“Why leave me standing here?

Let me know the way”

 

30th - The Long And Winding Road - Will Young & Gareth Gates

 

 

6th - 1996-2006 heat

 

Average score: 16.93

Highest score:

38 detonate

Lowest score:

4 Jester, chartjack2

 

Number One for 2 weeks in September / October 2002, this was the 3rd of 4 Number Ones for both acts (nice that they both achieved another much better one after this). It held off “Little By Little” / “She Is Love” by Oasis and “Down Boy” by Holly Valance. For some reason the single was released as a double A side with Gareth’s solo version of “Suspicious Minds”

 

Well you can’t blame them for milking the Will and Gareth rivalry come bromance story. I’m not annoyed that this exists - in pre streaming days covers probably helped bring classics to a new audience. But why oh why did they have to are all the vocal flourishes and out of place harmonies? This qualified behind the other Beatles defacing duo Sam and Mark but finishes ahead of it in the final.

Edited November 3, 20222 yr by JulianT

I hate the Westlife/Mariah version of Against All Odds - hence my 39 points.

It doesn't help that I have a strong dislike of Mariah Carey in general.

Its just a terrible version of the song and has nothing good about it whatsoever (and I quite like Westlife usually).

 

It would have been my 40 pointer if I hadn't listened to one particular 70s song that was just mind numbingly dreadful.

Edited November 2, 20222 yr by CJK

Never cared for the Westlife/Mariah cover and I love the original however there's worse offenders here so it was in the teens votes for me. 'Long and Winding Road' is okay but nothing outstanding either. 'Save Your Love' is okay too.

I actually kind of like 'Save Your Love' (it's not one I'd go out of my way to listen to but I can enjoy it when it's on, not that I ever hear it anywhere), was surprised to see that making the final. And yeah as I said the other day I think Will/Gareth is the less offensive of the two Beatles covers here so I guess glad it's not that far ahead of Sam & Mark.

 

None of my top 10 have been yet (I was kind of expecting one of those to have been already so pleasantly surprised it hasn't), Chris Brown was 11th for me so that's the worst that's been announced so far.

“Dran drra ma mababa baabeeeaaaaaaa!”

 

29th - Axel F - Crazy Frog

 

 

5th - 1996-2006 heat

 

Average score: 17.13

Highest score:

38 Uls2000

Lowest score:

1 Dan, Jason, Bré

 

Number 1 for 4 weeks in May / June 2005, this held off “Speed Of Sound” by Coldplay and “City Of Blinding Lights” by U2. The crazy frog was created by Swedish animator Erik Wernquist and gained cult status before being discovered and marketed by ringtone company Jamba. Wernquist later said “If I had known that this was going to be such a big thing I would not have allowed them to use that stupid name. It has nothing to do with the character. It’s not a frog and it’s not particularly crazy either”. So that clears that one up.

 

Of course we all remember the follow ups “Popcorn” (#12) “Jingle Bells” / U Can’t Touch This” (#5), “We Are The Champions (Ding A Dang Dong)” (#11) and “Last Christmas” (#16), not to mention the fake version “Ring ding ding” by Pondlife which made #11. Clearly we couldn’t get enough of the lyrical genius of “ring ding ding ding baa baaaaaaaaa”.

 

And so the 96-06 winners are dropping like frogspawn - 6 have gone and still not a single pre 1980 song has dropped out).

Edited November 3, 20222 yr by JulianT

I genuinely love 'Axel F' and will die on that hill x

 

(and yes the ding dings are an essential part of it)

Crazy Frog *.* Big up the Ringtone generation! That's all my bottom 3 out actually, good stuff x

I genuinely love 'Axel F' and will die on that hill x

 

(and yes the ding dings are an essential part of it)

 

I think I might have remembered this as a quite quirky, fun, novelty but for also remembering how the ringtone TV advert took over literally every primetime commercial break for several weeks, and didn’t the ringtone scam people by charging them a £2.99 monthly subscription when they thought they were paying for a one-off? If I’ve misremembered that then I apologise for that influencing my 38 points score…

kinda like Save Your Tears

kinda like Save Your Tears

Same here, but it wasn't in this rate :D

 

I do also sort of enjoy Save Your Love though. Happy that 6 of the 12 songs out so far were in my bottom 10, and only Let's Party - which is such a tacky regurgitation of some Chrsitmas songs we hear plenty of in any case - was in my top 10.

Edited November 3, 20222 yr by jimwatts

hahaha almost :D

Although 'Axel F' I don't care for, I probably should have been more generous to Crazy Frog as anyone or thing that brought 'Popcorn' bacl to the top 20 deserves some loving.

Crazy Frog gets a nostalgia fuelled free pass from me too.

I think I might have remembered this as a quite quirky, fun, novelty but for also remembering how the ringtone TV advert took over literally every primetime commercial break for several weeks, and didn’t the ringtone scam people by charging them a £2.99 monthly subscription when they thought they were paying for a one-off? If I’ve misremembered that then I apologise for that influencing my 38 points score…

 

Oh I hate the business behind it don't get me wrong. But the actual song is iconic.

Oop I don't remember a ringtone scam. From what I remember of putting ringtones on my first phone (talking post-Crazy Frog tbf) it was always exclusively a one time purchase thing.

My 2 lowest scores Axel F and Let's Party already revealed. That sounds good to me. Here's a Jive Bunny pun intended. :P

 

Not surprised to see all pre-80 songs still to come. No one knows them so gave them the highest scores. :teresa:

Edited November 4, 20222 yr by Jason

Not surprised to see all pre-80 songs still to come. No one knows them so gave them the highest scores. :teresa:

Haha I don’t think that’s true - the good people of Buzzjack know their stuff. What qualified from that round was genuinely next level grim. There seems to have been a really patchy period for chart toppers around the early to mid 70s - I know it was a tough time economically so not sure if that affected music. Then ABBA came along and saved pop music. :D

I think it all depends on the voting age profile :lol:

 

Those of us not in target age range (under 10 or over 40 at any given time, those not born then) look less favourably on novelty records that didnt appeal to non-target age range and have no rose tinted nostalgia for them, and just see them as annoying.

For what it's worth I wasn't alive for anything from either heats 1 or 2 but I think the qualifiers from heat 1 were mostly dreadful while the ones from heat 2 were mostly decent (even the novelty ones) :P I think we just got the pre-1980 nominations fairly spot on, not surprised none of them have been out yet.

Hopefully the J J Barrie song is a while away yet. What a ridiculously crap song that is but then a lot of these oldie tracks were quite bad.

Edited November 4, 20222 yr by Roba!