gooddelta

Just listened to them all again, although I know them all like the back of my hand so feel comfortable voting now in this group: The Corrs - So Young (K-Klass Remix) (Sharon's violin middle eight is one of my favourite things in any song ever) ABBA - SOS (one of their brilliant early hits, incredible) Florence + the Machine - Spectrum (Say My Name) [Calvin Harris Remix] (this was such a great remix of an already strong album track) Erasure - Sometimes (I'm not a huge Erasure fan generally but I do make an exception for this and A Little Respect, one of the best songs ever) Atomic Kitten - I Want Your Love (great use of sample, their fun pre Whole Again/MOR era hits are underrated!) The Chicks - Gaslighter (wish I could rate it higher, another great selection from The Chicks and I hope they get through again) Blondie - Denis (legendary again from Blondie, who rarely put a foot wrong) Scissor Sisters - Filthy/Gorgeous (says it all how good this was that it became the biggest hit of the album so many singles into the era) Calvin Harris feat. HAIM - Pray to God (crazy low chart peak for this looking back) Ace of Base - Cruel Summer (Big Bonus Mix) (glad the Big Bonus mix was chosen as it's much better than the album version, although still Bananarama's original outpaces it) The 1975 - The Sound (I actually really like this, and feel bad about it being last!)

Strongest link for me! My favourite song of 1998.

Indeed a very strong group, 11 great songs. The only bad thing about it is that I won't be making any new discoveries here! I can't really predict who will go out. Having said that, the groups all playing a very strong hand this early while the solo females and many of the males sent mostly unknown songs could give those artists more to play with down the line.

Who exactly had heard of Kalush, Nemo, JJ before Eurovision? Case closed.

I have tweaked the back-end of the scoreboard tool I used for BJSC 180 so the stats dump will be coming soon to a Bop Idol results thread near you. Biggest fans, number of votes received, live medals counter and, of course, the drought counter! It's all back!

I feel like it's one of those stuck between a rock and a hard place decisions for a host (like when I had a withdrawal during the semi voting in BJSC 180, the first time it had ever happened in 18 years). I respect the way this decision went and not sure I'd have done it differently myself, but do also see the other perspectives. I'm actually in awe of Calum taking on a competition of this scale (again) which is running for so many weeks, it's no small undertaking making all the graphics, playlists, totting up scores, Google sheets, finding time to host results, arranging a prize, all the creativity.

I wouldn't want a free pass to the next round anyway as I would want the chance to share as much music from my act as possible.

Feel free to get your guesses in as to who you think sent what btw. One of my favourite parts of Bop Idol is the guessing game but I can't participate this time 🥲

I'm stumped!

I've only ever heard of him from BJSC and didn't vote for either of those entries, but will keep an open mind. It certainly feels like an interesting choice (but one I wouldn't expect to connect in Eurovision based on what I've heard).

A banger has been located and submitted...

Bit of a David vs Goliath situation there! Glad ABBA got through though, because they have plenty of bangers to showcase.

Great top three although Nelly was a surprise. Results in the second round must have been close so the first round helped out more.

Interesting to see Tove Styrke there, I heard it during the last confirmation period and figured somebody would attempt it. Blusher was a brave attempt!

Now 122 would also be gaining another No.1 if Rein Me In gets there, although maybe they'd be better off with an extra one for Now 123 in So Easy, as Harry, Taylor and Dave are unlikely to license their No.1s and they've had Djo on before.

Changed my entry to something more suited to this (and less to Club Bizarre).

Agreed, I remember all of mine. Some I have question marks over why I sent them, but I still remember them.

Tony Grox and LUCYCALYS won. Fun song although there were others I prefer.

Yes it did go ahead but only I think 7 or 8 people were on.

Vanilla Ninja won! It’s ok but a big step back from the brilliant Cool Vibes, my favourite entry of 2005. Nice to see them finally represent their home country though as they were under Switzerland for that.

I think he might translate it to English which would be a mistake as it’s very charming in Danish imo.

Thanks for doing this this year Wardy, it is tricky to sequence because such a variety of genres do well on the contests across the forum but you’ve done a grand job. Honoured to have FIVE entries on here, I’m never going to top 2025!

Søren Torpegaard Lund's Før vi går hjem won, with Ericka Jane second and Sissal third. Ericka is currently at the top of the infamous Spotify OBSESSED playlist, it's such a great track. I would say she was robbed but the live performance probably needed a bit more oomph, theatre and drama and not sure it would have got out of the bottom five at Eurovision. Sissal's song imo is weaker than Hallucination but it is what it is...I'd have left it a bit longer to come back.

Heat 3 is definitely the weakest so far, I'm not particularly loving any of the songs yet. Medina, Saga and Patrick Jean are all decent though, Saga probably my favourite of the heat as it's more of the same from Medina (but not as good as Que Sera for me). Eva is decent pop, I found Emilia a bit dull and Korslagda is my least favourite of the year so far, awful.

Kids for me