Chez Wombat

Congrats to MUMMYHub/Callum! That was a great discovery and as much as I love Psycho Killer (and CHVRCHES, although admittedly not a big highlight from them), it is good to see a less well known song win. East Ruk, Aeroche and Scotland 2 were some of most unsettling pieces of music/hellspawn I've heard in a while and great to see them all in the top 10, the former has made me very intrigued to check out the parent album as it's not the sort of sound I was expecting based on past songs! Just about sneaking a top half, I'll take it *.* Guess I just got a very unfortunate order of reveal, thanks to all who voted. I will admit I was completely upstaged with the unsettling entries, but I still wanted to send this alongside See You Again this year as he seems quite a talented and experimental producer, with very little attention sadly (and admittedly some super creepy AI visuals x). Danaeviia definitely shouldn't be that low as my 8 pointer and that bottom 3 is very undeserved too :'( Another great edition of these, thanks to Vampirasma for the exceptional, spooky hosting B-)

Oops, well this is comfortably going to be my lowest performing entry in this spin-off, although at least it's not flopping as bad now x ULTRA SUNN, Ethel Cain and Lingua Ignota were fantastic discoveries so would love one of those to win!

25; Christine And The Queens - Tilted / Christine 24; Taylor Swift - Out of The Woods 23; Calvin Harris (feat. HAIM) - Pray To God 22; Wolf Alice - Don't Delete The Kisses 21; Arcade Fire - Everything Now 20; Calvin Harris & Disciples - How Deep Is Your Love 19; Taylor Swift & Bon Iver – Exile 18; Bruno Mars - 24k Magic 17; Harry Styles - As It Was 16; Let's Eat Grandma - Happy New Year 15; Post Malone & Swae Lee - Sunflower 14; Taylor Swift - Cardigan 13; Ariana Grande - Breathin 12; Clean Bandit (feat. Anne-Marie & Sean Paul) - Rockabye 11; Lana Del Rey - West Coast 10; Hozier - Take Me To Church 09; My Chemical Romance - The Foundations of Decay 08; Calvin Harris (feat. Frank Ocean & Migos) - Slide 07; Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow - Industry Baby 06; Taylor Swift - Cruel Summer 05; Blossoms - Charlemagne 04; Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling 03; Beyoncé - Break My Soul 02; MGMT - Little Dark Age 01; Kendrick Lamar - Humble.

25; Lilly Wood and The Prick - Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Remix) 24; Tame Impala - Let It Happen 23; Metric - Doomscroller 22; Ten Walls - Walking With Elephants 21; Caroline Polachek - Welcome to My Island 20; Eliza Rose & Interplanetary Criminal - B.O.T.A. (Baddest Of Them All) 19; French Montana (feat. Swae Lee) - Unforgettable 18; Taylor Swift - Lover 17; Go_A - Shum 16; Ella Henderson - Ghost 15; Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For? 14; xx – On Hold 13; Harry Styles - Sign of the Times 12; Mark Ronson (feat. Lykke Li) - Late Night Feelings 11; Lorde - Perfect Places 10; Weeknd - The Hills 09; Chainsmokers (feat. ROZES) - Roses 08; Rihanna - Kiss It Better 07; Weeknd - In Your Eyes 06; Paramore - Hard Times 05; Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper – Shallow 04; Doja Cat - Say So 03; Panic! At The Disco - High Hopes 02; Olivia Rodrigo - Bad Idea Right? 01; Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars) - Uptown Funk

Louise, though Romeo Dunn would be no loss either.

All three are great, but Jolteon's just a bit less so and a bit of a glass cannon, as quick as he is.

The midterms forecasted a Republican washout that never materialised and the last elections were before the insurrection and Roe v Wade, so I do think there's reason to doubt the polls this time (as well as them being well off for the last two elections), although it definitely feels like the momentum's fading from Harris and swing state polls are pointing to a Trump win so I can see how he's narrow favourite. Love seeing the UK Media feeding right into his hand with this non-story about Labour volunteers as well :/

I thought this was difficult at first, but more and more are coming to me every time. Some of these are very clever (20 is amazing assuming it is what I think it is :lol:)

Demi One and Semi Sue *.* Amazing commitment to the theme, :mellow: :o Not often I know the entries beforehand, but I will throw some immediate hype to Seyetana, although also some annoyance as I was gonna go for that same artist next month! :lol: I've been doing a deep dive into Godspeed You! Black Emperor's back catalogue as it's quite unthinkable I don't really know a lot from them when they are pioneers of post rock, their most recent album was really good and this was a highlight from it, hopefully will be ok without my help x Gone just a tad cheap this time (especially if you listen to 6Music), but this was a real song of the year contender and very different to his usual sound.

Best The Beatles - Let It Be Carpenters - (They Long To Be) Close To You Diana Ross - Ain't No Mountain High Enough Edwin Starr - War Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water My Sweet Lord, Brown Sugar and American Woman just outside Worst Bread - Make It With You Sly & The Family Stone - Everybody Is A Star The Osmonds - One Bad Apple Osmonds was ahem, the bad apple here, the other two were pretty dull.

Best Animated film of the year (and I imagine it will remain so), absolutely gorgeous animation, I'm so pleased and continue to pray that this hand-drawn/CGI combination is being utilised more, it's so much more real and expressive than the bland Disney-style CGI. The film definitely has vibes of The Iron Giant, as well as Studio Ghibli, but felt very much like it's own film and a genuine labour of love that's not a cynical cash grab like most films aimed at children are, it's wonderful to see a film like this that doesn't sugarcoat death or talk down to children ( ), the voice cast are all fantastic and make the characters come to life, incredibly emotionally investing that definitely left me teary on a few occasions. Slightly erred at a sequel already being in production, but don't be put off, this is a truly brilliant experience that I'd recommend to all.

Papa Roach/Green Day head banging top 2 not to be </3 Chasing Cars to go

30; Lankum - Go Dig My Grave 29; Daughter - Be On Your Way 28; National (feat. Taylor Swift) - The Alcott 27; Fat Dog - King of the Slugs 26; Mitski - My Love Mine All Mine 25; Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For? 24; Heartworms - Retributions of an Awful Life 23; Peggy Gou - (It Goes Like) Nanana 22; Björk & Rosalía - Oral 21; Kelela - Contact 20; Lana Del Rey - A&W 19; Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding - Miracle 18; Olivia Rodrigo - Get Him Back! 17; Dua Lipa - Dance The Night 16; Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters 15; Olivia Rodrigo - Bad Idea Right? 14; Adrianne Lenker - Ruined 13; Doja Cat - Paint The Town Red 12; Nothing But Thieves - Welcome to the DCC 11; Kenya Grace - Strangers 10; Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire 09; PinkPantheress - Boy's a Liar (Original / Ice Spice Remix) 08; Alessandra - Queen of Kings 07; Blur - The Narcissist 06; Boygenius - Not Strong Enough 05; Beaches - Blame Brett 04; cassö, RAYE & D-Block Europe - Prada 03; FIFTY FIFTY - Cupid 02; Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha 01; Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam

Votes sent, fantastic spin-off as these usually are, hype to all the songs made up of torturous screams :cheeseblock:

I don't have a strong opinion on a lot of these oops x (I think we're going to slightly challenge even my expansive memory of 2000s songs going forward), gone for D12 but the Mark Ronson cover is really poor as well.

I really did a double take when I saw the notification last night, how utterly tragic, RIP and condolences to all close to him, especially his son :( I wasn't a huge fan of One Direction, but I agree with others that I have vivid memories of how big a deal and they were, my uni days were soundtracked by them. This feels far, far too soon for that to all be over before even a first renuion </3 Seems pretty clear from the details he wasn't in a good place at all so this may well have been coming, accidental or otherwise. From an outsiders perspective, it did seem he was a lot more troubled and suffered the darker sides of fame compared to his bandmates. It's really quite awful how fame can leave you out to dry at such a young age, with the increased mental health awareness these days, you'd think lessons had been learned but still a bit of a way to go... Condolences also to all fans on here still processing this news, stay strong :heart:

Great top 4, going for Chasing Cars as it's featured a ton of times here compared to the others which will be their only chance.

The crimes are horrendous and I hope he rots in jail for the rest of his life, although I can't say I'm that surprised overall after R Kelly's revealings, it seems clear there was a hell of a lot of rancid stuff going on behind the scenes with these big hip hop stars, especially when the genre was enjoying such success and money was rolling in. While I don't want to believe any conspiracy theories without clear evidence, I wouldn't be surprised if more comes out gradually that implicates other big stars in his circle, especially with the amount of allegations against him. Usher's account being hacked to delete those specific tweets felt rather convenient to say the least...!

01; Back to Black 02; Murder on the Dancefloor 03; These Words 04; Without Me 05; Perfect Exceeder 06; Bye Bye Bye 07; Mr Brightside (srsly are people allergic to their other songs x) 08; Unwritten 09; The Man Who Can't Be Moved 10; Valerie (Zutons Original >>>>)

The Beatles - Something The Doors - Light My Fire Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds The Monkees - Daydream Believer Otis Redding - (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay Sugar and Sugar, Happy Together and a fair few more just missing out, limiting it to one for the Beatles. I can't quite remember a lot of the new songs to me oops, so I'll leave Worst as none stood out as particularly awful songs.

No worries, look after yourself!

Another Christmas/Halloween horror film is always welcome, never seem to have enough of them x It's great to see a horror franchise gradually grow over the years through word of mouth, looking at some decent opening numbers. This was really fun, and was a lot less drawn out than the last film which was the one thing I wasn't so keen on about the last one , the story was a bit more engaging too and felt like it added a bit more lore, although it's still very much secondary to just seeing Art the Clown, his mannerisms are perfect. He's like an expressive version of Michael Myers, already a classic villain of modern horror.

Showing some instant appreciation for the theme <3 (ducking out for now as I haven't got anything for certain yet but watch this space x)

Psycho Killer *.* Classic song, discovered that through going through the archives. Also, surprised it's taken this long for someone to send Lana's Season of the Witch to one of these x Creative names as well x

2023 Lankum - Go Dig My Grave Daughter - Be On Your Way The National feat. Taylor Swift - The Alcott