Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #53 (Part 3): May 12th 1988 – Boing! Boing! Boing!

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Chart Music #53: May 12th 1988 – Boing! Boing! Boing!The latest episode of the podcast which asks: if the first girl that Prince met on Alphabet St happened to be Blunder Woman, would he jerk his body like a horny pony would? This episode – THE LONGEST EVER, Pop-Crazed Youngsters – finally sees us slipping the surly bonds of this rubbish century to touch the smiley face of 1988. We’re on the very cusp of the Second Summer of Love, but your panel are a) leafing through Athena posters and avoiding Neighbours, b) Gothed up to buggery and living with elderly Greek widows, and c) sifting through their own vomit in the Market Square. And Top Of The Pops is reacting to the Acid House and Hip-Hop explosion by, well, playing the shittiest examples of it they could find, hosted by two people going in opposite directions. Simon Mayo: hungrily eyeing the alpha-male position of Radio One. Mike Read: he grows old, he grows old, he shall wear the sleeves of his leather jacket rolled.Musicwise, it’s a Pic ‘N’ Mix of the late Eighties – The Lateies, if you will – speckled with not one, not two, but three joke dance records. Harry Enfield and Star Turn On 45 Pints remind us what a progressive and hardcore act Jive Bunny was. Bill Shankly assumes the Malcolm X role. Derek B gets paid in pounds, not dollars. Belinda Carlisle slinks about on a beach. Ringo Ringo Ringo pass round the hat for Esther Rantzen. The Asda advert is Number One. And Prince and Prefab Sprout rush in to save the day.   Sarah Bee and Simon ‘Sorry, Girls – He’s Engaged’ Price don their Sun Bizarre Acid House t-shirts and dance around the abandoned warehouse of 1988, veering off on such tangents as knowing people off Withnail and I, Tony Blackburn’s face on a stick, how to cross our palm with Bummerdog, and Tony of Sneinton’s secret longings, painted on a living room wall in 1968. GET ON SOME SWEARING, matey!    Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki 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. Rule of three. Where people who make funny stuff talk about something funny that they love. Because I remember as a kid thinking that's a really good old fashioned gag but it's also nasty. The actual VHS this is clearly sufficiently important to me

that this went to house moves as well. There is that joy and that slight fear as well about who's going to say what. Everything from airplane to bottom. From when Harry met Sally to the Muppets. Trying is good. Aiming high is good. Being ridiculous and not being afraid of failure is good. I think that joke is so fucking funny.

Again, I just think this is hysterical. It's beautiful stuff. Rule of three from Great Big Owl. 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.

Hey, up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to part 3 of episode 53 of Chalk Music. I'm your host Al Needham and I'm here right now with my posse Jack Master Price and the ranking Miss B. Big shout out going out to the $3 Patreon people in the ass. They're getting paid in full on patreon right now getting the whole episode with no adverts come and join them patreon.com slash chart music anyway forward great single number 23 the The Adventures in Broken Land. This has gone up six from 16. It's Narada and Divine Emotions.

Woo! Read on the balcony with a load of lovely ladies. Wang's on some more about the adventures before giving the shortest of shrift to the next single, Divine Emotions, by Narada. Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1952, Michael Walden got his start as a drummer for the Mahavishnu Orchestra and a session drummer for Jeff Beck, Chick Corea and Jacob Astorius in the mid-70s. He signed as a solo artist for Atlantic Records in 1975, by which time he had converted to Buddhism and was given the name Narada after a Vedic wandering

minstrel by the New York based spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy. He made his first appearance on the UK charts in 1980 when Tonight I'm Alright got to number 14 in March of 1980 and he followed it up with I Should Have Loved Ya which got to number 8 in May of that year. But by the mid-80s, he was better known as a writer and producer, knocking out Who's Zooming Who for Aretha Franklin, jumped to the beat for Stacey Latishaw, the first Whitney Houston LP, Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship, and We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off for Jermaine Stewart,

as well as overseeing the soundtracks for Nine and a Half Weeks, Mannequin and Inner Space. He came back in his own right this year with his ninth LP, Divine Emotion, and this is the lead cut from it. It entered the top 40 two weeks ago at number 30, and this week it's leapt six places from number 22 to number 16, giving him the opportunity to take a break from producing Whitney Houston's Olympic anthem, One Moment in Time, jump on a plane to London and pitch up in the top of the pop studios.

And I've got to confess, once again, I have absolutely fuck all memory of this. Yeah, nor me. It's funny you say that, actually. fuck all memory of this yeah normie it's it's funny you say that actually when i saw the title of it i thought it it was going to be to me what the adventures was to you that you know something that completely passed me by until he started going oh a little baby sweet darling that weird bit at the start i thought oh god it's that song it's that song and and there's so many weird little vocal quirks in it like uh uh i look at you and i go boing boing boing yes and and uh and then then there's this bit there these bits where he goes he goes very larry blackman out of cameo he goes yes it's more than just a passing fantasy

and like since i got the taste of that whole thing and i thought oh god yeah it's that record where he does all that business. I knew that I'd never heard this song before because any song that says, I look at you and I go boing, boing, boing, that sticks in your head. Yeah, absolutely. What a shame he didn't follow it up with up and down until I get a pain in my groin. But, you know. Well, I guess he's trying to be subtle about the fact that it's you know that it

may or may not be about licking fanny i mean first of all my mind was blown by the pronunciation of his name yes we only hear that at the end when when mayo introduces it it's narrada as in florida because it was always narada michael world yes it. That's who he was. Yes. And, you know, obviously I was familiar with his late 70s hits. I mean, Tonight I'm Alright, but particularly I Should Have Loved You. Yes. Banger. I love that track. I think at that point he was seen as a bit of a shaken jacko.

Yes. In the late 70s. And there's also an extent to which he is perceived, because in terms of being a producer and a songwriter as being a little bit of a poundland nile rogers um which would not be a disc because that's still a pretty good thing to be but when but when you look at the list that you just rattled off there al of you know who's zooming who which I love that single by Aretha. We Don't Have To by Joanne Stewart and all the early Whitney stuff. And Stacey Lattisaw jumped to the beat.

Yeah, let's ignore Starship. Yeah. But, well, hang on. Did he do We Built This City? Because that's a big tick in the credit box for me if he did, because I love that track. But, yeah, I mean, he doesn't mess about. He's no slouch.

That is quite some CV he's got going on there. I've got to admit, I went into this performance without any expectations because I couldn't really remember it. And I ended it with a silly grin on my face. I really enjoyed it. Fair play to him. He's 36 years old at this point, but he's got some moves.

He's probably got some moves going and his dancers. All of them wearing biker jackets and Lycra shorts. So many leather jackets in this episode. I know. The combo of biker jackets and Lycra shorts,

I was going to mock it until I remembered it's exactly what I wore to Glastonbury 1995. It's a sort of bike. It's a, you know, it's... It's like a cyclist gang, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, it's, I don't know, I found this a really joyful performance, a fun song. It's maybe, even at this point, the sound of it is maybe a little bit dated. Yeah, it's very un-1988, isn't it? It's 1985, isn't it? Yes of it is is maybe a little bit dated yeah it's very on 1988 isn't it it's 1985 isn't it yes it is really whiffs of 1985 yeah but that's all right i didn't i it was all right i didn't the thing is that you know like like we've been saying about um what you see the sort of tip of the iceberg of somebody's career that you see peeping through on top of the pops belies you know just a lot of other probably more interesting stuff that they've done and i mean this guy holy shit you know his his his cv is is quite ridiculous again it's very 1985 and you know i love five star but that the routine is very five star and it's that sort of like um warm-up aerobics kind of thing

you know yes it's uh it's a little bit you know it's kind of street moves but done in that slightly too sloppy way yeah it was all right i just kind of didn't really have any have very much of a feeling about it at all it just seemed a little bit bit sort of low end i don't know it just it was sort of it's like it's had the soul kind of squeezed out of it but it's not got that sort of pop punch either so it was a bit sort of slightly sort of peppy, cool-in-the-gang type vibe, but kind of cool-in-the-gang, down-on-their-luck, performing at Butlins, you know.

As far as the presentation goes, is this the beginning of the bring-your-mates ethos for dance acts on top of the pop? This is pretty much the template for every dance performance of the 90s. I love it when people bring their mates in chart music terms it reminded me of when we had casey and the sunshine band doing give it up and casey casey was stood there on his own with no band just a few dancers around

him and yeah it's that that yeah but yeah yeah you're right it kind of became the norm in the late 80s for dance records they've all got cycling shorts on but one lad's kind of like let the side down a bit by having a bit of fluorescent yellow striping on his shorts. But, you know, maybe he's safety conscious. Maybe he just wants to get himself seen. Yeah. I had some of those.

I didn't really cycle anywhere. Well, I did, and I ran straight into a wall and then stopped doing it. But, yeah, that was around this time, actually. That's not a nice story to tell. It's very painful. But, yeah, don't do it, kids. But, yeah, actually. That's not a nice story to tell. It's very painful. But, yeah, don't do it, kids. But, yeah, I had some cycling shorts like that

with a big fat stripe down the side. Don't know why, just it was what was available. Quite like the neon colours, you know. You should have had Sarah written down the side. There's still time. So this whole business of Narada getting his nickname from Sri Chinmoy. So I looked into this and Sri Chinmoy taught his followers to adopt a vegetarian diet, to abstain from recreational drugs, including alcohol, and to lead a pure and celibate lifestyle.

So when I read that, I was then trying to count how many of those rules are being broken in his song, in his performance, right down to the leather jacket. Well, they might not be leather. You can't really tell if they're actual leather. They might have been, you know. I suppose if they weren't, they would have been sweating more, you know, because you do sweat slightly more in the sort of fake leather jacket.

Maybe boing, boing, boing is a Buddhist mantradhist mantra i was gonna say where do the spiritual masters stand on on the human drive to boing boing boing do they embrace it do they say you must resist it yogic flying you know that the natural law party wanted us all to do in the early 90s yeah you do go you do go boing, boing, boing. Well, the idea with that, I know a little bit about that. The idea with that is that's what you get if you get really, really good at transcendental meditation specifically, which is the thing that David Lynch is very big on. Yeah, you get to a level of concentration when you master that and you can boing, boing, boing.

Yes. All day long. Well, probably not all day long, but know across across a across a gym mat it's a little known fact that the original draft of the mantra nam yo ho renge kyo was nam yo ho renge kyo boing boing boing you see now you've brought all that up simon about how many rules have been broken here what would have ended this performance perfectly restreaching coming out on stage on a white horse like trippy tarker and then he does a headache sutra on narada and all the dancers and teaches them a lesson al it's just referring to one of those

television programs that you've watched and i haven't right yeah i thought so have you ever seen monkey simon no oh fuck it i could weep for you i'm sorry that's your wedding present from me fucking dvd yeah monkey box set perhaps the rest of chart music ought to turn up dressed as the cast of monkey hey i thought we were you could be trippy tarker sarah no i thought i don't know who i want to be i'm not doing a i'm not doing a costume change i mean the big decision there who's going to be pigs there all right you'll you'll have a big-haired, gum-chewing meatloaf tart and be grateful for it. So the following week, Divine Emotions jumped eight places

to number eight, its highest position. However, the follow-up, can't get you out of my head, only got to number 93 in September of this year, and he never troubled the charts again. Undeterred, he went back behind the scenes and helped knock out the soundtrack for Licence to Kill, Free Wille and The Bodyguard, as well as co-writing I Love Your Smile for Shanice and producing Sweetness for Michelle Gale. And earlier this year, he was named...

Simon, you know this? The drummer for Journey. Yes! Fucking Journey. I know. Don't stop believing. He's just rubbing it in now, isn't he? He's 68.

That's a total WTF moment. Is he? He's 68 and he joined in May. So what, in the middle of lockdown everywhere, that's his new kick yeah fuck it brilliant he's he's narada he does what he fucking likes yeah and then he goes boing boing boing all the way home yeah That's Merida, as in Florida, and Divine Emotions. They've got the top 40 breakers this week on Top of the Pops.

And you can tell that Wembley is just around the corner. Liverpool Football Club are in at 13. Anfield Rap. And you can tell that Wembley is just around the corner. Liverpool Football Club are in at 13 and field wrap. Mayo, standing next to Reid in front of a big screen, tells us that that was Narada, as in Florida, while Reid, as in children in need, whips us into the breakers section, starting with Anfield Rap, Red Machine in full effect,

by Liverpool FC. Formed in Liverpool in 1892, Liverpool FC were best known as an albums band, with 70 years waiting, E.I. Adio in 1965, and Sing Along with Liverpool in 1972.

However, with the emergence of a new lead singer, Kevin Keegan, they finally put out a single in the spring of 1974, We Love the Cop, but it failed to chart. They finally entered the charts in 1977 when their cover of The Rue Betts' We Can Do It got to number 15 in May of that year, but Keegan left the band. And the follow-up, the double A side, Hail To The Cop, We Are Liverpool,

failed to chart in 1978, leading to a wilderness period for the band which culminated with their first single in five years liverpool we're never gonna stop only getting to number 54 in april of 1983 after their next two singles sitting on top of the world and the pride of merseyside failed to chart in 1986 and 1987, Craig Johnson, a transplanted Australian who was born in South Africa, steered the band towards a hip-hop direction. He wrote this single for the FA Cup final, which is due in two days' time. He cut a one-shot deal with Virgin Records and he linked them up with Mary B biker of gay bikers on acid and derrick b and it's entered the charts this week at number 13 well much to discuss here i suppose i mean there's another

football single in the charts this week but it's not we are wimbledon by wimbledon fc which is standard crap football nonsense it's actually the worst song ever by the Boss Squad, which was written by the people who gave us the chicken song by Spitting Image. And it features Alex Ferguson, Billy Bingham, Bobby Gould, Bobby Robson, Brian Clough, Dave Bassett, George Graham, Graham Taylor, Jim Smith, And it's a new entry this week at number 88. Drop dancer number 92 the week afterwards. Have you heard that?

Yeah. I actually, I don't know what this says about me or the worst song or the Anfield rap, but having had to sit through Anfield rap and then listen to that, I did actually, I did chortle. It is a functioning comedy song by people who kind of understand, you know, how to write a comedy song or a light song or, you know, it's sort of that sort of sophisticated stupidity. And it knows what it is and it's not trying to be. Anyway, we're not talking about that, though, are we? No.

We've got to lance this boil. Simon, fucking hell, Prince and Liverpool. This must be your most perfect Top of the Pops ever. Yeah, kind of. You know the real origin story of this single. It's not been reported much, but the single was actually supposed to be produced by rick rubin with hank shockley and turntablism from terminator x and uh guest raps from rakeem and krs1

but uh but what happened was um um a shady malaysian businessman handed bruce grobbler an envelope full of 50s and uh and he threw the recording oh no i mean okay uh tumbleweed fair enough fuck you um yeah yeah derrick b okay co-wrote it craig johnston um one production credit on there well first of all it's tough audio which basically was derrick b he probably didn't want his name to be associated with this shite so he's sort of he's he's using his kind of sort of uh you know business umbrella term tough audio um mixed by howard gray now howard gray later found fame with apollo 440 so you know he went on to do shall we say more credible stuff and for the first few seconds of this track it does appear to be a credible effort.

They've basically done a blatant photocopy of Rock the Bells by LL Cool J, right down to John Barnes going, Liverpool FC is hot as hell. He says Arsenal though. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, it was good enough to land him the New Order world in motion, which is a low bar to clear, you might say. But it does descend into farce very rapidly after that, doesn't it?

There's so many things to hate about it. For a start, all the scousers in the team, Uncle Tomming like nobody's business. Like John Aldridge saying sound is a pound and all that, you know. Yes. But most of all, for for me the most loathsome thing it's Bruce Grobbelaar right with his big fucking

umbro foam hands giant foam hands right are the mark of a cunt and I say that with all due respect for Corey Aquino's people power movement in the Philippines and the work of Kenny Everett and indeed Nick Cave who was spotted

waving giant foam hands around in a panto audience in Brighton once when he was off from being Nick Cave yeah um but apart apart from Corey Aquino um Kenny Everett and Nick Cave giant foam hands are the mark of a cunt I stand stand by that, right? Yeah, he's essentially being set mire here, isn't he? Oh, God, yeah, yeah. And I know it's wrong to dislike people because of their accents, right? That's the message of the song. Yes.

Simon. I know, but it's just... Yeah, it's I'd like to teach the world to sing brought up to date, isn't it? But it's fallen on stony ground with me, or at least Grobbelaar's has. Because I grew up, and you did as well, Al, at a time when the white South African accent

was associated with racism and arrogance. You know, I grew up with the anti-apartheid movement and my view of Afrikaners was informed by the Spitting Image song, You'll Never Meet a Nice South African. So it's just an objectively unlovely accent i've got to say and i'm sorry if any of our listeners is rhodesian though well i knew somebody's going to say that just hold your fire and i'm sorry i'm sorry if any of our listeners have that accent

by the way now before anyone says or actually after anyone says he's from zimbabwe uh yeah he was actually born in durban in south africa Oh, right. And it's basically the same accent. It's nails down a blackboard to me. He basically sounds like Pete Morant from Dante Fires in I'm Alan Partridge, if you remember that character. When he's trying to say, you can't, to Alan. He's like, you can't, you can't. That guy.

So Grobbelaar, he had a really interesting backstory, colourful backstory. He was conscripted into the Rhodesia Regiment and he fought on the side of Ian Smith's forces against Robert Mugabe's ZANU. So basically

fighting for white colonialism against black African nationalism. And, all right you know obviously being fully cognizant of the fact that mugabe's reign turned out to be filled with horrors you still have to say grobalar was on the wrong side in that war but he was a conscript we can't forget he was a conscript and it'd be really cheap to speculate oh we fucking loved it um i'm not i'm not going there um but he killed he was forced to kill um he saw people die alongside him you know and he's spoken out about the trauma of that so you've got to cut him a certain amount of slack for having a fucked up personality

he's a rapper who's actually has shot someone he's not just lying and bragging about that's true yeah yeah that'd give you some cred. True enough. But he's still, I would say, a hard man to like, a hard figure to like in football and, you know, the sort of public view that we get of him. Decent enough goal, eh? Stop fucking Forrest being in the FA Cup final that year. Yeah.

I'm sitting there watching this going, oh, that could have been Forrest. That could have been Brian Clough spinning on his head. The thing with Grobbelaar, for people who don't know, is that he was a character, shall we say. Yes. He was one of those zany, wacky goalkeeper characters. It often seems to be goalkeepers who are that kind of guy in football. Yes. So he was known for his antics,

such as doing wobbly legs in a penalty shootout to put off the opponents and so on. And I think he was generally sort of well thought of as a bit of a laugh by most neutrals, by just by most people in Britain, until the 90s, towards the end of his career, when he was implicated in a match fixing scandal. That was a short man, wasn't it, Simon? What do you mean? Was he Malaysian? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the short man. Right, yeah. I think he was in the Ghetto Boys, wasn't he? Oh, no, that was Bushwick Bill. There's a line where he says, don't call me a clown. And then there's just a little snippet of him making a silly face.

He's just doing a face. Any more lip and you're going down. Yeah, that was the rhyme. Is this what counts for, you know, comedy in football? It's a man with a face making a bit of a face. The thing is, Al, you said, you know, Prince plus Liverpool. This episode was absolutely made for me. The thing is, I couldn't call myself a Liverpool supporter at this time.

Yeah, yeah. Because I quit being a football fan altogether in the mid-80s. It got really horrible. Everything from the tragedies that happened in the stadiums to the kits, to the hair, just everything about the whole vibe of football was just really unpleasant.

I sort of felt as if being a football supporter and a Smiths fan, a sort of sensitive, arty indie kid that I was at the time or whatever, was somehow incompatible. I couldn't be both. So I- Yeah, but the NME have said it's all right now, Simon.

Yeah, but fuck the NME. I was a Melody Maker person. No, you know, I did. I took 10 years off from football. So I missed out on all this. To give you an idea of how far I drifted from football, and I have told this story on a football podcast, one of the podcasts I've cheated on chart music with,

but I'm going to tell it anyway, just quickly. So in 1990, when England lost the World Cup semi-final to Germany, I was running the Ents in the Student Union at UCL, and we showed the game on the big projector screen, right? And I was stood there in the DJ booth waiting impatiently because we had a disco booked straight after in the same room, and the football was overrunning because of extra time and penalties, right? So the moment Chris Waddle skied that penalty over the bar,

I pulled the plug on the projector and put the music on and there are England fans there howling in despair and one of them ran over begging me to put it back on so they could watch the aftermath and have some kind of emotional closure or whatever but I didn't understand that at the time

the emotions involved and I refused what an arsehole I was what was the first song you played afterwards, Simon? It was probably something they would have hated, like, you know, some Jangly Fae indie thing by the Super Dragons or something like that. But that is how far I had travelled from football. You know, also things like, you know, national events,

like the Hillsborough disaster, when that happened, obviously it affected me profoundly on on a human level but i didn't feel it as a supporter of liverpool or even as a lover of football particularly because i'd forgotten what it felt like to be one of those and and i um i missed out on a lot you know by by giving up football for 10 years i missed out on um this classic late 80s liverpool team you know i missed out on beards late 80s Liverpool team. I missed out on Beardsley, Barnes, Aldridge. But the upside, of course, is I missed out on this fucking atrocity of a cup final song. I mean, I remember this from the time, you know, because I listened to the charts

and it was everywhere and it was played on the radio all the time. And I hated it so much. I mean, I've never, that's the thing is that's what your experience of of not being a football fan is is my experience of not being a football fan as well in the sense of just the unpleasantness is the stuff that has kind of risen to the top and I can't really get past it you know I have enjoyed like watching World Cup matches in crowded pubs and things but beyond that I've just I can't connect to it at all it's like and this is just exemplary of the shouting i just hate that atonal chorus of hyped up male voices shouting about nothing that i can understand

this kind of formless oh oh oh and it's men men are so wonderful they can be they can achieve such great things i hate it makes me. It makes me sad when they reduce themselves to just bellowing in the streets like musk oxen. You know, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it in the street. I don't want to hear it on my television. I don't want to hear it on my radio. It jangles my nerves.

I do not like that sound. And it started badly and went downhill from there for me. It's kind of benign. It's not hurting anybody, but it was a slog to get through it in the same way that... Even the sort of little clip that we get in the breakers here. It's not mean-spirited in the way that Loads of Money is, and it's obviously meant to be self-deprecating,

but to no end that I can see. I mean, it's just as well. This wasn't I was thinking, Christ, I'm really glad this wasn't my introduction to hip hop. I might have missed out on so much, you know, the ghost of Loads of Money kind of peeps in even here saying you know about that they're they're having a having a little pop at john barnes and saying oh he's he's from the south and well they might have the jobs but we have the side yes like that's that's a good thing to yeah fuck you loads of money yeah you know oh mass unemployment yay i understand they went on to lose spoiler alerts which suggests maybe they should have spent this time training i don't know running running up and down steps or something yeah i mean that there is a cosmic justice perhaps that wimbledon

won the cup because this record is a misfire on par with john aldridge's penalty in the final. Well, it appears also that it's not about licking Fanny, which, you know, maybe... I did the thing. Can I cut in here now? Can I have my say now? Yes, please. Because you're two just talking absolute bollocks. This is the greatest football song ever.

No, behave. I'm sorry, it fucking is. Right, the greatest football song ever i'm sorry it is right as a football song it's fucking brilliant show your workings i mean i don't know if it's because i was so mentally into hip-hop at the time but if you look at it and how they've done it it's just a perfect pastiche of hip-hop so it goes right starts off with rock the bells then you get the drum beat from you'll like It by Funkadelic, which was best known as the drum break on I Know You Got Soul. Then you have Bill Shankler in the Malcolm X role

going on about wanting to build Liverpool up as a bastion of invincibility and had Napoleon had that idea, he'd have conquered the bloody world. Then they sample the vocals from Twist and Shout and how the fuck do they manage to do that? The Beatles ain't giving out samples at the minute. Good point, actually. If ever. I mean, you know, in a year from now,

they're going to come down hard on the Beastie Boys for sampling When I'm 64. Is it because it's not a Beatles song originally? Is it, you know, maybe they... Well, they play the guitar from Twist and Shout, which is an Isley Brothers song, but the... That's a lift from a Beatles record.

So surely the Beatles would have had to give permission for that. Yeah, maybe they did. So then you've got You'll Never Walk Alone, and they're taking the piss out of themselves because they're saying, oh, yeah, we're Liverpool, blah, blah, blah, but there's only two people in the whole team who are Scousers. Everyone's dressed up in the standard comedy Scouser trope. Yeah.

And, you know, Harry Enfield must have been sitting off to the side looking at this video going, ah, Leverpudlian's tracksuits, they do dough, don't they? Well, you are allowed to take the piss out of yourself to an extent, although you've got to be really careful when you do that. If you're going to talk about yourself as a member of of of a group you've got to make sure you've got to remember the rest of the group you know because it's not about it's not just about you i've done this so many times and you feel like you're free to kind of you know take the piss but you've just

it's it's a really it's a it's a delicate art form and uh oh god I don't know it's just banter Sarah it's just bants so much bants it's me it's my sense of humour it's my sense of humour failure I'm one of those humourless killjoys it doesn't appear to be about fanny licking

however there does seem to be coded reference to dick there is dick in there. Again, self-deprecating. Craig Johnson, I'm very big down under, but my wife disagrees. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the contentious line, of course, is I come from Jamaica. My name is John Barnes.

When I do my thing, the crowd go bananas. Because this is at the time when, you know, when he first signed for Liverpool and people were chucking bananas on the pitch. I suppose he's owning it there. Yes, he is. And it has to be said that John Barnes looks the coolest fucker

in the whole country in this video. Even in a late 80s football shirt. It's not hard to be the coolest person in that video to be fair. No. He is the one who comes out of it looking like football shirt. It's not hard to be the coolest person in that video to be fair. He is the one who comes out of it looking like he's actually kind of fit the brief and

risen to the challenge and seems comfortable in that milieu when the others are just dicking about. I agree with you that I think John Barnes maybe comes out of this with the most credit. Even then, it's not necessarily my favourite non-footballing John Barnes

moment. That would probably be that isotonic Lucas A's advert. Do you remember that? Yes, sheer hell. He's so intense, he's going, it gets to your thirst fast. It's quite a thing. I know he's got to inhabit the role and really commit to it,

but fucking hell, yeah, he's given it some Lee Strasberg method acting there. Fucking hell. And then, out of nowhere, Brian fucking Moore drops some bars. He's fucking brilliant. They've won the league, bigger stars than Dallas. They've got more silver than Buckingham Palace. No one knows quite what to expect when the red machine's in full effect brian moore says in full effect

that's fucking brilliant and then he goes even better he fucking drops a feel for you chaka khan bit you're easily pleased al yeah yeah this is this is pretty desperate. I've got, yeah, he does the Maca Can. Yes. Maca Can. Yes. We get some more Shankly X action. And then right at the end, Kenny Dark Leash, looking like a children's television presenter,

does the Oh Yeah bit in Live at the Funhouse by Run DMC. That was fucking brilliant. I mean, look, because it's a football song you know it's got a lifespan of like one week maybe two at most so i didn't hear it that much but every time i heard it at the time i fucking loved it and if i hear it now it just encapsulates like two weeks in history it's quite interesting to imagine what the recording sessions must have been like because you would think that some of these fairly deep and obscure references to real hip-hop were maybe beyond the Liverpool squad so it would have been Derek B and his sidekicks basically saying to people like Kenny Dalgleish can you just go oh yeah at this moment can you you go, oh yeah, at this moment, can you, you know, and don't worry about why,

just do it, right? And just convincing them that it'll be funny to some people. Well, to one person, Al Neeson, essentially. If it reaches just that one person, then it's all been worth it. They're standing in front of loads of graffiti, including dog leash, red hot funk. I mean,

if only Kenny Dog Leash had rapped on this, man, that would have been amazing. That might have changed my view of it slightly, because, you know, I worship Kenny Dog Leash the way that some saps worship Princess Diana or whatever. He's, you know, just this absolute god to me. But I was

surprised that you rate this record higher than, what was it, Nottingham Forest one? Was it Paper Lace? We got the whole world in our hands. I mean, no, that's on a different level, you know. But as a non-Forest football song, this is the best. The one thing that would

pain me around about this time is that the lens of Steve Nicholls' sunglasses have popped out, which brings back the ripping angles of me in the market square. He was a bit of a wild card in that video shoot because he got a bit out of hand. And when Bruce Grobbelaar does a headstand on the football, he goes in and kicks him in the head deliberately.

He didn't like Grobbelaar. So there you go. Respect to him for that. He knew what was coming. So the following week week despite a disastrous gig at Wembley Stadium supporting the crazy gang Anfield Rap soared

10 places to number 3 it's highest position the crazy gang have beaten the Culture Club oh imagine if they'd done a Culture Club tribute on this video man fucking hell I would be all over that however on the very day this episode was broadcast done a culture club tribute on this video man fucking hell i would be all over that however

on the very day this episode was broadcast johnson asked to leave the band a year ahead of the end of his contract in order to look after his ailing sister sean of their songwriter the group drafted in peter howitt of bread for the follow-up kenny d the Pride of Liverpool. But by the time it came out in April of 1989, they had other things on their mind and it failed to chart. However, a year later, frontman John Barnes spat some bars for England New Order and helped get World in Motion to number one for two weeks in June of 1990.

So a number three hit and a number one hit probably makes John Barnes the most successful English rapper until like Dizzy Rascal or something. And Liverpool would have one more hit in 1996 when they linked up with the Boot Room Boys with a Z on the end and took Pass and Move, it's the Liverpool groove to number four in May of that year.

By which time Craig Johnson kept in touch with his hip-hop roots by inventing a football boot named after Ice Cube's third LP, The Predator. Well I'm rapping now, I'm rapping for fun. I'm your goalie, hooker number one. You can take the mix, don't call me a clown. Any more lip and you're going down. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long.

Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Number 31, Belinda Carlyle. Belinda, if you're watching, please don't keep phoning. I've left the phone off the hook. We've already covered Belinda Carlyle in chart music number 46. And this, her sixth solo single, is the follow-up to I Get Weak,

which got to number 10 in March of this year. It's the third cut from her second LP, Heaven on Earth. It entered the charts last week at number 42. It shot up 11 places this week to number 31. And here's the video, directed by Peter Kerr, who began his film career making videos for cabaret voltaire clock devar scritty paletta killing joke and depeche mode and is currently best known for his video for banana rama's venus and we get as much of that video as i've just said

about belinda carlisle just there 22 whole seconds of a nice expensive video yeah it's a nice video though isn't it it's really nice yeah it looks like a new opening credit sequence for home and away it's very on the on the nose very route one in that it's it's on a beach you know circling the sand and all that but yeah it's a very beautifully filmed yeah it could be the opening credits to Dawson's Creek or something like that. Yes. It's got that kind of, that sort of golden hour glow to it, hasn't it? Yeah, it's nicely done.

I really like Belinda Carlyle, you know. I saw her live. I've seen her a few times, actually. But she was supporting Culture Club in Brighton a couple of years ago. And she just seemed to be having the best fun and it was just a beautiful thing to see you know sometimes you get people who had a few hits in the 80s who it really hurts them it wounds them that they are no longer taken seriously as an artist yeah and that they are seen as sort of a slightly cheesy relic from the past and they sort of almost overbalance and you know try try

and uh sort of um what's the word you know to um overcompensate is the word i'm looking for um trying to do a very tasteful acoustic album or something like that and try and come across a sort of tasteful and mature and real and legitimate belinda carlisle was having none of that because the thing with belinda is she obviously didn't come from a cheesy pop background to begin with. She started off, as you mentioned on a previous episode, as Dottie Danger, the drummer with the Germs, was it? Yes.

Which is, Dottie Danger, one of the greatest punk names ever. And of course, you know, the Go-Go's were a decent new wave group. So she actually, it was um the sort of typical career trajectory of an 80s pop star in reverse in that she did all the credible stuff to begin with and then thought you know what fuck it i'm gonna be a pop star i suppose a bit like people like you know adam ant earlier on in the decade so uh you know she's got all out of her system she had no sort of need to prove her credibility to anyone and it was just a real joy to see somebody romping about the stage,

almost as if she was taking part in her own Belinda Carlyle tribute concert. Just for fun, just for fun, you know. And it was just really heartwarming. I don't know if I'm really doing it justice, but she just seems like a really likeable person. Circling the Sand's not a particularly great song. It's all right. I really like, obviously, Heaven is a Place on Earth,

absolute banger. I also really like Leave a Light On as well. But this one, it's a bit, it's all right. But she's got a nice voice in that kind of bubblegum Stevie Nicks way. And even though she's only on for 22 seconds, she's just so beautiful. She's just a lovely visage to look at on the screen, you know. And Mike Reid, I mean, are we going to talk about this?

Yes. Fuck me. I mean, he makes some comment that implies he's shagging her or that she wants to shag him. He goes, if you're calling, don't bother, I left the phone off the hook. Look at the fucking state of him.

We know you've left the phone off the hook for Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well. Oh, tenders. We did Heaven is a Place on Earth in the November 87 episode and Mike Reed did the same gag.

It's a running gag. It's a running shag gag. And he thinks it's that whole kind of thing. It's like, well, you're it has the patina of self-deprecation, but it's just just squeaky. Just don't do that. Yes, we know. Yes, we recognise

that Belinda carlisle is attractive can you just let her be attractive without kind of commenting on it in this weird way that makes it about you what if he's named his washing machine after belinda carlisle i mean we're okay with prince talking so sexy that she wants him from uh his head to his feet but mike reed not so much no it's it's very much it depends who's doing it and I don't think Mike Reid is allowed in all of these cases you've just got to know what you're doing you've got to you know and if you don't know what you're doing don't do it we don't want to think of him sending or receiving a booty call from Belinda just please no it's not about licking fanny. It's not.

I'm sorry. It's like a curse now. It's like a fucking curse. It's not me that's bringing it up. I know, but I can't help myself. But I love this, actually. I remember I loved it at the time, probably even more than... Recognising that...

You know that thing where you recognize that one track is better than another track but you still prefer you just have a preference for the other one i just i loved it it's so kind of evocative of california in that way it's and and so yeah obviously the video fits it perfectly it's just such a lovely kind of la sunset of a song and like thomas dolby keyboards and that kind of massive chiming resounding production that I love I love that it's gorgeous it's just such a sparkly pretty and kind of slightly moody pop song I actually have the words bubblegum Stevie Nicks written down here which which only just occurred to me on on this listen of this song it's like oh yeah

this would not be out of place as a kind of extra track or a B-side on Tango in the Night. It's got that sort of vibe about it and she does have this great kind of bubbly throatiness. There's a slightly kind of witchy feeling about this.

It's a sort of incantation. Yeah, love it. What did Belinda Carlisle mean to you as a 10-year-old? Late 80s seems to be a time where women singers and women in bands were allowed to just be musicians and singers and they didn't have to do a sex as much as they would a few years previous and a few years later. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, you sort of,

by the age of 10 you're already uh you've already probably internalized a lot of a lot of bullshit about women that you're it's probably still there it sort of encrusts the inside of your skull and you never fully get rid of it spend the rest of your life just chipping away about you know what what uh what am i supposed to be as a woman how do do I inhabit this body, etc.? But, I mean, at the time, I probably would have just thought she was a lovely kind of magical American fairy person, you know. She's like a lovely pixie.

And I think I found her quite wonderful, you know, in a very basic way. Just like, wow, she's, you know, a proper pop star and she's got such gorgeous hair. And apparently, I mean, it's kind of nothing to do with anything. But Simon, you were saying about how she just seems to be really enjoying herself. There was a very I might have mentioned before there was a very oily kind of thigh rubbing review in the Telegraph which fortunately the Telegraph does that wonderful thing with the paywall where it's kind of like the idiot

fade where somebody's tell you get like the first few lines and then it just kind of fades out like it's kind of going away and you don't have to listen to it anymore and it's like yeah I've heard enough thanks Neil McCormick oh god yeah i thought it

would be him just going oh no she's so she's so lithe and but i it's love it it's nice that um apparently she's still it's always kind of a bit of a thrill when someone just looks exactly the same as they did when they were younger there's just like you feel like they deserve it you know that whole thing about everyone you know by the age of 50 a man has has the face that he deserves and stuff it's kind of different kind of different with women but i mean don't say that sarah it's true you've got a face face up to it um but like look at yourself in the mirror what have you done with life? But there is a thing where you get that sort of vitality in some people that seems to keep them, that seems to confer youthfulness upon them because they just haven't really paid a lot of mind to, you know, the kind of bullshit about how how one is supposed to age. And especially as a woman, you know, you age gracefully. What does that even fucking mean?

And this is, you know obviously Madonna being kind of the everything of that, you know, she's been, but people have been saying that she's too old since she was 30, so you know but yeah this was a, kind of

another high point after Alphabet Street and it's such a rollercoaster this episode, it's just like, oh oh god, this is kind of another high point after Alphabet Street. And it's such a roller coaster, this episode. It's just like, oh, oh, God, this is awful. Oh, thank God. Oh, no, what are you doing? Oh, hooray. Yeah. And it's not even over yet.

No, yeah, no spoilers, but the worst is yet to come, isn't it? Fuck me. The following week, Circle in the Sand soared 19 places to number 12, and two weeks later it got to its highest position, number 4. The follow-up, Mad About You, only got to number 67 in August of this year, but she'd right the ship a year later with Leave a Light On, which also got to number 4 in October of 1989. And she'd go on to notch up 14 top 40 hits,

three of which made the top 10 throughout the first half of the 90s. Life is all we need Circle in the sand Circle in the sand And your bad young brother is Derek B in at 26. We'll catch your attention like a newsflash Let's put our sound like an infectious rash

Born in London in 1965, Derek Boland began his career as a mobile DJ in 1980 before linking up with local pirate radio stations Kiss FM and LWR and eventually starting his own WBLS. In 1986 he joined the dance label Music of Life as a part-time A&R man and when they went over budget on a hip-hop compilation called Death Beats 1 and didn't have enough tracks to finish the LP he stepped in to record Rock the Beat under the name EZQ. Encouraged by the reaction to the track, at a time when British rappers were thin on the ground,

he went back into the studio and put out the single Get Down, which got to number 87 in October of 1987, which led to an American deal with Profile Records, Run DMC's label. This is the follow-up to Good Groove, which got to number 16 in March of this year, and is the second cut from his new LP, Bullet From A Gun. Not only has he already been featured on Top Of The Pops as the producer of Anfield Rap, despite being a West Ham supporter, he's also supporting Public Enemy next week at the electric ballroom in the meantime this sent

to the charts last week at number 36 and it's jumped 10 places to number 26 well me this there's been british hip-hop records since december of 1982 with christmas rapping by dizzy heights but derry b's seen pretty much as the first british. I mean, definitely the first British rapper on Top of the Pops if you don't count Captain Sensible with What, which I certainly don't. Or Adam Ant with Ant Rap. So, British hip-hop. Yeah, I mean, he was the first one that was spoken

about with any kind of credibility. It's a shame. He was retrospectively seen as a bit of a joke character. I think his name didn't help. It's been called Derek B. It just sounded like a bit of a joke character um i think his name didn't help being called derrick b it just sounded like it sounded like a sort of a david stubbs piss take of eric b or eric you know um derrick is such a profoundly british name and just sorry to any derricks out there it's just kind of a very uncool name um yeah but you could say that about malcolm yes you could you

know if a black nationalist leader court came out called malcolm x everybody'd be taking the piss out of him and doing that bloody vick sinex advert at him i suppose so but it's it's it is a hurdle to surmount or keith cool keith yeah exactly yeah fair point i mean it is an obstacle. You know, it's something that you have to surmount. And I think this came at a time where most British hip-hop, or maybe all British hip-hop, I think you, Al, and Neil could correct me on this, but were certainly trying to sound American. There wasn't a unique or indigenous British hip-hop voice,

if you will, certainly that I was aware of. This record, when it came along, there was just a feeling of, it's pretty good for a Brit. There was always that caveat to it, I think. Yes. As somebody who wasn't particularly immersed in hip-hop at the time,

although I did fucking love Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys and Run DMC. That was my shorthand for this. It's all right for a Brit.orthand for this it's it's all right for a brit you know understandably i guess he he did you know he got shit for kind of rapping in in that sort of slightly put on not quite transatlantic kind of you know just just the thing is that i suppose it does lend itself to kind of an american accent a lot of things do a lot of pop does it's just that's kind of that seems to be the default and it just sort of fits and it just

suits yeah because when a british singer says can't instead of can't that's a really big deal you know like when brian ferry did it in love is a drug it's like oh he sang it properly that's weird yeah yeah but that's the thing is it's a thing a Drug. It's like, oh, he sang it properly. That's weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the thing, it's a thing, isn't it? It's like it stands out when actually it's a lot easier. It's not laziness, it's just that that seems to be appropriate for the form a lot of the time, is just to do it that way. So, you know, you can't blame it.

And also, people do things to to you do what you have to do to kind of elbow your way in to a space from which you're you've traditionally been excluded. And people it's kind of in the same way, you know, women using male pseudonyms and stuff. It's kind of I think it's called I don't know enough about this to talk about it, but code switching is when you change your, it's not a good thing necessarily, but it's when you moderate your presentation when you're in a different arena, when you're in a different space and you want to be, you know, you just kind of might sand down the edges of yourself in order to be accepted or you you sort of speak the language of the place that you're in you know and um there's so much obviously so much kind of uh discomfort and baggage and and stuff

that goes along with that a lot of stuff you know and then you get into like masking and everything where you're really just pretending to be someone else in order to get where you need to go or in order to just stay where you are without being you know without being chucked out or shunned it hasn't really aged well this track it sounds quite soft doesn't it and quite quite basic and kind of flimsy there's not a lot of there's not a lot of weight to it um and it's like it's a little bit awkward it's a pop song yeah but you know there's a slight awkwardness to it and but there's so much kind of baggage inherent in it that you know it's actually doing it's actually wearing it quite quite lightly um so yeah it's whatever it's difficult really because whatever the quality of his music you like respect is due to him as a pioneer because

you know he he was kind of sticking his neck out um and it's completely understandable you it's always easy to look back at people and go well you could have just done this and you know it would have been okay and it's like well you know he probably wouldn't have fucking got anywhere so you have to understand it in its context but it is that the irony as well of him saying i'm no imitation i'm the real mccoy which i wonder if it was a sort of self slightly self-deprecating line when you're a british wraparound about this time you had to insert at least one line where you said you know i'm actually british so um rebel mc you know yes is he a yankee no i'm a londoner yeah yeah yeah and in here it's like he says i'm paid in pounds not in dollars yeah yeah a bit more

of a brag then than it is now there's so much oh yeah yeah there's so much about this is the thing it's even like the vernacular and everything it's all kind of it all comes in that american package and just the word dollar and the idea of a dollar and the dollar sign all of that shit is so much cooler than the pound the british pound it's it's just so kind of stiff and and kind of dorky in comparison there are so many little things like that that just make you think yeah obviously you're going to kind of tilt in this americanized direction yeah yeah i don't think anyone can really blame him for that really because i'm just trying to think of kind of recognisably British voices on hip hop records. Weirdly, one of them would have been Dave Pearce, the DJ at the start of a Public Enemy album.

Yes. You know, when he's at the very start of his countdown to Armageddon, isn't it? The start of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. It's that gig at Hammersmith, I think, where he's getting the crowd whipped up. But yeah, hearing a London accent in the context of an American hip-hop record was really fucking weird. But then you had London Posse.

I love the early London Posse stuff. It's fucking brilliant. Yeah, there was always a bit of a sticking point with the accent and everything. But when it comes to the actual musical side and the remixing and all that kind of stuff, you know, fucking Cold Cut, that greedy beat beats and pieces that was fucking brilliant yeah you know we could we could we could do it as long as we kept a gob shot yeah yeah yeah let's go through the sample so you've got the when the levy breaks drum break uh it's my thing by

marva whitney the uh you know the bring the noise bit a bit of it's just begun by the jimmy casta bunch you got the big beat by billy squire uh you got ufo by esg so essentially the standard ingredients for a hip-hop record in 1988 but with one addition prince the oh yeah bit from sign of the times by prince second appearance of prince on on the program yes it's so it's funny um uh the the billy squire big beat to sample there because of course that was uh how dizzy rascal broke through with fix up look sharp with with that yeah that beat so it's it's funny really you know a generation later the the foremost english rapper using that same sample yeah i mean the prince samples hopefully he got it fucking cleared

because i think a hundred thousand dollar hit is going to affect derrick b in 1988 more than it would um arrested development a few years later yeah i think his bank account's going to be in the minus isn't it yes probably but also this is a time when you know prince was still frowned upon quite a lot in in in the hip-hop world you know rock the bells you've hated michael and prince all the way ever since if their beats were made of meat then they would have to be minced as far as the video goes again we don't see a lot of it it's a bog standard in a studio with a white background with some decks and some mates he gets kissed on the cheek by uh this blonde girl which would have

been you know would have upset a few dads yeah and he's got a big audio dynamite cap on because apparently his manager was wearing it at the time and he just nicked it off him well that was the other thing it you know hip-hop was kind of crossing over into the indie or rock or alternative world through bands like big Audio Dynamite. Yes. And to a lesser extent, Age of Chance, which meant that people with maybe close-minded sensibilities were sort of opening up thanks to, you know, Mick Jones. Well, Mick Jones had been at that already in The Clash, of course, with, you know, Magnificent Seven and stuff like that.

Yeah. I'm not saying that Derek B was pushing an open door, but he's pushing a slightly ajar door with a lot of people so the following week bad young brother soared 10 places to number 16 where it would stay for two weeks its highest position the follow-up we got the juice would only get to number 56 and he never troubled the chart again easing back into production and remixing work with Curiosity, Kill the Cat, Was Not Was, and Assorted Rappers.

Alas, he died of a heart attack in 2009 at the age of 44. Break a breaker at 28, real mustard from Prefab Sprout, the king of rock and roll. I had a jumping fight I won't buy a cookie So now I'm on my way Formed in County Durham in 1977 by Paddy and Martin McAloon, the Dick Diver Band changed their name to Prefab Sprout a year later.

It wasn't until 1982 when they released their debut single, Lions In My Own Garden, Exit Someone, on their own label, but they were picked up by Kitchenware Records a year later when label owner Keith Armstrong heard their second single, The Devil Has All The Best Tunes, at the Newcastle branch of HMV that he managed. They first tickled the arse of the charts when Don't Sing got to number 62 in January of 1984 and the follow-up When Love Breaks Down only got to number 89 in November of that year when it was reissued in April of 1985 it only managed to get to number 88 however when the second LP Steve McQueen came out to a rapturous reception from the music press in June of that year and the

first two cuts from it failed to break the top 40 it was put out again and this time it went to number 25 for two weeks in November. This is the second cut from their latest LP from Langley Park to Memphis and it's the follow-up to Cars and Girls, which got to number 44 in February. Like all of Steve McQueen, it's been produced by Thomas Dolbe, who couldn't commit to the whole of the new LP as he was working on the soundtrack of Howard the Duck. It nipped into the top 40 last week at number 39, and this week it's jumped frog-like 11 places to number 28.

So yeah, Prefab Sprout. The previous single, Cars and Girls, I was shocked that it wasn't a chart hit. Because I heard that all over the place. To me it was a little bit Steely Dan, that song. Sprouty Dan, if you will. But they've gone full-on pop for this and it's paid right off, hasn't it? Yeah, I mean, I love Cars and Girls. That maybe is the one for me for a pre-fab sprout it's you know this kind of contemplation

of the romantic dream espoused in in bruce springsteen's songs and that was quite a sort of daring thing for a notionally indie band to do at the time because springsteen was this kind of icon of mainstream american culture and they were. And they were finding beauty and romance in his songs. And I really admired them going out on a limb for doing that. And I adore Prefab Sprout. I think almost everything they do and have done is sublime. And if anything, this song, King of Rock and Roll is underrated I think

and what I'm going to do I'm going to accuse people of liking it for the wrong reasons so the things that people like about this song first of all it's got that parping, farting, rubbery bass line that people seem to love

but then you know the other thing the main thing is you know uh whenever there's a sort of buzzfeed article or something like that of the worst lyrics in pop history and yeah it's usually you'll get uh desri with that thing about the ghost and some toast in the park and all that yeah and you will get hot dog jumping frog albuquerque which by the way well to a lot of people that's what the song's called yeah they think it's the

Hot Dog, Jumping Frog, Albuquerque song and of course it's about Licking Fanny as we all know but yeah I just think okay fine it's got a hook that people can latch on to great and it's sort of paid off in that it's probably their best known song um yeah but um the lyrics are just it's it's a killer opening for a

start it goes all my lazy teenage boasts are my high precision ghosts and they're coming around the track to haunt me so that that is just really vicious and cutting and it's scalpel like and then the next one the dream helps you forget you ain't never danced a step you were never fleet of foot hippie hippie the way he pauses and goes hippie there oh my god yes it's brutal it's this brutal cut down of not even a has-been so much as a never was, a kind of older swinger in town character. And if you can't relate to that, then you've lived a charmed life and I envy you. And I can relate to it.

I can identify more than I'd like to, put it that way. You know? It's about a one-hit wonder, isn't it? I guess so. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the hot dog jumping frog Albuquerque is supposed to be the song that made him famous and his only hit.

Oh, so it was quite meta then, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's who he is. He's this washed out singer who's had one hit and he's lived off it. Yeah, and I suppose... It's almost like Don Estelle going round shopping centres in his lofty gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think Patsy McLuhan is one of those pop artists who's really keenly aware of the kind of lifespan of a pop artist potentially and how fleeting it can be in a way

we almost don't want to use the M words but in a way that Morrissey was, certainly on things like Rubber Ring by the Smiths or Little Man What Now, it's just keenly aware of the kind of, the mortality of fame and of stardom. And yeah, I mean, they only just made it into being pop stars in the first place.

You mentioned that it took a couple of efforts to get when uh love breaks down into the charts i think i had it first time around because i'm so cool um but yeah that that song really hooked me in and also farron young and um the steve mcqueen album i just think it's it's one of those albums that uh for a start it's uh one of the greatest albums ever made i really believe that certainly one of those albums that for a start it's one of the greatest albums ever made, I really believe that certainly one of the greatest of the 80s and also it's got one of the greatest side ones of an album

like David Bowie's Low in that sense whenever I reach for it I tend to put side one on and maybe not even play side two because it's just impeccable and flawless, that side of a record. Like what's going on then I'm like that with what's going on. Yeah, another good example.

And I don't think they ever really went off the boil. Everything they've done in their post-fame years really works for me. I really love the album Andromeda Heights, which again has got one of these songs that's very self-aware about being a pop artist. There's a song called electric guitars and it goes we were songbirds we were greek gods we were singled out by fate we were quoted out of context it was great that is a fantastic lyric and yeah i mean everything everything they've done

um right up until you know the last few years I completely adore he's never made a bad record for me Paddy this video they're really laying it on thick going for the pop market aren't they it's quite gimmicky, they've got an actual frog waiter, poolside waiter in the video, Paddy's in his gold Elvis suit, there's dancing hot dogs

all of that, it's all playing it for the lols, and fine fine, but all I'm yeah clearly not shot in new mexico though no no no um but all i'm saying is that yeah fine they were going for it with a big hook and a jokey video to reel people in but there is way more going on in this song than meets the eye yeah yes it kind of um i mean what we were saying before about how things land, you know, the intention of, you know, if you're doing doing something satirical or kind of side long and there are going to be people who don't get it. And sometimes that matters and it's going to have kind of, you know, unpleasant resonance and sometimes it doesn't matter. And this is one of the instances, I think, in which it doesn't really matter if people didn't get what they were going for here.

I mean, there are several comedy or novelty or purportedly comedy records in this episode. But there's also that... I was thinking about the difference between, you know, comedy and... which can be quite forced when you try to cram it into a record or try to build a record around it. But then there's playfulness, which is a really rare and great quality to have in your music. I mean, Alphabet Street is a playful record, perhaps even

frolicsome, you know, and this is sort of, it's not that it's daft. It's because the intelligence in it is obvious. But it's got that energy about it which connects with people in various different ways. And you can enjoy it on different levels. I'm sure there'll be people who enjoy it just because it sounds funny, you know, and without really any recognition of what it's saying. I mean, yeah, I get why Prefab Sprouts music rubs some people the wrong way.

I don't really care, but, you know, I see that it's like there's a certain forthright kind of earnest, even though there's stuff going on and there's layers of irony and stuff, but there's a sort of cleanness about it musically, which I think some people just aren't interested in or it doesn't connect with them. But I love pretty much everything they've done. It's clever without being snotty.

It just is clever and it's okay to be clever. It's okay to not be a twat. It's okay to not be an idiot. And to just the precision, there's this kind of emotional songwriting precision where every syllable is weighted just so and it lands just so. And there's like a sort of acupressure thing that happens in your brain when you hear something like Cars and Girls. And there's some songs that I can hardly think about without just misting up a little bit some lines you know um someone stops for directions something responds deep in our engines we burn yes yes fuck doesn't it you know and the way that it it because it's

that's quite an obvious thing it's quite a sort of the, in someone else's hands, that would have been like a really laboured kind of cheesy car metaphor. Yeah. But in the hands of Paddy McAloon, it's searing and it makes you, you know, yeah, it really, really connects with you in this deep way. I mean, yeah, like the most, some of the more recent stuff like this decade or last decade fuck um um like uh crimson red that's a brilliant album yeah um and you know with with the song grief built the taj mahal yeah which is just the story of of how the taj Mahal was built in, you know,

from, from a vision beyond the grave. And it's like fucking hell who, who does this stuff? You know, that's what a great idea for, for someone. It's like,

you know, under three minutes or something and just beautiful. And, and then there'll be like a caper about the best jewel thief in the world, carrying a bag, a bag marked swag just just gorgeous and it's all yeah so it's yeah everything all of human life is there basically in pre-war drought and um yeah i i will be somebody was talking the other day about like brace yourself

and talk about like who who is who you're going to really miss when they go and i'm going to be i'll be i hope he's going to be around for it for a good while yet but i'm're going to really miss when they go. And I hope he's going to be around for a good while yet, but I'm really going to miss Paddy McAloon being in the world. Yeah. Yeah, just to ruminate a little bit further on the thing of Prefab Sprout being very self-aware about not exactly being a failure, but not being the success that you might have hoped. In this song particularly, the King of Rock and Roll,

when he goes goes when she looks at me and laughs i remind her of the fact i'm the king of rock and roll completely and when he delivers that it's it's just balanced perfectly that you're not quite sure the percentages of paddy mocking this guy or really feeling empathy for this this sort this slightly pitiful character who was something, could have been a contender, damn it, or maybe was at one point. And if it was outright mocking, it wouldn't be half the song it is. He's just got that way of just getting inside a character and writing in that way that you can kind of see both sides

and throw off your mental chains, to quote George. And also, the thing about that line is, unlike most people, he doesn't go into an Elvis impersonation, which is the most obvious thing to do, which is what B.A. Cunterson did in Knocked It Off. Remember? Well, yes, but he sort of does the King of Rock and Roll.

Sort of does, right, yes. Yeah, but just enough of it. Just enough of an allusion to it. Yeah. You know what? you reminded me when you said that they rub people up the wrong way sorry was it you sarah that said that yeah yeah i just remembered around the time i joined melody maker paddy mccalloon's nickname in melody maker was paddy mcnance like he was a nancy for writing these sensitive songs and his music being a bit kind of fey or whatever

and yeah Melty Maker anytime you saw him written about as Paddy McNance I think the Stud Brothers were the ringleaders of that and it was very much this kind of lads lads lads club that was an element of Melty Maker I didn't like and I kind of thought look right you know

if being into Prefab Sprout means I can't be in your gang I don't like and I kind of thought, look right, you know if being into Prefab Sprout means I can't be in your gang, I don't want to be in your fucking gang, do you know what I mean? Because there was a column, regular column in Melody Maker at the time, Nance of the Week Right, yeah exactly, it's all homophobic and yeah

I'm not even going to say different times because I was there and at the time I just felt this is just unpleasant well the two things I want to chuck in is I used to know the third Macalloon brother the one who wasn't in the band he was in

my year at university and he was a fucking lovely bloke really nice bloke he went round pretty sharpish probably the first week that he was paddy mccalloon's brother but i never brought it up with him he never brought it up to anyone and that was it and uh yeah if you're out there mick i hope you're having a nice life so paddy never dropped round for a cup of tea or a pint or anything no sadly not and the other thing is

every time i do an episode of chart music i'm always scrabbling around for what i was doing in that precise month and when i picked on this episode i just thought oh fucking hell what you know what was i doing as soon as this song came on i knew instantly everything came back to me because at this time i was playing baseball at the weekend i was in the local team the best wood pirates played third base. Fucking loved it. Great sport, baseball, to play. And one of the lads in the team, he had a three-year-old son,

and after we'd done training or a game, his missus had come round with their lad, still in his push chair, so he must have been about two or three, and he would say nothing. The only thing that would come out of his mouth is him singing Hot Dog Jumping Frog Albuquerque. And every time he did it, everyone, regardless of age or what music they're into, would sing it with him and get him to do it. And I instantly went back to that moment.

And, you know, if you're a songwriter and you can get music journalists to wang on about you and about how brilliant you are for like 15 minutes and get a three-year-old kid to sing you a songwriter and you can get music journalists to wang on about you and about how brilliant you are for like 15 minutes and get a three-year-old kid to sing you song then you've essentially won at life haven't you i think so yeah yeah it's almost the bitterest of iron is that paddy mccalloon is best known to the general public for a song about a one-hit wonder but you know thank god for when love breaks down yeah yeah like i feel like you need a sort of content warning on on it even the titles yeah yeah it's like oh my heart this is one of those things where um you want them to be appreciated by by as many people as possible

and they you know i think they are much loved and much admired but this is the least of of what they were capable of really what he's capable of um i i think i probably um to be to be perfectly honest i probably got quite tired of this at the time because it was played so much yeah and i'm not a big fan of squelchy bass and that used to irritate me a little bit but you know that's i have a better appreciation for it now especially now it's not it's not on radio one like you know every day but um what else can you say really hail hail paddy mccallum yeah i mean a few months after this he was at one of paul mccartney's parties and mr you can do it right now please came up to him and told him that that this song would be to him what my ding-a-ling was to Chuck Berry. Yeah, he had a point.

Paddy McAloon took it on. You know, if it was me, I'd turn around and go, well, I've done a better song about frogs than you, you cunt. Yeah, fair point. So the following week, the King of Rock and Roll soared 14 places to number 14. And the week after that, it made it to number seven, where it stayed for two weeks their only top 10 hit the follow-up hey manhattan only got to number 72 in june of this year and they'd have to wait

another three years for their next top 40 hit when jordan the ep got to number 35 in january of 1991 and they'd have intermittent moderate chart success throughout the 90s until they dissolved as a band in 1997 all right and Paul Craig's youngsters I know what's coming next and I just can't face it at the minute. So I'm going to step back, I'm going to wrap some cling film around my head, I'm going to put my scent back in my box, and I'm going to come back hard tomorrow. Anyway, I'm Al Needham, he's Simon Price, she's Sarah B, you're you, and we are all Pop Crazed.

All pop crazed. Chart music. GreatBigOwl.com Hello, I'm Chris England, and I'm here to tell you about the Fun Factory podcast, available now on Great Big Owl. Each time, I will be reading a couple of chapters of my novel, The Fund Factory