Iz様 🌟

Second one in a row where I share the #1 with the thread host, excellent! Thanks for a wonderfully written countdown Jade, been great to read through when I've had the time to, and lots of complete classics that you've covered the backgrounds and compositions of excellently. 'Crazy' obviously very well-produced and a lightning-strikes sort of hit, CeeLo's performance is so personable and arresting in his description of going mad, anthemic and very nostalgic now. But it and the rest of this countdown do pale in my affections next to 'Welcome To The Black Parade', which is a towering masterpiece of 21st century rock, there are very few songs within that category I would consider on a par with it and consequently it's definitely one of my favourite songs of all-time. Excellent coverage of the meaning behind the song and its accompanying album in your commentary, and indeed, despite the personification of the band as 'emo', and how many songs on Black Parade definitely show stereotypes of what we consider to be in that subgenre, I agree with Gerard in that this isn't actually an accurate descriptor of their music or at least, not all there is about it, and 'Welcome To The Black Parade' certainly is just a straight up rock epic. About a recalling of life while on death's door, certainly, but anthemic, encouraging and hopeful about the enduring human experience too. Plus that piano line, the drop, the build-up into the final energetic section, it is so perfectly constructed and a number one that, just like the similarly amazing 'Bring Me To Life' from 2003, I am in awe that popular music ever had such good taste to put such a rock epic at the top of the charts even in the 21st century. I said 'Dare' was my favourite #1 of all-time at the end of last thread, I think those 2 would complete the top 3.

Things I would generally not do: trust an English language computer reading aloud feature with a transliteration of a word in a foreign language far removed from English x Particularly given that is not how the words would be used or spelt in proper Japanese, it's intentionally idiosyncratic. For what it means, it's 'Tengoku' (天国) and 'Jigoku' (地獄), 'Heaven' and 'Hell' respectively (国 generally means country but that second one is mainly put at the end of the song title and the corresponding phrase in the lyrics to match Hell with Heaven rhythmically), mashed up, repeated and elongated as if in opposition to each other. I can't remember if you were in that contest but if you watch the music video for the song it's pretty self-explanatory why the title is like... that.

171 - Vylet Pony - Pest | 22nd | 147 pts 172 - Aiobahn +81 - 天天天国地獄国 (Tententengokujigokugoku) | 38th | 98 pts 173 - Patty Gurdy - Peg-Leg Silly-Billy (feat. Christopher Bowes) | 20th | 148 pts 174 - Igorrr - ADHD | 22nd | 159 pts 175 - Hot Milk - Insubordinate Ingerland | 30th | 117 pts 176 - Jo Yuri - Farewell For Now! | 24th | 137 pts 177 - Ecca Vandal - Cruising To Self Soothe | DNQ-24th | 34 semi pts 178 - Hagali - For Those Who Remain | 33rd | 114pts 179 - Yuko Suzuhana - Samurai Diva | 38th | 90 pts 180 - VIOLENT VIRA - Saccharine | 21st | 159 pts First off, that Q ratio is incredible for me. We're now in my 14th year of entering BJSC, and excluding the year where I didn't DNQ, 2018, this is the best one. Every other (full) year I've had 2 or more DNQs. If only Ecca had gotten through and made it a full house and then I'd be looking good on the streak front also. Certainly no shortage of risky entries in there either and I'm very pleased the more daring of the rest made it. Part of that may be the smaller contests and less non-qualifying spots but I'm really happy with that. On the flipside then, results-wise, it's frustrating for my competitive side that only a couple of those nine qualifiers were top half in the final and of those really just barely, with my best result of the year a 20th, which I'm not certain on this but I think that might actually be my lowest yearly peak. It feels like an absolute age since I've had a wide-appealing hit entry (Call Me Shadow near the beginning of last year probably, that's definitely my last top 10) and I do like getting those somewhat occasionally, makes the year unfortunately feel somewhat average despite clearly getting a good few fans for each of those entries; for the first 4 entries of the year I was on a streak of getting 3 18s each *.*, yes, even Aiobahn +81, which is really appreciated. I must be getting good at my niches. Time for those niches to become mainstream x basically just kind of been weird for me how good yet not good I've been doing. On how I'd actually rank my entries, there are two that are way ahead of the rest in quality in my mind, and that's the first two. 'Pest' and '天天天国地獄国' I have been playing pretty much non-stop throughout this year, I'm still just as obsessed with both as I was when I entered them, and my favourite Séyetana moment this year HAS to be Aiobahn +81 qualifying, even if it didn't do that well in the final because I adore that addictive silly rhythmic tune so much. Still entering, I think, a decent amount of genres and I'm trying to keep it fresh as ever, even if I do go to a rock song or a Asian pop song more often than not. 01= Vylet Pony - Pest 01= Aiobahn +81 - 天天天国地獄国 (Tententengokujigokugoku) 03 Igorrr - ADHD 04 Patty Gurdy - Peg-Leg Silly Billy (feat. Christopher Bowes) 05 Hot Milk - Insubordinate Ingerland 06 VIOLENT VIRA - Saccharine 07 Ecca Vandal - Cruising To Self Soothe 08 Yuko Suzuhana - Samurai Diva 09 Hagali - For Those Who Remain 10 Jo Yuri - Farewell For Now! oops yeah the first half are all above the second half.

Congratulations Dan, a decent winner, one I didn't vote for but I'm often on the same page as Bré so that tracks. So much of that top ten is amazing to see though, Lentyll, A-Konohagakure, Aelandor, Cor Lupus, Nelionoir, Taahino all absolute tunes that I'm very pleased got a lot of success. Thanks for hosting a very exciting and well-run contest Rich, it's been a real gem of one to see out the year. Pleased to finish just about in the top half then, that counts as one of my better performances this year, thank you to everyone who enjoyed my song <3

Bloody hell this has been the closest and most exciting end to a contest I can remember can't believe how the swings have gone between all of the top end, including both of my top 2, neither of which I expected to see anywhere near the top but am delighted for both of them.

oh wow thank you for the 18 Mack that's very much appreciated <3

these results are going stupendously well (for songs that are not mine that I support) thanks for the points keeping me just about in the top 30 though x

Saltillo in 2nd omg

Echo the love for the details, that is amazing to see - with so many things going on it's very useful to have these counters of significant movements to visualise everything. Thank you to Cheiron and Ojnoj so far x

Would love to finish out the year with a hit, I pray the contest is kind to rock songs tonight, but as ever predictions have given me very little indication. Couldn't tell you what the winner might be, I've sort of skimmed through the odds threads but nothing really stands out... yet. I'm sure it'll be obvious in hindsight x

Scissor Sisters, Shakira and Arctic Monkeys all incredible parts of your top 10 so far, would probably have them all as my favourites, all with excellent memories associated with them of that time. 'When The Sun Goes Down' probably stuck with me the most for its storytelling potential, dark song and how it fits with the rest of that album. The other two very much fun songs that are always a good time hearing, my school year at the time did a stage show that included a curtain call set to 'I Don't Feel Like Dancin' which was just kind of brilliant, don't even remember what the play was about now but the rhythm on that song has made me remember that clearly nearly 20 years later.

Due to 24/7 hour news cycle, news about Eurovision spreads much further than it used to, and the BBC is incentivised to publish articles about Eurovision. Only thing is, they're all negative, because of the bad feeling and controversies. There will be precious few people who go into next year's contest not aware of the Israeli controversy and there is a decent chance that if a number of countries have trouble with their selections that the contest has to be scaled back and the chance is not zero that it doesn't happen at all. This piece from ESC Insight is a pretty useful primer for fans wondering what to do (I am fully in the partial boycott column), but I want to highlight this quote: https://escinsight.com/2025/12/12/so-what-do-eurovision-fans-do-now/ This is undoubtedly going to filter through to every part of the contest, from the artists who choose to take part, to fans encouraging people to watch. Will there be a noticeable drop in viewing figures? Too early to say. But to be quite honest too, people thinking the UK should pull out has a baseline of miserable gits who hate the idea in the first place (also a demographic interested in taking surveys), plus all the fans, and I'm not really concerned at this point about the drones who'll watch it with no critical analysis of what they're watching. At this point in time, they don't matter, and it'll be the state the contest turns up in in May that they have to contend with. I thought that too, my fairest assumption is that alt/quirky artists are more likely to be pro-Palestine but I think that's a flawed assumption, I'd say a solid majority of musical artists below the age of 35, no matter their genre, are pro-Palestine, and genre-to-politics lines hold even less outside of Western Europe. The issue isn't that the sort of dead-eyed pop that "non-political" artists might be likely to create will now proliferate, it's if you even get enough of them at a decent enough quality for that genre who want to deal with this shit.

Clair Obscur won most of the awards: BBC NewsGame Awards 2025: Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is game of t...The French-made role-playing game is named game of the year and also picks up prizes for music and performance. BUT UMA WON BEST MOBILE GAME

I think the platforms included in the ban are generally those that promote algorithms and therefore "content" to children, rather than those that enable messaging. Things like Youtube, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter and Twitch are banned, Discord and Whatsapp aren't. Of course there's an argument that you might make for banning those too, but I'm pleased they haven't gone that far, those apps actually do work for social interaction with friends whether met in person or online. Obviously lots of content on Twitch/Youtube/TikTok especially has been aimed at young people, but in a somewhat predatory aspect (kids have time to spend hours in less than ideal ways on these sites). Good way to limit their influence.

Meanwhile Martin Green... Eurovision Song ContestLETTER TO OUR FANS FROM MARTIN GREENLETTER TO OUR FANS FROM MARTIN GREEN'As we look to next year, we will ensure that all participating broadcasters respect the rules of the competition and if they don’t you have a personal pledge from me, we will not tolerate it and call it out.' If you actually had a track record of punishing cheaters and those who use and abuse the contest for geopolitical propaganda purposes, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Looking forward to him limply 'calling out' Israel when they win the public vote by two thousand points again.

Sure, but that's not the issue. Geography doesn't really matter for this contest outside of the literal barriers set by the EBU square (and we know that even those can be defeated if the EBU chooses to invite outside participants), culture and values do. Israel's insistence on using the contest to whitewash its name and reputation is what matters. It'll be worse for their reputation in Europe in the long run, but their aim, to present themselves as a part of European cultural values, is why they resist removal so much.

The 5 are really just a perfect encapsulation of the perfect participants aren't they? Netherlands has been rightly aggrieved by the EBU in recent editions but they stuck with the contest through thick and thin until now and recently hosted the uncontroversial and well received 2021 contest. Spain's fans have possibly the most fervence for Eurovision of all of the countries and had the longest unbroken participating record after the UK. Slovenia has been possibly the most consistently loyal country from the former Eastern Bloc that came with the contest expansion in the 90s. Ireland of course the long-time holder of the winning record until Sweden recently tied them and now Iceland are the country that lives and breathes Eurovision so much that they are as Jafet points out, 90%+ of the population engaged with Eurovision and the country chosen to have the Eurovision movie set there, whatever you think of that. We lose all of them for... admittedly Israel's history with the contest is also long and storied, but their participations recently have been like night and day, showing no respect to the contest or the other participants. Before you even get to the actions of their government. With the reports from RTP that so many of their participants will not go to Eurovision, we have to be in for an... interesting NF season, what happens when no artist (or more likely, no artist worthwhile) wants to associate their brand with this?

Not a bad finish, congrats Rob, and I'm very pleased to see KKB in second, shame they couldn't win but Allie X is a fine winner. Thanks for hosting AllStar, I had a good time participating, nice theme for a contest.

I hope it goes well. Some parts are a little heavy-handed but it's a step towards stopping the children experiencing the deleterious effects of social media. I'd perhaps go instead to no access below 13 and limited access in teenage years and combine it with some legislation and/or guidelines to get people to parent their kids without leaving them to get brainrotted by the internet, but one to watch for how it impacts people around the world.

Ah, was hoping to see Albemuth and 7!! a lot higher, some really good vibes from both of them and the latter was a lovely bit of nostalgia for an anime that I can't believe is now over a decade old. KKB leading is great though and Baby Bugs in the top 3 is also great. Neon Bunny should be nowhere near the bottom x Thanks for the votes so far, especially the 10s from gooddelta and Cow, I'm glad I'm not completely flopping, this entry sponsored by my addiction to cute YOASOBI-likes whenever I manage to find them, and indeed I did briefly enter it to BJSC a couple months back before changing. Then when seeing if I did have a pop entry for this ready to go on the off chance, found out that it was exactly 4 minutes long so went for it.

Let's see, 'Thunder In My Heart' is very nostalgic as it was definitely showing up all around the place back in 2006, must have really caught the bug of retro (of the time) dance hit. 'America' is one of my absolute favourites and probably would have been in my top 5, yes it's lyrics aren't as sharp as some other critiques of America but that instrumental line is gorgeous and it builds really well to a satisfying climax, always loved it as kind of a way to cap off Razorlight's career, they'd made some good singles up to now and this was a great final attempt for them to have some relevance - and you might say what about 'Wire To Wire', and I'd respond 'Wire to what?' 'Smile' and 'Sorry' are good to start the top 10, I'd probably put them similar, both strong efforts from the artists but while I do really like early Lily, 'Smile' has worn a bit over the years. 'Sorry' has lovely production but lives in the shadow of 'Hung Up' a little too much, so similar experience to you.

Pretty sure that was 3 12s as it got 40-45 points (can't remember exactly how much) with 5 votes.

Dobago and Persephonia both sad losses, both interesting songs that clearly got crowded out by this semi.

Oh that's unfortunate, I was hoping to support that Cheiron entry in the final.

07 Deandria: Blacky - Ööö 01 Scotland 2: bassvictim - 27a Pitfield St Then Sandénia, Macromia, Zephyra Continuum and Jadakissnia I'm also sorry to see out, would have liked to see them qualify but it was a very strong semi and I figured some of the songs I considered for votes wouldn't make it. Sandénia definitely deserved more than 2 points though, not that it would have helped but they were 11th for me. Most of my favourites did make it through though thankfully.