Pretty much the biggest song of the noughties’ rubbish latter half was ‘We Can Rule The World’ by the reformed Take That. Like a lightning-reanimated window display, the neatly-scarfed foursome belted out Gary Barlow’s lyrics with inoffensive gusto:
You and me we can light up the sky
If you stay by my side, We can rule the world
Which is fine, because this is the noughties and everybody knows that listening to the lyrics would be like listening to the stated war aims of radical islamic terror groups (that is, completely beside the point). Except, wait, what did he say he wanted to do to the world again?
I mean, I’m all for poorly constructed metaphors in pop choruses. Pop singers are welcome to be my sledgehammer, to be my Teddy Bear, to have their milkshake bring me to a yard. I could even concede that everything was yellow If I was in an especially insipid mood – but how exactly does Gary get from kissing a woman and it feeling nice to being in charge of a planet?
The only answer is that the song is not metaphorical at all and that Barlow, having been driven mad by the ludicrous, unexplainable popularity of one of his ex-dancers in the first half of the noughties, has – in fact – turned into a pudgy Northern Darth Vader.
Come, Mark Owen, join me, together we can use the power of this station to light up the stars! if you stay by my side, then we can rule the galaxy as father and son…
The Terrifying Eyes of a Megalomaniac Napoleon Syndrome Sufferer
It’s terrifying. He’s terrifying. If you can tear your eyes away from the 100% woollen softness of his scarf for a moment then look at his eyes – his dark, terrifying eyes burning with the stunted lusts of Caligula. Fear him.
Of course, none of this would matter, but Take That are huge now. At the turn of the millennium we really thought we’d got them on the run – it was four down, one to go and every prospect of an end in sight. Instead they had a more successful comeback than anyone and suddenly sober, previous owners of a sense of shame were willing to go on record as fans. They were sort of right: Take That did seem better in the noughties, certainly less annoying than their rivals in the credible music scene. But it wasn’t – as the clucking rent-a-hormone TV presenters would have you believe – because they had spent a decade growing more handsome and talented; it was just that now they were operating in the noughties where everything else was shit too and they benefited hugely from the comparison.
Well OK, that’s what happened – but as we approach a new decade I warn you to view the prospect of Robbie Williams rejoining his old brand with the trepidation of a republic in danger. A Sith Lord is bad – but a Sith with an apprentice? Be afraid, 2010s Britain, Be very very afraid.
