#27

#27. Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers - Girl Sports (#55, 2022)

1st of 2022

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By all accounts, it's difficult to make a name for yourself in music nowadays. You need to either already be famous in some way, have some handy connections, or have fans in high enough places to get your song used in a very visible way. Maybe the algorithm could be on your side but it still takes some careful proceedings to go from there, utilising some form of meme management that gives people an excuse to talk about you that actually makes others want to listen to your music in response. Even the biggest stars tend to do this as well. It's very rare someone will just casually release a new album with no bells, whistles or controversy attached to it and have it perform remarkably well. The attention economy is just so frivolous when you're no longer propped up by an audience that hears your music on the radio every single day.

This is all to say that there's a very good chance that the popularity of Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers comes down to the fact that they have a particularly memorable name that's fun to say. This isn't me discrediting them as musicians by any stretch, just that they've arrived at a time when a gimmick like this is needed to get you ahead of the pack, and it's one that helps a lot. Listing off funny/weird band names is like one of the top 10 recycled conversation starters in music, right next to 'Which band is better live than on the record' and 'Cover songs that are better than the original'. It's a way to provide that memetic exposure because people who might never bring them up in conversation suddenly have a perfect excuse. I do this all the time when I talk to people who aren't Australian. It's a lot of exposure they're getting that a band like Lastlings, who I might like just as much, aren't going to get.

With that in mind, success is not always overnight. You might be surprised to know that this band formed way back in 2015, when they were literally teenagers. They first got played on triple j in 2016 and released their first EP back in 2017 though have since removed it from streaming services. Things were a little slow going but they continued to release new singles for a few years. The first one I came across was the song "Desk Chair" in 2020. I am incredibly amused to discover that at the time, I hinged my enjoyment of the song on the basis that I achieved a then-rare task on Tetris 99 that was plaguing me at the time. It's not the only time I've done this, as I notched up my enjoyment of "Cowboys" by Slayyyter to my forever association with me somehow managing to win all 10 of my placement games in a row in Rocket League. The big surprise is that I didn't make a joke about the band's name. I still rate the song very well. It's a continuation of the band's gritty rock sound, but feels like they've gained an elevated ear for a hook.

A big breakthrough came for them a year later. Subsequent single "AHHHH!" got them into high rotation on triple j for the first time, and it's a moment they seized. The song landed at #117 in the Hottest 100, setting them up for some fruitful years going forward. They've at least made the top 200 every year since then. "AHHHH!" is another song that I've grown to enjoy more and more over the years, and feels like the band has pretty much arrived at this point. They're making incredibly catchy songs and also tightening up the chord progressions into something more satisfying. I love their knack for shifting into a minor chord mid-verse, it's just catnip for me.

Naturally, the bigger breakthrough came afterwards and that's why I'm talking about them here. The next EP "Pretty Good For A Girl Band" came out in 2022. The title comes from a lyric in the song "Girl Sports", which I'm sure you might be able to deduce is another song about sexism in the music industry. The world industry, really, would be more accurate. Bassist Jaida had her teeth knocked out while skating and was told by her dentist that she should stick to girl sports. The song is a big 'f**k off' to all of those kinds of statements that are all very familiar at this point. There is no shortage of literal 'f**k off's to go with the song. I don't really have much to say on the matter because there's obviously another more pertinent song to come up later on.

This song has always felt to me like the band's natural high point, where everything comes together perfectly. Just one of the nastiest guitar riffs they've ever put together, but once again it's the dynamic balances that really let it shine. A masterclass in knowing exactly when the song should be loud or quiet. It's shifting around so much that the song rarely repeats itself in the copy/paste sense. The band has continued to release music and now have two albums out, both cracking the top 10 on the ARIA Charts. I've enjoyed much that they've put out since, including the title track to "I Love You", which feels like a glorious tribute to Veruca Salt (especially "Volcano Girls"). I don't know if they'll ever top this one, but it's an exciting prospect.

#28

#28. Nothing But Thieves - Amsterdam (#70, 2017)

6th of 2017

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In late 2008, I received a massive boon in my life in the form of a laptop that had sufficient internet access. Prior to this, I was using a desktop that was gradually falling apart, took an incredulous length of time to boot up (and required arcane situational knowledge to do so), with extremely capped internet speed & downloading. It may as well have been nothing at that point. The laptop gave me freedom and feels like the real starting point for me with a lot of things. One such thing is my extremely long-kept history of music listening stats. I had them on the old computer and largely inflated the stats because I liked recording them and seeing how they changed over time. iTunes having a default 'Top 25 Most Played' smart playlist possibly did a number on my productivity and the way I took my music listening habits.

I don't claim to remember what the first song I played was on this laptop, but I do know that after a little while, I chose to look at the Most Played playlist for the first time, and the winner drawn out of the hat here was "Again and Again" by Harlequin League, with roughly 10 plays. This is admittedly a very obscure song by a Perth band who were making very slight ripples at the time but never got any bigger. They're not even one of the more famous 'clown' bands in Western Australia. Still, I was impressionable and it didn't stop the song from being one of my favourites going around at the time.

I don't think I really codified it at the time, as it was more of the kind of upbeat indie rock I tended to like at the time, but in hindsight, there was a slight pattern emerging. You might be able to gather from just the title, but it is a song that says 'again and again' many times. It's not the only time I fell under a spell like this. Around the same time was another niche but beloved track for me, Tom Ugly's "Roll Again". A few months later in 2009, and the band Numbers Radio have a new song called "Boring". It's probably the most blatant example of any of these, because despite not including it in their title, they get some serious mileage out of the word 'again'. If you've never heard of any of these bands (or only heard of them through me), then that's not particularly surprising, and probably exemplifies the sheer depths I'll apparently go into to get what I want. I am unsure if it's a coincidence that the song I've recorded more listens of than any other also starts itself off by rhyming 'again' with 'again'. The artist behind that song will eventually appear on this list, providing some closure to this bit, I'm sure.

You might know where I'm going with this. Nothing But Thieves understood the assignment and took me back nearly a decade in time with this one. Only this time, more than a handful more people joined in with me on this quest. You think they're just gonna shift this to an 'over and over', Hot Chip type beat, but then they hit you with again, again, and again. As far as I'm concerned, this really is the second coming of that Harlequin League song. Slightly less speedy and more crunchy guitars, but the core identity is all there, and they know deep down it's just a fun thing to sing along with.

I'd love to cap this all off with a fascinating back story for Nothing But Thieves but I don't really have one. They're just a band from Essex that quickly got snapped up by a major label and so were already pretty popular by the time they released their debut album. Enough so that they've never missed the UK top 10 with any of their albums. Their 5th album will come out by the time this post goes live but I suspect they'll maintain the streak (it did).

I didn't have especially strong feelings about the band at this time. I was very aware of them, but I paired them up with Wolf Alice at the time as two UK bands that were getting a lot of buzz and releasing their first (and second) albums around the same time. While I found Wolf Alice to be thrilling and exciting every step of the way, Nothing But Thieves were just the adequate brother. The two singles they had on the radio at the time were "Itch" and "Trip Switch" which were fine, they had memorable hooks, just nothing that made me want to go back to them. The single "Wake Up Call" came up next and was a little more my speed, a bit of a middle point between the reckless energy of Muse and the restrained care of Coldplay.

I'm not sure what happened shortly after this but everything clicked pretty quickly with their next album, "Broken Machine". I don't think it's a flawless masterpiece or anything, but basically all of my favourite songs by this band are on it. At the time it felt like a well I could just keep drawing from. I had a lot of love for "Amsterdam" naturally, but it's also those handful of other songs I keep going back to. There's the title track which is a little on the mellow side for the most part with some creative guitar work & vocal distortion. "I'm Not Made by Design" takes me back to 2008 for a different reason, with its Dead Letter Circus intensity coupled with a late guitar riff that recalls "How Do We Know" by The Living End. There's also the song "Afterlife" which I evoked once before (#195) and is a great closer to the album. Sometimes you just tap into a really solid guitar and bass tone and everything sounds great coming out of it. Most of the album is pretty good, but I think if you just take the best half of it, you've got just about the best pop rock EP I've ever heard. Actually they did release an EP just after this and "Forever & Ever More" is another winner, very Queens of the Stone Age inspired I feel.

Something I think they did manage to utilise from this point is recognising what the band's calling card really is. Lead singer Conor Mason has some incredible pipes on him and can turn these songs up to eleven on a moment's notice. Something he has a habit of doing is taking moments of songs where many artists would just run through the same intonation or recording, and then taking it in a slightly different direction on the next run through. It gives you more things to listen out for, and is a solid way to finish ramping everything up towards a song's climax. "Amsterdam" runs a little lengthy for what it is at four and a half minutes, that's three and a half minutes after it's already hit you with the big anthemic chorus. It's all to prime you for the song's real climax, when the music cuts away for a moment to let Conor do his thing before coming crashing back. It's like, yeah, you guys know how to make rock music that fires on the appropriate cylinders, keep that up.

#29

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

7th of 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

#30

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

3rd of 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#31

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

4th of 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#32

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

8th of 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

#33

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

7th of 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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