dandy*

Oh no! I thought this closed today and I haven’t trawled for a proper entry. I know I submitted a placeholder I found on a playlist and can’t even remember what it is now. I am such a BJSC mess these past few contests!!

Me too. I loved eurodance at the time but never felt compelled to buy this one.

Yeah, this one is going to be very tough to rank - on first glance I think it seems like the strongest group but I'll reserve judgement as I don't know anywhere near as many in the other heats.

Disc 1 Track 1! 🤩 I also made the sweep of featuring on all 4 discs as well - I'd forgotten all about sending Rose Rouge so that was a surprise when I saw it. Definitely one of my most successful years in song contests across the site so all in all a good year! I always enjoy the yearly compilation as it's a great reminder of what did well and always some I'd forgotten about - thank you for compiling it @awardinary

09 | The Police - Message in a Bottle Weeks at number one: 3 End of year position: 11 Rating: 8/10 In ninth we have the second appearance from The Police as we're moving firmly into territory where I really like all the songs. This was the first of five UK #1s for the group and it is definitely one of their strongest songs and I don't think I'd realised until I'd listened to both of their tracks together that this one also has more than a hint of a reggae vibe to it. Where as Walking on the Moon took the sound and stripped it back to a slow pace, this one does the opposite and ramps it up very effectively with the almost punk like guitars and I particularly like the point where it explodes into life from the "I'll send a SOS to the world" section before evaporating into the title line... the tempo changes are essentially exactly the opposite to their other 1979 chart topper. I think this one may be my favourite song of theirs, possibly matched by Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, and whilst I don't mind the band, I think I generally prefer much of Sting's solo material that followed after the band split - I'm particularly fond of Desert Rose which is a real 10/10 from him and his very successful Ten Summoner's Tales album was also very good. Having looked at the songs that didn't quite make it, I'd definitely have preferred one of 1979's other huge acts to get another #1 as the wonderful Dreaming by Blondie was kept at #2 in Sept/Oct that year. The other primary challengers all made #1 either side of this one so I won't spoil them yet... but both have finished higher for me.

I’ll be interested to see who sent Girlicious and Markus Riva when they’re revealed. Both were interesting choices and whilst I didn’t necessarily find them to my taste, I appreciated the choice you made send lesser known acts.

This all feels a bit out of proportion - something unexpected happened and an idea was put in place to try and keep interest levels. It might not be perfect and my first thought was “not sure that’s fair” so I get why people did have that thought, but it was quickly followed by “but it’s just a fun thing so it’s not important enough to make a fuss over” and that’s where I’m still personally at

Oh btw I agree with this... the way they were talking came across like Matt managed to win despite Tabby, which felt a bit unnecessary.

10 | Bee Gees - Tragedy Weeks at number one: 2 End of year position: 15 Rating: 7.5/10 I mentioned earlier that Walking on the Moon had dropped out of an initial top 10 placing the more I listened, well this one did the opposite as I originally had it at 14th. The Bee Gees are one of those bands that I find difficult to like simply because I really don't like their style of singing, the high pitched whiny approach really isn't for me - I much prefer You Win Again to their 70s output in general and whilst I can understand the appeal of their Saturday Night Fever material, I'm afraid their vocals prevent me from loving it as much as I should... ...but this grew on me as I did my listen throughs and whilst I still definitely think the Steps original is better, I think they've done a good job of covering it without the help of the dance craze that made the Steps classic such a huge hit. I kid, obviously, but I actually hadn't heard this all the way through before I was ranking this year and had no idea that it had already made #1 - so the Steps version was actually the first version I'd heard. What I most definitely hadn't realised was just how similar the two versions were, I'd always assumed that Steps' version had been influenced by Feel It by the Tamperer but actually the production is pretty much already there in this and consequently I'm pretty impressed by how well it has aged. In fact I've added it to my playlist for old classics and can see this actually growing on me even more. The song itself has to be one of the most OTT tracks ever recorded - couple the high pitched vocals with the OMG IT'S A TRAGEDY!!! TRAGEDY!!! WITH NO-ONE TO LOVE ME lyrics and you're in Moira Rose (RIP) levels of overreacting territory, but it also just completely works and makes for a good fun twist and progression from the disco movement that they helped to create and popularise... although it's definitely not the best #1 of the year that pushed disco in new directions...

I will most definitely never watch the full movie in that case! 😭

Well done to whoever is behind The Chicks, good song choice that saved them from the brink!

HAIM my faves through so far <3

This next round is a good round for those 3 to miss - it kind of requires people to send a big hitter which they can save for later on instead. And Nelly Furtado getting that whilst also avoiding sending one of her own big hits is quite the result, go/woah Nelly!!

11 | Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two Weeks at number one: 5 End of year position: ?? Rating: 7/10 I suspect this may be my most controversial placing in the whole thing as I know this is a very well regarded track but I can't bring myself to put it in the top 10... ...but why?!!! Well there may be some horrors that have made #1 in the UK over the decades but this is the only one to have given me literal nightmares. Obviously I can't possibly have remembered it from the time it was released, but that video scared the living daylights out of me as a child. The parts in the video still above where the children were being pushed into the mincer were enough to be potentially freaky to kids, but it was the parts with the hammers that really scared me. For years as a child I used to regularly have this nightmare where these things were in the distance and getting slowly closer to me, marching along in the regimented way that the hammers do at around 2:40ish in the video - they would never quite catch me but the dream felt like it went on forever and they just got closer and closer and closer to me whilst I was unable to move. This probably sounds so silly but I had that nightmare all the time and it just got to a point where I couldn't even stand to hear the song without it making me feel scared (I can remember one particular occasion in Woolworths when it started playing and my mum wondered what on earth was happening as I just began shaking irrationally) - Even as an adult the association was so strong it used to make me feel kinda unsettled when I heard it so up until I was about 30 I'd probably have ranked this dead last 🫣 But fortunately I can now at least listen to it and I can recognise it does have some merit to it. I think my favourite part is once the kids take over and the choir of children carry the second half of the song - and I can definitely appreciate it as a very unique chart topper, it really must have sounded very different to anything else. Considering how huge Pink Floyd were on the albums chart, it feels very weird that only this and See Emily Play managed to make the top 10 for them - but I guess maybe their style of prog rock was always better suited to the album format than individual singles. So anyway, I've settled on a 7/10 being a fair score for this one as I can appreciate it objectively, but this is my subjective countdown and I can't ignore that it traumatised me!!!

Absolutely loved Ebeneezer Goode, although I initially wasn't allowed to buy it due to the scandal around the lyrics. I had to sneak it in to the house and only listen on headphones so my parents didn't realise I had it 😂

01 Florence + the Machine - Queen of Peace 02 HAIM - I Know Alone 03 Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama 04 Erasure - So the Story Goes 05 Blondie - Hanging On the Telephone 06 The Chicks - Not Ready to Make Nice 07 ABBA - Hole in Your Soul 08 The Corrs - I Never Loved You Anyway 09 Ace of Base - Beautiful Life 10 Atomic Kitten - If You Come to Me 11 The 1975 - Love Me 12 Girlicious - Over You

Really amazing results today again with both golds - Matt Weston already looking a good bet for sports personality of the year

There are definitely some that I can’t recall, I can remember sending them but I’ve not really listened to them since and can’t recall how they go… Jesus Made Me Bad was one of them until Dobbo reminded me of it in his thread, but there are others too

01 FKA twigs - Glass & Patron 02 ROSALÍA - DIABLO 03 LiSA - Gurenge (紅蓮華) 04 Lily Allen - Who’d Have Known 05 Kesha - Blow 06 Kelly Clarkson - Gone 07 Chappell Roan - Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl 08 Toni Braxton - You’re Makin’ Me High 09 Michelle Branch - You Set Me Free 10 Nelly Furtado & Tiësto - Who Wants to Be Alone 11 Delta Goodrem - Sitting On Top of the World 12 Nadia Oh - Taking Over the Dancefloor

Gutted that Hyperballad didn't make it through, it's an absolutely amazing track

Walking on Broken Glass is a good pop track from Annie, bought that one and it prompted us to get the album

Haha not because of the scam thing! Just that she was behind until the final listen through… but who knows if that was manifested or not! 😱

I grew to like 4 Minutes but it’s definite one of Madonna’s weaker chart toppers. I was very surprised it made it at the time.

01 David Bowie - Young Americans 02 Fred again.. - Berwyn (all that i got is you) 03 Conan Gray - Killing Me 04 Troye Sivan - Strawberries & Cigarettes 05 Nik Kershaw - Gone to Pieces 06 Guitarricadelafuente & Troye Sivan - midsummer pipe dream 07 George Michael - Freeek! 08 Ruel - Not What’s Going On 09 Eric Saade - Every Minute 10 The Weeknd - A Lesser Man 11 Shawn Mendes - Lost in Japan (Zedd Remix) 12 Markus Riva - Forever

Beautiful Ones is a glorious pop single from Suede, a real shame that hasn't made it