#110. Billie Eilish - bad guy (#1, 2019)
8th of 2019
Where to start with this one? Well, one tidbit I love to share with anyone who will listen is that this is perhaps the most uniquely Australian song to ever top the poll, apart from "Elephant" (#730). In an interview with Rolling Stone, Billie & FINNEAS revealed that part of the instrumental to "bad guy" comes from pedestrian crossings in Sydney. Billie excitedly pressed the button as we all did at some point in our lives to hear the slow beeping sound. She started recording it, and got spooked when it suddenly changed to the faster 'You can walk now' beeps. I would love to teach more people the fact that you can very audibly hear it in the song, right after she says 'duh'. Until the release of "HIT ME HARD AND SOFT", I believe this contribution (which was actually cleaned up by FINNEAS) was Billie's only production credit in her discography. Later on, their dad was excitedly talking about the same traffic signal only to be informed that it's in their song. This is also obviously the most important retort to the notion that Billie Eilish doesn't care about Australia. This same idea was also used a few months later by Polish Club on the title track to their album "Iguana". Of all things to get beaten to the punch on.
"bad guy" has also created history in many ways. We took our time getting there, but it was the first Hottest 100 winner by a solo female artist, something that's happened for the past 3 years in a row now. On the charts, Billie Eilish was the first artist born in the 21st century to get a #1 single (in Australia, and also America). She set a new standard for chart domination on album release when she managed 6 songs in the top 10 on that week, a record that stood for a surprisingly long time. She was also the first artist to ever debut at #1 in Australia on both single & album charts at the same time, something we might take for granted nowadays (Taylor Swift has done this 7 times). We got a little preview to this inevitability very early on. Australia's Spotify charts are a little wonky because their synced up with UK time zones, and that means streams on a Wednesday morning will count to the Tuesday's chart (I have no idea how ARIA adjusts this information, if they even do). Something I don't think I'd seen before is that after releasing her album on a Friday, Billie Eilish started peppering the Thursday Spotify chart with tracks already, including "bad guy" at #50. This only works for albums that were released at midnight Australia time (which can be touch & go for big stars), but it's proven to be a reliable preview for impending impact. These successes tend to be based just on initial curiosity, but I find it interesting sometimes how quickly people have been known to pick out the hits and run with it (I would be lying by omission though, if I didn't acknowledge that "bad guy" was immediately pushed as the focus song).
I do unfortunately, have to slightly discredit the success of this song (in America, at least). The week it was released corresponded with the beginning of the 19 week reign for Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" on the Billboard Hot 100. This was a reign that lasted so long that it put a stop to so many potential The Number Ones columns. At one point in time it had 7 songs blocked from the top spot, running for so long it took down two potential Taylor Swift chart toppers. Two of those songs did eventually get to #1, "Señorita" by Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, and also "bad guy". The only problem is that "bad guy", the track we all know and love didn't really get there on its own. There was obviously a concerted push to get it to #1 in America, thinking something new had to get there eventually. Looking back on discussion at the time, it was wholly expected that "Old Town Road" was poised for a 20th week at #1, though I suppose prediction tools have gotten a little better since then. What I did learn is that on the last day of that tracking week, "bad guy" had a limited cassette release, and also a vertical video to buff its numbers on Spotify, two classic techniques.
It also had a remix. You might possibly remember it as it was noteworthy at the time. Billie Eilish channelled her inner Belieber and got Justin Bieber onto the song. She's very open about how much of a fan she was growing up so it feels very genuine, though it's also the exact kind of marketing decision that screams of pure fluff to bolster chart positions. It seemed to be pretty universally panned at the time, but it did maintain some decent numbers for a while. This remix came out a few weeks before it went to #1, but I feel confident in saying that it wouldn't have gone to #1 in America without it. This very deliberate, forced week at #1 is to date, the only week Billie Eilish has ever spent at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would be unfair to not acknowledge that she was largely being held off #1 by Lil Nas X with thanks to him also aggressively using tactics to maintain this, so it really is a race to the bottom. Justin Bieber also had one of those songs that were blocked from the top spot by Lil Nas X so maybe on that level, it's a little gratifying, but he's not actually credited for the #1 single anyway.
With all that in mind, it's hard to say that this single and its success don't represent a sea change in popular music. It's Billie bridging the gap somewhat. At this point in her career, her music didn't really get much of a run on commercial radio, and it still largely wouldn't for a while, but "bad guy" was the big exception. When they wanted to hitch up their wagon to this rising star, "bad guy" was the song you could play. When she swept the major categories of the GRAMMYs in the following year, "bad guy" was the song you could be familiar with if you weren't that invested. It's still largely within the bounds of what she'd always been doing at this point, but with a well pronounced bass line and some sticky vocal & production hooks every step of the way, it made for a neat little package. An artist statement if you will. This is what your kids are into nowadays, time to get used to it.
#109. Birds of Tokyo - Brace (#100, 2016)
15th of 2016
I thought there was a minor bit of folklore attached to this song but I've been sorely mistaken and I suspect you have been too. When the Hottest 100 is taking place, triple j have tended to post the songs one at a time on social media as they happen. This has led to some occasional gaffes when posts go off too early, or things like that. It wasn't always like this, because until 2015, they'd do most of the list with ten songs at a time, allowing people to focus on their favourites among the relative also-rans before going one at a time for the big top 20. From 2016 onwards, they went with one song at a time, which creates a peculiar situation where most people are now being inundated with individual posts for songs they don't especially feel strongly about (usually). Poster brain activates, but how does one possibly process all this information? The solution was simple: Turn it all into a meme.
If you want to be hyper-critical, you can witness the decline of cordial interactions with media through this shifting landscape. What might have started as just playing around in the concept, devolved into distraction, ('Don't let this distract you from [something that happened during the cricket]'), and then into disdain. Before that though, there was a vote of frustrated positivity through the most famous example of this that has since been permanently etched into our language. A guy named Ben who just wrote 'Ya joking shoulda been higher' under every single entry, building up to the final punchline under the #1 song (#400) 'Ya joking, should have been Daryl Braithwaite - The Horses'. All just a bit of fun at the time, made worse by everyone trying desperately to become the next Ben, but I have to shock you to your core right now because Ben didn't actually post it under every song. He only gets started with Thundamentals' "Think About It" (#829) at #82. I prepared to go into this post for months under the notion that at #100, "Brace" by Birds of Tokyo was the origin of this meme, but I guess it turns out that Ben was either content with its placing, or thought it should have been lower, same going for the next 17 songs.
My history with Birds of Tokyo is fairly long. It starts in 2007, when I recall seeing an interview with them on jtv. Maybe the name stood out to me because I was quite interested in learning Japanese at the time, and also it was interesting because they were something of a Perth super group. There's another tangent to this probably, you'd think. In any case, they had some songs on the radio I tended to like, "Black Sheets" and "Wayside" were the main ones. I actually had a real favourite in "Off Kilter" but I didn't know the name of it until there was a promotion on triple j for a Birds of Tokyo Live At The Wireless set that used the song, and I had to look into it just to discover what the 'so long, see you in good time' song was. They were making a name for themselves and got into the Hottest 100. The big leap came when they very quickly followed up their debut album with another one, "Universes". Despite the quite turn around and the usual problems that's known to have, the album was very popular, and I suspect most will tell you it's their best one. I possibly would as well. I found myself endorsing the album very heavily without having heard it, because no less than 6 songs on the album because triple j staples. "Silhouettic" and "Broken Bones" are the big two, but you know you were listening to triple j in late 2008 if you also heard "White Witch" an obscene number of times. If there was any hesitation to the brand for me early on, then I was all-in from this point. They were rivalled only by Muse & Gyroscope as my favourite band at the time, and were probably winning at one stage.
Things develop drastically in 2010. It's mostly business as usual at first, they put out a new single, I'm obsessed with it, and it actually gets onto the lower half of the ARIA Chart, a first for the band. Otherwise, I don't think that single really moved the needle as much as it just represented the new standard for them with a more established fanbase. The real big moment was the album's second single, "Plans". That song went gangbusters for them. It spent a very long time on the ARIA Chart and was pretty unlucky not to reach the top 10 on multiple genuine attempts, making it one of the biggest ever hits to stall at #11 at the time. From here on, the discourse around the band changed a bit. Birds of Tokyo were a pretty steady-going alternative rock band that I don't think caused too much of a stir for those who weren't into them, but the success of "Plans" seemed to turn them into pariahs. I have to give the song credit because it has such an unusual arrangement for a pop hit, and doesn't really have a chorus. I always want to compare it to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" in that regard, though maybe it's because that song also peaked at #11. But it's also a song that sands down some of the band's edges and would end up getting extremely overplayed. This was coupled with the reception for the band's self-titled album that it came with (which I've never really understood, it feels like a hyper-focus on some softer songs and not crediting the whole thing).
Things only get worse with their next album, which gives the band their biggest hit, "Lanterns" (#662). Birds of Tokyo scored a massive hit, had their first #1 album, and became commercial radio darlings for several years. All this together and they've been a laughingstock ever since. I never know how much I can trust this because I just know deep down that I've been listening to Birds of Tokyo longer than most people, and I shaped my opinion on them through different material, and under different circumstances. Maybe if I'd only started hearing them from "Plans" to present, I'd also feel that way, but I'm not certain. I don't always have loyalty to the bands I listened to when I was much younger, but here it just rings too strongly. I thought there were some singles coming from the band in more recent years I was happy to ignore. To quote Jack Black in High Fidelity, is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter-day sins?
In any case, we saw similar things happen with a lot of bands in this time frame. They'd storm out the gate, save rock to some extent, and then decide to mellow out as they get older. Their fans would lose their mind, demanding for them to rock again, and bands would largely ignore this call. The unsatisfying answer to this tends to be that for all the hot air that comes about from this, these same complainers don't seem to turn up when the sun is shining. If these bands decided they'll rock again, they won't get those fans back for the most part. Birds of Tokyo did it, after all.
It's hard to get a good read on this because we rarely get the necessarily detailed information in the long term, and very few albums get certified nowadays. My suspicion though is that "BRACE", the 2016 Birds of Tokyo album where they suddenly sounded louder & darker than perhaps ever before, is also their least successful album. I don't want to knock it, or them for making it, but I just feel like it's another chapter that doesn't have much in the way of exposure, so again if Birds of Tokyo are just that boring/annoying band on the radio, then their not-for-radio album is not going to move the dial because you'll never hear it. It's somewhat miraculous that they have a song here for their troubles, though they did only just sneak in.
In any case, catch me on a good day and I might say "BRACE" is their best album. For all the praise I'm willing to heap, I won't deny that every album has a handful of songs that I don't ever really go out of my way for. They're very much a singles band for me, where the term 'single' can be expanded into any random album highlight they have in their pocket because every now and then they'll just inexplicably include a song like "White Leaves" on the back end of an album. "BRACE" is just the very solid set of songs that isn't overstuffed and also just all goes well together. Only "Empire" sounds a little out of place because it feels like something from their next album just with louder drums, almost like it's a contingency plan to make sure there's something resembling a single here.
Instead, the attention goes to the title track, and that seems very valid to me. It's a massive return statement that's saying they can make music like this again if they want to. In saying that though, it still doesn't really fit in with their older stuff because it's just so stuffed with distortion and pounding riffs. No critical retribution to brace for though, and now the only time I see Birds of Tokyo brought up is in an increasingly nostalgic 'Wow what were we/they thinking?' way, or to be put down with regard to Ian Kenny's other band. I will talk about that band in the future, brace for that.
#108. Calvin Harris (feat Frank Ocean & Migos) - Slide (#37, 2017)
14th of 2017
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It's been twelve times. Twelve times I evoked this Scottish DJ in the lead up to finally reaching his only appearance on this list. Maybe there's an alternate version of history where something like "Summer" is part of this and the whole bit never came up. Just in general he's had such a solid run here that it's strange that this is the only one from the time frame. In the meantime he was busy being one of the biggest stars on the planet. I mean that literally because he's very tall. I wanted to acknowledge when Something For Kate covered him (#630), it was one of the tallest cover versions of all time.
On the surface, "Slide" is just another hit for Calvin Harris. Honestly I might be setting up a bell curve meme where that's the low & high IQ response to this, but let's try to look at things objectively. Calvin Harris has stealthily been a good album seller in the past. I'd see him dismissed as a singles artist, and that's probably still how a lot of people liked him as well, but the reality of it is that many artists you wouldn't think capable of getting whole album purchases, did so with gusto. Mostly off the back of two very big hits, LMFAO managed to keep an album in the top 10 in Australia for half a year (this is before streaming). Flo Rida just kept selling even beyond the first album curiosity factor, stuff like that.
Calvin Harris managed here by sheer persistence. His album "18 Months" is stuffed in a way that Greatest Hits packages often can't manage. In the UK, that album had 9 different top 10 hits in the exceptional sense. We're not looking at brief splashes for the stat sheet; they were genuine crossover hits and most of them peaked at #1 or #2. When you've got that many hits, you can make for one hell of a sticker in the record store and it's probably enough to get people past the 'yeah but am I going to like the other songs on it?' hesitation.
This is not really a sustainable business model. Crossover hits are increasingly hard to come by. Calvin Harris's next album "Motion" also came stuffed with some hits that he'd accumulated leading up to it, but much less once the whole thing was out. If not for a surprise top 10 bolter in "Pray To God", it probably would've slipped out of the charts after just a couple of months. It's possible that he was hurt by the transition period to streaming, which started seriously eating into the album market around 2014, but wouldn't actually contribute to the charts until 2017. These kinds of albums would be monsters on the charts in the current age. The very direct evidence we have to this is that his latest album, "96 Months", basically a compilation of all his hits of the last decade, has been locked on the chart for about 2 years now just accumulating streams.
In any case, Calvin Harris was never an artist who generated much discussion over his albums. Almost like it's not something to take seriously when they're glorified compilations. That might not be the truth of it, but it's hard to shake it when so many of your songs are just a vessel for whomever you roped in for a hit single at the time.
"Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1" feels like it was made to challenge this notion. I don't know if there's a singular factor that does it. Making the whole album a singular intent to explore a different sound is a good start, leaning on Frank Ocean's credibility is another one, or maybe it's all just as simple as making a single that jumps past the novel curiosity into something that's actually really good. All that together and you've earnt a whole lot of trust and good will that wasn't there previously. I never listened to Calvin Harris's older albums, but I did put this one on and enjoyed it quite a bit. Helps that it's also a pretty brisk length. The album only really had one other major hit in "Feels" (I think "Rollin" is very underrated though), but all things considered, performed pretty well on the charts. Not actually as well as the albums before it, but given the severely reduced budget of hits, you can take that as a win. When he released a Volume 2 five years later without much in the way of hits, it was basically persona non grata in the charts. The sheer difference that "Slide" brings to the table. I'm listening to Volume 2 right now and it's mostly unfamiliar to me but still a pretty fun time. It's a mix of chill instrumentals I've grown very fond of, like city pop with some groove. My point of reference is always the soundtrack to the idiosyncratic video game Paradise Killer (another murder mystery!). Really feels like you're moving around an enormous empty world to pick up pointless trinkets.
Anyway I haven't been meaning to ignore the Migos but I didn't have a good way to get into them here. They're another point to Calvin Harris's favour because the timing could hardly be better. Migos had spent several years being 'notable' without much to show for it, but in late 2016 they had a massive boon. They released a single whose featured artist will eventually appear on this list. The memetic appeal of Offset's commanding verse in combination with that featured artist's incomprehensible contribution meant that in an era of short attention spans, this nearly 6 minute song managed to thrive, becoming a Billboard #1 hit. Migos were no longer speculatory, they were genuine hit makers, and they rode this momentum for several years. Aside from Quavo constantly turning up on pop hits, they didn't really ever change their tune to fit in. In 2022, Takeoff was killed in a shooting and the group respectfully disbanded.
With that big Migos breakthrough, it's just perfect timing for everyone involved. Frank Ocean is also something of a speculative artist at this time. Incredibly popular, but not really scoring hits because he self-sabotages most chances of that ever happening. It's a worthwhile tour de force for everyone here. Calvin Harris's instrumental working perfectly with Frank Ocean's slow singing and the faster Migos flow. At the end of the day, it really is just another hit for Calvin Harris, but one that opened up everyone's perception for him to switch things up, and trust the process.
#107. The xx - On Hold (#20, 2016)
15th of 2016
When I was younger, I just made the declaration to myself that Daryl Hall & John Oates were demonstrably uncool. It might have been because of the name or image. I wasn't knowingly aware of any of their songs, and that could've been a factor too. To have no enduring songs is to be locked in the '70s and '80s. This perspective took a very long time to change, mainly because I continued to not hear any of their songs or look into it. The xx didn't really change it either because I never checked out the song being sampled here. Instead it was years of watching "You Make My Dreams (Come True)" slowly put itself into the conversation, slowly bubbling on the sales charts, and then even more surprisingly, the streaming charts. If the kids can listen to Daryl Hall & John Oates, maybe I can too.
Nevertheless, my opinion has completely flipped. Now I just get weirdly excited whenever I hear any of their songs anywhere. They've just got so many bangers. There was a lengthy period of time where I would watch that one 'Out of Touch Thursday' post every week. It's getting to the point where my kiss is probably on their list. They know you're listening, they've got those private eyes, watching you. Anyway, it's "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" that's being sampled here. As a very 'chorus first' kind of song to recall for me, it feels so jarring hearing the segments of the song that have been sampled on "On Hold". That, if nothing else, is proof that The xx got to me first. Perhaps for other people, this perspective is completely flipped. There's not often much weirder than hearing a sample of a song you know incredibly well.
"On Hold" was the answer to something speculatory for me. Previously, The xx had leveraged what was to me, strongly unsung popularity on their first album that largely manifested through strong last.fm popularity. When the second album came out, they proved it to be the case when the largely radio unfriendly "Angels" became a top 50 hit in Australia. This was only half of the puzzle though, because behind these strong sales were even stronger streaming numbers. The xx's second album was one of those albums that took over the streaming charts when it came out, but since this still wasn't factored into the charts, it didn't show anywhere.
By the time the third album by The xx came out, this was part of the equation. In an era that was largely pushing aside previous safe bet artists, The xx felt to me like an artist that could make the transition. My faith was rewarded as they went from barely making the top 50 in 2012 to just barely making the top 50 in 2016, only they got a little bit higher this time and stuck the landing. The two songs ended up one apart in both ARIA peaks and Hottest 100 positions, but in opposite directions, so they really nailed the mission of making another strong lead single. The band fell out of favour with voters when triple j did their Hottest 100 of the Decade, so I couldn't really see which song fared better, though I suspect "Angels" has the right age profile to do it.
"On Hold" was just another very agreeable single by The xx. If I take one thing away from it, it's that after two albums of sounding and looking generally miserable, "On Hold" feels like a bit of a rebrand. Now they're sad with a beat. I feel like a big part of the group's evolution has been seeing the lead singers get more comfortable with doing their part. That awkward wallflower feeling replaced with a confident doubt. For Jamie xx, I feel like it takes a lot of guts to make your chorus be roughly 30 seconds of someone else's more famous song, but it's vocal chopping that fits in very well with the song's own production. I can in fact, go for that.
#106. Billie Eilish - my future (#79, 2020)
5th of 2020
I presume for many who follow charts and things of that nature, part of the fun in the game is getting to pick and choose what you want to positively acknowledge, to put in your retinue as a winning contribution. Everyone picks their own set, and then we can remark on the different choices being made, seems fun. There is, however, an inherent power scale imbalance that's written into the whole thing. Whatever gets really popular, that's the consensus. A lot of people think that it's good. Anything that falls a little short, that's going to be a harder sell.
It has a strange psychological effect to it. My head tells me that everyone is genuine in their opinions and it's as simple as that, but my heart sometimes wants to intervene. There's this feeling that when something doesn't make a big impression in the first place, there's just no reason to give it credit. It might even be discouraged, so as not to hitch your wagon up to a failing brand. I always feel like the material should speak for itself, and lesser success can be compounded from a promotional perspective, but sometimes I just feel wronged by the consensus.
I really enjoy "my future". It's always been a big favourite of mine. So often though, I've just seen it discarded. It's just a loose single was eventually included on an album but wasn't part of the promotional cycle for it (and in fairness, it's her least successful album), which doesn't help it. It's one of many songs of hers that debuted high on the charts and immediately nosedived. Its lifetime streaming numbers are actually fairly solid, but on the low end for a Billie Eilish single. I just keep seeing it written off and can't get my head around that. This just feels so self-evident as a great single and launching point between her first two albums.
Okay though, I will contend that I perhaps have a stronger inclination to it than most because it just hits the right spot for me. It starts off a little slow for the first half, but the beat kicks in and reveals the truth of the song all along. It's just secretly been a late '90s Morcheeba song. Getting to that very respectful drumming is just part of the process.
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