Boxing Day feels like a good time to settle this once and for all. What is the Christmassiest song of all time? We are going to find out, using science, and it is going to be exciting.
(NB. If you don’t find detailed statistical analysis exciting you will find the statement above misleading.)
Here in the Four Word Reviews auditorium, we are used to closing our eyes and listening, carefully and attentively, to two kinds of music. One is the album made in earnest that is unwittingly terrible. The other is the novelty album of knowingly substandard tunes. And then, every now and then, we get something else. Something that isn’t a novelty record, but perhaps isn’t a serious artist making a serious and earnest expression of their art either. Today we’re here to listen to one of those albums. Today we’re listening to “Classic Bruce Willis” by Bruce Willis.
I thought it was finally over. The terrible CDs had finally run out, and if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have seen that it’s been a full year since we last paid a visit to the Four Word Review Auditorium. But no, it seems my luck ran out a little while ago when a jiffy bag dropped through the letterbox containing Dive In, the 2002 debut album from Popstars and Pop Idol star/idol Darius. Oh dear. Brace yourself, then: we’re going back in.
Shoe: … left to relieve himself behind the back of Dixons.
Bin: Words to live by surely.
Shoe: It’s coming up tooooooooooo 14:04 this Tuesday afternoon. We’ve been on air since midday…
Bin: Hey, we’ve been broadcasting longer than that.
Shoe: Snappy as always, Bin. Ten years next July, isn’t it?
Bin: I’m afraid so. We’ve been inflicting these people for almost a decade, poisoning even.
Shoe: A decade of Shoe ‘n’ the Bin. Any highlights?
Bin: Nah!
Shoe: Insightful as ever. 14:05 and we’ve already taken you to the dizzy heights of ‘Since You Bin Gone’ by Rainbow and even though he really wanted to, I had to veto Bin from playing Rainbow and Kelly Clarkson back-to-back.
Bin: It’s two songs with the same name! How can you veto entertainment like that?
Shoe: It would be as ker-azy as playing Jennifer Rush, Frankie goes to Hollywood and Huey Lewis and the News one after another.
Bin: I don’t know what you’re referring to.
*honking horn noise in the background*
Shoe: This is why I’m in charge and you’re not.
*sound of applause*
Bin: Can you believe this? Recount! Recount! Après vous!
Shoe: In the next hour you can expect to hear the delights of Otis Redding with ‘I’ve Bin Loving You Too Long’, Charlene’s ‘I’ve Never Bin To Me’.
Bin: I’ve never been to her either. That’s a weird song.
Shoe: It is a weird song, yeah. Ending shortly before the half past news with the succulent sounds of Roxette and ‘It Must Have Bin Love’.
Bin: I tried to find her on a map once, spent hours looking for her, thought I clocked her in Leicestershire but it was Charnwood instead.
Shoe: The lovely government district borough of Charnwood. Shout out to anyone listening in Charnwood. Actually shout out to anyone listening.
*slide whistle noise*
Bin: Once that’s bin and done, we’ll be hitting 3pm with a bang because it’s SHOE HOUR!
*sound of an explosion*
Shoe: Never get tired of that, can shoe believe it? I’m not one to tease but if shoe were hoping to hear the Kinks, Rick Astley and Queen…
Bin: ‘Shoe Really Got Me’, ‘Never Gonna Give Shoe Up’, and ‘We Will Rock Shoe’ respectively…
Shoe: Then you’d best keep tuned in to the best radio show shoe’ve ever heard.
Bin: We’re here every day whether we like it or not.
Shoe: I need to confess something before we move on. I used to be a criminal, but I have since reformed my ways.
Bin: You never told me this!
Shoe: All true, all true. I would have carried on as well however after I had ‘Bin Caught Stealing’ I stopped and thankfully Jane’s Addiction set me on the straight and narrow. Take it away…
Shock news today as female inspiration for hit single by Ricky Martin reveals that a lot of the information contained in the song is, “factually incorrect”.
Bernadette ‘Bernie’ Wendell of Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, held a press conference in her home town earlier on today to set the record straight.
She was completely unaware that the song was about her for twenty-five years and it was only when a friend recently played it to her that she recognised some of the key characteristics of the woman in the song as relating to her.
“I was completely taken aback when I realised the song was about me. I had relocated to Thailand for a few years because of work so when it was first released in 1999 I never got to hear it. Latin American pop music wasn’t really their kind of thing over in that side of the world. When Doris, my neighbour, was playing the song during a recent barbeque, you know, when the weather was briefly nice on that weekend, you know the one, I hear the lyrics and BOOM I knew it was about me.”
Mrs Wendell, now married with three children, was asked how she came to meet Mr Martin given the distance between Grimsby and Puerto Rico, where the singer was living at the time. “Enrique was here doing some promo work. You know that transition period between when he was singing in Spanish and thinking about moving to English? He was over ‘ere working the clubs, trying out some new material. Me and him had a bit of a brief spark and we dated for a few weeks when he was in the area. He did love a bit of Yellowbelly cheese I can tell you.”
Mrs Wendell then went on to explain the inconsistencies with the song lyrics.
“He’s such an exaggerator. One time he came over to mine soaking wet so I told him to take his clothes off so I could put them through the drier. Whilst the cycle was on, my favourite song came on the radio and we danced outside in the back garden. The neighbours thought we were mental but that was the kind of thing you did in the late 90’s. Nobody gave a flying fuck. All that sorcery nonsense? I didn’t like walking under ladders, I hardly think that makes me “into” superstitions.”
One of the lowly journalists towards the back of the room then asked if she was also guilty of having, “a new addiction every day and night,” and whether she’d ever slipped drugs into Mr Martin’s drinks. “If anything, it’s the other way round. One time I felt awful, had the squits for a few days. I asked him to buy me some Immodium from the chemist on the way to mine. What did he do? He bought Dulcolax ‘cos he got confused and wasn’t sure. I didn’t check the bottle, took one and it was like a brown wave all night. Horrendous!”
The times and dates of Mrs Wendell’s account seem to match up with Mr Martin’s work schedule at the time, at least according to what little information we have to hand. Mr Martin and his publicist are yet to comment.
It’s April, which means that rising sense of child-like excitement you feel is thanks to Christmas. Here in the Four Word Review lounge we like to crack out a Christmas album around this time of the year (see previous scrapes with Mahalia, Streisand, Bublé and Jewel); now, as the log crackles on the fire and the snow falls outside, it’s time to drop the needle on another. Unfortunately the only festive album I seem to have in store is this one: it’s “The Christmas Album” by the Tweenies.
It’s that time again. Time to slide another unwanted CD into the player and see what fate has in store. This time around we are meeting The Baseballs, who are presenting us with their debut album “Strike!” from 2009. I hadn’t heard of this album, or this band, before, but a look at it and a bit of cursory research suggested this Four Word Review wouldn’t be too bad. Some are painful, of course, and others are just a bit of fun. I was dismayed to find, however, that this was a genuinely unpleasant experience, and in this review I’ll be attempting to work out why.