#865-#861

#865. Lime Cordiale - Country Club (#60, 2022)

89th of 2022

If we exclude "Dirt Cheap" (#980) on the grounds that it's just on the cusp of the band blowing up, then Lime Cordiale have had 17 Hottest 100 entries from 2019 to 2023 and only 2 of them haven't landed in the top half of the list. The only two songs they've landed in the second hundred were both album tracks. What I'm saying is that it must be the mark of absolute failure for any single they release that can't crack the top 50. What I'm also saying is that no, that other one has not yet shown up. "Country Club" doesn't have an excuse either. It was released as a single in the latter half of the year and got plenty of airplay. Perhaps it's just the exception that proves the rule. Every other entry really is that popular, because here's a lower baseline.

I can't really pinpoint anything about this single that makes it stick out as a dud though. It sounds a little goofy, especially with the sharp layering over the main vocal melody. Maybe it's a bridge too far, but I'd question nothing if this slotted in nice and high like all the other ones did. But I guess nothing hurts more than knowing a song isn't the best version of itself it could be. There is a decent tune in here, but I'm just another data point to put the overall package in the lower tier.

I should probably add in a paragraph to note that I wrote this around the time I started this blog, something of a milestone moment I guess. We've also got another Hottest 100 worth of data to look at since I did this. Not only did Lime Cordiale not make the top 50 in 2024, but a couple of their highly played songs on triple j didn't even make the top 100, which is unprecedented. There's something utterly brutal about the Spotify algorithm where unless you're drastically adding on new waves of fans by the day, your early catalogue with the most baked in saves will just pounce in, ready to overtake your new stuff. Lime Cordiale's Spotify top 10 right now contains nothing later than 2019, save for their grentperez collaboration "Op Shop Lover", which is probably sinking down the list as we speak. When the Hottest 100 relies on constant new hits, life and algorithms can come at you awfully quickly. It's lucky for them they banked these entries while they could, because I've still got another 10 to go here.

#864. Lorde - Homemade Dynamite (#14, 2017)

88th of 2017

As a general rule, I'm not very fond of the remix meta in the music charts. If it's an actual remix then sure, but the ones I'm talking about are the ones where the only difference is stuffing another high profile artist on there to not only pool together those fanbases, but also pool together streaming numbers with the original version (and if it's pushed hard enough, significant digital sales of the remix for 1 week), all for the purpose of a chart peak that is used as a shorthand to boast an implied level of success that the song doesn't really have. Is said remix any good? It doesn't have to be! The more perfunctory the better. Even if it does mark for an improvement, the upfront cynicism of the whole thing sours everything for me.

"Homemade Dynamite" is one of the more popular cuts on Lorde's much beloved second album "Melodrama". It also has a remix that was pushed many months later that features Khalid, Post Malone & SZA, three very lucrative artists to sign onto your project given their rapid upwards trajectory at that point in time. It's actually hard to figure just how popular the remix was though. At the time I remember thinking that it was being heavily pushed by Spotify playlists beyond anything reasonable. You can actually still see it on the song's Spotify streaming performance, where after spending 6 months on Australia's most influential playlist (and much of that time nestled in Australia's top 50), it's eventually shoved down the bottom and removed, spending all of 5 weeks in the top 200 after leaving the top 50. On the other hand, Australia is a drop in the ocean, and the remix still now boasts over 300 million streams on Spotify (twice as much as the original). Perhaps that's enough to justify it, but it still felt cheap at the time.

It's always left me in a weird position with this song. Like I've always rooted against it as a result of a remix I never have to listen to and would completely have forgotten about if I didn't follow music charts. I want to say that it never was one of my favourite songs on "Melodrama" anyway, so it's possible that seeing it get that inflated attention bothered me more than if say, "Supercut" got that same treatment. Its top 20 finish in the Hottest 100 feels very generous unless you imagine a lot of people were voting for it in place of the remix (which couldn't be singled out, or would be combined anyway).

In any case, even if I ignore the baggage and just listen to the song on its own, it still doesn't quite do it for me. I'm somewhat repeating my feelings I just had with Lime Cordiale because this song also features synths layered over the main vocal line in the chorus that sounds a bit ugly. Actually though, the song this reminds me of the most is Muse's "Undisclosed Desires". Regardless of what you think of that song overall, it's got a slick, consistent groove that keeps it moving along. The programmed drums in this song sound stiff and lock up that momentum. I hate to tear into a song from everyone's favourite Lorde album like this, but I also know she can and has done better.

#863. Tones And I - Cloudy Day (#74, 2021)

88th of 2021

Tones And I's debut album "Welcome To The Madhouse" will go down in history as one of the most loathed albums of the 2020s. As with the case of many albums that garner such a reputation, it's one that's so obvious without even listening to it. A self-fulfilling prophecy of nobody wanting to like something and it doing very little to challenge that initial perception. It's an easy target. Like a blank canvas to put out all of your desired barbs without possibly getting knocked back because this is one everyone agrees on. There's gotta be at least someone who hasn't heard that 'My father was in a coma but then heard this album and snapped out of it to turn it off' joke before.

So I listened to the album. My computer crashed twice before I got to the end of it, allowing me to experience one of those cursed computer-crashing audio nightmares, suddenly I was hearing the Tones And I everyone else seems to hear. Anyway, it's a largely harmless album. It does manage to slot in the occasional moment to add fuel to the fire. Mainly the songs "Westside Lobby" and "Bars (RIP T)". The former breaks the fourth wall acknowledging her success and paints herself as the heel in the scenario. The latter finishes the album with Tones rapping as the ultimate mockery to anyone who made it that far. The rest doesn't really match up to the so bad it's bad qualifier and largely just feels ready made for plugging in Australian radio quotas. The most interesting thing about the album is probably that unless you've got the deluxe version, you're actually not going to hear the very song she brings up on "Westside Lobby", that I must once again forewarn will eventually appear on this list. It's a career credibility measure I can respect. I rescind it with the bonus fact that this was proudly brandished as the first ever ARIA #1 album to include NFT sales in its tally. It'd be a remarkably unstreamed album if not for the inclusion of "Fly Away" (#938), and this song.

I have once again delayed talking about a song that doesn't give me much to work with. It's very much in the same vein as her previous entries, a fairly safe sounding song with inspirational platitudes. There's a little more bounce to this one thanks to the horn section, but it's fairly autopilot on the way there. Tones And I's hitmaking has severely shrunk after this, so it's possible that this is her last ever Hottest 100 entry. Still a couple more here though.

#862. Chet Faker - Talk Is Cheap (#1, 2014)

84th of 2014

Few songs have felt more groomed to be the Hottest 100 winner than this one. Like "Big Jet Plane" or "Somebody That I Used To Know" before it, it just had to be this. It was released right at the start of the year so there was ample time for this song to lead the charge in making 2014 the year of Chet Faker.

I was admittedly part of this movement at the time. It was obligatory at that point. We had our fun with Flume, who did his part and then some to boost up his Future Classic labelmate for a few years, now we get to see what he's doing on his own. It's got a catchy hook, the synths line up tastefully with the organic instrumentation. The saxophone announces the song's arrival in absolute style. All good and all, but in the long run I start to wonder if I actually enjoy listening to the song very much, and I can't give a very enthusiastic answer.

I do find myself thinking, especially with this song, whether or not Chet Faker is actually admired as a lyricist. I mentioned it previously for "Gold" (#887), but it's hard to escape this song as just another template to fit words into. He does a better job here, because he actually keeps up with a rhyme scheme, but it's just so filled with lines and word choices that feel laboured for the purpose over anything. The closest thing to a consistent throughline is the first verse's incessant book-related chatter, where he talks himself down, complains about his girl, and then promises the least appealing serialisation possible. It seems to all boil down to him asking her to not talk and just make love. As it turns out, I can't get myself to root for him.

As a Hottest 100 #1 song, it's the kind that just blocks away all meaningful discussion, like a giant broken hand that's not permitting us to look any deeper (I like the album cover, I just think it's funny to draw attention to it). No one's ever going to call it the worst Hottest 100 winner anymore, because it was too long ago and there's always going to be something more brazen to object to. Most Hottest 100 Top 2's can fall down in hindsight as the safe option that makes sense, and the one that's a little bit different that would stand out more. As we go through this, I'll make it clear that I do like a lot of those safe choices. In some respects, songs like "Talk Is Cheap" can provide a comfortable underdog status to the songs they beat, never having to face that extra scrutiny. I mean, have you ever had a social media post go viral? It can be fun to chase that thrill, but inevitably you just get constant notifications from the most annoying people who can't help but chime in with nothing new, weeks and months after the fact. I'll get to that Peking Duk song that finished at #2 eventually, but maybe it's just in their best interest to have a Chet Faker crumple zone.

#861. Thundamentals (feat Mataya) - Sally (#8, 2017)

87th of 2017

Outside of Hilltop Hoods, the heyday for Australian hip-hop is largely confined to the late 2000s and early 2010s. There are two top 10 exceptions to this rule: 1200 Techniques' "Karma" in 2002, and "Sally" by Thundamentals in 2017. A couple of Australian artists who are sometimes described as rappers have made the top 10 since, but this is definitely the last one that fits the template to a tee.

That in itself is a bit peculiar because it defies the career arc of Thundamentals. Their previous album had a big spread of entries across 2 years, while this album was lucky to limp through outside of this song. In a fairly stacked year, it just feels like it finished at least 10 places higher than seems sensible, but democracy is democracy.

I've spoken before about how I generally dislike the cynical use of a common name, usually female, usually in a way that goads mockery in songs. This absolutely fits that description but I almost want to give it a pass because I've genuinely never met a Sally in my life. Most people with the name are baby boomers and older, which is a long reach for Hottest 100 audiences to want to tag and gain amusement from. Their mothers are probably too young to be called Sally. This is also a callout post to ROLE MODEL who released a song called "Sally, When The Wine Runs Out" today.

Once you move on from that, there's not much to talk about. There's a little repeated sound effect that sounds oddly similar to that '!' soundbite from Metal Gear Solid, and I think Mataya's contribution to the song goes enough beyond the 'just get a girl to sing the hook' template. Otherwise, they're having fun but I'm fairly indifferent.