Noel Edmonds, Glen Powell & The Salt Path: 2025 BEST OF

This episode is presented by EE. Marina, are you hosting or guesting for Christmas this year? Normally, every other year, I am a very grateful guest. but I'm now a slightly trepidatious host. Yes, it is me in the apron having a meltdown over all the cooking. No, I don't think I'll have a meltdown. It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah. But you have to just keep saying to me, yourself it's just a big chicken just a really big chicken

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Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond. It's Christmas, isn't it? So will you forgive us that instead of like a normal episode, we're going to do a best of... 2025. A really good selection box with no, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say no toffee pennies. No toffee pennies. I like toffee pennies. No terrible toffee pennies. I like toffee pennies. And I cannot lie. Should we get straight into it? No. No.

No, because it is... Not again, not the discourse again. No, listen, not the discourse. Please not the discourse. Why should I start it? Please not the discourse. Well, because it's the 23rd and it is a best of, but you have to give a little bit of value to people. Yes, Toffee Penny. We all agree is the worst. I've actually come around a tiny bit more this year.

in my Quality Street eating to the extent I found myself reaching for a toffee penny. Because there's something in it. I knew I'd get you in the end. But what is that? What is that? My taste maturing? I don't think it is maturing because I don't think you'd still be eating Quality Street with a mature palate. I've got a sort of...

of quality street voodoo doll that i've been working really hard on all year to make you like the toffee penny and i just want to say it works as you know orange cream and strawberry cream are the best but they have that oh my god they have that orange that crispy orange one now as well that i

Sorry? Where do you stand? You look like you didn't like it. I prefer it to either of the two you just mentioned. Where do you stand on the ones where you just go to the pick and mix and you don't have to have...

Any dead wood as far as you're concerned. So for you, you'd be able to get the really perverted choices of the orange and strawberry creams and you wouldn't have to bother yourself with toffee pennies. Where do you stand on those? Have you been to them where you can fill the tub yourself? A quality suite you can fill your tub yourself.

No. Oh my God, I can't wait to take you on an ad. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they had one in John Lewis. It's right in your wheelhouse on every level, this one. John Lewis? No, this is not an ad. no it's not an ad but if you want to sponsor the podcast please do oh my god I would love them to sponsor the podcast I would love it come on we're never out of there freebie pick and mix got a tub and you can go and you can get

all, you know, noisette triangles now called the green triangle. You can get all of the things. You could have a whole tin of just what you wanted and you fill your own tub and it's in John Lewis. Fill your own tub. Yeah.

Great name for an autobiography. Yeah, I would just go the fondant creams. You know what? They'll never be out of stock of what you want. I think they will. Actually, why don't we go along and have a look at what's out of stock and that will really settle a lot of arguments. But everybody...

I know you've probably got people round or, you know, or perhaps even if Christmas is a quiet time for you and you're just kind of listening and mucking about, it's just a selection of stories from this year. Really, really hope you enjoy it and I hope you understand why we're not doing that. a live episode as well. There will be another one of these on Christmas Day because we are not doing a live episode on Christmas Day this year because last year, apparently, it upset our families.

So there'll be this one. There'll be one on Thursday as well. But it's been a real pleasure spending the year with you. And I hope there'll be bits on here that you haven't heard. And do enjoy everything apart from the Toffee Penny.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Now, for a lot of things that have happened since this podcast. began the world has changed in lots of ways yeah politically in the world of entertainment we live in a slightly different world than we did way back when but i think of all the things that have ever happened this story might be the biggest

Yeah. And I mean, why wasn't it on the front pages of a lot of places? Catch up, guys, because Glenn Powell has launched a source brand. Let me tell you what he'll do you, Richard. It's called Smash Kitchen. Oh, that's good. Yeah, Smash Kitchen. He'll do you a yellow mustard, a Dijon mustard. He'll do you a ketchup. He'll do you a hot honey ketchup. Hot honey ketchup. He'll do you an American barbecue sauce.

Your stripper name. He'll give you an American barbecue sauce, a hot honey barbecue sauce, mayo and spicy mayo. And I'll tell you what he'll do, Richard, which is what makes this interesting, is that he will sell it via Walmart at an affordable... price. None of that will cost you any more than $4.79 and some of it will cost as little as $2. Now,

Sorry, did we go to adverts? Yes. No, none of this is sponsored, but although, Glenn, if you do want to sponsor, please, please get in touch. Send us some source. Just anyway, get in touch. You have to really just make sure it's sealed.

before you send it over. You don't want... Well, I'm sure that he will have taken care of every detail, Richard. Now, this is selling through Walmart, which I think is really interesting, and I'll get into that in a minute, because lots of celebrities have got artists and this and that brands, haven't they?

You know, if Brooklyn Beckham does a hot sauce and he has done one, you know, especially curated in it. Yeah, he's got a hot sauce, you know. I'm not a hot sauce guy. Oh my God, I absolutely love hot sauce. I have many, many hot sauces. Me, I have many, many hot sources. But this is the one I want most, by the way. I'll write Woodward and Bernstein. Now listen.

Okay, so he had a big launch party and he had it in, you know, in Beverly Hills or wherever it was in Hollywood. And they had lots of... sort of fancy celebrities went along and they had a french fries station but um whatever so they did all the sort of glitzy side of it You know, Gwyneth Paltrow unboxed someone, whatever. It's organic, this thing. DiCaprio was there, I saw. DiCaprio. Yeah.

I mean, you know you've made it in Hollywood if you do with sources. Stella McCartney. I mean, I think it's just like random famous people in town that night. But you think about the stuff DiCaprio must get invited to. Yeah. I mean, it must be sort of non-stop. He's got something, Richard. I'm telling you, he's got something. Pal.

Yeah. Yeah, he sure has. Now, so, okay, why has he done this? Because his food was too bland? No, he's got a backstory. You always have to have the backstory. We all made sauces growing up. My sister reminded me I made my own. hot honey ketchup at seven years old we slad the sauces on everything you know he's the family we're all there and so his back story is i come from a family that you sauce that we made lots of sauce yeah okay

Look, it's will this do, and it will do. Yes, it will do. Because I put a lot of vinegar on my chips, and I've yet to release a wine range. Well, marketeers, please get in touch. Richard would like to partner on a vinegar range. Sarsans, come and get me. Yeah.

Big sarsens for me after. I would love that. Anyway, but what he's really saying with this is, of all the things he could do, I mean, obviously people do luxury things all the time or they do high-end alcohol brands. They partner with things all the time, celebrities. This to me is different, not just because it's Glen Powell, but what he's saying is, I'm from the great state of Texas. We love barbecue. I'm for everyone.

I'm at a price point everyone can afford. We're still talking about the source, I think. I'm at a price point red state and blue. Once again, those very helpful Sydney Sweeney romance rumours I see have... reanimated can't believe it myself however however again the red state king and queen they were like and we're for everybody and what i think about this is really interesting is that it's mass produced It's for Walmart. He said, my long-term intention is to change every kitchen staple.

you're an actor but anyway it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it's 2025 they have to all talk like this but also that's why i went into acting yeah but you know nothing's going to cost more than four or five dollars but he said no one in our country is more than 10 minutes away from

Walmart and it's almost 30% of the grocery market again he is an actor but we all talk like this in the year 2025 which I sort of love what he's saying is I'm a mass produced mainstream star because he does want to get back

Remember I always tell you that Glenn Powell wants to get back to whatever Expendables he was in, Expendables 3, and he was with all the guys, and they were all saying to me, oh, no, this is what it's like being a movie star in the 90s. He's like, he can't believe it. He wants to tunnel his way back to that level of kind of mass appeal.

So Glenn Powell is this source, Richard, as I suppose, while I am saying it in lots of ways. But I'll tell you what it reminds me, because it's such a sort of direct callback to it. Also, so much of the things he does that sort of... You know, that character in Top Gun, Maverick, when he's sort of trying to, you know, basically sort of trying to do a, not a simulacrum of Val Kilmer, but a bit of one. And then this one, Newman's Own Source. Remember Paul Newman? Yeah.

The story of Newman's own source is quite interesting. He started it with a writer called A. E. Hotchner, who was Hemingway's biographer. And one Christmas, in some barn that Paul Newman, they thought, well, we're constantly talking about salad dressing. We'd make it.

would bottle it for all our friends. They were constantly talking about salad dressing. Yeah, Hodgson is very funny about it. It's like he would ring me the whole time just wanted to talk about salad dressing. I was like, we've got to do something with this. Anyway, so they make this sauce. They give it to some friends. Everybody loves it.

They keep talking about it. And he's like, okay, let's think how we do this. Martha Stewart sets up a sort of blind taste test with proper judge. It's all done by the book. Everyone puts this Newman's Own Sauce, which is a salad dressing, I think the first one they do, first. And then apart from two... put it as second so they're like okay fine so they become a company that day they make a million in their um first year

Paul Newman didn't want his face anywhere on it, if you've actually seen the bottles of it, because it was a mass-produced item. Again, it went into every American supermarket. And he was like a proper big A-list, scarcity value star. I mean, unbelievable.

you know, one of the great movie stars, but he hated what he called noisy philanthropy. So he said, I don't want to be on this. And he didn't even want them to put 100% of profits, which is still, they still all go to charity. Oh, do they? Okay. I don't know.

smash kitchens profits the whereabouts of them have not been specified so i think they perhaps go to glenn power and his business partners but anyway fair enough it's a traditional way to do business but i get it but even back then they were inventing all the stories on the packaging so there was a thing that he said um there was a organic pretzels and it said um my daughter i had to forfeit my house to my daughter

when she came up with a better, I said, you couldn't come up with an organic pretzel. And she did. And I had to give her my house. And the daughter's like, yeah, no, that's not true. And then he said, some of them were stupid. I were like, I bought this spicy pasta sauce back myself from hell.

I remember for my book, The World Cup of Everything, I was doing chain restaurants and I was looking into Frankie and Benny's. I love doing things like that. And the Frankie and Benny's menu is all kind of... And Francisco and Benedicto came over from...

napoli in the 1920s and i sort of looked them up and it was um established in leicester in 1995 or something okay yeah tell me actually what tell me i'd like to know a lot more about jack daniel's hollow than is on the posters every time i'm standing on a tube platform and i read about like I'm like, yeah, I'd love to visit. It'd be like a horrible facility. Yeah, every brand should start.

2021, when two venture capitalists had noticed that tequila was doing particularly well and they thought, how can we elbow into this market? It's that sweet sip and private equity. Yeah, well, OK, but Glenn Powell.

is the source this is what i'm trying to say to you that he is trying to be a mass market so i find it absolutely hilarious that of all the and also just that actors have to talk like that nowadays which i just find genuinely hysterical but do you think i should i tell you what i think it is Because back in the day, they could be paid $20 million a movie. Yeah, and Glenn knows that because he's gone on The Expendables 3. And what do you think he's on a movie? Eight?

Yeah. Something like that. Maybe less. So he's got to think, how do I make $12 million a year? I'm just literally thinking, I'm in a business where it used to be I would be paid $40 million a year. I'm currently being paid $18 million a year. So I feel... $22 million. Yeah, but he sells it. He sells it. I believe every single word about this story. He's from the great state of Texas. Yeah, heard of it. He's not part of Hollywood.

All of it actually contributes to the same overall brand. So whoever is Jip Glenn Powell sort of... brand supremo and there'll be about 50 of them on a team that's another thing you've got to pay those people so whoever's creating the world of glenn powell it was around about 2023 when three brand consultants working for glenn powell had a bright idea

one of them you know yeah and again please is it any story about sauce from your childhood just anything at all we go i think once i mixed up a couple of sauces at home and i got in trouble yeah that's so you invented your own sauce i guess so Exactly. Occasionally I would put mustard and ketchup from the same thing on the same burger. So you made sauces?

But his aim is quite simply to change every single kitchen staple and they're going to have others. There's going to be more. I am here for every second of this rollout across Walmart and hopefully across the Atlantic Ocean. Actually, I'm going to America in early June and I'm going, if you don't think I'm going to.

about some Glenn Powell sauce. Yeah, I'm going to New York and I'm sure... Will they have it? Will it be available bi-coastally? I'm not sure because it's available in Walmart but I'll see if I can find one in Manhattan. By the way, they're going to let you in. Yeah.

Both of us are gripped by the tale of the salt path. If you haven't heard of the salt path, let me take you through it. It's a true story of a couple from Wales who, through no fault of their own, lose their house. and become homeless. Not only that, the husband in this couple, and they're called Rayna Wynne and Moth Wynne, the husband has a degenerative disease, something akin to Parkinson's.

They find themselves homeless and they embark on a 630 mile walk around the southwest coast of England called the Salt Path. So it's a memoir. It's a true story. It became a massive phenomenon. clubs all around the country love it. It's such an incredibly inspirational story. People have really, really bought into it. It means a great deal to

a huge amount of people. So much so that a movie came out a few weeks ago with Gillian Anderson playing Raina Wynn, Jason Isaacs playing Moth Wynn. And it's just one of those incredibly rare success stories where a publisher picks up a small story.

a true story, something that speaks to our time, something that speaks about humanity, something that speaks about human beings, and readers really, really jumped on board. This book means a great deal to a great deal of people. So just this incredible... True story, strength, adversity, bad luck, just everything about life. But it turns out perhaps it was not true. And then this weekend...

A fantastic investigation in The Observer came out by the journalist Chloe Hadrimatteo, but also some additional reporting bilans on them. There's often quite a few people involved in a big team effort like this, saying that their names aren't really... Rayner and Mothwin their names are Sally and Tim Walker Walker Walker I mean it was right there they turned walking into wins that's for sure yeah that

Those were not the circumstances of how they lost their home. In fact, it's quite a convoluted tale, but it suggests that Sally Walker... embezzled money to start with and then as i say it's quite unconvoluted there's a loan there's all sorts of other things but the embezzlement is the key part of it and it also contains um commentary from various sort of consultant neurologists who say that this diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration you would normally expect in fact

Nobody really lives beyond eight years and it's an awful, awful condition. And 18 years on to be flourishing is essentially unheard of. And of course... And occasionally medical, I mean, in a blue moon, a medical miracle occurs, but there is a considerable doubt cost on the nature of that aspect of the story as well. So it's pretty much all of it. I mean, I think they did the walk.

Yes, I don't even know if they did all of that. So it is this incredibly inspirational true story, which turns out it may well not be true. Can we not have nice things? This is like Captain Tom's family.

all over again but could she not have a spa complex richard no she couldn't she had to have it knocked down i bet she has got one but i bet the walkers have got one but um i can't uh i cannot overestimate how much this has gone off like a bomb in the world of publishing because this is a huge huge huge lead item for everyone this has been one of the massive success stories and you know publishing you know you don't you don't have all that money and they pay for

everything these big success stories and the salt path is one of those books that has paid for so many other books over the last eight years it is massive and everyone in publishing is absolutely reeling this week all of this has been put

to Rayna and Mothwyn in significant detail. And they've... issued the following statement which is not very detailed they've said the salt pathways bear the physical and spiritual journey moth and i shared an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives this is the true story of our journey well thanks for the blurb but that does not respond even vaguely to any of the material allegations in this particular

investigation a spokeswoman for the winds has said that the allegations made in a sunday newspaper were highly misleading they are consulting lawyers yet they're consulting lawyers um clearly this is published by Penguin Random House yeah I mean they'll have a lot well I mean let's start talking about it because well yeah no absolutely I'm published by Penguin Random House and you know

a bomb would have gone off there this week. I have another theory, which is that I actually think, you know, we've all heard the expression, and it means lots of different things, where there's a hit, there's a rid. People often come out of the woodwork when something becomes successful rather like those consultant neurologists i'd be surprised if this was the very very first that after a book has been that successful that

Penguin Random House have heard that maybe the circumstances at the start of it, certainly, that lead to the whole story taking place don't necessarily add up. I would be surprised if that's the first because there has been online commentary, which I...

actually wasn't aware of, but I've gone back and I can see that it existed. I haven't. As often in these things, you read people going, oh, this was an open secret. And I definitely don't think it was an open secret. I'd never heard before that this was fake. I hadn't really got involved in the...

salt path world. I can sort of feel that book is not for me. But, you know, people say, oh no, we knew and we'd be at festivals. Gillian Anderson, when she said, they said, oh, how did you find Raina Wynn when you met her? And she went, I thought she was quite guarded.

And you think, yeah, really? The two central tenets that are at heart of this book, the things that make it sell a huge amount of money, the things that make it really resonate with Middle Britain and with readers across the world, are they lost their house through no fault of their own. These allegations suggest that is not the case.

They lost their house because Sally Walker had embezzled money. They then borrowed from somebody else and that person had called in the loan and so the house no longer belonged to them. And also the ability somehow to turn back the course of an illness through communing with nature. I mean, you have a huge responsibility. Everyone who writes about anything medical and any form of... even in the broadest terms, alternative treatment.

has a huge responsibility to bear and if you're publishing anything that suggests that then you also have a huge responsibility to bear as i say i mean i saw i saw a woman saying that my husband's got cbd and i've lost count of the times in the last five years that people said you must read this book and perhaps he should go for a long walk and the despair that I had of understanding that's not something that he was able to do and not quite understanding what it was that must be in this book

if you're talking about you know medical things and you're talking about what nature can do and you're talking about you know medicinal effects of things that is a big issue not only for the winds by the way and that's their um that's their business but for the publisher

Yes, for the publisher, it is... The medical aspect is... probably the most serious aspect of it it's interesting I kept thinking back and as I say I don't know the origin story of this but obviously she's a first time writer and I wonder if she perhaps glossed over as you might do the circumstances the loss of house because it's much better to get on the walk. Of course you would. And they've said...

And your editor would say, well, hang on, I think we really want to delve more into this because the payoff is not so satisfying if we don't see the tragedy. You know, we've got to go really down and then we can go up. Because in Raina Wynn's version of the book, there is a bad guy who is an old guy.

colleague of moth wins who sort of asks him to invest in something and then pulls the rug from under them and takes their house so there's a proper bad guy at the start of the book who we're like oh my god you're so unlucky that that happened to you And yeah, you would think that an editor might be saying, oh, let's find out a little bit more about that person. I think that person, who is Ros Heming's husband, passed away.

a few years ago and she said Ross Heming said in a way I'm sort of glad he doesn't he didn't see this book ever come out because it would have absolutely it would have hurt him so much the lies in it well I think it's yeah I think it's interesting but I do nonetheless think What's the editing procedure there when you're saying, okay, this person did this thing to us? You're still thinking if you're the lawyer, okay.

can this person be identified? If this person can be identified, are they still alive? You're going through all of those different... You have to be so careful with all of these things, as we say. And you can get away with things in books that you might not be able to on TV or whatever. If that person is dead, then even so, I think you'd have to produce, I would be if I was publishing this book.

I would require these people to produce some forms of evidence. And maybe they just said, well, we don't have anything left because we put what we had in our backpacks and we weren't on our walk. Or it's too painful for us. Yeah. If... Over the next few days, weeks, whatever, the amount of people coming out of the woodwork because they've emboldened by this and it's gone public to speak out and the claims are able to be fairly incontrovertibly proved to be false.

What do you then do if you're paying a random house? Gosh, it's a very interesting question. I think that probably you try and claw back some of the money that you've passed over. I don't know this particular contract. The contract would normally be that they have guaranteed everything. in this piece is truthful. And again, things can be highly misleading, but if something is a deliberate lie, then

you know, Penguin Random House, I guess, would have some sort of recourse. Obviously, any money you do get back in, that's got to go straight to some sort of charity. I mean, it has to because Penguin Random House will know also that, you know, they've been remiss here.

you know you know when you're involved in a book and you have the sort of fan groups around the book you know how much these books mean to people and especially with this when it's to do with illness you know what this means to people so you know that people are going to be very very hurt I suggest that

There would be, on one hand, there'll be some legal issues if these things do turn out to be not true. And on the other hand, some reputational work that would need doing. Someone's getting a new neurology wing, aren't they? Yeah, exactly.

This episode is brought to you by Channel 4. Now, Richard, settling down on a winter's evening, turn the TV on, what sort of thing are you searching for? Well, when you think about Channel 4, you think about quirky, you think about slightly off the wall.

I, my absolute go-tos, well, three things my absolute go-tos, Grand Designs, because Kevin MacLeod is the greatest television presenter in the history of factual entertainment, 24 Hours in Police Custody, again, because it changed the way those things were done. We'd seen all sorts of police investigation things, but 24 hours in police custody absolutely had a new, unusual, refreshing way of covering those cases.

Every single time there is a new one, they have to release them. They can't sort of release them week by week because they're literally waiting for court cases to come through. Some of them are waiting for years. For years and years and years. But any time a new one pops up on the streaming service, I'm like, here we go. And I also love The Dog House, which is just about rescue dogs and people who want dogs. And it's almost like a...

like a sort of slightly kind of matchmaker-y type show. Fantastic. I endorse those messages and you can stream them all now on Channel 4. This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you might want to sit down. Right now, loads of people are searching the following on Depop. Low-rise jeans, halter top, velour tracksuit, puka shell necklace, disc belt.

You likely placed these in the dark of your closet in 2004, never to be seen again. But if you can find it in yourself to dust them off, there are a lot of people who will give you money for them. Sell on Depop, where taste recognizes taste. Ford Blue Cruise hands-free highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive in Blue Cruise-enabled vehicles.

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Let's talk about bands. Let's talk about Morrissey, shall we? Morrissey has put his business interests in the Smiths up for sale. Yes. He's actually headlined it a soul for sale. Yeah. A soul for sale. Morrissey's soul. Okay.

These comprise, according to Morrissey, the name the Smiths, as created by Morrissey. By the way, these are Morrissey's words, not yours. Yes, oh yeah. And every time you say, as created by Morrissey, Morrissey himself has written that. Has typed that onto his website himself.

All Smith's artwork as created by Morrissey. Every time he's doing it, he's thinking, is it double R, double S? He probably finds it easier than I do. Yeah, he's got a keyboard shortcut for it now, I think. All Smith's merchandising rights. all Smith songs lyrically and musically, all synchronisation rights, all Smith recordings, and all contractual rights for Smith's publishing. The reason he's doing it, he says, I am burnt out by any and all connections to Mar Rourke.

Joyce his three erstwhile bandmates one of whom is deceased Andrew Ork is deceased yeah and interestingly one of whom Mike Joyce is just about to release a book but entirely coincidental yeah he says I've had enough of malicious associations with my entire life I have paid my rightful dues to these songs and these images I would now like to live dissociated from those who wish me nothing but ill will and destruction and this is the only resolution

resolution. The songs are me. They are no one else. It's like this podcast, isn't it? It's all Marina. But they bring with them business communications that go to excessive lengths to create as much dread and spite year after year. I must now protect myself. especially my health. Any serious investors should make contact. And I read out that email address because if you send something to it, which I've done, it just bounces back. It doesn't appear to work.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack. Lots of toys to unpack or pick off the ground. To put back into the pram. The bit that seems to be really getting to him is that they bring with them business communications. the admin of artistry does make me laugh a lot I mean it's really interesting actually a lot a lot of people

Much further down the tree, who's never had anything approaching the success the Smiths have had. So, you know, obviously you're in a band because you love making music and you love performing and you love all of those things. Just a huge amount is spent getting from A to B, booking venues, dealing with the admin, just dealing with the admin. Have we paid VAT on our German royalties? Yeah.

And there's a huge amount of admin and it reminds me of various things. It reminds me of things like we've talked about before, that even if you're a really big time actor, a tiny amount of your schedule of the pie chart really could be you in front of a camera.

Actually acting. All of the rest of it, in the case of Mark Wahlberg, as we frequently say, is praying, having a lot of showers. Turning down selfies. It's a huge amount. And actually, the thing that you're in it for is just a tiny amount of the day. I think even if you're in...

just a small band that kind of has a few gigs people say oh it's eight hours a week they did actually a study of up and coming Dutch musicians yeah no it's really interesting okay who's doing that he's getting paid for that I don't know but it's quite a fun thing to do to talk to Was it funded by Dutch musicians' mums? I don't know. I think Dutch musicians' mums, maybe at that stage, are probably helping them out with the admin. By the way, great name for a band.

And they found that like quite a large percentage of the week was spent on that. And obviously most people, as we discussed last week, have other jobs. Morrissey has one job, which is being Morrissey at all times. Yeah, that's a full-time job. By the way, that needs 150% of anyone else.

But the admin of it all seems to really get to him. I think what you're hitting upon there is exactly right, which is when you start a band, I mean, I started with the question, why do bands all end up suing each other? And most bands form in the sort of teens and twenties, and it's usually quite a random collection of...

There's absolutely no reason why it was Ma, Morrissey, Ralk and Joyce. It could have been any number. And when you look into the history of all of these bands, you know, there's various people who sort of drifted in and out. So it's quite a random collection of people you're with. And you're with them in the Smith case. And in the case of this other band, we're going to talk about...

five years tops something like that and almost all your time is spent writing songs being fated for those songs touring those songs people going absolutely crazy about those songs Also some arguing in the pie chart. Of course, of course. And towards the end, more and more arguing. As you get more and more successful, then the pie gets bigger and bigger. More arguments about who gets what chunk of that pie. When you split up, of course, and when the phone stops ringing quite so much...

Your spirit is still exactly the same. Your love for what you do is exactly the same. Your love for your art is the same. The feelings that you have of the fandom remain the same. But there is less and less and less to do. You know, you are not going into the studio every day with your... mates you know you're doing solo albums or you know solo tools that are slightly smaller you're doing all those things and so suddenly that idea of your legacy starts to rear its head and if you are the smith

lots of money there as well and you know reunion tours and things like that but that's when you get to the point of but these are three random guys I met in my 20s you know if you think back listeners to just a random group of people that you used to hang out with in your 20s and imagine now you've got 100 million to spread out between you and it's it all comes down to which of you is the most talented you know that's uh that's a heady brew it's not like these are

The Three Musketeers, and they'll never be split. All bands, by and large, are made up of incredibly disparate individuals. And the adrenaline of being in a gang when you're in your 20s is so enormous. And the fanfare and all of those things is so enormous. But when you were in your 40s,

and you know you've got a you just bought a home in LA and you've got a home in Tuscany and you've got still got a house in Manchester and you actually need a bit more money or maybe you were the drummer and you're not getting as much money as the others that starts to focus the mind into oh actually it was fun

And I do love the art. But there was a lot of money. And I don't appear to have an awful lot of it. And the singer, he does appear to have an awful lot of it. So the Smiths, years ago, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke sued... Morrissey and Marr for a bigger share of songwriting duties. And Mike Joyce got a payoff. Andy Rourke, who's sadly no longer with us, took an £80,000 payoff because I think he was desperate for the money at the time. Mike Joyce...

held out a bit longer and got a bit more money but this happens to so many bands as I say Mike Joyce has got his book about to come out it's called The Drums and it'll be brilliant everyone you talk to Mike Joyce says he's just the nicest man in the business, just an absolutely rock solid guy. Unrelated news? Unrelated news? Is it also unrelated? Is this current news also unrelated to the fact that Morrissey suggested doing a reunion tour?

And Johnny Marr didn't want to do it. He didn't feel the vibe was right, which puts it quite mildly, I think. Johnny Marr, who again... everyone you talk to because you do sometimes think with this thing you think oh everyone's anti-Marcy everyone's pro-Mar so but is that true so I tried to speak to lots of people who've been in their orbit and Mar comes up with a pretty clean bit of health as well people love him and yeah he absolutely took

down the tour which would have been a lot of money because he would have felt it would have been a huge amount of money the other thing which relates back to something we have often said particularly last week is that the money now comes from touring yeah and so you have to actually be back in the same place together I mean you have to say that Spinal Tap the new Spinal Tap

reunion thing is so in the wheelhouse of Contempo culture because they are all I mean in the old days you say what band that old would have gone out on the road of course they wouldn't it's now like oh all of them they will all do this unless they literally want to kill each other I mean

The money that Oasis are making, and very few bands can make that money, by the way, and the Smiths wouldn't make that money. Oasis have a particular place in the heart of our culture and even in America that they're able to do that. But the Smiths would be making a lot, certainly more than Morrissey and Ma have now.

So Morrissey, I think, weirdly his story reminds me of when we were talking about Noel Edmonds, which is Morrissey's unable to let go. what he was in the 80s and how he was seen in the 80s and he was seen as counter-cultural he was seen as incredibly intelligent he was seen as you know somehow kicking you know swimming against the tides and doing so in an incredibly artistic

way. That's the legend of Morrissey. And that is not how he's... seen anymore and he continues to swim against the tide but you know he's flirted with the far right and and and things like that he might be surfing the tide now he is he's certainly doing something so he recorded an album in 2021 morrissey and it's called uh bonfire of teenagers yeah and it's about the manchester arena bombing that's the the lead track was about the manchester arena bombing and

Nobody will release it. So no one will release this album. And when he talks about it, you do think there's a touch of the Edmonds about it. He was dropped by his label, BMG, because he said he blamed that split on the label's new plans for diversity. That's what he said about that. He said he's taken this new album to every major label in London. Now, every major label in London has reviewed this album.

Quotes, while also admitting that it is a masterpiece. And listen, I get it. He's called the record the best album of my life. And he says, the madly insane efforts to silence the album are somehow indications of its power.

otherwise who would bother to get so overheated about an inconspicuous recluse so that's what he's saying about this you can't he's had it every way in that particular in just in those three sentences he has more unbelievably on one of the songs i am veronica the backing vocals were done by Miley Cyrus because she was a huge Morrissey and Smiths fan so she did that she then asked for her vocals to be taken off and again you know

Can you retroactively make vocals off the record? Apparently. I'm not sure you can really do. But for that, Morrissey blamed the legacy press. So the legacy press had something to say. But, so listen, we've heard that... playbook played many many many times before but the reason he really reminds me of Noel Edmonds is if you listen to the songs from this album if you listen to Bonfire of Teenagers it's one of his best one of the best things he's done in his career

Genuinely, wherever it comes from, it is a great song. And anything that's on that album that is publicly available, it's absolute prime vintage Morrissey. If you don't like prime vintage Morrissey, you won't like it. If you do like prime vintage Morrissey, this is... music that is absolutely up there with anything else that he's ever done interesting intriguing agree or disagree musically it's absolutely a morrissey album and it is interesting that nobody will release it

I do find that interesting that no one will release it. And I'm aware that he comes across as an old man shouting at clouds, and I'm sure there is a part of that. But also, he is a guy just going to the studio, doing what he's always done, and making this stuff, and suddenly he...

he's in a world where nobody wants to release it. Well, do you think he might be in a different world now? Because as we've said, there has been a sort of cultural sea change or the sort of end of what feels like a sort of cultural... decade a direction, is Morrissey now more likely to get a hearing? Certainly there is a fandom out there for him and if he wanted to, it's perfectly possible to self-release.

these things and there's there's money in that but I think what Morrissey wants is to be significant I think that's what he wants and because he was significant and I think that there's a certain type of personality that if they feel they're not being as heard by as many people as they used to

They don't go, oh, okay, that's the way life is. Instead, they shout louder. Because they say, oh, I must not be shouting loud enough. Because it used to be like everybody listened. And now almost nobody is listening to me. And this is an example of... that this thing that he released the soul for sale that is him shouting as loudly as he possibly can and now he has got a reaction and people are going oh yeah Morrissey yeah I remember Morrissey

It has been a busy week in diss tracks. Drake and Kendrick Lamar are both on Universal, the record label, and they had a dueling volley of diss tracks about each other, which grew progressively more... unpleasant um and not like us which was the sort of sit down one listen this it felt like a sort of fair fight at the beginning drake versus kendrick uh but yeah not like us was the just

Probably the greatest blow ever landed by one human being on another human being. The biggest track in the world. Well, if you can say those things. So let me, okay. So yeah, it's the biggest track in the world. Drake's position is that he was defamed by this track. Now, bear in mind it contains... underage sex accusations, suggested people should turn vigilante to get justice against Drake, put an aerial of his house on the artwork.

I have to say, if he had sued in our courts, he would have had a much more pleasant time. A judge in the US has thrown it out. And Universal have said, you know, bear in mind, they are both on the same label. They should never have been brought because it hampers kind of creative freedom.

I must say that maybe he would not have wished to sue in our courts because, you know, it can open a can of worms. Let me just say that, Richard. And so he might not have wanted to go through the whole court case, Drake. Interesting. Do you want to elaborate on that? Sorry, we don't have time. No, I'll leave it because...

He can still, of course, always come to our court. Yeah. I'd love to imagine if Drake sued us. No, don't say that. No, I'm just saying imagine. Yeah. I'm not saying hope for it. Don't get involved in a libel action. Having said that... With Drake, though, if you're going to get involved in a libel action with anyone...

with drake it's better than sort of halliburton or something you know at least you get to meet drake let me just move on to charlie xcx because as we know in life of a show girl taylor swift has put a diss track on that for definite which most people think is about charlie xcx although she's tried to sort of slightly fudge at taylor swift

I have to say, I went and saw the official release party, official launch party of a showgirl in cinemas. The stuff when she's singing that song, because it's obviously not a proper video and it's really her just looking into the camera.

that question that we asked the week before you know is she punching down I think it's impossible for it not to be reviewed just punching down that it's really like okay I think it was a little bit much yes and it's fascinating because and it comes from charlie xcx did a song on her on the the brat album which taylor took to be about her in fact there's two tracks on that album both of which seem to to take aim at somebody one is about tail and one is about lord both of them are sort of more

sort of uh charlie they're more about charlie in on herself yeah and so two ways to react to that is what taylor has done which is she's you know, reacted in kind and done this song. What Lorde did, the thing about the Lorde song on the Charlie XCX album is about female friendship and about feeling uncomfortable around people. And Lorde literally heard that song, rang her.

The voice note. I had no idea you felt like this. He said, but thank you for saying it. She then immediately recorded her own verse for that song. They did a collaborative song. Lyrically.

fascinating and about female friendship and stuff like that and created this new piece of art and are firm friends which is the way to react to that now taylor who as we've said before rarely puts a foot wrong seems to have gone the opposite way which is despite being the most powerful I would say musical megastar on the planet has decided to respond in kind which

possibly she shouldn't have done. And that's all I have to say about that. It's not being cool, is it? It's not being cool. But yeah, she rarely puts her foot wrong. So she will have her reasons, that's for sure. But when you look at what Lorde did, you think, oh, that's interesting. There are different ways of dealing with it. The term diss track was first...

coined as a term in hip-hop in like the 80s they were called answer songs and right back in the 30s there are answer records response songs jimmy rogers and louis armstrong had a sort of duel there was you ain't talking to me and you rascal you paul Williams, the Hucklebucks, so many people did answer songs to that and said that you'd stolen his riffs. I mean, all of these things that seem very modern.

were not. Hank Thompson, country singer in the 40s, did one called The Wild Side of Life, in which he blamed women for leading men astray. And Kitty Wells recorded a kind of... response track to that it wasn't god who made honky-tonk angels saying calling out sort of misogyny and country all of this sort of things lots of people answered elvis songs did answer songs to elvis tracks actually you know and sometimes people would even be sued which suggests to you that there was always one

in this type of beef which we also didn't call it back then yeah that literally just meant meat And then, so 60s, there were songs, you know, Dylan, Positively 4th Street, Bob Dylan. I mean, that really goes for a friend or a critic. We don't know.

the birds did that so you want to be a rock and roll star which is all about people like the monkeys that kind of the trend for manufactured groups at the time Leonard Skinner's Sweet Home Alabama is a direct response to Neil Young's Alabama yeah I mean the world of music quite small and people are constantly listening to their contemporaries and if their contemporary does something they like and everyone's always thinking of an idea for a song and everyone's always resentful of

every other act who are around at any given time selling any records at all so it's it's a febrile atmosphere yes and i mean the biggest one the 70s john lennon how do you sleep about paul mccarthy but there were lots of sort of funk and soul answer songs people it is a way of kind of getting the creative juice flowing it's like you've been given a note it's like okay i'm gonna kick back at the critics it's like it's like an old version of having a podcast yeah hip-hop

rap take it to a whole new level i mean we've talked about this actually when we were talking about rap beef in the past but yeah the whole roxanne wars amazing the real roxanne and roxanne chante yeah I mean, there are about 100 songs, tracks. Going back and forth. Just going back and forth. And in the end, there was a definitive track.

people just say okay that's it no one's going to talk about this anymore we've got to put an end we've got to bury this and also and by the way almost all hip-hop battles 90% of them are just very funny and done incredibly tongue-in-cheek and 10% of them end in gunfire and it's difficult right at the beginning to work out

Which is going to be which? But they sold huge amounts of records. I read one stat that said almost the second... track in the Roxanne Wars so really early on in that sold 250,000 copies in the New York area alone that's amazing but then there were also things in the 80s like

Carly Simon, You're So Vain. That's a Warren Beatty diss track. Or is it? I think she says it's the second verse about Warren Beatty. Well, because the second verse is literally talking about someone in an apricot scarf with his hat. Yeah.

tipped beneath his eye you think what I mean that you are literally describing Warren Beatty it does become much more commercialized but it has returned to pop so now you know Taylor's done them obviously many Olivia Rodrigo Miley Cyrus lots of people it's big in k-pop it tends to be i was talking to someone who's much more of an expert in k-pop music music it feels like it's absolutely right for it and it's a bit more nervous there's not

they tend not to do like whole diss tracks but there are lines in songs so it's much more that kind of easter egg-ish like we've talked about a lot before the kind of detective culture the taylor stuff yeah but some you know some of those are like a whole song about a thing whereas there's little lines

it's like oh hang on that's an oblique aside to whatever oh if you kind of cross-reference it to this you know the whole detective hold on are you referring to stray kids yeah the detective work of the modern fandom yeah is it rewards that it's true that statistically there are many

now even accounting for those kind of hip-hop things than there were before and i like this there's there's certain people who've been the subject of very much more than one diss track, which I always think is quite interesting. Axel Rose has been the subject of a number of diss tracks. Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue has been the subject of a number as well. The Clash did a

Nikki Sixx has been the subject of it. Oh, Nikki Sixx. Oh, yeah, like a whole bunch. The Clash did one about the jam. The Jam did one about the Clash. The Mecons did one about the Clash as well. The person who I can find the most diss tracks about in history...

I'm going to give you the names of songs and they are all about the same person. So Violet Bruise by Babes in Toyland. Too Cool Queenie by Stone Temple Pilots. Stacked Actors by Foo Fighters. I'll Stick Around by Foo Fighters. Starfuckers Inc. by Nine Inch Nails. And Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani are all about the same person. Who? Courtney Love. Every single one of those songs is about Courtney Love. And Hollaback Girl being very much the...

the biggest of all of those courtney love once said that gwen stefani was like a cheerleader and that she was one of the cool kids you know behind the bike sheds and gwen stefani then go right i'm going to write a song i've never been a cheerleader so i'm going to write a song as if i am a cheerleader uh and it's going to be about and I'm going to make a billion dollars out of it, which is exactly what she did. So that's a lot of songs about the same person. Nine Inch Nails.

who were there as well. My favourite ever diss track story is Trent Reznor for Nine Inch Nails did a sort of diss track about Limp Bizkit, Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit.

Trent Reznor is a great deal cooler than Fred Durst. I mean, they both sold a lot of records, you know, both very, very successful. But he wrote this thing and Fred Durst thinks, right, I'm going to reply in kind. So he does a diss track about... trent reznor and nine inch nails uh called hot dog and like you were talking about k-pop there in order to really make people understand that this song is about trent reznor and how much disrespect he has for trent he includes lots of

Names of Nine Inch Nails songs, lyrics from Closer, all sorts of things, just so you're under absolutely no illusions that... Fred Durst is really getting one over. So on the album Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water, the song Hot Dog, which is all about Trent Reznor, but it includes so many... lyrics and song titles from Nine Inch Nails that he is then forced to make Trent Reznor a co-writer on that song. And that album became, I mean, the biggest selling Nu Metal album.

Of all time. I mean, multi, multi, multi, multi million seller back at a time when writing a song on a multi, multi, multi million seller made you an awful lot of money. So Trent made a huge amount of money from Fred Durst's diss track.

It has obviously been hugely helped by something we talked about a little further up in the episode by social media because they're kind of designed to go viral and they want people to kind of share and take sides and be team this and team that.

There was obviously no barrier to release now. In the old days, you were actually going to have to go and record this and put it on a record and put it out. You know, as I often have to remind myself, if only you'd counted 10. If you're just having a frenzied...

to and fro over the weekend and just laying down a track and putting it out which which starts by the way with the sort of Roxanne Wars and all that the you know hip-hop in the early 80s where they could just go and record stuff very very quickly stick it out on a cassette

and distribute it that way but there's even less barriers you don't have to get clearance from the label you don't have to have any everyone has a direct link to fans via some form of social media there is no barrier to distribution and you can get it out there incredibly quickly and it

It's that sort of, you know, that meme about someone being wrong on the internet. That's what really happened over that weekend. I was thinking, oh my God, I mean, if only you weren't so incredibly rich, both of you would actually have some stuff to do. You just have to do the...

big shop you'd have to do and you just have a chance to like get out there in the world but because they didn't because drake didn't have to do the big shop eventually he goaded kendrick into like us one of the greatest tracks and one of the most successful tracks which is amazing of all time

The sequel to Greenland is so massive you have to see it on the big screen. I promise. I'll get us to safety. Starring Gerard Butler and Marina Baccarin. Oh my God! Hang on! Greenland 2 Migration. Rated PG-13. Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry. And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment, completely uninvited. We are not going to stay too long. Unless you want us to, of course. We're here to tell you about our brand new show, The Rest is Science.

Every episode is going to start with something that feels initially familiar. And then we're going to unpick it and tear it apart until you no longer recognize it at all. You know how banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas? Yeah, what is that about? So it is... Supposed to taste like an old species of banana that was wiped out in a banana apocalypse. And now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires. Wow. Banana candy.

is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana. So if you like scratching the surface, thinking a little bit deeper or weirder, yes, definitely that too, you can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.