Bror

It is actually your 151st btw oop! (though a fun fact to make up for it: you managed to win with both your 100th entry (LOVA) and your 150th which is quite iconic)

Great job with all the writeups Calum! (Clocking the shade for twigs aside x) I think if there had only been the one Golden Wagner (#deadnaming) spot as planned it would have most likely just gone to Lily pretty comfortably and anticlimactically - although not undeservedly, she was one of my five picks, I think a lot of her discography has aged quite poorly but 'The Fear' always was and still is her best song - so another +1 to it being a good idea to expand it as ROSALÍA needed to make it as well especially as it's given us a genuine curveball result in Conan making it through! Of course a lot of his earlier song choices got quite glowing reception but still, intrigued to see if he can make much deeper of a run now after being given this lifeline! (Inb4 it turns out he actually came 1st). In all honesty his song choice for that last round was one that went in one ear and out the other for me but here's hoping I will still have more chances to give positive reviews to his songs x Full disclosure I did already know @Jade sent Blondie as we discussed our choices for this edition before it was announced that it was going to be anonymous, whoopsie. Will be more secretive next year I promise. A shame that she fell short at the same stage as last year as Blondie definitely had more to give, also a little surprised at George Michael not making it with such a classic, I wonder if it's possible this might have been another 4th place finish for him... I thought Nadia Oh would have been @!!! but I suppose @seven. sending her makes as much sense - her song didn't quite make my top 5 for the last round but it would have been in contention to be ranked 6th, my favourite discovery of the round, largely very impressed with her proto hyperpop bangers in general x I did very much enjoy the last gasp attempt from Guitarricadelafuente as well and the Markus Riva song was better than his earlier ones too (lol at him being a troll choice though - unless @uhsting is just covering for being the ultimate Khia x). The last Erasure song was not a favourite for me but lovely to read the thought process behind sending it (and all the other Erasure picks) from @dandy* - likewise with @King Rollo, I am in awe of people having this game planned out so meticulously. x Also a RIP in peace to !!!, @pavi and @CowTzy for picking consistently good songs throughout this (actually wasn't that mad on the last one from LiSA unforch but good stuff before x) and to @Herbs and @Calum who did well to find a couple of songs I liked more than I expected from artists it would have been very easy for me to write off. Hmm what to send next ~ (unless I actually didn't submit an artist at all and am truly the frontrunner for the Oscar)

I've never heard 'Yes' before to my knowledge and frankly I don't have any desire to hear it again, I didn't really like it at all sorry (only saved from being last for me because I also don't like the Kelly Clarkson song at all and that one I have unfortunately had to listen to probably hundreds of times before). That being the song with the most 50 point scores is quite baffling to me! Would definitely have liked to see 'Sultans Of Swing' finish a bit higher but I don't think that's too bad of a result for this kind of song on here. I did not know Gerry Rafferty was in Stealers Wheel!

I sent it to PJSC specifically because I originally wasn't going to send it here but then I changed my mind as I had nothing else I wanted to send here hehe It was quite a bit later than that tbf x

That's the last of my 7s gone - I gave scores of 8+ to 11 songs and 9 of them have made the top 10 here, feels quite surprising to be agreeing so much with BuzzJack ratings of pop girl songs (with the one major and expected exception).

I can think of two other Welsh language entries off the top of my head: ANi GLASS - Y Ddawns {Quintessa LXXXVI; 26} ( btw x) DJ SG - Sosban Fach {Pestolia CLXIII; SF-28} I thought maybe Gwenno - Eus Keus? as well but just checked and that was actually Cornish which might be unique. Am sure I may well be forgetting others but yes not a common language to pop up, intrigue!

Oh both of the semi openers this month have ties to Ethel Cain then - what are the odds x

Yes, 25 years ago, I mean do people still know it now xx

That is Eden's Crush's streams!

In all of her 234,000 streams on Spotify glory (curious as to whether the song has actually survived at all in the cultural canon in the US or if it's also just an obscure historical fun fact there x)

New Pagasa late votes conspiracy: they just wanted to deny themselves the chance of an AQ so they wouldn't have to try to somehow vote in both semis x

There were actually a few songs that we were split on this month but that wasn't one of them x (the one that caused the slight delay is also related to the debate over whether recycles of artists in different guises should count as veto points or not x (no it's not TOMORA either))

Me being the last country to confirm before the deadline and then opening semi 1 so yeah I know a good few of you will already know Searows but hopefully he'll be new to at least a few potential fans x Discovered him from the song 'Dirt' earlier this year which immediately caught my attention as a pretty beautiful slow burner, ended up deciding to go back and check out the previous singles and then the whole of his new album, this song came out last year and is a lot more ~explosive~ than most of the rest of the album which I hope will help out with making a stronger first impression. (It is also my favourite song on the album anyway). I believe he has been a tour opener for Ethel Cain and that makes sense x A fair few here I've heard already of which my favourite is Hendinia's which I expect will be landing them quite near the top of the scoreboard once again x Neat to see Nujabes (RIP x) being entered, I haven't dug into his music too much so haven't heard this song but I did come across one of his songs a long time ago which I considered sending myself, I'm actually not 100% sure which song it was oops but it was something off the Samurai Champloo soundtrack, might have been 'aruarian dance'? I also discovered during research for this contest (after missing it the last time she was entered) that Art School Girlfriend is a Persephonia alumnus of sorts - apparently she was a member of Deaf Club who I sent all the way back in BJSC 49 (2012) with the rather underrated and sadly still missing from Spotify 'Moving Still'!! Shook at this revelation. (TOMORA is a sorta-kinda Persephonia recycle too via Tom Rowlands as I've sent The Chemical Brothers to a spinoff before, I'll claim any tangential connection I can xo)

FWIW we are having some internal debate #exclusiveleaks over whether recycling an artist previously sent as part of a group should count as veto points or not. So Cherry Bomb ambiguously has 15 veto points or 0. But we decided to veto it regardless x (Not everything in the write-ups is a contributing reason for a veto, this was thrown out because it's - kind of - a winning artist recycle and her only other solo song is one that would definitely be vetoed for attracting too much attention on the site already which this song is too new to have accrued itself so it is slightly speculative but seemed fair nonetheless x)

Rik Waller's version is better than Whitney's let's be real. Voting for Kanye xxx

You can't send the same act twice in a row regardless xx

A few more hours for any further votes here

Lol @ 'Man I Need' popping up to #1 once again to further delay 'Rein Me In' finally getting there.

Well we're down to one of the songs I liked vs. the one I'm neutral on. I'll let you guess which way around they are! I do like 'American Boy' a lot too, although I will now never be able to hear it without thinking of the Fortnite parody version of it 'Chug Jug With You'. (although tbh that makes it better x)

Just need to acknowledge how much 'Really Hard' slaps.

Scenes when ROSALÍA just gets a bye from the last round as a result x

I think even when I did keep a longer list of potentials it never got longer than about 10 songs!

Voted I think I'm going to go against the grain again and say this was pretty easy to vote in - I knew which 5 songs I'd likely be voting for straight away, only the order of my top 2 was in doubt really. Though it was nice to hear another song by some of these artists and made a couple more pretty good discoveries, I think it'd be harder to pin down a 6th place here.

'Choosin' Texas' is still the only song I've really liked from her so far but 'Be Her' is not bad either, we've had Radio 2 on in the office at work this week and I've heard it on there a couple of times, it is very catchy. Could definitely see it eventually being another charting song for her (I saw it went top 20 in the US).

TIL that exists