1 minute ago, Calum said:

Not in the UK, but I did research and it charted somewhere in the world (Estonia?). Smash hit x

It doesn’t appear to be listed on Wikipedia as a single either which is, of course, the definitive resource on these things 🤭

I'm happy to be spared having to listen to an actual Sam Fender album track, don't get me wrong xx

Just now, Josh! said:

It doesn’t appear to be listed on Wikipedia as a single either which is, of course, the definitive resource on these things 🤭

Now why would you be researching Sam Fender songs? x

There was a loophole here that I’m interested to see if anyone used, in that this round did not explicitly only ask for album tracks.

But anything that wasn’t a single - demos, b-sides, live songs (that weren’t performances of singles), covers, soundtrack submissions etc were all surely fair game?

FAVE

Sam Smith - Lose You

Calvin Harris feat. Tinashe - Dollar Signs

Darin - Om du var min

Roosevelt - Forget

HRVY - Never Be Us

Tom Grennan - If Only

Lewis Capaldi - Heavenly Kind of State of Mind

Damien Rice - Amie

Sam Fender - The Treadmill

Gary Numan - M.E.

LEAST FAVE

Sam, Calvin and Darin are still smashing it for me and haven't slipped yet <3

I’ve done one listen and think this is clearly my fave set of male songs so far!

Although at the same time I’m not sure how anyone could rank them how they’ve been ranked above! 😜

The only group I haven’t listened to first so mixing up the order yet AGAIN and this is by far the best set of songs yet. I liked every single one of them so this was hard.

01 Calvin Harris feat. Tinashe - Dollar Signs (I used to be obsessed with this song back in the day but haven’t heard it in 3 years and turns out that it STILL slaps me round the face)

02 Sam Smith - Lose You (how was this not a single?! Never heard this song but another bop and whoever is behind Sam has not missed a beat yet)

03 HRVY - Never Be Us (the best HRVY song that I’m aware of, wouldn’t have known it wasn’t a single as I have it saved in one of my monthly playlists but yeah, bop, and hopefully enough to sneak him through another round)

04 Darin - Om du var min (we LUH to hear the Swedish language, enjoyed this a lot in a later era than the last two)

05 Tom Grennan - If Only (the only song I know and really like of Tom’s is All These Nights and I’m gonna guess this is from the same era cos the vibe was similar and, as such, thought it was easily his best entry yet)

06 Sam Fender - The Treadmill (again, my favourite Sam entry yet but the competition was stronger and this kept getting edged down)

07 Damien Rice - Amie (the first Damien song I’ve enjoyed so far! The strings in this are gorgeous. I don’t really enjoy his vocals / white man with guitar style music at all so I can’t imagine him ever featuring super high for me but I did enjoy this and I’m glad cos I hate rating the same people bottom each time!)

08 Gary Numan - M.E. (this is definitely the closest to the only Gary song I knew before - Cars - with a similar Grand Theft Auto energy. The only thing pushing this below the rest is that it dragged a little towards the end but great production and Where’s Your Head At is my favourite Basement Jaxx song so this hit extra for that familiarity)

09 Lewis Capaldi - Heavenly Kind of State of Mind (again, not bad, but maybe my least favourite of his entries yet whereas everyone else levelled up but this was still pleasant)

10 Roosevelt - Forget (this IS a step up from last week and would’ve been much higher than last in either of the previous rounds but it was the least interesting for me and while I thought the production was fantastic, the track as a whole grabbed me the least)

1 Darin - Om du var min · Another week, another Darin banger! Definitely need to dive into his discography as I'm really enjoying what I've heard so far.

2 HRVY - Never Be Us · I know the selection was limited given the theme but I think this is the best possible pick for HRVY, not quite as bangery as the last two picks but definitely the best song from the EP!

3 Lewis Capaldi - Heavenly Kind of State of Mind · I prefer this one out of Lewis's two albums and this is a good pick from it.

4 Tom Grennan - If Only · Evering Road is probably my favourite of his albums and this is a decent opener to it.

5 Sam Smith - Lose You · Are we sure this wasn't a single? It was on Now 115! I'd rank it about average in his discography.

6 Gary Numan - M.E. · So this is what Basement Jaxx sampled in Where's Your Head At! So yeah it already had that going for it, and the rest of the song wasn't too bad.

7 Calvin Harris feat. Tinashe - Dollar Signs · I quite liked the drop but the rest of it was a bit meh.

8 Sam Fender - The Treadmill · Are we also sure this wasn't a single? Radio 1 usually only ever playlist official singles. Either way I'm not a huge fan of this one.

9 Roosevelt - Forget · Not too bad, but it just sounded a bit samey all the way through.

10 Damien Rice - Amie · Apologies to whoever sent him but Damien really isn't doing it for me.

01 = Tom Grennan - If Only (fave)

02 = HRVY - Never Be Us

03 = Darin - Om du var min

04 = Roosevelt - Forget

05 = Sam Fender - The Treadmill

06 = Sam Smith - Lose You

07 = Lewis Capaldi - Heavenly Kind of State of Mind

08 = Calvin Harris feat. Tinashe - Dollar Signs

09 = Gary Numan - M.E.

10 = Damien Rice - Amie

Actually enjoyed quite a number of these! Haven’t really done a deep-dive into any Tom albums but enjoyed the previous album track we had and this one is great too – defo need to check out more. I kinda feel like HRVY may struggle this round, but its bop nonetheless and would be a shame to lose another pop act so early on. Darin was great too really and an easy top 3 placement.

Roosevelt and both Sam’s I enjoyed a lot. The Lewis track was ok, the bottom 3 I wasn’t overly keen on (sorry).

Look at HRVY with all those top half votes!

13 minutes ago, Mangø said:

5 Sam Smith - Lose You · Are we sure this wasn't a single? It was on Now 115! I'd rank it about average in his discography.

As far as I can recall it was a promo single or album grat kind of situation, it had a Felix Jaehn remix that I enjoyed at the time too. Not sure if a full single or why Now included it, guess they assumed it was one or the label serviced it to them.

The Treadmill I'm not sure, maybe just a focus track for the album re-release. A bit of a grey area between official and promo singles, grats and focus tracks.

Edited 45 minutes ago45 min by gooddelta

9 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

As far as I can recall it was a promo single or album grat kind of situation, it had a Felix Jaehn remix that I enjoyed at the time too. Not sure if a full single or why Now included it, guess they assumed it was one or the label serviced it to them.

The Treadmill I'm not sure, maybe just a focus track for the album re-release. A bit of a grey area between official and promo singles, grats and focus tracks.

Personally I think any kind of single (official, promo, grat, focus track) should have been avoided in this round as per the requirement. Spending 9 weeks on Radio 1's playlist certainly gives 'The Treadmill' an advantage over other tracks here!

13 minutes ago, Mangø said:

Personally I think any kind of single (official, promo, grat, focus track) should have been avoided in this round as per the requirement. Spending 9 weeks on Radio 1's playlist certainly gives 'The Treadmill' an advantage over other tracks here!

Not sure it does when it’s scoring quite low in quite a few of the rankings

I’d question more as to how a song with complete female vocals is in here first!

2 minutes ago, Herbs said:

Not sure it does when it’s scoring quite low in quite a few of the rankings

Regardless of how it's scoring though, it's still a definite advantage on an otherwise level playing field - guess it's not too much of a big deal though, unless it eliminates one of the other entries by 1 point or something lol

4 minutes ago, Mangø said:

Regardless of how it's scoring though, it's still a definite advantage on an otherwise level playing field - guess it's not too much of a big deal though, unless it eliminates one of the other entries by 1 point or something lol

Now watch that happen

Of the 3 categories I find this one the most fascinating. It’s like the pop songs race ahead and then then the slightly less poppy ones start playing catch up.

I don’t think it’s fair to say focus tracks should be avoided, because by that metric anything from an album Spotify decided to give focus on playlists during an album’s release would be disqualified and that just opens up a can of worms that isn’t really worth opening (and that personally I do not care to research x)

1. Damien Rice - Amie (beautiful song, love the strings and it is a very emotional and stirring piece)

2. Calvin Harris feat. Tinashe - Dollar Signs (Production is very Martin Garrix-esque, shame we don't hear more of this kind of drop from Calvin although I guess it was very typical of 2014. It's a great pick for this round, although funny to hear Tinashe's very female vocal in the solo male round - guess it answers the question of will Calvin have to sing on his own entries)

3. HRVY - Never Be Us (this is already saved to my 2022 playlist - it's a strong example of the early 2020s dance sound, it's kind of reminiscent to Don't Wake Me Up in terms of melody and production but all the better without Chris Brown on it)

4. Sam Smith - Lose You (I do remember this now from Now 115, really good track from Sam and should have been pushed as a full single if it wasn't)

5. Gary Numan - M.E. (Basement Jaxx took a strong bassline and ran with it to make a banger, but the source material was clearly strong and ahead of its time)

6. Darin - Om du var min (hat-tip to the sender for sending something Swedish, a good recent-ish one from Darin)

7. Lewis Capaldi - Heavenly Kind of State of Mind (still not mad on his voice but the song is decent enough for me to overlook it)

8. Roosevelt - Forget (great production that saved the rest of it for me)

9. Sam Fender - The Treadmill (Sam is very hit and miss for me, I really like the original People Watching album and loads of its album tracks were fantastic, but I was less taken by the deluxe songs)

10. Tom Grennan - If Only (quite upbeat and John Newman-esque but still not gelling with his voice)