#545-#541

#545. Sofi Tukker & Gorgon City - House Arrest (#77, 2020)

47th of 2020

Greek mythology is getting quite a rinse in the world of house music. We've already had MEDUZA here, and from the specific to the general we've got Gorgon City. I was trying to see if there was any association between the two and all I found is a lot of offhand groupings of them together that mostly don't seem aware of the coincidence. Let's drop another coincidence on here, because the video game "Hades" also came out in 2020 and Medusa is a character in that.

I should be fair and acknowledge though that Gorgon City came quite a while before MEDUZA. They're another artist I got to be very aware of through listening to the UK Charts, especially in 2014 when they had 4 consecutive top 20 hits. The biggest of those was "Ready For Your Love" which peaked at #4 and introduced the UK to MNEK, before he'd go on to have some pretty big worldwide hits afterwards. MNEK has never made a Hottest 100 but back in 2014 he got a bit of airplay for his single "Every Little Word" and I saw a very small handful of votes for it when I was counting votes that year.

There's probably more to say about Sofi Tukker on another occasion, as they'll show up here a couple more times. Suffice to say that if their previous entries were borderline novelty crossover hits, then this is the first time it feels they're polling as an extension of their brand as Sofi Tukker, a band you expect to hear on the Hottest 100. They haven't made it in since then though, so maybe novelty would have to be the way to go. They most recently snuck in at #199 in 2022 with "Summer in New York", one of many songs to interpolate "Tom's Diner". Maybe that's just not novel anymore.

You might see the name of this song and also the year of release and draw some connections, but you'd be wrong. The real reason Sofi Tukker made a song called "House Arrest" is because Sophie broke her leg while playing in Australia at Groovin' The Moo in 2019 and got to be stuck inside almost a year before everyone else, which is what the song was born from. Sofi Tukker did actually make a lockdown song in 2020 though for triple j as part of a 'quarantune' gimmick. That song was called "When The Rona's Over" and it's not clear if it was initially a Billie Eilish pun (#809) but the actual song has no resemblance. "House Arrest" actually has 6 writers though, both sets of duos, plus two lesser known names in Roland Garcia and Nick Sarazen, who I don't know much about except that Sarazen has numerous writing credits across Sofi Tukker's discography. It's also through him that I learnt that this song got used in the latest season of The White Lotus.

I wish there was more to say about the song itself, which is a rather serviceable house record. I guess I'd love to know how many re-writes it went through, and whether the release was at all affected by the real world events (while they didn't write it because of COVID-19, it's totally possible that they prioritised it for that reason). I imagine this works better outside of the house, but it's very tasteful. Genuinely sounds like two different productions going on together near the end but they mesh pretty well.

#544. blink-182 - Bored to Death (#54, 2016)

60th of 2016

I've never been sure I was quite in the right age demographic for blink-182. Certainly I knew kids at school who were into them, but they were slightly older than me and might have had a different first reference point. I think of how whenever triple j did special Hottest 100s that allowed for it, the representation for blink-182 was always "Dammit", a song that passed me by when it came out because it was either not quite big enough or not quite new enough or both. If it is a nostalgic touching point, the kind that says you're going to follow this band to the ends of the earth, then I just missed it. In some regard though they might just be the definitive millennial band, considering just how much coverage they continue to get for everything they do, or how they're one of the most modern bands where every member is individually recognised and famous. From the same time frame, I'm one of those weirdos who actually can name every member of Coldplay, but can you name a member of Linkin Park that isn't Chester, Mike or Emily? Feel like I'm seeing them all for the first time just looking at it.

It's not like they entirely passed me by. Flash back to the year 2000 and the one song I knew, "All The Small Things" rated very highly for me, even if my number one concern about it was confusion at why he was talking about windmills. Otherwise they didn't interest me much out of that. Pop-punk falling short of the ceilings of both its component genres is a constant issue. It tends to land most successfully once it's so ingrained that it becomes a singular point of reference for the era by itself. That's something you can say about a lot of blink-182 songs.

You can divide it further, but there are two distinct phases of blink-182, before and after the hiatus. The first one is the part of the story everyone remembers, all the classic hits and albums, and a steady release schedule. The latter portion is filled with instability and long periods of silence allowing for the thrill of the comeback yet again. The former time period charted singles quite a bit lower than you'd probably expect, and the latter time period charted singles quite a bit higher than you'd probably expect. It's something I'd probably not think about much if not for the persistence of their fandom.

One of my favourite tangential memories to all of this is that in 2011, I came up with a forum game where I'd break up all of the ARIA Chart debuts from the calendar year and do a vote on them, setting it up so that at least one song from each week, plus 12 extras from cluttered weeks would go into a tournament with more voting ahead. It was a fun system that allowed a surprising amount of variation in voting performance making it genuinely possible to seed all of the entries with a fair amount of accuracy.

It was not without its hiccups. Some entries would have their chances improved if their competition was a cluttering of Glee covers, and some would get brutally grouped up together with no room to spare. It's all the result of the ostensibly random groupings this gave me. For 50 straight weeks, there were between 3 and 12 debuts every single week with one single exception in the middle of the year, with only 2 debuts. They were the similar pairing of bands way past their prime, Red Hot Chili Peppers' "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie", and blink-182's "Up All Night". Red Hot Chili Peppers won in such a landslide that they single-handedly ruined the seeds, lazily seeding at #2. Championship bound except they ended up losing in the first round to a song that automatically qualified, the equivalent of losing to England in Eurovision. This is the first thing I always think about when I think about the late career of either of these two bands.

If I continued this game into 2016, we would have nearly managed a rematch because both bands returned to the chart a single week apart, first blink-182's #50 hit "Bored To Death", and then Red Hot Chili Peppers' #52 hit "Dark Necessities". Given the monster hits they both debuted alongside, there's no chance they'd get through, but I have to put some respect on "Dark Necessities" which is stealthily one of their most streamed songs ever.

"Bored To Death" isn't quite on that level but it's not doing too badly itself. Mostly I just find it amusing how they barely managed to make the top 50 at #50, something they'd do again 6 years later with "EDGING". Luck ran out in 2023 when "One More Time" got the dubious #51 peak, proving that they couldn't keep getting away with it.

When it comes to the Hottest 100, blink-182's history is a bit different, where they were well received initially, but they've been much less consistent in converting results in the last 20 years. That whole time period has just given them two entries, "Bored To Death", and the 2023 single "MORE THAN YOU KNOW". It's probably better off this way, not being guaranteed success and only converting it when the song itself justifies it.

As an addition to the canon, I can get behind "Bored to Death". It feels like a natural progression from the blink-182 of old. Relies on the wordless hooks of old at times, but also comes with a big blast of sound. Maybe it's lacking in subtlety as a result, but it gives me something to lean onto, which I don't always find with this band.

#543. Hopium (feat Phoebe Lou) - Dreamers (#82, 2014)

58th of 2014

If you're talking about band names that are fun to say, then you can't ever leave out Snakadaktal. They didn't last very long but they made a solid impression while they were around. They won triple j's Unearthed High competition in 2011 and had Hottest 100 entries in back to back years, followed by a debut album in 2013 that reached the ARIA top 10. By 2014 they were done, and there's still never been an official word on what happened. Just months after this, Phoebe from the band turned up on a minor hit single, reaching the ARIA Singles Chart, which Snakadaktal never managed to do.

Hopium came and went just as quickly. His last EP was released in 2019, and now his Spotify page is getting progressively cluttered up with background music by some other Hopium with very dull cover art. For an artist with a genuine (if minor) hit, his under 9,000 listeners has to rank especially low on this list. Certainly it wouldn't threaten Vegeta.

It's very easy to make some comment here with regards to the lyrics of this song. This song confronts someone whose high aspirations are offset by their sheer inability to do anything about it. There's an effective thesis statement slotted into the chorus, 'You said this would be your year, but you f**ked around, now December's here, you must be one of the dreamers'. I don't necessarily think of this song when it comes into play, but it is a mindset that reminds me to put myself out there more often, and it's allowed some very exciting things to happen in my life. Oh hey, I'll be at the AFL Grand Final tomorrow.

Most of the song is directed at Phoebe's character who echoes it back as if to gawk the notion of self-reflection, despite the laundry list of observations she fails to address. It only comes to a head at the end of the song, where she gives a lengthy spoken word monologue, which draws the image of some of her failings without admitting to them directly. It's only once she receives news about Hopium getting a job that it finally settles in that she's a wreck. After all, imagine waking up at 12pm? That's the kind of madness that makes me want to not look at the time I publish these posts.

If I ever found out down the track that The Chainsmokers heard this song and started to model their catalogue after it, I wouldn't be especially surprised. In a similar sense, I don't find myself fully convinced by Hopium as a singer. When comparing the two on this track, he falls a little short of the mark, but he gives it a good go. In case you are wondering what's going on in the world of Hopium lately, he wasn't cheesy enough to say that 2024 was his year, but he did have his first son, so it's been a big one.

#542. Ocean Alley - Baby Come Back - Like A Version (#16, 2018)

58th of 2018

There's an American video game journalism website called The Escapist. In the late 2000s to early 2010s, it became fairly popular and won awards thanks to its weekly production of news articles, reviews and the like. If you weren't aware of it back then (I wasn't), then it's possible that like me, you only know it as the website/YouTube channel that hosted Zero Punctuation. That's the game review show hosted by Yahtzee with prominently yellow backgrounds, crude animation and a lot of fast talking. It's fun to binge sometimes.

Over time, there were numerous disputes with The Escapist that severely reduced its staff, which was a large contribution to that warped perception of the site. It reached a point where Zero Punctuation was just about the only thing on the website, and it felt like a strange technicality that the series was tied down with this random association. Anything else they did publish got significantly less attention. Does this sound familiar?

It's easy to forget how slow the process of normalising Like A Version was. In its early years it felt more spontaneous, just a cute thing to do while artists were around. You might get a jarring reaction if you look up the earliest years of the segment and it's quite often just one person, one guitar and one take. For years it was locked away during the Drive timeslot and might generate some interest on a week by week basis, but everyone would mostly just move on week by week.

In 2008, when presenter Robbie Buck was moved to the breakfast slot, he took the Like A Version segment with him, and it started to get a lot more traction in its new slot. I'm always thinking about how old radio ads used to cite the power of early morning advertising because people are active and going about their day when they hear them, rather than retiring for the night, doomed to forget about it. In any case, it started to get a bit more attention. Segments started getting pre-recorded and more professionally produced, while the CD compilations started to make a serious dent on the ARIA Charts. 2010's compilation made a huge splash by reaching #2 on the charts, and it paved the way for a 4 year stretch of the Like A Version compilations going all the way to #1 from 2014 to 2017. By 2020 it fizzled out and they stopped producing the CDs altogether, but it lives on in the internet age as a perennial talking point. To get back to my original statement, there have been times where Like A Version related content is the only thing triple j puts on its YouTube channel anymore. When it comes to international music fans who might see their favourite artists pop up there, it does make me wonder if triple j is to them just a vehicle for this segment and nothing else.

This unique perspective of engaging with triple j did however lead to one of my favourite moments in Like A Version history, something that could potentially become indecipherable to future generations. Ocean Alley's cover of "Baby Come Back" ends with a brief drum lick that is potentially meaningless to anyone who just listens to the radio, but would come with frightening familiarity to YouTube viewers, because it's a re-creation of the very sting that triple j used to put at the end of every Like A Version video. In 2024, triple j updated some of their sound beds and have a new one with a distorted voice saying 'triple j', so the only lasting piece of this quirky sting is through however long the original YouTube uploads stay around, as well as this cover. Thelma Plum's cover of "Bitch" by Meredith Brooks in September of 2024 is the last one uploaded that still has it.

"Baby Come Back" is of course the 1977 yacht rock classic from American band Player. A #1 hit over there which reached #15 in Australia. The song obviously lives on through that one time it was used on The Simpsons, and more recently even The Kid LAROI scored a hit through sampling it. Ocean Alley nearly play it straight but they do slip in a bit of that one song I cannot mention but can say is primarily sung by Frank Ocean.

This is pure trophy room Like A Version, slotting into the top 20 when it wasn't even the main course for Ocean Alley. As is often the case, that still translates very well, whether it's just a product of the band's popularity or not. When triple j polled the Hottest 100 Like A Versions, it landed all the way up at #3, also known as being the highest song behind those two that everyone knew were gonna finish up top. "Believe" (#987) is one of those. If my recollection of events is correct, this cover made a small piece of history by being the first Like A Version to ever reach the ARIA Charts, peaking at #91 just after the countdown aired. I must acknowledge the technicality that Regina Spektor did previously perform a Like A Version covering a 1997 song by a very popular British band, and that same week reached the ARIA Charts with a different recording of that same song. Like A Version recordings being released to DSPs around the same time they're recorded is a relatively new situation.

I will give this cover its flowers though. Like the last time I brought up Ocean Alley in a Like A Version context (#590), I think there is definitely credit to be paid for where they're digging for their source material. "Baby Come Back" is not an obscure song by any stretch, but it doesn't fit so easily into the trendy kinds of throwbacks we're used to getting. That might just be because this slightly pre-dates TikTok as a trend setter, but it feels much more genuine than opportunistic as a result. I think it's a song that Ocean Alley can easily fit themselves into, and that in itself is an interesting look at converting old music trends to those of today. Sometimes there can be something close to like for like, and if I'm about to say that Ocean Alley is yacht rock for young millennials and older zoomers, who's gonna stop me?

#541. RÜFÜS DU SOL - No Place (#50, 2018)

57th of 2018

When Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was first adapted to film in 1971, it was re-titled as "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". There are numerous reports as to why exactly this was done but the easiest way to see it is that it puts more emphasis on Wonka the character (with the star actor) and also Wonka the brand. Decades later we got a second film based on the book that did get the correct title. Maybe at this point it's just a no-brainer. The novel was less than a decade old when the first film came out, now it's a woven part of culture that most people are familiar with, so the expected title is perfectly fine. It is funny though when you look at the two films side by side and the liberties they take. I find myself thinking of "Willy Wonka..." as the film that focuses more on Charlie (adding an additional scene & subplot that aren't in the book), while "Charlie..." gives Wonka more focus by fleshing out his back story. A very silly reverse mnemonic. I also just want to note that in 2018, the original actor who played Mike in the 1971 film just turned up as a contestant on Jeopardy!. He didn't win and they didn't bring it up, but I love things like that.

In 2014, UK group Clean Bandit released the song "Rather Be", and in 2018, RÜFÜS DU SOL released "No Place". Neither song sounds particularly similar but they both build up to the same title lyric, and I find myself wondering if they've also Wonka'd each other in hindsight. Clean Bandit are very aggressive on additional 'no's, while RÜFÜS DU SOL lift the most emphasis on the word 'rather'. It's not a perfect reversal though, thinking about it this way makes me want to hear a much more elongated 'be' in "No Place" that never really shows up. I'm imagining a song that doesn't exist now.

I have to make my fun in here somewhere. At this point we're up to album #3 for RÜFÜS DU SOL and we're very aware of what we're going to get. Aside from a late charger, this ended up being the trio's last ARIA top 50 entry on debut, suggesting they lost the intrigue factor somewhere around this point. I don't think it's an indictment on the single or album as a whole, and in fact it's been resting pretty consistently as the de facto #1 Australian Dance Album on the charts every week since June 2025, and ahead of the always contesting prior album "Bloom" since December 2024.

To me, "No Place" represents a slight evolution in the group's sound. One that's still clinging to the old style, where you can hear the breezy clicking of their first album. Poking its head out is a bigger stadium sound, one that doesn't feel like a betrayal of their roots, but one that opens up more possibilities that we will hear on later entries. For now on this one, it's rather serviceable, but it's easy to see why as the lead single it fell short in the polling towards the more distinctive singles that followed it.