Hassaan

Lola Young but I think not many people even knew she released an album before Messy blew up. You're right though, it's very rare. Amy Winehouse as mentioned, Raye maybe? Dua Lipa to a degree, I don't know.

I think the official Top 40 would be a stretch - their last track to manage that at all was Better Man in 2019 (#26) but it'd be great.

Waiting for Love? I was getting a little bit of Up (Demi Lovato and Olly Murs).

I wouldn't have pinned that song to be the one he'd perform on there. Obviously the album's out now anyway but I thought he'd want one of the songs that have caught on (Azizam or Sapphire).

The flag lads are just weird. All this bollocks about national pride but not when there's actually something to be proud of.

Well, there's a visualiser now!

Like the falsetto in Something in the Heavens?

I like this, it's a bit different for them but it should play well live.

The tour announcement has gotten them lots of attention, so no attention is not true. It won't chart well because Westlife's fanbase generally aren't heavy on streaming, and they're almost certainly not expecting it to chart well either. The money for them is in touring now. As for music videos, they're not something artists do anywhere near as much as they once did.

I would have liked some re-recordings.

No official announcement about this greatest hits but Shane has given an interview where he mentioned this. Four new songs. I wonder if they'll have done some re-recordings - their last greatest hits was in 2011 and we've had two albums of new material since then but I don't know how many of those songs will actually make the cut.

I thought the same at first, and with the tour as well. I guess they didn't want to get fans' hopes up with Mark after he already had to dip in and out of the Wild Dreams tour.

I was going to make a thread but intended to wait until tomorrow. 😅 Their first new release in 4 years, and Mark is on the record despite the fact he's not well enough to be out there touring with them again.

I think it's just the whole rap section. It's not what he's known for, but really comment sections at the best of times are almost certainly going to be a horrendous place.

Bonkers was a bold choice but I think it seemed to fall to the wayside as a novelty single and not in a good way. Bit of a misfire I think. Save Me worked though, and should have made some waves though it's difficult for him to chart in the singles at all.

It's hard for old songs to chart highly at all because of permanent ACR and there's the matter of automatic resets. From the outside, it feels too complicated, but maybe it's the best thing we've got.

The format itself is quite flawed really, but it manages to be entertaining enough that a lot of the viewers just aren't bothered. But yes, given they have to fill 9 episodes (or 12 in the case of the normal version) and it's not a structured "one person kicked out each week" format, there's the recruitment and everything else.

Mike did actually fill in for Tim once. It was the infamous "First Time Dies" episode from 2022. Having the winning product be sold in the shops is very interesting. I know they can't incorporate something like that so easily with the normal show but it would be interesting.

Yeah that's what I was getting at. Seems to be a hard sell to get Christmas songs released in the 21st century to chart highly each year. One More Sleep (Leona Lewis) and Merry Christmas (Ed Sheeran & Elton John) are the two which stand out.

Do any of these Amazon exclusives make waves in their second year (when they're usually available on all platforms)? After peaking at #2 in 2023, Sam Ryder topped out at #56 last year.

They're bound to have some beige names. I'm not too bothered as long as they can push the boat out with some big names. Even then, you can bet the ones that are deemed beige will be the ones that the viewers actually like.

Pleased for him. I wish it went to #1 but I think it will be a mainstay of his set list for a while.

They've just announced a 25th anniversary tour. It's a bit tenuous (they say so themselves) as it marks 25 years since their first tour. They're also releasing new music next week and Mark is on it. No sign of him being ready to perform with them though, I dread to imagine how bad his health was that he's had to be out of action for this long. But then he probably also wants to raise his daughter as well.

It took me 380 hours... That dastardly triple spin... Ironically I think I found the first time relic the hardest.

I guess the reason they don't suspect Kate is because they think a Traitor wouldn't make it that obvious.