#465-#461

#465. Client Liaison - House Of Holy (#96, 2021)

46th of 2021

Look, when a song you like a lot just barely misses the countdown, the first temptation is to look at what did get over the line and yell at them. It's hard to do that though when they're all so sweet and wholesome (okay one of them isn't). I mean dang, you know you're onto something good when even I'm rooting for Client Liaison on this one.

I don't even have an exciting explanation for this. I listen to "House Of Holy" and it still embodies the full Client Liaison experience. Maybe it's possible that the tune just thrives on its own merits, or maybe they've just tweaked everything around so it's all at acceptable levels. There's no temptation for me to say 'More of this, please', because I really don't know what this is. Well, I guess this is the flute song, in case "Down Under" (#808) wasn't supplying enough of that.

I suppose they do manage to match the gravitas to the setting. When everything's building up to the big hook, you really do feel like you're in some kind of holy house. I can only assume they've leant into this because they recorded a live performance of this on their YouTube channel that says '(Live From Heaven)'. Everyone's wearing white so it just looks like the "Hoops" (#895) music video. Sometimes we can do just fine with having Pet Shop Boys at home.

#464. Flume (feat Reo Cragun) - Friends (#30, 2019)

40th of 2019

When Flume isn't making new albums, he's doing whatever he feels like, with seemingly no reliable pattern. Just in 2025 he released a whole EP with JPEGMAFIA, and quickly followed it up with a full collaborative album...with an artist who will appear on this list eventually but suffice to say hadn't put out new music in a while. In 2019 he released his "Hi This Is Flume" mixtape, full of songs I couldn't begin to describe, and in some cases, would struggle to type the titles out. Just a week after, he put out the song "Friends", which wasn't a one-off, because it ended up on its own mini EP for Flume & Reo Cragun.

I don't mean it as a knock on him to say that this is the start and end of my exposure to Reo Cragun, an American R&B singer who hasn't landed in anyone else's crosshairs. That's a case where I want to trust the process. Flume saw something in him and thought it'd work with his music. Meshing with Flume when he's on one of his wilder trains of thought doesn't necessarily mean there's a place elsewhere.

I can see the vision across the EP. Reo Cragun is remarkably abrasive in a way that I feel only Flume can find a place for it. For "Friends" especially it's quite amusing. When I think of the phrase 'thinking out loud', I either think of the song by that name, or the incredibly juxtaposed hit songs that seem to go out of their way to include the phrase ("Truffle Butter" is the other one). It all feels strangely inspired here, the way the synths seem to tremble and jitter at an incredibly high tempo, but then tense up when the vocals come charging in. It's absolutely pushing the limits of just how off kilter something can be without entirely losing its pop appeal. Well, I thought it did when it didn't chart particularly high on release, but I was very impressed with how well it held up 9 months later when it got voted in here.

#463. BENEE - Kool (#100, 2020)

40th of 2020

Whenever an artist breaks through beyond their usual markets, I always fear it can run a risk in the long run. They'll probably be remembered to an extent, but it'll be reinforced through that global perspective. Suddenly people who could know them quite well have it reduced in the same way, and when the artist comes back around for another album cycle, there's less interest in them. It's probably not the career boon it feels like in the moment.

I thought BENEE's career was in a unique place at the start of 2020. She'd had a great year before that, and then managed to score a global hit with "Supalonely". It didn't amount to much and aside from making a residency on the New Zealand Hot Singles chart, she hasn't charted a single anywhere since then. It meant that BENEE was an artist whose greatest success was in the 2020s, but she hadn't had any notable success with music actually released in that decade. In a Hottest 100 context, she was given a reprieve because she was literally the first artist to notch herself in that decade's history book when she landed at #100.

As a bonus aside to this. I was watching the old X-Men movies some months ago (the ones from the early 2000s). I had a weird sense of deja vu when a young Anna Paquin was playing Rogue with a light streak in her hair. That's not an irregular portrayal, but for a while it looks remarkably like how BENEE does her hair circa "Supalonely", which is now probably what most people think she looks like. I wouldn't mention this absolutely mundane detail if not for the fact that Anna Paquin is also from New Zealand (and has an amusing hybrid southern drawl with the Kiwi accent sometimes slipping out). It's actually such a small part of her history that she didn't maintain the haircut for any other music videos. I know a singer who reminds me of Cher I suppose.

With all things considered, BENEE has done pretty well as an artist I never expected to see any major success. The fact that her debut album this comes from only landed at #22 in Australia probably reinforces that all the hits before that were a series of coincidences, though I do think the fandom is there in a smaller part. She landed in the top 40 for the Hottest 100 as recently as 2023, which goes well beyond just a brief bandwagon.

I do wonder if the whole rush of it just meant that she wrung out all her obvious hits in the years leading up to the album and there wasn't any time to conjure up more. Not everyone can just do a Lorde. "Kool" is a pretty good one. I think some of the appeal from her earlier singles is lost, but there's something to this too. The guitars that take up a lot of the attention remind me a little of Deep Dish's "Flashdance", something about that blending of genres that leaves you a little lost for what to grasp at.

#462. Claptone (feat Peter Bjorn and John) - Puppet Theatre (#41, 2015)

49th of 2015

It's November 2006, I'm watching a music video that I would see as whimsical and I'd also never see the video again for 19 years. In 2025 my second impression is not quite like that and I'm just wondering if I got overly fascinated just in one scene. That video is for the song "Let's Call It Off" by Peter Bjorn and John. I say this mainly to highlight that I jumped into things at just the right time so that for me, Peter Bjorn and John were the "Let's Call It Off" band, at least briefly. That's mildly significant to me because when you see this particular collaboration in the years-after year of 2015, maybe it's a little puzzling. It's easier to accept these things if you hear more music from a supposed one-hit wonder before that status sinks into your brain. I think the same way about Mattafix and Junior Senior, it just means that I can take them more seriously.

"Young Folks" is that song of note obviously. It landed at #16 in the 2006 Hottest 100 and was the only song by this Swedish trio of great note for quite a long time, until they reared their heads back in with this, the unexpected second hit. It's not a situation like Snow where it's just coasting on the first one, this is Peter Bjorn and John just acting like an artist of note that's always been around striking lucky with a new idea, because that is what they are. I'll admit I don't care much for "Young Folks" nowadays. A combination of the cutesy tune just getting a little too overplayed, and my own personal grievances with any generational divide that lacks the necessary nuance to rise above the surface level of observations. Just a little tedious to get through.

This is Claptone's story, a whole different one hit wonder, except I can't really call him that because this isn't really his most popular song, and I don't know what is. I also probably can't even say 'him', because from what I can tell, Claptone is either two or three people who will shamelessly perform in different parts of the world simultaneously. It's another masked DJ situation so they can get away with it even though the mask doesn't even cover the whole face. It's a pretty cool one to be fair.

"Puppet Theatre" is not an overly complicated affair, just running on a small handful of loops. Where it succeeds the most is the way that it feels as though it's creeping in and out of view, starting and finishing with subtlety. It's something that's fitting for the intrigue of the plague doctor masks, as well as various unknown identities (to note: Claptone always uses a voice changer in interviews). It's the sort of thing where I can totally understand why it stood out on the radio and saw some success.

#461. Elk Road (feat Natalie Foster) - Hanging by a Thread (#96, 2016)

49th of 2016

Oh no, it's yet another one where I have more of a backstory for the featured artist than the main one, the rockism allegations can't be beaten. In this case it's more of a forward story though because the prior part of this is that she fronted a band called Tully On Tully that I'm just learning about for the first time, but since then she's been thriving as the lead singer of the band Press Club, which for me has always left her voice never too far away, with 4 albums out now. It's the song "Suburbia" that really does it for me, something about the subject matter just always reaches out to me, and it's just a surprisingly seasoned sound for a band who'd barely been together for very long. When you hear this tidbit about her career, you might be inclined to assume that it's just a weird name coincidence. Nothing about this suggests what she's doing otherwise.

I think it gives the song an interesting angle, albeit one that didn't really show itself until afterwards. If you think that I'm giving it extra credit out of personal bias, then I can also reveal that I bought this song independently for myself when it came out, before it landed in the Hottest 100. Latching onto Press Club after the fact while still being unaware is just more proof that I did it properly.

In any case, Natalie Foster is always going to have the more detailed side of the story because the Elk Road part ends pretty soon after this. Maybe he's messing with us all, but his most recent post on Instagram is from 2018 with the caption 'taking some time off'. The last single he put out before this is called "Ghost". In case you're wondering where he went, he's now an AI tech bro. Absolutely no idea what service he's providing, I don't speak the language. Oh and before he switched occupations, he had a brief stint on Australian Ninja Warrior. Look, it's better than I could do.

"Hanging by a Thread" is a nice piece of electropop. Never overwhelming, but also doesn't just rest on one idea either. Natalie is a great choice of vocalist here who can give it the needed gravitas, although I guess that's not something you want if you're hanging by a thread. I feel obligated to mention that there's a saxophone solo near the end of the song, and when Elk Road came in to do Like A Version, he covered Flight Facilities' "Crave You". I get it. When you admire a piece of work and then make your own, it's really easy to just end up using it as a blueprint. Can't count the number of times I've done it myself.