Celebrity Popmaster TV

After it seeming Popmaster TV was ending it's now back for a new series and kicked off with a celebrity special. All 5 celebrities who took part were in the music business so you'd assume they'd have good knowledge but I think it's fair to say none of them covered themselves in glory.

The first contestant to be eliminated was Carol Decker from T'Pau. Although she only got 1 question correct in the first round (none got more than 2) I had her down as one to make it to the final round after the first round. However her weakness seemed to be not being quick enough on the buzzer in the second round.

Next was Shaun Ryder who came across as someone who knows what they know and doesn't care about anything else. A question I was surprised he got wrong though was naming the guest vocalist on "Getting Away With It" by Electronic. They were label mates of the Happy Mondays and this came out when the Happy Mondays were breaking through into the mainstream.

Next was Patsy Kensit who I thought was lucky to get as far as she did. She came across as someone who didn't really have much interest in music and seemed the least knowledgeable of them. However the tiebreak question that eliminated her seemed a little unfair.

The contestant who correctly answered the tiebreak question was Kelle Bryan from Eternal. The question was which member of Boyzone has the surname Duffy. Eternal and Boyzone no doubt crossed paths many times in the 90s, in fact a Boyzone member was married to an Eternal member at the time so this would have been a really easy question for Kelle.

Kelle didn't score a single point in the final round. Normally on the radio version at least Ken would give the contestant help on the final question so they don't score zero. This time he couldn't do that though because the winning contestant, Dougie Vipond from Deacon Blue only scored 3 points.

Then I thought should any of this be a surprise?

In the early 90s on the TV show "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" a musician guest would go head to head with their biggest fan to answer questions about themselves. If I remember correctly it would often be the fan who'd win.

I guess being knowledgeable about music doesn't mean you're any good at making music and being good at the drums doesn't require knowing a bit of pop trivia. 

Popmaster TV: The End?

I'll start by saying I don't know whether it's been cancelled but my guess would be that it has. Series 4 was recently broadcast less than 6 months after Series 3 and shown across 9 consecutive weekdays.

I didn't know Series 4 was happening until it nearly finished and ended up watching all the episodes on catch up. Not only did this seem to be a low key affair this time I also hear that 12 Yard Productions who are behind the show are calling it a day.

For me this time I decided I couldn't be bothered to track my score which I normally do. What I do know is that if I made the grand final I wouldn't of won because the winning contestant got a full house and I didn't get a full house on the other set of questions.

I'm afraid the transition to TV hasn't really worked and I've heard several others say the same. I can think of a number of reasons why:

It's an hour long: I normally listen to the radio version on catch up and skip through the blurb. This means it takes around 10 minutes to listen to it. If I have a few days to catch up on I start to get sick of it after listening to 3 or 4 in a row. I get that it needs to be more than just the radio version with cameras but an hour does feel too long.

The modern questions: I get that music didn't end in 1999 but it's clear to see the contestants are generally clueless when it comes to music from the last 10-15 years. In 1999 many of us still had just 4 channels and would watch Top of the Pops each week. We knew what was number one in the charts. If you wrote a Popmaster style quiz that only featured music from the 2020s and the contestants were in the 18-25 age bracket I'm almost certain the scores would be really low.

Scoring distribution: If you're good at years there's 5 points up for grabs, if you're good at lyrics there's 48. In Links and Video Gaga there's a maximum of 12 and you have to rely on your competitors being wrong to score more than 12 on Mixtape. So in theory you could have a perfect score on Links, Video Gaga, Mixtape and Year and end up with 41 points, 7 less than you can score on the lyrics round alone.

How does one reach the final?: There were 8 heats but just 5 finalists. We know it's to do with the score in Original Popmaster but if say you are runner up in your heat but get a better score than the winners in all the other heats, do you reach the final or not? I know the 2 finalists in the grand final got 30+ scores in their heats but I'm pretty certain more than 3 contestants got 24. How do you determine which ones went through? is 3 in 10 a factor? None of this is made clear.

Mistakes in questions: There was the question "What was Amy Winehouse's Top 40 debut in 2003?" the answer was "Rehab" but this came out in 2006. Small error maybe but when you consider her debut single that didn't make the Top 40 came out in 2003 it can be confusing. Likewise the question "Who had a hit with Fake Plastic Trees in 2005?", answer was Radiohead but it was 1995 and someone could of done a cover in 2005. 

Difficult to play along: Part of what makes the radio version so successful is that you can play along at home. The question is always asked in full before the contestant answers. On Intros, Middles & Ends there's often a contestant who buzzes in after hearing the first note meaning you're not likely to get it without being as quick as them. In the year round if the contestant guesses after 1 clue it's hard to come up with your own answer if you need 1 or 2 more clues. On the final 2 mixtape questions when a place in the next round is at stake a contestant can take the gamble by buzzing in before the question is properly asked.

Low scores in final round: I will concede Original Popmaster is more difficult than the radio version but it's not Champions League level. When you get that contestant who's good at lyrics or identifying a song after 1 note and clocks up enough points to get to the final only to find their general music knowledge isn't that great and they score 9 it doesn't really seem fair. 

If it does return I'll probably still watch it. I've probably blown any chance I had of being selected to go on with this post but on reflection I'm not sure I would of wanted to go on and am unlikely to apply again.

Popmaster TV 2025

We've just come to the end of another series of Popmaster TV. It only feels like yesterday that the first series began but it's getting on for 3 years now. What did I make of this latest series?

Well one of the differences this time is I most likely watched most of the episodes on catch up this time round whereas previously I'd made more of an effort to watch it live. I watched every episode but somehow felt less engaged this time round. Whilst I applied to the first 2 series and failed to get on, I didn't bother applying this time round though did consider it.

There is something that's occurred to me, are the earlier rounds too specialised or is Popmaster itself a specialist area of music knowledge that we don't realise?

I say this because there are contestants who have been on Champions League on the radio version who have gone out early on the TV version. As a former Champions League contestant myself I do question whether I would be one of those were I to get on.

I like the links round and do get the majority of questions correct. I find the way questions link together quite interesting. My only complaint is lack of consistency, I recall in one episode one contestant had quite simple questions such as what instrument Mick Fleetwood plays then the next contestant got questions about Taylor Swift and One Direction which is something most people over 35 will struggle with which is most contestants.

I feel like if I was to draw the Taylor Swift and One Direction questions in that it would be an early bath for me. I'm not bad at the intros, middles and ends round but the contestants can be very quick and I could easily see myself scoring zero in that round.

In the grand final I kept a worst case scenario score in the first 2 rounds. My worst links score from a set of questions was 9 and there were 2 songs in the intros, middles and ends round where I shouted out the answer before any contestant buzzed and both would have bagged me 5 points, so 19 points which would have comfortably seen me through to the next round.

Video Gaga has changed this series and for the better in my opinion. My previous gripe was the lack of consistency, one contestant would get a still from an iconic video whilst another would get a video from 2020 that nobody under 25 has seen. Now the contestant can buzz in with an answer to a question and then pick a category for the video they get.

However the Video Gaga round wasn't so good in the grand final. 3 of the 4 sets of questions were far too modern and one set was a video by Leon Bridges who I've never heard of before. He's never had a Top 40 hit either and this brought back memories of the new Jack Savoretti song being a Popmaster question in the Radio 2 days which you fortunately don't get on Greatest Hits Radio.

The Mixtape round often has at least one artist I've never heard of or couldn't name a record by, but at least the contestant can try to avoid that artist when pressing the button. The years round is what it is and no complaints really aside from when the year is too modern.

I've already ranted about It's Only Words carrying too many points so I won't go there again. What I will say is that if I was on the show I would have possibly made it to this point, but there's no way I would have scored enough points on this round to make it to the final.

The eye opener for the regular Popmaster round is that I don't think any contestant scored a full house this series. Most of the contestants got nowhere near and there was one contestant who scored zero. This brings me back to my original point, does regular Popmaster only cover an element of ones music knowledge or are the earlier rounds too specialist? Like I said we've had contestants who have scored full houses on the radio get eliminated early and contestants who have clocked up lots of points in the earlier rounds but struggled with the final.

It's already been confirmed there will be a 4th series but will there be a 5th?

I'm not so sure. From where I've looked on the internet there seems to be very little discussion about it. When I watched the grand final I could count the number of tweets on the hashtag on my hands. I've not found any articles about it. I feel the excitement of Popmaster making it to TV has faded away. I'll continue to watch until they pull the plug but I do think it's days are numbered.

Popmaster TV

We've just reached the end of the first series of Popmaster on TV. The radio quiz consists of 2 contestants answering 10 questions each and takes around 10 minutes in total so it was interesting to see how they fill in the other 50 minutes minus adverts.

There are 5 contestants per show and the lowest scoring one gets eliminated every other round until they're down to the final 2 who then go head to head on a traditional Popmaster round.

The first round is a links round. Each contestant gets played a clip of music where they have to name the artist or title and then get 3 further questions which are linked to the previous question asked. I like the concept and part of the fun is anticipating what the next question will be. The questions can be luck of the draw, I've managed to answer all 4 correctly for some and there was one set where I only got 1 correct because the other 3 were too modern.

Next up is intros, middles and ends. This is where the buzzer comes in, a clip is played and the contestant has to name the artist and title. There were some clips I may have got had the contestant not been so quick to buzz. The points start at 5 and gradually go down to 0 the longer the clip is played. It's after this round we lose the first contestant.

The next is video gaga where a still of a music video is shown together with a clue. You can have up to 5 of these and the points go down from 5 to 1 for each clue you get. It was played individually on some shows and on the buzzer on others. Again it can be luck of the draw, if it's a video from the heyday of music channels it's going to be easier than something more modern that you're only going to know the video by seeking it out on YouTube. I also found sometimes the clues helped identify the artist but not the song, a Biffy Clyro video springs to mind but that said I don't think I'd be able to name a Biffy Clyro song no matter how many clues I was given.

Then we have a random Top 10 where questions related to each song in the Top 10 get asked. I like the concept and again it can be fun anticipating the questions. Some of the questions were pretty brutal though such as naming the Ian Van Dahl album on which "Castles in the Sky" appeared. I was listening to a lot of trance at the time and bought "Castles in the Sky" on vinyl but did not know Ian Van Dahl even had an album and can't imagine too many people did know that. On one episode the Top 10 in question was from 2015 and the contestants were pretty clueless on most of the questions, as was I. 

Following this we lose another contestant and the next round is on years. The contestant can have up to 3 songs from the same year which they have to name. The more songs they need the less points they get. It's an individual round and a great round, but my only gripe is that on every episode one contestant has had a 21st century year to name and the other 2 have had a 20th century year which puts the former at a disadvantage in my opinion.

The most dreaded round comes next, lyrics. I am clueless when it comes to lyrics, you just need to see a childhood video of me on stage singing "Under Pressure" by Queen and hear how few actual words I'm singing because I had no clue what they were despite knowing the song so well.

I was absolutely hopeless at it, but we all have our weaknesses and there is no reason why we shouldn't have such a round in a music quiz. When a contestant buzzes in and gets the lyrics question correct they get 3 bonus questions where they have to name the artist for a given song who's title has a word in common with the song in the lyrics question. I've done really well on those questions so it's unfortunate I wouldn't get the opportunity to answer them if I was on the show due to my lack of lyrics knowledge.

We then lose one more contestant and it's the final two contestants playing traditional Popmaster. The points are reset which means you could be far out in the lead prior to this round and end up losing by one question. That would be unlucky, but then if you're more than 39 points ahead there would be no point in this round so I understand it. As it happened the contestants who scored particularly high to that point would go on to win any way. 

At the end we have 3 in 10 and I loved the fact that in the grand final the artist was Gene Pitney given the much talked about moment on the radio where a contestant gave an answer to one of the questions as "Green Pitney".

I did apply to go on the TV show myself, but no such luck. It's impossible to truly know how I would have done if I was on, the individual sets of questions varied and I don't know how quickly I would have buzzed compared to others not to mention the pressure of the situation.

One thing I do know is if I was to get to the final round I would have to be comfortably be in at least 2nd place prior to the lyrics round to stand a chance.

Overall I've enjoyed it and look forward to the next series if there is one. If there's one improvement they need to make for the 2nd series it's to have less modern questions. That's not just me being an old git, you could see how much the contestants struggled with those questions regardless of age.

Popmaster Live 2019

I wasn't sure whether or not to write a review given how much of a let down Popmaster Live was this year, but I thought it would be good to give some insight on what happened.

I attended Popmaster Live in both 2017 and 2018 and both were thoroughly enjoyable experiences, and certainly after the 2018 event when it seemed this would be an annual thing, I was very much looking forward to 2019.

Both 2017 and 2018 were announced the year prior and held early on in the year, but no announcement had been made at the start of 2019, or several months that followed. It wasn't looking like there was going to be an event, until the end of August.

The difference this time was that it was being run my Radio Academy as opposed to Classic Pop Magazine who ran the previous 2. Also, instead of being on a Saturday night in quite a sizeable events venue, it was being held on a Monday night at a small basement bar. I thought it may have been just for people who work in radio, but it didn't explicitly state that and I managed to buy a ticket no problem.

Our table was at the back, away from the main floor area. The format was similar, question comes up on screen and you pick a, b, c or d, except this time we had an iPad to answer with instead of a remote control.

When Ken started to introduce the quiz, it was very difficult to hear what he was saying. Like the last 2 quizzes, the first round was intros and outros. The music began, and that too was very difficult to hear. Given the objective is to identify the song from the clip, that was quite problematic. Despite this we managed 7/10, though no team managed more than 8 on that round.

Round 2 was hits from movies, a round I hate but I knew it was coming. We got 8 on that round which was good enough to put us in the joint lead with 1 other team. Fortunately one of the songs played was instantly recognisable because after the first second or so we couldn't hear a thing.

The next round was missing words, the title of the clip was displayed with one word missing which we had to get. Fortunately this one didn't rely too heavily on the clips. The first clip was played, and the iPad's weren't working. The round was halted and then abandoned.

With the iPad's out of action, we were given plain sheets of paper and a pen and told to write a, b, c or d for each question and hand in at the end. The problem was the answers to the questions were revealed on screen after they were asked, so relied on the teams being honest. The theme was songs to do with crime and we managed 9, the one we didn't get was one we knew but the sound was too poor for us to identify.

On going to hand the sheet in I noticed the sound was much better on the main floor. I pointed out we were really struggling to hear the music where we were sat. Somebody did come up and look at a speaker, but it never got any better.

They did blank out the answer reveal on the screen for the rest of the night, though sometimes it didn't work, but I guess it mostly did.

Up next was TV themes, not one of my strong points but there was nothing too obscure on there, I knew at least half of them and as a team we managed a full house. Then it was 60s in the 80s, where you had to say which act was covering the 60s record in the 80s. The questions on the screen helped more than the clips, and again we got a full house.

However, the scores of the leading teams were then read out. As we'd only got one question wrong since we saw we were leading we expected to be one of them, but we weren't. It was 10 points for a correct answer, we had 150 before the technology broke and 290 since which would give us 440, but the top 2 teams had 290 and 300.

The next round was guess the year, they were all songs that charted higher when they were re-issued and we had to get the year of re-issue. It was a tough round, but again we managed a full house. Still no mention of us near the top though. Then it was a round about soaps, basically name the soap the singer of the song was in, though their definition of soap extended to shows like Baywatch, but it was pretty straightforward and another full house. We fell at the final hurdle with the next round though, name the band the solo artist being played used to be in, we didn't know the band Jefferson was once part of.

Still, just 2 questions dropped since we saw ourselves leading the way and still no mention of us being the leading team, so one of the team members went to ask where exactly we were in the standings as by our calculations we should have 730 by now.

The following round was on 21st century hits, thought this would be the round we'd flop on. By this round we established we needed to stick our heads out over the balcony to hear the music properly and feedback to the table what it was. It proved effective and we got another full house.

We did flop on the following round, next singles. They played a clip and we had to say what their next single was. That was a very tough round, it took me till I got home to figure out how we did, I know we got 4 right and 5 wrong and the other one we had no clue about so just picked a random letter, not knowing what we picked when the answers were read out.

The final round was guilty pleasures, all novelty records and we got them all.

We'd lost count of our score by now, but as Ken revealed the Top 3 he said they were the only teams to get over 800. But as we'd lost count at 730, we clearly had more than 800. 2 teams had 810 and the winners had 820.

We went up to enquire on our score and it was something like 680. It turned out they'd excluded the first 2 rounds from the final scores, but also the scores we were given on some rounds were incorrect. I can't remember the specifics, but recall being given 40s and 50s on rounds where we got 100. I wasn't quite sure what our overall score should of been, but would have definitely been higher than that.

I've now figured it out. There were 12 rounds, the first 2 didn't count towards the total and the 3rd was abandoned, so it was out of 900. Of the remaining 9 rounds, we got 6 full houses, 2x90s and the other round was either 40 or 50. Let's assume it's 40, that gives us 820 points which would make us joint winners. However, we were joint leaders after the first 2 rounds, why they scrapped the scores from those rounds I don't know, nor do I know if it was the eventual winners who we were joint leaders with.

What I don't know though is how they were marking other teams. There could have been a team that got 900 who they didn't mark correctly, so I'll never know whether we should have won or not. That's the problem.

The previous 2 Popmaster Live events I went to, we didn't win, but that didn't matter as we were beaten fair and square by better performing teams on the night, and given the room layout I'm sure everyone could hear the sound loud and clear.

This time we had what could have been a winning score had it been marked properly, despite sitting where the sound quality was poor. Maybe we put the wrong round number on the paper, it's certainly hard to keep count when you're doing it and maybe we couldn't hear Ken say what round number it was, but we handed the sheets in after the rounds so they shouldn't have been mixed up.

I'm not annoyed that we didn't win, the prizes were crap anyway. I am annoyed though that I leave a quiz where our official score isn't our true score. I know that technology can go wrong, but a well established quiz like Popmaster should have adequate back up and there is no excusing the sound quality. For £15 a ticket I expect a quiz not to have the sort of annoyances you may have at the free to enter quiz down the local pub.

Would I go again?

Well like I said, the first 2 were great and I don't want to let one bad experience stop me going again. If it's at the same venue though, probably not.

Music Quizzes - Is being older an advantage?

Today on Popmaster we had a contestant who had just finished university. On that basis I assumed she'd be in her early 20s and therefore wouldn't do very well. This proved to be true as she only scored 3.

She never gave her age as an excuse, but some contestants do say it was before their time which seems to annoy Ken Bruce, he always say's that's no excuse. As someone who's written and hosted music quizzes myself I've had people complain to me about the music being too old, and I'm inclined to agree with Ken, it's not like I'm going to ask their date of birth and ensure every question is related to music after that date. However it does raise the question of whether being old enough to remember the music gives you an advantage.

Back in the early 2000s there was a quiz on the BBC called "Test the Nation" and one of the shows was specifically about music. As the title suggested, this wasn't a quiz for contestants as such, it was a quiz for everybody to play along to. At the end your score was put into a category but this depended on your age group, the idea being to make the top category of "Music Genius", the older your age group the higher the score you need. This therefore implied age does give you an advantage.

More recently though we have a new music quiz on the BBC, "The Hitlist". In the most recent edition it was a grandad and his grandson who won. Sounds quite logical as you have the demographic to cover old and new music. Their victory though was mainly to do with the grandson, so that would imply being older didn't have an advantage.

However, what I did notice was that most of the questions the grandson answered correctly were modern ones so I thought I'd give it another watch and take note. They answered 21 questions correctly, grandad got 5 and grandson got 16. Of those 16 questions, 12 of them charted in 2015 or later and 3 of the remaining 4 charted in the last 10 years. Given the number of songs they skipped in the final round it's likely they would have struggled had it not been for the modern ones.

One thing that springs to mind from personal experience was when "Sounds Familiar" came to my workplace to do a music quiz. Me and a colleague who's known to like a quiz were on the same team and many thought it was inevitable we'd win. But we didn't.

The quiz rounds were 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and recent hits. It was a point for the artist and point for the title. The problem was the older ones were very obvious ones such as "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees, the recent hits may have been just as obvious but none of us knew them. We got 100% on the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s rounds and got a pretty decent score on the 00s but flopped on the recent hits. Given that recent hits tend to be by everybody featuring everybody else, there were more points available on that round too. Therefore being young and knowing modern music proved to be advantageous.

In these too examples though it's only really proved that modern questions suit young people which is what you'd expect. But in reality they suit whoever follows modern music irrespective of age. Do older music questions better suit older people though?

Well recently I went on holiday and took part in 4 music quizzes. There was certainly a lot more older music than new, plenty of music from before I was born but after no doubt many of my competitors were born. We won all 4 quizzes though.

One time when I was 28 I went to a music quiz where everybody else was at least 50 and the quizmaster warned me that it would mostly be music before my time. We won that one as well.

It could be argued that learning about older music is easier than learning about modern music. Take an era of music such as the 70s, there is a finite amount of music from then, there hasn't been a new 70s record for nearly 40 years and there will never be another 70s record made again. If you weren't born then you've still had all your life to learn it. Modern music on the other hand keeps being made, if it came out last week you've only had since last week to learn it.

That said, nothing beats living through it. I can relive my life by going through many 90s artists singles discography, some of whom are now long forgotten. With a 60s artist it's always been part of the history books. The point of your life that relates to those songs is probably the point where you decided to listen to their greatest hits.

Is being older an advantage then?

The obvious advantage is living though an era means you can effortlessly remember many songs from that time whereas if you weren't born then you need to learn your history in order to know them. Therefore you are probably at a disadvantage until you've had enough time to learn your history, but once you reach that point it's probably more of a level playing field.

My Popmaster Experience

Some of you will know I made Champions League Popmaster this year and I thought I'd give some insight about my Popmaster journey.

Confession time, I've only actually been listening to Popmaster since late 2016. I knew it existed but as I don't really listen to the radio it wasn't something I thought about listening to. It was during a conversation with a friend where I mentioned I was quite good at knowing what year a song is from and he told me there is a year question everyday on Popmaster that I decided to give it a listen, and I've been hooked ever since.

On the first day I listened to it the second contestant got 39 (a full house) and I assumed this to be a common occurrence so thought nothing about getting a few myself as I played along. Then my friend told me it was very rare for someone to get 39 and he'd only managed 2 himself in 5 years of keeping his scores.

Then came Champions League Popmaster where all the contestants who got 39 or 36 plus 3 in 10 that year would compete against each other with much more difficult questions. Prior to the final I didn't get a single full house but in the first round of the final, where I would assume the questions are supposed to be even more difficult, I did manage a full house.

In March 2017 I had a bit of annual leave to use up before the end of the month so I thought I'd ring up to try and get on Popmaster. I was given 3 qualifying questions which were:

1. What did Stacy Lattisaw want you to jump to in 1980?
2. Who had hit's in the 70s with "Can't Keep It In" and "Another Saturday Night"?
3. What year did this weeks chart have "Robert De Niro's Waiting" by Bananarama at 3, "It's Raining Men" by the Weather Girls at 2 and "Hello" by Lionel Richie at 1?

I answered the first two correctly but said 1983 for the third one which was one year out. I didn't get on the show but playing along at home I got 39 on the first set and 36 on the second and got the 3 in 10.

Then in September I had the day off work as I was going on holiday later on that day so thought I'd give it another go. I got the three qualifying questions right this time and had a call back with two more questions. I got the first one right but the second one was "What band is Gary Lightbody the lead singer of?". I'd never heard of him so had no idea, turns out it was Snow Patrol, I always thought the bloke who's dating Courtney Cox was the singer.

I didn't get on but if I was contestant 1 that day I would have got a full house, as did the actual contestant 1. Contestant 2 then had Eurovision or 21st Century Hits as choices for bonuses, both ones I would try to avoid. I would have picked Eurovision like the contestant did and would have scored 27 and therefore would have lost, so I thought I dodged a bullet that day.

There were 14 people in Champions League that year and I managed to get a full house in 2 of those rounds. My lowest score was either 72 based on a 39 start or 69 based on a 36. The score needed to reach the final was 76 so based on a 39 start I would have qualified for the final 11 out of 14 times and based on a 36 start it would have been 8 times.

In the final I managed to get one correct answer the winner didn't get, he had to name the first David Bowie hit of the 80s but named his first hit of 81 instead but corrected himself when it was too late. I got all of his correct answers correct myself and did better on the other set of questions. Based on playing along at home at least it seemed I would stand a chance should I ever make Champions League.

In March this year once again I had a bit of annual leave to use up so I gave it another go. This time I got all the qualifying questions correct and got a call telling me I was going to be contestant 2. Then around 10:25 I got a call asking me to be contestant 1 instead as they couldn't get hold of my opponent. After being told no swearing and no cheating the radio started playing down the phone, once I was on it felt really strange being able to talk back to the radio.

After a bit of chat it was time to pick my bonus category, "It's Electric" or "90s Hits". Being a 90s teenager the latter seemed more appropriate, but I decided to try "It's Electric". Here were the questions:

1. What type of communication appears in 70s hits by ELO, Mari Wilson and Blondie?
Question 1 is always easy, the only type of communication that really existed in the 70s was telephone.

2. Who had hits in the early 80s with "D.I.S.C.O." and "Hands Up (Give Me Your Heart)"?
Again quite straightforward, Ottawan.

3. Name the singer in this clip of a 1989 Top 20 single?
The music isn't as clear on the phone as it is on the radio but didn't take long for me to identify it as "Electric Youth" so therefore the singer is Debbie Gibson.

4. Which year were there following new entries on this weeks chart, "January, February" by Barbara Dickson, "Let's Do Rock Steady" by Bodysnatchers  and "King/Food For Thought" by UB40?
I know UB40 debuted in 1980 with "King/Food For Thought" so 1980.

5. Who are the 2 male members of Steps?
H is the one most people know, I was a bit hesitant with the surname of Lee Latchford-Evans but they only wanted the first names anyway.

6. Who are the 2 artists on the title track to the movie "Electric Dreams"?
One word I hate to hear in music quizzes is movie, but fortunately this question didn't require any movie knowledge at all, the song is "Together in Electric Dreams" which I listen to a fair bit so know it's by Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey.

7. Which 1974 Top 3 hit by The Sweet contains the lines "They're out in the streets they turn on the heat and soon they could be completely in command."?
Oh no, it's the dreaded lyrics question. I am terrible at lyrics, even with songs I really like so had no idea. I guessed "Ballroom Blitz" but it was "Teenage Rampage". However looking at their singles discography I found "Ballroom Blitz" was 1973 and their only Top 3 hit of 1974 was "Teenage Rampage", so knowing their singles discography would have done the trick.

8. Which of Bob Marley's children was billed alongside the Melody Makers on the 1988 Top 40 hit "Tomorrow People"?
Remember many years ago seeing in my British Hit Singles book there was a Ziggy Marley as well as Bob, plus I know the song as well so no trouble getting that.

9. Although he's achieved many hits as a songwriter this is his only Top 40 hit as an artist, who is he?
The song was "Free Electric Band" and I wasn't 100% sure but quite certain it was Albert Hammond, which it was.

10. Who had a hit in 1992 with "Friday I'm In Love"?
I knew potential Champions League qualification was on the cards if I got question 10 right, fortunately it was quite an easy one, The Cure.

Afterwards you just wait on the phone listening to the radio as normal. When contestant 2 came on he said he got a full house on my questions. I wondered if I was going to be that contestant who gets 36 and loses, but fortunately he got 24 and I won.

Time for 3 in 10, and I was hoping it wouldn't be anybody too modern. Fortunately it wasn't, it was Fleetwood Mac so I said their number one "Albatross", then "Everywhere" which is one I remember very well from my childhood, then lots of other Fleetwood Mac songs were in my head and I had just one more to pick so went with "Little Lies".

I'd done it, I'd qualified for Champions League. Or had I? My friend who introduced me to Popmaster told me that only those who get a full house are guaranteed a place and it depends on how many of them there are as to whether I would get a place.

A few more contestants got a full house and I had no idea what the cut off point was but after a contestant who also got 36 plus 3 in 10 at the start of November was told they could be in Champions League it looked more promising.

At the end of November the 2018 Champions League qualifying period ended and the following Monday I got a call telling me I had a place in Champions League. I was offered the first slot the following Tuesday but unfortunately I couldn't do that day so was given the Friday instead.

On the first day of Champions League I listened on catch-up. There was just one contestant on that day and I managed to get a full house on those questions which was actually quite annoying considering they could have been my questions had I not been busy. In-fact I didn't think those questions were any harder than normal Popmaster.

It got more difficult on the second day, then on the third day I got my second full house on the first set but only got 66 on the second set. I did kick myself with question 9 on that set which was to hear a clip of "International Bright Young Thing" by Jesus Jones and name their other Top 10 hit. I knew it was their first hit of 1993 but just couldn't think of the title at that point in time.

Then came Friday and I was on second. Contestant 1 was offered "One Hit Wonders" or "Piano Intros" for his bonuses. I hoped he'd pick "Piano Intros" but then who in their right mind would pick that? I managed a full house on his questions, but it was the next set of questions which would count.

During the interval they played "Love Is Like Oxygen" by The Sweet, the band who denied me a full house when I was on before. In addition to the "Piano Intros" bonus I was offered "Debut Hits" which I picked. Here were the questions:

1. "Rockferry" was the number one debut album from which Welsh singer?
I've never heard of that album but on the basis of it being a Welsh singer debuting in 2008 I correctly guessed Duffy.

2. "Joybringer" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band was based on which piece of music by Gustav Holst?
I had no idea what the answer to this was, but several people I know got this one on the basis the only piece of music they know from Gustav Holst is "The Planets".

3. Who are the band in this clip from their 1993 debut?
Initially it was just distorted guitar I heard but I then recognised it as being "Anyone Can Play Guitar" by Radiohead.

4. What year were the following hits number one, "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo, "Baby Jane" by Rod Stewart and "Candy Girl" by New Edition?
Doesn't seem that long ago they were on the Top of the Pops reruns and knew they were all 1983.

5. Which band debuted in 1995 with "Mansize Rooster"?
A debut hits question that wasn't one of the bonus questions, remembered this particular debut at the time, Supergrass.

6. Who are the band in this clip from 1998 of their first of two hits?
Again it was just lots of distorted guitar initially but I did vaguely recognise it at the end of the clip. Trouble was there were several lesser known Brit Pop bands who had just 1 or 2 hits in 1998 and I remembered one of them was Warm Jets so I guessed that. Unfortunately it was wrong, the band was Ultrasound.

7. Nick Kamen had his only Top 5 hit in 1986, what was it?
The first Nick Kamen song that came to mind was "Tell Me" but I knew that was a minor hit. I then recalled "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" but my mind went blank on his best known song but thought there was a possibility that it didn't chart as high given it was Champions League so went for "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever". Unfortunately that only made 16 and it was "Each Time You Break My Heart" which actually appeared on Top of the Pops later that day.

8. The singer who had a hit with "Closer Than Close" in 1997 was Rosie who?
I remember that song very well so had no problem knowing it was Rosie Gaines.

9. Who are the band in this clip of their 2001 debut hit?
The song was "Flavor of the Weak" and as the clip was playing I thought American Hi-Fi, but then I thought is it All American Rejects? particularly as I know they had more than one Top 40 hit so I went with them instead. Turns out it was American Hi-Fi and it was their only Top 40 hit.

10. Pussycat had a number one with "Mississippi" but had one other Top 40 hit, what was it?
I knew this one, it was "Smile".

My final score was 67 but I needed at least 74 to stand a chance of being in the final so my time was up. I was kicking myself for picking the wrong "American" band on question 9 as I would have been in the running for the final had I got that right.

However the following Monday a contestant got 86 which became the score needed to qualify for the final after a contestant on the Wednesday scored 91, which was the maximum score I could have possibly got. These were my scores for all the Champions League rounds:

Round 1	91
Round 2	85
Round 3	90
Round 4	91
Round 5	66
Round 6	91
Round 7	67
Round 8	83
Round 9	91
Round 10	91
Round 11	84
Round 12	85
Round 13	82
Round 14	91
Round 15	85

The ones highlighted in blue are the ones that would have been good enough to get to the final, so on the basis that less than half were good enough (7 out of 15) I was always unlikely to get through to the final. The time I went on was my second worst score, but then it is easier playing along at home than on the radio and maybe if I had a set of questions that got me a full house I may have slipped up on 1 or 2 questions.

Had the best case scenario happened and I managed to get a 91 and get to the final, my score in the final wouldn't have been good enough to beat the winner. The actual winner was the same man who's team had won both Popmaster Live quizzes so I knew in all probability I was never going to beat him.

I have to wait 2 years until I can apply to go on again. Will I give it another go? never say never but as I got to play Champions League Popmaster this year I might just leave it at that.