#480-#476

#480. Holy Holy - How You Been (#100, 2021)

49th of 2021

You might not have noticed because it's been separated by half a week, but I'm going back to back with the last two #100 entries in the list. That's something that visually sticks out just in my spreadsheet but not anywhere else. Then again, you probably come here often, you probably know how this thing works. You know what though? It's been months, so it's time for another graph! It's been so long that I've had to awkwardly teach myself how to do it again, and it was a tedious experience of dodgy charts, and self-referential formulae because I didn't think through my '$' markings. So here you go, the result of 1530 tests on the question of 'How many adjacent double ups should I expect in a randomly ordered list?' This was my beautiful result, and I can tell you that I so far have had 8 double ups myself.

There's another sort of doubling up that I'm interested in here, which is the exclusive list of artists that have managed to land at #100 twice. Officially, it's happened once, with The Cat Empire in 2003 and 2005. On a technicality it's happened three times. Birds of Tokyo share a member with another band, and I'll be talking about both of these songs in the future, and spanning a much wider net, Oscar Dawson managed to do it twice, as a member of Dukes of Windsor and Holy Holy. There are some near misses along with this too, Everything Everything managed #100 and #102. An American rock band of some note got #97, #98 and #100. My favourite is that in addition to The Cat Empire, Harry from the band also got to #101 as a member of Jackson Jackson with "All Alone". This is all something that's incredibly difficult to statistically predict and analyse, so I won't try, but if we count these technicalities, it just has to be shooting over expected value (to say nothing of how many double talk band names I just mentioned). I do suspect in the other two cases, there was probably some voter crossover, but I wonder just how many people voted for both "It's A War" and "How You Been". Did they even know what they were concocting?

For me, I think of "How You Been" as the immediate reality check, and the biggest sign for how much the voting patterns changed in such a short time. I'd go through the voting list and try to pick out the songs I felt were likely to make it into the final list, and when I got to this one, it felt like a no-brainer. It just sounded like a hit, and was the most popular song by a band who were starting to rack up entries. On some level I was still right, but I didn't expect it to only barely get over the line, and actually get beaten by another single (#516). Maybe that's just the way of the voting working like it should for this, a pleasant but not outstanding song. On the other hand, that was a frequent feeling I had for Holy Holy, so I'm not sure how this one dropped the ball. Maybe they were just at the end of their imperial phase and it didn't matter what they put out.

"How You Been" is a good one though. It won't sound massively surprising, but it's a reminder that the cogs are all still working. Something I think they do very well is building so subtly that you don't notice how far you've come. There's a bit of DNA from The Temper Trap's "Sweet Disposition" in this I guess. All those long, drawn out vocal lines when the music is at its most intense.

#479. alt-J - Every Other Freckle (#14, 2014)

50th of 2014

I relish these moments. Often times in an album campaign you can see signposts for what is supposed to be the hit song. It's the one that gets the big announcement, it's the one that likely gets the push on US radio, and it's just the one that feels the most conventional. This can get the public leaning that way as well, but it isn't always immediate. That instinctive feeling of 'I like this one more' can potentially get a head start. I don't think there's any argument to be made that this is a more popular song than "Left Hand Free" (#936), but for that fleeting moment in 2014, things weren't set in place. This peculiar 3rd single was the highest polling alt-J song in 2014, and their best finish ever outside of the song "Breezeblocks" in 2012.

I don't remember being surprised when this happened at the time, it just was the more popular song at the time. Unpacking how or why that was the case can't really be done, but it felt right. If anything, at the time this was the conventional single, only by the terms that we'd gotten used to alt-J's schtick, and this song leans into it pretty heavily. Quirky if occasionally disturbing lyrics, big overbearing bass, and quirky vocal overdubs. It's an alt-J song, alright.

It's probably also just the best mission statement for the album. The start of it is a distant siren call that feels ominous, and it's the kind of sound that's all over "This Is All Yours". Only difference is that this one leans into the poppiness a bit more clearly, vocal runs & drum snaps very reminiscent of the "Breezeblocks" success that made them so big in the first place. They're allowed to get weird again in the middle of the song with a vocal equivalent of a flute solo, which sounds like it should be soundtracking a medieval period piece.

For me, I've always been drawn in by the title lyric strangely enough. It's not a sentence I'd ever imagine a need for, but the monotonous delivery of multiple disyllabic words in a row just works as an effective rhythm. Come on, say it to the tune of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme with me!

#478. Queens of the Stone Age - The Way You Used to Do (#87, 2017)

45th of 2017

Though it doesn't always feel like it, the music industry moves very quickly. What might get grouped up in hindsight as a decade of certain sounds & ideas is usually a wildly varying expanse that starts and ends in very different places. Maybe it's self-fulfilling, but you can listen to something and pinpoint a release year not just on remembering it specifically, but because you know in your heart the era that it fits in. You can look back at any decade in music and find that a hit from a year ending in 3 just wouldn't work in the following year ending in 6, or vice versa.

What we've seen in the last decade or so is a hyper acceleration of career trajectories. There's a strong correlation between being one of the most popular artists around and also never taking an extensive break. You don't want to end up out of sight, out of mind for too long or everyone will realise that they can get through just fine without you.

I look at the charts of today and it's constantly reinforcing this. Taylor Swift & Drake are likely to figure somewhere, while the most successful newcomers are the ones that feel like they're on a carefully curated path to never go too long without something to buzz about. For the artists who do take a few years between albums, it feels less reliable. The Weeknd still gets hits but they tend to feel like flukes rather than the expectation. Dua Lipa & Lewis Capaldi stock fell off dramatically after they took a couple of years off. Even one of the biggest stars of the 21st Century, Justin Bieber, is doing well with his new material, but it's all concentrated on a small handful of songs so the cracks are showing. His last album stayed in the top 20 for over a year, whereas the follow up is down to #20 in its 5th week, and that's with new chart rules helping it up. A lot of current day streaming is being driven by people who haven't been doing it for long enough to remember those big Justin Bieber album roll outs, so it's just not part of their vocabulary.

I liken this to my own experience with getting back into music in the mid-2000s. For a couple of years, I'd see new albums from artists that weren't new to most people, but were new to me, and so I'd have to try and latch onto these artists without that context. I thought Interpol were decent, but I hadn't heard a note of "Turn On The Bright Lights" so I wasn't going to be as enamoured about them. Queens of the Stone Age might just be lucky that I happened to tune into them with the song "Sick, Sick, Sick", so there was a lot of good will and I didn't even need to know about "Songs For The Deaf".

When I last wrote about Queens of the Stone Age, it was regarding their 2013 album "...Like Clockwork", a mid-career revival that was uncharacteristically successful, which is why it's also the album I'll have to bring up a couple more times. It's not something that's easy to sustain though, and while Queens of the Stone Age remained successful, time has been catching up, and their tendency to only release a new album every 4-5 years means they no longer feel like part of the conversation. What we've got here is the last burst to fluke another appearance, and I've rarely felt surer that it'd be the last time an artist would appear.

When it comes to "The Way We Used to Do", it occupies an interesting space for me as a single made for crossover that isn't really catering to the fanbase. I find it curious because this kind of thing often does work, and I think that if Queens of the Stone Age released a more conventional hard rock or stoner rock single as the lead, it probably wouldn't have polled at all. This is a band that had been around for over 20 years successfully managing to appeal to the kids.

This was definitely a deliberate decision at the time. The noteworthy attribute of their 7th album "Villains" is that they hired a super-producer to go behind the helm this time around. That producer is someone I can't name yet, but the big hint is to say that he's the main person behind what was probably the biggest hit song released between those two 2010s QOTSA albums. It's hard to fully appreciate what he's doing on this album because it doesn't sound much like his usual affair, but the album we've got is considerably more groove driven than I'm used to. Even the more brooding songs on the album like "The Evil Has Landed" have shades of this lighter sound. Nothing stands out more than this one though.

I wouldn't call this a complete departure for the band (though they did have a new drummer for this album, Jon Theodore). The pace and rhythm of this song recall the band's biggest hit "No One Knows", it just swaps out the menace for a bit more fun. It's something that took a bit of growing for me to get on board with. It's difficult to get used to a band and what they offer on an irregular basis, only to get something else that you feel like you could have gotten elsewhere. I felt better served with other tracks on the album but this was still pretty fun.

#477. Violent Soho - No Shade (#73, 2016)

51st of 2016

Something I like about the big 2016 haul for Violent Soho is the way that you can gradually scan up the list and see closer semblances of mass appeal for them. Most of the time you can clearly see the gap between the 1-3 big hitters, and then the leftovers of intrigue that aren't necessarily unpopular, but they're riding on the wave. It's one of the most tangible ways that a countdown can feel like it's upping the ante as it goes along. We're just building to the Violent Soho main events.

Sometimes I have trouble understanding lyrics, I'll look it up and realise that the real ones make a lot more sense than the jumble of words I put together as if I were lip-reading by ear. After all, why would Violent Soho start talking about 'pearly gates'...wait actually those are the real lyrics. Apparently they can say what they want and I don't have a problem hearing it.

Out of all of Violent Soho's entries, this is the only one that doesn't say either its title, or some close enough variation on it. I guess the word 'no' shows up a few times but I don't find that as easy to call to mind as the other examples that'll continue to show. It just means that every time I do click play on this song, I don't fully remember what I'm about to get into, and I get a pleasant surprise as it starts to click into place. I'd never vote for it, but I'm glad it can file into the creamy middles of choice cuts.

#476. The Rubens - Masterpiece (#38, 2021)

48th of 2021

I do sometimes suspect that getting that one hit song that's bigger than anyone could have planned for can have the negative effect of putting a band's whole career in its shadow. Maybe to you, Little Red is a one hit wonder for their song "Rock It", but I found them to be inescapable years before that song even came out, and their debut album from 2008 is filled with potential hits from a band still finding their footing. It's another way time manages to sand over the edges and simplify everything.

It feels possible that this is a fate that awaits The Rubens as well. They've had 9 Hottest 100 entries, a span of hits covering as many years as Silverchair or Powderfinger. Certainly, they've done more than most could dream of. They're also the "Hoops" (#895) band, their dealings with Lucy got them a Hottest 100 victory, but at what cost?

There probably wasn't a cost really. In the back of my mind, I think of the years that followed that victory, and how it seemed they were cursed afterwards. Barely surviving off loose hits here and there, but then also not even necessarily capitalising on those. They were still polling in these lists, but there's a period from 2019 to 2023 when they were having just rotten luck. In that space of time, they just barely missed the list 3 times, landing at #105 in 2019, #105 again in 2020, and #104 in 2023. That first miss is especially noteworthy as it's their song "Live In Life". Thanks to a very aggressive streaming push at the time, this song spent 23 weeks in the ARIA top 50, a longer tenure than "Hoops", which got two cracks at it. It's comfortably their second biggest hit, and the only reason it probably didn't make the Hottest 100 is because all of that success happened in 2020 after the die was already cast.

When it looked like they were without a paddle, "Masterpiece" came along and polled quite comfortably. They reverted back to missing the poll again after that, but with that in mind, I find their polling in 2024 to be the most impressive part of it. Australian artists are struggling to land on the list at all, but here comes The Rubens to hang out again as if nothing ever happened.

"Masterpiece" made the most sense to me at the time because it felt like a noticeable step up from what they'd been doing for a while. I'm not sure how many other naysayers it may have managed to sway, but for me this is one that clicked instantly. Maybe I'm just susceptible to suggestion. "Masterpiece", it's a masterpiece. Perfect, awesome, right? The chorus just flows really nicely. Good steady rhythm to imply some tension, it pairs well with the idea of being 'on the ruunnnnnnnn'. It's as far as I'm taking them here, but that's only because "My Gun" missed the timing cut off. No misfires over the years could ever get me mad at that one.

#485-#481

 #485. The Wombats - If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming With You (#32, 2021)

51st of 2021

It does feel like an endless cavalcade of songs by The Wombats when they're well past the expected expiration date. You tend to get used to it, but you also wonder what it's like to be in that universe where they're still an exciting part of the zeitgeist. It's actually surprisingly easy to do that for me because I am part of the situation. They've remained with me this whole time, and 2021 is actually one of the years I've spent the most time listening to them.

It's all part of my usual process. I wasn't seeking out The Wombats, but I did my weekly listening session for new music, and The Wombats just left a good impression on me. The lead single they put out in particular, "Method to the Madness". It'll come back again because there's a certain recent Ball Park Music song that did something similar, but it's a song that had me re-assessing what The Wombats were capable of. I wasn't obsessed with the song or anything but I respected it a lot.

That was just the prelude though, because on the other side of this song I'm supposed to be talking about was the 3rd single "Ready For The High", and while I wouldn't call it ambitious in the same way, it felt like quintessential Wombats. A little rough around the edges but with the confidence to lean into power pop dramatics. They just kill it with all the little transitions and it's a very special song to me that I completely imagine registers nothing to most people.

Listening to the full album that all this comes from has me thinking about a weird mental poisoning that can occur from listening to too much music. What I mean by that is that you can get so obsessed with catching those undeniable moments that you rubbish anything else. There's a version of me who used to listen to dozens of new albums a year and I suspect from that, I'd be more underwhelmed by this album. While it's not without those charming moments, you're mostly getting what you expect, and on what is not a great night for me, it's oddly what I'm after. Maybe they're a little too into this idea of putting contradictory terms together in their song titles, or just over-stimulating ones. I don't dislike it on principle but it's basically every second song here, including this one.

Taken on its own terms though, I'll get behind this one. It feels like very old school Wombats, which might be a good thing because it means that the guys who wrote "Moving To New York" and "Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)" can't possibly sue them. It's just a nice bit of fun with a lot of energy. Shout out to the random shout out, though unlike with the Drake one, I can't say who it is yet.

#484. RÜFÜS DU SOL - Next to Me (#25, 2021)

50th of 2021

Forget "When I Dream" (#492), here's your "Runaway". It's an octave lower, but they're hitting that E note with no shame at all. What I wouldn't do to hear Tyrone's take on it, tell me how he isn't really coming alive tonight (#693), or how he knows there's no place he'd rather be (#541) and that you need to maintain the greatest possible distance from it. Then Jon jumps in with an incredibly hedonistic verse for contrast, and they just play all 9 minutes of "Innerbloom" through a pitch shifter. Critics are saying it's the best thing this side of Ariel Pink.

This is our first taste of RÜFÜS DU SOL's 4th album "Surrender". When you look at all the stats we've got here, it feels almost like a triumphant comeback for the band. Arguably their best Hottest 100 haul, and it performed considerably better on the ARIA Chart than its predecessor. This song landed at #25 and it's the lowest of their entries, from a band who often struggles to crack the top 20 on a good day.

One of the more trifling bits of information we've lost ever since the ARIA Charts changed a couple of months ago is an inability to check in on the RÜFÜS DU SOL pecking order on any given week. It's a peculiar sorting, one that surprisingly has tended to put "Solace" ahead of the rest, despite being the aforementioned dip in success at the time. Just a reminder I suppose that you can't really measure an album's impact until it's been several years, it's no longer the artist's latest album and people are still listening to it constantly. "Surrender" actually lands right near the back of the pack despite having one of their biggest recurring hits, a song I'll cover one day.

I don't want to wear out all my "Surrender" content now because we've got to take two more trips to the well, but "Next to Me" has never been my pick of the litter. That's more credit to the other singles though. I think they tapped into something special in general, and it does help "Next to Me" a little bit too. You know how it is. The first single is good, it primes you into liking the one that came after, whereas if you didn't like the first one, you're less likely to even bother trying it. "Next to Me" has some very nice friends.

#483. The Jungle Giants - Feel the Way I Do (#16, 2017)

46th of 2017

Before I go to a live show, I like to do my research. I don't usually look up setlists, but try to take a stab at guessing what might come up and familiarising myself. It's a lot more fun to recognise songs rather than just hear them for the first time in that setting. After this album came out, I got a chance to see The Jungle Giants for free, so I was well on board even though I didn't really listen to them much. I listened to the new album in advance, so it worked out. All things considered, it was a pretty good time, and it probably helped me appreciate all of these "Quiet Ferocity" hits that I've been slowly getting through. Nothing could prepare me for the biggest shock of all.

I'm convinced this was the first time Sam revealed he had gone bald. It's a look he's been rocking ever since and it's working but I remember looking afterwards at all the band's press photos and he had spent basically all of that album cycle wearing hats, so I'm not sure how long he'd had it like that. It was amusing when I was looking up live videos for the last entry to see how many people have drawn attention to it, and the fact that he now looks unmistakably like Broden from Aunty Donna, just with a very different voice (discovering that they've done a panel together made me smile). I respect the look, and I always think of iconic bald frontmen like Michael Stipe or Billy Corgan, singers who had hair at the peak of their fame. Technically on numbers, this isn't quite the case for The Jungle Giants, but it's remarkable how different he used to look.

At last we've made it to the main event. Not for this list, there will be more opportunities for this band still, but this was the obvious single from "Quiet Ferocity" that stormed way ahead of the pack. At the time it almost felt too obvious for me. It's hard to explain but sometimes you get songs that so clearly sign-post their appealing parts that you can never grab onto it. It's when you've done everything right but it's not clicking. That might just be a sign of being disinterested on principle, maybe I was growing up and not super convinced that this band needed a second wind in their career. Seeing them live earned a lot of respect from me, so I'm getting more behind it. While the entries still to come will show that I probably prefer it the other way, it is nice in this moment to hear a song where they feel like a proper band.

#482. Hayden James & NAATIONS - Nowhere to Go (#74, 2019)

41st of 2019

I don't know what I've got for you. We're back with Hayden James again. I don't have any particular anecdote associated with this song, I think it sounds like some other songs he'd put out before this one, but different enough to give it some credibility to stand on. But what do you do here, we've got nowhere to go, but it doesn't matter. At the very least it hasn't stopped me before.

I guess I should highlight NAATIONS. They're the most interesting piece of the puzzle because of how much backstory there is. They're an Australian duo fronted by Nat Dunn. That might not be a familiar name, but she's been in the music industry for decades, scoring a top 40 hit in Australia called "Whatever" under the name Tali. It's so small scale in that era that even I don't remember hearing it growing up. I think I slightly prefer her follow up "Don't Be Sorry", a #85 smash. After that, she's been making a name for herself as a songwriter with a surprising list of artists she's written for: Chris Brown, Tiësto, Kygo, Charli XCX and BLACKPINK. The one particularly noteworthy song she worked on was "FRIENDS" by Marshmello & Anne-Marie.

The duo's other member is Nick Routledge, also known as Nicky Night Time. We've already had Touch Sensitive in this list and now he's the second member of Van She we're dealing with. The eponymous Matt Van Schie from Van She hasn't released any music for about 7 years now and seems to be working in IT now. The band's drummer Tomek Archer appears to believe in a twisted form of nominative determinism as he's now apparently an award winning architect. Nicky Night Time has been fairly successful on his own, even scoring a nomination one year in ARIA's tough to crack Best Dance Release category, but he's done even better working as NAATIONS. The duo had a top 40 hit in the UK back in 2017 with Duke Dumont & Gorgon City called "Real Life". I always thought Nat sounded a bit like Carly Rae Jepsen on that song, but it might be because she also had a song out at the time I was listening to. I guess they're both singers who are quite a bit older than you'd think if you never looked into it.

Just to highlight how hard it is to make that ARIA nomination list, even Hayden James has only been nominated for it twice, and both times early in his career, with "Just a Lover" and "Something About You" (#604). This song didn't get anything, although the album it's from, "Between Us", did get him to the higher echelon of Best Male nominations, in the second to last year before it was discontinued.

Nat & Nicky are both credited as songwriters here, and if Hayden James' background story on this is to be believed, then this song is genuinely the work of both of them. I'm not sure Nicky actually plays on it. It's possible Hayden James made it himself (alongside Cassian who also silently co-produced the whole album) outside of the NAATIONS top line on the song. It's nice to know that unlike Hayden James' birthday, there are some things we can trust. It's a good top line too, I love a well-executed running of two different but busy melodies over each other, and this has a great one. I promise I haven't been diagnosed for ADHD yet.

#481. Fred again.. (feat 070 Shake) - Danielle (smile on my face) (#100, 2022)

48th of 2022

Fred for the first time actually. For once I get to start from the right place as well. OK technically that's not true either, because Fred again.. has released many singles before this one, including some that polled. This was his first Hottest 100 appearance with one of his slightly less notable singles, the kind that always immediately lets you know that he's about to go crazy on this list. This is in fact what happened, and though my telling of this story cuts off right as it's about to keep on going, it's fair to say that he's taking up an annual residency on the Hottest 100, the kind that'd sell out within minutes of this post going live. How foolish you were to read everything in order and not immediately scan for Fred. How foolish I was just then to try and finish a sentence with his stage name, I'll have to avoid that going forward.

Make no mistake when I say we're entering the career of one of the most in-demand producers in the world right now. Fred again.. is so popular that he basically runs two seemingly unrelated careers at once that are monstrously huge with two audiences that don't feel like they have much to do with each other. By the time this first Hottest 100 entry rolled around, he'd produced 8 UK #1 singles, most of them with Ed Sheeran. Before that he'd already knocked himself off #1, when Clean Bandit's "Solo" was replaced by George Ezra's "Shotgun".

I'd say that his covert pop career might be slowing down. He worked on the title track to P!nk's "Trustfall" album in 2023, but hasn't really had a major hit since then...probably. In 2021 the little known artist Rain Radio had a hit song with "Talk About", a song that works wonders with Nelly Furtado's 2012 single "Big Hoops (Bigger the Better)". This song has credited songwriters including the seemingly non-existent Robbie Yates, and the mysteriously named Yjneb Nösbig, which is not a massive leap to connect to Fred's brother Benjy. Thus we enter the Devil's Proof. It is only potentially possible to prove the existence of a secretly Fred again.. song if we find it, but we can never be sure another one doesn't exist.

This particular song is the first of a couple of songs that will show up here by Fred again.. under the naming convention of 'Singer's First Name (the real title)', something he's done many times at this point. He has an inconsistent run when it comes to crediting actual artists so it's not always immediately obvious who it is. I don't want to attribute clickbait virtues but it is funny to me that one of his most successful early singles is "Billie (loving arms)", a song that of course samples Billie Ray Martin. It's cute I guess, and it means I'll never forget 070 Shake's real name, which I'm not sure I'd even known at this point.

I have been listening to 070 Shake for quite a while now. The main reason for this being another song on this list that she'll appear on, but she won't be credited on. You might not be shocked to know who's responsible for that, and it's not Travis Scott. I can probably distil those virtues in the future though, just know the short answer that I think she's very good, though a little more anonymous on this one.

I'm glad she gets a run though, it just feels like Fred again..'s least convincing hit here. Not a surprise it landed way down at #100, but then he'd missed the countdown the year earlier with "Marea (we've lost dancing)", and it's a sure sign that he's utilising a much higher profile. It's how I see his success at present anyway, both on the Hottest 100 and in the charts. As far as incredibly popular music goes, he's the artist who feels the least tied to conventions and is able to get away with it. Later singles like "Rumble", "leavemealone" and "Victory Lap" just don't at all mesh with the chart heights they're seeing. It's the sort of rule defying that I just love to see. There's the thought that I could one day open up the new Spotify chart and he's all the way at #1 with another one of these unusual tunes.

"Danielle (smile on my face)" is a solid entry point here. The main loop that runs through most of it is easy to get locked into, and I like the way that the general tone of it feels like it's reacting to the vocal runs. It makes it feel less like two random things slapped together (the vocals come from 070 Shake's own song "Nice To Have", she didn't write this with Fred). I suppose the thing I enjoy the most here is after a whole decade of pop and dance being interchanged only on branding, it's dance music that just sounds like dance music.

#490-#486

#490. Dustin Tebbutt - The Breach (#44, 2013)

57th of 2013

I'm still not sure it can be properly calculated just how much of an impact Bon Iver has made on music. Recently there was a lot of talk about Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and the song "Home", proof of the song's notoriety in the bigger picture. It was derided by many for self-evident Marmite qualities, as well as being a progenitor for a lot of similar music to come after. It's one of those fascinating things that hits you after the fact that part of your visceral reaction to a seemingly tame song in hindsight comes from it breaking ground in some way. I will not be offering any opinions on the song "Home" in 2025, just a small brainwave to say that before Alabama, Arkansas, there was North Carolina, Wisconsin, and just one guy in the woods about to make a huge impact.

I'm just now learning that while Bon Iver's debut album is in part inspired by the angst of a breakup, the titular Emma is not that person, but rather an encapsulation of Justin Vernon's own state of mind. The album was another one of those things that the charts can't possibly do justice to, because it lacked the traditional pipeline of a major label release and couldn't thrive off a big debut. It lives on modest chart positions everywhere, but Platinum sales in Australia, the UK & the US. Another album whose most visible impact was shown at the time on the Hottest 100, when the single "Skinny Love" landed at #21 in 2008, and 6 months later, #92 for the Hottest 100 of All Time. It starts to make a little more sense how drastically successful the cover version by Birdy was in 2012. I'd love it if ARIA could update the certifications on the original version because Birdy's cover went 11xPlatinum last year and we've got nothing for Bon Iver. The two versions hold surprisingly close figures on Spotify to this day, so I wouldn't be surprised if Australia could get the original to around 10xPlatinum now. We as a country probably are a little more invested at this point.

I actually don't get to talk about Bon Iver in the capacity of an entry for this blog, as they haven't appeared in the Hottest 100 since 2011. It's not for lack of trying, as they tend to figure somewhere whenever there's an album release. Closest they got was "33 "GOD"" landing at #102 in 2016. Learn to share, Violent Soho. Or maybe Flume is to blame, sharing his name with a Bon Iver song, but inadvertently keeping them out of the list.

The impact of Bon Iver thrives, nonetheless. When I listen to music in the vacuum that is my own room, it can be easy to forget just how far reaching it all is. Furthermore, I think of all the things that have inspired me in my life and realise that it's absolutely how things pan out for musicians. I'm absolutely positive that careers have been forged by Bon Iver because right now I'm reading Dustin Tebbutt's love letter to "For Emma, Forever Ago"

This is perhaps one of the least surprising things I've discovered. The moment you hit play on "The Breach" and hear Dustin Tebbutt's soft falsetto vocals, I can't imagine anything else is coming to mind. It's interesting to read in the article that while I've connected them on a superficial basis, when Dustin speaks about the record, he admires it for the less tangible parts, such as the DIY production and the lyrical approach. Maybe once you're so engrossed into an album and start making music of your own, it shouldn't be surprising that it's going to come out sounding a little similar.

Over time I've become more observant of the probably obvious observation that more famous musicians tend to attract more listeners in perpetuity. The hurdle of 'Most people haven't heard of this artist' is an absolutely vicious glass ceiling that many are unable to get past. So when you get an artist like this who is so obviously cribbing from another artist, but on some level managing to get more success with it (in addition to appearing here, "The Breach" charted higher on the ARIA Chart than any lead Bon Iver track), it's worth considering what they did to accomplish that. The obvious answer to this is that "The Breach" is a catchy tune that's more immediately accessible than even Bon Iver's biggest hits. Much like Lewis Capaldi releasing his debut album right around when Ed Sheeran was collaborating with big rap stars, this is the answer to the question of 'What if Bon Iver just stayed permanently within the lane of the debut album, rather than the more ambitious sounds they started to explore afterwards. I always think there's room for both, and "The Breach" excels in this department, very nicely produced little song.

#489. Hilltop Hoods - Walking Under Stars (#57, 2014)

52nd of 2014

If it wasn't obvious, I'm an advocate for the little guy. This can be in both the direct and abstract sense. The little guy exists both as the musician who doesn't have all those lucrative marketing advantages and hordes of fans to do their bidding, but it can also exist within that opposite lens. After all, how often do you ever see anyone going to bat for the runoffs of the hugely successful artists, where it feels like they're just exerting their popularity to take up space away from more deserving acts. Hit songs whose only purpose seems to be for padding stats. They can be the most loathsome subject because you just get the feeling that no lesser known artist could possibly see a fraction of the success with the same (or more) drive. This is the entry where I write more words than nearly anyone has ever written about Hilltop Hoods' "Walking Under Stars".

Perhaps what I just said shouldn't even apply to Hilltop Hoods. Once you reconfigure the parameters of massive success to just one country of 27 million, you lose some of that potential buffer that global success provides. In the previous paragraph, I considered citing "boyfriend" by Ariana Grande & Social House, a successful song that vanished from nearly every global chart in the space of a few months. That song probably occupies this slot for many pop music fans. People who will be here for Ariana Grande when she's providing smash hits like "thank u, next" or "no tears left to cry", but get frustrated when she just waltzes in on name power to score a global top 10 hit that's quickly discarded and only cited as a statistic in the future, something for Ariana Grande fans to gloat about. It's the kind of hit song many can only dream about, but for the artist in question, one that probably wouldn't even make the Greatest Hits compilation.

I like "boyfriend" quite a bit. I'd say it's severely underrated, but I'd be ignoring the reality of the situation. Though the ceiling for Ariana Grande is quite a bit higher, it's still a massive hit. There's no shortage of people who'd be ready to defend it, should the opportunity arise. It still feels underrated within its own context, but for the bigger picture, it really isn't. That's where you get a "Walking Under Stars". This is a popular enough song that I'm talking about it! I've also never seen anyone talk about it in any context that isn't akin to 'oh, it's just that other Hilltop Hoods song that made the Hottest 100 in 2014'. The YouTube comments are pretty positive, but there are only about 20 of them. The last.fm shouts are pretty positive, but I only saw two of them. I know Hilltop Hoods are popular, I've seen the charts, but I can't really say I've seen any defence or reverence for them higher than my distant take. When that's the ecosystem you witness, this can't help but feel underrated. It's the same mindset where it's a bold stance to say "Ordinary" by Alex Warren is anything other than terrible, and that's the most popular song of the year!

If there's anything I want anyone reading this blog to get out of it, it's to be able to see that these different perspectives exist. Not just that though, to actually give them the respect they deserve. It takes a lot to see a remarkably dissenting yet frivolous opinion and not mentally discredit it for being outside of your own world of thinking. It's something I struggle with sometimes, but I truly think that the most wonderful thing about music is the way that we can all go into it seeking and being rewarded by completely different experiences, and the sooner that stops being a warzone, the better. Anyway, back to Hilltop Hoods.

I started listening to triple j in late 2006. By all accounts, it could've been a more severe situation, but I got there right around Ausmusic Month and J Award season. All you need to know there is that Hilltop Hoods won Album Of The Year for "The Hard Road", and it's a tough thing to get used to when you're still at the starting line. Had I heard any Australian hip-hop before that point? I can't imagine so, but here it was being praised at one outlet, while endlessly discredited whenever I got away from that echo chamber. I leant into the temptation and was one of those people who also was just not picking up what the Hoods were putting down.

I don't think that time is a guaranteed elixir. There are plenty of songs on the 2006 Hottest 100 that I've not grown any fonder of 19 years later. There aren't really any I'd say I actively dislike (it's a good list), but there can be a limit to how far the adoration can go. Hilltop Hoods are the main character of that list with 5 entries, and they're also the main character of my own personal experience growing up with that list. If I had to pick the 10 songs that have grown on me the most in this time from that list, at least 4 Hilltop Hoods songs would make the cut, and I reckon they'd have the top two locked up with "The Hard Road" and "Stopping All Stations". Seriously, that whole album has aged tremendously well, or maybe given the accolades, it was always good and I was too slow to realise.

My experience is anything but universal. I'm not sure what the initial catalyst is, but if you're a fan of early Hilltop Hoods, you're not being fed and nobody seems to care. It is important to note that Hilltop Hoods had their first big crossover hit in 2009 with "Chase That Feeling", an ARIA top 10 hit. They'd get plenty more over the next decade. Through this perspective, there isn't anything surprising, but most artists with belated breakthroughs always have catalogues of hits that weren't. It's a self-correcting outcome that tends to happen when the earlier albums are more critically acclaimed. For Hilltop Hoods, this only manifests itself through "The Nosebleed Section", a song I can't even say belongs in that group anymore because it's technically the group's most recent top 40 hit. It was an eye-opening experience in late 2023 when the group quietly released "The Highlights", effectively just a streaming playlist, but one that lived out that version of events. The collection contains only one song before "Chase That Feeling", and you know which one it is. This era when Hilltop Hoods were winning awards, scoring the first ever Australian hip-hop #1 album was just discarded. It seemed crazy to me, but the streaming numbers checked out. These songs that initially tormented me but eventually warmed up were just not really getting streamed. Not just that, but clicking through the year by year stats on setlist.fm makes for a sad experience when you see songs seemingly retired over time. There are gaps in the cataloguing, but "The Hard Road" went from being an expected staple to not having been played live after 2019, that song is the lucky one that didn't disappear years earlier. It's just such a shame to see what's become such an integral part of my musical journey be slowly written out of living history.

That's a heck of a preamble for "Walking Under Stars", I'll admit. The reason it all comes to mind is that when I went to make this list, I'd see this song and think of it in that same reductive sense, 'Oh yeah, that's a perfectly cromulent song, but I obviously prefer the other one'. By the time it caught my eye more closely for ranking this list, my mini drama about the state of the popular perception about Hilltop Hoods was fresh in my mind. Listening to this song, something clicked in me. It's not just the most perfunctory Hilltop Hoods song you've ever heard, it's one that's remarkably well made. A rare entry in what I guess has to be considered the modern Hilltop Hoods era that genuinely feels like something they could've made a decade earlier. Debris & Suffa (I don't know how they split the workflow) don't get nearly enough credit for how well they flip samples, on par with the international influences they clearly admire. This particular song was actually produced by One Above, and I'm not certain there even is a sample here, but it feels no different to me. Aside from all that it's just some of the tightest rapping I've heard from them. There's a very satisfying metronome pace to the flow that really solidified to me that this is an absolutely worthwhile inclusion.

#488. DOPE LEMON - Uptown Folks (#87, 2016)

52nd of 2016

If you spend too long looking at music charts and hanging around with people who also look at music charts, you're bound to develop some strange habits. Inevitably, you're going to get very accustomed to seeing and typing out the names of some songs and artists over and over again. I've refrained from doing it here, but when I was in the need to rely on quick shorthand, nearly every song of note would get shortened to an acronym. You only need a little bit of context after that, so you know whether SIO is "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift, "Shake It Out" by Florence + The Machine, or "Set It Off" by Timomatic.

Sometimes I'm able to step back from all this and recognise how strange it is, but the part that's difficult to divorce from is the additional sense you have when you see a title, or hear a song, and instantly think about how popular it is, or how it did on the charts. There are some songs that are so popular that probably everyone gets that mindset to an extent, things like "Macarena" or "Gangnam Style". I'm always wondering what it's like if you don't know those chart stats, how you can distinguish the mega-hit from the not-so-popular song that just happened to get put in front of you a lot. It's a great way to get a leg-up in some trivia settings. Imagine you have to name all of Cold Chisel's top 10 hits and you're the brave soul assuring your teammates that "Khe Sanh" and "Flame Trees" are both incorrect.

I suppose the litmus test for all of this is one you can answer yourself, depending on your chart knowledge. When you saw the title of this song, "Uptown Folks", did anything prick up in your mind? An intent to make sure you read it correctly, or just the odd feeling that it sounds strangely familiar? I suppose the only answer is whatever Angus Stone thinks about this. There is a monstrously popular hit song with a very similar title to this, which will eventually appear on this list. Is this entirely done in jest, something he didn't even think about, or somewhere in the middle? There was a bit of discussion about this at the time but I don't think he's ever made a comment about it himself, probably the best move, keep 'em guessing.

If that big song is about excess and glamour, then this song could hardly be more different. A much more low key affair about abandoning that luxury and enjoying the patch of life that's right in front of you, like your garden if you have one. Maybe it's a bit much coming from one of the most successful musicians in Australia, but at least he doesn't force the idealism too strongly. It's a DOPE LEMON song, it's gonna be a chilled out affair.

I always found myself drawn to this particular one as a highlight. While other DOPE LEMON songs I've spoken about before have drifted around in a lot of empty space, "Uptown Folks" is anchored more strongly with a tidy guitar riff that keeps coming around. The bridge is also a highlight, a little drawn out, but doesn't feel out of place. Angus gets to put a bit more intensity into his delivery, and we're greeted with the fascinating alternate universe where he leans heavily into psychedelic rock. It pays off very well, indeed.

#487. Andy Bull - Talk Too Much (#61, 2014)

51st of 2014

Obviously a song I relate to, sometimes. Depending on the circumstance, I'm either talking far too much or not at all. Hard to find that middle ground. If you've ever encountered someone doing either of these two things, I can almost guarantee they're aware of it. It's just one of those tough things to balance. Imagine keeping track of a conversation and your own meta-contribution to it (as well as potentially your surroundings) all in real time. It's absolutely exhausting. I try to give anyone the benefit of the doubt as long as they're not being hostile.

The trajectory of Andy Bull is one that highlights the frustrating reality of the recording artist. With very few exceptions, if you want to keep up your momentum, you're not ever allowed to stop. You're destined to be gradually forgotten about, maybe filed away as an occasional 'hey, remember them?', but there's no interest in keeping up with the developing story. No matter what else you have to do or say in your life, to the general public, you're solved. Your career is now destined to be summed up in progressively fewer sentences.

I see this with Andy Bull because I see an artist who was thriving on a hot streak. He was signed to a major label and starting to see real dividends, this is the 3rd song of his I'm covering, and they're all on the same album. If he kept this up, nothing suggests to me that he couldn't have secured more hits for years to come. If you've ever wondered what happened to Andy Bull after this, the simple answer is that he just stopped making music. His next single wouldn't arrive until 2020, and the subsequent album was in 2022. You've probably not listened to that album because not a lot of people have, at least compared to his previous one. Even more unusual to me is his 2024 album, which at least on Spotify has the instrumental version tacked on after it. The play counts of the two versions are not always remarkably different which makes me wonder if a lot of people just put the album on and left it on, not realising they'd dived into the instrumentals. It's the kind of stat padding that manages to make an artist seem less popular.

When looking into this, I found an interview Andy Bull gave with Tim Shiel on Double J in 2022, where he talks about his perspective as an artist, where you're made to promote yourself as both a person and a product, and how tiresome and draining it can be. He didn't call it burnout, but it does feel like a much-heard experience. Specifically though, he mentioned the balancing act of being a content creator and also getting to live your one life you've been given. To me it just reminds me of the façade we all put in front of ourselves to keep up appearances, where we might end up not talking about the things through which we could potentially find a sense of kinship. I've never felt so connected to the guy who just made some catchy songs on the radio over a decade ago. Maybe nobody is talking enough.

The other sneaky bit of lore I learnt by sheer chance here is that Andy Bull mentioned his occasionally intense recording experience that meant doing dozens of takes for some songs and after the gruelling session, getting hit by a spark of inspiration for another song. One of the specific examples he mentioned was doing this for "Talk Too Much", and then coming up with "Keep On Running" (#764) from there. That's just a funny bit of peeking behind the curtain to realise that this 2014 single is arguably older than the one he put out 15 months before it.

I went into this just wanting to say that I always liked this song a fair amount, and that it felt like a more refined sound for him, one without some of those jagged edges that muddy up the momentum. Maybe depending on who you ask, that just translates to it being his most dull single, but I think there's merit to it. Sometimes a tune just connects with you in a straightforward way and all you want is for it to stay like that. I just hope that stepping into the version of me that talks too much was more worthwhile than the opposite version that I'd fully expected to land at again.

#486. Golden Features (feat Thelma Plum) - No One (#92, 2015)

51st of 2015

Back when the ARIA Charts were more controlled by sales rather than streaming, there was an odd relationship with EPs. In the early days, you had releases potentially buoyed by a popular hit single, but reaping the benefits that the distribution of an album could provide. The first ever #1 debut in Australia was Midnight Oil's "Species Deceases" EP. It was released in 1985, right in the middle of the band's hot streak, so it's not surprising to see it sell well, but it's also the band's only #1 single despite the fact that I suspect most people aren't familiar with any songs on it. "Hercules" is the 'hit', and it's a good one, but it doesn't get talked about often (although they rarely exclude it from compilations).

Around a decade later and you've got The Living End managing the longest charting single of the 1990s, with "Second Solution / Prisoner Of Society". Iconic songs in their own right, particularly the latter, but it just looks like a chart run for an album that was super-imposed onto the singles chart. Grinspoon's two equal highest charting singles are both EPs, one of which might have charted a little higher but was placed on the album chart in its first week. It's having the best of both worlds.

Once we made it to the digital age, we saw a new layer to this system, one that felt a little like a triangle trying to squeeze through a circle. Every now and then, you'd see a popular single listed on the ARIA Chart as an EP, or rather there was an EP and it was allowed to have the individual digital track sales included in its tally. There'd be a natural desire to want to categorise these entries, whether they're driven by EP or single sales, but it wasn't always black & white. In many cases, it was a necessary teaming where I don't think the individual single could've gotten over the line, nor could the EP. In any case, you're left with a chart run that you want to attribute to a single, but in reality, it's getting some buffs from the EP. Matt Corby's "Into The Flame" EP peaked at #3 in early 2012, while the popular single "Brother" was #5 on the Digital Tracks chart. A year later, and a certain Lorde single/EP is doing something similar (although I don't think it affected the final peak). I'm not sure what it was like in-house, but as an observer it felt like a bit of a chart hack.

We don't really see this much anymore, as EPs don't generate the kinds of sales they used to. If they do, they're not attached to the relevant singles that are impacting the charts at that time, so it'd take a very unlikely alignment to make this impact again. I'm not sure what the last notable example is, but I do know an example that looked like a serious blunder at the time.

In 2015, Golden Features was primed to make a big jump. "No One" was rising up the ARIA Chart, into the top 60, and the "XXIV" EP that it featured on was about to come out. My only guess is that "No One" not being track 1 on the EP is what cost it, as the chart came out next week with Golden Features landing at #58 with the EP and #60 with "No One", completely forgetting to combine them. If they had been combined, it would have landed at #35 that week. Both Golden Features and Thelma Plum have never had a top 50 single, and maybe they never should have, but you'll always feel robbed when you don't get the same freebies that everyone else is getting.

Maybe Golden Features is just unlucky. He first made a strong impression in 2014 with his song "Tell Me", a forward thinking bit of electronica that feels like a more tasteful evolution on the big room house of say "Animals" by Martin Garrix. Maybe the most literally a song's chorus could be described as 'wub wub wub', but it's effective all the same. Not effective enough though, because it finished at #101 in the Hottest 100 that year, with an added irony to the result given the vocalist featured on the song.

I did think there was solace to be had where Golden Features would surely at least be able to score a first Hottest 100 entry afterwards, and he did, but he cut it pretty close in the end. It was a tough list to crack though, he still beat "Innerbloom". "No One" is interesting on its own as a breakthrough. I don't think it's quite as flashy as "Tell Me", but there's a lot of care put into it. I'm reminded a little of "HEART ATTACK" (#550), though it does come with more hooks. The default tone of this song feels muted, but in a few seconds you're likely to get propped up by a new drum beat, or maybe a funny siren. We're still early in Thelma Plum's career at this point, but she's lending a lot of personality to the proceedings. It's a 5 minute song that just breezes by.

#495-#491

#495. San Cisco - Reasons (#31, 2020)

42nd of 2020

In the 2010 Hottest 100, Little Red finished at #2 with their song "Rock It". During the interview with the band, Alex Dyson brings up a YouTube comment that suggests the song could've been a hit in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or the 1990s. I like to think about comments like this because they can lend some weight to explaining the often intangible experience of seeing which hit songs go to that next level when I don't already have strong feelings myself. I can definitely see the logic with Little Red. There's a simplicity to it that doesn't age it, while that one piano riff goes some way to recalling evergreen hits like "December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" and "Dancing Queen".

I tried as hard as I could to find that YouTube comment, going so far as to read every single comment left on the original video, but I couldn't find it. If that sounds like an inane activity, then you're probably right, but I think there's some value with what you can learn from it. Just listening to the music of a bygone era won't teach you much because you'll find difficulty in building up the contextual clues of it, you'll just trap yourself in the present day. Unfiltered comments are unrivalled. All the cultural references are just a little different, and there's generally a lot of misplaced anger, with a strange feeling that people look like they've been prompted to say something even if they don't know what it is. I don't usually like saying 'AI could never replicate this', but it's true. I wouldn't say it's any smarter or stupider than things nowadays, just blunter.

Superficially, "Reasons" reminds me a little of "Rock It". It's a little shinier, more twee, but they occupy a similar space. So if you're one of those people in the comment section that said they don't make music like this anymore, I beg to differ. The other superficial similarities I found watching the videos is that they both start with a long cut with multiple subjects of focus, long enough that you might think it might be the video's whole gimmick, but then they jump cut at around the same point and just play things normally after that (it's 38 seconds for Little Red, 36 seconds for San Cisco). Also the drumming is out of sync with the video's audio and it's distracting.

When I was looking through the comment section for "Reasons", I saw a comment that complimented the band's recent singles, saying that they'd been invoking the '60s & the '70s, but that this song sounds like the '80s. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the band could have been successful in any decade but I appreciate the enthusiasm. Both songs' videos also had accusations of ripping off different Passion Pit songs, some things never change.

San Cisco has changed just a little bit. I wouldn't say I can't hear the band who made "Golden Revolver" back in 2011 here, but there's a sheen that a decade's experience will provide. Maybe they'd look back at that song's last minute of 'woah's and probably have a better idea for how to finish the song nowadays. I should also note that this is one of the first singles the band released after the departure of their original bass player Nick Gardner. I've not seen an explanation given for this but he is the same San Cisco member who accidentally shot himself in the foot a few years prior and missed an entire touring cycle. You're not American, you know Example, right? I can round this out with some dubstep keyboard mashes and you'll be like 'aha, clever reference'. Otherwise, this song has the most "Let It Go"'s I've heard since Essendon came up to the Gabba in 2023 to meet their old friend.

#494. Gang of Youths - the man himself (#57, 2021)

52nd of 2021

A decade ago I made a false prediction. Arguably it wasn't really a prediction and I was just making a throwaway joke reference. I was talking about the song "Touched" by VAST and suggested that I'll never find a song quite like it again. "Touched" is a pummelling rock song that's built around a sample of "Pilentze Pee" from the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, a very popular sample that's been used many times since. There'll actually be a similar sample utilised later on in this list. "the man himself" is not that song, as I believe they acquired their own choir for this one (indigenous singers from the island of Mangaia), but I won't pretend I don't hear a lot of "Touched" in this song. Even the respective singers have a little bit of resemblance to them.

Much like "in the wake of your leave" (#517), this song is about Dave's father passing away, only it's more about the immediate rush of feelings and emotions that come along with receiving the news. It comes along with some advice for those who are fortunate enough to not yet go through this process. I'm obviously not coming in here to rain on that parade. I'd rather pass it on. Make time with those close to you while you still can.

Otherwise I think I'm just inclined to re-iterate what I said before, where the only thing holding me back was the fact that I just wasn't looking for more of this at the time. A band like this can just be overwhelming at times when they take everything to its limit. I can appreciate the power of it, but it is another song that I don't think I've ever gone out of my way to listen to by choice.

#493. The Avalanches (feat Camp Lo) - Because I'm Me (#75, 2016)

53rd of 2016

On the day I was getting ready to write this entry, I heard it on a TV commercial. Or actually, maybe I didn't. I haven't yet seen it again but this particular use landed in a vague spot where I couldn't be certain I was hearing this song, or instead the song it samples, "Want Ads" by Honey Cone. The jokes write themselves but it is a genuinely very well-known song that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 1971. Belatedly I can confirm it was "Because I'm Me", but I only ever saw that commercial once more, odd to think about.

Last year when talking about "Blue (Flume Remix)" (#952), I mentioned how the older you get, the more recognisable and unadventurous these kinds of samples in music get. I think a better way to look at it is to say that it's more likely you've already come across them at some point, but when it comes to The Avalanches, it feels like a different story altogether. This is a group who made themselves through compiling all sorts of niche & nonsensical samples into strangely appealing tunes. Maybe I'm wrong and there's no shortage of people who listen to Wayne & Shuster radio comedy shows, or a niche John Waters film, which are collectively where much of their most famous song comes from (I can say "Frontier Psychiatrist", don't worry). When the second album came around, I felt they were flexing their resources a little more, both with their guest list, and the samples. A lot of strange things to say about how we ended up here, but a song with Biz Markie goofing around alongside a sample of "Come Together" by The Beatles was not on my bucket list.

With that in mind though, maybe Camp Lo isn't too crazy of a pull. They're a duo who you'd be forgiven for not realising were still releasing music, as they dropped off the map considerably quickly after the success of their first album in 1997. Yes, this is the very predictable part when I bring up the song "Luchini AKA This Is It", largely because it's an absolute classic. It's a song that does unexplainable things with the audio mixing that I don't think could be re-created. It captures that back & forth MC dynamic like they're pros at the game, and most importantly, this is it (what?!).

I wasn't quite as familiar with Camp Lo when the song came out however, so the main point of interest for me was the sample. I also didn't know that song, but I was very familiar with "Sunshine" by Australian Idol under-performer turned pop star turned media star Ricki-Lee. That song uses the exact same sample and she beat The Avalanches to it by a decade. Maybe they were willing to bet on the realistic expectation that most Australian pop tunes that don't reach enduring ubiquity like an "In The Summertime" or "UFO" are very quickly forgotten about by most, but I'm rarely going to forget something if I've heard it that many times and have it thrust back in front of me. Listening to them back to back, I can't deny that The Avalanches have polished it up a tad better, and maybe that's just part of the process when your release patterns will make Tool or Team Cherry blush.

There's also another prominent sample that you might have noticed. A lot of the vocals that aren't from Camp Lo, are from "Why Can't I Get It Too", a 1959 recording by Six Boys In Trouble, a bunch of pre-teen kids from New York. It might sound a little jarring, but it's crate-digging at its finest. A very significant but overlooked record that they put a spotlight on, and also play around with the original text, re-arranging it and providing (through a chopped up sample) the song's title. It's much like the Chicago song "Street Player" whose 'street sounds' became 'these sounds' when sampled by The Bucketheads, and then 'deep down' once Alok got a hold of that. We love a good game of telephone. The Avalanches aren't new to this either, as the original sample from "Since I Left You" is actually saying 'since I met you'.

It was a long road to getting around my initial reservations. When the Hottest 100 becomes part of the equation, there can be heightened frustration if you're aware you're going to get a haul from a notable artist, and whether or not the selection is to your liking. I could understand why "Because I'm Me" got the guernsey, but I felt like "If I Was a Folkstar" or "The Wozard of Iz" were better choices. I think the song's quite fun nowadays. It feels relentlessly out of touch with the era, which isn't surprising given the names we're working with here, but sometimes if you do a good enough job, you can get around that, selling the idea of The Avalanches to a whole new generation of listeners.

#492. San Cisco - When I Dream (#48, 2018)

52nd of 2018

Previously, as recently as in this very post, I said that "Reasons" (I'm not going to link it, just scroll up) was one of the first singles the band released after Nick left the band. I had to use a vague bit of weaselling here because the timeline is pretty vague, and music recording dates are hard to pin down unless you're an avid watcher in the moment. San Cisco announced Nick's departure at the start of 2018, but released this song that same year. I can't say for sure if he's on this song because identifying bass parts isn't a strong suit of mine, but I suppose it seems likely. This already sounds a bit different from what we're used to. He doesn't have a writing credit though.

This is also the song with the line 'I've lost a few good friends lately, and I think it's my fault, not theirs', so maybe there's something to be gleamed from this. Actually the whole song is a strangely cathartic exploration of self-reflection. Lo and behold, San Cisco have written their own "Runaway", just without all the grandiosities. It's a funny song to read the lyrics for, as it highlights the generally strange cadence of it all. Like, I've never felt more confident that the lyrics were written around the melody.

Otherwise yeah, pretty likeable tune. It does have me wondering about the exaggerated way I sometimes see people react to music like this, songs that don't necessarily invite much discourse and just thrive on their understood demographic. I'd like to think no one's out there hating on something just for this, but I guess I can understand the rationale. That's the situation when I make a list before I realise just how much I would end up writing, we're just gonna keep getting these middle of the pack entries where my recommendation is willing, but it otherwise just doesn't write itself.

#491. The Jungle Giants - Heavy Hearted (#8, 2019)

42nd of 2019

This feels like a big graduation. It's not actually a massive step up for the band in terms of finishing position (they only landed 9 places lower in 2017 with a lot of vote splitting), but it felt like they'd finally earned the trust of their listeners. This is fundamentally a very strange song that was thoroughly embraced all the same. I find it hard to imagine they could release it in 2015 to the same fanfare, it's just too far out there. With the big success of their 3rd album, they were granted the liberty to do what we all want to do: make a dance-pop song whose big hook is a high pitched drone.

That's not the entire story here. I alluded to this before but this is a particularly different brand of The Jungle Giants, mainly because it isn't really The Jungle Giants. Pretty much the entire song was made by Sam in his home studio, another one of those things that sounds like COVID in action but the dates won't make it be so. COVID-19 is probably responsible for delaying the album to 2021 though, as this single was released in mid-2019 with a 2020 album release slated at the time. It's interesting to see live performances of the song, where Cesira in particular doesn't have much to do. I wonder if they ever toyed around with playing a different version of the song live and just decided not to mess around with it at all. The live drums do give it a little more punch at least.

"Heavy Hearted" was another song that had me re-calibrating my expectations from chart performance, or rather just how little space is allowed for triple j bands to cross over. Another way to look at it is that when you see an artist like this manage to scrape into detection ("Heavy Hearted" spent 2 weeks at the bottom of the Spotify top 200 on release), then the Hottest 100 conversion rate is likely very good. It's only gotten harder since then, so the only logical conclusion is that you should bet your house on Keli Holiday this year.

I'm struggling to recall my initial feelings towards this song. I don't think I went out of my way to listen to it at the time but think I was weirdly pleased to see it poll this well. Suppose I just like seeing weird things being well received, not that the 2020 countdown was short of this. Sometimes you just have to trust the process. I don't know how Sam ended up thinking that weird sound should be an integral part of the chorus, but I just can't imagine the song without it. Also just worth it to see the crowd rendition at Splendour In The Grass 2022 when there's an initial fake out. Oh baby you're so [indecipherable].

#500-#496

#500. Drake (feat Lil Durk) - Laugh Now Cry Later (#86, 2020)

43rd of 2020

When I make music lists of this kind, I have a habit of going in with a vague feeling about how something might be placed, something that's trained on me through decades of doing it. Something that constantly happens as a result of this is that it just takes a few extra contenders to throw everything out of order. The existence of a high placer that might otherwise go overlooked means pushing everything else down a spot. I'm used to this, but I find without fail, every time I get to a major milestone, suddenly there's just not enough space. I'm looking for a loophole that can get around it, but it immediately gets a lot harder to pick a loser, because you're picking the biggest loser, and you've gotta lift if you want to make that emotional decision.

When I was making this particular list, I had that 'Get out of jail free' card all along, because I agonised on it and then put "Laugh Now Cry Later" in the 501st slot. It was just short of the top half of the list, the absolute indignity. Then I realised I was just counting it incorrectly and had to pull everything up a spot, and suddenly the song I had sent to the dregs was now living amongst kings. If Drake was watching me while I did this, he'd have the opportunity to cry now, and then laugh later. I say all of this knowing that for many, it would've been a no brainer since it's Drake, but I always find that kind of discourse tiresome. Not liking Drake & making fun of those who do is easy social capital, but I find it more interesting to look at it all on individual merits. I think talking to anyone who makes those kinds of blanket statements without nuance is a fruitless affair. For me, there's a giddy thrill when it comes to talking about the Drake songs that are probably most likely to get filtered out into the wash. Someone's gotta do it.

Back in 2019, I flew over to America because I'd spent the previous 2 years getting very good at speedrunning a video game, and I was accepted into Summer Games Done Quick. Very wholesome affair and it rose over 3 million dollars for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). I spent a whole week getting confused by those little differences in America and also being inundated with American accents in a way that I never thought could disorient me. It turns out that my own accent is jarring enough that everything takes a second attempt to say out loud in conversation as they recalibrate.

I don't remember many conversations I had when I was there. Mostly it was a lot of small talk. Meeting people on the shuttle bus from the airport and then being surprised to bump into them on the elevator a few days later. Talking to one of the only people who were there to play a game more obscure than mine who was getting excited about doing their run, and throwing the whole thing into disarray when I found a miscommunication on the email that got sent out to runners which had me worried one of my commentators wasn't going to make it. It was a very strange coincidence when I met someone at the airport not knowing they were working at the event and that they were the person who applied my make-up before I went on stage, small world.

The most mundane thing I remember is what's almost relevant here. After the event was over, I spent an extra day there which was probably the wrong decision, but it did result in me getting time to go to the Mall of America, and being bewildered in new ways. At some point in time, I was sitting around, waiting at a shoe store and I overheard two employees talking, where the conversation topic was 'Have you heard the new Drake song?' It got me thinking about the difference between Australia and America. Drake being a bit more popular in America and so it's more natural to see this kind of conversation I've never encountered before or since in Australia, which I just thought was weirdly fascinating. Again, it's all those little things that you don't think about that make our countries different.

Anyway that particular Drake song was "Money In The Grave", the song he released in celebration of the fact that the Toronto Raptors had just won the NBA Playoffs. I'll always struggle to associate years to champions in US sports, but all these connections have made it impossible for me to forget the Raptors' 2019 win. The Chicago Cubs winning in MLB in 2016, a year after "Back To The Future Part 2" predicted they would, is another memorable one. I've seen Americans talk about 2016 as a crazy year in sports for this kind of out of nowhere success stories, and I so badly want to tell them about the Western Bulldogs who fit in perfectly with it. Anyway I'm amusing myself greatly because I've been planning for over a year to bring up that same movie for a different Drake entry, and I still plan on doing that.

I will readily mix up "Money In The Grave" with "Laugh Now Cry Later". That's more understandable I think because they occupy a similar space as pretty big Drake hits that didn't go to #1. Mainly though, if you listen to both of these songs, you tell me which one of these feels more like an NBA victory lap. "Money In The Grave" feels like Drake just had this song lying around and was looking for an excuse to put it out. "Laugh Now Cry Later" feels like a celebration, and he & Lil Durk are even holding basketballs on the single cover.

I've had a habit of calling Lil Durk my son as a joke, but he's actually older than me. He belongs to that odd subset of modern rappers who took their sweet time getting their big break. The more interesting subset to me though is that he's big enough to dominate the American charts, but not really do the same here. Australia really doesn't seem to be interested unless you can get Drake, Kanye West, J. Cole or Kendrick Lamar involved. That small group accounts for all but one of Lil Durk's top 50 hits in Australia. It's still a better innings than Rod Wave who has never charted in Australia, but I feel it shows that lack of any interest to make these artists into household names over here. We'll stay at an entry level interest unless there's a goofy viral hit.

Lil Durk is a good fit for this song. He's only there briefly but stops the song from just being 4 straight minutes of Drake in his two elements of rapping and also 'baby'. I don't know who's parasocially listening to Drake at any stage, but he's here for you when he says 'baby'. Lucky for me, the horns sound triumphant enough that I can ignore it. By landing at #500 with this, Drake is the spitting image of that podium celebration meme.

#499. The Chats - 6L GTR (#53, 2022)

50th of 2022

A few years ago in preparation for this polling in the Hottest 100, I took it upon myself to figure out what a 6L GTR is, and concluded that it doesn't actually exist. The GTR is an upgraded version of a Holden Torana with an engine that's much smaller than needed. Going back to it, I'm led to believe that it is actually possible to swap it for a bigger engine that would get to 6 litres, but I'm not sure what the rules are. Is the Holden of Theseus still a GTR? Do I even know enough about cars to not be just posting gibberish?

What this odd tangent makes me think about is the strength of fantasy in hypotheticals. Once you anchor something down in reality, you're stuck dwelling on shortcomings. The Flash can be as fast as is deemed necessary, but if your chosen star is a real human, they're just not going to be able to run 100 metres in less than 9.5 seconds. These human limitations can be potentially bested, but then it's back to the world of fantasy until it happens. I find myself thinking about these sorts of things as a way of encouragement if I'm ever in a competition, nobody's perfect, everyone is beatable. I just can't decide if for the purposes of this semi-novelty song whether it works out better if the 6L GTR is a real, tangible car or not. I suppose contextually the song admits to not seeking out the highest standards, but maybe the sheer novelty of searching for something both imaginary and utterly mundane is the beauty of it. It's funnier to me, but I can see the argument on both sides.

Where the song does succeed is in the presentation. Compared to their earlier releases, this feels like a different band, one that's seen the heights that their persona can take them, and has decided to lock in. Right from the get-go, it's just a very pleasing guitar tone that gets us from point A to point B. Maybe it works as a driving song, but as a non-driver I'll never know. And on that bombshell, it's time to end the blurb.

#498. A$AP Rocky - Sundress (#91, 2018)

53rd of 2018

When an artist has a particularly big hit, you can see all the interest and conversation circle around that one. It's not always clear how much of that attention is about the artist in particular, or if it's just a one-off fling that everyone's going to move on from. It can be nice to have that additional hit that comes through successfully enough to lend that extra credibility. For the 2018 countdown, I was expecting a big hit for A$AP Rocky, and that's what I saw, but I didn't see this one coming, an extra non-album single that snuck through under my radar.

At the time, "Sundress" felt like a bit of a hanger-on. Time has done quite a lot to change things. I've gotten used to older songs being arbitrarily plucked from pseudo-obscurity to the big time, and it became a point of amusement while making this list knowing the inevitable likelihood that one of the songs I was ranking would end up in a run of virality by the time I got through things. This somewhat happened with Bakar's "Hell N Back" (#772), but much better timed was the second ascent of "Sundress", a song that was oddly popular in Latvia for years before everyone else got the memo. It's now one of A$AP Rocky's most popular songs, and is closing in on a billion streams on Spotify.

There's a slight novelty factor to this song in that it's built around a sample of Tame Impala's "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?". We're sitting in a peculiar timeline for this where the success of 2015's "Currents" has increased the Tame Impala profile immensely, but we're not quite at the point where a string of virality not far away sets a new standard for what the really popular Tame Impala songs are. Much like with Rihanna covering "New Person, Same Old Mistakes" in 2016, you can imagine more obvious songs being chosen years after. The bold arrow of time blunts everything. If nothing else, A$AP Rocky can claim credibility by getting in early. I mentioned regarding "Love$ick" (#592) that he was talking about Tame Impala with Mura Masa at the time, so maybe that sewed the seed that led to this.

What we've got is a curious result. The sample completely overpowers everything and I've scarcely ever been able to remember a single thing Rocky says here. Everything about it strikes as a mixtape cut or loosey, especially the short run-time. When it lands somewhat contemporaneously with the still going Tame Impala career, it can serve as a fascinating reminder of how much things have changed in that camp, and just having me conclude that "InnerSpeaker" was a pretty special de-butt album. It's thanks to this that we get a little bit of every Tame Impala album (except the new one, obviously) on this list.

#497. The Amity Affliction - Show Me Your God (#89, 2022)

49th of 2022

As every year goes along, I find myself thinking about the next Hottest 100. The rigid rules of release date eligibility create a temptation to do an early stocktake. If it's the start of June, then you're halfway through the eligibility period and theoretically, about half of the year's entrants have already been released. As you're reading this, it's likely that nearly every entry for 2025's list has come out. These things don't work out perfectly though. There's definitely a priority towards the mid to late section of the year, and it's always possible that a hit has already come out and just hasn't been found yet. The only thing you can be sure of is that on December 1st, they're all out there (well, usually...), and it's time to start thinking about what will make the next year's list because they're potentially starting to pop up.

"Show Me Your God" has some notoriety here because I believe it is the newest song that will appear on this list. It was released on November 30th, 2022, meaning that The Amity Affliction waited until the very last day to hand in their assignment, and made certain they'd continue doing what they do best: sneaking onto the bottom half of the list with a song that's completely divorced from any of the surrounding trends on the list. At the same time though, I don't think they would continue to land on these lists for a solid decade if they were just coasting by for the whole time. You've got to serve up something with an extra spark, and I think this is just that.

Depending on who you ask, the phrase 'pop music' can mean either a particular genre of music, or otherwise it applies to any kind of modern music of the rock & roll era. It's something that usually sits a bit strangely for me, maybe because my desire to use more specific sub-genres comes into the fold, but also because that juxtaposition is significant. Calling The Amity Affliction pop music feels like completely missing the point and yet it's something I see surprisingly often.

Sometimes though, I find it interesting to engage with the mindset. The other day I saw Black Sabbath described as pop music and in the space of a few seconds I went from my initial knee-jerk reaction that describing the godfathers of heavy metal as pop being jarring, to having a realisation that I'd been hearing their music since I was quite young and never really been repulsed. One of the truly fascinating things about pop music in general is that it can draw in so many disparate sounds that under the right circumstances can fit into a general audience. Sometimes they get so normalised that you don't even question just how long AC/DC's bagpipe solo goes for, or why The Veronicas were rocking harder than most of the actual rock bands they were sharing chart space with in 2005.

I find myself approaching The Amity Affliction with this mindset and the results are interesting. While they're never finding themselves on the top 40 airwaves (and even triple j sometimes is a bit of a tough sell), they do have the makings of fine pop songwriters. That's where I think "Show Me Your God" (and perhaps some others I may talk about in the future) excels. This is a song that takes the confronting soundscape of metalcore, and a particularly sensitive topic around gun violence, but package it in a strangely inviting way. This might just be the loudest and hardest of all their entries here, but it's never overbearing. The soundscape is consistent enough that it settles in quickly and gets you locked in.

The song it reminds me the most of is "Sorry You're Not A Winner" by Enter Shikari. That's a song that genuinely terrified me the first time I heard it, I think in part because it takes a more surprising route to lay things on thick. The more electronic elements come across as distorted and creepy when they make way for the pulverising drums. When The Amity Affliction bring in what I think is a choir, my mind goes to Enter Shikari's outro, where the guitars are suddenly at a contained tempo that makes you long for things to go back to normal. Or it's just a rejected boss theme from a FromSoftware game, who can say? I always want to bring up "Sorry You're Not A Winner" because it's a song from my early teens that can't really be replaced by anything. The scattered comparisons I can make with "Show Me Your God" just highlight further just how different they are on the whole.

I don't claim to know what the full mission statement is when making metalcore. Maybe it is supposed to be confronting to anyone outside of its own sphere, in which case it's failed immensely. But if for some reason it is just a veiled attempt to write pop music with a different coat of paint, then I can look back at this one as a success.

#496. Lorde - Tennis Court (#12, 2013)

58th of 2013

Back in the early 2010s, before streaming was part of the global music charts, there was a peculiar pattern I noticed. Everyone was aware of the Billboard Hot 100 being uncharacteristically slow compared to other charts, largely due to its unique attribute of including airplay, slowing things down not just through meeting its form, but in the way that any increase in components will create such a set up. It meant that US chart runs were long, drawn out campaigns while Australia and the UK were considerably faster. It left room for more singles to chart, and things were possibly planned around this convenience. Look at the run of singles from the early 2010s by that Scottish DJ and you can feel out which ones weren't made the be pushed in the US, but instead as the stop gaps between them. Americans don't know who Example is after all.

When you're watching from both perspectives, it can make you question if it all means anything. With the US being the centre of pop culture, all these stop gap singles that feel significant to me in the moment are just going to be pushed aside in the conversation, left out of nostalgic posts and end up faded into the background. The squadron insisting that something is only a hit if it spent approximately 6 months getting played on the radio in America at some point in history win again. "Tennis Court" lives its days as just another Lorde song at this point, even though it was a relatively big hit in Australia, and that's probably the most interesting thing about it.

"Tennis Court" was Lorde's second single, and was released not long before she properly blew up. I look at the chart movement around this time and it shows a feeling of genuine fatigue for hit songs, because there was a brief moment when Lorde's previous hit song (you know the one) had slowed down its ascent. It was on its way to breaking into a much larger audience and bursting out the gate, but it had been charting for months already with a tougher task of sticking around. If not for that song being bundled with Lorde's EP, which was helping it push higher on the chart than otherwise, "Tennis Court" would briefly have been Lorde's highest charting single in Australia. That other song was doing far better on streaming though, which is a big indication to me that it wouldn't have gone down like that nowadays.

That's all just very weird to me, because "Tennis Court" is a song that I feel thrives on buying into the Lorde brand, rather than being a standalone breakout hit of its own. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I just find it hard to believe there'd be much of any way for this song to get a foot in the door on its own. Maybe that's just the clearest sign that Universal Music were onto a winner with Lorde. I think labels are always looking for artists with that indescribable spark that irons on more listeners, and once they've got it, they go all-in.

I suppose it's inevitable. Lorde was arguably at the peak of her career in 2013. I'm not sure if that meant the most people invested in her at any given time just because streaming has really inflated those numbers. I doubt she had 30 million monthly listeners back then, but it's hard to do that when you only have half a dozen songs released. Anyone who is interested in Lorde as a concept is going to flock to what's available. It's only now that it's split across 4 albums that it's harder to see all the listeners in action. Maybe it just makes more sense that "Tennis Court" has been overtaken by songs that just didn't exist at the time, only we can't re-write the history books to account for that. This is the 4th highest polling of 14 songs by Lorde in this countdown, and I guess the only one to appear twice. (#955)

I know I got swept up in all of this, ready to put all my stocks into the future of Lorde, which I suppose has still turned out pretty well. If you're still scoring #1 albums over a decade into your career, I think it's in good stead. But I am also one of those people who got on board with "Tennis Court" only for it to continue to fall behind more and more options, tossing it into the 'I don't wanna play with you anymore...well, maybe sometimes' box. It's another one of those peculiar singles that seems to hint at a future direction, but in hindsight feels just as unsure as we all are. You wind up with a solid bit of synth pop that's also making things up and filling the gaps as it goes along, yeah. Not without its merits, but still better things on the horizon.