Ashton and Skall being the two nations to give Espen 12 has made me think somewhat about how my tastes have changed since joining BJSC.

 

 

Back at the very beginning of the contest Ashton, or rather the Fotherington Islands, was a fully paid up member of the PurePop bloc. A nation who would never consider sending something not in English, or god forbid by a male. Our tastes started to widen and we switched allegiance to the ScandiBloc that saw us score our only victory and where we still remain.

 

More recently, aside from the dance surge in BJSC (a genre Ashton has always loved), I feel that my tastes have somewhat changed over the past year or so. While I will never be a Indie nation, Ashton isn't quite as pop as it once was.

 

 

How have your tastes changed since joining BJSC?

My tastes in BJSC change in line with my shifting tastes overall. At the start I was very pop, and I too went through the Scandipop phase in 2009, but generally my votes are mixed between the crossover pop/indie/dance songs. I hardly ever vote for the generic pure pop cheese or the more alternative stuff but more often vote for everything in between. In the last couple of years I've been back into dance in a big way and that's where my votes tend to go - my top four of Ojnoj, Hendinia, N DNTN and Yehesi this month along with most of my entries this year back this up.

I've always just voted for the song that I adore the most. One month it might be a beautiful haunting ballad ('Video Games', 'Colours', 'So High'). Another month a sublime slice of Swedish alt-pop ('Supreme') or just a track that draws me in and makes me think "wow" ('Run Boy Run').

 

Maybe I should rank all my 12 point entries since I joined and see what styles have proven to be the most successful. *.*

I've always just voted for the song that I adore the most. One month it might be a beautiful haunting ballad ('Video Games', 'Colours', 'So High'). Another month a sublime slice of Swedish alt-pop ('Supreme') or just a track that draws me in and makes me think "wow" ('Run Boy Run').

 

Maybe I should rank all my 12 point entries since I joined and see what styles have proven to be the most successful. *.*

 

I dont know the earlier contests so that might give me clues to goodies Ive missed - I tend to like what you like, often B-)

 

For the record, I call everything pop and I like the creative/classy examples of every genre - though at the moment I have a slight bias against formula dance because so much of the UK Top 40 is produced by production-line hit factories right now, the sound is interchangeable. That's not to say that genius dance tracks aren't around (they are) but, you know, eight singles off an album and titled the Best Song Ever (and those two examples at least have their own sound and identity! The truly bland ones are forgettable)...?

Even though 'indie' and 'pop', however you want to define them, have come a lot closer together, I probably vote for way more hipster tracks than I used to simply because there are more of them to vote for! The only pure-pop tracks in my votes this month were Envy and Lucas Nord. Despite the Europop and rapping, which were of course amazing too, Team Rockit still had that signature Sincerely Yours sound. <3 In my first era from 2008-2010, there were so few 'indie' entries that I had to vote for many, many pop songs. I'd never be in a position where I disliked a song I voted for, so it's all good though!

 

If we were more like Batidas, Rontvia or Syndare then it'd be more interesting, but I can't help what I like!

I think I've voted for more dance songs as time has gone by, but that is down to more being entered. I've been a big dance supporter since day 1 and that ain't gonna change. Looking at my most recent votes and categorizing them to either 'pop' or 'dance' here's how my tastes are atm

 

+12 DAEHUN // NAMIE AMURO 'ALIVE' (pop)

+10 YEHESI // HENRIK B ET AL 'ECHOES' (dance)

+08 KLUMINICAN REPUBLIC // REBECCA & FIONA 'UNION' (dance)

+07 MDICE // SOPHIE 'BIPP' (pop)

+06 AEROCHE // SLAVA 'GIRL LIKE ME' (dance)

+05 N DNTN // KORALLREVEN 'SA SA SAMOA (ELITE GYMNASTICS REMIX)' (dance)

+04 CADELICA // STYLE OF EYE & TOM STARR 'AFTER DARK' (dance)

+03 HENDINIA // LUCAS NORD FEAT. TOVE LO 'RUN ON LOVE' (dance)

+02 ALTYR MUUNLINST // KAT GRAHAM 'POWER' (pop)

+01 SANDEBORG // ENVY 'AM I WRONG' (pop)

 

So it's 40% pop and 60% dance, but obviously some of the dance songs have pop influences and vice versa.

I don't think my taste changed much. I just started to pay more attention to 'indier' entries - that's pretty much it. Plus, true indie which I didn't listen back in 2008-2009 is rarely entered in this in the first place.

I don't think I've really changed too much, I mean my top 3 of 'Power', 'Forget You' and 'American Girl' show that I'm still massively about my pop, and I think I always will be. I've definitely become more accustomed to quirkier entries that I wasn't at the start, but I still look at my votes and think they look very predictably filled with pop.

I don't think it's as much that my tastes have changed as it is a case of there being a more diverse range of entries in the last year and a bit. I'm still mostly a pop fan, but I do vote for more 'indie' songs from time to time too and indeed my top 2 this contest weren't 'pop'. It just comes down to what the best song is.

 

Sadly for most of this year the contest has been plagued with awful dance music, a genre I have very little time for so it's somewhat forced my hand in a number of contests regarding what I vote for.