#655-#651

#655. Courtney Barnett - Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go to the Party (#95, 2015)

65th of 2015

A lot is said about the early part of the Hottest 100 and how it tries and often dismally fails to set the mood with its effectively random selections. An equally important factor that gets less analysis is its ability to foreshadow. It's something that's probably gotten stronger as our ability to mentally tier off hits has improved, and also a lot of people just already know going in what to expect. But nothing makes a statement early on more than seeing an artist get over the line with a song that clearly isn't the main event. It's an ominous sign to quote the late, great David Lynch and say 'Take another look, sonny, it's gonna happen again!'

I've got plenty of opportunities to talk about Courtney Barnett from here on so I'm not going to spend too long on this one (also if you've seen Monday's post, I probably need this). This song puts the finishing (or starting) cap on her big 4 entry haul in 2015, tying with Tame Impala for the most that year. Maybe it seems quaint nowadays, but coming from a less obviously widespread appealing artist like her, this is a huge win.

It's a pretty solid one. Definitely falls under the 'Sometimes I Just Sit' side of the album title, but it gets the point across. I am always going to relate to a song about wanting to sleep even if the call for adventure sometimes does reach me as well. Just a solid slab of indie rock as well, really dig that guitar solo.

#654. Broods - Peach (#19, 2018)

71st of 2018

Here's our proper welcome to Broods. They had a fake entry before when Meg Mac covered their song "Bridges" (#971), their breakout hit that couldn't find the momentum in time to poll. They made up for it over the next few years and racked up 4 entries without it. Now I've ruined the chance to build to some exciting narrative over the course of this because we're starting off with their last entry...and their biggest.

It's always felt peculiar to me that this happened. Nothing in their trajectory made it feel like we were heading to this. Or if it did, what came after just showed it to be a monster fluke. We're talking about a duo who debuted in the top 5 with their first two albums, and then we get to their 3rd, released in the never busy time at the start of the year and it's crashing in at a measly #17, struggling to even match the second week sales of the first two. They've never come close to the Hottest 100 since then either. It's like they've lived the experience of London Grammar post-"Baby It's You" (#789), but all in the space of one album cycle. It's all so strange. I actually rather like some of the singles they've put out since then, namely "Hospitalized" and "Piece Of My Mind". Maybe the poppier sound was a turn-off for people who wanted their music to sound...broodier. If that's the case, then "Peach" must have just fit the right moderate spot.

The high ranking for this makes me want to read more into what it's offering, like I wouldn't do if it had just landed at #80 or something. It feels like they nailed the eye-catching title politics that make a song bigger than it could be otherwise. They've got that them espresso, and everything's looking peach now. The percussion admittedly gives it a nice jolt, but I want a bit more from it.

#653. Tom Cardy - Mixed Messages (#17, 2021)

70th of 2021

I first became aware of Tom Cardy around 2020. He was just the guy who would come on triple j and make 'Song Sequels', basically parodies with a little extra work behind them. I didn't take much notice of him, it just seemed like the latest in a long line of peculiar skits that you'd hear on the station. Back in my day we had Space Goat, and such.

This all changed pretty drastically when the 2021 countdown aired and I suddenly had to pay a lot more attention to his music. I'm made to believe that even for people who were attempting to follow vote counts this year, this was still a blindside. Usually by around the top 40, you know pretty much every song that's still to come in the countdown, but then you get thrown for a complete loop in 2021 when two Tom Cardy songs are just waiting to be exposed in the top 20, seemingly sidestepping the public voting information because it's tapping into the classic market of people who vote for joke songs and don't tell anyone they did it.

In this particular case it leaves me in a bind because I know two kinds of people, the kind who love Tom Cardy's music nearly unconditionally, and the kind who want absolutely nothing to do with him. I've never felt super strongly either way myself, but I've always been dreading writing about these Tom Cardy songs because there's this inherent worry I have about bringing up loathed artists in front of people. So many totally reasonable folks I've been around just flick a switch at a mere mention, and here I am coming in full on defence. Always makes it harder for me to want to talk about music. Oh hey I just remembered the Central Cee post (#736) is going live tomorrow, how's that one gonna scan?

I've wound up exposed to a lot more Tom Cardy than I would have expected since then. He's actually never had a Hottest 100 entry since, I think he was probably robbed when his song "Red Flags" with Montaigne wasn't included on the voting list. That came out after this and it's by far his most popular song. The reason I've heard his music so much though is because he is unfathomably popular. I don't mean this in a dismissive tone (I think), but the fact that this so blatantly Australian novelty musician is so popular around the world. I go on a Discord server for a fairly popular content creator in North America, and they're constantly posting Tom Cardy videos. He's made so many TikToks and it's always one I've never seen before. This is a following in the world of musical comedy I haven't really seen outside of "Weird Al" and Neil Cicierega, and it's that guy who made multiple parodies of one of the Hilltop Hoods songs I haven't written about yet.

Tom Cardy is known for making quick punchline bits, but "Mixed Messages" is his first proper song release. It's not a parody of anything, and if you don't speak English, you might even believe it's a normal song. Just a nice bit of synth pop with a whole lot of lyrics about punching someone's dad in the dick. That's the crassness we're working with here, and it's something I think is difficult to get right. It's easy to just be edgy and leave it at that, but it takes a talent in comedy to do something with it. I'm not surprised when the controversial stand-up says something offensive again, but I am caught off guard with how Tom Cardy manages to ramp up the punchlines and take them to unexpected places.

If we want to take it back, I think "Mixed Messages" has Hottest 100 lineage in The Bedroom Philosopher. He had two entries of his own, notably the song "I'm So Postmodern" which is just a series of one-liners that perpetually lean into the absurd with 2nd and sometimes 3rd twists. It's very mid-2000s YouTube, but I still get a kick out of thinking about the trilogy of novels he's going to write from the perspective of a possum that Jesus patted once. Tom Cardy's writing a song about an awkward date, but it's you the listener that he's being awkward towards. No matter how many times I hear this song, I always catch a new lyric that I don't expect because nothing follows what it's supposed to do. All it does is make it all the more shocking when we're introduced to some genuine continuity in the second half of the song as we're laid thick in with the same joke over and over, but in unexpected ways. There's something so funny about proceeding the 'plot' even through the chorus, as well as concluding the whole thing is a case of 'mixed messages'. I appreciate a novelty song bringing something new to the table.

#652. Mallrat & Basenji - Nobody's Home (#59, 2019)

60th of 2019

We're still building the band, so here's a quick double. Especially quick in the case of Basenji as this is his only entry to date and there's not much to remark on. He's made a little bit of a career as one of the go-to guys to make pseudo-instrumental tracks that get played a bunch on triple j and become extremely nostalgic once you finally find out what they're called. There's something about the non-enduring songs of a time that become so much more vivid a time capsule than the ones that do. Miss me with your Chet Faker & Tame Impala, nothing sounds more mid-2010s than "Dawn", "Heirloom" or "Petals". That's about as deep as my knowledge goes beyond this track. It sure is funny that Mallrat collaborated with an artist named after a dog breed in 2019, is this what is known as a forward sell?

There's a bit more intrigue around Mallrat, the 6 entries she notched up between 2017 & 2020 speak for themselves, particularly the half of those that made a strong polling impression in that time. "Nobody's Home" is one of the also-rans. Either a respectable hit, or just the phoned-in aftereffects of sitting next to a much bigger hit. ARIA tells me that it was certified Platinum in just over 2 years, that's a pretty respectable effort.

Is it the most exciting Mallrat song? Not particularly but does it get the job done? Yes, particularly. Basenji is not the sort of producer to imprint himself all over a track, so you could be forgiven for not noticing there was another artist involved here, but it's a welcome collaboration. It teeters on the edge of sounding dated, a bit late for the tropical synths, but Mallrat goes over the track to an extent that I never really associate this song with that era. It's all very well rounded, cute song.

#651. Meg Mac - Low Blows (#30, 2017)

62nd of 2017

It feels regrettable to say that we're already at the end of the Meg Mac show here. Well, on one hand I won't miss the half dozen times I've seen her name pop up here with another adequate song that leaves me speechless trying to find a new angle to tackle. I mentioned it not long ago, but outside of this she's sitting on a catalogue that I do have more praise for. Let's say I cheated and put the title track to her album "Matter Of Time" onto the list, maybe it makes the top 20, or even top 10? Just goes to show the sheer extremes we're working with.

I don't know if I would have tipped "Low Blows" to be a highlight at the time, maybe title tracks are the trick? I probably got a little sick of it at the time too, we're just coming back to it with more than a few years to restart the engine. Deep down I guess it's always been a good one. Another case of the bigger budget coming to the rescue and giving her vocals the accompaniment they need. In all seriousness though, I'm tapped on Meg Mac discourse so maybe this is a good stopping point. Here's hoping the next entry is...ah never mind.