Brer

Team Capaldi definitely not wanting to take any chances then lmao. I still think he could have got #1 even without the CDs this week but yeah. Decent rise since Monday for Lorde's sales, up 2.4k and it only needs to go up another just over 1.5k to beat the opening sales of 'Melodrama' now so that seems doable. No shock that 'Shapeshifter' is gone from the top 40 but 'What Was That' still holding firm so should be safely locked in for a re-entry now. If I hadn't seen this post I'm not sure I'd ever have known it's not meant to be pronounced 'hunter x'. (I'm certainly not ever watching the film lol) Nothing to do with the OCC, this is how the songs are tagged on streaming services! Am quite used to artists being extraneously double credited in official streaming tags but these songs essentially triple tagging all the contributing artists is a new one.

Well it is still a fresh hit compared to Teddy Swims who is also still top 10...!

thanks Rob for the lovely looking banner that I'm pinching x Welcome all to the slightly belated semi-finals / heats / deltävlingar for BJFestivalen / Buzzjackfestivalen / Buzzfestivalen 2025 / VII (we really don't have a consistent branding for any of this ddd). Persephonia here to kick off proceedings with the first of our 4 semi-finals, the other 3 should be following in short order either later tonight or possibly tomorrow depending on how nocturnal my fellow mods are x Each participating country is to vote in their semi-final only and vote with the following slightly truncated points allocation: 12 points (favourite) 10 points 8 points 6 points 4 points 2 points (6th favourite) As usual you cannot vote for your own entry so you'll be ranking your 6 favourites of your 10 competitors. If you're in this semi-final please deliver your votes via PM to me (Brer) by 23:59 BST on Monday 7th July 2025 (note the somewhat shorter than usual deadline but the nature of the contest should make it pretty quick to listen through). The 2 songs with the most points will book a guaranteed spot in the grand final, while the songs in 3rd through 5th will go into the Andra Chansen round to compete for the remaining final spots. Unfortunately it'll be the end of the line for the remaining 6 although eliminated countries will be free and encouraged to still vote in the Andra Chansen and final rounds. x Assuming we weren't meant to be changing the format to match the slightly changed format of the actual Melodifestivalen anyway. xx Let the voting commence 😎 1. Sovarasma: JOLIN - Pleasure 2. Mothertopia: Say She She - Cut & Rewind 3. New Lexico: Dolly Style - POM POM 4. Jadakissnia: Cannelle - WATCH ME FLY 5. Cheiron: Chase Icon - SoCal Girl 6. Flynnonda: Arthur Hill - Appetite 7. Elëdan: sineila - X-8 8. Ben's Sanctuary: Karen Harding & Shift K3Y - Morning 9. Scotland 2: Rico Nasty & Boys Noize - Arintintin 10. Summericia: MishCatt - Another Dimension 11. Pestolia: Jae Stephens - Body Favors (will edit in some playlists here at some point x)

That moment when having more realistic expectations makes you the one who is 'miles out of touch'

We stan the implication that Lorde is a big enough artist for a 13k Monday midweek figure to be disappointing.

Daithí was also perhaps more notably in Must Be The Music, the short lived show that gave us a couple of very forgettable UK top 10 hits from Pepper & Piano and Emma's Imagination (Daithí himself got a #67 hit from the show). And ofc Saara Aalto was on the UK X Factor too. I genuinely half considered sending a Jedward song here ('Luminous') but then remembered they've been sent to BJSC before x There are a few songs I already know here (that's a nice pick for Diana Vickers there) but still more new to me than not.

Ok that looks solid for Lorde then (I'm still burnt by 'Melodrama' somehow being outsold in its first week by a Nickelback album so I didn't want to expect to have nice things x). Nice that she has already cleared the first week sales of 'Solar Power'! 'Pure Heroine' and 'Melodrama' respectively did 18.3k and 17.0k first week so looking like this will be in a similar ballpark, I don't want to predict it'll beat those because I massively underestimated how frontloaded HAIM were last week and Lorde might do similarly x Glad to see 'Shapeshifter' at least top 40 for today as well but definitely not expecting it to hold that.

Thank the Lorde xx (Although better wait to see the sales before I can fully breathe easily)

Well we have 41 entries now oop - can we get another 3?

Do we know where 'Sapphire' was on Amazon at the same time last week? If it is just that it's risen a lot on there then I guess that would make sense.

please no

We have exactly 40 entries at the moment so that currently works out well - if anyone is still sitting on a last minute entry you can still submit it but I can't guarantee it'll get in as we'd need to jump to 44 per the format of the contest x

I think the first week was a little bit stronger overall but I actually added one more song to my playlist from this week (21 to last week's 20). Blondie - Atomic David Bowie - Alabama Song The Jam - Going Underground John Foxx - No-One Driving Martha And The Muffins - Echo Beach 3 songs I knew extremely well already and 2 discoveries here - always good to expand my knowledge of Bowie's discog and this is a brilliantly leftfield track from him, sounded like it could have been taken off a black midi album. And John Foxx is 2 for 2 on great songs now, just looked up some spoilers and I see he has 2 more songs to come although both also landing in the 31-40 range, poor guy - very much looking forward to seeing if they keep up the quality of the first two. 'Echo Beach' is my overall fave of the week, never gets old x Stiff Little Fingers and Rush were my next favourite discoveries of the week, and The Vapors and Siouxsie And The Banshees just missing out as my next fave songs I knew already (albeit I don't think I knew the latter was a Siouxsie And The Banshees song).

It was #12 on First Look last week though (and then stayed at #12 the whole week - suppose it's possible it will be a lot less stable this week but just not sure why it's so much higher in the first place, there was a gap of a bit over 5k between #5 and #12 last week which seems too big to just be a random positional fluctuation).

Hmm at the First Look report mentioning the position of 'What Was That' but not 'Shapeshifter' - not holding my breath for that to make the top 40 now anyway after the drop on Spotify today but hopefully it can stabilise a bit and at least chart higher than 'Man Of The Year', and fingers crossed 'What Was That' will hang on as a top 40 re-entry. Good to see MK ahead of Sabrina now, hopefully that means 'Manchild' is stopping at 2 weeks at #1 (unless it's boosted back there by the album release but I guess she will be onto another single by then). I think Lewis has a decent chance of hanging on for #1 this week, not least because they can no doubt just pull the CD shipping date forward at the drop of a hat if they need it for the #1. Heard the song on R1 earlier and it's... certainly a Lewis Capaldi song alright. Decent enough I suppose, I'd take it over 'Someone You Loved' and 'Pointless' from his previous #1s. Also not sure what's prompted the rise but glad to see 'Sapphire' apparently looking to get a new peak - I know he's teased the release of a 'Punjabi version' featuring more vocals from Arijit Singh, but it's not out yet.