Shortlist for Official Charts Pop Gem #54: Sad songs

This week, you’ve been getting us all emotional with your favourite blubfests… but who are you backing?

Every week, we search for Pop Gems – your fave overlooked classics, those top tunes that used to a big deal but have somehow fallen off pop's radar.

This week, our theme was SAD SONGS. We wanted to know which blubsome tracks that give it plenty of boohoo deserved Pop Gem status?

We’ve got to say, it got pretty emotional… Usually we fight like cat and dog over what to pick, but this week, we were crying on each other’s shoulders and talking each other through some quite startling tearful meltdowns. That’s the power of sad songs.

In the end, we whittled all your brilliant suggestions down to this fab final eleven, based on how sad the song was, the potential sadness you would feel listening to it and also how long afterwards you’d feel a bit down in the dumps.

Who are you backing? If you need help making your mind up, check out the video playlist for this week’s shortlist.

ARTIST	TRACK	PEAK POSITION	YEAR
ROBYN	DANCING ON MY OWN	8	2010
DANIEL MERRIWEATHER	RED	5	2009
JAMES MORRISON FT NELLY FURTADO	BROKEN STRINGS	2	2008
DIDO	WHITE FLAG	2	2003
PINK	FAMILY PORTRAIT	11	2002
ZERO 7	DISTRACTIONS	45	2002
BACKSTREET BOYS	SHOW ME THE MEANING OF BEING LONELY	3	2000
JESSICA	HOW WILL I KNOW WHO YOU ARE?	47	1999
NATALIE IMBRUGLIA	SMOKE	5	1998
ROXETTE	LISTEN TO YOUR HEART	6	1990
SOFT CELL	SAY HELLO WAVE GOODBYE	3	1982

Video playlist

Check out all 11 contenders for this week’s ultimate sad song Pop Gem.