Chris had been messaging Alan Shearer late at night
The first January transcript in the supplied archive opened with Scott inspecting Chris’s habit of sending messages to football hero Alan Shearer after a few drinks.
Chris had somehow acquired Shearer’s number and occasionally treated it like the number of a mate rather than one of the most famous former England players in the country.
The messages included late-night versions of “It’s coming home”, sent with considerably more enthusiasm than context.
Scott enjoyed reading the timestamps almost as much as the messages themselves.
Chris admitted the exchanges looked much stranger in daylight.
The automatic transcript repeatedly replaces Shearer with unrelated names including Maya Jama, but the conversation itself makes the intended footballer clear.
The Generator became a National Treasure machine
Scott and Chris also revived one of their deliberately low-tech “generators”.
Listeners had already seen social-media generators claiming to tell them which Disney character or reality contestant they resembled.
Radio 1 now offered the National Treasure Generator.
The technology was less impressive than the presentation suggested.
Listeners supplied information and the show theatrically matched them with a British public figure.
The point was not accuracy.
It was making the output sound as though an advanced BBC system had reached a scientific conclusion.
Meghan Trainor played Your Lyrics, Different Song
Then Meghan Trainor joined.
The premise was simple enough to explain and difficult enough to perform.
Take the lyrics from one of Meghan’s own songs.
Make her sing them to a completely different melody.
Scott and Chris used “All About That Bass” as the lyrical source.
The new musical frame was connected with Freya Ridings’ “Lost Without You”, despite the speech-recognition transcript mangling Freya’s name.
Meghan first talked about how performers sometimes used lyric monitors on stage, particularly with newer songs or covers.
She admitted forgetting words could happen even when the song was your own.
The standard trick was to point the microphone towards the crowd and let everybody else sing.
Then she accepted Radio 1’s much less forgiving version.
All About That Bass survived
Meghan worked the familiar “All About That Bass” words into the unfamiliar melody.
The mismatch was exactly what Scott and Chris wanted.
Lyrics people knew instantly suddenly sounded like a completely different song.
Meghan committed rather than giving the presenters only a token line or two.
That turned the feature from an idea into something recognisably musical.
Scott immediately wanted to use it again with other artists.
The 2020 archive had begun with a feature capable of returning throughout the year.
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