Hits 21 - 2002 (1): Aaliyah, George Harrison, Enrique Iglesias

Episode Date: January 15, 2023

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]

All right there everyone and welcome back to Hits 21 where me, Rob, me, Andy and me, Livvy all look back at every single UK number one of the 21st century from January 2000 right through to the present day. If you want to get in touch with us you can find us over on Twitter. We're at Hits21UK. That is at Hits21UK.

And you can email us too. Just send it on over to Hits21Podcast at gmail.com. Thank you so much, ever so much, for joining us again. Just like our previous episodes, we'll be looking back at some number one singles from the year 2002. We're in the year 2002 this time we'll be covering the period from january 1st through to the 23rd of february that

year just want to say hello to everybody that's joined us since i went on popmaster um we've had quite a few new listeners come to our show based on me giving us a shout-out, so thank you very much. This is the first episode we've recorded since I went on Popmaster, so I just thought I'd say hello to all of our new listeners. Hello, friends.

Thank you for joining us. Hello. So, normally at this point in the episode, we would say, let's have a look at last week's poll winner but there was one song in last week's episode so um that would basically be cheating now wouldn't it for that uh for something stupid just slightly perhaps yeah a little bit so what i thought i would do is let you know at the top of the show that for this episode as I said in the last episode we're going to be running the poll in the usual place which is Spotify but we're also going

to put the poll on Twitter as well so that more people can vote and more people can get involved. Speaking of Twitter now up to this basically up to this week or last week, I basically just set up the Twitter account to do updates whenever we uploaded episodes and that was about it. But Andy had a great idea based on something that happened over Christmas, Ari, his CD collection, and he's decided to actually use Twitter properly as opposed to me just going, oh, the way we've uploaded an episode, Andy you're actually utilising it as a tool to do something, so why don't you let everybody know what you've been doing on our Twitter page Yeah, so those of you who already follow us

will probably know about this purely because I've been quite prolific with the tweets and been doing about five a day but basically what happened is my Christmas present off my husband was it sounds bad when i say it like this but it was my old ipod but that's awesome because it was an ipod classic that i first got many years ago as a teenager which i long died but it was my best friend like that ipod was like it really was like a friend to me. Like all of my music was on there.

It was just mine and special. And I listened to it like five hours every day. And it died and we replaced it. And that one died as well. So I just gave up on it and moved on to Spotify, as you do. But my husband's project for the past few months was to refurb it completely, kit it out with modern technology. So it's got a terabyte of storage,

it's got a rainbow back, and it's got a purple front. It's got like brand new everything inside. I don't know the technical stuff, but it's like a really bang up to date modern one. And he also put every single CD that I own onto it. Well, that we both own, which is nearly 600 CDs,

put everything that we own onto it. So suddenly I've own which is nearly 600 CDs put everything that we own onto it so suddenly I've got an iPod back with my whole music collection on it so I've fallen newly in love with it and I've thought, you know what, some of this stuff I've never sat down and listened to properly or at least haven't done for years so I've decided to do this stupid, really frankly

quite stupid, project of making my way through every single album on that iPod from a to z um i'm currently approaching the end of the letter a this week i hope we can finish our work on the letter a um yeah so there's been about 30 albums beginning with a that have done so far and weirdly there are three different studio albums by abba that begin with A and there's also ABBA Gold which I've got so like it feels like more of an ABBA project than anything right now I'm sick to death of them but yes I'm reviewing every album in just 140 characters and giving them a rating

out of five stars and posting a tweet for every single one in a little thread that I've got it will be a not so little thread by the time I get to the end but yeah if you want to follow my progress and see what I think of every single album I own, then you can see that on our Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. At hits 21 UK,

just in case you forgot from me telling you about two minutes ago, always good. What's that Twitter handle Rob? At hits 21 UK, Andy. I feel like we should nail it to some kind of digital post. All right, then onto this week's episode

and as always, we're just going to give you some news and pop culture headlines from around the time that these songs were number one. In America, the Boston Globe publishes an article detailing their investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston's

sexual abuse scandal. The publication of the article initially resulted in the prosecution of five Roman Catholic priests until thousands more people came forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in numerous lawsuits and over 200 criminal cases. The events of the investigation and subsequent legal efforts were dramatized in the 2015 Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, which is a very good movie. I like that movie. Meanwhile, Great Britain dramatized in the 2015 oscar-winning movie spotlight which is a very good movie i like that movie meanwhile great britain competes in the winter olympics in salt lake city utah winning just one gold medal unfortunately and one bronze medal meanwhile

the new england patriots defeat the saint louis rams by 20 points to 17 in super bowl 36 at the time it was the patriots' first ever Super Bowl win, but started a period of dominance for the Boston, Massachusetts team, who have reached a total of nine Super Bowls in the last 20 years, winning six of them. That is the most I have ever spoken or thought about American football. Honestly, you can tell I didn't write that one. I just about got my way through all of that joking about American football. Yeah, you can tell I didn't write that one. I just about got my way through all of that juggling about American football.

Yeah, you did good. Thank you. Meanwhile, back in the UK, Princess Margaret, the Queen's younger sister, died of a stroke at King Edward VII Hospital in London. She was aged 71. Her funeral took place six days after her death, and unlike many other members of the royal family, Margaret was cremated at Slough Crematory. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows.

So, The Fellowship of the Rings still reigns supreme for another three weeks before Vanilla Sky takes the top spot for two weeks. Sky takes the top spot for two weeks. However, Pixar's new release, Monsters, Inc., deposes Vanilla Sky fairly promptly and stays at the top of the box office for three weeks, grossing £19 million in the UK in its time at the top. That's another

good movie, Monsters, Inc. Oh, better than good. Yeah, it's great. That was back in the days where every single Pixar film was reliably brilliant. Yeah. And then we got Cars. Never mind.

Yeah, not a big fan of that. CBBC debuts two new TV shows. Jeopardy, a show about eight high school pupils who travel to Australia with their school to look for UFOs. And also The Story of Tracy Beaker, based on the book written by Jacqueline Wilson about the life of its titular character at the dumping ground a foster home in London

and I believe the actress is still playing that role to this day because they rebooted it last year with a sort of The Force Awakens style Next Generation where she now runs the foster home and kids live in Danny Harmer, Just remember the name. Danny Harmer. That's it.

Good for her. She's made a real career out of that. Good for her. Meanwhile, ITV debuts Footballers' Wives. That was a big one. And in other showbiz and TV news, hearsay confirmed that Kim Marsh has left the group. EastEnders begins a week of episodes set in Spain before

Dot Cotton marries Jim Branning and Channel 4 announced that they have won the rights to show episodes of The Simpsons from 2004 onwards. I've got to say, writing these, especially the pop culture headlines and doing my research and stuff to put all this together, it feels like the 2000s are very much underway now because we've got Tracy Beaker Footballers Wives, Kim Marsh going off on her own and Doc Cotton marrying Jim and The Simpsons being on Channel 4 that feels like lots of things

happening in a very short space of time that are very very noughties to me they feel very very early 21st century I've got to say a little bit of a shout out to Jeopardy by the way I loved Jeopardy, I watched every episode of it when i was a kid absolutely i've never heard of it it's bold calling your show jeopardy it's like yeah are you aware there is another show called jeopardy no i shouldn't phrase that but what is a show about eight high school pupils who travel to balls who travels Australia but honestly no it is for a kid's tv show it's dead scary and good

like it's decent drama as well um there's a whole thing about red eyes and being duplicated and traveling through time and it has one of my favorite ever endings to any tv show ever kids or no kids I it's just a great ending. And yeah, so I think it's all on YouTube, by the way. So go and seek it out if you have the time. Might give that a look. Thank you. I mean, speaking of TV shows that run at this time and are also on YouTube,

just before I go into my bit, I'd like to give a shout out to a music documentary that was on at this time, which I still maintain is my favorite music documentary ever, which is, um, an episode of the BBC documentary series trouble at the top called books, fizz,

making your mind up. This is also on YouTube. And if you do, if, if the listeners take one thing from this episode I'd say go and check this out trust me like it will not let you down it's never let me down when I've shown people it's just this so the two 80s pop groups there's Buxfizz who won Eurovision and there's Dollar who were fronted by David Van Day what happened was kind of, they were both sort of down on their luck in the late 90s

and they decided to join forces. So David Van Day joined Bucks Fizz, but it all went wrong from there. And I won't tell you the rest, but it's a good watch. Like, trust me. Thanks for another recommendation. I'm trying to keep track of all the things

that we've like heartily endorsed to our listeners. There's Miami 7, there's the kids' TV show Jeopardy, and there's a documentary about Bucks Fizz. We've got something for everyone on this show, we really have. Yeah, definitely. Anyway, finally, and perhaps most crucially this week, Will Young is crowned as the winner of the first season of Pop Idol. After getting past Darius Dinesh in the semi-final,

Will then emerged victorious over Gareth Gates with 53.1% of the public vote. The live final was watched by over 13 million people at its peak, with a further 12.5 million people tuning in to see the results. Did we all watch it? God, I remember this. I think I did, yeah. Yeah, i was so excited i was i was very much behind gareth so was i yeah i was i was i was behind gareth i think in retrospect the public were right but i was behind gareth i was eight nine years old i remember i was running with grandmas with two of

my older cousins we did did those boxes of, you know, the black boxes of microwave chips you could do. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and we sat in front of the telly watching that and we all voted for Gareth. We all phoned up individually off my grandma's phone. I think my grandma voted for Will

and so she was the solitary one vote in that household for Will. But it's tight though. 53% of a two-way vote, you know, that's pretty tight. I guess you could say it was the will of the people. Oh, oh! Do you know, me and my sister used to have a running joke about this, because this was like the first ever, like, the winner is, well not the first ever, but the first really big one, you know, like the Dema O'Leary

moment this was the first one where it's like the winner is and then they left it for ages and then shouted Will and so me and my sister used to have this running joke of whenever it would be like the end of the X Factor or something and Dema O'Leary would go the winner is we would always go Will

Andy how were the album charts looking and always go, Will! Andy, how are the album charts looking in the first bit of 2002? Yeah, well, I finally got some stuff to talk about on this because the last few weeks has just been a wasteland because Robbie just blew away everything in his path with Swing When You're Winning, which is still number one for the first two weeks of this year. But thankfully, it's unseated.

I say thankfully, just so I've got something else to talk about. But it's replaced at the top in mid-January by Stereophonics with just enough education to perform. That's a re-entry from nine months earlier, which is really quite strange for those days. It's probably because Handbags and Gladrags got released in December. Oh, yeah.

But that is odd. That's an unusual thing to happen in the album charts at those times, to have a re-entry that far apart for a band that weren't particularly massive. You know, they were big, but they weren't like, you know, the biggest. So yeah, that's an interesting one.

And then for one week, sneaking in in early February was the Chemical Brothers with their album Come With Us. Which is the second member of that dubious club of number one albums that didn't go platinum. It only went gold.

And it only had one week at the top, so that was a bit of a fluke that one. Early in the year though, I guess I guess yeah that's what I'm thinking I think things tend to sneak in at this time yeah definitely and then for two weeks at number one we have Escape by Enrique Iglesias

which ended up going five times platinum that was a huge success that album and then we have two weeks at the top for the very best of sting and the police by sting and the police i like how they differentiate them like you know there are some people who might be buying it only for the other members of the police they don't care about sting they care about the rest of the band but that's it, so finally we've got some movement on the charts but a very mixed bag, you know, you are right

at the start of the year, nothing really seems to break out in the albums chart, apart from arguably Enrique but that's more to do with the singles chart which I'm sure we'll come to at some point yeah Lizzy, how are things looking over there in the old United States

yeehaw yeah well, in the singles chart Nickelback were overtaken in the third week of 2002 by Usher who returned to number one for five more weeks with You Got It Bad

it's always those two you can have whoever you want at number one, as long as it's Nickelback or Usher. Only those two. We finally get a new entry at number one on February the 23rd, when Always on Time by Ja Rule featuring Ashanti claimed the top spot for two weeks. It finished at number 12 on the year-end list and number 82 on the decade-end list, but only got as high as number 6 in the UK charts.

I remember it, though. I remember that. I remember that one, too. Yeah. In terms of albums, Creed continued to stink up the charts for four weeks in 2002 before being overtaken by country singer Alan Jackson, whose album Drive held the top spot for four non-consecutive weeks. What? Right, I was going to say, I'm sure neither of you have ever heard of Alan Jackson, but you might know him for a song he recorded in late 2001 entitled,

Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning? Oh, I wonder what that's about. Yeah, I wonder, gee. Oh gosh gosh that's a bit cringe isn't it if you've got any South Park fans in the house you know so that album finished at number 15 on the year end list and went four times platinum but only got as high as number 191

on the UK albums chart you can tell the difference between two countries, can't you? Oh, definitely. We've got one more this week. It's Jennifer Lopez, who returns to the top of the charts for two non-consecutive weeks

with Jays to the Low, The Remixes, which was her second number one album and the first ever remix album to reach number one on the albums chart. And it also went platinum and finished at number 49 on the year end list and got as high as number four on the UK albums chart. God, I don't think I'm ever put off an album more

than when I see that it's a remix album. I know. I know. I know. I can't think of any remix album where I've listened to it and thought yes this is better

and this was a worthy venture I don't think I've ever gone out and bought one I mean I'll find out going through every single album on my iPod but I don't think I've ever deliberately bought a remix album

I just don't see why why anyone would which one was yours the one I remember is the Linkin Park remix album I was going to say

was it reanimation? It was. Yeah. It was. Anyway, away from remix albums and US albums and singles and everything, we've got to look ahead now and we've got to go through 2002. And so here is our first step into it. And so the first number one of 2002 was Something Stupid

by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman, it and so the first number one of 2002 was something stupid by robbie williams and nicole kidman which held on after christmas and into the new year it was then knocked off the top by this okay so we've heard this before on the podcast it's gotta get through this by daniel beddingfield so before we get into 2002 we have to go back to 2001 for a moment because um daniel beddingfield's gotta get through this came back after a few weeks away the song returned to number one for one more week in the second week of 2002 knocking robbie williams and nicole kipman off the top spot it sold just 27 000 copies as it returned to the summit beating competition from drowning by the backstreet boys which got to number four with the highest new entry next on the chart being there's a star by ash and that only got to number 13 when it was

knocked off the top of the charts for a second time gotta get through this fell two places to number three and by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for a total of 19 weeks so it managed to come back to number one. We've already said everything we were going to say about it. We don't have any new comments. So the first brand new number one of 2002 moving swiftly on is... It really had to get through this. Yes, yes.

Yeah, got through it twice. And so the first new number one of 2002 is this. Thank you. It's racing. I'll be more than enough Midnight grinding, heart rate climbing You go, I'll go, cause we share the love Kiss me, feed me, there's still no separating Morning massages, the newborn's in your closet I'll be more than a lover, more than a woman, more than a lover I said I'll be more than a lover, more than a woman, more than a lover Okay, this is More Than A Woman by Aaliyah.

Released as the second single from Aaliyah's third studio album entitled Aaliyah, More Than A Woman is Aaliyah's 15th single overall to be released in the UK and her first to reach number one. In fact, it is only her second single to reach the top 10. More Than A Woman was released posthumously after Aaliyah had died in a plane crash in August 2001 at the age of just 22. It is her last single to reach number one in the UK. More Than A Woman went straight in at number one as a new entry, knocking Daniel Bedingfield off the top spot. It sold 30,000 copies in its first and only week atop the charts, beating competition from Addicted to Bass by Pure Tone, which jumped from number 68 to number 2, Bad Intentions by Dr. Dre, which got to number 4, The Whistle Song by DJ Alligator Project, which got to number 4, The Whistle Song by DJ Alligator Project which got to number 5, It's Love by

Goldtricks which got to number 6, Haters by So Solid Crew which got to number 8 and Drifting Away by Lanch which got to number 9. When it was knocked off the top of the chart, More Than A Woman dropped 4 places to number 5 and by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for just 13 weeks uh andy more than a woman how are we how are we feeling about it yeah i'm just well when you said 15th single release there i sort of had to quickly look at her discography because i thought wow really 15 singles before this and i was looking at how this did everywhere else in the world. And this is the only place where

More Than A Woman got number one. In fact, it's the only place where it came close. In the US, it only got to number 25. It didn't really do the business anywhere, except the UK, which is really odd. I wonder why that is. Any ideas as to why that might have been? Because I don't know why it would stand out in the uk

that's maybe a january thing yeah it could be a january thing because it's possibly certified silver over here but i mean she'd had a number one in the us before with um try again that was only a couple of years ago but the other singles from alia the album which I spent quite a bit last week listening to I quite like it but yeah you know More Than A Woman only got 25, Rock The Boat 14, We Need A Resolution only got to 59, Miss You got to number 3

but yeah I'm not sure why this didn't do as well anywhere else as it really did in the UK but carry on in any case it's it's funny that about try again because i definitely think try again is the superior single if we were to kind of you know choose one but it's very very hard i always find it very hard with alia to really know what to say and to know how to approach it because it's kind of like

reviewing a book when you've only read the first few chapters because she so obviously was on an upward curve you know she so obviously was was really about to reach the big time we're sort of already reaching the big time you know she had a us number one single um and then her life was you know obviously very very tragically cut short and i've always wondered about what may have been next. I think you could very easily, especially watching the video for this and seeing what a talented dancer she was and what a production she put into that video,

you could very much see that she would have easily stood alongside the likes of J-Lo, the likes of Kelly Rowland, and maybe not Beyonce, that's why I said Kelly Rowland. But, you know, she was going to be a big star. And it's very, very sad in the first instance to reflect on that, that she never was able to really reach her full potential. But for this song, it's equally frustrating because I don't think this is her best, really.

It's a decent song and the video certainly elevates it but i think it kind of goes nowhere as a song and that's the trouble that i have with it that the first verse and the first chorus kind of give you everything really i mean there's little bits that are added throughout like you know little bits in the background um and little inflections but i just don't find that it really has enough to it to carry me through the whole three and a half minutes, the song. Um, I think it probably got to number one in the UK somewhat due to the,

you know, the interest around her after her death. Um, yeah, the circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I certainly remember it being a big deal at the time that, you know, it was the first time I had ever heard of Aaliyah was because of her death. And I think it was the same for, you know, most of the people I knew, obviously not the same in the adult world you know she was getting a lot of hype but um this it's a weird one for us to pick as the only Aaliyah single to to analyze because I don't think this is her best um it certainly is very much in tune with the kind of thing that was getting big at this time it really reminds me of love don't cost a thing from last year it's got a very similar style to that but also has this kind of

like it's made to be danced to hook you know i was reading the comments when i was watching the video on youtube and they said you know this is actually still taught as a challenge for dancers today this choreography you know this is like genuinely top level that has not been surpassed for pop music choreography. And so, you know, you can sort of tell that this is music that is meant to be danced to rather than to be sung along to. And that's what really comes across to me, that she was a fantastic performer.

But to sit and listen to this song, it doesn't really do that much for me. So, you know, i'm willing to give it a pass because of the circumstances but um it's not my favorite to be honest no um but i do wish we'd heard more of it i really really do wish we had much more of it but it's what it is yeah i think i like this a lot more than you andy um i really like this and definitely agree with you that i feel like this only represents the start of what she could have achieved in her career. And I'd love to be able to look back at this and think,

yeah, this is good, but trust me, like when we get to this, it feels like, yeah, you know, she's only 22 at this point and she's had,

what was it? 15 charting signals. Yeah. Do you know what I was thinking is the comparison it's like imagine if imagine if rihanna had died after releasing take a bow or unfaithful it's like that you know that's you really don't know what the whole picture is but yeah i think go on it's like that yeah yeah i think like rihanna's a really good comparison in terms of what she could have become as in it's like a sort of permanent chart fixture not

someone like Beyonce where they are just this singular like entity but yeah someone who you can rely on to you know make an appearance every year or two put out some great singles and then you know make a lot of money off it I guess um but yeah in terms of this like the track itself is kind of more complex than i ever remember it being i wanted to credit timbaland's production but depending on who you ask um he maybe kind of uses the sample a bit too straight up i guess um like because I thought the production was kind of angular and a bit hard to pin down but I think that's more just like that kind of middle eastern and south asian influence which is a big thing in both hip-hop and pop music in general around this time like this is a sample of a syrian song which I never knew and I don't think I ever would have

known if I hadn't looked it up but I suspect there's a lot of these cases where because it's fairly under the radar it's not like an old soul song that a lot of people have heard it's something that's you know as a western listener you don't tend to necessarily know the origins for these things but um but yeah like aside from a handful of upcoming number ones which i won't spoil including one on this very episode i can also think of like addictive by truth hurts hitting the top five later on this year which uses a prominent um indian hindi language sample and like monday and tabaki by Punjabi MC also being released later on in 2002 and reaching the top five like I kind of it's it's I don't know if it's a trend as such it's or if it's just something that's kind of a coincidence that there's a lot of this sort of

influence around in music at the time but I thought that was a an interesting little thing to know. Definitely. But yeah in terms of this like Aaliyah's got that really smooth vocal and the self-harmonization which I think complements this style really well and as much as I partly agree with you, Andy, that it doesn't, it doesn't expand, it doesn't progress much. I think it has this sort of hypnotic quality about it. So it's kind of, it stays in one place, but it just shifts in the most subtle ways and it kind of lures you into this trance um which i think as as much as i sort of agree that it probably could do more i like it enough

for what it is and yeah i think it's i think it's really solid i just wish we'd got to see what was next and alas i guess we will see more of what happens next with Timbaland's production. Like, we are going to see a lot more of him as the years go on. But it's a real shame about Aaliyah. Yeah, I've got to echo both of your sentiments. Like, with regards to Aaliyah, I'll talk more about her in a second. It felt really nice to see Timberland's name in the credits for this,

because I think this might be the first UK number one that he's responsible for. I could be wrong about that. It's not the first chart hit, but at this point, he'd already worked with Missy Elliott, Tupac, Jay-Z, Jodeci. So he's already got a lot of experience with American hip-hop and R&B artists. We'll see this again, though, through the 2000s.

But Timbaland's production, I think, forms a pathway and influences a lot of pop to come that we may not get to talk about much on this show or at least we may only mention in passing but Timberland's productions to me his best stuff anyway is always so flavourful and

evocative he pulls in influences like you say Lizzie from unexpected places but there's also a bit of latin and funk and it always gives his mixes a lot of character and eccentricity yeah and i don't think that this is any different you really get that nice balance between the live instrumentation direct input synths but there's still a lot of room to breathe i think timberland always knows exactly where to place everything in a mix even if

it's down to something like with this song the snare being put in the left channel for no particular reason like it's just off in the left somewhere and it sounds it contributes the whole sound so organically and so warmly and so beautifully but if you take if every now and again when i'm listening to a song i'll just lift my right headphone away and just listen to what's going on in the left. And then I'll take my left one away and listen to what's going on in the right. And when I did that, I cannot hear the snare at all in the right channel. And yet it fills the stereo mix so beautifully with the production on this. In terms of the writing with this song, I land in between the two of you which is that i do

enjoy this and i think i enjoy it a lot i think it sounds fresh and it sounds new and maybe not something that points the way forward but something that definitely doesn't look backwards either it's seductive and it's smooth but the break beats in the back make it quite fidgety and unbalanced in a way that i find really curious and it manages to be both and all of these things simultaneously that instant kind of is the thing that pulls you in straight away and i appreciate as well that the vocal production on alia's voice is quite psychedelic and murky where like her words are obscured slightly like to the point where it's only really the melody that matters because the the lyrics are sparse and the lot of what she says is

filled up by the production that's what fills the mix and makes it feel kind of swimmy but I also agree with andy that beyond those things i think after a while it does start to get slightly repetitive and considering this almost touches four minutes it feels like it's lacking something extra in the second half to justify that i was thinking maybe andy to coin your kind of description of um survivor by destiny's child the um trying not to drop a cup of tea section or even a verse or even a verse from missy elliott i feel like missy would have spit fire on this she could have done like i just thinking like yeah like you were saying lizzie about lady marmalade it feels like there are

songs where it's like okay missy elly Elliott's going to come in now, and she just doesn't appear in this one, which was a bit of a shame. But I think just also what you two were saying, what makes this song feel so sad is the fact that I do genuinely believe that she could, Aaliyah could have gone down in history alongside the likes, and probably maybe she has, but definitely if she'd stayed around longer, she could have gone down in history alongside the likes, and probably maybe she has, but definitely if she'd stayed around longer, she could have gone down in history alongside the likes of Nelly Furtado and Missy Elliott,

who both stuck close to Timberland throughout their peak eras in like the early to mid 2000s, made some seriously interesting stuff with him. Now, Missy Elliott was a weirdo who did some crazy and creative things and made some really unpredictable and interesting pop around this time, like Super Duper Fly, Missy Elliot was a weirdo who did some crazy and creative things and made some really unpredictable and interesting pop around this time like Super Duper Fly, Missy so addictive

you know so she was always bound to do that kind of stuff anyway whereas I feel like Nelly Furtado was introduced to the world as you know someone more twee and straightforward like I'm like a bird I only fly away you know like it was a bit more cutesy um but then when

she did something like turn off the light it gave her license to do something a bit more daring and a bit more raunchy and a bit more unpredictable and exciting but and i think it really comes together on loose uh which is our album from 2006 which Timbaland was all over it and all those singles Say It Right, Manny to Promiscuous, All Good Things Come To An End. Aaliyah had already arrived at Loose and Super Duper Fly with stuff like One In A Million and the self-titled album that this has you know because I spent the last week listening to those two and like there's some really excellent stuff on there and for that reason I think she was already a star in America

but there was no reason why she couldn't have been a major star in this country off the back of this album you were saying there Andy before about comparing her to Rihanna and I had a little kind of brain flash this feels like if Rihanna had died about

two weeks before Good girl gone bad came out where it's like oh you just wonder you know like because all this i mean how many singles did good girl gone bad produce like umbrella don't stop the music shut up and drive hey i love you rehab too many like and but i think if she'd have died and we'd have listened to it and we'd have gone oh you know imagine and then like years later we wouldn't have got stuff like Russian Roulette and Rude Boy and Only Girl

in the World and Diamonds and things like that and so I imagine you know that I think that that's the kind of position that Aaliyah like you say kind of occupies for me which is just that there's something kind of position that Aaliyah, like you say, kind of occupies for me which is just that there's something there that just feels like, oh here we go, next album if she sticks close to Timbaland we could really be

on to something, they're a great duo, you know, they're both geniuses at what they do and it just it feel like it could have gone just an extra level but just we'll never know, know you know it's a shame that alia never got to make her auntie you know years down the line when the legacy sorted and she can be a bit more unpredictable and a bit more experimental with her sound and listening back to this it's like yeah it feels like it's on the brink of really taking off, but we'll never get that, which is just sad. It is just a shame. It is, yeah.

Next up is this. guitar solo My sweet Lord My Lord My Lord I really want to see you Really want to be with you Really want to see you Lord Lord, but it takes so long, my Lord. My sweet Lord.

My Lord. My Lord. I really want to know you, really want to go with you, really want to show you love, but it won't take long. Hallelujah, my sweet Lord. Hallelujah. This is My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. Released as the only single from the 30th anniversary special edition of his 1970 double album All Things Must Pass, the reissue of My Sweet Lord is George Harrison's 11th solo single

to be released in the UK. My Sweet Lord was released posthumously after Georgie's death from cancer in November 2001. It is his second single to reach number one after My Sweet Lord also topped the charts in 1970. This is his last song to reach number one in the UK. My Sweet Lord went straight in at number 1 as a brand new entry, knocking Aaliyah off the top of the charts. It stayed at number 1 for just one week. It sold 67,000 copies in its only week atop the charts, beating competition from Get the Party Started by Pink, which got to number 2, AEM to PEM by Christina Milian, which got to number 3 star guitar by chemical brothers which got to number eight and the land of make-believe by all stars which got to number nine when it was knocked off the top of the charts my sweet lord fell three places to number four and by the time it was done on the

charts it had been inside the top 100 for 14 weeks however taken together both releases of the song amassed six weeks at number one 31 weeks weeks on the chart in total, and it was officially certified as platinum later on. So, Lizzie, my sweet lord, go ahead. Okay, well I have a question for both of you before we start, albeit a bit of a morbid one. a question for both of you before we start, albeit a bit of a morbid one. So with this being the first posthumous single for George Harrison, and imagine

by John Lennon getting to number one in 1980, what do you think the posthumous solo singles will be for Paul and Ringo? Christ on a bike. Wow. I mean, Ringo, is there going to be one really?

His biggest hit was highly problematic. Just to give you a bit of context, I know it's an odd question, but Imagine and My Sweet Lord are probably the two most well-known and successful solo singles by Lennon and Harrison, respectively. And I have a sinking feeling

that McCartney's most famous solo single these days might be Wonderful Christmas Time I was thinking maybe it'd be Live and Let Die yeah it's a bit fast I know that wasn't solo but Band on the Run again it wasn't solo so I don't know if that would be used

it's probably going to be Let It Be, isn't it? Yeah, it'll be Let It Be. I was thinking maybe for Ringo, would it also be a Beatles song? Because he's not got the best selection. That's Photograph, I'd say. Photograph, yeah, but would you really think that Back Off Boogaloo's going to go to the top of the streaming charts? You're sexy and you're beautiful and you're mine. Yeah. think that, you know, back off Boogaloo is going to go to the top of the streaming charts after the guys.

You're sexy and you're beautiful and you're mine. Yeah. To be fair, Paul pretty much single-handedly wrote Hey Jude and that's probably one of the most famous Beatles songs full stop, so it might well be Hey Jude for Paul. True. I guess we'll see, but

that's a gloomy thought yeah it happens to all of us i guess yeah anyway um as much as this song is thankfully much better than imagine um i don't really know how i feel about this one like it's obviously well crafted and memorable with some great moments like the the slide guitar motif and the kind of um multi-tracked vocals the song itself leaves me a bit cold it's a bit too long i struggle to relate to the religious theme and i would much rather be listening to He's So Fine by The Chiffons, which has a much more infectious, youthful energy about it. And in addition to that, for me, it's crazy to think that this is only 31 years old when it was re-released.

It sounds so much older than it is, even in the context of 2002. Like, finding a daguerreotype mixed in among an album of digital photos, it seems so out of place in a way that if I go back 31 years from now, let's say I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston gets re-released tomorrow. Sure, it doesn't sound like current pop, but it doesn't sound like something from another planet either. current pop but it doesn't sound like something from another planet either this like there's a real specific dusty like old sound to this song i felt like i had to brush the cobwebs out of my ears while i was listening to it because like this is only 1971 but i don't get this with other songs from the time like t-rex or sl Slade or Curtis Mayfield or anything like that.

It's just specifically this sounds like it's been left in a basement for 30 years. And I don't know. And it's like, I'm rambling a bit, I know, because this is clearly a good song, objectively. And there's a lot of writing out there about this song, which has spanned almost 60 years at this point but it's one that i actually found myself liking a fair bit less on re-listening to it than when i was well i was big into the beatles when i was about 16 and i was probably all over this but doesn't do anything for me now

I feel differently I agree with some of your points there Lizzie, I do actually particularly agree with what you've said about it feeling older than it is in context I'd never really thought about that before but you're right because it is weird

to reflect on the fact that this came out after Space Oddity fact that this came out after Space Oddity. Yeah. And that it came out only three years before Dark Side of the Moon. It definitely feels old, feels older than that. I completely agree with you on that. I think that's kind of George's style. True.

At this time, though. The style at the time, as you might say. style true at this time though the style at the time as you might say and i do think like george kind of always went for that sort of um campsite songs around the fire you know sort of feel which gives it a kind of old quality um but i love this though i love this i've always loved it um i i really vividly remember the first time i ever well not the first time I ever listened to it but the first time I ever sat down and listened to it properly which was a couple of weeks after I'd really got into the Beatles

like I'd really really got into them I'd got the Red and Blue albums on the CD they're best of so I was like oh my god I love all this stuff so I started digging into the solo stuff as well and this song just kind of really hooked me. And I was like really obsessed with this song. It happened to be, to make it serious for a minute,

it happened to be a few weeks before I came out of the closet. And I really related to the themes in this song. Because what this song to me is about, and I know that people disagree on this, that it's very ambiguous. But to me, what it is about is like like you want to make contact with some higher power who could give you some guidance in life but even if you believe they're there or whether you don't believe they're there you will never make contact with them because that's not how it works and it's that

sense of frustration i know i know that the lyrics are sparse enough that you don't know for sure, you know, what the intent of the song is. But that sense of frustration of wanting some guidance in life, wanting some higher power is there. And I remember really relating to that at the time of like, I wish someone could tell me what to do. I wish there was someone up there who could be like, yes, it will all be OK if you do X, Y and Z, you know. And that has always stuck with me me that sort of sense of sadness and yearning for help that comes from this song and um it's very weird to me that people interpret this in such different ways because i looked at the youtube again the youtube comments for this and um there were there were people saying like oh this is such an uplifting you know feel good

song it always cheers me up and like i don't get that from this at all you know and not just not just because of my personal experience with it which is quite bleak but also just because i think the what i get from george harrison's intent in this song is that he's feeling existential crisis in this song you know it's it's about how you want to make contact and be on some higher plane, but you know you never will be able to no matter how much you believe. And George is someone who obviously really did believe in various forms, various different deities and various different religions at times in his life. And that's another thing that I really like about this,

is that you don't have to be religious to enjoy this. It certainly helps, but you don't have to be religious to enjoy this because you can definitely come at this from an atheist or an agnostic viewpoint of, you know, what does it matter if I believe in you or don't believe in you? Because I will never find out. I want to talk to you, but I'm not going to be able to do that until I die. You can come at it from that viewpoint as well. And even if you are religious, it's still non-denominational because of all the chanting at the end. It's, you know, it's hallelujah, it's Hare Krishna, it's all sorts of different things. And that is the kind of discussion of deities and the afterlife and religion that I really buy into, where it's like,

we're not talking about this as one particular thing.'s not about denomination it's about if a god does exist then what does that mean for me if it's no matter what god it is no matter what afterlife it is how do i feel about that as a possibility and that's where george is coming from it's not really about religion it's about a personal feeling of what if there is some higher power what does it matter because i can't talk to him um and i i just find that really really powerful then couple that with the fact that it's you know gorgeously written in terms of this was so hard for me to learn to play on the piano back when i was learning to play piano and i wanted to play this if you know some of the chord sequences are really weird especially that guitar solo um It just kind of goes into lots of different places. I love how the chanting at the end sort of turns into like a drone,

you know, one of those fade outs that you kind of feel like will go on forever. George's vocal performance, I feel like has, you know, tons of heart in it that you can really feel that angst coming out of him. I really love it. The only reason I wouldn't give this like an absolute perfect 10 out of 10 it's just because it feels like it goes on a little bit long um but again that's kind of the idea you know that it just goes on forever with the hallelujahs and the harry krishnas um i really love this i really really love this and i think it's a perfect example of what made george so great as a songwriter is that he took very specific niche somewhat

abstract concepts and turned them into something relatable and turned them into something that you could present as a pop song uh you know it's it's like here comes the sun where it's like how do you really sum up what that song song's about in a phrase it's like oh you know i feel better is what it means really but you know you can make that into something really universal and relatable same with something or with my while my guitar gently weeps you know it's quite hard to sum up what their songs are actually about but we all kind of get the mood of them he's really really good at capturing emotion in songs and i really really really wish that he lived much longer than he did um because i think although you know paul

i'd say paul is probably my favorite beetle as a songwriter just because he's so much more prolific there's so much more of him to enjoy i feel like if we'd got as much george material in the beetles and outside of the beetles uh then george would hands down be my favorite beetle songwriter might be my favorite songwriter full stop um if we got that much of him so I'm taking this one and only opportunity to talk about George Harrison on the podcast he's fantastic and I love this song yeah, brilliant

I almost don't want to follow that I feel like we really tapped into something with you there Andy, that was really special to hear, thank you for going so personal and so deep on it that was excellent I didn't even remember it until i listened to the song the other day i didn't even remember that i had that relationship with it because i always try and do that with with all the songs that we cover mostly because it's i remember them coming out

so i'm like huh what do i remember of this when i first heard it but with this it's like i really remember this one and i just realized it the other day so i thought yeah yeah i think what you also said there towards the beginning you tapped into just about um you can enjoy this as a religious song or as or not you know something more ambiguous than that and i think you've tapped into something there that um just as a bit of a strange comparison point um i often feel this about some religious music and which is that i do think that there is a difference between well they're different words and with different definitions but there is a this clear distinction between religion and spirituality i think there's a very clear difference and I think what you're saying there is something I agree with

which is that I think this song taps into spirituality more than it taps into religion I think just recently I know he's making an absolute twat of himself at the moment but the last two records that Kanye West released

Jesus is King and Donda. For some reason in his music, Kanye has become the religious subtext in a lot of his earlier music has really jumped to text in the last three or four years. I have my own reasons for thinking that I have my own reasons for why I think that's happened. reasons for thinking that he's i have my own reasons for why i think that's happened but the problem with jesus is king is that it was a very religious record and i couldn't connect to it it's a very the cover is supposed to evoke lots of warm 70s kind of like you know spirituals and things like that and it just it never connects it's too short a lot of it is kind of fire and brimstone whereas donder like this 80 on it's over 100 minutes long this like i consider it to be a 23 song album as opposed to a 27 song album but it's this huge long odyssey which has peaks and

troughs and some of his best work and some of his absolute worst but the reason that I connected with it so much of the time is that it is a warm and spiritual record in the way that Jesus is King is absolutely not. It tackles similar subjects but from a much more empathetic and personal point of view and I got the same feeling from my sweet lord i don't have much to say about this andy that you haven't already said because you covered so much so well sorry but no honestly you said so much so well and i think it's one of george harrison's standout compositions and perhaps his most famous with the general public and it feels appropriate that a song where he's clearly eager to meet or connect with a lord a being something superior i think

it's appropriate that this one went to number one after he died i think if he could have picked one you know like so george you've gone on to another plane you know people want to remember you how would which song of yours would you like to go to number one after you have crossed this threshold and it's the one where he's singing out that he really wants to see whoever is on the the other side if there is another side i think this is like you Andy, a little long and because I don't have the personal relationship with the Beatles solo stuff as I do with some of their best work as a band, I'm never going to absolutely love this but I think it's, as I said before, spiritual and it's warm and it's hypnotic. The way those really slow acoustic chords just keep revolving around and along with the sparse lyrics where the

variations are only really slight and you just kind of get slowly pulled into its orbit and it's mesmeric and you're just as likely to get lost in all the little textural details like all the backing vocalists and multi-layered overdubs and stuff like that i think you're just as likely to get lost in all of that as as likely to get lost in all of that as you are to get lost in the story of the fact that another one of the beatles is literally dead and it's it feels weighty to me and i in a way that i quite liked um i have to be honest all things must pass um is not an album I've spent much time with over the years. I have spent some time with it, but not much.

I don't think I could really talk about it without researching and listening to it a lot first. But this was a nice... This opens the album, doesn't it? Or is it very close to the beginning? Second song. Yeah, so it's very, very close to the beginning. And it feels like a nice kind of gateway into into that longer record because i always have this thing about like you know are there any out artists out there who have had long careers

whose best work is considered by you know the general public and music aficionados and stuff is their best work considered to be a double album? And I think George Harrison answers that question as a yes. Most people do think that this is his best work and it is a double album. It's actually a triple album.

Triple, so yeah, he really had a lot of material. He went for it. Yeah. I mean, I very much appreciate everything you've said there rob the what i would add is i really totally think you've hit the nail on the head about how it's spiritual more than religious and obviously i can't speak for george harrison but i got i always got the sense that that is what he was all about i've never got the sense that he was looking for a deity you know i never got the

sense that he was religious in the sense that he wanted to worship i got the feeling that it was more about spirituality for him in that he wanted personal fulfillment from religion he wanted you know purpose meaning and i think this song really does capture that and i also agree with what you've said that like if there was one single song that you could sum up a whole person's world view then it's this. I feel like you could listen to only this and completely get a sense of what

George Harrison was like as a person and I'm not sure there's many artists full stop who you can really say that about where it's like you really your entire kind of essence in life is distilled into one song and that's the highest compliment I can give it. I wanted to pull Rob up on something because Rob, you suggested that George might have chosen this

as his kind of farewell song and not all things must pass. Yeah, like I say, not 100% familiar. So I wouldn't have been able to just kind of reference that. Because that's probably my favourite song of his. And the demo on the, I think it's on Anthology 2 or 3 is really nice. Anthology 3? Yeah, is it 3? Yeah, I listened to it last week because that album begins with the letter A.

But yeah, no, I think that's a really good song about how, you know, things aren't permanent and, well, here we are. I was just going to finish it on a few lighter points because, well, first of all, we've got one hell of a statistic that emerged at the start there from your statistics, Rob, that you gave us about the song, which was that this was... Did you say this was George's 11th solo single? Yeah. song which was that this was did you say this was george's 11th solo single yeah which means that

alia had more solo singles than george harrison did in like which is mad it's absolutely crazy it's also it's also this well i guess this is not so much trend on a lighter note but this is really strange that we discussed this during the week didn didn't we? That other than Lisa left, I Lopez who did a guest spot with Mel C, this is, we'd never had anyone posthumous on the podcast before. And this is, we've had two back to back. Now this is really,

really odd. And the next song we're about to cover also has, well, in the music video, at least quite strong elements of death. And it's very weird that this has coincided at the same time. And especially when you said there at the start about how, you know, George Harrison

knocked Aaliyah off the top spot. I'm like, they're both dead. You know, it's a really strange image. And I wonder how critics approached that at the time and how the news approached that at the time. Because it's like, it's not two artists fighting it out. You know, it's one dead person who's been replaced by another dead person at the top.

We've never had anything like this so far. It's very rare that we'll get anything like this again. And two at once, it's really eerie. It's really strange. But yeah, I did say it was going to end on a lighter note and I totally haven't, so sorry about that. But yeah. Okay, last up on our show this week is

this let me be your hero would you dance if I asked you to dance? Would you run and never look back? Would you cry if you saw me crying? Would you save my soul tonight? Would you tremble if I touched your lips?

Would you laugh? Oh, please tell me this Now would you die for the one you love? Hold me in your arms tonight. I can be your hero, baby. I can kiss away the pain. I can kiss away the pain I will stand by you forever You can take my breath away

Okay, this is Hero by Enrique Iglesias. Released as the lead single from his fifth album entitled Escape, we heard about it before, Hero is the fourth single overall to be released by Enrique Iglesias in the UK and his first to reach number one. To date, it is Enrique Iglesias' only number one single in the UK. Enrique Iglesias is only number one single in the UK. Hero first entered the chart at number 86 but jumped up 85 places to number one in its second week on the chart knocking George Harrison off the top spot. It stayed at number one for four weeks. In its first week on top it sold a hundred and one thousand

copies beating competition from Caught in the Middle by our mates A1, which got to number 2, and Overprotected by Britney Spears, which got to number 5. In its second week, it sold 98,000 copies in a week where there were no new entries in the top 10. In its third week, it sold 82,000 copies and beat competition from hey baby by no doubt which got to number two it's not a cover of dj oxy and movies by alien ant farm which got to number five in its fourth and final week at number one it sold a hundred thousand copies and beat competition from you by s club seven um which got to number two point of view by db boulevard which got to number 2 Point of View by DB Boulevard which got to number 3 that's a bit of a shame and What About Us by Brandy

which got to number 4 when it was knocked off the top of the charts Hero dropped one place to number 2 after it dropped out of the charts in 2002 it then re-entered the charts in 2007, 2008 2010 and 2013 to date it has spent a total of 33 weeks inside the top 100

and in 2015 it was officially declared to have sold a million copies in the UK. So, in case you weren't aware, and maybe time has affected people's memories of Hero. This was the biggest thing in the world for like a month. I remember this being huge, like so huge. I don't know about you two if you remember it this way. Thought so. I actually don't, like my mind always sort of, this is not at all throwing shade to it but I always kind of forget about Enrique. And then when I remember, I'm like, oh, God, yeah, he was massive, wasn't he? Yeah, this is the thing. But I feel like it has to be triggered in my head, otherwise he's gone.

Yeah, you do forget. And then you're like, this was huge. And, like, he does arena tours in the UK and stuff. And it's like he's only really had, like, three other singles I could name after this in the UK. had like three other singles i could name after this in the uk um and so to get you know massive arena tours in the uk and stuff i think you know hero and a lot of his 90s spanish language stuff was clearly clearly discovered by a a new audience i always you know every now and again i like to go on youtube and like look at um the videos have him performing this live and he'll pull a woman out of the crowd and sing it to her

and say, have you got a boyfriend? They're like, no, not really. He goes, what will you do for the next four minutes? It's like, he's beautiful and he's Spanish and isn't he gorgeous? That sort of thing. With the song, it's strange to go from

saying that this was the biggest thing in the world when I was 8 or 7 to sort of thinking I don't have much to say about this it's probably the wettest song to ever get released apart from maybe Iris

by the Goo Goo Dolls it's so drippy and so melodramatic and it's just written to make people cry I think in a really really like heavy handed

kind of like you know the point where like he's not even really enunciating he's just kind of breathing and then a melody forms like he's just kind of breathing and then a melody forms like he's just kind of would you laugh and then like you sound like mr burns would you laugh and he dies in the music video and just yeah the only real thing I have attached to this it's like a memory is Chris Moyles doing zero years later

when Leeds United got from minus 15 points back to zero points after they were docked 15 points for falling into administration and the hook was we have got to zero baby minus points have now all gone

we can now start from rock bottom we might make the playoffs in may genius so yeah that's really giving me self-gate you're the one energy that that's oh that's yeah so andy how are we on hero yeah it's a it's i think see i'm gonna embarrass I think... See, I'm going to embarrass myself here. It's actually... I quite like the song. And I'm purely saying the song. I don't think it's too bad. I am on the fence with it, I have to say. I'm not saying...

I'm saying strictly the song because I have problems with everything else around it. I think it's nicely written. It is the most sugary, syrupy ballad ever. I think the only real competitors are stuff like My Heart Will Go On and some of Westlife's more turgid crap, you know, but this is, like, it's so, so over the top, but it becomes endearing, it's like, you know, it's just kind of like, how can you not buy into the love and angst, you know, expressed in this song? Because it's like, whatever.

It's nice, you know. But I do have my problems with it, you know. I think, if we're being honest, you know, one of the biggest reasons why Enrique was famous was his sex appeal. Which, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I'm not criticizing that at all. You know, there's many artists who we've covered on the show before who you can say the same about. And to be fair, he was very pretty and probably still is. I don't know what he looks like now.

But the thing is he combines that with a kind of almost sort of porn star-esque vocal style as well, which makes it really, really cloying and really overly... It's almost intrusive into the ear of like i've got this you know sexy european man who's like breathing down the mic to me telling me how much he wants to love me it's like uh you're coming on too strong enrique leave me alone it's like it's really intense with that that oh i really don't like that vocal style i just don't like it that it The kind of breathiness

and every single word sounds like he stubbed his toe. It's like, I can't be! It's just pained. Pained is the word I would use. And it frustrates me because he's clearly a good singer. He really hits

some very high notes in this. He can really carry a tune. And he is a good singer, but he can he really hits some very high notes in this he can really carry a tune and um you know he is a good singer but he's clearly figured out because he has had some success before this this is his first number one but he's around before this and he's clearly figured out that going for you know straight for the jugular raw sex appeal and you know love appeal as well is what's going to get him the golden ticket. And it does. And he's very, very good at it. And I don't want to take that away from him. But it makes it all a bit cringe because of that. Because he's so full on. There's no subtlety to this song at all.

It is like the ultimate quintessential cheesy ballad. But I love a cheesy ballad. And so I can't help but kind of like it a bit. Like, I love I Don't Want to Miss a Thing, and I love If I Could Turn Back Time, because I'm a basic gay bitch. You know, I love that kind of thing. It's just the only reason why this one I don't love that much is just because Enrique sings it in this way that I find really hard to like, find it really hard to listen to. But I actually quite quite like this it's a bit of a guilty pleasure if I'm honest yeah, it's okay

it's okay I've got time for Enrique, he's alright yeah, it's good I think when researching this song I was mainly surprised to find that it was heavily used as a tribute for 9-11 like, I've read

accounts of kids being made to stand for it like it's the national anthem like hand on heart there is a flag i can be your hero i don't get it because i think i guess some people kind of saw the word hero and it's like yeah hero the police the firefighters all those people but they kind of didn't listen to the rest of the song which is this is very obviously a booty call anthem this is so clearly like enrique's had a couple of drinks like he's texting you i can be your hero baby it's like babe you've you've clearly had one beer too many. It's one in the morning. I'm going to bed.

I can kiss away the pain. Yes, I get it. Okay. We'll have a coffee. We'll talk about this over in person. I will stand by you forever. No, you're not getting it. Right?

It's late. I'm going to bed. I've had enough of this. I'm not talking to you about this. That's all they're going for, though. It's like, he'll do anything. If you just want to go to bed I've had enough of this I'm not talking to him I saw what they're going for though it's like it's like he'll do anything if you just want to go to bed

like if you sleep then I'll ask you to sleep you know it's like it's like Enrique then I'll watch you sleep Enrique will you run me a bath it's like

if you'll ask then I'll run you a bath yeah and it is just like oh my god jeez just knock it off like come on I'd say I think there is

something about this like in the performance even if I do find some of it funny like he puts in a good performance I can't fault him I'm not saying he's a terrible singer or anything because he's not he's the best part of the song

because there's not much going on in the instrumentation or the actual music the whole thing is that kind of quivering voice because that's his unique selling point and he plays up to it well enough and I'd much rather have this than his later hits Tonight I'm Fucking You. Yeah.

That's not who you are. You're not a Lothario. You are this lovesick puppy of a man. And it's okay to be that. Yeah. Baby, I like it. That was... Yeah, baby, I like it, the way you move on the floor.

Was that with Pitbull? Yeah. Yeah. And weirdly, I'm going to tell this story now, because I know that doesn't get number one. Does it? Actually, does it get number one? you move on the floor is that with Pitbull? yeah yeah and um weirdly I'm gonna tell this story now because I know that doesn't get number one does it actually? does it get number one?

that they couldn't for some reason they couldn't get the sample of Lionel Richie from All Night Long off the song so he came in

and re-recorded it just for that little bit of that song of come on now party fiesta which they reuse in Baby I Like it they got him

to redo it oh wow just for that but he had money to burn at that time yeah and the other one i remember is the dream of that really annoying one that do you know what it feels like to be the last the ping pong song oh the ping pong song Jesus yes oh dear the other one of his from the 90s that I quite like is By La Mosh I quite like that one that's pretty fun that's got a bit more of a Latin flavour

I should say with this Lizzie what you've said there is that I don't entirely like what Hero sells but I like the way that enrique enrique sells it if you know what i mean like i'm not really after what he's buying but his sales pitch is very intriguing i will say that much it's kind of like with atomic kitten where it's like i i buy it yeah and yeah it feels real i don't want to buy it but i believe it you know i just love that music the music video for that song for hero makes barely any sense to me because the whole thing of

him and what's her face in the car the actress i forget her name who's in the music video is it jessica beale who's in the music video with him not a clue i don't know forgetting it but anyway it's jennifer love hewitt jennifer love hewitt that's the one i knew it began with a j and um so they're like driving away in a car with a bag full of money and the money's all exposed and it's blowing out and they've got the top off the car and they're going along these lovely like kind of like, I would say, Texas, maybe Arizona highways, trying to get to the border or something like that. And it's intercut with footage of Mickey Rourke just kind of wandering around, scratching his head and going, now where are they?

Where are they? Who are they? I'm waiting for this. And the music video makes it seem, for the first three minutes, makes it seem like Enrique Iglesias and his girlfriend are driving to a date with Destiny. It's like, you know, he's agreed to meet Mickey Rourke at high noon and they've decided to fight each other. And this is like, and you think that it's their last night in the world

and so Enrique's going to go and take his stand and the money is involved somehow. But then it kind of flips itself and then the Wikipedia description says that Mickey Rourke catches up to Enrique Iglesias and gets him and then forces him into a fight. And I'm like, the music video does not communicate this at any point. It's like, I thought it was Enrique Iglesias driving towards his fate realizing that he can no longer escape it but the music video

the music video description on wikipedia seems to say that if the fate caught up with him and so i've been watching this and i'm like no it's not communicated apparently there are two versions of the music video one where he dies and one where he doesn't um i just love the scenes at the end where he's dying and it's like not only have all the police finally turned up oh god we missed the mexican standoff by five minutes no and he's like bleeding and he's and not only that but it's raining and like he's screaming and shouting as he falls to his knees and then lies down on the floor and it's just like i don't know why the music video is like so cinematic but you know there's a bit a lot of effort went into it clearly it's a bit of a thing at the time though like

late 90s early noughties even late noughties really there's this weird trend of music videos being like mini movies where the singer dies like they get killed like in like tragic romances like it happens all the time in emo music which kind of yeah yeah like like there's most there's like 10 times where britney dies in her videos and like why i don't get it it's a really weird thing yeah it's strange there's a big trend in uh sort of like american alternative rock and emo and stuff like that at the time like the one i always come back to is like the most ridiculously dramatic music video of all time is um the reason by hoober stank oh my god yes he's just in the shop and that woman keeps getting hit by the car and he keeps reliving it over and over and over

again and it's just so funny um yeah i'm trying to think of other ones as well i think there was like a big trend of this where like it was really specifically not just like people dying in emo music videos but people getting in car accidents in emo music videos as well like i'm thinking of like the quiet thing no one the quiet things no one ever knows by brand new that also has a car accident in it and like yeah didn't Avril

Avril Lavigne had one didn't she I'm sure she did where there's like a car crash at the end it might be I'm with you or happy ending I'm sure Avril Lavigne had one

but yeah yeah I'll have to do some research it's really weird time but yeah I think but that's again to tug at the heartstrings isn't it

that like you know you'll love them more if they die which i guess has been the theme of this week's episode hasn't it so yeah um i was just about to say um on the theme of um music videos with car crashes and car accidents um so the video for hero was directed by joseph khan who also directed the video for Hero was directed by Joseph Kahn who also directed the video for Look What You Made Me Do among other Taylor Swift songs oh my god that's weird

he's still knocking about the only other thing that's popped into my head is the music video for All These Things I Hate by Bullet For My Valentine which is another one with a car crash ok so before we go pie hole and vault inductions so is anybody gonna put in the pie hole or the vault more than

a woman by alia no i'm gonna put it in the vault okay yeah awesome i feel like i'm the only one but i'm okay with that yes you are i are. I'm not going to put it anywhere. It's just missed out on the vault for me. Okay. It tried. It's like Homer going over Springfield Gorge, but without the grizzly ending. Hey, that'd be a good plot for a music video

where Enrique tries to jump a gorge to be with his girlfriend and he falls at the last moment. I would skate. Because he'd jump. If moment. I would skate. If you ask me to skate. Okay, My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. Yeah, a vault for me. Yeah, a vault for me too. I think that's

going in for me. It's not for me, but I don't think it matters. It's in a vault for me too. I think that's going in for me. It's not for me, but I don't think it matters. It's in a vault of its own. Hero by Enrique Iglesias. Is that going piehole or vault? No. I mean, bless him, but no. Also bless him and also no, not for me either.

Okay, so there's going to be a bit of a delay before the next episode. We're going to take a week of a delay before the next episode we're going to take a week off for reasons that will hopefully become clear later in the year 2023 when we come back we'll be covering the period between the 24th of February and the 20th of April 2002 thank you very much for listening to this week's episode thank you again if you've joined us from Popmaster or someone who heard me on Popmaster and said oh you should listen to this week's episode. Thank you again if you've joined us from Popmaster or someone who heard me on Popmaster and said, you should listen to this or something like that.

Hello to my mum who's finally started to listen and has caught up quite quickly. Hi mum. I think my mum and dad are starting to listen in this week as well. Hi Andy's parents. And we will see you next time. Thank you very much. Bye now. Bye.