Hits 21 - 2004 (7): Busted, 3 of a Kind, Natasha Bedingfield

Episode Date: August 6, 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]

Hey there everyone, welcome back to Hits21, where me, Rob, me, Andy, and me, Lizzie, all look back at every single UK number one of the 21st century. That means we're going from January 2000 right through to the present day. If you want to get in touch with us, you can. We're at Hits21 on X or Twitter or whatever, but it's at Hits21 anyway. And you can email us too. Just send it on over to Hits21podcast at gmail.com. Thank you so much for joining us once again. We're currently looking back at the year 2004. This time we'll be covering the period between the 1st of August and the 4th of September.

And just looking back to last week and the winner of the poll, it was quite hotly contested, but the ultimate winner over the course of the week was Shapeshifters with Lola's theme. So, yeah, a little bit of a surprise on that one. Not a massive surprise, only a little one. But I did expect the streets to win, but well done to Shapeshifters. Yeah, it's a surprise, but it's a worthy win. They were two very good, strong songs last week.

Paul Rusher didn't have a chance, did he? No. On to this week's episode. And as always, we are going to give you some news headlines from around the time that the songs in this episode were at number one. Premier League footballer Lee Hughes is sentenced to six years in prison for causing death by dangerous driving. Hughes had lost control of his car and collided with another vehicle, killing a 56 year old man before fleeing the scene to avoid a breathalyser. He was eventually released from prison in 2007 and resumed his

playing career. The 2004 Summer Olympics take place in Athens, with Great Britain winning a total of 30 medals – 9 gold, 9 silver and 12 bronze. This was enough to finish 10th in the medals table and was the highest total of medals achieved by Great Britain since 1984 when they won 31 medals at the Los Angeles Games. Among the winners was Kelly Holmes who took home two gold medals. Well done Kelly. And in Cornwall the village of Boscastle is devastated by flash flooding, but the area suffered extensive damage that took four years to repair. In addition, 75 cars, five caravans and six buildings all washed

away into the sea, while over 100 homes and businesses were destroyed. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows. King Arthur, iRobot, The Bourne Supremacy, The Village and Dodgeball, a true underdog story. They were all at the top of the box office for one week each. Nadia Almada wins the fifth series of Big Brother and also EastEnders producers announced that a new family, the Millers, will arrive in Albert Square. No memory of them at all. Shortly afterwards, it's revealed that a laptop belonging to one of the show's writers, containing scripts for future episodes, has been stolen.

And after months of speculation about him having an alleged affair with his personal assistant, David Beckham announces that he and Victoria are expecting their third child. Cruz Beckham, the younger brothers to Brooklyn and Romeo, was eventually born in 2005 and if you want to feel old, he's almost 20. Andy, how are the UK album charts looking? Yeah, it's a mixed bunch this week and I'm not a particularly huge fan of most of these albums, but we'll see how we go. So at the start of August, we have Red Hot Chili Peppers live in Hyde Park

go to number one for two weeks going gold. And that's then toppled by one week at the top for Anastasia by Anastasia. And that's a re-entry. You may recall that we mentioned that a few weeks ago as well. That's back at the top of all one week again, but is then took off the top spot by a new band who I don't believe we mentioned before,

which is Maroon 5 with Songs About Jane. A very big album that went 7 times platinum in the end I must say I'm not a fan to be honest but that album was everywhere and the singles were everywhere as well they don't get a number 1 off that album though do they? as far as I remember

it'll be a little while before we actually get to discuss Maroon 5 properly I will say I think their second I think it's their second album it won't be soon before long uh that's that's quite a nice album that has some good singles on it that weren't so bad um yeah i'm kind of the same with their first like with songs about jane i think they're fine maroon 5 are completely fine to me up to a point and then I really find them borderline intolerable. I was going to use the exact word, intolerable.

When we get there. And speaking of albums I find intolerable, closing out this period, we've got Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned by The Prodigy. I don't hate The Prodigy, but that album is a bit of a chore to get through. That went

gold and went number one for one week to close out this period so red hot chili peppers are the only band making it past one week it's all very changeable this month yeah lizzy are things like that in the us as well yeah i mean it's surprisingly busy after the um the reign of terror of usher came to a brief pause um so in terms of singles to start with first up we have slow motion by juvenile featuring soldier slim it was the seventh song to reach number one posthumously for accredited artists the previous one being no money no problems by the notorious big in 1997 And it was also the first number one hit for Cash Money Records, who I'm sure will come up many a time.

Oh, yes. Yeah. It spent two weeks at number one and went gold in the US, but it failed to chart in the UK. After that, we finished off August for singles with a number one for Fat Joe's rap group Terror Squad and their single Lean Back. We finish off August for singles with a number one for Fat Joe's rap group, Terror Squad, and their single Lean Back.

It spent three weeks at number one and also went gold in the US, but it only got as high as number 24 in the UK when it was released in October. I remember that one being quite big that year. Surprisingly, it only got that high. But anyway, moving over to the albums chart, there were two albums that traded the number one spot throughout August. So first up we have Ashley Simpson whose debut album Also Biography got to number one for three non-consecutive weeks and was eventually certified three times platinum in the US. In the UK the album only got to number 31, but the lead single, Pieces of Me,

got to number four over here in October. And she followed that up with an infamous Saturday Night Live performance of the song that same month, where the vocal track played over the tannoy before she had even opened her mouth. Oh, yes. And a visibly flummoxed Ashley Simpson

started to do an impromptu jig before sullenly walking off the stage. Oh, yes. And a visibly flummoxed Ashley Simpson started to do an impromptu jig before sullenly walking off the stage. Oh, dear. Here's a contact. Go on. That's activated a memory for me with that. I had no memory of it at all, and now I'm like, yep, I'm reliving that.

I remember there was a period where I watched it like 10 times back to back because it was so cringey to watch. Wow, yeah. You know the funny thing about that is that to date, she's the only musical guest ever to walk off stage during a live performance on SNL. Just one more album to mention this month.

We have America's version of the Now series with Now 16 guessing to number one for two non-consecutive weeks. Only one of the tracks on it was a number one in the UK, and we talked about that a few episodes ago. That was Every Time by Britney Spears. In the UK, it failed to chart, as it wasn't even released over here, and besides, we'd already released our version of Now 16 in 1989. Yeah, they were a little bit behind i remember being a kid

and my aunt and uncle live over in america and then like 2006 i remember them buying me some now cds and i remember looking at the front and it was like now 29 or whatever and i'm like 29 and i'm looking on the back and it's all current songs and so that was the day I realised that the American Now series started a considerable period of time after the UK version. Yeah, they're still only up to about 60 or something, I think. Yeah, they're way, way behind us.

Okay, thank you very much, both of you for those reports and we are going to get on to our first song this week and it is this. to our first song this week and it is this Spring breaks come around And there's more heroes to be found There's something major going down On Tracy Island

Weapons underground Keeping our planet safe and sound There's somewhat evils coming round They should be frightened Cause now the boys are back in town Now strangle them down Down Don't be mad, please stop the hating

Just be glad that they'll be waiting Friends we have are ever changing They'll know the lid's about to blow, when the Thunderbirds are gone Okay, this is Thunderbirds, or Thunderbirds Are Go, double A-side with 3AM by Busted. A Side with 3AM by Busted. Released as the fourth single from the special edition re-release of their second studio album titled A Present for Everyone, Thunderbirds, or Thunderbirds Are Go, Double A Side with 3AM, is Busted's eighth single overall to be released in the UK and their fourth to reach number one. This is, though, the last time that we'll be discussing Busted on this podcast, sort of.

Yes! Thunderbird's AA side with 3AM went straight in at number one as a brand new entry, knocking the streets off the top of the charts. It stayed at number one for two weeks. In its first week at number one, it 71,000 copies beating competition from How Come by D12 which got to number four. In its second week atop the charts it sold 36,000 copies beating competition from Sick and Tired by Anastasia which got to number four, My Happy Ending by Avril Lavigne, which got to number 5, and We Are by Anna Johnson, which got to number 8.

When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Thunderbirds AA side with 3AM fell two places to number 3. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 17 weeks. The song is currently officially certified silver in the UK as of 2023. So, Andy, I will let you take the lead on this confusingly titled double A-side single. I didn't know that it was Thunderbirds and Thunderbirds Are Go, depending on which version of the song you have. So, that doesn't matter matter you can just talk about it I've always known it as Thunderbirds

I'll go for this what if but yes I'm not going to get into that hornet's nest before I go any further I'm going to throw right back to you Rob because I need our listeners to hear this because I've got to remember what it was I think it was like a few months ago you did a

amazing impression of the 5 4 3, 3, 2, 1 countdown from the start of Thunderbirds. Can you do it, please? Give it a go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thunderbirds are go. Very good. Is that 5?

You got that five? perfect that's five anyway yes so I was a fan of Thunderbirds as a kid and I was a huge fan of Busted I'd kind of fallen out of Thunderbirds by this time because I was too old for it

but it was kind of a good marriage of two things that I liked and I was interested in the prospect of a live-action Thunderbirds film. I thought that had the potential to be really good. I still think it has the potential to be really good, to be honest. It wasn't, and we'll get to that. But, yeah, I really, really liked how they interpolated the theme from Thunderbirds into this and built a track that, like, didn't kind of try and reinvent the theme from Thunderbirds into this and built a track that didn't try and reinvent the wheel of Thunderbirds

and move into a completely new kind of branding for it. It references all the old things, like Tracy Island coming out of the pool and that whole thing about the strings that's mentioned quite a few times. It's just really referential to Thunderbirds itself, so I thought, this is really cool how they're doing this, how they're clearly fans of it, and have put some thought into this, and it's not just a generic action movie accompaniment track.

I think compared to the film itself, it's so much better than the film itself that it's kind of ridiculous, to be honest. I can hardly think of a wider mismatch for me between how good the song is compared to the movie because the movie is trash. They do completely reinvent the formula and make it about a bunch of kids who have never been in the franchise before. It's terrible. But they showed clips from the movie in the video for this song and i was really really hyped because it has that big orchestral thing at the end where it keeps building up to the show and action scenes from it i thought this is gonna be great um it

wasn't obviously but it served its purpose so well as a hype song for the movie and i still listen to this all the time i think it's really really good um it's so overblown it's so silly it's so stupid but i just kind of love that this exists that they've put so much effort into this stupid little thunderbird song that really just has absolutely no need to be as like wild and developed and big as this um and yeah it's super cheesy and like it's definitely you know fallen out of fashion it's not a song that you hear very often now but yeah i kind of love it um it's one of my favorite busted songs actually and i don't care so yeah as for 3am um i really like 3am as well and that's like obviously a completely different side of the coin where um it's got that lovely little strings hook that um goes throughout

i do think the vocals are a little bit whiny especially in the chorus with the gallery um but it's just a nice ballad like a nice sort of boy band ballad really um that's a bit heavier than usual it's much more pleasing to the to the ear and to the brain I think than Who's David was. So I think this is a really strong 8AA side, like a really good note for them to go out on. Obviously it wasn't intentional for them to go out on this but they did. But I think, yeah, it's just I have like no real complaints apart from the fact that the vocals are a bit much in 3am and it's all

a bit loud and frenzied for both songs really that they're really kind of getting carried away quite a lot of the time and they could possibly restrain it a little bit further but then again the fact that they don't restrain it is kind of what I love about Busted quite a lot of the time, that they just kind of daft and don't take themselves too seriously.

So, yeah, I really like both of these tracks, and I'm not sure how popular an opinion that is, but come at me, they're great. Okay, yeah, lovely. I will do a quick word for 3AM, which I think is like a half-decent, like you say, say, half decent ballad that cranks the angst up to 11, just about gets away with it because I think the performances and the arrangement are willing to meet the melodrama in the middle a bit and match it. what would later become known as, like, emo or emo pop. I know, I feel like it's the closest that you get to something that's, like, super dramatic and, you know, heightened tension constantly throughout.

You know, Anx never... I don't think Anx suited Busted as well as, you know, light cheekiness, if you will, which brings me on to Thunderbirds or Thunderbirds Outgo or whatever. So I like this as well, Andy. I appreciate as well the interpolation of the main Thunderbirds theme. You know, I imagine the brief was, you know, the brief that Busted were given was to produce something fast and infectious that matches the, inverted commas, 21st century kids market they were aiming to hit with the film, and the film and the song do seem sort of made for each other, because Busted's whole thing was, like, taking small three-piece arrangements and then performing them in such a way that they could

fill arenas with them, and not to draw, I don't know, I feel like maybe it's not a wholly invited comparison but I guess the whole thing with the Thunderbirds is that it's five blokes saving the world, plus brains and plus Lady Penelope and Parker and stuff, you know, small team making a small team making a big difference and that sort of thing

it's also I think a good chance for Busted to be as American as possible and sort of get away with it without being, without think, a good chance for Busted to be as American as possible and sort of get away with it without being, without somebody sort of going hey, you guys are British, you know I feel like because you're doing it for like a big film, like you can play that American

side of yourself up a little bit, I always laugh at how nasal James gets in that, basically in the first line where he's like, there's something major going down at Tracy Island, and the way he even says island instead of just island um i think also limiting busted in terms of the subject matter means that they don't fall into the traps that we've seen them fall into on stuff like you said no and who's david you know like when they're discussing heartbreak and girls and stuff it doesn't always go very well lyrically and so at least with this it's just sing a song about thunderbirds and make all jokey references to the fact that they used to

be puppets and now it's live action and etc etc and they even find some space towards the end to do the the new melody the thunderbirds are go so yeah i'm mostly with this it's just a shame that i'd forgotten just how cacophonous the production is the horns and the strings god they just swallow everything it is wild yeah i think it bites off a bit more than it can chew in terms of how much it's... I feel like it overstuffs the mix and there are many aspects of the arrangement that feel like they bump into

one another as it goes along. And it's a shame because it does make me hesitate when I come to play the song and work out how I feel about it. I actually think 3am handles the strings a little bit better um i prefer thunderbirds overall though um but i think thunderbirds is a little bit more than you know 3am is okay and thunderbirds is a little bit more

than uh than okay so yeah it's a thumbs up from me for thunderbirds and goodbye busted I should also mention that I actually watched the film this weekend as part of some stupid research that I thought would be relevant for the episode it's only to say that it's not terrible, it just looks like a

high budget decom film and it even has Vanessa Hudgens in it for good measure you know it's just the the thunderbirds aren't really in it though i think that's probably what people were disappointed about it feels like it's a name on it yeah yeah it feels like it's a bit of a it feels like it's caught between two minds where it's like they want the thunderbirds to be in it but they don't want it to be just a TV show and they want it to appeal to kids and so the whole film is about one of the Thunderbirds

sons wanting to become a Thunderbird but not quite being able to do it until the very end of the film where his dad gives him an approving look and goes, you did good son, you did good and there's some stupid hijinks in London and lots

of low budget shots of you know like 100 extras that they've just grabbed off the street that they tell to watch things from the street so that they can get them on the camera like when the all the stuff's going down in the thames at the end of the film and like there's people just on the bridge waving and and cheering, you know, because that would happen, I suppose. But there are loads of really obvious shots of, like, traffic moving behind them because, you know, life still goes on. They couldn't stop it for the whole, you know, they couldn't stop all of London just to make this film that bombed

because, like, you know, you'll notice that we've discussed the films that are at number one this week and Busted are at number one in the charts with the thunderbird song but the film isn't anywhere near because it didn't even make half of its budget back so i went to see it i went to see it as well i just can't believe it didn't make its money back but i guess maybe thunderbirds i don't know maybe it's not the property that you thought because i used to watch thunderbirds all the jerry anderson ones like captain scarlet and stingray and all those like because my dad was a huge fan of them and he was fine with me watching them and you know watching thunderbirds and like ben kingsley's

like a decent enough hood i suppose um but yeah it's just kind of i can see why people who were loyal to thunderbirds would go into the film and think, well, this is shocking. Like, what is this? Because the Thunderbirds are in a scene at the beginning, but we watch it from the perspective of this Alan guy, who's the son. They're in a bit at the start,

and they're in a bit at the end, but they spend most of the film trapped in space and not on camera, while Vanessa Hudgens and these two other kids run around the island sort of going like oh what do we do what do we do it's not not amazing um Lizzie your last chance to talk about Busted I'm sure you're gutted um yeah make it count um just on the film actually I think it's kind of it's a couple of things like I can think of no more like kids franchise,

more 60s than Sonderville. It's like rebooting Muffin the Mule or something. It's just, you don't have the audience for that anymore. Even if you do make it kind of hip and cool, it just, people, I think by this point especially, we're in that kind of transitional phase away from where the old world would have been more acceptable to present to kids as like,

hey kids, look, it's this old thing you like, but for a new audience, it's more just like, no, this is just old tat. Well, it did have a major revival in the late 90s early noughties that was how i got into it that it started getting repeated on bbc2 and like everyone at my school loved thunderbirds at the time like it did have a big revival in the late 90s yeah and you could buy toys and stuff and they were showing you how to make tracy island on blue peter and things like that like it did get big again but again the late 90s is feels long ago compared

to 2004 so yeah i think it is just strange because like 10 years earlier the flintstones film came out and okay yeah it didn't do very well in terms of like you know reviews and stuff but it did fairly well budget you know like it had a i think it was like a $50 million budget and it made about 300 million at the box office. So maybe it's just that the Thunderbirds brand on film, it may be like word of mouth killed it. Cause like 20 million, I think, which is what the Thunderbirds film ended up making is a decent first weekend total.

But then if it spreads and another film comes out the week afterwards, everybody goes and sees. Like if word spreads that it's not very good and then another film comes out the week afterwards and its audience percentage drops like 80% from week one to week two, then it's just never going to make money.

And, but even still, you know, there are loads of shit films that make loads of money. So yeah, it's a curious case. Very curious. But I mean, you ran it down yourself at the top of the pop culture. there are loads of shit films that make loads of money so yeah it's a curious case very curious but i mean you you ran it down yourself at the top of the pop culture it's like king arthur i robot born supremacy dodgeball despite what you might think about those films those are all like charity shop dvd section classics as in everyone's seen those. Everybody went to see them. Yeah, I did see iRobot. Yeah.

Like Anchorman too. I don't know if Napoleon Dynamite was 2004, but these are all films that I would, as a sort of kid going into teens, that I would prefer to see over Thunderbirds. Hmm. Yeah. Can you tell I'm skirting around Busted a bit here? No. Hmm. Yeah. Can you tell I'm skirting around busted a bit here?

No. Okay. Admittedly, I agree with you both on Thunderbirds. I think it is a really fun way to inject some life into, again, what I think even in 2004 was pretty dated. I think this is the way to do it i like like you andy i like how they incorporated the the theme tune into like the intro and the big brass but also i agree with you rob that it does lay on a little bit thick in terms of the production i think there's

just a little bit too much going on and some of the elements start to like clash and you feel like you're not quite sure what to pay attention to. It's a bit overwhelming but it's fun in the same sense that Crash the Wedding is fun. I like when Busted use the theme of a song to like they take take the wedding theme in crash the wedding and use that as parts of the song same with like the the thunderbirds theme here it's a it's a really like unique way to to do a song about this you could just come out of the bat and just do a straightforward pop punk song but it's more fun and more memorable to do it this way where you where you do incorporate those elements and you do like use that as a

direct influence and just be literal about it because who cares it's just a bit of fun so it's it kind of rankles a bit that they chose to release this as a double A side with a song that I think is sludgy and boring and whiny and just not fun to listen to. Like every time I've listened to 3am this week, I've just wanted it to end. I don't care. And like the main vocal bit where it's like, well, not the main vocal bit,

but just the pre-chorus when they go, ah, that's like me listening to this song. It's like, if you've seen the Armando Iannucci shows, there's that guy who's literally being bored to death. And I think one of the doctors comes in and says like, oh, we've reformed E17 with Alan Shearer instead of Brian Harvey. And he just goes, ah, and like crumbles into a chair

because if he doesn't have constant entertainment, then he will die. And that's just like, I don't know, it's maybe an odd thing to bring up, but I feel like that listening to this song, just like, please just do something like not this well funnily enough um even on the album version the um the shh thing remains but on the uncensored version it's obviously instead of shh it's shit and so it it kind of runs into a problem there i think where if you go because they don't

mean shit ah it works a bit better than suddenly going quiet and then somebody screaming um but that's like like i say busted with the angst turned up to 11 it is very much uh it can go one way or the other i think and it either works relatively well with something well in my opinion like with something like who's david but then i mean i think 3 a.m is fine and um and the karaoke league uh andy that me and you were part of um your your husband did a wonderful rendition of it um on boy band night that was uh that that was something to behold actually i mean i'm glad you brought up who's david because while i don't think i dislike the song as much as who's david because it's not outright nasty this does feel like almost feels like a follow-up as in it's the same relationship like a couple of months down the line and it's it's clear that

like yeah you're taking this break up worse than she is but yeah just to finish off to to sort of see busted off I just wish they'd lent into well I wish we'd seen more of their fun side and I know we missed out on year 3000 and what I go to school for but it's so much better when they do that as opposed to when they try and go serious like they do on 3am but yeah I'll give Thunderbirds a thumbs up anyway I think if you're looking for more fun um it's not really your thing aesthetically uh generally but i do think that um ticket out of loserville and eddie's song from uh son of dork's first album they're fun they're they're the fun side um of stuff i quite like i really like both of those songs actually i'll check it those songs actually only other thing I will say

on this is that it won record of the year in 2004 Thunderbirds at least did spoiler alert Andy well I just thought it was worth mentioning because last year's record of the year winner was Mandy by Westlife obviously

not our record of the year just want to make that clear, it was nowhere bloody near our record of the year, but Mandy won last year. And Lizzie, I know you're not the hugest fan of this, but can we agree that Thunderbirds is an improvement on Mandy? Oh yeah. There we go then.

I think as well it's probably worth mentioning because this is the last time that we're going to cover them, that Busted were the first band I ever loved on my own. And it wasn't long after this until that dreaded day when they called that news conference and Charlie has to kind of mumble his way through his departing statement while James looks like his world's collapsing around him. Because it was

james's thing like it was james and matt's thing and then charlie got invited on later and i do have a feeling that doing a soundtrack for the thunderbirds was probably charlie's last straw with regards to like oh god i just want to be taken seriously as a musician i just want to go and do fight star and to be fair fight star were quite good but you know 11 year old me didn't give a shit about that you know i was like why is he why is he doing this why and i remember my mom telling me and just being like ah and that and that's where you sort of like you feel that feeling for the first time where it's like the thing you love is no more and you only have what's already there. You know, nothing new is coming.

How did you feel, Andy? You were a little bit older than me, so maybe you took it better. I wasn't, I mean, I was a fan of them, but I wasn't really like mad into them. Like I was sad, but not really. It was my sister who needed all the love and care. She was crying her eyes out for,

honestly, it was like she lost a family member. She was just beyond devastated because she'd been like following them around on their tours to the point where she like knew their manager um she was like getting close to stalker territory to be honest um and she was just utterly utterly devastated so i remember that news conference very well because it was like a thunder cloud descended in our household when that happened. But I wasn't too fussed about it.

You know, I look back on them very fondly and I was made up to go and see them when they reunited. Well, McBusted I went to see and that was actually a surprisingly great show. But I wasn't too upset about it. They had their time and it's not like they were kind of robbed of potential. They had so many big hits

at this stage that they had a fair enough crack of the whip. So, yeah. I saw them at the McBusted show in 2014 or 2015 as well. It was a good night. I think that was enough for me. I haven't seen them recently or listened to any of their stuff since they reformed.

I refuse to acknowledge that it exists, to be honest. It's just not necessary. I mean, in terms of the causes of their breakup like you could argue this and i think definitely charlie wanted to do more fight star but also i think they ran into that problem of trying to break america which is always death for a british band if it doesn't work i think as well that they would have probably gone on if james hadn't been so he considered busted as the three of them like they were never going to continue if one of them decided to go then that was it they were all done and they were all finished um and you know he made a bit of a go of it with son of dork matt did some solo stuff for a while

um for a couple of years later but he made he moaned he he mostly continued his career on the stage i saw him in 2012 uh in wicked um all right he was one of the ones in wicked who eventually becomes one of the characters in wizard of oz i forget who but that was in london in 2012 um and yeah so i think like you know after a year or so like i'm in love with different bands and i'm over it but yeah that was pretty devastating to me that's like there's another song that we've got this year that i think marks a particular chapter in my life ending in a particularly significant way uh which i won't spoil until we get to it but busted splitting up is a bit like you know if busted split up when you're like 10 and 11 years old that's like ah there's your childhood gone sort of thing like

that's the thing that marks the end of your at least your initial childhood and you're going to be moving into your pre-teen teenager years and you're going to be moving into your preteen teenager years and you're going to love new things but yeah busted are the thing that are kind of preserved in my pre-11 years um and i i don't miss them i i don't i don't miss them to the point where they're actually releasing stuff now and i haven't listened to it but oh yeah great it's 2.0 Yes, and all of the other albums they've done since like Night Driver and I don't know how well that went because I didn't listen to it, but they adopted

the future aesthetics on the album cover as basically every fucker did between like 2009 and 2018 and then recently they've done a single that I saw the title of and it was just called The 90s and I'm just like of, and it was just called The 90s. And I'm just like, ah, playing that card, are we?

Fair enough, guys. Don't think I'm going to get involved. But anyway, do we have anything more to say on Busted or Thunderbirds or what have you? This is technically not the last time we'll run into them, though. No, it isn't. Technically, no. But we won't have space to discuss them yeah yeah more on that in a future episode okay next up is this

baby cakes you just don't know And I just want you to know that I think our love will grow We'll take it step by step because I'm not something you hold Baby cakes, you just don't know, know How I, I, I like it down low, low And I just want you to know that I think our love will grow We'll take it step by step because I'm not something you hold Confused, don't know what I'm feeling Confused, relationships without meaning In the midst I can see it gleaming

Time to wake up and stop the dreaming Cause you're my little baby cakes And I know you got what it takes The way you make me feel, the way that I am When you talk to your friends and call me your man Tell them I'd like to thank you, thank you Through good and bad times, I think you're just me and you Whether fun's hard, whether fun's long

There's just one thing I want you to know I just want you to know, oh, oh That I think I've never grown yet, yeah I just want you to know, oh, oh That I think I've never grown yet, yeah Okay, this is Baby Cakes by Three of a Kind. Released as a non-album single, Baby Cakes is the first and only single to ever be released by Three of a Kind in the UK. So of course this is their first number one and their last and it will be the only time that we discuss them on this podcast. and it will be the only time that we discuss them on this podcast. Baby Cakes went straight in at number one as a brand new entry knocking Busted off the top of the charts. It stayed at number one for one week.

In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 55,000 copies, beating competition from Can't Stand Me Now by The Libertines, which got to number two. That was nearly a very different episode. Hip to Hipbertines, which got to number two. That was nearly a very different episode. Hip to Hip by V, which got to number five. And LSF by Kasabian, which got to number ten. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Baby Cakes dropped one place to number two. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks.

The song is currently officially certified gold in the UK Lizzie how do we feel about three of a kind so this is certified gold and busted with certified silver that's right yeah I think that um yeah I like this well enough. I think the fact that it sounds so kind of homemade and almost, I don't want to say cheap, but kind of like it's been made on a laptop on a weekend is, you know, it really adds to the charm of it. It's kind of like Gotta Get Through This daniel beddingfield in that regard like it does sound like it is just somebody's passion that they've really wanted to to record this song and you can kind of if you look closely enough you can see all of the the seams and joins but it it works overall i think i don't think it's anything amazing or anything I think there's parts of it

that feel a little bit underbaked maybe unfinished but you can definitely see how um I mean we're going to mention PC music again but you can see how this sort of thing would have been an influence on that and I think still kind of is to this day because it is that it's that mix of like the sweet vocals over the processed like very um very not real very that artificial like quite harsh instrumentation but um yeah I don't have an awful lot to say about it i think it is just a really decent little slice of uk garage and a nice reminder that i did miss this sort of thing because i don't think we've had anything like it since gotta get through this come to think of it so for it to come back like in this form where it is just

we're in the full ringtone phase of pop music now yeah it's nice to see it again and i'm really surprised they never had another hit but i'm glad they had this one andy how about you baby cakes yeah um i have really started really little to say about this one to be honest it's and that's partly because the song itself i feel like gives me very little material to work with really that my kind of main problem with it is that it's so sparse and so kind of minimal and like doesn't really develop that much throughout um yeah it doesn't really develop that much throughout. Yeah, it doesn't really leave me much to work with, to be honest, and I find it quite insipid would be the word I would use in that it's kind of dull, but dull in an annoying way.

And back at the time when this was out, I was really annoyed by it. It just got on my nerves for some reason. I just found it a really annoying song, and my very good friend jay knew that um who listens to this podcast which is why i'm shouting him out and so he used to always always annoy me with it that like if i was just sat there trying to like get on with something and he would just like bother me by going like baby gigs and just get it in my head because it because i will say this for it it's really catchy and it really does

get in your head um but he knew that and so still to this day sometimes if i like say the word baby or something then he'll be like baby cakes just to get it in my head um i don't find it that obnoxious anymore like it doesn't annoy me that much anymore so that trick doesn't work as well because i do like the kind of bubbly sound like there's kind of, just a nice, kind of fresh quality to it. Yeah, so I guess this baby cake is fresh, and I'm saying that because Lizzie, did you mean to do the pun about half-baked with a cake?

No, I didn't. I'll take it. So that's two food puns we've had, so Robbie will have to do another one as well. But yeah, it's like, fine fine it's fine I don't really get it to be honest I don't really see why it was a big hit and obviously it wasn't that big a hit it only got gold

yeah I used to find it really annoying I appreciate it as I've got older but I'd never really choose to seek this out and listen to it like if I wasn't hitting it on a playlist so eh fine thumbs in the middle for me yeah i think you kind of answered your own question there andy like you said you're not sure why it

was a hit and you also called it annoying yeah and that's i guess annoying and catchy are two sides of the same coin aren't they exactly yeah the fine line between the two yeah yeah it must just be that yeah yeah it's a really good observation there Lizzy as well about us moving into the ringtone era that I feel like explains this song very well I think the kind of

flip top phones with a phone charm you know like pink flip top phone with a charm it feels like we're moving into that era and this song is that all over the more I have listened to all over um the more i have listened to baby cakes the more i've enjoyed it um my memories of this were mainly focused on it being a bit yeah like a bit gimmicky a bit one-dimensional basically the end of garage as

an outsider genre because it had been so completely absorbed by pop that it now sounded like this you know all the rough edges smoothed away it's all pink and sky blue and white and as you said lizzie artificial so it's either cupcakes or toothpaste now take your pick you know like this arrives with a set of aesthetics that garage hasn't really seen in the mainstream before but they're all borrowed from something like, I would say, Britney Spears. You know, just the colour pink. There's something bubblegum about this. Candy Floss Garage or whatever you want to call it.

But then, like, 20 years go by and you forget about it. Because you do. Because it's peak school disco material from, like, 2004, 2005. And I have a vivid memory of someone in my class rapping the whole second verse, Dale his name was I remember and we were dancing to it and we were like baby cakes

you just don't know and I was like yeah okay we're gonna get to the verse and not really know what to do but then the female vocal verse he was just he just launched straight into it and I was like, whoa, okay. And then like five years later, I remember us getting in touch and he'd released rap music on MySpace.

I was like, okay, yeah, that makes total sense. But the thing that really strikes me about this is that I'm now listening to this on the other side of the development of PC music and hyperpop. And you just sit there thinking like, oh my God, it's all over this kind of stuff. You know, A.G. Cook, the kind of mastermind behind PC music and the development that hyperpop has undergone,

he must have grown up hearing Three of a Kind and taken it in because he was born in London. He's only a little bit older than us. And he will have been like okay yeah all right i can see how this would work and like him and daniel harl went to college together um and they were listening to a lot of the same music and i imagine that they both were at least in some part influenced if not by the the of this, but by the aesthetic and its relationship with the song itself. Because if you listen to something like Every Night by Hannah Diamond or Koi by Leaf, there's loads of early 2010s influences in those songs as well,

but you could definitely hear the bones of baby cakes as well you can just hear it in the distance and i just couldn't believe it coming back to this like oh yeah like yes it is gimmicky and irritating and like it does start to stick in my craw a little bit towards the end because of how it is just totally fine with never going anywhere and never developing. And so I can totally see why this would really get on somebody's nerves. But I think it leans on that kind of cheeky, playful atmosphere. It gets the earworm hook going. It's super fun. I love all the chopped and screwed elements that come in towards the end, you know, the, um, and the laugh at the

beginning and the end as well that sort of sets the tone of, like, you know, a bunch of friends in bubble jackets on a park bench laughing, you know, of thing it feels like it has all of that wrapped up into it um so props to it i guess um it's not vault material like i say towards the end i do feel myself reaching for the the kind of like not necessarily the skip button but if there was a button that said i don't necessarily want to skip this but i feel like i've got everything out of it than i can and there's only about 20 seconds left can I just listen to the next song please that would be the button

that I would press with this so it doesn't get on my nerves until about 20 seconds before the end but yeah it was funny to kind of go back to this and what a one hit wonder this is to just like this was it like that there were plans to release a second single but it never

happened they were happy with their lot and i have no idea where any of the three three members are now couldn't tell you any of their names either so yeah fair play to them i suppose yeah i mean this feels like a little bit out of time i think like imagine if this was released in 1999, 2000, when you had Sweet Like Chocolate by Shanks and Bigfoot, Flowers by Sweet Female Attitude. Are there some others I'm thinking of? Oh, Out of Your Mind by Victoria Beckham. It's perfectly in that kind of realm. Here it feels it's a little bit late for this sort of thing.

But, I mean, it was still a hit so yes um and to be honest that was something that struck me when i was listening to out of your mind as well i was like oh this is what quite a lot of i mean it's not it's bit of an oxymoron but alternative pop sounds like now and this is a lot of what hyper pop sounds like now and all the stuff that's associated with pc music and you know like the stuff that's associated with PC music and, you know, like the stuff that Charlie XCX is doing. And it all feels like it comes from there, especially on the UK side of things. But yeah. Anyway, do we have anything more to say about baby cakes? No. Do we need to coin a genre name for this?

Well, I said Candy Floss Garage. I do like that. It's a bit wordy. Candy Garage. Yeah, because I was looking at UK Garage, but the UK could be like Unicorns and Candy Floss. It's a bit much. Listeners, if

you want to give us a suggestion, go ahead. Yeah, please do. Alright, last up this week, it's what I do And I was gonna lay it down for you I tried to focus my attention But I feel so A-D-D I need some help, some inspiration But it's not coming easily

Trying to find the magic Trying to ride a classic Don't you know, don't you know, don't you know Bye. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you There's no other way to pass or stay I love you, I love you, I love you Okay, this is These Words by Natasha Bedingfield. Released as the second single from her debut studio album titled Unwritten, These Words is Natasha Bedingfield's second single overall to be released in the UK and her first to reach number one. However, this is the last time that

we'll be discussing Natasha on this podcast. These words went straight in number one as a brand new entry, knocking Three of a Kind off the top of the charts. It stayed at number one for two weeks. charts. It stayed at number one for two weeks. In its first week atop the charts, it sold 69,000 copies, beating competition from Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do by Goldie Looking Chain, which got to number three, Put Em High by Stonebridge, which got to number five, and Bed Shaped by Keen, which got to number ten. In its second week on top, it sold 41,000 copies, beating competition from Dumb by The411, which got to number 3, She Would Be Loved by Maroon 5, which got to number 5, Caught in a Moment by Sugar Babes, which got to number 8, Is It Cause I'm Cool by Moose T, which got to number 9, and Stand Up Tall by Dizzy Rascal,

which got to number 10. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, these words fell three places to number 4. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 13 weeks. The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK as of 2023. So, Andy, these words by Natasha Bedingfield, how do we feel?

I really don't know, you know. I really don't. I mean, this has kind of always been the case, but I just always, always change my mind about this. I'm like, is this good? Do I like this? Am I having a good time? You know, it's just, I don't know.

I think what it is is that it kind of straddles a line between authenticity and cringe that is like a very thin line where a lot of the time I'm like, oh, you're just kind of reciting authors you've heard of to kind of make yourself sound credible

and I really don't like that. And there's also the side of it, the whole thing of like, these words are my own and they're not, she's got three co-writers on this song so it's like it doesn't really have the authenticity that she's trying to give it and that kind of makes it feel a bit cringey

but I do like that kind of you know this is just what I want to say and that's all there is thing, I like the kind of story behind the song where it's about writer's block that she just kind of can't figure out anything more profound or meaningful to say than just i love you i love you i love you i love you which is you know sweet and i like that she kind of counterpoints it against well you know there's

shelly and keats or whatever who could write a better song than this but for me i'm just saying i love you i love you i love you and it's quite ballsy to or whatever, who could write a better song than this. But for me, I'm just saying, I love you, I love you, I love you. And it's quite ballsy to, like, go for that kind of a topic and not make yourself just look completely amateur. And she sort of gets away with it, but sort of. I would only go as far as sort of. Yeah, I just think there's something a little bit kind of pretentious about that

and a little bit sort of insincere about you know acknowledging all these writers that you like and all these ideas that you haven't pursued and then just settling on that that kind of again quite annoying hook of i love you i love you i love you i love you and she kind of has a thing with that in her whole career about like quite sort of kind of not very nice hooks like that i want to have your babies that she has later on um yeah so i don't know i find her a little bit hard to understand whether i like her or not but you certainly get a sense of who she is you certainly get a sense of character from this i will say that i much prefer unwritten i think that's just a better song i think that just has more to it to be honest um but this is like it's okay i just think the idea is better

than the execution but i like this idea of like i've got writer's block and all i want to say is i love you i think there's a really sweet song to be gotten out of that and this is part of the way there but it's just bogged down by that kind of slight air of pretension around it and i tell you what else kind of robs it of some credibility is that famous pronunciation in the song of when she says hyperbole yes she may she may have read a lot of books but she's not listened to the audiobooks has she hyperbole dear me for years i thought she said microphone no microphone to hide behind i was like okay yeah that makes sense but then i read it and i was like oh it's hyperbole not

microphone it's one of those things it's like how did that get all the way to release that like did no one think natasha did you mean to say hyperbole but it's like um she must have done it on purpose well it's like the noughties version of micro ave from nigella lawson like someone must have stopped her during filming and gone micro ave are we going with that okay and like like determined whether it was intentional or so i have to assume that it was intentional but isn't that weird that it's supposed to be about how well read she is and then she says hyperbole Isn't that the joke? I don't know if that's the joke

That joke kind of flies over my head to be honest, it's a bit too much of a clever joke to be honest I don't know, I don't really get it but it's fine as a song but yeah, overcooked, too many things in the mix to be honest yeah a mild thumbs up for this one yeah as a song but yeah Overcooked too many things in the mix to be honest yeah

a mild thumbs up for this one yeah Lizzie how about you yeah I'm surprised how much I like this I think I do agree with you Andy that it is sometimes a little bit too clever for its own good the fact

that some of the gags clearly go over people's heads to this day is kind of a testament to that but i mean given that this is only her second single it's pretty bold to be taking this like meta kind of drost effect song about writing a song about writing a song like you'd expect that more from like a gilbertullivan or a Paul McCartney or Paul Simon or something to have it done by Bedingfield who is pretty much just getting started and is already maybe in the shadow of her brother a little bit and but it you know it works and I think it works because it is there is this kind of infectious energy

about it you can tell she's kind of giving it her all um and yeah it it is memorable it's catchy it almost feels like a precursor to I feel like we get sort of this kind of thing more down the line where we have we have like singer-songwriters who use intentionally bad lyrics for effect i'm thinking of like kate nash i was gonna say when you were thinking we get more of this down the line i was like what do you mean kate nash yeah you said you should eat so many lemons because you are so bitter so bitter It's that exact kind of thing where it is just, it's almost like a kind of train of thought. But yeah, I think I do like this. But as I say, I think maybe tries to do a little bit too much.

But, you know, I will appreciate a Byron and Shelley and Keats reference in a pop song in 2004. And as much as I do agree with you, Andy, that Unwritten is better, I do like this. I'd probably say this is my favourite song of this week. Ooh, high praise. Yeah, I think my journey with this song over the past few days has been very interesting i went into it going oh yeah that one i forgot about that and then i ended

up having more notes than i anticipated because i delved into this rabbit hole of natasha beddingfield's career and why this was her only number one when i remember her being so much bigger um i'll get into that but i'll talk about the song first um i think this is basically um as you two described it i don't think i could add anything more that's a substance really you know it's like it's a nice tuneful summary thing that doesn't really change the world but isn't't totally forgettable either, you know, like you Andy, I'm a bit up and down on, every time I listen to this, I feel like I feel differently about it, in terms of how much I like it, it's a bit of a cross, you know, between like singer-songwriter-y stuff, but there's also a little bit of New Jack Swing, a little bit of contemporary R&B, with the da-da-da, a little bit of hip-hop soul thrown in for good measure

with like the rap singing I think it's a bit caught between its ideas though where it seems to be, you know like initially it seems to be about Natasha's writer's block of some kind but also seems to be about her inability to express her love for someone but I never get the

sense that she's drawing those two strands together. Like, I'm expecting some kind of resolution where she finally makes everything click and equates her writer's block with her emotional difficulties. Like, oh, I'm in the same situation in both, you know, I'm in the same position in both situations, but it just feels like that never quite comes. I don't know why. It feels like a song that's about writing a song about writing a song that feel it's basically about well i can't write the song but here it is and it just feels like it never quite fully crystallizes into something cohesive and whole

from a lyrical standpoint um i think this just about gets the balance right where burn maybe got it wrong in terms of like you know all the ad libs and stuff that are in this. I feel like they pepper the mix quite nicely without overdoing it too much. And, you know, the stuff about the lyrics is a minor nitpick from my point of view. I think this is nice. I think that it's definitely not unpleasant. It's not my favorite Natasha song song but i will get into that now because i want to talk more about because it's a last number one how natasha appears to

have had everything kind of screwed up for her by a label after this point like at least in the uk anyway so like you know she's had a steady incline you know she's got the reputation of being daniel beddingfield's sister it's like a passing of the torch you know, she's got the reputation of being Daniel Bedingfield's sister. It's like a passing of the torch. You know, it's like, well, we're bored of Daniel Bedingfield now, and now we're going to give it to you, Natasha. You can be the Bedingfield representative for the next 18 months or whatever. You know, she's got a number one with her second single. Her album goes to number one.

She's one of the biggest names in pop in 2004. Her next singles get to number six and number 12, which isn't bad considering the album's already out by that point um and then in 2006 this is where i think things start to not exactly go wrong but they take a bit of a downward turn and she records this song that i think everybody knows called pocket full of sunshine which doesn't get included on her 2007 album which is called nb um instead we get i want to have your babies that andy mentioned as the big comeback single three years later and it does fairly well like it gets to number seven but then she gets soulmate and can anybody hum that to me right now no no nope

and then she gets given that god-awful love like this with sean kingston which only just breaks the top 20 and meanwhile pocket full of sunshine is sat there doing nothing until it is finally released in the us in 2008 where it gets to number five on the Billboard. That's a huge deal for a British New Zealand artist to get a massive top five hit in America. It gets featured in EZA as well in the film, where Emma Stone has the birthday card, and she keeps opening it going,

I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. She sings it all weekend. But it never gets released in this country because it's too late and she releases two god-awful singles in 2010 and then her single stopped having wikipedia pages so and i think the initial marketing of her as a real artist with things to say inverted commas worked well when she was writing songs like these words which are explicit explicitly about songwriting and unwritten which is explicitly about her writing her own story and features lyrics like feel the rain on your skin and i break tradition sometimes my tries are outside the lines and I bruise easily which makes her

come across as all vulnerable and all the songs are quite intimate and personal and about like you know somebody writing in a book is like I'm gonna make it famous one day I'm gonna make it big one day it's it's the songs of people it's the songs of someone who is dreaming who has ideas above their station and wants to achieve them which is the image that people have of her when she comes back with this just this mind-blowingly irritating and cringe i want to have your babies which i think made people slightly uncomfortable and then they have her singing this love like this with an 18 year old sean kingston when she's 27 a song that's not on the original version of the nb album so they get a hot guy of appropriate age

to be the object of her affections in the music video for that song which makes sean kingston look like he's just staring at them until the end of the video when natasha and sean are singing together and the hot guy of appropriate age is not in the picture and she's she's way too beautiful that's why it'll never work and i just feel like it was all a bit it was all set up so perfectly off that second album to like continue the this idea of like someone trying to achieve their dream in the real way you know like how that's her story it's like you know yes i'm a nepo baby but like it's genuine though like i'm a real artist under here you know like her first single which was called single it's like i'm okay with going it alone like you know it's me it's my dream it's my story etc etc and then all of her songs are about like

oh i want to be in love and i want to have babies with you and it's like the whole video is her screaming this at people on the first date and you have this music video of a series of men giving her a strange look and then literally running away from her and i don't know what image that puts into people's minds it's all suddenly very self-deprecating. And in a way that feels like it crosses a line, I feel like it was very mismanaged from that point on. Now, obviously, you know, she's done very well. She had a number one single.

I've been reading she's a mum. She's happily retired from showbiz, it seems. But I don't know, it feels like Natasha and her team, like they had a very clear idea of some kind of pop artist that they wanted her to be initially but when they had to slightly reinvent it and tweak it for a second album they didn't really know what to do i think that you know or at least they felt the need to reinvent her and it sort of crumbled a bit um which is a shame because i do think that there's something slightly refreshing about this

you know like i mean it's all artifice all pop is artifice but it's a very convincing picture that they paint of natasha where it's like in this artificial world of songs like baby cakes like here's me like try to write a song you know like i've got you know i i never go anywhere without a keats book and a notepad so i can scribble ideas down in moments of inspiration. Like, that's a convincing image, I think. Whereas with this second album, it's like, oh no, no, it's all songs about love now and songs about how I scream about wanting to start a family

because I see babies everywhere. This is Natasha. She's mad. Want to have your babies? Oops mad want to have your babies oops want to have your babies oops and so i just feel like it's a shame because i i think she had more going on than she was given chance to really show i think that you know these words it's okay i don't love it i'm not saying like you know this was like oh the the greatest artist and we all you know we lost the chance and stuff it's not it's not like super dramatic like that i was just confused if anything by the the misfire of that second album like because imagine if pocket full of sunshine had dropped like two

years after this i i feel like it would have done very well. And to be honest, it never really received any radio play over here. And it was never released as a single here until it was released as a download only in 2008. And it is currently certified silver in this country despite never being officially released as a proper single. Yeah. I feel like we've had

songs that haven't even been certified at all reach number one i feel like this could have been a big hit i feel like if this if this if pocket full of sunshine had been released 18 months from this show when it was recorded i i i feel like it could have done something and they flubbed it by waiting a year which waiting an extra year in pop music is a long time and everything shifts and everything changes then you come out with i want to have your baby and i remember my mum we were driving in the car and i remember my mum thinking like this is uncomfortable this song this is very uncomfortable and i think that was a decent kind of barometer for kind of how people felt about it where it's like the people need more than just songs to buy pop music they need an image and i feel like the image was all flubbed

and messed up um and i prefer this side of natasha really nothing that she ever does really blows me away unwritten is you know it's pretty good it's fine single yeah pretty it's all right you know that sort of thing i bruise easily not my kind of thing but you know it's fine and yeah i just feel like it was a bit all over the place after that but anyway does anybody else have anything more to say about natasha beddingfield would you agree that the same kind of thing happened with daniel i mean his team will have obviously been happy with it but i think he's pretty much openly admitted that that was his idea that like oh this isn't what i want to do and i'm above

this but i'll just keep doing it anyway i reckon if you just stopped a random person in the street and was like can you name any singles from daniel beddingfield's second album they'd be like um maybe no not a chance yeah no no it's strange isn't it how two artists like you know from the same family were on top of the world and then within five years of the first one breaking out it's like oh yeah i i remember them sort of thing very odd but yeah to your point yeah it's like you say a year is a long time in pop music and it is but i think at this point it is the longest time in pop music because it's where things like Myspace are starting to to burst through and then you'll have Facebook later

on and the whole kind of paradigm almost changes overnight and yeah 2007 is a very different place to 2004 put it that way very Very. Yeah, really, really. And yeah, just a bit weird. I'll get off my soapbox now and I'll just thank everybody for listening. But before we go, we're just going to check. Is Thunderbirds or 3AM or whatever, is that going in the vault for Andy?

Yes, it is. Hey, we have a vault this week. Excellent stuff. It might be a generous vault, but whatever. It deserves to be in there. You make the rules, Andy. You make your own rules,

so that's completely fine. Thank you, Rob. And I like to imagine that my personal vault is hidden under a pool on Tracy Island. And it always looks so cool when that vault comes out.

Lizzie, is it going anywhere for you? Thunderbirds, I like it but not quite 3am would have been going in the pie hole but because it's a double A side I've had to get the average of the score and evens out it's just a no, not quite for either same for me, not going anywhere for me, but it's all right. I like it. Baby Cakes, three of a kind.

That's not going anywhere for me. How about you, Lizzie? Not me either. I was quite disappointed. I thought maybe this might sneak in, but the more I listened to it, just no, not quite. Andy, doesn't sound like it's going in the vault for you, but what about the Pie Hole? Oh, no, average yeah cool and natasha beddingfield lizzie no but i did

enjoy that discussion a lot and totally agree that she was wasted andy how about you no also very interested to hear more about her but no not going in the vault for me or the pie hole. Yeah, I am also abstaining from any particular vote this time. So that is it for this week's episode. Thank you very much for listening. Slightly longer one than usual. When we come back, we'll be covering the period between the 5th of September to the 9th of October.

I feel like we flew through the first half of the year, and then since May, it just feels like it's juddered to a halt. We're going to get through a lot of episodes across 2004, but we will get to the end. We will reach Christmas before long. So thank you very much, and we will see you next time. See you later. See you.

Bye. Bye. I got a bucket, got a bucket full of sunshine I got a love and I know that it's all mine, oh Oh, oh Wish that you could, but you ain't gonna own me Do anything you want, you can't slow me down Oh, no Take me away A secret place

A sweet escape Take me away Take me away, a secret place, a sweet escape Take me away, take me away, take me away To better days, take me away, a hearty place I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine I got a love and I know that it's all mine, oh Do what you want but you're never gonna break me Sticks and stones are never gonna shake me Take me away

A secret place A sweet escape Take me away To better days Take me away Take me away To better days Take me away I'm hurting, I'm hurting There's a place that I go