R.I.P. isn’t great, another pop-rap combination that was certainly wearing thin by this stage. Not memorable at all, after listening through this morning, I’ve forgotten it again!

I liked some of the other singles from Rita's debut, especially Radioactive which deserved a higher peak, but R.I.P. wasn't up to much for me so not sure I'd have it a lot higher.

Gosh, as lead act Rita Ora has never made my top 20 I just found out. I have no memory of this one either and didnt bother to chart it. Playing it now I dont mind it actually, better than James Arthur at any rate. I wouldnt rush to put it on again, mind.

I hate RIP, absolutely awful noise. In fact she was pretty atrocious in 2012 generally (Hot Right Now aside)

29. Tulisa - Young
1 week at #1 (entered 6^th May) 01-02-05-10-14-21-27-33-36-37-43-52-62 (13 weeks)
Kept off #1: None
Sales: 121,694
EOY: #43

One look at N-Dubz and I knew that I wasn’t in their target audience. I probably heard some of their songs in passing, but don’t particularly recognise any and certainly would never seek them out, they were reasonably successful without being massive so I did fortunately find them incredibly easy to ignore. The obvious counter to this was Number 1, them featuring on Tinchy Stryder’s number one hit in 2009, which was a decent song. It felt like N-Dubz would be a thing for a short period and then quickly disappear, but that’s not what happened at all as their main members went on to do other things successfully.

In 2011 Dappy launched a solo career and got a UK number one, whilst Tulisa replaced Cheryl Cole as a judge on the X-Factor, mentoring eventual winners Little Mix in her debut year, and would return again in 2012. The increased exposure meant it was the perfect time to launch her own solo career, and Young would kick that off in May, backed up by a performance on Britain’s Got Talent’s semi-final week. The promotion and increase in profile worked and its debut sale of 121k was the second highest of the year at this point.

Young is an innocuous party pop song, lyrics about being able to make mistakes while you’re young, set to a reasonable beat in part created by the third N-Dubz member, Fazer. Her voice is decent enough – it received Katy Perry comparisons which I kind of get – and it’s not particularly offensive. To repeat the phrase I’ve used in Will.i.am’s entry, it is pure 2012 Capital FM fodder, sounds a lot like many other songs of this period, deeply inoffensive dance-pop unlikely for the then me to care about enough to listen to, and certainly not for the current me to give any thought to Tulisa after completing this undertaking.

Unfortunately for Tulisa, Young made no real lasting impact, it fell from the charts relatively quickly and has barely been listened to since.  It was only when looking at this list of number ones that I remembered “oh yeah, Tulisa was A Thing”. Streams on Spotify aren’t a perfect measure of popularity as they can come from anywhere in the world, and this was very much limited to being a UK hit, but its total of 18.3 million streams seems low for a song that was #1 just before the streaming boom, and it ranks 34^th of 35 (one song, yet to be revealed, is not on Spotify) in this list, comfortably ahead of Gary Barlow but with barely 50% of the total of the #33 rank. There was very little chart success for her after either, album The Female Boss only charted at #35 in the Autumn, while follow-up singles only reached #11 and #18, and that would be it for the top 40, until 2022 when N-Dubz made a comeback and Charmer snuck a week in, though to be fair it was a hugely hyped and massive tour they put on, and fair play to them, I certainly wouldn’t have imagined it was possible.

'R.I.P.' was inescapable for me at the time as one of my best friends had a huge crush on Rita Ora and wouldn't stop going on about her she had some star quality but the song has not held up particularly well, sounded quite bland when I last heard it. I really like Nneka's 'Heartbeat' that it samples though and especially the Chase & Status remix ❤️

N-Dubz were so popular with my age group at the time! It was smart of Tulisa to follow the Cheryl playbook for her solo launch, even if the hype didn't last quite as long. My main memories of her on X Factor include: joining Little Mix for a duet of 'Empire State of Mind', trying to justify Kesha's 'Tik Tok' for rock week and rightfully being mortified when Gary Barlow said she had fag ash breath 😭 I recall 'Young' originally being teased as 'We Are Young' but that title obviously had to be changed after a certain fun. record took off worldwide. I can see why 'Young' was a hit but it does nothing for me, pretty faceless and her vocals sound a bit strained in places. James Arthur did an acoustic version of 'Young' with an added rap for his X Factor audition so that neatly ties this song to another artist in the countdown!

I never heard Tulisa's album but I'm aware that a track called 'British Swag' is on it, what a 2012 time capsule lol

I have always quite liked Young. Flash in the pan and a hit due to her X Factor publicity, but I think it’s decent.

RIP I really liked because of the dubstep production. Didn't know much the Chase and Status Nneka remix it sampled at the time so thought it was a new composition.

Zara Larsson Midnight Sun reminds me of Tulisa - Young in terms of production a bit. Good production. But 'Young' was a bit poppy for me at the time.

I couldn’t really remember Young, but on listening again it’s actually okay. A bit ‘of it’s time’ and doesn’t stand out much, but it’s energetic and I quite like Tulisa’s vocals

Edited Tuesday at 15:073 days by Jaz13music

I pretty much can't stand her, and although it's cheap + tacky and owes a debt to We Found Love I did actually rather enjoy this at the time. In fact, probably still do 🫣

I thought she'd go on to have more success for a little while, it was quite shocking how she dropped off immediately afterwards but that second single was absolutely dire. I don't know what anyone involved was thinking.

On Buzzjack at the time everyone loved 'Young' by Tulisa.

3 songs that I had almost completely forgotten about, 'R.I.P' I remember slightly more than the others because it's... okay, and Rita Ora has had more success in the intervening years though its Tinie feature is pointless and it is a bit flat as a pop song.

'This Is Love' and 'Young' I had completely memory-holed though and even now remembering them I have to agree that they're inoffensive but completely bland, not really many more stronger feelings than that, though I sort of remember hating 'Young' at the time just for being a bad example of a female pop song, not a hatred that has survived the years due to its falling into complete irrelevance. There's ... okay breakdowns very typical of the era on both but no reason to seek these out over the more accomplished and interesting examples of those styles.

I think I prefer N-Dubz and Dappy to Tulisa's output honestly, at least they had an... identity with their songs. Had forgotten Tulisa had a real round of promotion for a year as well, those Spotify streams are telling.

R.I.P. again that was another that was universally loved by Buzzjack at the time, goodness hope ya if you liked Chris Browns song.

3 minutes ago, Mack. said:

R.I.P. again that was another that was universally loved by Buzzjack at the time, goodness hope ya if you liked Chris Browns song.

Certainly not by me it wasn't!

I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone in that either.

It fitted in with the dubstep sound of the time, and I certainly much preferred R.I.P. to the very poppy follow up.

Don't particularly care for R.I.P. and never did. I prefer the other two of Rita's to come.

'Young' is okay but also rather throwaway.

NDubz always grated and I was also def not target audience for the solo stuff. I dont remember this at all but it's very much in the Calvin Harris mode and not unpleasant, her vocal is a bit shrill but the underlying production is pretty good. I wouldnt say the song is a classic though. It got to number 40 in my charts and had a 4 week chart run, so came and went pretty quickly. I think it would avoid the bottom five for me depending on what is left! In those days I didnt buy every track that I charted, still recording onto mini-disc. Ahh miss that format....!

28. Jessie J - Domino
2 weeks at #1 (entered 25^th December 2012, #1 15^th January) {54}-34-08-01-01-03-04-04-06-06-10-11-11-14-13-11-15-25-27-31-38-42-46-50-32-44-43-45-38-29-31-52-{75R(52)-66} (34 weeks)
Kept off #1: Rizzle Kicks – Mama Do The Hump
Sales: 57.369 & 64.255
EOY: #8 (749,000)

Jessie J reached the top of the UK chart on three occasions from 2011-14, and Domino is by far the best of them, the others would have dropped out long before the 9^th song in their respective years. Whilst this is nowhere near as objectionable as her other #1s and could quite feasibly have been ranked a few places higher, its low position here can largely be summed up by the following quote from my opening post:

"I started working properly in April in an office job in which a high repeat radio station like Heart FM or something equally rancid was on ALL THE TIME. As a result there are definitely a couple of tracks here that appear lower than they might otherwise have had, due to the memories of hearing them minimum three times a day, Monday to Friday, every single week, for what felt like an eternity."

Domino ended 2012 in the UK as the airplay #1, with 8,500 plays and 200,000 audience impressions more than the second placed song, which was also enough to make it #5 on the decade-to-date airplay chart too. It’s the type of song that was by an act that was new, fresh and young enough to be played on the likes of Radio 1 and Capital, but also pleasant and inoffensive enough to be lapped up by the likes of Heart, Magic and Radio 2 (I haven’t fact checked that it was playlisted by each of these, but easy to imagine it was given the stats). It was probably in my top 5 most heard songs of the year despite having never chosen to play it, with Moves Like Jagger and Adele (general) the other main offenders for heavy rotation on an office radio station.

My stance on Domino has definitely softened over the years, as a pop song it’s fundamentally fine, but that chorus certainly did wear me down enough that I still recoil at hearing it. Its follow-up, Laserlight with David Guetta, is probably the only song of Jessie’s that I’d prefer to listen to now.  But I generally had a dislike for Jessie J since she debuted with Do It Like a Dude; annoying voice, annoying songs, annoying hair, annoying personality whenever I saw her on TV. A singer I’m more than happy to forget about.

A look at the chart history for Domino is like something from a bygone era when looking through the current lens of streaming, a song entering the chart in Christmas week, with only 12 Christmas songs in the 53 positions above it, before being one of a few genuinely new hits to mark the beginning of the year.

In its second week at the top it held off Rizzle Kicks with Mama Do The Hump, they’re something of a blast from the past who were popular for a period in time, it was comfortably their biggest song as lead artist, and probably their best too. It ended the year inside the top 20 sellers of the year, #17 making it the 5^th highest seller to not make the top, with four previous charting weeks in 2011 too, so unlucky to have not made it at any point, though as it was only ahead of Domino when they were both new and climbing the chart so it can’t be claimed it deserved to have made #1 ahead of Jessie.

Edited Wednesday at 12:092 days by RabbitFurCoat

'Domino' is preferable to 'Price Tag'.

'Laserlight' was like a Clubland Flip and Fill 2003 production!

RIP & Young aren't bad, but very, very of their time and not really held up, especially with those Calvin Harris style drops and dubstep that seemed to permeate most dance songs around that time (add in a very pointless Nneka sample).

Domino is also pretty dated and generic, but I did grow to quite like it at the time and her vocals are palatable on this one unlike some others from her, I have quite a distinct memory of using the intro music in one of my film projects at uni, and then combining it with Chemical Brothers' Setting Sun to reflect a sudden mood change, seamless x