Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #50 (Part 1): March 21st 1996 - The Movement That Wouldn't Feel The Benefit

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Chart Music #50: March 21st 1996 - The Movement That Wouldn't Feel The BenefitThe latest episode of the podcast which asks the question: What was David Stubbs doing while the Rainforest was falling?It's our half-century. Pop-Crazed Youngsters, but we're not making a fuss about it, bar the raising of the bat and a nod to the stands before returning to the job of whacking at a random episode of Top Of The Pops. And oh dear: this particular slice of Thursday evenings past comes at us during the even more devastating Second Wave of Britpop, with Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley playing the roles of Peelie and Janice. Musicwise, we're fully into the Ric Blaxill era, so expect a morbid carousel of Proper Music played on Proper Instruments, with a smattering of past-it Eighties sorts thrown in, and all mixed together with an offensive distain for the charts. Rick Witter may or may not be wearing a Tena underneath his Martin Fry suit. Lionel Richie's head is lowered into a Desperate Dan beard. Prince Naseem Hamed pitches up with Kaliphz to remind us that dance music was somehow still going in the mid-Nineties. Menswear bring along a string section. Oh God, it's Madonna again. Celine Dion wafts about a circus putting in no graft whatsoever. Take That offer up the most half-arsed swan song in musical history, and - finally - Oasis enter the Chart Music arena.Simon Price and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham for a bit of Gay Exchange-advert-dancing upon the ashes of '96, veering off on such tangents as going into the off-licence in Napoleonic headjoy, stripping in front of someone off Coronation Street, being a Lion Bell-End, bum-rushing the Camden KFC, being made by a Manic Street Preacher to dance to the Ramadan No.1 of 1974, the Horseshoe Of Shame, and a rate and quality of swearing that times like this demand.  Video Playlist | Subscribe |  Facebook  | Twitter 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. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language,

which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music, the podcast that gets its hands right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and by my side today are Simon Price.

Two metres away, hello. Yeah, at least. And Neil Kulkarni. Hello. Boys, the pop things, the interesting things. What of them, say I? Come on now, has this question ever been more redundant? I know, I know.

I mean, it's genuinely not a lot, apart from being pleased about learning the chords to On the Inside, the theme tune to Prisoner's Cell by Cage. And that's genuinely it. I might knock out an acoustic cover do, I'll sing over it Neil I'm sure that can be sorted yeah if the lunacy starts biting hard

in a couple of weeks other than that not a lot to report to be honest with you I'm actually and I think this is a common experience of a lot of people I feel a bit kind of shamed and judged almost by how active and creative everyone else is being including neil learning the fucking chords to an old tv show because it just seems that like if if you

just go by social media um everybody is using this time to do loads of amazing things like in a pig's arse all that yeah they'll be going like oh yeah um i got up in the morning i did the joe wicks pe lesson and then like you know then I fed my kids, and I homeschooled them for half the day, and then I wrote a new song, and I'm recording it, and I'm sticking it out on fucking SoundCloud later on, and tonight I'm having a fucking Zoom chat with my relatives in America, and then we're going to do a podcast, like, yeah, here we are doing a fucking podcast.

You know what I mean? But it seems like everybody's doing loads of stuff and I just think how the fuck are you even doing this I'm just sort of catatonic with kind of tiredness and just you know yeah it's yeah and I think there's something very performative about how everything's been very very productive during lockdown and fair enough you know whatever gets you through the night or the day but yeah i think some people are over egging it you know what i mean absolutely i think the those are the people who genuinely aren't coping with this yes um at all and they're having to compensate with all this activity and with regards to home schooling by the way my daughter's not done a fucking lick of homework she's not done a single bit yes neil you're the perfect parent and to be

honest with you her response when i try and get her to do any of it which is i don't care about homework is pretty much irrefutable so yeah if your kids are doing no combat is there no there isn't i mean i can't make her care about it or even give reasons as to why she should care about it because who the fuck knows what she's going back to so yeah if you're spending lockdown doing absolutely fuck all by drinking getting wasted and occasionally feeling knackered i think you're doing it right yeah i mean i have been shit-faced like most evenings because we just sort of get together with our friends and do a quiz including here comes quizm indeed yes been a product placement there very busy you have yeah they'll do the chart music pub quiz which i'm uh enjoying doing our

long pub quiz every friday night for the pop craze patreons because they always get it first i fuck everyone else but i make love to them you're a key worker and i put it out as a repeat to the general population on uh usually on monday nights so yeah yeah yeah being very busy with that you know because i i do pub quizzes normally you know back back in the in the old times but uh i haven't bothered doing a pub quiz for for my usual pubs it's like no there's loads of amateurs having a go let them yeah i'll just focus on the pub craze youngsters so yeah bit of bonus content for everyone and uh yeah going quite nicely getting a getting a nice bit of comeback from the Polk Rage youngsters so

thank you very much. I would say Here Comes Quism is gratifyingly semi-hard and that's probably praise you haven't had since you were a male stripper. Yeah when you're our age gratifying enough isn't it Yeah since your full Monty days no one has said that to you

I got I think 28 the first time and maybe 32 uh the second time and obviously just because i'm a chart music regular doesn't mean i get given the answers so yeah i found it was just pitched it was tough enough but it gave people a chance i thought i think you're right though al in the loads of amateurs coming out the woodwork all the characters are coming out the woodwork as well yes you know the fucking buskers and the eight o'clock clap on a thursday yeah so yeah worrying times well it's just people that you just you know you change pubs not to listen to them and now they're trying to ram it down your computer and it's just like look fuck off yeah yeah i mean personally right i don't want to brag

about this and i i don't i'm you know i'm going to touch loads of wood now to, you know, just in case I do go mental next week and run down the street naked, eating my own shit out of an ice cream tub. But I'm pissing this lockdown out of my arse. Yeah. I really am, right? Yeah. I've got two bottles of whisky.

I've got three multi-packs of Little Cheese and Onion Crisps. And I've got every single episode of prisoner cell block h what else is there yeah a month ago that would have sounded like a cry for help but today today is the triumphant roar of a man who prepared and prepared well so yeah i mean i mean the really frightening thing for me is is how little i'm actually missing yeah due to not going out yeah i'm missing going out into pubs because that's you know my place of work i'm not missing socializing at all fuck that that's a bit terrifying you're talking to freelance music journalists here yeah so like for a start being locked away um at home for days on end is

just normality and and secondly going out at night is actually your job it's work so it's a fucking blessed relief into not have to do that um but you know go back to what we're saying and we i know we're adding to the mountain with this very podcast and we're better than the rest, but we are adding to it. But there's just too much content out there. Too much, right? When lockdown started, I actually felt quite warm-hearted towards everyone who's like, just putting a few things out there to entertain people.

I thought, good on you, you know? Yeah, we all need something to keep us sane. And there was, like, for example, the Backstreet Boys, right? I don't know if you saw it. They did a sort of combined video where all five of them were singing from their homes, I Want It That Way, and it was all edited together.

And it was really sweet. And I thought, ah, you know what? I never liked your shitty music, but there's something quite heartwarming about that video. And now it's got to the point where the other night there was that fucking eight-hour-long Live Aid-esque marathon of every cunt doing it now. It's just too much fucking content to keep on top of

and to have an opinion on. Having said that, there's this one bit, this one clip I've seen which if you only see one bit of it I've been wetting myself laughing ever since. It's the Elton John bit. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I've not seen it. Jesus Christ Elton. myself laughing ever since it's the elton john bit have you seen you know what i'm talking about fuck me right what it is jesus christ elton because you have to see it with the intro because the intro is from posh and becks right posh and becks and i i always used to bridle against it when people made fun of david beckham for being thick i thought oh you know just because he's got a cockney accent and he's got a bit of a high-pitched voice and sounds a bit silly and just because his his missus is a pop star doesn't mean they're thick necessarily but fucking hell you listen to them they they they're reading english as if they're like four-year-olds who've never sort of read out loud before they go and we would like to introduce our very very good friend el, Elton John. And then, right, he's there in his basketball court with his fucking grand piano. Why has Elton John got a basketball court?

Well, he's got kids, hasn't he? He's got kids. It probably keeps them occupied. Oh, that's all right. Yeah, he's got a snooker table. I just can't imagine him throwing down the fucking hoop. True enough, but fucking snooker table is what you want to read about. Read about snooker in his house in Alexis Petridis' book. That is a real fucking eye-opener. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Don't get jizz on the bays, I think was the phrase. Yes. But anyway, right, you remember Vic Reeves? Vic Reeves used to have that pub singer character, right? And fuck me, I mean, Elton John's always had a bit of that to him. But what it reminded me of, right, when I was growing up in Barry,

there was a guy who used to sell the South Wales Echo. He'd stand outside the supermarket or sometimes outside the train station or whatever, and he'd been saying the same words over and over for decades and decades that he was no longer saying the words. He was meant to be saying echo, but instead he was going,

Gip! Gip! Like that, right? That's what Elton John singing his own songs has become. So he sat there, and with his left hand, he's doing the bass line of I'm Still Standing. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And then it's like, then it is the Vic Reeves. He's like...

Fucking hell. It's extraordinary. and then it's like then it is the Vic Reeves it's like fucking hell it's extraordinary it's just it just keeps on giving yeah it's comedy gold Alexis portrayed his book and you're right Simon

it is it is an outstanding read I think my favourite part of that of that book is when he was actually filming the video for I'm Still Standing

with all the French sorts with the curly perms yeah and he got really hammered and decided to reshoot the video for I'm Still Sanding with all the French sorts with the curly perms and he got really hammered and decided to reshoot the video again with him rolling around bollock naked if he'd have shown that instead it wouldn't have been

as embarrassing I mean fair play to him right because like I suppose if the end result is that like people give money to the nhs or whatever it was for then that is actually a work of genius so i've got to hand it to elton for providing me with the biggest laugh of lockdown yeah i've just been fucking rolling about laughing at that even eclipse paul mccartney's massacre of lady madonna funny you mentioned mccart, I think Elton singing I'm Still Standing is the new you can do it right now, please.

Yes. It really is. Fuck me. So yeah, we're all coping. You know, everyone else in Chart Music lands alright. The two things I want to get out there is, number one, stop going on about fucking Tiger King. Yeah, fuck those cunts.

Yeah, and number two, stop moaning about how you can't get your fucking hair cut, you hair-having bastards. Cut your own hair. Yeah. For fuck's sake. Because I, in a break with tradition, I decided to grow my hair for the first time

in about 20 God knows how long years. Started shaving my head when I was, what, 27? Yeah. So we're talking about 24 years and you weren't shaving it because you had to originally yeah it just looks shit right and and it was the late 90s and

finally you could you could do it and it wasn't a weird thing anymore and I was in London at the time and no one gave a fuck yeah you know thank you very much Grant Mitchell you'll always be cherished and I yeah you know thank you very much grant mitchell you'll always be cherished and i thought you know what if i'm gonna be stuck in the house for god knows how long so i've always worried you know i've been lying in bed at night going you know what i've been shaving

my head for years and years years what if i actually didn't have to what if i actually did have hair and i just didn't know yeah i thought thought, fuck it, I'm going to grow it to see what happens. And I can report now that it looks fucking awful, man. I'm halfway between Yuri Andropov and Keith out of Nuts in May. It is going to go full Keith. I'm not going there because even now, in parlous times like this, I'm not going out like a tramp. You've got some self-recocking spec.

Yes. If you don't fucking scoop your hair up on both sides into horns like me, just for a photo, just for a photo, you know, and put it out on chart music, you know, on the blog. It's got to be done, yeah. Shaking price. Yes!

Get to it. But you're saying that on the top, it was stony ground, the follicles were few and far between is it yeah it's one of them classic male pattern boldness yeah preach brother preach yeah yeah yeah

the horseshoe of shame the goal is now I'm too far gone to turn back now I'm going for a comb over first time I go out man I'm going to have the proper bobbin shot and circa 1974 look going on and all the the sex i'll get brilliant when that happens ralph coates ralph coates and um it was that um there's a southampton player called armstrong who was like proper old school bald they used to do it you know they just you know

because yeah like you say if you shaved it in those days people thought you were basically national front yes so yeah yeah so all this all this haircutting thing that all these fucking um freedom of movement freaks are coming out within america a friend of mine was saying let's talk about this on zoom last night like they're the same people who consider themselves these kind of survivalist preppers yeah for the apocalypse you know they're they're locked down in their fucking wooden shacks out in the forest. And, you know, they reckon they can survive anything and they can take on the federal government and they've got everything they need to, you know,

they can hunt raccoons and just live off that. And then fucking they're locked away for three weeks. It's like, I want to go to the barbers. For fuck's sake. Someone should tell them you could get a really good haircut with guns just shoot the hair off well it's one of these victimless crimes thing it's like today uh this this will this will have dated by the time the episode comes out but uh listeners cast your mind back to that day when donald trump had told america that it would be a good idea to inject

yourselves with disinfectant yeah right and it's one of these things you sort of think well hang on a minute right if everyone who listens to Donald Trump does that is the world a worse place no I mean yeah it's one of those moments

where it's kind of it's probably not helpful to think how did we get here we are just here um yeah put up with it and also oh well i just think those guys they're kind of if they feel a bit of hair on the back of their neck they just see it as incipient communism or something so of course you know we've got to wish uh a merry ramadan to uh to the pop craze Muslims amongst us. Yeah, right. It reminded me that about a year ago when I was really bored,

I just sat down and thought, you know what, we always bang on about the Christmas number one. Oh, what's going to be the Christmas number one? It's just an important thing. And it's the only part of the charts that still matters nowadays. And I thought, well, you know, that's a bit wrong. What about other faiths yeah so i actually sat down and worked out the ramadan number one all right from 1970 to 1991 do you want

to hear it i think i think it'll explain a lot actually so bit of music. 1970. Woodstock, Matthew Southern Comfort. 1971. Maggie May, Rod Stewart. Strong, yeah. 1972. Mouldy Old Doe, Lieutenant.

Yes! Fucking, I bloody love that record. Makes perfect sense now, doesn't it? Cobb's finest. 1973, Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra. Yeah. 1974, Kung Fu Fighting by Coldplay. Yes! Yes!

These are so much better than the Christmas number ones. Yes. 1975, Sailin', Rod Stewart. Yeah. yes these are so much better than the Christmas number one yes 1975 sailing Rod Stewart yeah Rod Stewart's pretty big during Ramadan isn't he

he's the Cliff Richard of the Ramadan number one yes yeah 1976 don't go breaking my heart Elton John and Kiki Dee 1977

Angelo Brotherhood of Man. Right. 1978, You're The One That I Want, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Yeah, fucking strong. I think that was for every fucking religious holiday that happened. I think that's for Hanukkah as well.

1979, I Don't Like Mondays, The Boomtown Rats. Are they? 1980, Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John and ELO. Olivia Newton-John again, you see. Yeah, brilliant. 1981, One Day in Your Life, Michael Jackson. Yeah.

1982, I've Never Been to Me by Charlene. Brilliant. See, that went to number one from nowhere. Yeah. Now we've worked out. It's Ramadan. Yeah, yeah. I heard, sorry to pause the countdown.

I was in a Chinese restaurant in Brighton just before lockdown. And they played a Chinese version of I've Never Been To Me by Charlene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. It's quite something to hear. And I would love to know if it's a direct translation or, you know, what the Chinese equivalent would be of I've been undressed by kings and you know uh and the preacher man and all that sort of stuff if they sort of transliterated it culturally as well as just you

know the meaning they tied it in with monka you know i've been to gondola but i've never been to me it's a very buddhist kind of song isn't't it? Well, yeah, indeed. God, yeah. 1983, Every Breath You Take by The Police. Fuck off. 1984, Two Tribes, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Yes, get it. Sonny and Shiite, there we go. 1985, 19, Paul Hardcastle.

Oh, yeah. 1986, The Chicken Song by Spitting Image. Oh, there's always got to be a novelty one hasn't there Yeah Halal Chicken obviously 1988 Heart by the Pet Shop Boys Brilliant 1989 Like a Prayer by Madonna

1990 The Power by Snap 1991 The Stonk by Halen Pace Ladies and gentlemen The Ramadan number ones Jesus Of course I see what you did there This is a very clever bit of foreshadowing you've done there Al

By mentioning Pop Craze Muslims Because a Pop Craze Muslim May feature very heavily in this show Yes indeed Anyway All praise is due to the brand new Pop Craze Patreon people feature very heavily in this show yes indeed anyway all praise is due to the brand new pop craze patreon people who have padded out the chart music

g-string this month and those people are in the $5 section Sean Foster The Encrusted Green Sam Hall Neil Ben Hodgkinson Pete Pete Boardman, Steve Harris, Mark Cooper, David Workman,

Simon Francis, Andrew Dick, David Knowles, James Langen, Ali Lowe, Logan Mountstuart, Mark Savage, Mark Savage, Dan Cooper Gavin, Adam, John Lynch, Sarah Richardson, Michael Edmondson, Ian James King,

George Murphy, Tom, and Walter Rumsby. Thank you, babies. Big up, you guys. And of course, you will have noticed that you get Here Comes Quism a few days before the general public. Everyone on Patreon gets it before the general public does. So, yeah, all good. Yeah, a lot of people notched up their contributions from 1 to 5 or 3 to 5, which is lovely.

We love you. In the $3 section, we have Ian Bell, Lisa Cassidy, Steve Hodgson, Steve Johnson, David Holmes, Foxy Moron, Steve Johnson David Holmes Foxy Moron Stuart Wright Felice Dave Hewitt Piers Massey

David Burnage Matt Briggs Ben Squires and Darren Harper and special thanks to Karen Watson Stephen Mahappy Banks Clive Parry

and Doug Grant because they whacked their pledge right up. Good cranking, guys. Good cranking. I want to touch and lick all of you. And of course, one of the things that the Pulk Race Patreons get to do is to tinker and a tanker

with the chart music top ten. Hit the fucking music. We've said goodbye to Lesbian Door Factory, Billy Preston and Ry Vita, and Noel Edmonds Gas Disco, which means five down, two up, one re-entry and two new entries. Down three from seven to ten,

Dave D, Creeper, Twat and Cunt. Down all the way from number two to number nine, Dean Spunk presents a tribute to Olly Murs. Down two places from number six to number eight, Jeff Sex. Yes. A re-entry at number seven for Taylor Parks' 20 Romantic Moments. Wow. Last week's number three.

This week's number six. Danger Freaks! Back up three places to number five. Bomber Dog. Yes. Up one place from number five to number four here comes jizzle good lord into the top three and it's a two-place

drop for last week's number one in Elvis Costello this week's number two a brand new entry for Romo Ralph Wiggum, which means this week's number one, the highest new entry, Chip Pans People. Oh, what a chart that is. Wow. It's lovely to see Romo Ralph Wiggum in there.

Oh, yeah. I thought you'd be number one. I'm a bit shocked by that. Nice to note the tenacity of Bummer Dog and Jizzm as ever. Oh man, they're not going anywhere. I think we know what's what. Romo Ralph Wiggum, obviously. Yeah. And Chip

Pants People, obviously. A bit of meaty daddisfaction. So don't forget Pulp Craze Youngsters. If you want to put a little bustle in our g-string you've got to get them little fingers over to the keyboard and tap in patreon.com slash chart music and pledge and pledge and pledge so this episode pop craze youngsters takes us all the way back to march the 21st, 1996.

Yes, I know, it's been a long time since we walked this way, but needs must. And, you know, I can't lie, this really is my blind spot. You're a bit scared of the 90s, aren't you, Al? I am, yeah. I don't like them. It's a bit too modern for me. I mean, yeah, this is my blind spot when it comes to Top of the Pops,

but it's pretty damn obvious that BBC4 cannot wait to get stuck into the Britpop era of Top of the Pops. Oh, yeah. I mean, I was having a chat with our Sarah. She told me she was in the pub back in the days when we had pubs, and there was one of them internet jukeboxes, which was called a Top of the Pops jukebox. And it was absolutely plastered with the branding that we see in the mid-90s. Yeah.

Top of the Pops, mid-90s. We're going to get rammed up our arse for the rest of the decade, I think. You know what? I wouldn't be surprised if more people end up watching the BBC Four repeats than actually watch some of these episodes first time round. Yes. Given that it wasn't central to the culture anymore, as I'm sure we'll end up discussing.

The last time we did this era, it was February 1996, and it was ten episodes ago, me, you and Sarah, Neil. Yeah, yeah. Which was bolstered considerably by having Julian Cope present it. In this case, no Cope and no Hope either, as far as I can see. I mean, we were talking earlier neil that you know by this time top of the pops is is another music show that happens to call itself top of the pops that's it i mean it's absolutely lost its kind of universal reach if you like and it could it could really

start to be seen as almost an adjunct to youth programming in a way um yeah and by that time you know as a viewer the old inevitably the older you get with Top of the Pops, as a viewer, the more you turn into your parents, basically bemoaning things and shaking your head. This era is kind of seen as the last classic era of Top of the Pops before, you know, Andy Peters stabbed it through the heart repeatedly. But I couldn't disagree more, actually.

I have problems with the Black Sealera of Top of the Pops. It's a mixed bag, much as other previous producer changes have kind of brought good things in and bad things. I remember watching these episodes thinking, at the time, because at the time, I wasn't watching these with my parents, obviously. This is the period where, if I did watch Top of the Pops,

it was with friends, normally drinking or something like that, and it's just that thing where you sit around with mates swearing at the telly. That seemed to be my major memory of Top of the Pops. Whereas an awful lot of people have memories of this period, oh, God, classic episodes, and Rick Blacksill bought everything back that was good. I'm not entirely sure about that. It's a very mixed bag. I always worry when we cover these episodes of Top of the Pops because this is not my Top of the Pops,

but I know there's going to be some listeners out there. To them, this is what Top of the Pops is. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I think a lot of it is coloured by what age you were at the time. And, you know, if you had other stuff going on in your life, if you were in your 20s and you were out and about, living large or whatever and having fun, then you may have watched it from time to time

if a band you liked were going to be on it. But whereas if you were 14 and there was no fucking internet and you had fuck all to do, you were glued to it every week, I expect, even though to us it was way past its golden age. It's like me slugging off, I don't know, Peppa Pig or something, saying, oh, this is no bod. Exactly. And, you know, trying to explain to my nephews and nieces how much better bod was.

Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I mean, no spoilers here, but this is the time that you're to elbow deep in the music press. And this is also the time that your bands or our bands were getting on top of the pops. Absolutely right. Surely you'd be glued to top of the pops all the time. Well, the thing is, we would obviously get a heads up beforehand if somebody we really liked or in some cases we knew personally were going to be on there. So you would tune in for that.

So you would tune in for that. But yeah, I mean, I was, I think, you know, the 90s, particularly the mid 90s, were the time where I felt I wasn't just a sort of passive consumer of the music scene. I was right in there, getting involved, making things happen. And this, of course, being the last era when journalists really were the kind of gatekeepers and to some extent could make or break people. And, yeah, I just, I was deep in it. I was up to my fucking knees in it, you know. Hello, I'm Jack Beaumont. I do Crime Club. In Series 1, I spoke to people like this.

Did you not kick a policeman in the head? Yeah, that was, when was that? I was 17. Wait, was I 17 or 19? I think I might have been 19, actually. In Series 2, I talked to people like this. There was a paedophile with one leg. I kicked him clean out his wheelchair About four of us I mean we battered him And this Cheating on your boyfriend to give him gonorrhoea

Do you want to go there or should I have a knock? Yeah no no no I can talk about it I have jingles like this That's Crime Club Where strange people tell stories involving bad behaviour New episodes out every Monday. So, in the news this week, the EU announces that France's ban of British beef is legal,

paving the way for a full ban across the EU. Sri Lanka are beating Australia in the Cricket World Cup final. Dunblane Primary School opens for the first time since 16 kids and one teacher were killed in the shooting there nine days ago. Robert Mugabe is re-elected president of Zimbabwe. Princess Diana crashes her BMW in London, but is well enough to go on holiday to Barbados at the weekend. Senator Bob Dole easily wins four primaries in the Midwest,

setting him up nicely for the Republican candidacy for the forthcoming American election. Home Secretary Michael Howard has beefed up prison sentences for burglars and drug dealers. Ron Atkinson's wife has spent 13 hours handcuffed to a banister after their house was broken into while Ron was commentating on last night's European Cup match between Juventus and Real Madrid. But the big news this week is that John Redwood, the former Secretary of State for Wales and full-time bellend, has weighed in on Britpop in a column for The Guardian. He displays a particular fondness for the lightning seeds. He says, the lightning seeds reassure us that there is still in England under that English sky. There is a time and place here for jollification.

He was later filmed getting the words wrong to Wonderwall. There's that amazing footage of him when he's meant to be singing the Welsh national anthem. Yes. And he's just kind of like mouthing syllables. Yeah, he said nothing about the manic street preacher that noticed the cunt. It's racist, isn't it?

On the cover of the enemy this week electronic on the cover of smash hits ronan keating and a ken out of boyzone the number one lp over here is falling into you by celine dion over in america the number one single is one sweet day by mariah carey and boys to men at its 16th and final week at number one single is One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men at its 16th and final week at number one. Fucking hell, we moaned about wet, wet, wet. And the number one LP in America is Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. So me boys, we've already covered this, but what were you doing in March of 1996? What were your roles at The Maker?

I was 28 years old. I was working for at The Maker? I was 28 years old. I was working for Mel D. Maker. I was the reviews editor. I was living in a basement flat in Holloway, Holloway Babylon, as I called it. To paraphrase Manic Street Preachers, I live in Urban Holloway. I describe rock and roll.

I've got to credit Taylor Parks for that joke. That was his. And I can actually, because I figured it out, I can tell you exactly where I was when this episode was broadcast. Because we're talking about Thursday, 21st of March, 1996. I was in that basement flat nursing one almighty hangover because the previous night was the final night of the romo tour um yeah yeah that was the tour where four romo bands plastic fantastic orlando um dex dexter

and hollywood and we've um touched upon or probably gone into quite a lot of depth about what romo was in a previous episode but essentially a sort of neuromatic revival that wasn't or wouldn't admit that it was um yeah we had this tour sponsored by melody maker and it had three different fucking names it was called club skinny slash arcadia the two club nights behind it it was called on the march 1996 and called fiddling while romo burns and that that fucking indecision that fucking indecision is very telling in itself about It's a bit of a rudderless ship. And it had been a very tough tour, to be honest. I was there as the Malcolm McLaren slash Robert Elms figure

and also the Don Letts figure. I was the DJ and the spokesperson fronting up the whole thing. And we were living on bunk beds on tour buses and showering in motorway service stations while trying to maintain this kind of alien, otherworldly glamour that the Romo scene required without losing our fucking minds. And you know what? We were only on the road for two weeks.

And after that experience, I will never, ever, ever again slag off bands who complain about touring. Because certainly when you're touring at that level, when you're not staying in luxury hotels and you're living out of a bus it is fucking hard it shreds your nerves and you end up hating all your friends and um and yeah we all hate each other by the end of it um most most of the nights on the tour were poorly attended much to the glee of NME um although I remember Brighton and Manchester and Glasgow were all right. They were fairly well attended. The London date, though, which was the night before this Top of the Pops was broadcast,

was a bit of a triumph. We were at the LA2, also known as the Astoria 2, and we had 750 people turn up, which is a decent-sized crowd in London, and it felt like a bit of a try for a bit of a vindication. There was a big after-show party at Stringfellows. And Peter Stringfellow sat Hannah from Hollywood on his lap, the big old sex pest. But Barbara Windsor was there too.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. Good lord. So anyway, all of this, it should have felt... You should make a little finger gesture. I would have been honoured. Have you ever been to Stringfellows? No, all of this, it should have felt... You didn't make a little finger gesture. I would have been honoured. You ever been to Stringfellers, Nick? No, I haven't, no.

I don't think so. I've stripped at Stringfellers. Oh my God. You didn't strip on 21st of March 1996 by any chance. No, I didn't know. Barbara Windsor would have done that to me, definitely. Yeah, it was 2000. 2000.

It was the England-Germany game, the day of that. I was in a strip troupe called Fraud Monte. And it was a very rare London booking for us, which is great, because I could just get there by tube. We had to meet up dead early to flyer the surrounding area. And it's like, oh, fucking hell, but the England game's on. So I remember just having a big wadge of flyers marching over to a table where there were a load of japanese women

and just slamming them all down on the table and pointing at them saying traditional english dancing and then pointing at string fellas and going back and so i'm setting string fellas on this settee kind of like sliding my hand down the side of it to see if I could get a pair of Joan Collins' knickers from 15 years previously. And I'm sitting there watching the game and it dawns on me that I'm the only English person in the whole fucking place.

All the bar staff and the bouncers are everything. They're all like Albanians and Czechoslovakians and all that kind of stuff. And they're just there going, this England team are fucking shit, aren't they? They're fucking absolutely useless. And I'm getting a bit upset at first and then thinking, yeah, you're right.

And then the next thing I know at halftime, I hear someone go, England! And they're marching and sit down to me. It's fucking Brian Tilsley out of Coronation Street. Oh my God. Who was working as a manager there. And so me and him watched the England game together, the second half of the England game together.

And I'm an alright old rabbit. And I'm just thinking, oh, this is amazing. I just wanted to run all the way back to Nottingham and see my mates from college and go, you never guess who I'm watching this England game with. That's like when somebody wakes up with a really weird dream. It would be that. Yeah. And at the end would be that. Yeah.

And at the end we hugged. Nice. Then I went up and got my cock out. Which again sounds like one of those dreams. It was a really weird gig because it was a London gig. I hated doing London gigs because the audience was so blasé. You know, they'd go mental at the right

bits, but afterwards they just didn't want to know you. We'd be having a drink, and usually there'd be people coming up to us going, oh, that was a fucking good laugh, and, you know, nice one, and wanted to talk to us, or wanted to beat us up. And we got neither of that. They'd just turn their backs on us.

They were embarrassed to have enjoyed themselves at the sight of my beautiful cock. That's pretty much what the Romo gig was like. I'm sure Chris Quentin enjoyed it. By the way, Pricey, you know that Romo toy? It didn't come to Cov, did it? No. Oh, hang on, yes. It came to, and you'll love this, it came to

Warwick University, which of course is too good to consider itself Cov, isn't it, Neil? Yeah, bastards. No, I was just wondering, because an Orlando gig in Coventry at Planet, the Planet Club in Cox Street, is where I first met my missus. And where Tim Chipping from Orlando, I think,

hid backstage because he was scared of me for some reason. You are a bit terrifying. You were there. Yeah, perhaps. I misinterpreted my writing, perhaps. But yeah, no, I've got good row memories. I mean, the thing is, back in 96, I was travelling kind of a lot between cov london and elsewhere i was going in the office more at melody

maker actually yeah i'm sort of starting to commute a bit more and hang out with pricey and taylor and kip on people's floors quite a lot as well so if i can oh before we go any further can we clear up something you said uh last episode now well well yeah we can the dancing to madness you recall doing the bummers conga with uh with with simon and taylor but taylor spots a delicious image that i've this kept me warm over the over the past few nights but but this is the thing about that period of time mid 90s i don't want to say oh man it was so rock and roll i don't remember anything but it definitely was a period in my life that was mainly a kind of blur of of parties and drinking and drugs um quite a lot um and rock sex and not no actually not the

sex just the drugs and the rock and roll but who needs the sex when you got the others well quite so consequently i am willing to hold my hands up and say I may have dreamt that. But it's a nice dream. It's a nice dream. Yeah, because you were talking about Bristol Sound City, weren't you? The Radio 1 thing where the three of us, you and Taylor, went down there.

And we had an amazing time. But I've got no memory of doing the Bummers Conga. Now, that's not to say it didn't happen. By the way, for those who don't know what the Bummers Conga is, picture at the front of the first Madness album what they're doing there. Trademark David Stubbs. Yeah, and it

would need to be arranged if it happened with me, you and Taylor. It got a height order, wouldn't it? So like Taylor at the front and then you and then me tallest at the back I think. That should be a chart music t-shirt all of us doing the Bummers Cong yeah yeah i'll tell you what what did happen neil i'm pretty sure you would have been there this moment um late one night in bristol we went

to some we were dragged into some kind of private members club and there was somebody walking around doing um close-up magic with cards um for for like five quid tips here and there. And do you know who I'm certain that was? Deron Brown. No. Because the dates match up. Around that time, Deron Brown was working these clubs in Bristol doing close-up magic for a fiver here, a fiver there. And I remember this guy doing it. I swear it was him.

Or if it wasn't him, it was one of his mates. One of his pale mates. That whole week, it does drift in between reality and unreality to a certain extent. I mean, I remember being at one of those gigs at Bristol Sound City and there was a fucking trampoline there or something. No, it was a bouncy castle.

That's crazy. Yeah, because it was in a church, a church called Trinity in Bristol. And the gig, if I remember rightly, it was the Prodigy supported by Baby D. Yes, yes. And I remember being, it was the Prodigy supported by Baby D. Yes, yes. And I remember being there with Taylor and just fucking bouncing around.

We got well pissed up beforehand and we're just like idiots bouncing around on this bouncy castle. There were no crash mats around it. Taylor loves bouncing, doesn't he? He loves a bounce, does Taylor. He loves bouncing, boing, boing, boing, up and down until he gets a pain in his groin.

Well, this is it, right? Everyone thinks he's Eeyore. He's actually Tigger. Yeah, he really is. Yeah, yeah, it's just his image. I've been around a good friend, Richard's house, and they've got a trampoline in the back garden, and I stumble out into the back garden,

and there's Taylor just somersaulting. It's remarkable. But, yeah, I mean, on Twitter, we yeah I mean on Twitter we had this conversation on Twitter whether the Bombers Conger actually happened Simon you were saying that Taylor don't dance he's not a dancing man and his mama don't rock and roll

Taylor actually does quite often mention he's not a dancing man so I'm not being indiscreet with that but there was one occasion in fact it wouldn't have been 96 it would be 97 because it was my 30th birthday uh and uh a bunch of us went out drinking started off uh at shuttleworths in soho uh and then ended up at the camden underworld and one of the troop coming with me to celebrate was james dean bradfield the at Street Preachers, and Taylor was another.

And we were in this club, Camden Underworld, and the DJ was playing basically 70s and 80s cheese, and he stuck on Kung Fu Fighting. The Ramadan number one of 1974, everyone. And I can distinctly remember that, I think we'd been lurking around the edge of the dance floor, just drinking and chatting, but James Dean Bradfield loved that song.

He's like, come on! And he sort of commandeers us and drags us all of the dance floor just drinking and chatting but james dean bradfield loved that so he's like come on and like he sort of like um sort of commandeers us and drag us all onto the dance floor and we're all and like we do it obviously you've got to do kung fu moves like fucking yeah to that song you are hong kong phoey number one super guy to that song um and uh taylor got peer pressured by james deanfield into doing it because James did because James at that point, 1996 lead singer of the Manic Street Preachers kind of outranked everybody in terms of being cool so if he does a sort of Kung Fu Chop move at you

you've kind of got to reciprocate, you can't just sort of stand there so yeah that's one of my most treasured memories of my 30th birthday even if footage doesn't exist of that, just playing it in my head is enough. It's a delicious image, isn't it? You see, with kung fu fighting, there's two ways you can go. I mean, you can throw all the chops and everything,

but, and I'm surprised Taylor didn't do this, because I've been known to do this before when I'm not in a dancing mood, I just hold up an invisible board for them to chop. Personally, I was still just about a contributor, because I think Everett was still editor. But I was also gossip editor, late 96. So I was coming to the office more. An insane role gossip editor,

but it was a real marker for me the way that the changeover in Melody Maker that was about to happen changed being a gossip editor. It used to be as gossip editor, you commissioned someone to write the column, they wrote it, you sent it through

because you really didn't give a shit about what parties Blue Tones had been to this week. And that was that. Once things started changing later on in the year, the gossip editor's role became much, much more difficult. Even though you only had two pages to sort out, it was a pain in the fucking ass. You had to sort out corporate sponsorship, bloody whoever was sponsoring the page that week. And it was the start for me at melody maker i'd come in at a time when i don't know already melody maker had started showing

signs that the bravery that had first snagged me in as a reader in 87 and 88 was on its way out and that we were starting to care a bit too much about the readers to a certain extent and it was on the cover um but what I noticed editing the gossip page was that they were so mad on their reader interactivity. And I was meant to, every week, sort out competitions, sort out this thing whereby readers met bams. And, you know, you put these calls up, readers didn't give a shit.

They didn't want to do any of that stuff. So inevitably, every week, you'd be making shit up. And you'd be getting in touch with those looney tunes readers who were kind of a bit obsessive about both the paper and you and asking them oh can you come and meet super furry animals backstage at the academy that tonight or something like that um to fill in this quarter page so yeah i was increasing my role at melody maker to a certain extent in a way that I really didn't want to. I didn't want to be gossip editor. The goal, I think, for most people who weren't section editors was to become a staff writer.

But that seemed to be sewn up. But that said, the freelance stuff that I was getting was really, it was a golden era for me in as much as I got to see the world in this period. I travelled a lot around Europe and around the States and just being sent off places. Um, so it was a bit of a, in retrospect, this was a real golden age for me before,

um, cunt face Mark Shetland took over the following year and started wrecking everything. So 96, I have actually what memories I do have. I have really good memories of that year. Cause I felt, I felt like I was part of the paper and more importantly um i'd only been there like two years i finally felt in a sense established in as much as they weren't going to get rid of me

do you know i mean they're asking me to do stuff every week um so i really did feel part of it um and i did feel that i'd never say i had a proper job, but it was keeping me busy. Do you know what I mean? There were like weeks and weeks and weeks where I was looking at the paper thinking, I'm not in it this week. Although doubtless I wasn't in it this week, but who knows.

But, you know, I felt like part of the paper and I felt like I was definitely sort of not, yeah, a major contributor. Me, Pricey, Taylor, Everett and the others. We had big say's in the paper at that time. We had big chunks of the paper. It wasn't, Pricey, Taylor, Everett and the others We had big says in the paper at that time We had big chunks of the paper It wasn't, you know I definitely felt like part of it more than ever before

Yeah, I mean, as reviews editor Obviously you have your favourites Your own sort of pet journalists Who you'll always go to And yeah, I'm not ashamed to say that Well no, people you can rely on yeah, and people you know are going to write good copy so I would

give Neil as much work as I could give Taylor as much as I could as well because you'd know it'd be like a fucking cracking read you know so yeah, and those things become a bit self-perpetuating I suppose Neil, I remember one of my first memories of you is you coming in the office

wearing this amazing jacket and I don't know if you remember the one I'm talking about it was like was it green? it was yeah green with maybe

bits of cream on it or something and it was like sort of leather it was so nice see I couldn't afford good hip hop clothes but I saw that jacket

and it was like about 120 quid or something stupid and you know the thing is back then now that I think about it I used to get my checks

from IPC and I know I should have been you know notify my accountant and all this bullshit every time every time i got paid as a freelancer it was straight to cash converters it was cash that motherfucker in and just go spend so if i saw something that i liked i remember that jacket i bloody love that jacket and i've no idea where it is i was so envious because yeah it was like something straight out of uh one of the advertising pages of a vibe magazine or something it was the thing about it was it was a it was one of those fantastically good garments that cover up whatever shit you had on underneath yeah yeah so that you could look vaguely presentable. Would this have been about the time in 1996 where you stormed the KFC in Camden Town?

I believe it might have been, yes. Do tell. See, this is it. Good times, good times. No, the KFC in Camden Town, I was in there pretty wrecked as I was most nights whenever i went to camden the good thing about going to london by the way sidetracked but the thing about going to london in those days i had just three or four floors that i could crash on and you know it meant that wherever you ended

up you'd kind of end up all right and you wouldn't end up sleeping in the shelters at houston waiting for the 534 train back in the morning. So late nights were a possibility finally. So I think it was 2am, Camden KFC. And I was such a passionate fan of KFC and still am. I stormed it. I got backstage as it were. I got behind the counter. And I seem to recall actually putting one of the caps on,

you know, know the people who serve and talking to customers as they come in and nobody seemed in a mood to to get me out of there was it because you needed a piss and you couldn't find a toilet anywhere I think it was and he said right I'm just going yeah I think I used the staff one and then I come out and start serving people um asking them do you want coleslaw with that and Blair goes no I don't really like it and I was like man this is fucking brilliant coleslaw man you need blurt goes no i don't really like it and i was like man this is fucking brilliant coleslaw man you need this in your i was a good i've always been a good salesman yeah patter so as i remember it this this was at the end of a night where uh we'd been sort of

rampaging around camden which as we're going to come to in this uh episode of chart music funny enough was the playground of brit past and all all that. I remember taking Neil with me around Camden and him behaving really disgracefully but also hilariously offending and insulting and doing impressions of some of my

most wanky Camden Town acquaintances, who probably deserved it to be fair. And then at the end of the night, he fucking storms KFC. i just remember thinking london needs this guy you know yeah i mean in my defense for my aggravation i mean i had big problems with brit pop camden and the rest of it and i almost wish i i knew about that john redwood article because it would have given me extra armory yeah but you know it's so it's often the way in it you go to a town that isn't yours and you're not going to stay in you're not going to see these people again

and yeah I behaved disgracefully but as ever I issue the caveat and excuse, I wasn't getting any yeah so yeah March 1996 I'm still in Dickie Desmond's wank factory but I'm making my transition away from porn

I'm in the internet department still and I'm doing Attitude magazine for the Microsoft Network. Which just got a five-star review in.NET magazine. And we were pretty much the golden boys with them lot. Bill Gates says, right hand man, actually put an email around the whole of Microsoft. Saying, see these four blokes in London. What they're doing is what we should be doing. This is the gold standard. So we, you they're doing is what we should be doing.

This is the gold standard. So we, you know, we're feeling very good about ourselves. But then, of course, Desmond the cunt decided that it wasn't making any money at all. So he was going to knob us off after a year or so. On the other hand, this was the actual month that I found out that the relationship I was hoping to have for the rest of my life wasn't going to happen for much longer. So without going into details, this month I am numb as fuck.

Oh, mate. Do you want to play the Simon Bates Our Tune music under this bit? Yes. Music-wise, I'm just listening to seriously old school hip hop and dub and just trying to take my mind off being in 1996

didn't like it there anymore didn't like being in London anymore didn't know what to do myself so yeah happy times for a younger Al if you're working at attitude um you might you might have handled some of my copy um depending on when it was because i i wrote quite a few things for attitude like front cover stories oh really i did one on martin rossiter of

jean which uh that oh yes that must have been around this time yes uh and um i did one on share around the time when she had Believe out. Right. Yeah, yeah. So you might have got your grubby mitts on my copy. I don't know. Who's got the nicest arse in Britpop? I remember that one you did, Simon.

So anyway, let's turn to Melody Maker. This week's Melody Maker. As it's a star with chart music, we take, the, one of the music press for this week. And this week I've gone for melody maker, March the 23rd, 1996. Shall we have a troll chaps? Oh,

yes. On the cover. No Gallagher sat in a pub with his Parker Stallone, holding a bottle of Heineken with the cover line. You looking at me, pal. Oasis gets stroppy in the USA. Yeah, about time Oasis was covered in the music press. In the news, the Manic Street Preachers have announced their first new single since the disappearance of Richie Edwards, A Design for Life,

which will be out in three weeks. They've also announced a new tour in May. The Sex Pistols announced their comeback tour at the 100 Club, where five transvestites in skimpy day-glow outfits hand out jelly deals and cheese cobs to 350 members of the media before John Lydon coats them down, offers to do a benefit gig for Lady Di, calls Green Day shit and describes Sarah Ferguson as

the clash of the royal family. An Irish band called The Wild Spirits have asked Ian Paisley to appear in the video for their next single called Catholic West Belfast but he turns them down. What a shame. Mobe has given Rover permission to use God moving over the face of waters on their adverts

and says he's going to give all proceeds to environmental and animal rights organisations. Kim Thale of Soundgarden is unimpressed by Oasis's attempt at American domination, saying that he's only heard Wonderwall and he thought it was crap, but his mate Michael Stipe thinks they're dead good. You too have had their domestic security beefed up

after receiving death threats from an American stalker. Quote, bassist Adam Clayton is said to be the most worried. The main story from the rumour mill, the gossip column edited by Neil Kulkarni, is that the Blue Tones have lost a sock on tour. Thin pickings that week, clearly. Yeah, he phoned that one in, literally. And Oasis fans successfully cloned is the main headline in Talk Talk Talk. Common features in the specimens already produced include spottiness,

mop-top hairstyles that look like they've been washed in chip fat, and stonewashed jeans three inches too long. The features sections, well, five pages are devoted to Oasis in America as Ben stud nips over to Philadelphia to try to get some sense out of Liam Gallagher instead he gets slagged off for liking

the clash because they looked too flash he then has a chat with Noel Gallagher who is getting a bit unnerved about all these Americans mithering him and they talk about what else. The Beatles. And having lots of money etc.

There's a box out of Vox Pulse. With members of the audience. Who think that Oasis are really neat and cool. Oh and there's another page. Giving over to a review of their gig in New York. And a trailer for the second part of Oasis in America next week where Noel says that Jarvis Cocker should have head-butted Michael Jackson

and describes David Bowie as, quote, the cunt who waltzed into London doing the Hitler salute. The fucker still wants sorting out for that. Talking of whom, a full page has given over to an interview with Jarvis Cocker after he appeared at Kensington Police Station the previous week to find out all charges against him have been dropped and Menclis Jacko fans lob flower and exit him he says he hasn't got a personal vendetta against Michael Jackson but it would be good for him to get a little bit of reality in his life

that the Michaelael jackson fans who started a hate campaign against him ought to grow up that he was flattered by melody makers saying he should be knighted for what he did fucking hell and he liked the daily mirrors campaign to get him off the hook which included three jarvis t-shirts being worn by Barbara Windsor. Oh, a circle of life. Yes. And Sharon O'Connell nips over to Cincinnati to meet Brainiac, who bang on about the game's sim life, how they've moved on from Moogs to modern keyboards,

and how they intend to headline next year's Phoenix Festival and a blur and oasis supporting them. Yeah, good luck with that, lads. The singles page, well, in the cheer this week Yeah, good luck with that, lads. Jesus. Who were the Ministry of Taste? What was that all about? No idea. Well, it was one of these phrases that we kind of used to sort of embody what Melty Maker was.

We also had badges at the Reading Festival that said The Taste Police. Right. And, you know, I remember once, it might have been 96, we had football style, sort of retro football style shirts that we were selling at Reading with the Latin inscription that meant, we build them up, we knock them down. So it's one of these things that we sort of took pride in being the gatekeepers.

If you know what I mean. We were sort of very much upfront about that. You know, everything that people used to hate the music press for, like, stop telling us what to like. We're like, no, fuck it. We are telling you what to like. Her single of the week is You and me song by wanna dies which is a wry touching blatant pop song while theirs is stupid girl by garbage because in their words this is the worst week

for singles since 1828 you don't understand me by rock set is the best of the rest, even though they're described as blonde, big-haired, banal, puke-making Euro rockers. However, it's a severe coat down for One More Chance by Madonna. Someone better stop giving her any more chances. The last one I liked was Express Yourself. She's got these disgusting saccharine lyrics. She's got about two melodies left at a push. She just ought to marry a bullfighter. The remix of State of Independence by Donna Summer

is unreviewable as the label didn't put a CD in the case. So Wenner takes the time to comment on Diana Ross's recent appearance on Top of the Pops where she wore a jacket with, quote, a beard on the back. Sometimes I Miss You So Much, open brackets, dedicated to the Christ consciousness,

close brackets, by PM Dawn, sparks a conversation about Prince B, who the Ministry of Tay say is a lovely chap, mad as a balloon. And Tori Amos, who has released a remix collection of talula is described by wenner as queen of the angst ridden divas her head is visibly edging its way up her inflated arse as we speak unbearable affected contrived nasty vocal gymnastics and irritating inflections, she ought to stick to breastfeeding pigs.

In the LP section, well, the lead review is given over to take that's rushed out greatest hits LP, which David Benen falls upon with rapturous abandon. Not a single take that record was designed to outlive its chart life. Most of them won't, but I'll put money on this collection being better and more fondly remembered 20 years from now than anything at all from Paul Weller's solo career, he writes. Panel, your opinion? Possibly.

I mean, it's absolutely correct that this is the great paradox of pop, and it's something without which chart music would be nothing, which is that something which is designed to be ephemeral and transient ends up being immortal and just having huge emotional power decades after it's supposedly outlived its usefulness. So, yeah, and also Paul Weller's solo was a bit crap. Apart from Broken Stones was a good song. Meanwhile, Simon Price, according to the intro text,

has had it up to here with your white boy liberal outrage in his review of Operation Stacola by The Loonies. Loonies are the most sexist rap crew since 2 Live Crew. And so what about Nick Cave, Greg Dulley, even Jarvis Cocker? Is there one rule for your white songwriter

heroes and another for well, a bunch of N-words? It's been two years since we heard the word biatch thrown about with such thrilling relish and my, is it just me or doesn't I Got Five on it have that single of the year

feel about it already? A moral cesspool in certain and or but here depending on which species of cunt you are wicked. Yeah. Taylor Parks is entrusted with the remastered issues of the Go-Betweens' first three LPs,

Send Me a Lullaby, Before Hollywood and Spring Hill Fair, and he thinks they are dead good. These records exist and are extraordinary and are enough for now, he says. However, it's a coat down for grow by stum imagine julian cope trying to be simple minds instead of credence clearwater revival says mark luffman major label moronics the letters page is edited by taylor parks and the main review is what else romoo. Mini Matrix of London

has a go at bands like Sexus and Minty denying their Romo-ness when they clearly are while Sammy Defgit of Coventry describes Romo as a pile of pants which causes Al Taylor

to point out that anyone who thinks the word pants is funny is a red dwarf slash fist of fun watching cunt. Meanwhile, that of Bristol wants to know if you pronounce it Romo or Romo.

I reckon Romo Ralph Wiggin would have pronounced it Romo for a while and probably still does. Miss L. Howard of Avonmouth is incandescent with rage at Taylor's recent piece about Babylon Zoo, where he said he felt betrayed that Jazz Man wasn't actually a spaceman. You've obviously got a problem with the fact that he can wear makeup and a skirt and still attract countless women. As for Jazz being a twat, that kind of comment just proves my theories about you.

But an extremely sad person called Melissa has Taylor's back. That kind of comment just proves my theories about you. But an extremely sad person called Melissa has Taylor's back. Oh yes, Taylor Parks rules, she squeals. I'd never really understood why so many young girls write him wanting his babies. Sure, his writing is excellent, but there has to be some other reason. But I have now discovered why the man is worshipped so by admitting to reading magazine teletext page 442 channel 4 taylor parks is as sad as me and for that i respect him speaking as a journalist for scotland's biggest selling daily regional newspaper,

if I helped produce a publication as one-sided and disrespectful as last week's Melody Maker, I would be sacked, says G Hackman of Falkirk, as he takes the paper to task for not providing enough coverage on Oasis and Paul Weller. Fucking hell. Perhaps I am alone, but I look for integrity, feeling, excitement and, yes, honesty in my music. Taylor responds by saying, you were great in French Connection. Sorry, I bet you get that all the time. But the biggest coke down comes from an invisible sun. The letter, in full.

from an invisible sun. The letter in full. So, Sting has a new album out, and Melody Maker slags it off. Oh, Kel surprise. And as usual, your so-called journalist,

David Stubbs, uses his so-called review to reel off the usual unfounded character assassination. There's no mention, of course, of the tremendous work Sting does for the environment. What was David Stubbs doing when the rainforests were falling? Probably just sat around slagging things off. Probably just sat round slagging things off. As for his ridiculous assertion that Sting is some sort of paranoid, uncared, heavily guarded recluse,

allow me to relate a little anecdote. Several years ago, my car broke down on the motorway. I flagged down a passing car for help, which happened to be driven by Sting. After telling him my predicament, he offered to drive me to his house, where I could wait while my car was fixed. He was a most accommodating host. He let me have some fruit and played me some jazz on his big double bass. and played me some jazz on his big double bass. Funnily enough, there was no sign of these men or dogs that your journalist seems to be such an expert on. Whatever you're feeding Stubbs to ease his obvious pain seems to be having some detrimental side effects.

So just fuck off. Oh, man. Sting let him have some fruit out of his bowl and it wasn't even Christmas. What a man. That never happened. This is another 96 dream. Yeah. What was David Stubbs doing when the rainforest

were falling? Yeah, shame on you, David, for not, like, flyings were falling shame on you David for not like flying at your own expense to the Amazon and like lying down in front of the trucks I bet he was throwing monkeys on the fire and laughing at them the funny thing is though you know I mean we're living in an age at the moment where if you put some writing that

you've done out you almost immediately get feedback about it like thumbs up and all that malarkey and it's helpful for your ego sometimes but put some writing that you've done out you almost immediately get feedback about it like thumbs up and all that malarkey and it's helpful for your ego sometimes but genuinely the backlash letters page in melody maker was the only feedback you'd get really about anything you wrote so um the positives and the negatives were all delightful to read especially if they were about you you know because um if you pissed off the right people, that was always cheering. And there was obviously just the odd person

who did really like what you did sometimes. And that was really cheering. So pre-internet, the backlash letters page was, I'm not saying massively important, but it was your only kind of aperture through to what the fuck the readers thought about what you were doing. How did you feel when you got your first slag off though?

I felt vindicated completely vindicated because what the only reason somebody would write in or take the bother to yeah write a letter stick a stamp on the envelope etc it's because you've got under their skin somehow you piss them off somehow because of you know what you'd said was probably fairly accurate so i always used to get grief from people and and it always just used to be more grist to my mill really and people misinterpreted me to a certain extent in is that they when romo was kicking off i remember uh readers sort of assumed that i'd be weighing in to slag it all off right um but i fucking loved romo i loved a lot of that music so so it was always nice proven and wrong in that sense but yeah backlash it was kind of the internet before the internet um although the internet was

in its fledgling days there it was the only feedback you got we got it so wrong i don't remember this neil that um we had little guides to the internet in melody maker and on the front it said your guide to the info net on the fucking front cover the really weird thing now is you know what i was thinking about back then 1996 was i remember the four of us sitting around saying you know knowing that the internet was going to be massive but we we used to go what's going to happen in a few years time is the internet's going to be entirely event driven you're going to have people doing performances live on the internet doing performances live on the internet or discussions live on the internet

and that never happened until this fucking month we were visionaries man all it took was a global pandemic to prove us right I just thought the internet was for posh people because I couldn't afford a fucking well I just about had a computer by this point

but it wasn't high powered enough to get online or anything like that. And I just thought even having that covered in the Melody Maker was a bit of a letdown to our readers. You know, it's basically rich kids' toys. My first phone bill was about 600 quid. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. I know.

This was still the era of faxing in copy. Yeah. We weren't using email that much at this time. Yeah. In the gig section, well, David could have seen Big Country at Dingwalls, Cocaine Dog at the Kentish Town Bull and Gate, Maloco at Subterranea,

Cast and Manson at The Forum, Garbage and Biss at the Brixton Academy, Gary Newman in EMF at the Astoria, or Plastic Fantastic Orlando, Dex Dexter, Viva and Hollywood Garbage and Biss at the Brixton Academy, Gary Newman in EMF at the Astoria, or Plastic Fantastic Orlando, Dex Dexter, Viva and Hollywood on the Melody Maker Romo tour at LA2, but probably didn't. Taylor could have nipped out to see Lush at the Birmingham Foundry, Gil Scott Heron at the K Club, Underworld at the K Club again,

White Trash at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre or Buffalo Soldier at the Railway Lounge. Neil could have seen Catatonia at the Wolverhampton Theatre Bar, Right Said Fred at Coventry University, Black Starliner at the General Wolfe or Ocean

Colour Scene at the Wolverhampton Wolverine Hall. Fucking hell. Sarah could have witnessed Pusher Man at the Wolverhampton Wolverine Hall. Fucking hell. Sarah could have witnessed Pusher Man at the Hall Room, Nick Harper at the Leeds Duchess of York, Marion at Leeds Metropolitan Universitaire, The Vibrators at the Sheffield Hallamshire

or Cooler Shaker at Leeds Brighton Beach. Al could have chipped over to Rock City to see the men they couldn't hang, Girls Against Boys and Brainiac at the Clinton Rooms or Dumb Dumbs at Sam Faye's, if I'd have been in Nottingham I would have seen Dumb Dumbs

because my mate was the lead singer and their manager was Ricky Gervais I knew Ricky around this time I used to put on club nights with him at University of London Union because I'd previously been the ENTS officer at UCL Union down the road and he was running things at Yulu and he had sort of track record

for managing bands he managed Suede everyone knows that for a little while and yeah I think in 96 I was putting on nights called Club Maker at Yulu know, sponsored by Melty Maker and we had people like Drugstore, My Life Story, Kinnicky, people like that and yeah, Ricky was in charge

so this would have been when he was trying to foist the dum-dums on the world. And Simon could have checked out the federation at Club Evo Bach in Cardiff.

Just call it the Welsh Club, that's what everyone calls it anyway. They do, they do, they call it the Welsh Club. Oh, there you go. Elevate at Gassy Jacks and fuck all else.

60 pages, 80p. I never knew there was so much Oasis in it. I mean, what's it like at the time at Melody Maker? Because your bands, they're migrating to the tabloids. You know, Oasis, the new Duran Duran. I mean, it was the beginning of the end for exactly that reason um you know that there are a number of factors that led to the death of the weekly music press and we've talked about it before uh but the internet may have been the coup de grace at the end but uh the the rot has already set in a lot of it was

self-inflicted it's because of this power shift that suddenly as you say al one of our bands was the biggest fucking thing in the country yeah and that band did not need us anymore we needed them yeah so it meant that if we wanted to you know get any access to liam and noel in america uh or wherever it was then we had to be terribly nice to whatever other shitty little band that pr company or that record label was foisting on us and to a slightly lesser extent the same applied to blur yeah um and uh it's funny i've talked to jonesy alan jones our former editor about this and um in a way it was it was a foolish thing that we were doing because you would think that brit pop would have bumped up the sales of the weekly music

press it didn't really we kind of plateaued we plateaued through the whole thing uh precisely because Al as you say if people wanted to find out about the antics of Jarvis or Damon or Liam they'd just pick up the sun yeah I mean I think in this period we hadn't officially been given like an editorial line you cannot slag off these bands. That hadn't quite happened yet. That would happen about a year or so along. But certainly certain writers were being given to certain bands or certain bands were being given to certain writers.

I could squeeze in my slaggings of Britpop here and there in pretty much everything I wrote, but nobody would let me near Blur or Oasis. So what's the plan here? Just hang on to the speeding train of the big three of Britpop or try to create new stars? Speeding train? Well, yeah, another metaphor would be that thing

that conservatives say about economics, where a rising tide raises all boats. There's this idea that it would be good for everyone if there was this kind of big swell of guitar music. But yeah, Melty Maker at this time as well was trying to differentiate itself from NME, or at least the suits, the Powers, the B and IPC were trying to put some sort of clear blue water between us.

And the way we did it was to have that little tagline along the bottom, Tomorrow's Music Today. So yeah, our role was kind of a and r role we were meant to discover the new bands which nme would then gratefully take from us and then the sun would the sun would take off them like the feeder club yeah yeah exactly yeah we were the feeder club of course we didn't see ourselves that way we writers no we thought that we were the sort of last bastion of true music criticism but um as far as the powers at IPC were concerned, we were there to do a sort of scouting role.

Yeah. And partly we did do that. But, you know, I think we were just as likely to discover, you know, a brand new band and kick the shit out of them as we were to say, you know, they deserve to be the next Oasis. So what else was on telly today? Well, BBC One starts the morning at 6am with Business Breakfast. Then it's Breakfast News, Breakfast News Extra,

Can't Cook, Won't Cook, Kill Roy, Good Morning with Anne and Nick, The News, Regional News in Your Area, Turnabout, the word quiz hosted by Rob Curling, the relaunch of Going for A Song, the antique show, the one o'clock news, Neighbours, Pebble Mill, The Flying Doctors, the new Yogi Bear show, The More Files, Dino Babies, Highlander, The Really Wild Show, Newsrand, Grange Hill, Neighbours again, rand grain jill neighbors again the six o'clock news and they've just finished regional news in your area because top of the pop starts at seven o'clock now i know bbc2 commences at 7 15 with

see here breakfast news then it's stingray a repeat of yesterday's blue peter tales of the two fairies puppy dog tales then yesterday's highlights from, Tales of the Two Fairies, Puppy Dog Tales, then yesterday's highlights from Parliament, in the record. After two hours of schools programmes, it's business news in working lunch, then another hour of schools programmes, Tales of the Two Fairies and Puppy Dog Tales again,

the Andrew Neil Show, Westminster with Nick Ross, the quiz show Today's the Day, Ready Steady Cook, the quiz show. Today's the day ready, steady cook, the Oprah Winfrey show, the world figure skating championships from Edmonton, Star Trek, deep space,

nine, the ozone with an interview with Louise nerding and a look at the lightning seeds, John Redwood's favorites. And they've just started a repeat of the sitcom waiting for God. ITV begins at five 30 with ITN Morning News, GMTV, Win, Lose or Draw, Regional News in Your Area, The Time, The Place, Regional News in Your Area Again, The ITN News, Shortland Street, Home and Away, A Country Practice, Vanessa, A Repeat of Emmerdale, even more regional news in

your area, The Riddlers, Wizardora, Rupert, Mike and Angelo, Reboot, Chain Letters, The News, regional news in your area and they've just started Emmerdale. Channel 4 begins with an hour and a half of teletext then it's the adventures of t-rex the big breakfast 15 to 1 two and a half hours of schools programs then house to house sesame street hullabaloo chigla two short films racing from doncaster countdown ricky lake terry tunes Ricky Lake Terry Toons NBA 24-7 Roseanne and they've just started Channel 4 News so much telly in the 90s but you know I kind of zoned out a bit there

because I started thinking about Marina Aqua Marina from Stingray why don't you say that you'll always stay it might be it It might be. It really might be. The thing is, with all these schedules,

what they remind me of is I drop in and out of this sort of telly. So I'd be back home for Ricky Lake probably. Yeah. But these are days where you,

maybe not, maybe this was, no, it wasn't just me. I remember being in the pub at 11 in the morning and kind of being out of the pub maybe about three for a little bit of a kit.

Yeah. And then going back out to the pub at about seven so i drift in and out of these schedules but a lot of things they're ringing bells right then that's more than enough foreplay for this episode of top of the pops so come and join us next time when we get stuck into it properly and if you can't wait don't forget five5 Patreons on patreon.com slash chartmusic. Get the full episode right now without any adverts. The $3 Patreons. Get it a couple of days later. In full. No adverts.

On behalf of Simon Price and Neil Kulkarni, my name's Al Needham. See you in a bit, ducker. Chart music. GreatBigakehour.com I'm Tilly Steele and I'm Helen Monk and this is Bitchin I'm Dethneck Thick Yeah, why do you read the Wikipedia page?

It's good to practice A podcast where every week we talk about a different person so how old was he when he first popped on the scene? that's a great question if you say he was my age I'm gonna fucking die and we veer wildly off track pop that per sec available on all your podcast apps

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