#450-#446

#450. Slowly Slowly - Blueprint (#92, 2021)

43rd of 2021

This would be an excellent if unnecessary time to spin some yarn about the hot 2025 video game Blue Prince, and make my declaration on whether or not it actually is a good puzzle game (because that's something I find myself scrutinising harder than most things). I haven't had a chance to play it yet. Between UFO 50, Clair Obscur, The Hundred Line & Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 among other things, I just haven't had the time. Oh I could do it before this post goes live, but not likely. Have you seen how big Silksong is? Now if Slowly Slowly made their way onto the Tony Hawk soundtrack, I would only be mildly surprised. They've still got Bodyjar in the remake, they know where it's at.

This song sent me down a rabbit hole about ketamine. As far as I can tell, it's the only song I'll be covering that mentions it, though either side of the time frame, we've got Hilltop Hoods mentioning it in 2012, and a few more artists including and not limited to Bring Me The Horizon and Royel Otis in the ensuing years. In the same year this polled, there was a viral novelty remix of an Abbie Chatfield rant about vaccinations (I want to say the good kind of rant) that made it to #162 despite not being on the voting list. I have some empathy for her as someone who got famous through reality TV to become an easy clickbait comment punchline whenever she dares say anything (saw an interesting ABC segment about her a few years back that changed my perspective on reality TV). Mostly I just think it's funny that this was her early impression, and right now one of the biggest Australian hit songs going around is Adam from Peking Duk cosplaying as LCD Soundsystem to profess his love to her. I'm not convinced it'd be a hit without her celebrity factor, so we've swung some sort of pendulum. There's a (not very good) Columbo episode where a disgraced luchador uses a powerful tranquiliser to sedate their victim in a bull ring and this is what I always think about when anyone mentions ketamine. The mind starts to work slowly, slowly.

This is a more re-assured version of the band getting somewhat back to basics, not so much back on their bullshit. We're still dealing with some layer of tipping the scales a bit too far with the pop-punk balance but there's enough energy with the guitar & drums to pass the test. I'm always glad when there's some chance at a respectable redemption.

#449. L D R U (feat Savoi) - Next To You (#68, 2016)

48th of 2016

I don't get much into the interest of categorising every song by nationality. I think as soon as you start doing it, you're going to run into all sorts of irritating exceptions where you start to feel like the judge of everyone's contributions, and everyone's citizenships. Then it's easy to just get locked into those states forever, so if someone's citizenship changes, it's too late, in my mind you were from this country, and that's what it is. I don't wanna touch it.

All that in mind, "Next To You" holds a peculiar distinction, although it probably doesn't. I mainly say this trusting the owner of the unofficial Hottest 100 database, from whom I learnt that this song marks a notable milestone. "Next To You" was...let's say roughly, the 1,000th Australian song to make the Hottest 100, a mighty tally that I'm not sure even the United States has met nearly a decade later. There's no ambiguity. L D R U is Australian, Savoi is also Australian. You might have to run some checks on the 999 songs that came before this one, but at least there's no funny business here.

If there is any scrutiny to be had, it's probably that you'd argue this was running on the fumes of L D R U's last hit "Keeping Score" (#817). Given that it's a song that got more popular in the year after when it couldn't be voted for (well, it did but that's another story), it's a lot easier to imagine that this managed to score well off the momentum. L D R U hasn't had a Hottest 100 entry since then, it's all that we need out of this arrangement, yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

In saying that I had a soft spot for this one pretty early on, so I was pretty happy to see it get over the line. When I compare it to "Keeping Score", I hear a song that's built more around the character that the vocalist can provide. While they're both focused on similar build ups and drops, this allows Savoi to sing over the hook and give it some melodies to stick with.

#448. Jarryd James - Do You Remember (#7, 2015)

47th of 2015

Over time I've learnt that moments make the legend. You can have all manner of statistical advantage on your side but it'll mean nothing if there isn't a bow to tie it all together. That one thing that either people are gonna bring up from here on, or just a nice snappy accomplishment that all the pressers can use. Just look at Jarryd James. He came within an inch of glory when he got to #2 on the ARIA Chart with this breakout single, the funny kind of #2 hit where it was blocked by two different #1 hits and just didn't get the right timing to have a turn in the middle. He could have become chart topping Jarryd James and receive all the attention that warrants, but instead this is just another pretty notable hit that's been swept away by time. Do you remember Jarryd James? Maybe, but it's likely you haven't listened to him in years.

Maybe the cards were stacked against him though. The one fatal flaw in my argument here is that you have to ignore the other test cases that happened around the same time. Shortly after Jarryd James missed his shot, we had two more Australian #1 hits, coincidentally by siblings, Conrad Sewell & SAYGRACE. Conrad had a pretty good run of success for years afterwards but largely has gone back under the radar again. I'll say that SAYGRACE maybe doesn't count the same way because her #1 hit was a cover of Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me", so it's less surprising she hasn't had another hit (although I think her latest EP has some terrific songs on it). Maybe the same fate awaited Jarryd James either way. He had an older than average breakout at age 30 so the next-big-thing marketing had a barricade. I just never felt like he had a main character moment even in 2015 though. No one expected him to win big at the ARIA Awards, and it feels lucky he was able to win one. For a hit of this size, landing at #7 in the Hottest 100 is the bare minimum, and it's not surprising he's never had another entry.

I found myself initially fascinated with this as a hit song. The rapid ascent up the charts felt right, as a song that clearly stands out on the radio. It's like a more realised radio friendly version of the Chet Faker concept, with more performative singing and the right amount of focus on the one sticking hook (that ascending guitar riff). There's nothing to upset anyone really. I think I just wound up getting a little worn out on it in the long run. In a world of weird, ambitious and intriguing releases, this ends up being just a little too straightforward to hold up to repeat listens. I had myself thinking it to be a fluke, and arguably it still was. Later singles he released were adequate as well, but never greatly sustained my interest. It wasn't until many years later in 2021 when I came across his song "Overdue" that I felt like he'd stepped outside of his comfort zone and managed something that delivered on fully conveying the emotional heft that "Do You Remember" merely suggests. This one still goes alright in a pinch though, now that I don't hear it much anymore.

#447. Ball Park Music - Exactly How You Are (#18, 2017)

43rd of 2017

An accusation that gets tossed around over the years is the idea that many Hottest 100 voters are serving the artists rather than the songs. It gives you a history of songs that balance between the quirky, memorable hits and the same artists coming back for more year after year because people like their vibe. In an era where popularity is determined by streams, and streams can be determined by algorithms that get them off the ground, you start to wonder if it's possible that even these supposed hit songs are running on fumes that no public ever initiated.

In 2016, a peculiar thing happened. Ball Park Music released an album and attained no Hottest 100 entries from it, something that has never happened before or since. I don't think there's any particular reason to explain this, as nothing suggests the band had just fallen away in popularity or anything. The reality is probably just that their three singles couldn't happily agree on an obvious pecking order and they all landed pretty close together around the #150 mark. Personally I go to bat for the opening track "Feelings" which goes into some pretty adventurous territory. The three singles (especially "Whipping Boy") feel all too familiar in hindsight where there are better Ball Park Music songs to go for with similar ambitions.

A year later they get things back on track with "Exactly How You Are", setting a new standard for the band as it became their highest polling entry to date, with thanks to it being the only song of theirs to vote for that year, but also it probably holding up as one of their most popular songs nowadays anyway. After a down year, it felt like a renaissance, and they've never looked more galvanised on the fandom front, scoring a #1 album recently and always polling well. It's like their fans took note of the misstep and are now vigilant to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Letting the song stand on its own for a while I think gave it some extra strength. The last thing you want to do is to have a new single release be met with shrugs because there's nothing to be gained from hearing it, something very possible for a band that aren't particularly gimmicky on the surface. I don't know how to possibly market something on the angle that it's just a pleasant experience. It's much easier to share something with shock value, or wow factor, and Ball Park Music just aren't funny enough to ever make me tell anyone to check them out. Even here, the most shocking thing about this single is the hard c-bomb in the first line of the song, but in a world with bands like Playlunch going around, it's pretty tame, all things considered.

The best recommendation I can have for something like this is that I don't think there are many bands out there with quite as much experience at delivering this kind of sunshine pop. Maybe Lime Cordiale could come up with something similar but I'm not sure there'd be the same attention to detail. I listen to the guitar here and it's rarely staying in one spot, always ready to find a new place to land. It all accentuates the song's climax which isn't full bombast, but lands it all squarely in the Goldilocks zone. I like this song exactly how it is and I don't know how I'd change it.

#446. Billie Eilish - Therefore I Am (#10, 2020)

38th of 2020

For years, Billie Eilish was a fascinating case study for me in radio airplay. One of the biggest talking points regarding triple j's playlist is the level of crossover it has with commercial radio. It's something that goes off vibes that the stats don't back up. You could listen to the station and think it to be the case, simply because it's those catchy top 40 hits that are more prone to getting stuck in your head, or alternatively because there's a lot of music that feels like top 40 music but isn't. For instance, I'm looking at the last 100 songs added to rotation on the station and I count 5 ARIA top 50 hits among them. Those songs might get played a little bit more than average, but you're showing your own lack of attention if you're missing so much forest for a handful of trees.

The other problem with this whole observation is that it tends to show a lack of understanding on what the other side of the equation looks like. If you haven't listened to commercial radio in years, then I suspect you're not aware of the situation. The idea that they just play top 40 music hasn't really existed in about a decade, as the age of streaming has made popular music a little bit too incongruous with what radio stations are willing to play, or more importantly, what their audiences want to hear. It's all well and good if Drake has 100 or so hits now, but the people making those hits aren't the ones listening to the radio.

Nonetheless I think if you do avoid that side of the observation, there's a temptation to fill in the blank with what sounds right. You could even fall into a mental sorting trap, where hearing a song on a Spotify playlist, on a TikTok video, or even on triple j itself lends itself to this artificial idea of overplay, and then pin it to the most likely culprit. I'm far too aware of my own compulsive categorisation to assume the same of the average person, especially one who treats this music as an obstacle instead of any sort of curiosity.

Billie Eilish was one of the biggest exceptions to the narrative. In the space of a few years she became one of the biggest names in music, scoring a #1 hit around the world before she even turned 18, of course commercial radio was flogging her wares. Except not really. While her music isn't particularly threatening, it did represent something wildly different to what tended to be going on at the time. If you're programming a station, you're not gonna be able to just slot "when the party's over" (#809) between "Ride It" by Regard and "Yeah!" by Usher, not without uprooting it and remixing it into something antithetical to the whole point of her music.

The tide has turned a little. I couldn't tell you for sure if radio has gotten more lenient or if Billie Eilish's star has risen enough that it's an easier sell (arguably both are true to an extent). It's less novel to see her have a radio hit now though, recent #1 hits and future Hottest 100 entrants "What Was I Made For?" and "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" have both gotten coverage. But prior to this, this artist with 13 top 10 hits had a total of two radio hits: This was one of them, and the other one is probably pretty obvious, duh.

Maybe this is an odd one to pluck out. Not because it's a particularly strange song, but because it's not a massive departure from what she had already put out. It fits pretty snugly next to "my strange addiction" and "all the good girls go to hell" (#459). I can only assume that the helpful factor here speaks to the difficulty of promoting post-album singles that are never going to match their first week streaming figures ever again. "Therefore I Am" was a standalone single. It was included on her next album "Happier Than Ever", but it doesn't really feel like a lead single in promotion of that cycle. But in a time when Billie Eilish hadn't had a hit really stick itself down in about a year, this was pretty successful and managed to be the centre of attention for a while. It also still peaked in its first week as most of her singles tend to do but it stuck the landing enough to look like a genuine success.

To me, this feels like another example of the classic speedy follow up. Many artists with runaway success have put out another album not too long after and have it feel like a retread, something that becomes clearer when the 3rd album inevitably takes a pivot along with everything else in the discography. This is the part where I mention the Arctic Monkeys. There's actually an exact parallel in Hottest 100 history though, because 15 years prior to Billie Eilish winning the poll, it was Franz Ferdinand with the landslide victory for "Take Me Out". They also released their second album not too long after and didn't tweak with the formula too much. The result is that their next lead single "Do You Want To" landed at #10 in the next year's poll, just like Billie Eilish has done here. In both cases, these are singles that I enjoy on their own merits, but I'm not surprised that a decent handful of people have jumped ship when it feels like a slight regression on what's come before.

The main difference here is that while Franz Ferdinand were offering to meet one's desires, Billie Eilish is rejecting them, because this is a song about rejecting parasocial projections that have been put upon her. She's very famous at this point and it brings in a lot of baggage that tends to come from the intentionally careless desire to favour headlines and clicks over accurately communicating a story. But then really, it doesn't just stop there because even if everything is reported accurately, you're still going to be a person who is more than just the actions of these articles, which alone can have readers projecting assumptions to fill in the gaps. It's what makes the otherwise out of place Descartes citation in the title lyric so appropriate. Beyond every projection you may have of her through her music and actions, she is her own person. I love that she puts out this confrontational idea on one of her most straightforward and catchy singles.