Brer

Yes Dave just missed out on #1 when the album was first released so this is his first day there! 'Trap Queen' and '679' are both bangers so we love to see them surging x (the latter is listed as a debut on the Spotify Charts website but it has charted before according to Kworb, must just be its first appearance since the website starts tracking). Just looked it up and his release from prison was nearly 2 weeks ago so I don't think it's (directly) because of that?

You have 'Folded' listed twice, is one of those meant to be something else? (edit: actually guessing the #42 one is just an error as you have two #42s listed) (Also ofc not all of the Olivia songs are from her new album but still given a boost by her general rising profile)

Alan Walker becoming AI slop confirmed? x (Serious answer: check the discography of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard)

That song came out about 2 months ago and hasn't charted so I wouldn't say we're not rid of her x

Ooh apparently Dave is featured on this! (at least I think it's this song - might be something else on the album, not sure)

My floppage in the special editions laid bare

Oh god I am going to have that stuck in my head for the rest of the night again now "SpongeBob big guy pants ok" - lyrical genius x

Both versions of 'Karma' are shite let's be real xx

Billboard crediting works differently though, they (are supposed to) credit based on which version is generating the majority of the consumption. Not sure why they didn't initially credit Zara in that case. But yeah, for her to be credited here it'd need to be specifically requested by the label, they never did so for Ice Spice on 'Boy's a liar' so I wouldn't hold my breath.

Yeah it does look like the physical release of the Rocky album is pretty much just for the US at the moment, I think it was similar for the last Travis Scott album.

30-21 thoughts: 2025 was a rare year where I didn't give any 18s to Jadakissnia but uvula got the closest for me with a 15 (it was denied by YOU LOVE HER's 'This Is A Raid' and in retrospect I miiight flip them over if I revoted in that contest now), of course difficult to go wrong for me with a post-punk entry but this one stands out for being very catchy which is perhaps not always a quality I associate with the genre, also still forced to stan the Lord Buckethead esque creatures in the video Shame that Lana seems to have gone radio silent after a couple of great singles in 2025, was lovely to see 'Henry, come on' making the top 40, I want to say yay for it being the first song from one of her albums to do so in a long time but at this point who knows if it'll even be on her next album still if she ever releases another album at all of course was a highlight of her live show as well, the final line in the chorus really stands out as quite poetic. Also in the field of artists who keep ghosting on album releases, the ongoing saga of 'Masochism' just keeps getting more farcical with each passing year but I have mostly enjoyed the very occasional scraps we get from Sky Ferreira and 'Leash' is no exception to that. Dave is one of the few artists who is very good at making me sit down and actually pay attention to lyrics, he always has important things to say and I suppose it helps that he tends to rap with a lot of clarity and over beats which don't command too much attention away from the lyrics (although both the production and lyrics are excellent on this song) - the namedrop of Chris Kaba stood out as a particular gut punch in this song as well as the lines you highlighted. 'Berghain' I think would be very closely competing with 'Tonight' for me for my favourite top 40 hit of the year but it's definitely the best top 40 moment for numerous reasons, of course I've been heavily invested in ROSALÍA's career since nearly day one with me sending a song from her debut album to BJSC so it's still kind of insane that she got a song this leftfield to be her first top 40 hit as lead artist and bringing along a returning Björk and a debuting Yves Tumor to boot - I remember just feeling quite overwhelmed by the song on first listen with so much going on in it but quickly got over that and can just appreciate it as a beautifully constructed track and a fantastic introduction to another triumphant era for her (she's really fast becoming a contender for my favourite artist ever, I might have to change my BuzzJack bio if R5 is as much of a slamdunk as R2-4 x). Much love for the critters in the video too <3 I do still wish Yves Tumor's part was a bit more substantial but it still works well as an intense outro for the song. Both of the Addison songs here are good ones, #spoilers for my thoughts on your #1 (not that you don't already know x) but I did think 'Times Like These' was a better trip-hop track from her and 'Fame Is A Gun' is just a bop that I could get into straight away, could appreciate the instrumental sounding like a bit of a throwback to deadmau5's early hits, so I'm happy I can get behind that one more compared to my more mixed feelings on her other two top 40 hits, cool to see it getting another run in the chart now as well (and more video critter appreciation for the tortoise in the video!) The Izzy Camina song is also a fun dancepop banger. The two weakest songs in this section for me are the two from Demise Of Love unfortunately oops - 'Strange Little Consequence' is slightly more up my street out of the two but I find both to slightly go over my head which is a shame as I usually love everything Daniel Avery does and really enjoyed the last Working Men's Club album too, thankfully Daniel's next solo album after this got me well back on board.

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).

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

Decided by the survivors of blacksquare's discrimination

Really kind of crazy how top heavy these results are though. All of the points going to the top 5 (top 6 at a push) and crumbs left for everyone else! Feel like a lot of song contests recently have had very close results so a bit of a change here ~