Chez Wombat

More votes like Jade's please (edit: and Scene's and AllStar's wow!) x I clearly fooled you all into thinking I was dandy* so that's a job well done 😎 I only know Blind from them otherwise, but heard this on the radio once and it's a really lovely nu-disco track, though I would recommend 6 minute version even if it doesn't have those great visuals, the lead singer Aerea Negrot sadly passed away recently </3

5. Oasis - The Importance of Being Idle #1 for 1 week W/E 3rd September #37 in EOY So we come to the final Oasis number 1, and to date that still remains, I thought there may have been a possibility that Live Forever or Wonderwall c.ould've got back there after the tour, but it seems with ACR that may never happen. They may well record again in the future, but my sense is they're probably too lazy for it and will stick to banking off the nostalgia. Anyway, speaking of laziness!...The Importance of Being Idle was the second single released from Don't Believe The Truth and Noel took the reins from Liam for lead vocals, inspired by the Oscar Wilde play of a farcicial comedy about two men avoiding social obligations and taken to be a song about someone that's just lazy. It was inspired in sound by the Kinks and the La's, particularly that of Sunny Afternoon and Dead End Street and this inspiration also fed to the 1960s kitchen sink drama-style black and white music video feat uring actor Rhys Irfans miming the song, based on the play Billy Liar and similar in concept to that for Dead End Street. Liam's second child, Lennon (lol), also makes a cameo. It was the first time that Oasis had more than one number 1 in a calendar year and though they would manage one more album cycle in 2008, it was their first since their debut to not birth a number 1 single and ongoing tensions led to the band to break up the next year, the Gallaghers' resentment for each other remained and they pursued solo projects, making a reunion look as likely as pigs flying...until it actually happened in 2024 and they embarked on a nostalgia-filled, well-received tour and somehow they've put up with each other to this day x Oasis releasing a song about them being lazy is apt for the last few years, but in this case, it's better than that. This is easily the best Oasis number 1 of the 2000s and was one I was quite sad to see was left off their setlist for the gigs (not that I got to go </3). I've always much preferred Noel's more diverse and interesting tones to Liam's dry growl, he can do a stadium anthem well but Noel gives a much better range. The guitar work feels fresher and doesn't just follow the standard structure they were used to, and the structure of the song allows for it to flourish quite well along to give you a surprise. I can't say I knew the work of the Kinks that well for many years, had I been more familiar, maybe I'd have been more cynical, but this was a favourite for me then and still remains that way now, a great song to go out with x

The Drugs Don't Work is a really beautiful song and certainly was fitting for the nation's mood at the time, I'm predictable and prefer Bittersweet Symphony but both are great. You're Not Alone is a classic dance record and Your Woman is one of the most iconic one hit wonders and unlikely number 1s ever so deserved high placings. I do like the dark vibes of Beetlebum as well and Professional Widow is a wonderful remix. D'You Know What I Mean is a bit overlong but does have quite gradiose production and I'm not as keen on the cover of Perfect Day, as interesting a version it is, it can't compare to Lou Reed's version. That aside though, I largely agree with the higher songs here, great stuff x

6. 2Pac feat. Elton John - Ghetto Gospel #1 for 3 weeks W/E 2nd July-W/E 16th July #13 in EOY Like Toy Soldiers was a plea to end the hip hop feuds and gang wars that were leading to premature deaths, now here Eminem is again involved in a posthumous single which served as a companion piece by perhaps one of the most high profile hip hop deaths. Tupac Shakur was one of hip hop's most promising new talents, with raw, brutal lyrics about social injustice, politics and the marginalisation of African Americans. In his short career, he was extremely prolific, releasing both acclaimed introspective works like Me Against The World and more volatile gangsta rap in All Eyez On Me, as well as five film roles, but he lived alongside a life of crime and hostility, after surviving several shootings and serving prison time amongst East-West Coast feuding, he was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996, at just 25 years old. Notorious B.I.G, another rapper he had a high profile feud with, was suspected to be involved and he was killed himself in a drive-by shooting six months later. Since his death, he has been heralded as one of the greatest artists of all time, yet his legacy is one of complexity - undeniably talented and introspective, but also a violent abuser that arguably had this coming due to the lifestyle he led. But whatever you think, he's certainly one that you can milk his discography for all it's worth, six studio albums have been release since his death, his estate managed by his mother Afeni Shakur, all largely juiced up and remixed by some big names in hip hop. One of those was Eminem in the 2004 album, Loyal to the Game, with which this single was the lead from. Ghetto Gospel was originally recorded in 1992 for inclusion on a Christmas compilation with proceeds going to the Special Olympics, but was dropped and never released due his ongoing legal issues. Produced by Big D The Impossible from his first two albums and it builds on a sample of Tracy Chapman's Crossroads. Eminem's version takes the first two verses and added a sample of Elton John's 1971 album track Indian Sunset, as well as some more melancholic production of strings and piano over the raw beats and organ, his rapping is also slowed down considerably to fit the beat of the song which gives it quite a different sound. I confess I'd never heard the original (it's quite hard to track down and not on streaming), and it's an interesting listen. The song itself is certainly an outcry to end war on the streets, shouting out activists Malcolm X and Bobby Hutton in the process, but it's not quite as cut and dry as you'd think. The last line on the second verse is very telling, it was 'And this is not world peace / we tried to wait and there's war on the streets', in the new version it is 'Before we find world peace / we gotta find peace and end the war on the streets'. Not to mention, the various more raw lyrics in the third and fourth verses that are cut including 'the Devil ain't got nothing on the president', the message of hope survives through that of introspective resilience rather than getting those on the outside involved. One thing you have to ask with posthumous singles is would the artist approve of it, and in this case, I think it's safe to say he wouldn't - the song really is quite defanged and stripped of it's original intention and turns it into a standard peace anthem to go hand in hand with Like Toy Soldiers earlier in the year. It's hard to say this is representative of Shakur's original message and what he stood for and more jazzed up for mainstream appeal. Yet despite all this, I can't deny I have always really loved this, and mainly that's the beautiful melancholy vibe the song gives, the strings, opening piano and absolutel masterstroke of a sample work brilliantly and makes you wonder how he didn't use it in the first place. Eminem really knew how to produce something to tug at the heartstrings and he does it really well here, and that makes up for the occasionally slightly stilted sounding rapping. I can ultimately overlook it's faults as though it's not the most authentic image of 2Pac - I would recommend Me Against the World if you want a fitting representation of his introspection and consciousness - it's message is one that is needed and if it brings more attention needed to stop another hip hop star murdered by violence, then you can't say it's not doing something good.

Congrats Rich! Been a long time coming and a hell of a lot of runners up, but it happened eventually! This was a great song and indeed one I voted for and could easily be a Eurovision song I hear on the night. Extremely pleased with 8th, not a unique position but a third top 10 for me this year which is great and twenty places higher than that prediction in the thread had me I know the artist was a bit cheap and I have been making a conscious effort to not send repeat top 10 artists, but this was so immediately striking I had to try it, and I'm really pleased so many of you liked it a lot, that's a lot less voters than most of the top 10 and quite a few that don't ordinarily vote for me, so I'm very pleased to see, now let's see if I can keep my Q streak up x Fantastic to see Eledan as high as 5th (love an 18 swap!) and great to see Danaeviia and POPHub in the top 10 as well, just a shame Persephonia couldn't stay there. Pleased Sovarasma and that's a pretty good position for Parallelograms as well. The host definitely far too low though, that was a real highlight x Thank you for the excellent hosting Jade, it's been great to see so much discussion in the forum around this as that always makes it a lot more fun, I'll soon be ready to hand you over your next hosting job ;D

Mission to hang on in the top 10 x

Wow Top 10 *.* Thank you for the many generous medal positions!

Well this has been a bit of an all or nothing start, thanks to the three top 5 votes propping me up! Rontvia would be a great winner if it holds on

I was hoping for a position above my recent 27th-30th finishes, but I've seen one of the predictions put me in 28th so maybe not 😅 Still, had a few top 10 predictions too so who knows. Very few of the talked about songs as contenders appealed to me much, so hoping for a surprise at the top x

7. Eminem - Like Toy Soldiers #1 for 1 week W/E 12th February #45 in EOY Eminem's second single from Encore was a much more serious and deeper take that was inspired by and a statement of the hip hop 'beefs' that he was involved in at the time, offering a truce and expressing regret, wishing to walk away from it. There's a lot going on in these lyrics so I'm trying my best to summarise here - Eminem's regret at his own beef with Benzino (Raymond Scott), which sparked from his magazine giving his album a negative review, the beef between Ja Rule and 50 Cent which he has said he wished to stay out of, but felt that he had to become involved when Ja Rule made an insult towards his ex-wife, family and daughter in one of his songs, an offset from Ja Rule's own beef with Eminem's Murder Inc. crew. He even goes into his mentor Dr Dre's conflict with Death Row's Suge Knight, one that he was advised to stay out of but felt like he had to join through loyalty to Dre. There's probably more here you can gather from the Genius lyrics, but that's the crux of it. It's a heavy song where Eminem reflects on how pointless and destructive these feuds are and pleads with the community to stop before it leads to premature deaths of iconic talents in hip hop like Notorious B.I.G and Tupac Shakur. The song is tied together in the chorus by a sample of Martika's 1980s top 3 hit Toy Soldiers, a song about a similar tragic and pointless losing battle with addiction. The music video features many cameos from rappers such as 50 Cent (who did of course go on to have other feuds with the likes of Jadakiss, Fat Joe and The Game, but Eminem refused to get involved) and envisions a fictionalised tragic death of D12 member Bugz (played by Proof, another member), though tragically life imitated art just over a year later as Proof was shot and killed in a nightclub altercation, sadly indicating the community had a long way to go. This was Eminem's final UK number 1 of the 2000s. It is thankful after the absolute nadir that was Just Lose It, that Eminem wasn't incapable of still making something good. I think this one of his most mature and introspective songs and it's constructed really well. There is another entry in the list where Eminem's attempts to make conscious hip hop with a universal message can be explored further, but it's clear from this that he is pretty good at not just his hard-hitting lyrics but also making it sound so good. Toy Soldiers is a perfect sample for this, it not only adds a new perspective to the themes of the original but also adds the drama and intensity of the emotions the song intends to create, in the context of Biggie, 2pac and the many young rappers that lost their lives, it hits very hard. I don't want to hold Eminem up as a saint here, he's far from it and perhaps you could call this rather heavy-handed given it came from the most commercially successful rapper around at the moment, but I think the regret and sentiment of the song is strong. I don't think this has the same power of Stan nor the perfect flow of Lose Yourself, but it's a really affective and bright spot of the early 2005 charts.

First episode of this was great, perfectly paced and left just enough mysteries to keep you hooked without being overly vague or expositionary like Sci-Fi dramas can be. This should hopefully fill the Severance-shaped gap for me atm x

New show from the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan, in a nutshell, the most unhappy person in the world finds herself trying to save the world from happiness x Episodes 1 and 2 are available now with weekly releases every Friday.

Yes, that is a thing xx

8. Sugababes - Push the Button #1 for 3 weeks W/E 8th October-W/E 22nd October #10 in EOY Well done to whoever predicted this #8 x Push the Button was the first single released from the 'Babes fourth album, at this point they had established a solid run of hits and seemed to be settling in what we now know as Sugababes 2.0 (for now x). It was produced by Dallas Austin and reflected a move away from the Xenomania produced electro, dance-pop sound of their last albums to one that is more sided to R&B. It was inspired by a crush that Keisha had for another artist working with Austin, whom she had dropped 'hints' so to speak but was seemingly unaware of her intentions, the relentless teasing by Austin to her included advising him to 'push the button' or move on and the song was born. An instant big hit both critically and commercially, it continued their fine run of form in the mid 00s and got to number 1 for three weeks. Positive as it seems though, things weren't all rosy behind the scenes and the group had become a press fixture due to rumours of catfights and resentment towards them behind the scenes, and later that year, Mutya, having recently had a baby (as can be seen by her iconically dancing while visibly pregnant in the video) had post natal depression and left the group to spend time with her daughter, being replaced by Amelle Berrabeh and leading to the 3rd incarnation of the Sugababes and leaving Keisha as the only original member...the dramas weren't done yet though as well knew, and you can hear this told through much more entertaining means in the recent BBC documentary, Girlbands Forever, so I'll recommend that and save me the essay x the song itself is still widely perceived as one of their best moments and was used in the playlist for the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony and covered by...Staffordshire firefighters as part of a promotional campaign for the nation to test smoke alarms, well that is a thing I learned x I really love the Sugababes' Xenomania productions and I don't think this one is quite as good, this is certainly a bit more simpler than the kind of pop they were offering at the time, but I do think it works very well as it shows they weren't willing to get too samey and works in a different way to their other hits. It's got a smooth, sultry feel throughout with some still fantastic production and addictive synth riff that feels both contemporary yet also calling back to retro girlgroup sounds. None of the girls feel sidelined either, they all get their shot at their verse and come together for that earworm of a chorus and the lyrics are an authentically unashamed and convincing young adults' frustrations associated with a young crush, wrapped in a knowing and humourous way. T I think the only thing that made it slightly tire on me was the fact it was never off the radio and a bit like Goodies and Don't Cha, it was kind of a song that left itself open to too many innuendoes to take seriously (never realised how common this was amongst the number 1s this year x), but it's aged pretty well compared to those and I always enjoy hearing it today.

All part of the grand plan, Crazy Frog is next 😎