#29

#29. Ngaiire - Once (#73, 2015)

7th of 2015

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For Ngaiire, this is all a matter of sheer persistence. She's been around the block and then some, with this one moment being just a single stop on the journey. That journey starts remarkably early, as she was diagnosed with a rare form of adrenal cancer when she was just 3 years old. I wouldn't necessarily bring it up but she ended up naming the album this song comes from after it. It's just one of the abnormal parts of her upbringing from which she channelled a love of music, not to get away with it, but as a way to express feelings about it.

There are a few ways you might have first come across her name and music. The most likely is that she was a contestant in season 2 of Australian Idol. That's the season whose results I can recite from memory, but I didn't start watching until the final 12 so I missed her, as she didn't quite get that far. She also did some work with Paul Mac as a guest vocalist though not among his more successful works, so again, I missed her. I'm pretty confident in that sense that the first time I heard her voice was when she did some backing vocals with the band Blue King Brown, who had a handful of songs on the radio right around when I started listening to triple j. I'm not sure which songs she sings on other than "Water", it's often hard to hear anyone over Natalie's captivating performances. She continued to release music of her own during this time but I can't claim any familiarity with it up to and including her debut album, 2013's "Lamentations". I'm listening to it now and it sounds really good. You get the feeling that after jumping around in different settings & genres for a while, she's finally settled into her ideal style, a mix of R&B and neo-soul that emphasizes her classically trained vocals.

R&B music is actually something that's really snuck up on me over the years. It's not something I ever really paid much attention to (translation: my taste in music was incredibly white). It didn't really feel like it was made for me and so I'd only occasionally vibe with it if it was working within the confines of other genres. You just get locked into that notion that R&B music is boring as a rule and don't get anyone to challenge that notion. This is obviously where The Weeknd comes into play, and I think part of why his early mixtapes made such an impression on me. Still, it was a very singular event, he laid the seeds, but it'd be a while before it really went anywhere. A few years later I'd hear albums by D'Angelo and The Internet, but again, pretty isolated and mostly not at the forefront of my taste. From that point on though, it's just a constant peppering that I don't really acknowledge until around the 2020s, when all of a sudden it's a core part of my taste. I keep track of my favourite songs of each year, and I've had an R&B/Soul song in my top 10 every year of the decade so far except for 2021, including twice where it was my favourite song period. Honestly, 2021 is just an unlucky year because there are a handful of songs I'd say have the same feeling as R&B/Soul in some respects, but the highest one that you can't really deny is actually one of Ngaiire's songs, "Him". That song has her at her melodramatic best. Just a huge emotive release.

I feel a little odd for feeling this way if only because I don't really know anyone else who does. It feels like an anomaly in my music taste, if not for my general pursuit of anything that stands out, as well as rewarding hooks and melodies. That's everyone I think, but I find myself focusing very strongly on it. It's the kind of thing that naturally happens when you spend a lot of time unable to listen to music, but instead thinking or humming along with it to produce the same effect. So any song where the primary focus is a voice that likely isn't just resting on slight variations of the same tune has a lot of potential to go far. That and I find it to be very comforting, a bit like dream pop but without feeling as distant and abstract. Admittedly it's hard to make a good case for a genre that's largely not relevant right now, and whose biggest star continues to be Chris Brown year after year. SZA probably deserves a mention here instead, but she largely has her best successes when she pivots away from her usual a bit.

Anyway, like many others, I was enamoured by "Once". It was Ngaiire's first time getting major airplay on triple j, and so it was the first time she stopped being a bit player and got put in the forefront. In that sense, it allowed her talents to shine and prompt me to wonder where she was hiding all this time. She was probably a victim of my general reluctance to the genre still, so I probably unfairly treated the song as a one-off for the time. One of those singles that are so good, you don't want to ruin the magic by hearing all the worse versions of it on the album. Funnily enough, I've always been listening to the album version of the song and not the single which cuts it down by about 45 seconds. I can't bring myself to remind myself what got taken out of the song to cut it down. It's one of those songs that I want to live in, and have it keep going.

"Once" isn't really a song that shows off in any way, it more likely just catches your ear for how different is to everything around it. It does, for all intents and purposes have a chorus and a hook which caps it all off, but I find myself drawn into the more subtle moments. Ngaiire uses a handful of tricks to create a sunken feeling. Backing vocals that echo and just some general echolalia. It's something I want to bring up with another song that will appear on this list, but I really do love the way she says the word 'repetitively'. Ngaiire has appeared in the Hottest 100 just this once, but it's a hell of a way to have your moment.

#30

#30. Wafia - I'm Good (#14, 2018)

3rd of 2018

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Retroactively, this song taught me a very important lesson about keeping your expectations in check. I've mentioned before how for a period of time (more or less the one I'm covering), it was fairly commonplace to get pseudo-spoilers for the Hottest 100 by way of anyone willing to tally up all available votes online as a data sample. Warm Tunas was the most famous iteration of this. It did a pretty good job, getting the top end of the list largely right, and aside from a handful of largely predictable outliers, shaped the rest of the list pretty well. I won't say that it wasn't without its uses. I suspect it was a handy rallying call for an underdog to show that they have a surprising silent majority fandom and help push for more votes, and it could always be used to fleece bookies though I imagine enough people did it badly that they still broke even. Mostly though, it set unrealistic expectations for the list that even a second or third glance might not snap out of you.

For me, this had an odd effect that took me a few years to solidify. The first year it was done, it felt a little dirty to me, turning this countdown of surprises into something where it all just seemed to fall largely into place. Every song I'd see place roughly around the prediction was another surprise that I had decided to spoil for myself early, and even if I hadn't there was this assured knowledge that everyone else largely saw it coming as well. The shared spectacle was gone and I felt like I'd cheated myself. Still, it was a central part of the experience and I couldn't stop myself from looking at it when everyone else was. Besides, I eventually decided to do my own version of counting it, possibly because I wanted closure on potential songs that might have just missed the top 200. 2014 was the year I had a second inclination that it wasn't right. Specifically because I was listening to the countdown, hoping that the songs I'd voted for would get in, but deep down having a very solid idea of which songs they might be, and not only that, but roughly when they were going to show up. You get to the top 30 and the excitement of 'Ooh, "Beggin For Thread" (#49) hasn't shown up, it could be anywhere!' is replaced with 'Well, I guess we're due for "Beggin For Thread" now'. It's just an underwhelming way to perceive it that undercuts the excitement.

Eventually, I decided to actually go cold turkey and evade spoilers. It wasn't until 2018 which might seem especially late, and my only guess is that I finally got what I'd wanted in the previous year and no longer felt like I needed to stake my month in figuring out what was going to win. Let me just tell you that with the caveat that you need to be listening to triple j all year so you're actually familiar with the songs, this is absolutely the best way to experience the countdown. It really took me back to the late 2000s where it was summarising what was effectively my year in music in a pecking order that I only felt a vague inclination of. Every step of the way, you get to think 'Oh, cool, this is here', a feeling that gets lost if you spoil it for yourself.

It just felt like a great contrast to everyone else I saw discussing the countdown at the same time. They all seemed to be bogged down by what had been projected, and so those exciting out of the blue placements were instead moments of slight confusion at anything that appeared lower or higher than expected. The overarching feeling is that people online tended to prefer the projected countdown over the actual one and thus were disappointed at every step of the way. When the countdown wraps up, it always results in the same discussion topics livid that a certain song didn't make the countdown, frequently songs that were projected to do so. It's basically the Tkay Maidza thread because she always seemed to have her chips fall this way. At that point it's just 'Fool me once'.

Wafia comes into play here because her song "I'm Good" landed at #14 in the 2018 countdown. I had voted for it and I was stoked to see this. It's a remarkably high placing for a song that hadn't really crossed over (though it got some commercial radio airplay), from an artist who hadn't had a real hit before it. I was just hoping it would make the list at all and so #14 surpassed all my wildest expectations. Moments later, I discovered that I was one of the few people thinking this way, because everyone else was baffled to see how low the song had landed. That's because according to Warm Tunas, the song was expected to land at #5, and frankly it was a lot closer to #4 than it was to #6. It was pretty uncharacteristic to get the predictions this wrong, so even if you were on the wrong end of the optimism scale, you'd probably still expect a low top 10 at the worst.

Regardless of what you wanted for the song, expecting one thing and getting something completely different, is frustrating. It takes all those pre-established expectations and throws them away, requiring you to start counting your chickens from scratch all over again. I just encountered so much angry and frustrated discourse where this wasn't the only instance, but all of it combined for a constant feeling of being cheated from the desired experience that had been built up. I get it, too. I am so glad I never spoiled myself going in because I would have lost that shocked feeling when the song placed far higher than I expected, with my own disappointment. Why would I ever want that?

It's also generally something that applies elsewhere. In an age of enshittification, or the appearance of it, it can be helpful to manage your expectations as well. It does end up making me a little more cynical than usual, but it has the upside where that child-like wonder can easily return as well. Sometimes all it takes is managing to surround yourself with either friends or the parasocial equivalent who live to surprise and dazzle. Whether it's making you laugh, or going the extra step to do anything with love & passion. Honestly, it's what I aspire to be, and it's kinda what I'm doing here. Anyone can make a list, but who else is going to accompany it with a bible's worth of words? There are so many cool and interesting people in the world, don't get trapped with joyless cynics.

Anyway, let's talk about Wafia. There isn't much of a prelude to this entry as she'd only released a handful of EPs previously, but it's also a lot of her greatest successes. One of these came before she had seriously pursued her musical career, as she tagged along with Japanese Wallpaper for the song "Breathe In" which Zach Braff liked enough to include in his film "Wish I Was Here", the Australian "New Slang", you might say. A few years later, she was a university student looking for a creative outlet and so she turned to music. Her debut EP was titled "XXIX", not because she was 29 at the time (she was 22), but to represent the atomic number of copper. It features a song whose title is in Arabic, as she has Iraqi heritage (though she was born in the Netherlands). It also has what is probably her most famous song "Heartburn". It's been streamed over 200 million times on Spotify so there's a fair chance it's racked up a few Platinum certifications that we're not privy to. That song was also co-produced by Ta-ku, who'd team up with Wafia soon after on the song "Love Somebody", which really put her on the map for me. From this point on, Wafia has been a regular one to watch for me and on any given year there's a solid chance I downloaded a single she put out. Some of my favourites include the memorable descending scales of "Flowers & Superpowers", a similar results return to Ta-ku's world on "Wide Open", and the blunt but effective "Sad Shit". Actually, it's only been while I've been working on this blog that she finally released her debut album "Promised Land" in 2025.

In the middle of this, "I'm Good" was the hit and I was all about it. It was my favourite song going around for a while, which I felt paid at least a little tribute to an earlier fling of mine. About 12 months before this, it was Kira Puru's "Tension", and to a lesser extent, Selena Gomez's "Bad Liar". All fun pop songs that let a strong bass line form the main anchor, which is a great recipe for them to sound great when you're walking down the street (I want to say I still had headphones to do this at the time). It felt like a bit of a departure for Wafia who was usually making more down tempo songs, but it was a pretty seamless transition.

Aside from the bass, I feel like the lyrics really solidify the fun, bouncy nature of the song. Wafia puts stress on the last word of every line and strangely helps when it comes to spoon-feeding the most basic of rhymes. No one should be able to get away with rhyming 'Sad' with 'Bad' and yet here we are. Really, it's just to set you up with the slightly more forced 'self/health/hell' rhyme that comes after which I really enjoy anyway. I think the rhymes just work better knowing there aren't very many words between them, while it doesn't feel laboured either, just a very natural response to someone who sucks. I know deep down that she's saying 'you're a dead-end' on the second verse, but my Simpsons brain really wants me to believe (start slowly grinning now) that she's making fun of someone for being the dud.

#31

#31. Kanye West - Black Skinhead (#20, 2013)

4th of 2013

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This is another one of those songs where I find myself undecided on whether or not it could be considered a pop hit. It's hard to say how much of it comes down to Kanye West's unusual release strategies in the 2010s and how much it was just not something everyone was ready for. You would think that after releasing the most acclaimed album of your career and getting a worthwhile victory lap alongside JAY-Z via "Watch The Throne", you'd be set for the next album so long as it's not awful. In truth, "Yeezus" managed to be everything at once. Famously when Pitchfork did their 2013 Readers Poll, the album was simultaneously voted the best album of the year, most underrated album of the year, and most overrated album of the year. I think there's something in that, but it might also just be a very good example of the online Goomba fallacy. Some people love it, others hate it, and when you're not exactly setting yourself up for massive success in the moment, that's probably the dividing line that stops you from dominating the charts.

Thus, "Black Skinhead" was not really a major hit song in 2013. It couldn't crack the top 50 in Australia or the US, while it largely skirted in and around the top 40 in the UK for a couple of months. That felt a little strange to me only because it meant the song had to be acknowledged on the charts, and BBC Radio 1 had to play it during its chart broadcast. It felt more than a little out of place, mostly because every other country couldn't afford it the same space. Then again, Kanye West often performed surprisingly well on the UK charts. Right from the start, it's the only country where "Through The Wire" reached the top 10. It must be something he leans into, because one of his most famous songs is "American Boy", and there's always that BRIT Awards performance I keep bringing up.

That being said, Kanye's reception in the UK is one I always think about. There's a think piece on Vice by Grace Medford that I've had saved to favourites since 2015. I keep it there as a reminder. It's calling back to 2015 when Kanye was announced as a headliner for Glastonbury that year. You can probably predict how people felt about that. Or maybe you can't, because some people took it the extra step and tried to get a petition going to remove him from the line up. The petition that suggested he be replaced by a rock band like Oasis got over 130,000 signatures, though it doesn't really elaborate on what the issue is with Kanye, as if it's something that should be self-evident to all music fans. The article explores all the common criticism of Kanye like his bad temper, ego, disrespect to other artists, and reliance on others to help make his music, and then compares him to Liam Gallagher for which these all apply. Then she stops beating around the bush and makes it clear that this is systemic racism. The idea that certain attributes are acceptable for one person and not the other, complete with testimonials that further strengthen the idea that there's an othering fear of a figure like Kanye West. It just feels like it's something that's been a hot button issue in the UK for a long time. There's a quote from Morrissey from 1986 that's been doing the rounds recently where he disavows reggae, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, calls them 'vile in the extreme'. In case you want to give him any benefit of the doubt, that's after saying that he detests 'modern black music', lest you be mistaken into thinking his bad opinions have only been recent. More recently, tweets containing the n-word reached an all-time high after the UEFA Euro 2020 final, when England lost 3-2 to Italy on penalties after Rashford, Saka & Sancho all missed their shots.

Firstly, I should acknowledge that all of this Kanye West stuff happened in 2015, before he ever donned a MAGA hat, and before he started praising the name of Hitler. I will readily concede that there are very valid reasons to call him to question at this point in time, regardless of what state of 'Okay, he's fine now' he might be in. I don't think you're allowed to retroactively claim a victory in this case, because it certainly wasn't the ammunition being used against him in 2015 (I am aware of the irony as I write about a song called "Black Skinhead", and also sometimes called "BLKKK SKKKN HEAD"). It's much like Lizzo, where all the people who hated her for frivolous reasons suddenly got a valid one.

This kind of racial inequity really radicalised me in my 20s. I was probably part of the problem myself without realising it, but afterwards I just started seeing patterns emerge. Instances of online music rating where artists of all races could be celebrated, but where it was accepted that white artists just had more widespread appeal and would always come out on top. Someone who doesn't like Carly Rae Jepsen might just give her a 4/10 and move on, but the person who doesn't like Beyoncé is locked and loaded with that 0/10. Coupled with all the more serious issues going on in the world, and it just felt like it was something that we all should have been doing better with. I found myself torn between the urgent need to label people as racists or just the more mediated approach of questioning the value of those kinds of collations if they produce the predictably problematic result every time.

Now, there's something to be said about mellowing out with age that I'm beginning to appreciate. It's not that I don't still feel very strongly about these kinds of issues, but it's that rush to over-dramatize everything that I've learnt to rein in. When you're young, you're hot-headed, and feel like everything can be solved by just calling it out, getting the internet win by having the most righteous take, and think that either everyone will concede to you, or that you can rest easy knowing you have the moral high ground and can re-deploy it at any given chance. When you're older, you just realise that it doesn't really do anything and all you're doing is being incredibly annoying. When I see younger people than me still doing things like this, I try to just think 'bless their heart'. It's not that I've become complacent to the idea that things can ever get better, but I recognise that there are better ways to communicate an idea and win someone over, rather than just tell them they're a racist or an idiot who needs to sort themselves out. You're just going to make them go against you and anything you stand for.

That's all to say that I don't really think not liking Kanye West or his music makes someone racist. It would be incredibly oblivious of me to pretend that he hasn't thrived on a brand of actively abrasive and confronting music for a long time. It's something he's been doing for a long time, and it's also why so many people love his music. In the same way people might like an artist like Olivia Dean for her 'back to basics' brand of pop music, there's another subsection of fans who want something much more evocative in response to that. There's absolutely room for both extremes, and the sooner we recognise this and stop trying to claim moral superiority one way or another for it (well, again, maybe for Kanye West in the present day this is valid), we'll all be better off for it.

To go back to my original quandary about whether or not "Black Skinhead" really works as a pop hit, I'd have probably been inclined to say no. It has some points in its favour, where this Hottest 100 ranking is one of Kanye's highest ever, denoting some level of wide appeal, I just couldn't really imagine it slotting alongside what else was going on in the charts at the time. This is somewhat ironic because the song has producer credits from Daft Punk, who very much were in the charts at the time.

Anyway, a funny thing happened 5 years later that changed my mind. 5 Seconds of Summer released the song "Youngblood" and it became the biggest hit of their career. In Australia, it was the biggest hit that year. Maybe this sounds like a stretch, but I've always felt like that song was at least partially indebted to "Black Skinhead". The song's big moment comes in the chorus when Ashton's drums come crashing in and make the song really start to pop out. Combined with the guitars that come through, you get a very similar rhythm that makes me feel at the very least, the two songs have distinguishing aspects that draw on the same appeal. Now, these are clearly very different artists in different genres, but I have heard recordings from 5 Seconds of Summer that lean into a harder rock sound (the bass & drums often get watered down on the recordings), so I'm sure there's a viable middle point between the two. Those drums are absolutely the best part of "Black Skinhead", though I should also give credit to Kanye's unintelligible yelps that come along with it. It's something primal that I can't help but respond to. Enough to ignore the fact that Kanye forgot who was actually fighting in the Battle of Thermopylae in the movie "300".

#32

#32. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Multi-Love (#55, 2015)

8th of 2015

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Earlier this year, Radio New Zealand has their own version of the Hottest 100. It was a big voted list of the 100 best songs from their country. You can take a look at the list here if you want. It was pretty interesting to me in the way that I get to experience something akin to being a non-Australian peering into the Hottest 100 without context. I have a totally skewed version of what music matters the most over there that completely differs from the experience of actually living there. Very easy to stereotype things in a way that only highlights the absolute biggest icons that just happen to count, or otherwise just the ones that most outwardly represent what I know about them. So you would expect Lorde and Crowded House/Split Enz to be the main characters just based on that. They do well for sure, but the poll makes it clear that there's so much more in the world of music across the Tasman than we give it credit. They don't even have room to fit Mi-Sex or Flight of the Conchords into the list.

I was going through the list with a Kiwi friend and getting to experience both sides of the coin. It felt like I had flipped my role in the usual conversation where I might be enthusiastically preaching the importance of some forgotten rock band of the 2000s, and instead I'm the one being told that this song I've never even heard of is just an absolute staple known all across North & South Island. They have their own pub sing-alongs in place of your "Khe Sanh" and "Eagle Rock". Songs like "Bliss" by Th' Dudes, an early project by Dave Dobbyn. Or also "Why Does Love Do This To Me" by The Exponents. It's an interesting cultural shock that if nothing else, reminds you that there's so much more to music than the bubble we exist in, and it's worth giving it a go. Massive popularity even in a smaller area is generally proof positive to some more universal appeal in that unexplainable way that we all ascribe significance to a lot of overlapping music.

I used this as an excuse to make a slight dip into that world and explore some more obvious sides. I found myself really enjoying Fat Freddy's Drop's album "Based on a True Story", despite not normally gravitating to the music I've heard from them since. It just taps into a nice, warm feeling and never feels like it's dragging on even when the songs are about 7 minutes long on average. It's really good stuff. I also checked out The Mint Chicks' album "Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!" which seems to pop up in conversation a bit. If you put its popularity into consideration, it's a very peculiar listen. Just a very energetic sound, which I would best compare to Regurgitator though it's not a perfect fit. A very big deal in their home country but relatively unknown elsewhere. The big legacy that remains with The Mint Chicks is that it's a starting chapter in the world of Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

Ruban & Kody Nielson are two members of The Mint Chicks who went on to form Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Technically it was just Ruban on his own initially in 2009, but Kody joined the band in 2013. If you're familiar with both bands, there aren't a lot of commonalities between them musically. Maybe going back to UMO's first single "Ffunny Ffrends", you can scarcely hear a trace of The Mint Chicks' expressive energy, but as the years went on, they'd get mellower in their now distinctive sound. It's interesting to see how well the band ended up doing, because you can imagine a perspective where they're resting on prior laurels, only internationally they didn't count for much. The rest of the world had to be won over just on what they were offering now, and they weren't exactly doing everything they could to stand out. When the second album came out, I really liked "So Good At Being In Trouble", perhaps just beaten down by radio play.

The third album came out a couple of years later titled "Multi-Love" and it was a big one for me. I don't think I'd necessarily rush out to hear one of their albums, but the title track really clicked with me and invited my curiosity. It's one of the most tightly and well-packed albums I know. Just 9 tracks, but not really any I'd consider filler, and most of the songs standing out in their own way. You've got fun and upbeat songs like "Ur Life One Night" and "Can't Keep Checking My Phone", but also big, delayed gratification on "Extreme Wealth and Casual Cruelty" and "Puzzles". I'll admit though that it's so good that the band have fallen into the Neutral Milk Hotel or Death Grips trap for me, where I don't really check out any of their other albums because the one I suspect will always be my favourite is already right in front of me.

As for that title track, "Multi-Love" was immediately something special to me. This isn't me hard launching a polycule or intention for a polycule, though that is what the song is about, struggling with the machinations of it, as well as the apparent gender roles that can be brought on from it. Evidently not my area of specialty. I find regardless though, it's evoked in such a powerful way that escapes the cage of incredibly specific lyricism. If ever was there a song to introduce a concept and make it feel like the most monumental thing going around, a few long drawn out 'muulllllti-looooove's will do it. Otherwise the song is characterised by some plinking keys and surprisingly robust drums that just combine to give it a unique feel. If anything, what drew me into the song the most was this feeling of singularity. I'd never heard anything like this song, and never have since (well, until Heleina Zara released "Boundaries" in 2024 which has a very similar lyric about trashing a heart like a motel'). I guess this is what I mean when I say I like quirky music.

#33

#33. Gang of Youths - What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out? (#10, 2017)

7th of 2017

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It's probably just because it's what I grew up with, but I have a specific fondness for post-punk revival music. It largely gets that name from comparisons to post-punk bands from about 20 years prior, but I've never been able to scratch that same itch from it. Do Interpol really sound like Joy Division? Maybe a little bit, but the appeal of those two bands feels so distinct to me. It's just that specific tone that a lot of those 2000s bands hit, that I really like. Bloc Party's guitar & drums are so locked in that they create this magical spark that sounds brilliant. Interpol introduce a rigidity that could sound stiff but ends up making every chord shift collide with you in a way that stands out. Yeah Yeah Yeahs often do the opposite but nonetheless find order in their brand of chaos.

The one song that I think best exemplifies this is "The Rat" by The Walkmen. Right from the opening chord, it demands urgency, and then lives up to it by firing on all cylinders. Once Hamilton Leithauser starts singing, the first thing he says is 'You've got a nerve' and it feels like another perfectly considered layer on the song's tension. For the whole song's run time, you rarely get a respite, perhaps just during the bridge when the drums cut off, but it's still just amping you up for the final build. I just love the guitar tone here though, sounding extra light in a way that sounds a little dangerous (I'm weirdly drawn to that high pitched alarm sound in Pokémon when you're close to fainting as a comparison), but also because it just lets you hear every exciting moment with the drumming. Pretty much a perfect song, I wouldn't change anything.

It's not something you really get anymore, however. It's largely a scene of the early 2000s, and while many of those bands are still around, they're either not really making waves anymore, or just doing different things. It's not mainstream enough to warrant a revival, and then what would you even call it? Post-punk revival revival? It's largely just something that a certain demographic of music nerds are going to have to keep for themselves.

That's all to say that I was particularly excited when I heard the lead single from Gang of Youths' second album. I can only guess that the band also grew up with these same sounds as I did and drew some inspiration from them. It's just that this feels like one last thrilling gasp of a by-gone era. It's taking those same instrumental ideas from The Walkmen and bringing it into the 2010s with gusto. I'm reminded of Olivia Rodrigo's very clear fascination with '80s & '90s alt rock, and moreover how if you're in good standing with your audience, you're very capable of taking them along with your self-indulgent ride. Very few bands would be able to convince the world that this kind of incredibly locked-in guitar & drum sound can still work. Voting in 2017 went all the way of Gang of Youths, but it's still incredible that a song that sounds like this made the top 10. Admittedly it felt a little weird with the final positions, as I have to contend with the fact that I voted for this song, and thus contributed directly to keeping BROCKHAMPTON (#84) out of the top 10. Nice moment for Gang of Youths to get three in the top 10, but have they ever heard about sharing?

In fairness, it helps that it also comes with the band's now trademark brand of gusto. The sound I described is mostly just the prelude to what ends up being a big, loud march of triumph. It is of course worth noting that the members of Gang of Youths met up as part of the Hillsong church, and that this is one of their more expressly religious themed songs. A song where Dave calls to question if the God he serves is really there, and how he can go on living without that particular spark of motivation. It's not a song that comes with any particular answers or even a real conclusion, just ending on that extended quandary. In that sense, it's the sheer drive and passion of delivery that really sells it. When you make it into a big song and dance like this, you can tell how important it really all is to him.

I'm not an overly religious person but I do understand the need for drive to fight against nihilism. It can almost be reassuring to see even the most devout among us to have moments of doubt and struggle with their faith. Much easier to see yourself in that position, than that of the happy-go-luck type whose enlightenment can feel alienating (which is probably how you get to the position of writing "What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out?"). If you're willing though, you can expand the song's purpose beyond its literal intention. It goes great with the feeling of burnout, I can attest. I feel a little odd calling this my favourite Gang of Youths song when "Magnolia" (#52) is just sitting there and has a mantra I can more easily get behind. It's just really hard to deny a song that musically feels like it's served to me on a silver platter.

#34

#34. Baker Boy (feat Yirrmal) - Marryuna (#17, 2017)

8th of 2017

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This is some boring statistical stuff, but I always feel compelled to note that data is always far more complicated than it appears on the surface. Part of the difficulty in analysing trends and identifying sources is that you have to contend with multiple distractions tugging in every which way at every moment which serve only to distract you from the other ones. Music charts of late feel boring because it appears that people are content to listen to the same songs, week in week out, but in reality, they're always jumping around and it's just the songs that have the most possible people to pool from that do the best. You could say that such and such is benefitting from a playlist or an algorithm, but when it boils down to it, everything is, and it's just a matter of the difference in severity of it that claims the difference. If you could tangibly break it all down and look at it from day to day and week to week, it might start to look more interesting.

I bring this up because Hottest 100 predicting tended to happen in a single fashion: collate all available data and then infer from past behaviour how to extrapolate it to a full voter set. You'd learn things, like Bring Me The Horizon fans being very eager to post their votes online, Drake fans not as much. Carefully putting together those gut feelings along with hard evidence of what has been voted for will allow you to pretty accurately predict what the whole list ends up looking like, even if there are some two million votes you aren't privy to.

The main thing this has also done is that it's occasionally turned the mystery of the top spot into a foregone conclusion long before it's aired. Artists will have multiple entries and you'll be inclined to extrapolate all their entries just based on how their first song goes. If it's higher than you expect, then that's probably true of the rest of their songs. Ocean Alley possibly had the whole thing sewn up in record time when they surpassed expectations right away with "Happy Sad" (#784) starting at #100. Seems safe to think that their already predicted #1 "Confidence" (#521) had it in the bag.

It doesn't always work like that. Sample data largely works best when there isn't any good reason for the full data to differ too much from what you have. Given a large enough amount and a decent percentage, there's a case to be made that any 1% sample will end up looking pretty similar to another one. The main problem is that it's far too simple to extrapolate on the most basic of terms, you're going to inevitably simplify a far more complicated system and come up short. Case in point, Baker Boy landed early in the countdown with "Cloud 9" (#384). The appearance of that song was considerably higher than I had projected it on my own stats (although I see that Warm Tunas had it spot on). From that, I'd reasonably infer that "Marryuna" would also outpace its expected position, except that it didn't. Both my stats and Warm Tunas have it landing quite a few spaces above where it ended up, which is odd I suppose. I think at the end of the day, you just have to conclude that the supposedly shared effect where an artist's songs move away from the projection in the same direction does exist, but once you get to the pointy end, it gets drowned out by so much similar noise that you might not notice it. The offline majority support Baker Boy a lot, but just not quite as much as those big hits that landed higher up.

I'm sorry, that's a lot to lead into the entry for "Marryuna". The truth is that I've found it hard to find much to say about this song. It's fantastic, of course, but at the end of the day, it's a song that doesn't require much to be said about it. The title translates to 'Let's Dance' in English, and it's yet another feel good Baker Boy song that absolutely thrives on its permeating vibes. It's pretty much the song that made him a star because one listen is all it takes to immediately get on board. I understand the desire to want to release more music, but it's really a mission statement that sums everything up right away. Baker Boy swaps between English and Yolŋu and never skips a beat. He's aided by Yirrmal who has lineage in Yothu Yindi (Dr Yunupingu is his grandfather). He's the one who provides the pre-chorus, the title lyric, and the most universal lyric of all, with his healthy dosage of la's.

#35

#35. Drake - Hotline Bling (#14, 2015)

9th of 2015

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A lot of media, particularly in the realm of science fiction will set their stories in the distant or not-so-distant future. The only problem is that time inevitably swings forward. It may have been such a long time spent that anyone and everyone involved in the original story is long passed, but they get one more chance to be derided from beyond the grave once everyone finds out how badly they predicted the future. It's now 2026, what were they thinking in 1927 when "Metropolis" depicted a dystopian world run by wealthy industrialists...okay maybe they had something there. Generally everything just oversteps itself and reality is a little more mundane. One of the key components in "Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie" is how mostly unchanged things have been from 2008 to present. Things like fashion, cars & technology don't all blatantly sign-post that you're decades in the past the way it does in a movie like "Back To The Future". A lot of people are probably still listening to the same Coldplay songs they were back in 2008.

Speaking of that movie, I want to talk about "Back To The Future Pt. II", because that's the film in the franchise that has to take a swing at the future, rather than replicating the past. Marty goes 30 years forward in time and is bewildered by all the flying cars, hoverboards, and self-lacing shoes. Most of the film's swings are done for comedic effect and largely don't match reality. The funniest part of probably the absurd prediction that the Cubs would win the World Series. Just an outlandish notion except then in real life they won it in 2016, so close.

Still, I awaited the day that we finally reached the future date (I probably first watched the movie around 2005-2006), a great opportunity to see what they really could have done with pitching this future timeline. It's mostly mundane, but now the main thing I remember about it is that the date Marty arrives at in the future is amidst the cultural moment that "Hotline Bling" was having. He should be in a world where people are looking at their handheld mobile phones, looking at clips where someone has edited Drake's music video to make it look like he's playing Wii Tennis. Gen X Marty would be even more confused about all of it than the average Gen Xer who lived through those 30 years in the first place. An unintentional coincidence I imagine is that Drake sports a similar vest to Marty in the music video, despite no evidence that he might possibly drown.

How did we get here? The answer should be that it's obvious, it's Drake, but in the moment it was a little peculiar. For instance, up to this point, Drake had only scarcely been played on triple j ever as a lead artist. He was certainly very popular in Australia by this point, but fell a little out of the station's interests. There's a case to be made for "Hold On, We're Going Home" fitting just fine on the station, but there wasn't enough clear demand for it. That could be interpreted both ways too, because in the early stages of his career, Drake never came down to Australia at all.

This finally changed in early 2015. Drake was booked for Future Music Festival and played all the mainland capitals. This also coincided with the release of his mixtape "If You're Reading This It's Too Late", which gave triple j the excuse to finally get on board and play one of his songs. The first Drake song to ever go on rotation for triple j was "Jungle", if you remember that one. I still think the whole mixtape is really good but in terms of Drake's super stardom, probably largely a footnote. Drake had a habit of just releasing so much music that it was hard to keep up.

Case in point, on the Billboard Hot 100 dated August 22, 2015, Drake debuted 4 songs at once. This wasn't part of any project, they were all singles, three of them released pretty much at the same time. Very typical behaviour of someone who'd go on to have over 400 chart entries, basically one every fortnight on average. One of those songs was clearly important though, and debuted way ahead of the rest of them. I'm of course referring to "Back To Back". It's his memorable diss track to Meek Mill that Kendrick Lamar is on the record mid-beef for saying he likes that record. Way behind it was another quick loose single, "Hotline Bling". In the weeks that followed, all those Drake songs dropped down the charts, but "Hotline Bling" started climbing. It was a slow realisation that Drake had tapped into something with this one, and was about to make another ascent towards the top of the charts (at this point, he'd never had a #1 hit of his own, just a feature on Rihanna's "What's My Name?").

The song didn't even have a music video, but it had the world hooked. It was a very crossover friendly sound for Drake where he wasn't really rapping on it. I have no idea if this was all intended to happen or if it's just a consequence of chucking out everything to find out what sticks. The moment was seized though, and the song bolted up the charts, becoming his highest charting solo single to date. The music video should've been the coup de grace that finally took Drake to the top. Looking back at it, it feels like a slam dunk because the video is so iconic. Drake being left to his devices in various empty but distinctly lit spaces, giving everyone fodder to let him continue being the butt of their jokes as he takes his music releasing approach to all the moves he makes in the video. In the moment, it was very successful, and the two closely spaced frames of Drake approving and disapproving has stuck around as an evergreen meme. You probably know exactly which two frames I'm talking about.

In this particular case, the bag was severely fumbled. "Hotline Bling" didn't go to #1 anywhere. Admittedly the timing wasn't great because very soon after the song's peak, it had any hope of climbing further quickly thrust away from it with the simultaneous release of "Hello" by Adele and "Sorry" by Justin Bieber, both taking up residency for the rest of the year. The big problem is that the week before this happened, the music video did come out, but it was temporarily exclusive to Apple Music. Apple declined to share their video streaming numbers at the time and so Drake fell a little short of the top spot, a gap those unreported streams would probably fill in. Australia didn't count music video streams at the time but it feels especially unlucky here, where it was only kept off the top by Australia's out of the ordinary fixation on Macklemore's "Downtown" (#945). I can only ponder how big the song really was in New Zealand also. As best as I can tell, it fell victim to a different goof where it looks as though none of the song's streams ever counted to the chart. It peaked at a modest #14 and only spent 5 weeks on the chart. One of the dumbest chart errors I've ever witnessed that largely has gone unnoticed and forgotten. In any case, this is Drake we're talking about so it wouldn't even take a year before he'd win back his lost moment, with "One Dance" (#796) becoming one of the biggest hits of 2016. For how badly Drake craved the opportunity to have a #1 hit, it really feels like the tipping point where Drake fully shifts from plucky underdog to immovable corporate magnate. It's been so long that it's easy to forget how many people were rooting for Drake to shake things up with his likeable and relatable music.

I'll admit though that as I say this, "Hotline Bling" is probably a contentious inclusion in that qualifier. I'm a big fan of it, but if someone told me that they really don't like the optics of what Drake is saying in the song, I'd have a hard time really disputing it. You can boil down the whole thing to Drake being an incredibly controlling and paranoid boyfriend who refuses to believe that someone has a life outside of himself, with a hint of slut shaming as well. My take on this has just generally been that Drake is self-aware of his clownish behaviour here, which the music video helps sell as well. What's always gotten me is the sorrowful expression that Drake ends some of the verses with ('...some girls I've never seen before'). In this brief moment, he sounds genuinely miserable and I connect with it. At my lowest moments, I lament my own poor decisions and unrealistic desires, and I like to think that's what Drake's doing right there.

Otherwise I think "Hotline Bling" just works because it's a Drake song that genuinely pops out. I alluded to it a while back, but I always think of Lorde randomly tweeting about Drake at the time. She praises his approach to songwriting where he focuses on sticky turns of phrase that turn an otherwise mundane idea into something memorable. This is a song where Drake is excited that his girlfriend is calling him, but there's just nothing in that, so he instead comes up with the phrase 'Hotline bling', an anachronistic mash-up that adds some weight and personality to it. It feels undeniable that it's a huge part of what turned 'You used to call me on my cell phone' into one of Drake's most iconic songs, one that still holds up despite his perpetual 'onto the next one' approach to releasing music. Either that or it's that interpolation of "Why Can't We Live Together" by Timmy Thomas that has it sounding like the Wii Shop channel. A tragedy I haven't been able to post this on Wii Shop Wednesday but we've come full circle if I'm referencing Nirvanna The Band again. Two sets of Toronto icons doing their part to make the CN Tower feel iconic. Been thinking a lot today.