Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #64 (Pt 2): 26.4.84 – Metal Mickey Dropping His Guts

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

Neil Kulkarni, Simon Price and Al Needham commence their plunge into this episode of Top Of The Pops, stopping to pay respects to Our Janice and giving Simon Bates’s new jacket a thorough examination. There’s a rare opportunity to give a slight bit of credit to Morrissey for not being a complete bell-end four decades ago, before blanching at the sight of a Mayan mask with Phil Collins’ mouth… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Um... Chart music. Chart Music. I'm your host, Al Needham. I've girded me loins for this episode of Top of the Pops from 1984. And standing by me are Neil Kulkarni and Simon Price. Hello. Boys, this is a pretty bog standard mid-80s Top of the Pops, isn't it?

It's all there. The great, the good, the grisly. It's a useful reminder of exactly what was going on in a sense. Definitely, yeah. it's a useful reminder of exactly what was going on in a sense definitely yeah I mean if we'd have been sat down with a blank sheet of paper and told that we were doing a 1984 episode of Top of the Pops we could at least get 60-70% of the bands

and artists that are on this show you know all the regulars are there aren't they? Yeah a lot of the big hitters of mid 80s pop basically a lot of the names that if they were an answer on Pointless it would be a crap answer but if they were on family fortunes they'd be a good answer exactly all right then pop craze youngsters it's time to go way back to april of 1984 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 it's a quarter past seven on Thursday April the 26th, 1984, and Top of the Pops, now into its third year and eighth month under the reign of Michael Hurl, has firmly settled into the 80s. That's spelt A-Y-D-E-E-S. With the initial fripperies installed by Hurl phased out or toned down,

gone are the celebrity presenters, no more motor show tie-ins, Zoo are still hanging around but have been demoted from a dance troupe to cheerleaders and movable scenery. This is the 80s variant of Top of the Pops, chaps, in its leanest and purest form, wouldn't you say? Yeah, and it's great, actually, for a bit of contrast between the celebratory nature of the show and some of the acts who appear on it,

because you get to feel that your acts are fighting the good fight against all this nonsense. Absolutely. Even though Zoo have kind of been pushed to a slightly peripheral role, like you say, the contrast between them and some of the music that we hear is quite, it's delicious. Yeah, definitely, yeah. So your host tonight, Simon Bates, who is now into his seventh year as the overlord of the housewives in the nine to half 11 weekday slot where he's currently acting as the meat in a mike reed gary davis sandwich already a busy 1984 for pig wanker

general isn't it because he took over from tommy vance as the voice of the radio one chart run down in january and he'd hold the fort until september when he passed the baton to richard skinner now then simon bates normally at this point i would say simon bates why but i can't do that this episode because you know with a playlist like this simon bates is in exactly the right place at exactly the right time because out of all the singles on this episode, I think there's only one that he definitely wouldn't play on his show. Yeah. I think two. But yeah, this is his time, man.

Yeah, he looks comfortable. And even his sort of fluffed lines that we'll come to discuss, I'm sure, he gets through them, you know? He gets through. And amazingly, it looks like he's getting 80s compliant. The cream sports coat has been flung into the back of the wardrobe, and he's sporting a moderately fashionable dark grey jacket with the sleeves unbuttoned.

And when I say jacket, I don't mean suit jacket. I mean, you know, jacket jacket. I'm surprised you say it's fashionable, right? That jacket, right? To me... Moderately fashionable. To me, right? By Bates standards.

He looks like a Sunday driver in that grey jacket. It's what my nan would have called a wind cheater jacket, right? And it looks like he's grabbed it from the passenger side footwell, you know, and he's just popping in the petrol station for some antifreeze and a bar of Cadbury's Old Jamaica and Fry's Turkish Del delight for the wife. Yeah. It's not a show jacket, really.

You know, it made me think about what he's going to do after he's done this show, because he's not just going to rely on his usual avuncularity and charms, have a good time tonight. This is a jacket of someone who's going somewhere and has things to do, whether that's cleaning the streets of scum or, I don't know, picking up a couple of nine bars of hash

from a contact in Dover or whatever he's doing or standing by the side of a five-a-side pit shouting. I reckon he's deaf, though. He's got his car keys in there, I reckon. I couldn't stop thinking about what he's got in his pockets. Car keys, wallet, I think. I reckon he's probably got some PK Chuddy in there as well. And perhaps a knuckle-dust or a Chinese star as well.

But yeah, he's going places. Do you reckon he's got one of them key rings that bleeps when you whistle at it? Or is that a bit too early for 1984? That's a bit early. That'd be later 80s. But yeah, he's got a busy night ahead of him, clearly. Sadly, he appears to have teamed it with a dark green rugby shirt which it makes it look like he's about to nip down to the pub that's

down the road from the campsite it's a it's a very camping holiday jacket isn't it yeah he won't feel the benefit when he goes outside yeah it looks a bit flimsy though doesn't it ah yeah but you see it is a wind cheater. It cheats the wind. It's got poppers on the wrists and at the top. So, you know, you make yourself into this kind of hermetically sealed... No poppers in the pocket, though. No poppers, no. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, not that influential yet.

All right, press studs. You've got to be childish about it, Al. His partner tonight is Janice Long, who is still currently a strictly weekend concern at Radio 1. She's presenting the request show, Select a Disc, on Friday afternoons, and on Saturday

she'll be hosting her evening show live from the Solihull Conference and Banqueting Centre as part of Radio 1's all-day broadcast of their marathon music quiz. Oh, it runs from noon to midnight with, well, guess who the team captains are?

Radio 1 DJs. Hmm. Ooh, Gary Davis? No, he's commentating. Oh. Along with Steve Wright. Mike Reid? Of course.

And they'd have to choose somebody who actually knew about pop, I guess. Yes. Yeah, that eliminates most radio and DJs of this period. Exactly. Peel? No. Jensen? No.

Paul Gambachino, of course. Oh, of course. Makes sense, makes sense. But she's biding her time waiting for Kid Jensen to defect to Capital Radio and ITV and become the first woman to present a weekday show on Radio 1 in September of this year. And yes, Pop Craze Youngsters, this is why we're doing this episode. Yeah. We had to, man.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, it's pretty clear that after 63 episodes of chart music, when it comes to our favourite presenter, it's clearly been a straight fight between kid jensen and janice long hasn't it yeah yeah i'd go along with that and i think a lot of the time with kid jensen it's just that he doesn't piss you off yeah it just seems a fairly kind of likable guy but with janice i mean i think it's fair to say she's possibly the only top of the pops presenter presenter who's universally liked by all of us,

you know, actively liked by all of us at Chart Music. Yeah, because even Peel's problematic in a sense. You know, even though we enjoy him on Top of the Pops, there's aspects to Peel that's problematic. Janice, no, she's just wonderful. Well, Janice is usually spoken about or often spoken about in relation to Peel. And she's often, she's spoken of as a gateway drug,

a sort of, like an early learning version of John Peel with water wings and stabilisers. But, you know, I think that's to undervalue her and I think it's to overlook the qualities of her show in and of itself. Because, you know, truth be told, Janice Long was more my speed than John Peel was. I was happier hearing, you know, soft alternative stuff by the likes of Bunnymen and The Smiths and The Cure

and Wah and Teardrop Explodes, or even like the lesser acts like It's Immaterial or Interferon on her show than I ever was tuning into Peel later on and hearing Sessions by the Three Johns or Swell Maps or, you know, Napalm Death or, you know, whatever. I knew her. I knew Janice. I'm not going to pretend I knew her well. But it started around 2013 when I kept running into her at things like judging panels for awards, which I was invited onto because of my column in The Independent on Sunday.

And we bonded straight away. of my column in the independent on sunday and uh and we we bonded straight away she seemed to figure out that i was more her sort of person than most of the industry bods in the room if that's not flattering myself too much and she had that kind of conspiratorial mischief about her that was really familiar from her tv present and her radio presenting i think like you know there'd be a break in proceedings and she'd say, follow me, there's a kitchen over there with a stash of wine in it.

And we'd go off and mix some wine. She invited me onto her show on Vintage TV along with Seymour Steen of Sire Records. Yeah, the guy who signed the Ramones and Soft Cell, but also signed Madonna. And I was there on the show to slag off Madonna right in front of him, which was a bit of a stitch up on Janice's part.

But I understood my role as the baddie there. And then she got me on her Radio 2 show for this thing called The Spoken Word Sessions, where I read out an extract of Lipstick Traces by Greal Marcus. And she asked me about my life and my career. And we played a few songs that I chose including one by East India Youth who was this brilliant electronic artist who has an EP out via the label that's run by the Quietus website right she was really positive about it and that's

the thing obviously you know a large part of my role as a critic is to be negative about things Janice was a pure enthusiast I could never be like that but i'm glad that she was and she was so kind and so helpful and that's something that came across in all the tributes to her from musicians and media people um after she died and just that that thing i said about conspiratorial mischief is something you know i i think i tweeted uh when the news broke some into the effect that she always felt like she was sharing this best kept secret with you of of this band that she just discovered and loved and really wanted you to hear and she knew that you yes you would get it you know um and that's that was a really kind of special thing i think

yeah i mean i I really liked her. And even though I hadn't actually seen her for a few years, I'll miss her. I'll miss her massively. And you're right, Simon, the sort of universality of everyone's tributes to Janice after she passed. I think so many of us were genuinely properly upset by it. I know I was.

People tend to over-egg it a bit when someone famous dies but in this case it was it seemed like a really genuine outpouring of absolutely i mean because of the age of pop and rock it's inevitable that for many of us the current period is a kind of time where on a weekly even daily basis we learn of another pivotal figure that has passed yeah and i think the reason obviously it hits so hard for a lot of us is because music is in our lives you know at the time that this episode comes out for instance 1984 i woke up thinking about music and spent all day thinking about music and all night chasing it's part of our lives in a deeper way than anything else and radio of course as i've said before when talking about the commodore's night shift it's just the most magical way to make discoveries at this time about music.

Because MTV is just some expensive dream no one has. And at a time for me, you know, I'm 12, 13, I'm starting to listen later to radio. Well, not just have Poppin' on in the day, but keep listening into the night. And I'm with Pricey in as much as I was feeling sleepy by the time Peel was on, you know. And Janice was the voice, really, for me.

And she used that position where she could magically, over the airwaves, completely change the horizons of your life and your consciousness just with a track. DJs can do that. Unfortunately, they've realized this and they play on it now. I always think of Zane Lowe's hysterical overhype of things that he played for instance but when you listen to janice it wasn't like being spoken to by a media persona it was a fellow pop fan telling you about and playing you the music she was digging and in a world in which so many at radio one and bbc one were seemingly using pop to further their own careers and only really saw fans and other people as kind

of automata to be manipulated janice really shone out as just a fucking normal lovely person yeah i think simon said it she she was a fan now the word fan is is much overused i think in pop talk and the pop business usually as a mask for for people are actually exploiting those fans whether it's football fans or music fans but janice always felt like a true fan, a genuinely open-eared listener. That was key. And also, we forget, when she did finally get the evening show,

her evening show wasn't just music. She did interviews. She interviewed amazing people who would just, you know, rock up to her show. I was listening to some interviews this week with Janice that she did on her evening show with Mlly mel and mick jagger and loads of other people and i always found her really smart and intelligent in her interviews even with people i didn't like she was a master of getting the best out of people through the use of sort of genuinely open questioning and she was a good listener as

well yeah it's often said that you know joe wiley say edith bowman have been inspired but but honestly there's a sicker fancy that the likes of wiley do this endless kowtowing to musicians yeah and stuff and acceptance of the cliches they rotate about themselves i never got that with janice and crucially think about janice's story how she got this gig you know she's working on radio merseyside paul gambaccini comes up goes back to london and tells the controller to get in touch and within two weeks he's got a show it's really nice to remember especially in the current era when in the sorry ghastly phrase but creative industries you know people have to jump through hr hoops or have enough social media traffic to

be considered or have enough mates and parents in positions of influence to even dream of getting close to the national broadcaster or the mainstream media. That Janice was hired by Radio 1 two weeks, you know, before she started is nuts. But that is, I think me and Pricey probably feel that that reminds us of how we got hired in a sense in the media. You know, a sudden mind-blowing dream.

And what happens then is when you're in that position, you make it your job to be better than everyone else in a sense, in the media. You know, a sudden mind-blowing dream. And what happens then is when you're in that position, you make it your job to be better than everyone else in a way. You make it your job to do it as well as you can. And that's what Janice did. No agenda to grind, just a real genuine fondness for pop music in all its myriad forms. She was funny and she was sharp and she was self-deprecating in a radio one that was stuffed with colossal egos

i suppose people would say her spirit is now in radio six but i actually think no i think she actually found her home curious enough at the tail end of her career back on bbc wales you know supporting local scenes playing sessions stuff like that and she wasn't just an advocate for indie rock she was likable and kind of malleable enough that she could also you know deputize on daytime shows and still do really well she was always a pop fan and not a snob it's upsetting because when you lose someone like janice you start feeling that in the media sense as a radio listener you know you start feeling outnumbered you start feeling that what you're missing will have to be explained laboriously whereas janice required no explanation

you understood why she was good from the off it's really saddening she's gone because such idiosyncratic people are not replaceable and those claiming an influence like wiley and bowman just simply weren't as smart as critical or as likable as janice so yeah it really hit me in the heart janice going everything appears to be going really well at the minute for janice but it's been a difficult transition from local to national radio i mean she was extremely let down apparently when she she moved down to london and expected radio one to be the most amazing mind-blowing work environment ever and discovered that it was like working in an insurance company she's working for

a corporation that employs hundreds of people but she's only one of three women at radio one at the moment who isn't a typist wow she's clearly hankering for a weekday slot and according to a book i read recently called the story of radio one by robert sellers when she asked them why there hadn't been a woman on radio one in the week she was told because they're all at home doing the ironing i mean even when she arrived at radio one she was almost immediately told by someone that oh there was a woman at capital we really liked but she was fat so you were lucky there So you were lucky there. So yes. But I mean, pretty rapidly, I mean,

she was obviously cognizant of this pretty rapidly. As soon as she gets the chance, she starts making documentaries about women musicians and about women artists. She, I read a smash hits interview with Janice from 85, where this is pointed out the kind of sexist parochialism and radio. And she's realistic about it and says this will change. It has. It has.

And it needed pioneers like Janice, I think, to start knocking those doors down. Definitely. And as well as being the only woman on Radio 1 at the moment, she's one of the few provincial voices as well. And that's just as important. Absolutely. Massively important. Yeah, you've got people who, you know, the male presenters may be from Stoke or Manchester, but you don't really hear that in their voices.

They talk in a BBC voice. No, no. Yeah, Janice is kind of unapologetically Scouse, you know, in so many ways. Hello and welcome to Top of the Box. Isn't it hot? We've got some great stuff tonight. Duran Duran and Echo and the Bunnymen. And what's more, we're live from Studio 6, the television centre.

And to prove it, here's Sandy Shaw with the Smiths and Hand in Glove. The drums pound, the TV screen hovers, that voice goes... And the pink vinyl explodes to reveal baits and long. The former in that jacket, the latter in some kind of black shiny ball gown with exceptionally long opera gloves and extremely dyed red hair standing at the corner of the balcony as the stark neon backdrop flares away janice opens by saying isn't it hot and we

don't know if she's talking about bates's new look or the weather after she selectively previews some of the acts on tonight bates barges in to tell us that once again it's a live broadcast immediately demonstrating that by not being able to say television center he then points towards the stage and tells us that the first act are going to prove just how live it is as janice gives the thumbs up to sandy shore and the smiths with hand in glove we've already covered sandra Goodridge of Dagenham in chart music number 10 when she failed to get By Tomorrow into the charts in February of 1970. It was the beginning of a period of transition for Shore

who announced her retirement from recording when her deal with Pi ran out in 1972. She would make sporadic appearances on shows such as a sort of top of the pops anniversary shows the good old days music my way and most infamously on two g's on the pop people where she reggae'd like it used to be sandy you are liberated, uneducated woman. That clip keeps disappearing, by the way, off YouTube. I don't know if it's back up. I'll put it back, don't worry. Please, yeah. But she also played Ophelia and Joan of Arc on stage,

co-wrote a musical with Herbie Flowers and Roger Cook from Blue Mink, set up a publishing company and session booking agency, and dabbled in writing and illustrating kids' books. In 1977, after shouldering the debts accumulated by her husband, she attempted a comeback when she signed to CBS, but the two singles released failed to chart and a serious illness nearly killed her. After getting back on track and finally paying off the debt, she got divorced, took a break from music and worked for a short time as a waitress in London. By 1982, she got married to Nick Powell, one of the co-founders of Virgin Records,

who introduced her the year before to the British Electric Foundation, the production company formed by Martin Ware and Ian Marsh of the Human League and Heaven 17, who got her to cover Anyone Who Had a Heart a year later for the LP music of Quality and Distinction. And after being invited to sing Girl Don't Come with Chrissie Hinder to Pretenders gig and putting out her first LP in 14 years,

Choose Life, in March of 1983, she was back in the game. In August of that year, however, her husband, who was mates with Jeff Travis of Rough Trade, passed on a letter given to Travis by one of his bands. It read, Dear Sunday, We could never begin to emphasise the endless joy we would feel

if you would care to listen to our song with a view to possibly covering it. Obviously the song was written with you in mind. It is an absolute fact that your influence more than any other permeates all our music. Without doubt, we are incurable Sandy Shore fans. Thank you. surely realise that your name is sufficiently on the lips of young people to demand interest in new, vital products. We would be honoured to provide material for your consideration. The Sandy

Shore legend cannot be over yet. There is more to be done. Love forever. Morris Eyre, wordsmith voice. John Eyre, multi-instrumentalist, composer, the Smiths. After a flood of letters from Morrissey and encouragement from Jeff Travis, she decided to meet him, only to be put off by a Sun article about the subject matter in Reel Around the Fountain and Suffer Little Children,

and her concluding that she couldn't have a pervert in her house with her kids. After Travis convinced her that Morrissey wasn't a child murderer, they held a summit at Shaw's house and a few guest appearances at Smith's gigs later, they decided to work together. After recording three tunes, this one, a cover of the smith's debut single which came out in may of 1983 with a man's arse on the sleeve made it to number three in the independent chart and 124 in the proper chart and was remixed for the smith's debut lp which came

out in february was picked out as the designated single and put out a fortnight ago. Her follow-up to I Wish I Was, which came out in April of 1983 and failed to chart, and their follow-up to What Difference Does It Make, which got to number 12 in February of this year. It entered the charts last week at number 44 44 and this week it's nipped up eight places to number 36 reason enough to get her and 75 of the hottest new band in the nation into the studio for her first top of the pops appearance since the last week of 1973 or chaps this is the third time we've done the Smiths on chart music. You know, we've never shied away from taking the opportunity to coat down Morrissey.

But, you know, this is a good opportunity to remember that it wasn't always that way, was it? Absolutely. Although he's not in attendance here, that the shadow of Morrissey is looming large over this performance. And he is coming off as a very benevolent and extremely right on one. You know, letting a woman and an older woman like that take over his band for a bit. Yeah, but, oh man, I'd love The Smiths so much more if Sandy Shaw was a singer.

I mean, it's weird for me because I think I must have liked Morrissey at some point. Before going into this song, I was actually listening to a Morrissey interview on Janice long's evening show uh that was upon mixcloud i know there's this kind of acceptance now that morrissey only grew intolerable in a way after the fame got to him but fuck me he was always the most disgracefully self-important arrogant cock and almost parodic self-regard and self-importance that's so

fucking punchable and loathsome i i came away from the interview just thinking this man's an uber cunt and always was so seeing the smiths shorn of his presence with sandy i think looking amazing and basically doing an amazing moz impression yes i think it's a big improvement um i know that's daft I know Simon's going to rep for the Smiths and he quite rightly should but it's strangely shocking to see she's 37 isn't she

when she gives a performance it's strangely shocking to see a 37 year old woman give a performance like this but I also like the more polished up Smiths that it seems to bring out Johnny Marr looks like mark allman yes he does he really does he's got to say that yeah sorry but he's got this glittery kind of collar thing on he looks great so i'm not saying they could have been a much better band of course

morrissey's lyrics and his voice are usually important to those those records but sandy has none of that snotty aloofness that morrissey cultivated so even though the sight of the kind of zoo wankers giving it the old thatcherite stride behind them it's still a kind of jarring juxtaposition for a song that's essentially about misery and poverty it starts feeling less jarring because sandy just feels more generous and she's a singer who doesn't have this kind of ultra white sub-cylinder blanched wine for a voice i find morris's voice difficult now i just want to punch it in the chest and sandy still has that touch of 60s r&b-ness to her voice yeah so that for me immediately transforms the song from one that's kind of closed in an elitist almost to something a bit more convivial i mean i immensely prefer it to the smiths for to the sorry the immediately transforms the song from one that's kind of closed in an elitist almost to something

a bit more convivial i mean i immensely prefer it to the smith's for to the sorry the morrissey smith's version i'd love it if they'd done a whole album of smith's covers with her and i'd probably listen to it and hear the songs better without yeah that twat distracting me so my hatred morrissey means that i prefer this apocryphal though that might be, I prefer this to watching him. Simon? Yeah, first of all, I just wanted to talk about the intro, because after that, you know, yeah, it's the multicoloured clay pigeon shooting one, you know, the yellow pearl, the twop of the twops. And I noticed that Bates's caption comes up first, you know. Like, who's this woman next to him? You know, the alpha male seniority must not be challenged, you know.

No. And, yeah, Janice does look very fetish glam, doesn't she, in that black lacy frock with the elbow-length black silk gloves and the Diamante Choker massive earrings and what I thought was Rue Lelenska hair. Yes, yes. Yeah, it's a bit Cilla-ish, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

If you're a woman from Liverpool and you dye your hair red, you've got to really think. I guess so. It can so easily tip over into Cilla. I guess so. And, yeah, we've already talked about what Bates looks like, and Janice picks out a couple of bands whose names we won't spoil her, but she's absolutely beaming about one of them.

And, yeah, Bates does his... But, yeah, Bates butts in, he sort of tramples over her and goes, oh, and what's more, we're live. Meaning, of course, that the show is, not that the music is. So he is the one who gets to introduce the Smiths. But Janice does a little finger jab of victory to let us know this is her music, not his. I really noticed that little gesture and the

smiths were my music as well you know i was i was the smiths fan who thought that only morrissey understood me and only i understood morrissey and that and that he was communicating directly with me in my dead end town um they took the place vacated by Dexys in my life, which we talked about before. He's the only one who really knew you at all. Oh, I like it, Al. I see what you've done there. That's amazing. I'll be honest, I was a bit put off by the Smiths. Something about them rubbed me up the wrong way. And I guess it was that arrogance that Neil was talking about. But I think there came a point where I actually thought, no, I like that. I like a band telling me, forget everyone else. We're the only band who matter.

And something clicked in 1984. I went into the legendary Spillers Records in Cardiff and I bought all their singles up to that point and their one album. And I absolutely learned them off by heart. I sort of taped them and blasted them out in the sixth form common room, defiantly earning the disapproval of

all the lads who wanted to hear Dire Straits and Queen and stuff like that. It was a real battle, you know. And another thing I bought in Spillers that day was a ticket to the Smiths show in Cardiff University. Fucking hell, you went all in.

I went all in, yeah. 25th September, which is my 17th birthday, which was just amazing that the Smiths were playing Cardiff on my birthday. And it's still one of the most vivid gig experiences of my life. I remember that there were a few of us from Barry went in to see it. And obviously we knew

that what you were meant to do at a Smithscape was bring flowers with you. But I couldn't afford to go to a florist. So what we did when we arrived at Kitei Station in Cardiff, which is the nearest one to the uni, there were various kind of, I think they were rubber tyres, like tractor tyres that had been turned inside out to make them into plant pots full of petunias and stuff like that. And we just grabbed them and nicked them. So we had some... Oh, this is horrible. I know, it's terrible.

Your teenage years are just a litany of flower vandals. Flower destruction, yeah. Crime spring. So, yeah, I went in there with these raggedy, diesel-encrusted stolen flowers. I really remember going... Well, first of all, I took the time on the ticket literally so it said seven o'clock and i thought fucking hell gotta get there seven o'clock the smiths are gonna

be on and then of course you get there and there was god i think it might have been cactus world news or maybe it was james it was james actually that's who it was right um but even before james came on you had to wait for fucking ever while the student DJ played these interminable dub reggae 12s you know or Morrissey would have loved that yeah I mean I was blinkered enough at the time that I did not want to hear that either you know

did you say it was vile Simon? I didn't say it was vile just no don't put words in my mouth especially not Morrissey's words no but I found it a little bit dull. And I just want to see Morrissey in the flesh now. Anyway, I remember queuing up at the bar and there were just spilt, it's a student venue, there was spilt beer, spilt lager everywhere.

What seemed to be like an inch deep on the floor, I'm probably exaggerating, but I'll never forget standing there looking at the floor, all this lager and there were petals floating in the lager and that just seemed so symbolic of what was about to happen and then when the smiths finally come on there are a lot of students who are probably they're just there to take the piss and and to sort of troll this this band who thought they were all that and a bag of chips you know so somebody during the first song the first song was william is really nothing and somebody threw a can of heineken at morrissey's head and i remember it hit him and i can just almost remember in slow motion the foam from the heineken going all over his head and he just sort of

defiantly ran his fingers through his quiff and just carried on and i thought you are cool as fuck if it was now and someone did that he'd just go off in a huff and there have been examples of that where he just he's you know um throwing his toys out the pram or taking his ball home or whatever metaphor you want to use but yeah just just a huge experience for me seeing the smiths i actually got a small piece of the fir tree that he swung around his head during the game which is like a holy relic to me you know like a splinter from christ's cross yes exactly and the thing with the smiths was and i mean i'm not going to go on about what they meant to me too much because i've written about this loads there was an article for the quietus i did about the queen is dead so i'll keep it fairly brief i'll just urge people to read that so i

don't go on and on about it i I'll just go the one on about it. The Smiths were pure. They were pure. Everyone else with their fucking ripped knees and their drugs. They were slags. All the other bands were slags and the Smiths had this purity to them.

They were rejecting all that. They were rejecting rock and roll masculinity. This outright rejection of masculinity was crucial to me and in a way that is exemplified by Morrissey stepping aside and having a female singer come on this record and just um taking over yeah for one record a lot of what appealed to me about them was I guess borderline incel right they made me feel validated for my romantic failures when I was walking home alone from a teenage house party

under that sodium orange glow of the streetlights you used to get in those days, while everyone else was getting off with each other to move closer by Phyllis Nelson, it was them who were wrong and me who was right, because Morrissey said so. Or when I was being betrayed by the treacherous Steph, for example. Shaking my face now, Simon. Yeah, yeah. So I took my wages from my job as a seafood seller at Butlins, where I met the treacherous Steph,

and I literally invested in this band. And this was one of the singles I bought. Prawn is murder, Simon. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Well, the thing is, I was a vegetarian at the time. So I got the worth of boast worlds. I couldn't even eat the fucking food, but I stank of it.

I love that, Simon. I love the fact that it's so true that pop can sometimes be that justification for that enforced celibacy. Yes. I mean, the reasons for it, but yeah, pop can provide that validation and justification of it in a way. It makes it righteous. It does, and Morrissey was my absolute hero for that,

among other reasons. And, I mean, of course, what makes this clip magical and so, so watchable is that we don't have to look at the cunt. No. You know, because now that he is pop's biggest racist who thinks that the Chinese are a subspecies and I could give you a whole fucking list, but we all know what we're talking about.

Yes, we do. I mean, it is problematic for me to even listen to the Smiths now. I need a few stiff drinks before I can stick on a Smiths album. Sometimes I do, you know, sometimes I've got friends around or whatever, or the wife and I having a bit of a sesh, we'll stick the Smiths on, but I can't listen to them sober

just because I've got to get past that revulsion that I feel towards what he's become now. Put Gary Glitter and Michael Jackson on instead. In some ways, those two are easier to listen to. They are. I didn't buy into their persona. They were just the front men of brilliant pop records.

But Morrissey, it was all about him and what he stood for. And when we find out that what he stands for is actually something completely appalling and beyond the pale, then listening to him now, even though you can think, well, at the time, as Neil says, maybe he wasn't like that or as much like that as he later became, it's still his voice. And I'm listening to these songs, and I maintain the Smiths are the greatest rock and roll band

who ever lived. But to listen to them now and to hear that voice makes it really difficult for me. It really does. And I think they were the greatest rock and roll band of all time, not just because of the music. Obviously, Johnny Marr was completely brilliant, and they were literally a rock and roll band

on stuff like Rochelle Murphyans or Shakespeare's Sister, the kind of rockabilly moments. But they were rock and roll in the sense that probably the most rock and roll thing you could be was to overturn the cliches and accepted modes of behaviour of rock and roll, which is what they did. They were the most revolutionary and rebellious band you could be in 1984, I think.

So, here in what to me are some of the greatest albums of all time. And by the way, for me, it's Meet Is Murder over The Queen Is Dead. The Queen Is Dead is a 7 out of 10 album. Seven good songs, three comedy ones. I mean, mixed feelings, to say the least, about the band who meant more to me, probably than any band ever did before or did since because they caught me at just the right age and uh yeah but

but i've got to be honest with myself i don't want to be one of those people who cling on for dear life and you know the real dregs now of morrissey's fan base who just cannot let go yeah um and i get it i get how difficult it is i think a lot of us were in denial up to point but there comes a point you've just got to fucking face up to it yeah and anyone can say yeah separate the art from the artist yeah we've all heard that a million times and um it's never particularly i think yeah and i i think we've talked about this before that it's never a simple easy cut off you will have anomalies within your own kind of decision that you make on that yeah there will be people who have done worse things but you find

their work easy to listen to and it's it's patchy and it's messy um but for me the smiths are really quite a problem and i have to get shit faced to really enjoy them it's because you feel betrayed by him yeah totally total betrayal which only a fan can feel. I really was taken by what Simon said about them being the greatest rock and roll band. Because it reminds me of, I think Simon Reynolds made this comparison as well, between the Stones, who are traditionally called the greatest rock and roll band in the world, and the Smiths. They are similar in a way, in that they reflect their time, absolutely.

But the thing is with the smiths as well as reflecting their time they crucially reject their time as well and you know set against the aspirational 80s the smiths are definitively rejecting of that era and positing something completely different so i i kind of go along with what simon says about them you know at the time being that greatest rock and roll band in terms of summing up both the spirit and also the kind of dissident spirit of the age absolutely but incredibly difficult as simon said to listen to anymore yeah and and he's right because like you know i listen to led zeppelin and when i think about what jimmy page has done in say comparison to morrissey i know which one is more morally heinous but morrissey sails on kind of smugly being even more morrissey

ish all the time and his fans just cling on i don't want to offer condolences or anything but that must be tremendously upsetting simon not to be able to hear something like that because it is a true betrayal i mean it's a band who once stood up for the downtrodden and for the underdog and for the outsider, and their lead singer now being absolutely on the side of the oppressors and punching down, and it's horrible to see. But anyway, Cunt's not on this episode. He's not on this?

Let's talk about her. Right, Sandy Shaw punched me in the stomach once wow no in the houses of parliament but i'll come on to that in a second yeah yeah i'm gonna leave that hanging um first of all i want to talk about um her age because because you mentioned that you know she was 37 she was born uh in february 1947 people who are 37 now right obviously i'm doing that kind of calendar maths right people are 37 now include mutia from the sugar babes nadine and nicola from girls allowed bruno mars and carly ray jepson right so these are all people who do not feel like old people no but you know the the exchange rate has changed yes really. Obviously, you are younger longer these days.

But when Sandy Shaw was on Top of the Pops with the Smiths, I was 16, she was 37. I'm thinking, calm down, mum. Yes. I was embarrassed. I feel awful saying that now. My mum was born in 1947, so Sandy Shaw's literally the same age as my mum.

So to see her there rom um romping about i i was i was cringing i mean we we're now as far from this episode of top of the pops as she was from her birth so yeah things have changed a lot it would be the equivalent now i mean because this was 16 years after her peak shall we say her peak being you know i guess the late 60s. But 16 years at that time felt like 100 years ago. But it would actually be the equivalent now of, let's say, Fontaine's DC working with Leona Lewis, or Wet Leg working with Nelly Furtado, you know, which would be a little bit jarring,

but it doesn't seem like a million years ago. And watching it now, she looks great and she's she's awesome yes she's got this belted black leather dress with a thigh length split in it and the leprechaun tights yes black stiletto shoes shoes sell out sandy sell out wearing shoes but did you notice that the smiths were barefoot ah you see yeah i see what they did there yeah yeah so she's rolling around on the floor and And yeah, I was embarrassed at the time. But it's brilliant. It's like fucking Iggy Pop or something.

It's just, it's really quite punk what she's doing there. And her voice is, well, the thing with Sandy Shaw's voice to begin with is she wasn't, I was surprised you said that there was a kind of R&B timbre. Just a little touch. Yeah. She's not, she's not like Dusty or anyone just a little touch yeah she's not she's not like dusty or no she's not yeah right but just a little touch i detected that just took it away from kind of morris's whininess basically the thing that she has in her voice that i really treasure

is a kind of insouciance and nonchalance and she's kind of offhand um she's not really belting it out she's not really delivering the lines in capital letters she's almost throwing them away and and that's in her own work as well as in this smith's cover and her voice is a kind of semitone flat which is like it's slightly sullen it reminds me actually a little bit of suzy sue uh with whom morrissey would of course later collaborate and suzy sue thinks morrissey's a cunt as well but that's a whole other thing I think it's a really good version, first of all musically

it's very different from the two original Smiths versions, the single and the album because the thing with the original it's got harmonica all over it and for me the harmonica's an undignified instrument it lacks dignity.

And it's just blasting away like it's a fucking 60s Bob Dylan record. I don't like it. I don't like it. But this version, the intro, is this very sort of light, tinkly guitar sound from Johnny Marr. And I think it works really well. I mean, it's funny you talk about the end-soulness of Smith songs. Because this is, oh, look, you songs because this is oh you know this is us we're um we're gay we're going out and if the people stare let the people stare it's you know

it's quite upfront for 1984 yeah exactly she changes the lyrics the original goes so the good life is out there somewhere so stay on my arm you little charmer she sings somewhere, so stay on my arm, you little charmer. She sings, so I'll stay on your arm, because you are charming. Half the time, Morrissey is singing about how he can't get along with women, and he can't find love, and love is trivial and useless and worthless anyway. And then the rest of the time, he's singing either very sexually, as he is actually on the B-side of the original uh uh uh hand in glove which is handsome devil which is a very sexual lyric but he also sings about this kind of idealized version of romance which is what he finds on hand in glove that it's really uh you and me against the world yeah yeah yeah you know

it's it's them taking on the world it's you know, the sun shines out of our behinds. It's not like any other love. This one's different because it's us, which I think is just a brilliant lyric. And it's a really nice counterpoint to Long Live Love, which is a fucking brilliant song. I love that. Yeah, it is. It is one of the greatest I'm getting some singles ever.

Her performance of that on top of the pops, right? Long Live Love. Have you seen it? I've seen one of them she's barely moving her lips and she looks she's really not asked about it and it really undermines the song in a wonderful way you know she's singing long live love blah blah blah but the way she delivers it makes it seem sarcastic and it really puts a different meaning on the song for me and um when i met her and this is where she punched me in the stomach right um so what it was it was the uh it was an event for the 50th anniversary i think it was the

50th of the charts right and it was held in the house of parliament in this meeting room there are various people there including mike reed mike reed 275 and 285 thought and um oh e a d yes exactly i i think the uh hop security had to turn her away um there was uh uh one of one of the ladies from bony m who i had a nice chat with um did you did you smell his breath simon it was beautiful yeah yeah yeah um I actually sort of did stand quite close and I just wanted to check out his breath. But Sandy Shaw was there. And I didn't used to get autographs for my mum very often because, you know, I don't think she was that bothered. But there were two that I did get for her

that she was really bothered about. One of them was Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet because she fancied him off EastEnders, right? And the other was Sandy Shaw because, as I say, she was born the same time as Sandy Shaw and she sort of grew up in that era and she just loved Sandy Shaw. So I got Sandy to sign, like, the fucking event programme

for my mum. She was really delighted by that. And we got talking and I asked her about this performance of Long Live Love love i said oh that's so great how you did that and she said no that's not what happened what happened was this the footage that you see now on top saw on top of the pops it was only meant to be a rehearsal right she was just sort of making sure she was on the right spot for the lighting and the cameras and all that and what it was she wouldn't do the actual proper record of the show

because of jingle nonce jimmy saville because really he was creeping her out so much in the backstage area that she walked out okay now so this clip already put a different meaning on the song for me now it's got this third meaning of why she's really doing that right and there was lots of white wine flowing at this event and she was a really good laugh like quite kind of bonkers to use a sort of very radio one word um quite sort of scatty and sort of yeah um random i suppose um yeah but but great just really likable anyway that sort of drinks reception was held in this little side room but the toilets were elsewhere in the building and i remember i went off to go to the loo when i came back she was heading the other way across the main kind of assembly room that we'd been in she was walking towards me she's like hey all right and she whacks me in the stomach

in what was meant to be a jovial way but it really hurts fuck she's she's she's stronger than she looks but yeah this is a fucking brilliant performance. And, you know, to my mind, this is the definitive version of the song. I listened to the Smiths doing Hand in Glove, and it sounds like a cover version of Sandy Shore. Yeah, absolutely. What Simon was saying about her voice having that nonchalance to it is really important to why this works, I think. Because the Smiths, to me, I mean, I'm sure I'm just being ignorant,

but they've never sounded better. They're glistening and gliding. This is beautiful. And the way her, the weakness of her a voice when she leaves those kind of notes hanging and just lets johnny marr do something special and delightful it's wonderful obviously morrissey and the smiths are amazing amazing songwriters um who perhaps should have been covered a bit more by sandy because i think she does an amazing job yeah they could have got an album out of this couldn't they perhaps i mean perhaps it's nice that it's just this because it keeps it special but yeah i really love this and like i say i do think she looks great unlike what i would have

thought when i was 16 oh god i totally fancy and um and uh johnny marr looks great as well you know you say you look like uh mark alman yeah he's got this he's got the black polo neck with a diamante necklace around it, which I thought was a bit like Janice's Joker, actually. It was a very Diamante-er, 1984. I wore a lot of Diamante myself that time, you know, because it was cheap. But he's got his hair in that sort of back-combed mod do that's mostly swept back towards the crown

but leaves generous fringe at the front. At the time, though, at the time though at the time i preferred andy rourke's hair because he had that immaculate 80s indie boy hairdo it's like a flat top that's grown out a little bit and it's been quaffed by a pro you know and and i even like how mike joyce looks here not so much for his look fashion wise-wise, but just for how he is. He's sitting upright with his drums sensibly horizontal, like he's doing a job, like he's a jobbing drummer in a jazz band. And his drums aren't set up in that ergonomic way

that heavy metal drummers have, where all the skins are tilted inwards to facilitate a big show-off drum roll. They're just there, nice and flat just tiny details like that felt defiant to me at the time and and it's good that all the idiots the zoo wankers presumably in their hooped tops lots of hoops going on like yes sailor hoops it's good that they're there dancing on the platform behind them and it's good that there's the balloons and all that kind of stuff yeah yeah it's good you've got these twats in their crop tops and their espadrilles and their sailor hats because

it provides that contrast and it gave me that feeling just like when janice does a little finger jab this is for me this is my music yeah yeah and we've broken through for two minutes 20 seconds or whatever we have broken through city farm in. You know, they're towering over the band in the background, being totally unable to dance to the single and generally looking like an animatronic window display for a very big top shop, possibly in Oxford Street. I wonder if this started a kind of trend because obviously this is out in 84.

You've got What Did I Do To Deserve This in 87 with Perkshop Boys. And you've got Art Of Noise and do to deserve this in 87 with perch shop boys and you got art of noise and tom jones you know kiss in 88 i don't want to talk about that record well it was started by b yeah yeah i'm glad you pointed that out actually al yeah that it was heaven 17 yeah and of course yeah they they sort of resurrected tina turner and all that kind of thing as well yeah um yeah i think those albums are really important the two definitely um bf albums yeah it's a win win situation for both parties isn't it

absolutely yeah it really is great start to the show as well so the following week Handing Glove rose nine places to number 27 but dropped four places to 31 the following week and exited the chart although the two entities never

collaborated on vinyl again shaw morrissey and ma remained tight apart from the morrissey and ma bit obviously the smiths followed up with heaven knows i'm miserable now which of course was inspired by shaw's 1969 single heaven knows i'm missing him now which got to number 10 for two weeks in June of this year, while Shaw went off to appear at various major charity gigs and eventually got round to record the LP Hello Angel, named after Morris's regular salutations to her in his many letters in 1988, which featured the single Please Help in the Cause Against Loneliness, which was written by Morrissey and Stephen Street. She retired from recording in 1989 with the single Nothing Less Than Brilliant,

which initially failed to chart, but then got to number 66 in November of 1994 when it was put out alongside her compilation album. It featured Chrissie Hynde on Harmonica and on Castanets Janice Long. Wow. 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. That is Sean. He's made some hand in glove. Some great movie teams around at the moment. Footloose is coming up a chance. And here's Phil Collins. Number one in America. Here he's number two. we cut back to baits and it's blatantly obvious that the new look is paying off as two young ladies have been asked

by the floor manager to voice their attentions upon him. One even draping herself upon his shoulder. She doesn't look that interested. She's looking away. She's not comfortable. Well that's it. I mean she's a very pretty girl and she's hanging off Bates' shoulder. Presumably, i mean i presumed without any coercion but you know uh you've now

put the doubt in my mind that maybe she was told to do it yeah but yeah i mean it it takes all sorts i suppose yeah but she does do an amazing eye roll towards the end yes like the professional he is Bates gets on with the task of introducing the next act Phil Collins with Against All Odds take a look at me now born in Putney in 1951 Phil Collins was a child actor who received his first drum kit as a Christmas present at the age of five made his singing debut at the age of seven at a talent show in Butlins, where he sang the ballad of Davy Crockett and stopped the band halfway through, telling them they were playing in the wrong key. He then formed a school band called The Real Thing at the age of 11,

started playing piano at the age of 12, was an extra in A Hard Day's Night at the age of 13, and played the artful Dodger in two runs of the musical Oliver, also at the age of 13. Sadly, his balls dropped halfway through the second run, meaning he had to shout his vocals and was eventually removed from the cast. After honing his drumming skills

and practically living in assorted London clubs throughout the late 60s, he started casting about for a band, and after failing the auditions for Vinegar Joe and Manfred Man Part 3, was invited by John Anderson to audition for Yes, but he didn't bother. In July of 1970, he answered an advert in Melody Maker and was drafted in as the fifth drummer of Genesis, who had just finished their second LP and were on the verge of splitting up,

occasionally singing lead on the odd album track in a Ringo style and fashion. In 1975, when Peter Gabriel went solo, the band put another ad in the maker looking for a replacement, with Collins singing backup during the lengthy audition process and when they couldn't find anyone suitable installed him as the new front person kicking off a transition period which eventually slimmed the band down to a three-piece stared them away from progginess towards a more radio-friendly style and reaped five top 10 singles throughout the 80s and finally put the band over in America. In 1978, on the verge of the announcement of a nine-month world tour,

his missus told him that she was well dischuffed about her husband not being about and if he went on the tour, she would not be there when he got back. And when he finally did, she already had. At the same time, Genesis were on an extended break so tony banks and mike rutherford could work on their solo albums so collins decided to have a go at one of his own signing a deal with virgin and rackling out a string of songs about divorce and the like that lp base value eventually came out in february of 1981 and the lead-off single in the air tonight immediately shot up the charts getting to number two that month and a year later his cover of you can't hurry love by the supremes went one better ascending to the summit of Pop Mountain, pushing off Rene and Renato, and staying there for two

weeks. He spent the rest of 1983 working on the Genesis LP, Genesis, and during the tour for that album was passing through Chicago when he was approached by the film director Taylor Hackford and asked to participate in the soundtrack for his forthcoming film, Against All Odds. He immediately rummaged through his bag of musical offcuts and pulled out a tune called How Can You Just Sit There, which was composed during his post-divorce songwriting blitz five years previously and deemed not good enough for his first two LPs. As time was pressing and Genesis was still on tour,

Arif Mardin was drafted into co-produce, the piano, bass and strings were recorded in New York and Collins bolted on drums and vocals the following week in Los Angeles. This single is the follow-up to Why Can't It Wait Till Morning which only got to number 89 in May of 1983 it's entered the charts at number 26 three weeks ago that soared 16 places to number 10 and this week it's up two places from number four to number two and here is the bbc running a big advert for the film boys songs for movies a huge deal in 1984 yeah i mean the best original song nominees that year for the oscars go as follows i just called to say i love you stevie wonder footloose kenny loggins let's hear it for the boy denise williams ghostbusters by ray parker jr and this you know

yeah in a lot of those cases the song was bigger than the film. And that's definitely the case for this one. The song was much more successful than the film was. I've not seen the film against all odds, but just from the glimpses... Because why would you? I know. Yeah, if I had limited pocket money,

I was going to spend it all on Smith's Records rather than this kind of thing. The film looks pretty bog-standard mid-'80s fare, doesn't it? Yeah, action-packed American things, like driving fast cars recklessly or playing sports that we don't play here or punching snake-eyed men in suits played by James Woods. Or, you know, if it was the 90s, it would have been James Spader.

Isn't it interesting how James Woods seamlessly handed over that kind of typecast role to james spader that kind of that piggy-eyed coldness of the kind of corporate baddie but yeah um the film's got um jeff bridges and rachel ward uh both of whom have been in one of my all-time favorite films each bridges in the big lebowski and ward in dead men don't wear plaid right dead men don't wear plaid is slightly problematic in certain ways now like the bit where steve martin basically feels her up while she's unconscious and then justifies it by saying your breasts are out of whack when she wakes up but um

made up for by the moment where she sucks a bullet out of a hole in his arm which is really quite quite startling um but yeah um in this film they're basically um um yeah let me help you out here simon i think the word you're looking for is cat shit you know this is the sort of thing that would be a tv movie on itv at the same time as top of the pops yeah and your dad would watch it so you can watch top of the pops and he knows it's going to be shit but he still watches it all the way through while it's being shit. And then at the end he'll say, oh, that was fucking ramble. It looks fucking rubbish.

I mean, this is the thing. You know, a lot of pop videos as trailers this year, as you point out there, Al, with that list of Oscar nominees. But imagine being dragged to see Against All Odds. Fucking hell. All we get from this trailer what as simon said a ton of inexplicable american sports action and and something i would have been interested in it's all american football yeah yeah yeah but there's there's also this motif

um it reminded me of my mom because there were two things my mom hated massively on telly one of them which i might have mentioned before is uh actresses who show their teeth when they smile so their rest face she hated sue ellen and pam ewing for that reason but so there's a bit of that but but also you know that thing in films where people have just woken up and they start snogging yeah my mum whenever that happened she'd always be like oh god their breath must stink yeah she'd be right she'd be absolutely right yeah so there's a lot of morning breath kind of beardy snogging here oh yeah and yeah this song is a total ball eight that seems to go on for weeks really drags not helped by this video because the literal translation of the lyrics is so forced from the off you know you get the line

about turning around they find a clip of someone turning around yes you get the line empty space they show some empty space the trademark phil collins drum roll which was obviously had to be in there because it was such a such a success in uh in the air tonight i mean it's basically dairy milk gorilla the dairy gorilla bit in it yeah yeah exactly it's become his trademark like fucking big daddy's belly buster or whatever that you know his drum roll comes in and they show a bit where somebody's thrown into a drum kit you know and throughout this video when it was on in 84 i would have walked out of the room having to watch it for chart music purposes it reminded me of other videos in a sense where i'd like to be in the video and give the person in it

a really hard shove a really hard push like i always thought that when i you know john bon jovi's video for a blazer glory you probably blotted out your memories but it's shot in the canyons of utah i always used to dream about running up and just giving him a shove and this is this is one of those throughout it you know he's got that water coming down behind him and in front of him and he somehow magically manages to stay pretty much dry i really just wanted to give him a fucking push into that water because this song was winding me up so much i thought that the rain the water looked like red rain perhaps in a foreshadowing of peter gabriel's dire warning of world destruction maybe gabriel nicked the idea off him phil collins has got this really shit jacket on hasn't he he looks awful man yeah he's rich he shouldn't look this shit and and flashdance has already done

this trick of making a video you know a movie a movie trailer. And as the decade goes on, we get more. We get Billy Ocean and others doing this kind of thing. Yeah. So a part of pop really becomes this feeder for the movie industry. Cross-platform brand synergization. This is it. And getting at least one pop hit on the soundtrack is guaranteed to get bums on seats. I expect not many people went to see this film.

But I expect 90% of the people who did go and see this pile of dog people went to see this film but i expect 90 of the people who did go and see this pile of dog shit went because of this song yeah but if you want to listen to the song you buy the record and play it yeah you know instead of sitting through a film for an hour and a half and yeah apparently it's at the very end of the fucking film you have got to sit through the whole thing yeah and the song it really does seem to go on for like a fucking week or something and that's a week that basically you're spending in the company of a guy whose wife has walked out on him and by the sounds of it for good reason because he's a whiny little fuck it's not a pop song it's a middle-aged

divorce song you know it's a decent trade-off for all concerned the movie soundtrack game because you know the film gets to glom itself onto a pop star and then thus promote itself on mtv and top of the pops the label that's handling the soundtrack album sometimes gets to nick an artist from elsewhere for a bit the artist gets half the video made for him you know the only losers in this case are us poor twats at home as we have to sit through an advert for what appears to be a really shit film that says nothing to us about our lives if you're going through a breakup right you want the dignity of i don't know as wads don't turn around or you just might see me cry by our kid this is like i'm not going to let you leave with my dignity intact

here i am being the pathetic blubbery mess that you left i would in no way like to suggest that the mariah carey fucking Boyzone or whatever, it's Westlife, wasn't it, version is better. But at least there you get some sense of release. Here, Phil just remains this kind of pent-up, unlovable guy, which perhaps makes it a more interesting record. To be honest, look, this is a great, well-executed example of perhaps one of my least favourite types of music, the power ballad, you know, which seems to have been rehabilitated but people forget most of them are fucking awful

so i mean we start off with a terrifying bit of cg oh god what the fuck is going on there which in this case stands for crappy graphics of an aztec mask no it's mayan it's mayan aztec mask with bill collins's no get it right out it's not aztec it's mayan it's Mayan. It's Mayan out. It's essentially an Aztec mask with Bill Collins' mouth. No, get it right, Al. It's not Aztec. It's Mayan. Is it Mayan? It's Mayan. Oh, I do apologise.

Yeah, yeah. Get it right. Yeah, come on. I apologise to the pop craze Peruvians. Then it's just shots of Jeff Bridges snogging the woman he's supposed to be finding

for James Woods in between Collins singing in his bad 80s jacket and doing some Hadley fisting on a neon triangle which is, you know, supposed to be symbolic

but it looks like he's just standing on a neon triangle, which is, you know, supposed to be symbolic, but it looks like he's just standing on a Bronski beat logo. Yeah, that bit where his mouth is superimposed onto that Mayan mask, it reminds me of, I don't know if you remember this, you've seen it, that song that became a bit of a meme in the noughties called What What In The Butt by Samwell. Right. We've basically got this sort of chocolate starfish ring piece with a mouth talking in the middle of it it's basically like that it's really quite disturbing it's also

disturbing the way that collins's real mouth goes when he does the first in the song he just does something weird with his lips that kind of creeps me out a bit yeah oh by the way that the story with white because neil mentioned uh the literalness of the lyric he sort of crowbarred in what happened there was that he had this song lying around already yes because it was written at the same time as in the air tonight it was when his his wife andy was cook holding him with a painter and decorator hence the you know the paint pot on top of his keyboards uh when he was performing on top of the pots back in those days. Wow.

So he had this song just knocking around. It was just meant to be a B-side, I think, at first. It was just a demo. He had a demo of it, and it was originally called How Can You Just Sit There? And then Taylor Hackford approached him while he was on tour in America and said, look, I'm making this film. Can you write something for it?

And he said, well, no, I can't write when I'm on tour. He just couldn't do that. But I have got this other song hanging around, and he played him a tape of it. And, yeah, Hackford insisted that he incorporated the exact title into the lyrics. So it does feel crowbarred in. And then, yeah, he sort of nipped off to a studio in New York

with Arif Mardin. Yeah, thank God he wasn't making King Kong versus Godzilla. Exactly, yeah. Or, you know, romancing the stone. You coming back to me is romancing the stone or something. Fucking hell. Yeah. I actually got Phil Collins' autobiography, Not Dead Yet, for Christmas.

Nice. It's the book The Daily Mirror called Jaw-Droppingly Honest. My brother Kev got it for me. It was on my wish list, but I can't remember putting it there. I must have been pissed. I absolutely must have been pissed when I put it on there. But I was glad to get it. Thank you, Kev.

I think he listens. One reason I wanted to read it is that my mother-in-law used to go out with Phil Collins. Wow. When they were teenagers. Fucking hell. Revelation atop Revelation, Simon. I know. I wanted to see, obviously, if she gets a mention.

Yeah. Right? Because that would be hilarious to me. She doesn't, sadly. But in a way, it's not surprising that he couldn't pick her out of the fog of his memory because according to his own account, he squired his way through the entire

student body at drama school. Squired, his words. Squired. So, the first time he squired anyone, he says he lost his virginity in an allotment with a mod girl who was called Cheryl. So it's not, well, that's, you know, the name he gives her.

That's not my mother-in-law. Surrounded by potatoes and carrots. And being surrounded by potatoes seems like a very Phil Collins thing. Thankfully for us, you know, the Phil Collins version of this song does not invite us to imagine Phil Collins having sex surrounded by potatoes and carrots or otherwise. Instead, we're shown Rachel Ward and Jeff Bridges giving it the full from here to eternity. See, he could have done a song called Against Some Spugs. They're giving it the full from here to eternity, aren't they, in the film? And that was almost as much of a kind of trope of 80s films as the whole thing from Battleship Potemkin of the pram falling down the stairs.

That kept cropping up everywhere, including in The Untouchables, which I watched in a pub the other day. So, yeah, it's just one of those tropes, isn't it? Yeah, you've got a couple, you've got to have them making out, as the Americans would say, in the surf on the beach. So that comes in there. Man, I don't think I'd be up for that.

No. Because at some point you're going to get some ocean spray up your nose, aren't you? You're going to get sand in your foreskin. It's just bad, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seashells up your fanny. I mean, it's just, no, it's not good. And also, you get fucking jellyfish everywhere these days.

Yeah. Of course, the thing to do if you get stung by jellyfish is to have someone piss on you. So I guess at least there's somebody literally naked right next to you. So there is that, I suppose. And you live in Brighton, Simon. No one's going to take a blind bet and notice. Exactly. You get stared at more if you're not shagging in the suit

and pissing on each other in Brighton. Yeah, absolutely right. get stared at more if you're not shagging in the surf and pissing on each other in brighton yeah yeah absolutely right um it's it's funny that that uh neil mentions that the westlife and mariah carey version because yeah this song was number one twice but not for phil of course it didn't get to number one for him um once from steve brookstein the uh the x factor man who is now and having opinions on the internet man rather than a singer. But yeah, the Mariah Carey and Westlife cover. Have you seen the video of that? It is fucking hilarious, right?

Most of it is just filmed in the island of Capri, which is interesting. We say Capri for the place and for the drink, Capri Sun, but we say Capri for the car. I've never figured that out. But yeah, they're mostly mucking around on boats and Jeeps and on foot. But there's this bit. It seems like they only had access to Mariah for about six hours,

and they just shot a lot of stuff on the fly, really. There's a bit where they're all sat in a row, as if, like a team photo, as if it's a photo session. Waiting for a key change. Exactly, yeah, right. So they're all there with mariah and pride of place in the middle and it's pretty hard to figure out which one it is who does this because three of the coats had blonde curtains right you've got kian egan nicky burn and brian mcfadden

but after much google image searching and just uh compare and contrast i found out it was mcfadden who does this he's staring down mariah's top the whole time really blatantly. It's so funny. And to be fair, the director is more or less doing the same throughout the video. The director would now be prosecuted for this video. You know those scumbags who invade women's privacy by filming down their tops on a bus or a tube train? And there was actually legislation about this.

Yeah, that's what the director's doing. and it's definitely what McFadden is doing with his eyeballs. He's definitely storing it in the bank for what, Neil mentioned the phrase, a sense of release you get from the Westlife and Mariah vision. He's going to have a fucking sense of release later on that day, you can absolutely tell. And it's filmed, it looks like it's filmed

on a potato as they say. And I thought, well who is it? Who's this sort of sex pest with a camera? Who made it? And that video for the Westlife and Mariah one is directed by Bill Boatman and P. Snide Now P. Snide, can't find out anything about him. Bill Boatman sounds

like a fake name like Postman Pat or Bob the Builder doesn't it? But his credits after this are basically two more Mariah Carey videos and a Mariah Carey documentary, Central Park Christmas Special and Cooking with Mariah Carey. Some of these under the name William Boatman. So either he's her guy or she liked what he did.

Because prior to this, he'd mainly done cheap horror films. But in amongst all that there's a telltale title totally nude aerobics so you know yeah that probably explains his shooting style in this in in the against all odds video but for them to cover it was a weird setup in the first place when you think about it because yeah it's it's a song about regretting the breakdown of a relationship and it's being sung by five men to one woman and one woman to five men. Now, you've heard of throuples. This is a sextuple.

And, you know, I'm a modern guy. I'm open-minded. I'm not going to shame anyone for that kind of domestic setup. I mean, it worked for Snow White, at least some of the versions of Snow White that I've seen. But you've got to assume that even in the most extreme scenario, that it leaves at least two of them literally holding their dicks because there's only a certain number of orifices available.

But yeah, thankfully, the Phil Collins version does not invite us to imagine him having sex with Mariah Carey or dwarves or Westlife or anyone. It's just Rachel Ward and Jeff Bridges, and that's fine by me. Because, yeah, he does look crap in his bad jacket and his receding hair. Nothing wrong with that, of course. And I guess that was his whole shtick, wasn't it?

It's just, oh, you know, I'm the anti-pop star. I'm just the everyman. Yes, I'm every bloke. I'm the ordinary Joe. And I suppose, in a way, in hindsight, I've kind of warmed him a little bit because there's a particular memory I've got. He reminds me of this kid at school called Eddie. Simon Edmonds, Eddie, used to sit next to me in history.

And even at the age of 15, Eddie had a receding hairline, unfortunately for him. And he owned a pair of wraparound sunglasses, which meant he was able to roll up the sleeves of his black school blazer uh put the sunglasses on and do an amazing impression of the you can't hurry love video so whenever i see phil collins i i think of eddie so there is that anyway hope he's all right the song gets rather lost in this video because it's not the thing that's really being sold here but as you've said it would almost immediately outlive the film. And, you know, as dad divorce songs go, it's one of the better ones, isn't it?

Yeah, I'll give it that. And you could almost see Phil's version as almost like, I don't know, laying down a guide vocal for future suburban gentlemen who are going for marriage difficulties. You know, when they're going to throw this down at some karaoke bar or something, future suburban gentlemen who are going for marriage difficulties. You know, when they're going to throw this down at some karaoke bar or something, they're going to be aiming for exactly what Phil is doing here. But really over-egging it on the turn around and see me cry bit.

But when you're 16, you don't want this in your life. Oh, good God, no. It's neither use nor ornament. But they do now, though. Young people now, because obviously it's hip to be square. It's hip to be square now. Everyone under 35 loves Phil Collins, and they love Sting, and they love Toto, and they love Fleetwood Mac.

Don't slag off Phil Collins in front of Stephen Gerrard. He'll headbutt you with his three head. But, you know, I fought those wars at the time, and I can't let it go, except with Fleetwood Mac, who I love. I love Fleetwood Mac. But I can't let it go. You know, I do have this weird conflict conflict because as some of you may know I'm involved in a club night called late night minicab FM yeah yeah yeah where we basically play power ballads

and we play the sort of songs that make you feel emotional when it's 3am and you're pissed in a taxi and it comes on the radio and you get a bit you know maudlin about somebody you fancy or somebody you're missing and all of that we just do a whole night of that now obviously if you stick on against all odds sounds no but it is it is honestly you stick on against all odds by phil collins and people absolutely lose their shit they're just fucking belting it out and i i can kind of give it a pass on that on that basis at the time I wanted him to squire off. Fucking squiring, squiring, squire, squire off Phil Connors. Mother squirer.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But when you're 16 and you hear this, there's only two reactions, both of them bad. It's either, oh my God, this shit's on the radio again. I've got to sit through this for fucking hours. Or, oh shit shit dad's playing that song again this ain't good yeah yeah i'm guessing this would have had completely different context had my parents say been going through divorce at the time but um i guess yeah it might have some really horrific context in it like that but yeah it's dreary grown-up divorce pop when you're

a kid by the way neil i i love the fact that uh we can now imagine what you look like when you were listening to this stuff because there's that amazing photo that you shared on social media of uh you sat with uh your parents on the sofa in 1984 and that is it yes exactly that was me that was me i mean mira was taking the photo but for top of the pops my dad would have been in the other room or my dad would have been in the kitchen eating chillies and drinking homebrew um but my mom would have been on that sofa with me and mira brilliant um telling us who was on drugs i hope simon bates likes his son because fucking hell he's gonna hear it a lot of times at the end of his how tune segment from here on oh yeah yeah well it's right in his

wheelhouse isn't it i've just realized i've never used the phrase in your wheelhouse before oh well done it feels weird in my mouth i don't know if i'll use it again but right um so obviously we've been talking about the film tie-in a lot and it was oscar nominated and all that have you seen the oscar performance of this no oh God. I've heard about it. I've heard about it, too. It's extraordinary. Because that year, for some unknown reason, the Academy decided that the artists would not perform their own songs.

The songs would be performed by someone else. And Phil Collins really drew the short straw. It's introduced by Jeff Bridges, the dude, which is nice to see him as a younger man but what it is it's a dancer a broadway dancer slash singer but very much dancer we find out called anne reinking who was a um at one time a partner and protege of bob fossy right so she's from that kind of showbiz hoofer background. Jazz hands. Yes, and she sings and dances the song. And she's not a singer with the best will in the world.

I don't care how many Tony Awards or whatever she may have. The first verse, she comes out of the smoke at the back and she sort of lumbers forward aimlessly on her own. But then for the second verse, she's joined by this man in a billowing, silky shirt. He looks a bit like ice dancer John Curry or maybe a camp John Hanna. And together they start doing modern dance to the song. It's a bit like that bit in the amazing sitcom Nighty Night,

where Julia Davis does a special routine to Lavender by Marillion. There's a bit where, and obviously it's lip synced, but where Anne Reinking's vocal goes weirdly breathy and sharp on the, so take a look at me now. She goes, so take a look at me now. Like that. It's really freaky. And the thing is, Phil Collins was there.

Yes. He had to sit through it. He was in the audience. And this comes over in his book that he hated it. Yes. He's really fucked off. He's really fucked off. He's squired off. He's like squiring hell for squire's sake.

And there was a review of it in the LA Times that said, the best that can be said about her performance is that the stage set was nice. And that's really true. Fucking hell, so true. Before we leave Phil Collins behind, I just wonder if we could just quickly talk about the reasons why he was so hated apart from the kind of blandness of his music and i think part of it is because he seems to have no sense of humor about himself despite giving off

this kind of like only me jokey kind of every man demeanor, he used to phone up music papers and complain. Yes. Did he ring up rock expert David Stubbs? I believe he did, yes. Which is just incredible. But the other thing is that his political views have been, I guess, misrepresented because there was this whole thing, it was around the 92 general election, wasn't it,

where the son said that he was one of the artists who was going to leave the country if if labor got in he didn't actually say that uh much as much as i love to tory shame people what he actually did he threatened to fuck off if to squire off if the government took loads of his money in tax which was a you know labor policy at the time but he is adamant that he's never supported the conservatives um and you know there are other things time but he is adamant that he's never supported the conservatives and you know there are other things like he issued a cease and desist against donald trump when when trump used his music and and he's been involved in anti-racism campaigns and nonsense let's not nonsense yeah yeah there's a clause in his contract whereby all the royalties he earns in South Africa stay in South Africa and stuff like that. So, you know, maybe he's all right as long as you don't have to listen to him.

And even then, I mean, you can't argue with In The Air Tonight, can you? That's a fucking great track. And even stuff like a single that wasn't such a big hit after that called If Leaving Me Is Easy. Yeah. It's got a sort of real philly soul feel to it so you know i wouldn't i wouldn't completely cast him beyond the pale critically some of the avanches genesis stuff that we've covered it's been like oh fucking hell we actually like this what's going on it's been all right but there's something curiously unlikable about phil um in the air is i mean which actually comes out in this song he sounds angry you know i

mean i know he's upset and all that but he he sounds yeah like uncommunicably angry and and and i i definitely tied him in with that's right politics yeah um you know probably wrongly as simon says but that yeah that whole rolled up sleeve yuppie aspirationalism seemed to be intimately linked for me in the 80s with Phil Collins. Was it this year that he was on Miami Vice? Oh, that rings a bell. And introduced Americans to the word wanker. You know, the word wank in America is so clean

that David Bowie was allowed to include it on the single version of Time that came out over there because yeah falls wanking to the floor americans just like oh it's just some british thing so the following week against all odds stayed at number two and would spend three weeks there it would eventually become the 19th best-selling single of 1984 one above what's love got to do with it and one below like a virgin winner Grammy for Best Vocal Male Performance Pop and as we've mentioned was nominated for Best Original Song

in the Oscars losing to I Just Called what film was that in anyway? Woman In Red the follow up Susudio would get to number 12 for two weeks in February of 1985 and he'd have 8 more top 10 hits throughout the rest of the 80s,

including one and a half number ones. Easy Lover, it's contentious. That's a banger, though. I'm sorry, that is great. No, he's rolling it. It's contentious. Oh, it is a banger. Oh, I love that tune.

I love that tune. And the song, as we've mentioned, would be Bound at the Wrists and Frogged March to No. 1 by Mariah Carey and Westlife in September of 2000 and Steve Brookstein in January of 2005. Oh, and Against All Odds is released in British cinemas in a few weeks' time, and we'll be fighting for attention with Footloose,

Silkwood, Police police academy amityville 3d and indiana jones and the temple of doom so yeah good luck with that Take a look at me now And on that note, Pop Craze youngsters, we're going to walk away from Phil Collins, just leave it out of trace, if you will, and extend an invitation for you to come and join us tomorrow for part three of this episode of Chart Music. So, on behalf of Simon Price and Neil Kulcone, this is Al Needham imploring you to stay

pop crazed chart music this is the first radio ad you can smell the new cin 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.