Just catching up, 'Capitol' was my 18 pointer in BJSC 100 so was unsurprisingly thrilled with that winner 'Butterfly' is wildly different to that haha but I think it was on my podium as well, very nostalgic and euphoric, so we have some good crossover there. This also extends to BJSC 101 as 'Bánh Trôi Nước' was my 18 as well 🤩 I'm pretty sure that ended up being my favourite entry of the year, so didn't take very long to find that when it was sent to the first contest. The switch-up still gives me goosebumps every time but agree the whole experience is strong.

IC3PEAK mentioned, we love to see it

Can't recall if 'Sofia' was a surprise winner at the time or not but it is a bop, that was a good era for Áskorza, I remember really enjoying their following AQ too.

BJSC 102

Host Country: République d'Ashton

Overview

Onto the next contest where we had to bounce back in a big way and ultimately settled on what was slowly becoming our safe haven in instrumental entries. Again, the semi results were disappointing with 4 of our pointed songs failing to advance to the final (Buzzjack Mountain again our being biggest loss) but after that it was mostly all good news. I remember this contest being absolutely stacked in terms of quality, with a number of songs in the final still being held in very high regard to this day. There was also a first time winner in Ojnoj after having been competing for a considerable time beforehand.

Dobago's Entry

Result: 8th

A side project from famous Dutch DJ Sander van Doorn, this tune instantly grabbed me with it's electrifying synths and an intriguing choral "ah" section commencing midway through the song. As someone who had been in the school choir for 7 years a lot resonated with me about this but otherwise it was simply one of my favourite songs of that year. After faring decently in the semi it went on to perform superbly in the final, earning Dobago their fourth 8th position in just 24 contests and receiving votes from over half of the other countries. A true timeless sounding piece, I still hold fond memories of this song and it takes me back to the time I finally left home and moved to live in London.

Winning Entry

Country: Ojnoj

Another act who would go on to achieve a big commercial hit in years to come but first found success here. Having only been entered 2 contests prior to modest success, Kim Petras roared to a convincing victory in 102 with this very punchy pop track. It's not hard to see why this struck all the right chords to garner wide appeal, the powerful chorus certainly rising highest but the whole package is strong. I gave this a solitary point however as mentioned this contest was sky-high in quality so it would surely have received more if entered in another. Not top tier for me but catchy and memorable enough to still hit the right spots nowadays.

18-Pointer

Country: Beaverdonia

If it's not in it already then this song has to be knocking on the door of my top 10 all time favourite BJSC entries. Of course, the psytrance subgenre had seen many a representative by this point but this particular song has SO much more to offer than that signature bassline. From memory I think I do recall hearing this sometime prior to the contest (whether in part or in full) but certainly not enough to put a name to song nor artist. Nevertheless, it got its day in the sun and my goodness, what an utter joy it was to fully appreciate. I love how the song seamlessly glides from section to section, introducing more and more elements, whilst belying its relatively long runtime. It balances the intense and subtle parts perfectly and builds to a dramatic and breathless fusion of beats, drums and energy. Couple the listening experience with an iconic music video capturing scenes from the Indian city, then it's truly a full package. It sadly finished just outside the top 10 but there was nothing more I could have done to help. Whilst my 15 pointer went to the whimsical eurodance-esque banger 'Paradise' I'd have to rank my 13 pointer above it now, that being the absorbing breakbeat of 'the nature of dying' which sounds even more incredible than it did at the time. 3 other songs also worthy of mention are all outrageously catchy for their respective genres and have stayed with me extremely well ever since, these being 'Ladykiller', 'Faller' and 'Don't Speak' the last of which despite me only awarding 6 points to has grown beyond any sort of comprehension to be in a position which if pushed, I would very likely call my favourite ever pop entry of all time. 102 was easily one of the best contests ever

Pleased to hear that you rate 'the nature of dying' even more now than at the time

I'm a fan of the original Richter piece but the added breakcore elements blew my mind *.* glad it connected with others enough to finish 6th.

I feel it could have easily been a winning contender in many a contest since then! Although perhaps more likely in Club Bizarre/UP. I am not familiar with the original so will need to check that out.

BJSC 103

Host Country: Tinnmark

Overview

103 was the contest that we only decided to participate in at the eleventh hour. Life was a bit crazy at this time, having just moved to London and then almost immediately going on a 2 week trip to Japan so the sensible option was to sit it out like we did in 82. However having read more about BJSC's 'holiday rules' etc. I thought I could make it work and just cram in the bulk of the listening on the long haul flight out, then provide a full ranking of both semis together per the relevant instructions. Funnily enough this was actually the first contest that we were offered to host since last month's winner Ojnoj passed up the opportunity, as did all the next eligible countries, but such circumstances made this impossible therefore it went all the way down to last contest's 9th placed nation in Tinnmark. This contest was famous in there being a tie between first and second in the final, with the winners New Lexico (another first time victor) triumphing by virtue of receiving more votes.

Dobago's Entry

Result: 11th

On the face of it, given the late decision to partake in the contest, this was essentially a 'throwaway' choice but it was a song I'd been a fan of for a while so it just happened to fall into place at the right time to send. Another instrumental entry but this time showcasing the beautiful strings of the kamancheh, it's perhaps one of my most standout and unique entries ever although of course falling into a familiar territory of strings-based numbers. It's a simply gorgeous piece of music that evokes both passion and tranquillity, and it was another success in the contest. Finishing 3rd in its semi, it just missed out on the top 10 in the final but for entering this contest haphazardly with zero expectations it was a highly pleasing outcome.

Winning Entry

Country: New Lexico

Interestingly, like previous winner Kim Petras, Bree Runway had also been entered in 100 then subsequently won on their second entrance to the contest. This one is a very quirky pop track with the barbershop-like bebop backing voices ubiquitous throughout but much like with 'Heart To Break', the chorus is the show-stealer once again. That melody really does gets stuck in your head and refuses to budge. Due to the more rushed and condensed listening window I had to work with, the reliance on entries being instant was more pronounced than ever yet despite that I only awarded this song a solitary point (again, just like with the previous winner to keep the coincidences rolling!) however I could not have foreseen that solitary point making the difference between winning and not, as it edged out 'Lost Without Out' (a future UK top 10 hit) by the narrowest of margins. This was quite the relief as that would have gone down as one of my least favourite winners of all time, whilst 'Word Of Mouth' was a considerable post-contest grower and unarguably deserved more points from us than it got.

18-Pointer

Country: Bhangra

In a contest where we sent an Israeli act, we also gave our top marks to an Israeli collaboration. Indeed, Offer Nissim's second song sent to BJSC also hit all the right notes and he became the first act that we gave 18 points to on more than one occasion, although this time the result was rather more modest than first time around, coming home in 24th. Whilst this doesn't have the euphoria and overall punch of 'Miracle', it's still a fantastically produced track with another tender and beautiful vocal. I particularly enjoy some of the more guttural sounding pronunciation in the verses and the whole package is a smooth and entrancing listen. My silver medal went to the excellent deep house tune 'Tell Me' with my bronze awarded to the fantastically furious and frantic 'Heavensent'. Revisiting my votes now however, the big standout that would challenge Rokedet for top place would be the brilliant 'Namesake' which is a true sensory overload in the best possible way. Other highlights further down that have stayed with me very well are the both mysterious and fascinating sounds of 'Yarada Lij' and 'Koto'.

I also gave 'Word Of Mouth' 1 point so similarly feel partially responsible for that tiebreak

Ooh 'Journey' is a right throwback! I knew it pre-contest, as I think the YouTube algorithm fed it to me - 11th was a really good result for it that has got to be my favourite Dobago entry to come up here in a little while, what a beauty.

Aha always fun when the tiniest of differences in someone's points has such a considerable effect.

Yeah I read in my thread that you knew Journey pre-contest at the time, a solid 12 points received from you! 👍

On 22/12/2025 at 08:10, Jade said:

Pleased to hear that you rate 'the nature of dying' even more now than at the time

I'm a fan of the original Richter piece but the added breakcore elements blew my mind *.* glad it connected with others enough to finish 6th.

On 22/12/2025 at 08:19, Dobbo said:

I feel it could have easily been a winning contender in many a contest since then! Although perhaps more likely in Club Bizarre/UP. I am not familiar with the original so will need to check that out.

the nature of dying would have probably done well in UP considering how Surren Tweek did

BJSC 104

Host Country: New Lexico

Overview

With a good pair of results in the bag, there remained the opportunity to keep momentum going with another strong placing as we jetted off to New Lexico for 104. Nothing particularly significant leaps out to me about this contest other than there being a landslide winner by almost 100 points so straight into the songs...

Dobago's Entry

Result: DNQ (25th in Semi)

Yep. A complete misfire. I had fancied toying with the idea of sending something miles away from what would be considered our regular sound and it was perhaps the performance of 'Lost Without You' from the previous contest that egged me on to submit a ballad for the very first time, if anything just out of curiosity but with semi-reasonable hope it would capture enough interest to at least qualify. This however very much did not occur, with it crashing out in the semi and equalling our worst result to date. It's a nice enough song with an extremely well-sung vocal but for BJSC it never really had a hope and it unquestionably goes down as an entry to regret, ranking right down at the bottom of the barrel.

Winning Entry

Country: Niceland

I somewhat recall this being the first winner since I started competing that didn't receive any "direct" hype whatsoever (by which I mean any glazing in the nation's personal chart nor in the semis/final threads) however it was up among the winning contenders in the odds and it was a complete no-contest in the end, with it absolutely dominating the final and adding another new country to the winner's rostrum. It's definitely the sort of song that has the potential to be extremely wide appealing and thus so it proved, Dobago ourselves awarding 13 points on its way to a 94-point winning margin. There's so much to enjoy about this one, a fantastic fusion of instrumentation along with an amazing vocal delivery. It's also quite an unusual structure which goes off on an unexpected tangent from the midway point onwards which adds to its replayability factor. Definitely one of my favourite winners of this period and would be pushing hard for the gold medal if re-ranking today.

18-Pointer

Country: Cor Lupus

At this time, uplifting trance was always going to be an immediate contender for our gold medal and this track ticked all the right boxes to achieve exactly that. Whilst my blanket affection for anything trance has waned somewhat in recent years (much like with the contest in general) I still appreciate the sheer joyousness songs of this ilk bring. It's essentially an instrumental with a few angelic vocal inflections to break up the pace but does everything right with the gradual build-up and forceful impact of the main drop. I'd still rank it above my silver medallist (the luscious Latin-string laden tones of 'Marbella') but a couple of others aside from the winning song would push it down a few spots now. 'Fortress' and 'Ends Of Time' both have held up better but you have to go all the way down to our 4-pointer to find the song that has stayed with me most in the subsequent years, that being the utterly delightful electro swing anthem 'We Are What We Are'.

BJSC 105

Host Country: Niceland

Overview

Approaching the mid-way point of the year and it was off to a relatively new nation at the time in Niceland. 2 DNQs down already meant this was a year to write-off already in aiming for the upper echelons so the pressure was off, meaning our submissions were very much whatever was the flavour of the month. This contest featured one of my favourite ever formats in final vote reveals, with all the DNQ-ing nations being posted in order of receipt and then votes revealed from each current last place nation in the standings, culminating in a nail-biting finale. It was to be a fourth consecutive first-time winner, with Land of DW this time taking the spoils.

Dobago's Entry

Result: 27th

One benefit of not really caring about EOY stats is the lack of pressure to send something "hit" sounding and instead send something leftfield with the possibility of picking up a select few big fans. This is exactly what transpired here with our first rap entry. I had made quite a few French friends at this time and somehow, somewhere was introduced to someone who is apparently considered a legend in French hip hop. This was a more recent release of his and grabbed me instantly, with very intensely spoken verses and a funky, electronic breakdown. It only just qualified, finishing lowest of the advancing entries but performed more admirably in the final by avoiding the bottom 10. Surprisingly, this still remains to this date my best ever result in BJSC with an entirely male vocal song.

Winning Entry

Country: Land of DW

This is one of those rare cases where a song very much out of the usual "winning formula" sounds manages to appeal far beyond its typical base and achieve near universal appraisal. It's simply an extremely powerful piece of music both musically and lyrically and still very much retains the same impact listening to it now as it did at the time. Even the music "video" is oddly mesmerising to me, with the 6 missiles being fired over and over. 106 was another notably high-quality contest and my overwhelming preference for dance music at this point pushed this song down to 8 points in my rankings but I think this would be receiving a fair few more nowadays.

18-Pointer

Country: Cowtermont

Looking back it really did seem like psytrance entries would near certainly garner strong Dobagan appraisal and this was yet another one that took home the gold medal. This track encompasses soft, intriguing vocal chants with new age style instrumentation and makes use of numerous tempo shifts to exhibit the "going on a journey" feel throughout its 7 minute runtime. A surefire banger but I certainly don't rank it along with the likes of 'Free Tibet' nor 'Varanasi', rather with 'Before' in being a very fun ride but not one I have chosen to relive all too often. This song was actually the lowest scoring qualifier in the opposite semi to ours so we were indeed lucky to be able to point it whatsoever but Cowtermont really were on one hell of a run in 2018. Our 15 points went to the infectious afropop track 'Laissez-Les Kouma' and 13 to the bold, brassy banger and namesake of a former DNQ of ours in 'Flamenco'. Re-ranking now, this may actually be one of our weakest collective top 3s of the year, as the winning song certainly tops them all and there'd need to be quite the reshuffle with 'Sisters', 'Your Eyes' and 'World Of Our Love' faring better than many songs previously ranked higher.

I just looked up the 105 thread to remind myself of the vote reveal and it was indeed an entertaining one *.* I see it was a good month for Jadakissnia/Dobago relations as you gave my entry 11 points (Shpongle) and I also gave yours 11 in return!! I haven't heard 'Sonotone' in ages so that was a fun trip down memory lane just now, a fab risky choice.

Our snap voting patterns that month almost extended to the winner, but I gave it one more point with 9! I agree that it was a powerful champion that did not sound like a typical BJSC winner at all. Quite twenty one pilots-esque sonically. That was one of my favourite winners of 2018 and it was great to see Land of DW becoming a new victorious nation.