Day 15 (April 3): The 2009 BBC Children in Need Medley

Peter Kay's Official Children in Need Single 2009 - Peter Kay's ...Two weeks (huh, that went... both quickly and slowly) into this thing, and I'm feeling the need to pace  myself. I've burned through a lot of music that I truly love in this first fortnight, and I don't want to be there next year, picking through the virtual equivalent of the green and yellow Wine Gums at the bottom of the pack. No, we need some variety in this house. And what better variety than an unspeakably strange medley from a charity drive eleven years ago?

I truly believe that the 2009 Children in Need official medley made a real mark on impressionable idiot kids of a certain age, like me. Sure, we'd heard some of these famous songs, but smashed together into a hurried four and a half minute blend? That was genuinely revolutionary. It changed the boundaries of what music can be.

Seriously, just listen to this thing. It is a perfect time capsule from 2009 Britain. There's nostalgia - the Jacksons, Fleetwood Mac and Hey Jude. There's Take That for all the 90s kids and mums. There's Tubthumping, because of course there is. There's the super-recent trendy hit from Elbow that has now dated to the point where I was astonished to find out that it only came out in 2008. And, because nothing was cooler at the time, there's the Slumdog Millionaire song just hanging in the middle.

All of it is stitched together like an adorable Frankenstein's monster. The transitions are exquisite - as in, songs just end and then start again in a new form like a man falling on a jukebox over and over again. It's both the most mainstream and post-modern art project song that I have ever heard.

Bob the builder is on the cover, and he's one of the Beatles. Scooby Doo's there in the back like he's trying to be Where's Wally. Is that Ben 10? Ben Why not? Why anything mean things?

Wait, that's Peter Kay at the end. Jesus. What is this song?

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