Umi

As sad as I am to agree with this, I have to say that Padam Padam has caused massive damage for her (I said this while it was top 10 in the UK Charts forum as well). I know a lot of Kylie fans who've bought every album of hers for decades, and pretty much all of them were massively put off by Padam Padam, which was nothing like the sort of song that most Kylie fans love from her (classics like 2 Hearts and Better Than Today). What I will say is that she can probably pull it back together if she goes a bit more "classic Kylie" with the new album. But the sudden electropop sex vixen thing needs to go, and she probably shouldn't do songs as experimental and jarring as Tension either. A few of my friends have said that All I See would be a good blueprint for the next album.

Just doing my bit for the cause *.*

I've just thrown four downloads Kylie's way - it's hard not to when the numbers are so close. Really hoping she gets the top 10 this week!

It's disappointing to see the most idiotic conspiracy theories social media has to offer also being posted on here.

Very happy that Luxembourg is back but I'm anxious to see how long it will be for. They don't strike me as a country which would persevere through a bad start so they will need to hit the ground running, which is going to be tough after a 30 year absence. The good news is that if they do want to throw money at it, they have all the money in the world to do that with, and they have a noticeable population advantage over reasonably successful countries like Iceland and Malta. Leaving aside their own chances, their return has fairly significant televote implications for numerous countries (most notably Portugal, who could do with the help). In terms of leavers I am definitely worried for Azerbaijan at this point unless Turkey make a comeback next year. No juries in the semis and Turkey, Russia and Belarus absent is going to force them to either raise the quality back up or give up.

Do we reckon there's still any chance of 'Escapism' making top 20? It's a shame it's stalled just outside it for several weeks now.

Amusingly I feel like the song builds perfectly well but the performance gets a bit stuck about halfway through. The last chorus feels huge but the staging doesn't feel like it grows with the song at all after a certain point.

This could be good but I am somewhat alarmed that they are course-correcting quite this hard after Fulenn. Hyper-stereotypical working once doesn't mean it'll click every year.

Great analysis. Pan-Slavism is a really interesting topic in relation to this song because I think there's absolutely value in a message of support to Ukraine coming from a place of shared Slavic experiences of suffering under Russian violence. But as you said, it's maybe not the best idea to appeal to in the midst of a war for which one of many justifications Russia has offered is that Pan-Slavism inherently justifies Russian dominion over its neighbours. Leaving that aside, the song in general just feels both overly direct and quite vapid at the same time. I like how it sounds but I'm not sure the message really works at all.

I wasn't being serious about Shania. I just think that if you're going to be weirdly critical of either artist, it's weird to target the indie artist trying to grab her probable only ever shot at #1 and not the already extremely successful artist with a three-decade career behind her.

Shania has been in literally every supermarket, corner shop and pub in the country doing album signings despite having one foot in the grave and the achievement of an additional UK #1 album being almost meaningless to someone of her stature. It is the most bizarrely random and desperate campaign from a big name that I can recall. Calling an independent British artist annoying for using the limited tools at her disposal to compete with that is embarrassingly biased.

What was the story with Nonsense and Until I Found You? I missed this.

Wow, I didn't expect 'Shirt' to ever make it top 50 on pop, let alone when SZA has two other singles being pushed to the format. It's amazing to see SZA taking three slots at once as a lead artist on pop and I'm glad 'Shirt' is finally approaching decent numbers on radio considering how slow a build it's been.

I might be being a complete idiot, but I'm getting a file does not exist error when I try to access this!

Top 10 in 11 countries in its first week! Insane success. Streams are very stable as well.

I was commenting on the fact that it took them seven weeks to playlist Cold Heart. Did it take seven weeks for that song to prove that it was popular?

Did I miss Tom and Rod having massive streaming hits? I've not paid much attention to the charts in a while.

That's insane, I had no idea they were so reluctant to support Cold Heart at the time. I guess they really hate Elton.

Is it a bit weird that they've not added Hold Me Closer? I assume they played Cold Heart?

I was about to make the exact same comment. Crazy to see 25 outdoing 30 less than a year after 30's release, and 21 creeping up on it also.

Spain were 3rd on the jury and on the televote, and notably behind Ukraine on the televote but not the jury. It's worth noting that Ukraine's enormous haul on the televote will have suppressed every one else's figures. With a less extreme result for the televote winner, I'm confident that Spain would have gained more points from the televote than from the jury.

I'm wondering if Greece didn't have a fantastic semi result based on that. So happy Spain and Serbia got great slots though!

Embarrassing.

It feels increasingly likely that we'll reach the peak of this situation very soon. I was up until 5:30 watching the nuclear situation last night, and it feels hard to view it as anything other than a purposeful terror tactic for Europe.

I've been unable to stop thinking about this invasion since well before it actually came to pass, and naturally 95% of my thoughts have been about the suffering of Ukraine, but I'm despairing for Russia tonight. I would love for the Russian posters on here to correct me, but it feels like the country is rushing past the point of no return right now. I just can't help but find it chilling that despite such a serious deterioration in Russia's position and its domestic quality of life, there is still no wind of change. This is absolutely not a critique of the Russian people, but it worries me that the country is mid-transformation into a much larger North Korea (not just in terms of the economic and cultural isolation, but also the last gasps of independent media and curtailed freedom of movement for Russians), with the added bonus of inflicting its regime on neighbouring countries and threatening nuclear war (and therefore the destruction of the Russian people), and ... the response is extremely passive. I just can't fathom a situation in which a formidable domestic response to the Russian government can ever again be mustered up if this situation prompts only some small scale demonstrations. Again, I want to stress that this is not a "jeez, why aren't you guys rebelling?" post. My full sympathy is with the Russian people and I am extremely privileged to be able to comment on this from afar. It's just one of the most hopeless situations I've ever seen, to see a regime do this much harm to its people and have those people be just this helpless in the face of it. If Ukraine ever gets out of this war, they have a path (if vague and difficult) towards a stable democracy and a brighter future. Russia feels like it's going quietly into the night and I don't want this international pariah imprisoning its citizens to be the status quo for the coming decades. I don't know. If the above is totally ignorant and/or offensive, please do correct me. I'm just unable to comprehend the damage that one man is doing to so many nations at the moment. My thoughts are with all Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian posters. I'm proud of the international response to this, but I wish we could do so much more.