gooddelta

1. A*Teens - Iconic 2. Ericka Jane - Death Of Me 3. DJ Suzy - White Rabbit 4. Robyn - Talk To Me 5. Hubert Kah - Limousine 6. Loreen - Feels Like Heaven 7. K3 - Trouwen 8. Agnes - LOVESONGS 9. Avery Cochrane - Griever 10. Cherry Bomb - Never Be Me (M★therf★cker) 11. Harry Styles - Aperture 12. Agnes - WAKE UP 13. Jacqline - Woman 14. Greczula - Half Of Me 15. Ema Vella - ACHIKUKU (Don't Think About It) 16. KUZKO - when it starts with an s 17. Tove Styrke - Prayer 18. Agnes - BALENCIAGA COVERED EYES 19. voXXclub - Alpengirl 20. Tyla - Chanel

Yeah I remember a lot of those big pop acts relied on basically everything but Radio 1 (Top of the Pops, CD:UK, Smash Hits magazine, The Box etc etc), but R1 were not keen. I don't see any reason why It's The Way You Make Me Feel shouldn't have at least been on the C-List, it's just snobbery to leave it off, it was a great pop single. Certainly it was better than that awful Dane Bowers single they C-listed, so clearly they were judging on artist and not song when it came to pop 🤣

That scoreboard really wouldn't surprise me, so watch it be completely different altogether. I'm still not overly convinced on the Valencia win though - it is definitely a more likely hit than the last entry but I think the one Herbs sent to PFSC that came third sounded comfortably bigger.

1. Agnes – BEAUTIFUL MADNESS 2. MIKA - Hyperlove 3. Robbie Williams - BRITPOP 4. Zach Bryan – With Heaven On Top 5. Joost – Kleinkunst 6. Alexander Rybak – Fairytales Too 7. Nerina Pallot – Into The Light Of A Dark Black Night 8. Lia Larsson - DUNKA 9. Dry Cleaning – Secret Love 10. Madison Beer - locket

Entered! Although if the act is taken I have a few backups, who I expect will also show up here anyway! And yes, phew at the opportunity to get Lady Buzzjack back.

I bought way too many of those on single (eight)! I presume Radio 1 snubbed It’s The Way You Make Me Feel by Steps or had chucked it off already? They used to be very snobby with Steps.

Iconic must be the highest a Melodifestivalen song has gone on iTunes before winning since Tattoo crept into the top ten when it was first released in February 2023. It's a shame Iconic almost certainly won't win like that did and go to Eurovision, so it's as high as it's ever going to go but people have certainly been positive about the group's comeback!

Intrigued as to why The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan by Marianne Faithful has now appeared on both Now Timeless albums as well as Now That's What I Call Gold - The Ultimate Hits. I'm not disputing it's a great song but it only got to No.48 in the first place, surely another of her tracks could have been used on the other albums? I'm amazed they doubled up any songs at all on the Now Timeless albums (it's not like there's a shortage of songs considered classics), but the ultimate crime on the new one is to not include any Eternal songs on this album that has the ridiculous subtitle 'The Eternal Collection'.

Incredibly soulless and phoned in cover. The only surprise is that it took X Factor so many years to do a group single. At least these songs were met with diminishing returns in sales as each year went on though, even if they all did get to No.1.

Somebody definitely needs to average out all of the full sets posted and see how that matches the final result. Surely the collective hivemind should get somewhere close...

Where Is The Love

Loved the performance of Iconic, glad it got to the final and they seemed so happy with the reaction from the public. Nice that both DTF songs were somewhat schlager-esque! I did like the Greczula song, and relieved Jacqline has another chance too, it's more of a grower than Effortless but is still great. I don't think I'll return to the other three songs (the awful Copacabana definitely not).

Erase/Rewind ❤️ By far my favourite new entry across the two shows. I remember buying it from Our Price on this week, it was probably the most 'indie' sounding single I'd bought up to that point (I was 11). Still obsessed with the track, it has the coolest production and vocal from Nina. I'm seeing them live for the first time in June and can't wait to see this one performed. We Like To Party is great fun and it's the only track I think Denise has a lead vocal on? As they switched back to Kim from the next single onwards. Denise did a great job on that, she should have had more lead vocals. For how huge a single ...Baby One More Time was, TOTP may as well have pretended it didn't exist. I know Britney couldn't perform due to injury but to only show a massively edited version of the video was a bit harsh. It feels wrong that the song only spent two weeks at No.1. Some great new entries elsewhere - Lullaby I have always loved and 56,000 is huge sales for No.9, that week was big all round though, so high in the top three! Strong Enough was very different to Believe but is still one I hear around a fair bit, a good disco number from Cher. I've got no recollection of how the Elton/Leann song goes, although I remember it happened. No plays for As or Nothing Really Matters, but I thought both of those were good tracks, As was so huge on the radio that year, it felt much bigger than No.4, but did have some high sales to get there. When The Going Gets Tough is a bit of a standard cover that doesn't really change the original but it at least had a pulse unlike Boyzone's other covers and I remember the video with all of the guest comedians and Emmerdale stars very well. The Jay contender for Eurovision at the end of the first show was awful, definitely the weakest of the four shown, like a boyband reject track. And the E-17 song on the second show wasn't much better. I really liked Each Time, but Betcha Can't Wait had no real redeeming features.

Also gone for James. Shame for Flux, a banger!

Kate for me too. Blurry is great indeed.

Oh yes, it definitely happens a lot because we all look at other people's predictions and copy their homework a bit while adding our own thoughts too. So often you'll see six or seven songs matching in people's top tens and then only two or three of those make it because we'd all accidentally crowded around the same songs to predict.

Agreed, but I had this happen to me in HMV last year when I was buying the 30th anniversary edition of Take That's Nobody Else. The cashier sneered and said something like 'oh dear, are Take That still a thing?'. As the last major music chain left on the high street I don't want it to close but they need to really excel at service to survive, which some branches don't really.

If Land of DW get a second consecutive flop having sent one of my top favourites then I will despair, come on alt bloc this one is amazing. It’s a great contest but I’m definitely out of sync with the favourites - I think I voted for only a couple in the consensus top tens coming up.

Amazing to see them back together and this sounds decent. Good production. I love the Here Come The Drums album too. When I was clearing boxes yesterday I found my Voodoo Child CD single, that was my third favourite song of 2006, amazing track.

The Rontvian votes are in. Well done everyone, it's a great start to the year in terms of quality and I'd have been happy to vote for about 25 songs. My top five is absolutely great, and all 18 worthy.

Easily Delta. Mad World has never been a cover I'm overly fond of unfortunately.

I unfortunately had a water leak at home from the flat above that lasted for nearly two years (true story), so anything with water/dripping sounds is like a nightmare to me. But still there were quite a few entries I liked less than that 🤣 But I've got my shortlist down to 26 songs I really like so just need to trim again. My top five is so good though.

The first six songs are out: Greczula - Half Of Me I really like this song a lot, more than last year too. It's like ABBA meets Queen meets Elton John, with some early 00s Melodifestivalen winner influence (Friends/Fame). Jacqline - Woman This is great and will definitely grow on me too, I immediately love the production on it. I don't get the feeling it's as good as Effortless, my overall favourite song of the 2024 competition, or will do as well as that, but then that was completely robbed in the end in the final so who knows. noll2 - Berusade ord I can't remember much about this after just listening to it, so it probably doesn't bode that well. Fairly pleasant I think. Junior Lerin - Copacabana Boy Oh dear, it's like Sean Banan doing Alors On Danse, and not in a good way. It worries me a bit that the younger kids will go for this though. Indra - Beautiful Lie Very good production, atmospheric with shades of being a Bond theme or a track by Billie Eilish. Her voice on the studio version is a bit like Adele with more of a husk, I'm looking forward to seeing the performance. A*Teens - Iconic Oh this is a comeback! I can completely see how this fits with their older music while giving it a modern touch but appealing to older voters too. The piano gives me Eiffel 65 vibes and the chorus is impactful pop. The bigger artists definitely delivered for me in this heat, Half Of Me, Woman and Iconic are all going straight onto my playlist ❤️ Hope they all make it further, along with Indra.

The track should have been much bigger than it was although it did have such bad/unfortunate release timing. For a start it was released the day before September 11th happened, so I don't think spooky/darker pop music was what people were in the mood for after that (the naff escapism of Bob The Builder and DJ Ötzi were at the top...). But also, I can't fathom why it hadn't been planned to be released five or six weeks later anyway to capitalise on Halloween and hype it up as a new spooky song for then.

Will Young for me.