#510-#506

#510. Holy Holy - Maybe You Know (#61, 2019)

44th of 2019

Maybe you know Holy Holy, from the shores of Havana, to Moscow and Tokyo, in French Guianese, in Cantonese, everyone knows their name. I think I've previously leant too hard into the idea that they're a bit of a bland nothing band. It's not something I can back up since I'd liked some of their stuff previously, and most significantly, their guitarist Oscar Dawson worked with singer/songwriter Samsaruh on so many songs that I adore. Not to mention his actual wife who will eventually appear on this list. It's a pretty good rap sheet I have to say.

For reasons that are uncertain to me, the album this song comes from, "My Own Pool of Light", was the worst selling Holy Holy album on release, until they released their 6th album in 2025 and it failed to chart. From what I can see, it had no physical sales counted despite being released on CD & vinyl at the time, so it was outsold by a re-release of their debut album that week. If you look at the chart week this album came out on, it's easy to think they were just shafted. "My Own Pool of Light" was released on the same week that Tool put out all their music to streaming services and immediately re-entered 3 albums in the top 10. With 3 more new entries also in the top 10, there were probably better weeks for this, but in reality it really did just shift about half as many units as most of their other albums, so it was just a weird blip. It's a blip that feels stranger in hindsight knowing they had just released their biggest ever hit prior to this. Even if this was a generally underwhelming failure, it still could just as easily have been their highest charting album, that's how these things usually work.

They even pulled off the trademark follow up tactic here, where they release a new single that's suspiciously similar to their last big hit. The guitar tone is a little different, and it's two notes instead of three, but you can totally hum that other song over this one. There's advantages to both, really. This is just highly functional Holy Holy that doesn't stand out enough to reach their greatest heights.

#509. Kingswood - Creepin (#48, 2016)

54th of 2016

This song comes from the same album as "Golden" (#695). They don't sound particularly similar to each other but I've chronically had difficulty distinguishing them. I'll try to think of one and land on some odd amalgamation of the two. Listening to them both puts them in their place quite easily, but it does make it feel like a missed opportunity. If I was instead writing about "Golden" right now, maybe I'd be able to say something about how Kingswood are going up, up, up, and how it's their moment. It feels unsustainable, but maybe that song will still be at #1 on the charts by the time I hit publish on this thing (okay well it isn't, but it's still pretty close). Why couldn't "A Minecraft Movie" have a song called "Creepin" or something to that effect?

This is just a situation update months down the track to say that Kingswood still haven't been played on triple j since August 2023. They actually just released a new single this week as I'm writing this. What's interesting here is that for how little you've probably been keeping up with the world of Kingswood this decade, they're still generating about 3,000 plays a day on Spotify for a new song. Monumental leagues away from making the charts (cracking the top 50 in Australia probably takes about 80,000 plays in a day), but it's also not nothing. The limitations in visible data can trick us into an all-or-nothing dichotomy, where the scarcity of whatever our chart threshold of choice is, makes us take anything above it very seriously, while at the same time discarding anything outside of it as irrelevant. In some regards the Hottest 100 is a great way to challenge this mindset. I know I can look at the lists and mentally file entries into chart hits and otherwise (provided my recollection is solid), but in reality, many of those non-entities might just be on the cusp of visibility. Given that the ARIA Charts have just taken on a major upheaval in chart real estate availability, maybe this too will warp our perception into arbitrarily taking note of 'hits' that are only skating through by default. I've witnessed the thresholds waver so much over the last 2 decades and beyond, and while obvious hits will always be hits regardless of the circumstances, the biggest difference is the extent to which fringe popularity can have its moment.

It's an expansion of what you see on various genre charts. Once upon a time it was realistic to see whatever is topping the US Alternative Songs chart to appear on the Billboard Hot 100. It isn't anymore, but they must be somewhere on that cusp, and tighter rules on recurrency would potentially allow it. There is a downside to this system: once you're getting chart positions out of obligation, it loses its prestige. Say we did have enough chart real estate where Kingswood could show up with every single they ever release, would we appreciate the clockwork nature of it, or just be dulled to the regularity? Maybe it's the fact that it's so regularly possible for artists to fall out of the zeitgeist that we're able to appreciate the scarcity of the moment.

After all, here I am looking at a Kingswood entry that's coming at a point where Hottest 100 success may as well be on a platter for them. I know now that they'd only have one more after this, but that's something you can rarely fathom in the moment. It probably contributes to a lot of nostalgia. Even the most mundane events can feel mythical once you're beyond the point of no return for it. It's that old adage where you can fill in any activity you want. At some point in your life, you'll do it for the last time, and there's a good chance you won't realise this is the case. Even if you are aware, it might take some time to fully appreciate what it means. I'm aware of what will be the last time I end up writing about Kingswood here, and maybe I'll look back and appreciate the trip I just had down memory lane. I'll probably forget all those times I grovelled to myself about trying to find an angle to approach it.

If you got through all of that, you'll be delighted to know there's a light at the end of the tunnel where I compliment what the band are doing on "Creepin". It's a more mature look at things from a band who might previously be tempted to go all guns blazing. They're still capable of doing this, but the song is much more reserved. It lets you appreciate the dynamic range. There's more than enough going on overall, and very little chance the song occupies enough of your mental space to commit it all to memory. You're probably going to get some nice surprise from a forgotten passage here as a result.

#508. Tyne-James Organ - Sunday Suit (#94, 2021)

53rd of 2021

A frivolous detail I didn't have a chance to include when talking about "Leeward Side" (#536) is my own mental auto-complete fail. In the second chorus, he adds an additional section that ends on 'So shake off your salvation'. My stubborn mind is always waiting for him to say 'kick off your Sunday shoes'. Inside you there are two Kenny Logginses, that one, and the one that's on the highway to the danger zone. Choose carefully at all times. Tyne-James Organ obviously doesn't say it either, but you can imagine how I got there.

Tyne-James Organ making the Hottest 100 is a bit of a feel good story. He'd been plugging away at a music career for many years at this point, his father passed away in the middle of it, and afterwards he entered that populous region of artists who get regular triple j airplay but never really break out of the bubble. "Sunday Suit" is putting all the chips on the table and succeeding. He's never had another song come close to the Hottest 100 before or since, outside of also sneaking into the Hottest 100 of Like a Version countdown, with his cover of "Naive".

There's a surprisingly frequent phenomenon in the age of streaming where some massively successful Australian artists are showcasing one of their most streamed songs ever, and it's some early single that never got much triple j attention. It results in a weirdly fractured understanding of the artist's most popular songs and must lead to some weird live setlist experiences. My better judgement tells me that Tyne-James Organ is not part of this group; "Sunday Suit" actually is his most streamed song on Spotify. On the other hand, he has one Gold certified single to his name, and it's a niche cut from his first EP, the song "Say No More". Nothing about that makes sense, except that sometimes ARIA have had a habit of doing unusual things with the listings of EPs. Whether it's an inability to decide to use the name of the EP or the most popular song, inconsistent rulings on whether or not the two entities are combined, or what this situation seems to be, the last track on the EP being chosen arbitrarily to represent the whole thing. If you add up all the streams on the EP, you will come up ahead of "Sunday Suit", although it still feels like an underwhelming count to have gotten a certification back in 2022. Maybe "Sunday Suit" is on the cusp of it now.

Here's your cynical throwaway explanation for the success of this song: it just sounds like Gang of Youths. It's a bit more straightforward, less draped in allusions, but the vibe is completely there. He was very well placed with his release date too. The album this came out on was released in May 2021, just a month before Gang of Youths came out of hiding to start their new album campaign. That genuine article did end up placing considerably higher in the countdown, but it's always impressive to get in without quite the same hype train.

#507. Drake - God's Plan (#43, 2018)

55th of 2018

In 2016, Drake achieved the seemingly inevitable, a worldwide #1 smash hit with "One Dance" (#796). I wrote about how that success came about last time. That's all well and good, but it begs the question of what it means for the future. Was the success of "One Dance" a credit to finding the sweet spot, or just a byproduct of the building Drake brand. My hyperbolic take on all of this is that no song has radicalised more people against Drake than "God's Plan". It's by no means his most offensive or lazy song, but it's the most ominous one. This is the song that lived up to that worst-case scenario, where Drake isn't playing to obvious pop appeal but is scoring oppressively gigantic hits in spite of it. This song kicked off what has to be Drake's most successful year, with three huge #1 hits (and no shortage of successful collaborations as well). Maybe you feel differently about those other hits, but it all worked out for "God's Plan" to be the biggest of them all. It was the biggest hit of the year in the US, and not far off that in the UK & Australia too. I just cannot imagine that anyone with trepidation to Drake's world and the prospect of living in it was won over by this particular song.

The future insinuated here never actually did arrive. Every #1 hit Drake has achieved since 2018 has been for a solitary week, generally on release day hype. Some of these could be classed as respectable long term hits, but many of them just aren't. Can you remember a single bar of "Slime You Out"? I can't, and remembering unloved hits is a forte of mine. In Australia, Drake's actually not had a single #1 hit since 2018, even #2 he's only hit once more. There's just a major cultural differential that stops a significant portion of our population from going near his music. Even this Hottest 100 result shows it, Drake scored his first and only top 10 finish but it wasn't with his own song, but a trendier artist he attached himself to.

Drake's 2018 output doesn't seem to be aging particularly well. I think critical assessment can't affect much on the outset, but over time it's something that rots the foundation. It's either external influence or just internal reflection, but if an album isn't seen to be very good, then less people are going to go back to it, hits be damned. Some of Drake's more popular songs nowadays are jumping up the bracket from more humble beginnings, but they're songs on "Take Care" or "Views". Very few people are rushing to the defence of "Scorpion", the album that saw the bloat of "Views" and thought, 'What if it was even longer?'

I'll defend "Scorpion". Not because I think it's an exceptional album, but because it's one of the rare absolutely bloated albums that I've felt I could understand the purpose of. I don't think of it as an album that needs to be heard from top to bottom, but it is one that you can break down to its highlights, whatever they may be for you, and get yourself a pretty succinct experience. I think there's a really solid 40 minute album buried in a 90 minute album, but it's probably not the same for me as it is for anyone else. The whole set up allows you to pick that experience, not have it ordained onto you. I think there are some very good songs that might have never made the streamlined edition. Most overly long albums made me nauseous, but I never felt like this one got its fair due. If "Sandra's Rose" was on "Take Care", I reckon it'd be viewed a lot more highly. I understand that in the age of streaming, these kinds of albums are just a massive cheat code because they can't help but generate bigger numbers. For the purposes of the Billboard 200, listening to a full Morgan Wallen album is counted as if you listened to 3 albums, and if you've ever just mass added an album into your playlist, the bigger ones are going to appear more times. I rarely see anyone strive for the mega-album, but we can't help but tell the record labels through the charts that it's our favourite thing in the world. In my heart, I prefer other Drake projects, but in my own listening stats, "Scorpion" comes out on top.

In all fairness, in the time of Drake being a major chart force around the world, this is probably his best run of hits. I can be partial to the occasional 'sleepy' or 'lazy' Drake hit that comes around nowadays, but he just could not miss at this point. I include "God's Plan" in this assessment, a song that doesn't try to show off, but makes a proficient effort in its surprisingly short run time. It's a song that reminds you Drake can be capable of making memorable bars, even if he has to drop the beat out to make sure we pay attention. It's a song that is just filled to the brim with Drakeisms. You've got a whole lot of boasting but still reflecting on the fact that his crew are a big part of his success, something he's more than willing to pay back and recognise. You've got Drake at his absolute most paranoid, devoting a good chunk of the song to his naysayers. It's all just one of those "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" situations where you can't believe that 'I feel good, sometimes I don't', 'I only love my bed and my mama, I'm sorry' and 'Turn the O2 into the O3' all come from the same song. Oh and there's some music video where he makes a big act out of giving away the video's budget to random people in the community. Always a little skeptical of these things in the wake of similar transactions with Mr. Beast, monetised philanthropy is never quite what it looks like.

#506. George Alice - Circles (#64, 2019)

43rd of 2019

If you're not Australian, I don't think the sheer volume of songs called "Circles" that came around can be comprehended. The obvious ones are Post Malone (#883) and Mac Miller, but at the same time we also had Mallrat, Yours Truly, an unnamed female rapper, Alfie Templeman and also George Alice. That's all within the space of 2 years, so I'm not even counting Birds of Tokyo, Pierce The Veil, EDEN, SAINt JHN, Passenger, Nero, Mariah Carey and honestly I could keep going. I just don't think this bizarre situation ever escaped Australia because a lot of these artists just aren't known enough, but it just kept happening. Australian music just seems to operate on a different wavelength, which might be why it's not the last title double up that we'll see from the 2019 countdown.

For George Alice, we run back to the classic well of triple j Unearthed High. It's been going on for long enough that the most recent winner, DRIZZZ wasn't even born when it started. When the subject comes up, I can't help but wonder what the bigger picture of it is, especially as this is well entrenched in the era of the artist's winning song also becoming their hit, since it's professional enough to pass that test. Some of the earlier winners still sounded a bit rough around the edges even after they had a professional recording session at triple j, but "Circles" sounds like the work of a professional. It's hard to know entirely how it came about, just that established singer/songwriter/producer Vetta Borne has a writing credit on this song. In an interview she gave in 2024, Vetta Borne talks about being put onto George Alice through her manager, wrote the song with her and went through YouTube tutorials afterwards to learn how to produce it after previously suggesting she could, big Michael Imperioli lying about having a driver's licence energy. This is the only song Vetta Borne is involved with that's ever made the Hottest 100, but she's had some tunes over the years for sure.

I don't want to hold any of this against George Alice because picking on teenagers is not a hobby of mine, and from what I've seen in interviews, she's probably had enough doubts cast her way for being a teenage girl in the music industry. The lack of full transparency about connections is probably less about trying to hide everything, and more about what little benefit you get from airing it out to anyone who might take it to an illogical extreme. 'Had a co-writer' turns into 'No talent' so quickly if you need straws to clutch at. I like to believe it's the innate talent that begets the opportunities, not the opportunities covering up deficiencies.

What matters the most is that we got a pretty good song out of it. What I find interesting about young artists is that they bring about a totally fresh perspective on influences. Even the most diehard music fans start knowing nothing. It's interesting to see George Alice talk about coming up with this song and using reference points like King Princess and "Raingurl" by Yaeji. These influences are so new that it promises something not beholden to tradition. It is a song that's pretty much in its own world that doesn't feel like it's chasing any particular trends. I did catch some comments that compared this to Martin Garrix & Dua Lipa's "Scared To Be Lonely". That song's a bit faster (105BPM vs. 128BPM) but there is a little bit to be said when you play the two back to back, where "Circles" starts sounding like an extended riff on the first few lines, with similar inflections and everything. Don't think there's anything in that but it's interesting to me as a rare case where this gets brought up by someone else and have it not feeling superficial. It's all those nice touches around the main melody that serve as the greatest strengths for "Circles" anyway, good ideas all around. Big fan of her follow up single "Stuck in a Bubble" too, cute pop tune.