#495-#491

#495. San Cisco - Reasons (#31, 2020)

42nd of 2020

In the 2010 Hottest 100, Little Red finished at #2 with their song "Rock It". During the interview with the band, Alex Dyson brings up a YouTube comment that suggests the song could've been a hit in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or the 1990s. I like to think about comments like this because they can lend some weight to explaining the often intangible experience of seeing which hit songs go to that next level when I don't already have strong feelings myself. I can definitely see the logic with Little Red. There's a simplicity to it that doesn't age it, while that one piano riff goes some way to recalling evergreen hits like "December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" and "Dancing Queen".

I tried as hard as I could to find that YouTube comment, going so far as to read every single comment left on the original video, but I couldn't find it. If that sounds like an inane activity, then you're probably right, but I think there's some value with what you can learn from it. Just listening to the music of a bygone era won't teach you much because you'll find difficulty in building up the contextual clues of it, you'll just trap yourself in the present day. Unfiltered comments are unrivalled. All the cultural references are just a little different, and there's generally a lot of misplaced anger, with a strange feeling that people look like they've been prompted to say something even if they don't know what it is. I don't usually like saying 'AI could never replicate this', but it's true. I wouldn't say it's any smarter or stupider than things nowadays, just blunter.

Superficially, "Reasons" reminds me a little of "Rock It". It's a little shinier, more twee, but they occupy a similar space. So if you're one of those people in the comment section that said they don't make music like this anymore, I beg to differ. The other superficial similarities I found watching the videos is that they both start with a long cut with multiple subjects of focus, long enough that you might think it might be the video's whole gimmick, but then they jump cut at around the same point and just play things normally after that (it's 38 seconds for Little Red, 36 seconds for San Cisco). Also the drumming is out of sync with the video's audio and it's distracting.

When I was looking through the comment section for "Reasons", I saw a comment that complimented the band's recent singles, saying that they'd been invoking the '60s & the '70s, but that this song sounds like the '80s. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the band could have been successful in any decade but I appreciate the enthusiasm. Both songs' videos also had accusations of ripping off different Passion Pit songs, some things never change.

San Cisco has changed just a little bit. I wouldn't say I can't hear the band who made "Golden Revolver" back in 2011 here, but there's a sheen that a decade's experience will provide. Maybe they'd look back at that song's last minute of 'woah's and probably have a better idea for how to finish the song nowadays. I should also note that this is one of the first singles the band released after the departure of their original bass player Nick Gardner. I've not seen an explanation given for this but he is the same San Cisco member who accidentally shot himself in the foot a few years prior and missed an entire touring cycle. You're not American, you know Example, right? I can round this out with some dubstep keyboard mashes and you'll be like 'aha, clever reference'. Otherwise, this song has the most "Let It Go"'s I've heard since Essendon came up to the Gabba in 2023 to meet their old friend.

#494. Gang of Youths - the man himself (#57, 2021)

52nd of 2021

A decade ago I made a false prediction. Arguably it wasn't really a prediction and I was just making a throwaway joke reference. I was talking about the song "Touched" by VAST and suggested that I'll never find a song quite like it again. "Touched" is a pummelling rock song that's built around a sample of "Pilentze Pee" from the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, a very popular sample that's been used many times since. There'll actually be a similar sample utilised later on in this list. "the man himself" is not that song, as I believe they acquired their own choir for this one (indigenous singers from the island of Mangaia), but I won't pretend I don't hear a lot of "Touched" in this song. Even the respective singers have a little bit of resemblance to them.

Much like "in the wake of your leave" (#517), this song is about Dave's father passing away, only it's more about the immediate rush of feelings and emotions that come along with receiving the news. It comes along with some advice for those who are fortunate enough to not yet go through this process. I'm obviously not coming in here to rain on that parade. I'd rather pass it on. Make time with those close to you while you still can.

Otherwise I think I'm just inclined to re-iterate what I said before, where the only thing holding me back was the fact that I just wasn't looking for more of this at the time. A band like this can just be overwhelming at times when they take everything to its limit. I can appreciate the power of it, but it is another song that I don't think I've ever gone out of my way to listen to by choice.

#493. The Avalanches (feat Camp Lo) - Because I'm Me (#75, 2016)

53rd of 2016

On the day I was getting ready to write this entry, I heard it on a TV commercial. Or actually, maybe I didn't. I haven't yet seen it again but this particular use landed in a vague spot where I couldn't be certain I was hearing this song, or instead the song it samples, "Want Ads" by Honey Cone. The jokes write themselves but it is a genuinely very well-known song that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 1971. Belatedly I can confirm it was "Because I'm Me", but I only ever saw that commercial once more, odd to think about.

Last year when talking about "Blue (Flume Remix)" (#952), I mentioned how the older you get, the more recognisable and unadventurous these kinds of samples in music get. I think a better way to look at it is to say that it's more likely you've already come across them at some point, but when it comes to The Avalanches, it feels like a different story altogether. This is a group who made themselves through compiling all sorts of niche & nonsensical samples into strangely appealing tunes. Maybe I'm wrong and there's no shortage of people who listen to Wayne & Shuster radio comedy shows, or a niche John Waters film, which are collectively where much of their most famous song comes from (I can say "Frontier Psychiatrist", don't worry). When the second album came around, I felt they were flexing their resources a little more, both with their guest list, and the samples. A lot of strange things to say about how we ended up here, but a song with Biz Markie goofing around alongside a sample of "Come Together" by The Beatles was not on my bucket list.

With that in mind though, maybe Camp Lo isn't too crazy of a pull. They're a duo who you'd be forgiven for not realising were still releasing music, as they dropped off the map considerably quickly after the success of their first album in 1997. Yes, this is the very predictable part when I bring up the song "Luchini AKA This Is It", largely because it's an absolute classic. It's a song that does unexplainable things with the audio mixing that I don't think could be re-created. It captures that back & forth MC dynamic like they're pros at the game, and most importantly, this is it (what?!).

I wasn't quite as familiar with Camp Lo when the song came out however, so the main point of interest for me was the sample. I also didn't know that song, but I was very familiar with "Sunshine" by Australian Idol under-performer turned pop star turned media star Ricki-Lee. That song uses the exact same sample and she beat The Avalanches to it by a decade. Maybe they were willing to bet on the realistic expectation that most Australian pop tunes that don't reach enduring ubiquity like an "In The Summertime" or "UFO" are very quickly forgotten about by most, but I'm rarely going to forget something if I've heard it that many times and have it thrust back in front of me. Listening to them back to back, I can't deny that The Avalanches have polished it up a tad better, and maybe that's just part of the process when your release patterns will make Tool or Team Cherry blush.

There's also another prominent sample that you might have noticed. A lot of the vocals that aren't from Camp Lo, are from "Why Can't I Get It Too", a 1959 recording by Six Boys In Trouble, a bunch of pre-teen kids from New York. It might sound a little jarring, but it's crate-digging at its finest. A very significant but overlooked record that they put a spotlight on, and also play around with the original text, re-arranging it and providing (through a chopped up sample) the song's title. It's much like the Chicago song "Street Player" whose 'street sounds' became 'these sounds' when sampled by The Bucketheads, and then 'deep down' once Alok got a hold of that. We love a good game of telephone. The Avalanches aren't new to this either, as the original sample from "Since I Left You" is actually saying 'since I met you'.

It was a long road to getting around my initial reservations. When the Hottest 100 becomes part of the equation, there can be heightened frustration if you're aware you're going to get a haul from a notable artist, and whether or not the selection is to your liking. I could understand why "Because I'm Me" got the guernsey, but I felt like "If I Was a Folkstar" or "The Wozard of Iz" were better choices. I think the song's quite fun nowadays. It feels relentlessly out of touch with the era, which isn't surprising given the names we're working with here, but sometimes if you do a good enough job, you can get around that, selling the idea of The Avalanches to a whole new generation of listeners.

#492. San Cisco - When I Dream (#48, 2018)

52nd of 2018

Previously, as recently as in this very post, I said that "Reasons" (I'm not going to link it, just scroll up) was one of the first singles the band released after Nick left the band. I had to use a vague bit of weaselling here because the timeline is pretty vague, and music recording dates are hard to pin down unless you're an avid watcher in the moment. San Cisco announced Nick's departure at the start of 2018, but released this song that same year. I can't say for sure if he's on this song because identifying bass parts isn't a strong suit of mine, but I suppose it seems likely. This already sounds a bit different from what we're used to. He doesn't have a writing credit though.

This is also the song with the line 'I've lost a few good friends lately, and I think it's my fault, not theirs', so maybe there's something to be gleamed from this. Actually the whole song is a strangely cathartic exploration of self-reflection. Lo and behold, San Cisco have written their own "Runaway", just without all the grandiosities. It's a funny song to read the lyrics for, as it highlights the generally strange cadence of it all. Like, I've never felt more confident that the lyrics were written around the melody.

Otherwise yeah, pretty likeable tune. It does have me wondering about the exaggerated way I sometimes see people react to music like this, songs that don't necessarily invite much discourse and just thrive on their understood demographic. I'd like to think no one's out there hating on something just for this, but I guess I can understand the rationale. That's the situation when I make a list before I realise just how much I would end up writing, we're just gonna keep getting these middle of the pack entries where my recommendation is willing, but it otherwise just doesn't write itself.

#491. The Jungle Giants - Heavy Hearted (#8, 2019)

42nd of 2019

This feels like a big graduation. It's not actually a massive step up for the band in terms of finishing position (they only landed 9 places lower in 2017 with a lot of vote splitting), but it felt like they'd finally earned the trust of their listeners. This is fundamentally a very strange song that was thoroughly embraced all the same. I find it hard to imagine they could release it in 2015 to the same fanfare, it's just too far out there. With the big success of their 3rd album, they were granted the liberty to do what we all want to do: make a dance-pop song whose big hook is a high pitched drone.

That's not the entire story here. I alluded to this before but this is a particularly different brand of The Jungle Giants, mainly because it isn't really The Jungle Giants. Pretty much the entire song was made by Sam in his home studio, another one of those things that sounds like COVID in action but the dates won't make it be so. COVID-19 is probably responsible for delaying the album to 2021 though, as this single was released in mid-2019 with a 2020 album release slated at the time. It's interesting to see live performances of the song, where Cesira in particular doesn't have much to do. I wonder if they ever toyed around with playing a different version of the song live and just decided not to mess around with it at all. The live drums do give it a little more punch at least.

"Heavy Hearted" was another song that had me re-calibrating my expectations from chart performance, or rather just how little space is allowed for triple j bands to cross over. Another way to look at it is that when you see an artist like this manage to scrape into detection ("Heavy Hearted" spent 2 weeks at the bottom of the Spotify top 200 on release), then the Hottest 100 conversion rate is likely very good. It's only gotten harder since then, so the only logical conclusion is that you should bet your house on Keli Holiday this year.

I'm struggling to recall my initial feelings towards this song. I don't think I went out of my way to listen to it at the time but think I was weirdly pleased to see it poll this well. Suppose I just like seeing weird things being well received, not that the 2020 countdown was short of this. Sometimes you just have to trust the process. I don't know how Sam ended up thinking that weird sound should be an integral part of the chorus, but I just can't imagine the song without it. Also just worth it to see the crowd rendition at Splendour In The Grass 2022 when there's an initial fake out. Oh baby you're so [indecipherable].

#500-#496

#500. Drake (feat Lil Durk) - Laugh Now Cry Later (#86, 2020)

43rd of 2020

When I make music lists of this kind, I have a habit of going in with a vague feeling about how something might be placed, something that's trained on me through decades of doing it. Something that constantly happens as a result of this is that it just takes a few extra contenders to throw everything out of order. The existence of a high placer that might otherwise go overlooked means pushing everything else down a spot. I'm used to this, but I find without fail, every time I get to a major milestone, suddenly there's just not enough space. I'm looking for a loophole that can get around it, but it immediately gets a lot harder to pick a loser, because you're picking the biggest loser, and you've gotta lift if you want to make that emotional decision.

When I was making this particular list, I had that 'Get out of jail free' card all along, because I agonised on it and then put "Laugh Now Cry Later" in the 501st slot. It was just short of the top half of the list, the absolute indignity. Then I realised I was just counting it incorrectly and had to pull everything up a spot, and suddenly the song I had sent to the dregs was now living amongst kings. If Drake was watching me while I did this, he'd have the opportunity to cry now, and then laugh later. I say all of this knowing that for many, it would've been a no brainer since it's Drake, but I always find that kind of discourse tiresome. Not liking Drake & making fun of those who do is easy social capital, but I find it more interesting to look at it all on individual merits. I think talking to anyone who makes those kinds of blanket statements without nuance is a fruitless affair. For me, there's a giddy thrill when it comes to talking about the Drake songs that are probably most likely to get filtered out into the wash. Someone's gotta do it.

Back in 2019, I flew over to America because I'd spent the previous 2 years getting very good at speedrunning a video game, and I was accepted into Summer Games Done Quick. Very wholesome affair and it rose over 3 million dollars for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). I spent a whole week getting confused by those little differences in America and also being inundated with American accents in a way that I never thought could disorient me. It turns out that my own accent is jarring enough that everything takes a second attempt to say out loud in conversation as they recalibrate.

I don't remember many conversations I had when I was there. Mostly it was a lot of small talk. Meeting people on the shuttle bus from the airport and then being surprised to bump into them on the elevator a few days later. Talking to one of the only people who were there to play a game more obscure than mine who was getting excited about doing their run, and throwing the whole thing into disarray when I found a miscommunication on the email that got sent out to runners which had me worried one of my commentators wasn't going to make it. It was a very strange coincidence when I met someone at the airport not knowing they were working at the event and that they were the person who applied my make-up before I went on stage, small world.

The most mundane thing I remember is what's almost relevant here. After the event was over, I spent an extra day there which was probably the wrong decision, but it did result in me getting time to go to the Mall of America, and being bewildered in new ways. At some point in time, I was sitting around, waiting at a shoe store and I overheard two employees talking, where the conversation topic was 'Have you heard the new Drake song?' It got me thinking about the difference between Australia and America. Drake being a bit more popular in America and so it's more natural to see this kind of conversation I've never encountered before or since in Australia, which I just thought was weirdly fascinating. Again, it's all those little things that you don't think about that make our countries different.

Anyway that particular Drake song was "Money In The Grave", the song he released in celebration of the fact that the Toronto Raptors had just won the NBA Playoffs. I'll always struggle to associate years to champions in US sports, but all these connections have made it impossible for me to forget the Raptors' 2019 win. The Chicago Cubs winning in MLB in 2016, a year after "Back To The Future Part 2" predicted they would, is another memorable one. I've seen Americans talk about 2016 as a crazy year in sports for this kind of out of nowhere success stories, and I so badly want to tell them about the Western Bulldogs who fit in perfectly with it. Anyway I'm amusing myself greatly because I've been planning for over a year to bring up that same movie for a different Drake entry, and I still plan on doing that.

I will readily mix up "Money In The Grave" with "Laugh Now Cry Later". That's more understandable I think because they occupy a similar space as pretty big Drake hits that didn't go to #1. Mainly though, if you listen to both of these songs, you tell me which one of these feels more like an NBA victory lap. "Money In The Grave" feels like Drake just had this song lying around and was looking for an excuse to put it out. "Laugh Now Cry Later" feels like a celebration, and he & Lil Durk are even holding basketballs on the single cover.

I've had a habit of calling Lil Durk my son as a joke, but he's actually older than me. He belongs to that odd subset of modern rappers who took their sweet time getting their big break. The more interesting subset to me though is that he's big enough to dominate the American charts, but not really do the same here. Australia really doesn't seem to be interested unless you can get Drake, Kanye West, J. Cole or Kendrick Lamar involved. That small group accounts for all but one of Lil Durk's top 50 hits in Australia. It's still a better innings than Rod Wave who has never charted in Australia, but I feel it shows that lack of any interest to make these artists into household names over here. We'll stay at an entry level interest unless there's a goofy viral hit.

Lil Durk is a good fit for this song. He's only there briefly but stops the song from just being 4 straight minutes of Drake in his two elements of rapping and also 'baby'. I don't know who's parasocially listening to Drake at any stage, but he's here for you when he says 'baby'. Lucky for me, the horns sound triumphant enough that I can ignore it. By landing at #500 with this, Drake is the spitting image of that podium celebration meme.

#499. The Chats - 6L GTR (#53, 2022)

50th of 2022

A few years ago in preparation for this polling in the Hottest 100, I took it upon myself to figure out what a 6L GTR is, and concluded that it doesn't actually exist. The GTR is an upgraded version of a Holden Torana with an engine that's much smaller than needed. Going back to it, I'm led to believe that it is actually possible to swap it for a bigger engine that would get to 6 litres, but I'm not sure what the rules are. Is the Holden of Theseus still a GTR? Do I even know enough about cars to not be just posting gibberish?

What this odd tangent makes me think about is the strength of fantasy in hypotheticals. Once you anchor something down in reality, you're stuck dwelling on shortcomings. The Flash can be as fast as is deemed necessary, but if your chosen star is a real human, they're just not going to be able to run 100 metres in less than 9.5 seconds. These human limitations can be potentially bested, but then it's back to the world of fantasy until it happens. I find myself thinking about these sorts of things as a way of encouragement if I'm ever in a competition, nobody's perfect, everyone is beatable. I just can't decide if for the purposes of this semi-novelty song whether it works out better if the 6L GTR is a real, tangible car or not. I suppose contextually the song admits to not seeking out the highest standards, but maybe the sheer novelty of searching for something both imaginary and utterly mundane is the beauty of it. It's funnier to me, but I can see the argument on both sides.

Where the song does succeed is in the presentation. Compared to their earlier releases, this feels like a different band, one that's seen the heights that their persona can take them, and has decided to lock in. Right from the get-go, it's just a very pleasing guitar tone that gets us from point A to point B. Maybe it works as a driving song, but as a non-driver I'll never know. And on that bombshell, it's time to end the blurb.

#498. A$AP Rocky - Sundress (#91, 2018)

53rd of 2018

When an artist has a particularly big hit, you can see all the interest and conversation circle around that one. It's not always clear how much of that attention is about the artist in particular, or if it's just a one-off fling that everyone's going to move on from. It can be nice to have that additional hit that comes through successfully enough to lend that extra credibility. For the 2018 countdown, I was expecting a big hit for A$AP Rocky, and that's what I saw, but I didn't see this one coming, an extra non-album single that snuck through under my radar.

At the time, "Sundress" felt like a bit of a hanger-on. Time has done quite a lot to change things. I've gotten used to older songs being arbitrarily plucked from pseudo-obscurity to the big time, and it became a point of amusement while making this list knowing the inevitable likelihood that one of the songs I was ranking would end up in a run of virality by the time I got through things. This somewhat happened with Bakar's "Hell N Back" (#772), but much better timed was the second ascent of "Sundress", a song that was oddly popular in Latvia for years before everyone else got the memo. It's now one of A$AP Rocky's most popular songs, and is closing in on a billion streams on Spotify.

There's a slight novelty factor to this song in that it's built around a sample of Tame Impala's "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?". We're sitting in a peculiar timeline for this where the success of 2015's "Currents" has increased the Tame Impala profile immensely, but we're not quite at the point where a string of virality not far away sets a new standard for what the really popular Tame Impala songs are. Much like with Rihanna covering "New Person, Same Old Mistakes" in 2016, you can imagine more obvious songs being chosen years after. The bold arrow of time blunts everything. If nothing else, A$AP Rocky can claim credibility by getting in early. I mentioned regarding "Love$ick" (#592) that he was talking about Tame Impala with Mura Masa at the time, so maybe that sewed the seed that led to this.

What we've got is a curious result. The sample completely overpowers everything and I've scarcely ever been able to remember a single thing Rocky says here. Everything about it strikes as a mixtape cut or loosey, especially the short run-time. When it lands somewhat contemporaneously with the still going Tame Impala career, it can serve as a fascinating reminder of how much things have changed in that camp, and just having me conclude that "InnerSpeaker" was a pretty special de-butt album. It's thanks to this that we get a little bit of every Tame Impala album (except the new one, obviously) on this list.

#497. The Amity Affliction - Show Me Your God (#89, 2022)

49th of 2022

As every year goes along, I find myself thinking about the next Hottest 100. The rigid rules of release date eligibility create a temptation to do an early stocktake. If it's the start of June, then you're halfway through the eligibility period and theoretically, about half of the year's entrants have already been released. As you're reading this, it's likely that nearly every entry for 2025's list has come out. These things don't work out perfectly though. There's definitely a priority towards the mid to late section of the year, and it's always possible that a hit has already come out and just hasn't been found yet. The only thing you can be sure of is that on December 1st, they're all out there (well, usually...), and it's time to start thinking about what will make the next year's list because they're potentially starting to pop up.

"Show Me Your God" has some notoriety here because I believe it is the newest song that will appear on this list. It was released on November 30th, 2022, meaning that The Amity Affliction waited until the very last day to hand in their assignment, and made certain they'd continue doing what they do best: sneaking onto the bottom half of the list with a song that's completely divorced from any of the surrounding trends on the list. At the same time though, I don't think they would continue to land on these lists for a solid decade if they were just coasting by for the whole time. You've got to serve up something with an extra spark, and I think this is just that.

Depending on who you ask, the phrase 'pop music' can mean either a particular genre of music, or otherwise it applies to any kind of modern music of the rock & roll era. It's something that usually sits a bit strangely for me, maybe because my desire to use more specific sub-genres comes into the fold, but also because that juxtaposition is significant. Calling The Amity Affliction pop music feels like completely missing the point and yet it's something I see surprisingly often.

Sometimes though, I find it interesting to engage with the mindset. The other day I saw Black Sabbath described as pop music and in the space of a few seconds I went from my initial knee-jerk reaction that describing the godfathers of heavy metal as pop being jarring, to having a realisation that I'd been hearing their music since I was quite young and never really been repulsed. One of the truly fascinating things about pop music in general is that it can draw in so many disparate sounds that under the right circumstances can fit into a general audience. Sometimes they get so normalised that you don't even question just how long AC/DC's bagpipe solo goes for, or why The Veronicas were rocking harder than most of the actual rock bands they were sharing chart space with in 2005.

I find myself approaching The Amity Affliction with this mindset and the results are interesting. While they're never finding themselves on the top 40 airwaves (and even triple j sometimes is a bit of a tough sell), they do have the makings of fine pop songwriters. That's where I think "Show Me Your God" (and perhaps some others I may talk about in the future) excels. This is a song that takes the confronting soundscape of metalcore, and a particularly sensitive topic around gun violence, but package it in a strangely inviting way. This might just be the loudest and hardest of all their entries here, but it's never overbearing. The soundscape is consistent enough that it settles in quickly and gets you locked in.

The song it reminds me the most of is "Sorry You're Not A Winner" by Enter Shikari. That's a song that genuinely terrified me the first time I heard it, I think in part because it takes a more surprising route to lay things on thick. The more electronic elements come across as distorted and creepy when they make way for the pulverising drums. When The Amity Affliction bring in what I think is a choir, my mind goes to Enter Shikari's outro, where the guitars are suddenly at a contained tempo that makes you long for things to go back to normal. Or it's just a rejected boss theme from a FromSoftware game, who can say? I always want to bring up "Sorry You're Not A Winner" because it's a song from my early teens that can't really be replaced by anything. The scattered comparisons I can make with "Show Me Your God" just highlight further just how different they are on the whole.

I don't claim to know what the full mission statement is when making metalcore. Maybe it is supposed to be confronting to anyone outside of its own sphere, in which case it's failed immensely. But if for some reason it is just a veiled attempt to write pop music with a different coat of paint, then I can look back at this one as a success.

#496. Lorde - Tennis Court (#12, 2013)

58th of 2013

Back in the early 2010s, before streaming was part of the global music charts, there was a peculiar pattern I noticed. Everyone was aware of the Billboard Hot 100 being uncharacteristically slow compared to other charts, largely due to its unique attribute of including airplay, slowing things down not just through meeting its form, but in the way that any increase in components will create such a set up. It meant that US chart runs were long, drawn out campaigns while Australia and the UK were considerably faster. It left room for more singles to chart, and things were possibly planned around this convenience. Look at the run of singles from the early 2010s by that Scottish DJ and you can feel out which ones weren't made the be pushed in the US, but instead as the stop gaps between them. Americans don't know who Example is after all.

When you're watching from both perspectives, it can make you question if it all means anything. With the US being the centre of pop culture, all these stop gap singles that feel significant to me in the moment are just going to be pushed aside in the conversation, left out of nostalgic posts and end up faded into the background. The squadron insisting that something is only a hit if it spent approximately 6 months getting played on the radio in America at some point in history win again. "Tennis Court" lives its days as just another Lorde song at this point, even though it was a relatively big hit in Australia, and that's probably the most interesting thing about it.

"Tennis Court" was Lorde's second single, and was released not long before she properly blew up. I look at the chart movement around this time and it shows a feeling of genuine fatigue for hit songs, because there was a brief moment when Lorde's previous hit song (you know the one) had slowed down its ascent. It was on its way to breaking into a much larger audience and bursting out the gate, but it had been charting for months already with a tougher task of sticking around. If not for that song being bundled with Lorde's EP, which was helping it push higher on the chart than otherwise, "Tennis Court" would briefly have been Lorde's highest charting single in Australia. That other song was doing far better on streaming though, which is a big indication to me that it wouldn't have gone down like that nowadays.

That's all just very weird to me, because "Tennis Court" is a song that I feel thrives on buying into the Lorde brand, rather than being a standalone breakout hit of its own. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I just find it hard to believe there'd be much of any way for this song to get a foot in the door on its own. Maybe that's just the clearest sign that Universal Music were onto a winner with Lorde. I think labels are always looking for artists with that indescribable spark that irons on more listeners, and once they've got it, they go all-in.

I suppose it's inevitable. Lorde was arguably at the peak of her career in 2013. I'm not sure if that meant the most people invested in her at any given time just because streaming has really inflated those numbers. I doubt she had 30 million monthly listeners back then, but it's hard to do that when you only have half a dozen songs released. Anyone who is interested in Lorde as a concept is going to flock to what's available. It's only now that it's split across 4 albums that it's harder to see all the listeners in action. Maybe it just makes more sense that "Tennis Court" has been overtaken by songs that just didn't exist at the time, only we can't re-write the history books to account for that. This is the 4th highest polling of 14 songs by Lorde in this countdown, and I guess the only one to appear twice. (#955)

I know I got swept up in all of this, ready to put all my stocks into the future of Lorde, which I suppose has still turned out pretty well. If you're still scoring #1 albums over a decade into your career, I think it's in good stead. But I am also one of those people who got on board with "Tennis Court" only for it to continue to fall behind more and more options, tossing it into the 'I don't wanna play with you anymore...well, maybe sometimes' box. It's another one of those peculiar singles that seems to hint at a future direction, but in hindsight feels just as unsure as we all are. You wind up with a solid bit of synth pop that's also making things up and filling the gaps as it goes along, yeah. Not without its merits, but still better things on the horizon.

#505-#501

#505. Asta (feat Allday) - Dynamite (#47, 2015)

52nd of 2015

The posting gap might hide it, but here I am writing effectively back to back entries on triple j Unearthed wunderkinds. Asta feels like a whole different generation. Her first song "My Heart Is On Fire" won her the competition, and allowed her to fly over from Tasmania to record another single for triple j. That single is "Escape", and might technically be her debut single because "My Heart Is On Fire" only got put up officially a little after that. That song has been described as a demo, and that's a fair enough description. It's mostly just Asta's voice, a guitar, some drums & hand claps. "Escape" bumps up the budget and allows for more dynamic range, so the guitar can soar, and Asta really gets to show off her singing. She's hard to forget with her husky tone, but that recording lets her fully show off her capabilities.

Here's the funny thing that happened: "My Heart Is On Fire" made the Hottest 100 (at #50), "Escape" did not (it made #137). Asta set a precedent going forward where there was more interest in the winning song than what came after, and since then it's been much more common to see that reflected. I'm more partial to "Escape" myself, but sometimes there's something undeniable about the raw songwriting ideas that can win out over more studio polish. Less is more, or something like that.

At the core, Asta had a pretty consistent sound established through these early singles. I was fairly on board with her at the time, and this was accelerated greatly by the release of her next single "I Need Answers" in 2013. I don't get to cover it properly as it only managed a #170 finish, but I adored that song at the time, and that's only increased since then. If those early singles were a draft concept, then "I Need Answers" is the fully realised version. Just a delicately balanced song that's always building to some stunning vocal runs. Maybe the answers need to come from me because I couldn't fit it into my Hottest 100 vote that year, but I'm glad I got to see her live some years later, as it's very high up on the list of modestly noteworthy favourites I've been treated to over the years. I can't really talk about my favourites yet because they're attached to artists who'll appear in this list later. In the interest of transparency, I'll note that "My Heart Is On Fire" and "I Need Answers" were both produced by another Tasmania local Cal Young (aka KOWL). It doesn't mention this on the Spotify credits.

"Dynamite" is where things get a little different. There are 4 credited writers on the song, Asta and Allday obviously, but also Lauren Michelle Bliss and Andrew Klippel. No KOWL to be found. I can't find much about Bliss, but Andrew Klippel might be one of the most prolific but otherwise not overly famous Australians working in music. He's a co-founder of Ourness so he manages future Hottest 100 entrants Royel Otis and also another artist I haven't yet gotten to. I wish I could confidently say that he signed the Google defamation document about Royel Otis written by someone who can't even spell the band's name correctly but it's covered in '[REDACTED]'. The other very funny thing is that he's also the main guy behind Euphoria, the largely forgotten Australian dance pop act who scored two #1 hits around the same time Nirvana were just sneaking into the top 5 with "Smells Like Teen Spirit". You can see him in the video for "Love You Right" sporting a tragically early '90s look. I just can't believe he's showing up here mere days after I was reading about him.

Sometimes I will flat out live up to the stereotype about not liking change. I did not like this new Asta, which seemed completely out of flux with what I was familiar with (I didn't know about the collaborator change, it was just obvious vibes). We lost the moody acoustic guitar tunes and got this strange, blatantly commercial tune that sounded nothing like her older music. Adding onto that, it felt like she was reduced to being a guest star in her own song. That statement doesn't entirely live up to scrutiny. Allday gets about 55 seconds of the song, but most of what you get from Asta here is the same hook repeated multiple times, so I can't say it feels like she's got 75% of the song.

I can't actually recall when the song started growing on me, but I suspect it was fairly recent. My memory of making this ranked list is having this song down as on the cusp of being ranked from very early on in the process, meaning that I might have imagined putting it down outside the top 900, only for it to work its way up to nearly the halfway mark. Pop isn't a dirty word for me, but when an artist I like scores their biggest hit with something I'm not ready for, it's a difficult thing to adjust to. I haven't kept up much with her music since this song but I gravitated to her collaboration with former Hottest 100 entrant Luke Million, on the very catchy single "Heard It On The Radio". For this song I just have to take it on face value. Allday is a good presence (this is actually the last time he'll appear on this list), and Asta absolutely belts it out whenever she gets the chance here. Can't imagine the song being made any other way, so why not just embrace the fun silliness of it?

#504. Hockey Dad - Germaphobe (#96, 2020)

44th of 2020

I've been waiting 5 years to say this: "Germaphobe" is a song that appeals to the baseline fear that many of us have of Jerma985. I've seen that one GIF, what more do I need to say? But wait, I have a second comedic observation. Much like "House Arrest" (#545), this is one of those potential accidental pandemic anthems. It's hard to get an exact reading on the recording process of this, but the album "Brain Candy" was released in July 2020, while the string of singles for it started coming out in late 2019. I think it's very fair to say that this song was written before the pandemic.

One other thing I can say for certain about this song is that it helped secure Hockey Dad what could be considered on a very specific metric that I've constructed around it, the luckiest Hottest 100 haul ever. Not only are they the only artist to land two songs in the first 5 positions of the list, but they were the only entries they achieved that year. I would say that it's scraping by with the least sufficient effort, but then I might still have highly positive things to say about them. It does remind me of the old Flash days when Newgrounds would give out a medal to the worst rated submission of the day that managed to scrape over the line from being deleted. I'd check them out for a laugh and they were always absolute garbage, yet still above my pay grade as someone who never had the time or effort to do anything better. I reckon I could now if the ship hadn't sailed.

I don't want to put too much stock into what was ultimately a frivolous difference in votes, but I can't help but compare this to the other Hockey Dad song that polled in 2020, a song that sounds quite a bit different for them, and wonder if there's more to be asserted about voting patterns. I've said before that Hottest 100 voting can feel like it's a battle between the hits, and the favourite artists. An apolitical (usually) fight between progressive and conservative. True success comes from managing to appease both sides of the equation, and that's why you're more likely to see big finishes from crossover hits by established triple j artists. What I extrapolate from all of it though is a tendency to lean towards the more familiar. "Germaphobe", an unmistakable Hockey Dad song is naturally going to be more primed for votes.

This is not to say that the song is without merit, or without bite. Hockey Dad are here because they're good at what they do, and even in their more straight-forward songs, they're often sneaking in some interesting songwriting choices. It's a song that reeks of '90s nostalgia, and only doesn't commit to it because there's too much polish. Billy's clean drumming gives it that necessary spark.

#503. Kingswood - Micro Wars (#76, 2014)

53rd of 2014

This is probably the hardest section in this whole list to write about, I say, having only written half of it all so far. There's something about hitting that sweet spot between having glaring flaws and having soaring moments of greatness that leaves you with a bit of nothing. It's times like these that I find myself maybe slightly empathising with the wide adoption of a term like 'mid', but then I get more confused by its use and then grow to loathe it even more.

I think this list demonstrates the problem with it. Am I in the 'mid' section of the list by the strictest definition? Or does the somewhat exclusive qualification process for it provide a higher threshold for it all? I've been talking about songs I like for months now. Can liking something mean you've gone too far to consider something mid? Or is that all still the point? I don't think I actually want an answer to this because all it will do is pile on the ever growing spectrum of viewpoints it seems to fulfil. All the while, it gets spoken of as if it's just the absolute worst, bringing in the horseshoe concept that something mediocre is actually worse than something wretched. To me it reveals a rigid attachment to scoring music that I've grown disinterested in, but simultaneously, being seemingly aware of how it doesn't really seem to work. When score inflation starts to hit big, you end up devoting so much of the score range real estate to things you aren't interested in, and you still can't get it right. What a mess. The only level I can find myself siding with it is the admission that yes, if you are deliberately tasking yourself with talking about something that gives you little ammunition to work with, you won't be happy about it. Ah, to be treated with the chance to reel off the classic talking points.

So I should probably talk about the video to "Micro Wars", hey? For me it's filed with the ideal way to experience it being late night watching "Rage". It's like the Adult Swim classic "Too Many Cooks" (which aired a month before this video came out), where not knowing how long it's going to last adds to the absurdity. It's really two videos, as they also play the album track "Eye Of The Storm" directly after. All up we end up with a 10 minute video about rival biker gangs that is notable because of the sheer number of cameos contained within it. They mostly keep that until the end of the video, where you just get bombarded with familiar faces: Sticky Fingers, Tkay Maidza, Ian Moss from Cold Chisel, a couple artists I can't mention, actually there are even more than first advertised because a pre-fame Kita Alexander pops up in the background. Most of them end up in a silly gunfight. It's a great bit of kitsch because it can hide behind the plausibility of deliberately bad editing. Anyway, it's also a prophetic video because the last one standing is future Hottest 100 winner Sam from The Rubens, who I'm pretty sure gets the most kills and could probably send in a UAV.

Despite previous objections I do think that the song is quite likeable. It was a bridge between the old & new Kingswood that didn't leave me in the lurch. The tempo is down a little, but they instead bring a big level of affirmative energy. Some of the finest dramatic 'oh's ever put to tape. Now let me never have to write about Kingswood again (note: I will write about Kingswood again).

#502. YUNGBLUD - Polygraph Eyes (#99, 2018)

54th of 2018

Talking about YUNGBLUD is wading into discourse that I've largely tried to avoid. He is an artist who inspires very visceral reactions from people that I've often thought should have been able to avoid him. He's spent his whole career gradually getting more famous but not really becoming a chart force in the process. He has had a #1 album in Australia, but no major hits to speak of. Even his only top 50 hit in Australia, "11 Minutes" feels somewhat random and insignificant on the greater scale. I enjoy that one a lot, but it didn't quite make the Hottest 100 so it won't show up here. Instead, the vast majority of our YUNGBLUD content for this will come from his very polarising debut album.

The Hottest 100 produced an arbitrary and specific relationship with YUNGBLUD for me, in that I've largely only interacted with those two hits from the album and not the rest, yet I've been abundantly aware of the backlash he receives. It's mostly to do with the way he portrays mental illness, turning it into some variety of gimmick or joke. It's not something you really hear much in "Polygraph Eyes" (I suppose it is there). Now that I have heard the album, I understand it completely, and all the hatred that YUNGBLUD received made perfect sense to me. "21st Century Liability" is one of the most unpleasant albums I've ever heard. The two singles I can get around though.

"Polygraph Eyes" was a somewhat difficult sell. In what has to be one of the stranger release timing coincidences, YUNGBLUD's album came out exactly one week after Dean Lewis's "Be Alright" (#986). These are two songs about letting down a person named mate about not getting the girl they want. I'd hate to be that guy in the winter of 2018. This one actually did come out first though via YUNGBLUD's self-titled EP. Oddly I think it's the disparate elements that do the trick here. You've got dramatic strings but then they're put next to electronic elements and it all just works I think.

#501. The Wombats - Lemon to a Knife Fight (#22, 2017)

47th of 2017

I'm writing this just after the Alison Wonderland entry (#587) came up where I mentioned "U Don't Know". This is the second time in quick succession that I've found myself watching a music video where a man ties up and kidnaps a woman, takes her to a forest and then she runs away and turns the tables. I wish I could reveal that there's some notable actor in the video for "Lemon to a Knife Fight" but they're all Irish actors with limited roles outside my realm of knowledge. The video's director also made the music video for future Hottest 100 entrant MK's "Back & Forth" (also Jonas Blue & Becky Hill), that's a really great video if you've (likely) never seen it before. Main actor just gives it his all.

This one's pretty good too. I see The Wombats at the start of the video and they look so unenthused, like this is what a decade of being a moderately popular indie rock band does to a person. Then for a while you'll forget that they were even in the video until a (probably unnecessary, story wise) twist at the end that loops it back around. The Wombats have blood on their hands.

Back in 2012, Children Collide released a song called "Sword to a Gunfight", so there is a strong history in this game of Mad Libs fighting. Depending on the circumstances, I think I would back The Wombats in having a better chance as an underdog. Realistically there's not much difference in reach, so it's just a matter of who gets the upper hand first. This is just me, the person who is poisoned by knife vs. bat discourse, and leaning on the side of the bat.

It does give this late career Wombats single a little more character I think. A certain level of whimsy over "Give Me a Try" (#868) or "Be Your Shadow" (#832). The song is more about kicks and punches though, so the title, the music video & the lyrics all portray different kinds of fights, something for everyone!

#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.

#515-#511

#515. Cub Sport - Chasin' (#96, 2017)

48th of 2017

Shout out to Cub Sport, because I can always count on them for having spoken at length about all their big hits to help me when I'm being equal parts oblivious and unable to relate to the stories in question. 'Cause I miss you when I'm gone' could mean anything! In this particular case, it does mean missing someone when they're gone. The stakes are a little bit higher, as it becomes a realisation of a love much greater. Between this, "Sometimes" (#626), and another song I'll get to, we've got quite a trilogy of events, even if it doesn't play out in the correct order. The Whitlams did the same thing with the "Charlie" trilogy, we've got a history with this.

I think it's nice they got to sneak into the list with this. There's no way of proving what changes, but it has to be helpful to get over that awkward transitional period where it's not clear whether or not you're just riding off one hit, or if you'll have everyone sticking around. Sometimes this early section is the most exciting part of the countdown, because you're not thinking about the top contenders for a while, and there's something about just barely making it that feels more rewarding. Especially true if you've voted it in there.

It can be said again and again, but Cub Sport do a great job with weaving these incredibly personal experiences into catchy pop tunes. "Chasin'" is a pretty low tempo affair that doesn't really burst out the gate. They keep it as a pretty serious affair that matches the mood of the lyrics. There's nothing I feel inclined to say needs changing.

#514. San Cisco - On the Line (#56, 2020)

45th of 2020

I may have said this before but I have a habit of locking in on songs that stick out to me on first listen and completely overlook the rest. It's a mighty fine way to get incredibly out of touch because you end up creating this completely different version of reality, one that won't become clear until you get a Hottest 100 that comes along and you find out that everyone's year was spent listening to different San Cisco songs. I was at least aware of the other entry they had in 2020, but I'm not sure I'd ever listened to "On the Line" in 2020.

For me, the two hits at the time were "Messages" and "Alone". I think the experience can highlight just how random or pre-ordained the choice of 'What becomes a hit' can actually be. "Messages" fits pretty snugly with "On the Line", they even both have some kind of communication motif. As a bonus note, there may be more, but this is the only San Cisco song I know where Scarlett sings the whole thing. "Alone" I won't necessarily contend in the same way, but I think it's worth checking out if you haven't heard it. It's one of their best written songs and really packs a lot of good ideas into it. Maybe they're just destined to be typecast into producing poppy upbeat tracks. I'm the real winner in this scenario though, because I get to enjoy my random favourites in addition to the incoming Hottest 100 canon. San Cisco's 4th album looks incredibly stacked with hits from my view.

"On The Line" always ended up feeling fresh to me. In part because I wasn't very familiar with it, but then because it was one of the songs that seemed my shuffle playlist was least likely to put in rotation. This year it's "Calling After Me" by Wallows. The main thing that sticks out about this song is that it's one of the most unexpected songs that just happens to be 5 minutes long. You look at all the longest running songs in the 2020 countdown and you're mostly thinking 'Yeah, that's a long song alright' but then also 'how did this San Cisco song get in here?'. Honestly when I look at it that way, it feels like it makes the most sense to imagine that they deliberately tried to make a 5 minute song, something they'd never done before or since (they rarely even get to 4 minutes). With that, you've got everything being pushed to its absolute limits without having one particular moment of padding. The intro goes on for a decent while, and then you get some more instrumental breaks in transitions. You could maybe imagine this is about to end around the 3 minute mark but they slot in a double chorus at the end to close it out.

This all works just fine if you're into the vibe they're putting down here. It's fair to say they lock in a pretty infectious groove. Maybe it loses a little bit of shine in 2025 because that one guitar riff has me imagining the spectre of Benson Boone singing about sunscreen & ice cream or something like that. Talk about getting caught in the crossfire there.

#513. Golden Features (feat Julia Stone) - Wolfie (#70, 2016)

55th of 2016

One of my favourite stats I learnt when I first started learning more about the charts is that every member of The Beatles had a #1 hit after the band broke up. Yes, even Ringo did it. It's a massive statement of the band's sheer lasting popularity, and also it's just a fun bit of statistics. There might be some deliberate fanbase goading so they can make these sorts of boasts. The UK nearly got every Spice Girl to #1 on their own but Victoria Beckham only got to #2. Every member of 5 Seconds of Summer has had a charting album in Australia, and every member of BLACKPINK & One Direction have charted a single. In many cases, there are diminishing returns and it often feels like the less popular members are just doing it out of obligation. You don't really get this in the Hottest 100. There just aren't enough use cases for it, nor is there any space. If Daniel Johns can only land a solo entry on a technicality, what chance do we have? Well, there's always the little things, the incidentals, it's like you wouldn't even notice when you get a (very small) full set.

We've got a massive full set here because every member of Angus & Julia Stone also has a solo entry, all two of them! It's hard to say how deliberate this all is because Julia's own success on her own has never come close to what Angus has managed. She actually got her solo album out before he did in 2012, and it peaked at #11 vs. his which got to #2, which indicates where the interest lies. At the same time, we're talking about a Golden Features song when he was on a bit of a hot streak. Maybe anyone could've been the vocalist here and it would have sufficed.

I'll give credit to Julia on this one. It's good to hear her in a different setting and it shows that her side of the partnership is worthwhile, admittedly something I've thought for a while when it was pretty common to hear her prominently on a lot of early singles. I imagine this song produced a lot of surprised reactions when it was out and about on the radio.

I've never worked out why it's called "Wolfie", but what I do know is that it's a more relaxed track that Golden Features made for his nephew, and that's them talking to each other in the skits at the start and end of the song. He released it in the nowadays rare format of a double A-side with the song "Funeral", which is a very different and darker side of Golden Features, but this is the far more popular track of the two. I think he's definitely made more exciting tracks than this one, but there's still a pleasant bounce to it.

#512. Ball Park Music - Everything Is Shit Except My Friendship With You (#58, 2014)

54th of 2014

A lot of bands gain notoriety for being the one with the unbelievably extra song titles. It's pretty exhausting in the long run though so it tends to just be a phase. Ever looked at the titles on new Fall Out Boy albums? They've been largely benign for the past decade. Panic! At The Disco lose it as soon as Ryan Ross leaves the band. Ball Park Music built themselves up on a slightly unusual title, the innocuous "iFly" that actually stands for 'I f**king love you', but by the time they got to album #3, they just went all out on this with long, thought provoking titles. One difference that might hold them back however is that these aren't extreme song titles in the traditional sense. When Ball Park Music name a song "Everything Is Shit Except My Friendship With You", they're committed to the cause. That's gonna be the song's hook, and to show they're serious, it's actually two hooks.

It's a weird thing to insinuate, but I think "Puddinghead" also might be Ball Park Music's commercial peak. In what appears to be the result of a series of near misses, it's their only album to net 3 Hottest 100 entries (albeit, only barely), and until 2025 it was their closest tilt to a #1 album. It's also got their biggest/only ARIA Chart hit on it, but that's for another day. The best proof though is that it's the album of theirs that has the most consistent streaming numbers across the whole track list on Spotify. Even the lingering popularity of "It's Nice To Be Alive" can't drag their debut album's numbers up above that. Maybe this was just the sweet spot when they were established but not old hat by any measure.

I think at the time I was a little skeptical of this song. The triple j swear radar is always blaring but the song in general is a little off kilter. Much more partial to the reserved title drop than the dramatic one. I think the dynamic variety works to its favour in hindsight. You know the big hook/jam session is coming, and what you're sitting on before that is a massive juxtaposition. It's a moment of reservation that proves they aren't just being silly & loud, but can competently make extremely pleasant music as well. The moment around the 15 second mark when the bass slips into the mix is a big highlight for me, but I'm also partial to the big sing-along bridge near the end. You can enjoy it both ways with this band.

#511. Tame Impala - It Might Be Time (#43, 2019)

45th of 2019

If we can put our trust entirely within my own music library, then "It Might Be Time" lands at a crucial junction. With its total runtime of 273.015 seconds, this is the song that comes the closest to matching John Cage's "4'33"". You could hypothetically do a performance of this composition that casually just has Tame Impala playing in the background for the entire time. One could only be forced to conclude that you've composed sheer excellence, even if this probably isn't many people's favourite Tame Impala song.

When the topic of Hottest 100 doomerism pops up, something that usually crosses my mind is the fact that it's never a complete upheaval. Some years more than others might feel like there's an oppressive influx of new, dominant names, but every year without fail, you're going to get those stalwarts flying the flag for their generation still. It's been 15 years now and we still haven't had a Hottest 100 without at least one artist who made their first appearance before the 2010s. The most recent countdown certainly got close, but a Missy Higgins Like A Version came to save the day. With new Tame Impala & Hilltop Hoods music out this year, perhaps the streak will continue.

These kinds of anomalies stick out to me because I'm made to feel like these artists just don't count in keeping up tradition. It's as if Tame Impala is a shared name between two unrelated artists, the one from 2008-2012 and the one from 2015-present. The existence of Double J might add to this, anything that gets exclusively playlisted to triple j gives off an internal vibe of being not sophisticated enough for the digital station, and there's an off vibe even when the playlists overlap. This is the space you find Tame Impala, consistently being playlisted on both stations, though with an unusual caveat in that the two most played songs this decade on triple j haven't had much/any love on Double J.

Perhaps I could have saved this for when I was actually talking about one of those two songs, this one got a fair rinse on both sides, but this is the song that most directly addresses the issue. It might in fact be time to face the possibility that you are not quite as young as you used to be. This is an internal monologue kind of song, but also one where it might feel like it's pointing the finger at you, the listener. You, the person who is about to have a back to back helping of Juice WRLD & Travis Scott, and await the sweet embrace of those Double J Hottest 100 ads that start off with the phrase 'Didn't recognise that one?'. Truly, Gen Z waste no time in making their elders as uncomfortable as possible with their choices.

Though we're still in the dreaded "The Slow Rush" wasteland, I will in fact go to bat for this one. Sometimes I forget the merits of it when the first thing that comes to mind is the sluggish hook, but what surrounds it is some of the weirdest things ever put to a Tame Impala single. I'm reminded of 2008's "Half Full Glass of Wine", which is already in prime jam territory but then decides to end on a 30 second drum solo. If you want some immediate whiplash (and I'm not talking about the movie), listen to these two songs back to back and witness the sound of Tame Impala with a budget. There's so much more deliberate weight and impact on the drums and it sounds immense. Always loved a well-placed emergency siren in a song too. I believe the vernacular is to say that this song absolutely f**ks.