TRIPLE J's Hottest 100 has been run and won for another year, with the world's largest musical democracy electing Gotye's
Somebody That I Used To Know as the most popular song of 2011.
The traditional Australia Day countdown once again proved to be a decent gauge of the country's non-mainstream music scene and the playlists of the national youth station, but it also proved to be educational. Here are five things we learnt from the 2011 Hottest 100.
Triple J is ahead of the curve
TRIPLE J has always been a tastemaker and this year's poll was further proof. For example, Foster The People's Pumped Up Kicks finally reached number one on the ARIA charts a couple of weeks ago, yet it was in the Hottest 100 last year, coming in at 32 (Owl Eyes' cover made it 28 this year). Another demonstration is Gotye's success. He topped this year's chart with the international hit Somebody That I Used To Know, which saw him played on Australian radio stations that didn't even touch his previous album Like Drawing Blood. So who played that record, helping it to ARIA awards and building Gotye's profile? Triple J, of course. Also benefitting from Triple J's love was The Black Keys, a staple of the station since their 2003 album Thickfreakness - in the days after being voted to number two in this year's countdown, their song Lonely Boy became their first top 20 single in Australia. And just watch what happens with Lana Del Rey, who was number six in this year's poll with Video Games. Already an "It Girl" in the UK and the US, Australian radio largely ignored Video Games and the single failed to crack the ARIA top 50 but keep an eye on her - she's going to be everywhere soon.
Here's Lonely Boy one more time:
Aussie hip hop is massive
IN 2005, three Aussie hip-hop acts cracked the Hottest 100 - the most ever at that point in time. The following year Hilltop Hoods reigned supreme with five songs, helping usher in the rise of "Skip-hop". Ever since, Aussie hip-hop has been a fixture of the countdown. This year's poll featured five Oz rap acts with a total of eight tracks - the second best showing from our country's interpretation of hip-hop. Only 2008 was better, with six acts polling a total of 11 songs. If you needed further proof of the genre's rise, three of the Aussie rap groups that polled this year - 360, Hilltop Hoods and Drapht - have had top five albums.
Dubstep is the new black
WHILE dance and electronic music have always done well in the Hottest 100, 2011 finally saw the sub-genre of dubstep leap from cult Triple J show Sound Lab and land on the main playlist. Jokingly described on the internet as the sound of dinosaurs fighting with lasers, it's categorised by its wobbly bass, staggering beats and hyper-manipulated electronic sounds. The genre has been around for about 10 years and has already started to develop subgenres - Skrillex, who featured three times in this year's countdown, is labelled "brostep" and James Blake, who came in at number 92, is described as "post-dubstep". Alongside acts such as Skream, Example, Nero and SBTRKT, they announced the arrival of dubstep to the Triple J masses in 2011.
I'm not going to put any actual dubstep here. Sorry. The picture is good enough.
Diversity ain't what it used to be
ONE of the main criticisms levelled at Triple J - admittedly by older listeners - is that it plays too much "dance and hip-hop crap". As previously mentioned, Aussie rap and the rise of dubstep dominated this year, meaning other genres of music were squeezed out of the countdown. Indie pop and folk/roots-influenced music were the other big winners - that counts everyone from Gotye to Matt Corby, San Cisco to Boy & Bear, Lana Del Rey to Foster The People. But the things that were missing from the 2011 poll were the old touchstones of the station - rock, punk and metal. Not a single metal or punk/hardcore song made the countdown, with those genres mostly relegated to their own niche shows on Triple J these days (The Racket and Short Fast Loud respectively). As for rock, if not for The Black Keys, The Strokes and Foo Fighters, rock would hardly have featured at all.
For instance, why didn't this awesome rock song make it in:
The old guard is still kicking (but only just)
TRIPLE J's motto is "we love new music" but that means new music from new bands more often than it means new music from old bands. The Hottest 100 took off in the '90s and with the help of many groups of that era it helped rise in prominence and influence. But now that the '90s are more than a decade behind us and perennial favourites Powderfinger and Silverchair are defunct, the Hottest 100 is well and truly a young bands' game. Only six "old school" acts (which released their debuts in the '90s) featured in the countdown - Foo Fighters (97, 63), Hilltop Hoods (10), Jay-Z (33 and 98 with Kanye West), Radiohead (61), Jebediah (70) and Pnau (80) - although it does give you some hope that one band which released its first album in '80s also featured. The Beastie Boys, whose first record came out in 1985, came in at number 90 with Make Some Noise.
Beastie Boys still going strong after all these years:
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