Iz様 🌟

I am completely buoyed up by a lot of nostalgia when writing this thread, that's probably the main reason I'm so positive, having fun listening to all these songs that I've had for the most part no real reason to listen to for years and with mostly positive memories associated. Though I'm still finding ways to work in subtle digs even this far into my top 10 though which sorta shows, it was a weird year with a lot of questionable #1s. Plenty to write about that way of course. That was BJSC 25, with the barest conception of a veto and while I wasn't around on the site then to take part, seems like some participants were selecting songs that were getting promoted ahead of a big UK release. Case in point, 'Stereo Love' was also in that contest. That of course was a wonderful 2010 hit that I haven't had a chance to mention as it only peaked at #4, in 'Good Times' 3rd week as it happens, and it sold more than a decent number of the #1s in this thread. Point to be made, had a song as good as 'Stereo Love' got to #1 it'd easily slot into my top 3.

6. Roll Deep – Good Times (feat. Jodie Connor)3 weeks at #1 (entered 2nd May): 01-01-01-03-09-14-30-37-41-46-57-52-56-68-65-83-80-99 Kept off #1: Jason Derülo – Ridin’ Solo EOY #53 One unusual thing about 2010’s list is that there are no #1s that spent more than 3 weeks at the top. This has always made it seem like an outlier, even the years with the highest turnover often have a #1 or two that holds on for an entire month. Actually, along with not having a EOY #1 that was a #1, it’s also actually the only year in UK chart history without a #1 that had 4 weeks or more at the top, although 1999 & 2000 do have to share Westlife’s 4-weeker ‘I Have A Dream’ to make that completely true. ‘When We Collide’ was one of the 3-weekers, and that spilled into 2011. There were only 2 other 3-weekers, and they have both made it well into my top 10. Let’s look ahead to some ‘Good Times’. As previously discussed, Roll Deep were Wiley's grime collective and they managed to get together and record an album that had a high amount of commercial viability, Wiley and a few others from his crew do the verses here, for the chorus singer they hire one Jodie Connor. A Genius annotation describes her as 'A gorgeous singer from England, she went on to collaborate with Wiley once again on her track “Now or Never”.' with a picture attached, just so we know what we're getting into here. Unfortunately that's a fairly accurate assessment of Connor's career, she did have a couple of solo songs that charted and that I enjoyed a little bit, but they weren't particularly memorable and it does not seem like she has done very much music related since 2012, a couple of songs released in 2016 and 2018, otherwise, dropped off the face of the earth, her Instagram is private and says 'Business Owner' so hopefully enjoying life. For a 3-week #1 and clearly a little bit of longevity, ‘Good Times’ has a really strange chart run, it dominated for nearly the entirety of May (including blocking 'Ridin' Solo' again, yess) and then completely disappeared off the charts in a manner more befitting a fanbase buy. I’m not exactly sure why that was, maybe it was very easily replaceable in the clubs and on the radio, because it was. But it’s such an energetic listen I couldn’t help but place this very high indeed. Seriously, listen through at least the first verse of ‘Good Times’. Jodie and Wiley swap their lines flawlessly, even if it is rhyming ‘high street shopping’ with ‘boppin’’ it’s the sort of song that’d leave you breathless on the dancefloor. Makes me feel alive even just listening to it at home, I haven’t heard it out for a long time but I know it was good when it did come on in a social setting. Further on through the song, Brazen has a decent second verse, but Breeze and Scratchy (side note: these names, man) bring it really really well together on verse 3, throughout their bars there is a constant sense of urgency and build to a climax, up to the point where Scratchy yells out ‘you only get one life, no replay’ it gives me as much musical excitement as I often get from power metal. Which is a weird way to explain that this is an energy-laden song through and through, that’s a quality that is very often restricted to dramatic rock songs or intense songs of any genre, but also shows up sometimes in the most frenetic club bangers, and ‘Good Times’ is absolutely one of the latter. It feels weird to say because lyrically and instrumentally it’s kinda basic, but it works with what it has extremely well and it’s ultimately just incredibly joyful and fun to listen through. Again, like with 'Green Light', I'm not sure quite what happened here to send Wiley, his crew and Jodie Connor to briefly have the biggest single in the nation, such a thing was unexpected enough for this place to have it win a BJSC a couple of months before (albeit with a reservation list and limited veto and a lineup that looks far more cheap than it was even when I joined a year later), but it's a very well-done radio song, a great club jump arounder, and I enjoy listening to it at home a lot more regularly than I'd probably care to mention.

Oh yes I remember the 1999 eclipse now you mention it, Cornwall was right in the path of totality so there were huge events going on, remember that, and that it ended up being a bit cloudy at the time so not the best view, but dark - wish I'd been a bit older to appreciate it more. Also very much remember foot & mouth happening, my family had rented off our dairy farm a couple years prior but I recall at least being told that lots of the herds still visible from our house were getting culled.

7. Scouting For Girls – This Ain’t A Love Song2 weeks at #1 (entered 4th April): 01-01-02-05-07-11-17-28-31-37-44-53-56-56-58-54-47-52-58-68-82-91 Kept off #1: None EOY #41 Speaking of rock songs, The Wombats should have been a tip off, as we move into the final section, the next song up is the only rock song by a band that would reach the top spot in 2010. Despite the years immediately preceding this containing the ‘indie landfill’ wave, the ‘club banger’ era took a toll on rock songs reaching the top, something that hasn’t ever swung back. Though 2009 would have none if it weren’t for RATM and the number had been declining for years. In some interpretations, ‘This Ain’t A Love Song’ is the final rock song to ever hit #1 and so ‘this is goodbye’ makes it hit a little harder for me, and many of the other lyrics become painfully ironic. Yes it’s not literally the last song with rock influences to hit #1, but those that would manage it in the future are either harder-edged solo singers or all-stadium soft-rock outfits using all their radio pop skills to get one slightly rocky anthem a brief look-in at #1, and even that wouldn’t last more than a few years beyond this. Scouting For Girls are hardly rock’s hardest edge, though their delving into ‘power pop’ makes them more rock than OneRepublic or later Coldplay, for instance. It’s actually surprising and a miracle that this song got to #1, for two weeks, when the song they’re almost certainly more known for, ‘She’s So Lovely’, was a little way off #1 a few years before. I absolutely recall hearing ‘She’s So Lovely’ everywhere, even a bit of ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’, those two songs feel bigger for them in retrospect. ‘This Ain’t A Love Song’ came and went at the time without it impacting my life very much if at all. Going back to it, and despite a common criticism of all of SFG’s songs sounding the same, made me realise how quality it is in comparison to their more overplayed radio anthems. Scouting For Girls were indie-rock landfill’s final form of the somewhat jarring indie anthem that had been peddled by The Fratellis, The Hoosiers, Kaiser Chiefs, The Wombats et al. Despite that being a perjorative, I enjoy most of the bands from that era a lot, and while some of their overplayed songs could get annoying, delving into an album is a fun pastime, it uncovers hidden gems and the singles seem better in context. Scouting For Girls were named for the members’ association with the Scout Groups, and not in fact, because they’re itinerant heterosexuals (though I’m sure they are), ‘This Ain’t A Love Song’, a completely self-written #1 (those have been quite rare in this thread!) led off their second album, and as is tradition, their accumulated fanbase from the first album ensured the lead single from the sophomore album would go straight to #1. Let’s hope rock bands can continue to rely on that, surely nothing would happen that would stop that. I love the smooth chords here, there's not much oversinging, it's emo in the right ways, even if it's a bit more mainstream and radio-friendly than some of the best of that kind, the lyrics all really do their best to sell this heartfelt farewell song (that certainly isn't a love song), you can tell that lead singer Roy Stride is putting a lot of feeling here. Lyrical moves like 'though I'm down, I'll be coming back fighting, I may be scared but a little bit frightened', or 'the cruel words and the false accusations, the mean looks and the same old frustrations' just flow perfectly throughout the verses, the chorus is huge and sad, and that instrumental sounds brilliant throughout. The band grew and matured for their second album, and 'This Ain't A Love Song' is a very welcome result, and 'Famous' a little later in the year was another very decent follow-up. It's easily my favourite track by them and a great conclusion to the era of indie-rock and emo. Ironic that just as I was getting into the charts, one of my favourite genres had had its final goodbye to the UK top spot, never to be seen again in its traditional rock band form, but it was a great last hurrah.

Sydney Olympics opening ceremony in 2000 I think, was enthralled at the flag procession ceremony. Though obviously some specific early memories with 9/11 too - think I've said before how I'd very recently received a book (that I loved) all about the tallest buildings in the world and the Twin Towers were literally building #1 in that book. Don't really remember any news stories from the 1990s from the time, I've had a think but don't think anything happened in 1998 or 99 that would have made its way through to me and before then there's no hope.

Slight off-topic addendum: I've looked down the chart a bit further for 'Written In The Stars''s week, and I found the reason I got briefly very obsessed with the charts. The Wombats 'Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)' was getting huge play on Radio 1 at that time and I was absolutely obsessed with it, like playing it on repeat on the way home levels of obsessed, and it felt like the only song in the world at the time, of course it was going to #1. Only got to #23, absolute robbery. 'Written In The Stars' and 'Let The Sun Shine' make a lot more sense at the top looking at it objectively, but god if only we allowed rock songs at the top in 2010. (I'd go through the same heartbreak a few months later with 'Jump Into The Fog', I was an absolute Wombats stan that album)

8. Tinie Tempah – Written In The Stars (feat. Eric Turner) 1 week at #1 (entered 3rd October): 01-03-05-08-10-15-21-26-23-35-39-44-35-25-36-41-49-56-56-57-33-40-47-56-71-74-69-59-84-90-94-99 Kept off #1: none EOY #31 If there was one person who best represented the charts of 2010, it would be Tinie Tempah (real name Patrick Okogwu). It feels like a long time coming (fam), since I first mentioned him right at the beginning of this thread, when his second single ‘Frisky’, with his friend and frequent collaborator Labrinth, fell short of getting to #1 in favour of the despicable ‘Shout’. Forward on a few months, and Tempah is preparing to release his third single, ‘Written In The Stars’. At the same time, Labrinth debuts a solo song, ‘Let The Sun Shine’. Chart battle set. While good enough and very catchy, ‘Let The Sun Shine’ came right at the end of summer and could only manage #3, and perhaps rap’s hottest property at the time was the reason why, eventually, it was ‘Written In The Stars’ that triumphed and went on to have a very respectable chart run. I will have plenty more to say about Tinie Tempah’s impacts on the popular music of 2010 and beyond at a later time, but in terms of its contribution to his story, ‘Written In The Stars’ is one where despite being released later, I think it’s better placed to talk about who he was to the music industry as it expected him to be when he broke out, based on its past experiences with rappers. It shows off his ability to deliver a fairly epic rap rock tune laying down pretty familiar lyrics about struggling and striving towards success. A good thing, because it sounds fantastic throughout. The song features ‘iShi! Eric Turner’, and though those two names are new to the top of the charts, they have a bit more of a connection than just being the producer and featured singer here, the two met after one of iSHi’s sound engineer friends recommended Turner to him, and they formed a working connection, again the sources for these stories have died and Wiki is the only remaining source I can find (stop the old Internet rotting). iSHi would produce a number of Tinie’s songs, including the next single ‘Invincible’, but he had also produced a number of songs that year for Tinchy Stryder, two of which also featured Eric Turner. Turner, by the way, absolutely no problems with his feature here and he sings out that huge chorus fantastically, but he feels more like the studio’s easy call than anyone with an identity you'd remember, as is shown by his complete lack of known solo work. With 2 #1 singles the year before, each featuring big chorus and rap verses and very comparable names, Tinchy feels like, just a bit, like he was to 2009 as Tinie was to 2010, the flavour of the month rapper. Indeed, Tinchy's own singles around this time, 'Second Chance (feat. Taio Cruz)' and 'Game Over (feat. a whole bunch, including Tinie)' were failing to hit in the way he'd done just 12 months ago. Radio's chances in the sun for grime were a harsh mistress indeed. That said, Tinchy was a fine rapper, but he's not as talented at attracting a wide audience as Tinie was on his first album. Tinie was meant to step into those shoes and give a new and exciting name to lead off the homegrown UK rap scene. Not so much 'written in the stars' as 'written in the quarterly report', I think Parlophone spotted there was a gap, somewhere in between Roll Deep, B.o.B and Eminem's return anyway, and promoted him all out with a big round of material. So what I'm saying here is less that the music industry discarded rappers as soon as they were even slightly old news, but Tinie Tempah had exactly the right kind of juice with all of the songs on DISC-Overy to fill in the UK demand for what was very briefly an golden airplay era of rap... soft-rock. Rap is not a genre often meant to be played on mainstream radio. 'Written In The Stars', however, is a song that fits so well in with even anti-rap stations that I was hearing it everywhere at the time. Couple that with the huge demand this year had for epic-sounding rap with huge choruses, and victory in the arms race was assured. I've already said how brilliant I find the base parts of 'Written In The Stars', a strong powerful chorus, an uplifting progression that really makes you feel good, only losing a few slight marks for not being as challenging a song as I know Tinie could create. The lyrics are great and fit right in with that vibe, I still recalled them clearly before listening: 'I cried Teardrops over the Massive Attack' is one obvious fun reference, 'people work hard just to get all their salary taxed' as relevant as ever, but most prominently and with the message of the song 'everyone's the kid that no one cares about, you just gotta keep screaming till they hear you out'. Tinie was now in a position where the whole of the UK and potentially the world was listening to him, this would even do decently as a song in the US. He cracked the formula, just very briefly, to make everyone feel uplifted by rap, and whether that was written in the stars or not, it's a song on this list that I'd happily call awesome.

So with 'My Wicked Heart', I only briefly mentioned it in the commentary but as far as I remember, it came out, much of the discussion on it was on the chord similarities, and there was a brief media round over Warner Music/the RHCP potentially planning to sue, in the end, there wasn't any formal lawsuit over it. I think I remember 'My Wicked Heart' disappearing from streaming services for a little while too, though of course it's back now. It's listed as a sample on WhoSampled and I'd consider it one as the chord progression is pretty much the same, but yes, it was 'unintentional'. On the subject of undisclosed samples, around the same time Chris Brown's 'Yeah 3x' was ripping off 2009 #1 'I'm Not Alone', in that case Harris got added to the credits post-hoc (and JLS - Eyes Wide Shut skirted very close to doing the same thing IMO).

oops, I missed out a week when transcribing out the chart run, it stopped at #18 on week 4 before going to #31. Not that 5 weeks is much better.

ahahahaha activating search for anti-MAGA icons

#47 please

9. Diana Vickers – Once1 week at #1 (entered 25th April): 01-04-08-18-31-44-48-65-77-x-x-x-x-75-84 Kept off #1: none EOY #101 Sometimes, a musician must do something a little different when they’re granted an opportunity (a talent show), and the general public in their infinite wisdom do not choose you to win. For many contestants, they don’t have artistic integrity in the first place, that’s why they went on a talent show. But for those small percentage that do, there’s a bit of a difficult route ahead. Such was the fate of one Diana Vickers, who gained a sizable following for her performing style and voice. She signed to RCA Records in early 2009 after her talent show stint was done, but very wisely, considering her youth, took her time. Then it’s even more perilous. Too much time and all interest is lost, too little, and it’s a rush job. Her team at RCA managed to time this fairly perfectly though, a year and a half of promotion including something or other on the West End (you’ll have to forgive me, in addition to not watching the pre-2010 seasons of The Talent Show I was even less aware at the time of what alumni were doing on London stages). Kept her in the public eye anyway. Regardless of all of that, what followed after was good enough for Diana to reach that rare status, in my mind, of a talent show contestant who successfully left all of that, including the poor artistic impulses associated with such rot, behind. Not entirely, as I do remember seeing her perform her third single 'My Wicked Heart' on the show, discovering almost at the same time how seriously some people take songs being sampled in a bad way (it was a pretty poor thing to do to 'Under The Bridge' in fairness). But mostly. While in part this is because of my partiality to electropop, this can be seen by how far she is up this countdown in comparison to the others (3 2008 alumni having #1s this year huh), and as such, we shall now forget that that was ever part of her background. The musical result of this strategy was quite a fun list of writing collaborators for Diana’s eventual debut album, Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree. They included Nerina Pallot, Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange), Ellie Goulding and veteran songwriter Cathy Dennis. I could certainly compare Diana’s music to that of Ellie Goulding’s, a singer who has had not enough mentions in this thread considering that she was the winner of the BBC Sound Of 2010 poll at the beginning of the year – alas the high airplay ‘Starry Eyed’ was a few places off the top in March, and I did already mention ‘Your Song’ getting blocked later on. The 2010 runner-up, one Marina who at the time had diamonds, also is somewhere in the ballpark of ‘quirky altpop singer’ that Diana was heading towards, though certainly a different voice style. And yet this is the first #1 that is near that sound that the BBC Sound of poll thought we’d be listening to all year. If only. If this thread was full of Ellie and Marina singles I’d have a lot less to criticise I can tell you that, though I suspect that’s true for most of us. Oh, yeah. Wasn’t even Goulding who wrote ‘Once’. Cathy Dennis and songwriter Eg White wrote ‘Once’, and here Dennis is the one with the best pedigree. She was involved with writing some of the most beloved pop songs of the 2000s, such as ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ and ‘Toxic’. Does ‘Once’ compare to those? No. Is it still damn good? Yes. Diana's voice sounds absolutely amazing, her breathiness I'm sure divides opinion but I love it. She has what you need to sell this kind of electropop, in that she could stand up against Britney or Ellie quite easily, and then the production leads the song through a great progression. The follow-up single, 'The Boy Who Murdered Love', played a similar trick, and was just as good if not even slightly better, unfortunately that one could only reach #31. 'Once' is lyrically strong also - what exactly does 'I'm only going to let you kill me once?' mean? No one knows what it means, but it's evocative. Or some relationship stuff about fooling me once, shame on you, fool me - you can't get fooled again. Evocative lyrics rule, is my point, 'Once' certainly makes them sound really fun. After seeing off one of the few decent things that rapper Chipmunk ever did in his short chart career, and even then, mostly due to featured singer Esmée Denters, 'Until You Were Gone' at #3, and a failing 'OMG' at #2, 'Once' scored what is perhaps one of the more surprising #1s of the year, and the short chart run it had shows it never really had much longevity, I think I heard this a few times at the time but honestly not many if at all - but this is one of the good things about the era where it was possible to hold back songs, sometimes you would get undeserving #1s, but sometimes you'd get some niche gems like this where the strength and passion of a fanbase could get you further. I don't mean this in any negative way against Diana, but she doesn't seem like the sort of artist who would have a number 1 single under her belt, and for that, her reaching the top spot 'Once' (I know, I know, I'm here all week), is very pleasing. She would go on to have a short chart career, a decently performing second album and a fanbase that was very active and vocal around the time I joined this site. I always thought she was a decent singer even though I never considered myself a fan, and most of the songs I know from her I like. I don't think I had heard anything from her or thought about her for years outside of getting ready for this thread until just over a week ago, when I was linked this Instagram reel, relevant to my interests as I have been developing a brief hyperfixation about trying different wines, including whatever Kylie is flogging these days, got a bottle of her rosé for whenever I next feel like it. Kylie music from the early 00s is very fitting for Diana, she's still in touch with her stylistic roots, and though I hadn't heard it until literally just now, released her first song in over a decade last year, 'Ice Cream', not bad at all. Great for her; 'Once' is still an electro-pop-rock banger.

watch from 24:37-25:21, that is exactly the response that anyone seeking to stoke division off this story deserves. and if you can stomach frogface afterwards, Starmer deals with him decently Having watched the footage of the Novak case as BBC Verify presented it, it's quite clearly overworked police, used to treating suspects poorly, coming up against a perpetrator and accomplices who were willing to pose as victims and deceive law enforcement. Therefore the police were briefly confused, as J00ps says. Very little to do with race in any wider sense. It's certainly not police brutality in the way Badenoch is on record with comparing this to the Floyd protests (though she was pleasingly respectful at PMQs), there might be something to be said or done about police apathy, but they often, naturally, interact with groups of people not known for their respect of the law.

Admittedly the failure of that song to meet the mood of the decade got me focused on it, a possibly bigger and even sadder reason is that genres like electro-swing that have a dedicated following but very few and mostly anonymous, underground artists are prime targets for AI so it's much harder to trust in any new song being decent. Same applies to synthwave, city pop, ambience, vocaloid, a lot of specialist electronic subgenres quite honestly.

Nadia Whittome has tabled a motion to disapprove the Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services. Hope that passes*, this is what I said they should do to combat businesses banning trans women from their bathrooms because they believe they're following the law, this can then give them cover to reverse that. *do not trust the government to do the right thing here but at least someone in the governing party is on the side of trans people.

Arguably so much less effective when these commentators can be freely watched in the UK. Also, so? We shouldn't be banning commentators in a liberal society unless they're actively out to harm people with their rhetoric and even then it should be something considered with seriousness by the government and laid out with clear reasons - I don't see any clear reasons here just: 'may not be conducive to the public good' from the Home Office. Which could mean anything.

10. Yolanda Be Cool – We No Speak Americano (feat. Dcup) 1 week at #1 (entered 11th July, #1 on week beginning 25th July): 05-02-01-02-03-04-04-06-09-11-11-15-21-20-33-40-43-46-52-69-82-87 Kept off #1: Eminem – Love The Way You Lie (feat. Rihanna) EOY #9 From the early 2010s to the late 2010s, specifically, there was a fun underground genre known as ‘electro-swing’, the practice of combining swing and jazz, often with a specifically 1920s feel, with modern electronic dance music. Really big in internet culture, attracted really strong emotions from a lot of people, loud and brash and colourful, easily critiqued by those with more sophisticated music tastes, easily loved by those who like music on their vidya game soundtracks. Very very fun time regardless and I am one of the genre's cursed defenders. Key artists: Parov Stelar (who appeared at this year’s Eurovision) and Caravan Palace. I put this in past tense as while there are still undoubtedly a few electro-swing songs being released, including a few of my favourites of the genre as influences from it hit a few select pop, rock and rap artists, it has really died off in recent years as its own thing. It may not be this song’s fault, but I like to lay the death of this genre at the door of one song in particular: The Swinghoppers & Wolfgang Lohr – 'Party Like It’s 1920' Released on 31 December 2019 so the genre that homaged the old 20s could celebrate the entrance to the new 20s and promoted on all of Youtube's electronic dance channels, it quickly aged, well, you can imagine how well lyrics like 'We’ve been waiting for this decade for a hundred years, but now the 2020's are finally here' aged. The pandemic-sized elephant in the room aside, its self-referential and pretty poor lyrics and weak instrumental betray how little depth there was creatively in this genre now it had been done a fair few times across the 10s. Let's now contrast that with what the genre was like when it was, relatively, fresh and new. The reason for this pre-amble into electro-swing's popularity and a brief history of the genre? It's because I really do not recall that being a descriptor of 'We No Speak Americano', possibly a genre progenitor, back in the day. It's an electro-swing song now, sure. So is Doop - 'Doop' for that matter. So are other 2010 releases like Gramophonedzie's 'Why Don't You' and Caro Emerald. Clearly there was something to this electronic sound with swing/jazz influences, whatever it was called, that was becoming popular around this time. At the time I can only recall all of these being described as a 'tribute to jazz and swing', or something of the sort. I feel like the term 'electro-swing', while not entirely new to the years after 2010, only popularly began to be applied to this sort of music actually a few years into the 2010s. Earliest article I can find actually calling this music 'electro-swing' is this 2011 article from The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/electroswing-tonight-we-re-going-to-party-like-its-1929-2276174.html. Parov Stelar had released his genre-defining tune 'Catgroove' in 2009, which did go somewhat viral, but this was 2009 and things took ages to actually become properly viral, it only showed up in BJSC in 2020 after all. Considering 'We No Speak Americano' is the only electro-swing #1 in UK chart history (or one of two, depends if you count Doop or not), this is somewhat important to its story. Given how much our cultural memory is disappearing from articles on the internet dying and being replaced with AI that can't source things to save its life, I challenge you to test my memory, was this song described as 'electro-swing' then? It feels like a post-hoc descriptor and reviews of the song from the time seem to support that, those that I've been able to find. The thread on Buzzjack seems to support this as well, everyone in there is comparing it to Gramphonedzie and Doop, not describing it by the genre it would eventually be given. A lot of my memory with it is suddenly realising that this was an electro-swing song, years after I got into the genre. Otherwise, and perhaps this is a more accurate summation, 'We No Speak Americano' stands alone as a complete oddity. And I love complete oddities. Yolanda Be Cool, not the only act in the dance industry to be named after a line from Pulp Fiction (the other I know of is Zeds Dead), I don't think set out to make an electro-swing song, specifically. Collaborating with producer DCUP, and for both artists, the only notable thing they would ever do, the credited artists' main contribution to this song is speeding up and adding some modern, at times swingy production to the 1956 Neapolitan song 'Tu vuò fà l'americano' ('You Want To Play American'), a song that already had a bit of pizzazz and swing to it. The title of this version even gives off a different meaning to the song, that is assuming anyone in English-speaking countries listened to what was going on in the song. I bet lots of people thought it was Spanish. I must confess having never really thought about it I did for a long time. The final song on this countdown to have kept off 'Love The Way You Lie' and the first, entering in July, I think this is the only one where I wouldn't swap them, not because this song is strictly better, but it's just such a unique and fun proposition to have as a #1 single I'm really glad it got there in the end. It's also one of the songs that had a fake version in the top 40 before it was released, and if I've missed any of these in the past that's an oversight, though a song with very anonymous artists was prime prey for these. Once released, it landed at #5 before quickly climbing to #1, just because of how popular it was getting all across the world and here, where we were still doing held-back demand for songs. Throughout there's really great rhythmic beats, you can absolutely dance to it (as the cast of the Inbetweeners famously did in their 2011 movie), it really fits into that category of #1 that we rarely if ever get anymore, a kooky iconic dance hit, and it wasn't even a poor seller, this sold loads, held on for ages and went into the year-end top 10 well before any Inbetweeners danced to it. Back in the day I thought this was a bit of background noise that was a little bit annoying but with each listen it gets more and more charm, helped by its association with a genre I love, but also because it is one of those songs where the production is actually really well done and the craziness just sort of hides that until you take the time to look a bit more closely. Which I say to encourage you to listen to this on repeat until you go insane. ^_^The electro-swing trolls never died, we just hibernated. 'We No Speak Americano', possibly the weirdest of the 2010s #1s, can quite happily kick off my top 10. It's just a fun good time, a summer tune that always leaves you feeling positive, and in the right circumstance, a fantastic time on the dancefloor, no matter what you call its genre.

For context: left-wing commentator Hasan Piker and his uncle Cenk Uyghur, founder of the Young Turks organisation have been banned from entering the UK to speak at a convention. jeez I find Hasan a little off-colour sometimes but he's normally just fine as a political commentator if a bit dumb, what on earth are we doing here as a country?

fun fact: Hare Hare Yukai and its iconic attachment to the associated anime series The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya (greatest series of all time possibly) inspired flash mobs to start doing the dance out of nowhere x

you can all blame me for not voting in all seriousness I really wouldn't have had time to listen to everything and put together proper votes so I'm happy you've gone ahead, but I started listening to the playlist on the way home today and found some bangers, it wouldn't have just been HHY stanning, though I may drop some Hare Hare Yukai Fun Facts or something

scenes when this might actually be the first year in a few where we've finished the first 5 contests before 1st June by just a few hours

EVERGLOW won a little while ago (some years, can't recall how many) but honestly incredible work to get this song within a couple of points of winning - I didn't vote for it but it wasn't all that far off at all, good k-pop.

Congratulations Addy, amazing winner and also a bunch of great songs in the top 5! Top 10 as well tbh, very good results all around. Happy with 24th, I was hoping for a slightly bigger hit when I snap confirmed it but I think this song might have just been about a decade too late to BJSC for that, still thank you to everyone who gave me points. thanks for hosting so well @DaTilt , really good job throughout.

oh wow I wouldn't have called Cheiron being 20th, I wanted both them and FSR Rontvia in the final :(

well now maybe you'll now curse uhsting to win and have to host