#305-#301

 #305. CHVRCHES - Recover (#28, 2013)

46th of 2013

At this point it seems like a reasonable bet to say that "Recover" will remain CHVRCHES' highest ever polling position here. Maybe there's a chance they go down the EDM route again like they did with Marshmello and find some fluke crossover success. Lauren has one of those voices that are difficult to emulate and might stick out in a good way there. It'd be difficult to feel like it's actually pure-blooded CHVRCHES song though. "Recover" is wrapped up entirely in the brand of a buzzy new band, and you can't beat that.

It's good to have a historic record of your listening experience online so you can cross reference your memories with what was actually happening. It's very easy to forget the specifics when they're illogical and don't make any sense. On the surface, I was introduced to CHVRCHES with the song "Recover", and if you look at my listening stats, it was the only song of theirs I was hearing for months. Except after a little while I just declared that "The Mother We Share" was my favourite song going around, admitting that I was probably going to download it before, but then "Recover" came out and I bought that single instead. I can't fully quantify all of my strange past decisions, but maybe I was just caught up in the same hit machine as everyone else. "Recover" was the CHVRCHES song of the moment and I seemed very unwilling to break from the pack at the time. Perhaps they just didn't know how to market the song over here, so they opted to let it just be a behind the scenes word of mouth song while attention was foisted on the newer song. Even if they had, the Hottest 100 had just clamped down on release dates so it's not like there's a likely future where I'm still holding off on praising that song.

Evidently I bought into the CHVRCHES brand very quickly but it's interesting what happened afterwards. I seemed to just burn out on "Recover" in record time. My best attempt to try and give it some logic is that I had started to hear other songs of theirs I liked more and it made this one feel like a step backwards in comparison. It's like playing GoldenEye 007 as a kid, thinking it's the greatest thing ever made, playing literally any other first person shooter since then and then trying to recapture that Bond glory. It's rusty, stilted and just doesn't seem quite right. GoldenEye 007 hasn't aged very well either! It's possible I come off too hyperbolic when it comes to talking about songs that have cooled off on me a little over time, it might just be that it's very difficult to describe a slight, gradual slide like that. Obviously I still have some respect for what they've got going on with "Recover". It goes without saying that it's one of the best surprise choruses going around. I just think it's better suited to a more reserved tiering among other CHVRCHES songs that iterate on the initial idea.

#304. SZA - Shirt (#20, 2022)

24th of 2022

It feels strange having the "SOS" artwork up there. That album feels so new, too new for this project. As a matter of fact it is, since it was released in December 2022. There's an alternate universe where I'm waiting to eventually talk about "Kill Bill" here. If I decide to return to the concept in the future, that'll be a very long time from now. It's also strange because we once lived in a time when the idea of the second SZA album was a pipe dream. Just years of pushbacks inviting the possibility that she'd be another artist whose career was completely botched by the label. By the time "Shirt" came out, it was probably a safe bet, but I wasn't ready to believe it until I'd heard it all for myself.

It's probably always been true, but it's certainly felt in the past 5 or so years that the Hottest 100 is very much a vibe check. To have a well-liked song is one thing, but what's more important is how much buzz is around the artists themselves in the present moment of voting. It's probably why some songs thrive on the early release while others seem to fall by the wayside. Few artists demonstrate this better than this brief time capsule for SZA. "Shirt" was the only single she released in 2022. While voting was happening, she went from having the most hyped upcoming release to it completely living up to that hype. Everyone was listening to SZA over that summer. Then they went to vote in the Hottest 100 and there was only one SZA song there. I don't think it's a lot of people's favourite song on "SOS", but you're likely to either accept the parameters and go along with it, or reject them and still go along with it. I think "Shirt" absorbed a lot of SZA good will in this moment and it netted a very handy top 20 finish. There's nothing untoward about that, except when you flash forward a year in the future, suddenly "Kill Bill", easily the biggest solo hit of her career, just limps in at an underwhelming #13. The song wasn't forgotten by any stretch, but it just wasn't the new hotness anymore. A lot more hype at the time for a Jack Harlow song that fizzled out quicker, but has the better Hottest 100 finish etched in stone. In 2011, The Black Keys finished at #2 with "Lonely Boy" and followed it up a year later with "Gold On The Ceiling" which also landed at #13. Either The Black Keys got their buzz a little later and were able to carry it into 2012, or the voter mindset has changed a bit in the decade since.

I tend to think this way because "Shirt" is a song that makes you question the whole process. I'm complimentary for it, but it's one of those hits that don't have the requisite refinement to really crossover. It sits in a weird zone where it might be too R&B for the pop crowd and too pop for the R&B crowd. There are hooks here but it feels like more work to dig them out, it doesn't come as pronounced as the other singles on this album. Maybe I'm wrong about that and I should just trust my own personal experience. Sometimes it's just the je ne sais quoi that draws us into certain songs. I do like some alliteration.

#303. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Nuclear Fusion (#73, 2017)

33rd of 2017

There's an interesting chart record that popped up a couple of years ago. In 2024, the Grateful Dead took the lead for having the most top 40 albums of any artist ever in America. It feels odd, doesn't it? The band broke up over 30 years ago and only ever released 13 studio albums, but they've spent the last 10 or so years just racking up archival releases. They're very consistent, on the dot every 3 months, and despite the changing chart landscape of late, have not stopped doing just enough to get in there for that specific feat. A lot can be said of a loyal fanbase, but it puts me in a bit of disbelief when I see it play out. Sooner or later you'd think you're going to see things fizzle out. There's a science to it usually, and if you're not generating new hits, you're probably trending downwards. Some bands are just built different I suppose. I can't really claim to understand what it's like to follow the Grateful Dead saga. The closest I've got is the world of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

I don't think King Gizz have actually amassed any chart records of that nature yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was on the cards. At the time of writing, King Gizz have charted 29 albums in the last 10 years. There are plenty of live albums adding to that tally, but for the most part, it's just raw discography. The unrelenting release schedule of the band has been their calling card for about as long as I can remember. While that might suggest a stagnant sound, the band's second calling card is how much that is not the case. The extent of how well they do it might get called into question, but they're a band that's fully willing to sound nothing like the album they just put out 3 months ago. Of course a band like this is going to generate fanfare.

It's always put them in a strange position here. Grateful Dead were never exactly a pop crossover band; they had one top 40 hit in all their time together. King Gizz are even less attuned to that wavelength. I don't think they've ever had anything close to a hit song. Whenever voting comes around, there's the faint notion that they might be able to get in, but they don't have quite a big enough voting demographic to guarantee it, so it needs a more considered campaign that doesn't usually end up happening. They've had a few near misses over the year, but for all of their (Gila) monster-sized discography, I get them just the two times here. Maybe it's for the best so I don't exhaust myself on finding things to say, but it does feel awfully quaint. Like a story that never got finished.

Remember when I said they release a lot of albums? 2017 was when they made this explicitly clear with a promise to release 5 of them by the end of the year. I feel like this was when they were closest to having some sort of mainstream following. They weren't all just ready to go though, as the last two came out in mid-November and then December 31st respectively. They're all reasonably different albums, though the one that got the most attention by far was the first, "Flying Microtonal Banana". If that's a nonsense title to you, I don't think I can change that view, but it is at least 33% accurate because it's the first album where the band started utilising microtonal tuning. As best as I can understand, it doesn't mean that the album is faster, just that the notes are coming in at less rigid intervals. It's the kind of tinkering with music theory that can risk turning into an absolute disaster, but I think they got away with it here.

The most popular song on this album is probably "Rattlesnake". It won't come up here because they released it in late 2016 and it didn't have the time to capture its memetic audience. Easy to forget across its 8 minute run time that there are lyrics that aren't 'Rattlesnake rattles me'. There was enough interest to get a vote across this time. Just the one song across all those albums so it's a stellar effort in concentrated voting, and "Nuclear Fusion" was the song that reaped the benefits.

I wouldn't say it's my favourite in the mix, I've got "Sleep Drifter" sitting right by it, and a lot of joy to be had from the more frantic "The Lord of Lightning" and the brooding menace of "Crumbling Castle". If you had to confine it all to a concise experience though, "Nuclear Fusion" isn't a bad way to do it. It's a pretty relaxing song outside of the unpredictable arrival of all the drum solos that disarm it at time. It snaps you out of the trance, ready to be lulled back in momentarily.

#302. Tash Sultana - Murder to the Mind (#43, 2017)

33rd of 2017

Following up a huge hit can be difficult. That first moment is nice, and can provide the leaping point to fulfil it, becoming an untouchable entity from then on. It's proof that you've got the public eating out of your hand, tapping into something special that just unquestionably clicks. What about the more likely scenario though? You had a big hit, but it's kind of a gimmick to everyone. It's gonna be the defining song of your career whether you like it or not because you just won't be able to convince enough people that it's not the best you can do. It's a sure fire way to accelerate your decline because in this cutthroat world of popularity, nothing gets more people to jump off like a clear sign that your stock is trending down.

We're still yet to get to the most important part of this story, but I think the point comes across. Tash Sultana had that big moment and then needed to follow it up. Their choice was to expand on their sound with "Murder to the Mind". A perfectly fine way to do it, but one that seemingly had audiences not quite on board in the same way. When Hottest 100 voting rolled around, more decided they were content with the mostly more familiar sounding "Mystik" (#773). It's one of those things we often get from streaming algorithms. If you get discovered from a genre pool, then the only way you can maintain that audience is by doing the same thing.

I'm not saying "Murder to the Mind" is a radical re-invention or anything, just that it prioritises on different things than the EP that came before it. Catch me on a good day and it might be what I want to hear the most. It's not so much a song about setting a mood, but disrupting it. It's one of their most out and out 'rock' songs just from the inclusion of the guitar noodling on the chorus. I've always thought it to be a very strong hook, but maybe it sounds off kilter to others. The shredding outro could be seen as indulgent, and maybe it's the last straw to keep it off people's chill playlists, but it's kept to a brief length and doesn't overstay its welcome. I liken the song to a showcase of what they're capable of doing within this space. While it may not have won over as many people as possible, it did have me thinking there could be more to enjoy in the future.

#301. Genesis Owusu - Gold Chains (#75, 2021)

23rd of 2021

I have a fascination with the way international music fans interact with and perceive triple j. There isn't really a clear comparison point that I know of around the world. BBC Radio could be it, but the vibe just isn't the same. I've seen Americans lament that they don't have anything similar. At the very least, it'd be fun if there were more Hottest 100 style polls with sufficient following to make them worthwhile and interesting (I suspect they'd just tell us which fan army is the most enthusiastic). On the other hand, I also see a lot of negative onlooking. triple j can at times position itself to have more music knowledge than the average person, and promote some of those big names from the blogs and online communities. That creates higher expectations that are destined to be disappointments. What do you mean there's no Swans on this list? Chet Faker is #1 instead (#862)? What even is that? It can create an extra layer of challenge at refuting though when you don't have globally known whipping boys up there (like let's say Imagine Dragons won a Hottest 100). Harder to get mad about names you had to look up before you could say anything.

Anyway it's funny I just picked 2014 out of a hat because I remember thinking about things like this then (Taylor Swift hadn't happened yet). Anthony Fantano was doing a promotional tour in Australia and when he was there, he stopped by triple j to do a Take 5 segment. I thought it was interesting because while there is some overlap, his interests in music were largely in a whole other world to our government-funded station, so maybe a lot of it felt quaint to him. I just want to bring him up for this because he's responsible for one of my favourite memories from the 2021 countdown. At this point in time, he was a big fan of Genesis Owusu (he gave the album an 8, which is not a score that he just throws around easily). Someone tweeted him to tell him that Genesis Owusu had made the countdown and he was excited, but then it had to be extremely tempered because he just got beaten by Tones And I with the next song (#863), an artist whose album he was considerably less fond of. It was just this wonderful set up and punchline on my Twitter timeline that you can't manufacture, made all the better because they ended up being the only appearances for either artist that year. It's an entertaining reminder of how the Hottest 100 giveth...I forget the second part, and I also think about this every time one of my favourite songs gets beaten by the most underwhelming successor. It's been happening so often lately that I just can't get mad at it anymore, it's like a vital component of the experience.

This felt like an assertion that Genesis Owusu might be here to stay. "Gold Chains" is an instantly likeable song, but not one that sticks out very much. It's not dull, just unassuming outside of the hook and all the odd guitar scratches. He'd have bigger hits in the future with songs that were harder to ignore. This one is here to say that he's got enough attention on him as an artist that something like this is able to take hold.