#935-#931

 #935. The Amity Affliction - Shine On (#25, 2015)

94th of 2015

From one big album capitalisation to another. This single followed "Let The Ocean Take Me", The Amity Affliction's big commercial breakthrough that netted it several Hottest 100 entries I'll eventually talk about. As a result, this song briefly reached the ARIA top 20 making it their highest ever charting single. In that moment it may have been helped by being a stand-alone single but now the opposite is true. This song is stranded without an album and as I write this, slips down to being their 31st most popular song on last.fm this week. That makes it the lowest of all the 12 Amity Affliction songs I get to talk about on this list.

If I'll have much to say about them that many times remains to be seen. There's a certain formula to a lot of their entries we'll see time and time again. A back & forth on the vocal duty where Joel might chime in on what Ahren's doing and vice versa, but usually Ahren comes in for the hook like a pound of bricks. Oh and you gotta stick a breakdown in there somewhere. I'm not saying it's a bad formula. If I were more critical of it, we'd have seen a lot more of them already on this list by this point. "Shine On" just feels the most like it's strapping itself to the formula without much to offer.

I will give credit at the very least. I used to come down a lot more harshly on this song. As we continue to jump through all of the 'this chorus just sounds annoying to me songs', this was one of the worst. I'm not always the biggest fan of what Ahren's doing with his voice but he can distract me with a catchy melody. This one just sounds flat and bad. I can't say for sure if it loses points for using the same title as Jet and The Kooks, but I'd probably go out of my way to listen to one of those instead of this. You wouldn't put this on your Fred Hollows Foundation ad.

#934. Dean Lewis - Stay Awake (#79, 2019)

93rd of 2019

I remember when I first started following music charts super closely, I was getting a better grip on what does and doesn't sound like a chart hit. Furthermore, the way that window would seem to shift super quickly. The transitions in popular formats tended to do this. Digital killed the physical star and so on. You could argue that it's just the increased audience size revealing some to be more niche than they previously seemed.

I am comparing Dean Lewis to Pete Murray again but for a different reason. Namely that he came across as fairly affable but when it came to releasing his singles, especially from 2008 onwards, he just wasn't really soaring to great chart heights. I would think, surely there are worse songs charting higher than this, that's not fair. But then at the end of the day, he was just making light, inoffensive music. Nothing wrong with that, it just doesn't aspire to too much.

So I guess this is Dean Lewis reaching the "You Pick Me Up" phase of his career in record time. I guess credit to him all the same. This easily could've been forgotten given how early it came out in the year but still managed to find the required votes to be here. There is nothing offensive about this song, but nothing for me to really latch onto either. Just the general feeling that I've heard it before.

#933. Tuka - Big Jet Plane - Like A Version (#81, 2015)

93rd of 2015

On a technicality, Tuka is in rare air as an artist whose only Hottest 100 entry is a Like A Version. He is going to appear in this list many times as part of a highly successful hip-hop group, but this was his only successful solo venture. He had a close miss in 2012 when his cross Australian hip-hop group collaboration with The Herd's Jane Tyrrell, "Die A Happy Man" landed at #116. Another member of The Herd will eventually appear on this list. For that matter, we'll also see a further two entries and three artists that satisfy the previous notion to greater extents. One is still a technicality, how exciting.

Maybe I could add to my previous comment about DOPE LEMON that the original Lady Of The Sunshine version of "Big Jet Plane" would surely have to have been a hit if anyone heard it. We just can't get away from any version of the song we come across. It's some good obscure trivia to know that the song was a top 10 hit in Australia but only the further cover version by Lakyn Heperi on The Voice Australia. Tuka was beaten to the punch on this by 3 years, although to his credit, he put his own spin on it.

Tuka adds some rap verses to the song and they're fine. The most notable thing about it is that he manages to name-drop a Lana Del Rey song that had played on the countdown less than an hour before this did. Nothing quite so audacious has ever happened before or since. I can't promise it'll be as close but that Lana Del Rey song will eventually appear on this list.

I fall on it in a similar way I do to many Like A Versions where I don't have much of a desire to make this the version I seek out. The production and mixing shortcomings make it just lose out every time. Thelma Plum and another artist who will eventually appear in this list also show up here. There aren't many AFL references in the history of the Hottest 100 outside of TISM & Drapht namedropping James Hird & David Wirrpanda respectively. This cover came out just a couple of months after Adam Goodes retired and Thelma Plum is wearing a Goodes shirt in the video for this cover, in case you didn't know.

#932. Two Door Cinema Club - Changing of the Seasons (#71, 2013)

96th of 2013

It's hard to say whether or not Two Door Cinema Club ended up being a big deal in the long run. The main factor swaying this conversation is the song "What You Know" which has endured exceedingly well. Not many bands get to just have that one big song. Repeating the success of that first album has been the problem.

The lyrics of this song make it feel a bit too on the nose to rag on it. It's never sat quite right with me in general though. On some level it's not a departure from their usual sound, but it just feels like there's an extra layer of sheen coated over it. It sounds synthetic without fully committing to it. Just a lukewarm note to go out on.

#931. Halsey - Without Me (#56, 2018)

90th of 2018

We're several years removed from the peak commercial powers of Halsey at this point which makes it feel like more of a curiosity than an inevitability. The last time Halsey was on this list, we were just on the precipice of it. Then later in that year they teamed up with The Chainsmokers and had the biggest hit of 2016 (according to ARIA at least). If there was any doubt of Halsey's potential after that, then "Without Me" came along to be nearly just as big.

Over the years I've been at odds trying to grapple with what feel like perfunctory hit songs. Songs where all the stars have lined up for success but the end product feels like they're just casually walking through the door. That's always been this song for me. Nothing to point at and observe, just a song that's doing its job as a success vehicle.