#310-#306

 #310. Arcade Fire - Everything Now (#65, 2017)

34th of 2017

Arcade Fire's song "Rebellion (Lies)" appears in a Season 5 episode of Six Feet Under. It's diegetic as it's playing in the background during Nate's 40th birthday party. Everyone's trying to keep it together while there's a feeling of unease going around for multiple reasons. At one point a magpie flies into the house and after some attempts to peacefully shoo it back outside, Nate ends up killing it and putting it in the garbage. It's an omen and a half for what's going to take place as the show starts to wrap up from there. "Rebellion (Lies)" plays again over the credits. I can't properly cast my mind back to 2005, but I like to imagine it's one of many specific examples that put them on the map.

The rise and fall of Arcade Fire is one of the great musical tragedies of the 21st century. Maybe it's not a tragedy if you're not interested or if you think certain people got what was coming to them, but if you were invested, it's a monumental bust. It's like finding out the captain of your favourite sports team is a serial womaniser, again. Just takes the wind out of the sails of past triumph. In 2011, Arcade Fire were standing in front of all the biggest stars in music to accept a GRAMMY Award for Album Of The Year, and it was all downhill from there.

This is one of the shining examples of a downfall that's incredibly hard to come back from. It's one thing to put out an album that isn't very well received. It's another to be courting unflattering controversy. Do both at the same time and suddenly your biggest fans are abandoning you left, right and centre, or otherwise sticking around to watch the collapse. Look, there's a part of me that will gladly look back over the highs of the Arcade Fire experience in a future entry (they'll have two more songs after this one). In the meantime, I've spent quite a long time being very mad about the whole ordeal and what better place to get that out? On one hand, the albums were gradually getting worse, but now a pattern tends to emerge with that cycle. Underwhelming album followed by some news that puts Win Butler in a bad light. The more I see, the worse it gets. Late last year, Win & Regine finally divorced and it feels likely they'll never put out another album, leaving it all on a very underwhelming whimper of a final album. I have to be the one who breaks this news because hardly anyone actually listened to it. They went from a #1 album in the US and #2 in Australia, to not even being able to chart in either country two albums later. You can owe some of that to the streaming tide, but they're not making up any ground on the vinyl resurgence because I just can't imagine wanting to buy into the brand anymore. At least Six Feet Under ended on an absolute triumph.

Your mileage may vary on the pace of it all, but for me, "Everything Now" (the album) was the major red flag. A band capable of some of the most soaring possible highs was reduced to being so utterly unremarkable in a flash. All the ambition, really any reason to listen to the band at all just vanished. What few small highlights could be found never wormed their way into essential listening for me and were surrounded by a nightmare rotation of bad decisions and out of touch misfires that I can't think of them in isolation from that. "Everything Now" (the song)? Pretty good. "Put Your Money On Me"? Pretty good. But wow, the ceiling sure had a few mezzanines installed under it.

Even with this in mind, I find it hard to get behind "Everything Now" the way I'm probably supposed to. A nice bit of fun at first, a bit of ABBA's "Dancing Queen" via Arcade Fire but they mostly get the memo. It even became a little bit of a crossover hit which was interesting, but for a band that so rarely take that leap, I probably would have preferred if it was someone else's song. I guess I feel for anyone who got into the band on the back of it. This song truly is the front side of the disaster liposuction Homer Simpson meme.

#309. Bring Me The Horizon - Happy Song (#86, 2015)

40th of 2015

I've always been truly fascinated by songs that push the limits on how short they can make their verses. I think I first noticed it when Kings of Leon put out "Radioactive" (imagine if they actually polled with "Supersoaker", I'd have them on redacted watch for so long). The instrumentals drag it out a little, but you still end up with two verses at the start that are two lines apiece, 13 words each! I get that there can be a shared understanding between the artist and audience that the big chorus is what you're there for, but it can get just a little bit distracting when you start to notice it.

Bring Me The Horizon put their own spin on it with "Happy Song". There are definitely more words, and I might be generous enough to say they pull it up to 3 lines. On the other hand, if you count the seconds from when Oli starts singing to when he starts belting, you might be lucky to get up to 11 seconds. Then the second verse comes in and I'm not even sure they crack 10 seconds. There's probably a valid meta interpretation of this. "Happy Song" is not actually a happy song, but one about being told to smile through the pain. Just engage with the things that are supposed to cheer you up and it'll just happen (or at least, the outsider won't have to tackle the issue as it appears fixed. I dare say this might not be the last time I say something like that.

When this song was first released, we were still pretty early in the secondary transitional phase of Bring Me The Horizon. It was one of the songs that helped sell me on the idea of it a little better though. They hadn't changed a lot; they were just having a bit more fun with it. "Happy Song" is something that could be a disaster if not handled correctly. Perhaps their most shameless crossover attempt on the surface, but it's those contrasts between light & dark that I find a lot to get out of it. Just a very reliable rush of energy in a bite sized package (you'd never think the song is just shy of 4 minutes, it just breezes by).

#308. Maggie Rogers - Alaska (#64, 2016)

32nd of 2016

Whenever I watch singing talent shows, there tends to be one judge who's infamous for being the mean one. It's a trope that's codified by Simon Cowell and spread out from there. They tend to be the last one to chime in because whether you love them or you hate them, they're the one you feel won't hold back and might come up with some creative adjectives to utterly annihilate someone for the crime of making you hear them sing for a minute on national television. At the end of the day, these shows gained their notoriety through their eventual product, so the Simon Cowell serves a second purpose. After the potluck fun of the auditions, it tends to get a bit harder for them to keep up the act. They've already gotten rid of the people they don't like, that was the point. Now the criticism is more constructive, and maybe they'll even find some compliments. What better way to sell the star quality of their finalists by showing that even the hardest shell has started to break. Then the other judges need to up the stakes too, perhaps they get a little emotional.

This formula might just be why any of us have heard of Maggie Rogers or "Alaska". In March 2016, the NYU Clive Davis Institute had a masterclass with Pharrell Williams, where he hung out with young musicians, listened to their music and gave feedback. It's probably not anything that would have gotten any wider attention if not for one moment. If you watch the video, you're introduced to a musician who grew up playing the banjo and making folk music, but had a spiritual awakening in France listening to EDM music and wanted to incorporate it into her music. Up to this point, Pharrell has been pretty positive about the students' music while offering constructive feedback (if you haven't gone back to the video since 2016 or just never watched the whole thing, you'll also spot a young Cafuné). When this next song gets played, you can tell pretty quickly that he's floored. Maggie is sitting next to him being adorably wholesome and Pharrell is trying to hide his visceral reaction to it. He offers no notes and compares the experience to the arrival of the Wu-Tang Clan, where there's just no point of comparison and no way to actually critique it. Those talent shows I talked about earlier are in the interest of manufacturing these kinds of moments, to the point that they probably wore themselves out and it no longer feels genuine. When it instead comes from something like this, where there's no specific profit margin trying to be met in the moment, it feels so much more real. If you want though, the set up for a joke is all there when you realise Pharrell is wearing a hat that says 'PLANT' on it.

Three months later and Maggie Rogers was properly integrated into the system. She's never blown up to an unavoidable degree, but she's been on the radio, scored some chart appearances and got nominated for Best New Artist at the GRAMMYs (in 2020, naturally). Last year she collaborated with the Dalai Lama. I'm sure to her it's just a remarkable build-up of chance encounters, but it's still a future of which she constructed the foundation for when she wrote "Alaska".

One of the most interesting things about music is the way that our past experiences shape our responses. I often wonder if consensus raving comes about because a lot of people are steered into hearing a very similar subset of music, and how if you're ever feeling estranged by it all, it's because you've taken the road less travelled. I've seen people describe "Alaska" as boiler plate indie pop, and maybe it is, but how much indie pop does the average person actually come across? I've often wondered if you can get a distorted view just from what gets popular, which aren't always the most representative examples. In the case of Pharrell, I can imagine his expertise lies elsewhere, but maybe he was just thrown for a loop because of how it was described initially. He compares Maggie's notion of genre blending to what Avicii had done on his "True" album, so I can imagine some difficult adjusting to something that's clearly not operating the same way.

I've always thought "Alaska" stood out though. Not necessarily for the general sound of it, but it's got one of those killer hooks that everyone wishes they came up with. It operates ironically and counterintuitively because Maggie raises her voice in a way that's difficult to make the words out, but there's nothing interchangeable about it at all. I wouldn't say I had the same profound experience, but then to be fair I'm not above it, and it's probably a good analogue for how I felt about her next single "Dog Years". It's one of the finest inclusions on my 'I know, I know, I know' playlist, which I'm sure I'll bring up again because one of those songs is in this list and I'm writing down a note right now to bring it up. I'm not a Maggie Rogers devout or anything but she's had a good run and every few years she'll put out something that really gets me off-guard. Sign me up for more of this.

#307. Tame Impala - No Choice (#73, 2022)

25th of 2022

Many moons ago when the last Hottest 100 list we had circulating was the 2010 one, I tried ranking it for fun. Shockingly, rather than take years, I managed to get it done in probably about half an hour. I don't remember the details of it and I can't imagine it's aged terrifically, but I remember taking a parting shot at Tame Impala. My thought was that of all the songs on that list, "Lucidity" was the most redundant. It's the one that the fewest people would miss if it wasn't there, and the one that felt the least essential. It wasn't at all my least favourite song there, but it was just there. I don't think the statement really holds up, mainly because I'm not sure I'd try to foist that title onto anything. "Lucidity" isn't my favourite track from "InnerSpeaker" but it does cut it down to a nice segment. It continues to sound better and better as Tame Impala continues to no longer sound like it.

This was all something I just recalled independently when I was thinking of ways to open this entry. Which is all to say that I remembered it after I was thinking about "No Choice" which itself could be a solid contender for the most forgettable song in this list. Perhaps you got an increasingly large number of people to hold similar rankings for this set of songs, "No Choice" might be the one I'm least expecting to top anyone's list. There are already so many Tame Impala songs to choose from, and this is just a B-side for one of the less beloved albums. It gets through on the strength of being the Tame Impala song to vote for in 2022, besides "New Gold" (#432). A while back I was talking about the discrepancy between triple j & Double J with respect to the Tame Impala songs that get played on the two stations. "No Choice" is the biggest point of difference. It couldn't get bigger if it tried! "No Choice" is the most played song this decade so far by Tame Impala on triple j. It's never been played on Double J, not once. I don't think of this as reflecting the content of the song at all, but just the nature of the release. It's a song that so easily slips through the cracks, you wouldn't notice it if it wasn't there.

For me, it got me thinking about the potential slide in quality for artists over time. How many times have you heard someone say they haven't liked anything from an artist since [a long time ago]? Maybe you've thought it yourself. When I hear it, I just imagine someone relentlessly continuing to soldier on, trying out every new release from this artist and feeling a new wave of disappointment each time. It's comical to imagine it, but it's something that doesn't feel genuine or fair. How could any artist, previously on the nice list just monumentally fail to connect so many times in a row? It's a statistical near impossibility. It probably means that either the artist or listener has changed in some way in the ensuing years, but often times you can see these artists going through such a phase and not have their audience numbers be particularly hampered. That's what makes it feel more personal, watching everyone merrily continue to listen as if nothing has changed.

I haven't really enjoyed the last two Tame Impala albums. Admittedly there were worrying signs on "Currents" as well, but there are enough positives to redeem that project (three more songs coming on this list by the way). "The Slow Rush" was still passable but the highlights were fewer and felt more like mediumlights. "Deadbeat" I just don't really gel with at all. You can't catch me ever willingly listening to any of it. So we've got a pretty steady downward slide while Tame Impala continues to see strong chart performances and is in no danger of sputtering out (just scored an equal highest charting hit this week in Australia). I'm the issue here. It sucks though because it starts to feel like my brain won't actually let me enjoy new Tame Impala music. It starts to feel like a modest reflection on my overall views of the project over time, rather than assessing everything on its own merit. I really want to believe there's another knockout punch coming in the future, but when I think of it like this, I start to wonder if I'd even allow the possibility.

The unlikely hero here is actually "No Choice". It's not anything I'd ever paid close attention to at the time, until it became just another also-ran for this collection. New stat sheet padding hit for Tame Impala? Sure, I'll just go through the motions with it and give it the same amount of investment as everyone else has, not very much. I said this is a song that probably no one would put at #1 on their list, and I probably stick by that, because this has all the makings of a song that you just have to deal with, chuck out and move on. It's there to be unceremoniously eliminated somewhere in the middle of the Tame Impala song eliminator forum game. No one feels compelled to give it an extra chance because there are no stakes attached to it.

Anyway, what if "No Choice" was actually really good? Like, it has no business putting itself out there like that, but somehow it provides a strange redemption for "The Slow Rush". It's running with the same playbook we're used to seeing in the 2020s, cute little falsetto hook over a more playful beat. Tame Impala oldheads get thrown a little bone with the guitar solos, and I do like them, but I don't think they're what won me over. It just feels like out of all the Tame Impala songs under this template, this is the one that gets drilled into my head. This is that earworm that I love to revisit. It ended up being a huge bolter for this list because I'd given it so little thought before. I don't want to just penalise something for doing its own thing with very little cultural impact, otherwise this list would look mighty different.

#306. Stace Cadet & KLP - Energy (#21, 2020)

22nd of 2020

For as long as I've listened to triple j, they've had an editorial policy on the music they play. Simply that no presenter is allowed to play their own music. It's pretty straightforward and makes sense, but it's always struck me as funny when the presenters in question do have new music going around. I first started listening in 2006 when Jay & Lindsay from Frenzal Rhomb were hosting the breakfast show. Frenzal Rhomb had also just put out a new album and I knew this because I heard their music on triple j, just never on the breakfast show. It ends up feeling like a strange loophole that prevents something that's readily getting played on the station from being heard for a wide stretch of the day, perhaps hampering the exposure. It wasn't just them though, Ash Grunwald used to host Roots 'N' All, and Hau from Koolism was a long term host for The Hip Hop Show. Double J presenter Tim Shiel made music that I always thought was best suited to be heard on the segment he hosted, alas.

KLP was also part of this crew for a while. I still think of her as the House Party host first and a musician in her own right second, even if the relative tenures are considerably different in length at this point. She wrapped up her hosting duties in 2018 and I figured that would be the last I hear from her. Maybe she'd keep making music but she wasn't setting the charts alight before, and there was no reason to think that'd ever change. Especially in her field, it's usually the young upstarts that get all the attention. I guess that's also a cheat code sometimes.

The shackles were removed for "Energy" and it was able to be played at all hours of the day on triple j. I'm sure they'd find a way to play it on Hack if they could. It ended up being one of the most played songs on triple j for all of 2020, I've got it ranked 4th. It wasn't just random filler though, as it converted the airplay into some genuine popularity. It reached the ARIA Charts for a bit, and has been certified Platinum, though it wouldn't surprise me if that's outdated. Nothing else ever reached these highs for Stace Cadet afterwards, but you look at who it's sitting alongside in that year's Hottest 100 and I've got to commend the excellent job at pushing it to reach its absolute potential. You just don't tend to see success stories like that anymore.

If I want to talk about marketing though, I do think it's a song that has its own branding on lock. They've carved out a specific niche of monkeys playing cymbals that I don't think I'll ever be able to disassociate. For the past 6 years I've been unable to look at one of those things and think anything other than 'every time you're touching me, your loving gives me energy'. Just absolutely spot on, it's the perfect song for it. It feels like a throwback to the era when music videos and physical singles were more important, and you might see some shared branding between them to catch your eye on the shelves. There isn't actually a music video for this song, but we do have a lyric video that absolutely looks like a late night Rage fever dream. It all just works. There aren't many elements to the song, but they know when to bring them in and take them away, platonic ideal for a song that doesn't really have any verses.

#315-#311

#315. Bluejuice - I'll Go Crazy (#25, 2014)

36th of 2014

A year ago I spoke about the British India origin story (#742). I am nothing if not nostalgic for very small pockets of 2007, or at least the ones that are memorable enough to come back to me. By some miracle, I still have some very old documents with their metadata intact. With that in mind, we can flash back to 2007 and it was during those heady days that I was entertaining myself with my discovery of animation tools in Microsoft PowerPoint. I was very interested in cricket at the time, so there's a slide I made back around March that uses Snicko to prove that a tree falling in a forest with no one around makes a sound. Then in August I did a modestly ambitious attempt to simulate a whole test match which didn't get very far, but I'm finding some of the details amusing 19 years later.

Also at that same time, I heard of Bluejuice for the first time. I likely had already heard their song "Unemployed" before but never paid attention. The real introduction was seeing the music video for "Vitriol" and being equal parts confused and dazzled. I pair it with "Ice Cream" by Muscles for being the most quintessential triple j songs of 2007. Just strange but completely shameless songs willing to put all their cards on the table. In hindsight I probably have more fun quoting "Ice Cream", but that was a harder sell at the time. "Vitriol" had me all-in all year.

The success of "Vitriol" began a brief but memorable pattern. Bluejuice would come out with a new album every couple of years, and it wouldn't sell spectacularly, but it'd have that one killer single that justified a bunch of iTunes downloads, Hottest 100 votes and a national tour. I was getting a bit interested in the business side of music at the time and there's an interview I wish I could find with a member of Bluejuice, where he mentioned an awareness of this pattern and admitted that when it came to making a living off being a musician in Australia, they were probably one of the luckier ones and they weren't exactly in a stellar place. They were probably toast the moment they couldn't get a hit. With that in mind, it's probably not surprising to find out that they called it quits in 2014. I'd always hoped that Jake & Stav would become hosts on triple j because they always had the best chemistry when they were there, but they went separate ways. They got to have a nice finish though, a big victory lap sendoff. Their Like A Version cover of Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" hits hard, not just because that's the song that was #1 when I was born. They also got one last hit with "I'll Go Crazy".

I'm not sure there'd be quite as much fanfare for this song without the associated breakup. Bluejuice had been trading on gimmicks for a while at this point and "I'll Go Crazy" doesn't really have that. It's just classic Bluejuice with their knack for absolute ear worms. One of their best assets was always those uncanny harmonies that don't sound much like anything else, and it's a touch they hadn't lost nearly a decade later. Sooner or later, all those artists you grew up with have to move out of the spotlight. Sometimes it's nice to appreciate when you get a chance to see it happen on their own terms without ambiguity. Given what I was going through at the time, it really felt like a closing chapter in my own life.

#314. Dune Rats - Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again - Like A Version (#23, 2022)

26th of 2022

There's a pretty common situation when a famous quote is formed. It'll make sense in the moment and become something of an in-joke among those who were there. They'll then start to repeat it in earshot of people who aren't, and it will have to test the waters without context. Maybe it will still work but it's likely it never comes off as strongly. There's no element of surprise. Just look at the AFI's list of 100 Movie Quotes. If you haven't seen most of the movies, you're probably not gonna be won over like this. I'm a big fan of the line from "Some Like It Hot", but it's the last line from the entire movie and I genuinely think you need to see the whole movie for it to connect. Just an incredible punchline that the whole situation was unexpectedly building up to. Another one I think about is the classic quote from The Terminator. Definitely one of the most famous movie quotes and probably the definitive tough guy line. It still probably works, but it was illuminating to me when I found out it was something of a joke. He says 'I'll be back' and returns as soon as possible on chaotic terms. It's not on the list, but there's another good line in the sequel, where in a call to John Connor's foster parents, T-800 imitates his voice and asks about their dog 'Wolfie' (#513). After an innocuous response, he hangs up the phone and declares John's foster parents are dead (i.e. replaced by cyborgs). This has become an extremely exploitable set of comic panels, adaptable in many situations. One of my favourite ones has the parents depicted as Australians and they get asked if they're ever gonna see his face again. The mother says of course and the game is up already.

If you need to be filled in, "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" is the debut single by The Angels released in 1976. They're not to be confused with the American group from the 1960s known for "My Boyfriend's Back". It's not an immediate success and neither is their self-titled album. They return another year later with their second album "Face to Face" and it's an enormous success, establishing The Angels as premiers in pub rock. For the whole 1980s they're stars, scoring hit after hit. At some point, a piece of Australian folklore establishes itself. It becomes a tradition to respond to the title phrase of "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" with 'no way, get f**ked, f**k off'. Lead singer Doc Neeson first recalls hearing it in 1983. Much like the popularity of handball (we called it hand tennis in South Australia) and all the universal terminology throughout the country, no one seems to know the origin of the line. It's become universal though, and in 1988 a live version reached #11 on the Australian charts, taking the now very audible line into the books.

This makes for an unusual situation for the song. It exists out in the wild without an ideal version. You can buy either the studio version or the live version, but the pros & cons of each make it harder to find an agreement. It's just weirdly empty without the response, like when you listen to "Sweet Caroline" and realise that the words 'so good, so good!' aren't actually part of the song. If only there was a way we could have the best of both worlds.

I don't know if Dune Rats are ever going to return to the Hottest 100, if I'm ever gonna see their faces again. If that ends up being the case, then this is a pretty good way to go out on a high. It's the highest they've ever landed on the list. It's a big ensemble cover, including Ruby Fields, Rick & John Brewster from The Angels themselves, and also a member of a band I can't say the name of yet, despite it being a fun one to say. They come through with the goods on this one, seemingly teasing the conclusion for most of the way by playing it straight. The last minute turns into a collective cursing cacophony and we're all the better for it. I have to wonder if it's significantly improved the cultural cache of the song for a younger generation. One of the most interesting tidbits of information for triple j's Hottest 100 of Australian songs was the performance of The Angels. They went from never appearing in a Hottest 100 ever to jumping all the way in at #12. Most interestingly though, the zoomer vote demographic (roughly, it's 18-29s I can see) has it even higher at #6. They like this song from the 1970s more than "The Nosebleed Section" and that one Tame Impala song. Just don't know what you're gonna get sometimes.

#313. Mallrat - Groceries (#7, 2018)

33rd of 2018

Sometimes I want to build a narrative that serves my own opinion. It's the kind of thing that lets me say I'm right while being fully aware of how meaningless it all is. Then I'll do a little bit of digging that contradicts it, and I'll be scrambling for a solution to my own problem. Sometimes that desire to be right can be overpowering, so you'll be willing to discard the evidence. I don't want to do that, but I will explain how we got here.

I mentioned earlier this week when talking about G Flip how that song, "Drink Too Much" (#317), set a new standard for them going forward. What I was holding off saying then was that this can go two ways. You can interpret that breakout hit as a significant piece of the puzzle, or alternatively as just the incidental step to the destined spotlight that no longer feels significant. It's as if you should have re-calibrated before that, and then every subsequent hit is another distraction to divert more attention from it. Mallrat has something like this in a shorter time span. "Groceries" was the huge step up, but it was followed quickly by two more. I'd trained myself to read some significance into the song only to have it taken away.

Except here's where it goes wrong. Irrespective of Hottest 100 results and ARIA Chart blips, "Groceries" basically is Mallrat's biggest hit. Quite comfortably in fact, having gone 3xPlatinum now (nothing else has gone further than 1xPlatinum yet). It has over 100 million streams on Spotify which indicates a strong international showing, which in turn probably indicates a strong showing on random chill playlists that will in turn be buffing up the Australian numbers. It's still doing enough numbers that it's been heard about twice for every person in the country. If that doesn't sound impressive, keep in mind that as I write this, "Baby Shark" has only just surpassed two plays on YouTube for every person on Earth. If the charts ever trick you into thinking Australia just doesn't care anymore, know that not only are the numbers enormous in the scheme of it all, but that songs that barely made a visible impact on it ("Groceries" peaked at #57) can also pull that off. I can now return to my 2019 state of mind and treat this song like the big deal it is. Just ignore the absolute non-event of a single that I put just ahead of it.

"Groceries" paves out a slightly different niche for songs about having a crush on someone. Namely one where it's less about what the other person is interested in, but what the value is for you. You're left sitting on the possibility of something without getting any answer, but also having second thoughts about the whole arrangement. Many are still wondering to this day if it's better to have someone who means the world to you, or to have the full independence to do whatever you want. It's fitting for such a confused song that it's melodically all over the place. Lines all across it are squeezed & stretched to fit the cadence, while the song's hook is a questionable rhyme at best. Certainly enchanting in its own way though.

#312. Ocean Alley - Way Down (#72, 2020)

23rd of 2020

If there's any proof to the power of spacing out your single releases, then consider that Ocean Alley's 3rd album, "Lonely Diamond" had as many Hottest 100 entries as "Chiaroscuro" did, and that one was lucky to pull it off. Actually they did the same thing with their next album, and I'm writing this before the results come in for the album after that, but it's entirely possible they pull it off again. Ocean Alley are a band that are probably good for 4 hits on each album, which is a pretty good rate of return. I'm returning in 2026 to say that they actually surpassed it. 5 songs from the latest Ocean Alley album made the cut, incredible.

"Way Down" is probably the one that has the least justification for getting in given that it never really had its own time in the spotlight. All the other entries from this album were released before the album, but not this. It's just the one that's sneakily tucked in between the more popular "Tombstone" (#831) and "Infinity" (#608). Maybe that's what they did with "Happy Sad" (#784) on the last album as well. Earning credibility by association.

I think "Way Down" probably deserves more credit than that though. If Ocean Alley are ever accused of making songs that all sound the same, I want to point to this one. They're trading their usual chill tendencies for something with a bit more kick. I've always been trying to work out what the guitar riff reminds me of specifically, but I think '80s pub rock or thereabouts. "Solid Rock" by Goanna is calling out to me a little. I want to once again get away with saying that it's a good job, no notes.

#311. WILLOW (feat Travis Barker) - t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l (#36, 2021)

24th of 2021

I might be very immediately dating this post by pulling 2025 discourse into 2026. A song that seems to come up disproportionately in discussion for how popular it actually was, is "Gnarly" by KATSEYE. It's been a pretty big song, but many bigger songs feel immune to discussion, in contrast to this magnet. It's simply a very confronting song. Both on an audio version, and also visual if you choose to see the video. I'll just as often see it put forth that it's one of the worst songs ever made, and then another person will praise its genius. I tend to lean on the side of liking it. For better or worse, it's extremely memorable and provides some sort of engagement you won't get elsewhere. Otherwise I'm just a little worn down from playing the overly dramatic card for decades. The time for me to get performatively angry about harmless music that wasn't made for me has long passed. Mainly because I find myself thinking back to a song that came out so long ago.

In 2010, Will & Jada Pinkett Smith's daughter Willow released her debut single "Whip My Hair". She was days away from her 10th birthday when it came out and it was another in the long series of rich celebrities pushing their children into the charts for the sheer audacity of it. Eventually we'll have to run out of record-breaking superlatives for who the youngest person to accomplish some chart achievement is, but either way we'll be stuck in a timeline of Kanye West, P!nk and whoever comes next using their children for a gimmick. Willow's older brother Jaden had already released his first single earlier that year. All up, it's an easy way to get publicity, and the signal boosting does itself. It's very easy to make fun of music made by rich kids because they're probably untalented, the music is probably terrible, and it's still punching up so you don't even have to feel bad about doing it.

"Whip My Hair" was a special breed of this and honestly a precursor to "Gnarly". It's been 15 years so it's not quite as shocking anymore, but in an age of CinemaSins style music criticism, you're gonna get a lot of ammunition on this song with its aggressive production and nonsense lyrics from a child who's trying to simultaneously annoy us all but insist she's above it all. 2010 was also part of a big transitional phase in music away from more the more typical and inoffensive (Adele & co. would start to reverse this in the next year or so) to the kinds of music that just rubbed its disrespect in your face. If you're like me, "Whip My Hair" being a modest hit song is just the poster child of it all. This is the song people are choosing to listen to instead of the stuff I like. Obviously I hated it immensely.

I don't hate it anymore. I actually like it a little bit. I've got similar reasons to "Gnarly", where it's something that absolutely stands on its own for better or worse, and if I do give it the time of day, there are things to like about it. In general though I've heard a lot more of her music in the 2020s and I can hear the genesis of a vocal technique I've found myself gaining affection for. While I was getting outlandishly mad at this joke of a popstar in the 2010s, I never thought that she'd grow into one of the greatest rock stars of the 2020s.

Despite the early start and a few singles, WILLOW wouldn't release her debut album until December 2015, slowly reaching towards an acceptable age for it as she'd turned 15 now. I didn't hear it then, but years later, the track "Wait a Minute!" found some virality and became a genuine hit song. It's one I like a lot; very bouncy and there's a huskier tone in her voice that's developed. That was technically preceded by the breakthrough success of the song "t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l", during those heady days of pop punk having a moment again. The ARIA Charts don't always work properly so it never charted here but it probably was on the cusp of being a top 40 hit. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the song if I'm being honest, but soon after she put out "Lipstick" and I'm not being facetious when I say it's genuinely one of the best grunge songs I've ever heard. She'd keep honing her craft and I'd keep listening. Shout out to "<maybe> it's my fault" for an incredible performance and "wanted" with Kamasi Washington for delivering an unrivalled intensity. If there were any misgivings about her getting gifted a music career at a young age, then I think she's not only done the long yards at this point, but also displayed an aptitude for it both through improved performance and also clearly doing what she wants to do.

I wish I had more to say about this song in particular, but it is a good one. A nice bit of radio friendly rock & pop punk. Definitely comes packed with the sort of big hook that warrants being spaced out for the title, and that alone is worth the price of admission. I'm just mostly interested to see how many more times I can potentially be stopped in my place as she blows me away with something I didn't know she had in her. Maybe there's no reason to doubt it anymore.

#320-#316

#320. MEDUZA & James Carter (feat Elley Duhé & FAST BOY) - Bad Memories (#98, 2022)

27th of 2022

An interesting thought struck me when this snuck into the Hottest 100, namely how unexpected it felt. The simple rationale I had was the context in which I viewed MEDUZA. They were a group that made chart hits. The extent to which we were invested in them was that. Especially true if you're pooling your votes from an audience who only hear the songs because they're chart hits. To go from big top 10 (or thereabouts) hits that spend months hanging around to absolutely nothing, tick tick tick, that's the sound of your chart life running out.

Obviously there are some false assumptions being made here. The first thing to point out is that "Bad Memories" was absolutely a hit song, just that it was isolated to specific parts of Europe. Anywhere it had a real go, it succeeded with flying colours. A good rule of thumb also is that unless there are significant cultural barriers, then if something is a success in a larger or similarly sized country, it likely is doing something here, even if we can't see it. "Bad Memories" barely poked into Australia's Spotify top 200, not even long enough to make the weekly chart, but this immediately suggests that it could have just been hovering a little out of sight. Suddenly the prospect that they were doing numbers gets a little more believable.

With this in mind, I start to challenge a previous institution. The idea that the music charts are forged by and large, by people who are specifically looking into them, or are only getting their music from sources that are doing just that. 15 years ago this checks out. Radio is playing a very specific set of songs and everything else is following suit. By the time streaming comes into play, this breaks down a little. Discovery changes, new preferences emerge, and the hegemony breaks down. It's still there to a degree, but I've never felt more like the opposite scenario has emerged, and now the charts are largely built by people who have no idea they're doing it. Discovery is still clearly happening, but the Boolean measure of everything being either a hit, or not a hit, just doesn't really work. It's more of a spectrum with a lot more of an even spread. Perhaps it's just most accurate to say that "Bad Memories" is roughly 80% as much of a hit as "Piece Of Your Heart" (#712). That's what the streaming numbers tell me. The differing chart fortunes tell us more about what they're able to accomplish in this new paradigm that cast any damning sentence to those who fall shy of it. The Hottest 100 again provides an alternative perspective. I don't think most of the people voting in it are at all wise to significantly different chart fortunes, they're just voting as a reflection of what they know and like. Wouldn't you know? There's an audience for MEDUZA beyond the charts.

It's not a big revelation to say that MEDUZA may have been accused of unoriginality early on. I've said it before, the similarities between "Piece Of Your Heart" and "Lose Control" (#527) are not exactly subtle. Their next hit "Paradise" was a little different as GOODBOYS were subbed out for Dermot Kennedy, but it still won't blow you away with its change of pace. They needed to find something new, and I think they did with "Bad Memories". You can still hear that signature MEDUZA sound, but it's slathered with a guitar riff, and some slightly louder hi-hats. Combine that with the different vocals and it's really sounding like a fresh new start.

There's exactly one name I recognise alongside MEDUZA in these credits, and that's Elley Duhé. She had a minor hit with Zedd in 2018 with "Happy Now", a product of his dominance at the time. Maybe it actually was pretty big on its own as I'm now seeing it went 3xPlatinum. I took note of her vocals on that song though it didn't amount to a lot. A couple of years later and I heard one of her own songs, "MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT". It was released in January 2020 so it was one of the first new songs I liked in this decade. It's not particularly noteworthy from that, but somewhere along the line I started to connect the dots and develop my greatest low stakes crackpot theory. I cannot prove it, but I suspect this song was ghost-written by an Australian singer-songwriter who will eventually appear on this list. Any potential proof I may have is lost in either SIM card or old Twitter account hell, but the short version of it is that I know this singer once wrote a song called "In The Middle Of The Night", was probably about to release it until Taylor Swift put out "...Ready For It?" which made the song title less tenable. A couple of years later in an interview, this artist mentioned writing toplines for other artists which likely will have gone all over the place without a trace, it's just part of the business. It's just very interesting to me that a song with the very same hook turned up not long after that. Two years after this, the song belatedly became a worldwide hit, and I've now seen Elley Duhé say in an interview that she wrote the song for The Weeknd, but it could just as easily be a cover story. You're not gonna advance your career by admitting you didn't even write your biggest hit. I'll probably never know the answer but I'd love to find out some day that this particular artist has actually written a song that's been streamed over a billion times. Elley Duhé will also technically appear again in this list.

I don't know if this is a revelation to anyone else, but the other vocalist on the song is not James Carter (actually a producer), but FAST BOY. The second revelation is that FAST BOY is not just one person, but two brothers from Germany. They're the more memorable part of this I think. They're just singing about getting wasted, but I really click with the vibrato on the vocals. It sounds a bit like Post Malone. All up it's a very harmless song that's mostly interesting to me for tangential reasons, but certainly a fun one in its own right.

#319. Glass Animals - Life Itself (#63, 2016)

33rd of 2016

One of the quirks of the second Glass Animals album is that it's called "How To Be A Human Being", and each of the 11 tracks is supposed to be about one of the people on the album cover, who themselves are inspired by real people they've encountered previously. If you need the specifics on "Life Itself", it's the song for the unassuming guy in the top right of the album cover. I don't have that album cover here, but I think it's the same person in the single cover. Admittedly if it was just Dave I'd believe that too, the Glass Animals lead singer, not the rapper, obviously.

Going into this album, I wasn't exactly convinced by Glass Animals. There was something a little off about it all, like it was hard to read into them as anything other than being alt-J with some of the weirdness toned down. But with only one notable hit at that point in "Gooey" (#598), they probably had a lot more people to win over than just me. It's fortunate for them that they steadied the course here, although that might not have been obvious at the time. It's gone on to be a very successful album in hindsight, but they hadn't truly found their "Gooey" killer. Not for another few years anyway.

When "Life Itself" came out, I very quickly threw away my sceptic hat and put on my 'Glass Animals are so back' hat. Very quickly we're met with such lush instrumentation that feels like what they should have always been doing. The pre-chorus is one of the catchiest odes to the NEET life that I'm all too familiar with (I guess I was still in university when this song came out). It was very quickly my favourite song they'd ever put out. It's not anymore. I don't know if I actually have an answer to that, but it's pretty clearly not since there's still another one to come here. I think it just wore out a little on me after a while.

#318. Odette - Take It To the Heart (#96, 2018)

34th of 2018

Sometimes when the Hottest 100 is at the very early part of the countdown, an incredibly selfish version of me takes over and starts internally criticising everything I'm not 100% on board with. You can't really get mad at anyone voting for "The Trouble With Us" (#946). That's one of those songs that are so obviously gonna be in the countdown that it's a pre-determined fixture. It's those early entries where it feels the most precarious. The difference in necessary popularity between the #95 & #105 songs can't really be measured, and it'll feel like something that could've been reined in. Basically, when Odette made the list with "Take It To the Heart", my immediate reaction was something like 'Aw c'mon, you already had your turn last year (#418), we don't need your lesser scraps'. There's a certain irony to all of this. I didn't know at the time that the #101 song would be one I love, "Talia" by King Princess. That song is undeniably secondary, or maybe even tertiary scraps. In any case, I quite like the Odette song now, more than her previous one. I could never stay mad at her in the long run. It's also surrounded in the list by songs I think highly of, by artists who've had no shortage of entries previously. We're all contradictory messes.

In the case of "Take It To the Heart", it only feels like a lesser song because there's less of a gimmicky hook to it. You listen to "Watch Me Read You" and you don't forget it. It's just too quirky. This just feels like an attempt from Odette not to double down on it, play a little more into what we're expecting to hear. Hardly a novel situation, many successful artists have long stretches where it feels like they're making music to feed into that general assembly line and not rock the boat. It's not necessarily a bad thing either. We need an established general tempo so we don't get overwhelmed. There can be a welcome feeling of comfort from it all.

This is a cosy song. I would not say that it's devoid of character, because Odette's vocal runs are still very distinct. It's just a little more controlled with the song's steady tempo. Those handclaps & finger snaps that run through both the verses & chorus give it a solid throughline. There's a hint at some tension on the bridge, a moment you think she might unleash that never really comes. I've grown to quite appreciate Odette now. It's possible the redemption arc was already underway at this point (I'd downloaded one of her songs in late 2018, but that was more for the featured artist, who will eventually appear in this list). She put out my favourite song of hers a few years after this, "Amends". That song does not hold back in any regards and it's all the more powerful for it. In a pinch though, it's very easy to put this song on and have a good time.

#317. G Flip - Drink Too Much (#6, 2019)

22nd of 2019

Allow me to espouse the benefits of being a teetotaller. The most obvious one is that you get to save thousands of dollars a year, which will be handy when you likely get to live longer. There's no fear of the worrisome effects of being inebriated, and that includes the likely hangover. It's just a whole extra set of problems that never have to be problems for me. Most importantly though, if you're G Flip, then less drinking would probably mean that your last girl wouldn't dump you. I guess you wouldn't get to write a fun song about it though, so maybe there are limiting factors.

I mentioned with "Killing My Time" (#375) that it was a notable achievement for G Flip, a song that reached the ARIA Chart, even if briefly. There are a handful more of these that came after, but most are very brief flings, always for one week, usually after a Hottest 100 result. "Drink Too Much" is the interesting exception because it singlehandedly racked up the vast majority of G Flip's time on the chart, and got the highest. The boring answer to this is that it had a very good showing in the world of curated playlists at the time, but by 2019 I don't consider that a guaranteed deal to chart on its own, and the song has continued to hold up its end of the bargain by being easily their most streamed song. One of those mind vs. actions deals, where it might feel right to pick another song as their standout, but the data points out that we gravitate to the fun throwaway single. I'll be straight up and say my favourite G Flip song is "Be Your Man", and it's the one I've listened to the most too, but it's not a very inspiring winning margin. I must admit that all my nested smart playlists make for a good listening experience, but the data is very rigid.

Still, this did end up being a big deal single for establishing the standard from this point on. The upper reaches of the countdown had been breached, and it was suddenly G Flip's world to share around. From 2019 to 2024, G Flip made the top 11 on all but one of those years. To fall shy of that feels like an underperformance at this point. There's a slight parallel to The Rubens' 2012 single "My Gun", which had a similar chart performance and breakthrough success. In both cases I was pretty pleased even if the subsequent efforts didn't usually match up to it. Sometimes the most reassuring thing isn't the baseline success of the song, but how well it performs compared to predecessors, which might sometimes match up best to what feels like they should be the standout hits. This is absolutely the most fun G Flip song. The opening piano stabs set the tone and every chorus hit is just a rush of energy. Love the vocal distortion which feels apt for this. I want to note because it's not my world and so I didn't even know this, but the Steph Claire Smith mentioned in the first line of the song is an Australian model & influencer who is probably more famous than G Flip (has twice as many Instagram followers at least). I genuinely thought it was just someone they went to school with. Even more famous is G Flip's wife of 4 years, American soap actress Chrishell Stause. I guess there was a happy ending to come out of being dumped so drink however much you want to, responsibly.

#316. Sly Withers - Clarkson (#69, 2021)

25th of 2021

Consider me the modest expert as someone who used to get on the Clarkson train line hundreds of times a year. I might have even used that stop at certain points. Anyway, that particular stop has lost its infamy in the ensuing years as the line goes further north and it's the Yanchep line now. I just think it's really neat that Transperth is both a great pun and a great bit of accidental trans allyship. And on that bombshell, it's time to talk about Sly Withers.

Back when I was growing up, there was always talk about how there's something in the water over in Western Australia. The way this one state without a huge population and a lot of distance from everywhere else was able to punch far above its weight in the music scene. Bands like Pendulum, Birds of Tokyo, Little Birdy, Eskimo Joe, Gyroscope, Tame Impala, The Sleepy Jackson, San Cisco, some others I can't name yet. Even if they're not all to your taste, there's no denying the stars were there. I always used to look at the state by state statistics on the ARIA Report and spot the discrepancies. Many of these bands would far overperform in their local area. That's not too surprising really, but it shows how one state can singlehandedly put these artists on the map and build that platform. When Birds of Tokyo's first album came out, it debuted at #88, but was #15 in Western Australia. The second album was actually matched at #2 by Victoria, but that same week you've got Drapht charting for the first time thanks to local fans. His next album was outsold by k.d. lang in the two most populous states but still came in at #1. This state just knows it's isolated and is willing to back itself at every opportunity. We're seeing a new generation of bands crack the Hottest 100. DICE, Old Mervs & Sly Withers alike are probably charting above their expected pay grade (remember last year when "What You've Lost" got more votes than "MILLION DOLLAR BABY"?). What better way to show it than with a song named after a tiny suburb north of Perth?

I might just have a hint of bias in all of this. I promise that I come to it with all the genuine praise I can. Or at least, praise that's a little bit tempered because this particular song reminds me of stuff from 20 odd years prior that I probably prefer. It runs under 3 minutes so by the time you get to the ending, you might find yourself wanting just one more big release. The foundational pieces are there though, so this is a song that makes for great snippet crafting. It's my guilty pleasure sometimes to spend just as long listening to the best bits of songs than actually getting through the whole things. You've got a lot of options in "Clarkson".

#325-#321

 #325. Glass Animals - Your Love (Déjà Vu) (#51, 2020)

25th of 2020

I have to wonder if Glass Animals knew they had a hit on their hands. They'd probably say no, and I'd believe them. The single release order suggests a lack of confidence in their hand. The first single from "Dreamland" was "Tokyo Drifting" (#968). Potentially it gets attention for the obvious reason: the divergence from being a straight up Glass Animals song. "Your Love (Déjà Vu)" comes in next as a means of re-assurance. It's the song on the album that reminds me most of "How To Be A Human Being". The big twist in this whole arrangement is that they were sitting on something that could be described as the biggest hit of all time (in Australia) in "Heat Waves" (#741), and it was the 4th single. If they did have some faith in it, it's a good strategy. Bring it in for the middle order in case the early wickets fall too meaninglessly, keep the momentum up. Or maybe they just thought the same way I did, "Your Love (Déjà Vu)" had to be the hit because it's self-evident.

Maybe this is something that doesn't really come to mind with this band. They're in the middle zone where they have hits, but aren't a chart band (one exception aside). It's in their best interest to work this angle, and they have managed to do it covertly. Their previous album is the perfect example of this. It never really had a chart hit, but has amassed over a billion streams thanks to a series of low key hits, some I might even talk about here. This might change over time because nothing feels set in stone anymore, but going into this album, the surprise packet for Glass Animals was "The Other Side Of Paradise", a deep cut that overtook all of the actual singles. It probably didn't make sense as a single, coming close to 5 and a half minutes, but it's very adaptable to a short snippet based economy. I could make the case that it's the catchiest hook they've ever written, even in a sea of "Baby Blue" songs that have done the rounds.

That's why I think "Your Love (Déjà Vu)" was pushed early. When I listen to it, I hear a band (well it's mostly just Dave) trying to isolate what they had working before and trying to make it into a radio single. The whole chorus is trying to hammer in a whimsical instrumental hook. The only thing it's missing is a big confident performance on the vocals, which you think you're gonna get on the bridge but it falls a little short. This should be where I lament that the luck of the draw with hits is a cruel mistress and that this fell devastatingly short, but actually it's done pretty well for itself. As I write this, it's making ground on all the other singles from this album (apart from "Heat Waves", naturally), which is occasionally the sign of a random surprise hit bursting out the gate. That's a slow and ungratifying process though, I speak through having spent the last several months tracking a song that's slowly been climbing but still not really breaking through. More likely, "Take A Slice" is the band's ticket at the moment. Either way, I did always like this one. I guess I have to pay some thanks to "Heat Waves" on it because seeing this poll as well as it did, just reeks of the typical splash back you get when one song is tremendously powerful. I did not think this song had the momentum to make it in back in May 2020.

#324. Desiigner - Panda (#81, 2016)

34th of 2016

Something that I don't think is fully appreciated when looking at popular music is the sheer magnitudes of difference we can be dealing with. Right now as I write this (yes, in 2025), Bad Bunny just had 69 million streams on Spotify yesterday. In the same space of time, Khalid had 6.9 million streams, Nate Smith had 0.69 million streams, and Broken Social Scene were close to 0.069 million streams. I think we're tempted to bunch everything closer together when we're familiar with it, but the reality is so different. If you ever feel tempted to fall into the trap of being shocked at unfamiliarity with something that's being hyped up, think of just how easy it is to fall into the 90%, or the 99%, or the 99.9%. Not everyone listens to Bad Bunny either, so those numbers are being extremely generous. It also means that when something blows up, those early stories that may have formed are no longer part of the narrative. Most people missed the early parts of the careers of Post Malone, The Weeknd, Lana Del Rey, take your pick. Most people never saw the weird ascent of "Panda" before it already happened, so you might not know the story and it gives me an excuse to reiterate it.

In February 2016, Kanye West released his 7th album "The Life of Pablo". We've tackled it here once before (#659) and we'll do it again. For now I want to focus on an album cut, "Pt. 2". It follows "Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1", the 'bleach my asshole' song. It goes through without much to remark upon, until you get to around the 30 second mark, and you hear a different MC on the track. He's a new guy, but everyone thinks it sounds like a certain Atlanta rapper (and he apparently has broads there). That rapper will appear on this list at a point in time I'd describe as the opposite of the past. He had just released his most acclaimed album 7 months ago so he was getting a lot of attention. Eventually we find out that it's Desiigner, who was just signed to Kanye's GOOD Music label earlier in the week. It also turns out that his verses are actually being sampled from his own song, "Panda" which had initially been released online, but was re-released a couple of weeks later. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in March, and reached #1 in May. Now this song is being heard all over the world, and reaching far more ears than a TIDAL exclusive Kanye West album track ever could. It's also a giant slap in the face to that rapper I haven't mentioned, a copycat wunderkind getting a #1 hit before he could even get close. Put a pin in that one because the story continues long after Desiigner is consiigned to irrelevance.

I just find the whole thing interesting because it's a much weirder timeline than you'd think, one that isn't generally documented properly. Anyone who's coming into this after the fact is likely going to misunderstand that. Listen to "Pt. 2" now and you might think it's just a rip off of "Panda", a sample that looks incredibly lazy in the already absorbed new context of "Panda" being a smash hit. In general though, "Pt. 2" will never sound the same as it did on the day that it came out, unless you've managed to completely avoid "Panda". Maybe you have, it's not like they thrashed it on the radio or anything.

When I first started to notice "Panda" getting a proper push, I marked it as a potential #1 hit (in America at least). It had the right pace of ascent, and there was a nice opening as Rihanna & Drake's "Work" was just waiting for the next #1 hit to come along and replace it. If the timing wasn't right, Desiigner might have been stuck behind Drake's "One Dance" (#796) which shot to the top 2 weeks later. In Australia, it was a low top 10 hit, which is pretty good given how trap music tended to perform here. Even in America though, "Panda" feels like a harbinger of the future. It wasn't the first trap song to top the Billboard Hot 100, but it's the first one that didn't feel like it was a pop song with trap elements. For many years to come, this became the default sound of rap, as everyone would start coming up with dark, menacing beats. Many like to attribute musical trends to presidential eras, and this one would be perfect since Rae Sremmurd got to #1 with "Black Beatles" right when Trump was elected for the first time, but Desiigner singlehandedly ruins it all by being half a year early.

Seemingly by accident at barely 18 years old, Desiigner became a pioneer. He flamed out pretty quickly after that, decide if it's bad artist management, or just a gimmick that didn't have many legs. I adore his later single "Tiimmy Turner", but I think it captures everything I could need from Desiigner (it also snuck into the Billboard Year End list, so keep that in mind if you're tempted to call him a one hit wonder). That and the fact that there's a better artist still going around who already sounds the same. Like many pioneers, the intrigue is there, and there's reason to be interested. If you're looking for something deeper than talking about cars, drugs & money, then you'll probably be left disappointed. "Panda" works best for me from that initial "Pt. 2" context because the whole thing is a strange fever dream. One where half the song is ad libs, and the main hook is just the word 'panda' repeated over and over again. I wouldn't want it any other way, but if it feels like a new depth of denigration in popular music, I get it.

#323. Lorde - Mood Ring (#62, 2021)

26th of 2021

"Solar Power" is supposed to be Lorde's flop era, and I've already gone into that (#526). The narrative doesn't work when I end up with 3 songs on my plate. They're far lower, but it's still just as many songs as "Pure Heroine" has here. I'm not about to go through the whole album again for content. I still think "Fallen Fruit" is a gem. How about I go off tangent and say that the latest album, "Virgin", is actually really good. The lead single never sparked my interest but now that I'm hearing it all, it's all locking into place. I may have to revisit it when I do my own End of Year business, although if you're reading this now, I probably already did that, good on me.

"Mood Ring" was always the song that made me feel a bit strange regarding the reception of this album. For anyone who doesn't like the album, while the arrangement might be off-putting, it's pairing it with the lyrical content that takes it a bridge too far. It's an odd thing to talk about because it's spirituality mixed with pseudo-science in a way that's generally pretty female coded, and will have men loudly proclaiming superiority over anyone duped by it. "Mood Ring" turns it all up to eleven. Saluting the sun, meditation, astrology, crystal collecting. The song is called "Mood Ring" after all. Even if it's a bit of an exaggerated joke, it's just a reminder that adult Lorde is distracted by snake oil.

At the heart of it though, I've never been able to get caught up in this because when a melody clicks into place, it can disrupt your judgement. The whole thing is hooks upon hooks, and I think Lorde's breathy delivery of the song's chorus is a fresh side of her that really works. Just a really strong single and I'm not surprised it managed to get some attention.

#322. Tkay Maidza - Switch Lanes (#100, 2014)

37th of 2014

Voting for the triple j Hottest 100 of 2014 kicked off on December 15th, 2014. I decided to try and count up all the votes I could see on Instagram manually. Just an utterly laborious ordeal but I truly had nothing better to do over the summer. As a bonus, it gives me otherwise unsearchable answers to questions about some of my lesser known favourites, there's one tidbit I want to share in the future to add to what I suspect will be a fairly long entry when I get to it (longer than this one, I fear). I also shared my findings regularly on Twitter at the time, which gained me some followers, a couple whom I still interact with from time to time. Something maybe obvious in hindsight you learn is just what the pace of voting is like. New votes come in every day for sure, but it's the first day, and the last day where they really come in. That's the point in time when I'm not physically capable of keeping up with the load, but it's especially the last day that does it. Things changed for me just a little bit on January 13th, 2015.

You probably know the basic story, but in 2015, BuzzFeed published an article written by Mark Di Stefano titled 'Why Isn't Everyone Voting For "Shake It Off" In The Hottest 100?'. When I call it an article, it might be more accurate to say that it's a series of GIFs and images with single sentences captioning them. I get what this is for and I'm not trying to disparage it (I also generally quite like what Di Stefano does nowadays and generally agree with a lot of his opinions). I just want to make it clear that the monumental grenade that set off an absolutely heated bit of discourse that still ripples through today, has considerably less words than this entry does so far. To summarise it to be even more brief, it's an article that suggests triple j's snubbing of Taylor Swift from the voting list is an injustice, but one that can be fixed due to the poll's write-in function. The final line says 'Let's teach those music snobs a lesson. Get around #Tay4Hottest100.'. It's clearly a bit of fun, but it started to take off and get a serious push from there. Voting was 5 days away from closing and a new horse had entered the race with some serious consideration that it might disrupt the institution. People genuinely thought Taylor Swift might win the whole thing. We're talking $10,000 being put on the line on Sportsbet (to skip ahead, it was refunded).

I noticed this pretty immediately one night. Up until this point, I had seen 5 votes for "Shake It Off", not too bad for a write-in, but far shy of the roughly 500 of the frontrunners. Votes for it suddenly swept the count. I actually had trouble counting it because I had a self-imposed rule for consistency to only use a single hashtag in my search, meaning that anyone who used Buzzfeed's tag and only that one would fall outside of my range. So while there were a lot of votes for the song, I only counted enough to have it land at #106, about a quarter of the posts I should have been seeing. If it was just about 100 extra votes for Taylor Swift I saw, this wouldn't really be any issue to write home about, but my main observation was just a huge sweep of posts left, right & centre for days. If you've ever felt inundated with discourse, let me make it clear that I was fully in the trenches for this one, as I subjected myself to every pro-Taylor Swift post, and ever anti-Taylor Swift post, as well as a whole lot of people who didn't necessarily comment on it, but probably were reminded to vote due to all the buzz(feed). As someone who generally liked the song and album at the time, it made me grow very mad at it all for consuming my day. There probably was a lesson to be learnt from it all, but when all you see is rows of people mocking you for your interest in music, it's hard to take it in.

Do I think that triple j had an elitism problem? Potentially, but not anymore than most other radio stations (everyone has some kind of 'other' group that they can toss aside to feel better about themselves), and not really by the 2010s. To me, it's pretty clear that everyone fosters a certain audience and then caters to that. triple j will occasionally play music that's arguably just as pop as Taylor Swift, the same way another station might arguably play an artist that's as indie as Chet Faker. It doesn't have to be a big gotcha to point this out, and it doesn't have to be acted upon. Music isn't a competition, if you think it is and you're trying to pull a fast one on everyone else by proving they're doing it wrong, then you're probably losing that one. At the end of the day, Taylor Swift doesn't need triple j, and triple j doesn't need Taylor Swift. The available variety is what's great about music.

This is not the nuanced discussion I was really seeing. To me, it felt like a long bubbling sense of contempt to the triple j crowd. A sorely awaited point of attack to a station and audience that have been flexing their superior influence on music. The way one station had complete control over festival line ups, ARIA Award distribution, and could single-handedly make a hit. I'll admit it was a hyperfixation of mine that I probably drove to an irritating degree and I'd do it differently if I had a second chance. Nevertheless, here was the opportunity. triple j were obligated to follow the results of their beloved annual poll, even if they went against the original intentions. Just a superb opportunity to make all those hipsters mad.

Except it didn't really happen. In the days leading up to the countdown, triple j had declined to make any comments on the campaign (though something about it did air on the station, another entry, another day), either through neutrality or not wanting to stoke the flames by acknowledging it. The silence was broken at the top of the countdown broadcast on Australia Day by Lewis McKirdy, who revealed that Taylor Swift won't be on the list, and that the reasons why can be found on triple j's novelty website they whipped up, triplejfeed.com (it immediately crashed but was saved by the Internet Archive). In BuzzFeed fashion, triple j lists 8 reasons why the song was not included in the list. I want to stress that there are multiple because after all of this has happened, every discussion I ever see about this will take a simplified conclusion to this all. This idea that KFC singlehandedly spoiled the campaign. They ran a frivolous ad campaign on the back of the hashtag asking people for their favourite Taylor Swift song for a chance at a $19.89 discount. One promoted Facebook post and she's out just as easily as she was in, even if it likely barely moved the needle on the campaign. I've never subscribed to this idea. While it is one of the things mentioned on the webpage, it feels more like a scapegoat, one that didn't change any minds internally. To me, the more telling part of the article is all the different ways they talk about trolling the poll. Ever since this happened, triple j's How To Vote page has always included a section where they clarify they want genuine votes from genuine listeners, and that 'any campaign that undermines the Hottest 100 may result in that artist or song being disqualified'. With that in mind, I'm certain that a future instance of this would be possible (in fact you can draw comparison 10 years later to Sabrina Carpenter landing in the top 200 with "Espresso"), but it was the whole smug 'we're better than them, let's ruin their day' angle to the campaign that soured it all.

One other point that I want to focus on is one that I don't think had much of a leg to stand on, but is nonetheless very important. They highlight that if Taylor Swift were included in the countdown, it'd be bad luck for rising Adelaide MC Tkay Maidza whose debut appearance at #100 with "Switch Lanes" would be demoted to #101. They included the hashtag #Tkay4Hottest100 which I greatly enjoyed. This isolated example is the heart of why I felt so strongly about the whole thing. To me, the Hottest 100 was a wonderful ecosystem that allowed bands and artists that don't really get much of a foothold anywhere to thrive. My favourite part of the countdown was often the lower end, where you're treated to a menagerie of songs you've been hearing on the radio all year and get that delightful feeling of 'Oh cool, a lot of people also heard that song and liked it'. That's par the course for a radio station but have you ever turned on a radio, heard a song, and thought about how tens of thousands of other people are also hearing the song right now? It's all so distant, but this countdown puts it in front of you. Part of why I run this blog at all is because I look through these lists and look at all the interesting and occasionally unusual entries that on some level are given the same credibility as the extremely popular ones. Pretty soon, this whole thing is going to just be a series of gushes as we dive into the music that's especially important to me.

I'll admit that sometimes the higher profile that artists like Taylor Swift can provide can also serve a positive purpose through attention by association, I'd rather let the station themselves control how they dole that out. It runs the risk of destroying the credibility of it all and wrecking it for everyone. I'll admit it's amusing in hindsight that one of the joke campaign ideas that triple j mentions on the webpage is one where everyone votes for Rebecca Black's comeback single, an artist who's been getting increasingly more airplay on the station since then. Taylor Swift's "1989" really is a turning point for poptimism in general. I think about this in tandem with Pitchfork's End of Year albums list including it despite the website never reviewing it in the first place (because the list was a staff aggregate and there were enough Swifties there despite the site's disposition). It never felt weird that they weren't reviewing her music, but now it'd be mighty weird if they didn't. It's those artists like Tkay Maidza though, that's what triple j is about to me. Artists that this government funded station exists to propagate, who would otherwise be carelessly tossed aside.

With that in mind, let's look at it finally. This is a very young Tkay Maidza who had previously released one single, her odd, somewhat novelty song "Brontosaurus" which achieved minor notoriety (it actually made the ARIA Chart for a week), but couldn't quite crack the Hottest 100. Actually there was another single in-between in 2014, the irresistible "U-Huh" that properly put her on my radar. That also missed the Hottest 100 so it was just this song that started a brief hit streak. This wasn't quite the same hit for me but I did like it enough to purchase it, amusingly just a week before the Hottest 100. Normally I spend the day simultaneously collecting the list, so it's a funny twist to pre-empt the first song like that.

"Switch Lanes" is still a fun song. If Tkay's earlier singles were loud and obnoxious, this one dials it back a bit. A cute little instrumental on the hook, and some fun crowd vocals near the end that sound like late '80s dance music. I should probably point out that Paces is sometimes included in the metadata as a producer, and it's a worthwhile acknowledgement because everything about the production elevates this. I especially like the drums. Otherwise it's still Tkay's show, and she's still running it as one of the most enjoyable rappers going around. This is just an early proof of concept.

#321. Ball Park Music - Cherub (#4, 2020)

24th of 2020

This feels oddly appropriate to me. In the 2014 countdown, Tkay Maidza was immediately followed by Ball Park Music (#421). We're 100 spots off it being the same song, but they're nonetheless here to complete the tradition. I can't promise a Bombay Bicycle Club song next week unfortunately, that ship has sailed (#778). In any case, we're trading Ball Park Music's lowest ever Hottest 100 finish, to their highest one. Me, I'm just excited to finally close all those internet tabs I opened for the last one.

Is this the big one though? That's hard to say. I don't think it's actually their most popular song, and while I might want to say that it most efficiently built up an audience in time for the vote, that doesn't feel true to me either. All I can take from it is that it's the song that most readily capitalised on the band's ascended performance. They went from regular middle carders to the main event, and with that arrived the mighty peak of "Cherub". They'd get another top 10 finisher 2 years later (#568), which makes this one feel a little less notable. More than anything, it reinforces the idea that we're entrenched in the era where voting for the band is greatly prioritised. Not in the traditional sense where all their run of the mill singles get a chance, but the modern, laser focused one. Let's all agree on which song we want to vote for and pool our collective numbers together. It's something I find can infect my own way of thinking though I haven't really acted upon it. Maybe if your loyalty is strong in the first place, it's easier to make the leap, but I don't want to vote for the more popular song I only kinda like, unsubscribe from that.

What makes it all the more unusual is that "Cherub" is the 3rd single from Ball Park Music's self-titled album. The lead single, "Spark Up!" fell way short of making it in, but this lengthy dirge just shot ahead of the pack, who could've possibly predicted that? Well, I might have done something like that. I'm not sure I'd have pinned it for this kind of success, but this was the first Ball Park Music song in a long while that I heard once and immediately got on board.

I think it's something that's difficult to pull off. When you make a song that starts softly but builds to a monster climax, you've potentially got two tasks to consider. Firstly it has to justifiably stand out. Be the kind of thing that gets the listener taken aback by something they weren't ready for. After that, it just needs to be something that retains its charm on subsequent listens. It's not always easy to do. In fact the whole song was such an unusual departure that the band were hesitant to even release it. They're the fun, sunny band from Brisbane, how can you be certain anyone was here for this? Evidently, it caught on.

I'm hesitant to commit to it having succeeded on both tasks. The first one, I'll give it without issues, but I find it hard to re-capture that spark 6 years on. It's certainly close to the mark, but I think if I was still fully under the spell then we'd be a lot higher on the list as I write this. I want to give it bonus points for reminding me what a cherub is, but I never quite manage to recall that fast enough in trivia settings. Just think of that smiling face on the artwork, could it be any more angelic?