Seeing as a former BJSC entry will be going Top 10 on the official chart this week, what other entries can you recall from the past that went on to do big things after they were sent to a BuzzJack Song Contest?

Martin Garrix' Animals went on to become pretty big

surely Pink Pony Club is in this list?

 

oh wait that is the song… damn we really fumbled that huh

surely Pink Pony Club is in this list?

 

oh wait that is the song… damn we really fumbled that huh

That is the song indeed. It was entered during a time I wasn't in the contest, but all these years later it is becoming a hit.

 

Going by recent hits, the most obvious one would have to be Eliza Rose which went on to be a big commercial hit at the time.

 

 

Eliza Rose feat. Interplanetary Criminal – B.O.T.A. (Baddest Of Them All)

BJSC Result: 3rd

Sent by Kathaldazia in BJSC 146 (July 2022)

UK Chart Peak: #1 (September 2022)

surely Pink Pony Club is in this list?

 

oh wait that is the song… damn we really fumbled that huh

 

Didn't the entrant not vote in that contest? In which case it was entirely self-inflicted :lol:

 

I can think of these:

Sigala - Easy Love

Topic - Breaking Me

Portugal the man - feel it still (this was actually BJFest but whatever)

I have a question -

 

One of my all time fave songs (Not Ready to Make Nice) won one of the early contests. Did this happen before it won a grammy/was promoted as part of the Shut Up & Sing documentary movie, or was it after all of this?

Nelly Furtado’s Maneater. :kink: (not actually sure on this one but I was shocked to see it on the Songs of BJSC list and it was entered in the first contest! Not sure if the contest predates its release though)

You had Freya Ridings - Lost Without You as well

The early contests didn't have a veto so there were lots of big hits sent back then, can't really compare those to the modern contest at all.

Several of my entries did:

 

Sara Bareilles - Love Song (sent in 2008, came 1st - UK No.4 hit a few months later)

Pixie Lott - Boys and Girls (sent in 2008, came 3rd - UK No.1 hit in 2009)

Hozier - Take Me To Church (sent in 2013, came 11th - huge UK No.2 hit in 2014/2015)

Walk The Moon - Shut Up And Dance (sent in 2014, came 4th, huge UK No.4 hit in 2015)

Freya Ridings - Lost Without You (sent in 2018, came 2nd (tied on points with the winner), big No.9 hit later that year unexpectedly)

 

I also sent Example's Watch The Sun Come Up several months before he released that/was well known in 2009, and it eventually went to No.19 in the UK but paved the way to much bigger things.

 

Never in a million years did I expect Freya to go big, sparse piano ballads like that rarely did anything unless you were Adele. I did tbf think Hozier would be big with the right promotion, and I also thought it would potentially win the contest for me, but I was very wrong, it didn't come top 10.

 

Still did better than the likes of Lorde's Royals (which came low top 30 iirc) and Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, which was a DNQ. Just like poor Pink Pony Club, which just proves that a DNQ is no barometer of a song's quality.

I have a question -

 

One of my all time fave songs (Not Ready to Make Nice) won one of the early contests. Did this happen before it won a grammy/was promoted as part of the Shut Up & Sing documentary movie, or was it after all of this?

 

It was sent in early 2008 so about a year after the Grammy. The first BJSC contest was held in December 2007.

 

Nelly Furtado’s Maneater. :kink: (not actually sure on this one but I was shocked to see it on the Songs of BJSC list and it was entered in the first contest! Not sure if the contest predates its release though)

 

This was sent a couple of years after it was a hit. The first five or so contests were a bit of a minefield of cheap as people were finding their feet and understanding the best way to approach the contest. We had songs entered like Bring Me To Life, Bittersweet Symphony, Say You'll Be There etc...mad looking back.

Several of my entries did:

 

Sara Bareilles - Love Song (sent in 2008, came 1st - UK No.4 hit a few months later)

Pixie Lott - Boys and Girls (sent in 2008, came 3rd - UK No.1 hit in 2009)

Hozier - Take Me To Church (sent in 2013, came 11th - huge UK No.2 hit in 2014/2015)

Walk The Moon - Shut Up And Dance (sent in 2014, came 4th, huge UK No.4 hit in 2015)

Freya Ridings - Lost Without You (sent in 2018, came 2nd (tied on points with the winner), big No.9 hit later that year unexpectedly)

 

I also sent Example's Watch The Sun Come Up several months before he released that/was well known in 2009, and it eventually went to No.19 in the UK but paved the way to much bigger things.

 

Never in a million years did I expect Freya to go big, sparse piano ballads like that rarely did anything unless you were Adele. I did tbf think Hozier would be big with the right promotion, and I also thought it would potentially win the contest for me, but I was very wrong, it didn't come top 10.

 

Still did better than the likes of Lorde's Royals (which came low top 30 iirc) and Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, which was a DNQ. Just like poor Pink Pony Club, which just proves that a DNQ is no barometer of a song's quality.

 

Hozier & Walk The Moon are stellar choices. I think if I'd have been competing then I'd have tried to send those as well!

Also Agnes' Release Me (Herzebania) and Adele's Someone Like You (Hendinia) were BJSC winners a good 5-6 months before they became huge hits in the UK. The same year, Hendinia won with Roll Deep's Good Times (a UK No.1) although I think that was only a few weeks before it was released so possibly was on the radio/music channels at that point already.

 

This was completely unprecedented for Agnes (who knew it wouldn't just be yet another Scandipop song given no push in the UK) and was before Adele had a commercial reawakening via Make You Feel My Love getting hammered on X Factor that year. So as a community we definitely saw the potential in those two songs.

Edited February 10Feb 10 by gooddelta

Summericia are quite good at noticing talent before it charts!

'Not Ready To Make Nice', I wasn't paying attention to music at the time, but my gut feeling is that even though it may have been a hit already, awareness of a song that was not a large hit in the UK would have meant it may have been new to a fair few of the contestants at the time, back in the 00s there seemed to be much less awareness of songs that weren't a hit in the UK. Less egregious than Nelly Furtado or Evanescence at least.

 

Outside of the early contests where it seems you could just send hits sometimes, songs that become hits after the contest tend to fall in one of two categories for me. There's songs like 'Easy Love' and 'Good Times' where the sender managed to fit in sending it to the contest and scoring a hit in the 'month and a bit' timeframe between it being released and getting on all the playlists to score a major hit, i.e. the song was always going to be a hit anyway and the artist clearly already had the contacts and promotion sorted when they released it.

 

And then there's the really impressive ones like Hozier or Azealia Banks - 212, where it gets sent shortly after the song is released underground and then months or even years later, it slowly rises up the charts to become that artist's breakout hit due to its quality. Which is not to say necessarily it's all on timeframe, but a lot of the time it is more impressive the longer from the contest it is.

 

and sometimes it's just nice seeing artists sent to BJSC who later become huge popstars not necessarily with that song - obvs Chappell Roan had a few here, Billie Eilish got sent at least once, Sabrina Carpenter did several times etc.

YONAKA's Seize The Power and Doechii, JT - Alter Ego for me, the latter appearing in a RPDR lip sync :w00t:

That's definitely true about Not Ready To Make Nice, it was considered quite an inspired entry/winner at the time as it wasn't much of a hit here or very well known outside the US at that point.

Katy Perry ‘I kissed a girl’ and Gaga’s ‘Just Dance’ were sent way before they became big, no?

Pink Pony Club DNQing in early 2020 is probably the biggest post-BJSC blow up if we're comparing contest performance and size of the eventual smash into consideration.

 

 

Pink Pony Club DNQing in early 2020 is probably the biggest post-BJSC blow up if we're comparing contest performance and size of the eventual smash into consideration.

 

wtf? how? I need to see a list of what qualified instead