Chez VampireBat

All of those were expected. Zara definitely got unlucky as I think some of her songs could've given her more of a chance and maybe her mentor just didn't expect everyone else to go so big (except Marina who seems immune!), but it was the clear weak link of the six. I have only known Sade through my parents before so it was nice to become a bit more acquainted with them and they had some really nice choices, as well as some massive classics in Smooth Operator and Your Love is King. RIP this year's Old Man </3 (not literally thankfully) though if Bowie could only get part ways through the lives though, Gary wasn't going to do much better, his choices have been really good and was great to hear some of his more modern stuff alongside the classics. Cars or bust for the Golden Gamu! Will be interesting to see if a big artist can be tripped up slightly from the live shows by sending the wrong flop!

Oh, given I was in the bottom 5 for a lot of that, I'll take just about reaching the top 10, I think that seems to be the median position for me in these quizzes. For the Buzzjack question, I agree that I thought Take That would be more popular given I think they're the only artist with an AF on there. I also did Eyes Open as it was from 2006 and artists that are discussed a lot on Buzzjack like Drake and Chappell, seems it worked both ways in being too popular and too niche! Thanks for this Nine, a very unique concept, it's refreshing having a more open to interpretation type quiz where the field's wide open.

I think I spent too long trying to link the words based on the album content, before realising that this was taking me far too long and that it should only be based on the artwork anyway, and while there are a few I love in there that I would definitely link to some of the words thematically, I did mainly keep it fairly random unless it was jumping out at me. I'm interested to see what people put for Buzzjack, as not many of them came to mind x Hard to tell how I'm doing, but at least a got a few single match ups! Edit: Ooh, that's not too bad *.

The Commentators - N-N-Nineteen (Not Out)* (Gotta give the others a chance x) Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary Trans-X - Living On Video Madonna - Into The Groove The Cure - In Between Days Eurythmics a very painful last cut, also good ones from Bruce Springsteen, The Damned, Dire Straits, Billy Idol and Tears for Fears (though I think they've won enough of these x) (I swear that match with Jade wasn't intentional haha)

30; Billie Eilish - Everything I Wanted 29; Post Malone - Circles 28; Vampire Weekend - Harmony Hall 27; Haim - Now I'm In It 26; Weyes Blood - Movies 25; CamelPhat & Cristoph (feat. Jem Cooke) - Breathe 24; Cate Le Bon - Daylight Matters 23; Billie Eilish - Bad Guy 22; Sam Fender - Hypersonic Missiles 21; Blanck Mass - House vs. House 20; Taylor Swift - Lover 19; Vampire Weekend - This Life 18; Billie Eilish - Bury a Friend 17; Drab Majesty - Ellipsis 16; Ava Max - Sweet But Psycho 15; Lil Nas X - Old Town Road 14; Miley Cyrus - Mother's Daughter 13; Dominic Fike - 3 Nights 12; Stormzy - Vossi Bop 11; Keiino - Spirit In The Sky 10; Bring Me The Horizon (feat. Grimes) - Nihilist Blues 09; Sigrid - Sucker Punch 08; Lana Del Rey - Doin' Time 07; Charli XCX & Christine And The Queens - Gone 06; Coldplay - Champion Of The World 05; Taylor Swift - Cruel Summer 04; Miley Cyrus - Slide Away 03; Harry Styles - Adore You 02; Katy Perry - Never Really Over 01; Tones and I - Dance Monkey

Midnight was a fantastic left turn from Coldplay, it was one of my favourite songs of that year too <3 Been a while since they've properly surprised me since, although Coloratura was a great one. I quite like Am I Wrong, it was very catchy and I heard it a few months prior where it was entered into BJSC, otherwise not a huge amount I care for since I last commented.

01; Texas - Summer Son 02; New Order - Regret 03; Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again 04; Fontaines D.C. - Favourite 05; Sade - Kiss of Life 06; Bananarama - I Want You Back Perhaps unexpected from me but that's my favourite Texas song by a long way, love the drama and the bells <3 Slightly low-key round from the groups compared to the last one, but enjoyed all the top 4.

01; Calvin Harris & Disciples - How Deep Is Your Love 02; Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Down in the Park 03; Naughty Boy feat. Sam Smith - La La La 04; Sam Fender - Will We Talk? 05; Tom Grennan - Little Bit of Love 06; Darin - En apa som liknar dig Fantastic from Gary again, though the Calvin one is one of my favourites. Also good ones from both Sams, I get the sense that Sam S's mentor is saving their best collaboration for last x

Well, this will be the easiest to vote in anyway! 01; Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights 02; Robyn & Kleerup - With Every Heartbeat 03; Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Murder on the Dancefloor 04; Adele - Skyfall 05; MARINA - Oh No! 06; Zara Larsson & MNEK - Never Forget You Don't think the top 3 need any comment, they're not some of the most well regarded songs of their respective eras for no reason. Skyfall still sounds pretty epic, Marina definitely feels like the least ubiquitous here, it's the only one I don't remember that well but it sounded quite good on relisten so let's see if it can weather this. I do quite like the Zara song too, but definitely falling under the weight of this category here.

Well I could vote right away as I know all of these pretty well! HUGE picks from Kate, Robyn and Sophie, understandable with the level of competition but still, I wasn't expecting them this early.

Streaming platforms aren't perfect and believe me, there's a whole lot I can say about that, but there are so many low-budget, indie, left-field shows and films that wouldn't have had a hope of getting picked up by terrestrial TV, and we wouldn't have had anywhere near as many new creators and variety of programmes created without them, some of the biggest shows of the last few years wouldn't have had a hope of getting shown on terrestrial TV, it's great for international, foreign-language productions like Squid Game and Dark in particular, not to mention that the likes YouTube and Nebula are fantastic for small-scale creators and video essays with viewpoints and specialist subjects that would never be seen on TV. Terrestrial TV is simply far too regulated and narrow-focused to alone incorporate the diversity and nature of TV today and a lot of channels beyond the main five are inaccessible, as well as being far too expensive for a lot of people, I think it is perfectly reasonable if someone has no use for live TV with all the additional costs involved and instead just takes an easier option (although even they're getting more and more expensive these days but this just exacerbates that). I understand the need for a public broadcaster (and I'm a license fee payer myself) but paying more money to watch TV not even associated with the BBC is not the way to do it. I'm not sure it's actually been confirmed to be happening though, it isn't even on BBC News itself, just seems like a potential white paper that's been floated to the press as it'll get strong reactions x

I am not aware of whoever that Terra Avium country is in the first post but I can confirm Terror Avium have submitted B-) Always love this spin off, also come on guys, it’s in the rules that everyone has a spooky name!

I think this category's so competitive that anyone gone would've been a surprise, admittedly don't know the Agnes song but the Leona one is a bit too much of a talent show cliche, at least one will almost certainly be back as they have two utterly massive songs to play for the Gamu. I'm just glad Kate's still safe as I fear she could've easily gone under a different judge!

I PROMISE YOUUUUUUUUUUU...... oh wait x

A shame for Hannah, but she was always a bit doomed really - too smart to be a lasting faithful and too conspicuous to not be murdered sooner to be a traitor! I do think recruiting her was a poor choice given the circumstances. Kenny's a good pick though, I think they look a lot stronger now as none of them have any suspicions (even if James is still bitter lol)

Ooh that is a very good round from the Males there (at least based on what I know), a classic from early Calvin and I wasn't sure Gary would be allowed that, but does make sense as the band is essentially him and his backing band under a different name and obviously a huge classic. Again, I think those two probably would've gone anyway, RIP Uncle Ben </3

Well I look forward to all the fun discourse this is going to generate x I do really like Sunlight and I feel really bad for Y&Y's mentor as that probably wouldn't have gone out on a public vote and they had potential to go right to the final, but the main artist being a feature never quite feels as authentic to me so I do sort of understand the decision (it's also why I'm hoping a certain eliminated artist doesn't go with the obvious for the Golden Gamu as much as I love it and it will easily be through as it's not their song). Shame about yammy, but I do think she would've been out either way quite soon. I don't know this one, but I'll make sure to listen to it.

That number 1 definitely makes sense given how much I remember it in your chart back in the day. It's a great song and made my EOY for 2022 as well, got that classic 80s darkwave sound. I am quite surprised to hear you overlooked Billions at first but I'm glad you came round to it! It's got great Massive Attack vibes, I absolutely loved that era from her, I think I'd rank Welcome to My Island above this, but it was all really good, need the next album x I have a lot of time for everything in that top 10 (admittedly I missed Good Days at the time, but I do recall liking it when I heard it), some great top 40 picks - Headphones On was an unexpected beauty from an artist who really surprised me after being pretty sure she wouldn't be my thing, I really liked the album too. Physical & Save Your Tears were excellent 80s throwbacks too, crazy how influential that sound was for a while, you could hear their DNA in so many songs after it. Of the less big hits, I had always enjoyed FKA Twigs' music but Eusexua made me sit up and take notice and realise I really need to check out an album, it was a fantastic listen and the title track is still wonderful in it's haunting ambience and switch-ups. Similar story with Metric, I had always liked what I knew of them but was an incredibly standout moment with its dramatic shifts in style throughout, I have been enjoying some of their material this year as well. Retributions of an Awful Life really got me on board with Heartworms as well, love the intensity and darkness to that song, I agree there hasn't been anything anywhere near that good since though. But the most love I have here is for The Last Man on Earth <3 <3 I vividly remember the first time I heard that groggily getting up for work one morning and it stopped me in my tracks with how epic and beautiful it was. The stripped back piano is a captivating start and the build-up to the string-led climax is amazing, I agree Ellie's vocals really add so much to it and the existential, spiritual feel of the lyrics add further layers. It's very rare there is a song I become quite instantly besotted with these days, but it pretty much single-handedly turned me into a big fan of theirs and loved the epic, melancholy sound of Blue Weekend in general, wasn't quite as into the most recent era, but I know that song will make me always look forward to them. You can probably guess what my number 1 would be from that, but otherwise, this is a rough estimate of my own list, I have been keeping EOYs for every year so will largely base it off that. 1. Wolf Alice - The Last Man on Earth 2. Lankum - Go Dig My Grave 3. Highasakite - Can I Come Home 4. Chappell Roan - Good Luck Babe! (I charted The Subway as my #1 of 2025, but this has since overtook it, I did hear it fairly late) 5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Wild God 6. The Weeknd - Blinding Lights (I know this is technically 2019 but it defined 2020 sooo) 7. Lawrence Rothman feat. Marissa Nadler - It's Hard to Be Human 8. Ethel Cain - Nettles 9. Night Tapes - drifting 10. Father John Misty - Screamland I think the 2020s have so far been where I've slightly come out of the bubble of weird side of YouTube/song contest songs (although I still enter every one lol x) and became a bit more 6Music/critical favourite focused, albeit I'm often quite late to them as I go through EOY lists of the most acclaimed music of the year, ROSALIA's Berghain being a recent example of me missing the boat at the time but it since becoming a massive favourite (am quite surprised she missed out on being featured here as well, but makes sense as her albums work best together). My knowledge of chart hits is very fleeting now and I'm kind of alright with how this is, shall see how we go for the remainder of the decade x -x- Well done on completing this absolute behemoth of a task! I'm in awe of both how quickly how you went through it and how detailed and insightful your commentaries were, it's been wonderful to follow, makes me think I really should get back to my own Buzzjack project of my second album bucket list, will see if I have the motivation x

Well those bombshells aside, that went pretty excellently overall, all my votes qualified and apart from Jadakissnia as mentioned, so did all my commiserations! So close to perfect x Intrigued how Semi 1 compares, if it's even half as good, this is gonna be a bloodbath all over again! Thank you for all the fabulous artwork this evening <3

Nothing lasts forever...

Yes, New Helvetica definitely can't DNQ!

Scotland 2 qualifiying....that certainly happened! Jadakissnia was sadly one of four I couldn't quite fit in that I usually would vote for </3 the guitar work on it was beautiful.

I may or may not have spent way too long on an artwork where the joke only makes sense to me x Thank you all nonetheless *. Seyetana also a good one

All the artwork is wonderful *. Great start to Semi 2 with those three and Elliot Minor is a great throwback too x