Bror

It was 4 last month so it's going back up now! I meant to check before if it had ever been that low but I'll need to do some spreadsheet rejiggery first x 5 - the two that are there now plus FSR Rontvia (42), Cor Lupus (33) and Cumulonimbia (30). Cor Lupus and Hendinia have both also done it twice having other runs of 32 and 34 respectively.

Apols for lateness again but at least done before the final results this time Qualification streak update (underlined nations have matched or beaten their longest streak to date, streaks that are longer when counting non-consecutive participations are in italics where applicable): 01 65 Hendinia (non-consecutive: 70) 02 30 Aeroche 03 27 Danæviia 04 22 Neliönoir 05 21 Cor Lupus 06 20 Kluminican Republic 07 10 Fljótavík 08 8 The Spodic Empire 09 6 Dalisska 10 5 Baleghde 10 5 Bøtanikkä (non-consecutive: 6) * 10 5 Deandria 10 5 Scotland 2 10 5 Trifoski 15 4 Altyr Muunilinst 15 4 East Rukahavian 15 4 Freidland 18 3 Bronzil 18 3 Jadakissnia 18 3 Pestolia 18 3 République d'Áskorza 18 3 Séyetana 18 3 Skall 18 3 Terra Avium 25 2 Aelandor 25 2 Dobago 25 2 Elëdan 25 2 Ennea 25 2 Flynnonda 25 2 Kathaldazia 25 2 Land of DW 25 2 Sovarasma 25 2 Zephyra Continuum 34 1 Ajanaeda 34 1 Cheiron 34 1 Greenfroze 34 1 Herbilore 34 1 Jupiterdonia 34 1 N DNTN 34 1 Summericia 34 1 Zanmatony xx (4) Juranabaijan xx (3) Lentyll xx (3) Ojnoj xx (3) Persephonia xx (2) A-Konohagakure xx (1) Pagasa xx (1) Utopia (non-consecutive: 3) ** xx (1) Yehesi * Bøtanikkä's mid-contest withdrawal from BJSC 180 is not counted as a DNQ for the purposes of this list ** did not enter this contest so may resume a non-consecutive streak in the future Little change to the top 10 as the only one of the countries from last month's top 10 to fail to qualify again this month was Juranabaijan (one of those in the 6-way tie for 10th, thus the top 10 now shrinks from 15 countries to 14). Continuing as they have been for some time, Hendinia's record streak marches on to 65 (70 non-consecutive), Danæviia's to 27, Neliönoir's to 22 and Kluminican Republic's to 20 making it 6 countries with a current unbroken streak of 2 years. Aeroche in 2nd place hit 30 in a row again - since BJSC 87 they have had only two DNQs in BJSCs 123 & 155, breaking what could have been a streak of 99 qualifiers into a row into three similar streaks of 36, 31 and 30 (and counting). Fljótavík make it 7 countries with an unbroken streak of at least a year, having exactly half as many in a row as the Klum Rep just above them. The Spodic Empire expand their current record streak to 8 and Dalisska make it to 6 in a row for the first time after matching their previous record of 5 in a row last month (though they'll still need another 5 in a row to beat their non-consecutive record of 10). Deandria and Scotland 2 each also expand their current records to 5. East Rukahavian, like Dalisska, surpass their previous consecutive record that they matched last month making it to 4 in a row for the first time, now 1 away from their non-consecutive record of 5. Freidland expand their current record to 4 while Ennea and Zephyra Continuum are in back-to-back finals for the first time, the former after their first ever qualifier last month and the latter doing so automatically after their win last month which was only their second qualifier to date.

Finally did my first listenthrough of this last night, I will plan to do a second listen and send my votes this evening x (do need to do a final relisten for BJSC as well so a marathon of contest songs awaits)

Lol at the Fleetwood Mac resets - both great songs and good for 'Dreams' to finally have a top 20 peak (and it finally being the first top 20 hit from 'Rumours' at that...!) but will now just be amusing to see how many months they flit around without going back to ACR. Also a bit of a shame that between those and 'Blessings' we are denied a top 40 re-entry for now for an old reset hit that actually makes sense with 'On The Floor' stalling at #41 - I imagine it could still climb in though. That and poor Charli missing out on a fresh top 40 because of all manner of spurious resets of course. Anyhow... yay for new peaks for 'Go' (only 1 place away from the other big Chemicals/Q-Tip collab!) and 'Talk To You'. And fair play to Maisie Peters managing to stick at #1 in the albums after all, I'm not a fan of her at all but it's nice to see a British female pop artist sustaining some relevance beyond the first one or two albums as that is historically a bit of a rarity (albeit in her case that relevance having always been quite fanbase-specific with her never really having a breakout hit).

The sneak is not unnoticed xx

No idea who that is and scared to look it up x

Hard manifesting oktobernatt doing a Fat Dog tbh x

Definitely not this week, it's predicted for a #5 debut.

By Talk of the Charts' numbers every track on 'The Life Of A Showgirl' did do better numbers than 'Choosin' Texas' did last week (317 vs. 330 for 'Honey'). 317 I think is relatively high for a #1 of late indeed though so Drake could have got the whole top 10 with slightly better timing.

Pretty sure it was predicted from the very start of the week that he'd have 9/10?

I'll probably pop in to say hello towards the end but unfortunately will be missing the majority.

Sorry what? If anything I'd have said it was self indulgent for her to perform it all the time considering it's... not her song? Lol

https://sync-tube.de/room/ApAM3t-I Final listenthrough from not too long after 8pm

Listing random old songs again yay

I wish I could understand why the weather becoming unbearably hot is causing so many people to want to listen to 'Rein Me In' more but eh x (it doesn't exactly strike me as a summery song)

Can do if people want

I've just relistened to the studio versions of the finalists + the performances and studio versions of the DNQs (as I didn't watch the semis) and here's my updated ranking for the year x I massively underrated Albania and Denmark on the night and overrated Serbia and Austria a bit. 1 Croatia / LELEK 2 Bulgaria / DARA Montenegro / Tamara Živković 3 Greece / Akylas 4 Romania / Alexandra Căpitănescu 5 Serbia / Lavina 6 United Kingdom / LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER Armenia / SIMÓN 7 Moldova / Satoshi 8 Albania / Alis 9 Norway / JONAS LOVV 10 Czechia / Daniel Žižka 11 France / Monroe 12 Finland / Linda Lampenius/Pete Parkkonen 13 Denmark / Søren Torpegaard Lund Estonia / Vanilla Ninja 14 Austria / COSMÓ 15 Sweden / FELICIA 16 Australia / Delta Goodrem Latvia / Atvara 17 Italy / Sal Da Vinci Portugal / Bandidos Do Cante 18 Lithuania / Lion Ceccah Georgia / Bzikebi 19 Belgium / Essyla 20 Ukraine / Leléka Luxembourg / Eva Marija 21 Malta / AIDAN 22 Cyprus / Antigoni Azerbaijan / JIVA Switzerland / Veronica Fusaro San Marino / Senhit/Boy George 23 Germany / Sarah Engels 24 Poland / ALICJA 25 Israel / Noam Bettan Me having an entirely Balkan top 6 (and 7 of the top 9). Oh my x How did Montenegro not qualify? Shenannies

'Go' in the top 3 That was to secure the #1 in the US, nothing to do with 'Rein Me In'.

I want to say Sonny Fodera's 'Somedays' hit the Apple top 10 while not being top 200 on Spotify and proceeded to be a staple in the top 10 for a long time. (And in fact right now it's #20 on Apple and not charting on Spotify).

Last time was 2021 (this is the 4th time after Rachel Sermanni in BJSC 42 - that was a contest you hosted yourself! - FMLYBND in BJSC 55 and HARD FEELINGS in BJSC 135 x)

Kinda stanning that instead of just copy and pasting the qualifiers from the semi thread you seemed to type letters at random for countries with diacritics in their name (among others) and just hope for the best xx (edited the OP hehe, but a shoutout as well to 'The Spotic Empire', 'Bronzia', 'LILIT' and 'LEF CHAIFON' xo it is all a bit AI images trying to generate text)

This has just been the convention for coming up to 15 years now (it was less consistent in the first few years of the contest, as were some other things that you'd think would be set in stone e.g. the number of qualifiers per semi which at one point was seemingly entirely at the host's discretion) - I think the original logic was just that we (well, the mods at the time, long before I was one) wanted as few people as possible to be losing their absolute favourite songs before the final, but then wider appeal is rewarded more in the final itself. I'm not sure it's the standard I'd have set if I was a mod in the early years but at this point it's too entrenched to suddenly arbitrarily change, whenever there are 20th/21st ties with a discrepancy between most votes and most 12s someone is getting aggrieved either way, best to stick to a consistent rule and why not the one we've had already for a decade and a half x

FWIW Lotunia will have not voted but they are exempted from any deductions/bans due to extenuating circumstances (but hopefully will be voting in the final anyway). New Lexico got the 33% deduction, Pagasa should have got a 15% really but they DNQed anyway so makes no difference. Of the other 4 countries who hadn't voted as of 20 minutes before the deadline according to Till's post, one of them was me and I definitely did vote on time (although only barely ddd, snuck in at 23:59 - but again I DNQed anyway so would make no difference), Summericia posted that they did too, Zanmatony were in the process of voting as of 23:17 so I assume they did get in on time too, and Trifoski we technically don't know anything about but they tend to reliably show up within the last ~5 minutes of deadlines. So TL;DR pretty sure no harm done #detectivebror x my receipt xox

Benefits being out on a tiebreak sucks - but perhaps surprisingly for this kind of song it was actually "only" my 3 pointer which maybe should have been a bad omen. I wouldn't say it was especially close to my 4 pointer really but of course any DNQ that's so close is bound to have been a whisker away from getting one extra point from someone. Definitely would have been even more of a suck for Chalk to be out as I am strongly rooting for Mack's Q streak to continue and this is one of their best entries to date for me so although bittersweet to lose another of my votes at the last minute that is the right decision out of the two x From my votes/rankings: 12 Q 10 Q 8 Q 7 Pagasa 6 Q 5 Cumulonimbia 4 Q 3 FSR Rontvia 2 Q 1 Q 18th Taahino 20th Yehesi 24th New Lexico 26th A-Konohagakure I definitely wasn't expecting to lose as many as 3 of my votes from here so that's quite a disappointment (especially with my own entry also being out) but at least I did get all of my podium through x Will edit in finalised rankings of the semi 1 DNQs at a later date when I've relistened again but I lost two of my current top 10 (Harmonica 5th, Lotunia 9th) and a couple more which were just outside so still have potential to rise into my top 10 with another listen. edit: 5th Harmonica 9th Lotunia 11th Niceland 14th Mothertopia 15th Ojnoj 17th Lookylion 24th Lentyll 27th Juranabaijan Ojnoj was a grower on my relisten, also a shame to see that missing out. Thanks for the hosting Till, shame to be back on the sidelines but shall look forward to the final nonetheless x

Shame East Ruk are about to be out D: Shame FSR are about to be out D: