Michael Bublé is the second most popular artist in terms of musical selection on Strictly. With Will & Nancy’s Quickstep to “Soda Pop” by Robbie Williams featuring Michael Bublé this coming Saturday, the total number of times his songs (or songs he’s credited on) have been used will reach a whopping 31! Any guesses for who tops the list? Yep no prizes, that would be none other than Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Mr Frank Sinatra with a possibly unbeatable number of 52 accompanying tunes.

MB has appeared as a musical guest on the show at least 5 times (source: Wikipedia and IMDB). Obviously this means he’s made more appearances than some celebrities have managed (Anneka Rice, David Dickinson, Edwina Currie and DJ Spoony to name a few!) In reverse chronological order he performed on the following shows:

Series 16 (2018) Final: ‘Such a Night’ on 15 December 2018

Series 10 (2012) Quarter-Final Results Show: ‘It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas’ on 9 December 2012

Series 5 (2007) Week 1 Results Show: ‘It Had Better Be Tonight (Meglio Stasera)’ on 7 Oct 2007

Series 3 (2005) Week 3 Results Show: ‘Save the Last Dance For Me’ on 29 Oct 2005

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Series 2 (2004) Week 3 Results Show: ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ on 6 Nov 2004 (with Rumba danced by Lilia Kopylova and Darren Bennett)

Perhaps surprisingly, although the American Smooth and Foxtrot dominate the Bublé-backed dances (being particularly well-suited to his crooner style as they are), nine different dances have used his songs. Our infographic below gives the breakdown of these, as well as showing the score or average score (for multiple dances) for each of the nine dances. Scores for the 30 Bublé dances range from 16 (David & Nadiya’s Jive) to 50 (Ricky & Natalie’s Quickstep).

Bublé backed dances and average scores

We wondered if dancing to a Bublé track might give couples a greater chance of leaderboard success – so we looked at the average scores for each dance across the Show as a whole, compared to the scores/average scores for Bublé-backed dances. We found that for 6 out of the 9 types of dance we compared, scores were indeed higher than the average overall for that dance. So getting a Bublé tune to dance to might not be a bad thing even if you’re not a fan of his music.

Bublé dance scores vs the average score

During the 5-year period between Series 5 (2007) and Series 9 (2011), 4 out of 5 Finals included a Bublé-backed dance, making these the golden years of the Bublé-Strictly love-in.

Series 5 (2007) Final: Matt & Flavia danced an American Smooth to ‘For Once in My Life’, scoring 36 (9,9,9,9) and finishing Runners-Up.

Series 7 (2009) Final: Ricky W & Natalie danced a Quickstep to ‘Down With Love’ by Holly Palmer and Michael Bublé, scoring 50 (10,10,10,10,10) and finishing Runners-Up (This was one of only 3 dances in Strictly history to score 50 out of 50 from 5 judges).

Series 8 (2010) Final: Kara & Artem danced an American Smooth to ‘Cry Me A River’, scoring 37 (10,7,10,10) and ending up Winners

Series 9 (2011) Final: Harry & Aliona danced an American Smooth to ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’, scoring 39 (9,10,10,10) and ending up Winners

Although his songs have been used 30 times, the actual number of tracks that have been used is 22, as certain ones have been used twice or a dance was repeated in a Final. Still pretty impressive though!

Dancing With The Stars, the US version of Strictly has gone even further with their Bublé adoration than we have over here; this season of DWTS has included a Bublé-themed week during which couples danced to his songs and were honoured to have their performances scored by the man himself who appeared as a guest judge.

Could this be a future Strictly themed week? Watch this space…

Photo credit: Eva Rinaldi