#950-#946

#950. A$AP Rocky - L$D (#64, 2015)

97th of 2015

It's hard for me to really justify this with any authority. This psychedelic pivot is probably A$AP Rocky's most unique and unconventional single he's ever released. For many it's his best song, or at least the one that explores the most potential in his artistry. I've just never been able to shake off the feeling that it's just kind of boring to me.

A$AP Rocky is going to appear in this list six times. Largely with a helping of eclectic sample choices and his prime brand of hedonistic party raps. When this song came out I was far more into some of those especially hedonistic songs, like "Multiply" and "Electric Body". In some respects this song could probably fit in with those other ones if it didn't sound the way it did. The slow, mellow pace turns lyrics that could sound braggadocious into melancholic laments. It's definitely an idea worth exploring, just not one I really ever enjoy listening to.

#949. Catfish and the Bottlemen - Soundcheck (#77, 2016)

96th of 2016

Catfish and the Bottlemen are an incredibly anachronistic band. Or at least they are for when they got popular. 2006-2008 were highly formative years for me in music and it just so happened to be a time when the British indie scene was inundated with bands of their ilk, and songs about whether or not a monster is coming over the hill. I know far more Pigeon Detectives songs than the average person. It just seemed to be the gold standard going forward, until suddenly due to lack of interest, their tomorrows were all cancelled, with the striking exception of a band that will appear several times in this list. But there must have still been an audience who wanted more, and it seems like this is the band that re-captured the zeitgeist.

The twist in this tale is that the band actually did form in 2007. Probably a lot of bands did in the wake of it that never got their name out in time while they were still the hip thing. They released their first album in 2014 and later on I'd find out about them when they were performing curiously well in Hottest 100 voting projections. They didn't quite make it that year (although depending on what day you look at the Wikipedia article, maybe they did), but it was the prologue to them capitalising on the next album, sometimes you can do that without the preview entry.

It pains me to say that in many such cases, I just can't fully get on board with what they're doing. I don't know if I've seen anyone else report the same feeling, but so frequently in Catfish and the Bottlemen songs, there's this tendency to just not resolve their melodic ideas in a way that sticks the landing. Or if not that, they'll chuck something in there that throws it off even earlier. As far as their entries here go, this is the one that always sticks out to me. You've got a chorus that feels like it's building to something and then it just pulls out halfway through. It ends up being aggressively uncatchy.

#948. Amy Shark - Weekends (#25, 2017)

95th of 2017

I feel like in her position in 2017 it would be hard to mess this up. Truth be told, #25 is a very strong finish in the Hottest 100, and Amy Shark has gone on to have a scarcely rivalled hitmaking career in Australia. There really aren't many women who've had as many hits as her over the same span of time without being internationally famous.

On the other hand, this is one that totally did get messed up. Amy Shark was signed to Sony Music Australia by this point in time and yet despite this, they weren't able to secure a placement on Australia's most important hitmaking Spotify playlist, at a time when it had full control over what did and didn't become a hit. It's enough to say that the song lost a top 50 peak in Australia because of this fumble.

At the time I was fairly indifferent to the song. You get the feeling that she's still figuring out what her sound is. Rather than step out and be bold though, it feels like it's holding onto the hand of Amy Shark's previous hit, not wanting to go too far on its own. I'm still not totally sure she's found out what her sound is but at the very least, she's branched out quite a bit more since.

As a result, this song never gets out of that previous hit's shadow, and I find myself feeling less from it as a result. I'm comparing the impact of the lyrics and it's coming up short. I'm comparing the quality of the mixing on the different elements and it's coming up very short, even on weekends.

#947. The 1975 - I'm In Love With You (#58, 2022)

96th of 2022

I think the most interesting thing here is the fact that The 1975 are here at all. They're a band that triple j pretty much ignored from the start, and probably weren't banking on them having quite the staying power they ended up with. There are probably people growing up now who'll look at the past Hottest 100 lists shocked to see that they had no entries before 2022, much like I remember trying to find My Chemical Romance's entries prior to 2006, to no avail.

At some point in you have to just accept the L and admit defeat, except what ended up happening was Matty Healy invoking a bizarre personal tirade against the station itself, giving them all the more reason not to start playing the band. Instead they very quickly put them into regular rotation. There's probably some justification for it all behind the scenes, mainly I think it's funny to imagine that even people from the UK are blaming triple j's woes on Richard Kingsmill beyond his tenure as Music Director.

It's hard to tell without further data as to whether or not this animosity, or even just the sheer novelty of appearing on the voting list helped The 1975 for 2022's countdown (it is strange to put this band name so close to an actual year). It could very well be that many people have been champing at the bit to vote for them.

I think The 1975 can be a very interesting band. They're definitely not afraid to try different things. Even in their most obvious radio singles they're usually doing something out of left field. They usually come with some of the weirder titles for that matter.

This probably fits into that camp too. I don't think it's one of their stronger efforts though. For the most part it feels like safe treading and the only thing that stands out is the hook whose repeated 'I's can get a little bit irritating. Makes me wish I was listening to "If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)" or something.

#946. Marcus Marr & Chet Faker - The Trouble with Us (#6, 2015)

96th of 2015

When this song first came out I was not at all shy about expressing my feelings about it. Most of those feelings amounted to some variation on 'no, I do not need to hear Chet Faker's attempt at being funky' and 'ooh, gah, turn it off'. Such were my feelings that I even used my very recently opened sports gambling account (note: gamble responsibly, or better yet, don't), to put down an emotional insurance bet on this winning the whole thing. Given that Australia was recently put under a spell by Chet Faker, and this had the bonus of actually being a crossover top 10 ARIA hit BEFORE the countdown aired, it seemed a realistic outcome. Maybe in the end it was just a little too far off what the Chet Faker audience really wanted.

I think with that crisis averted, it was harder to get especially mad at this song and so I've definitely mellowed out on it at least a little bit. Still a little bit of ominous dread when I hear those opening guitar notes though. It also still has a strange idea for a chorus, a bit of a Mad Lib situation on what to finish each line with. There have got to be better ways to dwell on relationship conflict than 'I need the trouble with trust'. It's like there's an idea to call for a resolution or understanding, but it's stuck within the lyrical motif and can't make enough sense.

I haven't really heard much from Marcus Marr outside of this collaboration. I thought "Learning For Your Love" was a bit more to my taste. This is definitely a symbiotic collaboration but it's fascinating that he's never really capitalised further on it. This UK producer who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page ends up being one of the most random people to have a Hottest 100 top 10 entry, alongside luminaries like The Tenants and Allen Ginsberg.