#420-#416

#420. King Stingray - Yellow - Like A Version (#43, 2022)

42nd of 2022

Prior to this I've mentioned Coldplay here 8 times. Their last Hottest 100 appearance was in 2005. I remember it seemed unusual when "Violet Hill" turned up on the voting list in 2008 since I didn't recall ever hearing it on triple j at the time, but it didn't make it in. It has me making one of the most aggressively early split points for an artist's career for what I'd call old Coldplay and modern Coldplay. It might just be the Gorillaz effect, or instead a matter of genuinely remembering when "Viva La Vida Or Death and All His Friends" came out, that stops me from ever associating it with the albums that had come out by the time they made that one joke about Coldplay in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I understand that this isn't a universal feeling. If you go by listenership nowadays and discard the outliers of "Something Just Like This" & "My Universe", Coldplay generally get split into three phases that line up pretty well with the exact decades of their careers. There are the songs everyone knows from the 2000s, the occasionally still popular singles from the 2010s, and then the mystery zone of the 2020s. It's much easier to just play it safe and stick with their most popular song, "Yellow".

I remember disliking "Yellow" at the time, or at least never thinking about it until Coldplay became a punchline and suddenly it's the face of a very easy-to-deride band. They've always been an inherently uncool band, but I had no concept of that at the time anyway so it didn't matter. The pretentious phase came and went, and constant re-appraisal allowed me to take the band and the song more seriously. I found it interesting how my timeline of events means that I've never been able to consider Coldplay as a triple j band, even though they were for years. When the special event Hottest 100s came around, "Yellow" felt like an outlier to me. The only entry by a band who were still relevant, but not in this circle. Lending credibility to a song that's only managed to pay it back by being more popular than ever. In late 2024, "Yellow" became the most streamed song on Spotify that pre-dates the platform itself. It recently moved into the top 20 of all time and it might start knocking on the top 10's door with the consistent gains it's making. Coldplay have well and truly won the war, seemingly worshipped by people who are not old enough to even remember those early years. Some of them might just be performing on this Like A Version.

In the canon of Like A Versions that are either playing it by the book or switching it up, King Stingray's "Yellow" gets the best of both worlds. You're introduced with an initially very different start, with rhythm sticks and didgeridoo sticking out the most. Once you get past the first chorus, that's when the band unleashes and gives any potential skeptics what they're looking for. The guitar is played so faithfully that it doesn't sound particularly different to the original version, a song that rocks harder than you remember, if you haven't heard it in a while.

It's one of those things that made it a tough sell for me initially. If you aren't willing or able to see the bigger picture, the little things can get in the way. You see that it's over 5 minutes long and it starts off very slow, there's an ominous dread to the whole thing. I think it was hearing the song for the Hottest 100, not being poisoned by a duration tag, that let me see it in a better light. If there's anything to take away from the whole thing, it's how the different setting to the usual King Stingray sound turns this into a showcase for Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu's singing. It feels like it's reverberating in a very powerful way that lends an extra emotional heft to a song that I otherwise like, but have never been taken aback by.

#419. G Flip - About You (#38, 2018)

46th of 2018

triple j's social media portfolio doesn't not really include Facebook anymore. Just one of the many social media websites that got too big to ever really control and slowly transformed itself into a showcase for some of the more deplorable sides of society. Personal growth and reflection? That's a laugh emoji right there, gotta regurgitate the most surface level observation and get all the thumbs ups possible. I can't decide if Twitter is worse or not, but triple j jumped ship from there just a little bit sooner (we're talking a matter of weeks, in August 2023). They're still around on Instagram and TikTok, and the vibe of the comments seems to be better.

It's a shame in the long term because it creates just a little less visibility for the station, and subsequently anything they choose to platform. The difference between supposed ubiquity and obscurity can sometimes just be that feeling of relentless attention that arrives when you see multiple promoted posts about the same thing, that never would have appeared at all if the first one didn't get there. It's so rare that anything can reach that level of popularity because we're all just drilled into our own circles, and there are less of these mediator channels to break the ice in an all-encompassing way. That's clearly how G Flip got their start.

It's just something you don't see anymore. The annual or thereabouts posts glazing the big prodigy artist who just uploaded a hit to triple j Unearthed. Ruby Fields was one of those, Tones and I was one of those, and in-between, we had G Flip. This was probably the most chips-in I'd seen from triple j. I still remember reading the article that was published shortly after "About You" went live, which is a massive throwback, not just for the reference points to artists who will eventually appear in this list, and surely wouldn't get referenced nowadays, but because we've seen the speculation pay off in full now. We're absolutely in that G Flip future and it all starts with "About You".

In this case, I have to give credit to the tastemakers who got us here. As someone who runs into a lot of dead ends myself, it's very difficult to have the confidence to say that the next big thing is in front of you. It's begging to be mocked as such a likely thing to not pan out. For every big success, there are a lot more Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jongs, bands that just never live up to that hype. Even with some of the biggest Australian success stories, the 2000s are filled with examples that can't really get out of the shadow of the first album's success. Wolfmother, Killing Heidi, Jet. They're not really one album wonders, but there's such a drop off that it feels like they've got an audience of hangers-on hoping for a second helping of the magic, and many more who didn't think they needed anything else from them. Maybe when the dust settles, G Flip might appear to be a two album wonder instead, but there's something inherently more encouraging when you reach your commercial peak so many years after the initial media cycle. That's when you know they're more than the hype.

I wonder among those who bought into the hype on the strength of this track, how many of them stuck with it. I always find it interesting when you have artists who carry through as being successful, meanwhile having a subset of a fanbase who are only interested in the early part of that career. Artists like Maroon 5, The Weeknd, Linkin Park. It can be a risky but necessary venture to branch out to new ideas, but inevitably the schism will form.

This only comes to mind because "About You" does just feel like it's cut from a different cloth for G Flip. We'd very quickly start hearing poppier numbers, while this is lumbering and thudding by comparison. Easy to look at it a showcase for 'look at what this drummer can do', and just a taste of the songwriting strengths to come. Maybe that's clouding my judgement when I say that it's some of the best drumming I've heard on record from them. I find myself appreciating it more for just being a star making moment. The song is a bit unusual on its own, but 7 years later and it starts to make a bit more sense.

#418. Odette - Watch Me Read You (#56, 2017)

41st of 2017

In 2007, just 2 of the 10 biggest hits of the year by Australian artists were songs and artists played on triple j (you could argue for 3 with "The Others", but triple j only ever played the original version at the time, not the TV Rock remix). Jump forward to 2017, and it's suddenly 8 out of 10. The other two were "Fallin" by Jessica Mauboy, and the remix of "Call On Me" by Starley. This is all the process of a slow assimilation where it felt like triple j was widening their net (in fact, Jessica Mauboy has been getting increasingly more plays on triple j in recent years), but also the alternative avenues falling away. We just didn't have those pathways to create local stars that weren't tied to the triple j brand and culture, no more Cassie Davis, no more Amy Meredith. In theory then, if everything stayed the same, then the people who would have otherwise become those stars are still people out in the country today, they might even be musicians all the same. This is something I thought about when I heard Odette for the first time.

Maybe I'm off base, but when I listen to "Watch Me Read You", I imagine seeing it on Video Hits, performed on Rove Live and eventually be nominated for 3 ARIA Awards. It'll peak at #18 on the charts and hang around for maybe 8-12 weeks. Odette just struck me as a Kate Miller-Heidke type who might vaguely be adjacent to triple j, but largely thrive outside of that ecosystem. "Watch Me Read You" could easily fit into the canon of fondly remembered Australian songs that are just a little bit weird, but that's how they made it in the first place. You can't help but pay attention to a song that shifts between spoken word and diva singing. Maybe a little too weird to fully shoot to the top, but the fans will be there. Odette was just born too late to be a moderately big star like that, she had to take a different avenue. I'd never think I'd be hearing something like this on triple j even 5 years prior.

The curious irony that comes with this is the admission that the standards have changed quite a bit. The scenario I described brings a level of infamy, maybe even a Gold selling single with Platinum within reach, but then if numbers are your game then Odette's achieving it anyway. She's got three Gold singles (this surprisingly isn't one of them, but it might be on a countback. A handful of ARIA Award nominations too, just missing any kind of cultural moment to become (even if only briefly) a household name. To repeat what I said exactly 3 weeks ago, moments make the legend.

For my purposes, Odette's made it, but then I have a lower bar than most. I'm talking about her here though so that's what counts. My feelings about "Watch Me Read You" largely circle around the initial reaction. This is a song that cannot help but stand out when you hear it for the first time. Not because it's doing any one thing in an unusual fashion, but because it's built from disparate elements, and allowing a potential in. I don't think spoken word is for everyone, but you're likely disarmed after the fact when she does include a more conventional hook on the other side of it. Getting over that initial kneejerk reaction has allowed me to enjoy something I might have otherwise dreaded and been glad to consign to the past.

#417. Arctic Monkeys - There'd Better Be a Mirrorball (#77, 2022)

41st of 2022

Earlier today I was having a conversation about the merits of certain release strategies. Something we've become more used to over the years ever since a certain American popstar led the way in 2013, (turning their name into a verb, depending on who you ask), it has become a standard model for the biggest of names to unveil their entire albums all at once. There are different versions of this, ranging from stealth drops to one day warnings, or to full weeks advance notice. Maybe there will technically be a single in hindsight as a previously knocked out release just finds its way onto the track list seemingly as an afterthought. Regardless, it's a model that seems to have been adapted because it works. Releasing a lead single obviously has its merits because it can give you momentum going in, but I suppose if you're an artist with the stature of a Taylor Swift or a Kendrick Lamar, it's not quite as important to try and find some new suitors. I figure there's the chance to backfire. If someone doesn't like the lead single, that could put them off the project completely, and then even if they do like it, there's the temptation to see it as probably the best cut already, with no need to listen to the rest. The labels want you to listen to the whole thing, and this seems to be the best method to lead a horse to water.

It's interesting to see this with respect to the two most recent Arctic Monkeys albums. While they've not been averse to changing up their sound over the years, this feels like the most drastic one because they were coming off the back of a huge career revival with "AM". That's arguably the biggest rock album of the decade, and the follow ups have been received without quite the same interest, as the band have pivoted to making slow, loungey piano tracks. They've done it both ways though. The first album was released without any singles in advance, while this one did it more traditionally, so you've got two different scenarios playing out. The first is a case of potentially hoodwinking customers, while the second lets you know in advance what you're getting. It means less sales potentially, but less dissatisfaction. In either situation though, you can only run the set up for so long before it becomes clear, and the effect of this is that it usually doesn't take long until more people are listening to "AM" again than whatever the new album is.

I think that's a shame but I can't blame people for going to what they know and trust. I think there are some very likeable tracks on "The Car", this one included, but they're not going to give out that immediate satisfaction. It's more of a slow burn where the viable moments are there to seek out. In this case I just think the strings sound wonderful, especially towards the end. Another one of those instances where I'm glad an especially popular artist can leverage their popularity to bring something into the popular sphere that is absolutely not getting there in any other way.

#416. Spacey Jane - Lunchtime (#12, 2021)

39th of 2021

I think one of the funniest things about The Wiggles winning the Hottest 100 is the year in question that it happened. It can't help but poke itself out there every time I look at my playlist for 2021. Beyond the band who make music for pre-schoolers is perhaps the most profane list of songs we've ever had at the pointy end. From #2 to #14 there are a total of 2 songs that don't have explicit language in them. One of them is a song I haven't gotten to yet, another is "Lots Of Nothing" (#580), but then even Spacey Jane couldn't help themselves as they contribute to it with their one of their most sailor-mouthed songs they've ever released. How bad do things have to get to give them an overwhelming sense of 'F**k this'? Shit, I don't know (note: They don't actually say this but try not hearing it now).

It's fortunate that Caleb did a lengthy interview with NME because I intend to take wholesale observations straight from it. Mainly I just want to point out the contrast where he thinks of the song as being 'very fun' despite the lyrical content. It's something he sees as a reflection back on a previous time (it's always COVID) that isn't how he thinks about things anymore. To me, there's something so freeing about the very thought of it, that we can house all these troubled feelings inside us of things we've done wrong, or wish could have happened differently. Instead of bottling it up and creating more anxiety, see it as something to be hopeful about, whether because it doesn't really matter anymore, because you've escaped some of this, or because there's the prospect that current issues you're facing will also inevitably find themselves in the rear view mirror as well. Maybe that's profoundly obvious and doesn't need an offhand comment by the lead singer of Spacey Jane to get it through, but sometimes I find it incredibly useful when someone's able to put succinctly what is an otherwise complicated swirl of emotions in my head.

The music video is quite good too. I don't know if the intended visual direction was to invoke the Black Lodge, but I sure do want to watch Twin Peaks again. For me though, there's a parallel with Spacey Jane's music to be pulled from it. You see two sides of the experience, one where everything is normal (or maybe just orderly), and another where Caleb is under increasingly obvious amounts of distress. Maybe it's not the most efficient way of doing things, but I've always admired the slice of life trope at the start of stories, where they go to a great length to describe or show the mundane side of things to provide both a contrast to the conflicts that will arise, and ground the characters with what they're used to experiencing, and might be fighting to maintain. In the case of "Lunchtime" though, there are two interpretations I like. The first is that it's all (obviously) in his head. No one seems to really react to his sudden actions or increasingly distracting appearance. The alternative though is that it isn't, he's genuinely being affected, and nobody cares. It's the thing I've been thinking of most as I continue to go through all these Spacey Jane songs, and they continue to read like the diary of someone who's desperate to have their own issues acknowledged, but he can only express it in the form of catchy 3 minute songs that everyone's too busy dancing to, to pay attention to it. Maybe that's how I feel when I use these entries to talk about my own psyche, only to disarm the momentum of it by coming to the sudden realisation and pointing out that I think I just wrote a Patrick Bateman music review.

I do rather like this song though. There's a little more tension than you usually get with Spacey Jane and it's not just because of the profanity. The whole thing is just doing a really good job of jumping between different hooks at a breakneck pace, like it's "Special K" by Placebo or something. The song's bridge is entirely instrumental and brings a lower tuning to it that sounds kind of ugly, but in an endearing way.