Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #33: February 8th 1996 - It's Tarp Of The Parps!

Episode Date: November 23, 2018

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; if God were one of us, who would he hate more out of M People and the Lighthouse Family? The longest episode of Chart Music EVER sees us pitched into the second half of the Nineties for the first time - and oh dear, our favourite Pop show is beginning to enter its slow decline and being pissed about with big style. The guest presenters are still in effect - but luckily for us, this week's frontperson is Julian Cope, who has brought a giant It's A Knockout-style builder to help him stage a prime-time protest against the Newbury Bypass. There's not one but two of those live satellite broadcasts, which demonstrate that California's weather fluctuates like an absolute bastard. Everything's piling into the charts right near the top and then dropping down again. And where's the Britpop? Musicwise, this is an absolute lucky bag of randomness, minus the chunky ring you wanted. Some Bedouin tribesmen sit around on a Trancey 'tip'. Joan Osbourne bangs on about God. Billy Corgan arses about in a car with The Teens. East 17 phone it in. Etta James is forced outside in the wind in order to make giant ships disappear and have a good lech at some sailors. Michael Jackson's nephews emote by some driftwood. Terrorvision jump about a bit. Alien Mr Benn gets everyone excited with the opening bars for this week's No.1, and then turns the dial right down to 16 rpm. And OH NO THE LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY GODDD. Sarah Bee and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham on an euphoric extended chill-out Archers and Lemonade House tip for a long, hard stare at the bulging packet of 1996, veering off to discuss the comedy value of jacket potatoes, self-grooming tips from the stars, how to mix a Pina Kulkarni, full-on problem page questions in Nineties gay magazines, Star Trek Bhangra, and having homoerotic fever dreams about acts in the Chart Music Top Ten. Very long, very strong, very sweary.     Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull-Apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Tax is extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. What do you like listening to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music.

Chart music. Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music, the podcast that gets its hand right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and with me today are Neil Kulkarni. Afternoon, Al. And a lovely lady with a lovely voice, Sarah B. Hello. How are we, duckies?

Fine and dandy. I'm enjoying the rain, to be honest with you. I just want it to rain to be honest with you. I just want it to rain kind of through till February. I've had enough sun this year to be honest with you and rain is wonderful if it starts in the morning, carries on all day. It makes you feel okay about staying in your pyjamas basically. Makes your soul trip away doesn't it? Sarah, anything pop and interesting happening in your life because you've not been on for a while. I have not been on for a while. I've been off, you know, doing my general skullduggery. Yeah, I'm quite all right with it.

It's lovely autumn, isn't it? Autumn is a lovely time. All the leaves. I fucking hate autumn. But the leaves. Yeah, but that means everything's dying. People go on Facebook and everyone go, oh, autumn is my favourite time of year.

I thought, you miserable fucking morbid bastards. Everything is dying. In a tree sense, yeah. But my God, the squirrel population. Not to turn this into some sort of Chris Packham podcast, but my God, the infestation is immense at my local park anyway. Really? Literally dozens of the fuckers wherever you go

so somebody's doing all right out of it yeah well i saw a cat eating a dead squirrel the other day on my on my way out so yeah yeah good good news for the cats yeah i saw a while ago we were uh having uh like a sunday lunch and there was a fox in the garden with like half a squirrel in its mouth and it was like staring at us and eating it. And it's like, well, we can't really complain. We're here digging into something that was once alive. And it's like, I felt really closer to nature. Isn't that beautiful?

Before we move on, we've got to give thanks to the latest batch of people who've paid their subs and joined our gang on Patreon. Those people are Kieran, Chris Bishop, Dave Caffrey, Rob Smith, Doris Pilchard, Matthew Davis, Jade Bowyer, Gordon Munro, Nick

Thompson and Matthew Taylor. In you come, you lovely, lovely, pop-crazed youngsters. Aren't they lovely? And of course, if you are, if you are one of those Patreon subscribers, you probably have already listened to the Q and a,

the, I did with Taylor and Simon the other day, which went down very nicely. Nice. More of that kind of thing. I reckon for, for chart music thing. That's the way forward in 2019.

Extra shit for the pop-crazy youngsters. They deserve it. They do. They do. Each of those patron people have karmically in a way just jumped the queue to heaven really. You know, a few spaces. And of course, while they're waiting to be admitted to those holy portals,

they've been voting on the latest top ten. Hit the music! A non-mover at number 10, Dad is Faction. Last week's number one, all the way down to number nine, David Van Day's Public Enemy.

Down two places to number eight, it's B.A. Conterson. Moving up one place to number seven, Fuzzy Bear Motherfucker. Down from number four to number six, The Seat Line at a show waddy waddy. No change at number five,

Bummer Dog. Last week's number two, this week's number four, Seven Days Jankers. New entry this week at number three, for Lennon, Bumming Erastafarian. Could it be number one next week? Up from number three to number two,

here comes Jizzum. But here comes... Britain's number one! The highest new entry, straight in at number one, Taylor Parks' 20 Romantic Moments. Oh, man. That's a dramatic chart, Al. I mean, you know,

interesting bummer dog. A non-mover at number five. Hanging in there, man. Could go either way. Yeah, hanging in on the thigh of the charts, I feel. But yeah, Lennon bumming a Rastafarian. That's been bothering me as to what that would sound like. It sounds like one of those sort of punk bands

who thought up a silly name and they suddenly got a surprise hit and they now realise they're stuck with that name for the rest of their career, man, and they're going to regret it, big style. It's all downhill from there, really, isn't it? Or it's all uphill, depending on your perspective.

Here comes jizz. Do you know, I actually had a dream about here comes jizz the other night. Fucking hell. It's one of those dreams where you just lie in bed in the middle of the night and just think about it and you may add two. So if this dream sounds really kind of like on the nose,

that'll be why. But I was watching Top of the Pops with my dad and he had his tee on like he did back in the day. And I think Tommy Vance introduced Here Comes Jizzum. And they look like a cross between E17 and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. They had cycling shorts on And a

You know a black cap But they also had like a leather waistcoat With a spunking cock on the back In pearly buttons And all I can remember of the song It was a bit male stripper But all the song was The only lyrics I can remember was

Them shouting Get your fist all slimy stripper but all the song was the only lyrics I can remember was them shouting get your fist all slimy sticking up me arse called blimey non-stop there was elements of stomp as well I think they were bashing bin lids and everything and my dad's absolutely fucking

outraged going who the fuck are these cunts you don't like them do you you don't like them do you and I'm just going no dad and realising that I had a record bag by the armchair you don't like them do you you don't like them do you and i'm just going no dad and realizing that i had a record bag by the armchair which had the 12 inch remix of here comes jism on it hoping that he wouldn't notice and then i woke up are you this was actually your dream yeah mate your your subconscious needs you know it needs like a burning you know there's there's

not there's not really strong enough bleach is there in the world i mean it's like i'm afraid you are truly lost chart music has infested me it really has could we move on please because i'm starting to get faintly aroused so if you could move on a little bit, please. Just for the record, I'm not. But let's carry on. Someone's got to do that now. Surely. Someone out there listening to this must have it in their heads now to form a band like that,

just for me. I'd go and see you. The thing is, though, Al, somebody posted, didn't they, on Facebook the other day, an image of the BBC subtitles for that Dennis Waterman track and it does come up as here comes jizzing. Don't know if that was faked or not but I really hope

it wasn't. That would have been brilliant wouldn't it? I was thinking I was going to get banned for what I posted underneath it. The thermal image of an erect pot which we were discussing at the time but no ban, I'm still on Facebook. So this episode, Pop Crazy Youngsters,

takes us back a mere 22 years or so, all the way back to February the 8th, 1996. Fucking hell, this is the most recent one we've ever done, isn't it? Yeah. This is last week for us. It's bizarre,

because I was only in 96, half my current age shit um yes so i should have known better and before we go one step further this episode is dedicated to the pop crazy youngster who passed it on to us and not only did he furnish us with an original copy of it which was i think it was off of vhs really knackered. The sound was fucked all over the place. But he went onto YouTube and he bolted together a composite of this episode in a Frankenstein manner.

If I had a hat, it would be off right now to him. Thank you very much. Our listeners are fucking mint, aren't they? They are. If you're wearing anything else, just take that off or you know i i will okay i'm gonna i'm gonna remove a garment right now in honor oh it's just a jumper i'm just gonna take off i've got a massive jumper and also i've you don't know if i've taken it off or not because

it's radio not television so yeah anyway um thank you that was i wouldn't have known that that was like a cut and shut job it's's seamless, seamless enjoyment of this episode. Yeah, yeah, it's brilliant. It is. So, first question. When we say the music of 1996, what immediately comes to mind? Honestly, genuinely, happy hardcore. None of this stuff.

Yeah, this is one of those funny episodes where it's like it's not necessarily representative of the year. It is kind of in spots. But, I mean, I think it's kind of American rock dreck, like sort of ugly kid Joe standard stuff. There's tons of that just clogging up the charts. And the sort of, you know, sort of oddball stuff like Presidents of the USA, loads of that. And Brits kind of doing that thing. Also, Big Beat.

Fucking Big Beat. The Beats were big in 1996. Were they just? Better Living Through Chemistry came out. I went to university, and all there was all the time, really, was just Fatboy Slim everywhere you went. Yeah, that's about the size of it really and it's kind of there's a lot of r&b but it's not quite it's almost like a sort of fallow period between like sort of new jack swing and what was going to come

you know the more exciting stuff that was that was coming coming down the the tubes i think i don't know is that is that accurate would you say neil no i'd say that's fairly accurate i mean what was what was kind of surprising for me about this episode was how many of these tracks and how many of these songs it's not as much that well they haven't dated because you could just imagine these songs being in the charts now

it doesn't have that complete difference that when we go into the 80s and 70s it would be bizarre for songs like that to be in the charts now there's several songs here in this chart where I could imagine hearing that on pop radio now. And it makes you wonder what's changed since, if anything. Yeah.

Just the people who make them, I suppose. Maybe, maybe. I mean, the other thing that needs pointing out is that we're actually in the middle of a massive boom in record sales right about 1996. And we'll find that out as the episode progresses. And the general assumption nowadays is that Britpop's caused all that. But as we're going to discover, that really isn't the case, is it? No, not at all.

I mean, according to the official version, grunge and Britpop should have wrought some real changes in what pop we can expect. As it turns out, that was a little bit too optimistic, I think. It's like weather systems, though, isn't it? It's like you're never going to shift anything completely. It's like, oh, this genre is now dead and it's never coming back. And it's like that stuff always comes back in different forms

or in exactly the same form. And it's all cyclical, isn't it? Yeah. I think what we're going to discover here is, bar the non-Rs, everyone's still buying singles in 1996. Yeah, yeah. Because it is quite the pick and mix, isn't it, this episode? Yeah. It is, but CD singles, I mean, I bought them.

Even though I was getting set records at the time I bought them they were an important little purchase so yeah the single was resistant to predictions of its demise at this point people were still buying them in massive numbers but I mean you know I remember my mum she had a CD player and she actually

had it packed away in a cupboard for when she wanted to listen to music so if she wanted to listen to her one CD which was Abergold it would have to come out it would take ages you'd have to re-thread the

speaker wires and stuff like that it would take about half an hour if she wanted to listen to Super Trooper or something like that so it is getting as time goes on throughout the or something like that so it is getting, as time goes on throughout the 90s we find that it is getting, the charts are getting skewed towards the younger end again

Yeah I can see that Radio 1 News In the news this week Coronation Street announces that Raquel Watts will be leaving in October when she accepts an aromatherapy job in Kuala Lumpur. EMI announced that they're in talks with Robbie Williams about a solo deal. Island prepares for a one-ton Chinese satellite to crash into it at the end of the month.

A new Gallup opinion poll announces that the Tories have cut Labour's lead down to a mere 30.8%. Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli tries to nick someone's car in Hollywood and ends up in hospital when the owner clocks him on the head with a baseball bat. The Sex Pistols announce that they're reforming for a world tour in the summer. But the big news this week is that 24 hours to the second of this episode of Top of the Pops going out, the IRA are going to detonate a massive truck bomb in South Quay Plaza in the Docklands, which causes two deaths and an estimated £150 million worth of damage about 500 metres down the road from where I was working.

Bloody hell. Just avoided that fucker, I did. That day, that day I've decided I usually got the DLR from Cross Harbour but I thought, you know what, because it's the mid-90s I'm going to skin up in the toilets

and take a nice saunter down the riverbank. Just loads of people standing about. And, you know, the station's been shut down. And I thought, oh, well, you know, I've got a spliff. I can skin up another one. I'll just sit around and everything. But I thought, oh, no, fuck this. I just want to go home.

So I got a bus and it took fucking ages to get to Limehouse where the DLR was still running. At about 7 o'clock, I heard what sounded like this massive metal door slamming shut. And I just thought, no more of it. And I got home and then I discovered about 20 messages on my answering machine by concerned friends and relatives asking if I'd died. Yeah, it was fucking... Fuck.

Yeah. Mental. Wow. It was like the 80s had suddenly come back again. Yeah, yeah. Horrible time. And I knew the two people who died as well. mental wow it was like the 80s had suddenly come back again yeah yeah horrible time and i knew that i knew the two people who died as well i used to go in the uh in their paper shop and i went in there that morning to to pick up some backing skins and that fucking horrible blimey out oh my god

yeah on the cover of the enemy this week the sex pistols on the cover of smash hits tony mortimer of e17 with his hand over brian harvey's math the number one lp is still what's the story morning glory by oasis over in america the u.s number one single is one sweet day by mariah carey and boys to men and the number one lp in america is the soundtrack to waiting to exhale featuring practically every black female singer in america such as whitney houston tony braxton aretha franklin shaka khan tlc swv and mary j blige but most importantly our simon has been digging in the crates and has furnished us with a breakdown of this week's Melody Maker. Shall we dig in?

Oh, yes. On the cover are the Blue Tones, who were interviewed inside with an album review as well. The strapline on the cover is Sex Pistols for Finsbury and Phoenix. Other cover lines include Supergrass, Win Exclusive CDs, Ride, Feud Fighters, The Last Interview, Never heard of them. I vaguely remember Fluffy, but not that well. Yeah, must be hype then. In the news section, Oasis are now so big in Australia that there's a petition to beg them to play there.

Meanwhile, Courtney Love has posted messages online urging her fans to boycott Oasis. She wrote, Oasis must die. Do not buy their records. They will come to rape and pillage our women and invade America. When in actual fact, they just got pissed up and beat each other up and went home again Gabrielle has been

arrested and questioned in connection with a murder in the Peak District the previous year fucking hell, that's well Inspector Morse isn't it? yeah I forgot about that Elastica's connection will be used by Budwise in their Olympic sponsorship campaign

Primal Scream have narrowly avoided being declared bankrupt. Chris Novoselic has written about his reasons for staying silent on Kurt Cobain's suicide. He said, There's nothing to say really. It happens every day in America. Dysfunction. Drugs. It was compounded by the fame, but it's nothing romantic.

It's just tragic. It's real emotional pain and it's nobody's business. Who cares? There's a lot going on. There's a lot to unpack there, isn't there? Yeah, just a bit. The Beach Boys UK tour has been cut short after Brian Wilson and Al Jardine flew home halfway through.

Wilson had heard that his son was involved in a car accident. Luke Haynes suggests that the auteurs will split after their new album because he doesn't think bands should make more than three they eventually made four and Wright said Fred have announced their first ever tour inside the paper there's a small introductory piece about Placebo and a profile of comedy newcomer Lee Evans there's a review of the Spike Lee film

Clockers. There's a massive four-page colour ad for the Babylon Zoo album and there's live reviews of Frank Black, The Whipping Boy, Gene, Echo Bella and David DeVant and his spirit wife and a review of Credit to the Nation's latest album. The singles are reviewed by the Stubbrothers and their single of the week is the Transmission EP by Low. The gig guide. In Yorkshire, Sarah could have gone to see Africa Bambarta in Bradford, Moloko or Perfume or Raw Stylist or Laserboy in Leeds, the Mike Flowers Pops in Sheffield and Absolutely Sod All in Halifax. In Coventry, Neil could have seen The Bigger The God, but probably didn't. Who?

In Nottingham, Al might have seen At The Gates, Honeycrack, Ocean Colour Scene or Apex, but again, probably didn't. In London, Simon or David, but let's face it, just Simon, might have seen Jazz Passengers, Northern Uproar, McCormont,

Sexus, Dex, Dextra and Inora and there's actually a band called Minibar playing at the borderline and Osric Tentacles and Julian Cobra playing a Friends of the Earth benefit with DJ Mark Lamar. From the chart music contributors well there's a feature on the band Marion by Taylor Parks in which he tells them he can't bear to listen to their album all the way through because it all sounds the bloody same. They describe themselves to him as five fuckwits from Maccasfield. Taylor has also reviewed an album by Third Eye Foundation but spends most of it talking about waking up with mysterious cuts all over his hands

he's also reviewed the new album by Baby D and deems it more marvellous than you're likely to believe on David Stubbs' comedy page Talk Talk Talk there's a story that Michael Hutchence has been shagging the star of Babe

there's an inventor band called Sorry Uproar, and Mr. Agreeable mercilessly tears into Julian Cope, Courtney Love, Tortoise, and the Infinity Project. Simon Price has reviewed Black Grape, supported by the Kulkarni-endorsed Usabi

in Exeter, noting Sean Ryder's habit of shouting advertising phrases like the great smell of brute and it's frothy man and ends with the line, Grape me, grape me, my friend. Simon has edited Backlash, the letters page, and they've had furious correspondence

for and against Romo this week. They've also had Taylor Parks fan mail with one letter calling him astoundingly sexy and another asking to marry him. But we've also had someone convinced that Taylor is the pretentious music journalist character from Steve Wright in the afternoon. Prompted by a letter about Leah Bess, Simon's written an editorial contrasting the media coverage

given to white middle-class southern victims of drugs and knife crime and those of other ethnicities and regions. But most importantly, there was this letter from J.H. Neil Kulkarni's singles reviews were utter crap. It was all shit black music. Oh, sorry, and the occasional token pop indie record how boring single of the week quote lyrically this is something entirely new honey i don't really think so what was it again did i hear the mentions of guns drugs fuck death how bloody predictable

for black music sorry the lyrics weren't overtly sexual and degrading to women, were they? Perhaps that's the only thing in its favour. Face it, black music is rubbish. It's basically the same old trite. What a terribly cliche ridden boyzone review you wrote. Qu can't sing they can't dance they look awful they'll probably go a long way no I think Boyzone are crap too but your article is also

don't try to tell me you were trying to be funny or ironical because you probably don't understand the concept of irony and you fail to recognise any other genre apart from black shit I've given rap, dance, hip-hop, gangster rap a try and believe me, it was just oh-so-passé. Perhaps you feel because your skin is dark,

you have to stick with your dark mates. Don't try to call me a racist. In general, though there are very few exceptions, blacks like black music. Anyway, Neil, you're crap. See you in the dole queue next week. I remember getting several letters like that from pretty much the moment I started writing for The Maker.

I wasn't actually, even though I wrote, the way I got hired was a letter moaning about that kind of thing. I wasn't aware of just what, you know, how many white rock fans would be offended by the fact that I would be writing about hip hop and stuff in their paper. Do you know what I mean? And I used to get that kind of on a constant basis. That one, I think Pricey put it under the headline, you're dark mates, didn't he? Yes, he did, yes. Just a transparently racist letter.

Yes. But my God, Al, you give me such a massive 90s flashback with your breakdown of what was in The Maker that week, because all of those names... Simon's breakdown. Simon's breakdown, sorry, yeah. So, me dears, what were we doing in February of 1996? Well, I was... I guess I was studying for my A-levels,

and I was actually in the process of flunking one entirely. I did sociology and I kind of did it at night school because it's a long, boring, traumatic story. But bless him, the teacher was lovely, but he had no idea what he was doing. And basically all of us flunked it, I think. story but um bless him the teacher was lovely but he had no idea what he was doing and uh all basically all of us all of us flunked it i think one or two one or two brain boxes managed to get some sort of grade but everyone else fucked it and so they fired him and i was like oh mate he

was so nice you just wanted to hang out with him but he was not a very good teacher and also i couldn't be asked so you know i think we all we all played our part in that. Yeah. God, it was kind of the calm before the storm because then loads of stuff happened. So I turned 18 in April and by the skin of my arse, I got into university. I went to university in Wales. But yeah, what I was listening to mostly. Yeah, what was that? I'm trying to think when Walking,

when like the Everything But The Girl Walking Wounded album came out, because that was, I don't think I had that, but it was everywhere. You know, it was, it was. Yeah,

Missings in the chart at the minute. that was like, you know, that was huge. But yeah, oh, I was working, was I working in,

I might have said this before, this is the thing. I was working in O'Ne I might have said this before this is the thing I was working in O'Neill's in Halifax which was previous to it being an O'Neill's like the O'Neill's had just got it and O'Neill's-ified it and before that it had been Lewin's which was the last pub in the UK that only

allowed men in really? like imagine that fucking imagine who would like you know what i don't i mean i understand like club you know i don't i i'm okay with like you know sort of men-only clubs or whatever it's like whatever you want to do guys just go and you know do it over there have your cigars and your brandy um but yeah just like a grotty pub with no women in it i mean what, what's the point in that? That's bizarre. Isn't that odd? Why would you want to sit there all evening just hearing, yeah,

voices that weren't in any way higher pitched than yours? It would just be like this endless grumbling. Yeah. This country, you know. So yeah. Yeah. So you essentially smashed the patriarchy? Let's say yes yes I did

single single-handedly with my tiny righteous girl fists yes yeah but yeah what I was

listening to actually was probably still because I would get I still do this a bit you know is I would I would get like you know one album or two albums

and just disappear into it and like live in it and like you know you know that thing you like make a just disappear into it and like live in it yeah like you know you know that thing you like make a little you should yeah you like make a little tree house and it's branches and you just kind of you know and that for me at the time was uh faith no more's king for a day fall for a lifetime which came out in 95 and i just my god i love that album so much and i i love it still now it's such a it's such a mad kind of

explosion of all sorts of bollocks you know it's great and I was meant to see them and they cancelled their entire tour for whatever reason it was and then I finally got to see them

a couple of years ago when they played Hyde Park that big that Sabbath gig that you know and it was great I waited 20 years to see this band

and they were so great and it was you. It's like I've waited 20 years to see his band and they were so great. And it was, you know, it was one of those moments where you go, this is, you know, this is a good moment in my life. And that, yeah, it's fucking awesome. And Mike Patton dressed as a vicar, you know, throwing water at the crowd going, the power of Christ compels you. And yeah, so, you know, 18 year year old 17 year old me was was was all all aglow 96 was it was i wouldn't say it was my golden age or anything but i was busy do you know what i mean

i was busy for the first time and i was starting to feel part of the paper um part of the melody maker in a way uh for the first two years that I was writing 94 95 I kind of stayed up in cov and I've said before you know virtually every PR journalist and every other person I spoke to was like when are you moving to London you've got to move to London as well the work is and I'd like to say that you know militantly I stayed in cov to keep the integrity of my writing or something but really it was shyness and it was fear and it was the fact I didn't really know anybody but then in about 96 Everett at perversely as ever Everett True made me gossip editor so I was I was coming in to the office more

and I was meeting people and I was meeting heroes in a weird way I was I was phoning the office and Chris Roberts had answered the phone and stuff and I'd be like oh my god you know these are the people that raised me I was meeting heroes meeting a lot of arseholes as well. But as gossip editor, I was actually in the office more and making friends, making friends in particular with Pricey and Taylor, because we had a week where we were... Your dog mates. My dog mates. We had a week where we were sent to Bristol for Bristol Sound City,

and it really cemented a friendship. And it really made me realise that actually the people that I wrote alongside were kind of like me in a way and I could get on with them so I was in the office more I was living quite a lot in London to a certain extent because you know sometimes I couldn't be arsed getting the last train back because I knew I'd fall asleep and wake up in Wolverhampton or something fate worse than death so I'd end up kipping on Price's floor in his basement flat on Mercer Street or I'd end up kipping at Taylor's and stuff and making friends and making friends with people in bands actually people like Kenickie and that realising there were other people who would take the Chris Needham thing and were similarly obsessed with it yeah so yeah it was

I wouldn't say the happiest time but certainly before the editor change and everything that went on with the money maker 96 was perhaps my busiest time at the paper, but also getting work from other people. So it was kind of my most London time. In a sense, my most blurred time. My memories of it are very foggy for various reasons. But yeah, I really did feel like I was shouldering it with people. I felt for the first time that I deserved to be there. Do you know what I mean and and that was nice that's i mean that's the thing isn't it about i don't want to romanticize

it too much but that's what was the thing about melody maker is it it was kind of it it's kind of a microcosm of what london is in a way which is if you don't belong all the people who don't belong anywhere belong there and it was kind of like that you know it's like it was such a kind of rag tag bunch of misfits you know but in a you know it's like it was such a kind of ragtag bunch of misfits you know but in a you know it's yeah i mean obviously it took me uh you know i didn't drag my ass there until 99 by which time it was all over bar the shouting and a bit of vomiting but i was kind of embraced when i got there by you know by by you guys and and by kind of you know a lot of people who'd already left in in high dutch and or fired or whatever. But that was like, you know, they were still there

and still working in, you know, obviously still working music journalism. So that I kind of got, you know, the sort of the last hurrah of that. And, you know, and it was, yeah, it was a special thing. I'm not going to get too misty eyed about it, but yeah. Thanks to the IRA bombing, I know exactly what I was doing on this day and possibly at this actual time when the episode went out. I was dividing my time at Dickie Desmond's

wank factory between still doing this sports show for Television X and working in the main building on their brand new internet department basically Desmond had been at a squash club and he'd heard his squash partner banging on about the internet

and he just went, oh, well, we better have some of that then. And he put around a memo to about 600 people in the building saying, we want to start an internet department. If anybody out there knows what an internet is, register your interest. And out of those 600 people, three did. One of them was me because I think I'd already got the internet at home. And I fucking loved it. I thought it was amazing.

I remember, oh, God, it would have been a couple of months previously, end of 95, I went to a cyber cafe in Kingston-upon-Thames and ended up having an hour-long conversation with someone from New York about Cypress Hill and just came out really. It's like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is the future. And so I said, yeah, I've got the Internet. I know exactly what it is. Blah, blah, blah. All right.

And well, you be the web designer then. So, right. OK. it's like right okay so we got moved to um got moved to a separate corner of the open plan office next to attitude magazine the game magazine which was the only decent magazine we ever did and uh i started doing their um their kind of like online stuff and uh yeah it went down really well but it basically meant that i was spending a lot of time reading Attitude and just pulling down articles and putting them online and essentially looking at lots of photos of blokes built like brick shithouses

with amazing hair in their pants. Yeah. You know, wearing like 200-pound pants. Yeah, yeah. And it was like, oh, this makes a nice change. Yeah, fuck it. I don't care. I really don't care. It makes a nice change yeah fuck it i don't care i really don't care

makes a nice change looking at a packet well it's bizarre because i mean the music industry at that time i don't think was i mean it was cognizant of the internet but it wasn't really worried about it no in any sense there was there was no sense they didn't know that within a few years you know of course every single bit of recorded sound ever be uploaded yeah yeah doing about 96 in 95 i was still faxing my copy through yeah um it did it did kind of change overnight um and in 96 oh it was my last year to be honest with you of of only having responsibility towards myself i only had myself to look after the year after i got a family and i got a partner so everything changed that year i i was just looking after myself and i was terrible at it i was my life was a mess in a lot of ways um and i didn't pay tax and stuff like that i just

cashed all the checks and pissed the wall at the wall do you know what i mean it was just a reckless reckless kind of time and and this is why it was so strange to be made gossip editor, because a gossip editor has to be careful about things like libel and things like that. Whereas I'd be commissioning, you know, Taylor often to write the gossip column, safe in the knowledge that he'd make the whole thing up. And just being dimly aware that these things would get you into trouble. I remember him sending through a column and I was thinking it was great. Yeah, let's run with this.

And then it came out. And the first sentence was about this Australian bank called Silverchair. And there was just this light gag about them butt-fucking kangaroos or something. And it was just a gag. But, you know, within the hours, that's when the faxes from the lawyers start coming in. I should not have been put in that position. No. Excuse me.

My client wishes to make it very clear that he has never fucked a kangaroo in the butt. Please print a retraction immediately. You should have done that, though. That would have been great. If that was the follow-up to the gossip column, give over half the gossip column every week to like all the retractions and corrections last year notes and corrections yeah all of it everything nothing we said last week was true

but i was getting into trouble i mean not only not only in the gossip column but in in album reviews and all kinds of things um with just saying stuff that i don't know i i think because not becoming a pro but being in the office i should have been made more aware but i was genuinely just left to it yeah and it would run and then a year sort of two two years down the line a much more sensible shitter editor came in and he just he just stopped everything that i wanted to put through including picture captions he changed them all because he thought we'd get sued but yeah, I did feel like almost, I could con my

family that I was doing a proper job in a way, or that this was a job and not just a way of making pin money but I mean doing this doing Attitude there'd be a team of three of us and we'd be adding our own stuff and you

know writing up things and linking things together and everything like not one of us was gay and we'd be sitting there doing all this kind of stuff and looking at each other going you know don't don't you think we ought to have a gay person doing this you and your straight mates i'm not sure that would wash now it just made a nice change to do something For a discerning readership As opposed to wankers Reading Attitude in the 90s as a straight man Fuck me, what an eye opener

They had a problem page And I don't know I don't know if I want to say this or not Alright This is on a par with the sugar cube incident and uh yeah i'll have to i'll have to censor bits of it um so yeah you'd be reading the problems page and it would say dare attitude my boyfriend convinced me to i decided to allow it and it all went wrong when he what should i do now and it's like

you know it'd be half an hour of just staring at each other going fucking hell what do you say to that though i mean if that's like you know what if the question is like what do we do now this is like undermining our entire relationship it's's like, well... Fucking yeah. You know, sorry. My answer would be, oh, fucking hell, mate. Oh, I'm dumping. Dirty bastard. Listerine. Listerine, that's the answer, surely.

And I'm going to run the uncensored version of what I just said earlier as a bonus for the pub craze Patreons. You lucky people. This very day that this episode of Top of the Pulse went out, I know exactly what I was doing. I was recording another episode of David Dickey's Sports Night. This time,

the special guest was this bloke who had such powerful bollocks he could pull cars with them. And he convinced me to have a go and we went out filmed in the car park round about seven o'clock or something i know it was getting dark or something yeah yeah it would have been yeah would have been around about that time and south key is in the background and a week later i went around television x and they were telling me that yeah there was people editing in the, you know, people still working in the office at the time. And when the explosion went off, you know, it's 500 metres down the road.

And the windows kind of like ballooned out like a bubble in slow motion and wobbled and went back in again. in slow motion and wobbled and went back in again. And then one of them said, oh, fucking hell, the night before, at the same time we were filming, you'd been pulled by a car by the bollocks. And if that had happened one day before, the only bit of footage, video footage that'd be going around on all the news channels

would have been me being pulled by the bollocks in a wig and moustache and an explosion in the background fate it's a strange mistress isn't that isn't it just but music wise still into hip hop music wise sorry that's that's sorry that's so so that that's that was just such a perfect kind of little crystallisation of this podcast. It's like outrageous story of great, magnificent disgustingness. And then music, eh. Yeah. No, I wasn't really into it.

I mean, I was still hoping that hip hop would carry on being dead good, but it started to wane in early 96. It did start to wane in 96. it did start to weigh 96 i'd say kind of definitely weighing by about 97 but there was still too much to listen to there was still too much good stuff in all kinds of areas yeah to listen to in hip-hop in metal and dance music in all kinds of areas there was i do remember the 90s the mid 90s um all the way through i know it's a bit obvious to say 97 98 but i do think that's when it started going tits up but the first seven years of the 90s were fantastic musically and 96 was a brilliant brilliant year just like just like the other ones were so what else was

on telly this day well bbc one starts with breakfast news then breakfast news extra can't cook won't cook kill roy Good Morning with Anne and Nick, The Word Quiz Turnabout, then Michael Parkinson cheers the revival of the Antiques Quiz going for a song. After the news, it's a repeat of yesterday's episode of Neighbours, then the Master Snooker Championship from Wembley, and then Children's BBC kicks off with Dino Babies, then the futuristic cartoon series Highlander and then the really wild show with Michaela Strachan. After news round, Robin begins to have doubts

and Joanna is flattered to have a secret admirer in Grange Hill. Then it's Neighbours again, the six o'clock news and they've just finished regional news in your area. BBC2 kick off super early at 7.15am with See Here Breakfast News, followed by Stingray, yesterday's episode of Blue Peter, the animation Tales of the Two Fairies, Puppy Dog Tales with Victoria Wood, and The Record, a report on yesterday in Parliament. After an hour of schools programmes, it's Play Days, the vastly inferior Play School, and then a couple of hours of schools programmes before

business news in Working Lunch. After another hour of schools programmes, it's Tales of the Two Fairies and Puppy Dog Tales again, then the Andrew Neil Show, Westminster with Nick Ross, and more snooker. They're currently three quarters of the way through Star Trek Deep Space Nine. ITV commences with GMTV, win, lose or draw, the time, the place, this morning, ITN News,

Shortland Street, yesterday's warmed over home and away, a country practice, Vanessa, Tuesday night's Emmerdale, then children's ITV piles in with The Riddlers, Wizardora, Rupert, Mike and Angelo and Reboot. Then it's Shaking Blockbusters, Chain Letters,

followed by the early evening news, Home and Away, regional news in your area and they've just started Emmerdale where there's some shagging because it's the mid-90s. Channel 4 starts at 7 with The Big Breakfast, 15 to 1, then two and a half hours of schools programs before House to House and then Susan Sarandon in Sesame Street. Then it's Hullabaloo, Chigley, the David Hand animation Fantasy on London and the Tyrone Power disaster movie in Old Chicago. Then it's Backdate and Countdown before Ricky Lake tackles the subject of arrogant friends.

Then it's Terry Toons, Home Improvement, Movie Watch and they've just started Channel 4 News. Fucking hell, television is really starting to spread itself a bit thin, isn't it? Well, what's bizarre about what you've just read out, Al, is that whereas when you read out tv listings from the 80s and 70s there are programs where you just think what the fuck is that doing what what you know how the hell did that get commissioned and programmed really although the names might change that set of programs you've just read out is exactly what's on telly now antique shows word quizzes kids programs etc it's yeah this period has a closer link obviously temporarily it does but it just psychologically and in all kinds of ways it feels so close to now in a way that

previous episodes haven't all right then pop crazy, it's time to go way back to February of 1996. Always remember, we may coat down your favorite band or artist, but we never forget, they've been on Top of the Pops more than we have. Hey, Top of the Pops, it's us, 3T. We said we'd do anything for you, so here we are. Live via satellite from Malibu Beach, California. On Top of the pops it's thursday february the 8th 1996 and although we don't know it yet top of the pops is in the

final months of its reign over bbc once thursday night schedule in four months time is going to be moved to fridays at 7 p.m and then put back to 7 30 p.m in direct competition with coronation street on itv we're getting a lot ahead of ourselves here chaps why the fuck would they want to do that tinkering tinkering this is what the late 90s was all about um focus grouping the fuck out of everything and tinkering with it to try and perfect it and and eventually destroying precisely what was good about you know what you're messing with the move to friday night was fatal for top of the pops it was perhaps going to lose its centrality to pop anyway um with what was going on but it didn't help that it it wasn't so much

the move to friday losing an audience it was more the fact that suddenly the time of Top of the Pops being on telly was violated and could be violated and that was fine. And it was just another show that could be shifted about in the schedules. And it was perhaps inevitable that a few years later, yeah, they'd call it a day completely. You can't, it's like moving the Sabbath day. You know, you just can't do it really. It's like Top of the Pops. Top of the Pops is a, it's a Thursday completely. You can't, it's like moving the Sabbath day, you know, you just can't do it really. It's like Top of the Pops. Top of the Pops is a

it's a Thursday thing. It's, you know, it's even got the same letter. It's like you can't buy branding like that. It's like it's Thursday, it's Top of the Pops. Yeah, yes it is. Wobetide anyone who fucks with such a graven and stone thing.

I think we're getting close to a time where the people who are young and into pop at this time may have perhaps fonder memories of like CD UK and things like that rather than Top of the Pops which comes two years later I think CD UK comes to occupy that place

that TOTP did because it did essentially what Top of the Pops did all those years and it was at a dependable time slot, a Saturday morning where kids were available to watch, you know, and it stayed there. It didn't piss about and move it to Sunday night or anything like that. It stayed there for a while.

Yeah, and when you're moving Top of the Pops to Friday evenings, then you're competing with TFI Friday, some American sitcom, and you're a trash, you know. Whatever you thought about Channel 4, they kind of like dominated Friday evenings

for the youth. Yeah. But crucially, why would you move it to compete with Corrie? You're not going to steal Corrie's audience. Corrie is Corrie.

It's been there forever. My mum wasn't going to go, oh, this is a bit boring on Coronation Street, so I'll, you know, listen to some happy hardcore instead. No. No. You're only going to lose when you go up against Coronation Street, so I'll listen to some happy hardcore instead. No.

No. You're only going to lose when you go up against Coronation Street in the mid-90s. I just imagine, I wonder if anyone ever tried, because there was a phase where the theme from everything was turned into a shitty, happy, hardcore version. Has anyone ever tried to do that with Corrie? Can you imagine?

Oh. tried to do that with Corey can you imagine somebody should have tried it really just some crazy genius I bet somebody did I mean there was a Scar version of Coronation Street it's a fantastic theme tune it's one of the greatest of all theme tunes up there with the original Emmerdale theme and I like the fact that my

my wife was told by her dad when she was young that actually the theme she used for Coronation Street had words. And he was just lying to her, you know. But he convinced her that the original lyrics were love on a windowsill. Wow. Whoa.

I'm never not going to hear that again without having those words in my head you should believe that for ages no no that is actually true but um but the lyrics are actually it's it's simpler than that it's um it's coronation street yes it is coronation street etc that's you know it's it etc sometimes the simplest things are the best the best scene churns always scan the title in Cagney and Lacey

Cagney and Lacey Hill Street Blues Hill Street Blues yeah there's kind of a exactly also and of course well this is my blokes thing but it should be the official one is everybody listen

up it's the fucking archers so this episode of top of the pops opens with three nice young lads on an American beach looking as if they're about to be engulfed by a wave while the one in the middle is holding a live microphone. Why? It's 3T and they're telling us

not to be tempted by the carnal delights of Emmerdale and keep it locked down to BBC One. Well, it's a frequent thing. I think they did it virtually every week if they had somebody via satellite link up. But I always thought it was in those american mouths that the name of the program top of the pops started sounding incredibly dated yeah and started sounding incredibly old so this was faintly embarrassing really top of the paps

um we kind of top of the pops well you know any anything is going to sound weird if you say it in a weird voice ten times. But, you know. But, yeah, it's in 3T's defence. Very good. But, yeah, I think we got into this last time. It was that kind of, you know, the novelty aspect wore thin quite quickly. Top of the Pops is an extraordinarily dated name by the mid-90s.

But you're just used to it it's just it's just a name it's like no i mean did anybody in in in 1996 refer to the pop charts as the pops but cd you know if you think about um because you always do this with like old old timey names and you go god that's a bit stale isn't it but then you look at like what comes after them it's like cduk what what is you know nothing against cduk but that's a bit will this do't it but then you look at like what comes after them it's like cduk what what is you know nothing against cduk but that's a bit will this do but at least it's up to date format wise yes yeah it'd be called mp3 uk nowadays but isn't it isn't it nice though like the idea of there being some pops and such a thing as you know as as the top of of said pops you pops if you try really hard you can get all the way

to the top of the pops you know it's a ziggurat that only the boldest ascend that's right it's as good it's as descriptively good as the hip parade

I love that term and it's such a shame it's fallen out of favour because you just imagine Adam Ant with a big bass drum on top of an elephant and members of Pants People just marching along. The hip parade's coming down the street. Yay! Oh, and everybody hurried to the front door and, you know, yeah. After a quick blast of Red Hot Pop by Vince Clark, Oh, everybody hurried to the front door and, you know, yeah. After a quick blast of Red Hot Pot by Vince Clark, we're introduced to this week's host,

dressed in a yellow visibility jacket and matching construction helmet, which makes him look like Bob the Builder's Nana, Julian Cope, or the Holy Cosmic Julian Cope, according to the credits. Born in Monmouthshire, Wales in 1957, Julian Cope grew up in Tamworth and moved to Liverpool in 1976, where he formed the punk band Crucial Three with Pete Wiley and Ian McCulloch in 1977. Cope and McCulloch went on to play in the bands UK and A Shallow Madness, but after they fell out in 1978, McCulloch went off to form Echo and the Bunnymen and co-put together the Teardrop Explodes, who made their first appearance on Top of the Pops in early 1981 with Reward.

After scoring three top 40 hits in 1981, Diminishing Returns set in and the band eventually split up in 1982. After taking a year off he launched a solo career bagging a number 19 hit in 1986 with World Shut Your Mouth and a number 31 hit the following year with Trampoline but he wouldn't make the top 40 again until 1991 with Beautiful Love. By this point he scored a number 24 hit with Try Try Try in August of 1995, published Krautrock Sampler, his book about the German music scene of the late 60s and early 70s,

and Head On, his memoirs of the Liverpool scene and Teardrop Explodes. He's about to start writing The Modern Antiquarian, his book about monuments of ancient Britain, and he's about to release Interpreter, his 13th solo LP. He's also been involved in the protests about the building of the Newbury Bypass, a dual carriage rail road which involved nearly 10,000 trees being cut down from January of this year. By the time this episode's going out, 20 separate camps of protesters are currently living in trees in an attempt to hold up the building project. He's not exactly one of the usual celebs who are fronting top of the

pops at the minute, but he's certainly not sitting about on his arse either, is he? Oh my god, he's so good! He's so amazing. It's like, you know, you wouldn't care if you didn't know who he was. He was just, like, born for this. And it's like, know you wouldn't care if you didn't know who he was he was just like born for this and it's like I just want a super cut of all the Julian Cope bits it's like whatever else is

going on in this episode it's like and and after this it's going to be Julian Cope again he's so I was like I was so full if I if I had admiration for him before it is you know it is now it is now stratified he's just like not everybody you know presenting is a weird thing because it's like we did the one with you know it is now it is now stratified he's just like not everybody you know presenting

is a is a weird thing because it's like we did the one with you know dale winton who you know obviously a consummate pro but just yeah not right for top of the pops and somehow julian cope has gone in there sort of swept in and and you know is being incredibly sort of camp and and everything's a flourish and everything is you know but he doesn't make it about himself he's sort of taking the piss without ever being mean in that almost kind of smash hits kind of way just sort of reveling in the sort of absurdity of the whole thing and the absurdity of him being there i don't know about that he gets a few he gets a few sharp things a little bit but it's not it's kind of nothing but like can you know because dale was a very like sneering eye rolly and this is just sort of part of the um yeah i mean that's he's a little bit spiky but it's you never get that sort of like oh come on mate you know but anyway i you know absolutely hard hats off to mr cope on this

occasion also the the whole newbury bypass thing where he's there like in protest costume you know in full and has other people with him doing the same thing towards the end like that's incredible I can't believe the BBC let him do that

I mean they never you would never ever see anything like that now I mean like now we're just yesterday I think the Iceland the supermarket

tried they were going to run a Greenpeace animation as their Christmas as their christmas um as their christmas advert and they've been banned because it's too political it's about you know orangutans being you know having their habitat destroyed for palm oil which is just a thing that is happening but it's like it's too political we can't possibly have that so it's like this was this really blew

my mind that they would let julian cope caper about in in protest drag basically well maybe see it's still political but it's the other way now isn't it? If Top of the Pops was going today you know that fucking cunty the clown himself Boris Johnson and Farage would have presented Top of the Pops at one point Oh god, oh that

strikes a terror into my heart No it really doesn't It is bizarre, I mean there's a lot of bizarre things about this because he's a bizarre choice in the first place. And it's doubly bizarre that they've let him get away with these political sloganeering, essentially, in what he's wearing and who he's got with him.

But he's, like Sarah says, he's a brilliant Top of the Pops presenter. I wish he'd done more of it. To me, in 96 96 julian cope meant reward and world shut your mouth probably and not not a lot of those other tunes you were mentioning um and i was sent to review julian cope uh live in cardiff um uh in late 95 and i totally slagged him and i feel really bad about that now because I really like him from this episode I found the review actually because I found a box of old reviews and I can

tell that this is one review that Pricey edited because the headline is never trust a hippie in massive letters and the pull out quote is infantile conspiracy theorists pagans, shamans cheese brained, castanada reading

drugged up scum which isn't about the music and i was looking i was digging through the review looking for stuff about the music and i've got a bit i want to kind of go back in time and write a letter to backlash moaning about me that i'm not talking about the music a lot it is very it's mostly a political review which is the kind of thing that pricey used to wave through no problem because he was quite political himself um of course but yeah the quote i mean that the letter would have been called neil shut your mouth but the only time i mentioned kind of the gig in a way i call it a three hour long tiresome poke around the shoddy cubbyhole is his soul and i feel really bad about that now because he's a brilliant i know how mean

spirited but i was a frowny little git who wasn't getting any um so you know these things are inevitable but he's actually a brilliant top of the pops presenter um exactly what sarah was saying there is a little bit of wit there but it's not mean spirited it's it is kind of a celebration of the whole absurdity of Top of the Pops a programme that of course he had appeared on several times before this might be the first time that he's been on Top of the Pops not on LSD

are you sure about that? the thing is though that he's kind of you know he is a performer in that very sort of pure way where he's performing being julian cope but not in that uh not in a demanding way not in i insist that you you know that there's two ways to do that there's two ways to perform self you know one of which is uh is is is narcissistic one of which is very generous and he does it in the generous way because you just

kind of, you know because it's delightful to see him and you don't go, who's that dickhead well maybe you do but I didn't, I just went oh look isn't it brilliant, I mean there's even shades of like Rick Mayall at a certain point, there's that very British sort of, he's sort of rolling his eyes and rolling

his words around his mouth and stuff and it's just very it's meant to entertain you and he's obviously entertaining himself as well and it's like well that's great everybody's everybody's happy in this situation yeah and i should say even though i didn't really listen to much of his music at the time the thing you mentioned the krautrock sampler book and the site the website that he'd start up pretty soon after this called head heritage there's a way of pointing people towards Krautrock and pointing people towards weird psychedelic records.

It was a real eye-opener. He's a fantastic music writer, Julian Cope. And he opened up a lot of things, not just for me, but thousands of people who used to check out the Head Heritage site. It was a great site, that. Sarah, I heard you've got an interesting story about Julian Cope.

I do. I actually have an excellent uh julian cope story by proxy via uh via my my bloke who's been in various bands one of which uh the case and approach um was uh handpicked to uh support julian cope really liked them so he asked them to support him at the junction in cambridge and um right and my bloke says that um he was very uh speaks very highly of him said he was very sort of, very magnanimous. Because you can kind of judge an artist by how they treat their support, can't you?

It's kind of like how people treat, you know, the weight stuff or whatever. But, you know, in that kind of among creatives, you know, it's quite an interesting dynamic. So he said he was very, he looked after them really well and he was very kind of generous and and almost sort of fatherly you know and he said so he took him um so julian cope uh took um took matt aside and said i'm gonna give you some uh gonna give you some advice it's like oh this is you know this is gonna be good oh my god julian cope is gonna get you know is going to impart you know and he said so so once i can't do this i can't do his

accent i mean he's basically got three different accents all at once so i can't i can't attempt to do it so i was playing a gig once at such and such a place and um and a woman in the front row just completely ambushed me um she was you know there was no barrier or anything she was right right up against you know right up against my crotch and proceeded to fellate me while I was singing. And so he said, so my advice to you is, if you're playing a gig, make sure your dick's clean. Oh, God. And so, you know, and he's, you know, he has indeed. It's like, it's all about, he said, it's all about preparedness.

And, you know, he's taken this advice to heart. You know, this is like, you know, you can't buy advice like that. I teach at a music university and I must pass that on to my fellow tutors. Yeah. I mean, we're getting to the point in Top of the Pops' lifespan where they're starting to fold back in Radio 1 presenters. But over the past few months, here's a list of people who've presented Top of the Pops. Suggs, Lee Evans, Louise Redknapp, Jack D, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Ronan Keating and Stephen Gaitler, Alan Davis, Lulu and Lee Evans again.

Out of that lot, even with Gary Glitter in it, Julian Cobie's sticking out like a sore thumb, isn't he? Just makes you wonder who got him in and why. Some mischief maker, you know, who thought it might shake things up a bit. But as it turned out, he could yeah i think he he could have done it all that you know he could have done it every time it would have been great they should have just got they should have just given him the gig basically yeah totally yeah that that list out

that list that's shameful that they gave it to all those people i know it's ridiculous to put it as a special thing that only you know serious music experts should do not at all but they're just farming it out to anyone who wants it. That's what it sounds like. You work for the BBC. Oh, by the way, do you want to do Top of the Pops next week? It, I don't know, it just decreases the specialness of the show.

Whereas keeping somebody like Cope on board and maybe having him not maybe every week, but as a regular would have been a great idea because I think Cope understands what an important show it is and how important pop is so he's always going to be good on it yeah yeah they they should that would have been good when it is like give it to musicians people sort of of the world of that world who have also probably gone off and and done other stuff so somebody you know because it is it's quite a delicate thing really you don't want somebody who's who knows nothing and is just reading a script you don't want somebody who who is um you know who's like

patently unsuited who's too shy who is just a musician who needs to be singing songs and can't you know can't do the other thing but also like somebody who's not bitter that they're not on top of the pops anymore themselves you know yeah yeah yeah yeah i guess that's that kind of narrows it i would you know there's probably quite a small pool but yeah it does smack of laziness get Lee Evans on he's zany, let's get him on he'll caper about, let's get him on again

I think like Pete Murphy would have been a brilliant top of the pops for Santa I don't know if he was ever asked to do it that kind of person would have been absolutely ideal well Pete Burns why did Peteete oh fucking that's what i meant pete burns sorry now we're talking all right oh yeah i was gonna say not the kind of cadaverous sort of no no god no i meant pete burns i'm so sorry oh pete pete burns

oh that would have been great because you know he really did and he would have been he would have been such a bitch it would have been great it would have been magnificent because I do blanch at people being you know people being big meanies but there are some people who are just you've just got to let them do it that's just who they are and he would have just torn into everyone

and spat them out it would have been incredible yeah but crucially Burns had that ability to laugh at himself as well and that generosity, which would have made it fine and dandy. Yeah. But the thing that offends me most about the special appearances is that it's clear now that whoever's producing this show

has such little faith in the power of the format that it's like they've got to drag things in to try and make it more special. And it's like, no, you don't have to do that people are going to watch because they want to see the bands that are in the charts yeah it's it's horrible that when people lose because this is you know of course what happened with with um with melody maker is that kind of loss of of faith and confidence in in um you know in in what it wasn't why people loved it and the thing is that you can't you know it'd be going for 70 odd years know in in what it was and why people loved it and the thing is that you can't you know it'd be going for 70 odd years like just like that's a that's a thing you do not have to you know there

is a weight that comes with that and you don't have to worry it's like more is it getting a bit stale is it going to be you know yeah sure of course you've everything needs refreshing once in a while but it's like not you know you don't throw it in the bin and start again because of some imaginary you know out of like panic that people won't like it anymore it's like, well yeah, now they won't like it anymore because you've just fucking upended it I don't recall Lily Savage being drafted in to do the money program

you know what I mean? Hello, I'm Julian Cope, your holy cosmic host. Tonight we'll be circumscribing the mother earth, translating from the new world. But first, this is BT, featuring Vincent Corbello. I love you more than I have not loved before Historic clouds will pass over me And the big hole inside won't be no longer there I won't be no longer there. After telling us that Top of the Pops are going to be circumscribing the Mother Earth and transmitting from the New World,

which basically means we're going to do some more satellite broadcasts from America, Cope introduces the first tune, Loving You More by BT featuring Vincent Covello. Born in Rockville, Maryland in 1971, Brian Tranzo was the son of an FBI agent and a psychiatrist who was studying music composition at the Washington Conservatory of Music at the age of eight. After getting into breakdancing and electronic music via the Blade Runner soundtrack in the early 80s, playing in various bands and dropping out of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he moved to Los Angeles in a failed attempt to get signed as a singer-songwriter. After moving back to Maryland in 1990, he hooked up with the electronic

duo Deep Dish and formed Deep Dish Records. His first dabblings on vinyl, A Moment of Truth and Relativity, made little impression in his home country but became massive dance hits in the UK, causing the DJ Sasha to invite him over to London and introduce him to Paul Oakenfold, who signed him up to his own label. This is the follow-up to Embracing the Sunshine, which got to number 34 in March of 1995, which established BT as one of the pioneers of the dance music genre known as trance. And this single, off the LP Ema, originally got to number 28 in September of 1995. For some reason, it's been re-released, and it's a new entry this week at number 14, fronted by the singer Vincent Covello, who I know

very little about. So, Trance, a new frontier in dance music, all rave for people who've just got on the property ladder. It's sort of a lay-by on the great kind of dance autobahn, I guess,

isn't it, really? I'm alright with it, it though the thing is like i heard this and it was a bit like uh the one we had last time which was uh it was berry wasn't it sunshine after the rain was the opener and i had a similar feeling of like i haven't heard this for years um i i didn't you know i didn't know that i didn't especially miss it but it's definitely got that sort of i'm i'm a sucker for that sort of throwaway twinkly tinfoil um you know uh pro tools um pro tools trans it's like because we um we came up with this thing of like um uh lager house lager house being the pinnacle of lager house being um uh atb's 9

p.m till i come whenever that was. So if you imagine that, that's Lagerhaus. This is more like Carverhaus or you know, like I said my bloke who often gets these things better than I do is Archers and Lemonade trance. So it's a sparkly sort of Bacardi breezer

of a thing. I mean it's more like it looks this performance is more like a sort of club appearance. You've got that kind of, you know, sort of cute bloke who has given it, you know, who knows what he's doing. He's a good singer. He's got a decent voice. Slightly nervous, but not, you know,

cripplingly so. And it's always interesting, the ones where they are singing live, because obviously we know that you know, for most of Top of the Pop's history, it was, you know, people weren't. So it's, there's always interesting the ones where they are singing live because obviously we know that for most of Top of the Pops history people weren't so there's always that slight tension of like are they going to fuck it up and he does not fuck it up

it's that there is a there's a dude playing the piano looking really happy about it, there's a couple of I think that's BT oh is that the man himself, I see I think so, yeah there's a couple of lovely ladies, lovely backing singer ladies. And some guys, okay, how do I describe them?

There's also a gang of tribesmen, mountain tribesmen. What kind of drums are they? My ignorance knows no bounds on this um but uh yeah um i i just i don't care i love shit like this it's like it's like small scale euphoria it's like kind of it's this sort of everyday elation it's not like a giant banger it's not like a life-changing hands in the air tune but there's just they they've they've done that sort of they've hit that particular sort of melancholy uh note and and sort of meter that is yeah i mean this is partly you know just the age that i was at the time everything i was in my late teens and you know everything is like so so intense at that time you can hardly stand to stand to be alive at all but um yeah it's kind of

like it's like um um it's kind of like a nice poster print of the starry night by van gogh like with in a poster hanger do you know what i mean that's what this is yeah yeah it's it's chill out music but um not because you're coming down from an e but because your mate's just giving you a black coffee to gulp down after you've overdone it on the arches and lemonade, isn't it? I mean, you say it's Trance Techno, and I kind of get that. It sounds like Trance Techno, but it's a little pop tune. I mean, it's about three and a half minutes long, isn't it?

Trance Techno tended to just drag on for about an hour, as I recall it. Covello is good. He's a good singer. Slightly chunky frontman of a wet wet wet tribute band he might look like but he's good that's harsh man well he's good, he's a good singer and he looks great, this kind of music

this could have been out last week it really hasn't changed this kind of music I kind of, as a frowny little git as I've said I probably hated it at the time because for me there were records that were dance music that did induce a trance in a way things on Gorilla Records and things like Orbital

that were trance inducing whereas this was kind of more I don't know homicidal impulse inducing or well it would have been to me at the time trance techno always confused me because it always seemed like it was adding something to techno that was already there much like trip hop that term trip up used to bug me because it's just like well hip-hop is a trip you know thanks yes and it is a trip yeah yeah and good techno is

trance inducing we don't you know but that's the thing though all of the it's it's i think this is a problem of uh of nomenclature isn't it it? It is, yeah. It's like EDM. When I first heard about EDM a few years ago, and I was like, how can you call it... So what, EDM stands for electronic dance music? That's like, what? But that's a specific genre.

What the fuck do you think you're doing? It's like if they suddenly started to rename foods, you know, like, I can't think of how you would do that. But it was just a bit of a mind bender. But it's kind of, you know i'm like i can't think of how you would do that but it was just a bit of a mind bender but it's kind of you know it's like you've got to call your genre something and of course these things looks like acid house just sort of the way that that arose is you know and people got very confused about like you know what what the acid and acid house was and indeed what the

house in acid house was yeah but it's just you know you got it you've got to call it something i would be interested to know the sort of the etymology of you know how this like who named it and how these things came about but yeah it does often end up with this sort of frustrating you know like that there's this kind of dislocated meaning and it's like the thing does not really describe what it is um there are you know something like hardcore of course it's absolutely perfectly named like you know you couldn't call hardcore anything else could you no no but it's interesting you mentioned edm because in the pages of the maker i'd have been railing against this kind of music but in typical you know reverse midas style i was totally wrong if you listen to david guetta or what's big in edm right now it's trance that exerts an influence far more

probably in the obscure horrible dark shit i was into at the time um and i missed out as usual i should have been enjoying trance music at the time but my whole life i missed out on what was going on um so i'd love to say it was out of stylistic principles but no it's just shyness i mean you said al that you know this wasn't e-music um i hadn't taken ecstasy until round about now. I missed out on the first wave of ecstasy. So when the Eclipse Club down the road in Coventry was bringing rave to Coventry,

I was inside with my books and my ZX Spectrum. But by 95, 96, I am taking this drug ecstasy, but it's not proper ecstasy. It's that stuff you buy for, I don't know, seven pills for 20 quid at a pub right and then you go on somewhere and i find myself in clubs with this kind of shit on this kind of music on and although my soul would be taking off because of the chemicals and it'd be you know raining indoors almost um this music would i'd be moaning about it and i'd be complaining about it like brit pop I thought it was singing songs about a life that was opposite to mine.

There is a place for trance techno, don't get me wrong. It's particularly suitable as a soundtrack to Ray Mears' documentaries, I find. But trance, I mean, I've heard trance mentioned as the disco of the 90s because it was as popular at its height as disco was. And it was just as maligned. You know, critics didn't like trance music. They didn't really write about it much. Perhaps because it's formulaic.

All the things that Sarah identified. It's got that arpeggio. It's got that phased bass line. It's got those Indian eastern touches. Here provided by that, you know, that Mahajuddin drum circle. And crucially, it's got that build moment and a drop moment. It's a Tully banger. But it's got that build moment and a drop moment. It's a tally banger. But it's

got that build moment and it's got a drop moment. I've heard worse than this single, don't get me wrong, but it does remind me also, speaking of 96, of being in the Glastonbury dance tent the second year that Glastonbury was like Dunkirk and being ordered out of the Melody Maker bus to

go and review the dance tent by my shithead of an editor. That was the year that, by the way, that was the year that Ian Brown was after me. But yeah, sent out to review the dance tent and just genuinely just stood there watching Eum and Effluent just bobbing past on a brown wave

with this kind of track playing. so yeah i i i probably would have hated this at the time right now listening to it now it's not a bad little pop single actually and and yes it's got some trance touches but the hook's not bad the hook's not bad at all yeah well just as well eh because you hear it over and over and over and over for three minutes yeah but repetition is you know repetition was a thing before this and i believe it is still quite popular now you know but like there's one that's another thing about this actually is that um it's very it's very pretty there was a lot of this that was very pretty and very feminine and it was you know it was it was for women basically i know i always oh god i'm so sarah banging on about women again it's so boring but you know it that's what it was

for it's for girls going out and you know doing doing the kind of you know packs of women all descending on the dance floor um but also yeah it because you were saying like it's not e music and I would I would go along with that but I think it's sort of e adjacent it's like the contact high that you get off a bunch of people who are all f music if you like um yeah it's like you know it's like being on a night bus with a pack of people who are just sort of you know just starting to come down the other side of the hill but still going you know and you've just been out drinking but you're getting it you're you're getting the you know it's in the air they love everyone and they love you and it's that's what this is, I think.

I mean, for me, this is just... This is the sort of thing that would just wash over you on Kiss FM on the office radio or be on while you're waiting for your PlayStation game to load up. It was just there. Yeah. And I think Top of the Pops is treating that in a similar manner because this is the archetypal opening tune on an episode of Top of the Pops, treating that in a similar manner because this is the archetypal opening tune on an episode of Top of the Pops, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, completely, because it's going to get the crowd going. It's like, oh, it's nice, but it really doesn't mean anything, so let's get it on first, get it out the way. But it gets the crowd going as well. Although, of course, it being a 90s episode of Top of the Pops, the crowd are not really any more about what they can provide individually but it's whether they can make a convincing mass you know convincing uniformity and that's what you and that's what you really get with the noise yeah that's what you get with the crowd here you don't really see them

as individuals but they are all doing the same thing and eventually they all end up clapping hands in the air doing that thing which looks good with this kind of music. I noticed this actually. Yeah, it seems, yeah, it is more about the, do they look good as a crowd? You can't pick out individuals in the way that you used to be able to. But also they all actually look like they're having a good time. There's not, there isn't like any awkwardness. Like somebody's done a really good job of like whipping up the crowd, you know. And so they're all in the right mode and in the right mood for it

and there is there's jumping up and down there's waving there's arms in the air and it doesn't look you know or it didn't seem to me anyway it looks quite sort of natural maybe i'm just maybe i'm naive about this maybe they're all there's a guy with a cattle prod you know the floor manager's going you bastards look happy but you know that's like a like a clown was there any need for them tribesmen up the front no in traditional garb

banging away on traditional instruments no that's embarrassing to me that reduces the song to one level above a panpipe CD there's no need for it but if this is

retaining that kind of link to goa and to the trance music that was going on at the time that was an essential you had to tip your wink in a hippie-ish way to eastern cultures in some way whether that was in the psychedelics of the graphics or something like that you had to tip your wink this is actually

a big american pop record in a way um but it's but it's you know it has to have that hippie-ish spiritual i mean it's bullshit but that sort of false spirituality of getting some um quote unquote ethnic drummers in to give it to give it that validation um you know but trance as a word it's not a bad thing to want to achieve with dance music it's when it becomes codified into a genre that it starts achieving this kind of opposite effect for me when it becomes that formula it stops um it stops you truly losing yourself to it in a way and because you're spotting all these signifiers so the following week loving you more dropped 17 places to number 31 while in london he was introduced to shaking bush and their collaboration

blue skies got to number 26 in November of this year. And he'd go on to work with Sting, Peter Gabriel, Britney Spears and Depeche Mode, as well as land six more top 40 hits in his own right. And Vincent Covello went on to become a vocal coach on Broadway. Don't know what happened to the Bedouins. They probably went off back to their... Back to bed.

Well, they wouldn't go back to anywhere, would they? Because they're wandering. I don't know. Probably ended up settling on the Countdown UK stage or something for a bit before being moved on. I just hope they got paid, man. I was just like,

as soon as I saw them, because I I saw them how do you get them? I'd love to know their story was there a casting agency for dance music extras at this time? well they are in the video as well aren't they? they're not just on this appearance

they are in the video I'm not saying they're part of the band but they were clearly part of the brand, let's put it that way. That's good. You've done a deep dive. Yes, well done. Tonight, we're international which is the moon and that is spinning out over San Diego

north up to Malibu Beach and Spaceman is number one but first is that monotheistic balladeer Joan of Arc Yeah Yeah Yeah God had a name Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, God had a name, what would it be and would you call it to his face?

Cope, now accompanied by someone in a giant It's A Knockout style builder's costume, reminds us that we'll be going to San Diego and Malibu Beach and spoiler alerts are current number one. As the camera pans round we see the badge that the It's a Knockout builder is wearing. Poll tax what happens if nobody pays. Unfortunately the poll tax was renamed to the council tax a year previously. Eventually he introduces two, Joan Osborne and One of Us. Born in Anchorage, Kentucky in 1953, Joan Osborne moved to New York in the late 80s and played her songs at various venues in Greenwich Village. She went on to form her own independent label, Womanly Hips, and put out her own live LP in 1991.

After being picked up by Mercury Records in 1993, she was invited to record this song, which was written by Eric Bazillion of the Hooters. He's just making this up now. The band that opened the Philadelphia leg of Live Aid and made everyone in Britain go, who the fuck are they? He'd written the song for the TV show Joan of Arcadia, which was about a 16-year-old girl who meets God in real life and he tells her to take up piano lessons

and adopt a cat and shit like that. According to Bazillion, he wrote the song to impress some woman he fancied and challenges the listeners to consider how you'd get on with God if he was right there in your face and therefore you'd have to believe in heaven and angels and all that

shit, I don't know. And it's a new entry this week at number six. Before we get into the song, first question, what if God really was one of us? Eh? Well, makes you think, doesn't it? Just asking that question is aggravating me As much as this song does Because imagine if somebody genuinely said that to you

Yeah Yeah Yeah that's a real It's a real kind of pub It's like when you It's like when you get You know those kind of dinner party conversation Bloody starters isn't it? It's like oh you get Those kind of dinner party Conversation It's like

I can't quite Function as a human being I need to Somebody start me off Oh god no It's like being at a party And meeting someone you fancied And all of a sudden they came out with that

And you think oh no you're one of them I don't know where do you go with it really I mean I can't it's almost like one of those zen things it's like what is the sound of one hand clapping it's like if God was one of us he wouldn't be God

now do you want to shag or what but those kind of lyrics they're triply that was ending Sarah, I promise. Lyrics like that. Or you, Neil. Come on, let's... Yeah, let's open this up a little.

I've got to chuck in here before we move on that if God was one of us, he'd either barricade himself in his house and not come out because he couldn't bear to see what a fucking shit show it is or he'd be absolutely fucking insufferable yeah can you imagine he's someone who you just avoid in the pub imagine he'd be going around he'd be going around thinking it was summer he'd get right on your fucking tits he'd be on tinder he'd think he was a shagger, but actually he'd be distinctly average. Yeah.

I reckon. Just, you know, because he would think that his, you know, because he's God and stuff, it's like, well, that just, you know, it means I don't have to try and it's like,

yeah, that's not how it's done, mate. Yeah. But the only good thing about... Oh God, am I going to be struck down now for suggesting that God is a bit underwhelming

as a fuck. No, the lyrics like that, there was a lot of them around at the time actually. They're presented as if they're thought provoking, that's the thing. Yeah. If someone said to you, what if God was one of us? That'd be it, wouldn't it? You'd just fucking avoid that person. Yeah.

Almost immediately. And there's a sort of myth about 90s music that's reaffirmed far too often from my liking that in some way grunge changed everything and that the success of kind of you know Nirvana and a gloomier gnarlier type of music

somehow killed off this kind of peppy air punching AOR type stuff and it didn't it didn't at all in fact precisely because with Grunge and Britpop

they kind of exerted no forward trajectory on pop just what they gave pop was this endless ability to regurgitate the past so we get all this hippie shit

coming out of the woodwork and in films like Singles and in the crossover kind of Grunge acts which you know saw lumberjack shirts suddenly turning up in C&A, all those people like Pearl Jam and Stained,

what we really see isn't the reassertion of a kind of interesting alternative canon of pop. We just see the reassertion of rather hoary old rock motifs, that it's musicians that matter, and it's real bands that matter, and it's real music played on real instruments that matter and you get this kind of dreary supposedly it's mistaking vagueness for profundity isn't it this record lyrically it's up there with i don't know for me completely different type of record but with des reys life in terms of lyrics that just make me want to fucking gnaw my knuckles off you know what i mean so it's just this kind of comfort. Yeah, punk's definitely over.

We can get away with this shit again. So I hate this shit. I would have filed this mentally at the time alongside, I don't know, Four Non Blondes and the Spin Doctors and stuff like that. And I think I'd still be right in so doing. Because the look's just horrible. You know, nobody calling on the phone set for the pope maybe in rome because everyone who's not catholic clearly is going to burn in

hell it's it's uh it's a horrible song there's no forgiving it joan osborne might be a lovely person i don't know but um i loathe this song then and now you know as as far as the presentation goes yes you're right neil it is proper music played on proper instruments i mean jones there in a monochrome checkered floral blouse and a pvc miniskirt and she's got a band and there's you know there's some women in it which is nice but it's just cat shit isn't it well i mean to be fair um as, yes, well, A, yes, it is. But B, as in terms of a performance, it's actually, it's pretty solid. And I have to say, like, being, you know, teeth gratingly familiar with the recording,

used to be on the radio all the time. Yes, it did. Oh, God, it's this again. And it was very, they really undersold her voice. I was quite surprised listening to this live performance she's got actually quite a not quite a nice bonnie rate rasp to her voice she's got a good texture to her voice which is not on the record um which is weird like why would you want why would you why would you kind of um smooth that out but there you go um so i enjoyed it more than i ever did um on record you know for the millionth time um and i

was like yeah um but um and the crowd seems to the crowd seems to really like it and you know she's sort of you know she's a pro and stuff but that's yeah sparking off theological debate in a top of the pops audience that's it's a good sign isn't it I noticed you didn't say, what if Allah was one of us? Yeah, why not? Those Bedouins in the previous song would have turned very nasty at that suggestion. But she's kind of given it loads in the song, that the song is actually too small and sort of restricted to contain. I've never heard anything else that she's done, but it seems like a bit of a waste really you know um but um yeah oh you were you were wondering so julian uh uh lovely julian um the holy cosmic julian cope um introduced this

and you were um you couldn't make out what he was saying um oh yes was yes did you want to know this uh he referred to her he introduced her as the monotheistic balladeer Joan Osborne. Wow. Of course. Yes. There we go. In with the knife. I want a pantheistic balladeer right in my face.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's the objectionable thing about that line. Nobody calling on the phone, except for the Pope, maybe in Rome. Yeah. Because. That's quite. Somebody is taking the piss there, though, surely. That's the objectionable thing about that line. Nobody calling on the phone, except for the Pope, maybe in Rome. Yeah. Because that's quite, that somebody is taking the piss there though, surely. That's quite funny.

The only, yeah. It's not, I don't want to see a ghost. It's the sight that I fear most. I'd rather have a piece of toast. Oh life. But it makes perfect sense. In my research, when I found found out it was the theme tune to a television show

that was obviously so crap it wasn't even on the lifestyle channel by 1996 it ended up on E4 in the early noughties obviously but yeah it does sound like a theme tune doesn't it to some American crap

it makes a lot more sense. I didn't know that at all about that TV show, which has a religious basis, obviously, and consequently, yeah, fine. Why didn't they tell us this then? It might not have annoyed me so much. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else to say about this?

Yeah. Oh, now I've got it in my head again. Basically, if God is on the bus and is telling you that he's God, don't follow him home. He's not God. No, just get the fuck off the bus. Get the fuck off the bus. Because you know what's going to happen next?

It's fucking stabbing time. So the following week, one of us dropped one place to number seven, but would go back up to number six the week later, its highest position. The follow-up, St. Teresa, got to number three in June of this year, and she was done as a chart act in the UK, but is still recording today. And that woman who Eric Bazillion wrote the song for married him,

which was nice. I have to get in the fact that the only good thing about this song, it reminds me of that photo that floated about on social media, which read, if God was there, what would you say to him? And someone wrote underneath why is my G spot up my

arse? Remember that? I remember that. Wasn't that just up the road from you? Five minutes walk from where I'm actually sitting right now. I was so proud of Nottingham that day. Love that tunnel vision. This next song is called 1979. That's before sub pop before we became dudes. They're smashing pumpkins Every night Co-kids never have a time Cope, now wearing matching yellow gloves,

gets in a swift coat down on organised religion and introduces a song about a time before sub-pop and calling each other dudes and a band he describes as sub-dudes, Smashing Pumpkins and 1979. Formed in a Chicago record shop in 1988, Smashing Pumpkins made their first appearance on vinyl on a compilation LP of local bands and then after putting their debut single out on Limited Potential Records and their second on Sub Pop pop they released the LP Gish in 1991. They didn't make the top 40 over here until July of 1993 when Cherub Rock got to number 31 and the follow-up today only got to number 44. However the follow-up to that Disarm was a new entry at number 11 in March of 1994.

This is the follow-up to Bullet With Butterfly Wings, which got to number 20 in October of 1995, is the second cut from the LP Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, and is accompanied by the video, which was shot in California and involves Billy Corgan arsing about in a big car with some teens, while the other members of the band portray shoplads, irate neighbours and the police. It's a new entry this week at number 16.

I am shocked that Today didn't get in the top 40. That's ridiculous. Even I know that song and I'm not in the slightest bit interested in this sort of thing. But actually, this, 1979, is my favourite Pump pumpkin song by miles i bloody love this song there's tongues wrong with the smashing pumpkins don't get me wrong but gish the album you mentioned was an absolute blinder um but then i lost interest because like loads of

other bands at the time excited by the cd format and exactly how much music you could shove on one um they just started making these 79-minute albums that could have been a lot better with about 10 of the tracks cut. It was a real era of bands taking the piss with the CD format possibilities. But I love this song. There's just something sort of hopeful about it, youthful about it. And, yeah, it does make me think of days to confuse and that kind of that that american myth that i still kind of believed in at this time and it's

it's a lovely in contrast to so much of the gloomy grunge stuff um and it's great by the way that julian cope mentions sub pop um in his little intro something that maybe not a lot of the viewers would have got but it's good that he's leaving that in but I love this song I like the video as well the problem with Smashing Pumpkins is Corgan really or as Everett Tree used to call him Puffy Face Twat

but I think they got into a lot of they got in the neck a lot for essentially really pasteurising grunge a little bit and selling a lot of records I have no problem with that because this is to me a great pop song it's in that right sort of vaguely out of its zone that the song that the video is and there's some nice moments party silliness in it that i think anyone could identify it's a very american video so they're jumping into swimming pools and stuff but i do like the bits on the dance floor

and the fights that kick off and just the little stupid moments like that um this catches the band perhaps before they went truly stellar and massive and and they were a band that couldn't cope with hugeness at all in all kinds of ways i remember seeing them live at the nec which is always a horrible venue anyway, perhaps that year. And they were just terrible. They didn't know how to fill a stadium at all or how to do that right. And, you know, the smack years were beckoning

for all four of them, actually, in the band. But this is, I think, their best song. If one could be salvaged from their entire oeuvre, it would be this one. It's a corker. A corgan-made corker a corgan made corker I'm slightly distracted in this video by how much he looks like

Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket you expect someone to just lean over and tell him that he climbs obstacles like old people fuck but it is, it's a gorgeous I'm in complete agreement here.

It's just a, it's a very, it's always nice when you see a video that really aligns with the song and really sort of brings, reflects and enhances the song. Because it is that sort of California light, isn't it? It's that gorgeous sunshine with that sort of, you know. And yeah, kids mucking about and doing donuts in a car. I love that on the bumper of the car, it's like little details little details like you know proud parents of a d student sticker on the thing and and yeah there's there's this sort of lightness and innocence about it which is um

which is which is really agreeable and it doesn't really it hasn't i think a lot of their stuff sounds very sort of you know has not sort of dated you know but um this this kind of hasn't really it's um you know it is one of those things like you were saying that could have been released last week you know yeah it's it's a rock song but it's not aggressive it's kind of it glides it does it doesn't you know other other songs by smashing pumpkins are very pushy and they push you know private pile to the front living in his world of shit. But this one doesn't. It's a gentle look back. And there's something wistful and nostalgic about it that I really, really like.

Not just a wistful nostalgia in the lyrics, but musically, it leaves lingering gaps that you can fill with your own imagination. I really like this song. The video really puts the band over a lot better than a live performance on Top of the Pops ever would. You know, if this was on,

if I was flicking through the channels on me Skybox and this came on, I would have stopped and watched it because I do believe at this time, us lot in the UK were finally getting to realise that being white in America wasn't as brilliant as it had been made out to be before. I think Nirvana were instrumental in putting over the fact that their lives

were just as mundane as ours. But they still had bigger cars and, you know, next door had a swimming pool you could jump into. And, you know, have a house big enough to put a band into. Oh, and of course, at this time, because it's a video,

this is a time when Top of the Pops choose to overlay the charts on it from number 40 to number 11 as if they don't mean shit yeah I was dubious about that I was kind of happy that there were arrows indicating whether they were going up or down but yeah that's a nice touch

but it slips by a little bit fonts, colours, design Top of the Pops in this era is probably its lowest ebb I would say and this is the only reason this era it's probably its lowest step i would say and this is the only reason that a video's in because they wouldn't do it on a live performance no they wouldn't you're right which kind of takes away from it a bit it just shows that they're focus grouping the fuck out of it and some dipshit has said in some bit of market research yeah well we don't really care about the chart rundown it kind of wastes time because of course

it used to be a moment where somebody would read it out and you'd just see the photos and you'd hear the top of the pops theme over it and somebody's obviously said it's a bit of a waste of time and they got rid and consequently the show doesn't it loses its umbilicus to the chart and the movements in the chart which is what it should be all about really yeah and and you know back in the heyday it wasn't you know it was never a thorough examination of the charts but you know and they got it and you know back in the heyday it wasn't you know it was never a thorough examination of the charts but you know and they got it out you know they they they sorted it out right at the beginning yeah but it was it had that build-up to it and that excitement to it and it's

like oh are they gonna be on and oh who's that yeah and we're not all that kind of stuff we're not talking so late that the singles that are moving are moving just because they've sold an extra 100 copies this week. Singles are still selling massively. And the movement within the chart was really interesting to sad sods like me. But it was interesting seeing how things moved. So to relegate the chart to just this graphic at the bottom of the screen, it seemed a fatal oversight of what the show should really be all about well it takes all the kind of it takes all the inherent tension in a chart rundown

which is anything that they did that you know announcing the the well this is what they did in the in the 70s is they would announce the number one up front and it's like that's a really serious misunderstanding uh you know an early misunderstanding of what this should be so they cottoned on to it after a bit and went no you want it to be the big reveal but now Julian Cope's just given it away yeah he has hasn't he

yeah he's back to it Babylon 2 number 1 I was slightly disappointed the best time they did the chart run down was during the 80s because they would break it up into groups of 10 and they basically announced 10 songs to you and you know that at the end they're going to play one of them

because they'd always say oh let's go back to number 24 and it's this or it's going to suddenly stop in the chart rundown and it's going to be this song so that anticipation's completely gone here because they want you because they're terrified that you're going to be this song. So that anticipation's completely gone here because they want you because they're terrified that you're going to switch over.

Bell ends. Bell ends. Out of the 30 tunes that were mentioned, I only recognised seven of them, which goes to show my total indifference to the charts at the time. Was one of them Naughty North, Sexy South by Emotion?

I love that record. No. Never heard that. the time was one of them uh naughty north sexy south like emotion off that record no you've never heard in you've never heard in the naughty sexy south what can't stop okay we've got to stop we've got to say no i haven't if you played it to me i might go oh yeah that's on yeah we've got did it right okay does it sample and, no. It's just... No, what's the fucking point of it then? But it goes, right, it goes in the naughty north where the girls look nice, in the sexy south where the boys look twice. See?

I feel it resonates on this, you know, with all of our experience. It was a great record. It's the put a donk on it of its age. It was a great record. It's the put a donk on it of its age. It was a great record. Yeah, you're really selling it to me here. So the following week, 1979 dropped 16 places to number 32. However, the follow-up, Tonight Tonight,

got to number seven in May of this year, their highest position in the UK charts, and they'd have four more top 40 hits until they split up in 2000. Billy Corgan now owns the NWA, the National Wrestling Alliance, has described himself as a free-market libertarian capitalist, claims that Swine Flu is an Obama conspiracy,

and is a big, fat, slap-headed bellend. We're sailing high over the Mother Earth tonight. We're clearly out of our trees. It's the Lighthouse family. Lift it! Cope, perched awkwardly by a Top of the Pops logo, has opened up his visibility jacket to reveal a white T-shirt with the slogan, Sailing Hobbs you hero you hero. He tells us that we're sailing high over the mother earth tonight and we're clearly

out of our trees before introducing lifted by the lighthouse family. Formed in Newcastle by two students at the local university Tunde Balewu and Paul Tucker, Lighthouse family began their career by recording demos of songs that Tucker had written in the late 80s and were immediately signed to a development deal by Polydor Records later that year. was released in the spring of 1995. This song, the first single from it, picked up airplay on radios 1 and 2 but only got to number 61 in June of that year. The follow-up, Ocean Drive, got to number 34 in October of 1995 but Polydor, who had already spent

a quarter of a million on the LP, decided to delete and relaunch it and when Lifted was re-released, it became this week's highest new entry at number four, and here they are in the studio. Oh, no. Honestly,

I nearly, I actually nearly cried when this came on, because, you know, I felt this, like, just my heart sank, and I just went, oh, no. And I just felt this, like, just my heart sank. And I just went, oh, no. And I just, only for a moment. But it's because I obviously, I remember it was, you know,

there are songs where when you hear them, you immediately start to go la, la, la, la, la, la, to block them out and run. You run, you run, pell- pell mall over to the stereo or like you know if you're in a cab you just you dive between the seat you know just grab the steering wheel if you need to and slam it into a wall so you don't have to listen to this shit sorry but oh god but you know i mean the good news hey listen the good news is um uh just to just to be shallow about it this dude is way more handsome than I remember

because he is a beautiful man, but what the fuck is he doing? What is he doing? This is, you know, it's, yeah, I must credit my bloke once again with really nailing this. He said it's like Christian rock without God. It's godless. It's godless Christian rock.

I mean, i have no issue with easy listening if it's easy to listen to this is not easy you know this is this is a hard hard fucking listen but it actually it there's i i do have a real visceral i'm not exaggerating there is like this real gut level hatred of this and i did uh you know i i was glad i was glad when it was over it's it's just awful like what's worse what's worse than this really it's like it's like staring it's like if this were a the mood that this kind of evokes is like staring at some sort of a ghastly curtain while you're trying not to listen to somebody that you no longer love breaking up with you. Like, and you know that there's going to, you know that that's,

that there's going to be no one else. And it's like, this is, and, and just blazing on your memory is the horrible pattern of that curtain. Do you know what I mean? It's like that. Yeah.

I mean, to my mind, it's, you know, that couple that your partner know that you really don't like, and they've invited you around to a dinner party for ages. You've been putting it off and you've been putting it off and you can't. You get round there and this is on.

This is on because they think Simply Red is too urban and roughneck. You know what I mean? And you know it's a soundtrack to sitting next to someone you don't particularly like having to try and make conversation with them. All you want to say is, what's this shit doing on the CD player? Get it fucking off. Yeah.

Now. It's worse, actually. You're talking about the banality of what if God was one of us? And not to undermine... That is true. However, this kind of... He'd ate the lighthouse family has nothing to do with this record whatsoever um i think he would be the first to say that no

um it's like it's wasn't that is that kind of profound that sort of like um it's grasping for just the the niceness of love so isn't love nice yeah and it's like well yes it is but not like that not like this it's like what it's that sort of here we are we're pootling along the coast in in our sensible car and everything's all right and it's just al saying it's like going around some of this house that you really cannot stand this this song reminds me of an in-law an in-law of mine who's hopefully not listening um who i remember being sat at a dinner table with who said i'm getting quite insuggestive late i've been listening to a lot of jb cullen and it's it's it's that kind of i don't know the thing is that we're all we're all misinterpreting

this this song is the reason this song became so successful is because of its usability not just in an advertising sense but if we're talking about a period where clubbing is getting big and getting home yeah from the club needs a whole new kind of music in a sense for that morning is that what this is i think this is i wouldn't say i wouldn't say it's chill out stuff exactly but what it's kind of hangover-dissipating music in a sense. Personally, I chased my hangovers off at the time. Well, with more booze by 11, by the time the pubs were open, of course. But I mean, yeah, I chased them off.

I mean, back then, of course, for most of us, hangovers were only in our head and lasted a morning. Now, of course, they're in our whole bodies and last several days. But I'd chase my hangovers off with a can of Coke and some Wu-Tang clam and then, yeah, hitting the pub by about 11. That's how you do it. But you can imagine that is how you do it, but you can imagine

people, I don't know, soothing themselves to this. There's no penetration to this record. The bass, the beat. No, there's no attack at all. It's all, no. No. That insufferable acoustic guitar lick that seems to say have you considered your life insurance and and you know it all and crucially of course you know lead shite house family guy's voice handsome chap though he is and he's got a beautiful shirt on

as well yes big collars they're all that But the whole thing The whole package Is deliberately constrained To not cause anything Approaching excitement No So you get these lines Like Sarah says

About love But it is a completely Sexless love It's a It's a love Where our genitals Have been Eroded

Yes And we're all Kens and Barbies And you get lines like Where everything's understandable and you don't have to say anything too loud it's hangover music it evokes the misery

of a really bad hangover the kind that doesn't kick in until the afternoon because up to then you're still drunk and you loathe yourself you know that horrible self-loathing that you go oh god and it's quite abstract and large as well it's not just like oh why have i why did i drink too much it's bigger than that it's like that existential sickness that you go just like but also like his um i'm i'm by no means

done slagging the song off yet but i mean who yeah i mean i guess there was an audience for it i mean yeah but it is just like a, it is this kind of, his voice is so unpleasant. It's very, it's got this flatness to it. It's like a very, it's like a nicely tarmac bit of road to somewhere really boring. And also he's not a very good singer.

He's not a very good singer. I mean, you have to, you know, compared to Vince, you know, maybe I always give people, you know, it's like you allow for nervousness of live performance but he doesn't seem

he doesn't actually seem that nervous he's doing the kind of international sign language for every line which is amazing he's doing he does the rain

he does you he does me it doesn't matter you know hey you put your hands like that and yeah but it's this horrible voice and it sort of he hits quite a lot of bum notes he's not breathing right just

everything's right but on the second i watched this i watched this again and i i just watched it with the sound off sorry sarah well fuck you al um but yeah it's but he. And I was just like, you know, and I just thought, yeah, it's so that the dissonance between the guy's voice and the guy's face is quite extreme. He's got like incredible bone structure and fabulous skin and lovely kind eyes. And yet what he's doing to us is not kind. There's no kindness in it. No. The performance is ropey because i mean as a singer it's probably easy to belt something out and probably tough yeah absolutely this to do to

keep it at that keep it at that placid lukewarm piss kind of vibe um but it's hard because i mean this was called british soul music i remember being called and kind of when you think 10 years previous right we've got soul to soul who still vaguely had a connection to the street this isn't this is indoors music it's coffee table music it's manageable british soul with no real racial connotation no real connotation of resistance or anything like that and it's very revealing a lot i didn't know that that it was played on radio that tells you a lot because radio 2 at the time was certainly not the Radio 2 that we've got now. It was a very much middle-of-the-road thing.

And, yeah, so it entirely fits in with that. But, yeah, a pretty horrible record. And do I ever want to hear it again? No. Will I? Yes. Of course I will. It's that guitar lick.

And I'm not even going to sing it because I don't want to aggravate anybody but you know it and you will hear that again it could be in an advert it probably will be in an advert actually but you will hear that again that feel of that horrible acoustic guitar jammed under the chin

and it being plucked delicately it's just a vile record I'm not sure if we're talking about the same bit actually but I thought on this listen it was like a harpsichord it's like a vile record in all kinds of ways isn't it I'm not sure if we're talking about the same bit actually but I thought on this listen it was like a harpsichord it's like a fake harpsichord it might be isn't that what it is

it might be because the guitar player I'm not going to do it either no don't please but I mean no the guitar player on the stage you're right

is not making a thing of that lick but to me it sounds like horrible acoustic guitar but yeah pretty awful record and there was a lot of awful British soul at the time but invoking the stuff that they invoke But to me, it sounds like horrible acoustic guitar. But yeah, pretty awful record.

And there was a lot of awful British soul at the time. But invoking the stuff that they invoke, you know, when they do sort of wake up about it, it's like, but don't invoke this kind of language of, you know, it's like Vincent Covello and BT have much more claim to the language of euphoria than you do. You can't, you know, don't talk about, I didn't realise actually, this is one of those,

it's a really boring misheard lyric as well. God, everything about this is, but I thought it was, we'll get back to the start again, which I thought was like, why do you, why do you want to do that? I mean, maybe you could, the romantic interpretation of that would be, we'll go, you know, maybe we've had some trouble

and we'll get back to how we used to feel in the first flush of love. But it's not, it and we'll get back to how we used to feel enough in the first flush of love but it's not it's we'll get back to the stars again which kind of i don't know is that worse is that better like oh dear it's there's a slight snobbery in that there's a slight snobbery in the whole record that let's return to something simpler something more meaningful something less busy, something calmer. Well, I don't know. Fuck calmness in love songs.

I like hysterical love songs, not this kind of this kind of anesthetic stuff. At the risk of pissing you off even more, I do have to ask Lighthouse Family or M People? Lighthouse family or M people. That's the kind of, would you rather have your arm gnawed off by ferrets or have your leg chewed by an angry hippo? That's not a choice, is it really? It's not really a choice. A shit bagel or a shit baguette? You're really asking the question what's more annoying

what was her name, Heather Smalls was that her name and people her shrillness and stentorian-ness or this guy's this guy's just you know, his mellowness I guess you call it, but it's fucking not mellow like Sarah Sarah says, it's like pseudo-mellow isn't itah says it's like pseudo mellow isn't it it's it's not well it's pseudo it's pseudo mellow and it absolutely

does not make me feel mellow no it makes me feel fucking furious i think i think i'd have to choose m people and this is like condemning myself to listening to fucking moving on up or something but even that song i will find little twists in its corners perhaps when she's shut up i might enjoy whereas there's nothing in this it's so weedy as well the beats the softness of it it's just it's one of the most repellent records of the 90s of only outdone ever yeah but only outdone in 96 in terms of records that like sarah said if i if this bubbles up on the radio that's it it's going off even if sophia wants to keep it on it's going off dad will not tolerate that in the car the only other one this year that i would equivalently

place as bad although a totally different kind of record is um don't look back in anger by oasis both records make me homicidal with rage and sicken me to my very core. Blimey. Yeah, I would also have to say it's actually not really a choice when it comes down to it. It would have to be M People because, like I said,

they're extremely irritating and her voice is a hate crime. But, you know, there's something... I can deal with that level of annoyance, and this is beyond annoyance. This is actually upsetting. And it is. It's so winsome and so whimsical,

and it's so nice. Because M people are at least trying to get you to do something, at least trying to get you to move. The attitude of this record is hey what are you getting so bothered about calm down it's like being patted on the fucking head it's really fucking irritating

in that sense you've got to hand it to Heather Smallfoot for just the sheer sort of outrageous bombast you've got to you know Light got to leave you know it's yeah

Lighthouse Family did do a cover of Ichiku Park though did the M people? yeah I don't think I've heard that I don't think I've heard that was it a hit?

one of your favourites I'm sure Al yeah what would what would the Lighthouse Family version of Ichiku Park be? what would the cover? you can't

that's a question like what if God was one of us? You just can't go anywhere. Or imagine the Lighthouse Family doing All Along the Watchtower. I don't want to, Al. Stop this. I can imagine M people doing All Along the Watchtower. So the following week, Lifted dropped one place to number five where it stayed for two weeks. The follow-up, a re-release of Ocean Drive,

got to number 11 in June of this year, that fucking song. All their lyrics are like inspirational fucking gifs on Facebook, aren't they? The sun's gonna shine on everything you do. Fuck off! Yeah, they should have followed it up with, You okay, hun?

And they became a regular chart fixture throughout the 90s, landing nine more top 40 hits. Nine! Four of which made the top ten. I can't think of one of them, man. I mean, like, you know, but they're all the same. Did any of them ever get above that tempo, though? I mean, what did...

Oh, my God, surely there must be some amazing, you know, like, stupid dance mixes of Lighthouse Family stuff. Yeah. I'm going to look them up. Such is as 99% of people won't share this. And they split up in 2002. Those teenage girls, they tell me, listen to the lyrics.

Well, I've listened to them. And these young guys are so in love, you've got to worry about them. Here's East 17. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th.

Terms and conditions apply. Do you still care? Do you remember the time when you were mine? Brighten up my day like a star would shine We had no money, honey, but we didn't care We had something special like no other lover could compare Cope informs us that he's been chatting to teenage girls who implore him to listen to the lyrics of the following band. And by the look on his face, he's clearly not impressed. He slowly turns around in mock horror to look at E-17 and their single Do You Still?

London in 1991, after songwriter Tony Mortimer was promised a record deal with London Records if he assembled a band round him, which comprised of Ken, Ken and Brian Harvey, E17 named themselves after the postcode for Walthamstow, their manor. Their debut single, House of Love, got to number 10 in August of 1992 and immediately established them as the rivals to the other boy band who emerged that summer, Take That. They racked up four top 20 hits in 1993, three top 10 hits in 1994, including Stay Another Day, the Christmas number one, and three more top 20 hits in 1995. in 1995. This is the follow-up to Thunder,

which got to number four in November of 1995. And it's the second release from the LP Up All Night. And it's a new entry this week at number seven. What the pop-crazy youngsters watching this don't know is that we're five days away from Take That splitting up. Yeah. Wow. Gosh. That traumatic hammer blow.

Well, it was, wasn't it? There was bloody suicide hotlines and everything. I'm not even joking about that. It's true. No, it's true. People were really, you know, people were extremely upset about it. And the thing is that, you know,

it is that kind of Princess Diana thing where everybody goes, oh, for fuck's sake, look how embarrassing, look at the state of it. And then something, you of it and then something you know and then i know so many people who you know uh after bowie and after prince actually went okay fuck now i kind of i i kind of understand the mass mass outpouring of grief thing and i'm

really sorry that i was so mean and it's a kind of obviously with take that splitting up nobody fucking died and it it's it's it's quite crass to compare however as i was saying about the you know the extreme intensity of the life of a teenage girl is is you know and and yeah there is um if you're having if you're if you're a teenage girl things are going a bit wrong in your life and you you know your religion is disbanded and you you know you fantasize about them uh you know and you you have you know this was not my experience to take that but i end up i kind of i get that that's a thing um you know and something it can really it can be a real you know that it can really pull the pull the rug out from under you so you know i don't know yeah yeah my first experience of that kind of trauma actually

was um my stepdaughter is now 30 but i I remember when the Spice Girls split up, she was inconsolable for days and in genuine, genuinely traumatized tears when she heard the news. And it has to be said that we're already in the declining years of East 17 as well. As is borne out by this performance. I think they painted themselves into a bit of a corner, didn't they with Stay Another Day? Yeah.

Well, you know, how do you, that, that is sometimes people are over uh kind of overwhelmed by their you know they're kind of destroyed by their own work and it's like that is a such a terrific song you know how are you going to you you can't really top that and also that i don't think they were they weren't going to be allowed to do that really

they were such an odd thing and they they did have that sort of uh you know slight edge about them that was you know exploited up until the point where it where it became too much of a thing and then of course they you know it's like well well we've we've uh you know got to put a lid on it now so and also it was it was quite yeah because they were like the edgy boy band it was like a a real wild card and yeah it's just fucking great. I mean, E17, I hated them when they came out because it's all right. Okay, so you're pretending to be hip hop and you're not.

And your songs are shit and everything. But then I saw a clip of E17 in a car surrounded by all these screaming girls. One's going, oh, Brian, Brian. And Brian just winds down the window and goes shut up you stupid car and i just thought oh i like you you're all right actually but by this time they're trying to be they're trying to be a bit r&b aren't they well that's the sad thing about this because when they came out a17 they were definitely just so

different and they talked in interviews in a kind of unmannered way which is surprising really tom watkins being the manager you know previously manager of pet shop boys and bros and all that i remember them talking into interviews about shagging and porn and all the rest of it in a very very free way there were two pieces there were two pieces in the music press that were key in me kind of understanding and liking a17 one was a review not review an interview rather by katlin mor pieces in the music press that were key in me kind of understanding and liking E17. One was a review, not review, an interview rather by Catlin Moran in The Maker. And there was another piece by Stephen Wells in The Enemy that was just fantastic. I remember Wells talking about him going to see them live and, you know, obviously teen girl hysteria. But two lads there as well pretending to have sort of rifles on their shoulder,

pretending to take pot shots at them on stage. And I just thought that was a delicious image. But there were loads of funny things about E17. You know, Brian in particular winning least fanciful male and most tragic haircut awards in the Smash Hits readers poll. And also Tony Mortimer, who who was great songwriter um but also a kind of glenn hoddle-esque god botherer as well um in interview they were just wonderful he was just so good at winding up brit poppers because i remember him saying something very

explicit about they used to hang around walthamstow dog track and they never saw blur there you know and i remember him saying that kurt kirk cabane was a twat and all this sort of stuff that was just almost guaranteed to wind up exactly the right people and i got full exposure to the wonder of e17 when i went to see them live because i had to review them at the albert hall and it genuinely was i've never been at a more intense gig than that i've been in the hybrid i remember your thing about that yeah yeah yeah I remember being in like the garage where say like there's a punk all-nighter and there's all these big birdie blokes smashing into each other on the dance floor me stood on a stool with my creme de menthe you know looking a bit but this E17 gig was genuinely like terrifying absolutely terrifying I've got my review actually and i won't read it but the first

paragraph um e17 royal albert hall london jemma 13 from hayes is bashful i just want to fuck brian's brains out she says meanwhile neil 23 from coventry has finally found pop heaven at the greatest gig of the year and yeah I guess I'd pull Tony off a 10 bob and a pickled egg they were great live they were amazing live the pull out quote Pricey has obviously pulled out is a joy

bomb doused in every single conceivable bodily fluid in the rainbow they were just I have never been at a more intense gig than that gig the power of and it wasn't just girls actually screaming to be honest with you they had quite a few lads who were

fans of them not just girls and that was different from Take That they were so different from Take That and they instantly hit as well in a way I know they worked hard before but Take That had three singles that went nowhere first E17 were just suddenly there fully formed

yeah and I loved them and I thought live they were fantastic yeah E17 were maybe the first boy band

that actually understood what their fans really wanted you know the fact that this 13 year old girl saying I want to fuck his brains out

and everything you know that's that's been there since the Osmonds you know yeah I'm sure there was the Osmonds, you know. Yeah. I'm sure there was 13-year-old girls saying the same thing about Donny Osmond and probably not Jim Head.

Oh, ages ago, we were talking about Bay City Rollers, and I said the reason they were successful, massively successful, because of that boy next door thing, in contrast to the kind of glam rockers, they have that boy next door appeal. I'm not saying East 17 have that boy next door appeal. Far not saying e17 have that boy next door appeal far from it they have that boy on the corner appeal yeah who yeah you go out and you meet all of them to get you behind the world and they're a bit of a bad lad who knows what they're doing but they're hilarious yeah they have that appeal and and that's what i

instantly liked about them i i spotted everyone who who experienced E17 at that time spotted something that they knew. This wasn't some cleaned up boy zone type act. And that was the weird thing. When I saw them in the Albert Hall, they were supported by a band called Dew Something, D-E-U-C-E, who were your archetypal boy band. Yeah, and they were terrible. They were cleaned up and they were rubbish.

And then E17 came on and it was instantly, my God, i could see you outside on a corner but look at you on stage at the outer hall and you've got thousands of people not only screaming but fainting and wilting and and just the whole thing was astonishing wow man i mean that's the thing is that people sort of write them off as a as a joke don't they and it's like yeah but there was actually you do that at well it's not like your peril it's just like well that's just fucking stupid really because you have not

paid proper attention to what was actually going on there you know it doesn't you know because people have that sort of very patronising attitude that you know teenage girls are completely undiscerning and they'll just scream at anything but it takes a certain like you know if you're going to activate that that sort of

terrifying power you know then that you've got to have something about you you know well there's got to be something there even if it's like the sort of machiavellian manager is somehow projecting that through you know his puppets you know but that's the thing is they weren't like that they were just these kind of, there was something slightly feral about them and yet the songs were the songs were quite, they were the sort of knockabout ones and they were kind of the sensitive ones that you could

swoon along to, so yeah Absolutely, but this song unfortunately isn't any of the nice things that we've said about E17 any of the good things we've said about it this is an identical kind of boy band song that you could imagine boyzone doing um yeah replete with the suits and everything else there's still an oddity to e17 even beneath the suits and they've got nice makeup on actually and they've been almost scrubbed up in a sense there's still an oddity

well they're like i mean they've got white baggy white suits on with black pinstripes. It makes them look a bit jazz club. Facially, they've still got that oddity, but they've been cleaned up. And this is near the end, isn't it, really, for them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's almost as if they're singing this song at the fans. Do you still love me? Do you still care? It's like the Corrie hotline.

It's like we were talking about before. It's like you've got to have about Top of the Pops itself and about the maker and stuff. It's like you realise there is, if you've got this kind of lightning in a bottle thing, like what, you're not going to, you know, like is the bottle okay though? Is the lightning, can we do something, you know,

can we sort of shape that a bit differently? No, just fucking leave it alone. And I think there's some kind of a loss of confidence happening there. I don't know where that came from, but it's like be what you are. There's no one else like you you know and it doesn't yeah people are laughing at you but they'll they'll be laughing on the other side of their face because look at your amazing career like just do that thing you don't have to water it down and that's that's the

thing is it's like yeah you don't want to you don't want to calm them down they've got that they've got that edge to them they've got that spikiness and it's like why have you put them in these yeah and like you said they've kind of fucked up the suits but you want to believe that they have crashed the party there's that kind of you know and that they're probably they're kind of not supposed to be there there's something a bit illicit about them like what are these lads doing here um so and they are that but that's impossible now they've been a chart fixture for three and a half years. Yeah.

You know, they're standard. But Stay should have been the last song. Stay should have been, not maybe the last single, but the last big hit. But when you think about that runner hit, you know, All Right and Thunder and Deep and House of Love and Steam and Stay, that's a pretty fucking strong runner singles.

Perhaps stronger than Take That. And, you know, Stay could have been a pretty fucking strong run of singles perhaps stronger than Take That and you know, Stay could have been a beautiful farewell in a sense, but they had to stick around in kind of ill-fitting suits like you've said, which is a bit of a shame, but when they were good, they were very, very good. It doesn't always work out that way, does it? There's loads of songs where it's like

if that had been the Swan song, how wonderful it would have been, but you know, it rarely works out like that. The thing is that I actually, living in Walthamstow, as I do, you still get... I mean, it's kind of known more now for outrageous house prices and artisan bread and stuff, but it was always, for years, it was always like, that was always the gag.

It was like, oh, he's 17, oh, house of love. And I would always just be like what it's like quite quite defensive about it you know everyone goes on about take that when they first started playing gay clubs and all that kind of stuff but he's 17 you know there's there's supposed to be the rough ass lads and everything but i you know when they first came out in like 92 or whatever, I was I was at university and the be the free gay newspaper called Boys with a Z, which would have a centrefold of a bloke with his cock out and everything. And they all look like centrefolds in Boys. They look a bit rent, don't they? The two Kevins, especially, you know, the two kind of disposables

the Kens I was just thinking if it was a zombie film they would just be twin heaps of intestines by the opening credits and they do look like they've been naked for money

no shame in that whatsoever that's the appeal they've been naked for money and that obviously no no shame in that whatsoever but they they've got they they have well that's part of the that's the appeal isn't it that look yeah well you know when we look back at the 90s and we talk about boy bands the the impression is always that take that with a bigger band but e17 sold a million more records in the 90s than take that that's mind-boggling isn't there you go and you go. And I'm glad about that. I'm glad about that. Yeah. And I don't know whether they did or not,

but with Take That, there was always that stage school kind of vibe to them. There was that, you know, they've been groomed for this from a young age. Whereas Take, whereas E17, I mean, you mentioned that earlier, oh, you're doing hip-hop, but you're doing it shit. But what was clear with E17 was that they were into hip-hop.

They were into hip-hop. They knew that music a little bit and therefore they were able to play with it in kind of an interesting way and Tony Mortimer you know taking his tape round to Tom Watkins' house repeatedly that's not a conventional route

through that's not a stage school route through that shows some commitment to songwriting that I think is honourable and good so God bless them and risk, you know, they're prepared to risk being arrested it's all kind of

yes but this performance just says it all really isn't it, they've got a band of sorts behind them and loads of backing singers when not too long ago, they'd be either walking about on the stage with dogs or, or, or thrusting their groins about.

They seem faintly uncommitted to the song, to be honest with you. Yeah. All of them, including Tony. Yeah. It's a sad kind of tale. He's just doing,

I mean, it's, it's all right, this song, but it's no all right, is it? Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, and Tony, Tony is doing this kind of looking at, he's doing, do it I mean it's it's all right this song but it's no all right is it yeah absolutely um but

yeah and Tony Tony is doing this kind of looking at he's doing he's looking in the camera you know I was saying last time about like oh people being told to look in the camera and I don't know if anyone told him to but he's sort of he's he's he's properly you know and like mum and like mumbling it's like it's he is a faintly hilarious figure tony well i mean you know he's yeah he's the gary barlow of of v17 obviously um brilliant yeah like you said brilliant songwriter not the best performer slightly you know not really awkward he seems perfectly comfortable but he's not he's just not like great and you look at brian harvey who just really belongs on a stage i mean the thing the thing about yeah i think about brian harvey's he wasn't even meant to be in the band in

the first instance apparently the legend has it that has it that he was just going to be like a backup dancer. And then, you know, the story is so good. Like Tupac. And then they, you know, somebody, it's like they heard him singing along, you know, in an unguarded moment. And they went, that boy's got talent. But isn't that fucking precious? But yeah, so Tony Water mumbling in a slightly creepy way. I mean, he's got...

Oh, it's terrible. He's just like some lad who's listening to Eric B and Rakim while he's in his bedroom and he's rapping in front of the mirror. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Knowing that he would never do that in front of the mirror. Knowing that he would never do that in front of other people. He's the male Carol Decker. Blimey. It's a strange comparison.

No, when she does Heart and Song, it's that kind of rapping. But, I don't know, Tony, at this point, I'm not saying he does this performance like the song is beneath him, but I remember by this point Tony a lot more attention

Was being paid to him in interviews Than anyone else And consequently like an awful lot of pop stars At this time in the mid 90's He taught vague bullshit About energy And a change coming And like you know those odd bits

In his interviews where he almost He was almost like you know those odd bits in his interviews where he was almost like you know saying the rapture was about to come at this stage in 1996 so yeah the split between Tony and the rest of the band was important but really the true true spirit of E17 is of course always Brian

it's Brian's face it's his energy that made them such a compelling thing to look at, I think. So, the following week, Do You Still dropped two places to number nine. That's not the kind of thing that should happen to a boy band record in 1996. The follow-up,

Someone To Love, would only get to number 16 in August of this year. They would close out 1996 with If You Ever, a collaboration with Gabrielle. But in January of 1997. During a radio interview. To promote their new single Hey Child.

Brian Harvey mentioned that he'd done 12 E's in a night. And driven home no problem. Leading to DJ's smashing E17 records live on air. One station playing an interview with Leah Betts' parents. In the place where they were going to play Headchild. Questions in the Houses of Parliament, which, and this is the killer blow, which led to John Major

criticising the band while pointing out that their music was great. Horley was sacked the next day and then the single went straight in at number three. The band eventually split up later that year but reformed sack the next day and then the single went straight in at number three of course the band eventually split up later that year but reformed without mortimer in 1998 as e17 but were dropped by telstar records in 1999 they reformed in 2001 to play the buckling circuit supporting keith

harris and reformed again in 2005 to play a gig in Mongolia. But shortly afterwards, Brian Harvey overdosed on three jacket potatoes and ran himself over in his own car. The full band reformed in 2006, but after a comeback gig in the Shepherds Bush Empire, the band split up again after Tony Maltimer and Brian Harvey had a scrap. They are still going today with only one original Ken in the line-up, although they probably split up, reformed and split up again

during the time it took me to read all that out. Brian Harvey, man, he's not in a good place at the minute, is he? Have you seen his YouTube channel? I haven't, no. Oh, it's dark. Is it? It's dark, yeah.

Going on about how the establishment's ruined his career and I can guess does he get into conspiracy theories or anything very much so very much so well the thing is that I'm gonna okay I'm gonna make I'm

here's the part of the podcast where Sarah makes everyone else feel really bad but so strap in motherfucker no um look he's a he's a very i get um i get a bit exercised about this because um you know he's he's always struggled with his mental health um he's obviously you know he's not very well um he's a very talented guy who like you know many others has been kind of uh you know chewed up and and cast aside by, you know, by the music industry. Also having, you know, having his career ruined by, you know, an unguarded comment that, you know, any other fucker.

Noel Gallagher, you know, would have tossed that off. Also, what he actually, I look. And it wasn't, it wasn't exactly an unguarded comment, Sarah. It was a radio interview, you know. That's when you should be guarded. Well, okay, but they were... Maybe you should. However, yeah, it was a reckless thing to say.

Punishment didn't suit the crime. The difference, what happened... Well, he kind of got the backdraft of the Leah Betts moral panic. And it was a genuine moral panic that was tabloid driven. And so, you know, if it had been a year later or a year before, probably the response wouldn't have been what it was a genuine moral panic that that was tabloid driven um and so you know in if it had been a year later or a year before probably the response wouldn't have been what it was but you know because it was so political and such a hot thing um but also what he actually said was i mean obviously i know people who who've done you know 12 um 12 v's in a weekend and it's really

not to be it's not an advisable thing to do um that is a you know it's like i did's in a weekend, and it's really not to be, it's not an advisable thing to do. That is a, you know, it's like, I did this in a weekend, and then I, I suppose if it's the driving thing as well, it's like, well, you'll be, okay, this puts you. It just goes to show how shit E's were by the mid-90s.

You know? Seven for 20 quid, yeah. John Majorson had been asking questions about that in Parliament. What's happened to the standard of British E's? But yeah, so what? Sarah, do you think, do you think he's getting, he's getting yeah so what Sarah do you think he's getting he's getting the right help

do you think he's like financially is he okay do you think I don't know I don't think he gets any royalties I mean I've got sort of bits and pieces of this I don't think he's no I think he's been he's been in he's been in a real he's been in a really bad way for years and I kind of you know I mean he lives you know he lives quite quite near me somewhere

I actually know one of my a mate of mine lives kind of, you know, I mean, he lives, you know, he lives quite, quite near me somewhere. I actually know one of my, a mate of mine lives kind of on the same street as him and said, oh, you know, he seems really nice. He, because one of my mate's kids sort of tumbled off his bike and Brian Harvey was out there in his, you know, like in his dressing gown, like picked the kid up and checked he was okay. He's a, you know, he's a nice bloke who

is, you know, who doesn't have, doesn't have a lot of support. In like, so like three years ago, the now disgraced Labour MP Simon Danchuk kind of did a campaign about to pressure the music industry into better looking after its people, which is an idea that has come back

and is gaining a lot more traction now, and rightfully so, because it is a hot, you know, it's the perfect, like, breeding conditions for mental illness. It's people who you know sensitive people who are mentally ill and i've gone on about this before but it bears repeating um and it's the perfect condition for mental illness to to to flourish and that the support isn't there and it's like he compared it at the time um he kind of wheeled i don't want to say that he wheeled

brian harvey out but he kind of did you know he sort of said i've i've you know spoken to brian harvey a lot about this so there was some sort of an effort and some sort of a campaign there um but he was saying that um you know sport has its shit together much better than the music industry it looks after people a lot better and whether or not that's true that seems to be that seems to be the case if you put gaza to one side well i was thinking of gaza i was thinking of gaza all the time that so yeah so Sarah was talking about Brian but Gazza will have everyone calling him

a legend still and everyone saying what a great player he is when Gazza dies it'll be absolutely mournful end of an era all that kind of stuff we know it's not going to end well for him these people they just need a friend, don't they?

A true friend. A true friend. Well, they need a true friend and some actual, you know, medical assistance. And the thing is that these, like, you know, we should kind of be, you know, these are the people you should look to and go, do you see how we treat people with mental illness in this country? And shouldn't we fucking do something about that? Because, you know, it's kind of,

it's kind of legendarily bad at the moment, but it, you know, it needs to be much, you know, needs to be a much, much bigger deal. Because, you know, there's so many people suffering and yeah, it's not just about like what sort of a, whether you've, how much you've contributed to the culture or the world or whatever you could have done fuck all your entire life you still don't deserve to live in misery i don't think he gets i don't think brian harvey gets because he didn't write tony mortimer wrote all the songs so i don't think he gets much in the

way of royalties yeah yeah by the end of e17's career the rest of the band got writing credits but yeah right but i don't but he doesn't you know i think he's had you know he's had his By the end of E17's career, the rest of the band got writing credits. But, yeah. Right. But I don't... But he doesn't... I think he's had his electricity cut off. Oh, blimey. He's not wiping his arse on £50 notes, put it that way.

No, he's had... Yeah. He's been on the point... I mean, yeah, he's kind of paranoid rambling. He's just not very well and he's lonely. And I feel desperately sorry for him and you know it ain't it ain't right and also the thing what i was going to say about the actual quote which i looked up is that yes he said the thing about oh i did all these pills okay so that is a thing that yes you're in a position of

influence but you're not a babysitter you can say what you know you're talking about your own experience but then what he said was if it makes you feel better and gives you something to do at the weekend and you go out and have a good time and i don't see why not because life's too short it's like that's just he's just talking about personal freedom which is actually should not be a controversial thing you know yeah um but obviously it was and i guess it still is and you know how how bleak is that you know well when you're a kid on the corner you can if you're very very lucky that can be marketed as something that'll help you out in a way it'll kind of i don't know e17 were those kids on the corner when you're an old bloke on the corner um you're on your own aren't you poor fella yeah he's only he's 44 i think you know that's yeah he's only

he's only a little bit older than me it's like yeah I'm going to go around I'm going to go around and I'm going to see I'm going to make him a cuppa you know because what would be terrible for him

is the usual route of kind of I don't know I know this is just monetary things we're talking about but if he went on Big Brother

or something like that or on which doesn't exist anymore or if he went on I'm a Celebrity or something I suppose that would be the normal route but that would be terribly damaging for him already done it he went on I'm a Celebrity or something I suppose that would be the normal route

but that would be terribly damaging for him Already done it Well already done I'm a Celebrity get me out of it in 2004 after a few days he got into this massive row with Janet Street Porter about his farting and he just went fuck this

and turned around and went been offered Celebrity Big Brother but he didn't do it can't i mean christ i would worry that would actually that would cause me genuine anxiety if it was like oh look who's on this show now it's brian it's it's a potato scoffer brian harvey oh god hide the potatoes everyone do you know what i looked up what happened to him in that um thing because um it was you know it was a free it was a freak freak accident. But people chortle about it. But it's like you realise that he was basically leaning out of the car.

He had some sort of an anxious binge. And then he was going to be sick. So he leaned out of the car and he tried to stop at the same time. But he pressed the accelerator instead of the brake. He fell under the wheels. Shattered his pelvis. Injuries to stomach, lungs, leg leg he was in a coma for fucking weeks they didn't think he'd ever walk again and this is only three this was three years after somebody

had fucking knifed him in a cup you know um so yeah that's another thing i have no sense of humor about this well he wasn't knifed he was scout in a club in in a car park outside a club in nottingham yeah it was in nottingham, wasn't it? Called The Works. Fucking horrible. Was it that bad? I didn't realise it was... Horrible alcoholic crash. Jesus Christ. He was going to appear on I'm a Celebrity in 2004 but he

was travelling to Australia and then found out that his grandma had died and just turned straight round again. Oh my god. Yeah. And you know you have to wonder what how people would treat Brian Harvey the Britpop or grunge

singer compared to Brian Harvey the so called boy band puppet. Maybe Al maybe. Maybe if he was a Britpop or grunge singer he would have just been totally forgotten there. Whereas he was a pop star. He was a pop star. And consequently he's not forgotten. totally forgotten there whereas he was a pop star yeah he was a pop star yeah and consequently he's not forgotten but like sarah says he's become yeah he's become a

punch line to a lot of people yeah including me i was laughing early i feel really bad now sarah cheers well there you go you're welcome no but when jacket potatoes are involved man that's it you know that's the thing out we've laughed about that Bambi's mum had been killed by someone lobbing a jacket potato at her head You know, it would have been amusing What is it that's inherently amusing about a jacket potato? What is it? Tell me Oh my god, isn't this podcast long enough?

Have you I'm sure Al, I'm sure if you you've probably got some kind of a you've probably got some lewd tale of jacket potatoes being crammed into places they ought not be. No, I haven't. I've lived a very sheltered life.

So, you know what is now still called this baked potato incident? The takeaway from that and the way that this was written about, and I'm not talking about Spudgy-like, for fuck's sake, but the way it was written about was not'm not talking about spud you like for fuck's sake um but the way it was written about was not about all those extremely serious things that you were talking about it was

it was written about yeah like gaza yeah oh what's this crazy guy done now what tricks has he got up to this time yeah yeah i do think there's something really there is something and i know that i i i kind of i understand i guess why it's immediately just like, oh, come on, but it's funny. But he has become this sort of, you know, a kind of a tabloid whipping boy in that way for, it's like, it's okay to laugh at this guy because, hey, you've got to.

And it's like, yeah, I'm sure he's depressed and stuff. Well, because he was lucky in the first place. The idea is if you were in a boy band in the early 90s you were lucky because it could have been anyone which is bullshit because he was a genuine talent oh god I'm really

cross and sad now no but you're right there is that slight sense of glee for especially tabloid papers when somebody has made it well it's like lottery winners who spunk all their money. Oh, yeah, they love that. There's that horrible moral thing about you've squandered.

Look what you had and you squandered it. Of course, a lot of the journalists who are doing this know full and damn well what that's like because it's like, yeah, you probably could have done, you know, you're a person of great intelligence and you had really good schooling or whatever else and you could have done all sorts of shit and you know that would have been better for the world than writing tawdry little gossipy things about you know about people in a bad way having a terrible accident but of course now b, Brian cannot move. If he makes a move,

any move, playing live again, making music again, anything, these things are what is going to be immediately brought up. And these,

these, yeah, these tropes, as we might say. Oh, it's all, I tell you what, it's Bantz,

isn't it? It's the scourge of Bantz. It's like, Bantz is one of the worst fucking things to emerge from this culture because you can just kind of, you know, it's like, this is what you plead when you want to be a cunt, but you don't want to own it. It's like, oh, it's just Bantz.

It's like the Philip Green thing. Oh, I wasn't actually, I didn't, you know, I haven't done, I ain't done nothing. It's just, it's all just, it's other people who don't have a sense of humour. Yeah. I remember we used to, we used to call Bantz, what was it? Oh yeah, cruelty. Yeah.

It doesn't have, yeah, but it's not as punchy. Yes. Let's put the Lighthouse family on and then at least I can do it. I'm sorry. Do you want me? Do you really want me? Do you still want me? Do you really love me?

Do you still love me? Do you really care? Do you really want me? Beep, beep, beep, beep! It's the first Hathorite link-up. We're off to San Diego. Here's some more money for the corporation. It's the great Etta James!

I don't want you to be no slave I don't want you to work all day But I want you to be true And I just want to make love to you Cope, now wearing another T-shirt that we can't make out just yet, tells us that we're off to San Diego to make some more money for the corporation with the great Etta James and I just want to make love to you. Born James Etta Hawkins in Los Angeles in 1938, Etta James was reputedly the illegitimate daughter of Rudolph Wanderone

otherwise known as the pool player Minnesota Fats who was fostered out from an early age due to her being 14. She was intensively and abusively coached as a singer from the age of five and from the age of 14 the singing trio she was in teamed up with johnny otis who advised her to change her name and gave her a hit record with roll with me henry which was changed to dance with me henry because it was a bit rude to roll with anyone in 1955 she eventually signed with chess records and recorded her debut lp at last in 1960 and this song a cover of the 1954 Willie Dixon song, which was originally recorded by Muddy Waters, was the B-side of the single At Last.

Despite becoming one of the top female belters of the era, she had never had a sniff of the charts in the UK until 1990, when Dropping Rhymes on Drums, a collaboration with the rapper Def Jeff, got to number 80 in January of that year. However, in 1995, Diet Coke used this single in an advert about some independent women of the 90s wetting their knickers over the bloke who refills the drinks machine, and this was rushed out, and it's a new entry this week at number 5.

Because no one in america's thought to make a video etta now 58 has been roped in to make a live by satellite appearance by a peer in san diego now there is a lot to discuss here isn't there cope getting a bloody dig in there at big business i mean she is 58 God, what a trooper. In the sense, the need to drag her out by the San Diego beach is bizarre. San Diego don't look that nice. No, it doesn't, man. It looks like Skeg.

It looks just like Skeg, yeah. It's terrible, man. But she gets through. She gets through. She does. With the wind blowing and the sea, you know, a grey, horrible sea, really. Really choppy. You expect to see some U-boats popping up at any minute. In a sense, it's kind of the most absurd mismatch between sound and sight.

Yes. Because there's this four-piece band behind her who seem to have been assembled because they tore a strip off the bottom of a Lampo sign and rang a number or something. They're completely and utterly mismatched. In front of this rather dismal scene, these four musicians play in God knows what, conjuring up this lush orchestra.

It's as absurd as Elvis. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, it's likevis walking down a beach with a ukulele while the whole orchestra seems to come out of nowhere um but actually this is my favorite performance in the entire episode i love this just just for the absurdity for all the little i mean there's some bizarre bermuda triangle type shit going on in the background too because because i noticed could just be me but a massive ship that then just goes missing, goes completely missing.

Who knows where? Only Etta, and she's not telling. But I love this performance precisely because of its absurdity and precisely because Etta seems to be having a laugh with it. She's not sort of, oh, how dare they drag me out here. She's amused by the whole thing. Yeah, I think she's game, isn't she? Yeah. Yeah, totally. I don't think it's it's like oh god how how could they humiliate this

this great artist you know she's she's uh she's mucking in isn't she yeah they kind of have done though haven't they it's not it's not ideal i mean what you're saying about like the atmosphere being it's one of those like no weather days that i've honestly thought you could only get in britain Britain yeah apparently you know yeah who'd have thought that it was so shitty in San Diego yeah I don't you were saying like there's such a kind of weird dissonance between uh this this song and the and and this satellite performance because it's a dirty basement club kind of tune isn't it it's like you want tiny tables and you want card games and you want a fog of smoke and you want dames in red dresses and you want guys in fedoras that's what this is

yes it's like dirty goings-on in a dirty basement and there's gonna be some shagging yeah and you know we get seaside special yeah so that's a bit that's a bit annoying. But we must point out that Etta James is clad head to toe in the uniform of the badass. She's got the shades on, she's got the fringe leather jacket. And what fringing as well, man. And the nails and the hoops. Yeah. She looks like some biker mama.

Yeah, she does. But the fringing is so fucking long. You're watching it. It's brilliant. You just think, someone's going to get the fucking eye out in a minute. The thing is, you get that, and you go, this is brilliant,

and then by the end of the night, it would have gone in the loo. And you go, how even? Roger Daltrey in 1969 would have looked at that and gone, oh, fucking hell, you got a bit overboard on that fringing, hadn't you? It's the kind of fringing you'd see on the front of Dolly Parton's tits

in about 1975. It's impressive, without a doubt. But there's too many good bits. I mean, really, the bit I love the most is obviously when the two sailors kind of walk past looking foxily at her. But even then, it looks like the comeback later on, And the two sailors kind of walk past looking foxily at her. And then she's... But even then, it looks like the comeback later on, it's just like...

You just think, are they actual real sailors? You've just gone, oh, fucking hell, is that woman all right? Standing by the beach and this mother's singing. They do kind of help her into a chair with some concern. Get her a cup of soup, quick. Warm her up. Yeah, so there so two sailors walk by looking all sailory

and kind of hot especially there's two of them and they're both I definitely would either or both but yeah and she has a little scope of the butt as they go by but it's a very

I think she could have she could probably have have really you know gone for that for a lot you know um but she's just quite a demure actually it's like yeah you know which is what you you know any any red-blooded woman would do whether or not they were live on top of the pops um Oh, God, I just, sorry, I've just noticed in my notes here, when we're, you know, I'm kind of not done with the whole weird environment thing. There's a hedge. There's a big, like, kind of manicured hedge between her and the sea. What's that doing there?

That's another thing I thought we only had in this country. It's like, you know, sort of prim privet everywhere. Yeah. It's very strange. The overall impression it is, it is Pebble Mill at one by the sea, or they might as well be on the floating map of the UK on this morning at Albert Dock.

Yeah. And it makes you wonder, all right, top of the pops, if you want to do these live satellite broadcasts from America, fair enough, but do you have to have them outside just to prove it's America? Couldn't she have been somewhere in a kind of Harlem Apollo setting?

Yeah. Or even just a shopping mall or something? This was... Oh, it would have been so much worse if it had been a shopping mall. That would have been just death. But you'd still have gone, oh, there's some shops that we haven't got yet. Yeah, and just pick...

That would have been the thrill of America. Oh, I know. But do you want to see a couple of sailors strolling through the performance or some, like, you know, tired moms and, like, you know know grotty teenagers sort of wandering by looking like here's here's that lady yeah what's she doing like you know that would have been so much worse um yeah but let's i mean the thing is though there's no denying like the

greatness of the song i can't believe this is a b-side. It was a B-side to At Last. What a record that is. And it's a song you kind of knew as well even before the advert. Yeah, I mean before this advert, I remember that advert, I was familiar with only kind of two other versions of this song I think. There's a Stones version

which is like really whiplash fast and just ace. I love that version. There's a Howlin' Wolf version as well which is scary as fuck this version, it's kind of soft it kind of Nat King Coles it up a bit the song, makes it lusher and I know Sarah was saying it needs a sort of dirty nightclub

environment, to me in a weird place this song, I wouldn't say it's sexless but it's about in the lyric, making love that genuinely does come across in this song more like um canoodling yeah or hanky-panky yeah rather than for rather than yeah yeah but you know late 1960s true but it interestingly changes the lyrics because it's a female singer from being the originals i recall sort of being the basic line

being you don't have to do all these domestic chores i just want to shag yeah um this version is more i will do what this version is more i will do all those domestic yes the lyrics have been and we can have and we can have a kiss and a cuddle yes do you think well i've got the front of me all i want to do is wash your clothes i don't want to keep you indoors all i want to do is bake your bread just to make sure that you're well fed but it must be the outside san diego environment that's conferring that kind of politeness to it yeah were it indoors were it a dirty club it would be perhaps a little bit more suggestive but i mean if for me it is all about the two sailors

that moment is just fantastic they are campers Christmas and yeah that for me just the selection of absurdity that this performance is makes it my favourite moment of the entire show I think I mean I have to say that hearing this on the

fucking advert non-stop for a month or so before did put me off this song. I wasn't pleased with that advert. No? All those fucking women leching at that poor bloke who's just a bit hot. Yes.

They've got diligent, hard-working husbands and boyfriends. Oh, let them have a fucking look, Al. Come on. Did you think that this came out, Sarah? Did you just go girl power a whole year before that happened?

Did you think good? Yeah, I was really... Did I think good? Do you like this? Do you think it's good, Sarah? Do you think it's good? Do you think it's progressive? Is it cool?

Are we talking about the advert or the song or both? The advert. The song's the one it's the one where he's it's like across the they're in the office and and yeah it's 11 whatever just like it's 11 o'clock yeah um yeah no i was all for it i mean this is before people started to talk in earnest about the female gaze you know after the male gaze had been a thing for you know the last thousand years so like you know i probably kind of got an inkling of that and it is a little bit it was a bit shocking at the time i think it's just like well that's that's something that you don't normally see and oh i don't know what about um dick emery's portrayal of the of womanhood

in the 70s you know yeah but the thing is the bloke in this Diet Coke advert he was fit as I recall yeah he was a looker the trouble was he looked just like the blokes wearing the pants

in Attitude that I stared at all day maybe that's what does it make you I know if it makes you uncomfortable Al you've got to you know

it's good you've got to figure out why that is yeah well I know exactly why it was it was because it just reminded me of tomorrow I've got to you've got to figure out why that is yeah well i know exactly why it was it was because it just reminded me of tomorrow i've got to be at work again staring at pants that i can't even afford well that's that sounds like a you problem though that's the thing yeah

well um the thing is the thing is because of that advert she almost became known for that advert and i remember when etta jamesta James passed on She was called by various newspapers You know the voice of Diet Coke And I remember I'll never forget It was either the Mail or the Express I've obviously forgotten which paper it was But it was one of those

Had the headline when she died At last singer Etta James is dead Which didn't scan too well No Oh no it doesn't if they put the quotes in the right place then that might have saved it I don't think they did

that is unfortunate great song, black mark for Top of the Pops for making her go out I've got to say though, I will respectfully disagree with you on the kind of demure, I mean I guess you can kind of hear it both ways but I've always heard it it's the delivery that sells it for me well it's like it kind of cuts totally agree sorry it kind of cuts across the you know the the lyrics i mean

in it's just she's got such a that kind of throaty you know contained howl and it's it's really and i find that really rude like in a bit in the sense that like i you know if you know, contained howl. And it's really, and I find that really rude. Like in the sense that like, you know, if you know anything about like, you know, the kind of sub-dom dynamic, it's like the sub is the one with all of the power. And I'm just, you know, it's like, if she's talking about doing all of this stuff, like- Bake your bread.

I'm going to bake your bread better than it's ever been baked before. Going to make it rise. Motherfucker. And get it all crusty um but you know is she like is she like stomping around the house doing all of this housework you know in the nip and you know i i don't know maybe this is uh you know i guess i guess it's open to interpretation and you know you certainly it would be it would raise a few eyebrows if somebody covered it now oh god no oh god i've. Nobody cover this in a kind of Yuka fucking Lele.

Like, you know, for the Marks and Sparks advert. You can't. Don't do it. That will happen, Sarah. Not just because you said it. That will happen within the next year, I predict. It's going to happen. One day, every song will have a mimsy acoustic cover

on telly for 15 minutes anything else to say about this uh just that um the uh on if we're on saxophone watch um you know which which uh you know it's rarer to see them at this stage in the uh in the top of the pops game uh the the woman playing the sax it's basically it's the size of a helter skelter. I'm quite. Yeah. It's fucking enormous. It's like the, the,

the female saxophonist for Michael. Yeah. But I think I want to compare that. That's what it made me think of. And it's like, I reckon this one might have, might have topped that one. I think,

I think the gauntlet was thrown down back in whenever it was that, that Michael Bolton wheeled that one out. And now they're like, yeah, that's not a sax. This is a sax. You should have that on telly over Christmas. The world's strongest

saxophonist. Is it a saxophone or a sexophone? Oh yes. So the following week, I Just Want To Make Love To You dropped three places to number eight. The follow-up, a re-release of At Last, made it to number 39 in September of this year, her final appearance in the charts, and she died at the age of 73 in 2012. I don't want you sad and blue And I just wanna make love to you

Love to you Etta James is 58, the goddess in her finest incarnation Now our satellite travels north up the west coast of America towards Neverland To see Uncle Michael's nephews playing on Malibu Beach. Here's 3T. Sitting at home another lonely night Wish you were here so I could hold you tight Pain in my heart because I'm all alone

Why did you leave, why did your love have to go? The camera swoops in on Cope, sprawled out on a podium with one hand on his thigh, like he's failing an audition to join the village people. After pointing out that Etta James is 58 and she's had to stand out in the wind by the sea in february he fires us off 130 miles or so up the road from san diego for the next satellite performance anything by 3t formed in tito jackson's bollocks in the late 1970s 3t taj toriel and and TJ sadly not a terror were a boy band who traded heavily on the fact that they were second generation Jacksons and had an uncle Michael who acted as their executive

producer after making their first recorded appearance on the Free Willy soundtrack in 1993 they put out their debut LP Brotherhood in November of 1995. And this, the first single taken from it, smashed into the charts at number four the previous week, nipped up one place to number three the week after that,

and has currently clawed its way up to number two. Although there's a perfectly serviceable video knocking about which features the group lolling around in a warehouse conversion while a model slinks about in a slow motion rainstorm, it's been decided that they should arse around live via satellite on Malibu Beach instead.

Well, first question, me dears. This is what E17 want to be, isn't it, by this point? No. Those love balladeers. It's a different thing, Al. I wouldn't necessarily tie them in with British boy bands

or even actually white American boy bands. It's a different vibe. For starters, they're good singers. Well, yes. You know, I'd tie them sort of way more in with, I don't know, All For One and Boys To Men and Blackstreet and Jodeci and people like that yeah um crucially though that they this song is not for me all right i know i understand that it's not for people like me or me in fact but the song does that essential trick essential

to boy band songs of not just being about an unproblematic love but being about a love that's been derailed by something unmentioned something that the listener can then fill in with their own imagination you can be good looking and declare love and get in the charts but if you're good looking and declare love but like a kind of injured puppy wonder what went wrong then you're into people's hearts especially teenage hearts that was a trick that e17 and take that and people like that were able to pull but this is just a slicker cut above in a sense vocally than any of them could ever have managed so i know what you mean about this is something that e17 wanted to be but e17 precisely got their charm because they were trying for this

perhaps but couldn't get it and were just more honest about themselves. So I know what you mean, but I'd tie them in with American boy bands, which are a totally different kettle of fish than British boy bands. That's a really good point. I mean, yeah, it's kind of a sort of serviceable slow jam, isn't it, really? It's quite, you know, appropriately, since they're by the sea, it's quite sort of watery. But actually, it's not a million miles away from it's quite sort of watery, but actually it does.

It's not a million miles away from you are not alone either. Is it, um, you know, and which also probably, you know, I mean, that's,

you know, they, they are, they are of Jack of the Jackson dynasty. So, you know, they're going to sort of cleave to that a bit. Um,

but yeah, I mean, there's not a huge amount to say about it. They're really, you know, they're complete pros, but, um,

yeah, you know, like you said, it's not, yeah, it's, it's not for you. It's not for huge amount to say about it they're really you know they're complete pros but um yeah you know like you said it's not yeah it's not for you it's not for me either um i don't know how how big did they actually get this was a big big hit and jacko you're right does loom large over i half expected to see his face appear in the sky or something and and in the video as i recall you mentioned a model al she actually looks like mich like Michael Jackson, I seem to recall, in a kind of creepy way. But the thing is with this performance, we've gone from one live satellite broadcast to another, haven't we? Straight to another.

Yeah, which seems odd. Well, it removes the specialness. Well, you say specialness, don't you? But by 96, I really don't think that this satellite link up thing was as impressive as totp seemed to think no but the fact that it's live there's opportunities for fuck-ups yeah yeah i mean elvis dog could have just trotted on the beach and just cut one off that would have been magnificent that would have been magnificent but i mean of course if it were if not for the satellite linker we wouldn't see that the heartbreaking poignancy of the totp logo

getting washed away by the seas and also we wouldn't we wouldn't get the interest and that wave might as well have said mtv and but but we also wouldn't get the intrigue that we don't get in the video of what the fuck is in that guy's rucksack And why is he hiding it And then why is he throwing it down in disgust It's full of crabs Crammed with crabs No

Aunty Janet's done him a packed lunch Going out on the beach lads I reckon And then he smashes it at the end And it's like, oh, mate. It just has a little tantrum there. I guess it's kind of shorthand for teenage

angst. I mean, to be fair, if you were going to do a kind of word association and go teenage angst, it would be a teenage boy throwing rucksack to the sand in anguish over his girl girl you know yeah i think what's in it is um lighters you remember those blokes in town three for a pound your gas lighters

gas lighters i reckon that's what's going on here oh you know what you you've reminded me of something just after lady diana died and london was casting around for uh for him for a new icon to to to nourish and comfort us uh the 15 lighter for a pound man turned up in soho and i heard all these rumors my mate said oh yeah there's a bloke who's doing 15 lighters and i just go fuck off no fucking way what in l London? No. And then one day I'm walking up Oxford Street and I see this bloke and he's got a big shopping trolley and it's full of lighters. Oh, my godfather.

And I just ran across fucking Oxford Street, not caring a whit for the traffic, and just ran up to him and said, you're him, aren't you? The 15-pounder lighter man. He said, yeah. And he had this little sign, 15 lighters for a pound. And I said, how are you doing?

You must be making a fortune here. He says, no, no one believes me. People just look at me. And he said, oh, I come from Blackpool. And, you know, if you sell 14 lighters for a pound, you just basically get dragged off the back of a tram for being a price gouger. And I said, oh, mate, I'm sorry to hear that. He stuffed me under my pole.

I had three pound coins. He said, here, give me 45 lighters. Walked home with 45 lighters. Got the fruit bowl, which is sat beside me right now. Filled it with lighters. I'm not lying to you. After about 10 days, they'd all been lost. That's what happens.

They go walkabout. I must have had the world's most dangerous settee. They must have all gone down there. But yeah, just getting back on track. Neil. Janet Jackson. What about Janet Jackson? Well, what do you think?

I love Janet Jackson. I met her. Oh, you met her? i met her for five seconds and i held her hand i touched i touched a jackson wow appropriately i should add but we were in a um i went to see her in rotterdam uh live and she was fucking amazing she was so good live um and it was one of those yeah it was one of those meet and greets after and. She was so good live. I remember that review actually. Yeah, it was one of those meet and greets after and literally it was just trooping through a room and she was sat there, tiny little woman.

Yeah. And I just shook her hand and just said, thank you for an amazing show and thank you for Control because I love that album. And then I just walked on. But oh my God, I'll never forget that. That's my closest, yeah, closest thing to Godhead, really,

was meeting Janet Jackson for about three seconds. Well, I was going to ask you if you'd eat a sandwich made by Janet Jackson, but obviously you'd mount it under glass and put it on your fucking wall. Without a fucking doubt, I'd eat a sandwich made by Janet Jackson, yeah. Janet Jackson's stories. I'll never forget hearing a radio show where she was talking about her favourite records and she was talking about her and Michael growing up and how they used to go roller skating

and listen to Led Zeppelin and she just came across as a really lovely lovely person so yeah no Janet I love Janet and always will alright calm down Neil fucking hell I'm with you I'm with you, Neil.

I do want to marry her. Butt out. Look, we're having a moment here. Control and Rhythm Nation are two fucking amazing albums. And to be honest with you, they're better than the Jacko albums that they surround.

They're better than bad, I would say, and better than dangerous. The thing is that I did want to say about 3T is looking at them and thinking about boy bands uh you know i kind of thinking that now that one direction are over i wonder whether the boy band will just

disappear because if x factor goes because i think this is the last series isn't it this year um you wonder will the boy band ever return i mean it's more economical in a sense for record companies to put terrible songs in the hands of one sap um to sing them and i just wonder whether that why would a boy band occur again without x factor um confecting them together i wonder if if it'll happen again we might have seen one d may well be the the sort of last big boy band it It makes you wonder what's going to happen with K-pop and J-pop over here because that is wall-to-wall boy bands. It's whether it can crack into the actual mainstream charts enough.

That's interesting. I mean, I think whenever there's a kind of this is now not a thing thing, it usually is. It will just sort of mutate. I mean, 3T were brothers of a famous family. So, you know, that was kind of inevitable. You're always going to get that, I think, coming up. But I don't know.

It's an interesting point. I reckon it will probably, yeah, they'll mutate. Maybe literally. Maybe it will be like the next one will actually be grown in a lab. Or like a human centipede. But the thing is... A human centipede yeah but but the thing is a human centipede boy band but the trouble is i see have you seen that film no sorry have you seen have you seen that film al no you right okay you cannot invoke that so breezily like that and go

you you you sit down and you watch that fucking film all right and then you are allowed to use it okay but you can't just you can't you've got to like it's i mean it will fuck you up and the thing is that it won't you know sorry for the sorry hold that thought neil but um you know it's not because it's so terrible it's because it's actually quite competent and you can see that the guy's got talent it's like oh my god he's actually really he's at he's actually a pretty good filmmaker and this is what he chose to do and And it's not that it's so... It's tragic and it's just this grind of horror. It's like, oh, Jesus, what are you doing to me?

Anyway, I want you to have that experience, Al. Okay. As your friend. Well, you know, Christmas holidays soon, you know. This is what... I'll sit down with my mum on Boxing Day and we'll watch it. That's ideal circumstances, yeah. I mean, the thing is, though, though, a human centipede boy band,

you're only going to hear one voice, aren't you? No, you get the backing. You get the backing. I'm just humming. The dance routines will be good though. Yeah. It'll take a while to learn. You've got to bend yourself into all kinds of contorted ways. But, you know, yeah, fucking hell. You kind is taken if you want to be a boy band anyway don't

this this has taken a bad turn anyway neil i'm sorry no no no i didn't really have anything to other than that i i just think the way pop comes together now is horribly around musicians it's around people with acoustic guitars and demos that they talk about or like they vlog some acoustic cover of something um that idea of like one really good looking bloke and perhaps a few ugly blokes just wanting to be pop stars and bothering somebody enough until they're given some songs i just don't think that's going to happen again so so we'll see i mean obviously sarah's completely right these things come in cycles i'm sure in five years we'll have plenty of awful, awful boy bands. But at the moment, I can't see any new ones on the horizon at all.

But just going back to 3T, I mean, to me, this is the pinnacle of soft black lad music. Yeah. They're dressed in the hip-hop, sort of, they vaguely allude to the hip-hop attire of the time, which was basically Billy Smart style trousers and really massively oversized sweatshirts and stuff. And of course the backpack. Yeah, of course.

But all those people I mentioned, Boyz II Men and Blackstreet, Jodeci, the 3T are undoubtedly the softest of the lot. Yeah, yeah. And the prettiest as well. They'd do anything for you they are would they lace your shoe paint the face bright blue catch a kangaroo

they'd probably go to Timbuktu they're very they're ever so bonny they're very sweet but it is this is very sort of suede softy soft and because you know you're comparing them to boys boys to men obviously is a fair reference point but you've got to hand it to to boys to men they they really brought that shit they overwrought that shit you know you can't you you know they really they felt

all of the feelings all at once and it was was quite exhausting listening to them, you know, and watching them in videos and satellite links, you know, because the guy who was singing would sort of come forward and kind of just angst, just angst. And then the others would sort of pace up and down and shake their heads in the background, just going, oh man, yeah, this is really bad. All these feelings that I have.

And you kind of don't get that from these guys. I mean, you know, maybe that's why he he threw his backpack because he felt like he wasn't really fully expressing you know what he was feeling on his face and that kind of suggests that something's gone a bit wrong there it's like you know anything else what's one more thing i would i feel like i should you know at least these satellite uh satellite performances do get a bad rap i i kind of want to want to give some props to the cameraman here, or camera person, for some actually inventive and diverting camera work.

There's a lot of kind of romantic swooping over the driftwood. Yes, chunky driftwood as well, isn't it? Actually, whoever's produced this has actually had a thought about it, because most of the time these satellite link-ups would just be so flat and so boring and so would really drain all of the joy out of it and this, it's a very middling

song but in terms of performance it's actually got some drama. So the following week Anything stayed at number two where it would stay for three weeks overall held off the top spot by this week's number one and eventually sold over 480 000 copies in the uk alone fucking out the follow-up 24 7 got to number 11 in may of this year and they'd have two more top three hits in 1996 including why with michael jackson which got to number two

in august after getting to number 10 in april in 1997 we got to be you however they never troubled the uk charts again there's still an active group appearing in assorted reality shows and 90s revival shows and featured on the channel 4 docusoap the jacksons are coming where they and assorted uncles dosed about in Devon for a bit. You heard it in polyphonic. You felt it on hydroponic. Anything but you, baby I was high on the molotov cocktails I was on a hundred things I was running to put my money where my was I was riding by the whales and the dolphins

Whales and dolphins Whales and dolphins, yeah We can now see that Cope's new t-shirt reads Rendell, you turn now as he does a poem in honour of this week's exclusive Perseverance by Terror Vision. Formed in Keithley in 1988 as the spoilt Bratz, with a Z on the end, Terror Vision eventually signed to EMI in 1991.

They spent the next two years supporting the Ramones and Motorhead, an open Def Leppard's homecoming gig at Sheffield's Don Valley Stadium. But it wouldn't be until 1993 that they skirted the top 40 a couple of times and finally made it in when My House got to number 29 in January of 1994. They spent the rest of 1994 pumping out four singles on the bounce which all made the 20s and this tune, which is about to be released and is the lead-off single from forthcoming lp regular urban survivors is the follow-up to some people say which got to number 22 in march

of last year and this is this week's top of the pops exclusive what does that mean it basically means that they've got something that no one else has you know it's essentially a way of getting in a tune that's outside of the charts right right got ya and the fact that they're in the studio doing it I think that's the exclusive bit right

I understand by this point in the 90s people are making their tunes available for weeks and weeks before they actually get released for sale so you know the idea of an exclusive by this point's a bit it's a bit tenuous it's a it's definitely tenuous for a tv audience for television's fans this song perseverance they'll have known it um for months and months and months because Terror Vision were one of those bands I mean I never got to write about them

their records which is a good job because I don't want to listen to this shit but I did write about them loads of times live where they were always

a riot and a lot of fun and fundamentally they used to get me drunk this band so they were lovely fellas they were good drinkers

in sort of 96 there was a curious thing i started discovering with pr officers from london that they just basically thought that everywhere outside of northwest one was kind of just down the road from each other you know yeah so it would always be like yeah neil you can go to sheffield you can go to newcastle you can go to manchester because you know it's just down the road from you um so consequently i was sent to a lot of sort of not far-flung places but a lot of places interviewing bands like Terror Vision like Three Colours Red like The Almighty like The Wild Arts what was called for a brief horrible summer

Brit Rock in a way which also included Skunk and Antsy and Reef who I avoided like the plague but Terror Vision they were just lovely fellas when I met them and they weren't a druggie band in a way a lot of bands then were quite druggie these were boozy bands properly old fashioned boozy bands it was often mentioned about Terror Vision

that they were kind of a slate of the mid 90's, they weren't they weren't that good but because I got drunk with them, I wrote positively about them. Oh, Neil. No, what I mean by that is when you are drunk enough and you are in a full venue of fans of a band,

it's impossible to, I mean, unless you're Taylor, maybe, it's impossible to kind of, it's impossible to really not feel pulled into it and not feel that, yeah, I'm drunk, I'm having and not feel that yeah i'm drunk i'm having a laugh this music's loud i'm having a dance and i did write about them as such you know i certainly never said oh these are the greatest or these are you know going to change the world but as a boozy night out um television were were pretty much ideal in the midnights um yeah i mean they are yeah they're a proper beery band and there is that thing it's like bands like that it's a good time band and that that's their

function that's their mechanism and that's what they're for and that's what i want to do that's the button that they're going to press i mean it's like because i um yeah i do remember um the first yeah the first album was you know it was it was um i i kind of i kind of didn't mind at the time and you listen to it now and you just go, oh, God. I mean, this performance is like, I just imagine, you know, it's probably what Taylor would describe as an awful din. It's a very ugly racket. It's a very, you know.

I think we could do a chart music podcast where we are all Taylor. And in a way, we are all Taylor. Yeah,lor yeah and the crowd you know as we were saying before like it's it's you know uh they've they've got this thing at this stage at top of the pops where they've they've kind of rammed loads of people in there and got them all to jump up and down and they do seem to genuinely want you know you can't you can only make people jump up and down to a certain extent it's quite tiring you've got to actually summon the energy within yourself you've kind of got to be enjoying yourself to to do that um yeah you know and that's that's what people are doing um but yeah it's not there's not much to say about it i've interviewed them a couple of times one time they were lovely

and one time they were proper cunts i always seem to get i always seem to get people it's probably not therefore um they probably hung over from all the beer yeah I always seem to get people. It's probably not their fault. They probably hung over from all the beer. Yeah, I did seem to kind of get that sometimes. I would just get people on their worst day. And at the time, obviously, I was just like, oh, no, what have I done to deserve this? You're being horrible.

But I think it was bad luck on my part, really. Maybe I'm being charitable, but know I thought they were alright you know yeah they were alright the thing is they weren't that serious about what they did they were serious about entertaining people but you know you'd interview bands who pulled about three people into a club and

they'd be amazingly pompous about their own music. Terror Vision were pulling big big crowds so they're filling out big places you know. Thousands and thousands of fans. All of them going kind of mental, but were always disarmingly

kind of, not talking their music down, but they knew what they were. They knew it weren't going to last, and they were just having fun whilst it was

happening. Whereas if you interviewed, there was another band called Three Colours Red, who were part of that Brit rock phenomenon as well, who took it

all a bit too much I don't know not too seriously but you know were not quite as fun as Terrorism were

although the most fun out of all of those bands remains still I think a great band the Wild Hearts in that period the Wild Hearts

were hilarious and just a ton of fun and wrote really good songs this is kind of Wild Hearts lite it's very poppy Wild Hearts type thing but in terms of Northern rock bands that were popular at the time fuck sight better than wrote really good songs. This is kind of Wild Hearts Alight. It's a very poppy Wild Hearts type thing.

But in terms of northern rock bands that were popular at the time, Fuck Sight better than the Bloody Little Angels and a lot of fun. But yeah, I would never,

ever, ever in a million years listen to this record at home. It's not what it's for. Who would do that? It's like, Sunday afternoon, time to kick back

and slip on a television disc. Yeah. Listening to this, I can actually almost taste the horrible fucking alcohol that i would have drunk yeah to enjoy this live and it wouldn't have been booze i mean it would have been booze sorry but it wouldn't have been just beers this was the age of you know diamond white and and and you know k cider and just oh god yeah all the horrible, horrible shit. Um,

but I can almost taste that stuff, that kind of snake bite that I used to make. Oh, this wasn't just me actually. Um, yeah. Half, half a glass of special brew,

half a glass of diamond white. Wow. That's like, you've got to call that you, that, that needs a new name. That's like a, I don't know, Viper.

I don't want to be known for that. That's like a, I don't know, Viper. I don't want to be known for such a horrible, horrible drink. A Pina Colcana. Do you like Pina Colcana? It's like Viper vomit. And throwing up in a ditch. Well, that's the weird thing, because now, of course, I enjoy a fine bottle of red at night and I drink it steadily. But then it was how, you know, it's looking for the shortcut to fuck them

as quickly as you possibly can so Terror Vision were the perfect soundtrack for that kind of stuff I've got to say like Oblivion you've got to hand it to them for that that was like their top tune wasn't it really and then of course they kind of went into another level

with Tequila and whatever remix who remixed that and made it? Was it? Mint Royale. Oh, was it Mint Royale? I was thinking it was Fatboy Slim who did everything at this time. But yeah, and that was a seriously annoying tune, but it served a function. I knew what that was for.

It massively annoyed their fanbase, that tune, because the fanbase wanted a different song released as the next single, and I think Television were one of those bands, they actually put a poll out or something for fans to vote as to what the next single was. Oh, God, don't do that. And then totally disregarded it, because the Mint Royale remix was getting some airplay and getting some traction,

which proved to be their biggest hit. That's great. I love it when it's like, oh, you know, when people think that a band belongs to them and they are, you know. And then it's like, no, this is a completely one-sided relationship. We love you and that, but we want to see other they are you know and then it's like no we uh we this is a completely one-sided relationship we love you and that but we want to see other people you know and that's a proper boaty mcboat face switcheroo isn't it i've i really i really uh i applaud that i think you should you know i think you should fuck people over as often as you can on that score i mean

who knows i think that this might come back in fashion given you know given Brexit and all that by the way which I'm sorry to mention the B word but today as we're recording everything's gone mental again so you know yeah but as far as

this band goes this is actually and genuinely the first time I ever heard them was watching this. Absolutely no interest in, in, in the hip parade at the time. One of those bands where you just look at the name again. Now I wouldn't like that.

Well, probably by this time out by 96, you were probably starting to stop reading Melody Maker and stuff like that. An awful lot of people were, because an awful lot of people were stopping writing for it. So you wouldn't, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have missed out.

And I look at this and I just think, well, this is exactly what every band of that era who I haven't heard yet looks and sounds like. It's just, you know, it's just lots of, you know, lots of jumping about, lots of pretending to throw your instruments about. I noticed there's a white lad with dreads, which was, you know a

thing at this time i mean he always has been but you know a kind of like a nice lad thing there was some um there was some kind of like proto crusties in nottingham in the 80s and they'd always be hanging about the market square and one of them had these really long dreads and he'd fucked them up and he I don't know what he had done but he had this they were really shiny and clumpy and there was one big clump in the middle and it looked like an armadillo

was crawling up his back he used to turn my fucking stomach every time I saw it but the thing is with these bands Al, as we're seeing repeatedly in this episode and actually as we're about to see with the band

that comes after this this idea that Britpop and Grunge exerted this massive influence well I mean Terrorvision to me there's much more

of an umbilicus from here back to things like Pop Will Eat Itself Jesus Jones Mega City 4 those kinds of crusty bands that

existed before Britpop wouldn't go away like fucking Netatomic Dustbin. It's much more like that. It's quite unbelievable I got on with them, really. But nice chaps, and I was drunk. So three weeks later, Perseverance crashed into the charts at number five

and dropped 16 places the week after. The follow-up, Celebrity Hit List, got to number 20 in May of this month and then have two more top ten hits, including the number two with Tequila in January of 1999, before they split up for the first time in 2001. Bless you, television! Here's the top ten. At ten, Jesus to a Child, George Michael. Number nine, One by One, by Cher.

Eight, I Wanna Be a Hippie, by Technohead. Number seven, Do You Still Be Seventeen? They were on tonight. Number six, One Of Us, Joan Osbourne. She was on tonight. Five, I Just Wanna Make Love To You, Etta James. She was on tonight. Four, Lifted, The Lighthouse Family.

They were on tonight. Three, Sly Return by The Blue Toes. Two, And Anything by 3T. They were on tonight. It is cosm 3C. They like them all. It is cosmically correct that this is number one. So I get to introduce it because it's a classic. So, for the third week, Babylon Zoo are top of the pops. And to space me into galactic crime Space me I require you to go And to space me into galactic crime

God just smells me consummate my home Cope runs down the top ten, pointing out which acts have been on tonight, in case you've already forgotten, before appearing in another t-shirt which reads, A bypass is not the solution. Well, it is if you've got blocked arteries, Julian. He points out that it is cosmically correct that the next song is number one because it's a classic, Spaceman, by Babylon Zoo. Formed in 1992 in Wolverhampton, Babylon Zoo were led by Jazz Man,

the former lead singer of the Sand Kings, an indie band who had supported the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses. They were signed by Phonogram Records in 1993, and a year later, this tune, their debut single, was heard by someone from the ad agency Barkle Bogle Hegarty on a Manchester radio station. It was given a ravey remix by Arthur Baker and it was used on the Levi's ad campaign Planet

where an alien family are horrified that their 16-year-old Russian daughter has come back from a shopping trip to Earth and is wearing some jeans and a spangly bra. The single was put out again in mid-January of this year topped and tailed with the ravey bits. It sold over 420,000 copies in its first week becoming the fastest single in the UK in nearly 32 years since Can't Buy Me, Loved by the Beatles. And it went straight in at number one, Dethroning Jesus to a Child by George Michael.

According to Mann in an interview at the time, quote, I was expecting this success. A racing driver knows when he's got the best car and I know I've done something that's far superior to most things out there. I'm a great songwriter and I could become a musical genius. End quote. This is its third week

at the top and the band and assorted spacey types are in the studio. Now then, I know you're champing at the bit to get into this one me dears. Before we do though, we've recently put out a bonus Q&A podcast available to the Pop Craze Patreons with Simon

and Taylor and the Pop Craze youngsters were desperate to know more about the gushing review that Simon regrets and refuses point blank to talk about so obviously I'm on a Rumpelstiltskin like mission to find out what it is. Stiltskin, there's a thought.

I'm now convinced that it's Babylon Zoo. Neil, can you confirm or deny? I can't confirm or deny that. Oh, man. I want to know as well. I hope also that Simon never reveals it and that Simon keeps it a secret. Well, no, fuck that. I want to know.

Facebook, new message Simon it's interesting though that you mentioned Stiltzkin you carry on talking yeah because Levi's had form obviously Stiltzkin inside 94 Mr Boondastic 95 and then this which I think is obviously. Steel Skin, Inside 94. Mr. Boondastic, 95.

And then this, which I think... It was Babylon Zoo, wasn't it? I'm pretty sure it wasn't, but we'll see. Enter. I don't think Simon would be embarrassed about that because you know there are good things about this i've accused him let's see we'll come back to him when he decides to come back to us sorry yeah so yeah babylon zoo um where do we start with this it was a rip-off because i loved that advert that music music. Yes. Like everybody. It sounds astonishing, those five seconds. And I thought the whole record was going to be like that.

And it didn't. So, yeah, it does beg the question, why did it stay at number one for so long? Well, this is the thing, isn't it? Because, you know, according to modern thinking, everyone went mencle over that advert and everyone rushed out to buy Spaceman by Babylon Zoo and everyone was massively disappointed that it went all dirty and

rock after about 20 seconds in which case why was it number one for five weeks? Well I know because on the one hand yeah it's some kind of brilliant prank on everyone the fact that's some kind of brilliant prank on everyone. The fact that, you know, it just kind of takes that swerve and then turns into like this dirge,

which is barely like, you know, is about one beat per set. You know, it's about 60 BPM, which is incredibly slow for, you know, a number one record. But this is actually, this is a slightly boring thing. But I do actually have the single of this of this tune and on the uh there's like four tracks on it the last one being um the fifth dimension mix which is just five minutes of the fast bit oh wow i haven't heard that yeah so that's what i should have looked for there you go so basically if you bought the single

like you did actually get what you wanted you got the you know yeah as long as it was on cassette yeah so

and not on not on some new format that hadn't been invented yet but I don't think that was widely widely known Sarah people were buying this week after week after week

because of the Top of the Pops appearances and because of what the song actually is yeah well i tell you what the other thing that that that there is about this there's a there's a real kind of um there's a sort of poignancy about this because it really speaks to people's um well kind of the the um the the dark arts of advertising what it does to your brain. And it's people, you know, when something is put with, when you put 30 seconds of music or a minute of music or,

you know, a tiny snippet of it with some, with the right imagery and it sparks, like it will hit the pleasure centers in your brain, a good, you know, a good advert. And that's what it's designed to do.

It's meant to manipulate you. It's meant to make you excited in that way. And so you are just like, Oh, I want to, I don't know what this is, but I want to do it's meant to manipulate you it's meant to make you excited in that way and so you are just like oh i want to i don't know what this is but i want to capture it and either you go and buy the jeans or you buy the record or both and it's not gonna be you're not gonna get that feeling that's all there is is that spark of pleasure that you that you have been made to feel by somebody very very crafty and do you know what i mean there's something a little bit there's there's something a little bit there's there's something a little bit um something a bit tragic about that is that you know you do that and we do that all the time is you kind of get suckered by these things and um and you know you

want that kind of that's like a little tiny window onto like the life that you could have and i think maybe that's what this is as well as it's like i want that i want that feeling always i want to stride around town listening to this you know and and it's that but that's not your life you can't have it it's like that moment is already gone sorry no i think i think you're right i think that explains a lot of the appeal what it might not explain is what what did you say are 4 it? Well, 750,000 by this point. It flashes up, doesn't it? 750,000 copies sold by this point. Yeah, yeah.

And I think there is reasons. I think British pop listeners like theatre. They're even failed theatre, which this is. They're fond of it. The lyrics, I'm not saying they're a selling point, but I do still, I don't like them as such, but they amuse me.

It's time to terminate the great wide world. Gives me a big Chris Needham burn the world feeling. And things like intergalactic cries and stuff. You kind of have to admire the, you have to kind of, you have to admire the ambition to a certain extent. And it is really, it's perhaps

one of the last number one singles we've ever had that is really unashamedly um glam rock in influence really yes um well it's not a million miles from sorry i'm sorry neil i keep interrupting um it's not a million somebody pointed out it's like mechanical animals came out this year it's not a million miles from manson it's like manson light no it's very manson very manson indeed and and with like there's not there are some lyrics you know the the stuff about homophobic jokes and stuff i think he did have something to say possibly as nebulously hippie-ish and meaningless as similar pontifications by richard ashcroft and jk and tony mortimer actually now that i've come to think of it but but and it

agrees me to say this because we were crying out for an Asian pop star I certainly was um but he was a shit singer he was a terrible singer he kind of he kind of looked the part and I would always rather have a man in makeup as number one rather than man without makeup but yeah dig deep it's kind of one of the worst, anthems of 96, to a certain extent, once it gets going, but like, the song before it,

like Terror Vision, it does look back, to the likes of Jesus Jones, but it also hints, as Sarah said, towards Malamance, and it hints towards Placebo, and things like that as well,

and, and, I wonder why they weren't, kind of, taken to America, and given to America, because the sludgy bit, which is the bulk of the song would have gone down a storm

but the fact that the opening that five seconds of sped up vocal had such an effect shows that there was a hunger at that time also for just a happy hardcore sound but it follows this odd pattern of which perhaps only I have paranoically

noticed that Asian pop stars are only allowed number ones in the first few months of the year White Town Corner Shop and this we're only allowed springtime number ones Why do you think that is Nick? I have no idea I thought he was just going to call up

some amazing people. I wish I had a theory it's just a pure coincidence I'm going to have to think of something now man I don't know. Is this where we have to check our privilege about this? Do we have to recognise our complicity in, you know, the oppression of Asian pop stars? No, this is it.

But when you consider, it makes you realise, of course, how few Asian pop stars there have been. I've mentioned it before about Freddie Mercury, and I wish he'd outed himself as not not you know completely english in a sense um you know i i was crying out for an asian pop star and and things like white town and punjabi mc and apache indian and people like that have been great don't get me wrong but um i i do think though it just the the the endurance of this song at number one it does show that appetite for just theatricality that's always bubbling under in British pop.

But you need a special kind of talent, really, to turn that kind of urge into a career. Jazzman only really looked the part. He didn't have a substantial enough voice and he didn't really have enough to say to sustain it. Yeah, you say that, but he did have a reputation of putting himself about a bit. I've got a quote here

from the Daily Record in January the 23rd, 1996. Pop sensation Jazz Man reckons he's the sexiest thing to hit the charts in years. And the Indian-born singer has grabbed overnight chart success while wearing a Sari and mascara!

Exclamation mark. both blue-eyed jazz i was a sex symbol as soon as i jumped out of the womb i love women and there's nothing better than knowing women are sexually attracted to me on stage jazz 24 slips into saris made by mum Avtar wearing mascara nicked from his three sisters. Jazz laughs. Saris are really comfortable to wear, just like the kilt in Scotland, and a lot of fun. The single Spaceman, cut by top producer Arthur Baker, has already been beamed into the nation's living rooms thanks to the latest Levi's ad. Yet Jazz probably wouldn't be seen dead in a pair of denims

unless mum cuts them into a sari. Well, I was an Asian bloke at the time going round with a lot of lippy on. So, you know, I should have felt some sort of solidarity with him, I guess. But I just think the music let it down. Simon, see my message. Oh, he's doing that wobbly thing where you know simon said what was babylon zoo i'll find out one day can i can i wang on about this for a bit now please sorry sarah no he was

um you know he was very pretty bloke and he was you know sort of and you know you always need to celebrate when uh you know someone who's who's not uh white and average and boring gets to number one and also you know there's this kind of glittery androgynous thing that he's got going on which is which is great which is you know and um you know he looks lovely he's got these very piercing blue eyes by the way now i looked him up and he is now a successful film producer um and looks completely different but he is not aged at the same time no no so there you go um but yeah um the trouble was i mean i i actually really appreciate that kind of it's very un-british like do you know what i'm fucking awesome get a load of me. Everyone gather round and check this shit out.

It's going to blow your fucking mind. Unfortunately, I always celebrate that because I can't stand that wheedling, hand-wringing, British kind of false self-effacement. It's bullshit and I discard it. But, unfortunately, you do have to have the goods to back it up. And like you say, you know, this is, you know, this doesn't really have the chops, but still I like that.

There's that. I think that was enough to get him to get to, you know, to where, where he was at this point. And I mean, the, the,

the problem was his whole kind of manner is a little bit off putting because he's got that kind of, he sort of grins and rolls his eyes. Like, yeah, I'm so, aren't I weird? Have you seen, aren't I kooky and it's like well

not you know not not actually such that you you know it's like that t-shirt that people used to wear that says keep staring i might do a trick it's like i'm not looking mate i'm not looking at you you know it's stop stop like being aggressive about your you know i mean yeah because i mean he's he's you know he's going round thinking his summer and yeah I remember him being slagged off quite a lot for that but but sorry Simon's just got back to me no it wasn't Babylon Zoo and on that note

I'm going out to avoid further discussion of the topic I'll get you Rumpelpreis skin some lead singer of a band going on about How brilliant he is it wasn't exactly A one off thing at the time was it You know we're quite happy to hear

Fucking Liam and All the shaking Liam's bang on About how brilliant they are and everything But is it because it's an Asian Man doing something a bit weird and Glamour perhaps so perhaps So but the trouble with the song is the song

it's undanceable and I remember leaping onto dance floors to dance for the first five seconds and then getting the fuck off the dance floor and scowling on the steps as usual. It's like inverted Nirvana, isn't it?

Well, it's making me think, Noel, it's making me think that kind of, if he'd have accentuated, I'm not saying accentuated his Asian-ness, but if he'd have accentuated

that racial thing, the racial division between him and the rest of rock music and the rest of pop, that might have been interesting. But the more and more I think about it,

the more and more I think about me tarting around with my blooming telescopic cigarette holder, my lippy and my mascara on, and I just wish they'd made me a pop star at the time. I think I would have done a better job. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I would have liked to have seen that.

Because this is three years removed from the Buddha of Suburbia. And, you know, which demonstrated that people would be open to that sort of thing yeah but I still think you know an Asian pop star yes we've had Asian pop stars in a sense but they've not really remained stars in the mainstream to a certain extent

it's odd really when you think about it when you think about the percentages and you think about why that should have happened by now and it hasn't although i guess liam out of one direction is it liam or is it zayn i can't remember one of them has got asian background it would now it's saying yeah it would now just not be anything it would just be no you know and and you wouldn't in fact be able to accentuate it without being cheesy about it but in the depths of the 90s when when when lad rock and brit pot were draping themselves in the flag and and and coming off as so parochial

and kind of almost because morrissey is the godfather of indie rock like morrissey wishing that it could click its cuban heels together and go back to a time before immigration. I think it would have made a big difference if he had more to say. And perhaps, yeah, had found a better way of saying it. Because ultimately, Stiltzkin, you mentioned, is a better song than this.

And Stiltzkin were fucking awful. So, you know, I mean, I appreciate that Sarah's got the casingle. And I doubt she listens to it much I have no desire to hear this again, do you know what I mean? It doesn't tickle precisely those pleasure centres

that I did get from those first five seconds, so I remember the bitter resentment when it came out of genuinely just feeling ripped off Well because I loved those five seconds on the advert they were such a thrill a total thrill and i'm not saying the whole record needed to be like that but what it slipped into could not have doused that thrill in more it's a you know a big stream of lukewarm

piss the rest of the record and the first five seconds are just so astonishing so yeah it probably angered me at the time in some way i'll tell you what though um the thing is that obviously the uh the the outro you know the coda brings it back yeah yeah and there's that great fit i mean i have to say this has been going around my fucking head for days since i since i um since i saw this episode and i've been all right with it i was like yeah there's a kind of you know it is it's not a very I was like yeah there's a kind of you know it is it's not a very good song really but there's something about it

that I still you know that is kind of enduringly you know alright you just can't get off the carousel can you Sarah we can't get off the carousel

we can't get off the carousel yeah actually fun fact about the word carousel if you are interested in such things do you know where it comes from no right when the carousel, if you are interested in such things.

Do you know where it comes from? No. When the carousel was designed, it's a... I'm doing the spinny motion with my hand now, just for extra effect. It's a load of horses going round and round. And it was designed as quite a... Like, as a reenactment of a battle, you see, because it's all the horses running into battle. And so the word carousel comes from the Italian garacello

and the Spanish carosello, which means little battle. Ooh so the word carousel comes from the Italian garacello and the Spanish carosello, which means little battle. Fancy that. Isn't that nice? It is. It's like, you know, like how karaoke means empty orchestra in Japanese. Yeah. Isn't that nice? I don't know if Jazzman knew that when he was writing this. He's a genius.

Of course he knew. Also, you have to give five points for the lyrics. There's a fire between us So where is your God Yes That is metal Where is he now As fuck

But yeah The fact that You know That it's coming back And it's great And it's such a kind of You know The sort of last chorus

Is sort of dirging on And you're like Come on Come on Do the thing Do the thing Do the thing Yes

There's this kind of like Oh the relief Yeah When it comes back Is there's this kind of like, oh the relief when it comes back is just and the kind of the breaking of the tension and it's like, you're such a fucker you know exactly what you're doing the one good thing about this song it is an absolute textbook

demonstration of the superiority of dance music over rock music in 1996 you can either have this, or you can have this. Yeah, it's a dance rock sandwich, isn't it? And it's like some really good sourdough with a bit of spam in the middle. Yes.

A bit of limp or peck. Yes. Because, of course, six weeks later, you've got Firestarter at number one, which is the de facto rock dance record delivers on the thrills and keeps them going for the whole record

yes oh god yeah I would have many things to say about Firestarter and that whole thing which basically precipitated a moral panic it was extraordinary it was yeah which basically precipitated a moral panic. Yes. It was extraordinary.

It was, yeah, it was. Top of the Pops, of course, runs an info bar right through it because, hey, it's only the number one. Yeah. Predicting top 40 entries next week for Mariah Carey, The Loonies, Red Hot Chili Peppers, misspelled with two Ls, Alcatraz and Diana Ross. So, ooh. It's like The Loonies, I'vecatraz, and Diana Ross. So, ooh. Is that the loonies

I've got five on it? Yes. Yeah. Tune. Yeah. Yeah, isn't it? Isn't it just? God, the only other thing

I want to mention is in the last episode of Chart Music, Taylor mentioned the trap that David Bowie set for anyone who would try to imitate him

in future decades. And I think Jazz has just lobbed himself down it, hasn't he? Yeah. I i'll tell you what that's one thing you have to point out actually is the uh yeah when you're talking about the lyrics the first line what pungent smells they consummate my home no they don't what the fuck are you talking about like what i'm not sure what he was grasping for there like none of the things that what is it consecrate is it desecrate but it's a very malapropism or possibly a pungent

one I don't know particularly when you say my fucking house stinks who's trodding what and when are you going to get out of my house anything else to say about this I'll be quite happy for my my brain to play host to the killer bass line from the first bit and the end bit um played by a woman in head-to-toe pvc

which is always you know which is always good i mean you know you know how i feel about pvc there's a kind of love-hate relationship there yeah there's like a yeah and there was some actual conceptual kind of some sort of thought was a bit scattered but some thought had gone into that performance with the sort of creepy masky guy in a bowler hat on the decks

alien Mr Ben alien Mr Ben amazing although it's odd, the way this record has now been processed is kind of, you can see it on graphs charting the journey of New Asian Cool

and things like that. Oh, yes. But I disregard New Asian Cool because I never turned up on any of these posters. So, fuck it. So, Spaceman would spend five weeks at number one until it was usurped by Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. It would become the third biggest selling single of 1996 after...

What two songs sold more than this? 1996. Ooh. Yeah. One British, one American. One British, one American One really good One fucking appalling

Could you narrow that down a bit please In my opinion Just tell me Al, I can't stand this Number two was Wannabe by the Spice Girls Right Number one, Killing Me Softly by the Fugees Oh However, the follow up

Animal Army would only enter the charts at number 17 in April of this year and immediately slid down the charts. They'd have one more top 40 hit in October of this year when the boy with the X-ray eyes got to number 32. And after the LP King Kong Groover only sold 10,000 copies in 1999, they split up and Jazzman moved to india to work in an aid agency and then became co-chairman of an independent indian film company however he did inspire a brief interest in uk british asian space pop including this article in the sunday people entitled it's k, But Not As We Know Him. Mad Star Trek fan Kirk Singh is boldly going where no man has gone before.

Britain's first Asian Captain Kirk dresses up just like his hero, complete with a Trekkie turban. And the budding singer has shown a lot of enterprise by recording an album dedicated to the cult show. Songs like Beam Me Up Punjab and It's Bangra But Not As We Know It could send Kirk's career into orbit. Sci-fi fanatics

already trek miles to visit him on his market stall in the Bullring in Birmingham. And more than 3,000 fans came to see him in concert recently. Seek Kirk from Kings Heath Birmingham said, I love being Captain Kirk,

and if it makes people smile, then that's great. My music is a little unusual, but Babylon Zoo are now at number one in the charts as Spaceman, so I reckon my Star Trek Bangra could hit the mainstream charts soon. Kirk says he doesn't always see eye to eye with his wife, Shani, 30, who is not a Star Trek fan but he said as far as I'm concerned

it's my life but not as you know it if only he had exerted a massive influence on the future of British pop if only he had in the early 90s when I was at university if I was up late enough Bangra beat. Fucking amazing show.

Well, I remember trying to get Bangra in a Melody Maker and people weren't really buying it in the late 90s. But I mean, there's one record you mentioned, which isn't Bangra, of course, but one record you mentioned that I think I've already mentioned in this episode, but I cannot stress enough that Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis is my least favourite record

in the entire history of pop music. Oasis are my least favourite band in the entire history of British pop music. And I would go further to say that they are the most damaging band to the future of British pop music that existed in the 90s. I fucking hate

that band. The only way I'd want to do another 90s episode is so that i could really get into how despicable and loathsome and wretched oasis are and were stay tuned pop craze youngsters It is time to leave. It is time to say goodbye. Don't miss Top of the Pops 2 on Saturday. Next week, the presenter is Justine from Elastica. Keep safe in the city.

And remember, be nice to each other. Wake up, Maggie. I think I've got something to say to you. other. Cope, surrounded by two mates in the It's a Knockout builder, one in a t-shirt which reads End of the Road, obviously a big Boyz II Men fan there, tells us that Justine Frischman is going to be presenting

next week and implores us to stay safe in the city and be nice to each other like a neo-psychedelic Derek Bater before we sign off with Maggie Mae by Rod Stewart. After signing off, Top of the Pops gets in a plug for its spin-off show Top of the Pops 2 which launched in 1994 and was essentially a clip show voiced over at the time by Johnny Walker. As the next episode is going to be its 50th episode, the BBC have decided to forgo all the modern rubbish and devote its last 30 seconds or so to a clip of Rod Stewart doing Maggie Mae, his first solo single since having been spun off from the Faces, which spent five weeks at number one over October and November of 1971. Chaps, Top of the Pops 2, your thoughts? Hmm.

Well, it was always a pleasure seeing old pop. Yes. I mean, seeing great old songs like Maggie Mae, which is just one of the greatest songs ever, but we don't need to talk about that. For me, Top of the Pops 2 vexed me because of the captions,

which always struck me as the equivalent of... I mean, in the Melody Maker, we had Talk, Talk, Talk as our funny pages, written by David Stubbs, and they were the funniest shit out there, apart from Viz magazine. They were just fucking fantastic. For me, Top of the Pops 2 was the equivalent of the

NME funny pages, i.e. not funny. And just kind of crap, sardonic, semi-droll bullshit. Really displaying a snotiness about pop. It was always a joy seeing the archive.

And I kind of vaguely remember it when Johnnyny walker was doing it but pretty rapidly top of pops 2 became this steve wright thing yes and then it became a rad cliff riley thing and and all of those people can only ever be arch really about pop or kind of snotty about it so though seeing the archive was good um seeing the captions used to annoy me but as i've said before I was very frowny and not getting any at the time so that's probably why

I think that is a completely valid perspective to have on this whether or not you were doing it it's but yeah it's that kind of snidey British undercutting of good

stuff is especially like there's that kind of snidey british undercutting of of good stuff is especially like there's a there's a kind of i mean obviously nobody can like answer back to these things anyway regardless of of you know but there is just that kind of slight slight tang of unfairness about it just like well don't be such a you know and there was never any acknowledgement that you know as as the disclaimer of uh of chart music goes you know well you've been on top of the pops more than i have you know as as the disclaimer of uh of chart music goes you know well you've been on top of the box more than i have you know yeah um so i don't know why they went for that it seems a bit of a cop-out really you know it's like what's wrong with actually just sort of yeah being into being enthusiastic about a thing i mean that can be really good it can be sort of self-congratulatory

but this is um you know maybe this was uh where it all started to go wrong for the bbc maybe this was the canary in the coal mine is when they perhaps kind of started to lose their bearings about what they're supposed to be and and now we've kind of got the the sort of complete neurotic collapse that we're seeing with it now um i don't know further study is needed but yeah i've always enjoyed top of the pops too there's a pleasant it's kind of the um there's it was always pleasant to see top of the pops itself because there's with the you know when they didn't give everything away there's a nice tension about it going oh what's going to be on next what's going to be number one um and and top of the pops too is kind of the opposite of that because it's just like a nice, you know, there isn't really any tension in it.

It's just like, what have we got? What should we put on now? And it's a very friendly format. It's very kind of benign. Yeah. You know. But I kind of think Top of the Pops 2, I think Top of the Pops 2, this show of old clips,

that should have been Top of the Pops 3. And Top of the Pops 2, Top of the Pops 2 could have featured all the fucking amazing music that was being made in 1996. Get those bands in the Top of the Pops studio. Let them have a go. It's not Top of the Pops. You don't have to talk about the chart. But just have a different music show.

There is an essential defeatism in Top of the Pops 2. There's a sense that what you're seeing in Top of the Pops 2 is kind of well what you're seeing in Top of the Pops rather is the kind of final mopping up of pop after the party's done all the innovation's been done, everything's been done and all we're really seeing is people like Joan Osbourne bringing back the 60s

and people like the Smashing Pumpkins bringing back the 70s and you know it's been done, an eternally forestalled future that would have been a better Top of the Pops 2 there is a sense with Top of the Pops 2 that it's kind of yeah we've got to admit

Top of the Pops is never going to be as good as this again and there is that sort of little bit of defeatism in it well that again might have been something that I just detected because I was so frowny and angry but there is a sense of that. No, it's like Father Ted's raffle car, isn't it?

They've tucked away with the hammers and then they've realised. Yeah. But, I mean, they have astonishing archives, so it's always a pleasure seeing it. It was always a pleasure. It's a pleasure hearing Maggie Mae, always, because it's just a beautiful, generous, lovely, heartbreaking record. But the wacky captions, the snidey voiceovers that Sarah said,

I could have done without that. Yeah. But I feel I'm being used Oh, Maggie, I couldn't try anymore So, what's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One piles straight into EastEnders where Pat lays down the law with Frank, Tiffany grows suspicious of Sam's plans for a night out and a load of other cockney sorts walk about with faces like smacked arses. Then it's the last in the current series of the drama show, The Vet, about a vet.

We then get 10 minutes of animal hospital heroes with Rolf Harris. Then the news. Then French and Saunders get Lenny Henry to portray OJ Simpson in an episode of Star Trek, followed by cheapo documentary series 999 International Rescue, Question Time from Manchester with Peter Lillet, Tessa Jowell and Mavis Nicholson, a series about Islam called Hunger for Faith, and finishes with the rip-torn Jason Robards film Laguna Heat. BBC Two has just finished They Who Dare

about people who've been chucking themselves down alpine waterfalls and canyons and they've just started the sitcom Waiting For God. Brighton and Hove Albion's massive debt is examined in the documentary series Southern Eye then First Sight asks the question are men the new downtrodden minority oh fucking hell being being letched up when they're refilling the drinks machine yeah the final episode of the documentary

series my brilliant career features derrick hatton then jeremy clarkson's motor world from the united arab emirates then the documentary series Traces of Guilt about companies drug testing their employees, then Greg Proops looks at plants that can exist without touching the ground in Potter Histories, and they finish off with the sitcom Game On, Newsnight

and even more snooker. Game on. Game on. Samantha Janus. Sorry. ITV has just come out of survival about the wildlife in the marshes of Lake Hula in Israel. Then it's The Bill. Even more cheapo helicopter rescue in Blues and Twos. The drama series Thief Takers.

The News at Ten. Movie thriller The Face of Fear starring Mindy out of Mork and Mindy. Live from the Lily Dr drone with paulo grader and then dives into night time channel 4 is running an episode of the documentary series the pulse looking at why the suicide rate amongst young men has doubled over the past decade then the cookery show a taste of the caribbean then the documentary series Seasiders, where new recruits to the Haven Mates Entertainment staff receive advice from Tom O'Connor. Followed by the flop political sitcom Annie's Bar, produced by Prince Edward. NYPD Blue, Whose Line Is It Anyway?

The discussion programme Devil's Advocate. Dispatchers. Champions Fit to Ride, a documentary about national hunt jockeys and finishes with the 1940s horror film The Undying Monster. Oh so much telly nowadays. Four home channels all stretching themselves

so thin. So what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Well with our dark mates. Well yeah I mean clearly at this time 96 I wouldn't what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Well, with our dog mates. Well, yeah, I mean, clearly at this time,

96, I wouldn't be in a playground and could get arrested for so doing. But I'd be talking probably about Etta James and the magnificent surrealness of that entire performance. Yeah. Probably, probably Julian Cope, to be honest, and his,

his heroic gaze. How did we feel he got on as a presenter? I thought he was brilliant. I thought he was a brilliant presenter. I mean, perhaps not a weekly thing that he should be there every week, but I thought he was great. He did it with the right amount of energy

and gusto and glee and wasn't kind of pompous about it, had a laugh doing it, but didn't take the piss, still respected the show. Yes. Even if the artist didn't. So yeah, I thought he was a fantastic presenter.

Yeah, just absolutely amazing what are we buying on Saturday? none, absolutely none, it's a shit fest it's an absolute shit fest what would I buy out of that lot? no, fuck all it's all awful, sorry well apparently

I would have bought Babylon Zoo because that's what I did and I probably would have bought it at this time as well like I didn't I don't know I'm generally a late adopter I kind of wait for everyone else to do a thing and go yeah alright I'll do that as well so yeah like I said I still have it

and I guess it still works so slap it on later and stride up and down a bit in my pvc you know for old time's sake in 96 i should say um i was a hack by then so i wasn't paying for music anymore it's all getting sent so but none of this stuff was any good apart from i did like smashing pumpkins 79 but that is probably a lot Yeah But the thing about this though We are imaginary Whatever year it actually was

It's like if you were If I was a nipper If you were 12 at this time It probably would be Smashing Pumpkins I still think that's a good song I still think that's a good song Another thing I would be talking about Were I in a playground

Would be just exactly how much I loathe Lifted by Lighthouse Family. Yes. Ah! Fuck! I'd forgotten all about that. I'd just put it from my mind as soon as you talked about it.

And what does this episode tell us about February of 1996? Oh, another question. Where the fuck is all the Britpop? Well, it's between albums Al, it's between albums. They've gone away. I mean, bar Super Furry Animals who weren't really Britpop were far too good for Britpop

I think. It was all sort of between albums in a sense. You did have Blue Tones at number two with Slight Return. Yeah, they're sliding down the top ten at the minute. But that's pretty much it. Yeah.

It's like Oasis. They're like Bagpuss. You know, as soon as Oasis go to sleep, all the other bands go to sleep too. But crucially, Britpop and its success and indie rock in general was becoming out of the press's control now and was becoming... It was more's control now and was becoming it was more the gravitational fact of oasis in a sense they just pulled everything along inside their slip

stream and you know if we gave a fuck we tried to follow luckily the melody maker mainly didn't but within a year we were supplicants to those wankers and we were just kind of following them around in a sense. In this year, 96, yeah, it's all about to get even shitter than it is now. Oh, lovely. I'm in Nogier, Andy. So, my dears, that is the end of this episode of Chalk Music. All I've got to do now is lob you the usual funny that I have to always say at the end of this episode of Chart Music. All I've got to do now is lob you the usual fanny

that I have to always say at the end of a podcast. Website, www.chart-music.co.uk. Facebook, facebook.com slash chartmusicpodcast. Twitter, chartmusictotp. Patreon, money down g-string, patreon.com slash chartmusic. Bonus podcast out there waiting for you two hours of Taylor and Simon revealing all

opening their hearts to you the pop crazed youngsters thank you very much Sarah B thank you thank you ever so Neil Kulkarni cheers my dear my name's Al Needham and if God were one of us he'd better be listening to fucking chart music

or he's getting my hand across his face. Chart music. To say jazz man is to say the man who is totally Babylon Zoo. He's the Chungwit, the Biff Buff and the Puff Pastry Hangman. Now, let's get this straight. He does everything. You sing all the notes, right? Correct. Have you actually sung them all?

Oh, definitely. I mean, the whole album, my record... No, but I mean all the notes, you know, all the notes right correct have you actually signed them all oh definitely i mean the the whole album my my record i mean all the notes you know all the notes there are i mean there's this a to g isn't there oh completely i think it's quite it's quite it's quite difficult to actually work out what note you are singing but you've never sung like an h probably not no no i wouldn't have thought so and if that is the case then what is your song is that like a an audible sound or is it just like a little bubble of oxygen i think it could become um a figment of people's imagination so let's look at this song you write the lyrics who does the words i do myself you as well yeah do you think uh you'll ever write a spherical song

um i don't know really uh has michael nyman i think he's getting close as he gets older or in his early work definitely as he gets older or in his early work? I think so, definitely, as he gets older. Got to ask you a question. Are you a genius? I'd say I will become a genius. And maybe, just maybe, you were born with a few more genes than the rest of us. Maybe. Maybe. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's.

It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.