David Howell

"Only Yesterday" is my favourite track of the entire poll, but that probably says at least as much about me as it; that Carpenters sound is positively Batnip for my sensory-sensitive self. And this is a very good example of it, arguably underappreciated within their catalogue?

Well, the Spirit men's team were certainly... Outfoxed

As someone who liked Wicked the musical enough* that it's the only show I've seen on the West End** my immediate reaction to her being announced as Glinda was "oh that's CLEVER to give her a role created by Kristin Chenoweth"

*quirk of soundtracking late-teen rebellion
**autism-friendly performance

I'd probably go Beautiful Day for U2 but I think the 🦇 soundtrack effort is less controversially a standout.

I feel like Love Is A Bourgeois Construct would take some beating in any poll from this idea though. (Not least from me so I don't have to pick *just one* from Fundamental...)

When a Discord chat I'm in with fans of multiple sports turned to this, there was immediate reaction from ⚽ fans of "yeah star attackers often get targeted for fouls"

Absolutely on that last point; I'm pretty sure I've played "10:35" orders of magnitude more than any of her solo credits

The perfect pop figurehead for the era of algorithmic inference plagiarism machines, then?

Jess Glynne, who is barely old enough to get hugs from Calvin Harris and has as many UK #1 hits as MJ and Kylie, is *already* at the point of a new generation knowing her for a song used in an advert that became a meme

No! Apparently she's had a portfolio career incorporating modelling, a brief Broadway turn in the 2016 Cats revival, but she's genuinely fallen practically off the radar. A Vegas Christmas residency is on deck this winter, which feels like something that could stick...

You would have assumed that she'd have at least ended up as a conscious legacy act, dropping "gifts for grandma who still has a CD player" albums every couple of years and maybe a cover of We'll Meet Again with remotely-recorded gospel choir that got to #1 in June 2020 before being insta-memoryholed

And her career followed every line of an old playbook (up to and including "providing a song for a Hollywood megahit") until... It faded away shockingly quickly for someone who should have been set up for a decent if quiet long-tail career as a bastion of Mumpop (not derogatory)

Compare and contrast with Leona Lewis who functionally *was* the hypothetical I just mentioned (though closer to fellow pop game show yardstick act Whitney) and was very much that kind of controllable star, cutting R&Beige for the US and turbo-Westlife Oasis and Snow Patrol covers for the Brits

Arguably he's taken the logic of the pop game show (handle every classic pop genre people want to throw at you by being yourself and winning audiences over for it) and reversed it; now the mix of genres is the point and he's just the connecting thread

Honestly my only problem with "yes and?" is that "Max Martin production featuring interpolation of Vogue" is a description writing a cheque for Absolute Banger that the actual song isn't even *trying* to cash

It's safe to say her career has been more interesting than it would have been on another alternate-universe arc, "aggressively-touted heir-to-Mariah winner of American Idol"

I can't think of too many mega hits that have genuinely come out *better* for the ubiquity - but Uptown Funk is unequivocally one of them

When Tom mentioned "thank u, next" at the time as meeting "the offhand undemonstrative sound of the moment" I immediately thought "and that's super interesting coming from someone who'd marked herself out as the Zennial Mariah Carey with the vocal maximalism of a prior moment"

I can see *exactly* how you'd get to that observation - and none of it matters because ultimately it pulls off the vibe so effortlessly as to become a true cross-generational smash, the closest imaginable C21 analogue to "Come on Eileen" (complimentary)

As someone who doesn't (knowingly?) have an *immune system* disability affecting me - but *does* have a sensory processing one that made virus-friendly spaces a challenge before the new endemic virus existed - my life is at least somewhat similar and so are my feelings

As someone who has been in near complete isolation since the pandemic began, this hits real close to home

I saw almost everyone I knew, everyone I thought cared to do the right thing, give up on simple precautions to keep people safe

Now I don't feel safe around anyone
We got left behind 😞

To everyone who thinks that age verification for social media is a good thing - here's your future.

Especially when the new player in this instance is a PG coming in with an obvious ability to put up points and assists in bunches. You'd *expect* such a player to get roughed up a lot regardless of who they are or where they came from

Even the car media haven't talked about it since the initial WTF reaction AIUI?

He literally hit consecutive boundaries immediately before a dismissal that frankly looked more like a video game glitch than anything else.

At worst, you could say he didn't shift with the situation, but the flipside of *that* was sensing blood with the utterly shot Indian attack...

If Brook wasn't "dropped" on 19 yesterday this wouldn't even have been a conversation.

Stokes would have been the second best batter and the best bowler on a team that won two Tests because of him and got twatted without him.

For the overwhelming majority of people who practice it, sports is not about competition. It's about social belonging. Once you understand that, the reason why transphobes want to ban trans women from it even outside of competition and even in disciplines like darts is pretty obvious.

I physically can't tolerate carbonated drinks. I know this because the last time I inadvertently picked sparkling water over still, I had a jumpscare reaction in my mouth that made me damned sure I didn't want a next time!

I also like it, but that's at least in part because the emphasis on the vocal variety pack over basically anything else is scarily aligned with my listening tendencies

I wonder how many of the Elton single purchasers briefly became more regular single purchasers that autumn simply by having had that prompt of it being A Thing? I imagine quite a few parents being among them, buying singles for themselves/their kids when in Tesco or Woolies anyway

Barbie Girl is definitely in the overlap; is the CiN Perfect Day there too? I feel like it is.