Iz様 🌟

aww I feared that might happen, Métamorphose was a very cool song but I could only make room for it towards the lower end of my points. Shame, but a very laudable entry and great discovery.

oh ffs I knew 'Miracles Don't Happen''s chances were a bit in question at least but that was exactly my type of J-Pop and an easy 12 pointer, it being that low and over half the points coming from me is criminal otherwise results are going very well

So pleased to see Cheiron through, gem of a song, was really surprised at the predictions for it!

Bøtanikkä and Dalisska both making it into the final is excellent to see and trifoski too!

oh what a relieving start I do indeed feel fantastic! (yesss @ Flynnonda too)

I just know that lots of songs that I think are among the best in the semis were predicted out so hopefully predictions are wrong (but not for me of course, though again who knows)

17. Iyaz – Replay2 weeks at #1 (entered 10th January): 01-01-02-03-06-08-13-24-29-32-30-31-29-34-50-58-65-75-92-96-92-88-69-94 Kept off #1: Sidney Samson – Riverside (Let’s Go) [feat. Wizard Sleeve] EOY #18 Keidran Kenmore Jones, better known as Iyaz, is not a figure one would immediately have guessed to have the first new #1 of the 2010s, probably because no one knew who he was before this song. Before brief and fleeting fame, he was a British Virgin Islands songwriter who had got picked up through Myspace a couple of years prior and landed in the orbit of J.R. Rotem and Beluga Heights, Jason Derülo and Sean Kingston’s label, and clearly third fiddle to… those guys. This little UK chart fact probably meant only a bit to him as he’d already achieved success and a #2 in the US with ‘Replay’ before it came over here, smashing normal January sales records with over 100,000 download sales; Wiki says biggest 'new year' sales, which I'm assuming means January, since Michelle McManus' 'All This Time' in 2004 for those who celebrate Ms McManus. Anyway, in the depths of winter 2010, the UK desired a summer Caribbean tune. There’s even a Flo Rida remix but it’s not worth seeking out, just Flo Rida coming in at the best bit of the song and ruining that part. Kingston and Derülo put their considerable talents towards writing this specific song, and indeed it was originally intended for and rejected from for Kingston’s album Tomorrow. It’s very amusing to me that this rejected song from some of the worst names in popular music at the time really outshines them just by putting a fresh, and yes, ultimately disposable face on it, but Iyaz’s cheery disposition and clear authentic credentials sell this far better than they ever could. Again this is a #1 where I remember specific instances in time with the song it beat more, as ‘Riverside (Let’s Go)’ was a big hit in my circles for its rather profane language and heavy bass and was also being heavily promoted at the time for a chance at the top spot, this would be the fourth highest selling week at #2 for the whole year, I don't recall specifically why this week in a normally slow month was so hotly contested other than that these two very popular songs ended up being released on the same week. So Replay did deny us a rare incredible dance #1 for this year in its first week as both entered at the top spot, but of course this was all over the airwaves and in the background at the time and very much stuck on replay, replay, replay. One suspects this may have been a ploy to encourage radio to play it more. If not, assuming that is funny. It’s had a bit of a second life as a meme similar to rickrolling a few years back, though even at the time the potential for jokes were there. The true honest straightforwardness, despite all the potential silliness surrounding the song, with which Iyaz sings this is what makes it for me. It’s summery, it’s bright, even if you were to have it on replay I don’t think I’d find it annoying (though I acknowledge that some people might), I do really enjoy this, even with the ridiculous chorus – what on earth is this hook: Shawty's like a melody in my head That I can't keep out, got me singing like (Ayy) Na-na-na-na, every day It's like my iPod stuck on replay, replay-ay-ay-ay (Oh) That really shouldn’t work and yet somehow it does. Many similar songs lose it here by sabotaging themselves with unlikeable lyrics or losing the energy, but 'Replay' surfs all the pitfalls that songs like those others on Beluga Heights and similar hip-hop/reggae peddlers might put out and gives something that's pleasantly likeable to its core. Almost iconic, it’s not quite sung well enough to reach that but, it’s very easy to lose charisma in a song like this and Iyaz doesn’t. He sells this one hit that he had very well, he would have a couple more hits on the chart (I did also like ‘Solo’) and then unlike his labelmates at Beluga Heights, left to go out into the world and chill. Between Kingston’s legal troubles and Derulo’s commitment to horrendous music, probably worked out better for him in the end.

I think the natural reaction to something like this that is clearly done by a large corporation to draw support to their platform (and more efficient data collection) rather than altruism is some scepticism. If it works out and they have a good system for determining which fans can get priority tickets, sure, but will feel worse if you aren't determined a big enough fan because your listening profile isn't right. I can't say for sure yet whether this will be effective or a marketing ploy.

Fantastic! I didn't notice that so thank you for pointing it out.

18. The Wanted – All Time Low 1 week at #1 (entered 1st August): 01-05-08-10-15-19-24-14-23-22-28-36-34-28-36-40-42-34-48-58-70-51-41-65-80-99 Kept off #1: None EOY #36 So a little surprised to see rock band All Time Low at the top of the UK charts but I always support the pop-punk cause, (dear maria) count me in… I hope you realise how unusual it is for me that a boyband has made it this far. While I do try my hardest to not judge music by the makeup of how the artists look, I know my preferences, and they often lead me towards women playing loud guitars in rock bands or something of that description. Boybands I know are rarely for me. It’s not even that ‘All Time Low’ is brilliant or anything, I’d save that for the third single again here, ‘Lose My Mind’, and perhaps some of their later album singles, most of which were perfectly fine songs. Actually, The Wanted were quite good, weren’t they? Formed by Jayne Collins, who also put together The Saturdays, The Wanted were an interesting addition to the boyband lineup, and promised some good pop in a similar way to the Sats, just male. While they’d commonly throughout their career compete with One Direction from the talent show complex, and aren’t exactly an organic band by any means, they favourably compare to One Direction in songwriting and production a lot of the time, and ‘All Time Low’ is a great example of that. On the charts, this was a notably busy week in the top 10 to kick off August. 5 new songs entered including The Wanted, the recently mentioned ‘Billionaire’ being the closest at #3, a track that seems almost quaint looking back, though it would go on to outsell ‘All Time Low’ in the EOY, and the first (and brilliant) chart hits for Swedish House Mafia and Magnetic Man, ‘One (Your Name)’ and ‘I Need Air’, and a track that would climb to #1 and is yet to appear. ‘All Time Low’ actually feels the least present of these 5 tracks in my 2010 life, though I was certainly in areas that would play the rest of these tracks and not a boyband single. Which may have contributed to my anti-boyband feelings – that and being a str8 man. I do have to give ‘All Time Low’ credit for some wonderful production throughout it, particularly those opening strings which command your attention and give you the idea you're in for something with a bit more oomph to it than the average boyband song. It'd be remarkably easy for people to mock this title, its attachment to a well-known pop-punk band aside, and the fact that I never see anyone doing that is a testament to how decent it is. Written by 3 writers who have between them contributed to about 40 or so number ones, it was clearly destined for success but it doesn't feel identity-less, for what you're getting, a boyband debut single where no one knows anyone in the band yet, it feels like they harmonise well and have set up themselves well for success - which they would get. It's radio pop that's not ultimately that adventurous, those strings aside, Fraser McAlpine of the BBC radio blog claimed it stole its melody from 'The Scientist' at the time, then goes on to say that that's very common actually, and I sort of hear it, which places it fairly in that standard good quality soft-rock/dance-pop area. I'd struggle to say there's anything wrong with it. Perfect song for halfway.

19. B.o.B – Nothin’ On You (feat. Bruno Mars)1 week at #1 (entered 23rd May): 01-02-02-08-13-18-19-23-29-33-36-39-43-54-70-79-94-100-97-96 Kept off #1: Jason Derülo – Ridin’ Solo EOY #45 Funny you say that Mack, as I was going to open this song with a very specific anecdote, a point in time that I recall very well. Not studying for GCSEs, but at a camping night out that my class had planned to celebrate finishing our GCSEs. I don’t normally recall songs that well but this has forever stood out as a song that I remember from that night, probably as quite a few of us got singing it around the fire in the pleasant June air. Quite a lovely time really. At least, that’s the idealised version I remember. Had no clue who the singers were, particularly that bright-voiced fellow on the chorus. I wonder if we’ll hear anything more from him ever. While B.o.B may be known these days, if at all, for being that rapper who really, really went off the boil into flat-earth conspiracism and if you look further, any and all sorts of conspiracy theories (standard issue stuff plus racism, eek), as far as his debut album The Adventures Of Bobby Ray is concerned, he was the industry’s new favourite pop rap artist, with a Georgian twang and a great sense of rhythm, and seemingly a talent for attracting some really really big names right out the gate, with T.I, Eminem, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, new hot suite-server Janelle Monae and Lupe Fiasco among others taking the time to show up on his album. He’d had some mixtapes before and was getting his dues as a major player to be in the future for a couple of years before the big breakthrough, but normally rappers worked their way up by showing their skills in the hip-hop community and really establishing their career on their own merits before going this far into sellouts and collaborations, B.o.B seemed to come from nowhere in the charting world and disappeared nearly as fast. Though worth saying the Rivers Cuomo song, ‘Magic’, contains what I think are my favourite bars from B.o.B, and this would be a fair-selling #16 hit as the third single. His debut single though would include not those guys, but one music producer with potential, Bruno Mars, for whom this was also his first chart hit. It’s this combination, the fresh-faced rapper and the newest hot property for choruses that make ‘Nothin’ On You’ such a good track for the music industry, two debutants building off of each other’s skills to create, well, a good, solid track, at least, in an ideal world it would be. It was produced by the Smeezingtons, of whom Bruno Mars was a part, they’d most notably produced K’Naan’s ‘Wavin’ Flag’ for that track’s first release, and of course for the UK this song would get in ahead of that one on the chart, both songs were written and released in the US in 2009, as we were still in the staggered release era. Mars wasn’t going to be on the chorus originally but he sang on it on the demo and despite some industry pushback, featured on the final product – it was a similar story for the #3 hit ‘Billionaire’ with Travie McCoy, which was being worked on at the same time, both of which served to keep Bruno Mars' voice on the airwaves throughout the summer of 2010 in the UK. It did at least keep Ridin' Solo off of #1, Derülo also of course a relative chart newbie, and would be in the battles to keep 'Dirtee Disco' and 'Gettin' Over You' from getting the top spot, which is something of an indication of how much more commercial staying power this kind of pop rap had at the time - numerous examples throughout this thread. 'Nothin' On You' is perhaps the most basic and 'just fine' one, which is how it gets to just below the halfway point with me. It’s a very smooth, lovely-sounding song, nice hip-hop ballad, I have no complaints on the lyrics, B.o.B’s bars have nothing wrong with them, they flow well. It feels good to listen to, if maybe a bit too smooth, no edge at all that makes you go back for more . The main criticism that I have with it though is that unlike with ‘Magic’, and his other #1 yet to come, B.o.B really feels like a background player here on his own song, to the song's detriment. The only lyric I recall with any ease from him here is about him going down to home in Georgia and then on to all these other places that B.o.B may well have seen in his very brief window as the world's biggest rap star. The rest, might as well be white noise. When you take it as a Bruno Mars-dominated song, it’s less exciting too, it’s just a love ballad, a very well-performed love ballad, but missing bits, like verses to tie it all together. Also this was Bruno at his peakest of less interesting pop crooners and though he can certainly perform those, it’s not exactly what I really want to go listen to when I think ‘let’s listen to Bruno Mars’. Admittedly I don’t think that often but his more interesting funky stuff in the years to come would be so much better than this. As for B.o.B, he'd become a fair bit more interesting in hits, the few others of those that he had, where he, as the industry's new flash-in-the-pan rap darling, wasn't being outshone by the guy from the production team.

Not at all!

Måneskin - Zitti E Buoni Jamala - 1944 Kalush Orchestra - Stefania Pretty clear top 3, Zitti E Buoni was a generational winner, so fresh and blood-pumping, 'rock & roll never dies' (no matter how their career went after), and the Ukraine winners are both poignant, meaningful and epic, so so good and ones I regularly play. Salvador Sobral - Amar Pelos Dois Amar Pelos Dois is the sort of song that does grow on you, I hated it at the time, but it is just pretty lovely from a musical composition point of view and obviously will stand out in the winners list for a long time. Loreen - Tattoo Nemo - The Code Duncan Lawrence - Arcade JJ - Wasted Love DARA - Bangaranga these are all about the same, competent pop songs that are absolutely fine but I'm not currently wanting to return to all that much and didn't hugely excite me as winners, Wasted Love and The Code I think were hurt by winning in subsequent years and getting inevitable comparisons but the drama of 'The Code' is better. DARA... very fresh right now and I'm happy it won but it's slightly underwhelming as a winner. Netta - Toy however 'Toy' is loud, shouty and horrendous, easily the worst winner of the last 10.

You're right. 'I'll Take You There' should have raised more warning signs for me when I searched and saw it wasn't disco, I'm normally listening to all associated songs as I write these. I think it still samples the words from 'I'll Take You There' (though common enough words that is it a sample?), but Wikipedia is more wrong than right here. The disco part of the sample actually comes from John Davis & The Monster Orchestra - Hangin' Out, a 1981 track obscure enough to not be on streaming services:

20. Dizzee Rascal – Dirtee Disco 1 week at #1 (entered 30th May): 01-04-12-22-35-41-47-61-62-66-82 Kept off #1: None EOY #111 You can tell that ‘Dirtee Disco’ is a late arrival in Dizzee Rascal’s career. The song assumes you know who he is, how the word ‘Dirtee’ is associated through his record label Dirtee Stank, oh, and that it’s a huge club track aimed at piggybacking off the success of his Tongue & Cheek album, and leading off, and as it turns out, finishing, its deluxe edition. The base album had already scored 3 huge #1s in ‘Dance Wiv Me’, ‘Bonkers’ and ‘Holiday’, and 4th single ‘Dirtee Cash’ had been a top 10 hit. ‘Dirtee Disco’ going to #1 was almost expected. What perhaps isn’t as expected, and is a constant black mark against it in its charting legacy, is its hilarious low sales and that plummet down the chart, out of the top 40 in about a month. Outside of 'Shout', this was Mr Rascal's last shot at the top spot and while he'd have further hits, an examination of his career would fairly simply point to this song as the point that things started going wrong. I’ve been constantly getting the feeling that most people doing this thread would have ejected ‘Dirtee Disco’ really early on (though the amount of #1s getting panned perhaps signifies the lower end of the countdown is a bit of a crapshoot, the nostalgia of this period is strong with me though!), while it almost makes it halfway with me. It’s always at the top of the lists of forgotten #1s, and in comparison to Dizzee’s other hits, no one really goes to bat for this one. Everyone listened to Dizzee rapping over a disco sample and stopped caring in a moment, except me, where this is often third on my list of DR hits after 'Dance Wiv Me' and 'Bonkers'. That disco sample is 'Hangin Out', a 1981 track from John Davis & The Monster Orchestra, a fairly obscure track that does still sound like a classic disco sound - Wikipedia says this samples ‘I’ll Take You There’ by The Staple Singers, which is not a disco song, more an early 70s funk and soul song, and then that's just the lyrics 'I'll take you there', if that's a sample. Taken together it all sounds as you might expect for a song sampling d i s c o. I think the reason I like this quite a bit and the reason it wasn’t a successful #1 are sort of the same reason. I really like Dizzee’s flow on the verses here, the lyrics are fun and rhythmic, it’s a fun listen through when doing a pop rap playlist and the 70s sample is something I’ll never say no to. However the set up of DR’s career at this point, and the style of the track seem to be aiming for a big club hit in the style of his previous #1s and if you look at the song structure in that way, the hook is weak, the verses go on for too long, I can’t imagine this having staying power on the dancefloor and I’m sure I’ve never heard it there, or perhaps even at all outside of playing it myself and maybe a couple of times in the month it was a big hit. It’s weird but I think it’s poorly constructed for what it is and it therefore never caught on with anyone. No one's yelling 'disco disco disco' in the same manner that they yell 'some people think I'm bonkers'. That said, if you want to instead walk down a catwalk to it, it’s a fantastic choice and the video showing Dizzee and his crew doing that while crashing a village hall is a setting it’d be far more appropriate for as long as those present wouldn’t faint on hearing rap. It’s almost certainly a song that those without a keen interest in 2010 #1s have not heard or have forgotten, and I think for those people it’s worth checking out. It’s a worthy addition to the rest of the Tongue & Cheek lineup – I’d definitely put it ahead of ‘Holiday’ anyway.

21. Katy Perry – California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg)2 weeks at #1 (entered 27th June): 01-01-02-04-04-09-10-12-13-18-15-25-29-34-35-39-44-43-49-55-55-65-74-90-95-93-68-51-73-90-94-96 Kept off #1: K’Naan – Wavin’ Flag EOY #8 Forgive me as I briefly make you listen to a paraphrased conversation between straight 16-year old boys: “You have to check out the new Katy Perry video!” Me: “What? I never watch music videos. A single Youtube video would use 10% of my home internet allowance. Why?” “She’s completely naked. You can see everything.” Me: “Eh sure, I’ll check it out sometime.” I didn’t check it out. At least, I didn’t check it out for ages, until long after California Gurls had departed from the chart, which is partly why this stuck in my memory as for months after I’d briefly remember that I should check out this allegedly incredibly alluring video before not doing that and forgetting. I include it as while I’ve long forgotten what words were actually said in the conversation and it may well have been far more embarrassing (yes, she’s naked and in fact tastefully covered by pink candy clouds, so what?), this was my most memorable encounter with ‘California Gurls’ even as it started filling the radio. While I think, along with most of the rest of the world, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream album was the best she’s ever been, this first single was fairly musically average in comparison to the rest that such an anecdote is an appropriate summation of the song. 'California Gurls' is definitely more of the 'sugary sweet' side of Katy Perry, and it is certainly a statement about the way she wanted to launch this era, the most obvious way to get people talking AND hear an easy radio song that further allows her the space to get people on board with hearing more singles. It’s the only one from the base album that would get to #1, which is a shame because all the singles that didn’t get to #1 are much better. As in would have no problems ranking inside this top 20. Chart-wise, this was a real hit, keeping ‘Wavin’ Flag’ from getting to #1 again in its first week and holding on for 2 weeks at the top, but unlike other multi-week #1s this year, kept selling and playing on the airwaves throughout the summer of 2010 to end up in the year-end top 10. I can certainly see why, radio loves this sort of thing and this may be my least popular ejection yet. Very classically teeny-bop sounding, very good for all the kids, don't let them listen to the lyrics too closely, all good. The music video either carries it or is an eternal shame for everyone involved, and even as someone against prudishness I must lean towards the latter, filled with fairly overt sexual candy-related visuals and featuring Perry dancing in ridiculous outfits throughout “Candyfornia” as Snoop Dogg watches on, apparently renamed ‘Sugar Daddy’. Unfortunately the success of this one would seem to give Perry a taste for bold, tacky music videos and the rest of her career as a popstar seems almost as dominated by those as it is music. Away from the video, the lyricism doesn’t hit for me, and it doesn’t hit for anyone outside California, in the long history of songs bigging up a big American place being exported as vacuous pop tunes it’s one of the least aware of its sense of place and one of the most vacuous. If the location-based stuff isn’t for you, there’s also barely disguised innuendos which the less said about the better, but if you ignore the lyrics, it is a very bright and happy pop tune that is still fun to listen to at points, but can quickly get annoying. Production here is undeniably fantastic, with all the biggest pop names in the business at the time, Max Martin, Benny Blanco and one slightly more cancellable Dr Luke, and that part of the song really does go down well. I just find the lyrical subject of the song too annoying to place any higher.

It was definitely the best stage show/performance combo we've done in the last ten years, excluding 'Space Man'. Song style's a bit niche and we need to ditch the writing camp, but LMNC has been a fantastic representative for the UK, this is our first last place which I feel is entirely undeserved (seriously, this is so far ahead of 2003, 2008, 2010, 2019, 2021 that it shouldn't even be in the same category as those) and nothing on the televote three years in a row is just wrong - this and last year deserved far more from the public. I think I was thinking that even with the juries likely to pay this dust we'd get enough on the televote to make it a reverse result to Remember Monday and that would have been fine, but then you get crap like Greece taking up that lane which was inferior in every way to this, I'm mad. At least Sam has had the right attitude throughout this. Celebrating 'eins point' last night was great to see, but he deserved a lot more numerical love from Europe.

22. Roll Deep – Green Light1 week at #1 (entered 22nd August): 01-04-06-13-16-24-29-40-54-57-69 Kept off #1: Eminem – Love The Way You Lie (feat. Rihanna) EOY #95 Now we get to the good stuff. There’s a number of #1s left in this year that sell euphoric joy very very well, and ‘Green Light’ is the first of those, though of course the second #1 and single from the grime collective’s album Winner Stays On. A third, just as good single in my eyes, ‘Take Control’ with Alesha Dixon would follow after this to far less commercial success. Roll Deep were having a good year and they have always been a pleasant oddity in 2010’s #1s, you don’t often see a big super group (or collective, or crew) like this go on to achieve chart success in its own right, other grime collectives never really had huge chart hits and the only other one in the hip-hop world I can think of at least in the 21st century is D12, Eminem’s crew - and Young Money with 'Bedrock' but well, we can forget that one. Wiley did well for himself at this very specific point in time, particularly if you compare other collectives with famous members like Boy Better Know (Skepta) and Ruff Sqwad (Tinchy) whose musical output was far more restricted to mixtapes or just promoting the individual members. It’s not entirely clear to me how and why they shot into commercial relevance with the Winner Stays On album but ‘Green Light’ getting to #1 makes it clear that this wasn’t a one-off either. A two-off. It is a very nice way to do a song that is explicitly about consent – not something that is easily woven into dancefloor songs, and it sounds pretty great while doing so. Its biggest weakness is its inability to escape from the inevitable comparisons to the previous single, on most of which it comes up short. Had it gone down a slightly different track, it wouldn’t, but then it’s also not a song that’s after any critical appreciation. The vocalist Tania Foster, friend of Jodie Connor, gives a great effort and is probably the best part of the song here, lifting up with a really powerful chorus that sticks in the mind. The rap verses don’t, really, and I know Roll Deep and Wiley can make rap verses stick in the mind, so that's a black mark against this. Some of them don’t get too much better if you do focus on them, ‘check out the skirt on that’ for example, though ‘green cross code’ and ‘she flashed, red, amber, green’ make up for it, at least they are attempting to make, through the lyrics, a song that stands on its own two feet, it's unfortunate that has limited success. Though a very enjoyable song, it doesn’t stick in the memory very well and while I’m sure I heard this in bars/parties/clubs or on the radio at points in 2010, I remember many of its competitors far more, this is very much a fade into the background sort of song – there will be 3 more songs that directly kept year-end top seller ‘Love The Way You Lie’ off the top spot, but this would be the one I’d replace if I could, the third of them and nearly the closest they came (3300 off here, 2900 off for the song the week before this). The Eminem/Rihanna collab was brilliant and very clearly culturally relevant, and obviously memorable enough to achieve that EOY feat, just stuck in the summer behind a wave of high-selling one-week wonders. Obviously higher-ranked #1 Good Times will get its due later and so I’ve intentionally avoided mentioning it by name but while I do really enjoy this, I can’t help listening to it but think of how much better that previous single was and that unfortunately dominates most of my thoughts about it, a fun if transient club track. Feels a bit rude to use the term re-hash but this is just the same (similar) song again, and weaker.

23. Alexandra Burke – Start Without You (feat. Laza Morgan) 2 weeks at #1 (entered 12th September): 01-01-05-10-19-27-37-47-53-60-80-76-x-84 Kept off #1: Katy Perry – Teenage Dream EOY #82 Continuing the revenge for Teenage Dream section... This era's trend to have producers put their names at the beginning of songs is often mocked, sometimes too often, but ‘Start Without You’ is unique, I’m not sure I can think of another one where the singer gives up and after the ‘RedOne’ just lazily sings ‘etc…’ Hold up, I’m just now being told that she can’t sing her own name. I remember Alexandra Burke being around a lot with the songs from her first album Overcome, as Syco did the work to try and make her into a pop star on par with say, Gaga? No… Katy Perry? No… even as this song keeps Teenage Dream off the top spot for a second week. Cheryl Cole, kinda? I’m not sure what her direction was really. The unfortunate thing is that she was best at the big dramatic ballads, but that lane was already filled by one Leona Lewis. The resulting pop that got her a few hits around this time, though I certainly enjoyed it and played it a lot at the time, was ultimately just weak looking back. Weak for good uptempo pop at least. Its sorta telling that one of the singles from Overcome before the re-release campaign started, ‘All Night Long’, still sold more than this 2-week #1, which completely exited the chart in a fashion far more befitting a one-week #1 that frontloads its sales. ‘All Night Long’ also had a much more worthwhile rent-a-rapper verse, because Pitbull is never wrong. All that said, and believe me, ‘Start Without You’ is a record plagued with issues, a generic, identity-less tune that feels like Burke on autopilot as she uncomfortably shuffles her way through being a dancefloor popstar, I still quite like it. I think it’s fun and energetic enough that I’ve never hated hearing it and if it were performed by a singer outside of the talent show network it’d be a lot easier to like as disposable fun, so I am just ranking it as disposable fun that I enjoy listening to when it comes on a fair bit, but not one I can say is a particularly great record either. Supposedly the Jamaican influences are her trying to tap into her heritage, for which, good on her, but it does feel more like the label box-ticking that type of song for her than a particular love or fit with her to the style. Some artists do cast their specialism nets a little too wide and come up with weak songs because of it, Burke is certainly one. Part of why it didn’t stick around long was the weird decision to release it in September when such a reggae-influenced summery tune would have been perfect far earlier in the year. It was even leaked online much earlier so they had the perfect excuse – if it was too soon after the release of ‘All Night Long’ maybe they wanted to wait, and in the download era this may have been valid, but a bad decision looking back. Burke’s career after this notably flatlined, after the far better ‘The Silence’ (to this day what I consider her best song) didn’t do so well in the charts in December after a very public performance on The Talent Show and a somewhat disastrous second album, this is the last time she reached #1 and while I do think it’s the best of her 3 #1s, it’s unfortunate that there wasn’t more competition for that slot. She would have been much better focusing on balladeering.

Was over watching it at a friends, with substantial more disparaging comments aimed at the contest and/or the inevitability of the voting being a rigged mess than most years. Sorta relieved Bulgaria won, it's their first winner after a lot of very good entries, they did a good performance and that televote landslide came out of nowhere. It was only an okay song though, as nice as it is to see a different genre winning, I don't quite understand the huge landslide it got. Also this does just delay the inevitable of this happening every damn year as it should be obvious to anyone with ears and eyes that yet again, Israel's performance in the contest is not reflective of its abilities as a song or performance, a forgettable mid effort forgotten by most of the audience minutes after it finished. anyway congratulations Romania on your second place! That was the best performance of the night for me - though Finland, Serbia and yes the UK were close behind. Finland had such brilliant drama, Serbia was incredible metal, Romania everything good you could want in a rock performance at once and that connecting with the public was the one bright spot in the results. I was honestly left in awe at how good the UK's performance was, captivating, much better than the semi and just a lot of fun, far more fun for me than other upbeat fun offerings like Moldova or Greece - televote nul was completely undeserved. jury votes were utter rubbish too, seeing Malta, Italy, Poland as well as Israel of course so high was very bizarre and unwarranted.

I had 'Rasa' on my potentials list for a while, hope that does well, great to see Charisma.com back also

24. Olly Murs – Please Don’t Let Me Go1 week at #1 (entered 5th September): 01-04-05-12-16-23-28-35-39-45-54-68-39-41-49-55-44-39-60-89-95 Kept off #1: Katy Perry – Teenage Dream EOY #55 Something you could take as a representation of the state of 2010 #1s, ‘Please Don’t Let Me Go’ entered the chart as the last of a 9-week string of single-week number ones that started all the way back at ‘The Club Is Alive’ in July. I also specifically remember it as a week when I purposefully went on the old BBC website and ‘discovered’ the chart. In that I saw a list of songs that I already knew were popular in a visual representation for the first time: cue the following weeks listening to the chart show and refreshing it as the chart show played all (or at least most) of the top 40 each week. All gone now. As fine as they’ve made it, I rarely think to use the Official Charts website these days so I wouldn’t comment on the experience for today’s chart watchers. Opening this up this way also as ‘Please Don’t Let Me Go’ was in one of the, not the biggest, but one of the bigger chart battles of the year, with fairly high sales for the song that also entered this week at #2. It was also kinda close, to the point where Olly Murs was on record as really not expecting to go to #1 with his debut. Most especially because looking at the identity of the song at #2, the second single and title track from Katy Perry’s huge Teenage Dream album, in impacts over time and how big both songs actually felt at the time, I feel fairly comfortable in saying the wrong song won. ‘Teenage Dream’ and Katy Perry were everywhere this year, inescapable, and would have been #1 if released on many of the other weeks immediately preceding this. And the week after as it happens, though in reality ‘Teenage Dream’’s second week sales weren’t enough to overcome the song that replaced Murs here from debuting at #1. I don’t really mean to slight ‘Please Don’t Let Me Go’ here, because it’s fine. Back then I really thought it was quite funky and fun, though I’m not sure I’d have taken it over ‘Teenage Dream’ even then, but it has aged slightly poorly. ‘Please Don’t Let Me Go’ is the first single from Olly Murs in his decently-long commercially successful career, for those who haven't paid attention since he stopped getting singles hits, he's been releasing successful albums up to and including last year (I know, surprised me too!), and we'll see him a bit more in future threads. Here he's beating Joe McElderry’s first (proper) single in hype, sales, and a month in advance, making him the more clearly successful talent prospect. Thing about Olly Murs is that I don’t quite get him. I wasn’t watching that season of The Talent Show and all this larking about with hats and dancing doesn’t fit with what my interpretation of a popstar is, plus many of his songs drag and get boring quite quickly. He’s sold as something different but I just see acts like Robbie Williams and Will Young in him, except a lesser modern version, those types are incredibly hit or miss for me and Murs is no different…. male popstar with a bit of swagger, though he sometimes looks slightly awkward in comparison to those as well. In fact a lot of his hits would have finished lower than this, ‘Please Don’t Let Me Go’ is one I like. It’s sweet and bouncy, fun enough that I ended up playing it and its subsequent album a fair bit at the time, doesn’t disgrace itself on the chart though it certainly falls off faster than Teenage Dream and my tastes shifted away from this sort of pop very quickly in the years that followed. A just fine, decent song. One fun little sideplot that Wikipedia reminded me of was that this was back in the days when papers cared enough about #1 races to do bets with talents on them, maybe because Murs was a hot topic at the time. Anyway Heat got him to promise to strip naked for a photo shoot if he got this #1, and so while I haven’t looked for it as I’m not interested in those things, for those who might be, there might be pictures of him with his hat in a tasteful position out there somewhere. Not the last time I can think of that casual nudity accompanying and/or promoting #1 hits will turn up this year.

Latvia Finland Serbia United Kingdom Sweden Romania Norway Australia Croatia Austria these are good, can't honestly imagine returning to most of the rest after this year, but these 10 were great moments this season 'Ēnā' is so damn beautiful

ooh actually they entered in the same chart week with a 1-week #1 commentary for later sorted yay

25. David Guetta – Gettin’ Over You (feat. Chris Willis, Fergie & LMFAO) 1 week at #1 (entered 30th May, #1 week beginning 7th June): 41-01-04-07-10-13-16-18-18-24-27-28-31-38-43-55-59-80-90 Kept off #1: None EOY #52 The end of 2009 approaches. One Pierre David Guetta has had his most wildly successful year in the music industry. While he had had a few hits before this on his album Pop Life, he had gone stratospheric with collaborations with Kelly Rowland and Akon. Both of the singles ‘When Love Takes Over’ and ‘Sexy Bitch/Chick’ had gone several times platinum and would be covered in Buzzjack’s 2009 rundown. The album One Love was released to great success at least as far as dance music goes, as general convention goes that DJs and producers don’t often sell full-length creative music projects, rather they trade off their finely tuned club hits. The Guetta sound was so in demand in 2009 that a whole album of club hits was just what the commercial crowd ordered. And then they went for one more. One More Love, to be precise. A whole new set of tracks for another stay on the commercial lane while still keeping a connection to those tracks that had made Guetta so dominant in the first place. That would be released in November. I suspect that the need to release something a little sooner resulted in ‘Gettin’ Over You’. ‘Gettin’ Over’, a track that is essentially the same song as the song that would eventually go to #1, was the second track on One Love, and the only song of the first 4 that hadn’t been released as a single yet. It featured the vocals of longtime Guetta collaborator, Chris Willis, who had been featured on a rather large number of Guetta hits to date. Chris Willis, originally a gospel singer, wasn’t particularly known for anything outside of Guetta hits, in contrast to the other features so far from ‘One Love’. ‘Gettin’ Over You’ would be the last time he would collaborate with Guetta in any notable capacity. I’m not privy to any inside information or conversations, but the end of these collaborations does feel like Guetta shifting towards chasing hits and collaborating with artists whose names would attract attention, and as the hottest property in dance music, he had so many of those that Chris Willis was now surplus to requirements. For what it’s worth, Willis’ soulful vocals on ‘Gettin’ Over’ make that perhaps the better version of this song. For the release that got to #1 (though it’s notable that the Official Charts website still lists this as ‘Gettin’ Over’, and not ‘Gettin' Over You’), Guetta changed things considerably – it’s those damn Peas again, apparently they wrote the song, wanted it for The E.N.D and now just turn up to sing on it (I find the backstory for this song slightly confusing given the original version exists). Just like she did on 'The Time' a bit later in the year, Fergie takes on vocal duties, reducing Chris Willis to a duet partner, without some of his most soulful turns, firmly switching this song in the direction of a club banger. To complete it, as will.i.am was unavailable, and given his performance on the two #1s he's been on so far, not a huge loss, the production team phone up underground duo LMFAO, who knowledgeable UK chart followers and dance music aficionados may remember from their single 'I'm In Miami Bitch', to provide a very forgettable generic club verse and repeated 'party' refrains over the instrumental chorus. And then we never heard from those guys again. Never. Ever. Going from #41 to #1 is quite an interesting chart run, I want to say that this is because, in anticipation of the release, the original 'Gettin' Over' was being bought enough to chart decently, and then it went straight to #1 once the full remix was released - May 2010 was certainly when the music video was released. A properly new track for One More Love wouldn't show up until the end of the year when 'Who's That Chick' with Rihanna was Guetta's attempt at conquering the late year dancefloor tracks. I think this is just a perfectly adequate club track, despite the shakiness of the lineup here, and remember it as such from parties around this time, which is why it goes out as the countdown starts to get into acceptable fun songs - the remix that propelled this to #1 is so obviously messy and club-focused in the late 2000s drunk headbanger way that it conjures up images of sticky floors and strobe lights and not a whole lot else. Guetta's insistence to keep Chris Willis on there is admirable, but as it turns out, leaves much to be desired, as the guy is made into a background player on what was previously his own track, though certainly the result is more commercial than the original. It's fun and all but in a year when so many fantastic club bangers were far from #1, I don't know if I'll have a chance to mention them later so I'll shout out Magnetic Man's 'I Need Air' and Swedish House Mafia's 'One (Your Name)' right now, slightly wanting.