oh wow I definitely thought I would have scraped through, turns out it’s Bray who can thank James for not voting! :lol:

Oh wow I qualified really easily, missed the 7 from Beaver in the final and Summericia went from 8 in the semi to 0! :o Although FARC basically the opposite, 0 to 12 - random! :lol:

I guess just escaping the bottom 10 is a good result for Florina, especially in these times :lol:

 

WD to Roba, a double win is very impressive!!

 

Thanks to Haus for all the effort in hosting, loved the theme! (sorry for the stress my ineptitude caused)

Oh wow, congrats again Rob *.* I was not expecting that at all, but that was a massive standout and finally a winner I voted for. I really love the production and lyrics relating to London life, gonna definitely keep it. Suedeonia was fantastic fun as well, would've fit right into the concert I went to when I was away in Ireland, and the rest of the top 5 were commiserations and my 18 so that's a good result!

 

So good to see a diverse selection of songs do well rather than just pop dominating, let's hope it stays this way! maybe I won't DNQ all the time again Pleased that a lot of my votes did well, Zanmatony and Utopia should really be higher but I guess they both overperformed.

 

Satisfactory work, HAL, you put yourself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. Now how's about opening those pod bay doors? :thinking: (you've made me want to rewatch 2001 again <3)

Jupiterdonia joint winning the semi makes their 21st placing even more bizarre, but hey.

 

I was about to comment this! Bizarre. Who did I piss off this week? :lol:

Super hosting btw 'HAL' what a fun concept

Oh wow I qualified really easily, missed the 7 from Beaver in the final and Summericia went from 8 in the semi to 0! :o Although FARC basically the opposite, 0 to 12 - random! :lol:

 

I went from 10 to 0 from Summericia *.*

 

Funny how things grow on us, or get lost in the mix of a bigger pack.

 

-------

 

Jupiter's regression there is a real mystery, I suspect the missing pop voters would have lifted it to the top 15 at least though.

not sure if you're aware already but the song itself is over thirty years old too - the original version by Rev Hammer dates from 1991 (though to be fair, it's not nearly as good as the new cover version)

 

I didn't realise that at first but picked up on it later. In many ways it sounds like it could be a lot older than that!

I went from 10 to 0 from Summericia *.*

 

Funny how things grow on us, or get lost in the mix of a bigger pack.

 

-------

 

I'm not that surprised both of those two came from the AQ countries. I've never had to vote in both semis and I'm not sure I'd be able to do particularly representative ones for both in less than a week.

Eek at how close I was to DNQing - how odd to finish higher in the final than the semi-final both for non-top 15 positions - I guess most of our fans must have come from the opposite semi but I can't be bothered to do the math.

 

aside - I haven't actually seen that 2001 film myself but I also enjoyed it as a hosting theme! I do wonder now if Roba declines to host again who does it pass to next, can't recall off the top of my head who has and hasn't hosted - my guess is Pestolia are next in line??

Well done Rob, it's not often my 18 point song goes on to win the contest. I thought the singer sounded like a female Neil Tennant.

 

Thanks to Haus for hosting the contest, you kept in character for the whole thing.

 

And thanks to all who voted for I Won't Back Down.

Well done Rob, it's not often my 18 point song goes on to win the contest. I thought the singer sounded like a female Neil Tennant.

 

Thanks to Haus for hosting the contest, you kept in character for the whole thing.

 

And thanks to all who voted for I Won't Back Down.

The version of I Won't Back Down was sufficiently different from Tom Petty's original to make it worthy of lots of points.

The version of I Won't Back Down was sufficiently different from Tom Petty's original to make it worthy of lots of points.

This is where I discovered it. My favourite youtuber, The Daily Doug, did a reaction video for it. As you can see from the album covers behind him, he has very good taste. ELO, Marillion, Pink Floyd, Yes and The Beatles are all there. He's a music teacher and composer so if anyone is interested in the keys, chords and chromatics of my entry, he explains them here:

 

 

Happy with 26th on my debut, I wasn't believing the hype of those top 5/10/15 predictions, and it seems like the pop vote slumped across the board in the end. Thank you to the 7 people I didn't shout out who gave me 1-3 points, without them I'd be outside the top 30. Only 32 points returned from the 124 I gave out was much as I expected - my tastes are many and varied but the song worked for me when I first heard it. And I wasn't wrong to be not confident about qualifying - 18th in semi two (joint with Conoria whom I really should have pointed in the final, as "ladies in my crib, something something German" has stuck in my head since voting), I did think it was the more 'indie' semi!

 

However that's a fantastic top 5, all of which I voted for in the final, including my 18 pointer as runner-up, and congratulations Rob for the double win! :cheer:

Thanks Bal for hosting and keeping the theme running throughout ^_^

This is where I discovered it. My favourite youtuber, The Daily Doug, did a reaction video for it. As you can see from the album covers behind him, he has very good taste. ELO, Marillion, Pink Floyd, Yes and The Beatles are all there. He's a music teacher and composer so if anyone is interested in the keys, chords and chromatics of my entry, he explains them here:

 

Looks like something I need to investigate further!

and a pretty fab top 10 overall there. A really diverse selection. Really pleased to see Skall hold top 10 despite the deduction. Shame to see Jade slip out in the end. What a thumping goth sounding entry that was.

Pestolia and Yobnedorcia top 20 is fab to see too. Especially the latter which I was concerned would stay in the bottom 10 which would be so unjust.

 

Way off with Rollo there oops. I thought it sounded not too far removed from the Lotunia entry last year that won and thought it'd do very well but it wasn't to be. Still a nice discovery there!

Pleased Flynnonda missed bottom 10 as well, a really lovely song and I already liked his duet with Birdy as well so expected good things already. Wardy missing bottom 10 also is a win. Didn't deserve that despite thinking it'd struggle to qualify in the first place :')

Tartford, Conoria deserved better and I did like Utopias but sadly got swallowed up when I heard the final as did Rich's in the end, sorry!

 

Oh lawd I’d have finished 3rd without that pesky deduction. Still no 4th’s in the scoreboard and first top 5 in LITERAL MULTIPLE YEARS. 💃🏼✨💃🏼✨💃🏼

 

That hosting was flawless Ballina and double win for Summericia ooh Aero-who xo

Congrats to Roba, I can officially finally stop harping on about the streak of winners I've not voted for as this one was comfortably inside my votes :cheer: The list of countries who've pulled off a double win now seems to be getting a new member almost by clockwork early on in the year, that's now 3 years in a row after FARC and Altyr in 2021 and 2022 respectively! (Albeit Summericia's being split over two calendar years ofc). I really like a lot of Summericia entries but both of your previous winners were ones I wasn't super keen on, truly a nation of two halves so yay for you now having a winner representing the more 'alternative' side of your taste too *.*

 

Wonderful to see that the love for Levellers was not only a SyncTube echo chamber, it's such a joyous song and puts a big smile on my face every time I hear it - folk music in BJSC at all feels like quite a breath of fresh air let alone seeing it finishing on the podium! Also excellent to see Kathaldazia with another medal too (the wait for another winner continues but remaining competitive, it has to happen this year suuuurely), rounding out a full top 3 of songs I voted for - and it would have been the whole top 5 if not for Elëdan & Skall's deduction but yasss at them still being top 5/10 respectively even after that, justice officially achieved for Mall Grab :cheer: Those were all the ones I voted for from the top 10 but 'Mad Man' ended up being a late grower enough to snatch a commiseration, Sovarasma and Cumulonimbia's were both ones that I felt like I should have been a much bigger fan of than I was but can't begrudge them their success anyway! A bit of a shame that Jadakissnia ended up falling just short after being pretty high up for a lot of the running scoreboard but still a decent result.

 

The lower end of the top 20 is actually pretty stacked too - with Fljótavík, Danæviia, FSR Rontvia and Pagasa all up there I voted for a full half of the top 20! It is a little bit of an unfortunate footnote though that these results being more in line with my taste than other recent contests may be explained in large part by the fact that so many pop leaning countries didn't vote whoops (not to mention Hushkanukia and Oslol not even entering) - interesting to see if that trend now holds almost by default again next month I guess! But even with that, Altyr were not tooooo far away from winning in the grand scheme of things so I'm sure we'll still have our share of pop winners to come this year.

 

Would have liked to see République d'Áskorza and especially Bhangra doing a little better - very sorry David but this is even further confirmation that me liking a pop song is a kiss of death, the collective taste of the pop bloc just gets more and more mystifying to me over time ~ Oh well DONE Klers managing to avoid the bottom 10 though :clap: Séyetana coming last is also undeserved aw, though I get the feeling I might enjoy other songs from this artist more than this one, will keep an eye out for future releases.

 

Me hoping to avoid the bottom 3 was a well chosen ambition it seems, avoiding it by exactly one place! *_* thank you to Pavel for the last few points pushing me over the 100 point mark anyways. In truth I did kind of know I was probably heading towards the bottom of the scoreboard as I was privy to the semi-final spreadsheets again (I didn't look at them until after the semi-final results, though looking at them earlier would have saved me a lot of stress during the semi results ddd) so I already knew that I was extraordinarily lucky to qualify this month, only doing so because of Mulgracia's non-voting argh. So thanks James being my new best friend this month!! Also didn't help that 20% of my semi-final points came from Beaverdonia who of course didn't vote in the final lol ~ Would have been a little soul-crushing to miss out on completing my 20 qualification streak with a song missing out so narrowly but things just barely worked out. :drama: With that in mind triple figures in the final and receiving one 18 is more than I could have reasonably asked for!

 

Thanks Bal for the excellent hosting, loved the commitment to the theme and all running smoothly (minus the site's hardware failure interrupting things a little but we'll forget about that as it was out of your hands :kink:), kicking off the year in style! Now here's hoping you can still get that elusive win one of these days so this won't be the only time :magic:

 

And this essay post will feel incomplete without a mention of Mel C's cropped foot x

 

aside - I haven't actually seen that 2001 film myself but I also enjoyed it as a hosting theme! I do wonder now if Roba declines to host again who does it pass to next, can't recall off the top of my head who has and hasn't hosted - my guess is Pestolia are next in line??

 

It'd be Sovarasma next in line if Summericia decline again (although the universe is clearly telling Roba to host again with it giving him a second chance in a row :teresa:)

You should probably check your latest PM Bre!

Haha it arrived when I was halfway through writing my essay. Shall reply shortly!