It started with a shower. Honestly, that is where Dan Smith, the frontman of Bastille, says he used to come up with his most chaotic ideas during the early 2010s. Long before they were selling out arenas for Bad Blood, Bastille was a project obsessed with the intersection of cinema and pop music. And nowhere is that obsession more obvious—or more legally complicated—than in No Angels by Bastille.
If you were a fan back in 2012 or 2013, you remember the Other People's Heartache mixtapes. They were gritty, unofficial, and technically "illegal" in the eyes of many copyright lawyers. These weren't just covers. They were audio collages. No Angels is the crown jewel of that era, a track that smashed together the 90s R&B swagger of TLC’s "No Scrubs" with the dark, string-heavy tension of The xx’s "Angels."
It shouldn't work. On paper, it’s a disaster. But it became an indie-pop anthem that defines a very specific moment in British music history.
Why No Angels by Bastille Is More Than a Simple Cover
Most people hear the lyrics and think, "Oh, it's just 'No Scrubs'."
That's a lazy take. What Dan Smith did was flip the perspective. While TLC’s original version is a high-energy, defiant anthem about rejecting mediocre men, Bastille’s version is haunting. It’s paranoid. By layering the lyrics over the skeletal, atmospheric guitar riff from The xx, the song shifts from a club hit to something that sounds like it belongs in a noir film.
There's a reason for that. Bastille has always been a "film band" disguised as a pop band.
The track famously samples the 1960 Hitchcock classic Psycho. Specifically, it uses the dialogue between Norman Bates and Marion Crane. When Norman says, "It’s not like I’m moving through a checkers game, for goodness sake," right before the beat drops, it recontextualizes the entire song. The "scrub" isn't just a guy leaning out of the passenger side of his best friend's ride anymore. In this version, the scrub feels like a predator, or at least someone deeply unstable. It’s creepy. It’s brilliant. It's exactly why the song went viral on Hype Machine before "viral" was even a standard industry term.
The Legal Nightmare of Other People's Heartache
You can't talk about No Angels by Bastille without talking about why it’s so hard to find on official streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music in its original form.
When Bastille released Other People's Heartache, Pt. 2, they weren't exactly asking for permission. They were sampling everything: The Lion King, Drive, The Breakfast Club, and massive pop hits. It was a creative free-for-all. Once the band blew up with "Pompeii," the labels came knocking.
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The mashup was eventually "cleaned up" for the All This Bad Blood reissue, but the version most purists love is the raw mixtape cut. The struggle between artistic sampling and copyright law is baked into the DNA of this track.
The Sound of the 2013 Indie Boom
The early 2010s were a weird time for the UK charts. You had this massive collision of folk-rock, synth-pop, and the "Alt-J" wave of experimental indie. Bastille occupied this strange middle ground. They had the "whoa-oh" choruses that radio loved, but they had this nerd-core obsession with cult cinema.
No Angels bridged that gap.
It appealed to the 90s kids who grew up with TLC, the hipsters who worshipped The xx, and the film geeks who recognized the Bernard Herrmann-esque tension. Ella Eyre’s guest vocals are the secret weapon here. Her raspy, soulful grit provides the perfect foil to Dan Smith’s clean, almost anxious delivery. It’s a vocal chemistry that they tried to replicate later on tracks like "Help Me Get Along," but they never quite caught lightning in a bottle like they did on the TLC mashup.
Behind the Collaboration with Ella Eyre
At the time, Ella Eyre was a newcomer. She hadn't even released "Waiting All Night" with Rudimental yet. Smith has often recounted how they recorded these mixtape tracks in a tiny basement studio in South London. There was no budget. There was no grand plan for world domination.
They just wanted to see if they could make "No Scrubs" sound like a funeral march.
The recording process was famously DIY. If you listen closely to the original mixtape version, the production is a bit "crunchy." It lacks the polished sheen of their later studio albums. But that’s the charm. It feels like a bootleg because it essentially was one. It represents a time before Bastille was a "brand"—back when they were just a group of guys in London obsessed with making something that sounded like a movie trailer.
Analyzing the Lyrics: TLC Meets Alfred Hitchcock
The genius of the mashup is in the subtraction. By slowing down the tempo and stripping away the upbeat R&B production, the lyrics of "No Scrubs" get a lot darker.
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"A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me."
In the TLC version, that's an empowerment line. In the Bastille version, backed by the lonely, echoing guitar of The xx, it sounds like a rejection of a very specific, lonely kind of person. Then you drop in the Psycho dialogue: "We all go a little mad sometimes."
Suddenly, the song isn't about dating standards. It's about isolation. It’s about the "small town" mentality that Dan Smith frequently writes about in songs like "Icarus" or "Flaws." The "angels" in the title (pulled from The xx song) act as a contrast to the "scrubs." It’s this weird, heavenly-versus-earthly dynamic that gives the track its staying power.
Why It Still Matters in 2026
Music moves fast. Most covers from 2013 are completely forgotten. But No Angels by Bastille persists in DJ sets and indie-nostalgia playlists.
Why? Because it’s a masterclass in how to do a cover correctly.
A good cover doesn't just repeat the original; it argues with it. It changes the mood entirely. Bastille took a song that everyone knew and made it feel uncomfortable. They took a song by The xx—which was already minimal—and made it feel cinematic.
- It’s a time capsule. It represents the peak of the mixtape culture that flourished on Tumblr and SoundCloud before the streaming giants locked everything down.
- It’s a gateway. For many younger fans, this song was their introduction to TLC or even the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock.
- It’s authentic. You can hear the fun they were having. There were no A&Rs in the room telling them they couldn't sample a horror movie over a girl group hit.
How to Find the Best Version
If you're looking for the definitive experience, the All This Bad Blood version is the most accessible. It’s polished, the mix is balanced, and the vocals are crisp.
However, if you can find the original Other People's Heartache file floating around on YouTube or old SoundCloud links, listen to that. The samples are longer, the transitions are rougher, and it feels more like the art project it was intended to be.
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The live versions are also worth a look. During the Wild World tour, they would often bring out different guest vocalists to fill Ella Eyre’s shoes, and the song took on a more "rock" energy with live drums. But nothing quite beats that programmed, steady beat and the eerie silence between the notes of the studio recording.
Practical Steps for Bastille Fans and Collectors
If you are trying to track down the history or the physical media for this era of the band, there are a few things you should know.
First, the original physical copies of the mixtapes are incredibly rare. They were often handed out at early shows or sold in tiny quantities. If you find one at a record fair, grab it.
Second, if you're a musician or producer, study this track. It’s a perfect example of "Interpolation vs. Sampling." Bastille re-recorded the vocals and many of the instruments but kept the "vibe" of the sources. It’s a great lesson in how to pay homage without just copying.
Finally, keep an eye on the band’s anniversary re-releases. They’ve been known to dig into the vaults for "Complete" editions of their albums, often fighting through the legal red tape to get these mixtape tracks onto streaming for the fans.
To get the full experience of this track today, listen to it late at night, preferably while driving. The song was designed for that specific atmosphere—halfway between a dream and a cold, rainy night in London. It’s a reminder that even the biggest pop stars started out as fans, playing with their favorite songs in a basement, hoping someone would listen.---
Check the legal credits. When you look at the liner notes for the official release, you'll see a massive list of songwriters, including Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs and Kandi Burruss (who wrote "No Scrubs"). It's a fascinating look at how a simple mashup becomes a complex piece of intellectual property.
Watch the fan-made videos. Because there was never an official big-budget music video for the remix, the "official" visuals are often just clips from Psycho. This only adds to the song's cult status. It belongs to the fans as much as it belongs to the band.