Brer

Saint Etienne are really fast becoming the new Pet Shop Boys... I know most of the artists here but the only song I have heard to my knowledge is the Tori Amos one, from the same album as recent BJSC entry 'Spark' which I listened to as a SyncTube session on here before - 'Hotel' was my favourite on the album at that time so looking forward to revisiting! I very nearly sent a near 15 minute song to this which I see would have been the longest by far decided to keep looking though and found something else but perhaps I can keep that other song in my pocket for if a moment arises where I feel like going full #longsongbloc x

I don't think there's anything in the rules about that so just up to the discretion of the host (i.e. if it would be disruptive to any results prep etc.) I guess x

50-41 comments (catching up again oop xx) Actually not sure which hit you were saying you thought I was not fussed about as I do like all of them - guessing you may have meant Taylor? Definitely not feeling too positive about this era in general from her but 'The Fate Of Ophelia' was the one song I did enjoy from the album albeit not quite among her best songs ever (also 'Elizabeth Taylor' has grown on me a bit and I liked 'Wi$h Li$t' more than I remembered when finally giving it a second listen the other day), somewhat suffers from her tendency to word salad lyrics of late but the tune is very solid, would rank it bang in the middle of her UK #1s, quite a way behind 'Is It Over Now?' and 'Fortnight' but just ahead of 'Anti-Hero' and well ahead of 'Look What You Made Me Do'. Either that or maybe you forgot that 'twilight zone' grew on me a lot after finding it middling on first listen, I don't really know what I was thinking there as I now feel like it's an even better version of the formula of 'we can't be friends (wait for your love)', this has also reminded me I meant to watch the 'brighter days ahead' short film but never got around to it whoops, it's on my Watch Later list on YouTube so I'll get to it eventually Then guessing the one you weren't sure of my opinion on is Sleep Token, I know they're another band with quite spotty reception and can see why but they were a welcome injection of diversity into the charts last year, nice that Bring Me The Horizon now have company in bands with heavy elements who can chart singles fairly consistently! The title track of their album was my favourite of their charted songs but 'Emergence' is a goodun too. Will just always find it amusing that the first time I properly heard a Sleep Token song was when 'Caramel' came on Radio 1 without being introduced beforehand and until it got to the chorus I genuinely thought I was listening to an Alex Warren song that I hadn't heard yet haha. I'm sure you must have known ofc that I'm a big fan of the other two hits here, gwan Lorde getting another embedded slot, I think now some time has passed I have cooled on the initial hype of 'What Was That' a liiiittle bit and now prefer quite a few other songs from the album but I still think it was a good comeback single both lyrically and production wise (and anyway I don't think the lead single has been the best song on any of her albums, 'Royals' was my fave from her debut for a long time but I'd sooner go to 'Tennis Court' these days), cruel that it peaked at #11, maybe she'll get top 10 with the lead from L5 in 2029 or whenever + Sam Barber very much serving similar vibes to Zach Bryan i.e. country music for people who don't like country music, and I greatly appreciate him for it, a powerful ballad there. As for the non hit songs in that section - I don't know it as well as 'Cinderella' (still pending a listen to 'Pirouette') but 'Diva' is also excellent, had forgotten that was actually a bigger hit in your chart! 'Fuck Me Eyes' was the song from the Ethel album that stood out to me the most from what I've heard so far and I think it's still my favourite now, might help that it's a bit less lore heavy and more able to stand alone than a song like 'Waco, Texas' but also just really love the melancholy synth production <3 Chalk are another band I've discovered from your chart that have been consistently strong from the songs I've heard and they seem to have quite a diverse sound as well, the highlight of this song definitely being the electronic beat switch in the latter half. I somehow don't think I ever knew that Danny L Harle was involved with Caroline's album, that seems quite different to his usual style! 'Azimuth' definitely more what I'd expect from a collab between them i.e. banger beats and ethereal vocals, no notes x and 'Blu' was a great choice of auto-qualifier (though still deserved better in the final anyway x), a beautiful track that got 8 points from me, oh my at it placing higher on this countdown than your two top 5 hits of the year! 2 for 2 on enjoying Basque entries in BJSC as I also gave a point to the one Rich sent before (Huntza - Aldapan Gora) - assuming that was the only previous one anyway!

Can't begrudge giving someone else a chance after The Pogues won the Christmas #2s rate but still an eternal fave so very happy to see it notching another podium finish. The Leona Christmas song is fine but not a major fave. 'I Believe In You' is one of the better Kylie songs for me though + also love both the Jona Lewie and Daniel Bedingfield songs (mildly surprised to see the latter finishing so high but not complaining ofc!)

Not sure that will be enough for Blue to stay at #1 but they'll almost definitely be top 2 which is still a very impressive outcome for them either way! Wonder what prompted them to push this album so much harder than the last few. Looking back, the previous Dry Cleaning album was only #8 in the first mids with 2,662 sales, ending the week at #11 on 5,342 sales (only 34 away from the top 10 </3) The new album has started a good bit better than that, based on last week's sales the bar for the top 10 might be a little bit higher than it was on that week but hopefully they can still manage it, they should only need to sell about another 1.8k tops for the rest of the week. Random observation: I thought it seemed familiar that Zach Bryan and Zara Larsson had new entries in the same week (as I remember commenting on it being a probably rare occurrence of two artists beginning with Z debuting in the same week) and, sure enough, Zara's last new top 40 hit 'On My Love' also made its top 40 debut in the same week as Zach's 'I Remember Everything'!

Nothing I voted for out yet but a couple that were among the last few that I cut ('Diamonds From Sierra Leone' and 'Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous') - 'Rabbit' is also iconic too ofc, and I wouldn't have known the Toyah song if not for the ongoing 80s SyncTube sessions but I can appreciate it now (though I don't think that was my favourite of the songs played from them on there so far).

Some of the older contests did actually limit the number of times you were allowed to change your entry! (I don't recall it ever being outright banned but there were definitely some which had a 'one change maximum' rule). I don't keep stats on this particular thing I'm afraid x

I demand you retroactively add my vote for Cavetown for week 1 xx Will try to be more timely this week x

#6 is a pretty good start for Zach, hopefully should stay top 10 since it won't be as frontloaded as the physical-driven albums. Fingers crossed Dry Cleaning can remain top 10 too after their last album fell just short at #11! Intrigue to see the sales for Blue x

It wasn't only Kate in 2022, Metallica's 'Master Of Puppets' also went top 40 and Journey's 'Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)' went top 100!

On global Spotify 'I Just Might' has dropped to #10 but 'Locked Out Of Heaven' is all the way up to #14...! (That is still a great tune tbf whereas the new song isn't making much of an impression on me so far from hearing it in the background on the radio a couple of times x) Think there has been a lot of social media posts saying he's just been releasing the same song over and over so maybe that is driving people to just revisit the classics lol

Ok decided to very quickly slap a list together for this again. I know I tutted on SyncTube earlier at the idea of a tactical +30 but I found there was a song that was very near the top of my ranking that, from what I can see, only has one previous vote so... why not, let's put the finger on the scale for a jungle classic xx (I think it'd be about my +26 otherwise, I'm not totally sure 'Guilt' will be safe either but I'm not going to comb through the votes again for that, I just figured it was unlikely 'Incredible' would have got many votes at all). As ever I reserve the right for my votes in later rounds to only roughly resemble this list. +30 Incredible +29 Smack My Bitch Up +28 Guilt +27 Back To Black +26 Fade To Grey +25 The Pretender +24 I Miss You +23 Smooth Criminal +22 In The End +21 Live Forever +20 Sultans Of Swing +19 Enola Gay +18 Bad Habit +17 Untouched +16 Family Affair +15 Sk8er Boi +14 Violet Hill +13 The Irish Rover +12 Hounds Of Love +11 Yesterday [The Beatles, not Matt Monro, obvz] +10 Bat Out Of Hell +9 PATT (Party All The Time) +8 One Love +7 Star Guitar +6 Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' +5 Rent +4 Trap Queen +3 Lovelight +2 Love Story (Vs. Finally) +1 Ooh Stick You! Hotel California

Each week (aiming for Sunday evenings) I'll post one of these polls and ask you all to select your favourites from the week's new entries in the UK Singles Chart top 100. Unlike the similar polls in the genre forums, this poll is multiple choice - I'll leave it to your discretion how you want to give votes, if you want to just vote for your favourite each week then go for it, if not you can vote for as many songs as you feel deserve a vote (I will encourage people to make sure they've actually listened to all of the songs before voting but I can't enforce that obviously x). There's also a 'none of the above' option if you want to put in a protest vote. And then feel free to post in the thread any rankings/ratings or general thoughts. The song with the most votes at the end of the week will be the winner. The winner of week 1, to the surprise of no one, is Swedish singer Zara Larsson's 'Midnight Sun', which finally entered the chart months after release amidst her current career resurgence which has also seen 'Lush Life' return to the top 10 and her remix of PinkPantheress' 'Stateside' taking off and lifting that song into the top 40. 'Midnight Sun' picked up 29 votes out of 49 total poll voters (I feel like that's better turnout than these polls usually had the first time around so yay, we'll see if that keeps up). Full week 1 results 1 29/49 Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun (#91) 2 19/49 Sabrina Carpenter - Such A Funny Way (#37) 3 10/49 Shakira - Zoo (#92) [5/49 none of the above] This week's contenders: Fleetwood Mac - Landslide (#20) James Marriott - California Rain (#22) KATSEYE - Internet Girl (#24) Lil Uzi Vert - What You Saying (#61) Ella Langley - Choosin' Texas (#78) Doechii - girl, get up. (feat. SZA) (#79) Djo - Basic Being Basic (#81) Djo - Delete Ya (#95) She & Him - I Thought I Saw Your Face Today (#97) ROLE MODEL - Writing's On The Wall (#98) A more expansive list of options for week 2 as the 2026 release schedule kicks in... well sort of, technically only 2 of these 10 songs were actually released in 2026 and the list includes one from 1975 and another from 2008, but shh. We'll get there. Hall of Fame: Week 1: Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun [29/49]

Looking for a song now

The Clash - Rock The Casbah Dexys Midnight Runners & The Emerald Express - Come On Eileen A Flock Of Seagulls - Space Age Love Song Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird Yazoo - Don't Go Not the most major highlights this week and all songs I already knew (A Flock Of Seagulls just missed out on points from me in their semi-final when the song was in BJSC but it makes the cut here, I perhaps did underrate it at the time but it was nowhere near qualifying so not much more I could have done for it xx) - best discoveries of the week were Pigbag, Dollar (need to remember this song exists!!), Donna Summer and Stevie Wonder, next best songs I already knew were Irene Cara and Steve Miller Band.