#80

#80. Tame Impala - Borderline (#18, 2019)

5th of 2019

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Records preserve history, but it's important for all of us to take the correct reading of it. Misinterpreted data is just as bad as incorrect data. I'm going to stop before I take this metaphor any further or apply any drastic implications to it. I'm doing the goofy dramatic interpretation of music again, that's all it is. Maybe there is justification to reach for grand statements but I find it can be undercut by this set up and just make you look silly. There's a time and a place, and it's not here.

How it applies here, is that we can have records of hit songs but they don't always tell the full story. Writing about music doesn't necessarily convey the full feel of it. Nuance can get lost, or clouded by vague recollections that sound accurate enough to go without questioning. I'll admit that sometimes it's just very inconsequential things, like wondering how certain songs were edited to get played on the radio, and how much they actually did get played when they seem to challenge one's perceptions of it in a modern era. The classic one though, is wondering what version(s) of a song are actually popular.

This is something that's generally pretty complicated. When the topic comes up, it feels like it's painted with broad strokes that I'll admit I understand the desire for, I just don't love the execution. When there's a hit song that's obviously boosted by a remix of some sort, I just tend to treat it as one big package deal. There might be a majority stake one way or the other, but I'm not in the habit of shutting the rest out as irrelevant noise. Funnily enough, I often suspect the lack of clarity in the matter is part of what causes the divide. Depending on who the listener is, they might not even mind what version they're hearing as long as the core concept is intact. I still listen to live versions of Two Door Cinema Club's "Undercover Martyn" and Jeff Buckley's "Lover, You Should've Come Over" that I downloaded so long ago and the original versions sound as wrong to me as those versions probably would to you. We're largely arriving at the same purpose; we just got it ingrained in different ways.

This is all part of a more specific point I want to get to when I talk about Röyksopp again, but generally speaking, the Hottest 100 is occasionally home to results that probably aren't quite what you remember in your head, or what you immediately assume when looking back at it historically. Wolfmother polled twice with the song "Woman". It's their second most famous song, so I'll assume you probably know it. The catch is that neither of the two versions of the song that polled are the one you probably think of. In 2006, it was the MSTRKRFT remix which takes the song in peculiar directions, but the other version of the song is from 2004 on the band's self-titled EP. It's noticeably less polished and sounds like more of a direct soundalike to the band's '70s influences. This version of the song is a bit buried, so you can't find it on the band's official channels. Maybe that's accidentally erasing history, or maybe the band's more polished sound on the debut album has become part of the identity and you wouldn't want someone to accidentally stumble on a different version that sounds noticeably 'worse', but not enough that you're always going to be completely convinced it's the wrong one. There was recently a remix of the song "Dirty Cash (Money Talks)" that now sits atop the Spotify chart for The Adventures Of Stevie V. The artwork and crediting are similar enough that it took me a very long time to question it, by which point the stream has already gone through. Keep at it for long enough and I wouldn't be surprised if it starts supplanting all the versions of the song from the '80s & '90s.

Something that might become increasingly jarring if it's ever actually discovered is that for many people, "Borderline", the Tame Impala song they know and love, did not actually poll in the Hottest 100 like that. The version of the song that many people likely know did not exist in 2019, after all. "Borderline" was released way back in April 2019, ten months before "The Slow Rush" was released. All was good with the world, until Kevin Parker decided he didn't love the final mix of it and made a new version for the album. The single version was deleted from all streaming platforms and exists only in vague remnants if you hunt specifically for it. The song was modestly popular at the time, but has done monumentally better in the years that have followed, making it probably Tame Impala's second most popular song. That's 1.2 billion streams on Spotify all for that new version. It's a surprisingly comprehensive sweep as well. A few years back when my hard drive carked itself, I needed to re-download all of my iTunes library, which I managed to do because iTunes keeps all of that stuff there somewhere, even when it's not available to purchase. The only exception in my entire library was "Borderline" which I simply was unable to acquire again, and needed to requisition it from a friend.

I might be over-reacting a little here, but it feels like the number one talking point about this song so I needed to make sure I did all the necessarily build up to get to this point. I'll continue to say it louder for the people in the back: The new version of "Borderline" is one that I'm not particularly fond of. Great to get that off the chest. It's hard to really describe the difference without instructing someone to listen to the single version on loop for a while and then switch over. You just immediately feel the difference. There's no 'ahhh', the drums seem to suffocate the melody, and the very nice subtle bass feels like it's getting a little too much attention. If I had to rank that version of the song, I'd be in a serious conundrum because the core concept of it still works obviously, but it's in this uncanny valley that feels like it's actively trying to re-write my memory when I hear it.

Completely deleting the song feels like a vast over-reaction to me anyway. The sheer fact that it's here shows that people were generally content with it as it was, and it also outperformed every other Tame Impala song released that year. As long as I can help it, I'm going to stick with this version of the song as the one I remember. At the very least, it's become something of a novelty bit to just get overly exasperated at these differences that I don't think most people even know about or would even notice. This entire entry has been the logical conclusion of this bit, spending as much possible time running it into the ground. I've said my piece, Kevin.

But yeah, "Borderline" is really good. It does feel a little bit sacrilegious to name the song as such. We're talking about an absolute classic Madonna single here. Solange also did it a few years earlier in 2016 but at least had the sense to append a parenthetical to it. This is just taking aim at pop canon with little regard. R.I.P. "Here Comes The Sun" and what not. In general, it feels cut from a similar cloth to "Patience" (#217), but refines the general idea. The keys in that song serve to leave it feeling spacious and un-grounded, but here, it's just sprinkled under the main melody, in time with the drums in a way that feels more purposeful. Might also be the best flute in this whole list outside of "Mask Off" (#276). When it comes to Tame Impala going full pop sensibility, I don't think it gets much better than this.

#81

#81. Haim - Falling (#27, 2013)

16th of 2013

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When I was young, I had a bit of trouble with live action TV. It wasn't a hard and fast rule, but I probably needed things to be inherently slapstick as a focus. The Home Alone movies started and ended with the rube goldbergs and seeing Joe Pesci receive cruel and unusual punishment. There was nothing he could do, Kevin was a made man, and he wasn't (isn't it funny that those two movies came out only a couple months apart?). I think there was a part of me that just assumed these things were for adults, otherwise they would make them a cartoon.

If you already clocked where I'm going with this, then I'm sorry that I'm so painfully predictable. If not, enjoy the confusing ride. There's an Australian children's TV show from the '90s & '00s called Round The Twist. It's about a father and his three children who move to a new small town and live in a lighthouse, where supernatural things seem to happen very regularly. I don't think there was ever an accidental poisoning and subsequent shoot out but I never saw the whole thing. I just generally found myself confused by everything going on with it because I was incapable of paying attention to story lines, something I've only gotten marginally better at. Another curious quirk of the show is that it essentially had three different runs, first in 1990, then 1993 and finally in 2000. It means that millennials across the board are likely familiar with it as part of their upbringing, but there's the quirk to it in that most of the characters had to be re-cast each time around. I think they mostly did a good job at finding new cast members, to the point where I'm not even sure which generation I'm most familiar with, just that Season 1 Bronson is unrecognisable to me.

I thought I should do my homework on this so I decided to properly watch the first episode of each iteration, and then I also watched the third episode of season 2 because I wanted to try the Glass Animals method (#901). I do not recommend taking this path because that episode has the boys doing a literal pissing contest. There's also a water spirit that looks suspiciously similar to No Face from Spirited Away, only this came out nearly a decade earlier. Also got some big Final Destination vibes from that episode. I didn't know Paul Jennings was a big creative force on the show, that's interesting. I guess I don't really know what a normal episode is supposed to look like. There's a strong pattern of children being tortured, and I've also witnessed spying on a girl in the bathroom, and the vitally important m-preg episode. I do love how passionate the bully kids are about political canvassing though. I think my favourite part was at the start of the second season where it felt like they were lampshading the conceit, wondering if they'd lived past lives as different people, Pete suggesting his twin sister might have been more attractive (I will not weigh in on this).

What on earth does this have to do with "Falling" by Haim? I mean obviously there are three Haim siblings and they get up to wacky adventures, no one's denying that. More importantly though, there's one thing about Round The Twist that has stuck with me as long as I can remember, and that's the theme song. It's performed by the original actress for Linda and stays for the whole duration, so she's arguably the only consistent part of the show. It's very extra, and it's very memorable. For my benefit, it also succinctly explains the premise of the show which is always nice. The first three words, sung on their own are 'Have you ever'. I'm led to believe that the opening line of "Falling" is 'I give a little', but I have never been able to experience anything other than this strange coincidental match up that my brain feeds to me every time the song starts. I just so badly need Danielle to follow it up with 'Ever felt like this?'. It hasn't yet, but maybe if I watch even more Round The Twist I'll start hearing it everywhere. It has proven to be a fun side adventure to get me to take a short break from watching later seasons of Lost (#142), something that I'm still doing because much like some of those characters, I simultaneously live in the past, present & future. I'm gonna edit this post months in the future, laughing at my former self who has no idea what he's in for in season 6, I imagine.

If this is all too off topic then I apologise but it's hard to muster up a whole lot for what is my third time around on the same Haim album, all with songs I have pretty similar feelings about. Haim are one of those bands that don't necessarily have iconic songs, so Jeopardy! like asking about them but it's more like 'Can you name that band that's three sisters?' and not 'What's that song about not letting your mind retire?' (#111). If you want some statistical fluff to go along with this, then I can report that "Falling" is technically their breakthrough single in this context though I say it with the cruellest of circumstances. By all accounts they should've been celebrating the victory in 2012 except they landed at #106 with "Forever" and #101 with "Don't Save Me". The worst thing about that is that "Don't Save Me" actually entered the ARIA Charts in January 2013, late in the voting period. You get the feeling they just needed a little more time to climb up the rankings. Maybe it served them better in 2013 though. It's one thing to want to make amends for an unfortunate result (one as clearly sign-posted as the #101 position at that), it's another to have it perfectly positioned as the band clearly are on the rise and release their debut album in the next year. For all I know, everyone wildly overcompensated and that's why Haim only ever had one entry outside of 2013 (#787).

If you don't look at that context, "Falling" looks like a massive breakout hit that I don't think it really is. Like "Find an Island" (#88), it's a nice choice to steady the ship, and maybe convince more people that this is an artist to look out for, it's just never felt like the prime Haim song, especially when the next single after it was so much more successful (I'm not linking "The Wire" again, but it's obviously "The Wire"). It gave the song an identity crisis for me that's taken a long time to get past.

"Falling" is a pretty great song that gives me plenty to like in it. Just on the production side of thing, the prominence of the bass makes it feel so different to every other Haim song, and the way they layer it with the percussion creates this lively feeling to it. Counter-acted by the shouted title lyric is one of the most captivating hooks they've ever written to lock the whole thing in place. That's the real gimmick of Haim, the fact they write some of the weirdest melodies and distract you enough with spectacle that you'll never question if it works or not, you've already got it stuck in your head.

#82

#82. Sampa the Great - Final Form (#89, 2019)

6th of 2019

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I have to issue a correction. Not for this blog, but one time, which I suspect was in late 2015, I was in the car with some family members with the radio on. A song was playing that someone was very much not into, exclaiming 'who is this?'. I wasn't very confident but I assumed it was that new rap upstart I was hearing about, so I said it was Little Simz. I suspect it was actually "F E M A L E" by Sampa the Great. In hindsight, I would never make that mistake again, but the differences in their flows were not quite as obvious as they are now that we have a decade of further experience to go by. I would also sooner defend both of them because they've proven to be pretty fantastic MCs.

In the case of Sampa the Great, what we've got here is one of the most unexpected breakout moments I've ever witnessed. That is a time accurate observation before, it was in 2015 that Sampa the Great first started getting played on triple j, and over the years she continued within that periphery. triple j plays so much Australian music that it's normal to become acquainted with many artists who you can be pretty certain are going to stay in their lane. Sampa the Great seemed like the most obvious one of these. She had a distinctive voice for sure, but nothing in her music screamed like it was ever primed to break through. There's never been much space for female rappers in Australia, and even less for rap that was so slow and introspective. The song I first cottoned onto was "Black Dignity", which I think is fantastic, but you can't listen to it and say that it's a future hit. Even when her music was more upbeat, it still just didn't really fit in with what the kids were listening to. I sometimes got a Macy Gray vibe except nearly two decades too late for that.

I'm not sure I even clocked any of this when "Final Form" came out. It's a bit of a different turn for her, but at the time I was already on board so I didn't consider the idea that she could convert more people. Even then, for as many people in the music industry who might talk it up, it still doesn't mean it'd convert. It's not like The Drones ever made the Hottest 100 after all. As it turns out, it was a bit of a sneak into the list, but it's rare that you get a song that so triumphantly announces its own arrival. This song's horns roll out its own red carpet and it's marvellous. Both those horns and the post-chorus vocals are sampled from "Stay Away From Me" by The Sylvers. Another song that came out a year earlier than "Final Form", "Late Night" by Space Invadas has a similar use of the sample.

I don't even think anything is compromised for it all in the end. It's certainly more pop friendly than usual for her, but it's still a song that takes nearly two minutes to get to its hook, and before that you get multiple verses of Sampa just owning the microphone. It all just feels like one of those moments when all the people who want to champion a talent like this finally have an easy avenue to win people over. Sampa the Great hasn't really had another hit or anything like this since. I thought her song "Better Days" with Baker Boy had some potential there but maybe not enough people heard it. The only other interesting observation I have to say in the aftermath is that her second album was called "As Above, So Below". That's also the name of Australian rock band Stonefield's second album from 2016. I remember hearing from Birds of Tokyo that they named their 2016 song "Above / Below" as such because they didn't want to copy Stonefield. I'm going to assume I heard that during a live show though because there's no word of it online. Jury is out on whether or not the current #1 album in Australia got the message, though that artist will eventually appear on this list. Maybe Sampa the Great could get a bigger hit in the future. She left some room for tempered expectations when she said she only 'might' final form. While I'm at it, Freeza never actually said 'This isn't even my final form', but in fairness he's had so many final forms at this point that it's hard to feel threatened by it. Well, he would be threatening if he wasn't just a cartoon, what with all the planets he's blown up.

#83

#83. Childish Gambino - Redbone (#5, 2016)

11th of 2016

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For the 2025 Hottest 100, I did something I don't normally do and I made a prediction for the whole top 20. It's common to back this up with data like the kind you could theoretically scrape from social media for sampling, but I didn't do that either. I just went with my gut feelings based on how the year had played out, and how past Hottest 100s seemed to show the state of play. This turned out to be extremely accurate in a way I have to attribute largely to luck, where most of my gut feelings shaped up correctly, and everything I had tipped for the top 20 either landed in it, or very closely outside of it.

The one major mistake I had made with it was failing to account for "Rein Me In". The song had evidently started making in-roads towards the end of the year which probably should have been the big clue (it's Sam Fender's only top 50 hit in Australia to date, and already was in November). In my mind, it was too little, too late and the song would do reasonably well but not figure much higher than #25-#30. As the countdown continued, I watched as it slid past one song after another, eventually landing at #14, so it's also Sam Fender's highest ever entry in that regard too.

I just wasn't ready for what was going to happen next. The song took its stride of momentum from the Hottest 100 and just didn't stop. It was aided by a feel good viral TikTok trend, and that was the last piece of the puzzle. By late February it was a top 10 single, and in early April, a #1 single. We're probably going to look back at that result in years to come and be flabbergasted that it didn't do better. A certain case of a song that was punished by getting popular too late, but still finished high enough that it's not entirely obvious.

This is a peculiar instance that's hard to predict but also isn't unprecedented. I think the Hottest 100 can be a proving ground that signals potential that hasn't been utilised fully yet. Whenever I find myself thinking 'Wow, that's surprisingly high', it's a sign that there's something in it, and it might reveal itself in the future. For further evidence of that, I look at another example, "Redbone" by Childish Gambino.

"Redbone" was the second single from "Awaken, My Love" (the quotation marks are part of the title this time), following the experimental "Me and Your Mama" (#184). My feelings on the two songs were fairly similar, but if pressed for it, I'd concede that "Redbone" was the bigger hit. It just wasn't by a big enough margin to really consider, or so I thought until the Hottest 100 came around and put 83 positions between the two songs. The rest of 2017 was just a matter of seeing that gap come into fruition, as "Redbone" exploded from then to become one of the biggest hits of the year. There it is at #49 for the year in Australia, and #25 for the year in America (the UK couldn't really find a place for it in the moment but it has gone triple Platinum there). I do say explode in the metaphorical sense though, as it was a rather slow burning hit that didn't chart especially high but just hung around all year. How did he achieve this chart hit in the modern era? Why, with a funk rock jam, obviously.

It's not all purely an aesthetic, the song appears to borrow elements from "I'd Rather Be With You", which gives George Clinton & Bootsy Collins a writing credit on it. I'm not sure if the main audience was the rap crowd or the rock crowd but having both on his side couldn't have hurt. The song is also a fairly long one in that sense. Most songs around the five and a half minute mark tend to struggle to hang on the charts (I guess "Rein Me In" is another exception), because you can guarantee the radio isn't really going to try. It probably doesn't help that the song's memorable hook is only 4 words and one of them certainly isn't going to get aired. The word before it probably ruffles some feathers too. I'm reminded of one of my favourite joke tweets, someone giving up on watching The Sopranos because the first word heard on the show is 'woke' (technically true).

The song unintentionally did get a dose of being what some might consider 'woke' because it famously was included on the soundtrack to Jordan Peele's directorial debut "Get Out", a film I would say is very good but I wouldn't necessarily recommend watching it for the first time on a plane like I did. The movie came out only a few months after the song did and completely suits it in one of those perfect coincidental opportunities. Peele's subsequent films "Us" and "Nope" have instead chosen to make nightmares out of "I Got 5 On It" and "Sunglasses At Night", so it makes this usage of a more modern song feel less out of obligation. In general, it's just hard to argue with the success of the song, the whole thing just sounds great, there's a sick guitar solo at the end, and Gambino is consistently pushing his voice in strange and interesting ways.

#84

#84. BROCKHAMPTON - SWEET (#11, 2017)

10th of 2017

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I don't know if anyone would willingly admit it, but the discovery that Geese were significantly boosted by people who were paid to pretend they were organically fans of the band creates a potentially interesting dilemma. How willingly would anyone accept they've been duped into one fandom over another. It feels especially dicey in the world of artists whose identity is in some way built around the way they present an alternative to the boring mainstream. You'll feel more attached and make it part of your personality, probably. The lesson is probably to only take recommendations from people you know, people you couldn't for a moment believe were paid to say it, but then maybe it's not a big deal after all. Inorganic or not, it's still an opportunity to be part of something, and build a sense of community around it. I don't want to have a go at any Geese fans. At the end of the day, they're a band where I feel all the more confident that people do go to bat for what they're hearing because they're too abrasive to just pretend to be into it. I also sometimes wonder if I fell for the same trap years ago with BROCKHAMPTON.

This isn't much to go off of, it's just something I think about often that feels increasingly strange to me. I think that what pushed me to listen to BROCKHAMPTON back in 2017 was actually comments on triple j's Facebook. It's not usually a place you expect to see hype for a new artist, but I just saw so many words of commendation about the group like it was a no-brainer. I can't prove this was all someone's paid-for scheme, but the shoe really fits in this case.

The whole history of BROCKHAMPTON is pretty rooted in that kind of internet notoriety anyway. Kevin Abstract started the group by posting on KanyeToThe, asking if anyone wants to start a band. It's a huge piece of internet history that's still available to see. It's one of those showbiz type operations that you start to associate with all the potential kinds of massive depravity in the way of plugs. The way you look at all the top YouTubers and see the shamelessness in it, because at the end of the day, it works. With just how large BROCKHAMPTON really was, including many members who didn't actually rap, it all feels like part of the strategy as well. However it happened, it's a long gambit. That Kevin Abstract post was made in 2011. BROCKHAMPTON blew up very suddenly in 2017 to deliver one of the craziest Hottest 100 performances in recent history. Sure, there's room to do better, but to see them come out of nowhere and land this high with a song that was neither a gimmick, nor a crossover hit, it doesn't seem to make much sense at all. I do lament contributing to keeping them out of the top 10 because I voted for the song that blocked them, but that's as much as you can do that when I'm also still ranking that song above this one.

"SWEET" does happen to be the song that triple j were playing the most. They weren't short of options, because by the end of 2017, BROCKHAMPTON released a whole trilogy of "SATURATION" albums. They are largely characterised by a pattern of all-caps song titles that started with four letters and went up to five on the last track (which was generally a Bearface song), increasing the letter count and then looping back around by the end of the 3rd one. As far as talking about the music, it's an interesting strategy because nothing feels like it stands out much and it's hard to remember which song is which as there's rarely any clear connection. "GOLD" & "SUMMER" actually do have the title work in their hook, but otherwise you're squinting to say things like 'yeah, "FIGHT" does sound like you could stage an AMV fight sequence over it', or 'It must be called "SWEET" because they mention liquorice'.

The thing I find most interesting about BROCKHAMPTON's eventual crossover success is that it comes about in a counterproductive way. I think for a lot of people, the appeal of the band was how genuinely out there they sounded. If your introduction is through the song "HEAT", you'll hear something intense on all accounts. The first words Joba gets on the record are him screaming 'f**k you!', which you're just not gonna get from more carefully focus tested releases (this will also become relevant again later on the list). That's the kind of thing a lot of people do want to hear, something that sounds like it was made to engage but not be a hit. BROCKHAMPTON had it in spades, a mix of different voices and ideas, with memorable and distinct beats that kept finding new things to do. It was often the thing I kept going back to the most, songs like "QUEER" and "ZIPPER" were just so interesting.

So is "SWEET" some kind of concession? I'm not really sure. It feels like one of their most unassuming songs because it's just a posse cut in its purest form. You get to see everyone's flavour and what they bring to the group. Matt spilling his emotions, Dom pertaining to flow like he's the architect, Merlyn being a complete wild card, Ameer doing his one trick and Joba putting on all his voices. Kevin doesn't actually get a verse here but you know he's always good for a good hook. My favourite moment has to be the start of Merlyn's verse, where he's already starting with an iconic line 'DON'T CALL ME STUPID' and then manages to switch up his flow in real time to the point that it feels like he's passed off the mic. The way Kevin joins up with him in the music video sells the illusion even more. It's one of so many of their songs that individually feels like they're using up everything they've got, and yet they just kept doing that over and over again. You come to BROCKHAMPTON for the boundless possibilities, more than anything.

#85

#85. British India - Summer Forgive Me (#84, 2013)

17th of 2013

I have a strong habit of going rogue with regards to my favourite songs by a lot of artists. Maybe I'm projecting a bit and everyone does it, but the beacon-like nature of popularity has a habit of exemplifying the regular reaction. I think it also gets reinforced over time because the accepted truth just tends to block everything else out as an entry point. The Rapture are the "House of Jealous Lovers" band, Fischerspooner are the "Emerge" band. It's very easy to use these as your accepted entry point and then just not go any further with it. If they had something else worth hearing about, I'd have heard about it, right? This is me going to bat for "Get Myself Into It" and "Never Win", for the likely reason that they're just the ones I heard first. Sometimes, it can feel like you're being pushed out of your nuance because it's just easier to go along with what everyone else says.

For the most part, this isn't really important. The breadth of choices is always there and I can live in my world where "Science of Fear" or "Rabbit Hole" are just as important as the usual suspects in The Temper Trap's discography. One exception to this is in the live music setting. That's one where depending on the artist and the context of the show, you likely have to take concessions to the consensus, and find out how willing you are to go along with it. That super deep cut you love just isn't going to come through but the song that got them famous absolutely will.

This all came to mind because I was recently thinking about a bunch of my favourite songs over the years and which ones I've had the opportunity to hear played live. It's a relatively small fraction, because I don't go to a great deal of shows and even if I did, you can probably imagine how often Western Australia gets left off the itinerary. What stood out to me though, is how often I had these standout picks that had basically no shot at ever coming into fruition, because I'd already seen these bands and they didn't have them in the setlist. Every new album cycle is just potentially more of them to get cycled out of rotation, very rarely will something come back.

With that in mind, one of my favourite British India songs is "Beneath The Satellites". On the whole, it's probably boilerplate British India but I have great affection for the delivery of the title, the way it's elongated but the sung note is shifted with no subtlety. I don't think I've encountered it done in such a way that called out to me like this before or since. The song was released in early 2010, as the second single to the band's 3rd album. I suspect that it was all over the setlist during that album cycle but never again, as the song wasn't really much of a hit. Sure enough, I saw them live in 2016 and it wasn't included, the window was over. My memory of that setlist is a little fuzzy but I feel like they weren't playing much of their very early material if any. Only "I Can Make You Love Me" feels safe from the passage of time because it's their biggest hit. I was in luck however, because I'm pretty sure "Summer Forgive Me" made the cut. That's not really a big hit either, but it does have a strong advantage as the direct follow up to "I Can Make You Love Me". I'd be pretty ready to accept this song being pretty forgotten but that position in their discography gave it the best kind of momentum. Instead of just being another British India song that I like a lot in particular, it split the difference to just make it over the line here and feel like a notable song in the long run.

I think the best thing it has going for it is the general production & mixing. British India are a garage rock band at heart and thrive on that kind of scrappy sound. Here, they switch things up with something that sounds remarkably crisp. I don't think it would work quite as well if it sounded like a 128 bit rate mp3 that was nicked off Limewire. It makes the band feel more primed for the big time, and just in general feels like one of their most instantly clicking songs.

#86

#86. Drake - Passionfruit (#35, 2017)

11th of 2017

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One of the more mundane coincidences I've come across relates to Australian soft drinks. When you think of passionfruit drinks, the two that come to mind are Asahi's Passiona, and Kirk's Pasito. In a very quick space of time in early 2017, we managed to have two notable songs that recalled them to mind. The Smith Street Band's "Passiona" (#366) of course, and who could leave out "Despacito", which is of course French for 'Some Pasito' [citation needed]. Also at the very same time, Drake joined in with "Passionfruit", and these were the only three songs I could ever think of that managed to fit this idea, until The Rions had their own "Passionfruit" many years later.

If you're reading this post as it came out, you might be aware that Drake recently released 3 albums on the same day. If you're reading this further in the future, it's not too late, but who even knows what gimmicks he's resorted to since then. It's been a peculiar thing to witness, as I've watched the general perception of Drake change over the years. Maybe it all happened the moment he first had a #1 single and he was no longer the curious underdog to root for, and became the very establishment propped up solely on pure hubris and persistence. It was something that became very clear around when he released "For All The Dogs" in 2023. I just remember seeing a comment that was dismissive of the potential sales on Drake's album when physical formats were released, as it's hard to imagine someone spending actual money for a CD or vinyl over just streaming the latest disposable offering. I almost didn't question it but then I remembered back in the early 2010s, how different things were back then.

In a time when many artists were having trouble with that aspect of fandom, Drake was a glaring exception. It was mainly just in the US, but suffice to say, he was an absolute monster in terms of getting fans to buy his albums. His first four albums coincided with his own growing popularity and a slide in pure sales across the board, but it was he who was actually winning that battle. He'd consistently sell close to half a million copies in his first week, peaking with "Views" in 2016 which managed over 850,000 sales to go with record breaking streaming numbers. Almost nobody but Adele or Taylor Swift was doing Drake numbers. This is evidently not the case anymore. Drake is still a very bankable star, obviously, but that album-buying audience he once had has all but disappeared. Most recently, "ICEMAN" managed just 13,000 pure sales in its first week in America, and that was the big one of the three. Just a decade ago, Drake nearly moved half a million digital sales in a week with a barely announced mixtape.

You can make a lot of brash judgements on this. I do think the easiest is just to say that Drake eventually neglected the artistry of the album format. He's become one of the more infamous artists of late whose every action with regard to his discography seems to preference keeping the ship running with excess, rather than quality control. There's a need to seemingly always have something out around the corner, and to buff the streaming numbers by making as many songs as possible. It's begrudgingly working, but it feels like the disappearance of a once vital performance metric for Drake in pure sales has been the cost of doing business this way. You can't expect your fans to value your art if you treat it so frivolously.

My gut feeling is that this all set in when Drake released "More Life" in 2017. This was just under a year after he'd released his 20 track album "Views". "More Life" had 22 tracks, and then just a year later came "Scorpion" with 25 tracks. I hate to reference the TERF wizard franchise but I just can't not think of Harry Potter's cousin Dudley lamenting getting one less birthday present than last year and getting his parents to cave and buy two more presents when they go out. That feels like the mindset Drake is satiating, the idea that to slow down, is to signal to shareholders that it's all downhill from here. The aspect that I've left out here is that Drake marketed "More Life" as a playlist, as opposed to a mixtape. It feels like an attempt to modernise the nomenclature to something a younger generation is more familiar with, but you can't help but be cynical about just how banal it comes across. It changes the dynamic from 'Here's a fun sequence of songs I put together' into 'Here are some songs, do what you want with it'. I'll also admit that when it comes to his sheer excess of productivity, the line between studio album Drake & mixtape Drake has never felt less clear to me.

I'll be fair though. Regardless of how I might feel about where Drake's output has been heading lately, I didn't feel quite as uninterested back in 2017. I thought there was some potential in this project, and by all accounts, it had its moments. I have to give big props to "Get It Together", for introducing me to Black Coffee and also giving Jorja Smith a starring role. The two of them provide good balance so it's not just 4 straight minutes of Drake, in a way that seems increasingly common. His later Hottest 100 hits, "Rich Baby Daddy" and "NOKIA" feel more like bops that Drake happens to be on, rather than Drake songs in their entirety. Alongside this, "Passionfruit" is just a really good song too.

It's a song that's surprised me a little lately by just how well it's endured. Certainly it was a popular song in its time, but if any Drake songs are going to fade into the background after they have their moment, it's gonna be the more unassuming ones that aren't attached to a major project. It was a little hard to get a read on "Passionfruit" at the time because a lot of its momentum could just be owed by being the 'single' from the latest Drake project, but also being one that didn't feel entirely tuned to be a pop hit. "Passionfruit" is 5 minutes long. It takes about a minute to get going and then it resets itself. Drake's first verse starts at the 1:16 mark, and his last chorus ends at 3:46, meaning it's really a two and a half minute Drake song that's been stretched to double time. Unless you want to shut out other artists by being a time thief, there's no commercial benefit to making the song this long.

For that, I think Drake is just lucky that he landed on a brilliant instrumental. It's a very simple loop that doesn't really change much for the whole song, but in this simplicity, it just manages to land on something incredibly soothing. Sometimes he'll land a bullseye, but I often think much of Drake's negative perception of late is on how often he tries to make much harder raps that can't invite as many people in. "Passionfruit" is a big invitation for all the non-Drake fans and continues to be one of his absolute most popular songs to this day. As I write this, aside from tracks on his new albums, only "One Dance" (#796) is outstreaming "Passionfruit" daily on Spotify, so it's become an unexpected but welcome classic.

#87

#87. Ocean Alley - Deepest Darkness (#56, 2022)

4th of 2022

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I'll try not to belabour the point too much but it really is a red flag to me when anyone sweeps entire discographies under the same rug. I'm a believer in putting your best foot forward and choosing your battles. To chime in on literally everything feels like building up an ego that can't possibly be lived up to. I know, because I've sometimes overstepped my mark and felt the blunt force of my own ignorance getting called out. It doesn't feel great. Sometimes you can find yourself in the kind of echo chamber where it's a particularly shared ignorance, and you'll probably get away with it. Anyone willing to call it out either isn't there, or is just going to get shouted down by the collective who aren't willing to concede the fun they have in their broad summary.

Ocean Alley get this a lot, I feel. If you've heard one Ocean Alley song, you've heard them all,  apparently. Their most famous song (#521) doesn't do much to stand out, and so it feels fitting to say it's the band in a nutshell. The crucial mistake of conflating the most prominent example with everything else that hasn't done enough to earn its stripes in the conversation. Anyone dismissing Ocean Alley like this probably thinks "Way Down" (#312) and "Drenched" are like for like, and would never care enough to consider otherwise. There's just nothing in it for them, deep down, you crave the adversarial artist that you can put in their place, and the more popular they are, the more people you can position yourself above for having figured out not to waste time with them.

I have been holding onto a peculiar stat for Ocean Alley ever since around when I made this whole list years ago. In direct contrast to the reported stereotype, I've ended up giving Ocean Alley what could be argued as the most even spread of positions across all of this. If you split this all up into ten chunks of 100, you will find Ocean Alley in nine of them. It's only the #201-#300 section they don't snatch up. I think they had a pretty solid haul of entries in the most recent countdown though so there probably is space in that particular outer ring of my heart for them in the end. I just find the whole thing amusing for twofold reasons, firstly that I just really didn't know I had this in me, yet it made perfect sense as it came through. Secondly, that Ocean Alley have done so completely against the tide, where the latter years are relatively struggling on the overall standings, but here they are getting their highest two entries in 2021 & 2022. The heroes we didn't know we needed.

As a direct follow up to "Touch Back Down" (#150), it was probably the best context for me to give "Deepest Darkness" a proper look-in. I just had no idea that they'd so thoroughly surpass my expectations again and deliver something like this. It's not very Ocean Alley at all, and to me, re-calls mid-90s post-grunge. Think "Comedown" by Bush. Some of that stuff can get bogged down by sloppy production choices that haven't necessarily aged the best, but I can't hear any sludge in "Deepest Darkness", because all the instruments come through so pronounced. You can hear multiple guitar lines over the chorus counter-acting each other, and the drums & hi-hats get their chance to poke in above the mix. Outside of the chorus, even just the song's opening note is the ultimate mood-setter. This is the sound of completely locking in.

#88

#88. BENEE - Find an Island (#25, 2019)

7th of 2019

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I am once again presenting myself with a serious challenge which is to find a bunch of things to write about an artist whose career was very much in its infancy when they notched up multiple entries that all happened so quickly that there's not much in the way of unique stories here. That's right, I've got 3 consecutive singles from before BENEE even had an album out that all share the same producer and don't sound dissimilar. What a prospect.

Well, I suppose if nothing else, "Find an Island" is relatively noteworthy because it's technically BENEE's breakthrough single, the first to chart in Australia. That comes with some big asterisks, but then arguably the more realistic outcome also did, but much like how I said it's weird CHVRCHES got their first Hottest 100 entry with "Lies" (#91), it's weird here too in a different way. This feels like BENEE just trucking along, although I suppose if not for late virality on the part of "Glitter" (#737), then this could easily have wound up as her highest Hottest 100 entry of her career, so maybe I do have to consider it more closely.

I'll probably have more to say about the general vibe of BENEE's music and what it represents specifically for me in the future. I tend to enjoy introspective music which lets you into the head of the artist, and it's something I find she's generally quite good at. "Find an Island" is a slight change of pace as the song is directed outward. Instead of direct feelings, we're instead gleaming from this by her choice of words and tone. "Find an Island" could easily be a break-up song, but instead it's just a petty argument BENEE was having with her guitarist, turning into the logical extreme of asking them to get as far away as possible. By all accounts, I think she knows it's a bit silly and that's why it's expressed in this way. I am fond of committing to the bit, starting to talk about rafts and a search party. I wonder if BENEE has also seen Lost.

Up to this point in her career, it's probably her most openly upbeat song. I get the feeling that she was generally using a slight veil of darkness to shyly come into the world of music and not try to be too boisterous, so this might just be her getting more comfortable about it all. The production is a key part of this as it manages to suit the generally bouncy lyrics with some silliness as well. That one little cowbell is the signal not to take it too seriously, but also works as a solid transition. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to sound so effortless.

#89

#89. Flume (feat Kučka) - Hyperreal (#90, 2017)

12th of 2017

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Australia has a funny tendency for claiming everyone as our own. I remember a bit of uproar at Ladyhawke being included in the ARIA Award nominations and winning a couple, and then a few years later, Kimbra managed back to back wins for Best Female Artist. The first was for a single, the second was for an album that contained that single, which came out a month after the first cut off, a glorious gambit. Around the same time, Brian McFadden had managed to get himself on the books as Australian (which almost seemed like a case of 'We're the only country that wants him'). The rationalisation is usually that they're recording and promoting their music within Australia, but it looks a bit silly, and then you get someone like Joji whose link is tenuous at best.

Kučka is an Australian singer, that's what I tend to go with. The curiosity here is that she wasn't born in Australia, didn't move to Perth until she was 16, and not long after, moved to California where I believe she still lives. Australia is where she started her career though so I suppose it's sufficient but it feels like such an increasingly small part of her life. She does seem to still have an Australian accent though so there's that.

This isn't the first time Kučka has come up here, nor the first time on a Flume song, as there was "Smoke & Retribution" (#344) that came before it. The two have worked together many times, and have at least 8 different collaborations out there. I think the simplest explanation is that Flume is a fan and wants to expose her relatively niche music to a wider audience, but it also tends to be a strong match. Much of what Kučka already does has similarities to Flume's music, and her high pitched voice proves to be very malleable no matter what he throws at it.

Also yes, this will just be a Kučka blurb, Flume has had plenty of the limelight as it is. I feel a bit more connected to her music because I cottoned onto it a little earlier, and that also tends to happen when they're the less famous one. I first heard her via the song "Flux 98", which is a fairly minimalist song but immediately, her unique vocals just make everything stand out so much. Not just that though, but her gift for melody stood out immediately, a bit like R&B music under the disguise of electronica. Not long after that, she teamed up with Cosmo's Midnight on "Walk With Me", which I suppose proved that her music could be fun too (I don't know how much of that is just the jarring feeling that she has a song with the hook 'I just got a text from you').

Kučka has proven to be one of the most consistent artists for me because I very rarely go a year without downloading one of her new singles that catches my fancy. There was a bit of a lull on her own music while she was working with Flume and moving overseas, but she's been going strong ever since. My favourite song of hers came out not long after this, "Real", no relation to this song. There's probably something you can find from back around 2007 that explains it but I just love the combination of subtle strings in electronic music. It all comes together to make something beautiful. She's one of those artists that I might pigeon-hole a bit and then get surprised every time she finds something new to mine from this sound (hanbee is another one lately).

When we go back to "Hyperreal", it's Flume's song really, just like with "Smoke & Retribution". I feel this one gives her more of a starring role, and not just because Vince Staples isn't there. It just feels more distinctly like her kind of melody line. Even when the music is increasing in volume, she's still commanding it. The most distinctly Flume parts of the song, I think, aside from the instrumental breaks are the very sudden transitions between verse & chorus. It feels like an economic decision to ramp up the excitement, and I'll admit it's a good one. "Hyperreal" is an immaculate listen though because everything's been wound up so tightly and sounds so clean. I've never really gotten sick of it.

#90

#90. Vera Blue - Temper (#72, 2021)

1st of 2021

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That's 2021 for you, not a bang, barely a whimper. I don't think it warrants any grand declarations beyond it just being a particularly unlucky year for my voting prospects. It's the only year where nothing I voted for made the top 100, and if that's not enough, only one vote of mine made the top 200. Given the size of the voting list, someone picking at random would likely do better than me. Several artists I did vote for got in with other songs. The one exception was a bit of a close miss with Holly Humberstone's "The Walls Are Way Too Thin", a rare song that lifts a similar riff from The Police's "Every Breath You Take", but doesn't immediately get dragged down by that over-familiarity. It got to #123, with the potential to get high enough if it wasn't sharing vote space with her other song, "Scarlett" at #169.

There are other songs I'm rather fond of in that second half too, "NDA" might be my favourite song from Billie Eilish's second album, Clairo has "Amoeba" which is at her typical best. Inexplicably I'm very fond of Drake & Travis Scott's team up on "Fair Trade". One of those songs that takes their usual dark, moody sound and makes it sound captivating. Then you've got AURORA who has never made the Hottest 100 before managing to channel the opening line of The Walkmen's "The Rat" with her song "Cure For Me", but make it goofy and fun. Lastly, as I say before, I was so close to partially salvaging it with MAY-A's "Time I Love To Waste" landing at the unlucky #101 slot, which I'd probably have a little bit higher than this. I've seen people make countdowns where the #1 spot is a big statement that the whole list stands behind, but sometimes it's just the best of what you've got. As a year in music, I'm very fond of 2021, which has a serious contender for my favourite song of the decade so far (by an artist who will eventually appear in this list), but it's time to wrap it up with...just another non-album single by Vera Blue.

I do find myself associating this song pretty strongly with "Lie To Me" (#94). They both came out at roughly the same time of the year, a year apart. Both landed at roughly the same spot in the Hottest 100, and I liked them both about the same. Ask me another time and I might even swap them on this list. Maybe it's all just her perfectly manipulating the voter set by releasing singles at the optimal time. She had one of her best performances with "All The Pretty Girls" (#215) released in October, so here's another one. It also had the bonus of being the only song she released at all that year, and that might be why she's so suddenly fallen considerably out of favour since. "Temper" is actually her last song to register in the Hottest 200 entirely.

I don't think I'd typically lean into a song as light & airy as this one, but I do think it's very well crafted. A lot of that comes down to the performance, firstly where Vera Blue shifts it up on the pre-chorus. If I was confident enough at making declarations from thin air, I'd say it's thematic and she's expressing her mood shifts through her vocal melodies. She treats her temper as an uncontrollable aspect of her and evidently just runs into it unexpectedly. It feels like she borrows from OneRepublic's workbook after that by starting the chorus with a 'Lately,', but otherwise uses it more as a build-up of tension that isn't released until the song's actually hook comes in. Then, as if to counter the set up in the verses, she actually raises her voice up higher for that, giving the song a surprising amount of dynamic range for what it is. After that, we're mostly just going through the motions to fill out the next two minutes, but I'm pretty sold anyway.

#91

#91. CHVRCHES - Lies (#60, 2013)

18th of 2013

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You have no idea how badly I just want to copy paste the first two paragraphs of my "If I Could Change Your Mind" (#102) entry. Basically everything I said there could have been written word for word on this entry that occupies a very similar space in my mind. They basically came out at the same time, are both living in the shadow of bigger hits without much in the way of distinctive gimmicks. Haim just landed in the list first and got the 'Get out of writer block free' card.

This isn't all a problem though. I think it's an opportunity to explore another aspect of how these kinds of entries happen, because it's hard to think of them as casual entry points. I think back to 2009, when I was basically listening to almost nothing but Muse for months on end. I wanted their newest album "The Resistance" to conquer the world, and to an extent it did, with bigger first week sales and hits than the band had really had before. I wanted them to top the Hottest 100 again, but I also wanted them to get as many entries as possible. I remember someone on the triple j forums suggesting that the best plan of attack was for fans to vote the deeper cuts that need the support. So I had it both ways and voted for both "Uprising" and "MK Ultra". I learnt the hard way that the world doesn't actually revolve around Muse, so not only did they not win the countdown again, but all those extra songs just scraped into the bottom end of the top 200. Not a bad result still, and generally could be considered a win as pretty much the whole album, barring the 3-track symphony at the end, and the much maligned "Guiding Light" got in there.

I look at it as that occasional moment where you feel so obsessed with an album that you put aside any inhibitions and nerves and you just kinda want everyone to be listening to it. It gets extra effective if the album is already in the spotlight to an extent because you both feel encouraged by a likeminded army, while feeling like it's actually possible to tip the scales just a little bit more. I think about that the way that Olivia Rodrigo's fanbase continues to get her #1 hits that easily could have fallen a little short. Or otherwise whenever any artist has a field day with the Hottest 100. If you're on board with it all, these can be some of the most fun experiences. Hanging out to hear your favourite artist and to have it actually start with a whimper because the bang is coming later, it's promising a good time. I've felt it a bit recently when it came to Billie Eilish in 2024, and Ninajirachi in 2025, because most of those songs are just really good.

The experience with CHVRCHES in 2013 is a little tame by comparison. It's possible we can pretend they had a 4th entry if "The Mother We Share" were eligible, but otherwise, "Lies" is just the cherry on top of a particularly good debut performance for the Scottish trio. Now that I'm saying this, I suppose "Lies" was literally their first ever appearance, which is a strange thing to bestow on a late album single that again, I don't think is very gimmicky or noteworthy. That's just what happens when you measure things on a yearly basis instead of weekly.

I felt strongly about "Lies" at the time as quite clearly my 3rd favourite song on the album. The song has only gone up in my estimation since then while still sitting clearly in 3rd (one of those songs will appear later in this list). I want to say that it's the most straightforward CHVRCHES song, but I don't think that's true, if only because there's a certain darkness undercutting the song's chorus which later reveals itself in the song's menacing outro. The whole song is built on this big synth explosion that only has a lighter melody peppered over it to make it sound as sparkling as you might expect. It's a little trick the song has going for it where the song's big hook is from Lauren extending out the title while a bunch of notes are going on behind it, a combination of slow and fast that nonetheless never feels out of place.

#92

#92. Ásgeir - King and Cross (#10, 2014)

13th of 2014

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There's a throwaway line in one of the Danganronpa games by walking Nirvana reference Sonia Nevermind, who says that in her home kingdom of Novoselic, there's an anime that gets watched by over 90% of the population. It's obviously just done for laughs but it has me thinking about the way we don't often talk about ratings or anything like that in terms of percentages anymore. In the world of monoculture, these things got pretty out of hand, but now everyone just tends to their own interests (if they even have time) and even the most popular things feel pretty niche altogether. I remember having my mind blown when I found out that the #1 single in the country was generally being purchased by only about 0.05% of the population. That's making it all feel meaningless.

There's a stat I've seen thrown around from back in 2013 saying that one in ten Icelanders own the album "Dýrð í dauðaþögn", which is an incredibly impressive management of the population for something that doesn't even necessarily feel like a breadwinner, and has no outsider influence promoting it. There's not a single album that can claim that honour in Australia, as Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" falls a little short with its 26xPlatinum sales here. Put your hand up if you'd ever heard of "Dýrð í dauðaþögn", or its performer Ásgeir Trausti by that point in time. In any case, it might just be a true statement, as from what I can see, the album is certified for 40,000 sales, which tracks in a country of less than 400,000. As recently as 2025, the album returned to the top spot on the Tónlistinn album chart, seemingly being a fixture on the chart since 2012. Just absolutely incredible numbers for a folk & electronic singer who seemingly sprung up out of nowhere.

Iceland as a country also just seems to punch above its own weight in the world of music. I'm about to throw a bunch of praise onto Ásgeir, meanwhile you've got the obvious cases with Björk & Sigur Rós, two artists that have managed to make very beautiful and interesting music in very different ways. Even just heaping generic praise onto them doesn't do enough justice, they really are as good as they're made out to be and more. Meanwhile I think Emilíana Torrini and Of Monsters and Men are very underrated, mostly known for small pockets of their discography with a lot of gems, and more variety than you'd think. Lately I'm also very enraptured by Laufey and it's very funny to me that I'm writing this on the same day it was announced that she's getting her own God of War game. Truly a goddess on stage and screen.

I'm not entirely sure what the step by step process was that got us to where we are now, but I do know that we have American musician John Grant to thank for bringing this up for me to talk about. John Grant is a polyglot who can speak fluently in 5 different languages, including Icelandic, and he moved to Reykjavík in 2013, just in time to perhaps hear famous songs like "Leyndarmál" and "Sumargestur". Later that year, he came up with the translation, and Ásgeir was on board with it, giving us all the English translated album "In the Silence".

Once again, I'm missing some steps, but I came into this story at the same time as most people I think, which is when triple j featured the album in March 2014. Back in the early 2010s, triple j giving albums the feature status was a serious mark of honour that would frequently boost sales considerably. You can go back to 2011 and see a Lykke Li album on the charts going 30-33-31, a very strange run without the usual plummet, because those 2nd and 3rd weeks were during its feature album tenure. They'd also feature albums yet to come out, or on the week they came out, and those are harder to measure, but there's no doubt the boost was there.

When it comes to "In the Silence", it's probably the biggest splash I've ever seen with thanks to this boost. The album had come and gone earlier in the year in a few European countries without much of note, the highest it had gotten was #32 in France. triple j first started playing the album with some cursory spins for a week (I hadn't noticed it) before immediately giving him the feature album status and forcing everyone to take notice of this international gem. I'm extrapolating my own experience because two days later I bought it, but it just feels like they took him from complete obscurity (in Australia) to stardom. The album debuted at #18 on a busy chart week and then vaulted up to #8 on a less busy week. In an age where it's difficult to get people to try new artists, here's a lot of us going all-in on this guy we just learnt how to maybe pronounce the name of a week ago. I've never seen anything like it before or since. He also had a charting single with the most played song at the time on triple j, "King and Cross".

I mentioned "King and Cross" earlier here because it is actually "Leyndarmál", which as far as I can tell, is also the most popular song in Iceland. It's probably doing a lot of heavy lifting here because as much as I liked the vibe of the album, I didn't clock at the time that I was probably just hearing this particular song again and again. I certainly was interested in the whole thing, but this song was a big highlight. What can I say? You might not think of folk music for its big hooks, but when the king takes sides, it's already stuck in your head again.

I haven't really properly described the album musically. Saying folk with electronic elements is the shorthand but I don't think it does it justice. Ásgeir's tender voice is probably the star of the show, with a very tender falsetto that doesn't feel like he's showing off, but just smoothly setting emotional stakes to it all. It's very much a more accessible Bon Iver in hindsight, but at the time, the foreign curiosity of it all made it feel like we were unlocking something new in what could be done in these genres of music. My favourite song on the album is "Going Home", which narrowly misses being in this conversation because it landed at #108, but leans more heavily into the electronic side of things and really emphasizes the sorrow in the performance.

To me, it's all one of the great triumphs of curiosity, and a reminder of why it can be worthwhile to trust those often villainised gatekeepers who really do just want to spread the joy of all the music that's out there. It's possible Ásgeir has set the bar so high, and everyone who laments the direction of triple j is being left unsatisfied in their hunt for the next Ásgeir. On any given week I've probably discovered a new song I greatly enjoy by an artist I've never heard of, and it's pretty exciting. Just the idea that the whole scenario can be changed in an instant, and a new voice enters the fray. It's what's so fun about keeping up with new music.

#93

#93. Lorde - Green Light (#6, 2017)

13th of 2017

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Talk about a lucky break for Lorde. I almost completely dogged a good chunk of her discography by continuously leaving her just outside the top 100, the pitchforks could easily have come for me if I also had this one a little bit lower. I'd never do that though, would I? (This is a very niche reference that's not important if you don't know it, but those who do had already thought of it and I need to placate that feeling. Otherwise I try to keep my in-jokes either subtle or inclusive). It's mostly the luck of the discography because I'm not sure there are many Lorde songs I'd put above this if I had free rein. Rather fond of that other Hunger Games song she did, and because we need another update, I can say that "Fallen Fruit" has now stood the test of nearly a year and I'm very invested in it.

"Green Light" is a very important release as it's Lorde's second lead single. The one that's here to test if she was just a fancy fling of 2013 that's otherwise too left field to really connect, or if we're looking at a generational star starting to spread their wings. The results were fairly inconclusive. One thing's certain, it's that she chose the worst possible week to release it in the UK. It was the same week Ed Sheeran released "÷", so right away that's 13 new debuts above her at #28. Such as the magnitude of this release, that it was something that couldn't be salvaged by just holding up, as the whole album's stubborn persistence kept her underpowered for all of the time it was in the limelight. Who knows how much more attention she'd get if it really was the biggest thing out at the time. That's an underrated commodity because we just can't measure it. As was established with "Magnets" (#116), she did much better in the antipodes. Another #1 hit in her home country, while she can lay claim to actually having the highest debut in Australia that week, so there's much less in the way of what could've been. The song held up pretty well to be a very respectable hit in those two countries, but the rest of the world just couldn't quite do it.

The peculiar thing about this is that if you look out for opinions online, this is a very beloved single. This wasn't a controversial left-turn, it was the opening move to an album that very much did solidify Lorde in all those positive ways I previously indicated. She wasn't just a singles artist with a quickly cobbled together album, she was making magic on both the album & single format. I've always found this disconnect interesting with pop music because it's not the same as the avant garde music that gets acclaim, this is popular music made to be a hit that's getting a big tick of approval.

I actually feel like the tides are turning with this. Though TikTok still feels suspiciously astroturfed to me at times, it's one that feels like it gets more personal approval through mass inundation of options. That's always going to make it feel like there's a greater chance to get more strongly attached to something than if you're just perking up at your favourites on the radio with the knowledge they're just going to be overplayed to death in the long run. With that in mind, I feel like there's been a shift for a lot of 'beloved on the internet' pop music to finally get a good run in the charts. The problem is that if you flash back to many other earlier times in the world of popular music, you're working with a large, ominous majority. It's a majority that's reasonably open to new ideas, but is slow to make the change, and will often congregate around a handful of popular sounds of the moment. It's kind of interesting because I don't think most people even think about it, they're just reacting to what they gravitate to and the numbers just show similar ideas working together until everyone gets sick of them.

So while it's easy to listen to "Green Light" and think that it sounds like pop music, and it is, it also doesn't really sound like pop music in 2017. The piano's a good start, but it really needs to be sharper, maybe add some light guitar and a drop is a near necessity. When you look at what was hitting big on the charts just before "Green Light" came out, it feels like you need to go in whole on the current tastefully pleasant dance music, or go so aggressively against it that you placate everyone who isn't interested in that. Lorde doesn't really offer a full alternative to this which is why I feel she landed in a weird spot where the song has a relatively smaller but very passionate audience. I don't want to knock that either. It's possible to find a middle ground where you validate niche online popularity without also dismissing everything else as co-worker music.

I wouldn't call "Green Light" a failure by any stretch, but it does feel like it's the point that solidified Lorde's position in popular music for most people. She wasn't really going to have another "Royals" (#134), but she's going to stick around for those who are along for the ride, and that's typically been sizeable enough for her to make serious dents on the chart. The experience is slipping a little but Lorde's last lead single still went to #1 in her home country, and top 10 in Australia. That feels so out of line with what's going on in the charts that it's worth celebrating, and it's hard to not feel like songs like "Green Light" sowed that seed.

What makes it interesting for me also is that it's one of the most successful examples of what feels like a 'Dazzle them with the premiere' kind of songs. There are many of these cases where an artist returns and you really have no idea what you're going to get, but then you find it to be an odyssey of sorts, where there's often a surprise later on and you haven't just figured it all out after one verse and a chorus. "Flash Delirium" by MGMT is one of these songs, "The Last Man On Earth" by Wolf Alice is another. There are perhaps a couple of songs I could describe this way that are still to come on this list. It's something I generally find quite exciting. It's satisfying that feeling in the back of your head when you're thinking that there are still minutes to go on your first listen and still surprises to come. It doesn't always pan out, but in the best cases, you're just left scratching your head and thinking that the artist has really stepped up and who knows what else they've got coming later. Maybe "Green Light" is a little too structurally conventional to really pass that, but I just think of every development in the song. The sudden start, the gaps Lorde leaves to let the song breathe, and when the verses pick up some new melodies along the way, all leading up to the realisation of why the song's called "Green Light" and how readily you can feel assured that that's the moment. It makes me wonder if Lorde could have really turned it into a smash if she had a bigger fanbase going into it. I think of Olivia Rodrigo whose second album lead single "vampire" features very similar tropes and ideas to "Green Light", but a bolder structure. That song turned out to be a very big hit regardless, which could just as easily be a sign of Olivia Rodrigo's popularity and momentum, but also maybe lends some credence to the idea that songs with this sort of theatricality just have more of a chance to be the proudly big hit songs that they seem to announce themselves as.

#94

#94. Vera Blue - Lie To Me (#68, 2020)

4th of 2020

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Earlier in 2026 I was pretty addicted to playing WikiGacha. It's an ironic gacha game where you open card packs and collect every Wikipedia article 5 at a time. There are nearly 7 million articles and you can only really open a pack every minute, so you're not realistically going to get them all, to say nothing of the increasing risk of finding doubles. It's a fun bit of mindless activity that can occasionally let you learn or discover things. I wound up with about 0.5% of all the articles so I picked up some memorable ones over the weeks. Articles like Paul the Apostle, Simon Cowell, Aromanticism, Gay characters in fiction, all the classics. I bring this up now because one of the very first cards I ever acquired was the article for "Lie To Me", which amused me at the time given that it belonged to the extremely small subset of songs I'd eventually write about that also have Wikipedia articles. As a nice little bonus, I also ended up with Vera Blue's article later on.

"Lie To Me" is a song that's very of its time, because the same year it was released, the band Tired Lion also released a song called "Lie To Me". A year later, and The Buoys were demanding for someone to "Lie To Me Again" (#280). Vera Blue's song doesn't really have much in common with those songs otherwise. Well, I guess The Buoys' song never ended up on an album, but they did at least have an EP. For Vera Blue, you guessed it, it's another non-album single.

It's hard to not see it as just general experimentation to figure out where her music is headed in the future. There's a clear spectrum of influences that are pretty consistent with what she's made in the past. You've got Celia Pavey, the folksy singer who won hearts on The Voice Australia with her wistful singing and acoustic guitar, while you've got Vera Blue, the internal vice that had her experimenting and using her voice as a template to build things around.

I suppose I can't argue with success. I just don't always connect with the vision when it comes to writing hooks. It's something that dogged her lower entries a little, where you'd hear it but just not like where it's going. "Lie To Me" feels like one of her most instant songs to me in this regard. It's a song where the hook lines up with the melody beneath it for a real kick. She also gets the benefit of economy here because the hook gets looped over a second time but with more drums backing it, so it's a thrill again. I don't know if I'd call it her best vocal performance, where her shrill tone might be an acquired taste, but it's always felt like the best fit for this cold, icy production.

#95

#95. Violent Soho - Blanket (#53, 2016)

12th of 2016

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Sometimes they just call out to you. By all accounts, it's just another one, but there's that little edge that makes you not only lean into it, but start to wonder why everyone else wouldn't make the same conclusion. When the voting turned out for Violent Soho's "WACO" album, you have the two clear big hits and then everything else is just fighting for the best seat at the table. In that regard, "Blanket" is ahead of the pack, the highest entry for Violent Soho that isn't one of their show-stopping singles. Just a clear potency to it that was detected.

For me, it's just an economy thing. When you think about the song "Covered in Chrome" (#122), the first thing you'll probably think of is the song's chorus, where the word 'yeah' is uttered 15 times in a row. It's doing for the word 'yeah', what "Runaway" did for high E's. With thanks to some other contributions in the lyrics, the song gets up to using the word 'yeah', 50 times. This isn't entirely unprecedented I'll admit, I tried counting and found Usher & Lil Jon got up to at least 76 together (Ludacris did not provide any help). It's memorable though, I made a tweet a while back that said "Covered In Chrome" is just a guy at a computer pressing the 'yeah' button, which I assume would have done numbers if we lived in a just world.

With "Blanket" it gets a little more complicated. I really want to say that it surpasses "Covered In Chrome" on this metric but I don't know if I can verifiably say this to be the case. I'm running on my first instinct that the song's chorus is punctuated by triplets of 'yeah', but it's probably more of an 'ayyyeaheah' and I don't know how to count it. If we do go on my instinct and I'll bet I wasn't alone on this, you'll reach 60 times for this song, a count that certainly could've come to matching Usher if they didn't cut it out of most of the song's final chorus, just missing the forest for the trees here.

You can't have possibly expected the last Violent Soho entry to have gone any different, right? This song unlocks a primal urge to jump around and be stupid; the same way it compels me to start talking about the word 'yeah'. I suppose I can be fairer to the song on the whole, it really is a crisp production from the beginning, something that's only disrupted by the raucous chorus, which actually finds a way to out-do itself towards the very end. It's a very 'I'm out of breath' kind of song. It's good to have those every now and then.