My 12-pointer won!

Congrats on another special win for Scene! Perhaps it's far more rewarding than the last time too!

Congrats Scene! I didn't think too much of 'CUNTISSIMO' pre-contest but it clicked with me more here, so I'm grateful you sent it. Addison and CMAT are unsurprising podium placers but my two favourites here, so yay for good taste. My bronze medal Ally Stevenson robbed though </3

Bratz not exactly setting the scoreboard on fire but this was a pretty unserious pick so no expectations it indeed bops way harder than it needs to, though.

Thanks Jonjo for running this <3 was good fun as ever.

A double win congratulations Scene!

Oh my goodness, my little known song has managed a top 10 finish! Thanks Bré for the bronze that got it over the line. What's more, this is the 75th song contest I've entered on Buzzjack, and the first one in which I've finished 10th, completing a top 10 clean sweep!!

Thanks Jonjo for hosting!

Wow big finish for Marina, well done Scene!

Pleased to be part of a runaway top five, Grace can be proud of fifth behind four much bigger names I’m sure.

Glad Fleeting did at least make the top ten, and Agnes too!

My favourite discovery (Aitana) being so low is a bit eh, but I think this contest is more for the artists we already know and love so I’ll take it as a win that it’s not bottom five.

Thanks for great hosting @Tafty ❤️

Thank you all SO much for the support of this contest. I love doing it and enjoy celebrating the years best in Pop with you all!

As ever, I always try to be as loose as possible as I really just want it to be a celebration of the year. I tried a couple of extra restrictions this year (top 10 from BJ contests not allowed etc..) but ultimately I think it worked well.

Thanks for the votes for Sarah too! I think I was a month or so late to the party with that song but it's stunning, I had to send it.

thanks for hosting jonjo and congrats scene!!

Oops I fell asleep and missed this but oooh at Marina winning congrats Scene, and well deserved

I was chuckling when voting went live and Vodka Cranberry was sent, knew everybody would think it was me so had great cover and it definitely is one of the songs of the year (also knew it would only be Mango) but still pleased with Zombie managing top half!

Thanks for running Jonjo, been a brilliant contest

This ain't a Scene it's a god damn arms race! (with Scene having the most tasteful arms of course).

Congrats Mr. Scene, what big sounding pop record will you snatch from 2026? 😮

Also shoutouts to Lindsey, Julian and uhsting for medals for muddy! A very respectable mid-table finish.

I did have an inkling that my own votes being withheld until the end was a good sign that you were setting up a late surge for MARINA hehe. Well that is 2 years in a row that the winner of this got my 12 points so that's a great outcome, and happy it was with a sliiiightly less obvious song this time (but wow at it being @Scene both times well done again) - 'Headphones On' would have been an okay winner (I mean I did vote for it, so it was still one of the better songs here in a field that's not that strong for my taste) but would have felt very underwhelming for being the biggest UK / BuzzJack Multichart hit on the list once again and just me generally thinking it's quite overrated and there were much better options available for Addison (though admittedly not sure any other song from her would have done quite as well, especially 'High Fashion' which I concede to being in very limited company in thinking is her best song lol). My silver medallist completing the podium here and my 8 and 7 pointers both also finishing in the top 10 is great to see! On the other hand, my 6 and 5 pointers were both in the bottom 3 whoops - justice for the #floptropicans and for unknown artists xx

My song got off to a decent start but the points dried up almost entirely in the latter half oops - I was kind of just hoping to get to 37 points which would mean it got more points here from people other than me than it did on PopJustice lol, fell just short of that goal </3 avoiding the bottom 5 so could have been worse but sending completely unknown artists to this particular contest kind of feels like a fruitless endeavour. I'll continue to stubbornly stick to it nonetheless (and in fairness it didn't do that well in the PopJustice contest either - it was actually exactly 25th there too - so maybe I just overestimate its appeal anyway, I still find myself surprised at some of the people who snubbed it entirely but hey ho). Thank you to @jimwatts and @Jade for a pair of medals, @CowTzy for stopping me from having a complete drought for the second half of the reveal and @RabbitFurCoat, @LewisGT, @Nine And ¾ and @Tafty for the smaller points earlier in the thread - getting a point from Jonjo actually does genuinely mean a lot after how highly you spoke of this contest and our music tastes not lining up all too often!!

Thanks for hosting Jonjo - and my goal for 2026 is to actually listen to more music to have a good entry lined up for the next one of these rather than having to scramble and ultimately pinch from another contest's sloppy seconds

Omg!!! Thanks to everyone who voted! I wasn’t super sure on CUNTISSIMO’s chances, especially after it didn’t do so well in the Song of the Summer rate, but had to send it in the end as it’s my most-played song of the year. So happy to see it get so much love on here! It’s definitely up there with MARINA’s best for me.

So happy to see all my medalists in the top 10! Glad to see support for Haute & Freddy in particular. I tried to submit a different song of theirs but ngl glad I got blocked. I may use it for BJSC on a dry month hehe. I didn’t vote for Addison but she wasn’t far off making my vote. Whew it was close all the way through!

Thanks Jonjo for another fab special! Great hosting as always. 😎

Congrats Scene, I forgot you won last year as well, very impressive! Despite what I said earlier, I do think it is good that we have a more inspired winner, and it was a really good one (most I've liked a Marina song in a while).

I'm very happy with 3rd behind those two juggernauts, obvs this definitely had the well known factor, but I still wasn't quite sure it would catch on that much so that veto was a blessing in disguise! many thanks all for voting x

Would've liked Artemas, Sophie Powers and especially Aitana doing a bit better but it's always quite hard for less well known songs here.

Thanks for hosting, Jonjo!

2 hours ago, Tafty said:

I very nearly confirmed a different Aitana song! I was gonna go for 'CONEXIÓN PSÍQUICA'.

I was debating between 3. Sarah, Aitana and Absolutely - I Just Don't Know You Yet. But the latter felt way too soon to send another Absolutely song to a contest

I actually thought about sending 'CONEXIÓN PSÍQUICA' too! There's some great slower songs like 6 DE FEBRERO and TRANKIS on her album from last year, but I knew I wanted to send one of the more uptempo ones.

Congrats to Scene, overall a very solid scoreboard and I would've been happy for a win for any of the top 3 or 4 tbh. Shame to see a few favs (cupcakKe and, well, myself) near the bottom but thank you to anyone who enjoyed Aitana! And thanks Jonjo for hosting :)

BTW just counting back as there was no tiebreak listed for Demi/Bratz - I'm going by breaking ties by number of votes as that is usually the standard outside of BJSC semi-finals, Demi does win that tiebreak by 11 votes to 8. I don't know if you were using number of votes as the first tiebreak for Agnes vs. Sarah and just not listing it but the tiebreak method makes no difference there regardless as they both got 12 votes (and 2 12s, so the tiebreak does go to Agnes for having 1 10 vs. none for Sarah).

2 minutes ago, Brer said:

BTW just counting back as there was no tiebreak listed for Demi/Bratz - I'm going by breaking ties by number of votes as that is usually the standard outside of BJSC semi-finals, Demi does win that tiebreak by 11 votes to 8. I don't know if you were using number of votes as the first tiebreak for Agnes vs. Sarah and just not listing it but the tiebreak method makes no difference there regardless as they both got 12 votes (and 2 12s, so the tiebreak does go to Agnes for having 1 10 vs. none for Sarah).

Oops! Thanks. Forgot to list Demi/Bratz!

I wonder if Bratz were one of those acts searched for during the one hit wonder edition of Bop Idol (it has one UK Top 40). I also could've squeezed in the song even if it's one point (oops).

Edited January 19Jan 19 by AllStarBySmashMouth

Congrats Scene, it’s safe to say that you’re King Of Pop in BJ officially .

And I finished just where I expected, bottom 5 lol. I just can’t never make a right decision for this contest, but it doesn’t matter because I am still happy that I got to send Julie Bergen in a contest again, especially since she was on my Top 5 artists of the last year

Good winner and an incredibly obvious top 3 (I just thought Addison would win but CMAT and Marina were always going to finish near the top) but in retrospect I’m struggling to see the point in participating in this contest if I’m being honest. Was it just a one-off and I missed the memo about sending beat pop songs everyone already knew well / that charted? Maybe I’m just erroneously assuming every contest on BJ has more or less the same purpose as well as veto criteria as UP and BJSC :’)

And amazing hosting efforts @Tafty

P.S. my first confirmation was actually Agnes - Ego, so I am happy she was able to get Top 10 finish as well!!!

Which speaking of Agnes, @RobBot I am seeing her as well on 28th in London !!!

3 minutes ago, pavi said:

Good winner and an incredibly obvious top 3 (I just thought Addison would win but CMAT and Marina were always going to finish near the top) but in retrospect I’m struggling to see the point in participating in this contest if I’m being honest. Was it just a one-off and I missed the memo about sending beat pop songs everyone already knew well / that charted? Maybe I’m just erroneously assuming every contest on BJ has more or less the same purpose as well as veto criteria as UP and BJSC :’)

The Best of The Year contest for us is always just a celebration of the best pop songs of the year. It's not necessarily intended to be like BJSC/UP or even other forum contests through the year, it's designed to be a lot more relaxed than normal as it's a "celebration" and not just a contest.

I do appreciate when people go for something less obvious, but I also don't mind when people "go cheap" as it wouldn't be a "Best of The Year" without... well... the best of the year I tried to be a bit stricter than normal this year and that's about as far as I'll go tbh. It's not like any other contests in this part of the forum or the others. We tend to be a lot stricter on things throughout the year.

Thanks Tafty for hosting and thanks for the points for Karly and Ravyn! Top half is never to be sniffed at. This wasn’t exactly my bag but still there was some stuff I really enjoyed and it was fun to take part. I’m aiming to support all non BJSC contests in 2026.