#210-#206

 #210. Sticky Fingers - Liquorlip Loaded Gun (#94, 2014)

27th of 2014

I'm going to just highlight again since it's been nearly a year that I did write about the Sticky Fingers controversies before and only won't do it again so I don't repeat myself. I also don't want to sound like I'm just praising them nonstop (this will be the last time), so that discussion is here (#705).

It's very interesting to look at last.fm data from all those years ago. You can spot a developing story. It's one where the radio has a strong influence over what's being listened to. Things actually move along at a peculiar rate. For instance, a little while after the album came out, "If You Go" was Sticky Fingers' most popular song. It was the one that triple j were rinsing at that time. A few months later and it just vanishes from their top list, while many other songs from the same album are unaffected. At the time I remember being surprised at that particular song not seeing the same love from Hottest 100 voters, but I guess it's painting a picture of a briefly thrilled audience (it's me, I was one of those people who had a fling with that song at the time). Sometimes the Hottest 100 speaks to those future trends in a way the data hasn't yet discovered, but then sometimes it just can't do that, because those shifts genuinely haven't manifested in any way.

We've got a very fractured version of the Sticky Fingers story, and it's not because they were blackballed on the radio, it's because most of their popular songs caught on externally to triple j and often weren't immediate. It's a funny irony that if any band could have beaten the system, it was Sticky Fingers, with a fanbase that was more than willing to vote every song they could from the band, but they weren't fully charged up yet. The band's most popular song, "How To Fly" never really got a chance, but another big one, "Rum Rage" did. It polled at #124 which is very impressive, all things considered. When the Hottest 100 of the 2010s rolled around, it made up for lost time in what may have been a heavily influenced vote of trolling the station at the time, "Rum Rage" moved up to #33, the 5th highest song of 2014. What we're left with here in the moment is an album cut that hasn't found its audience, so it's stuck behind the pack, and strangely an album track makes the cut in its stead. Oddly enough, another track with an alcohol influenced title.

This was such a weird thing to process in the moment. A song I'd never heard of sneaking in ahead of some genuinely big hitters. Maybe Sticky Fingers are in for an absolute day, except wait now the actual single (#241) is only modestly higher. Just how did all of this happen? It's an oddity that I appreciate somewhat for throwing a curveball into the mix. As much as I like to see the poll as accurately representing the typical triple j experience in that year, sometimes you have to remember it's just an internet poll and there's nothing stopping a lot of people for just voting a song that they resonated with on their own. It's actually surprising there aren't more results that reek of fanbase manipulation. In any case, I also appreciate it because it left us with "Liquorlip Loaded Gun", which might just be my favourite song I've ever heard by this band.

I couldn't tell you for certain when I flipped the switch with this song. It wouldn't have won me over on the day because these kinds of blindsides always have you lamenting the waste of space in the moment. It's not exactly the immediate, in your face, catchy kind of song that the band were usually doing well with. It's just this slow lament that feels as much Britpop as it does post-Britpop. Keane with a less clear voice. Dylan is just strangely soaring when he's pouring out his soul over his drinking problems, and generates a hook that sticks with you even if it's not entirely clear what he's saying. I mentioned the changing popularity of songs over time, which is something that doesn't happen as much now that the Spotify economy reinforces itself. So it's a shame that this song finds itself just stuck outside of their top 10. Makes it a little harder to let itself be known, and it'd be a good change-up in a sea of their slow jams that don't feel like they have the same ambitions.

#209. Arctic Monkeys - Four out of Five (#95, 2018)

23rd of 2018

On RateYourMusic, there is a disproportionately high number of people who have rated this song as 4 stars out of 5. It's almost one in three reviews for the song. The funny thing about it though is that it mostly looks like it's prompting people to push their votes down rather than up, as it's the 4.5 star ratings that stick out for being relatively lacking. In any case, on a website where the all-time greatest single can only get as high as 4.48 stars, maybe it's a good mark to suggest people around. Is it all part of Arctic Monkeys' three-pronged attack? Their 'Yvan eht nioj'? No, I think what we're looking at is a chronicling of what rate of people receive this kind of knowledge and act upon it accordingly. That, my friends, is the Information-Action Ratio.

Okay, it isn't really. In case you wanted to know, that's a term coined by Neil Postman in "Amusing Ourselves To Death", and is more to do with the way information is potentially weaponised to control people's actions and outlooks. It's something that has gone increasingly out of control with advancements in the telecommunications network, as we're now inundated with information we simply cannot and need not act upon, rather than it all be within our local periphery. In the Arctic Monkeys song, it's just the name of a taco stand. Oh but it's on the moon. It is utterly insane to me that so many years after Ushiromiya Krauss's moon tourism was mocked, now Alex Turner is floating the very same concept. This is your advance warning to read Umineko When They Cry before I dive into it again here. I am making the novel suggestion that this is even feasible given how incredibly long it is, but hey, who would turn down the opportunity to read one of the greatest ever works of fiction?

When Arctic Monkeys released their 6th album, "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" in 2018, it felt like they were testing the limits of what they could get away with. Taking a significant time after their most successful album and then not remotely leaning into it. It's hard to look at any sort of success it had and not see it as a natural residual effect of it being a new Arctic Monkeys album. The most popular song on the album is "Four Out Of Five", but it was only the 49th most played Arctic Monkeys song on Spotify. There's an enormous swathe of listeners who seem completely unwilling to venture into anything the band have done in the last 10 years.

I understand the core of it. Arctic Monkeys have pivoted multiple times in their career. The first two albums don't sound like the next two, and they don't sound like "AM" either. I still feel like in that less popular period, they were still gearing songs to be popular radio hits. Maybe "Cornerstone" and "The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala" aren't quite as crowd-pleasing, but the intent is there. On this album, I'm not sure I see that as part of the vision at all.

But in saying that, I don't think that the band have gone as far off the deep end as it might seem. Yes, it's all a variation on lounge rock, with strange lyrics that satirise consumerism. I'll be honest that part of it actually works for me in a way that a lot of the usual chaotic Arctic Monkeys lyrical affair doesn't, just because it strikes me as more considered and memorable. As for the music, it still manages to do interesting things and never get boring. Tracks like "One Point Perspective" with its jaunty piano, and "Golden Trunks" with its brooding guitar riff, they feel like the closest branching point from the old Arctic Monkeys. The latter I'm particularly fond of, it's got the catchiest hook on the album, and a strangely emotional lift from Alex towards the end.

"Four Out Of Five" is also a very good one. I can understand if it's the one song you take away from it all. The blocky guitar riff is somewhat reminiscent of "AM", but it feels more adventurous than that album. It's willing to change things up over and over again. As a result, I've never really gotten bored of it after all this time, which I can't always say about some more overplayed Arctic Monkeys songs, even the ones I've put above it on this list.

#208. A.B. Original (feat Paul Kelly) - Dumb Things - Like A Version (#45, 2016)

24th of 2016

Paul Kelly has managed to appear in the Hottest 100 across 4 consecutive decades. I lament that he couldn't find his way into the 1980s list given he had every right to do so. For the past two decades, he's ironically just gotten in by singing his old songs accompanied by someone else, making up for lost time. In the most recent countdown, he nearly did something different, coming remarkably close to polling while singing someone else's song. His cover of Kylie Minogue's "Did It Again" just missing the mark at #102.

Paul Kelly's inclusion here probably makes it one of the most dubious stretches with regard to being something you could call a Like A Version. He's here to sing the chorus of "Dumb Things", his own song, while A.B. Original just provide original verses that mostly aren't related to the song, apart from Trials starting both of his verses by saying 'Yeah, them dumb things'.

In case you need a brief, I'm going to make it awkward. A.B. Original is a duo made up of two Indigenous rappers. There's Trials who I just mentioned before, and also just contributed to the list very recently as he produced Birdz's "Bagi-la-m Bargan" (#213). The other member of the duo is someone I can't name because before this supergroup was made, he scored an entry of his own, that will eventually appear on this list. He'll certainly get his turn, but for now I just want to point out that if you choose to watch the video for this, then him pointing at and staring down the camera to say 'The date's changin'' is probably the highlight of this whole experience.

It's not often that the video adds a lot to the Like A Version experience, unless it's a little bit silly with it (#387). This time around it feels like it adds to the experience. Massive aura boost when they're still walking into the studio as the song has already changed, and really adding to the experience when Trials is shouting out the band and the other guy is pointing at them. Actually I'm not being silly enough with it, the guitarist on this recording also will appear on this list at a later date. Suffice to say, the vibes are extremely good on this one.

#207. Childish Gambino - Sober (#31, 2014)

26th of 2014

"Sober" is the kind of song that exists in a strange middle ground. It's a very accessible song that I could absolutely imagine hearing on commercial radio, only it doesn't have quite the clout to get put there in the first place. There's another catch-22. You need to get on the radio to get popular, but you need to get popular to get on the radio. Of course with all this in mind, it's always a risk to try and stick up for someone for a fight they're not even interested in. Hard to say Childish Gambino has had a rough time getting his work out to people, so maybe he never wanted a radio hit in the first place. Funnily enough though as we know, he probably had his best experience at that when he so clearly was not trying to do it. Future blurbs, future words.

"Sober" is a quaint moment to look back at. Up to this point, I'd mostly only known Childish Gambino as a rapper. A rapper who was willing to do different things with his music, but he'd always be rapping. "Sober" is not a song that I could call rap music by any stretch. It's like a meeting point between Bruno Mars and Frank Ocean. I found it very exciting at the time but haven't gone back to it very much since then. I think I might have interpreted it as a ceiling for Childish Gambino that I didn't expect him to ever crack.

This comes from Childish Gambino's "Kauai" EP he released in 2014. "Sober" was the promotional single which made it very clear that he was doing something different on this project. The artwork is a good demonstration too; it's a nice bit of relaxing minimalism. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the rest of the EP is more of the same, but the chill vibes are definitely there. It has a slightly peculiar guest list which includes two appearances by Jaden Smith (credited as "The Boy" on the cover), and also Steve Glover, Childish Gambino's younger brother. Actually once I got to that song, "Poke", I started getting D'Angelo vibes. How were we to know that he would finally release a new album just 2 months after this EP came out. I'm sad again now.

I do still really enjoy "Sober" though. It's very playful in a way that's hard to dislike. Maybe there are some limitations in his singing, but he probably does enough. It's all a bit of a stealth play to hide the fact that this song is a lot stranger than it seems on the surface. There's a guitar solo, and then a slowed and reverbed outro. I suppose I can accept these things if they're part of the original song's creative decisions.

#206. Billie Eilish - bury a friend (#35, 2019)

15th of 2019

There has never been a surer sign of stardom around the corner than when an artist manages to reach the charts with a song that's not particularly radio friendly. It's usually a sign that says they're primed for the big time the moment they play by the rules. For Billie Eilish, this might have been something we were all seeing coming. Prior to that very obvious hit song (so obvious I don't need to name it, not that I can), she had spent the past 12 or so months getting gradually higher chart positions around the world. This observation doesn't work very well in Australia because we caught the bug very pretty early on with another song I won't mention yet. Following the US & UK Charts though, I just remember watching numerous songs of hers just seem to sneak into the lower end of the chart on the back of her reliable and growing fanbase.

Evidently, the dam could no longer hold her back. I start to wonder if pretty much any song could have gotten the job done for her at that point because the very strange reality of it all is that "bury a friend" was her first top 20 hit in the US and UK. She already had two top 10 hits before this in Australia (one of them is "when the party's over" (#809)) but this also got her to a new high of #3. By all accounts, this is a huge hit, but it's one that's absolutely plummeted down the pecking order for her. A while back I made the same observation for Tones and I with "Johnny Run Away" (#530). "bury a friend" landed at #35 in the Hottest 100 despite being the 26th biggest hit of the year (or around 15th biggest if you leave out 2018 songs). Just one of those early signs of an audience poised to abandon the song once there were more options. Album track "i love you" is rapidly closing in on the lifetime sales of "bury a friend" in Australia, and despite being her 14th most streamed song to date (it'll be 15th when this post goes live) on Spotify, it's only ranked 34th for current daily listens.

All this is just to reinforce my early notion that "bury a friend" is a bit strange and maybe not so enticing to go back to, compared to other hits of hers. I can't say it's short for hooks, but it's very off kilter in the presentation. It doesn't have any moment where things settle in and get comfortable. I suspect that's all intentional. It's a nightmare in song form, where things can change at any moment, and chaos reigns supreme. Even when the song is at its most settled in the chorus, Billie is singing through a vocoder just to make it a little more uneasy. The more I look at it, the less it feels like a proper song, and more like a teaser trailer for the album, complete with then "WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?" title drop.