-Jay-

Just sharing some old weekly sales. They've undoubtedly been posted before now, but I'm posting again... just for safekeeping! The Sound of Girls Aloud, Tangled Up & Out of Control The Sound of Girls Aloud 01. 84,354 (#01) [05/11/06] 02. 60,926 (#03) [12/11/06] 03. 49,590 (#04) [19/11/06] 04. 54,639 (#07) [26/11/06] 05. 67,954 (#07) [03/12/06] 06. 84,062 (#07) [10/12/06] 07. 95,785 (#08) [17/12/06] 08. 129,888 (#11) [24/12/06] = 627,198 in 8 weeks TSOGA at the start of 2009: 28,941 (#06) [04/01/09] 9,488 (#15) [11/01/09] 11,790 (#10) [18/01/09] Tangled Up (with running totals) 01. 49,065 (#04) [25/11/07] {49,068 - 3 copies sold pre-release date} 02. 38,323 (#13) [02/12/07] {87,391} 03. 38,191 (#20) [09/12/07] {125,579} 04. 40,807 (#24) [16/12/07] {166,386} 05. ? (#23) [23/12/07] {?} 06. ? (#28) [30/12/07] {244,510} 07. 10,651 (#27) [06/01/08] {255,161} 08. 7,139 (#33) [13/01/08] {262,300} 09. 4,972 (#46) [20/01/08] {267,272} 10. 4,069 (#49) [27/01/08] {271,341} 5th week - roughly 54,000 // 6th week - roughly 23,000 Out of Control 01. 85,670 (#01) [09/11/08] 02. 51,865 (#03) [16/11/08] 03. 45,894 (#05) [23/11/08] 04. 52,884 (#09) [30/11/08] 05. 55,110 (#09) [07/12/08] 06. 77,384 (#08) [14/12/08] 07. 125,047 (#05) [21/12/08] 08. 97,932 (#05) [28/12/08] 09. 22,259 (#10) [04/01/09] 10. 9,831 (#14) [11/01/09] = 623,876 in 10 weeks

Online today, I got: Carly Rae Jepsen - Disco Darling 7" Louise - Confessions Extended Edition 12" Mel B - Hot 12" Picture Disc (the FOMO feelings were too strong in the end to be able to resist this lol)

Well guess what darlings, after all that talk, I ordered a Hot vinyl after all. I'm really not proud of myself, but FOMO won out in the end x I'll totally resent this when it's £15 by June xx

Firstly, well done to @awardinary, you did an excellent job with Scissor Sisters! A highlight of their run for me was being introduced to 'Invisible Light'. I enjoyed being reminded of their many fantastic singles; ultimate favourites of mine being 'Only the Horses' and 'Take Your Mama'. Love and appreciation to @Calum for all his effort in making this competition what it is, it's been bigger and even better than last year! It’s been a lot of fun to take part in this. I’m already anticipating Season 3, but before thinking too far ahead… good luck to ABBA, Kelly Clarkson and Lily Allen in the final! It’s really been a pleasure teaming up with @ElectroBoy! We worked well together and I think we ended up with a solid run of songs, seeing us all the way to 4th place. In the first Pop Factor I sent Louise, so this year I wanted to go with a different category than the females. To the males! Troye Sivan was my first pick, but he was selected by @Tafty before I’d got around to filling in the form! (I would definitely have sent 'HEAVEN' in the ballads round too 💔). My next idea was Conan. Having been a fan of his since 2020 (his debut album era - and of course it was @JosephStyles who introduced me to him! Eternally grateful xx), I felt passionate about him, and also anticipated that he would be an interesting challenge in this contest. I knew going into this that not a lot of BuzzJack members were too familiar with him. What better way to get him on people's radar than through The Pop Factor? I can’t say that my expectations were too high (regarding how far Conan would progress in the competition) but what I was hopeful for, was that even a few people would enjoy his songs. Every positive comment posted about him was lovely, and it took a lot of restraint to not reply or -react to those posts, in an attempt to remain anonymous! But a belated to all of those posts! By the battle round, Conan had already far exceeded how well I thought he would do. When he lost in that round, I was quite content with his run. Then the opportunity to come back happened. @ElectroBoy felt passionate about ‘Alley Rose’ in this moment, which proved to be an excellent decision. We were both completely shocked that he came Top 3 in that! From there on out, every round has felt like a bonus. Then each time he made it through, we were continually amazed! Making it to the final and finishing Top 5 is wonderful, so thanks to everyone who made that possible and I'm so glad that there's many of you who enjoyed certain Conan songs. It didn’t go unnoticed that song choices from his album ‘Found Heaven’ went down very well in particular. If we’d made it the Top 3, our final song choice was to be… ‘Winner’! We were manifesting a winning outcome with that title. Thanks again everybody! Hopefully see some of you around in Conan’s threads, whenever he next has music out. Maybe we should re-do the singles rate…

Well done Lily!! This is the final 3 I was anticipating when this round began, but commiserations to Scissor Sisters and Conan Gray. I wonder who was behind these artists?

It didn't, although I wasn't expecting that it could. Not when A Girl Like Me or Reason didn't make it into the Monday midweeks over the last couple of years.

Well done to Kelly Clarkson too! Now who will join them... I think Lily?

Well done ABBA!

I’d be here for everything! Kind of surprising after all these years that Melanie C hasn’t done something with Record Store Day for any of her Red Girl albums. Would surely be the best way for her to guarantee selling copies of those albums.

Definitely a huge mistake to release the album in October and after Tell Me. Feels So Good was the one! The fact that Feels So Good came out 5 months after Tell Me but still managed to outsell it…! As well as being released off the back of a stronger single, Mel could have picked up some attention with articles mentioning Tell Me’s subject matter and driving some album curiosity buys. That controversy was wasted on scoring a hit single, but made very few interested in actually buying the album lol.

A problem with a PVC sleeve is that they’re soooo bad for the vinyl, eventually… it can lead to a chemical process called outgassing, which damages the vinyl. So it’s wise to store the record in a different sleeve. I didn’t know about this until within the last 5 years… and indeed my Geri - Ride It picture disc was ruined by its sleeve. :( perhaps some of my other picture discs too but a bit harder to tell when they’re full colour images - Geri’s being a mostly white background made it really easy to see when the damage happened… it yellowed :/ So tbh in that sense I should probably buy a copy of Hot sooner rather than later so I can free the poor vinyl from its nasty current sleeve

These gays... they're trying to murder me!

How they went from perfectly recreating Northern Star and A Girl Like Me for vinyl, to serving up that for Hot... such a shame! I'd say it was disrespectful to the artist but Mel B seems to really love it, and honestly, love that for her x

Yes to what I’ve put in bold, but hard disagree about the prices. They’re getting out of hand, hiked up compared to even just last year. There’s a line between showing support as a consumer, and getting fleeced because of the FOMO tactics surrounding this event! Even though the concept of this is to give a boost to local stores, these are ultimately items from major record labels (mostly), clearly they must be making a tidy profit out of this venture, and pushing the price points well beyond what they’re actually worth, to test the limits of what they can get away with. At least a lot of the items have quality and care put into them to somewhat justify the price tags. I’m sorry though, the Mel B release - like Reason last year - totally embodies the laziness and greed from Universal. Actually it’s even worse than Reason! 1x picture disc, cheap PVC sleeve, no nice cardboard sleeve with a window like the Spice Girls picture discs were in. It just isn’t worth £31 to £34 (depending on where it’s purchased from), not to me anyway! Seeing the pictures of it on eBay, makes me think that even £20 would be a bit of a joke. Honestly, if I ultimately miss out on owning it, I’m ok with it. 👀 I’m happy for anyone who feels differently, but that’s how I feel! I’m still buying a couple of items at full price, I’m not totally shunning RSD. But that’s because I think those items are worthy of a purchase.

I probably would have done it had been priced at a cute £23.99 or something, but it being £31.99... for a picture disc that's possibly just in a PVC sleeve... with that design... I don't think I can do that to myself!

Will wait for it to be in the bargain bins

I'm in "like it, don't love it" territory at the moment. It's not as thrilling as Vampire.

I actually think KiLL iT QUEEN is better than this new one, but I don't mind it!

ABBA through! Well done, it would have been a total shock if they weren't a part of the final, as in my mind that has been their destiny since this competition began! Well played from Atomic Kitten though, fabulous to have made it this far! I'm glad that BuzzJack has really appreciated them in this.

1-1 so far... it would be a scream if this goes to deadlock as well

I think Atomic Kitten would be OK because they've still got It's OK! ...but will we be saying See Ya to them before they get the opportunity to use it...

Oh wow, that's a surprise - Conan is truly the ultimate dark horse! Well done to their mentor! Atomic Kitten vs ABBA 😱 I know who I'm backing... but best of luck to both!

Ohhhh! I was feeling so confident that Delta wouldn't come last. What a run from her though! Her mentor has done an excellent job in showcasing her