Hits 21 - 1990 (6): Righteous Brothers and Vanilla Ice

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21! It's time for a new season: Hits 21 - The 90s. At the roundtable from now on it's Rob, Andy, and Ed. This week we've got the return of the Righteous Brothers, and a guy who knows how to solve problems. Twitter: @Hits21UK Email: [e-mail]

The End Hi there everyone and welcome back to Hitch 21, the 90s, where me, Rob, me, Andy and me, Ed are looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us over on Twitter, we are at Hit21UK, that is at Hit21UK. Andy can email us too, send it on over to hits21podcast at gmail.com. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are currently looking back at the year 1990, and this week we'll be covering the period between the 28th of October and the 22nd of December. We are going right up close to Christmas Day 1990. Last week there was a bit of a surprise on the

poll when turtle power reigned supreme over sacrifice and others. Less of a surprise, less of a surprise. This time, show me heaven, Maria McKee won the vote from the beautiful self. So well done to Maria. So it is time to press on with this week's episode and as always it's time for some news headlines from October, December-y time in 1990. Russell Bishop is sentenced to life in prison for the kidnap and murder of a seven-year-old girl in Brighton three years after committing the babes in the woods murders which was a crime he was eventually only found guilty of in 2018 and Deputy Prime Minister Jeffrey Howe

resigns over Margaret Thatcher's policies regarding a central European currency. Howe's resignation triggers a leadership contest that causes Thatcher to step down as Prime Minister after not receiving enough votes in the first round and being told by close friends that she would lose. Her resignation ended an 11-year reign as Prime Minister that lasted for the entirety of the 1980s and has not been surpassed in length since. The leadership race was ultimately won by Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major, who was formally appointed as Prime Minister in November.

As Iraq President Saddam Hussein announces that all British hostages in the country will be freed, the UK is hit by heavy snow in the first week of December that brings down power lines and closes major transport links. Meanwhile, Poundland and Netto open their first stores in the UK. Hooray! The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows. As Ghost finally finishes its 8 week run at the top we have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for 2 weeks and then the year is closed out by Home Alone which stays at the top of the

UK box office for three weeks. Can I just briefly call out the injustice of Ghost and Ninja Tales both having a song get to number one on the UK charts, but Home Alone, which has an embarrassment of riches, both composed for the film and on the soundtrack, that should have had a number one somewhere. Bloody hell. Anyway, a special episode of ITN sees Trevor McDonald interview Saddam Hussein and amidst the Tory leadership election, broadcaster John Sargent is pushed on live TV by Margaret Thatcher's press secretary Bernard Ingham. He had

been waiting to interview her on the steps of the British Embassy in Paris. Pingu makes its debut on the BBC. ITV dedicates a week of programming to the 30th anniversary of Coronation Street with a special celebration episode presented by Cilla Black. And on channel four, animation short, A Grand Day Out, featuring characters Wallace and Gromit, makes its debut on British TV. The album charts, Andy, how are they?

We are actually gonna be finishing off the year in this episode, as is so often the case, because something quite often Storms it over the Christmas period which is the case this year But before we get there we begin this period with the rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon at number one for two weeks I'm going double platinum can't resist hearing that as this is the rhythm of the Saints That's then toppled at the top by the very best of Elton John, surprisingly enough by Elton John and that also went number one for two weeks and went nine times platinum.

But then we have a right old monolith to take the crown for the year not only as the longest run at number one but also eventually as the highest selling album of 1990 went all the sudden across time. It is Madonna with the Immaculate Collection, a real kind of bastion in the history of greatest hit albums. That went number one for nine weeks. It was number one from the end of November all the way through to the end of January 1991 and it went 12 times platinum eventually, the Immaculate collection. So it's a Merry Christmas to Madonna and a pretty pleasant one for Paul Simon and Elton John. Ed, the States, how are they?

Albums wise one might regard them as being in a bit of a state because for the rest of the year it's pretty much ice, ice, ice, ice, ice, and ice, with to the extreme just dominating the charts for the rest of the year. So that's a thing that happened in 1990. Singles wise, we've got three, seeing us through to Christmas. We've got Love Takes Time by Mariah Carey, which was at number one for three weeks, even though it only reached UK number 42.

We've got I'm Your Baby Tonight by Whitney Houston for one week, UK number five. And finally seeing us all the way through December to Christmas Christmas it's Because I Love You of the Postman song which I always hear as I never left that you when you boo hoo hoo I'm a postman. That reached the the the Wuthering Heights of UK number six. Thank you both very much and we are gonna move on to the first of two songs this week as we prepare for Christmas and the first of those is this Oh, darling, I've hungered for your touch

A long, lonely time And time goes by so slowly And time can do so much for you For you still more I need your love I need your love, God, spit your love to me Okay, this is Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers. Reissued as the first and only single from the Ghost Movie soundtrack, Unchained Melody is The Righteous Brothers' 10th single overall to be released in the UK and their second to reach number 1. The single originally charted

at number 14 in 1965 and is a cover of the version originally recorded by Todd Duncan. Unchained Melody first re-entered the chart at number 3, reaching number 1 during its second week back on the chart. It stayed at number 1 for… FOUR WEEKS! Across its four weeks atop the charts it sold 561,000 copies, beating competition from I'm Your Baby Tonight by Whitney Houston, We Want the Same Thing by Belinda Carlisle and Step Back in Time by Kylie Minogue, Don't Worry by Kim Appleby, Fantasy by Black Box and I'll Be Your Baby Tonight by Robert Palmer and UB40, Fog on the Tine by Gazza and Lindisfarne, Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, Unbelievable by EMF, To Love Somebody by Jimmy Summerville and Cubic by 808 State. When it was knocked off the top of the charts Unchained

Melody dropped 1 place to number 2. Across its two runs on the charts, it has been inside the Top 100 for 26 weeks. The song is currently officially certified Platinum in the UK as of 2024, but that might be based on that pre-Kantar data that we were informed about at the beginning of the year. So Andy, you can open us up with the Righteous Brothers. Yes, I'm in a really strange place with this song, I really am because quite often there's a few kind of signifiers that will take me on the way with a song like do I like this particular sound, do I have nostalgia for this etc etc a few little things that sort of start leaning me in the right direction

and this has quite a few things just small things that are taking me in one direction and i'm just not really getting there like for example i do have quite a lot of nostalgia for this song but specifically unfortunately for the gareth gates version because that's the one that i grew up on i very rarely if, heard this when I was growing up. But the actual song, like the meat and bones of it, is something that was very, very familiar from my childhood. And it is pleasant to revisit it, even though I do think of Gareth Gates absolutely screeching out those notes that he was never capable of, bless him.

Also, in terms of the actual style of it as well, this is something that usually I'm quite a fan of. That sort of waltz friendly, high reverb, sweeping strings, musical you know, quite classy feel to it and I do like that. I really do like that. I don't know if you know that song, Until I Found You, Stephen Sanchez, that recent one, which I really, really like. Yes, yeah. That is definitely, well, it's not inspired

by Unchained Melody. It's got a lot of similar aspects to it. There's a lot of DNA there. It's just, there's something about it that just doesn't click with me. I don't know if it's a bit of an overexposure thing that we've had so many different versions, so many different takes and frankly most of them quite underwhelming takes on this over the years that it sort of feels like an old standard, which is an unfair thing to put on this version because it's much earlier in time, this one. I think what I really have an issue with is the vocal performance, if I'm quite honest. It's a bit

kind of lilting and relaxed and quite often falls over the beat in a way I don't really like where it's not quite hitting the beat in the right way. It has this sort of a little bit of a washed out feel to it, I think, because it's got that kind of quite languid in the middle of the beat vocals and it's quite sort of, you know, very earnest vocals as well, which again I'm not a huge fan of, to be honest. So I think the fundamentals of this I do like, but it's undercut slightly by the actual bits in practice really, which is a bit of a shame. I will say though that I really, really like the actual songwriting of this, that it's really well put together in terms of that, you know, you have that triple time underpinning of it, but it gradually builds

with different melodies and counter melodies, melodies with different takes on the chorus, with the pitch gradually going up a hill all the way through just kind of on an average kind of line chart, the pitch gradually going up throughout the strings following it as well. It's a really well put together piece of work and like I say everything is in the card for me to love this, I just don't really and it's partly the overexposure of it... it's partly the fact that it is very cheesy and certainly in retrospect very cheesy and also yeah there's certain elements of it like the vocal performance that just leave a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth but through the week it's grown on me more and more and it does get a positive score from me it does get a thumbs up

it's not going anywhere near the vault for me but I can definitely see in the minds of the listeners of 1990, or I should say the viewers of 1990 with Ghost, how you'd hear this song once you think, oh, that's quite pleasant, quite pleasant. I appreciate that. Like on a sort of objective level, hear it a couple more times, you think, oh, that's getting in my head. I really do quite like that. And then eventually it becomes this big, big hit in the charts. I can really see how that happens

because this song is one that does take you away with it. It does kind of build in your head and the more times you hear it, the more it establishes itself. So there is a lot to like in this. I just can't rave about it really. There's something holding me back. Maybe I can be convinced further by the review too.

But this is, this is to me it's just sort of... It's fine. It's fine. I wish I felt more strongly about it. I really do because it is such a classic. But I just can't sum it up any stronger feeling about it than that unfortunately. It's strange to actually come to this one because obviously I think like this is probably regarded as like the definitive version of the song right yeah and it was strange because it was originally released 10 years after jimmy young's version got to number one in 1955 that was the first time this song got to number one

this was funnily enough this was the second time it has been number one three times since 1990 because we have Robson and Jerome and obviously we covered Gareth Gates around 2002. And it's so strange that it had such a long life and developed as a standard and then it became the song that was like, oh well for like 12 years it was like, do this, you get a number one sort of thing. A load of people have had a different go at it, different sorts of goes at it, but with this I find that Unchained Melody is the perfect way for me to distinguish between sort of like, you know, material and execution. Because the material on the Gareth Gates version or the Robson and Jerome version is basically the same, but it's about execution

and it's about aesthetic and it's about feel and it's about, you know, it makes you realise that it's about so much more than what's there on paper. You know, it's like they say that football isn't a game played on paper. Music isn't really an art form played on paper either. It has to be full of so much more. It's hard to come at this though because standards are basically impossible to discuss properly. They're so embedded as like a recognisable sound in your head before you've even become aware of them that by the time you come to something like this and you're ready to sit down and work it all out, it's just kind of like a noise you understood for too long. Like all the mysteries have kind of evaporated and you're not really left with

something you can properly investigate. I can't really remind you of a specific time or place because it's just everywhere in your mind. Like even in the case of the song itself, you know, it was originally written in 1955. It's been recorded by more than 600 artists over 1,500 times in more than a dozen languages. It's joined with Band-Aid for being the song to have, you know, hit number one the most. That's also hit number one four times. Like it dominates the pop landscape of the 20th century to such a degree that unfortunately, I think it's kind of passed over into that realm of songs I've discussed on the podcast in the past where they've been and they are now understood in inverted commas by the general public, which is a realm that only very

few songs ever pass into, where the notes and melodies and nuances and all that stuff, they're all kind of lost to endless replays and what we get left with is just the ideas and emotions that TV companies have decided it evokes. We'll get to this more with Bohemian Rhapsody in 91, that was written to be this big finale to this grand operatic, glammed up rock odyssey with moving parts and suites and sections and now it's just real rock music man. Like you know it's kind of got to the point, Unchained Melody, where the song has faded away but all the signifiers are all that's left. it away but all the signifiers are all that's left which is a massive shame because I've always loved this as a composition. I completely agree with you Andy that like the the bridge sandwich between two great extended choruses you don't often get pop like that where it's brave enough to not do a

traditional structure it's just kind of like three parts that all move upwards and by the time you come back around to that, you know, that second sort of like refrain, I guess you would call it, it's in a completely different place and you're in a different place. It works like a really long stand-up routine actually, you come to think of it where you get the setup and then it moves away for a bit of misdirection and then it whams back in for the big emotional punch at the end. I think this aches in a way that is resonant and romantic. I agree though that the vocals are a little over the top. I think by the end, I know that we're in the 60s, but it does clip a lot and not in a way that like say, Stubbs, Levi Stubbs, that's his name isn't it from Four Tops,

the way that he kind of does it on Reach Out I'll Be There where it's kind of like booming and like there's so much depth and soul to it whereas this just it just feels loud it feels like they're overcompensated for something but I do still love this version I don't think it's quite on the level of the other Righteous Brothers song, which as we all know is the only other song they did. You've lost that loving feeling. They did no other songs, they just did these two, which I think is a genuine like classic of that era. I really love You've Lost That Loving Feeling so and I've preferred their vocals on that tape. I do love this too and Comparing it to something like Gareth Gates or Robson and Jerome. It means you have a very easy comparison point It's like yes, this is clearly better than that

Whatever that is. I said that the Gareth Gates version was like you know, what if Unchained Melody had all of the character and personality sucked out of it to the point where it's like vacuum packed like a steak or you know those things you know like the things you have to shove in suitcases like if you've got like a big blanket you've taken on holiday and you want to shrink it down take all the air out of it that is kind of that whereas this is it with all the life and character back in maybe there's too much life and character in this because it feels like it bowls the Production over a little bit towards the end but I think by the time you get to the the I'm not gonna do it but the I'll do it many octaves lower but the That when you get to that there's a big release I yeah, I totally get it. I think that it's become a worthy standard. It's a shame

about all the stuff that's kind of been attached onto it afterwards, but I guess that's what happens when you sell 500,000 copies in four weeks at the top. It just kind of gets bowled over by its popularity and ubiquity and its endless use on montages and in films and adverts and talent show winners and all of this stuff and by the time you kind of fight through it you have to just remember that at the very beginning before all this stuff was piled on top of it there was just a song and when I try and get to that point that's when I feel best about it. So yeah, I am very much into this imperfect but Ed, Unchained Melody. Yeah, I mean I can't add too much but yeah you said it's like a piece where all the mysteries have evaporated, it's become a gesture, a signifier. I mean it's a song that's always been there

a signifier. I mean it's a song that's always been there in the background and is victim of becoming meaningless as a result. I mean there are later songs that come along for me things like the Ghostbusters theme or Smells Like Teen Spirit where I really have to sit down and concentrate and decide whether this is actually a song that I enjoy or it's just something that's kind of just slightly underneath my skin that I've never really noticed before. But the only real nostalgia, as in in terms of anything I put my finger on about this track, is that my grandma only really I think bought one single, she wasn't much of a music fan, between 1965 and when she died in 2009.

And it was the Robson and Jerome version of this. Those lovely lads off the telly. Do you think she would have liked Game of Thrones? I wonder. Probably that one scene in Dawn where Bronn is singing the Dawnishman's Wife or whatever it was. But yeah. Yeah, I have my doubts knowing my gran. But they were just those lovely chaps off the telly. And I think it was a charity single or something.

So, wow, fodder. Yeah, it, fodder. Yeah, it is very strange even in 1965, this one. I mean, obviously in the film Ghost from 1990, it's probably there to connote some sort of classic romance and the gap between the ages in a certain way. But it's super odd that this was later than you've lost that loving feeling because it sounds deliberately 50s in a way. The logical choice would have been to go back to like Phil Spector and do another big like booming wall of sound thing because you've lost that loving feeling for the previous year, sounds so much more contemporary. It sounded pretty modern in 1964, I always assume it's a couple of years later. But this is, it's strange to me. I mean, were they already nostalgic

about the 50s in 1965? Because it seems very deliberately chased and quite narrow. I mean, not just because it's got that overzealous stereo panning they put on everything when they first put stereo LPs but it sounds quite thin and it's got the sort of whiny weepy stereotypical strings on it which I never like on ballads at all and that's just been a sort of staple of a quote-unquote respectable ballad since like the end of the Second World War. I mean one of the lamest Nina Simone albums is called like Nina Simone with strings and she does her best. It's Nina Simone, it can only suck so much but they've all got these

sort of BBC concert orchestral weepy, widdly strings, which have nothing to do with the soul of the piece at all. But yeah, I find the backing a bit naff and flat, which doesn't help matters. And yeah, I grant you, and I agree with both, it does certainly end on a far bigger, boomier note than it starts, but it's not that much

of a gradual trajectory. It's more like there's a gear shift suddenly. And it feels, and it seems so stupid for me to complain about this, given how we've had these never-ending static songs recently in 1990. But the ending, which always reminds me of the end of Life on Mars by David Bowie, I don't know if that was a deliberate reference, it just sounds too big for a song that's been so sort of small in a way and starts so suddenly. It sounds very pompous and that's a feeling I get from the vocals as well, unfortunately,

which he's got a very pleasant voice. I mean, bloody hell, you know, listen to the previous single, you can see the strength of both of them, they sound great. Here, it's like he's got two modes. I'm saying he because I'll be honest, I can never remember which one does which bit. But the verses have got that sort of you know slightly deliberately chasing and then he goes BOOM! And it's like oh Jesus Christ it's like a Scylla a Scylla black escalation if you'll forgive that.

Oh god imagine if you'd let Scylla at this I wonder if she'd ever go at this. What's it all about? Now you've unchanged my melody. Anyway. Oh my love. She must have had it. She did. You've lost that loving feeling so she must have had a go at this. Or somewhere but we don't need to know about that ever. God. This, what you've said there Ed actually has made me think that like you know 1964 is well I would say that the end of 63 but like you know the general consensus is that the 60 start in 63 and 64 that's where they really kick off but what you've said there it does it has

made me realize that even the way that they're dressed and presented in their music videos and stuff the Righteous Brothers were very kind of they were harkening back a little bit to like, Camelot era. Hmm. Like, if you know what I mean, like late 50s, very early 60s America, where basically like how I see the first two seasons of Mad Men, and then season three, obviously, they align Kennedy's assassination with like, major structural changes at the company, but also in fashion and lighting and the office and

all of these major changes happened at the suddenly influx at the end of the third season, whereas the second season is still very much 50s, you know, grey suit, black tie, white shirt, you know, military haircut kind of thing. It feels like it's leaning on that. Well, if I could just briefly come in on that as well. I think I think it's maybe not so much a harkening back as just the fact that these things were more gradual than we realize really, that although the 60s had started culturally by this point, it wasn't a case of like, well, that's just, you know, stuff like Frankie Valley, very, very popular in the 1960s. You know, it's it's we're not like just turning the page. That's true.

So that's still completely normal in the mid 60s. Really, it's just not cool anymore, really. It's true. It just seems an odd choice, given the fact that you've lost that loving feeling was the previous single. And that was pretty a forward looking. But then again, it was it was because it was forward looking. Maybe they just didn't really have a template for where to go next, so they relied on something a bit safer. But yeah, you've got a good point there about kind of Frankie Valli, but one thing that

I am reminded of is that on a 1964 Beach Boys album, there is like a reminiscing song about the origins of rock and roll called Do you remember all the guys that gave us rock and roll? And it's a deliberately stylised track and it's like but it was barely invented eight years ago. This is mad. I don't know. I don't know. It's probably a bit of both. But one thing I will say about this track is that I do agree. I think it is a lovely construction. It's very graceful, it's very classic, which sometimes it means it can get overlooked by some bigger sounding and more harmonically dextrous ballads because it is so sort of baroque and contained and classical in its movement. But I guess that's why I prefer it in a smaller setting.

I prefer it a little bit more honest and close to the heart than this. And I didn't think I could like this song at all until a version that I didn't expect to love to pieces just landed on my lap. From an album I didn't expect to love to pieces about oh five six years ago and it's a covers album by Willie Nelson called Stardust and outside jazz I would say this is probably the best covers album I've ever

heard and he does a version of this that sounds, makes it sound like a song that a human might sing to another human, as opposed to like a god roaring across the ages to some sort of archetypal figure of romance. It just sounds like somebody with their guitar, just it's sweet, it's informed, and it's got that wisdom of age and experience as well, the weathering of the voice. He never raises his voice much that this just doesn't have, this feels a bit too demonstrative and melodramatic because it's not really a melodramatic song.

And I think the melodramatic flush it flourishes like that B-Mine thing, which always sounds like someone doing an Elvis impression to me, which is interesting because Elvis did a version of it. It just doesn't work for me, it sounds all a bit contrived and it seems a bit like, as Rob says, it was already becoming a bit of a, you know, this is a gesture, this track is a gesture of classical, with a major C I think, romance rather than a song that lives in, you know, as an exchange between two people. Great shout out to Willie Nelson there Ed and what you said there, funnily enough,

is exactly the same reasons why I so love his cover of Always On My Mind, really. Oh that's lovely. Yeah, exactly the same films, I listened to that cover of Always On My Mind. Really like, exactly the same films. Listen to that the other day for me enough. I really enjoyed both of your segments. I do want to say Rob in particular that really exactly articulates the problem that I've had with approaching this, which is just that, yeah, it's been around for so long in so many different forms that in my head I think I kind of see it as like public domain music like Jingle Bells or something.

Or Happy Birthday, yeah. And I am realizing that's definitely a big part of it. It's like if someone was trying to do a review of The Wizard of Oz in the present day, which you just can't do obviously. And I thought of an example of the exact kind of feel that I'm trying to put across here, which is in Doctor Who, funnily enough, where there's an episode from the Matt Smith era where they go back 2000 years to Stonehenge and it looks exactly the same. And it says, why doesn't it look new? I mean, because it's already old. And that's like the same thing with this, where this song is already old, even in the 60s. So like, it's very, very hard to grapple with this where this song is already old even in the 60s so like it's very very hard to grapple with this and that has definitely impacted my

my understanding of it and my appreciation of it really but just to say both of you really really have helped me out with this so I enjoyed listening that thank you so we will we will move on to our second song this week and our last song this week actually which is this. Ice, ice baby Alright stop, collaborate and listen Ice is back with my brand new invention Something grabs a hold of me tightly Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know Turn off the lights and I'll glow

To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle Dance, crush the speaker that booms I'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom DEADLY When I play a dope melody Anything less than the best is a felony Love it or leave it You better gain weight You better hit bulls

or the kid don't play If there was a problem Yo, I'll solve it Check out the hook Why my DJ revolves it Ice ice baby The hell is ice ice baby The hell is ice ice baby VENGA ICE ICE RETTY Now that the party is jumpin' With the bass kicked in and the Vegas all pumpin'

Quick to the point to the point no fakin' Cookin' MCs like a pound of bacon Burnin' em if you ain't quick and nimble I go crazy when I hear a cymbal in a high hat Okay, this is Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. Released as the first single from his debut studio album titled To The Extreme, Ice Ice Baby is Vanilla Ice's first single to be released in the UK and his first to reach number 1. However, as of 2024, it is his last. Ice Ice Baby first entered the UK chart at number 3, reaching number 1 during its second week on the chart. It stayed at number 1 for… 4 WEEKS! Across its 4 weeks atop the charts, it sold 406,000 copies beating competition from It

Takes Two by Rod Stewart and Tina Turner, Falling by Julie Cruz and King of the Road by The Proclaimers, Kinky Boots by Patrick McNea, Saviors Day by Cliff Richard and Justify My Love by Madonna, Altogether Now by The Farm, This One's For The Children by New Kids on the Block and Wicked Game by Chris Isaac, You've Lost That Loving Feeling by The Righteous Brothers, Sadness Part 1 by Enigma and Mary Had a Little Boy by Snap and Pray by MC Hammer. When it was knocked off the top of the charts Ice Ice Baby dropped 1 place to number 2. By the time it was done on the charts it had been inside the top 100 for 15 weeks. The song is currently officially certified platinum platinum in the UK but of course that is based on that pre-cantar data so Ed Vanilla Ice, word to my co-host. Music hits me so hard makes me say oh my

lord now that's the only line I remember from this song and the problem with that is that I always realize it's not from this song it's vanilla ice and that's always going to be the problem with this. Is it atrocious? No, no, no it really isn't. Is it great? Absolutely not but I don't hate it. Look, the percussion's got a nice punch to it. The sample is worthwhile. Sorry, fake praise there. He's not a great rapper, but they were so much worse.

I can't think of any now but there are I tell you. Yeah he's fine it's a bit old hat but for mainstream chart rap especially the stuff that was charting in this country it's not awful. He does occasionally not scan in places but I don't think I think it's actually a little bit better than what was it MC Golden. Oh Golden Voice yeah. Golden Voice. It's probably a bit better than that which is a low bar I grant ya. The problem is really in A how repetitive it is, B how he has nothing to say and it is the most surface level I've picked up a few bits of gangster slang from other records I've heard but no one I'm selling this to will know the difference

and the it sounds super cheap really doesn't it and not in a cool you know we're just making this on the on a low budget with just an 808 and a microphone it sounds tacky and quickly produced. I mean, that bloody synth line that goes through the verses is so naff and exposed, and it doesn't even sync up with the sample at the end. So the whole song briefly falls to pieces every time it goes into the chorus.

He has got some only slightly embarrassed backing vocalists in the chorus to give it a bit of extra punch. You know, it's a fun, memorable hook. Eyes, eyes, baby. Everyone knows that. Kids loved it. It's still fun. And he's not talking complete bollocks in that bit as well, which is always helpful.

Because, oh God, just a few choice lines here. Police are on the scene you know what I mean but yes we do what you said is quite literal to be honest there's no there's no ambiguity there killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom or poisonous anything in fact it's not the mushroom part that's important there and that is yes yeah yeah it's like my styles like a chemical Spear so it's a danger to see life and bad PR I presume But yeah

It's not it's it's very turtle power this it's not Detestable in any way. It's kind of innocent. I don't think he's a bad chap. He's just terminally naff. Yeah, I have very little on this, to be honest. It's almost in the territory of Unchained Melody in that it's become such a staple of everything and everywhere that trying to peer through that fog has become kind of impossible. Although I will say that it's become such a staple of everything and everywhere for entirely different reasons to Unchain Melody, and that it's always been seen as kind of corny and uncool and something that white people enjoy ironically and then attribute

all of its problems to rap as an entire genre. But I will say, as corny and lazy as the under pressure sample is and as naff as the whole thing is, there are some quotable lines for better or worse, you know, that keep popping up every now and again like stop, collaborate and listen, anything lesser, the best is a felony and the um, if there was a problem, I'll solve it there was a there's a great subreddit Andy that you introduced me to called blunder years oh it's beautiful it was a post in blunder years a few days ago for those who don't know blunder years is a great subreddit on on reddit where people

post pictures of themselves as teenagers in different eras. It's like a fashion disasters thing. But it's people posting themselves, where if it's like, you know, someone who was like, say like me, who was particularly heavily into emo and scene fashion around the turn of the noughties and the 2010s, you post yourself with a long fringe and snakebite piercings and dramatic tattoos and things like that. Or if you were, say, a kid around the 2010s, you know, like around the same era where you all dress like One Direction with the chinos and the Rihanna loud shirt. Or in the 80s or, you know, various things. So there's a guy posting a picture of himself in a suit with

the power stance, with the really gelled up Johnny Bravo hair. And the first line is, hmm, wonder who this guy's dressed as. And then the comment underneath is, well, I bet he solved lots of problems in the 90s, because the guy looks like the spit of vanilla rice and I think people do associate that look with that line and fair enough I suppose there are certain things that have slightly entered the cultural lexicon in there. The ice ice baby refrain gets used on adverts all the time, there's the muller rice rice rice baby advert with the bears that makes me want to chuck myself out of a window. But you know, it's lasted 30 odd years.

This isn't entirely without merit. He isn't the best rapper, doesn't write the best material. It's a bit of a shame that this is another rap number one because this is less than a percent of what rap is, but it isn't completely a wasted venture. There's little bits of 80s Miami bass in here, about five years behind the times, but it isn't completely a wasted venture. There's little bits of 80s Miami bass in here, about five years behind the times, but it's got electro influences that remind me of things like Houdini and Mantronics. I say remind me, like, oh, that kind of sounds like that's what he's going for. And I think there's enough talent here for it to be tolerable but it is just yeah Ed I can't sign off in a way

that's any different to you it is just naff it is just overwhelmingly naff but hey he was everybody's best mate in November December 1990 Andy vanilla rice he can finish us off this week oh I mean don't worry I won't keep you for too long. I completely agree with both of you and certainly about the just... It's funny enough, you said the to the extreme thing at the start, which is so often associated with Pucci the dog. And I would give this another phrase that's very much associated with Pucci the dog, which is the overall crumminess of this. It's a phrase I use which I absolutely love to deploy whenever I can the overall

crumminess of it. That's not just surface deep by the way I realize now that Pucci actually is going for quite a lot of vanilla ice things like that's definitely the vibe there of something that is aggressively deciding that it's cool without actually being cool. Perhaps I'm being unfair because I was not alive then, let alone a teenager or young adult in the early 1990s. But I just can't help but think like, okay, this is like about as cool as the moody blues now. But like, was this ever cool? Really? really like I can't understand that to be honest. Only for young kids I think. Yeah that's my thinking. I just I actually don't even

really see the Ice Ice Baby hook as a good hook if I'm honest I just think it's like just a thing it doesn't strike me as catchy at all to be honest. I will say that obviously like I mean to be honest hip-hop in general is not something that I am any kind of authority on at all and particularly early 90s white hip-hop certainly not my bag at all but it's definitely got an overall naffness to it. Good lit missess for this I think is if anything that's been performed by Will Schuster on Glee is naff, is very, very naff. White rap everyone, not great. But has some good stuff to it. I do think some of the lines are so odd that they're kind of, I'm not sure if they're intentionally funny or if they're just kind of like weird, but they do sort of strike you like a lot of the ones that you've said

there Ed, you know, it's just, it's just some lyrics that really just strike you. I do think that lifting the bass line from under pressure is something that someone was going to do sooner or later. It's such a good bass line. It stands out so much, so recognizable, making a whole song out of it. It's something that was going to happen. Funnily enough, the song I always in my head get this confused with is Can't Touch This by MC Hammer, which not just because it came out at the same time, exists in the same genre, but also does exactly the same thing. If it just takes a particularly good bass line from another song,

turns it into this like generic NAF rap thing, was very much the chic thing to do in 1990 I guess wasn't it? And then very quickly wasn't. Yes, very quickly wasn't. And I never really like it when you just kind of borrow from the past and don't do anything with it but I think Vanilla Ice is at least trying to do something with this and I do give him points for effort. I just think he is really like aggressively naff in a way that I don't want to make too much fun of really because it just feels a bit like harsh. Yeah, what I will do because I've got so little else to say but I feel like I should contribute in some more meaningful way is I kind of was feeling like the name ice ice baby and the name vanilla rice is actually

fairly apt because this reminds me of ice in several important ways in that although it's striking it's flavorless and bland um it leaves me cold, you might say. If you prod at it too much, it starts to crack. And the more the time goes on, the less substance that it has. I should say that there are many ways in which it's not like ice. You can't put this in a drink. It's not particularly big in Antarctica. This song is not only available as a solid and this song does exist above

the temperature of zero degrees Celsius. That was a pilot segment for Is It Like Ice? If you enjoyed that, we can do more of that next week. If not, go back to Gay Corner, whatever. Have a vote on it. On November the 5th, 2024, the people must decide. Can you synergise the two? Some kind of, you know, icy gay event? What am I talking about? I certainly can't join the two with this, because I think this is a real contender for the straightest song ever, to be honest. Okay, maybe the Joker.

But straight people don't want it either. Who is it for? But yes, thought I'd leave us with a laughter. But yeah, honestly, nothing else to say. It's just like, I agree that this is another one that's kind of just always been there in my life that no one really has anything in particular to say about it. It's just like, it's Ice Ice Baby. It's just a fact of life, really. It's a fact of ice. It's a fact of ice. We'll leave it there. Alright then, that is it for this week's episode. Before we go, we're just going to check Ed, The Righteous Brothers and Vanilla Ice.

Pie hole, vault, what's happening? Right, well, unchained melody. At its very worst, it's a C, it's a C. But at best, it's a C it's a C but at best it's a B minus so unfortunately it goes nowhere ironically vanilla ice goes to no extremes for me at all because it's fucking vanilla ice and I think that's impossible Andy ice ice baby and unchody, how are we feeling? Well actually for me, Unchained Melody is very much a chained melody in that I won't let it reach free into either the vault or into the pie hole.

It stays where it is, like a good little melody. And as for Ice Ice Baby, well like I say, you know, Ice is only available at exactly, well not exactly, but pretty much at zero degrees Celsius. It's neither positive nor negative. And I think that's another way in which this song is like Ice. It's at true neutral. So no, it doesn't go anywhere for me either. I'll stop talking about Ice so much next week.

I'm just sure I've found myself quite interested. Ice 21. As for me, the lonely rivers of unchchained Melody flow all the way to the vault. For me, that's going to the vault. Ice Ice Baby is going nowhere. That's not quite slipping. It would have dribbled into the pie hole, but it froze up and stopped just before it got there. So that is it for this week's episode.

When we come back, which will be in a couple of weeks, we're going to have a little break. It will be the race for Christmas number one in 1990. In that time, there will be another episode of moments of truth just to pass the time, but we'll be back in sort of like towards the end of November, I think. So it'll be a couple of weeks, but there will be a Moments of Truth episode. And in that time, why don't you go through all the episodes of In5 that have been done? Me and Andy are on a few of them. Go and listen to them if you haven't already.

Ed's on all of them, because it's his podcast. So... if you haven't already, Ed's on all of them because it's his podcast. So yeah, so please enjoy some other content from us while you wait. But thank you very much for listening this week and we will see you next time. So bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Baby, I know it You've lost that loving feeling Oh, that loving feeling You've lost that loving feeling

Cause it's gone, gone, gone