The world waits for Best Song Ever
Friday’s show had one appointment that overwhelmed almost everything else: Radio 1’s first play of One Direction’s “Best Song Ever”. Scott had spent days dealing with the logistics because the record was being released to broadcasters around the world at the same time. The time kept moving while different territories had to be considered, leaving Scott to complain that Britain was essentially waiting for the Americas to wake up.
The programme leaned fully into the scale of it. Scott imagined One Direction sitting in mansions while pins were placed into a giant world map as each country came online. Listeners checked in from Russia, the Philippines, Singapore, Mexico, Colombia and around the UK. The hashtag for the Radio 1 play was already moving internationally before the record had even started.
Only a 30-second teaser had been available beforehand, which gave Chris room to wonder whether the title itself might be a dangerous claim. Scott reminded him that he had already described Shakira’s “She Wolf” and other records in similarly extravagant terms. Technically, of course, One Direction were singing about having danced to the best song ever rather than declaring their own record to be it, but by then the phrase had swallowed the entire afternoon.
Chris makes his own best song ever
Scott returned to one of his favourite experiments: making Chris continue a song after the known section ended and forcing him to sing whatever entered his head. Dave played keyboards while Chris tried to invent the rest of the unreleased One Direction track. The first attempt drifted into a generic boy-meets-girl story and fragments of other songs.
Chris then decided there was a more scientific solution. If the aim was to create the best song ever, he would simply combine what he considered several of the best songs ever made. The resulting medley pulled together My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade”, The Streets’ “Dry Your Eyes”, Shakira’s “She Wolf” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”.
It was less a new masterpiece than a collision of songs Chris happened to love, complete with improvised transitions and repeated declarations that this was now the best song ever. Scott apologised to the international audience that had tuned in for One Direction and instead found Chris howling his way from Shakira into Daft Punk.
Radio 1 offers a weekend in Ibiza
The station was also giving a listener and three friends the chance to join Radio 1 for its Ibiza weekend at the start of August. The prize included flights, accommodation and entry to the station’s events, but entrants first had to submit a video of no more than 30 seconds showing why their group would be fun to take away.
Scott wanted to demonstrate how simple it could be, so Chris went downstairs with his phone and looked for people willing to become his pretend holiday friends. Broadcasting House was full of BBC tours, allowing him to grab a convenient group of visitors and make his own example almost immediately.
The competition would ultimately be decided through a mixture of shortlisting, listener voting and on-air challenges, with the final stage taking place at the airport. Scott enjoyed the cruelty of that last detail: some finalists would make it all the way to the terminal only to discover they were going home rather than Ibiza.
Harry Styles calls from his hotel bed
Harry Styles joined the show from a hotel room, where he was still in bed after months of touring. He described “Best Song Ever” as his favourite One Direction track so far and said the group’s newer material was becoming a little bigger and heavier, although not remotely in Slipknot territory.
Scott wanted to know what somebody in one of the world’s biggest bands still had to do for himself. Harry said laundry was one of the things he missed, and that the band could use the machines themselves on tour. That image did not fit Scott’s assumption that there must always be somebody available to do anything One Direction wanted.
They also discussed the forthcoming This Is Us film and just how much access its cameras had been given. Harry said the band had seen material and changed small things, but there was not some enormous forbidden scene he had demanded be removed. Even arguments on the tour bus sounded mundane, with disagreements over what film everybody should watch.
Before introducing “Best Song Ever”, Harry revealed the false name he had recently been using to check into hotels was no longer useful because it had become known. Scott and Chris naturally tried to invent a replacement. Then, after an afternoon of delays and international anticipation, Harry finally introduced the track and Radio 1 played it.
Matt Edmondson tests his Harry Styles knowledge
Matt Edmondson’s Real or No Real was built around Harry. Nickelback really had been the first concert Harry attended. The claim that he was knitting booties for the imminent royal baby on One Direction’s tour bus was false, although Scott said Harry genuinely could knit.
A rumour that Taylor Swift’s enthusiasm for antiques had ended their relationship was no real, even if the idea fitted the programme’s increasingly elaborate picture of Swift as a period-drama character. The last claim was stranger: Harry really did dislike the iPhone’s Marimba ringtone intensely enough for the game to accept the supposed phobia as real.
Matt lost after scoring 20 points, leaving the show to return to the only fact that really mattered to much of the audience that afternoon: the waiting was over and “Best Song Ever” had finally been heard.
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