#560-#556

 #560. The Avener - Fade Out Lines (#81, 2014)

61st of 2014

In April 2013 I decided on a whim to listen to the BBC Radio 1 UK Chart Show. For years prior to this I had a vague eye on the UK Charts but left much of it as an unknown blur to my Australian ears. The UK Charts were always speedier than the Australian ones which left a lot of room for songs and sounds that didn't have room in Australia, and until this point I never ventured to explore it. This ended up being a pretty notable time in the charts. Margaret Thatcher had just died and nearly had the cast of The Wizard of Oz dancing on her grave ("Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" made it to #2). There was a #1 debut by a Rudimental song I'll eventually cover here, and a #2 debut for a Daft Punk song I will also write about but technically already have. Exiting the top spot that week was Duke Dumont's "Need U (100%)", a song I'll not be reporting on here as it landed at #156, but one with a mighty distinction as I believe it might just be the first ever deep house song to go to #1 in the UK.

Deep house was not a remotely new genre at this point. One of the first deep house records of note is Mr. Fingers' "Can You Feel It" which got to #78 in the UK in 1988. Some bigger hits would come in the early '90s, like the very cheekily titled Madonna song "Deeper and Deeper" (10/10 banger), as well as that one Crystal Waters song with a slur for Romani people in the title. House music got either louder or more intense in the years that followed so there wasn't as much to see with deep house for a while, until this Duke Dumont song signalled a slowly drifting wave for the next year or so.

This is the sound I most associate with my initial time listening to the UK top 40 because it felt like one of the biggest differences between the UK & Australian charts at the time. These songs would struggle to sneak into the top 50 here after easily debuting at #1 in the UK with close to 100,000 units sold (admittedly helped a lot by the pre-ordering strategy). It really was the new hotness and once that was established, it popped up constantly in 2014. Soon after, streaming took a stronger hold and found itself heavily favouring tropical house instead, so that ended up usurping deep house, which seemed to fade away as quickly as it came. For that brief time though, it was everywhere.

triple j did not seem to be especially interested. There were some exceptions, Duke Dumont & ZHU being key examples, but for the most part, this sub-genre generated hits from unknown artists that triple j had no loyalty to and weren't willing to hitch up a wagon. The Avener managed to get away with it though, with one of the most stripped back and proto-typical examples of it. To make things stranger, while the song was a pretty big hit in mainland Europe, the UK just didn't take to it. This is possibly due to them delaying the release for months and pushing it with a radio edit that intrudes the original production. It bombed out at #60 there while managing a lucky #8 peak in Australia, one of the most short-lived songs of its time to climb into the top 10 in the middle of its chart run.

Maybe the special thing it has going for it is that underneath all of this, it's secretly an Australian song. Not because of The Avener, he's French, but because this is actually a remake of "The Fade Out Line", a song by Australian band Phoebe Killdeer and the Short Straws. You can see it written on the single cover if you look closely enough. It wasn't the last time something like this happened, as a few years later we'd also get French DJ Kungs taking obscure Australian funk band Cookin' On 3 Burners to #1 in half a dozen countries. Sadly triple j didn't jump onto that one.

You might not associate deep house with high tempos, but the original version of "The Fade Out Line" is slower in tempo than what we ended up with here. When I tested it myself, I got 105 BPM for the original, and 119 BPM for The Avener. This also serves as a reminder to never trust Google's AI overview because while they were correct with 119, they gave me 110 for the original. Anyway, that's about a 13% speed up, so Phoebe's voice doesn't jump into nightcore territory and you might not even realise on first listen that it's been tinkered with. Otherwise most of what The Avener has done is chuck in a pleasant house beat, which does the trick and makes this into a pretty groovy track.

We're clearly in soft spot territory because this is another one of those for me. I don't know if there's anything in particular that stands out about this other than Phoebe's still pretty deep voice. It's just one of the most pleasant deep house tracks that got in while the going was good. The Avener must have had an excellent promotional team too because he even managed to chart his album in the top 20 here. A week later it dropped down to #35 which still put it ahead of the newly debuting album from arguably the biggest hitmaker of the scene in Robin Schulz. Australia and France just seem to get along like that, how else to we explain the top two Furi speedrunners both being Australian?

#559. Hope D - Second (#69, 2020)

49th of 2020

For me the heart of the Hottest 100 is the healthy inclusion of songs that could not otherwise find their way into any other top 100 list of the sort. Not popular enough to crack the charts, and the wrong kind of underground to be critical darlings (this also usually refers to just Australian artists but not always). The unhealthiest problem I have with the countdown is my compulsive mental trap of categorising everything that goes through. Some kind of major label promotion or just the right gimmick. You want it to just be that people heard a song they liked and voted for it. Realistically that is what it is for the most part, but if that slight edge is there, it's always going to win out. So it's nice when we do still get something that doesn't fit in anywhere, as far as I can tell, "Second" really just is a song that people heard, liked, and voted for.

The other great mystery about "Second" is what the title means. You might immediately declare that it's clearly a time-based second, as she mentions 'A second of reality' in the chorus. I would then point out that it's also her second ever single, following the Portishead naming philosophy. Whatever the case, it worked. Even when I didn't listen to triple j quite as much as I used to in 2020, "Second" was a song that immediately grabbed hold of me with its in-your-face attitude. I don't know if I actually liked it then, but I certainly remembered it. It's a raucous Australian take on what girl in red had been doing (especially the bridge). One of those melodies that feels off the rails but doesn't stray from the earworm as a priority.

I must admit that I was probably a bit done with the song by the end of the year. I remember not being enthusiastic at all about it making the countdown. That's not me being hypocritical, that's just the nature of the broadcast making you come to terms with so many things in a short period of time, especially if I was already planning on doing this blog by that point. As a song it probably does run a little too long, but I still give it a lot of points for character. The echo effect on the title drop is incredibly effective. I haven't been across much of what she's done since this. In the same year she put out another single, "Miscommunicate", which I liked quite a bit, but it also fell afoul of my complicated iTunes shuffle playlist which means I was only just listening to it now for the first time in many years, scarcely familiar anymore. It's a little less over-the-top than "Second" but it's a good counterpart I think. The trouble of miscommunication is something I constantly think about on a daily basis.

#558. Beddy Rays - Handful (#83, 2022)

52nd of 2022

Some people get particularly mad about artist and band names that are effectively puns and wordplay. Joanna Gruesome, Ritt Momney, Chet Faker, Wayne Longer, all that jazz. It never bothered me much until I was typing up new releases just the other day and had to put in the name Wevie Stonder. To their credit, they've been doing it for a long time at this point, but on the other hand, it was the tipping point for me, I just can't handle it.

Beddy Rays are another spoonerism, but this one doesn't bother me as much. It's a reference to their hometown of Redland Bay in Queensland, and its more Australian nickname of Reddy Bay. Maybe the trick here is that I'm more familiar with the band and so the town is the one that looks weird to me. Beddy Rays just sounds like a goofy animal mascot and it's kind of fun. Need to start telling people that Steve Irwin got killed by a Beddy Ray. It's just plausible enough to be valid misinformation, and to be honest, I think the rest of the world is starting to wise up on the drop bears, we need to get a new one.

I've always preferred seeing things work out in their natural order rather than feel like it's the work of a dedicated few dictating the rest. Voting campaigns aim to disrupt, but often will spoil the excitement of an unexpected result. This is the part where I say straight out that I am disappointed to be talking about "Handful" and not their other single "Milk" which landed at #107 the same year. I don't remember exactly what it was like at the time, but as it stands now, the two are pretty close in lifetime Spotify streams. The big difference between them is that "Handful" is the one that Beddy Rays promoted to get votes. If they swapped or even just shared the load, there's no telling how things would have stacked up, but I can't imagine they would have expected the two to land so closely together as it was. It's like when an artist has two popular singles at the same time, but one is getting playlist promotion and the other isn't. As a chart watcher I feel like I'm watching a historical lie being printed in front of me.

If I want to play it fairly though, I suppose I can give "Handful" some credit for sounding like a different pace of Beddy Rays than we'd been experiencing up to this point (they will have another entry here that pre-dates this one, if I've made it sound otherwise). Not quite the same party, but a more rigid affair. Tinker with it a little more and I'm sure Pacific Avenue could've made this song. Second gear Beddy Rays is still pretty fun, but let's just say it wasn't the first time I was let down by their polling result.

#557. CamelPhat & Elderbrook - Cola (#42, 2017)

52nd of 2017

Whenever questionable song lyrics become a topic of discussion, depending on the song under scrutiny, you'll usually get one of two defensive camps. The first is the people who will tell you that it's not a big deal, there are worse songs out there, and the other is the idea that it's a misinterpretation and it doesn't really mean what you think it does because why would anyone write that? I think they both have the potential to be revealing because you can flip the chessboard around with the proposed interpretation. You start to think that if it isn't the clearly horrible thing, why were they writing the mundane alternative lyrics in the first place?

The cynical thing to say about this all is that by writing a lyric like this, you have the potential to ride controversy while being shielded with plausible deniability. You'll generate discussion for years as defenders and detractors alike will constantly shout back and forth at each other about whether or not your lyrics are repugnant. Personally I'm a little willing to forgive people for chasing the bread under capitalism, but it can make me side-eye someone as a musician and a songwriter. Unless your whole act is shock, do you even want to be writing songs at this point? Are these songs about how a drunk woman doesn't know what she's drinking really what you want to show the world? That just drains any interest I have in your story.

In 2013, US rapper Rocko had his biggest hit with the song "U.O.E.N.O.". I wasn't across the discourse at the time so I'm not sure how much it fuelled the song, but it's quickly become known as the song where Rick Ross heavily implies drugging a girl and I don't even want to say the rest. All I can say is that even Dennis from Always Sunny is more subtle about the implication (and he's supposed to be a villain). Might be one of the worst things ever put on a hit record.

The song "Cola" is at least marginally better, in that it never gets past the first step. My 'Why would anyone write something so horrible?' alarm is trying its best to save some credit to Elderbrook here, except when there's already a hit song in this line of thinking, it's getting blocked out a little. I just keep focusing on small lyrics of this song, like vision blurring, or the framing that she's looking for trouble, and it's all leading up to that one debated lyric: 'She sips the Coca-Cola, she can't tell the difference yet'. They've said in an interview that it's about not being able to realise that she's actually drinking Pepsi, but it feels so flat. 'Why would anyone write something so mundane?' is making the case here.

It's ultimately a massively conflicting thing for me because there is no definitive answer, and differing interpretations are allowed to exist. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because when I stop listening to that part of my brain, the track itself is an almighty tune. It just has this extra layer of intensity you don't usually get from crossover dance hits. Or rather as I'm sure they'd prefer I'd pay attention that way, it's a dance record first of all, and not just a pop hit where the producer's name gets put first. Really love that wobbling synth they bring in a couple of times. You might not even notice they've been pounding you with the same beat for several minutes because of how well all the other parts blend together. I'd love to get more hits like this that don't have the baggage of the subject matter. At least CamelPhat's other hit "Breathe" can stand on its own, but this didn't make me ever want to hear from Elderbrook again.

#556. Alex Lahey - Welcome to the Black Parade - Like A Version (#83, 2019)

51st of 2019

"Welcome to the Black Parade" is an important song for me. You'll hear that from a lot of people, and they might even like it more than I do, but I don't know how many of them can quantify it so specifically to their journey through music and life in general. There's a version of history where I don't hear this song on October 14th, 2006 for the first time and I find it hard to believe that you'd be reading this right now. If you're in any way acquainted with me, you probably wouldn't have been. I genuinely have no idea what I'd be doing with my life if I didn't re-ignite the fire of being obsessed with music.

I've told the story many times, but it's basically a series of chance coincidences that ends up with me seeing the second half of jtv Saturday and getting exposed to music I wasn't familiar with at all, and finding no reason to be jaded about it like I so often was with popular music at the time. "Welcome to the Black Parade" is a big part of it. I hadn't heard anything like it. It was a journey through all these different parts that made you both admire the sheer gusto of it, but feel spoiled for choice in picking your favourites. I would also experience this later with "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Wonderwall" (yes, really), but if you can believe me, I really didn't know those songs at the time. There were other songs and videos that connected with me, but few had me rooting for them quite like this one.

You might be thinking that it's a little irrelevant because even if I hadn't heard the song then, I certainly was going to. The song was undeniably a hit and would get plenty of airplay over the next year, along with the other big singles from "The Black Parade", but I suspect my cynicism would've kicked in for that context and I wouldn't give it a fair shot. It could have been a guilty pleasure, but one I'd never acknowledge to anyone or act upon. The seed wouldn't be planted. In those next few years, music would be my refuge, as I struggled to work myself out in my teens with changing circumstances, severed personal connections and flailing grades. I've often found in life that one of the best ways to keep my spirits up and engaged is to constantly find new interests, but it's a lot easier to do that now than back in 2006. People romanticise the idea of making good with what you've got, sometimes I even do it, but I'll never discredit the fact that I spent so many weekends & summers bored out of my mind because my only options were to re-do things at home I'd already done.

There are times when I find myself not wanting too much success to come out of something I like in case it starts to ruin it, but when it comes to "Welcome to the Black Parade" and My Chemical Romance in general, they can have the world as far as I'm concerned. Even if the circumstances are almost never going to be exact, it's become a source of validation that so many other people have this enduring adoration for this specific point in time. The idea that this song (or "I'm Not Okay", or "Famous Last Words", or "Helena", or "The Ghost of You", anything really, I'm not picky) means the world to not just me, but millions of others. It gives me a feeling of belonging that I've always craved above all else and so rarely don't find myself picking at the cracks. In short, I love that Alex Lahey, someone basically the same age as me, covered this song for Like a Version. She's a real one.

There's a lot I could say about this song, but probably less to be said about the cover. It is an extremely faithful song in a structural sense. If you're like me and feel like the extended marching drum outro is essential to the song, then you'll be partly in luck but you won't like the lack of a thud at the end, nor the intro to "I Don't Love You" that usually follows it when Track 6 starts. You also get a bit of shared backing vocal duty that ramps up on the bridge when Alex isn't doing any of the vocals, but instead it's the keyboard player & G Flip trading parts. Shout out to G Flip though, doing exactly what anyone tasked with holding two giant cymbals would want to do in the situation.

This is firmly in the era where Like a Versions started sounding more professional and it's very welcome. It's still tasked with asking me to listen to it in place of a perfectly good version of the song that's existed for over a decade before it, but I'm not going to get mad if that is the case. I mostly am just glad to see some remnants of my own musical journey continue to carry on.