Mic Waters
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burnt-toast-and.bsky.social
Mic Waters
@burnt-toast-and.bsky.social
I can't stand burnt toast. And I loathe bus stations - terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there's unrequited love, and tyranny, and
And here's my #theTwen2ie5 flag parade (only for the top 50 I'm afraid):

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
🇰🇷🇰🇷🇰🇷🇰🇷🇰🇷
🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸
🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
🇸🇪🇸🇪🇯🇵🇯🇵🇬🇭🇬🇭🇹🇷🇹🇷
🇦🇴🇦🇺🇨🇩🇨🇱🇪🇬🇫🇷🇮🇲🇮🇳🇲🇾🇳🇦
🇳🇱🇳🇿🇵🇹🇵🇾🇸🇩🇹🇭🇹🇿🇺🇦🇻🇳🇽🇰

And finally, the traditional playlist: open.spotify.com/playlist/3Xp...
November 28, 2025 at 10:16 PM
I should post my #theTwen2ie5 honourable mentions. Well, here's my whole 100 in fact. Almost all of my HMs were already picked by other voters, and several were exciting new discoveries. Thanks all!
November 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Name your top 4 80s films:

Blade Runner [Ridley Scott, 1982]
The Breakfast Club [John Hughes, 1985]
Kiki's Delivery Service [Miyazaki Hayao, 1989]
Twin Peaks [pilot] [David Lynch, 1989]
November 28, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you've been to:

Dave Clarke [Fabric, 2000]
Pulp [Magna, Rotherham, 2002]
Orbital & Doctor Who [Glastonbury, 2010]
Eurovision 2013 [Malmö, Sweden - we stayed in Copenhagen, er, Denmark]
ABBA [London, 2022]
November 28, 2025 at 12:40 AM
The I Feel Love of our times. The sun rising, the speaking in tongues, the emergence from isolation. The times, the places, the world, the future, the now.

✨🌟12 points🌟✨

#theTwen2ie5 #50
"Osama"
Zakes Bantwini, Kasango
Sep 2021 🇿🇦
youtu.be/CNUnzNLEkKA
NK✔️IS✔️
November 25, 2025 at 12:01 AM
I'm in London. You're in Paris. Let's pick a spot with easy access. Like - Marseilles!?

But it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

⭐It really is 11 points long⭐

#theTwen2ie5 #49
"Somewhere near Marseilles [マルセイユ辺り]"
Hikaru Utada
Jan 2022 🇯🇵🇺🇸
youtu.be/_FL7ahAmdp8
NK✔️IS❌
November 24, 2025 at 12:08 AM
Lest anyone thinks I've gone all folksy.

(Wait. What? Ukrainian what? Ukrainian fo-!?)

Now, more than ever, Слава Україні. Героям слава!

⭐11 points⭐

#theTwen2ie5 #48
"Shum [Шум] [Eurovision version]"
Go_A
Mar 2021 🇺🇦
youtu.be/U7-dxzp6Jvs
NK✔️IS✔️
November 23, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Is it the critics' choice because it's long and autobiographical? Dunno, I just know the telling holds my attention so well that I don't notice it's been going on so long.

⭐It's 11 points long⭐

#theTwen2ie5 #47
"All Too Well [10 minute version]"
Taylor Swift
Nov 2021 🇺🇸
youtu.be/tollGa3S0o8
NK✔️IS✔️
November 22, 2025 at 12:03 AM
The ABBA-esque piano and the ohh-oh-ohs tell you it's all about to go wrong, and then the gaslighting begins and the self-recrimination but where could you turn now? May as well keep on for

⭐11 points⭐

#theTwen2ie5 #46
"I Don't Really Care for You"
CMAT [#2]
Feb 2021 🇮🇪
youtu.be/maxmLGDbqBQ
NK✔️IS✔️
November 21, 2025 at 12:45 AM
And yet more of my favourite things!
* Female singers!
* Not in English!
* Gorgeous, glittering electropop!
* People's pop!

#theTwen2ie5 #45
"Meherbaan [मेहरबान]"
Reet Talwar
Feb 2023 🇮🇳
youtu.be/3pro1m-bRJw
NK✔️IS✔️
November 20, 2025 at 12:07 AM
As we enter the final week, I think I still have time for some of my favourite things:
* Female vocals!
* Not in English!
* Techno drone and bass!
* New music (to me)!

#theTwen2ie5 #44
"Everything Blooms Around Her"
Anish Kumar
Sep 2024 🇬🇧
youtu.be/_1DnLzABQGU
NK✔️IS✔️

(Vocal credit in reply!)
November 19, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Terrible mistake leaving my CMAT bonus choice till the end: big vote split, and my pick has... no points. Should I stick it out and split the vote, or twist and promote this slow burner from my HMs? Well... why not both?

#theTwen2ie5 #43
"Nashville"
CMAT
Feb 2022 🇮🇪
youtu.be/fIZsMMbJlCU
NK✔️IS✔️
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 AM
My fave Charli tune, route one banger "Good Ones", has... no points. My fave Billie tune is... wait, wrong decade. Guess we'll have to work it out with a remix.

#theTwen2ie5 #42
"Guess"
Charli XCX feat. Billie Eilish
Aug 2024 🇬🇧🇺🇸
youtu.be/huGd4efgdPA
NK✔️IS✔️
November 17, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Things are getting a bit tactical now. Looking at my favourite Little Simz songs and thinking "Which song do I love... which song do I marry... and which do I... 10 point and kill?"

#theTwen2ie5 #41
"Point and Kill"
Little Simz feat. Obongjayar
Sep 2021 🇬🇧🇳🇬
youtu.be/tvY31eN3gtE
NK✔️IS✔️
November 16, 2025 at 4:07 PM
What's your favourite song about rain?

As a Brit, I feel that I have to reply to this. Though this may not actually be about rain.
November 16, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Sticking with the guitars and the anger/anguish. But I guess this is less post-apocalyptic, and more... Glastonbury headliner.

#theTwen2ie5 #40
"Good 4 U"
Olivia Rodrigo
May 2021 🇺🇸
youtu.be/gNi_6U5Pm_o
NK✔️IS✔️
November 15, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Moving from a banger in a carwash to sticking an old banger in a car crusher. Low are wreaking havoc. Or emotionally wrecked. Why not both?

#theTwen2ie5 #39
"Days Like These"
Low
Jun 2021 🇺🇸
youtu.be/d8QiSZRX8dA
NK✔️IS❌
November 14, 2025 at 7:48 PM
My favourite film at this year's #LFF London Film Festival was the gender-swap trans teen comedy She's the He! (trailer in reply). And this torrential banger reminds me of it, which seems a good reason to pick it.

#theTwen2ie5 #38
"Crying in the Carwash"
ARXX
Mar 2024 🇬🇧
youtu.be/v4_Jr1FGLE8
NK✔️IS✔️
November 14, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Me picking my #theTwen2ie5 top 50:
I know I have good judgment,
I know I have good taste,
It's funny and it's ironic that only I feel that way.

#theTwen2ie5 #37
"Please Please Please"
Sabrina Carpenter
Jun 2024 🇺🇸
youtu.be/cF1Na4AIecM
NK✔️IS✔️
November 13, 2025 at 2:44 PM
And speaking of letting yourself go. Not quite sure what this is - transatlantic desert rock? Earthy techno? Or maybe just a sensuous, spiralling groove, exploding into life like a sunstorm, like a whirlwind.

#theTwen2ie5 #36
"Zaman Zaman"
Santi & Tuğçe
Apr 2022 🇵🇾🇹🇷
youtu.be/S3lbLoX3iDw
NK✔️IS✔️
November 13, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Feeling so woozy, so whispery, just want to crawl away into the dark. Into the dark where you can let yourself go, where you can come back to life. Into the dark, where your other senses are heightened.

#theTwen2ie5 #35
"Lavender"
Biig Piig
Apr 2021 🇮🇪
youtu.be/odsC_PL-538
NK✔️IS✔️
November 12, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Youthful enthusiasm? Same again.
Super shy? Same again.
Adam F!? Same again.

Ditto, ditto, ditto.

"I love you."
"Ditto."

#theTwen2ie5 #34
"Ditto"
NewJeans
Dec 2022 🇰🇷🇦🇺🇻🇳
youtu.be/pSUydWEqKwE
NK✔️IS✔️
November 9, 2025 at 8:06 PM
You're only as young as you feel. And this feels unstoppably rejuvenating.

(Resists temptation to pick the Northern Boys.)

#theTwen2ie5 #33
"The Spark"
Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew
Jun 2024 🇮🇪🇳🇬🇸🇩🇽🇰 + more
youtu.be/njE3EknkkBY
NK✔️IS✔️✔️✔️
November 8, 2025 at 8:54 PM
I wonder if this is a good pick to represent K-pop? It's just so up, up, uplifting, so bright, so shiny.

(I dunno, I may still pick more Korean songs...)

#theTwen2ie5 #32
"Golden"
Huntr/x [Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami]
Jun 2025 🇰🇷
youtu.be/yebNIHKAC4A
NK✔️IS✔️
November 7, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Drifting out of the mist like some kind of Gaeilge TLC, but the waterfalls are drizzle and even on a soft day tá mo shaolsa ar thine, my life is on fire without you.

#theTwen2ie5 #31
"Éad"
IMLÉ, le Róisín Seoighe
Nov 2021 🇮🇪
youtu.be/8Kieb6PAPaI
NK✔️IS✔️
November 6, 2025 at 12:41 AM