Triple J's Hottest 100 2010

Well, hopefully by now you've all recovered from your Australia Day hangovers. Over the years, it's become one of our most-loved traditions to gather around the radio with a beverage or two and listen in excitement as Triple J counts down their annual listener-voted Hottest 100 poll - the one hundred best songs from the year that's just been. I've always enjoyed the celebrations since, I think, 1997, when The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) took out the honours. Since then, the tradition has usually been kept, except for the previous two when I was attending the Big Day Out. Now, with this and many other "best of" lists, everyone loves to have an opinion on what should and shouldn't have made it, so I though that, well, because this is a music blog, I'd weigh in with my two cents.

I suppose I'll start at the beginning, which was the moment when I logged on to the Triple J website and casted my vote for ten songs that particularly floated my boat so to speak in the year twenty-ten. As I went through the endless list of musical oddities and made a few selections, I found myself wondering, "Hang on...what ARE half of these songs?!" Over the last few years I've really not been listening to Triple J very often; I guess I have my ridiculously oversized CD collection to blame for that. I still wanted to vote though, for a few reasons. The first, and I guess it's pretty obvious, IS THAT PRIZE - Triple J awards a randomly chosen voter a "Golden Ticket", which gains the winner (and a friend) free entry to ALL TRIPLE J SUPPORTED GIGS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. Now, as we all know, I attend way too many concerts, can you imagine how awesome this would be for me?! Think of the money I'd save! Anyway, the second reason I voted was because of course, I find it interesting to think about what songs I've enjoyed in the year previous and I wanted to see what I'd come up with when I narrowed it down to ten. What were the songs I picked, I hear you ask? Here they are, with positions achieved in the actual countdown, and a "DNP" standing for "Did Not Place" (which six out of my ten votes did not!).
Birds of Tokyo - Plans - #4
Boy and Bear - Rabbit Song - #45
Dead Letter Circus - One Step #65
Delphic - Doubt - DNP
Foals - Total Life Forever - DNP
Gotye - Eyes Wide Open - #25
My Disco - Turn - DNP
PVT - Window - DNP
The Chemical Brothers - Swoon - DNP
Vampire Weekend - White Sky - DNP

Well then. I guess where those particular songs landed (or didn't land) on the countdown didn't really surprise me all that much in general - I knew Plans was going to do extremely well and I was very happy to hear it come in at number 4, and I expected a strong showing from Gotye and Boy & Bear. Dead Letter Circus making the cut was a bit of a turn-up, especially seeing as I thought that Triple J listeners would be more inclined to vote for Big, which was was heard much earlier in the day at #99. As for those that didn't make the grade, well, I didn't hold a great deal of hope for My Disco, PVT and the Chems, such was the slightly "odd" quality of those songs that didn't really seem to fit with the general Triple J mindset. However, I was a little surprised at the lack of Delphic (no songs at all from their excellent Acolyte made it) in the countdown; as I said, I didn't turn the radio on much throughout the year, but when I did, I definitely heard those guys a lot and I thought they were pretty popular. Foals is another that surprised me; Total Life Forever (the album) has been generally very well-received across the music community and yet they only reared their head once in the Hottest 100, at #98 with Spanish Sahara. Definitely a surprise for me. Ditto Vampire Weekend - perhaps it was the very early release of Contra (January 11) that hurt them in this regard, and also the fact that the two big hits were released in 2009 (Cousins and Horchata placed in that year's countdown at #22 and #52 respectively). Nevertheless, they still put in a respectable showing this year, with Giving Up the Gun getting the #55 honours, and Holiday taking out position #67. Evidently, I just voted for the wrong song.

Now for the rest of the list, and my thoughts on it.
1. Angus & Julia Stone - Big Jet Plane
2. Little Red - Rock It
3. Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - Dance The Way I Feel
4. Birds Of Tokyo - Plans
5. Boy & Bear - Fall At Your Feet
6. Adrian Lux - Teenage Crime
7. Cee Lo Green - Fuck You!
8. The Wombats - Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)
9. Art Vs. Science - Magic Fountain
10. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. - Somebody To Love Me {Ft. Boy George & Andrew Wyatt}
11. Pendulum - ABC News Theme {Remix}
12. Drapht - Rapunzel
13. Sia - Clap Your Hands
14. Kanye West - Runaway {Ft. Pusha T}
15. Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand
16. The Jezabels - Mace Spray
17. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. - Bang Bang Bang {Ft. MNDR & Q-Tip}
18. Cloud Control - There's Nothing In The Water We Can't Fight
19. Flight Facilities - Crave You {Ft. Giselle}
20. Washington - Sunday Best
21. Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn
22. Children Collide - Jellylegs
23. Bliss N Eso - Addicted
24. Sparkadia - Talking Like I'm Falling Down Stairs
25. Gotye - Eyes Wide Open
26. Crystal Castles - Not In Love {Ft. Robert Smith}
27. Florence & The Machine/Dizzee Rascal - You've Got The Dirtee Love {Live}
28. Darwin Deez - Radar Detector
29. Illy - It Can Wait {Ft. Owl Eyes}
30. Yeasayer - O.N.E
31. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
32. Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
33. Tame Impala - Solitude Is Bliss
34. The Naked And Famous - Punching In A Dream
35. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. - The Bike Song {Ft. Kyle Falconer & Spank Rock}
36. Chiddy Bang - Opposite Of Adults
37. Gorillaz - Doncamatic {Ft. Daley}
38. The Naked And Famous - Young Blood
39. John Butler Trio - Revolution
40. Gyroscope - Baby, I'm Getting Better
41. Bliss N Eso - Down By The River
42. Gorillaz - On Melancholy Hill
43. Yolanda Be Cool/DCUP - We No Speak Americano
44. Crystal Castles - Baptism
45. Boy & Bear - Rabbit Song
46. Bag Raiders - Way Back Home
47. Birds Of Tokyo - Wild At Heart
48. Pendulum - Witchcraft
49. The Jezabels - Easy To Love
50. Hot Chip - One Life Stand
51. Yeasayer - Ambling Alp
52. The John Steel Singers - Overpass
53. Bliss N Eso - Reflections
54. Miami Horror - Holidays {Ft. Alan Palomo}
55. Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun
56. Sia - Bring Night
57. Example - Kickstarts
58. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
59. Washington - Rich Kids
60. Children Collide - My Eagle
61. Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - Jackson's Last Stand
62. Angus And Julia Stone - Hold On
63. Arcade Fire - Ready To Start
64. Gypsy & The Cat - Jona Vark
65. Dead Letter Circus - One Step
66. Cold War Kids - Audience
67. Vampire Weekend - Holiday
68. Andy Bull - Dog {Ft. Lisa Mitchell}
69. Pendulum - Watercolour
70. Groove Armada - Paper Romance
71. Gypsy & The Cat - Piper's Song
72. Two Door Cinema Club - I Can Talk
73. Gypsy & The Cat - Time To Wander
74. Tame Impala - Lucidity
75. Hungry Kids Of Hungary - Coming Around
76. Kings Of Leon - Radioactive
77. Big Boi - Shutterbugg {Ft. Cutty}
78. Gorillaz - Stylo {Ft. Bobby Womack and Mos Def}
79. Little Red - Slow Motion
80. The Black Keys - Howlin' For You
81. Klaxons - Echoes
82. The Black Keys - Tighten Up
83. Arcade Fire - Modern Man
84. Washington - The Hardest Part
85. Hot Chip - I Feel Better
86. Evil Eddie - Queensland
87. Birds Of Tokyo - The Saddest Thing I Know
88. Kanye West - Monster {Ft. JAY-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver}
89. Interpol - Barricade
90. Art Vs. Science - Finally See Our Way
91. The Bedroom Philosopher - Northcote (So Hungover)
92. LCD Soundsystem - I Can Change
93. The National - Anyone's Ghost
94. Xavier Rudd - Time To Smile
95. Broken Bells - The High Road
96. Jonsi - Go Do
97. Parkway Drive - Sleepwalker
98. Foals - Spanish Sahara
99. Dead Letter Circus - Big
100. Muse - Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)

Well. Overall I guess I can't honestly say I was surprised or even not surprised by what came in the countdown; after all, I barely touched the radio this year so I had little idea what was popular (or "hot" if you will). My tip to win was Cee-Lo Green's Fuck You!, and I have to admit I was surprised it didn't. It seemed like it had all the right ingredients to go all the way - catchy hooks, commercial crossover appeal, and of course, those lyrics that we all love to sing! Seeing it come in at only #7 was quite a shock! Congratulations must go to Angus and Julia Stone for taking out the #1 spot with Big Jet Plane. I can't say I'm a massive fan of that particular song, but they are definitely a talented bunch and it's a far better choice for a winner to have a homegrown folk duo, as opposed to some overhyped commercial overseas act stealing the spot because all the Nova listeners jumped on board and had a vote too. It was a far better song than some of the alternatives. Like, for instance, Duck Sauce's abominable Barbra Streisand (an UNFORGIVEABLE #15!). Now, I can be a harsh critic of commercial dance/electronic music at the best of times, but as this song assaulted my ears for the first time, I was just at a loss for words - what, exactly, is the appeal of this song? Yes, the "tune" (in the LOOSEST sense of the word) cooked up in the studio by the seemingly-awesome-on-paper duo of Armand van Helden and A-Trak is, in an irritatingly painful way, quite catchy. You know the kind. It's repetitive, it's simple, it probably took about five minutes to think of, but it gets stuck in your head from the first repeat out of the million that occur in the song, and if you were drunk you'd probably dance your nether regions off to it, so in that respect, it's not without its merits. But... then that voice comes in and utters the name of a not-really-relevant female actor/singer/general celebrity, and that's when the "song" loses all its credibility. I mean, why? Aaaaanway. Other than that, I really have no complaints or compliments to give to the Hottest 100 of 2010 - after all, I had pretty much no idea what songs were going to land where (with a few exceptions), so I can't say I was surprised or even not surprised. I did however really enjoy the day, at a friend's house with a few people and a few (yes, JUST a few, unlike some previous years!) cold ones!

When I arrived home, I was interested to read the amount of bitching on Facebook about the results. Not that I thought the results were particularly "good" or anything, and definitely not suggesting everyone shouldn't share their opinion, but the tone of some people's statuses seemed to suggest that the countdown perhaps should have gone a certain way and they felt surprised and let-down that it didn't. Huh? This is a countdown of the best songs of the year as voted by Triple J listeners, and as I was listening to the countdown, the thing that stuck out most in my mind was, "Well, this isn't exactly what I'd listen to regularly, but it IS what Triple J listeners listen to!" Like just about EVERY other radio station, Triple J has a certain demographic of listeners, and a certain style of music it plays. And I think, when the Hottest 100 rolls around each year, it's usually an accurate encapsulation of what the station played and enjoyed that year. So I don't think there's any point in saying, "Blah, this list sucks!" - do you even listen to Triple J on any other day of the year? If you DID, then there's no way that the Hottest 100 could have caused any major shock to your system, and if you were complaining about it, then one would question why you listen to Triple J in the first place. There are plenty of other choices for radio stations, and if you don't like them, just chuck on your CD collection! Can't really complain about anything in that can you?

Anyway. Congrats once again, not only to Angus and Julia, but to ALL the entrants in the Hottest 100 - OK, so I didn't personally like a large percentage of you, and hadn't even HEARD of quite a lot of you, but obviously quite a few people out there do enjoy your stuff, and placing in this countdown is something I think any band would be happy to put on their resume. It was an interesting ride, once again.