So Here It Is, Merry Christmas…

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I’d like to wish each and every one of UK Number Ones Blog’s readers a very merry Christmas. In blog world its December 2002, but in the real world it’s December 2025, and I hope the festive season is a great one for all of you.

And if you have time, why not have a look back through some of my many Christmas-themed posts from over the years. Starting with, of course, our hallowed Xmas Number Ones. In the fifty years I’ve covered there have been twelve #1s with an explicitly festive theme. From Dickie Valentine in 1955, through (deep breath) Harry Belafonte, Slade, Mud, Johnny Mathis, Boney M, Band Aid (and Band Aid II), Shakin’ Stevens, to Cliff (and more Cliff, and even more Cliff…)

And then of course there are plenty of other legendary Christmas number ones that have little or nothing to do with Christmas, but which have become synonymous with the season. The Flying Pickets, Renee and Renato, East 17, Bob the Builder, Pink Floyd, Mr Blobby, St. Winifred’s Choir, Little Jimmy Osmond… A largely motley crew I will admit, but nothing reveals the British psyche more than the crap they send to #1 for Christmas.

In fact, why not check out the polls I ran a couple of years ago, in which you can vote for your favourite (and least favourite) festive chart-topper. The initial results saw Slade as winners, and a tie between Blobby and the St. Winifred’s kids for worst, but the polls remain open and votes are coming through every so often. Your vote still counts!

Moving away from actual number one singles, I’ve also done posts on two festive perennials which probably should have made the top. Wizzard’s 1973 #4 hit ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ is one of my all-time favourites, but isn’t all that well-known outside of the UK. While John & Yoko’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ is another, somewhat more melancholy, classic that probably was the unofficial number one single in the weeks after Lennon’s murder (all of which I explain in this post here.)

And finally, last year I did a ‘Cover Versions of Christmas #1s’ post, featuring Oasis (and Steps) doing Slade, Korn doing Pink Floyd, and Shaky covering himself!

All that’s left to do now is to wish you all one more Merry Christmas, and to leave you with a festive classic that has never made it beyond #10 in the UK, but which may well go higher this year due to the sad news of Chris Rea’s death yesterday.

We’ll be back before 2026, with a special New Years post.

944. ‘Lose Yourself’, by Eminem

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The third and final part of Eminem’s era-defining triptych. Scary Eminem, Funny Eminem, Motivational Eminem…

Lose Yourself, by Eminem (his 4th of eleven #1s)

1 week, 8th – 15th December 2002

‘Lose Yourself’ was probably Eminem at the peak of his fame and success, as not only was it a huge hit record, it also came from the soundtrack to ‘8 Mile’, a huge hit movie in which Eminem played a character loosely based on himself. If he has a signature song, then it’s probably this.

Before we get to the lyrics, I’d also say that this is Eminem’s strongest number one musically. The slow building intro, the heavy, dramatic chords, the piano line that slinks around the beat (and I’ve just realised the ‘Succession’ theme writers totally nicked a trick here). Some of his other, funnier chart-toppers tend towards cheap, rinky-dink beats. Not this one. It’s lush, and cinematic.

Lyrically, ‘Lose Yourself’ is about taking chances, with the movie’s protagonist about to take part in a rap battle that could lead to a way out of poverty. You only get one shot, Do not miss your chance to blow, This opportunity comes once in a lifetime… I am usually immune to the charms of anything that could be labelled as ‘motivational’, but this works because it focuses on the fear of failure rather than on the glory of winning, as the delivery grows more intense verse by verse. No ‘search for the hero inside yourself’ here. Instead it’s: I’ve got to formulate a plot, Or end up in jail or shot, Success is my only motherfucking option, Failure’s not…

Surprisingly, that ‘motherfucker’ is one of very few curse words in the song, making this surely Eminem’s cleanest chart-topper. For the first time in four we also do not need to sound the homophobia klaxon, as this track also features zero gay slurs. This is basically a hymn by Eminem’s standards…

I also think, as it’s not about murdering your girlfriend, and features no puerile humour, that this was the song which convinced most anti-rap types of Eminem’s talent. I think it comes across as a little bit ‘newly graduated English teacher desperate to look cool’ when one compares Eminem’s lyrics to poetry, but the opening lines – His palms are sweaty, Knees weak, Arms are heavy, There’s vomit on his sweater already, Mom’s spaghetti – set a scene in less than twenty words that most writers could only dream of. In the third verse, he sets off on a staccato flow that very few, if any, other rappers could pull off.

Having said that, of his three peerless #1s, I enjoy ‘Lose Yourself’ the least. It’s great, impressive; but it’s also very earnest. What it says about me, that I prefer the song about murdering your girlfriend, or the one with the video in which Eminem surfs on a turd, I don’t want to explore. What’s for sure is that this was the end of Eminem’s imperial phase. ‘Lose Yourself’ might have been the first rap song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song, a genuine cultural moment, but he certainly did ‘lose it’ with his fifth number one…

This will be my last regular post for the year. I’ll do a couple of festive posts over Christmas and New Year, and resume with the number ones in early January.

943. ‘If You’re Not the One’, by Daniel Bedingfield

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Daniel Bedingfield’s debut hit, ‘Gotta Get Thru This’, was a breath of fresh air: a fun moment that balanced garage and dance nicely, in a way that summed up the sound of the early ‘00s.

If You’re Not the One, by Daniel Bedingfield (his 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, 1st – 8th December 2002

It was also a bit of a false dawn, because I think gloop like this is what Daniel Bedingfield is better remembered for these days, if he’s remembered for anything at all. Syrupy, heartfelt ballads. And syrupy, heartfelt ballads are not my thing. But I will try to see the best in this record, which I remember being fairly inescapable for a good few months.

That word: heartfelt. This definitely is, and Bedingfield’s commitment to the soppy sentiments makes it bearable. Even the falsetto note he hits at the end of each chorus. Then there’s the doubt, the fact that this song is about being with someone but worrying they might not stay. I hope I love you all my life… is probably the most powerful line. Plus, there’s something about the relatively low-key production, the heartbeat drums and echoing synths, that reminds me of Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’

I’m actually surprised that I’m enjoying listening to this song, as I hated it at the time. Not only was it soppy, but it was everywhere. I remember it climbed back into the Top 10 for Valentine’s Day, a good two and a half months after it was released, something that didn’t happen often in the charts of the early ‘00s.

Daniel himself, though, went on record saying that he found the song too cheesy, and didn’t want it included on his debut album. He had, he said, deliberately set out to write a Westlife-ish song. And I’d say he failed, because this is quite subtly heartfelt, lacking the bombastic cheese of most Westlife tunes, and because there’s no key change. As far as I can tell all the interviews in which he said these things came from 2003 onwards, and I’d also say it’s easy to claim you don’t like a song once it’s been at #1 and made you lots of money.

I’m also sceptical of Bedingfield’s claims because his not far-off final chart-topper is an equally simpering ballad. If you don’t like these songs, why do you keep writing, recording and releasing them then, Daniel?

942. ‘Dirrty’, by Christina Aguilera ft. Redman

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Louder, for the people in the cheap seats: If you ain’t dirty, You ain’t here to par-tay…

Dirrty, by Christina Aguilera (her 3rd of four #1s) ft. Redman

2 weeks, 17th November – 1st December 2002

Enter Xtina. Although last time we met her was in a boudoir in the Moulin Rouge, and although she’d always been the naughty one compared to rival Britney, I remember seeing the video to ‘Dirrty’ for the first time and being, as the kids say, shook.

Backing up my idea that 2002 was the moment the 21st century started, musically speaking, this is very modern pop. Gone are the staccato beats of millennial R&B. Gone is the bubblegum of the late ‘90s. In are clanking industrial chords, a scuzzy bassline, and huge vocals. This is the pop music of Rihanna, of Gaga, of a hundred other wannabes in the past twenty years. Pop music turned up to 11.

And yes, lyrically, it’s filth. I need that (uh) to get me off, Sweat until my clothes come off… Xtina announces before each chorus. It’s a classic good-girl-gone-bad song, in which a previously (semi)innocent pop princess launches headfirst into her slut era. Britney did it with ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’. Holly Valance made #1 with her debut single using the same trick. But nobody has done with as much as gusto as Christina. In previous posts I’ve taken issue with her over-singing, but here her belting works. This is no time for subtlety.

It’s also modern in its female singer plus guest rapper dynamic. Again, this is the format that many pop songs, and many number ones, will take over the next decade. I’ve no idea who Redman was, and doubt I’ve ever heard another song by him, but he’s a big part of this one’s success, from the If you ain’t dirty… call, to his line about being blessed and hung low, to him punching a giant rabbit in the video. In fact, the entire song is based around his 2001 original ‘Let’s Get Dirty’.

Ah, the video. As great as this record is in audio, it needs to be seen for it to have its full effect. Christina writhes, grinds, simulates masturbation, and invents the slut-drop, all while wearing some iconic, red leather, ass-less chaps. There’s foxy-boxing, mud-wrestling, female weightlifters, and signs in Thai that read ‘Young Underage Girls’ (a step too far, I will admit, and one which got a lot of criticism at the time).

Is it all a bit much? Is it vulgar? Is it pandering to straight male fantasies? To which I’d say: Yes, but who cares. Definitely, but who cares. And I’m not an authority on such matters. I will say though, a close (straight male) friend at the time spent hours a day requesting this video on music channels, waiting breath-baited on the edge of his bed for it to come on. He eventually recorded it onto a VHS… Which is a very hard to imagine scenario post-YouTube, but it was how we teenage millennials had to get our kicks. As for me, as much as I loved this song at time, it pretty much confirmed my homosexuality, as all I could think was how much Christina lived up to the song’s title, looking like she hadn’t showered in days.

I’ll end with the end, the final beat of the song after almost five minutes of writhing and grinding. In which Christina turns to the audience and asks Uh… What? As if daring you to criticise this gloriously inappropriate, slutty masterpiece.

941. ‘Unbreakable’, by Westlife

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Westlife’s eleventh number one in three and a half years. How are we all holding up…?

Unbreakable, by Westlife (their 11th of fourteen #1s)

1 week, 10th – 17th November 2002

My patience, for one, is well and truly shot. With each successive ballad, Westlife get more and more turgid. Is this any worse than their early hits? I think it is, but who can tell. When you get to number eleven then the law of diminishing returns has well and truly set in. The worst thing is, their last chart-topper, ‘World of Our Own’, was an upbeat bop. We’ve had hints, glimpses that it could have been so different.

‘Unbreakable’ starts off slowly, with a beat and tempo bastardised from ‘Hero’ and ‘Unchained Melody’. Yes, two of 2002’s previous big ballad hits. Call me cynical… To compound the lack of originality, the video was filmed on the same beach as ‘If I Let You Go’. By the end we’re soaring, or at least lumbering like a drunken buffalo, to a dramatic finish, complete with sleigh bells because it is almost Christmas after all.

And of course, there’s a gigantic key change. But even that lacks the fun, the charm, of their earlier key changes, because you know it’s coming. It arrives slowly, with a huge drawing of breath, like the tide going out before a gigantic tsunami that nobody is ever going to outrun.

The overriding feeling here is of a group going through the motions. This was the lead single from Westlife’s first greatest hits album, and it draws a line under the boyband part of their career. Their final three number ones will be covers of MOR classics, from the likes Barry Manilow and Bette Midler. Probably wisely, they knew that the twelve-year-olds that had bought their singles in 1999 were now sixteen-year-olds who had moved on. From here on they were shooting squarely for the mum, and grandma, market.

All of which ties into something I wrote a few posts ago, that we’re reaching the end of the golden age of the boyband, an era that has stretched from the late-eighties right through the nineties, past the good (Take That, 5ive), the bad (Boyzone, Westlife) and the ugly (911… oops)

940. ‘Heaven’, by DJ Sammy & Yanou ft. Do

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Here we, here we, here we fucking go!

Heaven, by DJ Sammy & Yanou ft. Do (their 1st and only #1s)

1 week, 3rd – 10th November 2002

That’s the sort of thing people used to shout when the beat dropped on this next number one, in the cheap nightclubs I was frequenting in 2002, where they didn’t check IDs and the carpet oozed decades’ worth of alcohol onto your shiny school shoes (no trainers allowed – they did have some standards).

This is cheap and nasty trance pop. Ned music, if you’re from where I’m from. Faceless Euro DJs with sledgehammer originals, and remixes of old hits. Think Ultrabeat, Basshunter, Cascada and, daddies of them all, SCOOOOO-TER! They did the job, when you were young and off your face on Smirnoff Ice, but for dance music in general I’d say it was a step backwards.

Compare this to the Eurodance of a couple years earlier: Fragma, Modjo, ATB. Their offerings were a lot subtler, a bit more thoughtful. For much of the 2010s though, as far as I could tell, most dance tunes sounded like DJ Sammy. And one on hand I do like the heavy, deliberate beats that trance gives you. It lends itself to lasers and dry ice, and listening to this now I am starting to get slightly nostalgic. But it also gets repetitive.

‘Heaven’ was originally a hit for Bryan Adams in 1985, when it had given him his first US #1 (and had made #38 in the UK). It provided a similar breakthrough for DJ Sammy, a Spaniard who had been active since the mid-90s. His version of ‘Heaven’ also impressively made the Billboard Top 10, a chart usually immune to the charms of European dance music. Sammy had further success with versions of Don Henley’s ‘Boys of Summer’ and Annie Lennox’s ‘Why’, and he continues to record and to DJ.

The credits for this song feel very 21st century. Imagine telling someone in 1952 that fifty years later number one hits would be recorded by acts named DJ Sammy & Yanou ft. Do. Yanou was the German producer who collaborated on this track, and Do a Dutch singer who provided the vocals. Neither have troubled the UK charts again, though Do was fairly successful in her homeland and Yanou went on to work extensively with the aforementioned Cascada.

Another thing I remember about this song was the very popular ‘candlelight mix’: a stripped back, piano version without the thumping beat, which probably soundtracked many a teenage fumble among my schoolfriends. Like I said, listening to this now is making me slightly nostalgic. I have to remind myself that I thought this was crap at the time, and that it’s still fairly crap now. But therein lies the pernicious danger of nostalgia, making even the bad, the cheap, and the tacky, appear good.

On This Day… 6th December

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Time for another look back at a date in chart history. What were the songs and the stories at number one on December 6th through the years…

On this day in 1980, ABBA were about to begin their thirty-first and final week on top of the UK singles chart with ‘Super Trouper’. My favourite ABBA chart-topper probably changes on a weekly basis, and I could make a case for all of them (apart from ‘Fernando’, sorry). ‘Super Trouper’ is a late-era classic, with that perfect balance of upbeat melancholoy. Songs about how tiring it is being famous can be, well, tiring; but this is a colossus of the genre. I was sick and tired of everything, When I called you last night from Glasgow… is a quintessential ABBA opening line: slightly odd, poetic, beautifully to the point.

Eleven years earlier, on this day in 1969, the Rolling Stones headlined the infamous Altamont Free Concert in California. Supposed to be the West Coast’s answer to Woodstock, it ended up becoming synonymous with the end of the swinging sixties and the death of the hippy dream. Violence which had been brewing throughout the day erupted during the Stones’ delayed set, and ended in the death of an eighteen year old spectator, Meredith Hunter, stabbed by one of the Hells Angels who had been brought in as security.

The Stones are perhaps the perfect band to encapsulate that loss of ’60s innocence, as they had never been particularly innocent, and had struggled with the psychedelic, hippy side of things. Also, they’re the sixties juggernaut that has lasted, and lasted, and lasted, far beyond the decade that birthed them… Here then is their big hit from earlier that year, their final UK #1, and perhaps the ultimate rock and roll tune, ‘Honky Tonk Women’.

In recent posts I’ve been bemoaning/celebrating the end of the Golden Era of the Boyband, which I think came to an end in late 2002. There are arguments to be had for boybands dating back to the fifties, with the likes of the Teenagers, or to the Monkees in the sixties. New Edition in 1983 and Bros in 1988 could lay claim to being the first modern boyband, but for my money the true holders of that title, and the openers of the floodgates, were New Kids on the Block. Who just so happened to be sitting at #1 on this day in 1989 with ‘You Got It (The Right Stuff)’. They were the first of twelve boybands (fourteen, if we bend my rules and count Hanson and Blazin’ Squad) to provide forty (or forty-two) #1s over thirteen years…

Let’s go way back now, sixty-seven years to be exact. Number one on this day in 1958 is what I called ‘the Scottish #1’ at the time, and which I still intend to make our national anthem when I become First Minister, replacing the dirge that is ‘Flower of Scotland’. The fifties was at times a musical desert, strewn with overwrought ballads, and the occasional rock ‘n’ roll tune. Then there were the novelties. So many novelties. Of which ‘Hoots Mon’ stands out as one of the finest. It’s got a wonderful rock ‘n’ roll energy, but it’s also a relic of a much earlier music hall era, with its singalong spirit and its Hammond organ. It’s based on an old folk tune, ‘A Hundred Pipers’, and features classic phrases such as ‘och aye’, ‘there’s a moose loose aboot this hoose’ and ‘it’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht’, none of which a Scotsperson has ever actually uttered.

Finally, 6th December is perhaps best known as a date in music history for being the anniversary of Roy Orbison’s untimely death. In 1988, Orbison was just getting his career back on track through the success of the Travelling Wilburys, his supergroup alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, whose first album had been released earlier that year. Orbison had also just put the finishing touches to his first solo album in a decade, when he died suddenly, of a heart attack. The album ‘Mystery Girl’, and the lead single ‘You Got It’, posthumously returned him to the Top 10 the following year. But to celebrate his genius, let’s go back to 1960, and enjoy his first of three UK #1s: the hauntingly dramatic ‘Only the Lonely’.

939. ‘Dilemma’, by Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland

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Our next number one was a huge hit, a very popular song then that remains so now. Many of its lyrics and hooks are familiar to me, despite not listening to the song very often in the intervening twenty years or so. And yet…

Dilemma, by Nelly (his 1st of four #1s) ft. Kelly Rowland (her 1st of two solo #1s)

2 weeks, 20th October – 3rd November 2002

And yet, I can’t quite figure out why this was such a big song. And I don’t really know how to approach it. Is it cheesy? It is an unabashed love song… Or is it cool? One third of Destiny’s Child and the year’s big breakout rapper should equal pretty cool… Or is it a novelty? Any song that rhymes ‘boo’ with ‘you’ could be filed under that category… None of this is to say I dislike it. It’s smooth, it’s memorable, it’s so very rooted in my memories of my final year at high school. I just struggle to place it.

Maybe the best way to view is as classic hip-hop, an old-school slow jam in the tradition of LL Cool J. The crackly vinyl in the intro, the record scratches, the nursery rhyme melody, the cheesy lyrics, all become acceptable if this is a loving nod back to the hip hop of the eighties and the nineties. It’s strange though. Tracks like this were ten-a penny on top of the Billboard charts, but in the UK this type of hip-hop rarely had as big an impact as this.

In fact, still, even in 2002, the number of hip-hop chart-toppers has been limited. Eminem, sure, and some rapped verses in pop songs. Was Afroman rap? Shaggy? There’s UK garage too, like So Solid Crew, but that’s slightly different. The last pure US hip-hop #1 was arguably Run-D.M.C, way back in 1998, and that was a remix of an old tune. Beyond that there was Puff Daddy, and LL himself, in 1997.

And yes, the number one is only one record out of a whole chart, and rap songs had been featuring in the Top 40 for decades by this point, but still. If this was a blog on the US charts (where it was #1 for ten weeks) then ‘Dilemma’ wouldn’t stand out at all. But in the UK it does feel like a slight outlier among the talent show pop, the boybands and the dance. A nice outlier, though. A smooth palate cleanser after our usual fare.

‘Dilemma’ probably did better than your average rap single because of the first appearance of a solo Destiny’s Child star (although Beyoncé had released a song for an ‘Austin Powers’ soundtrack a few months before, this song’s success caused her to push back the release date of her debut album so as not to have to compete with her bandmate). Nelly too had just been responsible for one of the songs of that summer, the funky ‘Hot in Herre’. So momentum was behind both of them, leading to the biggest non-Pop Idol opening sales of the year, and 2002’s fourth highest-selling single.

It also seems to live on to this day, or has been rediscovered by Gen Z, as I see it crop up in reels where the ‘ahhs’ are synced with a variety of weird and wonderful things. And then there’s the now-infamous scene in the video, where Kelly appears to be using an Excel spreadsheet to write a text message, which has been doing the rounds online for years. As a songwriter you presumably want your songs to live on, but you have no control over the reasons for why they do…

938. ‘The Ketchup Song (Aserejé)’, by Las Ketchup

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Ah, the classic autumn Eurotrash hit. Played in bars across Europe all summer, and belatedly making #1 in the UK after the leaves have started to fall…

The Ketchup Song (Aserejé), by Las Ketchup (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th October 2002

To Whigfield, Eiffel 65 and DJ Ötzi we can now add Las Ketchup, with this slice of Spanglish surf rock. And, of course, the accompanying dance routine. They were a Spanish girl group, three sisters, and this was their first hit. And call me cynical, but when your group and your first single share a title, and that title involves ‘Ketchup’, then it’s safe to assume you’re not aiming for longevity.

But also, call me surprised, because this isn’t at all as bad as I’d expected. It’s horribly catchy, sure, and largely nonsense (‘aserejé’ is not a Spanish word, nor is ‘buididipi’, nor ‘seibuinova’) with a chorus based on ‘Rapper’s Delight’, but it’s much more of a rock song than I recalled, with the guitars switching between eighties soft, and growling surf, rock. It’s not as in-your-face irritating as some of the Eurotrash that’s gone before and, despite its obvious disposableness, it still sounds like a real song.

This is all a revelation, presumably because sixteen-year-old me wrote this off as novelty crap without giving it a proper listen. I’d still not choose to listen to it, but couldn’t promise that it wouldn’t get me on a dancefloor in double quick time after a jug of sangria. And at least it came out when I was too old to be haunted by its dance routine at primary school discos, unlike ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘Macarena’.

My teenage aloofness has also caused me to miss how bloody massive this song was in 2002. It made #1 in twenty-seven countries, and Wiki lists it as being a chart-topper in every territory in which it was released except the US, Japan, and – the only European hold-outs – Croatia. It didn’t lead to any lasting success, however, and Las Ketchup are gold-star one hit wonders in the UK. Their last release was in 2006, when they represented Spain at Eurovision, finishing twenty-first with ‘Un Blodymary’, though they continue to perform.

One other thing that had passed me by regarding ‘The Ketchup Song’, as well as its relative quality and its success, was the fact that the gibberish lyrics are alleged in Latin America to be secretly demonic… ‘Aserejé’, some religious types argued, sounds like ‘a ser hereje’ (‘let’s be heretical’), with other lyrics supposedly referring to hell and Satanic rituals. The song was banned by a TV station in the Dominican Republic on these grounds… So, press play below at your peril!

937. ‘The Long and Winding Road’ / ‘Suspicious Minds’, by Will Young & Gareth Gates

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After two solo number ones apiece, it was surely inevitable that a Pop Idol Top Two duet was on its way…

The Long and Winding Road / Suspicious Minds, by Will Young & Gareth Gates (their 3rd of four #1s each)

2 weeks, from 29th September – 13th October 2002

And after two solo number ones apiece that I’ve tried to make the best of, and in some cases quite enjoyed, it was surely inevitable that my patience would run out. It’s not just that it’s the sixth Pop Idol #1 in barely six months, and it’s not just that they’re desecrating both the Beatles and Elvis. It’s both those things, but also the fact that both these songs are sooo very dull.

Their take on ‘The Long and Winding Road’ starts off as the sort of lounge-pop that male-female duos perform in the background of posh hotel buffets, under strict instructions to be as bland and inoffensive as possible so as not to distract people from their lobster. It picks up a little, and the harmonies are nice, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. Which is odd for a two-week number one in 2002, when I was amid one of my chart-watching phases. Or it’s entirely possible that I’ve just forgotten.

Interestingly – potentially the only interesting thing about this record – that song is a duet while the other is left entirely over to Gareth. His cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’ featured on the soundtrack to Disney’s ‘Lilo & Stitch’, and is bad in a completely different way. Although Gareth Gates is not vocally on a par with Elvis (newsflash!), it is upbeat, it is perky, and it sounds like he is having fun. But it has that classic, syrupy, karaoke production that reality TV singing shows will became famous for, with any potential edge polished away to nothing.

I’m not one for venerating the sacred cows of pop. I say have at them. One of my favourite covers of a Beatles song is Tiffany’s clattering ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. And of course Elvis’ and the Beatles’ back-catalogues is filled with covers, of varying quality. But for God’s sake, do something interesting. Add something to the conversation, for better or worse. It’s not as if ‘The Long and Winding Road’ is many people’s favourite Beatles’ song in the first place. And while ‘Suspicious Minds’ is an undisputed classic, Fine Young Cannibals proved that it was possible to reimagine it and not piss off too many people. Hell, even Will Young’s cover of a cover of ‘Light My Fire’ had something interesting about it.

But then ‘something interesting’ isn’t often in the remit of Simon Cowell and his production team. You do wonder if the choice of artists being covered here was intentional trolling, but I suspect it was just further proof of a lack of imagination. We’ll do Elvis and, um, The Beatles! This was still actually quite avant-garde for a Cowell release. If he had his way, he’d probably be happy with a never-ending parade of ‘Unchained Melody’ covers.

I imagine Gareth was happier than Will when doing these covers, but that’s probably based on the direction their careers went in the years after Pop Idol. 2003 will bring one final chart-topper for both, and these songs will give a clearer indication of what lay in store for either boy.