21 artists here are known to me also.

I considered a different Suzanne Vega song - No Cheap Thrill, but was conscious that while I love it, it could blend in, which I don’t think my actual entry will (whether it is liked remains to be seen!). Also No Cheap Thrill did creep into the top 40.

I also thought about Jewel, but prefer some of her album tracks from her 2000 and 2003 albums than 90s album tracks. Foolish Games was a big US hit (weekly and end of year chart No.2 in 1997). No idea why it either wasn’t released or didn’t chat in the UK but Jewel has always been underappreciated here. Down So Long was my favourite from her, which got to No.38 only - my first ever personal chart No.1!

And of course thought about my favourite Sarah McLachlan but she’s been used a few times in song contests of late so passed on her.

Quite surprised Paula Cole and Sophie B. Hawkins didn’t show up. 90s Shakira crossed my mind too, but the best songs have hundreds of millions of streams.

I used Paula Cole and she bombed!!!

I considered an Irish balladeer but thought it’d be too obviously me!

35 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

I considered a different Suzanne Vega song - No Cheap Thrill, but was conscious that while I love it, it could blend in, which I don’t think my actual entry will (whether it is liked remains to be seen!). Also No Cheap Thrill did creep into the top 40.

I also thought about Jewel, but prefer some of her album tracks from her 2000 and 2003 albums than 90s album tracks. Foolish Games was a big US hit (weekly and end of year chart No.2 in 1997). No idea why it either wasn’t released or didn’t chat in the UK but Jewel has always been underappreciated here. Down So Long was my favourite from her, which got to No.38 only - my first ever personal chart No.1!

And of course thought about my favourite Sarah McLachlan but she’s been used a few times in song contests of late so passed on her.

Quite surprised Paula Cole and Sophie B. Hawkins didn’t show up. 90s Shakira crossed my mind too, but the best songs have hundreds of millions of streams.

Sophie B Hawkins did show up… just temporarily!

No Top 40 hits and a rule of thumb that anything with over 100 million Spotify streams will be reviewed is what we’ve settled into for Bop Idol, and I think that gets the balance about right.

“Forget About The World” was not only a Top 40 hit but on the 7th biggest selling album of 2001 that everyone bought at Christmas! 😝 And I hadn’t heard of “Marlene On The Wall”, though I’ve had a listen and it’s excellent. So I’d probably have made different decisions in those 2 cases, but I know it’s tough.

Excited!

I wonder if it's all the same 21 artists that we know

I would love a short blurb about each song so that we take into account the lyrics.

Is this extra?

I’ve been thinking about that more generally - in anonymous contests you don’t get the chance to say anything at all about your song and why you’ve chosen it. I wonder if there could be the OPTION to send a few sentences in with the confirmations. I don’t think it should fall on the host to do commentaries.

I’m not sure how it would be presented in the voting thread though and whether the writing style would give away the sender in some cases.

Gosh, I was just about to post the lyrics to mine and a brief commentary that I found on SongMeanings, then realised it was an anonymous contest

We could send host short commentary and is placed in one post?

I tend to include a couple of sentences about my entry in my voting PM - in all honesty I don't have much profound to say about my entry here, I'm not often one to care too much about lyrics! Will try and make sure to pay attention to the lyrics more than I usually do when listening to this contest. (Although I see there appear to be a couple of foreign language songs which was a bold choice for this particular theme)

Oh I was genuinely considering asking if people wanted to say why they chose their entry with their votes - if you do then I’ll gladly include it when I reveal which song is yours

5 hours ago, Julian_ said:

No Top 40 hits and a rule of thumb that anything with over 100 million Spotify streams will be reviewed is what we’ve settled into for Bop Idol, and I think that gets the balance about right.

“Forget About The World” was not only a Top 40 hit but on the 7th biggest selling album of 2001 that everyone bought at Christmas! 😝 And I hadn’t heard of “Marlene On The Wall”, though I’ve had a listen and it’s excellent. So I’d probably have made different decisions in those 2 cases, but I know it’s tough.

Excited!

We did debate Gabrielle - the thing that swayed us was that it only has a six figure play count on Spotify which was right towards the bottom end of the entry list… so it’s either not well remembered, or not well liked!

Marlene had a better chart run, slightly higher peak and with higher Spotify plays so it ended up higher up the veto list than Gabrielle did.

Saying that, both wouldn’t have been eligible at all if we had a stricter no top 40 policy.

I can’t see if anyone has done an Apple playlist yet? If not, here’s one I’ve just set up

Apple Music - Web Player

Singer Songwriter by Jarrod Schofield on Apple Music

Playlist · 27 Songs

Thank you @Jaz13music - can I just check that the versions are the same as the Spotify list please as this is a forum largely populated by men who love charts and spreadsheets and the correct version will be important to them 🤭

16 hours ago, gooddelta said:

Quite surprised Paula Cole and Sophie B. Hawkins didn’t show up. 90s Shakira crossed my mind too, but the best songs have hundreds of millions of streams.

Sophie B. Hawkins was actually my backup choice! I had a few songs of hers I was considering ('California Here I Come' was my frontrunner but 'True Romance' is also a beautiful song) but I'm not sure she's the sort of artist that would have done well in this contest. Which is not to say that that the artist I confirmed will do well either!

I really like 'Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover' from Sophie (which wouldn't have been allowed here), I was gonna say I should probably check out her albums but looking at my last.fm I listened to all her albums back in 2022! (except the one that came out in 2023 ofc) I have no recollection of this haha.

I thought about Sophie’s ‘Right Beside You’ as well, but after extensive back and forth PM’s with Dandy I didn’t think it was going to be allowed. My first two options were not accepted because one was sent to BJSC Spin Off and the second one had a peak of #13, which it is almost the same as Sophie’s!!!

Right Beside You is absolutely wonderful so I can’t fault the taste… but yes I think we’d have been chatting long enough to be official pen pals if you’d tried it 😂

I seem to be the only one who has actually sent a song by her to a contest. I entered The Ballad Of Sleeping Beauty (Only Love) to the Pride spinoff where it finished in 33rd place. There are some great songs on her third album from 1999 which would not have been vetoed.