Iz様 🌟

Was rooting for Japan (shocker) but they played that very excitingly, good match certainly in the second half.

Good effort from Curaçao to get a goal and hold the Germans to a fairly even keel for about 30 minutes, the latter half was as we all expected but that's also part of this expanded list, a few lopsided matches like that.

Yeah I'd also have 'Glad You Came' a little higher I imagine, I liked how it was leaning into the summery dance trends that were taking off and I find it more interesting than 'All Time Low' at least in sound, lyrically it's a bit eh.

Does sound like it tracks with Restore, aghast at them actually having any form of real-world relevance, though I am also continually aghast at Reform so w/e, go split the vote

True, most of the super-rich's wealth is in a company's assets, or other stock, equities, investments of various kinds and any other kind of financial asset. Vast majority of it is illiquid, they don't have ready access to instantly withdraw it all and spend $X billion and for company owners like Musk, keeping it illiquid so he retains majority share control over his allegedly public company is the most important use of this wealth. Direction of the company controlled by shareholders? Not if he can outvote anyone else who has a share.

I had blocked out all memory of that one existing until I did research into this set of charity singles for my thread, could have sworn they only did 3 of those. it's so so bad, no cohesive sound, gratuitous 'JLS! 1D!', good first one out.

Tesla has been an irrational blight on the stock market for years already, most automobile manufacturer stocks are in the pits while it trades like it's trying to be part of the Mag 7 (Google, Microsoft, Amazon et al), sure it has some non-car arms like battery storage but not to the point it should be worth a 1.5 trillion market cap, I imagine SpaceX will be similar as it rolls Starlink and Musk's AI stuff into it. And then, yes, wouldn't be surprised if he tries to combine everything he has into some X-shaped company, urgh. There's something about him which makes the type of people who invest in stocks get drawn to him, I'd say I can't wait for the time that he gets found out and it all comes crashing down but he's the financial equivalent of Trump now, one of the most obnoxious people on earth but with legions of defenders and acolytes that will not accept any critical judgement, so that probably won't happen.

If billionaires shouldn't exist, and they shouldn't, trillionaires... like this should literally be UN-level seizure of assets and trust-busting shit levels, instead his companies are probably going to merge and give him even more power while he rants and promotes far-right hate groups in England and anywhere else he's interested in.

This’ll be the SpaceX IPO that pushed it over the edge, the most overhyped stock market debut in history the modern Edison/Ford with all the comments about their personal character that that comment entails and worse

Looking forward to seeing your take on these songs - the Australian bit sounds like a great bonus as well. Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it so yeah, don't worry at all, it will be interesting to read. Lots of fond memories of some of the songs in 2011, some I remember more clearly being #1 than others, without a list in front of me I couldn't name them all now, and I'll keep it that way for surprise's sake but there's definitely a few favourites and intriguing songs in this thread.

narrow Mexico win, calling it

Thank you to everyone for commenting along with this thread, this has been a really fun journey back into the past for me and I've enjoyed reading all of your comments, no matter whether we agree or disagree, and swapping musical geekery about the past of commercial music is very fun. This is my full ranking for completeness: 1 - Owl City - Fireflies 2 - Tinie Tempah - Pass Out 3 - B.o.B - Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams) 4 - Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World) 5 - Lady Gaga - Bad Romance 6 - Roll Deep - Good Times (feat. Jodie Connor) 7 - Scouting For Girls - This Ain't A Love Song 8 - Tinie Tempah - Written In The Stars (feat. Eric Turner) 9 - Diana Vickers - Once 10 - Yolanda Be Cool - We No Speak Americano (feat. Dcup) 11 - Cee Lo Green - Fuck You 12 - Flo Rida - Club Can't Handle Me (feat. David Guetta) 13 - Lady Gaga & Beyoncé - Telephone 14 - Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are 15 - Taio Cruz - Dynamite 16 - Cheryl - Promise This 17 - Iyaz - Replay 18 - The Wanted - All Time Low 19 - B.o.B - Nothin' On You (feat. Bruno Mars) 20 - Dizzee Rascal - Dirtee Disco 21 - Katy Perry - California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg) 22 - Roll Deep - Green Light 23 - Alexandra Burke - Start Without You (feat. Laza Morgan) 24 - Olly Murs - Please Don't Let Me Go 25 - David Guetta - Gettin' Over You (feat. Fergie & LMFAO) 26 - Jason Derulo - In My Head 27 - Ne-Yo - Beautiful Monster 28 - Usher - OMG (feat. Will.i.am) 29 - Matt Cardle - When We Collide 30 - Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit) 31 - JLS - Love You More 32 - Helping Haiti - Everybody Hurts 33 - Joe McElderry - The Climb 34 - The X Factor Finalists 2010 - Heroes 35 - JLS - The Club Is Alive 36 - Shout For England - Shout (feat. Dizzee Rascal & James Corden) And of course you are all very welcome to post your own if you want!

1. Owl City – Fireflies 3 weeks at #1 (entered 10th January, #1 on week beginning 24th January): 50-02-01-01-01-02-03-08-11-13-15-15-15-15-18-24-29-33-35-38-48-57-60-72-73-66-73-80-87-78-88-83-85-91 Kept off #1: Glee Cast – Don’t Stop Believin’ & Jedward – Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby) [feat. Vanilla Ice] EOY #6 If anyone wanted some spoilers for this, you could have checked my last.fm profile. According to that, and it’s largely accurate, ‘Fireflies’ is one of two songs I have ever played over 200 times. Though I feel it was obvious anyway, as I’m almost certain that whenever one of you lovely commenters has said throughout here that you think you know what my #1 would be, you were thinking of this song. Anyway, here’s The Postal Service. The Postal Service, for the uninitiated, are a collaboration between Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and a synthpop producer Jimmy Tamborello, and Jenny Lewis on background vocals. They had one album, Give Up, that notably had bubbling synthpop production and great heartfelt vocals from Gibbard. On release of ‘Fireflies’ becoming big, this was the cry from music critics, that this was a cutprice Postal Service, that Adam Young of Owl City was emulating Gibbard, that the production was incredibly similar. Of course you can hear some similarities, the best track on Give Up, ‘Such Great Heights’, is a great example. My stance, and I love The Postal Service, is that Young’s music is just what they were doing, but shifted slightly into pop colours, and one such song from that project, ‘Fireflies’, hit the jackpot and was briefly one of the most popular songs in the world. Then it left, and nothing ever quite like it again was ever quite as popular. Truth is, we could have done with more people doing that sound. Adam Young, a multi-instrumentalist from Minnesota, founded or worked on many different musical projects, mostly electronica-related, some just him like 'Sky Sailing', some with others like 'Swimming With Dolphins'. When he hit it big with ‘Fireflies’, originally released as a song of the month, this song was part of a project using the moniker of ‘Owl City’, that he’d used for a few previous electronica albums all about colourful horizons and rainbow veins, the sort of thing that’s either twee nonsense, or his own neurodivergent way of describing the sounds of flying through nature and human cities, seeing the wonders of the world and expressing joy at them. Imagine perhaps a flock of owls flying through the woods outside a Midwestern city or even all across the Northern part of the States. Taking that into account, I think that Owl City more properly had an expiration date as a project – and instead became, because of his success under that name, Young’s default name for releasing music. Newer albums, Cinematic and Coco Moon have far fewer what I would consider ‘Owl City’ songs in style and a lot more songs about Adam Young as an artist. Plus he dropped the electronica for a large part of them, and that was where the magic really happened. I think the reason ‘Fireflies’ became such a big hit when so many electronica sounds remain more indie and underground is this leaning into a bright, optimistic sound that leaves the listener feeling happy and ready to gaze in wonder at the way that Young describes the world. For an artist with so few hits, Young amassed quite a good handful of fans or devotees, I’m certainly one of them and have played all of his albums from Maybe I’m Dreaming to The Midsummer Station excessively, loving nearly every track on there but most especially the album this was on, Ocean Eyes (should have had more hits, 'Umbrella Beach' and 'Vanilla Twilight' were incredible too). To an extent I think my fandom is because, as someone far more on the nerd side of the ‘jock-nerd spectrum’, Young represented an idol for that side of the spectrum – I would never be a Tinie Tempah, going out to clubs and raving, at least as I was at 16, I would be far more likely to be an Adam Young, focusing on somewhat more indoor pursuits to be safe from the world, while being awestruck by the world as I imagined it. ‘Fireflies’ was one of the first songs I properly added to a music player, I think I was using Youtube playlists before this to listen to a few favourites on rotation, but this allowed me to listen without Internet limitations, to a song that instantly captured my attention. The short time it was everywhere was absolutely wonderful and it did quickly become a track that I loved and I think probably everyone in my family did, I certainly remember it being one where there were several conversations I had about it even at the time, and anyone who knows my brother will know he’s probably a bigger Owl City fan than me. Yes it’s very much music that I focused on while younger, but it still hits me just as well when those brilliant bubbling chords start. Yes, ‘Fireflies’ is about insomnia, but even more so it’s about the magical things happening when you try to go to sleep, the pictures of millions of fireflies going across the sky like shooting stars from the backdrop of an idyllic camping trip – it all sounds so bouncy and wonderful, all the instruments, so many of them, violin, cello, synthesizer, piano, guitar working in tandem with one another, like Young’s whole room does in the video, beeping and bopping to take you away to a world of wonder. It’s just a really really special track and it’s not quite that there was nothing else like it, but it managed to bring this sound to the mainstream even if briefly, and I love it in part for that. Seeing it top the charts was something that I wasn’t quite aware of, though I knew it was popular, I wasn’t quite checking the charts obsessively in January, but I certainly was by the end of the year, I knew it was somewhere in the realms of the potentially biggest sellers, in part thanks to its run as the joint-longest #1 of 2010, not exactly a huge achievement and helped by being out at an uncompetitive time, but an achievement nonetheless. Also it seems to have kept off two of the most bizarre #2s of the year from being #1, the Glee Cast would have been a weird but ultimately harmless stint at #1, the popularity of Glee here also giving the wonderful Journey original a revival in the charts at a time when such reappreciations of old songs were the exception rather than the norm; that Jedward and Vanilla Ice thing was clearly lab-created to annoy the most people possible and is obviously horrendous. ‘Fireflies’ came in so high in that End Of Year chart, somehow, it was so glorious how this song became so big. That I do recall being one of the best ways to finish off my first year really following the charts, one of my favourite songs, and even then I sort of knew this, that this would be one of my favourite songs ever, all the way through the decade and a half that has passed since, I have kept it as the cornerstone, one of the best tracks by an artist that I enjoy a lot of tracks from for just how earnestly he wrote about his encounters with the world and life, and then, as now, I like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly.

2. Tinie Tempah – Pass Out 2 weeks at #1 (entered 7th March): 01-01-02-02-05-05-09-13-13-17-24-25-25-24-31-34-34-35-39-41-46-48-50-57-55-56-61-69-71-69-57-43-56-49-53-54-48-47-63-78-75-69-56-36-41-57-58-64-71-61-32-41-52-75-66-72-75-72-88-98-91-89-94-83 Kept off #1: Rihanna - Rude Boy EOY #10 It’s okay, I’m good…. let’s go! I do think it’s quite neat how all of my top 4 were in the end of year top 10, I think that means that for me at least, there was a good overlap in quality, especially given how many of this year’s #1s sales figures are a little embarrassing. The song I’m most surprised is there? ‘Pass Out’. Maybe I shouldn’t be, maybe I was underrating the wide appeal of this song, but it does feel like a miracle that the stars aligned so well for this to be one of the biggest selling hits of the year, because it’s bloody marvellous. Tinie Tempah, particularly with this song, I don’t think was supposed to be as big as he was, despite his bursting onto the scene in a very telegraphed fashion after signing to Parlophone. The label even thought this song was risky and would be a slower burner to set him up as a known name. I think a new rap artist was certainly a good proposition to be signing at this time, but groups like N-Dubz, Chipmunk and Skepta were all over the charts, though a bit off the top spot, and though Tinchy Stryder had 2 #1s the year before, his were a bit different to Tempah’s, and not nearly as good. The secret ingredient Tinie had was Labrinth. As producer, Labrinth adjusted Tinie’s already above par lyrical flow to the demands of the moment, a drum and bass undercurrent that makes this perfect for the dancefloor, but also softens Tinie’s edge just enough without compromising on quality to be heard on radio. Tinie would show a great record of being able to do this with producers while he was the darling of the moment, the wonderful ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’ later in the year just one prominent example. His raps are clear and understandable even over the production, and his lyrics are full of clever turns of phrase and references that would normally be far too obscure to put in a song headed for the top of the charts – the immortal ‘I’ve got so many clothes, I keep some in my aunt’s house’ a rhyme with a lyric from Lethal Bizzle’s ‘Pow’, or just referencing Uncle Fester from the Addams Family for… a reason. While some of these lyrics are standard issue rap braggadocio lyrics, I think they switch topics so much that in a way Tinie is emulating the craziness of being on a night out, whether that’s being famous like him and in his limousine entourage, or being to Southampton but never being to Scunthorpe. All in all though, they fit together so wonderfully, each part of the song dives into the next part with enthusiasm and gusto, ‘Haters, I can’t fucking hear your reception’ or ‘DJ won’t you give me one more track?’ This song is just the platonic ideal of the rap-dancefloor banger, there are few songs I’d rather hear going on when I enter a club, and it’s so fun I’d happily play it many times over. I heard this a few times at the time but initially I was more into ‘Written In The Stars’ because Labrinth’s production grittiness seemed a bit much, but quickly I got over that, and ever since, everytime I listen to ‘Pass Out’, I find something new to appreciate about it – either the great production, a Tinie lyric I hadn’t focused on previously or just the whole great energy running through it. It launched into the charts, sold 92000 copies on week 1, and denied Rihanna a #1 from Rated R. Great track, ‘Rude Boy’, but this is one time where RiRi was really outdone, because ‘Pass Out’ is glorious. I think its impact is quite possibly one of the most important of all of the 2010 #1s, it was quite clearly one of the most long-lasting, but I think it opened up the possibility of UK rap artists to come at the rap game from a different, commercial angle, this was everywhere in dance and house parties for a long time, is easily a modern UK pop-rap classic and while it’s not exactly the grime that future UK rap successes would go for, Tinie’s a great gateway to that side of things. I knew what would be #1 when I started this thread and I’ve never swapped that, but I think ‘Pass Out’ does run the #1 close for me, everything about it is wonderful.

:/ I was joking :/

I've changed my mind, the tournament no longer requires an underdog or unexpected winner. La Marseillaise has always been a bit of a banger

Mazoo and the Zoo don't have more songs about camels, surely?!

3. B.o.B – Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore) 1 week at #1 (entered 6th June, #1 on week beginning 18th July): 23-27-25-12-02-03-01-03-06-07-07-08-10-12-22-23-27-27-27-25-33-41-50-53-62-64-81-87-91-73-58-72-92 Kept off #1: None EOY #7 The image that springs to mind when I think of ‘Airplanes’, for me, is that of being on the balcony in our 2010 holiday apartment on the west coast of Tenerife, looking out over a clear night sky at the sea and the island of La Gomera. We’d just got off a plane ourselves, and there was a plane in this view too, descending towards the island and to the airport some way south of us. Perhaps it’s such a clear. beautiful image that I have associated with this song that causes me to rank it so high. That’s certainly a solid theory. Perhaps it’s the feature from one of my favourite musicians ever, Hayley Williams, who, while she deserves considerably more #1s than just this one with both her solo music and Paramore, does at least have a UK #1 to her name because of this. Which is a very good track. Hayley’s chorus here is certainly not her at her most inspired, but for holding to a simple message and giving off a certain feeling, she delivers so well. Along with the beautiful opening piano line, the immortal words ‘can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shootin’ stars’ are the keystone that holds this song together. Parodied over the years at a number of points, nonetheless it instantly grabs me and paints a mental picture of beauty, the same way I am awe-inspired when I see night light scenes in any context. That’s the real strength of this song though, that through both the music and the singing, it allows you to picture somewhere nice and briefly go there, where the music sounds smooth and great, especially with those little vocalisations that Hayley does in the verses to go alongside her incredible hook. It's so much more evocative and ethereal and beautiful than so many other pop-rap songs and indeed B.o.B's other #1 this year that it's always stood out among the best of that movement. It is very apparent that B.o.B and Hayley never met while recording this song, the verses are so separate from the chorus, the video has Hayley silhouetted in black and in different shots from B.o.B. I don't think this is a point against it though, which is rare for that specific criticism, but with the song's theming that gives off a vibe of 'two ships passing in the night', it makes some sense that the singers aren't necessarily singing this together, and I think it works better this way. The song was written by a handful of B.o.B's collaborators, though mostly the song was an original production by the duo Kinetics & One Love, who released a version of this song on an album called Fading Back To Normal, the existence of which is hard to verify but the stories goes that this is two Cornell University college students handing out their album around New York, someone at Atlantic Records hears it, phones up the duo and asks them to work on a version of this song that has B.o.B and a featured singer, who would eventually be Hayley. Hayley and B.o.B would finally meet and perform the song together at the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards - as for Kinetic & One Love, they seem to have been involved with a few things since, perhaps most notably music from Melanie Martinez. I think the lovely feelings this song gives are a part of the reason it had such a great looking chart run considering this was the download era and not the streaming era, it entered the chart nearly a month before it would be #1, it picked up airplay and awareness and because it remained a popular song, started selling more and more until it managed to sneak a week before making its way down the chart in a very orderly fashion. Doesn't matter too much but what a pretty chart run. If you want to add anything extra, the 'Airplanes Pt. II' that exists and includes Eminem is also a worthy listen, there was a brief trend of giving hit songs part 2 and sometimes even 3 at this time and for the most part I enjoyed these when they showed up. When I put out ‘Nothin’ On You’, I criticised B.o.B for not really adding many memorable lines to his own track. That’s not the case for ‘Airplanes’, the up and coming Georgia rapper adds a very introspective touch here, allowing the whole song to feel as it’s meant to be, a backdrop of relaxing but still lively sound. His lyrics focus on a theme of quiet resilience in the face of adversity, in the first verse making use of a few neat airplane related puns that show his determination through catching a flight, including lyrics like 'there comes a time where you fade into the blackness' which just sounds cool. He could use a wish, he could pretend the airplane is a shooting star, but turns out much better if actually catches the damn flight. Second verse is the best attempt B.o.B has at establishing his identity in his first three singles, the guy from Georgia who grafted, got big and now is not necessarily making the music he wishes to make, but damn he's gonna get back to it, if I were being flippant I would say that that doesn't necessarily include this song but despite it being given to him by the production label, I think this is the most connected to something profound that he ever did. Maybe ‘get a wish to end the politics, and get back to the music that started this shit’ didn’t age too well but as it is, it leads off a great sounding set of lyrics back into the chorus and that's what this whole pop-rap thing was about, making a song that has two distinct parts and having those parts elevate each other. I think when I am listening to this, I am very much awaiting the next part in a positive way, I know what's coming next and that it's something good, I don't think I could ever get tired of this.

Armenia, they're a country that I often wish would give me something to stan, I don't think I have a clear favourite of theirs, it's between 'Jako', 'LoveWave' and 'Apricot Stone' I think, I think those capture the very beautiful image of their country that they have available to them, one of the countries I can easily forgive going balls-out nationalist with, and all have a good bit of excitement between each of them. 'Not Alone' I think is quite good in studio and I agree, it has a great buildup. It's not one I've returned to all that often, although perhaps a bit more than the average Armenian entry, certainly it's better than 'Snap', which is the real one I've never understood, a faceless chart pop song interrupting the vibes, Armenia's a country I expect something solidly decent from a lot of the time. (afraid I don't have a single Andorran entry I think I care for)

I'll take 10 please ^_^

Séyetana's American attachés would suggest that the Beaverdonian entrants be subject to extra visa scrutiny while their "posting strike" is in place. For security reasons.

4. Rihanna – Only Girl (In The World)2 weeks at #1 (entered 31st October, #1 on week beginning 6th November): 02-01-01-04-05-07-05-07-06-06-09-12-21-24-26-30-25-26-32-34-41-38-39-38-52-56-55-52-64-65-74-74-74-72-69-82-89-89-89-98-58-54-66 Kept off #1: Take That – The Flood EOY #4 When I joined Buzzjack and for those of you who weren’t here in 2011 this may seem odd, I was notably a very devoted fan of a red-haired singer, who appeared in my avatar and signature. I was the fan of this artist on the board, citing her unique voice, heartfelt lyrics and perhaps a bit of attraction. Particularly this was because of a very upbeat dance-pop song produced and written by the Norwegian production duo Stargate that I was completely obsessed with such that it helped my teenage self with a bit of a guiding philosophy through the usual problems of adolescence, how to feel like the only girl in the world. That song was ‘Happiness’, the guiding philosophy was ‘be happy’, and the singer was Alexis Jordan, new at #3 the week that ‘Only Girl (In The World)’ climbed to #1. One consequence of my 2010 chart obsession was becoming a fan of Alexis’ short-lived career as she was in just the right time and place for me to feel connected to her. What also connected with me was the monstrously huge and reasonably similar dance-pop song that was at #1 that week, which I love nearly as much - and forgive me, because it's an important distinction, Alexis was cute, Rihanna was sexy. clears that Katy Perry video too So after the Rihanna behemoth fully overpowered the aforementioned 'Promise This' as it became clear which was the more widely enjoyed and better selling song, holding on for two weeks and selling bucketloads in the last month of the year, even as 'Happiness' didn't entirely disgrace itself either, it was clear at the time who was the top girl of the charts at the end of 2010, even as nonsense from TV shows came through the charts, I don't think any song from the final quarter of 2010 holds up as well as 'Only Girl' does. I’ve actually kept my Rihanna love under wraps on this site a lot more than I ever did the somewhat ephemeral Jordan, who was dropped from her label after trying to launch her second album and quit music. Rihanna, who has definitely not quit music, ninth album coming soon guys promise, was for a long time my most played artist ever and I was obsessed with all of her first five albums as a teenager, up to and through the point that she launched her sixth. Her uniquely accented voice made her songs stand out among the rest of pop music, she created a huge variety of exciting and fun songs to listen to, and for a while, she had every bit of the magic touch that you would wish for a popstar, not a foot wrong, insane album production quality and a reliable navy of fans ready to bow to their queen's every whim. I was just in the process of getting obsessed with and worming every bit of the wonderful Rated R album (actually the first album I ever bought for myself on CD!) into my brain when 'Only Girl' came out, a new, bold, fresh and bright look to lead off an ultimately killer pop album, Loud. Also Stargate produced, as my intro was getting at, at the peak of their powers between this, 'Happiness' and Katy Perry's 'Firework', it's a rip-roaring pop song that hits every beat perfectly to emphasise Rihanna as an object of perfection, demanding your attention. As that chart run, and as anyone who has listened to it can attest, it is a showstopper of a song. As someone whose girl was Rihanna in the big popstar wars of the time, it was something I played a lot, and while ultimately I'd always get attached to her slower emotional songs slightly more, this is one of her best efforts at an upbeat barnstormer. There's a few pop songs of the time that can compete with this on production and vocal quality, but not many. 'Only Girl' makes good use of every second of its runtime, everything sounds so well put together, you can really believe Rihanna as she lifts towards 'want you to make me feel' that she absolutely means it, that for this moment it's just you and her, and that's all that matters. The bubbling undercurrent means it never slows down and just moves on perfectly to the next part of the song, I could honestly never stop listening to it. On a technical level, this is probably the best pop song in the countdown and controversially I'm including 'Bad Romance' in that, I think the expertise of this song is so well-done that there was nothing else in 2010 that was quite so... perfect. No slight to it, technical brilliance isn't the only thing we're ranking on here, but it is really really good at being a dancefloor pop song. This and the rest of Loud would be a constant soundtrack to my life for the next 2 years or so, I loved Rihanna's red-haired turn even as much as I'd loved her darker stint on Rated R, I think when you truly love an artist, you appreciate them no matter the vibe of the music they are selling, and while Rihanna was certainly not the only girl, ahem, popstar, I was into at this juncture, by listening to this song, you could easily think that she was.

you know, an American genre that BJSC has NEVER had enough of is metalcore

'Paradise' is certainly an acceptable one to class as a rock song, I also considered 'We Are Young', 'Counting Stars', 'Somebody That I Used To Know', 'good 4 U', 'Too Sweet' as others, even if you were to exclude solo singers for 'the last rock band' you have a few pop rock bands, and SFG aren't too different from these, though part of a slightly different musical moment. End of the British indie landfill for sure. Indeed, 'Good Times' in the second and third weeks had super low sales, 'Ridin' Solo' at #2 on the third week was one of the lowest sales for a #2 all year, it'd be nearly double that for 'Wavin' Flag' a month later. Guess it was indeed more a case of nothing very big at all getting released that May.

5. Lady Gaga – Bad Romance 2 weeks at #1 (entered 1st November 2009, #1 on non-consecutive weeks beginning 13th December 2009 and 3rd January 2010): 14-10-11-08-05-03-01-03-03-01-04-07-09-12-16-20-15-20-24-24-21-27-24-25-35-40-32-41-39-47-58-44-47-52-53-55-59-58-59-63-62-69-59-60-55-70-69-83-76-85-88-88-94-97-x-x-x-x-x-100-95-82 Kept off #1: None in 2010 2009 EOY #17, 2010 EOY #30 How to deal with ‘Bad Romance’ potentially winning something else? It was just last month that the beautiful and incredible Lady Gaga track ranked at the top of Jim’s 2009 thread. I have taken part in and hosted numerous competitions across Buzzjack over the years where this song has stormed to victory in whatever we were ranking at the time. It is unquestionably one of the most beloved tracks of this time period, and it has grown on me with age. It even has some of the best case of any number one to be included in two consecutive years, as its two stints at #1 were not in any kind of overlapping week where there is debate about chart dates, they were two discrete weeks, fully in 2009 and 2010. Could it have won two of these threads in a row if a different set of posters were choosing the ranks? Absolutely, I won’t pre-empt everyone else’s rankings but given how divisive many of the entrants on this list are and how beloved 'Bad Romance' is it might well be #1 in a few of them. Not in mine though. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to rank this according to my own enjoyment of the songs here, and while there is an urge to be contrarian about this, this is where I’d rank the song as fairly as I can. Early drafts of my ranking had ‘Good Times’ ahead of it but I decided the uproarious instrumentals on ‘Bad Romance’ were superior, from the moment the song starts, I think everyone can see there is something quite special here. The four songs ahead of this I love a bit more for different reasons, and as wonderful as Gaga’s turn is here, it’s not quite enough to win. Though please don't take this as any kind of disservice, it is a brilliant song, so let's get into that. ‘Bad Romance’ doesn’t really need much introduction, as the song that cemented Gaga’s position as a formidable popstar and artist, the lead from her EP/expansion album The Fame Monster, which capitalised perfectly on her breakout year throughout late 2008 and 2009, keeping the hits coming and showing that when it came to making a full package of a pop song, she had all of that expertise and more, an attention-grabbing video featuring several iconic looks and dance moves, this is the perfect pop song for all who celebrate such things. It's the ideal of such, the heavy dark instrumental, Gaga singing energetically on top of it, the atmosphere surrounding it, little wonder that it's sold so much, that it kept not just Gaga, but RedOne, the producer, in work for a long time after. Much of what he got up to in 2010 was recreating this moment with other artists to varying degrees of success, I'd say at least Nicole Scherzinger's 'Poison', which I also really loved at the time is taking some cues here, if not his work with Enrique Iglesias, Usher, Alexandra Burke and others. Which isn't to say this is a typical RedOne production, it's not, there's a lot of work being done here, mostly by Gaga, to elevate it above the production and she does that brilliantly. Lyrics. I've been watching old films and I've just got to mid-50s Hitchcock, Rear Window is a fantastic film and Vertigo and Psycho will be up on my list soon, while the one I've seen just seems to be an innuendo in the song, I'm familiar already with the horror and bad romances common to Hitchcock films, shame Dial M For Murder doesn't fit neatly as a lyric here. Love a good lyrical reference but really the main lyrics that have stood out to me in this song in the past have been Gaga's sound effects, those glorious chants of her name are probably a lot of what cemented her identity as a popstar. Then her soaring on the chorus and the bridge, repeating 'I want your love and I want your revenge' in English and French as the music builds is just a beautiful touch before it all crashes down into the chorus. A big seller across both years and one of the songs at the top as the year opened, I do love it, I do. It is my most played Gaga track and indeed the top 3 are the 3 main singles from The Fame Monster, with the wonderful 'Shallow' just about to overtake 'Telephone', with my playcount density decreasing over the years I'd say that means it's between this and 'Shallow' for my ultimate favourite. As I said with 'Telephone', I'm not a fan in that I've never been devoted to Gaga, just I view her as a purveyor of mostly high quality pop music, nor have I ever been so excited by one of her songs, except possibly 'Shallow', that it really hit me. 'Bad Romance' has however come very close to doing that on a number of occasions and is undoubtedly one of her best tracks.