Severin

2025 - February Update Artists Scrobbled 830 Rank/Previous Position/Artist/Plays/Change 01 (01) Lambrini Girls 159 (+15) 02 (02) Poppy 136 (-) 03 (03) Dana Dentata 124 (-) 04 (29) Manic Street Preachers 124 (+97) 05 (04) Chappell Roan 94 (+5) 06 (05) Taylor Swift 91 (+3) 07 (06) Mimi Barks 71 (+4) 08 (NE) Heartworms 69 (+69) 09 (07) The Horrors 69 (+4) 10 (10) The Clash 68 (+13) 11 (08) Eminem 60 (-) 12 (09) Delilah Bon 55 (-) 13 (11) Curve 52 (-) 14 (12) Beyoncé 47 (+2) 15 (13) Billie Eilish 44 (-) 16 (14) Mudhoney 42 (+1) 17 (15) Witch Fever 40 (-) 18 (21) Killing Joke 38 (+7) 19 (23) Peter Gabriel 38 (+8) 20 (16) Charli XCX 37 (-) 21 (18) Joan Jett and the Blackhearts 37 (+3) 22 (34) Lady Gaga 37 (+17) 23 (NE) David Bowie 36 (+36) 24 (17) Cassyette 34 (-) 25 (22) Nova Twins 34 (+3) 26 (19) Bambie Thug 32 (-) 27 (20)Betty Boo 32 (-) 28 (24) Britney Spears 29 (-) 29 (NE) Du Blonde 29 (+29) 30 (25) Projector 29 (-) 31 (26) Sick Joy 29 (-) 32 (27) The Beatles 29 (-) 33 (NE) Fleetwood Mac 28 (+28) 34 (28) Kid Kapichi 28 (-) 35 (35) The Rolling Stones 26 (+7) 36 (NE) Eville 24 (+24) 37 (30) Siiickbrain 23 (-) 38 (32) Elvis Presley 22 (+2) 39 (31) Knife Bride 21 (-) 40 (20) Harpy 20 (-) OUT Halsey 18 (-) Heriot 18 (-) Girls Aloud 17 (-) Rihanna 17 (-) SONS 17 (-)

+50 Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit +49 Grandmaster and Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't Don't Do It) +48 Kirsty MacColl - A New England +47 Oasis - Cigarettes And Alcohol +46 Pulp - Disco 2000 +45 Radiohead - Creep +44 Green Day - Basket Case +43 The Doors - Light My Fire +42 Amy Winehouse - Rehab +41 The Cardigans - Erase/Rewind +40 The Cure - The Love Cats +39 U2 - One +38 Editors – Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors +37 The Bellamy Brothers - Let Your Love Flow +36 The Bravery - An Honest Mistake +35 Dolly Parton - Jolene +34 Gossip – Standing In The Way of Control +33 Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me) +32 Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music +31 Dr. Dre featuring Eminem - Forgot About Dre +30 The Verve - Lucky Man +29 The Beach Boys - I Get Around +28 The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love +27 R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts +26 Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire +25 Queen - Another One Bites The Dust +24 Alanis Morissette - Head Over Feet +23 Abba - Lay All Your Love On Me +22 The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army +21 Klaxons – Golden Skans +20 Al Green - Let's Stay Together +19 Lady Gaga - Alejandro +18 t.A.T.u. - Not Gonna Get Us +17 LeAnn Rimes - How Do I Live +16 Britney Spears - Stronger +15 Sugababes – Stronger / Angels With Dirty Faces +14 Evanescence – My Immortal +13 Daft Punk - Da Funk / Musique +12 Chic - Le Freak +11 Avril Lavigne – I'm With You +10 Pet Shop Boys - Domino Dancing +09 Kelly Clarkson - Because Of You +08 The Kooks – She Moves in Her Own Way +07 Madonna – Get Together +06 Aqualung – Strange and Beautiful (I'll Put a Spell On You) +05 Jade - Angel Of My Dreams +04 Alan Walker - Faded +03 Toploader - Dancing In The Moonlight +02 The Ones - Flawless +01 Swedish House Mafia featuring Pharrell – One (Your Name)

They ignored Blondie's Maria and tried to catch up when it went to #1

Ghost get my vote this week. Personal picks from elsewhere (quite a few out this week) - HotWax - Strange to be Here KNIFE BRIDE - Worthy Panic Shack - Gok Wan Lambrini Girls - No Homo Cwfen - Wolfsbane

No problem. I have received the change of song you sent

It's been largely forgotten and not on the scale of Take That's but Blondie coming back with Maria after 15 years away was pretty surprising and rather successful.

The first of many was a not very cool Def Leppard at Wembley in April 1988. Supported by Loverboy. Followed it up with Hawkwind.

Thanks for the submissions so far but I've received a couple where the original was not a 20th Century UK Top 40 hit song, so if you're not on the confirmed list please check your inbox.

Agreed an interesting question I had only partially considered. Taking the Bowie song in question, this does beg the question of whether you can consider it a cover if recorded by the original writer. Given Bowie, wrote it and recorded it as a demo before giving it to Noone I would personally say that disqualifies Bowie's version from being a cover as such. Same would go for All The Young Dudes and things like Manic Monday by Prince/The Bangles. I'm interested to know also what the mods think but I would say such as song would not be in the spirit intended in the competition but any such entries can be discussed before a decision.

I see this going the way Finland did post WWII. Forced into neutrality for the forseeable future, Zelenskyy out with an incoming President who can deal with both sides as a neutral and Ukraine building up and army sufficient to make anyone looking to attack them, think several times over.

I should credit Dandy* for the artwork - way beyond my capabilities! Didn't know about your thread, but a happy coincidence

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the 20th Century Retro Forum's Best Song Contest in the World... Ever! Part IX is all about celebrating the cover version and you are tasked with selecting any song that is not originally performed or written by the artist performing the track you send. The cover version you choose should fit within these rules - Released during either the 20th or 21st century. Must be of a song that was a UK Top 40 hit in the 20th Century. Must NOT have been a UK Top 40 hit in its own right. Must NOT be a reworked, re-recorded, remixed or live version of an artist's own original song - i.e. must be a different performer to the original release. Must be a true cover of the original and NOT a different song heavily based around a sample - for example Flo Rida's Right Round is not eligible as a cover of Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) All genres are permitted. All entries will up for voting as soon as they are checked for eligibility. Once you have selected your entry please send via PM to me and remember to include - Your username: Artist: Song Title: Link: You have a week to confirm your entry and the deadline will be 23:59 on Tuesday 11th March 2025. Confirmed - King Rollo Jade Cowtzy Addy! Scene Julian_ Cody Buckley Chez Wombat Bjork Jim Watts Herbs Jester

I knew Siouxsie wouldn't do that well but glad to see other voters for it. Shame particularly, to see Garbage and Suede not make it through - I definitely gave Suede a point or two less than I might've as I thought it was a dead cert to go through. Oops!!

I'm not sure Putin dying will make things any better quickly. The immediate successor would officially be the increasingly hostile and hawkish Medvedev, who seems very keen on battlefield nuclear usage. With elections supposedly to follow, the other likely candidates are Putin's aide, Nikolai Patrushev and Head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov. None are likely to be friendlier to Ukraine or the West. Best case scenario would be Armed Forces Chief, Valery Gerasimov who might be more moderate and could be reasoned with but the inevitable power vacuum could be very dangerous.

Aston Martin have revealed their latest challenger. They are expected to focus on next year's car however, and this year's - the last with a Merc engine - will most likely not change their status too much.

Never heard Trump called left wing before. Musk was once but he went down the Twitter 'woke mind virus' conspiracy theory rabbit hole after the psychological trauma he endured when disowned by his trans daughter and ex-wife Grimes. RFK jr has some left leaning ideas but he's such a conspiacy theorist it's kind of forgotten now and he's all over the place. Also, even the the left in the US is right wing compared to most of Europe.

Let's not forget that the USSR was quite happy to sign a treaty with the Nazis and invade Poland and Finland when it suited them (they still haven't given back Karelia or Kaliningrad). Poland hasn't and will never forget either, the massacre at Katyn or that the Red Army paused to allow the Nazi regime to slaughter the Warsaw Uprising when they could have assisted (and shortened the war). Post WWII, the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Afghanistan because they might want some kind of freedom or democratic reform. Russia itself has subsequently invaded and put down independence and reform in the Chechen Republic, Georgia and now Ukraine because it served their own agenda and sphere of influence. Aside from a brief time in the 90's Russia (or the USSR) has always maintained a doctrine of expansion and suppression of its neighbour states whilst playing the victim. Their place at the table with the other Allies was begrudgingly and distrustfully, so much so that Operation Unthinkable was planned.

You cannot have a stalemate when one side is winning and Russia has been on the front foot for the last 12 months. I didn't miss any point about Russia having suffered losses. Putin is prepared to continue as long as he needs to because he knows Ukraine will break first without any outside help. 20 millions Soviets died in the Great Patriotic War (ironically mostly Ukrainians) and Putin has been invoking that to justify his war. Russia will tolerate a lot more deaths yet. With Trump now acting in Putin's interests over Ukraine's, Putin knows that he can now dictate the terms far more favourably than if Harris had won. This is his golden ticket. Ukraine will not have the territory Russia has annexed returned. Russia will keep Crimea, Donbass, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson either in whole or in part. If Putin doesn't like the terms he is willing to continue if need be The Russian people who know what is going on are in no mood to stage any kind of popular uprising against him and have no leader or organisation capable of attempting to challenge him. The remaining many who believe the state propaganda also prefer to pretend the war is being won. Many more are apathetic to the conflict and any change in this attitude has been marginal since the 2022 escalation. The Russian clampdown on any public expression of disapproval has seen to that. Read any Telegram reports from the front line, or Moscow etc and you'll see that Putin can sustain this conflict well beyond what Ukraine can do on their own. Ukraine with US and Europe's backing might just hold on long enough to get terms accetpable to them.

If Putin had kept his military forces within Russia we'd all still be staring them saying what a bad regime they are, Finland would still be neutral, Europe wouldn't be upping it's military spending and Ukraine still wouldn't be in NATO. Ukraine also wouldn't be a pile of rubble and hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive.

There was mutual gain to be had with the IRA, they didn't have the same level of support they once commanded as the Irish people and the British government were more interested in ending the conflict. The minority that did want to continue the fight did so as the Real IRA but they never had the same backing. However, Zelenskyy was elected partly on a promise to talk to Russia and end the conflict, which Poroshenko was unable to do because he and Putin hated each other. The first thing he did was speak to Putin about trying to de-escalate the situation. Russia's response was non-committal while they prepared a full scale invasion, multiple attempts to assasinate the Ukrainian leader and a failed drive to capture Kyiv in weeks and install a puppet regime. Even after that Emmanuel Macron persisted with attempts to engage with Putin but he wasn't interested in discussion. Putin only wants to talk now that the war has clearly reached a point where he once again has the slight advantage on the battlefield and knows he has an ally in Trump. Until Trump's re-election he wasn't interested. Now Putin and trump have mutual interests. Putin can take the majority of the territory he wanted in the first place, (he'll have to worry about the rest of Ukraine later) and Trump is angling for any excuse to pull back US involvement in NATO, which also suits Putin. Trump and Putin can both proclaim the victory of peace, Zeleskyy will be weakened in stature (forget Trump's claim of 4% approval, surveys in December were at 52%) and no doubt a pro-Russian/neutrality candidate will emerge to challenge him. In 5 or so years NATO will not have the numbers and unity to rival a Russia whose military spending is nearly 8% of GPD and 40% of all federal spending. The Russian people will still be oppressed by a long serving dictator, the Ukrainian people will have been robbed of their country, their hopes and homes for nothing and the US will continue to roll back on its constitution as their shiny new tyrant continues to deflect attention away from the crimes he's committing against his own people. Peace negotiations only have a favourable outcome for those attending from a position of power or stalemate. Trump has in effect taken away all of Ukraine's bargaining power and left them the surrender option, as a bonus he gets to screw over Europe and can forge a path to exit NATO like he always wanted.

Last night was the 'big' launch event and whilst I didn't watch it, I'm seeing a lot of negative reaction from long time fans. Most are saying it was a waste of time and there's a lot of distaste for the way Red Bull, Horner and Verstappen were treated by the crowd , especially in regards to the booing. Secondly, the reveals I'm told were basically a waste of time with on a couple of minutes for each individual driver to be interviewed at each team launch, and the only thing we saw is the new stickers applied to each team's car. Many of which were last year's chassis. That being said the RB looks quite nice but the Ferrari looks a total mess with an added hideous white stripe. As somebody joked, it's what you get when you have a spare 10L of white paint you absolutely have to use. On a more serious note there's a lot of unpainted surface on the Mercedes in particular which does leave question marks around the car's weight

+25 Siouxsie and The Banshees - Hong Kong Garden +24 Garbage - Why Do You Love Me +23 Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit +22 The Doors - Light My Fire +21 Amy Winehouse - Rehab +20 Suede - Animal Nitrate +19 Pulp - Disco 2000 +18 Oasis - Cigarettes And Alcohol +17 The Cure - The Love Cats +16 Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me) +15 Tori Amos - Pretty Good Year +14 U2 - One +13 The Cardigans - Erase/Rewind +12 Dolly Parton - Jolene +11 Green Day - Basket Case +10 Roy Orbison - I Drove All Night +09 Duran Duran - Notorious +08 The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love +07 Madness - One Step Beyond +06 Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better +05 R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts +04 Blancmange - Living On The Ceiling +03 The Bravery - An Honest Mistake +02 Ram Jam - Black Betty +01 Lady Gaga - Alejandro

This is a horrendously inaccurate reading of post Cold War history of Ukraine. Nobody 'took away' their nuclear weapons in the manner you suggest. Ukraine realised they were incapable of maintaining them and so in a deal to guarantee their independence via an agreement of non-aggression and protection they traded them for 2.5 Billion in debt written off plus a guarantee of fuel for their reactors. Yanukovych was deposed by the Ukrainian uprising. Poroshenko won the first election and stated that Ukraine joining NATO didn't have enough support to make pressing the issue worthwhile. Although tolerated by the West he was certainly not their ideal choice due to the high levels of corruption and perceived lack of connection with the Ukrainian people. It is true that he and Putin hated each other but he wasn't hugely popular in the West either. This ultimately led to his defeat by Zelenskyy, who was nobody's first choice and looked to be more keen to develop a relationship with Putin than Poroshenko was. Putin had the chance then to resolve the situation favourably to himself but thought he could take advantage of a supposedly weak leader and a disunited Europe and NATO. The Ukraine-NATO Action Plan was first declared in 2002 and the first steps towards membership were taken in 2005. At this point NATO was still saying 'no, you can't join'. NATO maintained this stance even after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine and only started to discuss it seriously AFTER 2022 full-scale invasion. Yes, ending the war is what everybody wants but Ukraine and the Baltic states in particular will not be safe from Russia, no matter what the deal is, as long as Putin still draws breath.

There's just something about hearing Julee Cruise's Falling that is so evocative of that moment when Twin Peaks first aired. It takes me right back to a time when David Lynch created something so masterful that it changed everything that followed. The instrumental version is one of the few pieces of music that hits me every time. Although to be fair Laura's Theme hits the hardest. As for the Cyndi/Roy battle, I love Cyndi, or at least did until around the time she released I Drove All Night. Her version is great but... Roy Orbison is one of the greatest vocalists ever. No competition there.

Had a couple of listens to the album now and it's pretty much what you'd expect from them these days and feels like a natural follow on from The Ultra Vivid Lament. The title track opens the album and is by far the best on the record. Nicky Wire takes a spoken word lead vocal, reminiscent of Baz Luhrman's Sunscream, but where he decries society's reliance on being told how to think every minute. Asking at the end 'What happened to your critical thinking?' This is ironic as what follows are ten, post 2010 Manics-by-the numbers tracks. All the usual boxes are ticked, big choruses, lyrics full of hopeful melancholy (and melancholic hope, it varies) and sweepingly epic soundscapes followed by intimate moments. The singles, especially Decline & Fall, sound much better in context of the album and the re-tooling from the single version gives it more of an edge and bite. The other great highlight is Dear Stephen, which will resonate with anyone who grew up loving The Smiths but has had to watch in embarrassment as Morrissey turned into an arsehole over the years. Finally the closer OneManMilitia recalls the albums opener and is delightfully leftfield. With it the album comes nicely full circle and it's a perfectly solid addition to their catalogue. I just can't help feel that they're just a little too comfortable ploughing the same familiar furrow once again, which is a shame as they have so much more to offer when they want. Then again, what the heck, after all they've been through, they've earned the right to do as they please. Edited for terrible spelling and grammar