Herbs

19 years old now. Not Ready to Make Nice by The Chicks closely followed by The Blowers Daughter - which is 24 years old

Oooh that sounds like a good way of doing it. I do similar - I create a youtube playlist and then eliminate x number of songs per listen until I'm left with a final 10-15

Awww Rev Richard Coles makes an appearance! Excited to see who finishes high on this rundown

I am intrigued to know how people sort their rankings. Some people do a couple of listens and then rank right? Others (myself included) give songs at least 5-6 listens before ranking. I try not to look at who has sent a song to avoid any unconcious bias. I find for me that works well as I then get a nice surprise (when it's a country I rarely vote for - e.g. I was so thrilled at being able to vote for someone I've been waiting to vote for forever in BJSC 174) or an 'awww, of course' reaction if it's someone I vote for frequently.

Voting biases intrigue me. Sometimes I feel like they exist, at other times I do not. I have found that I tend to finish in the top half in the anonymous contests more than I do in BJSC (we'll forget my anomalies with Celine Dion, Courtney Act & The Vaccines!), but I think that's partly because when it's on theme I am more in line with what people like. Or rather, I hope that's what it is. The hype stuff - from what I've seen I feel like hype helps people to qualify, but yeah when it comes to the final it can hinder. That's the love of an underdog I guess. Although if you want to support an underdog, support me as the perennial non-qualifier 😉

From what I’ve seen in my limited time in the contest, I would also vote no. There are quite a few different voting blocs and some of them will never/rarely vote for songs from another bloc. It does make it interesting in the final as there’s rarely a runaway winner. At the same time I do think it leaves people at the mercy of the semi final draw. A song that could get tons of votes in the final doesn’t make it because they ended in a semi final with voters from another bloc

Votes sent :)

And Draper makes it 3 into round 3

What the hell did Sasami do?

I have a long list of those songs: Agadoo Time Warp Dancing Queen (don't hate me for this but I was bored of it 100 weddings ago) etc etc

Let's just sack off all the male artists/male led bands and have a female only top 10?

This comment made me genuinely LOL. A cheesy song in a pop contest?! Which is based off of a show that heavily featured cheesy pop music. Madness!

Lol we could be. Guess you'd have to choose the right one

Actually so do I! Ignore what I said!

Talking of Elton collaborations, I'd love to see his duet (& bonafide queer anthem) with another Pop Factor contestant entered in future rounds!

I know it's early. I was expecting Tom Aspaul & Enhyphen to struggle but a little surprised at Bob Dylan, A-Ha and WTM

Of the songs I don't know (not including Sasami as I recently heard that through BJSC), Damiano, James Blake and Addison Rae are the ones I liked on first listen. There are 3 songs on this list that were massive number 1's on my personal chart. And a few others that were top 5. This is going to be fun putting this ranking together.

Delta

Routing for Flynnonda - hoping they qualify against these predictions

I have no idea how people can rate so early! I have to give songs a few listens before I decide - particularly with something like this where there’s a mix of known songs and new songs

lol looks like my experiment is going to fail then!

That interview made my heart full! So great to hear they have a better work/life balance than before I am thinking I should go and see the show again now!

Louise just edges it for me. Neither is as good as the original though

Shame Nelly F couldnt make it (was my fave) Noisettes for the win

Razorlight