gooddelta

Numb/Encore, although I do like all 10 in the round tbf.

Only Girl deserved these winner odds I fear.

We don’t open the books until the final. Semis - no idea whatsoever!

Such a good top two there, I'd put We Found Love ahead as it is just a giant banger that topped off an amazing 12 months or so for RIhanna, but 21 is such a landmark album and Someone Like You a beautiful track. The BRITs performance was so amazing, I prefer it too, as like the lower register vocal in the chorus compared to the studio version with the higher notes. Thanks for a fantastic thread to follow @Paddington James, it's been really fun and insightful. Here is my rank: One The Floor – Jennifer Lopez ft Pitbull What’s My Name – Rihanna ft Drake We Found Love – Rihanna ft Calvin Harris Someone Like You – Adele Wherever You Are – Military Wives ft Gareth Malone What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction Loca People – Sak Noel Party Rock Anthem – LMFAO ft Lauren Bennett and GoonRock Price Tag – Jessie J ft B.o.B Heart Skips a Bit – Olly Murs ft Rizzle Kicks Give Me Everything – Pitbull ft Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer Don’t Hold Your Breath – Nicole Scherzinger Grenade – Bruno Mars Glad You Came – The Wanted Changed The Way You Kissed Me – Example Promises – Nero We R Who We R – Kesha All About Tonight – Pixie Lott Louder – DJ Fresh ft Sian Evans Read All About It – Professor Green ft Emeli Sande When We Collide – Matt Cardle Dance With Me Tonight – Olly Murs The Lazy Song – Bruno Mars Cannonball – Little Mix Swagger Jagger – Cher Lloyd Stay Awake – Example She Makes Me Wanna – JLS ft Dev Don’t Go – Wretch 32 ft Josh Kumra Don’t Wanna Go Home – Jason Derulo No Regrets – Dappy Wishing On a Star – X Factor Finalists 2011 ft JLS and One Direction Love down to Heart Skips A Beat, like down to The Lazy Song (just about), the next few are mid and then the bottom three are absolutely awful for me. My favourite songs of the year were Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5/Christina, and The A Team by Ed, with J.Lo and Rihanna just behind.

Sticking with VS, pretty bland.

Elvis, not a great track.

Three Lions could do it officially then (unless Wonderwall overtakes)? Will likely have huge numbers today, and again Wednesday. Thursday's Spotify streams won't count, but if England were to go out that would be in its favour as a sharp drop off wouldn't be registered. If England win then it will miss a bumper day of course. Getting to the semis in 2018 pushed it to No.1 last time. Does certainly feel like Shakira is coming for that first top 10 since 2009 too.

Welcome and thank you for sharing such a striking and standout entry on your first full contest. I'm in the other semi-final so can't back it but hopefully the storytelling here will take you through. Alana's voice is so striking too.

Rontvian votes have departed our inbox. Good semi with about six songs I really love and proved almost impossible to separate so hope all make it through and none of them miss out on fine margins. Another couple I really enjoyed too, a strong semi for pop! I couldn't begin to even consider what the nine DNQs will be. It feels to me, as is so often the way these days, that every song has a case for qualification. Semi 1 has fewer songs I absolutely love but more depth, taking a glance at that I could very happily vote for 16 there and, again, have no idea what will and won't Q.

Yeah it was a nice mix of artists, although not sure I'd have considered Eels an essential part of the 2000 story, although I really do love Mr E's Beautiful Blues and it turned up in a lot of films around that time too so felt bigger than its No.11 peak. I laughed when S Club said they didn't want to do Reach initially as it felt like Rainbow. Presuming they mean the children's TV show theme, and I completely get that thinking about it! In essence it's a very corny song that you could even imagine Lolly or Tweenies or someone doing, but they really turned it into a classic, and one of those cheesy songs that everyone loves. Such unlucky timing to go up against Sonique for three weeks because both should have hit the top. I'd completely forgotten about that Joey song until it popped up on Big Hits, agree that it would have been nice to have Fragma, or Oxide and Neutrino, or any other dance act really. I liked that it was pointed out that come 2000 dance performances became more elaborate, because even in the 1999 shows dance was either completely ignored or just a sharply cut down edit of a song with a DJ standing behind a box. You can't really continue to pay it dust when dance tracks were at No.1 for so much of the year. Argh at the big section devoted to We Will Rock You at the end. "Probably their best track," says Cowey. Errrr, no. I always like the wider context shared in these shows, like the mad floods and petrol strikes (which both had a huge impact where I was living), and the incoming effect of downloads and file sharing although I didn't download any MP3s myself until 2002.

Lola's Theme was the right chart topper that week, but what a top two! A great pop song from an unexpectedly brilliant pop album. And the Annie story is always wonderful.

A lot of nu metal and pop punk from the early 00s. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I really couldn't abide a lot of it growing up but now I've really realised what a moment in time that was that is sorely missed in the mainstream now. Puddle of Mudd and Papa Roach spring to mind.

I absolutely adore What's My Name, I was addicted to it from the moment I bought Loud and it was a big song for me at the end of 2010. I remember driving to work in the snow (which didn't clear for about a month and a half in north Wales that year) and would have three songs on repeat; this, The Flood by Take That and White Light Moment by Tove Styrke. All three remain are still in my top 50 songs of all-time or thereabouts. The beat and production is so solid, Drake's verse is actually so well delivered and quotable and Rihanna sounds so good on it, especially on the verses. This was absolute peak Rihanna and I was so glad when it got to No.1 in the new year. On the Aussie No.1s, it's nice to see that Kelly Clarkson got there, lovely song. I actually like that Reece Mastin track too, very early One Direction style. Obviously the likes of S&M, Born This Way and Sweat were absolutely huge here without going to No.1 quite. Dirty Talk was played a lot and well known but absolutely robbed in terms of a good peak for some reason.

2024 feels a long time ago, with all those future classic singles out at the same time pushing sales through the roof at the top end. For a moment many of us hoped it could be something of a 'new normal' in terms of sales but looking back it was just one of those very strong periods for big hits that come along once or twice a decade. Now we have the opposite, the weakest the chart has looked at the top end for decades. I don't really understand what's happening, why is nothing new catching on at all? In all the years I've followed the charts I've never seen anything like it. All I can chalk it up to is that TikTok feels less dominant for breaking new/viral hits in a major way than it was a few years back (although is fuelling a lot of retro revivals), Hot Hits UK impact is obviously much lower, and radio impact is lower, so it takes a Herculean effort for anything new to break through. Record companies and A&R people must be tearing their hair out.

Trouble I find really weak for a P!nk lead single unfortunately, I was super interested to hear what would follow the classic Missundaztood album and wasn't taken by it at all. The Shaky cover going top 20 is such a strange chart happening really! I do think Turn Off The Light was such a strong follow up to save Nelly Furtado being a one-hit wonder, which kind of felt possible to me for a few months after the release of I'm Like A Bird. Obviously she was nothing of the sort in the end. Interesting fact about New Zealand. I wonder why they took to it so much (not to mention Walking Away!).

I was absolutely obsessed with this track, it may even be my No.1, but I'll see when I rank them after. I had never loved a J.Lo song anywhere near the amount I loved this. Great use of a sample, such solid production, a wonderful chorus and post chorus singalong part, and of course, Pitbull and that rap. The solo version without him that all the compilations feature these days sounds a little empty to me so he definitely adds to it. This is my favourite song from the club banger era, bar none, it went all the way OFF in a club, that's for sure.

Was just looking at what is left of both acts for the 1995/1996 albums and extras and we have: 1995: Queen - Heaven For Everyone / A Winter's Tale 1996: Queen - Too Much Love Will Kill You / Let Me Live / You Don't Fool Me - The Remixes 1996: George Michael - Jesus To A Child / Fastlove / Spinning The Wheel So I would predict: Now Yearbook 1995 opener: Queen - Heaven For Everyone Now Yearbook 1995 Extra opener: Queen - A Winter's Tale (or something else if they decide not to use this) Now Yearbook 1996 opener: George Michael - Fastlove (Disc 1) / George Michael - Jesus To A Child (Disc 2) Now Yearbook 1996 Extra opener: George Michael - Spinning The Wheel (which leaves As left to open one of the 1995-1999 editions) We might miss out on 1996 Queen singles unless they open the Extra with Too Much Love Will Kill You and leave Spinning The Wheel for 1995-1999.

Joey, I do like the song but what a random winner it feels like in this company.

I bet it's that they wanted to ensure they had a song of his left to open one of the 1995-1999 Final Chapter albums.

I would imagine they just reached their full Westlife quota of two songs on each of the 1999 releases and picked Swear It Again/If I Let You Go instead of Seasons In The Sun. I guess it will be on one of the 1995-1999 editions. I guess with S Club 7 they have no plans to do 2000 yearbooks so felt they could include releases from December 1999 even if they peaked later.

Maybe the presence of David Sylvian/Donna Summer etc along with a few choice inclusions on the 97/98 Extras suggests we won't be getting 90s Vaults. I hope we do though as there is so much potential. Aww, I'd overlooked that Don't Stop was missing, they sure don't like to represent how big European dance was at the time on the Yearbooks.

Good point, I expected As to open it. Maybe saving it for one of the Final Chapter releases. Pet Shop Boys seem to be one of their fallback choices when there is no George or Queen (see also Extra 93). Only qualm is I'd have liked to have seen a few more of the trance hits from this year (Gouryella, Binary Finary, System F, DJ Sakin) but dance is very often overlooked on these albums.

Oh this is just wonderful, almost everything I wanted. Texas, Corrs, Precious, The Cardigans (omg Hanging Around!), Thunderbugs (!), Alice Deejay, Charlotte (under her current name) next to A*Teens is perfect sequencing. Whitney! And so much more. Six No.1s is definitely a new high for an Extra, as 1998 had five. Best Yearbook related album yet for me. So bizarre that Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! is only on an Extra, but then Vengaboys had so many big hits that year. Going to assume Ann Lee and Eiffel 65 have been saved for the Final Chapter rather than being unlicensable, maybe along with Cliff (Final Chapter Extra?). The true unlicensables must be Offspring, 2Pac, Eminem etc.

Very much looking forward to hearing the new songs, and also it will be the first time on streaming for No.51 smash Theme To St Trinians, assuming it's uploaded to streaming sites but the other albums were so it should be. Agreed the alternative mix of Girl Overboard sounds a bit basic. The version we know and Black Jacks are two of my favourite Girls Aloud songs, this album was just so good. Edit: Having said that, I see it's on Spotify now via the video upload, which allows you to just listen to the audio too anyway:

Fair 5th place. I think I actually prefer Poison still to this, I really loved that. But it was a pleasant, breezy kind of track and nice to see Nicole get a solo No.1, not sure at the time I expected it to get to No.1. Fully agree on the top four and three of the remaining songs are in my all-time top 100 songs.