msc

49 Squeeze — Cool For Cats 42 Boney M — Rasputin 37 M — Pop Muzik 36 Blondie — Dreaming 32 The Police — Can’t Stand Losing You 26 Squeeze - Up the Junction+4 23 Olivia Newton-John — Hopelessly Devoted To You 18 Roxy Music — Dance Away 14 BA Robertson — Bang Bang 9 Elvis Costello & The Attractions — Oliver’s Army -3 9 Abba — Chiquitita -3

A few regulars have oft noted the Curse of the Pointless Celebrities Chair which I'd reference if the forum Search engine wasn't being a shithead. Namely the propensity for celebs on Pointless who need the chair to sit in (as opposed to the usual standing contestants) often snuffing it soon after. I suspect she'll break this trend as she's as LOUD and bubbly as she ever was, but Rustie Lee had the chair tonight and a croaky voice.

41 Squeeze — Cool For Cats 38 Blondie — Dreaming 36 The Police — Can’t Stand Losing You 35 Boney M — Rasputin 34 M — Pop Muzik 32 Squeeze - Up the Junction+4 28 Olivia Newton-John — Hopelessly Devoted To You 23 roxy Music — Dance Away -2 22 Elvis Costello & The Attractions — Oliver’s Army -1 15 BA Robertson — Bang Bang -1 15 Abba — Chiquitita 11 Rose Royce — Love Don’t Live Here Anymore -2 11 Darts — The Boy From New York City 11 Queen — Crazy Little Thing Called Love

35 Squeeze - Up the Junction +4 34 M — Pop Muzik 33 Squeeze — Cool for Cats 31 Blondie — Dreaming 30 Boney M — Rasputin 27 Rose Royce — Love Don’t Live Here Anymore 26The Police — Can’t Stand Losing You 23 Elvis Costello & The Attractions — Oliver’s Army 23 Roxy Music — Dance Away 22 Olivia Newton-John — Hopelessly Devoted To You 21 BA Robertson — Bang Bang 19 Darts — The Boy From New York City 15 Abba — Chiquitita 14 Abba — I Have A Dream 14 - Racey - Some Girls -6 13 Darts — Come Back My Love 11 Queen — Crazy Little Thing Called Love  7 Blondie — Denis Rasputin is probably safe, so love for Squeeze, a wonderfully underrated band. For a moment though the Racey song was the one which led to the famous Johny Rotten/Alan Freeman contretemps on Jukebox Jury. That was The Monks instead, who never made it close to number 2.

Wow, amazing, you should tell @maryportfuncity this story, he loves weird stories about musicians.

The history of the DL forum Some random posters: "Totally need to drop this really old guy/woman, they're fine for another few years." Old person is dropped in December from the DL list. Old person then snuffs it a few months later, due to being really old. Same random posters: "OMG what a miss what were they thinking???"

50 Elvis vs JXL - A Little Less Conversation +4 46 t.A.T.u. - All The Things She Said 38 Evanescence - Bring Me to Life 36 Sugababes - Freak Like Me 34 Aaliyah - More Than a Woman 33 Black Eyed Peas - Where is the Love? +2 33 Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground +2 33 DJ Sammy & Yanou ft. Do - Heaven 33 Fatman Scoop - Be Faithful 32 Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z - Crazy in Love 32 Room 5 ft. Oliver Cheatham - Make Luv 32 Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules - Mad World 30 Kylie Minogue - Slow 29 Eminem - Lose Yourself 27 Eminem - Without Me 26 Christina Aguilera - Beautiful 26 Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland - Dilemma 25 Sugababes - Hole in the Head 25 Will Young - Leave Right Now 24 Christina Aguilera ft. Redman - Dirrty 23 Sugababes - Round Round 23 Liberty X - Just a Little  21 Pink - Just Like a Pill 20 Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul - Breathe 19 Daniel Bedingfield - Never Gonna Leave Your Side 17 Darius - Colourblind 9 Busted- You Said No -6 tbf Darius's song is shockingly good for a self-written track by a guy off a Cowell show. But it's treading gravity here. Eminem? Lose Yourself is a better song, but I always preferred Without Me.  I quite like the honest bragging in: Though I'm not the first king of controversy I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley To do Black music so selfishly And use it to get myself wealthy Amusingly the references to Dick Cheney's weak heart are still relevant in 2023 as a DL concern.

I mean, like any teenager at the turn of this century I have nostalgia for Linkin Park but the Soundgarden dude (who I also like) did the Bond intro theme to the biggest Bond film of the past twenty years. I think he's probably way more famous. Incidentally Lafucheuse missed Nipsy Hussle for 2019. No, despite @RadGuybest efforts I am not down with the kids but that guy got a full Panorama special about his murder which I did see, so I have to assume he was a bit famous.

@youngwillz you liked the post while I was off double checking facts. Because of staff turn over and the world cottoning on late to the dangers of asbestos the amount of the stuff in studio 2 where it was most dangerous was only discovered in 1988 when they were going to film The Greatest Show in the Galaxy hence that shifting to an all location shoot. An emergency survey of all the BBC studios was carried out, asbestos was found in all of them, and removed before anyone could use the studios again. So the second it was discovered it was acted on, so even if Esther hasn't self diagnosed mesothelioma for herself, she's just shit out of luck, that's all.

Several of the BBC TV centre studios had asbestos in the seventies but so did fucking everywhere. One of the studios was particularly stuffed with it and there's a correlation with shows filmed there and premature deaths in the cast and crew eg 70s Dr Who. But there is also the fact that nearly everyone in the BBC back then smoked like a chimney.

Another amazing prediction by The Daredevil here tbh.

44 t.A.T.u. - All The Things She Said 39 Elvis vs JXL - A Little Less Conversation 36 Sugababes - Freak Like Me 35 Room 5 ft. Oliver Cheatham - Make Luv 35 Fatman Scoop - Be Faithful 34 Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules - Mad World 33 Kylie Minogue - Slow 31 Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground 31 Evanescence - Bring Me to Life  29 Eminem - Without Me 29 Aaliyah - More Than a Woman 28 Black Eyed Peas - Where is the Love? +4 25 Sugababes - Hole in the Head 25 Will Young - Leave Right Now 24 Christina Aguilera - Beautiful 23 Eminem - Lose Yourself 23 Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z - Crazy in Love 23 Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul - Breathe 22 DJ Sammy & Yanou ft. Do - Heaven 22 Liberty X - Just a Little  22 Pink - Just Like a Pill 22 Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland - Dilemma 22 Sugababes - Round Round  22 Christina Aguilera ft. Redman - Dirrty 21 Darius - Colourblind 21 Busted- You Said No 21 Daniel Bedingfield - Never Gonna Leave Your Side 18 George Harrison - My Sweet Lord 17 Holly Valance - Kiss Kiss 16 Blue ft. Elton John- Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word 15 Atomic Kitten - The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling)  15 Blazin’ Squad - Crossroads 14 Daniel Bedingfield - If You’re Not The One 14 R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix) 13 Tomcraft - Loneliness 11 Will Young - Light My Fire 4 David Sneddon - Stop Living The Lie -6 I think that's the only Black Eyed Peas song I actually like tbh. All the songs I'd champion are in the top 12, which is unusually popular for my tastes in this game!

72 Stevie Wonder — Sir Duke 57 Boney M — Ma Baker 49 Queen — Somebody To Love 46 Candi Staton — Young Hearts Run Free 26 Barry White — You See The Trouble With Me +4 6 Queen — We Are The Champions -6 Sorry, Rover, its one of my favourite Barry White songs. And while I love Queen, I sort of agree with Toast here, in that WatC wouldn't make my top 30 favourite Queen tracks.

EARLY MOURNING NEWS WITH GEORGE ALAGIAH 10/50 24th July 2023 Easily one of the most popular British news presenters of the last 30 years, BBC broadcaster George Alagiah has lost his long and public battle with bowel cancer to give the Crowdsourced Deathlist another success. Born in what is now modern day Sri Lanka, Alagiah’s family moved to Portsmouth when he was in secondary school, and after a degree with Durham University, he moved into local journalism, before being snapped up by the BBC in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, George Alagiah was a familiar face on BBC news as a foreign correspondent, being their man on the ground during the Rwanda genocide and being stuck in the middle of civil wars in Somalia and Afghanistan, and his coverage of the Kosovo crisis won a BAFTA. By the late 90s, he had swapped the danger of war zones to the dangers of live TV, as a regular news anchor for the BBC news, a role he continued in until close to the end. In 2007, he graduated to the most plum position in British news broadcasting, solo anchor of the BBC Six O’Clock evening news. With his contacts from a decade as a correspondent, Alagiah managed to nab prize interviews for the BBC, such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe. In 2014, George Alagiah was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and would become the public face of male awareness in getting checked for the disease. Like the late Bill Turnbull, Alagiah was credited with encouraging thousands to get checked, saving countless lives in the process. His own cancer went into remission for three years, but returned as Stage IV in 2018, and, despite stoic treatment, eventually spread to all his major organs. The widespread tributes since his untimely death this week befit a man well respected for his integrity, his knowledge and his bravery in the face of insurmountable odds, be they from the bullets of genocidal soldiers, or the march of incurable cancer. The Daily Express even referred to him as “fearless and kind” and the Telegraph, no friend of the BBC, said George Alagiah was the “gold standard for newsreaders”. Because he was. George Alagiah had been picked every year since his cancer relapsed, and this year was in 5th position.

STRANGER NOW IN PARADISE 9/50 21st July 2023 In news about as surprising as its possible for be for a ninety-six year old with dementia, legendary singer Tony Bennett has provided The Crowdsourced Deathlist with another success. In an eighty-five year career (longer than some TCD successes entire lifespan) he worked with Frank Sinatra and Lady Gaga. A New York Italian-American, Bennett had the choice to go into music, or go into the Mafia. (Or be Frank Sinatra and do both.) Tony was singing publicly by the age of ten, and earning money for it by a teenager. He also studied art, and worked as a copy runner for the AP, before winding up as infantryman in France during the latter stages of World War Two. His experiences crossing the Rhine, and later in liberating concentration camps, turned the young Tony Bennett into a lifelong pacifist. Post-war he quickly developed a reputation as a crooner, and his cover of Because of You sold over a million copies in America in 1951. He’d recorded several number one hits by the mid-1950s, and already showed a capacity for moving with the times, which was to prove crucial to his longevity as rock n roll became in vogue. Whilst crooners fell out of fashion unless they had seven horcruxes hidden at Fort Knox (hi Pat Boone), Bennett expanded his output, involving himself in the successful American jazz industry, and working with the legendary Count Basie. Basie Swings, Bennett Sings was the result, and following that, Tony Bennett became, in 1962, the first male pop singer to perform at Carnegie Hall. A TV regular, he popularised the likes of The Best is Yet to Come, and I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Grammy's came his way, followed by a tsunami of likewise awards. In 1966, he appeared in the film The Oscar, which didn’t win the Oscar. In the 1970s, even time seemed to pass Bennett by, like the other crooners, and he wound up an impoverished drug addict. In 1979, he nearly killed himself with an overdose of cocaine. He survived that, and went on a health kick, and with the help of his sons he made a comeback with The Art of Excellence album. His sons also got him roles alongside The Muppets and Bart Simpson, which introduced him to a much younger audience. (“There’s a swinging town I know called Capital City” – yes this was my introduction to Bennett!) This gave him new fans who would go onto work with him in his elder statesman part of his career. He would work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kd Lang and found the new generations receptive to his Gershwin and Cole Porter classics. By the late 1990s he had his own MTV Unplugged Special, had headlined Glastonbury, and was a multi-millionaire once more. Outside the arts, Bennett participated in the Selma march, was an outspoken critic of apartheid South Africa. Even as his health declined in his nineties, Tony Bennett stated that the only thing that could retire him from music was death itself. True to form, reports stated Bennett kept his own spirits up on his deathbed, singing the Great American Songbook, until the final curtain call. This was only his second appearance on The Crowdsourced Deathlist.

CZECH MATE 8/50 11th July 2023 The Czech novelist Milan Kundera has died, only five years after we were first told he would imminently die. Next to Zsa Zsa Gabor, a rank amateur in the Grim Reaper avoidance dance, of course. Born in Brno in 1929, Kundera was captivated by music and then Communism, but he couldn’t afford piano lessons and in 1950, the Communist part of Czechoslovakia expelled him, so he turned to writing satirical novels ridiculing the Communist set up. He remained somewhat connected to the Communist party (which un-expelled him, before banning him for life finally in 1970) and actively thought Vaclav Havel’s protests after the Prague Spring were alarmist, up to the point where the new regime banned the books of Milan Kundera! Kundera swiftly emigrated to Paris, via Rennes, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1984, he published the book he is best known for, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a philosophy heavy book somehow transformed into a Hollywood film starring Daniel Day Lewis. He was a critic of nostalgia, and while his tragi-comedic look at the authoritarianism of the Czech regime was akin to Solzhenitsyn, Kundera himself claimed his books had no political message, in much the same way a speech by Jeremy Corbyn is apolitical. He married his own secretary, had an asteroid named after himself, and in 2020, won the Kafka Prize, having metamorphosed into a lifespan over twice the length of The Trial author. Kundera’s death leaves a clutch of successes for the Crowdsourced Deathlist in the 24-26 spot, which presumably leaves Mel Brooks and Yoko Ono feeling worried.

Ted Kacyzinski 7/50 10th June 2023 The Unabomber died, by his own hand, decades after several other people died by his own hand. This gave the Crowdsourced Deathlist another success.

37 t.A.T.u. - All The Things She Said 35 Elvis vs JXL - A Little Less Conversation 35 Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules - Mad World 35 Fatman Scoop - Be Faithful 30 Sugababes - Freak Like Me 29 Room 5 ft. Oliver Cheatham - Make Luv 29 Kylie Minogue - Slow 28 Evanescence - Bring Me to Life  28 Eminem - Without Me 28 Aaliyah - More Than a Woman 27 Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground +4 26 Eminem - Lose Yourself 25 Sugababes - Hole in the Head 24 Will Young - Leave Right Now 24 Christina Aguilera - Beautiful 22 Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z - Crazy in Love 21 George Harrison - My Sweet Lord 21 Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul - Breathe 21 Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland - Dilemma 21 Liberty X - Just a Little 21 Sugababes - Round Round 21 Christina Aguilera ft. Redman - Dirrty 21 Darius - Colourblind 21 Busted- You Said No 21 Tomcraft - Loneliness 21 Daniel Bedingfield - Never Gonna Leave Your Side 21 The Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love? 20 Pink - Just Like a Pill 18 Blazin’ Squad - Crossroads 18 Will Young - Light My Fire  18 DJ Sammy & Yanou ft. Do - Heaven 17 Holly Valance - Kiss Kiss 16 Gareth Gates ft. The Kumars - Spirit in the Sky 16 Daniel Bedingfield - If You’re Not The One 16 Blue ft. Elton John- Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word 15 David Sneddon - Stop Living The Lie 15 Atomic Kitten - The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling)  15 R. Kelly - Ignition 14 Ronan Keating - If Tomorrow Never Comes 13 Busted - Crashed the Wedding 12 Oasis - The Hindu Times 12 Westlife - World of our Own (hopefully not for much longer) -6 Am in general agreement that the Will Young vote to get votes is better than his other stuff, and while there's some decent stuff here, there's also a lot we can get rid of fairly easily.

?

Just to prove your point, different iconic songs immediately jumped into my head first for all of these.

Used to see his wrestling columns and think they were the usual edgy smark stuff at the time. Over twenty years ago now. Then about a decade later he randomly joined a bunch of the wrestling forums and was surprisingly down to earth. 49 is no age, but he's not the first wrestling critic to die round that age. Recent shows have really missed that instant Csonka seal of approval imo.

Amateur next to Zsa Zsa. Do you know how many DL names she outlived after getting the last rites? Seventy!

Re Kier the Younger, local family heavily embedded in the community, lots of voters who'd known him since he was a baby, and they worked their arses off campaigning. Great swing for Labour of course, but campaign effort and candidate quality (even if not clear to outsiders) is absolutely key. Heard nowt on Ferrier but all the parties are picking folk already! If Tamworth becomes a by-election that poses a problem for the Tories. They've already picked their candidate for next election, the Walsall Tory MP Eddie Hughes!

82 Kylie Minogue — Can’t Get You Out Of My Head +4 69 All Saints — Pure Shores 55 Spiller — Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) 53 Eminem ft. Dido — Stan 47 Modjo — Lady (Hear Me Tonight) 39 Britney Spears — Opps!… I Did It Again 36 Shaggy/RikRok - It Wasn't Me  36 Madison Avenue — Don’t Call Me Baby 36 Melanie C ft. Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes — Never Be The Same Again  35 Manic Street Preachers — The Masses Against the Classes 33 LeAnn Rimes - Can't Fight the Moonlight 18 Roger Sanchez — Another Chance  1 Daniel Bedingfield — Gotta Get Thru This -6 There you go

It's yer Barbara Knox and Thelma Barlow hanging out at the Flower Show earlier. (FAO @Gooseberry Crumble as he's a proponent of Barlow for a future DL!)