BillyH

In terms of songs everyone knows - kids, teens, grannies, dogs etc - I'd say these in this order. 1. Happy 2. Uptown Funk 3. Rather Be 4. Get Lucky 5. Shape Of You 3 and 4 especially have been really underrated in this thread so far I think.

In 2016 I got a useless non-qualifier (Macedonia or Montenegro I think) and last year Moldova gave me a top 3 place! Sooooo.... 31

Weren't the low sales in 1992 blamed on games consoles or something? The Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive were both massive that year and kids and teens were saving up to buy games instead. Then as CD players became cheaper and more affordable the CD single took off from '94 and remained popular until the early noughties.

Cover's leaked. (not really, I made this myself...would be cool though!)

I'll repeat what I've said in various "vinyl revival" threads...people are just buying these as collectables with no intention or even possibility of playing them. It's making the music itself the least important thing and that bothers me somewhat. You might as well release the album as a large, giant inflatable frog with the music printed as Egyptian hieroglyths on the back - it looks cool on your shelf but do you even actually know any of the songs?

Am I missing the reason why Finland is plummeting in the odds? I've placed bets on them and Ukraine with a safety bet on Israel.

With several recent entries climbing high in the odds this has slipped outside the top 10 at around 26/1, or an astonishing 50/1 on Betfair. Worth a bet?

The UK will crash and burn and everyone outside this forum will solely blame the result on Brexit and no other reason. They will also continue to blame Brexit for any non-winning result for the next decade (becoming the new "Iraq" c.2003-2008) until another convenient excuse arrives.

First song this year to sweep the odds as favourite, #1 everywhere on all the sites. Estonia and Czech Republic the closest contenders followed by Bulgaria and Australia.

If it wasn't for that old Oasis song I wouldn't know a single track on there - I thought it was just there as some kind of meta comment at how the Now albums will "live forever" and as a goodbye to the 1987-2018 two digit era.

There's no runaway favourite yet like there was with Italy this time last year, but that might be a good thing for the artists as the last few years have shown that early hype of one entry tends to fade as the rehearsals begin. ('Heroes' went against this trend by being consistantly popular from the moment people heard it, although it was still Il Volo who were the favourites this time three years ago as I don't think Mans had won Melodifestivalen yet). Unless the last few countries left reveal something huge this could be a really open year.

Now That's What I Call Random Overplayed Songs From The Last Three Years Repackaged Into A Million Useless Compilation Albums.

Early reports suggests the first verse of the song is Neptunes-inspired R&B, before going full-on into a Flip & Fill trance banger for the chorus, followed by a 2-step garage breakdown and then an indie jam for the end with Pete Docherty on guitar. Scooter also rumoured to be doing some additional vocals.

If neither The Cranberries or any Greatest Showman songs make it then this'll be the first Now tracklisting where I haven't knowingly heard any of the songs.

Some huge ones of the last 20 years: Titanic (1998). Box office #1 every weekend from January to something like April/May. People boasted about seeing it 5, 10 times or more. Released on video while still playing in cinemas which I think was a first. Basically the movie equivalent of Candle In The Wind '97, it really was astonishingly big. Star Wars Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (1999). Remember the excitement over The Force Awakens? Double it. The last big movie of the pre-internet age - people camped for days outside cinema screens for that first midnight showing. Even if the film had its infamous flaws there was huge excitement for this and for a whole new generation the characters became iconic - simply looking at a photo of Darth Maul takes me back to that summer instantly. Avatar (2009/10). Almost as big as Titanic. In early January every showing of it at London's BFI IMAX was sold out until mid-February. Everyone talking about it, the 3D was a big novelty and it was seen as a bright new future in cinema at the time. I never thought its box office total would be beaten, but then... Skyfall (2012). Every cinema I've worked at broke records with this. Sold-out showings at 11 in the morning at weekends. People showing up many hours early only to still not get tickets. Queues all the way out buildings and down roads. Tons of hype about it being The Best Bond Film Ever and being soon after the London Olympics made everyone patriotic both contributed to this being massive - 'Sceptre' also did big numbers but Skyfall was really huge. I've worked at cinemas on and off for the last five years, big ones during that time have included Gravity, Frozen, Lion and La La Land!

By now I'd long started lurking on Buzzjack and definitely remember the utter thrill as this zoomed up the charts - in fact I'm fairly sure it was Buzzjack itself where I first heard about the song! And yet still didn't actually register here for another year for some reason... Absolutely wonderful song, truly evocative of Summer 07 for me - I bought this, Axwell's I Found U and Kanye's Stronger all on CD single at Woolworths one day and spent the afternoon listening to all three on loop in glorious sunshine. What I'd give to be 18 years old again...

I love the unoriginality of the name "Sunfreakz", just taking two popular dance act names from 2006 and joining them together :P It's like that infamous shop in Birmingham called Safebury's. Wonder if there's a group called Beatblock? Counting Down The Days got tons of Radio 1 play but it didn't translate into sales for some reason. The Axwell mix samples Nomad's I Wanna Give You Devotion from 1991. Rise Up was a HUGE club anthem, still playing a lot in 2009 when I was clubbing all the time - felt way way bigger than its chart peak! Takes me right back to the late noughties.

I barely paid attention to this at the time and only got into it a few years ago - it's basically a love letter to every major 80s genre all at once, especially near the end where you've got what sounds like The Human League and New Order doing a jam session together. That's not the video I remember though, was an animated one I think? I assume the lyrics are basically a Sugababes/Amelle diss track worded to also sound like a lover who's been jilted - presumably all that came after Mutya replaced Estelle on the vocals as it wouldn't have worked otherwise. EDIT: Actually never mind about the video, must be mistaken.

Sorry, I was being deliberately silly in that post :P Perhaps interesting too to think what collabs would have been popular in the past? Going back to my golden age of c.1999-2000: Sash! feat. Britney Spears Britney feat. Christina Boyzone feat. B*Witched Steps feat. S Club 7 Artful Dodger feat. Eminem Ricky Martin feat. Robbie Williams Eminem feat. Craig David Bob the Builder feat. Richard Blackwood

Will Young feat. Gareth Gates Robbie Williams feat. Kylie Minogue Busted feat. McFly The Chainsmokers feat. Coldplay Rihanna feat. Drake Clean Bandit feat. Jess Glynne Calvin Harris feat. Rihanna All would be amazing if they ever happened.

My theory is that Washington was a last-minute replacement for Franco, after a few allegations started appearing in the run-up to nominations. Didn't mind this film, didn't hate it but neither is it a must-see - a 50% Rotten Tomatoes score is about right. Worth seeing if you have an Unlimited/Limitless card.

Close To The Edit still sounds ahead of its time now, absolutely brilliant track. God knows what the Top of the Pops audience of 1985 were thinking when they first saw it - must have been pretty inspirational for a whole future generation of producers. Here's a track that sounds all the world like 1990s Eurodance that's actually from 1989, Mysterious Art's 'Das Omen' - a huge #1 in Germany but not released in the UK. Bx9m8vaiErU The same act later released the very-much-1990s-Eurodance-anthem 'Omen III' under the name Magic Affair, and bass-player Tillman Urmacher later became a successful DJ, charting high with 'On The Run' in the UK in 2002. Sadly he died a few years back.

As the Oscars won't take place until March it means that all the major contending films will have been released in the UK by the time of the ceremony this year. Still have bad memories of 2015 when Julianne Moore won Best Actress for a film that still hadn't been released in this country!! (I've never illegally downloaded a film before and have no intention to) Have any Best Picture winners ever won the Oscar before their UK release, or even other nominations by the time of the ceremony?

It has to be a different song though right? Give her a club banger, push the sob story angle and it's Moscow 2019.

Those sales for Slow were commented on a fair bit at the time, it was when CD sales were plummeting week by week and there was no popular legal download site yet (the iTunes Store had launched in the US but not in the UK yet). That same week Johnny Cash's covers of 'Hurt' and 'Personal Jesus' charted at #39, which seem far more famous than their chart position suggest.