Chez Wombat

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

30; Metric - Doomscroller 29; Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Spitting off the Edge of the World 28; Caroline Polachek - Welcome to My Island 27; Kavinsky (feat. Prudence & Morgan Phellen) - Zenith 26; Daniel Avery - Higher 25; Go_A - Kalyna 24; Arcade Fire - Lightning (I + II) 23; Gorillaz (feat. Tame Impala & Bootie Brown) - New Gold 22; Eliza Rose & Interplanetary Criminal - B.O.T.A. (Baddest Of Them All) 21; Caroline Polachek - Billions 20; Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Wolf 19; Jockstrap - Concrete Over Water 18; My Chemical Romance - The Foundations of Decay 17; Working Men's Club - Widow 16; Black Country, New Road - The Place Where He Inserted The Blade 15; Harry Styles - As It Was 14; Arctic Monkeys - There'd Better Be a Mirrorball 13; Ibibio Sound Machine - Protection From Evil 12; Jessie Ware - Free Yourself 11; Beyoncé - Break My Soul 10; Let's Eat Grandma - Happy New Year 09; Sam Ryder - Space Man 08; Tove Lo - No One Dies From Love 07; Encanto Cast - We Don’t Talk About Bruno 06; Fontaines D.C. - Jackie Down The Line 05; FKA Twigs & The Weeknd - Tears in the Club 04; Black Midi - Welcome to Hell 03; Muse - Won’t Stand Down 02; Paramore - This Is Why 01; Kendrick Lamar - The Heart Part 5

Badenoch would be the one I'd be more worried about given she's big on the culture wars and it could form an audience, and could be open to a merge with Reform. Jenrick just seems out and out incompetent so I guess he'd be my preferred one as I can't imagine anyone would turn out in large numbers to vote for him.

If only I'd saved MONO - Life in Mono for this rather than BJSC a year ago! Fortunately, I've had an appropriate one that I heard on the radio recently that I've been wanting to send.

Exclude for me, there's been too many repeat winners recently, and when they're established Buzzjack faves, it makes the polls boring and stops new, inspired winners (See Call the Shots preventing Supermassive Black Hole).

Think my favourites here are all repeats unfortunately x Lee Ryan first.

Now all the obvious Buzzjack villains are out, that garbage Cascada cover needs to go x

Ooft I can't help but notice even with a great finish, I was just a single point off getting 4th and being at every position in the top 10 :drama: First world problems and all that, nonetheless 5th is excellent and my first time in the top 5 in over a year, I didn't quite expect it, I initially went for Scorpio by the same artist, I was worried this one may be a bit too subtle, but I'm really pleased it's beautiful hypnotic nature impacted others too, many thanks all for the very generous points haul <3 Oh my as well at a semi win! I mean it was a dream draw, that's only ever happened when I was in the top 2 x And I can't ask for better than my 18 winning, fully deserved, a beautifully cinematic masterpiece from a wonderful artist :wub: Congrats to Leww! Jadakissnia and Fljotavik also made my votes and Taahino was 16th so can't complain at all really, hooray for results that match my tastes for a change (you pop vultures can have it back next month, allow us this once xx) While the overall quality wasn't as high as other contests this year, I have saved my top 3 as they were all fantastic discoveries, great to see Lookylion do so well with such an unconventional song, would've liked Danaeviia to be a bit higher, as well as a fair few of that bottom 10. FARC didn't deserve last by that much either. Thanks for the efficient hosting, Lindsey, the quickest final results I can remember!

Well this is looking wonderful both in terms of what's winning and my own performance! Praying that it stays for the last five votes x