Hits 21 - 2006 (8): Akon & Eminem, Take That

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

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] Vault: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5O5MHJUIQIUuf0Jv0Peb3C?si=e4057fb450f648b0 Piehole: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2FmWkwasjtq5UkjKqZLcl4 Paramore: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5pyx9/how-paramore-captured-hearts-black-fans

🎵 Hi there everyone and 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 from January 2000 right through to the present day. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us on Twitter. We are at Hits21UK. That is at Hits21UK. And if you're not into social media and you just want to email us, then it is Hits21Podcast at gmail.com. Thank you so much for joining us again.

We are currently looking back at the year 2006, but not for much longer. It's our penultimate episode of 2006. We'll be covering the period between the 19th of November and the 23rd of December. So we're taking you right up to Christmas Eve Eve. Last week, we had a little announcement, didn't we? That the poll from two weeks ago was going to run on a little further. That we kept up the My Chemical Romance and Scissor Sisters poll going just so we could decide a wanton for all winner

after they both received feverish reaction. Very enthusiastic, which was great. Really great to see. So, McFly cleaned up last week. No such problems there. Stargirl just shot like a rocket to the win. But between My Chemical Romance and Scissor Sisters, by one vote, it was The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance and Scissor Sisters by one vote. It was

the Black Parade, My Chemical Romance. Scissor Sisters, a very, very, very close second, and would have won, I think, in basically every other week had My Chem not been there to stop them. Who knows? That person who voted for Razorlight

may have liked the Scissor Sisters more than My Chemical Romance and might be you know might be a little angry with themselves right now if it was a remotely serious poll so I'm sure they're not I'm just made up that we've actually done that, that democracy has

decided that they just needed a little longer like I feel like we could solve all sorts of problems with this, should we do Bush vs Gore now and decide who wins that? Alright then, it is time to press on with this week's episode And as always, it is time for some news headlines From around the time that the songs we're covering in this episode Were at number one in the UK

Alexander Litvinenko, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, dies in London after being poisoned. He was 43 at the time of his death. 15 years later, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for his death and ordered the country to pay £87,000 in damages. So that's a price on his life, I suppose. Five women aged between 19 and 29 are found dead in Ipswich over the course of two weeks. A local man, Steve Wright, later named the Suffolk Strangler by the British media, was

eventually found guilty of their murders. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. And in China, Bao Zhijun, the world's tallest man at the time, rescued a group of dolphins from certain death after using his exceptionally long arms to retrieve dangerous plastics from their stomachs. Bao, who stands at 7 feet 9, succeeded where experienced vets and doctors had failed. I say tallest man at the time because he was eventually surpassed by a Turkish man named Sultan Kozen who stands at 8'2".

Wow. I'm sorry, but that whole story, just what? Like, where is the movie adaptation of this? This is a wonderful story. That's just heartwarming on every level. That's fantastic. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows. After Casino Royale finishes a three-week run at the top, Happy UK box office during this period were as follows. After Casino Royale finishes

a three-week run at the top, Happy Feet reaches the summit. Also for three weeks, before 2006 is closed out by Night at the Museum. Stars in Their Eyes broadcasts its final episode presented by Cat Dealey.

Are you ready for some winners, everyone? We have some winners here. So this year, Matt Willis wins I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. Zara Phillips is named BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Mark Ramprakash wins the fourth series of Strictly Come Dancing.

No, me neither. And Leona Lewis wins The X Factor, defeating Rae Quinn in the final. We will be hearing little bits about both of those soon, I'm sure. Mark Ramfrakash was a cricketer, right? Yes, he was. English cricketer. It was a bit of a time for cricketers in Strictly, to be honest,

because Darren Goff only won the year before. So it was a bit of a time for cricketers. Well, speaking of sports, Nintendo officially releases its brand new console, the Wii. The console came with wireless controllers, featured games such as Wii Sports, and became Nintendo's best-selling console, until it was surpassed by the Nintendo Switch

in 2021. To this day, the Wii is the seventh highest-selling games console of all time, and I think I got one that same christmas come to think of it yeah i got mine for christmas yeah yeah it was just good times all the family were coming around to play with it that christmas it's just wonderful that that andy what you have touched on about the whole family coming around is exactly why I'm not much of a gamer guy, you know, I'm not

loyal to any particular console, whenever I get a console I normally get like two or three games and then play them incessantly, I'm not one who likes to keep up with games or anything like that, but I have always had so much respect for Nintendo because where it would have been easy for them to carry on down the GameCube, Game Boy, DS kind of solo gaming route, they seemed to pivot towards family gaming and they made a success of it in a way that Sony and Microsoft really didn't because I remember the first year that everybody got Kinect and I remember the first year that everybody got Kinect, and I remember the first year that everybody got PlayStation Move, but I don't remember the second year at all. It's true.

Whereas the Wii is still, you know, the concept of the Wii is still very popular with the Switch. Absolutely. Andy, the UK album charts, how are they looking towards the end of 2006? Yeah, so we've got a few kind of also runs and then one big beast this week we've got three albums to see out the year um first of all we've got 25 by george michael which is named for the 25th anniversary of his career and it's a best of

uh that's three best ofs in a row by the way that have been at number one for the past month basically the whole of november was just best ofs it's very by the way that have been at number one for the past month basically the whole of november was just best ofs it's very quiet time on the charts anyway that's toppled by the love album by westlife just oh that title is gross isn't it um that was number one for one week and went three times platinum now we've got the big beast which is take that with beautiful world which is take that first album in 11 years take that back everybody and they went to number one for six weeks all the way through to the middle of january 2007 so we'll be mentioning this again in a couple of weeks time but that went nine times platinum was an absolutely stonking

hit uh and remains their highest selling album i'll take that whole discography i'm sure we'll be mentioning a couple of the singles from that um in some time i'm not sure when but i'm sure we'll be mentioning a couple of the singles as we move on just one point on this then as we finish out the year that i previously said eyes open by snow patrol which went eight times platinum was the highest selling album of 2006 now beautiful world went nine times platinum however within 2006 it was snow patrol with eyes open that outsold it and as time has gone on beautiful world has now kept going and outsold it so i guess the lesson we've learned there is that take that we're stayers and snow patrol were more of a flash in the pan but uh yeah so take that did claim their

crown in the end i guess all those who followed them just needed to have a little i can't think of the words and that's a lot i listened to that again today uh beautiful world um just you know in preparation because i used to listen to it a lot when it was out um one of the first albums they ever had in full on my little ipod um i don't like it as much as i used to i think a lot of the vocal processing on it is i mean if you listen to the uh title track of uh beautiful world all the vocal smoothing that they've had to do to uh what's his face the other one howard jason whichever one um is not great um my favorite take that album though is probably progress i think progress has probably been my favorite for a little while uh lizzie the us

charts how are they doing right now yeah i sort of wish westlife had done a follow-up called the hate album i have two singles to mention this week, including the US Christmas number one single for 2006. First up is not that. It's Akon's first Billboard number one single, I Wanna Love You, featuring Snoop Dogg. It stayed at number one for two weeks in early December and narrowly missed out on the top spot in the UK,

peaking at number three in February of 2007 however we do get to hear about a different Akon song in just a little bit so stay tuned for that next up is the Christmas number one for 2006 in America at least it's Beyonce with Irreplaceable okay Ooh. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. It stayed at number one for 10 consecutive weeks. Ooh. And was her fourth number one single as a solo artist.

It was eventually certified six times platinum in the US, but back here in the UK, it peaked at number four, while Fede Legrand's Put Your Hands Up for Detroit was at number one. So over to albums and I'm going to run down the rest of the number one albums for 2006 here so that I can go straight into the top 10 singles and best performing album of 2006 on our Christmas episode. So without further ado we have Now 23 by Various Artists. One week at number one, failed to chart in the UK for obvious reasons. Then we had Doctor's Advocate by The Game.

One week at number one, peaked at number 21 in the UK. Then we have Kingdom Come by Jay-Z. One week at number one, got to number 35 in the UK. Yeah, not one of his best. No, not one of his best, but I thought he would have done better than that. Anyway, then we have Light Grenades by Incubus, one week at number one, only managed number 52 in the UK. Then we have The Evolution by Sierra,

one week at number one, got to number 17 in the UK. And finally for 2006, we have The Inspiration Ciara. One week at number one, got to number 17 in the UK. And finally for 2006, we have The Inspiration by Young Jeezy. One week at number one, failed to chart in the UK. I know we sort of rag on America not really having a Christmas number one, but I would say that Irreplaceable

is a great Christmas number one. I like the idea of that being the number one. Where is Father Christmas left by presents, Mum? To the left, the left to the left everything he got using a box to the left well thank you both uh very much for those reports and we're going to get on to the songs now that we're going to cover this week uh normally we do three but because we've got to make space for a whole a whole episode's worth of space for the Christmas number one, it's just two songs this week. And so the first of those that is up is this. Slim shader, I see the one, could she be that fader?

I feel you creepin', I can see it from my shadow Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo Maybe go to my place and just kick it like Tybo And possibly bend your over Look back and watch me smack that all on the floor Smack that, give me some more Smack that, give me some more Smack that, till you get sore Smack that, ooh

Smack that, all on the floor Smack that, give me some more Smack that, till you get sore Smack that, ooh Up front style, ready to attack now Pull in the parking lot, slow with the lockdown Convicts got the whole thing packed now Step in the club

The wardrobe intact now I feel it's on and crack now Ooh, I see it's all at back now I'ma call them Then I put the mat down Money no problem Pocket full of that now I feel you creeping

I can see it from my shadow Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo Maybe go to my place And just kick it like Tybo. And possibly bring it over. Look back and watch me smack that. All on the floor. Smack that. Give me some more.

Smack that. Till you get sore. Smack that. Oh. Smack that. All on the floor. Smack that. Give me some more.

Smack that. Till you get sore. Smack that. Okay, this that, give me some more, smack that, till you get sore, smack that. Okay, this is Smack That by Akon featuring Eminem. Released as the lead single from his second studio album titled Convicted, Smack That is Akon's fifth single overall to be released in the UK and his second to reach number one. And it isn't the last time that we'll be coming to Akon on this podcast or Eminem for that matter. Smack That first entered the UK chart at number 12 reaching number one during its second week on the chart knocking Westlife off the top spot.

It stayed at number one for just one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 35,000 copies, beating competition from My Love by Justin Timberlake featuring T.I. which climbed to number two, Patience by Take That which got to number four, and Love Light by Robbie Williams which climbed to number eight. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Smack That dropped one place to number 2. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 29 weeks. The song is currently officially certified two times platinum.

So it is double platinum in the UK as of 2023. Andy, kick us off with Akon and Eminem. If I have to. I think if I was presented with a copy of this single i would promptly smack that out of the room um that's how i feel about it basically i i wasn't like completely uh in loathing of this the first few times i listened to it but as time's gone on

it's like yeah don't like this one at all because a lot of problems I've had with this era and with similar comparable songs have kind of crystallized around this to be honest and this is not the very worst thing we've heard not by a long shot but it's just a little bit of an emblem of some issues that I'm having at the moment first all, let's talk about those verses, or should I say that verse that is repeated pretty much verbatim, copied and pasted three times, and still the song barely scratches its way to the three and a half minute mark, even with an interlude from Eminem as well, it's just the same verse over and over again with minor changes, or if any changes to be honest, and it's just very, very dull to sit through. I kind of had this problem with Lonely as well, I don't know if it's something about Akon, that just, he has this

very listless manner with his vocals that's very kind of inexpressive and makes the verses quite a chore to get through and you want them to get to that catchy chorus. But I don't find the chorus particularly catchy either, to be honest. It's kind of quite slight for what it is and it has some lyrics in it that I think is just a little bit over the line that's like, smack that until you get sore. Like, ooh, that's not sexy. Don't want to know that. That's like, ugh. And I kind of had that problem with Nasty Girl earlier in the year as well. I feel like the level of these songs sometimes

is a little bit more than I like. It's like, it's a little bit like, ugh, I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm homosexual. That might be why. Maybe I'm just not the market for this. But yes, not to my taste to be honest and then there's Eminem who basically sounds like

someone doing a parody of Eminem I think again he sounds completely listless just very very bored to be here, not really much to bring to it, he's in the song for about 25 to 30 seconds and is out of the door as soon it he's in the song for about 25 to 30 seconds and like is out of the door as soon

as he's in um he just doesn't have much energy about him in terms of like the lyrics as well and in terms of his place in this song doesn't really feel like the kind of the kind of thing that Eminem usually does to be honest it's like he doesn't really do these sort of interludes where he's like talking about getting on the floor getting women like he doesn't really do these sort of interludes where he's talking about getting on the floor, getting women. He's usually got something a bit more to say than that, on his good days at least. So it's like, why does that need to be Eminem? That just completely took me out of the song.

And then we get to the mix as well, which I've harped on about so much this past year, well, this past year in the show, that there's just a thing with production in 2006 that just keeps on happening, which I don't like, which is that the middle is completely vacated, and some things are really high in the mix, some things are really low, some things are really bassy, some things are really treble, and there's just no filling in the sandwich. And the thing that's really high, really, really trebly for no reason at all,

I find, is Eminem's bit. Me and my husband listened to this in the car, and when Eminem came in, I had to turn it down, because suddenly it was just like, right down my ear, which is just really intolerable to listen to. So, like I say, it's not the worst thing in the world. It doesn't really actively offend me,

but I just think it kind of feels a bit cheap and nasty, a bit throwaway, a bit naff in general, to be honest. And given the pretty high quality that we've had recently, kind of have to come down on it for that. No, not a huge fan of this, I'm afraid. Sorry. Yeah, kind of similar to you, Andy, I'm afraid. I'm going to separate this into like two sections an acon section and then an m&m section because the acon section is kind of a waste of a good beep only kind of because the instrumental as much as i agree that it does suffer from this

kind of like 2006 everything is pushed to the far end and nothing in the middle has any kind of meat to it. It does still sound kind of menacing, sort of mysterious, but still very much danceable. I think it's a decent impression, production-wise by Eminem, of like a, you know, it's a decent crunk impression. Makes me kind of wish he'd stayed behind the desk after this uh instead of moving back in front of the microphone after his hiatus um Akon makes the transition fairly effectively as a singer from you know in something like Lonely to this where he sounds a bit more comfortable behind the mic more in tune with the atmosphere at least in terms of how he's approaching it melodically

and how he's approaching it in terms of how he's controlling his voice um the song opens with a bridge you don't get that very often uh so worth marking i suppose is it a bridge like i don't know i found just it just kind of lifts into that i see you creeping i can see it from my shadow you know it kind of seems more like a it's more like a pre-chorus pre-chorus yeah okay getting a bit you know mixed up with the nomenclature but still you know songs don't often start with that bit um of the particular song i mean it's it's kind of a compliment i guess it's just like going oh well that's sort of interesting compared

to everything else i think if this was a better song i wouldn't have even mentioned that um it's a shame that i feel the same as you andy that like this what he's saying is a waste of time i think it's all over the place like all this stuff like i feel you creeping i can see it from my shadow like that that's fine that fits the tone of the song but then there's all this stuff, like, I feel you creeping, I can see it from my shadow, like, that, that's fine, that fits the tone of the song, but then there's all this stuff, like, jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo, and it just feels like it's from a different song, it feels like it's a song about monsters, or trying to fit a knight together after a blackout, or, you know, that sort of thing. But then it kind of just descends

into, like, lyrics about him just doing somebody doggy style and being very graphic about it. And, like, fine. Like, whatever. But I'm kind of, I check out at that point. Like, I'm not against this kind of thing. I'm just not interested in Akon doing this kind of thing, I just feel uncomfortably close to something that I don't want to be near, if you know what I mean, I don't want to imagine Akon, like you were saying, smacking it till this person gets sore, whoever he's with, or give me some more, look back at me, I just, I can't,'t it's just i can't be bothered i really really can't be bothered i do not find this remotely sexy when it is trying to be um which leads me into m&m's bit because fuck me like it sounds like he's being held there at gunpoint like it

seems like he was had to be convinced to do anyway, because apparently he said he was bored of featuring on other people's songs. Around this time, he said, I'm not going to do it anymore. So Akon flew to Detroit. So he flew from LA to Detroit to get this feature and to record the song. And this really feels like a turning point for this podcast, where Eminem actually just sounds bored for like the first time like encore isn't great but rarely does eminem ever sound bored he sounds deranged and mixed up and like he's not in full awareness of his faculties and

what he's doing but he's never he's never bored't think, but like he was saying, it does sound like somebody doing a parody, an impression, this is very phoned in, and he's started to go for this nasal lower register now that just never, ever fucks off for the rest of his career, it makes him sound like he's half asleep, like, he still has a relatively bouncy flow, but he doesn't sound like he's skipping through it it sounds like he's starting to kind of wind down into the hiatus that he's heading for in the next few months like the only bit of this that i actually really remember is the she's like yeah because it it jumps out at you from the rest of the verse but like the content of eminem's verses used to be that like they were full of moments like that, where every line had, like, oh, whoa, did you hear him do that? Oh, how's he done this? Oh, why has he made that noise? You know, all sorts of little

things like that, whereas in this, it's just, you have the, she's like, yeah, and I don't know, that's not really enough to build the song off, is it? There's a serious lack of actual content and material in this verse, like, but hey, I'm sure he got paid loads of money to do it, and it got to number one here, number two in the States, so, I don't know, something worked, it's just not for me, and it feels like an unfortunate kind of canary in the coal mine with Eminem, where it's like, every time, almost, he shows up after this on a track, this kind of flow, this kind of of inflection this kind of voice is what he has and then he dyes his hair black and it's like well it's part of this new character i'm playing in this i genuinely had to watch the video again to see whether he still had bleach blonde peroxide

hair at this point because this sounds like another era of eminem we've entered another act if you will but this is kind of just between places. It's post-Curtain Call where he's called time on the first bit of his career, and this is just a thing he's doing to occupy space in the meantime. I think a better idea for this beat comes through in the music video, like, lyrically, you know, where Akon kind of spends this hazy night with a woman, and he's trying to piece it together, follow her footsteps, he's handing a photograph to Obama, and Obama's like, I don't know who she is, and then he sees her, and he tries to catch her, and then it suddenly, like, the ending goes all stupid, and it turns into, like, some kind of crime mafia thing, but before that, I feel like the whole thing would be much better,

and would have a more meta eye, if it allowed itself to drip in the gross decadence of the whole thing but they're not really interested in meta commentary now are they they're just interested in smack that give me some more smack just it's all so superficial when i feel like something like this i was also thinking of nasty girl i feel like something like that can work if you lean into how unfortunately gross a lot of strip club environments end up coming across in representations like this but they're kind of even the video it's like they're very much with it it's kind of like it reminds me of a mark kermode's review of entourage where it's like at one point in the film, he thinks, right, it's going to click in a second that this is a satire.

Oh, it isn't a satire. I don't like this. And that's kind of how I feel with Smack That. Lizzie, can you offer any more positive insight? Can you stick up for this or do you not want to? No, can I? Fuck, I've got nothing good to say about this you've you've pretty much already summed it up but you've added some good points that i wouldn't have thought

of like rob i really liked your point about you know the bit like creeping up like it's in the shadow it like there's a sort of different edge there that doesn't come through in the rest of the song which is just kind of hey look there is an attractive woman over there and it's a bit of a shame they didn't go down that route they could have done something like i don't know somebody's watching me by rockwell that kind of thing where it's like a dark edge to it yeah but yeah no they both sound like they're kind of half asleep on this song um with eminem i can asleep on this song. With Eminem I can maybe not excuse it but I can understand it because when we covered Just Lose It we mentioned that the mid-2000s were a very dark time for him and he's noticeably more subdued here and in fact this would have been at number one about a week before he was on 106 and Park with 50 Cent and G-Unit and that was the interview

where he could barely string together a sentence and he had like like a thousand yard stare and 50 Cent had to step in and answer questions for him like it's a pretty throwaway guest verse but Eminem himself just sounds completely jacked out like you say particularly towards the end where he's doing that sort of lower register drawl so yeah I think we're we're just at the cusp of the moment where Eminem officially goes on hiatus because he is not well like he he's not he's not in a place where he can do this sort of thing and i don't think like i don't think he's been taken advantage of here or anything it is his production ultimately but i do wonder if there was a sense where someone listened back to this thought maybe yeah maybe it's time to i don't know have a bit of a break because you've been

working non-stop for like the last seven years and also you are an addict and yeah maybe hanging out with acon isn't the move for you in 2007 maybe you like i'm not really keen on eminem's stuff but i'm glad that he's fucking alive because at this point, it didn't seem like he would be in 2009. It seemed like he was at the end of, you know, the end of his career almost. And it's a kind of a miracle that he ever made it back.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. This song, yeah, I find the beat here, there is a bit, there is like a hint of darkness, but there's also this kind of thin, plasticky quality to it. There's no groove like there is on Real Slim Shady. There's not enough sense of building tension like on Lose Yourself. So there's just this overall sense of that'll do with this song and I feel like if not for the names attached to it I can't imagine

this being a number one because it's just not good enough it never really gets going and just kind of falls flat what you've said there has just made me realise that we're less than a year from his overdose aren't we of course yeah yeah yeah because i seem to remember reading around the time

of uh just lose it when we covered that the between sort of like encore and now the eminem is getting like three hours of sleep a night which which is a similar place to where Michael Jackson ended up in, where he was addicted to painkillers and was unable to sleep without them, and that sort of thing. And Eminem was basically... I have a feeling that there are parts of Eminem's life that he doesn't remember, kind of similar to Matthew Perry, like how Matthew Perry doesn't

really remember anything from 1996 to about 1999 like he just says nope it's gone don't remember filming any of season three to seven of friends just could not tell you a word of anything that I said or did or anything there's a particular photo from around this time of M&M and internet dickheads have decided that he was replaced with a clone in 2007 but in actual fact he's just so kind of he's in so deep with the pills that his face

has gone all like puffy and he just looks lost it is a really haunting photo and the fact that he comes back in 2009 with like you know the black hair but he's in shape it's kind of a miracle that he gets to that point so we will move on to the second and last song that we are going to be covering this week and the last song we'll be covering in 2006

before the big christmas number one and it is this I'm feeling your frustration But any minute all the pain will stop Just hold me close inside your arms tonight Don't be too hard on my emotions Cause I need time My heart is numb, has no feeling So while I'm still here Just try and have a little patience Okay, this is Patience by Take That. Released as the lead single from the group's comeback fourth album, Beautiful World,

Patience is Take That's 19th single overall to be released in the UK and then 9th to reach number 1 and this is not the last time we'll be coming to Take That on this podcast either Patience first entered the UK chart at number 4 reaching number 1 during its second week on the chart knocking Akon off the top spot It stayed at number 1 for 4 weeks In its first week atop the charts, it sold 62,000 copies, beating competition from Downtown by Emma Bunton,

which climbed to number three. Exactly. In week two, it sold 38,000 copies, beating competition from Boogie Tonight by Booty Love, which climbed to number three. That's a shame. And All Good Things Come to an End by Nelly Vitardo, which climbed to number three that's a shame and all good things come to an end by nelly vitado which climbed to number four in week three it sold 38 000 copies again

beating competition from bing bang it's time to dance by the cast of lazy town which got to number four and wind it up by gwen stefani which got to number eight in week four it's last week at number one it sold 31 000 copies beating competition from mercifully 21st century Christmas by Cliff Richard which got to number two Truly Madly Deeply by Cascada which climbed to number four and You Know My Name by Chris Cornell which climbed to number four and you know my name by chris cornell which climbed to number seven so that is a shame when it was knocked off the top of the charts patience dropped one place to number two by the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for 56 weeks the song is currently officially certified two times platinum so it is double platinum in the UK as of 2023.

Is this the first song we've had so far that has spent more than a year in the chart? Probably. I can't think of it. Maybe, yeah. It becomes a more common theme as we go forward because downloads and streaming and things like that, they enable songs to stay in the chart longer

than they would if it was just a simple case of seedy singles and whatnot. But 56 weeks, wow. Lizzie, do you think it deserved that long? Well, this song has been called one of the greatest comeback singles in pop history. And I do agree with that assessment in the sense that comebacks in pop are very rarely successful like it's very easy to fall

into certain traps like trying to recapture the magic of your previous work or trying to be something that you're not I think take that avoid both of those traps here and instead make a song that's very much in their wheelhouse but also feels like a natural progression from their previous work. However, I think I accidentally figured out my problem with Take That this week other than, you know, Gary Barlow being a capital T Tory. To me, this is covert Christian rock. Oh, okay. It's that sort of Christian rock that you don't notice is Christian rock until you start to read between the lines. It's a kind of stealth approach that makes me uncomfortable for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

All of the hallmarks of covert Christian rock are here. You've got a simple chord progression, you've got a mid-tempo rhythm, you've got non-specific lyrics about trials and tribulations, the use of words like salvation, and production that could best be described as big. It's even reflected in the song titles from the comeback, like Patience, Shine, Rule the World, Greatest Day, The Garden. All of them are kind of definitive and broad, and most importantly, easy to apply to religious contexts.

Plus, if I wanted to go tinfoil hat, I could point out that their original logo with the two Ts makes the shape of a cross, and in the video for this song, they are carrying microphone stands on their backs. We're through the looking glass here, people. But, I don't know, maybe that's too much for

personal gripe, but it does cover some of my overall problems with this song. I find the arrangement of it is tasteful and polished, but there's no room for any intrigue other than a bridge section that just goes straight back to a bigger sounding chorus. It's also quite overproduced in parts, I think, particularly in the latter choruses, where it sounds like there's too many elements packed into a small sound space and it can be quite fatiguing to listen to especially if you're trying to pick

out individual pieces and again it's that same 2006 problem where the lead vocals are buried too low in the mix and it all just kind of clatters in and it's uncomfortable to listen to. Just in general I find there's a lot of build but there's no real resolution it's just the same four chord loop over and over again. In that sense it's an effective comeback song for better and for worse. I think it re-establishes Take That as a relevant pop act but I also think it's constructed in a way that's too functional to be genuinely affecting. That's not to say it's a bad song or a badly written song or a badly performed song because I think that's always been Gary Barlow's kind of strength is sort of simplicity and that low-key feel but there's something about this which I just don't quite get on with but I can recognise that this is a good song and

especially a good comeback song because well it's number one and it was very very successful. I'm curious to hear what you both have to say about this, though, because I would like to be persuaded otherwise. I feel like I've maybe missed something here. Well, to be honest, you've picked up on something that I hadn't really considered, but Gary Barlow and Christianity, like, they are two things that they're in. Now I actually sit and think about it, there are more covert Christian songs in his discography, I mean, I say covert, there is a

song on an album he did, I forget the name of the album, but it was one of his solo comeback albums, I think it was his first solo album at the time for about 15 years, I think it had that god-awful fly and let me go song on it. Oh, Jesus, that song. But there was a song on the album that I remember that was called God. Right, okay. And I remember, like, the lyrics are sort of about, like, you know, just keep trying and you'll find the light or whatever.

You know, keep going and you'll do this or, you know, persevere. You know what I mean about these very small illusions like see the light on your face like let it shine like i can't believe it took as long to click as it did because he obviously very rarely references god directly in music but it's all kind of there if you look for it also for you've now got me thinking of other covert christian rock songs like the climb miley cyrus um yeah the reason hoover stank absolutely god they're all destiny based aren't they but to be honest um a covert christian rock album that i really love is riot by paramore that is a big covert christian rock album because there are so many

like it doesn't jump out at you like that but this is i'm gonna go way off on a tangent here but um we've only got two songs this week so fuck it um that there is a obviously for paramore's you know a group of their type if you will especially as they uh originated their audience you would expect and it is primarily white westerners but there was a bit of a phenomenon that got explored in like the aftermath of their self-titled album in 2013 by which point a lot of the religious stuff had been left behind because hayley williams herself had become disillusioned with the religious upbringing that she'd had she explores that more on brand new eyes which again the album title is

about looking at things differently if you will realizing you've reached adulthood and the things you knew as a kid like maybe weren't as you were told but there was a huge um there were loads of coverage there was loads of coverage about it i'll try i'll go back and try and find some articles about black Americans really being into Paramore. Now, obviously, I'm not saying that that's necessarily a surprise, but when you think of a stereotypical Paramore fan, that's not where your mind goes initially because of the kind of music they make and the kind of demographics that that music is associated with.

And apparently, a lot of blackicans who are really into paramore convinced their parents to buy this album which had the scrawled notepad on the front of it and a word like riot on the front of it you know that they're very strict religious parents because they convinced them that Paramore were a Christian rock band, because it's easy to do that. They have songs called Hallelujah and Miracle and Let the Flames Begin, and things like that. There's all these Christian images of fire and destiny, and they are all over the album. There's this song called We Are Broken,

which just sounds, which is probably my least favorite Paramore recording, which is a big it's like it's like a big church number you know these modern evangelical church numbers that you get yeah yeah and so now my mind is firing off uh my synapses are now connecting about christian rock songs that i'd never really considered before but i mean we get to discuss the climb don't we but they're all about long journeys and then reaching the end of that journey. There was something I was watching recently,

which I actually think is a film that I really love, but I think can be read as a covert Christian story, which is Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters. The third kind is all sorts of Moses allegories in that, even to the point where like after he meets the first alien and he gets sunburn on his face that is what happens to moses after his first ever discussion with god he he is he is burnt by the light if you will and there's obviously all the stuff with the burning bush and the main character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Richard Dreyfuss, being the messenger who is given a mission.

And he must go on a pilgrimage to Devil's Mountain to meet the aliens, to see them. And then he is chosen as the humanities representative, if you will, to spread the word, if you will. And so there's all sorts of things in it like that. So you can tell what I spent Christmas doing doing watching old spielberg movies and stuff but andy um we don't have to talk about the christian rock thing any further that's just something that's got into my brain but how do you feel about patience take that well i've got nothing to add to the christian rock conversation except that i think i definitely see what you mean i think it might be rather that they just have quite generic aspirational lyrics quite a lot of the

time that yeah maybe i think you can really tell that gary barlow wrote the winner's song for geraldine mcqueen because quite a lot of take that singles from this second era of theirs sound like x factor winner songs and i think if you get into kind of generic statements of like just try so hard to believe and you know it's like that kind of comes across as something you could apply to christianity just because it's got that broad aspirational higher calling destiny kind of quality to it but i don't know if those two things are like deliberately aligning i don't know but I see the point with that um as for the actual song I mean I really like this I really do I think I think it's a difference between being a teenager like a sort of turning your nose up at this sort of thing and

being an adult is that you you recognize that songs like this at the very least are very well written and I think that's something that as much as Gary Barlow is a knobhead and is very tedious to listen to a lot of the time I will never deny that he when he's at his best he is a really excellent songwriter, especially with ballads his particular trick is bridges which I'm so sad we'll never get to talk

about Rule The World because the bridge in Rule The World, the stars are coming up tonight, is just exceptional and really elevates that song. He is a great songwriter. And I think with this, I agree with what you said, Lizzie, about how this is in their wheelhouse, but it's kind of doing something a little different with it.

I think the main problem I have with it, though, is the production, that by the end, it's really, really heavy on those strings. It's really heavy on the firework rain. And I would turn that down, to be honest. It's Westlife production, is what this gets. And it doesn't need that. It's too much, yeah. Because it's a good enough song, and it's got good enough hooks in it,

that people will be singing along, getting caught up in it anyway. It doesn't need those huge, big strings at the the end um yeah a little bit too much to be honest i also have a bit of a pitch of something i would do to this song differently because this kind of this song kind of has two little bridges it has the have a little patience yeah where they have fit where they hit that really nice chord change as it goes into the bridge and I really like that one but then it goes right down back to the start with just a single guitar

and have a little patience I would cut that and I would go straight from the big have a little patience bridge I would go straight into the final chorus keep that momentum up without a pause and I think that would improve the song

to be honest. It doesn't need that last little slowdown, to be honest. I feel like some of the radio edits did that, you know. I think they probably did. Yeah, I don't know, like, what you two think of that, because I said this when we were listening to it in the car, me and my husband, and he really disagreed. He thought that little moment of calm really adds to the song.

But anyway, yeah, I think on the whole, this is really, really good. But my basic statement about this is that everything it does, Rule the World does better. I feel like this is the kind of statement of intent of, yeah, this is the kind of music that we are writing, that Take That are releasing right now. A few more months pass, they do Rule the World, that's this, but better in every way.

And I think think for me rule the world wholesale replaces that song but that means that i never really sit down and listen to this very often and again when i was sat listening to this in the car me and my husband we ended up really belting out singing along to every word of this song and uh that kind of stuck in my head of like hmm this song kind of there's something to this then. Like, this is an anthem, you know, that we can sit here and just joyfully sing along to this. And so with that in mind, I would like to just look back on a special little memory of mine

that I genuinely didn't remember until a couple of days ago when I was like, what does this song make me recall from the past? Ah, that's what it is. Where it reminded me of a particular telling off at school i got once funnily enough that um me and my best friend were in an orchestra and um the school orchestra had done like a performance but other things were on that night in front of the audience there was like singers and dancers etc like different kind of things that people did in school but the orchestra stayed on stage while they all did their performances so it should have to sit there quietly and a group of girls were dancing to patience they did one of those

you know i'm not going to be nasty about it but you know the kind of typical high school choreography where it's like you have to work in a slap and a pickup there always has to be some sort of like hug that was included as well you know very kind of very high-end commercial dance but anyway and they were dancing to patience and me and my best friends caught each other's eyes from the other side of the orchestra and we hated this song at the time because you're really edgy but because it was everywhere because it was this gigantic hit we knew every word to it so we just looked right at each other across the stage and lip synced the whole thing like really passionately with like

power grabs and like emotion everything kind of like lip syncing the whole thing at each other across the stage and lip synced the whole thing like really passionately with like power grabs and like emotion everything kind of like lip syncing the whole thing at each other and i got a tap on the shoulder from my teacher it was like you know the audience can see you can you please stop doing that um so we we accidentally lip synced for our lives in front of the whole audience while these poor girls were trying to dance so i feel awful about it but it was quite a funny memory um but that's the kind of song this is that even if you hated it at the time you knew every word of it and so this songwriting works it really sticks around um i do think there's a matter of personal taste to it to be honest that like that production really doesn't help um and that's my biggest mark against it but it's very very well

written it's got a very tight structure to it it has all the right hits in all the right place apart from that little cool down at the end um it's a very very solid comeback for them and i think they managed to redefine themselves without reinventing the wheel and that is not easily done i completely agree with what lizzie said that making a comeback as slick and as effective as this is not easily done so it's a great comeback for them but it's not quite their best song ever i don't think uh there's two more actually one of which we'll get to cover that i think is better than this so stay tuned for that yeah so when you're talking about this little rewrite that you would do would you

do like um is this how it goes in your head where it's the um it's been hard but i have to believe chorus there excellent right okay i was just trying to map that out in my head i'm gonna do it you know i'm gonna edit it and i'm gonna like stick this on twitter and see what people think yeah cool all right then yeah kind of like i did with shane ward uh with them that's my goal if only we'd written them eh if only we'd written pop music history around christmas 2005 2006 um patience yeah uh for me this is the good stuff this week um i think the year proper just before christmas starts really finishes on a good high note here, I actually like a fair portion of Take That's post-comeback singles material, probably more than their pre-breakup

material, you know, come to think of it, there's this, I quite like Shine, to kind of give away a bit of our early 2007 coverage, I kind of like beautiful world um i especially like rule the world plus progress um most of the stuff off that and i really like the flood i've really liked the flood kind of lost touch a bit after three the album which was 2013 maybe 2014 kind of lost touch after that but i have it on good authority from friend of the podcast edward thomas that they are still producing a decent adult contemporary pop with modern textures and such like um i'm not keen on the circus i must say or greatest day to kind of give that away a little bit um i feel like greatest day is like oh i need to get something that'll be on the olympics coverage forever and sports coverage forever yeah um but i am into this um kind of like you two don't like gary barlow really for a lot of reasons but he is a good pop songwriter

and he's a good balladeer i think and i think he shows it here um i just find this to be so i think embalming is the word you know it's strident and it's forceful, but I think it's decorative and sweet. You know, Gary Barlow can kind of just do this stuff in his sleep, but I think he wrote this while he was awake. It's just that little bit better than the stuff he can do in his sleep. I think at the time, its modern comparison points kind of went over my head a bit, you know, like in 2006, but it feels unavoidable now, and I think that's Embrace, specifically their albums Out of Nothing and This New Day,

and also bands like Star Sailor, like their big one was Silence Is Easy, it just becomes me, I'm not talking about the vocals, but I am talking about the kind of soft rock meets post brit pop sound that was very popular from about sort of like 1999 to 2004 robbie williams himself had been dabbling in this kind of stuff as well and so take that i've cribbed a lot from the things around them while they've been gone but not in a way that makes it sound like they're necessarily cosplaying, I think that this is sort of superior to those kinds of bands, because he's approaching it from a more, a slightly more mature, a million love songs later kind of angle, like what if I went back and wrote some of my earlier ballads with the mind of someone who is now in their mid-30s, like that kind of feeling, trying to work them out on piano, construct them from the ground up.

Sometimes I think bands like Embrace and Star Sailor, like they get too lost in their sound and stop focusing on the writing. They were part of a scene and so they conform to the scene instead of just knocking out good tunes. Whereas Take That, when they come back, they kind of come from nowhere. They're not really part of a scene scene they've just paid a bit of attention to what's been popular while they've been gone in the interim and they've been writing songs and have used them as a framework and a foundation but just a bit of inspiration as opposed to we want to sound like this this just feels like a Take That song which happens to have contemporary comparison points as opposed to, oh, Gary Barlow's been listening to Embrace, has he? He fancies a bit of a go of that, does he? I

kind of see this as the superior material because it accepts that it's a pop song first as opposed to like, oh no, we're dead serious, we don't make pop. Pop? What? That's a dirty word. We're an indie band, I'll have you know. there are lots of great moments in this, but I'm always going to come back to how Barlow rephrases the end of every chorus in this, because at the end of chorus one, you just get the rephrasing of the first line from the first verse, just the, just have a little patience, but then in chorus two, you the just have a little lift patience yeah have and then at the end you get the patient you know right at the end and i love i kind of like the drop into the final slowdown where it sounds like it's like a melatron and a guitar kind of quietly sighing away to

themselves but i do like the idea of your rewrite andy thank you um yeah i i'm curious to see which one i prefer when i hear them both but he's quite good with dynamics i think sometimes gary barlow even if the the problem i have with this and it's the problem i have with basically all of beautiful world it's that it is i've mentioned it before, I alluded to it before, it is a bit too smooth, it is just a bit too perfect, it's a bit too, we are showing our age a bit, so let's kind of just smooth everything out, and I know I said embalming before as a positive, but I do think that there's a little too much polish on this, and on the rest of the record, which is why when i think it comes to something big and showy like shine which is like you know it's the fastest song on the album it's you know the the most kind

of upbeat and positive if you will because it's surrounded by quite a lot of plaintive stuff and a lot of like quiet things like mancunian way and Wooden Boat and my second favourite song from the album which was I'd Wait For Life, the ballad that Gary Barlow puts together on his own on that one. Shine is good but I don't like it as much as this and I won't be putting it in the vault when we get there because I think that like this the polish just it just takes a little too much edge off. There's a very funny moment in shine which i will leave as a as a surprise for when we get there that i'm going to mention that was pointed out to me also by a friend of the podcast of the thomas and it has to do with mark owens

voice on shine uh which we'll get to um i think this sort of thing is also done better on rule the world which i think is my favourite of Take That's comeback material. And yeah, like I said, the production is a bit glossy. It's not as glossy as it gets on the circus, but it's still a bit too glossy. But I like this a lot. I have kind of gone up and down over it over time. I remember being a huge fan of it as a kid, really big fan of it as a kid, like, which is strange because i was 12 years old and i was really into take that like i remember going on a school trip to apologies i mean it's kind of a i guess so but um this story involves um homophobic slur should we say uh but i remember walking around manchester Museum of Science and Industry on a

school trip around this time, listening to I'd Wait for Life, and I remember a group of lads from my year coming up behind me going, oh, on your own, are you? What are you listening to? And they grabbed it, and they saw it said, I'd Wait for Life by Tate That, and they went, oh, I'd wait for life by Take That and they went, oh, well gay, and then walked off because it was 2006. But the fact that I was a kid being in to Take That, I think, and the fact that this was in the charts forever, shows that Take That managed to bring a bit of something that we have slightly lost in the last sort of two years of chart music. And it can kind of bookend the episode nicely, which is that I do think that this is family pop. It's pop that the whole family can get in on. Kids liked this, adults liked this, it was something that was quite, at the time, just sort of universally popular. Didn't even really have a fan base, it was just, it was at number one for four weeks, and everybody liked

it, and everybody was pleased that Take That were back, I think. I remember this album going to number one in the charts as well, and at the time, the album charts, they only did the top five albums, they played a bit of a song from each of the top five albums, but I remember them playing Reach Out, which is the first track on the album, I remember them playing that in full, which was like it was like an event it was like take that have returned you know it's only nine years like if you think nine years ago if a group had gone missing in 2015 and suddenly came back it wouldn't feel like much of a comeback would it's like oh okay you're back are you you know i just i don't know but when take that came back it felt like years have passed since we last heard their music and now they're here and it it was successful they didn't come back with

shite you know they came back with music that people enjoyed that was popular with everybody and i do think that apart from rule the world i think this is probably my second favorite of their comeback songs. Don't think it's the greatest song in the world. Probably won't be in my top five number ones of the year. But 2006 has been an incredibly strong year. And I think that this not making it into my personal top five is a mark of how strong the year has been.

Apologies to sort of do a year review a week before time. of how strong the year has been apologies to sort of do a year review a week before time but 2006 i think and 2007 are both two very very very strong years uh for number ones and the fact that next year we get loads of number ones that stick around forever a lot um shows that there was a bit of a moment going on in 2007 where it felt like the songs that got to number one were really clicking with people and this feels like the beginning of it if you will because this is four weeks and it kind of sets the template for what uh what happens next year do either of us or any of us have anything more to say on patience or take that have we swung you any further in favor of it lizzie I don't know. I think I'm still quite light on it. But again, like I say, I recognise this is a good song,

but it's just not my kind of thing. All right then, Andy, I will ask you. Smack that. Vault or piehole? I'm smacking that into the piehole. And patience? No, not quite. It's not in the vault at the moment I might revisit that at some point in the future I guess, take that, we'll have to have a little

hmm understanding Lizzie Akon and Eminem, how are we feeling? I'm going to stick it in a Lamborghini Gallardo and drive it straight into the pie hole where it belongs and I guess

patience is not going anywhere patience is not going anywhere no smack that is sitting on the edge of the pie hole for me it may tip in when we come back to reviewing the whole year I'll give it another week and see how I feel.

Whereas Patience is just about into the vault for me. Just about creeps in. So, well done to take that for two vaults this week. So, that is it for this week's episode. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for voting in your numbers on

whether My Chemical Romance or The Scissor Sisters had the best song of the episode two weeks ago and thank you for listening to our 2006 coverage when we'll be back we'll be covering the race for christmas number one in 2006 our favorite kinds of episodes i think where we get to look back at tv and other stuff and then we look at which key change the x factor have offered up to us this year. And there are a lot of them in the X Factor winner's single for 2006. I counted more than one when I was listening ahead.

So we will see you then. Thank you very much for joining in this week. Bye. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I'm not leaving.