#bumblebeebillboardhitschallenge

[inziliel]

TheWonderfulShoe’s Bumblebee Billboard Hits Challenge

I don’t know why, giving that I basically never use Tumblr, I decided to do this...but hello from inziliel or TheWonderfulShoe!

I finally watched the movie Bumblebee recently, and I actually thought it was pretty cute and fun. The opening scene blew my mind, honestly, since I somehow managed to avoid basically all spoilers (a miracle!) So, I was chatting with some fantastic people, some of whom write fanfiction or do fanart for the series (some Bumblee!centric, but also those who do general Transformers love or other/mixed continuities), and we were coming up with song ideas to help one of the bunch write.

When I was driving later, a few Beatles songs came on my shuffle, and I randomly had the thought...what if there were a challenge using some Billboard Hits for various years? The Bumblee movie focused on 80s music (though there were some others, too) and previous Bay-verse movies have had some variety, though often well-known ones from which Bee could have taken clips almost anywhere/anytime. Somehow this clicked very suddenly into a decision that I needed to pick 5-10 songs from each Billboard Hits year from 1960-2018 (since Year End 2019 won’t be out yet for a bit) and make some challenge rules...

YOU ARE ALL WELCOME. FOR THE BUMBLEBEE BILLBOARD HITS CHALLENGE YOU NEVER NEEDED OR WANTED HONESTLY.

(So without further ado...)

TheWonderfulShoe’s Bumblebee Billboard Hits Challenge

You must choose 3 years (HARD MODE 5 YEARS, EASY MODE 2 years) from 1960-2018

You may “cherry-pick” these by looking through songs and picking years to have songs you would like (see next bullet)...

Or you can make the challenge more difficult by randomizing the songs. (If your fic takes place at a certain year, you may still count it as randomized if you randomize only up through the year of/year before your fic takes place.)

Each year you use, you must include 3 songs (HARD MODE 5 songs, EASY MODE 2 songs) from the Top 100 End of Year Charts (recommended to use the Top 10 Hits from each year, but any song from Top 100 is allowed), and use at least one clip from each as dialogue.

Simply singing (karaoke or just leisure), or ambient music, will not count as successfully using the source song as a song for that year. (Though of course, you may include as much singing or ambient music as you desire--it’s your work! These songs just won’t count for the challenge!)

Singing or playing the song to somebody (as in singing the words to them, or playing the song to them) to purposefully communicate meaning through the words of the song, can count. (Since this is how Bee generally communicates!)

Limitation: Only 1 song per year chosen (HARD MODE max of only 1 song in the completed work, EASY MODE 1 song per chapter if multi-chapter piece) may be used by somebody other than Bumblebee.

(As a disclaimer, I have no affiliation with any music-y or record-y things or websites. However, to be helpful, a quick search did show me to this page, which seems to have each year’s Top 100. I am also working on my own list, which will hopefully be about 5-10 songs from each year that I thought had some value or sounded fun or whatever other reason just prompted me to list it IDK everybody, it’s chaos in this brain!)

List the songs/artists/years at the end of each chapter (or of the work, if it is a one-shot sort of piece).

OFFICIAL VARIANTS:

No1HitStyle: Rather than using 3 songs from 3 years, pick 9 years (or randomize the years) and specifically use the #1 Hit of the year!

(To help you, the Pop, R&B/Blues, and Country “tops” are listed on this wiki page, apparently.)

BeastMode: For those who truly like suffering...complete the “BEAST MODE” of the challenge by using 5 songs from each year.

As in, every year in the challenge (1960-2018)! Not that you’d be disqualified for doing more--like from the start of Billboard Hits in 1940--or anything...but seriously, TheWonderfulShoe does not endorse that degree of suffering JUST THINK OF THE CHILDREN QQ

If you do this...by all means, please tag #beastmode in it! I would really love to see these!

SummerHitsStyle: Take the songs from the Summer Hits lists for the years!

By all means, recommend a variant for me to put up here, or develop extra or variation rules for yourself! Would love to see some!

Happy writing, everyone...I can’t wait to see some of these!! :D

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a prize for winning this challenge?

Erm, bragging rights? Some idiotTheWonderfulShoe being very impressed with you? But otherwise...well, no. No, there is not.

Why keep the “TWS” you egotistical bas in the name/tag?

When I tried just “BBHC” it was already being used for something popular, or so it claimed. I didn’t want to look or cause tag-confusion awkwardness.

What is wrong wit How did you come up with this craziness, Shoe?

I have long since wonde ...IDK, friend. It just popped into my brain and I couldn’t let it go until I posted it up somewhere.

Aren’t there more questions people ask?

...okay look, it’s still pretty new, but I tried to preempt as many questions as I could, but I was really tired when I put this up.

By all means, feel free to send questions if you have some, and I’ll hopefully update the FAQs if I get asked stuff a lot. (Though I may just respond directly if I can. TBH, IDEK HOW THIS WORKS.)