Bror

Ah x

Probably around the same time Yu decided to love them x

I actually really hate this, like despise.

No, that's still Taylor x

With how glacial the chart is and the precedent of how long it took 'Rein Me In' to eventually get to #1 I wouldn't rule it out completely but I'm not seeing 'Choosin' Texas' being a #1 contender at the moment, it's still pretty far off the mark.

Well these would be my votes for the previous poll x The Flying Pickets - Only You Michael Jackson - Thriller Pretenders - 2000 Miles The Smiths - This Charming Man Yes - Owner Of A Lonely Heart All ones I already knew ofc, best discoveries from that lot were The Assembly, Tears For Fears and Blancmange (and honestly unironically Roland Rat Superstar x), other gooduns I already knew including Ozzy Osbourne, Thompson Twins, Billy Joel, Howard Jones and Genesis (a song I didn't recognise from the name but knew the song as soon as I heard it). And for this week: The Alarm - Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke? Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax The Icicle Works - Love Is A Wonderful Colour Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me A great discovery from The Alarm and almost-discovery from The Icicle Works (heard it once before), next best discoveries were Big Country, Thomas Dolby and Marillion, next best ones I knew already were Nena, Queen, Eurythmics and Nik Kershaw.

05 Girls Aloud - Biology 07 Sugababes - Red Dress 08 Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For? 09 The Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha (feat. Busta Rhymes) 08 Charlotte Church - Crazy Chick 11 Britney Spears - Toxic 06 Ashlee Simpson - Boyfriend 07 P!nk - Trouble 06 t.A.T.u. - All About Us 07 Rachel Stevens - Some Girls 05 Atomic Kitten - The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling) 06 Louise - Pandora's Kiss 07 Dannii Minogue and The Soul Seekerz - Perfection 08 Mis-Teeq - Can't Get It Back 06 Lindsay Lohan - Over 08 Nelly Furtado - Turn Off The Light 09 Ciara - Goodies (feat. Petey Pablo) 09 Amerie - 1 Thing 08 Rihanna - Pon De Replay Think this edition is maybe a little better than the second one overall (particularly a strong run in tracks 3-6 and again at the end) but still not quite as many big faves for me as the first one had. (Of course 'Kiss Kiss' should be on the list of big faves from this edition as well x).

Feeling I am missing a reference here x

I wasn't aware either of them had new albums out oops x (although in fairness I'm in one of my phases of being out of the loop with new releases in general) Fredo really going from 5 consecutive top 10 albums/mixtapes to #81 with this one... what happened? I see this album is on an independent label but so was his last one.

May be a little late again but only a song or two x (My bad for not reading the thread I guess but why was the poll closed a week early? I'm sure we haven't ever done that before - I'll post my late votes in a bit for posterity (I caught up on the songs I missed last Sunday), 'This Charming Man' will be in my 5 anyway so wouldn't have affected the winner...)

I have thought for a while Phoebe Bridgers may be well placed to get a hit single whenever she eventually releases new music - was mildly surprised at her not showing up on Apple so the Spotify outcome makes a bit more sense.

It does matter though - the only way you could claim 'Rein Me In' is 'undisputed' as the biggest song of the year is by taking the charts with ACR applied at face value. If ACR wasn't a thing it'd be quite clear that 'Man I Need' has been at the very least right on par if not bigger this year. It just happened to be unlucky enough to go to ACR very early in its run and never managed to get reset. 'Man I Need' going down in the chart records as a one week #1 while 'Rein Me In' gets 15+ is quite an indictment of how arbitrary ACR can be. (Of course Livvy Deez wins either way so I'm sure she wouldn't mind this debate x)

Apologies for missing the live reveal, I had to sleep again x Quickly caught up with this earlier and just read back through in a bit more detail. Well done Jim on a very well deserved first BJSC forum victory! I didn't really think to predict a winner but this song doing well definitely makes sense, even if the ostensible real life parallel of Qatar winning the World Cup would be clearly absurd (arguably one of the worst teams in the actual tournament). At least Brazil coming 2nd is a bit more realistic although pleasantly surprised Arandu Arakuaa did so well, was a very standout song but I'd have thought its niche wouldn't be big enough to carry it that high in the results - great top 2 anyway which were also next to each other in my own votes (though the other way round with Arandu Arakuaa on 9 and Dana on 8). Also voted for 4 more of the top 10 in Jones & Stephenson, EMEL, Gulinur and She Past Away - nice for New Helvetica to grab a top 10 placement with their first (only?) entry, that was a lovely tune. 'Devona' was a major earworm and 'Mizantrop' not quite as great for me as their main contest entry but still great enough to get double figure points from me - I've had their album on my to-listen list for months but being lazy with that, really must get to it soon. None of my medallists making the top 10 but two coming very close - the host entry was actually sitting as my 18 after my initial listenthrough (me stanning a post-punk entry shocker) but ended up slipping behind a couple of others in the end, the extra 5 points wouldn't have quite been enough for it to come top 10 though so cannot feel too bad. A bit annoying that the song that ended up being my favourite is the only one that's not on Spotify! Also aw so close to the top 20 for BUHA 2030 (I mentioned on SyncTube that it just needed a guy ranting over it with a northern accent and it could pass for a Maruja song). Another little cluster of underrated faves for me in the 24th-28th section (minus France, sorry Mack), Xico Gaiato and Diblo With Loketo both really got robbed though, both some lovely discoveries there. Enjoyed the spin on the reveal format to match the theming of the contest, thanks for all the efforts Dan - although poor brave Imarhan getting a bit of an unlucky draw to be 'eliminated' in the round of 32 despite being top 15 overall! (Not quite as unlucky as my fellow North African EMEL though of course - and in my own 'tournament' style simulation the other North African entrant Bab L' Bluz also went out early due to bad luck). Very happy with that result anyway - Algeria was quite a fortunate draw for me really as I had bookmarked a song by Imarhan to investigate them for song contest potential a little while back anyway so as soon as I realised they were Algerian I didn't have to spend much time to find an entry (though I was stuck between 3 different songs from them for a while). Very similar musically to Tinariwen who I sent to the last Foreign Language spinoff and finishing with a pretty similar result so that makes sense (they came 12th although from a smaller field of 29 songs). I'm sure they must be the only two songs ever sent to song contests on this site in the Tamasheq language thanks to @Julian_ being my biggest fan with a silver, @nine¾ and @NocheLuna for bronzes, @Assy! and @Chez Wombat for double figure points and a healthy spread of further points from @AllStarBySmashMouth, @Jade, @matto, @gooddelta, @HarryInnanen, @Ansel, @CowTzy was here, @danG, @pavi, @King Rollo, @seven. and @Mack. <3 If anyone may care at all these were the other two songs I considered sending: This one has a bit more of a 'modern' and upbeat sound to it although still clearly rooted in traditional stylings. And this was actually the first song I found by them and it's a toetapper but ultimately felt it was a little bit too similar to the Tinariwen song I sent before. As far as an Algerian blues rock entry can possibly be 'cheap', 'Achinkad' was kind of the cheap choice as it's by far their most viewed music video on YouTube with some 10 million views so I guess it must have caught some virality somewhere at some point - it did end up being the song I was most drawn to from the ones I checked out though so the views are deserved, a really beautiful and entrancing tune with a great guitar solo in the second half. x

You can find it by looking in the current top 40 on Spotify where it still is. Which is quite good going for a song that's allegedly not memorable. x (I say 'still', in fairness it looks like it was a constant presence in the Spotify top 200 until mid 2018 then largely dropped out before suddenly returning to being a top 100 staple again since March this year, not sure what prompted it to be so heavily revived this year but I can't imagine it was ever that far adrift of the top 200 in the years between).

It's not 'matching Bryan Adams' record' when the record he has is only for consecutive weeks.