gooddelta

The fourth batch, my absolute favourite is Close Cover, such a stirring version. I loved it so much that I got my keyboard tutor (I was learning at the time) to write the sheet music up for me, which they did. I loved learning that. I sent the original version by Wim Mertens to BJSC in 2019 and it came top ten, which was nice, as it’s such a lovely piece. I’ve not got a huge amount of other favourites from that group but I did enjoy Sexual Guarantee although it relied very heavily on a disco sample that I’ve heard in loads of other songs. Alcazar had far better to come, but their best songs weren’t released in the UK (apart from Crying At The Discotheque). Been There Done That is one of those ten-a-penny cheap sounding pop/R&B girlband songs that were absolutely everywhere in the early 00s, surprised labels were still funding this sort of thing for so long! And gosh, that Rik Waller cover was blander than bland. I didn’t even think he had a particularly nice to listen to voice, the hype around him was way too much. Good to see On The Run top the fifth batch, I bought this at the time and still really love it, sadly Tillmann passed away in 2011. It deserved to peak so much higher. I must admit, I actually loved That Day, but agree it was a weird choice of lead single for Natalie and derailed that campaign, a slightly breathless and wordy song. Wrong Impression is super catchy and a clear radio hit, glad she got a top ten from it. A New Day Has Come was a lovely track from Celine, particularly the uptempo radio mix moreso than the ballad album version for me. It’s cool that Celine still managed such a successful album in 2002 (I’m Alive being more popular now than it ever was then too) as I just relate her to the 90s really (and her 80s Eurovision win). That J.Lo remix project was a curious beast, they were basically new songs with the same titles. I thought the Ain’t It Funny mix was pretty good though. Me Julie was a dire number, but a bit of an earworm too. Glad it didn’t get to No.1 though, Shaggy kept that 2001 renaissance going for a lot longer than I thought he would! And the final batch, yes I completely agree about the wonderful Mindcircus being best. I love this underrated track so much that I sent it to BJSC in March 2020, just as we were going into the Covid lockdown, it was quite comforting for me during that period, the song is like a nostalgic musical hug. It came 18th in BJSC. I think Fly By II and Insatiable tie as my second favourite. That is definitely one of Blue’s best and still one radio regularly rinse now. And that was a really solid solo hit for Darren Hayes, with an interesting chart run, it seemed to linger around the top 20 for some time and that helped it to a solid position on the end of year chart above some No.1s. I thought Home and Dry was a bit weak as far as PSB leads go, certainly not one of my favourites, nor was the parent album. And Freeek! was a very weak George Michael track for me musically, although clearly quite interesting lyrically and the production seemed quite futuristic sounding, inspired by US R&B of the time. And finally, Gareth Gates…an extremely poor, sanitised cover just like Robson & Jerome’s version. But clearly this was coming out one way or another as it was so popular for Gareth on Pop Idol. If he had won the contest and released Evergreen/Anything Is Possible, then presumably this would have been the follow-up single in short order to capitalise.

Oops, didn’t realise I’d fallen six weeks behind. In the first batch, The Middle was a really good top choice, Kelly Clarkson seems to have been inspired by the melody of that for her hit Heartbeat Song in 2015! That week where Mary J Blige was the highest new entry was a bit odd as a chart follower who had only been religiously watching since 1998, it felt like such a slow period and clearly enabled a few songs to climb to new peaks. I wonder why nobody major scheduled singles for that week? I love Bring It Onto My Love, I think I mentioned in the 2001 thread that I loved Denada’s previous single Love You Anyway too, very sweet, melodic garage and they just disappeared after a couple of middling hits. I like Hey Baby quite a lot but I think Hella Good and Underneath It All were actually more to my taste. Still, it was an infectious comeback single. Point of View was my favourite of that second batch, such a wonderful dance hit and really it still sounds fresh today, such a cool song to be a big hit. Moi… Lolita was definitely another huge highlight though. What a fantastic and inspired top ten hit, I remember it being on the TV music channels all the time. That Dilated Peoples song is one of my favourite hip-hop songs of 2002, lovely bassline sample in that. You is catchy but I’m surprised S Club 7 went back to pushing such corny material after the success of Don’t Stop Movin’, I expected them to continue down the cooler route which is where pop music was moving generally at this point. What About Us was quite a cool track, although I do agree there is something slightly weird about the vocal production that grates. Couldn’t really remember that O-Town song, but it sounded ok, doesn’t sound anything like their earlier stuff. I also checked that Ana Ann song, I do recall that from some compilations I had at the time, a very plain track. Yeah, Shakira is definitely the best of that mega third batch, what a couple of weeks for the charts that was! So frustrating that she released that on the same week as the biggest seller of the decade, it’s such a classic that did not deserve to stall at No.2. Crazy it took her so long to have a hit here when she’d been having great hits since the mid-90s in South America and Spain. Lasgo and Kylie’s singles were both wonderful, also classics from their genres, and How You Remind Me was by far and away the best Nickelback song. All over the radio all year but it was a very stirring song, shame they went off the boil so quickly. Hands Clean was a really good Alanis track, agreed, it deserved to go top ten. And that was certainly a big career highlight for Beverley Knight too, a lovely track although I prefer Greatest Day from her overall. World Of Our Own was definitely one of the better Westlife singles – generally they did uptempos quite well (Uptown Girl, When You’re Looking Like That), so it’s a shame they were so ballad heavy most of the time. Not a fan of either side of Anything Is Possible or Evergreen really, the former is twee and the latter generic and overblown in the usual reality winner’s single way. But Will sounded good on them, and those sales he had were spectacular, the absolute peak of reality TV was Will vs. Gareth (and X Factor in 2008-2010). I remember liking that Time After Time cover at the time, although it sounds a bit limp now. And I do remember finding Bad Babysitter quite abrasive at the time although I found it more funny to listen to than anything.

Westlife, one of their few I'd put on by choice, not a bad cover at all with a fun video. Fyfe is perfectly fine though, typical John Lewis fare.

It's such a shame hearing people's experiences of 2024 because Liverpool was such an electrifying and positive atmosphere the year before. But of course understandable, with everything that was going on. It's hard to tell how 2025 will be in comparison to last year, things haven't exactly got much better, but the EBU need to do a much better job of looking after artists and listening to concerns. I can't sadly afford to go to Basel (and I'm going to a Delta Goodrem gig the night of the second semi anyway, the ONLY thing I would ever consider missing Eurovision for). I certainly would not have liked to have been in the audience for the live final last year, the tension came across quite a lot on screen. Hopefully things will be better this year. I have only been twice to Eurovision (and only been in the audience for the final once, in Malmö funnily enough, in 2013) but I had such a great time on both occasions. I think you can kind of curate your own experience when you go to the host city. People can probably try and avoid a lot of the negative stuff if they stay away from the main action for a lot of the time and just enjoy the fringe activities. I think it's fun to try and get tickets for dress rehearsals and then watch the live show at a public screening with friends, and make the most of the city/culture/food etc.

It's a one-horse race here, voting for the super Swede.

P!nk again, although I was tempted to switch to Max Graham but I'd probably rather listen to that.

Ah, ending on a solid trio but that's sad for Republique d'Askorza, a second month in a row with a German entry just narrowly missing. Amazing hosting Klumzee/Leww, thanks for an entertaining/aesthetically beautiful evening!

Pretty surprised at Terra Avium out, thought it could be a contender. I thought the Elon Musk song was melodically pretty strong, not too surprised to see it in!

Aww Pestolia is a shame. I really liked that and wondered even if it could be a dark horse. Surprised to see it so low.

Yay ❤️ Thank you kind voters!

Ouch for Taahino Really pleased to see The Spodic Empire in, such a lovely artist/song.

Why So Sirius! The predictions for Semi 2 looked all wrong to me, not surprised to see a lot of songs already defying them! Skall deserved a lot better than that though.

FARC's is their best in a long time for me, hoping it's an easy top ten. Shame for Mack to be last again, a nice little track.

Macromia <3 Loved the unusual sound of that one, glad it overcame the odds and that I can support it in the final. Great to see Herbilore in too, let the long Q streak begin. I really liked both Dandy's and Ben's from my semi a lot too, so that's a perfect opening batch.

I can see this being a hit of a decent magnitude but maybe not the multi-week No.1s he used to enjoy. It certainly sounds catchy enough, if a bit late 2010s in the production style. Equals was only four years ago and spawned two mega No.1s (plus the two Christmas single No.1s later that year too), but may as well be a lifetime ago for the goodwill he squandered by putting out Subtract (which I still love tbf - very underrated album) and Autumn Variations (which wasn't very good, and a bad idea that damaged his brand a bit imo). But Eyes Closed did get 10 weeks in the top 10 only two years ago, so it's not like that single in itself was a flash in the pan despite the No.1 week having a big physical push. I would envisage a long-running chart hit for Azizam that maybe peaks in the mid top ten, but it's impossible to tell and only a fool writes off Ed tbh, so it could well go higher. Who knew that his Tour Collection album would eventually go to No.1? He finds a way through, and the re-release in the quietest week of the year was genius. Ed knows how the charts work better than any other major artist imo and makes full use of that knowledge. I think Ed's problem on the singles chart going forwards is going to be his popularity with age groups that will increasingly drive TikTok and therefore the charts. He was a popular artist with late millennials and older Gen Z, but I doubt very much that he is massively popular with Gen Alpha. Not sure it's just a getting older thing either (all pop artists naturally lose some fanbase as their audience get older too and move on), because Taylor is older than Ed and is loved by many kids, I just don't think he managed to make that transition fully (yet, anyway) - and squandered some critical time away in helping make that transition with those two poorly received albums. Had he released another pop album in 2023 when the goodwill was enough to even get Eyes Closed to No.1, then I think it may have been a different story. But he'll always be massive on the tour circuit - he could tour massive venues for the rest of his life just singing his 2011-2023 hits if he wanted to.

2003 was great and a breath of fresh air after the very poor 2002 where I liked seven songs and only really loved about three. Well staged and hosted, charming presentation and a lot of great songs. My favourites were actually Iceland, Netherlands and Malta (very underrated but it was a fun stat that the previous year’s top three were the bottom three in 2003). But I regularly listen to Turkey, Belgium, Russia (how did UK snub them when at this point they were so huge here, I really thought they had the win easily in the bag), Sweden, Poland (one of their best, so stirring), Spain, Romania, Ireland’s Fly on the Wings of Love tribute, Germany’s corny schlager, Croatia (I loved their 00s female pop entries), Portugal (beautiful and so underrated) and even the studio version of UK is catchy (the live I hate as they were so off key compared to the backing singers and it clashed badly). This contest reminds me of my last few weeks at school, I had the CD on repeat.

Great, thank you, votes sent!

@Severin Just tried to PM my votes but got a message saying you can't receive messages, not sure if your inbox is full. I agree with Dandy, an interesting concept and a wide variety of covers and genres here, I expected to mostly see indie and rock covers but it's not that at all. But in terms of covers that beat the original, it's probably zero, and that includes my own entry. But many of these songs are so great and classic in the first place that it would have been a tall order. But I've found six or seven covers I will definitely add to my playlist, all very enjoyable in their own way. And it's always interesting to hear fresh takes on songs you know very well. The Groove Armada song came from a Radio 1 covers album from 2007 which I really enjoyed at the time, I very nearly sent Mark Ronson's lovely take on All I Need To Get By to this, which was on that album and has since been added to his album Version on Spotify.

Voted! I discovered some good stuff in this, from albums I've never got round to listening to and b-sides I didn't even know existed. Nice picks everyone, I could happily have voted for several more.

Will be interesting to watch. No doubt all of the most MOR songs in the chart highlighted, with the presenters striking a suitably dour tone.

From memory around this time it was Jayne Middlemiss, Kate Thornton, Jamie Theakston, Gail Porter and apparently Sarah Cawood (although I'd forgotten she did it). So moving into an era of proper dedicated presenters rather than having celebrities and Radio 1 DJs hosting. Goodier as far as I know just narrated the top 20 rundown.

I enjoyed several songs in last night's episodes but also there was just as much filler. That OTT cover of All Out Of Love with the audience all sat on the floor (at the floor manager's request I guess) made me realise that mid-'97 was really the end of the cool part of the 90s, which stretched from about 1993/4 to maybe halfway through 1997. Ironically, when the term 'Cool Britannia' was starting to be mentioned everywhere was exactly the point that the country was becoming less cool. Some of the stuff in these charts was just horrendously dire, pointless covers and unenjoyable to listen to. I did enjoy how much the crowd got into Tubthumping, but read somewhere that the band were dismayed at the cheesy dance routine the audience were doing (this is hardly a surprise knowing their background but that's on the band for pivoting and releasing such a commercial/singalong anthem). I would have liked to have seen it get a week at the top but Men In Black was clearly a huge track. Dance music definitely suited Dannii for sure, I loved how futuristic the video was too, with her accessing her website 😂 This was probably the only time in her career (in the UK at least, I know she was famous first in Australia) that Dannii was more popular commercially than Kylie. The Republica style breakdown halfway through the song was great. It came to me halfway through the first episode that the presenter was Sarah Cawood, I couldn't place her for ages but she mainly presented kids TV from what I recall. I think Jayne Middlemiss was the best presenter of this late 90s era, although Jamie Theakston was good when he came in. I wasn't overkeen on the Shola Ama song but it's nice that she got a top three hit off the back of her long-running previous single. Really disliked the Jon Bon Jovi song personally. I had no memory of the Mark Owen song that was on last night either, but found that pretty weird, he was putting on a strange vocal inflection in that. But Never Gonna Let You Go is a garage classic, I'm glad they cut off the intro for the TOTP performance, as that's the only bit I don't enjoy of the single. I noticed N-Trance pop up at No.15 in the chart countdown (nice that the Mark Goodier voiceovers are in by this point). The Mind of the Machine is SO much better than all of their dreadful disco covers, Kelly sounded great on it and looked cool in the video, the lyrics in the unnerving spoken intro, and the breakbeat/piano production is brilliant, worth checking out although it's not that commercial so I'm not surprised it didn't get any higher. They were probably the most hit and miss musical act ever for me, always either amazing or awful.

Voted! Quite a solid semi, I had to leave out a couple I'd have liked to have voted for. Happy to see a couple of the nations towards the top of my votes who I haven't voted so much for recently.

White Lies is out today. Really sounding strong, nice Hozier (and Teddy Swims, as mentioned above) vibes. Nice more restrained vocal too than on his debut album, but still distinctive. Only 93rd on New Music Friday UK is really unfair though, it's only just over two years since he had a No.1 album with some decent top ten longevity. With support he could still do well.

This is brilliant, better than everything that was on her album (although I still have a huge soft spot for the studio version of I Wrote A Song). Charli/Robyn and Rose Gray vibes as mentioned above. I've seen it on absolutely loads of TikTok videos, would be nice if she could get a hit out of it, although independent it might be more tricky.