#255-#251

#255. Tame Impala - 'Cause I'm a Man (#61, 2015)

33rd for 2015

Maybe to you, it's been half a week, but for me, I just wrote about one footy mad singer, and here's another one. I wonder if they've ever hung out and lamented differing fortunes, the way two fans of one of the most successful and least successful teams respectively might do so. They've had some great duels of late (jury's out on last weekend but it was suspenseful at least), and now I badly need to know if Kevin Parker has ever hung out with Mason Cox. Niche fact here, but Tame Impala released the song "Loser" in 2025 just a few days before Fremantle became the first team to ever lose a final to Gold Coast. You'd hope he wields his powers more responsibly this year. I'm sorry I talk about this all the time, it's just one of my hyperfixations, 'cause I'm a man, and all that comes with it.

I remember the initial response to this song being a little patchy. "Currents" has gone on to become a very beloved album for many, but when you haven't reached that point (or all the big selling points haven't yet arrived), you're gonna see something a little more mixed. See also the initial response to "Von dutch" by Charli xcx (and heck, even the album cover). Once you're locked down as iconic, even the most awkward of building blocks can be redeemed. I begin to wonder if 'It might make more sense in the context of the album' is more about whether or not that sweeping quality grade can flatten it out, rather than being improved because of good sequencing or a throughline. It's the same thing I said last time about "Currents" actually (#886); I'm just looking at it from the opposite angle.

Of course, attached to all of this is that strange feeling of pop appeal and how that will actually affect the parameters. "'Cause I'm A Man" was the second single released from "Currents". The first one will appear later on this list of course. That song has very much earnt its stripes in the last decade but it is worth noting that this one that came after did manage to chart a little bit better at first. It could perhaps be noted that the first single was also initially released as a free download, but I've often had trouble determining how much that can affect sales. I'd be surprised if it offset the potential as much as the sheer nature of being a second single affected "'Cause I'm A Man", and so we have to be reminded of the curious workings of popularity. There absolutely will exist songs that are not made for the pop charts because they're too long, cerebral, what have you, but they'll find their audience in the long run. Often times when it comes to tracking the new releases, you just find more success putting out a "'Cause I'm A Man" than well, that other song.

I don't know if I would call this a full on pop pivot, especially now in the 2020s when we actually have an idea of what that could sound like in a Tame Impala context. It's definitely more bite-sized though, with an easy layer of instant gratification. I'm once again putting my hand up to say that I was one of those people who bought into this song pretty easily but don't go back to it as much anymore. Judging how far this fell behind the other singles in the Hottest 100, it looks like it was a quick discard for many of us. Is it bad though? I don't think so. Maybe a bit straightforward with a cheesy hook, but it sits itself in a nice slow groove that's among the best sounds on "Currents". Just be glad that we got through it all just before culture wars took a grip on anything tangentially related to gender politics that'd make this song no doubt the subject of the worst conversations imaginable. I'd jokingly say they only do this 'cause they're men but I think we all have the agency to do better.

#254. Cub Sport - Come On Mess Me Up (#24, 2016)

28th of 2016

I have mentioned previously that Cub Sport are a very outwardly queer band and I never really expanded on that because I was waiting for the main event. There's no way to sugar-coat it. Tim and Sam from Cub Sport are partners, and this song to me feels like a cathartic anthem of release for it. Tim didn't actually come out publicly until 2017 though, so in early interviews about this song, he has to play dumb and pretend that it's all just about his experiences with the music industry. You listen to it now and it's like 'duh, what else could this song really be about'.

It was a long time coming though. I'm taking most of it from an interview he did in 2018 with Linda Marigliano. Basically, he'd been very close with Sam since they finished high school together but in a way that caused confusion mostly because it was a new experience to feel that way about anyone, regardless of gender. I'm not entirely sure when "Come On Mess Me Up" was written, but he seems to imply it was quite a while before it was released. He was inspired by the open, detailed songwriting of Leonard Cohen, and found that it unlocked something in his own writing that helped him discover who he was, both as a songwriter and a person. He even says that even though they'd been making music together for about 6 years at that point, this song was the proper arrival of Cub Sport.

It's still very surprising to see it knocking about like this. I say this as someone who was mildly following the band at this time and there was just nothing to suggest that they were priming for the big time. "Come On Mess Me Up" was actually the 3rd single released from the album, and it wasn't even initially planned for that. I suppose it must have been well received on tour and got a good run with word of mouth. They performed it for their Like A Version segment which probably got the biggest signal boost. If we're to believe in proximity rules for promotion, then getting in around the same time DMA'S put out the most popular Like A Version ever (#987) has to be a boon. They covered a fairly recent song that will eventually appear in this list. If you look at the YouTube comments for their performance, you can actually find someone who clocked the real meaning of the song but dismisses it because of what Tim says in the interview.

So I guess what you can say about this song is that if you were ever under the impression that the important meaning of the song is what made it big, then know that the real timeline is that everyone just clicked onto a very likeable song without any particular meaning behind it. I don't know how often that actually happens nowadays. I definitely feel stronger about it now. I don't always clock songs in this way, but I hear this one and I appreciate that it's here. These kinds of wholesome messages are most effective in the form of a popular, catchy song.

#253. The Smith Street Band - Birthdays (#21, 2017)

28th of 2017

A vital connection here as eagle-eared listeners will note that "Come On Mess Me Up" mentions walking on Smith Street. Cub Sport are from Brisbane but they also partially recorded that album in Melbourne, which is me admitting once again I have no idea which Smith Street could possibly matter. Maybe it is the Melbourne one because as far as I can tell, there isn't one in Brisbane, as impossible as that seems. But then you tell me what you'd prefer, the hustle and bustle of the big city in the commercial zone of Smith Street, Melbourne, or the quiet residential zone of nearby Smith Street in the Redlands? I guess I'm always a small town boy at heart. The love that you need can be found at home.

The Smith Street Band manage to win this battle, not by just 1 position, but $200, because they mention Elizabeth Street on this song. I'm going to confidently assume they're talking about the one in Melbourne and not Sydney, in which case, that's a $260 property in the 1996 Australian edition of Monopoly, and in a bizarre coincidence, sits directly across from the $60 Smith Street, which as I'll remind you, is actually the one in Alice Springs. If I can say one more thing about this extremely niche piece of pop culture, it's that they unintentionally allow the Melbourne/Sydney war to settle. They give Sydney the higher property values which seems good, except they're on those garbage green properties that nobody wants and nobody ever lands on, who's the real winner here? I'll tell you it's Adelaide, because the orange properties conveniently spaced 6-9 spaces away from jail are the most important real estate in that game.

Okay I'll talk about the actual Smith Street Band song. "Birthdays" is one of their biggest hits too, and is their equal highest placer here. I think it stands out a bit from the rest for being a little quieter. I'd say it's more contemplative but then that's been their whole deal no matter how loud they get. From what I can see, the origin of the song is Wil hearing someone lament being nothing but a future housewife, and him not agreeing with the grim outlook. It doesn't necessarily match up with it generally being a love song, or having a music video where a little girl grows up with a robot companion. I suspect though, the future housewives lyric is the one that's gonna stick with you the most.

"Birthdays" is also an early appearance for Jess Locke who provides some backing vocals. She'd become a touring member with the band shortly after, and since 2021, she's been a full member of the band. I mainly know her for her solo career that has run alongside it. I think she's great! Very moody and occasionally drudging rock, but with some of the most pleasant tones and rewarding melodies. She first starts getting writing credits on a couple of songs from their 2022 album (including "I Don't Wanna Do Nothing Forever" (#256)).

This is a song that I probably wasn't completely on board with on immediate release, but absolutely bought into the hype after the fact. I think it strikes a great sonic balance when it shifts between completely gentle and completely raucous like a light switch. A great bunch of lyrics also in the first verse, drawing up the contradictory feelings of mental health where you 'Wanna be alone, wanna be surrounded', but having all that confusion go away when in the presence of that special someone. They do all this and flip the script with the last line of the song and I don't know what to say about it anyway but I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

#252. Mark Ronson (feat Bruno Mars) - Uptown Funk (#6, 2014)

31st of 2014

I feel like a staple of old music biopics is the gruelling story of the album, or the song. Just the idea of a band or musician who is so fully locked in because they know they're in the process of creating history. From what I saw of the Beatles' "Get Back" documentary, that's the realistic picture of it. Frustration over small parts not working, arguing about whose idea should get the go ahead, and stress over the unreasonable hours spent toiling away with little to show for it. I don't know how often this still happens. Possibly a big switch to digital has mitigated some parts of it, while you also just don't really get hits of the same stature by actual bands very often. Not all is lost, it's just a little different for the most part, with the occasional exception.

"Uptown Funk" is one of those exceptions. When I hear this song, I hear an immaculately crafted pop hit. A song that's been carefully considered to within an inch of its life to sound effortless and ready to be enjoyed by everyone. I also picture Mark Ronson in the studio, losing both his mind and sleep to make this happen. This is one of those songs with a story. It starts with Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker & Bruno Mars working in the studio after hitting it off well during the recording of Bruno's 2nd album and wanting to go around again. Some of the initial ideas were promising, which made them strive to see it through, a process that took many months. The song took on many forms because Mark Ronson was so determined to put it together in the right way. I think deep down he knew he had a hit, and it was a matter of removing any possible reservations that might keep it off the radio. All that effort paid off though, because we're looking at one of the biggest hit songs of all time.

There are a few ways this is made clear. The song is 22xPlatinum in Australia for instance. If not for people being sad about a car movie, it would've pushed its way to being the longest running #1 hit of all time in America, with such a drawn out chart run that Billboard seemingly added tighter restrictions on chart endurance just to end its stay. I think my favourite stat piece is that it became the first song ever in Australia to make 3 consecutive End Of Year lists, just sneaking in for 2016 after being the runaway #1 of 2015. The most jarring thing about this is seeing a song released in the middle of November making it to be the 29th biggest hit of 2014. By comparison, future Hottest 100 entrant Gracie Abrams released "That's So True" a few weeks earlier in the UK, it quickly vaulted to #1 and initially spent 5 weeks there in November/December. It did not even crack the top 100 over there that year.

I need to also point out the funny situation that came up when the song was released. It just so happened to coincide with the week ARIA added streaming to the charts, which for the most part didn't cause a drastic shift because the numbers weren't big enough yet, but they tended to shuffle some things around a little. One such example is that the hot new download hit "Uptown Funk" hadn't fully found its streaming footing quite as fast, so it actually missed out on debuting in the top 10 as a result. It jumped up to #2 the next week so it's not so bad, it just adds to the surprisingly common pattern of Bruno Mars songs climbing in their second week. Just in the past few months, Bruno Mars has once again debuted at #11 and climbed into the top 10 the week after. No matter how established and famous he is, he just keeps doing it. Of the 19 top 10 hits he has now, only two of them started in the top 10, and they were his very recent collaborations with Lady Gaga & Rosé.

I might have been implying that "Uptown Funk" is a completely sanitised record, and maybe it is, but an odd quirk of this is that the song was largely built around an interpolation of "All Gold Everything" by Trinidad James. If you don't know that song, it's where 'don't believe me, just watch' comes from. Bruno Mars leaves out the copious number of times Trinidad James says the n-word after that hook. I always like to think of it as Mark Ronson being a good friend. Thanks to this decision, Trinidad James gets a free writing credit on a song that is making millions upon millions of dollars. Must be a nice royalty check to get to cash in every now and then. There's a Trinidad James remix of "Uptown Funk" where he's all on his own for the first minute of the song, and gets to finish his contribution by saying his lyric in its original form.

When a song gets this astronomically popular, you can lose a little connection to it. I've always felt like "Uptown Funk" does a good job at avoiding all of this because it's just such a well-oiled machine. You look at past instances of 'what an unfathomably popular song', at the time the most recent example was Pharrell's "Happy", and they might feel more than a little sanded down. "Uptown Funk" just feels so dense by comparison. It's like it's managed to avoid those trappings by giving you so many things to focus on instead. What a cool little bass riff, horns that sound massive, Bruno Mars, what a star, etc, etc. It's a song that's so outwardly confident that when Bruno Mars tells me that 'Uptown funk gon' give it to ya', I can't help but read it as a proper noun. This song is a meta-text about how awesome the song is, and I find myself ready to buy into it.

#251. Disclosure (feat AlunaGeorge) - White Noise (#69, 2013)

42nd of 2013

I personally verified this list multiple times while it was being created. Important to make sure it has exactly 1,000 songs, with no erroneous inclusions, no double ups, no omissions. You'd think it'd sort itself out, but projects of this scale have a habit of making something pop up. Then once you're done, you fast forward a couple of years and start to cast doubt on the whole thing. How thorough could I have possibly been? Is there a chance I still let something slip? I've been experiencing this list in a gradual fashion as I'm doing it. I write this entry with the next two and a half weeks of entries in front of me as well, which helps in case I need to do extra preparation for something. Until two and a half weeks ago, something was getting increasingly strange. Where are Disclosure? I know they have a bunch of entries here, but we're getting really deep into it and I still don't see them. Could I have just scrolled ahead and found them? Absolutely, but that's less fun. I wanted to have the same experience of shock as they continue to suppress all comers. They came within an inch of having their entire set within the top 250. Incredible innings for a band I never saw myself as a massive fan of, and for whom my favourite songs aren't even on this list. I guess everyone who thought they were ahead of their time was right, and I'm only just catching up.

Disclosure were first put on my radar with their song "Control" in mid-2012. It didn't make a big impression on me but I remembered the name because they were getting a lot of buzz. Around this time, I was habitually recording weekly Spotify charts in Australia, something that was particularly to my taste at the time because it was so heavily dictated by triple j's playlist. A bunch of bands I can't mention yet were running rampant. I remember being a little surprised to see Disclosure's next single make a pretty solid impression, implying they might be rising up faster than I expected. It sounds a little silly in hindsight when I point out that the song in question was "Latch". It was a respectable hit in the UK, but when it came to going global, it was one of the biggest sleeper hits of the decade, not peaking in America until the middle of 2014. It was probably helped by the significantly increased profile of the guest vocalist, whom I can't name yet, another sign that Disclosure were ahead of the curve.

"Latch" peaked at #11 in the UK, but they'd cash their cheque on the next single, "White Noise". This very quickly became their highest ever charter when it climbed to #2 in its second week on the chart, kept off the top by the UK's late arrival to Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" moment, a song that had hit #1 in Australia two months prior. An incredible showing though for a duo who'd just popped onto most people's radar a few months ago. They'd notch up more hits as they released their debut album, but the version of that story I'll tell through the Hottest 100 looks a little different to the charts.

Realising just how much I actually like Disclosure has been a big discovery while making this list, and apparently again while making these entries. "White Noise" is probably the most evident because I never had strong feelings about it at the time. One of those tidy songs that felt like it did nothing wrong but still didn't rise above the pack for it. It was merely a source of amusement for me making light of Aluna's British-ism pronunciation, pronouncing 'automatic' as if there's only one 't' in it. A true 'bottle of water' moment. The whole thing is sublime though. You've got the bouncy synth that feels like Disclosure's trademark at this point, but it's going over an atmospheric instrumental that feels like floating in space. Maybe the best decision is to really hold off the last chorus, providing a complete fake out with the pre-chorus and going on a wonderful journey instead. There are good bridges on their own, but there are also good bridges that fit perfectly into the context of the song and enhance the whole experience. Apparently sometimes you don't even need words to do it.