gooddelta

These are like the defining charts of my adolescence. So Young was my favourite song of the year, such an uplifting and joyful track but with a pang of nostalgia, especially with that beautiful violin instrumental middle eight. 63k to miss the top five is mad. The Power of Goodbye is completely stunning and up there as one my favourite Madonna singles alongside Hung Up and Like A Prayer, Move Mania was massively underrated and another anthem from Sash!, Until The Time Is Through was a classic boyband ballad from Five, and I even liked that Boyzone song, which got very unlucky with such close sales (but glad it didn't unseat Cher at the same time). All of these bring back such vivid memories from the time. Miami and Up and Down were great fun party anthems, War Of Nerves is stunning and deserved way more than No.7. From This Moment On is a Shania classic! This is what Q4 should be about, not what we have now. I might comment more after I see the episodes to mop up what I've missed!

I was thinking about this the other day how things that always seem like they will last forever never do in the end. Like X Factor getting the No.1 every single year (at Christmas or just before) until it just stopped and Louisa Johnson out of nowhere only peaked at No.9. LadBaby was clearly running out of steam by Food Aid too and they knew it, no way they'd have got a sixth No.1 if they'd gone for it. Growing up in the 90s all I ever heard about was Slade and Wizzard (with Band Aid, The Pogues, Shaky and Bing Crosby on the sidelines), then in the late 00s and early 10s it was always Mariah vs The Pogues (with Wham!, Wizzard and Slade trailing behind) and it seemed unfathomable to think this would ever change. But then the streaming era and I suppose George Michael's untimely death pushed Wham! up to be the top UK favourite but I still wouldn't necessarily expect this to last forever. I'm not sure if the younger generations coming up now will have Wham! as their favourite forever more, I wouldn't be surprised if Kelly Clarkson overtakes it within a decade as that and Ariana's will be the childhood Christmas songs young adults of that time will have grown up with, and we already see these two growing year by year. I guess in their favour though, Wham! are unlikely to be knocked down the Americanised playlists as they had the advantage of being popular in the US, unlike many other British favourites. So we'll see what happens, but certainly I think it will get closer between the top faves in the next few years.

Get your skates on @gooddelta !

Yes, seeing a singer-songwriter called Cara Rose later (beautiful voice, lovely balladry, very me, I'll see if she has anything good for BJSC!) and then swimming and Christmas shopping tomorrow 🤣

Sticking pointlessly with Coldplay rather than going tactical (as I love the other five too much).

For the sheer impressive feat of getting a naff schlager cover to No.1 in the UK, DJ Ötzi.

Lollipop

Long Hot Summer I can't do it to queen of clubs Kelly I'm afraid.

I haven't voted myself yet and often do it on the last or second to last day, so no worries or apologies needed! Usuallly we do 24-hour reminders but I won't be on here much of tonight or tomorrow until the evening, hence the early tags rather than no tags at all.

Thank you to the 15 voters so far! Keep them coming please, some interesting results indeed so far. I'm out tonight and much of tomorrow so forgive me for the 37-hour advance reminder but you all have until 11.59pm tomorrow please. I also need to vote myself... @jakee @Iz 🌟 @AllStarBySmashMouth @Herbs @Riser @Sabrewulf @FrankLuck @Colm @✖ leww ✖ @Travis @Mack. @J00prstar @matto @Freeze @CowTzy @Miri @Calum @Ansel @!!! @calxyum @dhwe @LiamSime @HarryGarfield @Silas @dancember @blacksquare @ k👠th @pavi @awardinary @dandy* @Klumzee @Harve @Roba. @*Tim @Michael Bubré @Jacob- @LexC @diva thin muffin @seven. @uhsting @Doctor Blind @RobBot @Cody Piastri

I'm not really certain I heard it at any point later that year once it left the charts even. I can't remember it being a commercial radio staple for months like ballads tended to be at the time. Apparently it finished 80th in the end of year airplay chart, below I've Got You even.

Intriguing. A dance song perhaps?

Martine McCutcheon - Perfect Moment Rank: 6.5/10 Reason: To be fair I like everything from this point onwards up to a point so it's really difficult to rank already, but it's actress and singer Martine McCutcheon next with her Perfect Moment of two weeks at No.1 in April. Martine started her musical career as part of a female trio called Milan in the mid 90s, who managed some low top 100 success but little else of note. She also featured on a No.62 1995 hit called Are You Man Enough with Uno Clio. Onwards she went to EastEnders where she played the iconic character of Tiffany Raymond, later Mitchell after marrying Grant. At Christmas 1998 (i.e. the period of my life I remember more vividly than any other for so many reasons) she was killed off after running into the path of a car being driven by Frank Butcher. She was later buried in a small town called Peacehaven in the south of England... which is precisely where I lived at the time so it was all very exciting to be an EastEnders fan (let's gloss over the fact that they filmed the scenes in nearby Seaford and just called it Peacehaven). Anyway, Martine departed EastEnders to relaunch her musical career, this time solo, but it was now rather more successful. Something of a nation's sweetheart at the time, Martine debuted at No.1 with the string laden ballad Perfect Moment, a cover of a song originally by Polish singer Edyta Górniak - the same singer was responsible for the original version of One and One by Robert Miles. It was co-written by Wendy Page, who also co-wrote Billie's Because We Want To and Honey To The Bee and featured on beautiful and underrated top 30 hit Eleven To Fly by Tin Tin Out in 1999. The track is a nice ballad, very well sung by Martine, but not exactly a classic radio staple and not one I would very often seek out to listen to either. It was also rather dated sounding on release, the production coming off more like a mid-90s production. But Martine followed this with a few more hits, the other biggest being one I really did enjoy, I'm Over You in late 2000. She also went back to acting and prominently starred in the 2003 Christmas blockbuster Love Actually. As you can imagine, with Martine's UK soap star roots, the song barely impacted outside the UK but did reach No.3 in Ireland.

Weirdly Snowman seems to reach No.1 in Norway every year, not sure why they've taken to it so much. It's a nice song, a winter ballad. I always thought Santa's Coming For Us would be the biggest hit from the album.

Majestic comeback single, that's how it's done. Great genre switch to suit the 2006 charts, and not some naff single trying to recreate their heyday, but you could see also how it was a sonic successor to the likes of Back For Good. I ended up preferring Shine, Rule The World and The Flood and even so Patience is a record I rank very highly, there will never be a bigger or better pop band comeback on a commercial level and, for about four years at least until the Progress era, a quality level.

The Kato song is a blast from the past, I recognised it immediately when I pressed play from a couple of Swedish compilations I have - must have been a hit there 15 years ago. It’s at the top of Spotify’s Big on the Internet playlist so maybe it will show up in that chart once all the Christmas songs disappear.

Finally the Vault reopens for 1982, out January 16th. Thank goodness David Sylvian is on here.

Westlife - If I Let You Go Rank: 6/10 Reason: On we plod back to you know who, and Westlife's second single was better than Swear It Again, straight from the Cheiron studios and, like many other big pop singles, written by a team of Swedes. With a strummed guitar intro, this track is then all about being too afraid to let somebody you have feelings for know how you feel about them. That's pretty much it but no doubt it was commercial catnip for a teenage girl audience at the time. Lead vocals are shared by Shane, Mark and Brian this time, and it's another string laden affair but with more to it than its predecessor and complete with a beach video with horses! The best part of this track is without doubt the dramatic key change/getting up off the stools moment, and then the final minute is actually good to be fair and very classic boyband, it just takes a while to set up that payoff. This might have been a 7/10 for me BUT for the fact that I have a bone to pick with it. The label will have no doubt expected another easy No.1 on a week with nothing happening but Alice Deejay were in the middle of a heroic should have been climb to No.1 with Better Off Alone, which had continued to increase sales week after week and was ready to complete the 4-3-2-1 move this week before Westlife got in the way. Now I COULD blame Alice Deejay's label Positiva for leaving the radio edit off the CD single, which only featured club mixes (Now 43 was the only way to get the radio edit at the time, or a 'Short Cut' mix was on the cassette single), but I'm going to blame Westlife's label for their scheming timing that we would see over and over again for the next few years. Those seven straight No.1s from debut had more than a whiff of fortunate timing to some of them, including this one. Better Off Alone ran this incredibly close and Westlife's record run almost never got off the ground, but the No.1 went to the Irish and Alice Deejay never got their moment in the sun. This was a popular song in Europe, reaching No.1 in Ireland and Norway too, top ten in Sweden, Finland and more. And it's their second biggest song on Spotify, with 219m streams, behind My Love on 296m, which somebody will have to tell me the appeal of.

Scissor Sisters had so many classics on their debut that deserved higher peaks, but I Don't Feel Like Dancin' wasn't undeserving of being their No.1 hit. It's a great karaoke number when trying to imitate Jake's falsetto, I do get the Bee Gees comparison for sure. I think on balance I would probably pick Take Your Mama and Laura over it but the debut raised their profile so much that it wasn't surprising this was well set up to be their biggest hit. Sexyback was pioneering in many ways to herald in the Timbaland sound that dominated for the next couple of years, but it's not necessarily one I love personally.

Boyzone - When The Going Gets Tough Rate: 5/10 Reason: I'm just flip flopping between the two big Irish boybands here but between them and Ronan they took up a lot of 1999's No.1s. For the Comic Relief single, Boyzone released a cover of the 1985 No.1 When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going, by Billy Ocean. I don't ever really feel the need for a major act to cover No.1 singles from recent history - 1985 to 1999 is what 2011 is to today, to me it still feels relatively recent. Also this cover is very barely changed from the original. But it was for charity and I guess they usually go for something recognisable to the general public to maximise exposure. In its defence, they did a fair job with the song and it suits them. The video features a lot of comedians and other actors and presenters from the time, many who are still known today like Jo Brand, Davina McCall, Harry Hill, Graham Norton and, for some reason, the cast of Emmerdale, including Lisa Riley who has just been on I'm A Celeb here. The song is decent and good fun, and does bring back memories of it being around at the time, and the lead vocals are well split between Ronan and Stephen. Being released in aid of a UK charity, the track wasn't really pushed far elsewhere and got to No.2 in Ireland and charted low in a few European countries but that was it. This was the last hurrah for Boyzone's original era in my mind, because You Needed Me and Every Day I Love You were so forgettable that they may as well have been left completely. And by that point, the band were old news, it was all about Westlife. But five years on top was a good innings.

Well, the finale was just ok for me. Lots of things hanging in the air but I guess it's ok and realistic as life moves on and we don't know what will happen next if we are not there to see it. But 2022 was very special, I rewatched it about four times. Doubt I'll sit through this one again, but it was fine and some nice returnees. But not devastated it's ending this time, it's two and a half hours I'll get back every week anyway 🤣

Would big artists really still clear the same numbers in late December though as if they released their single in summer? November yes maybe but they’d be much further down the chart by Christmas. A major act releasing a non seasonal single on Christmas week these days might get one or two big days before everyone goes straight back to their Christmas playlists, and I fear a lot of the major artists know this. In December 2020 we had Taylor lead Willow dive 3-37 and Ed’s Afterglow debuted at No.30 after being tipped as a potential late Christmas No.1 raid by some - I wouldn’t be surprised if Ed himself thought it might be in the mix even though he said words opposite to that effect at the time. I know there were other reasons for their performances but I suspect they were enough to put some other artists off. To me it feels like 50k is a mountain to climb for any non Christmas song in mid to late December, much harder to achieve than any other time of the year. Harry Styles could probably do it with a lead single right now but even so, why risk it. January sales would be much bigger and any new song would be given much more support and hype then. Until the Christmas songs are moved out of the way somehow I don’t see things changing.

Yes, it has basically killed off the Christmas No.1 race for good until something changes, and also more or less shut down the UK music industry in December. Surely at some point something will be changed although if the songs were just moved to another chart like Australia, by their rules wouldn't Amazon exclusives just run rampant at No.1 here every year, as Australia are moving songs older than two years over rather than Christmas songs specifically.

Not bottom three for my favourite, I want a refund on my points for the song that were deducted! Well done Rob, Allie X you can’t really go wrong with in a pop contest. Also to Chez (I saw them supporting Saint Etienne about a decade ago and their sound system wasn’t working so she was just singing with no sound or mic and didn’t realise)! And Herbs for another PFSC podium - you’re good at this! Thanks very much All Star for hosting, I found some great songs here and pleasantly surprised with 12th too as it wasn’t the most accessible of songs. Three 12s is wonderful - late thanks to Dobbo for his. But thanks to all the voters!

Glad Remi got her memory back, I guess that was always going to happen though. Agreed on Krista, but then I guess she would have got pregnant before she told Leo she didn't want a baby (but presumably around the same time as agreeing to the Nicolette arrangement), so maybe they didn't use protection until after that. Beyond that it's been quite a dull week really, nothing like the great 2022 finale.