Brélican

I will be one of the people who got Y wrong I assume, but I didn't want to leave it blank in case it was just a poorly worded clue I was beginning to wonder if Tina Turner was going to be marked a wrong answer as she only clears 40 top 75 hits if you count the ones with Ike which you previously commented you consider to be a separate act rather than a collaboration! So in that sense Travis Scott is really the only actually correct answer there (Polyhex does list 41 entries excluding the Ike songs but a couple of those are just digital era re-entries so it's only 39 distinct hits)

After months of stagnation and mediocrity at #1 I'm glad Ella and SIENNA have both got a turn at #1 since (even if on somewhat pitiful sales), 2 of the better songs to hit #1 this year for me - 'Die On This Hill' is still SIENNA's best song but 'Great Expectation' I think is probably 2nd for me now. Silver lining of 'Rein Me In' staying at #1 for so long, after a few recent years with barely any British representation among the year's #1s this year has been dominated by them, 'Rein Me In' alone accounting for nearly half of the entire year but Wham!, RAYE, Dave, Harry Styles x2 and now SIENNA SPIRO making it all but 8 weeks of the year so far having had a British act at #1! Meh at 'Loser' going top 10 after all but at least it's joined (and beaten) by a better Kevin Parker production in 'Training Season', and at least we are still being spared of 'Sue me' being a top 20 hit so far x Good to see Malcolm Todd, sombr and Ashe still moving up within the top 20, the ADÉLA song is decent too, hopefully still a chance for at least a couple of those to give us some better new top 10 hits. Not you Alyssa. Was listening to most of the chart show yesterday and finally hearing 'Orbiter' for the first time after several previous times of being tuned in but it being snubbed - sounding great on first listen, possibly rivalling 'Porch Light' for my favourite that I've heard from this album. Was also my first listen of 'Bass Persuades', not too sold on that one unfortunately. Lol at 'Sure Thing' being back again. Why not I guess, I had no idea it was resurging again so was out of nowhere hearing it again on the chart show but still sounding pretty good. (Funnily enough resurfacing again very shortly after passing 3 years since its last week in the top 100, so it'd have been eligible for another reset now even if the OCC had stuck to that supposed rule). Would have been quite cool to have a true surprise #1 album from ADÉLA but also would have been a shame for Kasabian to join Brandon Flowers in losing a long streak of #1 studio albums so well done to them x Funnily with 'Ain't In LA' also rising to #12 this week ADÉLA has now simultaneously matched the peak of KATSEYE in both charts!

YouTube playlist For anyone who may still get any use out of it. I'm going to pretend I didn't get spoilers of who sent a couple of the songs while putting this together because of people not removing the tracking garbage from the links x

Would be great if Ezra Collective could get a #1 album - their last album did only just short of 10k first week despite only debuting at #7 so must have dropped on a busy week, their competition this week may well just be Olivia or MJ returning to #1 by default on about 10k sales (I don't think any of the other new releases particularly scream doing 5 figures) so if they can just improve on that a little bit that could be enough.

My main takeaway from reading all your 70s commentaries and relistening to the songs is that I have severely underrated '(Don't Fear) The Reaper' - I've always been a fan of it but as per usual for me I don't really pay much mind to lyrics / the meaning behind the song, I'm not sure how I never realised what that song was about but now that I know it gives the song a real beauty and a sort of calming aura despite the morbid subject matter. I don't think I've ever heard another song from them but they hit it out of the park with their one hit. Funny that Jaz commented about it sounding ahead of its time as I can see that but I also saw a comment in a review of the song on RateYourMusic saying the vocal harmonies sound straight out of Woodstock and I can totally see that as well, a very timeless song! I don't think I'd have guessed you were a big enough fan of the song to include it here but very glad it crept in to allow me to gain this new appreciation <3 Otherwise - the top 3 are of course all rock solid early synth classics so you won't find me slandering your #1 pick this time (although I think I marginally prefer the other half of the 'The Model'/'Computer Love' double A-Side, what a pair of songs though <3). The guitar riff of 'Layla' is forever burnt into my memory as it was my mum's ringtone (much like The Tamperer's 'Feel It' for being my dad's ringtone, though I'm going to predict that's less likely to make an appearance here ), obligatory boo to Eric Clapton's politics but he did make something special with that song. The piano part is less familiar to me but also lovely. Your picks for Bowie, Bush and Blondie are not the ones I'd have gone with (that'd be 'Starman', 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)' and 'Atomic' respectively) but all undeniably great songs as well, was a moment to see 'Wuthering Heights' sneaking back into the top 40 this year despite not even being used in the new film. Coincidentally commenting on this just as another similarly young British woman has got her first #1 of course! And much love for 'Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2' as well, great choice from Pink Floyd to release a rare actual single there, one of the most standout Christmas #1s, excellent use of the children's vocals. Serge Gainsbourg definitely sticks out a bit on the list being otherwise full of #1s and/or rock classics so wow at that working its way into your list as a more recent underground discovery! I gave it 7 points in the retro contest but haven't revisited it since (I reeeeally need to get around to making some playlists of my favourites from non-BJSC contests as I keep meaning to), still sounding very good now. (I'll most likely continue to just dump thoughts on the songs after you finish each decade's writeups as I am quite enjoying listening through the top 10s back-to-back but will just say now I'm glad you decided to move Kraftwerk back to the 70s as could not be having 'Lay All Your Love On Me' missing out!!)

Just force of habit? x I'd be surprised if they're out this time, I do think this has the potential to be a decent Herbihit.

Giving a point for Silk Sonic but not M.C. Mario feels a bit harsh ddd but fair enough xx I didn't know that Sonic song existed so would never have got that.

The difference is just that Nuggets entries need to be guitar based. Of course a lot of UP entries are guitar based too but it's open to alt electronic stuff etc. as well. In general anything that's in Nuggets could just as well be in UP but not vice versa.

The spelling of Mulaa Joans has reverted to the typo The two Smiths still getting another C-List spot each following their tandem album underperformances!

Ah I had no idea on R but it's obvious now I see it (although tbf I'm not sure I knew she was so young when her career started).

Yeah I knew I'd matched the clue about the male artist whose biggest hits were female duets to the wrong letter (as I left it to last and could not find anything that even remotely matched) but I wasn't going to spend more time figuring out which one - I'll take the 2 points there. x I guess the album named after the number of albums must be a Roman numeral then unless I've made more than one mistake

Ok but your current entry should be a winner x (I think I'm still yet to give you an 18 so I'm going to rage if it DNQs and denies me an opportunity to xx)

Definitely only got the Kula Shaker album because it was one of the hints specific enough to be Googleable I remembered the factoid about (Münchener) Freiheit because Rollo sent them to my One Hit Wonders edition of the retro song contest though so that was all my brain - go figure that I missed the much less obscure intended answer (I did know that about Massive Attack but didn't come to mind at all!)

And rich people notoriously aren't always trying to enrich themselves further x

Oh Google failed me on the pacifist hint, that's what I deserve for trying to semi-cheat I guess hehe (thanks for still giving me 3/4 points though, at least I got the right letter xx).

https://sync-tube.de/room/ApAM3t-I Semi 2 from 8pm ish

At least they're still in the EU...

I couldn't actually get any of the sites I tried to work (they either didn't let me send it that far in the future, asked for payment or said they'd send me an email to confirm and didn't). But I've made a reminder on my phone for 8/9/2036. So I'll dig this post out then assuming BuzzJack still exists, Spotify still exists, I am still alive, etc.!

I want to try a group as I've done both male and female solo in the first two editions but none have come to mind that I'd be as passionate about as James Blake and ROSALÍA. (I might have tried Everything Everything if they hadn't been used already back in that AF Idol thing that was kind of a precursor to this, not reheating those nachos x) I guess I'll wait and see what these ~stipulations~ are anyway. (Is that not being announced until it opens?)

'All' is a bit of a stretch I'd say, I definitely haven't heard that version of 'Ain't Nobody' for a long time at least. Obviously no real way of telling right now but I could make a case for most of the current Spotify top 10 still being quite well remembered in a decade's time. 'Rein Me In', 'Man I Need' and 'Choosin' Texas' surely aren't going anywhere any time soon in the public consciousness (and 'Mr. Brightside' lol), the 2 Olivia songs definitely deserve to be remembered at least, and 'Loser' has the connection to a massive record breaking film (mind, I don't really care or know enough about the MCU to have any read on if 'Spider-Man film #56' will be any more memorable than any of the others regardless of how well it does at the box office. Also the song is not very good). 'Great Expectation' could probably go either way depending on how long of a career SIENNA SPIRO manages I guess. It's only really 'Earrings' and 'Boston' that I'd say stand out as being more likely than not to have only fleeting popularity. Maybe I should send this post to myself on one of those 'email yourself in the future' websites for 2036 xx

I wasn't going to attempt to multitask reading this thread with the BJSC listenthrough oops but just caught up now - absolutely didn't occur to me that the answer for B might be from the album chart so no wonder I couldn't figure that one out, although even if I was thinking of albums I still don't think I'd have made the connection with Barbra. Well done anyone who did get that! (Billen Ted and Black Box both did come to mind for me but figured they didn't match the wording of the clue so I just decided to leave it blank - I have put down one answer later on that I think doesn't match the wording but I decided to punt on it anyway in case it is right though x). Got all of the rest so far, hooray! C and G took me a bit of thinking (should have got the latter quicker), but D, E and F were all fairly straightforward. That's wild that for as specific a hint as the one for The Cranberries there was still another answer that was almost correct in Counting Crows, if only 'Mr. Jones' had charted one place lower or 'Accidentally In Love' one place higher. Echoing the appreciation for all the effort put into these results!

I am king of the pop hoes wbk x

Cannot remember the last time one of my entries got any sort of contender hype (I think even my last few top 5/10 hits went under the radar in predictions, and I don't think I recall any of my more middling hits getting any rogue punt hype, other than maybe from myself being delusional (I am still not over 'One Hand Behind The Devil' only coming 20th xx)). Maybe Minuit Machine?

Ashanti was the only one I thought of (and this was one of the ones that took me a while to think of) - interesting that just as many people said Aqua.

https://sync-tube.de/room/ApAM3t-I Semi 1 listenthrough from 8pm ish