#285-#281

#285. Ruby Fields - Kitchen (#58, 2021)

21st of 2021

It's fun to say that triple j go rogue sometimes and play whatever they want to play. Maybe once upon a time it was true too, though I don't think so anymore. They're definitely more rigid now with playing what the label and promoters want out of them, with maybe a slight influence from what seems to register with listeners. "Kitchen" was the big hit from Ruby Fields' debut album in 2021, but it wasn't released as a single. Several songs were released before it but didn't make the same impact. For me, "R.E.G.O." and "Song About A Boy" feel pretty essential, but I'll admit that I didn't vote for them either which doesn't put me in a spot to complain. Maybe the latter is just a retread of that earlier hit I still haven't gotten to, but if you like that one, maybe give it a spin anyway.

Sometimes all you need is a nice lyrical mantra to sit on. Something that sticks with everyone and makes them want to listen out for the parts they don't remember as well. "Kitchen" is one of those songs. Do you remember the part of the song where she says the title? I should because she starts both verses with the same line for it, but then I'm lost. On the other hand, more of it will come to mind if I just tell myself it's the 'You've got my back, mate' song. What a Ruby Fields-coded lyric, how did it take 4 years to get to this? What does it mean for Deep Blue Something who pined over a mediocre connection of kinda liking an old movie? Ruby Fields is out here connecting with someone for disliking the same things, and also remembering what she drinks. That's the foundation of a relationship right there.

I suppose I can make myself content that this was the pick for 2021, because it does show a different side for Ruby Fields next to a lot of more out-and-out rockers. "Kitchen" does do it as well at the end but I doubt it's the part of the song many people think of. The chorus is the money shot for sure. It's a good one too, just nice, heart-warming and breezy. I'm writing this before the Hottest 100 has happened so as it stands, it's the most recent Ruby Fields song to make the countdown. There hasn't really been a drop off period, just the harsher indictment of going several years without releasing anything. Maybe I'll look back on this when it's time to post and go 'oh, what a nice surprise, "92 Purebred" is a great song', but I'm not expecting quite as much. It just doesn't have that one mantra. Editor me is here to update that it landed at #128, not too shabby.

#284. King Stingray - Get Me Out (#46, 2021)

20th of 2021

It's nice to have things written down. There's the adage that every time you try to remember something, you're actually recalling the last time you tried to do that, and so as time goes by, you create an increasingly distorted version of events that sounds close enough but is nothing like the truth of the matter. Maybe that multi-game GameBoy game that I remember vividly but there's no information about online doesn't really exist (update: Hilariously I've since found exactly what I was thinking of, but it was for the lesser known Mega Duck console). Maybe there was no time when the footy coverage would go black & white whenever the blood rule was enacted. It's always just a mix of recollection from different things that get merged together. That's why most Mandela effect examples (at least the very popular ones) usually have some very simple explanation that boils down to 'you're thinking of this other thing'.

"Get Me Out" was my first exposure to King Stingray. Was I interested in them because of the nepotism link to Yothu Yindi? Or did I just hear the song and resonate with it in its own right? It's probably the latter, because I made a note at the time that suggested I wasn't even sure if there was a connection. In general I'm sure the story got around and it helped them. Everyone loves a story and sometimes the real benefit from being descended from someone famous is that it's a conversation starter. It doesn't even have to be positive. We can't help but spread the word about acts we're revolted by. We badly need them as conversation starters. It's like bringing up Gracie Abrams just because you really want to vent your opinions about LOST or The Force Awakens.

It certainly helps me, the person who is very much out of things to say about King Stingray but also knows I still have to do it a couple more times. Mainly though, it's fun to revisit this one now knowing they became something of a big deal in the aftermath. That's my other favourite thing to look at, to see the first thing I said about an artist when they first showed up. My favourite one is at the start of 2025 when I jokingly suggested that Olivia Dean was gonna be a big thing, akin to Olivia Rodrigo. I can't actually claim the credit on that one because I very much did not think it was gonna happen, but I love that I wrote it down. Perhaps you could make the prediction of King Stingray as well but it's probably not as bold. This is a band that just had it all worked out pretty quickly. No awkward first time growing pains here, they're ready for the big leagues. Or at least, the big part of these smaller leagues. I won't copy paste my previous entries as much as I want to, but this has pretty much all I need. Great bit of tension & release on the chorus, as well as some excellent use of the didgeridoo, which is more than just a token sound bed, but a vital part of the tapestry to rev it up.

#283. A$AP Rocky (feat Skepta) - Praise The Lord (Da Shine) (#13, 2018)

30th of 2018

With some artists, you can think about their biggest hit and it comes pretty easily. Bon Jovi? That's "Livin' On A Prayer". blink-182? "All The Small Things". A$AP Rocky and Skepta? Who even knows. For both of them it might very well be this song, but there are so many caveats that you can't really commit to it. It's done very well in the long term, but if you only pay attention to the initial short term, they've both had more impressive showings. Just a tough arrangement when A$AP Rocky started off his career with some blockbuster singles, and for Skepta, the US market is so allergic to UK rap for the most part that most of his material just lives in a smaller market. Maybe in these parts, "Victory Lap" will eventually do enough to catch up to this one, but I suspect the present 3xPlatinum certification for this is wildly out of date. Rest assured, if you haven't thought about this song in a long time, it's a monster hit.

I touched a bit on this when I was talking about "Sundress" (#498). There are some hits that seem to defy the odds and reach a far greater audience than that artist should expect. With exceptions, something you tend to spot in this is that it does very little in benefitting that artist's greater catalogue. In theory, this is a hit that solidifies Rocky's status as something of a legend, but in practice it was a brief fling just because it's a very catchy and likeable song, so that's as far as it went for the most part. A$AP Rocky hasn't really had much of anything resembling a hit on release since this one, just the occasional random bouts of virality.

I completely understand how all of this happened. Just one listen to this song and it all just immediately clicks. If you're looking for a shuffle-friendly rap song to find on your playlist and not skip, it's this one. It won't be the last time we get one that's built around a funny woodwind hook, but to bring with it such an easy to sing along hook? I know Australian radio wasn't going anywhere near it at this stage but they easily could've slid this into rotation. Okay maybe they'd need to censor out the bit about breaking the law and taking some more. Maybe it's falling apart now.

Another reason this song might seem so effortlessly catchy is because it's not entirely original. You might just recognise the entire flow from DMX's song "Who We Be". He's not credited for an interpolation or anything, but Skepta literally shouts him out when he says 'I listen to X, I peep the bars', and that seems convincing enough as proof for me. I remember it being an unusual coincidence that this song was sharing chart space with XXXTENTACION who died a week before it was released. It meant that referring to any rapper at that point as 'X' was exceedingly ambiguous, and that's not even acknowledging Xzibit who probably deserves some of that as well.

It's all odd because I think of this as a song that definitely benefitted from how popular hip-hop was at the very moment, and it's a song that I don't think would otherwise have gotten off the ground. On the other hand, it's also comfortably the 3rd highest hip-hop song in the 2018 list just behind two landmark releases, so they got a pretty good arrangement out of this. Add it to the "Just Friends" (#401) pile I guess, it's just so catchy.

#282. The Kite String Tangle - Given The Chance (#19, 2013)

44th of 2013

Maybe you've heard the story of the first ever Big Day Out in 1992. It started as just an elaborate promotion for a Violent Femmes tour but quickly became a huge festival in its own right. A big catalyst to this was the moderately famous supporting band that was booked in the previous year, Nirvana. It's a dream scenario for bookers to strike a bit of luck like that, one that not only ensures more tickets sold than initially expected, but shows the country that you're on the pulse, and maybe you'll find the next Nirvana along the way.

I first heard about The Kite String Tangle in August 2013. He was booked as a supporting act on a tour for an artist who I'm sure will one day appear on this list. I'm not sure how that tour went (it didn't make it to my side of the country), but I do know that by the time it happened, The Kite String Tangle was sitting on one of the hottest songs going around. One so hot that it landed in the top 20 while the top billed artist didn't have anything to show in the top 200. The most impressive thing is that "Given The Chance" managed to reach the ARIA chart for several weeks, despite the notable handicap that triple j were hosting it as a free download on their website at the time. That's how I got it! It's incredible just what company this song was rubbing shoulders with. I guess we all love a wunderkind when we find them.

"Given The Chance" is a song that makes me want to take my critical hat off. I think the more you listen closer to it, the more it seems to fall apart. A lot of scratchy sounding synths in the verses, a vocal loop on the chorus of very unserious woahs, and just some tinny synths to get us going. Yet there's a certain appeal to it all. You're not thinking about how the vocals are mixed when the big climax hits towards the end, just that the song is doing its own thing and it has the force of conviction to move past that.

#281. Ratatat - Cream On Chrome (#52, 2015)

37th of 2015

The gap between me knowing about Ratatat and me knowing basically anything about them is surprisingly vast. They're on Kid Cudi's "Pursuit Of Happiness", he even shouts them out in the song. What are they doing on that song? I dunno, maybe it was a guest verse I missed, maybe it's just an elevated producer tag. Technically that is what it is, but I feel like I would have appreciated knowing that they were an electro-rock duo who specialised in making instrumental music with a heavy focus on guitars. Once you get to know Ratatat, "Pursuit of Happiness" starts to make a lot more sense, that guitar solo was just staring at me for years.

Say the line, Bart. Alright then. In what has to be one of the most grand cosmic coincidences in Hottest 100 history, we had a very rare a cappella entry via Matt Corby (#889) and it was immediately followed by a still fairly rare instrumental entry via Ratatat. I know what the next thing is that you're thinking, easiest mash up ever. They've even got similar tempos so it's not so jarring to have to change one to match it. Let me just tell you that matching them perfectly was another story, as I grew more convinced that Matt was hitting his sticks out of time. Nonetheless I proceeded and created an absolute abomination. Here's a small sample that was somewhat listenable.

Still, at its core, it's a very interesting situation. It's nice to see hits like this that break away from the convention in one form or another, because that convention itself can be limiting and maybe feel strange from the outside looking in. It's a bit like how foreign language songs can often struggle to cross over. Maybe it's because people like to have recognisable words they can sing along to, but I do find myself wondering if there's a more implicit suggestion in the songs from the get-go that it's peering into a culture that's not your own, and asking you to listen to something that wasn't made for you. They can still do this, and often times the ones that do, are the ones that soar to the top, making it seem like more of an issue with the mediary gatekeepers than the public at large.

It's the kind of thing that makes you look at "Cream On Chrome" and wonder how it got the go-ahead in the first place. Someone had to decide to put this instrumental rock song on the radio and then it was up to everyone else to be content with it. You can easily foresee a world where this just doesn't happen, and Ratatat remain in their relative niche. After all, it's not like they were the new hotness that popped up out of nowhere, they'd been doing this for about seventeen years, just kickin' it from their head, you know what I'm saying? I can't even say that they just jumped back into their niche after this because they've gone completely radio silent since releasing the album this is from, aside from some solo projects. As far as I can tell, there wasn't even a notice of hiatus.

When I listen to "Cream On Chrome", I do make a bit more sense of how we got here. It's a song that can justify calling to question the necessity to have vocals, because it manages to go through all the necessary beats on its own without them. It's a conventional pop song with just one of those conventions missing. I think the real key to it though is the intro. There's a pure swagger to the way the song waltzes in, like it's begging to be in a soundtrack to a gangster movie. Well, the drop is very good too if you want to call it that.

#290-#286

#290. Tash Sultana - Cigarettes (#84, 2018)

31st of 2018

Something that tends to happen if you're not one of the biggest stars in the world is that you'll probably get that one hit from the album that takes off. Ostensibly it advertises the album on its own but I'm not sure how often it actually works. I think a lot of people take the message that there's one really good song and you don't need to hear the rest. What's interesting about it is that it's not always something that goes to plan.

When labels push out new albums, they tend to inform all the relevant platforms about the 'focus tracks'. They're the songs they want radio stations to play and streaming platforms to prioritise, so they aren't overwhelmed trying to pluck something out of the track list themselves. They do well with this, and in most cases, that focus track tends to be the highest new entry for the album on the first week. Sometimes the public appears to go rogue with it and the real big hit will assert itself in any number of subsequent days, so the former focus track gets abandoned, though you might not know if you aren't paying super close attention to this. Billie Eilish still landed at #17 with "LUNCH" despite it having been overtaken by numerous other songs at that point, just because it made enough of an impression on release that a lot of people probably still thought it was 'the' song from that album.

I don't have an exciting revelation to make about this with Tash Sultana. If anything it's a surprise case of it just going along according to plan. "Cigarettes" comes from their debut album, which already had 5 singles released from it at that point. The earlier ones in 2018 were likely being treated as promotional singles, when you just get a new song waved in front of you every few weeks, and a chance for them to road test which ones get a better reaction. "Cigarettes" was the focus single when the album came out. I remember the first time I heard it, on New Music Friday. It stood out a bit to me, and if you're familiar with the song you can probably guess why. I was a little surprised to see it make the Hottest 100, actually the only Tash Sultana song to do so that year, but I guess everyone else heard the same song I was hearing.

For the most part, it's a pretty standard affair, if even a little forgettable. I had to double check myself if this was the 'I'm on a permanent vacation to the soul' song or if I had it mixed up with another one. This was right after I just listened to it. Maybe if you're super into Tash Sultana, that's your kind of thing anyway. On the other hand, behind the first 3 minutes of the song, the biggest treat is being hidden away. Just this huge 2 minute instrumental section at the end. I can imagine the hesitation on hearing that. "Electric Feel" (#951) was just a year ago and might represent the worst version of what that would entail. I've never felt that trepidation in "Cigarettes", just a nonstop thrill ride. The drums are completely locked in like it's that British post-punk revival band from the 2000s at their peak, and the guitar strikes the perfect balance between playing to the crowd and showing off. I always get excited, knowing it's coming. Very cute music video too, I must say.

#289. Teenage Joans - Three Leaf Clover (#87, 2020)

19th of 2020

When I was in 11th grade English class, I'd constantly be set assignments to write essays about books that were way out of my depth. It was the ultimate case of faking it until you make it, because I completely lacked the skill to dig greater meaning out of text beyond what was being said. I still don't think I can do it. Whenever someone does it, I can never tell if they're faking it as well. I never really learnt how to do it. Maybe that was the time when I should have learnt it, but every time I handed something in, I'd just get it back a few days later with maybe a couple of spelling error corrections and a 13/20 with absolutely no notes. No insight on how to get better, no clarity in what I was doing right or wrong. I didn't really get a chance to see anyone else's work either, so I was just flying blindly, waiting until I no longer had to take this torturous class. I was especially bad at meeting word counts. You'd go into a paragraph with a set of things you want to mention, rattle them off and suddenly you're out of things to say. I always wanted to see how everyone else did it. The art of saying the same thing but with more words. I probably have gotten better at it now, but I'll never get the chance to compare my work line for line with someone else. I guess I'll have to settle for being critical of a song written by a high schooler.

I jest, but I did just proofread my own post for "Wine" (#381) and realised I don't really have more to say about Teenage Joans. They just have two songs here and I like this one more. It's probably how many people feel. "Three Leaf Clover" was their breakout hit, the one that earned them the exposure. Maybe they'll come up with something better in the future, but the spontaneity won't be matched.

Most of the same comments I made before still apply here. It's all very 'first draft' and incredibly low stakes. A lot of materialistic discussion on clothing and the limited number of things you have going on in your life at that point. I wonder if there really was a Stacy at their school when they wrote this though. It feels like getting revenge on the cool kids by making fun of them on a song that got played on national radio and I bet it'd sound like a sick burn at the moment. Mostly though, I just find it curious that this is a song about not fitting in that uses the metaphor of being a three leaf clover. You know, the normal ones, the ones that fit in. Maybe there's some truth to the experience. If you're surrounded by people who tend to stick out in their own ways, maybe you will feel inadequate. It's ironic that these elements make their songs stick out a bit on this list. Maybe it's not a universal thing, but one can only hope they maintain future access to their diary of banal thoughts growing up. It'll show you just how far you've come.

#288. Skin On Skin - Burn Dem Bridges (#52, 2022)

22nd of 2022

There's been a strange micro-trend popping up in the Hottest 100 recently. You'll get these entries that seem to defy expectations. The Hottest 100 is supposed to be filled with the biggest names and the biggest hits, and then these obscure producers just pop up and do their thing, potentially to never be heard from again. I'm told it's TikTok influence, but it's so unusual to see it pop up like this when there isn't much of a chart showing for it. Like there's been this secret hit song that pops up here because the people who like it, really like it. We had "A Little Closer" by Diffrent in 2024, an unusual entry not just for the obscurity of it, but because it doesn't even sound like a 2024 hit. It's rooted in UK garage sounds that were big over 20 years ago. I don't doubt there's a craving for it, I'm just surprised it comes in such big numbers. It helps to stand out, I suppose.

We had "Burn Dem Bridges" by Skin On Skin in 2022. I would not say it sounds like "A Little Closer", but it also feels extremely influenced by UK dance music. Skin On Skin is actually Australian, and the whole thing is a big left turn for him. It's possible you'd already heard his music many years ago when he was recording as UV boi. I mainly remember the song "If She, If He" with EASTGHOST. I probably haven't thought about the song in nearly a decade but it's very vivid and holds up pretty well. It doesn't sound remotely like this song too, so the rebranding makes sense. In the extremely white world of Australian EDM, here's a South Sudanese producer making the leap with one enviable hit.

I was immediately obsessed with this song. When the dust settled on the 2022 countdown, it was the song I wanted to listen to the most. I use the word a lot but it really is relentless. There's a little repetition to it, but it's used well. Just that one double talk line of 'If it ain't, if it ain't' gets a lot of mileage for me. Just nice to hear something with some pounding bass though.

#287. Beyoncé - Hold Up (#66, 2016)

31st of 2016

A few weeks ago I wrote about Taylor Swift with the pretence of talking about Tkay Maidza (#322). If you can believe it, I had to cut that entry down a little shorter than I'd like. I'd promised that I'd talk about the relation between fans of pop music, indie music, and the spectrum surrounding it all, but I couldn't find a way to get into it without veering off on an additional tangent and losing the pace. Allow me to finally indulge with a relevant byproduct of it.

People tend to like different kinds of music. What makes our brains work the way they do, I cannot say for certain, just that we're all going to respond differently to different stimuli. It's a fact of life that's maybe weird, but mostly interesting. It does likely extend beyond the music and onto the image itself, but that's a whole other tangent on its own. This isn't a callout post to anyone for doing this, because everyone does it, whether you think about it or not.

In the parts of the internet I frequent, a lot of it can boil down to some variation of pop vs. indie. The big conveyer belt of shiny hit songs vs. the more custom built specialties. The latter can boast its own credibility out of that, but the former has always got the populism war won before it's even begun. It's a classic dichotomy. I don't know which one's Jacob and which one's Edward, but if you're outspoken about what you like and dislike in music, you're probably going to run into something along these lines. Deep down, we're all a little convinced that we're right and everyone who disagrees isn't giving it enough credit because it's either too popular or not popular enough.

The funny thing about it all is that in a chart discussion context, they both need each other. I was thinking the other day how no matter where I look, in the world of chart discussion, you're always finding people who might perhaps seem too cool for the charts based on what they listen to. The kind of person who bemoans the popularity of Morgan Wallen and thinks those people should be listening to Clipse instead. I know because I've been that person. They need each other though because based on what people complain about in the charts, the last thing they need is for more people to be aware of the chart. You need people who are insistent with digging up new releases, hyping up the newcomers that are soaring up the chart...and then immediately get sick of them and never listen to them again. The reign of Alex Warren cannot end until enough gatekeepers come around and reinforce how severely unhip he is. For the indie fans, nothing's better for your credibility if you have an easy reference of what you're sitting above. A lot of outrage towards pop music is probably equal parts genuine and performative, but I think a lot of those same people aren't prepared for how readily they'd get the same things said back at their favourite artist if there wasn't a bigger target on the fairway. A lot of the time they are just the same people. The Popheads subreddit was built from within the Indieheads subreddit, created by members who wanted to be able to discuss Carly Rae Jepsen's banger of a new album. Maybe that's the best sign that this schism isn't as powerful as it once was, and people are much more regularly crossing the aisle with their music preferences.

It's a nice thought, but any change of this nature is bound to be slow, and kept in place because not everyone gets the same memo, or even wants it. I'm writing this during the closing days of voting in the Hottest 100, and in the past few days I've seen several posts that have taken strange offence to the very female dominated voting turn out, suggesting something has to be done because of the negative implications of that. Their pop is gonna get in front of my indie, something like that. Music is such a personal thing that we're all gonna have our hangups over what will always be a bridge too far. For many in 2016, Beyoncé was that bridge.

The easiest arguments to make are the ones that just make sense on the surface. It doesn't require a lot of explanation to say that Beyoncé doesn't pass the sniff test. She'd gone about her business as one of the biggest stars on the planet while triple j sat in another corner leaving her be. You will not find "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" on the 2008 Hottest 100 list. The winning song that year was arguably a bigger hit song (and admittedly a problem in its own right depending on who you ask), but it wasn't going to cause the same hysteria as Beyoncé. The reality of the situation is that triple j had actually played Beyoncé before. I don't have the actual data behind this because I wasn't monitoring it at the time, but her early solo single "Work It Out" made it to the voting list when it came out, so I have to assume it was getting played. Maybe that seems strange in hindsight, but you really have to put in consideration that this is a fledgling Beyoncé who wouldn't start making world conquering hits for another year. That first year of your career when everyone's trying to figure out what to do with you can be so strange. Remember when triple j played Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran briefly?

"Work It Out" is just a weird technicality though, what I'd have to say would hold just as strongly without it. In the same way that we all established what Beyoncé meant to us all in the 2000s, it would be unfair to say she didn't make her own way about challenging that notion once the 2010s started. In 2011, her first new lead single was "Run The World (Girls)". An abrasive song for certain, but one that was effectively Beyoncé doing her thing on top of a Major Lazer instrumental, a song that had literally been heard often on triple j not long prior to this. It was one of the first signs that showed that Beyoncé was done with utter annihilation, she's big enough to do whatever she wants.

That's also what continued to happen with subsequent releases. She famously released her self-titled album in December 2013 with no warning whatsoever, at the time coining Beyoncé as a verb for whenever anyone emulated this. Something also changed, which is that Beyoncé started getting very favourable reviews. If you look at Metacritic aggregates, Beyoncé's first 4 albums generally hover around the 60 to 70 mark, very underwhelming, and the signs of an album that's there as an obligation to house the hits. "Beyoncé" scored an average of 85, and every subsequent album has gone over 90. Beyoncé had gone from an artist for whom it would be bold to defend, to someone who you have to be very careful not to say the wrong thing about.

"Beyoncé" was a very successful album if you look at how much it sold, but do you know any of the songs on it? Maybe if you're deeply invested in the charts you do, or maybe if someone mentions "Drunk In Love" that might ring a bell (assuming you don't confuse it for the other JAY-Z collaboration with a similar name), but it was a Beyoncé album without a "Halo". It didn't even have an "If I Were A Boy". I had trouble with what to think about it. I was so used to being mostly anti-Beyoncé because of her huge chart smashes that always overstayed their welcome, but how do you do that when the songs just aren't omnipresent. I was a little into it, but it wasn't really a priority for me so there wasn't much to make of it, just a weird career pivot that seemed to please people more invested in it. I like it a fair bit more now, "Partition" is one of the best songs she's ever put out. I can't believe all of those bits are in the same song. In hindsight, it probably still is the strangest pivot in her career, but that's not to say she was done playing with our expectations.

Beyoncé has been married to JAY-Z since 2008. In a world of celebrity couples feeling more like business arrangements as they seem to come and go so frequently, this is pop music's power couple and they've stood together all this time. It didn't always seem like this though, and rumours of JAY-Z's infidelity began to swirl. The oft-remembered incident of Solange Knowles hitting JAY-Z in an elevator comes up here, and while they did complete a tour together, it didn't look optimistic.

The strange career moves continued. Beyoncé released the song "Formation" in early 2016, except it's not on the regular DSPs, and for a while it was unlisted on YouTube. Perhaps the biggest hit video that couldn't be searched for, or at least, I can't find one that's bigger. Two months later, Beyoncé Beyoncés, except Beyoncé doesn't Beyoncé "Beyoncé" again, she Beyoncés "Lemonade". For the second year in a row, good going Buffalo for not getting eliminated from the playoffs before I wrote this. "Lemonade" streams exclusively on TIDAL, meaning that most of the world is cut off from listening to it, but it doesn't prevent the album from doing titanic numbers. It came out on the same week that Prince died which meant that it was competing with another source of monster sales, but did end up winning out, and it meant that the two of them worked together to produce an all-time great ARIA Chart. I basically already said it before, but "Lemonade" was beloved by many. It was beloved by me, too. Just a complete revelation that had me put down my skeptic hat and put all my stock into the album instead. "Lemonade" is banger after banger after banger. It's so varied as to not feel redundant, and felt like a lock for my favourite album of the year depending on how much credit I wanted to give to that funny BABYMETAL album at the time.

The success of "Lemonade" has become one of the biggest 'what if' questions for me. While sales still had a good hold of the chart in 2016, not being on Spotify meant a crushingly low ceiling for all the songs, which we had every reason to believe would have been dominating the chart. We saw last year with Lily Allen's album just how much a relationship drama tabloid album can generate, and this was the mother of all of those. Madeline wishes she was Becky with the good hair. Just Total Righteous Anger Towards JAY-Z: The album. It might have just been a pantomime but it was hard not to take it seriously, especially when JAY-Z's next album "4:44" responded to the whole situation with remorse. That's another album whose potential chart fortunes were squandered for the same reason. Very good album too.

At the time, the biggest hit from the album was "Formation". It was probably an obvious choice given the leading treatment. If you weren't prepared to tackle a whole album right away, it was a chance to finally buy that single that's been almost everywhere but not on the charts. In an ideal world, maybe I'd be talking about "Formation" here too, but triple j didn't really stop at that station. I can understand it's a bit of a tougher sell, but it really is a stellar single. Incredible what you can do with a goofy spring sound.

This is where the pop and indie war resumes. "Lemonade" was the point where triple j decided they were fine with playing Beyoncé more regularly. On one hand it's a little out of nowhere, but on the other hand it makes complete sense. The one thing I neglected to mention about "Lemonade" is that you could effectively call it Beyoncé's indie rock album. In lieu of working with the world's biggest producers, Beyoncé worked with Jack White, Father John Misty, Jameela Jamil's boyfriend, people like that. All the rock critics loved it. Once you got past the word Beyoncé, this album was right at home on triple j. When you're in this position though, it can be a bit of a lose-lose.

I'm going to assume that the phrase 'Oh, of course you like THAT one', or some variation of it is familiar. Whether you've used it or thought it, or had it thrown your way, it doesn't matter. It's one of the biggest pieces of ammunition in the pop and indie war because both sides have valid situations to use it. Because it's one thing to completely disregard an artist's work for not appealing to you. It's another to do this, but then take that one exception, the one time when they're playing to your side of the court and say that's the good one. It's screaming the superficial quantities of your taste in music out to the world, you only like them when they stop doing the thing they usually do.

To me, it's an adage that says one thing. The person making the claim has already decided in their head they're above the other person and won't give an inch. It's possible that it's warranted, perhaps the person in question is making a big deal out of their transaction, rubbing it in the other person's face that their side has decided it's the only good one. Maybe those people do deserve it, but for me, it's catching a lot of people in the crossfire who've done nothing wrong.

That's the part that has always gotten to me, because for so many years now I've been at peace in this war, but it's those bad actors that take the main stage and both control the discourse and get it pointed their way. When Taylor Swift was voted into the Hottest 100, that's what it was about. Taking revenge on those snobs who can't appreciate pop music. I may have exhibited some of those traits at some point in time, but I think in hindsight it was never about a quest for superiority. I was just being very protective of something that was vitally important to my upbringing. I get that from the outside, triple j is just the source of those occasionally annoying crossover songs from say Operator Please, San Cisco, Ocean Alley (pick your time frame), but for me it was a feeling of belonging and community through music I just did not have. Yes, some people can be very annoying about it (I won't pretend I wasn't), but there isn't a worse look for me than getting caught up in whether a mutual (or a stranger) likes X but doesn't like Y, and there are better ways to go about it than smugly placing yourself at the top of the podium because you've figured the other person out. Your post pointing out that your favourite artist has less writers and producers than Beyoncé is stupid, your post that stereotypes a strawman because they like "Imaginal Disk" and Cameron Winter is also stupid, but I don't think you're stupid. You just need to get out of that mindset, lest you create a spiteful schism that emboldens the very person you're trying to lambast.

To those who think Beyoncé should never be played on triple j, perhaps you're right. On the other hand, it's not necessarily the apocalypse that it's made out to be. As much as no one likes to admit it, triple j does need artists of her stature. If they just played Unearthed bands all day every day, do you think the station would be anywhere near as relevant as it is? Big hits are an essential component of radio station rotation, because they provide a usually familiar and sticky reprieve. Basically anyone who's ever told their origin story with triple j or laments the state of it nowadays will cite their favourite artists, and they're usually always hugely popular ones. They might sound more credible because they're local rock bands, but Silverchair, Spiderbait, You Am I, they're all chart topping, platinum selling bands. They were filling the same role. Maybe you actually liked triple j for the Pollyanna and Insurge they played in the middle, the ones that felt more special, but it's the big hitters that stick in your brain. It was the same for me, loving all the weird and wacky things that'd get played, but come Hottest 100 day and I'm voting for Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, and UK #1 hit song "Ruby" by Kaiser Chiefs. That article that gets written about Beyoncé outrage is gonna generate way more discussion and attention than 'hey check out this cool Vallis Alps song that just got added to rotation'. But then in turn, you can potentially put more eyes on those smaller stories. It was like when a while back, I linked one of my posts on social media to draw focus to one of the more 'important' entries, but a friend seemed to instead recall a different entry I had written in the same post, for a less notable song. If I link this post, it's because the Beyoncé rant is there, but it's completely surrounded on all sides by more niche Australian artists. Sometimes we just need a good excuse to bring up our hyperfixations to others.

Anyway, this is the entry for "Hold Up" and I want to talk about this song specifically for what is usually one of those constant grievances about Beyoncé, but in this case is the most fascinating thing about the song. "Hold Up" has an enormous list of songwriters attached to it. I can see 15 names on it which includes Beyoncé, Diplo, MNEK, Ezra Koenig, Father John Misty, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Soulja Boy. That's not even acknowledging the song's Andy Williams sample which adds on two more, less contemporary names in Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. How on earth did all of this happen? Well Diplo & Ezra wrote a demo together in 2014, based around that Andy Williams sample. The hook is actually something Ezra tweeted as a joke years ago, transforming the chorus of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" by changing a few of the words. MNEK expanded on this demo which then got to Beyoncé. She contacted Father John Misty and he contributed a verse, and then on the bridge, Beyoncé quoted Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On", creating this utterly bizarre meeting of minds that no one's really sure what to take away from it.

To me, there's an even more interesting use of sampling on the album's slightly deeper cut "6 Inch" with The Weeknd. That song samples "Walk On By", the same song Doja Cat sampled when she won the Hottest 100 a number of years later though you'd be forgiven for not connecting the two. It also credits Animal Collective, simply because her reading of 'too smart to crave material things' sounds a little bit like the line from "My Girls" that also ends on the same two words. It's an absolute stretch and I understand that it wasn't even intentional, just an accidental arrival on something similar. This was sorted out before the album was released, so someone on team Beyoncé noticed it, and got it cleared to credit Animal Collective in case there might be an issue later on. Maybe it's a bit silly but I sorta love it because it's a huge pop star paying dividends to a niche indie band in a way that benefits them both. When you think of all the social media accounts who pull in massive numbers by just stealing viral posts from other smaller accounts without accreditation, or use AI art which is essentially the same thing but with extra steps, I guess it's just nice to see things work out like this. I'd say this is foreshadowing, but I think I've done this before, and I'm starting to get déjà vu over it.

"Hold Up" is the second track on "Lemonade", just after "Pray You Catch Me" which feels like more of an intro. It's here where the rift is made immediately clear. Basically a whole song about how JAY-Z's a fool for sleeping around and they're not worth it compared to what you've got. She doesn't actually say 'you're married to Beyoncé, what the hell is wrong with you?', but it's certainly what I'm getting from it. She makes this clearer over the next couple of tracks, where "Don't Hurt Yourself" is the righteous anger of a woman scorned, and "Sorry" is the immediate response to the theoretical defence. Maybe under ideal conditions I'd be doing a whole lot more Beyoncé entries but this was the only one from the album that made the cut. It's a song that I think does have a place here and it's not too distracting. Of all those names I mentioned, Diplo is probably the most pertinent influence, because the song's dancehall/reggae sound immediately recalls earlier Major Lazer work. Not a stretch to say that some of the many people who voted "Get Free" in at #6 for 2012 might find something to like in this one. I just want to enjoy great music, whether it's from Beyoncé or Broods.

#286. Peking Duk (feat Benjamin Joseph) - Say My Name (#30, 2015)

38th of 2015

I think a lot of recent criticism of Peking Duk amounts to them being high on their own supply. It's possible this is true, it's also possible that they play up the persona a bit because that's what they're supposed to do. The one thing I always think about though is how in 2015, they were out here making a larger than life persona for Ben from SAFIA. They'd worked together before, and just credited him as SAFIA (#337). Benjamin Joseph is just the name he uses when he records solo nowadays. Perhaps they just missed the cut off the first time around, because the same credit appears on a Citizen Kay album, one month after "Take Me Over" came out. I just remember it feeling odd the way they were hyping him up on this release, a song that didn't really live up to their recent string of hits. It just felt like a sign they were losing touch with what the people wanted.

Anyway, when they performed at the AFLW Grand Final last year, they played both of these songs back to back and he was just credited as Ben Woolner, his actual name for both of them. Just makes the most sense nowadays I guess, I just don't know exactly what to say when he asks me to say his name. Imagine though after I post this, he shows up at my house and gets me to re-enact that scene from Breaking Bad. Would it be funny for how low stakes but dramatic it would be? You're goddamn right.

It might not necessarily be the makings of a hit song, but for me, "Say My Name" is a classic throwback to that specific kind of electronica that would do the rounds on triple j. The kind that blended it with guitars and you could no longer really tell if it was rock music or dance music (though it usually felt marketed as the latter). Bands like Midnight Juggernauts, Art vs. Science, Dukes of Windsor had absolutely enormous (to me) songs in this vein. To an extent it's always been Peking Duk's realm, but this is their most deliberate rock song. The drums pack so much into it.

That said, it wasn't an instant winner for me either. I had some of the same hesitation that also showed when the song couldn't take off quite as much as the singles before it. When "Stranger" (#349) became a huge hit a year later, it made this feel even more like the odd one out. I think I was thrown off a bit by the song's chorus that didn't connect with me. Perhaps it was more for the SAFIA connection, who by contrast I thought could do no wrong at this point, so I was expecting more. At some point it clicked with me and it's become one of my favourite Peking Duk songs. In particular, I've become drawn to the switch up on the last chorus where Ben sings it at a lower register, at a complete contrast to every single other time he's done it. Just one of those little things that give you something to latch onto and look forward to.

#295-#291

#295. Beyoncé - BREAK MY SOUL (#42, 2022)

23rd of 2022

For a number of years now I've been playing video game randomisers. It's taking a game you're already familiar with, but just moving all the key items (or potentially other things) around. It's designed algorithmically so it's still possible to complete, but it creates a very unique experience. An experience where you might get a powerup designed for the end of the game very early on, but be otherwise crippled because you're missing an essential starting item. Some of the most important story events can net you an utterly worthless reward while the key to beating the whole game is just lying on the ground. Sometimes you can learn some utterly bizarre consequences, like beating the final boss in Hollow Knight only to discover that you can't trigger the final cutscene because you're lacking the initial healing ability needed at that point. In some form or another, you just become Achilles, utterly unstoppable if not for that one issue you hope sorts itself out before it becomes a burden.

I'm likening this to my experience writing this blog. As far as I can tell, I've still never mentioned an artist by name before they turn up properly, and we're at the point when there aren't too many major players still embargoed. When it comes to artists with multiple entries, Beyoncé has been one of the biggest. She's had a vice grip over pop culture for close to 3 decades now. I've wanted to refer to the American pop star so many times before now, but we're finally here. I've finally found the Beyoncé key item.

There's a certain caveat to it all. Beyoncé is obviously a pop icon, but we're talking about the last 10 years. I wouldn't really say that her star has faded in that time, but it's taken a different turn. It's something that's better suited to discuss when I get to another song, but if you think that she hasn't had a "Crazy In Love" or "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" sized hit in a long time, then it's hard to argue with that. She presently seems to capture the exact moment of excitement when she puts something new out, only for it to be pretty memory-holed by the end of the year. Maybe that's not right to say when she's polling pretty well here, but her hits lately don't seem to have the longevity associated with their initial peaks. Did you know "BREAK MY SOUL" was a Billboard #1 hit? It was her first as a lead artist in over 15 years, and yet it doesn't really feel like it's earned that status.

Not a knock on the song at all, mind you, I think it's pretty great. It's a glorious tribute to early '90s house music. Every element works in tandem to create something that sounds equally retro and fresh. You might think the Big Freedia sample is a big intrusive at first, but the more I heard it, the harder I could imagine taking it out. Beyoncé jumps into all of this with a level of confidence that avoids the trappings of sounding washed or out of her depth. Here's an industry veteran who's still willing to try new things, and can stick the landing.

#294. Beddy Rays - Sobercoaster (#57, 2020)

21st of 2020

Beddy Rays were so insanely ahead of the game. They released this song in April 2020, and I presume to promote it, they created a Twitter account. The account still exists, but it's been 6 years now and they've still never tweeted a single thing. At the very least it gave the triple j accounts an @ for whenever the band got played. I would not ever encourage anyone to tweet anymore. Just let that fascist hole collapse in on itself.

Pop punk is not really my area of expertise. As a whole I just feel like I'm looking for something different in it than most people. It's very hard to get a grasp on what works when you don't have the same priorities as everyone else. Sometimes I feel like it's just pop music masquerading with some edge that ends up not getting the best of either world. I look at some of the pop punk music I do like and I don't know if I could tell you what it's doing right, because it probably all just sounds the same either way. Maybe I'm just falling prey to image and reputation, or maybe I'm just falling for different variations on the same song over and over again.

In 2008, Anti-Flag released their 7th album, "The Bright Lights of America". You probably had to be there at the time because it's not really a big career highlight for them, and given what's been said of their lead singer in the past few years, I'm not encouraging anyone to jump on the Anti-Flag train. In any case, I find myself pointing towards the title track on that album whenever I hear something that sounds a bit like it, which is surprisingly frequent. Much like my white whale melody that sounds a little like "Someday the Dream Will End" from Final Fantasy X, I don't think it's actually the origin point. In both cases I'm not sure the song exists and it's probably just a more idealised version I invented in my head. I'm sure there are earlier examples of it though. Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" has a bit of that energy itself, though the similar title probably helps. It'd be nice to have a less problematic example.

Beddy Rays have within my periphery tapped this well twice. "Sobercoaster" was the first, and then "Week On Repeat" was the second. I do wish I had the chance to have the latter here as well, but alas it landed at #110. Much like MAY-A's "Time I Love To Waste", it might be a contender as my favourite song on that list if it had the chance. Shout out to whoever ends up the Steven Bradbury of that year when we get there. Admittedly I'd just want it there for the purposes of there being another song I love in the list, I feel like I'm pretty spent on things to say about Beddy Rays here.

"Sobercoaster" is still an adequate substitute anyway. I think it slots itself into a certain niche that we don't catch here very often. It's a strange one though where the verses are probably catchier than the chorus. I suppose when you start things off at 11, there's no way to keep going up from there. It's not like anyone's ever invented amps that go up to 12; it just can't be done.

#293. Daft Punk (feat Julian Casablancas) - Instant Crush (#58, 2013)

45th of 2013

As I write this, "Instant Crush" is currently available to unlock as a goal song in Rocket League as part of the Battle Pass. I would almost be tempted to indulge in this (let's just say my current one is a tad stale), but Rocket League is also running a promotion in tandem with that series of very popular children's books written by someone who in her own words, uses her profits to fight against trans rights. I used to go out of my way to pay charities whenever I encountered her work, but I've since just set up regular payments. It feels good to fight back against a bigoted monster, I encourage you to consider it.

You've heard of The Strokes, I imagine. They went on a hiatus after the release of their 3rd album. They returned 5 years later with their 4th album, "Angles", and it was quite successful. It's their only ever #1 album in Australia. This is despite numerous reports of turmoil in the recording process, including a general rumour I kept hearing that the band only did it for the money, and didn't seem to enjoy each other's company. Whatever might be the case, they've continued to stick together through all of that. They released their 5th album, "Comedown Machine" in 2013 and it didn't land quite as well. They've been relatively out of the spotlight ever since. If I was to point to one particular reason, I might highlight the lead single "One Way Trigger". I'm quite fond of it myself, but it's a hard sell. If you're used to the traditional Strokes sound, get ready to completely abandon it for a strange bit of synth pop. A brazen bit of "Take On Me" biting that "Blinding Lights" (#786) and "STAY" (#669) could only sniff at by comparison. Julian's vocals are also at times heavily distorted outside of his typical range, both muffled and high pitched. The one moment it does sound like him comes with a serious strain. I could see this singlehandedly just killing the band's momentum on the spot. It's possible they could recover still. The next album was well received, and some of the songs on it have held up to be very popular in the long run (you might not guess that "The Adults Are Talking" is their second biggest song on Spotify now, and it's pacing for the top spot this year). It's all just funny in hindsight when we consider what else was happening in 2013.

"Instant Crush" is taken from Daft Punk's last album "Random Access Memories". It was obviously not the big hit at the time, but it put its hand up early on as a popular deep cut. One of those areas where the Hottest 100 serves as a better time capsule than the charts do, but more on that for another entry. In it, Daft Punk recruit Julian Casablancas to be barely recognisable as he croons through a layer of vocoder to sing a mostly slow jam. It's the kind of collaboration made to upset rock guys, as they're potentially promised something that was never going to be delivered. If you're willing to give it the chance, "Instant Crush" is a bit of a rock song. The whole thing is anchored by steady bass & drums, while the second verse throws up a genuine guitar solo. You're just not getting rock star Julian, and if you were already let down by him earlier in the year, I can't imagine what you're going through.

"Instant Crush" has only gotten more popular in hindsight. Not a patch on the biggest Daft Punk songs, but it's certainly doing alright for itself when it wasn't really smashing out the gate as a hit single at the time. On Spotify it has more streams than any song by The Strokes, so it's possible that there was some hesitation at the time that's been lifted from a new generation of fans who aren't as bothered. Personally, I think everyone's just falling for the fact that it sounds like "Last Christmas", streaming candy if there ever was such a thing. "Every Breath You Take" by The Police is huge at the moment and the same thing applies. Everyone just longs for that warm, steady lullaby. Maybe they're right to do it. I've always liked "Instant Crush". It's a 5 and a half minute song that never feels overly long.

#292. Cosmo's Midnight & Ruel - Down for You (#83, 2020)

20th of 2020

"Down For You" was released in January 2020. When Cosmo's Midnight were gearing up to release it, they'd so far made the Hottest 200 in 3 different years without cracking the main list, including a very near miss in 2018 when they got to #107 with "Get To Know". That's the kind of result that makes you want to smash the emergency glass and finally break the hoodoo. The solution is to just team up with Ruel, because he knows the way to reach the top half of the charts, maybe if they work with him, they can perfect the art.

They'd have no way of knowing it's a moot cause because they did end up landing in the top 100 with "C.U.D.I. (Can U Dig It)" (#840). No need to use the Ruel wizardry anymore! Well, suffice to say that it also proved itself to work, and it landed a little bit higher, so it's a worthwhile tactic. I'd also go so far as to say it's a really good song, so it has that going for it as well.

I don't know if this is a popular view. I approached it with a high degree of cynicism, especially as I hadn't been fond of Cosmo's Midnight in a while. I think it ends up as a very successful team effort where they both cover for each other's potential shortcomings. Cosmo's Midnight craft a nifty backing track, though maybe not one I'd consider listening to on its own. It fits Ruel like a glove, and we get a great performance out of him in absolute simp mode. I think that's where Ruel's performances are most engaging. I'm not sure who else would be able to pull it off, really. From the same album, Cosmo's Midnight had the song "A Million Times" which I really love, and is possibly even more lovelorn than this one. The vocals come from one of the two brothers in the band (I wanna say Patrick, if I can trust their overalls in the music video. They're twins so it's hard to tell most of the time). I think he works really well there, where the sentiment is a little more exaggerated, but I can't imagine it being quite as convincing as Ruel. Kid's come a long way.

#291. Post Malone (feat 21 Savage) - rockstar (#24, 2017)

31st of 2017

Depending on how you look at it, "All The Right Reasons" by Nickelback might be the last truly big rock album. There are other close contenders around it. Linkin Park's "Hybrid Theory" was the last rock album to sell 10 million copies in the US. Evanescence's "Fallen" came out in 2003 and has sold a little more than Nickelback's album, but then you just immediately run out of options. There's a case to be made for Arctic Monkeys' "AM", but it's not even close on sales, and dare I say, cultural impact compared to Nickelback. The thing that seals it for me is something that tends to work across generations. When you hear the titles "Photograph" and "Rockstar", you think of Nickelback first, right? By all chart merits you can find, there have been substantially larger hits of the same name since, but they just can't seem to unseat the cultural cache of Nickelback. It helps that most cases of the latter are typeset a little differently, but I doubt that makes a difference. I'm one of a rare few who will bother differentiating "Rockstar", "rockstar", "ROCKSTAR" and on occasion "Rock$tar" if I feel like bringing it up. Another one will come up later on this list, but for now, we're dealing with "rockstar".

The term 'cultural reset' gets thrown around a lot. Usually just by fans of an artist who are looking for a new form of hyperbole to build excitement around their latest hit, but it can warrant mention. Sometimes a new single or album comes out and it immediately changes the game. Our very notions of what can and can't be a hit gets completely flipped as we have to recalibrate everything to explain what's going on in front of us. It went from 'oh, Post Malone has a new song, maybe that'll be able to sneak onto the chart', into a sudden realisation that it was immediately asserting itself as one of the biggest hits of the year, one that turned both of its artists into bona fide stars going forward.

Arguably, the signs were already there, but they were hard to put a lot of faith into. Two months before "rockstar" came out, 21 Savage released "Bank Account" and it became a pretty big hit, especially in the US where it was a streaming monster but just missed the Billboard top 10 due to lack of airplay. It sat on the cusp of the top 50 in Australia but was a tougher sell for the market. Post Malone was coming off the back of a pretty successful breakout with his gimmicky single "White Iverson", and had found another big hit on the same album with "Congratulations", the mother of all slow-burning hits when it came out. Spending 9 months in the top 50 and only getting as high as #30 is just incredible. Maybe teaming up two of the hottest names of that moment was a surefire hit, but I don't think anyone could've predicted just how well it would do.

I mentioned previously how "Panda" (#324) was a harbinger for the future when it got to #1 in the US. It was followed by numerous more trap-influenced #1 hits, but the important distinction here is that they'd always underperform outside of the US. "Black Beatles" did not hang around very long in Australia, and that 'rain drop, drop top' song not long after barely cracked the top 40 (both artists on that song will eventually appear on this list). Not only did "rockstar" go all the way to #1 in Australia, but it stayed there for 7 weeks with a monster chart run. From this point on, trap was able to thrive in the mainstream without any reservations. Post Malone would pick up more #1 hits in the next year, and even 21 Savage eventually had a solo #1 album too. Fair to say that Post Malone abandoned the genre shortly after, but I still think he was a big part of making it what it was. I guess we just needed a goofy white guy to ease us into it.

The success of "rockstar" felt pretty self-evident once I'd heard it. Sometimes trap can be about trying to find the most cold, sterile beats to flex over. From the first few notes you just know that Louis Bell and/or Tank God have nailed the assignment. Both the beat and Post Malone take turns at being the main character, just poking out with intensity. Post Malone will revert to the tried and true vibrato on his voice, something I've thought he overdoes at times, but strikes a good balance in this case. More than anyone else though, it's 21 Savage that this production feels made for. I mostly just stick to his hits so as not to overdo it, but he strikes me as one of the most reliable rappers. Even on his pop hits he's still sounding menacing, like he's incapable of any other mode. So yeah, I was into this one. Great artwork too. Just can't imagine anything better to fit the tone that this song carries.

Whenever someone releases a song called "Rockstar", the peanut gallery come out hard and fast to make their declaration on credentials. It's such a small range of artists who'd be able to get away with it, massive poser-core otherwise. Post Malone is an odd one because I don't think he necessarily sells it on this song, but he has had surprising rock pivots at times. I remember listening to "beerbongs & bentleys" and occasionally being surprised at how he could fit the mold. "Over Now" comes pretty close to it (the guitar sounds a lot like "Closer" by Kings of Leon). Then of course a year later, he teamed up with the prince of darkness on "Take What You Want", which can't really be denied.

It should also be worth noting that it's a funny inclusion in the Hottest 100. Post Malone was not a known triple j entity at this point, and they only played this song a couple of times in 2017. It was belatedly included on the voting list and evidently soared up the list despite the airplay handicap. It's gotten more common to see these kinds of success stories, and they go their own way to shape the future of the station's sound as it becomes clear that there are many hit songs that absolutely have their audience in triple j's audience.

#300-#296

#300. CHVRCHES - Leave a Trace (#32, 2015)

39th of 2015

I got radicalised pretty hard in the mid-2010s. I might side-eye anyone who says that they don't really think about politics (it translates to silent acceptance), but that was me for a long time as well. We'd all like to think that we're the good kind of apolitical, but in truth, I recently found some very poor taste jokes I made when I was a teenager. This can be treated positively. Nothing shows growth better than bearing witness to something you'd unquestionably never do again. I don't consider it a gotcha to find out about long gone misgivings of others.

I'm probably not alone in my experience. Atrocities were always being committed as long as I can remember, but they always felt distant, just poking out on the news and maybe casually in conversation with a tone that clearly put the wrongdoers in a different group. No one I know would ever do this, it's all politicians and stupid, hateful people. I probably had opportunities to wake up to it all, but it's all too easy to avoid things that don't directly affect you.

In 2015, one of the big talking points at least in my circles was Gamergate. It was a loud social movement that supposedly was about ethics in game journalism. If we want to put that in terms of things that people might get impassioned about, then let's say it's for games journalists receiving some kind of favour for positively promoting games. Maybe that's a feasible enough angle to get enough people to go along with what was really just a brigade of relentless hate against women. As someone who used to read gaming magazines in the early 2000s, this was simmering for a while. So much rhetoric felt backwards and exclusionary towards women for so long that it poisoned the minds of a generation, who saw women as casuals who encroached upon their passion. The heart of it all was from a position of mistrust towards women from men who couldn't possibly take their side on anything. For me, it was a point when I started seeing YouTube videos on both sides of the subject, and see dislike ratios that felt baffling. I'd never before found myself questioning the majority opinion like this before. Maybe it was a brigading effort but all it did was break my faith in the very system it was trying to uphold.

History has stayed on my side. Gamergate fizzled out, and is now more of a laughingstock than anything. The views contained within it still live on, but also feel increasingly antiquated. You're more likely than ever to be mocked for complaining about a game having a female protagonist. Gaming culture on the whole just feels much more inclusive now.

Unfortunately it's probably also true that the whole thing was representative of a much wider culture that has this mentality coded into it. If you know one thing about CHVRCHES outside of the music, it's probably that Lauren Mayberry is an outspoken feminist. She's never been shy about speaking out about her beliefs even at the risk of sabotaging her career (e.g. disavowing their Marshmello collaboration after he teamed up with Chris Brown). She wrote about her experiences in 2013 and subsequently became an even greater lightning rod for some utterly depraved and sometimes threatening messages. I implore you to look it up because nothing's more effective than seeing first-hand the kinds of messages people seem content to send to a moderately famous woman. It happened again in 2015 when the band started rolling out their second album with "Leave a Trace" as the lead single. There were more comments objectifying Lauren in the music video and she called out some 4chan users directly. My 30 minutes of fame mean that I too have experienced being derided in a 4chan thread and it's a soul-draining experience to spend too much time there. Just a hall of people so confident in their baseless assertions simply because they go unchallenged. While I was researching this, I stumbled onto a more recent thread there about CHVRCHES and it was only modestly more civil (some of the depraved language has cooled off, but the misogyny carries all the same). It's all coated in this pathetic notion that women being objectified is just a natural part of the process and it's on them to deal with it, rather than the dregs receive any kind of retribution for it. The notion that all of this is fine because your life sucks and you get pleasure out of seeing people who seem to have it all getting dragged down to your level. Fuck that nihilistic shit.

"Leave a Trace" is aptly a pretty righteous single to return on. Maybe you could blissfully ignore the lyrics the first time around, but now they're gonna have you singing along to some absolutely vicious words. It's a breakup song dedicated to a callous and controlling man and almost every line of it feels like a scathing takedown of an easily imagined archetype. She's reminding us that he's someone who's not only done wrong, but is incapable of recognising his mistakes, and is going to come out of it the hero from his side of the story. I can't claim to knowing the experience, but I've seen more than enough evidence to completely believe that they're one of many men who cannot possibly give an inch to a woman. Their masculine coding is ironically what won't let them leave a trace of a man.

#299. FISHER - Just Feels Tight (#86, 2021)

22nd of 2021

For a couple of years in high school, I was habitually looking at the ARIA Charts but my curiosity didn't extend much further than that. I would hear the hits here and there and have a good idea of what was going on, but it also meant that some songs would slip through the cracks. Seeing there's a Gym Class Heroes song called "Cookie Jar" on the chart for a while and expecting it to climb up because their songs tended to do that, but it stalls out pretty early and I just never heard it. On occasion lately I'll go on extended delays between catching up on what's charting and all you can do at that point is imagine what things might sound like. Nothing's too surprising these days so it doesn't affect the chart watching experience very much.

Sometimes you get it way wrong. Maybe there were clues I missed, but in the middle of 2009, "Riverside" by Sidney Samson debuted on the lower end of the chart. For some reason I focused only on the title and imagined some kind of folk/blues song sung by an old man, a Sidney Poitier kind of person. It climbed into the top 10 after a while and I still just never went out of my way to hear it, and it seemed to avoid my usual channels. Then one day at school I just hear someone playing it in the home room and I'm flabbergasted. A shock to the senses not just for the profane lyric, but for all the sounds that surrounded it. Just this unending feeling of tension with one of the most ominous melodies. Just hearing it invited an unrivalled feeling of despair. It was perhaps just heightened for the previous mystery factor, that it would be revealed in such a way to completely destroy the harmless image in my mind.

I find myself liking "Riverside" a lot nowadays. I don't think it's particularly well known nowadays, held back by only being a major hit in a small handful of countries. There are also numerous versions of the song and I suspect it's possible that many like me have trouble remembering which version of it they actually want. It's important for a song like this because there are all these slight variations in the drop and I find myself hunting an ideal version of it that may or may not exist. When you've sparingly heard so many iterations of it, it becomes a new mystery bag of what sort of syncopation are you gonna get. The basic riff is always there, but it's those little changes that keep the song fresh all these years later.

To me, "Just Feels Tight" is a more modern song working under a similar principle. This song is credited to FISHER but whether it's him or Chris Lake, they're both old enough to have grown up with "Riverside" in the club scene. Whether it's an intentional nod or not, I'm not sure, just that the structure is remarkably similar. Just a steady house groove that builds up to a single title lyric that leads into a drop that isn't always exactly the same. It has a blatant male gaze music video too so he knows what the mid-2000s were like. On the surface, it's probably completely disposable but I found an odd sense of affection growing in me. It's perhaps heightened by the initial lack of stakes, where this has all been its own long, drawn out build up for me to say that the final drop that comes in this song is one of my favourite musical moments in this whole list. It's only slightly different to the previous drop but by adding just a few more notes into the mix, it becomes this utterly disarming moment. The high only lasts for about 10-20 seconds but it just perfectly captures the best of what music like this is capable of doing.

#298. Hilltop Hoods - Cosby Sweater (#3, 2014)

35th of 2014

When I partake in trivia games, I find that one of the most useful skills you can develop is just remembering when things happen. For the sake of pinning questions (i.e. making sure there's only one correct answer), an easy method tends to be including years. It'll reward the more attentive players who are more easily able to rule out potential answers because they just don't fit the timeline. Don't try to name Julius Caesar if you're being asked about a Roman in the AD years for instance. Remembering years is very boring and tedious though, even if you live through those years. I once had to try and remember what year 'covfefe' happened and though I eventually figured it out, I just had no reason to ever remember it by year.

Sometimes music can help out with this. My perennial attention to charts helps me with the uncanny skill of knowing what year most songs come out. That's not always direct memorisation either. There are often some mental processes, trying to associate something with what was around at the same time until you can clue onto a safer bet, those unforgettable moments like "Gangnam Style" in 2012, or "Despacito" in 2017. There are flow on effects from this, because once music starts to permeate other parts of culture, it'll overlap. Most commonly you can use movie soundtracks to remember what year the movies came out. It's helped me on countless occasions. Now, I don't necessarily think you're ever going to need to know when the Bill Cosby SA cases were brought to light, but it's tremendously easy to do because it lines up exactly with when "Cosby Sweater" became a hit.

It's something that Hilltop Hoods have commented on numerous times, this unfortunate timing. In all fairness, it probably should have been more widely known long before 2014. Hannibal Buress mentioned it in a stand-up routine he'd been doing for most of the year without fuss until he made it to Bill Cosby's hometown where it caused more of a stir. It was always information that was out there, it was all just consigned in the past, pre-internet and in an era where powerful men rarely faced consequences. You have to remember the MeToo movement didn't start until 2017. There's a comment from Hannibal's partner in sitting down Eric Andre from the time that laments that this is the way justice was served. That it had to come from a male comedian instead of people just listening to his victims. The power dynamics are far from where they need to be.

It probably all looks a bit strange from the outside. A big hit song in Australia in late 2014 that's name-checking Bill Cosby. Just another classic case of Australia being lost in its own backwards world. I don't know if it needs to be said, but I don't think it should be read as an endorsement in any substantial way. It's all just pure Hilltop Hoods dad rap, in line with them writing "Clark Griswold" (#769) a few years later. At most it's just a strange divine coincidence that's just an interesting story in it all. We can laugh a little just at this aspect of it all because it's ultimately harmless and maybe is an extended excuse to shed more light on something terrible. To paraphrase Norm Macdonald, the worst part of it all wasn't the Hilltop Hoods, but the SA, and I'm not talking about their home state. While we're taking the song's subjects to task, Bobby Fischer was not a man who held stellar opinions about World War II.

If there's another shame to be had, it's that it takes away from everything they did get right with this release. Hilltop Hoods' career lives in the shadow of the fact that they dropped their career defining song over two decades ago. When "The Nosebleed Section" has been canonised as one of the greatest Australian songs of all time, nothing you can do is going to live up to that. It's fortunate that they were able to leverage it into an incredible career, anyway, scoring massive hits for years to come. At the time, "Cosby Sweater" was a contender as the biggest. It came out right around when digital sales were at their highest, so it was potentially the best-selling Australian rap song ever ("The Nosebleed Section" has probably overtaken it on streams now). They had everyone eating out of their hands.

It's not something they kept to themselves though. Hilltop Hoods have always been keen to shout out their idols and friends, and it's something they kept up on this release. If you watch the music video, there's a rapper you'll see getting a lot of screen time. I can't say who he is yet, but none of his entries had actually happened at this point in time. It's all a prelude to the song's ultimate moment in January 2015. triple j held their Beat The Drum concert to celebrate the station's 40th birthday, with numerous guest appearances. Hilltop Hoods were naturally among this, and they took the opportunity to do a full 9 minute version of "Cosby Sweater", extending it out by calling out a full rolodex of Australian rap. Mostly all names I've spoken about here already, Illy, Drapht, Horrorshow, Seth Sentry, Tkay Maidza, Thundamentals. Technically the closest we did get to a comment on the Taylor Swift situation came when Illy mentioned it in his verse, and just to make the non-endorsement clear, Drapht makes sure to say 'f**k Bill Cosby' multiple times. For me there aren't any weak links because the energy just feeds into everyone so well, but Tkay Maidza is the big surprise package. By far the youngest person on stage but doesn't let herself get intimidated. It feels appropriate that she'd end up being one of the biggest stars in the long run, and it's an added layer with her landing at #100 in the Hottest 100 that aired later that month.

I hesitate to call this the pinnacle of this group because I have too much affinity to their earlier work, but for their '90s Metallica era chart dominance, it's probably about as good as we're gonna get it. Just a nonstop party and worthy victory lap for the eternal titans of the Australian rap scene.

#297. Skegss - Save It For The Weekend (#31, 2019)

21st of 2019

I sigh and say 'ladies and gentlemen, "Save It For The Weekend"'. Skegss are coming into this off of what's probably the biggest hit of their career. The next single isn't gonna come close to that, but it's probably going to find its way in. Oh, actually it ended up pretty high on the list, I guess I put too much stock into my own 'Pretty good' assessment and need to remember that  the bar for being good enough for the fans is sometimes lower than it is for everyone else. Isn't the whole point of being a fan meaning that you're more likely to like something that doesn't mean anything to other people? Surely there's more to it than just being overly critical to the point of putting people off.

If you haven't seen the music video, it hits all the classic touchstones of self-deprecating humour. The band themselves become their own Beavis & Butthead as they point out all of their own foibles while watching a music video they simultaneously don't enjoy much but can't get themselves to turn off. I get so distracted that they purposely put a 'The' in front of the band's name that I didn't even notice they spelled it 'Skeggs', a mistake I might have still caught myself doing in 2019. There's something apt about the whole thing that just concludes with as little fanfare as it started. Just an utterly mundane 3 minutes in the life of Skegss. In the future, if you're lucky, you'll remember the little moments, like these, that were good.

I think the song is good too. If we're talking guitar riffs, then it's not necessarily as memorable as "Valhalla" (#394) but it's fun in its own way. Once the whole thing gets going, it's all just expertly crafted to be catchy at every turn. Great use of repeated lyrics, great release for the chorus, not much about it I'd really like to change. Maybe they could end it a little better, but I've watched so much Dexter and its spinoffs lately, endings are hard.

#296. Post Malone & Swae Lee - Sunflower (#27, 2018)

32nd of 2018

Sometimes you just want to know what the biggest hit of all time is. This shouldn't be an unpopular sentiment here; it's a more expanded version of what the Hottest 100 does every year and why it generates so much interest. You make a game out of the speculation, considering whether one song or another has done enough to pull it off. Maybe you'll be close but you just haven't quite lined up everything correctly. The wrong release date, the wrong competition, something like that. Maybe it's a fruitless pursuit because you're trying to compete with a cultural monolith that doesn't play by the normal rules.

These are all things to consider when you expand it to all-time music charts. It's always going to be subject to debates because there's no truly accurate way to merge together incongruent chart formats. Deciding how you want to prioritise it is just another way of trying to decide which time period deserves the biggest leg-up. Look up the biggest hits in any particular format and it'll often conglomerate around a certain period of time.

With that in mind, I bring it all up because there's an argument to be made that "Sunflower" is the biggest hit of all time in America. You won't find it riding high on Billboard's All Time Hot 100, but that's just because it's a song that didn't win the lottery of generous radio airplay. For whatever reason there was hesitation on this song. Perhaps the callouts weren't too great, or maybe there was less incentive to focus on it when Post Malone was already promoting his own album (and had another one on the way). The streaming public didn't seem to mind though, and that's what US certifications are largely driven by now. "Sunflower" became the first song to go 2xDiamond (or 20xPlatinum). Another song has since gone 21xPlatinum, but I suspect "Sunflower" is just an outdated certification away from taking the title back. That other song is an early career #1 hit by an artist who will eventually appear in this list.

The science of which songs perform particularly well in the grouped up numbers of streaming successes doesn't always make a lot of sense. It has a habit of carrying on perpetually in a way that makes it feel like the work of mindless zombies, especially if it doesn't align with your tastes. The idea that "Sunflower" could be so monumentally successful is a little strange, but then it makes sense too. There's something warm and inviting about it. It's over so quickly, and doesn't feel omnipresent so it's hard to get sick of it. I'd say the movie tie-in helps but it's a bit of a weird one isn't it?

I've spent the past year and a bit watching every Marvel adjacent movie I can. It's for cultural understanding and a bit of niggling fascination as well. I don't really have a favourite superhero, but if you wanted to ask me whose top billing gives me the most reassurance, then it's probably Spider-Man. It's something that's come to me late. I saw the early 2000 films and didn't register much appeal, but in hindsight there's a lot to like about them, fun popcorn movies that have since been bitten by the radioactive meme spider that permeates the whole run time. They've since rebooted the franchise a couple of times and it's always among the best that the MCU has to offer. Maybe it'll implode when they run out of ways to raise the stakes, but it's had my attention the whole way through.

Long before I watch pretty much any of these though, I watched "Into The Spider-Verse". It's still Spider-Man, but it's animated and focuses on a different iteration of him here in Miles Morales. I don't know what else to say but it's a really good movie. I think animation is an extremely underrated medium that doesn't get enough credit when it's done exceptionally well, mainly because Pixar tend to rule the roost while not being nearly ambitious enough to uphold their reputation anymore. They're often movies that could be live action and not lose much of the appeal. "Into The Spider-Verse", I couldn't say the same thing about. It captures the comic book energy perfectly and constantly steals your attention with just how much personality it carries. It is an enjoyable enough movie in its own right, but as someone who's tried to do animation many times before, I'm just in awe when people find new ways to use it to the fullest. The sequel was also pretty good but it's hard to say much about it when I'm still waiting for them to put out the last half of it. This is not an uncommon opinion I've seen. There are many people who have no interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but love these movies.

I said it was a weird one though. The reason might be because it's not technically part of the MCU, or maybe it being animated without big name stars' faces to stare at. When it comes to Spider-Man on film in the 21st century, all of the live action films have done better at the box office than Spider-Verse. It's still done well, but it hasn't really done Spider-Man numbers, so it's a little bit strange that an absolute monster hit got tied up with this film. Far more people heard Chad Kroeger's "Hero" get belted out in the theatre than "Sunflower". If there is a point in its favour though, it's that the song is incorporated in a diegetic way. Sometimes you'll watch a movie knowing that it's been boosting a song and find out that they've absolutely rinsed it in the movie as if to make it look like a vehicle to make it into a hit. "Sunflower" just has the approval of the main character from the very beginning. It's a very elaborate way to say 'Hey, this song is cool. Don't you want to be cool? You better listen to "Sunflower"'. This could all backfire immensely if the song just didn't have the sauce, but they were thinking correctly when they handed it to two hook machines that were at the top of their game at the time.

I have a habit of calling this a Post Malone song because his name appears first, and because he's the big star with the name power to move units with ease. This probably should be a Swae Lee song first. This song lasts for two and a half minutes, and you won't hear Post Malone's voice until there are less than 70 seconds left. He doesn't even change it up much, just provides a second, less memorable verse, and then sings the same hook. Maybe there could've been an extended version where they try to harmonise on the chorus, maybe it'd come across as unintentionally queer coded, but you do end up with one of those early casualties in the world of songwriters just packing it in early. Maybe by ranking this fairly high, I'm validating their decision, and maybe the song could've been ruined if it got unnecessarily bloated. It's just the one thing that takes the shine off an otherwise generally enjoyable song.