas this one it's like i don't want this because it does sort of one and a half key changes it goes up to sort of unrelated key for the bridge, which is weird enough. And then it gets carried away with an unnecessary key change for the chorus,

which is so unstable and out of nowhere and strange that even Jo, as a singer, seems slightly unable to handle it and doesn't really know where it's going to land. And there's this sense of fragility, this sense of danger for a short moment in the song where you're not sure that Jo is going to land on there's this sense of fragility this sense of danger for a short moment in the song where you're not sure that joe is going to land on the right key because she seems to sort of detach herself from the song because she does this ad-lib a little bit like the no no no no

in never had a dream come true she does a similar kind of ad-lib between the keys and she does get there thank god but i wouldn't be surprised if that took about 20 takes to get because it just does not naturally follow at all that was the best one yeah yeah yeah there's just there's a certain uncertainty a certain uncertainty yeah about this whole thing um the other six members are completely anonymous like completely anonymous um so as a, you know, pop group piece of work, this is very bland. Very, very bland. It really puts me in mind, actually, of I promise you

before I start that I'm going somewhere with this point, but me and my husband are a big fan of Kitchen Nightmares USA, mainly for Gordon Ramsay's reactions to the food that he gets put in front of him, and one of the ones we always imitate is where he's just, wow, just bland. Just bland. And that's what I thought of when ones we always imitate is where he's just, wow, just bland. Just bland.

And that's what I thought of when I was up. I was just like, very little to say, just wow, just bland. Yeah, I'm really not surprised that this is near the end for S Club. It definitely feels like they're running out of steam. They're making it very clear that they've not got many more cards on the table here, that they're just kind of treading over old ground here.

And I just don't think there's any substance to this. I don't think there's anything in this that wasn't done better in other ballads of theirs. And I've given up trying to get the other members of the group to shine. I'm kind of done with S Club now, to be honest. As much as I loved them back in the day, they're a real hangover from a previous period now. So, yeah, let's be done with them yeah yeah i mean with regards to the song i do agree with a lot of your points andy

like um i mean with regards to the the children in need performance actually i wanted to know um this song actually still holds a guinness world record do you know about this uh for what so the children in need version of have you ever is listed in the guinness book of world records Guinness World Record. Do you know about this? For what? So, the Children in Need version of Have You Ever is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the highest number of people's voices recorded in a single song. Oh my god. What?

You know, on the performance, they have all those recordings from children in schools across the UK using the chorus. Like, the only versions that are on YouTube look like they were recorded on a sausage roll. It's not very clear. But there's a good chance that, like,

some of our listeners may have been involved in that recording if they were kids at the time. That is mad. You know, there was a similar thing around that time that one of my friends was involved in. I think it was for some sort of England cup final or maybe a Liverpool cup final, but there was loads of local kids

who did a cover of All Together Now by The Farm. Oh, I remember that, yeah. And there was like thousands of kids involved in that and one of my friends was one of them. So maybe that was an attempt at the same record. I didn't know about this one at all. That's really strange. I don't think you can hear that on the song i never would have guessed that it because it's not on the song oh sorry children need the tv version yeah yeah yeah strange yeah

yeah definitely like i mean with regards to this song though it's it's definitely not as bad as anything we covered in our previous episode but it it it is a rehash of never had a dream come true it's like never had a dream come to i guess oh i love that yeah much like that song joe does all the heavy lifting again like say leaving the rest of the group without anything to do like why are they there and i also feel like joe in this maybe tries to do a bit too much with her vocal performance and the production around it doesn't do much to help her out because it's all a bit too thin and cheap and British like I much prefer her vocal performance on Never Had a Dream because it seems a bit more like hushed and intimate and she doesn't try and

like stretch her arms all the way up to the sky to hit those high notes she kind of keeps it relatively low-key this to me seems like she's trying to place herself among some of the big American style belters and she misses the mark fairly significantly, especially with that key change you mentioned, where she goes, tell me, and it's like, whoa, slow down. You don't want to fuck off that horse. It's a little bit reminiscent of Mariah Carey slightly, isn't it? Especially Against All Odds. It kind of feels in the same sort of wheelhouse,

but yeah, Jo is a decent singer, but she's no Mariah. Yeah, Mariah does that sort of thing in her sleep like it's okay to not be able to do that but yeah there's there's like some nice chord progressions in there and the lyrics aren't too bad but i feel like this is let down by a combination of mediocre production and joe trying a bit too hard to add more flair to a vocal performance, leading to an end result which is nice enough on the surface, but a bit clumsy when you start to listen more closely. As for me, Lizzie, I've also attempted a little riff on the name that this song should have. Go on.

Which is Never Had a Dream Come True Part 2, Electric Boogaloo. Just too early for Christmas this time. Look, this is fine, but in a less complimentary way than I was about Blue last week. Where last week, with If You Come Back, it was, you know, it's fine. Whereas this is fine. Like, you know, in kind of like grumpy italics basically what you two have said a lesser version of never had a dream come true it's pretty and it's careful and somewhere underneath there might be a

pleasant song somewhere but yeah the problem here is Joe. Because they've been gearing up to set Joe off on a solo career for ages. But by this point, it just feels a bit like, you know, they went from being S Club 7 to being Joe and the S Clubbers. And that the other six members are basically just set dressing at this point,

hanging around to give the illusion in music videos that they're still a group. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, it's i mean i'm not gonna say that i know this is their last number one but like in the moment in 2001 this is three consecutive number ones and they must have thought like what we're on to a winner here you know like this must have felt like they're on top of the world like you know they've had three consecutive number ones, 50% of their singles released up to this point have got to the top of the charts. Like, it's a good record, I think.

Like, how many groups of this type make it to three albums and have those three albums be really successful? Especially British groups like that. Yeah, that's true. But, yeah, so, but looking back, maybe this sort of is the beginning of the end because, like, Jo is, like, front, but looking back, maybe this sort of is the beginning of the end, because, like, Jo is, like, front and centre of this, but she's pitchy as fuck, and once it's, and not, not, not, like, in a way that's, like, endearing, like it was with Atomic Kitten, where all three of them

are sort of a bit flat, this is, like, they've put Jo front and and center but she's not really warranting the extra space that she's being given because it like you say andy it goes up a step for that final bridge and then goes up another step for the last chorus and she can't cope with it there's there's that transitional moment between uh the second chorus and that final bridge the I really wanna hear you say that you know just how it feels and it genuinely sounds like they've made a mistake and forgotten

to go back to it like they've forgotten to air brush out and properly fade out the take of Joe's vocal that bleeds into this one like the last line of the second chorus into that bridge it's not comfortable it doesn't like fade from one ear into the other like you know good old stereo recording it just feels like everything bumps into each other those two transitions from

the second second chorus into the bridge slash third verse and then out of that bridge into the final chorus don't think the handle is well at all and those are the two moments that the song kind of hinges on towards the end and like you say andy there is a there is genuinely a moment of like god is this gonna fall apart like even though this is the finished product is this is this gonna stay together and not in a way that's like interesting. Well, like I often think that, you know, my favorite songs, especially live performances as well, are the ones where it feels like it could fall apart at basically any moment, but somehow manages to keep together. I often think about a bit of a weird comparison, but the performance of Atlas by Battles on Jules Holland

in like 2007 2007 where that performance can collapse at basically any point but it stays very much on an even keel throughout whereas with this it feels like I know I'm listening to the finished product but it doesn't sound finished especially

towards the end I don't disagree with that at all it's weird though because it's probably not been rushed. No. Why would it have been? It's not a rush release single, as far as I know, but it does sound a bit half-baked, a bit half-assed, to be honest. Yeah, I agree with you, but I didn't kind of make that point

because I thought, well, it wasn't rushed. But you're right, it does sort of sound like it was thrown together. I don't know whether that's just because S Club are stretched too thin in general. Their schedule probably puts about 5% time aside for actually recorded music and the rest of it is for doing their assorted paraphernalia. That's the only thing I can think of. But yeah, I agree on that point. It's really strange.

Lizzie, do you have anything more to add about S Club? Oh, do I? Howzie do you have anything more to add about s club oh do i um how long do you have well it's our shortest ever episode so not anymore it isn't go ahead well i've i've got nothing to say about what happens to the next act so i may as well um i should say for the record like as much as this is s Club's last number one single, this isn't quite the end of the road for the group. They have four more singles in the UK, all of which chart within the top five, and three of which get as high as number two. However, as we've discussed, times are changing in the UK charts and S Club, like their rival group Steps, are suddenly struggling to keep up.

Around the time of this single, they fronted a CBBC reality show called S Club Search, where they went to various venues in the UK to scout child singers to form a new group, S Club Juniors, later S Club 8. I remember watching that show. Yeah, and that group went on to have six top ten hits in the UK, with two of the members eventually being part of the Saturdays. Six? Six top ten hits? Really? Six top ten hits.

Wow. Yeah, genuinely. And, like, by all accounts, the S Club Juniors experiment was a success, but for the original S Club, it may have been too much of a success. To quote Joe Dunthorne, Dostoevsky's The Double tells the story of Yakov Goliadkin, whose life is destroyed by the arrival of someone who looks identical to him, but is far more charming and likable. Gradually, Yakov finds that his double has stolen his friends

and replaced him at work, and that he is generally doing a much better job of being Yakov than Yakov ever could. When Yakov attempts to reclaim his life, he can never get past the problem that people prefer the replicant to the real thing. And that is the reality facing the OGS club in late 2001, as they're forced to sit and watch their much younger and much more charming replacements being scouted, trained and primed for success in real time. And there's nothing they can do to slow down the inexorable march of time towards obsolescence. Even the album that this song is from, Sunshine, as you mentioned before Andy,

it released just one week after this single but failed to hit the number one spot in the UK, peaking at number three behind Blue and Robbie Williams. Number three it's not bad but it's not the number one. In addition to that the album was never even released in the US despite the success of their previous album and a surprise top 10 hit on the Billboard singles chart earlier this year and that's just 2001. year and that's just 2001 like we're going into 2002 and that's a much more turbulent year for s club from the outset like the s club carnival tour is met with a mixed reception despite some praise for s club juniors in the support slot and paul catamore leaves the band not long after the tour deciding to rejoin his school new metal band called Skua.

Oh my God, I want to hear them so bad. So bad. They released their debut album in 2014. Oh. Yeah. And meanwhile, S Club would continue with their CBBC shows, but instead of taking place in America like their previous iterations this one took place in Barcelona

and Paul leaving the group was actually written into a storyline This is what I remember This is so strange This weird collision of reality and real life where you really don't know what level of reality you're operating on while you're watching those scenes. It's very strange

Yeah And there's something in the wikipedia entry for this as well for viva s club which states quote since s club broke up the fans have tried several ways and have created many online petitions to make 19 entertainment release the series no one succeeded end quote and so the only version of this that exists is like a really bad vhs rip on youtube if you're curious and then of course their fourth and final studio album called seeing double only got as high as number 17 on the uk albums chart in november 2002 oh my gosh wow and if yeah and the film of the same name didn't premiere until April 2003. And get this,

in the film, the group has to fight evil scientist Victor Gagan in his quest to clone the world's pop stars, including Esclub themselves. And including many others of that era. Gareth Gates is one of them, isn't he? What? Yeah. And yeah, on top of that era. Gareth Gates is one of them, isn't he? What? Yeah.

And yet, on top of that, Simon Fuller didn't bother to show up for the film premiere and they had to fly economy class to the US premiere. Wow. And it was reported that Hannah Spear, its parents, had hired lawyers to chase payments owed to them by Simon Fuller and his management company. They claim that out of the €75 euro fortune the band made for fuller they only received 150

000 euros a year from it and of course they eventually split in june 2003 and we loved and lost the day we let them go what a story I cannot believe the similarities between like seeing double and the whole S Club Juniors thing and wow to quote Yoda we are what they grow beyond yeah

that point made me think of what Rob said as well that you know putting those two things together that yes you know on paper it looks great to, that yes, you know, on paper, it looks great to have had three consecutive number ones, but then you think for a band who, as brazenly as this, are just like a sales machine, that they are just literally there to print money,

that's the whole point of them, and they've like just openly set up their successor in a way that's like really unheard of, you would think that getting number ones is the very least you would expect you know that's the flaw like they they they should be selling like hotcakes because that's all they exist for so you'd think really that the second they stop getting number ones that's not good enough like sort of like x-factor winners where you know if one of them wasn't to get a Christmas number one with their winner's single, even if it got number two, which would be great,

that would be seen as a huge failure because they exist only to be at the top all the time. So really, I think, you know, that's considering how much of a media machine S Club are, it's actually not that impressive for them to get a few number ones back to back. That's kind of the least you would expect of them

really. Yeah, I just wanted to give them a fair send-off on this podcast because i do genuinely believe that they got screwed by management and left on their own to deal with the emotional physical and mental fallout of their rapid rise and fall like if we've learned anything from the spice girls recently it's that their period of success was a blur of overwork so much so that they had to conceal some very obsessing and traumatic aspects of their life in order to meet the demands of the grind and so on in that regard I really do hope that the members of S Club can kind of look back on this period of success fondly because, Hey, they created a lot of happy memories for so many of their fans at the time and have even done so for me looking back on the heyday as part of this

podcast. Yeah. Yeah. You really went through that TV show of theirs. Oh, I did. I did. It's all right.

To be fair, they, they made some happy memories for me too. Um, cause I was big into S Club at the time and I still kind of listened to like one or two of their songs every now and again. Not much, but yeah, they were important to me

at quite a formative age in my music experience. So yeah, they can have that. They can have credit in the bank with me for that. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll just add that me and my sister still quote Miami 7, random quotes from it at each other, like, all the time. Not even because of the podcast. We just do that.

Like, we say things that are a load of pop or call each other muffins. We do that, like, all the time. What am I, a choreographer or a combine harvester? It's a personal favourite. And, of course, whack, whack, oops. Whack, whack, oops. She's mad. I feel like whack whack oops

has become like the catchphrase of the podcast that just kind of rears its head every now and again. It's what we're putting on the merch. Yes. Okay then. Okay, next up

and last up on this week's episode is this. If only I could get out of this I just gotta get through this I just gotta get through this I gotta get through this I gotta get through this I gotta make it, gonna make it, gonna make it through Said I'm gonna get through this I'm gonna get through this

I gotta take, gotta take my mind off of you Give me just a second and I'll be alright. Show me when my moment could break my heart. Give me a chance to marvel and I'll be okay. Just another day and then I'll approach you tight. When your love is pouring like rain, I close my eyes and you float again. When we're together, just to say I love you. I pretend that you're already mine, but my heart ain't breaking every time. This is Gotta Get Through This by Daniel Bedingfield.

Released as the lead single from his debut studio album, which is also entitled Gotta Get Through This. Gotta Get Through This is also the debut single by Daniel Bedingfield and his first to reach number one. It is not the last time we'll be discussing old Daniel on this podcast. Gotta Get Through This went straight in at number one as a new entry knocking S Club 7 off the top of the charts. It stayed at number one for two weeks. It sold 109,000 copies in its first week at the top, beating competition from Resurrection by PPK, which got to number three, Everybody by Hearsay, which got to number 4.

What If by Kate Winslet, which got to number 6. Calling by Jerry Halliwell, which got to number 7. And Where's Your Head At by Basement Jacks, which got to number 9. I know! It then sold 80,000 copies in its second week at the top. Beating Competition from Brace Yourselves. Murder on the Dance Floor by Sophie Ellis-Bexter, which got to number two.

Handbags and Glad Rags by Stereophonics, which got to number four. You don't need to brace yourself much for that one. Words Are Not Enough by Steps, which got to number five. Country Roads by Hermes House Band, which got to number seven. And I Believe in Christmas by the Tweenies, which got to number nine. Getting in early.

Yes, a bit too premature. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Gotta Get Through This dropped one place to number two. However, it is not the end of Gotta to get through this journey on Hits 21. Wow. I mean, Rob, can I just admire how many times you said got to get through this there? And each and every time you said it in the rhythm of the song, I really have to applaud you for that. He did get through this. Yes, I was going to say I did just have to get through it. Of course.

Lizzie, Daniel Bedingfield, got to get through this how are we with it yeah this is pretty good isn't it yes I agree yeah like I mentioned

in our group chat earlier this week that this might be the first bedroom pop number one I say might I'm sure there are

others out there please let us know write in but yeah Daniel Bedingfield recording this in his bedroom with just his PC and a microphone

using Making Waves Studio and Reason software. And then he paid out of his own pocket to have the single pressed and distributed to various DJs. And that was enough to get him signed to Polydor Records. I think that's a really cool story. Wow. Yeah, fair play. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a deserving hit too

because it's a solid song in its own right, but the production on this sounds surprisingly modern with the pitch-shifted lead vocal and the discordant robotic backing vocals. Like, it's easy to see how this might have had an influence on hyperpop with how it takes sweet infectious earwormy pop and adds this kind of abrasive and heavily processed production for exaggeration like I can't help but

wonder if this song would maybe be talked about more if not for the face and the person behind it but regardless like when we covered 21 seconds by so solid crew we briefly touched on uk garage and the two very different paths it was about to split into like grime was starting to emerge from pirate radio stations in london as the next step from garage but the pop side of uk garage was still huge on the charts in 2001 this song feels like the peak of UK Garage's pop wave, although we will see another surprise hit like this one in 2004, but I say this particular song feels like the end of UK Garage's period of chart domination. But I can think of worse ways to go out than this, and I would say I would much rather have this incarnation

of Daniel Bedingfield's music than the one we actually end up with in the end but yeah overall really good this held up really well yeah the thing with Daniel Bedingfield is that like you were saying there he may have been remembered differently if he'd carried through this style because he has like a couple more songs that are like this

like james dean that eventually comes out but what we eventually come to know him for the slow ballads that are very very soft and sensitive and kind of a bit more adult contemporary than um than something like gotta get through this um this won't be the only time we talk about daniel benningfield but you know i do kind of have strict orders from especially andy to get a weezer reference into every episode last year well last year um maybe this is also quite telling lizzie um that maybe daniel beddingfield's cultural footprint isn't as large as it might have otherwise been in a parallel universe uh so in may of 2021 i was lucky enough to um speak to an interview um rivers cuomo from weezer about um just about what they were doing at that time because they had like three they had an album that was delayed and it's all pandemic related stuff and on um their album van weezer which was like a weezer does van halen tribute

kind of thing there's a song on there that is called hero and it's the opening track to the record okay and one of the writing credits is daniel benningfield wow ah and so i was like how how has this happened like how has dan Daniel Benningfield this pop artist from the early 2000s from New Zealand and the UK how has he ended up with a writing credit on a Weezer record and so I asked him I asked Rivers Cuomo I said how did Daniel Benningfield end up with a writing credit on a Weezer record so I'm actually going to quote from the article that i eventually wrote for gig wise about this okay um so the paragraph says with my nerves slightly settling i decide to ask about a personal curiosity that's been picking away at me for a while daniel beddingfield of gotta get through this fame is listed among the names responsible for album opener Hero. How did that come to be?

And then Rivers Cuomo says, I'm sorry, I'm not 100% sure who he is. Ooh. I mean, in Rivers' typically sincere way, he genuinely just has no idea who he is. I tell Rivers that Bedingfield is a British singer who was briefly popular in the first half of the 2000s. If the two have never crossed paths, how did his name end up appearing in the credits?

The answer I get opens a window into what Rivers' work days probably look like. There are two new situations now, he says. There's one where my manager will send me files from another writer and ask me to play around with them. And the other is when our record company hears I need some of that which is another weezer song and they tell us that it sounds just like asia's heat of the moment we didn't sit down with asia or anything their credit just comes about after the fact and so it sounds like this this hero song of weezer's arrived at the end like weezer were just the end of the line and on that line somewhere daniel beddingfield did something to it but without anybody really knowing well good for you daniel good for you i've no idea how that's happened but there we go um with regards to the song um in a way that's sort

of similar to kylie's can't get you out of my head from a couple of weeks ago at the time i remember this sounded really fresh and exciting something new and interesting for the new century and the new millennium you know it's like you're kind of saying there lizzie it's like catchy and it's fast and it skips and it relies on break beats and garage beats and a lot of passion as well in those in those vocals and i think those first bass hits you know those thumps the doom do do they're really iconic in their own way and once this starts you don't mistake it for any other song which i think is quite a rare achievement like once you've heard the first three to five seconds of this it's like oh yeah i remember that you know if this was on like a music intros quiz i don't think anybody

would get this wrong who's our age oh no which is which is quite i think that's quite something and even in the music video you see the lengths they go to to make this song seem like it's from how do we put this a present vision of the future you know you've got him sitting on that dock side on the metal seats with the metal handrails and metal barriers behind him the the twinkling lights in the background on that canal harbour everything sort of looks like canary wharf you know he's there scowling with highlights in his hair and he's got that black turtleneck jumper on and he's on that bridge that bridges that were only built after like 1998 where like the the one that's really similar is the bridge that's outside the hotel in manchester that goes over the urwell um yeah there's one at dean's gate castlefield as well the bridge that used to be visible out of the window on some series of the X Factor when they did the Manchester auditions in Castlefield.

And he's driving around in a car that's got bright lights flashing overhead. And everything looks like that style of architecture that was really popular around the early 2000s, where you'd have glass contrasted against crystal clear steel, contrasted against sandblasted concrete and there's modern industrial landscapes that look very much like the future and yet are so so early 2000s and isn't that just this song in like a little micro in microcosm where it's like it is very much of its time and yet pop could have conceivably sounded like this 100 years from now or could conceivably sound like this 100 years from now or could conceivably sound like this 100 years from now like you were saying lizzy with hyper pop you can draw comparisons between the two and weirdly i think like i've i've ended up liking this more than i thought that i would

i've never disliked this but i'm also struck by how much he's given it in the performance. You know, the full song kind of sounds like a panic episode brought on by love or lack thereof. You know, it's believable and it's memorable. He attempts to freshen it up towards the end with the new way that he phrases it, like, If only I could get through this. And you get all these little chittering vocals that are kind of shooting in and out, all these ad-libs that and like i'm unsure if i love this but i am i am on i am on the edge i'm teetering over the edge of vaulting this so i'm curious um i'm gonna see what andy what you have to say and then i'll i'll make my mind up i think i'm i'm sort of in the same kind of place that I actually, I do actually really

like this, which I didn't expect to because I don't know if it's just because of his personality, you know, outside of the music, but I think these days people treat Daniel Bedingfield as a sort of vaguely comical figure, you know a little bit like James Blunt or

Ronan Keaton or one of those where it's just Daniel Bedingfield, that might be because he became known for extremely earnest ballads that were sort of laughable in and of themselves, but also his personality, which I'll come to shortly in a minute as well. But I wasn't really expecting to like this. I saw the name and I was like, Daniel Bedenfield, really? And I hadn't listened to this in years, but I really liked it. and I hadn't listened to this in years, but I really liked it.

It's definitely the freshest thing that we've had in months, apart from Can't Get You Out of My Head, and even that was a few months ago compared to this. It is the freshest thing we've had in a long while, and I can see why this has rocketed to number one, because it's like, finally, something interesting has come along. I think the phrase, gotta get through this, has in many ways summed up my feelings about the second half of 2001. So it's nice to sort of relate to that with Daniel there. What I really like about this song, not just the sound and the, you know, the genuine

ingenuity that's on display there, that there's a lot of fun little sounds and tricks in there. What I really like about it is that it knows exactly what it's trying to do and does not try and push it. It doesn't go beyond that. It just exactly what it's trying to do and does not try and push it it doesn't go beyond that it just nails what it's doing which is the gotta get through this hook a few kind of catchy little verses and tricks um that boom boom boom boom keeping the whole thing going in the background um and then just repeat it all about five ten times keep it to two and a half minutes bob's your uncle it would be so easy to throw in this big, long breakdown in the middle, to throw in some different ideas, to do a second or third verse

that's very different. But no, it just very much stays in its lane, and whereas that would usually be a criticism, I think for something like this, that is a debut artist on the scene doing something that sounds very fresh and sounds very different, i think keeping it simple and keeping it targeted actually really works it's one of the things that i praised about can't get you out of my head actually that actually that song is deceptively simple there's very few elements to it um but it nails those elements and decides to not push its luck and just stick to you know doing something simple but perfectly

and this is kind of the same, I wouldn't say it's perfect the only bit of the song that I don't really like is the extremely fast lyrics say I love you I think that's a little bit out of pace with the rest of the song but then equally they kind of lead back in

to the gotta get through this hook, the fact that he does that slightly differently with the if only I could get through this, that brings it right back. And I think it really just powers you through those two and a half minutes so quickly and so easily that I could listen to this like a hundred times and it'd be fine. It's a really easy listen. So yeah, I'm really full of praise for it. The only thing that I wanted to talk about, though, is just Daniel Bedingfield as a person,

because I do think his public image has somewhat played into his reputation and the way people talk about him these days, because he definitely made it off his own back with this one, and I have full props to him for that, but once he actually got into a studio and had some star power behind him, there is a bit of a sense that it kind of went to his head

and he became a very serious artist, as it were. He became a bit of a diva. Well, a lot of a diva, from what I've heard. There's a Nevermind the Buzzcocks episode, which is always my source of reference for these sort of things. There's a Buzzcocks episode from the mid-noughties where he's actually past his prime, but he still sort of behaves as a major artist where he's on and he says some things like they're normal that are not normal such as that he insisted on recording

when he was in the studio he insisted on recording everything naked which is like sounds like a funny anecdote and it came across as a funny anecdote but in the area that we're in now where we all think about these things a little bit more it's like you know the staff working in that studio that didn't ask for that you know it come on the poor people bringing in tea you know the people who were just there to kind of wire up the studio you're just walking around naked you know without asking them because you think the music somehow demands it I think that has to be called out and I think the fact that he's a very sort of

sincere kind of almost pretentious I dare to say person sometimes, you know, I think that kind of comes across and the fact that his later singles are very very you know, straight from the heart and have no kind of irony to them at all, kind of lends to that.

Which is a shame because the Daniel Benningfield that we see here, I don't get that at all. He seems really cool. He seems really kind of genuine salt of the earth. This is an interesting guy. He's got something new to bring to the conversation. He's not a kind of, you know, this is my arena where the music will flow from me

and so I need to be unclothed for this experience, which is what, you know, kind of follows. And that's a shame because I think, as you both have said, if we got this same Daniel Benningfield that stuck to this kind of music going forward, I think he could have had a really long and successful career. And it's kind of spoiled by a few different factors, really. But I'm not going to let that impact on this song i really like this and i'm also very much on the fence about putting this in the vault i i really do like this and it's definitely my favorite that we've had in a good few

months you know we've had a long run of really disappointing naff material you know all three songs last week have you ever this week i'm so glad we finally got something that is interesting and it's reminding me that there is a future for pop music because it was somewhat in doubt i think over the past few weeks um so yeah it gets a big thumbs up from me and i just don't really like what's to come for daniel but never mind this is good yeah agreed all right then um we've only had two songs and yet we've somehow made it nearly to an hour we've probably gone past the hour point actually once we add the songs in and everything so boy can we talk but anyway before we go um we're gonna have a look and see if either of the two songs this week, Heavy Load,

are going to get into the vault or be dropped into the pie hole. So, Have You Ever by S Club 7, is that going anywhere for any of us? No, that's solidly average for me, no. Yeah, afraid not. Yeah, neither pie hole nor the vault for me. Got to Get Through This by Daniel Bedingfield. I have thought about it long and hard, as I've just said, and putting it into context of where we are in the charts right now, the fact that this is something so different,

I think that gives it the quality that I look for in The Vault, that it's really adding something, that it's got originality, that it stands out from the crowd. So for that reason, yes, it's going into the vault for me. Lizzie, how about you? Yeah, I think talking about this song has also convinced me of the same.

So it's sneaking into the vault. It's also sneaking in for me. We have a unanimous vault entry, everyone. Well done, Daniel Bedingfield. It's a shame about everything else for me we have a unanimous vault entry everyone well done Daniel Bedingfield it's a shame about everything else that comes after from you on this show

but yeah don't get used to that next time we will be giving you the race for Christmas number one in the year 2001 we'll also do like we did last year where we'll run down our favourite songs of the year 2001 we'll also do like we did last year where we'll run down our favourite songs of the year, our least favourite songs of the year, we'll run down the top

10 on Christmas Day from 2001 before we talk about that all important Christmas number 1 and any memories that we may have of it so thank you very much for listening this week have a lovely Christmas as well, I hope it's all very nice Christmas 2022, hope it's all very nice. Christmas 2022.

I hope it's all really lovely for you. And we'll see you next time. See you next time. Bye-bye. See ya. Well, everybody needs a hero But I'm not everybody else I walk alone, yeah, I walk alone Yeah, I walk alone, yeah You know I try to be a hero

But I was lying to myself I walk alone, yeah, I walk alone Yeah, I walk alone. Yeah You know I tried to be your hero But I was lying to myself I walked alone Yeah, I walked alone Yeah, I walked alone Yeah