#265-#261

#265. Hermitude (feat Mataya & Young Tapz) - The Buzz (#8, 2015)

34th of 2015

How long do you think Hermitude have been around? It's probably longer than that. They first formed in 2000, but had known each other since 1994. They got signed pretty early on to Elefant Traks, and their debut album even has a little cameo by The Herd, like a $3.40 bag of hip hop from your local fish and chip shop. I'm listening to that first album, "Alleys To Valleys" and it sounds nothing like you could possibly picture from anything you associate with Hermitude. All very relaxed, more along the lines of DJ Shadow or J Dilla, but even that's underselling just how reserved it is. I want to shout out "Moth Journey" for its cool vibe that's simultaneously noir & sci-fi. Never going to top the charts, but it got their name out there and they started growing their brand for a while.

I was trying to find a clear thread from past to present in their older material but I didn't really see it. Even in 2008, while they may have upped the scales a little, I still feel like I'm listening to this obscure group that never went anywhere. It did click with me that I was familiar with them back then though, because they had the quirky collaboration with Elana Stone & Urthboy, "Your Call" on their 3rd album. It was probably their closest thing to crossover success in that moment, reaching #148 in the Hottest 100 that year. Just a bit of an oddball for them in the same year they were covering "Jóga" by Björk for Like A Version and taking it to strange new places.

The real change came in 2010 with the release of their single "Get In My Life", the lead single to "HyperParadise" which would arrive 15 months later in 2012. It just feels like a complete shift in focus. While the core of the music is the same, there's an increase in danceable beats that sound decidedly more modern. It's still almost completely instrumental, but it feels like it wants to eat the Ratatat (#281) cake by making big hooks out of aggressive riffs. That song wasn't a particularly big hit for them, but the next single, "Speak of the Devil" was. This song feels like their big push for popular recognition that for once decides to use a big sung hook in addition to an instrumental you won't forget. A lot of credit also has to go to one of the best music videos ever which no doubt boosted the song's profile. It worked, and they were entrenched in the Hottest 100 for the first time ever, the start of a decent run of hits for them. Maybe that looked to be a one-off, but they scored some immense fortune when young upstart Flume remixed the title track to their latest album "HyperParadise" and Hermitude got to be interlocked with his big rise in 2012. You look at all his hits at that time and one of the biggest is actually a Hermitude song.

To me, this feels like a big turning point because you fast forward a few more years and Hermitude's 5th album comes out. It might sound silly but I listen to it and I hear a lot of songs that sound like the Flume remix of them, it's so different to where we started. They knew what people were after though and it got them a #1 album, and additionally the biggest hit of the career, "The Buzz". It feels like it's a song that might have gotten too big because it's completely overshadowed everything around it and since. Mainly I just think they've not been trying to replicate it so they haven't kept that same audience with them. Whenever I hear a new Hermitude song nowadays, I find it hard to place them as the same duo, as their sound continues to take more and more unusual pivots. I think "Janela" is a great track, but I wouldn't question anything if it had just been credited as a solo Kimbra track.

The one big part of "The Buzz"'s success that always amazes me is that it made the ARIA End Of Year list for 2015. That's going well beyond being just a niche flash in the pan, or a song riding Hottest 100 hype, but a strangely genuine hit. Sorry "Hoops" (#895), sorry Jess Glynne, but we've found something that does beat a Jet2 holiday, and it's this instrumental hip hop duo coming in at #100 with a song that commercial radio barely gave a sniff to. It's not like it's stacked with star power either, the intro is a few looped words by new singer Mataya, who would amusingly have her only other star turn two years later, also landing at #8 in the Hottest 100 (#861). Kiwi rapper TAPZ GALLANTINO, or Young Tapz as he was known then gets most of the action here. He was also heard on their previous single "Through The Roof", but I've scarcely heard of him anywhere since, outside of an unexpected collaboration with a certain singer I'm known to like, and I believe his brother getting some accusations against him that I don't know the verdict on. Nothing screams hit here, so I guess you've got to feel the buzz.

Nothing about it feels like it should work, Tapz's slurred delivery, and all those stiff synth hits that seem to crawl up to the next drum break. At the very least it doesn't feel like it should be working in 2015, a time when popular dance music just didn't really sound like this at all. It wasn't even a brief fling either as the song also showed up in the Hottest 100 of the Decade at #63, higher than an annual #8 finish would suggest, especially when nudged out of the way by more famous artists with dedicated followings. I am but a small part of this song's huge popularity, but it's really always astounded me.

#264. Olivia Rodrigo - deja vu (#33, 2021)

15th of 2021

If we imagine a hypothetical version of this list that I started one year earlier, we'd have a pretty different list to be working with. Rudimental would be waiting down the line with three drum & bass bangers instead of just one. Maybe I could rehabilitate that one electronic song I never much liked, but heard on shuffle the other day and wasn't bothered, the one that isn't "Love Is All I Got", though I can't say the artist name yet. Most of all though, it would just help me out a little bit here. "deja vu" is a remarkably successful song, even by the standards of Olivia Rodrigo where basically any song she's ever released does rather well. It's also a song that holds an ominous degree of infamy: The infamy of copyright nonsense. Wait, this is strange, I can't escape the familiar feeling that we've been here before. Maybe there's a word for that.

In 2013, Katy Perry released the single "Roar" as the lead single to her third album, "Prism". She was coming off a monstrously successful album cycle that took her to the absolute top of the pop landscape if there was any doubt previously. I wouldn't say massive success was guaranteed, but if she played her cards right, she was better suited than anyone. This is obviously what happened. "Roar" was the biggest hit of the year despite being released fairly late. I wouldn't say the song was universally beloved, and many on the more cynical side noticed a strong similarity to "Brave", a single released by Sara Bareilles a few months before. Hardly a problem though, because the song wasn't very well known to the general public.

"Brave" belatedly became a hit song in early 2014. A big moment for Sara surely, ending her 5+ year stay in the Khia ward for one hit wonders. It was also one of the first successes of Jack Antonoff as a writer & producer beyond his fun. days. He'll come back into this picture a little later. One of the main things I remember observing at the time was a slight backlash. I saw numerous comments suggesting that Sara had ripped off Katy Perry. Obviously not true, but if you hear the songs in the order that most people did, it's easy to see how that connection might be made.

It's seven years later in 2021 and Olivia Rodrigo releases "deja vu", the second single from her debut album, and the one that much more quickly ended any one hit wonder allegations for her. Or if that still wasn't a big enough hit, then "good 4 u" (#341) was right around the corner too. There's nothing untoward for a while, even when the album is released a month later. Track 4 on the album, "1 step forward, 3 steps back" has a peculiar set of names in the writing credits though, Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff. That's via an interpolation of Taylor Swift's 2017 song "New Year's Day". I don't know for certain if that's related, but a couple of months later, "deja vu" suddenly has writing credits for that pair again, along with St. Vincent. Given that it happened well after the song was released, it's possible that it's just a case of Swifties starting a wildfire, but along the way, Olivia Rodrigo herself noted a similarity to Taylor Swift's 2019 song "Cruel Summer", and so these back to back writing credits occur. At least I can only assume it had to be fans raising a stink because what are the chances that you'd include one interpolation and not the other on adjacent tracks, when they're both sourcing the same artist and mostly the same writers.

The whole thing annoyed me for the same reason the "good 4 u" situation did. I just don't hear it. It feels equally superficial. A similarity that boils down to the notion that Taylor Swift invented shouting on bridges. With the hindsight of 5 years, it feels like an early incarnation of Taylor Swift (or more likely her team) utilising her massive influence to stamp down on all upcoming stars who don't go through her. We're not talking about some unreachable recluse, but someone who could easily say 'I own the rights to that song, I won't press charges, it's all good'. I guess I'd be hard pressed to name a billionaire who got there by being courteous or generous.

I think about the Sara Bareilles situation because beyond all of this, the big twist waiting in the wings was the massive second wave of success for "Cruel Summer" that would come a couple of years later. The beloved deep cut became possibly the biggest hit of Taylor Swift's career, and for her, that's saying something. It introduced the possibility of a whole new peanut gallery who experience the pop charts in their re-arranged chronological order. Alas, I've never seen anyone say that they heard the new Taylor Swift song on the radio and thought it was ripping off Olivia Rodrigo. I will invite the realistic possibility that the parameters of popularity don't match the previous problem, and maybe music fans are just better informed than they were a decade ago. On the other hand, maybe it just makes more sense that no one would draw the comparison to two songs that just don't sound the same.

I've always very much enjoyed both of those songs, but I think I have to give the advantage to "deja vu" at this point, as a song that's never worn out for me. I think Dan Nigro needs a lot of credit for making this strange pop/psych rock hybrid that sounds pretty unique. I'll admit if there's any song I would compare this to, it's actually "400 Lux" by Lorde. This song came up on Bandle back in April last year and I desperately wanted to put Lorde down because at one point in time it was the only song I could hear on it. A problem in that game is that you can lock onto a wrong answer so assuredly that you'll probably lose two guesses waiting for something else to emerge. Yes that's right, I wrote that note down a year ago and have been waiting all this time to point it out.

We're yet to actually reach the start of the Olivia Rodrigo journey here, I've largely had the car in reverse this whole time, but "deja vu" introduces a new side to her songwriting as well. It's one that's more oriented on specific details, rather than platitudes that can apply to anyone. I'm not saying that Glee and Billy Joel are niche by any means, but they do manage to paint a picture. The specific accusation of transferring reverence of "Uptown Girl" to a new girlfriend is so funny, but a reminder that no one's born knowing music, and even the daggiest of '80s hits will feel like unearthed gems at a young age. Hughie from The Boys would probably tell you that you don't want to risk ever having the last thing you said to your girlfriend be about respecting Billy Joel though.

I do wonder if I'm even supposed to side with Olivia on this song. Teen romance is rife for scrutiny, especially if it's on the jealous side of things. I suppose the main way I differ from her perspective here is that I love the idea of someone transferring tidbits from my conversations. Maybe they hit a sour spot from association for her, but if I could get someone to transfer that experience, I might even be happy for them. One of my favourite unlikely things that ever happened to me is when I made one single meme in a subreddit for a video game. It only got upvoted about 200 times but somewhere along the way, it made it to a reasonably big YouTuber who included it in a video of theirs for about two seconds. Someone I was talking to saw it there, and then brought it up to me in conversation. Something I made managed to loop all the way around the world and end up back at me. By a wide margin one of the least likely things that I've ever experienced.

#263. Thundamentals - Everybody But You (#92, 2018)

29th of 2018

I don't even know how this is here. In 2017, Thundamentals scored their biggest hit in Hottest 100 terms (#861), one that painted over the fact that their previous album was more successful on the whole. That usually spells the end on the next album cycle. It's a path we've seen here many times (#654), (#404), (#351). It'll happen more as we go through this list. Thundamentals followed the playbook except when they put out their next album 18 months later, they still managed a pretty fair showing, with this unusual appearance solidifying that they weren't going anywhere. Now, they haven't had another entry since 2018, but nothing about it screams of a logical last gasp.

The only thing I've got here is that Thundamentals took things down a slightly different path with this album. Not a radical transformation, but maybe tweaking the parameters just a little to maybe find favour with a different audience. I'm looking at myself here. I happened upon their song "All I See Is Music" and it instantly became a big favourite of mine. It's much more chilled out than you'd expect with an instrumental that nearly overpowers Jeswon & Tuka. Great hook too, music does make the pain go away. I guess making Aussie hip-hop music that doesn't really sound like it has often been a strength of theirs.

I wasn't familiar with "Everybody But You" at all when it made the poll. Another case of me running my own side-quest and missing the supposedly popular option. It was a strange adjustment at first. If Tuka's hook sounds a little annoying, I get it. For me it quickly emerged as a dark horse, that surprise song from the pack of dozens of downloads on the day that I look forward to hearing the most. It does exhibit some of those properties of "All I See Is Music" too, with a really warm bass line to coast you through it. It feels strange to say but I could imagine this translating into an acoustic guitar jam pretty seamlessly. It's hard to imagine many people getting behind second tier, late career Thundamentals singles, but this is a real overlooked gem from this set of songs.

#262. Kanye West - Bound 2 (#59, 2013)

43rd of 2013

There's a peculiar streak that Kanye West maintained for a very long time, which is that he had a top 50 single in Australia from every single one of his albums. Up to 2026, that's 12 albums, and you can also include 3 collaborative albums though you'll have to call it quits once you get to "Vultures 2". Though a single top 50 entry is a pretty low bar for most stars, I'm not sure there actually is anyone else that can match him. Most big stars just don't have that big a catalogue, or more likely they've got a period of time that's letting them down. Taylor Swift would have something to say about it if not for her debut album. It's mainly just weird that it's Kanye West of all artists, who so consistently sabotages his own album rollouts with unusual strategies that are not conducive to this. It's a streak that sits on a razor's edge of just barely getting over the line most of the time.

The most egregious example of this has to be "Yeezus", his 2013 album. "Yeezus" was put out with no advance singles and actually became his first #1 album in Australia...though memorably it needed a recount after some erroneous sales were attributed to his nearest competition. A rare case of the charts admitting they made a mistake and amending. This didn't help him on the Singles chart though which was currently residing with some of the toughest competition it's ever had. You couldn't just waltz into the chart because the bar for entry was so high. It was true of Kanye West in fact. The biggest hit on the album (and a future entry on this list) stalled out at #58, and then the more short-lived hype of "Bound 2" got to #56. Kanye's run of skirting the line finally coming to an end.

In 2022, "Bound 2" became the subject of a TikTok meme. I had never seen it before, but the crux of it appears to be that you get two people on camera, one lip syncs along with Kanye for a portion of the song while the other person is doing an exaggerated lip sync with the sample. Naturally the song has been sped up to the point of sounding like chipmunks, and I'll give it partial credit for being an example that actually feels justified, I don't think it'd work with the original track. Thanks to this brief viral trend, "Bound 2" re-entered the charts and got all the way to #50, preserving the streak, and linking the chain up with all the albums he'd put out since. A very satisfying turn of events.

This is all ignoring the elephant in the room by pretending that "Bound 2" is just a regular Kanye West song with nothing to report. This is clearly not the case. Sitting at the end of "Yeezus", it feels like a novelty bonus track. Just a silly joke that doesn't fit in with anything that came before it. If "Yeezus" wasn't so short, maybe it even could have been a hidden track, but then evidently there were bigger plans for it. A large part of why the song is so famous is because it received a music video where Kanye makes out with Kim Kardashian while riding a motorcycle. Popular consensus seemed to be to make fun of it for being bad, and it entered the canon of music videos on YouTube that have considerably more dislikes than likes, the area usually reserved for Justin Bieber. No longer the case, though that's probably either because dislikes aren't displayed to encourage it, or because it's only viewed now by people who already know they like it.

Otherwise, it's mainly the samples that make this a weird song. The title spills the secret as it's built from Ponderosa Twins Plus One's "Bound". Not the only popular rap song to do this, as Tyler, The Creator would use a different part of it on "A BOY IS A GUN", though that one doesn't feel nearly as strange. It's just a very slow and breezy sample next to some of the most intense songs Kanye has ever put out. The other sample comes from an early Brenda Lee hit, "Sweet Nothin's", giving us the immortal phrase 'uh huh, honey'. For Brenda Lee, it introduces the song and her, for Kanye it's a weird disarming punchline that takes you out of the whole thing multiple times.

Oh and there's a third sample, "Aeroplane (Reprise)" by Wee, which has the melody interpolated by Charlie Wilson on the bridge. The boldness of his performance was one of the first things that sold me on the song. It came into play again a year later because the drum & bass duo Sigma made a bootleg version of "Bound 2" that eventually turned into a hit song for them called "Nobody To Love". Their track re-recorded those vocals and took it from a twice-off bridge to pretty much the whole song. They also kept Brenda Lee in it, in case there was any chance it could be a coincidence. Sigma's version turned into a massive hit, going to #1 in the UK, and also hitting #11 in Australia, considerably better than "Bound 2" had managed. It felt like a strange injustice at the time but I mainly look at it now as an example of the different audience reaches some artists have. If you're getting your hit songs from the radio or anything that feeds itself from top 40, it's entirely possible that "Bound 2" just never enters your world, and everything about the Sigma track is new and novel. Even if you aren't, maybe coating over the Kanye West parts of it would make it more palatable anyway. The scenario has flipped now anyway, with "Nobody To Love" being relatively forgotten and "Bound 2" absolutely sticking around. The big names always win I guess.

Otherwise the fascinating thing about "Bound 2" is the lyrics. There's an odd sense of romanticism to it that manages to get told in the most absolutely crass way possible. There's something more real about that, anyway. Being too busy being in love to even try to find the word to describe your girl without being disrespectful. Otherwise it's hilarious. The kind where you're so compelled by the performance that the absolutely laboured 'Brad reputation' punchline still manages to hit. I just can't believe the lyric about the sink isn't even the most ridiculous part of its own rhyme. It was never really my favourite from the album but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad to have it when it showed up. It felt a little random at the time but I think the song itself aged surprisingly well.

#261. Thelma Plum - Backseat of My Mind (#21, 2022)

18th of 2022

I sometimes think of the middle of the list as the Xavier Rudd zone of the countdown. It was effectively the limit to how far he could go as he was playing to one specific niche of voters and it was just a matter of getting their approval or not. The funny twist with all this is that his last entry "Follow The Sun" was probably being severely underrated at the time as it's shown itself to clearly go beyond that initial audience into a massive, enduring hit. We can also say something similar about The Amity Affliction who practically live in the bottom half of the countdown and only very occasionally jumped out of it when they were having some crossover popularity. Again, it makes sense, all things considered.

Did you ever notice that Thelma Plum has only made the top half of the Hottest 100 twice? If you've been paying close attention to these posts, it's been nothing but also-rans that snuck into the lower part, because across 10 or 11 entries to date, that's just as far as most of her songs go. The first exception is obvious, and saved for a later date. The other one is this, the incredibly unassuming go-getter that acts as if it's playing similar cards to the first one. I don't think it is, and I could easily imagine numerous other songs of hers to be in this same place instead. Career momentum or just a good song? Maybe it's a bit of both.

Like "The Brown Snake" (#579), "Backseat of My Mind" comes from her "Meanjin" EP, which was written during lockdown, in case there wasn't enough COVID influence in the last two years. Meanjin is the indigenous name for Brisbane which is where she was stuck writing it. It's amusing to look at press statements at the time which seem to hint towards this being a lead single for a new album, except that when the album did eventually arrive in 2024, this wasn't on it. Maybe if it had the streaming numbers.

Not that the backseat is the right place for it, but there's a good driving pace to this. There's a clear difference from her older music where she's found a comfort in writing unabashed pop songs. I have a fondness for some of those weirder edges, but the sanded down version is mighty pleasant too. There's a familiarity here but I wouldn't call it a rip off of any of her previous singles. Just one of those hit streaks to embrace in the moment.

#270-#266

 #270. The Rions - Night Light (#51, 2021)

17th of 2021

I waited about a week to write this entry. That's not gonna end up seeming like much of a big deal, but I had two reasons for this. Firstly, I know what's coming in this post and it's a section of entries I've feared for writer's block for weeks. Secondly, I wanted to wait until the Hottest 100 actually aired so I could collect my thoughts on that, rather than make any bold statements that might get extremely outdated. It turned out to be the right thing to do, as The Rions' story has added another chapter.

I've said before that The Rions are in elite company as an Unearthed High winning band. No other artist of their tenure has ever had more than two entries on the list, and now thanks to 2025's efforts, The Rions are up to eight. Not just that, but they've appeared on the list for five years in a row. A 10 year older version of me is absolutely frightened at the prospect of covering all of those. Mainly because it just feels like they're getting stuck in a common pattern, just slowly mellowing out and producing lower tempo tunes. More 'polite head nod' than 'active foot tap'. Their two latest entries actually have pretty much the same BPM so you'll forgive me if it takes a while to distinguish them. Aside from the outlier in 2024's "Passionfruit", it feels like the trend at the moment.

That's why I find "Night Light" to hold up a little better in hindsight. It's a version of The Rions that feels more lively, like they're doing everything they can to stand out. It doesn't really have anything to it that feels like a bunch of high school kids jamming out either, so it feels relatively timeless. Well, I'll admit to taking some enjoyment out of saying that you know they're kids because they need a night light, and say 'mummy'. That's okay though, Laufey used the same analogy a year later, and of course, I can now say that's future Hottest 100 entrant, Laufey, I'm talking about. Game's changed.

#269. King Stingray - Milkumana (#56, 2021)

16th of 2021

I realised a little too late that the only thing I wanted to say here is what I'd already said about Glass Animals not long ago (#271). I went into the 2021 countdown only really knowing one King Stingray song, "Get Me Out" (#284). To me it felt like the big breakthrough single, and the one you'd expect to do well. This is what happened! On the other hand, there wasn't a big gap between it and the next single "Milkumana". Between the diminished promotional standpoint and the fact that the title isn't even in English, there's something to be credited about how close it came to being their higher entry. Once again, I've got to give credit to the voters, because they were onto something here.

In case you're wondering, this is not an addition to the surprisingly large number of milk-related songs to make the Hottest 100 (seriously, there's at least 6 without even acknowledging Milky Chance). It's a Yolŋu phrase about passing on knowledge through stories and song. It's quite beautiful when you think about it. The often unexplainable way that music resonates with us and keeps us coming back to it, that keeps it alive for decade after decade. As a by-product of this, it can be one of the most lasting time capsules of a present culture. We likely don't remember the ins and outs of our most deep and meaningful conversations, but we will remember the lyrics to our favourite songs.

Who could resist the charm when it's this fun too? If you have any doubts of singing along to a hook from another language, those should be quashed within seconds with just how infectious this groove is. It maybe runs dangerously close to that overused musical sting used to signal something's taking place in Asia. That can be incredibly off-putting once you start to notice it, but in this context completely divorced from it, no qualms to be had, they nailed it.

#268. Beyoncé - CUFF IT (#24, 2022)

20th of 2022

A while ago I started looking at Beyoncé album rollouts as the equivalent of a mass media event. Something of monumental stature because of the sheer number of resources that go into it. Going up against Beyoncé is like being nominated for the Best Visual Effects Academy Award on the same year an "Avatar" movie came out, you just cannot compete with what she's got at her disposal. Maybe that sounds underwhelming, the idea that money can force its way in, steamrolling the small underdogs. No one actually wants to see that. I see it another way. The idea that Beyoncé is capable of bringing in everything and the kitchen sink to make an album that no one else can make. It doesn't necessarily make it the best thing going around, but the chance to hear things that we can't get elsewhere is something I wouldn't pass up.

Beyoncé's also been around for a long time, so whoever is the main component of her fanbase, it's likely older than the average star. The kind of music fan that might not have the time to just listen to their favourites over and over again. I don't think Beyoncé can afford to coast, otherwise she'll tank harder than you can imagine. Part of that is because I think her brand often does paint over those deficiencies. Her albums don't tend to get lodged into the chart for as long as you might think, and it's just fortunate she makes a big enough opening impression that you don't notice. When "BREAK MY SOUL" (#295) became a Billboard #1 hit, it was a big deal because it was so beyond her standard performance. You can pretend to be above the pop game in some respects, but at the end of the day, you will need to find some hits along the way otherwise you will be pushed aside. I don't think anyone is immune to this.

This is the last time Beyoncé appears in this list but we're going out with a flashy bang. In 2022, Beyoncé revealed that she'd put together a trilogy of albums during the pandemic. The first of those was "RENAISSANCE", a disco & house record, and it's been followed by her Americana & country influenced album "Cowboy Carter". No word on the third album as I'm writing this, but it'd make sense if it came out this year. When I talk about the huge resources she has, these albums really exemplify it. Huge lists of collaborators from all different parts of the music world, with very carefully crafted production and some of the most expensive samples going around. "RENAISSANCE" is just a tour de force of incredible moments that have you adjusting your expectations for what the limits might have been. It's hard for me to say that it tops "Lemonade", but I have so much fun listening to it. Even at over an hour, I don't hear the filler, it's track after track of bold and exciting ideas. Shout out to the middle track list run of "CHURCH GIRL", "PLASTIC OFF THE SOFA" and "VIRGO'S GROOVE". If Beyoncé was ever previously accused of having albums with padded album tracks to house the hits, then look at what she's leaving as deep cuts nowadays.

"BREAK MY SOUL" was the big flashy return statement and it did what it needed to do, but it wasn't actually the big hit on the album. That honour goes to "CUFF IT", which itself has not had tremendous legs but it's still for now one of Beyoncé's most streamed songs ever. Her run of hits from the 2000s seems to be where the loyalty lies currently, and it's hard to compete with that as a newer hit. I feel like "CUFF IT" deserves a seat at that table though, as it's probably one of her most conventional hit songs in a long time. I wouldn't necessarily say it's in line with the music she was making at the time, but you can easily sit it next to those songs and pretend it's a classic hit. Everything about it just pops. It sounds classy if you ignore all the times Beyoncé says 'f**k'. Even if it's never been my personal highlight, I've always just found it to be tremendously fun. Now it's my duty to contradict everything I just said and rank it one spot below a considerably less expensive sounding song.

#267. Violent Soho - Like Soda (#15, 2015)

35th of 2015

When an artist has a particularly successful album, it can ascend them to a higher tier. People have heard of them, and when their songs play on the radio, they stick as 'oh yeah, they did that song'. It presents a massive opportunity going forward once everyone's tuned in at the same time to hear the follow up. We've seen it constantly. Many artists have charted highest with the immediate follow up to what is actually their most popular material, and maybe that's sufficient. We all know that the true stars among stars are the ones who take that moment, seize it, and get bigger than ever before. I find myself rooting for them to disrupt the current order.

It's hard to not get disappointed when they fail on this promise though. It feels like a golden opportunity thrown away, and likely one they'll never get back. Follow ups to the big breakout hit are difficult, and maybe there's an internal conflict between trying desperately to satiate that new audience, or otherwise just follow on the path they've deigned for themselves. I won't claim to always know which path is being taken, because sometimes the future has surprising plans. I do find myself sometimes putting myself into the perspective of that new, on-the-fence listener to try and figure it out. Frankly I'm terrible at it. The number of times I've heard the curious follow up, thought they've nailed it and slowly found that I'm a little alone in that assessment. It starts with MGMT and it continues to this day. Sometimes these assessments go so quickly you have to wonder if enough people even gave it a chance for you to blame the song itself.

Anyway, I immediately thought that Violent Soho had blown it. They had a chance to ascend the Australian rock podium and they offered this song that drags its feet to get going and builds up to a hook that's anything but anthemic. I could just feel the new fans immediately tuning out, as it struggled to limp into the charts.

My assessment probably wasn't on the money. In hindsight, this is an incredibly well performing song with all the pressure put on it. It's right on the cusp of being their highest ever Hottest 100 entry which is not something you can expect to do if you are coasting. Whatever hype they might have lost, it wasn't showing when they scored a #1 album the next year, and dished up more than half of that album as Hottest 100 entries. So I guess "Like Soda" really is what everyone was after in the end, it's hard to imagine it going much better for them.

It took a few years for me to see the light. I think the slow start does cloud my judgement a little but once it gets going, it can run circles with the best of them. There's a chaotic energy to it where it can balance between sounding like the loud Violent Soho of old, but also containing itself for the family photos when you need a moment to sing along with. Same goes for the guitars, which showcase some really crunchy moments alongside tidy riffs to latch onto. Not sure why I ever doubted them.

#266. King Stingray - Let's Go (#35, 2022)

19th of 2022

Something I haven't really mentioned prior to this is the odd state of affairs in the King Stingray camp in the last few years. After the huge success of their first album, you'd think they would be set for the future, but it seems to have all gone belly up. Their follow up album missed the ARIA top 50 (compared to a #6 debut last time), and they've just had unexplained things going on behind the scenes. Lead vocalist Yirrŋa just stopped appearing alongside the band and none of it was explained for a long time. He was somewhat being phased out already because Dimathaya had lead vocals on several songs of their second album. He's not in the band anymore, and they've lost another member since. It's possible they can still stick the landing for their legacy, kind of like how Yothu Yindi's mainstream success was also pretty brief, but I'd be surprised if we see them in this countdown again.

Still, it's a pretty good legacy to leave, and I can see the self-titled album aging pretty well once people go back to it and see just how many hits it has. This is the 5th and final time I dig into that well, and the last time I need to say that King Stingray are very good at doing their thing in a way that requires no comment. I'll try, I suppose.

"Let's Go" is the pick for me because it provides a little extra to it. I'm always fond of songs that wrap up their catchy tunes in a little unsettled tension. For this one, it feels like it's rising all the way until the title lyric comes in. Hardly the best moment on its own, but provides the necessary relief.

#275-#271

#275. Fred again.. & Swedish House Mafia (feat Future) - Turn On The Lights again.. (#18, 2022)

21st of 2022

Well for me it wasn't a long time ago that I was talking about Future (#276). I skipped ahead a few chapters when I did it. Partly because my knowledge of his work gets a lot patchier there, but also because I knew this was coming just around the corner. I've mentioned the commercial peak of trap music a couple of times before. I'm still waiting to get to one of the biggest hits, and also one of the biggest players in that scene (unrelated), but the truth is that trap music was already making a name for itself for many years. T.I. pioneered the genre back in 2003 when he made the album "Trap Muzik". He was probably the first to really thrive with it too, when his song "What You Know" became a top 3 hit in 2006. Otherwise it was a side story for a few years behind the main rap timeline going from the bling era to the crunk era to the...I don't think there's a name for it, but basically what Drake & Kanye West were doing with "Thank Me Later" and "808s and Heartbreak". In the early 2010s it started to become a constant presence on the lower end of the Billboard Hot 100. Aside from country music, it was pretty much the thing I most strongly associated the US Charts with, all these dark, menacing rap songs that made no waves over here.

I had a tough time being won over by it. I was still a bit pretentious about real music at this point so all these rough sounding songs depicting debauchery were like the complete opposite of what I was interested in. It was a shock to the system like feeding Takis to a Victorian era child. At best it became a mild fascination, but I was mostly disgusted and offended. One such example that stood out to me was the song "Turn On The Lights" by relative newcomer Future. It almost seemed like a joke at the time. When you hear Future for the first time there just isn't a comparison, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. He's so abrasive in his hooks and sounds like he's singing through a crying fit. I couldn't at all understand why anyone wanted to listen to it.

If you think that I came around to it a few years later, you'd be wrong. I never forgot the song, but it still felt like an absurdity, something that couldn't be rationalised. I kept this feeling for long enough that when I first heard this Fred again.. song, my thought was just 'Really? Of all the songs in the world, you pick this one?'. In hindsight, the reality of it was that I just didn't really ever seek out "Turn On The Lights"...again. I never gave it much of a chance to grow on me until my hand was forced by Fred. You won't necessarily get it out of this version of the song, but going back to it is a strange revelation. It's partly because I'm now very used to Future and what he does, but then it's also a point of fascination for just how much he's gradually changed. "Turn On The Lights" is basically a love song. It's not a hazy Future under the influence (probably), but genuinely a sweet sentiment. The instrumental is relatively reserved by his standards and there are some pretty synths. I guess shout out to the people who click onto the new sounds and artists quicker than I ever can, there's something in here. Again, I don't know if that will show in this version, but there's an appeal to it as well.

This would be a great time to detail my history with Swedish House Mafia as it's their only ever Hottest 100 appearance but I don't really have one. Frankly from the outside looking in I found it hard to really grasp the hype. By the time they broke up, they only had 6 singles, ranging from pretty interesting to fairly cheesy (I don't like John Martin's voice). There was a massive outburst of support when they announced they'd be splitting after just a couple of years, but then they did the John Farnham or the LCD Soundsystem trick of just getting back together again anyway. That's where we find ourselves here, the post-comeback Swedish House Mafia who don't get a lot of attention outside of Sweden unless they're attached to a more prominent name.

Once again, we've got DJs collaborating with DJs and me left with no idea on who does what. To my ear, this sounds more like Fred again..'s work, but some of the trance-influenced sections in the middle I could believe are the work of Swedish House Mafia. The people are here for Fred though, only he could drag up a song and a group from 10 years ago and get everyone to treat it like the hottest thing just dropped. It all comes together nicely though. It's all about that one high pitched synth effect and everything else is a means of giving it space to breathe.

#274. RÜFÜS DU SOL - You Were Right (#12, 2015)

36th of 2015

Sometimes if a song is lucky, it gets to be a hit. If it's even luckier, it gets to be a hit a second time. I don't think there's an actual limit to this. Certainly not now when success seems to beget success like nobody's business. For my money, "You Were Right" has gotten the chance to be a hit roughly 4 times. There can't possibly be a more obscure song to have earned this right. Nothing about it screams that it's the kind of song to do it, other than RÜFÜS DU SOL being a big name without big songs. You need a song to capitalise on that, and maybe "You Were Right" is just the one to do it.

Let's break that down then. The song is released in 2015, the first new single for the trio after a very successful slow burn of success with their debut album. That's enough to secure quite a bit of hype and it helps that the song is quite good. It debuts pretty high and then just slips down the chart from there. Apart from triple j, radio isn't really giving it a big push. triple j does pay dividends in early 2016 though, as the strong Hottest 100 finish (which is why I'm talking about it here) gets it back into the top 50 for a week. It quickly fades from that, but then gets its 3rd wind a little while later as Spotify Australia notices it as one of the better performing Australian songs at the moment and gives it some momentum back. This actually keeps it hanging around until early 2017. All in all, a pretty good showing. Then in late 2022 it gets yet another boost that nearly lifts it back into the top 50. I've never worked out why this happened, but again Spotify Australia were on the ball for this and they had it right near the top of the Hot Hits Australia playlist. When you've had this many bites at the cherry, it should easily the biggest hit of your career. If you look at the charts it is, but if you look at the current charts, you'll see that "Innerbloom" and another song I'll get to in the future just seem to invite more listeners currently. Maybe brief bursts on a curated playlist doesn't actually generate long term growth by default. It's still pretty big, mind you.

With "You Were Right", we arrive at a most sensible RÜFÜS DU SOL. If you liked the first album, you've still got enough of those signature bloops to feel right at home. It's not stagnating though, and I hear in it a certain driving pace that propels them into something new. I think what I like the most about this one is the layering. On the surface it's quite simple but you've got so many components mirroring each other and jumping in and out. It's all pushed within an inch of its life to make something that feels effortless.

#273. Tyler, The Creator (feat YoungBoy Never Broke Again) - WUSYANAME (#77, 2021)

18th of 2021

This is the part where I say I'm not going to talk about Tyler, The Creator right now because while this is his first appearance, he's a pretty regular contributor and there is no shortage of opportunities for that. It's the only time NBA YoungBoy shows up, so surely this is his time to shine? I've got nothing. I mostly just think of him as an artist who racks up an incredible number of entries on the Billboard Hot 100 that are gone just as quickly. If he has particularly famous songs then they're not in my periphery. Apparently his most streamed song is "Bandit", the Juice WRLD song he features on. I know that one, it's pretty good. It made the ARIA top 50 very briefly, which means that it's charted higher than any song by Dave McCormack's band Custard, aka the voice of Bandit on Bluey.

I was lying for the other part of this as well. Tyler, The Creator has racked up quite a few entries now, but not in the time frame I'm looking at. His commercial renaissance came fairly late, and it's taken even longer for him to reach the necessary instant notoriety to really exploit that. Not a single song from "Flower Boy" makes this list, just one from the next album, and this from the album after that. Not a lot, but we work with what we get.

"CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST" is one of the less immediate Tyler albums. It did pretty well, but basically every album he's put out in the last decade has done better. It just doesn't really have hits of the same calibre. Still a good listen, but I'd be hard pressed to recall as many highlights on it. It's also the album where you get a lot of interjections by DJ Drama, which feels like it hurts an album's appeal in the shuffle playlist era (Queens of the Stone Age got their interludes in while the going was good). To me, they're a nice bit of hype when you know they're coming. Like, "SAFARI" is triumphant, but I might need a guy to start yelling at me to really sell it. I'm a big fan of "HOT WIND BLOWS" which has a great return to form guest verse from a rapper who will eventually appear on this list. The real disappointment is that I don't get to cover "SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE", a song that misses out on being in the longest Hottest 100 entry ever conversation because it only got to #146 (it's longer than "Innerbloom"). I feel like that's become the sneaky favourite from the album of late and I was shocked to see it in the mix at the time. That's a Brent Faiyaz masterclass right there.

"WUSYANAME" on the other hand, that's a completely different story, one that's on the other side of the equation at barely 2 minutes long. I had a little trouble wrapping my head around it at first because it didn't stick out to me as the obvious hit that it seemed to succeed as at first. I think it's just a different side of Tyler to what I'm used to. Obviously he makes quite a few lovey-dovey songs, but it's the chill R&B instrumental that sticks out. Definitely a grower, but clearly also not his finest moment.

#272. British India - Wrong Direction (#83, 2014)

33rd of 2014

I've been talking about a lot of hugely popular international stars here, so it's time to get back to my roots and dive into Australian bands that aren't all that famous in Australia either. British India might just be the poster child for their era. They've been superseded by bands like Hockey Dad & Skegss who now that I think about it, fill a very similar role. But British India got towards the front of the line and stayed there for a long time when there was a lot of competition in their vein. Furthermore, they did it without having too much edge to their sound, like it always seemed far cooler to say you were a fan of Dead Letter Circus or something. British India serve a mild but equally important audience, even if it feels like it represents the contradictory response. A lot of people say they're here for lesser known acts getting their chance, but the moment they're forced to sit through them, they're in agony. You're not gonna get drama or headlines from British India, you're not even going to get pretentious types who insist on their ground-breaking brilliance that speaks for itself. Just a band some people are down with, and the rest aren't really interested. 

We need more bands like this. One of the big problems with the intense need for constant growth out of the majors is that an increasingly small minority soak up all the success. Artists that increasingly feel like brands more than anything else, and these kinds of smaller artists are always the first to go. I guess that for as much as I struggle to write about them here, I can empathise with the mentality that the Hottest 100 needs more of this kind of thing. There hasn't been a #1 song in Australia made by an unambiguously Australian artist without any international guests to dress it up in over 6 years (yes, I will get to it). Maybe the next one will appear overnight but the realistic signs just aren't there. That's one way to kill the dream of hitting it big.

This is all to say that this particular no thrills entry is one that I've always had a great fondness for. It might be British India at their most polished. I wouldn't normally pay too much attention to Matt O'Gorman's drumming, but he steals the show on this one. That usual perfunctory role in the verses just takes charge and gives it the necessary buzz. The rest of the band are taking the necessary actions as well, it's just a song that unironically feels like it's pushing the band forward...in the right direction.

#271. Glass Animals - Youth (#38, 2016)

29th of 2016

I've said before that I play with my own internal version of the hits sometimes. It's more likely to happen when there aren't any big chart positions to challenge your view immediately. Things like the Hottest 100 can do that though, and maybe it's a shock to your system of you've subscribed to a different version of the pecking order than reality. Maybe you just go into denial and refuse to accept it, like it doesn't count for some reason. On the other hand, what if you're able to get behind the idea that everyone was right all along?

This is my experience with Glass Animals in 2016. As previously mentioned, I was chips all-in for "Life Itself (#319) when that came out, but it was slower going after that. It was the lead single anyway, so it had to be the hit. We're talking about "Youth" here because it was the surprise package that far outpaced its predecessor, doing it without any gimmicky thrills. 'They must be wrong' is what I thought, or something like that. Not that I disliked "Youth", I just felt a little betrayed by the result.

I'm not sure when I made the mental switch, it wouldn't have been very long ago. In one of my more ambitious chapters, I made a top 2000 list of my favourite songs of the 2010s. At that point in time, I'd positioned "Life Itself" at #1303, and "Youth" at #1955. The first time I'd considered "Youth" part of the conversation and it's quickly vaulted up there. If anyone finds that list, then these positions might be the proof to consider that it's not as much a spoiler for this list as it could be.

Perhaps if I ever find an excuse to map the trajectory, it'll fall even further in favour of "Youth", but for now I totally can get behind it. If I want to talk about foundational music for me as a child, then it's hard to look past the Donkey Kong Country 2 soundtrack. Even if you've never played the games, it's just some seriously good instrumentals that can be both intense and soothing if the moment calls for it. It was good enough to be sampled by Drake back when he was more well respected for what he was doing (still my favourite project of his, "If You're Reading This, It's Too Late"). I mainly think of that small portion of exquisite tracks in the middle, "Bayou Boogie", "Forest Interlude", and of course, "Stickerbush Symphony" (actually that track is probably more enjoyable if you haven't played the game than if you have). This is what I think of when Glass Animals bring out that echoing synth over the hook. It feels like the most realised version of the Glass Animals experience, and that's why this is the last time I'm talking about them here.

#280-#276

#280. The Buoys - Lie To Me Again (#85, 2021)

19th of 2021

There's a strange Australian link with Amazon series "The Boys". I first thought about it last year when someone highlighted a niche reference from the prop department that would mean nothing to most people, but lit up the eyes of Australians. There was a series of names on a sheet of paper. There was a Veronica Barassi, followed by a Franklin, Prestia & Skilton. Fascinating in its own right, but then I learnt that in addition to two Kiwi stars, there's also an Australian actress on the show, while self-professed nepo baby Jack Quaid often collaborates with Aunty Donna and executive produced their AFL podcast (though he wasn't familiar with the sport). When Mother's Milk is first introduced, it's via a bunch of people calling him "Mr. Milk". There's a whole looking glass I need to get through, but in the meantime, I missed the boat on watching the show and only started watching it a few days before I knew I'd be typing this up. I have tried my darnedest to get through the whole show before this post went live but I've still got half a season to go. I like it. It's been a long time coming because I've known about it for longer than I've known about The Buoys. That's the Australian Buoys obviously, not the "Timothy" Buoys. The Buoys really ate when they made that one though. "The Boys" actually references that song in a scene where an octopus named Timothy gets eaten. Otherwise, the whole show is just a stealth advertisement campaign for the discography of Billy Joel.

By the time The Buoys made it here, they'd already had 6 line-up changes with only lead singer Zoe Catterall as a consistent member. They've had the same line up since 2019 so all the chaos is largely behind us. What we've got here feels like a prelude to a story that hasn't gotten to thrive in the outset. I love The Buoys. They're in very exclusive company as a band I've voted for more than once in the Hottest 100. They've not had a single entry since this one though and it's a real shame.

By all accounts, "Lie To Me Again" probably is their most popular song, and I'm not sure what they can do to change this. Something about it obviously connected with me at the time but I find nowadays, it's not a song I tend to opt for. They've just made so many songs that are much more fun by comparison. Then again, "Lie To Me Again" has its own role, a key contributor in the world of songs about shitty boyfriends. Not the same kind of shitty boyfriend as on "Red Flags" or "Subject A", but one with a goomah on the side that they end up going to. The kind of boyfriend who might co-captain back to back flags, or maybe they'd be right at home as one of the The Seven.

#279. Lizzo - Juice (#28, 2019)

20th of 2019

We have more tools available for chart analysis than ever before and it's always crucial for me to use them to the fullest. Once you start cutting corners, you just start to misinterpret everything and confuse 'this makes sense to me' with 'I have evidence to back this up'. To me, Spotify monthly listeners is an incredibly interesting metric. It's not without its faults, as obsessive listening is treated with the same significance as a one off auto-play track, but it's self-correcting in its own way. I find it more useful to look at artists with respect to their own peaks, rather than alongside others. I don't actually think Pitbull is currently bigger than KPop Demon Hunters at its peak.

When artists aren't in the spotlight, it's all you've really got, and it's a way to differentiate someone who's still doing numbers, to another who has genuinely been lost in the pile. Khalid for instance has about as many listeners as he's ever had. They're more scattered and he's fallen down the pecking order quite a bit, but he's doing numbers, and he's one contrived nostalgia cycle from vaulting back up to a new high. In fact it's hard to find many artists who truly fall off. Maroon 5 had one underperforming album back in the day that made their return to stardom feel paycheck to paycheck. Except now it's been 5 years since they last cashed one of those and the momentum hasn't slowed at all. The Chainsmokers have gone even longer without a big mainstream moment but they're still as big as they ever were. Part of this is because the population keeps growing and there aren't enough new artists to push people off the old ones, but with a few exceptions, artists never are the fads they come across as.

Lizzo is one of those exceptions. It's very difficult to find many artists who have fallen from grace to the degree she has. She's had enough hits that she should be set for life, maybe that'll still come down the track, but in the last few years, her stocks have plummeted immensely. Her monthly listeners have been cut by nearly 70%, and she's gone from a top 100 or thereabouts artists (highest I can find is #105 but she may have gone higher), down to 1237th. When I looked this up, more people were listening to Cutting Crew than her, as well as many artists I've not even heard of.

How can this be? The topic I've avoided talking about with these Lizzo entries are the allegations. Partly because I always had something else to mention, and partly because I wanted to hold off as long as possible in case something happened with it. This has somewhat panned out, and it has reinforced my chance to watch Lizzo's listeners continue to slip down. In any case, Lizzo received multiple lawsuits against her from people she worked with, accusing her of all manner of things that can be boiled down to being the absolute worst person to be around. The kind of thing that makes Jeremy Clarkson look like a saint by comparison. One of these lawsuits was dropped in 2024, seemingly on a technicality, and then in December 2025, another case was also dropped. For litigation purposes, it's great for her, but in the grand scheme, she's completely killed all her good will. It's hard to imagine her career ever recovering.

There is something to be said in all of this about the occasionally frustrating power dynamics that set this into motion. Maybe it's for the best that Lizzo is reprimanded for her actions, but then you find yourself wondering if a man did the same thing, would he face the same consequence? Probably not, or at least, not until every profit can be wrung out of his image and persona. You see the same thing with regards to LGBTQI+ creators, especially with regards to transgender communities. They have an audience that so badly want them to get things right, that if they make a mistake, it'll cause outright fury that only gets heightened once internalised bigotry from beyond that community takes hold and makes the pile-on bigger. Meanwhile a cisgender man can write about whatever he wants with nowhere near the same scrutiny. What it creates is a system where people who could potentially be a face or voice for a marginalised community are scared out of participation, lest they be subject to the same criticism. Whether you think the things Lizzo has been accused of and may well have done are particularly heinous or not isn't really important, but for her as a plus sized black woman who isn't shy about showing it off, it's a lot of avenues that subconsciously or not, make people more likely want to take her down. I can't help but find myself compartmentalising it all in the same way. There was a point where I was thinking forward and I was feeling more shame for the strong Lizzo rankings I was due to unveil than say that of Kanye West or Arcade Fire. Artists whose falls from grace feel less actualised because they haven't jettisoned anywhere near as much of their audience as Lizzo has. That's the world collectively telling you that she's the biggest problem, and you can't help but put that on your mind. Maybe Lizzo just didn't get enough hits in the end, and a more vital career filled with songs we can't tear away from our hearts would have kept her in our good graces. No one ever stops listening to David Bowie, Led Zeppelin or Red Hot Chili Peppers when they learn that they've done heinous things with children, they're too important. Lizzo was just a brief fling with some frivolous hit singles that weren't made to be canonised by the rock & roll crowd though, we can part our ways with that.

Aside from all this, the song we're looking at here, "Juice", is part of an increasingly common lineage. It's a song that's arguably been overshadowed by older songs in Lizzo's catalogue, but at the same time, absolutely benefitted from them. I had a passing familiarity with Lizzo prior to 2019, so I knew "Juice" when it came out. It could've been her big pop breakthrough but it wasn't really. That came a little while after when she had back to back hits with "Truth Hurts" and "Good As Hell", two songs that were quite old in 2019. That's never stopped us before though. Nowadays the experience is so scattered and fleeting that we can just make songs into belated hits when they were already hits, or are currently hits. The ceiling no longer exists.

I think this is the key to why we've got "Juice" here though. When voting comes around, you can't pick the older Lizzo songs, but maybe they introduced you to some other songs, and here's the hit that is eligible. If you've heard it enough in 2019, you might not even question the fact that it only peaked at #100 on the chart, it's just clearly Lizzo's biggest hit of 2019, and Lizzo is a big deal. It can feel like these eligible songs can be leeching off the lingering popularity that comes from wanting to vote for a song you missed the boat on. I'm gesturing towards Foster The People in 2011, who were no doubt popular, but were filling in a lot of missed votes for "Pumped Up Kicks" when they had two songs in the top 15.

If I can put myself back into my 2019 mindset, I'm all for it. Sometimes it takes lingering popularity of other songs by the same artist to put a spotlight on songs that might not otherwise get there, lord knows there's a lot of those to come as I count this down. "Juice" might not feel like it, but for me as someone who's been watching charts for many years, there's always been a bit of a disconnect between 'I think this sounds like a hit' and 'This is what a hit sounds like'. For every larger than life song that proclaims its domination like a "Hollaback Girl", there are a lot more songs like this, songs that don't quite have the same sauce. Maybe a lot of people online will fall in love with it, but the radio programmers and streamers just won't get behind it. Look at the song it directly beat in 2019, "Piece Of Your Heart" (#712). That's sitting on the right parameters to be a monster hit, even if it'll be harder to find a self-professed major fan of it.

Lizzo songs will often be criticised as being more of a blank space to be filled in with Tumblr quotes or something like that. Hard to not notice it once you've been told this, but I've never loved the characterisation. It just feels like an extension of the idea that Lizzo promotes (though doesn't necessarily practise) positivity and again, it's that increased scrutiny towards someone like her. Sometimes the world needs those meaningless profundities. The song's chorus manages to be both specific and malleable. Your juice can be anything. It's the sheer confidence and conviction that Lizzo brings to the table that makes it succeed, even if in hindsight we have to wonder if she protests too much.

#278. Rise Against - I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore (#80, 2014)

34th of 2014

Every now and then I'll see a recycled listicle that talks about those songs whose titles aren't what you think they are. As someone who used to read many things like this when I was younger and building up my musical knowledge, I can understand their purpose. I don't know if they are quite as viable in an age where people are much more likely to see the proper titles while listening (as opposed to whatever title was used on a file sharing service). I'll concede that exact titles aren't always common knowledge. On Jeopardy! a while back, all three contestants got the Final Jeopardy! clue incorrect because they all mistakenly omitted the pronoun from Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line". Some song titles are just cumbersome enough that you do go through life either never learning the truth, or finding out once and having it stick with you. Songs like "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)", "What's Up?" or "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)". Some other songs almost feel like they're playing a prank on you, but become a certain code of recognition that lets you know this person has probably gotten to the other side of the struggle with you. No one has ever said "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" without instinctively reminding themselves to adjust from that gut instinct. I haven't fallen for that one in a long time, but on the less famous side of things, I might frequently forget that this song here is not called "I Don't Wanna Be Here Anymore". 6 words is just a good hard limit on a title before it gets a bit cumbersome. And look, maybe Tim McIlrath is saying 'want to'. The lyric video attests to this, but I've never heard any 't' sound out of this song. At least Cyndi Lauper puts a bit of an 'o' sound into it, and even splits the words at one point.

Rise Against have often occupied an interesting space for me. As far as popular alternative rock bands go, they're the one that seems to skirt on the edge of being a bit too far gone to cut it in the mainstream. I think they've succeeded because in spite of the overall package, they're just too good at writing incredibly catchy songs that rope in people who might otherwise not be interested. They manage to play to a popular crowd without feeling like it's their primary aim. More than anyone else though, they're just that one band for whom I keep running into fans. People I wouldn't necessarily think to be interested in a band like this that have a strange soft spot for them, or maybe just a couple of their songs. I first heard of them via someone who might otherwise be listening to Fedde Le Grand or Alex Gaudino, but also had to download "Prayer of the Refugee" because it just has that unbeatable guitar riff. I don't know if the big screaming chorus was a plus or baggage, but it's given that song a heightened sense of importance to me, like it's the song that made them.

The slight edginess found its way into me, it was appealing to reason, or something like that. I'd hear more songs of theirs and just like what they were putting down. Songs like "The Good Left Undone" and "Re-Education (Through Labor)" just solidified that they had an excellent knack for writing choruses that flipped the script and made it feel like you were getting more bang for your buck. There was an obvious political tilt to the songwriting that made it feel important even if I wasn't necessarily getting the details beyond the broad strokes. I've never really had many people in my ear who listen to harder and louder stuff to tell me that Rise Against are wimps, so to me they just felt a little bit special. It's that often myopic view that the band for which no one really has a worthwhile retort against just feels good to listen to.

The notion of Rise Against being totally not populist would slip a little along the way. During this still relatively early period, they found some radio success with the song "Savior". At the time it was a record-breaking song for just how long it spent on the Alternative Songs chart, 65 weeks. It wasn't just a radio darling though, as it's gone on to be a streaming monster. If you look at songs released in 2008, you're only gonna find about 20 that have more streams than "Savior" (which is closing in on 1 billion on Spotify). Some monster hits of that time like "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "So What" are playing second fiddle to this punk rock song that could only get to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Bubbling Under chart. Perhaps the band's major label distribution got the best out of them. I used "Re-Education (Through Labor)" as a means to teach myself how to play Guitar Hero with all 5 frets (not the best choice but I liked the song a lot). By the time the Hottest 100 had rolled around, I'd mastered it to the point of whipping out the plastic peripheral and playing along with all the note mapping that I'd memorised at this point. A core memory of mine just made from the song being licensed to a video game. I kept this enthusiasm up for their next album "Endgame" in 2011. This seemed to be a dropping off point for many as it didn't really muster hits to the same degree as before (though there was enough hype to make "Help Is On The Way" their only charting Billboard single). I listened to that album a lot and got my fair share of songs that felt like a big deal to me. "Architects" is a little too weird to go all the way but I've loved it for 15 years now. It felt like the moment had passed after that though, they'd retreat back to their niche in favour of a younger, hipper replacement.

The weirdest thing happened. Maybe you can pin it down to the soon to be changing tides of 2014's chart rules, but Rise Against inexplicably had their first ever charting hit in Australia with "I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore". It got to #69 too so it wasn't just a weird fluke on the cusp. For whatever reason, the public just decided to jump in on this song together, rather than gradually discovering it over a matter of months, or just buying the album instead. As if to show it wasn't just some meaningless fluke, here it is here, I'm talking about this because Rise Against made the Hottest 100 again, 6 years after what seemed to surely be their only ever appearance. I've been writing all of this with a sense of bewilderment. I can't believe Rise Against are part of this list.

The pieces are still there with "I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore". My mind wants to say the fire had burnt out but I can still feel it. It's just shy of being a big highlight because I've heard it all at this point. In a pinch, it goes down a treat, but it's missing that extra special something to put it at the top of the pack.

#277. SAFIA - Over You (#89, 2016)

30th of 2016

Listen to the song "Carousel" by New Zealand singer Paige. It's just an absolute masterclass in blatant buffoonery, jovial jest and blunderous balatro. It's carnival music is what I'm saying. It comes from an album called "King Clown", and even includes a short snippet that sounds very similar to Fučík's "Entrance of the Gladiators" (if you don't recognise that name, you absolutely know it, and now you know that it has an ill-fitting name). It's a tried and true formula for me. I can't say for sure if it draws on my experiences with Lemmings 2's circus levels but if we're to believe that everything is foundational, then why not? I love whimsical sounds like this. Not something that I think is often set out upon to make, but in the quest for invigorating melodies, we just can't help but fall back upon it.

I am unsure if SAFIA are intentionally in this trade but they have done it more than once so I will cast a suspicious eye towards them. "Over You" has some plausible deniability. Maybe they just wanted a nice little riff to tie a bow around this one, but it can't help but dance around in a circle in a funny way. It'd be a nice bit of meta-commentary on the song, whose central thesis is a chronic inability to get over their ex. I see the niche meme forming. It was funnier in my head at least.

A nice little treat to see this one get in though. I don't think it's a favourite for many, but it's a catchy little pop song that isn't trying to do much more than that. They even play the classic gambit of sending us straight to the chorus at the very start. That's the money shot right there, why try and do anything else?

#276. Future - Mask Off (#95, 2017)

30th of 2017

It's now time for one of those fun narrative tricks where we tell the same story from a different perspective. This time we start at 2015. Future's been in the game for a while now. He's established himself and scored some hits that might be a little surprising considering his vocal stylings don't seem the most obvious for crossover success. Think a lot of vocoder mumbling that's not always interested in stepping into the foreground. He's about to have the biggest successes of his career so far. First he releases "DS2" and it becomes his first ever #1 album. He'd follow it up with about 10 more #1 albums, but this is the start of that. It's also pretty well acclaimed, and that's only increased in the decade since. Depending on who you ask, it might just be the definitive trap album, alongside Travis Scott's "Rodeo" that was released a couple of months later. Drake jumped on board, and later that year they released a collaborative mixtape, "What A Time To Be Alive". It does reasonably well and nets them both a catchy viral hit in "Jumpman", a song not about Super Mario.

I've spoken about the next part already. Not long after this, young upstart Desiigner releases his first single, "Panda" (#324), and it's huge. #1 hit huge, something Future's never gotten particularly close to getting ("Jumpman" peaked at #12). Comments started flying out when this happened, either remarking the injustice, or poking fun at Future for not being able to do something that the new kid seemed to do without trying. It bordered on straight up biting, given that a lot of people (myself included) genuinely thought they were listening to Future when they first heard Desiigner's voice. It doesn't help that Desiigner is from New York but claims to have broads in Atlanta, Future's hometown. I think a lot of people wanted to stoke up beef but it didn't really happen. There's no way Desiigner was going to jump in on it, and Future was mostly not going to act threatened by him. He took a couple of small pot shots at Desiigner during some live shows but that was about as far as it went. Desiigner didn't stay relevant for long enough to get any mileage out of it.

Future's career certainly flourished after this though. Interest around him was higher than ever and he tended to chart by default from this point on. In 2017 he released two albums in back to back weeks. It allowed him to be the first artist to ever debut #1 albums in back to back weeks, and probably made Guns N' Roses slap their head for not thinking of it at the time. The first of those albums, "Future" is the relevant one here because it gave Future his biggest ever solo hit "Mask Off". It was the song that proved that Future's schtick could even work in a pop context, or that he'd just gotten so big that it was inevitable. It still couldn't get to #1 though, stalling out at #5 in America and making the #1 position feel even further away as a pipe dream. I'm going to fast forward a lot further to say that it's no longer an issue. Future has three #1 singles now, two of them with help from Drake (though I'd say Tems is a bigger factor on "WAIT FOR U"), and one of them in a diss track to Drake, funny that. Future's career looks to be in good stead as it stands, so perhaps another one is forthcoming.

The part I've left out of here is how strange it might feel that Future has this kind of following. His music doesn't exactly tend to offer the insights associated with parasocial engagement, largely because it's so hard to decipher usually. I found myself thinking some time ago that he has to be one of the most famous musicians that I know next to nothing about as a person. It's just not what he does. With that in mind, I had an interesting experience recently listening to "DS2". If you catch it on Spotify, you'll see a track tacked on the end called "Like I Never Left", and it's just shy of 26 minutes long. It's not actually Future's "Bohemian Stairway To November, I'm Dying Of Thirst" but it's a 5 part documentary from the making of the album. It's mostly Future talking about the success he'd had up to this point. About how he made the music he wanted to make and was so happy to see people were into it. It was weirdly just the first time I'd seen Future as a real person and not just a mysterious vessel for trap bangers. Maybe I would have just skipped it if I hadn't been halfway into a Rocket League game when it started, but I like hearing interviews from people you don't normally expect to get them from.

As for "Mask Off", it's probably the most streamlined version of the Future experience we've ever gotten. Not necessarily the best (I've got a soft spot for "Move That Dope"), but it's definitely the starter pack entry. One where you can't possibly accuse him of resting on the laurels of his collaborators. Well, maybe you can still look at Metro Boomin and his sample of Tommy Butler's "Prison Song" (no relation to System of a Down) providing the unforgettable flute sample and everything around it. I'd still mark down Future as the biggest part of the song though. He takes queues from QOTSA's "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer" and makes a hook out of 'Percocet, molly, Percocet'. It just works. He manages to do what I can only dream of and thrive in both a mask on and mask off mentality. He has the sheer confidence to rhyme 'liability' with 'adrenaline' in what remains my go-to example of a ridiculous slant rhyme. In Australia, Future is one of those middle card rappers who can't really get hits off the ground if one of the big 4 aren't attached (though oddly he did manage a solo #1 album in 2022 despite never otherwise hitting the top 10), so I was glad to see it for this one, and glad to see it part of the Hottest 100 canon.