The Rest Is Entertainment - Noel Edmonds, Glen Powell & The Salt Path: 2025 BEST OF

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Is Morrissey the new Noel Edmonds? Will Glenn Powell’s hot sauce line succeed? How did the Salt Path controversy shake the world of publishing? And how did a Fred Durst diss track majorly backfire? Join Richard and Marina for a look back on some of their favourite stories from 2025 as featured on the show. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Imee Marriott Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is presented by E.E. Marina, are you hosting or guesting for Christmas this year? Normally, every other year I am a very grateful guest, but I'm now a slightly trepidacious host. Yes, it is me in the apron having a meltdown over all the cooking. No, I don't think I'll have a meltdown. It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah. But you have to just keep saying to yourself, it's just a big chicken. Just a big chicken.

It's just a really big chicken. It's just a really enormous chicken. We are also hosting this year, looking forward to it very much. If you are hosting, and EE has the best broadband technology. If you are guesting, then EE has the best mobile technology. And my goodness, you need it at Christmas, right? Yes, the third babysitter, the distractor. Just when the family walk into the house is, hello grandma, hello granddad. What's the Wi-Fi password?

I might need that. Get the best connectivity for your home and your phone with EE. And if you're guesting, lucky you, EE has the best mobile network to keep you. you connected to music, maps and backseat streaming for the kids when you're traveling. Search EEE does more. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond.

It's Christmas, isn't it? So would you forgive us that instead of like a normal episode, we're going to do a best of 2025. A really good selection box. But with no, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say no toffee pennies. No toffee pennies. I like toffee pennies. I like toffee pennies.

And I cannot lie. Should we get straight into it? No. No, because it is... Not again. Not the discourse again. No, listen, not the discourse. Why should I start it? Please not the discourse.

Well, because it's the 23rd and it is a best of, but you have to give a little bit of value to people. Yes, toffee penny, we all agree, is the worst. I've actually come round a tiny bit more this year in my quality street eating to the extent I found myself reaching for a toffee penny the other because there's something in it. I think I'd get you in the end. But what is that? What is that my taste maturing?

I don't think it is maturing because I don't think you'd still be eating Quality Street with a mature palette. I've got a sort of Quality Street voodoo doll that I've been working really hard on all year to make you like the Toffee Penny. And I just want to say it works. As you know, orange cream and strawberry cream are the best. But they have that orange, they have that orange, that crispy orange one now as well that I, sorry. Where do you stand? Whoa. You look like you didn't like it.

I prefer it to either the two you just mentioned. Where do you stand on the ones when you just go to the pick and mix and you can just, you don't have to have any dead wood. as far as you're concerned. So for you, you'd be able to get the really perverted choices of the orange and strawberry creams and you wouldn't have to bother yourself with toffee pennies. Where'd you stand on those? Have you been to them when you can fill the tub yourself? A quality suite, you can fill your tub yourself?

No. Oh my God, I can't wait to take you on an announcement. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they had one in John Lewis. It's right in your wheelhouse on every level this one. John Lewis? No, with this is not an ad.

No, it's not an ad. But if you want to sponsor the podcast, please do. Oh, my God. I would love them to sponsor the podcast, especially if they've got freebie, pick and mix. got a tub and you can go and you can get all, you know, Noisette triangles now called the Green Triangle. You can get all of the things. You could have a whole tin of just what you wanted and you fill your own tub and it's in John Lewis. Fill your own tub. Yeah. Great name for an autobiography. Yeah, I would just go, I would just go the fondant creams. I'd see even though

even though I've, you know what, they'll never be out of stock of what you want. I think they will. Actually, why don't we go along and have a look at what's out of stock and that will really settle a lot of arguments? But everybody, and then you've probably got people round or, you know, or perhaps even if Christmas is a quiet time for you and you're just kind of listening and mucking about, it's just a selection of stories from this year. I really, really hope you enjoy it. And I hope you understand why we're not doing a live episode as well.

There will be another one of these on Christmas Day because we are not doing a live episode on Christmas Day this year because last year, apparently it upsets our families. So there'll be this one. There'll be one on Thursday as well. but it's been a real pleasure spending the year with you, and I hope there'll be bits on here that you haven't heard, and do enjoy everything apart from the Toffee Penny.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Now, for a lot of things have happened since this podcast began. The world has changed in lots of ways, politically, the world of entertainment. We live in a slightly different world than we did way back when. But I think of all the things that have ever happened, this story might be the biggest. Yeah. And I mean, why wasn't it on the front pages of a lot of places? Catch up, guys, because Glenn Powell has launched a sauce brand.

Let me tell you what he'll do you, Richard. It's called Smash Kitchen. He'll do you. Oh, that's good. Yeah, Smash Kitchen. He'll do you a yellow mustard, a Dijon mustard. He'll do a ketchup. He'll do you a hot honey ketchup.

Hot honey ketchup. He'll do you an American barbecue, your stripper name. You'll give you an American barbecue sauce, a hot honey barbecue sauce, mayo and spicy mayo. And I'll tell you what he'll do, Richard, which is what makes this interesting, is that he will sell it via Walmart at an affordable price. None of that will cost you any more than $4.79, and some of it will have cost as little as $2. Now. Sorry, did we go to adverts?

Yes. No, none of this is sponsored. But although, Glenn, if you do want sponsor, please, please get in touch. Send us some source. Just anyway, get in touch. You have to really just make sure it's. sealed before you send it over. You don't want, you don't want. Well, I'm sure that he will have taken care of every detail, Richard. Now, this is selling through Walmart, which I think

is really interesting, and I'll get into that in a minute, but because lots of celebrities have got artis and this and that's brands, haven't they? You know, Brooklyn Beckham does a hot sauce and he has done one, you know, especially curated. Yeah, he's got hot sauce, you know. I'm not a hot sauce guy. I'm, oh my God, I absolutely love hot sauce. Yeah, yeah. I have many, many, many hot sources. But, yeah. Me, I have many, many hot sauces. But this is the one I want most, by the way. All right, Woodward and Bernstein. Now listen. Okay, so he had a big launch party and he had it in, you know, in Beverly Hills or

wherever it was in Hollywood. And they had lots of sort of fancy celebrities went along and they had a French fries station, but whatever. So they did all the sort of glitzy side of it. And I think, you know, Guinness Paltrow unboxed someone, whatever. it's organic, this thing. Decaprio was there, I saw. Decaprio. Yeah. I mean, you know you've made it in Hollywood if you do with sources.

Stella McCartney. I mean, I think it's just like random famous people are in town that night. But you think about the stuff Decapria must get invited to. Yeah. I mean, it must be sort of non-stop. He's got something, Richard. I'm telling you, he's got something. Powell?

Yeah. Yeah, he sure has. Now, so, okay, why has he done this? Now, again, they've all got round. They've all got, well, yeah, no, he's got a backstory. Like, you know, you always have to have the backstory. We all made sauces growing up. My sister reminded me, I made my own hot honey ketchup at seven years old.

We slad the sauces on everything. You know, he's the family. We're all there. So his backstory is I come from a family that you sourced. That we made lots of sauce. Yeah. Okay. Look, it's, it's will this do, and it will do.

Yes, it will do. Because I put a lot of vinegar on my chips, and I've yet to release a wine range. Well, marketers, please get in touch. Richard would like to partner on a vinegar range. Sarcens come and get me. Yeah. Big sarsons will be after you. I would love that.

But he, anyway, but what he's really saying with this is, of all the things he could do, I mean, obviously people do luxury things all the time, or they do high-end alcohol brands. They partner with things all the time, celebrities. This to me is different, not just because it's Glenn Powell. But, you know, what he's saying is, you know, I'm from Texas. I'm from the great state of Texas. We love barbecue. I'm for everyone.

I'm at a price point everyone can afford. I'm still talking about the source, I think. I'm apprised over Red State and Blue. Once again, there's very helpful Sydney-Sweeney romance rumours I see have, you know, re-animated. Can't believe it myself. However, again, the Red State King and Queen, they were like, and we're for everybody. And what I think about this is really interesting is that it's mass produced. It's for Walmart.

He said, my long-term intention is to change every kitchen staple. Wow. You're an actor. But anyway, it doesn't matter. It's 2025. They have to all talk like this. Also, that's why I went into acting. Yeah, but, you know, nothing's going to cost more than $4 or $5.

But he said, no one in our country is more than 10 minutes away from a Walmart, and it's almost 30% of the grocery market. Again, he is an actor. But we all talk like this in the year 2025, which I sort of love. What he's saying is, I'm a mass-produced mainstream star because he does want to get back. Remember I always tell you that Glenn Powell wants to get back to, like, whatever expendables he was in, Expendables 3, and he was with all the guys, and they were all saying to me, oh, no, this is what it was like being a movie.

he's down in the 90s. He's like, he can't believe it. He wants to tunnel his way back to that level of kind of mass appeal. So Glenn Powell is this source, Richard, I suppose, why I'm saying in lots of ways. But I tell you what it reminds, because it's such a sort of direct callback to it. Also, so much of the things he does that sort of, you know, that character he, in and in Top Gun Maverick, when he's sort of trying to, you know, basically sort of trying to do a, not a simulacrum of Valcoma, but a bit of one. And then this one, Newman's own source. Remember Paul Newman, The story of Newman's own source is quite interesting. He started it with a writer called A. E. Hotchner, who was Hemingway's biographer.

And one Christmas, in some barn that Paul Newman, they thought, well, we was constantly talking about salad dressing. We make it. We're bottled it for all our friends. They were constantly talking about salad dressing. Hotschner is very funny about it. It's like, he would bring me the whole time, just wanted to talk about salad dressing. I was like, we've got to do something with this. Anyway, so they make this sauce. They give it some friends.

Everybody loves it. They keep talking about it. It's like, okay, let's think how we do this. Martha Stewart sets up as a sort of blind taste test with proper judge. It's all done like by the book. Everyone puts this Newman's own source, which is a salad dressing, I think the first one they do first. And then apart from two, who put it a second.

So they're like, okay, fine. So they become a company that day. They make a million in their first year. Paul Newman didn't want his face anywhere on it if you've actually seen the bottles of it because it was a mass produced item. Again, this has been, it went into every American supermarket. And he was like a proper big. list, scarcity value star. I mean, unbelievable. But he, and one of the great movie stars,

but he hated what he called noisy philanthropy. So he said, I don't want to be on this. And he didn't even want them to put 100% of profits, which is still, they still all go to charity. Oh, do they? Okay. I don't know. I don't know. Smash Kitchen's profits. The whereabouts of them have not been specified. So I think they perhaps go to Glen Power and his business partners. But anyway. Fair enough. It's a traditional way to do business. I get it. But even back then, they were inventing all the stories on the packaging. So there was a thing that he said, there was organic pretzels and it said,

my daughter, I had to forfeit my house to my daughter when she came up with an, a better, I said, you couldn't come up with an organic pretzel, and she did, and I had to give her my house. And the daughter's like, yeah, no, that's not true. But, and then he said, some of them were stupid. I were like, I bought this spicy pasta sauce back myself from hell. Okay.

Yeah, so there were once like that. I remember for my book, the World Cup of everything I was doing, restaurants and I was looking at to Frankie and Benny's I love doing things like that and Frankie and Benny's menu is all kind of and Francisco and Benedicto

came over from Napoli in the 1920s and I sort of looked them up and it was established in Lester in 1995 or something like Yeah, tell me actually what tell me, I'd like to know a lot more about Jack Daniels Hollow than is on the posters

every time I'm signing on a tube platform and I read about it I'm like yeah I'd love to visit it be like a horrible facility yeah every brand should start It was 2021 when two venture capitalists had noticed that Tequila was doing particularly well. And they thought, how can we elbow into this market? It's that sweet zip in private equity.

Yeah, well, okay, but Glenn Powell is the source. This is what I'm trying to say to you that he is trying to be a mass market. So I find it absolutely hilarious that of all the here. And also just that actors have to talk like that nowadays, which I just find genuinely hysterical. Do you think, shall I tell you why I think it is? Because back in the day, they could be paid $20. $20 million a movie. Yeah.

And Glenn knows that because he's gone on the expendable three. And what do you think he's on a movie, eight? Yeah. Something like that. So he's got to think, how do I make $12 million a year? I'm just literally thinking, I'm in a business where it used to be I would be paid $40 million a year. I'm currently being paid $18 million a year. So I feel $22 million poor.

Yeah, but he sells it. He sells it. I believe every single word about this story. He's from the Great State of Texas. Yeah. He's not part of all. Hollywood. All of it actually contributes to the same overall brand. So whoever is Glenn Powell sort of brand supremo and there'll be about 50 of them on a team. That's another thing. You've got to pay

those people. So whoever's creating the world of Glenn Powell. It was around about 2023 when three brand consultants working for Glenn Powell had a bright idea. Welcome to a creative artist agency. One of the, you know. Yeah. And again, Glenn, please, is it any story about source from your childhood, just anything at all? We go, I think once I mixed up a couple of sources at home and I got in trouble. Yeah, so you invented your own sauce. I did two sachets. I guess so. Exactly. The occasion I would put mustard and ketchup, like from the same thing on the same burger. So you've made sauces. But his aim is quite simply to change every single kitchen staple. And they're going to have others. There's going to be more. I am here for every second of this

rollout across Walmart and hopefully across the Atlantic Ocean. Actually, I'm going to America in early June and I'm going, if you don't think I'm bringing back some Glen Powell sauce. Yeah, I'm going to New York and I'm sure. Will they have it? Will it be available by coastally? I'm not sure because it's available in Walmart but I'll see if I can find one in Manhattan By the way they're going to let you in Yeah Both of us are gripped by the tale of the salt path

Now If you haven't heard of the salt path Let me take you through it It's a true story of a couple from Wales Who threw no fault of their own lose their house And become homeless Not only that

The husband in this couple And they're called Rainer Win and Moth Win the husband has a degenerative disease, something akin to Parkinson's, find themselves homeless, and they embark on a 630-mile walk around the southwest coast of England called the Salt Path. So it's a memoir, it's a true story, it became a massive phenomenon. Book clubs all around the country love it. It's such an incredibly inspirational story.

People have really, really bought into it. It means a great deal to a huge amount of people. So much so that a movie came out a few weeks ago with Gillian Anderson playing Rainer Wynn, Jason Isaac's playing Mothwyn. And it's just one of those incredibly rare success stories where a publisher picks up a small story, a true story, something that speaks to our time, something that speaks about humanity,

something that speaks about human beings, and readers really, really jumped on board. This book means a great deal to a great deal of people. So just this incredible, true story, strength, adversity, bad luck, just everything about life. but it turns out perhaps it was not true. And then this weekend,

a fantastic investigation in The Observer came out by the journalist Chloe Hadimetteo, but also some additional reporting violence on them. There's often quite a few people involved in a big team effort like this, saying that their names aren't really Rainer and Mothwyn. Their names are Sally and Tim Walker. Walker. I mean, it was right there.

They turned walking into wins, that's for sure. Yeah. That those were not the circumstances of how they lost their home. In fact, it's quite a convoluted tale, but it suggests that Sally Walker embezzled money to start with, and then, as I say, it's quite unconvoluted, there's a loan, there's all sorts of other things,

but the embezzlement is the key part of it. And it also contains commentary from various sort of consultant neurologists who say that this diagnosis of corticableness, basal degeneration you would normally expect in fact nobody really lives beyond eight years and it's an awful awful condition um and 18 years on to be flourishing is essentially unheard of and of course occasionally medical I mean in a blue moon a medical miracle occurs but there is a considerable doubt cost on the nature of that aspect of the story as well so it's pretty much all of it I mean I I think they did the walk.

Yes, I don't even know if they did all of that. So it is this incredibly inspirational true story, which turns out it may well not be true. Can we not have nice things? This is like Captain Tom's family all over again. Could she not have a spa complex, Richard? No, she couldn't. She had to have it knocked down.

I bet she has got one. I bet the walkers have got one. But I cannot overestimate how much this has gone off like a bomb in the world of publishing because this is a huge, huge, huge lead item for everyone. has been one of the massive success stories. And, you know, publishing, you know, you don't, you don't have all that many and they pay for everything, these big success stories. And the Sault Path is one of those books that has paid for so many other books over the last eight years.

It is massive. And everyone in publishing is absolutely reeling this week. All of this has been put to Rainer and Moth Wynn and in significant detail. And they've issued the following statement, which is not very detailed. They've said the sort path lays bear the physical and spiritual journey, Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey. Well, thanks for the blub, but that does not respond even vaguely to any of the material allegations in this particular investigation. A spokeswoman for the Wins has said that the allegations made in a Sunday newspaper were highly misleading. They are consulting lawyers.

They're consulting lawyers. Clearly, this is published by Penguin Random House. I mean, they'll have a lot, well, I mean, let's start talking about it. Well, yeah, no, absolutely. I'm published by Penguin Random House and, you know, a bomb would have gone off there this week. Because this... Would it have gone on? And you see, now, I have another theory. Okay, great.

Which is that I actually think, you know, we've all heard the expression and it means lots of different things. Where there's a hit, there's a writ. Yes. People often come out of the woodwork when something becomes successful. Rather like those consultant neurologists, I'd be surprised if, this was the very, very first that after a book has been that successful

that Penguin Random House have heard that maybe the circumstances at the start of it, certainly, that lead to the whole story-taking base don't necessarily add up. I would be surprised if that's the first because there has been online commentary which I actually wasn't aware of

but I've gone back and I can see that it existed. As often in these things you read people going oh this was an open secret and I definitely don't think it was an open secret I'd never heard before that this was fakeery. I hadn't really got involved in the salt path world. I can sort of feel that book is not for me. But, you know, people are saying, oh, no, we knew and we'd be at festivals.

Jillian Anderson, when she said, they said, oh, how did you find Raina Wynn when you met her? And she went, I thought she was quite guarded. And you think, really? The two central tenets at the heart of this book, the things that make it sell a huge amount of money, the things that make it really resonate with Middle Britain and with readers across the world, they lost their house through no fault of their own. These allegations suggest that is not the case. They lost their house because Sally Walker had embezzled money.

They didn't borrow from somebody else and that person had called in the loan and so the house no longer belonged to them. And also the ability somehow to turn back the course of an illness through communing with nature. I mean, you have a huge responsibility. Everyone who writes about anything medical and any form of, even in the broadest terms, alternative treatment has a huge responsibility to bear. And if you're publishing anything that suggests that, then you also have a huge responsibility bear. As I say, I saw a woman saying that my husband's got CBD and I've lost count of the times in the last five years that people have said, you must read this book. And perhaps he should go for a long walk.

And the despair that I had of understanding that's not something that he was able to do and not quite understanding what it was that must be in this book. If you're talking about medical things and you're talking about what nature can do and you're talking about medicinal effects of things, that is a big issue not any for the wins by the way and that's their business but for the publisher yes for the publisher it is the medical aspect is probably the most serious aspect of it it's interesting I kept thinking back and as I say I don't know the origin story of this but obviously she's a first time writer and I wonder if she perhaps glossed over as you might do the circumstances the loss of the house because it's much better to get on the walk

and they've said and your editor would say well hang on I think we really want to delve more into this because it, the payoff doesn't make, is not so satisfying. Yeah. And also there's, you know, we've got to go really down and then we can go up. Rain and Wins version of the book, there is a bad guy who is an old colleague of Moth Wins, who sort of asks him to invest in something and then pulls the rug from under them and takes their house. So there's a proper bad guy at the start of the book who we're like, oh my God, you're

so unlucky that that happened to you. And yeah, you would think that an editor might be saying, oh, it'd be, let's find out a little bit more about that person. I think that person, who is Ros Hemming's husband, passed away a few years ago. And she said, Ross Hemming said, in a way, I'm sort of glad he doesn't, he didn't see this book ever come out because it would have absolutely, it would have hurt him so much, the lies in it. Well, I think it's, yeah, I think it's interesting, but I do nonetheless think, what's the editing procedure there when you're saying, okay, this person did this thing to us? You're still thinking, if you're the lawyer, okay, can this person be identified?

If this person can be identified, while they're still alive, you're going through all of those different pros. You know, you have to be so careful with all of these things, as we say. And you can get away with things in books that you might not be able to on TV or whatever. But if that person is dead, then even so, I think you'd have to produce, I would be, if I was publishing this book, I would require these people to produce some forms of evidence. And maybe they just said, well, we don't have anything left because we put what we had in our backpacks and we weren't on our wall. it's too painful for us. Yeah.

If over the next few days, weeks, whatever, the amount of people coming out of the woodwork, because they've emboldened by this and it's gone public to speak out, and the claims become sort of, are able to be sort of fairly incontrovertibly proved to be false, what do you then do if you're paying a random house? Gosh, it's a very interesting question. I think that probably you try and claw back some of the money that you've passed over. I don't know this particular contract. The contract would normally be that they have gotten.

that everything in this piece is truthful. And again, things can be highly misleading, but if something is a deliberate lie, then, you know, Penguin Random House, I guess, would have some sort of recourse. Obviously, any money you do get back in, that's got to go straight to some sort of charity. I mean, past Dukas, Penguin Random House will know also that, you know, they've been remiss here. You know, when you're involved in a book and you have that sort of fan groups around the book, you know how much these books mean to people. books mean to people and especially with this when it's to do with illness you know what this

means to people so you know that people are going to be very very hurt i suggest that there would be on one hand there'll be some legal issues if these things do turn out to be not true and on the other hand some some reputational work that would need doing and someone's getting a new neurology wing aren't they yeah exactly this episode is brought to you by channel 4. Now, Richard, settling down on a winter's evening, turn the TV on, what sort of thing are you searching for? Well, when you think about Channel 4, you think about quirky, you think about slightly off the wall. I, my absolute go-to's, well, three things my absolute go-to's, grand designs, because Kevin McLeod is a greatest television presenter in the history of factual

entertainment, 24 hours in police custody. Again, because it changed the way those things were done. You know, it changed, we'd seen all sorts of police investigation things, but 24 for hours in police custody, absolutely had a new, unusual, refreshing way of covering those cases. And every single time there is a new one, they have to release them. They can't sort of release them week by week because they're literally waiting for court cases to come through. Some of them are waiting for years. For years and years and years. But anytime a new one pops up on the streaming service, I'm like, here we go. And I also love the dog house, which is just about rescue dogs and people who want dogs. And it's almost like a sort of slightly kind of

matchmakery type so. Fantastic. I endorse those messages, and you can stream them all now on Channel 4. Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry. And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment, completely uninvited. We are not going to stay too long, unless you want us to, of course. We're here to tell you about our brand new show. The rest is science.

Every episode is going to start with something that feels initially familiar. And then we're going to unpick it and tear it apart until you no longer recognize it at at all. Yeah, banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas. Yeah, what is that about? So it is supposed to taste like a old species of banana that was wiped down in a banana apocalypse. And now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires. Wow. Banana candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana. So if you like scratching the surface, thinking a little bit deeper or weirder. Yes, definitely that too.

You can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about bands. Morrissey, shall we? Morrissey has put his business interests in the Smith's up for sale. Yes. He's actually headlined it, a soul for sale. Yeah. A soul for sale.

Marcy's soul. Okay. These comprise, according to Morrissey's soul. According to Morrissey, the name the Smith's as created by Morrissey. By the way, these are Morrissey's words, not yours. Yes. Oh, yeah. And every time he say, as created by Morrissey, Morrissey himself has written that.

Let's type that onto his website himself. All Smith's artwork as created by Morrissey. Every time he's doing it, he's thinking, is it double R, double S? He probably finds it easier than I do. Yeah, he's got a keyboard shortcut for it now, I think. All Smith's merchandising rights, all Smith's songs lyrically and musically, all synchronisation rights, all Smith's recordings, and all contractual rights for Smith's publishing.

The reason he's doing it says, I am burnt out by any and all connections to Marr, Rourke, Joyce, his three erstwhile bandmates. One of whom is deceased, and the Rourke is deceased. Yeah, and interestingly, one of whom, Mike Joyce, is just about to release a book, but entirely coincidental. Yeah. He says, I've had enough of malicious associations. With my entire life, I have paid my rightful dues to these songs and these images.

I would now like to live dissociated from those who wish me nothing but ill will and destruction. and this is the only resolution. The songs are me. They are no one else. It's like this podcast, isn't it? It's all marina. But they bring with them business communications that go to excessive lengths

to create as much dread and spite year after year. I must now protect myself, especially my health. Any serious investors should make contact Eves7760 at gmail.com. And I read out that email address because if you send something to it,

which I've done, it just bounces back. It doesn't appear to work. Okay, there's a lot to unpack, a lot of toys to unpack or pick off the ground. To put back into the prank. The bit that seems to be really getting to him is that they bring with them business communications. I mean, the admin of artistry does make me laugh a lot. I mean, it's really interesting. Actually, a lot of people much further down the tree who's never had anything approaching the success that Smiths have had,

say, you know, obviously you're in a band because you love making music and you love performing and you love all of those things. But just a huge amount is spent getting from A to B, you know, booking venues, dealing with the admin, just dealing with the admin. Have we paid VAT on our German royalties? Yeah. And there's a huge amount of admin. And it reminds me of various things. It reminds me of things like we've talked about before that even if you're a really big time actor, a tiny amount of your schedule of the pie chart really could be you in front of a camera. Actually acting.

All of the rest of it, in case of Mark Wahlberg, as we frequently say, is praying, having a lot of shout. hours. Turning down selfies. It's a huge amount and actually the thing that you're in it for is just a tiny amount of the day. I think even if you're in just a small band that kind of has a few gigs, people say, oh it's eight hours a week. They did actually a study of up and coming Dutch musicians. Did they? Yeah, no, it's really interesting. Okay. Who's doing that? He's getting paid for that? I don't know, but it's quite a fun thing to do to talk to them and say, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it funded by Dutch musicians' moms? I don't know. I think Dutch musicians' mum's, maybe at that stage, you're probably helping them out with the admin,

driving them. By the way, great name for a band. Dutch musicians' moms. And they found that quite a large percentage of the week was spent on that. And obviously, most people, as we discussed last week, have other jobs. Morrissey has one job, which is being Morrissey at all times. Yeah. That's a full-time job, by the way, that's more than that needs 150% of anyone else.

But the admin of it all seems to really get to him. I think what you're hitting up on there is, exactly right, which is when you start a band, I mean, I started with the question, why the bands all end up suing each other? And most bands form in the sort of teens and 20s, and it's usually quite a random collection of individuals. There's absolutely no reason why it is Marr, Morrissey, Rawkin, Joyce, it could have been any number. And when you look into the history of all of these bands, you know, there's various people who sort of drifted in and out. So it's quite a random collection of people you're with. And you're with them, in the Smith's case, and in the

case of the cellar band, we're going to talk about five years, tops, something like that. And almost all your time is spent writing songs, being fated for those songs, touring those songs, people going absolutely crazy about those songs. Also some arguing in the pie chart. Of course, of course. And towards the end, more and more arguing. As you get more and more successful and the pie gets bigger and bigger, more arguments about who gets what chunk of that pie.

When you split up, of course, and when, you know, the phone stops ringing quite so much, your spirit is still exactly the same. Your love for what you do is exactly the same. Your love for your art is the same. The feelings that you have and of the fandom remains. the same, but there is less and less and less to do. You know, you're not going into the studio every day with your mates. You know, you're doing solo albums or, you know, solo tours that are slightly smaller. You're doing all those things. And so suddenly, that idea of your legacy

starts to rear its head. And if you are the Smith, there's lots of money there as well and, you know, reunion tours and things like that. But that's when you get to the point of, but these are three random guys I met in my 20s. You know, if you think back listeners to just a random group of people that you used to hang out with in your 20s and imagine now you've got a hundred million to spread out between you and it's it all comes down to which of you is the most talented you know that's a that's a heady brew it's not like these are the three musketeers and they'll never be split they're all bands by and large are made up of incredibly disparate individuals and the adrenaline of being in a gang when you're in your 20s is so enormous and

the fanfare and all of those things is so enormous but when you're in your 40s and you know You've got a, you just bought a home in L.A. and you've got a home in Tuscany and you've still got a house in Manchester and you actually need a bit more money. Or maybe you were the drummer and you're not getting as much money as the others. That starts to focus the mind into, oh, actually, it was fun and I do love the art. But there was a lot of money and I don't appear to have an awful lot of it. And the singer, he does appear to have an awful lot of it. So Smith, years ago, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke sued Morrissey and Marr for a bigger share of songwriting. duties and Mike Joyce got a payout. Andy Rourke, who sadly no longer with us, took an 80,000 pound payoff because I think he was desperate for the money at the time. Mike Joyce held out a bit longer and got a bit more money. But this happens to so many bands. As I say, Mike Joyce has got his book about to come out. It's called The Drums. And it'll be brilliant. Everyone you talked to about Mike Joyce says he's just the nicest man in the business, just an absolutely rock solid guy. Unrelated news. Unrelated news. Unrelated news.

Is it also unrelated? Is it also unrelated? Is this current news also unrelated to the fact that Morrissey suggested doing a reunion tour and Johnny Marr didn't want to do it? He didn't feel the vibe was right, which puts it quite mildly, I think. Johnny Marr, who again, everyone you talk to, because you do sometimes think with this thing, you think, oh, everyone's anti-Morisy, everyone's pro-Mar. But is that true?

So I tried to speak to lots of people who've been in their orbit. And Mar comes up with a pretty clean bit of health as well. People love him. And yeah, he absolutely turned down the tour, which would have been a lot of money because he would have felt compromised by it. The other thing, which relates back to something we have often said, and particularly last week, is that the money now comes from touring. And so you have to actually be back in the same place together. I mean, you have to say that spinal tap, the new spinal tap reunion thing is so in the wheelhouse of contempo culture because they are all. I mean, in the old days, you say, what band that old would have gone out?

out on the road. Of course they wouldn't. It's not like, oh, all of them. They will all do this unless they literally want to kill each other. I mean, the money that Oasis are making is, and very few bands can make that money, by the way, and the Smith wouldn't make that money. Oasis have a particular place in the heart of our culture and even in America that they're able to do that. But the Smith would be making a lot, certainly more than Morrissey and Mar have now. So Morrissey, I think, weirdly, historian reminds me of when we were talking about Noel Edmonds, which is Morrissey's unable to let go what he was in the, 80s and how he was seen in the 80s and he was seen as counterculture he was seen as incredibly

intelligent he was seen as you know somehow kicking you know swimming against the tides and doing so in an incredibly artistic way that was that's the that's the legend of morrisy and that is not how he's seen anymore and he continues to swim against the tide but you know he's flirted with the far right and and things like that he might be surfing the tide now he is he's certainly doing he's certainly doing something. So he recorded an album in 2021, Morrissey. It's called Bonfire of Teenagers. And it's about the Manchester Arena bombing. That's the

lead track was about the Manchester Arena bombing. And nobody will release it. So no one will release this album. When he talks about it, you do think there's a touch of the Edmonds about it. He was dropped by his label, BMG, because he said he blamed that split on the labels, new plans for diversity. That's what he said about. that. He said he's taken this new album to every major label in London. Now, every major label in London

has refuted this album, quotes, while also admitting that it is a masterpiece. And listen, I get it. He's also, he's called the record the best album of my life. And he says, the madly insane efforts to silence the album are somehow indications of its power. Otherwise, who would bother to get so overheated about an inconspicuous recluse? So that's what he's saying about, about this. You can't. He's had it every way in that particular, in just in those three sentences. He has more unbelievably, on one of the songs, I Am Veronica, the backing vocals were done by Miley Cyrus because he was a huge Morrissey and Smith's fan. So she did that. She then asked for her vocals to be taken off. And again, you know, he said, Morrissey said that retroactively

you make vocals off the record. Apparently. I think if you're not sure you can really do. But for that, Morrissey blamed the legacy press. So the legacy press had something to say. But, so Listen, we've heard that playbook played many, many, many times before. But the reason he really reminds me of Noel Edmunds is if you listen to the songs from this album, if you listen to a bonfire of teenagers, it's one of the best things he's done in his career. Genuinely, I mean, wherever it comes from, it is a great song. And anything that's on that album that is publicly available, it's absolute prime vintage Morrissey.

If you don't like Prime Vintage Morrissey, you won't like it. If you do like Prime Vintage Morrissey, this is music that is absolutely up there with anything else that he's ever done. interesting, intriguing, agree or disagree, musically, it's absolutely a Morrissey album. And it is interesting that nobody will release it. I do find that interesting that no one will release it. And I'm aware that he comes across as an old man shouting at clouds,

and I'm sure there is a part of that. But also, he is a guy just going into the studio doing what he's always done and making this stuff, and suddenly he's in a world where nobody wants to release it. Well, do you think he might be in a different world now? as we've said, there has been a sort of cultural sea change, well, the sort of end of what feels like a sort of cultural decade, a direction, is Morrity now not more likely to get a hearing? Certainly, there is a fandom out there for him, and if he wanted to, it's perfectly possible to, you know, self-release these things and there's money in that. But I think what Morrissey wants

is to be significant. I think that's what he wants. And because he was significant. And I think that there's a certain type of personality that if they feel they're not being as heard by as many people as they used to, they don't go, oh, that's the way life is. Instead, they shout louder. Because they're, oh, I must not be shouting loud enough because it used to be like everybody listened.

And now almost nobody is listening to me. And this is an example of that, this thing that he released the soul for sale. That is him shouting as loudly as he possibly can. And now he has got a reaction. And people are going, oh, yeah, Morrissey. Yeah, I remember Morrissey. disc tracks it has been a busy week in disc tracks Drake and Kendrick Lamar are both on

universal the record label and they had a dueling volley of disc tracks about each other which grew progressively more unpleasant and not like us which was to sort of sit down one listen this it felt like a sort of fair fight at the beginning Drake versus Kendrick but yeah not like us was the just probably the greatest blow ever landed by one human being on another human being. The biggest track in the world. Well, if you can say those things. So let me, okay, so yeah, it's the biggest track of the world.

Drake's position is that he was defamed by this track. Now, bear in mind, it contains underage sex accusations, suggested people should turn vigilante to get justice against Drake, put an aerial of his house on the artwork. I have to say, if he had sued in our courts, he would have had a much more pleasant time. A judge in the US has thrown it out and Universal have said, you know, bear mind they are both on the same label.

This should never have been brought because it hampers kind of creative freedom. I must say that maybe he would not have wished to sue in our courts because, you know, it can open a can of worms. Let me just say that, Richard. And so he might not have wanted to go through the whole court case, Drake. Interesting. Do you want to elaborate on that? Sorry, we don't have time.

No, I'll leave it because he can still, of course, always come to our courts. Yeah. I'd love it. I'd imagine if Drake sued us. No, don't say that. No, I'm just saying to imagine. Yeah. I'm not saying hope for it.

Don't get involved in a libel action. Having said that. With Drake, though, if you're going to get involved in a libel action with anyone, with Drake, it's better than sort of Halliburton or something. You know, at least you get to meet Drake. Let me just move on to Charlie XXX because as we know in Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift has put a disc track on that for definite, which most people think is about Charlie XXX,

although she's tried to sort of slightly fudge at Taylor Swift. I have to say, I went and saw the official release party, official launch party of a show girl in cinemas. The stuff when she's singing that song, because it's obviously not a proper video and it's really her just looking into the camera, that question that we asked the week before, you know, is she punching down? I think it's impossible for it not to be reviewed, just punching down that. It's really like, okay, I think it was a little bit much. Yes, and it's fascinating because, and it comes from, Charlie XX did a song on her on the Brat album, which Taylor took to be about her. In fact, there's two tracks on that album, both of which seemed to take aim at somebody.

One is about Taylor and one is about Lord. Both of them are sort of more sort of Charlie XX. They're more about Charlie XX, right? To turning it in on herself. Yeah. And so two ways to react to that is what Taylor has done, which is she's, you know, reacted in kind and done this song. What Lord did, the thing about the Lord song on the Charlie XXX album is about female friendship and about feeling uncomfortable around people. And Lord literally heard that song, rang her, said,

The voice note. I had no idea you felt like this. said but thank you for saying it she then immediately recorded her own verse for that song they did a collaborative song which like lyrically fascinating and about female friendship and stuff like that

and created this new piece of art and a firm friend's which is the way to react to that now Taylor who as we've said before rarely puts a foot wrong seems to have gone the opposite way which is despite being the most powerful I would say musical megastar on the planet has decided to respond

in kind which possibly she shouldn't have done and that's all I have to say about that. It's not being cool, is it? It's not being cool. But yeah, she rarely puts her foot wrong. So she will have her reasons, that's for sure. But when you look at what Lord did, you think, oh, that's interesting.

There are different ways of dealing with it. The term disc track was first coined as a term in hip-hop in like the 80s. They were called answer songs. And right back in the 30s, there are answer records, response songs. Jimmy Rogers and Louis Armstrong had a sort of jewel. There was, you ain't talking to me. and you rascal you.

Paul Williams are Hucklebuck. So many people did answer songs to that and said you've stolen his riffs. I mean, all of these things that seem very modern were not. Hank Thompson, country singer in the 40s, did one called The Wild Side of Life in which he blamed women for leading men astray. And Kitty Wells recorded a kind of response track to that.

It wasn't God who made honky-tonk angels calling out sort of misogyny in country, all of this sort of things. Lots of people answered Elvis songs, did answer songs to Elvis tracks. Actually, you know, and sometimes people would even be sued, which suggests to you that there was always money in this type of beef, which we also didn't call it that then.

That literally just meant meat. And then, so 60s, and there were songs, you know, Dylan, positively 4th Street, Bob Dylan, that is, I mean, that really goes for a friend or a critic. We don't know. The Birds did that, so you want to be a rock and roll star, which is all about people like the monkeys, that kind of the trend for manufactured groups at the time. Leonard Skinner Sweet Home Alabama is a direct.

response to Neil Young's, Alabama. The world of music is quite small and people are constantly listening to their contemporaries and if their contemporary does something they're like and everyone's always thinking of an idea for a song and everyone's always resentful of every other act who are around at any given time setting any records at all. So it's a febrile atmosphere.

Yes. And I mean the biggest one, the 70s, John Lennon, how do you sleep about Paul McCarthy? But there were lots of sort of funk and soul answer songs. People, it is a way of kind of getting the creative juice throwing. It's like, you've been given a note. It's like, okay, I'm going to kick back at the critics. It's like an old version of

having a podcast. Yeah. Hip-hop, rap, take it to a whole new level. I mean, we've talked about this actually when we were talking about rap beef in the past, but the whole Roxanne was... Amazing, the real Roxanne and Roxanne Chonte. Yeah. I mean, there are about 100 songs tracks. Going back and forth. Just going back and forth.

And in the end, there was a definitive track of people just say, Okay, that's it. No one's going to talk about this anymore. We've got to put an end, we've got to bury this. And also, and by the way, almost all hip-hop battles, 90% of them are just very funny and done, incredibly tongue-in-cheek, and 10% of them end in gunfire. And it's difficult right at the beginning to work out which is going to be which. But they sold huge amounts of records. I read one stat that said almost the second track in the Roxanne was, so really early on in that, sold 250,000 copies in the New York area.

alone. That's amazing. But then there were also things in the 80s like Carly Simon, you're so vain. I mean... That's a Warren, a Warren Beatty disc track. Or is it? I think she says it's... Different verses are about different people. Well, because the second verse is literally talking about someone in an apricot scarf with his, like, a hat just tipped beneath his eye. You think what I mean that you are literally describing Warren Beatty? It does become much more commercialised, but it has returned to pop. So now, you know, Taylor's done them, obviously many, Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, lots of people. it's big in k-pop it tends to be i was talking to someone who's much more of an expert in k-pop

music music it feels like it's absolutely ripe for it and it's a bit more nervous there's not they tend not to do that whole disc tracks but there are lines in songs so it's much more that kind of easter-eggish like we've talked about a lot before the kind of detective culture the taylor the taylor stuff yeah but some you know some of those are like a whole song about a thing whereas there's little lines that it's like oh hang on that's an oblique aside to whatever oh if you kind of cross-reference it to this you know the whole detective work are you referring to stray kids yeah the detective work of the modern fandom yeah it rewards that it's true that statistically there are many more now even accounting for those kind of hip-hop things than there were before

and i like this there's there's certain people who've been the subject of very much more than one disc track which i always seem is quite interesting uh Axel rose has been the subject of a number of disc tracks Nikki six from motley crew uh has uh has has been the subject of number as well. The Clash have, the Clash did a sort of did a distract. Nicky Six has been the subject of a number. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, like a whole bunch. The Clash did one about the Jam, the Jam did one about the Clash,

the Mecons did one about the Clash as well. The person who I can find the most disc tracks about in history I'm going to give you the name of some songs and they are all about the same person. So Violet Bruised by Babes and Toyland, Two Cool Queenie by Stone Temple Pilots, Stacked Actors by Foo Fighters, I'll Stick

around by Foo Fighters, Starfuckers, Inc. by nine-inch nails, and Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani are all about the same person. Who? Courtney Love. Every single one of those songs. I think I must have once known now. It's about Courtney Love. And Hollaback Girl being the very much the biggest of all of those. Courtney Love once said that Gwen Stefani was like a cheerleader and that she was one of the cool kids, you know, behind the bike sheds. And Gwen Stefani then go, right, I'm going to write a song, I've never been a cheerleader. So I'm going to write a song as if I am a cheerleader. And it's going to be about you and I'm going to make a billion out of it, which is exactly what she did.

So that's a lot of songs about the same person. Now, Nine Inch Nails, who were there as well. My favourite ever disc track story is Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails, did a sort of disc track about Limp Biscuit, Fred Durst and Limp Biscuit. And Trent Ressner is a great deal cooler than Fred Durst. I mean, they both sold a lot of records, you know, both very, very successful. But he wrote this thing, and Fred Durst, the thing's right, I'm going to reply in kind. So he does a disc track about Trent Resner and Nine Inch Nails called Hot Dog. And like you were talking about K-pop there,

in order to really make people understand that this song is about Trent Rezner and how much disrespect he has for Trent. He includes lots of names of Nine Inch Nails songs, lyrics from Closer, all sorts of things, just so you're under absolutely no illusions that Fred Durs is really getting one over. So on the album, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog-flavored water, the song Hot Dog, which is all about Trent Resner. But it includes so many lyrics and song titles from Nine Inch Nails

that he is then forced to make Trent Resner a co-writer on that song. And that album became, I mean, the biggest selling new metal album of all time. I mean, multi, multi, multi, multi, multi-million seller back at a time when writing a song on a multi-multe, multi-million seller made you an awful lot of money. So Trent made a huge amount of money from Fred Durs. track. It has obviously been hugely helped by something we talked about a little further up in the episode by social media because they're kind of designed to go viral and they want people to kind of share and take sides and be team this and team that. There was obviously no barrier

to release now. In the old days, you were actually going to have to go and record this and put it on a record and put it out, you know, as I often have to remind myself, if only you'd count 10, if you're just having a frenzied to and fro over the weekend and just laying down a track and putting it out. Which starts, by the way, with the sort of rock sand walls and all that, you know, hip-hop in the early 80s where they could just go and record stuff very, very quickly, stick it out on a cassette and distribute it. And then distribute it that way. But there's even less barriers. You don't have to get clearance from the label. You don't have to have any, everyone has a direct link to fans via some form of social media. There is no barrier to distribution

and you can get it out there incredibly quickly. And it's that sort of, you know, that meme about someone being wrong on the internet. And that's what really happened over that weekend. And I was thinking, oh, my God, I mean, if only you weren't so incredibly rich, both of you would actually have some stuff to do. You'd just have to do the big shop. You'd have to do it. And you'd just have a chance to, like, get out there in the world. But because they didn't, because Drake didn't have to do the big shop,

eventually he goaded Kendrick into, not like us. One of the greatest tracks and one of the most successful tracks of all time. We're going to be able to be.