Via a private donation (without use of treasury funds), a full page in the MicroCon 2027 program has been procured.

While we await design criteria from the hosts (Slowjamistan) those interested can be pondering draft layouts.

We have a new winner! Or at least a different one from last year. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here did not make it through the semifinal, which means we're gonna have a different winner from last year. The rest of last years top 5 is still in the race. Of course Starman would still be a repeat winner if it won and would enter the Hall of Fame in that case.

Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3QAHYdPpVnElXYd8h1yEpA

The Final consists of one group of 15 songs (the winners and runners-up songs from each group in Round 3 and the top 5 from the semifinal).

The voting period will last until Tuesday, September 1st at at 12:00 PM, Talossan Daylight Time. (19:00 CEST). I'm still hoping to do a full countdown broadcast starting around 14:30 (21:30 CEST) and finishing just before the general election deadline

Give your top ten songs 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points, respectively. You must give points to exactly ten songs.

DO NOT POST YOUR VOTE HERE, SEND IT TO ME IN A PRIVATE MESSAGE!

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen the Rain
Dave Brubeck - Take Five
David Bowie - Starman
Dire Straits - Telegraph Road
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
House of Pain - Jump Around
Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights
Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want
The Who - Baba O'Riley


Tiebreakers:
- Number of voters giving 12 points
- Number of voters giving 10 points
...
- Number of voters giving 2 points
- Rank in Semifinal (if applicable)
- PPV in Round 3
- Rank in Round 3
- PPV in Round 2
- Rank in Round 2
- Last year's result (1 > 2 > ... > 20 > Round 4 > Round 3 > Round 2 > other)
- PPV in Round 1 (if applicable)
- Rank in Round 1 (if applicable)
- Year first nominated (special edition > earlier > later)
- Random chance

Tactical voting refers to either giving more points than you normally would to a song because it would make the difference between it going through or getting eliminated, or giving fewer points than you normally would to a song because it might kick a song you like even more out of the competition. This is hard to prevent, but my very strong request would be to not do it. Give points to the songs you believe deserve to go through, regardless of how others are voting. Doing otherwise reduces the value of votes that came before you, which is unfair to them. Remember that it's not a competition between voters, but a collective effort to make a nice list of songs we like. Thanks.

I did my best with all the links but there is always a chance some are broken or have a wrong version or bad audio quality. If a link is broken or you have a suggestion for a better link, please contact me or post the link in the thread. Officially, we are not voting on the YouTube link, but on the listed Artist + Title.

COMMENTARY ON THE PROGRESS OF THE GAME, THE RULES, WHAT SONGS YOU LIKE, ETC., IS VERY WELCOME.

The Government of the Kingdom of Talossa notes with sorrow the passing of Dolly Rebecca Parton, who died peacefully in Nashville, Tennessee, on the 25th of August, 2026, at the age of eighty. While the world will rightly remember her as one of the great voices of American music, it is for her works of generosity and compassion that we particularly remember her.

Dolly Parton understood, from the poverty of her own childhood, that dignity is not a luxury. Inspired by a father she loved who never learned to read, she built the Imagination Library -- now the largest early childhood book-gifting program in the world, with more than 300 million free books delivered to children across five countries (including my own). Through her Dollywood Foundation, she reduced her home county's high school dropout rate from thirty-five percent to six, funded children's hospitals, and created thousands of jobs in a region that badly needed them. When wildfires struck the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016, she raised over twelve million dollars for displaced families. When the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the world, her million-dollar donation to Vanderbilt University helped fund the early research behind the Moderna vaccine -- and then she rolled up her rhinestone sleeve on camera to get the shot, because she knew her people trusted her more than they trusted a press release.

The Kingdom of Talossa extends its deepest sympathies to the Parton family and to the countless communities she lifted. Her legacy is not measured in platinum records, but in children who learned to read, in families who kept their homes, and in lives that were saved because one woman from the hills of Tennessee decided that she could help. May she rest in peace.

Signed,
His Lordship Doctor Sir Alexandreu Davinescu, UrN, Ft.D BTL GST, Baron Davinescu del Vilatx Freiric del Vilatx Freiric
Txec R

closed

Probably at least two of the five I didn't vote for...

A week (and 5 hours) left to vote. I have just sent a first voting reminder to all 84 eligible voters who haven't cast a ballot yet; two more votes have been cast already, which pushed turnout over 40%. Atatürk was the first province to reach 50% turnout, but M-M has now overtaken it.

All six voters affected by the Google ballot tampering have re-cast their ballots now, and the countermeasures I implemented seem to be working, as I haven't spotted any further suspicious log entries ever since.

I'm also happy to report that I received an email vote over the weekend (that is, someone returned a compiled PDF ballot by email), meaning all four legal ways to cast a ballot have been used by at least one voter each.

10 votes in with 5 hours to go.

The current standings are:

To final
? - 45
? - 38
? - 38
? - 33
? - 29

TMT 20 16-20
? - 26
? - 26
? - 26
? - 22
? - 22

Eliminated:
? - 21
? - 18
? - 17
? - 15
? - 14

Anyone feel like making a prediction for which 5 songs will make it to the final?