gooddelta

The studio is far better from Marta Roure, the live version is off I agree and the sound levels are all over the place, I hadn't recalled it sounded this poor. Maybe that was an issue with the 2004 contest as a whole, I'll have to compare to other performances. I don't really care for Sense Tu, I did like Casanova at the time but it's super basic and sounded dated by 2008. I think 2007 had a touch of Blink-182 with the lower register vocal in the chorus that reminded me of Mark Hoppus. It rode the mid 00s emo trend well and it probably did deserve a slot in the final. Taking only 10 songs through in a semi of 28 was grossly unfair, especially when you hear some of 2007's autoqualifers (2006 was even worse for that, the first third of the final was almost wholly awful).

I missed that, must have been too excited about seeing that the song won!

Just realised that Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken is a response record to this from 1984, I did wonder upon hearing it so looked it up.

Agreed, it was nice to have the breathing space to have 15 to vote for. Certainly my 5 and 4 pointers I'd have been disappointed to have no space for. Interesting result for Basement Jaxx on that system. I guess that's why I thought it could have been a contender, because it's a fun song that's hard to dislike and clearly accordingly had a large spread of voters across different voting bases. However, what I didn't anticipate is that nobody would rank it as a top favourite. Indie-pop, electronic and alt seems to be the lane to do well here? I'm not sure we've had a pure pop winner yet in seven editions. Black Box Recorder is basically a pop song, but by an indie band, Dido and Agnes the others closest to it.

Omg I won a tie for once for an important position! Delighted to scrape into the top ten with The Cardigans, it was such a crazy strong contest, many thanks to all the voters. Congrats Rollo, my favourite discovery from Bop Idol so far, just an absolutely glorious track. Glad you didn’t foot shoot in the end there. Well done Jim and Dobbo too on podium finishes and commiserations to Wardy who was almost there. Thanks Julian for the great theme and amazing hosting!

Leaving the top ten on the final votes after being there all night, classic 😂

Rooting for Camera Obscura, I in no way thought my favourite would be contending for the win this time as the competition was so strong.

Regina Spektor's lack of a major commercial hit is one of life's great mysteries to me. Fidelity at the very least should have been a huge hit and there's no reason it couldn't have been when the likes of Feist and Sara Bareilles went top ten. And Samson is maybe one of the most affecting ballads of the 00s? Maybe she was too pop for alt tastes and too alt for pop tastes. Lyrically her albums are amazing, she has such a standout voice and a great ear for melody, so the failure to connect doesn't make sense to me.

Agree, it's extremey difficult to score zero. In BJSC it happened twice in 20 years in the semis, and never in a final. In a forum with such diverse tastes, somebody is always likely to enjoy a song enough to have it in their top 10/15.

Surely you'd need to find the most boring song to score the fewest points. So it could end up being quite a dull listen if everyone was doing that. I've never purposefully tried to come last in any contest, but if I did I'd probably look for a dull b-side by some D-tier 90s boyband or something, rather than something actually 'bad', because something that sparks any kind of emotion in someone will often score points.

T-Rex - 20th Cenutry Boy was the intended pun there!

Makes a refreshing change to see a new song taking off a week after release and not six months after.

Love this one! Some more: 20th Century Joy Now That's What I Call Retro ... BuzzJack One More Time Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Friends

Petition to change it to this.

Seeing as it's nowhere near the best song contest on this forum, 'Retro Forum Song Contest' definitely works better for me! Bop Idol is quickly racing up there to become a contender for best contest for me. My top few discoveries in this Bop Idol edition are better than my favourite discoveries in the last few BJSC editions.

Only a 14-month contract! And no salary posted either. In my experience, 'executive' is often code for 'low paid'.

Oops, not Wolfgang Lohr derailing the whole genre, I remember I sent an electro swing song remixed by him to BJSC that did pretty well, We Are What We Are by Bart & Baker. I love We No Speak Americano, it was quite a breath of fresh air that summer. Quite a lot of good dance and good vibes that summer, and the Inbetweeners dance was very memorable too.

I was on there too, and Regina was on my shortlist to send. But I've always had in mind to send this specific song by The Cardigans to something or other and it felt a perfect fit. Aside, ahem from the fact, that it very much is not a 'bop'. But then a few other songs in the lineup aren't either.

I went down a rabbit hole checking streams of recent winners and Addy tbf also had one of the lowest with Margaret Berger's Karma Is A (118k streams). The biggest seemed to be Oblivion by M83 (85m streams), which I think was an anniversary (e.g. add 100m streams if you like) entry! Snow Strippers' Under Your Spell has interestingly gone mega viral since it won, and is now over 300m streams (was nothing of the sort when sent).

Wow, 37m streams! Just noticed To France is on 43m too (accrued over a much longer period lol) but feels unusual to have a top two so popular on Spotify.

Yes, although I did download it on iTunes at the time funnily enough, so I expect it was just outside my votes in BJSC 9, when remember we could only vote for 10 songs. And here it was indeed 10th in my vote ha, so a marginal improvement I expect, but I recall the song well.

Yeah it was more or less one great single and some other songs. But this one has some lovely ballads similar to the quality of her debut. -- I can't find a link to that Dua live album being out this week, everywhere I look says 5th June. I'd like to buy it! myself

Revealed! I'm so chuffed with how The Cardigans have done. I couldn't believe this song didn't even make the top 75 at the time, it definitely had a UK release as I have the single. One of their late era beautiful singles, the ending crescendo I've always found so beautiful with the strings, and the lyrical subject is interesting too. Hat tip to whoever sent Camera Obscura (presuming Julian/Jim?). This is the best song I've heard so far through Bop Idol, and I'm just sad I didn't hear it in 2006, would have fit right into my indie-pop love affair that year.

Nice to see the Keisha White song doing so well, the backing track is very late 90s Des'ree to me (not a bad thing).

The Pipettes <3 If there's any album from 2006 I still have on repeat regularly from start to finish, then it's that (and Lily Allen's Alright Still). What an uplifting album, I need to try and get it on vinyl <3