Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #50 (Part 4): March 21st 1996 - The Movement That Wouldn't Feel The Benefit

Episode Date: May 17, 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.

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. Chart music.

Hey! Up you pop-crazy youngsters, and welcome to the final part of Chart Music 50. I'm your host, Al Needham, and like you, I am very worried about the news of the impending demise of BBC Four. But then again, if it meant this episode of Top of the Pops was never repeated, would that be a bad thing? Anyway, let's get stuck into the final furlong. Come on, March 1996, you're better than this, surely. Okay, so it sounds like a tradition here. When this next band have a hit single,

they don't do Top of the Pops without us, or else. They made one of the best albums of last year. They wear nail varnish to die for. All of them, they are the Mighty Garbage. Wiley, at the side of the stage, Pretend you're high. Pretend you're bored. Wiley, at the side of the stage, tells us that every time this band are on top of the pops, her and Lamarck are presenting, and that they're all wearing nail varnish to die for. It's Stupid Girl by Garbage.

Formed in Madison, Wisconsin in 1993 by Duke Erickson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig, the producer of Nevermind, Garbage started as an all-male group but decided early on that they wanted a female singer in the Debbie Harry, Susie Sue, Chrissie Hynde mold. After coming across a video for the Edinburgh band Angelfish on MTV, they saw a potential candidate, Shirley Manson. After getting in touch, they had a meeting in London on the night that it was announced that Kurt Cabana committed suicide. During an Angelfish tour of America, Manson auditioned for the band, but it all went tits up. However, when Angelfish split up at the end of the tour, Manson tugged their coat for a second go and this time she was invited to join. After putting out a demo tape deliberately leaving off Vig's name they were

signed to Mushroom Records in the UK and Almo Records an A&M offshoot in the US. Their debut single Subhuman got to number 50 in August of 1995 but the follow up Only Happy When It Rains got to number 29 in September of that year this is the follow up to Queer which got to number 13 in December of 1995 it's the fourth cut from their debut

LP and it's smashed into the chart at number 4 as this week's highest new entry well here we go again the fourth release from an lp yeah yeah people don't give a shit about singles now but this is a rare example of transatlantic cross-pollination in 1996 isn't it americans and british keeping their distance from each other in many instances yeah top of the pops in this era they're pulling out all the stops to try and make this sort of thing exciting, aren't they?

There's a crisscross of searchlights, there's swooping camera angles, there's a barrage of camera cuts. But as an observer, it just makes me feel a sense of wonderment at what the suite and imagination would have looked like with this much care and attention. Too right, too right. And all of that movement really showcases what a dreary fucking song this is. The highest new entry, man.

Fucking hell. I know they've baked in their own kind of any critique because they've called themselves garbage. Of course, they should have been called rubbish. But I mean, they're just one of those bands

where I just wondered, you know, where is the struggle here? I'm not saying every band has to do the get in the van years of obscurity. And I'm sure that it was, if that tactic of leaving Butch Vig's name off the demo hadn't worked, his name would have fucking got on that demo almost as soon as possible. But here's a band with an Uber producer in the ranks, and they instantly seem like just a more marketable

kind of um grunge flecked version of shit like curve and republica that's stuff with a vaguely dancey beat but when you actually concentrate you realize that the songs are dull as fuck no matter how glistening and perfect and gleaming the framing is i mean i have problems with butch vig as a producer anyway because never mind which he was so famously produced i don't like the sound much of that record um i think he made him he didn't didn't do it great i mean he did great favors for nirvana of course but i didn't think i'd written anything about garbage but it turns out i did go and see him live wolverhampton civic hall in 96 just as this record was becoming a big hit and if i may i'd just like to read the first paragraph of the review go ahead yeah it says um come the glorious day brothers and sisters when

anarchist revolution sweeps through the music industry when we string up the wellers with the guts of the cravices when we set fire to the emi starg and waste the linen suited rats who emerge squealing one by one. As we turn the canals into tower records and watch all that history float away, the first up against the wall to receive instant justice will be that select cabal known as the Uber Producers. That little crew of black-clad professionals, Youth, Flood, Melly Hooper, Howie fucking B, clad professionals youth flood melly hooper how we fucking be always first to be drafted in when a serious artiste wants to perfect that hit 90s sheen or when some tired old duffer needs to reinvest it reinvest their dated dreck with a vague sense of contemporaneity all those cunts

responsible for keeping you two going the enemies of pop never forget it now that was the first paragraph of the review, obviously. Angry. Well, angry young man. Hadn't mentioned the music. But I'll still stand by that. I don't really like Butch Vig. I do think this is the definitively uber-producer type band.

And reminding myself of it now, those fucking lyrics are appalling. Shirley's voice is nothing special. I mean, what they are is essentially sort of outsider alternative music for non-outsiders. It's alternative music for pretty people. Do you know what I mean? People who are already popular.

So, if Kurt Cobain had massively predicted the way that grunge rock would become commodified, and that's probably what appalled him so much, here's where it ends up. It's fully, at this point, those moves in the early 90s

have fully gone through the industry's digestive system and this is the shit that comes out the other end. So this is uber producer rock and it leaves me stone cold, just as it did then, really. Simon, counterpoint. You're not going to get a counterpoint from me. I had forgotten how much I despise garbage

until I reacquainted myself with this song on this episode and I don't only dislike them in a private internal way, I dislike them in a way that I'm looking around and judging that if anyone else likes garbage I don't trust you, I don't trust

your motives and what you think pop is and how you think it works if you like them. And included in that, I'm including our own David Stubbs, right? Here's what David Stubbs... Jacku's! David Stubbs was into it. He was on board with this. Really?

In 1995, this is what David Stubbs wrote. He said, In 1995, this is what David Stubbs wrote. He said, This is as black as an oil slick, but just as smooth and slippery. This tickles, teases and confronts at the same time. This is garbage and just the drop of the dark stuff Pop's melting pot needs right now. Get a grip, David Stubbs of 1995.

First Stubber and then this. I know, right? No, I really dislike them um and uh it's neil kind of touched upon it where he said there was no struggle now i'm not somebody who believes that everybody has to have an authentic backstory far from it i'm not somebody who believes that music needs authenticity but what um really really really disgusts me about Garbage is that they try to have it both ways, right? Now, they are obviously very fake,

and I'm not just saying that because they're a studio project made by one super producer and his producer mates, although that is part of it. But it is because they essentially, much like ba robertson in fact they are people who hate pop now some would say they are pop and all pop is fake what you're getting so worked up about now that that almost works as a sort of mind trick but that statement it's like one of those right you know you get these people who say oh the so-called tolerant left aren't so tolerant are they when when when someone

on the left is calling out intolerance it's one of those debating gambits that crumbles at the first prod because the thing the garbage are faking is authenticity yeah they don't have the balls to be out and out pop yeah they're disingenuous they're trying to sell a very anti-pop idea of depth and heft but it's completely fabricated and has no substance to back it up they're so desperately ordinary and middlebrow that basically um that they are a studio downtime downtime project to people who've never had one interesting idea that the opinions they have are all the kind of default alternative opinions of anybody of that era.

So, for example, Stephen Wells, who we mentioned already on this episode, interviewed them and told them that their second album reminded him of Erasure and Pet Shop Boys. And they were horrified. They're going, how can you say that? That's crap. Do you know what I mean? So that just tells you everything

about the kind of people they were. They're the sort of bands who would consider pop to be mindless commercial pap. And really, they're playing such a safe game. It's so fucking focus grouped. Yeah.

Everything about them. For a start, the kind of persona that she gives over, I've always hated that kind of unearned superiority of women who think that wearing dr martin's instead of high heels makes them privy to some greater truth and it's actually very un-sisterly thing that they actually hate they

basically hate loads of other women for for not not being that kind of default sulky default alternative uh person that they're congratulating themselves for becoming. And that's right here in this song. It really is. Because this song, it sets up, you know, stupid girl. You know, we're always like, huh, yeah, well, we all know that girl, don't we? Stupid girls, girls who are stupid. We can all chuckle along.

And it's a fucking circular and self-fulfilling thing. Yeah, stupid girl is stupid by definition. And so essentially what they've done, they've set up a straw man we can all chuckle along and it's it's fucking circular and self-fulfilling thing yeah stupid girl is stupid by definition and so essentially what they've done they've set up a straw man or straw woman or straw girl um somebody to other they've set up somebody to other somebody who in the lyrics pretends to be high or balls doesn't believe in fear or faith you know they don't sound like the worst person to me i'll just say that as an aside. So all they project is that kind of superiority. And yeah, just everything about... It's so on the nose as well, right?

The song about stupid girl, they call it stupid girl, right? They had a song about androgyny, they called it androgyny. They wrote a satire of someone who's only happy when it rains, and they called it only happy when it rains and they called it only happy when it rains and you know queer queer and all that kind of stuff so they're so so uninteresting and uh just everything about them is um superficially something that people in the 90s were meant to buy into this idea that we've done away with all the artifice of the past and now uh we want something a bit dark and a bit real but they're doing it by copying um little bits from here and there so for example bits of trip hop i know trip hop is a

phrase neil rightly has a problem with because hip-hop is a trip but push put it out to one side for a minute the stuff that we know as trip-hop is something that Garbage are drawing upon. There's a little bit of industrial in there, but it's soft industrial. It's three-inch nails. And they're hacks. They are Toyah and Hazel O'Connor. That's what she is, you know.

I really do think that. So I know it's wrong to judge people based on their age and to say that old people can't make pop, but I do think it's relevant that one of them was in their late 30s butch viggs 41 at this point the guitarist is 45 um and they do look like dads who've been allowed by their 14 year old daughter to come to a bullet for my valentine gig so they can drive them home at the end so they're wearing their kind of they dusted off their alternative clothes um to be on top of the pops and and i i think that is quite telling um oh by the way again um i i'm

gonna hit hypocritically say you shouldn't judge people by appearances while doing so but duke erickson is uh the chinless one his fucking soul patch is just awful it just only emphasizes his lack of a chin and and i i but i i do think it points to how calculated the whole thing is because it's basically older muso blokes and i've got nothing nothing against musicians fucking love musicians where will we be without musicians but musos is a whole different category it's older so blokes who've decided to get a younger glamorous female singer to front up the whole thing the whole project and it is a project and you know so again they're all in black she's in a pink frock with black riding boots so in the same way that

johnny from menswear and rick from shed seven are the sort of focal point of it all it's it's very calculated and probably the correct thing to do like you know don't look at these guys because you suddenly realize that it's keep away from the duds yeah yeah absolutely i just remember in terms of how how much of a kind of uh calculated uh project the whole thing was um mushroom records actually uh put on a boat trip to launch them uh on the thames because ipc's headquarters was nearby and of course we went along me and Taylor because there was free drink and everything and you know

we were introduced to the facts yeah yeah of course we were but we were skimmed but it was just so obvious that the whole thing was like it had been decided in advance that this very calculated project was going to be sold to um middle brow brits and middle brow americans uh with this kind with this kind of fake sheen of

alternative credibility over it and uh i despised it and as i say i really judge people who bought into it yeah i mean i don't mind any kind of contrivance in pop. It's an art form. I expect it to be contrived. What I can't stomach is the contrivance of authenticity, which is what bands like Garbage are all about. Anything else to say about this? Yeah, actually. Oh, God. Garbage really tried to stitch up a Melzie Maker photographer.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Really? Yeah. There's a photographer called Pat Pope who works at Melody Maker at the same time as us. Lovely guy. Not doing very well at the moment health-wise, but I hope he's hanging on in there. Best wishes, Pat.

Yeah, best wishes, Pat, if this gets back to you. Yeah, well, soon, Pat. But what happened was that he'd taken a bunch of photos of garbage in the 90s. Garbage in the 90s. And in 2015, I think it was, Garbage wrote to Pat informing him of their intent to use his photos in a book. But with no payment, just, in a bit of commerce, proper credit. Now, he wrote an open letter taking apart their stance on copyright. And it became a bit of a sort of core celebrity at the time and there's even a story about it in the guardian where he says free requests have become more and more commonplace back in the day it was more about remember that it was back up back in the day

it was more about working cheap with a promise of big money when the band sold but it didn't work out that way because garbage became very successful they had plenty of resources pat says to pay for images and he goes i've many times been paid something by tiny bands or bands with no money. Payment in these cases is often minimal and more symbolic. If Garbage had personally come to me with a limited budget, chances are I would have agreed. It's more about principle than cash grabbing. Garbage have been incredibly vocal in the past about how everybody should pay for music and how artistry should be respected.

This was too much hypocrisy on their part and for content providers everywhere whatever their profession something had to be said so yeah he wrote this letter it made it public put it on facebook and said i'm proud of my work i think it has a value if you don't think it has any value don't use it which is a really good point i'm saying no to a budget that says you can take my work for free and make money out of it um so uh garbage then wrote back to him and you know this we're all deeply saddened to read your facebook post blah blah blah and uh um they have a different interpretation which was that having already paid you in 1995 the entire sheet blah blah so as far as they're concerned

uh they own these photos they didn't expect such a hostile reception and then they start to sort of get the world's smallest violin out they start saying as an independent band on our own label we are struggling to juggle the harsh reality so the modern music is right bear in mind this band have sold millions and millions of records butch fig is impossibly rich already and all of this stuff So essentially And then they start trying to invoke Amanda Palmer's book The Power of Asking We just asked

You could have said no Any refusal of permission they say Would be respectfully accepted with no further questions asked And so on So this became a bit of a debating point for a little while That book did come out Without Pat's photos in it And the book retailed for 42 quid fuck you are not telling me you could not afford to slip out

a few quid for those photos fuck off so the following week stupid girl dropped six places to number 10 the follow-up milk got to number 10 in November of this year and they'd have 12 more top 40 hits before splitting up for the first time in 2005. And this is from a band, and I've got another quote here. Steve Marker from Garbage say that what they wanted to do was take pop music and make it as horrible sounding as we can. I think that is a shit ambition, but well done. In a way that you never intended

you did make hot music sound as horrible as you could i can't believe it top the pops of course is home with the big names, but this is the first time we've had a world champion in the house. Be afraid, be very afraid, and witness the blessed union of Prince Nazeem and the Khalifs. The prince is in the house, representing the Khalifs. Bad boys, you know the prince.

Here for pure backup. Out. Talk like a champion, talk like a champion, put up your hands, Prince of the House. Talk like a champion, talk like a champion, put up your hands, Prince of the House. Formed in Manchester in 1992 by two lads from Rochdale called Mush Khan and jabba khan who formed the breakdancing crew dizzy footwork after seeing the rock steady crew perform at the run corn ideal homes exhibition 10 years earlier caliphs were managed by martin price of 808 state who according to legend was jumped in by the group before they let him manage them breaking his nose in the process after After performing at that year's In The City music seminar in 1992

and having their demos played by Pete Tong on Radio 1, they were signed to London Records a year later and their debut LP, Vibe The Joint, scraped into the charts at number 100 in April of 1994. Their last two singles have lingered in the lower reaches of the top 100 but in this instance they've been given the rub by none other than Prince Nassim Hamed, the current WBO featherweight champion who debuted to the single last Saturday during his entrance to the fight with Saeed Lawal in Glasgow as he retained his title with a two-punched 35-second knockout

after he descended from a crane to the old Spice music. The single comes out this week and here they are in the studio. They say it's the first time they've had a world champion on Top of the Pops. No, no, no, no, no, no. I believe it was Bret the Hitman Hart when they did the video for Slam Jam. Oh, right. I see, yeah. it was Brett the Hitman Hart when they did the video for Slam Jump I won't say it's nice of Khalif's to give the unknown guest vocalist exposure to their

millions of fans and in one fell swoop there are more Asian people on stage than in the entire 80s really it's remarkable, I loved Khalif's early on it has to be said that Jabba Khan really. It's remarkable. I loved Caliphs early on. It has to be said that Jabba Khan is the greatest breakdancer name ever. He probably got

no shit from anybody when I Feel For You came out. Jabba and those original members, they were lovely people and they got in touch with me pretty rapidly as soon as they started because I think I wrote about them pretty quickly and I loved Find A Joint as a single and also Hang Em High.

I thought they were great. But they proved after those singles frustratingly sporadic really. I was actually called up to Seeker Leafs in the early part of 1996. I was called up to their studios in Manchester to hear about what they were doing. They wanted a new biog writing for some material that they were doing.

And I went up there, met them, did the interview, and they said, yeah, you might want to go and chat with the guy who's managing us now. And went into the next room, and there's Pete Waterman. Right. Just sat there. And, you know, I was astonished that it was him. Didn't surprise me because he's – I'm not saying Pete Waterman's always been at the cutting edge,

but he has supported kind of little underground acts here and there over the course of his career. And he was one of the early mentors of the specials, wasn't he? Coventry, isn't it? Coventry behind everything. Big, big, big Coventry DJ, you know, an essential part of the Coventry music scene. I think one of the members said, yeah, he tried to make Terry do some hip swinging dance. It was most unsavoury. Yeah, but I mean, you know, Pete always had an eye on the charts. And I think what he was trying to do with Khalees at that period was slightly soften their edges a little bit.

Yes. Interpolate some more R&B influences into their sound. And that would prove in later years to almost be their undoing. Because what was good about Khalees was just that they were a bit of a riot they were essentially a british onyx well this is it yeah and as an earlier you know as an asian kid and i wasn't even a kid then i was 21 22 but hearing lines like yeah i'm no pacifist i'm a pistol packing packy fist it's just fantastic to hear that it's just it's just righteous to hear that um for frowny 24 year old me i dug things like on the asian side of things if you like things like fundamental and hustlers hc more

they're a bit more political but it but it was fantastic this performance i remember um seeing just asian kids finally stepping up and dominating the top of pops stage i think with khalif the trouble was perhaps like me they were a little bit too impolite to gain anything from the new asian cool fang that was that was banging around at the time which seemed to benefit the polite likes of knitting sawny and the like the people who are kind of slightly less political but it was really gratifying to see these guys um i mean not only because if you watch Top of the Pops or listen to pop music radio,

you'd really only have the apprehension that British hip-hop was being made in London. And this just wasn't the case. So, you know, Manchester hip-hop, Ruthless Rap Assassins, Crispy Threads, Jeep Beat Collective and MC Tunes and, you know, The Caloose as well.

And, you know, over in Yorkshire, you have Brain Tax and Breaking the Illusion. So it was brilliant to see these things on Top of the Pops. it was brilliant to see these things on top of the pots. And just brilliant to see Prince Naz because he's dressed like Mark Morrison. You know, but the thing is, the thing is, the thing is always liked about Naz was that, yes, he could doubtless issue a beat down on your ass. But he also had that kind of just like all asian boys he's spoiled by his mum do you know what i mean he just felt that he would rather rather than be in some long training camp

that might have extended his career and given him a few more belts and made him a proper i don't know legendary fighter i just think he once he'd made his money he just wanted to get he just wanted to stay at home and have his mum feed him jillaby now and then and so i always like that about now so even though this isn't one of my favorite khalif's tracks at all um and it's you know it's it's a fairly it's almost a novelty record it was just gratifying massively gratifying to see asian people on stage on top of the pots this show that i've watched for so many years it It was a good moment for that reason. Yeah, and Prince Naz was a genuine mid-90s phenomenon, wasn't he? Oh, God, yeah.

An out and proud Muslim who people liked. Everyone liked him. He was, you know, everyone goes on about Oasis being working class heroes, but he was more so. Yeah, but this is it. His ambition, I remember reading an interview, his ambition was to just go around his mum and dad's arse with a bag full of half a million pounds

and just dump it on the coffee table and walk off. Yeah. He just said, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I like it. I quite like him, right? I'll explain this, but he's a lion bellend, right? Yes. What it is, right?

Danny Baker and Danny Kelly used to talk about lion Judas and chicken Judas in a football context. And what it is, it's like when a footballer leaves your club for your deadly rivals and their new team comes to your place, if that player's on the pitch and they front it out and they face the hatred, they're a lion Judas. But if they fail an injury and swerve the game, they're a chicken Judas, right?

Well, Naz was a lion bellend. He's a massive bellend and he knows it and he owns it. He's a flashy fucker. And I like it. I think Neil has written about the experience, correct me, but this might have been in your book, Eastern Spring, or it might have been somewhere else. But I remember you writing something to the effect that

growing up as an Asian kid in Britain, were never cool right yeah yeah absolutely black kids got to be cool Asian kids did not right yeah and um obviously I'm in no position to know this first but I just remember sort of it similar to what you just said about Khalif's um I'm never sort of imagining that Prince Nassim Hamed gave Asian kids a bit of swagger absolutely yeah yeah yeah completely you know in the same way that in the 80s for me I was you know you're reaching around so it was people like Cyril Regis for me that fucking just just seeing somebody that confident was so inspirational and I'm sure in the 90s for Asian kids seeing Prince Naz would have been just as important yeah so this is the era where asian kids were finally allowed to

be hard bastards yeah it was like when i was growing up in the 70s and 80s the black kids their parents had gone through so much shit and their attitude was when i'm not having that that isn't that isn't for me but the asian kids i used to know at school was still really timid yeah and keep your head down yeah and it wasn't until the 90s where that generation of Asian kids were like, yeah, don't fuck with me. Yeah, absolutely. And Nas was like the figurehead of that. Absolutely.

He was, right? And so even if you thought he was a bit of an annoying prick or whatever, you had to hand it to him. You had to say, good for you, you know, being an annoying prick and swaggering about, but as a working-class Muslim... Well, just being a boxer, you know. Yeah, being aing about but as a working class muslim just just being a boxer you know yeah being a boxer but like a working class muslim becoming the second

richest british boxer of all time and getting into the the forbes list of the richest sports people on earth uh you know you've got to fucking hand it to i mean obviously it wasn't perfect there was that car crash that caused serious injury to another driver but even on that i quite liked how flashy was for bombing around in a 300 grand silver mclaren mercedes in the first place in fucking yorkshire you know what i love about this though right um obviously naz doesn't have to do much on this record but when when the call came in um do you reckon maybe it was pete waterman or somebody their agent must have said to them, guys,

I've got something amazing. Naz wants to collaborate with you. And they're like, whoa, whoa, Illmatic. I love Illmatic, man.

You know, the manager's like, no, no, no, no. But yeah, I mean,

I defer to Neil here in how well regarded they were, but I certainly got the impression to the extent that I dipped my toe into this kind of thing that they were well regarded and yeah okay maybe this record is them selling out for one single only but you know most of this stuff was all right um it's this is a it's pretty lame flimsy 90s r&b this track and um yeah the way the way they've come out dressed it's a bit e17 like they're doing that thing where they have the top button done up but all the other buttons open which is very boy band at the time but obviously that boy band thing was ripped off

from American hip hop culture in the first place so it all sort of has it's roots in that one of them's got a big blue shirt and tie and braces like he's a Wall Street broker having his Friday night cocktails I quite like that yeah you've got Naz in a leather waistcoat, like you're sitting bare chest underneath it,

as he would if he had a body like him. But yeah, like you say, I know it's going to laugh at him because he's the hardest kid at school, isn't he? He's basically, you don't fuck with the hardest kid at school. This is the only time that I've ever seen Prince Nas actually keeping his guard up

because he's got the mic right up to his face so he can't see that he can't actually mime to his own record yeah yeah yeah and he hasn't even got to do much he's got hardly any lyrics and he sticks his finger up while he's rapping which makes it look like he's making a Hitler moustache which is a bit odd

the thing is it sounds like a corny thing but he smiles throughout this performance and that might sound like a little thing but he's like the only person on that might sound like a little thing, but he's like the only person on this episode of Top of the Pops, apart from Khalees himself, who seemed to be fucking enjoying himself. Yeah.

You know, and here we have what we've been told that Oasis is working class. And what have they done with their appearance? They've turned up in scruffy clothes and they've looked pretty miserable. Here's a properly working class guy dressed like, I don't know, a superhero almost. very mark morrison i think i think mark morrison was exerting an influence at this time but you know bare chested just looking fucking amazing and enjoying it that's the main yes and and yeah that comes across the quality of the record is sort of near that neither here nor

there you're coasted along by their enthusiasm calise you're almost a definitive band where you've got at least six superfluous members you probably don't do anything on this record yeah to fill the stage with that much finally we've got some fucking energy do you know i mean we're not we're not just being cool we've got some energy so it's a really good good moment in the show and yeah he hasn't got to do much he just goes put put up your hands prince is in the house yeah obviously i wish Prince was in the fucking house. But the rest of the lyrics, though, I mean, Jesus Christ, they don't bear much scrutiny.

One of them goes, I'll make your whole world crumble like a biscuit. Don't risk it. Yes. Fucking hell. Yeah. I mean, and it samples. I mean, the title, The Walk Like a Champion, Talk Like a Champion, that's a lift from Champion by Boozhoo Banton,

which came out the previous year. And there's a sample of sorts of all this love that I'm giving by Gwen McRae. And there's a bit of George Benson guitar style mixed in. But it's not actual samples. It is very light. It's easy to forget because Nas has kind of disappeared, really. Yeah, he has. Completely disappeared. It's easy to forget because because nas has kind of disappeared really yeah he has um completely disappeared it's easy to forget how yuji was it's easy to forget that you know a matter of this is it this year that i think he is referenced on on nas is rather

the re you know the other nas nas as in ilmatic nas um he's referenced on the nas track from um his album from this year as i recall so he's big he's got a sort of global fame so yeah this is a big deal and he goes on nearly 10 times longer than his last fight but 30 minutes less than his usual entrance um you sort of imagine as well that he was genuinely underneath all that bravado excited to be on top of the pop yeah because yeah you know he's won fucking world titles and got more money than god but he would have grown up the same as all of us watching top of the pops and this is a brand new frontier of him he wouldn't have made this record if he didn't think

oh you know what i might get on top of the pops and all those fuckers at school yeah they've seen me box now they're going to see me on fucking top of the pops as well yeah it's new territory for him and he probably would have loved that he would have and he's totally confident about it i mean obviously you know if you're going to go stand in a ring for 15 rounds and get the shit beaten out of you this poses no problems whatsoever and he just does it with a plum i think he does it with joy and it's just a reminder what can be great about top of the pops is performances like this you know i'm not going to want to listen to the record i love this moment i think it's the for me it's the highlight of the show yeah i'd love to be able to say well this led to all those asian acts that we then see on top of the pops but no this is pretty much it for another until

top of the pops death yeah i mean asian visibility of british pop was pretty low i mean uh on the indie scene yeah you had like echo belly and corner shop and stuff like that uh but in terms of actually breakthrough acts having top 10 hits or whatever I guess I can't remember what year was that Apache Asian started having hits but yeah yeah White Town later on but it was pretty low back in the in the 80s um what you had Sheila Chandra in Monsoon and well I don't know what else I guess you can count Freddie Mercury but nobody thought of Freddie as Asian today. So, yeah. Including himself.

Yeah, including himself. Yeah, well. But these guys... So this must have been a huge moment. These guys are out and proud about it. So, yeah. It was a great moment that obviously never got followed up. But when you've got somebody like Prince Nas in your corner,

as it were, it's great that they used him for this moment. And this moment that's in the they used him for this moment. And this moment that's in the memories of a lot of us. This moment on Top of the Pops, this performance by Calypso, is as memorable to a lot of Asian people as the first time you watch like Goodness Gracious Me and stuff like that. It's a moment. I know that sounds daft, but seeing your own, it's silly little,

it's a little thing, but seeing your own kind on telly makes a difference. And I, and I, and I think this probably made a big difference to a lot of kids at that time. So the following week, walk like a champion, enter the chart at number 23 and then dropped 18 places to number 41.

It wasn't good enough for London records and Caliphs were dropped, but were immediately picked up by Jive and they changed their name to Kalief linked up with Pete Waterman and their follow-up a reworking of the Stranglers Golden Brown got to number 22 in December of this year and they'll have one more hit with Sands of Time which got to number 26 in January of 1998 before they split up. One of the weirdest nights of my life was actually being on a bed with this woman who was Prince Naz's ex.

Watching him lose that fight against a Mexican bloke. Absolutely screaming for him to have the shit beat now. So I didn't ask. I'm takingilly Steele. And I'm Helen Monk. And this is Bitchin'. I'm dyslexic.

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. That's not right. Can you not say er in the advert? Available on all your podcast platforms. Just search bitchin' or great big owl. We'll see you there.

That was all right. What a star. Now the UK's top ten favourite singles. You may or may not agree. And for number ten, you saw menswear doing a fine performance earlier on with Being Brave. And number nine, The Beatles with Real Love.

Shed Seven were on the show earlier, Going For Gold at number eight. Coming Home Now by Boyzone at number seven. Number six, Mark Morrison, Return Of The Mac. At number five, Give Me A Little More Time from Gabrielle. Number four, also on the show earlier, Garbage With Stupid Girls. Number three, Oasis, And Don't Look Back in Anger. And at number two, Robert Miles. And now that famous rhetorical question, how deep is your love?

Oh, it's deep, Steve, very deep. The third week at number one, take that, our Top of the Box. When you rise in the morning sun I feel you touch my hand in the pouring rain And the moment that you are never far from me I want to feel you in my arms again After a while he tells us that you may or may not agree with this week's top ten, seeing as it's practically the only thing Top of the Pops can't tinker with, we're treated to some very awkward sexual chemistry before they introduce this week's number one,

How Deep Is Your Love, by Take That. Formed in Manchester in 1989 when Nigel Martin Smith, the manager of Damien, whose cover of The Time Warp had just got to number seven, decided to create a British response to New Kids on the Block and was introduced to a club singer called Gary Barlow. Kick It was put together after a series of auditions around the Greater Manchester area and they made their first TV appearance under the name Take That on The Hitman and Her in 1990.

Their debut single Do What You Like flopped in the summer of 1991 probably due to the fact that the video was allegedly banned from daytime television due to the shots of the band being a bit gay with jelly but the follow-up Promises to number 38 in november of that year they notched up two top 10 hits in 1982 with it only takes a minute and a million love songs and went over the top in 1993 when could it be magic got to number three in january why can't i wake up with you got to number two in february and pray relight my Fire and Babe all went straight in at number one. They would notch up two more number ones in 1994 and another two in 1995 but all was not well in Take That Land after Robbie Williams started knocking about with Oasis and started demanding that they toughen their

sound up which led to him leaving slash being asked to leave before their world tour in July of 1995. Undaunted their next single Never Forget went straight in at number one in August of that year and they planned to work on their next LP immediately after the tour but over the Christmas period they sat down and decided to split up. After rumours spread of their impending demise when it was announced that their next LP would be a greatest hits compilation they finally broke their silence five weeks ago when they announced that they were splitting up which led to Child Line receiving an uptaking calls and the Samaritans advertising their phone number on the Piccadilly Circus billboard. This is the follow-up to Never Forget,

a cover of the Bee Gees single that got to number three for five weeks in December of 1977 and January of 1978, and it went straight in at number one two weeks ago, dislodging Don't Look Back in Anger. And as Top of the Pops don't want to show the video, featuring a scary model who has them tied up in a cellar, then sticks a fork in Gary Barlow's neck, then drives them to a quarry and then murders Gary, here's a repeat of their performance from two weeks ago. Voltaire's satire of religious faith. There's a character called the Old Lady.

She's the maid of Cunegonde, who's the main love interest in the story. And this old lady has got only one buttock. The other one had been eaten by cannibals when she was young. And that becomes a plot point in Candide when they consider escaping on horseback because she can't, because she only has one buttock.

Anyway, even the old lady from Candide by Voltaire is less half-arsed than Trey Gats cover of How Deep Is Your Love. Yes, yes, yeah. Why are they going out with such a weak cover version? There were rumours about why they did this. About how Back 4 Good, or was it Never Forget actually itself,

were written by the Bee Gees, but they kept it secret. Right. And the Bee Gees only wrote them so that, not so that, on the understanding that that would do a Bee Gees cover eventually. But I suspect that's probably BS. But I remember those rumours coming out even before this came out. And I remember also Gary Barlow saying

that they chose to do a cover version because he thought they hadn't done one for a long time and it was important that the band prove that they could take a classic song and do it justice. I suspect the reason they did this, which is a weird way to go out, you know, a really weird way for a band who,

yeah, I mean, the helplines, the child line, the fact that you know four people killed themselves when robbie robbie williams left take that only two people killed themselves when take that split itself which is telling in itself but um i think this is basically a nailed on number one because everyone knows yeah they could have shit in a bucket yeah and put that out it's a nailed on number one but it's also kind of the job of this record i think this is gary barlow setting himself up in a lineage and suggesting he might be a pop star the kens don't really do much on this record never forget don't forget sort of spotlight howard a

little bit this doesn't yeah um robbie's gone fans will have been dreading this moment we don't yet know that robbie's going to be a star so this record is kind of yeah barlow saying you know not i am the future that take that but i am a competent pop performer i can do this yeah but this record it's so fucking boring it's it is a strip back really dull take of a great song a really great yeah you can't you can't top the bgs on this you can't just can't. The original is beautiful. Utterly beautiful. It's transcendently sugary, the original by the Bee Gees.

It is like floating in a miasma of glucose in its gaseous form. But this is just... I mean that in a good way. In the same way that I'm Not In Love by 10CC. It gives you that same kind of feeling. This, it's just click track karaoke. They could not be arsed writing a new song, clearly. Any song Sparlow had up his sleeve, he was saving.

I mean, clearly Never Forget is the way you go out, isn't it? Yeah, maybe. But I think the choice of song here is important. It's kind of asking fans, are you going to hold on for us? Are you going to stay loyal? Do you know what I mean? There's a kind of how deep is your love? It's kind of interesting. How loyal are you going to hold on for us are you going to stay loyal do you know what i mean there's a there's a kind of how deep is your love it's kind of interesting how loyal are you fans will you follow me and i think the person saying that is gary barlow um so after that after they

split barlow can now position himself as the kind of musical heart and soul of the band the true talent of the band it must have been so weird being gary barlow because he was the talent of the band. It must have been so weird being Gary Barlow because he was the talent of the band, but he was nobody's favourite. He was everybody's least favourite member. What a weird position to be in, to be normally the front man of a band where most of the fans would put you bottom of a pole.

And he knew that. And famously his solo tour didn't sell very well. I think he booked out Wembley Arena, just couldn't fill it so yeah, nobody wanted to know, and what you can tell from looking at this performance, alright Robbie's already fucked off

the rest of them are visually already making a break for freedom right, so you've got Barlow's hair is a bit Britpop in this, it's sort of colorful he looks so glammed up. The transformation from a few years ago is ridiculous. So he's gone for that kind of Britpop,

comb-forward, fringy thing. You've got Mark Owen in a tank top, the original meaning of a tank top, the knitwear meaning, over bare skin. He looks awful in that, though. Yeah, over bare skin, which makes him look very Frank Spencer, I thought. Yes. Even more so than the education secretary, Gavin. Yeah, over bare skin, which makes him look very Frank Spencer, I thought. Yes.

Even more so than the education secretary Gavin Williamson looks Frank Spencer. Yeah, Mark Owen there, he's looking forward to the sort of solo career his mentor Davy Jones had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't he? And then there's the work, right, I always get the two Kens mixed up, Howard and Jason. But Howard, I believe, is the dreadlocky one. He looks like he should be dancing for Spiral Tribe at an illegal rave, playing a bit

of didgeridoo, maybe. And then you've got Jason Orange, who literally looks like a Ken, as in a Ken doll. He's very clean cut and clearly shaping up to go into acting, which is what he did not very successfully but i saw him in a play in a pub in islington where he's trying to become a serious

actor so yeah just just to look at you can tell they're already that their eyes are looking for the exit and they're all going through different exits i mean the thing is with the spice girls say you did at least feel that their personalities battled. Take that, with Robbie gone, you just feel that it's Barlow running things. And who would want to be in such a band? You know, you wouldn't. So, yeah, I mean, that changing look is actually...

I mean, do you think it was a mutual decision to split up? Or was it Barlow going, right, I've done like Paul Weller did with the jam? I don't think. Could you imagine somebody desperately continuing to want to work with Gary Barlow going right I've done like like Paul Weller did with the jam I don't think could you imagine somebody desperately continuing to want to work with Gary Barlow I don't think this this might not have been a committee decision but I'm I'm fairly sure nobody nobody objected in a sense um you can see that change of look by the way if you look at the single sleeve for this they'll all look like they're in an indie band or something they're already starting to depart stylistically from where they've been yeah and yeah Barlow I

can believe he would have ended it actually because he had this kind of deluded self-belief that he could go on to be a kind of I don't know a sort of maybe not a sort of um Barry Manilow character or Cliff Richard but certainly like a very big middle of the road star and he didn't do that way he wasn't very good at it and out of all of them he's the one who needs to take that so when they got back together and of course the reunion has

gone from five members at one point down to fucking three he's the one who needs it, he's fucking clinging to that rock obviously he's not going to want to give away one of his songs, no exactly he's hanging on to him yeah that's what i thought um i i noticed it's very telling when you um check out the reaction of the studio audience in this clip is that and i think it's barlow who's just finished

singing and there's a bloke sitting on a stool playing a spanish guitar solo that's when the girls start screaming not not a barlow or any of the others it's the fucking guitarist do you think take that could have gone on for much longer because i mean boy zone are already malingering in the top 10 but i contend that 80 of take that is far better than a million percent of boy zone i think the era of the boy band or that year of the boy band was drawing to a close anyway um you had this you know the the noughties was ear of the boy band was drawn to a close anyway you had this the noughties was more of an ear for girl groups Sugar Babes and Girls Aloud

and I think they had to take that they had to sort of discreetly get away for a bit of course there was Westlife and Westlife were they make take that look like fucking Motorhead but they were the last gasp of that kind of 90s,

noughties wave of boy bands. And Take That actually had to bide their time and wait until they became figures of nostalgia. And they became a sort of hen party destination. And it worked out very lucratively for them, obviously. But yeah, I don't think they could have soldiered on So the following week How Deep Is Your Love was pushed off

the top of the charts by Firestarter by Prodigy more boring dance bands have got no personalities there they played their final gig in Amsterdam two weeks after this broadcast and then went off to have solo careers in the shadow

of Robbie Williams despite Gary Barlow's three number ones but reformed ten years later and had four more number ones. How deep is your love? So how deep is your love? How deep is

your love? That's it Scooch. Thanks very much for listening. Don't forget to watch Top of the Pops 2 on Saturday and The Prodigy video up front. Which has been offered outside by Princeton Seams. So the gloves are off, we're out of here. Good night.

Wiley and Lamacac finally surrounded by the kids who have been given their Marie Curie daffodils have one last go at shilling Top of the Pops 2 before telling us they've been offered outside by Prince Nazeem. Instead of getting to see that unfortunately, we get Rock and Roll Star

by Oasis. We've already covered Oasis in this fucking episode and here they are again performing a track from the LP Definitely Maybe in a repeat of their performance from Top of the Pops from the 8th of September

1994 when Top of the Pops was still doing their LP track section. But why are we seeing this? Well, it's a tie-in for the clip show top of the pops 2 which began on bbc 2 in 1994 and commencing from september the 14th 1995 with a repeat of the rolling stones doing let's spend the night together top of the pops has chosen to close every episode with a clip from their not as extensive as they should be archives.

I mean, I'm bored with fucking Oasis. I've got no interest in talking about them anymore, but I hate this fucking song. I hate this fucking song as well. So let's talk about the archive stuff, because already this year we've had clips of Uptight, Everything's Alright by Stevie Wonder, Maggie Mae by Rod Stewart, Oh Boy by Buddy Ola,

Turn It On Again by Genesis, Rocket by Mud, and Happy Birthday by Altered Images. And, you know, in a pre-YouTube era, it was a very rare treat to see that sort of thing, wasn't it? I suppose so, yeah. But you wouldn't tune in just to see, oh, I wonder what the last, you know,

the little clip at the end's going to be or whatever. I wonder, you know, you wouldn't... I suppose Top of the Pops 2 was appealing to some of the same viewers who might previously have watched things like the Rock and Roll years in a previous decade. Yeah. But like I say we've gone from being underfed in

pop tunes to being all popped out. I can't remember many times of sitting of actually sitting down thinking, right, I'm going to watch TOTP 2. I found those little capsules really annoying they used to have. Yeah. Fucking, you know,

jokey capsules and it was narrated by Steve Wright. Yeah, it's just like, just play the fucking thing. It was that NME voice. Or just repeat Top of the Popsers, which is what UK Gold was doing at the time.

Right, yeah, and now it's what BBC actually does. Yeah, absolutely. This is no one-off than putting Oasis on. They've also shown there's no other way by Blur this year and to take that that performances which no one really needed to see

so soon again but they're trying to remind us of the heritage of top of the pops but in many cases the bit at the end would be the best tune that you heard on on that entire episode which is massively counterproductive yeah it's like they're saying oh remember us when we were good we were special a reminder when top of the pops is good but you know what one of those heritage things was that was great about top of the pops the fucking audience now just before this clip of oasis we finally get to see the audience yeah you know their faces that is and actually then it's a lovely moment i was getting major sort of clubbing flashbacks if you like because it is very night is the stuff that they're wearing and finally we get to see

the audience we've you know being able to see some movement in the crowd during the audience you know the one thing that topper pops used to do of having the camera moving through the crowd showing a few dance moves i don't know something like that but the audience have been totally forgotten about in this black area completely forgotten about. So instead of knocking these old fucking clips on, get a dance record on that people can dance to and let's see the audience for a bit. I would have preferred that

than yet another clip of Oasis. But it mirrors the rest of the music media that year and in the mid-90s. Here's some more Oasis, here's some more Oasis, here's some more Oasis. It's a more Oasis, here's some more Oasis. It's a very good point actually, that lack of audience, because in a way that makes these performances

as dead as if they were a whistle test. It's like a whistle test with added searchlights and smoke machines. But the great thing, as Neil says, about Old Top of the Pops, and also you could go back to the 60s and look at Ready, Steady, Go. Ready, Steady, Go really dweltelt on the audience or something like Soul Train. Go to America's Soul Train in the 70s. Yeah. Fucking amazing and even more amazing now. Just this sense

that everyone was in it together. Well this is it. I don't think that computes with somebody like Black Seal. I think for Black Seal it's all about these amazing fucking legendary bands who can, what was the phrase, rip the shit out of a guitar. Yeah. So who cares about the crowd? Yeah. I mean, the audience in Top of the Pops in 1996 is as important as the audience for Blankety Blank in 1982.

You know, they're there to just make noise. Yeah, and those noises... When they're told to. Yeah, and those noises don't seem to bear any relation to the music. But I mean, you know, with some of these bands it would have been nice to see their fans. I'm not saying I want to look at Oasis fans, obviously, but, you know, some sense of an audience. But the audience are essentially there as an extra little trebly filament

of whooping and shrieking, and that's it. And that's their job. But putting Oasis on again after we've had Oasis when they shouldn't have been on in the first place, that's just offensive. It is, it is. Fucking Oasis. Fuck off.

So Top of the Pops continued their tie-in with Top of the Pops 2 for another fortnight. Next week, it would be The Equals doing Baby Come Back. The week after that would be Pretty equals doing baby come back the week after

that would be pretty vacant by the sex pistols then they put it on hold until september when they showed a clip of shaker maker by oasis fuck off and then ran it all the way until february 1997 with a clip of up against the Wall by the Tom Robinson Band. And that is the end of this episode of Top of the Pops. And it also is the end of an era for Top of the Pops because in a few months' time, Top of the Pops would move to Friday and start to die. Yeah, that's it. That's it. End times. And frankly, by that period who cared on tv afterwards well bbc one piles into peggy

mitchell's birthday party in eastenders followed by alien empire the documentary series about insects narrated by john shrapnel then it's auntie Bloomers, a party political broadcast by the Conservative Party, the news, a repeat of Absolutely Fabulous, then the last in the series of Mistresses, The Woman Scorned, where Barbara Cartland and the Green Goddess talk about being shit on by their husbands. Followed by Question Time from Liverpool and the 1989 rom-com happy together bbc2 kicks on with the current affairs show first sight about dodgy landlords then southern eye talks to young jewish people who want that arsed about their faith then it's the final episode of parsons on class where tony parsons meets a middle class family from Liverpool

and ends by reckoning the middle class a dead good. Fuck off Tony Parsons. You fucking twat. Top Gear reviews the HMC Mark V a deliberate attempt to emulate the essence of Austin Healy 3000 and then

fucking Top Gear. Then the documentary series Reputations looks at the dark side of wildlife icon joy adamson after a repeat of whatever happened to the likely lads it's that party political broadcast news night late review the midnight hour with trevor phillips and they go through the night with the Open University. ITV runs the news magazine program 3D. Then A Hen Night is disrupted in the bill. Then it's Blues and Twos.

Taggart. That Party Political Broadcast again. News at 10. Regional news in your area. Being There. The Line. Tales from the Crypt. And then it's night time.

Let's fret together. Channel 4 broadcasts the slot, Africa Express, Food File, then Undercover Britain reports on the real old Vita Zane pets as it follows British builders around Germany, the topical Westminster sitcom An annie's bar nypd blue whose line is it anyway devil's advocate dispatchers the sally field drama sybil and the 1985 timothy dalton horror film the doctor and the devils so me boys what are we talking about in the playground? All the Melody Maker officers, which in a sense was a playground tomorrow. I would think that immediately the programme finished,

having seen a top 10 countdown, I'd be pissed off at not seeing Mark Morrison's Return of the Mac and also Gabrielle's Give Me A Little More Time, which was a fantastic single. So you always get that element of here's what you could have won. But of what we did see, I would imagine that in the playground of the 26th floor of kings reach tower ipc hq and indeed uh in the good mixer in uh pub in london's fashionable camden town uh i would

have been talking about did you see uh our mates menswear on top of the pots last night i may even have been slinging a friendly arm around the shoulder of menswear themselves like a disgusting fucking back slapping um london seedster that i was at the time and i'd also have been saying yeah menswear top of the pots last night it's only a matter of time right before i don't know uh orlando or plastic fantastic are on just just watch just watch i'd admit mainly talking i think probably in the smoking room of the 26th floor a bit of a mainly hatred really how much i hate garbage how much i hate oasis shed seven madonna and steve lemac and joe wiley and the entire concept of living to be honest with you at that age um but um i would probably have been saying also in my snotty elitist wanker 24-year-old thing of how Khalif's used to be good, but have lost it.

Yeah, so it would have mainly been hatred. Hatred was a big part of the 90s and it's underestimated. Anger is an energy, Neil. Absolutely. What are we buying on Saturday? Genuinely, got to be honest, nothing. Yeah, obviously I didn't need to buy my records at that time but um had i needed to i would have maybe bought the menswear single which i think is really good uh but yeah um it's slim pickings isn't it and what does this episode

tell us about march of 1996 um i would say similar to a lot of uh chart musics that um the received wisdom about what certain era was like bears little or no relation to what it was actually like because yes you've got menswear shed seven and oasis uh crowbarred in there and oasis twice into the same fucking show but if you look at the actual charts it's full of dance music that probably had way way more energy than what was presented to us by Mr Blacksill absolutely I think by March 1996 I mean in terms of what it tells us about the wider times it's the usual thing with an episode of Top of the Pops it tells us very little about 1996 because it because it features bands and artists that only really occupy a tiny bit of what's going on but i think even in this

supposed golden age for totp the writing is on the wall because fatally it has turned into a music show it was always it was always far far more than that yeah that's all it is now isn't it it's a music show with an obligation to mention the charts yeah just like a news program has the obligation to mention the footstep yeah absolutely and that me dears is the end of this episode of Chart Music

all I need to do now is use your promotional flange www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music podcast twitter chart music t-o-t-p Thank you very much, Neil Kulkarni. Stay the fuck away from me. Take care of your sense, Simon Price. Two metres, motherfuckers. Two metres.

Stay home. Stay safe. Wash your hands. Don't inject yourselves with Domestos. My name's Al Needham, and I'm Dil Danding. Chart music. GreatBigOwl.com Hello, my darlings. It's me, Anna Mann, actress, singer, welder.

Gotta have a backup. I've been in everything, my darlings, and I've been cut from most things. However, I will not be cut from one thing, and that is my own podcast, Talking to Actors with Anna Mann, where I meet those rarest of creatures, the actors. That's Talking to Actors. Look out for the

new series starting soon on The Great Big Hour. We live in the countryside and we live in a barn conversion. It's somewhere that's kind of really free and very spacious. I really hate feeling claustrophobic and this is the exact opposite of that. We have a lot of parties here, a lot of socialising in the summer. It's really easy to bring a festival vibe to your house, and that's what we do quite often when we have parties. So we get the lighting right. That's always really important with fairy lights absolutely everywhere, as you can see.

And candles as well. I've got lots of glass lanterns all over the place, and they are in literally every corner. I always struggle when it comes to windows and curtains, and I find it quite a challenge, but this works really well. We love the light, and the voils just soften the whole thing. It gives it that kind of free-flowing feeling, and just framed by the long curtains.

So I think this works well, and with the fairy lights, you really do get that festival feel. We like to dress the table. There are so many things you can do you have those big mason jars fill them with punch some with alcohol in for the adults and then obviously the ones for the kids as well so people can just help themselves get lots of mismatching fabrics put them all over the table you can get the jam jars with the handles get some cool straws to serve up your drinks flowers I think are incredibly important. You could just get milk bottle jars or just old mason jars, kilner jars. Stick loads of flowers, wild flowers all over the place, just from your garden.

You don't have to go and buy flowers. Every festival you have to have your marshmallows, which will be going outside and being put on the fire pit to be toasted very soon. You want to make it really comfortable. So you can have rugs, you can have hay bales, get friendly can have rugs you can have hay bales get friendly with a local farmer and borrow some hay bales big bean bags as well if you can got glitter ball in the background so everything that makes it comfortable and interesting to look at another thing we like to do is to decorate the place so it reflects our style so

our musical taste really so we've got this big bowie lightning flash here and go into your garage and see what's there. We found a big old glitter ball and it looks amazing.留下你偷偷的哭日我已經不懂心痛 寂寞時孤單等你 再深消多冰凍 越要不想起 但卻偏想起 共你虛假的抱擁

也許我明神离别 或你会了解 在孤单中的心痛 你会发现 这当天的弱势 竟然看不懂 却知道原来原存 在你与我之间

爱已有着裂缝 感觉不再相同 原来今天已是冬