gooddelta

Gotta Get Thru This I echo what I said in the last thread - very strong debut from a promising new talent! Sound of the Underground would possibly be second or third for me, I thought it was a stormer of a debut single and a kick up the backside for British pop (or certainly reality show pop as Sugababes delivered on that front too in 2002). Louis Walsh of all people helping with such a credible and fresh debut, when the easy option would have been to go with the Stay Another Day cover! I fondly remember buying this on release week (along with Love Inc's You're A Superstar) and thinking 'this is such a brilliant track, surely One True Voice can't beat this' but I expected the latter to win even so with the teenage girl boyband adoration advantage. If they had had a decent song they still might have done but Sacred Trust was fortunately as naff as they come. It's rare that a winner's/coronation single can stand proud in an artist's back catalogue years down the line but this is still definitely up there with Girls Aloud's very best.

Just listening through and Symmetry shouted 'single' at me for sure, maybe it will be one. Old Phone, A Little More and Camera don't really feel like singles or even focus tracks, surprised he chose them as they're weaker retreads of stuff he has done before whereas Azizam and Sapphire (and Symmetry) are super fresh but without losing his identity.

RontBet aren't going to disagree too much with the prediction above but going to stick my neck out above despite Nuovo looking on paper like an obvious winner and say that Aeroche will do it and they will be 2nd again. The song sounds like an Aeroche classic to me, and it's very accessible - to the pop voters too I would imagine. I don't think it will be a landslide for any one entry though as several sound big. Summericia definitely feels like the biggest pop song and if the pop voters are out in force, you never know. Neliönoir could easily do it too. Not sure I quite see a Dandy* double, but it's in with a shot. I'd be surprised at any outside this five winning. Top 5: 2/1 Aeroche • sim0ne • space cadet 3/1 Ajanaeda • Nuovo Testamento • Dream On 4/1 Neliönoir • Night Tapes • storm 5/1 Summericia • Avery Cochrane • Shapeshifting On A Saturday Night 6/1 Fljótavík • Joon Gloom • Joker Top 10/15 contenders: 12/1 Altyr Muunilinst • Krewella • Crying On The Dancefloor 12/1 Danæviia • Levi.Sct • Technotude 14/1 POPHub • Magdalene • Lucky Girl 15/1 Hendinia • Frost Children • WHAT IS FOREVER FOR 15/1 Kathaldazia • MERCY • POSSESSION 18/1 Elëdan • Nicolás Jaar • Aquí 18/1 Pestolia • ivri • tower of memories 18/1 FSR Rontvia • ARGO • Korku 20/1 Kluminican Republic • Swank Mami • Baddiez 20/1 Zanmatony • Dan Deacon • Feel The Lightning 20/1 Cor Lupus • Tsatsamis • Sweet Praise Hopefully Skall will defy the odds for a decent finish!

1. Chappell Roan - The Subway 2. ARGO - Korku 3. Tommi Aura - Blush 4. Girls Aloud - Singapore (Definitive Version) 5. CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY 6. Olivia Dean - Man I Need 7. Sarah McLachlan - Gravity 8. Regan & Bricheno - OPHELIA 9. Sabrina Carpenter - Nobody's Son 10. Minami - Kawaki o Ameku [Crying For Rain] 11. HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI - Golden 12. Sarah McLachlan - Better Broken 13. Marina Kaye - Homeless 14. Empara Mi - Closer to Heaven 15. Belén Aguilera - Laberinto 16. Ninajirachi - Infohazard 17. Tensnake - Capitano 18. Laufey - Lover Girl 19. Amy Sheppard - Country Country 20. Perrie - If He Wanted To He Would

Thank you, that would be amazing!

I was so sad about the show ending two years ago but not so much now. Agree with T Boy that the Holly/Andrew thing makes me squirm, and I hate the Remi memory loss storyline too, as she was probably my favourite of the 'new' characters and it just feels like a different person now. Also never been fond of 'new' Nell, the actress has a very strange over emotive but not in a believable way kind of acting style. Agree on new Elle too although quite impressed with the actress getting the mannerisms spot on, it's just weird seeing how different she looks to Pippa Black. Not really sure where they're going with the last few months to wrap these stories up in a satisfying way.

Weird to have no new entries at all in the top ten on that first week! Did a lot of songs underperform against expectation or was it just a release schedule lull for some reason? Nice that it let Stranded reach the top three though ❤️ If only Brandy and Monica or Mousse T had gone a week earlier! Both excellent records that deserved No.1 (especially the timeless The Boy Is Mine) but C'est La Vie is such a great pop track - for me this signalled the very peak of the bubblegum pop boom, there's just no way this song (or Rollercoaster) would have been No.1 a couple of years earlier, or later - at least with that really playful production style it has! It really captured the colourful fun that the public craved in 1998. How bizarre to see Feel It fall to No.4 with such a big sales increase that week. Chart music was really starting to creep into my daily life at this point - I remember some kids at school asked me if I'd heard of B*Witched and I said 'yes the 60s comedy, why's that?', to which people laughed as clearly I was out of the loop then. And then with Horny I remember thinking it was called Honey for ages and didn't get the lyric and asked my family to explain the meaning to me 🙃

Apparently just in time for this thread (thanks to a PopJustice member although not Pop Music Activism), the UK radio edit of Stranded is now available to stream. It is only very slightly pitched up from the album version but it does make a difference to me, and reminds me of the same situation with Little Bit Of Lovin' by Kele Le Roc, where currently only a slightly slower album version is available.

I think I'd probably put Asereje in the top ten too, funnily enough I wasn't wild about it at the time but when I hear it now it's quite a delight, and I seem to have memorised every word. Always good to see a foreign language song become so huge here (although I know it had English in the verses). Anyone Of Us is a very solid pop song, my favourite single to come from him or Will that year although it's still a bit formulaic and maybe belonged a little more to 2000 than 2002, it felt like pop was moving away from this sound by this point but British pop took a while to catch up with the changes happening in the US (although Girls Aloud still to come definitely didn't play by the 2002 rules). I'd probably put it a little lower, but not by much. My Sweet Lord is a brilliant song and a classic and it was so great to see George at No.1 for the only time in my lifetime (the only solo Beatle to get a No.1 in my lifetime!). But yes, ranking it in a 2002 context is tricky. No idea where I'd put it.

So glad you like ❤️

Voted! A solid mix of guitar-based nuggets here indeed but 10 particularly stood out to me which made voting easier than usual. Some really good discoveries.

BuzzJack attracts a younger demographic too than some other bands who have high charting week one albums thanks to devoted fanbases made up of mostly middle aged men (e.g. Saint Etienne, Pet Shop Boys), but whose fans don't really spill over much onto Buzzjack outside a few members. Popjustice forum moreso, yes. And just look at Record Store Day every year, and the queues it attracts at record shops. You won't find many of those people on BuzzJack but they are all music fans who are devoted to certain artists and getting up at silly o'clock to get hold of exclusive records by them. A lot of it is skewed towards rock and guitar music but not always these days. All sorts of male acts have devoted fanbases who we just don't see on BuzzJack, but you can see it in the charts from the crazy priced boxsets that make it in sometimes.

Confirmed and excited to hear what people have sent!

Yes, I suppose a lot of bands who made a big deal about splitting up (with a defined last singe) ended with a reflective ballad that was often atypical of their usual output - Vengaboys, Five, S Club (less so as they had the big Children In Need ballads).

Dirrty I get the attraction of and it’s a very unique song and strong and mature comeback moment for Christina but it’s not one I ever personally loved, although I adore all of the other singles from Stripped and the album as a whole. I actually didn’t buy Stripped until I heard Beautiful as I was so nonplussed by the lead single and disposable income was hard to come by for me then! Without Me is a bit of comic genius I think, one of Eminem’s many classics and up there with My Name Is and The Real Slim Shady in terms of his lighter work. I would definitely have it a little higher in mine.

They say it says the following: "ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT"

@Philip It looks like some individual members are having issues getting on. The forum has been ok for me all evening but e.g. @uhsting says they haven't been able to get on for over an hour. Not sure what is happening there but just to make you aware!

And our 18 POINTS go to...I'm sorry, it's a bad line... can this meeting be an email? (I will vote soon)

Hero was the Whole Again of 2002 - a four week No.1 huge around Valentine's Day, which went big at my school and turned an artist who had previously had a few smaller hits into a really big deal, didn't the parent album sell like 1.5m somehow? That said, Whole Again was initially a surprise No.1 for me whereas I thought this was an obvious huge smash on the first listen. It's a decent enough song musically, I'd rank it around the same place, although Enrique's vocal is extremely overblown on it, especially at the end. I prefer Escape.

Tweenies. I'm far from a fan of Blazin' Squad but this is the only single of theirs I would probably actively put on (sparingly, but still).

Going for Anastacia - pretty good track but not as much a favourite as the other five. Doesn’t Really Matter is underrated for me, a very breezy track and I remember it from seeing the film at the time.

Don't Cha, not really a big favourite of mine despite being catchy.

One of their better tracks, for sure. Although it got lucky with the release week (as Westlife often did), as Shakira would have beaten it if she hadn't inexplicably released on the same week as Will Young.

Aeroche.

Can I split £5k evenly on Ajanaeda, Aeroche and Summericia please to cover my losses? Should win very big at YukiHill!