AcerBen

Smith & Thell's album Pixie's Parasol is out Feb 5 (digital only) https://twitter.com/SmithandThell/status/1352622940748132354

45% globally.

The 7" version was 5.19

Good one. There's a single version that is 7:52 and a radio edit of 5:25. I seem to have the one that is 7:52. There are some versions of the single that have the edit but not clear from Discogs whether they were available in the UK or just mainland Europe.

Oh! I just remembered another one that was the over way round - Baz Luhrmann's Everybody's Free (To Wear Suncreen) was 5 minutes something on the CD single, but radio tended to play the full-length 7:10 version. They wanted to force people to buy the (rubbish) album for the full thing.

Yes, there was a 4:50 edit but only on the promo CD.. and turned up on one of the Hits compilations too. Maybe songs that had a commercially unavailable radio edit should be asterisked with a "yeah but", because most people would've probably bought the single on the basis of hearing the radio edit, and wouldn't necessarily realise it wasn't on the CD at the time of buying :huh: The 7" of We Are The World had a 6:22 edit. You could argue therefore the winner is Hey Jude, which according to Discogs is 6:56 on the 7".

Could well be Olivia Rodrigo! But there's a long way to go yet

Yes that was a weird trend! I remember when I interned for Universal years ago, a guy came in to the office to present his radio edit for a track, and it was under 2 minutes 20.. it was really badly done and felt brutal. The MD said it was terrible and to start again. :lol: My least favourite one was what they did to DJ Sammy's Heaven, with the extra chorus badly sellotaped at the end for no reason. Though that was still about 3.5 mins.

As for Better Off Alone - the "UK Short Cut" was actually track 1 on the cassette :)

6:53 Steve "Silk" Hurley - Jack Your Body (1987) 6:46 Michael Jackson - Earth Song (1995) 6:25 Take That - Never Forget (1995) 5:50 Boyz II Men - End Of The Road (1992) These were the ones I picked up on - all had radio edits as track 1 on the main format, so have no real reason to be on the list

Some of those are a bit controversial.. a few of those definitely had shorter single versions available. Perhaps not on every single format but..

Except.. "The Sound Of list started in 2003 with the aim to showcase the most exciting rising stars in music. 18 years later, and the aim is the same - to continue predicting some of the biggest and most exciting global superstars" :P

What I meant was the tastemakers are always tipping the next big thing as someone with a bit of an edge or boring authenticity about them. Like the year when they put gave Tom Garratt the prize and snubbed Dua Lipa and Mabel. So it's funny that within days of 2021 starting, a girl from the Disney Channel has shot straight to number 1. Not that they should've necessarily seen her coming.

Also great to see Kid LAROI doing well as predicted

Drivers License reminds me of Birdy a bit. I love it already. And always exciting for someone to suddenly smash from seemingly nowhere, though looks like her profile has actually been building for some time.

Ooh I've never heard of this Olivia but this is excellent on first listen. Excited to have a new pop girl on the scene and looking to smash so instantly. Two fingers up to all the tastemakers and "sound of" pollsters who just prove once again that they know NOTHING.

We're already in June on BBC Four :)

better songs

That new version of Everybody Dance sounds like a monster to me

Radio 2 are hammering Ava at the moment, that must be what's driving downloads. Shame R2 support rarely translates into streams.

It is annoying how every year we see these articles on vinyl and cassettes breaking records and focusing on the decline of CDs - even though they still outsell both. In fact there were 100x CDs bought than cassettes last year, but they're acting like nobody buys them and everyone is switching back to tapes.

It was heavily played on Radio 2 too, sounded great on the radio. (I know that usually has little effect anyway!)

JP Cooper with another surefire radio smash that did... nothing 65CGdPsVFxY This was a huge U.S. hit t8F4vs6Wyt4

At the risk of sounding like an old grandad, that's got to be the worst EOY singles chart ever. Blinding Lights, Head & Heart, Don't Start Now, Adore You and Midnight Sky stand out to me but beyond that, can't help feeling few of these songs are going to stand the test of time.

Oh interesting.. if anything this will be more meaningful than the official chart. Well worth doing.