Bad Band Names, Set List Dramas and Failed Comebacks

0:00The Restors Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, flowers, Richard, are a very important part of show business.

0:07Richard Osman:And there is a reason we're talking about flowers. As always with Octopus Energy, they do very interesting things with their customers. We will get to what they do with flowers. But yes, it's sort of the currency that runs everything. Yeah. I mean, in The Bachelor, it's actually part of the format, right? The rose ceremony. So that flower is really earning its money. Yeah. Can you imagine the person, by the way, there will be a rose wrangler on that show who has to make sure that the roses are absolutely perfect. That's a completely full-time job. Also a full-time job doing flowers for Elton John.

0:34Richard Osman:Oh my goodness. One of the great lines in a court case ever when one of his managers was accused of ripping him off and they discovered in court that he'd spent£293 ,000 on flowers in 20 months. He was like, sorry, how's that possible? He said, I like flowers. Now, shall we get on to Octopus Energy? They have a sort of committed team who always look after your account. So if you get an email from them, it's the same people. but also they get to know you so well that sometimes they'll understand if you're going through a hard time and what they will do is they will send you flowers. It's not an apology, it's just because someone was going through something and you get your flowers.

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2:21Richard Osman:they'll do like 10 minutes of bants uh this no we are absolutely straight in will come later it will be it will be integrated into the answer bants included exactly our first question is from Niall Donnelly thank you Niall Niall says Becky Hill got booed off stage at uh Transmit Festival for choosing to only play her new music and no hits absolute textbook stuff is this ever acceptable at a festival do you think audiences should get a say in a musician's set list two two different questions there which i have two different answers to okay first of all becky hill did say i'm not a jukebox bear with her actually because i think that's quite interesting what she does say she said i wanted to bring a new and exclusive exclusive 30 minute set of brand new music to the festival crowd unannounced and i thought it'd be a great opportunity to play the new music i've been working so hard on and that i personally love so much she then said it was interesting to have such a captive audience who wanted to hear the new stuff too.

3:18Captive audience. I don't think they did necessarily. But she said, I said on stage how difficult it is to transition into a new single and new music and new albums and all this conversation online is exactly what I meant. Okay, well she's lent into the backlash. I have to say she did make one good point which is she said that had she been on the festival's billing she would have done her hits because her appearance was sort of sold against that. Oh, okay. and actually artists in my experience and comics as well because they are always aware of this sort of thing normally quite up front in saying oh i'm trying out new material you know comics will often say this is a work in progress i'm trying out new stuff because they don't want people to think oh i'm you know turning up for the polish thing and they always try to advertise quite closely to it

4:02Richard Osman:yeah if you're going to see comics often they will literally be reading from a book and after the it's fun to watch a work in progress they go oh i'm keeping that one or that didn't work or what do you think it's quite a fun thing and they charge less for a work in progress and it's actually quite an interesting thing to see different for music I think because a joke is very immediate I agree but she wasn't on the bill and so she anyway there are lots of other artists but blah blah it's a festival I do think obviously the counterpoint to that is it depends to what degree you are in the audience service business and by the way if you are any kind of artist you are because if the audience doesn't get enough what they want for obvious reasons they will stop showing up it was interesting do you remember when we when we did our interview with paul mccartney he was very funny about this he said you know i'll do some of my new stuff but i will say to the crowd you know i know how you really feel about this because if i do hey jude it's just like a sea of phone lines and if i do something new it's a black tunnel and and he's sir paul mccartney he's paul mccartney it's historically always happened um obviously bob dylan went electric and people didn't like it metallica they made they changed direction and people don't like it another of the interesting stories that I think is out at the moment sort of to do this like are you serving the audience are you whatever is that um some stuff that came out last week about Lily Allen is touring West End Girl her album which is sort of about her split from David Harbour and you know it is a sort of perfect narrative album and she has decided to I mean it lasts 45 odd minutes this and it's advertised that way it says Lily Allen performs West End Girl nonetheless there have been complaints and there's a sort of string trio who are kind of the warm-up act because they do some of her hits in classical music form before she comes on she does but you're done in an hour amazing i mean she doesn't she doesn't love that i know exactly that's like the absolute dream i know and then there's no audience chat um and some people are like oh my god you know you didn't speak to your audience at all but she sees it she says it's my artistic choice not to talk to the audience she's sort of doing it almost as a play i'm just playing the album from note one to note and as we know that is a story of the breakdown of the marriage and that you know and it is a story and she says i think it helps with the storytelling not to do that and you know to have a fourth wall or whatever it is called lily allen performs western girl it's not called lily allen goes on tour actually that thing of people a lot of people don't call their tours goes on tour do they or but but you know it doesn't just say lily allen it does say that very very clearly and as i say that goes back to that thing of artists generally prefer to advertise what they know they are delivering um but taking a single album on tour even has become more of a thing that people do so in terms of like is it ever accepted at a festival i actually think her rationale for it was fine there's a load of other stuff you're going to see she's got to try new material somewhere it is perhaps a bit of a risk at a festival where people are probably it's better within within a gig in terms of whether audience audiences do get a say in a musician set list long term because they just stopped turning up so or they go absolutely crazy at the end of you know there's every band has got obviously the big hits but then they've all got album tracks which they play a couple of times at gigs and people go crazy for and they become fan favorites and they become staples in their in their set list every band knows which songs people yeah want to hear and it's it's a everyone knows the cliche of don't do the new stuff everyone knows all this stuff okay so they but they have so i think in general artists are quite clever and careful as to what they do and whether you know what they have what is how their work is advertised a new song yeah between if pulp have got a new song you know it's going to be just before common people yeah because then it gets a little of the of the halo of that oh i wasn't aware she wasn't on the actual bill so i think that is actually fair enough she's going along she wants to do something new and something interesting but yeah you do it's it's it's really really tricky if you are playing a gig for yourself, then 100 % do exactly what you want because fans are paid money to go and see you, so they are your fans.

7:57Richard Osman:If you're at a festival, no one's paying 150 quid to come and see you. And so you sort of do have to break out the hits. You have to sort of know what you're... Steep learning cash. Therefore, yeah. I always think, Suede, I always think are very interesting with this because they just released a whole series of albums in the last 10 years which are among their best work. and they have been so clever about how they've introduced those songs into their old song and they still play the old songs but yeah you go to a sway gig now uh and the songs from the last five years people go absolutely crazy but you know they don't just go out and just play all new songs they absolutely have worked out how to weave them together and again when people have come to see them personally you can see them at a festival it's different but they did a thing where they'll play you know um whole albums i think they went through their their whole career at the ica and they would do that but then they'd come back off to an interval and just play every hit as well you know that it's like that's the that's the gig you know most bands i think god you're lucky to have hits yeah i mean god you're lucky to have hits and i know it must be frustrating for bands to have to play this the same song time and again i've seen liam gallic talking about having to play wonderful and i mean that really i could live without singing that every you know night of my life for 10 years but it's you know it's the gig right that's why they give you all that money okay a question from alex davies your item on bad movie names reminded me of one of my obsessions bands that have a name that do not fit their music i also thought savage garden wrote decent enough pop songs citation needed but there was nothing savage about their music what are your top misfiring band names i think no did it come from the vampire chronicles by ann rice savage garden i think that's where that band came from there are a load of these actually and some of them the more you think about it i was trying to think about these and then i was thinking yeah i mean destiny's child is that that just sounds like some really crap pseudo prog rock nonsense like a bit like it sounds a bit stonehengey or a romantic novel yeah yeah it doesn't yeah it doesn't sound like what it doesn't there's a point where you can just get into thinking about it too hard red hot chili peppers i feel with that i'm getting some sort of latin jazz.

10:13They probably wear suits. They're definitely not Anthony Kiedis with his top off and hair down to his waist and a load of tattoos.

10:20Richard Osman:It is extraordinary how names become synonymous with the groups and you forget the names. But if you first heard that, I'd be thinking I'm hearing some kind of jazz funk maybe. I don't know what I'm hearing. Primal Scream. There's a lot of names that sound metal but aren't. Yes, Primal Scream is a great name for a Swedish metal band. 10 ,000 Maniacs? Yes. I mean, Death Cab for Cutie. I mean, what that, again, that is... There's funny ones like Ben Folds 5, when there were three of them. That's quite good. Come on, guys. But, yeah, 10 ,000 Maniacs. The Waitful Dead, though, again, you know, it doesn't sound...

10:54Richard Osman:Well, that I don't mind. I can sort of see that. I'm just saying that it's slightly... You could imagine it was something different. Oasis is a terrible name for a band. Well, two names, which are very similar. Yeah, that is a terrible name for a band. Both names for soft jazz, 1974 lounge bar bands. Oasis, Nirvana. Yeah, they could just be serving the Lighthouse Family's catalog, actually. I think there was a sort of Lighthouse Family type. I think there was a band in Nirvana. I think maybe a slightly prog-rocky band. But yeah, you could definitely... Hi, ladies and gentlemen, we're Nirvana. We're going to be entertaining you this evening.

11:32Richard Osman:Just sit back, relax, enjoy your meal, and enjoy some smooth jazz stylings. ladies and gentlemen hello we're Oasis I am John this is Penny we are going to be entertaining you this evening we're going to start with a couple of people you may have heard of Mr Elton John and Ms Kiki D that's Oasis right god you're so right and it passes away I mean sometimes they do it on purpose I guess like Alice Cooper they did that on purpose because they thought what if we were we created the kind of opposite persona to who we are. Again, the Killers, I mean, there's a lot that sound metal but aren't. I don't mind the Killers.

12:13Richard Osman:That comes from a New Order video, doesn't it, the Killers? Death Cab for Cutie comes from another song, but nonetheless, it just doesn't feel like... I always think the worst, I mean, again, it sort of suits their music, but my least favourite band names is Hootie and the Blowfish and Toad the Wet Sprocket. Both of those, you think, come on, guys, come on. There was a band who were around, when would this have been? The early 2000s, sort of, I think they were in New York, quite punky. And they were genuinely sort of in the NME and all these things. And they were called Cerebral Ballsy. And they were like a proper, you know, being reviewed, you know, being kind of like selling albums.

12:55Richard Osman:And that's terrible. I honestly think the worst name in the history of recorded music, I think. Wow, I can't wait for this. But I think it is. Yeah, it is. I think it is. But you don't think it's terrible. Yeah. That's better. Oh, that's in a different way. Just think, come guys. But in terms of a band where you think, okay, I see why that's acceptable you chose that name. It's the Beatles. Yeah. The Beatles. I mean, as a pun, it's terrible. Yeah. And even not as a pun, you think, oh, so you're named after the insect, a beetle. But you've got more than one beetle. But you've B-E-A-T. the whole thing is absolutely unacceptable in every way and if they weren't so brilliant they would be called out on it almost daily.

13:40They really had to transcend their name and you know I think they've done a bloody good job haven't they?

13:44Richard Osman:But they have because you never think about it. No. You're right they're the ones that you just don't think about. Yeah. Oh Beatles. Either it sounds metal or you just don't think about it but it's terrible. But it doesn't if If they were called the Stag Beatles or the Black Widows or something, but just the Beatles. They can't be called the Black Widows. That's metal. That's got the other problem. That's got both problems. Bad name and sounds metal. It's only just occurred to me that I wonder if it's in response to the Crickets. Ah. Ah. I just thought that then because I was thinking of other insane fan names.

14:15It's so a name from the past before them rather than the kind of revolution that they...

14:21Richard Osman:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so unrevolutionary as a name. It's literally like from the decade before. And by the way, the Crickets is a terrible name. I mean, Buddy Holly, I mean, you could call your band anything. Buddy Holly and the Ivies. Buddy Holly and the Cricket. I mean, what are they? Oh, yeah, because it's like a slightly annoying chirpy noise. Name yourself up to something that sounds good. Call yourself Buddy Holly and the Jumbo Jets. It's something with a bit of wroomph to it. Yeah. The Crickets. And then the Beatles heard that and goes, yes, we need to do that. But we also need to put a pun in it as well.

14:53Richard Osman:Yeah, come on, guys. Good question. Very good question. I've been for a long time on that one. Okay, shall we go to a break? Shall we go to a break? Yeah. Yeah.

15:05Richard Osman:This episode is brought to you by the Lloyds 5K house deposit. Lloyds are offering a 5K house deposit, which was last seen in 1996. What are your entertainment memories of the 1990s? I feel guilty talking about the 1990s, because you look back and it was such a golden era. We'd never had it so good and we didn't even realise because we were young and we just thought we were entitled to it all. We absolutely took it for granted. Yeah, Britpop was absolutely in its pomp. Oasis playing to a quarter of a million people. You had Blur and Suede and Pop. Spice Girls and Girl Power, I'm so sorry. Spice Girls, amazing movies at the cinema, Trainspotting.

15:38Richard Osman:I mean, it felt a time of absolute optimism, but at the time you just assumed that was the way that the world was going. A very British type of optimism. But part of the optimism, of course, is that mortgages were more affordable and that is what Lloyds is dealing with right now. Yeah, last seen in 1996, Lloyds are now offering 5k deposit mortgages to first-time buyers. Search 5k first-time buyer. 1996 average first-time buyer deposits based on ONS data. Subject to status, your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments. Conditions apply. This summer, Prime Video takes you back before Legally Blonde, before law school, and into the world of Elle Woods in high school.

16:16Richard Osman:Set in 1995, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is until her family moves from bel-air to seattle packed with iconic fashion 90s nostalgia and a throwback soundtrack elle proves one thing law school was hard high school was harder from the world of legally blonde watch elle a new original series only on prime video watch now in the u.s there's a break in every 26 seconds but when intruders step near simply safe home security steps up. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, U.S.-based live agents help deter break-ins. SimpliSafe, no long-term contracts. Save 50 % on your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com slash Spotify or with promo code Spotify.

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17:13Richard Osman:Welcome back, everybody. Did you see the sad death of one of our bonus episode stars last week, Victor Willis? Ah, Village People, relevant to our interest. Relevant to our interest. If you haven't heard our Village People special series, which is just for members, it was really, really interesting. It's so interesting. It's like mental. And Victor Willis, who, God rest his soul, was right at the heart of that and made some very, very interesting decisions in his career. A lot of the reason that the Village People story is quite so interesting is because of Victor Willis. So if you do want to become a member, you are very welcome.

17:53Richard Osman:We'd love to have you. It's at theresthesentertainment.com. You can sign up there. But yeah, I would point you in the direction of that Village People. It's a three-parter, I believe. I think it is a three-parter. It's quite a lot to say. You wouldn't think there's three-parters on the Village People. About that famously straight band in Victor's appreciation of it all. Believe you me, it could have been a five-parter. Tim Maynard has a question. How much have streaming platforms changed when major series are released? When I was younger, when I was younger, how can you be younger and still have streaming?

18:22Richard Osman:Oh, man. When I was younger, there were three channels. Okay, that's the only question I want to hear. Tim says, when I was younger, series were often released over the winter. Now it seems shows are released more evenly through the year. Is this due to viewing habits changing? Maybe you're right. And then maybe he's talking about the time which was before streaming when it was very, very different. I see. But you are definitely right that streaming originals debut throughout the year. In the old days, the time you're maybe talking about, it was all to do with advertising buying. And the old days, the networks cared most about advertiser money.

18:52So they wanted to have big audiences at the times that they could predict. So for September and October, as you say, the autumn, for big drama and comedy series, things they'd spent a lot of money on.

19:03Richard Osman:And entertainment. But you had these things annually, like clockwork. Now you've got these waits between seasons, all sorts of things. You know, you had these huge competitions like who had won Thursday night, what you schedule things against. You know, it all mattered and it mattered because of advertising. And summer, particularly in the US, used to be a complete repeat wasteland. Anyway, as you say, everything has changed. There are some things that they still do for awards reasons because there is a sort of recency bias when they're looking for awards things. But so it's not that release dates have become irrelevant.

19:36It is just that they are now used for different things. primarily the platforms want subscribers well they want four things they want they want to acquire new ones they want to retain the ones they have they want to win awards and they want to avoid competition and that is quite important when you think of people sort of the churn of subscriptions where people think i'll sign up for this show but not so they premiere new seasons of shows when they want big signups and the subscriber strategy basically dictates all of this now so you might put it on at a time of slow subscriber growth and all those things i used to say like summer's just not a wasteland anymore.

20:09Summer's become, obviously summer's very big as well with reality and things like that. There are certain shows that feel more summer for whatever reason and certain kind of expensive dramas that feel more January for whatever reason. But you might also do it just before you're going to do a price increase. But they really worry about churn. I actually was trying to think back as to how some, we'll have to go with Netflix because obviously they're the sort of global market leader. If you think of Netflix over the last year, so June 2025, they had Squid Game Season 3. August, Wednesday season two, part one.

20:40Again, these staggered drops are now a big part of it, as you can see. September, they had Wednesday part two. Again, staggered release. October, they had Love is Blind, Selling Sunset, and Nobody Wants This 2. November and December, all those Stranger Things finale season drops, which were enormous and everything got out of the way for that, basically. January, you've got Bridgerton, the Harlan Coburn, the things that you just always are going to be your January bankers. February you've got a second Bridgerton drop March you've got your big franchise series and you've got April you might have returning comedy because you might be thinking about Emmys and things like that so there's if you look at it there is a reason for all of it every single not just every quarter needs to be attractive to subscribers but every month needs to be attractive and these temple releases have got to keep you there all the way through so you think well I won't cancel because hang on a second and this staggered release thing has become bigger and bigger as we say the thing they disrupted they have become

21:34Richard Osman:but yes but it's it's fascinating because as you say in the olden days of tv if you made a tv series and they said they're putting out in august you would just be all right okay they they you hate it hate it so much that they're willing to just burn it off yeah uh and if you do a series and they say we're gonna we're gonna put it in the third week of september you'd be like yes that's great or we're gonna put it in january those those are the two those were the two times where you You think, oh, you love this series. I'm going to go to stuff I'd have to go in March. That's not a problem. We still feel that that first week of January is now the biggest time in the schedule of the year.

22:11Richard Osman:Yeah, Traitors comes out, as you say, Harlan Coburn comes out. January, Rick Bish and Harlan Coburn. Yeah, exactly, Traitors, all the stuff. ITV have massive things. But my God, January, August. You can look at the BBC schedules now, and it's all repeats. And it has been for many, many, many years, by the way. You know, you tend to, because fewer people watch television during the summer. It's one of the statistical things where people go, yeah, but if they put good shows on, then fewer people wouldn't watch. You go, no. No. Absolutely not. Reality, you can get them in the summer. You can. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:43Richard Osman:But you cannot, you know, it is light longer. Some, you know, people are away. It is, you will just get fewer people watching. I always think the most instructive thing to know is if you've got something like House of Games, which is on every day. And during the summer, it's Michael Sheen's House of Games. Michael Sheen's Richard Osmond's House of Games. It's on every day. When the clocks go back in the winter, you will immediately add 400 ,000 viewers. The next Monday, you'll have 400 ,000 more viewers than you had. Yeah, you just will. Because the people are, we're creatures of habit and the darkness affects us.

23:16Richard Osman:And, you know, it is absolutely. I'm just imagining a caveman house of games now on the wall. Anyway, carry on. It's a really good idea. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, so it is September, October. You will, in terms of terrestrial TV, you will always be getting more viewers. And in the summer, you will get fewer viewers. It's like you remember when, again, God, this is going back. When they do, like, replacements for the Saturday morning TV show, so instead of Swap Shop or Saturday Superstore going live, it'll be, like, the summer replacement. And everyone will be like, oh, God. But because people just wouldn't watch.

23:55Richard Osman:you know people you get tv companies get the overnights all the time they would just see that viewing would drop off a cliff but you can't do that for a streamer so they've got to find ways every single month has to be attractive you can never quite cut the cord yeah exactly that that's what call casting is okay wrong wrong analogy you can never you can never just quite yeah you know be part of the churn and yes rereading tim maynard's question you're absolutely right he's talking about how much of streaming platforms change when major series are released because in the old days he's talking about terrestrial tv i thought tim doesn't sound like uh the name of someone in his late teens i'm not sure there are late teen tims out there but tim sounds a solidly kind of uh he's got a sense of history yeah a question relevant to your interest from hannah spires richards who says i watched serena williams's comeback match at wimbledon and felt suitably underwhelmed had such a massive build-up for a really anticlimactic end i know you've talked before about best ever comebacks, but what about worst?

24:54Richard Osman:Oh, I feel for Serena. I thought she did great. You were there, right? I was there, yeah, watching it. Rich was in the Royal Books. With Greg James. With Greg James, yeah. Who, like, mere days later is at Taylor Swift's wedding. Yeah, and kept it on the down line. Yeah, we talked about it a lot. We did not talk about Taylor Swift's wedding. I will say that. His mum trod on my foot, and she was very, very good about it. Sounds like you were, too. And she was very, you know what, my foot, I mean, you can tread on my feet all day long. I'm not going to feel it. Okay. The end of my foot is so far away from that.

25:25Richard Osman:I mean, she was absolutely delightful. I have to say, again, she said nothing about Taylor Swift either. Perhaps she didn't know. Perhaps it was a surprise to her. Listen, we will find out. Can I just inch you back towards Serena Williams? Serena Williams. Yes. So Worst Ever Cut. Well, I'm going to give a very specific example of it, which is we were making a documentary about E17. I'll have to take that. Had their unbelievable comeback. E17 will all have an unbelievable comeback too because they had the songs so we were making this documentary about them, just following them around relaunching themselves, starting to do gigs and halfway through the documentary Brian Harvey and Tony Mortimer had a fist fight and the documentary ended and their comeback ended and so nobody made any money and the two I really felt for were Terry and John who are the other two members of E17 who you watched some of the we did actually put the show out in the end But you watch those two boys who didn't have an awful lot of money and were so lovely.

26:27Richard Osman:And they just think, oh, great, Brian and Tony have messed this up for us. So, you know, take that. I can't believe you can coax them back into sort of just, you know, taking the pants up on the road as well. Well, I don't think they've got the Gary Barlow figure who would just drive things through. Like the Barlow-McCartney type figure. The statesman. Yeah, the statesman. It lacked a statesman, didn't it, E70? I think slightly they lacked a Clement Attlee figure at the heart of E17. Bismarckian intelligence. But if you think about it, that could have been huge, right? And they could still be going now.

27:00Richard Osman:They could absolutely be on that nostalgia circuit and headlining on that nostalgia circuit. Because a huge amount of big hit songs, a huge amount of proper bangers, a huge Christmas song. I mean, they could be going forever and ever and ever. but yeah they were for various personnel reasons they were not that seems a shame to me so that's my worst ever I can't believe they can't get it together now now they see the circuit yeah but I mean they're not out there no you know by the way I thought it was lovely Serena wouldn't try to go you know she was her kids are there she just wanted to you know she wanted to show them what she got oh yeah it's fine she 120 mile an hour serve yeah okay you're 44 that's pretty good yeah but yeah there it is but yeah I mean the big story there was Greg James not telling any of us that he was going to take the Swift's wedding another big story I tell you who's lovely who?