gooddelta

Good Times is certainly full of lyrical nuggets. 'bad times can't match it'! Oh I forgot Bad Romance was still to come, I guess by default it was my favourite No.1 of the year then! A classic pop gem in every way and nice that it had that second wind in the new year.

Confirmed. I did have a real dig round, and saved 15 new Turkish songs I heard among them to my playlist, but one gem really stood out, and it's a little uninspired but worth it.

Big love, huge nostalgia, reminds me of a fun summer 2002 with my friends. Now where is my Gamecube so I can get Super Monkey Ball on

Cliff climbing to No.1 is a memory I prefer to supress... Moving on, Alice Deejay had by far my favourite debut of the fortnight. I remember hearing that Back In My Life was going to premiere late one night on my local radio station so I stayed up all night to hear it and tape it, and I was absolutely stunned by it. That Eurodance riff and warm vocal was music to my 12-year-old ears, bringing a cozy nostalgic feeling for the dark winter period and I love that it did so well climbing the following week too. After releasing two of my favourite songs of 1999, I developed quite an obsession with Alice Deejay and even did a school project about them (!), shame they only released the one album. Northern Star is a killer track from Melanie C, and a great course correction after Goin' Down to get the album to start selling, a beautiful single. Not so fond of the Boyzone ballad which was a bit of a damp squib to go out on. They could have called it a day after Comic Relief and let Ronan do his own thing properly (which he already was anyway), rather than releasing this and the other dud, You Needed Me. I wasn't too keen on the Martine or Lolly double a-sides. Love Me is ok, I found Talking In Your Sleep to have very dated production for late 1999 and I struggled to get into it. I just found Lolly very twee and didn't really buy into any of her singles in a big way, and these two were each naff in their own right. The following week I'm sure I would have been expecting Celine, Whitney and The Corrs all to go top ten. And they should have done, I love all three of those songs a lot. Not sure how they all faltered so badly, Celine's is up there with her very best, excellent Cheiron production with a powerful delivery, Whitney's is a great power ballad, and Radio is so beautiful and great storytelling, I don't understand how the lead single from Unplugged barely scraped the top 20 after all their recent success, maybe because it was a live track? Re-Rewind was a great, classic debut from both Artful Dodger and Craig David, I'm quite sure I expected it to get to No.1 at the time and not be blocked by Cliff, gah. Communication is a pretty annoying track, indeed I used to wind up my family with it whenever the phone started ringing. Love that Jamie Theakston called the mobile phone 'the accessory of the 90s', where these days it's more of an extra limb than a mere accessory. Right Now was a fab disco pop debut from Atomic Kitten, their first few singles were a lot of fun before Whole Again sent them off in another direction. There's a great gem on their debut album called Turn Me On in the same vein sonically that I'd have loved to have seen get a single release. Glad it managed to scrape into the top ten, and it's cool that even this late into the 90s we were seeing the arrival of some of the biggest stars of the 00s in Craig David and Atomic Kitten.

Thriller. Beverley shoula woulda coulda made the top three, it's a classy gem.

Will stick with Kaisers.

I thought about it, but didn't go in the end, they must have been struggling to sell it out because I saw hundreds of tickets going for £18 on Thursday on Ticketmaster. I saw them on their prior 'farewell tour' at the Palladium in 2019 which I really enjoyed. I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed this much, I've seen clips of Mikey appearing for four songs only, tacky AI graphics all over the big screens, and a guest appearance by Brian McFadden to perform a new Boyzlife single with the always out of tune Keith. Looked like there was a nice tribute to Stephen though, and the setlist was strong for the fans, it's good that they performed every single that charted apart from Love Will Save The Day. In 2019 they missed a fair few singles.

Exactly this. The amount of winners in those early few years before proper veto rules were introduced that were already high in rotation on the radio/music channels and clearly on the way to smashing was frustrating when very often some really inspired songs ended up 2nd or 3rd behind this stuff. I was a BJSC mod in those years but the concept of vetoing stuff was wildly unpopular so we could only take it so far with various measures that let plenty of songs slip through the net. Granted some of the measures we came up (like the Banlist) are laughable looking back, but efforts were certainly made to try and make the contest more inspired in those years. I've still not got over coming 2nd to Alphabeat's The Spell with one of my favourite ever songs, Music Everywhere by Anna Abreu. Even if it's been 84 (well, 17) years! Like, imagine nowadays not vetoing the lead single from one of the forum's favourite bands in their previous era.

I still prefer Green Light myself, but really enjoyed both of these Roll Deep songs, good clubby fluff with fun raps and a catchy and melodic chorus, sometimes it was all I needed. I can't recall without checking but feel like it lucked out on fairly low sales weeks during its time at No.1, certainly past the first week and looking at its EOY position? So maybe a run of 1-2-3-3-9 etc would have been more expected for it in a more competitive time. I don't like Scouting For Girls at all, with only two exceptions - the album track Michaela Strachan, which was just a very funny/unexpected subject to write a song about, and this song, which I charted for a few weeks, quite low down but I was relatively pleasantly surprised by it at the time. I never thought of it as rock particularly but guess it ticks the guitar band box in a way we haven't really seen much since the 00s. The lower peaking songs from their debut album are definitely better remembered though.

Great for Ariana, I actually really like this one. I downloaded two of the versions yesterday in a bid to help. I still like it, but we're a year in now, Rein Me In can hopefully start to go.

Really strong song, the bridge melody is so lovely and love the use of harmonica. It's quite understated compared to her recent releases so hopefully it will do well and stick after the first day. The film exposure is bound to set it up for longevity I guess.

I took this from it too. Indeed, I have New Music Friday on shuffle today so wasn't aware it was the new Madonna single until the vocal started. The intro gives me Clubland 7 vibes, or like Shapeshifters had decided to unearth a lost house gem they made in 2005. It fits that kind of era perfectly sonically, so it's very me <3 The vocal production is the weak link unfortunately, it sounds a little buried in the mix at parts. But still, I'm enjoying it. The first three songs are more up my street than anything Madonna has done in a long time. Sure it's not going to come close to Confessions on a Dancefloor based on these songs, but feels like a step in the right direction and I like that it's dance music inspired by the 90s and 00s that doesn't directly try to copy the dance sounds of the original album.

Agreed, not overly enthused by this. I've never been wild on the Roxette song it takes the chorus from, which doesn't help.

Another song that reminds me of my time living in Wales, I moved there in September and this song was already everywhere, and then got to No.1 a few weeks later. Probably my least favourite Tinie release of 2010, but still decent and anthemic. It sounds pretty dated to me now though in a way that his others from 2010 don't and still feel fresh. It didn't take Blue long to completely rip it off for their 2011 Eurovision entry I Can, which has almost the same chords and production. I'm very fond of Once, and that Diana album, it was a lovely song to get to No.1, of the type that would probably get to No.101 these days. Ah the combination of the held back era and X Factor at its peak. Her voice is a really acquired taste but I was backing her on X Factor in her year.

I don't think there's a lot of evidence on Buzzjack that running order makes much of a difference, although I sent a Turkish rock track to BJSC last summer that came 2nd in the final, which was a notable improvement on its semi-final placing of 6th (so it was projected to finish outside the top ten in the final), where it had closed the show. I didn't think it worked as a closing track particularly, some songs work better halfway through where they have breathing space to make their presence felt in the general mix and add more to the ebbs and flows. But then the most recent BJSC had the semi-final winner as the final song in the running order, Go by Public Service Broadcasting, which absolutely did work in that position as it has such a triumphant feel to it. So really it depends on the song, other songs around it, the people voting, and various other factors.

Skyfall. I actually like them all although Billie is weirdly the one I'm least likely to listen to.

Thriller, and only because it doesn't belong to the 00s for me. I do really like the other three songs and would find it hard to vote any out at this stage when they all bring back different 00s memories.

Will switch to Kaisers then as Supermode looks safe, and not overmad on Never Miss A Beat either. Love Story (vs Finally) </3

Can I just send poor robbed Bul Bul Bul by Kit Sebastian again? It deserved more I fear.

Interesting, I missed the earlier post made about this - thank you. I think this explains that, it's rightfully been disowned: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57984070

Welcome New Helvetica from FSR Rontvia! We hope you do so well in Worldvision that you can be tempted into some of the other contests or spin-offs.

Must dust my Turkish rock playlist off once more then.

27 please

Dua’s live album climbing during the week? Unusual for a physical driven release? Makes me wonder if streams have been added to it from studio tracks. I am still yet to find a link to purchase it before this coming Friday.

Beautiful Corrs was a great sketch too. I loved the niche instrumental tracks from Forgiven, Not Forgotten always playing in the background. And the fact that The Corrs sent themselves up in the final part of this sketch. Loved CD:UK, I wouldn't go out on Saturdays with my friends until after 12.30 so I could watch SM:TV and then CD:UK and hear the Saturday chart.