Brélican

'Boston' comes on the radio all the time at work and I've got beyond sick of it (not that I ever particularly liked it in the first place). I still really like 'Choosin' Texas' and I don't mind 'Movin' To The Sun' but it'd just be typical that both of them get sniped by something far worse when they finally (maybe) have a shot at #1 :')

His last few singles haven't even charted this highly so I'm not sure how album tracks would!

Lol xxx

#bore

Alison Moyet - All Cried Out Chaka Khan - I Feel For You Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey - Together In Electric Dreams Prince And The Revolution - Purple Rain Sade - Smooth Operator All songs I knew already again but Orchestal Manoeuvres In The Dark was a discovery which was the last song I cut.

You weren't the first, Trifoski beat you to it x

Countries who entered BJSC 187 who haven't won yet: Aelandor A-Konohagakure Baleghde Ben's Sanctuary Bronzil Dobago East Rukahavian Ennea Flynnonda Freidland Herbilore Juranabaijan Lentyll Mothertopia New Helvetica Pagasa Pestolia POPHub Scotland 2 The Spodic Empire Vaskla Wholune Zanmatony And ones who have entered within the last year but not in BJSC 187: Abeltesfayeton Cumulonimbia Dalisska D'yermak'er Macromia Sandénia Thelonia Utopia (did Miri decide to give up on us after that DNQ streak oop? @Freeze x)

? it's up 20 places.

First country ever to get their first win over 11 years after they already won (Bronzil does seem like the obvious answer to this but I'll throw out a wildcard guess of Pagasa, they did come close a couple of times and maybe now we can trust them to actually vote on time x)

YTD update Hendinia's previous 109 point lead is fully overturned and becomes a 35 point deficit with Bøtanikkä now taking the lead with three contests to go following a silver medal this month! Both are well over 200 points clear of the rest of the field now so some flopping will be needed for anyone else to catch up most likely. Fljótavík overtake Cor Lupus into the bronze medal slot, and I will allow you to all be distracted by the Cody meltdown over this so you don't take any notice of me plummeting down to near the bottom of the top 50. Neliönoir nearly managed to push them down to 5th but remain in place 4 points behind. Aeroche's second good result in a row sees them rise 2 places to 6th ahead of Sovarasma and Kluminican Republic, while Elëdan and The Spodic Empire swap around at the bottom of a top 10 that has no changes to its membership. The big move outside that is unsurprisingly Séyetana rocketing up 13 places to 16th following their long awaited win, being the lowest of 6 more countries that surpass 1,000 points for the year after this contest (Ojnoj were just a point away from being a 7th). 1 2 1674 Bøtanikkä 2 1 1639 Hendinia 3 4 1370 Fljótavík 4 3 1336 Cor Lupus 5 5 1332 Neliönoir 6 8 1323 Aeroche 7 6 1308 Sovarasma 8 7 1299 Kluminican Republic 9 10 1230 Elëdan 10 9 1227 The Spodic Empire 11 12 1165 Skall 12 13 1142 Danæviia 13 11 1127 Trifoski 14 14 1121 Jadakissnia 15 15 1075 Altyr Muunilinst 16 29 1056 Séyetana 17 25 999 Ojnoj 18 26 951 Bronzil 19 20 950 Terra Avium 20 30 932 Lentyll 21 16 906 Cheiron 22 27 897 République d'Áskorza 23 23 864 Yehesi 24 24 842 Deandria 25 31 829 Freidland 26 17 824 Pestolia 27 18 808 Zephyra Continuum 28 35 799 Kathaldazia 29 19 792 Baleghde 30 37 786 FARC 31 34 783 Greenfroze 32 21 775 Juranabaijan 33 33 760 Land of DW 34 22 753 Scotland 2 35 28 726 Dalisska 36 43 706 Pagasa 37 38 701 N DNTN 38 39 700 Lookylion 39 46 683 East Rukahavian 40 44 663 POPHub 41 55 650 FSR Rontvia 42 32 635 Ajanaeda 43 36 608 Dobago 44 47 600 Taahino 45 50 593 Zanmatony 46 52 547 New Lexico 47 40 542 Persephonia 48 54 535 Jupiterdonia 49 41 530 Summericia 50 42 526 Mothertopia 51 53 510 Herbilore 52 45 504 Aelandor 53 48 446 Ennea 54 49 444 A-Konohagakure 55 51 431 Hushkanukia 56 56 372 Cumulonimbia 57 57 348 Flynnonda 58 60 328 New Helvetica 59 59 303 Harmonica 60 64 292 Aesthetica 61 58 258 Ben's Sanctuary 62 61 180 Utopia 63 62 176 Lotunia 64 63 156 Wholune 65 65 131 Thelonia

Anyhoo x Intriguing that Séyetana were only 10th in the semi! There were 3 countries who snubbed it in the semi but voted for it in the final adding up to 11 total points (Aeroche 0 -> 5, Pestolia -> 4 and Zephyra Continuum 0 -> 2), the 11 who voted for it in the semi all also voted for it in the final and largely giving it about the amount of points you'd expect based on their semi votes so it seems it was just a bad semi draw for it rather than it being an especially notable grower for people from its semi. But with it being such a massive hit (it's just about pipped 'Mum Does The Washing' as the best performing song of the year so far by the overcomplicated standard deviation calculation I used in the EOY countdown thread x) it could still be top 10 in the semi even with that bad draw. Also done a quick stats check on Séyetana going from last in the semi to winning the next contest - I did remember it happened once before, with Herzebania following Monica's 'Grown-Up Christmas List' (lol) in BJSC 12 with Agnes' 'Release Me' in BJSC 13, and can confirm that this is only the second time ever! Séyetana aside, thrilled to see my 18 from FSR Rontvia also making the top 5, I had hoped that would do quite well! I voted for two others in the top 10, yay for Neliönoir (that one definitely was a big grower x) and Fljótavík. Glad to see that the biggest pop hits actually lined up a bit better with my own taste this month as well, Natalie Jane and Tash Blake were both towards the top of my rankings of the pure pop entries. Genuinely thought that me liking 'dance til i die' a lot more than 'sabotage' was an omen that it'd do worse than that lol but glad to be wrong there x Happy to see another top 10 for Lentyll too, a late cut from my votes. Nearly all of the rest of my votes are bunched up in the 2nd quarter - I voted for every song in 12th-21st place except East Rukahavian (and ofc they'd have been above that range if not for their deduction)! Glad in particular that Danæviia did come top half, I felt that could suffer from being a bit overshadowed by FSR Rontvia's entry with that being in a very similar style but a bit more attention grabbing, I stanned both of them though. Yay for my bronze Jadakissnia getting another pretty sizeable hit too. Aside, I have now heard the daine song that got vetoed and I can definitely see why it was in high demand, I'm sure that would have been a big hit! (The one Jade actually tried to send I don't like as much oop x). Don't think I'd have necessarily predicted such high finishes for Skall or Pagasa either so go them x The Spodic Empire being the most robbed from my votes. And then New Helvetica was the only other song in the bottom half I voted for, although Deandria were pretty close so a shame to see them so low down (although ending up being quite far ahead of last place after the scoreboard correction oops, Harmonica bringing another flop smash!) Thanks Harve for the hostings (and apols for my part in causing a bit of delays but we got the rest of the contest done on schedule with pretty much no hiccups hooray). Very much looking forward to another Séyetana hosting next month! YTD update coming up in a mo x

...and it would have been 33rd if Lex had actually voted on time xo #kicking

You gained a point though! x (but just dropped a place because Greenfroze gained a lot more and leapfrogged you)

Brandon Flowers has yet to miss #1 with any of his studio albums (solo or with The Killers) - can certainly see him losing to Paul Heaton this time but not sure.

Genuinely had no clue at all that there was a new PARTYNEXTDOOR album coming out, I am too out of touch x (not that I care about his music)

Me not being the top of the 2 wins club any more (although still have the most total medals out of the 2 wins club at least - that'll take some beating, Klum would tie me if he wins again but I'm 3 clear of Terra Avium among those who are already on 2 wins xx)

(spoilers: you still beat Messhesi x)

[/late] but definitely prefer it without the quotation boxes. Because people need to click to expand to see beautiful lengthy votes like my own. x You got 2 from me in the semi as well and held on better than my semi 7 pointer (Terra Avium who got 1 in the final) and 5 pointer (Lentyll who ended up as a commiseration)! There was a bit more parity between semi 1 and semi 2 songs than I expected in the end thanks to a few late growers (Nelly, Sovarasma, Rd'Á) x ((at least I didn't put you 16th again for the third time in a year oop)) Indeed! Something that hasn't happened since Alvaro Soler and Wunderwelt in 101-102. (Surprisingly I remembered that without looking it up) Not sure what this is about to make me xo (I've sent the corrections to Harve, will leave him to post them #suspense ) East Rukahavian are indeed taking over at the top of this list from Séyetana, there are a few others ahead of you but they're all currently inactive. This is the top 10 (countries with the most entries without a win, if the context isn't clear x): 133 East Rukahavian 118 Singerpurear 117 Utopia 112 Tinnmark 108 Dobago 106 Espen 105 Tartford 101 The Actual Republic of Bellamia 99 Aelandor (you got an idea for an anniversary entry yet? x) 98 Flynnonda (ditto) 5th among currently active nations (after East Ruk, Dobago, Aelandor and Flynnonda) is POPHub on 70 (Cumulonimbia are on 90 but technically also currently inactive, but let's hope that'll change next month x).

Not my napping schedule bringing false hope.

I'm just double checking the scoreboard now and on my first sweep there are a number of nations who I have 10 or 15 points different either way so an early warning that there might be a bit of movement around the lower half of the scoreboard, pending making sure these aren't my own errors x (the top half all matches position-wise) how do I break bad news to Cody x

It took me a while to find something last night oops (partly because I kept being distracted by other stuff x) but got an entry I'm quite happy with in the end. Whether anyone else will be happy with it is a different question though! Will be interesting to see the list as I'm wondering how people will have interpreted the theme x

I slept through the results again sorry! I'll read through the thread properly and comment more tomorrow (well, today x) but decided to spare myself the 'tension' and just jump to the end - I'm used to going into results threads feeling like I have pretty much no idea who's going to win but this month was different, 'Caught In A Jam' I think is the first song in quite a long time that I've heard and just felt that it'll surely win. So that's validating to see it did indeed win quite comfortably. Well done Iz, very well deserved and obviously long, long overdue <3 Between the successes of this and hemlocke springs we all need to be on the lookout for the next up and coming black woman making this kind of no-genre-but-also-every-genre music x Also makes it 3 winners in a row I've voted for (and 4 of the last 5 since my infamous run of snubbing 12 winners in a row came to a close). Nature is healing.

Stream LUX

Well I'm fine with the 'art' part, I just need to try not to offend the pop hoes too much. ddd

Not really sure how to go about finding an entry for this tbh but I'll figure something out x