Jaz13music

30 Two More Years - Bloc Party 29 Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana 28 Everybody Hurts - REM 27 Creep - Radiohead 26 Cigarettes & Alcohol- Oasis 25 White Lines (Don’t Do It) - Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel 24 Start Me Up - The Rolling Stones 23 Animal Nitrate - Suede 22 Our Lips Are Sealed - Fun Boy Three 21 Wichita Lineman -Glen Campbell 20 Wordy Rappinghood - Tom Tom Club 19 Basket Case - Green Day 18 Babylon’s Burning - The Ruts 17 Weather With You - Crowded House 16 5 Years Time - Noah and the Whale 15 Don’t You (Forget About Me) -Simple Minds 14 The Lovecats - The Cure 13 Islands In the Stream - Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers 12 The King of Rock ‘N’ Roll - Prefab Sprout 11 One in Ten -UB40 10 No Regrets - The Walker Brothers 9 Lay All Your Love On Me - ABBA 8 Nobody Does It Better - Carly Simon 7 Hey DJ/I Can’t Dance (To That Music You’re Playing) - Beatmasters and Betty Boo 6 Domino Dancing - Pet Shop Boys 5 Disco 2000 -Pulp 4 Jet - Wings 3 Dancing In The Moonlight - Toploader 2 Radar Love - Golden Earring 1 You’re My Best Friend - Queen Really hard to choose. I had an initial shortlist (longlist!) of over 100! Had to give a shout out to the wonderful ‘Two More Years’ the ‘lost’ Bloc Party single, only recently added to streaming so maybe not well known by a lot of people?!

If the (original) idea of the award was to give a boost to less successful/new artists (which I think was a very noble pursuit) then the BBC are now just hedging their bets. There’s already Brit awards for best international/newcomer isn’t there? The artists they chose, particularly the top 5 which they, and therefore the public, focus on with the countdown this week, include not only Chappell and all her success but 2 Mercury Prize winners plus an artist with a million ‘selling’ top 5 single. I can understand choosing Kneecap, Doechii and Mk.Gee in that context but they should probably have been in the top 5 instead. I feel one of the biggest sins an artist can make is playing safe, but that’s just what the BBC are now doing with this, and ironically the thing I admire about Chappell as an artist is her risk taking. Anyway she just needs to get ‘The Giver’ released, watch it shoot straight to number one and the BBC can take all the credit for discovering her!😂. And I still maintain that song could have been Christmas number one with an early December/late November release, having seen how close Gracie came to managing it🤷. Maybe/hopefully someone will be brave enough to go for it next year?!

I have to agree with the sentiments here, it’s not an an attack on Chappell I love her as much as anyone, RWS was in my top 20 songs of 2023, but if the BBC wanted to support her early career they should have had her on the 2024 list. Plenty of other publications had ‘The Rise and Fall.. ‘ on their best of lists for the end of ‘23 so they should have been aware of her. By using the excuse that streaming means careers develop differently now as an excuse to choose acts that are already very successful commercially and critically, it seems like they don’t trust their own judgment and so go for the safe option with no risk of them being proven wrong or looking stupid. ‘Better to have tried and failed than never tried at all’ and all that. I also feel the BBC should at least have some leanings towards British artists, especially when they are struggling in so many ways at the moment. The Last Dinner Party winning last year was great but this whole list, to be truthful, seems a step back

Taylor Swift for 2026 win then :)

Great, thank you!

Great idea, I’d be up for that! It would be interesting which songs made #3 at Christmas, I have to be honest I can’t remember which they are!

Thanks for the info! So quite a rare occurrence then, and not since 2021/22? I can’t see anything managing it for 2024/25 even with the increasing streams!?

Thank you! Yes I’m really enjoying the countdown, unfortunately I missed the voting this time but I’ll hopefully be ready in future! I hope you don’t mind Julian, but I was considering stealing your idea for a Richard Osman style ‘World Cup Of…..’ vote (a family tradition) on best the Christmas number 2s next Christmas!😂

Hoping Doechii or Mk.Gee for number one. They had two of my favourite albums of last year

Did Cruel Summer have 2 consecutive years of over 1 million then? How common is that? I remember Bad Habits doing it, any others? Blinding Lights?

Ah Greg Lake, the first record I ever bought with my own pocket money. It was partly a fruitless attempt to get it to Christmas number one ahead of Queen. Thinking back that was probably the start of my lifelong love affair with the UK charts! It’s still my favourite Christmas song, really beautiful with bittersweet lyrics, that are still very relevant to our modern world (sadly). So pleased and surprised at Jeff Buckley placing so high. That’s one of my favourite songs of all time, never mind number 2s at Christmas. Fantastic work guys!

New Sky Ferreira!!!!!

Noah closing in on 2 million for the calendar year, I think he should manage it (just), an impressive achievement. Would that be a record for the streaming era? Even in the ‘sales’ era I can only think of the huge charity records managing that, Band Aid & Elton. Are there any others managed 2 million on the EOY chart?