Iz 🌟

I don't think I can be there for all of it but I will join when I can.

@1846841039471984690 I like this from Rebecca Ferguson. Part of what made me note One Direction in particular out of all the boybands is that they were age peers to me almost exactly, Liam was only 2 months older than me. So that they were all normal teenagers with middle-class backgrounds getting thrust into fame, that was odd to watch for me but I can't imagine how it must have actually been for them. The pressures of that fame, and then for Liam in particular, he didn't seem to have much of a solo career once it all ended (perhaps through no fault of his own, the industry can be very cruel at times) and the pop industry seems to have such little support for someone in that situation, even though it absolutely could, and should.

RIP. Really shocked me to see when I woke up this morning. I don't know much about how his life went in the last few years but he always seemed like a good centre for the 1D boys, though perhaps in the background compared to the louder personalities in the group. Really sad to see him gone so young.

Closing this, but leaving it up to redirect conversation to the thread (link below) in the 1D forum. http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=275518

yeah this one is going to be tricky.

So Far Away and Limbo sounded great when I gave the album part of a listen yesterday, may well have to go back for the whole thing.

SPREAD THE WORD (need to go on a tricot binge soon)

That really came out of nowhere damn. @1845087673725132854 He was tweeting just earlier today; though for final public words, those are very fitting.

okay we'll give this one a go don't think I've sent something like this before and it's a style of entry I do like.

2012 Nightwish [575] Nightwish - Imaginaerum [387] Loreen - Euphoria [162] 2013 Rihanna [431] ABBA - Gold [165] Amaranthe - Amaranthine [85] 2014 Nightwish [457] Lindsey Stirling - Shatter Me [172] BABYMETAL - Megitsune [83] 2015 Nightwish [643] Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful [168] PinkiePieSwear - Flutterwonder [62] 2016 Paramore [167] Dream Theater - The Astonishing [82] Nao Hiiragi - Requiem (Stygia Bootleg) [70] 2017 nanobii [127] Gorillaz - Plastic Beach [22] nanobii - Chipland [95] 2018 Audio Paradyne [114] Avicii - True [16] Audio Paradyne & Stahl - Paradise [114] my 2018 stats are so screwed, Paradise is the only song with over 45 plays, the rest of those charts are filled with bad tags, YT scrobbling, 'Nightcore' is nearly my #1 artist, and I even completely stop scrobbling in August and don't start again until a little bit next January - part of that was moving to China but still. I do plan on fixing some of the bad tag stuff but I want to do it delicately so I don't erase memories while doing so. 2019 Nightwish [96] Eluveitie - Ategnatos [41] PinocchioP - I'm Glad You're Evil Too [29] know the numbers are a little lower but everything looks a lot more organised here, this is the beginning of my rebirth 2020 Nightwish [248] Mori Calliope - Dead Beats [73] DEMONDICE - Alkatraz [48] 2021 Mori Calliope [565] DEMONDICE - Alkatraz [164] Mori Calliope - Off With Their Heads [90] 2022 DEMONDICE [436] DEMONDICE - Shut Up, Get Happy [247] DEMONDICE - Take The Bait [76] ngl kinda love how 2022 looks 2023 The Cat Empire [95] Hoshimachi Suisei - Specter [65] The Cat Empire - Thunder Rumbles [40] 2024 (so far) Taylor Swift [271] Bring Me The Horizon - POST HUMAN: Nex Gen [49] IRyS - Carbonated Love [32] only counting a studio album LP, EP or single artist GH compilation for albums, that part of my tags was very messed up around 2015-2019 days, finally getting onto streaming services in 2019 started to sort that. Always tried lately to ensure I have an album tag scrobbled, I can still scrobble from singles but most of the time I prefer to scrobble from the album version so I have plays approximating the era for each artist.

+30 Metric - Doomscroller +29 My Chemical Romance - The Foundations of Decay +28 RAYE (feat. 070 Shake) - Escapism. +27 Rina Sawayama - This Hell +26 Black Country, New Road - The Place Where He Inserted The Blade +25 Arcade Fire - Lightning (I + II) +24 Gorillaz (feat. Tame Impala & Bootie Brown) - New Gold +23 Rosalía - Saoko +22 Ibibio Sound Machine - Protection From Evil +21 Cornelia Jakobs - Hold Me Closer +20 Porter Robinson - Everything Goes On +19 Kohta Imafuku - Orihime +18 Black Midi - Welcome to Hell +17 Rina Sawayama - Frankenstein +16 Paramore - This Is Why +15 Caroline Polachek - Welcome to My Island +14 Bring Me The Horizon - Strangers +13 Let's Eat Grandma - Happy New Year +12 Chanel - SloMo (Eurovision Dance Edit) +11 Muse - Won’t Stand Down +10 Sam Ryder - Space Man +9 Taylor Swift (feat. Lana Del Rey) - Snow On The Beach +8 Driftmoon - Nova Imperatrix +7 Chappell Roan - Naked in Manhattan +6 Röyksopp (feat. Susanne Sundfør) - Oh, Lover +5 Rina Sawayama - Hold The Girl +4 Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero +3 Go_A - Kalyna +2 Gayle - abcdefu +1 Rosalía - Candy

What I've seen of the revamp (there's a thread about 3 pages back in the mod forum that I've used if I forget what a contest looked like, I presume you're working off a fork of that) does look incredible so good luck, hit me up if you need help A lot of the stats in this thread are just unsustainable to keep updated* - like full country runs for example - you'd need some sort of statistics API that can be fed contest data and then spit it out all prettily presented, which is theoretically possible to build, you get indie sites that do similar things for last.fm for example but would be an enormous undertaking itself. *I think back in the day I did do a run through updating of this thread once or twice for Ghosty and it took FOREVER

I know I said Cleverly would have been my preferred choice but I was starting to get a little worried with his good speeches to conference and his general moderate leanings, he could have taken the fight back to Labour in winning over swing voters and actually given us a risk that the Tories might actually be in power again relatively soon. bit of a shock though, funny that it seems like a game of tactical voting gone wrong from Cleverly's team Nice to know the remaining leadership contest will be a fight between two unlikeable stooges who'd probably be about as even as each other - I can't see either of them assembling a coalition to trouble Labour with Reform clearly distinct too. essentially, a chance to avoid the death of the Tory party is gone, therefore: lol, lmao even

Just days after Helene became the most deadly hurricane in mainland US since Katrina. Florida's having a wild wild season. Very scary for anyone in that part of the world. Also first time we've had three hurricanes in the Atlantic in October with Kirk and Leslie out in the centre (and the remains of Kirk soon to give us a light smattering of rain in the UK most likely)

So I think equivocating it as 'well what can Trump really do that's so bad compared to Biden/Harris aiding & abetting Israel' does miss just how insane Republicans are on the issue of Israel. Trump himself, maybe he's ambivalent (I think he doesn't care and will just respond positively to a Netanyahu ego rub and we know Bibi's been angling for that), but there's enough people who'd make up part of any cabinet in the GOP that would probably happily take every dollar currently going to Ukraine and redirect it straight into the hands of Israel. e.g: @1842243586894778664

I really can't quite believe how much mileage the right wing press is making out of Diego Garcia/Chagos Islands, islands the ICJ instructed us to give back in 2019 (specifically remember it after that election as an example of how the incoming Johnson gov was flouting international law again), and a process that was started under the last Tory government, due to complete about this time anyway. Really. Article after article about Britain in decline on the world stage and handwringing that the Falklands might be next. For a couple of strips of land with no native populations about as in the middle of nowhere as you can get that we were due to give back anyway, and in any case we're maintaining the lease on the military base. It's pathetic. Though the Sue Gray resignation might knock it off the front pages for a bit - particularly as her replacement seems to be Morgan McSweeney, the Labour strategist who is esssentially responsible for everything I dislike about the current incarnation of Labour. He's an effective operator but he's completely unlikeable. Possibly a bit like Cummings then.

oh my at that semi performance, 4th and getting votes from 19/28 in there - that's incredible! shame about the falloff tbh I think most of my voters carried through, just they were nearly all my voters - what a 100% right semi to land in. Congratulations Leww, that's a really great winner from you. Excellent hosting all the way through Lindsey and I loved the tarot theme, thanks for bringing us this contest.

ah, my points were super frontloaded, shame. Looking like a good result towards the top end, I think I voted for a decent amount of that top 10.

nice points exchange Dan *.

An 18! Thank you Jim :heart: and blacksquare and Ansel too!

I seem to be getting votes from all over the place, thank you, really good to be in a lot of them so far. If Taahino and Sandénia are the chosen pop ones I wouldn't mind that at all (yes I guess Chrissy is pop-rock, still valid).

that's a great haul from the first set, thank you Lindsey, Cameron and Rich

Sounds like a good plan Lindsey, I'm excited for this, I don't really know what to expect for my entry or who will win, it seems like quite an open contest to me.

Trump has no basis to claim that he can end the war, it's just his usual ego bullshit - and advocating for ending the war on anything that isn't on Ukraine's terms is Russian apologia (I mean in British and Irish terms this is like the UK coming back for the Republic). Sure you can have an anti-western perspective without being a Russian apologist, but on the issue of Ukraine the western perspective is the correct one, they need to be able to defend themselves from aggressive actors and money sent to Ukraine is directly defending the sphere of democracy by proxy. I find most anti-western perspectives on Ukraine tend to ignore it being its own state actor with desires to defend its own territory and instead focus on it being a pawn between Russia and the West, which makes it easier to justify Russian talking points.

Same, votes in. Felt very lopsided but while a few real nice ones made it out of SF1, most of my votes came from SF2. Helps that I didn't lose anything in the semi I guess.