gooddelta

Not one I tend to play out of choice but decent drum and bass, and a good summer 2012 No.1. I think I was more invested in Euphoria, which was No.3 on the same week. I think These Days and Give Me Your Love were my favourite singles in the end from Rudimental and John Newman, respectively.

For how many of those 23 straight qualifiers was Cor Lupus a 'surefire DNQ' then? Along with being incredible at predicting what others will like and having a music taste that broadly aligns with the contest at large, to get a streak that long you also need to adapt to changing trends, especially after 7 years of qualification. I've noticed Hendinia in the last year or so sending entries that are not just straight pop but that have slightly more alt and electronic appeal too. Imo nobody can rely on just one voting bloc for consistent success, especially with the way the semis end up split sometimes. What if you send straight pop and only get a handful of other pop countries in your semi? You need at least some degree of crossover appeal there. Also, I never really see many of the countries with 20+ qualifying in like 19th or 20th spot in the semi, so it's not like they are scraping in by the skin of their teeth. I suspect all of them have had a few lucky scrapes but you need a bit of luck on your side along with everything else mentioned above to build streaks that long. It is fun to try to build streaks that long, and obviously super impressive, although in my experience the longer my streaks went on the more risk averse I became, and I'd end up with a run of very middling results with few real contenders for a while. So there are also pros to not getting through every time, it definitely does act as a reset. Not sure I'd have sent Mushroom One during a very long streak.

Submitted. It's the strangest song I heard this year, that's for sure, despite HENGE existing.

I missed that first episode at the time as we were still away in Tenerife and hadn't set a VHS to record, so it was cool to finally see it now. Clearly I had no internet access over there (not unusual in early 2000 but we had it back at home), because I remember checking the charts on my return to the UK a day or two after, and being gobsmacked that Don't Give Up had got to No.1, and that Five ended up at No.9, I had almost expected the reverse to happen. I didn't see Chicane/Bryan coming at all. Don't Wanna Let You Go is definitely not great and felt like a slightly weird March single to me anyway, it had a kind of autumnal Halloween vibe to me for some reason. Either way, their star was at the highest it had been at that point so No.9 made little sense to me at the time, and still doesn't. Not a fan of Bag It Up or Killer (usually love ATB but this was more or less identical to Adamski apart from the added pitch bending sound) but I like All The Small Things and love Still D.R.E. Also nice to see Lene Marlin unexpectedly climb into the top five, and I didn't mind Mama Told Me Not To Come, impressive really that Tom Jones chalked up so many big hits from one album! Annoyed at the missing episodes considering some of the great hits from those weeks.

I really enjoyed that Coldplay album, I prefer Every Teardrop which for me is magical, but I liked Paradise too, the verses are very strong in particular and it was good to see them get another No.1. Somebody That I Used To Know is wonderful, in my top 100 songs of all-time, along with another two songs still left to come actually. It's so effective melodically, with that Baa Baa Black Sheep style melody giving it a nursery rhyme quality, but I love the tender verses and the more dramatic chorus, and it works so well as a duet. I was so shocked it became so big, definitely an unusual song to sell so well. Also another song that BJSC failed as it was sent and didn't make the top 10 there. But then to be fair it's one of those songs that crept up massively on me too, it was in my semi and I did give it a few points but ended up loving it so much more over time.

Nice job @Jessie Where ! I could have made 100,000 predictions and never would have guessed Shakira, Madonna + Kylie, and Ultra Naté being in the top 10 simultaneously.

Confirmed something I've been liking for a few months.

Oh Numayania didn’t deserve that, that was so charming - I’d have given it a few for sure, felt kind of Trifoski meets Greenfroze for me in a good way. On the other hand, 19 points for sure is a lot for a song that surely was created with the prompt ‘motivational Afrohouse music for ‘live love laugh’ Facebook posts’. I’m sure you would get something close if you fed that into Suno anyway.

Thanks Harve for hosting! All caught up and happy with the results. I did lose a couple and sad for Zephyra and Dobago I had to give some for effort, and I have always liked the hook of the track, especially the brass band part.

Thank you all so much! ❤️ So happy to be part of it again. Some great Semi 2 highs in already.

Kind of unbelievable that Call Me Maybe was sent to BJSC a fair bit before release and only came 6th, in a contest that favours pop a lot, especially back then. It just felt for a long time like another 'blog pop' internet popular kind of song that would never have any commercial success. Because how many pop songs by Canadian Idol contestants from years back get a major global push and become mega No.1s? But sometimes a great song speaks for itself so I'm glad it broke through the way it did, the punctuating strings work so well on it as as well as everything described above by RFC. Carly really became a pop giant of the 2010s, from unexpected beginnings.

Agreed on all of these positions from what's left. Elitsa and Stoyan were robbed second time out. Bangaranga absolutely came to life on stage. I didn't do any rankings this year but I only enjoyed about 10 songs and this was one of them, however it would have been in the lower end of that 10 until I saw it performed - wow, what a star. Nailed everything.

Also the airport stuff for anybody that knows London was off. For a start, filming was done at Stansted but we were supposed to believe they were at City as they couldn't have reached the other airports in time. But City is a tiny mostly business traveller airport, not like that huge airport on screen with loads of restaurants and shops, and it certainly isn't somewhere you would hang around before security as there's nothing there apart from a small cafe. And no matter what airport she was at anyway, Sheila was just lingering around before security with Jordan for ages for what reason exactly, as Denise and Kim certainly didn't go through security, they were all still in the main arrivals area. If you're on the run with a kid, you would surely get out of the area anyone without a ticket/flight can be as soon as possible. I think as I'm in these two airports all the time for work it made even less sense to me, but certainly other things have been far more far fetched as listed above! I thought the same about the club door with the window Lindsey, like where did that appear from!

Oh I love the Avicii style atempt, nice work! These are really strong, nicely produced vocals on them too.

Thanks Mango, the software came with various royalty-free vocal samples, so I cut a few up and spliced different ones together (think they were repitched as well possibly).

A couple of songs that I like but don't love in Hot Right Now and Sweet Nothing. I did really enjoy the Spectrum remix though (really loved the Ceremonials album too and the original on there). Beneath Your Beautiful is lovely, Emeli's part especially, I wasn't too much of a fan of some of Labrinth's vocal straining in parts. However overall I enjoyed it, and that chart soar makes me think back to how far a great X Factor performance could take a song if people actually liked what they saw and heard (as some performances barely moved the needle).

It was in my top three of the semi, but I'm not in it. Vote Herbilore!

I think the Coldplay song was kind of like a promo single now. Serviced to radio, and I’m sure there were promo singles, but not a full commercial release. The first album had Don’t Panic at the end of the campaign which was a fairly similar situation iirc.

Voted in Semi 2. Actually really enjoyed the semi and could happily have voted for at least five or six more. The order of my top two was a toss up for sure, both very up my street. I have checked Semi 1 as well and didn't think it was as strong on the whole but still some great songs in there that I would like to see get through so I can support in the final.

That 2003 playlist reminds me what a headstart on radio White Flag had over Where Is The Love. Such a shame they came out the same week so Dido didn't get a No.1. This was just a few weeks before I started college, I was in the weird no man's land summer holiday between finishing school and starting college (and working my first job that summer), so many songs here remind me of working in Asda and hearing them played in there (Beyoncé, Deepest Blue, Jaimeson), while a few others moving up the playlist ahead of release remind me of my first few weeks at college (Dido, Black Eyed Peas, Christina/Lil' Kim). It also feels notably 'cooler' than the 1999 playlist recently posted when you look at the list of songs that weren't playlisted, so some time between 1999 and 2003 Radio 1 decided to dial down the cheesier and more fun stuff somewhat. I do remember Breathe feeling like it came a bit out of nowhere to No.1 so it figures that Radio 1 weren't playlisting it.

Craig David. No.8 for a lead single after such a huge album, and when it was very easy for A-list artists to score high debuts with brand new material, says it all really. I did feel for him though because Bo Selecta, which had launched a couple of months before this single, portrayed him as a joke, and then this single sounded like one. He pulled it back with Rise and Fall in 2003 at least, but it was a very harsh period for him.

Nothing wrong, just the fact he gets a big leg up on all of these albums so often, appearing on Extras when songs are more suited to the Vault (going by chart success), opening a disc here when so many bigger acts could have done. I think this will be about the 14th Yearbook release he's appeared on, yet he made the top 40 four times as a solo artist. I don't think any artist should be given a better deal personally just because the compiler likes them. It would be like me compiling late 90s/early 00s yearbooks and featuring everything by Sarah McLachlan or Jewel that made no impact here.

Release date not stated yet, the Now group mole Graham posted the info early. David Sylvian starting a disc, give me strength 😫 As is often the way, I don't know many of these so lots to discover. Candy by Cameo is a classic though, and surely notable enough to have been on at least the Extra. Eurythmics next to The Lover Speaks is good sequencing considering Annie had such a big hit with her cover. Happy to see Sandie Shaw's cover of Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?

Yeah the irony wasn't lost on me at the time haha. Then the third winner also had love in the title 🤯