Hits 21 - 2010 (3): Usher & will.i.am, Diana Vickers, Roll Deep, B.o.B & Bruno Mars

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/Hits21UKBLUESKY: https://bsky.app/profile/hits21podcast.bsky.socialINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/hits21uk/We're back! Hits 21 has jumped 11 years into the future from 1999, landing in 2010. Things are different. Usher & will.i.am have stopped trying, an X Factor contestant is on the loose, Roll Deep return from the Avenue, and a Flat Earther is about!Rob, Andy, and Ed take their first steps into the 2010s.

Hits 21. Hi there, everyone. Welcome back to Hits 21, the 2010s. Where me, Rob. Me, Andy, and me, Ed, are looking back at every single UK number one of the 2010s. Email us at Hits21 Podcast at gmail.com. You can also follow us on Instagram and on Blue Sky.

The links to both of those pages are in the description, and you can, if you want, subscribe to our Patreon. It's £3 a month. there is currently at the time of recorded there is one video up there at the moment and it's me ed and and andy discussing spice world as we promised that we would do me and ed are going to sit down together in the next couple of days and we're going to sit and record uh sort of like a bonus episode about mine and ed's favorite albums of 2010 so we'll probably do those for each year of the 2010s as we go along it's a pretty good year very very good year um so please if you if you want to

go ahead and subscribe if you don't feel like you can that's cool. I love that it's optional and I will promise again the main show will never change as a result of the Patreon being there. The response to us coming back has been so lovely by the way because us being on Instagram and blue sky and stuff means that we get a little bit more in terms of interaction and it means that we can see how you're feeling. We've also had some really lovely emails that we're going to respond to very soon as well. So thank you very much for all of those and we've already had some subscribers to our Patreon as well, which is something that I don't think we really expected back when we started the podcast,

that we would ever reach people who would want to give us money. And, you know, it just, yeah, it's really, really lovely. It's been feeling so good here the past couple of weeks. So after we've come back. So thank you very much for joining us again. We are currently looking back at the year 2010. As you know, and this week, we're going to be covering the period between the 18th of April and the 29th of May.

So about six weeks again, as spring kind of turns into summer. Andy, the UK album charts in April and May 2010. How are we doing? We open with Plan B, with the defamation of Strickland Banks. That was definitely one of my most listened albums of 2010. I loved that. That went number one for one week at first and went four times platinum.

Before it was knocked off the top by ACDC with what I'm going to laughingly called the soundtrack to Iron Man 2, which went number one for one week and went double platinum. That, right, so I'm going to say laughably, because it's not the soundtrack to Iron Man 2. It's a compilation of ACD songs with no original songs, none of which appear in the movie Iron Man 2 that has the Iron Man 2 branding on it.

It's literally not connected at all. Wow. It's mad. It's the weirdest soundtrack release I've ever seen. It's very, very strange. The character of Tony Stark is a big fan of ACDC, so some of these songs, I guess, might have appeared in the background, but none of them were composed for the movie.

Thankfully, Plan B returns to the top the week after that for one more week and then we get Diana Vickers and how's this for a cringy, manic-pixie Dream Girl album title? Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree

Oh, dear! Oh, it's just awful. It really just makes for Toes curl. It's just, it's so twee. Oh, that were number one for one week and only went gold. And then we finish this period with Night Train by

keen, but the audience weren't that keen on it because it only went silver. It's the first one in a long time that we've mentioned that only went silver. And that went number one for just one week and wouldn't return to number one. So a quiet week there, let's say. But yes, something for everyone this week. Keene, Diana Vickers, Plan B and ACDC. Diana Vickers, if you asked her, how many times were you at number one for a week? She would say, watch, what?

In UK news, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is caught on a live microphone referring to Labour voter Gillian Duffy as a bigoted woman, not knowing he was still being recorded. The UK general election takes place weeks later and results in a Tory Lib Dem coalition with David Cameron now Prime Minister. In America, an explosion at the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico results in 11 deaths while almost 800,000. million litres of oil leak into the Atlantic Ocean. It is still considered to be the largest environmental disaster in US history. Elsewhere, a car bomb fails to explode in Times Square. In sports news, Chelsea win the Premier League title under manager Carlo Ancelotti, and Chelsea also complete the double after beating Portsmouth 1-0 in the FA Cup final at Wembley.

Jose Marino's Inter Milan win the European Cup after beating Bayouinic 2-0 in the final at the Bernoubae in Madrid. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows. Dear John, Date Night, Iron Man 2 and Robin Hood. On TV, Adrian Childs presents his last episode of The One Show before he upsticks away from the BBC and moves on over to ITV. So, Ed, all things American charts. How is it for April to May 2010? On the album's front, Bieber lured us back to his way.

world 2.0 with two more weeks of free internet access. Then it may only be for a week, but Glee arguably makes more impact on 2010's chart pop than a whole solar system 2.0 of Justin Bieber's. And barely beating back Bieber's broad balladering, we have B.O.B's Adventure of Bobby Ray for but one week before seven days of God's. Mac. A band-eye, to be honest, no more as a punchline than as music, whose The Oracle takes a one-week bite out of Bieber's chart-topping cherry. Apple. A bite out of Bieber's apple. But Bieber be back. It's his world, after all, you're just cleaning it. 2.0. Singles. Rayana is still venting about that very rude boy, five weeks on, until B-O-B and Bruno breach the bill. Breach the Bill

battlements with nothing on you. Usher, in a party mood, gets his mate Will I Am round to prove just how little effort it actually takes to get a number one these days. But Eminem is not afraid. Well, maybe he's a little bit afraid as he concedes the top spot back to OMG after a single week. FFSMNM. Back to you, R-O-B. Wonderful alliteration through all of that. Absolutely marvelous. So we are going to crack on with the first of four songs this week and the first of them is this. My gosh. Baby let me. I did it again so I'm going to let up. Oh my. There's so many ways to love you. Maybe I can break you down. There's so many ways to love you. Got me like, oh my God. So be you. make me want to say

Oh, oh, pass and sexy Pop, Pop, Pop and Drop This was something special This was just like Dynamite Okay, this is O'MG or Oh my gosh By Usher and Will I Am

Released as the fourth single From his sixth studio album titled Raymond versus Raymond OMG is Usher's 24th single to chart in the UK and his fourth to reach number one However, as a 2026

it is his last. This is also the 11th single from Will I Am to chart in the UK and his first to reach number one. OMG first entered the UK charts at number 13, reaching number one during its fourth week. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold. 58,000 copies beating competition from I Need You Tonight by Professor Green, Acapella by Kales and naturally by Selena Gomez.

After one week at the top, OMG dropped one place to number two. It stayed inside the top 100 for 35 weeks. The single is currently officially certified two times platinum in the UK. As of 2026, Andy kick us off with I can't find the energy to do it. I feel I'm going to be slightly, ever so slightly,

just a twinkle little bit, kinder about this one than the new two really. I don't like this. I'm going to say it right from the start. This is like that thing that someone's head about Ted Cruz, which is I like Ted Cruz more than anyone else, and I hate Ted Cruz. It's a bit like that. I think I like this song the most, but I still don't like it.

I think it's definitely catchy. It's definitely very easily digestible fast food pop. And I think in that sense, it sets out exactly what it needs to do. The thing is with this decade, I think we're as a group in a little bit of a strange spot now where these songs are not long enough ago for us to have proper childhood nostalgia for them,

and they're also recent enough that were... sorry, they're long enough ago that were dislocated from them and we as adults are not the intended audience for them. So we're coming out of this from a strange place now. And so I'm trying to look at these songs a little bit more objectively in terms of, of what are their aims and do they achieve them? And this, I think, does achieve its aims. It wants to

get in your head. It wants to cash in on like teen language with OMG. It wants to be a quick, easy cash in outing for Usher and Will I Am. It wants to be played in all the clubs throughout 2010, and it wants to sell loads of records and get to number one. It does all of those things. It obviously is a big success. No one will have walked away from this thinking, oh, we mess that up. Nah, not at all. And so I think in that sense, yeah, obviously it does what it sets out to do. My problem is it doesn't set out to do hardly anything at all. The lack of ambition here and the lack of creativity is really, it gets me down.

It's hard to get past that with this because it's just so minimalist. And I don't know if that's the will I am influenced, because this has always been my biggest problem with basically everything he did from the ear. and D onwards from Boom Boom Power onwards, is that there's this incredibly pulled-back minimalist edge to his music where he only uses words like good or nice and he stays on the same notes all the time and just says things like this because that is good, very good, good. And like, that kind of influence seems to seep into this where it's really, really base level like borderline tuneless in places. It's just very very.

and I really, really just hate that. But, you know, if this was someone's debut single, then I could kind of forgive it. Be like, okay, you're entering the charts with this thing. You've done a big assault on the pop chart and been hugely successful. Whatever. Not for me. But this is two artists too.

It's very easy to forget from a 2026 perspective that these two, particularly Will I am as easy to forget this, that they were credible once. They were properly respected artists. You know, Black IPs, I think Elefunk and Monkey Business, I don't really know their first album, but Elefunk and Monkey Business, so many great songs on there.

And we've, you know, sung their praises in the past. Even a couple on the E&D are quite good as well. And Usher, obviously, hugely influential, you know, did some really, really good songs in the early 90s in particular, and quite innovative sounds and worked with a lot of cool producers and stuff. These two have got talent.

They could make something really good between them, and it's not that long ago that they were really setting the template for pop music, both of them. Now, though, you've got this just like made by AI kind of shock, essentially, that is straight down the line without taking any risks at all and just being insipid enough to annoy you enough to make you download it. It's like you're doing a deal with the devil with this, which kind of leads me on to my other thing, which is that I've probably said this on this show at some point, and it's something that I say quite a lot in my life when it comes up, because I've always, rejected the idea of selling out. I generally say that's not a thing.

It's a thing that's made up by hipses essentially. Like everybody, everybody in show business wants to be more successful and make more money. Nobody's going to turn down a chance to get into the mainstream and triple their record sales. It's not going to happen. There's no such thing as selling out.

People just get a bit more willing to deal with the demands of the mainstream. However, that worldview is challenged by this. Let me tell you, because, like I said, these two, they used to make interest in music. I find it hard to excuse the laziness of this, and it does feel like they just wanted to make some money, and they were successful by appealing to lowest common denominators.

So next time I bring up that point about how nobody sells out, it's not a real thing, remind me of this, because that is my Achilles heel in that argument. And that's kind of the worst thing I can say about it, really. So I think, whatever, it's doing what, it's doing, but what it's doing is not enough, and it's lazy and it creates bad precedent for 2010's pop music. Yeah, you know what? On this podcast, like, I've really relished the opportunity to listen back to a bunch of songs that I hated around sort of like 2009, 2010,

you know, to find out that, you know, maybe they weren't so bad after all, you know, and it was, you know, that it turns out that at the time, it was unfair of me to dismiss and, you know, acts like Flowrider and, you know, Keshe who had a bit of something about them, I think, you know, looking back, it just took me a while to appreciate what they were going for aesthetically. And the thing I'm really looking forward to in the 2010s is trying to disprove a theory I've held for a really long time that the 2010s on like mainstream British TV and in popular music and stuff is just a big cultural black hole, but it was the peak of like, cheaply made, deliberately dumb reality TV, pacifying pop music, the championing of stupid rich

people because they were good at creating controversy. Even if they had no worldly or earthly intelligence, if they were good at starting arguments with people in front of cameras, then they were allowed to get very, very rich and very famous and very influential. I'm hoping to reach 2019 on this podcast and wind up somewhere different in my head with regards to all that. You know, I'm willing to be open-minded about like, and it's like, it's like a, it's like a thing I read once where it was like, you know, when you're asked by somebody like, oh, what was the best year for pop music? Apparently, you invariably would respond with the year that you turned 16. And 2010 was the year I turned 16. And it was a fantastic year for a lot of

alternative music. But I think that like barely any of it made the charts and virtually none of it got close enough to number one for us to discuss on the podcast. I'm hoping by the end of 2010 at least that I'll be more open to the possibility that maybe there was something special about the UK charts this year that I just missed at the time but oh my gosh as I've now discovered it's called

and not oh my God even after all this time it's not a good place to start this third episode I did hate this at the time and I've hated it whenever it's come on the radio in the last sort of 16 years and I hate it now this is for me this is the beginning of like william's like second era as a solo artist because the first

era you know he had the stuff with pussycat dolls and he had that song heartbreaker and he did the instrumental for american boy and stuff but now we're with 2010's will i am and it's where all the aggressive minimalism and repeating things ad nauseum and relying on very skeletal and simplistic melodies and quantizing and cutting the human edges out of everything in the mix and like attempting to make pop music of the future which is something. something I normally appreciate, but him thinking and assuming that music of the future will have no soul in it, it will just be numbers and binary code and desperately trying to buddy up with tech bros and things like that. That's where all this comes in. And there's a fine line, I think,

between a pop song having like an almost linear structure and also having no sense of rise and fall in like, or it just, if it doesn't feel like it wants to make things disorienting and formless, but that's where I end up. And it's kind of aimless, and you get this picture in my head of like, Usher and Will I am just sort of giggling in the studio while coming up with complete nonsense. Like, Usher sounds tired.

Will I am sounds bored. And going back to what I was saying before, this is where I think as a 16 year old, I started to feel very disconnected from my peers, very disconnected from my school friends, and basically disconnected from my age group in a big way, because like this was the kind of song and you know there were a few where it would come on the radio or a party or something with my friends and I'd roll my eyes and just go and put my earphones in and just walk out of the room and all my friends have been like ah come on rob don't be such a spoil sport it's just a bit of fun but what I'd say now and what I felt at the time even though I couldn't really articulate it is that actually no pop music isn't just a bit of fun like you can have fun with pop music but I often find that fun pop music I love has had serious effort put in to communicate and in that sense of fun.

Not everything needs to be meticulously slaved over. Not everything needs to be musically complex to be worth something. But I think it has to communicate some kind of feeling, some sense of emotion, or at least if it's not trying to do those things, be very upfront about the fact that it is trying to deliberately rail against that romantic idea of composition. I think that it has to be trying to say something,

even if that something is just, I'm happy and I like dancing. Like, you know, I think I took pop music really seriously before I even knew I did, and I think I could sense it being taken in a direction that not only did I resent aesthetically, but I felt like was actually cheap, cheapening things culturally. And I felt that about Flowrider and Ndubs and Kesher and stuff at the time, but with hindsight, I don't think those three did anything detrimental to pop as an art form, but will I am, I really seriously think that he did. I think he set a really terrible, terrible template and dominated with it, because, by this point, pop as a cultural thing is becoming less relevant, it's becoming less vital, it's becoming less informative, less diverse in terms of genre, expression, and politics. And this is, this song is completely absent of a point. I think it revels entirely in cliches and stereotypes, but not in a way that feels

subversive or like a meta-commentary. All this has ever been to me is horrendously lazy, like they're both laughing at us in a way and suggesting that they can still do a number one single and make millions off the back of doing basically nothing. And I find that I think they should both be jailed for this. I think for crimes against culture, I really do. I think this is absolutely horrendous. I've never, ever, ever got on board of this.

I think it's one of the worst songs we've ever covered on the show. Wow. I've despised it for so long. And I still, I just, yeah, I think it's, this is anti-music to me. And I used that term very, very rarely because, you know, I'm all about like, you know, all art is valid art. And if a piece of art makes you question whether it's art, then isn't that the point or whatever? But I don't think this is like a postmodern comment on anything. I think this is Will I am trying to get away with as little as possible and succeeding.

And that thought has always riled me up. Ed, how about you? Well, speaking of anti-music, here comes your own. cool music. It is lazy. I put in my notes almost arrogantly lazy, but it is arrogantly lazy,

isn't it really? It does sound like it was written and recorded in the same hour. Rob, and that's not hyperbole, I'm trying to think, that probably wasn't inaccurate. Rob, you did mention the fact that it was probably just done remotely over in a very

short span of half-interested time between the two collaborators. But yeah, it does have that sense of disjointedness of like, you know, notes passed between people in the middle of a boring lecture. But I don't know. I mean, for a very, very strange reason, it's, I don't mind this in the same way that I, I really don't like some of their later tracks. I mean, if, and I mean, you probably did Rob. I mean, I was a bit out of tune with the, the airwaves at the time. We probably heard this at the time and thought, this is about as cheap and make weight as Pop could get.

It's tacky, it's synthetic, it's not had much care put into it. It is reducing everything to a series of sounds, basically. And you probably thought, well, it's not going to get much worse than this. But it's almost like, Will I Am, who if you hadn't known his previous stuff, you would assume to just be completely talentless. But we know he's actually very talented. He's like an evil genius in many ways. It got so much worse. I mean, I don't want to spoil it,

but there is a song that I believe we'll be covering further down the line, definitely one of my least favorite singles of all time. It's huge, widescreen song that basically it's not an original song, but basically it combines a song that's an instant nostalgia well, even if it's, you know,

osmosed nostalgia for a lot of younger people, with a meme. And it's those two things clustered together. And it is, you know, it is, it is really condescending. But people buy it. And it's almost like, you know, if I'm trying to keep myself sane listening to this period of Will I. Am's music, I could say, is this an experiment in minimalism in a sort of evil, like, I'm going to take members of the public and against their will see how little we can feed them where they will still pay us? I don't know. Maybe that's true.

So I think he is something of an evil genius, but that's not a compliment. Yeah, it's the most stock basic synth sounds and samples possible. It's like it is deliberately, you know, because he's done some really cool instrumentals, as you say, Rob, in the past, will I am? And this is basically, it's off the rack stuff, like they're just 808 conventional clapping sample. The synth wobbles in the background. It's like if that's like my first synth envelope, basic settings, nothing's adjusted. The backing vocals, they sound like it's, you know, they were just placeholders. They're not there a lot of the time, like you'll start trying to do a harmony and then it'll just

fall off. They couldn't be fucked. Why should they bother? That's just over-complicating this trash. But it is so slight and lazy and skeletal in places that it doesn't actually bother me that much. and unfortunately, as you've both indicated, it really does work, doesn't it? It really does get into your brain,

not just the up, out, out, out, but also just the drop into the strange. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-a-a-a-a-a. All of this stuff has been rolling around in my head as I've done spreadsheets and things through the week. Doesn't that sound like a taw-ering, miserable existence? Of all the songs we've covered this week, easily this is the one that's been in my head

the most. Oh God, yes. It's hard to get too upset about something so slight. I agree with you on that as well. It's just not as big. It doesn't insist on itself as much as later stuff because it sounds so lazy, because Usher sounds like he's just mumbling it. So it's almost like,

oh, they've honestly, you know, it's just, it's my fault if I let this get to me in many ways. And so it's a really, that's a really weird way of justifying why I'm not actually going to be pie-holing this in the sense that they didn't put as much effort into making this, you know, into this as some of their other shit songs.

So it's less annoying. So therefore that's a virtue. And I don't think that will, you know, hold water in court. But at the same time, it is unavoidably catchy. And it is, in its own way, more dynamic than a lot of tracks like this we've covered. you know, it's clunky when it moves between segments, but there are different segments, and they have different layers of sound,

and you can hear a bit of addition and subtraction. There are peaks and troughs, like a dance track would have. I mean, let's not get too high fluting with this. It's pretty clunky, but there are distinct sections. It's not just relying entirely on its chorus, which a lot of recent singles have. So, this, for something so lazy,

this isn't awful but it is incredibly lazy and cynical but I know that they'll get more lazy and cynical so I'm not going to get too cross about this one if that makes sense. I agree it completely heads and it's interesting what you said about the kind of is this like avant-garde like seeing how far we can push

like people's annoyance thing because I want to ask you a question Rob because we had a conversation back in 2009 about boom boom-boom-pow for a long-time listeners I'm going to revisit that because you said at the time you couldn't decide whether this was good or bad that it had broken your scoring system because it was so strange. I sensed from the kind of things you've said here you might have now come down more on the side of it's bad. I've certainly come down more on the side of boom boom power was awful. Has this all the time that we spent away, mid you rethink boom boom power at all?

Have you come down on one side? To be honest, I think if we were to review it again, I think I would say largely the same thing. I think the thing that kind of breaks my rating system with boom boom power is that at least superficially, there is, as minimal and as similar to this as it is, there's so much gusto in the performances that like it feels like it's constantly on the edge of falling apart, which makes it like more entertaining to watch just to see if it'll stay on its own two feet. Whereas with this, I just feel a bit like it's very ten and two positions. it feels like a very safe, you know, with this, if there was a constant hissing noise in the background, like there is on boom boom pow, or if there's that weird bridge section where

Fergie has to try and sing without an anchoring note and things like that. And she ends up miles off key and then back on key and then miles off it again and things like that. I feel like it's a continuation of this, but without any of the kind of shock of the new with it. and I'd mean that from a creative perspective too, where like it felt like with this, Will I Am kind of knows the beats a little bit too much.

And he even kind of references it as well, because at the start of this, he says, I did it again, so I will let the beat rock or something. And that's obviously a reference to the let the beat rock thing at the end of Boom Boom Power. And so it just feels a bit like,

hey, I'm doing an impression of the thing that I did. But Usher's were here now. And also, we seem to care a good fraction less than we did. With Boom Boom Pow, it genuinely felt like Will I Am was trying something. And I think you've seen how successful it is.

And so this is like repetition for repetition's sake. A good, good fraction less. Yes, yes. So, the second song this week is this one. All right, this is Once

by Diana Vickers. Released as the lead single from her debut studio album, we heard about it before, titled Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree. Once is Diana Vickers' first single to chart in the UK and her first to reach number one. However, as of 2026, it is her last. Once went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 69,000 copies, beating competition from

until you were gone by Chipmunk and The Best by Tina Turner. After one week at the top, once fell three places to number four. It stayed inside the top 104, 11 weeks. The single is currently officially certified silver in the UK as of 2026. Just with regards to the best by Tina Turner coming back into the charts, Apparently, it was organised by the supporters of Rangers football club. It was the club's unofficial anthem at the time, and they wanted to push it to the number one spot,

and they managed to get it into the top ten, but no further. You know what? Do you know what? Football is so gay. It's so gay. There's just no deny, in it? That's such a gay thing to do. Andy, I'll stick with you, actually. once, Diana Vickers. Before I'll get started on this, just a few little facts loads around it. Robbie cue me

up at the start by mentioning the general election. This is the last number one under a Labour government until 2024. This was the last one. Every song from Blood on the Dance Floor by Michael Jackson in 1997 through to this one

has been under either Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. And the next song to be number one under a Labour government would be espresso by Sabrina Carpenter in 2024. Jesus Christ. Which means the next one,

the next one we've got coming up, which I won't quite spoil yet, will be the first number one under a Tory government since I believe I can fly by some bastard. Yeah, wow. Yeah, time is weird, isn't it?

Time is weird. With this, so I made fun of Roy Stride from Scouting for Girls vocals the other week, and I really kind of went in and was remorseless on it. I don't think it would be fair for me to do that to one, a fairly objectively bad vocalist and not another. So unfortunately, I have to call out Diana here,

that the problem I always had with her, I used to joke about her next fact I hated. I say hated her. I don't mean as a person, obviously, but as a supporter of a particular actor of the contest, I really couldn't stand Diana Vickers because of her voice. and I once used to say that she sounded like a seal and people really cottoned on to that

and I remember all my friend group used to compare her to a seal which was fun because a hey hey thing she does is just so annoying and I don't know why she does it because it's clearly an intentional vocal tick no one actually sounds like that and it really really lovely and unfortunately it translates to her studio recordings

that she does it here as well I think the actual song It's fine I don't think it's quite as fun And like zippy and fizzy as it could be I think this has the makings of a really exciting You know bubble gum pop hit For the early 2010s

I think she really kind of has all the ingredients here But there's not much of a hook Beyond the want There's really not a whole lot of heft behind it There's a lot of style and not much substance to this And yeah Diana as an artist just fails to convince me, unfortunately. I think she is,

she's unfortunately running into the tail end of the kind of, oh, aren't I so random, and I have massive hair, and I grow barefoot on stage, you know, kind of pretentious end of the late naughties. That's sort of going out with fashion in 2010, and things are getting quite sort of preened and polished again, and she finds herself caught between the two, and I think she's slightly missed her moment, unfortunately.

And said that, I saw Diana Vickers at Manchester Pride last year. By the way, adorable, because I happened to be at the very front, not for Diana, but I just happened to be at the very front. And her mum was sat at the front of the stage, just beneath the stage. She was just sat watching. It turns out her her mum goes to all of her shows. She just goes with her around the country. Isn't that lovely?

But Diana was very good, actually. She can put it on a good show, and she's not like this anymore. And this song works better live than it does on a studio recording, I think you can tell from the recording that this is more made for a crowd to shout along with the wants than anything else. But as it is, yeah, this is just fine. I think the hype around her

didn't come to fruition with this. She annoyed me far more at the time than she does now, and now I look back at her as just kind of like a funny kind of artifact of the late 90s, early tens. And I don't mean to be mean about her, but her voice is just a bit shit. Sorry. so yeah not much else to say

yeah I don't have too much on this except to say that when we covered the X Factor finalist 2008 single I was a little bit mean about Diana Vickers when we did that because she was on with Owen Quigg and all them from that year and I hated his voice

as well but I honestly didn't know because in truth I'd forgotten about her that she was still only a teenager when she was at a commercial peak so I'm going to take a bit of a step back and just be very very short on this one. Unlike you, Andy, the main problem is that I've never ever gotten on board with Diana's vocal style.

Her lips have always been too pursed for me. And the way they've processed her voice on this makes her very, very flat dynamically, like this slightly whiny, slightly digital voice crushing quite a lot of what's going on underneath, which is an unusual effect because she sings so quietly. But the affectations in her expressions always felt deliberate. Like they were going for something she was told to play up by the X-Factor producers. and then that kind of just got stuck. I've seen her perform on stage,

not in person, but just like on YouTube, doing the, she played the lead role in the rising fall of little voice, and she sounds absolutely fine in that. She doesn't even really sound like this in her X-Factor audition either. She's a bit tuneless in her X-Factor audition, but she's clearly got something, and so they put her through,

and she eventually, she finished like sixth or something in the X-Factor that year, four. She finished fourth, yeah. So, you know, and underneath once I think it's a half decent

kind of indie pop number you know Kathy Dennis and Egg White are behind this there's a lot of hits 21 pedigree behind it it's scared of going too heavy on its rock influences but the pop influences are kind of bright enough to compensate for that I suppose it does feel quite swollen

like it's trying to burst out of the stereo space that it's in but it can't but that's not a huge crime I just think they gave this material to the wrong person with the wrong vocal style at the wrong time. And for me, it just kind of dies out of the gate, unfortunately. I think that, you know, there was clearly, you know, she was savvy, I think, to get out from underneath the kind of psycho, Simon Cowell thing.

Is this not psycho? I didn't realize this. Yeah, this was released on RCA, although they're linked with Sony these days. She got a different management team anyway. And so, you know, apparently. So, you know, and she got in with the Egg White lot instead of with Simon Cowell's lot, I think, at the time. And so she was marketed a little differently and she kind of set the bit of a template. I think her and Ellie Golden arriving on the scene at the same time was a big transition point for like UK female vocalists, you know, doing the cursive singing thing, which eventually made its way over to America.

you know, they both popularised that over in the UK as far as I can remember really. And so, you know, I think she had a talent and she's a little bit older by this point. I think she's 19 by the time this is, by the time this is, you know, up in the charts and things like that. But then her follow-up singles don't really get anywhere. And then the second album, which was called Music to Make Boys Cry,

that RCA dropped her. and it was out on So recordings, which I've honestly, it doesn't have a Wikipedia page. So like, I think things didn't exactly fall apart, but I think by the mid-2010,

she was a bit like, right, I think I'm just going to stick with the stage or maybe try and make it in film and TV. Like, she had a few TV roles and things. So, you know, she was in an episode of not going out

fairly recently and things like that. So I don't know if she's trying to rebuild the career in that way. Yeah. It just, it feels a little bit like, I don't know, there's a Wikipedia, there's a section of a Wikipedia page, which is called philanthropy, and it's just her playing charity gigs. That's not bad. So, with JLS.

But yeah, so, you know, there was something going on there, but I just think when I listen to this, I'm just, her voice has always irritated me. I think that what they make her do with her voice has always irritated me, and there's not really much I can do to get away from that, to be honest. Ed, Dianavik. Now, to be fair to Diana, I know how hard it is to enunciate when you've just put some bongela on your lips.

And you want it to die. So you kind of, someone speaks to you. It's like, ah, yeah, ha. Onf, on, once, once. But yeah, yeah, the voice is, it's a bit OTT. It's a bit distracting. It's like, you know, she came in with a couple of vocal tics and they said, No, more like that.

We want it to be like Alanis Morissette or the woman from Cranberries is really out of breath. Just go for that vibe. And you're right, it's just, it's too wispy an instrument to carry a song that's this large, which is a lot going on in this song. Actually, for the most part, I rather like the song. It's got some harmonic movement you just don't hear in songs of this kind. Again, this is encore music. It reminds me a bit in some places in the way it moves of like

sophisticopop in some ways. Like the bit of the prefab sprouts occasionally. It's got that lovely like passing chord movement that you don't hear very often anymore at the end where it's just the major version of the chord turns into the minor version of the chord and it's got that lovely kind of wilting kind of oh, oh but though, sort of sigh to it that I really like.

there's that bizarre, and I think rather jarring, turn into the chorus, where it is just, it's lacking, it's not as forceful as it should be or wants to be, especially coming after such a melodically and harmonically busy, you know, verse, then bridge, then pre-chorus, and then you get this, which is just like, oh, and as you say, it just doesn't hit as hard as it should, it's hedging its bets of it in terms of its rockiness. it just doesn't land. It just sounds empty, which is a real shame. Because I just, if this did have a bit more of a forceful chorus or a bit more of a forceful voice behind it and a stronger melody, I think this could have been great. For certainly, for someone of her age, I think this is, if she wrote this, this is really good. It is just cuddly enough, I don't know this sounds so patronising, but it is just kind of cuddly enough and sweet enough for me to like it. But there's a big hole in the middle where the chorus is. I'm not as bothered by her voices as you two are, but then this is basically the first time I've heard this.

And yeah, it could do with a bit more strength in that department. Maybe she'd grow into it, but she obviously wasn't really given the chance to, at least not in a chart setting. Definitely think it's harsh that she didn't get enough time to cook because she's doing an affectation thing here that you can very easily get rid of and easily rebrand of yourself. And she never had the opportunity.

She just, she wasn't the finished article yet. And yeah, they got out too early. I think that sounds about right from what you've told me. I mean, literally, I don't think I'd even heard of it before this week. So I'm relying entirely on YouTube for context here. But one thing as well, what, I know it kind of mirrors the chorus, such as it is, but God damn it, what is with that annoying vehicle reversing sound in the intro? Because coming at, I'll be honest, while I didn't hate OMG with the few.

you did, Rob, coming out of the monotony of that song, this eh, eh, eh, eh, and it sounds like, oh my God, 2010's music really did go for fucking monotony, didn't it? It's like the sounds of industry in motion. But, yeah, there's a lot to like here. I don't, I really, I quite like it. I put it that way. I quite like this.

I think it's quite charming. All right then. So, third up this week is, This. Okay, this is Good Times by Roll Deep. Released as the lead single from the group's fourth studio album titled Winner Stays On. Good Times is Roll Deep's third single to chart in the UK and their first to reach number one, and it's not the last time we'll be coming to Roll Deep during our 2010's coverage.

Good Times went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for three weeks. In its first week atop the charts, it sold 67,000 copies, beating competition from Dirty Picture by Tio Cruz and Kesha. In week two, it sold 52,000 copies, beating competition from Watercolour by Pendulum and Candy by Agro Santos. And in week three, it sold 49,000 copies, beating competition from riding solo by Jason Derulo, Stereo Love by Edward Meyer, She's always a woman by Fife Dangerfield, all night long by Alexander Burke, and total eclipse of the heart by the glee cast. After three weeks at the top, good times fell two places to number three. It stayed inside the top 104, 18 weeks.

The single is currently officially certified platinum in the UK. As of 2026, Ed roll deep on this one. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I wish I could roll deep, but it's not. that kind of song, really, for better or worse. Baby, you're all that I need. When I need a quickie chart hit. Yeah, it's...

Yeah, I... This sounds to me, I'm going to keep it simple, a bit like a template of other songs around it. Like, if you want the basic plug-in version of a sort of dancey pop chart hit with a rap bit in it, this is what it looks like before it's handled the other bits plugged into it because I'll be quite honest

like we had tiny temper and labyrinth last time feel a little bit spoiled by that because all the songs in the same kind of mould that have come after have been a bit crap and also I just I don't I don't like it as much as the next song we're doing which kind of has a similar layout as well and also has a bit of a half inch

half inched vocal look but oh well we're obviously not that interested in doing much original at the moment, but it serves its purpose. But yeah, I wouldn't mind if there was at least some effort in the, in the rhyming. It's just, it's so perfunctory. I mean, I know it is not trying to be bloody Rakeem or something, but, you know, it's just like spoon, blune June. It's, it's so fucking basic.

It's like, it's almost like itsy, bitsy, teeny weeny kind of mini-pop's rap kind of shit. But, and honestly, like, it makes B-O-B in the next track sound really like fucking ghost face killer. I'll be honest, it's just so perfunctory. And the fact that every time that chorus, that hook comes along, I think it's a different song. It's like, what is, what is this? I mean, it's fine. It serves a basic function, but this is not the weak to be being perfunctory. Maybe it could have got away with it if we didn't have.

have OMG at the beginning and B-O-B at the end doing basically the same thing. But that's it. That's me. I'm not a fan. Carry on. Yeah, I think this episode kind of confirms something to me that like the kind of pop music I really struggled with as a 15 and 16 year old is in full effect now.

Like I'm going to go back to OMG from before where like it just felt like for the longest time, like around this time. I used to ask myself a question about songs. that were on the radio or top in the charts or were like you know loved by loads of kids at my school and that question was always what time is it in this song like what point of the day is the song being sung from and it felt like for the longest time every song or every other song that hit number one it was always 11 p.m. in a club on a Friday and the mood was always pure in it uninhibited like hedonism and like OMG is definitely 11 p.m. in a club on a Friday there are tons of songs. coming up in the next five years or so that are all at that exact same time and this is one of them. I don't mind that kind of song in isolation, you know, but it's just, it felt like in that micro genre, there is some good stuff, but it just felt like every song, every chart-topping song, every hit that my friends loved, it was just nine to five's over, get down the club,

put your drinks up, have a good time. I do like my pop to be an equal split between stuff that's uninhibited and stuff that's very self-conscious and nervous. And so at the time, I just kind of switched off mentally whenever I heard stuff like this. I think I was just so sick of feeling angry whenever I tried to go back to Radio 1, and it was just the same kind of sounds that felt like on a perpetual loop during the day. And it meant that over the years, I honestly sort of missed this happening, three weeks at the top. And I think it was honestly 2017 or 2018 before I heard this for the first time.

I don't think I ever really knew Roll Deep had gone in this direction. I must have thought it was just like a wily solo track and then went back to like, you know, my May Day Parade Records or something. Because I knew Roll Deep in the mid-2000s. They had a minor hit in 2005 with a song I really think is great called The Avenue that sampled the Masonettes, Heartbreak Avenue, which was just great. And I just kind of assumed that it was, you know, that that was it for them. I was really surprised to find out the good times was them, but knowing it

was them and listening to this, as much as this is like, you know, it's a big commercial concession, but it's not bad, really, for me. The chorus is sort of whatever. It says, behaves and feels exactly how you'd like it to go if you were a normal person listening to a song like this. The interactions between male and female vocal call and response things are fun enough. It sort of picks up from things like Dance with me, the flowrider stuff from 2009 where you're putting a rapper in a club atmosphere, you're getting good results-ish. I'm always going to have time for pop music as well that's for kids. You know, people over 30 are allowed a spate in the pop charts, but I think the majority

of the room has to be spared for people under 20, and people under 20 seem to be really into this, which is, you know, it's fine by me. But when I'm listening to this these days, there were groups who came along afterwards and did this thing so much better. I'm thinking about the group from Bradford, who were nowhere near as big called Bad Boy Chiller Crew. They were great. They had a good sense of humour. You know, I say were, like they're not still together.

But, you know, they have a good sense of humour and they've got songs like 450, don't you worry about me, guns up, BMW. They've done three albums and the first two that they did full lack, no breaks in 2020 and disrespectful in 2022. I think they're real gems and it's this stuff, but so much better. and with a little bit of a wink to it as well, I think. And yeah, I just, listening to this makes me want to listen to them. Don't worry about me in particular. So it's not bad. I'm kind of glad I missed it at the time because it means I've not felt like,

I've not felt myself growing one way or the other with it. It's decent, but yeah, it's just not bad boy, Chiller crew, is it? Andy, roll deep. It's interesting because the other Roll Deep number, one that we cover later in the year, Green Light, that was out around the time of my Freshers Week at uni, and that song was absolutely everywhere. Yeah, green lights later this year, isn't it?

Yeah, so that's like, I have a huge amount of nostalgia for that. Not necessarily that I like it, but it just really takes me back. This, though, I don't think I've ever heard before, and that's really, like, for this period of time, because 2010 was such a transformational year for me, and I was going out all the time to clubs. like it's unusual for me to not know a number one single. I think this is definitely going to be the only one of 2010 that I don't know.

And this passed me by completely. And I kind of see why, because I don't think it really grabs at much, to be honest. I don't think there's much, I don't think there's as much going on beneath the surface as it sounds like. It's quite cacophonous at times. But it's just, it's kind of a lot of noise to me, to be honest. And compared to green light, which I think is a much better, more straightforward pop song. is fine. Like, it's fine. But I think it's interchangeable with so much stuff that's coming in 2011 in particular, I think. Stuff like Where Them Gels at by David Gwetta and Wild Ones, also by David

Gwetta, I think. Um, like that kind of stuff, like, is going to be really prolific. And this feels like an early entry. And I don't, yeah, I really don't have that much to say about it, except that this passed me by completely, I completely get why. And yeah, it's fine. It's Fine. That's really all I've got on this. I am struggling this week. Yeah, I would, I would recommend listeners go and check out the Avenue for a, you know, for Roll Deep and a slightly earlier iteration. I think it only reached like the top 30 in the UK or something, but it got a fair bit of radio play and I did enjoy it. And I still, still, yeah, still enjoy it. Got a bit of a strange music video with them all as like animated, a lion characters or something. But yeah, it's, you know, that's good. But the.

that this is just kind of their other era, and I have less to say, and so does Ed, and so does Andy. So, the fourth and final song this week, before we get the hell out of here, is this. Beautiful girls all over the world. I could be chasing, but my time would be wasted. They might say hi, and I might say, hey, but you shouldn't they say, because they got... Okay, this is Nothing on You by B.O.B. and Bruno Mars. Released as the lead single from his debut studio album titled The Adventures of Bobby Ray. Nothing on You is Bob's second single to chart in the UK and is first to reach number one.

And it's not the last time we'll be coming to Bob during our 2010's coverage. This is also the first number one to be credited to Bruno Mars. Not the last time we'll be coming to him either. Nothing on You went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 85,000 copies, beating competition from Leeds, Leeds, Leeds by Leeds United team and supporters. After one week at the top, Nothing on You dropped one place to number two.

It stayed inside the top 100 for 22 weeks. The single is currently officially certified platinum in the UK. as of 2026. Obviously, I neglected to mention before in our sports news bit that Leeds United were promoted from League 1 to the championship, and that's why they did that. So,

Ed, Bruno Mars and Bob, Bob, flat earth Bob, there you go. The crazy guy who lives down the road. Yeah. Oh, I have so little to say about this. I'll pretty much start it exactly the same way as I started the last one, tellingly.

I look in the mirror. It couldn't be clearer. Yeah. It is a bit repetitive, this one. It's like he keeps going back to the start. Yeah. Oh, God. I need to get some more enthusiasm.

I just feel like I've heard the same song about four times. You're not alone, Ed. You're not alone. It's okay. It's got a pretty hook. Bruno's got a good voice. like he's good right but interestingly this sounds like

an outtake from something like 808 or watch the throne and I do mean an outtake however because it's kind of like I don't know what influence what here or was it did they just happen to be on the same sort of terrain because you know this sort of thing with a

nut nut nut none you that's a very Kanye kind of thing this sort of lazy swaggering Fonsie era Kanye in many ways going into meme era Kanye and that's

quite a different thing but yeah this is a year before watch the throne so make your own minds up there I like this more than the previous one

the previous one that's what it's come to just because I think that the wrapping is decent because BOP yeah he's not going to set the world on fire but honestly

compared to what we've had this is pretty good He's got a nice flow. I do like his little hook. The nut, nothing on you. You got nothing on you. That's a nice little bit of action in the background. Well, you've got a fairly pretty, though, fairly stolen melody going on in the foreground. It is very much of its era. There are better examples of this in its era, but this is fine.

It's fine. It's just, it doesn't go anywhere, but it is fine. Oh, God, I wish I could end with more enthusiasm than that. Please, somebody take it from it. Andy, Bob and Bruno. Yeah, not going to be adding too much to that, to be honest. It's definitely better than good times, I think. And I will say, before I say there's that a huge caveat,

that I do think this has been, in terms of the quality of material we've covered, I think this may be the worst week we've ever had. It's definitely amongst the worst week we've ever had on the show. But this is maybe my favourite of the week. between this and Diana Vickers, which is really like, not a sentence of the thing I'll have for me.

But it's at least, you know, it's listenable, it's catchy, and Bruno Mars is the star of the show here. It's interesting that, like, I think if you'd asked me to quickly say, what do you reckon is the first, like, breakout hit for Bruno Mars? I definitely would have said billionaire, and

I think that I'm not alone in that. Most people would say that, too. This, in terms of chart terms, was a bigger hit, but billionaire, I think, was, like, what really got him noticed. But you can see why he got noticed because he does have a lovely earnest tone to his voice. Hell of a singer, Bruno Mars. I think a lot of his early, very, very cheesy balladry stuff, especially Grenade, like, is quite tedious. But he's got a really, really great voice. He oozes cool and he uses charisma and that comes through even on something as generic as this. And

it is pretty generic. It's very formulaic, follows an extremely predictable structure with very few surprises in it, similar to OMG, unfortunately. But, yeah, I like his parts of it. As for Bob, well, you know, we've referred to the fact that he's a flat-earther, and I just kind of want to touch on that slightly, because I think that's made him become like a, oh, isn't he funny? That'll be oba. He's a flat-earther, which I've been guilty of myself.

But it's not just that, and I do just want to state as well, that he believes, not only in a flat earth, but he believes that the moon landing was fake. He believes that 9-11 was an inside job. He believes that the Illuminati control the world. He believes that cloning is administered by the US government. He believes that Hitler wasn't that bad, that Holocaust didn't happen, and that Jews control the United States. Yeah, that's amongst the most notable of the conspiracy theories he believes in.

Not a bright chap, then. I'll just hazard a guess there. I'll say not a nice chap. No, no. More of a cunt. Yeah. And yeah, like people laugh at the flat air thing. And I will say, if you want a funny celebrity conspiracy theory, that's just funny.

Get yourself into the Terence Howard verse. After Terrence Howard, he firmly believes that one times one is two and won't back down on it. That's a very, very funny thing. What a hill to die on. He really believes it's not possible that one plus one and one times one can equal the same thing. He's got some bullshit theory around it. But yeah, vanishingly little to say on this. In fact, I think you might say, and I'm really surprised Ed didn't make this joke.

I was able to get to it. When I look down at the bullet points I've written, I've got nothing on this. Well, God damn it, Andy. I'm just going to read word for word to first paragraph. of my notes. So, to start this off, I'll be honest with you both and all the listeners. Something happened this morning that put me in a bit of a state, a bit of a panic, because it was under 12 hours until we recorded and I still had virtually no notes for this song. And then things got even worse because this song took on human form and it asked me a question. It said,

So Rob, I'm excited to hear what you've got to say about me on the show later. Can I ask, what notes have you got on me and I just had to be honest and say got nothing on you babe there you go so there we go if you will put yourself last this is the risk that you run yes yeah we've all made the same joke so there you go

except for me what is this fucking bizarro world broke my brain these songs have broken my brain I think if I could have predicted any one of the three of us to definitely get to that joke it would have been it because I've just thought about it while I've been talking and I'm like oh I can't believe He didn't do that one. It just proves that every episode of hours is a roller coaster ride.

And if you want more roller coaster ride content, three pounds a month on Patreon, everybody. You never know what we're going to say next. No, you don't. Beautifully, beautifully segway, Rob. And they just say that, you know, if you're slightly low after the selection of songs and our thoughts about it, maybe we can pick you back up soon with some thoughts about some really good stuff from 2010.

pitch over. Sorry, I've just added an email there saying we've actually lost a Patreon subscriber based on the last 30 seconds of the podcast. So there we go. They hadn't even heard it yet. They just got the vibe. They saw the songs.

I'm like, what have I done? It's funny, actually. I saw somebody react to this episode before it was even out. I shouldn't have been able to hear that. What is there to say, except, hello Bruno Mars. This is the first of five number ones for him.

We'll be discussing him until 2014 as it pertains to his number ones and well into the 2020s when it comes to Born to Runner Up, it's kind of strange seeing him in this early version of himself again, because now we know him as a bit of like a sort of avonies, as the chart music lot would call it, revivalist. You know, he's uptown funk and 24-carat magic and die with a smile. You know, it's going to feel weird to go back to these days of like nothing on you and grenade and just the way you are and marry you and things like that, where he's marketed as a super sensitive and like super-romat.

romantic boys to men style singer who will literally bend down over a muddy puddle so that his girlfriend of three days doesn't have to walk through it. His section though, I wish it was a bridge or a pre-chorus, but it's not. This is a really annoying trend in 2010's pop where they come up with a great bridge or like a pre-chorus thing and you think, right, here we go, main events coming next, and then it goes into a purely instrumental section or just goes back to the verse again. and this is what happens here because they don't want to steal too much from Bob, but like Bob is about as average as a rapper can be, and I don't think it was worth Atlantic Records taking this. You were saying it about this sounding like a bit of an outtake from Ait O'Oates and Heartbreak or something.

This was Lupe Fiasco's thing first. They had ideas for Bob, who was a mixtape rapper who gave up credibility for pop hits, so the story goes. and with Lupe Fiasco, he had both airplanes and nothing on you in his possession. He didn't write them. They were written by like another, you know, other teams and things like that. Bruno Mars did write this apparently with his collaborator, who I forget the name of, and they were shopping it around to various rappers.

And I think that Lupe Fiasco and Bob were both on Atlantic Records, and Lupe did a version of it, which is on YouTube. and it doesn't sound great, but with another rewrite, it could have been something interesting, I suppose, but Atlantic took it off him and gave it to Bob instead, and then Lupe Fiasco released lasers in 2011 after many delays, and it wasn't very good. He kind of got himself back on track,

but that was a low point in his life and his career, as far as the reports go. Bob has four US top tens over 2010 and 2011, a couple more top 20 hits. He has one more UK number one after this and another top 10 hit off the back of that, but that is it. By 2014, 2014, only four years from this point, his album stopped charting, and by 2018, his albums stop having Wikipedia pages. And like, yeah, Lupa's version of this isn't the best.

I think he sounds a bit tired on his demo version. And I think Bob is right for reappraisal in my head, because two singles from this album featured two of my favorite singers of all time. You know, we have Haley Williams on airplanes coming up, and then there's magic with Rivers Cuomo, which he does later. But give Lupe another go at writing his verses on this, and he would produce something much better. Bob's charisma is a bit of a charisma void, to be honest, and there's not much you can do about that. Don't get me wrong, Bruno performs his sections with, like, the necessary combination of, like, you know, grace and romance. You know, he could sing the phone book, that sort of thing.

and Bob does okay and there's like little scar influences in this which are fine and there's melodic segments in Bob's verses which are okay you know they've been to London bit of pair you know that bit but I've tried with this

but it's like it's very pretty but it's kind of just empty this and that is an issue with 2010's pop in general I think where I wouldn't say it's substanceless to the degree that I hate it but it's kind of what I meant about like music being written to

pacify and just kind of keep things steady while someone's driving in the car, it can fade into the background if you want. And I hate that pop music is being, it was in this point where it was like it didn't feel like the center of the universe, even though I was 16, it just felt like that you could ignore it and not really miss much in terms of missing vital moments or anything like that. The only last thing I have to say is that, of course, in 2011, Bob and Bruno Mars are both the target of Tyler the Creator on his breakout song, Yonkers,

where Tyler says he wants to crash that fucking airplane that that F-sler, N-word Bob is in, and stab Bruno Mars in his goddamn esophagus and won't stop until the cops come in. And listening back, it's kind of funny, considering, you know, Tyler the Creator has since come out as bisexual. Bruno Mars has since rebranded and started releasing the kind of music that Tyler the creator might like, while Bob has an entire section on his Wikipedia page, as we all know, called Flat Earth, which, by the way, is a fantastic read. I'm going to read out the full Flat Earth section. It's not very long.

It's not just that he believes in the conspiracy. He went like deep on this. So, in January 2016, Bob expressed the belief that the earth is flat. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson responded to Bob on Twitter and attempted to persuade him that the Earth is round, but the rapper refused to retract his views and accuse NASA of avoiding questions while releasing a disc track against Tyson. The track titled Flatline expands on Bob's views about the shape of the earth.

Tyson and his rapper nephew Stephen responded to Bob's flat earth disc with their own disc track titled Flat to Fact. Tyson followed this with a January 2016 television appearance on the Comedy Central Central Late Night Talk Show, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, where he addressed the rapper. It's a fundamental fact of calculus, a non-Euclidean geometry. Small sections of large curved surfaces will always look a little flat to creatures that crawl on it. And by the way, this is called gravity, Tyson said, dropping his mic. Bob accepted membership in the Flat Earth Society in 2016. In 2017, sorry, in September 2017, Bob bought $200,000, sought $200,000 in donations to launch his own satellites to verify the shape of the Earth.

Shortly after seeking the original $200,000, Bob increased his request to a million dollars to cover the cost of many tests, seeking drones, weather balloons and satellites. All of this is cited. So, Ed, the four songs we have had this week. Oh my gosh, once, good times and nothing on you. Where are they all going? Well, I feel obliged to push Usher and Will I Am into the pie hole. but what's interesting is I get them there and I push them,

but they're so lazy, they can't even be bothered to fall. So they just kind of hang in the entrance way, like knackered puppets, waiting for the next person to try and dislodge them. So that's an awkward obstacle for the next person trying to enter the pie hole. Diana may be going nowhere, but hey, no cold sores. Roll deep, roll very deep.

Bit further, bit further, bit lower. Yeah, slides past William and I'm gonna sure right into the pie hole. There you go. While Bruno Mars and B-O-B stay on Earth and do sweet F-A. As for me, Usher and Will I am, ugh, pie hole miles in. Diana Vickers just slips into the pie hole for me, but only just roll deep, and Bob and Bruno Mars managed to avoid it. And Bob and Bruno Mars are flat in the middle.

Andy! Oshare and Will I am. Diana Vickers, Roll Deep, Bob and Bruno Mars. Yeah, it got me like pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, that's going straight there for Usher and where I am. Diana Vickers, well, hmm, that's staying in the middle, because unlike her namesake, this doesn't completely crash, but neither is she the people's princess.

So that's staying exactly in the middle. And good times. Well, I'd say they were more like mediocre times, entirely adequate times, passable times. That's staying in the middle as well. And what the hell was the last one? It was nothing on you by being... That'll do. What the hell was it?

And yet, I had nothing on that except that BOP is a twat. And that stays in the middle. All right then, so we'll be back with more gripping 2010 content in a week. Well, yeah, next week or next episode or whenever. it is, thank you very much for listening and we will see you next time. Bye-bye now. Bye. Bye-bye.