Why should anything belong anywhere? It's not like Never Stop Coming Back was outrageously out of place in Unknown Pleasures, and a lot of people made a great discovery out of it. I can't say that I was very keen on some of the entries in the top ten either but I wouldn't begrudge them their place here, if it's what somebody wants to introduce to everybody else. I don't think that UP/BJSC should have active genre divides, I find the variety of genres a whole lot more interesting, making both a lot more enjoyable for me. If BJSC were made only pop, and UP was made only indie then I'd have no interest in participating in either personally. The only answer would be banning certain people from Unknown Pleasures, and others from BJSC, or forcing people to enter songs from certain genres but that would be incredibly unfair and restrictive imo.

Not really experienced in the latter but surely there needs to be some kind of divide between this and BJSC or there may as well just be one competition? (excluding members/vetting songs is a bit of a no no though)

I thought the quality was ok but the result not so great this time

There's a subconscious divide already I think, I don't find the songs being submitted to the two contests at all similar overall personally. The majority of the songs in the last BJSC contest would be panned as entries in here and vice versa. Of the posters that enter both competitions, I think there's already a thought process as to which competition is likely to be a better fit for a song, i.e. Hitstastic and Solider.

I certainly wouldn't have sent my recent BJSC entry Flares to this, I'm well aware that it would have gone down like a lead balloon. I really didn't expect Never Stop Coming Back to cause an uproar though, it sounds like it could be by any number of acts that have had active threads in the indie forum before. If my taste is considered too poppy for UP then I'd reluctantly step back but I think it would be a shame as I enjoy participating. I wouldn't like to lose countries from BJSC on the basis that their choices are 'too indie' either, I've made some fantastic indie discoveries there over the years.

I don't think you should step back. In fact I think you bring something different to the table but when you compare the top 5 from UP1 and the top 5 from UP8, there has been a definite shift.

I don't think we need to do something to divide between BJSC and UP (at least yet). Because more than half of last month's BJSC entries would be ridiculed in UP. And vice versa. Even if the quality of UP7 was lower than usual, it's still a VERY long way to go down in order to meet the standards of BJSC.

Yes, I just basically said BJSC has become majorly crappy, yet I'm still participating in it. That's called an addiction.

I was surprised that you only seemed to like 3 or 4 songs out of almost 50 in the last contest, I think I'd probably call it a day if it ever got like that for me. I'm addicted to it only in the way that I love making new discoveries that I wouldn't hear otherwise but if that situation ever dried up then I wouldn't hesitate to leave.

Not that I'd want you to leave of course, you're an essential part of the contest. But last month was unusually poppy, even for BJSC.

I actually liked about 8 finalists. It's 4 I cared about

I have issues about letting go. Plus it's possible that this was just a one month thing, and it will get better.

I'm not familiar with all of them but it's certainly not looking that way so far!

I just hope there are some tracks I like, I imagine hosting will be quite a chore unless I actually have an interest in which track wins.

Sorry I missed all this last night. For once my number 1 won the competition. I thought it was quite a weak set of songs. I only really loved one. I also thought I would do better than 14th this time because of a number of factors

1. It was the second track of cd 1 giving it the chance of being more familiar or clicking earlier with voters
2. The fact that the rest of the songs weren't very strong in my opinion
3. The song might appeal to a wider audience given it's nature.

I was wrong on all counts

Well done, Dand...it was worth the wait. It can't be easy coming up with new ways of presenting the results.

I don't think Jessica 6 was that out of place really, it reminded me of a Hercules & Love Affair track, a band that would definitely find a home in this forum.

I just feel like what did well in the first couple of Unknown Pleasures would not do nearly as well now. I think that does have a lot to do with a lot of new participants in this contest who normally don't post in the indie forum at all. I definitely don't think we should do anything about it or restrict genres or anything, I just think it's something to note. (UP will never end up like BJSC but it is heading in that general directiono which makes me a little bummed). This could just be a one-off type of thing tho