McCartney In Goal
McCartney In Goal is a monthly podcast that debates and dissects the greatest albums of popular rock music. Hosted by David Hughes, and fellow judges, Brett and Steve Sumner, each episode the McCartney In Goal team pick a rock or pop music album that they love and put the songs through an imaginary competitive style-knock out format to find the best song on the album. At times, they may be uninformed, biased and they are often a bit unruly. Come and listen in on the fun - and if you enjoy it, TELL A FRIEND!!! Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com
McCartney In Goal
Christmas Song Showdown : Pop vs. Rock
We are back due to popular demand with our 2nd Christmas Song showdown. Coldplay versus The Ramones, Ariana Grande vs Bob Dylan (there's a festive fight we all want to see) —who reigns supreme in the holiday music arena, perhaps Queen? Our lively banter delves into what makes a Christmas song truly memorable, contrasting everything from Leona Lewis's pop appeal to the punk energy of the Ramones. We plug into AC/DC's notorious attempt at a stocking filler and try to decide if Pop or Rock is the best genre for Christmas music. Of course, it wouldn't be a Christmas special without touching on the eccentric genius of Bob Dylan's festive album and Elton John's timeless contributions to the Yuletide soundtrack.
We venture through the decades, from The Darkness to Christmas Lights and of course Wham!'s enduring "Last Christmas." Whether you're a rock enthusiast, a pop aficionado, or somewhere in between, there's something here for everyone as we revel in the diverse and timeless appeal of holiday tunes.
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin
Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com/
yo, that's what the kids are saying. Don't question me on it. Hello and welcome to mccartney and gold. This is usually the podcast, uh, where we take a brilliant album of popular music and dissect it and put it through a sporting knockout format. But for the second time in our glorious history, we are the second, only the second time in our glorious near half-decade history we are hosting a Christmas special. Ladies and gents, now, last time we did a Christmas special, we just put a bunch of Christmas songs through their paces, but this time we've got a little twist.
Speaker 1:Oh, we've all got a twist A little twist, a little zesty twist, which we are pitting pop Christmas songs against rock Christmas songs, although, as Brett compiled this list at the last minute, I'm already going to take issue with some of the thinking on what the categories of pop and rock are and quite how, the logic of quite what's happened there.
Speaker 2:But that's fine, it's very clearly defined. There is no kind of half-assed crossover.
Speaker 1:There's no ambiguity at all, anyway, joining me on this lovely, tinkly Christmas journey. That's definitely not being recorded before the 1st of December, so I'm not bar humbugging at all is Brett Ho ho ho.
Speaker 2:That is not me being derogatory about three sex workers. That is a traditional and classic Christmas greeting.
Speaker 1:Well, to be fair in the current climate, just before you try and cancel me, steve, I will try and cancel you. There's a classic greeting of Christmas I have to say, before we get to our other guest, that you're more likely to be cancelled for traditional Christmas than you are for being rude to hookers, so Sex workers. So Sex workers. So yes, so For all part-time. For I don't think you've necessarily thought that through, because traditional Christmas greetings will probably offend more people than your sex work sorry, sorry.
Speaker 3:Winter festival, winter festival, winter festival there we go and, guy, it's Christmas nice, we did that in the last Christmas episode.
Speaker 2:We did that in the last Christmas episode.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's not listening to it despite claiming he's listening to to it, he wasn't. Despite claiming he's listened to every single minute of your goal output, he didn't know. You can't repeat material. That's it.
Speaker 2:The whole episode's off. Well, I think he listens to every episode for a minute. That's what he said.
Speaker 4:I didn't think of an intro.
Speaker 1:I panicked under pressure. That's what happens. All right, exactly so. Unless there's any other business gents, we're just going to jump straight in here, straight in Straight in With no messing.
Speaker 2:we've got a lot to get through.
Speaker 1:We've got a lot of ground to cover. We've got a lot of ground to cover, but anyone who does regularly listen to the podcast, you will be mercifully free of incredibly deep dives into stories about what the producer did at three in the morning with an orange and an elf. Uh, it's just talking about the songs and moving on.
Speaker 2:it's going to be yeah, all this is going to be fast and furious, that's it so so round one which I apparently apparently is is it's rock versus pop. Remember, the concept is rock versus pop.
Speaker 1:It's very strong is it, though, because you seem to have put, you seem to have put Coldplay, the Coldplay? Yeah, that's pop next to with their lovely tinkly Christmas ballad Christmas Lights. Next to. The Ramones rock with I don't want to sorry, merry Christmas brackets, I don't want no. I don't want to fight tonight oh, okay close brackets. No, I don't want to fight tonight.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, close brackets. It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all. Still waiting for the snow to fall. It doesn't really feel like Christmas at all, merry.
Speaker 6:Christmas. I don't want to fight tonight. Merry Christmas, I don't want to fight tonight. Merry Christmas, I don't want to fight tonight.
Speaker 2:So, bearing in mind the Coldplay, that's the most elocution a Ramones song has ever got, by the way. Well, they write it out fully.
Speaker 1:I love that they don't put I don't want to fight tonight. They've put I don't want to fight tonight I don't want to fight tonight.
Speaker 2:That's how he sang it, but I love the way you're doing it and he sings it like that but the way that it's written suggests pronunciation of an elocution of a proper quality.
Speaker 1:So so how, how is it, bearing mind you put this, uh, this together here that that Coldplay, bless them, who started off very much as an indie band and have all those guitars and things, um, have ended up on the pop side of them?
Speaker 4:Guy, what do you think well of Coldplay brackets general? Yeah, yeah, brackets, definitely. They come from a really indie background. That's their kind of their sort of the post radiohead uh, post britpop generation uh, and they've sort of slowly morphed into pop behemoths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're different para para paradise.
Speaker 1:No, I mean paradise city rock, para paradise pop definitely but my, my issue with that is that it's not my issue that they've gone from rock to being pop. My issue is that they are so insufferably middle of the road they're literally the paint color magnolia in human form that they've, they've made, they've, they've, they've, literally like they're driving so despicably in the middle of the road that it's offensive to pop and to rock. I just wish they'd go away.
Speaker 4:Isn't that what Christmas is about, though? It's about being in the safe bit. It's feeling safe and warm and happy.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, because I think if you take something like Mariah Carey, what you do is you take the kitschness and you turn it up to 100.
Speaker 2:She started out as heavy metal, though, didn't she, in fairness, she?
Speaker 1:was deaf, she was black metal and she went the other way exactly. But no, you take the kitschitude and you, you turn it up to 11, and that's where, whereas, whereas, no, I don't think making it the most bland thing you can possibly find is the way to do it at all. So you're a coldplay fan.
Speaker 4:I love them, I love them, that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm trying to say I, I for billy balance.
Speaker 4:I quite like them. I just admire the. Any artist that can survive that long and to keep doing what they do and to get bigger and bigger is quite remarkable. I get it.
Speaker 1:Oh, incredibly successful they're not.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think this song is an example of when I don't like Coldplay. I give you that it's when his voice is extra annoying because it can create most oh his voice. He's got is extra annoying because it can create most, most ears. I haven't got to that, but look, we can't, we can't, we'll be here all night.
Speaker 2:Why did I put this at the start of the? I don't know it was a terrible idea. I did the draw as well, just so that you know people, let's vote because we could wang on about Coldplay all night and how much we hate them. No, I am voting for Coldplay. No, against the Ramones. Yeah, okay, you're voting for Coldplay.
Speaker 1:I'm voting for Coldplay because he's had a breakdown against everything I've just said. This song really, really grew on me and I quite enjoyed the big second half big number, whereas the Ramones song sounds literally like every other Ramones song ever created, which is incredibly boring. So, no, I'm voting for Colbert. Again, to my better judgment. I'm voting for Colbert. I don't get the Ramones at all.
Speaker 2:Oh, my wife, she's going to hate you, I know it.
Speaker 1:I don't understand them. I never will. I don't see it.
Speaker 2:Okay, right Guy. How are you voting? I like Please vote for the Ramones. You know what? Please?
Speaker 4:I don't love either of them as strongly as needed at this time. I am, however, going to go for the Ramones purely for our friendship. Yes, well done. And because I think you know, christmas lights is again. It's just, it's a moment that I'd rather forget in Coldplay's. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean I feel dirty, I mean I absolutely loathe Coldplay yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you are dirty. I can smell you from here. I'm voting for the Ramones next round but the Ramones.
Speaker 1:Now I don't see it right. Good, I enjoy. Brett is disgrace, absolutely apathetic, disgrace of all the things you have ever done.
Speaker 2:That is disgraceful, disgraceful. Do you realise what you've done? You've just worked for the coal plate over the Ramones. Let's move on before our friendship.
Speaker 1:We have to call time on it right round. Two ladies and gents, is One More Sleep by the lovely Lady Leona Lewis, and we all need Christmas by the Deaf Le Leona Lewis, and we all need Christmas by wow, the deaf leopard snow was falling all around us.
Speaker 7:My baby's coming home for Christmas. I've been up all night inside my bedroom. He said that he'll be with me, so here's to you and all you do.
Speaker 6:Let's raise a glass to all that's past and to the future. Luck may it last, oh, may it last, oh, let it last, and may the light oh how did Death Leopard get on him?
Speaker 2:This is just an extraordinary oh. Go on, tell us about the owner, lewis.
Speaker 4:One More Sleep. I love that song.
Speaker 2:That was your suggestion. We put this on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because there are seldom many modern day songs that become sort of staple. Everyone tries it, everyone throws something at the wall and, you know, in the last sort of 10 years there's a couple on this list. But this one in particular from a UK perspective, is the only really recent pop addition to that sort of staple playlist of Xmas songs. Really, you hear it every year and I just think it's a really smart, clever little song that you know there's very little left to write about Christmas. Let's be honest, there is really nothing left. That's why the titles of this playlist that we're picking from is pretty. I mean, okay, acdc aside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a certain amount of archetypes.
Speaker 4:It's a limited language yeah, exactly so I just think it. It does it in a really fun kind of clever way which feels just, feels good. It's a motor again. It dives into that phil specter sort of sound and that sort of classic sound, but it also has a modern lyric. Uh, she's got a great vocal and it just, it just feels right and genuine to me it's a christmas puppy of a song isn't it?
Speaker 1:it's a christmas puppy happy little christmas puppy bouncing around it's.
Speaker 2:I hadn't heard it before and it's really grown on me, I like it has got a lot of streams, got it sold over 1.4 million units. It is a big christmas song not to old men like you and I perhaps, steve, but it's I've never heard it before.
Speaker 1:I'd never heard it before, but I think it's great, I think it's oh wow, I loved it. I loved it yeah, she's, she's great um, I think it's channeling uh, I do think it's channeling phil specter to an extent, but I think it's channeling mariah carey as much as anything else. Uh, her vocals, great. I think it's just great. Yeah, I really like it.
Speaker 2:Um wow, you are. You are playing against type tonight. Is this what has happened? Because it's not deliberate, just trying to be honest, supposed to be the christmas grinch.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. I think it's great, the and I have to say that the deaf leopard one is. I'm not going to vote. We all need christmas we all need christmas I did. The first time I listened to it, I thought Jesus God, this is bad. And I know about the fifth or sixth listen. I was like I think this is. Had this been a bigger hit and had some nostalgia around it as well, we'd probably be looking back on it as a classic.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, absolutely no way. Raise a glass to all the glass. Oh my God, it's hoary shit. I really like it. We all need Christmas, do Mother's List? Oh my god, it's hoary shit. I really liked it. Don't we all need Christmas, do we?
Speaker 1:Don't we all need Christmas Hangovers Too?
Speaker 2:much chocolate.
Speaker 1:Shush now no you're right we don't. We absolutely don't. That is awful. I'm not a big Christmas person. Nonetheless, definitely agree on me. You're doing two Christmas podcasts. Definitely agree on me, bit, not as much as Leon Lewis. I'm going to vote for Leon Lewis, but I should have asked both of you first, because I am hosting, so let's pretend I haven't done that.
Speaker 2:Very rude what a rude man Guy what are you voting for?
Speaker 4:one more sleep, leon Lewis, because as much as I love the, let that ain't it?
Speaker 2:no, it's something else, isn't it? I don't think we need this this christmas song. So, yeah, I'm voting for you, leon leona oh, it's three nil to leo.
Speaker 1:Well done, leona well controversy there, like in the in the previous round, which I'm still miffed about okay, so, so, um, so in 1980 maca, as of the title of this lovely podcast, decided to make a very, very wacky second solo album and go all electronic and strange. Uh, and one of the things from those sessions that did not, uh, get on mccartney 2 but did get into christmas for the rest of time, immemorial is wonderful christmas time by sir paul mccartney, which is up against Run Run Rudolph by Charles of the Berry.
Speaker 3:The mood is right, the spirits up, we're here tonight and that's enough. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Speaker 6:Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
Speaker 3:Out of all the Rangers, you know you're the mastermind. Run run, Rudolph Randolph, ain't too far behind.
Speaker 6:Run, run. Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town.
Speaker 2:Santa, make him hurry, tell him he can make it Two lovely tunes here I mean Run, run. Rudolph was a hit for Chuck Berry in 1958. And essentially he wrote it and then got done for copyright because the guy who wrote Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had trademarked the word Rudolph. What a knob and assumed Chuck Berry and Chuck Berry had to give him 50% of the songwriting. Oh, that's awful. Absolutely awful.
Speaker 1:The only person that Chuck Berry should be paying, you know, like suing is himself, because it sounds like all the other Chuck Berry songs, exactly.
Speaker 2:Really it sounds like all the other Chuck Berry songs, exactly he should be. Well, really it sounds like Johnny B Goode, so really he should be paying 50% to this guy and 50% to Martin McFly. Really.
Speaker 1:Martin McFly, who obviously is the creator of Johnny B Goode. The creator of Johnny B Goode.
Speaker 2:And then obviously Marvin Marvin Berry.
Speaker 1:I mean, he's literally got nothing out of this poor old Chuck Berry, and it's up against Wonderful Christmas Time. That's some of the best whitewashing of history I've ever heard. Well done, it's outrageous, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean unbelievable, but that was the music business in the 50s. How much has it changed, guy?
Speaker 1:not much, no, pretty much the same. That's basically what.
Speaker 4:I'm saying that's Guy's producer insight, insight for the evening. There you go yeah, not much green people over since time began they're two really good songs I mean, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Christmas time is lovely, it is good, it's. This is so. We're talking about christmas song archetypes. Yes, there's, this is our archetype of communal christmas. You've got merry christmas, everybody by slade, and then you've got wonderful christmas time. This is what that is has the word?
Speaker 1:has the adjective uh squelchy ever been more appropriate than to the synths at the beginning of wonderful christmas time?
Speaker 2:no, they're very squelchy, they are the most squelchy thing I would. I would wager that squelch tone 407 it was. It was the squelch, yes, that's why they called it that exactly. And I.
Speaker 4:I would wager that it's the most squelchy thing that's ever happened in in the modern music era, but it is a great, the Macca song and look, everyone probably knows by now that we're all big Macca fans in various, various forms. But what I love about it is it doesn't okay. If you're going to do a Christmas song, you're going to make it sound like either Motown or sort of stuff. Maca comes along with the scrouchiest scrouch sound of all time and still makes it sound like christmas. That's something that I have to tip my hat to, because it just it's his own little world. But he's. He's made it really christmassy and I don't know how he's done it.
Speaker 1:But that's what I love. I didn't realize till years later when I got into maca. My point about mccartartney 2 is a serious one, because you sort of accept that it's this big classic Christmas single, so you listen to it in that vein and it's only once I realised it was an offcut from this bizarre synth-led solo album of strange offcuts that he had no intention of releasing. And you go back and listen to it and you're like, oh, that's really really obvious. It's so minimalist and bizarre and electronic and and we just sort of forget that because it's got some jingle, jingling bells in the background and everyone hears it.
Speaker 2:You know the whole 80s classic christmas staple. Yeah, how are we voting? Come on, let's move on this is really hard.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to vote maca because this is mccartney and goal and it's hard not to. But I really really like that chuck berry song. I love that it basically I love that. It gives absolutely no fucks towards like trying to sound christmasy in any way. It's just a chuck berry song, it's just.
Speaker 2:But it's about rudolph and I love that so he might as well just, but unfortunately he might as well sing run, rudolph run at the end mightily let's be honest, that's the only problem with it.
Speaker 1:I think it's really great. It's Macca for me here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's Macca for me. Is it Macca for thee Langers? Is it Macca for three?
Speaker 1:It's Macca for three Macca for three Lovely stuff. Macca the next, he's in gold.
Speaker 4:But yeah, but just quickly on the Chuck Berry song it's kind of like it just rock and roll sound. It may not sound obviously Christmassy, but it is almost the birth of sort of, I guess, that sort of Christmassy.
Speaker 1:All sorts of other stuff.
Speaker 4:Including.
Speaker 2:Christmas stuff exactly. But this is like the 50s is really the kind of start of the idea of rock and roll. And then you think, well, what can we do with rock and roll? Let's write a song about Christmas. They start doing it in the late 50s, probably to some extent, and that's. You know, that's him doing it. So all of the clichés have not been established yet. So putting sleigh bells on, you know, ding-dong, ding-dong, all of that, they're not really established yet.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it still sounds Christmassy. It sounds like it could be in the middle of a you know, a film from 1990 set in New York, and you know it would be paid in a shopping scene or something.
Speaker 2:It just well, it sounded particularly good to Johnny Marks, who was the guy who owned the trademark to the word Rudolph, because he got 50% of it in perpetuity but, as I said, it is Santa for three.
Speaker 4:No, it's Macca for three. Right round four is Father Macmas Father.
Speaker 1:Macmas. Round four is Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande Latte and hereanta tell me by ariana grande latte.
Speaker 8:And here comes santa claus by a lovely interpretive singer you may have heard of, called bobby list, dylan Cause, I can't give it all away if he won't be here next year, feeling Christmas all around and trying to play it cool, but it's hard to focus when I see him walking across the room.
Speaker 3:Here comes Santa Claus. Here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus today, fixing and fixing and holding his ring, yeah, pulling on the reins. Here comes Santa Claus. Here comes Santa Claus. Ran down Santa Claus, today, fixing and fixing, and old his reindeer pulling on the reins. Bells are ringing, children singing, all is merry and bright. Hang your stock and see the day.
Speaker 2:I love this. I just want to know what you. I discovered this Bob Dylan Christmas album about four years ago when we were doing the first podcast and it just blew my mind. How did you feel about it? Can you describe it? I still Do. You want me to describe?
Speaker 1:it. I still don't know if it's a joke or not.
Speaker 2:It's hard to know Well it's got this incredibly clean-cut sound. It starts off with it sounds like it's done in 1954. It's like something from a doris day film, yeah. And then it's really really clean cut and everyone's very shite and briny and incredibly shite and briny. No bright, they're bright and shiny. I'm so excited by this.
Speaker 1:That was the best smell of propism of the year. That was great. Shite and briny both work as actual words. That's great yeah it's no coincidence it's very.
Speaker 2:It's very bright and shiny and and there's this really clean cut intro. And then suddenly bob crazy bob rambles into the christmas scene here comes santa claus right comes out. It's just so fucking beautiful. I love everything of it and it's, it's, it's christmas, it's a christmas classic for me now. I absolutely adore it. Yeah, how do you two find it as a bob dylan fan, were you? Were you pleased with your hero, steve?
Speaker 1:okay, look, I don't understand that. I've never understood the whole. Bob dylan's got a terrible voice. Bob dylan can't sing thing, because that the whole point is that his voice is perfect. It's perfect, well, yeah, but that's not the thing. It's not about whether it's good or bad, it's. It's perfect for his material. I don't want to hear anyone else sing subterranean homesick blues apart from bob dylan, because it's perfect. But if, if you're talking about being what I would describe as an interpretive singer like michael buble or something where he's not going to write subterranean homesick blues for me but I can listen to him sing the phone book because he's got a beautiful voice, then in that context, bob dylan's voice is fucking awful and it's like what? At what point did he think me interpreting christmas songs?
Speaker 1:was a good idea it's so fucking, yet it's massively enjoyable it's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's an amazing marxist critique of christmas.
Speaker 5:That's what he's doing he's like he's setting up the shiniest most commercial version of Christmas ever.
Speaker 2:And then he's going. Here comes Santa Claus. He's sounding like Crazy Bob, the drunk guy who plays Santa Claus in the department store. It's incredible. He's had two bottles of brandy on his cornflakes. I don't know how to take it, guy, you're very quiet. I want to know, know what you think of this. I think it's fucking awful. Again, deep, deep analysis from a musicology background.
Speaker 4:There from guys, I say that partly in jest there are. There are there are redeeming factors about it. I for one don't necessarily want to hear that in christmas time.
Speaker 2:It's a more of an easter listen for you, is it?
Speaker 4:it's yeah it's a bit of it's. It's it's the hangover on boxing day. Uh, that is exactly what it is. It's exactly that's exactly what he's doing there.
Speaker 2:He's juxtaposing christmas with, like the shiny thing, and then this, this he's basically he is you know, the store santas they had in the 50s and they would drink a lot of brandy. They all got together and had like a huge karaoke show and crazy bob gets up and sings this version. They're like fucking and he's pissed. I mean it's just, it's that crazy.
Speaker 1:It's great. I it is enormously enjoyable, but, uh, for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 4:But the thing is right, but with christmas songs, every artist uh, look at this, there's some of the artists that you know I didn't know until we did this episode had even done christmas songs. There. There's almost like a sort of get out of jail free card that you get with the subject of Christmas, because anyone can just have a bit of fun.
Speaker 2:Everyone's done a Christmas song. Who hasn't done one, that's what we're discovering. Everyone's done one. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:But no, he's right about the get out of jail free card, because basically if it's a massive flop, everyone just goes. Ah yeah, it was a Christmas song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's a Christmas song.
Speaker 1:A bit of a punt, it's all right. So, Brett, what are you?
Speaker 2:voting for. I'm voting for. Of course you are. I've got to. I just love it.
Speaker 4:I am voting for Santa Salmi because it's not Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2:It's not Bob Dylan destroying. Here Comes Santa Claus.
Speaker 1:We'll come back to it because it's going through, because I'm voting for it as well. I think it's a wonderful bit of pop Christmas confection. So round five is, do we?
Speaker 2:realise, am I writing? Oh no, we've only had one rock go through so far and three pop, is that right? Yeah, yeah, wow, pop is smashing it.
Speaker 1:Is this round going to change it? Well, let's have a look. Let's have a look. So we've got Step Into Christmas.
Speaker 5:By Reginald Dwight himself, sir Elton of John Technically pop and thank God, it's Christmas.
Speaker 1:Technically rock by Queen. Welcome to my Christmas song.
Speaker 6:I'd like to thank you for being here. So I'm sending you this Christmas card Like thank you for the year.
Speaker 3:So I'm sending you this Christmas card To say it's nice to have you here. I'd like to sing about all the things You're on my mind all year, but now it's Christmas. Yes, it's Christmas.
Speaker 2:Come on, langers. What are you thinking? One of these is brilliant.
Speaker 4:One of these is brilliant. One of these is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, one of these is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 4:One of these is you know, when you're sort of the office party, you can hear music from the next door and there's that sort of like cacophony of sound and there's music playing on a PA system. One of them has that baked into the the sound and that for me is uh, step into christmas, which sounds like just the end of year party. It's just the best feel good, yeah you were really worrying me there fucking hell guy.
Speaker 2:You really worried me, as I thought is he? Is he going 70?
Speaker 1:christmas is amazing. One of these is an abomination everybody.
Speaker 2:I mean, I nearly dropped my eggnog steve.
Speaker 1:I couldn't believe it. I know. Absolutely shocking, right, hang on, hang on. I I I think that we should only talk about um queen here, because, because we've all got ears and we've all lived lives and we all have, uh, brains and and hearts, and therefore, obviously, the abomination that is thank god, it's christmas by queen is going out and and elton, very rightly, is going through. So let's, let's talk about, let's get down to it.
Speaker 2:Tell me about. How do you feel about this? I think I believe this is on queen greatest, it's three. I think it made it on it. It did. I mean, if this podcast is the scraping of a Christmas barrel, then surely, surely, greatest Hits 3 is scraping of a Greatest Hits barrel yeah, it really is Queen.
Speaker 1:Greatest Hits 3 is just shocking. What?
Speaker 2:I'm saying is this is a podcast version version of Queen Greatest Hits 3.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an abomination. It's just one of the worst Christmas songs ever ever. Everything about it is awful. There's no form or structure to it. The only hook is the line.
Speaker 2:Thank God, it's Christmas. That is the only hook and his vocals that's the only hook to it.
Speaker 1:The synths are offensive. The 80s Lindrums are offensive. Everything about it is offensive. It's just an abomination, is the best word. It's one of the worst things ever put on to vinyl ever.
Speaker 2:It's awful well, I did write nothing, no ideas at all. The ultimate scraping of the christmas barrel, I mean there is the only thing they've got on going for. It is kind of freddie mercury's vocal being quite good, because it always is. I mean that's it and it's and why is it? Over four minutes long.
Speaker 1:You could run a mile in that time no, I know, yeah, I mean yeah, freddie's always gonna nail it. I mean I mean, you know, I detest queen, but freddie mercury is always gonna nail it, because you well, you're gonna be popular with all listeners.
Speaker 2:you now? You now state you detest the ramones and Queen. Are you trying to? I?
Speaker 1:don't detest the Ramones.
Speaker 2:I don't get the Ramones. You don't get the Ramones At all.
Speaker 1:I do not get them, but I don't have anything against them, I don't have a problem with them, I just don't get it. Queen I find exceptionally problematic. But I mean I love Freddie Mercury, so that's equally problematic for me.
Speaker 4:But this I love Queen, but this song is like they've taken all the bits I don't like about Queen and put them in one song and wrapped a Christmas bow around it. Yeah well, kind of.
Speaker 2:I mean it's written by Brian and Roger, which tells you that's the fulcrum of yeah, that's strong, yeah.
Speaker 4:Roger as well. To be fair, he did write Radio Gaga, didn't he? Am I right in thinking? That. He did, but then he also wrote I'm in love with my car. They're a band that should have a Christmas standard if you look at all the kind of people that have a great rocking song.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hate myself for wanting to agree with you for that, but yes, they absolutely should have a Christmas classic and utterly failed at the task, which is really.
Speaker 2:It's actually sad well, they have had.
Speaker 1:Just before anybody writes in about my endless ranting about Queen. If you looked in my Spotify, you would find three different Queen playlists which I do listen to. My relationship with Queen is very, very complicated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you've sold yourself as a Queen hater or a Queen bad boy, and you're not. You love them. I'm not. I don't, I absolutely don't Stop trying to run with the cool kids. I just I have a complicated relationship with them, because the cool kids really worry about their opinion of Queen. That's what cool kids are into these days Right round six.
Speaker 1:Round six, ladies and gentlemen, is the Eight Days of Christmas by Destiny's Child versus Christmastime Brackets. Don't Let the Bells End by the Dogs. Doesn't it feel like Christmas? It feels so lovely, doesn't it feel like Christmas? Doesn't it feel like Christmas?
Speaker 7:Feel the Christmas. Doesn't it feel like Christmas? It feels lovely. Doesn't it feel like Christmas? Doesn't it feel like Christmas? Doesn't it feel like Christmas? Doesn't it feel like Christmas? It feels lovely. Doesn't it feel like Christmas? Doesn't it feel like Christmas? So uh.
Speaker 3:Fading joy and surprise Advocates we despise. Have a mild war With you.
Speaker 2:On the 25th day. Oh, so much going on in this round. This is extraordinary. This is kind of more modern era we're getting into the current century of Christmas tunes.
Speaker 4:But the Darkness song is exactly what the Queen song should have sounded like.
Speaker 2:Which was yeah, 100%.
Speaker 4:That's what they've come along and done, I think, really brilliantly. I think it's an amazing Darkness song, let alone Christmas song, so it just brings a smile to my face, just the sort of innuendo, the Everything. It's genius. Yeah, I love it as well. The occasion, what about?
Speaker 2:Eight Days of Christmas though, steve, the everything it's genius yeah, I love it as well. The occasion, I mean what about 8 days of Christmas, though? Steve, fucking hell do you know?
Speaker 1:do you know when it when it started? When it started and I was like there's actually quite a good idea in here somewhere about you know we're going to subvert it's like a first attempt, isn't it?
Speaker 1:it's like the first attempt yeah, and you know, cut it down to eight. He's going to buy me a Mercedes and some diamonds and stuff and I'm like I get it. Okay, there's an interesting idea in here. Do you want English teacher corner? Here we go, english teacher grammar corner. So are you familiar with the technique, which is very underused, of hypophora, often pronounced hypophora or hypophora, but it's actually pronounced hypo. I've done it wrong Hypofora? There you go. Hypofora, which is the. Anybody know what that is? Anybody want?
Speaker 2:to know, no idea. Is it a brand of hip hop?
Speaker 1:No, it is the rhetorical technique.
Speaker 2:Is it hip hop for women, hip hop for her, hip hop for her.
Speaker 1:Hip hop for her. That's it. Yes, you've got it. Hip hop for the ladies. It's a very, very sexist term for what happens sort of post-middle of the 90s, when ladies were allowed to do hip hop? No, not that it is. When you ask a rhetorical question and answer it yourself.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's amazing. Oh, I never found that out. There's a term for it. It's incredible.
Speaker 1:Yes, which is. Doesn't it feel like Christmas?
Speaker 2:Amazing, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:feel like Christmas.
Speaker 2:Doesn't it? Doesn't it feel like Christmas? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yes, it feels like Christmas. I've answered my own rhetorical question. It's Hippophora, ladies and gentlemen, 27 times right. It doesn't fucking now. It really doesn't fucking now. It feels like it's so half baked it's the most half baked thing I've heard in. It doesn't even have the grace to be bad, it's just. It would be so much better if it was actually bad. It's not, it's not bad, it's just utterly, utterly unfinished and it's like someone had half an idea, stuck half of it on the record and went that's good enough and put it out absolutely shocking.
Speaker 2:Let's just say the words Destiny's Child a lot. Yeah, definitely try and get in the Guinness Book of Records for the most mentions of the word Christmas in a Christmas song.
Speaker 1:It's so bad and that the chorus is just. It's genuinely. I thought it was like the opposite of the deaf leopard thing, where I listened to it at the beginning and you know, and thought this is going to be awful, but it grew on me in the end with this. I listened to the opening on it. I was like, oh, there's a good idea in here, and they just went literally. They just drove that good idea into a ditch immediately and then milked it for four minutes. Terrible. God. You're going to tell us it's great and you love it now no one.
Speaker 4:No, no, I'm not. Uh, I actually agree with you as a pop head, as the pop head perhaps, on this podcast. Uh, it the the intro. The first half of it baffles me. It just feels like a? Uh, just a sort of a backing track left over from that era of of their, their sort of work, and by the end of it I quite liked it, but the first half was it's.
Speaker 2:Oh, the first half was it's the first bit is like a keyboard. You know, when you buy a really cheap keyboard and it has pre-programmed music on it.
Speaker 4:That's the sound at the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then again Destiny's Child. They say Destiny's Child a lot. They do say they're allowed to say Destiny's Child.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's the other way around. I actually found the first half better because they were doing the sort of 8 Days of Christmas idea they don't even have the gold rings bit giving funny examples 5 gold rings would have been much better put 5 gold rings on it.
Speaker 2:You know you could have done that, couldn't they? I mean, there's so many missed Christmas open goals here.
Speaker 4:No, it just yeah, it just tails off if you compare like 8 Days of Christmas to One More Sleep and both are counting songs. Right, they've both got sort of counting lyrics as a kind of as a motif. One works really really well and the other is really. I love Destiny's Child, but it's trying so hard to do something groundbreaking and that ground ain't there for breaking.
Speaker 2:So that's a second archetype of Christmas songs. We've had communal Christmas. Now we've got countdown to Christmas. That's the next. That's that's on its face. That's a second archetype of christmas uh songs. We've had communal christmas now we've got countdown to christmas. That's the next, that's the other archetype.
Speaker 1:That's well, it's in the, um, it's in the the. There are classics, um, classic ways to have a hit, aren't there? One of them, is is counting, and one of them is, uh, the days of the week. That's a classic songs. You know, it's like to try to have a hit if you um, yeah, but, but counting things down, uh, is is a classic, but yeah, no, it's a terrible song, right, so the darkness goes through, um, which is fair enough. Fair enough, uh. And then we've got uh round seven, which is lonely. This christmas, by mud, uh, versus. A very interesting and somewhat brash cover of santa claus is coming to Town by Mr Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 3:So it'll be lonely this Christmas Without you to hold. It'll be lonely this Christmas.
Speaker 6:Lonely and cold. It'll be lonely this Christmas Without you to hold. It'll be lonely this Christmas without you to hold. It'll be lonely this Christmas. You better watch out. You better not cry, you better not pout. I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town. Santa Claus is coming to town.
Speaker 2:I mean, I like both of these. I put both of these on. So I'm interested to hear what you two think.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm interested in what Steve thinks as the resident cover hater, Cover hater but Springsteen lover Resident.
Speaker 2:Springsteen lover slash cover hater. This is difficult for him.
Speaker 1:It's actually not, it's well.
Speaker 2:You've been torn asunder a lot tonight. Sumner Torn asunder. How are you?
Speaker 1:feeling about it. I'm going to go Springsteen but I don't particularly like it because it's Basically for one very, very specific reason, which is he's done it in a key where he can't hit a particular note which is absolutely key to the tune of the song, and I know that's overly specific. I love him, I love the vibe of it, but the whole point is it goes, santa claus is coming to town and he can't, and he can't. He just there's a note he can't hit and it just it doesn't. It doesn't work, um, as a because he goes, goes, santa Claus is coming to town, but it's a live version, though, isn't it which gives it all this incredible warmth?
Speaker 2:He's talking to the audience at the start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's brilliant, it's classic Bruce in so many ways, but I find that problematic. Nonetheless, I'm not going to vote for Mud because I just don't quite understand the point of it. So I will be voting for Springsteen. Okay, the point of it.
Speaker 2:So I will be waiting for Springsteen. Okay, I mean, yeah, I really like, I mean, and also we've got another Christmas genre here of song. We've got with here Comes Santa Claus, and Santa Claus is Coming to Home. We've got the Whereabouts of Santa is an entire genre of Christmas song geographically where is the man right now where is he is?
Speaker 1:Is he over Lapland? Is he over New York? There's like five genres and that is one of them. Yeah, that is one of them.
Speaker 2:Well, lonely this Christmas. I'm assuming Guy's going to also. I'm not going to talk for Guy, actually. I'm just going to tell you a bit about Lonely this Christmas. I put it in because I like the concept. It's quite nice to have. Christmas is such a huge time of amplified feelings and you've got to feel a certain way. It's like the original kind of FOMO moment, isn't it Christmas? You've got to be in a certain place. It amplifies where you are in your life and I like the fact they wrote this song, um, which is about just being lonely at Christmas and missing someone, and it was a huge hit. Actually they never expected it to be and it was number one in 1974, um, and ironically he's doing an Elvis Presley impression, which is really weird and actually Elvis Presley had had a single weird presley had.
Speaker 2:Presley was alive at this time and had a single out and this beat it to number one. My favorite part of it is at the end, where he starts. He's done a reasonable elvis impression, um, you know reasonably good, and but then he does a spoken word bit and he starts off and it kind of sounds a bit like elvis. And then by the fourth, word.
Speaker 2:His accent deteriorates, it deteriorates as it goes on and it's like my darling, he's really West Country. At the end he's like all right, my lover, happy Christmas. It won't be so lonely. It's amazing. So I love it. But so I'm going to vote for it because I just I wanted it got the casting vote, I'm going Springsteen.
Speaker 4:I'm going to go with Mr Springsteen. Yay, the Mud song.
Speaker 2:I've never been an Elvis fan, so secondhand Elvis is even less exciting for you.
Speaker 4:Kind of, yeah, you know, with the exception of Crazy Little Thing Called Love, oh yeah that's another.
Speaker 2:There you go. Another famous Elvis impression, yeah, but yeah, that's another, there they go. Another famous Elvis impression.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but yeah, no, I get what you're saying completely and you know Blue Christmas is another one. I think it's a really great sort of downbeat alt. Take on it, but I don't really want to listen to it. Love it All, right, well, mr. Springsteen goes through, then which?
Speaker 1:takes us to our final qualifying round, which is Springsteen. Goes through, then, which takes us to our final qualifying round, which is Last Christmas by Wham, but disclaimer Come on. Disclaimer we will not be playing.
Speaker 4:Yes, we will, why not?
Speaker 1:When this episode has been edited, we will not be playing this song. Why not? Because? Because, if you are playing, yeah, whamageddon, what's?
Speaker 2:Whamageddon.
Speaker 1:Whamageddon. Whamageddon is a beautiful song, a beautiful game played all over the world. Now it starts on the 1st of December and the game is to not hear Wham's version of Last Christmas for as long as you possibly can.
Speaker 2:To be fair, though, steve, to be fair if you're trying to avoid hearing Last Christmas try not to listen to a christmas song themed podcast, true, but we're going to try and circumnavigate this okay, so that you know, because I don't want people to to switch off to switch off, but covers are allowed so you can sing a bit.
Speaker 1:Can you sing a bit of? It uh, no, no, well, I think I think we can. Either we'll either be playing some some silence here, or we'll be playing a very strange cover of it. I couldn't tell you which one's going to be good because a cover is allowed, but we don't want to upset anybody. Also, I'd like you to completely ignore Guy, who's seemingly telling us I've done it for many years.
Speaker 1:If you're doing Armageddon, you shouldn't be listening to this podcast because that's poor advertising. You should be listening to this podcast. We have thought about this Awful which is versus Mistress for Christmas.
Speaker 4:Was it. Mistress at Christmas. Mistress for Christmas.
Speaker 1:Mistress for Christmas. For Christmas by the lovely ACDC.
Speaker 4:Either way it's inappropriate.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't matter whether it's for Christmas or at Christmas. I mean, this is in a Christmas genre of its own.
Speaker 3:I am the voice of Christmas. Future, or is it? It must be future anyway. Imagine Wham last Christmas. Yeah, just imagine it in your head, because Steve won't let me put it in the edit. Fucking Whamageddon.
Speaker 4:I recently went through a huge race and I never stayed that age. I don't know, maybe just hit that age, I don't know went through a kind of dive into every album, picked off my favourite ones of all the songs. I have no recollection of this song and when I listened to it in preparation for this I was, yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 2:It's Razor's Edge is the album it's on. It's on Razor's Edge edge, so it's the first time they got the new drummer it's quite something, isn't it?
Speaker 4:it doesn't even do, it doesn't even get anywhere. For me it's like it's just. It's just especially the last way.
Speaker 1:Signs of the song the thing is, it's exactly the same. It's. It's a. There's a real through line here to the ramones, um and uh, chuck berry, because they're not doing the christmas thing at all.
Speaker 4:They're doing exactly what ramones and chuck berry did, which is I'm just going to do a song in exactly the style I do everything else kind of chuck in some christmasy lyrics but then, yeah, even the ramones song, if you listen to it, there's a synth bell halfway through, which is the only thing about it I genuinely dislike, and we can talk about it more in the next round perhaps. But this it doesn't get to like an ACDC riff, it doesn't get to like an amazing kind of kick-off moment. It's just like, it's just bleh it is later era ACDC.
Speaker 2:Do you want to hear what Brian Johnson said about it? Go on, it's about asking Santa for a little side action. Oh, brian, that's not the Christmas spirit, is it? Come on, mate? I mean, it's the ACDC spirit.
Speaker 1:Fair Deuce is on brand, but I mean, come on, I think he asks for a couple of them as well at some point, isn't it? It's like three in a bed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's getting greedy.
Speaker 1:Yes, one's enough, brian, one's enough. So, brett, how are you voting?
Speaker 2:I'm waiting for you to vote, then I'm going to vote.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm voting Wham. Obviously I mean as much as I love ACDC, I mean you can't be not voting Wham.
Speaker 2:I knew I was voting for Wham, but I just went to see if we'd build any kind of tension, the kind of tension that Brian Johnson is definitely experiencing in Mistress for Christmas, christmas, and he's never realized. Um, the wham is the last song, um of of the opening rounds. We're going to go to court finals, but it's an important one for us because when we did our first podcast, we did a lot of like the classic great christmas songs and I'm not saying that these lot, these 16, are in any way not classics. Of course that we're not scraping any type of barrel here by doing this uh podcast.
Speaker 2:But um, we forgot to put in Last Christmas by Wham and my wife has been going on about that for three years. She's also been going on for the last three years about we need to do another Christmas episode and I've managed, I think, to keep it a surprise for her. So happy Christmas, darling, if you hadn't worked out that we're doing a Christmas episode before now. But she loves this song. So I definitely am voting for um wham on this occasion. Well, george michael, really, but we'll get to that in the next round well if it wins.
Speaker 1:You know you may have caused a problem here, because there is a degree to which to which, because it was left as an off cut from the previous episode it is. It is an unassailable classic and I feel like a lot of the other things in this list aren't so well, we'll find out.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's what we're discovering maybe we're discovering is there's a lot more good christmas songs than you think, because when you asked me to do this, I was like I think we've done it. There's no chance and when my wife has been banging on about it for three years, to do another episode, and to the point where she makes me listen to the first one we did as a christmas tradition which is very embarrassing to admit, but she does, and then it's like I don't think there's enough songs, but actually, do you know what?
Speaker 2:listening to it, I think there is a lot of good songs here, so yeah that's fair enough, right then.
Speaker 1:So we're into the, the quarterfinals. Um, so the first quarter already. Look at that, bash straight in. Uh, the first quarter final is the ramones with merry christmas. I don't want to fight tonight. Brackets, uh, versus lovely lady leona lewis, uh, with one more sleep Five more days until you're coming home.
Speaker 7:Three more dreams if you were mistletoe, two more reasons why I love you.
Speaker 6:So I got five more nights until you're next to me, Merry Christmas. I don't wanna fight tonight, Merry Christmas. I don't wanna fight tonight, Merry Christmas. I don't want to fight till I'm happy, Merry Christmas. I don't want to fight till I'm happy.
Speaker 2:Ooh, I'm a bit worried now because I know Guy's a big Lewis fan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know that I'm not voting for the. Ramones, I know you're not voting for the Ramones.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm voting for it. I'm voting for it, obviously. I will vote for it to the day I die. It's from Brain Drain 1989 album the remains all right, hang on.
Speaker 1:Let's just take a moment here. Brett, explain the ramones to me, because I don't get it um well, they're the proto punk band.
Speaker 2:They're super hardcore punk. How can I explain?
Speaker 1:you've got to feel it, it's visceral hardcore, it's they are, they are no, you're just used to.
Speaker 2:No, you're just used to like heavier, harder sounding, but like they were full-on, super fast, hardcore, the hardest core. Sons of bitches to play cbgbs. Um, and so is that is it just that?
Speaker 1:is it just that? I can't. Is it that thing of? They were super sort of hardcore and and and groundbreaking at the time, but because I'd rather listen to like black flag or something, now it's like I can't hear it because it sounds like sort of the Beach Boys played fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean, I think that's why they cut through, because they do have incredible punk credentials and they were never properly successful as well. I mean talk about a band that have never really been given the due rewards for their huge cultural impact.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't deny that, totally, totally understand that their cultural, you know, and I'm not saying that I actively dislike them or or have a problem with them. I I just I just can't.
Speaker 2:No, that's fair, but you don't get. You don't really get punk, so it's really hard to explain what it's a feeling, isn't it no?
Speaker 1:I did. But the thing I don't think I tried, I, I, I, you know there is punk stuff I listen to. I mean, I, I do listen, you know, as I say, I'll listen to black flag and I'll listen to the clash stuff and I, you know, it's not, it's not my area particularly, but it, you know, I will listen to it and I do like it when it's more abrasive than this. And I, just, I, I, in some ways it's the melodicness of this that confuses me, because if I do listen to punk at all, I want it to be more abrasive than this. Well, he's so melodic. I'm like what's happening?
Speaker 2:I don't understand this at all but that's, but that's, yeah, I mean that's why they're so good. They've got the hardcore punk credentials. Every punk will love them. But they've also got this incredible cut with melody as well. That's joey ramone. Johnny ramone is the hardcore fast shit. Joey ramone is the is the melody. The lover of phil speck's a girl tunes and that combination is what makes them so enduring and make make them so different and interesting. And even you know, in 1989 they've got a song they're writing here, merry christmas, which, whatever we think about, I really like it. But it's a really popular song amongst like alternative rock fans. So it's like a little underground, sleeper christmas hit. For a lot of people this is like a really popular song. So that's that's them. You know you either get them or you don't. If you get them, you're probably going to go and watch them seven nights in a row and love it. And if you don't, you don't.
Speaker 1:That is the ramones yeah, no, as I say, it's definitely not one of those bands where I'd push back and say I think they're bad for these reasons. I absolutely don't. It just doesn't connect with me at all.
Speaker 2:I think you just have to have. It's like explaining you either have that emotional response or you don't.
Speaker 1:No, you've explained it really well. Do you love Star Wars?
Speaker 2:or you don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no point trying.
Speaker 2:You just buy into that world or you don't. You just buy into that world or you don't. What do you think of the Ramones Guy? What do you think of the Ramones in comparison to Leona Lewis?
Speaker 4:more pertinently, I like the Ramones. I don't love them, I don't, you know, hate them. They're kind of good. They're obviously the four or five songs that you know, but then you do hear them on.
Speaker 2:Desert Island. I'm going to dump you on a Desert Island. I'm going to dump you on a Desert Island, and you can even take an Elvis Presley album or greatest hits Elvis Presley greatest hits or Ramones greatest hits. What are you taking?
Speaker 4:Oh, it's the Ramones isn't it really Well done? Good answer, correct. I'd take Presley. Of course you would. If you take Presley, you're dying on the island.
Speaker 5:You take the Ramones you're swimming to be out you're going to be like arms are going.
Speaker 2:You'll be listening to return to center going. I wish I fucking could, but you'll be listening to blitzkrieg.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm gonna just swim I'm gonna learn to swim like a bitch um, yes, um, I really like that merry christmas. I really like, like I said before, it's got these weird bells in it, which I just wish it didn't have, because my favorite type of honestly my, my favorite type of christmas song full stop is, uh, something like christmas rapping, where it's not a christmas song but it's the song of all time, absolutely, absolutely, because it just sounds like christmas for no reason, no reason, yeah, no reason at all. It just sums up in some weird sort of whether it's a, I don't know, it's been synced in the TV or film over time, I don't know what it is, but it's just in my blood. It just sounds like Christmas. Yes, if, if Merry Christmas I don't want to fight tonight Didn't have the little bells in it, I would love it a lot more, because it wouldn't. It wouldn't feel like the Ramones trying poppier box. It sounds more like a blonde. It sounds more like a blondie song to me, weirdly, but um, it is very good.
Speaker 4:I have to say I love I love the lyric and I think it's a sentiment that you know when we talk about the tropes of lyrical christmas songs I was talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, you're right, that's a trope of christmas. It's the makeup of christmas song. It's it's very tale of new york. It's mary gildona.
Speaker 4:But it's like that's true, it's another trope.
Speaker 2:We found the fourth trope people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay so yeah, you've got the deciding vote though, guy, because Brett's clearly voting Ramona, I'm clearly voting Leona.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, Marianna, but I'm going one more sleep.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. I mean I moans romantic, a romantic. Then you can interpret this as joey talking to johnny. You know, like we've there, famously fell out over a girl who who was going out with joey. Then johnny married and then never really got, never became friends again after, even though they had a career of 20 years, 30 years together. Maybe he's speaking to johnny, you know, let's just make up for christmas and try and connect again with that intense friendship we had. Who knows, who knows one for all you true romantics out there some wild speculation from out there.
Speaker 1:Trademark coined right. The second quarterfinal is Macca's Wonderful Christmas Time versus Ariana Grande's Santa Baby. This is going to be. This is going to be quite challenging, santa, tell me.
Speaker 2:Well, can we get into the business of Christmas? Like everyone does a Christmas song, don't they? Like everyone's trying to gild the pension, chris Martin, trying to gild the pension, and they either put in a good song and they go for it or they just kind of go. We've got an average song here. Let's just put the word Christmas on it and hope that it fucking sells another 300,000 copies because we've just shoved Christmas in it. But the business of christmas, wonderful christmas time. We don't think of that as a big maca song, do we? But according to forbes magazine, how much do you reckon he's made from that? Or how much you reckon he makes per year from that, according?
Speaker 4:to probably, I'd say two and a half million Per year, per year. Okay.
Speaker 1:Steve, I wouldn't. I mean, it'll be different now with streaming anyway, so it would have been completely different back in the day. I couldn't put a figure on it, I wouldn't even know where to start.
Speaker 2:For the sake of the quiz, for the sake of the fun, for the sake of the format.
Speaker 1:It's like it's fucking playing along. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:700,000 quid no, I mean unfortunately, it's less than that. It's 400,000 a year, but over the course pull your finger out, macca yeah come on mate, but over the course of the time he's done it, that's 20 million dollars he's made from this one song. So if you have a Christmas hit or, you know, even a massive christmas, this is not a massive christmas song, is it didn't get a macaroon goal first episode. They still make a lot of money if you get it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no I mean it is yeah, it is a big christmas song I probably might have with it in a way. I think it's great in a lot of ways, but I I it does remind me of a lot of very gray 80s christmases that I didn't particularly enjoy as a kid for various reasons, and so I don't have any associations with the Ariana Grande song. I have to say I'm enjoying the pop confection a lot. I'm going early. I'm voting Ariana Grande.
Speaker 2:But they're both. These are both from the pop canon, so it's pop versus pop and pop wins. What are you voting for, langers?
Speaker 4:I'm going to go Macca. I love Santa Tell Me I think it's again a really strong modern day sort of reinvention of it. But Macca does shine bright.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's amazing, it's amazing and this is listeners keen listeners will know this is McCartney's second appearance in the Christmas podcast. That we do because he got through famously and won. Well, let's not spoil it, because if you want to go back and listen to 2021's podcast, it's the next episode.
Speaker 1:Edit that out. I'll edit that out.
Speaker 2:And bleep came second. Maybe, who knows, this is his second appearance on the podcast, so it's very exciting. So I've got the deciding vote, which is, which is a privilege for me. Yes, you have, it sounds, tell me, I like, but it's. It's very sexy, isn't it? It's very sexy. It's like it's happy xmas, more like happy sexmas, really, let's be honest. She's got a very sexy vocal on it, which is only something an american could do, I, I think, tell me, and it's just like you're doing too much singing tonight.
Speaker 1:No, no.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing nearly enough.
Speaker 1:Guy and I have been very restrained. There's been zero singing.
Speaker 2:Well, someone's got to do it. It's Christmas. This is a time to knock back and let it all loose.
Speaker 1:You should do more.
Speaker 2:I didn't sing and also, as you've introduced the whole problem with Whamageddon, you're going to have to sing Last Christmas at the end if it wins. Oh, okay, that's fair enough, I think. I think that's fair enough, isn't it? Yeah, it's fair, you know, and it's just a bit too sexy for me, steve.
Speaker 5:It's too American. Could you imagine if a British person would do it.
Speaker 2:They would maybe sing about.
Speaker 1:Santa tell me bring me some fish and chips.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get the christmas decks out of the loft. Yeah, it's just, it's not gonna happen, is it? It's not gonna happen, I like tinsel.
Speaker 1:I like pictures on the mantelpiece. Yeah, it would be much more prosaic, wouldn't it right? So maca goes through, which brings us to the third round of the quarterfinals, which is elton. Sir elton john's step into christmas versus the dark. This is very, very silly Christmas song about bells I'd like to sing about all the things your eyes and mind can see.
Speaker 3:So hop aboard, catch your devil. Oh, Step Into Christmas with me. Yeah, Step Into Christmas with me. Yeah, Step into Christmas. Let's run together. We can run strong Through the good and the bad.
Speaker 2:It's my strong. Turn up the music. It's my strong. Turn up the music. Christmas time, just when we're living In the dark. Oh, this is a good semi-final. Wow, this is great Christmas kitsch turned up to the rock max, isn't it? Woof when?
Speaker 4:do we start? I feel torn.
Speaker 2:I bet you do, guy and I have got a bonding over the darkness because we used to see them in camden yes, yeah, well, guys, how?
Speaker 2:many years ago we did. I know I'm taking you all the way back. So, before the darkness became mega successful and incredibly, incredibly popular, incredibly quickly. They used to play at an indie night we used to go to at the um, camden, barfly and and they'd come on and we were. We were proper indie kids like garage rock and indie rock and all of that, and they're very much pomp rock, aren't they? Let's be honest, it's the best way to describe them. They're like the inheritors of the queen mantle and they just blew us away. They were amazing.
Speaker 2:So when they came out and everyone of our ilk was like, oh no, I'm a bit too cool for this. We had seen them play live to like 100 people, with justin hawkins being taken around with a radio mic, playing this incredible solo on on a on a roadie's shoulders, walking into the crowd and playing right up to. It's incredible. So we love them. But obviously at that point, when they became hugely successful in that year, they were kind of seen as a bit if you were a cool indie kid you wouldn't have liked them. So you know which we kind of would have thought of ourselves as so we had this kind of kind of duality of them. Do you remember that langers any of that?
Speaker 4:vaguely vaguely. I mean there were a lot of indie club nights we went to, so uh, but, yeah, but you're totally right and uh, that's why I think certain acts can do Christmas really really well and excel at it, and they are just made for a Christmas moment like that. But I'm going to go with Elton John.
Speaker 1:You're going to let the bells end, are you really? I am going to let the bells end. The bells are ending, brett. How are you voting?
Speaker 2:How are you voting? I don't want to play a bit of Christmas. How are you voting? How am you voting? How am I voting? Fuck off, I mean, I'm going to vote for. It's really difficult. I like both. I'm going to vote for the Darkness. Don't let the bells end.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got the deciding vote on that one. I struggle with the Darkness. I've got to be honest with you. I mean, first, they sound very much like Queen, which means I've already got mixed feelings. Secondly, I find the archness. It's all so incredibly arch I find it archness. It's all so incredibly arch. I find it quite irritating.
Speaker 2:Starting the century, it was all the rage. Irony.
Speaker 1:I like Justin Hawkins. I think he's a really interesting character. I enjoy his content on the YouTubes these days a lot. I think he's a really interesting guy. It's not that I dislike them, but it's just so. It's like someone raising an eyebrow continuously without lowering it for four minutes, and I just find that so tiresome. After a while it's like yeah, I, I get it. I got it within 30 seconds. I'm still getting it. Oh, it's four minutes in. Yeah, I still get it. What can I just wait? Yeah, it wears me out. It wears me out. Well, they had this.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you the story. But they had this incredibly big year, 2003, and they go from playing indie clubs to me and guy and another 50 punters to just being one of the biggest bands in the country, had a huge, incredible year. Um, at the end, kind of towards the end of that year, uh, the guitarist, uh, dan hawkins, justin's brother, is out with the nrma. He's like what are you doing next? And he's like a bit pissed ah, we're gonna do a christmas song because it's like november and it's oh, great, great, do it. And then he's like oh, and dan hawkins like shit, we need to write this now. They had a week to write it. They write it, record it.
Speaker 2:Uh, they go to the karang awards when the producer's recording the kids choir, the children's choir and justin hawkins only note is make sure they sing the words bells, end. That's all I care about. I don't care about harmonies or anything. That's all I want to make sure is in there. So it's very professional, uh, and then hawkins, at the end of the year, is having this kind of absolute meltdown and he needs to take himself off to france to just kind of, you know, reconstitute himself. Because having, you know, that kind of thing where you become incredibly successful and you kind of your ego kind of implodes and dies, um, and and the record company goes no, no, you've got to come back, come back.
Speaker 2:It's it's number one in the midweeks. It's going to be christmas number one and it's up against mad world, which was the year donnie darko came out. You remember that cover of mad world. Um, and he is, oh yeah, he comes back. He says in his own words, he gives loads of bitter interviews and by the end of the week it's number two. From being number one it goes to number two. So he sunk his own at christmas. That's so, that's so beautiful, isn't it the poetry of it? And they chuck everything out. That's great, it's great, that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get it, but yeah, I find it tiring. So Elton goes through, which brings us to the final round of this section, which is the qualifying no, not the qualifying the quarterfinals. The final of the quarterfinals.
Speaker 2:Well done, you're doing a great job. This is fantastic. I'm not confused at all.
Speaker 1:I can't cope with all this sports nonsense. This is the fourth quarterfinal which makes sense because quarters is fours.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, stop doing shit maths.
Speaker 1:Right, it's Wham vs Springsteen.
Speaker 4:Go, I'm still here Still can't bloody play Wham, so you know, imagine it in your head again.
Speaker 2:Check it in twice head again. Oh, wham vs Springsteen, that's easy. We need to cut some time out. It's obviously Wham Springsteen, that's easy, we need to cut some time out. It's obviously Wham Springsteen love you, but you've got to go. Come on, it's last.
Speaker 1:Christmas. Yeah, the Springsteen thing's a good idea. It's got to go right, Guy. Do you agree with that, Would you?
Speaker 4:have voted. Springsteen, I was Wham before you even finished the question.
Speaker 1:Oh, you had me at Wham. Even before we waked him up, before he went, went he was, which brings us to the semi-finals, semi-finals. Can you work this out right, steve the?
Speaker 2:semi-finals two. So it's half.
Speaker 1:That's the fraction you're looking for two of the semi-finals, right, so we've got if you get to a third semi-final you fucked it oh right, we've got Sir Paul McCartney with his wonderful Christmas time, which is all one word Nice. Yeah, good, it's very non-grammatical yeah, and lovely Leona Lewis with her. One more sleep.
Speaker 2:Ooh, this is going to torture Guy Langley, I know that, so I'm going to watch back and sit back and enjoy it Langley over to you.
Speaker 1:He's in pain. Look at him, he's in pain. What?
Speaker 2:do you reckon, Langers?
Speaker 4:Happy Christmas. To tough it out, steve. He tried to tough it out. I love that, just because you know what Macca's doing.
Speaker 1:Alright, he's fine, he doesn't need us. He's getting 400 grand a year. He's made 400 grand a year exactly he is flying.
Speaker 4:I love it and I'm lucky enough to know a lot of the people that made that song happen and I think it's it's and I've sort of said it's a kind of a new Christmas standard, but it genuinely is. I genuinely think that's really hard to achieve and what they've managed to do is something that should be celebrated and rewarded really, and I think it's just a really beautiful, great pop song.
Speaker 2:It is very good pop song.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's very good, steve Brett, I'm pretty clear which way you're going to vote, though.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the podcast called Macrin Goal. I finagled for McCartney last time hard, so why change now? You know, christmas isn't for changing. It's for staying exactly the same and doing exactly what we did the year before and the year before and the year after. So I'm voting. I really have enjoyed the Leona leona lewis song. It is really good it it's. It's absolutely immaculate modern pop done perfectly. So 10 out of 10 for it and for all everyone you know who's on it but I love me some maca, so I'm voting for wonderful christmas time.
Speaker 2:Steve, the deciding vote is to you, and that's enjoyable for me. I can sit back and enjoy that.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I need to ask. Would our friendship survive me voting for Leona Lewis over Paul McCartney?
Speaker 2:It survived you voting for fucking Coldplay, fucking Coldplay, fucking Coldplay over the Ramones. So it definitely survived this 100%. Okay, I feel dirty that.
Speaker 1:I voted for Coldplay over anything. Yeah, I know, I can't believe what the fuck, you're in some kind of fever dream no, that was Bob Dylan oh, hang on, I need to think back as to why I did that. It was because the song itself grew on me and I quite liked the sort of big strange.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, I mean, do a lot of therapy to really work out why he did it In the cold light of day that does feel like a controversial decision In the cold play, light of day, wow.
Speaker 1:Nonetheless, I'm voting for Leonel Lursey. It's a magnificent tune it is great. I have to say that the Macca tune, I think, has aged not terribly well in comparison to some other Christmas songs. There are some other Christmas songs which don't sound of their era and it just sounds so incredibly of its era. It's not even the best maca christmas song. No, exactly exactly so. Maca's going shock horror, uh, which means for the second, I believe, semi-final, uh, we've got elton john versus the wham.
Speaker 6:You know the deal. Fucking Whamageddon.
Speaker 2:Oh the Wham. I mean it's tough. Do you know what? Can I just talk?
Speaker 1:about Elton for a second here, please do. Oh the wham. I mean, this is tough. Do you know what? Can I just talk about Elton for a second here, please do. I've always struggled with this song for one very specific reason, which is a very, very muso reason. Does anyone want to?
Speaker 2:For a musical reason, not a lyrical reason or a conceptual reason.
Speaker 1:I would say it's a musical reason, but I would say it's a very muso reason, as in in, you know, production, it's a production reason. There's a okay production.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I'll see if you can guess what my issue is. As a producer, I'll get it as a producer of superb music. Um, obviously there's guy, but I'm gonna tell you guy, what do you think it is?
Speaker 4:I think it's got. You're not a fan of the reverb the full specter is it's full specter, isn't it? It all're not a fan of the reverb the full spectre is it's full spectre, isn't it? It all comes back to spectre. I'm never a fan of that. No, I'm never a fan of that.
Speaker 1:It's an excellent guess. It's not that it is slapped in reverb.
Speaker 1:That's one of the greatest riffs in any Christmas song Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Mixed so low. It's way too low in the mix. It's ridiculous. But to the point where if you're driving, like in a car, you won't hear that riff. You'll you'll just hear that it's sort of vaguely a song and then you'll hear his vocal kicking. That riff is the best thing about this song. It's far too low in the mix. It drives me to distraction. I don't know why no one's remixed it. Just what you can whack it up to double strength and it would still not be enough.
Speaker 4:It's such a great riff you're right, the riff is really good. I don't, I don't struggle with it personally. I. I like the, I like the full-on specterist sort of you know if it was phil specter.
Speaker 1:he would have like double, triple, quadrupled it with another instrument, but it's just a really weedy acoustic guitar playing this awesome riff. And it's like a really weedy acoustic guitar that doesn't sound like it's been doubled or mixed properly. It's just like Welcome to my Christmas. I was like why can't we have the riff properly? It's one of the few times I wouldn't have mind if he had phil spected it and, like you know, tripled it up with a balalaika as well or something big words okay, cool, well, I like it, uh, but it's no, but it's you, look like you.
Speaker 4:We're now into the stage where it's like these, like bonafide, proper, all-time classic christmas songs I'm nitpicking, it's great yeah, but you've. You have to nitpick, don't you? Because what else? How else are you going to separate them? Right, exactly my point um, and I can't make up my mind yet, so I'm going to defer to brett elton john right, as he loves himself, a christmas song.
Speaker 2:He's made a lot of attempts. This is his first attempt in 1970 I I think 1974, which is, which is one of the first golden years for Christmas songs, by the way. Um, and he wrote this this is on, I think, the Olympic road uh, goodbye. And then he's. He's written cold as Christmas, in the middle of the year, brackets. Um, he's written Merry Ed Sheeran. He's even been on the Lad Baby Christmas single. I think it's Sausage Rolls for Christmas, which has the immortal moment where Laetere Elton John sings Get to the kitchen for Sausage Rolls, get to the kitchen for Sausage Rolls, but obviously Laetere Elton John just sings the vowel sound. So it's just fucking amazing If I could get that.
Speaker 3:Let's have a grim of your Sausage Rolls.
Speaker 2:Get to the kitchen for fucking amazing. If I could get that, yeah, if I could get that as a as a as a ringtone, I would be fucking joyous. It's incredible, um, but the best one he did apart from this is merry christmas, maggie thatcher. Have you heard that one? So merry christmas, maggie, that may.
Speaker 3:God's love be with you. We all sing together in one breath. Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher. We all celebrate today To live the one day closer to your death. Whoa, it's extraordinary. Have you ever heard of it? It's a day to live the one day Close to your death.
Speaker 2:Whoa, it's extraordinary. Have you ever heard of it? It's extraordinary, it's got some incredible lines in it.
Speaker 2:Basically, it's a song he wrote about Maggie Thatcher, I think after the kind of miners' strike in the 80s, and some of the lyrics are just unbelievably brutal. I mean they've got so. Merry Christmas, maggie Thatcher, may God's love be with you. We all unbelievably, uh brutal. I mean they've got uh. So merry christmas, maggie thatcher, may god, may god's love be with you. We all sing together in one breath. Merry christmas, maggie thatcher. We all celebrate today because it's one day closer to your death. Merry christmas everyone.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, michael can I request you this episode that that we might west on drop, that we get a little clip of that, because that sounds quite spectacular it's when I was doing the research.
Speaker 2:Like fucking hell, what is this? It's extraordinary, that's, you know, because we think interesting point, christmas comes around every year. It's the same, isn't it? And you think everything progresses and changes. But, like at the moment, like you can say, we're in quite a like a politically um polemic time. But you go back to the mid-'80s or the early-'80s and it was the same again Very, very strong invective and things coming out. This is pre-internet, so it's all happened before people and Christmas reminds us of that. It just goes around.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you've got to love Elton, though. He's a social advocate, he's done amazing things and you know the man wants a christmas hit and he like he should have stopped after the first time, in my opinion, because he bloody nailed it with step into christmas yeah all right, I I think I've got.
Speaker 1:If you're it's all struggling between the two, here's the test that I. That helps me know which one I'm going to vote for. On top of the riff issue, can you sing me or even tell me what the words are to the chorus for step into christmas? Can you go step or even tell me what the words are to the chorus for Step Into Christmas? Can you go step into Christmas?
Speaker 4:and then sing me the rest of it.
Speaker 2:No no and I don't care While we're there, why the fuck are you?
Speaker 1:No, I can't. Can you do it with Last Christmas by Wham? Yes, immediately, exactly my point, and that's the other issue with Step Into Christmas is.
Speaker 4:No one has a fucking clue what the words are, but that's the best thing about it. That's like, because everyone goes when you're pissed, you can do that, can't you? That's what happens however what I mean.
Speaker 2:What is step into? Who steps? Oh, when you're off for christmas, uh, bob, oh yeah, I'm stepping into christmas on the 19th. You don't fucking step into christmas, you step into puddle, you step into dog shit. You, you step into dog shit. You do not step into Christmas. I'm voting for last Christmas.
Speaker 1:Have that. Yes, that's good. Well, you do step into nice things as well. You do step into, like children's birthday parties.
Speaker 2:What? Who says I'm going to step into little Bobby's birthday party? No one does. What are you talking?
Speaker 1:talking about that's right. You could step into a chemist.
Speaker 2:There are nice things in chemists Come on you're ill, you go into a chemist because you're fucking ill.
Speaker 1:Give me something nice you step into, I step into a chemist to buy a nice soap Condoms, a nice smelly soap or condoms for fun times. Exactly, I think there are plenty of things that are nice that you would step into. I've stepped in here to buy soap and condoms.
Speaker 2:I'm voting for Last Christmas. What are you voting for? All right?
Speaker 4:Guy, how are you voting? I'm voting Steph into Christmas because it makes me feel good, not sad.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh man, I think, because I've made the arguments now, I think, because of the low mixing of the brilliant riff and the fact that no one knows what the chuffing lyrics are, I'm gonna have to go wham. Because it is. They're both stone cold classics. Yeah, I'm going wham so well it is. It's the right thing which brings us to a very interesting and very, very poppy final.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean if the answer to the question is what's going to win?
Speaker 1:rock or pop it's an unbelievable victory yes, I mean when we're not asking that question, but if we were asking that question pop has absolutely nailed it. Yeah, pop has destroyed rock. Uh, all the way through. But we are now at the final, which is one more sleep by lovely lady leo lewis versus the wham with their last christmas offering pop.
Speaker 2:Just before we do that, I just want to go through some of the christmas number ones that have been before, because they're interesting. I'm looking at it today and you look back at them and you're like, oh, it does say something about the times you're in. So in the 50s there were very few Christmas singles. Weirdly, as we kind of discussed with Run, rudolph Run, it wasn't really a thing. There was Mary's Boy Child in 57. Then in thing there was, uh, mary's boy child in 57. Then the 60s is just a dearth. There's nothing because music is so popular at that point. Uh, rock and roll is so big, there's just not a space for there to be like time for christmas number one. It's the beatles, or you know whatever.
Speaker 1:What about all of the rat pack and stuff and all of them doing all of those sort?
Speaker 2:of. They may have been doing it, but they weren't number one. What I'm saying is is the Christmas number one shows us some kind of point to what's going on in society. So then you go down to 1973, the golden year for Christmas singles Slade versus Wizard, merry Christmas everybody or Merry Christmas everybody wins. Then next year is another Christmas single with Mud, and then 1975, there's Bohemian Rhapsody, which we'll come back to. So then that's like a kind of the golden year Rhapsody which, which we'll come back to. So then that's like a kind of the golden era. It's a real kickoff for the Christmas season and the idea of the Christmas number one.
Speaker 2:The 80s you're getting again. You're getting a different thing happen. You're getting kind of a part. You're getting novelty in 1980 if there's no one, quite like grandma, which is not really a Christmas song but it was kind of that sentimentality of Christmas. And then you're getting the start in 1984 of what? What comes? Number one at Christmas 1984? Band-aid, maybe that's right. And it's up against Last Christmas, by the way. It's up against Last Christmas and Last Christmas is one of the biggest selling songs to never, ever get to number one at that point when it's released. So it loses out to Don't Know, it's Christmas. And then there's another Christmas song with Merry Christmas everyone, with Shaken Stevens, and then you get to Band Ed again. So the 80s is the year for kind of like the big, kind of anthemic Christmas songs and that.
Speaker 2:Then you get to the 90s where it's weirdly, you get two things happen. In the 90s, you get what is number one in 93? Mr Blobby, children's kind of cartoon characters. And then again in 2000, bob the Builder with Can we Fix it? Yes, we can. The B side to that is oof, it's going to cost you. And then in the again in the 2000s, what happens? Reality TV, x Factor Popstars there's about five or six of them. And then what happens? Rage Against the Machine X Factor Popstars there's about five or six of them. And then what happens?
Speaker 2:Rage Against the Machine, the kind of the attempt, the concerted attempt, because the internet has now become a thing. We've all got smartphones since 2007,. And people can get on board and go actually, no, we don't. And that we want Rage Against the Machine. Do you have anything to? He's sitting back in his chair. And then what do we have after that? We have, in 2011, military wives at number one with gareth, malone, the choir, uh, the justive collective, and then in from 2018 to 2022, the same artist has had a christmas number one. Do you know? That is that baby. Yes, and they're all charity singles. So they're kind of again harnessing the internet to kind of leverage the fact you can get away with christmas number one with a lot less sales these days. And there you go. There is a sociological explanation of christmas number ones. So it's the final what's the final steve?
Speaker 1:the final is one more sleep by leon lewis versus uh last christmas, by the way.
Speaker 7:Last Christmas by.
Speaker 2:The Wham, oh, both immense big hitters for the christmas. I think I know how this is going and I don't know if there's anything like. I'm sorry, I mean, well, I don't think there's anything I can do about this, but if you want to know what I'm voting for, it's obviously last christmas, of which george michael a played all the songs himself, all the all the instruments himself. He played all the instruments himself did he?
Speaker 2:yeah, he did apparently he, he. It was done as a wham song. And then I I believe I'm gonna have to fact check this later that he donated it all to the band-aid uh fund because it's come out the same year as band-aid. You've got these two mega years, 73, where there's these two big songs going for christmas number one, and this is 84. The second time it happens band-aid versus george michael for sure, okay, so you're going wham.
Speaker 1:So I've really, really, really enjoyed getting into this leona lewis song, but I think in the final furlong wham are gonna have to take it because it is. It is an absolute classic. I think it's dated really well yeah I just think it's, it's just, it's a great. So you know of the well done in my me and my partner trope yeah, it's one of the absolute best and invented, invented that trope.
Speaker 2:I think this song, I think he invented a trope with this yes, all right, yes, possibly, but no, I mean, I think.
Speaker 1:I think that I love.
Speaker 4:It's one of those times where I think the keyboards date it, but in a good way, but it has strangely become modern sounding again because of pop music at the moment, especially the last five years, has a fascination with the 80s and the synths of the 80s and the drum sounds of the 80s.
Speaker 4:So because it is so unashamedly 80s, it's kind of come back around again, and I think that's why I think for me as well, that's why I'm voting for it as well, Because I think it just it's here to stay, isn't it that song? And I think it's a testament to George. Michael as a songwriter and an artist and it's also sonically, just, you know, really forward for the time it came out and it's kind of come back around and been on vogue again.
Speaker 2:It's extraordinary, and I know someone in my house who will love the winner of this podcast, but I lied about it never being number one, because do you know what happened in 2023? Fans got together and bought the record and streamed the record and it became number one. So when was it number one? Last Christmas? It's so perfect, um, and I'm sorry if you're playing whamageddon, but we've got to play it, so you've got a warning. Now it's going to be played in five, four, three, two wham. Happy christmas everyone. Thanks for listening. Remember sing along loud at the chorus.
Speaker 7:Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special, one special special.