#680-#676

#680. Violent Soho - So Sentimental (#69, 2016)

72nd of 2016

It feels like we're making some headway in this game of Hearts. About a third of the way through and someone's already used up all of their spades, time to break hearts. It feels miraculous to say that Violent Soho have not made it to double digits for Hottest 100 entries, possibly they'll be forever stuck at 9. It's been roughly 3 years since they announced their hiatus. I think a comeback could stir up some excitement with the right amount of time. They managed to tap into a certain kind of alternative rock that stood them above their peers.

The real surprise of it all is that of their 9 entries, 6 of them all come from the same album. If you're looking for a top heavy album, look no further than "WACO" which stacks them all at the front, followed by 5 other songs that exist (I think "Evergreen" is pretty great but I don't really remember the rest. "Low" is worth a listen if you want to hear something a bit different from them. There's a cheeky reference to past Hottest 100 hit "Every Morning" by Sugar Ray in it. Actually, there's another 1999 Hottest 100 reference on "Slow Wave" by a band that's still yet to show up here).

If I struggle on Violent Soho, bear with me. I have a history of it. Back when I used to live blog the Hottest 100 as it happened with pre-written blurbs for just about every song, I took the big 2016 haul for Violent Soho to make a cheap running joke where I wrote the same bare-bones commentary that looked okay at first but increasingly silly the subsequent 4 times it re-appeared. I'll never think of anything else whenever I see the phrase 'hotly tipped' ever again.

"So Sentimental" is basically a slow burner (by Violent Soho standards) that sticks to the same pace all the way through. You've got hints of intrigue like on the chorus where it briefly sounds like the song is about socioeconomics and they're about to tackle the wealthy elite (the chorus does technically contain the line 'it's who, you know'), but it's more a nostalgia trip. Kind of like what I'm doing now, reminiscing when in the mid '10s, I could hear a lot of these mid '90s throwbacks getting some valid attention.

#679. Lorde - Liability (#81, 2017)

65th of 2017

Lorde's "Melodrama" generally has a heightened reputation compared to her debut. You'd hope so given that it took 4 years to come out compared to an album that felt like a rush job to announce in the wake of a hit that got bigger than anyone could've planned (eventually I might even add to the discourse pile here). Easier to get more attached when Lorde gets demoted back to underdog status too. In my head, I think of it as a heightened synth pop or dance pop experience compared to the moody default setting of her debut. I suspect in reality I'm being influenced by the respective album covers and a handful of isolated songs because I'm not really seeing a huge amount of difference. If there is one for certain, it's in the other direction, as "Liability" provides Lorde's first piano ballad.

Maybe that's familiar territory here, although I posit that despite the very similar aesthetics, "Stoned at the Nail Salon" (#941) is strictly an acoustic guitar ballad. I have more time for this one anyway. I think the arrangement goes some ways to making for a more engaging experience, it's like you're being strung along for all the highs and lows.

I know I don't talk about lyrics too often here but I have to in this case because blimey if this isn't a relatable one. The feeling of rejection from those who you think are close to you but in actual fact have their own plans that don't involve you. The second verse hits so hard as it's a rare piece of relatability that can fit a multi-millionaire pop star or just a regular person, the idea of being a brief novelty to explore until they're done with you. The charts just reinforce this when you can look at any particular old time frame and find any number of artists who seemed on top of the world who suddenly stopped making any impact. Many of whom are still making music. It's the kind of thing that I personally try to keep from happening amidst my various unconnected social circles, but it's challenging to fit it all together. I'd like to think I haven't rejected anyone in the same way, but I suspect it's not fully true either. Realistically though, it's that fear of rejection that strips me of so many opportunities. What a rough deal for everyone though.

#678. DMA'S - Step Up the Morphine (#39, 2016)

71st of 2016

I apologise for any confusion caused by the sudden prevalence of Touch Sensitive, DMA'S, and songs called "Lay Down" by either Touch Sensitive or DMA'S. As far as I can tell, there's no second song called "Step Up the Morphine" so we should be in the clear going forward.

The intriguing title is probably the most distinctive thing about this song. Johnny Took revealed in an interview that it's a song about the death of his grandmother, and it's filled with lyrics of malaise. I think though it's a job that Tommy O'Dell (not the "Another Love" guy) comes through with pretty flying colours. The core of the track isn't soaring to exciting places, but his vocal delivery really manages to elevate it. I am a sucker for the minor fall when it's preceded by a major lift.

#677. Sycco - Ripple (prod. Flume & Chrome Sparks) (#46, 2022)

68th of 2022

If it's a new name to you, it's pronounced the same as the word 'psycho'. In any case, get moderately used to it because she is going to appear one more time on this list. All things considered, it's an impressive showing to come through a second time. The lack of appearance between her two entries in 2021 made it look like it'd be a one-off. I suppose in the year 2022, getting Flume attached to your song is a handy thing to do.

It makes more sense to talk about the start of her career with the other entry, but it is worth noting the intrigue that has come since. Last year Sycco finally put out her debut album "Zorb". I'm only just now listening to it and learning that "Ripple" is actually on the track list. It hasn't been a commercial monster, in fact it missed the ARIA top 100 completely, but the reception has been pretty positive for those who checked it out. For one, it won the J Award for Album Of The Year. Richard Kingsmill doesn't work at the ABC anymore but he also found space for it on his lengthier-than-usual 2024 albums list. The chart nerd in me also wants to point out that it's the first J Award winner to not reach the ARIA top 50, but to be fair, there are considerably fewer Australian albums managing that bar nowadays.

I thought the album was pretty enjoyable. I found in general when I kept hearing new singles coming out that they weren't really clicking with me, but as a full product, it feels more locked in together. Sycco tends to very liberally use vocal manipulation that can be jarring at first, but there's a method to the "Monkey Madness". It's all just a fun sort of sound that doesn't really sound like anything else.

"Ripple" has never been one I've tried to seek out. It still embodies some of those ideas that I mentioned, but it doesn't feel like it quite sticks the landing. Those initial synths? Great, sounds instantly familiar as if someone had to have already come up with it. The pre-chorus? Really exciting, a logical progression from some recent drum & bass adjacent Flume material (I'll get to it eventually), and provides an outlet for Sycco to go a little off the rails. Then you get to the chorus and it squanders it all a touch, where Sycco is too drowned out to sell it with a hook. I'm mostly stuck trying to hear what sounds like her saying her own name, although I believe it to not actually be the case. Hard not to be a little underwhelmed when it basically rhymes with her previous hit but comes up a touch short in the process.

#676. Spacey Jane - Booster Seat (#2, 2020)

61st of 2020

I remember one day in late 2021, I was at the movies to see a film that actually shows up in this list via its title theme. Just before it started I checked my phone because the ARIA Awards were on. I'd put a small wager on Sam Fischer & Demi Lovato to win Song Of The Year for "What Other People Say", simply because it wasn't a big hit and was paying pretty high odds for something I thought had an outside chance to win. Song Of The Year since 2012 has been a publicly voted award, so it's been subject to the sorts of quirks that happen when the public is limited to the kinds of people who are willing to bother voting. Many early winners since the change were former Australian Idol contestants like Matt Corby, but you also had multiple wins for 5 Seconds Of Summer. They're the kinds of artists with that sort of fanbase, or who literally got famous because of that sort of fanbase. The biggest Australian hit of the year may well have been "Astronaut in the Ocean" by Masked Wolf, but who's gonna vote for it?

I fleeced an online betting website years back through this same logic. They were offering odds on Best International Artist, an award that was for a while based on Twitter engagements. One Direction's once a year album release schedule meant they would conveniently win it every year. Enter 2016, they'd just released their final album late last year, the one after ZAYN left the group. It was still very successful, it gave them their only Australian #1 single in "Drag Me Down", and only missed the top spot on the album chart because they released it on the same week as...him again?! One Direction announced their hiatus at the start of the year, and time moves fast as they very much felt like yesterday's news in a flash, with no looming album and solo careers popping up instead. However, the nomination process for this award is based on sales, and even if they declined in the wake of the split, they still notched up more than enough to get onto the nominations again. Next to some big names like Adele and Taylor Swift, they looked like a tacked on inclusion that had no right winning, and they were priced accordingly. I made about $500 on this oversight and that's only because I wasn't allowed to bet any more.

Luck didn't strike twice in 2021, however. Beating out some high profile artists and singles was some small fry band from Western Australia, that being Spacey Jane with their song "Booster Seat". Now granted, maybe there is proof in it for Spacey Jane given that a big chunk of their fame owes to an extensive voting effort that got this song to land at #2 in the Hottest 100, but it's not a voter base I expected to overlap much with the ARIA Awards voting. Since then the award has continued to not make a lot of sense to me. Tones And I kept losing 3 years in a row until "Cloudy Day" (#863) got her the win. Troye Sivan won in 2023 but then neither he, nor Kylie Minogue could overcome a G Flip song that barely charted in 2024. The 2021 result blindsided me so much that I could no longer justify betting on the ARIA Awards, I can't predict it anymore. This is a very good thing of course, and I strongly encourage anyone reading to stay away from the world of gambling. I got lucky that I found an avenue where my expertise and resources far surpass the average person, but it's a game you're designed to lose, and almost everyone will. You're not built different.

So I guess thanks to Spacey Jane for getting that out of my life. This is an interesting one though. For a band of their stature to chart so high, so early in their career. It's very similar to the Amy Shark story with "Adore" (#871). I don't have any background observations to ruin this one. I guess I'd love to know what the state by state voting count was like, because one thing I do know about the Western Australian music scene is that it's all very close-knit. If everyone within a few degrees of separation got behind them, I can see how that would spiral out. There's a funny aside in line with what I said about "Say It" (#707), because "Heat Waves" (#741) actually jumped into the Global Spotify top 50 after the Hottest 100, simply because of how much its streams increased just in Australia. So the world-conquering run for Glass Animals would probably play out a touch different if Spacey Jane were able to put together a bunch more votes.

Spacey Jane had their own slightly different run on the charts that intrigued me. Something that's utterly bizarre about it is that it actually reached the Australian Spotify top 200 on the day the album came out, I genuinely can't think of another Australian artist who's managed to do so without some past success. The album did manage good streams though and it was just low sales that kept them sandwiched between a very close top 3 battle with Vika & Linda, and The McClymonts. The three albums were separated by less than 200 sales. The interesting thing that happened though is that "Booster Seat" returned to the chart in January. Not after the Hottest 100, but a couple of weeks before. It's another thing that I'm not really certain has happened since, but it seems like the Hottest 100 hype really put a jolt under them. In some respects that's way more important than just getting a big one day jump after the countdown. They were ironing on long-time listeners with this one, and that's the result they got. "Booster Seat" managed to reach #8 on the ARIA Chart, but it also stuck around for 11 weeks in the top 50 without commercial radio really getting on board, and without an international presence either. The album that originally dropped out of the top 50 in 3 weeks, came back, and lasted 37 weeks in the top 50. Maybe you'd want the #1 Hottest 100 finish, but I think Spacey Jane and "Booster Seat" came out of it a lot better than many of those winning songs ever did.

But is "Booster Seat" really that special? Fortunately not enough for anyone to write fanfiction around it, as far as I can tell. If anything has taken the shine off of it, it's Spacey Jane's persistent success. The huge #2 finish in the Hottest 100 just looks a little less special when the band polled at #3 in both of the following years (with two songs that I at least seem to prefer). So far in 2025, Spacey Jane have been big beneficiaries of triple j's new playlist rotation rate, that's seeing higher weekly spins than at least the last 20 years for the biggest tracks of the moment. That in combination with a potential knee-jerk reaction to a poor showing for Australian artists last year could pay serious dividends to Spacey Jane. You'd have to expect some of their songs to do some serious damage. "Booster Seat" will probably always remain their most popular song, but it could just be another knock against its Hottest 100 credentials.

One of the clearest signs I've experienced when aging out of music is an inherent feeling of pessimism. You become aware of what the kids are listening to and can't help but think that all the hyperbole is overblown, or at the very least, won't align to what you're interested in. Maybe it's heightened for me in this case because of my past experience with Spacey Jane, but I do see a goofy song title like "Booster Seat" and it sets off a red flag in me that they probably don't deserve.

Repeated exposure is my best medicine for fighting this off and I can say pretty confidently that it gets results sometimes. If the placement hadn't locked it in for you, I do think that "Booster Seat" is pretty good! I do have my reservations in that I physically coil at the delivery of the line 'well it feels like that again'. Even if all the words did come out properly, it's just a Chet Faker style awkward landing, or I suppose, awkward hover above the ground. Nice ideas in general, they just get a little more locked into the car motif than anything else.