Thanks to the 35 people who participated in the final week of 2023's polls :jump:

 

Official results from (2023) week 52:

 

[ 13 ] Donny Hathaway - This Christmas (#63)

[ 10 ] Cher and Stevie Wonder - What Christmas Means To Me (#95)

[ 7 ] Central Cee - Entrapreneur (#71)

[ 6 ] Dean Martin - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (#74)

[ 5 ] Songer - Toxic (Freestyle) (#100)

 

BuzzJack's favourite top 100 hit for 2023 week 52 and auto-qualifying for the December monthly round is Donny Hathaway - This Christmas.

 

 

On this slightly weird week pitting ancient Christmas songs against a couple of mid tier relevance UK rap hits which managed to break through amongst an 80% festive top 100, it's a low scoring but relatively comfortable win for the late American soul singer Donny Hathaway, he had a couple of minor hits during his lifetime and one big posthumous hit not long after his death in 1979 with all being duets with Roberta Flack but his return to the charts comes as his 1970 festive solo offering 'This Christmas' suddenly found itself winning the playlist lottery enough to make its first chart appearance (and then at an oddly high point of #63 which makes you wonder how it always missed out before). The song did become a top 3 hit in another form courtesy of Jess Glynne's version being pimped by Alexa but even then it took another 3 years for the original to surface. In any case, while I don't think many here consider this one to be quite in the upper echelons of Christmas staples, it got the support of a bit over 1/3 of voters and wins by a 3 vote margin over the only other song to hit double figures, Cher's second festive hit of the season which updates Stevie Wonder's 'What Christmas Means To Me' with some help from the man himself.

 

Everything managed to reach the 5 vote threshold but only barely so for Songer's belatedly released viral freestyle over the beat of Britney Spears' 'Toxic'. Songer actually got off to a slightly better start than Central Cee but enough voters eventually came through for Cench to deny an all-Christmas top 3.

 

Weekly winners for 2023: (in the rest of the 2024 threads I will just include a link back to this one rather than keeping these all listed out in every OP)

01 // 12/01/23 // Sub Focus and Dimension - Ready To Fly

02 // 19/01/23 // Skrillex, Fred again.. and Flowdan - Rumble

03 // 26/01/23 // Miley Cyrus - Flowers

04 // 02/02/23 // Fall Out Boy - Love From The Other Side

05 // 09/02/23 // P!nk - TRUSTFALL

06 // 16/02/23 // RAYE - Ice Cream Man.

07 // 23/02/23 // Linkin Park - Lost

08 // 02/03/23 // Lana Del Rey - A&W

09 // 09/03/23 // Gorillaz - Silent Running (feat. Adeleye Omotayo)

10 // 16/03/23 // Zara Larsson - Can't Tame Her

11 // 23/03/23 // Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding - Miracle

12 // 30/03/23 // Nothing But Thieves - Welcome To The DCC

13 // 06/04/23 // Lana Del Rey - Paris, Texas (feat. SYML)

14 // 13/04/23 // Tyler, The Creator - DOGTOOTH

15 // 20/04/23 // David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray - Baby Don't Hurt Me

16 // 27/04/23 // Post Malone - Chemical / Taylor Swift - Karma

17 // 04/05/23 // The Weeknd - Double Fantasy (feat. Future) / Florence + The Machine - Mermaids

18 // 11/05/23 // The National - The Alcott (feat. Taylor Swift)

19 // 18/05/23 // Ed Sheeran - Curtains

20 // 25/05/23 // Loreen - Tattoo

21 // 01/06/23 // Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam

22 // 08/06/23 // Dua Lipa - Dance The Night

23 // 15/06/23 // Dave and Central Cee - Sprinter

24 // 22/06/23 // Nathan Dawe, Joel Corry and Ella Henderson - 0800 HEAVEN

25 // 29/06/23 // Peggy Gou - (It Goes Like) Nanana

26 // 06/07/23 // Jain - Makeba

27 // 13/07/23 // Olivia Rodrigo - vampire

28 // 20/07/23 // Taylor Swift - Enchanted (Taylor's Version)

29 // 27/07/23 // Troye Sivan - Rush

30 // 03/08/23 // Ryan Gosling - I'm Just Ken / Ava Max - Choose Your Fighter

31 // 10/08/23 // Calvin Harris and Sam Smith - Desire

32 // 17/08/23 // Doja Cat - Paint The Town Red

33 // 24/08/23 // Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right?

34 // 31/08/23 // Billy Gillies - DNA (Loving You) (feat. Hannah Boleyn)

35 // 07/09/23 // Selena Gomez - Single Soon

36 // 14/09/23 // Kylie Minogue - Tension

37 // 21/09/23 // Olivia Rodrigo - get him back!

38 // 28/09/23 // Tate McRae - greedy / Chase And Status and Hedex - Liquor & Cigarettes (feat. ArrDee)

39 // 05/10/23 // Kylie Minogue - Hold On To Now

40 // 12/10/23 // Noah Kahan - Stick Season / PinkPantheress - Mosquito

41 // 19/10/23 // JENNIE - You & Me

42 // 26/10/23 // Troye Sivan - One Of Your Girls

43 // 02/11/23 // Charli XCX and Sam Smith - In The City

44 // 09/11/23 // The Beatles - Now And Then

45 // 16/11/23 // Olivia Rodrigo - Can't Catch Me Now

46 // 23/11/23 // Dua Lipa - Houdini

47 // 30/11/23 // Tate McRae - exes

48 // 07/12/23 // Ryder and Skepta - #skeptacore pt.3

49 // 14/12/23 // Taylor Swift - You're Losing Me

50 // 21/12/23 // Cher - DJ Play A Christmas Song

51 // 28/12/23 // Juice WRLD, Eminem and benny blanco - Lace It

52 // 04/01/24 // Donny Hathaway - This Christmas

 

Qualified for the 2023 yearly round:

January // Bizarrap and Shakira - Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 / Miley Cyrus - Flowers / Sub Focus and Dimension - Ready To Fly

February // Freya Ridings - Weekends / Lana Del Rey - A&W / P!nk - TRUSTFALL

March // Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding - Miracle / Nothing But Thieves - Welcome To The DCC / Zara Larsson - Can't Tame Her

April // Florence + The Machine - Mermaids / Post Malone - Chemical / Taylor Swift - Karma

May // Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha / Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam / Loreen - Tattoo

June // Dua Lipa - Dance The Night / Nathan Dawe, Joel Corry and Ella Henderson - 0800 HEAVEN / Peggy Gou - (It Goes Like) Nanana

July // Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For? / Olivia Rodrigo - vampire / Taylor Swift - Enchanted (Taylor's Version)

August // Chase And Status and Bou - Baddadan (feat. IRAH, Flowdan, Trigga and Takura) / Fred again.. and Obongjayar - adore u / Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right?

September // Kenya Grace - Strangers / Olivia Rodrigo - get him back! / Tate McRae - greedy

October // Drake - Rich Baby Daddy (feat. Sexyy Red and SZA) / Noah Kahan - Stick Season / Troye Sivan - One Of Your Girls

November // revealed in next post

 

Qualified for the playoff for the 2023 yearly round:

January // Fall Out Boy - Love From The Other Side

February // Linkin Park - Lost

March // Miley Cyrus - River

April // Jonas Brothers - Waffle House

May // Alessandra - Queen Of Kings

June // The Weeknd, Playboi Carti and Madonna - Popular

July // Taylor Swift - I Can See You

August // Doja Cat - Paint The Town Red

September // Chase And Status and Hedex - Liquor & Cigarettes (feat. ArrDee)

October // JENNIE - You & Me

November // revealed in next post

 

~

 

There's still work to be done to complete my grand vision for the 2023 polls (i.e. the December monthly round, the playoff round and then the grand finale vote to rank the top 40 songs of the year as chosen by this slightly arbitrary process) but in the mean time as the polls have maintained a pretty good consistent base of engagement all year - even weathering my failure in the latter half of the year to keep to a reasonable schedule oops! - I feel confident in going ahead and renewing them for a season 2 for 2024 B-)

 

It's a boring start to the year in that there are only 3 new entries but actually all 3 of these are moderately interesting entries in some way. Travis' is the least interesting chart wise but still worth noting it is the 3rd song from his album to eventually get a chart position after missing out due to being starred out by the 3 track rule in its first week. The Flo Milli song has another version featuring Lil Yachty which has a not insignificant stream total on Spotify (11.7 million to the original's 18.9 million) which no doubt helped it break through so highly although I think the original is still the one earning the bulk of its UK streams especially as it's now showing in the Spotify top 200 so I've only included that version on the playlist. And then we have the Wonka song which on inspection I'm pretty sure is only here because they included 2 versions of it on the soundtrack album - there's a vignette version barely over a minute which has the additional subtitle '(Hoverchocs)' and is billed solely to Timothée Chalamet, and then a more substantial version nearly 4 minutes long which is nebulously tagged as 'Timothée Chalamet and The Cast Of Wonka' (Pussycat Dolls feat. Nicole Scherzinger teas). The shorter version actually has slightly more streams on Spotify although they are very close (only a 50k difference out of 2.1-2.2 million). Nonetheless, I'm just putting the full version on the playlist as I feel like that will cover the gist of the shorter version as well. I also wasn't sure how to tag this one in the poll, I always try to avoid double crediting and crediting non-artist entities regardless of 'official' tags but this is a bit of a weird edge case. I've ultimately settled on Timothée erasure because he is after all part of the cast x Without any additional versions being included, the playlist this week clocks in at just 10 minutes and 6 seconds.

 

 

Vote for as many or as few songs as you want and would be ideal if you can make sure you've heard all the songs before voting if possible!

 

I will get the December monthly round up tomorrow, I've stayed up a little too late tonight already considering I have an early start oops :whistle: Shall aim for a Sunday night deadline for this week's poll as usual.

And here are the results from the November 2023 monthly round... (with thanks to the 23 people that voted in that :jump:)

 

Unfortunately it is the end of the road for these:

 

10 96 Sam Ryder - You're Christmas To Me

9 107 Childish Gambino - Heartbeat

8 112 Taylor Swift - Is It Over Now?

7 115 Jack Harlow - Lovin On Me

6 119 Chase And Status - Selecta (feat. Stefflon Don)

5 120 Tate McRae - exes

 

Still in with a chance of making the final for the year is...

 

4 121 Olivia Rodrigo - all-american bitch

 

 

Which means our next 3 guaranteed spots in the yearly round go to The Beatles, Dua Lipa and Olivia Rodrigo :cheer: The top 3 were miles ahead this month so none of them ever in doubt, with Dua Lipa comfortably winning and cracking 200 points (the first to manage that since 'bad idea right?' in August and with the highest points since 228 to 'vampire' in July), 27 points ahead of The Beatles in 2nd who were themselves 17 points ahead of Olivia Rodrigo who nonetheless got an automatic qualifier to the grand finale for a 4th month out of the last 5. She was a full 40 points ahead of 4th place, for which there was a very close battle again - which was ultimately won by Olivia as well, so she has the opportunity to have 5 songs in the grand final if 'all-american bitch' takes a spot from the playoff round. It holds off Tate McRae by just 1 point, with Chase And Status only another 1 point further behind, and Jack Harlow and Taylor Swift also being single digit points off. Sam Ryder is the clear underdog but still performs respectably, nearly reaching the 100 point mark.

 

3 161 Olivia Rodrigo - Can't Catch Me Now

2 178 The Beatles - Now And Then

1 205 Dua Lipa - Houdini

 

 

 

 

Click here for the full voting breakdown of the month if that interests you.

Going for Flo & Travis this week!

Just Flo Milli for me!

Best of the week: Flo Milli

Worst of the week: Travis Scott

Quite enjoyed the Travis record so went for that, but hopefully this will be one of the weaker groups of the year.

None of the above.

Ditto - if a second song somehow gets through with the autoqualifier, it'll be two too many :lol:

Just the Wonka song for me!

1. Flo Milli - Never Lose Me

2. Travis Scott - MY EYES

3. Timothée Chalamet - You've Never Had Chocolate Like This

 

Just voting for Flo Milli this week. It's nothing like the others I've heard from her but it's pretty nice. I can see why it's becoming a hit.

 

'MY EYES' has some horrible autotune. The 2nd half of the track is better but has a less interesting instrumental. 'You've Never Had Chocolate Like This' just sounds like the average musical track. Quite annoying on it's own.

Flo Milli - Never Lose Me (#63) - bland 'r' us

Travis Scott - MY EYES (#71) - please never do a song like again travis

The Cast Of Wonka - You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (#78) - similar vibe to this is halloween but funnier and more charming

 

Just Wonka!

Would be Flo Milli for me.

Bumpybump back to page 1 ~ last day for any more votes for this, the slightly more substantial week 2 poll shall be up later tonight!

Travis Scott - MY EYES (#71)

The Cast Of Wonka - You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (#78)

 

Flo Milli - Never Lose Me (#63)

 

Voting for the top 2 - especially MY EYES :wub:

01. Travis Scott - MY EYES (#71)

02. The Cast Of Wonka - You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (#78)

03. Flo Milli - Never Lose Me (#63)

 

1 'MY EYES' 8.5/10

2 'Never Lose Me' 3/10

3 'You've Never Had Chocolate Like This' ?/10

 

The results in the poll being the exact opposite of my ranking, off to a flying start this year :lol: Just voted for Travis, another of my highlights from 'UTOPIA' (the charting songs from the album have represented it well for me minus 'FE!N'), lovely to hear Justin Vernon and Sampha's voices on another charting song albeit uncredited and the relentless flow after the beat switch *.* admittedly could maybe have done with the first part of the song being a little shorter but still a great song overall. I'm still yet to be impressed by a Flo Milli song and this isn't changing that, even at barely 2 minutes this one feels like it drags a bit, just a bit of a lifeless Doja Cat wannabe track with an awkward sounding non-hook. The verses are a bit better than the hook but with a few choice lyrics, that's not making me want to return to it. I checked out the Lil Yachty version too and it's not really an improvement, in fact it's probably slightly worse because it goes on for longer and Yachty does not really add anything of note. I don't feel like I can really pass judgement on the Wonka song without having seen the film as it's obviously out of context so maybe it's fun in the film but as a song on its own it's a bit cringe and Timothée Chalamet is not a good singer. The shorter version is the better of the two due to being over quicker again (and the fact that the 'contributions' from the other cast members provide most of the more cringy moments) :kink:

 

New poll up shortly x