#815-#811

#815. Vance Joy - We're Going Home (#53, 2018)

84th of 2018

This might have been my favourite Vance Joy song when I first heard it. There was nothing remarkable about it and it signposted its momentum like you're staring at a rollercoaster, but I admired the craft all the same. I think more than anything, there's a layer of warmth in it you don't get much elsewhere. Listen to the way the drums kick in on the chorus and it's just lovely.

If it was just the first minute I think I'd still rate it very highly. After that, you get all manner of attempts to spice it up and they don't land as strongly as the first one. The brittle bridge is cute, but then the song gets taken over by this need to be big and exciting again. Over time I just fell a little out of interest and had other songs of his overtake it.

#814. Ocean Alley - The Comedown (#48, 2017)

84th of 2017

Nothing says preview hit quite like this. A single entry one year, hitting the top spot the year after. That specific sequence hadn't happened since the '90s. Ocean Alley follow a similar path getting there to Lime Cordiale as well, given that they both put out an album that was largely ignored by triple j but gained a huge following that had them primed to receive votes as soon as the opportunity arose, and then even more once everyone else was on board. There must be an initial word-of-mouth spread that only eventually kneecaps a band once no one feels obligated to tell anyone about them anymore.

I can see why someone might hear this and want to spread the word. You might associate Ocean Alley with laid back reggae rock, but I don't really get that from "The Comedown". This song feels like pure "The Dark Side Of The Moon" worship (a looming Like A Version is being foreshadowed here). That combination of moody darkness surrounded by unexpected guitar riffs that take you by surprise if you have no idea what a Pink Floyd is supposed to sound like. I'd like to imagine that there's no shortage of younger music fans who have ignored the band either incidentally or intentionally but have stumbled upon music that sounds like it and loved it, with no idea that they're worshipping a new iteration of dad rock.

In theory I should be all over this but it took some time to make the connection and get anything out of it. When I first heard this, all I heard was a sluggish, empty song that never seemed interested in taking off. That and its idea of a hook was saying 'I'm so faded' and 'I'm so wasted', giving the vibe of listening to an inebriated person's ramblings, something I'm never in the interest of doing. I did come around to it a bit more over the years though. I don't agree with all the instrumental choices (I think the keys get a bit tiresome across the run time), but the bass is exceptional. It's not always easy to notice in a lot of songs but it's the glue that keeps it all together here.

#813. Thundamentals (feat Solo) - Got Love (#90, 2014)

80th of 2014

I've probably been on record as saying that the range of songs that fall under the banner of 'yeah, that's pretty decent' is some of the hardest stuff to write about. I might change my tune about that as I get further, but I will say that damning myself to writing about the same artist over and over again in quick succession is the real challenge. Every week it's another Thundamentals song I don't feel very strongly about.

This one is a bit more to my speed though. I'll refrain from starting every post with 'This is the best song I've written about so far' but you get the point. It's borderline cruise control here, just a feel good song with a nice and catchy chorus. Maybe not their strongest hook ever so it could wear out your welcome when they start the song with it and place it straight after 3 more verses, but it does what needs to be done.

It's also an early preview for Solo who gets a verse here. He's an MC for two different Australian hip-hop groups who'll make an appearance on this list. Not someone I think about very often but he does have a fairly recognisable flow that takes me back to several of his earlier songs when I hear him rapping on this. He actually gets the second verse here which is some prestige to offer to the guest artist I suppose.

#812. The Kid LAROI - THOUSAND MILES (#33, 2022)

83rd of 2022

The 2020s have not been kind to the Australian music industry. It's really boring and obvious to point at algorithms and TikTok as being responsible for muscling Australians out of our own local scene, but I've also been watching it happen for years in real time. The moment you give increased traction to those with bigger followings, it's just inevitable statistics, and before you know it, you'll have an entire generation who've grown up almost exclusively on American culture. The only Australian artists who seem able to hit it big now are the ones that get big outside of Australia.

This has treated The Kid LAROI just fine for the most part. He has one of the biggest hits of all time, eventually I might refer to the song by name. On the other hand, the international market giveth and taketh. The Kid LAROI still does reasonably well on the charts, but it almost feels like he's shackled by his international performance, so if America decides they're done with him, he won't fare much better here either.

I bring this up for "THOUSAND MILES" because it feels like the end of an era. This was a pretty big hit at the time, debuting at #4 on the ARIA Chart and sticking around for months. On the other hand, it might just be the last convincing Australian smash hit. Or at least it is on the metric that the song was released about 3 years ago and it's arguably still the most recent Australian song to spend more than 1 week in the top 10. Most since then are lucky brief gasps that suggest there's a ceiling our artists just can't reach anymore. Technically my statement isn't true, as there's another artist that ARIA consider to be Australian who had a #1 hit shortly after this (and it'll be on this list), and some may want to also claim BLACKPINK's Rosé as Australian, but both feel like technicalities that don't really represent them properly. The Kid LAROI named himself after his Indigenous Kamilaroi heritage and got his start on triple j Unearthed. Fair enough if you think his music sounds very Americanised but he's wearing his heritage for everyone to see and I think that's cool.

The song itself here goes pretty alright as well. I feel like it progresses itself in a way that lets him show off his vocal range a bit more than he usually does. I love the sorrow in his voice as it builds up to the big hook, or I'd say that except there isn't much of a hook. I guess it's a fun trick to say 'a thousand miles away' (oh and there's that Americanisation I guess) with an empty echo while the music strips back, but it just feels like cutting things off in an unsatisfying way. Like if I just ended this blurb here.

#811. Kanye West - Follow God (#87, 2019)

77th of 2019

In case you need reminding, in 2019 Kanye West made a gospel rap album. He's been known to make outlandish promises regarding his musical output and not deliver on it, but he really did do exactly what was on the docket for this one. It's provided an avenue for him to swallow up Billboard's Christian music charts and be named as the biggest Christian rap artist of the year time and time again. It all sounds like a joke, but I do think it's serious, even if filtered through Kanye's strange way of approaching most things and explaining himself.

Truth be told, this isn't an extremely radical shift for him. He's been rapping about God from the very beginning, whether on the vitally poignant "Jesus Walks", or from the same album on "Never Let Me Down" where J. Ivy inexplicably delivers a poem that feels like a sermon but is also one of the hardest verses on the whole album. He dabbles in it from time to time and often finds great inspiration in it. This won't be the last time we encounter Kanye in this mode on the list. There's reason to be optimistic with the project going in.

I'm pretty well versed in Kanye's discography up until anything after "DONDA" which I've tended to avoid. From this still fairly large subset, I'm safe in saying that "JESUS IS KING" is my least favourite of his albums. It's not a total dud but it instead feels very workmanlike. It's as if he's working on a deadline and cares more about that than quality control. Or rather, getting the bare bones done on a song and moving on without much care for what's left. You've got a lot of very short songs with few ideas to pass around. It's not all a dud mind you, songs like "Selah" and "God Is", while they don't make it to any playlists I'm in charge of, manage to jump out as fragments of what could have been a greater album. It can't go unmentioned that he even got the Clipse to re-unite and guest on a song alongside Kenny G, the maddest of Mad Libs right there. For the most part though, there's just a low ceiling of enjoyment and it doesn't marvel or intrigue me like most of his other albums. What's truly bizarre is that Kanye has had 5 #1 albums in Australia and this is the only one that spent more than one week at #1. The most enduring thing about the album for me is the Chick-fil-A lyric in "Closed On Sunday", it's not a great endorsement.

Then we've got "Follow God", the hit of the album that seems to have survived beyond the album cycle. It makes a modicum of sense that it ended up this way. In the TikTok perspective, you can play a short clip of this song and almost completely divorce it from the context of the album, just enjoy Kanye sounding relatively engaged as he raps at a consistent tempo. There's a chopped up soul sample too, I love the old Kanye. Conceptually I enjoy it but it doesn't offer a whole lot else, and it's over in less than 2 minutes. It has you thinking 'Is that it?", and Kanye's seeing the streaming number go up and figures what I'm trying to say is 'Aww yeah, that's it'.