Michael Bubré

A bit short notice but thinking I will do a listenthrough for this today at 8pm - probably best to get this out of the way before the new BJSC starts. Look at the username of our host

I did consider sending you a message about the Pop Forum Song Contest as well but I didn't want to be spamming you too much / wasn't sure if you'd lost interest in the forum already after ending up not entering this one x

I do hope Jameseye will still be entering if only because it will create some great lore if they do send the song they posted about possibly sending (which I don't know if anyone saw before I edited it out)... @James. But excellent that we have a debuting nation confirmed for the year, keeps up the streak of every year having at least one debut (previous closest call was in 2019 in which Sergeistan were the only debut in the 8th contest of the year).

'Don't Stop Me Now' is... not the worst Queen cover by a boyband that hit #1 in the UK but yeah, no great loss here either and I don't even recall how 'Please, Please' goes. At least there is a much better McFly song (imo) still to come x Generally not that keen on Rihanna ballads but I have always had a soft spot for 'Unfaithful'.

Welcome Zephyra Continuum from Persephonia (a new alphabetically last country name oh my)

So close to being ridded of Alan Walker from the final so soon after he came 2nd (iirc).

Fat Dog in the final *.* yasss at how well 'Starburster' and 'Go' have done too.

Semi-Final 1 +25 The Last Man On Earth +24 Welcome To My Island +23 Not Like Us +22 A&W +21 SHUM +20 Something In The Orange +19 cardigan +18 On Hold +17 i like the way you kiss me +16 Sunflower +15 Go +14 Take Me To Church +13 (It Goes Like) Nanana +12 How Deep Is Your Love +11 Youngblood +10 Lucid Dreams +9 bury a friend +8 Guess +7 Chaise Longue +6 break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored +5 Break My Heart +4 Somebody Else +3 Rain On Me +2 All The Stars +1 Afraid To Feel Semi-Final 2 +25 King Of The Slugs +24 I Remember Everything +23 HUMBLE. +22 Doomscroller +21 Starburster +20 Bad Habit [Steve Lacy, to avoid any momentary confusion x] +19 INDUSTRY BABY +18 What Was I Made For? +17 ZITTI E BUONI +16 360 +15 24K Magic +14 exile +13 God is a woman +12 Roses (Imanbek Remix) +11 Die With A Smile +10 bad guy +9 Golden +8 Von dutch +7 Vroom Vroom +6 Charlemagne +5 3 Nights +4 My Love Mine All Mine +3 SPACE MAN +2 Calm Down +1 Havana

Fun Boy Three - The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum) The Human League - Don't You Want Me Japan - Visions Of China Queen and David Bowie - Under Pressure Ultravox - The Voice 2 obvious classics and 3 discoveries this week, Ultravox as quality as ever, Fun Boy Three was a real quirky standout and I did know of the Japan song before as I was aware of it being an inspiration point for my BJSC entry 'Hailing Drums' by Re-TROS but never actually gave it a listen so good to finally hear it now! I playlisted 27 songs in total this week which I think is the most to date but still whittled them down quite quickly so a lot of those were more in the 7.5-8/10 quality range - nonetheless, my next faves that I already knew were Kim Wilde, Earth, Wind & Fire, Madness and Meat Loaf and next best discoveries were Toyah and Genesis. Shoutout to Chas & Dave for a medley that actually had some thought put into it and was fun for what it was, and to Rod Stewart for finally getting a spot on my playlist with a song I like enough and didn't think his vocals ruined xx

I've been out of the loop with these countdown threads / this part of the forum in general oop but will make sure to keep up with this one and I'll endeavour to read back Chez's one as well x My first exposure to the song 'The Rose' was its usage on Family Guy which does make it a bit hard for me to take any version of it seriously but regardless it's the kind of soppy ballad that I don't think would be of much interest to me anyway especially with Westlife singing it (I don't think their covers are offensively bad or anything but they just provide nothing to get excited about). Remaining firmly seated on my stool x I did have a quick peek at the list of 2006 #1s and it's definitely the obvious choice and probably the correct one for last place here - I think the bottom 5 or so if I was ranking them myself would fall out pretty quickly but then would start getting harder to rank pretty quickly after that! I have always liked 'The Saints Are Coming' and it would have been cool for Green Day to have a #1 to their name even if it would have been a weird one to do it with. But I guess if Linkin Park could get a new highest peaking single in 2024 it's not off the table that Green Day could get #1 with a comeback single some day...

Almost forgot to vote in the last poll whoops! The Creatures - Mad Eyed Screamer Japan - Quiet Life Laurie Anderson - O Superman New Order - Procession Toyah - Thunder In The Mountains Almost all discoveries getting my votes here, only Laurie Anderson that I knew already. Next best ones I already knew are Dave Stewart/Barbara Gaskin, Olivia Newton-John and Altered Images, other good discoveries were Haircut 100, Rush, the other New Order song and... I have already forgotten if I said I already knew Godley & Creme or not but that was also good. (also Birdie Song obviously the best but I have to exclude it to give other songs a chance etc.)

I hadn't realised that Sonny Fodera song had spent a couple of weeks in the top 40 without even cracking the top 200 on Spotify yet! It's not even charting that well on Apple unlike 'Somedays' either.

Listened to the new (ish) album today - was not expecting all the industrial influence on it but it is great as ever from him <3 'Haze' was my favourite but the whole of that track 3-6 run is pretty much flawless and then also really loving the title track, 'I Feel You', 'Disturb Me' and 'In Keeping (Soon We'll Be Dust)' - the only thing letting it down a little bit for me is that the solo/instrumental tracks minus the title track don't feel like they add too much (apart from the outro of 'Until The Moon Starts Shaking' which works well to ramp up the intensity leading into the next song x) but they're all pretty short anyway.

Ok we weren't held up for too long then I heard the Romy song on Radio 1 the other day but I think the rest are all new to me! Wondering if a certain artist who's shown up here was sent by one of the couple of people who tried to send said artist to BJSC in the last couple of months but were blocked from doing so x

ROSALÍA having the smallest drop this year for a #4 album with a physical release *.* Benson who

You just need to make better use of the lovely archive thread you put so much effort into xx (context for those who missed it: the voting thread went up but there was a song in it that had already been sent to a previous edition so I guess it's being put on hold until we get a replacement)

Whoops looks like I got the voting thread taken down

Welcome Jameseye from Persephonia Looks like 2025 does get a debuting nation after all!

Welcome I have just edited out the song from your OP as confirmation is meant to be done privately, all will be revealed when voting begins - there's a link to a Google form in the first post of the confirmations thread so you can just submit it there! (if you have multiple songs that you're considering and want people to give feedback you can post those publicly though, as a few people have done this month)

Your name is in the first post so your song was received! There'll be a new thread with the list of songs.

Welcome back to Macromia and Pagasa so far I might be taking my time to confirm again this month as I still have nothing except my techno potential which I'm not going to bother confirming as a placeholder as there's approximately zero chance anyone else will take it x Although she did appear in the top 40 in 2008 as part of the charity song 'Just Stand Up!' that everyone always forgets about. It hasn't appeared in a contest but that doesn't mean it wasn't entered o: (it'll be fine, someone just previously confirmed it and then switched to something else)

^ Kyriatine, IKR Dakoteh and Baleghde are all the same country FYI! (as are Sovarasma/Why So Sirius (as much as uhsting tries to gaslight us otherwise) and Eastovka/A-Konohagakure x) A bit surprised that I've only voted for you once so far although at least that one was a fairly high score! (and I would have voted for Night In Athens if they'd qualified - plus The Warning got as many as 5 points from me in the semi oops, forgot they fell so far for me in the final though still a commiseration)

That's enough time for you to realise it's mid x

I did a confirm x

The whole concept of 'consecutive singles' doesn't map well to the digital era as what is or isn't a single (especially post-album singles) just isn't really rigidly defined any more.