Umi

'House on Fire' is boring as shit. Will listen to the others later but instantly calling doom on this.

I really enjoy it but I'm not sure how likely it is that I'll enjoy how they stage it in May. The guy being on stage does so much to detract from the meaning of the song.

She has two songs called 'Storm'.

I really like a lot of these actually. I was somewhat in love with Ornella's song and I really liked Max Gazzé's too, though I suspect I should feel slightly embarrassed to say that. Really supporting Annalisa to win in any case, and sad about Nina Zilli's song being so mediocre :(

It's such a shame how awful 'Same' is in full, as it had an amazing snippet. So very happy that 'Mercy' won the semi, and the rest of the qualifiers in this semi were great too. I think 'Eva' has the final in the bag, though I could see 'Ailleurs' running it close.

Personally I'll be supporting June The Girl next week but I am excited for your two as well. I heard Nassi is awful live though.

More people should have watched this, it was really good. I didn't watch France's last national selection but I can't imagine that this is anything but a major upgrade, and it's so much better than the UK's selection. I really liked the judges in particular, and enjoyed their willingness to actually criticise. Felt a bit bad for Amir after Isobel and Christophe randomly decided to pair up. The song selection was good, though the quality of the performers was a bit more dodgy. Louka was absolutely dire. Super happy for Emmy in particular. Videos of the qualifiers if anyone is interested (would recommend Emmy for BuzzJack): aCmBfalBJcw Xazl_olQ9Z4 OYSn0GGsCeE GwAQJ6yyJkU

For me, 'Hate the Way I Love You' is the best thing she's ever done by about a mile, so I'm quite excited. I am very sad that it's so short and missing 'Statements' in particular, but I can cope with that if the album tracks live up to the 'singles'.

Kesha should be top 10 on Pop tomorrow which is a little bit insane.

So obviously a little bit slow here but I really like this after just giving it what I think is my first full listen? I don't even just like it in a "It's the best you can expect from Nadine" way either - it's just genuinely a good song. Looking forward to possibly getting more from her!

I'd be pretty happy with that result at this point honestly. She's lagging on iTunes versus where I'd expect her to be. It's curious to watch after how explosive the song was in the UK.

'Praying' is catching fire again! It should be over 1 million AI gained again tomorrow and its bullet has recovered so much on Pop. I really hope it can make top 20 on radio but there is still quite a big gap there.

This is really great! I only just found out her third album is coming and this is a great taster. Really curious how much this indicates the sound of the album.

So how much hope do people have for 'New Rules' at this point? It's progressed disappointingly slowly so far for me.

Ugh, so annoyed with Venus going out. Can't care at all about the result of the women's final now and this was probably her last chance at a grand slam win.

See, Miley's fine. Débuting only two places behind a Taylor Swift lead is a huge success!

What on Earth happened to Konta? I think Maria beating Halep does count as a surprise - I know a lot of people who were doubting her fitness and she is lacking in practice no matter what. Halep could have won that match. Seen some surprise about Watson losing to Cornet but I don't at all get where that's coming from. Cornet's ranked higher and is actually competent on hard courts. Watson's never been past the first round here.

It is closer to gender equality than male-led songs created by a team of producers and collaborators that is 90% male.

That felt like a pretty big step down in quality from The Voice Australia to me. The dancers weren't used anywhere near as effectively and honestly Nicki's part felt so phoned in from her that I wouldn't mind if she hadn't shown up at all. The performance needed more work on the whole I think.

Sorry for wanting gender equality in the music industry, I guess?

I don't think the production being UK-based in sound necessarily means that it's aimed at the UK market (it seems more likely that she's attempting to set a trend), and I'd disagree that it's received a bigger push in the UK. She's just lucky that Radio 1 have got on board with the song in a fairly big way while radio in the US got on board both too early and in a much weaker way. 'Swish Swish' is doing better in the UK than it has in the US because the timings worked out much better over here than they did there. That's about all there is to it in my opinion.

I wish it was even slightly surprising for them to act like that at this point.

Honestly there shouldn't be as much discussion of the song's chart fortunes as there is, anyway. Given the nature of the song I think this single would always have been expected to start explosively and drop fairly quickly by her label. More commercial singles will come later, likely just before the album given its release date. This is doing exactly as well as it's needed to.

Thank you for the YouTube links in this one, was a godsend for 'True Colours' especially! I've tried to be a bit harsh with scores so it's not just a sea of 9s: 08 Right Round (Flo Rida ft. Kesha) 10 Tik Tok 09 Blah Blah Blah 08 Dirty Picture (Taio Cruz ft. Kesha) - the K$ ft. Taio version of this is significantly better but this still bops 7 years later. 04 My First Kiss (ft. 3OH!3) 07 Your Love Is My Drug 06 Take It Off 08 We R Who We R 11 Blow -1 Die Young 08 C'mon 04 Crazy Kids 06 Timber 05 True Colours (Zedd & Kesha) 07 Praying May have just replaced 9s with 8s in attempting to be harsh. So many great songs. Quite frightened of the screaming directed towards me when 'Die Young' goes out.

Halep and Sharapova have drawn each other in the first round. That's going to be something.