Today FM Megathread Mod warning post #1 / #1401

Deliberately linking to the start of the discussion about last year's Top 500. I hope that's not against the rules. I've just discovered the voting pages on the Wayback Machine, and it was pretty crooked alright! You got to pick your favourite song of all time. Just one. And then there were about 70-ish different artists, and you were supplied three of their songs each, and you had to pick three songs in total from that list of 3 x 70-ish (i.e. 210+) songs too in order to be eligible for the draw for the Electric Picnic tickets (they're giving them away this year too). So a pool of about 200 songs that you had to choose three from, and then one original choice of your own. I did wonder how did Babies by Pulp get in. I wondered maybe was there a fan campaign or something. Nope; Pulp was one of the featured acts, and the three songs were Babies, Common People and Disco 2000. Absolutely nothing against Pulp, of course, and I'm delighted they were in there, and I'd never heard Babies before. But that nice surprise last year is now proven to be a bit of a sham.

Best songs usually come near the top . I can remember the new years eve countdown for the songs of the century in 1999 and bohemian rhapsody was number 2 , with or without you was number 1

Well exactly. The people voting on this list are the people who listen to Today FM. So I will say that none of this should be a surprise. However, it's bad enough that songs are being artificially boosted up the chart at the stroke of a digital pen. I've thought of something else that wet can't prove or disprove... Consider these songs:

• Escapism by 070 Shake and Raye
• Prada by Cassö, D-Block Europe, and Raye
• Sprinter by Central Cee and Dave
• Lovin On Me by Jack Harlow
• Kill Bill by SZA

All big chart hits (which means a lot of streaming by the cool kids) over the past couple of years and regular on 2FM. No airplay on Today FM for whatever. And therefore... yep, not on the Top 1000. But what if they actually did get enough votes and got, well, "forgotten"?

85. Last year's number 1 only made it to number 85 this time. I think this clearly shows the difference made by being one of the Divine Fifty¹ as opposed to being left out. Absolutely insane, but more importantly we can't delude ourselves any more as to what the voting public, even if they are Today FM loyalists, really want, what they really want (Wannabe is at No 82, sorry. Thought it would have been higher, even among the songs they handed to us, but anyway). Also, people have messaged the show expressing their surprise that Bohemian Rhapsody is so low, and Alison Curtis is saying how the chart can be divisive and all that. Either she doesn't know how it was set up or she's very good at playing the game.

By the way, forgotten song My Love by Westlife were number 87. Another song handed to us. This proves that they could have put Friday by Rebecca Black up and it would have made the chart.

¹ I think we need to come up with something snazzier.

Yes, I was really surprised to hear "My Love." As you said, it's pretty much been forgotten, and as it's from the year 2000, recency bias can't explain it.

Some truly bizarre choices in this list. I’d bet the playlist was decided in-station ages ago. Nicely set up for Taylor Swift to be at the top.

I predict Dermot Kennedy and Ed Sheeran will occupy all the top five slots.

a lot of people here are so naive to think they are using songs listeners actually voted in, getting annoyed at songs higher than others etc

its a random list of generic oldies and recent hits assigned a number from 1 to 1000, that's all.

OR, this was what today fm came up with.

: 10 eminem -lose yourself

9 taylor swift ——— ???????

8 Hozier Take me to church

7 Coldplay- La Vida Loca (ffs)

6 The corrs … Dreams (tees radio mix)

5 Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

4 Hozier- too sweet

3 coldplay —————— -yellow

2 the killers - mr brightside

1 zombie the cranberries .

Jim brings the numbers 😂

Or maybe a song released 10 weeks ago ! Mad stuff!

In a list of top 10 sh1te beers?

Number 1 is Zombie by the Cranberries, a popular choice no doubt, and I'm all for it. It was at 23 last year though, and it appeared on the suggested list of artists/songs then as well as now, so it's quite the jump. But then again there was a lot of movement by songs that were in the promoted lists both this year and last, so I dunno. Anyway. One thing I would hate though is if someone decided to give it a little nudge-nudge up the final list, because God knows what the actual numbers were.

Imagine having a top-1000 "songs of all time", getting to the final song, and then talking all over the intro! Madness? Sure. But we have Ray Foley doing the show, so **** airhorns and blather… 🙄

Alison Curtis, I just don't get it.