Triple J's Hottest 100 Twenty-Year Countdown. Forethoughts And Afterthoughts.
Forethoughts:
So I've come up with my top twenty songs by different artists that came out in the past twenty years and got into previous Triple J Hottest 100s. I've also come up with a top fifty (including thirty songs that didn't quite make it in.) The two conspicuous absences are Muse and Oasis. For Muse, it's too hard to pick a single song, except Butterflies and Hurricanes, which didn't make it into a Hottest 100 and thus was against my self-enforced rules. And likewise, the wrong Oasis songs made it into Hottest 100s. The top 20 I voted for (and then 21-50) in alphabetical order, not order of achievement are:
1. Ben Folds - Not The Same
2. Blur - For Tomorrow
3. Coldplay - Yellow
4. Crowded House - Distant Sun
5. Eskimo Joe - Older Than You
6. Gomez - We Haven't Turned Around
7. James - Laid
8. Lana Del Rey - Video Games
9. Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
10. MGMT - Time To Pretend
11. New Order - Regret.
12. Operator Please - Get What You Want
13. Pulp - Common People
14. Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
15. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
16. Suede - The Drowners
17. The Sundays - Summertime
18. The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work
19. Tori Amos - A Sorta Fairytale
20. You Am I - Berlin Chair
**********
21. Ash - Goldfinger
22. Billy Bragg - Sexuality
23. Bob Evans - Don't You Think It's Time
24. Dandy Warhols - You Were The Last High
25. Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart
26. Florence And The Machine - Spectrum (Say My Name)
27. Garbage - Vow
28. George - Bastard Son
29. Gerling - Enter Spacecapsule (Guitarsarecool Remix)
30. Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
31. Hole - Celebrity Skin
32. Kanye West - Runaway
33. Lily Allen - Everything's Just Wonderful
34. Lisa Mitchell - Spiritus
35. Little Birdy - Relapse
36. Machine Gun Fellatio - Unsent Letter
37. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. - Bang Bang Bang
38. My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
39. Pet Shop Boys - Can You Forgive Her?
40. Regurgitator - ! (Song Formerly Known As)
41. San Cisco - Awkward
42. Spiller - Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)
43. Supergrass - Alright
44. Teenage Fanclub - Sparky's Dream
45. The Killers - Somebody Told Me
46. The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
47. The Strokes - You Only Live Once
48. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
49. The Vines - Highly Evolved
50. Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
With hindsight, I shouldn't have voted for The Drowners since it came out in 1992, but... it's Suede.
**********
Afterthoughts:
I've come up with my twenty favourite songs that actually made it in:
1 (99): Lana Del Rey - Video Games (2011)
2 (23): Muse - Knights of Cydonia (2007)
3 (75): The Killers - Somebody Told Me (2004)
4 (66): You Am I - Berlin Chair (1994)
5 (49): Florence + the Machine - Dog Days Are Over (2009)
6 (41): Coldplay - Yellow (2000)
7 (9): Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know {Ft. Kimbra} (2011)
8 (83): Pulp - Common People (1995)
9 (13): Radiohead - Paranoid Android (1997)
10 (22): Blur - Song 2 (1997)
11 (64): MGMT - Kids (2008)
12 (70): Regurgitator - ! (The Song Formerly Known As) (1998)
13 (87): The Kooks - Naïve (2006)
14 (39): Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box (1993)
15 (1): Oasis - Wonderwall (1995)
16 (53): Placebo - Every You Every Me (1999)
17 (21): The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (1996)
18 (48): The Strokes - Last Nite (2001)
19 (51): The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You (2000)
20 (38): The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition (2008)
The order above is based on the order the songs have been played on my iTunes, which hasn't been cleared in the past two years. Obviously that doesn't judge how often I listen to them on CD or listened to these songs for the other eighteen years of the past twenty, and it's a bit confused by 'doubles' but it's a start. The number in brackets is where it came in the Triple J voting. After not voting for Muse due to having to make a decision, it turns out that Knights of Cydonia is actually the ninth most-played song on my iTunes. (It could possibly be supposed to be even higher than that since I have it twice on my iTunes and apparently seem to listen to both versions without a clear preference. Also, I was even harder on Oasis, since Little By Little made it into the 2002 Hottest 100 and is the sixth-most played song on my iTunes. Video Games is #1, so it wins above.) I was thinking it was weird that there was only one Nirvana song in the countdown, and then realised Kurt hasn't been alive for nineteen years. And that reminded me of my own mortality. Sweet Disposition and Naïve didn't originally fulfil my voting criteria, but now that they've made a Hottest 100, they do.
There are six songs so mind-numbing that if I've actually heard them before, my brain has wiped them from my memory to prevent me from going into a coma. I couldn't pick out these songs from a line up if they'd just gone Dexter on everyone I know right in front of me. Which they wouldn't do because they're too boring. How they be anyone's favourite song from the past twenty years is beyond me. They are: 61: The Black Keys - Lonely Boy (2011), 67: alt-J - Breezeblocks (2012), 73: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home (2009), 89: TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me (2006), 57: Bloc Party - Banquet (2004) and 81: Angus & Julia Stone - Big Jet Plane (2010).
And the ten absolute worst songs in the Hottest 100 of the past twenty years are:
33: The Cranberries - Zombie (1994)
28: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue (1999)
30: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication (2000)
93: Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun (1994)
26: System Of A Down - Chop Suey! (2001)
43: John Butler Trio - Betterman (2001)
4: Hilltop Hoods - The Nosebleed Section (2003)
88: Something For Kate - Monsters (2001)
63: Grinspoon - Chemical Heart (2002)
10: Powderfinger - My Happiness (2000) and 8: Powderfinger - These Days (1999) (Since these are basically the same song with different words, they can share a place.)
So I've come up with my top twenty songs by different artists that came out in the past twenty years and got into previous Triple J Hottest 100s. I've also come up with a top fifty (including thirty songs that didn't quite make it in.) The two conspicuous absences are Muse and Oasis. For Muse, it's too hard to pick a single song, except Butterflies and Hurricanes, which didn't make it into a Hottest 100 and thus was against my self-enforced rules. And likewise, the wrong Oasis songs made it into Hottest 100s. The top 20 I voted for (and then 21-50) in alphabetical order, not order of achievement are:
1. Ben Folds - Not The Same
2. Blur - For Tomorrow
3. Coldplay - Yellow
4. Crowded House - Distant Sun
5. Eskimo Joe - Older Than You
6. Gomez - We Haven't Turned Around
7. James - Laid
8. Lana Del Rey - Video Games
9. Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
10. MGMT - Time To Pretend
11. New Order - Regret.
12. Operator Please - Get What You Want
13. Pulp - Common People
14. Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
15. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
16. Suede - The Drowners
17. The Sundays - Summertime
18. The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work
19. Tori Amos - A Sorta Fairytale
20. You Am I - Berlin Chair
**********
21. Ash - Goldfinger
22. Billy Bragg - Sexuality
23. Bob Evans - Don't You Think It's Time
24. Dandy Warhols - You Were The Last High
25. Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart
26. Florence And The Machine - Spectrum (Say My Name)
27. Garbage - Vow
28. George - Bastard Son
29. Gerling - Enter Spacecapsule (Guitarsarecool Remix)
30. Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
31. Hole - Celebrity Skin
32. Kanye West - Runaway
33. Lily Allen - Everything's Just Wonderful
34. Lisa Mitchell - Spiritus
35. Little Birdy - Relapse
36. Machine Gun Fellatio - Unsent Letter
37. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl. - Bang Bang Bang
38. My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
39. Pet Shop Boys - Can You Forgive Her?
40. Regurgitator - ! (Song Formerly Known As)
41. San Cisco - Awkward
42. Spiller - Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)
43. Supergrass - Alright
44. Teenage Fanclub - Sparky's Dream
45. The Killers - Somebody Told Me
46. The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
47. The Strokes - You Only Live Once
48. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
49. The Vines - Highly Evolved
50. Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
With hindsight, I shouldn't have voted for The Drowners since it came out in 1992, but... it's Suede.
**********
Afterthoughts:
I've come up with my twenty favourite songs that actually made it in:
1 (99): Lana Del Rey - Video Games (2011)
2 (23): Muse - Knights of Cydonia (2007)
3 (75): The Killers - Somebody Told Me (2004)
4 (66): You Am I - Berlin Chair (1994)
5 (49): Florence + the Machine - Dog Days Are Over (2009)
6 (41): Coldplay - Yellow (2000)
7 (9): Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know {Ft. Kimbra} (2011)
8 (83): Pulp - Common People (1995)
9 (13): Radiohead - Paranoid Android (1997)
10 (22): Blur - Song 2 (1997)
11 (64): MGMT - Kids (2008)
12 (70): Regurgitator - ! (The Song Formerly Known As) (1998)
13 (87): The Kooks - Naïve (2006)
14 (39): Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box (1993)
15 (1): Oasis - Wonderwall (1995)
16 (53): Placebo - Every You Every Me (1999)
17 (21): The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (1996)
18 (48): The Strokes - Last Nite (2001)
19 (51): The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You (2000)
20 (38): The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition (2008)
The order above is based on the order the songs have been played on my iTunes, which hasn't been cleared in the past two years. Obviously that doesn't judge how often I listen to them on CD or listened to these songs for the other eighteen years of the past twenty, and it's a bit confused by 'doubles' but it's a start. The number in brackets is where it came in the Triple J voting. After not voting for Muse due to having to make a decision, it turns out that Knights of Cydonia is actually the ninth most-played song on my iTunes. (It could possibly be supposed to be even higher than that since I have it twice on my iTunes and apparently seem to listen to both versions without a clear preference. Also, I was even harder on Oasis, since Little By Little made it into the 2002 Hottest 100 and is the sixth-most played song on my iTunes. Video Games is #1, so it wins above.) I was thinking it was weird that there was only one Nirvana song in the countdown, and then realised Kurt hasn't been alive for nineteen years. And that reminded me of my own mortality. Sweet Disposition and Naïve didn't originally fulfil my voting criteria, but now that they've made a Hottest 100, they do.
There are six songs so mind-numbing that if I've actually heard them before, my brain has wiped them from my memory to prevent me from going into a coma. I couldn't pick out these songs from a line up if they'd just gone Dexter on everyone I know right in front of me. Which they wouldn't do because they're too boring. How they be anyone's favourite song from the past twenty years is beyond me. They are: 61: The Black Keys - Lonely Boy (2011), 67: alt-J - Breezeblocks (2012), 73: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home (2009), 89: TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me (2006), 57: Bloc Party - Banquet (2004) and 81: Angus & Julia Stone - Big Jet Plane (2010).
And the ten absolute worst songs in the Hottest 100 of the past twenty years are:
33: The Cranberries - Zombie (1994)
28: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Scar Tissue (1999)
30: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication (2000)
93: Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun (1994)
26: System Of A Down - Chop Suey! (2001)
43: John Butler Trio - Betterman (2001)
4: Hilltop Hoods - The Nosebleed Section (2003)
88: Something For Kate - Monsters (2001)
63: Grinspoon - Chemical Heart (2002)
10: Powderfinger - My Happiness (2000) and 8: Powderfinger - These Days (1999) (Since these are basically the same song with different words, they can share a place.)