#320-#316

#320. MEDUZA & James Carter (feat Elley Duhé & FAST BOY) - Bad Memories (#98, 2022)

27th of 2022

An interesting thought struck me when this snuck into the Hottest 100, namely how unexpected it felt. The simple rationale I had was the context in which I viewed MEDUZA. They were a group that made chart hits. The extent to which we were invested in them was that. Especially true if you're pooling your votes from an audience who only hear the songs because they're chart hits. To go from big top 10 (or thereabouts) hits that spend months hanging around to absolutely nothing, tick tick tick, that's the sound of your chart life running out.

Obviously there are some false assumptions being made here. The first thing to point out is that "Bad Memories" was absolutely a hit song, just that it was isolated to specific parts of Europe. Anywhere it had a real go, it succeeded with flying colours. A good rule of thumb also is that unless there are significant cultural barriers, then if something is a success in a larger or similarly sized country, it likely is doing something here, even if we can't see it. "Bad Memories" barely poked into Australia's Spotify top 200, not even long enough to make the weekly chart, but this immediately suggests that it could have just been hovering a little out of sight. Suddenly the prospect that they were doing numbers gets a little more believable.

With this in mind, I start to challenge a previous institution. The idea that the music charts are forged by and large, by people who are specifically looking into them, or are only getting their music from sources that are doing just that. 15 years ago this checks out. Radio is playing a very specific set of songs and everything else is following suit. By the time streaming comes into play, this breaks down a little. Discovery changes, new preferences emerge, and the hegemony breaks down. It's still there to a degree, but I've never felt more like the opposite scenario has emerged, and now the charts are largely built by people who have no idea they're doing it. Discovery is still clearly happening, but the Boolean measure of everything being either a hit, or not a hit, just doesn't really work. It's more of a spectrum with a lot more of an even spread. Perhaps it's just most accurate to say that "Bad Memories" is roughly 80% as much of a hit as "Piece Of Your Heart" (#712). That's what the streaming numbers tell me. The differing chart fortunes tell us more about what they're able to accomplish in this new paradigm that cast any damning sentence to those who fall shy of it. The Hottest 100 again provides an alternative perspective. I don't think most of the people voting in it are at all wise to significantly different chart fortunes, they're just voting as a reflection of what they know and like. Wouldn't you know? There's an audience for MEDUZA beyond the charts.

It's not a big revelation to say that MEDUZA may have been accused of unoriginality early on. I've said it before, the similarities between "Piece Of Your Heart" and "Lose Control" (#527) are not exactly subtle. Their next hit "Paradise" was a little different as GOODBOYS were subbed out for Dermot Kennedy, but it still won't blow you away with its change of pace. They needed to find something new, and I think they did with "Bad Memories". You can still hear that signature MEDUZA sound, but it's slathered with a guitar riff, and some slightly louder hi-hats. Combine that with the different vocals and it's really sounding like a fresh new start.

There's exactly one name I recognise alongside MEDUZA in these credits, and that's Elley Duhé. She had a minor hit with Zedd in 2018 with "Happy Now", a product of his dominance at the time. Maybe it actually was pretty big on its own as I'm now seeing it went 3xPlatinum. I took note of her vocals on that song though it didn't amount to a lot. A couple of years later and I heard one of her own songs, "MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT". It was released in January 2020 so it was one of the first new songs I liked in this decade. It's not particularly noteworthy from that, but somewhere along the line I started to connect the dots and develop my greatest low stakes crackpot theory. I cannot prove it, but I suspect this song was ghost-written by an Australian singer-songwriter who will eventually appear on this list. Any potential proof I may have is lost in either SIM card or old Twitter account hell, but the short version of it is that I know this singer once wrote a song called "In The Middle Of The Night", was probably about to release it until Taylor Swift put out "...Ready For It?" which made the song title less tenable. A couple of years later in an interview, this artist mentioned writing toplines for other artists which likely will have gone all over the place without a trace, it's just part of the business. It's just very interesting to me that a song with the very same hook turned up not long after that. Two years after this, the song belatedly became a worldwide hit, and I've now seen Elley Duhé say in an interview that she wrote the song for The Weeknd, but it could just as easily be a cover story. You're not gonna advance your career by admitting you didn't even write your biggest hit. I'll probably never know the answer but I'd love to find out some day that this particular artist has actually written a song that's been streamed over a billion times. Elley Duhé will also technically appear again in this list.

I don't know if this is a revelation to anyone else, but the other vocalist on the song is not James Carter (actually a producer), but FAST BOY. The second revelation is that FAST BOY is not just one person, but two brothers from Germany. They're the more memorable part of this I think. They're just singing about getting wasted, but I really click with the vibrato on the vocals. It sounds a bit like Post Malone. All up it's a very harmless song that's mostly interesting to me for tangential reasons, but certainly a fun one in its own right.

#319. Glass Animals - Life Itself (#63, 2016)

33rd of 2016

One of the quirks of the second Glass Animals album is that it's called "How To Be A Human Being", and each of the 11 tracks is supposed to be about one of the people on the album cover, who themselves are inspired by real people they've encountered previously. If you need the specifics on "Life Itself", it's the song for the unassuming guy in the top right of the album cover. I don't have that album cover here, but I think it's the same person in the single cover. Admittedly if it was just Dave I'd believe that too, the Glass Animals lead singer, not the rapper, obviously.

Going into this album, I wasn't exactly convinced by Glass Animals. There was something a little off about it all, like it was hard to read into them as anything other than being alt-J with some of the weirdness toned down. But with only one notable hit at that point in "Gooey" (#598), they probably had a lot more people to win over than just me. It's fortunate for them that they steadied the course here, although that might not have been obvious at the time. It's gone on to be a very successful album in hindsight, but they hadn't truly found their "Gooey" killer. Not for another few years anyway.

When "Life Itself" came out, I very quickly threw away my sceptic hat and put on my 'Glass Animals are so back' hat. Very quickly we're met with such lush instrumentation that feels like what they should have always been doing. The pre-chorus is one of the catchiest odes to the NEET life that I'm all too familiar with (I guess I was still in university when this song came out). It was very quickly my favourite song they'd ever put out. It's not anymore. I don't know if I actually have an answer to that, but it's pretty clearly not since there's still another one to come here. I think it just wore out a little on me after a while.

#318. Odette - Take It To the Heart (#96, 2018)

34th of 2018

Sometimes when the Hottest 100 is at the very early part of the countdown, an incredibly selfish version of me takes over and starts internally criticising everything I'm not 100% on board with. You can't really get mad at anyone voting for "The Trouble With Us" (#946). That's one of those songs that are so obviously gonna be in the countdown that it's a pre-determined fixture. It's those early entries where it feels the most precarious. The difference in necessary popularity between the #95 & #105 songs can't really be measured, and it'll feel like something that could've been reined in. Basically, when Odette made the list with "Take It To the Heart", my immediate reaction was something like 'Aw c'mon, you already had your turn last year (#418), we don't need your lesser scraps'. There's a certain irony to all of this. I didn't know at the time that the #101 song would be one I love, "Talia" by King Princess. That song is undeniably secondary, or maybe even tertiary scraps. In any case, I quite like the Odette song now, more than her previous one. I could never stay mad at her in the long run. It's also surrounded in the list by songs I think highly of, by artists who've had no shortage of entries previously. We're all contradictory messes.

In the case of "Take It To the Heart", it only feels like a lesser song because there's less of a gimmicky hook to it. You listen to "Watch Me Read You" and you don't forget it. It's just too quirky. This just feels like an attempt from Odette not to double down on it, play a little more into what we're expecting to hear. Hardly a novel situation, many successful artists have long stretches where it feels like they're making music to feed into that general assembly line and not rock the boat. It's not necessarily a bad thing either. We need an established general tempo so we don't get overwhelmed. There can be a welcome feeling of comfort from it all.

This is a cosy song. I would not say that it's devoid of character, because Odette's vocal runs are still very distinct. It's just a little more controlled with the song's steady tempo. Those handclaps & finger snaps that run through both the verses & chorus give it a solid throughline. There's a hint at some tension on the bridge, a moment you think she might unleash that never really comes. I've grown to quite appreciate Odette now. It's possible the redemption arc was already underway at this point (I'd downloaded one of her songs in late 2018, but that was more for the featured artist, who will eventually appear in this list). She put out my favourite song of hers a few years after this, "Amends". That song does not hold back in any regards and it's all the more powerful for it. In a pinch though, it's very easy to put this song on and have a good time.

#317. G Flip - Drink Too Much (#6, 2019)

22nd of 2019

Allow me to espouse the benefits of being a teetotaller. The most obvious one is that you get to save thousands of dollars a year, which will be handy when you likely get to live longer. There's no fear of the worrisome effects of being inebriated, and that includes the likely hangover. It's just a whole extra set of problems that never have to be problems for me. Most importantly though, if you're G Flip, then less drinking would probably mean that your last girl wouldn't dump you. I guess you wouldn't get to write a fun song about it though, so maybe there are limiting factors.

I mentioned with "Killing My Time" (#375) that it was a notable achievement for G Flip, a song that reached the ARIA Chart, even if briefly. There are a handful more of these that came after, but most are very brief flings, always for one week, usually after a Hottest 100 result. "Drink Too Much" is the interesting exception because it singlehandedly racked up the vast majority of G Flip's time on the chart, and got the highest. The boring answer to this is that it had a very good showing in the world of curated playlists at the time, but by 2019 I don't consider that a guaranteed deal to chart on its own, and the song has continued to hold up its end of the bargain by being easily their most streamed song. One of those mind vs. actions deals, where it might feel right to pick another song as their standout, but the data points out that we gravitate to the fun throwaway single. I'll be straight up and say my favourite G Flip song is "Be Your Man", and it's the one I've listened to the most too, but it's not a very inspiring winning margin. I must admit that all my nested smart playlists make for a good listening experience, but the data is very rigid.

Still, this did end up being a big deal single for establishing the standard from this point on. The upper reaches of the countdown had been breached, and it was suddenly G Flip's world to share around. From 2019 to 2024, G Flip made the top 11 on all but one of those years. To fall shy of that feels like an underperformance at this point. There's a slight parallel to The Rubens' 2012 single "My Gun", which had a similar chart performance and breakthrough success. In both cases I was pretty pleased even if the subsequent efforts didn't usually match up to it. Sometimes the most reassuring thing isn't the baseline success of the song, but how well it performs compared to predecessors, which might sometimes match up best to what feels like they should be the standout hits. This is absolutely the most fun G Flip song. The opening piano stabs set the tone and every chorus hit is just a rush of energy. Love the vocal distortion which feels apt for this. I want to note because it's not my world and so I didn't even know this, but the Steph Claire Smith mentioned in the first line of the song is an Australian model & influencer who is probably more famous than G Flip (has twice as many Instagram followers at least). I genuinely thought it was just someone they went to school with. Even more famous is G Flip's wife of 4 years, American soap actress Chrishell Stause. I guess there was a happy ending to come out of being dumped so drink however much you want to, responsibly.

#316. Sly Withers - Clarkson (#69, 2021)

25th of 2021

Consider me the modest expert as someone who used to get on the Clarkson train line hundreds of times a year. I might have even used that stop at certain points. Anyway, that particular stop has lost its infamy in the ensuing years as the line goes further north and it's the Yanchep line now. I just think it's really neat that Transperth is both a great pun and a great bit of accidental trans allyship. And on that bombshell, it's time to talk about Sly Withers.

Back when I was growing up, there was always talk about how there's something in the water over in Western Australia. The way this one state without a huge population and a lot of distance from everywhere else was able to punch far above its weight in the music scene. Bands like Pendulum, Birds of Tokyo, Little Birdy, Eskimo Joe, Gyroscope, Tame Impala, The Sleepy Jackson, San Cisco, some others I can't name yet. Even if they're not all to your taste, there's no denying the stars were there. I always used to look at the state by state statistics on the ARIA Report and spot the discrepancies. Many of these bands would far overperform in their local area. That's not too surprising really, but it shows how one state can singlehandedly put these artists on the map and build that platform. When Birds of Tokyo's first album came out, it debuted at #88, but was #15 in Western Australia. The second album was actually matched at #2 by Victoria, but that same week you've got Drapht charting for the first time thanks to local fans. His next album was outsold by k.d. lang in the two most populous states but still came in at #1. This state just knows it's isolated and is willing to back itself at every opportunity. We're seeing a new generation of bands crack the Hottest 100. DICE, Old Mervs & Sly Withers alike are probably charting above their expected pay grade (remember last year when "What You've Lost" got more votes than "MILLION DOLLAR BABY"?). What better way to show it than with a song named after a tiny suburb north of Perth?

I might just have a hint of bias in all of this. I promise that I come to it with all the genuine praise I can. Or at least, praise that's a little bit tempered because this particular song reminds me of stuff from 20 odd years prior that I probably prefer. It runs under 3 minutes so by the time you get to the ending, you might find yourself wanting just one more big release. The foundational pieces are there though, so this is a song that makes for great snippet crafting. It's my guilty pleasure sometimes to spend just as long listening to the best bits of songs than actually getting through the whole things. You've got a lot of options in "Clarkson".