#275-#271

#275. Fred again.. & Swedish House Mafia (feat Future) - Turn On The Lights again.. (#18, 2022)

21st of 2022

Well for me it wasn't a long time ago that I was talking about Future (#276). I skipped ahead a few chapters when I did it. Partly because my knowledge of his work gets a lot patchier there, but also because I knew this was coming just around the corner. I've mentioned the commercial peak of trap music a couple of times before. I'm still waiting to get to one of the biggest hits, and also one of the biggest players in that scene (unrelated), but the truth is that trap music was already making a name for itself for many years. T.I. pioneered the genre back in 2003 when he made the album "Trap Muzik". He was probably the first to really thrive with it too, when his song "What You Know" became a top 3 hit in 2006. Otherwise it was a side story for a few years behind the main rap timeline going from the bling era to the crunk era to the...I don't think there's a name for it, but basically what Drake & Kanye West were doing with "Thank Me Later" and "808s and Heartbreak". In the early 2010s it started to become a constant presence on the lower end of the Billboard Hot 100. Aside from country music, it was pretty much the thing I most strongly associated the US Charts with, all these dark, menacing rap songs that made no waves over here.

I had a tough time being won over by it. I was still a bit pretentious about real music at this point so all these rough sounding songs depicting debauchery were like the complete opposite of what I was interested in. It was a shock to the system like feeding Takis to a Victorian era child. At best it became a mild fascination, but I was mostly disgusted and offended. One such example that stood out to me was the song "Turn On The Lights" by relative newcomer Future. It almost seemed like a joke at the time. When you hear Future for the first time there just isn't a comparison, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. He's so abrasive in his hooks and sounds like he's singing through a crying fit. I couldn't at all understand why anyone wanted to listen to it.

If you think that I came around to it a few years later, you'd be wrong. I never forgot the song, but it still felt like an absurdity, something that couldn't be rationalised. I kept this feeling for long enough that when I first heard this Fred again.. song, my thought was just 'Really? Of all the songs in the world, you pick this one?'. In hindsight, the reality of it was that I just didn't really ever seek out "Turn On The Lights"...again. I never gave it much of a chance to grow on me until my hand was forced by Fred. You won't necessarily get it out of this version of the song, but going back to it is a strange revelation. It's partly because I'm now very used to Future and what he does, but then it's also a point of fascination for just how much he's gradually changed. "Turn On The Lights" is basically a love song. It's not a hazy Future under the influence (probably), but genuinely a sweet sentiment. The instrumental is relatively reserved by his standards and there are some pretty synths. I guess shout out to the people who click onto the new sounds and artists quicker than I ever can, there's something in here. Again, I don't know if that will show in this version, but there's an appeal to it as well.

This would be a great time to detail my history with Swedish House Mafia as it's their only ever Hottest 100 appearance but I don't really have one. Frankly from the outside looking in I found it hard to really grasp the hype. By the time they broke up, they only had 6 singles, ranging from pretty interesting to fairly cheesy (I don't like John Martin's voice). There was a massive outburst of support when they announced they'd be splitting after just a couple of years, but then they did the John Farnham or the LCD Soundsystem trick of just getting back together again anyway. That's where we find ourselves here, the post-comeback Swedish House Mafia who don't get a lot of attention outside of Sweden unless they're attached to a more prominent name.

Once again, we've got DJs collaborating with DJs and me left with no idea on who does what. To my ear, this sounds more like Fred again..'s work, but some of the trance-influenced sections in the middle I could believe are the work of Swedish House Mafia. The people are here for Fred though, only he could drag up a song and a group from 10 years ago and get everyone to treat it like the hottest thing just dropped. It all comes together nicely though. It's all about that one high pitched synth effect and everything else is a means of giving it space to breathe.

#274. RÜFÜS DU SOL - You Were Right (#12, 2015)

36th of 2015

Sometimes if a song is lucky, it gets to be a hit. If it's even luckier, it gets to be a hit a second time. I don't think there's an actual limit to this. Certainly not now when success seems to beget success like nobody's business. For my money, "You Were Right" has gotten the chance to be a hit roughly 4 times. There can't possibly be a more obscure song to have earned this right. Nothing about it screams that it's the kind of song to do it, other than RÜFÜS DU SOL being a big name without big songs. You need a song to capitalise on that, and maybe "You Were Right" is just the one to do it.

Let's break that down then. The song is released in 2015, the first new single for the trio after a very successful slow burn of success with their debut album. That's enough to secure quite a bit of hype and it helps that the song is quite good. It debuts pretty high and then just slips down the chart from there. Apart from triple j, radio isn't really giving it a big push. triple j does pay dividends in early 2016 though, as the strong Hottest 100 finish (which is why I'm talking about it here) gets it back into the top 50 for a week. It quickly fades from that, but then gets its 3rd wind a little while later as Spotify Australia notices it as one of the better performing Australian songs at the moment and gives it some momentum back. This actually keeps it hanging around until early 2017. All in all, a pretty good showing. Then in late 2022 it gets yet another boost that nearly lifts it back into the top 50. I've never worked out why this happened, but again Spotify Australia were on the ball for this and they had it right near the top of the Hot Hits Australia playlist. When you've had this many bites at the cherry, it should easily the biggest hit of your career. If you look at the charts it is, but if you look at the current charts, you'll see that "Innerbloom" and another song I'll get to in the future just seem to invite more listeners currently. Maybe brief bursts on a curated playlist doesn't actually generate long term growth by default. It's still pretty big, mind you.

With "You Were Right", we arrive at a most sensible RÜFÜS DU SOL. If you liked the first album, you've still got enough of those signature bloops to feel right at home. It's not stagnating though, and I hear in it a certain driving pace that propels them into something new. I think what I like the most about this one is the layering. On the surface it's quite simple but you've got so many components mirroring each other and jumping in and out. It's all pushed within an inch of its life to make something that feels effortless.

#273. Tyler, The Creator (feat YoungBoy Never Broke Again) - WUSYANAME (#77, 2021)

18th of 2021

This is the part where I say I'm not going to talk about Tyler, The Creator right now because while this is his first appearance, he's a pretty regular contributor and there is no shortage of opportunities for that. It's the only time NBA YoungBoy shows up, so surely this is his time to shine? I've got nothing. I mostly just think of him as an artist who racks up an incredible number of entries on the Billboard Hot 100 that are gone just as quickly. If he has particularly famous songs then they're not in my periphery. Apparently his most streamed song is "Bandit", the Juice WRLD song he features on. I know that one, it's pretty good. It made the ARIA top 50 very briefly, which means that it's charted higher than any song by Dave McCormack's band Custard, aka the voice of Bandit on Bluey.

I was lying for the other part of this as well. Tyler, The Creator has racked up quite a few entries now, but not in the time frame I'm looking at. His commercial renaissance came fairly late, and it's taken even longer for him to reach the necessary instant notoriety to really exploit that. Not a single song from "Flower Boy" makes this list, just one from the next album, and this from the album after that. Not a lot, but we work with what we get.

"CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST" is one of the less immediate Tyler albums. It did pretty well, but basically every album he's put out in the last decade has done better. It just doesn't really have hits of the same calibre. Still a good listen, but I'd be hard pressed to recall as many highlights on it. It's also the album where you get a lot of interjections by DJ Drama, which feels like it hurts an album's appeal in the shuffle playlist era (Queens of the Stone Age got their interludes in while the going was good). To me, they're a nice bit of hype when you know they're coming. Like, "SAFARI" is triumphant, but I might need a guy to start yelling at me to really sell it. I'm a big fan of "HOT WIND BLOWS" which has a great return to form guest verse from a rapper who will eventually appear on this list. The real disappointment is that I don't get to cover "SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE", a song that misses out on being in the longest Hottest 100 entry ever conversation because it only got to #146 (it's longer than "Innerbloom"). I feel like that's become the sneaky favourite from the album of late and I was shocked to see it in the mix at the time. That's a Brent Faiyaz masterclass right there.

"WUSYANAME" on the other hand, that's a completely different story, one that's on the other side of the equation at barely 2 minutes long. I had a little trouble wrapping my head around it at first because it didn't stick out to me as the obvious hit that it seemed to succeed as at first. I think it's just a different side of Tyler to what I'm used to. Obviously he makes quite a few lovey-dovey songs, but it's the chill R&B instrumental that sticks out. Definitely a grower, but clearly also not his finest moment.

#272. British India - Wrong Direction (#83, 2014)

33rd of 2014

I've been talking about a lot of hugely popular international stars here, so it's time to get back to my roots and dive into Australian bands that aren't all that famous in Australia either. British India might just be the poster child for their era. They've been superseded by bands like Hockey Dad & Skegss who now that I think about it, fill a very similar role. But British India got towards the front of the line and stayed there for a long time when there was a lot of competition in their vein. Furthermore, they did it without having too much edge to their sound, like it always seemed far cooler to say you were a fan of Dead Letter Circus or something. British India serve a mild but equally important audience, even if it feels like it represents the contradictory response. A lot of people say they're here for lesser known acts getting their chance, but the moment they're forced to sit through them, they're in agony. You're not gonna get drama or headlines from British India, you're not even going to get pretentious types who insist on their ground-breaking brilliance that speaks for itself. Just a band some people are down with, and the rest aren't really interested. 

We need more bands like this. One of the big problems with the intense need for constant growth out of the majors is that an increasingly small minority soak up all the success. Artists that increasingly feel like brands more than anything else, and these kinds of smaller artists are always the first to go. I guess that for as much as I struggle to write about them here, I can empathise with the mentality that the Hottest 100 needs more of this kind of thing. There hasn't been a #1 song in Australia made by an unambiguously Australian artist without any international guests to dress it up in over 6 years (yes, I will get to it). Maybe the next one will appear overnight but the realistic signs just aren't there. That's one way to kill the dream of hitting it big.

This is all to say that this particular no thrills entry is one that I've always had a great fondness for. It might be British India at their most polished. I wouldn't normally pay too much attention to Matt O'Gorman's drumming, but he steals the show on this one. That usual perfunctory role in the verses just takes charge and gives it the necessary buzz. The rest of the band are taking the necessary actions as well, it's just a song that unironically feels like it's pushing the band forward...in the right direction.

#271. Glass Animals - Youth (#38, 2016)

29th of 2016

I've said before that I play with my own internal version of the hits sometimes. It's more likely to happen when there aren't any big chart positions to challenge your view immediately. Things like the Hottest 100 can do that though, and maybe it's a shock to your system of you've subscribed to a different version of the pecking order than reality. Maybe you just go into denial and refuse to accept it, like it doesn't count for some reason. On the other hand, what if you're able to get behind the idea that everyone was right all along?

This is my experience with Glass Animals in 2016. As previously mentioned, I was chips all-in for "Life Itself (#319) when that came out, but it was slower going after that. It was the lead single anyway, so it had to be the hit. We're talking about "Youth" here because it was the surprise package that far outpaced its predecessor, doing it without any gimmicky thrills. 'They must be wrong' is what I thought, or something like that. Not that I disliked "Youth", I just felt a little betrayed by the result.

I'm not sure when I made the mental switch, it wouldn't have been very long ago. In one of my more ambitious chapters, I made a top 2000 list of my favourite songs of the 2010s. At that point in time, I'd positioned "Life Itself" at #1303, and "Youth" at #1955. The first time I'd considered "Youth" part of the conversation and it's quickly vaulted up there. If anyone finds that list, then these positions might be the proof to consider that it's not as much a spoiler for this list as it could be.

Perhaps if I ever find an excuse to map the trajectory, it'll fall even further in favour of "Youth", but for now I totally can get behind it. If I want to talk about foundational music for me as a child, then it's hard to look past the Donkey Kong Country 2 soundtrack. Even if you've never played the games, it's just some seriously good instrumentals that can be both intense and soothing if the moment calls for it. It was good enough to be sampled by Drake back when he was more well respected for what he was doing (still my favourite project of his, "If You're Reading This, It's Too Late"). I mainly think of that small portion of exquisite tracks in the middle, "Bayou Boogie", "Forest Interlude", and of course, "Stickerbush Symphony" (actually that track is probably more enjoyable if you haven't played the game than if you have). This is what I think of when Glass Animals bring out that echoing synth over the hook. It feels like the most realised version of the Glass Animals experience, and that's why this is the last time I'm talking about them here.

#280-#276

#280. The Buoys - Lie To Me Again (#85, 2021)

19th of 2021

There's a strange Australian link with Amazon series "The Boys". I first thought about it last year when someone highlighted a niche reference from the prop department that would mean nothing to most people, but lit up the eyes of Australians. There was a series of names on a sheet of paper. There was a Veronica Barassi, followed by a Franklin, Prestia & Skilton. Fascinating in its own right, but then I learnt that in addition to two Kiwi stars, there's also an Australian actress on the show, while self-professed nepo baby Jack Quaid often collaborates with Aunty Donna and executive produced their AFL podcast (though he wasn't familiar with the sport). When Mother's Milk is first introduced, it's via a bunch of people calling him "Mr. Milk". There's a whole looking glass I need to get through, but in the meantime, I missed the boat on watching the show and only started watching it a few days before I knew I'd be typing this up. I have tried my darnedest to get through the whole show before this post went live but I've still got half a season to go. I like it. It's been a long time coming because I've known about it for longer than I've known about The Buoys. That's the Australian Buoys obviously, not the "Timothy" Buoys. The Buoys really ate when they made that one though. "The Boys" actually references that song in a scene where an octopus named Timothy gets eaten. Otherwise, the whole show is just a stealth advertisement campaign for the discography of Billy Joel.

By the time The Buoys made it here, they'd already had 6 line-up changes with only lead singer Zoe Catterall as a consistent member. They've had the same line up since 2019 so all the chaos is largely behind us. What we've got here feels like a prelude to a story that hasn't gotten to thrive in the outset. I love The Buoys. They're in very exclusive company as a band I've voted for more than once in the Hottest 100. They've not had a single entry since this one though and it's a real shame.

By all accounts, "Lie To Me Again" probably is their most popular song, and I'm not sure what they can do to change this. Something about it obviously connected with me at the time but I find nowadays, it's not a song I tend to opt for. They've just made so many songs that are much more fun by comparison. Then again, "Lie To Me Again" has its own role, a key contributor in the world of songs about shitty boyfriends. Not the same kind of shitty boyfriend as on "Red Flags" or "Subject A", but one with a goomah on the side that they end up going to. The kind of boyfriend who might co-captain back to back flags, or maybe they'd be right at home as one of the The Seven.

#279. Lizzo - Juice (#28, 2019)

20th of 2019

We have more tools available for chart analysis than ever before and it's always crucial for me to use them to the fullest. Once you start cutting corners, you just start to misinterpret everything and confuse 'this makes sense to me' with 'I have evidence to back this up'. To me, Spotify monthly listeners is an incredibly interesting metric. It's not without its faults, as obsessive listening is treated with the same significance as a one off auto-play track, but it's self-correcting in its own way. I find it more useful to look at artists with respect to their own peaks, rather than alongside others. I don't actually think Pitbull is currently bigger than KPop Demon Hunters at its peak.

When artists aren't in the spotlight, it's all you've really got, and it's a way to differentiate someone who's still doing numbers, to another who has genuinely been lost in the pile. Khalid for instance has about as many listeners as he's ever had. They're more scattered and he's fallen down the pecking order quite a bit, but he's doing numbers, and he's one contrived nostalgia cycle from vaulting back up to a new high. In fact it's hard to find many artists who truly fall off. Maroon 5 had one underperforming album back in the day that made their return to stardom feel paycheck to paycheck. Except now it's been 5 years since they last cashed one of those and the momentum hasn't slowed at all. The Chainsmokers have gone even longer without a big mainstream moment but they're still as big as they ever were. Part of this is because the population keeps growing and there aren't enough new artists to push people off the old ones, but with a few exceptions, artists never are the fads they come across as.

Lizzo is one of those exceptions. It's very difficult to find many artists who have fallen from grace to the degree she has. She's had enough hits that she should be set for life, maybe that'll still come down the track, but in the last few years, her stocks have plummeted immensely. Her monthly listeners have been cut by nearly 70%, and she's gone from a top 100 or thereabouts artists (highest I can find is #105 but she may have gone higher), down to 1237th. When I looked this up, more people were listening to Cutting Crew than her, as well as many artists I've not even heard of.

How can this be? The topic I've avoided talking about with these Lizzo entries are the allegations. Partly because I always had something else to mention, and partly because I wanted to hold off as long as possible in case something happened with it. This has somewhat panned out, and it has reinforced my chance to watch Lizzo's listeners continue to slip down. In any case, Lizzo received multiple lawsuits against her from people she worked with, accusing her of all manner of things that can be boiled down to being the absolute worst person to be around. The kind of thing that makes Jeremy Clarkson look like a saint by comparison. One of these lawsuits was dropped in 2024, seemingly on a technicality, and then in December 2025, another case was also dropped. For litigation purposes, it's great for her, but in the grand scheme, she's completely killed all her good will. It's hard to imagine her career ever recovering.

There is something to be said in all of this about the occasionally frustrating power dynamics that set this into motion. Maybe it's for the best that Lizzo is reprimanded for her actions, but then you find yourself wondering if a man did the same thing, would he face the same consequence? Probably not, or at least, not until every profit can be wrung out of his image and persona. You see the same thing with regards to LGBTQI+ creators, especially with regards to transgender communities. They have an audience that so badly want them to get things right, that if they make a mistake, it'll cause outright fury that only gets heightened once internalised bigotry from beyond that community takes hold and makes the pile-on bigger. Meanwhile a cisgender man can write about whatever he wants with nowhere near the same scrutiny. What it creates is a system where people who could potentially be a face or voice for a marginalised community are scared out of participation, lest they be subject to the same criticism. Whether you think the things Lizzo has been accused of and may well have done are particularly heinous or not isn't really important, but for her as a plus sized black woman who isn't shy about showing it off, it's a lot of avenues that subconsciously or not, make people more likely want to take her down. I can't help but find myself compartmentalising it all in the same way. There was a point where I was thinking forward and I was feeling more shame for the strong Lizzo rankings I was due to unveil than say that of Kanye West or Arcade Fire. Artists whose falls from grace feel less actualised because they haven't jettisoned anywhere near as much of their audience as Lizzo has. That's the world collectively telling you that she's the biggest problem, and you can't help but put that on your mind. Maybe Lizzo just didn't get enough hits in the end, and a more vital career filled with songs we can't tear away from our hearts would have kept her in our good graces. No one ever stops listening to David Bowie, Led Zeppelin or Red Hot Chili Peppers when they learn that they've done heinous things with children, they're too important. Lizzo was just a brief fling with some frivolous hit singles that weren't made to be canonised by the rock & roll crowd though, we can part our ways with that.

Aside from all this, the song we're looking at here, "Juice", is part of an increasingly common lineage. It's a song that's arguably been overshadowed by older songs in Lizzo's catalogue, but at the same time, absolutely benefitted from them. I had a passing familiarity with Lizzo prior to 2019, so I knew "Juice" when it came out. It could've been her big pop breakthrough but it wasn't really. That came a little while after when she had back to back hits with "Truth Hurts" and "Good As Hell", two songs that were quite old in 2019. That's never stopped us before though. Nowadays the experience is so scattered and fleeting that we can just make songs into belated hits when they were already hits, or are currently hits. The ceiling no longer exists.

I think this is the key to why we've got "Juice" here though. When voting comes around, you can't pick the older Lizzo songs, but maybe they introduced you to some other songs, and here's the hit that is eligible. If you've heard it enough in 2019, you might not even question the fact that it only peaked at #100 on the chart, it's just clearly Lizzo's biggest hit of 2019, and Lizzo is a big deal. It can feel like these eligible songs can be leeching off the lingering popularity that comes from wanting to vote for a song you missed the boat on. I'm gesturing towards Foster The People in 2011, who were no doubt popular, but were filling in a lot of missed votes for "Pumped Up Kicks" when they had two songs in the top 15.

If I can put myself back into my 2019 mindset, I'm all for it. Sometimes it takes lingering popularity of other songs by the same artist to put a spotlight on songs that might not otherwise get there, lord knows there's a lot of those to come as I count this down. "Juice" might not feel like it, but for me as someone who's been watching charts for many years, there's always been a bit of a disconnect between 'I think this sounds like a hit' and 'This is what a hit sounds like'. For every larger than life song that proclaims its domination like a "Hollaback Girl", there are a lot more songs like this, songs that don't quite have the same sauce. Maybe a lot of people online will fall in love with it, but the radio programmers and streamers just won't get behind it. Look at the song it directly beat in 2019, "Piece Of Your Heart" (#712). That's sitting on the right parameters to be a monster hit, even if it'll be harder to find a self-professed major fan of it.

Lizzo songs will often be criticised as being more of a blank space to be filled in with Tumblr quotes or something like that. Hard to not notice it once you've been told this, but I've never loved the characterisation. It just feels like an extension of the idea that Lizzo promotes (though doesn't necessarily practise) positivity and again, it's that increased scrutiny towards someone like her. Sometimes the world needs those meaningless profundities. The song's chorus manages to be both specific and malleable. Your juice can be anything. It's the sheer confidence and conviction that Lizzo brings to the table that makes it succeed, even if in hindsight we have to wonder if she protests too much.

#278. Rise Against - I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore (#80, 2014)

34th of 2014

Every now and then I'll see a recycled listicle that talks about those songs whose titles aren't what you think they are. As someone who used to read many things like this when I was younger and building up my musical knowledge, I can understand their purpose. I don't know if they are quite as viable in an age where people are much more likely to see the proper titles while listening (as opposed to whatever title was used on a file sharing service). I'll concede that exact titles aren't always common knowledge. On Jeopardy! a while back, all three contestants got the Final Jeopardy! clue incorrect because they all mistakenly omitted the pronoun from Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line". Some song titles are just cumbersome enough that you do go through life either never learning the truth, or finding out once and having it stick with you. Songs like "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)", "What's Up?" or "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)". Some other songs almost feel like they're playing a prank on you, but become a certain code of recognition that lets you know this person has probably gotten to the other side of the struggle with you. No one has ever said "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" without instinctively reminding themselves to adjust from that gut instinct. I haven't fallen for that one in a long time, but on the less famous side of things, I might frequently forget that this song here is not called "I Don't Wanna Be Here Anymore". 6 words is just a good hard limit on a title before it gets a bit cumbersome. And look, maybe Tim McIlrath is saying 'want to'. The lyric video attests to this, but I've never heard any 't' sound out of this song. At least Cyndi Lauper puts a bit of an 'o' sound into it, and even splits the words at one point.

Rise Against have often occupied an interesting space for me. As far as popular alternative rock bands go, they're the one that seems to skirt on the edge of being a bit too far gone to cut it in the mainstream. I think they've succeeded because in spite of the overall package, they're just too good at writing incredibly catchy songs that rope in people who might otherwise not be interested. They manage to play to a popular crowd without feeling like it's their primary aim. More than anyone else though, they're just that one band for whom I keep running into fans. People I wouldn't necessarily think to be interested in a band like this that have a strange soft spot for them, or maybe just a couple of their songs. I first heard of them via someone who might otherwise be listening to Fedde Le Grand or Alex Gaudino, but also had to download "Prayer of the Refugee" because it just has that unbeatable guitar riff. I don't know if the big screaming chorus was a plus or baggage, but it's given that song a heightened sense of importance to me, like it's the song that made them.

The slight edginess found its way into me, it was appealing to reason, or something like that. I'd hear more songs of theirs and just like what they were putting down. Songs like "The Good Left Undone" and "Re-Education (Through Labor)" just solidified that they had an excellent knack for writing choruses that flipped the script and made it feel like you were getting more bang for your buck. There was an obvious political tilt to the songwriting that made it feel important even if I wasn't necessarily getting the details beyond the broad strokes. I've never really had many people in my ear who listen to harder and louder stuff to tell me that Rise Against are wimps, so to me they just felt a little bit special. It's that often myopic view that the band for which no one really has a worthwhile retort against just feels good to listen to.

The notion of Rise Against being totally not populist would slip a little along the way. During this still relatively early period, they found some radio success with the song "Savior". At the time it was a record-breaking song for just how long it spent on the Alternative Songs chart, 65 weeks. It wasn't just a radio darling though, as it's gone on to be a streaming monster. If you look at songs released in 2008, you're only gonna find about 20 that have more streams than "Savior" (which is closing in on 1 billion on Spotify). Some monster hits of that time like "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "So What" are playing second fiddle to this punk rock song that could only get to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Bubbling Under chart. Perhaps the band's major label distribution got the best out of them. I used "Re-Education (Through Labor)" as a means to teach myself how to play Guitar Hero with all 5 frets (not the best choice but I liked the song a lot). By the time the Hottest 100 had rolled around, I'd mastered it to the point of whipping out the plastic peripheral and playing along with all the note mapping that I'd memorised at this point. A core memory of mine just made from the song being licensed to a video game. I kept this enthusiasm up for their next album "Endgame" in 2011. This seemed to be a dropping off point for many as it didn't really muster hits to the same degree as before (though there was enough hype to make "Help Is On The Way" their only charting Billboard single). I listened to that album a lot and got my fair share of songs that felt like a big deal to me. "Architects" is a little too weird to go all the way but I've loved it for 15 years now. It felt like the moment had passed after that though, they'd retreat back to their niche in favour of a younger, hipper replacement.

The weirdest thing happened. Maybe you can pin it down to the soon to be changing tides of 2014's chart rules, but Rise Against inexplicably had their first ever charting hit in Australia with "I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore". It got to #69 too so it wasn't just a weird fluke on the cusp. For whatever reason, the public just decided to jump in on this song together, rather than gradually discovering it over a matter of months, or just buying the album instead. As if to show it wasn't just some meaningless fluke, here it is here, I'm talking about this because Rise Against made the Hottest 100 again, 6 years after what seemed to surely be their only ever appearance. I've been writing all of this with a sense of bewilderment. I can't believe Rise Against are part of this list.

The pieces are still there with "I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore". My mind wants to say the fire had burnt out but I can still feel it. It's just shy of being a big highlight because I've heard it all at this point. In a pinch, it goes down a treat, but it's missing that extra special something to put it at the top of the pack.

#277. SAFIA - Over You (#89, 2016)

30th of 2016

Listen to the song "Carousel" by New Zealand singer Paige. It's just an absolute masterclass in blatant buffoonery, jovial jest and blunderous balatro. It's carnival music is what I'm saying. It comes from an album called "King Clown", and even includes a short snippet that sounds very similar to Fučík's "Entrance of the Gladiators" (if you don't recognise that name, you absolutely know it, and now you know that it has an ill-fitting name). It's a tried and true formula for me. I can't say for sure if it draws on my experiences with Lemmings 2's circus levels but if we're to believe that everything is foundational, then why not? I love whimsical sounds like this. Not something that I think is often set out upon to make, but in the quest for invigorating melodies, we just can't help but fall back upon it.

I am unsure if SAFIA are intentionally in this trade but they have done it more than once so I will cast a suspicious eye towards them. "Over You" has some plausible deniability. Maybe they just wanted a nice little riff to tie a bow around this one, but it can't help but dance around in a circle in a funny way. It'd be a nice bit of meta-commentary on the song, whose central thesis is a chronic inability to get over their ex. I see the niche meme forming. It was funnier in my head at least.

A nice little treat to see this one get in though. I don't think it's a favourite for many, but it's a catchy little pop song that isn't trying to do much more than that. They even play the classic gambit of sending us straight to the chorus at the very start. That's the money shot right there, why try and do anything else?

#276. Future - Mask Off (#95, 2017)

30th of 2017

It's now time for one of those fun narrative tricks where we tell the same story from a different perspective. This time we start at 2015. Future's been in the game for a while now. He's established himself and scored some hits that might be a little surprising considering his vocal stylings don't seem the most obvious for crossover success. Think a lot of vocoder mumbling that's not always interested in stepping into the foreground. He's about to have the biggest successes of his career so far. First he releases "DS2" and it becomes his first ever #1 album. He'd follow it up with about 10 more #1 albums, but this is the start of that. It's also pretty well acclaimed, and that's only increased in the decade since. Depending on who you ask, it might just be the definitive trap album, alongside Travis Scott's "Rodeo" that was released a couple of months later. Drake jumped on board, and later that year they released a collaborative mixtape, "What A Time To Be Alive". It does reasonably well and nets them both a catchy viral hit in "Jumpman", a song not about Super Mario.

I've spoken about the next part already. Not long after this, young upstart Desiigner releases his first single, "Panda" (#324), and it's huge. #1 hit huge, something Future's never gotten particularly close to getting ("Jumpman" peaked at #12). Comments started flying out when this happened, either remarking the injustice, or poking fun at Future for not being able to do something that the new kid seemed to do without trying. It bordered on straight up biting, given that a lot of people (myself included) genuinely thought they were listening to Future when they first heard Desiigner's voice. It doesn't help that Desiigner is from New York but claims to have broads in Atlanta, Future's hometown. I think a lot of people wanted to stoke up beef but it didn't really happen. There's no way Desiigner was going to jump in on it, and Future was mostly not going to act threatened by him. He took a couple of small pot shots at Desiigner during some live shows but that was about as far as it went. Desiigner didn't stay relevant for long enough to get any mileage out of it.

Future's career certainly flourished after this though. Interest around him was higher than ever and he tended to chart by default from this point on. In 2017 he released two albums in back to back weeks. It allowed him to be the first artist to ever debut #1 albums in back to back weeks, and probably made Guns N' Roses slap their head for not thinking of it at the time. The first of those albums, "Future" is the relevant one here because it gave Future his biggest ever solo hit "Mask Off". It was the song that proved that Future's schtick could even work in a pop context, or that he'd just gotten so big that it was inevitable. It still couldn't get to #1 though, stalling out at #5 in America and making the #1 position feel even further away as a pipe dream. I'm going to fast forward a lot further to say that it's no longer an issue. Future has three #1 singles now, two of them with help from Drake (though I'd say Tems is a bigger factor on "WAIT FOR U"), and one of them in a diss track to Drake, funny that. Future's career looks to be in good stead as it stands, so perhaps another one is forthcoming.

The part I've left out of here is how strange it might feel that Future has this kind of following. His music doesn't exactly tend to offer the insights associated with parasocial engagement, largely because it's so hard to decipher usually. I found myself thinking some time ago that he has to be one of the most famous musicians that I know next to nothing about as a person. It's just not what he does. With that in mind, I had an interesting experience recently listening to "DS2". If you catch it on Spotify, you'll see a track tacked on the end called "Like I Never Left", and it's just shy of 26 minutes long. It's not actually Future's "Bohemian Stairway To November, I'm Dying Of Thirst" but it's a 5 part documentary from the making of the album. It's mostly Future talking about the success he'd had up to this point. About how he made the music he wanted to make and was so happy to see people were into it. It was weirdly just the first time I'd seen Future as a real person and not just a mysterious vessel for trap bangers. Maybe I would have just skipped it if I hadn't been halfway into a Rocket League game when it started, but I like hearing interviews from people you don't normally expect to get them from.

As for "Mask Off", it's probably the most streamlined version of the Future experience we've ever gotten. Not necessarily the best (I've got a soft spot for "Move That Dope"), but it's definitely the starter pack entry. One where you can't possibly accuse him of resting on the laurels of his collaborators. Well, maybe you can still look at Metro Boomin and his sample of Tommy Butler's "Prison Song" (no relation to System of a Down) providing the unforgettable flute sample and everything around it. I'd still mark down Future as the biggest part of the song though. He takes queues from QOTSA's "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer" and makes a hook out of 'Percocet, molly, Percocet'. It just works. He manages to do what I can only dream of and thrive in both a mask on and mask off mentality. He has the sheer confidence to rhyme 'liability' with 'adrenaline' in what remains my go-to example of a ridiculous slant rhyme. In Australia, Future is one of those middle card rappers who can't really get hits off the ground if one of the big 4 aren't attached (though oddly he did manage a solo #1 album in 2022 despite never otherwise hitting the top 10), so I was glad to see it for this one, and glad to see it part of the Hottest 100 canon.

#285-#281

#285. Ruby Fields - Kitchen (#58, 2021)

21st of 2021

It's fun to say that triple j go rogue sometimes and play whatever they want to play. Maybe once upon a time it was true too, though I don't think so anymore. They're definitely more rigid now with playing what the label and promoters want out of them, with maybe a slight influence from what seems to register with listeners. "Kitchen" was the big hit from Ruby Fields' debut album in 2021, but it wasn't released as a single. Several songs were released before it but didn't make the same impact. For me, "R.E.G.O." and "Song About A Boy" feel pretty essential, but I'll admit that I didn't vote for them either which doesn't put me in a spot to complain. Maybe the latter is just a retread of that earlier hit I still haven't gotten to, but if you like that one, maybe give it a spin anyway.

Sometimes all you need is a nice lyrical mantra to sit on. Something that sticks with everyone and makes them want to listen out for the parts they don't remember as well. "Kitchen" is one of those songs. Do you remember the part of the song where she says the title? I should because she starts both verses with the same line for it, but then I'm lost. On the other hand, more of it will come to mind if I just tell myself it's the 'You've got my back, mate' song. What a Ruby Fields-coded lyric, how did it take 4 years to get to this? What does it mean for Deep Blue Something who pined over a mediocre connection of kinda liking an old movie? Ruby Fields is out here connecting with someone for disliking the same things, and also remembering what she drinks. That's the foundation of a relationship right there.

I suppose I can make myself content that this was the pick for 2021, because it does show a different side for Ruby Fields next to a lot of more out-and-out rockers. "Kitchen" does do it as well at the end but I doubt it's the part of the song many people think of. The chorus is the money shot for sure. It's a good one too, just nice, heart-warming and breezy. I'm writing this before the Hottest 100 has happened so as it stands, it's the most recent Ruby Fields song to make the countdown. There hasn't really been a drop off period, just the harsher indictment of going several years without releasing anything. Maybe I'll look back on this when it's time to post and go 'oh, what a nice surprise, "92 Purebred" is a great song', but I'm not expecting quite as much. It just doesn't have that one mantra. Editor me is here to update that it landed at #128, not too shabby.

#284. King Stingray - Get Me Out (#46, 2021)

20th of 2021

It's nice to have things written down. There's the adage that every time you try to remember something, you're actually recalling the last time you tried to do that, and so as time goes by, you create an increasingly distorted version of events that sounds close enough but is nothing like the truth of the matter. Maybe that multi-game GameBoy game that I remember vividly but there's no information about online doesn't really exist (update: Hilariously I've since found exactly what I was thinking of, but it was for the lesser known Mega Duck console). Maybe there was no time when the footy coverage would go black & white whenever the blood rule was enacted. It's always just a mix of recollection from different things that get merged together. That's why most Mandela effect examples (at least the very popular ones) usually have some very simple explanation that boils down to 'you're thinking of this other thing'.

"Get Me Out" was my first exposure to King Stingray. Was I interested in them because of the nepotism link to Yothu Yindi? Or did I just hear the song and resonate with it in its own right? It's probably the latter, because I made a note at the time that suggested I wasn't even sure if there was a connection. In general I'm sure the story got around and it helped them. Everyone loves a story and sometimes the real benefit from being descended from someone famous is that it's a conversation starter. It doesn't even have to be positive. We can't help but spread the word about acts we're revolted by. We badly need them as conversation starters. It's like bringing up Gracie Abrams just because you really want to vent your opinions about LOST or The Force Awakens.

It certainly helps me, the person who is very much out of things to say about King Stingray but also knows I still have to do it a couple more times. Mainly though, it's fun to revisit this one now knowing they became something of a big deal in the aftermath. That's my other favourite thing to look at, to see the first thing I said about an artist when they first showed up. My favourite one is at the start of 2025 when I jokingly suggested that Olivia Dean was gonna be a big thing, akin to Olivia Rodrigo. I can't actually claim the credit on that one because I very much did not think it was gonna happen, but I love that I wrote it down. Perhaps you could make the prediction of King Stingray as well but it's probably not as bold. This is a band that just had it all worked out pretty quickly. No awkward first time growing pains here, they're ready for the big leagues. Or at least, the big part of these smaller leagues. I won't copy paste my previous entries as much as I want to, but this has pretty much all I need. Great bit of tension & release on the chorus, as well as some excellent use of the didgeridoo, which is more than just a token sound bed, but a vital part of the tapestry to rev it up.

#283. A$AP Rocky (feat Skepta) - Praise The Lord (Da Shine) (#13, 2018)

30th of 2018

With some artists, you can think about their biggest hit and it comes pretty easily. Bon Jovi? That's "Livin' On A Prayer". blink-182? "All The Small Things". A$AP Rocky and Skepta? Who even knows. For both of them it might very well be this song, but there are so many caveats that you can't really commit to it. It's done very well in the long term, but if you only pay attention to the initial short term, they've both had more impressive showings. Just a tough arrangement when A$AP Rocky started off his career with some blockbuster singles, and for Skepta, the US market is so allergic to UK rap for the most part that most of his material just lives in a smaller market. Maybe in these parts, "Victory Lap" will eventually do enough to catch up to this one, but I suspect the present 3xPlatinum certification for this is wildly out of date. Rest assured, if you haven't thought about this song in a long time, it's a monster hit.

I touched a bit on this when I was talking about "Sundress" (#498). There are some hits that seem to defy the odds and reach a far greater audience than that artist should expect. With exceptions, something you tend to spot in this is that it does very little in benefitting that artist's greater catalogue. In theory, this is a hit that solidifies Rocky's status as something of a legend, but in practice it was a brief fling just because it's a very catchy and likeable song, so that's as far as it went for the most part. A$AP Rocky hasn't really had much of anything resembling a hit on release since this one, just the occasional random bouts of virality.

I completely understand how all of this happened. Just one listen to this song and it all just immediately clicks. If you're looking for a shuffle-friendly rap song to find on your playlist and not skip, it's this one. It won't be the last time we get one that's built around a funny woodwind hook, but to bring with it such an easy to sing along hook? I know Australian radio wasn't going anywhere near it at this stage but they easily could've slid this into rotation. Okay maybe they'd need to censor out the bit about breaking the law and taking some more. Maybe it's falling apart now.

Another reason this song might seem so effortlessly catchy is because it's not entirely original. You might just recognise the entire flow from DMX's song "Who We Be". He's not credited for an interpolation or anything, but Skepta literally shouts him out when he says 'I listen to X, I peep the bars', and that seems convincing enough as proof for me. I remember it being an unusual coincidence that this song was sharing chart space with XXXTENTACION who died a week before it was released. It meant that referring to any rapper at that point as 'X' was exceedingly ambiguous, and that's not even acknowledging Xzibit who probably deserves some of that as well.

It's all odd because I think of this as a song that definitely benefitted from how popular hip-hop was at the very moment, and it's a song that I don't think would otherwise have gotten off the ground. On the other hand, it's also comfortably the 3rd highest hip-hop song in the 2018 list just behind two landmark releases, so they got a pretty good arrangement out of this. Add it to the "Just Friends" (#401) pile I guess, it's just so catchy.

#282. The Kite String Tangle - Given The Chance (#19, 2013)

44th of 2013

Maybe you've heard the story of the first ever Big Day Out in 1992. It started as just an elaborate promotion for a Violent Femmes tour but quickly became a huge festival in its own right. A big catalyst to this was the moderately famous supporting band that was booked in the previous year, Nirvana. It's a dream scenario for bookers to strike a bit of luck like that, one that not only ensures more tickets sold than initially expected, but shows the country that you're on the pulse, and maybe you'll find the next Nirvana along the way.

I first heard about The Kite String Tangle in August 2013. He was booked as a supporting act on a tour for an artist who I'm sure will one day appear on this list. I'm not sure how that tour went (it didn't make it to my side of the country), but I do know that by the time it happened, The Kite String Tangle was sitting on one of the hottest songs going around. One so hot that it landed in the top 20 while the top billed artist didn't have anything to show in the top 200. The most impressive thing is that "Given The Chance" managed to reach the ARIA chart for several weeks, despite the notable handicap that triple j were hosting it as a free download on their website at the time. That's how I got it! It's incredible just what company this song was rubbing shoulders with. I guess we all love a wunderkind when we find them.

"Given The Chance" is a song that makes me want to take my critical hat off. I think the more you listen closer to it, the more it seems to fall apart. A lot of scratchy sounding synths in the verses, a vocal loop on the chorus of very unserious woahs, and just some tinny synths to get us going. Yet there's a certain appeal to it all. You're not thinking about how the vocals are mixed when the big climax hits towards the end, just that the song is doing its own thing and it has the force of conviction to move past that.

#281. Ratatat - Cream On Chrome (#52, 2015)

37th of 2015

The gap between me knowing about Ratatat and me knowing basically anything about them is surprisingly vast. They're on Kid Cudi's "Pursuit Of Happiness", he even shouts them out in the song. What are they doing on that song? I dunno, maybe it was a guest verse I missed, maybe it's just an elevated producer tag. Technically that is what it is, but I feel like I would have appreciated knowing that they were an electro-rock duo who specialised in making instrumental music with a heavy focus on guitars. Once you get to know Ratatat, "Pursuit of Happiness" starts to make a lot more sense, that guitar solo was just staring at me for years.

Say the line, Bart. Alright then. In what has to be one of the most grand cosmic coincidences in Hottest 100 history, we had a very rare a cappella entry via Matt Corby (#889) and it was immediately followed by a still fairly rare instrumental entry via Ratatat. I know what the next thing is that you're thinking, easiest mash up ever. They've even got similar tempos so it's not so jarring to have to change one to match it. Let me just tell you that matching them perfectly was another story, as I grew more convinced that Matt was hitting his sticks out of time. Nonetheless I proceeded and created an absolute abomination. Here's a small sample that was somewhat listenable.

Still, at its core, it's a very interesting situation. It's nice to see hits like this that break away from the convention in one form or another, because that convention itself can be limiting and maybe feel strange from the outside looking in. It's a bit like how foreign language songs can often struggle to cross over. Maybe it's because people like to have recognisable words they can sing along to, but I do find myself wondering if there's a more implicit suggestion in the songs from the get-go that it's peering into a culture that's not your own, and asking you to listen to something that wasn't made for you. They can still do this, and often times the ones that do, are the ones that soar to the top, making it seem like more of an issue with the mediary gatekeepers than the public at large.

It's the kind of thing that makes you look at "Cream On Chrome" and wonder how it got the go-ahead in the first place. Someone had to decide to put this instrumental rock song on the radio and then it was up to everyone else to be content with it. You can easily foresee a world where this just doesn't happen, and Ratatat remain in their relative niche. After all, it's not like they were the new hotness that popped up out of nowhere, they'd been doing this for about seventeen years, just kickin' it from their head, you know what I'm saying? I can't even say that they just jumped back into their niche after this because they've gone completely radio silent since releasing the album this is from, aside from some solo projects. As far as I can tell, there wasn't even a notice of hiatus.

When I listen to "Cream On Chrome", I do make a bit more sense of how we got here. It's a song that can justify calling to question the necessity to have vocals, because it manages to go through all the necessary beats on its own without them. It's a conventional pop song with just one of those conventions missing. I think the real key to it though is the intro. There's a pure swagger to the way the song waltzes in, like it's begging to be in a soundtrack to a gangster movie. Well, the drop is very good too if you want to call it that.

#290-#286

#290. Tash Sultana - Cigarettes (#84, 2018)

31st of 2018

Something that tends to happen if you're not one of the biggest stars in the world is that you'll probably get that one hit from the album that takes off. Ostensibly it advertises the album on its own but I'm not sure how often it actually works. I think a lot of people take the message that there's one really good song and you don't need to hear the rest. What's interesting about it is that it's not always something that goes to plan.

When labels push out new albums, they tend to inform all the relevant platforms about the 'focus tracks'. They're the songs they want radio stations to play and streaming platforms to prioritise, so they aren't overwhelmed trying to pluck something out of the track list themselves. They do well with this, and in most cases, that focus track tends to be the highest new entry for the album on the first week. Sometimes the public appears to go rogue with it and the real big hit will assert itself in any number of subsequent days, so the former focus track gets abandoned, though you might not know if you aren't paying super close attention to this. Billie Eilish still landed at #17 with "LUNCH" despite it having been overtaken by numerous other songs at that point, just because it made enough of an impression on release that a lot of people probably still thought it was 'the' song from that album.

I don't have an exciting revelation to make about this with Tash Sultana. If anything it's a surprise case of it just going along according to plan. "Cigarettes" comes from their debut album, which already had 5 singles released from it at that point. The earlier ones in 2018 were likely being treated as promotional singles, when you just get a new song waved in front of you every few weeks, and a chance for them to road test which ones get a better reaction. "Cigarettes" was the focus single when the album came out. I remember the first time I heard it, on New Music Friday. It stood out a bit to me, and if you're familiar with the song you can probably guess why. I was a little surprised to see it make the Hottest 100, actually the only Tash Sultana song to do so that year, but I guess everyone else heard the same song I was hearing.

For the most part, it's a pretty standard affair, if even a little forgettable. I had to double check myself if this was the 'I'm on a permanent vacation to the soul' song or if I had it mixed up with another one. This was right after I just listened to it. Maybe if you're super into Tash Sultana, that's your kind of thing anyway. On the other hand, behind the first 3 minutes of the song, the biggest treat is being hidden away. Just this huge 2 minute instrumental section at the end. I can imagine the hesitation on hearing that. "Electric Feel" (#951) was just a year ago and might represent the worst version of what that would entail. I've never felt that trepidation in "Cigarettes", just a nonstop thrill ride. The drums are completely locked in like it's that British post-punk revival band from the 2000s at their peak, and the guitar strikes the perfect balance between playing to the crowd and showing off. I always get excited, knowing it's coming. Very cute music video too, I must say.

#289. Teenage Joans - Three Leaf Clover (#87, 2020)

19th of 2020

When I was in 11th grade English class, I'd constantly be set assignments to write essays about books that were way out of my depth. It was the ultimate case of faking it until you make it, because I completely lacked the skill to dig greater meaning out of text beyond what was being said. I still don't think I can do it. Whenever someone does it, I can never tell if they're faking it as well. I never really learnt how to do it. Maybe that was the time when I should have learnt it, but every time I handed something in, I'd just get it back a few days later with maybe a couple of spelling error corrections and a 13/20 with absolutely no notes. No insight on how to get better, no clarity in what I was doing right or wrong. I didn't really get a chance to see anyone else's work either, so I was just flying blindly, waiting until I no longer had to take this torturous class. I was especially bad at meeting word counts. You'd go into a paragraph with a set of things you want to mention, rattle them off and suddenly you're out of things to say. I always wanted to see how everyone else did it. The art of saying the same thing but with more words. I probably have gotten better at it now, but I'll never get the chance to compare my work line for line with someone else. I guess I'll have to settle for being critical of a song written by a high schooler.

I jest, but I did just proofread my own post for "Wine" (#381) and realised I don't really have more to say about Teenage Joans. They just have two songs here and I like this one more. It's probably how many people feel. "Three Leaf Clover" was their breakout hit, the one that earned them the exposure. Maybe they'll come up with something better in the future, but the spontaneity won't be matched.

Most of the same comments I made before still apply here. It's all very 'first draft' and incredibly low stakes. A lot of materialistic discussion on clothing and the limited number of things you have going on in your life at that point. I wonder if there really was a Stacy at their school when they wrote this though. It feels like getting revenge on the cool kids by making fun of them on a song that got played on national radio and I bet it'd sound like a sick burn at the moment. Mostly though, I just find it curious that this is a song about not fitting in that uses the metaphor of being a three leaf clover. You know, the normal ones, the ones that fit in. Maybe there's some truth to the experience. If you're surrounded by people who tend to stick out in their own ways, maybe you will feel inadequate. It's ironic that these elements make their songs stick out a bit on this list. Maybe it's not a universal thing, but one can only hope they maintain future access to their diary of banal thoughts growing up. It'll show you just how far you've come.

#288. Skin On Skin - Burn Dem Bridges (#52, 2022)

22nd of 2022

There's been a strange micro-trend popping up in the Hottest 100 recently. You'll get these entries that seem to defy expectations. The Hottest 100 is supposed to be filled with the biggest names and the biggest hits, and then these obscure producers just pop up and do their thing, potentially to never be heard from again. I'm told it's TikTok influence, but it's so unusual to see it pop up like this when there isn't much of a chart showing for it. Like there's been this secret hit song that pops up here because the people who like it, really like it. We had "A Little Closer" by Diffrent in 2024, an unusual entry not just for the obscurity of it, but because it doesn't even sound like a 2024 hit. It's rooted in UK garage sounds that were big over 20 years ago. I don't doubt there's a craving for it, I'm just surprised it comes in such big numbers. It helps to stand out, I suppose.

We had "Burn Dem Bridges" by Skin On Skin in 2022. I would not say it sounds like "A Little Closer", but it also feels extremely influenced by UK dance music. Skin On Skin is actually Australian, and the whole thing is a big left turn for him. It's possible you'd already heard his music many years ago when he was recording as UV boi. I mainly remember the song "If She, If He" with EASTGHOST. I probably haven't thought about the song in nearly a decade but it's very vivid and holds up pretty well. It doesn't sound remotely like this song too, so the rebranding makes sense. In the extremely white world of Australian EDM, here's a South Sudanese producer making the leap with one enviable hit.

I was immediately obsessed with this song. When the dust settled on the 2022 countdown, it was the song I wanted to listen to the most. I use the word a lot but it really is relentless. There's a little repetition to it, but it's used well. Just that one double talk line of 'If it ain't, if it ain't' gets a lot of mileage for me. Just nice to hear something with some pounding bass though.

#287. Beyoncé - Hold Up (#66, 2016)

31st of 2016

A few weeks ago I wrote about Taylor Swift with the pretence of talking about Tkay Maidza (#322). If you can believe it, I had to cut that entry down a little shorter than I'd like. I'd promised that I'd talk about the relation between fans of pop music, indie music, and the spectrum surrounding it all, but I couldn't find a way to get into it without veering off on an additional tangent and losing the pace. Allow me to finally indulge with a relevant byproduct of it.

People tend to like different kinds of music. What makes our brains work the way they do, I cannot say for certain, just that we're all going to respond differently to different stimuli. It's a fact of life that's maybe weird, but mostly interesting. It does likely extend beyond the music and onto the image itself, but that's a whole other tangent on its own. This isn't a callout post to anyone for doing this, because everyone does it, whether you think about it or not.

In the parts of the internet I frequent, a lot of it can boil down to some variation of pop vs. indie. The big conveyer belt of shiny hit songs vs. the more custom built specialties. The latter can boast its own credibility out of that, but the former has always got the populism war won before it's even begun. It's a classic dichotomy. I don't know which one's Jacob and which one's Edward, but if you're outspoken about what you like and dislike in music, you're probably going to run into something along these lines. Deep down, we're all a little convinced that we're right and everyone who disagrees isn't giving it enough credit because it's either too popular or not popular enough.

The funny thing about it all is that in a chart discussion context, they both need each other. I was thinking the other day how no matter where I look, in the world of chart discussion, you're always finding people who might perhaps seem too cool for the charts based on what they listen to. The kind of person who bemoans the popularity of Morgan Wallen and thinks those people should be listening to Clipse instead. I know because I've been that person. They need each other though because based on what people complain about in the charts, the last thing they need is for more people to be aware of the chart. You need people who are insistent with digging up new releases, hyping up the newcomers that are soaring up the chart...and then immediately get sick of them and never listen to them again. The reign of Alex Warren cannot end until enough gatekeepers come around and reinforce how severely unhip he is. For the indie fans, nothing's better for your credibility if you have an easy reference of what you're sitting above. A lot of outrage towards pop music is probably equal parts genuine and performative, but I think a lot of those same people aren't prepared for how readily they'd get the same things said back at their favourite artist if there wasn't a bigger target on the fairway. A lot of the time they are just the same people. The Popheads subreddit was built from within the Indieheads subreddit, created by members who wanted to be able to discuss Carly Rae Jepsen's banger of a new album. Maybe that's the best sign that this schism isn't as powerful as it once was, and people are much more regularly crossing the aisle with their music preferences.

It's a nice thought, but any change of this nature is bound to be slow, and kept in place because not everyone gets the same memo, or even wants it. I'm writing this during the closing days of voting in the Hottest 100, and in the past few days I've seen several posts that have taken strange offence to the very female dominated voting turn out, suggesting something has to be done because of the negative implications of that. Their pop is gonna get in front of my indie, something like that. Music is such a personal thing that we're all gonna have our hangups over what will always be a bridge too far. For many in 2016, Beyoncé was that bridge.

The easiest arguments to make are the ones that just make sense on the surface. It doesn't require a lot of explanation to say that Beyoncé doesn't pass the sniff test. She'd gone about her business as one of the biggest stars on the planet while triple j sat in another corner leaving her be. You will not find "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" on the 2008 Hottest 100 list. The winning song that year was arguably a bigger hit song (and admittedly a problem in its own right depending on who you ask), but it wasn't going to cause the same hysteria as Beyoncé. The reality of the situation is that triple j had actually played Beyoncé before. I don't have the actual data behind this because I wasn't monitoring it at the time, but her early solo single "Work It Out" made it to the voting list when it came out, so I have to assume it was getting played. Maybe that seems strange in hindsight, but you really have to put in consideration that this is a fledgling Beyoncé who wouldn't start making world conquering hits for another year. That first year of your career when everyone's trying to figure out what to do with you can be so strange. Remember when triple j played Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran briefly?

"Work It Out" is just a weird technicality though, what I'd have to say would hold just as strongly without it. In the same way that we all established what Beyoncé meant to us all in the 2000s, it would be unfair to say she didn't make her own way about challenging that notion once the 2010s started. In 2011, her first new lead single was "Run The World (Girls)". An abrasive song for certain, but one that was effectively Beyoncé doing her thing on top of a Major Lazer instrumental, a song that had literally been heard often on triple j not long prior to this. It was one of the first signs that showed that Beyoncé was done with utter annihilation, she's big enough to do whatever she wants.

That's also what continued to happen with subsequent releases. She famously released her self-titled album in December 2013 with no warning whatsoever, at the time coining Beyoncé as a verb for whenever anyone emulated this. Something also changed, which is that Beyoncé started getting very favourable reviews. If you look at Metacritic aggregates, Beyoncé's first 4 albums generally hover around the 60 to 70 mark, very underwhelming, and the signs of an album that's there as an obligation to house the hits. "Beyoncé" scored an average of 85, and every subsequent album has gone over 90. Beyoncé had gone from an artist for whom it would be bold to defend, to someone who you have to be very careful not to say the wrong thing about.

"Beyoncé" was a very successful album if you look at how much it sold, but do you know any of the songs on it? Maybe if you're deeply invested in the charts you do, or maybe if someone mentions "Drunk In Love" that might ring a bell (assuming you don't confuse it for the other JAY-Z collaboration with a similar name), but it was a Beyoncé album without a "Halo". It didn't even have an "If I Were A Boy". I had trouble with what to think about it. I was so used to being mostly anti-Beyoncé because of her huge chart smashes that always overstayed their welcome, but how do you do that when the songs just aren't omnipresent. I was a little into it, but it wasn't really a priority for me so there wasn't much to make of it, just a weird career pivot that seemed to please people more invested in it. I like it a fair bit more now, "Partition" is one of the best songs she's ever put out. I can't believe all of those bits are in the same song. In hindsight, it probably still is the strangest pivot in her career, but that's not to say she was done playing with our expectations.

Beyoncé has been married to JAY-Z since 2008. In a world of celebrity couples feeling more like business arrangements as they seem to come and go so frequently, this is pop music's power couple and they've stood together all this time. It didn't always seem like this though, and rumours of JAY-Z's infidelity began to swirl. The oft-remembered incident of Solange Knowles hitting JAY-Z in an elevator comes up here, and while they did complete a tour together, it didn't look optimistic.

The strange career moves continued. Beyoncé released the song "Formation" in early 2016, except it's not on the regular DSPs, and for a while it was unlisted on YouTube. Perhaps the biggest hit video that couldn't be searched for, or at least, I can't find one that's bigger. Two months later, Beyoncé Beyoncés, except Beyoncé doesn't Beyoncé "Beyoncé" again, she Beyoncés "Lemonade". For the second year in a row, good going Buffalo for not getting eliminated from the playoffs before I wrote this. "Lemonade" streams exclusively on TIDAL, meaning that most of the world is cut off from listening to it, but it doesn't prevent the album from doing titanic numbers. It came out on the same week that Prince died which meant that it was competing with another source of monster sales, but did end up winning out, and it meant that the two of them worked together to produce an all-time great ARIA Chart. I basically already said it before, but "Lemonade" was beloved by many. It was beloved by me, too. Just a complete revelation that had me put down my skeptic hat and put all my stock into the album instead. "Lemonade" is banger after banger after banger. It's so varied as to not feel redundant, and felt like a lock for my favourite album of the year depending on how much credit I wanted to give to that funny BABYMETAL album at the time.

The success of "Lemonade" has become one of the biggest 'what if' questions for me. While sales still had a good hold of the chart in 2016, not being on Spotify meant a crushingly low ceiling for all the songs, which we had every reason to believe would have been dominating the chart. We saw last year with Lily Allen's album just how much a relationship drama tabloid album can generate, and this was the mother of all of those. Madeline wishes she was Becky with the good hair. Just Total Righteous Anger Towards JAY-Z: The album. It might have just been a pantomime but it was hard not to take it seriously, especially when JAY-Z's next album "4:44" responded to the whole situation with remorse. That's another album whose potential chart fortunes were squandered for the same reason. Very good album too.

At the time, the biggest hit from the album was "Formation". It was probably an obvious choice given the leading treatment. If you weren't prepared to tackle a whole album right away, it was a chance to finally buy that single that's been almost everywhere but not on the charts. In an ideal world, maybe I'd be talking about "Formation" here too, but triple j didn't really stop at that station. I can understand it's a bit of a tougher sell, but it really is a stellar single. Incredible what you can do with a goofy spring sound.

This is where the pop and indie war resumes. "Lemonade" was the point where triple j decided they were fine with playing Beyoncé more regularly. On one hand it's a little out of nowhere, but on the other hand it makes complete sense. The one thing I neglected to mention about "Lemonade" is that you could effectively call it Beyoncé's indie rock album. In lieu of working with the world's biggest producers, Beyoncé worked with Jack White, Father John Misty, Jameela Jamil's boyfriend, people like that. All the rock critics loved it. Once you got past the word Beyoncé, this album was right at home on triple j. When you're in this position though, it can be a bit of a lose-lose.

I'm going to assume that the phrase 'Oh, of course you like THAT one', or some variation of it is familiar. Whether you've used it or thought it, or had it thrown your way, it doesn't matter. It's one of the biggest pieces of ammunition in the pop and indie war because both sides have valid situations to use it. Because it's one thing to completely disregard an artist's work for not appealing to you. It's another to do this, but then take that one exception, the one time when they're playing to your side of the court and say that's the good one. It's screaming the superficial quantities of your taste in music out to the world, you only like them when they stop doing the thing they usually do.

To me, it's an adage that says one thing. The person making the claim has already decided in their head they're above the other person and won't give an inch. It's possible that it's warranted, perhaps the person in question is making a big deal out of their transaction, rubbing it in the other person's face that their side has decided it's the only good one. Maybe those people do deserve it, but for me, it's catching a lot of people in the crossfire who've done nothing wrong.

That's the part that has always gotten to me, because for so many years now I've been at peace in this war, but it's those bad actors that take the main stage and both control the discourse and get it pointed their way. When Taylor Swift was voted into the Hottest 100, that's what it was about. Taking revenge on those snobs who can't appreciate pop music. I may have exhibited some of those traits at some point in time, but I think in hindsight it was never about a quest for superiority. I was just being very protective of something that was vitally important to my upbringing. I get that from the outside, triple j is just the source of those occasionally annoying crossover songs from say Operator Please, San Cisco, Ocean Alley (pick your time frame), but for me it was a feeling of belonging and community through music I just did not have. Yes, some people can be very annoying about it (I won't pretend I wasn't), but there isn't a worse look for me than getting caught up in whether a mutual (or a stranger) likes X but doesn't like Y, and there are better ways to go about it than smugly placing yourself at the top of the podium because you've figured the other person out. Your post pointing out that your favourite artist has less writers and producers than Beyoncé is stupid, your post that stereotypes a strawman because they like "Imaginal Disk" and Cameron Winter is also stupid, but I don't think you're stupid. You just need to get out of that mindset, lest you create a spiteful schism that emboldens the very person you're trying to lambast.

To those who think Beyoncé should never be played on triple j, perhaps you're right. On the other hand, it's not necessarily the apocalypse that it's made out to be. As much as no one likes to admit it, triple j does need artists of her stature. If they just played Unearthed bands all day every day, do you think the station would be anywhere near as relevant as it is? Big hits are an essential component of radio station rotation, because they provide a usually familiar and sticky reprieve. Basically anyone who's ever told their origin story with triple j or laments the state of it nowadays will cite their favourite artists, and they're usually always hugely popular ones. They might sound more credible because they're local rock bands, but Silverchair, Spiderbait, You Am I, they're all chart topping, platinum selling bands. They were filling the same role. Maybe you actually liked triple j for the Pollyanna and Insurge they played in the middle, the ones that felt more special, but it's the big hitters that stick in your brain. It was the same for me, loving all the weird and wacky things that'd get played, but come Hottest 100 day and I'm voting for Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, and UK #1 hit song "Ruby" by Kaiser Chiefs. That article that gets written about Beyoncé outrage is gonna generate way more discussion and attention than 'hey check out this cool Vallis Alps song that just got added to rotation'. But then in turn, you can potentially put more eyes on those smaller stories. It was like when a while back, I linked one of my posts on social media to draw focus to one of the more 'important' entries, but a friend seemed to instead recall a different entry I had written in the same post, for a less notable song. If I link this post, it's because the Beyoncé rant is there, but it's completely surrounded on all sides by more niche Australian artists. Sometimes we just need a good excuse to bring up our hyperfixations to others.

Anyway, this is the entry for "Hold Up" and I want to talk about this song specifically for what is usually one of those constant grievances about Beyoncé, but in this case is the most fascinating thing about the song. "Hold Up" has an enormous list of songwriters attached to it. I can see 15 names on it which includes Beyoncé, Diplo, MNEK, Ezra Koenig, Father John Misty, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Soulja Boy. That's not even acknowledging the song's Andy Williams sample which adds on two more, less contemporary names in Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. How on earth did all of this happen? Well Diplo & Ezra wrote a demo together in 2014, based around that Andy Williams sample. The hook is actually something Ezra tweeted as a joke years ago, transforming the chorus of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" by changing a few of the words. MNEK expanded on this demo which then got to Beyoncé. She contacted Father John Misty and he contributed a verse, and then on the bridge, Beyoncé quoted Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On", creating this utterly bizarre meeting of minds that no one's really sure what to take away from it.

To me, there's an even more interesting use of sampling on the album's slightly deeper cut "6 Inch" with The Weeknd. That song samples "Walk On By", the same song Doja Cat sampled when she won the Hottest 100 a number of years later though you'd be forgiven for not connecting the two. It also credits Animal Collective, simply because her reading of 'too smart to crave material things' sounds a little bit like the line from "My Girls" that also ends on the same two words. It's an absolute stretch and I understand that it wasn't even intentional, just an accidental arrival on something similar. This was sorted out before the album was released, so someone on team Beyoncé noticed it, and got it cleared to credit Animal Collective in case there might be an issue later on. Maybe it's a bit silly but I sorta love it because it's a huge pop star paying dividends to a niche indie band in a way that benefits them both. When you think of all the social media accounts who pull in massive numbers by just stealing viral posts from other smaller accounts without accreditation, or use AI art which is essentially the same thing but with extra steps, I guess it's just nice to see things work out like this. I'd say this is foreshadowing, but I think I've done this before, and I'm starting to get déjà vu over it.

"Hold Up" is the second track on "Lemonade", just after "Pray You Catch Me" which feels like more of an intro. It's here where the rift is made immediately clear. Basically a whole song about how JAY-Z's a fool for sleeping around and they're not worth it compared to what you've got. She doesn't actually say 'you're married to Beyoncé, what the hell is wrong with you?', but it's certainly what I'm getting from it. She makes this clearer over the next couple of tracks, where "Don't Hurt Yourself" is the righteous anger of a woman scorned, and "Sorry" is the immediate response to the theoretical defence. Maybe under ideal conditions I'd be doing a whole lot more Beyoncé entries but this was the only one from the album that made the cut. It's a song that I think does have a place here and it's not too distracting. Of all those names I mentioned, Diplo is probably the most pertinent influence, because the song's dancehall/reggae sound immediately recalls earlier Major Lazer work. Not a stretch to say that some of the many people who voted "Get Free" in at #6 for 2012 might find something to like in this one. I just want to enjoy great music, whether it's from Beyoncé or Broods.

#286. Peking Duk (feat Benjamin Joseph) - Say My Name (#30, 2015)

38th of 2015

I think a lot of recent criticism of Peking Duk amounts to them being high on their own supply. It's possible this is true, it's also possible that they play up the persona a bit because that's what they're supposed to do. The one thing I always think about though is how in 2015, they were out here making a larger than life persona for Ben from SAFIA. They'd worked together before, and just credited him as SAFIA (#337). Benjamin Joseph is just the name he uses when he records solo nowadays. Perhaps they just missed the cut off the first time around, because the same credit appears on a Citizen Kay album, one month after "Take Me Over" came out. I just remember it feeling odd the way they were hyping him up on this release, a song that didn't really live up to their recent string of hits. It just felt like a sign they were losing touch with what the people wanted.

Anyway, when they performed at the AFLW Grand Final last year, they played both of these songs back to back and he was just credited as Ben Woolner, his actual name for both of them. Just makes the most sense nowadays I guess, I just don't know exactly what to say when he asks me to say his name. Imagine though after I post this, he shows up at my house and gets me to re-enact that scene from Breaking Bad. Would it be funny for how low stakes but dramatic it would be? You're goddamn right.

It might not necessarily be the makings of a hit song, but for me, "Say My Name" is a classic throwback to that specific kind of electronica that would do the rounds on triple j. The kind that blended it with guitars and you could no longer really tell if it was rock music or dance music (though it usually felt marketed as the latter). Bands like Midnight Juggernauts, Art vs. Science, Dukes of Windsor had absolutely enormous (to me) songs in this vein. To an extent it's always been Peking Duk's realm, but this is their most deliberate rock song. The drums pack so much into it.

That said, it wasn't an instant winner for me either. I had some of the same hesitation that also showed when the song couldn't take off quite as much as the singles before it. When "Stranger" (#349) became a huge hit a year later, it made this feel even more like the odd one out. I think I was thrown off a bit by the song's chorus that didn't connect with me. Perhaps it was more for the SAFIA connection, who by contrast I thought could do no wrong at this point, so I was expecting more. At some point it clicked with me and it's become one of my favourite Peking Duk songs. In particular, I've become drawn to the switch up on the last chorus where Ben sings it at a lower register, at a complete contrast to every single other time he's done it. Just one of those little things that give you something to latch onto and look forward to.