gooddelta

Really bad indeed, thank goodness it was the last one. It was the last really great year of the show (James and Ella saving the following year) but this didn't stop the charity release from being another turd.

Usher. It's fine but feels like a bit of a leftover release after stronger hits from the album, and I prefer the other eight songs left.

2011 was a really memorable year for me too, I for some reason was going clubbing every Wednesday night with my housemates so enjoying all of the 'club bangers' in real time (and fortunately not working on Thursdays). Those songs sounded much more epic in a club setting than on the radio so I have quite fond memories of a lot of them. In the summer I moved back in with my mum in Brighton as the lease on my rented place in Wales with my housemates was up, and I started a new job fairly soon after, so it was a year of two halves for sure. Looking forward to reading your thoughts @Paddington James !

Australia has had my favourite entry three times in 12 years! All have made your top ten. My bottom two would be Not The Same and Don't Come Easy, although the latter was much worse live than studio. I appreciate what Electric Fields were trying to do but they didn't quite pull it off with that song so it would be 10th for me.

Will go against the grain, this is my favourite Taylor single in many years. I think I needed a break from pop Taylor so I'm happy to hear her go a bit more acoustic/folky/country with this one, the bridge is particularly lovely. Glad to see it get to No.1 and keep Rein Me In at bay and hope the film gives it some legs.

Bloodbath week! I remember tuning in and thinking, where are all those singles (Lou Bega, Thunderbugs, Enrique, also Bryan Adams). And then being stunned as the chart further revealed TLC outside the top 30, B*Witched not in the top ten...too many big releases trying to squeeze out before the end of the year/century/millennium and not enough space for them all. The most surprising flop was probably Lou Bega, it was a hit around Europe, and sure it was a carbon copy of Mambo No.5, but when did that hurt anyone? ATB and Eiffel 65 both went top three with the similar follow-ups to their huge Eurohits. If it had peaked at, say, No.20, I might understand it more, and still be surprised at its flop, but No.55? How did that even happen. Thunderbugs were the most robbed though, gah. And that derailed their career completely. I wish they'd held it to January and got a top 20 hit out of it in a lower sales period, it was a good song! It spent five weeks in the top 75, which was unusual for a pop song that missed the top 40, so it definitely had higher potential had they not released it that week. Looks like we were in more of a dance mood with six dance songs in that top ten, highly unusual for December where there is ususally only a token one. Progress and Len really overperformed against the fierce competition that week (although the latter is great and a bit of a classic).

Push The Button. Not disputing the quality of Thriller of course.

That's right. Also Cezar's It's My Life for Romania was another 2013 example, quite a heavy dubstep breakdown in that. We could have had a dubstep breakdown a year earlier from Sweden in 2012 if Danny's Amazing had beaten Euphoria in Melodifestivalen, which I actually feared could happen at the time as he was such a huge name and at the time she wasn't.

Yeah, pretty sure it's a large reason as to why I stayed there for over seven years. Their radio was genuinely good and diverse, a mix of old and new, hits and flops. It really made the day more enjoyable, especially when I worked when the store was shut and it was still on, e.g. early on Sunday mornings (I worked in the bakery so started as early as 4am) they would play ballads and slower numbers just for staff. You could also text in and request songs at one point.

Great top two and finish here Iz, thanks for a very detailed and insightful countdown, your writeups were great. Pass Out is great. My favourite memory of it is when I still worked at Asda early in the year when it came out, I was covering on the checkouts and Asda FM, known to be... eclectic and with the volume up quite loud, directly followed Vera Lynn's We'll Meet Again with Pass Out. One of the old ladies loading up her shopping on the checkout belt I was at had quite a fright when it switched from Vera – which she had been enjoying – straight into that bassline. Fireflies was No.22 in my end of year 2009 chart, and peaked at No.2 in my weekly chart in September that year. I was racking my brain as to where I heard it so early and think the answer is that it was sent by someone to Unknown Pleasures when it was still on the CHC Media forum, before it migrated over to Buzzjack! I can't really remember how it did, but I remember instantly loving it, maybe @dandy* or @RabbitFurCoat can remember!? I certainly recall people making comparisons to The Postal Service straight away with it. Weirdly as much as I love it, and enjoyed a lot of Adam's output over the coming few years, I actually preferred Good Time, which was No.2 in my 2012 end of year chart behind only Euphoria, and which is in my all-time top 50, I just love that one. Here is my full rank, and glad I didn't count it down as it would have been wildly unpopular: 1 - Roll Deep - Green Light 2 - Lady Gaga - Bad Romance 3 - Owl City - Fireflies 4 - Roll Deep - Good Times (feat. Jodie Connor) 5 - Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are 6 - Cheryl - Promise This 7 - Katy Perry - California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg) 8 - Cee Lo Green - f*** You 9 - Lady Gaga & Beyoncé - Telephone 10 - Yolanda Be Cool - We No Speak Americano (feat. Dcup) 11 - Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World) 12 - Diana Vickers - Once 13 - B.o.B - Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams) 14 - Tinie Tempah - Pass Out 15 - Flo Rida - Club Can't Handle Me (feat. David Guetta) 16 - Taio Cruz - Dynamite 17 - B.o.B - Nothin' On You (feat. Bruno Mars) -- 18 - Tinie Tempah - Written In The Stars (feat. Eric Turner) 19 - Matt Cardle - When We Collide 20 - Ne-Yo - Beautiful Monster 21 - Iyaz - Replay 22 - Scouting For Girls - This Ain't A Love Song -- 23 - The Wanted - All Time Low 24 - Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit) 25 - Usher - OMG (feat. Will.i.am) 26 - Jason Derulo - In My Head 27 - Olly Murs - Please Don't Let Me Go 28 - Alexandra Burke - Start Without You (feat. Laza Morgan) 29 - JLS - Love You More 30 - David Guetta - Gettin' Over You (feat. Fergie & LMFAO) 31 - Dizzee Rascal - Dirtee Disco 32 - JLS - The Club Is Alive 33 - Joe McElderry - The Climb 34 - Helping Haiti - Everybody Hurts 35 - The X Factor Finalists 2010 - Heroes 36 - Shout For England - Shout (feat. Dizzee Rascal & James Corden) A very clear divide here. I still really enjoy all of my top 17 a lot, can take or leave the next five, and don't particularly care for everything in the third section. The Time is only high because it brings a bit of nostalgia from when I used to go clubbing a lot back then, but there were way better club banger type songs out that year.

Kaisers Faithless were robbed!

The song is a grower, I really like it after a few plays. It reminds me of the kind of stuff Mike Stock was doing with Scooch at the turn of the century, like When My Baby or Never Stop Believing in the verses. Glad they didn’t try and change their sound with the new members in the band.

The album has been removed from Spotify in the UK for some reason, only the singles are still available to stream from it. I listened to it Monday and enjoyed it, particularly the last few songs.

Not all the silent voters going for the great Faithless track, probably my favourite 00s single from them.

Martine, it's ok but a fairly standard cover that doesn't excite me or ever make me want to listen to it. Fool No More was reasonably popular at the time and seen as a step up in maturity for the band, I doubt I'd target it for a bit.

Airplanes has very warm verses and delivery from B.o.B that remind me more of 90s rap, like Skee-Lo or something. The soft rock/pop chorus from Hayley is a nice contrast, and it was good to see her on a UK No.1. Overall I like the track, and I did buy the B.o.B album on the strength of the two No.1s and remember enjoying it, as well as Magic.

I went Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. Bon Jovi I considered but don't feel like they are as influential as the three above to me? Not sure about The Killers, remove Mr Brightside and I wouldn't have even thought about them as a contender above about 20 others on here. They only have four or five iconic songs, as good as they are.

Jako grew on me quite a lot with the live performance, which was really energetic and magnetic, a great act to watch. LoveWave was a strong entry too, 2016 was a very high quality year in terms of songs and staging. Dubstep could be found in a couple of other entries in 2014 too, albeit to much lesser success than Not Alone. Lithuania's Attention was one. Eurovision is said to be 2-3 years behind musical trends, so it figured that dubstep showed up 2-3 years after its commercial peak.

I've been playing this Taylor song several times a day, it's probably my favourite from her since Anti-Hero. Really lovely track. Hopefully it will stabilise and climb again once Toy Story 5 is out.

One more to stick a pre-order in for, out on 17th July. Nice tracklist, good to see Wax make it, I love that track and like that the 'hold it' bit is used to good effect in the 12" mix.

Don't two versions actually exist, each with a couple of different tracks on it? I think they got as far as pressing and releasing it, and then quickly put out replacements. I would have preferred Doolally and Utah Saints but got Garbage and The Wiseguys. The latter edititon seems to be worth slightly more.

Is there a more iconic pop era/look than Rihanna's Loud era in the last 20 years? I had just moved up to north Wales at this point and from about November through to March, every time I went out I saw maybe 30 or more women with the exact same shade of dyed red hair, it was such an influential look. It helps that Loud is also one of the best pop albums of the last 20 years and Only Girl is a banger indeed although was quite low down in my end of year chart at the time as it felt a bit pedestrian in many ways initially, but Rihanna elevated what could have been quite a generic song in the hands of many others. I still remember one of my cheesier friends actually trying to chat a girl up with the immortal line 'I wanna make you feel like you're the only girl in the world'. It didn't work. I'll get to my favourite song on the album in the 2011 thread, but the combined force of Only Girl, What's My Name, Who's That Chick, S&M and the still lingering Love The Way You Lie really made it feel like Rihanna was constantly everywhere for about a year, yet it was all good, the songs were high quality and she was a force. I miss her imperial phase a lot - one of the best pop music ever saw.

It's coming in a few weeks, and is in my top five PSB songs, so underrated.

Yeah, I think Not Alone was an accidental favourite in the end. After all it did come 4th, but is probably one the most forgotten top five hits in the contest since the 00s. Sanna was second favourite but I don’t think anyone really expected Sweden to quite get over the line with Undo. So it did feel like Armenia could do it, even though the track didn’t sound like a winner particularly. Conchita/Common Linnets didn’t come alive in the odds until both delivered brilliant performances and staging. I think based on studio version alone they were deemed dated/too subtle to contend, but they both really wowed live, along with Sanna and her brilliant performance and vocal, so Aram MP3 (not a great artist name too) quickly faded away from view on the final week and actually did well to come 4th after that.

Jan Jan especially and Qele Qele were highlights for me, but generally I'm never a huge fan of what Armenia send. Apricot Stone was a nice one too, and I liked Not Alone at the time (while also not quite getting why it was the odds favourite) but the dubstep production has not aged too well. Snap was wildly overrated commercially for me, it's the definition of 'ok' - I wasn't exactly shocked by its low finish at Eurovision, there were no signs it was about to become a global hit based on that imo.